MONDAY 1/12  

Collide-O-Scope 16th Anniversary

(FILM) For a whopping 16 years, Collide-O-Scope has been a fixture of Seattle’s underground film and performance scene. It’s an institution that’s evolved alongside our city’s venues and creative spaces, putting in a decade at the (dearly missed) Re-bar, shifting online during the pandemic era, and finding a four-year home at the Crocodile’s recently closed Here-After before landing at its newest venue, the Clock-Out Lounge! For the uninitiated, the 16th-anniversary show is the perfect entry point into the cabaret, the chaos, and the community that have cemented Collide-O-Scope as a resilient part of Seattle nightlife history. (Clock-Out Lounge, 8 pm, 21+) LANGSTON THOMAS

So many sneakers and Blundstones. In a sterile lobby of the hulking Columbia Tower, next to the Monorail Coffee stand, office workers in jeans walked by. Schlubs. Breaking from the crowd, Erika Evans walked briskly from the elevators in black heels with a leather binder stamped with “Seattle City Attorney’s Office” in her hands. 

It’s Wednesday, just two days after Evans was sworn in and officially took over the buzzing lawyer hive that is the City Attorney’s Office. Evans, the first Black person and second woman in the office’s 150 year history, will oversee prosecutions of criminal misdemeanors, the most serious of which are driving under the influence and domestic violence crimes. She’ll also be the city’s lawyer in all civil matters, like when big businesses sue the city for implementing any kind of progressive revenue or when the federal government attacks the city.

Good Morning! We’ve got a mild one today: highs in the low 50s, no rain. The sky’s bright, even if it’s gray. If you’ve been complaining about the Big Dark, today’s the day to walk that extra couple blocks to the next bus stop or keep your coat on and drink your coffee outside.

But in the meantime, let’s do the news.

Trump Surprises No One: Four New York Times reporters sat down with Trump for a two-hour interview, and the paper has been talking about it nonstop for four days now. (Did you know the transcript is 23,000 words? We do, for some reason.) The interview was, as usual, unsettling for readers who are typically grounded in even the loosest understanding of facts. Trump said that the Civil Rights Act was “reverse discrimination,” claimed that his administration “didn’t even know about all the oil” in Venezuela, said he captured Maduro because too many Venezuelans were coming into the US, and that he doesn’t need international law to govern his decisions because he had his “morality” and “that’s very good.” Oh, and he said that it was very “psychologically” important for him to own Greenland.

Port of Seattle Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa leaned forward over the too-small table at Avole, the Central District coffee shop on Friday. Two days earlier, an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, had shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, and the government had spent the week lying about it..

“I went to the protest last night,” Hasegawa says, dry eyed with a voice strangled by emotion. “There's so many different feelings, but what can we do?”

Her resolve strengthened. “No one is above the law,” she says, her voice echoing in the empty coffee shop. “I want to see King County arrest, prosecute, and convict Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who should be equally as afraid that when they break the law that somebody is going to come knocking at their door.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race is back for an 18th season with a fresh cast of fourteen queens ready to snatch our attention and keep us entertained for the next four months. Once again, the new season includes a Seattle queen, Jane Don’t, whose combination of quirky comedy, vintage glamour, and sharp wit make her a serious contender for the crown and title of America’s Next Drag Superstar.

I met Jane Don’t in 2019 at CC Seattle’s after a show at R Place (RIP). I was a Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, and Jane was a gorgeously hairy queen. I’d been a bearded queen myself, and admired how she pulled off extraordinary contouring and sickening eye makeup with a full beard. She had just started drag but was already making fabulous hats and gowns. I remember interviewing drag artist (and Stranger contributor) Miss Texas 1988 on a drizzly winter afternoon at the house she shared with Jane in Capitol Hill. While Miss Texas and I sipped tea and chatted about queer theory on their couch, Jane was hard at work styling a wig in the next room. It’s no surprise that Jane Don’t made it to the top of Drag Race Season 18’s first design challenge.

 

 

 

 

 

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Congresswoman Emily Randall (WA-6) announced on Bluesky that she’s done with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and is co-sponsoring Articles of Impeachment from Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly to remove her from office.

“Kristi Noem’s lawless agents are out of control,” Rep. Randall wrote. “We cannot have rogue government agencies killing its own people in our communities.”

Small Paul NYE Show at Add-a-Ball

You (dirty blonde, glasses) with your friends, saw me (bald, goatee) all by myself at 12AM... you offered a hug. Very kind. Catch a show sometime?

we smiled and made eyes but went unrecognized me, Natalie.

Natalie, tres bien ensemblé. I was red rain coat on 11th and pine new years day. see you same place Sunday morning? maybe fix your sink?

Not long after Renee Nicole Good was shot by ICE, and Trump outright lied about her killer being the actual victim (the killer was, in this alternate reality posted on “Truth” Social, run over, in the hospital, and in very bad shape), I played D'Angelo's “Devil’s Pie.” Produced by DJ Premier and released in 1998, the dusty, bass-dragged, soul-simmering track concerns desperate people who are reduced to crime or selling their bodies for a few bucks—a slice, and a very slimy one, of the “devil's pie.” But the track is deeply sympathetic. D'Angelo is not condemning but describing the raw realities of hood capitalism. These people might be fallen, but they are not irredeemable. They might be living in hell, but they haven’t sold their souls.

Now let's turn to the matter of a devil's bargain. We could get all fancy and talk about Goethe's Faust, which presents the devil’s bargain in a Cartesian and Laplacian universe of intellectual mastery—no, that won't do. Let’s instead keep it real simple and locate its meaning in a 1987 film that mixed horror and noir, Alan Parker's Angel Heart. What happens in this movie: A private detective, Harry Angel (played by Mickey Rourke—an ’80s actor who is going through something right now), is hired by a rich man, Louis Cyphre (played by the only Hollywood actor to inspire an ’80s pop hit, Bananarama’s “Robert De Niro’s Waiting”), to investigate a mystery that needs, for contractual purposes, to be cleared.

[SPOILER ALERT]

We’re one week into the new year, and shit has already gotten weird (and horrifying and sad and infuriating and and and…). More bad news: We still have 50.714 weeks to go, and it’s anyone’s guess how the future will unfold. In an effort to help brace ourselves for what’s to come, we gazed into our crystal balls and made a few predictions about 2026 AD.

Here’s to another goddamn new year.

West Seattle Bridge Closes. Again.

I’m a West Seattle resident, so I can say this: I believe the West Seattle Bridge, which was infamously closed to traffic from March 2020 to September 2022, will close again. The $67 million in repairs, which were finished just three years ago, are said to have a 95 percent chance of holding out until 2060. But I am not convinced. In my mind, being 95 percent sure of something means you're uncertain, but don’t want anyone to worry. I’m not saying I want the bridge to close for a long period of time again, but my guard is up. We are all getting a little too comfortable, driving and busing across it willy-nilly, like it’s a fully functioning bridge that hasn’t burned us in the past. And let's look on the bright side, the bridge closing would give me an excellent excuse to bail on social events. AUDREY VANN

It's been an insane week, y'all. If you're looking for some escapism this weekend, find community at events from the Growler Guys' inaugural No Buzz Bash to Jane Don't with Irene the Alien & Darlene Mitchell and from Putsata Reang: Resisting Erasure Through Storytelling to a Flood Relief Fundraiser at Remlinger Farms. Check out our weekly top picks guide for more things to do.

FRIDAY

COMEDY

Crowd's Quest
My ideal fantasy experience (be it CRPG or tabletop) involves zero homework and maximum chaos. Which is why you’ll absolutely catch me at Crowd’s Quest, a fast-paced, audience-driven comedy show that seeks to turn the whole room into a living, breathing fantasy world; no D&D experience required. During the quest, a few brave souls get pulled onstage to play rotating heroes while everyone else steers the fate of the realm from their seats via live voting. It’s a mix of improv and nerdy theatrics that’s structured just enough to keep things the right amount of unhinged. LANGSTON THOMAS
(Fremont Abbey Arts Center, Fremont, $15-$20)

Feds Shoot Two People in Portland: On Thursday afternoon, US federal agents conducting a "targeted vehicle stop" opened fire on two people in a car after the agents say the driver tried to run them over. We have heard that line before, like, maybe a day before when Immigrations and Customs Agents lied about Minneapolis' Renee Nicole Good attempting to run them over, thus allowing them to kill her. According to a Border Patrol spokesperson, the agents in Portland were targeting an undocumented immigrant and alleged member of Tren de Aragua, a gang tied to a Venezuelan prison. Trump has claimed (newly-captured) Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro directed the gang to infiltrate the US and commit crimes here. 

Of course, there is no evidence. The victims were able to drive away, both wounded and found by police. They received emergency medical attention and were rushed to the hospital. Local Portland cops showed up on the scene, but the FBI is taking over the investigation. Portland Attorney General Dan Rayfield said he's launching an investigation into the shooting.

Are you in love? In lust? In a complicated situationship that started with a drunken and convenient New Year's Eve kiss, but are now ready to take things to the next level by publicly declaring your adoration with the permanency of newsprint?

We're filling our February issue with hundreds of your love notes! 

Just head over to thestranger.com/valentines and spill your heart in 150 characters or less. Then, when our next issue hits the stands on February 4, your crush can pore over a (real! made-of-paper!) copy of The Stranger at their favorite coffeeshop on a chilly afternoon, find your sweet message, cut it out, laminate it with a piece of Scotch tape, and carry it around in their wallet like it’s 1998! 

For Ray Mitchell, Renee Nicole Good’s blood is not only on the hands of the ICE agent who shot her—it’s on the hands of American leaders who “refuse to stand up.”

“So you know what I think?” Mitchell, representing the University of Washington branch of the Students for a Democratic Society, said to a crowd of protesters outside the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building downtown. “I think we don’t owe them a fucking thing. We do not owe them courtesy, we do not owe them respect, we do not owe them civility. We owe them nothing but our resistance.”

New year, new events to add to the calendar! Grab your cowboy boots, Nashville-based country artist Kameron Marlowe comes to Seattle for the first time since dropping his third album in 2025. British twee pop band Heavenly has announced a tour to accompany their first album in 30 years. Plus, country star Chris Stapleton brings his All-American Road Show to the Gorge Amphitheatre—set a reminder for next week's ticket drop. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events, plus some news you can use.

ON SALE FRIDAY, JANUARY 9

MUSIC

Armand Hammer
The Crocodile (Wed Nov 11)

Heavenly
The Crocodile (Sat June 27)

Kameron Marlowe
Showbox SoDo (Sun May 3)