Monorail Espresso on Pine by the Paramount on 7/31
Black woman waiting with 2 friends, your style is IMMACULATE. Taking notes đź“ť
Foxy Roadster Mami
Driver of hardtop BRG Miata w/ vanity plate, 23rd & Madison, you pulled up to the light and left me no room, and I was like, holy shit that's so hot
Francesca Fiorentini has a blunt prescription for what she sees as a left stuck in an endless loop of existential psychoanalysis, that's agonizing over its ailments, fumbling for its spine, and waiting for a savior: “We need fewer podcasters and more revolutionaries and organizers.”
It might seem richly ironic coming from a podcaster–-okay, technically the comedian, intrepid journalist, social justice shit-stirrer, online influencer, who podcasts. Saying what needs to be said, what others are afraid to say, is exactly her brand and the point of The Bitchuation Room.
Continue reading »Since it is summer and the weather has been nice, I want to offer a PSA that I'm sure has been done many times before. To the people who play music on the trails while hiking: please, for the love of all things good, SPARE US.Â
I do not care if you are hiking alone and need the company. I do not care if you are hiking with your family and need reprieve. I do not care what the reason is that you are hiking in the first place, but please, please, please stop playing your music out loud.
Continue reading »Everybody's workin' for the weekend... which we've blessedly arrived at once more. Carpe that diem at events from Umoja Fest to Friend's House Records' Friend's Fest, and more. If you're in search of even more suggestions, check out our top event picks of the week.
Paul Sakai and Lulu West
Gallery 1412 is an unassuming room with a low stage in one corner, but don't let that fool you; it's been one of Seattle's coolest independent music and arts venues since 2004. This Friday, Californian drummer Paul Sakai and NYC-based guitarist Lulu West come together to perform an improvised, ambient duo set. Few things impress me more than musicians building songs together in real-time, feeding off each other's movements in a way I can only describe as magic. Local pianist Ofir Klemperer and audiovisual artist Seed Order open the show. SHANNON LUBETICH
(Gallery 1412, Central District, $5-20 suggested donation)
WHAT? WHAT DID YOU SAY? Sorry, I can't hear you over the Blue Angels rattling the foundations of my apartment building. They'll be gone after the weekend, but not before more ear-shattering, bone-shaking noise. You wanted the news? Okay, okay, we'll get you the news.Â
Little Fires Everywhere:Â Fire officials believe we have an arsonist in our midst. In the past week, four fires sparked in the Beacon Hill and Columbia City neighborhoods under suspicious circumstances. The fires occurred at a home under construction, the Columbia Funeral Home and Crematory, and a fence. Officials believe this firebug is the culprit. Another fire on Thursday seemed "suspicious." They are offering $10,000 for any information about the suspect.Â
Big News in Mariners Land: Third baseman Eugenio Suarez came home to T-Mobile Park after the Mariners made a good trade for him just before the trade deadline. Mercury must really be in retrograde because my sources (the disappointing history of the franchise) say this kind of thing never happens. The Ms won 6-0. Suarez doubled and scored a run. Â
Continue reading »Dear Hendrix,
Hail Satan!
Just kidding. Well, sort of… Let me explain.Â
When I was about 23, I was sitting in my bedroom, and for some reason, I decided to do some research on Satanism. That’s the beauty of the internet. So many curious rabbit holes to fall into. Though I wouldn’t suggest doing this on your work computer when you grow up, but I digress…
For years, I’d struggled over what the idea of Satan actually meant. I was raised Roman Catholic—from baptism to First Communion—so I was taught that Satan was “the epitome of evil” and Hell was a dreadful place full of roaring fires and endless suffering.Â
Continue reading »Big week for K-pop stans! The 13-member boy band Seventeen touches down in Tacoma this fall. RIIZE brings their Riizing Loud world tour to Seattle in support of their debut album Odyssey. Plus, jazzy music collective Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox will bring magic, moonlight, and mistletoe to McCaw Hall this holiday season. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events, plus some news you can use.
MUSIC
Che: Rest in Bass Tour
Neumos (Sun Sept 14)
Couch: BIG TALK Tour
The Crocodile (Sun Dec 14)
Don Broco
El Corazon (Feb 3, 2026)
Good Morning! Today is our last day in the 80s for a while. We’ll slide into the weekend with some perfect Seattle weather in the high 70s, and it’ll last through the first half of next week.
Let’s do the news.
Who Wants to Build Trump’s Fighter Jets Anyway? More than 3,200 machinists in Boeing’s St. Louis-based defense division are threatening to walk off the job on Sunday and halt production of their military planes. Boeing, who totally isn’t worried about their stock prices, reminded Seattle Times readers that this was just a tenth of the size of last year’s strike in the PNW that tanked their productivity. They also want you to know that this won’t affect production of Trump’s vanity project, the F-47, which is their newest defense contract.
Continue reading »A little more than a week before Seattle’s primary election, the National Association of Realtors, a Chicago-based political action committee, spent nearly $70,000 on mailers for Council President Sara Nelson’s bid to stay on the Seattle City Council.
In mailers sponsored by the interest group that only issued an apology in 2020 for its racist funding of the opposition to housing inclusion including the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the NAR calls Nelson a politician with “progressive values.” Progressive? Her?
This influx of money and influence is meant to counter Nelson’s extreme unpopularity. Polling in May found that 34 percent of voters disapproved of her job performance. And when voters were surveyed last week, pollsters found that Nelson and her leading opposition, Dionne Foster, are in a dead heat.
Continue reading »At around 3 pm our time on Monday, one of the most powerful earthquakes on record hit the Kamchatka Peninsula, a remote region of Russia that has a population of 290,000. The people there surely felt it, but no one, according to recent reports, was killed or seriously injured. The world-historical seismic event triggered tsunami warnings in Hawaii, French Polynesia, Japan, Peru, and Chile. It seems our planet's largest ocean was sloshing about like bathtub water bothered by a soap-lathering bather. This morning, however, almost all tsunami warnings have been downgraded, and the shores of our region of America—California, Oregon, Washington—only experienced waves that were more curious than destructive. Now, let's get back to the Epstein files.Â
Continue reading »Every day, Dave Segal sifts through the hundreds of tracks that bombard his inbox. On a biweekly basis, he tells you about the two artists whose music most impressed him. This time, Seattle transplant and singer-songwriter Evelyn Frances delivers harrowing art-pop songs about 21st-century NYC life and drummer-producer Kassa Overall jazzes up some '90s hip-hop classics, including Digable Planets' "Rebirth of Slick."
Evelyn Frances, “Hold Yourself Together” (self-released)Â
Seattle-via-NYC singer-songwriter Evelyn Frances made a powerful first impression on me when she opened for experimental-electronic duo Matmos last year at Here-After. Singing like a woman pushed to extremes to retain a semblance of calm while under severe urban pressure, she used electric guitar, flute, and effects pedals in songs that portrayed New York City as a chronic threat to sanity. (Perhaps that's why she moved to the paradise of tranquility known as Seattle. *cough*) In a review of that show on Slog, I wrote that "[Frances's] compositions felt as raw and unsettling as a Cassavetes film." Her new album, Human Patience, reaffirms that observation.
Frances is an artful minimalist who's ostensibly working in the folk-tinged art-pop vein. Electronics and beats sometimes burst into the frame, adding surprising jolts of adrenaline. At other points, as in the morose lament "I Wonder What the Neighbors Think of Us," she conjures a chamber-orchestral gravitas. (It should be noted that Frances also plays in the Pixies-like rock band Prim.) Operating alone, she opts for a sparser, more introspective tack. On the opening miniature, "High Hill," Frances's voice is close-mic'd for optimal intimacy over an eerie, distressed drone. She sings, "I want to feel vast looking out on the lake/on a high hill," signaling a desired escape from the Big Apple.
"Yell a Little Louder" begins nearly a cappella, but then shifts abruptly into a jagged, ominous dubstep ripper, with internal-organ-shaking bass. Here, Frances proves that she's not your typical trad singer-songwriter. Key lines: "I can't listen to anyone that doesn't agree with me/I wanna yell a little louder into my own respective void/...you can't tell me that you suffer more than me." On "Tired," the album's most radio-friendly tune, Frances's voice becomes wraith-like amid a low-frequency electronic onslaught with booming beats. The track ends with static and Frances's voice glitching out, as if she's rebelling against accessibility. Speaking of which, the frosty, alienated ballad "Paint You" uses subtle electronic distortions within a dream-folk framework to approximate a lo-fi take on 10cc's 1975 hit, "I'm Not in Love."Â
Continue reading »Dear Readers: I’m away on my last reconnecting-with-family trip of the summer. This column originally appeared in 2018. Back with an all-new, action-packed Savage Love Quickies column next week. — Dan
I’m a professional dominatrix, and I thought I’d seen everything in the last five years. But this situation completely baffled the entire dungeon. This middle-aged guy, seemingly in fine health, booked an appointment with me and my colleague for one hour of some very light play and a golden shower to finish off with. We did no CBT, no cock rings, no trauma to the dick area at all, no ass play, no sounding or catheters, no turbulent masturbation, nothing that could have caused this reaction. We brought him into the bathroom, and he laid down on his back, jerking off with a condom on his penis as my buddy was standing over him and peeing, and I was saying all kinds of mean/encouraging sentiments and closely observing his progress. He came and… it was entirely blood. It looked like he shat into his condom, through his penis. He did not seem alarmed or in pain. He took off his condom himself, so he was aware of the situation. He did not remark on it to either of us! He made ZERO effort to prepare either of us, either. And it was not a little blood in his ejaculate—it was entirely blood. He has never returned. Is this person a monster or a vampire? Is he dying? Seriously.
Mistress Echo
P.S. I went back to the bathroom with gloves on and removed the used condom from the trash, and took a photo. It’s the only way to communicate just how much blood there was.
However devout your atheism, for the sake of Seattle renters and what’s left of Mark Solomon’s hairline, pray that his city council colleagues actually do on Tuesday what they couldn’t manage at last week’s Housing and Human Services Committee (HHS) meeting: Show the hell up.
Last Wednesday, after an 18-month delay, members of the Seattle Renters Commission were scheduled to finally be appointed—and in some cases reappointed—to the city’s volunteer renters advisory board. Commissioners, supporters, and rental advocates filled council chambers anticipating an appointment vote, only for the process to collapse. Neither Council President Sara Nelson nor Councilmember Rob Saka attended, leaving the committee short of quorum. With former chair Cathy Moore having already resigned, the committee could afford to lose no more than two members.
“Look, people are volunteering their time. They’re not getting paid for this. We owe it to them to listen and make it happen,” Solomon, the committee’s vice chair, told The Stranger.
Continue reading »I’m back from vacation: It was nice (thanks for asking). I’ve returned to better weather. Today, it’ll be sunny with a balmy high of 81. Temperatures will drop to the high 50s tonight before heating back up tomorrow. Expect a slight chance of rain Thursday into Thursday night. Friday should be a pleasant, partly cloudy day in the low- to mid-70s.
Dead Heat: Katie Wilson and Bruce Harrell are statistically tied in the mayor’s race a week before the primary election. It’s a limited sample (651) with a 4.1 percent margin of error, but still, this race is not a cakewalk for Harrell. He’ll have to fight to break the curse of the one-term mayor. His campaign seems to be betting on making Wilson, a quite normal woman, out to be a society-restructuring radical (after all, Stalin also said Seattle pizza was too expensive). Those awkward TikToks might come in handy.
Continue reading »I understand the world we live in isn’t the way it ought to be, but I also understand that I have to work with what’s available. And I, like you, and your cat, hate the Blue Angels, hate the sky-ripping rocket-racket. But we are in a military empire. To pretend otherwise, I still believe, is to prefer the illusion to the reality.
I have said this before (two years ago to be exact), and it deserves repeating because, despite all that’s going on with Trump, nothing about the US has fundamentally changed. And I say this as a person who voted for Kamala Harris, and would vote for her again and again.Â
Continue reading »
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