FDA green-lights Narcan for over-the-counter sale. For the first time since the onset of the opioid crisis in the United States, Narcan, the nasal-spray version of naloxone, which reverses overdoses, will soon be sold without a prescription. As soon as late summer, you'll likely be able to find the life-saving stuff "in big-box chains, vending machines, supermarkets, convenience stores, gas stations and even online retailers," according to the New York Times. 

Paid sick leave for gig workers: Seattle is the first city in the country to create permanent paid sick and safe time for gig workers. The Seattle City Council unanimously passed an ordinance allowing app-based independent contracts to accrue one day of paid sick leave for every 30 days of work. The ordinance will go into effect May 1 for food-delivery workers and Jan 1 for all other covered workers. 

Despite not having released any new music since 2016's The Catastrophist, Tortoise nearly packed Neumos on a Monday night. That's how strong their fans' loyalty is.

The mostly middle-aged crowd, who surely had to rise early Tuesday for important jobs, watched with reverence as the Chicago quintet swapped instruments with professional efficiency and stoically kicked ass, as if they had something to prove after more than 30 years as a band. (This show was rescheduled from an October date intended to promote the reissue of Tortoise's totemic 1995 remix LP, Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters, but that gig was canceled due to a member getting COVID.)

Most federal oversight of Seattle Police Department may end: Today Seattle city officials and the Department of Justice are expected to ask a federal judge to declare SPD a "transformed organization" and to release the department from more than a decade of federal oversight, according to the Seattle Times. In 2011, civil rights investigators found a pattern of officers using excessive force, often against members of the BIPOC community. However, the city and DOJ say U.S. District Judge James Robart should find that the department is mostly all better now, citing "model" use-of-force policies, some great data collection, community participation, and civilian oversight.

The areas where the department might run into some trouble involve "crowd control, including tactics and use-of-force, and the key issue of officer accountability," reports the Times. Also, there's the whole ongoing racial disparities in use-of-force and investigative stops thing. But the policies. Those are really good stuff, judge. 

Dear Readers: I hosted an “Ask Me Anything” last week, where I answered as many reader/listener questions as I could get to in 90 minutes. Here are some of the questions I didn’t get to before the buzzer sounded…

30s lesbian in a non-monogamous sexless marriage here. Do you think it’s ever possible to re-spark a sexual connection if both partners are open to it? The context: I love good sex and have had incredibly hot sexual connections with other partners, but sex in my 10-year relationship with my wife has always been infrequent, i.e., two to three times a year. She’s generally a very tired, low-energy person, and she’s so low-energy during sex that she’s literally fallen asleep mid-sex on a lot of occasions. This has done a number on my self-esteem, and the last decade of my life has been characterized by loneliness, yearning, and dissatisfaction. And lately, resentment has creeped in. You might tell me to go have amazing sex with other partners, but my wife is verrrry controlling of those connections and tends to treat me with a cold shoulder when I get involved with someone else. I’ve come to embrace the truth that this is not enough for me for the rest of my lifetime. I’m not sure how to dig my relationship out of this dynamic. We’ve been in therapy together for four years and although she says she wants the same exciting sex life that I want, nothing has changed.

Help A Lesbian Out

One of the superstar commenters...

Click here to read the rest of this week's Mini Savage Love (free-to-all).

Tonight, Seattle’s most prominent puppet butt has a problem. It technically always has a problem—which is why it’s been invaded by a plastic tube, examined by a camera, and made available to bar patrons as an interactive “colonoscopy game.” But on a cold, wet February weeknight, its co-creator is, ahem, bummed for a different reason.

“I was here for 11 hours over the weekend trying to get that curtain working,” engineer, coder, and artist Andrew Cole says as he unscrews the back of The Simpsons Colonoscopy Party, an arcade cabinet that currently resides at Time Warp in Capitol Hill. He arrived in time to see a patron try and fail to get the game working. Cole’s next steps: apologize to the patron, then immediately repair his freakshow version of Homer Simpson’s intestinal tract.

Temps, “partygatorresurrection” (Bella Union)

James Acaster is not content to be one of England's funniest comedians. Nope, the British entertainer also wants to lead a music collective featuring an international cast of 40, called Temps, with membership that includes American rappers Open Mike Eagle, Denmark Vessey, and Quelle Chris, Deerhoof guitarist John Dieterich, sitarist Ami Dang, singer Xenia Rubinos, and British drummer Seb Rochford (Sons of Kemet, etc.). 

Now, Acaster is no musical dilettante. Before he ascended to comedy stardom, he played drums in groups you've never heard of (the Wow! Scenario and the Capri-Sun Quartet). If anything, stand-up was his side hustle that unexpectedly blew up. But Acaster clearly has music in his soul, and his skills are no joke. An esteemed experimental hip-hop group such as clipping aren't going to let just anybody remix one of their tracks, as he and Dieterich did with “He Is Dead and She Is Bad.” A respected label such as Bella Union isn't going to fund an album as a vanity project for a comic—even if it originated from an aborted mockumentary. 

We believe you deserve the best, which is why we're cutting to the chase and recommending only the best things to do this week, from Lane Moore with Lindy West and Angela Garbes to opening weekend of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival and from Seattle Cocktail Week to Plate of Nations.

MONDAY

FOOD & DRINK

Happy Accidents Pop-Up Bar
You may have heard of the Albuquerque cocktail bar Happy Accidents by way of the Netflix mixology competition Drink Masters, in which owner Kate Gerwin placed second. You can try their beverages for yourself at this kickoff party featuring drinks made with Ford's Gin.
(Rob Roy, Belltown)

As the Washington State Legislature strategizes a new approach to the criminal drug possession law, lawmakers aren’t applying the same level of scrutiny to a different proposal related to drug addiction that would criminalize people who researchers say are most responsive to treatment. 

The proposal, Senate Bill 5010, would make it a Class B felony to expose dependent children and adults to fentanyl. The standard sentence for a Class B felony is three to nine months incarceration for a first offense.

On March 1, the state Senate voted 47-0 to pass the legislation over to the House. Some of those senators voted against the proposed criminal drug possession law because it increased criminal penalties and imposed mandatory minimums, raising questions about when the state should treat people for drug addiction rather than punish them for it.

In a 7-2 decision released Friday morning, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld the Washington State Legislature's 2021 capital gains tax, which taxes stock profits over $250,000 at a measly 7% to raise an estimated $500 million per year for early education programs. 

After the news broke, conservatives around Washington and their friends in television news broadcasting started ringing the alarm about the potential for this tax to magically morph into a progressive income tax, which would still be illegal under the state constitution thanks to an old 1930s precedent that treats income as property. Unfortunately, the alarm conservatives are ringing is false. By the sounds of it, state Democrats never even heard of an income tax. 

That said, the Court's decision does keep that dream alive.