Your Seattle Weekend Cheat Sheet

News • Slog AM/PM

Slog PM: Save the Orcas, Kill a Whale Watcher; Guns Are Bad for Your Health; Crosscut Goofs It

by Nathalie Graham • Friday at 7:15 pm

Aches and pains? Chills? Upset stomach? Diarrhea? You may have a case of guns.
Aches and pains? Chills? Upset stomach? Diarrhea? You may have a case of guns. Jelena Danilovic/Getty Images

Slog PM today is brought to you by the Roasted Rye IPA from Reuben's Brews: Lester thinks it's nice and toasted. There's almost a slight smoky flavor to it, like, say, if someone slightly overdoes it on the candied yams and they caught on fire a little bit. Everyone loves a slightly charred candied yam, right? There's also bitterness with not many hop notes—think of an IPA, but only the bitterness of the IPA. A nice beer.

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Rich Smith

On the other hand, I think mine tastes kind of like blood.

City Council may have broken the law with their head tax ruling: But the vote to repeal the head tax will still stand, ruled a Superior Court Judge. However, whether or not the City Council violated the Open Public Meetings Act will be decided at trial. That’s right! We’re takin’ ‘em to court! The whole issue is that the council held a special meeting to discuss the repeal of the head tax, the tax that would tax wealthy companies per employee (per head, one might say). That meeting occurred behind-the-scenes and could violate the OPMA. Still, the worst that could happen is some fines. No head tax do-over part three.

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City

If Christopher Rufo Wants to Promote "Civil Debate," He Should Start With the Man in the Mirror

by Rich Smith • Friday at 7:10 pm

Not Christopher Rufo, but not not Christopher Rufo.
Not Christopher Rufo, but not not Christopher Rufo. Agnieszka Marcinska / EyeEm / GETTY IMAGES

On Wednesday Christopher Rufo dropped his campaign for city council, citing "nonstop" online harassment and threats to his wife and kids. Friday afternoon we got a little more information about the nature of those attacks. Rufo provided "several dozen posts" to The Stranger's Katie Herzog, which I have not seen. (Rufo did not respond to my request for the posts.) But Katie said people online called him a "fascist," a "sad excuse for a human being," and someone told his wife to "Get f*cking bent"—asterisk theirs. One man reportedly left "threatening posts" about Rufo on his kid's school's Facebook page, posts which have apparently been deleted by the page's moderator.

People who harass others on the Internet are boring idiots who need to get another hobby. (Incidentally, we're now taking applications at The Stranger. [Lol no we're not.]) And no one should be leaving "threatening posts" on a school Facebook page, if that, in fact, actually happened. But in his withdrawal announcement, Rufo broadly blames "the activists in this city" for the attacks—not particular people or groups advocating for a certain cause—claiming that they have no interest in his "campaign of ideas." And it's here where we have problems.

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Sponsored

KEXP Yule Benefit: Moby, with members of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, December 6th at McCaw Hall

On Thursday, December 6th at McCaw Hall, musician and activist Moby will showcase the breadth of his career with an orchestral performance, featuring his many hits, accompanied by members of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, with Emil de Cou conducting. This is Moby’s second-ever performance with a full orchestra, and currently no other performances of this kind are scheduled. Proceeds from this special evening will benefit KEXP’s programming. Supported in part by Lyft and Umpqua Investments.

Tickets available now HERE

Music

Parisalexa and Chong the Nomad Are Here to Shake Things Up

by Jasmyne Keimig • Friday at 6:32 pm

Parisalexa
Parisalexa Nathan Kane

There was something about Parisalexa’s Wednesday night concert at Chop Suey that felt very Seattle. Normally, a good portion of any given concert crowd is very clearly transplants from the tech industry, but this night felt more word-of-mouth, like a community coming together to support one of their own. The dance floor was packed with young folks, and the bar crammed full of industry types who looked and smelled great and greeted each other with a lot of loud back claps. But Seattle showed up for a good reason—the lineup was stacked with talented musicians.

I got to the venue at the very beginning of Chong the Nomad’s set when a “Sweet Dreams/Beautiful Nightmare” remix was in full swing. She turned the middling Beyonce hit into a jungle-y, groovy number. Chong’s musical knowledge is vast and pulls funk, pop, R&B, and hiphop; her music kept the crowd’s dance energy pretty high. The DJ herself was super into it, bouncing and dancing around the stage. I went crazy with her “In My Feelings” remix, that sampled the “Kiki” bit of the chorus, distorting it, tearing it apart, and pulling it back together to transition into Missy Elliot’s “Worth It.” Fucking inspirational. Listen to this remix Chong dropped this afternoon:

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Food & Drink • Booze

Reuben’s Brews Expands With a New Ballard Brewery

by Lester Black • Friday at 5:45 pm

Grace and Adam Robbings have spent the last six years making some of Seattles best beer.
Grace and Adam Robbings have spent the last six years making some of Seattle's best beer. Lester Black

There's never enough Reuben's Beer.

That’s the one consistent theme in Grace and Adam Robbings journey from being Seattle homebrewers to their latest venture, a new brewery in a barrel-roofed warehouse with big glass windows looking out onto 8th Avenue. At every step in their six-year history, they've had people asking for more beer. When the barley starts mashing next month Reuben's will have one of Ballard’s largest breweries and expand the company's fermenting capacity by 25 percent. I have a feeling they won’t have any trouble selling all of that beer.

I sat down with Grace and Adam in their new brewery's taproom, a bar cut into the corner of the warehouse. The space is filled with benches of wood reclaimed from the historic building and has large windows looking into the production brewery. They plan on having the brewery running next month but the new taproom won't be open until at least February. Grace said after years of real estate hunting and over a year of construction in their space, it's hard to believe that it's finally going to be open.

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Things To Do

Your Seattle Weekend Cheat Sheet: Nov 16–18, 2018

by Stranger Things To Do Staff • Friday at 5:22 pm

Shop artisanal foods and home goods and meet the makers at the free Gobble Up bazaar this weekend.
Shop artisanal foods and home goods and meet the makers at the free Gobble Up bazaar this weekend. Gobble Up via Facebook

Congratulations, you've made it to the weekend! All week long, we at Stranger Things To Do have been posting lists of Seattle events to prepare you for this moment, but if you haven't been keeping up, don't worry—here are the basics to get you started on your weekend planning adventures.

Check out our list of 133 cheap & easy things to do this weekend for events that won't cost more than $10, like Gobble Up (Sat at Bell Harbor International Conference Center), Julefest (Sat-Sun at the Nordic Museum), the Pacific Northwest Afro X exhibit (Sun at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute), Amber Nelson's 'The Sexiest Man Alive' Book Launch (Sat at Vermillion), and the first weekend of the Seattle Festival of Trees (Sat-Sun at Fairmont Olympic Hotel).

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Food & Drink • Things To Do • Food News

Cheese Tea Comes to Capitol Hill and More Seattle Food News You Can Use: Nov. 16, 2018 Edition

by Stranger Things To Do Staff • Friday at 5:17 pm

New Capitol Hill tea shop Atulea specializes in cheese tea, a Taiwanese trend involving iced tea with a layer of lightly salted cream cheese foam.
New Capitol Hill tea shop Atulea specializes in cheese tea, a Taiwanese trend involving iced tea with a layer of lightly salted cream cheese foam. Atulea via Instagram

This week, the Taiwanese trend of cheese tea hits Capitol Hill, a new place for Japanese hand rolls is now open inside Chophouse Row, and an aviation-themed restaurant from chef Jason Stoneburner has opened in Kenmore. Plus, find out which two Seattle restaurants made Eater's list of the 38 essential restaurants in America, and what food events you can't miss this weekend, like Seattle's 26th Annual Beaujolais Nouveau Wine Festival. For even more culinary inspiration, check out our guide to where to eat for Thanksgiving, our list of November food and drink specials, and our full food and drink calendar.

OPENINGS
Atulea
This new "modern tea room," which soft-opened in Capitol Hill on Sunday, November 11, is owned by married couple Kathy Wang and Vince Shi and specializes in "cheese tea," a Taiwanese food trend consisting of iced tea with a cheesecake-like layer of foamy cream cheese floating on top. The shop was originally going to be called Absolute Tea, but the owners decided to change the name after being contacted by Absolut Vodka's lawyers. The shop also carries other beverages, like matcha and coffee, and treats like mochi doughnuts.
Capitol Hill

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News • Education • Labor

UW Keeps Delaying Contract Negotiations with Postdoc Union

by Nathalie Graham and Rich Smith • Friday at 4:44 pm

Alex White, a postdoc at UW, speaks to a crowd outside Gerberding Hall
Alex White, a postdoc at UW, speaks to a crowd outside Gerberding Hall Nathalie Graham

Brian Weitzner, a UW postdoc, calls his long beard a "playoff beard."

"It's really a visual measuring stick of how long this process has taken," Weitzner said dryly.

He opened the door to Johnson Hall at the University of Washington and was drowned out by a cacophony of chatter. People were kneeling on the ground writing "Atmospheric Science" or "Microbiology" on signs. The foyer was packed with dozens of UW postdoc's preparing to take their demands straight to UW President Ana Mari Cauce.

Despite successfully unionizing earlier this year, Postdocs United still hasn't been able to negotiate a contract with UW. After six months of meeting dodging and vague excuses, the postdocs want answers from university administration and, mostly, a contract.

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Former City Council Candidate Chris Rufo Presents His Evidence of Online Harassment

by Katie Herzog • Friday at 4:21 pm

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Christopher Rufo

When news that Christopher Rufo was ending his campaign for City Council citing harassment against his family, many in Seattle, including quite a few Slog commentors as well as Q13's Brandi Kruse, called on Rufo to show proof. If he was being harassed, where were the receipts?

Rufo supplied those receipts to The Stranger on Friday.

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News • Weed

Uncle Ike’s Random Pot Testing Program Fails Another Weed Product

by Lester Black • Friday at 4:09 pm

Originally published on Nov. 14, 2:47 p.m.

Twenty percent of the pot Uncle Ikes has retested has failed.
Twenty percent of the pot Uncle Ike's has retested has failed. Lester Black

Another day, another Uncle Ike's test result showing some of the pot on retail shelves is not up to the state's standards.

Yesterday I broke the news that Uncle Ike's new random product testing program failed its first product, a concentrate that contained an illegal amount of pesticides, according to Ike's testing. The pot chain posted their tenth test result today and, surprise surprise, it's another failure.

Today's failure is a flower product that had 16 times more gram-negative bacteria than the state allows, according to Ike's test results. Gram-negative bacteria is a broad class of bacteria that includes organisms that live in our gut and in the soil. Nick Mosely, the chief science officer for the pot lab Confidence Analytics, said the result was concerning.

"It doesn’t mean that this is going to make you sick if you smoke it but it’s just an indication that it’s not as clean as it ought to be," Mosely said. "That test is used pretty commonly in food manufacturing as an indicator of a sanitary environment. When you see bile tolerant gram-negative bacteria on a product then it likely came into contact with soil, or, a worst-case scenario, feces."

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Amazon

Amazon's New Headquarters in Queens Will Be Underwater

by Eli Sanders • Friday at 2:46 pm

Amazons New York office in the year 2100?
Amazon's New York office in the year 2100? Donald Miralle / Getty Images

As The New Republic and others are pointing out, Amazon's newly announced HQ2 in Queens is predicted to be partially submerged in 32 years and fully underwater by the year 2100 thanks to climate change.

It's unclear what Amazon plans to do about this. But "if history is any guide," TNR writes, "Amazon will protect itself without thinking of the surrounding neighborhood." Read the whole thing here.

Animals

Stuck in the Hospital? You May Get a Visit from a Mini Horse

by Katie Herzog • Friday at 2:18 pm

Streaker, a two-year-old miniature horse, with handler Brian Hohstadt at Virginia Mason.
Streaker, a two-year-old miniature horse, with handler Brian Hohstadt at Virginia Mason.

When the pretty girl with four legs and red bows in her hair walked into Tim's hospital room, his eyes lit up.

Tim, a spinal patient from Bremerton, had been in Virginia Mason Hospital for two days. He couldn't walk, but when Streaker, a miniature horse about the size of a Great Dane, walked into his room, he swung his legs over the bed and started cooing at her. Guided by handler Brian Hohstadt, Streaker—short for Honeydew's Winning Streak—walked over to Tim for a scratch between the ears. He happily complied, and after a while, her eyes started to shut and her lips quivered a bit, a sign, Hohstadt said, that she was falling asleep. They stayed like that—a delighted older man in a hospital gown and a tiny spotted horse with bows in her hair—for the duration of her visit. After Streaker left, Tim's eyes spilled over with tears.

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Savage Love

Should Gay New Yorker Ask His Poor Russian Boyfriend to Be His Findom Cashmaster?

by Dan Savage • Friday at 2:16 pm

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I’m a gay guy in my mid-30s living in New York. For a year and a half now, I’ve been in a long-distance, non-monogamous relationship with a man in Russia who’s about four years younger than me. We met on Grindr when I was briefly working in Russia. The sexual and non-sexual chemistry was and is amazing. After a few weeks I had to return to America, but we’ve kept in touch with lots of text messaging and video-chatting, and I’ve been back to visit him four times in the ensuring year and a half (once was for work). He’s a pleasure to talk to, the sex is still good, and he’s proven to be very easy to be around and travel with. Another relevant detail is that he’s never been outside of Russia and doesn’t speak any English. This has actually been really awesome for me, as I am an avid language learner, and my Russian has improved by leaps and bounds thanks to all the time I've spent with him.

We’re both employed, and responsible/frugal with our limited means, but that said I’m in a better economic situation than he is, and I tend to pay for things when we go out to eat or book a hotel.

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Music

Inbox Jukebox Track of the Day: The Wailing Rock-Rap Fusion "Get Used to This" by the Reunited Royal Trux and Kool Keith

by Dave Segal • Friday at 1:49 pm

Royal Trux are back, and sounding nothing like Twin Infinitives.
Royal Trux are back, and sounding nothing like Twin Infinitives. Fat Possum Records

Royal Trux, "Get Used to This (feat. Kool Keith)" (Fat Possum)

Royal Trux's main creators Jennifer Herrema and Neil Michael Hagerty were as adept at shattering rock traditions as they were at respecting its most successful moves. They issued records that ranged from out-weirding Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica to homaging 1968-1972 Rolling Stones, while coaxing a seven-figure advance from Virgin Records. They also covered songs by Godz, Milton Nascimento, Jefferson Airplane, and Dire Straits. Yes, Royal Trux had quite a run, and more than a few people consider them the greatest American rock band of the '90s.

Following Trux's split in 2001, Herrema and Hagerty embarked on sporadically brilliant solo careers, started various bands (RTX and Black Bananas for Jennifer; Weird War, the Howling Hex, and Dan'l Boone for Neil), collaborated judiciously with other underground-music luminaries, and the overall impression was that neither would ever have the desire to resurrect Royal Trux. Wrong! Over-achieving ex-junkies H&H are back, with a new label (Fat Possum), likely a new album, and a North American tour booked for 2019, including a stop at the Showbox on February 27 (if there is a February 27).

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Weed

Jim Belushi: Medical Marijuana Would Have Saved My Brother’s Life

by Lester Black • Friday at 1:17 pm

Jim Belushi is growing a lot of pot along Oregon's Rogue River.
Jim Belushi is growing a lot of pot along Oregon's Rogue River. Courtesy of Belushi Farms

Jim Belushi is far from the first celebrity to get into the legal pot game. Stoned luminaries like Willy Nelson, Snoop Dogg, Tommy Chong, and the Marley family are selling pot with their names on it in multiple states across the country, but Belushi’s doing something different. These other celebrities have simply created a brand that they then license to pot farmers, whereas Belushi is actually growing the pot on his own property, often with his own hands.

Belushi started slowly, first with a small medical grow three years ago and then transitioning into a full recreational farm with multiple outdoor and indoor gardens. He’s been selling his carefully curated set of strains for two years but only recently decided it was time to put his name on the label. Pot shoppers in Oregon can now buy weed from Belushi's Farm.

I caught up with the former Saturday Night Live (SNL) star by phone a few weeks ago. The actor and musician’s voice was hoarse from singing at a community party he throws on his farm every year. We talked about what it’s like growing legal pot, working with David Lynch, a vape pen of his that's been making the rounds in Beverly Hills, and how he thinks medical marijuana could have saved his brother John Belushi’s life.

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Things To Do

Last-Minute Plans: 133 Free, Cheap & Easy Things To Do In Seattle This Weekend: Nov 16-18, 2018

by Stranger Things To Do Staff • Friday at 1:08 pm

If youve never tasted æbleskiver (spherically shaped Nordic pancakes often eaten with lemon curd and lingonberries), this weekends Yuletide-themed Julefest at the Nordic Museum is the perfect opportunity to do so.
If you've never tasted æbleskiver (spherically shaped Nordic pancakes often eaten with lemon curd and lingonberries), this weekend's Yuletide-themed Julefest at the Nordic Museum is the perfect opportunity to do so. Nordic Museum via Facebook

Panicking because you haven't yet made plans for the weekend and you're short on cash? Don't worry—below, find all of your options for last-minute entertainment that won't cost more than $10, ranging from early holiday events like the Julefest to the free Thanksgiving bazaar Gobble Up, and from Pacific Northwest Afro X to a launch party for Amber Nelson's poetry book The Sexiest Man Alive. For even more options, check out our complete Things To Do calendar.

Stay in the know! Get all this and more on the free Stranger Things To Do mobile app (available for iOS and Android), or delivered to your inbox.

FRIDAY

ART
1. Beholder Launch Party
A roster of writers and artists, half from Seattle (like Elaine Lin and Valerie Niemeyer) and half from elsewhere in the States, have contributed to the first issue of this digital mag. Celebrate with drinks, a DJed soundtrack by Hanssen, a playable video game by Molly Brady, and readings by contributors Chan Plett and Vinnie Sarrocco. 
(Ballard, free)

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