Last time we checked in on Shawn Kemp, Jr., he was a 6-7 wingman considered a fairly decent prospect in Georgia. Now, Kemp is considered one of the top prospects in the nation, and, according to Glenn LaFollette of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a recruiting target of Lorenzo Romar. As you might expect, Kemp is a pretty good basketball player--a 6-9 dunk machine who Rivals rates as the #9 center in the class of '09. (Yes,......

In preparation for his upcoming visit, Seattlest sat down and emailed four fairly inane questions to the novelist, essayist, and MacArthur genius Colson Whitehead. It's true: we could have tried asking Whitehead insightful questions about his brilliant novels The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, and Apex Hides the Hurt, but we figured, everyone tries to do that and he winds up getting asked them same question over and over again. So instead, we asked him about......

Monologuist and fascinating human being Mike Daisey arrives in town next week for a Jan 18 - Feb 3 run of his show Monopoly! at CHAC, followed by a shorter try-out of his newest piece, How Theater Failed America. We got Daisey on the horn the other day and took a walk down memory lane with him, a la Dick Cavett, to soften him up before surprising him with hard-hitting questions about how many pictures......

Saturday night we were itching to get our drink on. A few calls later, we ended up with a plan to check out The Copper Gate in Ballard. The wife, who used to live within walking distance of the place was wary. "When I used to live up there, the cops warned us about that place." The friend in charge of organizing the evening assured us that the bar has indeed changed and is......

Redmond native and actual Guitar Hero Carrie Brownstein did some work on the advertising of the game Rock Band. You might have seen these commercials; four rocker-lookin types sit around and cut on each other in the jaded and weary fashion of musicians on the road. That's not her work, thank god. She was on a different team pushing a different concept. Anyway, she's got an article up at Slate today about her experiences with......

Adrian Tomine started making comics in his teens when he created Optic Nerve. In it, he tells stories about people who tend to be searching for answers to questions they seem to think everyone else already knows. After a few years putting out Optic Nerve on his own, it was picked up by publisher Drawn and Quarterly. Tomine is coming to Seattle to promote his first full-length graphic novel Shortcomings. Seattlest used it as......

Andrew Le, known further and wider as Nam, is one of those artists Seattlest's been seeing over and over again at most of the local hip-hop shows we attend; sometimes he even ends up on stage, making the performance bang that much harder. We emailed him questions, he emailed back answers. Why hip-hop? Why Hip Hop? Why not? Hip Hop is the one of the best ways for people to express themselves. I got into......

Were we a closeted German lesbian, we’d totally bring Jens Lekman home to Daddy. The fair-haired, fey-mannered 26-year-old Swedish songsmith could definitely play the part of doting boyfriend, while his self-deprecating shy charm and boyish good looks would overwhelm any parental attempts to suss out the real nature of our relationship. To that end, during last night’s sold-out show at Nectar, Jens introduced "A Postcard to Nina" with the true story behind the song,......

You thought your beer was safe left in the back seat of your car? Think again. We got this email from our friend today: So yesterday I was driving home from Vancouver. Per Geoff's recommendation, I stopped at Bounday Bay's taphouse for a few beers. When I left I bought a growler of IPA. I was happy. When I got home, I parked outside and forgot to bring in my bookbag (worthless) and my......

Seattle. Portland. Which one's better? You may say: "How can you choose? Each has their good points. It's like asking which religion is better." Guess what, asshole, that Negative Nellie attitude is the reason nobody ever asks for your fucking opinion. Jerk. To the debate! First up, it's a pro-Seattle opinion. Seattle is better than Portland, by Jeremy "The Seatown Samurai" Barker When I tell people that I think Portland's gone down the wrong road......

"We know you're not assholes," said Carl Newman at the Showbox on Saturday night, "so don't do asshole things." Seattlest doesn't go to a lot of concerts -- we never did, and once parenthood embraced us we tend to invest in babysitters for stuff like movies and restaurants. There's less thrill in staying up until 1:30 when you know, no matter what, that 7:00 would be sleeping in. But the New Pornographers? Frankly, Seattlest......

If there's anything we learned studying literature in college, it's that everything either comes from Shakespeare, Greek mythology or the Bible. Seattlest used to entertain herself by playing "From Whence Did That Allusion Come?" Yeah, we only had two friends in college. The result of our education is an absolute delight for anything that successfully adapts some brilliant Shakespearean masterpiece into a slightly more ribald, contemporary spectacle. And so it is that we perked up......

Kevin Wood and his brother Andrew formed Malfunkshun, one of grunge's true ancestors, in 1980. The band (Kevin’s on the left in this 1983 photo) contributed two tracks to the legendary Deep Six album in 1986, then fizzled soon after. Andy moved on to the almost-famous Mother Love Bone, but became a statistic in 1990. For years, Kevin played in various bands with other guys who'd nearly become well known. Then in 2006, Kevin......

We want to know where's the scariest place to live or hang out within Seattle city limits. (Sorry, Skyway and White Center. Check again after annexation.) Recent news stories have pushed several neighborhoods into contention: Rainier Beach: The Safeway parking lot is "plagued by thugs", disgruntled patrons firebomb a video store, and gangs patronize the library. Broadway: From Slog today: "Broadway has turned into a 1st Class GHETTO. Why is nothing being done about it?......

And thank god for that. Eighteen teams turned out for Seattlest trivia at the Old Pequliar last night. And in a refreshing change from the last time we hosted (when we're pretty sure someone scored in negative numbers), scores ranged from a high of 70 to a low of 49 -- a tight race. Congratulations to first-place winners For the 17th Time, It's a Vagina, Not a Clown Car, who took home $110. Congratulations to......

It's got Pirelli tires, modified exhaust, custom paint, and the driver's side once held the actual ass of an NBA player. Starting bid is $30,000 for Brandon Roy's custom-built Dodge Charger in Trailblazer colors. It's pictured above outside Bellevue's CarNutz Customz (where the "z" stands for "zavings"). Unless Jimi Hendrix had some tricked-out psychedelic van that sprayed acid in gas form, this has to be the dopest car ever owned by a Garfield High grad......

We ran across this blog post awhile ago--from a 6-6 Microsoft program manager recounting getting dunked on by Nate Robinson. Turns out the guy, Tim Getsch, also recently founded a pretty cool sports card sales site, CheckOutMyCards.com. We emailed him questions, he emailed back answers. How did you end up playing basketball with Nate Robinson? It just fell into place. I was playing in a summer league at the Redmond Athletic Club, and Jamal Crawford......

First things first: the Tegan and Sara show at the Triple Door tonight is sold out, but we did see a lot of SRO happening last night, so you might take your chances. Or simply show up at the Queen Anne Easy Street Records at 4pm today for their in-store appearance. Either way, they come highly recommended by us, and you might as well make plans to see them at the Showbox on December 3.......

The first thing Mike Hargrove did after quitting the Mariners? He followed Alan Jackson's advice and bought a Ford truck. Jim Moore of the P-I talked to Hargrove's car salesperson:Jerry Korum of Korum Ford in Puyallup read that the Hargroves always said when they retired, they would get a red truck, call it "Retired Red," load up their belongings and drive off into the sunset. Korum called the Mariners and told them he had a......

Mark Siano has been performing in Seattle for over ten years (with stops in New York, LA, and most recently the Orlando Fringe Festival!). His new show ‘The Mark Siano Soft Rock Spectacular’ plays this weekend at Re-bar, and features soft rock, dance, and comedy. You've written, performed sketches, monologues, choreographed dance; however, it appears that singing is your favorite. Why? Singing is the most satisfying. I can't control it; I just want to sing......

We knew Bremerton residents were the step-chilins of the Washington State Ferry System, but now that wireless access for the 55-minute run has been delayed again we're starting to suspect a conspiracy. Bainbridge has been happily browsing away on their 30-minute jog since like the mid-nineties or something, but can Bremerton catch any of that wifi gold? Hell no. At least not until July at the earliest. Of course, the Rich Passage is the......

1) How did you get the picture of Segway mom? Spare us no detail! I had arrived at work (at the Pacific Northwest Ballet) at about 10am. At about 10:30, my co-workers started yelling, “Jen, Jen, you have to come see this!!!” Generally when this is called out, by the time you get there, whatever the spectacle was has since ended. This time, this was not the case. When I first saw Segway Mom she......

SLAM says they don't like Nate Robinson as a basketball player ("he shoots too much, he doesn’t pass enough, he shouldn’t have won the dunk contest") but they do think his attitude is streetball-in-the-NBA. Says SLAM executive editor Lang Whitaker:As we worked to set up the cover shoot, I got to know Nate pretty well, and once you spend time with him you’ll see he’s pretty hard not to like. The way he plays is......

Vitals: Justin William Germano, 24 yo RHP. Born in Pasadena, California. 6-3, 205. 2-3, 5.71 career. 1-0, 0.69 in 2007. No salary info. Arsenal: Germano's a sinkerballer--he'll throw that pitch lots. He also mixes in a fastball. Recent Battles: Germano's never faced the Mariners. Our Best Weapon: George Costanza rule: Whatever the M's did against the last sinkerballer they faced, Chien Ming Wang (when they didn't get a hit until the 8th), they should do......

We knew that Carlos Guillen's 2001 bout with tuberculosis was serious, but until we read this feature by Jon Paul Morosi (formerly of the P-I, now with the Detroit Free Press), we never knew that Guillen was so close to death:He could barely sleep. He had a fever every night. He battled headaches and weakness. He lost almost 20 pounds. He coughed up blood. Yet, Carlos Guillen continued to play shortstop for the Seattle Mariners.......

Seattlest and Mrs. Seattlest have been getting take out on Friday nights at Chantanee Family Thai Restaurant in Bellevue for almost 3 years and have found no better Thai restaurant on the Eastside. From time to time, we eschew the styrofoam containers and eat our meal in the gold and purple themed interior. The service? Efficient and friendly. Mrs. Seattlest is the more adventurous of our duo and has eaten her way around most of......

Windermere Real Estate/Kingston, a Windermere branch in Kitsap County, doesn't think you would. A couple of weeks ago, they fired local burlesque performer Ravenna Black because she spends the occasional evening taking off her clothes to the strains of "Keep On Churnin' Til the Butter Comes." On Monday my broker called me up to ask me, "Are you Ravenna Black?" When I said that I was, he told me that was "incongruous with the......

Carl Hancock Rux's No Black Male Show is presented as an anti-performance. The audience is introduced to its three players as a distraught Rux announces that there will be no show tonight despite having learned their lines. The show (obviously) continues, but it provides a sense of unease for the audience, immediately drawing them in. The No Black Male Show is based on a poem partially written in response to New York's Whitney Museum's......

Last night at Neumo's, the 4th annual KEXP Yule Benefit was chockablock with music. We missed out on local band The Hands and showed up mid-set for Annuals, for whom we saw enough of their Arcade Fire-meets-Neutral Milk Hotel-meets Animal Collective sound to know that we need to see them in their entirety whenever they come to town again. Next up was Junior Boys, who put on a solid set with their mixture of......

Someone from the UW's Applied Physics Department emailed Seattlest last week to point out a new weather forecasting system they're developing. It's actually a project that Applied Physics is working on with the departments of statistics, atmospheric sciences, and, interestingly, psychology, and it's of particular interest right now because, well, the rain washed away half the state in the past few days. They call it a Probcast, unfortunately, which is a mash-up of "probability" and......