Results tagged “wheni”

Last time we checked in on Shawn Kemp, Jr., he was a 6-7 wingman considered a fairly decent prospect in Georgia.

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 , 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 Barack Obama, why people don't read, and why he seems to like Portland better than Seattle. Anyone wanting more insight into the great writer's work should get tickets to his Monday, Jan. 14 appearance at Benaroya for Seattle Arts & Lectures.

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 he posts on his blog. Then we hung up and bought a ticket to the show.

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."

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 the game, which, ultimately, she ends up kind of liking in an "it's not as evil and fake as American Idol" kind of way. Of course anything less than an absolute trashing of the game leads us to suspect she's still on the payroll, but she's a music writer so we'll say no. It's an interesting take on the game either way.

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.

Why hip-hop?

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, in which his gay penpal in Berlin ambushed him into being her beard (or merkin, if you prefer) for the sake of pleasing her Catholic father. It was pitch-perfect Jens Lekman—walking the fine line between precious and twee, somehow managing to be sweet without giving you a toothache. That’s essential for a singer-songwriter who has deadpan lyrics about asthma inhalers and slicing avocados, and (just once) rhymes "number two" with "coochie-coo," all without inducing groans or eyerolls.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

And thank god for that.

It's got Pirelli tires, modified exhaust, custom paint, and the driver's side once held the actual ass of an NBA player.

It just fell into place. I was playing in a summer league at the Redmond Athletic Club, and Jamal Crawford happened to have a team in that league. After playing a couple games against him, he liked how I played. So, his team invited me to play in the “Battle at the Lake,” which was at Green Lake. Nate happened to have a team in that tournament as well. We ended up losing to them for the championship. Jamal is an amazingly nice guy. I was extremely impressed by his character. When I introduced him to my wife, he acted like he was sincerely honored to meet her. I would think NBA players would get burnt out after meeting so many people all the time. Jamal is really a great guy.

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.

Continue reading "Old Managers Never Die, They Just Buy Expensive Trucks and Drive to Wine Country"

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.

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 official culprit according to Parsons which has the contract to provide wireless internet to Washington ferries.

1) How did you get the picture of Segway mom? Spare us no detail!

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 the way he talks, the way he carries himself, always bubbling and shining. I grew up in Atlanta during the Spud Webb era, and even though Spud could famously dunk, he never played with the flair that Nate can’t seem to control. Which made Nate the perfect guy to front SLAM presents Streetball.

“When I’m playing basketball, it’s like I got a little devil on one shoulder and a little angel on one shoulder, and the Devil’s like, ‘Go ahead and bounce it and throw it off the glass!’ And the angel’s like, ‘Now Nate, you know if you do this…’ That’s how it is sometimes. Like Kobe said, It’s like Babe Ruth: You swing big. You might miss, but if you hit it it’s going to be a home run. So you can’t hold back, man. Anything can happen.”

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.

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.

Continue reading "Six Years Ago, Carlos Guillen Was a Coin Flip From Going Six Feet Under"

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.

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.

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.

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 "forecast." Maybe they should have taken it interdisciplinary for reals and involved the marketing department...

Results are in from partly-local food blog The Ethicurean's recent doughnut taste-off. They pitted doughnuts from Top Pot, Mighty-O, and Krispy Kreme against each other. You should read the entire taste-off account -- very entertaining -- but we'll spoil the results now:

We quickly decide on our favorites. For the Butter Bitch, Top Pot’s old-fashioned is the best because it has a consistent flavor but isn’t sickeningly fake. The cake is nice and moist. Mighty-O’s raspberry chocolate donut is her second favorite. “It’s a close call between the two,” she admits. When I raise a miniature cinnamon donut, she shrugs and says, “I just love those.” The cinnamon minis are in a class of their own.

Continue reading "The Latest Dispatch in Local Doughnut Wars"