FREE BUSH: Get your mind out of the gutter. We're talking about Gavin Rossdale. He's in town today to put on a free show at everyone's favorite new venue Showbox SODO. Get there early, because we imagine there'll be a line for blocks to get into this thing. We hope he does some solo acoustic versions of all the Bush classics. 8:30 p.m. doors; 9:30 p.m. show // Showbox SoDo // Free! SHOW US WHAT......

The same day that the Seattle Times tells us that two south Seattle cement plants are pumping 100 pounds of mercury into the air each year, we learned from the P-I that the Bush administration doesn't think asbestos causes cancer. Chronic exposure to tiny levels of mercury in the air can give you the shakes and make you stupid, but it also accumulates in the earth and in water. We're probably close to being able......

THEATRE: Young Jean Lee's Theater Company presents Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven (A Show about White People in Love), which is an aggressively exotic title for someone raised in Pullman, WA.Writer/director Young Jean Lee's worst nightmare was to make a confessional, ethnic identity play with a flowery Asian-sounding title. So, the young NYC-based artist did just that [...] a character named "Korean-American" navigates increasingly disturbing levels of a pseudo-Korean world intercut with......

Down here in the Seattlest newsroom, we rarely find time to pay attention to the upper echelons of the American chattering classes, what with their myopic focus on the other Washington (as they relish in referring to us as, in the rare event they mention us at all). But this morning, as the astounding news of Obama's four-peat trouncing of Clinton over the weekend percolated through the commentariat, we noticed an increasingly shrill response from......

(Full disclosure: we're a long-time Hillary supporter, as you probably know by now.) It may have been held way out in the middle of NOWHERE, and we may have had to risk life and limb, climbing over trains and running across highways to get there, but it was damn well worth it. Some reports are saying there were 5,000 people there, others are saying more. It was definitely packed. We were definitely sweating our......

The last time we went to see Rick Steves at Town Hall, he was arguing how important it was for "regular Americans" to get out and see the world, to find out how other countries work, how other people see the U.S., or what really useful mass transit looks like. Broadening horizons costs a bit more since the Bush presidency -- the British pound is worth US$1.96, the Euro is US$1.46, and the Canadian dollar......

From the buzz circulating the budding career of Josh Blue, we thought his Saturday evening performance at the Kirkland Performance Center would be full of self-deprecating and occasionally awkward humor. It was not. Let’s start with the facts. Blue has Cerebral Palsy. He is a stand-up comedian. He is funny - no, he is hilarious. He is a Nike-sponsored striker for the U.S. Paralympic soccer team. Finally, he feels compelled to use anything with......

The New York Times reports that our esteemed politicians have agreed on "an economic stimulus package", which sounds pretty high-falutin', but it basically amounts to cutting everyone in America a check. If you got a paycheck of any kind last year--even if you made too little to pay taxes--you will get $300. If you have kids, you'll get $300 for each one. If you made more money, you get more. You could get up to......

Not that there's anything remarkably surprising about this. Most of us here in this hippy haven understand full well that the War in Iraq was forged under false pretense, and there have been plenty of news stories in the past five years to back up our suspicions. But, now there's a study showing that, in fact, it was the confluence of 935 lies the Bush administration told in order to set the stage for......

Reliable sources tell us that if you ask Mike Daisey what he does for a living, he replies that he's "a monologist." Daisey may be the only person in America who introduces himself that way. If only those hordes who introduce themselves as "mortgage bankers" or "members of the Bush Administration" were as good at their jobs as Daisey is at his. We saw his Monopoly Saturday night at CHAC--it's smart, funny, and well......

Vedder’s first solo music video—for his critically lauded and Grammy-nominated Into the Wild song “Guaranteed”—airs on VH1 (and VH1.com) on Monday. Perfect timing, then, for the ever-more-famous guy to bump into his 1992 self while browsing Easy Street’s vinyl bins. Serendipity! 1992 Eddie (strokes soul patch; sings to himself): I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution… take a bow for the new revolution… 2008 Eddie (spots 1992 Eddie): Hey, are you ... ? Young......

Dennis McLerran, head of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is "pissed." Governor Schwarzenegger is suing federal regulators. According to more than 500 news articles, The Environmental Protection Agency denied California’s bill to place limitations on vehicle emissions, which would have cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 percent in the next 10 years. McLerran claims in a Seattle Times article the EPA’s decision is purely political, not factual. Washington was one of the 18 states that......

Last night there were tons of Ron Paul's people outside the Showbox Sodo. Before, during, and after Barack Obama's fundraising event/rally, the Paul supporters waved their signs and interacted with anyone who would give them the time of day. Too bad they couldn't afford tickets to the event due to the current tax structure--if only someone would abolish the IRS and the Federal Reserve.... Meanwhile, inside the venue was a crowd of teens, twenty-somethings,......

While trolling through today's Floor Proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives for our other job (it's an exciting one), we noticed something that will probably get no coverage anywhere else. However, we think it is important to note when Congress singles out one faith as important. We think it's doubly important to note when the vote is taken while Congress fights with the Bush Administration over funding the government for the next year, haggles......

A few weeks ago, singer/raconteur Jenny Owen Youngs was in town, playing at the High Dive the same time as the Fremont Bridge was being closed evenings, which led to our arriving mid-set in a state of high dudgeon. We decided to skip a half-assed review, and afterwards fired off some impertinent questions via email. We just heard back, and as you'll see, Jenny schools us a bit. Now we adore her even more. If......

Conventional wisdom says these days ain't happy ones for pulp-and-print publications. Circulation's down. Ad revenues are down. Everyone wants to read online. So nearly every newspaper, magazine and television news program has a host of blogs these days, to compete with the millions of self-described experts, autodidacts, conspiracy theorists and Chuck Norris-aficionados who propagate the blogosphere with their own brand of citizen journalism (read: poor spelling and poorer grammar). Indeed, it's hard to get noticed......

Is a new front opening up in the Culture Wars? Seattle school officials say no, but King 5's producers not-so-subtly imply yes. "A letter from the Seattle School District is raising some eyebrows about Thanksgiving and how it should be handled in the classroom," writes King 5 News' Eric Wilkinson. "The letter tells school district staff that the holiday is seen by many Native Americans as a 'time of mourning.'" Specifically, the letter cites this......

Why is it important to vote? Let Dan Quayle explain: “Votes are like trees, if you are trying to build a forest. If you have more trees than you have forests, then at that point the pollsters will probably say you will win.” Um, wait, what? My God, Dan Quayle is a nitwit. Yet he was elected to the Vice-Presidency--and was just one George H.W. Bush infarction away from leading the free world--because thousands of......

When we sat down to do our endorsements we reached a disturbing conclusion. We cannot, in good conscience, vote for anyone. Position 1 Jean Godden: Wrote for the Seattle Times when it endorsed Bush in 2000. Joe Szwaja: Involved in a 1990 domestic dispute in which his then-girlfriend threw a bottle at him and he threw a plate at her. Position 3 Bruce Harrell: Doesn't spend enough time with his 15-year-old son from a previous......

Our favorite local food site has been doing some thinking about politics and the way people in different cities eat and vote. They divided the number of steak restaurants by the number of sushi restaurants in a given city to come up with a "Steak/Sushi Index." Seattle's SSI, for example is 0.75, indicating that we eat more sushi than steak; the SSI of Dallas, TX is 3.01 indicating a preference for steak. Urbanspoon has been......

Last year Seahawks kicker Josh Brown publicly announced his crush on Carrie Underwood. He'd even gotten her phone number. But soon after, Underwood was linked to Cowboys QB Tony Romo. Even after Romo's epic choke in the Hawks/Cowboys playoff game, he and Underwood continued to be an item (or, in gossip mag parlance, "good friends.") But now it appears that Underwood's been left behind as Romo climbs the celebrity girlfriend ladder. In just the past......

There are a lot of things we can see being seized at the border between Canada and the United States: handguns with the serial number filed off, bricks of heroin, briefcases with the radioactivity sign on the side. Hard drives we'd expect to make it through, but unfortunately we'd be wrong. The guy bringing the masters of the songs Chris Walla recorded in Vancouver back down to Seattle had the drive containing them yanked by......

When you call your memoir Avoid Boring People, as Dr. James Watson did, and then go around the country talking about it, you've set yourself up for a rather easy dig. "I took Watson's advice...and walked out!" you can imagine the snarky wit writing. Of course, there's one way around this, and that's to consistently entertain. And Watson, who appeared last night in front of a sold-out crowd at the IMAX theater, surely did. Guided......

Jim Riches, Deputy Chief of the FDNY, is one of the producers of the Urban Legends video that questions the supposedly heroic actions of Mayor Giuliani on 9/11. Jen Carlson recently interviewed him for our sister site in New York. How long have you been in the FDNY? 30 years experience in some of the busiest firehouses in NYC. Which firehouse are you working at now? Assigned to Bureau of Operations as Deputy Chief FDNY.......

The unfortunately named Grand Ole Party opened for Rilo Kiley Saturday night to an audience presumably not too familiar with their work. GOP have a strong, simple, raw kind of sound, not unlike White Stripes or Sweet 75, kind of directionless and inert, but impressive and energetic nonetheless. They ended the set with the first song on Humanimals, "Look Out Young Son," which after a couple of listens sounds like the strongest effort on the......

We'd be there, but the man's keepin us down. Damn him. The man, that is. Damn the man. From Upcoming: Meet at the Bradford center to coordinate protest actions at the Downtown Bellevue Hyatt. Corner of NE 8th and Bellevue Way. George Bush will be in town as the main attraction for Doublespead-Dave Riechert's fundraiser. The intersection of NE 8th and Bellevue Way is likely to be blocked. We can line the streets all along......

The Central Library played host last night to a host of concerned citizens and Thomas E. Ricks, author of the best-selling Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. They put Ricks in the big auditorium for good reason. Fiasco was a #1 New York Times best-seller, finalist for the Pulitzer, winner of the Gelber Prize, etc., etc. Plus it plays to the liberal instincts of Seattle's finest. The room was crammed full of business suits......

Pearl Jam capped off this year’s three-day Lollapalooza blowout on August 5, and as anyone who knows much about the band might expect, singer Eddie Vedder badmouthed Big Government (Mr. Bush) and Big Business (BP Amoco) on stage. If you weren’t lucky enough to be there (as we weren’t), but caught AT&T’s “live” Blue Room webcast of the band’s performance, you missed some of Eddie’s poli-sci jabs because they were strategically removed. What did......

Meeting Jesca Hoop before a recent opening-slot gig at the Showbox, we weren't entirely sure what to make of her. With her debut LP not out for two months and only a few songs available streaming on the net, we labored--mistakenly--under the impression that this waifish Jack Mormon who'd spent several years homesteading was really just another singer-songwriter strumming an acoustic guitar. And it's true--when she took the stage, she did open with set of......

If kaboom-style fireworks aren't the bang you're looking for, stop in at ACT for the theatrical fireworks of David Hare's Stuff Happens, reviewed here. It's the play about Iraq and the rockets' red glare, the difference between the spark of liberty and the blinding torch of neocon ideology. (The title refers to Donald Rumsfeld's disingenuous retort to questions about U.S. forces' disregard of post-"liberation" lawlessness.) By all accounts, it's a thought-provoking (almost 3-hour) imagining of......