What do you do with hardened, scary misdemeanor criminals when there's no room in the county jail? Create new programs that focus on counseling, job training, and other rehabilitative services? Feed cash to community centers and mentoring programs that help head off the problem before it starts? No, stupid, you build more jails. Says the P-I:Cities [around King County] have responded in a variety of ways -- through adopting alternatives to incarceration, including home......

JAZZ: Dr. John kicks off a 6-night run at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley, giving audiences the benefit of a life studded with "troubles at home." Singing about New Orleans before, during, and after it was cool, he created a musical love letter to the city of New Orleans in 2004, "N’awlinz Dis Dat or D’udda," and won an award from the Académie Charles Cros at their 57th awards ceremony. He may be most famous as......

We first saw Toshi Reagon at the House of Blues in New Orleans, where she was opening for Ani DiFranco. Not the greatest venue for acoustic music -- the NOLA HoB has an echo problem. Toshi sat on a stool center stage and just oozed music, though, and we were totally sold. Something about that woman you just gotta see and hear. She's the daughter of Bernice Johnson Reagon--the woman responsible for Sweet Honey in......

Downtown's Southern-esque restaurant Sazerac had the misfortune to open in 1997, which meant its decor ten years on -- velvet drapes and cushy banquettes -- looked as dated as a Google-cached snapshot of your homepage. In its review, the Stranger sharpened its claws on the surroundings: "There is some evidence in the tea-dark interior that the decorator was going for a New Orleans-inspired elegance, but somewhere along the way he or she got waylaid at......

George Porter (of The Meters) and his band, Porter Batiste Stoltz, are descending upon Fremont's Nectar Lounge tonight, providing you with the opportunity to experience legendary New Orleans dirty funk right here in Seattle. Porter was the bass player for the original Meters back in the '60s and '70s. Russell Batiste, Jr., and Brian Stoltz jumped on the funk train with Porter in The Meters' late '80s reincarnation--the Funky Meters. George Porter, Jr.'s, bass is......

The American steakhouse--that dimly lit, mahogany-paneled, mafia-chic hideout for fat cats and their trophy molls--you'd think it would never fly in laid-back, egalitarian Seattle. You'd be wrong. Yet another high-end steakhouse, from Atlanta's 25-unit Capital Grille chain, is opening an outpost downtown, just steps from chain rivals Ruth's Chris (New Orleans, 92 units) and Morton's (Chicago, 70 stores), not to mention a couple of locally-owned, downtown standbys, the Met and the Brooklyn. We were invited......

We remember 1998 rather well. We were living in Buffalo, NY, smoking a lot of the ganja, playing a lot of the folk music, and occasionally going to class to discuss contemporary literature. Good times. A year later, we would move to Portland and, eventually (by way of New York, New Orleans and Orlando), make our way to Seattle to live happily ever after. We'd never really thought about Seattle much, but MTV's The Real......

It was our second play at the Rep in as many months, so we know: a gay character in a Seattle Rep performance this season has about the same odds at survival as a redshirt on an away team mission did in the original Star Trek. That is to say, he dies. Apparently that's how you illustrate "families being torn apart" or something these days. The Breach tells the stories of a disparate group of......

This is pretty heartwarming stuff. The NBA asks teams who play against New Orleans to do a little community service while they're there. Teams do, often haphazardly, sending a couple of players along to some pre-selected site. But the Sonics entire staff--coaches, players, security people--showed up to serve food at a New Orleans substance abuse center for 45 minutes, reports the P-I's Gary Washburn. Then, after that, coach P.J. Carlesimo wanted to do more, so......

Katelyn just mentioned Common Market, but there's also hip-hop aplenty at the Showbox this weekend, with Portland's Lifesavas and New Orleans' funk-tastic Galactic (featuring Chali 2na of Jurassic 5 and Boots Riley of The Coup) tonight and Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, and The Mighty Underdogs (featuring The Gift of Gab, Lateef the Truth Speaker and Headnodic) tomorrow night. Here's some footage of Blackalicious freestyling at Florida's Langerado festival a couple months ago.......

A more dismal Northwest football weekend we can hardly remember. First, on Saturday afternoon--as NYC sportscaster Warner Wolf would say, "If you had Washington State and 45 points, you lost!" Oregon beat the Cougs 53-7, and the game wasn't as close as the final score indicates. The Cougs were down 40-0 at halftime. We flipped on the post-game show to hear the Cougs' radio team explaining why it's hard to recruit top athletes to Pullman.......

(This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook. On Sunday morning, following a trip to a local farmer’s market/major supermarket chain, we will be preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. Then at halftime we will throw our badly burned hands in the air and make hot dogs.) New Orleans may be the American city best known for its cuisine. If you add,......

Lately the Seahawks' offense has been about as offensive as a Bastyr College commencement address. Against Pittsburgh on Sunday, they didn't score once (much like your average Bastyr College commencement speaker, unless we're talking about scoring weed). What's wrong? Well, it sure ain't the coach. Mike Holmgren has called the plays for four Super Bowl teams--as easy as it is to blame the coach, we can rule it out in this case. Thus, it's the......

We're bringing it up because Seattle Times brought it up. Here's why we hate the idea of making clubs get licensed in order to be clubs: If we happen to have some huge influx of new citizens, you can bet the majority of them aren't coming here simply because they want to sit in a cubicle for nine hours and return home to their ever-tinier condo so they can watch TV. Where people work, they......

Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU, spoke last night at Town Hall to publicize his new book In Defense of Our America. Notwithstanding the scheduling genius that placed Romero opposite mega-bestselling author Khaled Husseini (The Kite Runner) the lower auditorium was full of citizens waiting to voice their displeasure with ACLU policies. Romero didn't get any criticism for defending the Ku Klu Klan, Neo-Nazis, Ollie North, Fred Phelps, and NAMBLA. No, Seattle's citizens......

Via Seahawks Insider: Sep 9 Tampa Bay 1:15pm Sep 16 @Arizona 1:05pm Sep 23 Cincinnati 1:05pm Sep 30 @San Francisco 1:05pm Oct 7 @Pittsburgh 10:00am Oct 14 New Orleans 5:15pm (Sunday night) Oct 21 St. Louis 1:15pm Week 8 BYE Nov 4 @Cleveland 1:05pm Nov 12 San Francisco 5:30pm (Monday night) Nov 18 Chicago 5:15pm (Sunday night) Nov 25 @St. Louis 10:00am Dec 2 @Philadelphia 10:00am Dec 9 Arizona 1:05pm Dec 16 @Carolina 10:00am Dec......

The Sonics will play in their possible future home town tonight when they face the Oklahoma City/New Orleans Hornets in the brand new Ford Center. Oh by the way, the brand new Ford Center may not be brand new enough for the NBA. Let's say the Sonics come in the next couple of seasons. They spend a year or two bartering over arena plans. Spend a two or three years in construction. Suddenly it's 2013,......

Sometimes you see a poster and you think "YES! I am not alone in the universe!" Other times you see something and you think "YES! That guy is alone in the universe!" Anyone know what makes Seattle "Little New Orleans?" We can't figure out what this refers to exactly. From Seattlest Flickr Pool member Tankgrrl.......

First of all, despite what you read in the Times and the P-I about Donald Byrd's Never-Mind (which came and went over the weekend), it's not all that, as Brendan Kiley says over on the Slog. We've become fans of Byrd's "neo-expressionist" style, but Never-Mind (at this point) is short on style and substance. It came off like "Frank Miller's Never-Mind": an ugly cartoon of drug abuse, of dysfunction, of iconic fame. Not that......

Spectrum Dance Theater at the Moore Theatre 8pm tonight, tickets $15-$45 (plus fees) Spectrum Dance Theater's Never-Mind had its world premiere last night and ends tonight. It's a disturbing work, set to Kurt Cobain's perturbing music. If repeated shotgun blasts bother you, this is not your kind of show. If you're intrigued by the idea of Cobain getting a fix from Love, or seeing fans swept up into his tragic dance, then make plans.......

Providing yet more evidence why you should avoid documentaries with far more than a 35-millimeter pole, the producer of Iraq in Fragments today released a gag-inducing "open letter" to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences calling on them to apologize because someone made a joke he didn't like. The offender? Jerry Seinfeld who, to quote the aggrieved documentarian "poked fun" at documentaries in his introduction of the five nominees for Best Doc., and......

MARDI GRAS: Greg Vandy, who hosts KEXP's Swingin' Doors from 6-9pm on Thursdays, hosts the Sunset Tavern's 9th annual Mardi Gras ball. Promising real New Orleans food and music. 7pm // Sunset Tavern [5433 Ballard Avenue] // $5 BASKETBALL: Roosevelt, who lost a heartbreaker in OT to Garfield on Saturday night, plays Redmond in a loser-out district game tonight. 8:15pm // Juanita High School [10601 NE 132nd St., Kirkland] // $7 MUSIC: One last night......

A dedicated, catch-and-release fisherman who ties his own flies, Kevin Davis promises you'll never find steelhead on the menu at his terrific new restaurant, Steelhead Diner. You'll find plenty of succulent seafood, though: a transcendant crabcake, a moist and flaky kazusake black cod, spice-rubbed Alaskan king salmon, beer-battered cod & chips, the sorts of dishes you'd expect from a guy who spent the last five years running the kitchen at Oceanaire. Then again, Davis......

Hurricane Katrina forced the NBA's Hornets to play most of this and last season in Oklahoma City, but they'll play all 41 of their 2007-08 home games in New Orleans.The New Orleans Hornets planned to let a deadline pass Wednesday on the team’s option to play a third season at its temporary home in Oklahoma City. “Obviously we’re extremely grateful for the people in this community, the way they’ve embraced us and have supported us,”......

As bad as the Dawgs looked against Gonzaga is how good they looked Wednesday night against LSU. You can read the recaps: [AP}, [P-I], [Times], [New Orleans Times-Picayune] but let us just observe: --Jon Brockman had his best game as a Husky (19 pts., 14 boards) --Spencer Hawes had "the look" before the game. He has moves that Tim Duncan didn't have his rookie year with the Spurs. The 18 -foot jumper, the pivot and......

It's been business as usual since the day after the storm in some Seattle neighborhoods. We eat, we drink, we Christmas shop, we gather all the shingles from the street and life goes on. Meanwhile, the Eastside continues to live red in tooth and claw. It's still mostly dark over there and crowds await Mel Gibson's next gasoline delivery at each service station. Hopefully it'll drive home how much energy it takes to power a......

KARAOKE: Wednesday night is always karaoke night at the Little Red Hen, an outpost of country music that's inexplicably smack dab in the middle of Volvo-driving, NPR-listening, holiday-tree-owning Green Lake. The crowd veers toward the early-20s spectrum, so if you need a break from parties where people discuss mortgages, the new Whole Foods, and their fucking jobs, this is the place to go. Tip: Bring cash so you can buy beer from the guy with......

Let's look back at a week in which no site in the -ist network adopted anyone from Africa... -Austinist reveled in the dumb antics of some U.T. law students and posted some great audio from former New Orleans natives who've decided to stay in Austin. But the best news for Austinist? They were voted Best Local Entertainment Web Site by the local Austin alt-weekly. Congrats, Austinist. -DCist gloried in being told their musical tastes made......

"You're going to buy it anyway," chirps the (RED) marketing copy. So why not put profits from sweatshop labor to use in the fight to eliminate AIDS in Africa? Do good and look fabulous at the same time. We're not entirely sold on that proposal, but we did have much more fun at the Hotel Cafe Tour [myspace] Saturday night at the Crocodile than we were expecting from a grab-bag of six singer/songwriters (part......

Strange connection we know, but anyone at the sold out Neumo's show last night got an earful of it. Marc Broussard and company were in town slinging their Southern Louisiana charm on us unsuspecting Seattleites and we were all googley eyed in amazement. The music was a refreshing mix of his old classics and some great new material (great new song). Seemingly out of place at Neumo's, the soul/jazz/r&b/rock combination was a refreshing change of......