"Vintage VWs" by Flickr Photog T. Schneider We just may have found Charles Mudede's next film subject. Edward Smith, a 57-year-old from Washington, whose sexual preference leans towards the automotive rather than the bestial. Smith's self-described romantic feelings toward cars began at age 15. (Auto erotica indeed!) Since then, Smith claims to have had sex with over 1,000 cars, though he is currently in a monogamous relationship with his girlfriend--a white Volkswagen Beetle he has......

HUGE AMOUNTS OF CHEESE: The Cheese Festival is upon us! This is one of our top three favorite events of the year (#2: our birthday, #3: Christmas). Several reasons: a city block full of cheese, friendly vendors, wholesale prices on bottles in the wine garden (don't buy the red wine that says "bacon" three times in its description, we made that mistake last year), and (it bears repeating) a city block full of cheese. 10......

It took filmmaker Jennifer Fox four years, seventeen countries, and 1,600 hours of footage (which she whittled down to 6 hours of film) to fully cover the cross-cultural confusion of modern womanhood. The project didn't start out that high-minded; Jennifer was dating two men and not entirely happy with either, which led to an identity crisis that inspired her travels exploring what it means to be a woman today. The result is her sweeping,......

Birth of a fetish: The Register reports an unfortunate MSN messenger encounter between two young girls and Microsoft's badly programmed Santa chat bot. Apparently "RoboSanta" has "a shocking predeliction for casually dropping in that it likes to talk about a certain sex act." The Register (El Reg, below) replicated the conversation, starting out by offering St. Nick a piece of pizza: El Reg says: pizza (pi) Santa says: Yum! What do you want for......

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......

Of that much, we are certain, given Ted Miller's nine hundred word essay on Christal Morrison's "killer looks." First off, he's right. The girl is absolutely stunning -- in that bible school, girl-next-door kind of way. In fact, we'll readily admit that when we saw her smiling face on the front page of this morning's PI, we cut straight to page D1 for the full-size photo. Yeah, she's not bad. After cooling ourselves off with......

1. Things We Lost in the Fire. There are a few things we liked about this (supposedly based here, though there is nothing to indicate that it actually takes place here) movie---mostly that the heroin junkie played by Benecio Del Toro lives in a flophouse in Renton and that Halle Berry plays a Seattle woman named Audrey, leading to a scene where Del Toro runs after her calling, "Audrey, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!" Call......

Seattlest likes parks. Especially the big ones with plenty of room for family picnics, Frisbee, flag football and lots and lots of gay sex. Seriously, Mr. Need-It-Now, can you not find another, less child-scarring place for business time? Seattle is home to a number of wonderful hotels. And what about camping? That's romantic, right? Okay, maybe it's not romance you're after. Maybe it's just fucking. That's cool. But why a public park? The outdoor thing?......

Initially, we were a little surprised to hear that ACT--A Contemporary Theatre--was putting on Clare Booth Luce's The Women. Although having debuted in 1936 placed the play in the Modern canon, its view of women is about as un-p.c. as they come: in short, the play presents women as gossipy and back-stabbing, assumes marital infidelity is a function of the Y chromosome, and ends with a note suggesting that for the sake of a healthy......

It's not often that a play comes along that unites both senior citizens and the people who want to kill them. If your parents are elderly, this may strike you as "fair and balanced" theatre. Seattle Rep's The Murderers also unites the talents of "highly respectable playwright" Jeffrey Hatcher and respectability's opposite in many ways, actress Sarah Rudinoff. Her character Minka says about killing: "You do it once, it just gets easier and easier --......

Slate asked Dan Savage and six other "sexperts" what, despite their experience, they still don't get about sex. Savage's answer: What I don't understand is ... gee, how people can be so willfully stupid about sex. Sex came first. Before marriage, there was sex. Before religion, there was sex. Before freakin' humans, there was sex. All human cultures, and all our fanciful religions, were constructed around sex, built to regulate and control sex, sanctify and......

When we first glanced at the headline on Boingboing we read "Teacher resigns after giving 13-yr-old student Eightball," and we thought, "Well, no shit. Man, Boingboing is really reaching these days." It actually reads "a copy of Eightball," Eightball being a Daniel Clowes/Fantagraphics comic book. Clowes is, of course, a badass who wrote Ghost World and is currently running in the New York Times. This is from the Publisher's Weekly blog: The parents of a......

Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods. LAist saw national headlines soar this week with......

Monday started even earlier than Sunday with the Coen Brothers' heavily-touted No Country for Old Men. The elegantly slow-moving picture (care of cinematographer Roger Deakins) lives up to the hype, so much so that we can take it as their formal cinematic apology for their abysmal duo Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers. Ethan, Joel, we forgive you. Especially if it means that you won't sic scary-as-hell psycho-killer Javier Bardem on us. Next up was Juno,......

In Slate today, Taylor Clark declared our -Ist-less neighbor to the south "America's indie rock Mecca," then spent several paragraphs dropping names and figuring out why. His conclusion? It's easy to live here. In the words of a friend of mine who used to be the music editor at the local alt-weekly, Portland is like a resort community for indie rockers who spend half the year working themselves ragged on tour. You can venture into......

According to a report in this morning's Seattle Times, Mayor Nickels has decided to play hardball in his attempt to get all Stasi on Seattle's nightlife. In what appears to be a blatant attempt to politicize Seattle's police force, according to the Times, "Seventeen bouncers, bartenders and other nightclub employees were arrested Saturday night for allegedly violating state liquor laws." Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske and City Attorney Tom Carr used the sting to push for......

So we woke up with no intention of getting all Gloria Steinem on you early on a Sunday morning, but after searching for the tie that bound together our first day of Bumbershoot, we couldn't help but gloat that the women of Bumbershoot were kicking ass/taking names. We started our day with Decadance Theater, an all-female dance troupe who popped, locked, flipped and B-Girled their way through a history of hip-hop, stomping all over a......

Last night, Young Frankenstein, playing at the Paramount through September 1st, came to life, sang, and did some wicked dance moves. The official world premiere of the new Mel Brooks musical, based on his horror-comedy film of the same name, had the full house's rapt attention from the initial flash of lightning over Transylvania Heights. The script preserves many of the film’s great lines ("Put...the candle...back!"), while adding nearly two dozen original songs with......

Some people like going to the Eatonville Pioneer Farm Museum to see the genuine 1880s cabin. For others, it's the chance to participate in the craft instructions or walk the nature trail. Arthur Lawton, however, goes to fuck the goats. Allegedly. According to court papers, says the Times, witnesses saw 63-year-old Lawton "having sex with a goat in a barn" at the museum. He was booked into Pierce County jail last night, charged with animal......

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......

Whether you're a fan of melodic noise-rock (not always a contradiction in terms) or just never got over a childhood obsession with dinosaurs, Pterodactyl is the band for you--especially if you like post-rock that doesn't take itself too seriously. They'll be playing at the Sunset tonight with two awesomely named bands we know absolutely nothing about: Nudity and Same Sex Dictator. What we do know is that Pterodactyl has put out a well-reviewed debut......

Last night at the Showbox, we were reminded of something Gino Srdjan Yevdjevic said in an interview with us last year: we don't remember the quote entirely, but it was something to the effect of characterizing "world music" as "shit." Not the music or the musicians, per se, but rather the genre, a peculiarly American way of pigeon-holing and marketing foreign music. Gino understood the process only too well: back in the 1980s, he......

Neither making the NFL Hall of Fame as a fourth-round pick or crushing Mike Harden could've prepared Seahawks legend Steve Largent for the opponent he faces now: Google. Largent, who's now president of a cell phone industry association, CTIA, has some strong words for the Bay Area know-it-alls who make it impossible for us to get a second date. In a letter to the FCC protesting Google's $4.6 billion offer to buy the 700 mhz......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

--Because we never forget, Seattlest christens tomorrow--the one day a year Wallingford neighborhood groups have to share their precious park with the rest of the city--"Fuck Wallingford Day." --It's a cold, shrouded city where no one wants to talk to you or know your name, but they'll happily watch your YouTube videos. (via Metblogs) --Safeco is selling GPS transponders for your kid's car. "How many times have I told you I don't want you......

In the wake of Hansa the Elephant's death from herpes, many Seattleites are understandably concerned about whether they, too, could contract this fatal disease. Board-certified veterinarian Dr. Ophelia Roberson-Sykes, DVM, graciously agreed to answer a few of our questions. Seattlest: So how likely is it that I could have elephant herpes? Dr. Roberson-Sykes: Not likely. Herpes can only be transmitted through direct contact, like through kissing an infected elephant. Seattlest: Well I was dating this......

Note for any aspiring musicians: if you're going to have a schtick, you'd damn well better pull it off. A few weeks ago we saw Datarock, and while they weren't our thing, the energetic party band vibe was only increased with the matching red custom track suits. Last week we saw The Pipettes, who playfully mimic the girl groups of the sixties with pop songs about love, sex, and boys (the fact that they're all......

The Seattle Weekly pulled feature writer Huan Hsu off the bashing-local-charities beat this week, and instead had him profile the coach of a high school girls tennis team. A coach who is now fired. Why? Well, let's take a look at the fourth word of Hsu' story: "Sexy." Hsu leads with the salacious details of a "sensual" poem coach Aaron Silverberg read to his Ballard High charges.Drinking you in. Melting you under my tongue. Touching......

It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by poop. Finally D.C. contemplated taking Vermont's place as a state and marveled at the GOP lessons learned from the "Macaca Moment." Due to some sad shootings......

It's SIFF's last bleary-eyed, numb-assed, popcorn-butter-fingered weekend, so if you haven't stopped in for some film-festy fun, you gotta act fast. We held Audrey upside-down and shook her until she gave us some selections -- no, no, you deserve the best. There's no telling how far we'd go to make you happy. Before we get to that, here's some film-related goings-on that you might like: Friday night there's Kinski performs Berlin: Symphony of a......