One really great thing to do every day of the week. by Julianne Bell MONDAY 7/28  

Iggy Pop

(MUSIC) Few have had as fabled (or feral) a career as Iggy Pop. Having graced stages worldwide in band or solo form for nearly 60 years, the man, the myth, the bare-chested legend now returns to Seattle to unleash his unrelenting energy at Marymoor Live. For diehard Stooges fans or even casual dabblers in punk iconography, this show will surely be a jolt of raw power. Expect timeless anthems like “Search and Destroy” to solo gems like “The Passenger,” with the godfather of punk behind the chaos of it all. (Marymoor Park, 7 pm, all ages) LANGSTON THOMAS

TUESDAY 7/29  

‘Little Darlings’

(FILM) I watched this underrated ’80s teen sex dramedy as a high schooler and almost never hear people talking about it, so I’m thrilled to learn that Here-After will be screening it. At the all-girls summer camp Camp Little Wolf, tough girl Angel and sheltered rich girl Ferris clash upon meeting and make a bet to see who can lose their virginity first. Roger Ebert wrote that the movie “somehow does succeed in treating the awesome and scary subject of sexual initiation with some of the dignity it deserves.” I love the queer subtext, the gay-as-hell vintage denim and shag haircuts, and the fact that the film allows its teen girl subjects to be horny and messy in a way they aren’t often permitted to be. (Here-After, 7:30 pm, 21+) JULIANNE BELL

WEDNESDAY 7/30  

Lifeguard

(MUSIC) Baby-faced Chicago trio Lifeguard’s scathing and tuneful new album, Ripped and Torn, marauds with the kind of authority that makes aging critics utter cringe proclamations like “the kids are all right.” But, Jah damn it, Lifeguard have that innate sonic charisma that suggests they spent their youths intently studying history’s most righteous post-punk groups (Wire, Mission of Burma, and Gang of Four), and then putting their own distinctive stamp on that style. That Lifeguard’s guitar/bass/synth/drums hit with an angular force while retaining a nagging melodiousness can make even the most jaded listeners doubt their “rock is dead” dogma. (Baba Yaga, 7 pm, all ages) DAVE SEGAL

THURSDAY 7/31  

Author Talk: Ken Jennings

Ken Jennings will be at Third Place Books Lake Forest Park Thursday, July 31.

(BOOKS) Back in 2012, record-setting Jeopardy! GOAT and current host Ken Jennings created his own proprietary weekly trivia puzzle, which previously appeared in Parade and Mental Floss. It seems simple enough in theory, but is punishingly difficult in practice: answer five questions, the responses to which share a theme in common. (Example: feet, McDonald’s, fingerprints, and St. Louis are linked by all having arches.) Think you have what it takes? Jennings will celebrate the release of The Complete Kennections, which collects all of his past quizzes in one volume along with hundreds of new and updated ones, by dropping by Third Place Books for a talk, Q&A, and signing. (Third Place Books Lake Forest Park, 7 pm, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

FRIDAY 8/1  

'& Juliet'

(THEATER) If you've ever felt less than satisfied with the ending of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, you're not alone. (Killing yourself over a boy? Ugh.) & Juliet imagines what our heroine's journey might've looked like if she had outlived Romeo by more than a few minutes—it’s presented in the form of a jukebox musical, which means most of the songs are well-known bops that make following along enjoyable for musical nerds and newbies alike. Created by David West Read, the Emmy Award-winning writer of Schitt’s Creek, the show premiered on London's West End and has won nine Oliviers. I was sold on the concept as soon as I saw "Since U Been Gone" on the soundtrack. (Paramount Theatre, July 29–Aug 3, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH

SATURDAY 8/2  

Death Cab for Cutie: Plans 20th Anniversary

(MUSIC) File under aspirational millennial nostalgia tours: indie darlings Death Cab for Cutie are celebrating 20 years of their major-label debut, Plans. As someone who saw Death Cab on their Transatlanticism anniversary tour TWICE, I can vouch that Ben Gibbard and crew have still got it. At the time of its release, Plans was Death Cab’s biggest commercial success, earning a Grammy nomination. But if you're a true fan, this revival will rattle the depths of your brain, only to realize you still effortlessly remember every lyric. Shut up and take my disposable income so I can scream “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” along with a stadium full of other alleged misfits! (Climate Pledge Arena, July 31 & Aug 2, 8 pm, all ages) BRI BREY

SUNDAY 8/3  

Bridget Everett and the Tender Moments

(COMEDY) Before Bridget Everett was known as the star of HBO’s heartwarming comedy series Somebody Somewhere, she was known as New York City’s alt-cabaret provocateur, regularly performing at Joe’s Pub. At these performances, Everett would stand on tables and sing her heart out alongside her backing band, the Tender Moments—made up of the Beastie Boys’ Adam Horovitz and the Julie Ruin’s Carmine Covelli. Now, the group is finally bringing the perennially sold-out, cult-favored cabaret show to the West Coast. If you prefer not to be serenaded, touched, flashed, or handed the microphone during comedy shows, I recommend avoiding the first 30 rows. (Moore Theatre, 8 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN

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by Hannah Murphy Winter

Since May, Mayor Bruce Harrell has deployed attack ads, hitched his wagon to a progressive tax proposal, and shouted at the The Stranger’s endorsement board, but so far, it seems like it’s too little too late: a new poll from the Northwest Progressive Institute found that Harrell and Katie Wilson are still neck and neck in this race.

The poll, based on interviews with 651 likely primary voters, found that when voters were given the information in the King County Voters Pamphlet, 35 percent said they would vote for Wilson, compared to 33 percent that said they would vote for Harrell. When they simulated a general election with the two candidates, 43 percent went for Wilson, and only 39 percent for Harrell.

The margin of error for this poll is 4.1 percent, so statistically, the two candidates are tied.

What might be more important, though, is where each candidate has room to grow. Andrew Villeneuve, the executive director of NPI, sees Harrell’s incumbency as a disadvantage in this election. Seattle is always looking for fresh blood (we haven’t reelected a mayor since Greg Nichols in 2005), and this year is no different. Harrell’s approval rating is 35 percent, but his disapproval rating is a whopping 44 percent. Wilson’s disapproval rating is only 18 percent, and 48 percent of the respondents didn’t have an opinion on her, which means she has so much more room to win over voters in the general election.

Typically an incumbent would hope to be close to 50 percent at this point in the race, Villeneuve said in a press conference Monday morning. "[Harrell] is in a race for his political life," Villeneuve said. "This is one of the most exciting mayoral races I've ever seen."

Harrell’s campaign has clearly noticed how tight the race is, and they’re starting to go negative. A press release from the campaign two weeks ago claimed that Wilson was “flip flopped” because she declined to endorse Kshama Sawant’s run for Congress, and claimed she was trying to “mislead Seattle voters and make her extreme views palatable to the general public.” And last week, they sent out a mailer that went after her previous endorsements of Sawant and her support for plans to cut police budgets. And while, thanks to the Democracy Voucher Programs spending limits, they’re tied in fundraising, the pro-Harrell PAC’s fundraising has already passed $275,000.

Wilson has campaigned with a huge focus on affordability: of rent, childcare, and a slice of pizza. The Stranger asked NPI’s Villeneuve if the results showed that her affordability-focused messaging was resonating with voters. “Yes, focusing on affordability has definitely helped Katie,” he said. He noted that a handful of voters mentioned affordability as one of the central reasons they would vote for her, “but campaigning on lowering Seattleites' costs is not the only reason why she's competing well right now. Wilson's supporters say she brings good political instincts to the table and has a track record of getting results.”

Villeneuve pointed to one person who was surveyed—a Black woman between 39 and 49 years old with a graduate degree who  lives in Georgetown—as a good example of Wilson’s appeal. "Katie has worked with so many community partners and leaders,” she wrote. “She is a critical thinker and she is able [to] make a plan and mitigate harm. She is trustworthy because her actions and words match. She understands the challenges the city has and the opportunities to utilize existing resources to help communities and she is thoughtful about progressive revenue. She applies a racial equity lens and she is a strong advocate for renters, anti-displacement, inclusive zoning, [good] jobs and reliable transportation. She knows these investments lead to real public safety... She won't lead with hostility and that tone will improve jobs for city staff."

When reached for comment, the Harrell campaign pointed to “tariff-driven inflation impacting household budgets” as one of his headwinds in the campaign, and emphasized the same notes that are in his negative mailers: Wilson's previous endorsement of Sawant, her support for cutting police budgets, and her opposition to sweeps. “We knew this would be a challenging race,” Harrell said. 

Wilson took an understated victory lap. “This poll shows what I and our hundreds of campaign volunteers already know from talking with voters across the city: so many people are ready for change,” Wilson told The Stranger. “They know we can’t afford another four years of visionless leadership that puts wealthy interests ahead of everyday working people.”

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to include comment from the Harrell Campaign. 

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Hannah Murphy Winter

Good Morning! It’s going to be sunny and in the 80s today. What perfect weather to vote early in your local primary election. 

Let’s do the news. 

Who Will Rep District 5? This morning, City Council will appoint Council Member Cathy Moore’s replacement. 2025 has been at least a decade long, so if you’ve forgotten: Moore resigned earlier this year, citing health issues, and her last day on council was July 7. The heir apparent is former City Council President Debora Juarez (though the Seattle Times just came out against her appointment because she dared to side with the left every once in a while). Also on the short list to replace her are: James M. Bourey, a long time city manager and planning director; Katy Haima, a manager at the city Office of Planning & Community Development; Nilu Jenks, former D5 candidate who ran against Moore; Julie Kang, who has been a teacher, professor, and director at the University of Washington and Seattle University; and Amazon Guy Robert D. Wilson. 

Didn’t We Just Do This? Yep! Two city council members resigned in seven months. Which, as we all know, is a sign of a healthy government. And because Moore resigned after the filing deadline for this year’s elections, this appointee will serve until we have a special election in 2026. 

We’re Still Talking About Denny Blaine: Thanks to King County Superior Court Judge Samuel Chung. Earlier this year, a group of wealthy waterfront property owners sued the city for allowing the historically queer nude beach to become, as they claim, an “unwelcoming, unattractive and ultimately unsafe public place.” They claim that the park is overrun by sex pests masturbating in public, and asked the courts to shut down the park until their concerns could be addressed. Judge Chung didn’t shut the park down, but he did tell the city they had 14 days to provide an “abatement plan” for the “nudity as constituted” (which SPD Chief Shon Barnes has explicitly acknowledged is legal in Seattle) and public sex. That 14-day window ends today.  

Advocates Got Ahead of It: Friends of Denny Blaine, the group of community members and activists that formed to protect the park after wealthy neighbors started targeting it, provided the City with a suggested abatement plan. The proposal would add Seattle Park Rangers to the park, as well as new signage and a ban on “repeat offenders” who have violated public sex laws. The city should provide its own version today, so check back. We’ll have more on it this week. 

Awkward: Southern Washington “Blue Dog” centrist Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez wants to add a new requirement in the US Congress: cognitive standards. The new addition to the body said she’s concerned about the clear mental decline of some of her colleagues (though she didn’t name names) and proposed basic guidelines in Congress to ensure that members were able to do their jobs “unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment.” It was unanimously rejected. Gluesenkamp Perez is undeterred, though. She plans to bring it back to the table with more rallied support. “We have all of these rules about dumb stuff—hats—and not this more significant question of who is making decisions in the office,” she said. 

Drunk? Don’t Fucking Drive: On Friday in Rainier View, a 74-year-old man drank six beers and then decided to get behind the wheel of his giant RV. He hit several cars before hitting Susana Garcia-Perez, a 45-year-old housekeeper and the “backbone” of her family. She died on the scene, and the driver was arrested. 

Our Hometown Hall of Famer: Ichiro was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday. He joins Mariners Edgar Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr. in the club. "Thank you for welcoming me so warmly into your great team,” he said in his 20-minute speech. “I hope I can hold the values of the Hall of Fame. But, please, I am 51 years old now, so easy on the hazing."

The Majority of ICE’s Arrests Aren’t Criminals: In an unusual turn of events, the Seattle Times’ pearl-clutching correspondent Danny Westneat published a genuinely helpful column this weekend. He dug through the Deportation Data Project at the University of California and found that in Washington State, ICE isn’t arresting the “worst of the worst.” Sixty-nine percent of the ICE arrests in June were of people who have never been convicted of a crime, compared to June 2024, when only 35 percent of the people arrested by immigration had clean records. Obviously someone doesn’t have to have a criminal record to be deported, but Westneat found that only 53 of last month’s arrestees even had a deportation order. In 2024, it was 80 percent. So that feeling you have in your gut that ICE is just cuffing any immigrant they can find? Pretty spot on.

Hegseth Wants to See Your Junk: But no homo. He just wants to make sure you’re in the “right” bathroom. According to an 11-page memo from the Department of Defense to the White House obtained by 404 Media, the Pentagon detailed how it plans to enforce Trump’s anti-Trans “Defending Women” executive order. The Pentagon said that it won’t stop at simply changing the signs on bathroom doors to “reflect biological sex.” The best-funded military in the world will continue to “monitor intimate spaces to ensure ongoing compliance” and that it will “continuously evaluate and update intimate spaces as necessary.”   

Planned Parenthood 1, Trump 0: This morning, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, ruling that Medicaid has to continue to reimburse the healthcare provider. “Patients are likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable,” Judge Indira Talwani wrote in the order. “In particular, restricting Members’ ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs.” This won’t be the end of it, but it’s a huge win for now. 

Boeing’s No Good Very Bad Day: They seem to have a lot of them. On the runway in Denver on Saturday, passengers on a Boeing 737 MAX 8 heard a loud boom and the plane started to shake and drift to the left. After the captain bailed off the runway, video shows passengers evacuating a smoking plane using the inflatable slide. Everyone evacuated safely, and no one had to be hospitalized, but a few of them did eat it while going down the slide. 

 

Israel Bends, a Little Bit: After realizing that starving children is evil the optics of starving children isn’t good for them, Israel announced that it’s going to halt military operations for 10 hours a day in parts of Gaza, and create new aid corridors for Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to airdrop supplies. In their first airdrop in months, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates parachuted 25 tons of aid into Gaza on Sunday but airdrops are never as effective as land deliveries. Palestinian health officials in Gaza City said at least 10 people were injured by falling aid boxes. “This is progress, but vast amounts of aid are needed to stave off famine and a catastrophic health crisis,” said United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher.

Reminder: We’re having an election. Right now. Today is the last day to register online if you haven’t yet (but you can register in person up to election day), and ballots are due NEXT TUESDAY. So find your ballot under that pile of junk mail on your counter. Here’s our voter guide for everyone who likes to read, and here’s the cheat sheet for everyone who doesn’t. Wondering if your local electeds are ready for this election season? They are. 

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Last night, candidates for city office piled onto the stage at Neumos to show off their hidden talents, answer policy questions, and lip synch for your vote. by Hannah Murphy Winter

Photos by West Smith

Last night, candidates for city office piled onto the stage at Neumos to show off their hidden talents, answer policy questions, and lip synch for your vote. This year, the Washington Bus and The Stranger's candidate forum was Dungeons & Dragons themed, with drag dungeon mistress Aleksa Manila leading the adventure (with outfit changes, of course!).

We learned a lot about the candidates in this year's primary: that Seattle City Council District 2 candidate Adonis Ducksworth might be a Cool Guy Skateboarder, but he's not down to get silly; that D2 candidate Eddie Lin can juggle and walk on his hands; that Katie Wilson used to busk at Pike Place; and that City Attorney Erika Evans always knows the assignment. We also learned just how far D2 candidate Jamie Fackler will go for a bit. He didn't officially make it onstage last night because his campaign hadn't reached the fundraising threshold when event invitations went out, but he still showed up outside dressed as Shrek with a rented donkey and a large bag of onions, and even jumped on stage with City Attorney candidate Rory O'Sullivan (uninvited) to try to hype his performance. 

In the green room, one candidate said, "I think we're all processing our Stranger endorsements in these performances." During the policy section, D2 candidate Jeanie Chunn changed into a stunning green, leafy dress, a shout-out to The Stranger saying she was too "green" in our endorsement. We called Wilson's TikToks "deeply awkward" (which we stand by), and she said it "hurt a little bit, but now I feel like I have a reputation to uphold," so she decided "to showcase a talent that's even more deeply awkward." 

With less than two weeks to the primary, the candidates showed up, and showed us what they were about. Rinck won best dressed, Evans and Chunn won the most "inspiration points," and Evans won the best overall performance. Now let's see how they do at the ballot box.

This donkey's name is Momie, from Sweet Ass Donkey Rentals.  City Attorney candidate Rory O'Sullivan played "With a Little Help From My Friends," by the Beatles. Meet VoteBot. Not to be confused with SaraNelsonBot, and PinkPonyBot.  Aleksa Manila kept all of the adventurers in line.  The Stranger has said that Seattle would vote for a rock over Sara Nelson. So for her talent, City Council Position 9 candidate Dionne Foster came out as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, challenged an audience member to Rock Paper Scissors, and gave the audience rock candy.  City Attorney candidate Erika Evans destroyed the audience with a diss track about City Attorney Ann Davison.  Holy shit Jeanie Chunn can sing.  Katie Wilson pulled out her old busking routine: a guitar and a harmonica.  Eddie Lin actually walked across the stage like this.  City Council Member Alexis Mercedes Rinck did a Bardcore cover of Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie."  These buds should be on council together.  Stranger Staff Writer Nathalie Graham grilled the candidates on everything from sweeps to Saint Rat. And Washington Bus and Stranger staff judged their answers.  SaraNelsonBot. Jeanie Chunn took a heroic spill off those heels, and kept lip syncing for your vote.  Rory O'Sullivan and Ry Armstrong, blown away by Erika Evans' prop work.  I mean, come on. Did we mention the audience dressed up too? Queens of the night.

Did you see someone? Say something! by Anonymous

Cutie with the corn!

To the cute guy who had a basket full of corn at Fred Meyer on Friday. We kept bumping into each other. Wish I had said something!

Mustache 4 mustache @ Sister Nancy 7/20

I told you you were handsome then bashfully scurried away with my friends. If you’re mustache 4 mustache, I’d love to buy you a drink sometime

Curly Hair Cutie @ Bouldering Project Poplar

I keep running into you at the climbing gym; I just want to say I'm sorry for yakking in your apartment on our first (and only) date. Lets try again?

Menopausal Bike Karen

To woman in the black and pink bike kit who yelled at me getting on the Gilman on Sunday near the Fremont market - get fucked. U were in the wrong😘

Ambulance needed 🚨

You: hot camper builder. Me: chaotic chair girl. Cap Hill Tool Library. Now take me for a ride in your ambulance, sk8er boi 🔥🛠️💋

Croissant Air Freshener

You asked me to check your tire pressure at King and Alaskan Way; the light changed too soon. I wanna know about your croissant air freshener, please.

8 bus No Kings Fairview

u asked which stop would take u 2 protest, had a cane after a hip surgery & wanted 2 b able 2 walk 2 sea cntr, u reminded me that protest matters

Eye contact at Pacific inn Pub

You: wearing blue, tatted, mustache Me: wearing green It was a Tuesday. Wanted to give you my # but you were leaving before I could write it down!

Is it a match? Leave a comment here or on our Instagram post to connect!

Did you see someone? Say something! Submit your own I Saw U message here and maybe we'll include it in the next roundup!

by EverOut Staff

Leave the house this weekend for recession-busting events from Bite of Seattle to the Alaska Airlines Torchlight Parade and from Downtown Summer Sounds: Kishi Bashi  to Urban Craft Uprising's Summer Show. For more suggestions, check out our top event picks of the week.

FRIDAY LIVE MUSIC

Downtown Summer Sounds: Kishi Bashi
Seattle's free Downtown Summer Sounds series kicked off last week and continues with a can't-miss show from multi-instrumentalist Kishi Bashi on Friday evening. Push your chair back from your desk and stop at Westlake Park before catching the light rail home: this concert is sure to put you in the right mood for a sunny weekend. Kishi Bashi has collaborated with Regina Spektor and of Montreal, and puts out upbeat orchestral bops as a solo artist. The man's talent doesn't stop there, his 2022 film Omoiyari: A Song Film by Kishi Bashiwas nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary category. Kishi Bashi played the Crocodile last fall and I will not be missing this opportunity to see him for free in the heart of the city. SHANNON LUBETICH
(Westlake Park, Downtown, free)

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Nathalie Graham

The Who's Who of the SPD January Sixers: After a lengthy court battle to keep their identities secret, we now officially have the names of four of the Seattle Police Department cops who went to the insurrection a week after they dropped their lawsuit. Drum roll please. The democracy denying boys in blue aaaaare.... Sgt. Jacob Briskey, Sgt. Scotty Bach, Detective Michael Settle, and Officer Jason Marchione. Two other SPD cops, Officers Alexander Everett and Caitlin Rochelle Everett, were identified earlier after being fired since they trespassed on the US Capitol during all of the insurrection festivities. Of course, this is hardly news since Divest SPD, released the names of these cops years ago, but this is the first time we've had confirmation from the City. 

Light Rail Has Gone to the Dogs: We are a dog city. A dog county, really. Sound Transit's board green lit policy yesterday to let all leashed pooches on light rail trains. Frankly, I didn't know there was a dog ban given all those rule-breaking pups I've seen catching a ride on the 1 Line. The new dog decree was born out of the freshly minted Marymoor Village Station which is close to the 40-acre off-leash area in Marymoor Park. “It’s time for walkies,” Sound Transit board Chair Dave Somers said. I hate that he said that. 

In Other Light Rail News: The extension to Federal Way could open as soon as this winter, according to the Sound Transit Board. That would unveil stops in Kent, Des Moines, Star Lake, and downtown Federal Way. One day, if we're good, maybe we will even reach Tacoma. And will the light rail ever stretch across the lake to link up with the 2 line in Bellevue? Maybe! In the meantime, Sound Transit is trying to deter thievery after a few bandits stole away with copper wire from the eastside tracks on two different occasions earlier this summer, causing power outages on the line. They're installing security cameras. 

A Bear! Near Golden Gardens! Neighbors near Golden Gardens in Ballard spotted a bear this week. They believe it was a black bear. The sighting isn't officially confirmed, but if it is true, this would be the first bear sighting in that area since 2009. You can't blame a bear for wanting a good bonfire spot. The Department of Fish and Wildlife said the bear likely ended up in the area by taking the series of greenbelts along Puget Sound. Well, he probably didn't take the Burke Gilman with that missing link, right? Right?? 

A Fire! Near the Columbia River Gorge! A fire that sparked around a week ago is now the largest in the state. The Burdoin fire currently takes up 11,000 acres. That is, I'm told, a lot of acres. The Burdoin fire is one of four other large fires raging statewide. This is climate change, baby. Summers are for burning now. And we aren't even close to done with fire season. 

France Recognizes Palestine Statehood: In the midst of war crime-caused famine where special food for malnourished children is weeks away from running dry, French president Emmanuel Macron said he will recognize a Palestinian state, becoming the first western power to do so. This recognition won't officially happen until September at the United Nations general assembly. 

No Quick Bucks for Chuck: Florida police arrested a man for credit card fraud while he was at his job. Unfortunately, his job was dressing up as a big gray mouse. You may know him. “Chuck E., come with me,” the cops said as they entered the Tallahassee Chuck E. Cheese. The suspect allegedly did the credit card fraud while working at Chuck E. Cheese. You can't trust anyone these days. Not even Chuck himself. Sigh. 

A Chuck E. Cheese employee in full costume was arrested by Tallahassee officers for credit card fraud

 www.tallahassee.com/story/news/l...

[image or embed]

— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) July 24, 2025 at 10:41 AM

ICYMI: THING, the music festival, cancelled its upcoming festival date showcasing Latinx and Spanish-language artists, due to concerns about Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. "Community safety concerns have greatly reduced ticket sales, and the uncertainty about artists’ ability to secure the necessary visas has led to our decision," they said in a statement. This isn't the first local event to shut down for these reasons. In June, the Duwamish River Community Coalition canceled the Duwamish River Festival due to concerns that ICE might target it, and earlier this month, the Burien nonprofit Joyas Mestizas announced that they would cancel the Pacific Northwest Folklórico Festival this year. Stranger Staff Writer Julianne Bell has more here. 

Closing Walls and Ticking Clocks: Kristin Cabot, the human resources executive caught in the embrace of her CEO at the Coldplay concert, has resigned from her role at Astronomer. Her resignation follows CEO Andy Byron's own resignation. 

Hold on. Charles Mudede has something to say.

Did I see that? Did I see Trump's hard-on yapping in the desert? Yes, I did. His sunbaked business appeared on a new episode of South Park, a show I thought was history a long time ago. But apparently it's still around. In fact, Paramount just paid the show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, a cool $1.5 billion for "50 new episodes over the next five years." Yes, the same Paramount that, on July 2, paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit concerning an episode of CBS’ “60 Minutes.” South Park's season premiere even has a scene with the presenters of "60 Minutes" cowering to Trump (sorry, cows, I didn't mean to disrespect you like that). We also see Trump trying to have sex with Satan, Trump fucking a sheep, Trump suing a painter for making his business too small in a portrait. And then the desert scene. And then it—Trump's penis—talks. How will I ever get that out of my mind?

Um, thanks for that, Charles. Back to me. 

Were you at Candidate Survivor last night? If not, you missed a lot. We learned that Seattle City Council District 2 candidate Adonis Ducksworth is too cool to have fun. (He at least made a cool song and read a bad poem.) We learned that his competition, Eddie Lin, can juggle and walk on his hands. We learned that Mayoral candidate Katie Wilson used to busk at Pike Place. (She demonstrated her act, playing the harmonica and guitar simultaneously.) We learned that City Attorney Erika Evans always knows the assignment. (She made a diss rap about incumbent Ann Davison, and ultimately won the competition.) And we learned that Jamie Fackler knows how to commit to a bit. He didn't officially make it on stage because his campaign hadn't reached the fundraising threshold when event invitations went out, but he still showed up outside dressed as Shrek with a rented donkey, and even jumped on stage with City Attorney candidate Rory O'Sullivan to try to hype his performance. 

I Hate When This Happens: Race officials shortened the 19th stage of the Tour de France to avoid climbs in the mountainous areas "where an outbreak of nodular dermatitis affected a herd of cows." The contagious lumpy skin outbreak resulted in their culling. May they wear the king of the mountain's polka dot jersey in heaven. 

A Song for Your Friday: It just seems appropriate.

As always, fuck ICE. by Julianne Bell

Earlier today, the THING Festival announced via social media that it had “made the very difficult decision” to cancel its August 16 date, which had been “specially curated to showcase some of music’s most exceptional Latinx and Spanish-language artists.” 

The statement read, “Community safety concerns have greatly reduced ticket sales, and the uncertainty about artists’ ability to secure the necessary visas has led to our decision. We stand with our broader community and remain committed to prioritizing attendee and artist safety, and to ensure our events are a positive and memorable arts experience. We want to sincerely thank the artists, our community partners and sponsors, and everyone behind the scenes who worked tirelessly to bring this unique event to life.” The organization also noted that all August 16 ticket holders should expect to see refunds returned to their original forms of payment within the next seven to 10 business days.

THING was founded in 2019 and has traditionally been a three-day-long festival in the past, but this year, the organization opted for a new format with a series of events set to take place at Remlinger Farms in Carnation, Washington across four weekends in August. Chilean-Mexican pop singer Mon Laferte was slated to headline the August 16 lineup, along with Yahritza y Su Esencia, Thee Sinseers, Rubén Albarrán, Angélica Garcia, Terror/Cactus and Pahua, and Lucia Flors-Wiseman. 

The festival isn’t the first event to be called off recently under similar circumstances. In June, the Duwamish River Community Coalition canceled the Duwamish River Festival in the South Park neighborhood due to speculation that ICE might target it, and earlier this month, the Burien nonprofit Joyas Mestizas announced that they would cancel the 2025 Pacific Northwest Folklórico Festival, writing, “We are angry at the ICE raids and racist immigration policies that tear families apart, and in canceling our event we commit to prioritizing the safety of our community. As a community organization born from the 20th-century freedom movements, Joyas Mestizas not only understands the arts as essential to pushing against oppression but recognizes folklorico’s continued existence as a testament to our coming together. While we stand firm in our origins, the urgency of our community’s need for safety and security demands immediate action.”

Just earlier this week, Fernando Rocha, the theater manager at Juanita High School was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. KUOW reported last week that King County passed a resolution on Tuesday, July 15, that would support protections for immigrants and prevent county agencies from sharing sensitive data that could lead to immigrant enforcement.

We’ve reached out to THING Festival’s organizers for comment and will update this article if we hear back.

As always, fuck ICE. 

by Teresa Mosqueda

I never thought I’d run for office.

I didn’t come from deep pockets or have personal wealth. I didn’t have a long list of wealthy donors in my phone. Like so many people in our city, I paid rent, carried student loan debt, and worked full-time. Running for office felt out of reach. Then Democracy Vouchers changed everything.

When Seattle voters passed the Democracy Voucher Program, it sent a powerful message: You can run for office without spending your days dialing for dollars. Local government can reflect the people who live here, not just those who can afford to bankroll their own campaigns. That bold choice by voters made Democracy Vouchers a reality, and I had a path to run.

In 2017, I ran for Seattle City Council and became the first first-time candidate in the country to win elected office using Democracy Vouchers. Most of my campaign funds–-65 percent—came from vouchers, and almost everyone who gave did so with their vouchers, only occasionally supplementing with their own dollars. With the support of working people, renters, women, and union members, I ran a campaign powered by everyday people and grassroots donations, not big checks from the wealthy few. I knocked on doors and talked to neighbors about our shared priorities: housing, health, good jobs, and justice. Over and over, people told me, “I’m so glad you’re running. You can have my vouchers.” They were taking an opportunity to invest in someone who represented their values.

That opportunity made a huge difference. That year, more than 16,000 Seattle residents used Democracy Vouchers, which, combined with cash contributors, almost tripled the number of donors from the previous election. Vouchers brought a diverse group of candidates into the race: renters, younger people, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community. That election resulted in a majority of women and people of color on the city council.

The Democracy Voucher Program is a win on all fronts. It opened the door for a new generation of candidates from communities long excluded from political power. It changed who is donating and engaging in our elections, so more people can support candidates of their choice. And it changed who gets elected, giving everyday people an equal say and allowing more diverse leaders to win.

Democracy Vouchers have made our elections more accessible, our campaigns more accountable, and our democracy more representative.

Let’s keep up the progress by keeping Democracy Vouchers.

This August, Seattle voters will decide on Proposition 1 to renew the Democracy Voucher Program in the August 5 primary election. It’s a critical moment for our city. At a time when democracy is under attack across the country, when voter suppression, big money, and political extremism are on the rise, we can’t afford to go backward. We need to protect what works and what we’ve built together.

Democracy Vouchers gave me the chance to run and win. They’re creating the same opportunities for others, many of whom would never have thought to run, just like I didn’t. Let’s make sure Democracy Vouchers are here for the next generation of leaders, too.

Vote YES on Prop 1.

Teresa Mosqueda is a King County Council Member, representing District 8. 

by EverOut Staff

It's ticket alert time! Funky hip-hop musician Kaytranada is teaming up with French electronic duo Justice for a joint tour that will have the crowd on its feet to do the “D.A.N.C.E.” R&B singer GIVĒON will tour with his newly released sophomore album Beloved. Plus, Real Housewife Luann de Lesseps brings her Countess Cabaret to the Showbox stage later this fall. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events, plus some news you can use.

ON SALE FRIDAY, JULY 25

MUSIC

GIVĒON
WaMu Theater (Wed Oct 1)

Hannah Bahng: The Misunderstood World Tour
The Showbox (Sun Nov 16)

Kaytranada x Justice Tour
Climate Pledge Arena (Fri Oct 17)

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup. by Marcus Harrison Green

Today's weather is mostly sunny with a high near 78, which means half our fair city will pretend it’s a heatwave while the other half will refuse to give up their Patagonia fleece.

Trump Hangs up Faster Than You Can Say “Flight Log”: Despite Speaker Johnson abruptly shutting down the House, this scandal just won’t die. Turns out Donald Trump was personally told by Attorney General Pam Bondi back in May that his name pops up multiple times in the Epstein files—the very same files the feds promised to release before pulling a hard U-turn. According to The Wall Street Journal, both Bondi and FBI-director-loyalist Kash Patel warned Trump, brushing off the mentions as “unverified hearsay” about his old Epstein hangouts. And Trump? He responded the way any totally innocent person would: by hanging up on CNN. With even some House Republicans now backing Dems to get those files out in the open and Ghislaine Maxwell freshly subpoenaed, the Epstein vortex is sucking DC back into its sleaze orbit. Trump, reportedly “furious,” says there are way more important stories—like his latest attempt to accuse Obama of treason. Uh huh…

Gaza Is Starving While World Leaders Stall: While world leaders churn out limp press releases and squabble over phantom “humanitarian corridors,” more than 100 aid organizations are shouting what should already be unbearable to ignore: Gaza is starving, and Israel’s blockade is to blame. In a searing joint statement titled “As Mass Starvation Spreads Across Gaza, Our Colleagues and Those We Serve Are Wasting Away,” they describe skeletal children, aid workers collapsing from hunger, and food distribution sites turned into massacre zones. As of July 13, more than 875 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food. Meanwhile, trucks packed with food, clean water, and medicine sit idle just outside Gaza—trapped by a siege designed not to fail, but to punish. “Each morning, the same question echoes across Gaza: will I eat today?” one agency rep said. The answer, too often, is no. This isn’t just a famine. It’s a war crime, and every day the world delays, more lives are lost to the politics of cruelty.

Hellfire Roast: Turns out Starbucks isn’t just serving up venti-sized lattes—it’s pouring out infernal levels of executive greed. Per the AFL-CIO’s new Executive Paywatch report, CEO Brian Niccol made 6,666 times more than the company’s typical worker last year. That’s right: six-six-six-six—a number so cursed it practically demands a goat sacrifice. While Niccol sipped nearly $98 million in compensation, the average barista scraped by on less than $15K. Starbucks claims this is because many workers are part-time, but that hasn’t stopped the company from dropping millions on union-busting lawyers and listening sessions instead of just, you know, paying people more. Workers have been striking, organizing, and dragging the company into court for years—meanwhile, Niccol’s getting a fat Trump-era tax cut on top of his stock-heavy bonus package. That mocha latte might taste a little more bitter now.

The Government Just Ghosted Your Debt Relief: So, the Department of Education just hit pause on student loan forgiveness for folks in Income-Based Repayment plans. Which means if you’ve been grinding for years thinking you were finally done, the government’s like, “Actually, we need to recalculate your trauma first.” Interest kicks back in August 1, the tax break on forgiven debt expires in January, and a Trump administration, already hostile to student debt relief, most likely slow-walking the loan forgiveness process like it's a hostage negotiation. God forbid working people catch a break without crawling through a decade of red tape and moral judgment.

Now, let us get into the tragicomedy that is our local news…

Fergie Has Some ‘Splaining to Do: While Gov. Ferguson was thwarting taxes on billionaires last budget session, he somehow missed the stack of misconduct allegations piling up against his right-hand man, Mike Webb. Axios reports that although Webb resigned this year after multiple women accused him of creating a hostile work environment, red flags on the guy go back to 2013, with state auditors raising alarms as far back as 2019 with Ferguson’s office. The paraphrased response from Ferguson’s crew at the time? No formal HR complaint, so we’re good. Political code for “If you didn’t notarize your trauma, it doesn’t count.” And the kicker? Webb’s still tagging along and flying shotgun on campaign trips with Ferguson’s team as recently as last month. Apparently, in state politics, being a powerful creep doesn’t get you canceled. It gets you extra leg room.

No Last Words, Just Lasting Rage: At his sentencing for the brutal murders of four University of Idaho students, Bryan Kohberger sat stone-faced and silent—offering zero explanation, zero remorse, and zero closure to the families he devastated. Prosecutors didn’t bother pushing for a plea deal that would force him to speak, because let’s be real: no one needed more self-serving nonsense from a guy who thinks silence makes him mysterious instead of monstrous. The Goncalves family, especially Kaylee’s sister Alivea, didn’t hold back—calling him “pathetic” and making it crystal clear he only succeeded because he attacked in the dark, like a coward. No motive, no mercy, no justice—just a courtroom full of grief staring down a man who will never give them what they actually deserve.

Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship, for Now: A federal appeals court has ruled Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship unconstitutional, echoing a previous decision from a New Hampshire district court. Essentially, Terror 47 tried to rewrite the Constitution with magic marker, and the courts just reminded him that reality still exists. The ruling simply states what every exhausted civics teacher in America has been screaming into the void: you can’t undo the 14th Amendment just because it ruins your fascist fantasy. Washington was one of the states to bring the case against the administration.

Fire in the Central District: A fire tore through Seattle’s Chinatown International Central District early Thursday, starting in a vacant home under construction and spreading to several neighboring homes, displacing multiple families. Thankfully, no residents were seriously hurt, although one firefighter was treated for minor injuries. The city is currently investigating the cause of the fire.

Can’t Win in Court? Block the Judge: Municipal Court Judge Damon Shadid just dragged City Attorney Ann Davison’s office in open court for what looks like a power-hungry, politically motivated stunt—blocking Judge Pooja Vaddadi from hearing DUI and domestic violence cases based on what Vaddadi says are straight-up lies. Davison’s move, which sidelined a newly elected judge and basically turned a voter mandate into a desk job, has now triggered a formal bar complaint and serious questions about ethics, transparency, and who actually gets to wield power in Seattle’s justice system. And now, as Davison runs for reelection with MAGA baggage and a suddenly fat campaign account, she’s facing three challengers who seem more interested in actual justice than playing courtroom politics.

Do Not Sign This Shit! In a raging case of voter suppression FOMO, Washington state conservatives are pushing a ballot initiative to literally gatekeep democracy. It's the bureaucratic equivalent of “Show us your papers, comrade,” as if the right to vote should come with a TSA checkpoint and a scavenger hunt for your birth certificate. No more checking a box. It would now be, prove you’re American enough, or get the hell out of the ballot line. Let’s just be real: the GOP doesn’t fear non-citizens voting. They fear citizens voting against them. If they can’t win your vote, they’ll sure as hell try to make it as hard as possible to vote in the first place.

Waterfront Park Officially Opens: Our Emerald City officially unveiled its latest glow-up moment with the opening of the new Waterfront Park. Yes, 50,000 square feet of vibes where a collapsing highway used to loom like a concrete guillotine. After 15 years, we get a jellyfish-shaped playground, a fountain plaza, and 270 free events later this Summer. Essentially, it’s the city saying, “Sorry about the viaduct drama, here’s some yoga and a couple of food pop-ups.”

Seattle Loves Renters So Much It Won’t Even Let Them Meet: For 18 months, Cathy Moore basically ghosted the Seattle Renters’ Commission. There were no hearings, no appointments, nothing, while she pushed bills that would’ve made it way easier to evict people. Flash forward: she resigns, and just when it looks like the commission might finally get seated, Councilmembers Rob Saka and Sara Nelson pull a classic “Sorry, can’t come, super busy avoiding the duties we were elected to fulfill” move and tank the meeting by skipping it. Meanwhile, renters—many of them volunteers who took time off work—showed up ready to serve their community, only to get hit with silence, shade, and a 404 error from Saka’s office. You can’t make this up.

Donnie Chin Honored: Ten years after Donnie Chin was shot and killed while responding to a 911 call, the Chinatown-International District showed up, not just to mourn, but to remember a man who basically did the city’s job for it. Donnie wasn’t just a first responder; he was the first responder, often beating cops and medics to the scene because the system didn’t care enough to show up for his community. And here’s the part that still stings: a decade later, his murder is still unsolved.

Your Obligatory Seahawks 411: For the 5 percent of you who actually care and the 15 percent who just want to survive small talk with your partner’s meathhead sibling, here’s your Seahawks update. They just kicked off training camp for their 50th season with a new offensive coordinator, a quarterback best known for seeing “ghosts” mid-game, and the kind of blind optimism usually reserved for football fans and people joining multi-level marketing schemes. Last year, they went 10-7 and still missed the playoffs. But hey, if the defense stays mean, the rookies stay healthy, and the offense stops self-sabotaging, they might just luck their way into the postseason.

Death gives Hogan the big boot: I’m a firm believer that you shouldn’t valorize people, simply because their heart stops beating. So, I won’t pretend Hulk Hogan was anything but what he was. He died at 71 from cardiac arrest in Florida, leaving behind a legacy as bloated and performative as pro wrestling itself. Yes, he helped turn wrestling into a pop culture juggernaut, but he also brought us sex tapes, racist rants, and more tall tales than a televangelist on mushrooms—Elvis was a Hulkamaniac? Really? Even in death, Hogan is less a man than a cautionary tale—part myth, part lawsuit, and all-American spectacle, brother.

I’ll Leave You With this: someone just randomly texted me that it’s Jennifer Lopez’s birthday. I’m not a fan, so I’m not sure why I needed that information, but apparently she’s completed her 56th lap around the sun. In honor of the occasion, and because LL Cool J is involved, here’s her most tolerable song.

by Conor Kelley

On July 27, our state’s pay transparency law will be amended to effectively end our short-lived era of actually knowing what a job will, you know, pay.

Since January 1, 2023, companies that posted jobs in our state were required to clearly state the position’s pay, benefits, and any additional compensation. This was an expansion of the 2018 Equal Pay and Opportunities Act. We the working class were finally saved from blindly applying for jobs in the hopes they would pay a living wage. No more going through rounds of interviews just to find out it was actually a “volunteer” position or some other such nonsense. The law also aimed to combat wage disparities across gender, race, and other protected classes.

Under that law, job seekers also had a “private right to action,” meaning if they found a noncompliant post they could theoretically sue the company, with no cap for the penalties a court could impose on the noncompliant business.

Well, the business lobby set out to challenge this law on two fronts: our legal system and our state legislature.

In early 2024, two King County residents filed separate lawsuits over noncompliance with this law in King County Superior Court against Washington Fine Wine & Spirits, LLC, contending that because the company didn’t list a pay scale for jobs they wanted to apply for, they couldn’t compare them with other open jobs on the market or negotiate an offer effectively.

You may think this sounds like an honest mistake by a little LLC. Perhaps we should do what other media outlets have failed to do in reference to this case and clarify that Washington Fine Wine & Spirits, LLC, is owned by Total Wine & More, the alcohol megastore chain with a reported 277 stores nationwide, including 14 in our state, bringing in a reported $6 billion in annual revenue in 2023. A mom and pop shop this is not.

Total Wine appealed these two lawsuits to district court and then to our State Supreme Court in the hopes of getting the law struck down, arguing that the law was too onerous for businesses to follow, that these weren’t “bonafide” job applicants (whatever that means), and that the private right to action was creating a “cottage industry” of law firms taking up these cases.

Let’s stop right there. A business claimed that a state law was unfair, and also thought it was unfair that they could be held responsible for breaking that law. They even went so far as to argue the plaintiffs weren’t “bonafide.” Can you imagine that ever working with other regulations? Have you ever looked at a speed limit sign, thought to yourself, "Well, that’s simply too slow," kept driving above that speed, and then when you got pulled over, told the cop they weren’t qualified to write you a ticket, and set out to get the speed limit permanently changed to whatever number you think is fair?

That’s exactly what happened here. Our state passed a law that businesses simply refused to abide by, and a multibillion-dollar chain used their power to kill it on two fronts.

But the wheels of the judicial system move slowly, and they are still waiting on an answer from the Washington State Supreme Court. Lucky for them, a bill in the state legislature could move faster. Their pro-business bill aimed to do three things: 1) implement a period for businesses to correct the noncompliant listings; 2) cap the penalty for noncompliant businesses; and 3) shift the burden of enforcement to job seekers.

You read that last part right: the business lobby asked the state legislature to effectively deputize workers into enforcing a state law.

If you think this sounds insane, your state representatives don’t agree. On January 21, Republican State Senator Curtis King introduced the original bill, SB 5408, and a largely unchanged version was passed February 28 on a vote of 41-7 with 23 Democrat “yeas.” A decisive win for Big Business. The bill was then sent to the House. It was introduced on March 4, underwent a few minor adjustments in committee, and was passed on April 15 with a vote of 94-1. A blowout.

The one no vote in the House? Jeremie Dufault, a Republican representative from District 15. “I had incomplete information on what businesses would be required to do to avoid liability,” he told The Stranger. “After the vote, I discovered that my concerns with the initial bill had been addressed in the final amendment. I support the bill as passed.”

The bill was then returned to the Senate for a final vote, where only 1 of the original 7 no voters was left standing: Bob Hasegawa, a Senate Democrat who represents Tukwila and parts of Renton and Kent.

So why did this bill get passed, if not on its merits? “I didn’t want to give 5408 a hearing, but as the new Chair of Labor and Commerce, it is important to find ways to work with the ranking minority member of my committee,” says State Senator Rebecca Saldaña to The Stranger. “It is helpful to Senate leadership to have Republican bills so that we can move our priority bills more quickly through the legislative process.“ 

Politics, am I right?

Roughly a month later, on May 20, your Governor Bob Ferguson signed it into law. Just like that: With no real opposition, your state legislature and governor just told businesses that if they don’t like a law that helps working people, they’ll change it until their business buddies are happy.

And boy, are they. Union-busting law firm Littler Mendelson reported the development as “welcome news for the business community and a shining example of bipartisan cooperation.”

According to the new law, if you see a job posted online in Washington State with no description of salary and benefits, you must provide that business written notice that their listing is noncompliant. The company then has five business days to correct it (and likely blacklist you from the job, of course).

If after a business week, the listing is still not following the state law, you can continue your efforts in law enforcement by filing a complaint with Washington State’s Department of Labor & Industries (L&I). If L&I finds that you are correct, the department will attempt to fix the issue with the business via “conference and reconciliation.” If the business still refuses, you can either have L&I assess a penalty or you can contact lawyers to sue—but either way, you won’t get more than $5,000 and may get as little as $100. Good luck finding a lawyer to take that case.

If that feels like a big waste of your time and not worth it for you, that’s the point.

And what will stop that business from just taking down that posting and putting up an identical noncompliant one, which you would have to file a new complaint about?

“We believe the great majority of employers will do their best to follow the law,” says Jeff Mayor from Washington State L&I.

Wishful thinking, maybe.

According to data shared by Indeed’s Hiring Lab, before the pay transparency expansion of the Equal Pay and Opportunities Act was passed in March 2022, over 65 percent of jobs posted on Indeed in Washington State did not include a transparent description of salary and benefits. By the time the law went into effect on January 1, 2023, that number was cut nearly in half to 33 percent.

But businesses in our state were watching those lawsuits closely, and that pay transparency improvement stagnated in August 2024, right around the time that Total Wine & More petitioned King County Superior Court to move the cases up the ladder to district court. Pay transparency has stalled in the year since as businesses waited on an answer from our State Supreme Court and legislature.

According to Indeed, more than 10 percent of their 84,000+ current Washington State job listings still do not include salary information, in violation of the current law. And because this law has now been nerfed to oblivion and stripped of enforcement mechanisms, expect that number to climb back up starting on July 27.

How high it’ll go, only the “free market” knows.

So next time you’re on the internet hunting for a job, clicking through thousands of bare-bones listings, caught in a loop of tedious interviews and lowball offers, please be sure to thank your state representatives.

P.S. Remember to say thank you to your bus driver, they deal with so much shit. by Anonymous

I am not about to proudly march into the anonymous section of a local paper to complain about people playing music on the bus. Sometimes, that's annoying, but occasionally, you get a cool grandpa pushing his walker playing smooth jazz, and that's okay. But also, this is an anonymous section, and I am anonymous, so who cares about my musical opinions?

I will gripe, however, about those of us riding crowded buses on the daily (especially you, my dear SLU workers). I am just asking you to be mindful. Mindful of your backpack, that you are still wearing while standing, smacking everyone around you when you move. Mindful of those who need your seat more, where you are avoiding looking at grandma and her cane so you can watch a video on your laptop (in the priority seat, no less!). Mindful of moving to the empty room in the back of the bus, so the six people forced into an unwilling mosh pit in the doorway can finally assert boundaries again.

We should consider ourselves lucky to not be driving. We can read, we can chat, we can scroll, and that's so much nicer than staring down the luxury SUV that has cut us off only to get stuck at the same light (again). But if you are not mindful of the fact that this is not a private vehicle but a shared space, it makes it suck WAY more for everyone else on the bus. This is Seattle, and no one will call you out on it, but I promise you, everyone is thinking mean things about you if you're the one guy not getting with the program. 

Sincerely,

The Bus Rider Stuck In the Doorway Moshpit

P.S. Remember to say thank you to your bus driver, they deal with so much shit.

Do you need to get something off your chest? Submit an I, Anonymous and we'll illustrate it! Send your unsigned rant, love letter, confession, or accusation to ianonymous@thestranger.com. Please remember to change the names of the innocent and the guilty.

Best of all? Just like voting, it's FREE! by Megan Seling

The time has come! It is officially Primary Election season. The ballots have been sent out, the candidates have been interviewed and researched, and the endorsements have been pored over and debated, and now it's time to vote! But before you cast that ballot, you have one more level of due diligence to conquer: You must see how well your candidate of choice can perform under the pressure of our annual Candidate Survivor competition!

Join The Stranger and the Washington Bus Education Fund at Neumos Thursday night to get one last look at your favorite (and least favorite) candidates as we subject them to a D&D-themed night of probing questions, charisma-based tasks, and, of course, lip syncing. 

Just looked at this impressive lineup of confirmed candidates:

Seattle Mayoral Candidates: Katie Wilson! Ry Armstrong!
Seattle City Attorney: Rory O’Sullivan! Erika Evans!
Seattle D9: Dionne Foster!
Seattle D8: Alexis Mercedes Rinck! Ray Rogers!
Seattle D2: Adonis Duckworth! Eddie Lin! Jeanie Chunn!

Will Duckworth show off with some skateboard tricks? Will Rinck bring Saint Rat? Will Katie Wilson's housing plans hold up in front of a live audience? Will Bruce Harrell crash the party and pound his fist on the table and stomp his feet like a petulant child? There's only one way to find out!

Aleksa Manila is hosting the festivities, and members of The Stranger's Election Control Board and the Washington Bus will be on hand to ensure participants don't weasle out of any hard-hitting questions.

Plus: If you show up in your best D&D-inspired costume, you'll be entered in a raffle to win two passes to GeekGirlCon! 

Best of all? Just like voting, it's FREE! Just RSVP here to claim your spot.

Chris Fleming performs at Neptune July 27. by Vivian McCall

I presented comedian Chris Fleming with a theory. When he answered the phone for our interview ahead of his performances in Seattle, I proposed that his comedy is all about discussing gender in an absurd way. He has a bit about the snacks at Trader Joe’s that only women can see, and another about his sixth sense for when a restaurant is owned by brothers. Fleming broke through on YouTube with his character Gayle Waters-Waters, a high-strung, WASPy suburbanite from the fictional Northbread, Massachusetts, who is crushed, daily, by the weight of expectation in her life.

Most gendered comedy is essentially: Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, our differences are irreconcilable, so why try? Fleming, who uses any pronouns, pokes fun at the absurdity of gender. He identifies the odd things about men and women, but doesn’t chastise them for those qualities, because they’re not entirely responsible for them. 

Fleming lives for absurdity. In his stand-up, he bounds across the stage like a deer on the highway. He writes songs about being trapped in conversation with “wildly unlikeable guys” and his relationship with a gray-haired tax preparer he’s nicknamed Sick Jan because she always has a cold. He has a skit about a strange creature named DePiglio that’s friends with everyone, but seems to be hunting him. It’s bizarre. It’s the kind of joke you want to explain to your friends, but look like a fool when you try. 

But when Fleming delivers these hyper-specific jokes, they kill, because they somehow make absolute, perfect sense. We’re all caught up in a web of expectation, all acting. It's so integral to our existence that absurdity is a fantastic tool to examine it.

By the end of our conversation, I still wasn’t sure if my theory was right, exactly, but he was amused.

Am I projecting?

Oh, man. It's so great when eloquent people like yourself attach really favorable things to ultimately what are just very manic gut impulses that I feel and blurt out. I really appreciate that read on it, because there's a part of me that thinks a lot of what I do is: If you say things with the right conviction, you can get laughs in several ways, right? Some of it's like, “Why is this person saying this?” Another is like, “Well, if a person is saying it into a mic, then that must be true.” And then there's also this, “Oh, there’s this really eccentric traveling person decreeing something before getting carted off to the bin.” Whatever lands on any of those three levels, I'm thrilled with. But I think what you're giving it is incredibly favorable. And please, please give a eulogy at my wake.

Well, you'll never die. When you talk about those three levels, is that by design or just how you think your jokes work?

I'm totally riffing. I mean, so much of comedy is survival. It's like putting anything in the cannon. Was it World War I when they had to turn tires into bullets or something? That's how I view it. We're only given so many tools, and whatever gets us through onstage we gotta use and just hope for the best. I think that I have the fortune of a connection with my audience, who have engaged with the work for so long, who understand me. But then there's also the times where I have to perform for people who don't see me and don't have the interest or nuance or curiosity. That is when the other levels come into play. I luckily feel a soul connection and deep, deep sense of being held by my audiences. It's like the best feeling in the world.

When you’re performing for people who don't know what you're about, how differently do the jokes land? 

Oh, oh, oh, it can be such a bloodbath. I mean, you wouldn't believe the extremes. It can be literally like burn the witch. I mean, I had to perform, or I got to perform, for big crowds that weren't my own quite recently, and they wanted to kill me. They absolutely wanted to kill me. It makes being seen by crowds that do see you so much better. I mean, trust me, it can be hell to completely shit up there, but then it clarifies what you want to do. Tourist audiences and whatever can, I think, navigate a lot of performance artists to the middle to survive. I think that it's way better to gamble on what you truly want to do and to occasionally completely bomb, than it is to self-correct to appease people you would just see at the airport.

Did it take a long time to develop a thick skin?

Oh, I don't have a thick skin.

So it's devastating every time?

It stays in my spine. It is literally posture changing. I have a theory that after a terrible show, dogs bark at me, like Damien the Omen.

This is like epigenetic damage.

Yeah, my grandkids are gonna wake up and feel how horribly I bombed in San Diego, the San Diego Civic Center. They're gonna feel that and not know what it is.

How quickly does an audience turn?

In my twilight years, I have no interest in winning a crowd over. At this particular show, before I even grabbed the mic, someone yelled, “Let's go Weird Al!” And I was like, “You know what? Fuck this. Fuck this.” I'm going to do two songs that you're gonna hate, and so I don't have to hear you, we're gonna make the music so loud, and I'm just gonna kind of stare at the lights so I don't have to engage. You know immediately, you know immediately.

You have this particular way of talking about social situations where you feel out of place to the point that it surpasses discomfort and almost becomes fun. 

Divine. It’s divine.

I am a generally outgoing person who tends to stick my foot in my mouth. Are you an uncomfortable person who deals with your discomfort through comedy, or are you the kind of person who takes an awkward situation and hams it up because, at that point, why not?

I'm highly, highly sensitive to uncomfortable situations. I have this police scanner. I'm very seldom in my own experience. I'm kind of in the experience of everyone else in the room. When I'm talking about something that is very uncomfortable, that's me trying to process something and turn it into a victory so that I can just be rid of it. Be rid of the haunting of it. But in terms of comfort, I am definitely a really anxious person. And I think the way that I try to approach comedy in general, and did at a young age, is that I'm very keen to try to soothe people socially.

Why do you think you do that?

Well, I think it's how I grew up. I think it's the environment in which I grew up was needing to regulate people in my community [laughs]. I was taken in by the jocks, all the soccer players, as a really young child. I think they found me comforting. I think that was my role for a long time, and still is, if that makes sense.

It does. I'm a trans woman, and growing up, a lot of guys like that also took me in. I think they found the energy almost … confusing or perplexing. But it's a huge breath of fresh air for them because they know you’re not going to dunk on them if they say something a little vulnerable. They feel so happy that somebody is listening to them, you know.

Exactly, exactly. I grew up with women, so the way I was raised, masculinity was something to be embarrassed about, so I never had a dog in that fight. That's why you get a lot of one-on-one time with those guys, because they can let their hair down.

Totally.

Everybody has that. Everyone's got the masculine and the feminine in them.

You have that whole story about going to Dane Cook’s Super Bowl party where you tell jokes about his house looking like a Crate & Barrel that don't land, where you're sitting on Bill Burr’s armrest like a dog. It’s funny because, by the time there is a football and you’re going to throw it around, the audience is shrieking. Just because they see this not-so-masculine person in this typically masculine situation. It looks like a car crash to them.

That is a situation where I fully panicked when I saw that ball come out, and then when my friend Gary put me out of my misery and said, “Chrissy, you better get out of here.”

Was it a sweet release?

Such a sweet release.

Has Dane Cook heard that bit?

Yes, and he thinks it's funny. And I'm so relieved because—Dane Cook. A lot of people say a lot of stuff about Dane Cook. Dane Cook was like a theater artist when he was starting out. He brought a theatricality to the stage that hadn't been done. I have the utmost respect for his stage work.

His work came out when I was pretty young. I think my cousins showed it to me in elementary school. I remember sitting in the car with them and listening to that joke about swimming in a pool and how trying to come up for air under a kid on a raft is like “drowning in the abyss.” The way he screams, the voices he does, the way he jumps around, is incredibly endearing and very, very funny.

That's like, that is a guy who bled out for his work, and I find that to be so inspiring.

What I like about that story, and a lot of stories you tell, is that you’re never criticizing men for enjoying a masculine activity, or like you're not making fun of women for certain peculiarities. You're pointing them out and finding this fun absurdity. Everyone's in on the joke. Nobody is “bad.” I think a lot of “gendered” comedy ultimately ends with judgment. Are you consciously avoiding that? Is this just who you are and how you see things?

If you're commenting and observing, you have to be accepting as well. I can get so bitchy and petty, but I think that that's also sometimes part of the bit. But I do think at the base level, I really do believe, especially if you're doing an impersonation, there has to be a love for the subject.

Gayle is a character that, obviously, people identify with you. The first time I saw that, I was like: That is my mother. It was so close to how she behaved when we had guests coming. But Gayle is not the joke. The joke is the expectations on Gayle. The weight of the world on a mother who has to prepare for company. And I never saw my mom acting that way as an overreaction ever again. I understood her better. And I mean that sincerely.

And this is why I get so pissed when people … people make that video all the time now. You know, guys in the South are putting on, like, a wig and doing it in the most tacky way. They redo “COMPANY IS COMING,” specifically that scene in Gayle. If you're going to do that, you have to realize there’s a vulnerability to what Gayle is going through. She's terrified. What's funny about that is the fear that she's having. It's not anger, it's fear she's trying to route. That scream is agony, it's terror, and I had to tap into my anxieties for that. And it's like, you see where someone's coming from, you don't ridicule it. You try to do it to show them why it's funny that they're going through that, to maybe lighten the experience, you know, because a lot of those direct quotes were just from my mom.

Did it feel good to tap into that anxiety?

Oh my God. Oh my god. Gayle is therapy, completely. Gayle is such therapy, especially because my mom and I were doing it together. She played the antagonist in Gayle. For her to be able to laugh at these things, we really grew together and got over a lot of shit. It felt incredible to tap into that. To give a character to your emotions that you don't feel comfortable expressing—highly recommend.

You do a lot of things. Skits. Stand-up. I like your songs, which I think are great in a real way. Is it a serious pursuit for you?

“Sick Jan” and “Boba Manifesto,” those I made with my friend Brian Heveron-Smith, who was a classically trained musician, who's incredible. And lately, I've been doing my own instrumentals where I play synths and I have a drum machine that I use. It's really sloppy and really impulsive, what I do, but oh, God, I love doing it so much. I'm so disorganized that [the instrumentals] just kind of live on my desktop, and I just forget about them. But it's the same type of thing as using a character to tap into emotions that you're not comfortable expressing. Language and movement can be limiting. Being able to put something in a song and then have the song run counter to the melody, I think, is always really nice. I

started doing instrumentals around the end of Gayle, because Brian and I did all the music for Gayle together. This was back when I was still drinking, but we were drinking some Mike's Hard Lemonade, and then maybe [we’d do some] instrumentals. That was the one area of creativity where we allowed a little bit of alcohol. We would never write words with the booze, but the instrumentals and Mike's Hard, I think, went really beautifully together.

Your song “W.U.G.” (which stands for Wildly Unlikeable Guy) released me from a certain kind of anxiety. And when I am stuck talking to some horrible person, I think of it.

I'm so happy to hear that, I think of that concept too. A lot.

Is it based on one particular guy?

Oh yeah, oh yeah, you bet it was.

I scanned your social media for all the times you performed in Seattle over the years. In 2014, you posted a picture with a goat. The next time, you went on local television.

Did we get a goat in Seattle? Holy shit, that must have been a Gayle show. We got local animals like horses and stuff for Gayle because that was like a stage play.

What do you think about this place? Like you, I lived east of here most of my life and find West Coast cities kind of perplexing. The people do not act in ways that I understand.

I would recommend people experience both coasts at some point in their lives, because, you know, the East Coast is all about inhaling, and the West Coast is all about exhaling. I love Seattle. Oh, my God. A lot of people that I've been worried about end up in Seattle, and I go, “Okay, good, they’re in Seattle now.” 

The tender arms of the city, we will enfold them.

You see the most recent season of The Last of Us?

I haven’t seen it yet, but I know things are not particularly right in the world of The Last of Us and assume it’s pretty much the same in its Seattle.

There's a great quote where someone yells, like, “What the fuck is going on in Seattle?”

I've actually noticed a lot of people in my life saying that, and now I know where it came from. So thank you for unlocking something for me.

I seldom love TV writing, but that … did they really just set the show in Seattle just for that one line? I love that pettiness.

I feel like any zombie show is interesting for a couple episodes, because you're sort of introduced to the mechanisms of the zombies. Do these guys run? I guess the more infected they are, like, their heads split open—that's pretty cool. But then after a while, it sort of becomes a little bit video-game-y. And then there's always a flip where it's like, are people just as bad as the zombies? And the answer is always yes.

It’s funny when it gets to a point where you get bored by seeing zombies. I feel so bad for the special effects people who put so much work into these, like [Chris zombie moans] and by, like, the 15th zombie scene, you're like, “Yeahhhhh. Well, there they are.”

After a while, you get confident that you could probably deal with this.

My answer to any type of thing is to dig a hole and then hide in the hole. That's where my head goes anytime there's a catastrophe.

That's pretty good. If people don't know you're in the hole, then you're good. If people find the hole, you are in a lot of trouble.

Oh, you're so fucked.

Chris Fleming performs two shows at The Moore Theater July 27. 

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup. by Hannah Murphy Winter

Good Morning! The weather is goddamn beautiful—highs in the 80s and sunny—which is a delightful contrast to everything you’re about to read.

Let’s do the news.

(If you get to the end, there’s some butt jokes, as a treat.)

Trump Is Afraid of Teachers: Last week, ICE arrested and detained Fernando Rocha, a theater manager at Juanita High School in Kirkland. His lawyer told the Seattle Times that Rocha entered the US on a tourist visa in 2018, and before it expired, he applied for asylum. The case is still pending. Meanwhile, ICE Seattle claimed on Twitter that Rocha was wanted in Brazil for theft, a claim that his family in Brazil called “outlandish.” 

Harrell Wants to Watch You Stumble Home Drunk: Or sunbathe in Cal Anderson. Or go to high school. Last week, Harrell and SPD Chief Shon Barnes claimed that the city’s pilot program for their Real Time Crime Center was a roaring success (ok, Batman). The surveillance program put CCTV cameras along Aurora Avenue North, the downtown Third Avenue corridor, and the Chinatown-International District, and integrated them with their favorite new Automated License Plate Readers into a super secret data center (it’s SPD headquarters). Barnes says they’ve assisted in 90 active criminal investigations in 60 days, but didn’t say what the investigations were (we asked and we’ll report back). Now, Harrell wants to do the same in Cal Anderson, the Capitol Hill Night Life District, and Garfield High School. What could go wrong?

Serial Rapist Sentenced in Everett: Christian Sayre, a former Everett bar owner, was sentenced to 109 years for 16 counts of second-degree rape, third-degree rape of a child, indecent liberties, and possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Prosecutors say Sayre used his bar in Everett as a staging ground to prey on his victims.  Everett Police Chief John DeRousse said in a statement that it was “one of the most complex and disturbing cases” the department has handled. Sayre’s attorney asked that he get 17 and a half years. The prosecutors asked for 133. Judge Millie Judge (not a typo) went with 109, citing the length and breadth of Sayre’s crimes.

WA Child Welfare Isn’t So Well: According to the office that oversees the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, critical injuries for kids in the state’s welfare system took a huge jump in the first half of this year. By the end of June, at least 92 children had died or nearly died, up from 78 in the first six months of 2024. Some Republicans are trying to blame the bipartisan Keep Families Together Act, but fentanyl is the likelier culprit. So far this year, 20 of the cases involving kids under 4 years old were caused by accidental fentanyl exposure.

Blue Angel Blues: We’re approaching the season when literal fighter jets swoop around our city like a playground, and some Seattleites are over it. The Airshow Climate Action coalition put up a new billboard on Rainier Ave that reads: “SAY NO TO BLUE ANGELS.” Think of the rescue dogs! Think of the military trauma! Or think of the 670 tons of carbon emissions they blow through in one weekend.

Crunching Some Numbers: We’re well into Primary Election Season, so we at The Stranger decided to take another look at the money Katie Wilson and Bruce Harrell have taken in. As we’ve reported before, the two are neck and neck in fundraising, but we noticed a couple key differences. First, almost $60,000 of Harrell’s donations came from outside of Seattle (the city he’d like to keep governing), compared to Wilson’s $7,207. And among his donors, 19 of them are CEOs. (The only time “chief” comes up in Katie’s donor list is a Chief Policy and Strategy Officer for the Highline School District.)

I’m just gonna put this thread from Mark Ostrow here.

 

Ok the mayor is speaking. “I embrace the wealthy.”

[image or embed]

— Qagggy! (@qagggy.bsky.social) July 22, 2025 at 6:26 PM

 

A Little Brain Break: In lighter news, we sent Stranger Staff Writer Audrey Vann, a non-Katy Perry fan, to Monday’s Katy Perry concert at Climate Pledge. She learned a lot. “Before winning me over with an emotional performance of ‘Pearl,’ she had lost me with a megachurch-style sermon about her space voyage,” Vann writes. “She had long dreamed of going to space, she said, and despite her dreams being dismissed, she feels that she ultimately ‘manifested’ her trip on Blue Origin. ‘Part of me did it so that I could let go of any last bit of fear that I had, because I knew that was when my life would begin again,’ she said, tearing up. ‘And to any other girl that has a dream, you go and do it!’ This drew attention to a major discrepancy in her brand regarding female empowerment—she preaches and sings about overcoming adversity (see: ‘Roar and ‘Rise’), but the things she has overcome in her life are deeply unrelatable.” 

Plus, we got a new list of Katyisms out of the deal:

“I’m a Scorpio, bitch!”
“Is the internet real, or is this what’s real?”
“I dedicate [‘I Kissed A Girl’] to the community—the ones who raised me, the ones that called me out, and the ones that educated me, and for all the little girls in between like myself.”
“Love is love! It’s not a gender, it’s a frequency, so tap into it, baby!”
“What’s up, Amazon family?”

And if you still need a breath before we get into national and international news, spend some time in a basement with The Stranger’s Charles Mudede.

Fascism Is Tacky: The administration that populates its Instagram feed with AI-generated images of eagles, money, and the DJT Jerk Off Dance just withdrew from UNESCO, the UN’s cultural agency. This is the second time in as many terms that Trump has pulled us out of the organization. In a comment to the New York Times, a State Department spokesperson accused UNESCO of promoting “divisive social and cultural causes” (Palestinians’ right to exist, mostly) and maintaining an “outsized focus on the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, a globalist, ideological agenda” at odds “with our America First foreign policy.” Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to rename the Kennedy Center’s Opera House after Melania.

Apparently this is art now.

No Charges for Bad Cops: You’ve probably seen the video already. Sheriff’s officers in Jacksonville, Florida, pulled William Anthony McNeil Jr. over for not having his headlights on and not wearing a seatbelt. When McNeal questioned why he was pulled over and refused to get out of the car, an officer smashed his window, punched him in the face, wrestled him out of the car, punched him again, and forced him to the ground while shouting “Stop resisting!” Prosecutors say that the officers didn’t break the law, and the Sheriff’s office is still investigating to see if any internal policies were violated. Sheriff T.K. Waters said the cellphone video doesn’t tell the full story. “Cameras can only capture what can be seen and heard,” he said at a news conference Monday. “So much context and depth are absent from recorded footage because a camera simply cannot capture what is known to the people depicted in it.” Don’t worry, T.K., it captured the racism just fine.

Israel Strikes WHO Site: Israel attacked a World Health Organization’s site in central Gaza, an area that Israel has largely avoided because it believed Israeli hostages were being held there. Israel doesn’t deny raiding the facility but said any “suspects” had been treated “in accordance with international law.” Whatever the fuck that means at this point.

Don’t Put That Up There: A Tokyo-based designer made a butt plug bottle with an egg-shaped, rounded bottom designed to nestle into the sand on the beach, and presented it at the 2nd International Conference on Design for Ocean Environments, which sounds very respectable. But as Mathew Rodriguez wrote for Them: “Murphy’s law tells us that what can go wrong will go wrong. Godwin’s law says that any online discussion will eventually devolve into one person comparing the other to a Nazi. To this esteemed list, let me add Gere’s law, named, of course, after the long-debunked but persistent myth that actor Richard Gere once stuck a gerbil up his butt: If it looks like someone can put it up their butt, they’ll want to.”

 

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Never Say Die: John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne died yesterday at 76, just two weeks after playing Black Sabbath’s farewell show.