Jollibee, Pierogi, and Japanese-American Comfort Food

by EverOut Staff

Picnic weather is here, and two new fried chicken spots have arrived for your outdoor repast: Shaq’s Big Chicken in Shoreline and the highly anticipated Rainier Valley location of Jollibee. Plus, learn about Saint Bread co-owner Yasuaki Saito’s exciting upcoming project in Wallingford. For more ideas, check out our food and drink guide.
NEW OPENINGS 

Big Chicken
According to a press release. this fried chicken joint owned by none other than basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal opened a new outpost in Shoreline on May 31. The spot serves specialty sandwiches, such as the “M.D.E. Chicken” (“Shaq Sauce,” chicken breast, and bread-and-butter pickles) and the “Uncle Jerome” (Nashville hot chicken, mayo, and pickles).
Shoreline

The Stranger

TRANSlations’ in-person screenings are June 7-8 with online screenings June 6-9.

by Vivian McCall

Seattle’s TRANSlations, one of only nine trans film festivals in the world, begins screening films in person today.

Features and shorts from around the globe screen at Ark Lodge Cinema, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Beacon today and tomorrow, and attendees have the option to stream films through Sunday.

Produced by Three Dollar Bill Cinema, the festival started as part of a trans conference in Seattle 19 years ago. Anto(n) Astudillo, a New York-based trans filmmaker and curator from Chile who directed the festival, said that back in 2006, TRANSlations screened about 30 films; this year there are more than 70.

To prepare for TRANSlations, Astudillo and volunteers formed a screening committee to sift through the many entries, discussing what films made them feel good, and which did not.

“We went there because not only do we want to make films, show films, and have a community to talk about those things, but we want to feel good about who we are and how it’s presented,” he said. “There’s so much talk about misrepresentation—we don’t want that anymore, and everyone’s ready for new narratives. And everyone’s ready for the creative imagination in the community.”

Astudillo and the volunteers decided to focus on short films this year, which made up the bulk of submissions. That’s not surprising, as trans people, let alone trans filmmakers, don’t have gobs of money to throw around because of systemic poverty, discrimination, and barriers to the film industry. It follows that people with little funding will find creative solutions and produce shorter films. 

Astudillo said they wanted to use the festival programming to platform people who wouldn’t be platformed elsewhere and also offer panels to create a space for the community to discuss what they meant to them. Amid a rising tide of anti-trans sentiment and legislation restricting the civil rights of trans people, Astudillo said the screening committee felt strongly about picking films that offered a response.

There’s WE ARE HER, short films about notable trans women from past and present; LETTING GO & LETTING IN, a collection of stories focused on young people and family; and DANCING MAKES US BRAVE, a program that includes Jude Dennis’s diary film 002 Heresy, which documents a trans woman’s life in the American South, and Daisy: Prophet of the Apocalypse, Irish filmmaker Venus Patel’s story of a radical trans preacher prophesying salvation for anyone who renounces heterosexuality. A few other program highlights include shorts by First Nations trans filmmakers, which were selected by TILDE, an international trans film festival in Melbourne, Australia. 

Willow Skye-Biggs’s experimental fantasy film Dragonfly, makes its festival debut at the Ark Lodge tomorrow night, and another film of hers called Vapor Trails, a science-fiction love story between two trans women that previously played at festivals in London, Portland, Stockholm, and NewFest in New York (which Astudillo also curates), also plays Saturday.

Like many of the filmmakers in TRANSlations, Skye-Biggs is an industry outsider whose work has been “very independent” and shoestring. Most of her projects haven’t had a clear budget, and most of the money has come from local arts grants. (To make Dragonfly, Salt Lake Arts Council and National Endowment of the Arts gave her $15,000, which was “huge.”) For life and film, she depends on government subsidies.

Skye-Biggs lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, a state that has passed some of the most severe anti-trans bills in the county, including a law that pushes trans people from bathrooms and locker rooms on government property. Last weekend, a friend of hers left the state to escape constant worry over this law.

Skye-Biggs said her next project is the first thing she’s written since the laws have gone into effect. She weighed whether the characters in her next project needed to be trans or whether the film needed to be about transness at all. Right now, it does. Whether it is important to make more politically direct films at this moment, she has no idea.

“I also resent sometimes feeling those expectations and I know other people who resent feeling those expectations,” she said. “And sometimes, I think we just do our best.”

TRANSlations’ in-person screenings are June 7-8 with online screenings June 6-9. See the full schedule and get tickets at threedollarbillcinema.org/translations.

The Stranger

The best new music to hit Dave Segal’s inbox this week.

by Dave Segal

J.R.C.G., “Dogear” (Sub Pop)

It’s always heart-warming when Sub Pop, Seattle’s most famous record label, signs an up-and-coming artist from the region. This the company’s done once more with Tacoma’s J.R.C.G., the combative band that sprang out of Dreamdecay and which is led by powerhouse drummer/vocalist Justin R. Cruz Gallego.

With 2021’s Ajo Sunshine (on John Dwyer’s Castle Face label), J.R.C.G. established themselves as an inventive and intense rock unit, allergic to cliché and radiating so much nihilistic energy that it flipped over into a strange kind of uplift. That rare feat surfaced when they opened for UK buzz band Dry Cleaning at Neptune Theatre three years ago. In a review of that show on Slog, I wrote that Gallego and company “came across like a mad collab between early-’70s Hawkwind and mid-’80s Swans while still sounding like an urgent response to 21st-century crises.”

J.R.C.G.’s new album, Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra) (out August 2), is no mere retread of past gory glories. Electronic elements play a much bigger role here, and there’s also a stronger emphasis on non-rock rhythms. In the press release, Gallego notes, “I grew up in punk and DIY subcultures, but before that I had Latin music playing in the background through my childhood and every phase of adolescence. It was surprisingly natural to incorporate. I realized I wanted to go deeper into these rhythms. I wanted to make a record that felt as experimental as much as it felt from the perspective of a Latino. When I got a glimmer of that possibility, it felt exciting.”

You can hear this on the second song, “34,” which features a kind of chunky funk rhythm slapping over piercing synth drones, followed by a rococo guitar solo Zappa-ing all over the beats. Gallego’s vocals are zoned and distressed, like a Pacific Northwest Thom Yorke, but far less enervating. A chaotically noisy electronic coda caps off this shocking new direction for Gallego. Speaking of British singers, “Drummy” finds Gallego nearly out-glumming Robert Smith, while mercifully being much less whiny. Justin’s effect is more like a stunned resignation. 

The surprises continue on “Liv,” an odd electronic fugue with a slowed, muted Apache beat. Then it suddenly accelerates and ascends into a bongo-fueled party jam, as if Gallego’s MDMA just kicked in while in the studio. A very cool switcheroo. “Cholla Beat”—the most straight-ahead rocker here—could be the album’s second single. It’s a pugnacious, dark-hearted growler with exciting guitar shrapnel and synth surges triggering adrenaline spikes. (“Cholla” means cactus in Spanish and is also equivalent to the English slang term “noggin.”)

Grim Iconic‘s first single, “Dogear,” begins with a steamrolling, dynamite funk rhythm somewhere between NYC party-starters Konk and Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime.” The melody splits the difference between lament and celebration; it sounds like an anthem’s struggling to emerge from a deep pit of angst. Play it often enough and you’ll begin to feel invincible.

“World i” is a dazed bruiser shot through with aching, arcing synth wails and anchored by a methodical, muscular rhythm not unlike that in Can’s “Yoo Doo Right.” A heroically forlorn sax spirals out of the guttural churn, followed by anguished guitar feedback squalls, until all of the elements build into a frenzied, unstoppable force—a fantastic way to end an album. 

J.R.C.G. performs August 3 at Clock-Out Lounge. 

Louis Cole, “Life” (Brainfeeder)

Keeping with the theme of exceptional drummers, let’s talk about Louis Cole. Recording for Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label, Cole has proved himself to be not just a phenomenal timekeeper, but also a deft writer and arranger of songs that excitingly fuse jazz, funk, and electronica. He also possesses one of the most compelling falsettos in the biz. Much like his musical polymath brethren Jamie Lidell and Jeremy Ellis, Cole’s got soul for days (and nights). 

Whereas Cole’s last album, 2022’s Quality Over Opinion, abounds with stripped-down party bangers to help you strip down, his fifth album, nothing (out August 9), seems destined to revel in glorious symphonic excess, judging by its first two singles. For this record, Cole’s enlisted Metropole Orkest and Grammy-winning composer/conductor Jules Buckley to bulk up his compositions. 

The album’s first single, “Things Will Fall Apart,” offers spacey, orchestral funk with Cole singing in his best Daryl Hall voice. The music’s expansive and menacing in that patented “Barry Adamson scoring a fake James Bond film” way. Hearing pessimistic lyrics sweetly crooned in a massive-sounding opus such as this makes for some nice cognitive dissonance.

nothing‘s second single, “Life,” starts out with an homage to Bernard Herrmann’s stabbing strings motif from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho before shifting into an ever-soaring orchestral jazz-funk rave-up for the ages. David Binney‘s sax solo lends jazz fire while Sam Wilkes‘s fleet-fingered bass channels Jaco Pastorius and Squarepusher for maniacal fusionoid propulsion. Throughout, Cole doles out lightning-quick, intricate beats while trading vocals with a dulcet female choir—including his creative foil Genevieve Artadi—whose delivery is comically stoic. The lyrics appear to have a “seize the day” gist, which complements the inspirational gush of creativity. Watch the video below—in which the musicians wear skeleton suits to drive home the “be here now” theme—to really appreciate the immaculate timing, tight arranging, and phenomenal musicianship going down here. 

The Stranger

Things Are Heating Up For Cannabis This Summer

It seems it will be an important season since things are heating up for cannabis this summer

The post Things Are Heating Up For Cannabis This Summer appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

The Fresh Toast

Can Cannabis Cool Your Heat Dome Misery

Records are being set for high temperatures – but can cannabis cool your heat dome misery?

The post Can Cannabis Cool Your Heat Dome Misery appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

The Fresh Toast

Cool Ice Cream Cocktails For A Heat Dome

Caught in the crazy heat? Here are some cool ice cream cocktails for a heat dome happy hour!

The post Cool Ice Cream Cocktails For A Heat Dome appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

The Fresh Toast

Seattle Dragon Boat Festival, Indigenous People Festival, and More Cheap & Easy Events Under $15

by EverOut Staff

This weekend’s forecast is sunny with a sprinkling of festivals—read on to see what strikes your fancy below, from the Seattle Dragon Boat Festival to the Indigenous People Festival and from Georgetown Carnival to Pierogi Fest. For more ideas, check out our guide to the top events of the week.

FRIDAY
FILM

Purple Rain
I recommend showing up in your most loud-and-proud ’80s threads (a second-hand raspberry beret, perhaps?) to celebrate the High Priest of Pop at this sparkly screening of Purple Rain, which also celebrates Prince’s would-be 65th birthday. About the film, former Stranger writer Angela Garbes wrote: “Prince made me feel weird, mostly because he reminded me of God. My brothers and I watched silently in our den—enraptured and confused—until my mother walked in at the exact moment Apollonia peeled off her leather jacket to reveal her beautiful bare breasts. The movie was abruptly shut off, though soon after I found a way to watch it and became forever enthralled by Prince’s music, body, and movements. Prince was, in fact, a sexy MF. But there was always something transcendent and divine about his eroticism. He taught me sex wasn’t filthy. At its best, it’s generous and holy.” LINDSAY COSTELLO
(SIFF Cinema Egyptian, Capitol Hill, $14.50-$15.50)

The Stranger

The Stranger’s morning news roundup.

by Nathalie Graham

17-year-old dead after shooting outside Garfield: A lunchtime shooting in the Garfield High School parking lot struck a student multiple times in the chest and abdomen. After being transported to Harborview Medical Center, the student later died from his injuries. According to police, the student attempted to break up a fight and then his assailant pulled a gun on him, shooting him at close range. This is only the latest in shootings around Garfield in the last calendar year. In March, a bullet struck a girl waiting for her bus outside the school. In one instance last October and several times last June, shootings by the school, which did not involve students, put Garfield and its community on high alert. Police are still searching for the suspect in Thursday’s shooting, who they believe to be high-school aged. Garfield will not have classes on Friday or Monday due to Thursday’s events. Friday happens to be Gun Violence Awareness Day. 

Dave Reichert’s coy little nod: The former King County Sheriff and current Republican candidate for governor has avoided saying publicly whether or not he’ll vote for Donald Trump for president, since he wants to capture undecided moderates but also Republicans who would see not voting for Trump as party betrayal. Reichert gave his answer at a private Republican event back in March. When asked if he’d vote for Trump, he said Trump has nicknamed him “Sheriff,” and that he has a signed MAGA hat at home, and then he nodded. A Democratic operative in the audience recorded Reichert’s statements and reported the nod, which the Seattle Times confirmed with other people who were present. Bob Ferguson’s campaign for governor sent the recording to the Times. “Behind closed doors, Dave Reichert unmasks who he really is—just another MAGA hat wearing Trump lover,” Ferguson said. 

Good news for mountain lovers: All you sick fucks who love Mount Rainier are going to be so jazzed these next few days. 

Yes, it is.
We all know the question. More mountain viewing the next couple of days with highs in the mid 70s to lower 80s for the interior. #wawx pic.twitter.com/k3vLOWh0cf

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) June 7, 2024

No Pride flag for Newcastle: The city council for the suburb of Bellevue and Seattle voted 4-3 Tuesday to not raise a Pride flag for the month of June. Mayor Robert Clark essentially argued that the City’s support for Pride would disservice bigots. And, besides, the American flag is already flying, which is the “most unifying symbol in the history of the world,” he said. “That’s diverse enough for me. That includes everybody in the community, everybody. Nobody is left out with the American flag.” Clark also said that raising the Pride flag would lead to a slippery slope of having to raise other flags, such as MAGA flags or Hamas flags. Quite the cognitive leap to connect Pride, a celebration of LGBTQIA+ people’s existence, with extreme politics. 

Get ready for the newest Seattle Trader Joe’s: According to permit plans, the chain’s newest store will be in Greenwood in the bottom floor of an apartment building at Greenwood Avenue North and North 87th Street. 

Bye, Pat Sajak: The Wheel of Fortune legend is retiring after 41 years of telling people to spin the wheel. Friday’s episode will be his last. And, like, good. Take a break, Pat. Let your cheeks rest after 41 years of smiling that perpetual game show smile. Ryan Seacrest will succeed Pat as Wheel‘s host. 

Good for them: A Seattle couple, Larry R. Dalton and Nicole A. Boand, donated $10 million to the University of Washington School of Nursing. Dalton is a former UW chemistry professor and Boand is a former registered nurse. Look, we have 54,200 millionaires in this city, I think all of them should be funneling some of those millions back into their community, especially if the city or the state refuses to tax their wealth. 

I will take credit for this: Sound Transit finally (mostly) fixed its elevator/escalator breakdown problems. Logically, I know they were probably working on the issue before I wrote about it, but I’m going to inflate the importance of the appropriately dramatic exposé on broken escalators I wrote back in 2018 and say that journalism pressured them into fixing this. 

Saw some incredible data at @SoundTransit Rider Experience Committee just now. Over the past few years, the number of hours that elevators and escalators are out of service in the light rail system have plummeted from 17,100 hours/month to 2,500/month. Really great trend. pic.twitter.com/uMf8gOQ2Aw

— Girmay Zahilay (@GirmayZahilay) June 6, 2024

College essay material: Three boys—two brothers and their cousin—discovered fossilized remains of a young Tyrannosaurus rex while hiking in North Dakota’s Badlands. Young T-rex fossils are rare finds. See what happens when you put your phones away, kids? 

Get your ass to jail, Steve: Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon needs to start serving a four-month sentence by July 1. Bannon defied a House committee’s subpoena for an investigation into the Jan 6 insurrection, and he was convicted by a federal judge Thursday for contempt of Congress. Bannon is not going quietly. He will likely “seek a stay of the judge’s order,” the Associated Press reported. He told reporters, “There’s not a prison built or jail built that will ever shut me up.”

Jobs: Hey, I know you can’t get hired anywhere even though you’ve applied to 1,000 jobs on Indeed, but the jobs report is actually better than forecasted. Employers added what CNN has dubbed “a blockbuster” number of jobs last month—272,000 of them—and unemployment dropped from 4% to 3.9%.

Report Finds Encouraging Rise In Jobs That Involve Torturing Somebody https://t.co/uezS0mPDdC

— The Onion (@TheOnion) June 7, 2024

More comeuppance for bad guys: Alex Jones finally agreed to liquidate his assets so that he can start paying back the families of the Sandy Hook massacre who he spread lies about and to whom he owes a cool $1.5 billion in damages for his defamatory comments. Jones has yet to pay the families any money despite being found liable in 2022. With this liquidation of assets, Jones will no longer own InfoWars, his conspiracy theory empire. 

The US is doing well in the *checks notes* cricket World Cup? The USA’s cricket team just upset the cricket powerhouse Pakistan in this year’s Twenty20 World Cup. That’s all I’ll say about that because I don’t know anything else about cricket despite learning the rules in middle school gym class and watching the Vox Explained episode on the sport multiple times. 

Bird flu watch: Bird flu has made its way into cows. Alarming! Many of the infected cows—though we don’t know the exact number—have died from bird flu infections or have been slaughtered after they did not recover from bird flu symptoms. Even more alarming! In South Dakota on a 1,700-cow dairy farm, 12 infected cows died after being infected, and the farmer slaughtered another 12. A Michigan farm killed 10% of its 200 infected cows after they didn’t recover. Michigan has the most cow infections and is where two of three human dairy workers contracted bird flu.

ICYMI: My newest “Play Date” column came out, and this time it’s also in print! Sexy! I learned how to cheerlead for this one.

Isn’t this the land of the free? A Phish fan has been banned from the Las Vegas Sphere after he filmed what he dubbed the first ever bong rip inside the venue. This pioneer, named Acid Fartz, will now not be able to attend this summer’s Dead & Company show at the Sphere. Free Acid Fartz! Let him drop acid at the Dead show at the Sphere! Hot box the sphere with a thousand bong rips until Acid Fartz’s good name is cleared, damn it. 

A song for your Friday: Charli XCX’s new album, Brat, just came out. Here’s a song off of there. I can’t tell how much I like it yet, but some albums are growers not showers. 

The Stranger

See someone? Say something!

by Anonymous

Beautiful man at LCD Soundsystem show

at the end of the 5/17 LCD Soundsystem show you made your way through the crowd, before leaving you touched my shoulder and said ‘beautiful man’ ❤️

Paper Bag Helmet

I saw you riding your bike down Pike in the rain with a brown paper bag with eye holes over your head. I admire your ingenuity, did you get home safe?

Sculpture Park with big White Husky

Your dog came and said hi to me, you apologized and I smiled at you. I asked your dog’s name, shanoah I think. Wish you would have asked my number.

Saw you at Ballard Wells Fargo

Your voice — it was warm and kind — made me turn my head. And you looked like you might have been a punk rocker 40 years ago, like me!

Quick bite at Crown Hill Dicks with 🇬🇧 Jeans

You: amazing vtg style w/kids in tow Me: the same except amazing style part up for debate We: should meet up? Discuss style tips? Just grab a bite?

Columbia City 6/1, handsome man outside Geraldine’s/jackalope

You: grey hair, messing with your phone. Me: 40s, blond hair in a ponytail walking a big grey dog. We shared a smile and I wished it was more

Smiles and stripes

You were dancing in your own world at Monkey Loft with blue stripes and smiley face elbow patches. We made eye contact but I was too shy to talk.

Main character femm in the wild

You tore up to the bar on a rented scooter, skidded sideways to a stop, jumped off and ran inside. I’m in love with your main character energy.

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!

The Stranger

Find the best CBD gummies of 2024. Leafly reviewed popular CBD gummies & chose what we think are the top picks for different needs & budget.

The post Leafly’s top 6 CBD gummies of 2024 appeared first on Leafly.

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