Are You Ready To Have Stronger Marijuana
Long weekends are great to change up a routine….sooooo…are you ready to have some stronger marijuana?
The post Are You Ready To Have Stronger Marijuana appeared first on The Fresh Toast.
The Fresh Toast
Blog
Couples Using Cannabis Can Increase Intimacy
Couples Using Cannabis Can Increase Intimacy
Found in the Karma Sutra and used for hundreds of years…couples using cannabis can increase intimacy.
The post Couples Using Cannabis Can Increase Intimacy appeared first on The Fresh Toast.
The Fresh Toast
Science Confirms It Is Important And Marijuana Helps It
Science Confirms It Is Important And Marijuana Helps It
Science confirms it is important and marijuana helps it – laughter truly is the best medicine!
The post Science Confirms It Is Important And Marijuana Helps It appeared first on The Fresh Toast.
The Fresh Toast
The Best Bang for Your Buck Events in Seattle This Memorial Day Weekend: May 24–27, 2024
Northwest Folklife Festival, Big Ass Boombox, and More Cheap & Easy Events Under $15
by EverOut Staff
If there’s anything we love more than the weekend, it’s a looong weekend. Fill your time with fun events that won’t break the bank, from the Northwest Folklife Festival to the Crocodile’s Big Ass Boombox festival and from Honoring Our Black Wall Streets to the Kinda Bookish Zine Festival. For more ideas, check out our guide to the top events of the week and our roundup of restaurants and bars to make the most of your staycation.
FRIDAY
LIVE MUSIC
Girl and Girl Live at Easy Street Records
Rising Aussie rock band Girl and Girl will celebrate the release of their Sub Pop debut, Call a Doctor, with a free in-store performance at beloved West Seattle record shop East Street. If you’re still listening to 2010s indie rock phenoms like Bright Eyes, Phoenix, and the Strokes, then Girl and Girl will be a new favorite—their sound is reminiscent of the aforementioned rockers while maintaining a fresh, urgent, and emotive edge. To guarantee your entry to the show, preorder a copy of the record. AUDREY VANN
(Easy Street Records, Junction, free)
The Stranger
Slog AM: Top UN Court Tells Israel to Cut It Out, Daily Weed Smokers Outpace Daily Drinkers, Chief Diaz’s Defenders Speak Up
The Stranger’s morning news roundup.
by Nathalie Graham
Top UN Court says stop: The United Nation’s International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to immediately stop its military actions in Rafah, the southern Gaza enclave where over one million Palestinians have sought refuge. Israel will likely ignore this order. The ICJ has no way to enforce it. Still, it is a symbolic moment that will widen the gulf between the countries condemning Israel’s actions and those, like the big dumb United States, that continue to stand beside Israel and willfully ignore genocide. More than 35,000 Gazans have been killed in this war so far.
Mary Jane goes mainstream: New numbers show more Americans are smoking weed daily than they are drinking alcohol daily. As of 2022, an estimated 17.7 million people said they smoked weed daily or near-daily, a number that trumped the reported 14.7 million daily alcohol drinkers. Don’t get it twisted, though, alcohol use hasn’t declined in the US; marijuana is just more popular than ever, and people have gotten into the ganja habit. Some more stats for the curious.
Group says legal claims against SPD chief are “mutiny:” A trio of police advocates held a news conference Thursday denouncing a string of legal claims and accusations alleging racial and gender discrimination as well as retribution from the Seattle Police Department and SPD Chief Adrian Diaz. The three women of color, whose names I’ll copy and paste from the Seattle Times, included “Victoria Beach, a Seattle Police Department employee who chairs the department’s African American Community Advisory Council; the Rev. Harriett Walden, founder of Mothers for Police Accountability; and Carmen Martinez, a South Park youth advocate and the Latino advisory liaison with the Police Department.” Hosting the news conference because Diaz can’t “speak for himself,” the women said the complaints against the chief were a result of racism and a mutiny.
Another human catches bird flu: A Michigan dairy farm worker is officially the second human to catch bird flu after working around cows infected with the disease. Bird flu does not easily jump to humans unless they are exposed to infected animals. The worker’s case was supposedly mild and he has now recovered. He first noticed symptoms when he felt “a gritty feeling” in his eye. Health officials don’t know whether he was wearing eye protection while working with the cows. I’m haunted by even the idea of a disease worming its way inside his body via his eyeball. The good news is (and I’m crossing my fingers here) there are still no signs that the virus is spreading among people. It continues to spread among the nation’s cows, however.
May showers: Sorry, it’ll be soggy for the majority of your Memorial Day Weekend, Seattle. It’s not summer yet, and don’t you forget it, says Mother Nature. Maybe… you deserve this? Maybe… it’s personal? Best to read into it.
5:30 AM | Wet and unsettled conditions return as radar shows light showers moving into the region this morning ahead of the next weather system. Showers will continue to push inland through the day today. #wawx pic.twitter.com/G0Tj4VorOi
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) May 24, 2024
Farmworkers die in Idaho crash: Last Saturday, a pickup truck crossed the centerline on US Highway 20 and struck a van carrying 15 migrant farm workers. The crash killed six people, all agricultural workers from Mexico here on H-2A Temporary Agricultural Worker visas. Nine others, including the pickup’s driver, were hospitalized with injuries.
Triple Bob headache continues: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Mullet is causing a big stink about fellow candidate Attorney General Bob Ferguson—Mullet’s main competition in the primary—sending a letter to the Secretary of State Steve Hobbs concerning the two other Bob Fergusons who entered the race earlier this month. Though the faux Bobs have since dropped out after threat of legal retribution, Mullet is all mad because, before the issue was rectified, the Original Bob Ferguson requested Hobbs help differentiate the Bobs by listing their professions next to their name. OG Bob also requested the order of the names on the ballot be changed—the Imposter Bobs (ImBobsters? [Eds note: Yes.]) were second and third, and OG Bob was 13th. Mullet thinks this was all bad form and wants everyone to know because he needs any help he can get to be relevant in this race.
Heartbreaking stuff: The man killed in the Capitol Hill light rail station stabbing earlier this month was Harry’s Fine Foods chef Corey Evan Bellett, 37. Bellett was a newlywed of five months to another Seattle-area chef. His death appears to have been an act of violence that occurred when Bellett brushed past two men on the escalator. The men then instigated a fight and one allegedly stabbed Bellett multiple times with a boxcutter. Bellett’s accused murderer has been charged with second-degree murder and intimidating a witness. Bellett leaves behind his wife, their three pets, their plans to open up a restaurant in Bend, OR, and his parents.
Happy 70th birthday, Brown v. Board of Education, Clarence Thomas hates you: On Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, criticized the landmark ruling and said the court overstepped when it banned separating students in schools by race. The historic ruling occurred 70 years ago last week. Thomas rebuked Brown in a concurrence opinion that allowed South Carolina to keep using a congressional map that discriminated against Black residents. Thomas, notably, replaced Thurgood Marshall on the Court, the first Black justice and the lead lawyer on the Brown case.
RIP, legend: The face of the “Doge” meme, a Shiba inu named Kabosu, is dead. She was 18 years old. Rest easy, queen.
The Doge Meme dog, Kabosu has died.
She was 18 years old. pic.twitter.com/ScMhYn2kuF
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) May 24, 2024
Cop who arrested golf star didn’t have body cam on: Top golfer Scottie Scheffler was arrested last week for driving through an area where police were investigating a pedestrian death. Police arrested Scheffler, who was trying to get into a golf tournament next to the scene, and charged him with “felony second-degree assault on a police officer, along with lesser charges of third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding signals from officers directing traffic,” according to NBC News. There is a lack of evidence around the arrest, largely because the arresting officer never turned on his body cam.
Biggest hurricane season ever: National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration just issued its highest-ever forecast for an impending hurricane season. The coming months, NOAA says, will be “exceptionally busy.” NOAA predicts between eight to 13 hurricanes this season and up to 25 named storms, or, in other words, storms with winds of at least 35 mph. With record-breaking hot Atlantic temperatures and a likely La Niña system on the way, things could be pretty bad. Meanwhile, Florida is in the process of scrubbing references to climate change from all of its legislation. Will denial protect them from being battered by record-breaking storms? I doubt it!
Super Size Me guy is dead: Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, known for making a film about the effects of eating only McDonalds for a month, is dead at 53. He died from cancer.
Landslide in Papua New Guinea: A landslide in a Papua New Guinea village killed more than 100 people, initial reports estimate. The land gave way at around 3 am, swallowing buildings and roads with rocks and trees.
A long read for your Friday: Would you ever go surfing in a mall?
And a song for you, because you deserve it:
The Stranger
Instrumental Health
Midpak bring precocious skills and charisma to Seattle’s funk scene.
by Dave Segal
Under a bridge in that nebulous zone where SoDo bleeds into Georgetown, Seattle quartet Midpak are making all ages of freaks freak out at a benefit show for Palestinians. In the cramped confines of Belltown’s Jupiter Bar, the psychedelically inclined funkateers are inspiring a much smaller contingent of folks to bust moves—including bassist Sam Holman’s mother. At a packed show at Barboza opening for Colombia psychedelic band BALTHVS, Midpak open the night by spurring the audience to enthusiastically gyrate and whoop, though few know who they are.
All of these 2024 shows prove that Midpak can move crowds without compromising with their serpentine, vocal-free tunes that are as danceable as they are complex. The crazy thing is, Midpak sound like they’ve been transported from a gritty urban club circa 1972—even though all of their members are barely of drinking age: guitarist Nik Jordan is 22, bassist Holman and drummer Ben Rutherford-Kinney are 21, percussionist Daniel Lopez is 25. They’ve only been around for a little under two years, yet they sound as if they’ve been honing their chops for decades. They can stretch out and tighten it up with equal panache. “We practice a lot,” explains the soft-spoken Holman in an interview conducted at Kinney’s pad. “We were all vigilant with the idea that we don’t want to sound shitty,” Kinney elaborates.
After my first encounter with Midpak at the aforementioned Barboza gig, I wondered how a group of youthful Pacific Northwesterners could bring the funk this filthily, like a combo of studly Motown studio guitarist Dennis Coffey and Kool & the Gang moonlighting as Lightnin’ Rod’s backing band on Hustlers Convention. I could not believe my ears and eyes, a rare occurrence for your blogger.
Nik Jordan of Midpak. Jimmy Humphryes/@poundingthenail
Midpak—who claim to have no leader, per se, though Jordan acts as MC during shows—arose out of Seattle’s febrile jam scene at Seamonster Lounge. (They continue to jam often there and at Rabbit Box Theatre and Café Racer, too.) Jordan had started Midpak with different musicians, but they couldn’t gel. When Nik met Ben at Rainier Brewery practice space, they decided to explore their love of hip-hop and funk by performing instrumental versions of tracks by Dr. Dre, J Dilla, Roy Ayers, and other legends, under the Quadraphonic handle.
After this slight diversion, Midpak enlisted Holman on bass, which helped to steer them on the righteous path. Oddly, though, he was more of a guitar player than a bassist and Kinney was more of keyboardist than a drummer. So, half of Midpak were learning their instruments while trying to gain traction, which they did with gigs such as More Music @ the Moore, Sound Off!, and an auxiliary Capitol Hill Pride fest slot at Cal Anderson Park. Lopez was the last piece of the puzzle, adding nimble conga and bongo embellishments that beef up Midpak’s already chunky rhythms. (Tyler Richart fills in for Lopez when the latter has other commitments; Richart will be performing at the group’s May 24 Central Saloon gig.)
<a href=”https://midpak.bandcamp.com/track/myna”>Myna by Midpak</a>
One reason that Midpak hit upon their instrumental, psychedelic-funk sound is because nobody in the band can sing—although that fact hasn’t stopped many other bands from deploying vocals… But I digress. It’s a fairly narrow niche in Seattle, but Midpak are following in the august footsteps of True Loves and Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio. (A guitarist who’s played in both of those groups, Jimmy James, is a Midpak supporter and mentor.)
“We all really like the feel of instrumental music,” Kinney says. “Some of it is driving and it can be really big. But at the core, we all really like minimalistic stuff. We like things that have a pocket or a groove that you can continue and build on. That’s why we started Quadraphonic. Improvising over these hip-hop songs, it’s such a simple framework, it give you freedom to build on it.
“Nik, when we were in that band, wrote a couple of originals: ‘Evil Intention’ and ‘Above and Below.’ Those were already done by the time we started the band. We hadn’t arranged them, but the melody and the idea behind it, we’d already come up with. It’s inspired by Santana, and Khruangbin was a huge influence on Nik.
“We didn’t realize for a long time that it’s a strength that we’re instrumental. I always thought we could throw on any vocalist we want and it would be a super-cool vibe. There are not that many instrumental psychedelic projects in Seattle, so it’s kind of nice to be one of the few.”
Holman says, “A lot of it, too, is we’ve been listening to this music for a long time. I’ve known Nik since we were 13. When we were younger, we really loved early Funkadelic. The Eddie Hazel era from 1967 to 1971 when Maggot Brain came out, that was one of our favorite guitarists and bands. We’d been listening to that for so long that when we finally had a talented enough group of people to play it with, we were like, let’s try to replicate that in a similar way.
“And there are all these other influences that came along. We have a lot of common ground in what we listen to. Ben introduced us to Channel Tres, who’s a soulful house-music producer. Then we started getting into house music and how can we blend that with funk. So we’re trying to combine early funk with house and world influences…”
Jordan says, “Jimmy James got me hip to James Brown and all of that stuff. That’s been helping me with riffs. Lately, I’ve been trying to tap in to cumbia, Latin, and African guitar styles.”
Kinney adds. “I started getting super into Fela Kuti and Tony Allen. [Daniel] brings all these world-music elements to the band.” Lopez says, “I’ve been practicing Malian and Guinean drumming.” Unsurprisingly, Lopez and Richart met at percussion jams in Gasworks Park, where they bonded over their love of West African drumming.
Ben Rutherford-Kinney and Sam Holman of Midpak. Jimmy Humphryes/@poundingthenail
Richart—who’s 46 and also plays with Todo Folklore Cubano—raves about Midpak’s enthusiasm onstage and in rehearsal spaces. “I get to be hanging with some kids that are living their dream, and that feels good.” He thinks that Midpak aren’t so much about virtuosity as they are “about vibes and constructing a sound. It’s about soundscaping and making the band sound and feel have a personality of its own.
“The closest thing to a virtuoso in the band is probably Ben, on an instrument you never see him play—the keyboard. He gets really good sounds, he makes really good choices. Sam’s strength is that he’s really committed to keeping good time and good tone. Ben is a great drummer; he really has fun and it’s infectious. Danny has good sounds and is such a good fit for Midpak. Nik is a master at soundscapes. He’s really good at making his guitar sound beautiful. The psychedelic trip is real with that guy. He’ll take you for a ride with his instrument.”
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Midpak (@middpakk)
One of those listeners along for the journey is Holman’s mom, Midpak’s #1 fan. Her son confides, “She always says, ‘You may play the same songs every time, but it sounds different every set.'” Blessed with synesthesia, Ms. Holman described Midpak’s music as “a black panther moving through the forest of sound.”
Besides their frequent gigs in conventional venues, Midpak occasionally busk at Cal Anderson Park and by the Shell gas station on Broadway and Pike. A friend gave them solid advice: set up outside of the stadiums at Mariners and Seahawks games. Midpak’s sound is, at times, ideal for sports-highlight clips, so it would be a good fit. “We’d love to play at a Kraken game,” Kinney says.
Summing up Midpak’s raison d’être, Kinney says, “Listening to music that shocks my core and makes me think differently about music makes some of the biggest impact on my life. Listening to something that’s new to me and speaks to me, it’s like, ‘Oh yes! That’s so fucking cool.’ I want to be that for other people.”
Midpak perform May 24 at Central Saloon. Their Midday EP—recorded with Dave Matthews Band accomplice Ethan Bovey—is available on CD and digitally June 14 via DistroKid.
The Stranger
Sound Transit Board Rejects Dumb Light Rail Proposal from Amazon and Vulcan
Transit advocates got a little nervous about this proposal because Mayor Bruce Harrell, a powerful player on the board, would side with Amazon.
by Hannah Krieg
Get fucked, Amazon. On Thursday, the Sound Transit Board of Directors did their job and picked what’s best for transit riders instead of doing favors for big business.
Last July, the board picked a spot on 7th Avenue and Harrison Street next to Aurora as their preferred alternative for the future South Lake Union station, a stop on the Ballard Line that is expected to open in 2039. But then, citing concerns about traffic, Vulcan Real Estate and Amazon asked the board to consider shifting the station a few blocks west, closer to the Seattle Center.
According to a memo from Sound Transit staff, the suggestion from big business would decrease ridership by about 2%, or about 3,000 people per day. The project would also need to go through environmental review, causing a delay of up to two years. Because of inflation, a month of delay means $50 million in added costs, so switching courses at this point would add up to between $500 million and more than $1 billion, as staff said in their memo. Ultimately, staff recommended the board “take no action, maintain the current preferred alternative, and not carry the potential new alternative into environmental review.”
Transit advocates got a little nervous about this proposal because Mayor Bruce Harrell, a powerful player on the board, would side with Amazon. So Seattle Subway asked supporters of well-connected transit to send an open letter to the board.
“You are faced with a pivotal decision today,” Seattle Subway’s letter opened. “What is more important to you: building a world class transit system that delivers on your promise to voters, or doing Amazon a favor?”
The advocates pointed out the inconsistency in switching the preferred alternative. Meeting after meeting, dozens of elders from the Chinatown-International District (CID) sat before the board and demanded the agency build the new CID station on 4th Avenue instead of on the less-connected North and South placement. Instead, the board chose the North and South placement as its preferred alternative, arguing that the 4th Avenue version would cost more. But now, Amazon and Vulcan waltz in and suddenly money’s not an issue?
But, to the somewhat confused delight of transit riders, Harrell gave Amazon and Vulcan the same cold shoulder he gives to the CID elders when they want expensive things. In the meeting, Harrell ultimately sided with the staff at Sound Transit. He said that while the corporate plan was feasible, he would not motion to carry it to an environmental review because he could not ignore the price associated with delays.
No one on the board fought him. He’s the freaking Mayor of Seattle.
While urbanists can put a tick on their side of the scoreboard, transit riders will continue to advocate for the 4th Ave regional hub in the CID instead of the North/South placement that anti-displacement advocates lobbied for and the board ultimately favored. Brien Chew from Transit Equity for All told The Stranger that there’s hope yet for the better-connected station because it is still going through environmental review.
“Sound Transit must prioritize transit riders in all of their decisions,” A Seattle Subway spokesperson said in a statement to The Stranger, “They did that today by preserving connections between Link and Rapid Ride. We hope that they prioritize transit riders again by building a consolidated transit hub in the CID —- the approach a responsible transit agency would take to serve transit riders and connect our region.”
The Stranger
The Best Tips To Travel With Weed This Summer
The Best Tips To Travel With Weed This Summer
Planes, trains and automobiles are busy, so here are the best tips to travel with weed this summer!
The post The Best Tips To Travel With Weed This Summer appeared first on The Fresh Toast.
The Fresh Toast
Ticket Alert: A Boogie wit da Hoodie, YG, and More Seattle Events Going On Sale This Week
Plus, the Chainsmokers and More Event Updates for May 23
by EverOut Staff
Billboard-charting hip-hop phenom A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie will stop by Seattle to support his latest album, Better Off Alone. Compton-born rapper YG has announced dates for his Just Re’d Up tour. Plus, EDM pop duo the Chainsmokers won’t let you down on their Party Never Ends tour, which will kick off at Myrtle Edwards Park this August. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events, plus some news you can use.
ON SALE FRIDAY, MAY 24
MUSIC
Bay Ledges
Neumos (Tues Aug 20)
Holo Holo Festival
Tacoma Dome (Nov 9-10)
Jazmin Bean
The Showbox (Mon Sept 9)
The Stranger
When Glamping Goes Bad
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist Is a Surprising, Spooky Ecological Parable
by Chase Hutchinson
There is nothing quite like the thrill of seeing a filmmaker gain widespread acclaim for a movie and then following that project up with something completely different in almost every way. Just when you think you have them pinned down, they upend all your expectations. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, who recently made the Oscar-winning Drive My Car, has done just that with the ecological parable Evil Does Not Exist. It’s a film both meditative and menacing, with extended shots of characters filling up containers from a stream that builds to one of the most eerie endings you’ll ever see. There’s nothing else out there right now that’s quite like it and, for those who can get on its wavelength, it’s one of the year’s best.
The plot, for what pointedly little it matters, centers on Takumi (Hitoshi Omika). He is the first character we meet, but he is by no means its protagonist as the film doesn’t really have one. As we follow him through his day, we get to know his daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) who accompanies him on tranquil walks through the woods. However, whatever peace there is to be found in their home of Mizubiki, a small village located a few hours outside of Tokyo, is about to be disrupted.
Initially, this interruption comes from a company known as Playmode, which intends to build a place for “glamping” without any concern about the impact this could have on the environment. Soon, we see this disruption is only one part of the many ways the relationship we share with the natural world has fallen out of balance.
Even as the community tries to speak up at a meeting with their urgent concerns about the development, it becomes clear their objections will not stop it. It’s as if they are stepping in front of a speeding train that is built for one thing and one thing only: the pursuit of profit at all costs. The scene plays out for several minutes, capturing that agonizing feeling of how comments from the public can often be treated as a formality rather than something actually worth listening to.
Critically, the real tension of the film then comes when we pull back to observe the more complicated questions surrounding the village’s relationship with nature. As one resident remarks, most of them, too, were outsiders at one point and have altered the natural world by being there. This isn’t done to create a false equivalency between the locals and the company. Rather, it exists to cut deeper, to challenge us to reflect on whether small acts of resistance are sufficient.
All of this is established with a refreshing subtlety that, for some, could easily be mistaken for distance. Indeed, just when we think we are getting close to a certain character, the film pulls away to show the broader world around them. That Evil Does Not Exist originally began as a silent short makes sense—there are plenty of striking visual moments and a spectacular score by Eiko Ishibashi. At the same time, it also feels like something uniquely sublime and sinister as a full feature. Without ever overplaying its hand, a deep sense of unease is felt in every frame.
It is this increasingly suffocating sense of dread that comes to define Evil Does Not Exist. Finding an evocative resonance in the way things quickly yet naturally unravel, Evil makes the impending loss almost feel inevitable when you look back on it. It’s a film whose grim revelations can often be obscured by routine, an apt encapsulation of how we all navigate our hellscape. A casual hint of brutality lurks in the beautiful landscape that we are dropped into. While Drive My Car was by no means a rosy portrait of life, it looks downright cheery in comparison.
This feeling of subtle, certain doom extends all the way to the conclusion where the film takes an audacious, haunting turn. It would be hard to tip off exactly what this is as everything is deliberately obscured once more, making it that much more disorienting and frightening as you try to make sense of a major loss. The truth is that the pain of the world is not something that can always be made legible to us. As we realize far too late, devastation of our own creation may be awaiting just around the corner.
Evil Does Not Exist opens May 24 at the SIFF Cinema Egyptian.
The Stranger