NEW OPENINGS AND RETURNS

Baekjeong Korean Barbecue
Carnivores, rejoice: The acclaimed Los Angeles-based Korean barbecue chain opened its eighth US location inside Lynnwood's Alderwood Mall on Monday, September 19. The franchise, named for the Korean word for "butcher," is owned by comedian and retired wrestling star Kang Ho-dong and has been featured on famed LA food critic Jonathan Gold's 101 Best Restaurants list. The meaty menu features appetizers, pork, beef, offal, bowls, bibimbap, fried rice, noodles, stews, and more.
Lynnwood
Pickup, delivery, dine-in

In a recent episode of The Ringers’ The Rewatchables podcast, hosts Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan discuss Cameron Crowe’s Singles, the 1992 grunge rom-com filmed right here in Seattle. 

Ah, memories. The OK Hotel, The Rocket, Citizen Dick, and the average rent for a one-bedroom hovering around $541. (I was prepubescent when this movie was released.)

In the episode, the hosts read some of the reviews that were written about the film back in the day. They mentioned some guy named Roger Ebert, who gave it three out of four stars, and also The Stranger's first editor, Matt Cook, who wrote a review of the film in our September 21, 1992 issue.

You can always find something beautiful in a Star Wars movie or TV show: the city in a cloud, the Recon-tower rising from a deep-green forest, the elaborate robes worn by the courtesans of a galactic palace, a resplendent spaceship landing on brown-rich volcanic soil, two suns setting on a desert world. But the beauty never lasts. It's usually only there for a few seconds or scenes before we return to the usual: dive bars on the verge of collapsing, grimy spaceship repair shops, a transporter held together by reused duct tape and whatever was found in a scrapheap, rusting robots, and bug-eyed aliens.

The first three episodes of Disney's latest Star Wars spin-off, Andor, breaks with this tradition. And it's not that it doesn't have its fair share of industrial wastelands, gritty streets, and deteriorating androids and computer equipment. They are all there, but they are all filmed, scene after scene, episode after episode, in a way that the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi best describes. The realm of this kind of beauty is defined by imperfection, by the wear and tear of things and beings, by a world that's constantly eroding. This is wabi-sabi. This is Andor.  

Early in act 2 of The Griswolds’ Broadway Vacation, a new musical playing at the 5th Avenue Theatre, I found myself wondering, “Who is this show for?” Then, one of the characters made a crack about millennials being entitled and expecting participation trophies and the audience laughed in boomer and my question was answered.

I suppose it’s not really such a mystery—who else but retirees would remember the Griswolds? The characters were created by John Hughes for a magazine story in 1979 and brought to life by Chevy Chase et al. in films over the ensuing years. In this installment, the family has arrived in New York to see a Broadway show, shepherd their daughter on college tours, and gawk nervously at tall buildings.

There are easy jokes about how expensive everything is, how hard it is to find parking, and how weird the locals are. There’s also a reference to Lady Gaga’s meat dress. Yes, really, a meat dress joke in the year of our lord 2022. That’s not just low-hanging fruit, it’s completely decomposed.

So who’s it for? The show seems to have been created in a laboratory to be as relatable as possible to real-life tourists from the sticks. Like many laboratory creations, it runs the risk of sterile blandness, but fortunately, this musical has two things working in its favor: A talented, funny ensemble that is able to create comedy far surpassing the material on the page, and a handful of moments that are utterly and enjoyably deranged.

Back at it, coming to you live from the suddenly autumnal weather in Seattle, where it’s warm in the sun but not in the shadows, and yet it still smells like a campfire. Anyhow, we’ve got a lot of wins to discuss, so let’s get into it.

Boo-hoos 4 Bezos: What a week for Bozo and his flunkies. Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint accusing Amazon of targeting union supporters. The LA Times exposed the working conditions at Amazon warehouses in California during a heat wave, reporting that in certain areas temperatures reach 121 degrees. The company also made headlines for promoting a former private prison executive to take over training for their warehouse employees.

A week before the Mayor unveils his first-ever budget proposal, which will need to contend with an expected $100 million shortfall, a coalition of progressive organizations held a public meeting to pitch their idea for how the City should spend over $1 billion in 2023. Their proposal imagined a City that prioritizes housing, pedestrian safety, and combating climate change largely by defunding the Seattle Police Department (SPD) by 50%. 

While the City will likely not cut the department’s bloated budget to fund programs that tackle the root causes of poverty and despair, some speakers at the summit urged the viewing public not to water-down their demands for the sake of incremental progress on chronic problems. After all, if the council won’t heed the community’s call, then progressives and left-wing radicals can challenge seven of the City’s nine council members in next year’s elections. 

FRIDAY

FESTIVALS

Edmonds Rotary Family Festival
Edmonds will offer its own twist on the Bavarian-style festival with offerings from tons of local breweries, food trucks, kids' activities, a 5K fun run/walk, and even a pet parade.
(Frances Anderson Center, The Bowl of Edmonds, free)

FILM

The Man Who Fell to Earth
Who better to play a unique, newly Earth-bound extraterrestrial than David Bowie? (After all, he released the eerie masterwork Station to Station the same year that this freaky fantasy was released.) Nic Roeg's '76 fever dream The Man Who Fell To Earth is the perfect pre-game flick if you're planning on catching "officially sanctioned" Bowie doc Moonage Daydream this weekend.
(The Beacon, Columbia City, $12.50)

Friday 9/23

LIVt

(MUSIC) We've got three months left in 2022, but I can say with absolute confidence that LIVt's Pink and Orange EP is one of the best to come out of the Pacific Northwest this year. Nay, this decade. The Seattle filmmaker and musician's record is sultry and fun; perfect to put on during the turn-up and equally apt if you're tryna get down. Tracks like "Sweat" are addictively bouncy, a heady blend of R&B and funk that sound like a night out. While the bass-driven and soulful "Let It Go," featuring an assist from Seattle bard Dave B, moodily ruminates on all the thoughts that creep up on you after a night of drinking. And on Friday, LIVt will herald the birth of her pink and orange creation at the Clock-Out Lounge. The night will feature special guests, singer-songwriters Kat Stokes and B3lina. (Clock-Out Lounge, 4864 Beacon Ave S, 9 pm, $15) JAS KEIMIG

On October 7, the King County Republicans will host “Stop the Steal” rally speaker and convicted insurrectionist Brandon Straka as the headliner for the organization’s Liberty Dinner fundraiser. The choice undercuts the local GOP’s recent attempts to distance itself from extremists within the Republican Party who claim without evidence that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. 

Seattleites may remember Straka as the creator of the #WalkAway campaign in 2020, which aimed to convince liberals to leave the Democratic Party and join the Republican coalition instead. During her failed campaign for Lieutenant Governor as a Republican, Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison recorded a video as part of Straka’s effort in 2020. 

But elevating someone like Straka risks much more than damaging the local GOP's brand. Anti-extremist watchdog organizations say that providing Straka a platform within a mainstream political party like this could lead to more political violence and further erode public confidence in the integrity of our elections.

Budget season is upon us: And Marcus Harrison Green is practically begging you to live in the real world rather than get sucked into pointless (and false) debates over whether the Seattle Police Department was defunded (it wasn't). We've got limited dollars and lots of problems, so we really can't afford to waste any resources on policies we know don't address the root causes of crime. Will that keep Mayor Harrell from needlessly backing up a Brinks truck to SPD instead of investing in anti-poverty programs and more affordable housing? Only time will tell.

Get ready to replace that furnace: If you rely on a furnace that burns fossil fuels to heat your home, the Seattle Times reports that a new King County program may help you replace that ancient, planet-killing tech with a clean electric heat pump. Assuming the County Council approves the proposal, King County would use part of the money it received through the federal infrastructure law to back low-interest loans to help homeowners offset the sticker price of upgrading their HVAC systems. 

MAGA Republican Senate candidate Tiffany Smiley has a new video that points to the closed East Olive Way Starbucks as evidence of her challenger's impotence on crime. You can't get a coffee on Capitol Hill no more. This is what happens when liberals are in power. They ruin even the basic pleasures of life: a fresh cup of Starbucks coffee. When she's a senator, she'll get tough on the criminals of Capitol Hill, and Safe Seattle will have access to cafes again. I'm amazed Smiley wasn't holding a Bible in one hand and a pistol in the other during the video. She's on that level. Capitol Hill Seattle Blog has the story. 

After a trial in 2018, Seattle Municipal Court Judge Adam Eisenberg gave a man 180 days in jail for the misdemeanor crime of disclosing someone's naked photos without consent. That sentence was more than 10 times longer than anyone else in Seattle had received for committing the same offense. Defense attorneys argue that Eisenberg only handed down the harsh sentence because the defendant took the case to trial rather than take a plea deal, which amounted to him levying an unconstitutional “trial tax” against the defendant.

Eisenberg doesn’t exactly deny the accusation. In an email, he repeated the explanation he gave at the sentencing hearing, arguing that he based his decision on the additional information he learned about the crime during the trial.

No court will ultimately decide on the issue because the defendant chose not to appeal the sentence, but Pooja Vaddadi, a public defender campaigning for Eisenberg’s seat on the bench, said cases like this reveal Eisenberg’s tendency to side with prosecutors instead of acting as a check on their authority, which led her to run in the first place. 

Tickets go on sale at 10 am unless otherwise noted.

ON SALE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

MUSIC

Crowded House
Paramount Theatre (Rescheduled to May 3, 2023 from Oct 1, 2022)

Dave Matthews Band
Climate Pledge Arena (Fri Nov 4)

Maybe because it seemed like a bucket-list show for many people (and, gurl, did they dress for the occasion), or because earlier in the day, New York Attorney General Letitia James lit the fuse of the bomb that will explode the Trump Org, or perhaps because of both, the crowd was amped to absorb the Grace Jones Experience at the Moore Theatre last night.

Truthfully, the Jamaican-American singer-songwriter-actor could've just walked around the stage bantering and changing into and out of fabulous outfits all night, and the audience would've gone home sated. But, thankfully, Jones and her deft band boomed through some of the icon's most beloved material in an 80-minute set that featured breathtaking wardrobe changes after nearly all of its 11 songs.