Amazing who you’ll find hangin’ out on Granville Street in Vancouver these days. Like Goldie Hawn and the Dalai Lama.

…gets to become a bigtime movie star. His ol’ pal Squiggy gets to become a Mariners assistant scout. (Scroll to bottom of page.)

Heather Rogers has offered to post a weekly entertainment guide on this site. Here’s a sample she whipped up. Lemme know if you find it useful, and if you’d like more of its type:

“To-Do: Kill Bill Vol. 2 + shards of melted glass

OK. I admit it. I copped out. There were so many amazing things going on the past couple weeks that I just decided against ALL of them and stayed in reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, which is wonderful, by the way. I hope you had fun doing your whatever it was you were doing. And happy birthday to NOLAN REYES (former promoter of Start! and good friend of mine)! That’s my one regret-not making it to Nolan’s b-day/welcome back from the Bay area deal last night. Sorry No-No-Nolan… school night.

Anyway, now I know you want to know what’s going on this weekend! So I’m gonna tell ya!

Well, tonight is a big night. There are a ton of fun things going on. But a can’t miss for me is Kill Bill Vol. 2. Kill Bill Vol. 1 was my absolute favorite by QT to date, so I’m thinking tonight will be super fun fun fun! I hope to go en masse with my crew, so if anyone’s planless, do give a ring-a-ding.

Continuing the theme of fab film, after Kill Bill Vol. 2, how about heading to the lovely Majestic Bay Theatres (2044 NW Market St in Ballard) at midnight to see a hilarious collection of shorts? I know you’ll want to see David Miller’s “Pickup,” which is a short adapted from his longer film “Shoot the Girl” (of which I’m a huge fan). It’s one of about 15 or so terrific pieces by respected and/or emerging and/or none-of-the-above artists. It’s $10 gen admission. For more info, check out http://www.artisttrust.org/events/Reel-movie-poster.gif. I’m such the early bird these days–hope I can stay up because I know it will be well worth it. Hey, SHORTS–much better than longs. If one should happen (which it won’t) to be boring, it’ll be over and on to the next thing in what, two minutes?

So, Saturday night, I’m going to the ‘secret’ U.S.E. house-party. (It’s like that stupid joke: how many Cha-Cha patrons does it take to screw in a light bulb? What, you don’t already know????) So, I’ve been instructed not to post the address all over hell ‘n halfa Georgia, but if you email a request to me, I’ll probably tell ya. Oh, and in case you wonder what U.S.E. is – wake up and go request United State of Electronica from KEXP or come to this party. They are literally the funnest band in Seattle to date.

Oh, and if that gets too crowded, Mama Casserole is spinning at Kicks! at the Twilight Exit. It’s free, 21+ and it’s always a good time, huh kids?

I’m sure there’s plenty of other things to do, but you’d have to be a goddamned moron not to want to do the aforementioned things. Because I’m pretty sure it’s all going to blow our minds to tiny little shards of melted glass before it’s all over.

Love ‘n lovin,

Heather Rogers”

…in the coolness department: the new Vancouver affiliate of Toronto broadcast trailblazer City TV. Imagine: A commercial VHF station in a region no more populous that ours that’s got local cooking shows, local ethnic-cultural shows, local filmmakers’-showcase shows, serious arts documentaries, old silent movies, sex documentaries, uncut soft-R movies after midnight, and a Speakers’ Corner where citizens can videotape themselves ranting about anything they want.

…without “The ORIGINAL Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products.”

…there was another cross-studio team-up of animated favorites, the justly forgotten anti-drug screed Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue.

A WIDELY-REPOSTED online essay by Martin Cannon posits whether Mel Gibson’s movie version of Jesus is the ultimate bondage bottom.

CAL TECH SCIENTISTS have announced they’ve discovered the tenth planet of the solar system. The find, if it becomes generally accepted and acknowledged as a “real” planet instead of just a big rock, would fulfill the prophecies of 20th-century astrologers who posited a tenth planet as necessary to make their calculations work out. When Daffy Duck went to explore “Planet X,” he was off to the roman-numeraled world of the astrologers’ theories.

…a fictionalized Nirvana movie for HBO. According to some rumor sites, it’ll be set in Seattle but filmed in Portland. At least it’d be a break from all the films set in Seattle but filmed in Vancouver.

THE PORTLAND AREA’S been stricken lately with an economy even worse than Seattle’s, a basketball team filled with ungrateful bad boys, and lower-than-expected levels of Lewis & Clark Bicentennial tourism.

But, like the clever and hearty pioneers they are, Oregonians always find some new economic hope. This week, it’s in the form of joining the same-sex-marriage bandwagon.

Multnomah County’s officially invited girl-girl and boy-boy pairs to rush to the Rose City, pay modest license fees into the local gov’t. coffers, get their simple declarative ceremonies, and freely spend their honeymoon bucks at the region’s hotels, restaurants, shops, and entertainments.

I predict it will only be days before enterprising entrepreneurs offer weekend package tours geared for non-heteros in love. Amtrak or Horizon Air fares, accomodations at a fine downtown hostelry, a prepackaged ceremony in one of several styles, two-for-one meal coupons, maybe even a Powell’s Books gift card to start your no-sales-tax shopping spree.

And, of course, a complementary video of My Own Private Idaho for the gents, or Personal Best for the ladies.

(Actually, it turns out the Portland tourism people already had a web page, even before the gay-marriage thang started, promoting their town as a cool destination for the GLBT set.)

P.S.: Why hasn’t Wash. state joined the bandwagon? For one thing, same-gender marriages are more explicitly forbidden in Washington’s legal code than in Oregon’s. To change this would require legislative action, a ballot initiative, or a thorough court challenge.

…at The Guardian have got a Passion of the Christ review in Aramaic!

I’M SURE YOU’VE ALWAYS wanted to know what a real Tasmanian devil looks like.

…chastizes Sofia Coppola’s film Lost in Translation for racist stereotypes: “The Japanese (characters) are ‘funny,’ two-dimensional, cartoon-like characters who can’t pronounce English words correctly and often mix ‘L’ and ‘R’ sounds.”

…but Jim Henson’s heirs finally agreed on one of Henson’s last wishes, to sell the Muppets to Disney.

…to Linda Dershang and the hard-workin’ gang at Linda’s Tavern on Pine. Hipster hangouts have notorious attrition rates, so the continued thriving of Linda’s is particularly praiseworthy.

My favorite personally-viewed events at Linda’s:

• The night the place was taken over by just laid-off Amazon.com workers, who cheerled the whole room into rousing chants of “FUCK AMAZON!”
• The cinema night on the back patio with Bette Davis’s evil-twin scenery-chompin’ performance in Dead Ringer.
• The election-night party for the sponsors of the first Monorail Initiative. For one brief shining moment, it looked as if the likes of Dick Falkenbury and Grant Cogswell really could change the world. And who knows, they still might.

Linda’s is also one of the last places where Cobain appeared in public, as you’re bound to hear next month as the media get ready to hype that, less happy ten-year anniversary.