Seattle attorney Greg Narver, brother of Empty Space Theater co-boss Allison Narver, got to be one of Ken Jennings’s 62-and-counting Jeopardy! slaughter victims on the episode shown Wednesday. (By the way, you might have noticed a lot of John Kerry commercials airing in local ad slots on J!, while Bush ads seem ubiquitous on sports and “reality” shows.)

ON THURS. NITE, we spent some pleasant, albeit quite warm, hours at the glorious Lower Level performance space on Capitol Hill.

There, the enterprising Francophile DJs known as La Boum! (one of whom’s also involved in the Cicada fashion boutique) presented a quite sprightly, defiantly girlie, and ultimately playful fashion show, featuring both vintage and new ensembles.

On the weekend of Ladyfest Seattle, Friday’s Wall St. Journal has a cute feature story (available online only to paid subscribers) about “mom bands,” punk groups not only fronted but entirely operated by women who’ve got kids. One of the groups profiled even has a song called “Eat Your Damn Spaghetti,” vaguely reminiscent of the 1983 Seattle stage musical Angry Housewives and its signature song “Eat Your Fucking Cornflakes.”

Joshua Orkent responds to the entry below:

“That sad, chained penis was none other than ‘Dick Cheney!’Get it? The other puns represented in that ensemble were the leafy green
George ‘Bush’, a large black bowl of Condoleeza ‘Rice,’ and my personal
favorite, a long pink ‘colon’ Powell! Didn’t you wonder why those characters
were rolling a tank over the statue of liberty?

I must admit, it took me a little while to figure it out as well, but I
really liked that troupe, and was glad to see someone making reference to
the administration’s unusually noun-like names. Though having made a ‘Dick’
puppet, I wonder why they didn’t create a big skanky ‘Bush?’ Seems like
there would be more dramatic potential. Well, no one looks to the Solstice
Parade for logic.”

HEREWITH, THE SECOND and last part of our recent visit to the Fremont Solstice Parade and street fair. Today, some of the more overtly “political” statements made there.

Despite this “wall of shame” and other anti-right-wing displays, the Bush-Cheny ’04 campaign bravely staffed a booth at the street fair.

The megaphone guy is calling for John Kerry to show some backbone during the current campaign.

This Statue of Liberty balloon has just been re-inflated, to thunderous crowd applause, after having been deliberately run over by a cardboard replica of a U.S. Army tank.

I’m not sure what this sad, chained penis is meant to represent. The stripped and abused Iraqi prisoners? U.S. society’s repression of Eros? Seattle’s moratorium on new strip clubs? “Alternative” culture’s sexist stereotype of the phallus as the “root” of all evil?

In any other era, a line of belly dancers probably wouldn’t seem all that “political.” This year, it’s a statement. Yes, there are positive cultural contributions from the Arab world; female-empowering contributions, even.

Every year, the parade includes at least one entry based on a big local-news story. This time, it was the big move into the big, beautiful new Seattle library (which, I’ve now decided, is an airport terminal for voyages of the mind). The paucity of objects on the carts these folks are pushing might represent the library’s slashed operations budgets.

You might not think of the Oompa-Loompas from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as political, but I do.

Dahl was one of the wisest and most subversive authors of “children’s” literature. I’ve always thought Charlie was a prescient parable/parody of conservative economics. Willy Wonka, you might recall, is a ruthless capitalist who’s fired his unworthy local workforce, then reopened for business with a crew of happily servile, low-wage immigrants.

Indeed, in the 1964 first edition, the Oompa-Loompas were (in the words of Dahl biographer Jeremy Treglown) “a tribe of 3,000 amiable black pygmies who have been imported by Mr. Willy Wonka from ‘the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had been before.’ Mr. Wonka keeps them in the factory, where they have replaced the sacked white workers. Wonka’s little slaves are delighted with their new circumstances, and particularly with their diet of chocolate. Before they lived on green caterpillars, beetles, eucalyptus leaves, ‘and the bark of the bong–bong tree.'”

Dahl re-created them as white fantasy creatures for the 1971 Willy Wonka movie and subsequent reissues of the book.

The end of the parade didn’t mean the end of the statements. The art-car display included this minivan decorated by Calif. conceptual artist Emily Duffy. Recalling our recent discussion about the limits of “positive attitudes,” we can ponder what Duffy believes are the deleterious effects of fashion advertising.

Duffy believes the fashion biz thrives parasitically, by bullying women into hating themselves and their bodies. But the industry’s ads, magazines, and in-store displays are exclusively filled with overt “positivity.” In Fashionland, everyone’s happy, confident, full of pep and/or attitude.

But it’s a happy fantasy land populated only by those deemed by the industry’s gatekeepers to meet one ideal of perfection or another.

“Have a moisted weekend! (April 30 to May 3)This weekend is all about taking it into low gear going out, but maybe upping the attention on personal appearance just a touch. For instance, your feet. Are they a nasty shade of tallow white with yellow toenails? Maybe it’s time you got a pedicure. You can’t wear boots all year round. (Please don’t). Anyway, take a long draw from your favorite beverage, get yourself moisted, because it’s going to be a fabulous, fun weekend.

By the way, I’m thinking that FREE is really in right now, so this week’s column is going to be devoted to free and cheap.

FRIDAY, APRIL 30: It’s your last chance to party it up right this April, so here’s an idea. (This next one I cribbed from Mike Nipper at the Stranger, who, if you’re a usual reader of my column, you realize is the cutest, most unavailable, somewhat androgynous writer this side of the Rockies. And he’s got good taste).

‘WOGGLES, GIRL TROUBLE, LOS PELIGROSOS (Fun House): Fuck YEAH! I swear, even though they’ve been beset by the tragic loss of their ace ax man George Holton (AKA Mister Montague), the Woggles have rebounded respectfully and gracefully and have been workin’ some of that sweet, fine Wogglin’ ass right the hell off! And dammit if the Woggles don’t always impress me, not so much for their fucking ace of a stage performance… which is heavenly… but for their cool, always clean and perfectly executed, sweat drippin’ ‘n’ riff rippin’ ’60s-style garage rock. And, by the way, their latest LP, Ragged but Right, is a damn fine testimony, Woggle style!’

The only problem with this show is that it’s at the Fun House, which is basically Zak’s. That place was gross. I’m not sure how I feel about its reincarnation. If you’ve been there, email me and tell me whether I should check it out.

Another idea is to see a fun show at Patti Summers (great place for the first day of summer!) Blank Its are having a record release party there, and will be joined by the Dead Vampires, Leatherboy, $5, 21+. This show has the advantage of being close to Le Pichet and The Alibi Room, both of which are great places to whet your whistle.

SATURDAY, MAY 1: Despite what calendars say, May 1 always feels like the beginning of summer. You crave freshness. So, check out DJ Superjew (Marianne)’s opening (sounds like it’s FREE):

Pattern vs Happenstance opens Saturday May 1 7-11pm at the Black Lab Gallery (4216 6th Ave NW at Leary in Ballard) Show runs May 1-24. **also starring Dawn Cerny, Tory Franklin, David Herbert, DW Burnam, others… see http://www.sublevelthree.com for more info.

You’ll also want to go to Linda’s anytime in the evening (at least by 7:45 p.m.). Besides the usual patio and pool fun, there’s a birthday party for this really great guy named Paul who works for the Stranger whose last name I can’t ever remember. Anyway, you probably know him. If not, I’m sure you guys would get along great (he’s very loveable).

Lastly, I hope to end up at a ‘monumental’ brit-pop night at Mulleady’s Pub (on Dravus St.; 9p.m.-2a.m.; free; 21+). The host, Coulter, claims he has rare Morrissey for us. For those of you who drink Guiness, this would seem to be the night for it.

Just so you know, if you’re in LA this weekend, don’t bother w/ Coachella. Apparently that is not the thing to do. The thing to do would be to go to the SMELL (one of my favorite clubs in LA) to see Old Time Relijun. They are from Olympia and for someone who isn’t really into that whole Olympia thing, I really like this band.
SUNDAY, MAY 2 at 10:00pm, episode one of DOOMED PILOT will air on channel 27 (the pubic access station). Per Christian, ‘Doomed Pilot is a half-hour collection of short experimental film and video curated by yours truly, featuring work by Jon Behrens, Sebastian Del Castillo, Ryan Adams, William Weiss, and  crimsonclover- essentially a who’s who of bed-wrecking cinematic pretentiousness.’

Who could resist that?! I hear there may be a screening party. Drop me a line if interested and I’ll see what I can do. slowdiva@yahoo.com

MONDAY, MAY 3: OF MONTREAL, THE MINDERS, TERRENE (Sunset). Elephant 6 is still so cool, and it’s a nice little venue. Let’s go, shall we? It’s only $7. That beats the pants off of Snow Patrol at the Croc for $12. Come ON, Croc. Ever hear of capitalism? It’s based on competition for people’s cash. Might want to try it sometime.

Whatever you do, have a great time. And don’t drink and drive with disgusting yellow toenails. If you’re going to run the risk of going to jail and wearing those jail flip-flops, you need to get your nails done.

Love, Heather

P.S.:  For those of you who think “moisted” is not a word:

MOISTED, a. Made moist. Also (occas.): that moistens. 1549-62 T. STERNHOLD & J. HOPKINS Whole Bk. Psalms cxvi. 8 Thou hast deliuered… my moisted eien from mourneful teares. (Thanks, Catleah).

Heather Rogers, who derives more enjoyment from drag shows than I do, contributes the following second installment of personal entertainment recommendations:

“Hello you pretty people,

Today’s Earth Day, so cut the whole “I’m so over the whole PC thing… I gave up recycling in ’94 along with my Birks” attitude. Today’s a great day to do something good. Like make a window box of flowers. Or get your soil tested for lead and arsenic and report the results to the city (it’ll help you with your lawsuit later on!). And you know what—you’re helping the environment RIGHT NOW—by reading fabulous online media (although I know a lot of you print out my column so you can read it in the bathtub while touching your “special place”. But I forgive you, you dirty doggies!)

Speaking of special places, you need to read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. It’s Hedwig chilled and served with a slice of baklava. It’s a fuller Bildungsroman. It’s fabulous. I know I mentioned it last time, but I don’t think enough of you are actually reading it yet. Plus if you want to be part of Nerd Out book club, you need to read it. Our next meeting is May 9 at 3 pm. There will be a special screening of Hedwig following the meeting, featuring erotic food. Email me for more details at slowdiva@yahoo.com.

Now, onwards to what the hell are you going to do this weekend:

Make time this weekend for the MC5 True Testimonial film at the Little Theatre. It’s playing April 23-29 (no show Mon.) at 608 19th Avenue East, $7. Dir: David C. Thomas. This will also go along great with Middlesex because it, too, will Detroit race riots in the late ‘60s, albeit from a very different perspective. Plus, a rare MC5 photo show following the film Dial 206- 675-2055 for more info.

Tonight: Rest up—you’ve got a busy weekend ahead of you.

FRIDAY NIGHT, the favorite choice is the BIG GAY DANCE NIGHT at Chop Suey. Or you could check out the Turn-Ons and Film School at the Croc. But I think we all need a little big gay dancing right now. (Oh, underagers—you could go see a cool band called Holy Ghost Revival at the Old Firehouse. But I’m mean and don’t like that venue, and I don’t go to the Eastside. Sorry! I’m a West End Girl now (see below for details).)

SATURDAY NIGHT, the music isn’t really making my slot go ca-ching, but I know what will… and you heard it hear first. Check out the window peep show at Salon Dewi, right by the Baltic Room. Travis the Waxing Diva will wax a girl’s private area (that is, PUSSY!) in public. Ooh, Naughty Naughty. Anyway, it starts at 10 pm and it’s free. Perfect—you have some din-dins over at Machiavelli, then watch some poor innocent girl (he always seems to talk some clueless little thing from the suburbs into this action—it reminds me of that sexy ravishing-of-the-innocent-girl scene in Interview with the Vampire. Yum.) have her icky old hair removed, exposing her oh-so-tender, flushed, peachy flesh… Then go to the Baltic Room after you’re all charged up and dance sweatily to house music with someone hot. OK!

Monday is actually the BIG NIGHT this weekend (or week, whatever). You have to choose between Kraftwerk at the Paramount and BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB and the Rapture at the Showbox. Whatcha gonna do now?  Huh?  (Tho’ I love BRMC and the Rapture, the correct choice is obviously KRAFTWERK. Duh. They’re playing only three American cities, I heard).

So, I’m moving to West Seattle this weekend, so I’m going to rely on my gentle (and rough) readers to give me the skinny, because though my ear will still be to the ground, the vibrations will have to travel farther to get to me. So, fork over your fab events and if it sounds cool, I’ll tell everyone.

You know what? I love you. I really, really do.”

YOU KNOW cross-platform marketing synergies have gone too far when a Virginia outfit launches NASCAR Ballet!

Last Saturday, yr. ob’d’t web-editor was invited to “More Music @ the Moore,” a talent revue starring nine of the region’s top teen pop and jazz acts. It was structured like one of the old vaudeville shows the Moore used to host–each act got no more than ten minutes onstage, and the headliner was billed next-to-last.

In this case, the headliner was Seattle’s own American Idol semifinalist Leah Labelle (above). Like all the performers this night, she was strong on skill and spunk, a little light on originality.

Labelle was quite nearly upstaged by the act appearing just before her, ultra-tight Auburn rockers Mechanical Dolls. They’ve already played Graceland and EMP; look for ’em at an all-ages gig near you soon.

Other crowd-wowers included neo-soul combo As 1 (above), and sultry diva-ette Aleteena Mobley.

BACK IN THE EARLY NINETIES, drag-queen cabaret shows were all the rage. Now, they’re struggling to survive, here and elsewhere.

THIS PAST FIRST THURSDAY, the Forgotten Works space found a way to become a little less forgotten. It held a big, wide-open holiday art sale, with as many works (all limited to 8″ x 10″) as would fit on the walls.

The previous first Thursday, the Nico Gallery space (where my own City Light, City Dark premiered) held a live dance/performance/whatever event entitled Flipeography. Seven dancers, spaced around the room, held static poses until passersby touched them to cue a “flip” to a new pose.

Castle, the multi-state sex-shop operation we once described here as “buying chains from a chain store,” opened a new outlet on Broadway, in a former Wherehouse music store. (Just think: They could’ve kept the old sign and just changed the third letter.)

Most of Castle’s branches are self-contained big-box (pun unintentional) buildings with plain storefronts. Its first Seattle store, on Fairview between the Seattle Times and Hooters, is so minimally marked you essentially have to already know it’s there. But the Broadway store’s got a big open display window, inherited from its prior tenant. Everyone who passes by can see what’s in the windows (so far, fetish wear and Xmas decorations). Everyone who passes by can see when you enter and leave. (But they don’t have to know what you bought.)

Still, for intimate goods I’d still recommend a more intimate store, such as Toys in Babeland.

Meanwhile, Abercrombie & Fitch announced this week it won’t make any more of its wacky catalogs, infamous for their use of naked models to sell clothes.

Say what you will about the chain, but its catalog was the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. It taught a generation of iron-jawed frat boys to think of themselves as objectified sex toys; as exemplified by the photo-op models seen here at the downtown Seattle store on the day after Thanksgiving.

ON NOV. 30, Doug Nufer emceed the final installment in the Titlewave used-book store’s monthly live reading series, after nine years. We’ll miss ’em.

OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, you’ll all be treated to the sights of the most recent Western Washington Fair (aka “The Puyallup”)

In its 102nd year (not counting the WWII years when its site was used as a Japanese-American internment camp), the fair was its ever-lovin’ boot-stompin’ best, an entertainment and people-watchin’ spectacle at least equal to anything staged at Seattle Center.

(I suspect it’d even be a superior fun-time to that certain tres-overhyped googah in the desert Southwest if said googah didn’t have any nekkid people.)

My date for the afternoon was a devout vegan who, for some reason, didn’t know beforehand that the cows on display at the fair were likely to become next month’s filet mignon–until she ran into a Beef Marketing Board counter in the beef-cattle barn, offering free samples from some of the same breeds lolling about in the stalls.

On a more immediately practical level, my companion found nothing that met her strict dietary standards at the fair’s dozens of fast-food stands (all non-chain; many run by third-generation families that have become cozy insiders with fair management). If just a few of these ol’ standbys were asked to give up some of their multiple stands around the fairgrounds, other folk could join ’em with a wider variety of meal/snack offerings.

One could easily imagine an allegedly “healthy” food concessionaire who could hype their wares as part of the fair’s original mission of promoting agriculture in Washington. They could promote their entrees, salads, desserts, energy drinks, etc. as products from higher-profit-margin crops that could fiscally save some family farms.

Why heck, such a food stand could even cross-promote its wheatgrass shakes and veggie platters with the guys who hawk blenders and choppers in the Modern Living barns.

…at least until today. Here, some random action shots from Sunday. Above: “Le Petite Cirque.” Below: A break-dance contestant practicing prior to his turn onstage.

And some civilians getting in on the act on the big lawn.

Following all this, I saw two and a half sets of the One Reel Film Festival. In these days since the rise and fall of movie dot-coms like AtomFilm, modern U.S. live-action shorts, at least the ones booked for this series, mostly fall into a few main categories, including but not limited to:

• Film-school demo reels, showing off the director’s slickness qualities for the purpose of getting hired in Hollywood;
• Earnest polemical statements, forcibly introducing sociopolitical concepts the director doesn’t know you’ve already heard a thousand times (did you know that advertisements are trying to get you to buy things?);
• Sincere if repetitive homages to other filmmakers or existing pop-culture reference points.

The cliches were particularly fast-n’-furious in the “Sex Ed” set, five unsubtle films in which I learned that:

• Straight couples are inane;
• Straight men are lechers;
• Gay men are sanctimoniously political;
• Lesbians are cute and sassy; and
• Prostitutes are abused waifs.

There’ve gotta be better up-n’-comin’ film and videomakers out there, and I hope to find some.

FROM THE RIDICULOUS to the sublime, Sunday was the last night for the grand old Sorry Charlie’s piano bar. The space has been bought by some hipster capitalists who plan to revamp it into something nice and retro-elegant, but it just won’t be the same.

On closing night, the place was jammed with fans ranging in age from the barley legal to the barely walking. We were united in our love for the place, for the participatory good times shared over the years, and especially for the artistry and geniality of our host lo these many years, the great Howard Fulson. He’s been a piano player with good taste, in a dive bar that tasted good.

I’M CONTINUING TO FEEL relatively energetic after my recent physical unfortunateness, so I’m hoping that was just a one-off thang.

So, it was back to Bumbershoot on Saturday.

The performance-art group Mass Ensemble strung its giant “Earth Harp” from the Space Needle, where LA dancer/singer/yoga teacher Andrea Brook attracted attention from all with her acrobatic musicianship.

Then it was off to Flatstock 3, an annual showcase of rock-poster art and the artists who make it, held in a different city each year. Since each poster was designed to shout for your attention on a wall or a light pole, the sight of hundreds of them at once leads to a not-unpleasant-at-all kind of sensory overload, much like that of the best rock n’ roll itself.

Above, local poster-maker Shawn Wolfe (the artist formerly known as Beatkit).

Below, ex-local poster-maker Jermaine Rogers wears an inside joke about our ol’ pal Art Chantry, the most famous current poster boy to refuse to attend Flatstock. (Chantry has always insisted he hates computer graphics.)

Once night falls, the slam poets come out.

JUST BECAUSE I CAN, I’m slipping y’all some more pix from last Saturday’s Seafair Torchlight Parade; starting with these proud finishers of the preliminary “fun run.” (Someone, somewhere, must have defined the differences between running for “fun” and organized masochism. If you know where such a written differentiation exists, please tell me.)

Yeah, there were a couple of serious rowdy incidents among the 300,000 spectators, leading to three non-fatal injuries. But you won’t see the municipal bureaucracy trying to ban the whole event, like they did to the Pioneer Square Mardi Gras. Seafair’s too entrenched. And that’s good.

We need something at the heart of Seattle’s civic life that reminds us of the town’s rougher, louder, scruffier past; of the days before every damn thing in town had to be world-fucking-class.

That’s what Seafair is, and that’s why I like it.