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Here's Seattle City Councilmember Tim Burgess's sanguine take on the prospect of deep-bore tunnel cost overruns. Writing on his personal blog, he says:

On the cost overruns challenge the Mayor continues to raise I would just remind everyone that this is a state highway, a state designed and managed project, a state selected contractor, and a state paid-for project. […] The City of Seattle is not on the hook for any of the tunnel’s direct costs.

Mr. Burgess is not in the legislature, but surely he reads the blogs. In Olympia, as the Slog's Dominic Holden reports, they have a different perspective:

On January 14, state senator Jim Kastama (D-25) introduced a bill clarifying that contracts for the tunnel builders cannot be signed until the City of Seattle provides a funding mechanism to pay for cost overruns.

It may be that Burgess believes the state's contract with the tunnel contractors will place the liability for overruns on the contractors. But until that option is put into practice, overruns are Seattle's business, and it's odd to go public with "reminders" that are so misleading. I have emailed his office to see about clarification.... (more)

Russell Okung

The Seattle Seahawks, as presently constructed, suck. They won just five games in 2009, and if anything have gotten even suckier in the offseason. Today, the Seahawks start to get better, when they pick sixth and fourteenth in the first round of the NFL draft (4:30 p.m.). The names the Seahawks call out today won't just be the cornerstones of new coach Pete Carroll's rebuilding project; the Hawks' picks will also tell you what style of house he's going to build.

Jimmy Clausen

Rambler-style: Will Carroll go the simple, uncomplicated, non-flashy route and pick two lineman? The Hawks have a need at the critical position of left tackle (The Most Important Player in Football, because he protects Sandra Bullock), left empty by the assumed retirement of future Hall-of-Famer Walter Jones--who, coincidentally, was the sixth pick of the 1997 draft. Oklahoma State's Russell Okung is no Jones, according to draft experts, but is still the top lineman in the draft. Building low and slow would be my preference, as it's tough to win with bad linemen, but Carroll doesn't seem like the rambler type.

Eric Berry

Modern-style: Contemporary pro football is based on passing and complicated, attacking defenses. With Matt Hasselbeck on the decline, would Carroll choose a passing prodigy? Speculation has centered on Notre Dame's Jimmy Clausen, who Carroll tried and failed to recruit to USC. And, for the defense, Tennessee safety Eric Berry, who opens up the defensive playbook because he's big enough to take down a quarterback on a blitz and skilled enough to cover opposing receivers?

C.J. Spiller

Cribs-style: Carroll, who invited Will Ferrell* and Snoop Dogg to USC practices, doesn't shy away from flashy. He spent yesterday Tweeting draft clues, for God's sake. Would he go for PR value by drafting O'Dea kid and former USC star Taylor Mays? The other blingy player on the draft board is Clemson running back C.J. Spiller, a quick but strong back in the Barry Sanders mold (here's Spiller making some defenders look just ridiculous).

Split-level: Most likely, I think you'll see a combination of approaches. It strains credulity to think that a team as thin as the Hawks are on the offensive line wouldn't pick a big ugly to protect their quarterback, whoever he is. But I also think Carroll will try to make a splash with one of his picks. He's a major believer in the power of positive thinking, and no one, from fans to players, will be exited about a guy who only touches the actual football in emergencies. My prediction: One offensive lineman, one "game-changer"--be it a cornerback, receiver, running back, or QB.

A note on the coverage: The draft is in prime-time for the first time this year. This is a great decision as it means you can actually watch the thing; previously it was on Saturday, when you had inevitably made plans with your ladyfriend, and had to surreptitiously check your phone during brunch.... (more)

The promoters for the third Isle of Wight pop festival in 1970 thought they'd build a bit on their successful draw of 150,000 the previous year. They got 600,000 or more. Despite the three-pound entrance fee for a weekend concert with Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Miles Davis, Procol Harum, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell, hordes camped out on a bluff overlooking the festival, watched for free, and occasionally set things on fire.

35-year-old Leonard Cohen was one of the last acts, roused in the middle of the night, and wearing what look like pajamas under his trench coat. Murray Lerner's live footage is more in the way of a concert film than a documentary, though he cuts away briefly to get context from Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Kris Kristofferson. The best thing would be to see it in a crowded theater, savoring all the hits Cohen had come up with before 1970, enveloped in a darkness that is both the beginning and end of something. Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight, 1970: Friday, March 12, 9 p.m., Saturday March 13, 9 p.m.

Also opening Friday at the Forum is Bill and Ross Turner's mesmerizing 45365, named after the Zip code of a small Ohio town. Too improvisationally loose for "documentary" to sum up, the film has been called a "symphony," "tapestry," and "mosaic." The camera dogs its way around town, sniffing out what's interesting. Although it's frequently distracted from following this or that person (the judge running an election campaign, a police officer out on call, doings in the barber shop, an alcoholic with one foot on and off the wagon), the camera in its detours through town keeps stumbling upon community epiphanies that anyone who's fled to the big city will remember keenly. It's noteworthy that in a town where everyone knows everyone else's business, one of the most cutting things you can do is not refer to someone by their name. 45365: Friday, March 12-Thursday, March 18 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Probably you know that the Mariners have been doing "funny" commercials for more than a decade now. The spots had been getting a little stale, but rely on Ken Griffey Jr. and Ichiro to bring back the funny.

No embed, but here's the link to the legitimately hilarious commercial called "Meaningful Moments." Simple concept, really well done.

There are a couple of other winners among the other four commercials, by Seattle agency Copacino+Fujikado, and shot and directed by Mercer Island's Blue Goose Productions.

Don Wakamatsu and Jack Zduriencik have their golf game interrupted in "Running Catch."

David Aardsma has a dubious idea for his bullpen mates in "Immortalized."

Then these two, which didn't really do it for me.

Ryan Rowland-Smith once again gets questionable advice from a marketing exec in "The Next Big Thing."

And Cliff Lee gets ribbed about his name by Felix Hernandez and Chone Figgins in "What's in a Name."

After you're done, check out the blooper reel.

Posted on behalf of Mike Gillis, Board member of Seattle Atheists. "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" was an idea conceived by Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris who jokingly floated the idea in reaction to South Park's debacle with portraying Mohammed in an episode of the animated series.

I support "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." Why? Because I support free speech. Even speech I don't like. Especially speech I don't like.

Just the same way I'd support "Everybody Eat a Hamburger Day," if it were Hindus using threats of violence against people who ate beef.

In a free society, free speech means having the right to say exactly what someone doesn't want to hear. If you don't like what someone has to say, you need to answer with your own free speech. Violence and the threat of it is not free speech. It is the admission that you have a losing argument in favor of your position. Nothing justifies violence to chill free speech, not one having their religious sensibilities offended. Nothing.

If some religious person drew an offensive cartoon or wrote an offensive op-ed about atheists, it would be insane and morally reprehensible for me to kill the person who wrote or drew it. It would be wrong for me to cut off their head, shoot them eight times and stab them through the heart. It would be wrong for me to set embassies on fire and beat people up.

It would be wrong for me to chant for their deaths and call upon other atheists to kill them for being offensive. It would be wrong for me to imply a death threat to the writer or cartoonist and then post pictures of the above beheaded murder victim on my website. It would be wrong for me to break into the writer or cartoonist's house with an axe and try to kill them in front of their grandchild. Ever. No matter how much I was offended. No matter how bad the cartoons or op-ed was.... (more)

Photo courtesy of Gilman Park blog.

Coincidentally, I happen to be reading Mark Bittman's screed against agribusiness, junk food, and fast food, Food Matters, just as McDonald's "localwashing" ad campaign splashes across Seattle billboards. Gilman Park blog apparently broke the story on July 18, and it is now spreading across the internet. See Grist.com, Change.org, Fast Company, and Web Design Cool for various takes on the fast food giant's blatant and insulting attempt to hitch a ride on the locavore wagon.

The irony of the campaign is that a marketplace such as Seattle, with strong farmers markets, restaurants committed to sourcing locally, and an educated, informed populace, is not likely to respond well. That doesn't really matter. McDonald's has a marketing budget of over a billion dollars, the bulk of which (over $800 million, as of 2006) is spent on U.S. media. That's about 16 percent of gross sales, paid for with every Big Mac, fries, and shake. Test marketing an ad campaign that will be about as successful as their pizza trial a few years ago is just a part of the equation.

What will be significant is the how much media attention the campaign gets, whether the campaign becomes a "teaching moment" for consumers in other markets, and whether other communities heed the warning: Localwashing appears to be the next frontier for advertising. It's certainly easier and cheaper than actually sourcing and using local, sustainable, and organic ingredients. Very, very low hanging fruit for McDonald's, in fact, since the company is the single largest purchaser of beef, pork, potatoes, and apples in the U.S.... (more)

Q: What do Will Smith, Joe Montana and Wayne Gretzky share in common--something that will bring all three boldface names to Issaquah tonight?

A: All three have sons on the Oaks Christian High football team, which has flown up from Simi Valley, Calif. to play I-Town's Skyline High.

Trey "Son of Will" Smith

Will's son Trey (his oldest, by first wife Sheree Zampino, and the inspiration for his remake of "Just the Two of Us") is a junior wide receiver.

Joe's son Nick (youngest of four by current wife Jennifer Wallace, the model he met doing a razor commercial) is a senior quarterback.

Wayne's son Trevor (third of five by actress wife Janet Jones) is a junior quarterback; he backs up Nick.

The game, which will be televised nationally on ESPNU, has local football fans making sure to change out of sweatpants for two reasons: 1) Nick Montana is a UW recruit who's likely to eventually succeed Jake Locker as Huskies' quarterback. 2) The game matches two of the best high school teams in the nation. USA Today ranks Oaks... (more)

The Satori Group's "Making of a Monster," part of NW New Works at On the Boards. Photo by Tim Summers.

Last weekend I made the trek back to Seattle from New York and managed to catch both the studio showcase and mainstage shows at the NW New Works Festival at On the Boards. As I've said before, this really is one of the best events in town all year, and it was a fairly humbling experience to watch artists whose work I helped select (I was on the panel last fall) bring the pieces to fruition, to say nothing of the fact that we've covered the development of some of these pieces over the last year.

At least five of the works killed. Paul Budraitis presented 20 more minutes of Not. Stable. (At all.), which helped flesh out the piece along with the presentation at SPF 4 this last winter, and shows the direction the show will go as it approaches its evening length debut at OtB this coming winter. Mike Pham's I Love You, I Hate You was a deceptively funny performance that had the audience uncomfortably laughing at Pham's evocation of the downward spiral of internalized anger, public humiliation, and the cruel process of building oneself back up.

Lily Verlaine. Photo by Tim Summers.

On the mainstage, Amy O'Neal stripped down (literally and figuratively) with In the Fray, a new lo-fi solo work that saw her move away from the spectacles of Locust and explore something more personal; a woman wearing pasties has never looked more powerful and intimidating than O'Neal at the end, clutching a pink samurai sword. Mark Haim's This Land Is Your Land probably takes the cake for most commented on and most controversial, in the sense that reactions are fierce and divided. I loved it: for 20 minutes, a crew of dancers and non-dancers simply strut forward and backwards across the stage, with subtle changes at each passing. Haim's choreography is a bit like microscope slides: a relentlessly intent focus on a series of different details, inviting the audience to consider everything from the simple act of texting while walking to the ways in which different naked bodies move.... (more)

Amy O'Neal and Ellie Sandstrom in "too," this Thurs.-Sat. at NW Film Forum. Photo courtesy of amyo/tinyrage.

"Also, I'm really fascinated with ninja lore. Like a lot of people," said Amy O'Neal, and we both started to chuckle. Having just watched Ellie Sandstrom and her rehearse at the Northwest Film Forum, where O'Neal's dance piece too will be the second installment in their new "Live at Film Forum" series (this Thurs.-Sat.; tickets $12-$15), we had retreated to Caffe Vita to talk over coffee, and were getting sidetracked discussing In the Fray, the solo dance piece O'Neal will be debuting at this year's Northwest New Works Festival.

While she offered the cerebral description of the show as being "about how we create fictitious fights with our self," she had politely gone on to explain how the movement was coming out of her longstanding interest in fighting (though she admits to never actually having gotten into a fight), boxing (which she was "obsessed with" for two years), and, of course, ninjas.

"A lot of times, when I'm dancing or teaching, I'm imagining dancing with swords, or having some sort of imaginary foe that you're dancing with," she said. "A lot of times, I'll be like, 'Okay, this leg comes over here'"—she mimed something swinging toward her head—"'imagine someone's kicking over your head and you have to duck that. Imagine the ninja stars coming at you, you have to get down to the floor or that thing is going to stick you in the head.' I'll use things like that in class so that people will do something, they'll put themselves in a scenario so that something's at stake."... (more)

Starbucks' Facebook fan page is the epicenter of Sonics fan protest this morning. It all starts rather innocently, with Starbucks announcing the "We love you Seattle" promotion. Every Friday through June 18, you can pick up a special gift at "local participating Seattle Starbucks."

A nice gesture, sure to engender smiles of gratitude from happy Seattleites, yes? Well, in the unlikely event that this blog post is optioned for a movie, the trailer might say: "But Starbucks forgot one thing..."

Sonics fans. Who have not forgotten that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz' spearheaded the team's sale to Oklahoma Cityites, the overwhelming factor precipitating the team's desertion of Seattle. Sonics fans are not feeling the love. To put it lightly. And they aren't being shy about it.

"f*** starbucks an howard shultz, c***sucker!!" comments one Kyle Mortensen on SBUX Facebook.

Thomas Kohnstamm is a little more coherent: "Thanks for the offer of a free coffee, but I'd rather have the basketball team that I grew up on."

The directors of Sonicsgate have even chimed in with a link to their Webby-award winning film about the team's departure.... (more)

Bing's Streetside view captures the scaffolded look of The McGuire

Yesterday, the news broke that a 25-story high-rise in Belltown, The McGuire, would be torn down just nine years after construction, due to "defects." The $31-million apartment tower, at 210 Wall Street, had been clad in scaffolding for months, as the owners tried to deal with cracking and spalling of the concrete exterior, due to problems with reinforcement placement in the building’s frame.

Further investigation revealed that post-tensioned slabs--widely used in high-rises to help support and strengthen the concrete, and allow for thinner floors--contained cables that were corroding. (After it opened, The McGuire fairly quickly had troubles with water entering the building's envelope, and then the wrong paint and grout had been used to protect the cables from water, as well.) The City of Seattle Department of Planning and Development told the owners to repair it or vacate by the end of 2010.

Given the costs of repair, the Carpenters Union Local 131 and MEPT, the Multi-Employer Property Trust, gave hundreds of residents notice to vacate. (The McGuire's original developers were the Carpenters Union Local 131 and Harbor Properties.) Ronald Holden, Belltown's eyes and ears, reports on his blog Cornichon that residents are being offered substantial incentives to quit the building by May 15.

Legal advisers Kennedy Associates said the owners were suing the general contractor and architects. Emporis.com and the city's permits confirm that the general contractor on the project was the national firm McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., one of the top ten commercial builders in the U.S. Here is their differentiator:

Because we are true builders, owners get more and better options. Faster and safer execution. And a clear cost/benefit solution that yields the best final cost, every time.

Structural engineers were ABKJ, who also worked on Harbor Steps and Belltown's Arbor Place. Architecture firm Hewitt has a long list of Seattle projects, from Harbor Steps and Belltown's The Klee lofts and suites, to the Capitol Hill light rail station and University Village. Most recently, they are working on Belltown's Third & Cedar project, a 17-story tower with about 200 units, funded by HB Capital.... (more)

I watched an hour of NBC's Vancouver Winter Olympics coverage on KING 5 this afternoon, and I saw about 90 seconds of actual sports action. I'm not exaggerating. I'm actually being generous.

What I did see was amazing. In covering the normal hill ski jumping from Whistler, NBC showed close-ups of every liftoff, then showed a tense and entertaining series of angles as the jumper flew to the bottom of the hill.

After the jump, analyst Jeff Hastings narrated slo-mo closeups of each take-off, providing smart and insightful commentary on each. We got reaction shots of every jumper, as well as of his coach. And, most interesting to me, a close up of the coach who signals the jumper to start--very tense coaches, these, as they are trying to choose the exact time within a seconds-long window when the wind will be the most propitious. See for yourself: Here's their coverage of Swissman (?) Simon Ammann's gold-medal-winning jump.

Great stuff. But there was so little of it. NBC would show two jumps, then pause for a long commercial break. The jumps themselves are about ten seconds long, with surrounding chatter lasting about a minute for each. So for every four minutes of coverage, with only about 20 seconds of action, I'd see three minutes of ads.

The ski jumping lasted about 30 minutes, in which I saw about nine actual jumps. They did show the last four or so without a break, which was nice.

Once Ammann finished off the competition, Al Michaels let us know that speed skating would be next. Awesome! Can't wait! Too bad, because I'd have to.

First, a commercial break. Then we got an update on how luge qualifying was going. Then, another commercial break.

Back: Speed skating time? Nope, a long piece by NBC sports reporter Mary Carillo, who traveled to The Netherlands to give us a sense of the Dutch passion for speed skating. A neat piece, really, and I wouldn't mind it sprinkled into some actual coverage of actual speed skating. Hadn't seen any yet. And it was time for another commercial break.

When the commercials are over, we're at the actual speed skating venue! (Richmond Olympic Oval, about ten miles south of Vancouver proper). Finally! The NBC speed skating announcers give us a little preview of the event, showing the top US contenders and then...we get another commercial break.

By the time they come back from this commercial break, it's been 30 minutes since the ski jumping ended, and I have to be somewhere. No speed skating for me, although I would've loved to see what NBC did with it. (Although, by this time, I already knew who won, NBC delays the coverage three hours and I'd accidentally spotted the winner on ESPN's crawl.)

I love what NBC is doing coverage-wise, and I understand why they have so many ads. Nice production costs money; they probably budgeted out what they were going to spend long before the advertising market went to hell. Plus they paid $2.2 billion to for rights to these and the 2012 Games; and this was back in 2003 when advertisers paid a lot more for network TV ads. So NBC has to run so many ads to make up what they've spent. I get it.

So I'm going to watch NBC's coverage, but I think, for the first time ever when watching live sports on TV, I'm going to make sure I have a book nearby when I do.

Slightlynorth gives you...Belltown!

(Follow-up post on the architects, structural engineers, and general contractor here.)

The McGuire apartment building, at 210 Wall Street in Belltown, opened its doors in 2001. Now, just nine years later, it's closing them for good. Though the marketing copy, ironically, boasts "exceptional attention to detail in design construction," the 25-story building, with 272 units, is suffering from "corrosion of post-tensioned cables and concrete material and reinforcement placement deficiencies," according to legal real estate advisers Kennedy Associates. (Their full press release, with full grout details, is after the jump.)

Since repair is financially infeasible, residents are being relocated (with larger incentives the sooner they leave), and the building will be dismantled. Everyone must go by the end of this year. This comes as a bit of a shock to residents of the upscale building, who are paying $1,000-$1,500 per month just for studios. But investigation of the defects revealed that conditions were becoming unsafe, and Seattle's Department of Planning and Development is requiring the building's owner to submit periodic inspection reports to track the building's health.

Carpenter’s Tower, LLC, is the named owner, a partnership of the Carpenters Union, Local 131, and MEPT, the Multi-Employer Property Trust. They're suing the general contractor and architects (not named in the news release). Since it's unlikely the general contractor built just one structure, I've got a call in to find out who it was.

In the heyday of building before the real estate market crashed, roughly from 2001 onward, just-add-water condos sprouted up quickly. Nine years was enough to do The McGuire in--that doesn't seem that long. But the Seattle Times just reported on Northgate's Thornton Place condominiums, and the settling problem that 20 of the 109 units are experiencing, just a year after project completion. Floors and walls have separated by half an inch so far.... (more)

It's like a Bizarro-world "Gung Ho"!

It's not the landing gear or brakes--Boeing has eight and a half months to get all the kinks worked out of the 787 Dreamliner mechanically, and test pilot Randy Neville probably enjoyed trying a 2-g pull. They have just begun trying to break things. No, the truly scary "test flight" that Boeing is on is global outsourcing: not because it might fail, but because it might succeed.

Over at the Harvard Business Review, blogger Dick Nolan (Boeing Philip M. Condit Professor of Business Administration at the UW's Foster School of Business) thinks Boeing's Trojan Horse moment was in outsourcing that famed Boeing know-how. Writes Nolan, "Before the 787, Boeing had retained almost total control of airplane design and provided suppliers precise engineering drawings for building parts (called 'build to print')."

Not that that has changed entirely--ironically enough, here's this recent headline from the Wall Street Journal: "Boeing takes control of plant." But that's a South Carolina plant. For the 787, Boeing has constructed 300-partner supply chain that spans the globe.

Continues Nolan:

Boeing effectively gave Tier 1 suppliers a large part of its proprietary manual, "How to Build a Commercial Airplane," a book that its aeronautical engineers have been writing over the last 50 years or so. Instead of "build to print," Boeing provided suppliers with performance specifications for parts and components and collaboratively worked with them in the design and manufacturing of major components such as the wing, fuselage section, and wing box.

The only problem is that once Boeing has trained and retooled its far-flung suppliers, it will have planted a worldwide crop of competitors. China, Nolan thinks, is the most likely to run with the commercial airplane ball. Airbus has already agreed to a Chinese final-assembly plant, work that it, like Boeing, has tried to keep "stateside."

So forget South Carolina: Asia's lower-paid workforce is learning from the best how to build a plane from nose to tail, and how to put it together and sell it for about fifteen percent less (per Nolan) than Airbus or Boeing. It's a fait accompli, a matter of when, not if.

70,000 football fans. 1,000 random Seattle-area Facebook users. Eleven songs. Six and a half minutes.

If you happen to be watching the Seahawks half-time show (which should be right about when this post goes live, say 3:30 p.m.-ish, Sunday, Sept. 12th., I hope), you might notice a slightly unusual performance. Something like the bastard child of '80s guerrilla theater and musicals from Hollywood's Golden Age, the event has, over the past few weeks, become a local open secret. It is, after all, incredibly difficult to hide hundreds of people gathering at venues across the city to dance in unison. (The big honkin' speakers are also a little conspicuous.)

As Goldfinger so pithily stated: Once is coincidence; twice is happenstance; three times is enemy action. A dozen or so occurrences is a flash mob in training.

The Stadium Flash Mob is the brain-child of mob producer Egan Orion, with the help of choreographer Bobby Bonsey. The two are also responsible for Seattle's Glee Flash Mob, and Beat It, a Michael Jackson tribute flash mob. Flash mobs can range from highly choreographed versions, such as the Sound of Music mob performed in an Antwerp train station or the Sydney Harbour Dance-Off flash mob, to the more spontaneous and free-form mobs in which people gather in a public area to suddenly "freeze" or laugh.... (more)

In the U.S., your chances of being struck by lightning are 1 in 280,000. The odds of winning the Washington Lotto are 1 in 6,991,908. So you're 25 times more likely to regret going out in that thunderstorm.

Opening October 30 at SIFF Cinema at McCaw Hall, the lightning-strike documentary Act of God (through November 5, tickets: $10) is directed Jennifer Baichwal, who earlier gave us Manufactured Landscapes. That may be enough to get plenty of you into the theater, but the movie's combination of sheer visual spectacle, heartbreak, and existential questioning makes it unique.

I'm not saying you can't miss it, but if you go, I think there's a good chance you'll be surprised at the intensity of your response. You leave the theater feeling a bit singed and hallucinating the smell of freshly formed ozone.

There's no narrator as such--Baichwal moves from interview to interview, with astonishing visuals of lightning strikes intercut with the series of "talking heads." Some have won this lottery-... (more)

As much as I like to rail about government bureaucracy--come on, who doesn't?--I often see signs that our government is populated by hard-working, competent people. (Whoops, there go our eastern Washington readers.)

Yesterday I wondered aloud at the seeming discrepancy between a report that the state added 12,000 jobs in January, and another report that indicated our unemployment rate had either stayed the same or edged up imperceptibly.

Sheryl Hutchison, the state's Employment Security Department communications director, wrote in to explain, in refreshingly clear terms:

On the surface, it seems illogical that the unemployment rate could increase at the same time jobs are increasing. The answer lies in the definition of "labor force."

As the economy starts to improve and more jobs become available, discouraged workers will start looking for work again--thus increasing the total size of the work force. Since these individuals haven't found a job yet, it causes the unemployment rate to increase.

For several months now, our economists have been predicting this phenomenon would occur as the economy starts to pick up--and it appears that it's starting to happen. As illogical as it seems, it's actually a positive sign that the economy is starting to move again.

The question of whether an unemployment rate is what it says it is, if it doesn't count all the ready-to-work unemployed, aside, at least it makes sense. If and when the job market starts to get back to its feet, the news that people are hiring will draw thousands back to the labor force. The Seattle Times economy reporter Jon Talton vouches for this reading in his post today:... (more)

Tommy Smith & Reggie Watts's "Transition," this weekend at On the Boards

Tommy Smith and Reggie Watts don't so much talk to you when they sit down to discuss their work as banter. No doubt this owes something to their process for creating Watts's onstage material, which involves Watts calling Smith up at odd hours with whatever ideas have popped into his head, so the two can discuss, write them down, come back to them later, and maybe somehow turn them into something. That's a lot of talking to do with one another, and so when you ask a question, you tend to get a response from both that trails off into completely different tangents, with plenty of corrections and addenda thrown in.

Monday evening, we were sitting in the dark lobby of On the Boards, where the pair are presenting their 2008 work Transition starting this Thursday, Oct. 15 (through Oct. 17; tickets $18), and Smith was telling me about their first major scripted theatre piece, which also took place at OtB. "We did a show called A Very Reggie Christmas in 2001. It was 38 percent amazing, and the other percentage was just jaw-droppingly bad," Smith said. "The worst part was, we came up with this joke," he paused, chuckling. "Actually, it wasn't mine. It was Michael McQuilken's..."

"It was Michael McQuilken!" Watts agreed before Smith, grinning at taking a rib at an old friend, stated, "I'm going to throw it right out there! It was Michael McQuilken's!"

Then they took a moment to make sure I had the spelling of his name right.... (more)

I told you before. And I'm telling you again: If there's an actor alive today who exudes all the emotional turmoil, confounding complexity, and mystic depth that was Kurt Cobain, it is the tween magnet who did those all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world high school movies.

Can Zac Efron sing? Check. (Could Cobain? Discuss.)

Can Efron play guitar? Doesn't really matter.

Can he rock a rock tee and jeans? You decide.

Can he brood? Mask pain with a sarcastic grin?

That's the real question. Can Efron—or anyone else with or without a SAG card—convey soul-deep doubt, desperate ambition, seething anger, and instant likability with a twitch of his mouth? A glacier-cool, sidelong look at the camera?

Hollywood's creative/financial minds are now seriously noodling this question, because a long-in-the-works Cobain biopic is finally moving forward. Based partially on Charles Cross' Heavier Than Heaven, a David Benioff-penned script is now in the hands of The Messenger director Oren Moverman. (Courtney Love's producer credit has not doomed the flick to straight-to-DVD obscurity. Yay!)... (more)

I think I heard somewhere that good writing usually divulges some dark, personal secrets. I can't claim to be a good writer, but here are two secrets I shouldn't tell anyone.

1. In 4th or 5th grade, my mom walked in on my friend Mike and me. We were in front of the mirrors in the living room, playing air guitar and singing. The tape playing was Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet.

2. I like Dashboard Confessional.

There, I said it. Now that these horrible secrets are out in the open, we can have an honest conversation about what happened last night at Key Arena. According to the three young girls that sat next to me, what happened was "awesome."

Dashboard Confessional opened the show to an arena about half-full. Whenever I mentioned this lineup, my friends thought the combination of bands was strange. Perhaps it was some sort of attempt by Bon Jovi to attract a younger crowd. Judging by the reaction of the audience, they weren't there to see Chris Carrabba sing about his ex-girlfriends. A couple ladies in the front were up and dancing, but in general, all I saw were people sitting and politely clapping or the red cushion of an empty seat.... (more)

Two months ago when I previewed Seattle University's season, I tried to make the point that SU forward Charles Garcia was among the most athletic players in the country, let alone among D1 independents like Seattle U. In doing so, I made a throwaway joke that has inflamed passions on the Charles River, and even reached ESPN.

My comment was this: Garcia "will be the most talented player on the floor in many of SU's games this year (especially against Harvard)." Because Harvard sucks at basketball. Ha! Mmm, not my best work.

I admit that before I made that comment, I had not actually asked NBA scouts to assess the talent on Harvard's roster, or watched their game tapes, or even bothered to read anything whatsoever about the Harvard basketball program. Instead my joke relied on the fact that HARVARD HAS BEEN SO TERRIBLE AT BASKETBALL THE LAST TIME THEY PLAYED IN AN NCAA TOURNAMENT GAME IT WAS 1946 AND THEY LOST TO NYU. 

Jeremy Lin

Had I been a better blogger, I would've noted that Harvard has a player named Jeremy Lin who is a pretty talented basketball player--and at this moment a better one than Garcia, as he displayed in Saturday's blowout win at KeyArena over Seattle U.

Lin (according to the Harvard site, his "house affiliation" is Leverett, whatever the hell that means) displayed terrific body control around the basket, and was unstoppable in the open court. Garcia struggled to find rhythm on offense, and committed a silly foul on defense that staunched a Seattle U comeback.

Lin probably could be a decent pro somewhere, and he's getting extra notoriety due to the fact that he's Asian-American and even in post-racial ObamAmerica, a stellar Asian-American basketball player is pretty rare. Although if someone could point out the last decent Norwegian-American basketball player I would much appreciate feeling that despite having an 11-inch vertical I might someday get to the League.

I really would like to see Harvard make the tournament, if only to say that my alma mater--yes, I'm an NYU Violet--was their last tourney loss. But if so, will we have to hear whiny, entitled Harvarders (or whatever) complain about a lack of respect for their basketball team? If so, I suggest that the Crimson can stay home.... (more)

Perry Lorenzo, known to thousands as Seattle Opera's education director, died over the weekend, succumbing to lung cancer. He was 51.

Perry joined the Opera in 1992, after ten years at Burien's Kennedy High School. Very quickly, he transformed the education department: His standing-room-only preview lectures became a sold-out $5 ticket, and helped fund the beginnings of a Young Artists Program, which over the years has become one of the country's leading opera training programs.

His popularity as a lecturer on opera never waned, and he traveled far and wide to share his enthusiasm for the art form, to San Francisco and New York, and even to Bayreuth's Ring festival, as a representative of the world's other great Wagner town.

Now let me take a moment to remember Perry personally. We met in or around the B&O Café on Capitol Hill in 1991, through a fellow classmate of mine from Seattle University. (Perry often spoke and taught at Seattle U.) He was still teaching at Kennedy H.S. at the time, and when he learned I was working at Seattle U.'s writing center, he talked me into giving feedback on his AP students' papers.

"They think they are ready for college," he told me, "so let them know the bar will be higher." I tried to be diligent. After the first pass, he asked me, graciously, not to make his students cry. Occasionally they popped into the B&O to say hello to their favorite teacher, and he took great pleasure in introducing me as the person who wrote all those critical comments on their papers.

Perry arranged my first real editorial job out of college, vouching for me when a temporary position came open at the Opera, and I got a trial stint as managing editor of the Opera's magazine and programs. I ended up spending most of the 1990s at the Opera, and watched firsthand as Perry tirelessly voyaged first around Seattle, then the Puget Sound, then the state, always leaving new opera fans in his wake.

An immensely funny, intelligent, and sensitive man, in public he adopted a hortatory mood. Yes you can, he insisted to audiences restive with high art apprehension, not simply understand, but know the appeal of opera. A staunch Catholic, he loved the rituals and ceremony of opera as much, I think, as the art of it.... (more)

ASU's Derek Glasser Gets the Dawgpack Treatment (Photo via Twitter, @UWDawgPack)

At Hec Edmundson Pavilion, with a full student section behind them, the Washington Husky basketballers are as dominant as John Wooden's UCLA teams. In Seattle, the Dawgs bombed Pac-10 leaders Cal by 15 points. They crushed Pac-10 second placers Arizona State by 23. They dropped a 56-point second half on cross-state rivals Wazzu, and a 123-point game on crosstowners Seattle U.

Washington has won 16 of 17 games at home this year. But something happens on the road. Away from Hec Ed, the Dawgs are winless in six games. That ASU team the Huskies crushed here Saturday? Lost to 'em by 17 in Tempe.

Why the difference? On the road, the Huskies start the same guys, have the same coaches, play by the same rules--and flop. The one principle difference, it would seem, is the Washington fans--specifically the rowdy student section that goes by the name "The Dawgpack." Pac-10 players generally agree that Washington has the best crowd in the league. Oregon coach Ernie Kent has called The Dawgpack the best student section in the country.

The Dawgpack stands the entire game. When the opposing team is on offense, they keep up a constant shout, unnerving players and making it hard for them to communicate. When opposing coaches attempt to shout out instructions, they yell to drown him out. They pick on opposing players, like when they chanted "Mich-ael Cera!" at Cal's Nikola Knezevic (who does sorta look like him). A sign at Saturday's game had a photoshopped image of Husky guard Venoy Overton with his arm around the mother of hated ASU guard Derek Glasser. The sign read "Mr. and Mrs. Overton." With Glasser scoreless midway through the second half, UW fans held their hands in the shape of a zero and derisively chanted "Der-ek, Der-ek."... (more)

(h/t to Belltownpeople)

The slogan for Belltown's Moda condominiums is "Fashionable living. With money left for life." There is not, apparently, money left to pay the subcontractors who installed the balconies.

Last Friday, Hideous Belltown was tipped off by a passer-by that men on a ladder were partially removing balconies from Moda. He inquired what they were up to, and they said they were owed $20,000 and were taking the balconies back.

Hideous Belltown's Keller took a walk by this week and it was true--the railings were gone from a number of balconies. The word is, the units of each are occupied, so there's a chance here for a particularly brave resident to--if he or she survives--to file a spectacular personal injury lawsuit.

Photo courtesy of Hideous Belltown/Igor Keller

Moda, unsurprisingly, did not return Hideous Belltown's call for comment.

I was on board with pop-comedy-theater collective/band "Awesome" from pretty much the beginning. They are seven of the smartest, funniest, most all-around talented artists in town, hands down. They're also a group of genuinely good guys, except for Rob Witmer--HE KNOWS WHAT HE DID. No seriously, I love 'em to pieces, so of course, I've been excited for their latest long-form show West, directed by Matt Richter. Jeremy already mentioned that West kicks off its On the Boards run tonight (through Sunday, tix $18), but I talked to trumpeter Evan Mosher to get the full deets. We also discussed a group of local teenagers with a major crush on the band (see video above), as well as the most important thing EVAR: the final season of Lost. (PS: Give them some money.)

Your new performance piece, West, is "inspired by the journey of Lewis and Clark and the myths of westward expansion." But you're certainly not the first artists to tackle the American frontier. Why do think the region (or the idea of the region) is so artistically fruitful?

First, the impulse came from wanting to do something that was rooted in an actual physical place where we live and make our art. Our previous shows have come from more existential/absurdist ground, and we wanted to push into a new area. (We ended up with another existential romp, more on that later.) But really, each of us in the band has a pretty intensely romantic personal relationship with the (North)west. Most of us traveled a few thousand miles to settle here, and who doesn't love a good road-trip story? Lewis and Clark's journals are often referred to as our first national on-the-road epic. Again, we deviated from that story almost immediately, but it's still there in the show's DNA.

This is your second piece to be performed at On the Boards. How does the experience/process with West compare to that of noSIGNAL?

I think the main difference is that we worked with a director (Matthew Richter) from almost the very beginning of the process, whereas with noSIGNAL, we brought John Kaufmann in very late, after most of the writing was already done. For WEST we also brought in top-notch designers early on (shout-out to L.B. Morse, Jen Zeyl, Harmony Arnold, and Zac Culler). And with Matt steering that conversation with the designers, and communicating all the evolving concepts between us and the designers, we were able to create something on a much grander scale than all our previous shows. This is by far our most ambitious project.... (more)