Fall is upon us. Come drizzly skies, come death, come a Saturday Halloween where people in this corporate snoozetown will actually go out. Gas prices are still high, and Iran is still exploding! Trump banned the press from the White House and let them back in when a judge said he had to! The FBI got hacked by nerds! And the prophesied return of the Mack was upon us in September.
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The Israeli American Council wanted Ed Sheeran to kick Macklemore off the US leg of his world tour for giving a “Free Palestine” speech on stage. The spineless English glob complied and booted Macklemore, and the mogging began.
Macklemore, who has spoken out in support of Palestine for years, released a thoughtful statement. Sheeran released a statement of his own, essentially saying it wasn’t his fault; Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of Gillette Stadium who’s featured in the Epstein files, told Sheeran he couldn’t play his concert if Macklemore stayed on the bill, and Sheeran said his opening acts are counting on him to feed their families. Within hours, Sheeran’s opening acts dropped off their respective dates, including his own fucking backing band, Beoga. Taking a side, the gods unleashed a brutal nor’easter that led to the cancellation of the Gillette Stadium shows.
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Perhaps this was the gods as well: The Mariners did not make the playoffs. Do you know what song they no longer play during the Seventh Inning Stretch? “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore. Much to think about.
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In Actually Existing Antisemitism news, the German far-right won their first big election since the Holocaust, with Nazi-successors Alternative für Deutschland handily sweeping state elections in Saxony. Saxony used to be part of communist East Germany, which has fared poorly after annexation by West Germany at the end of the Cold War. So poorly that they’re voting for the far-right in droves.
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Disease abounds. The Australian Antarctic Division extracted 24 researchers stationed on the sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island due to a bird flu threat. If the flu comes to Macquarie, 90 percent of baby elephant seals could die. There are 100,000 seals on the island. If this mass extinction event comes to Macquarie Island’s elephant seals, it could create “psychological risk” for the researchers stationed there.
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Sound Transit CEO and former County Executive Dow Constantine is in the mood for a Scrooge McDuck-sized swimming pool of gold. Sound Transit’s board awarded Constantine a $30,000 bonus, a near $16,000 salary bump (with a 4 percent inflation boost in April), and a three-year contract. Constantine’s salary will be $490,086 next year. Dow, we hope that’s enough.
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The Humane Society of Tacoma & Pierce County has had enough pussy for a lifetime. The shelter took in more than 100 cats seized from “deplorable conditions,” 61 sailors cats rescued from an abandoned sailboat last month, and another 20 cats found living in a car. That’s a lot of cats! They had commandeered the vessel to search for a giant pile of dead fish.
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You know who has not allegedly had her fill of pussy? US Rep. Lauren Boebert! A complaint filed with the US House Committee on Ethics accused the Colorado Republican of having sex with three House employees under her direct supervision and paying to keep them quiet. This includes two women, which is considered a bit of a faux pas in MAGA culture. Boebert, a noted bigot, has denied the allegations, which came from the political operative who previously accused her of being a sex worker, a claim news media could not independently corroborate. Boebert was, however, caught red-handed fondling that guy’s junk during a musical production of Beetlejuice. What can we say? It’s a sexy show.
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The youth cannot understand why anyone would want to ruin Beetlejuice the musical with a handy. In addition to having less sex than their forefathers, Gen Z isn’t even pleasuring themselves. These jerk-offs are not jacking off! A Playboy Gen Z sex survey found that one in three men aged 18 to 29 haven’t rubbed one out in 90 days. The same was true for half of women in the same demographic. Are the gooners goners? They aren’t speaking as much these days, so we may never know.
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If the gooners are passing into legend, who will ride at dawn to protect the bikini baristas of Washington? No worries, kings, the law is already on it. Seventy Bikini Baristas could recover more than $1.8 million after winning their lawsuit over pay violations. A King County Superior judge found that Alan Tagle and his company violated Washington employment laws, including by failing to pay minimum wage for all hours worked.
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As if things weren’t expensive enough, Canada slapped $27.6 billion in retaliatory tariffs on hundreds of US goods. The duties of 15 to 50 percent include dairy, agricultural equipment, paper, appliances, electronics, steel, aluminum, iron, furniture, motorbikes, clothing, and beauty products. We are not currently negotiating with Canada to stop the trade war we started. Brilliant gambit, sir.
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Apple released its new foldable iPhone, which will go for a thrifty $2,000, nearly twice the price of the iPhone 17 Pro. It’s a shame because that phone would slide perfectly into your pocket while you navigated the new Charlie Kirk corn maze on an Indiana farm. Goebel Farms—no, this is not a joke—cut Kirk’s face into the corn to honor him because “he believed that disagreement should lead to conversation, not violence.”
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The first-of-its-kind light rail floating bridge is zapping the fish in Lake Washington. The bridge and its underwater cables have killed around 2,000 fish since March—mostly perch and bass, but a few salmon as well. Not killing fish was one of the requirements for the creation of the floating light rail bridge. As of publication, the problem was still unsolved. In the meantime, is anyone in the mood for sushi?
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No city has truly bounced back from the pandemic, what with a million Americans dying and the government deciding they were tired of spending money to fight it. Seattle remains in a worse position than most, with the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and the technospeculators closing down many of the old haunts that defined the city, particularly the after-hours scene. But now, six years since we all started masking up, Beth’s Cafe is back open 24 hours. It’s a start.
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It’s resurrection time in Seattle. The beloved Grand Illusion Cinema, which left its University District home in 2025 after 50 years, is moving back to the neighborhood to take over the recently closed Varsity Theatre. That’ll give the Grand Illusion, which used to only have one screen, three screens to play with. After a few improvements, the plan is to open up in November or early December and show movies every day of the week. Capitol Hill’s Egyptian Theater may be getting a new owner, too.
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Business leaders from 38 companies, including Starbucks, Microsoft, Costco, Nordstrom, the Seattle Mariners, and Alaska Air Group, sent a strongly worded letter urging Mayor Katie Wilson and the Seattle City Council to create a 100-day public safety action plan. The letter is in response to an August poll, conducted by our town’s business circle jerk, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which found that only 34 percent of 500 registered Seattle voters were confident in the city’s public safety plan. Well, boo hoo. Violent crime is down through the first half of 2026. Where was this angry letter to the last two mayors when violent crime rates were much higher? Also, most of these businesses aren’t even based here!
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RIP to some good ones. Three Capitol Hill businesses on 15th Avenue East shuttered due to drama with the building and landlord. The bricks of the 1922-era building that houses Rubinstein Bagels, Rione XIII Italian restaurant, and Bar Vacilando have been crumbling. Nothing’s been done about it. And, it turns out, the property owner hasn’t paid taxes on the parcel since 2023.
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Surely this counts as magic more than science. A woman has lived with a transplanted pig kidney, gene-edited to make it fit for human transplantation, for 285 days without need of dialysis. That beats the former pig-kidney-transplanted-to-a-human record by two weeks. Guinness, come get this!!! This is big news for people awaiting kidney transplants. Waits for old-school human kidneys can take between three and five years.
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The Pope was gifted a green orb called the “Sphere of Humanity” by the nonprofit Saint Peter for Humanity. Good for him.
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