21. AFTER 25 YEARS ON THE RADIO, STEVE SCHER STILL CAN’T ASK A SIMPLE QUESTION Or maybe it’s because he’s been doing it for 25 years. All we know is that when the avuncular Weekday host launches into one of his free-associative queries, there’s no telling where he’ll come to rest 20 seconds later. Then it’s the interviewee’s job to pick up the piecesaE”which, lucky for Scher, they generally do. (Just once we’d like to hear a visiting author say: Wait. What?) If Terry Gross sounds as though she’s hanging on her guest’s every brilliant syllable, Scher sounds like he’s maybe doing the crossword on-air. Hence you have exchanges like this: Scher: Where did music, and composing, work into your work, come into your life, as somebody who thinks about math, computers, and all that…? Guest: Oh, music came first. My mom was a prodigy pianist, and also a Holocaust survivor, and she died when I was young. I’ve always found it to be my connection to her. Scher: Is that right? Guest: Yeah. Scher: She died when you were young but you knew her, she played? Guest: Yeah, she died when I was 9. Scher: Really. Guest: Yeah. Scher: That’s pretty great. Even Scher fans had to scratch their heads at the first McGinn-Mallahan debate last September, when our emcee took to the stage of the Cinerama and began as follows: You know, I was just trying to remember, the last two movies would have been the last Harry Potter and the last Bond film. And let’s see if we can get some car crashes and magic happen tonight…Especially the car crashes. Anyone who had shown up hoping for a car crash indeed left satisfied.

20. GROWN MEN IN MAJOR LEAGUE-GRADE UNIFORMS THINK THEY OWN THE FIELDS AT CAL ANDERSON PARK Like spring training itself, it’s become something of a rite: When Saturdays in March roll around, the air at Capitol Hill’s most popular park fills with the sweet scent of cherry blossoms, the wobbling figures of tightrope walkers, and the bellowing commands of grown men wearing Major League uniforms, right down to the protective cups and decorative stirrups. You need to get off the field, they tell sunbathers on the left-field bank and soccer players under the opposite backstop, 420-plus feet away. (Sadly, it seems performance-enhancing drugs have infected even the recreational ranks.) We rented the field. Meanwhile, ballsaE”both expertly and errantly struckaE”rain upon dog-walkers, tennis players, hoop-shooters, and passing cars alike, with little warning beyond a ping and a half-hearted call of heads. After all, there’s no pastime more national than white men grabbing land to chase their receding dreams. Play ball!

19. OUR GREATEST POLITICAL DYNASTY IS THE ROACHES If she were queen, and the queen was Lewis Carroll’s ruthless Queen of Hearts, Pam Roach would likely see Olympia as her dominion, one where a ruler is permitted to explode with invectives upon finding someone has taken a bouquet of roses from her desk (I am incensed…and I intend to take action!), or be booted out of her own Republican caucus for hostile behavior. Alas, she is but a state senator, one of 49, and throwing a scepter around is not permitted. Nonetheless, the onetime congressional and gubernatorial candidate has reigned over her own little queendom for 20 years, shouting and pointing fingers at friend and foe alike, while enduring five disciplinary hearings for mistreatment of Senate staffers, one of whom called her unhinged. In 2003, she was reprimanded and asked to seek counseling after one aide claimed Roach, a rifle and pistol champ, had pulled a gun on her. Unbowed, the mother of five expanded her family’s realm in 2000 when her Republican son Dan was elected to the state House (they both represent the sovereign 31st District, which includes the County of King). Two years ago, he had to repay $21,500 in campaign funds to settle a complaint that he’d improperly reimbursed himself for lost income, but at least he hasn’t threatened to shoot anyone. Husband of an Olympic weightlifter, Dan just announced he’s going to extend the Roach rule to a new domain and file for the Pierce County Council this fall. Another Roach son, Stephen, has been something of a royal disappointment after he was convicted in 2004 of selling OxyContin to an undercover police officer and given 20 months. But so far he hasn’t run for officeaE”and as Carroll said, everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.

18. THE MORE THEY GET BUSTED FOR PROSTITUTION, THE MORE SEATTLE’S STRIP CLUBS ATTRACT CUSTOMERS Sometimes Frank Colacurcio must thank God he’s gone to prison five times for seven felonies, not counting the ones he’s currently charged with. Those convictions helped make Seattle’s stripper-king filthy rich. He has to pat himself on the face and think: I must send the prosecutors one of my girls! By regularly busting Colacurcio, law-enforcement officials have aided and abetted the ailing, 92-year-old nudie-dance-club owner’s quest to fill his booths and couches, allowing him to become an ever-wealthier multimillionaire. With each new indictment, dating back to the 1970s, comes more media publicity about his operations and the shocking behavior that goes on thereaE”and in turn more paying customers to his four clubs, including the flagship joint, Rick’s in Lake City. Case in point: Federal prosecutors say that, despite their indictment of Colacurcio last year for racketeering and prostitution, a recent undercover operation determined that sex acts were still routinely taking place at Rick’s, as well as at Colacurcio’s Everett club, Honey’s. After eight tedious and exhausting post-indictment visits to the clubs, undercover cops and FBI agents reported being propositioned by at least 10 dancers. One performer said a new hands-off policy had briefly gone into effect, but it didn’t last very long and things are better than ever. As Frank has said, he’s just giving the public what it wants. And each new grand jury seems to make them want it more. Deep down, he’s a softie for the law.

17. THE MOST HATED MAN IN MONTLAKE WAS HIRED TO COACH THE SEAHAWKS While there may not be a ton of crossover between them (one sailgates, the other tailgates), Husky fans and Seahawks fans typically root for each others’ teams. But with one hireaE”that of former Southern Cal head coach Pete CarrollaE”the Seahawks threaten to sink that communal feeling quicker than a ripped raft goes down in the Montlake Cut. True, the Huskies are currently coached by a former USC assistant, Steve Sarkisian, but he was far from the face of the Trojans. No, that distinction belonged to Carroll, whose smug mug never stopped boasting, bitching, and rubbing his opponents’ noses in his team’s unprecedented run of success. If the average Husky fan were to bump into Carroll on the street, he wouldn’t hesitate to feed him a knuckle sandwichaE”and that’d probably just scratch the surface of the contempt Dawg fans hold for the fast-talking Carroll, who was hardly stellar in two prior stints as an NFL coach. And now he’s the head coach of the Seahawks. The Carroll hire sucks on so many levels that there’s not a pile driver powerful enough to get to the bottom of it.

16. PARKING ON LAURA ONSTOT’S STREET HAS BEEN SEVERELY IMPACTED BY NEARBY CONSTRUCTION Did you know that a developer can block off all the parking in your neighborhood because he’s building a pair of houses a mile away? Well, it’s true. To wit: A company we’ll call Riser Homes is extending sewer lines to property it’s developing in West Seattle, and has dug a hole in the street. So Metro buses bound for South Seattle Community College have been rerouted to an adjacent block, a block on which a Seattle Weekly writer happens to live. And because apparently a Metro bus needs a very wide berth, in mid-February signs went up all along both sides of this already-relatively-wide-for-Seattle street, declaring No ParkingaE”for two months! Bear in mind that this is Pigeon Point, an island of a neighborhood bordered by cliffs, green belts, and the West Seattle Bridge. Finding street parking has always been a challenge, and now it’s nearly impossible. Not to mention that at regular intervals the 125 comes barreling through an area where kids are often riding tricycles or playing catch with a dog in the front yard. One artistically gifted neighbor painted Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace’s likeness on a signboard declaring: Sewer lines may take our parking, but they’ll never take our freedom! Except that’s exactly what they did.

15. LEGALIZING MEDICAL MARIJUANA HAS PRODUCED A NEW WAVE OF VIOLENT CRIME We’ve been told over and over that the reason for all the gang wars and drug violence is our foolish policy of interdiction. If governments just legalized the stuff, we could all get high in peace. That sounds right, but it’s sure not looking that way based on recent eventsaE”such as an attempted armed robbery at the Kirkland home of a local medical-pot activist and the fatal beating of another grower/activist in Pierce County. It’s not just around here, either; there have been a slew of incidents in California too. Whenever you are dealing with drugs and money, there is going to be crime, one Bay Area police chief told the AP. But then we’ve also noticed that to be true when you’re dealing with anything and money.

14. SEATTLE’S MAYOR APPEARS TO THINK HE WAS ELECTED HEAD OF AN IMPROV TROUPE First Mike McGinn was dead-set against the tunnel…until, just days before the mayoral election, he was suddenly open to building it…before he was trying to sabotage it again immediately after taking office. He started his tenure as mayor with vague speeches about listening and collaboration. But then he proposed a tax increaseaE”to rebuild the seawall along the downtown waterfrontaE”without telling the City Council about his plan. Predictably, that pissed them off, and since the council decides whether a tax hike goes on the ballot, that plan is over. McGinn boldly said he would cut 200 non-union positions to get on top of a pending budget deficit. But the city employees who’d potentially lose their jobs accused him of playing politics, and he quickly backed off. A highly paid political advisor McGinn hired early on turned out to have faked his resume and quit, leaving behind the stink of scandal. After a while you start to wonder: Is McGinn just making this up as he goes? Throw in his vague, rambling, 33-minute State of the City address last month, and it’s hard to come to any conclusion but yes.

13. YOU MUST MOVE TWO RESTAURANT TABLES OVER TO AVOID CORRUPTING YOUR CHILD Seattle claims to be a city where food really matters. Too bad our regulations seem to have been written by brain-damaged, overzealous teetotalers convinced that even being in the same room as a bottle of liquor will immediately turn our children into a horde of hard-drinking mini-Bukowskis. The relevant section of the state code is RCW 66.44.310, which forbids anyone under 21 not only from being in bars, but being anyplace where the sale of beer, wine, or liquor could be considered the primary activity. That includes lots of restaurants, and lots of areas within restaurants. Such a bizarrely priggish policyaE”unheard of in other statesaE”does nothing to cut down on underage drinking, but does lead to all sorts of ridiculous prohibitions. Twenty-year-old line cooks have to stay on the kitchen side of the counter seating at Steelhead Diner, fully separated from the bar that is 3 feet away. And don’t bother trying to introduce your children to the wonders of Spanish food at Seattle tapas bars, like Ocho (seen above)aE”you’ll be escorted out. And if you brought your kid to SAM Taste for a little snack after the art, better make sure you take a table 10 feet from the bar; any closer and she could well become a lush for life. Meantime, you and your child are free to enter and take any table you like a few blocks away at McDonald’s. Nothing to be concerned about there, apparently.

1. THE BEST WE CAN MANAGE FOR A SEX SCANDAL IS A TEPID TAG SESSION BETWEEN A PRO-SPORTS C-LISTER AND A CITY COUNCIL AIDE When a married governor who’s earned the nickname Mr. Clean and has built his career prosecuting financial malfeasance gets busted with a high-priced hooker, that is some news. When the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city allegedly tries to cover up having sex with a teenage boy named Breedlove, there’s some excitement. But you’re in Seattle now. The best we’ve gotaE”the best we’ve had in yearsaE”is bronde city council aide Ann Corbitt, who hooked up with a married soccer player no one in this city (or country) has even heard of, and then spilt every vapid detail of their two-night courtship and affair to a British tabloid. No charges have been filed; no one’s left office. The dreary tale of Corbitt’s encounter with this C-list cadaE”who went from e-mailing photos of himself in tightie-whities to wanting to snuggle up close and hold hands after sexaE”didn’t even make Gawker. When Portland is besting us in sex scandals too, it’s really time to wonder if our city has lost its soul.

11. CLASSMATES.COM IS HIRING That’s rightaE”not only is the company still in business, it has outstanding career opportunities for you! From its plush waterfront offices, the Seattle-based Web 1.0 giant continues to find ways to extract monthly subscription fees from people who’ve never heard of Facebook, and do it in a manner that has prompted only a modest number of Congressional hearings and state Attorney General investigations. As a result of this ongoing success, the company has a dozen full-time positions available. At press time, openings include Director of Customer Retention and Loyalty MarketingaE”a key position that is central to corporate revenue goals. From what we understand, the job primarily involves a) getting users to unwittingly sign up for recurring credit-card payments, then b) hiding in a supply closet when they call to cancel.

10. SEATTLE-STYLE BUSINESSES HAVE ANNEXED WHITE CENTER BEFORE THE GOVERNMENT CAN GET AROUND TO IT Full Tilt Ice Cream. Proletariat Pizza. Big Al Brewing. These are just the kind of hip, youth-friendly, independently operated small businesses you expect to find in Seattle. And yet, thanks to our city government’s ongoing shortsightedness, they reside less than a football field’s length south of the city limit at Southwest Roxbury Street in still-unincorporated downtown White Center. (Full Tilt has since opened affiliates in Columbia City and the U District.) Seattle proper’s gone cuckoo for taco trucks and pho. Well, White Center practically invented those trends, locally speaking. Sure, it’s got a rough-and-tumble rep, but so did Columbia CityaE”and just look at it now. And yet the city has been dithering on the issue for years, and Mayor McGinn just punted on it again. We realize money’s tight and annexing White Center won’t pay for itself, but when you consider that BurienaE”Burien!aE”managed to swallow the southern half of the ‘hood without a hitch, Seattle’s excuses begin to feel pretty hollow. If city government is serious about putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to fostering a socioeconomically diverse citizenry, it’ll go all-in on White Center, and fast.

9. PUPPETS ARE THE SIGNATURE DEVICE OF THE CITY’S THEATRICAL AVANT GARDE Like so many scourges, it seemed novel and fun at first. Scot Augustson’s raunchy and ridiculous shadow puppets, known as Sgt. Rigsby and his Amazing Silhouettes, led the charge and gave rise to several imitators (Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab, Puppet This), until now it seems as if every fringe theater company (Wing-It, Satori, Eclectic, Unbalancing Act, Annex, etc.) needs at least one or more mannequins in the cast to tell a story. Oh, we understand the advantages: Puppets work for free and never argue with the director. They also have an air of the uncanny that is essential for experimental art. But while we hold no prejudice against a performer simply because her head is papier-mA¢chAc or her body is felt, let’s face it: A puppet’s repertoire is generally limited to talking, waving its arms, and hitting other puppets. And a little puppet smut also goes a long way: You can watch a pair of costumed hands simulate sex acts only so many times before you find yourself begging the cast to go back to confessional monologues and cross-gender parodies of 1980s TV shows. And sorry, marionettes are no better. No matter how much we drink, we still see the strings.

8. JAN DRAGO STILL DRAWS A PAYCHECK FROM TAXPAYERS We’ve got a certain respect for Jan Drago’s long career as a Seattle City Council member. Sure, some viewed her as a rubber stamp for establishment interests, but the onetime ice-cream-parlor owner at least rarely wavered in her proaE“small business stance. These days, though, she doesn’t seem to have any goals or agenda, beyond an addiction to the public trough that’s starting to look worse than a pint-a-day Cherry Garcia habit. In early ’09, she announced she’d be stepping down from the City Council, ending a 16-year tenure. But if she had any interest in the private sector, it didn’t last long: She soon jumped into the race for mayor, andaE”despite name rec that was far superior to anyone else challenging Greg NickelsaE”was decisively rejected, finishing a miserable fifth in the primary. Deprived at the ballot box, she now sought elective office by appointment. She graciously offered to take the King County Council seat vacated by Dow Constantine. She won over Republicans on the (nominally nonpartisan) council by saying she wouldn’t run to retain the seat in the 2010 election, but would just serve as a placeholder. Republicans loved that because it deprived Democrats of the chance to field an incumbent. Instead, thanks to Drago, there’ll be an open race for the position formerly held securely by a West Seattle liberal. But hey, if that allows Drago to pull one more tasty scoop from the public payroll, apparently it’s worth it.

7. THE POMEGRANATE MARTINI IS SERVED EVERY NIGHT OF THE WEEK Whether you’re chillin’ at Salty’s, makin’ the scene at Twist, enjoying a retro-cool moment at the Sorrento Hotel’s Hunt Club, or having a power meeting at the Metropolitan Grill, a way to express your bad taste is always close at hand: the pomegranate martini. The pometini, as it’s sometimes known, is a collision of several dubious trends of the past decade, including the Sex & the Citi-fication of classic cocktails and the elevation of the lowly pomegranate to a cholesterol-lowering, cancer-risk-reducing wunderfruit. (Note: Last month the FDA sent PomaE”the company that sells pomegranate juice in those adorable, bulbous, and ridiculously expensive bottlesaE”a warning letter to stop making unproven health claims.) Left unsweetened, the juice is kind of bitter, however; and since the people ordering pometinis are also partial to cosmos and lemon drops, the only way to make it palatable is to mix equal parts juice, vodka, and simple syrup. The result: a $12 chokingly sweet cocktail that doesn’t get you drunk.

6. A DIPSHIT TEENAGER FROM CAMANO ISLAND IS OUTSMARTING THE FBI As you may possibly have heard, high-school dropout Colton Harris-Moore has been knocking off homes, businesses, and seaplanes up in the San Juans, seemingly at will, for going on two years now, eluding numerous intensive searches by the authorities. On the one hand, it’s an amusing story of a daring rogue. On the other hand, we can’t help wondering: What does it mean for our borders, ports, nuclear power plants, and flight schools when the combined efforts of FBI agents, U.S. Customs, the Coast Guard, and deputies from two counties are insufficient to capture an 18-year-old petty thief?

5. MICROSOFT HAS INTRODUCED THE FIRST CELL PHONE WITH A SEVEN-SYLLABLE NAME The marketing geniuses at Microsoft have done it again. With their infallible ear for the magic of branding, and their endearing belief that some shred of consumer goodwill actually attaches to their operating system, they are attempting to challenge the fashionably geeky Android and the iconic iPhone with a product called Windows Phone 7 Series. That’s seriously the name. And if you want to witness the instant ease with which this new meme is becoming part of the vernacular, you need only head over to the Buzz section of the Windows Phone 7 Series Web site, where enthusiastic online mentions of the soon-to-be-released gadget are collected. Geez, MS is really throwing it down with Windows Phone 7 Series, tweets robertmoreno. The more I hear about [Windows Phone 7 Series], the more killer it sounds, says tech site Gizmodo. Tweets Cinematech: OMG! The new Windows Mobile 7 Series looks fantastic. It now looks like a three-way race. Yeah, a three-way race between two phones we can name, and that thing, something with a 7 in it, that sounds like it may or may not be an accessory they stock at Radio Shack. UPDATE: Apparently unable to withstand the withering scorn of Seattle Weekly, Microsoft lopped two syllables off the name of the phone, two days after this item was posted. Series is gone.

4. EVERY WOMAN WHO ISN’T A YOGA TEACHER IS NOW A BURLESQUE DANCER Hasn’t this revival gone on long enough? Yes, there are a handful of geniuses out there (male and female), but for every Indigo Blue and Cherry Manhattan, there’s a seemingly unending line of chubby young (and no-longer-so-young) women who can’t dance yet insist on empowering themselves onstage by strutting about waving taffeta in front of their pasties. It’s like a horrible Smith College seminar under floodlights. We’re all for public nudity, but a be-rouged suburbanite with a muffin top and questionable taste in lingerie is a sight best savored in a bedroom by candlelight, not in a performance venue. It’s no surprise that after the first 15 minutes or so, people turn away and just talk over their drinks, as if the bump-and-grind a few feet away were a violinist playing That’s Amore in a kitschy Italian restaurant. The show is about as sexy as a figure-drawing class, and after an hour or two you start to hope something inappropriate might actually happen. But nothing ever does.

3. THE MAN WHO LEFT SEATTLE COMPLETELY OVERRUN WITH DRUG DEALERS IS NOW THE NATION’S DRUG CZAR You might have noticed that there’s a bit of a drug problem in downtown Seattle. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that the city’s business establishment is pushing a new initiative to crack down on street disorder. At a public safety forum last month, the head of the the Downtown Seattle Association admitted that the area’s just not feeling as safe as it used to. Most Seattleites would probably agree. Good to know, then, that the man who spent the past decade overseeing our streets as head of the Seattle Police Department has now been given a much larger canvas on which to work. Airlifted to Washington, D.C., last May by Barack Obama, Gil Kerlikowske is today busy enforcing the president’s national drug-control policy. Which meansaE”if experience is any guideaE”that, in addition to a courtly doorman, there will soon be three crack dealers stationed at every Nordstrom entrance nationwide.

2. WASHINGTON STATE FERRIES HAS REMOVED ALL CLOCKS FROM COLMAN DOCK BECAUSE IT CAN’T GET THEM TO TELL CORRECT TIME Complaints were lodged recently with the staff of the ferry system. It seems that passengers milling about the waiting area of Colman Dock in downtown Seattle were missing their departing boats because the clocks on the walls did not show correct time. There’s only one solution to that problem, of courseaE”remove the clocks! And that’s exactly what WSF did. Of course, you’ll still miss the boat if your own personal timepiece doesn’t happen to match the one the ship’s captain is looking at. But at least now it isn’t WSF’s fault. The agency says it plans to restore the clocks just as soon as it figures out a way to get them to properly display a uniform time. Given the agency’s record on other promised projects, such as acquiring new ferries, we expect this job to be completed somewhere around the end of Daylight Savings Time (in 2011)aE”at which point the clocks will need to come down again for a few months to be adjusted.