What a crazy cat, that Venus Velazquez. When, during the weekend following the publication of our 2008 April Fool's issue, several members of the ETS! kitchen crew were nearly run down by a well-aged Pontiac with none other than the lovely, learned, and obviously inebriated Ms. Velazquez behind the wheel, each of us individually thought it was a merely serendipitous fluke, a gracefully non-fatal accident never to be repeated (at least not until the next Seattle municipal election season, when Bruce Harrell's mickey-equipped campaign staff will once again get high on revenge). But when we all discovered that the several of us in question were in fact all nearly killed to death by an obviously angry, and therefore alky, Venus With An Ignition Key, charging off the road and onto the sidewalk, coming straight at us, fueled by a potent combination of electoral frustration, gasoline fumes, and sweet, sweet cherry red, red wine, that's when we knew: there was some serious shit going down in political Seattle.

Here's what we soon figured out: Venus Velazquez was pissed off at us--and how!--because we failed to make fun of her in any way, shape and/or form in our 2008 April Fool's issue. We totally understood. If we lost a city council election to Forrest Gump, and then, to add insult to injury, got snubbed by the Tweak The State! bathroom crew, we'd likewise feel the urge to transfigure the ETS! company car into a potent pedestrian-and/or-political-opponent-killing machine. Gracefully, none of us were in fact killed. And as for Geov Parrish's current hospitalization sabbatical? The one TTS! reported was for treatment of his crack addiction? That wasn't actually true. The honest, post-April Fool's Day truth is, Geov is currently in traction due to injuries suffered when, while kayaking in the Montlake Cut, he was spotted by none other than Jean Godden, at the time also kayaking for photographic purposes in preparation for her next re-election campaign. (Unlike Geov, Jean is not allegedly addicted to crack. Her apocryphal vice is, even though she can't legislate worth shit, she totally gets off on running for public office. You've been warned.) Ms. Godden, quite like Ms. Velazquez, was also pissed off at us for snubbing her in our 2008 April Fool's Issue, and, upon spotting Geov, immediately began hissing like a feral cat and promptly sped towards his kayak and madly rammed hers into his. At least she was kind enough to call an ambulance for Geov while enjoying her post-cathartic cigarette.

Anyway, enough about the people who hate us; let's talk about the people who love us, namely, our beloved and faithful readership. In other words, you! It's time once again for us to update you on our current wants, whims and/or needs, and how you can help us satiate our current allegedly-anarchist-newspaperly lusts. Here's what we currently and actually need these days:

* New office space! Our kind host of many years now, University Baptist Church in the U-District, will be torn down sometime in late 2008. We therefore need new office space and/or meeting space and/or storage space (as well as a distribution point for volunteers) for each new batch of fresh, crisp issues of ETS! If you know of any relevant possibilities (i.e. cheap and centrally located), let us know!

* A new webmaster! Peter Sutherland, our kind volunteer webmaster of so many years, has a new kid, and loves his new kid even more than he loves ETS! We totally understand. Kids rock--especially when they're raised by cool folks like the ETS! webmaster. Wanna be the next in line? Holler back. Hey, it might even get you laid!

* New distro volunteers! Always a perpetual ETS! kitchen crew jones. If your neighborhood has been consistently lacking in the kind of wholesome, independent media goodness that only ETS! can truly provide, why not start distributing the paper there?

* A new columns editor! Three or so simple tasks every two weeks: Find a publishable (i.e., non-anti-global-warming-theory) and current Alexander Cockburn column, a current and worthy Robert Weissman column (which is usually cake), and 500 words worth from our Reclaim Our History database for each upcoming issue. The only scary part here is getting acquainted with the totally awesome ROH database. Careful, kid, you could get lost in there!

* Extra layout assistance! Lance Scott, ETS! co-founder and longtime layout guy, has been looking for a good while now for a backup person to put the paper together in the possible event of his illness and/or sabbatical. Do you like playing with InDesign and Photoshop? Well, then, you know what to do.

And there you are. To paraphrase David Barsamian, that e-mail addy again is, editorial@eatthestate.org. And, hey, we said all that, including and especially "words worth," without once being tempted to make an absurdly self-referential joke about Sleater-Kinney! Last but not least, personal to Venus Velazquez: Hey, Venus, we wouldn't make fun of you if we didn't actually like you. Which reminds us: Do ya still want that ETS! t-shirt? Well, send us the money already! Can't you see we're starving for our principles here?