If Bobble Tiki could turn back time, if he could find a way, he’d probably be living a quiet forest ranger life, yelling at boys in Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirts to put out their freakin’ fires. He’d soberly plod his way through the workday, finding small pleasures in stubbly snag creations.



Instead, the Stevie Nicks landslide has brought Bobble Tiki to a life of corked, isolated displeasure. Heartily aware of his divergence from productivity some 20 years ago, he nonetheless goes on, still picking at shag carpets for the cheap and banal and crying all the way to the bank.



Not to be overly dramatic but Bobble Tiki has the feeling that the end is nigh. He says this because he’s starting to notice something extremely dire in his day-to-day swish through life, equal parts fabulous and scary, and therefore necessarily apocalyptic: His life is becoming just like the color of his hair.



Bobble Tiki needs answers. He needs them now!



Bobble Tiki tends to avoid the supernatural. He has, however, had his brushes with the otherworldly. He called Miss Cleo once just to find out if her accent is real. And Bobble Tiki swears that every time he has his tarot read the Nine of Swords turns up. It’s the charming picture of a woman in bed; there are nine swords hung on the wall behind her, and she is sobbing. Coincidence? Or a chilling presentiment from the other side?



Nonetheless, Bobble Tiki needs answers now. So he’s stopping by the Mad Hat Tea Company Wednesday during First Night Tacoma to find answers in Mary K. Johnson's latest Propaganda series. Instead of rendering what she found despicable in the last two Propaganda shows, Johnson will come up with answers for this show.



"By relying on the age-old of tarot she's drawn 10 cards and laid them out in the

"tree-of-life" layout and cross-interpreted the reading with a deck of angel cards — the angel deck is the solution — positive — highest intent aspect of this series; the tarot cards are the "answers," states the show's press release.

This series will utilize 22 TVs to provided the service of informant, messenger, distracter, entertainer and in many ways programmer of society.



Johnson may have the answers Bobble Tiki has been seeking.



[Mad Hat Tea Company, through January 2009, opening Wednesday, Dec. 31, 6-11:30 p.m., 1130 Commerce St. Tacoma, 253.441.2111]