Features
Here we are again. Another year is behind us. The year 2014 has nearly come to a close with 2015 awaiting, and with that enters new resolutions, goals, hopes and aspirations we hope to attain: "Welp, that didn't happen this year; there's always next." As I was ruminating on this,
Stage
As Christmas approaches I get to offer, with considerable delight, my picks for the best of Olympia theater. This was a banner year, with something for everyone and more than enough deserving candidates for each of the five categories. Those exceptional nominees who made a difficult cut have been listed
Critics' Picks
[BLUEGRASS] + FRI, DEC. 26 It's a final hoedown of sorts as the year draws to a close. The Rusty Cleavers and The Cottonwood Cutups takeover the Half Pint Pizza Pub the night after Christmas. Sadly, the Riverbottom Gang - a motley crew of rich kids with bad attitudes lead by
Music
In some ways, the Tacoma School of the Arts in particular, and Tacoma in general, have a tendency to function as a sort of musical farm league for the country. While this may be a fact shared by other smaller, quirky schools and cities in the U.S., my firsthand experience
We Recommend
Befitting an album featuring Ben Roth's first major creative output, Bod's EP, Party Drug, feels like it's crammed with ideas and off-kilter detours. "Gigantor" kicks off the album in a haze, before '70s prog-indebted guitars charge in. Tricky time signatures abound, lending a stop-start dynamic that challenges without taking away
Concert Alert
We list major concerts going on sale this weekend, as well as national touring acts performing in the Puget Sound this week. SECRET TICKET CODE TM = Ticketmaster, 253.627.TIXS, www.ticketmaster.com TWEB = Ticketweb, 866.468.7623, www.ticketweb.com >>> ON SALE NOW Chris Minh Doky's Nomads featuring Dave Weekl Seattle. Jan. 13-14 7:30 pm. $28.50 (Jazz Alley, jazzalley.com) Peter
Food Matters
XMAS CHEER Maybe you're away from family for the holidays, perhaps you just desperately want to avoid family drama, whatever the case there are a few joints in Tacoma open on Christmas Day to fuel your holiday cheer including Top of Tacoma Bar and Cafe, Eleven Eleven and Doyle's Public House.
Archives
As Scott Russell sauntered down the runway in Bond, James Bond fashion (toy gun in hand), the woman sitting next to me at the Point Defiance Zoo Society Fashion Tea raised her eyebrows in horror. Apparently she’d not been to a Zoobilee, to realize that, in point of fact, Russell was
Archives
Your graduation diploma-grabbing hand ain’t strong if your watch sucks. Yes, graduation is almost here. My senior friend will leave me behind. So sad. I want to send her away with a watch graduation present. She’s always late. Always. So next time she’s late she’ll look at her cute watch and think
Stage
The sad fact is my memory isn't as good as I remember it being, so take it with a grain of salt when I say last year's installment of Lord Franzannian's Royal Olympian Spectacular was described, in Oly theater circles at least, as "the talent show." Lord Franzannian is, in
Archives
"There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." In December 2008, with these words, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) declared the war on Christmas that Bill O'Reilly
Stage
There is a quiet and dignified exhibition of photographs in the small entryway of The Gallery at Tacoma Community College. The photographs are pretty traditional and not very exciting, but they're nicely done. One in particular, Lake Washington Bridge by Jim Oliver, does wonderful things with water and shadows. These
Music
In the fall of 1999 I got a call from Duff Mckagan. Our paths had crossed a few times when he came back to Seattle to record a Ten Minute Warning record for Sub Pop. He said he was doing a project with Mark Lanegan, and wanted to know if
Stage
The history of the musical Hairspray is a convoluted one. It's based on a 1988 film comedy by noted oddball John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Serial Mom), in which drag artist Divine plays mom to Ricki Lake. The young, pre-diet Lake plays Tracy Turnblad, a bright-eyed teen-age girl in 1962 Baltimore
Archives
I was in on it. Good friend and fellow Weekly Volcano scribe Kris Blondin had someone she wanted to set up with the now-single (yay!) Bandito Betty. The key was to not tell Bandito we were setting her up, and to simply manipulate the male interaction as if by accident.
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Deep down you kind of wish your name was Rock Hushka. It's OK to admit it. Sadly, your name is not Rock Hushka - unless you happen to be the curator of the half-day symposium, Navigating the Landscapes, headed to Tacoma Art Museum on Sunday. Billed as a "contemporary exploration
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Tacoma's going green. How do we know? Just the other day a nice man (without teeth) in a pickup truck swung by the office and offered to recycle all the "scrap metal" in our yard ... FOR FREE! How about that? Another sure sign of Tacoma's greenness is the third
We Recommend
The 19th annual Pierce County AIDS Walk goes down Saturday, another valiant effort on the part of our community and the Pierce County AIDS Foundation to raise money and awareness for H.I.V., AIDS and the lives they affect. Or, more eloquently put in PC AIDS Foundation promotion: "a family friendly
News Front
In every issue of this fine rag my hack team of wannabe journalists and I tackle some of the most laughable criminal acts that have recently happened in our area. Then - if we're doing our job - we write about those crimes in a way that makes you chuckle,
Reviews
Sage's Brunch House Where: 903 Rogers St. NW, Olympia, 360.352.1103 Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday Cuisine: Pacific Northwest cuisine, breakfast, samosas, salads, pancakes Scene: Local hangout, casual, family friendly Drinkies: Coffee, tea, juices, some alcoholic beverages Prices: $8-$12 Sage's is a neighborhood restaurant nestled between residential streets and lovely green trees, just steps from the Olympia
