I can't count the number of times I've written stories like this about Bob's Java Jive - the Tacoma legend.

I've urged readers to save the Jive, honor the Jive, pay tribute to the Jive, and come spill cheap beer and be mildly grossed out by the bathrooms at the Jive.

I've talked to Girl Trouble about the Jive.

I've talked to Dave Graham about the Jive.

When I worked at the Tacoma Reporter, I spoke with Dani Staatz - Bob's daughter - about the Jive, not long after her father's death.

And, of course, crammed in the bar's claustrophobic front room, waiting patiently for a PBR refill from bartender Dave, I've discussed Bob's Java Jive with at least 17 awe-struck and slightly bewildered out-of-town bands - equally amazed by the iconic kitsch they're surrounded by, and just trying to figure out how they're all going to fit on stage.

All of the stories, and all of the discussions, have been for a reason - and the reason is simple. In a town like Tacoma, forever the underdog, forever the perceived ugly butt of jokes, forever the blemish - a building, an institution, a place like Bob's Java Jive can come to represent who we are and what we stand for. The fact that Bob's Java Jive still exists - and still holds a place in the heart of so many Tacomans - is in many ways a big "fuck you" to the outside world, a "fuck you" that says we're comfortable in our faded, greasy clothes.

All of those dirty things about Tacoma, all of those nasty little stains we've grown so fond of, are represented in the cracking and historical coffee pot shaped bar on South Tacoma Way.

This is why we love Bob's Java Jive.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs once sang, "Good, good things happen in bad towns." Karen O could have twisted the words and spoke of the Jive.

Good, good things happen in bad bars.

Last weekend, the Fun Police, Brotherhood of the Black Squirrel and Big Wheel Stunt Show played a benefit at Bob's - part of an effort to "Save the Jive" - with proceeds going to all sorts of necessary repairs, from new paint to new upholstery at the Tacoma landmark.

Let's hope a bunch of money was raised - but let's also be real: every show, every night, every hastily poured and consumed beer is part of an effort to "Save the Jive." We all know that.

If you go to the Jive, it's because you love it or want to love it.

As long as the Jive is around - and let's hope it's forever - it'll be because of the place it holds in Tacoma's soul and nothing else.

This weekend, in typical Jive, DIY fashion, Bandolier, Motopony, The Painkillers, DJ Darrren Selector, Dave the bartender - and the Jive's extended, beer drinking family - will gather at the South Tacoma Way landmark to celebrate 55 official years of Bob's Java Jive. The event is intended to mark the anniversary of when Bob and Lylabell Radonich made the fateful decision to purchase the coffee pot shaped restaurant - originally constructed in 1927 - and turn it into a bar and music venue, creating a Tacoma legend along the way (as well as a few nicotine addicted chimps).

It's a celebration, and without even saying it, it's also part of a community's - our community's - constant effort to "Save the Jive."

"At its best and its worst, the Jive is an open place for everyone," says Darren Sampson (aka DJ Darrren Selector), who will be spinning Saturday night and also successfully booked the Jive for one of the landmark's most recent musical resurgences.

"The horrible, the ugly and the so good it's off other people's radar - it's all at home at the Jive," says Sampson. "It's on a different trajectory - in a different reality."

"Tacoma will forever be known as a blue collar town. What's more blue collar than coffee and beer?" says Lino Fernandez, of Bandolier, who - at the urging of bartender Dave - organized Saturday's 55th birthday party for the Jive.

"Compared to the Jive, any man's apartment looks like a palace," says Motopony's Daniel Blue. "It is gritty, the sound sucks, the bathroom is a Petri dish of new forms of transmitted what have you, there used to be a coin-op candy machine that had ants living it, all the seats in the courtyard make your ass green from moss and wet ... and yet it speaks to the Tacoman creed, ‘We can handle anything, we can have fun anywhere, we give life to hell.'"

Somewhat ironically, Blue recently moved to Seattle to join the rest of Motopony - though he's still keenly aware of the special place the Jive holds on Tacoma.

"My bandmates see the Jive as a place they can cut loose, throw beer on each other and not have to clean up their mess or give anyone any respect. They don't get it," Blue explains. "They don't realize that in the filth and the mess is our pride, and that we take care of broken things in Tacoma, because even broken things have value."

Come say happy birthday to Bob's Java Jive this Saturday.

[Bob's Java Jive, The Painkillers, Motopony, Bandolier, DJ Darrren Selector, Saturday, April 10, 9 p.m., $5, 2102 S. Tacoma Way, Tacoma, 253.475.9843]