Veterans
The mood was anything but somber during the second annual Operation Welcome Home event held last Saturday at Cheney Stadium. The event, hosted by local organization VetsMeetVets, featured a tailgate party in the stadium parking lot and a pregame celebration on the field. There was free food, music, raffle giveaways and
Scene It
Standing in line for beer atop Cheney Stadium's Tasty Terrace, I listen to a couple of guys discuss the perks of drinking the $2-a-cup beer served every Thursday night at the ballpark. "It's cheaper to drink here than it is to drink at home," says one of the guys. "I mean,
Scene It
Arriving to a club after a few shots of whiskey isn't something I normally recommend. I also almost never recommend racking up a $70 bar tab. But what is it the good book says, humble Volcano readers? Judge not lest ye have hit the dance floor hard? Sometimes a man has to
Focus
Karen Robbins loves the American flag. On the tops of buildings, taped to mailboxes, a sticker on the back of a passing car. In all shapes and sizes, Robbins can't get enough of the stars and stripes. The flag is her passion. And like anybody with a passion, Robbins has been
Music
Sitting in Café Vita, sipping our Americanos, we discussed what we knew. What we knew, what we had heard and what we still needed to find out. We had heard a lot of things about Northern, the prominent all-ages venue and gallery space in Olympia that had rocked the scene for
Scene It
As I pull into the Wild Waves parking lot, girls in bikinis bounce toward the park's entrance. A group of shirtless guys chug energy drinks on the hood of a car. The sun breaks through the clouds and Jay-Z can be heard blasting inside the park. From the parking lot, Wild
Food Matters
The new mobile food court at the corner of State Avenue and Adams Street in Olympia opened Tuesday, consisting of four mobile food trucks representing four different businesses: Kell's Kitchen, Barb's BBQ, Ricardo's Wood Fire Pizza Express and The Firehouse Grill's Extreme Burgers. Working under the joint venture Oly Foods,
Guides
Top of Tacoma Bar and Cafe wins Best Bar in Tacoma for the second year in a row as voted on in the Weekly Volcano's annual Best of Tacoma contest. Got it? Didn't think so. How about this: Top of Tacoma is a cool bar. So cool that Weekly Volcano readers have
Scene It
Writing for the Meat Market takes me everywhere. From the sweatiest of Puyallup dance floors to the crustiest of Lacey dive bars, I've seen it. Gooey, stinky and wet. I take it all. What I haven't seen - until now - is anything south of exit 99 on Interstate 5.
Afterword
Here we are, people. Late July. Squarely in the middle of the baseball season. The hot dogs are cooking, the peanuts are flying and the beers are being guzzled by the gallon. Only two more months of glorious baseball left. Guzzle, people. Guzzle. So, how have our boys of summer, the
Archives
For 18-year-old James Irish, meeting Jeff Spencer was a frightening experience. When the two met last January, Irish was on an operating table at MultiCare Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma. Spencer, a MultiCare endocardiographer, and others were busy preparing to drain fluid that had collected around Irish's heart. The procedure
Scene It
Lakefair gets a bum rap from Olympia's hip elite. They ask, Why go to Lakefair? they ask. So I can deal with cruddy rides, overpriced food and lowlife town folk? Fat chance. I'd rather sit here in the bar pretending to read my Nabokov, thank you very much. Normally I'd disagree
Scene It
The '80s rock club is my Holy Grail. A live band blasting metal hits. Tough guys in leather jackets tossing back beers. Bouncers, fresh out of prison, feathering their long, dangerous hair. Bodacious blondes strutting around the club. That's right. Bodacious '80s blondes. But the prototypical '80s rock club no longer exists.
We Recommend
Tacoma City Councilman Ryan Mello says it's easy to understand how the true meaning of Pride sometimes gets lost in all the pizzazz of annual events like Tacoma's Out in the Park. Hell, Pride celebrations do mean good people watching; they do mean fun weekends. But Mello says individuals need
Arts
I guess you could say I was ignorant. See, I lived in a bubble. I grew up with parents that explained sexual orientation as more than a two-way street. I grew up in Olympia, where a man kissing another man is - for the most part - celebrated and treated just
Hip-Toss
Tacoma's street skateboarders know what it means to be shunned. Whether it's getting yelled at by shopkeepers or handed tickets by the police, the message to the city's kickflippers has been clear for years: Go home. Tacoma doesn't want you or your stinking skateboard. But ever-so-slowly, Tacoma is rolling back its harsh
Guides
Most meat markets resemble burger patties from a fast food joint. They're cheap. They're flash-cooked. They're greasy, noisy and often times fatty. Too many can leave a patron queasy and disoriented. But a good one? Well, a good meat market is like a cut of perfectly prepared filet mignon. When you're
Guides
When one dreams of nightlife hotspots, the towns of Roy and Yelm don't often come to mind, right? Wrong, baby. While still not exactly known as the Las Vegas of the Pacific Northwest (Atlantic City, maybe), these tiny blips on the map have a few watering holes worth noting. The first
Guides
What does ECETI stand for? It stands for Enlightened Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Where is the ECETI Ranch? It's at the base of Mount Adams near Trout Lake, Wash. Why is the ECETI Ranch known internationally? It's one of the most frequented places in the world for UFO sightings, with
Scene It
I bring a date to Vanity nightclub. I know, I know. Bringing a date kind of defeats the purpose of reporting on the hookup scene, right? But I've seen enough of these clubs alone. Every once in a while, papa's got to get some sugar. Plus, I tell her it's my
