Last night the Harmon Brewery held its annual Pray For Snow bash.  As always, the Harmon was filled with beer-chugging yuppies and other socialites. Toss in a few snow bunnies and live music and the event was the place to be seen. â€" Steve Dunkelberger

FILM
All Freakin’ Night
Those creepy folks at the Olympia Film Festival offer “All Freakin’ Night,” a late night mini-fest of mind-numbing unadulterated films sure to cause at least one of your major organs to fail. Beginning at midnight Saturday, Nov. 10 (perfect!) and running through early morning Sunday, five flicks will flicker with enough carnage to terrify, not just sicken: “The Blob (12:01 a.m.), “Werewolf Vs. Vampire Woman” (1:45 a.m.), “The Horrible Dr. Hichcock,” (3:45 a.m.), “Fright Night” (5:30 a.m.), “The School That Couldn't Scream” (7:30 a.m.).

Wedged between the movies will be Ballyho and Humbug taking control of the crowd’s minds, tossing prizes into the crowd and the unleashing of the monster.

The best scary costume wins a prize. â€" Brad Allen

[Capitol Theater, Saturday, Nov.10, midnight, $10-$15, 206 E. Fifth Ave., Olympia, 360.754-6670, olympiafilmfestival.org]

Olympia Film Festival: Today’s the final day.

Warren Miller: Hit the “Playground” today.

MORE FILM: On local screens today.

DJ/FILM
The Royal Lounge
Tonight, The Royal Lounge in Olympia screens the flick “Tammytown,” the story of teens during their final year at Hellgate High in 1989.  The cast and crew are based in Olympia.

After the screening, DJ Dead Air will spin your favorite ‘80s hits.

Be sure to throw back a few of these. â€" BA

[The Royal Lounge, 8 p.m., 311 N. Capitol Way, Olympia, 360.705.0760]

DJ
Diwali Night 2007
OK, class, raise your hand if you’re down with the bhangra sound. Better yet, throw both your hands in the air and give ’em a slick flick at the wrist, in your best approximation of the Punjabi party-down style.

If you’re digging the North Indian dancefloor thunder of bhangra â€" DJ Burn and DJ Styxxx sound that takes the big boom of the dhol drum and the needling treble riffs of the stringed tumbi, then amps them up electronically into a ferocious frenzy of fun â€" you’ll dig Diwali Night 2007 Saturday night.

Burn and Styxxx of Veera Productions will blend bhangra and hindi with hip-hop for a night of Bollygood. â€" Suzy Stump

[Longshoremen Hall, Saturday, Nov. 10, doors at 9 p.m., $5, 1710 Market St., Tacoma, www.myspace.com/sasauwt]

PARTY
ürbanaüt
From pit boys and party sluts to cyber-hippies and candy kids, trying to keep up with the constant evolution and hybridization of underground party-goers is enough to make any graver’s glitter-soaked eyeliner run.

The brain trust behind ürbanaüt don’t give a rat’s ass who shows up at their underground party Saturday, Nov. 11. Those who can figure out the where and when of their art/fashion/music soiree, are more than welcomed.

“We really want to nix the whole party concept, pushing the envelope and trying to get everyone to as much of the culture as possible,” says one of the promoters. “It’s gonna be straight crazy.” The night will feature 100 fashion models, cutting-edge artists and live music. And you? â€" SS

[For super secret location and time, visit www.myspace.com\undergroundtacoma]

MUSIC
Top Heavy Crush
Present day Top Heavy Crush, however, has finally found their stride. As the band prepares for the release of their (seriously) long awaited debut record â€" yet untitled â€" THC is now firing on a level I’ve never seen before. After spending nine months recording and rerecording the new album with producer Pete Matthews, partly in Seattle and partly in Memphis, Tenn., THC has found a place where all five members can contribute, and the creative strengths of the chemistry can be fully recognized. Couple that with the fact that drummer Geoff Reading recently beat cancer, and all signs point to a band on the brink of serious success.

The band recently emerged victorious from KISW’s “American Idiot” local band competition, and will open KISW’s Holiday Hangover Ball that Seether will headline. â€" Matt Driscoll

[Hell’s Kitchen, with Sirens Sister, Cadillac Radio, and Titans of Oblivion, Saturday, 9 p.m., $6, 3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003]

MORE MUSIC: In the clubs tonight.

THE DAILY WORD
Learn it, use it, spell it

Didactic \dy-DAK-tik; duh-\, adjective:

1. Fitted or intended to teach; conveying instruction; instructive; teaching some moral lesson; as, "didactic essays."
2. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively; moralistic.

For Oprah, the didactic moment of the sexual abuse debacle currently developing at her South African school for disadvantaged girls probably happened when the fourth or fifth girl came forward. Oprah likely thought to herself, “Never again will I open a school for disadvantaged girls in South Africa, invite Spike Lee and Nelson Mandela to see it opened, and then go back to Hollywood to do pointless puff pieces on George Clooney while my dormitory matrons diddle the pupils. Never!”

THE MORNING NEWS

TACOMA: Silly little protestors.

AFGHANISTAN: U.S. troops killed in ambush.

AUBURN: I’ve got bruises yes I do!

BERLIN: Dude, where’s your car?

HUSTLER OF CULTURE
You can stand atop the mountain and scream your naked desires to the universe or shed that synapse epilepsy and hug the South Sound today with your fellow man:

MUSIC: Tonight, VIII Days Clean, VanDommelen, and Kamikazi Sex Pilots will play Club Adrian in Tacoma. If you haven’t heard, Club Adrian is an all ages venue at 5601 S Puget Sound Ave. Bobble Tiki doesn’t have many details on the joint, because let’s be honest â€" kids and parents alike don’t really feel comfortable when Bobble Tiki’s in the back of the room, keeping to himself, looking old and feeling even older. It’s just a bad scene for everyone involved. If Bobble Tiki wasn’t a creepy old man, though, he’d definitely check this show out. It’ll be a good one.

MORE MUSIC: What's on tonight.

FILM: All Freakin’ Night.

BOBBLE TIKI’S THREATS AND PROMISES COLUMN
Bobble Tiki loves Mono in VCF. Loves them. Bobble Tiki can’t think of a more original band from Tacoma, and Bobble Tiki can’t think of a band he’d rather spend the night with.

When Bobble Tiki realized Mono in VCF will be taking over the Pacific Science Center’s Laser Dome in Seattle Wednesday, Nov. 14, for a listening party featuring the band’s forthcoming self-titled debut, his jaw hit the floor. Everyone has a record release show, but it takes real cajones to book the Laser Dome.

Breakfast with Bobble Tiki runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  Deal with it.

The handy little booklet the Tacoma Arts Commission put out for the Studio Tours â€" today and tomorrow â€" says that at each of the 41 artist studios and three schools on the tour visitors can pick up a card with a picture of the artist’s work. If you collect all of the cards, the booklet informs us, you can build a house of cards.

Full details on the studio tours here. â€" Alec Clayton

A large crowd in Olympia stopped traffic this morning on several downtown Olympia streets and Intertstae 5 exchanges protesting military equipment offload in the Port of Olympia destined for Fort Lewis.  Olympia Police officers dressed in riot gear carrying batons and pepper spray kept the Port of Olympia open by pepper spraying 20 or so Olympia Port Militarization Resistance protesters.

Here are a few awful shots I snapped this morning at the protest. â€" Brad Allen

BRAZILIAN CHORO
Choro Famoso
Forget manic Hispanics shaking their pompons to the canned Latin tedium of Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez. Toss that Macarena in the trash can. Lambada? Pas besoin. (Yes, those references date Bobble Tiki.) All Bobble Tiki really needs to have a serious tropical dance party is the gone music of Brazil.

Tonight, the lively, melodic Brazilian jazz-like sounds of Choro Famoso will swirl about smartly at the Varsity Grill in downtown Tacoma. Choro Famoso â€" Mike Marshall (mandolin), Carlos Olivera (seven-string guitar), Andy Connell (clarinet) and Brian Rice (percussion) â€" will fire up Brazlian Choro music to benefit Adam’s Square, a Tacoma Rescue Mission transitional housing project for families. Cool. â€" Bobble Tiki

[Varsity Grill, 7 p.m., $20, 1114 Broadway, Tacoma, 253.347.1394]

BLUES
Mark Whitman
Mark Whitman is not only one of the best guitar players in Western Washington, he’s also righteous nice. While he looks like a badass biker, he has a gentle soul, a quiet presence and an inviting spirit that makes everyone feel welcome.

I have seen Mark perform more times than I can count, and every time I’m blown away by the ease of his playing. It’s as if his guitar is a part of his body. With a combination of blues, R&B and jazz, his tone is rich but not overpowering.

Whitman recently suffered a reaction to a medication that resulted in stroke-like symptoms and has left him partially paralyzed and unable to perform. To help with the medical expenses, there have been benefit shows throughout the Northwest. The next will be held at the Swiss tonight featuring Becki Sue & Her Big Rockin’ Daddies, Big Nasty and many of the area’s premier blues players donating their night to this very worthy cause. It will be more than worth your donation. â€" Tony Engelhart

[Swiss Pub, 7-11 p.m., donations, 1904 Jefferson Ave,. Tacoma, 253.572.2821]
Sunday, Nov. 11

PUNK
The Old Haunts
It doesn’t get much more punk rock than Olympia’s The Old Haunts. With a couple of Kill Rock Stars releases under their belt, and a third on the way, the Old Haunts pretty much personify everything that’s good about the genre. Punk is not a new shtick, and evolution hasn’t necessarily been kind to it. While the term punk once embodied a diverse field of sounds, from X to the Ramones, these days punk is something you can put on your credit card and find at any Hot Topic. â€" Matt Driscoll

[The Brotherhood Lounge, with Militant Childrens Hour and Borful Tang (both from Oakland), Sunday, Nov. 11, 9 p.m., $5, 119 Capitol Way N., Olympia, 360.352.4153]

MORE MUSIC: In the clubs tonight.

FILM
Snow porn
If it’s November, it must be Warren Miller time. Again. Since before Ike was president, Miller has been making, more or less, annual films dedicated to the exhilaration of all things vertical and snowy. The fact that he’s still doing it â€" though the actual director’s reins have been handed to successors, including his son, Kurt â€" suggests that he’s doing something right for his target audience. It’s winter sports porn for me.  I soak in every money shot.  For the 58th time a Miller film tours the nation, and this time it’s on “Warren Miller’s Playground.”  Ski and snowboard athletes tackle the world, including Dubai and Japan. â€" Suzy Stump

[Pantages Theater, 5 p.m., $20, 901 Broadway, Tacoma, 253.591. 5894]

MORE FILM: On local screens today.

Shakespeare In the Parking Lot Theatre Company is continuing its run of "Macbeth: When the Hurley Burley's Done" with a performance at Mandolin Cafe today at 2 p.m.

This locally adapted version of William Shakespeare's classic takes a political spin as Macbeth runs for president, illustrating the political corruption and power angle of the Bard's masterpiece.

The bubble-bubble witches are political advisors Macbeth visits for advice on his next move while his life gets complicated thanks to his politically ambitious wife, who just happens to be a popular Senator in a life-imitates art sort of Bill Clinton sort of way. Stained dress not included. â€" Steve Dunkelberger

Warning: This post is NSFW.

Last night’s ürbanaüt art gathering at Sanford & Son Antiques witnessed police activity, live painting, drinking out of a van, models in T-shirts, Junior Bizarre sale, laughter, great conversation, and a naked chick.

However, the highlight for this writer was the speech given by Daniel Blue of Loyalty Clothing.  Below is the speech and a few shots I snapped. â€" Brad Allen

Daniel Blue's Soap Box

When I moved to this city there was something in the air
A rigid electric tension that has been defined as change
As if a great prophet had spoken over the very land
And the citizens of Tacoma were caught in the act of faith

Everyone around me was talking about the change
The new Tacoma that was rising, a renaissance, an artists’ dream
And I watched this city invite machines to break the ground and summon
Museums and convention centers, universities and institutions of the highest order

We pulled these monsters from the earth
In order to pull people to fill them from the entire world.

And I remember, Tacoma, the excitement I felt as a newcomer
The intense feeling of finding something in the midst of transformation
It was a the feeling of upward motion, I felt that though my feet were planted on the street
I was standing on the roof of a skyscraper that had yet to be built
If only I were able to stay, the structure would be built beneath me
And push me up in the world, higher and higher as the city reached its destiny

During that time of dreams, I would stand over the sewer gates on the corners
And feel the energy writhing from the cities roots.
It was as if the very land itself was calling for change, inviting redemption
Coaxing her people to hope for her future.

There was a swelling a swirling of conversations and actions and eye sparkling
Confessions of visions. People spoke freely of their ambitions and callings, anything was possible, the city was a blank canvas, and our anticipation grew with the massive bubble of energy, we felt that when it burst, Tacoma would explode onto the map of the world
Known for its crazed artist communities, vibrant walk able neighborhoods, sustained by art and passion.

But it did not burst…

Perhaps one of the many sharp protrusions of the new architecture sliced a gash, in the thin layer of idea that surrounded us, perhaps a curious developer from out of town untied the chord that held us anchored to the ground. Perhaps a city official stubbed their tow on the plug stopping up the drain, and in their zeal, removed the clog, spilling our energy into the vastness of the sound.

Perhaps the hope of 10000 alcoholics can be wrong…

Whatever the case, our swelling balloon of anticipatory glory was deflated before it could burst…and now instead of visions of what will be, I hear grumblings of what has come.

I remember leaf and laser
Before Embellish moved and Darek had gotten any crazier.
I remember Jack and Terry Deans goatee
When Rachael had a dream before pookie monsters was called Black Water
We’ll see who comes if we sell clothes from the basement of buildings that no body knows.

I remember Jeremy Silas
I remember Paris Spleen
I remember Sincerely Elvis
I remember Tommy Dean

I remember drinking cheap beer in the parking lot of the old Longshoreman’s Hall with Steve Brooks.
I remember Eyes of Autumn
I remember The Dirty Looks
And I remember how we got them

I remember the hundred monkeys
I remember whom I’ve met and which of them are making money

I remember my best intentions
I remember how I failed them and how my friends formed interventions.

I remember a bar called Panamonicas
A Deck and a drink and a come along with us
A mike and a stage, a wall and a shelf
A Pair of hands open to receive the wealth of the artistic community
I remember deep nights of reggae and a dance floor that stretched into infinity
I remember the first poem I ever read out loud in front of anybody
I remember a man who took two of my mannequins and set them above his bar
Told me my words were golden and my loyalty would take me far

I remember an idea called Kulture Lab
A handful of dead men and a write up in the local rag
How Rob got back from India and played songs outside that made me sad
How I was invited and accepted and remembered when I came back

And yes in the light of the hopeless dawn of development

The word renaissance has been traded for gentrification, I hear stories of who has moved out of downtown, when I used to hear wild tales of people finally finding home.
I hear news of unbridled corruption, instead of praise for local heroics.

When a man hears these things, he steps back and thinks to himself, my people are loosing hope.  This is a time of crisis. Without hope, we will loose our home to condos and investment firms.  Without hope we will be developed into a consumable product.
Without hope we will not rise, we will not become what we know we are.  I ask you to believe tonight Tacoma, that this city knows herself, that she knows the beautiful place that she is to live.

My answer to this crisis, my fellow citizens, I believe, lies in our memories of what this city has been to us, and from it what we have received.

Tonight I ask you to remember Tacoma.  Remember all that we have been, all that we have hoped and dreamed to be.  Do not forget, Tacoma. My fellow artists, remind each other of dreams we have had…tell stories of the connections you made, the times you had, the places that helped you become the culture we have created.

Painters, paint your mufassa in the clouds, reminding us who we are
Poets, reminisce and speak of the joys of finally home, and selling your car
Musicians, sing songs of the time before cranes filled the skyline, before centers interrupted our walking and gentrify wasn’t an accepted byline.
Dancers, remember the time, remember the time, remember the time.
Actors, play out things you have scene.
Writers, summon a memory, and remind me what it means.

I will tell you what I remember,
I remember the Kickstand Café,
The coffee drank our days away
Tasting every flavor of Tacoma on the sidewalks of smoky conversations
Falling in love with every girl that walked by in short boots and stripped coked contemplation.
Writing in the window that had become my womb
The poems I would read that night at open mike in the back room
Learning everyone’s names and reciting them later when I drank with them at Magoo’s.

I remember 505 Broadway
Puke brown carpet and hospital like hallways
All night games of foursquare and dreams of making art there

I remember silent studios
Orange squares, dance parties
Bands you couldn’t see in videos

There is that vibrant core of Tacoma that remains…that reminds me of what is mine to claim.

Like I remember this morning at the Black Water Café
Writing this very poem and hoping I had something to say
I remember the people that came in and hopes that came in with them
I remember that I have friends, and I remember that I love them

When I remember Tacoma, I remember why I came.
Who here knows what has stayed the same?

We represent what has not changed, children of Tacoma learn the secret name.

FILM
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is such a superb crime melodrama that I almost want to leave it at that. To just stop writing right now and advise you to go out and see it as soon as you can. I so much want to avoid revealing plot points that I don't even want to risk my usual strategy of oblique hints. You deserve to walk into this one cold.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play brothers who conspire on a “victimless crime” with dire consequences, in one of the year’s best thrillers â€" and films.

It co-stars Marisa Tomei, Amy Ryan, and Rosemary Harris.

It’s rated R for a scene of strong graphic sexuality, nudity, violence, drug use and language. Four stars â€" Roger Ebert

[The Grand Cinema, 3:45, 6:15, 8:45 p.m., 606 Fawcett Ave. , Tacoma, 253.593.4474]

MORE FILM: On local screens today.

The master of make-out music for 40-somethings Celine Dion will perform Saturday, Oct. 18, 2008, at the Tacoma Dome.

Of course well all know she can speak and sing in French. Dion is of course not French. She's French Canadian, which unfortunately has no bearing on her ability to make baby chipmunks from inject cyanide directly into their cute little eyeballs and die quick screeching little deaths at the sound of that “Titanic” song.

Tickets are $76.50 and $112.50 at Ticketmaster outlets.  They go on sale Saturday, Nov. 17 at 10 a.m.

That’s all I know about Dion off the top of my head. â€" Brad Allen