The Stranger's music blog Line Out did a little something something on Tacoma’s underground hip-hop prodigal son Can-U. â€" Brad Allen.

THE FILM
"It’s a Wonderful Life"
The Associated Ministries hosts a screening of “It’s a Wonderful Life” tonight at the Blue Mouse Theatre to benefit the Family Emergency Fund. Yeah!

Wonderful, yes, but remember that Frank Capra’s postwar holiday classic is about a guy who, for much of the film, is on a slow but steady path to jumping off a friggin’ bridge. Also remember all this leads right into a nightmare sequence of pure dementia, sustained far longer than is usually considered comfortable. Additionally, I feel compelled to remind you this movie was once a bomb, left pretty much for dead. It owes its untouchable place in the cultural zeitgeist to aggressive television broadcasts over the course of many, many decades â€" much like “A Christmas Story,”
Happy holidays! â€" Suzy Stump

[Blue Mouse Theatre, 2 p.m., $5, 7 p.m. fundraiser event with required reservations, 2611 N. Proctor, Tacoma, 253.383.3056]

MORE FILM: On local screens today.

JAZZ
Sweeter Than the Day
Offering a breathtaking trip to the event horizon of experimental jazz, blues and a few other categorical clichés, Wayne Horvitz and Sweeter than the Day are about stretching the art of, well, whatever it is.

Those with ears to hear and those wise enough to buy tickets to tonight’s show at Olympia’s Art House Designs will know what that means.

Without hesitation, Horvitz hesitates to classify his art. That may stem from his extensive repertoire. It may stem from the fact that what he does can’t be contained in a linear set of pop-culture references. It may stem from the fact that an artist like Horvitz hates being stuffed in boxes. That’s what artists do, he contends. They make their own boxes, crawl inside, and immediately begin making a new one. People like Horvitz can’t wait to use the new one to break out of the old. â€" Paul Schrag

[Art House, 8:30 p.m., all ages, $5-$10, 420 Franklin St., downtown Olympia, 360.943.3377, www.waynehorvitz.com]

MORE MUSIC: In the clubs tonight.

THE DAILY WORD
Learn it, use it, spell it

Grandee \gran-DEE\, noun:
1. A man of elevated rank or station.
2. In Spain or Portugal, a nobleman of the first rank.

USAGE EXAMPLE: It’s not so much his accomplishments on the football field that have lifted Tony Romo to the status of pop culture grandee, it’s his off the field escapades with the likes of Carrie Underwood and now Jessica Simpson. Bobble Tiki’s sources tell him Simpson and Romo were spotted swapping spit in LA on Saturday â€" and Bobble Tiki hasn’t been able to stop fantasizing about it since. The problem is Bobble Tiki’s not quite sure which one of them makes his Tiki nether region tingle more.

THE MORNING NEWS

FEDERAL WAY: Quad towers a go.

CHEHALIS: Interstate 5 still closed.

REDMOND: Microsoft kills potty-mouth Santa.

NEW YORK: Meathead craves meatballs.

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: Like a Tacoma institution, White Trash Night has been holding down shop at Hell’s Kitchen now for about as long as Bobble Tiki can remember. Of course, inebriates have transformed Bobble Tiki’s brain into Jello pudding at this point, but he has a point. Dave and Paul of Who Cares have been participating in one of the longest running gigs in town. They’re the deviants who sing vagina songs to kick off every month at the Kitchen. Bobble Tiki assumes their parents are proud. Tonight, Who Cares will be joined by Mercury Rising, The Them, and Hobo Libido. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

MORE MUSIC: What's on tonight.

BOBBLE TIKI’S THREATS AND PROMISES COLUMN
The thing about Sarah Dougher (pronounced ‘Dooger’), at least according to Bobble Tiki, is she appeals to a varied array of music fans. Bobble Tiki’s not gay, doesn’t know what it’s like to be gay, and bases everything he knows about homosexuality on the Patrick Swayze movie “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.” Admittedly, it’s an ignorant view, but it doesn’t stop Bobble Tiki from appreciating Dougher’s singer/songwriter prowess. Bobble Tiki assumes Dougher wouldn’t be heartbroken if it did, but that’s not the point. The point is you don’t have to be gay to dig Sarah Dougher. Here’s where to dig her.

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

Starbucks' Penguin Cookie

Guess who else has a Christmas Cookie?  That’s right, Starbucks.  I’m positive this is nothing new to you.  You gotta admit you’ve seen them there.  Don’t tell me you don’t glance in that plastic bakery case as you stand in line.  You eye the Peppermint Bark Brownies, drool over the Cranberry Bliss Bar, and flinch at what the calories of a slice of Holiday Gingerbread would do to your thighs.  Yet, it’s the colorful, thick icing of a Penguin Cookie that calls your name.  You are strong, and you don’t order.

Don’t worry, I went ahead and bought one.  I did it for you.  I did it for the Weekly Volcano.  I did it for all mankind.

So, no, they don’t make the cookie there on location, and when I asked where they got the cookie, they had no idea.  The looked, asked around, searched for the box it came it â€" nothing.  I went through another Starbucks drive-thru, asked the staff there, and they had the same “I have no idea” answer for me.  Hmpf.

Let me first point out that what you don’t see when you look through the bakery plastic is what’s underneath the cookie.  More frosting!  The cookie itself for the most part is your typical delicious Christmas shortbread/sugar cookie that you would usually buy from Starbucks.  It’s predictably yummy, tasty, and particularly hits that sweet tooth you most often discover as you sip your Grande Americano.  That happens to everyone, not just me, right? â€" Steph DeRosa

It’s that time of year again, when Christmas music can drive you crazy. It’s on the radio, in the stores, and blaring at countless parties. Nothing makes me want to climb a tower with a rifle quicker than premature holiday music. When I heard the first set of yuletide yahoos on WARM 106.9 FM back in October (it seems) I aimed my crosshairs at my radio set to blow it apart like a bowl full of jelly. All Christmas, 24 hours a day? Are you kidding me?

Thankfully, urbanXchange hosts a free Christmas show I can get behind Sunday. Trans Union, Ghosts & Liars and Garage Voice will fill Tacoma’s hippest resale fashion store with perfect pop while cookies and candy canes dance in my stomach.

Trans Union’s passionate ’80s post-punk is wrapped in tight, melancholy ballads sporting a name tag that says Interpol’s Turn on the Bright Lights and drawings of Santa Morrissey plastered on the present.

Pull the draw string on Ghost & Liars and listen to some of the most well thought out pop music you’ve ever heard. Honey sweet melodies, radiator-warm cello line and candy canes are their trademarks.

Garage Voice heads down the chimney with emotionally significant, jazz-inspired rock loaded with pretty piano work.

It's free, too. Thank owner Julie Bennett for the early present. â€" Suzy Stump

Scientists may never fully explain why certain women go gaga for the simplest things â€" a slender notebook from China, say, or a small, distressed-looking birdhouse. Mine loves vintage poster art from Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the nineteenth-century French master of poster art.

No more Paris talk poster art, I say.  The Grand Cinema is selling its old movie poster art for $15 each Saturday, Dec. 15, 1-7 p.m.  I want to walk down my girl’s hall and see John Bender and crew instead. Visit the Grand’s Web site for a list of posters.

Also, Beautiful Angle hosts its annual holiday poster sale this Saturday at Black Water Café. Details here. â€" Brad Allen

EATS
Honey Bee BBQ
Good barbecue â€" like some other good things in life â€" can’t be hurried. It’s a sloooooow process. We’re not talking about grilling, or backyard barbecues. We’re talking about the art of cooking meats and poultry over low, slow heat. Honey Bee BBQ knows what they’re doing. The ribs, chicken and brisket are slow-cooked over an alder wood fire until the meat is tender but not soft, and infused with smoke all the way down to the bone. â€" Jake and Jason de Paul
[Honey Bee BBQ, 1314 72nd St. E., Tacoma, 253.535.0588]

BBQ: More local ribs.
EATS: There’s more than just barbecue.

CLASSICAL
The Empire Brass
Tuba players are always getting the shaft. Their instrument can weigh almost 30 pounds, they rarely get to play a song’s melody, and they can’t help but sound like a sea lion with too much fiber in its diet. But The Empire Brass Holiday Pop Spectacular concert sponsored by the Tacoma Philharmonic, changes everything.

Enter Kenneth Amis â€" Empire Brass tuba player. He’s been playing the oompah parts and the long notes since age 15. His accolades since are too long to list.

Sure, The Empire Brass is a quintet, but I’m talking tuba folks. A holiday concert is a chance for the tuba to play beautiful music â€" “The First Noel,” “Alleluia,” and on and on.

The Weekly Volcano salutes you, Kenneth Amis, tuba player. â€" Suzy Stump

[Rialto Theater, 7:30 p.m., $25-$35, 310 S. Ninth, Tacoma, 253.272.0809]

MORE CLASSICAL: Holiday music represent.

ROCK
Red
Cross breeding industrial, classical and hard rock influences with a zeal Jesus himself would put up some devil horns for, Red earned a passionate legion of fans and a Grammy nomination in the “Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album” category thanks to their 2005 debut record, End of Silence. Though it appears Red came up short at the Grammys, as I assume the band’s bio would refer to Red as a “Grammy winning” band had they taken home the statue of debatable importance, one thing is certain â€" fans of Red are about as rabid as they come, and the band shows no signs of slowing up. â€" Matt Driscoll

[Maggie O’Toole’s, with Lurid and Voices Lost, Friday, Dec. 7, 8 p.m., all ages, $7, 6006 100th St. S.W., Lakewood, 253.584.3278]

ROCK
Trip The Light Fantastic
If you’re not familiar with Trip the Light Fantastic, there’s a good chance you are familiar with the now defunct band Weather. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that Weather was one of the hottest bands on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

Weather broke up in 2006. Tyler Pratt and Joseph Yohann, suddenly bandless, recruited drummer David Balaam. Next thing you know, Trip the Light Fantastic was born.

What Trip the Light Fantastic is, besides a band name that could be a reference to about a gazillion different things, is an instrumental experiment of brainy rock seemingly created for the dirt under the fingernails crowd of Grit City. â€" MD

[Hell’s Kitchen, with The Elephants and Kusikia, 6 p.m., all ages, $6, $5 with canned food donation, 3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003]

MORE MUSIC: In the clubs tonight.

Celebrity Cakes â€" Macaroons

I’m not gonna lie, I make a damn good homemade macaroon.  In my opinion what makes the perfect macaroon is the consistency.  It has to be chewy, yet done (not raw) on the inside.  It has to also be the perfect amount of toasted on the outside.  The bonus is when they have chocolate attached to them in any way, shape, or form.  When I make them I add chocolate chips. (Because I rock the macaroon world.)  Fortunately, the bottoms of the macaroons from Celebrity Cake Studio have met my chocolate recommendations.  And trust me, Steph DeRosa chocolate recommendations are something everyone should take very seriously.

Along with your standard Christmas decorated sugar cookies, macaroons seem to be the most popular with bakeries when it comes to stocking their Christmas items. 

Surprisingly what is least stocked are Gingerbread Men.  Weird, huh?

I’ll leave you today with a sentence full of sexual innuendo. The statement has not been falsified in any way.   Do with it as you wish:

The huge coconut balls Celebrity Cake Studio puts out have the option of with or without a cherry.

You can thank me later. â€" Steph DeRosa

Say kids, do you like music?  How about Tacoma music?  Hear the sounds of Tacoma tunes 24/7 at the new urbanXchange Web site. The Tacoma resale fashion store's online player features nothing but Tacoma music. Nice.

Also, the store's local music CD would make a nice gift. â€" Brad Allen

Annual holiday events are much looked forward to and are a cherished tradition in Tacoma’s Stadium District. The 3rd annual Dickens Festival at Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 8 promises that no matter what your age, it’s still a delight to have your photo taken with St. Nick. If you’re an adult, think of how much silly fun it will be to send that picture as your holiday card this year. And of course, Santa Claus loves the kiddies, so bundle them tight and bring on the smiles. Even the pets get included, but remember to keep a leash on Fido.

Watch for roaming street performers inspiring giggles and bestowing good cheer. You can’t help but hear the carolers, and speaking of music; four stages will host live music and dancers appropriate for all ages this year at Tacoma Little Theatre, First Presbyterian Church, Titus Automotive, and King’s Book’s.

Snag a seat for a horse drawn carriage ride before standing in awe as the holiday tree gets its lights at 5:30 p.m. The fun starts at 11 a.m. on Tacoma Avenue. â€" Jennifer Johnson

GIFTS: Shopping in the Stadium District.

EATS: Where to chow during Dickens Festival.

FILM: What’s playing at the Grand.