SUZY STUMP: 5 THINGS TO DO TODAY >>>

2:30 P.M.: The Grand Cinema plays host to the United Artists 90th Anniversary Film Festival featuring The Great Escape at 2:30 p.m., Raging Bull at 8:15 p.m. and Midnight Cowboy at 8:50 p.m.

7 P.M.: Guitarist Shawn Starski has been named one of “The Ten Hottest New Guitarists” in the June 2008 Guitar Player magazine. Starski and his blues band Jason Ricci & New Blood play an all-ages early show at Jazzbones.

8 P.M.: MLKBallet presents another installment of its MOVE! dance series featuring a sneak of the upcoming Joel Show plus the MLKBallet Company students and guest artists. It’s $14 at the Urban Grace Church door.

9 P.M.: Rebel Without A Cause is easily the most moving and mystical entry in the adults-don't-get-us phylum, thanks not only to James Dean's demonic Method mumbling but to Jim Backus' nervous and crestfallen father figure. Bring your chair and warm blanket to the Washington State Capital Museum tonight.

10:30 P.M.: Hey kids, do you like doom and gloom metal with your pepperoni pizza?  Harvey Milk has earned a reputation for being the heaviest band to ever come out of Athens. Check them out with Sex Vid and Gun Outfit tonight at Old School Pizza in Olympia. Bring $5.

LINK: Viva South Sound arts and entertainment calendar
LINK: Live music and DJs tonight

JAKE DE PAUL: THE MORNING BREW >>>

How to make cheese toast with Chef Gordon. (Talk With The Chef)

Sending food back: a how-to. (Seattle Times)

Where would you throw an impromptu dinner party? (New York Times)

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

BOBBLE TIKI: BREAKFAST WITH BOBBLE TIKI >>>

THE DAILY WORD

panoply \PAN-uh-plee\, noun:
1. A splendid or impressive array.
2. Ceremonial attire.
3. A full suit of armor; a complete defense or covering.

USAGE EXAMPLE: In the den is where Bobble Tiki kept his favorite board game collection â€" a display he liked to call a “panoply of Monopoly.”

MORNING NEWS

TACOMA: Family sues over Foss shooting

OLYMPIA: Anyone got $40 million dollars?

SEATTLE: Neighborhood parking in Seattle is a bitch

UNITED STATES: Keeping fast food away from LA's poor

ENVIRONMENT: Ethics of meat eating

JUST BIZARRE: UK food addict

MORE STRANGE NEWS: Food rub bandit

THINGS TO DO TODAY
MOVIE LISTINGS: Look here
MUSIC LISTINGS: Here’s what’s happening
SHOOT THE SHIT: Weekly Volcano forums

DANIEL BLUE: MEET RANDY CZERNO >>>

Randy Czerno likes to be known as CZ7 verified by the symbol on his paintings.

A true artist in every sense of the word, Randy started with sculpture but then ran out of room and has since moved to painting and drawing with pastel chalks. He can sit and draw for hours in a coffee shop, hardly looking up from his books and totally devoted to the human shapes that he was bringing forth from what at first seemed like mere scribbles in a rainbow of colors. When you begin to see the faces and bodies taking form in his work, there is a truly magical feeling of revelation, as if they were there on the page waiting to be realized even before he made the first mark. His paintings are just as epic. He can often be found painting outside the One Heart Café where half of the time he is sanding down the layers he has recently painted to reveal the images underneath in the same way a sculptor would chip away at a block to form an image inside. 

Randy is calm and quiet most of the time, and when he speaks the wisdom is carefully thought out.  He once told me, "The easiest type of art you can make is art that is disturbing.  It takes an artist of true skill to create something that evokes feelings of love or elation."

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

MATT DRISCOLL: A BLAST OF GLAM PUNK >>>

Created by singer and guitarist Steve E Nix and bassist Steve Kicks â€" who both became local power pop semi celebrities in the Briefs â€" the Cute Lepers seem to have picked up exactly where the Briefs’ hiatus left off. Powered by very similar new wave, glam punk combustion engines, both the Briefs and Cute Lepers appeal to the same demographic, and the longer the Briefs stay on hiatus and the Cute Lepers keep picking up steam the less likely a Briefs return seems.

At least to me. I’m a skeptic.

For the record, I’d be fine either way. The Briefs were fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but the appeal of the Cute Lepers is obvious to anyone paying attention. Pop rock, glitz, and a few radio friendly bells and whistles â€" the Cute Lepers will bring all that and more to Hell’s Kitchen tonight.

[Hell’s Kitchen, The Cute lepers, The Power Chords, Avenue Rose, The Freakouts, Friday, Aug. 1, 6 p.m., all ages, $8-$10, 3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003]

MATT DRISCOLL: Mmmmm scones >>>

While we’ve known for a while here at the Weekly Volcano, last Wednesday it became official.

Creig Kostoff, (not pictured) owner of Sofia Bistro, has purchased and taken control of the Mandolin Café. The change will affect both restaurants, but only slightly.

In terms of the Mandolin Café, the only changes long time customers should expect is an upgrade in food and service. Changing the music, atmosphere, or vibe of the Mandolin isn’t in Kostoff’s plans.

“We’re using the kitchen (at Sofia Bistro) to upgrade the food,” says Kostoff. “We want to increase the level of service and do a better meal. We’ll keep everything else the same.”

Part of that better meal at the Mandolin involves a pastry chef, who â€" working from Sofia’s kitchen - will fill the Mandolin’s coffers with all sorts of fresh baked delights like scones, muffins, croissants and quiches. Fresh soups are also in the Mandolin game plan.

Kostoff says customers can also expect an upgrade in the Mandolin’s wine and beer, and that wine tasting events will continue at the cafe.

The only change that should be noticeable at the Sofia Bistro will be at lunch. While Sofia had offered a lunch menu during the day, they’ve ceased that operation to focus on dinner- a change that’s been in affect for over a month. Sous Chef Jaron Witsoe has been brought in to help with the seven nights a week dinner operation. Kostoff calls Witsoe both young and extremely talented.

In all, it’s nothing but good news for stomachs all around Tacoma.

MATT DRISCOLL: NOTES FROM THE TOP >>>

Even though Pappi Swarner decided to hit the booze and links this fine Friday afternoon, and Suzy Stump left the Weekly Volcano’s Best Of Tacoma party last night with some guy with a ponytail and hasn’t been seen at the office since, I’m still here â€" diligently working away at my desk for you, the South Sound blogosphere (in between glances at the latest Brett Favre update).

As much fun as the boss is probably having taking it easy this afternoon, I had even more with City Manager Eric Anderson. Tacoma’s main brain returned from a two week Friday press briefing hiatus today, and with the Tacoma Weekly’s John Larson on vacation and the TNT’s new city government newshound Nikki Sullivan not in attendance (she’s not new, really, just making a switch from covering state politics to the city stuff with the Trib’s Jason Hagey), I basically had Eric all to myself.

It was good for me. No word on whether Anderson enjoyed it.

Quick hits

- This Tuesday (Aug 5) the Council and Anderson are set to receive a “financial and economic status report for both the General Fund and Capital Projects Fund through June 2008.” The report will recap Tacoma’s finances since the beginning of the year, and provide a forecast of economics to come from the Tacoma’s Budget Officer Amy Palmer. Citing a 59% drop in tax revenue from real estate in the last 8 months, not to mention a drop in gas tax income, Anderson expects the report and forecast to be similar to economic bad news earlier this year, when the City Manager said a reduction in capital projects might be necessary. “That’s still true,” Anderson said of his earlier forecast.

“We were at an extraordinarily high level before,” said Anderson in regard to revenue Tacoma was receiving from real estate taxes during the boom of yesteryear. “Now we’ve dropped back down.”

Anderson said a continued reduction in capital projects may be necessary for Tacoma’s budget to adjust to the new level of tax income.

- According to a City of Tacoma news advisory, there’s an open house from 4-6 p.m. at the Tacoma Municipal Building on Wednesday (Aug 6) designed to “provide details on the upcoming Pacific Avenue improvement project and the impact it will have on the immediate area.”  The Pacific Avenue improvement project will “run on Pacifica Avenue between South 17th and South 25th streets and South 25th Street from Pacific Avenue to C Street.”

According to Anderson, events like Wednesday’s open house (one of many open houses the city has held in regard to the Pacific Avenue improvement project) are beneficial for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, it helps establish a “feedback loop” between citizens (business owners in particular) and the city.  Anderson says the city has received a lot of feedback on the coming improvement project, and much of it has been critical.

“A lot of people don’t understand why we’re going in again,” said Anderson. “A lot of people want to know why this wasn’t done the first time.”

“It’s a good question,” Anderson admits.

“Hopefully we can all work together. A lot of businesses rely on Pacific Avenue,” says Anderson. Open houses “get our people thinking about other people’s lives.”

Though he said the City of Tacoma is doing everything it can to minimize the impact on Pacific Avenue businesses (many of the same businesses that were affected during Link construction), Anderson realizes not everyone will be happy.

“It’s impossible to say we can do that 100%.”

Those attend Wednesday’s open house can expect information specifically on the traffic implications of the Pacific Avenue improvement project â€" mainly where the interruptions will occur and where the detours will be.

- Showcase Tacoma is quickly approaching, and the Weekly Volcano isn’t the only one excited. Though something tells me Eric Anderson isn’t, necessarily, a big fan of the Helio Sequence (who will blow Tollefson Plaza’s mind on Friday, Aug 8), the City Manager is a fan of the positive impacts an event like Showcase Tacoma has on our fair city.

“It builds community,” Anderson said of Showcase Tacoma, which the city has taken a large part in producing along with Metro Parks and Tacoma School of the Arts.

Anderson said the benefits go beyond community building, and into the realm of PR.

“A lot of people come from outside the city,” says Anderson. “A lot of them say ‘Holy smokes, this place has changed.’”

- Finally, City Council members will consider a resolution on Tuesday that would cut the Museum of Glass a check for $100,000 to aid in the purchase of a forklift and specialized truck intended for “housing and transporting the mobile hot shop for art outreach services.” Apparently, at least according to Anderson, the mobile hot shop is very much like the stationary hot shop inside the Museum of Glass â€" only movable. It’s designed to be taken around to schools and communities to show kids how obsessed Tacoma is with glass art, not to mention provide just a little more PR for Tacoma. Anderson said the purpose of the mobile hot shop is threefold: education, art, and marketing â€" noting that the hot shop on wheels will be taken to communities outside of Tacoma. “Outside the city, it publicizes Tacoma,” says Anderson.

“The city is very much a partner with the Museum of Glass.”

That’s all for this week. Eric Anderson is off to the triple digit heat of Denver to visit his son, and I’m off to the coast for a family reunion of sorts with my in-laws.

I’m sure we’ll both be sweating.

Have a wonderful weekend, Tacoma.