JAKE DE PAUL: THE MORNING BREW >>>

1. Pacific Grill serves a summery salad of heirloom tomatoes (Talk with the Chef)

2. It's a cream puff renaissance (LA Times)

3. Drink to your health the Scandinavian way â€" with aquavit (SF Gate)

LINK: Weekly Volcano restaurant reviews
LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

DANIEL BLUE: MEET JAMES DARDUNGO >>>

James Dardungo and I bonded in a tent-awning outside of Bob's Java Jive over a chamomile-laced cigarette. Chamomile is calming and a pleasing mellow aromatic smoke.  His friend Potter showed up and I told a Harry Potter joke that made everyone uncomfortable. 

We first met inside the Jive while he was apologizing to everyone about the noisy Tetris arcade unit that he could not get to shut up when the music started. That's OK James; the sound at the Jive is so ear bleedingly loud that no one can hear your video game or your apologizing for that matter. 

Pictured here enjoying a frothy Seattle Pilsner outside of The Monsoon Room, James is looking to the sky in praise of Bacchus, to whom he has given his mortal body.   

Once outside of Mike Ball's house James was zipping around on an orange bicycle and exclaiming about the wonders of 10-speeds. I hope you got your very own bike by now, James.   

He has lived in Tacoma for two years and his favorite part of the whole city is the Port.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

JOSE S. GUTIERREZ JR.: NEW ONLINE HIP-HOP COLUMN >>>

What a time to begin my new hip-hop column Live From I-5: The 25360. The hip-hop nation is in a state of confusion and amnesia.  The state government has just passed an anti-gang bill that casts an incriminating umbrella upon a multitude of people â€" some likely NOT gang members.  The imperial art of “The DJ” is in peril.  Eeeeeverybody thinks they can rap, but few have anything original to say.  The roots of the culture of hip-hop are being neglected and disrespected and the future is a guess at best.

This is what “it” is about: the truth to power, the voice of the people â€" YOUR VOICE â€" through me of course.  LFI5: The 25360 reflects the joint area codes of the South Puget Sound’s common history and heritage of hip-hop, Entertainment, Community and “The Scene.”  I will think and write in the spirit of “edutainment” (a combination of education and entertainment as coined by the great, Blastmaster KRS-ONE).  And as a student of the ways of the great Edward R. Murrow and Ice Cube, I will do my best to listen, respond and deliver the freshest of the fresh.

Check out my first column on the Weekly Volcano's Web site.

STEPH DEROSA: I'M ON VACATION >>>

I grabbed a bit of vacation this week so today's Dinner with DeRosa is not happening. Deal with it.

Here are past Dinner with DeRosa posts to fill your void.

Mangiamo!

SUZY STUMP: WE SNAPPED A COUPLE SHOTS >>>

The Weekly Volcano staff worked our Lava Tube Friday and Saturday during Showcase Tacoma, although we did manage to sneak away and snap a couple shots of the arts and music festival in downtown Tacoma.

Check them out at our Photo Hot Spot.

STEVE DUNKELBERGER: PLAYWRIGHTS >>>

Northwest Playwrights Alliance is doing its last stage reading gig at Tacoma's Broadway Center for the Performing Arts before the group shacks up with Seattle Rep in September.
Shows on the roster for Monday's reading include: Last Call, by Lia Romeo; Three Kings, by James Venhaus; The Tale of Johnny Elgam vs. the Newport Kid, by Aaron Shay; Matchmaker, by Cathy Sampson; and Lefty by Bryan Willis.

The stage readings will be at 7 p.m. Aug. 11 at Broadway Center Rehearsal Studio - 915 Broadway. Admission is free.

The Academy of International Education, Broadway Center for the Performing Arts and Northwest Playwrights Alliance will also present a slate of six plays for Play Buffet X at 7 p.m. Aug. 16 at the Theater on the Square.

SUZY STUMP: 5 THINGS TO DO TODAY >>>

10 A.M.: Forty Part Motet is a 40-track audio installation that allows listeners to experience sound from the viewpoint of a choir, physically involving them in a piece of music by the 16th-century English composer Thomas Tallis. Jump in it at the Tacoma Art Museum.

10 A.M.: Train enthusiasts embody both the history (choo-choo trains, cow catchers, waving handkerchiefs from the platform) and the future (mass transit, commuter rails, park and ride) of transportation. Further study of their beliefs and practices is encouraged â€" try, for example The West the Railroads Made, the Washington State History Museum’s salute to the tracks and equipment from the Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads beginning in the 1840s. Climb aboard here.

7 P.M.: Northwest Playwrights Alliance is doing its last free stage reading gig at Tacoma's Broadway Center before the group shacks up with Seattle Rep in September. Shows on the roster for tonight include: Last Call, by Lia Romeo; Three Kings, by James Venhaus; The Tale of Johnny Elgam vs. the Newport Kid, by Aaron Shay; Matchmaker, by Cathy Sampson; and Lefty by Bryan Willis.

8 P.M.: It’s Monday and that means Greta James â€" the jazz band consisting of Vince Brown on guitar, Carey Black (or Harry Levine) on upright bass, Andrew Dorsett on keys and Greta Jane aka Ruby Valentine on vox â€" swings it at The Royal tonight.

9 p.m.: Anyone can belt out Journey at a karaoke bar. But what if a full band with puffy hair and leather pants were actually behind you playing while you hit that triplicate “going eh-nee-where” note? The dream can be yours every Monday night at Jazzbones. It’s the closest your ass will get to stardom.

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

JAKE DE PAUL: THE MORNING BREW >>>

1. When dinner makes you sick (Boston Globe)

2. Do we really need organic potato chips? (Serious Eats)

3. Broccoli may undo diabetes damage. (BBC)

LINK: Weekly Volcano restaurant reviews
LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

DANIEL BLUE: MEET RYAN WALLING >>>

Ryan Walling is my cousin. He has lived in Tacoma longer than I have. I remember visiting his house on the eastside when I was a kid. Ryan taught the younger cousin boys (me, Mike, and Zac) how to skate on the half pipe in his backyard. His father, my mother's brother Mike, let me borrow his skateboard and I dropped in from the top within the first day. I think I was 10. I remember that my uncle was building an airplane in the garage - no shit.   

Ryan just grew up cooler than us other kids.  Snowboarding, girls, music, most everything we wanted he got to first and mastered.  Here he is pictured with his iPhone, which he acquired before I purchased mine. 

Ryan runs marathons for fun. Sometimes you can see him, like a picture out of NICE BODY magazine, jogging around downtown with sweat glistening of his well-tanned shirtless stacks of muscles. 

Currently Ryan works for the City of Tacoma in the water division of our public utilities. 

He just purchased a black Ducati Monster "naked" motorcycle, which is faster and more attractive than anything made in America. 

Somehow Ryan achieves all of this coolness without being a douche bag, not even just a little bit.  He is nice and gentle with his words, as if he actually gave a damn about your touchy-feely art world.  Maybe its cause we are family.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive