STEPH DEROSA: CAN'T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS PIERCINGS >>>

As one of Tacoma's best and most raw music venues, Hell's Kitchen puts you right in the action at any live performance. There's no balcony or reserved seats in the music room¬" just a bench on the west side. Most people must stand. With the type of artists typically booked at HK¬" to sit down while a band is ripping their heart out for you would be a cryin shame. You know what? Don't even go to the show; just stay at home if your cheeky ass is going to be planted on a damn stool. There, I said it. Get up and feel the sound. You know I'm right. Those stools are for the doorman and the guy carding the bar area. Not for your lazy rear.

The KAke and I love HK for many, many reasons. Not only do they book some of this area's best local talent, but also regularly host all-ages shows. This means we can dust off our junior-sized gun range earmuffs and take our girls out for a loud night of 253 culture.

At first glance, Mr. DeRosa was a little unsure about what mysteries might be hidden inside the dark precincts of Sixth Avenue's live entertainment venue. On any given night a passerby might catch a glimpse of blue hair, mohawks, and piercings of the unmentionables. Society might consider this a symbol of anti-conformity, but I consider it culture. Tacoma culture. Nothing in a specific form dictates Tacoma culture, but the fact that everyone is individual is what makes our town special. It's narrow-minded and small-brained to judge someone based on his or her looks or actions.

Behind the clothes, makeup, and outside of a typical gritty Tacoman, lies a person¬" an individual that tells a life story. Bandito Betty and I have stood outside her downtown apartment and witnessed the individuality at its best and its worst. We've come to believe that our city's sidewalks leak blatant randomness. Out of nowhere walks a man pushing a Sears shopping cart full of oilcans. He returns shortly with an empty cart, stashing it somewhere around an unknown corner. First of all: How the HELL does one find a Sears shopping cart into downtown Tacoma? Secondly, who has that many oilcans and what did he do with them?

Within minutes we feel as though we are reliving a classic scene from the Tom Hanks and Darryl Hannah movie Splash. Remember the scene when she first looses her mermaid tail and is wandering naked and confused through the streets of the city? Out of nowhere we see a woman wandering with almost the same exact amount of confusion, with the same exact look on her face. It's as if she's saying,Where the hell am I?It's 9:30 in the morning and who knows where the heck she's been, or what's happened to her.

Shortly after, we witness a gentleman pushing a huge multi-gallon plastic paint pail in a baby stroller. We wondered what the pail's name was and if the gentleman could tell us if it was a boy or a girl.

Bandito looked at me and swore she saw this kind of stuff only when she was with me. Maybe it's ME that brings out the Tacoma uniqueness in people. Maybe the streets are normal(what is normal anyway?) when I am home, and turn creative and interesting when I come out to play. It's one of life's mysteries, I suppose. Like if your refrigerator light is really off when you shut the door.

No one knows what brings these people to do such strange things. At first glance pushing a Sears cart full of oilcans in downtown Tacoma may seem odd, but what if we stopped to ask him his reasons? Do you ever ponder the meaning behind people's actions? When people speed around you off in traffic, do you stop to think that maybe it's a mom with a crying baby in the back¬" who is rushing to the hospital? You never know, do you?

LINK: Toilet Tales archive
LINK: Hell's Kitchen MySpace
LINK: Tighwad Tuesday tonight