CHUCK DULA: GETTING THERE >>>

Editor's Note: As you may recall Weekly Volcano scribe Chuck Dula struck a deal with a bisexual female friend of his. If he can lose 25 pounds by May 1, then said friend - and another female to be determined later - will have a three-way with Mr. Dula. That's what I call inspiration. Chuck will be chronicling his weight loss efforts every Tuesday here on Spew. Below you'll find the latest installment in Chuck's quest to be less fat and have sex with two women at the same time. Enjoy.

Beginning Weight: 180

This is true: While hanging out with my friend in Tacoma, I was approached by a cracked-out meth-head female who asked me if I had any black? I had no idea what she was talking about. She then kindly clarified her request by explaining that she was looking for some black tar heroin. I laughed and told her that I didn‘t have any heroin. She then wanted to know what I did have. Instead of being baffled as to why this complete stranger might think that I was the “Candy Man,” I took this as a compliment. I have officially lost enough weight for a crack head to not believe that I could look the way I do without loads of uppers in my system. I would have given this crazy lady a hug, but she was fat and I don’t associate with fat people anymore. I spent last week either on a Stairmaster or in the sauna. In four days I spent a total of four and a half hours on a cardio machine of some sort and two hours and a half hours in the sauna. I lost four pounds total because I offset some of that hard work with heavy drinking and the use of black tar heroin. (For all the police forces in Tacoma, that last little ditty about heroin use was a joke - so please don’t hunt me down like they do on that DEA show. Thanks.)

Ending Weight: 176

PREVIOUS 25 POUNDS TO FREEDOM COLUMNS ON SPEW

LAUREN NAPIER: THE OLY ALL AGES PROJECT PRESENTS THE BAND TONIGHT >>>

Music is a powerful medium: it expresses different ideas and collective cultural identities. Music can be comforting or confusing. Music, as an entity, can be housed in conventional venues, people’s basements, or in school rooms. Thus, it makes sense that the Olympia All Ages Project is hosting a show with the intellectual and musically bold Mecca Normal.

The Olympia All Ages Project, founded by Mariella Luz, was created after Luz grew weary of her own complaint that “there hadn’t been anywhere in Olympia for a while that was just a dedicated all-ages music venue.” Complaining about the lack of opportunity for the youth was not helping anyone, but becoming proactive and starting the project was the first step.

To read the full article, click here.

JENNIFER JOHNSON: OH PLEASE ANSWER MY DREAMS >>>

I’m being teased with the promise of two of my very favorite things in the same place. Is it sweets and skirts, frosting and frocks, cakes and coats, jelly and jewelry? It’s better than all of that, it’s Cupcakes & Coutoure â€" what I can only imagine will be a divine experience.

You laugh, but a huge sign bearing those very words has been looming over Proctor Street since last year. When I first saw the gigantic sign resting in what I had presumed was someone’s front yard, I almost caused an accident (driving while gawking is bad). The boldly swirling, cursive black lettering jumped off the stark white 6-foot by 4-foot wooden placard. Pink cupcakes adorned opposite corners. The ultimate tease of lettering spelling out Spring ’09 at the bottom has long since been burned into my fashion-greedy heart (that was a bit dramatic, I know). Each time I have driven by over the past three months, I have grinded my teeth thinking its spring right now! There’s been no noticeable change to the ordinary looking house that should be a fabulous boutique already.

In the meantime, I’ve dreamt up a delirious scenario of what I think Cupcakes & Coutoure should be like. Upon approach, the boutique door opens and a shirtless Christian Bale (American Psycho, not Batman) winks at you, reaches for your hand and divests you of coat and handbag all in one smooth twirl. Racks and racks upon shelves and trunks and display cases full of the most outrageously wonderful and, oddly, everyday wearable garments and accessories glint, shine and sparkle dazzlingly. Shirtless Christian hands you off to an equally shirtless George Clooney (From Dusk Till Dawn) with that uber hot tattoo roping up his arm and onto his neck (yeowwww). George is holding a tray of bite-size completely fat- and calorie-free cupcakes iced with miniature masterpiece paintings on top. Everything in the boutique is your exact size and every pair of pants makes your booty look like it did senior year of high school. Impossible shoes are comfortable, as you find out when Christian and George each slip 6-inch stilettos onto your feet making your legs look 4,000 miles long. At check-out, the plain non-threatening cashier tells you how lovely you look and gives you 50 percent off because you were so nice to her. The shirtless masculine wonders carry packages to a waiting limo, courtesy of Cupcakes & Coutoure, and then get in a fist fight over who gets to hand you into the backseat.

[Cupcakes & Coutoure, 2510 Proctor St., Tacoma]

MICHAEL SWAN: CLICK! CABLE TV ADS MORE HIGH-DEFINITION CHANNELS >>>

If you have been inside watching television the last four days then you’re a moron. Seriously. Remember our winter? It looked a lot like the weather forecast for the next four days.

Yes, that sound like a large bovine beast letting loose a fire-extinguishing stream of wastewater upon a hard, flat mineral surface is on it’s way again. Rain. Lots of it.

So maybe it’s a blessing that Click! Cable TV added 17 high-definition channels to its line-up today. If I’m doing the math right, the Tacoma cable company has added more than 30 HD channels in less than a year. Nice.

Let’s take a look at what they added.

ABC Family HD
Animal Planet HD (There’s a tiger in my living room! Oh, it’s just HD)
Bravo HD (The Real Housewives of New York City â€" now with more wrinkles!)
Cartoon Network HD (This one actually doesn’t go online until later in April. My bad.)
CNBC HD (When the market starts to turn around, the graphs pointing up will be even clearer and easier to read.)
Disney Channel HD (The Jonas Brothers! Now with more sweat!)
E! HD (No more eye strains searching for nip slips!)
History Channel HD
Lifetime HD (now with bigger teardrops!)
Lifetime Movie Network HD
Sci-Fi HD
Disney XD HD
Travel Channel HD
WGN America HD (See Lou Pinella turn red like you never have before as the Cubs attempt to go to the World Series for the first time in 101 years)
The Science Channel HD
Planet Green HD
The Movie Channel (TMC) HD

STEPH DEROSA: GET ON YOUR BAD MOTOR SCOOTER AND RIDE TO THE ACME MONDAY >>>

Much like the critically acclaimed show Mystery Science Theater 3000, which openly ridiculed mediocre science-fantasy movies from 1988 to 1999, the newly formed Tacoma Cult Film Club will honor only the best B-movies one beat-up VCR can handle. Only this time you’re not alone on your Dorito-stained futon laughing at other people’s jokes and cringing at the sight of coagulated, fake ketchup-type blood. This time you’re amongst friends. Friends who are just as cinematically demented as you.

Apparently a partner in the love of cult classic movies is not something that is easy to find. Just ask Mary K. Johnson. It was by accident that she and friend Colin Sannes, best known for emceeing Puget Sound Pizza’s weekend karaoke nights, discovered mutual adoration for all things sci-fi, satire, and lowly graded on the cinematography scale. I say it’s about time these two partnered up with one of my all-time favorite Tacoma bars, The Acme,and offered the rest of society a glimpse at just how fun watching these obscure movies can be with a beer in hand and well more than a handful of people around you.

Ladies and gents, I bring you something new to do on a Monday night. I bring you something FREE. I bring you something you’ve always dreamed of, yet never thought other people enjoyed as much as you â€" I bring you the newly formed Tacoma Cult Film Club. Like I said, it’s free, it’s on a Monday, and it’s at The Acme.

“Each night will entail at least two full length movies â€" based upon a theme â€" plus short subjects, raffles, free popcorn, and general silliness,” explains Sannes. "This month's theme is biker films. Make no mistake, it's unlikely that any of these films will even have been considered for an Oscar, but sometimes, that's exactly what we're looking for.”

I warn you the same, just as Mary K. Johnson has warned me, “Wear your smoking jacket ... you might just meet a nine-foot Manatee”. Oh, if I could only be so lucky.

[The Acme, Monday, April 13, 7 p.m., free, 1310 Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma, 253.272.1892]

JAKE DE PAUL: WEDNESDAY FOOD LINKS >>>

Have you dropped by 1022 South yet?

Eight ways to join the local food movement

Put more flavor in your coffee cup.

Homemade Easter candy, an old-fashioned treat

Today’s South Sound Specials

Wino Wednesday $3 pours and Dollar Rainier Night, The Red Hot, 2914 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.779.0229.

Half-price Wine Night, 4 p.m. to close, Brix 25, 7707 Pioneer Way, Gig Harbor, 253.858.6626.

Sample two beers for $1, 4-9 p.m., 99 Bottles, 35002 Pacific Hwy. S., Federal Way, 253.838.2558.

Half-price Wine Night, 4-9:30 p.m., Primo Grill, 601 S. Pine, Tacoma, 253.383.7000.

Half-price Wine Night with every bottle on regular wine list is half price, 5-9 p.m., Il Fiasco, 2717 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.6688.

Half-price Wine Night, 5-10 p.m., Woody’s On The Water, 1715 Dock St., Tacoma, 253.272.1433.

Wine tasting, noon to 6 p.m., complimentary, Walter Dacon Winery, 50 S.E. Skookum Inlet Road, Shelton, 360.426.5913.

LINK: South Sound happy hours

OWEN TAYLOR: TONIGHT AT THE BROHO >>>

I remember the Treasure Chest. I remember the one-seat ferris wheel at Yard Birds, right by the popcorn machine. I remember Especially Yogurt and Yo-Yo-A-Go-Go. All night raves in A-Dorm. Take One and Black Anger at Metropolis. Mosher’s Mayhem. Funny Guy On The Prowl.

I still hate hippies and I’ve never been to Super Saturday.

Kudos to the Brotherhood for keeping it Olympia. It took a drop-dead bombshell’s frustration at the jukebox to point it out. “It’s just so local,” she said with disdain, “sometimes you want bar music. You never hear any fuckin’ Doobie Brothers here.” Oh, she’s pretty when she’s angry, kind of like Glass Candy and their infectiously melodic and melancholic grooves. It’s somewhere between Madonna and ‘Til Tuesday, and it’s wrapped up in leotards and empowering energy and it doesn’t really care what you think about what it’s doing, ‘cause it’s gonna do it anyway, buddy. Kind of like Olympia.

Check out Glass Candy tonight at the Brotherhood.

[The Brotherhood Lounge, with Fleshtones, Grab The Bat Killer, Desire, 9 p.m., $6, 119 Capitol Way N., Olympia, 360.352.4153]

PHOTO: Myspace/Anne Marie

NEWS TEAM: GOOD MORNING SOUTH SOUND >>>

Lakewood ships off its scum to other cities.

Pirates are really not that much fun.

Vermont legalizes gay marriage.

As much as he loves maple syrup on everything former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich will probably now never step foot in Vermont again.

Why the Weekly Volcano male staff is shoved in the back of the office.

Japanese pop star dresses as pineapple, gets robbed and assaulted in Sweden.

Keep an eye on his knuckles: Hugh Jackman is heartbroken over X-Men Origins leak.

TAMMY ROBACKER: STRONG WOMAN, STRONG SERIES >>>

Connie Walle may well be the most petite poet I’ve ever met. But man, she’s strong.

Currently she’s president of the Puget Sound Poetry Connection, and locally she’s nicknamed as Tacoma’s very own “poetry diva.” For nearly two decades, Walle has worked with other PSPC members to bring together people of all ages and ethnicity to experience, celebrate and share their love of the literary in Tacoma.

Through their Distinguished Writer Series and Open Mic, sponsored in part by the Tacoma Art Commission, King’s Books and private donations, PSPC invites acclaimed writers to read their work locally and hosts an open mic at King’s the second Friday of each month at 7 p.m. And it’s free! There is an open mic for poets and other writers to follow the featured reader.

Poet, James Bertolini
This Friday, April 10 at 7 p.m at King’s Books the monthly DWS event features poet, James Bertolini, of Bellingham. Bertolini is an award-winning poet who has been publishing poetry for the past 40 years.  He teaches at Western Washington University.  Open mic to follow. This free event is sponsored by the Tacoma Arts Commission and the Puget Sound Poetry Connection.

So gather up your sonnets and sestinas and head on down to Kings Books this Friday!

Before I close, here’s a poem to peruse â€" submitted by local poet Connie Walle:

Scrambled Broccoli                                  
By Connie Walle

seven thirty tuesday
  becomes
    eleven pounds three days
my granddaughter annabelle
  becomes
    belladonna
not sure
if that was
a freudian slip
my street grandview
  becomes
   golf bay walk
fear of dementia
or is this just
a poem about sex

I'll bring you more poetry ditties Friday.

Poem-A-Tacoma is sponsored by Embellish Multispace Salon in downtown Tacoma.

TAMMY ROBACKER is a poet and writer living, breathing, typing and spitting words in Tacoma. She owns a freelance writing and marketing communications company called Pearle Publications. Her poetry has appeared in Plazm, Women's Work, The Wild Goose Poetry Review, and the Allegheny Review. A recent recipient of the 2009/10 TAIP grant, she will be publishing her first book of poetry, The Vicissitudes, through the generous support of this funding made possible by the City of Tacoma and the Tacoma Arts Commission.