BRING ON THE WEEKEND >>>

Oh, fuck yeah, dude! The weekend is soooooo close. Not sure when quitting time is in your cubicle, but this hack writer has t-minus three hours until freedom, with shorts, flip-flops and a frosty adult beverage waiting for him at home. And, yes, by "him" I mean "me" - perhaps a little Bobble Tiki has rubbed off.

Anyway, before I can get to the aforementioned shorts, flip-flops and frosty beverage, I have to provide you - faithful reader - with yet another installment of The Prefunk - a primer for you and your liver for the coming weekend (with a photo of an alcoholic household pet thrown in for pure comedic value).

Pacific Northwest Nationals

July 23-25 @ the Puyallup Fairgrounds

Not many things go together as well as a beautiful weekend and classic, tricked-out, pimped-out hot rods. Luckily, the Pacific Nationals hot rod show - presented by Goodguys Rod & Custom Association - will rev up at the Puyallup Fairgrounds this weekend, going Friday through Sunday.

If you're into classic cars, or simply hanging out with a bunch of people that are REALLY INTO classic cars, this could be your bet.

Sweetening the deal, the Weekly Volcano has learned none other than Melanie Rushforth of Rushforth Wheels - voted Tacoma's Sexiest Local Business Owner in the Volcano's 2010 Tacoma's Most Sexy Issue - will be there with her husband, Jason - the other half of the Rushforth Wheels puzzle. They're also reportedly bringing their 1964 Buick Skylark, so that should be pretty awesome.

Now, I know what you may be thinking: Cars are so yesterday, bro. And aren't tricked out wheels just for Fast and Furious d-bags?

Wrong, laser breath. Melanie Rushforth spoke about misconceptions like this and more in March, as part of the Tacoma's Most Sexy Issue.

"I own a custom wheel company with my husband, Jason.  Wheels, you ask?  Like Pimp My Ride?  No.  Not at all.  That shit is not sexy.  Our wheels are classy and timeless," said Rushforth. "When I'm not pushing wheels, I'm pushing Tacoma!  I'm the founder of the Tacoma City Kids Marathon, and one of the founding members of one of the most fun events in all of T-Town: Tap into T-Town.  It's coming up soon - you should join me."

She didn't mention spending time in Puyallup for things like the Pacific Northwest Nationals, but you can find her there too.

As well as the fantastic Rushforths, according to promotions those that mosey on down to Puyallup for the Pacific Northwest Nationals will find, "over 2,500 1972 & earlier rods, customs & classics, vendor exhibits, indoor car show, Builder's Choice awards by Art & Craig Morrison, a giant pin stripers brush bash, a swap meet & cars for sale corral, Friday Night Drags at Pacific Raceways, nightly stage shows and parties, cruising - you name it it's happening at the 23rd Pacific Northwest Nationals!"

Vroom. Vroom.

PREFUNK: Nothing beats the high that comes from filling up the ol' tank with petrol - and it's even better if you get a good deal. Sadly, there are no good deals left to be had on gas, so you'll just have to settle from the momentary buzz that comes from dropping three dollars a gallon to juice up the Explorer. It's a bummer, but it still beats walking - at least until nations are run by eye-patch wearing warlords that trade what oil we have left like babies on the Shanghai black market. Then we'll walk.

Right now, drive to Puyallup and see some hot rods.

SATURDAY, JULY 24, 2010 >>>

1. It's time again for Ethnic Fest, an annual event that's brought Pierce County's diversity together in celebration since 1986. Some of the best festival feeding you'll find, as well as visual arts, performing arts, dance, crafts and fun into two days of multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-adjective-for-awesome action from noon to 7 p.m. in Wright Park. Sealing the deal: Ethnic Fest is free.

2. Not many things go together as well as a beautiful weekend and classic, tricked-out, pimped-out hot rods. Luckily, the Pacific Northwest Nationals hot rod show  - presented by Goodguys Rod & Custom Association - will rev up at the Puyallup Fairgrounds from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

3. Tacoma's all women, flat track roller derby league - the Dockyard Derby Dames - hold its All Stars Bout #1 from 5-10 p.m. at Pierce College in Lakewood. The all-ages event, which features a beer garden with ID, will donate a portion of the proceeds to charity.

4. The Tacoma Tide Football Club takes on the Kitsap Pumas Soccer Club at 7 p.m. on the field at Curtis High School Stadium.

5. For 10 years strong Stonewall Youth has been providing support and empowerment to the Olympia area's gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, trans-gender, questioning, intersex, and asexual community - through programs and support groups that serve a valuable need. Saturday, the 10^th annual Stonewall Youth Drag Show Extravaganza will up the sass-o-meter to 11 inside the Capitol Theater beginning at 7 p.m. According to hype, expect a "West Side Story themed show is filled with drag, glitter, song, dance, and revolution."

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

BOBBLE TIKI THINKS HE'S READY >>>

Bobble Tiki knows life will change.  He knows travel will become a bitch and daily walks will become imperative and going out for a beer sans canine for hours on end will become slightly pressured and more urgent, because Bobble Tiki knows he's gotta get home at some point so the dog doesn't think he's dead and eat all of the wicker and find the credit cards and start ordering streaming cat porn.

Bobble Tiki knows the automobile will smell permanently of dander, and Bobble Tiki knows that since he wears a lot of black (mandatory for writers - it says so in the manual) it is wise not to get a white dog or Bobble Tiki will spend the next nine years with one of those sticky lint roller things in one hand and a Hoover in the other.

Bobble Tiki also knows there are exactly 12,000 books on proper training techniques and there are as many schools of thought on how to raise a great dog as there are religions (and, by extension, fanatical followers of both), and he knows they are all absolutely correct, and yet, none is absolutely correct because every dog is different and if they weren't we'd be very very bored and probably switch to parrots or ferrets or vampires.

So, Bobble Tiki will attend today's Dog-A-Thon at Fort Steilacoom Park looking for answers amongst the thousands of dog freaks picking up their "best friends'" crap. Bobble Tiki is ready. He just hopes the dog is.

Dog-A-Thon

Saturday, July 24, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Fort Steilacoom Park, 87th and Steilacoom Boulevard, Lakewood
253.284.5811

AN UPDATE FROM THE GRAND >>>

I'll admit I don't spend enough time contemplating life's biggest riddles: the fate of the universe, humankind's ultimate destiny, how my freezer makes ice cubes. So many things around us we accept without deeper inquiry - and as long as that icebox keeps up during the summer, we don't need to. 

Take as an example the Tacoma Film Festival. Now in its fifth run, to many it may still seem like this phenomenon just sort of materializes out of the ether every year. Yet behind the curtain of day-to-day operations at The Grand Cinema, a small group quietly devotes months to delivering this city its largest celebration of independent cinema.

So how does one start building an event that spans eight days, features several dozen films, and incorporates multiple venues? According to The Grand's Director of Community Development Rachel Marecle, "The first step is to pick a date." She and staff decide this just weeks after the last festival wraps; this year's runs from October 7 to 14.

Read more...

MONDAY, JULY 26, 2010 >>>

1. The film The Girl who Played with Fire screens at 3:10, 6 and 8:40 inside The Grand Cinema.

2. The diverse, natural work of local artists Gail E. Kelley and William Mitchell can be seen in the Abstracts of Nature show from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. inside the Pierce College Fine Arts Gallery.

3. Artist Ethan Stern is in the Museum of Glass Hot Shop from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

4. The Doug Skoog Band fills The Swiss with blues beginning at 8 p.m.

5. DJ Darren Selector spins Tacoma indie rock and underground hits at 9 p.m. inside The New Frontier Lounge.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

TACOMA'S POET LAUREATE HAS A WORKSHOP FOR YOU >>>

Not to be morbid, but I always wanted to write book before I died.

So I did.

The year before I turned 40, I committed to write poetry for a year straight until I had enough poems to make up a manuscript. Then, last November, I published that first collection of poetry, The Vicissitudes (Pearle Publications 2009) with funding made possible by a TAIP grant I won through the Tacoma Arts Commission.

Since being awarded Urban Grace's 2010 Soul of the City Poet Laureate of Tacoma title, I'm learning that I'm not the only writer that dreams of this achievement. I have found, in my own literary circles of friends in Tacoma - by volunteering for several local poetry organizations, and as serving as poet laureate this year - that there are writers and poets of all skill levels who always come up to me after a reading and tell me how bad they want to write a book.

As poet laureate, it is a very important task for me to share the world of poetry and writing with Tacoma from many angles. In addition to poetry readings and literary events, one of the goals of the poet laureate program for me is to outreach not just to poets but also to all people in our community who want to write or who do write and support and encourage them to reach their own personal literary goals.

In addition to the hunger many people have to publish their collection of poems, or write their first novel, they simply do not know where to start once the manuscript takes shape. It is daunting for writers and poets to consider the overwhelming world of publication options. Can you self-publish? Should you get an agent? What is the benefit of working with small presses?

To help answer these questions and offer publishing inspiration to Tacoma's writers and poets, I will be offering a class called, Indie Lit Chicks on Publishing: A Writers Workshop on Sunday, Aug. 1 from 2-4:30 p.m. at Urban Grace Church. Joining me to co-teach and host a Q&A session on topics such as self-publication, literary agents, funding, marketing and independent press publication will be two guest authors, Gina Frangello and Zoe Zolbrod. The authors will also read from their latest novels and books will be available for purchase and signing.

Gina Frangello is the author of the books My Sister's Continent (Chiasmus 2006) and Slut Lullabies (Emergency Press 2010.)  The long-time editor of Other Voices magazine, she co-founded its book imprint, Other Voices Books (www.ovbooks.com) in 2005, where she serves as executive editor.  Frangello is also the fiction editor at the popular online literary collective The Nervous Breakdown (www.thenervousbreakdown.com). Visit the author at: www.ginafrangello.com.

Following her debut novel, My Sister's Continent, which delved "fearlessly into questions of identity, abuse ... trust, trespass, and delusion" (Booklist), Frangello continues her exploration of the power dynamics of gender, class, and sexuality in this collection of diverse, vibrant short fiction. Slut Lullabies is unsettling. Like the experience of reading a private diary, these stories leave one feeling slightly traitorous while also imprinting a deep recognition of truths you did not know you felt (Emergency Press).

Other Voices Books 2010 recently released Zoe Zolbrod's new novel, Currency. Inspired by her personal experiences backpacking in Asia in the mid-'90s, itis a literary thriller set in Thailand that tells about a Thai man and an American woman backpacker who get involved with each other and an endangered animal smuggling ring. Ladette Randolph, author of A Sandhills Ballad and editor-in-chief at Ploughshares, writes, "Currency is an impressive debut, a spellbinding novel of international intrigue and a heartbreaking love story between a naive young American woman and a sweetly ambitious Thai man. Zoe Zolbrod writes with authority about little known parts of Thailand in prose so beautiful I found myself conflicted between savoring every word and rushing to see what would happen next."

Zolbrod has published short stories and some of her essays appeared in Maxine, a zine she co-published in the 1990s. Born in Meadville, Penn., Zolbrod attended college in Oberlin, Ohio, and received a MA from University of Illinois at Chicago. Currently, Zolbrod works in educational publishing and lives in Evanston, Ill., with her husband, the artist Mark DeBernardi, and their son and daughter. Visit the author's blog: http://zoezolbrod.com/

Indie Lit Chicks on Publishing: A Writers Workshop

Sunday, Aug. 1, 2-4:30 p.m., $10 suggested donation
Urban Grace Church, 902 Market St., Tacoma
Cost: $10 suggested donation
To RSVP, email: tamsugah@aol.com

LINK: Tammy Robacker knows this blog

FUTURE THINGS ARE COMING >>>

The Rev. Adam McKinney compares roller derby to professional wrestling in his review of Hell on Wheels, Bob Ray's documentary on all-female roller derby that screens at The Grand Cinema tomorrow night. Read all about it here.

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Drummer Roger Taylor of Queen is 61.

>>> SOUTH SOUND SPECIFIC

In 1890 industrialist W.R. Rust established Tacoma Smelting & Refining Company and a company town for his employees, naming the place "Smelter." On Oct. 22, 1906, residents - tired of being targeted with the tag line, "You smelt it, you dealt it - voted to change to the name to Ruston, in honor of Rust. Ruston was officially incorporated Nov. 10, 1906.

>>> NEW WORD FOR THE URBAN DICTIONARY

To give up the farm and get loaded instead

Usage example: Farmer Ted, after working in his farm fields in Moses Lake from 4:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. every fucking day for the last 40 years, then hearing that the weather would exceed 100 degrees today, jägervated himself into a coma of bliss.

>>> DID YOU READ THIS?

Screw the Barefoot Bandit. Did you hear about Fake Boob Clowns Pants Robber?

When geeks go bad.

Learn to draw a Sasquatch

>>> DID YOU SEE THIS?

Morning Spew posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on this blog. Sometimes, it even posts in the morning.

Two-dimensional party themes are so 2009.

IT'S GOOD YO BE YOUNG >>>

Properly speaking, Harlequin Productions' Sixties Kicks isn't musical theater, it's a concert. Five talented young people backed by a killer five-piece rock band sing 37 hits of the 1960s. I'm not a music critic, but I don't have to be Lester Bangs to give a thumbs-up to the source material.

The cast and band are rock solid.  Brad Schrandt, for example, plays keyboards, flute and saxophone, all in the same act.  Alison Monda is fully committed as usual, roaring through "Magic Bus" and "House of the Rising Sun."  Monda's fiancé Matthew Posner works his Daltrey chops on "Won't Get Fooled Again" - and his Act II costume makes him look unnervingly like '70s icon Freddie Prinze.  (Note to Gen-Y readers:  I'm referring to Freddie Prinze Jr.'s father, a comedian who starred on a sitcom called Chico and the Man.)  Fellow Oklahoman Kate Dinsmore has a knack for hippie ballads.  (Note to Linda Whitney: Why in the Haight didn't you give Dinsmore a Nancy Sinatra number in Act I?)  But the emotional highlight of the show, for me and other Lennon-McCartney idolaters, is Antonia Darlene's gospel rendition of "Let It Be."  I wiped away tears.

Read the full review here.

Ed. note: Harlequin has extended Sixties Kicks' run to include this coming Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. As an extra bonus, they're offering half-price online tickets for those 30 and younger (online discount code: "beatle"). They're also serving half-price beer, wine and specialty cocktail through the end of the run. Nice. 

Sixties Kicks

Friday, July 30 and Saturday, July 31, 8 p.m. $12-$38,
Harlequin Productions, 204 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia
360.786.0151, harlequinproductions.org

TUESDAY, JULY 27, 2010 >>>

1. Techumseh, Barn Owl and Arrington de Dionysio play an all-ages show at 7 p.m. inside Northern.

2. Magician Jeff Evans presents the Magical Adventures of Aquifer Man where he scares kids ages 6 and older into protecting and conserving water at 11 a.m. inside the Public Safety Building in Bonney Lake.

3. The Hub in Tacoma's Stadium District hosts a Trivia Night with cash prizes at 6 p.m.

4. The Art Kitchen of Olympia presents Open Mic Tuesdays every second and fourth Tuesday of the month inside The Loft on Cherry with host Terri Cohlene. Tonight at 7 p.m. the featured artist will be poet Casey Fuller and Aba & the Maples.

5. The Grand Cinema scenes Hell on Wheels, a documentary film telling the story of a group of Texas women who band together to resurrect roller derby for the 21st century, at 7 p.m. Expect to see sponsoring Dockyard Derby Dames in the house.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound