BANDING TOGETHER IN THE NAME OF BEER >>>

I imagine Morgan Alexander at home with a notepad, scribbling wildly as fresh ideas literally burst from his creative brain. Er, scratch that; he be banging away on a keypad so fiercely smoke should rise from his fingers. Alexander - civic innovator, community organizer, editor of The Tacoma Sun, co-founder of Historic Tacoma and Tacoma Streetcar, and owner of the Amocat Café in downtown Tacoma - has done it again. His latest bit of awesomeness is the Tacoma Beermakers Union Local 253, an organization of local beer makers with a group on Facebook totaling more than 130 members.

During his college years Morgan got into beer making; this passion has lingered. What does he hope to get out of gathering everyone up for a face-to-face? He hopes to forge a beer making co-op and followed by a homebrew home crawl (think pub crawl) for starters. Sharing resources, recipes, equipment, technique and economies of scale would be logical and to the betterment of the whole group.

"I'm looking for people doing cool innovative things - trying new combinations, new ingredients," Alexander writes via email.

With the numerous South Sound brewpubs, breweries, beer tastings and large beer festivals such as the July Lakewood Rotary Homebrew Festival, Hops & Crops at Mary Olson Farm in Auburn and the second annual Tacoma Craft Beer Fest, which has been extended to two days next month, Alexander is confident the Tacoma Beermakers Union Local 253 can be a reality.

Alexander will host an introductory meeting for the Local 253 Friday night at his Amocat Café. The meeting is open to the public and, most importantly, he carries beer.

Tacoma Beermakers Union Local 253

Friday, Sept. 24, 7-8 p.m., no cover
Amocat Café, 625 Saint Helens Ave., Tacoma
Facebook page

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22, 2020 >>>

1. Can you draw Muppets? Do you love music? Is you favorite color blue? Local cartoonist group C.L.A.W. hosts another open draw where you might win two unique Henson Studio productions - Dinosaurs season 1 & 2 and the complete set of Henson's StoryTeller series - if the attending group votes your drawings the best. The open draw starts at 7:30 p.m. inside Amocat Café so there's isn't any menacing parking meter issues.

2. Siblings Laura de Santillana and Alessandro Diaz de Santillana - grandchildren of Paolo Venini, founder of the Venini glassworks company in Murano, Italy - are respected artists in the international studio glass movement. They're hanging in the Museum of Glass' Hot Shop from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

3. A special benefit will be held for Tacoma Art Place from 5:30-7:30 p.m. inside Villa Caffe & Imbibery. Tacoma Urbanist Erik Bjornson, better known as ACE, will emcee the event that features music by Angela Jossy, a silent auction, appetizers and special drinks included in the $25 ticket.

4. The Mike Nelson Trio featuring Robin on vocals will fill A Rhapsody In Bloom Florist & Cafe Latte with sweet mutha jazz beginning at 7 p.m. Kids won't be kicked out, unless they're roughians.

5. The Hot Club Of Detroit will fill Jazzbones with bitchin' Django jazz beginning at 8 p.m.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

WEEKLY VOLCANO RECOMMENDS THESE LIVE SHOWS TONIGHT >>>

There are other live shows tonight besides the Hall & Oates show at the Puyallup Fair, but who gives a shit?

Hall & Oates, 7:30 p.m., $25-$65, Puyallup Fair

• Everything that could or, really, should be said about Hall & Oates has been exhausted.
  

Alright, fine, there's other shows, too:

Le Voyeur Café and Lounge Olympia - Downtown. International Espionage. 21+. 9 pm.

Mandolin Cafe Tacoma - Central. Billy Farmer & Rockin' Chair Money. All Ages. 7 pm. NC.

Jazzbones Tacoma - Sixth Avenue. Django Jazz, with The Hot Club Of Detroit. 21+. 8 pm. $10.

Swing Wine Bar & Cafe Olympia - Westside. Jazz In The Cellar, with Vince Brown. 21+. 6 pm. NC.

The Swiss Tacoma - Downtown. Matt Coughlin & The Growlers, Crying Shame, Thunkitron. 21+. 8 pm. $5.

• Matt Coughlin and the Growlers have labeled their style as "funktry" - a combination of funk and country, natch. Coughlin grew up in Montana, raised by a couple of hippies. "They're folkies from back in the day," says Coughlin. "They got me playing piano and playing the guitar and singing and whatnot. I carried that through high school, and found out that girls like it when you play guitar and sing." After a brief stint in a punk outfit (Bumma Stoge), Coughlin returned to his roots and worked on gathering together a band that would aid him in delivering his funktry to the masses. Just like in a heist movie, his team came out of the woodwork to create a force more powerful than the sum of its parts. Read my full story here. – Rev. AM

Tempest Lounge Tacoma - Upper Tacoma. Maurice The Fish Records Showcase. 21+. 7 pm. NC.

LINK: More live music tonight in the South Sound

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Actor Scott Baio is 49.

The Trib's GO Arts blog posted a little ditty on the Northwest Film and Arts Festival.

Senate republicans successfully filibustered the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" yesterday,

Joe Lieberman is trying to put together a "gang."

Lil Wayne's classy new album has a classy song called Gonorrhea.

Do you dig Burger King's new breakfast items?

LINK: Skeeters Lounge!

ONE FOR THE KIDS >>>

More than ever, the power to coordinate and organize youth-centered events is being put in the hands of young go-getters themselves (the Redmond Fire House, WhAAM up in Bellingham, et al.). The Olympia Film Society's seventh annual What You Got? Festival aims to provide local kids with a 48-hour arts festival of their own. Read the full story here.

TACOMA ART PLACE AUCTION TONIGHT >>>

As you read in this morning's 5 Things To Do, Villa Caffe & Imbibery is hosting a benefit for Tacoma Art Place tonight beginning at 5:30 p.m. A silent auction is included in the fun. Here is a partial list of items to bid on, including the value of each item as determined by Tacoma Art Place:

• Daniel Blue blue T-shirt that is custom sewn: $250 value
• Charming two-bedroom beach house on Whidbey Island for the weekend: $350 value
• Chinese Szechuan crab dinner for four at Tacoma Szechuan with Rep. Dennis Flannigan: priceless
• Swedish Relaxation Massage donated by Jewell Day Spa: $70 value 
• ElectraSpa gift certificate: $50 value
• Pacific Grill gift certificate: $50 value
• Koi Dreams painting by Michelle Merritt: $1,800 values 
• Tour of the Elks McMenamins project with Grace Pleasants and coffee at Amocat Café with your group of four friends: historic and priceless
• Wearable art instruction with Bo Chambers of LBO Designs: $40 value
• Signed copy of The King of Methlehem: A Novel by Tacoma author Mark Lindquist: priceless

And much more.

THURSDAY, SEPT. 23, 2010 >>>

1. Leave it to liberal academia to romanticize soft-ass Europe and the continent's history of thinking and talking and stuff. And we don't mean thinking and talking about who got kicked off of Survivor, either; we mean intellectual stuff. It's so un-American. From 5:30-7:30 p.m., University of Puget Sound Prof. Laurie Frankel, fast off the release of her latest book - The Atlas of Love - will hold shop at a UPS English Department sponsored "Coffeehouse Conversation" inside the Trimble Forum on campus. There'll be light snacks, refreshments and big words.

2. Artists Jessica Balsam, Jeremy Mangan, Nicholas Nyland, and James Porter will discuss their work, careers, and practice, specifically their paintings and drawings as part of the Foundation of Art Award from the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation show, from 3-4 p.m. inside the Kittredge Gallery on the University of Puget Sound campus.

3. The Thursday Beer Runners will lace up at 6:30 p.m. in front of the Rock The Dock Pub & Grill on Dock Street, head out for a 3-mile run, then return to Rock The Dock to pound drinks until the wee hours.

4. Vashon Island landscape painter Victoria Adams, known for such pastorals as River's Edge and Morning Shimmer, creates broad panoramas of the American countryside devoid of humans.  She sets horizons low in her frame to feature vast, meteorologically accurate skies in the Dutch tradition.  As a highlight of her exhibition Where Sky Meets Earth:  The Luminous Landscapes of Victoria Adams at the Tacoma Art Museum, Adams will climb up the hill to the Tacoma Public Library on Tacoma Avenue South for a lecture and slide show centered on said show beginning at 7 p.m.

5. I Defy, Dead Peasants, Sickamore and My Eternal will rock Hell's Kitchen's new $3 Thursday night - $3 wells, $3 beers, $3 for two hot dogs - beginning at 8 pm.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

SHORT REVIEW FOR A SHORT SHOW >>>

Last night Daryl Hall and John Oates hit the Puyallup Grandstand stage with a five-piece backing band taking a bunch of moms and dads on a trip through their hits, including opening song "Maneater," which MTV played every hour from 1981-84. One by one, the band cruised through:

• "Family Man"
• "Out of Touch"
• "Say It Isn't So"
• "She's Gone"
• "One on One"
• "Sara Smile"
• "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)"

Encore One:

• "Rich Girl"
• "You Make My Dreams Come True"

Encore Two:

• "Kiss On My List"
• "Private Eyes"

One, two, three ... yes, a 12-song concert. The aged crowd finally slowly rose for "She's Gone," clapped for the saxophone player with the 4-foot long gray hair during every solo, and didn't start start dancing until the ninth song, except for the dude pictured above who danced every song. Hall still can hit the high notes at age 62. Oates has given up the goofiness. They turned "I Can't Go For That" into an extended jam, which worked. They tried to jam on "Rich Girl," which didn't work.

Being uncool for an hour, dancing like a dork to songs that marked major moments of my junior high years, was, well, cool.

MORE FUN THAN A HALL & OATES CONCERT >>>

Tacoma Art Place held a fundraiser art and gift auction last night at The Villa Cafe & Imbibery to benefit its non-profit community art outreach programs.

Musician Angela Jossy provided the soundtrack while Pierce County's top brass and art lovers bid on donated art, dinners, gift bags while tossing back Tacoma attorney Erik Bjornson's signature drink, the Mr. Tacoma,

The ever-tall and newly fathered Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist donated one of his top-selling books and took a break from the campaign trail to wave the flag, as did the Energizer bunny of volunteers and local politicians, Auditor Julie Anderson.

Top gifts included a private tour of the Elks McMenamins project with Grace Pleasants and rare Daniel Blue blue T-shirt that was custom sewn and crafted.

I nabbed a Chinese Szechuan crab dinner for four at Tacoma Szechuan with state Rep. Dennis Flannigan. Bjornson and I are going to grab a fourth and solve all of the county's ills over booze and egg rolls.

LINK: Donate to Tacoma Art Place

ARTS COVERAGE IN THIS WEEK'S VOLCANO:

Return of a legend: Ben Vereen is the real deal by Christian Carvajal

Disorienting space: A review of the 8th Annual Juried Exhibition at Tacoma Community College by Alec Clayton

Tracy Triumphant: Hairspray doesn't stop the beat by Christian Carvajal

Sporadically spectacular: Lord Franzannian keeps it moving by Christian Carvajal

LINK: Arts and entertainment events in the South Sound