OH, THE IRONY >>>

Happy Monday, world. Which delightfully means hours and hours of Happy hours! We've been given the task of calling about 150 bars in the South Sound, updating the Weekly Volcano's Happy Hour database.

Yes, we've realized the irony of having high school interns calling bars, pubs, and clubs, but we've chosen to ignore it. Though we've come across many alcohol-related terms, we've used Urban Dictionary to solve all of our problems. We've learned that apart from the dirty definitions, a pounder is a 16-ounce can glass of beer - we hope.  I guess it's one of those things that helps build character, as well as a deep hunger for hummus plates, garlic bread and other various appetizers.

In the meantime, you should check out the Volcano's sweet Happy Hour page. It's guaranteed to get your stomach growling.

JUST RELEASED >>>

What did we do before Facebook and specifically Twitter? Where did I go to spew my hatred for Jay Cutler, and - more importantly - where did people instantly interact with the Weekly Volcano via the "DM" before Twitter changed the world?

I'm not sure, and I'm not sure it matters. The important thing is it's happening, and we received a link to this video late yesterday from Michael Pierce and @253hiphop, under the teaser, "Just released."

See for yourself ...

TODAY IN ONLINE TALK >>>

Today's comment comes from Resulliin regard to the news that broke waaaaaay back in November that the Funky Monkey 104.9FM was disappearing - with the frequency changing formats and changing names. Almost three months after it happened, the neu-metal loving nerves of the South Sound still seem frayed.

Resulli writes,

Awwww man, this was the only station I really listened to for the last few years. They were the only station in the area (that I knew of) that bothered to put up some real metal like Metallica, All That Remains and Bullet For My Valentine. Everyone else puts up more older rock and occasionally some metal but nothin like Funky Monkey.

I'll miss these guys, I really will. I'll miss Idiot of the Day and Justin.

R.I.P. 104.9 Funky Monkey!

TUESDAY, JAN. 25, 2011 >>>

1. Check out the opening reception at University of Puget Sound's Kittredge Gallery for two exhibitions - Marked, in the Large Gallery and including working from Susan Dory, Margi Livingston and Michelle Grabner, and Patterned Remarks in the Small Gallery, a portfolio of ten prints by Janet Marcavage, a UPS associate professor of art.

2. What's better than sitting at home watching Animal Planet? Drop into the Washington Center for the Performing Arts tonight for National Geographic LIVE with anthropologist Wade Davis.

3. Tonight would be an excellent evening to drop in on Rafael Tranquilino and the "rockin' blues jam" at Stonegate Pizza in Tacoma. Starts at 8:30 p.m.

4. Valley Arts United - an organization designed to "inspire, promote and cultivate all arts within the greater Puyallup community - will hold its annual meeting tonight at the Fred Oldfield Center at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. It'll be your chance to mingle with artists, and munch on appetizers while enjoying a no host wine bar.

5. Holy shit! Rick Springfield is at the Little Creek Casino tonight Feb. 25!

PLANNED PARENTHOOD INFILTRATED BY WACKO PRO-LIFE EXTREMEISTS >>>

The Christian right is at it again. I guess they thought shouting things like "murderer" and "baby killer" at young women as they enter Planned Parenthood, or holding up giant posters of aborted babies on the side of the highway wasn't offensive enough. The Associated Press informs us that Live Action, an anti-abortion group, has allegedly been part of an ellaborate undercover scheme to discredit the nation's largest abortion provider. Among other things, Planned Parenthood claims hidden camera videos are being taken during undercover visits. These videos are then edited to make it appear that Planned Parenthood is manipulating women into getting abortions. Some of these undercover videos can be seen here. The FBI is investigating the issue. Here are some of the main snippets from the AP article by David Crary that was printed in Sunday's Seattle PI.

Planned Parenthood, a perennial protest target because of its role in providing abortions, has notified the FBI that at least 12 of its health centers were visited recently by a man purporting to be a sex trafficker but who may instead be part of an attempted ruse to entrap clinic employees.

In each case, according to Planned Parenthood, the man sought to speak privately with a clinic employee and then requested information about health services for sex workers, including some who he said were minors and in the U.S. illegally.

Planned Parenthood's vice president for communications, Stuart Schear, said the organization has requested an FBI probe of the man's claims and has already fielded some initial FBI inquiries. However, Schear said Planned Parenthood's own investigation indicates that the man has links with Live Action, an anti-abortion group that has conducted previous undercover projects aimed at discrediting the nation's leading abortion provider.

Lila Rose, Live Action's founder and president, described Planned Parenthood's assertion as "very interesting." She declined to confirm or deny that the clinic visits were part of a Live Action operation, but did indicate in a telephone interview that an undercover videotape project of some sort was in the works.

"The story that speaks loudest will be in the evidence," she said. "I can't comment until we release the visual evidence."

The visits were made between Jan. 11 and Jan. 15 to health centers in Virginia, Indiana, New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Arizona. Among them was a clinic in Tucson, Ariz., which Planned Parenthood said was visited on the 15th, a week after the shooting rampage in that city that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Last week, Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Cecile Richards wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder summarizing the visits and requesting an FBI investigation. If the man's assertions were true, she wrote, they would indicate possible violations of federal laws dealing with interstate sex trafficking of minors.

However, Richards said the visits could be part of a hoax resembling some past actions by anti-abortion activists.

"Once inside, these people have recorded `undercover' videos of their conversations with our clinic staff and then selectively and maliciously edited the videos," she wrote. "This may be happening once again. If so, this kind of activity should be firmly condemned."

WALKING WITH PURPOSE >>>

On Friday, Jan. 21, a group of 60 students from Tacoma School of the Arts (SOTA) and Stewart Middle School defied logic and common sense by braving the rain and walking in support of Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign. The 6.6-mile walk was the culmination of the joint class "The New Faces of Fitness," taught by Michael Hagmann (Science/Math, SOTA), Debbie Shapiro (Health/English, SOTA), Kale Iverson (Science, Stewart) and Ben Shelton (PE, Stewart).

The class was focused on overall health, and encouraged students to be more active and to stay healthy by participating in various activities, including going to the Y and Zumba classes, learning yoga and Pilates and cooking lots of healthy food.

Most students took the class for very respectable reasons, like to stay active or improve their health. But more honestly, SOTA student Jonathan Buchholtz says he joined because, "I just wanted to get buff."

The class advocated for the Let's Move! campaign by learning about the program, taking a pledge to stay active and organizing the fitness walk. The national campaign was started roughly a year ago by First Lady Michelle Obama to combat childhood obesity. 

Ben Shelton, PE teacher at Stewart Middle School, says, "This is the first generation predicted to not outlive our parents, which is shocking considering all of the technology we have now."

Well, SOTA is doing something about it! If 60 reluctant middle school and high school students are willing to spend a day promoting a cause, it's probably a big deal.

The walk started at University of Puget Sound, went to Jason Lee Middle School, continued to the Tacoma School of the Arts building on 21st and Pacific Avenue and finished at Stewart Middle School. 

In true Northwestern style, the group ignored the rain, geared up and trudged through the drizzle - and managed to keep up their pep and excitement. (They inspired me so much I decided to take the long way back to my car!)

I got to honk at them in support as I passed in heated comfort, which is even more fun than it sounds. Usually people just swear at me when I honk, but this time everyone cheered! And my waving was only partly sarcastic.

The most impressive part of the day was seeing everyone tired, cold and wet, but still excited and dedicated to the cause and to finishing the 6.6 miles. These students completed quite a feat and inspired me to maybe take the long route to my car every day.

SEATTLE HERE HE COMES >>>

Jeremy Mangan is going places. He's going north to Seattle to be exact - for his first solo exhibition at the popular and prestigious Linda Hodges Gallery.

Mangan has made a name for himself in Tacoma, and now it's high time he moved on up. Apologies to those fierce T-Town supporters who don't like any indication that Seattle may in any way be superior, but for a painter trying to make it in the art world, Seattle is a step up.

Not that Mangan hasn't already gone places. According to the Hodges gallery he has shown his paintings in Germany, China and New York City. Not bad for a painter from Fife.

Mangan was Tacoma's 2009 Foundation of Art Award Winner, and he was my pick as best artist in the Weekly Volcano's "Best of Tacoma 2009." I've also favorably reviewed a couple of his shows at Fulcrum Gallery and mentioned him twice last year in my Visual Edge column in the Weekly Volcano, first in "Best South Sound Art Shows of 2010" and then in December in a column called "10 to Watch." 

The show at Linda Hodges Gallery will be called Western King. It will feature new paintings in acrylic on panel and new acrylic and oil paintings on canvas.

Here's what Linda Hodges has to say about him: "Mangan's paintings begin somewhere - nowhere - in the American West. They are set in real places that don't exist. They operate in a landscape where myth must contain fact, where promise and beauty continually grapple with melancholy and isolation. And in this landscape people have found reason to be busy, the results of which are staged for our consideration. In this work Mangan accesses a range of regional categories and clichés including vernacular architecture, Manifest Destiny, the outdoor lifestyle, legends of the Wild West, even ecological concerns - but always from the flank, and without verdict."

He paints strange, dilapidated wooden buildings (and sometimes boats and other structures that are built like old wooden buildings) with faded planks that show years of wear. Some of his structures look like old barns and silos; some defy description. Often they are perched on cliff edges or are afloat on a stormy sea. They're surrealistic, rough, brittle and visually attractive. They sometimes remind me of Andrew Wyeth if Wyeth had maybe taken a hit of acid before he started painting.

There is something ominous and foreboding about many of Mangan's paintings, but there is also a touch of sly humor. The painting included in the announcement for the show, for instance, depicts an old fishing boat in dry dock, but the dry dock in this case is really, really dry - far from any water. In fact, it seems to be in the middle of some field in the Western plains, and there's a funny picture of a cowboy painted on the boat's bridge.

The show will run February 3-26. There will be a reception for the artist Thursday, Feb. 3 from 5-8 p.m. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday, 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. and, Saturdays from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. or by appointment. The gallery is located at 316 First Ave. S. For more information go to www.lindahodgesgallery.com.

ISAAC OLSEN'S APPETITE FOR FILM >>>

Sometimes a building's exterior, its face to the world, is almost as difficult to read as a person's face; both can conceal much of the activity buzzing behind the surface. While its neighbor, Chase Bank, devours the attention of most passersby, a piece of Spaceworks Tacoma emits a dull stare of blank window glass onto Pacific Avenue. But Isaac Olsen has, for the last six months, used this quiet eye amid a bustling downtown to make movie magic.

The 24-year-old self-taught moviemaker sees cinematic potential in places the rest of us tend to disregard. Like the characters from his first feature Quiet Shoes, which premiered at the Rialto last summer, Olsen's gaze returns to dark rooms and highways in his newest creation, I Hunger. Spaceworks gave him the, well, space to, um, work on the whimsical Fantasia-like effects he devised from scratch for an abstract quasi-horror film with heavy nods to German Expressionism.

Currently Olsen has his eye on the Tacoma Artists Initiative Program, a city-based funding opportunity for artistic residents, and will submit segments of his project for the Jan. 24 application deadline.

The birth pains of I Hunger commenced in late 2008, within the frigid forests of Flint, Michigan. Over two years and 2,000 miles later, Olsen's production company Schnelluloid hopes to release his work this summer - another visual feast for us all. For a peek at the I Hunger trailervisit www.schnelluloid.com.

This week ...

Place: Dorky's Bar Arcade

Open since: Sept. 28, 2010

Owners: Les Voros-Bond and Caroline Dennewith

Cost of all games: 25 cents

What I just lied about: Newer pinball games are actually 50 cents

Total pinball machines: 11

Most popular game: TMNT

Percentage of readers who will know what TMNT stands for: 87%

Oldest games: Space Invaders and Asteroids (1979)

Length of Les' Fu Manchu: 3 inches

Been growing the fuzz since: Labor Day 2010

Read the full story here.

TODAY IN ONLINE TALK >>>

Today's comment comes from tornado in regard to Alec Clayton's recent blog post on Tacoma artist Jeremy Mangan's first solo exhibition at the popular and prestigious Linda Hodges Gallery.

Tornado writes,

Who doesn't think it's cool for a painter from the south Sound to show in Seattle or Portland or some other bigger city with a more established art scene? It's hard to simultaneously be on a high horse while titling at windmills that were constructed by strawmen, but that's what seems to be happening here. Stop insulting your readership. And congrats to Jeremy.