THE DAILY WORD
Learn it, use it, spell it

Insouciance (Ä­n-sÅ«'sÄ"-É™ns, ăN'sÅ«-syäNs') / n
Blithe lack of concern; nonchalance.

USAGE EXAMPLE: With the smug lug of insouciance riding on his white little face â€" the kind of insouciance only a polo wearing fraternity branded watch salesman from Mukilteo can get away with, Tim Eyman proudly turned in his signatures to the Secretary of State’s office Friday.  If he’s not completely full of shit and greatly exaggerating the amount of signatures he collected â€" like he’s done before â€" Eyman’s self-reported “313,000” John Hancocks should be enough to get Initiative 960 on November’s ballot. If passed, the initiative would make it nearly impossible for state government to raise taxes without first getting voter approval or a two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature.  Much like the look on his ugly little mug, I-960 isn’t afraid to show its insouciance for Washington’s poor and working families, or the boatload of important social programs that would benefit from rich assholes in Mukilteo paying a little more for tabs. Tim Eyman is the devil â€" and an insouciant one at that.

THE MORNING NEWS

IRAQ: White House debate rises on Iraq pullback.

NORTH KOREA: What are you guys doing?

PLAYSTATION: Kicking sand in Xbox's face.

SCHOOL: Is the Hell boy here?

SMELL: I'm not dead yet.

MONDAY BLOWDOWN
You can stand atop the mountain and scream your naked desires to the universe or shed that synapse epilepsy and hug the South Sound today with your fellow man:

MUSIC: Jerry Miller at The Swiss.

PSYCHIC: Shirlee Teabo is back at Vin Grotto.

DRINK: Vertigo Lounge's Mojito.

THROWING DARTS AT THE CIRCLE
Tomorrow, Tuesday July 10, Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins will officially, officially return (as if performing at just about every major music festival this summer wasn’t enough) with the release of Zeitgeist â€" the Pumpkins long awaited new record. In case you haven’t heard, the Pumpkins are set to play Endfest 16, which this year will take place in the parking lot of Quest Field. Bobble Tiki picked up the single “Tarantula” on ITunes about a month ago, and let’s just say Bobble Tiki wasn’t exactly enthralled. Here’s to hoping the whole record isn’t mediocre.

THE SOUTH SOUND FACTOID

On July 12, 1913, water from the Green River reached customers in Tacoma at the rate of 42 million gallons a day. The headworks, pipeline, and receiving reservoir cost $2.25 million and took two years to construct.   

BOBBLE TIKI'S THREATS AND PROMISES COLUMN

This week Bobble Tiki comes clean with the sounds of summer.  You know: the strum of guitars, the tink off the bat, puking.

As always, Bobble Tiki doesn't care what you do today because he doesn't even know you.  And unless you check out the Weekly Volcano's Web site, Bobble Tiki doesn't want to me you.  Besides, it's time to blow this joint because it's so obvious you are becoming further and further removed from all that is genuine and real and visceral and virtuous and Bobble Tiki doesn't play that with his morning bowl of Quisp.

OK, Bobble Tiki apologizes.  Please be his friend here.

Breakfast with Bobble Tiki runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  Deal with it.

Bobble Tiki loves Whistling Bungholes, Spleen Spliters, Whisker Biscuits, Honkey Lighters, Hoosker Doos, Hoosker Donts, Cherry Bombs, Nipsy Daisers, with or without the Scooter Stick, and Whistling Kitty Chasers.

Bobble Tiki loves the Fourth of July.

Check it out here. â€" Bobble Tiki

This video makes Bobble Tiki's head bob with pride regardless of his love for Yelm.

Brilliant job Derek and Erik. â€" Bobble Tiki

Bobble Tiki often escapes the mayhem by heading for the mountains with a case of Grey Goose and a box of Scharffenberger chocolates and the entire DeLillo collection and "Baraka" on DVD. Now that the White River Amphitheatre states that they can provide Bobble Tiki with the “ultimate concert experience,” Bobble Tiki might veer toward Auburn instead. â€" Bobble Tiki

Live Nation reports: Live Nation and White River Amphitheatre are pleased to announce the launch of www.RiverGiver.com, the amphitheatre’s new how-to website for attaining the ultimate concert experience.

Go to RiverGiver.com for event traffic hints and interactive directions that offer the best possible route information from your starting location. There is also a page dedicated to the amphitheatre’s convenient, free shuttle service to/from the Auburn SuperMall that gives pick-up locations and the shuttle start times for each concert.  Rivergiver.com also features parking map/information and all the details on the Early Entry Gate tickets, available at any of the 74 Puget Sound Les Schwab Tire Centers, allowing for those ten extra minutes to grab that great seat on the lawn, or an early snack.

White River Amphitheatre’s 2007 season kicks off Saturday, May 26 with Brad Paisley, Taylor Swif, Jack Ingram and Kellie Pickler.

T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month. Bobble Tiki calls it the month for love: What couple fails to anticipate that tête-à-tête at the dining table, the soft light of a banker’s lamp flitting over their naked forearms, as they wrestle with the 1040EZ?

In 1981, Bobble Tiki was in love with three things: Spyro Gyra, Boones Farm strawberry wine and his next door neighbor Susie. Susie’s more liberal mom would buy us a bottle of the “wine” and set us loose for a few hours of drinking and making out. Within a year or two, Bartles & Jaymes strawberry wine coolers had hit the market and became the drink du jour for us trendy Bobble Tikis. After that, Boones Farm looked like, well, MD 20/20. 

Join Bobble Tiki tonight for some smooth jazz by Darren Motamedy, wine cooler-like drinks and the one Bobble Tiki’s with. 

[Cedarwood Dome, 7 p.m., $7.50, Milton]

New West Motels â€" think Built To Spill meets Tom Petty â€" will join Seattle ‘90s heroes Sister Psychic (“Kim the Waitress”) at Jazzbones Thursday with Tacoma band Vanilla. 

Bobble Tiki caught up with New West Motels singer and guitarist Rob Sharp before the March 22 show in Tacoma.  The show will kick off with a crab feed in honor of Sharp’s birthday.  Bobble Tiki and Sharp chatted about his early love for music, his admiration for Sister Psychic and his recording time in England.

“We spent Christmas in England recording the basic tracks to our debut album â€" a great little place called APE Studios just outside Liverpool,” says Sharp. “We lived for eight days in the studio, pretty much working around the clock, on a wide marshland overlooking north Wales.  It was beautiful, and we had an amazing time.  Got to use the same Helios board that the Who recorded Tommy and Quadrophenia on, plus the Neumann board that Supertramp's Crime of the Century was recorded on, one of my favorite albums of all time (but don't tell anybody that. We all have our vices).  I highly recommend it, getting away to record, stepping away from everyday concerns to just focus on the music.”

Crap, ignore the Crime of the Century thing.

The full interview runs in Thursday’s issue of the Weekly Volcano.  Bobble Tiki can’t wait for the show, especially to see Sister Psychic again (but don’t tell Rob Sharp). â€" Bobble Tiki

To be brutally honest, Bobble Tiki was happy back in the days when he knew the names of the restaurants, not the chefs. There's no shame in a hard-working hash-slinger staying at the stove and off the Food Network. But instead of humble cooks, Bobble Tiki is confronted with ... bam! Chefs as sitcom stars. Pass the Pepto Bismol, please. However, Bobble Tiki is willing to suspend his curmudgeonly views on the subject when it comes to the rumors of a local Iron Chef competition held at Stadium Bistro.  Fellow Volcano scribe Jessica Corey-Butler discussed it here and here.  An exact starting date hasn’t been set.

In the meantime, it’s with certainty that the Junior League of Tacoma will host A Cook’s Tour through Tacoma’s north end April 21.  A shuttle will leave Annie Wright School at 10 a.m., noon, 2 and 4 p.m. dropping participants off at five kitchens with guest chefs demonstrating culinary techniques.  The cost is $40 per ticket.  Top reserve your space, call 253.383.1030. â€" Bobble Tiki

Bobble Tiki sees them on the coldest South Sound days, when the merciless wind takes the breath right out of his lungs and snot freezes in his soul patch: people without hats.

Hey, South Sounders, it's freakin’ cold out! Put a damn hat on!

Is your fauxhawk really all that important? Or maybe you feel silly in a toque. How attractive do you think you are with red ears, shivering like a cold idiot?

Now, not everyone owns a hat â€" it's a heartbreaking but true observation on the state of the social safety net. Even those who do might be prone to losing them; maybe that sniffling wretch has just left his on the Tacoma Link. But people with hoods who don't raise them have no excuse. A hood is the definitive hat â€" it even takes care of your neck and the sides of your face. Whenever Bobble Tiki sees a hood lying limp on the back of some freezing moron, it fills him with such rage that he can barely keep his gloved hands off the moron’s scarfless throat ... but, you know, it's just so cold out. â€" Bobble Tiki

One of Bobble Tiki's favorite rock musician names is guitarist He Who Cannot Be Named, who for a while played in the Dwarves. He Who, as he was often called, once faked his own death, to the chagrin of the band's record label, Sub Pop, which promptly sacked the band.

Check out the Dwarves tonight at Hell's Kitchen. â€" Bobble Tiki

Underneath this respectable, suburban veneer lies a seething hotbed of decadence; behind a curtain of boring hides an orgiastic cacophony of richness. It’s called the Tacoma Jazz and Blues Festival.

This year’s festival, scheduled to follow the Daffodil Parade Saturday, April 21, will consume four downtown Tacoma venues:   

1. Big Bands / Jazz Orchestras Stage - Tacoma Convention Center
12:30 - 1:30pm  Jazz Senators
  2:00 - 3:00pm  Emerald City Jazz Orchestra
  3:30 - 4:30pm  Jazz Police
  5:00 - 6:00pm  Rich Wetzel's Groovin Higher Jazz Orchestra

2. Jazz Combos / Smooth Jazz Stage - The Swiss
12:30 - 1:30pm  Darren Motamedy
  2:00 - 3:00pm  Michael Powers
  3:30 - 4:30pm  Native Blue
  5:00 - 6:00pm  The Jay Thomas-John Stowall Quartet

3. Blues Stage - The Harmon
12:30 - 1:30pm   Nick Vigarino
  2:00 - 3:00pm   The Randy Oxford Band
  3:30 - 4:30pm   Maia Santell and House Blend
  5:00 - 6:00pm   The Michal Miller Band

4. Education Stage - School Of The Arts / Broadway Entrance
Line up to be announced soon.

For more information and tickets, keep an eye here. â€" Bobble Tiki