DANIEL BLUE: MEET MICAH TUCKER >>>

Micah Tucker is a working artist. When I first moved to Tacoma, he was painting huge canvases and hanging them in his friends' apartments. This is perhaps some of the first "art" I was exposed to outside of the graffiti some friends had shown me in Seattle. Not to compare the two, Micah's art was different than anything I had seen that far. Playing on shadows and silhouettes, he had mastered the art of predicting how a person would look, where their eyes would move and what they might see in a chronological order. 

Looking at his paintings was kind of like reading a mystery novel, as they revealed themselves bit by bit and sometimes never completely. For the longest time I stared and stared at a painting he had hung in his and Duggan's hallway. It looked like a random shape, just a pipe and a weird fedora hat thing .... blurry and blocky and cartoony. I knew something was in there, something that I couldn't get my mind to see. That feeling of knowing you don't know, is important to me. I'm frustrated by it, but Micah knows it's all too easy to pretend that what greets your eyes is the end-all truth. He was asking us to take the time to bend our minds in new ways, and in that respect he was a teacher.

Currently Micha is working for Doug Knudson as an end-all, be-all construction cobra. I didn't see his paintings for a while, but recently he hung a show at The Helm. He has not lost his ability to cast your mind into doubt about what you are looking at.

LINK: The Tacoma Files

DANIEL BLUE: MEET TAYLOR BUCK >>>

I met Taylor Buck at the Warehouse, I think; actually maybe I met her at my house before I moved to the Warehouse. Or maybe I met her in another life when we were brother and sister baby wolves. That's what it feels like: like we will grow up to be the best hunters in the pack.

In this life Taylor and I became friends because she is so smart, and I like to surround myself with people that are smarter than I am. A lover of photography, she has recently graduated from the Running Start Program at Tacoma Community College and is planning to attend Shimer College in Chicago, Ill., this fall.

Taylor spent a lot of time in Mexico at an early age. When her family returned she found herself strangely different than the people in American high school and decided that Running Start was probably her only option for a comfortable education experience.

A linear thinker and far more responsible at 18 than I will be at 35; Taylor is the kind of woman who is willing to take her destiny into her own very capable hands. 

I have no doubt that she will succeed at whatever she puts her mind to. She is determined and brilliant, and also adorably cute when she is moody - like in the picture above.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

DANIEL BLUE: MEET KELSEY MEDVED >>>

Kelsey Medved is the best boogie dancer in the Northwest. Nothing seems to scare her, no dance is too dorky or obtuse, and when she performs them you will feel jealous at her freedom of expression and her obvious skill in kinetic demonstration. 

Long time girl of our beloved Elephants front man, Trevor Dickson, Kelsey is something of an envy generator for girls from miles around. Out of the limelight and in person, she is kind, sweet and hosts an intelligence that is somehow immune to the typical trappings of American women. Nothing seems to bring her down; I have seen her face life's strangest and most tragic twists with her head held high and an un-quivering lip. I am glad for her strength and her beauty, she is an example to women young and old alike of how to be chic, hip and urban without becoming jaded and bourgeois.

Posing here in the final stage of a secret dance move, Kelsey proves she is a sport and a friend. Up high, down low, out-the-win-dow, side to side, front to back, shake that SHARK ATACK! Thanks for helping all of us to stop pretending we are too cool to be happy, we all should loosen up and boogie more with Kelsey.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

DANIEL BLUE: MEET EVERETT BROTHERS >>>

Everett Brothers is an extremely mellow and pleasant fellow.

Pictured here enjoying the hell out of himself at Art on the Ave, Everett invited us to his apartment in the Leland where we grilled exotic meats on the barbie whilst sipping a mixture of PBR and Orange juice. (OK, the drink was my invention, but I think Everett's refreshing nature inspired the beverage.) I sure do enjoy mixing things.

Everett is not a complicated man. He and his girlfriend, Lauren, live down the hall from each other in the same apartment complex. I think they do it just to keep things simple.

His calming nature and eloquent method of keeping you coherent has come in handy on nights outside of wild underground parties that I'm not allowed to write about in any widely distributed media. Once outside of such an event, Everett began telling me about his new pick-em-up-truck, the simple and entertaining nature of the conversation brought me back from the brink of nausea and gave me the power I needed to continue dancing the night away.

There are more and more reasons to purchase a longboard, one is the simple fact that you will have an open opportunity to talk shop with Everett.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

DANIEL BLUE: MEET TOBIN ROPES >>>

Tobin Ropes is a modern American Cosimo Medici. The Medici were a powerful and infinitely rich banking family that influenced much of the best periods of Italian art. Without the Medici family; patrons to both Leonardo and Michelangelo, among many other greats, we would have no Notre Dame, and the names of all four Ninja Turtles would make little sense.

Tobin, who was swindled out of an incredible wine empire he helped to build, is currently a tea man. Yes, in the same way Daniel Plainview was an oil man, Tobin is a Tea Man, it is profitable and progressive and a whole hell of a lot better for the environment. 

Pictured here strolling across the deadly Commerce LINK tracks to the park benches across the street from the manifestation of his love for tea, Mad Hat Tea Company, Tobin is preparing to pour some strange concoction of God knows what euphoria inducing leafy juices to the denizens of the sunshine that gather here on Saturday afternoon. Tobin is a classic, there are only two of him in the whole wide world, and we here in Tacoma are the proud owners (yes OWNERS) of both of them.

Few people love art and support artists as much as Ropes Family. The Mad Hat Tea Company will host For The Love of the Cosmos syncopated pandemonium art show Thursday, Aug. 7, from 5-10 p.m. Come get your hippy on.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

DANIEL BLUE: MEET PRESTON JOHNSON >>>

Preston Johnson is my cousin.  Well, kind of; our family is complicated.  Having no blood relation, we are still somehow related by a marriage that has since been dissolved.  Even though I heard many stories of Preston and his brothers growing up, I actually never met him until a few summers ago on Titlow Beach where we were stumbled upon a bonfire he was sharing with James Sinding. We didn't know we were related, but that didn't matter, we got along from the start. 

Preston is a "fixie" bike rider.  A fixie is a messenger type road or track bicycle with only one gear that is attached to the hub.  That means that if the back wheel is turning, so are the pedals.  Most fixie bikes do not have breaks, and Preston slows down by applying backward pressure on his pedals, like an engine break.   This can be very dangerous when you are traveling at high speeds, but Preston is no stranger to danger.

Always on the cutting edge of color and fashion, Preston has introduced me to many trends in clothing, music and lifestyle.  Preston is as cool as it comes, and I'm glad he is on my team.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

MATT DRISCOLL: NOTES FROM THE TOP >>>

Even though Pappi Swarner decided to hit the booze and links this fine Friday afternoon, and Suzy Stump left the Weekly Volcano’s Best Of Tacoma party last night with some guy with a ponytail and hasn’t been seen at the office since, I’m still here â€" diligently working away at my desk for you, the South Sound blogosphere (in between glances at the latest Brett Favre update).

As much fun as the boss is probably having taking it easy this afternoon, I had even more with City Manager Eric Anderson. Tacoma’s main brain returned from a two week Friday press briefing hiatus today, and with the Tacoma Weekly’s John Larson on vacation and the TNT’s new city government newshound Nikki Sullivan not in attendance (she’s not new, really, just making a switch from covering state politics to the city stuff with the Trib’s Jason Hagey), I basically had Eric all to myself.

It was good for me. No word on whether Anderson enjoyed it.

Quick hits

- This Tuesday (Aug 5) the Council and Anderson are set to receive a “financial and economic status report for both the General Fund and Capital Projects Fund through June 2008.” The report will recap Tacoma’s finances since the beginning of the year, and provide a forecast of economics to come from the Tacoma’s Budget Officer Amy Palmer. Citing a 59% drop in tax revenue from real estate in the last 8 months, not to mention a drop in gas tax income, Anderson expects the report and forecast to be similar to economic bad news earlier this year, when the City Manager said a reduction in capital projects might be necessary. “That’s still true,” Anderson said of his earlier forecast.

“We were at an extraordinarily high level before,” said Anderson in regard to revenue Tacoma was receiving from real estate taxes during the boom of yesteryear. “Now we’ve dropped back down.”

Anderson said a continued reduction in capital projects may be necessary for Tacoma’s budget to adjust to the new level of tax income.

- According to a City of Tacoma news advisory, there’s an open house from 4-6 p.m. at the Tacoma Municipal Building on Wednesday (Aug 6) designed to “provide details on the upcoming Pacific Avenue improvement project and the impact it will have on the immediate area.”  The Pacific Avenue improvement project will “run on Pacifica Avenue between South 17th and South 25th streets and South 25th Street from Pacific Avenue to C Street.”

According to Anderson, events like Wednesday’s open house (one of many open houses the city has held in regard to the Pacific Avenue improvement project) are beneficial for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, it helps establish a “feedback loop” between citizens (business owners in particular) and the city.  Anderson says the city has received a lot of feedback on the coming improvement project, and much of it has been critical.

“A lot of people don’t understand why we’re going in again,” said Anderson. “A lot of people want to know why this wasn’t done the first time.”

“It’s a good question,” Anderson admits.

“Hopefully we can all work together. A lot of businesses rely on Pacific Avenue,” says Anderson. Open houses “get our people thinking about other people’s lives.”

Though he said the City of Tacoma is doing everything it can to minimize the impact on Pacific Avenue businesses (many of the same businesses that were affected during Link construction), Anderson realizes not everyone will be happy.

“It’s impossible to say we can do that 100%.”

Those attend Wednesday’s open house can expect information specifically on the traffic implications of the Pacific Avenue improvement project â€" mainly where the interruptions will occur and where the detours will be.

- Showcase Tacoma is quickly approaching, and the Weekly Volcano isn’t the only one excited. Though something tells me Eric Anderson isn’t, necessarily, a big fan of the Helio Sequence (who will blow Tollefson Plaza’s mind on Friday, Aug 8), the City Manager is a fan of the positive impacts an event like Showcase Tacoma has on our fair city.

“It builds community,” Anderson said of Showcase Tacoma, which the city has taken a large part in producing along with Metro Parks and Tacoma School of the Arts.

Anderson said the benefits go beyond community building, and into the realm of PR.

“A lot of people come from outside the city,” says Anderson. “A lot of them say ‘Holy smokes, this place has changed.’”

- Finally, City Council members will consider a resolution on Tuesday that would cut the Museum of Glass a check for $100,000 to aid in the purchase of a forklift and specialized truck intended for “housing and transporting the mobile hot shop for art outreach services.” Apparently, at least according to Anderson, the mobile hot shop is very much like the stationary hot shop inside the Museum of Glass â€" only movable. It’s designed to be taken around to schools and communities to show kids how obsessed Tacoma is with glass art, not to mention provide just a little more PR for Tacoma. Anderson said the purpose of the mobile hot shop is threefold: education, art, and marketing â€" noting that the hot shop on wheels will be taken to communities outside of Tacoma. “Outside the city, it publicizes Tacoma,” says Anderson.

“The city is very much a partner with the Museum of Glass.”

That’s all for this week. Eric Anderson is off to the triple digit heat of Denver to visit his son, and I’m off to the coast for a family reunion of sorts with my in-laws.

I’m sure we’ll both be sweating.

Have a wonderful weekend, Tacoma.

DANIEL BLUE: MEET RANDY CZERNO >>>

Randy Czerno likes to be known as CZ7 verified by the symbol on his paintings.

A true artist in every sense of the word, Randy started with sculpture but then ran out of room and has since moved to painting and drawing with pastel chalks. He can sit and draw for hours in a coffee shop, hardly looking up from his books and totally devoted to the human shapes that he was bringing forth from what at first seemed like mere scribbles in a rainbow of colors. When you begin to see the faces and bodies taking form in his work, there is a truly magical feeling of revelation, as if they were there on the page waiting to be realized even before he made the first mark. His paintings are just as epic. He can often be found painting outside the One Heart Café where half of the time he is sanding down the layers he has recently painted to reveal the images underneath in the same way a sculptor would chip away at a block to form an image inside. 

Randy is calm and quiet most of the time, and when he speaks the wisdom is carefully thought out.  He once told me, "The easiest type of art you can make is art that is disturbing.  It takes an artist of true skill to create something that evokes feelings of love or elation."

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

DANIEL BLUE: MEET PATRICK MEERSMAN >>>

Patrick Meersman does not deserve to be given the bird, I just pricked myself on a holly branch and it made a sad face with blood shot eyes. Pat understands, in fact I would say that his understanding is definitive of his character. Sometimes I think Patrick reminds me of Johnny Knocksville, but not in character.  Pat is actually very safe, even when he is intoxicated, Patrick is a level headed man who could never be described as a jackass.

Passionate about China and the ridiculous amount of study that can be absorbed from the Chinese people, Patrick is diligent in his distribution of information concerning the American relationship with this up and coming world power.

You can find this easy going buddy at the YMCA, Blackwater Café, Galanga, or in Seattle where he works at the Can Can in the Pike Place Market. 

My favorite thing about Patrick is how consistently he brings everyone together. Using a web of text messaging and chain phone calls, Patrick has created an instant party at many a local bar on nights when there were one or two lonely drunks lurking around just moments before. Get on his list if you are looking for where the fun is going to be, just don't let him start buying you shots, that's dangerous, and he will drink you under the table.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

DANIEL BLUE: MEET PAUL SPARKS >>>

Paul Sparks is a modern Magi. Having devoted his life to the pursuit of wisdom long ago, Paul lived in the hills of Northeast Tacoma for many years before moving to Downtown and embedding himself into the workings of our diverse urban community. The view from his apartment was incredible, looking west toward our great city, it was as if he were charting a course from that vantage across the water to our beloved metropolis.

Paul reads more books than you, his personal library is ridiculous and fills the spare bedroom in his home.   

He and his wife, Liz, are extremely hospitable and will fill your bellies with wine and delicious fare; but beware, they are careful listeners and will ask clever questions of you that cause divulgence of the most personal kind. No malice is intended in their collection of your stories, it is very simply how they have come to understand themselves and the world around them: that is, through the stories of their people.   

Paul is the definition of the term "life coach," and in a careful and calculated way he finds the places that you will fit best in this world, if only by listening to your answers to his unending stream of wizard like questions.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive
LINK: Sparks also started Local Like Tacoma