MICHAEL SWAN: MONDAY, DEC. 21, 2009 >>>

1. The Mandolin Café hosts a Winter Solstice Celebration featuring Too Many Cooks with Steve Stefanowicz beginning at 7 p.m.

2. Tim Kapler's Incomplete show hangs on the walls of The Swiss.

3. Bundle up and stroll Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium as it comes aglow with more than a half-million lights during Zoolights from 5-9 p.m.

4. The ringing backup music has been replaced with a real band; and the cheesy video is gone, because you are the show now, baby, during Rockaraoke beginning at 9 p.m. inside Jazzbones.

5. The Mix hosts Drag Bingo beginning at 9 p.m.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

PAUL SCHRAG: BE THE BEE >>>

So I know what you’re thinking. Adult Spelling Bee. Can you spell Grafenberg?

Unfortunately, this is a plain old spelling bee, with adults competing.

Sorry.

The Fourth Annual King’s Book Spelling Bee will pit 30 teams of Tacoma’s best spellers against one another to battle for the glory and pride associated with being able to spell.

The Weekly Volcano will be sending one of our smartest monkeys to compete. Last week he skunked the entire staff by spelling “owl.”

Little bastard. 

[King’ Books, Thursday, Sept. 24, 6:30 p.m., $10, 218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.8801]

PAUL SCHRAG: MEGA-CHESS GAME DRAWS PROTESTERS >>

That's it. I've had it with these damned socialist artists and their demand that public spaces be available for free to the, um, public.

Take this group of Mega-Chess players, for example, who stormed Tollefson Plaza today to re-enact a legendary chess battle between prodigy and all-around obsessive nut job Bobby Fischer and some fellow from Tacoma. The chess battle, scourge that it was, pitted two teams that moved behemoth chess pieces – pink and green spray painted jobs made from recycled five-gallon buckets and household appliances – around the plaza. Teams were dressed playfully, black and white with embellishments, and bopped a time clock made from a box with people in it.

Damned socialists and their weird ideas.

Other chess battles followed the Bobby Fischer match including a victorious Erik Emery Hanberg.

Thankfully, a group of protesters arrived with picket signs telling these artists or whatever to get over themselves and their demands that public spaces remain free for public use. It's not like all the color and activity has any peripheral benefits for the Plaza, which is so inviting and generally swarmed upon that it's hard to find a place to sit most days.

LINK: More photos from today's Mega-Chess game on the Photo Hot Spot.

PAUL SCHRAG: MEAN GAME OF SCRABBLE >>>

After writing an entire edition of the Weekly Volcano in pirate speak, the notion of playing Scrabble in a room full of people talking like Davey Jones sort of makes me ill. But everyone else should be prepared for a wonderful time as King’s Books presents the Talk Like a Pirate Day Edition of Scrabble Rousers Saturday night.

All proceeds from the event benefit the Tacoma Community House Student Scholarship Fund, which assists students as they transfer from TCH to community college.

Yarg.

[King’ Books, Saturday, Sept. 19, 6:30-8:30 p.m., $10, 218 St. Helens Ave., 253.272.8801]

MICHAEL SWAN: WEDNESDAY, AUG. 26, 2009 >>>

1. For six years local Trivia Newton John has been hosting Trivia Night at Le Voyeur in Olympia, which starts at 10 p.m. Sometimes the legit contest turns into a drunken free-for-all, which is nice.

2. The Women’s Votes, Women’s Voices exhibit continues at the Washington State History Museum from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today.

3. Acoustic musician Vince Brown performs at 6 p.m. inside the Swing Wine Bar in Olympia.

4. J.W. McClure, a veteran of the '60s coffee houses, folk clubs and the frenetic run of stand-up comedy, performs at 7 p.m. at Rhapsody In Bloom Florist and Café Latte.

5. Matt Coughlin performs at 8 p.m. in The Swiss’ middle room.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

MICHAEL SWAN: TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2009 >>>

1. The theme of today's 6th Avenue Farmers Market is Ho Down. Expect bluegrass, a scavenger hunt and family fun from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m.

2. Jewelry artist Nancy Worden incorporates non-traditional materials such as seed pods and plastic hair curlers into her jewelry to tell a story. That's right, she explores social and political issues in her exhibit, Loud Bones, which shows at the Tacoma Art Museum from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today.

3. Join local activist Michael Ladd at King's Books as he discusses why a recent Rasmussen Reports poll suggests that 20 percent of Americans think socialism is superior to the current capitalist system, with 33 percent of those under 30 siding with socialism as a political and economic ethos - beginning at 6:30 p.m.

4. Jazz saxophonist Kareem Kandi hosts an open mic night at 7 p.m. inside SAX on 6th.

5. Comedian Ralph Porter hosts Ha Ha Tuesdays at Jazzbones every Tuesday. Tonight's 8 p.m. show features guest comics Steve Monroe and Tim Warner.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

PAUL SCHRAG: TUESDAY IS A GOOD DAY TO SPELL >>>

King’s Books invites you to invoke your inner child and throw down on some triple word scores as it presents the next installment of Scrabble Rousers Tuesday. Unleash your desire with a game of Scrabble is the invitation â€" reclaim the innocence and power of shaping the word matrix. It’s like a spelling bee on shrooms. The Scrabble Rousers event is designed to be accessible to everyone. Before the fun begins, participants choose a skill level â€" beginner, intermediate or expert â€" and split off into pairs. That means Scrabble guppies don’t have to worry about getting picked off by Scrabble sharks. Yes, there is actually such a thing as a Scrabble shark â€" like a pool shark, only not quite as lame. 

“We aren’t interested in making people feel defeated by Scrabble sharks (although we love you too),” say organizers in an event description provided by Tacoma Community House, which will benefit from the event. “Then we start playing nontraditional, shorter word based games (not Scrabble) that get peoples brains going and thinking about words.”

MC sweet pea will lead the games, occasionally interrupting for quick bouts of word exploration, dancing and factoids.

[King’s Books, 6:30-9:30 p.m., $10 benefits Tacoma Community House, 218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.8801]

MICHAEL SWAN: TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2009 >>>

1. Norwegian choir Hauka Mannskor from central Norway will sing lovely songs at 7 p.m. inside the Trinity Lutheran Church.

2. Rare documents and medical equipment help uncover a century's development of nursing in Washington as part of the Nurses at Your Service: A Century of Caring exhibit at the Washington State History Museum.

3. Tacoma Rainiers play the Las Vegas 51s at 7 p.m. at Cheney Stadium.

4. Hell's Kitchen meshes its Tightwad Tuesday night ($2 wells, $2 beers, $2 huge tacos) with a little Rock Band! Live on stage at 8 p.m.

5. Nate Jackson will be the headliner at Jazzbones' Ha Ha Tuesday comedy show at 8 p.m.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

LINK: Wine and beer events

MICHAEL SWAN: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 2009 >>>

1. Trolls Cottage - a highly infectious roots reggae band, will play a free show at Jazzbones tonight  at 8 p.m. DJ Platelunch follows the funky beats.

2. Check out woodworker Steve Lawler's handcrafted furniture, or as he calls it, "re-Furniture" - at Gallery Madera in Tacoma.

3. Between 10 and 15 artists- each armed with 20 slides and 7 minutes- will slice open their creative brains and do a true show and tell as part of the Pecha Kucha event at 6 p.m. inside The New Frontier Lounge.

4. The rules are simple. Trivia Newton John asks questions, contestants buzz in to answer, and wrong answers are mocked unmercifully. Trivia Night at Le Voyeur every Wednesday at 10 p.m. is not for the timid or easily offended.

5. Daven and Jessica Blinn fill the Cliff House Restaurant with jazz at 7 p.m.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

MICHAEL SWAN: WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2009 >>>

1. Local hip-hop night "Fresh Blends" continue at Hell's Kitchen with Eprhyme, Puget, Afrok, DJ Reign and DJ Slimrock hitting the stage at 9 p.m.

2. Every Wednesday Doyle's Public House in Tacoma hosts Knowledge Night where individuals or teams answer two pages of brain teasers, trivia and current events for shirts, tickets and gift certificates.

3. Billy Farmer's American band Rockin' Chair Money plays at all-ages 7 p.m. show at The Mandolin Café

4. Randy Oxford Blues Theatre open jam starts at 8 p.m. at Jazzbones.

5. Vicci Martinez and Friends will be jamming at The Swiss tonight around 9 p.m.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound