SATURDAY, NOV. 6, 2010 >>>

1. Justin Hillgrove's Tim-Burton-meets-Edward-Gorey sense of fantasy can be seen at his solo show Black and White And Read All Over at the Mineral gallery. His love of literature, pop music and cinema pop up through a phantasmagorical cast of characters. If you haven't seen the show, today would be the day as Hillgrove will paint live with his buddy Mike Capp from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. inside Mineral.

2. Experience how everyday works of art played an important part of the life of mid-1800's. Fort Nisqually re-enactors and artisans demonstrate spinning, silversmithing, blacksmithing, woodworking, open-fire cooking and Native American basketweaving from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Experience what life was like in the 1800s (hint: they, too, couldn't stand the goddamn rain).

3. The second annual fundraising extravaganza that is Dancing with the Tacoma Stars is obviously a riff on not one but two popular TV shows. But who cares about originality when you can see Marilyn Strickland attempt the foxtrot? Raising money for Tacoma Musical Playhouse, tonight's Dancing with the Tacoma Stars at 5:30 p.m. inside the Temple Theater (akin to both "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Dancing with the Stars," with local celebs learning the ropes from Studio 6 Ballroom) will be a production you don't even have to bus the seniors in for. It'll be entertaining as hell.

4. Tacoma's theater company Gold from Straw opens the comedy Almost, Maine by John Cariani at 8 p.m. inside the Theatre on the Square.

5. The newly-built Gruv Lounge and Nightclub at Sixth and Proctor is expertly decorated: a chic bar, colorful-yet-unobtrusive lighting, a high-ceilinged dance floor adjacent to private karaoke rooms with comfortable seating. Gruv manager Calvin Murphy, who launched his DJ conglomerate Ocean Grooves in the same space in 1999 when it was the 6th & Proctor Bar & Grill, will reunite three DJs who spun in the same building 11 years ago - Donald Glaude, Omar and dAb - beginning at 9 p.m.

LINK: Art at Work Tacoma Studio Tours details in The Weekend Hustle

LINK: Warren Miller's Wintervention information in The Prefunk

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 13, 2010 >>>

1. When it comes right down to it, few things in this world can top a freshly poured, frosty barley pop. We're referring to beer, of course, and it's way more than a delicious sexual stimulant/memory eraser . . . beautiful beer is an art form unto itself. In keeping with its tradition of promoting awareness and appreciation of this heavenly beverage, the Weekly Volcano reminds you that the Parkway Tavern hosts its annual Jubelpalooza at 6 p.m. featuring Jubel Ale '08, '09 and '10, Nitro '09, cask '09, Super Jubel '08 and '10, Abyss '09, Black Butte 21 and Mirror Mirror.

2. Bead artist Keiko will demonstrate her live torch techniques for contemporary bead making from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. inside the Museum of Glass' Hot Shop.

3. Dakota Bob & The Business Man Blues Band perform at 7 p.m. inside A Rhapsody In Bloom Florist & Cafe Latte on Sixth Avenue in Tacoma.

4. Appalled by the horrors of local dog fighting in Afghanistan, Pen Farthing and his troop of young Royal Marines had no choice but to intervene. Soon, the Marines operated a makeshift pound. Farthing wrote about the experience in his book, One Dog at a Time: Saving the strays of Afghanistan, which he'll discuss at 7 p.m. inside the Moore Library in Tacoma.

5. Dave Welch, past president of the Museum Association and the Oregon and California Trails Association, will speak about the Oregon Trail and show an award winning film about students who traveled by wagon train like 19th century pioneers, at 7 p.m. inside the Steilacoom Historical Museum.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

SUNDAY, OCT. 3, 2010 >>>

1. Picha Farm's Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 6502 52^nd St. E. in Puyallup. Wander the fields and pick your perfect pumpkin. Stroll through their five-acre corn maze. Find all five answers to five trivia questions hidden throughout the maze and win a prize. Try your hand at the best pumpkin slingshot in the Puyallup Valley. If you hit the target you'll win a free 15-pound pumpkin. Or you could just stay home and eat pumpkin pie out of a can.

2. The annual Ashford Rainier Arts Festival continues today from noon to 4 p.m. with tons of art, oil painting, jewelry and pottery workshops and music by Maia Santell and House Blend at 2 p.m.

3. We dig the annual Tacoma Greek Festival. We dig the dancing, the fine food; hell, we even dig yelling "Opa!" for no apparent reason. But let's be real. For us, the entire festival is just a complicated set dressing for a baklava-delivery system. We can't get enough of the flakey sweet dessert. Drop by Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. and score some.

4. The Tacoma Art Museum presents a lecture offering an introduction to the iconography, materials, and history of early Japanese Buddhist sculpture at 1:30 p.m.

5. Black & Blue Sundays Thanksgiving Comedy Benefit Show features Death Before Decaf at 8 p.m. inside Jazzbones.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

SATURDAY, OCT. 2, 2010 >>>

1. The Gnar At The Bar Octobersesh Miniramp Skateboard Competition goes down at 2 p.m. at O'Malley's Irish Pub with prize money on the line and DJ reign on the decks.

2. The Tacoma Craft Beer Festival continues today from noon to 8 p.m. inside the Foss Waterway Seaport featuring 50 breweries and more than 100 beers, along with bands, games and food.

3. There's a couple thing to do today in Puyallup. Join the merchants in historic downtown Puyallup for the annual Art and Wine Walk from 3-7 p.m. Also, the new Gallery Three opens at 333 S. Meridian featuring 14 artists displaying a wide variety of artistic endeavors.

4. Fort Nisqually Living History Museum's annual Candlelight Tour will provide visitors with a way to learn history by walking back into 1859 - today from 7-9:30 p.m. - and listening in on the conversations and activities of that bygone day courtesy of a small army of re-enactors who volunteer their time and talent to portray laborers, servants and the landed gentry. Advance tickets are required so call 253.591.5339 or you'll have to deal with modern day disappointment.

5. Guitarist/vocalist Daven Tillinghast joins guitarist Vince brown for Jazz in the Cellar from 9-11 p.m. inside the Swing Wine Bar & Café in Olympia.

LINK: 24 Hour Comics Day in our Prefunk

LINK: Greek Festival and HarvestFest Farms Tour in our Weekend Hustle

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

MONDAY, SEPT. 27, 2010 >>>

1. The 31st annual training conference of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture gathers near the Point Defiance Park Rose Garden from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. to demonstrate the use of a crane to remove a tree, the rescue of workers from an aerial lift truck, climbing techniques and pruning techniques. Equipment vendors will also be on site, representing products such as chippers and stump grinders. 

2. BIG: an exploration, featuring artwork by David Hodge, Chris Sharp, Anne Haley, Phil Roach, Judy Harvey, Karl Krogstad, Chuck Gumpert, Christopher Mathie, Alexis St. John, Ryan Molencamp, Marsha Galziere and Mauricio Robalino, is on display from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. inside the Handforth Gallery at the Tacoma Public Library's Main Branch.

3. Jesse Clark McAbee lectures on "Tall Timber: The Nikkei Experience in Washington's Lumber Industry" at noon inside the Washington State Capital Museum in Olympia. This presentation, through vintage photographs, oral histories, ephemera and historical documents highlights the story of the thousands of Japanese immigrants who worked in Washington's timber industry prior to World War II.

4. Robert Duvall plays a backwoods hermit who figures his time is coming, and enlists the local undertaker (Bill Murray) in planning a big funeral send-off that he will pay for himself and enjoy while he's still alive in the flick Get Low screening at 2, 4:25, 6:40 and 9 p.m. inside The Grand Cinema.

5. Rebel Monday/Industry Night featuring DJ Jason Diamond spinning roots reggae begins at 9 p.m. inside O'Malley's Irish Pub on Sixth Avenue.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

2.5 ACRES OF AWESOME >>>

The current record for Largest Food Drive Ever netted half a million pounds of food.  Now Emergency Food Network, Northwest Harvest, Tacoma Public Schools and the Stadium Centennial Foundation hope to celebrate the Stadium Bowl's 100th anniversary by doubling that record from Friday to Saturday.  Fill the Bowl kicks off (that's a pun, sports fans!) with a parade, followed by the epic feline gridiron battle of the Tigers of Stadium High vs. the Lions of Bellarmine Prep.  All donations go to food banks right here in the Puget Sound area.  Cash donations are greatly appreciated; giving $10 is as simple as texting "Hunger" to 89544. To donate more, text "Hunger" followed by the dollar amount to 27138.

Fill The Bowl

Friday, Sept. 17 4 p.m. to Saturday, Sept. 18 4 p.m.
Stadium High School, 111 N. E St., Tacoma

LINK: Celebrating 100 years of Stadium's bowl

BRING ON THE WEEKEND >>>

It's really pretty amazing to me.  Once every month or so, when I'm sitting in front of my computer on a Friday morning, faced with the task of crafting yet another installment of The Prefunk - a weekend primer for you and your liver - I think to myself: Is this really a good idea? Is this how I should be spending my time?  Is this why I borrowed money for college?

So, I holler across the hall to my boss - the publisher, and master of all things web.

"Boss," I say, "are you sure this is really a good idea?  What do people really think when they read this thing?  I mean, I know you think it's funny.  But do you think people at home think it's funny?  People at work?  People with moral standards?  People with some semblance of decency?"

"They LOVE it!" he shouts back.  "Now get back to work and make some more goddamn jokes about getting blado on Nyquil or I'll take away your bathroom privileges!"

And so I trudge on.

With that, here's this week's Prefunk, with an extra special picture of an alcoholic household pet thrown in for good measure.

A HISTORIC JOURNEY THROUGH SOUTH TACOMA

Saturday, Aug. 14

I gotta be straight with you. I'm a sucker for history.  It's almost laughable.  You should see the way my wife rolls her eyes when I get the remote and head toward the History Channel. I'm not sure what it is, perhaps the overwhelming feeling that things were better, more exciting, more alive, and more real way back when.

Yeah, actually, I'm pretty sure that's it.

Anyway, while this may sound a wee-bit lame to 85 percent of you (The Prefunk has 13 faithful readers, so you can do the math), the Tacoma Historical Society is hosting a free walking tour of South Tacoma Saturday, and it actually sound pretty fucking awesome. As the aforementioned faithful readers can attest to (100 percent of 13), I only put "fucking" in front of "awesome" when I'm serious.

Starting at 10 a.m. at Northwest Motor Scooters at 5428 South Tacoma Way, those interested in taking the free tour (it's FREE, people!) will meet and mingle with Darlyne Reiter, author of THEE book on South Tacoma (OK, so there aren't that many), appropriately titled South Tacoma.  The New York Times has yet to review the book, but that's because they're a bunch of liberal jackasses that wouldn't know literary gold if it was encrusted on their Prince Albert.

Then, at 10:15 a.m. railroad historian Jim Fredrickson will really get the history party pumpin' - dropping mad knowledge on Northern Pacific Railway and the South Tacoma Shops.  While I don't have a penis piercing joke to make in correlation with Fredrickson's portion of the program (say that three times fast), that's not to say it won't be totally boss.

At 11 a.m. architectural Gerald Eysaman will lead a walking tour through South Tacoma's business district.  A multi-tasker, Eysaman will simultaneously talk while walking, and this walking and talking will coalesce into a portion of the event called "The South Tacoma That Was."

Finally, according to reports Bill Habermann will finish things off by leading a tour of "historic" Oakwood Hill Cemetery and Columbarium. You know this is going to be good because, well, it's a history tour and Oakwood Hill Cemetery and Columbarium is apparently "historic." It just makes sense.

While we don't know much about Habermann, a quick and completely random Google image search leads us to believe it's probably this guy.

PREFUNK: A historic tour of South Tacoma, eh? 

Has a situation ever called for malt liquor more? 

The answer is no.

See you next week.

FRIDAY, JULY 23, 2010 >>>

1. Songwriters Zach Tillman from Barsuk Records' Pearly Gate Music, Jenna Conrad from Troubletown and Colin Reynolds, as well as slam poets and live painters perform at Tacoma Round #11 at 8 p.m. inside the Pantages Theater Rehearsal Hall at Ninth and Broadway.

2. Singer/songwriter David Gardner will perform from 5:30-8 p.m. in the Harmon Tap Room's outdoor beer garden.

3. The Fort Nisqually Living History Museum hosts a 19th Century Family Fun Night from 6-9 p.m. featuring games, music and dancing of the mid-1800s.

4. Chances are you've got a couple dumb friends. It's the law of averages. Well, Hamlet was no different; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern may not have been the sharpest, but they were his buddies - even obliviously escorting him to banishment. Tonight, the Outfit Theatre Project's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead officially opens at Lakewood Playhouse at 8 p.m.

5. The White Zombie tribute band Astro-Creep as well as Klover Jane, Smoochknob and Mechanism perform at Hell's Kitchen beginning at 9 p.m.

LINK: New movies open today

LINK: New concerts go on sale today

SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010 >>>

1. The Broadway Center for the Performing Arts throws a party celebrating its upcoming season with quizzes, $1 drinks, prizes, a season preview and a chance to purchase tickets before the general public, beginning at 5 p.m. inside the Pantages Theater Lobby.

2. The skies over Joint Base Lewis-McChord will be filled with MiG Fury, T-33 Ace Maker, C-17s, F/A-18 Super Hornet, Tuskegee P-51 Redtail and many more planes - as well as static displays - when the gates open at 8 a.m. for Air Expo 2010, which kicks off at 12:30 p.m.

3. It's Kids' Day at the South Tacoma Farmers Market at 56^th and Washington Street from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Beside the usual fare, expect a dance recital by Jo emery Ballet, face painting, balloons, walking animal characters at the off-duty teachers rock band Board of Education. It will be a hoot.

4. Beginning at 1 p.m. around Fireman's Park (South Eighth and A Street, Tacoma) history enthusiasts may enjoy a free one-hour narrative tour of the history of the Thea Foss Waterway, then walk to the 11th Street Bridge and learn why the bridge is so kickass.

5. The Northend Blues Vespers features Little Bill & the Blue Notes with horns from 5-7 p.m. followed by a barbecue fundraiser dinner to raise money for Shared Housing Services - all going down inside the Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Tacoma.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

MONDAY, JUNE 21, 2010 >>>

1. The Wings of Freedom Tour of the WWII Vintage Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Consolidated B-24 Liberator and North American P-51 Mustang are on display at Tacoma Narrows Airport in Gig Harbor from June 21 to June 23. The plays will be on displays 2-5 p.m. today; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 22 and 9 a.m. to noon June 23. Visitors may also take a 30-minute flight aboard these rare aircraft for a lot of money.

2. Voices of Light, an exhibition of letterpress prints by Jessica Spring and photographs by Victoria Bjorklund, opens today at the Tacoma Public Library's downtown Handforth Gallery from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a reception today at 6 p.m.

3. Seattle had its Pigs on Parade, Tacoma its Traveling Suitcases; now Ruston has added to the list by inviting 21 local artists to create masterpieces on Adirondack chairs, which will be on display on the median at 51^st and Winnifred streets. The event kicks off with a reception today from 5 to 7 p.m. on site.

4. Cold Shot performs a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan at 8 p.m. inside The Swiss.

5. The New Frontier Lounge hosts Grit Rock with DJ Darren Selector spinning local tunes from Big Wheel Stunt Show, Circle vs Square, The Drug Purse, The Fabulous Wailers, The Fucking Eagles, Kusikia, Mama Loves Daddy, Mono in VCF, Oh Voices, The Painkillers, The Variety Hour, The Ventures, and Waves and Radiation beginning at 9 p.m.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound