GOOD REASON TO PARTY >>>

The year was 1973. Music was in it's arguable hey-day: Elvis Presley performed in Hawaii as the first worldwide telecast and was watched by more people than watched the Apollo moon landings, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon was released and Rainy Day Records opened in Olympia, Wash.

That's reason to party.

Celebrate 40 years of records, skateboards, rock shirts and nag champa at Rainy Day's birthday celebration Sunday, Jan. 20 at The Brotherhood Lounge. The next day is a holiday, students and state workers, so no excuses to not come down and boogie.

Former and present Rainy Day employees will be spinning tunes. DJ Action Slacks will take a break from her regular gig, Sugar Town, at The Spare Room club in Portland, to give the soul people of Olympia some good tunes. Wildman James Maeda and Chris Sutton will also spin the jams.

Maeda reflects on what he loves about working at Rainy Day, "I'm always excited about helping people in their quest for music."

Maeda says the store will have other celebrations throughout the year, including an all-ages event.

Another notable event that celebrates 40 years is Roe v. Wade - the landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that overturned state bans on abortion. In celebration, 100 percent of the proceeds from the $3 cover will benefit Planned Parenthood.

BROTHERHOOD LOUNGE, SUNDAY, JAN 20, 9 P.M., $3, 119 CAPITOL WAY, OLYMPIA, 360.352.4153.

CHATTING WITH PRESIDENTS >>>

The University of Puget Sound will blow out 125 candles on its birthday cake March 17, 2013. One hundred and 25 years!The university was founded around the time the Convention of Constantinople was signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace. The English Football League was also established in March 1888. The Weekly Volcano also believes that was the year people started complaining about the Tacoma streetcars, wishing they had cars to move around more freely.

Anyway, 125 years is a big deal, and the university intends on partying hard this year. You may check out the university's plans at its 125 Anniversary Hub.

Weekly Volcano scribe Nikki McCoy caught up with President Ron Thomas — the university's 13th predident - to discover his favorite memories from his past 10 years as president. Read those memories in Thursday's issue of the Weekly Volcano.

McCoy also asked Thomas what upcoming UPS anniversary happenings thrill him the most.

"It's hard to choose, because there are so many things exciting about the year ahead," Thomas says. "I am pretty excited about the new residence hall now under construction that will be completed this year - a beautiful new building from one of the world's top architects - AIA Gold Medalist Peter Bohlin. It will house upper class students in ‘houses' dedicated to international affairs, environmental policy, the humanities, entrepreneurship, and spirituality and social justice - with great views of Mount Rainier, too."

Thomas also says he's thrilled Nobel Prize-winning writer and activist Wole Soyinka will visit Feb. 7, among a stellar group of artists and intellectuals scheduled to visit the campus in 2013.

"As we celebrate our first 125 years, we look forward to continuing to innovate at Puget Sound, as we always have, to become a leader among the best liberal arts colleges of the future - real, relevant, and always true to ourselves," Thomas says. "I am excited by our $125 million campaign to make sure that happens.

"And what always excites me most is the amazing (and unpredictable) achievements of our students, who surprise me every year in the distinctions they earn. I am looking forward to that," he says.

By the way, he's excited to cheer on the Logger teams and tracking their progress as they make their Drive for 125 wins this year.

"I'm never happier than when I can cheer on our student athletes as they light up the scoreboard," he adds.

BANDITO BETTY LOU WHO'S LEAP OF THE DAY >>>

Bandito Betty Lou Who isn't a huge fan of jingtinglers, floofloovers, trumtookas, blumbloopas and the other wack musical instruments her fellow Whos bang during the holiday season. Every two years she gets the hell out of Whoville and spends the holiday season in the South Sound.

She's back. The Weekly Volcano secretly attached a GPS device to her whocarnio. We're tracking her.

Apparently even Bandito Betty Lou Whos need to do some last minute shopping. We spotted her at the Market on Market waiting for it to open today for its Last Minute Gift Grab. From noon to 4 p.m. Caps 'N' Scraps, Singe Soy Candles, The One Spot, LollyGear, Fingerprint Confections, Paparazzi and others will sell locally sourced and made food and gifts. We managed to snap of her leaping before she ran out the door and into the YMCA. Don't fret. The Weekly Volcano is hot on her trail. Expect more Lou Who action tomorrow.

MARKET ON MARKET, 1122 MARKET ST., TACOMA

LINK: Bandito Betty Lou Who jumps archive

LINK: Weekly Volcano loves the holidays, cats and crafts, so we joined Pinterest.

12 SLAYS OF CHRISTMAS >>>

Admit it, Santa can be down right creepy sometimes. We've seen him walking down the street with droopy eyelids, boozy breath and unrecognizable stains on his fluffy white cuffs, or posing in pictures of yore, some awkward looking child perched on his velvet covered knee, the off-white beard clinging to his chin like a tobacco-stained stalactite, and his skeleton-like hands, all loose skin and arthritic, wrapped around a candy cane, a supposed gift of goodwill.

Now, it's time to take creepy to the next level with Silent Night, Deadly Night, where, instead of gifts and stockings and the occasional bottle of Mickey's, Santa wields an ax and employs a twisted method of checking off the naughty list.

Playing at The Grand Cinema tonight and tomorrow, as part of the Grindhouse Theater series, the Silent Night, Deadly Night showing also features the extra gimmicks that film programmer, coordinator and host Justin Giallo adds as a signature accompaniment to his screenings. And of course, it will be played in 35mm film, just the way Giallo and other cult-classic followers prefer.

Before the film - an appetizer if you will - is David Walker's (BadAzz MoFo magazine) festive mini epic holiday short, Black Santa's Revenge, which will be hosted by Giallo.

There will also be a raffle and trivia with prizes and giveaways from creepy sponsors Cult Collectibles - Figures From The Fringe!, Rotten Cotton, RaroVideo and Fangoria. Limited edition posters by Creepycult will be for sale as well as goods from local indie vendors SKULLCLOWN, Nerdy Stuffs, String Theory: Knitted & Crochet Gifts, Poison Apple Tacoma and others.

When I asked Giallo how it felt to provide a much-needed service to Tacoma, he replied, "In my opinion, it feels spooktastic! It's awesome knowing that so many horror/cinema fans and misfits from all different ages come together and get to have the experience of seeing these films, most for the first time and more importantly in 35mm. 35mm is something to be treasured and I never thought I would have so many people supporting, loving it and digging all the films we've been programming and my gimmicks! It's the best feeling in the world! To quote the classic cult flick, Freaks, ‘Gabba Gabba We Accept You! We Accept You! One of Us!'"

The festivities begin at 8 p.m., film starts at 9:09 p.m. Tickets are $9 at the door or online.

THE GRAND CINEMA, FRIDAY, DEC. 21-SATURDAY, DEC. 22, 8 P.M., $9, 606 S. FAWCETT AVE., TACOMA, 253.593.4474

THIS CALLS FOR A TOAST >>>

Nostalgia, a hug from simpler times, waits to wrap its warm arms around our hearts every chance it gets. Parties, to celebrate the present, wait on the cusp of a Facebook page, or the inspiration of a socialite. Freedom, the fight for our rights, makes sure we stand together in solidarity. Along with the ever coveted alcohol, this combination of human connection comes together beautifully in the Repeal Prohibition Day Celebration.

On Dec. 5, 1933, Americans regained the freedom to imbibe, and 79 years later, Wednesday, Dec 5, 2012 at 6 p.m., the Olympia Film Society (OFS) presents its second annual Repeal Prohibition Day Celebration at the historic Capitol Theater in downtown Olympia.

The event encourages period clothing and is complete with pre-prohibition handcrafted cocktails, burlesque with the girls of TUSH!, photo booth, live music with Scuff & Al and the Greta Jane Quartet - all hosted by Oympia's lord of storytelling Elizabeth Lord.

But wait, there's more.

"We'll be premiering some new cocktail brands, have startenders from Portland, Seattle and Olympia, hors d'oeuvres from local restaurants and, this year, we have a secret Speak Easy Bar too," emails Audrey Henley, theater manager and event director for OFS.

If this year's Repeal Prohibition Day Celebration is as successful as last year's event Bradford Knutson, brainchild behind the event, will be thrilled.

"Everyone really enjoyed it last year," Knutson says. "The comment I heard the most afterword was - Olympia never looked so good.

"This is going to be an ongoing event," he adds. "Repeal day is the one day in American history where a freedom was taken away and then given back. I would like it to become a national holiday as much as 4th of July. We certainly wouldn't be able to celebrate the others as much without this one."

CAPITOL THEATER, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 5, 6 P.M. DOORS, 7 P.M. SHOW, $10-$15, INCLUDES ONE COCKTAIL, 21+, 206 E. FIFTH AVE., OLYMPIA, 360.754.6670

BRILLO BOX HEADSLAP >>>

Viewing and reviewing the Andy Warhol exhibition at Tacoma Art Museum brought back memories of fun times and heated arguments in college art departments in the '60s and '70s. The consensus opinion was that Warhol was not really so much an artist as he was a great practical joker putting everybody on and making lots of money at the expense of a gullible art-buying public. Most of us in the art schools thought that was super cool.

I, for one, thought he was the greatest artist since Picasso. Not that I particularly liked his art; it was his whole being that I liked - his public persona, his ideas. I saw him as not so much a painter or silk screen artist or sculptor or filmmaker but as a brilliant, tongue-in-cheek performance artist. His art was not what he made but what he was. This was the apotheosis of what Marcel Duchamp had begun by purchasing a urinal and entering it in an art exhibition.

I liked Warhol but did not fully appreciate his contribution to modern art history until I read the critic Arthur Danto's analysis of Warhol's Brillo boxes. Sorry, folks, his analysis was too complex to explain in the limited space of this column, but I can kind of hit the highlights. It has to do with calling into the question the relationship between art and life, reality and illusion. For centuries, beginning with the Italian Renaissance and up through the Pre-Raphaelites and on up to the photo-realists of the late 20^th century, artists had attempted to create illusions of reality. With the invention of collage by Picasso and Braque, artists began to bring real life into their art rather than create illusions. Duchamp erased the boundaries between artist-made and manufactured items, Alan Kaprow's happenings of the 1960s blurred boundaries between art and life, and when Jackson Pollock was criticized for not painting from nature he said, "I AM nature." All of this culminated when Andy Warhol painstakingly and with great artistic skill duplicated banal commercial machine-made objects - the Brillo boxes - and said he wanted to be a machine.

The Brillo boxes ushered in the very-hard-to-explain post-modernism and forever changed the face of modern art. That's the short version of Warhol's accomplishment. It took me years to recognize and understand it to whatever small degree. It took me even longer to grow to like the very subtle and sometimes shocking artistic quality of his drawings and silkscreens. I still see the red-and-white silkscreens of soup cans as more conceptual than visual. But I have come to love his color choices and the shimmering off-register of many of his flowers and celebrity portraits and many of his other pieces. I've come to appreciate him as a conceptualist and an artist, and I think Tacoma is lucky to have this special exhibition of his work, some of which was done specifically for Tacoma. How cool is that?

The exhibition is organized by Tacoma Art Museum, with the acknowledgement of the generosity of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.

TEARS OF FREAKIN' JOY >>>

This past July, Chris Wedes, better known as TV clown J. P. Patches, lost his battle with cancer at the age of 84. On television from 1958 to 1981, Wedes delighted generations of Puget Sounders with his zany antics and a style that was irreverent yet gentle.

The Weekly Volcano hasn't been the same since. We still mope about our leaky office, pouring the last little splash of flat Tab into our Boris S. Wort coffee mugs, adjusting our collection of Ggoorrsstt the Friendly Frpl lunchboxes, dusting off our Swami of Pastrami Pez statues and wondering what to do with the rest of our lives.

Then we wandered into Metropolitan Market in Tacoma's Proctor District (2420 N. Proctor) for our daily pocket stuffing of free cheese.

Holy Patches Pals! The entire Met Market staff is dressed as characters from the J.P. Patches show for Halloween. Met's floral designer Anna Stahl – dressed J.P. – pulled 14 outfits together for the staff.

If you are a Patches Pal, drop by for a hug.

MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012 >>>

1. We're all reading W. P. Kinsella's classic baseball novel, Shoeless Joe, not because Mayor Marilyn Strickland demands it as part of the community reading initiative Tacoma Reads Together, but because it's about dreams and hope and trust and the fulfillment of long-buried desires. But, It's not all fun and games, at least according to the professionals who play the game. Grueling travel schedules, the day-to-day routine, the loneliness and the fear you could be traded or dropped grinds on the players. At 7 p.m. inside the Tacoma Public Library Downtown Branch, in conjunction with Tacoma Reads Together, former professional baseball players Jim Nettles, Doug Sisk, John Pregenzer and Wes Stock will share stories and take questions from moderator and broadcaster Bob Robertson as part of a community conversation about baseball.

2. Home, Itself, Strange is Liz Sales' series of 69 synthetic images converted from a 30-second video portrait. Sales combines the data in each still frame with audio data from the Magnetic Field's three-volume album, 69 Love Songs. Watch it from 12:305 p.m. at Galerie Fotoland inside the Daniel J. Evans Library on the campus of The Evergreen State College.

3. How can a society come to terms with collective trauma? Alice Nelson, Ph.D. will explore the political and moral economies of memory production in Chile following Augusto Pinochet's fascist regime at 4 p.m. inside Harned Hall on the campus of Saint Martin's University.

4. You've found your passion, now you want to make a living doing what you love. But how? Four local artists and crafters will discuss how to start your own creative small business, where to sell and market your products, the joys and pitfalls of self-employment and how to find local support and education from 6-8 p.m. inside the Puyallup Public Library.

5. If you seek a mellower atmosphere to share your knowledge of actor Abe Vigoda or the difference of a traverse stage from a three-quarter thrust, may we suggest Monday trivia nights at the Mandolin Café. From 6-8 p.m. host Jeff Ross tosses out random trivia questions about movies, sports, news and geography to teams of players - while students study in the corner, ladies knit and that one guy dozes next to the fire. The winning team of each round - six total - receives a bowl of candy. The overall winning team scores a free drink, which means beer and wine. It's a challenging, fun night.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: South Sound happy hours

THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2012 >>>

1. 1022 South, the craft cocktail lounge in Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood, will celebrate its three-year anniversary tonight with a party debuting its spring menu of 40 innovative, and, in some cases, curative handcrafted cocktails. The new menu showcases 1022 South's respect for classic cocktails, an enthusiasm for apothecary, and a few of the favorite cocktails from the original menu. In addition to craft cocktails and apothecary infusions, the menu will feature a variety of delicious small plate items. To celebrate, all menu cocktails will be specially priced at $6 the night of the party. Pro tip: Order the new drink with the mezcal and rum base. It's life changing.

2. From 4:30-6:30 p.m. the Collins Memorial Library will host an opening reception for Jessica Spring, the proprietor of Springtide Press, and her new exhibit of artists books, Circus Libris. Spring's small, finely-crafted editions consider historical topics and popular culture from a unique perspective, expanding the library's tent with new-fashioned books.

3. Lisa and Mike Hahn recently turned over their Tacoma Runners management duties to Rob McNair-Huff, community relations manager for the City of Tacoma. You might have seen McNair-Huff on the streets running a 50-miler before work. He likes to run. McNair-Huff has scheduled the Tacoma Runners' weekly Thursday night 3-miler for a 6 p.m. launch from Dirty Oscar's Annex. After a 3-mile run it's important to refuel with protein and vitamins. D.O.A. is well aware of this fact. When the Runners return to discuss the run - over food and drinks (natch!) - the Sixth Avenue restaurant will serve them the Dead Elvis Burger (bacon, fried egg, 100 percent Angus hand-formed beef patty) at a $2 discount along with Vitamin C shots or cocktails for $5. You should really be a Tacoma Runner. Join them.

4. In celebration of the Pierce County Reads program, and it's spotlight book, "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by award-winning writer Jamie Ford, historian Michael Sullivan will relay the fascinating history of the Japanese American community in Tacoma and their contributions to the region beginning at 7 p.m. inside King's Books.

5. Sludge metal band Black Tusk joins East of the Wall, Witchburn, C.F.A. and Deathbed Confessions at Hell's Kitchen beginning at 9 p.m.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: South Sound happy hours

MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2012 >>>

1. Every Monday, DJ Melodica and guests DJs spin a wide variety of tunes in between band sets during Showcase Mondays at Magoo's Annex in Tacoma, which kicks off at 8:30 p.m. If that wasn't enough, Melodica hosts a "Guess the TV Theme Songs" contest in which people guess the songs to win either a Jell-O shot or a mix disc compiled by Melodica. There are folks who show up just for this little game. All the while Magoo's shucks $3 beers and $2 mondo hot dogs. It's really quite fantastic. Tonight, guest DJ Das Prompt and band Rusty Cleavers are in the house.

2. In honor of Women's History Month, Dr. Susan Armitage, professor of History and Women's Studies, Emerita, Washington State University, will present "Connecting Women's Lives to Make a Women's History of the Great Pacific Northwest," the topic of her forth coming book on women in the Pacific Northwest, at noon inside the Washington State Capital Museum in Olympia.

3. Book clubs are one of the last vestiges we have of formally engaging conversations for groups of strangers. You can discover a lot about a person by learning their opinions on any piece of art, but books prove to be especially revealing. If you're into more non-traditional storytelling, King's Books hosts a Graphic Novel Book Club, which meets the second Monday of every month at 7 p.m. inside 1022 South on Hilltop Tacoma, the craft cocktail house. Tonight's book is Sleeper: Season One by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

4. Let's tally up the score for Jazzbones Rockaraoke, shall we? A chance to sing onstage with a live band? Yes. Cheap Miller High Life? Yes. A valid excuse to drink on a Monday (repeat, Monday) night? Yes, yes and, oh God, yes. Of course, the real entertainment isn't the Rockaraoke, it's the people-watching. Since most of the patrons are just a touch this side of 21, a look around the club is akin watching a "how to hookup" instructional video. It all goes down beginning at 9 p.m.

5. Cowardice, The Sheds and Trey The Ruler play an all-age show at 7 p.m. inside The Red Room in Tacoma.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Live music and DJs tonight in the region

LINK: South Sound happy hour food and drinks