It’s that time of year. With 2009 coming to a close and college football bowl games dominating the TV, people are doing a few very predictable things. Number one: They’re taking vacations — just like I am this week. Much like your favorite radio DJ has been gone since before Christmas and replaced by best-of interview clips and top-whatever-lists, here at the Weekly Volcano it’s no different. I’m sitting at home in my sweat pants, but the Weekly Volcano must push on — meaning some sort of pre-generated cover story makes a lot of sense.

Number two: People are putting together their annual list of New Year’s resolutions — goals and plans meant to make them better individuals in 2010. Like clockwork, and no matter how futile the exercise has been in years past, this is a time for eternal optimism. 2010 just might be the year you quit smoking, or look at less Internet porn, or call your mother more — or whatever. Their effectiveness is debatable, but that has never stopped people from formulating detailed lists of New Year’s resolutions as December bleeds into January.

So, then — what you’ll find below has probably become apparent (even if you somehow missed the headline). In the spirit of self-betterment, and the New Year (Nay, new decade!), the Weekly Volcano has tirelessly compiled a list of suggested New Year’s resolutions for our two favorite cities — Tacoma and Olympia.  Through tiresome Facebook messages, harassing voicemails, and good old fashioned pain-in-the-butt persistence, I’ve spent the last few weeks bugging just about everyone I know for suggested New Year’s resolutions. While this endeavor has no doubt soured a few people on opening my emails, I do believe it’s paid off.

How can Tacoma and Olympia — these towns we all love — become better places in 2010?

Here are a few suggestions. — Matt Driscoll, Weekly Volcano editor

TACOMA

Emergency preparedness
Ask any local non-profit and they’ll tell you exactly how low fundraising procurements were this past year. And who is it that their mainly procuring from but Tacoma’s independent small businesses, who are coincidentally also pulling in sub-par levels of income. The business owners can hardly pay rent, which in turn is keeping food out of their family’s mouths. Yet the non-profits are asking for help to feed their hungry-folk as well, so how can we, with decent mind, turn our backs on them? Who is expendable in this situation? Who needs to eat more than the other?

The vicious cycle goes on and on, and becomes even more convoluted when said local merchants in need begin having fundraisers to save their entities from forever closing their doors. Say what? Where does it end? A big thumbs-up to this big Tacoma group hug we’ve found ourselves in, but let’s make a resolution for 2010 — one that lays out exactly how we’re going to keep above water. Or possibly a plan as to who gets the water, and in what order. Heck, to be able to even afford water would be a start. — Steph DeRosa

Get real
I had a friend visiting from Brazil last winter, and remarked as we were walking through town that Tacoma looked like “a big picture.” And he didn’t mean picturesque. He noted that Tacoma was full of beautiful buildings, but had no people.

When he said “big picture,” he meant “static.” 

Tacoma currently contains a massive surplus of overpriced condos, a convention center that doesn’t get used nearly enough, museums and businesses that struggle to stay afloat, a parade of events and cultural offerings that appeal to a small percentage of the existing population, and a lot of big, beautiful, empty buildings. Yet talk to the most vocal Tacomans, and you get the sense that we all live in a bustling metropolis that’s well on its way to becoming the next Houston or Portland.

But we’re not. Not even close. It’s time to stop playing major metro and figure out where and who we really are, and what we have that’s worth cultivating. All the things that will make Tacoma great are already here — people, history, diversity, and unrelenting drive. Slow down Tacoma. Be proud of what you really are, and the rest will take care of itself. — Paul Schrag

Fight the crime warp
Don’t let any more criminals from other counties and states come to visit.  They are nothing but trouble! — Mark Lindquist, Pierce County Prosecutor

Daily affirmation
We deserve good things. We are entitled to our share of happiness. We refuse to beat ourselves up. We are an attractive city. We are a worldwide shipping hub, and a famous glassblower once lived here. 2009 was not our best year, but that’s OK.  We have to give ourselves permission to have a bad year every now and then. It’s time to get out of bed and put away the Fig Newtons, once and for all! Starting now, we’ll look ourselves in the mirror each morning and tell ourselves the happy truth. Our soil is only marginally poisonous. Only a fraction of our residents murder gruesomely. Potholes, while they get all the attention, comprise only a small portion of the actual road surface. Our homes are worth at least two-thirds of what they were three years ago. In five more years, with hard work and a little luck, our downtown could be half as cool as Spokane’s. And anyway, it wasn’t us, it was Russell. It’s time to look at ourselves in the eye, point, nod and wink. Every day. We deserve it, because we care, we try, and doggone it, we’re doing alright. — Mark Thomas Deming

More holes in the wall
A couple days ago, I ventured through the doors of the Ray Gibson Caballerros Club, down the hall, and into Heckle and Jeckle’s Chicken Shack. As I gobbled down a pile of beautifully fried chicken wings, it occurred to me that what Tacoma lacks is a surplus of hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Valuable not only for their definitional delicious food, hole-in-the-wall joints would provide much-needed bragging rights to our fine city. How good would it feel to lord some sort of amazing corn dog or falafel shack over the heads of visiting friends and family? How else do we plan on luring Guy Fieri or some other poseur celebrity chef to Tacoma? With a little time and effort, we could pack Tacoma’s city limits with these joints, bringing about a hole-in-the-wall renaissance in 2010. Then, let the smug self-importance begin as we explain that, yeah, well, it doesn’t have a sign or an above-ground door, but we totally know how to find that new Baked Potato Emporium. — Rev. Adam McKinney

Boozer bus
Remember that wild weekend night when your Seattle friends rode the bus to Tacoma and went out drinking (responsibly, of course) with you, rocked it all night at Hell’s Kitchen, and then caught the bus back?

Unless your night ended before 10:30 p.m., you probably don’t. Most city bars and clubs are still open when Sound Transit’s 594 Bus service ends for the night. If your friends want to get home and don’t have a car, they’ll have to call a cab. The reverse is also true. The last Sound Transit bus out of downtown Seattle is just before midnight, when the clubs are beginning to hop.

I have been listening to this complaint from everyone for years. Late night bus service could bring more business to Tacoma, and certainly help take drunks off the highway. — Ron Swarner

OLYMPIA

Open minds
I know there is a lot of strife about the gigantic new city hall that is being built right in downtown Oly. I know some of us feel that those huge walls and holding cell/cop shop is an encroachment on our funky downtown scene full of art and music and booze. I know the institutional feel doesn’t quite jive with the homemade candle shop and 24-hour tea/coffee shop that it neighbors. But if I may, I’m going to be the optimist in this situation. I am going to hope beyond hope that we can use this building as a metaphor.
Can I dare make the comparison between steel walls and sound ideas? Linoleum floors and carefully treaded waters? Rather than shun the idea of a new city building right along precious Fourth Avenue, let’s resolve to have an open mind about this new addition to the neighborhood. Let’s hope that the intention of the building — with its environmentally aware construction and its potential for progressive city issues — shines through. Maybe with the hall right in our face we will feel inspired to become more involved with local concerns. So in conclusion, I wish for Olympia’s New Year’s resolution to be one full of growth and expansion, in both a physical and spiritual way. — Nikki Talotta

Owen Taylor goes gonzo
OK, so once again saving Driscoll’s ass, I was entrenched into tracking down some “notable quotable’s” for this year’s resolutions. Keeping in touch with the spirit of soul-less depravity that is Olympia in its regal holiday finest, I did what I do best. Go to the bars in search of answers.

First stop was McCoy’s, where I ran into Fitz of Depression drummer and Olympia rock legend, Jerry Ziegler. After a way too manly hug and smooch, Ziegler confessed, “I just wanna behave myself for the rest of my life, or at least until Lakefair. Tour doesn‘t count.”

Strolling down the block, I encountered multiple award-winning bartender Joe Moore enjoying a few drags between pours at the 4th Ave. Tav. “I’m gonna work on being more compassionate and sensitive to my fellow man,” he tells me. Then, turning around, smoke barreling but of his nostrils as he walked back into the bar with a twinkle in his eye, he screams, “Get off the bar you drunken whore!”

And as for me, well, I think I’m going to try to add a little more brevity into this overly self-concious little burg we call home with a full-frontal art assault. And try to enlist a little more self-love that doesn’t involve the Internet. Boo-yah. — Owen Taylor

Get used to poor people
I used to live in Olympia. Back then, it wasn’t much different than it is now. Lots of amazing people, lots of social consciousness and lots of drunk people. Oh! and homeless people. Just like any other town.

But Olympia’s not just like any other town. It has a surplus of people who actually expend massive amounts of time and energy caring for poor people. It’s one of the things that made me proud to live there. Sure, there’s a percentage of the local homeless population that exploits the generosity of the community. But they’re a stark minority. Most of the people receiving help there really need it.

It’s kind of a cliché in Olympia — streets lined with poor people, perpetually getting in the way of Dale and Suzy Middleclass’s shopping day, thereby ruing the local economy. Which is bullshit — utter, unequivocal bullshit. Any politician or public figure who says otherwise needs to go back to planning school. As Olympia makes a big push to reinvent its downtown, someone should make sure that the ambitious agendas of a bunch of second-string, small-town politicians and militant bigots doesn’t steam roll over a lot of living, breathing human beings. — PS

Help OFS make a big purchase
Support the Olympia Film Society in their endeavors to purchase the Capitol Theater. After 25 years, it belongs to the community!  Donate at www.olympiafilmsociety.org — Audrey Henley, Olympia Film Society

Less pouting, more action
Olympia resolves to honor Rachel Corrie by strengthening its political protests rather than pouting and whining like a damn sissy.  It’s annoying for nuclear protestors to block traffic on Fourth Avenue, not even atheists side with other atheists when they bitch about Christmas trees, and “drumming for peace” is like breakdancing for climate change: It accomplishes NOTHING. Rather, Oly resolves to contact its legislators with vivid explanations of how many votes and how much reelection capital those legislators will lose if they vote the wrong way. In other words, Oly resolves to counter “tea parties” with legislator interventions. — Christian Carvajal

Just one decent contemporary art gallery
I resolve to bitch and moan until Olympia gets a decent contemporary art gallery that is more than an adjunct to the “real” business to which it is attached like an artificial limb. Something like Tacoma’s Fulcrum would be a good goal. — Alec Clayton