Seattle Weekly's Recommended Events

Comedy

Holiday Bizarre!

Adding a little kishka to your fruitcake this holiday season, Holiday Bizarre: A Jewish Christmas!, starring David Bestock, Quinn Redman, Eli Rosenblatt, and Ben Rosenblatt, follows three representatives of the Wiseman Law Firm, hired by Joseph to sue the illegitimate father of Jesus. Parlaying a holiday staple into an urban fable with wry humor—plus the pope, Easter Bunny, and an anti-Semitic Santa Claus—co-writer Bestock presents the spirit of Christmas as we know it today, "which has been made to mean spending money and acquiring stuff," he says. "The fact that Christmas is supposedly a religious holiday seems totally arbitrary to most people I meet." Bestock, a co-founder of Western Washington University's improv troupe Dead Parrots Society and a member of the Jet City Players, wrote the score, originally as a lounge act, with Eli Rosenblatt of the klezmer group Sasson. Asked if he feels that Hanukkah is slighted during the holiday haul, he adds, "The only sad part about it is that non-Jews don't get to learn about the Hanukkah story, which is totally sweet—the Maccabees were seriously badass." There is the opportunity for a European folk update of Christmas favorites like "Let It Snow." "A damn fine song," he says. "And—surprise, surprise—it was written by Jews." Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W, 789-3599, www.tractortavern.citysearch.com. $8. 8 p.m. KATE SILVER

Music

The Tallboys

You can usually spot fiddler Joe Fulton all by his lonesome on Pine Street in the Market. Same goes for banjo picker Charlie Beck and his clogger/rhythm guitarist partner Charmaine Slaven. On their own, they brighten the Market busking scene with their old-timey Appalachian stylings. They are accomplished, yet unpolished, which is exactly the way old-timey tunes should be delivered—well-schooled and raw. When they come together as the Tallboys, with bassist John Hurd, the group performs at the level of well-known revivalists the Old Crow Medicine Show and the Hackensaw Boys. And these groups are the closest comparison because there is a punk edge to the Tallboys. Every time I see them, it stirs something inside my hillbilly soul and I can't sit still. And when Charmaine puts down her flat-top guitar to start clogging like Loretta Lynn's mother in Coal Miner's Daughter, it's all over for me. I'm stomping my feet, hooting, and clapping as if Seattle was a by-God coal holler. With Hammond and the Whisky Swillers. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., 789-3599, www.tractortavern.citysearch.com. $8. 8 p.m., following Holiday Bizarre (see above). BRIAN BARR