LEO loves you and wants you to be happy. For 20 years, this paper has presented hard-hitting local journalism, indispensable arts coverage, provocative commentary and thoughtful reviews. But all of that is merely to serve our primary mission, which is to get you laid.
Whether it’s by reporting on the local zeitgeist, helping you find the perfect cream-ale-infused pork loin Toscana, or discovering the latest transsexual karaoke country-western nightclub, we’re focused like a laser beam on one thing and one thing only: helping you take off that special someone’s undergarments. When you read LEO, your kisses become softer, your whispered-nothings become sweeter, and your hastily crafted fabrications about your pending application to med school become more plausible.
Much has been written about LEO founder John Yarmuth’s vision to create a progressive, anti-establishment, alternative weekly newspaper in Louisville before going on to become The Man. In a 2007 interview, Yarmuth told Kentucky Educational Television this about LEO’s conception: “I thought at the time that this community needed an independently owned forum for the expression of a wide range of ideas and also a locally owned editorial voice …” Those haughty words caused many people to overlook his next statement: “… but more than anything, this town needed to get laid.”
And get laid it has. Major changes have swept across the cityscape over the past 20 years. Urban sprawl has given countless Republicans a safe place to mow. Mega-churches have provided closeted theater majors a plethora of holiday pageants to direct. Vapid chain-bars and Irish cavern-taverns have kept us buzzed enough to cope each time the Cards failed to win another championship. Bridges have gone unbuilt. But through it all, you got laid.
And to do that, you turned to LEO. After a peek at the cleavage and/or beef in the back, you flipped forward for info that could help you get busy. Sometimes that meant reading the latest smartass remarks about the week’s news or social scene, giving you come-hither fodder for those impromptu water-cooler chitchats, Facebook updates or pillow talk. Other times it meant scouring the restaurant, theater, bar, gallery, coffeehouse or lap-dance listings for just the right mood-setter. At still other times it meant reading the weird news, working the crossword, and then forlornly masturbating. (On those occasions, we let you down. In our defense, you did wear that mullet for a decade longer than advisable.) But mostly, LEO gets the job done.
Which is more than you can say for the area’s other media properties, which critics have called “shrinking,” “flaccid,” “impotent” and “preferring to put on flannel jammies, drink valerian tea and watch ‘Sopranos’ reruns.” In 1990, local journalism was crumbling. The once-mighty Bingham properties had fallen into the evil clutches of Walmedia giants like Gannett and Clear Channel. And the Internet did not yet have the bandwidth to deliver quality pornography to anyone but the most patient 28.8-baud modem user. “The people of Louisville deserve better,” thought Yarmuth. “The people of Louisville deserve to get laid.” Twenty years later we can look back and say, “He nailed it.”
But we’re not resting on our laurels. Now more than ever, you need some action. Each new generation needs ever-deeper penetration into the local news, arts and entertainment they need to achieve ever-deeper penetration. (And youngsters today need more help than ever, because studies show it’s 87 percent harder to achieve climax while Tweeting on one’s smart phone.) So our work is cut out for us.
By all means, if you want to catch up on car wrecks and the latest bacterial infections, watch local TV news. If you want to become violently angry at falsely reported events, listen to talk radio. Or if you’re tired and just want to work the Sudoku, pick up a C-J. But when you want to read the in-depth exposés and insightful commentary that open the gateway to sipping Chimay Tripel and nibbling on chocolate-dipped local strawberries while making sweet love all night long in a variety of positions known only to a few select Pilates instructors and the masters of tantric journalism, read LEO.
Remember: You + LEO = getting laid. The next 20 years are going to be spectacular!
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