Gannett Watch
A dutiful reader showed us a quip in last week’s Velocity, Gannett’s lifestyle weekly, about how they’d won five first-place awards at Louisville’s Society of Professional Journalists awards ceremony recently — “leaving that other weekly in our dust.” The drinks hurt coming back through our noses. Then we got to thinking: How could this be?…
Pump fiction – Does anyone know why our gas prices are so high?
Greg Brenzel finally left the gas business in October, 35 years after his family opened its first Chevron station in Louisville. It wasn’t so much his choice, he says, as Chevron’s: The supplier priced Brenzel out of business. Brenzel says his family’s story is unfolding again and again across Louisville right now, as the area’s…
Staffpicks
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9 Harpist Skaila Kanga Groove is in the harp at the U of L School of Music tonight, with renowned British harpist Skaila Kanga. As part of the SoM’s annual Summer Harp Academy, an intensive but festive week for harpists of all ages and experience levels to come together to pluck their strings…
Judge not thy work ethic
When two attorneys landed in federal court last year, accused of stealing millions from a settlement awarded to their Kentucky clients harmed by the diet drug fen-phen, the judge made it clear he wanted the case resolved quickly. Needless to say, declaring a mistrial was not what U.S. District Judge William O. Bertelsman had in…
Fare enough – Rising fuel prices finally catch up with TARC, commuters
Fumbling to dig enough money from the bottom of her purse, a middle-aged woman steps to the front of her usual TARC bus and feeds a dollar and a quarter into the machine. It’s a routine she’s undoubtedly gone through countless times. Then the driver breaks the news: “It’s $1.50 today.” “Well I don’t have…
Remembering the Reverend – Love him or hate him, Louis Coleman will be missed
pbailey@leoweekly.com Driving through Shawnee Park last year I noticed a familiar face on the side of the road. It was the Rev. Louis Coleman shuffling through an array of items in the back of his disheveled van like a squirrel hunting for a sacred acorn. I pulled over to say hello, and the reverend gladly…
What a Week
+3 A contractor submitted an under-budget bid to complete the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, meaning the long-dormant project could open by the middle of next year. The city is building the center in an old trolley barn at 18th and Muhammad Ali, and the project promises to be a shot in the arm…
B-Sides – MUSIC & OTHER EPHEMERA – Radio Daze
Legislation is now before Congress that would have broadcast radio pay performer royalties, in addition to the songwriter royalties they currently pay. “We have some serious concerns about it,” said Donovan Reynolds, president of Louisville Public Media. The record labels “currently have a failed business model, and they’re looking for another source of revenue.” Senate…
Music Reviews
Jeanius Jean Grae (BLACKSMYTH/WB) I love Jean Grae. I want to have her baby, though it’d be easier to do it the other way around. She is easily the best female emcee working today (I see you, Lauryn) and is pretty high on the PC non-gender-specific list as well. This is the official release of…
Sight Unsound – Mike Check – Doughty”s smooth, funky ethic reaches beyond Soul Coughing
July 11-13 It’s modern-day folklore: Driving down a lonesome country road, hungry travelers happen upon a lonely, run-down shack. In the shack, the hottest blues band you’ve never heard is tearing up the stage while the owners are cooking up the finest barbecue you’ll ever find. This weekend’s Blues-n-Barbecue Festival may take the lonely traveler…
Label X closes up shop
Label X President Todd Smith is a pretty circumspect cat these days. You would be too if you just pulled the plug on your own company. Over more than five years, Label X put out six official releases by noted local acts Digby, The Muckrakers, Code Red and what Smith says is their biggest seller…
Inbox — July 9, 2008
BULLYING BEHAVIOR I was immediately taken by the cover of last week’s LEO Weekly — the picture of a young boy sitting with head between his knees with arms embracing his legs in a fetal position could be my son. My son was severely bullied, ridiculed, teased, abused — whichever term or combination of such…
Video TapeWorm – Releases through Tuesday, July 15
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: BEST OF MANSWERS: THE SEASON ONE TOP 25 MANSWERS 2008; $16.95, UR If you’ve never seen this incredibly entertaining (well, to us, anyway) series from Spike TV … Hey! It’s your time to get educated! Like its inspiration, the late and lamented “The Man Show,” “MANswers” asks pointed questions that all…
AfterTastes
LAS GORDITAS, 4756 Bardstown Rd., 492-0112. The Las Gorditas taco stand rolls into the parking lot at Eastland Shopping Center (where Buechel meets Fern Creek on Bardstown Road) just about every weekend evening. There’s almost always a crowd, and it’s usually a happy mix of Latino and Anglo diners, united in shared enjoyment of really…
Jarfi”s finds a new home in former Lentini”s
Jarfi’s Bistro relocated from the Kentucky Center to the former Lentini’s Little Italy location on Bardstown Road in April. While it seems an odd metamorphosis for a place that, for more than 40 years, was Louisville’s epicenter of authentic Italian dining, Jeff Jarfi’s stylish international bistro is right at home in its new digs. Jarfi’s…
Film Review – “Bigger, Stronger, Faster” doc pumps up the ”roids
(Documentary. Starring Barry Bonds and Carl Lewis. Directed by Christopher Bell. Rated PG-13; 1:46. Opens Friday, July 11, at Village 8 Theatres. LEO Report Card: A) Bigger. Stronger. Faster. It’s an established American expectation. In this thought-provoking documentary, director and narrator Christopher Bell displays the correlation between our nation’s thirst for political dominance and what…
FRANCENE ON LOUISVILLE
Francene Cucinello has lived in Louisville since 2003, the longest she’s stayed in any city during her professional career. In the last 10 years, she’s lived in 12 different places, including St. Louis, Nashville, Charlotte and Washington, D.C. So what keeps her here, and what will make her go? Photo by Frankie Steele: Francene Cucinello…
Mug Shots – Venting the chug
The classic Coors Light television ad of recent years depicts a mumbling dolt of a husband transfixed by shiny blue-tinted mountains on his revolutionary “cold-activated” bottle of Rockies-style Perrier. His wife tries in vain to share the results of her similarly color-coded pregnancy test. Does she glean a fresh perspective on her chosen sperm donor?…
¡ASK A MEXICAN! – The rise of El Rey
Q .Dear Mexican: What’s the fascination Mexicans have with Elvis? —Good Roceando Tonight A .Dear Gabacho: Your question is spot-on, but it’s taken a while for Elvis to achieve icon status amongst Mexicans. As recounted in Eric Zolov’s 1999 book, Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture, the King largely sparked the roots of…
EDITOR’S NOTE: The doctor will see you
I got glasses a couple weeks ago. It was the first time I can remember going to an ophthalmologist, and I hadn’t had an eye exam since grade school. But seeing at reasonable distances had become a problem for me, a person who for years has observed the world with stunning accuracy. The office made…
Visual Arts Xtra – Mural offers survivors a new approach to healing
A group of domestic violence survivors has learned how to heal and offer hope to other survivors with a just-completed mural that reflects the positives that have come from their horrific, shared experiences. Carla, Stephanie, Angela and Tabitha (whose last names were omitted at their request) spent nearly three months creating the mural that now…
Comedy Preview – Indicators celebrate a milestone – 100 shows and counting
The Indicators improvisational team made slipping a subtle homage to the passing of George Carlin easy. Indicators co-founder James Cronin opened their July show at the Comedy Caravan with a performance of Carlin’s “Ten Commandments” routine. It was a nod of respect to the comic genius, and a demonstration of the maturity for which this…
Chairman Wao – A Louisvillian Invades China by Johnny Siegel
Shanghai Night Out (Parts 1-3) In writing this column, I wanted to impart some real cultural knowledge on you good people about what it’s like to live in a foreign place with not only a different language, but vastly different values, customs and norms. And having grown up in Louisville, I know what you people…
Suburban Turmoil – The Party Crashers
His name was Sterling and he was having a party. That, along with a hastily scribbled phone number, was all the information my teenage stepdaughters gave us before going out last Saturday night, but it was enough. “By the time they get to this kid’s house, we’ll know more about him than they do,” I…
Summary of My Discontent – The Louisville Loop: lazy Susan of diversity
Walking or cycling on the Louisville Loop west from Waterfront Park, it’s easy to time trip. You can almost see the ghosts wandering the riverbank, striving for greatness. There’s John James Audubon at the Falls, blasting a black-crowned night heron out of the sky so it would hold still long enough to paint. Just downriver,…
