Cover Stories
You are a good man, Charlie Strong
If springtime is the season of rejuvenation and frolic, then fall heralds recommitment and refocus; it’s a time that takes the measure of man. Labor Day, summer’s traditional end, marks the kickoff of what has evolved into America’s favorite pastime. How and why the nation turned its wandering eyes from the bucolic pastures of baseball…
Rebuilding the House of Cards
Darrell Royal, the famous Texas coach of an earlier era, had a simple philosophy of football: “Why fool around with all that fancy stuff? When your line is bigger than their line, you just stick it down their throat.” Which may be exactly what opponents of the University of Louisville are planning for the Cardinals…
Industry Standard: Insider info for those who dine out
We had a lively discussion on our local foodie forum at www.LouisvilleHotBytes.com recently. It began when one forum member posted a link to a blog post that tsk-tsked the bookstore chain Borders for implementing a policy that made her feel, well, sort of empty. The blogger had ordered an iced chai latte without ice at…
Talk is cheap
Psychologist Benjamin Beck said there are two types of people: talkers and doers. When I was in sixth grade, we were asked to deliver two oral book reports. For one, I did everything the teacher asked. For the other, I made up everything — characters, plot, title (“Hardwood Dreams”). The fabricated report earned me an…
The Few, the proud
By the time they offloaded their amps from Cherokee Blues Club in October 1994, Indignant Few had spray-painted its name into the city’s punk record. Whether the scene cares to admit it is another question. Singer Morgan Keator, bassist Kyle Blust, guitarist Ren Gardner and original drummer Jeremy King formed the band in 1990 out…
For the Gulf
For the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, clarinetist Michael White is offering a show of gratitude to Louisville, which, in 2005, gave four jazz musicians a place to perform traditional New Orleans jazz. With the BP oil spill dealing yet another cruel uppercut to the Gulf Coast way of life, White’s Saturday, Sept. 4, concert…
A Storm, A Tree, My Mother’s Head
Three-fifths of MMJ play session band on this one from a Nashville son of a gun. You’ll notice a familiar rowdiness in late-era Jacket, but their current bandmaster has recently tap-danced through an emotional minefield. To abbreviate: Since The Longest Meow, Bare has become a father twice over; got divorced; nearly lost his mom to…
Reduce stress with these tips
A recent issue of Wired magazine included a story about Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky’s quest to create a “stress vaccine.” Such a vaccine would allow us to avoid stress’ long-term health consequences but continue to over-schedule our lives, manipulate our loved ones, snipe at our co-workers, watch cable TV news, drink heavily and get…
Inbox — Sept. 1, 2010
Show Me The Money I have some advice for at least some of the local folks struggling to deal with ASCAP and BMI: Ask them for a printout of every single song by every single artist that they represent. That got them to leave me alone when I helped run a local all-ages music venue.…
Money talks
For Jefferson County Board of Education candidate Brent Whaley, running in this year’s election was an easy decision. Last year, he fought with school officials to transfer his 6-year-old daughter to an elementary school closer to home after learning she was assigned to a school 20 miles away. The 35-year-old Xerox manager eventually got his…
Theater: Flying kite
We live in what will someday be viewed as the Golden Age of Adaptation. Yes, it’s become a cliché among critics to complain that cultural recycling — movie remakes, theatrical revivals, re-envisioned comic books and TV series — indicates a paucity of creative juices. But in the history of Western civilization, every great creative epoch…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: FORBIDDEN PLANET 1956; $24.95, G If ever there was a need to upgrade a great old film to Blu-ray, this was it. Now with brilliant, vibrant imagery and clear-as-a-bell “sonic tonalities,” we present the progenitor of “Star Trek” — and most every other space-opera made in the last 50 years. Leslie…
All Birds Say
As one-half of the guitar attack in My Morning Jacket (by now, you know the other half), Carl Broemel deploys furious riffs, sentimental pedal steel and lush, unnerving saxophone (See: Z closer “Dondante”). All Birds Say is his solo departure from that business. Here, he unwinds and kicks his feet up, late summer lawn chair-style,…
El Rumbon Cuban Trailer gives new meaning to ‘road food’
Fidel Castro is sliding into retirement, and anti-Cuba sentiment feels oh-so ’60s nowadays. We still can’t legally smoke Cuban cigars, but they’re not so hard to score. And Cuban food is starting to look like the next big thing on the Louisville culinary scene. Havana Rumba broke the ice, earning instant popularity when it opened…
Film: ‘Restrepo’ captures realities of Afghan conflict
Restrepo Documentary by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger. Rated R; 1:33. Starts Friday at Village 8 Theatres. LEO Report Card: A- While most of us had our eyes on the surge, CNN referred to Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley as “the most dangerous place on Earth.” It was during this period that video journalists Tim Hetherington and…
By Dawnlight
By Dawnlight is Joan Shelley’s message about the importance of humility and of being present in mind and heart. Backed by a local who’s who —members of Arnett Hollow, Maiden Radio, Squeeze-bot and The Galoots highlight her voice — Shelley outfits her 11-song plan with lyrics that turn the lens inward (“It’s Everywhere,” “Broken Again”),…
Web Exclusive: Mitch Fatel loves what he does
Mitch Fatel has one of the freshest, most unique voices in comedy. From the stage, he projects a soft-spoken naiveté so his off-color jokes don’t seem quite as off-color. “I never really wanted to grow up, so what I am onstage kind of personifies the most innocent part of me not wanting to grow up,”…
Staffpicks
Thursday, Sept. 2 TV Mike & The Scarecrows Zanzabar 2100 S. Preston St. • 635-ZBAR www.myspace.com/tvmikemusic $TBA; 9 p.m. Formerly Bloomington-based songwriter Michael Klinge, who’s toured nationally as a solo artist and as frontman for the late Pious Companion, has resettled in the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s been serving his dusty California folk-rock magic…
Plugged In
Readers are strongly encouraged to call ahead to verify these listings. To get your club, comedian, musical act or karaoke listed, please send e-mail to mherron@leoweekly.com with PLUGGED IN in the subject line. The deadline is NOON THURSDAY the week before the show happens. We do not accept listings via social networking sites. Wed. Sept.…
En-dearing
Tamara Dearing calls her latest album, What Animates You, “a pep talk to myself.” “As a musician, I have a lot of trouble overcoming the fear of what other people think and not worrying about the reaction,” says Dearing, whose record release show happens Saturday on the first floor of the Vernon Club. “My thinking…
Red Velvet Car
It’s been a while, ladies. Wasn’t sure when we’d hear from you again. From the sound of this one, you’ve polished that First Women of Rock statue and are brandishing it like a sword. You’ve sloughed off your ’80s forays into dancing Bad Animals. “What About Love” remains a nostalgic touchstone, but it’s the grit…
Broken wheels
When the city of Columbus, Ohio, opens its new Amtrak line in 2012, Louisville will officially gain a new (but onerous) distinction: being the largest city in the nation without any form of modern mass transportation. And with only one of three mayoral candidates advocating public transportation as an integral part of their campaign platform,…
Comedy: Monique Marvez isn’t one of those people
Monique Marvez is a melting pot of Latin cultures — her mother is half-Cuban and half-Puerto Rican, her father Venezuelan — which makes Monique all sass. And it’s probably that sass that got her picked to be included on the “Latin Divas of Comedy” tour and subsequent DVD. For the first time in five years,…
Art: Building a mystery
There is something to be said for artists who set up labyrinths for the mind to wander in, and then have the compassion to come along after a while and show you the exits. Gena Neumann’s new exhibit at Gallery Janjobe in the Mellwood Arts Center promises to do just that. Titled “Symbols,” the show…
Bar Belle: Stompin’ ain’t easy
For as much time as I spend enjoying the drink, I often feel a need to educate myself on the drink. Where is it made? How is it made? What is it made of? Where do the flavors come from? Why does it make me put a lampshade on my head when I’ve had too…
Man behind the curtain
When last we met, I’m afraid I got a little carried away with what could be considered a misfired practical joke. In an effort to make a point about “spoilers,” I cast myself as the “Unstumpable Answer Man” and posed a question (to myself) purporting to ask the name of a particular film. It was…
The civil rights struggle of our time
I recently spent three weeks in Israel and the West Bank where I witnessed the brutality of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. Though well read on the “conflict” before my visit, nothing prepared me for the violence and oppression of this occupation — now in its 62nd year — to which the United States offers…
