Reader: Where are the Black Guys in Cleveland Sports Media?
I wish to comment on the racism that is occurring within the Cleveland sports media. No television station has a black person hosting a show or a segment. Fox Sports Ohio has Kendall Lewis being a sidekick to Les Levine, and Austin Carr and Campy Russell co-hosting Cavaliers programming. Occasionally, Roger Brown co-hosts Bruce Drennan’s…
William Wesley: The Brains Behind LeBron?
If there was ever a person who needs to write a book about how to win influence through a winning personality, that would be William Wesley, a middle-aged mortgage broker. He’s only the most powerful man in basketball, according to ESPN writer Scoop Jackson. To the hundreds of blinged out ballers who are acquainted with…
Connie Schultz Book Signing on Wednesday
Connie Schultz, The Plain Dealer’s (http://www.cleveland.com/) Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and resident nice lady, will sign copies of her new book Wednesday at the Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lyndhurst. And His Lovely Wife chronicles Schultz’s experience on the campaign trail alongside her hubby, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown. Schultz took a leave from The PD last year when…
Five Star Sensation gets the Culinary Throwdown Right
Not that the organizers of last Saturday’s Five Star Sensation need my stamp of approval. The biennial culinary throw-down, to raise funds for University Hospitals’ Ireland Cancer Center, is always a guaranteed sell out. But I gotta say: The party rocked. Strolling the spacious tents, nibbling on signature dishes from more than two-dozen nationally renowned…
This Just In: Concert Announcements
32 new shows this week. The suave sounds of Michael Stanley. Face-ripping metal from High on Fire. Trashy white rap from Mickey Avalong. Sweaty percussion from Ozomatli. And Harptallica, very likely the North American’s foremost all-female harp tribute to Metallica (see video above). NEW FOR THIS WEEK FRIDAY JUNE 29: Dominick Farinacci Quintet: Two shows:…
Scene Again Named Ohio’s Best Non-Daily
Scene writers, the best journalists in Ohio? We’re as surprised as you are, but apparently the judges at the Press Club of Cleveland’s Annual Excellence in Journalism Awards seem to think so. Our little rag left the Press Club’s award ceremony last Friday with enough wooden plaques to cover the walls of approximately 3 ½…
Cleveland: Home to Mounds of Unidentified Bodies? Naah.
In a report recently released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Cleveland came in second place in the illustrious contest of cities with the most unidentified human remains. With 2,814 bodies and counting, Cleveland was only surpassed by New York’s 3,612. Given the size difference, one might assume our little Venice by the Lake has…
Elaine Presser Returns Rambling Fire
Turns out that Elaine Presser not only has a problem with a few of things we wrote about her back in March, but she also isn’t too happy with what her accomplice Leonard Goldberg had to say about her in this week’s First Punch either: “This is Elaine Presser calling, and I had picked up…
…And More Accusations Against Elaine Presser
It appears that extorting elderly priests and scamming places of worship aren’t Elaine Presser’s only great talents [“Sex, Lies, a Priest, & Elaine Presser,” May 16]. She’s also got a knack for duping doctors out of pain prescriptions. Cindy, a close Presser acquaintance who spoke to Scene on the condition that we wouldn’t print her…
New Music Monday: New Mushroomhead Clip
Mushroomhead – Damage Done Add to My Profile | More Videos Mushroomhead’s video for “Damage Done” is available online, at the website of Precinct 13, the production company behind the new horror flick The Rage, which features the song on its soundtrack. The clip features the band in crazy clothes accompanies by similarly attired fans.…
Mikey G’s Entertainment Pick of the Week
This week’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Monday: In Will Allison’s debut novel, What You Have Left, protagonist Wylie Greer drops off his five-year-old daughter with his in-laws after his wife dies . . . and doesn’t return for 30 years. The novel probes such…
The Search for Bill Fox, Once Cleveland’s New Dylan
Local music fans beware: There’s a fascinating local-legend story in this month’s issue of The Believer, a literary rag published by author Dave Eggers’ McSweeney’s. The story’s not online, but it’s worth checking out during your next cruise through Border’s. It traces the life of local singer-songwriter Bill Fox, who College Music Journal once placed…
Ratt Poison: Big Hair Rocks Blossom on Saturday
Hair-metal greats Poison and Ratt hit Blossom Saturday, June 23. Ratt has reunited with singer Stephen Pearcy, who fronted the band through every part of the band’s history that you want to know anything about. Scene correspondent Vince “Stigma” Bloom caught the tour in Pittsburgh Wednesday night. His report: “Opening act was Vains of Jenna,…
Finally, City Officials Dumber than Cleveland’s
Cleveland’s leaders may screw up practically every thing they put their minds to, but at least we’re not as inept as Potter, New York, where, as a result of some sloppy wording on a ballot, voters accidentally made their town dry. According to a story in the New York Times, it all started when a…
Will Mr. Posh Spice be Coming to Cleveland?
As soon as the ink dried on David Beckham’s $250 million deal with the L.A. Galaxy, the English soccer star probably didn’t dream that one of his first matches on American soil would be in Cleveland. But if the Cleveland City Stars (www.clevelandcitystars.com) continue their inaugural year’s undefeated streak, Posh Spice’s hubbie may find himself…
An intimate $1,000 dinner with Barack Obama
In case you missed it, Barack Obama was in town Tuesday night for a $1,000-a-head fundraiser at Crowne Plaza. I was all set to write about what a rip-off this was for a presidential candidate trying to sell himself as a man of the people. But it seems to the good Senator isn’t as money-grubbing…
Review: Ben Harper at the House of Blues
Nobody meshes folk and funk like slide-guitar swami Ben Harper. The Californian and his backing band, the Innocent Criminals, brought their groovy fusion to the House of Blues, June 12. The evening kicked off with the Nightwatchman — a.k.a. Tom Morello — axe murderer for Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Morello is famous for…
Now You Can Be a Calendar Model
The AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland is inviting the beautiful people of our Venice on the Lake to participate in a photo shoot for the non-profit’s Safer Sex Calendar. Realizing that the words “beautiful people” and “Cleveland’ are not always synonymous, the taskforce is opening up the shoot to anyone with “a look” – whether…
Hi, I’m John. Wanna send me to college?
John Sammon’s going to miss his job at Playhouse Square. Among other things, they let him do nutty commercials like the one above. But pushing musicals has gotten old. And it won’t pay for the $20,000 Sammon needs for a master’s degree in interactive multimedia from OU. So he’s launched a website, Fund John’s Master’s,…
A Wine Weekend in Grand River
We still run into food and wine fans who dismiss Ohio wines as dreck. But ever since North Coast vintners (mostly) ditched the sweet, native Concord and Niagara grapes in favor of hardy European varietals – Rieslings, Chardonnays, and the like – the region has come into its own. Open-minded gourmets can rinse the last…
Slideshow: On the Streets of Superior-St. Clair
For years, crack dealers posted up on corners in the St.Clair-Superior neighborhood selling their product [“The Crackdown,” June 13]. It was a neighborhood overrun with junkies, hustlers and members of a gang called the 7-All. Money from the street-level sales worked its way up to the top suppliers. That network was dismantled after a two-year…
Who Makes the Best Big Mac in Cleveland?
Who says kids today have no ambition? On Saturday, more than two dozen young gals will compete in the McDonald’s Fry Girl competition, which will settle once and for all who makes the best Big Mac in town. For the past five weeks, hundreds of local ladies saw their hopes crushed — as one by…
Taliban Fairy Tales
Fresh off victories that banned gay marriage and crushed Ohio’s strip joints, Citizens for Community Values, a Cincinnati conservative group, is now in the process of writing a new book that would restore morality to classic children’s tales. Next fall, CCV will ask legislators to make the book mandatory reading for all kids ages 6-12.…
Ringworm
Ringworm is the reigning hardcore champion of Cleveland, and if you’re just catching up with the band, this is the show for you. The group will play its debut album, 1993’s The Promise, in its entirety. Invoking comparisons to the Cro-Mags and Slayer, the disc was a key development in metalcore: Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Frozen — In Frozen, now playing at the Beck Center, playwright Bryony Lavery uses triangulation — a process used to fix a location using three discrete reference points — to pin down the essential nature of evil. By looking at a pedophile serial killer from three perspectives, the play attempts to plumb the horrifying depths…
Movie Night
Two Wisconsin brothers roll a bus into town tonight to screen the winning flicks at the first-ever Student Films Across America tour. The traveling fest is the brainchild of 19-year-old Steven Amos and his 21-year-old sibling Brian. The two created a contest to showcase a new generation of filmmakers, and their call for entries last…
Duke Comes to Akron
Kirk Migdal is used to clients insisting on their innocence. After 20 years of defending low-level bad guys, he fancies himself immune to their sob stories. It’s how he gets through the days. “I can count on one hand the number of cases I’ve had where I really believe the guy’s been innocent,” he says.…
Tim Easton
Inspired by roots music as a youth, Akron-born Tim Easton attended Ohio State, where he first became a fixture in the region with his college band Kosher Spears — and later, the Haynes Boys — before going solo in the late ’90s. Making music has taken Easton from his alma mater to the streets of…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
ONGOING Exhibit: Cleveland — Don’t say art never did anything for you. Visit this neighborly little show at Wooltex, and you’ll gain new respect for the power of a painting. The small exhibit includes 10 local artists, some of whom you may be familiar with. But that’s only half of it. The rest of the…
Hard-Knock Life
In Oliver!, half-starved English orphans tote bowls of gruel while bursting into songs like “Food Glorious Food.” If that seems to be unlikely musical material, consider too that it’s based on Charles Dickens’ extra-dark tale about child abuse in Victorian London. Double downer! “It’s about making the world safe for a child, despite all these…
Nude Zone
After a protracted decline, nightlife on the northern edge of the once-legendary East Bank of the Flats will soon come to an end. The owners of the section’s remaining night clubs have reached an agreement to sell their properties to developer Scott Wolstein, making way for a new neighborhood of housing and assorted businesses. The…
Bottle Rockets
Timing has never been kind to Bottle Rockets frontman Brian Henneman. Though he started his first roots-driven rock act in ’77, a later incarnation of which would serve as inspiration for Uncle Tupelo, Henneman’s rarely mentioned as an alt-country pioneer. (A longtime friend of Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, Henneman even played with both Uncle…
Elf Life
Once upon a time, the world breathed magic. Some believed this magic should belong only to the powerful, while others felt it was for everyone. So all the world’s beings went to war. The first battle took place in Brazil, where a lone elf with a sniper rifle notched an amazing 28 kills by –…
All in teh Family
Four generations of a French Impressionist dynasty are represented in Contessa Gallery’s Lasting Impressions: The Pissarro Family Legacy. The exhibit features nearly 60 oil, watercolor, and ink works by nine members of the Pissarro clan. Patriarch Camille checks in with the 1862 landscape “Cheval Blanc et Tombereau,” while son Georges’ 1912 painting “Ali Baba No.…
Insulin Shock Wave
If the New York Dolls had recorded “Talk Dirty to Me” in 1974, critics would be hailing the jam as a trashy garage-rock classic. But it was recorded in 1986 by Poison. And consequently, its all-American awesomeness is never gonna be appreciated. Frontman Bret Michaels obviously agrees. “Poison takes a critical beating from all angles,…
Rebirth Brass Band
Rebirth’s moniker reflects both the spirit of its energetic sound and the manner in which the band has invigorated the brass-band sound. Like its New Orleans brethren, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Rebirth applies healthy doses of hip-twitching funk, jazzy horns, and galloping percussion to the military-brass template. In Rebirth’s case, there’s also a lot…
Maybe too Hard
Die Hard Collection (Fox) You don’t need to watch the included preview of Live Free or Die Hard to know it’s going to blow; as this set proves, only odd-numbered Die Hards are any good. The first one, of course, is the perfect popcorn flick, and the bonus-disc extras here illustrate what can happen when…
Left Behind
Writer and father Will Allison doesn’t think he has much in common with Wylie Greer, the protagonist of his debut novel, What You Have Left. Wylie drops off his five-year-old daughter with his in-laws after his wife dies . . . and doesn’t return for 30 years. “I hope I’m not like him,” laughs Allison,…
Rock the Vote
Ask any Clevelander about the Rock Hall, and be prepared for an onslaught of moaning. The museum part isn’t the problem, they’ll say. What’s not awesome about gawking at Bowie’s glittery unitard, Muddy Waters’ axe, or Lennon’s journals? It’s the actual Hall of Fame that brings out the bitching. Many begin with the obligatory gripes…
Jani Lane
It’s a triple homecoming for Jani Lane: After a very public detox on Celebrity Fit Club, the Kent native and former Warrant singer-songwriter is bringing his signature tunes back home. He has a new band, featuring former Warrant drummer Mike Fasano, and, for one show only, guitarist Billy Morris. They’ll be road testing a few…
Here are the week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe:
CD — Dandelion Gum: Black Moth Super Rainbow’s third album is a concept record about forest-dwelling witches who make candy. Songs include “Jump Into My Mouth and Breathe the Stardust,” “When the Sun Grows on Your Tongue,” and “Spinning Cotton Candy in a Shack Made of Shingles.” Plus, singer Tobacco filters his voice through a…
Fair Play
Dallas quintet Fair to Midland strikes a balance between blustery hard rock and brain-feeding prog on its debut album, Fables From a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True. Little surprise, since it was executive produced by System of a Down’s Serj Tankian — no stranger to songs jacked up on coke-and-Red-Bull cocktails.…
The Chariot on Fire
Some serious art is going on behind the Chariot’s brutal noise, destructive stage show, and Jackass-like antics. And while no one is ever going to mistake the band for Radiohead, its music is just as significant. The Fiancée, the Chariot’s new album, sees the Atlanta quintet join hard rock’s most aggressive vanguard, which includes Converge…
Joe Jack Talcum
Former Dead Milkmen Joe Jack Talcum returns to the Happy Dog, winging his way through a boppy set that won’t disappoint faithful Deadheads, who still show up en masse for some of the happiest punk rock ever. “I usually don’t use set lists, but I do at least 50-percent Dead Milkmen songs — often more,”…
Our top DVD picks for the week of June 19:
Animaniacs: Volume 3 (Warner Bros.) Bridge to Terabithia (Buena Vista) Gray Matters (Fox) Harrison’s Flowers (Lionsgate) If . . .: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico (THINKfilm) Lucille Ball Film Collection (Warner Bros.) The Manhattan Project: Special Edition (Lionsgate) The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: The Friendship Edition…
Sew Good
Today’s Fashion Knockout: Round 12 event gives Project Runway fans something to tide them over till next season. Designers stitch and divas bitch at the annual competition and fashion show, which includes more than a dozen stylists, vying for a $15,000 prize. “There is never a particular type that the judges are looking for,” says…
Hot Weather Fun
There’s a celebration of summer in our culture. I don’t care who you are; if you live in New York City in a tenement or in Arizona on a ranch, there’s something about the freedom of summertime that harks back to our childhoods. You wake up as a kid on summer vacation, and you have…
Nevermind
The cool thing about Nirvana tribute Nevermind is that the Chicago band doesn’t just nail the hits. And it isn’t the funky sweaters they wear. They reach deep into the greatest grunge band’s catalog, playing an acoustic tune or three, and covering nuggets like “Moist Vagina,” “Spank Thru,” and “Marigold.” If you think the trio’s…
Soul Man
Eli “Paperboy” Reed & the True Loves bring their brand of Boston-bred R&B to town tonight. Their new CD, Walkin’ and Talkin’ (for My Baby), pays tribute to the sweet soul music of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke. “Soul music is the best pop music of the 20th century,” says the 23-year-old Reed. “It’s the…
Mommy Highest
Twenty-five-year-old writer Miasha didn’t need to look far for inspiration for her latest book, Mommy’s Angel. The story of a 15-year-old girl and her drug-addled mom pretty much parallels the Philadelphia native’s life. “A lot of it comes from my personal experiences,” she says. “It’s something that made me a stronger person over time. When…
Queens of the Stone Age
To fans, Queens of the Stone Age can do no wrong, and mastermind Josh Homme is a visionary on par with Thom Yorke. This cult exists because Homme comes off as a dude who could be hanging on your tattered couch, packing the bong, and quoting Fletch. Yet he’s a witty intellectual, whereas most stoner-metal…
Smile Time
Brief, burly, and froufrou-free, breakfast is the workingman of meals: a way to fuel up for the day’s paycheck production, not an event to anticipate in its own right. Brunch, on the other hand, could be considered the mealtime lady of leisure: a slow and slightly luxurious way to ease into the weekend’s diversions, whether…
Phantom Axes
The stars of the documentary Air Guitar Nation have no delusions of grandeur. They’re well aware of their status as frustrated musicians who’ve settled for a different type of rock and roll dream — one that includes all the thrills of manic axe-shredding, but without an actual guitar. The film focuses on the first-ever U.S.…
True Midwest Punks
In the late ’70s and early ’80s, most punks from the East and West Coasts agreed with their counterparts in the U.K.: Punk was a rejection of classic rock. Ramones vs. Aerosmith. But L.A.’s Black Flag screamed Fuck that! They dug the Sex Pistols and the James Gang. They worshiped all loud rock, regardless of…
Daddy Yankee
Three years after introducing the States to reggaeton via the smash “Gasolina,” Daddy Yankee (aka Ramon Ayala) has a new joint venture with Interscope, marketing deals out the wazoo, and an understanding that reggaeton’s “La Macarena” soundalikes have worn out their welcome. But this doesn’t mean El Cartel is as Americanized as many had predicted.…
Drive-by Dining
Think life is just a bowl of cherries for a national food writer? Then consider the chore confronting Food & Wine magazine’s undercover operative, in town for a mere 48 hours over a recent weekend. The time may have been short, but the to-do list was long indeed: 10 restaurants, one café, and two markets…
Horsing Around
Two-player teams compete for grills, rafts, and bikes at today’s Horseshoe Tournament at the Kelleys Island Wine Company. The fifth-annual tourney first pairs players in a single elimination round. The winners then face off at five sanctioned pits, where they try to wrap horseshoes around stakes 48 feet away. “There are those who don’t play…
Mammatus
Read Moby-Dick, and you’ll find the founding text for modern American metal: “Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth . . . whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses . . . then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” So call the nautical…
Evan Can Wait
Evan Almighty, the follow-up to Bruce Almighty, is the work of an angry God. At 89 minutes that last a lifetime, it’s a sanctimonious sitcom dolled up as the most expensive comedy ever made — $175 mil, so they say, no doubt choking — and marks an unfortunate low point in the history of recent…
Start Your Engines!
While most kids his age are celebrating high-school graduations this time of year, 18-year-old Graham Rahal will be chasing his first Champ Car World Series checkered flag at today’s Grand Prix of Cleveland. Yet, despite his age, the Columbus-based driver says he isn’t intimidated by the legends who’ll rev-up alongside him. “Competing against them is…
Dungen
Dungen often sounds like the mighty Pretty Things. Reminiscent of Parachute, the PT’s masterpiece from 1970, Tito Bitar unfolds less like a collection of 10 discrete tracks and more a 40-minute psychscape that wanders from harmony-rich power pop (“Familj”) to snarling acid-rock epics (“Mon Amour”). Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Gustav Ejstes even tosses some world…
Pearl Harbor
Do we need another movie about the liberal West watching in horror as something that daily befalls helpless bystanders all over Africa, Asia, and the Middle East happens to one of us? We do: Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was murdered by Islamic jihadists in Pakistan while researching a piece on shoe-bomber Richard…
Book Bash
Lakewood Public Library unveils its recent face-lift at tonight’s Be the First to See the Best Library Gala. It’s the first time in nearly 60 years that the building has been renovated. “It was modernized in the ’50s and brutalized in the ’80s,” says Ken Warren, the library’s director. “The new space is warm and…
Hetero Skeleton
Hetero Skeleton is a spaz punk band from Finland; percussionist and screamer Arttu Partinen is also in Avarus. I won’t mince words: The name is stupid. Merely mentioning the style they play makes me wish I lived on another planet. And the cover of their record is the kind of ugly that God generally reserves…
Heartbreak Hotel
Mike Enslin, the travel writer played by John Cusack in 1408, could use a better travel agent. Every hotel room in which he finds himself booked is said to be occupied by the ghost of some suicidal creep or a murderous goon who left behind a pile of bodies in the bathtub. Of course, that’s…
Great Scots!
Leave it to the Scots to one-up other strongman competitions at today’s Ohio Scottish Games. As Sean Connery has proven throughout his career, those from the land of bagpipes are born hard-asses. You won’t see any tights-wearing musclemen bench-pressing barbells at today’s 30th-annual outing. Instead, look for kilt-clad competitors tossing telephone poles in the air.…
Bloodwolf
Saying the word “metal” is like saying “dog” — everybody thinks of a different breed. Bloodwolf is definitely a mutt; there’s some serious crossbreeding in the three tracks that make up 21666. Singer and bassist David Maynard’s shrieks sound imported from black metal circa 1992, meshing nicely with his band’s thrash riffs, death tendencies, and…
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Uplifted beyond its merits by a stunning performance from Marion Cotillard, the humdrum biopic of Edith Piaf, La Vie En Rose, jogs obligingly along with Piaf the legend rather than the woman. It’s not hard to do, given the fuzzy borders between Piaf’s undeniably scarred life and her relentless gift for revisionist autobiography. By any…
Whole Lotta Quakin’ Goin’ On
Even though he doesn’t resemble anyone in Widespread Panic, stand-up comic Earthquake has something in common with most jam bands: He never plays the same set twice. “I’m like [basketball star] Allen Iverson,” he says. “Just give me the ball, and I shoot. I can’t imagine talking about the same thing, the same way, every…
Cyclones
It’s impossible to gauge the exact status of Cle-Punk legends the Dead Boys and Frankenstein — long-dead, revived, returned to the grave? Nevertheless, Jeff Magnum is still doing what he was born to do: play wiry punk-rock bass. But these days he’s fattening up the sound of the Cyclones, a raw-dog duo outta New York.…
Kon’s Cure for Cinema
Dreams and the internet, according to the psychotherapist superheroine of Satoshi Kon’s loopy Paprika, are “areas where the repressed conscious mind vents.” Is this not the ideal definition of movies as well? Kon’s head-tripping anime universe, which also includes Millennium Actress and Perfect Blue, is about as obsessive and personal as cinema gets. Still, playfully…
Endless Summer
It makes sense that the Rock Hall’s new exhibit, Catch a Wave: The Beach Boys, the Early Years (which opens today), focuses on the years 1961-1966. The summer-lovin’ Californians made their masterpiece, Pet Sounds, in 1966. The album wiped out leader Brian Wilson, who spent months trying to top it with Smile — a project…
Cracks in the Crackdown
Business is booming on Korman Avenue: I live in the 79th Street area. It’s a real shame that they think they really did something [“The Crackdown,” June 13]. The 7-All gang consists of 15-to-20-year-olds and doesn’t have anything to do with the older guys who were arrested. If they want to do something, put a…
Fiery Furnaces
Brooklyn’s Fiery Furnaces must think the end of the CD is nearer than the rest of us do. Since the group’s 2003 debut, Gallowsbird’s Bark, the Furnaces (Chicago-born siblings Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger, plus a rotating cast of side people) have released three more full-lengths as well as a 10-track, 41-minute EP. And they have…
Con Ed
Anyone who has seen The Sting or has witnessed companies like Halliburton bleeding the U.S. treasury during the war is familiar with the “long con.” It’s a confidence game in which the mark (be it a person or a country) is maneuvered into giving the con artist a lot more money than was ever intended.…
Footloose and Fance Free
Groundworks Dance Theater steps away from convention at this weekend’s performances at Cain Park. The local troupe’s frantic music and flashy lighting, coupled with head-spinning moves, makes for an indescribable experience. “It’s hard to put into words where we fit in,” laughs artistic associate Amy Miller. “I think it’s kinda good that way. We’re a…
From Worst to Worse
No one expects a fair process for filling five soon-to-be-vacant seats on the Cleveland school board. With so few people applying for the unpaid job of overseeing a den of chaos, Mayor Frank Jackson doesn’t have many options. So when he makes his picks — which could happen as early as this week — he’s…
Wayne Hancock
Come election time, some presidential hopeful always utters the words, There are two Americas. That’s not only true for the haves and have-nots, but also for country music. There exists the America that goes ga-ga for photogenic girls and boys performing watered-down power pop with a hint of twang, and then there’s this other nation…
One-Note Musical
People of a certain age continue to stream down to Branson, Missouri, to watch washed-up, C-list stars croon rehashed country songs. Why? Probably because it’s a painless and safely predictable way to be entertained for a little while. That’s also pretty much what Pump Boys and Dinettes (now onstage at Blossom Music Center’s Porthouse Theatre)…
Ride ‘Em, Cowgirl!
Gals slip on their leather chaps every Friday at Saddle Ridge’s ladies’ night. In addition to free admission and booze specials, the Parma club offers women gratis line-dancing lessons and mechanical bull rides. “The girls love it,” says Ken “Rodeo” Guttlipp, who operates the metal beast. “I use a technique that reminds them of sex.”…
