The Urban Landscape is Messy

There's been a few posts in the local blogaverse about the aesthetics of the urban landscape. An old way of communicating is sticking a notice on a telephone pole. In areas with bars that host bands flyers are pretty common & frequently show a good bit of creativity. Bands doing original music? Artists doing original art? Sounds nice to me. Sounds like something we should foster.
I like Northside. I like it a lot. I don't relate to a lot of it. I have no idea why anybody would go to a coffee house. The teenagers are weird & frequently obnoxious. I could do without the rock throwing & willy nilly gunfire. But I certainly like the weirdness & the creative aspect.
But I could also do without people who want suburbia in urbia. That is - it's not going to be neat, sterile & homogenous. People claim they want a "diverse" community. This seems to mean, I want some black people living on the next block. I want art & culture but it has to be ok with NPR.
Art Damage is celebrating it's 25th anniversary this year. Seems like just yesterday I was listening the the show on WAIF while working alone on third shift in the nation's most dangerous neighborhood. In that time they have, essentially become a Cincinnati art institution. They have progressed from just a radio show to having a space for experimental performers & movie makers.

What do they get from the neighborhood?
grief

In this post on the Northside BB, a poster complains about Art Damage specifically for posting flyers on phone poles. The neighborhood liason police officer is quite happy to jump in. This kind of pisses me off since I post annually that it is city law to clear your sidewalk of snow & I never got a response from Cincinnati's finest. Of course a snowy icy sidewalk is dangerous - flyers on poles assault our sensibilities & tastes. priorities....

It's not just Art Damage, of course
Now, while people in "eclectic" Northside are griping about contemporary graphics advertising experimental music, the neighborhood hosts an "installation" Shepard Fairey work.

Fairey, of course got his start doing, essentially "street art". But he's been on NPR, so it's ok.
One of the complaints is that the flyers contain profanity from time to time. While this is a semi-legitimate complaint, the flyers are usually posted at the eye level of an adult, so I don't really see a problem there.

an offending flyer ?
Now, I have to say that advertising to the people walking through the Northside business district has it's limits. Blanketing the 3-4 blocks is probably not too productive. Some strategy is worthwhile.
The issue is up in the air. Hopefully the AD folks will just be told to take down flyers after the events. That would be a good idea anyway as old ads would distract from new ads.
Clicking on these thumbnails will display some of the older Art Damage flyers.


Art Damage can also be found on FaceBook.
An alternative Art Damage page with a history lies here, but navigating there sets off all sorts of warnings about how it will melt your computer. No problems here.

Speak of the Devil
Just about the time I mention Wittenberg's Trudy Faber, the chick up & quits.
sheesh
There's a reason I don't tell people to be careful.
Noose In the Holler story here.

Concerts
Last year I started this series of reminiscitating on concerts I had gone to over the years. It was influenced by VegasAnt sending me a couple gigantic scans of his old ticket stubs & an e-friend, mx sara, who started to document 1979 on a day to day basis. I sought to document concerts on their corresponding anniversaries for a year.
When I went to these shows I thought the music was the most important thing in the world. As I started writing these posts, I realized that what I really remembered was pretty much everything but the music. My friends, traveling to the various places, the weird venues all had a bigger impact. Well, without the music I wouldn't have done any of that crap. I would have got a tan in the summer of 1970, too.
Doing research on these posts has been fun. The interwebs have given folks a lot geekier than myself a way to promote their favorite musicians & forums have brought all sorts of old nerds together. Fans have set up websites documenting gigographies of numerous artists that are pretty daggone amazing. I have found that people actually buy old ticket stubs, too. weird.
There are, of course, some strays.
Jeff Beck touring the "Orange" album - fucking great use of Hara Arena. The dang floor wasn't even sold out. Looking Glass, for some weird reason opened. Their song, Brandy, always makes me think of Beck.
Jeff Beck with Beck, Bogert & Appice (sp?) at Mershon Auditorium - the less said the better.
Jeff Beck & Stevie Ray Vaughn at Hara Arena - Beck was incredible, Vaughn was adept but a one trick pony at best. All my friends thought Vaughn was God & Beck was weird / didn't like him.
Lou Reed at Music Hall. Squatters a couple rows in front of us threatened to rape the people who owned the seats. Police followed.
D.O.A at the Polish club in Dayton. Punk had arrived. The Dates opened. Then there was about a dozen other D.O.A. shows in Dayton, Cincinnati & Newport.
Willie Dixon at Gilly's in Dayton. He didn't get out his upright bass til the second part of the show. He wasn't walking well but his fingers just flew.
Richard Hell & the Voidoids at Gilly's. Some guy was walking around groping girls. I was going to tell security about him & then I realized he WAS security.
Social Distortion a Gilly's - Dance Fever.
All the shows at the Jockey Club - Tupelo Chain Sex, Jah Wobble, Johnny Thunders, Toxic Reasons, BPA, The Auburnaires, The Thangs, The Warsaw Falcons, 11,000 Switches, Sluggo, The Edge, SS-20, Snare and the Idiots, Doc and the Pods, The Reduced, The Customs, The Libertines, The Violent Femmes, Black Flag, The Wolverton Brothers, The Dead Kennedys, Lords of the New Church.....
The Dead Kennedys in Yellow Springs where the management asked Jello Biafra to promote the cookies & cider in the lobby. They had a neo-hippie security team that seemed to have taken notes from the Chicago Police of 1968.
The Flaming Lips at the Southgate House.
All the weird bands that played at Sam's & The Walnut Hills Bar in Dayton. The infamous first gig of Toxic reasons at the Walnut Hills, some band from Antioch that only played one gig.
Danny Gatton at Gilly's. There was a display of the most beautiful Telecasters in the world in the lobby.
Muddy Waters, Livingston Taylor, Glass Harp & a bunch of others that Wittenberg drew in. Sneaking into the Witt Field House... heh
Hell, Trudy Faber & Ron Crutcher's recitals at Wittenberg were freakin' awesome. Some German string quartet at Weaver Chapel about turned my life around.
Alice Cooper @ Hara, Mountain @ Bogarts, The Faces @ Hara, Hank Williams Jr with KD Lang as an opener at Riverbend, Steve Winwood (altho the Ruverbend Gestapo tossed me out half way through), The Replacements in Minneapolis, Pere Ubu in Columbus, Evan Johns in D.C., Evan Johns in Cincinnati, Human Switchboard @ the Walnut Hills & She Club, Brother Wayne Kramer at Top Hats, Cincinnati's Pigmeat Jarret (dude ruled the ivories), Loretta Lynn at the Taft where I ran into Phil K and we went to the Obryonville Blue Wisp & Oakley Chili Company afterwards, Sun Ra at a downtown Blue Wisp, Laurie Anderson at the Taft, Laurie Anderson at Mershon Auditorium (nearly the last show I attended), friggin' Mike Mingo & Grovor (they're still around), The Count basie orchestra @ Cliff Park, Charlie Townsend & Joe Quissenberry jamming in the Snyder park bandshell (although, to his grave, Charlie denied it ever happened), The Godz, Seals & Crofts & Bob Seeger at Memorial Hall, Bob Weir & Patti Smith at a much smaller Bogart's that barely resembled the current venue, The Ramones / White Zombie double bill from God at hara Arena, Dwight Yoakam (sp?), James Gang at the Ohio State Fair, Tanya Tucker at the Clark County Fair although she opted to sign autographs but not perform.....
And Tiny Tim who played at the weird bar north of Springfield on route 68 a most friendly & gracious man.
Anyway, thanks to everybody who actually puts themselves out there & mounts the stage, bringing untold people so much pleasure. Thanks to all the people I accompanied - hadablast.

Springfield Mercy Est Finite

As work on the new Springfield hospital/medical center progresses, Springfield Mercy has closed. What happens to this property will be interesting. I predict Wittenberg will expand north.
Mercy was built in 1950 as Springfield was still growing & expanding greatly to the north. A major fundraiser & leader in the building of the hospital was Joe Shouvlin who also donated land for Catholic Central High School.

Noose Son story here.

Friday Flashback Again


Johnny Get Your Gun
Toxic Reasons - 1980
Speaking of Toxic Reasons....
The boys were kinda influenced by The Sex Pistols, Ramones, Clash & D.O.A. I think.
The band rose from Dayton, changed personnel a zillion times & moved to San Francisco with only one original member. This MySpace page indicates they are now outta Naptown. That's certainly more appropriate as they clearly have a more midwestern, industrial, rust-belt sound.

the Ramones, Columbus Agora 1980
It was a Ramones show. You know it was good. I remember running into Big Ed of Toxic Reasons. He had no cash. hell, I would have bought this guy a beer if he was rich. There was a bunch of Daytonistas at the show. Kinda rounded out the generally polite Columbus audience. We had a lot of fun.

MARCH MADNESS



It was 60 years ago, today, that The Springfield Wildcats defeated the Akron South Cavaliers in the Class A high school state championship basketball tournament.
Elwood Pitzer was the coach. The event was held at the Columbus Fairgrounds Coliseum.
The WIZE audiocast was recorded by some goofball & wound up on ebay. It was purchased and digitally restored by Dick Hatfield & is available at the Springfield Heritage Center as a 2 CD set. It features the radio announcers, Pete Hanson doing rapid fire play by play, Ray Schwarz with statistics and Bob Christol announcing ads for the sole sponsor, Garrigan's Office Supply.
As you can tell by the clip above, it wasn't a rout.
NOTE: When this game was played, less than 10% of American households had televisions but about 95% had radios.

Kristalnacht 2010 ?

Cable news opinionmeisters aren't exactly my favorite people but this is a pretty good story (and it has a local connection!). Not surprisingly, Maddow gets it fucked up at the end. It's not guns, it's the people mouthing off about them & recklessly promoting violence in general. It's one thing to be a loudmouth but this can lead some dumbass to go off & commence killing people - possibly the children of elected politicians.
I don't have the elite cable stations in my broke ass household. I found this vid at Immoral Minority a blog that proves you don't have to be a right winger to be a batshit crazy conspiracy theory loon.

More on The tea Party
Quinnipiac has released a poll on the Tea Party movement.
Kinda interesting. Wealthy people aren't as supportive as the upper middle class. It's members identify strongly with Republicans while Dems & Indies are fairly small parts of the Party. It's predominantly white & chicks outnumber dudes a bit. One of the interesting things is how unlikely a Tea Partier would be to vote for anybody but a Republican. Hardly any would vote, apparently, Libertarian or Constitution. Doesn't this just perpetuate the madness?
Quinnipac continues to ask the dumbass question, "In general, how satisfied are you with the way things are going in the nation today?". That is, are you happy with the government, major businesses, rude, threatening behavior, kids, elderly? Do you think the society should be going further left or right? It doesn't really mean much just knowing people are dissatisfied.

For more analysis, a WSJ blog post here.

One of the better housing markets in Cincinnati is the "downtown" area. Residents cite walkability, proximity to shopping, events and the ability to live car free. Across the country there is renewed interest in the urban lifestyle. So Why not Urbana? Some folks have already moved in and plans are in place to renovate buildings that have been empty for as long as 90 years. Urbana's downtown is, of course, pretty much one block, Market Square. The intersection recently went roundabout.
Now about that windfarm.....

Noose Son story here.
Latest on the Champaign County windfarm here.

My Mama's Basement

Cincinnati is well known for it's appreciation & support of the arts. These gentlemen use YouTube & Local Access Cable to explore the cinema. Many of the films they review are foreign made and not well known to the American audience. Their addition to the local arts community is very much appreciated.
Blogging isn't Cool salutes Big Buddha & Nassem.

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The World of the cincinnati.com Commenter
While the passage of the damned health care reform thingie will end the world prior to 2012, force teenagers to get abortions, send doctors into the real estate profession & force Marxism DOWN OUR THROATS, Explore Cincinnati & Building Cincinnati have resurfaced.
(although BC just crashed my browser (that damn Obama, again!)).

New Life for the Lagonda Club ?

The Lagonda Club building was built in 1895 as a club for the wealthy elite of Springfield. It sat between the exclusive High Street residential area & the central business district. When built, Spring Street was not the hideous concrete gash it is now. As tastes in recreation & neighborhoods changed & Harry Kissel's Ridgewood development developed, the wealthy elite moved north & the Springfield Country Club was started.
In later years WBLY set up shop in the building. The studios were used in the late 70s / early 80s for a recording studio by a guy who wound up with Merlin Productions. In 1975 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1988 Art Wilson bought it & apparently has had no use for it til now.
Pepsi is sponsoring a contest that will award grants for "people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact." Mr Wilson is hoping to get one of those grants by promising to renovate the building as a "gathering spot for youth". (We used bus stops in my day) He has set up a website.
Call me cynical but I have a hard time believing this. I have seen too many scams & do-nothing building owners in Cincinnati. Counting on winning a soda pop company's contest isn't a real sound business plan. Letting a prominent building sit for a generation certainly doesn't inspire much confidence in a person' civic mindedness.
Anyway, I hope I'm wrong, it would be great to see this building restored & used again. Voting starts April 1, so vote early & often.

Noose Son story here.

Is Monica Crowley Dawn ?

As far as I know the two have never been seen together. Joseph Michael Linsner and Crowley were both "born" in 1968. Coincidence ?
Monica Crowley and Dawn look similar. They part their hair on different sides & Crowley's mascara doesn't run like Dawn's.
Crowley has admitted to hiding the possible truth of her relation to the famous occultist, Aleister Crowley to Stephen Colbert on Halloween night no less.
In 1989 when Dawn was "born", Crowley claims to have been writing fan letters to disgraced ex-president Richard Nixon - a story so fantastic that it's incredulity isn't even questioned. Could it actually be that she had taken to her great grandfather's occult teachings, donned lingerie with skull pattern lace and, from hell, invaded Joseph Michael Linsner's dreams ?
Does Crowley's insistence on the rebith of a conservative Republican party not fit in line with the plot of this story? Does it not fit with her great grandfather's alchemical beliefs ?
Crowley has yet to confirm or deny the fact that she is a supernatural comic book character. She continually avoids the issue by talking about politics. Eventually McLaughlin will live up to his "hard hitting" reputation & corner Crowley on this issue.
I'll be waiting & watching.

no image available
Todd Rundgren Palace Theater, Dayton 1974
An ex-student teacher at my high school convinced the school to let him teach an advanced psychology course. You were supposed to have some minimum grade average, completed the standard psychology class & you had to get permission to take the class on top of that. My grades were borderline but I got in. One day while biking through the park on a nice sunny day I spied a hot chick drinking wine while sitting on a blanket. She was drinking the wine out of a glass. I had to stop. When I approached her I noticed she was sitting amidst a sea of papers. As we chatted I found out she was my psychology teacher's girlfriend (or one of 'em) and she was grading the class' papers. She had given me a B. She said I had taken an interesting approach to the subject. We smoked a joint.
I went to this show with the little sister of the girl I went to see Rundgren with at the Xavier Fieldhouse. I dropped acid. It was a weeknight & I had a psychology test the next day.
So who should I run into at the concert? yup - the psychology teacher & his girlfriend. Teach told me he hoped I studied for the test. right...
It was a fun show. I think I actually did ok on the test.
I loved The Palace.

Schulers Moving

If you are figuring on making a pastry run to Springfield's Schuler's Bakery, Be Advised - the Mitchell Avenue location is closing & moving to the shopping center on Derr Road @ Villa.
This has some benefits, however, since there is a Kroger in the center & they sell Mumford's Potato Chips, so two stops can be consolidated into one.


Noose Son story here

Flashback Friday

Taking a page from The Black Fist Blog (hey X! Activate yer comments!), I give you The Human Switchboard. The above recording was made on a $19 tape deck at The She Club in The Gem City in 1980. Sorry about the ultra Lo-Fi ®, but, hey, it was the 70s. I am also new to Audacity so I am not sure how to use the various gadgetry. I located a bunch of old tapes recently & hope to post some more weird ass locally recorded crap in the future.
The Switchboard knocked around Ohio & New York for some time before breaking up in the mid 80s. The leader went on to run Disney's Hollywood Records for awhile.
Anyway, here's about the closest thing they ever had to a hit (shot in NYC).

Downtown Springfield Property Owners Proposes a SID
Downtown Springfield property owners propose taxing themselves more, creating a Special Improvement District, to keep their business area cleaner, safer & more inviting.
They cite the idea as being similar to merchants at malls paying mall fees. This goes to the city however. I don't know how much I would trust those stewards. I guess the advantage, over just pooling their own assets privately, is that they would not have to invest in labor & equipment. Cleaning up crow crap was cited as one of the issues facing downtown businesses. I guess the city has power washing equipment the merchants don't want to rent? Pooling assets for the greater good sounds like a good idea but I hope these guys look into doing this privately before doing it publicly. Privately, they would likely be better able to control costs, act in a timely manner & target desired services.
They need to get a sizable majority of property owners to agree (& then the city) to make this happen.

Noose Son story here.

Season Opener Mar 27

Cincinnati Rollergirls season opener Mar 27, Cincinnati v. San Diego @ Cincinnati Gardens. I am actually getting excited. Maybe it's just the caffeine.....
I'll be the geeky old dude with his geeky older sister.
I can't believe people would come all the way from San Diego to get their asses kicked. I can't believe I have 2 sports related posts in a row.

Cincinnati Grand Prix ?
The Fishwrap reports that an attempt at bringing grand prix racing to Cincinnati was all a scam.
Too bad.
While the idea of racing cars through downtown is kinda crazy, other streets, like River Road, Madison Road, Columbia and Victory Parkways might be pretty cool. I am not a racing fan nowadays, I know nothing of the business ($$$), politics & stuff. All I know is the movie Grand Prix with James Garner (my grandma took me). But from the standpoint of promoting the city, images of a race along the river, on the parkways & on the Ohio River bridges could be pretty great.
That being said, I have to wonder at what point does the city decide to do background checks on these promo guys?

I want a Cinerama monitor

thanks

Netscape Communicator 4.7 on Mac 9.1
reset my PRAM/NVRAM on an old mac that dual boots in Mac 9.1 & 10.4. I haven't fired up 9.1 in a couple years but it's what's on the primary startup drive, so.....
I seized the occasion to check out Netscape Communicator on a few websites.
wheee!!!!

nnnngggghhhh, CSS....
I have to admit to a bit of panic as I realized I had forgotten how to change the startup drive back.

Women's Prison Music Videos Saturday !

yeehaw! No zombies, aliens or explosions but hot rods & mass murder in tarantinoesque rerovision will do in a pinch. Love those crazy choreographed dance productions. The kitchen scene rules.
Here's another goodie.

She used to be such a nice girl.....

Congratulations Stooges!

Yeah the R&RHOF is pretty much a joke, but a win is a win.
Detroit News story here.

Brownsville Station - Mike Quatro 1972
One of a few rock concerts at Springfield's Memorial Hall.
For some reason it was popular in the late 60s & early 70s to name your band after something you saw on a sign. Everybody remembers Trudy & The Hopple Street Exit, right?
These bands both hailed from the Detroit area. Brownsville Station played pretty much straight rock-n-roll. I don't remember them doing anything as cheesy as Smokin' in the Boy's Room. Quatro was doing a kind of Nice/ELP thing with some weird electric spinet piano contraption. Kind of an odd mix. I think I bought a copy of Quatro's album after the show. I don't know where else I would have got it.

HELLO WORLD, HELLO MOM

I don't even care if this movie is bad.

Saturday Science
Wittenberg University, continuing to engage the Springfield community, offers Saturday Science, a free program for high school aged kids featuring presentations by faculty & students at the school. So far subjects tackled have included math, physics, computer science, geology, geography & more. This Saturday is "Springfield’s Animal Community".

Queen City Bike has posted that Google Maps now has directions by bicycle. This is in addition to driving and walking directions. Directions by public transit, promised some time ago, IIRC, have yet to be implemented.
The weird thing about bicycling & especially walking, is that there are a lot more options for those guys than for cars.
Cincinnati has this wild crazy hillside stairway system that good folks fear & loathe. Google sees some of those, but they seem to completely miss cutting through parks. One particular commute I used to take, from sunny Northside to scenic OTR near historic Findlay Market - I would drive, ride or walk exactly the same way. Google recommends I walk or ride a very car centric route with horrible intersections & aesthetically unpleasant areas. Why the hell would I walk through the Dooley Bypass & down Spring Grove Avenue instead of just walking over it to tree lined Central Parkway?
It also doesn't provide grade info important to cyclists.
MapMyRide doesn't provide suggestions (you can look at other people's routes but that only seems useful for recreational purposes). It doesn't seem to import routes saved in Google, either. It does, however have grade info. Anyway, if you gotta go up, you're probably going to go back down again, eventually.
Anyway, if you can glob all this stuff onto a mobile device with a screen reader, blind people can be a bit more empowered, too. I wouldn't be too bold crossing the street with the info, tho.

Is The Tea Party Just An Arm Of The Republican Party ?

Some of the folks at The American Conservative think so.

"While the movement boasts of independence, it is little more than a GOP adjunct: loud, colorful, but still advancing the establishment’s ends."

Full story here.

They're Back !
The Fishwrap reports that HSUS is beginning to collect signatures for a ballot measure aimed at controlling our yet to be formed state Animal Care Board.

Get ready for some gruesome ads with celebrities that will make you wince. They will tell us that these worst practices are mainstream. They will ask us for money. They will not tell us that they are not in the animal welfare business & they will not clarify that they have nothing to do with local humane societies nor are they a part of the federal government. They are really in the business of fundraising & the top dogs make some nice cash.

This chart is posted by John Dillard, a law student at the Richmond School of Law in a posting, The Myth of the Humane Society of the United States.
This Washington D.C. organization is not interested in Ohioans best interests. It, almost literally, wants to ram it's vegetarian agenda down our throats (sorry, couldn't resist).
If you are approached to sigh their petition, I urge you to not sign. Throwing cats at them is optional.

Ohio Solar

Caught the first in a 3 part series in the Toledo Blade about Ohio's fumbling solar industry. As we bend over backwards for coal, all other energy sources lag.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Johnny Cash - Cincinnati Music Hall 1981
This was billed as the Johnny Cash Family or something. June Carter appeared & some little boy came out & sang. Rosanne Cash & Carlene Carter did not perform.
Getting to the show was pretty stupid. Al drove. We had been to the venue before but short term memory loss kicked in. Al said he knew where Music Hall was. It was the big half dome art deco place you saw from the highway. I knew the building & told myself Al was right. ~Rule #1 - doh!~ Imagine our surprise when we got to the place & nobody was there. Some old guy out front gave us directions. Fortunately, Music Hall is a straight shot about a mile away.
Before we went in, we had to answer nature's call. We stopped in an alley & relieved ourselves on some trash cans. We heard movement behind the trash cans. I kicked the one I was marking. Rats scurried away & down the alley. I thought it was hilarious. When I moved to Cincinnati later, I remember seeing bright orange stickers on trash cans without lids. The stickers read, "Starve Rats". I always thought that was pretty cool.
Sat in the balcony. Cash played a bunch of old tunes & hits. It was extremely family oriented & upbeat.

not a paid ad

Red Light Cameras Reduce Collisions 34%
Springfield, Ohio introduced red light cameras in 2006. It monitored about 1700 violations a month. That is down to about 660 now. Crashes are down 34% overall. That's significant because a reduction of 20% was expected & severe "T-Bone" collisions are frequently offset by a slight uptick in minor rear end "fender bender" collisions.
The cameras also allowed officials to determine that a leading cause of collisions at one intersection were not due to red light running but illegal turning.
Unfortunately, we can't do this in Cincinnati due to the successful fear & smear campaigns from COA T & NAACP.

The videos have been useful in hit-skip investigations or crashes where both drivers claimed to have a green light.
“We’ve gone back and been able to review things and get the right person cited,” Radanovich said. “So it’s helped us on quite a few crashes.”

The cameras might have also helped (or hurt) the case of The Dean of Cincinnati, another staunch opponent of the technology, when he tried to pass a truck on the right in a narrow intersection.
link.
He denounced the technology & demanded human intercession but then didn't care much for the human intercession that he got.
The solution? I guess The Tribulation.

Noose Son story here.

I-75 Plans

I-75 from Quim Bob on Vimeo.

The presentation by Cameron X concerning the progress of the I-75 charettes.
Northsiders think the Ludlow Viaduct is an "eyesore". Well, yeah, I would like to see a big gothic iron monstrosity lit by braziers & decorated with the hanging corpses of criminals as much as the next guy, but let's be practical.....

Multi-Lingual Signage on the Square ?
Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls has proposed multi-lingual signage or, at least, bi-lingual signage adding Spanish to the mix due to conventions coming to the city in 2011 & 2012. I am not opposed to the signage per se but I would recommend the additional languages be added when current signage needs replacement. This would also give us more time to think about what languages & information to provide.
For the upcoming conventions, brochures with emergency info could be distributed to attendees via hotels & events.
One thing that hasn't been brought up (AFAIK) is how much foreign language support the convention promoters & hotels already plan to provide. They might already have something and, if not, might be interested in doing so with a small subsidy. Since these 2 conventions are international in nature, the need for language support might not be all that great, anyhow.
And remember - language is a virus.

Fish Wrap story (with over 300 crazy knee-jerk paranoid comments) here.

John Entwistle 1975
Entwistle was the other composer in The Who. He had also released a few albums of his own. So it wasn't terribly surprising he would tour on his own. It was just kind of odd that this guy who had been gigantor type venues was on a bar tour. I recall him commenting on being able to see the back of the Columbus Agora appreciatively.
His band was just a small ensemble. The lead guitarist took to leaping about the stage a bit. He played a lot of fast ingle note lead (unlike Pete Townshend). I want to say there was a keyboard player who doubled on sax. No french horn solos.
Wolfgang's Vault has a show from this tour here.

Yes 1974
Yes had just released Tales of Topographic Oceans. The show at Cincinnati Gardens had a lot of long jams. Well, maybe a little more orchestrated than jamming. That's about all I remember.

Dead Road

Dead Road Episode 1 from CORRADO on Vimeo.

Dead Road is a web series. A computer show? Filmed in the Garden State, they are currently up to episode 5. To see 'em all, click here.

Is This Image Racist ?

Well, I guess you would need to know the intent of the Photoshopper. Even then, you would need to know the intent of the person displaying the image, too. It is posted here for review. It certainly makes a clear message to Americans that the president's healthcare plans are akin to primitive witchcraft. Dunno what message it would send to the folks who live with the guy in the picture. Might be good foreign policy PR.
"Witch Doctors" are common in many cultures. They frequently use herbal remedies, they are frequently the most educated people in their communities & the mix of faith and science is not questioned. Most of the people who engage in these belief/social systems are dark skinned people with little industrial development. Nobody in America has a problem dismissing these other people's beliefs. Use of the term Voodoo is fairly accepted in the US as meaning quackery & trickery. It is a real belief system, of course & people in America practice it. Referring to Ron Reagan's economic theories as Voodoo Economics didn't phase anybody. Referring to Obama's initiatives similarly brings accusations of racism, however. What would have ensued if Reagan's theories had been labeled Lutheran Economics? Pentecostal, Catholic? (I think the real name for "trickle down" is neo-liberal. Of course Reagan couldn't have anything to do with the word "liberal" as he had managed to turn it into a four letter word almost single handedly)
In reality, Euro-Americans have moshed up religion & science a lot over the years. Monks practicing alchemy actually came up with some good results. What's kinda funny is that the folks who cooked up this image & use it is that they are probably more likely to mix up religion & science than their opponents.
The image also seems to have more to do with health cafe delivery than what Obama is targeting which is health care access.
So, the image actually misses the target & on top of that, it is hypocritical.
As the contempt for other cultures lifestyles is pretty much racist at the core, the image is clearly racist. Similarly, labeling Reagan's theories voodoo would also be racist as it demeans predominantly black Haitians beliefs. That Obama is in the picture with his head pasted onto the body of a presumably African guy is not inherently racist. But maybe that was the intent of the Photoshopper. I dunno. Spastic and inconsistent use of the racism charge renders the charge meaningless & the accusers irrelevant.

A Tour of OTR With Johnny Cash
and Eli Wallach


Friday would have been Johnny Cash's 78th birthday. I celebrated the guy's life watching The Pride of Jesse Hallam, a made for TV movie filmed on location in Cincinnati around 1980. I have babbled here about watching old movies & TV just to watch the backgrounds before. Route 66 is super duper megacool. A film called Wanda, shot in Pennsylvania around 1970, is another gem. This movie is fairly low budget & the disk is made from a pretty crappy print. It's out of print but is available from second hand dealers (cheap).
It's filmed in OTR (Eli Wallach has a stand at Findlay Market), Hyde Park, Clifton, Mt Lookout, Downtown & the riverfront. Some places have changed considerably, some look exactly the same. I moved to Cincinnati a couple years after the movie was made. The scenes around Findlay Market show a market with a very different vibe than what is there today. It had a much more "old world" thing going on.
It's not a great movie, it's ok & the backgrounds are a lot of fun.

Teenage Wasteland

Friday weirdness with a tip of the hat to GeeBee

Amateur Theater

Ever notice how the Tea Parties kinda look like local dinner theater presentations of Marat/Sade ?

A Drug Against War

Seeing all the Shepard Fairey 2 tone stuff made me think of this wild & wooly video from KMFDM. The graphics even inspired a nutty video game. Dunno if Fairey does animations, but he should. All the layered but isolated objects lend themselves perfectly. But then, nobody takes you seriously if you make "cartoons"....

Winton er Spring Grove Village er Northside Montessori Plans

Winton Montessori will be moving to Northside on the site where Schwab is now located, 4370 Beech Hill Ave. Demolition on Schwab will begin September of 2010. Currently, they are trying to remove and reuse as much from that location as they can. Construction is slated to begin at the end of this year, following demolition. School is slated to open at the new location in September, 2012.
The architects are: Cole+Russell, Fanning/Howey, Moody Nolan.
Plans include:

• Separate parking and drop-off for Pre-K.
• Garden beds for Student Garden
• Landscaping with Native Plants
• Increased capacity from current location: 6 Classrooms for Pre-K/K, capacity for 650
• Dedicated art room
• auditorium, gym, cafeteria & music room
• The Goal is to achieve Silver Leed Certification.
• 90% usage of materials in construction - very low waste produced.
• Higher ratio of sunlight in classrooms
• - Additional funding is possibly coming from Duke Energy for Chilled Beam heating and cooling.

This post would be, I guess, what the folks at the Arkham Beacon would call, a media release. It's not the kind of thing I usually write about but the guy over here, apparently, did a runner.

The Springfield Summer Arts Festival kicks off June 17. yeah, I know nobody is going to remember this but thinking about June just sounds kinda nice right now.
There are now johns on both sides of the stage, so fewer toes to step on when nature culls.
The full slate of acts is not available yet. Damn website has last year's schedule posted. Funding is only about 60% of what it was a few years ago.
The Dark Star Orchestra and Phil Dirt & the Dozers will return & a guy from a TV talent show, Neal Boyd, will perform.

Noose Son story here.

Steppenwolf - OU Convocation Center 1971
This was Siblings Weekend, or something, at OU. My sister asked me if I wanted to come & if so, did I want to see a concert. I was a big Steppenwolf fan, I had even read the book! I think I was vaguely aware of the name Edwin Starr, of course I knew his recording of the Bruce Springsteen song, War. Steel River? No clue. Don't think my sister thought much of Steppenwolf. Seats seemed to be a million miles from the stage. I had never been to an arena show before. Never been to an arena that doubled as a dorm either. Haven't been to one since, for that matter.
I had never really experienced college dorm life either, still being in jr high. The idea of a bunch of young people having free reign over a residential building was like heaven. Nowadays it just seems like a good reason to keep everybody under 24 in prison, manacled & with black canvas hoods over their heads.
I was introduced to something called cable TV that weekend, too.
Anyway, it was fun & extremely exciting for a kid. One thing especially intriguing was the antiwar message of Steppenwolf & Starr on a campus that had, less than a year earlier, erupted in rioting.

At this concert, the police were be-bopping to the music in their bright yellow slickers. If they knew what these kids kids were going to be like....

BEAUTY IN THE GROVE: Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum

The recently published coffee table book from Orange Frazer Press is, as usual, full of large well printed pictures. As is Orange Frazer's style, though, it is also a typical desktop publishing disaster. Well, not a disaster but not exactly a qualifier for any best practices award. It's busy. Too many cross page images with the focus right there on the seam. Probably looks great on a computer screen in Quark, but when it hits the bindery? not so good. Also hard to read. Tiny reverse type on busy backgrounds, not much to say & a number of fonts that don't seem to have much to do with one another. Not a ransom note but still....
Not much in the way of info, either. Names of some sculptors are listed. Who the deceased were is skimpy. Photos of descendants are kinda weird. Other than Mr Bruckmann, most don't seem to have much to do with the deceased. There is a lot of info straight out of the front office of the cemetery like it's list of notables that excludes, oh, I dunno, Israel Ludlow ??
sheesh
Overall, the writing credit doesn't seem to be much of a deal.
One of the photographers is Charlie Gast. I never met him in person, only online through the newsgroup:
alt.binaries.pictures.cemetaries
(Don't bother with alt.binaries.pictures.cemeteries - it's spam central)
He seems to be a great guy & his pictures that are not in this book should be in one of their own.
While my review might not seem exactly glowing, he and two other photographers make the book worthwhile.
Orange Frazer has also published Beautiful Ferncliff chronicling Springfield, Ohio's Ferncliff Cemetery.
Beauty in the Grove should be at The Ohio Bookstore.

Springfield to Compete for America in Bloom Award

This summer, the city of Springfield will compete against similarly-sized cities in a national competition called America in Bloom, which concentrates on community efforts in categories such as tidiness, environment and heritage preservation.

Tidiness & environment aside, over the years, Springfield has demolished it's train station, essentially it's entire downtown, recently, an entire neighborhood, it's Memorial Hall is abandoned & slated for demolition, it's old city high school is abandoned, it's old men's club is abandoned, numerous old schools are vacant lots....
lotsa luck on the heritage preservation part, folks....

Noose Son story here.

Sidewalk Safety
~ or Adventures of the Third Class ~
The City of Cincinnati is damn near paranoid about your sidewalk safety. This is why you so rarely see sidewalk dining or street musicians. They are a clear danger that the city seeks to protect it's citizens from. The city is currently working on saving the citizens from the horribleness of advertising on bus stop benches. yay
Citizens are required by law to keep their sidewalks clear & this pertains to snow from heaven, too.

Sec. 723-57. Removal of Snow.
The owner, occupant or other person having the care of any building premises or unimproved lot of land abutting any street where there is a graded sidewalk or a sidewalk graded and paved, shall, within the first four hours after daylight after the ceasing to fall of any snow, cause the same to be removed from the paved or traveled part of such sidewalk. The provisions of this section shall also apply to the falling of snow or ice from any building onto a sidewalk.
Snow or ice shall not be moved into the gutter when the gutter has been previously cleaned, and in no event shall snow or ice from any area other than the pedestrian walk be moved into the gutter.
(C.O. 702-33; renumbered to C.M.C. 723-57, eff. Jan. 1, 1972)
Cross references: Penalty, § 723-99-I.

So, why does the city routinely violate this law ? It's one thing to not enforce the requirement of individuals to clear their walkways, but when a pedestrian encounters walls of snow at the ends of driveways, I think some enforcement is in order. But I don't see it coming anytime soon, since a prime violator of this ordinance is the city itself.
Throughout the city, snow is moved from the streets to the sidewalks, effectively obstructing them without even offering a jaunty tune, a place to sit or a sandwich. Further, the city piles snow up at the ends of sidewalks making it akin to a mountain adventure crossing streets at designated street crossings & intersections.
Salway Park is a stunning example. The sidewalk is untouched but the parking lot is immaculate & at the entrance to the street, snow has been dumped onto the sidewalk. The fine corporate citizens at Spring grove Cemetery have done a great job of clearing their sidewalk, but remember, you gotta climb over city provided hills of black snow & wade through rivers of brown slush to risk your life crossing the street.
I realize the city's first obligation is to the good people, the zombie cage pilots, but after the streets are cleared, couldn't they kinda finish up ? Couldn't they follow their own rules & clear the obstacles they have created? and, yes, I do realize it only benefits the young, old, poor & infirm.
pathetic, shivering fleshbag peds.....
Speaking of the young - After clearing my & my neighbors sidewalks, I looked out front to see a little boy gleefully making his way down the street by climbing through the piles of snow adjacent to the freshly cleared sidewalk. kids

no image
The Clash - Clevo Agora 1979

Garage Band
This was, I believe, the first of many pilgrimages in Phil's van up to The Cleveland Agora on Euclid Ave. Why we would go to Cleveland in February for anything is beyond me. Well, nowadays. friggin' cold, maaannnn.....
The Clash had just really hit in the U.S. recently, had just released their second album, Give "m Enough Rope, & we were hooked. They were young, loud & snotty, not to mention drunk, sloppy & generally noisy. That is, they were great !
These British punk bands were big on giveaways for some reason. At this show, we got iron-on patches!
This concert is available at Wolfgang's Vault.
yup. We drove all the way to friggin' Cleveland for a half hour show.
sigh
There was an opening act or two. I forget them.

Reasons for Streetcars

Apparently, in communities with streetcars, pretty girls are more likely to walk around half naked. Even in the dead of winter!

An Alternative Ohio River Bridge Design

You want an exciting, distinctive, iconic bridge over the Ohio that will serve as a memorable gateway to the city?
ok - Here's my shot.
A loop de loop bridge held up by atomic powered anti grav hover units that would also serve to illuminate the span at night. The material would be a plastic that, would hold the vehicles tires to it via static electricity. Simple, yet elegant....

To see the ideas that the clowns ODOT hired came up with, click, here.

Capitalizing on Our Comic Book Heritage

When asked why one would take a train between Clevo & Porkopolis & how would the line pay for itself, proponents say nothing pays for itself an opponents wail and compete to imagine greater and greater numbers for costs. Proponents cite sports & entertinment as reasons for travel, opponents curmudgeonly dismiss such prattle. If we play on our comic book heritage, we can create reasons to utilize the line and, perhaps, get corporate subsidies.
Cincinnati's Union Terminal, as most of you know, was based on the Justice League's Hall of Justice. Here, the League (Superfriends) plotted out their New World Order under illegal alien, Kal El (Superman). To the north, sunny Cleveland was the hometown of the 2 nerds who created Superman. Seems to me we could have memorials to the comic book characters in the corresponding stations & dedicate one of the trains to the DC characters. We could paint the cars bright primary colors & the conductors could wear super hero outfits. We could call that train The 3CDC. ok, maybe that name is in use.....
A room at Union Terminal with bronze statues of the League could greet travelers to the Queen City. We could hang some cables from the ceiling & tell people they hold Wonder Woman's invisible airplane. The cafeteria could sell sandwiches with names like The Manhunter. They could run Lenten specials on The Aquaman. The news stand could sell Time magazine & DC comics. A statue of a kid reading The Black Freighter could be placed nearby. News stand sales would be astronomical as people realize the scenic void between Washington Courthouse & Kent.
Cleveland could build a glass pyramid or something in honor of Joe & Jerry.

"It's not about where you were born. Or what powers you have. Or what you wear on your chest. ... It's about what you do... It's about action."
~Superman

Music After 50
Found an interesting website dedicated to musicians who are over 50 called Music Over 50.
I have to say I have found nothing there of much value but I think the concept makes sense. It is not a year old yet. I found the site through the FaceBook Gretsch page. While it might sound kind of morbid, this site could be a great asset for older musicians who have suffered disabilities, strokes, arthritis & such. Obviously it s meant to appeal to an older audience of a world dominated by yunguns.
It's a web 2 / social media type site & will need some time to build up and will, of course, be dependent on user activity, but it targets a real niche & could just catch on.
So why is the tune, "Old & In The Way" bouncing around in my head, now ?
LOL

Why I Like Comics

Slogging through Robert Crumb's Book of Genesis, this panel caught my eyeball. This is just the kind of graphic representation comics lend themselves to.

Why Does This Woman Have No Nose ?

She can dance. She has super slicing powers. She lives in an enchanted world rich in giant vegetables. She can fly. But she ain't got a nose.


Why ?
Are all the inhabitants of that strange and enchanted world noseless ?
I'm certainly ok with the whole 3 finger thing & distorted eyes & all - but no nose?
Dunno if this is the Tostitos/Fritos guys or some mad fetish of the Laika guys, but it's just disturbing. The real people in these companies ad work all seem to have noses. Did they just run out of polygons? Is it considered attractive?


Dunno if it works any better on guys..
You can see the disturbing ad here.

Joan Jett 1987
yeah, late again.....
As I previously posted, I hadn't been able to wrangle anybody into going to a Joan Jett show. I tirelessly told everybody how great she was & my haranguing paid off. Not well for me, however.
I got Bunny to go. Phil came down from Frogtown. So far - so good. Then this drooling idiot from work decided he would tag along, too. With a friend. Bunny & Phil quickly picked up on Larry's goofyness & proceeded to leave me to his antics & enjoy a nice evening themselves. With friends like these.....
As usual, Jett rocked out. I ignored the whole crew during the show. After, we went down the street to Daniels for midnight nachos. Again I was abandoned to entertain Larry & his friend. His friend seemed a bit more rational & a little less brain damaged than Larry, but he was strictly the follower to Larry's lead. It explains a lot about how we choose our politicians in America.
We went back to our cars & encountered some girls with a flat tire. Larry & his pal rushed to their rescue & promptly started to jack the car up on University Ave. I begged them to roll down to a flat bit of road, but no go. I expected to see severed hands any minute. The jack did slip a bit & the chivalrous goonballs, relented & moved the car to a flat piece of road.
We parted ways, everybody went home & as I drifted off to sleep, I wondered what crazy stories Larry would be telling my co-workers come Monday. Never again....

...only in Northside

A video thrown together by the folks at ...only in Northside (FaceBook).

Outlawing Style
The Swiss vote to outlaw minarets & now the French are talking about outlawing burqas. I am no fan of Islam but this just seems kinda nuts. Forcing people to wear burqas is sick but forcing them to not wear them?
I don't know where to start on minarets. Seems like they are just a kind of tower. If the Swiss Christians are anything like the Americans, they are probably discarding their traditionally designed churches & moving into abandoned movie theaters & hardware stores or just building concrete & metal "garages". The skylines of cities and villages are no longer punctuated with little steeples poking their heads up over the rest of the rooftops silently declaring themselves as havens of faith & sanctuary. But who is to blame for that? If there are still religious groups doing that kind of thing, more power to 'em.
As far as the burqas go, if they seem to pose a security risk, make the women de-cloak & identify themselves when entering buildings and such. Gotta admit, there are some loopy Muslims out there & if you are identifying as one and hiding your identity, you are going to face some extra scrutiny. Well, unless you reign in on the radical jihadist crowd.

Neighborhood Festivals
Cincinnati has festivals out the wazoo. There are large festivals downtown & smaller festivals in the neighborhoods throughout the year. It's amazing Cincinnatians aren't the fattest, drunkest people on the face of the planet. The thing is, the neighborhood festivals that bring in people from outside the city are few and far between. This is a shame because people that just see the downtown don't get to see what a great place this is to live. Driving everybody to the central business district is not likely going to procure any new residents.
One of the festivals that did bring people from the region into the neighborhoods was the Gay Pride Celebration. It was kind of unique in that it was held in two neighboring neighborhoods, Northside and Clifton and tied them together with a parade over the Ludlow Viaduct (that always seemed like it would be fun). It will be moving downtown this summer as well as moving from June to July 4. This has some Northsidians upset but I doubt the Pride crowd accounted for much of the Rock-n-Roll Carnival & 4th of July Parade crowds. It still sucks in promoting the neighborhood, tho.
I doubt the Harvest Home parade brings in many out-of-towners except for ex-residents. Hyde Park used to host a huge flower show that moved out to Coney Island & has now moved out to the middle of nowhere. Hyde Park is definitely a neighborhood the city should be promoting.
The Pagan Pride celebrations that brought people in from throughout the region used to be in Covington's Goebel Park but had to move for fire and late hours. They operate out of friggin' Batavia, now. That demographic isn't too strong on home buying, tho.
While it's great to bring people to the CBD, it's been discussed ad nauseum about how the sports facilities bring people in but they tend to just shoot right out again after the event. They might spend some money at a bar or restaurant or maybe even stay at a hotel, but I doubt they do much to lure new residents. Showing off our neighborhoods is important to growing the city in a way downtown events just can't.

Addressing a Haggis in the 21st Century

I think I need to re-assess my Scottish heritage.

Miles Davis Music Hall 1987
Davis had been playing professionally for, what, about 45 years? In 1986 he split with Columbia & signed on with Warner Bros and promptly recorded an album with all the latest electronic gadgetry, Tutu.
I was driving a Sentra at the time & the daggone door locks would freeze at about 35°. The temperature took a turn a good bit lower than that the week of the concert. Fortunately, the gf's dad decided he would go to listen to Mr Davis play all his old classic songs from the 40s & 50s. heehee We snagged a ride with him & went on a double date with the gf's rents.
Parking was easy. He was a pastor at a church right across Washington Park, so he had a reserved parking spot. When we got out of the car & commenced heading to Music Hall, the guys made a bee line through the park while the frails veered north to circumvent the park & avoid the drunks in the park. We all stopped & looked at one another. As is their nature, the frails acquiesced.
Had great seats near the center. Since it was an older jazz crowd & we were on a double date with the old folks, I dressed a little better than usual. Through the course of the show, however, I think everyone in our aisle got up & left & came back at least twice & every damn one of those people stepped on my python boots. grrrrrr
The concert was good. Great, actually. In fact it was probably one of the best shows I have ever seen. Noticed one guy sitting there weeping. Dunno if it was the music or something personal, but it was some good music.
Apparently it affected the pastor who preached about it the following Sunday. He had expected to hear more of an oldies show, but Miles Davis doesn't tend to "look back". The pastor was delightfully surprised and enjoyed the "new" stuff quite a bit.
Although this double date went a lot better than the one where we went to the Toledo Art Museum, we never did it again....

Jefferson Airplane 1972
The Airplane had gone through it's innocent folk days, trippy drug phase, modern sodio-political phase and, by 1972, was coming apart at the seams as Kantner was going off on his sci-fi political utopian stuff and Kaukonen & Casady were going off on a blues/rock tangent. The former was experimenting with The Jefferson Starship - the latter with Hot Tuna. Creech just seemed to want to play & Grace Slick was, well, Grace Slick. I believe Joey Covington played drums.
Hell, Slick, with the voice that launched a thousand trips, was now a mom.
The folks in the band were no longer the naive yunguns with a band. They were a professional group that, when pulled together, put on a helluva show. Casady's Yggdrasil bass shook Hara arena that night.
I remember sitting up on the side and enjoying the Heavy Water Light Show.

from the Sunfighter album
My friend Doyle who was on the floor near the front commented later, "There was a light show?"

Can You Spot the Difference ?
Awhile back, the Bodies folks came through Cincinnati with their troupe of plasticized corpses for a show at the Cincinnati Museum Center. The exhibit displays preserved corpses without skin & in various poses and degrees of dissection in an effort to entertainingly educate people as to the workings of their bodies.
There was an uproar over the exhibit. People claimed the cadavers on display had not consented to having their bodies displayed and might have been prisoners who might have been brutalized or murdered/executed.
Today we have an exhibit, Without Sanctuary, at the NURFC displaying photographs of people who were detained, tortured, mutilated and murdered. I am assuming none of these people consented to having the images of their desecrated bodies put on display.
So what's the difference? Where is the outrage?
Is the lynching exhibit ok because it is just photographs? Is it the age of the photography? Would 70 year old porn be ok?
With the Bodies show, the history of the people was questionable. In the Lynching show, there might be some question, but for the most part the focus is people who definitely suffered what Bodies folks might have suffered. With the Bodies show, the people were faceless literally. In the Lynching show, people are, mostly recognizable if not identified.
I could postulate on why people are viewing the exhibits differently, but I won't bother here. I think it is a double standard, tho. Ultimately the chore of respecting the dead lies in the individual. If you are confronted with a skinned plasticized corpse or an image of mutilated, tortured lynching victim - that person led a life & now they are being used for entertainment/human interest purposes by people who think they are operating in society's best interest, so remember the golden rule.

Emerson Lake & Palmer 1976
This concert was at an odd venue, The Columbus Fairgrounds Coliseum. This, of course, was the same arena where the Springfield Wildcats defeated the Akron South Cavaliers to take the 1950 state basketball championship.
You usually go to fairgrounds in the late summer in the daytime. It's usually hot & humid, generally nasty & full of family types with plenty of screaming maggots. It was kinda surreal to be out in the silent, dark, cold in a stark abandoned fairgrounds huddled amongst a bunch of 70s something rejects outside a decrepit hall. Columbus is flat. The fairgrounds were flatter. It was friggin' cold, man. Naturally the management decided to leave us outside even after the gate opening time came & went.
The band hadn't released any albums for awhile. They toured with an orchestra at some point & lost their shirts. This show was just the trio. I remember it being a good show. All three were excellent musicians. I am really puzzled as to why they seem to have just disappeared. Disco, New wave & punk were emerging & ELP's classical jazz thing was passe. Thing was, tho, these guys rocked out really hard in concerts.
The Columbus Fairgrounds Coliseum sucked as a venue. It made Cincinnati Gardens look like a palace. Apparently it was recently renovated. Lipstick on a pig.....