Big changes are on the horizon for this year's LGBT Pride Parade and Festival including new organizers, more events and a change in location. As with many things that evolve, however, the changes bring with them a fair amount of growing pains.  

Northside is known as Cincinnati's hippest, artiest neighborhood, so it's fitting that a new "post-outsider art" gallery (Thunder-Sky Inc.) will open there Oct. 30. It couldn't have a better location: 4573 Hamilton Ave. in the string of storefronts that also includes The Comet and N-Vision.  

Country icon Charlie Louvin's in-store performance at Northside's Shake It Records back in May wasn't tied to a show later that night in the area. It was merely just a guerilla stop to promote his new eponymous album.  

Dear Maija, My friends and I recently spent an entire Saturday drinking Coors Light and whacking golf balls against a rental property. This week we found out that the owners of Coors are super-dick Republicans who support awful political causes (I don't know what kind of run-in Pete Coors ever had with the gay community, but boy is he uncomfortable with it). How are we supposed to get wasted without feeling guilty?   

It's often been said of larger than life characters that if they didn't exist someone would have had to invent them. Thankfully we had Michael Riley, because it's difficult to imagine the twisted cosmic novelist that would have been necessary to come up with him. Riley was the personification of dichotomy. He was a fixture as an employee in Clifton music stores, but a fatal stroke June 18 ended his reign as the unofficial Mayor of Clifton Music.   

The ancient device known as a camera obscura (from the Latin for "veiled chamber") was an indispensable art-making tool for centuries. A new exhibition at Northside's Prairie Gallery tries to continue its relevance for contemporary artists.  

So they’re stopping back home with a catchy new name and a foot fetish. Now called Slow Claw, these three former members of Cincinnati favorites Junior Revolution return for Cincinnati gigs and a one-mile barefoot walk through Northside to kick the Tom's Shoes cause up a notch.   

David Rosenthal, talking in the bare-bones middle room of his new Northside gallery, says, "I'm hoping to provide a place where photography can be done by lots of people and can reach into different areas in lots of different ways."  

A local judge put the smack down last week after a defendant mumbled that it was bullshit that he'd have to stay in jail until his court date. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman thought that an alleged Northside Taliband gang member saying "bullshit" in his courtroom was actually bullshit itself, so he sentenced him to six months.  

In any situation, whether buying coffee or talking with a stranger, it's fun to spin a brief moment in your head. Inspiration for portraits can't really come from anywhere else but the person you're photographing. Otherwise, you're not trying to portray that person.