News: Gay Youth Take the Forefront
Andy Houston Jared Hall remembers what it was like to be gay in high school, so he founded Your Forefront to help others. Being a teen, growing up can be difficult enough with peer pressure, changing hormones and a desire to be accepted. Add to that the realization of being gay, lesbian, bisexual or…
Fight Together for Change
I'm busting my ass to secure rights for all Americans, and here is this cat in your paper writing a letter to the editor ("Peace Out," issue of March 29-April 4) talking about black people looking out only for black people and a bunch of other divisive crap. I must admit I'm a little ticked.…
Cover Story: Never Forget
CityBeat's coverage of the events of April 2001 and after is archived on our Web site in a collection of a year's worth of stories, columns, editorials and analysis: www.citybeat.com/unrest. Among the key cover story packages (pictured) were "Race Meets Death," issue of April 19-25, 2001; "Cincinnati CAN? No, Cincinnati MUST," issue of Aug.…
Still Satisfyn’
One of Cincinnati's best songwriters, David Wolfenberger, has released a new album, Portrait of Narcissus, his first since 2001's World of the Satisfyn' Place (put out by local Folk label, Blue Jordan Records). Wolfenberger's new one is on Fundamental Records, a storied imprint (once home to everyone from Black Flag to Spoon to Eugene Chadbourne)…
Death by the Numbers
If the air bags in one out of 10 cars were defective, a recall of vehicles would be expected, even demanded. This is an example of intolerance toward unnecessary loss of human life cited by Gary Beeman, a former Death Row inmate who speaks about his experience in an attempt to draw attention to the…
Locals Only: : Serious Satellite
Barbie Black and Erick Black GOODNIGHT SATELLITE Appearances can be a good indicator of what a band is going to sound like — for example, Bluegrass bands with a full stack of amps are as rare as Metal bands with banjos. Following this logic, an uninitiated concertgoer watching Goodnight Satellite unpacking their horns and…
Cover Story: Useful Myths
Jymi Bolden The Rev. Damon Lynch III helped Cincinnati Police keep the peace. Myth: The riots were a week of widespread lawlessness. Fact: Of 837 arrests, 623 were for nothing more serious than curfew violations. Sixty people were charged with breaking and entering, 28 with aggravated rioting, two with receiving stolen property, one with…
Film: Lucky Leading Boys
Weinstein Co How lucky can one Hollywood boy toy be? For instance, take Josh Hartnett, the latest dark-haired model to step off the dream factory line for his close-up. He got his auspicious heartthrob-in-training start on TV in the short-lived adaptation of the British crime drama Cracker but steadily gained "It" boy status after…
Wake up and Smell the Riot
Five years later, I'm not sure we've really learned anything. Other than that we don't know anything. And, ultimately, isn't that the real tragedy of a tragedy — that we learn nothing from it and possibly are destined to repeat it? This week we stop to recall the events of April 2001, when Cincinnati —…
The Bookshop in the Lane
Mike Markiewicz, who owned the small bookstore on Woodward Street a block north of me, moved to Columbus this morning. He left, as T.S. Eliot said, "not with a bang but a whimper." Mike was a familiar sight in Over-the-Rhine. He habitually wore a dark blue quilted jacket, like one of Chairman Mao's, with a…
Cover Story: Whatever Happened to the Mother?
Jymi Bolden Angela Leisure Angela Leisure doesn't live here anymore. Three years after Cincinnati Police Officer Stephen Roach killed her son and the city rose in protest, she returned to Chicago. "I like being close to my family," she says in a telephone interview. "It was too painful to continue living there. Me and…
News to Use
Ohio, Foreclosure Capital Did you know that Ohio has the highest foreclosure rate in the country? As a result, banks and other lenders own vacant and blighted property in Cincinnati neighborhoods. Did you know the city has never prosecuted a bank or lender in housing court? Why not? Ask city officials at 7 p.m. April…
Pitching? Check. Hitting and Fielding? Errr…
Jerry Dowling What would you say if you look up in June and find that the Reds' problem is their everyday lineup? Would you say you're surprised? Well, don't be. Many clubs have done it faster, but the Reds' last three general management regimes have refangled the ball club's starting rotation in two and…
Cincinnati Playhouse
Wendy Uhlman Lee Blessing, winner of the 2006 Steinberg/American Theatre Critics New Play Prize. GEORGE FURTH, who wrote the book for Stephen Sondheim's musical Company, said when he watches something he's written and people react positively he assumes the cast has done something right. When people don't react — or react negatively — he's…
Living Out Loud: : Smoking Is Only Allowed in the Back
It's early August, early afternoon. Sitting comfortably in a tall, dark, wooden high-backed stool, I'm in air conditioned Sitwell's drinking orange juice mixed with cranberry juice and lots of ice. Lisa, her blond curls curling with the humidity, is training a new employee. This is the front bar area of the coffeehouse — a single…
Diner: Soup for Nuts
slim Jim Puvee It's a gray Monday evening near the end of March — the last day of winter, no less — and I'm leaning over my stove, contemplating the rolling waters of a stockpot. Dental surgery has left me with a face like a bruised melon. In my bathroom mirror, I am oddly…
Music: Clap On
Jasper Coolidge Further proof that the major-label system is obsolete, we give you Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, whose self-released debut has sold around a quarter of a million copies. One of the stereotypically inspiring bio nuggets of the successful band is the lengthy and arduous struggle that has proceeded said band's rise to…
Cover Story: Long Live The Rebellion
Sean Hughes Holding On Forget the riot. This isn't the fifth anniversary of the Cincinnati riot. It wasn't much of a riot, OK? Nobody got killed. That's no small thing. In the past five years we've seen that Cincinnati criminals have plenty of guns. But during the week of April 7-14, 2001, when crowds…
A Right Wing View of the Riot
Matt Borgerding Kristin Barker holds a sign at Garfield Park before going to welcome President Bush April 3 One evening in early April 2001, I was standing at Race Street and Central Parkway, behind a line of riot cops, when one of them pointed to the angry crowd on the other side of the…
Cover Story: Whatever Happened to the Officer?
Jymi Bolden Stephen Roach When Officer Stephen D. Roach isn't on trial for negligent homicide and obstructing official police business, being sued, losing his gun or being reprimanded, he "enjoys boating, golf, NASCAR and travel," according to his bio page on the Evendale Police Department's Web site. Prior to starting work in January 2002…
Daylight Loser
Notes: My dad always refers to Daylight Savings as Daylight ?Losings? because we all lose an hour. (He?s like a living Shakespeare the way he can play with words.) While my dad merely jokes about Daylight Savings, I take it quite seriously because it regularly falls on my birthday (as it did this year), robbing…
Write a Little Gem
Journalists love headlines that seem fine when published but provoke gasps or giggles the next day. Classics come from a suburban Minneapolis weekly — "Beauty queen has bit of tomboy in her" — and Cincinnati's American Israelite: " 'Quickies' provides opportunities for local singles." Cincinnati journalists aren't content to collect these missteps. They created Little…
Upcoming Concert Reviews of Mates of State, The Bill Mike Band and More…
Terri Loewnthal Mates of State Stone Jack Jones with The Hotpipes Thursday · The Comet Stone Jack Jones' story doesn't exactly read like his music sounds. Or maybe it does. The fact is, not much else of anything matches up exactly with Jones' singular approach. Hailing from a coal-mining town in West Virginia, surrounded…
Cover Story: Chronology of the Uprising
Jon Hughes/photopresse.com April 7, 2001: Cincinnati Police Officer Stephen Roach shoots and kills Timothy Thomas at 13th and Republic streets in Over-the-Rhine. April 9: Protesters dominate a city council committee meeting, then march to District 1 headquarters. Frustrated by the lack of response to their questions, the protesters march downtown before returning to District…
News: Regulating the Female Body
unprofound.com The fight for control over women's bodies must be foremost in the minds of politicians. Since the current session of Congress began last fall, 850 pieces of legislation focusing on reproductive rights have been introduced, 800 of them addressing abortion restrictions, according to Molly Galvin, Western Ohio field organizer for Planned Parenthood Affiliates.…
Film: Serious Satire
20th Century Fox Aaron Eckhart is Nick Naylor, a suave, sweet-talking cigarette lobbyist, in Thank You for Smoking. The best independent film comedies of late have been subtle movies about relationships, more filled with naturalistically rendered life lessons than with the big laughs that come from exaggeration and political satire. Sideways and The Squid…
