Useless from the White Collar Down
My back is neither broad nor strong. I have not worn a hard hat since Skylab stopped falling out of the sky. My hands are uncallused. I am not all thumbs, I am all thumb stumps. The major brand names in my toolbox are Oneida, Lady Craftsman and Advil. If it ain't broke, I ain't…
News: No Right Turn
Doug Trapp At a press conference on Fountain Square in December, Scott Seidewitz called for a progressive to succeed Todd Portune on Cincinnati City Council. Progressive Democrats suspect leaders of the Hamilton County Democratic Party are shutting them out, leaving precinct-executive positions vacant rather than have them filled by liberals. Party leaders, however, say…
Diner: There Goes The Neighborhood
Café. Diner. Bistro. Pub. Bar. Grill. Tavern. The list at the top of one local menu sums it all up. You can call it what you want. But every neighborhood has one — at least one — that beckons the locals when it's time for an easy meal or a cold beer. Chain restaurants come…
Porkopolis
'I Shoot Dead People'You can't spell "funereal" without F-U-N, and Thomas Condon isn't the first to photograph dead bodies behaving whimsically. J.T. Colfax of Colorado understands both the artistic urge that struck Condon in the Hamilton County Morgue and the outrage that followed discovery of his photos. "I saw online tonight that your city is…
Sorry, Miss Jackson
YOUR NEGRO TOUR GUIDE Sorry, Miss Jackson Kt10z8.75k-20f"Century-Book":"Sex is not the one string on the guitar. There are nine other Commandments."— The Rev. Jesse Jackson performing damage control for President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal It came down to ego and dick. Those are certainly the two things that got the Rev. Jesse Jackson…
Is Youth Being Wasted on Cincinnati?
Betsy Reeves, Kate Schmidt and I got together over the holidays and went, where else, shopping. Betsy, a willowy Scandinavian-looking blonde with enormous blue eyes, is 30, the same age as Kate, who is 6 foot tall and wiry with a great nimbus of blonde curls. Betsy had pulled herself together a little like Eloise…
Local band Tess reach for musical advancement, not starry-eyed dreams
Tess Locals OnlyBeing in a local band — hobby or job? According to the members of Tess, a local Pop/Roots band, it's a combination of hobby, job, passion and addiction. "On the financial end, it's a hobby, because we pay to do it," says Tess' lead singer and guitarist, Jason Bender. "And the day…
Lying About Oral Sex
It's hard to know what to expect from George W. Bush. As Garrison Keillor pointed out last week, "This man's mouth is where the English language goes to die." We can expect, however, with the populace's short attention span, right-wing political shuffling and the possible new tendency of Democrats to roll over and play dead,…
Where Did These Gas Pains Come From?
Jymi Bolden Huge increases in natural gas prices are not profiting Cinergy, the company says. What's behind the skyrocketing cost of natural gas bills? Is Cinergy taking advantage of residents? Are energy companies hoarding a huge supply to boost prices and profits? Or is the country running low? Nope — it's the gas market…
Ralph Stanley
With his high lonesome tenor and phenomenal banjo picking, 73-year-old Ralph Stanley is one of the giants of Bluegrass. Born in the Clinch Mountains of Stratton, Virginia, Ralph and his brother Carter formed the Stanley Brothers in 1946, and recorded for Columbia, Starday and Cincinnati's own King record label. When Carter Stanley died in…
