Jul 27 – Aug 3, 2016
The Heart of Darkness of It All: Chaos around Donald Trump’s nomination in Cleveland reveals America’s grim new political realities
The Affordable Housing Shell Game
EDITOR’S NOTE: CityBeat has invited three local activists to write monthly columns on pressing issues facing Cincinnati. Mike Moroski is the executive director of UpSpring, a nonprofit working to keep children experiencing homelessness connected to their education. His column will appear in CityBeat the first week of each month. Of all the serious issues facing…
What a Week! July 27-Aug. 2
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27 People are really confused by Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine. This week, the North Carolina GOP condemned him for wearing a Honduran flag lapel pin and not an American flag while speaking at the Democratic National Convention (Kaine did missionary work in Honduras in 1980). The only problem was that the…
Morning News: Is city pay raise proposal illegal?; streetcar on time, under budget, city report says; Trump’s tough day
Hello all. We’re half way through the week, which is wonderful. To celebrate, let’s talk about some serious news. Is a proposed pay raise for city workers against Ohio law? This week, City Hall news has been dominated by Mayor John Cranley’s plan to boost pay for thousands of city employees represented by major unions…
Jason Bruffy: Fringe founder, passionate creator
This summer I’ve been checking in with theater people who spent time entertaining Cincinnati audiences and then moved on. Jason Bruffy landed here in mid-2001 to become part of Cincinnati Shakespeare’s first Young Company, a set of first-year actors. He was excited to learn from Cincy Shakes’ founder Jasson Minadakis. “I initially planned on staying…
Gwen Stefani says working on her new album helped her deal with the emotional fallout of her broken marriage
To Gwen Stefani, her new album This Is What the Truth Feels Like was more than just a chance to create music. In a sense, she says it saved her life. That may sound a tad overdramatic, but the new album certainly reflects what has been a roller coaster ride of emotions and upheaval in…
A new memoir portrays the Vietnam War Era through the eyes of a college newspaper editor
Judy McCarty Kuhn’s journey to authorhood began with a six-pound, red-bound volume of The News Record, the University of Cincinnati’s independent student newspaper. Commemorating her year-long stint as Editor-in-Chief from 1966-67, the volume’s pages, now yellow and frail, depict a tumultuous time in American history. The country was roiling from the assassination of President John…
ArtWorks murals pay colorful tribute to Cincinnati’s history and act as a ‘force for good’
Since its inception in 2007 — spurred by a request from then-Mayor Mark Mallory — ArtWorks’ mural program has been a boon to public art along the streets of Cincinnati. The nonprofit organization has created 101 of them through last year, ranging from a historic-photo-based rendering of men on a barge in downtown’s Miami and…
Minimum Gauge: Not one musician is mad about their music being used at the DNC
HOT: No DNC Music Backlash Last week we mentioned the many musicians complaining about their music being played at the Republican National Convention, so this week we decided to focus on those who protested the use of their music at the Democratic National Convention. Except no one complained. Queen’s Brian May, who was angered by…
Morning News: Bike lane hasn’t led to more accidents; end-run around city pay negotiations on hold; Trump and the draft
Hey Cincy! Here’s your news this morning. Car accidents along the stretch of Central Parkway with a controversial bike lane haven’t significantly risen since that lane was put in, a city report released Monday says. The report, first ordered by Cincinnati City Councilman Christopher Smitherman, who wants to remove the lanes, found that in 2012,…
Concerts and Clubs Calendar (Aug. 3-9)
Wednesday 03 Arnold’s Bar and Grill – Todd Hepburn. 7 p.m. Blues/Jazz/Various. Free. Bella Luna – RMS Band. 7 p.m. Soft Rock/Jazz. Free. Blind Lemon – Charlie Millikin. 8:30 p.m. Pop. Free. Century Inn Restaurant – Paul Lake. 7 p.m. Pop/Rock/Jazz/Oldies/Various. Free. Crow’s Nest – Steve Dirr. 10 p.m. Acoustic. Free. *Fountain Square – Reggae…
Morning News: Bigger raises for city employees?; Cranley, Simpson fundraising totals; Democrats and the working class
Good morning all. Hope you had an awesome weekend. I checked out the Price Hill Creative Community Festival Friday and Saturday, which was amazing. Anyway, here’s your news today. It’ll be a busy Monday at City Hall, with three City Council committee meetings scheduled throughout the day. Among the things they’ll discuss: a bigger-than-average raise…
Stage Door: First love, great books, outdoor Shakespeare and more
Some great theater can be found onstage locally this weekend. “I honestly felt like I was the only gay kid in my town — which wasn’t true, I now know — and I thought I was probably the only gay kid in my state, which of course is not true. But that sensation was pretty…
Morning News: DNC wraps up
Hey hey all. Today’s blog will be focused on the last day of the Democratic National Convention, which wrapped up last night. It’s Friday. Let’s get this news thing done so we can go outside (or stay inside trying to avoid heatstroke). In the final night of their convention in Philadelphia, Democrats tried to present…
Your Weekend To Do List (July 28-31)
THURSDAY 28 MUSIC: EMMYLOU HARRIS With all due respect to Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline, where the hell is the movie that celebrates Emmylou Harris’ life? Of course, it’s a question that practically answers itself — Harris’ career and life are so factually cinemascopic, most filmmakers would be daunted by the dual prospects of trying…
Morning News: DNC day 3; could Dems lose Ohio?; union-backed PAC hit with fine
Hey all. Let’s talk news. First, let’s get to this Democratic National Convention stuff. Yesterday was day three of the DNC, where more heavy hitters lined up to praise presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Among them were former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who took GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump to task as a fellow…
What a Week! July 20-26
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20 This week in “That Escalated Quickly”: Sunday’s episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians touched on Taylor Swift v. Kanye West: Part XVI, the dispute over her shout-out in his song “Famous” back in February. (“I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/Why? I made that bitch famous.”). According to…
‘Café Society’ comes to Woody Allen’s rescue
While known for his signature neuroses, writer-director Woody Allen has been able to couch this fixation in a world of his own creation that, at its best, displays a deft sense of controlled spontaneity. When paired with the right performers, as in recent hits Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Blue Jasmine (where his actors didn’t feel…
Kenny Powers is back — sort of
Vice Principals (10:30 p.m. Sundays, HBO) is basically Eastbound & Down — there, I said it. The new HBO comedy from the creators of Eastbound character Kenny Powers (played by Danny McBride) follows two VPs competing for world school domination: Neal Gamby (McBride) and Lee Russell (Walton Goggins). There’s no denying that Gamby bears a…
Humor is zany but also dusty in ‘Great Books’
When I was younger, my brothers and I had a DVD of the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), which we were known to watch two or three times in a single sitting. Too young to know much about Ophelia or Macbeth, we were transfixed by the zany humor and slapstick…
Donald Ray Pollock’s Hard-Boiled Ohio Fiction
Knockemstiff, Donald Ray Pollock’s 2008 debut short-story collection, was something of an unexpected sensation. Unexpected in that Pollock was a first-time author at age 53. A sensation because of its uncommonly artful narrative thrust and a visceral, sharp-edged prose style that was as sensitive as it was savage. Everyone from Chuck Palahniuk to The New…
The literary side of Northside’s Thunder-Sky Gallery
It isn’t unheard of for an art gallery to host activities other than exhibitions. Because they encourage concentration, galleries also make nice locales for concerts, literary readings, film screenings, yoga, meditation and more. But Thunder-Sky, Inc., the nonprofit Northside gallery established in 2009 to honor Cincinnati’s late outsider artist Raymond Thunder-Sky and further interest in…
MYCincinnati youth orchestra director sees weekend fest as a model for the city
Eddy Kwon, director of Price Hill’s MYCincinnati youth orchestra, doesn’t like music festivals, so he decided to start his own and do it right. The inaugural Price Hill Creative Community Festival takes place Friday and Saturday evenings, featuring his youth orchestra, five MYCincinnati artists-in-residence, local musicians, community storytelling, food and more. Kwon sees this as…
Beer for LUMENOCITY’s Final Year
The ever-popular LUMENOCITY returns for a final year Aug. 5-7, but this time the glowing orchestral light show will be held inside the Taft Theatre instead of on the exterior of Music Hall because of the hall’s ongoing renovations. To commemorate the occasion, Rhinegeist has once again released GLOW, a collaborative pale ale made with…
Just Q’in, the Sequel: Come for the barbeque, stay for the sides
First, let’s talk about accomplishing the most important part of going somewhere for a night out: getting there. Google maps still doesn’t have Just Q’in’s second location listed in its system (the first one is in Newtown) so, confused, my dining partner and I clicked on “Just Q’in Catering,” which took us on a wild…
Sound Advice: Tedeschi Trucks Band with Los Lobos and North Mississippi Allstars (July 30)
It’s been said many times being in a Rock band is a lot like a marriage, but what if your Rock band was your marriage? For Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, that theoretical supposition is a real-life circumstance. For nearly a decade, guitarists/vocalists Tedeschi and Trucks have navigated the normal pitfalls of married life while…
Sound Advice: I Prevail with The White Noise, My Enemies & I and Bad Seed Rising (July 29)
It would be difficult to imagine a wilder ride than the one taken by suburban Detroit Post Hardcore/Metal outfit I Prevail. The quartet — which expands to a touring sextet — coalesced in 2013, played a handful of shows and immediately began assembling its debut recording, 2014’s Heart vs. Mind on Fearless Records. The eight-song…
Sound Advice: Emmylou Harris with Lyle Lovett & His Large Band (July 28)
With all due respect to Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline, where the hell is the movie that celebrates Emmylou Harris’ life? Of course, it’s a question that practically answers itself — Harris’ career and life are so factually cinemascopic, most filmmakers would be daunted by the dual prospects of trying to figure out which of…
Hard work and varying approaches have made G-Eazy one of Hip Hop’s biggest stars
A strong work ethic has never been a problem for G-Eazy, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that in less than 18 months he followed up his breakthrough 2014 album, These Things Happen, with When It’s Dark Out, released late last year. The current album — his first under a deal with RCA Records…
The Heart of Darkness of it All
CLEVELAND – The day after the Republican National Convention kicked off, Cleveland’s newly revamped Public Square had already become a real-life manifestation of an online news comment section. I was there to cover the convention and surrounding protests, but it was difficult to know where to start. Should I interview the young men with camouflage…
