Music: Rock & Roll High School
Ezra Waller WLHS's student DJs (from left): Ryanne Walton, Jen Schroeder, Erick Stoll, Brian McCabe and Justin Ellingwood Like many Tristate Alt Rock fans, my hopes for terrestrial radio went to the grave with 97X. Aside from a few fantastic shows on WAIF and other community stations, eclectic Rock programming is a thing of the…
Cover Story: Nine Ball
Best Of Cincinnati 2005 If it seems like the Best of Cincinnati ® issue is a newsprint version of a party, it's no mistake. The issue — always the biggest CityBeat published each year — is a celebration of what makes Cincinnati a great city: the people, the night life, the arts, the media, the…
Move Over, Casual Friday
Hey, here's news: America's workforce is miserable. A recent survey found that 70 percent of Americans say their jobs are "miserable" or — apparently one step better — "bearable," according to author Dennis Bakke. But even those adjectives must not cover the legions of discontent, because 5 percent more, 75 percent, are looking for a…
Diner: Lively and Vibrant
Most of the "fine dining" restaurants I cover are fairly sedate, but Simone's sizzles. Simone's Café in Walnut Hills is a hot spot. The food's not spicy, but the crowd sure is. I tried to figure out why there were enthusiastic diners at every single table on a recent Thursday night. Sure, the weather was…
News: School Leadership
Matt Borgerding Rick Williams and Melanie Bates, members of the Cincinnati Board of Education who opposed a recent tax levy, address a forum hosted by the Citizens School Committee. With the election more than seven months away, it's a bit early to decide who would make a good school board member, but it's not too…
Jungle Jim’s
Fairfield's JUNGLE JIM'S, the popular grocery store known for its selection of international foods, had signed the letter of intent for its long-awaited second store, closer to Cincinnati. The new site will be part of the huge "urban village" to be called Cincinnati Millworks, located in Oakley in the space once occupied by Cincinnati Milacron.…
Library Can Have My Dime
In "Reading, Writing and Reece's Arithmetic" (Porkopolis, issue of March 23-29), Gregory Flannery is right about the inconsistency of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County barring MTV's Rock the Vote registration drive last fall, but I believe it's harsh to label their plea "politicking on the public's dime." I say this because I…
Puttin’ Out the Bone
If 1998 was the year that brought baseball back, 2005 is the year that brings baseball back to 1998. It should be a rather unsettling journey down memory lane for the flacks and fat bellies who were then so full of fuzzies over home run magic that they failed to raise obvious suspicions that are…
News to Use
The Lawyer Who Won Choice For Women Enjoy Cocktails and Conversation" with the attorney who successfully argued Roe v. Wade before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. Sarah Weddington speaks at 6:30 p.m. April 6 at The Phoenix. The event is sponsored by Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio, which is selling tickets for $20, or $10…
Upcoming Concert Reviews of The Appleseed Cast, Pit Er Pat and More
Pit Er Pat The Appleseed Cast with Chin Up Chin Up and Ampline Thursday · Southgate House For reasons that have been obscured by the current context of the term, Fugazi is frequently name-checked as an ancestor of Emo. If this is true, then The Appleseed Cast is taking the genre back to its roots.…
Locals Only: : Avoiding The Pigeon-Hole
Dale M. Johnson Croatan There are many hard facts about Croatan that I can tell you. For instance, did you know that despite their fortress-crumbling Rock assault, the band is only a two-person project with Jenny Diablo on guitar/vocals and Mark Croatan on drums? I can tell you that their first full-length release was 1995's…
Smackdown for Streicher & Co.
David Sorcher Jorge Delao marched Downtown on Good Friday in the Way of the Cross/Way of Justice procession. The devolution of the vaunted collaborative agreement on police reform — from rallying point for civic progress to cudgel over the city's head — would be comical if it weren't so serious. Instead, let's just agree that…
Yoga, a Spiritual Psychology
As a means of psychology, yoga teaches that no healing can be complete and lasting unless in its solution we've come closer to the Divine. Otherwise, we find our self in the same predicaments over and over again — and each time our heart will yearn for us to break this cycle. Without a holistic…
Estrangement in a Strange Land: Writing Wrongs
God bless Jose Canseco. Really. God bless every rippling, bulging, disproportionate, fatless ounce of him. His admission, endorsement and portrayal of steroid use in the pursuit of baseball superstardom is, to me, both courageous and encouraging. Not because I'm an athlete (in fact, I chair the President's Council on Sloth) or a baseball fan (I…
Sammy McKee – fotos: The Record That Changed My Life
Sammy McKee – fotos Sonic Youth — Sister The screaming feedback. The elbowed guitars. The tight drumming. The pounding bass guitar. The brash vocals. The detestation in the lyrics. The utter disregard of semblance. The stunning artwork. The do-it-yourself ethic. The swellings of sound. This was a new feeling. I knew that I had to…
CHASTE
I'm a late-20s straight man in a BDSM relationship with a dominant woman. She enjoys depriving me of orgasms for long periods of time, and she likes to keep me in a male chastity belt. It's a rather high-tech, custom-fitted thing made of stainless steel and lined in silicone. It makes it impossible for me…
More Than a Game
C. Matthew Hamby "Been here, done that, sold crack, got jacked/Got shot, came back, jumped on Dre's back" The Game Somebody's running a game on us. And the 586,000 people who copped Compton newcomer The Game's debut LP The Documentary, during the first week of its release are the pawns in this … game.…
Austin City Limits
HOT PBS: Sounds Good To Us Already boasting the best live music program on network TV (well, the only live music program) in Austin City Limits, PBS gets more musical in April as the series, Independent Lens, showcases three interesting documentaries about three very different sonic wonders. On Tuesday, the program features A Lion's Trail,…
Living Out Loud: : It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Here we go again, another "Best of Cincinnati" week. Weeks before it happens, Editor John Fox sends an e-mail to everybody here requesting staff picks for the issue. I'm never really very good at this but I always try to come up with something. I'm always amazed at what he'll use and what he'll throw…
BROADWAY IN CINCINNATI
Broadway In Cincinnati The spectacular production of Wicked, based on The Wizard of Oz, will stop at the Aronoff Center in March 2006 as part of Broadway in Cincinnati. A week ago the Cincinnati Playhouse announced its 2005-2006 season; this week it's time for BROADWAY IN CINCINNATI to tell us which touring shows will stop…
Shark Attack or Indecency Attack?
CBS programming executives know that men love NCAA Tournament basketball games. They also know that men enjoy watching pretty young women in bikinis. Match the two spectator sports with beer and chips, and you have an evening of entertainment bliss. Whoever at CBS — home of longtime favorites like 60 Minutes and Everybody Loves Raymond…
The Power of “Prayer”
Drunkard's Prayer, OTR's latest for the Virgin/Backporch imprint, came out of the turmoil the band experienced while touring behind their last release, the double-disc Ohio. Singer Karin Bergquist and multi-instrumentalist Linford Detweiler (the married cornerstone of the long-running "band") realized that the energy expended trying to make OTR fly was taking a toll on their…
