News: Not Kid Stuff
Draped across the Italian leather couch in Leslie Kreines' chic living room is a patchwork quilt, its squares made of T-shirts bearing the logo of the annual Hamilton County Youth Conference (HCYC). Each year for the past 14 years more than 500 teenagers from all over Cincinnati have been going to the University of Cincinnati…
Food and Politics
Will Wrk 4 DemocracyIf I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? — Rabbi Hillel You've turned to this page expecting to read about food and, being a week after the election, most likely some distraction from commentary. I'm about to disappoint you.…
Living Out Loud: Who Would’ve Thought?
This is a big week for CityBeat as we turn 10 years old. To me, it's a pretty big deal that an alternative newspaper can survive in this conservative town for a decade and be successful. I'm proud to be here, proud to be a part of it. Who would've thought this column would be…
Diner: Hot and Proud
You know what I like best about going to Italian restaurants? Their predictability. Vincenzo's on Chester Road in Sharonville is like that — a solid Italian menu with all the usual suspects. Chef Vincenzo Mazzocca trained in Italy and honed his skills in New York, and it shows not only in the food but in…
Mozart’s LE NOZZE DE FIGARO
So the rich guy goes after his employee's fiancée, only to be outwitted by some smart blue-collar folks and a vindictive spouse. Sound like a story for a film you might like to see? Well, it's not all that new: In fact, it's pretty much what happens in Mozart's LE NOZZE DE FIGARO (The Marriage…
Carson Isn’t Big Ben Because the Bengals Aren’t the Steelers
Fate has dampened the Bengals with another twist of lemon as they continue their fight to break even while a local quarterback has gone away and put his team into the Super Bowl picture. It would figure. The Bengals picked their quarterback from among all the available college players last year, then fed him, taught…
Cover Story: Main Street Gets the Business
Jymi Bolden A Chinese American Council was formed to respond to a developer's negative remarks, led by (L-R) Charleston Wang, Quinn Li, Richard Wang, Chenliang Sheng and Charlie Zhang What started in fall 2003 with an off-color joke at a business luncheon ended with Cincinnati City Council chambers packed full of outraged local Chinese Americans…
Cover Story: Hot Cities, Cool Cities, Ice Cold Cities
When CityBeat Editor John Fox tracked down a handful of Cincinnati deportees two years ago ("Why We Left Cincinnati," issue of Oct. 31-Nov. 6, 2002), he touched on something we'd been hearing but not fully realized: When young people's dreams take flight, they're prepared to flee. Of course this notion wasn't a new concept to…
Cover Story: If the Shoe Doesn’t Fit…
Cover by Sean Hughes If you're lucky enough, once in a lifetime you get to play the hero, sweep in and rescue the distressed damsel whose foot fits the glass slipper, and live happily ever after. Playing the reluctant hero's role, Leslie Blade reported the story of Jerome Campbell, an Over-the-Rhine man convicted and sentenced…
An Entertaining Holiday Show
Every year the Cincinnati Playhouse finds an entertaining holiday show for its Shelterhouse Theatre to balance the traditional "God bless us, everyone!" offered by A Christmas Carol (starting Dec. 1 in the Marx Theatre). This year it's Stuart Ross' PLAID TIDINGS, a seasonal version of the hit musical, Forever Plaid. In that show, four aspiring…
Don’t Leave Me This Way
I got my period on Election Day. Shoulda known shit was headed downhill from there. Now that we've gotten distance on Nov. 2, everybody wants my take on the outcome. By "everybody" I mean my clique, folks surviving in the invisible realm of wage slavery yet who are fully engaged in change. They vote, march…
Cover Story: Exile on Seventh Street
Cover by Paul Neff The news that young male prostitutes regularly worked the corner of Seventh and Walnut streets downtown, directly across the street from the construction site for the soon-to-open Aronoff Center for the Arts, was a shock to some and old news to others when the cover story "Lust Boys" ran in the…
Cover Story: Full Figured
If there's one thing we've learned in this dime of time, it's how to steal ideas. Here's our version of the Harper's list, a Jeopardy-like ass-backward look at CityBeat by the numbers. Our cumulative profile? We're caffeinated, meter-feeding, receptionist-shredding writers, editors, ad reps and artists who love free shit. 1 Edward Scissorhands CityBeat intern has…
Locals Only: : Check the Stats
Lov Doench/Blotz Arts The Staggering Statistics "When you're picking (band) names, you don't want your name to be better than your band," John Curley quips when I ask him where the clever moniker for his latest project came from. Curley (former bassist of the Afghan Whigs and owner of Ultrasuede Studios), along with Austin Brown…
Seventh Chakra: Crown
This column is the final part of a series to help understand the Chakra System, the seven energy centers in the body. An overview of each can be viewed at citybeat.com or cincyoga.com. Sanskrit Name: Saharara Location: Located at the top of the head. It governs the upper brain and right eye and externalizes as…
Bush Kills Sex
I'm sunk into a depression over the election results. I started out Anyone But Bush but actually came to like John Kerry, which makes his defeat even harder. I feel like I'm looking at four years of prison and share this country with a pack of baboons. Everywhere I look I see that smug bastard's…
News to Use
Learn About Our 51st State About Baghdad, a documentary, plays for free at 6 p.m. Wednesday and again at 3 p.m. Saturday in the Tangeman University Center Theatre on the University of Cincinnati campus. See www.aboutbaghdad.com to learn more. Three Words: Roe v. Wade Why did President George W. Bush win reelection and what does…
Cover Story: Fits to a T
Cover by Heather Wehby CityBeat's fourth annual "State of the Arts" issue (May 4-9, 2000) advanced an idea to put the arts in a central position in our city. In "Cincinnati Tees Off on the Arts" we proposed The T, an intersection of downtown avenues focused on high-profile arts organizations that could spur economic growth…
Cover Story: Too Much Dap for a Dime
Pitiful. Until October 2003, during a decade of giving ink to faux Funk, white semblance of Blues and sound-alike jangly bands with ironic names, CityBeat had yet to publish a comprehensive cover package on Cincinnati's disparate, cliquish, misogynistic, underreported and brilliant Hip Hop family. The idea was born in an editorial meeting. While the rest…
Kerry Betrayed Us
In the end, Sen. John Kerry behaved exactly as President Bush said he had all along. Kerry flip-flopped on the most important issue of the day: counting the votes in the presidential election. After promising throughout the campaign to make sure all votes were counted, the Democratic candidate conceded the election Nov. 3, while even…
More Bush
Look at Yourselves After 9/11, President Bush promised to reach out to unite the country. If anything, he's helped make the rifts deeper. By pushing states to proposed constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage, Bush knew he could get his evangelical base out to elect him back for another four years. Here in Ohio, it…
Red State Blues
The presidential election results bring to mind a twist on a hip T-shirt slogan from a few years back: "It's a red thing. You wouldn't understand." The red-staters would be right: I can't understand how George W. Bush won on Nov. 2. I don't see how — in the face of overwhelming evidence of Bush's…
Upcoming Concerts with Richard Shindell and Metal Church
Dan Mel Chior's Broke Revue Richard Shindell Wednesday · Jack Quinn's To classify Richard Shindell as merely a Folk singer is akin to describing Ted Williams as a decent baseball player. Shindell's exquisite Folk songs tell intimate stories of love and heartbreak, pain and redemption, loss and triumph. It's immediately apparent that they've been written…
Back On The “Brink”
The fourth annual "Brink" new music showcase goes down Friday at the Southgate House. The event — a warm-up for the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards and the public party celebrating CityBeat's 10th anniversary — presents artists on the cusp of the new, original Rock music scene in Greater Cincinnati. The show, encompassing all three performance floors…
News: Holy Days
Like thousands of Muslims throughout Greater Cincinnati, Ya-ya and Alice Marqawi of Over-the-Rhine are observing the holy month of Ramadan. The ninth month of the lunar Islamic calendar, Ramadan began Oct. 15 when the crescent moon appeared. From sunrise to sunset for the next 30 days, Muslims fast, abstaining from food, water and physical intimacy.…
The League of Pissed Off Voters
Still Pissed: The League of Pissed Off Voters is one of many progressive groups that formed around the election and now resolves to stay active. On Nov. 3, the day Sen. John Kerry conceded the presidency to George W. Bush, a dozen young Pissed Off Voters lined Fountain Square to serenade rush hour traffic on…
Damon Green – The Mini-Thins
Damon Green – The Mini-Thins · Ryan Adams Heartbreaker Ryan Adams is my guy. Just ask anyone I've made a mix for in the last five years. In my opinion, Heartbreaker is a perfect album — honest, heart-wrenching songs that I will never be sick of. · The Shins Oh, Inverted World This…
Cover Story: Sounding Off
Cover by Mark Shepherd I kinda cringed when I was asked to revisit the cover story "Sonic Schizophrenia: Defining the Cincinnati Sound" from the issue of June 29-July 5, 1995. The notion of there being a definable Cincinnati sound is totally ludicrous today. With the shifting, constricting paradigm of corporate labels and the disappearance of…
Cover Story: As the Intern Turns
In some ancient languages, intern means "one who fucks up." In others, like CityBeat-speak, "intern" means "a necessary, helpful, eager and professional person, any age, prone to unpaid grunt work, willing to accept bylines, CDs, movie passes and back slaps in lieu of a paycheck. May often be folded into the roster of paid staffers."…
