News: Justice in Your Cup
Jymi Bolden Valerie Orth of Global Exchange (left) and Sister Alice Gerdeman hope to make coffee drinkers aware of the plight of Third World farmers. Many North Americans feel strongly about getting their morning coffee. But for many Central Americans — specifically 600,000 coffee farmers and workers who have lost their jobs — your…
How to get over men’s basic instinct of lust
Maybe there's nothing women can do about men being "hard-wired" to lust after other people. Maybe all we can expect is for them not to act on that instinct. Maybe we just have to "get over it." But can you give some advice on how to "get over it?" Maybe it's "natural," but can you…
Music: Cincinnati Gets the ‘Point
Jeanine Boutiere Ruby Vileos singer/guitarist Ali Edwards delivers another stellar performance at Plush, one of 15 venues taking part in the year's MidPoint Music Festival. When the MidPoint Music Festival debuted in September of 2002, even some of the local "scenesters" who should have gotten it right away seemed to harbor apprehension and distrust.…
Travel & Getaways
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Events: Black & Blue
Comedy Central star Dave Attell hope to get a few laughs at the Taft. Cable TV has always been a bit more daring than broadcast, but it can still be confining to some entertainers, especially comics. The live stage is where a comedian does his or her best work, and it's often where he…
Cover Story: Alcoholic Autonomous
Alcoholics Anonymous (a.k.a. AA) is like religion and golf. I don't even begin to understand it, but if it works for you more (higher) power to ya. A big drinker for more than 20 years as well as a drug addict for much of that time, too, I've approached AA and Narcotics Anonymous doctrine many…
Guns ‘N Roses
The thought of 60 white people carrying guns was enough to keep my black ass out of Northside last Sunday (see <a Fed-up Northside business owners have repeatedly told me they've called on Cincinnati cops to stem the drug- and sex-dealing tide there. The cops rarely, if ever, show up. And evidently 60 gun-strapped white…
News: Show of Force
Jymi Bolden Machismo on the march: armed men stroll through Northside to protest Ohio law banning the carrying of concealed weapons. A vigilante posse of 60 people — all of them white, all but three of them men — marched Sept. 28 through Northside. Although billed as a protest against an Ohio law forbidding…
Whirlygig: 97: Out on the Town
Good Sports Two weeks after ending a nearly three-year relationship, I found myself so exhausted of reliving the experience from having to tell all my friends the story that I was raring to break out for a night and have some fun. Serendipitously, it was Oktoberfest and Bengals-Steelers weekend. Consequently there were a lot of…
Cover Story: Why Ask Why?
Whether or not the people of Cincinnati drink alcohol, almost no one wants to talk about it. In an attempt to find the "real" reason for imbibing alcohol, people I spoke with remained concise and sometimes downright rude in response to the idea of revealing their drinking habits and the reasons behind them. Those who…
The Art of Walking Away
If there are 12-step meetings for executive directors coping with departures from cherished art projects, then Charles Desmarais, director of the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), and Emily Buddendeck, co-founder of SSNOVA (Sanctum Sanctorum Nonprofit Organization and Venue for the Arts), will soon become acquaintances. The announcement involving Desmarais came Sept. 24 via a streamlined CAC…
Film: We Love the ’70s
Val Kilmer plays porn star John Holmes in Wonderland, based on a 1981quadruple murder in Los Angeles. As the title of the hit VH-1 show proclaims, we do love the '70s. Just enough time has elapsed for us to look past the questionable fashions and other punch lines of the time and see what…
Cincinnati Opera announces its 2004 season
CCM's Xian Zhang will conduct Don Giovanni for the Cincinnati Opera in 2004. CINCINNATI OPERA is really getting noticed: The September issue of Opera News (the publication in the opera world) selected the Opera as one of 10 "top opera companies in the United States." Our only complaint is that major performances are limited…
Cover Story: Man Boobs and Rotting Genitals
Lucie M. Rice Professor Amy Noffsinger holds a glass microscope slide up to the light, turning it this way and that. On the slide, carefully arranged in a row, are what look like four or five thin purple worms, each measuring about a half-inch long. "These are needle biopsies," says Noffsinger, peering at the…
Writer’s Block
For those seeking a companion piece to author Silas House (see At the Corner of Kentucky and Vine,), debut novelist JACK RIGGS fits snugly in the field. Like House, Riggs has a serene, scenic feel to his writing. That's not to say his book, When the Finch Rises, is paint drying. Hardly. Readers will take…
Running away from AIDS
In the year 2000, after volunteering for AVOC (Aids Volunteers of Cincinnati) for five years, I ran away. I was part of AVOC's buddy program being a friend to someone suffering from the illness and I took the volunteer job seriously. My first buddy was Greg and while I only knew him 11 months,…
Cover Story: Don’t Blow It
If you're pulled over by police and asked to touch your nose while standing with one leg in the air or to recite the alphabet, you don't have to comply. "Field sobriety tests," as they're called, are supposed to indicate whether a suspected drunk driver is actually impaired. But the tests are unscientific and designed…
Diner: City and Country
Ever heard the saying, "Never trust a skinny chef?" I'm not so sure anymore. Patrick McCafferty is as skinny as a beanstalk. He might be spotted wearing a ball cap and jeans, quietly cooking in the kitchen of Slims, the Northside restaurant he opened in May. But McCafferty says he considers himself a farmer more…
Cover Story: You (Hiccup) Know…
· Methyphobia: The irrational fear of alcohol. Far more common is the fear of running out of alcohol, which frequently occurs before last call. · According to the indigenous Abipone people of Paraguay, people abstaining from alcohol are cowardly, degenerate and stupid. · The world's oldest-known recipe is for making beer. · The United States…
