Mock Star
His name was Jim and he wore leather pants with a silky, loose, beatnik shirt. His dark shoulder length hair curled at the ends and when I approached him, he looked up at me with haunting, dark eyes. He pushed away the journal he had been writing in and gently took my hand and caressed…
News of the Weird
Good News for Men: New York University researchers writing in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that sex-abstaining women and women whose partners wear condoms were more frequently depressed and concluded that hormones in semen may enter the bloodstream and pep women up (May). And Concordia University (Montreal) researchers reported that their PT141 drug seems…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 8.14 3 Bad Jacks — A trio of card sharks playing a punk-influenced blend of rockabilly let loose by way of Texas. They obviously have no interest in breaking new musical ground or pursuing trendy back patting, no siree; just guitars, drums and a mean stand-up bass are all that are needed in this…
The Incidental Vegetarian
One general guideline which can help you find an excellent ethnic restaurant at bargain prices is to look beyond the menu. The same menu item may appear on menus at different restaurants across the city, but these dishes can be prepared in various ways, some more accommodating to Americanized tastes and subsequently less authentic, less…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Aug. 14 * Amos’ Southend CD Release Party: Yamagata w/ Rebus & Mad Dog Trio Arnie’s Tavern, Huntersville Scott Johnson Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Cajun Queen, Pineville 7th Street Gator Band II Charleston Chops, Cornelius Kent Steel Connolly’s Craig & Rich Acoustic * Double Door Inn 3 Bad Jacks w/ Tombstone Daddys…
Sushi 101, Noodle & Sushi Bar
Intro Course Good sushi at good prices BY TRICIA CHILDRESS Having fun and making people feel at home is the intent of Sushi 101 Noodle and Sushi Bar. Co-owner and Chef Hank Lim and Rick Taing, a silent partner, opened Sushi 101 last April. Says Lim, “I had been thinking about opening this concept in…
Bulldozing The Past
John Sayles is an indie filmmaker with remarkable staying power. With 13 films behind him as writer-director, he is one of a handful of contemporary American directors who has managed to hold onto his idiosyncratic vision and maintain a safe distance from Hollywood.A novelist first, Sayles brings his observational, detailed focus to bear on his…
Hits and Misses
Elvis Presley made a total of 31 feature films between 1956 and 1969, and while most were basically formula pictures designed to cater to his easy-going screen personality, a few managed to either rise above or sink below the rest of the pack. In honor of his 25th Deathiversary, here’s a look (presented in chronological…
See & Do
AUGUST 14 – WEDNESDAY Broadway Comedy’s Tour-de-Force, Shirley Valentine will be performed at Spirit Square’s Duke Power Theatre starting tonight. The show will run through August 31 with showtimes Wednesday-Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday and Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets range from $18-$25. For more information, call 704-372-1000 or visit online at www.blumenthalcenter.org.…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES BLOOD WORK Viewing the latest Clint Eastwood picture is akin to watching a jogger who makes the mistake of sprinting out in front at the start of a marathon, only to run out of steam somewhere along the way and limp across the finish line. For a good while, Blood Work looks as…
Bar Slut
If you’re searching for a hot ticket to something fun and exciting for late night Sunday, you’ll have to dig deep in Charlotte. None of the uptown venues seem to have found their niche for a beginning-of-the-week kick-off party, unless you’re a Bank of America employee and have one of those numerous mystery holidays that…
The Ghost Has Left The Building
The original Elvis Presley has left the building. In this year of his 25th Deathiversary, with an avalanche of commercial “product” being peddled to cash in on, er, commemorate his legacy, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a trace of the light brown-haired, still-pimply, half-scared-to-death 18-year-old Memphis weirdo who screwed up his courage enough to walk…
Stargazer
For All Signs Cosmic conditions for the next six months are especially favorable for integrating new systems with whatever has been the norm or traditional. We may do this on multiple levels: political, economic, social, or personal. It is a good period to inaugurate improved solutions for a better future. The time favors ordered, disciplined,…
Peddling 9/11
I’m just going to come right out and say this — I am sick to death of hearing about 9/11. ENOUGH! Stop it! Cut it out. Give it a damn rest. What’s more, I know a lot of you feel the same way, too, and are just afraid to say so, right?Before you go off…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: At the beginning of my second year in the dorm I moved in with a casual acquaintance of mine, a girl I knew through common friends. Once we moved in together, things started to get pretty annoying pretty fast. She had a terrible habit of coming back to the room after her…
Valuable Lessons
I queued up at the Antiques Roadshow Saturday at the Convention Center, carrying an old one-inch-square drawing of Bugs Bunny and a Boston newspaper from 1862. All of us in the snake-like line waited to be granted an audience with stars of AR, such as those cutesy Keno twins and the guy who appraises dolls…
Full Frontal
So what’s Charlotte got against nipples? Everybody’s got nipples.Charlotte artist Leslie Bivens wants to know why the TransAmerica Building won’t allow her sculptures depicting nippled torsos to show in the uptown 7th Street windows across from St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. The McColl Center for Visual Art granted Bivens space in the TransAmerica windows on 7th…
Rogers Snags ASC Fellowship
Non-fiction writers can hold their heads a little higher, knowing that Charlotte writer and CL contributor Amy Rogers was the recent recipient of the ASC Creative Fellowship Program. Since 1997, the ASC has awarded the $5,000 fellowship to support artists, scientists and historians who’ve made a significant contribution to the area’s cultural community. But never…
A Midsummer’s Wet Dream
With Charlotte’s alternative theater scene kicking into high gear over the past season, it was only a matter of time before some of the kinkiness that we saw with some regularity years ago at the old Pterodactyl Club once again reared its lascivious head. Last weekend, at Off-Tryon Theatre and at the Hart-Witzen Gallery, you…
Letters To The Editor
Column Out Of Bounds I take exception to Tara Servatius’ reference to my husband’s death as “a futile attempt to stop some aging yuppies from lighting up after a hard week at the office.” (“A Needless Tragedy,” July 31). She was selective in the information she quoted from Partnership for a Drug Free America, choosing…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music American Guild of Organists Summer Recital Series featuring Patricia Parker. Sun., Aug. 18, 7:30 p.m. All recitals are free and open to the public; a free-will offering will be taken to cover the costs of the series. Myers Park Baptist Church. 704-588-1290. Sizzlin’ Summer Music Series The smooth sounds of jazz musician, Roy…
More News at 10
More news is good news at Fox18, as they launched an hourlong 10pm newscast last week, extending their current, top-rated format by a half-hour.News director Ken White tells me it’s anything but a slow August in his WCCB newsroom, what with its conversion to a dual set-up with Columbia, SC station WOLO, which will produce…
Cart Cuisine
Bar goers in downtown Charlotte got a tasty treat late one Friday night in August. A vendor was selling freshly grilled chicken or pork, satay style, for $3 a skewer with a choice of barbecue or hot sauce. Day or night, grilled chicken is not the norm on Charlotte streets. Typically, the products sold by…
Assault and Flattery
Here’s a joke I bet you haven’t heard. It goes like this: When is it OK to beat up your girlfriend? Answer: When you’re a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer!Didn’t think that was funny? Well, neither do I. But city leaders and those who run the police department apparently do. There’s no other rational reason to explain…
Eat Like A King
It’s hard to believe it’s actually been 25 years since The King fell off his throne and left us. There are still some folks out there, of course, who remain in denial about the legitimacy of his death. In the original Men In Black movie, Agent K proclaimed that “Elvis is not dead, he just…
The Endangered Tiger
It’s the most interesting golfing news to come out since Adam Sandler made Happy Gilmore. I’m not usually one to take notice of the sports world, and in particular the golfing world (even considering how action-packed televised golf tournaments seem). But recent accusations against famed golfer Tiger Woods caught my attention because of the nature…
Italy: Hot Region, Cool Wine
In the movies, the Italians look like a happy bunch, don’t they? Eating, drinking, having sex all the time…makes you wonder what us uptight, sober Americans are doing wrong. Maybe it’s our lack of heavy wine consumption. Italians produce the second largest amount of wine of any country (after France), and for a long time,…
The Great Game
“British infantry have been engaged in a fruitless search for terrorists in the hills of Afghanistan.” Rather than recent reporting, this could be a dispatch from 100 years ago, when British soldiers waged an unsuccessful campaign to subdue local tribesmen and establish imperial rule in that troubled part of the world.Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th, 704-342-0749. All locations have different owners. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$ Brixx Wood-Fired Pizza, 801 Scott Avenue, 704-376-1000; 225 E. 6th Street, 704-347-2749; 16915 Birkdale…
The Blotter
Caught In a Tight Spot Two in-store Loss Prevention specialists in plainclothes were working at a local store when they recognized a repeat offender entering the store. They watched him — on camera from the security room — enter electronics and place a personal CD player in the crotch of his pants and an eight-pack…
