Back in black
In 2005, four years deep into the new millennium (and all of the purported momentousness that entails), we are still confounded by the same old elliptical attitudes and dialogues about race and rock. In the wake of the dust-up between Wicked Wisdom and many attendees of this year’s Ozzfest, it’s clear the race issue still…
Month if independents
Having just wrapped up its Carolina Filmmakers Showcase, The Light Factory jumps back into supporting local talent with its Independent Documentary Month. Billed as part of the citywide Charlotte Shout festivities, the series focuses on feature-length films created by area moviemakers. The series kicks off at 7pm Friday, September 2, with Lance Lindahl’s naked /…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: I’ve been reading your column pretty much since it started and I find your observations funny, if sometimes predictable. I have never had a need to write in until now. I have decided that I need help with my sexual karma. The last four individuals who I have tried to date have…
Fresh stories
BOOK REVIEW
Stargazer
Virgo The Virgin (Aug. 22 – Sept. 22) You’ve been pondering your life direction and evolving identity for several weeks now. It is time to bring those secret thoughts to consciousness and verbalize them, either orally or in writing. Be gentle with yourself and don’t mistake the Critic’s opinion for genuine thought. For All Signs…
Who can take your wardrobe, and make it super-cool?
Urban Explorer
Quotes of the Week
“It takes two to tango.” — Mecklenburg County Commissioner Norman Mitchell on whether 14-year-old girls and 40-year-old men having sex — officially known as statutory rape — should be a concern for the county’s health committee, which he chairs. Mitchell made the comment during an angry call to CL to complain about a column that…
Navigating the metal minefield
Attention intolerant metal-heads: Jada Pinkett Smith ain’t skeeerd’a y’all. As the dark pageantry of Ozzfest Tour 2005 — the bacchanal of hardcore ring-led by heavy metal and reality TV icon Ozzy Osbourne — rolls through your corner of the Dirty South, know that the actress and her metal band Wicked Wisdom are braced for impact.…
National AIDS march coming to city
Charlotte may not be an easy place for people to live with HIV or AIDS, but it’s better than some of the places Rev. Charles King has seen. “You don’t know stigma until you’ve been to Jackson, Mississippi,” he told organizers of a national awareness campaign during an Aug. 23 meeting at First United Methodist…
The one & only Hank III
He may be Hank Williams III, but even in the iconoclastic world of music, he’s pretty much one of a kind. “Nobody does it like we do,” the spirited 32-year-old says. “Playing for two and a half hours and giving them three programs — country, Hellbilly and metal. They might do one or the other,…
Life Lists Part II
Creative Loafing has some ambitious readers. In response to our August 10 cover story, “Things To Do Before I Die,” we received lists from folks who’d like to die having done everything from paying down their credit card to winning a Nobel Peace Prize. Here’s a sampling: Ashley Perryman Journalism Student at UNC, Cartoonist •…
And then… there were three
This is a story as much about a section of town as the restaurant. Plaza Midwood is a fiercely loyal neighborhood that actively keeps attracting local entrepreneurs. Unlike many other areas of town that have been experiencing the vanilla-ization of neighborhoods by a massive influx of corporate restaurants and franchises, Plaza Midwood is an outpost…
Shaken but not stirred
A veteran club owner says the shooting last week at indie-rock and hip-hop club The Room might have been prevented — if a decade-old law hadn’t disallowed off-duty cops from working at clubs serving alcohol. As a former owner of several music nightspots including the Pterodactyl, 13-13, Milestone and Jeff’s Bucket Shop, Jeff Lowery says…
Fall forward
Call it the cinematic Dead Zone, that period between the lucrative summer and award-worthy winter seasons when studios release less hyped titles they hope will nevertheless prove to be successful with audiences and critics. The year-end holiday season officially opens on Thanksgiving, but the truth is that the clarion call can be heard at the…
Film Clips
Current Releases BROKEN FLOWERS Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, Jim Jarmusch’s latest takes Bill Murray’s accidental tourist from Lost In Translation and drops him into About Schmidt Americana territory. Here, Murray plays Don Johnston, whose catatonic existence receives a much-needed jolt when he learns he may have a son he never knew…
Family vaudeville extravaganza
This Charlotte Shout event will showcase a family-friendly lineup of object manipulators and physical comedians. The show is on Sept. 3, at 7:30pm in the Duke Family Performance Hall of Davidson College’s Knobloch Campus Center. Along with Langley there will be performances by Charlotte mime Hardin Minor, Lake Norman stickplay artist Brent Williams, the New…
View From The Couch
ASTAIRE & ROGERS COLLECTION: VOLUME 1 (1935-1949). The top-billed stars of 1933’s Flying Down to Rio were Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond and Raul Roulien, but it didn’t take a genius to see that the real draws were two supporting players named Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Certainly, the suits at RKO saw the writing…
CL‘s must-do list
WEDNESDAY, August 31 Actor’s Theatre’s new season opens tonight with Polish Joke, by David Ives. Winner of the Outer Critics Circle Playwriting Award, the play is a decidedly un-PC comedy about a man who struggles to escape — and finally embraces — his ethnic heritage. Chip Decker directs a cast that includes Joe Falocco, Laurie…
SHORT LIST
BREAKING NEWS
Wit, Gravitas, and rock & roll
From 1969 to 1975, Dick Cavett’s late night show was the hippest, wittiest and smartest program on television. Although his ratings were mediocre, it wasn’t for a lack of fans under 30 or anyone else hungry for something beyond the mindless movie plugs and chatter of mainstream talk shows. Cavett was a particular favorite of…
Sit & Spin
Jaguar Wright Divorcing Neo 2 Marry Soul Artemis Philadelphia-based artist Jaguar Wright is back with her much-anticipated new album Divorcing Neo 2 Marry Soul, the follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut Denials, Delusions and Decisions. Wright honed her skills at Philly’s world-famous Black Lily spot and was propelled into the limelight with her imaginative and…
CL Recommends
Desert Queen by Janet Wallach (Anchor paperback). It may look like one, but this engagingly written bio isn’t yet another “quirky female traveler” story. Gertrude Bell was quirky, a female, and a traveler, but her importance to Middle Eastern history far outweighs her personal idiosyncrasies. One of the first women to graduate from Oxford, Bell…
Sell your soul
Once an athletic wear giant, Reebok — no doubt fed up watching Nike snap up every athlete within hoop-throwing distance — decided to go after a new kind of urban hero: the hip-hop star. It’s worked: Jay-Z’s signature “S. Carter” sneakers flew off the shelves with an urgency not seen since Michael Jordan last wagged…
Begging from the other side
Moodswing
Real Life Top 5
Tracking down Shawn Lynch, a two-time winner of Creative Loafing’s “Best Of” award for all-around musical excellence, is no easy task. If he’s not thrift-store shopping or working on his graphic-design career (the man loves creating flyers so much he’s been known to do it for free), Shawn is usually playing drums with area Queentastic…
Letters to the Editor
The Bush of Ghosts I would like to point out some factual errors and misleading information in John Sugg’s Aug. 24 piece about the 2004 election (“Did Bush Beat 250 Million to One Odds?). Dennis Loo is an assistant professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, not “the University of California.” More importantly, Loo has…
Down the Rabbit Hole
From the mind-numbingly gorgeous to the technically awe-inspiring, these esoteric hot linx are a trip down the rabbit hole, interactive and with that instant-gratification kick. Oh, OK, Doodoocaca may not be so esoteric, but it’s stupid funny. Bite me. Oculart www.oculart.com Alexis O’Hara www.dyslex6.com The Zoomquilt www.eviltree.de/zoomquilt/zoom.htm Bleach Eating Freaks http://people.freenet.de/crossroads/tetka.swf Doodoocaca http://albinoblacksheep.com/flash/doodoocaca.php
War without end, amen
Boomer With Attitude
A barkeep’s marketing angle
SUGGBLOG
Sons of Ozzy
During the festival’s 10th anniversary run you also can catch these main stage groups: BLACK SABBATH OK, so this isn’t exactly a “son of Ozzy” — this is the womb. Rock legends John “Ozzy” Osbourne (vocals), Anthony “Tony” Iommi (guitar), Terence “Geezer” Butler (bass) and William “Bill” Ward (drums) charted the course for dark metal…
Shake it up
Mouthful
Awopbopaloobop awhompbamboom!
Aw rooty, now! This here biased and concise guide to some of the masterpieces of black rock should serve as a suitable entree to the aesthetics and titans of the genre. There are more black rockers on the planet than blackglama playa Lenny Kravitz and the on-again socio-shred quartet Living Colour, y’know? Blackfolks’ history in…
Wine for breakfast
CORKSCREW
