Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 6434-F West Sugarcreek Rd., 704-598-6863; 2001 E. 7th St., 704-342-0749. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$ Azteca, 116 Woodlawn Rd., 704-525-5110; 9709 Independence Blvd., 704-814-9877; 1863 W. Franklin Blvd. (Gastonia), 704-866-7574. A favorite of…
2004: A Vote for Rock
Every year has its own musical personality, defined by moments that emerge in stark relief as a new year approaches. 2004 will be remembered as the year Ray Charles, one of the few remaining musical giants, passed away; as the year musicians across genres united to get out both the vote and George Bush; the…
List-O-Rama!
Tim Davis’ 20 Favorite Releases of the Year (In no particular order): 1. Modest Mouse — Good News For People Who Love Bad News 2. Pavement — Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: L.A.’s Desert Origins 3. Sondre Lerche — Two Way Monologue 4. Nick Cave — Abattoir Blues/ The Lyre of Orpheus 5. PJ Harvey –…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 12.29 Derek Trucks Band — Guitarist Trucks is a fabulous slide guitarist but his nimble fingers can go beyond the confines of slide blues and blues-rock with jazzy overlays and world rhythms. Trucks’ work transcends any specific genre, whether he’s playing an electric, acoustic, or even a sarod (a guitar-like sister of the sitar).…
Soundboard
Music Events Wednesday, Dec. 29 Breakfast Club DJ Boney B Bricktop Lounge DJ Christian and DJ Brigmunton Double Door Inn Hardcore Lounge w/ Roger The Gin Mill Wizard’s Road Show Graduate, Lake Norman Abe Reid and the Spikedrivers Graduate, Pineville Simplified; Jared Allan & Co. Graduate, Uptown Simplified Midtown 51 Brian and Joe Midtown, Mountain…
Best of The Blotter 2005
QUIT NEEDLING ME: A man walked out of a local department store carrying a basket full of baby formula without paying. When store managers approached him outside, he said he had AIDS, and threatened to stab the managers with a syringe. He then hopped into a nearby car and drove away, baby formula in tow.…
Film ’04: The Best & Worst
If God truly is in the details, then He was working overtime during 2004 by helping the film community produce movie moments that mattered. Thinking back over the past 12 months, it doesn’t feel like it was an especially robust year for cinema. Yet when I start reflecting on particular titles, I’m struck by the…
SEE & DO
DECEMBER 29 WEDNESDAY Winter’s cold weather has barely set in, but our ice skating rink is about to close for the season (go figure 8). The Outdoor Ice Rink on the Green in Uptown will be frozen for your skating pleasure only through 10pm this Sunday, so if you want to check it out, you’d…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES BEYOND THE SEA Kevin Spacey serves as actor, co-writer, director and producer — and probably caterer, key grip and best boy, if we search the closing credits hard enough — on this misguided vanity project that’s so in love with its creator (as opposed to its subject), it makes Yentl look like a…
Ask The Advice Goddess
Bed Over Heels This guy and I started what was supposed to be a rebound fling, but it turned out we’re amazing together. Despite my reservations, he’s still trying to be friends with his ex, who’s nasty, dependent and jealous, and caused their breakup by cheating on him. Last month, he confessed to getting tipsy…
Pam Don’t Play
Ever wonder who the most powerful people in Charlotte are? In the late 1990s, you could still get a variety of answers to that question from political observers, depending on who you asked. Way back then, a handful of bank execs, a couple of highbrow businessmen from Charlotte’s old money families, and the occasional politician…
2005 Annual Horoscope
For All Signs: We have a chironic theme for the year, which began last summer and will continue through June 2006. Chiron was the original wounded healer in mythology. Throughout this time, old emotional issues may be brought to consciousness and we will be pressed to search out solutions. We can no longer pretend the…
The Best of Jim Hunt
So you think the past year was a bummer, huh? Well, for some — art lovers, progressives, Panther fans, gay couples, businesses dependent on USAirways, and lots more — 2004 was a serious dud. Don’t say that to Creative Loafing editorial cartoonist Jim Hunt, though. The worse things get, the more moronic our “leaders” behave,…
A Chill on the Arts
A dark cloud rolled over our skyline this month when three galleries — Noel, Blue Pony and WDO — shut their doors for the last time. Noel is heading to New York City. Mary Lou Sussman from Blue Pony is taking a breather from the cruel vicissitudes of the art-buying public. Rob Williams of WDO…
At the End of Their Ropes
The math is pretty simple, and it tears me apart. A three-foot-long dog tied to a four-foot long chain 24 hours a day, 365 days a year is inevitably forced to live in its own urine and feces. There’s simply no way around it. And that’s on a good day, when its chain isn’t tangled.…
Pick of the Lit
Year after year, thousands of worthy books are published in the US, along with the innumerable volumes of dreck that outsell them. We read a lot of those books — mostly the non-dreck, but not even close to 10 percent of the total number of books published. Come to think of it, probably not even…
The Past Is Present
Many physical and demographic changes have taken place in Charlotte during this time, but most interesting to me is a change in the intellectual landscape. The town planning ideas that I and other architects espoused more than a decade ago have moved from the rarified realms of the avant-garde into the mainstream of conventional wisdom…
Arts Agenda
Comedy Charlotte Comedy Theater Extreme Improv Comedy. Featuring interactive, improvised comedy. www.extremeimprov.com. Jan. 7 – CCT introduces their all female, long form comedy ensemble, Helen Baak. 8pm, $10 admission. Fri., 10pm; Sat., 8pm & 10pm. 1111 – D Hawthorne Ln. 866-467-7681. The Comedy Zone New Year’s Eve. Scotty K, Keith Alberstadt with MC Scott Oseychek.…
News of the Weird
Lead story: University of Florida professor Thomas DeMarse revealed in December that he has constructed a primitive “brain” (“live computation device”) out of 25,000 rat neurons and has taught it to maneuver an F-22 fighter jet simulation in a straight trajectory. The brain had to be “taught,” he said, because at first, the plane kept…
We Are What We Ate
Restaurateurs and caterers are breathing a shared sigh of relief at the end of 2004. While Charlotte’s economy hasn’t returned to the high roller days that marked the end of the 1990s, local eateries and caterers are seeing a reprieve from the devastation that followed the market collapse and the events of September 2001. Pockets…
Good For What Ails You
If your workplace is anything like the offices of Creative Loafing, there’s a lot of sniffling, sneezing, and hacking (not the computer type) going on. With the colder weather and hectic holiday schedules come the inevitable colds, sore throats, and “flu-like symptoms.” Plenty of over-the-counter remedies are available, but there really is something to the…
Get lucky this New Year’s Day
Even this gal, born and raised north of the Mason-Dixon Line, knows that Hoppin’ John rules when it comes to New Year’s Day traditions. You can’t start a year off right without it. Thing is, you kind of hope you’ll get invited somewhere for a bowl of black-eyed peas and rice, lovingly prepared by somebody…
Mail Bonding
This quarterly column lets you talk back. I’ll print whatever wine comments and questions you might have, so have at it. If you have something to add or air, e-mail me at corkscrew@creativeloafing.com. Like What I Like Kenny Ortiz of Savannah writes: “I read your column and was hoping you could review my current favorite…
