The DBs
When power-pop pioneers the dB’s lost founder Chris Stamey in 1982, fans figured the band was finished after just two albums, the genre cornerstones Stands for deciBels and Repercussion. Yet as 1984’s Like This shows, the remaining three members — guitarist/vocalist Peter Holsapple, bassist Gene Holder and drummer Will Rigby — weren’t done yet. Certain…
Shaggin’ the Night Away
Shagging with Miss USA isn’t an opportunity that comes along every day, especially for the bargain barrel price of $20. Thanks to Bridge Charlotte, a nonprofit organization that assists troubled teens in finding gainful employment, the chance to shag dance with Charlotte’s very own beauty champion Chelsea Cooley was offered recently at a Valentine’s Day…
Still Divided
“If you can’t speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that’s so unjust/Your eyes are filled with dead men’s dirt, your mind is filled with dust.” — Bob Dylan, “The Death of Emmett Till” It was a reminder, a soul-chilling echo from the Mississippi Delta. “Emmett Till, Emmett Till. We’d kill you still,…
Different Strokes
There’s actually not much new to say about A Different World or its predecessor, The Cosby Show — except that these two shows are now officially … old. Not grainy, 16mm black-and-white film old, but at least Black History Month old. Usually, February is reserved for Sojourner Truth, Langston Hughes, LeVar Burton and Angela Davis.…
The Blotter
Who throws bricks?: In an uptown Charlotte home, a man picked up a brick and threw it at a person. The person ducked and the brick hit a man standing behind the ducker square in the face. He suffered a broken nose. Dog-napper: A suspected road-rage incident turned psycho when a man decided to follow…
Night of the Longest Read
In horror mogul Stephen King’s new novel, Cell, we follow a small band of characters through the hellish experience of surviving the breakdown of the world to preserve the human race. This time King’s apocalypse is brought on by brainwashing cell phones that turn humans into maniacal killing machines. Cell feels a lot like The…
Miles of Smiles
In his lifetime, Miles Dewey Davis III was different things to different people. To some, Davis was the spiritual forefather of the modern-day rock & roll star. To others, he was jazz’s second-generation visionary, causing new revolutions in jazz to spring up every other time he made a record. To others still, he was the…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: The person who sits in the cubicle next to mine might be the most irritating co-worker I’ve ever had. He listens to his iPod all day, which would be fine: Except that he hums along, and sometimes even beat-boxes with the music. People in the office have jokingly asked him to stop.…
CL Recommends
The Train to Lo Wu by Jess Row (Dial Press paperback). Hong Kong serves as the enigmatic backdrop for the lonely foreigners who populate the seven stories in this well-crafted debut. Westerners are gwai, or ghosts, the Chinese word for a foreigner, and they move like specters through the city, unseen as if they were…
Go Go Gals
When benighted Black History Month rolls around, I inevitably think of the state of black music and of Roots, the famous 1977 miniseries that told a narrative of the Middle Passage and Africans enslaved in America. The most effective element of Roots, besides young LeVar Burton’s indelible performance as Gambian Kunta Kinte, was the series’…
Gold-Plated Crowns
If you’ve only heard about Crowns, now on view at Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, you probably suspect that the underlying concept wasn’t hatched at a Hollywood brainstorming session. A musical about churchgoing African-American ladies centered around their hats!? Truth to tell, no single mind was responsible for this strange catfish stew of a musical. It…
Clueless in the Nonfiction Aisle
Two or three weeks ago I was in a bookstore, standing a few feet from two clean-cut white guys who looked to be in their mid-20s. One of them pointed to a book about Martin Luther King and started griping about Black History Month. “I’m serious, I’m so tired of it,” he said. “I mean,…
Healing Old Wounds
The murders of blacks — and official reluctance to prosecute cases — have long been a staple of Southern life. Now, however, throughout the region, there is a surging interest in bringing closure to racially motivated murder cases. Examples: • In Philadelphia, MS, Klansman Edgar Ray “Preacher” Killen was convicted last June for the 1964…
Oedipus Hexed
Kevin Keck has found people willing to perform all sorts of acts. He’s been willing to perform some offbeat ones himself, acts so gloriously raunchy they might not be printable even in an alt weekly. One thing he hasn’t been able to do, though, is find many bookstores that will let him perform readings from…
What do you think about race in the South?
To achieve even a consensus on the discussion requires an understanding of and respect for different points of view. The National Issues Forum and the Kettering Foundation have authored an outline on how to tackle racial and ethnic tensions. The outline suggests three views on race: • Adopt a color-blind approach to public policy. Many…
Drastic Measures
On Friday, a reality that could prove awkward began to dawn on the members of the city’s homicide task force. If Charlotte-Mecklenburg wants to get a handle on its murder and violent crime problems, it will have to confront issues that could cause public tension. “I hope they aren’t going to pull any punches,” said…
Film Clips
New Releases EIGHT BELOW Parents taking their kids to catch this at a matinee showing should understandably be expecting a dog day afternoon; instead, those pesky creatures known as actors keep getting in the way of total enjoyment. Based on a Japanese film that was itself inspired by a true story, Eight Below relates the…
Evangelist for the Church of Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is … well, it’s huge. And blue. Ubiquitous, too. How big? In North Carolina, 75 Supercenters, 35 discount stores, 19 Sam’s Clubs and four distribution centers employ 49,720 folks, as of last month. Another 90,775 supplier jobs are created by Wal-Mart. Each one of those Supercenters dotting the landscape churns through about $140 million…
View From The Couch
THE CARY GRANT BOX SET (1937-1942). Box sets that celebrate one particular star are generally bogus deals: They claim to be representative of the performer’s output, yet what they really plug are whichever random titles the celebrity made for a particular studio. Warner’s Cary Grant box set from two years ago was a typically dizzy…
Havana, Mi Amor
“Never have human eyes beheld anything so beautiful.” — Christopher Columbus, on first seeing Cuba A first impression of this city is so indelible, a first reaction colored with such wonder and surprise that you’re liable to describe it — ingenuously — as if yours were among the first Northern eyes to behold Havana. Mile…
Black And White In Color
Well over a decade ago, my colleague at the Charlotte Observer, Larry Toppman, shared with me an anecdote relating his attempts to snag an advance screening for the latest Martin Scorsese feature. The publicist helpfully explained that a sneak preview of the Scorsese flick wouldn’t be warranted in the Queen City because research revealed that…
Numbers Don’t Lie
Most Charlotteans probably remember Min Chang, the 18-year-old UNCC freshman killed by an illegal immigrant driving the wrong way on I-485 in November. There was genuine outrage in this community over a promising life cut short, and barbs were traded among some illegal immigration critics and pro-Latino advocates. But aside from police and a few…
Go Figure
When it rains, it pours down facts and figures. After years of absolutely no juicy research about wine consumption, my inbox recently lit up like my eyes seeing a bottle of good pinot. Two new studies tell great — albeit conflicting — stories about wine drinkers finally getting in the fast lane. One study commissioned…
Short List
RHINO TIMES PRINTS CONTROVERSIAL MUHAMMAD CARTOON This local pub is not just “More than an Observer” — it’s a disturber. KEEP THUGS ALIVE The Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation’s “PAC’S Kids” program seeks recruits until March 1 for its summer arts camp. Who said “Thug Life” is no vital skillset? CHARLOTTE INVITED TO BID FOR REPUBLICAN…
It’s a Lulu
If the name Lulu rings a bell, it’s probably because you’re thinking of a deli/wine market of the same name, a favorite spot in SouthEnd, which closed a few years ago. The new Lulu is located in a small old house on Central Avenue in Plaza-Midwood. Owners Fabrice DiNonno and Chef Marc Jacksina opened this…
C’MON, GET LAUGHING!
Do not panic — there’s not going to be a Partridge Family reunion right this instant. But, if there were (truthfully) would you tune in? Fortunately, the Schlossers are an update on the ol’ singing family idea. Billy and Lisa Schlosser met while appearing on Star Search. In the mid-1990s, the couple left music for…
The Name’s The Thing
What I want to know is: Who the hell’s Burt? More importantly: Why did the Waffle House name its signature (so to speak) chili after him? Much like Doug Heffernan — the character played by Kevin James on The King of Queens who, on a recent episode, went ballistic after his best friend Deacon got…
Picks
Wednesday, February 22 Arriving at UNC Charlotte at the nether end of Black History Month, Pearl Cleage’s Flyin’ West reminds us that freedom and happiness are not synonymous. Four recently emancipated women set out for the territories in 1860s to build new lives. Amid their trials, issues of solidarity and gender arise in a drama…
Wine List
Wine Classes www.CarolinaWineClub.com. Feb. 28, 6:30-8:30pm, Strength and Style. $35. Westye Group Southeast Showroom, 127 West Worthington Ave. # 104. 704-344-8027. Wine Tastings Wednesday Flight Nights, 5:30-7:30pm, three-wine tastings; $10. Four for Fridays, 5:30-7:30pm, four-wine tastings; $20. Reid’s Fine Foods, 7th Street Station. 704-377-1312.
Letters
No Hemorrhoids, Please! CL Editor Mark Kemp’s note about the new covers (“From the Editor,” Feb. 15) reminded me of my reaction to one of them — from the “Lust List” issue — with the giant lips, close-up, of a man and a woman. According to Kemp, who’s proud of this development, they are “more…
Battle of the Network Stars
When Will Huntley (aka “Frank Backgammon,” guitar and vocals), his brother Joe Huntley (“Don Yale,” drums, vocals), Josh Parker (“Gymmy Thunderbird,” bass) and Tyler Sheppard (“Murphy Upshaw,” guitar) formed the Sammies a couple years back in Wadesboro, NC, record labels were the last thing on their mind. They were more concerned with booking a few…
Killer Cupcakes
First and foremost, you have to buy the Pillsbury Devil’s Food cake mix on sale at Kroger for 88 cents, because the whole point of the Killer Cupcakes is to make the most amount of cupcakes for the least amount of money. Especially if you just lost your airline job, like me, and you are…
Hayseed Dixie
Hayseed Dixie makes music for drinkers. In addition to their own raucous hillbilly odes, the Hayseeds have made a career out of turning AC/DC classics into hell-raising bluegrass anthems. Debuting with 2000’s AC/Dixie, fiddler/ singer/philosopher John Wheeler plus Don Wayne and Del Reno, sons of “Feudin’ Banjos” innovator Don Reno, continue to mine other genres…
Stargazer
Pisces The Fish (Feb. 19 — Mar. 20) Listen closely to your inner self. If you have tolerated a rule well beyond its time, you may rebel and demand to do something different now. You are conflicted between maintaining the regular routine and breaking free. Stay in the middle. Plan a few hours of refreshing…
