See & Do
FEBRUARY 5 – THURSDAY If last August’s 40th anniversary commemorations of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech provided enlightenment, you won’t be surprised by the main subject of Judy Simpson Cook’s new drama, 1963. BareBones Theatre Group offers the premiere at SPAC in a co-production with Pam Galle’s Torch Bearer company. In a…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES THE BIG BOUNCE It wasn’t that long ago that Owen Wilson was the cinematic equivalent of a mosquito: noisy, bothersome, and deserving of a good smack. Yet his blond, bland, surfer-boy shtick has gradually grown on me, and indeed, he proves to be the MVP of this souffle-light adaptation of the Elmore Leonard…
Ask the Advice Goddess
Will You Bury Me? Your assessment of the situation in “Hopeless Is More” seemed way off. (The guy wasn’t ready for commitment, but said it killed him to see his girlfriend “explore dating other people.” To you, this meant she wanted to have sex with a lot of guys who weren’t him.) It sounds like…
Dose of Their Own Medicine
Sometimes, it’s like living in a police state. They’ve had their offices searched and their financial records subpoenaed. Investigators regularly show up at their offices and walk off with random stacks of patient files. They’ve been charged with nothing, but they’re all guilty of the same thing — practicing what has come to be called…
Stargazer
For All Signs Basic astrological understanding comes from the four elements: fire, earth, air, and water. The Air Signs (Gemini, Libra and Aquarius) move constantly, like the wind. Even when the body appears to be still, the mind of an Air Sign is racing from one thing to another. They are generally talkative and tend…
Death, Drought and Decay
Porque amo la vida … No consume Coca-Cola Porque financia la guerra … No consume Coca-Cola No consume Coca-Cola … No financio la muerte. No, that little doggerel isn’t the Spanish version of Coke’s “It’s the real thing.” Nor is this line — “Coca-Cola bhagao, gaon bachao” — the ad jingle for the soft drink…
More Tunes! More Bite!
It’s 7 o’clock on a Thursday, a song-and-dance group shuffles in. They get up from their seats, and they step to the beat, and rehearse for a show that they’re in. With apologies to Billy Joel, after sitting in on a rehearsal for this year’s Charlotte Squawks with LUV, real life and real songs have…
CL Wins NCPA Awards
Last week, the North Carolina Press Association announced the winners of the 2003 NCPA News, Editorial and Photojournalism Contest, and Charlotte’s Creative Loafing came away with three prizes. Since there isn’t a separate category within the NCPA contest rules for alternative newsweeklies, we competed in the Community Newspapers category. CL Reporter Sam Boykin won First…
Icebound Perfume
When Jim Hill sang the title song of She Loves Me, the Jerry Bock/Sheldon Harnick musical, all the problems of Theatre Charlotte’s current production crystallized in less than three minutes of the opening night performance. Upstage, behind Biff Edge’s woefully boxy set, the curtain had been carelessly left open, giving us intermittent views of cast…
Hokey Smoke!
Since the premise that “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us” (actual pre-invasion quote from VP Dick Cheney) has transformed to “the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein” (President Bush last week), the Brave New White…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Andes Manta The group performs music of the Andes on more than 35 traditional instruments. www.winthrop.edu/studentaffairs. Fri., Feb. 6, 8 p.m. $5 Winthrop ID/$7 general. Barnes Recital Hall, Winthrop U, Rock Hill. 803-323-4503. A Baroque Valentine A Valentine’s Day performance by Carolina Pro Musica presenting 18th century chamber music. Sat., Feb. 14, 8…
Warm Showers For All
It’s a dangerous world out there, and the people of Perquimans County on the North Carolina coast can’t afford to let their guard down. They could be slaughtered at any moment by jihad-crazed terrorists. But we can all sleep better at night knowing that when the time comes, they’ll be prepared. Thanks to the federal…
They’re Getting Fried
If you think a fish camp is the place kids go during the summer to learn how to cast, you’re not from these parts, are ya? A fish camp is a restaurant dedicated to fried foods, primarily fish and seafood. Local legend has it that the concept of fish camps started on the banks of…
By the Numbers
Reading British newspapers keeps me sane. Even the trashy tabloids provide some relief from the docile American press that’s now so effectively muzzled by large corporate interests. From Britain, I watched the Watergate scandal unfold in the 70s, captivated by the courage of reporters Woodward and Bernstein and the commitment to justice demonstrated by their…
Mail Bonding
Once a quarter, I uncork my mailbox and let it breathe. This ritual gives you license to air whatever wine comments and questions you might have. If you have something to say, e-mail me at corkscrew@creativeloafing.com. A Gracious Thank You Peter May with winelabels.org commented: Thanks for the mention of my Unusual Wines website in…
Letters
Racism Is the Issue Mr. Griffis presents a lucid argument in his explanation of the how’s and why’s of Southern white desertion of the Democratic regime (“Dead In Dixie?” Jan. 21). Particularly relevant is his finding that at least some Southern whites vote based largely on race. Republicans have been using the old fear tactic…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th St., 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. $$ Azteca, 116 Woodlawn Rd., 704-525-5110; 9709 Independence Blvd., 704-814-9877; 1863 W. Franklin Blvd.…
The Blotter
HEY BIG SPENDER: A man eating dinner at a restaurant decided to leave his waitress a tip in the amount of $4.53. The next time he checked his bank statement, however, he noticed that someone at the restaurant altered his tip total to $14.53. CHIVALRY ON ITS LAST LEGS: A woman decided to travel with…
The Costly Sound of Silence
If you have a musical child in elementary school in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg county school system, by now the sounds of silence from the band rooms are an all-too-familiar fact of life. Before the 2002-2003 school year, the school board, faced with a budget reduction of some $22 million, elected to eliminate the instrumental staff in…
News of the Weird
I’ll be doggone: National Geographic TV reported in January on designer breeding of dogs, with emphasis on the not-yet-officially recognized species of Labradoodle. Breeding decisions must be carefully made because, say experts, some interspecies pairings create unhealthy offspring. For example, mating a pug with a Pekingese would likely create a dog whose eyes would fairly…
Escovedo Benefit Tentatively Moved to Feb. 29
The snow and ice wreaked havoc with everyone’s lives, but probably none more so than Bob Graham’s, who had set up the Alejandro Escovedo benefit at the Double Door Inn on January 25th — the day the storm hit. The show was canceled, meaning Graham will have to put the whole thing back together again…
Sit & Spin
Mylab Mylab Terminus Most of the time, big collaborative records between musicians and their friends turn out to be big, self-indulgent wank-fests. Anyone remember Hagar, Schon, Aaronson, and Shrieve? How about GTR? Anyone dust that one off recently? I didn’t think so. Basically excuses to solo endlessly — free of the constraints of, you know,…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 2.4 Tarbox Ramblers — Touring in support of their new disc, A Fix Back East, the Boston-based Ramblers unveil a bigger, darker, nastier sound. Recorded in Memphis and Beantown, the disc features production by the legendary Jim Dickinson (Big Star, Replacements), Paul Kolderie (The Pixies) and Sean Slade (Uncle Tupelo), and sounds like an…
Bowled Over
Boy. First it was allegations of Michael Jackson feeling up kids, and now we have kids feeling up Michael Jackson’s sister. The 23-year-old Justin Timberlake, no doubt jealous that his ex, Britney Spears, got to kiss Madonna, took it one step further on Sunday evening, exposing Janet Jackson’s 38-year-old breast during the Super Bowl. Timberlake…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Feb. 4 Baoding Robert Fernandez Blue Carl DiPonziano Bonterra Kim Carper, Van Sachs, Gerard Benson Bricktop Lounge Atmospheric Jazz w/ Christian & Brigmunton Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Comet Grill Pervis & Sonya Lee Double Door Inn Abe Reid & Spikedrivers w/ Clifton The Evening Muse Tarbox Ramblers; Ross Nickerson George Washington Bookstore…
Teacher Wussdays
Greetings from the latest of the many teacher wuss-, I mean, workdays our kids have off. Apparently concerned that the students might actually get back into the routine of attending school after the long winter break (we’re not allowed to call it Christmas break anymore), the district scheduled a couple of four-day weekends almost immediately…
Lost & Found
This was the year that the major studios were supposed to wrest control of the Oscars away from the insurgent independents. The ill-advised (and short-lived) ban on screener cassettes; the Academy’s decision to move both the nominations and the award ceremony up a month — since these actions were presumably going to allow Academy members…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: I keep having dreams that I’m back with my group of high school friends. Everyone looks and acts the same, even though it’s now 15 years later. They’re all upset that I haven’t kept in touch with them. I wake up feeling like I’ve lost something that I can’t quite articulate. I…
View From The Couch
DADDY AND THEM (2001) Sandwiched between Billy Bob Thornton’s two hits for Miramax — Slingblade and Bad Santa — were two Thornton projects the studio wisely decided to bury as if they were barrels of toxic waste. Waking Up In Reno, a forced comedy in which Thornton starred opposite Charlize Theron, played only a couple…
