Sit & Spin
Jolie Holland Escondida Anti- The uncategorizable Jolie Holland proved in her last band, the critically acclaimed Be Good Tanyas, that she works from a deep knowledge of roots music history — she obviously lives and breathes this stuff. Her official solo debut, Escondida (an earlier disc, essentially a low-fi demo, Catalpa, was good enough to…
News of the Weird
Something’s fishy: “Fishermen” using pistols, shotguns and assault rifles are permitted on two U.S. lakes (in Vermont and Virginia) for a few weeks each spring to fire away at pike and several other species, according to a May report in The New York Times. Sportsmen (who wait in tree “fish blinds”) aim just in front…
Rules Rule
Rules and I have a weird relationship. Sometimes I have this automatic flipping-off response to them, yet in other circumstances I’m a dutiful follower. Recently I found myself surrounded by hundreds of people way younger than I am, praying to at least escape a mob stoning for sticking out so much, when one of them…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 6.23 Grand Champeen — On record: The Replacements/early Soul Asylum Twin/Tone sound re-born. Live: Zero-to-60 in 1-2-3-4. Fun for the whole family. With the Dynamite Brothers. The Room (Schacht) Treephort — Invited to play the holier-than-thou Warped Tour last year, Treephort wasted no time in delivering a 20-minute napalm blast of nerd-friendly punk rock.…
Oh, Freedom
Named after the day, June 19, that Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War had ended and that those enslaved were now free — two-and-a-half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation — Juneteenth is a holiday that now commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement. Charlotte’s celebration of…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Jun. 23 Blue Melinda Hansen, Royce Guin, Korey Dudley & Rob Knox Borders, Morrocroft Edwin McCain Breakfast Club DJ Boney B Cecil’s Robin Rogers Band Charleston Chops, Cornelius Michelle Smith, Bill & Ray Comet Grill Open Mic w/ Bill McDonald Double Door Inn Haywire w/ Loose Leaf The Evening Muse Naked Blue & Reeve…
The Blotter
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 the baby food bandit 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…
It’s About Women’s Choices
In her hilarious new dark comedy The Stepford Wives, Nicole Kidman plays a woman who has it all. She’s the young boss of a TV network, has a great husband (Matthew Broderick) and two gorgeous kids. But suddenly her life unravels, she finds herself on the brink of a nervous breakdown and so she decides…
Word On The Street
Betty McIntyre Accountant “Why wouldn’t he replace ’em — he cut ’em down, didn’t he? Maybe he can get his 250 lawyers to do it for him.” Mike Starnes Beer Distributor “No, I’m glad he cut ’em — I get pretty drunk at races and I wanna be able to see the parking lot afterward.”…
Meow Mix
A movie about exemplary 40s actor John Garfield? Cool. A film about US President James Garfield? No problem. But a movie about fat cat Garfield, the star of one of the least inspired newspaper comic strips ever to line birdcages coast to coast? We’re talking about an uphill battle, and Garfield: The Movie doesn’t even…
See & Do
JUNE 23 – WEDNESDAY Have an insatiable appetite for scandal and gossip? So does everyone else if you’re heeding our nation’s mainstream media. Christopher Durang has written Betty’s Summer Vacation for the few among us who might not care who the ultimate survivor is or which hunk the bachelorette will pick. Durang’s satire takes us…
View From The Couch
BAD SANTA (2003). While New Line is waiting until the year-end holiday period to release Elf on video and DVD, Miramax has elected to go ahead with Bad Santa’s home debut — after all, cynicism has no season. A perfectly cast Billy Bob Thornton stars as Willie T. Stokes, a lifelong loser who dons the…
Ask the Advice Goddess
The Mold and The Beautiful I’m always amazed when I hear how the smooth guys at my office pick up women who are total strangers. I know it’s best to meet dates through friends or shared interests, but sometimes I’ll spot women who look like my type in the supermarket or on the street. I’ll…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS Less an adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic novel than a quasi-installment in the Shanghai Noon / Shanghai Knights franchise (Shanghai co-star Owen Wilson even turns up in a bit part), this expensively priced but cheaply realized action yarn finds Jackie Chan playing Lau Xing, a martial arts…
Stargazer
For All Signs Venus, goddess of love, has been retrograding since mid-May. On June 29 she turns direct, which represents a shift toward the better in the world of relationships with eventual restoration to order (if indeed, relationships can ever be considered “orderly”). Many of us have been pressed to encounter ourselves and our personal…
Boiling Point
The financial end of moviemaking is inexorably linked to Hollywood’s most common buzzword: “demographics.” The Harry Potter franchise is successful because members of its key demographic — young kids who’ve digested all the books in the series — turn up every time the multiplex offers a new cinematic rendition. The Passion of the Christ was…
Kosher Profanity
He was notorious for speaking his mind, pugnacious in standing up for his First Amendment rights. When comedian Lenny Bruce died in 1966 from a drug overdose at the age of 40, he was also virtually bankrupt. That’s what happens when you pay your dues — and everyone else’s in the comedy biz for decades…
Cannes’ Poison Pie
Never mind the red-carpet glitz and the star-packed soirees; they’re so “been there, done that” for regulars of the Cannes International Film Festival. There was but one conversational concern at this year’s fest, the obsession of practically all, from whatever country: how to get those war criminals ejected from the White House. The 57th Cannes…
CL Recommends
Hardbacks Transmission by Hari Kunzru (Dutton). The award-winning author of The Impressionist changes course in this lively, funny take on facets of modern life. Here’s the story of Arjun Mehta, an Indian computer programmer who moves to the US with big-money dreams and finds himself threatened with downsizing, along with many other Silicon Valley cohorts.…
We’re Number 1
I know of a place, a wonderful, happy place, lazing on an idyllic expanse of diligently landscaped land that overlooks a lake and acres of green foliage. It’s a place where you’ll find lots of smiling faces, words of good cheer and playful interaction. You’ll also find dildos. Lots and lots of dildos. Not to…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Music Under the Stars An evening of music with The Charlotte Symphony and Broadway star Keith Buterbaugh. Symphony Park at Southpark. www.charlottesymphony.org. June 26: Park opens 6:30pm for picnicking, concert at 8:15pm. $15. 704-972-2000. Summer Lollipops Outdoor concerts at Symphony Park at SouthPark designed for children and their families. www.charlottesymphony.org. Fri., June 25,…
CL seeks to be free of Cox
Like a Liza Minelli marriage, the union four years ago between Creative Loafing Inc. and Cox Enterprises began with a smile, puzzled onlookers and is now careering inexorably toward divorce. Last week, Ben Eason, CEO of Creative Loafing Inc., confirmed that his company’s board has agreed to buy out Cox’s minority stake in the alternative…
Connecting the Dots
Separateness is an illusion. A pixel only seems one point when looking at it close up, but when standing back, the viewer links pixels together for an image. People as well as websites are hyperlinked, and this is especially true of chefs. Scratch the biography of a chef and you’ll find a connection both within…
Letters
Critic Critique I am writing to take issue with Perry Tannenbaum, the Loaf’s theatrical reviewer. From what I understand from most in the theatre community (on all levels), there is a particular loathing for this gentleman for he has (and I quote here)”…about as much an eye for theatre as a bat at noon.” At…
Mything the Point
As much as writers try to cut through all the bullshit perpetuated by wine snobs, there’s still a lot of misleading info out there. Myths about everything from wine storage to wine pairings abound, and people go on believing them because nobody tells them otherwise. Consider this myth-busting: MYTH: Red Wine is Best With Red…
Liberty and Free Airtime for All
As summer gets hotter, so does presidential election rhetoric and spending for TV, radio, and print ads, which we’ll suffer through until after November. But what about government-mandated free airtime for political candidates? Talk about that issue is heating up again, as well. A study by the Annenberg School for Communication shows that more than…
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.…
Parking is Such Sweet Sorrow
Cars are the elements of urban life we complain about the most. In addition to clogged roads and idiot drivers, there’s either never enough parking — meaning we can’t park exactly where we like when we like — or there’s far too much, with acres of unused asphalt blighting the landscape and polluting our waterways.…
NRBQ: MOR or A-OK?
Mention “NRBQ” to some people, and they’ll tell you the group is the greatest bar band of all time, one that ought to be enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Others will tell you that the band — family name the New Rhythm and Blues Quartet — are little more than extremely…
Here’s A Vision For You:
Spend enough time listening to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Jim Pughsley, and you’ll understand why 33 percent of incoming high school freshman are either partially or totally illiterate in reading, math or both. After almost two years as the number one guy in charge and four as the number two guy, that’s a figure I wouldn’t…
Graham: Rock, Self Promoter
Born William Grajonca before fleeing the Nazis and the Holocaust, Bill Graham was a maverick impresario who scratched and clawed his way to the top of rock’s heap and then fought just as hard to stay there until a helicopter crash took his life in 1991. When he died, Graham was at once one of…
Don’t Panic!
It’s been said that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. In this time of Brave New War, you can add panic e-mails to that list. My wife and I seem to be getting a new deluge of these terror emails from right-wingnuts who we either know or are related to. You know the kind,…
