Kitchen Door Confidential
We were sipping drinks and enjoying the refined atmosphere of an upscale restaurant when out of the corner of my eye I spotted two burly guys slaving and probably sweating away in the open kitchen, causing my sparkling mood to deflate a little. The trend has been for restaurants to expose their kitchens to diners,…
Big Time Dick
Vice President Dick Cheney admitted Friday on Faux News that he “probably” cursed at Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) on the US Senate floor last week. Cheney, who has been drawing more fire than usual the past couple of weeks over his insistence that Iraq was working directly with al Qaeda, said he didn’t regret his…
Eraserhead II
Ever since the team first came into existence in December 2002, people have been waiting for the Charlotte Bobcats. Waiting to be wooed. Waiting to see the direction the franchise was going to take. But more than that, they were waiting on some players. (It’s pretty hard, after all, to pull for a team when…
Go Ahead, Drive Drunk
As a responsible member of the media, I’m not supposed to tell you that if you drive drunk in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department territory, you’re a third less likely to be caught than you were just two years ago. But then I thought, if the police aren’t concerned about it, then maybe I shouldn’t be either.…
The Blotter
The Simple Art of Harassment: A man reported to police that some pesk called him on the phone a half dozen times in one day. During these calls, the annoying caller either remained silent or, horror of horrors, played country music. Mr. Rogers Would Be Ashamed: A man asked his neighbor to stop doing construction…
Letters
Beware of Bush I’ve met David Walters, if briefly, and I know he’s a big guy who could have easily punched out that dude who grabbed his shoulder and implied he was Bin Laden’s buddy (“Your Friend Bin Laden,” June 16). But I guess he didn’t cold-cock the guy, which shows he’s a peaceful man.…
Word On The Street
Julia H. Duffy Auto Sales “Saturday, when the audience at Concord Mills burst into applause at the end of Fahrenheit 9/11, I was proud to be in a country where people are free to think for themselves.” Phil’p Loudermill Dog Trainer “Going downtown on the Fourth and watching the fireworks and knowing that all the…
News of the Weird
Finer points of the law: In April, a New York appeals court ruled that Leon Caldwell was entitled to a $50,000 state worker-compensation death benefit on behalf of his son, Kenneth, who died at age 30 at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, even though Leon had abandoned Kenneth shortly after birth and had…
See & Do
JUNE30 – WEDNESDAY With a final flourish, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra puts that extra pop in their Summer Pops series of concerts. For four consecutive nights, you can take your beloved lawn chair and listen to your favorite patriotic ditties under the stars. You’ll get your fill of John Philip Sousa and by evening’s end –…
Ask the Advice Goddess
Desperate But Equal I couldn’t believe the ink you wasted responding to “Failed Flirt.” You advised her to make lots of eye contact, play with her hair and keep touching a guy’s arm to get him to ask for her number, when you could have just told her to ask for his. Equality means that…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 6.30 Roman Candle — Now boasting a new, re-recorded Hollywood Records release of their hard-to-find debut, Says Pop, the kids in Roman Candle seem to be living right. They’ve been collaborating a great deal with Thad Cockrell, and Chris Stamey — the engineer on the re-released Says Pop record — has been showing up…
Stargazer
For All Signs Those who are old enough to remember our landing on the moon will recall the awe and drama of standing upon that body, looking up at the gloriously blue and white earth. I have since come to think that this event, culminated at the end of the 60s era of struggle for…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Jun. 30 Big Al’s Pub, Mooresville Scott Johnson Blue Melinda Hansen, Royce Guin, Korey Dudley & Rob Knox Breakfast Club DJ Boney B Cecil’s Robin Rogers Band Charleston Chops, Cornelius Michelle Smith, Bill & Ray Double Door Inn The Painkillers The Evening Muse Roman Candle w/ Jay Garrigan The Gin Mill Wizard’s Road Show…
Revelatory
What really counts is to strip the soul naked. Painting and poetry is made as we make love; a total embrace, prudence thrown to the wind, nothing held back. – Joan Miro You may need to strip naked when you come to see Revelation: A Fresh Look at Contemporary Collections, now showing at the Mint…
Swing Time
No one said it would be easy. It was a given that the long-awaited Spider-Man movie, released in 2002 after a 39-year gestation period on the comic book page, would make millions even if its hero had been played by John Travolta in Battlefield Earth dreadlocks. But director Sam Raimi’s surefooted adaptation turned out to…
Babbling on in Babylon
Once again, it’s time to fasten your seatbelts at Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte. Christopher Durang supplies the satirical bumpy ride in Betty’s Summer Vacation, and director Lon Bumgarner refuses to mute the wicked playwright’s fury. So the nightmare oceanfront timeshare turns out to be almost the exact opposite of Hollywood’s mindless summer saccharine. Betty should…
Can You Dig It?
Before Spike Lee. Before John Singleton. Hell, before even Shaft was ass-whooping bad guys back to honky oblivion, there was Melvin Van Peebles. The granddaddy of black-means-business cinema founded on something other than bugged-eyes and “yes’ums,” Van Peebles pioneered the take-no-prisoners style of independent cinema back when “indie” really meant something. His iconoclastic 1971 black…
Fahrenheit 110
On a recent vacation, I observed an earnest young assistant manager at a McDonald’s in Laramie, Wyoming, giving an indoctrination course to a freshly hired Mexican worker. Nothing I overheard had anything to do with work duties; it was all corporate history: where the original restaurant was; the limited original menu; the genius of founder…
View From The Couch
BLAZING SADDLES (1974). With the exception of Steven Spielberg in 1993, Steven Soderbergh in 2000, and a handful of filmmakers during Hollywood’s golden age, not many directors have enjoyed as much critical and commercial success with two pictures in one calendar year as Mel Brooks in 1974. Within this 12-month span, Brooks released Blazing Saddles…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Summer Pops Performances at SouthPark. www.charlottesymphony.org. Sat., July 3, 8:15 p.m. Free. 704-972-2000. Comedy Bayou Kitchen Comedy. Extreme Improv: Fridays 8pm – Chicago Style long form improv “The Gallery”; Saturdays 8pm – “Who’s Line Is it?” style improv; Psychotic Pooch at 10pm. Fridays and Saturdays. www.extremeimprov.comwww.psychoticpooch.com. $10. 1958 E 7th St. 866-467-7681. The…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES BAADASSSSS! A movie about the making of 1971’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song should in good faith boast a title equally as memorable, and writer-director-producer Mario Van Peebles did his part by naming this How to Get the Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass. Predictably, the MPAA nixed the title, and Van Peebles complied by…
Food For The Fourth
When I was growing up, the Fourth of July was the day my dad made his family-famous barbecue sauce and spent the day alternately basting the pork shoulder on the grill’s rotisserie and shooting off fireworks. We kids, meanwhile, took turns hand-cranking the peach ice cream while vigorously complaining that he should invest in an…
The Knights’ Joltin’ Joe
A baseball is a pretty inanimate object, when you get right down to it — a solid rubber core, surrounded by a layer of cork, all bound with twine and cowhide-wrapped, finished off with red waxed stitching. Bounce one, and you’re lucky to get more than a foot or two of liftoff. Get hit by…
California Dreamin’
Like a kid digging to find the mystery prize in a box of Cocoa Puffs, I seek out surprises. New wine regions provide prospects, as I hope something extraordinary jumps into my glass. San Luis Obispo, an emergent wine region in central California, not only surprised, it shocked. I arrived poised for average wines, but…
Patriots for Peace
As we celebrate the upcoming Fourth of July holiday, the word patriotism will be bandied about a lot. But ever since 9/11 and the ongoing war in Iraq, the ideals and emotions associated with patriotism have taken on far more complicated and controversial connotations. Not since Vietnam has the “love it or leave it” mentality…
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.…
Gotta Revolution
If you’d like to commemorate Independence Day by visiting an actual Revolutionary War battlefield, you won’t have to go as far as you might think. The textbooks many of us grew up with made the Revolution sound like something that took place mostly in New England, its southernmost engagement occurring at Yorktown, Virginia. Those books,…
Wilco – the Missing Link
Does Jeff Tweedy really matter? The question haunts the music on Wilco’s engaging new record, A Ghost Is Born, and it’s a conundrum even some of his most loyal fans must address with each subsequent shape-shifting release. “What the hell is he up to now?” is a pretty common reaction to news of each new…
How Much Moore Can We Stand?
You’d have to take some kind of exit poll to find out what the psychology of the “consumer” is, but the weekend box office win for Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 is a clear one. Thank heavens someone topped White Chicks. Moore claims that his movie almost didn’t get distribution, but you have to doubt that…
Sit & Spin
Wilco A Ghost is Born Nonesuch Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics over the last few albums — the Loose Fur collaboration, Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — haven’t exactly been of the warm and fuzzy variety. Equal parts hard imagery and soft-focus daydreaming, they seem to suggest silvery mist rolling off a body of water as readily as…
Texas Chic
What kind of city typifies America? Not New York — it’s a one-of-a-kind, unique urban phenomenon. Los Angeles is too self-absorbed by its tinseltown glitz, submerged in its media-driven hype. San Francisco is too progressive for mainstream America. Portland and Seattle are already half-European with their integrated planning and management of urban growth. Chicago comes…
