Don’t Get Koi With Me
Cheap tuna is ingrained in American culinary traditions. Canned tuna, typically “chicken-of-the-sea” albacore, has been the choice of many people who are on monetary diets for generations. Yet in other parts of the world, tuna is the Ferrari of fish. One bluefin tuna, or maguro, at Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji fish market — the fishing industry…
Reving up the Red Carpet
Disney elects to host the world premiere of the new Pixar film, Cars, in the “Home of NASCAR.” The animated yarn maps out the journey of hotheaded rookie racer, Lightning McQueen, as he wanders off-the-beaten path into “sleepy” Radiator Springs. Sparing no expense, the folks at Disney partnered with Texas Instruments to create the first…
How to Survive an Execution
On a cool April evening in Raleigh, 63-year-old Katie Glover sat down to a meal of vegetarian lasagna and fresh fruit. Glover had come from Charlotte to say goodbye to her little brother, Willie “Junior” Brown, who was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 2am the next morning. Glover would spend the next few…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: Suppose that you work for an angry, needling boss who micromanages your every move. And suppose the boss gave you an assignment that required you to gather information from an outside source for a report. You do the report as you were told, but something happens before you have a chance to…
Eat Your Greens
When you mention greens in Charlotte, some folks might assume you’re talking about the ones on golf courses. But when I think greens I think Southern cooking and the important role greens play in the indigenous cuisine. Not just collards or turnip greens, but also greens from the islands, or the fresh lettuces from the…
Going Postal
Shockingly Good After reading the letters to the editor in last week’s CL edition (May 17) and seeing only one item regarding your story about the Howards (“Pimpin’ in the Queen City,” by Tara Servatius, May 10) and that one was negative (somewhat) made me want to write you. I found that story utterly shocking…
Banker with Soul
Bill Bradford calls himself an anomaly. Middle-aged. White. A retired bank vice president. And a soul maestro? Bradford’s stark NODA studio is where his soul revival happens: composing the music, writing lyrics and producing. The only part of a song he never contributes is vocals. For that, he employs Charlotte’s talented core of jazz and…
Cheap Thrills
4TH SATURDAYS UPTOWN Billed as “A Cultural Exchange & Global Marketplace,” this free event boasts something for everyone. Shopping for the shopaholics, entertainment for the perpetually bored, food for erebody and peace for the single moms in the form of a children’s village (hallelujah!). It’s ongoing on the fourth Saturday of every month from 10am-5pm…
Martin “Zero” Hannett
As a selected trawl through punk, post-punk and beyond, Zero: A Martin Hannett Story 1977-1991 (Big Beat, UK), is just about flawless. The disc is a compilation of late British studio whiz Martin “Zero” Hannett’s key productions. Frequently credited as the architect of Manchester’s Factory Records’ early sound, Hannett was a troubled but gifted muso…
Stargazer
Gemini The Twins (May 20 — June 21) Thursday and Friday bring unexpected changes. However, by the weekend you are captain of all you survey and the world turns in your direction. Plan to spend time near the water for the best R&R. Use caution with your words. You may accidentally trigger someone’s old hurt.…
The Fall-Out
The School of Rock provides some cruel but fundamental lessons. Writ large at the top of the syllabus under the heading Know Thy Tour Mates is the following maxim: Going out on tour with the Fall is no guarantee of ending a tour with the Fall. Typically, it’s been the Fall’s own members who are…
The Blotter
DUPED BY “THE AFRICANS”: Who hasn’t received those annoying e-mails, purportedly from high officials from nations such as Congo or Nigeria, seeking money? Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., whose commentary runs in the Observer, wrote a funny piece on the scam called “I am sick and tired of the Africans.” Surely, no one could actually…
New Wave a Go-Go
Okay ladies, here’s how to keep that man of the house content: maintain a “firm and graceful body,” give him “a bright smile over morning coffee,” get “a weekly pedicure,” have “well-set hair” and be “a good conversationalist.” Remnants from the pre-PC, Ward & June Cleaver era or postmodern hipster irony? Right on both counts,…
Red Light District
The cute, freckled woman doesn’t look like the other single women who came into the Red Door before her. Her hair isn’t bleached blonde and no part of her bosom is exposed. (Many of Red Door’s regulars work for the neighboring establishment: The Gentleman’s Club.) Despite the fact that I’m working the Saturday night shift…
QC Secret Society
Charlotte is too often accused of having a lackluster music scene. The much smaller Chapel Hill gets all the hip, Pitchfork-friendly acts, and many bands of all sizes still quietly bypass the Queen City on their way from the Triangle area to Atlanta or even Asheville. But look around, pop into the clubs or gin…
Accept No Imitations
Dear BWA: Two writing-related questions. First, was Observer parenting columnist John Rosemond really at fault for handing in old columns without informing readers that they had been published earlier? And what’s up with all the plagiarism these days in newspapers and the book industry? Are all writers just a bunch of crooks and liars? –…
Stories of Samurai and Stained Glass
The stories of Nic Pizzolatto are filled with boys and men engaged (or recalling having once been engaged) in manly pursuits: hanging out at horse races, kayaking and base-jumping, war and whiskey, porn and prostitution, football, fatherhood, and fights. (OK, so one guy makes stained glass windows, but he gets to play with lots of…
Sonic Jihad
After carnage and grief, the worst part of life during wartime is the final loss of innocence. If anything was born in original sin, it’s America, not humanity. Even after the fade-out of the Greatest Generation, beyond Vietnam and the lingering despair of the 1980s-spawned AIDS and homelessness epidemics, this nation’s condition still has the…
Get Out of Town
Bands you’ve never heard of are converging on the Center City with their heavy metal, their leathers, their gladrags and their cowboy hats for NASCAR’s annual Speed Week celebration. Whether you join the teeming crowds on Tryon Street, surrendering to the redneck carnival ambiance, or whether you merely approach within a two-mile radius of the…
Golfing for Status II
It appears Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory was the belle of the Pro Am ball during the Wachovia golf championship earlier this month at Quail Hollow Country Club. When Creative Loafing contacted McCrory two weeks ago to ask him to comment on who furnished his hard-to-come-by tickets for the Wednesday game, the mayor said Wachovia picked…
Free Association
One thing led to another and I went from flying saucer houses to our most famous American alien to this really swanky Parisian hotel to the streets of Tasmania to a really hot anti-war campaign. Are you dizzy yet? Wheeeeee! Greetings Earthlings www.futuro-house.net The Andy Warhol Museum www.warhol.org Hotel Kube www.kubehotel.com Tasmanian Graffiti http://hobartunderground.com/streetart.php Not…
Greener Pastures in Greenville
In Greenville’s spacious Neighborhood Park, Thomas “Pops” Sadler blows a whistle and spreads his middle and ring fingers apart, making a Trekkie-like symbol to his neighborhood band. Phillip Sadler, his grandson and captain, changes the cadence to “sweet thing,” one of the 130 the band knows, each signaled by a different hand sign. Pops has…
Film Clips: L’Enfant (The Child), Over the Hedge, more
New Releases L’ENFANT (THE CHILD) The child is Jimmy, born just a few days ago. The child is also Sonia (Deborah Francois), Jimmy’s 18-year-old mother and a woman who finds herself balanced between her own innocent exuberance and a growing sense of maternal instinct. But mainly, the child is Bruno (Jeremie Renier), Jimmy’s 20-year-old father…
Vex Marks the Spot
The Goblin, the Pecan Avenue rock club, had a short existence, but its sudden shut-down has generated tales that will last long afterward. The partner remaining in the Goblin LLC wasn’t too keen on discussing those rumors, but he and the club’s (mostly) new managers did want to talk about the venue’s reopening this weekend.…
View From The Couch
THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967). There was no shortage of grand-slam WWII action flicks in the 1960s, and one of the best was this box office smash cast to perfection with an all-star lineup and directed in his typically punchy style by Robert Aldrich (The Longest Yard — the 1974 model). Lee Marvin, as bad-ass as…
Linking Illegal Immigrants with Terrorists
The names Antonio Javier Barragán, Manuel Asitimbay or Margarito Casillas may not mean anything to anti-immigrant complainers who abhor undocumented Hispanics and talk about the need to secure the US border with Mexico. But they mean a lot to me. Barragán came to the US from a little town called Santa Ana Ahuatempa, in the…
The Da Vinci Code: Cross-Eyed
Oddly, the New York Times never called. Neither did Newsweek. Even our own Charlotte Observer took a pass. The lack of media attention boggled my mind: Surely, someone out there would want to dedicate a couple of lines of copy to my heretofore undisclosed secret? That’s right: I haven’t read Dan Brown’s novel The Da…
Jihadist Underachievers II
Last summer, the mainstream American media was ready to surrender Iraq to the terrorists. They’d beaten us in the country, we’d never be able to democratize Iraqis, and it was time for an exit strategy, the editorial pages of many of the big dailies screamed. What a difference a year makes. These days, the only…
Wedding Wines
CORKSCREW Although people get hitched year-round, bride magazines bloom on supermarket racks in the spring and summer. Filling their pages, in between the infinite glossy ads, are articles designed to make the ceremonious marriage rite run smoother, classier and sometimes cheaper. With so many damned decisions to make, I realize why brides sometimes scream, “Forget…
See & Do
Wednesday, May 24 Who knew? NASCAR isn’t totally about big engines, small brains and mufflers that do nothing of the kind. At 516 N. College St., hardly a lug wrench away from Ground Zero at SpeedWeeks, the Comedy Zone offers NASCAR Stand-Up. Transmission to the oil-inflected laugh-a-thon, featuring “10 of the Top Comedians in the…
