Tequila Sunset
At seven o’clock, the sun sets over the neighborhood of Piper Glen in south Charlotte. You open the door to Señor Tequila Cantina Grill and quickly feel at home. A bevy of black paging beepers, an indication of the restaurant’s popularity, are clustered beside the entrance. The place is small, only 48 seats, but the…
No Way Out
It’s always been my goal to so fine tune my sense of where the next hot neighborhood would be that I’d buy before the gay men discovered it, moved in and cleaned the place up. Well, last week it happened. Two men placed a bid on a house near mine high enough to make my…
Breaking the Code
When fancy wine words fly at you, you gotta duck before they splat. With the help of a dictionary or a friendly wine geek buddy, it’s easy to become fluent in wine jargon. Here’s a starter list. Acidity: a substance in grape juice that makes you pucker when you sip, like eating a lemon. Age:…
News of the Weird
People different from us: In September in Pinson, Ala., Joseph Logan, 46, was arrested for assault just after watching Alabama’s 34-31 football loss to Arkansas on TV, which Logan took pretty hard. He started ranting, slamming doors and throwing dishes into the sink, and it was at this point that his son, Seth, 20, chose…
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
JUST HANGING OUT: A female employee at a local laundromat saw a man standing in some woods across the street from her one afternoon. When the man saw her looking at him, he exposed himself and began staring at her. The woman immediately called the police. She later told them that she could identify the…
Inside Outsider Jazz
Bone Structure — Bone Structure (Gregg Bendian, Jeff Gauthier, Steuart Liebig and G.E. Stinson) (Crytogramophone) The Blue Series Sampler: The Shape of Jazz to Come — Various Artists (Thirsty Ear) Folks that say they like jazz can usually be divided into a few simple categories.There’s the “smooth jazz” fan, who wants the aural equivalent of…
Senor Tequila Cantina Grill
Tequila Sunset South of the border in south Charlotte At seven o’clock, the sun sets over the neighborhood of Piper Glen in south Charlotte. You open the door to Señor Tequila Cantina Grill and quickly feel at home. A bevy of black paging beepers, an indication of the restaurant’s popularity, are clustered beside the entrance.…
Sit & Spin
Paul Westerberg/Grandpaboy Come Feel Me Tremble/Dead Man Shake Vagrant/Fat Possum Who’d have guessed the “ladder of success” Paul Westerberg complained about was the one leading down to his own basement? After the critical and popular belly flop of Suicaine Gratification (worst … title … ever?) in 1999, Westerberg retreated to his DIY cellar studio and…
Who Brought The Kid?
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players aren’t your normal band. Nosiree. Most bands don’t show slides, bought at yard sales, during their show. And most bands don’t make up songs based on those slides, throwing in bits of political observation along with the yuks. Plus, they easily top the other family-member combos so popular today, by…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 10.22 Vaughan Penn — She’s a happy-go-lucky singer/songwriter quite comfortable in her pop music/orchestral folk realm. She has the knack for wordplay delivered with mature vocals and music that straddles fluffy pop to moody rock. With the newish Black Market Radio. Double Door Inn (Shukla) THURSDAY 10.23 Rick Wakeman — Half the crowd has…
Akbar al-Habula Millionaire
The popular Fox “reality” show Joe Millionaire returned to the air this week with a hunky rodeo cowboy from Texas, who lives in a trailer borrowed from his parents, being stooged as a multimillionaire international playboy to a gaggle of money hungry Euro-hotties who’ll do anything to get picked to be this boy toy’s toy.…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Oct. 22 Baoding Robert Fernandez Blue Trio 21 Buckhead Saloon Scott Munns Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Charleston Chops, Cornelius Michelle Smith Coley’s Tavern Acoustic Soulution Comet Grill Open Mic w/ Bill McDonald Cuvee Wine & Art Gallery Scott McCloud Group Double Door Inn Black Market Radio w/ Vaughan Penn The Evening Muse…
Interview With The Tiger
Hell yeah, I went for that son of a bitch’s jugular, and it’s about damn time, too. I’ve been wanting to do it ever since he pulled me from my mama’s furry ninny and stuck a piece of hard plastic in my face, saying “Here iz your boht-boht, my beeg cat.” How’d you like to…
The Ultimate Face-Off
As predictable as the swallows’ springtime return to Capistrano, movie reviewers can be expected to bash an inferior remake by saying that it doesn’t compare to the original — without having the time, space or inclination to explain why. But here’s an opportunity to offer a side-by-side comparison between the old and new versions of…
See & Do
OCTOBER 22 – WEDNESDAY As part of the continuing Novello Festival of Reading, the library presents A Novello Evening with Jamaica Kincaid tonight at 7:30pm in the Francis Auditorium of Main Library. The author of such books as Annie John, Lucy, At the Bottom of the River and A Small Place, the native Antiguan became…
Asheville’s Major Fest
Durham has its Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Charlotte used to have its Charlotte Film & Video Festival, and now Asheville is weighing in with its own independent-minded enterprise. The Asheville Film Festival will be held November 6-9 at various venues around town. Approximately 50 films are presently scheduled to be shown, representing fictional works,…
Ask the Advice Goddess
Wife Or Something Like It I’m a 36-year-old man who can’t decide whether a life of being single is good or bad. Sometimes, I get lonesome for a good, honest woman … then, two seconds later, I’m after the one-night bad girls yet again. I’m torn between being a “good guy” who wants a “real”…
Home Theater: Indiana Jones Flicks, The Matrix Reloaded
THE ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES (1981-1989). The three Indiana Jones films have been among the most requested titles ever since DVDs were still in their infancy, and while George Lucas continues to hold out on the Star Wars trilogy, he and co-creator Steven Spielberg have not only given this set their blessing but also were…
Stargazer
For All Signs We have experienced heightened economic and political stresses all month. October appears to be a time of critical choices. The major issues are generalized fear and limited resources. A new moon on the 25th suggests that now would be a very good time to stop reacting, look at the big picture, and…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES SPACE STATION The latest OMNIMAX attraction was originally filmed with 3-D cameras and played at other IMAX houses around the country under the title Space Station 3D (patrons were handed the standard red-and-blue-tinted goggles), but the version being shown in Charlotte is not being presented in this format. I don’t mean this as…
The Nature Of Things
Among the things good art does is give the viewer a sense of who the artist is — how they think, what they feel, what kind of personality they have. Even though you may have never met the artist, it’s possible to intuit their character from what you see of their work. Case in point…
From Russia with love
Phil Lewis admits he was too young when he got married the first time, to his high-school sweetheart. He and his next wife had two sons and stayed together 10 years before she eventually left him for another man. Time went by and, one day, there he was: a twice-divorced, 39-year-old auto mechanic. Nothing special…
Rocky Redemption
We could have given you the scoop on The Rocky Horror Show in last week’s Loaf. But we forbore publishing our opening night assessment for a couple of reasons. Two more weeks remained before the new innerVoices production would be truly in season for Halloween. More important, there was insufficient space to adequately trash the…
To Buy or Not To Buy
A report that’s been gathering dust at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission since February contains surprising, and expensive, news about what it might take to make the light rail line along South Boulevard work. The bottom line of the report, which was prepared by consultant Robert Charles Lesser & Co., is that without large government subsidies,…
Blood Brothers and Sisters
There was a story my grandfather used to tell as the self-appointed keeper of the family myth. It was a story of cruelty in a now ancient time — of an aging ancestor dragged from his home by a band of Tories and locked away in a burial vault. As my grandfather told it, the…
Is This The Best We Can Do?
In one corner, you’ve got a political candidate whose platform is vague and whose understanding of how the city is run is sketchy at best. In the other corner you’ve got a guy whose list of accomplishments has grown stale while he’s spent his time selling himself for higher office. And the best candidate for…
Mr. Shakespeare’s Neighborhood
One of the most enduring literary mysteries is that of William Shakespeare’s biography. How could such a popular playwright and poet, an actor and shareholder in the most successful acting company of his time, patronized by the wealthy and the powerful, have left so little documentation of his working life? There are seven known signatures…
Hey Michael K., Over Here!
> Welcome to Charlotte, FCC Chairman Powell, and Commissioners Copps, Abernathy, Martin, and Adelstein. Hope the hotel rooms are comfy, and the local politicos and Chamber types took you someplace nice for lunch. The fact that you’re here holding a public hearing open to all of us tonight (Wednesday, October 22) hasn’t made much of…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Brass Quintets and Trombone Concert www.uncc.edu/music. Thu., Oct. 30, 8 p.m. Free. Rowe Recital Hall, UNCC. 704-687-2472. C’est Magnifique! A concert of 18th century French music for voice and instruments. Includes two cantatas as well as other works and features the viola de gamba. www.carolinapromusica.org. Fri., Oct. 24, 8:15 p.m. $15, $7.50 for…
Letters to the Editor
Two-Way Street I couldn’t agree more with Quinn Cotton about the negative aspects of our need to connect only with people exactly like us (“A Little Too Specialized,” Oct. 8). It’s driven me crazy for decades. However, inclusion needs to go both ways: if we wish to broaden access to our organizations/groups, we need to…
