A thriving (and progressive?) RiverStage in Jeffersonville, and in New Albany ... er, never mind.

Last October, NAC joined the cheering throng, knocked back a few hop-laden growlers, lassoed the oversized statue overlooking that yellow canopied namesake dome, and pulled that mother back down to room temperature.

New hope for the riverfront: Thousands gather downtown to toast Trinkle’s departure.

With his resignation ostensibly on file, and in a spirit of joyous impending Boblessness, I wrote:

Trinkle, who couldn’t find his way out of the conventional thinking box with a Saturn rocket bungeed to his back side, was undoubtedly James Garner’s single worst appointment as mayor.

Throughout his career, Trinkle has gazed in fear upon multi-generational diversity and artistic creativity and always -- always -- he has seen only encroachments and dire threats to the suffocating limitations of his own preferred monocultural milieu. Never has it occurred to him that these offer virtually limitless possibilities for circumventing the “constraints of a city budget with many priorities," which he now predictably cites as an excuse upon exiting the scene.

Trinkle's tenure on the waterfront was a pathetic failure. Perhaps, for once, the city will learn something from the experience. I, for one, am learning not to hold my breath.

And yet, we still live in New Albany. Seven months later, Trinkle’s name still adorns a slot at the city’s web site, and whether or not he’s actually still involved with administering the chronic annual disuse of the city’s waterfront, another summer of virtual nothingness beckons.

Meanwhile, just upriver, something is being done …

Jeffersonville officials hope to bring crowds out with RiverStage season, by the Tribune's David Mann

There’s going to be concerts for the adults, musicals for the kids and Willy Wonka — who has long entertained both. Those are among the events going on at Jeffersonville’s RiverStage this summer.

As New Albanians continue to sift through the underachieving rubble of the Trinkle years, we find our faces inadvertently rubbed in piquant river mud by the words of Keith Fetz, a Jeffersonville city council member who dares (!) use the "P" word without fear of being rhetorically jumped in a dark alley by New Albany’s reactionary spokesman for all things backward, Councilman Cappuccino:

“It’s pretty progressive for a city our size to have something like that,” (Fetz) said. “I just think (the RiverStage) is a huge economic development tool. It’s kind of a magnet to bring people to downtown Jeffersonville.”

At least the annual 4th of July celebration remains on the agenda.

New Albany to celebrate Fourth on the Third, by the C-J's Rick Rojas.

Fireworks over the river. Local bands performing. A summer evening of refreshments and fun. That's the checklist for a Fourth of July celebration in most places.

But not in New Albany. It all happens on July 3.

Not wanting to be overshadowed by other celebrations in the area, New Albany Mayor Doug England has planned for his city's to take place one day early.

Yes, Erika, we offer an alternative to the ongoing amphitheater malaise, and it was described in this space last summer:

Meanwhile, even in New Albany there are entrepreneurs of all generations who are willing and able to transform the amphitheater into a profitable, multi-cultural and diverse undertaking, one certainly capable of shifting income to the city rather than draining from it by being forced to subsist on a barely justifiable salary paid to one person who is completely out of touch with the demographic most sorely needed.

That'd be youth.

A better case for a public-private partnership is difficult to imagine; merely state the criteria, accept bids, award a contract, specify the percentage to be returned to the city, and permit private enterprise and a profit motive to inject life into a moribund and neglected area.

I look forward to the day when this topic is dead, because that means the riverfront is being used. Until then ... Myanmar redux.

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On the merits of Boblessness: Inject entrepreneurialism into New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, and restore value to a mismanaged community asset.

On the waterfront: Same old song and dance .

Not spectacular enough? Maybe they should play some Zappa, instead.

If he's not going to use the Riverfront Amphitheater, would Bullet Bob mind if we borrowed it and made some money?

New hope for the riverfront: Thousands gather downtown to toast Trinkle’s departure.

Okay, perhaps they were in streaming through the streets for Harvest Homecoming, but a boy can dream, right?

33 years ago, Richard M. Nixon recorded his greatest achievement in a lifetime of public service by leaving the White House in disgrace.

In October, 1994, the Peter Principle was turned upside down when Eddie Laduke received his pink slip and was dismissed from the editor’s chair of the New Albany Tribune.

Someday, sooner or later, councilman Dan Coffey will no longer hold an elected office in the city of New Albany, and his neighborhood can finally emerge from captivity and turn its calendar pages forward.

Meanwhile, all the imagery this weekend is joyful:

New Albany City Wrap: Riverfront Director Bob Trinkle resigning, by Eric Scott Campbell (News and Tribune).

Bob Trinkle, director of riverfront programming under Mayor James Garner, announced Thursday that he’ll step down Dec. 31, the end of Garner’s term.

Trinkle told mayoral candidates Doug England and Randy Hubbard about his plans to resign, “and both of them concur,” Trinkle said in a media statement. He told the candidates he is willing to help in a transitional capacity or to return to the part-time post.

On the campaign trail, England and Hubbard have expressed the desire to improve and expand the use of the Riverfront Amphitheatre.

For the remainder of the year, Trinkle will plan next year’s spring and summer events. He thanked Garner for his “unqualified support within the constraints of a city budget with many priorities.”

Trinkle who couldn’t find his way out of the conventional thinking box with a Saturn rocket bungeed to his back side, was undoubtedly James Garner’s single worst appointment as mayor.

Throughout his career, Trinkle has gazed in fear upon multi-generational diversity and artistic creativity and always -- always -- he has seen only encroachments and dire threats to the suffocating limitations of his own preferred monocultural milieu. Never has it occurred to him that these offer virtually limitless possibilities for circumventing the “constraints of a city budget with many priorities," which he now predictably cites as an excuse upon exiting the scene.

Trinkle's tenure on the waterfront was a pathetic failure. Perhaps, for once, the city will learn something from the experience. I, for one, am learning not to hold my breath.

Previously at NAC:

On the merits of Boblessness: Inject entrepreneurialism into New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, and restore value to a mismanaged community asset.

On the waterfront: Same old song and dance .

Not spectacular enough? Maybe they should play some Zappa, instead.

If he's not going to use the Riverfront Amphitheater, would Bullet Bob mind if we borrowed it and made some money?

On the merits of Boblessness: Inject entrepreneurialism into New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, and restore value to a mismanaged community asset.

It is often the case that seemingly unconnected occurrences, when permitted to ferment in the subconscious for a period of time, coalesce to produce thematic unity. Unfortunately, for those of us choosing to reside in New Albany, these moments of lucidity tend to be the impetus for numbing depression and hurried solace within the closest available bottle.

Then again, perhaps I’m confusing my own Pavlovian reactions with those of the populace in general, but I can explain.

----

On Saturday afternoon, the trial run of a festival dubbed Worlds of Flavor Bar-B-Q and Music Festival commenced at New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater and four designated eateries downtown.

As all those involved with the festival, myself included, will openly acknowledge, Worlds of Flavor was inadequately marketed and poorly publicized; furthermore, like many inaugural events, the first time out of the gate is about learning new skills, synthesizing experiences and modifying presentations to improve the odds of success in coming years.

Make no mistake: Chief organizer Mike Kopp deserves substantial kudos for getting the ball rolling, and speaking only for myself, I’m perfectly willing to make a public pledge of more time personally expended and some of my company's money to expand and improve upon a good idea in 2008.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained” is an axiom with supreme relevance in this instance, if for no other reason that an absence of like-minded chutzpah has been the prime contributing factor to New Albany’s enduring malaise. I’m supremely confident that we’ll do the Worlds of Flavor fest again, and we’ll do it better each time we try.

Setting aside the specific reason why I was standing atop the levee on a relatively seasonable August afternoon listening to a jazzy musical performance, consider for a moment the favorable impression made by the grandeur of the setting: Stage, band and sloping grass in front of me, barges and pleasure craft plying the waters of the Ohio just behind the stage , the city's signature Sherman Minton bridge humming with weekend traffic, and the Louisville skyline peaking demurely over the trees on the opposite shore.

Now think of the chicken and the egg, and tell me: Do we chronically underutilize this amphitheater because there is little demand, or is there a perception of little demand because we chronically underutilize this facility?

Later Saturday night, following aperitifs at Connor’s Place, a few of us adjourned to the courtyard at Bistro New Albany, enjoying a splendid meal and the temperate evening temperatures, and indulging in relaxed conversation. Then, on Sunday morning, I prepared a double espresso, fetched the Tribune from the front steps, dipped into a breakfast of cantaloupe and poached farm-fresh eggs (as acquired from Saturday’s farmers market, preparation courtesy of Mrs. Confidential) and turned straight to the opinion page for recent college graduate and guest columnist Daniel Robison’s latest submission, “Why New Albany is losing its young people”:

One recent visitor to the region remarked that New Albany is “historic.” Well, that's true: our city’s past has some nice highlights, but emphasizing this fact to define the city's identity is exactly symptomatic of the problem: our city is stuck, not in the past per se, but in its ways, attitudes and most importantly, opportunities.

In short, it was another in a series of provocative pieces by Daniel, a talented young New Albanian who’ll probably never live here, with his spot among the ranks of locals soon to be taken by yet another itinerant tenant of our city’s unregulated rental properties, which for decades have been the chief form of “economic development” pursued by our cluelessly caretaking political and governing classes.

While Daniel and his friends could not be expected to have memorized the lengthy list of excuses for failure that older New Albanians regularly cite when pressed to explain their own generation’s apathy, it is almost certain that if any one of Daniel’s coterie were handed the keys to the Riverfront Amphitheater’s restroom along with a brief checklist explaining the venue’s rules and regulations, he would immediately commence running the facility more efficiently than the current riverfront “director,” Bob Trinkle.

It is also certain that the entertainment and activities duly booked by the Young Turks would be precisely the sort that musically and culturally are veritable light years beyond Trinkle’s strictly stodgy and past-dated tastes – and that’s the best conceivable thing that could ever happen to the city’s amphitheater at this point in time.

Trinkle’s breathtakingly underachieving tenure has produced creative energy on a par with somnalent euchre tournaments at the Mark Elrod Towers, few tangible ideas beyond those gleaned from the manual for Baptist church socials, even fewer actual events, and nothing whatsoever to indicate any enthusiasm for substantive change or any abilities or willingness to implement it. Any remuneration to the current “director” totaling more than a buck fifty is far too high, although I suspect it is much more than that, and if so, it is a pay scale that by all rights should be the stuff of pure scandal.

Meanwhile, even in New Albany there are entrepreneurs of all generations who are willing and able to transform the amphitheater into a profitable, multi-cultural and diverse undertaking, one certainly capable of shifting income to the city rather than draining from it by being forced to subsist on a barely justifiable salary paid to one person who is completely out of touch with the demographic most sorely needed.

That'd be youth.

A better case for a public-private partnership is difficult to imagine; merely state the criteria, accept bids, award a contract, specify the percentage to be returned to the city, and permit private enterprise and a profit motive to inject life into a moribund and neglected area.

Recognizing that the terms for elected members of the current mayoral administration are running down, I therefore address this question, with all due sincerity, to City Hall hopefuls Doug England and Randy Hubbard:

Can you please – please – make a pledge of action with regard to New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, arguably downtown’s single most neglected and mismanaged asset, and permit an injection of private enterprise that might reasonably be expected to dispel the do-nothing legacy of the current management?

After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained – and haven’t we all had enough of the latter?

Addendum: We’ve received an unverified report this morning that Bill Koehler, superintendent of the NA-FC Parks & Recreation Department, will submit (or has already submitted) his resignation. To repeat, this report is as yet unverified, but the source is reliable. If true, the supremely capable Koehler will be sorely missed.

On the waterfront: Same old song and dance .

How many times in my life have I walked into a bar and asked the hopeful question: What type of beer do you have?

Far too many times the deflating answer has been, “We have all of them – Bud, Miller and Coors.”

This familiar recitation of self-imposed limits came back to me while reading this article in the Saturday edition of the Tribune: New Albany to host Fourth of July party, by Chris Morris.

WAKY radio made its mark in the Louisville area with colorful personalities and classic music from the 1960s and ’70s.

On July 4th, the two will be reunited again on the New Albany Riverfront.

WAKY has returned to the Louisville airways, at 103.1 FM, and many of those same disc jockeys from the station’s earlier days are back. Many of them will be at New Albany’s July 4th event to help showcase music from the 1960s and ’70s.

“I thought they were a natural partner with the music I wanted this year,” said event organizer and New Albany Riverfront Director Bob Trinkle.

That would be the same music he wants every year.

During every waking movement of his stewardship of New Albany’s single most underused asset, Bob Trinkle has proven himself to be entirely unaware of any musical or cultural development since his StoneDeaf zenith of semi-professional altruism during the mid-1980’s -- or before.

According to my calendar, it is 2007, although there may be older dates exhibited in the unused upper floors of downtown New Albany buildings. Yes, I realize that the relentless march of time is disturbing to many; nevertheless, we remain in the here and now irrespective of personal wishes to the contrary.

Attention, mayoral candidates: Can one of you promise us that New Albany’s waterfront will be used for something remotely contemporary – pray tell, perhaps even ethnically and culturally diverse – during the next four years of downtown revitalization?

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Previously at NA Confidential:

June 17, 2006: Not spectacular enough? Maybe they should play some Zappa, instead.

September 5, 2005: If given the chance, how would you operate New Albany's riverfront "Trinkle Dome" amphitheatre?

July 15, 2005: If he's not going to use the Riverfront Amphitheater, would Bullet Bob mind if we borrowed it and made some money?