The NAPD is right, because pandemic safety measures should come first.

 

I'll begin by saying that in my own personal opinion, pandemic safety far outweighs the understandable urge on the part of some to "recreate" a festival canceled owing to ... that's right, pandemic safety. 

Consequently, the letter from NAPD, while uncharacteristically firm, is entirely fitting. I agree with these sentiments completely. 

I'm confused by only one passage, and will hazard an interpretation: "Ensure no patron exits your business with alcoholic beverages."

I believe the chief means to say alcoholic beverages must not exit businesses in open, non-original containers, which is to say a cocktail or draft beer in a plastic cup, seeing as the governor's statewide emergency writ currently allows carry-outs even from those establishments lacking the proper permit to do so. The city doesn't have any restrictions against open containers out in the open, although of course the police might choose to interpret public intoxication broadly. The Alcohol & Tobacco Commission generally is the final authority on such matters.

To reiterate, I'm personally uninterested in the various crowd-gathering events being staged during the time when Harvest Homecoming normally would be in progress, and I support the city's vigilance. 

One question, though: If these crowd-gathering events are judged not to be in the interest of public health amid the pandemic, couldn't the city and/or health department have pro-actively nixed them? In particular, as with the ATC and beverage licenses, the health department can intervene in a situation involving public health any time it wishes to do so.

Just curious. 

The great 800-lb pumpkin is silent. The madness yields to peaceful serenity.

Our 2020 non-Harvest Homecoming is under way, and it's a peaceful, easy feeling compared with the usual frenetic amok time, albeit still a tad strange given that with weather like this, we'd be pinned to the tarmac.

Today has been so very normal -- although "normal" will always be a subjective concept in Nawbany, where "We're All Here Because We're Not All THERE."

As first recommended in 2019, here's a new, innovative way to kick off Harvest Homecoming, whether or not it actually takes place: Sardinian throat singing. 

Friday and Saturday should be interesting. Minus the vendors from elsewhere, with some local organizations setting up anyway, and a few businesses staging kinda-sorta HH events, you get an idea as to how a scaled-back festival molded to downtown's actual contours might look. Maybe a springtime bookend fest one of these years? 

However, this year's not-the-fest-as-usual has a new 800-lb gorilla. It's the fact of these little farm-near-me/">mini-celebrations -- how many unofficial beer walks ARE taking place tomorrow, anyway? -- occurring in a pandemic context. Yes, I understand that the governor gave the okay to congregate outdoors, albeit it only recently, but supposedly the mask "mandate" that never really was still applies.

From my vantage point, I've spent the past few months watching local VIPs from both political flush mobs violating the mask mandate frequently and with apparent impunity. It's no longer my self-assigned "job" to call them out, so I haven't. 

However, the unmistakable message I've gotten is that our local political duopoly hasn't been very interested from the outset in leading by example.   

Note that I'm taking great care to be bipartisan, that elusive quality of fairness we all insist should be more prevalent. Let me be clear about what I've witnessed. It's been a firmly bipartisan indifference to science. 

Does any of it matter? 

Beats me. It will always annoy me that from top to bottom in America, grassroots business persons have been expected to enforce "mandates" that neither political entity cares to oversee and be held responsible for implementing. 

In closing, a random HH link from 2018:

Try to imagine Harvest Homecoming if 95% of visitors DIDN'T drive to it -- or, "Why Public Transportation Works Better Outside the U.S."

From 2019: Here are all of Tony Beard's event posters for Fringe Fest at NABC Bank Street Brewhouse, 2008 – 2018.

This one's from last year, but it bears repeating. Monnik has soldiered through the pandemic period, gradually transforming my former workplace into the sort of joint where I'll be spending time at some point down the road. 

---

2019 marks the first Harvest Homecoming since 2007 without a concurrent Fringe Fest at NABC's Bank Street Brewhouse, which closed in May and awaits a new owner.

The first Fringe Fest in 2008 actually took place in the gutted former day-old bread store building and adjacent, vacant parking lot, a full five months before the first day of business.

Those were the days, my friends. Take it away, Tony.

My business divorce became final in February, 2018, and losing Bank Street Brewhouse this spring was rough, but it was the right thing for the sisters to do. NABC's original Pizzeria & Public House is a genuine regional icon, and now they'll be able to upgrade it for what I hope is decades to come.

Our 2020 non-Harvest Homecoming.

It even seems a bit strange to me. In spite of my decades-long indifference to Nawbany's peculiar institution of Harvest Homecoming, the absence of a parade yesterday, and the silence to come this week, combine to produce a sense of loss.

Well, not much, but still ... that's something, I guess.

ON THE AVENUES: There, there. People are dying, so you may have to wait until 2021 for your pork chop sandwich.

I wrote the preceding in June, and rather than repeat myself, just click through and read if you care to. 

Several of the traditional festival vendors are setting up shop around town during the coming days, and The Earl is having its own parking lot party this weekend. Pints&union will be conducting business for the most part as usual, as we have no parking lot. 

If you indulge in any of these make-up events, allow me to encourage you to wear a face mask. Lots of people are getting sick, and many are dying, because too many other people are selfish narcissists. To some, they're assholes.

Ask Donald Trump.

They're why Harvest Homecoming was canceled in the first place. We can do better. If you're interested in getting through this, maybe it's time to try a bit harder. 

ON THE AVENUES: There, there. People are dying, so you may have to wait until 2021 for your pork chop sandwich.

Who ever thought that forty years of narrow selfish leadership of academic, corporate, and political institutions would lead to a population full of raw anger?
-- Matt Stoller

Last week militarized police and the National Guard units were deployed to disperse peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters using counter-insurgency techniques previously devised for use against "enemies" abroad.

This wasn’t sufficiently violent to suit President D. “Nero” Trump, who proposed using armed service regulars to attack American citizens and occupy their cities -- not unlike the Chinese did in Tiananmen Square in 1989, or the United States in Iraq 17 years ago.

Meanwhile in excess of 100,000 Americans have died from a mysterious novel virus, with the number of infections reaching upwards of 2,000,000. Between 30 and 40 million are unemployed, and taking these statistics into consideration over a meal of Olive Garden takeaway and hard seltzer, perhaps another 150 million of us have concluded (a) the virus doesn’t exist, or (b) if it does, it’s perfectly safe because FREEDOM, and (c) in any event the virus that is, or perhaps isn’t, was devised by pussy libtards in cahoots with the Chinese for use against OUR president, and this is why (d) blacks protesting perennial injustice should be crushed with surplus army gear, but whites objecting to science, protesting any semblance of justice for non-whites or failing the physical when attempting to join the local SWAT team must carry their own powerful armaments and weaponry anywhere they please as “penis proxies.”

(Credit LEO Weekly for “penis proxies.”)

Our Big Mac president recently embraced the aforementioned counter-insurgency techniques to have the way cleared for a photo-op at a church, holding a hastily borrowed Bible aloft, upside down, in his best choreographed attempt to appear engaged.

The same half of the population that has rejected science because STOCK MARKET GODDAMMIT applauded vigorously, pausing only to blame blacks for their own targeting by the militarized police.

Amid the bleating and babbling of those shaven-headed old white guys with sour expressions whose monster trucks now routinely travel 50 mph down Spring Street, safe in the knowledge that our own municipal enforcement mechanisms remain in hibernation deep within Jeff Gahan’s agoraphobic “pretend leader” bunker, I’ve spent the past few days wondering about the precise level of violent injustice required to bring forever snoozing New Albanians out into the streets to protest.

Now I know the answer: cancel Harvest Homecoming and watch as the yokels finally are stirred to action.

---

The Harvest Homecoming cancellation announcement came Wednesday evening from the organization’s governing committee. Apparently the officers embraced rationality in consideration of a plain fact grasped by virtually anyone who has ever attended the festival, this being that almost every aspect of the event’s success relies on a high volume of humans, not a few of them drunk, all of them eating, squeezed into relatively small areas of streetscape.

Most of the time this business plan works out as intended. However, 2020 emphatically is not “most of the time.” The committee rightly fed the facts into the public health calculator of spacing and hygiene necessary to contain the pandemic, crunched the numbers, and found -- alas -- that 2 + 2 still equals 4.

Harvest Homecoming will return in 2021, by which time the global health situation probably (although not necessarily “will”) be clearer. Caution? It’s the most balanced attitude toward unknown factors, and something not to be confused with fear.

Of course, as FDR reminded us, we have nothing to fear except being deprived of amenities and diversions guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution … or the Board of Public Works and Safety, at the very least.

---

Within seconds of the meeting’s final gavel, howls of Internet fury arose from the troll-in-the-mirror narcissists, who figuratively descended on Harvest Homecoming with eggs, toilet paper and so very much mangled syntax.

Seeing as I’m a connoisseur of humanity’s limitless capacity for illogical behavior, I risked the rhetorical rubber bullets cascading into a group of innocent bystanders (namely, Harvest Homecoming’s volunteer workers, who don’t deserve the abuse heaped on them by hordes of sheer dullards), strapped myself into several layers of PPE and dove into the social media scrum, only to be deafened by what sounded like hundreds, perhaps thousands of indignant, starving crows.

Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me

You might say it was “enchanting.” Here are several examples.

ML (works at Humana): This is so overblown at this point.

BNB (hospital worker): So you can have thousands of people go protest but we can't have harvest???

WJ: maybe , you should have asked the people of New Albany about the cancellation of the harvest homecoming. before doing it. let us decide if , we want to take the chance or not.

BH (maintenance technician): 250,000 have died from covid...1.2 million died from the flu in 2017...🤔

MD (says he’s a University of Louisville graduate): This is dumb why not wait and see if this thing goes away! Cases she almost gone to zero!

TC: Man. Watch the downtown New Albany business district go belly up now. This was a BIG MONEY deal to a lot of businesses.

What in the name of rolled oysters, elephant ears and frozen chocolate covered bananas is the matter with you people?

I never thought I'd be defending the decision-making of the Harvest Homecoming committee, with which I’ve often differed, but it isn’t hard to put yourself in their shoes. Most of Harvest Homecoming’s governing committee members and volunteers are multi-generational lifers. Love the festival or hate it, they work throughout the year in preparation, and take their tasks very seriously.

This decision to cancel Harvest Homecoming in 2020 almost surely was the hardest thing these folks have ever had to do outside the heavy issues we all face in own personal lives. It’s mind-boggling to accuse them of taking their responsibilities lightly. This whole process must have been traumatic for them.

Did any of you think of THAT?

Here YOU are, masquerading as a “fan” of Harvest Homecoming until the going gets choppy and your field of vision narrows to the chief malady of our nation, in big-ass block letters: ME ME ME ME ME ME ME.

Guess what, doofus: this may come as a surprise, but there are times when it isn’t about YOU; rather, there are times when it needs to be about all of US.

The Harvest Homecoming committee is being responsible and looking to the festival’s long-term prospects. That's savvy. Not everyone hereabouts rejects science, and it’s really hard to imagine big crowds turning out his year. If the committee goes fast, some of the throng will be back this year. If it goes slow, probably most of them will return in 2021.

To be fair, we’ve also heard from non-profit organizations as well as for-profit vendors, for whom Harvest Homecoming is a primary annual revenue source. There’ll be pain, just as there has been for the food and drink business. Losing St. Patrick’s Day wasn’t exactly enjoyable, nor being closed entirely or operating for more than two months on far less than 50% of customary sales volume.

It's what had to be done for the greater good. As with the pandemic writ large, perhaps the pain will lead to fresher thinking. Is there anything that can be done a little bit each day of the year to offset the risk of depending on just one week?

Must we go to the office five days a week, or can we work from home for three?

Is it really necessary for you to spit in my face while extolling the selfless virtues of The Donald?

As for the experts, well, if you’ve never been charged with thinking past the distance to where your car is parked, or planning activities for a few hundred thousand of your closest friends as opposed to heading down to the stop ‘n’ rob for a Big Gulp or three, then you may wish to get a life.

I’m told you can buy one at Amazon, although be forewarned.

The life you buy for yourself might be manufactured in China -- and then what?

---

Recent columns:

May 28: ON THE AVENUES: The late, great Lee Kelly -- by Matt Nash.

May 21: ON THE AVENUES: Godlessness in defense of heathens, infidels, idolaters, atheists, non-theists, irreligious people, agnostics, skeptics, heretics and apostates.

May 14: ON THE AVENUES: Food is my friend, but please, I'm no foodie.

May 7: ON THE AVENUES: COVID tolls for thee -- whatever, so hurry and get your ass back into this seat.

Black Lives Matter? Here PAVING is what matters -- and NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW, presented by the GREEN MOUSE.

That's right. Corbin, Kentucky.

Good job, Corbin, Kentucky. By the way, do any of the pretend-progressives in Nawbany have a pulse?

Why The Small Protests In Small Towns Across America Matter, by Anne Helen Petersen (Buzz Feed)

People who’ve watched and participated in the Black Lives Matter movement say that this time feels different. And the prevalence of these small protests is one of many reasons why.

... All over the country, people are showing up — often for the first time in their lives — to protest police brutality and injustice. In tiny ag towns like Havre (Montana) and Hermiston, Oregon, but also in midsize cities Topeka, Kansas, and Waco, Texas; on island hamlets (Friday Harbor, San Juan Island; Nantucket, Massachusetts; Bar Harbor, Maine); and in well-to-do suburbs (Lake Forest Park, Washington; Darien, Connecticut; Chagrin Falls, Ohio). They are showing up at the courthouse. They are kneeling and observing eight minutes of silence — a reference to how long Floyd was pinned to the ground in a knee chokehold by the Minneapolis police officer who was later charged with his murder. They are marching down interstates and waving signs on street corners. Sometimes, like in the town of Alton, New Hampshire (population 5,335), where one woman organized a protest just two months after being hospitalized with COVID-19, only seven people come. Sometimes, like in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, there are thousands ...

... There have been protests in Belfast, Maine. In Farmington, New Mexico. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In Bentonville, Arkansas. In Lubbock, Texas. In Idaho Falls, Idaho. The biggest anyone can remember in Paducah, Kentucky, in Bozeman, Montana, in Pendleton, Oregon, in Frisco, Texas, and in Ogden, Utah. In Tacoma, Washington, pastors knelt in the rain, pleading with God. In Bowling Green, Kentucky, three rolling days of protests. In Owatonna, Minnesota, a student-led protest lasted for 10 hours. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, thousands gathered on the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre. In Myers Park, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of Charlotte, North Carolina, where black people were prohibited from owning property for decades. And in Petal, Mississippi, where protesters have spent days calling for the resignation of Mayor Hal Marx, who tweeted last week that “If you can talk, you can breathe” ...

Here in the campaign finance paradise of New Gahania, we don't care shit for no damn revolution, because it's street sweeping season!

To which I answer:

Street “sweeping” should not be expanded. It should be ended. The physical process of “sweeping” is largely futile, and there is no United Nations storm water “law” stipulating dust cloud creation as a workable corrective to anything. Genuine drainage impediments like leaves and garbage barely are addressed by “sweeping.”

Until you've seen the townies on their front porches chasing Hostess doughnuts with iced tea and waving at the street sweeper drivers, you've no idea why people like Bob Caesar are elected to office.

Read more here:

ASK THE BORED (IN EXILE): It appears that street sweeping is suspended through April 7, although it should be eliminated altogether.

But there's more: The 4th of July on the 3rd of July is postponed!

New Albany postpones July 3 event following extension of public health emergency (at Hanson's Folly)

Well, at least there's still Harvest Homecoming ... what's that?

Nope. There'll be no waves of orange coursing through the streets this October, because New Albany's civic celebration also has fallen victim to pandemic public health logic. A very tough call for the committee, but absolutely the correct one.

Organizers cancel 2020 Harvest Homecoming Festival amid coronavirus pandemic (at WDRB)

And, there was a primary election and less than 25% of us bothered. This being a presidential year, the voter turnout percentage will increase tremendously in November, and Donald Trump probably will win Floyd County again.

In the interim, the big news out of the primary was the NA-FC school corporation's safety referendum defeat, by a margin of around 5%. Consequently, let's get something straight: Black Lives DO Matter, the COVID pandemic is absolutely real, street sweeping is a horrendous boondoggle, and Van Hagar was better than Van Halen.

Taking all this into consideration, do you really believe the Green Mouse has anything to say at all in the nature of a post-mortem about the referendum?

That'd be plain dangerous. Following are a few headlines.

What budgetary crisis? Nawbany nickel-and-dimes 50K for the homeless, then awards $2.2 million in tax abatements for Sazarac NOD.

LIVE TO EAT: Those new clothes you're wearing, well, they're a tad threadbare. That's regrettable.

Councilman Phipps' future council meeting emergency reduction resolution is another Team Gahan mess. Can it be tossed out with the rubbish?

Floyd County DemoDisneyDixiecrats issue courageously mundane statement about racism, then return to fundraising.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Harvest Farewell Party on Sunday evening, 6:00 p.m. - Midnight.

Last year's Harvest Homecoming was our first at Pints&union. We'd been open only two months at that point, and it was a guessing game as to how the weekend would go. This year we made a few calculations and went diving straight into it, and have continued to make adjustments as we've gone along.

Consequently there'll be Sunday hours after all (6:00 p.m. - Midnight); tear down your booth, then come have a beer. Here are the hours of operation for the next few days.

Saturday: 3:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m.
Sunday: 6:00 p.m. - Midnight
Monday and Tuesday: Closed for cleanup
Wednesday: 4:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m. (resume regular hours)

Long Live the Fringe: Here are all 11 (12) of Tony Beard's posters for Fringe Fest at NABC Bank Street Brewhouse, 2008 – 2018.

2019 marks the first Harvest Homecoming since 2007 without a concurrent Fringe Fest at NABC's Bank Street Brewhouse, which closed in May and awaits a new owner.

The first Fringe Fest in 2008 actually took place in the gutted former day-old bread store building and adjacent, vacant parking lot, a full five months before the first day of business.

Those were the days, my friends. Take it away, Tony.

My business divorce became final in February, 2018, and losing Bank Street Brewhouse this spring was rough, but it was the right thing for the sisters to do. NABC's original Pizzeria & Public House is a genuine regional icon, and now they'll be able to upgrade it for what I hope is decades to come.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Harvest Homecoming pub program for 2019.

Joe Phillips opted for a storefront booth at Harvest Homecoming this year, and so we'll be serving food to the throngs. The menu: Fish & Chips (to be added to the regular daily menu at fest's end), Scotch Egg, Burger and Currywurst Frites.

 

Inside we've shifted into bedlam mode; glassware is gone, plastic cups reign and because we're here to turn a profit, I've stashed a boatload of mass market lager behind lock and key throughout the premise.

But as I explained at social media earlier in the week, this doesn't mean the core mission is compromised. We just try to adapt, and if business is good, make a little bank. Here's what I wrote.

---

There are multiple consumer demographics layered through Harvest Homecoming's annual downtown overlay, and as a beer programmer it can be challenging to navigate these often contradictory preferences.

But I rather enjoy challenges.

In 2019 at Pints&union we'll have the usual draft, canned and bottled staples; just know YOU CAN DRINK BETTER BEER DURING BOOTH DAYS if that's your thing.

There'll be at least two interesting one-off drafts, too: Samuel Adams Octoberfest (a fine lager at a reasonable price point) and Bloomington Brewing's Persimmon Ale, as appropriate a seasonal specialty as can be found.

Draft Samuel SMITH Perry (imported English pear cider) will still pouring during booth days, and perhaps a surprise will follow it on tap.

Since 2006 and the late, lamented Bistro New Albany's Harvest Homecoming outreach, I've done my best to encourage the notion that better beer belongs at the table during the festival. It's gratifying to note the extent to which this goal has come to pass since those early, parched days -- so much so that the festival itself is sponsoring a beer festival by the river in 2019. This would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

I'm on the verge of completing six decades on planet earth, and if there's any one thing of which I'm sure, it's whenever someone says THIS is the way it's always been, THAT's how it has to work, or don't you even CONSIDER CHANGING these sacred rules -- well, my reaction is to toss a Metaphorical Molotov Cocktail at the tablets.

Come into Pints&union during booth days, and I'll do my best to have some fine beers ready and waiting.

At WDRB: "Changes coming to Harvest Homecoming booth days this year."

Naturally I jumped in front of the camera when Joel Schipper of WDRB-41 stuck his head through the door at Pints&union on Monday and asked if someone was available to make a few comments about Harvest Homecoming's changes for 2019.

YES, I said, rubbing my hands in gleeful anticipation.

What I told him next struck terror in the hearts of the civic pillars ... nah, actually not at all. I did something positive for the city, and then happily drained the showpiece Pilsner Urquell poured for their video's benefit, because it's true that Harvest Homecoming has made noteworthy strides these past few years.

See the video and read the story here.

The situation isn't perfect by any stretch, but it's better than it was. Ten years ago there wasn't a functional downtown on a day-to-day basis. Now there is. A huge festival "popped up" yearly; it still does. Neither is going away, and so mutual cooperation is the only sensible path forward.

Besides, it's good to play against type on occasion. Keeps 'em guessing.

Behind and alongside the booths: Bills of fare at 20 indie places downtown during Harvest Homecoming booth days.

Apart from being a fine human being, Ryan Hammel works for Monarch, Indiana's largest wholesale distributor. A decisive majority of the beers I'm stocking at Pints&union come to us via Monarch, and it has been a very good working relationship with them during the pub's infancy.

Here, verbatim, is Ryan's explanation of the map you see above. It shows the restaurants and bars "behind the booths" during Harvest Homecoming's apex next week. As we have previously observed, existing bricks 'n' mortar food and drink purveyors are becoming increasingly integrated into the festivals' street party, while still remaining a distinct segment all its own.

The evolution has been interesting, to say the least. Ryan has performed a needed service by coordinating this information, and I recommend you at least offer to buy him a drink as he makes the rounds.

"He worked really hard, Grandpa..."

"...so do washing machines."

Literally months in the making...I do not know what more I can give YOU, the Harvest Homecoming Festival Goer. I certainly don't think anyone has ever attempted this.

I know you're putting the inflatable pilot from AIRPLANE! in your cubicle chair Thursday and cutting out early. I know you're *cough cough* sick on Friday and can't work. I know you're hungry on Saturday and that calories don't count during Harvest Homecoming. Most of all, I know you'll be thirsty and we are sending the perfect remedy for that and all of the places on this map (yes it's MS Paint, and yes that's all I have, and YES if you use this and there's a benefit I'll make it prettier next year) will be serving it to YOU.

Numbered 1-20 from West to East, here is all of your Live Music, all of the Specials, and anything else the lovely places in Downtown New Albany want to share with you next weekend. Print this out, tattoo it to your forearm, text it to your family group chat (please share it)...and do a great weather dance and I'll see you downtown next week and weekend.

Beleaguered merchants at Underground Station await the Board of Works' next crushing street closure bombardment.

How much more construction closures and special events disruptions can these merchants take and still survive?

Added together, the last-minute Bank and Main signal project (wouldn't a 4-way stop have sufficed as opposed to yet another signature half-million-dollar Gahan campaign finance monetization boondoggle?) and the rear parking lot closure for Harvest Homecoming will total a full month of business pattern interruption, with precious little advance information provided to people who've invested in bricks and mortar and learned the hard way that the utterly non-transparent Team Gahan doesn't understand anything about what it means to be in business, unless "being in business" means grandstanding at ribbon-cuttings.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Main and Bank work to begin on Monday the 13th -- or was that Friday the 16th?

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: The shenanigans and ass-hattery of Deaf Gahan's last-minute Main and Bank stop light project have commenced.

"Aladdin's and all the merchants at the Underground Station will be open regular business hours during the complete reconstruction of Bank St. in front of the Underground Station."

Slick Jeffie's $500,000 stop light project at the intersection of Main and Bank, the urgent need for which has been apparent for at least six years, was stupidly delayed until the middle of September because of the mayor's self-glorification imperatives elsewhere. It then was decreed that a two- to three-month project would be completed in 27 days -- because of election year politics.

But everyone forgot about the OTHER 800-lb gorilla: Harvest Homecoming's carnival rides, hence this morning's abrupt notification that much of the parking on the south side of the Underground Station block will be closed until October 17.

Open, but ...

The Reisz Mahal is the only thing moving here.

A business owner sent this update:

"Thank you. A number of businesses here have clients and patients with mobility issues who require ADA compliant accessibility, which was torn up and made completely unusable with no notice to us or our clients."

I can hear the whining of Gahan's minions: Can't people just walk? As if a single one of the privileged time-servers grasped what walkability really means amidst their incessant car-centric "improvements."

Or, walk -- like all those people did, past an entire blocked block of Market last weekend, to behold barbecue they couldn't purchase, from a landscape that resembled a KOA campground.

Shouldn't the Board of Works be helping small businesses to remain in business?

Or do we take Gahanism to its logical conclusion and begin tithing donations to Gahan to protect us from Gahan?

I'll be updating this story as merited.

BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: What we know about Harvest Homecoming's new Harvest Hops Beer Festival.

In large measure, what we know about the first-ever Harvest Hops Beer Festival is that it will be held on October 12, 2019 at the "SUP" Party Tent located at 100 E Water St, New Albany, IN 47150.

When a regular reader asked, he received this answer.

New this year is our Harvest Hops, which will be held on Saturday, October 12th from noon - 4:00. It will be held in the SUP party tent at the riverfront and will feature domestic and craft beers as well as a fall cider and pumpkin beer bar. We're really excited about it!

We know the festival involves Monarch Beverage Company, Indiana's largest wholesale beer distributor, and that Tisha Gainey (Tailspin) and Todd Antz (Keg Liquors) are among the organizers.

In short, a fine pedigree and I'm happy to see it.

For many years, numerous people encouraged Harvest Homecoming to think along these lines. Four years ago when there was a brief, failed effort to mount "Biers on Parade" on behalf of the restaurant and bar association (itself a non-starter for reasons beyond the scope of this rumination), some of us discussed with Harvest Homecoming's management this very idea of a beer festival within the larger event.

In retrospect, neither entity was ready for it at the time, but several important developments have occurred since then. Keg's Fest of Ale moved to New Albany, which I think brought the right people together. Monarch offers a tremendous inventory for a beer festival like this. Perhaps most importantly, generational shift continues within Harvest Homecoming's leadership ranks.

During a Facebook chat, Tisha said we have Harvest Homecoming's chairperson Courtney Lewis to thank for being the impetus behind the inaugural Harvest Hops Beer Festival.

As such, let's all thank Courtney for getting it done. I'm looking forward to see the format for year one.

Harvest Homecoming announces changes for 2019 as Deaf Gahan plots to pocket the festival in years to come.

A beer festival? That sounds interesting.

Harvest Homecoming organizers announce plans for upcoming festival, by Brooke McAfee (Tom May Every Day)

NEW ALBANY — Festival goers will see a number of changes at this year's Harvest Homecoming Festival, including a new parade schedule and expanded events.

On Thursday, the Harvest Homecoming announced plans for year's festival, which takes place Oct. 5 to Oct. 13. The annual festival — now in its 52nd year — will feature a carnival theme called "Carnifall," and activities include craft/food booths, rides, children's events and live music.

This year's festival will kick off a little later in the day on Oct. 5. The Harvest Homecoming Parade was moved to 3 p.m. instead of its usual noon starting time, and it will be followed by several new events. Attendees can view the floats after the parade as they park around Bicentennial Park, where they can also participate in the Harvest Kickoff Karaoke ...

 ... (The festival) will feature a couple of riverfront concerts, including a Friday night concert with local and regional acts and a Saturday night concert with Katie Toupin, the former lead singer of Houndmouth, and a national act — organizers will announce the headliner in a couple weeks. The riverfront will also feature a Saturday beer festival from noon to 4 p.m., which is a new addition to Harvest Homecoming.

David White speaks with the News and TomMayBune about the Harvest Homecoming Festival Foundation.

The Harvest Homecoming Festival Foundation strikes me as good stewardship, especially since the fest doesn't have its own TIF areas to suck dry.

My own love-hate relationship with Harvest Homecoming is a matter of public record and I'd be a fool to disavow it, but at the same time considerable progress has been made during recent years toward the shared objective of adapting the festival to the emergence of business concentration and residency downtown.

I feel better about it now, and that's what communication is all about. There's been far more of it recently from Harvest Homecoming, although the same cannot be said about Jeff Gahan's forever hermetic City Hall.

Change out the mayor and just think of the possibilities. Voting for David White in the Democratic primary is an excellent place to begin the cleansing. It also bears noting that Harvest Homecoming's physical "booth days" footprint lies entirely within the 3rd council district.

Just imagine a council person in the 3rd who actually knows what indie business ownership involves. Indies don't get tenure, you know.

Foundation ensures Harvest Homecoming for decades to come, by Chris Morris (Unlimited Tom May Only $9.99)

For 51 years the Harvest Homecoming Festival has grown to one of the most popular, and largest in the state. There is nothing like it and each October, thousands come to enjoy the festivities.

Over the span of two weeks people are entertained by a host of activities from a parade to kick off the festival, to the popular booth days which attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to downtown New Albany.

But the festival is only as good as the weather because almost all the activities are outside. A few years of bad weather can not only disappoint the thousands of visitors, but also put a squeeze on the festival's operating budget.

That is why the Harvest Homecoming Festival Foundation was established.

The foundation, administered by the Community Foundation of Southern Indiana, will ensure yearly interest income so bad weather or lost sponsorships won't threaten the festival.

"The festival success is dependent on weather," said David White, who served as Harvest Homecoming's chairman of the board in 2017 and 2018. "Harvest Homecoming has been blessed with good weather and leadership and has been able to put on a quality family event. But all it takes is a few bad years and we would have to maybe cut a few events if our revenue drops ... "

You should be proud of me. I stayed sober through the entirety of Harvest Homecoming and didn't even say much about our annual harvest festival.

I had a "Charles Emerson Winchester at the phonograph" moment on Saturday evening at the Ogle Center. The Louisville Orchestra launched into its opening piece, ... where unsolvable problems go, and suddenly the concert hall seemed like a last-ditch bastion of sanity amid the tumult.

Apart from the single beer I drank at Pints&union early on Friday morning after tapping a keg of Revolution Oktoberfest (quality control is a professional obligation, folks, and what's more, wasting beer annoys me tremendously), I've stayed nice and toasty dry this Harvest Homecoming in terms of personal beverage alcohol consumption.

I considered walking down on Sunday and buying a rolled oyster, maybe even having one beer -- but didn't. Better to keep a clear head for the clean-up.

Believe it or not, I've worked hard these past few years to achieve a measure of inner peace with regard to Harvest Homecoming, especially as our signature civic festival pertains to a rapidly changing scene downtown.

It isn't my purpose at present to rekindle these controversies, although it should be noted that my core belief hasn't changed.

Some day very soon, it will become patently obvious that the festival no longer is conducive to downtown's best interests, at least as it currently is formatted. There'll have to be major changes. Regular readers have seen and heard it all before, and this is where I'll leave it today.

However, not without a startling revelation about my own personal viewpoint. In truth, apart from everything else that might be critiqued or analyzed about the Harvest Homecoming experience, the festival never really has been MY kind of celebration.

In short, tiny doses are enough for me, at best. This year I resolved to be helpful by refraining from repeating past pronouncements, and apart from what's been necessary for me to do at the pub, I've stayed completely out of it.

I feel better, y'all feel better.

It's a win-win for everyone.

Mind you, I don't dislike festivals as a matter of course.

I've been to dozens of beer events, including the Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison WI and Oktoberfest in Munich; observed the running of the bulls from safely afar at San Fermin in Pamplona; experienced May Day parades and parties in Vienna and Helsinki; and wandered accidentally into five or six municipal fests in smaller American and European cities, all of them enjoyable.

It isn't that I don't see the point of such gatherings in a wider sense, just that I find less of interest here at home in ours. Perhaps familiarity breeds indifference, and after all, I'm a natural-born contrarian who revels in the opposing argument.

But to each his or her own. C'est la vie -- of course. If you enjoy Harvest Homecoming, please rock on. Hang out, eat and drink too much with your friends and have fun.

For the sake of Harvest Homecoming's many fans, I'm happy we had traditional, cool autumn weather this year, and rain restricted for the most part to Sunday.

Depending on what is required of me in the future at the pub, it may be time for the Confidentials to implement our long term goal of timing a vacation to coincide with Harvest Homecoming. In 2016, we did this, driving up to Wisconsin's capital of Madison on a non-football weekend and enjoying it immensely. New England would be fun right about now, too.

See? This year I posted none of my notorious screeds, stayed out of the beer walk's path and uttered nary a peep when the mayor kept popping up on television, as though he had anything at all to do with Harvest Homecoming -- because even if the festival isn't my taste, I have enough sense to know who does the heavy lifting.

And it ain't him.

---

Okay, okay. As a mild postscript, just this one thing to add.

Each year I briefly enjoy a handful of recurring Harvest Homecoming social media moments. It generally starts when a downtown business owner writes about how disruptive the festival can be for bricks 'n' mortar shops and stores, and expresses frustration at being compelled (remember, downtowners have no vote) to pay for booth spaces to access a building being used as well as taxed the year-round.

The business owner soon is answered by John (or Joan) Q. Public, who vigorously defends the festival's critical annual importance, along with chicken, dumplings and doughnuts, and who proceeds to explain how the business owner might easily shift vast profits from booth spaces and those big festival crowds.

This is where I usually enter the discussion.

I nicely ask the respondent: "So, back when YOU owned a downtown business and Harvest Homecoming came around, how did treating the festival as an opportunity work out for YOU? Was the booth fee worth it for YOU? Did the crowds help or hurt YOU? Was it a fantastic marketing opportunity for YOU?"

There the chat ends, nine times out of ten. Every now and then, there'll be a final anguished spasm along the lines of "it's our Harvest Homecoming, asshole, so just take a vacation or something."

It's scandalous. There I was, thinking these social media participants might actually know what the hell they're talking about.

Accordingly, let's come to an agreement: I don't pretend to fathom what greasy street food you like the best, and you don't pretend to know how to run a bricks and mortar downtown business when you're clueless.

See you next year ... unless we're in Wisconsin, Massachusetts or Bamberg. Until then, I promise to keep my big mouth (partially) shut.