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.

Good luck to Jason Thomas, who is leaving the News and Tribune to join Business First as managing editor.

During Jason Thomas's time at the News and Tribune, we often agreed, although there were a few spirited disagreements. It's even possible that I was in the wrong on occasion, but no more than once or twice.

Jason always listened, always engaged, and always replied. I respect the hell out of these traits because they're rare hereabouts, and while I wish him all the best at Business First, his departure is a blow to local journalism in our neck of the woods.

The ranks of quality are thinning, and Bill Hanson isn't exactly improving -- something I reminded him about earlier today.

ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to "Pagan Life," a weekly column devoted to heathens, infidels, idolaters, atheists, non-theists, irreligious people, agnostics, skeptics, heretics and apostates.

Good luck to Jason Thomas in all his future endeavors in journalism. He's a classy guy, and we need more like him.

The Harvest Homecoming Parade has a new starting time of 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 5.

Reality in 2017.

I'm told the reasoning for the later starting time is to encourage parade participation (iffy) and to provide a natural segue into evening dining hours for participants and spectators alike in the hope they'll roam downtown (entirely possible).

It seems like a good idea to me. Should we still begin porchside drinking at 10:00 a.m. or wait until 1:00 p.m.?

Harvest Homecoming Parade
Starts: October 5, 2019 @ 3:00 pm
Ends: October 5, 2019 @ 5:00 pm
Place: Start: New Albany High School End: Bank & Elm Streets

The Harvest Homecoming Parade is the official kick-off to the Harvest Homecoming Festival! Come experience over-the-top floats, vintage cars, and loud bands with our Carni-Fall parade. The Parade kicks off at 3:00 PM from New Albany High School, marches down Vincennes Street then takes a right on Spring Street and ends on Bank Street. You can have a front row seat to all the action, along any street!

New this year – A parade “float show” will begin in bicentennial park immediately following the parade and be available for an up-close look at participating parade floats during Harvest Karaoke.

"Quite simply, progressives must discover progress."

Woe is us -- what are we to do when we keep repeating the same act and it keeps turning out the same way?

Here's how: Just stop it. Vary the routine. Come up with a new plan.

The Floyd County Democratic Party has kicked off the New Year with the same old Disney song and dance, so it doesn't look like the tried and true is going to be of any assistance.

Isn't it time to trade in that battered hulk for something new and progressive? Here are two articles from The Guardian that make the case.

Trump and Brexit left progressives aghast – they should be emboldened, by Jeff Sparrow

As a movement dedicated to social transformation, the left must reclaim the idea of progress from the reactionaries and demagogues

 ... Unfortunately, so much of what passes for activism now centres on an individualised moralism, less about changing the world than about making yourself feel (or perhaps sound) good while all about you everything remains exactly the same.

In 1959, Raymond Williams described the seemingly insurmountable gulf between the progressive intellectuals of his day and the great bulk of the population. “Nothing,” he wrote, “has done more to sour the democratic idea among its natural supporters, and to drive them back into angry self-exile, than the plain, overwhelming cultural issues: the apparent division of our culture into, on the one hand, a remote and self-gracious sophistication, on the other hand, a doped mass.”

Since, then, of course, that division has only widened ...

 ... How then will we respond? The temptation will be, once again, to defend liberal values by reinforcing the institutions of liberalism. But that’s not going to work. Quite simply, progressives must discover progress. Rather than buttressing a moribund status quo, the left needs to place itself on the side of change. That’s how we win – by reclaiming the notion of a better future from the reactionaries and demagogues.

And ...

Themes of 2016: Progressive parties have to address the people’s anger, by Michael Sandel

The election of Donald Trump and the triumph of Brexit – the two political earthquakes of 2016 – resulted from the failure of elites to grasp the discontent in democracies around the world. The populist revolt marked the rejection of a technocratic approach to politics incapable of understanding the resentments of voters who feel the economy and the culture have left them behind.

Some denounce populism as little more than a racist, xenophobic reaction against immigrants and multiculturalism. Others view it as a protest against the job losses brought about by global trade and new technologies. But to see only the bigotry in populist protest, or to view that protest only in economic terms, misses the fact that the upheavals of 2016 stemmed from the establishment’s inability to address – or even adequately recognise – genuine grievances ...

... Before they can hope to win back public support, progressive parties must rethink their mission and purpose. To do so, they should learn from the populist protest that has displaced them, not by emulating its xenophobia and strident nationalism, but by taking seriously the legitimate grievances with which these sentiments are entangled. And that means recognising that the grievances are about social esteem, not just wages and jobs.

IMPORTANT: New Albany Indie Fest 2016 will be held on September 24 at the 400 block of Bank Street, and at NABC Bank Street Brewhouse.

IMPORTANT INDIE FEST UPDATE

A change in location for New Albany Indie Fest 2016.

New Albany Indie Fest announces a change in location for 2016. The previously announced date and overall program are not affected by the site change.

Saturday, September 24, starting at 12 noon.

However, Indie Fest will be held on the 400 block of Bank Street between Spring and Elm.

Music will be staged at NABC’s Bank Street Brewhouse (415 Bank Street), whom we thank for stepping in at short notice.

Sativa Gumbo remains the Indie Fest headliner, and the remainder of the musical lineup is the same as previously announced.

Thanks for your consideration, and we’ll see you on Saturday.

New Albany Indie Fest on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NAIndiefest/

New Albany Indie Fest Contact:
Marcey Wisman-Bennett 812.207.7415
marcey.wisman@gmail.com

New Albany Indie Fest is a 501c3 non-profit organization.

The updated press release follows, including the performance schedule.

---

Sativa Gumbo’s 20th Anniversary Reunion Tops New Albany Indie Fest 2016

NEW ALBANY, IN (September 20, 2016) – New Albany Indie Fest marks its fifth year in 2016 with a headlining 20th anniversary performance by the reunited Sativa Gumbo.

Other performers and their performance schedules:

CONCERT STAGE PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
At NABC Bank Street Brewhouse

12:30 - Powell
1:45 - Prodepressants
3:15 - Winston on Wheels
5:00 - EMDW
6:30 - Jimmy G & the Sidewinders
7:45 - Brother Wolves
9:00 - Sativa Gumbo

PATIO PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
At NABC Bank Street Brewhouse

1:15 p.m. - Christian Johnson
2:30 p.m. - Hugh E. Bir
4:30 p.m. - Meadow Ryann
5:45 p.m. - Mike Mullins

New Albany Indie Fest is an arts and music festival taking place in downtown New Albany on Saturday, September 24, in the 400 block of Bank Street, and at NABC’s Bank Street Brewhouse (415 Bank Street). The festival begins at noon, and admission is free. It is a celebration of localism, showcasing independent artists and entrepreneurs.

By choosing local and independent businesses for your services, shopping, dining and other needs, you not only enjoy a more distinctive and personal experience, you’re helping build community, strengthen your local economy, shape local character, create a healthier environment – among other positive outcomes (www.ambiba.net).

Members of the New Albany area’s thriving arts scene will be on hand to display their homegrown talents. Expect handmade jewelry, local boutiques, handmade bath and body products and much more.

In 2016, New Albany Indie Fest is being held concurrently with the Carnegie Center for Art and History’s Public Art Project event at the Riverfront Amphitheater, and extended afternoon hours for the New Albany Farmer’s Market at City Square (Bank and Market).

THE SATIVA GUMBO STORY

Local rock band Sativa Gumbo is proud to announce a fall 2016 reunion to celebrate 20 years of music and memories.

Sativa Gumbo on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Sativa-Gumbo-624886324282531

Founding members of Sativa Gumbo are Tommy Potts (guitar and vocals) and Jared Williamson (bass and vocals). They met in the summer of 1996 and immediately connected over their mutual love of music and songwriting.

A full band followed almost instinctually, and Johnny Stein (guitar) and Andrew Garbe (drums) were added to form the original lineup, which played its first-ever show on October 9th, 1996 – coincidentally, in downtown New Albany.

As Sativa Gumbo’s musical style evolved, so did its lineup. With the subsequent departure of Stein and Garbe, the band found its heartbeat in the masterful percussive voice of Shawn “Coach” Williams. Williams brought a whole new level of depth to the band’s rhythm section, allowing for continued exploration of different time signatures and genres, and on occasion taking to the mic himself to deliver a stirring vocal lead that always left the audience wanting more.

The late Ryan Pickhardt’s keyboard and organ work is the stuff of local lore. The energy and vibrancy of Pickhardt’s approach to music was akin to Zambelli’s approach to fireworks: bright, loud, percussive-shock and awe. It was not uncommon for him to break keys during a show, or play until he was literally bleeding. He catapulted the energy of the band’s live show into the stratosphere.

Williamson, Potts, Williams and Pickhardt were the longest-running lineup of the band. When they took a hiatus after their last show on October 9th 2010, exactly 14 years and a few blocks from the first show, it was only a short time before another incarnation of the band surfaced.

The Gumbo Family Quartet “unplugged” and re-arranged many of Sativa Gumbo’s songs in a more acoustic approach. Williamson took to the upright bass, Potts the acoustic guitar, Pickhardt on keys and Richard Atnip joining on lap steel guitar.

The quartet enjoyed a short run of shows and started work on an album before career changes moved Williamson to Saint Louis and Atnip to Chicago. Then the biggest loss of all hit the extended Gumbo family, as we said our final goodbyes to Ryan Pickhardt -- and the music stopped.

As the years passed, the band’s internal fire gradually returned, and the pieces started to be put back together to re-envision a combination of both SG and TGFQ sensibilities.

In 2016, Williamson and Potts return to their co-founder roles, Williams returns to the drum throne, and Atnip brings both his lap steel and electric guitar styling into the fold.

There was a massive hole to fill in replacing Pickhardt’s keyboard mastery, but the perfect choice to fill it has been close at hand since the band’s beginnings: DJ Barksdale.

Like every other member of SG, DJ attended New Albany High School and was a close friend of Ryan’s. They jammed together and exchanged keyboard knowledge over the years, and both attended numerous SG shows before joining the band. DJ brings respect to the music and the keyboard stylings that came before him, while helping the band move the music forward as the new quintet evolves into the next era of Sativa Gumbo.

Older, hopefully wiser, and ready to rock and roll once more, Sativa Gumbo is back for a 2016 fall reunion, after more than 100 original songs, hundreds of shows across the Midwest, multiple albums recorded, and 8 band members over the years.

We invite any and all to celebrate the memories we’ve made together over the years, and to make some new ones. We hope to see you at the shows!

ON THE AVENUES BOARD OF WORKS SPECIAL: City Hall’s shelf life for excuses expires today.

ON THE AVENUES BOARD OF WORKS SPECIAL: City Hall’s shelf life for excuses expires today.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

(Update: Here is the link to a .pdf of the draft report)

(Kindly note that Drinking Progressively is tonight at Bank Street Brewhouse from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in the Reading Room. We’ll recap the Speck study and today’s Board of Works meeting, and chat about other local issues. Feel free to drop in and take part)

Chairman Nash, and the Board of Public Works and (ahem) Safety:

I promised a friend who lives on Market Street that I’d relay his thoughts this morning. He’s in his late twenties or early thirties, and like so many other working people in New Albany, it’s hard for him to make these morning meetings. He and his wife bought one of the NSP properties. When I run into him at the brewery, we talk a lot about quality of life issues, and whether city government “gets it” from the perspective of millennials.

Here is his message:

Just thought I'd share my biking on main street experience with you. Someone is going to get seriously hurt or worse. I was in the supposedly "shared" lane traveling east around the Culbertson mansion, all while cars were zipping past me trying to squeeze through any place they could, forcing me into the parking lanes. Then I had to reenter traffic when I came upon those extensions that are supposed to slow traffic down. What about this renovation and painted biking signs on the pavement was supposed to make it safe for cyclists? I have no problems riding in traffic and sharing lanes, its motorists with NASCAR mentality and ambiguous "shared" lanes that are scary.

Today you’ll be belatedly introduced to Jeff Speck’s street grid reform proposals, and if these are speedily and properly implemented, in what would be a quantum leap forward in to the future compared to the city’s past history of underachievement, these would alleviate to some extent the Main Street idiocy recounted here by establishing mostly protected bicycle lanes on nearby streets, and sharrows on others where traffic actually would be calmed first, but the outside consultant’s sensible remedies should not disguise the simple truth about the Main Street Deforestation Project: It is an utter fiasco, and the parties responsible need be cashiered as quickly as possible.

Here’s why.

When you implemented the Main Street 18-Wheeler Diversion Project, what you did, in essence, was take $2 million belonging to all of us, as intended to maintain an entire stretch of roadway running all the way through the city, and to use the money to facilitate a small group of residents, in a smaller slice of a downtown neighborhood, to bring to fruition their desire to secede from the city’s street grid.

Throughout Speck’s streets proposal, which I read last night, he constantly skirts the issue of the Main Street Political Objectives Project, hinting broadly that well, I can’t do anything about THE mess you’ve already made, so let’s show how it might have been done correctly by applying the planning principles ignored on Main Street to those other streets currently being either passively neglected or actively degraded.

Naturally, as a paid contractor, he’s far too polite to point out what Elm, Spring and Market residents already know all too well after an entire year of experience: The Main Street Enfluffment Project has made their quality of life worse – whether by establishing the ugly principle that one neighborhood is more worthy of having its property values raised than another, or by lowering property values along the other arterial streets nearby by diverting hitherto unseen heavy truck traffic in a ripple effect that still, to this very day, is being denied by the same city officials responsible for creating it, as their stock answer continues to be (if they bother answering at all), “But Roger, this was not the intent.”

Neither was climate change, but that doesn’t make it any less real, does it?

As I write at 7:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, huge Tiger Trucking semis are channeling up and down tiny, narrow 13th Street to Spring, and back to Main. It will continue all day, and it’s been going on for a full year, and I’m not sure I ever SAW more than a handful of semis on my street until last February. The city itself created this problem. Admittedly, the city is not responsible for the hundred or more daily dump trucks passing through town from Clark County construction sites, down Spring, then back up Market.

But you’ve done absolutely nothing about them, either. Fact is, you broke it. Now you buy it and take ownership of it. Jeff Speck tells you how.

If you act quickly to implement Speck’s proposals, it’s the finest possible thing you could do for this city, maybe ever. This is the best shot we’ve had in my lifetime, and perhaps even the chairman’s. But it's going to require a different set of muscles than those required to manage decay. City government will need to believe in this if there is any hope of getting it right.

You've consistently refused to believe people like me when we've shown you the factual evidence and said that walkability and bikeability are what future generations want, or that two-way streets help small business, or that slower traffic by design helps everyone, or that we should not tolerate trucking companies using urban streets like an interstate highway.

That’s why we’re angry, after all.

Hopefully, you’ll believe the professional whose work WE’VE been reading and advocating while YOU’VE been attending Democratic Party prom galas and tossing back a few longnecks at the Roadhouse.

Will you accomplish anything at all in an election year, or do we get to suffer some more while you whistle nervously and stare at the ceiling?

With the advent of the Speck study, you’re now holding the cards. Would you like to play a few of them, for a change?

Thank you.

Historic home for sale in Georgetown. DNA probably approves this message.

From this ...

... to this.

Among other things, the past few weeks have been spent transitioning my mom into her new assisted living quarters at the Silvercrest development. She's up on the top floor. Remember when Silvercrest's future was uncertain? Now it's plush; as the Rutles sang, all you (or Matt Chalfant) need is cash.

Anyone looking for a home in the country? The house pictured in the first photo above is on the National Register of Historic Publican Places as the acreage where the Potable Curmudgeon was raised -- not, as was pointed out earlier, where I "grew up." The Paul Kiger Metro Group is listing it, and the pertinent information is available on-line. I hope the house lands in the right hands.

What a year, and it's only May.

Brewery events season starts now, with RiverRoots in Madison, and next weekend's Boomtown Ball. Next thing we know, it'll be Harvest Hellcoming. There's a downtown taproom business to reinvent, and last week, one of our cats (Veronica "Bugg" Buggsworth) passed away. She'll be missed.

Perhaps by autumn, there'll be time to properly mourn, but the curious thing about all of it is that mourning does not seem merited. Rather, new beginnings seem to be popping up everywhere. Amid the understandable disappointment as it pertains to Bank Street Brewhouse, there is a feeling of liberation and renewal. We tend to pay lip service to the need for change, but often find it difficult to embark on the journey, except that some times, the journey comes to you, whether you requested it, or not.

Many thanks for the many comments, memories and critiques. I'm trying to read and acknowledge each one; apologies if I've missed yours.

City press release: Live @ Five taking August off, will conclude with September dates.

Straight from the wire.

Live@5 Schedule Changes

Today, City Officials announced that the Live@5 Concert Series will wrap up in September, rather than the previously planned August. Both the weather and the return of the school year were cited as reasons for the break, along with wanting to host City Events come fall.

“We will not be holding Live@5 during the month of August, both to allow the extreme heat that we have been experiencing to subside, and to allow families some time to adjust to their new schedules with the return of the school year,” began Mike Hall, City Operations. “With the summer months winding down, we at the City also wanted to host some events in the fall for citizens to enjoy leading up to Harvest Homecoming.”

“Live@5 will resume in September to escape the August heat and to coincide with cooler outdoor temperatures in the run up to the Harvest Homecoming Festival,” stated Mayor Jeff M. Gahan.

Live@5 is scheduled to return on September 7th. The City of New Albany will a also be hosting its Labor Day Celebration on Saturday, September 1st at the scenic, New Albany Riverfront Amphitheater. To best keep informed on the new lineup for Live@5, along with all City of New Albany news, please “like” the City’s Facebook page at Facebook.com/NewAlbanyIN and visit the City’s website at CityOfNewAlbany.com.

REWIND: "A growing network of people and institutions that openly and enthusiastically invite positive change and progress to our city."

Originally written and repurposed almost three years ago on October 29, 2005, the following was an idiosyncratic, quasi state of the union effort from a still in utero gadfly. Politicians, blogs, and apparently financial markets have appeared and vanished in the interim, but it's a reminder - to me at least - of how I convince myself of this town's worth or my self's worth to this town or possibly just another neurosis.

I'll leave that adjudication to readers, knowing it at least made the boss happy at one point and that I'll have (hopefully) survived my umpteenth annual Harvest Homecoming in the parking lot of the old Rainbo Bread building with the Derby City Roller Girls as either penance or payment by the time we encounter the same month and number this year.


Yesterday we referred readers to Randy Smith’s Volunteer Hoosier coverage of the Democratic Party fete at the Grand on Thursday evening.

Unsurprisingly, Randy’s piece prompted an ill-tempered response from someone hiding behind a bizarrely contrived Internet pen name:

Your comments, sir, make me want to puke. You are still wet behind the ears … more than your labeled "Gang of Four" weren't there … my party is fine, sir; you, sir, are not.

Anonymous cowardice having become the little person's Olympic medal sport in New Albany thanks to the tireless efforts of Trog Sham’s cyber-vandalism contingent, we would expect to find nothing particularly noteworthy in such a response ... except, in this case, it inspired our friend bluegill to compose the following riposte, one fully deserving of reprinting in this space owing to his clear, economical prose and a devastatingly accurate description of the facts -- not the opinions -- of where we are, and where we're going.

Feel free to enjoy Jeff's words as much as we have.

xxxxxxxx

I'm still trying to figure out what there is to be learned from a group that's been largely unsuccessful for decades. After a year, I still have no idea what positive notions I'm supposed to glean from petty, ill-conceived and badly executed attacks on rationality. If anything, they've proven themselves to be informative as a sort of collective anachronism, a symbolic view into the darker past that created the conditions many are now working to reverse. They aren't Rosa Parks. They're the bus.

There are any number of people who've done more to improve conditions in New Albany in a year or two than have any of the usual cast of malcontents in a lifetime.

To clarify, that statement isn't made to discourage or disenfranchise those in (or outside) the party who've dedicated years of honest work to New Albany's improvement. In fact, it should serve to bolster their spirits and provide inspiration for redoubled efforts.

The days of feigning happiness and forcing smiles when a Dan Coffey or Larry Kochert wins an election, purely out of a sense of loyalty to the party, are coming to a distasteful but inevitable end. As their public lives haven't afforded much respect for or understanding of the concepts of grace or dignity, neither should their political deaths be expected to engender such traits. Dead, however, is dead.

According to almost all the longtime party members with whom I spoke last night, the dinner was a success not only because of the notable and not-so-notable absences but also because the speakers enjoyed a view that included so many new faces.

Whether party leadership has the gumption to engage the minds behind those faces and harness their energy to further enable the work of those who are actually creating progress in the streets everyday remains to be seen. To the extent that they do, I'll support them.

Because after the aforementioned year (the timeframe of which not at all coincidentally dovetails with the opening of Destinations, the debut of NA Confidential, the continued strengthening of the East Spring Street and S. Ellen Jones neighborhood associations, the revival of the Downtown Merchants Association, the work of Mike Kopp, and the finalization of plans for Scribner Place), this is what I know:

There is a growing network of people and institutions that openly and enthusiastically invite positive change and progress to our city. It was evident when my wife and I began looking for a home here. It is evident in our own efforts to communicate our belief in the potential of New Albany to others.

Most people I've met in the past year are not only willing to put forth an invitation to new residents and businesses, but also to do the leg work necessary to nurture and sustain their presence here. And make no mistake, that sense of pride and potential is spreading exponentially.

I know people who've convinced families and businesses to move here. I know those families and businesses are extolling the benefits of their choice to others just like them. And I know those people aren't just from Jeffersonville, Clarksville or Louisville. They're from Rhode Island, New York, California, Florida and foreign countries. Even the natives are beginning to see what's so clearly evident to those from elsewhere: New Albany, with its pioneering, multicultural heritage and regionally unparalleled historic resources, if matched with even a modicum of modern sensibility and cooperative vision, can regain its long lost position of being a place that matters.

The fear that “foreign” proposition creates in some is an aberration, a minor annoyance along the path to progress and should be dealt with as such. It's simply no match for the determination and talent of those who can do, are doing, and will do, whether out of a duty to their ancestry or a love of possibilities.

This is evidenced by the fact that, when I have occasion to help facilitate or participate in increasingly popular public affairs symposiums, neighborhood gatherings, educational activities, and various other meetings with investors, bankers, property owners, academics, and real estate and cultural agents- all with the aim and often the resources to turn that potential into a tangible, concrete reality- the naysayers are not present. Ever. Revitalization efforts are occurring in spite of them, not because of them.

And for that, I say to hell with them. They're irrelevant.

What is relevant is a continuing and increased cooperation between agencies and individuals, between money and ideas, and an overriding, pervasive DIY spirit. New Albany doesn't need heroes; it needs partnerships and at least one partner stares back at each of us in the mirror everyday.

If you have money to spend, spend it here. If you have an old pick up truck, help haul your neighbor's repair supplies. If you have a building department to rebuild, rebuild it straightaway.

The horn has been tooted, ladies and gentlemen. Now it's time to bring the instruments together to play a song.