"Lithuania's barking-mad Soviet-era theme park has barking dogs and barking ex-KGB," but ironically, no place to walk your dog.

Tanned, rested and ready, my masterpiece development plan is ready to be TIFFed: The Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness.

LITHUANIA’S BARKING-MAD SOVIET-ERA THEME PARK HAS BARKING DOGS AND BARKING EX-KGB, by Colton (Ripley's)

If you’ve ever wanted to trudge around in the cold while being shouted at in Russian, the could be the perfect vacation spot.

Set in a Soviet-era bunker, 1984: Survival Experience visitors are treated as though they were Lithuanian citizens under the control of the communist Russian military. The dramatization starts with putting on heavy, damp jackets. A German shepherd and ex-KGB officer bark orders as you enter your new Soviet paradise. Yes, ex-KGB. Believe it or not, all of the attractions actors were in the Soviet army. Some even interrogators trained in psychological tactics.

It gets real ...

City Hall is as silent as a Bud Light & Clamato Chelada, but we're inferring that Boomtown Ball will NOT be held in 2017.

At this time last year, momentum was building toward the third edition of the Boomtown Ball & Festival in downtown New Albany. See below for links explaining the history of the event.

Team Gahan released its first Bicentennial Park Summer Concert Series tout yesterday, and it made no mention whatever of Boomtown.

However, there was this:

We start a week early this year on May 26th with local blue’s favorites Kentuckiana Blues Road Show. The Road Show line-up features New Albany native Jimmy G & The Sidewinders, Laurie Jane & The 45’s and Jason Lockwood & The Stella Vees.

Each of the first three Boomtowns was held on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, followed by the concert series kickoff on the first Friday in June. We're inferring that since May 26 is the Friday before Boomtown's traditional slot, it's a backhanded way of saying "no Boomtown for you."

In addition, a friend asked DNA:

"I messaged Develop New Albany. They got back with me that Boomtown was not on the calendar for May. So the lady was assuming no."

Also, there is no mention of Boomtown on any of Production Simple's propaganda arms, suggesting that in 2017, the Louisville company's annexation of downtown New Albany will be limited to concert series Fridays.

Naturally, all of this makes sense given that in 2017, Abbey Road on the River moves to downtown Jeffersonville. The festival lasts five days over Memorial Day weekend, May 25 - 29.

Mike Moore 1, Jeff Gahan nil. 

If you're still wondering why the city of New Albany is engaged in the business of concert promotion, chalk it up to a bad case of Disney Envy.

---

Boomtown Ball accounts from previous years:

2016
Roger answers all your questions on the eve of Boomtown, 2016.
Boomtown Ball & Festival returns.

2015
The PC: Who'll put the beer in Boomtown?

2014
The PC: Post-Boomtown reflections.

Here's your city council agenda for Monday evening.

Owing to prior commitments, as well as the preservation of what's left of my sanity, I'll be unable to attend the two April council meetings.

Tonight's scorecard is here:

The council packet for tonight's meeting runs to a whopping 125 pages in PDF format, most of which is devoted to mind-numbing legalese defining the parameters of G-17-04.

This measure appears to be a refinancing of redevelopment bonds downtown to free up money to use in conjunction with last week's Horseshoe Foundation tithe, so as to facilitate implementation of the beloved Conducator's plans for improvements in his own suburban Disneyesque image.

City Hall describes the four major projects to be funded (in part?) through the Horseshoe Foundation's $5 million gift.

In short, if the fix is in, it's time to pop a few corks, kick back, and enjoy the pervasive banality.

ON THE AVENUES: Our great and noble leader is here to stay, so let's break out the țuică and make a joyful noise.

By the way, thanks to Matt Nash for his kind words at the last meeting in March. They are appreciated.

Verily, I wasn't made for a world this stupid: "Visiting Disney World is the modern version of a medieval pilgrimage."

An occasional reminder is justified, because John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces is a very funny book. This brief extract begins with Ignatius's long-suffering mother, as she dares enter his room in the New Orleans house where they live.

“It smells terrible in here.'

Well, what do you expect? The human body, when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.”

I prefer the punch line like this:

Veneration of Walt Disney is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.

Just what we needed.

In a world grown increasingly complex, when reality so desperately demands prompt and scrupulous attention, what we do instead is create another religion, so that local office holders can look longingly to unreality as a basis for revitalization.

Visiting Disney World is the Modern Version of Making a Medieval Pilgrimage According to anthropologists, religious studies experts, and art historians, by Sarah Laskow (Atlas Obscura)

At Walt Disney World, the weeks around Christmas are one of the most crowded times of the year: from all over the country and all over the world, families flock to Orlando to be in this special space for just a few days. Most Disney patrons would probably call their trip a vacation, but to anthropologists, religious studies experts, and art historians, a visit to Disney World looks a lot like another, older form of travel—a pilgrimage.

“Appetites for direct contact with Disney’s creations have transformed the trek to Disney World into a genuine form of pilgrimage,” writes historian Cheryl Krause Knight, author of Power and Paradise in Walt Disney’s World. In the modern world, a trip to Disney has become a rite of passage that transforms those who make the trek, and the design of the park heightens that experience: Disney World resembles a medieval pilgrimage center, designed to connect pilgrims with the supernatural, represented by Mickey Mouse and company.

Mickey is like a supernatural being.

True, although Uncle Walt had a better year in 2016 -- and he's been dead since 1966.

With apologies to the mirthful empire, there's just nothing more entertaining than a party chairman self-immolation watch.

As of Tuesday's epic Democratic fail, Gahan's a bigger fish in a smaller pond -- and Dickey's looking for a food taster.

Bernie Sanders: It looks as if an Independent is the current leader of a rudderless Democratic Party.

ON THE AVENUES: Kind-a full-a you know what, but now we're going to find out whether Jeff Gahan has any cattle under his hat.

ON THE AVENUES: Don't be a Dickey, local Democrats. The verdict is in, and it's time for a change.

Marine versus saccharine ... or Young, Bayh and Mr. Disney's acid reflux.

And Bayh was our best hope to take Mr. Disney to DC with him. 

Sharing an astute observation from a friend.

"(Evan) Bayh said he watches PBS and the Disney channel to escape the negative advertising."

I'll leave it to you to judge whether he's more PBS or Disney. By the way, Todd Young is a Marine. Bet you hadn't heard.

Limp Disney.

Subtitled: "The Powder Blue Victory of Form Over Substance."

I'm so old I can remember when we had a green city flag and a steamboat on the seal. What I just cannot seem to recall is the date of the referendum when we changed them.

Wait, that's right: We didn't.