Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast 2019: "That is one hell of a big tent right there!"

Unity of purpose at the 2019 Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast: (left to right) State Representative Ed Clere: former city councilman, former county commissioner, longtime small business owner and current mayoral candidate Mark Seabrook: scruffy beer guy and iconoclast who sneaked in via the kitchen, then crashed the photo op; and Irv Stumler, whose CV is far too long to list here.*

The combined years of service offered by these three men to our community simply boggles the mind. 125? That's probably a low estimate.

I've disagreed with each of these men in the past, at times vehemently, and yet we still communicate with each other. Making sense isn't an activity confined to one side of an imaginary "aisle."

Some readers remain mystified at recent headings like this:

ON THE AVENUES: Socialists for Seabrook, because we desperately need a new beginning in New Albany.

They shouldn't be puzzled at all. This one isn't hieroglyphics, either.

Democrat David White: "I am asking ALL the people who have supported me over the years to help Mark Seabrook put People First!"

The coda goes to Kelly Feiock, in a photo taken at last week's chili cook-off at the Calumet Club.

Kelly wrote: "I LOVE this pic! Roger, Scott (Whalen) and I formed a friendship based on a desire to make our city a better place."

THAT'S the point, isn't it?

---

* Thanks to Steve LaDuke for the "tent" quote.

Sherman Minton Refusal: The two-way street grid stays as it is, jack, and if we're smart we'll double down on walkability.

In about a year and a half, the city will face a very big challenge over a period of up to four years. The Sherman Minton Bridge repair regimen will be terribly disruptive, to say the least.

The saddest part of all this is the timing.

At precisely the point when we should be talking about improving Jeff Gahan's lacklustre, lowest-common-denominator approach to making New Albany's densest urban areas more walkable and bikeable, by sensibly slowing traffic and incrementally curbing the automobile imperialism that reigns hereabouts, instead we're about to spend the next five years talking about nothing except cars and the "right" of drivers to impose their wills on the cosmos.

Well, no. Not exactly. Already I've heard hints from the car-centric to the effect that the only way to cope with the coming disruptions is to "temporarily" re-revert downtown streets to one-way traffic -- you know, so drivers and get from one end of town to the other more quickly.

Nope.

Principled community leaders (and candidates in this fall's election) need to state cleatly that Gahan's street-grid baby steps -- while too laughably timid by half -- aren't negotiable. Furthermore, as yet stillborn efforts to slow traffic and make the historic city center safe for all users, not just the ones jangling their car keys, need to be revived, implemented and ratcheted up.

Sherman Minton Insanity does not change one important, fundamental fact, because the object remains to better utilize the potential of the city's density by making it a place people want to live, work and play, and not merely drive through.

Yes, outsiders need to be able to get to us. However, residents also need to "get it," and to understand that surrendering to the tyranny of the pass-through motorist constitutes failure, not success.

For the sake of the internal combustion engine, as utilizing an interstate highway bridge already over-used owing to toll evasion, New Albany might well become road kill.

Last evening I was called to task for saying unkind things on the interwebz about INDOT, but the fact of the matter is that INDOT exists to serve the interests of the Sherman Minton as a high-speed, pass-through component of a larger car-centric transportation grid. INDOT cares little about collateral damage in New Albany, a city standing to benefit mightily from low-speed, stay-a-while use.

Happily, much of what has come out of last evening's meeting indicates a shared determination for New Albany businesses to unify and begin (at long last) thinking collectively about the need to "sell" the outside world on New Albany. We're facing a potentially existential threat, and unity is the best way to prepare for it.

It would be nice to hear City Hall's take on this matter -- BEFORE the election.

Dan Coffey plans his own unity rally, because why should those smarty pants Democrats have all the fun?

Maybe David Duggins can loan Dan Coffey the NAHA community center. There'd be no need to fumigate something you're not planning on using, anyway.

Given Deaf Gahan's eagerness to appease Wizard of Westside, the only unanswered question is which gathering the mayor will attend.

Downtown business owners: Would you rather Jeff Gahan "brand" you with his cult of personality, or "brand" yourselves with your own collective identity?

Business First rarely matters, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, even if the teasing headlines written to titillate fawning suburbanites send readers in search of a handy barf bag.

This section of downtown is forming its own business association, by Joel Stinnett

A new downtown business association is looking for help in steering its future.

The S. 4th St. District Association will host "Cocktails & Conversation" at 6:30 tonight, June 19, at 8UP Elevated Drinkery and Kitchen, 350 W. Chestnut St.

The event will be a chance for business owners to exchange ideas, according to Jeanne Hilt, director of marketing and communications for Louisville Downtown Partnership. She said the association will also be looking for volunteers for its board of directors and taking suggestions for its bylaws.

"This is a chance for us to really promote the district," Hilt said. "It's a collection of people who want to make this district the best it can be."

Imagine the cheek; business owners proposing ideas to government rather than the other way around.

Hilt said business owners have already been discussing ideas to propose to Louisville Metro Council and ways to promote the district.

"We have a lot of music in this district with Mercury, The Palace, radio stations and Fourth Street Live," Hilt said. "That is just one of the many great things in the district we can highlight."

It's your time and money, but have you ever noticed how they always want to take credit for it?

If ever the old axiom is true, it's right here, right now: If you want it done right, you'll have to do it yourself.

Do you really want your efforts to lift the city summarized by a logo with an anchor?

ON THE AVENUES: There has never been a better time for an Independent Business Alliance in New Albany.

Independent locally-owned small businesses are mistaken to think that this hurdle can be cleared by disengagement, or by waiting for this or any other city government to dictate the terms.

Rather, independent locally-owned small business owners must evade the intended diversion of time spent micromanaging periodic events and instead put their mouths where their money is by heeding the advice of the American Independent Business Alliance and embracing a simple but eloquent truth: "There truly is strength in numbers."

"We are not each other’s enemies and we had better learn to be good allies or we will collapse."

Valuable weekend reading.

FUN WITH SHRAPNEL: What unifies white, black, brown, by Erica Rucker (LEO)

... Trump has filled his gold-lined cabinet with ultra rich friends, and their push to keep us divided while filling their coffers will continue. If we are paying attention, poor whites, middle-class whites and marginalized groups have much in common, which should tell us something very important: We are not each other’s enemies and we had better learn to be good allies or we will collapse. We’re being sucked dry by the same snakes.

New Albany 1st, now somewhere in Asia -- but pendulums have a way of swinging.

As the screenshot illustrates, NA 1st's web site has fallen under Oriental control. The Facebook page offered a handful of updates in 2015, but overall, I think it's safe to say that the organization is moribund.

New Albany First is the only Independent Business Alliance that exists solely to support and promote independent business owners and to educate community members about the importance of buying locally in New Albany and Floyd County.

This isn't to be construed as criticism. Rather, it's about determination.

One of the recurring conundrums of such an organization is that it depends on the efforts of the very people who have the least time to pursue them. This ball was kept in the air for a long time, and mirroring the experiences of individuals resolving to quit smoking or lose weight, it sometimes requires multiple efforts amid changing circumstances.

The good news is that New Albany IndieFest, itself an offshoot of NA 1st, is building a board and seeking status as a 501(c)3. In my opinion, it may be possible eventually for roles to be reversed, and the indie biz ethos to be disseminated from IndieFest.

It also is conceivable that should Develop New Albany return to its original purpose as a National Main Street organization, its economic restructuring arm might function as indie advocate.

However, the very first necessary element is for independent business owners to grasp the utility of unity for a common purpose. Perhaps New Albany isn't unusual, though it seems that here, there is a perennial unwillingness to understand that independence is furthered through the strength of the collective, especially when the clout of the economic forces resisting independence is greater.

I'm an optimist, and believe unity will occur. Given the challenges on the horizon, let's hope "now" arrives soon.

The monthly merchant group meeting is Tuesday, January 19 at the Elks Lodge.

Independent local businesses walk a high wire without a net.

Most of these words were written in 2012, minus an ill-advised reference to corporate gift card swaps, and although I'm currently transitioning away from independent local business ownership, there is an "indie-anonymous" aspect to the process of disengagement.

On one hand, the better "craft" beer biz is my natural milieu. On the other, as presently constituted, it's a scrum of fear, loathing and Philistinism, one I'd rather take a break from trying to influence from the inside until things shake out, and the pendulum swings back around.

In fact, I'd far rather act to influence the pendulum from a different perspective, as color commentator of sorts. Will there be other independent business opportunities in the future? I don't know. Start-ups are a young person's game, and perspective usually easier for the ones with ample scar tissue and time to think.

As any of this pertains to local independent business prospects in a place like New Albany, only one message continues to ring true through the passing years: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." Benjamin Franklin said it, and it applies to New Albany's indie business community in the year 2015 just as much as when Franklin uttered it during revolutionary times.

You may or may not enjoy this snippet of where "my head was at" three years ago. How much has changed?

That's the question, isn't it?

---

It’s simply a fact of life that almost every single working day during each calendar year, independent local businesses walk a high wire without a net.

Engorged corporate franchise teats for suckling? We have none.

Massive federal bailouts, available as soothing stress relief? Not exactly.

But hardly a week passes without various levels of government merrily providing subsidies for the very same multinational monoliths best placed to decapitate the independent business segment, as procured by the same lawyers and lobbyists we cannot afford.

On and on it goes. Money inexorably hemorrhages out of the local economy, until it reaches terminal gravity at whichever offshore tax havens offering the best terms to the coddled white-bread one-percenters of our era.

But you know what?

Digressions, rants and bitterness aside, I’m generally firm in the belief that most indies wouldn’t have it any other way.

The only true bottom line for me is moral justification. Getting out of bed each morning, safe in the knowledge that whether or not I get it right 100% of the time, I can still go back to sleep with my standards and integrity intact … well, that’s always been enough in my world, and enough for many others, too.

We sink, and we swim. We win and we lose. Often we’re too exhausted to know the difference. Bruised and battered, arrogant and triumphant, and every conceivable emotion falling between these extremes; small business people have felt them all, and the adrenaline rush we cherish when all the cylinders are hitting is enough to overwhelm those pesky, nagging problems – a Band-Aid here, another digit in the crumbling dike there.

And while I’m at it, this independent local business roller coaster ride has very little to do with money, at least in my case. We’ve always rolled most of the scant profits back into the business in an ongoing effort, admittedly scattershot, to continue improving it.

In personal terms, whenever I’ve had money, I’ve just gone and spent it, and usually had a whale of a time doing so, because I shan’t be taking it with me when I die, anyway. Personal financial gain is barely relevant, and most of the best things aren’t really that expensive, anyway: Books, music, a bicycle and a BLT when the local tomatoes are in season.

The real point in life is to beat both the bad odds and insufferable bastards stacked against you, and to do so as often as you possibly can before crawling back to the table to spin the wheel yet another time. It’s addictive that way.

On Oct. 28, you can help NABC say goodbye to Leticia Bajuyo’s “Brew History: All Bottled Up.” Here’s how.

It’s time for NABC to bid a fond farewell to Leticia Bajuyo’s “Brew History: All Bottled Up,” the New Albany Public Art Project Bicentennial Series installation commemorating New Albany’s breweries and taverns.

Leticia’s sculpture has serenely and elegantly occupied a corner of Bank Street Brewhouse’s parking lot since its completion in the late spring of 2010, but it was never intended to be permanent, so on the evening of Friday, October 28th, NABC is hosting a community celebration in the BSB parking lot to mark the occasion of its decommissioning.

It’ll be no ordinary wake, because in the process of honoring Leticia and her creation, we’ll be weaving together elements of art, recycling, alternative energy, localism … and plenty of beer.

Leticia and helpers will spend the day on the 28th gradually disassembling, and officially decommissioning, her “Brew History: All Bottled Up.” The beer bottles inside it will be available to those attendees and passers-by interested in souvenirs, and all the remaining materials will be recycled or incorporated in one of Leticia’s future projects.

("Brew History: All Bottled Up" is featured in the new book, Sculpture and Design With Recycled Glass, by Cindy Ann Coldiron, whose book will be available for purchase on the 28th, courtesy of Destinations Booksellers. Go here for more details.)

Beginning at 6:00 p.m., Bank Street Brewhouse’s usual parking area will be cordoned off for the occasion of the evening celebration, with beer, wine, chili and snacks available outdoors, and the usual menu being presented inside. In case of inclement weather, the party moves beneath the existing patio roof.

As an added incentive, we’ll be unveiling NABC’s IX – Ninth Anniversary Ale, a Smoked Chocolate Port-Barrel Aged Stout brewed last winter by former brewmaster Jared Williamson (available at the Pizzeria & Public House, too). The actual NABC anniversary date is October 25, but we’ll wait a couple of days just for the fun of throwing it into the Friday evening mix.

Music by Toledo Bend is being booked by our good friends at The Dandy Lion boutique and shop, located just a block south of Bank Street Brewhouse. The Dandy Lion will be open later than usual on the 28th, so plan on strolling down and paying them a visit.

But there’s more. From 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on the 28th, there’ll be an opening reception for "Powering Creativity: Air, Fuel, Heat," a joint exhibit of Ohio Valley Creative Energy and the Carnegie Center for Art & History. It’s happening right across the street from BSB, and the artists and organizers will be joining us to combine their after-party with Leticia’s decommissioning fete. Go here to learn more.

That’s not all! There’s even more on tap for Friday, October 28, because it’s also the occasion of Jeff Milchen’s visit to New Albany.

“New Albany First is proud to welcome Jeff Milchen, co-founder of the American Independent Business Alliance. Jeff is an international leader in helping communities to build vital local economies and in enhancing economic opportunity through supporting local independent businesses. We're thrilled to have him coming to New Albany.

“The event is set for Friday night, October 28th at 7:00 p.m. for a presentation/discussion on the importance of localism and supporting independent businesses. The event will be held on the beautiful second floor of the River City Winery on Pearl Street.”

I’ve invited NA First, Milchen and all the attendees to make the short walk from River City Winery and join the arts celebration at BSB. Know also that NABC will have beer samples on hand for both the Carnegie Center/OVCE opening (where jazzman Jamey Aebersold will be providing music) and the NA First/Milchen presentation.

Links:

Leticia Bajuyo, “Brew History: All Bottled Up” and New Albany Public Art Project Bicentennial Series: http://www.napublicart.org/bajuyo.php

The Dandy Lion: http://www.facebook.com/thedandylionshop

Ohio Valley Creative Energy: http://ohiovalleycreativenergy.org/

Carnegie Center: http://www.carnegiecenter.org/exhibits.html

New Albany First: http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Albany-First/142589112460702

American Independent Business Alliance: http://www.amiba.net/

Destinations Booksellers
http://www.facebook.com/newalbanybooks

What would it look like?

From the globaloneness project:

What if the world embodied our highest potential? What would it look like? As the structures of modern society crumble, is it enough to respond with the same tired solutions?

Or are we being called to question a set of unexamined assumptions that form the very basis of our civilization?