High hopes for one of our own in Colorado, fewer for the same tired faces in New Albany.

Sunday’s New York Times Magazine includes a lengthy profile (by Frank Bruni) of John Hickenlooper, the recent two-term mayor of Denver, who tomorrow becomes Colorado’s governor.

For me, Hickenlooper has been an inspiration quite apart from politics, by reason of beer and brewing.

... With his geology degree in hand, he got a job with a big oil company in Denver in 1981 but was laid off after five years, during a downturn in the oil industry. He used part of his severance to buy a red ’67 Chevy convertible, took a road trip to see his brother in Berkeley, Calif., and, while there, happened to go to the Triple Rock, an early microbrewery. Denver didn’t have anything like it. Hickenlooper, in need of a project and a new career, decided to fix that.

From relatives, friends, strangers and a bank, he rounded up $575,000 and constructed the Wynkoop, named for a nearby street, in one of several neglected turn-of-the-century brick warehouses in lower downtown, which is known as LoDo. He chose the neighborhood for the cheap rent, but he also sensed potential for an urban renaissance there. He even moved into a LoDo loft. And as he restyled or bought other restaurants in LoDo and elsewhere, he spearheaded a few business and residential projects around the Wynkoop. “He wasn’t the first to buy property in that part of downtown and develop it,” says Joyce Meskis, who owns the Tattered Cover, a Denver bookstore of national renown, and who was his partner in one of those LoDo projects. “But he was one of the most influential. There were obstacles, and he kept at it and kept at it and kept at it.” The area evolved into one of the city’s favored playgrounds, and he became known as one of its patron saints.

I had the chance to shake the brewer's/mayor's/governor's hand and chat for a few minutes back in the mid-1990’s, while in Denver to attend the Great American Beer Festival. At the time, Wynkoop seemed to me the very model of what could be done in a revitalizing downtown, and how it might be done without dumbing down. My first highly favorable impressions have lingered to this very day.

---

Turning to more locally depressing topics, Sunday’s Tribune invoked the Peter Principle while revealing the terrifying news that all of New Albany’s current sitting city council members who bothered to answer their phone calls from intrepid reporter Daniel Suddeath will be seeking another term.

Count them in: Most New Albany City Council members say they’ll seek re-election

Councilman Jack Messer said he still hasn’t made up his mind, and Councilman Bob Caesar said “more than likely I will run, but no definitive decision has been made.”

Council President Jeff Gahan and Councilman Kevin Zurschmiede had not returned calls seeking comment for this story as of a Saturday press time. The remaining five council members — Diane McCartin-Benedetti, Pat McLaughlin, John Gonder, Steve Price and Dan Coffey — confirmed they would be seeking another term.

Well, uh, it's sure nice to see John Gonder's name there.

On the one hand, it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone performing less capably that Dan Coffey and Steve Price.

On the other, even a non-committal, lackadaisical council performance would require four years of time better spent on one’s own business affairs.

On the one hand, the pay packet so absolutely necessary to underachievers like Coffey and Price is easy money for the genuinely competent in this or any other the community.

On the other, any potential council replacement with a pulse and a work ethic would wind up devoting far more time to the job than is justified by the remuneration -- and exactly where to find that kind of time?

One the one hand, the city of New Albany is embarrassed on a recurring, daily basis by the presence of congenital second-raters on the council.

On the other, unless first-raters aspire to service, the city is doomed to be forever defined by a wretched Axis of Banal.

I wonder what the forever optimistic John Hickenlooper would say about all this? Would he be able to retain his legendarily sunny affability whilst surveying the council's ongoing train wreck?

After all, he does know good beer … and sometimes, oceans of good beer are required to cope with the sheer doltishness of it all. Fortunately, and personally, I've plenty of hoppy alcoholic salve.

Time. That's the issue, isn't it?

Educating the reformers, redux.

Given the zeal with which Saint Daniels and his minions intend to careen us down a highly ideological yet largely ineffectual educational path, this may become a semi-regular feature around here for a while.

For now, just kindly note that while there's currently a lot of language coming out of Indy about teachers, accountability, and transferring public money to private (including religious) schools, no one thus far has much to say about what's actually being taught, tested, and measured. In direct terms, that's because they don't have a clue themselves. When one takes a broader view, it's easy to see as an extension of the usual Daniels M.O. in which paper-based accounting methodology takes precedence over any real results in our towns and cities.

Thankfully, others are actually thinking about and working on reframing the education debate rather than relying on "reform" as a meaningless, catch-all term to talk about the only thing that really matters to them: money. If, as Daniels is wont to say, money isn't the answer to our educational problems, then why is it at the center of nearly every Daniels-led discussion on the topic? Shouldn't we figure out what we want to accomplish before deciding how much funding is needed? Only if one's goals involve actual pedagogical improvement, I suppose, rather than a bourgeois takedown of the public commons.

Though I'm not terribly fond of the insinuations that pleasing corporate CEOs has much to do with the success of our educational system, Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group, here presents what he believes are essential skills for students moving forward. I'd suggest they belong in the governor's office as well.

Thanks to KW for sharing.

Urban Indy: "One Year of Being Car Free in Indianapolis."

Could it be done here? As the author freely notes, housing choices play a big part in automotive disuse. I continue to marvel at all the time I've spent in Europe without once being behind the wheel, and seldom relying on the cars of others to get around.

One Year of Being Car Free in Indianapolis

Nash: "Can bridges project be changed?"

And be sure to check the adjacent comments area for "comic relief."

NASH: Can bridges project be changed?

... Before one of the “Authority” members calls me out and complains that one of the small group (somewhere between 3 and 85 percent of the public) of naysayers is making things up, let me quote from the first paragraph of their website: “The Authority is not charged with changing the project’s scope which has already been established in a Federal Highways Record of Decision.”

At that weird bridges project revival/camp meeting/pep rally yesterday ...

... a very good question was asked by a Bridges Authority member who doesn't want me using his name (he was on teevee last night, too), and here's the strange answer, as diligently provided by Curt's Louisville Courant.

NA Exchange on the North Side opens tonight.

Previously, NAC let this particular cat out of the bag, but I'm compelled to point to NA Exchange and tout a second time for two reasons.

First, as a measure of how wonderful it is to have Dave Clancy back in New Albany, and optimistic that Ian's and Dave's establishment add to steadily improving dining choices in the area.

I'll come to the second in just a moment.

MYbar no more, NA Exchange opens tonight; Restaurant and pub retooled to offer high-quality food, by Daniel Suddeath (News & Tribune)

The night club concept of the former MYbar has been scrapped by owner Ian Hall in favor of a full-service restaurant that opens tonight at the same location.

Revamped to offer high-quality food along with entertainment, the bar and restaurant is now dubbed The NA Exchange. It’s tucked off Grant Line Road in a shopping center near The New Albanian Brewing Co. Pizzeria and Pub.

Hall said he considered moving his business downtown prior to closing MYbar about two weeks ago, but decided on restoring the existing property.

“At the end of the day, we just thought it made sense to stay here and try to develop this area,” Hall said.

I met with Ian in the run-up to NA Exchange's opening tonight, and we chatted briefly about the neighborhood, by which I mean the retail area in which we're both doing business. While it's true that the past few years have diverted my attention downtown, and downtown is a job not yet finished, it remains that NABC's plan all along has been to refurbish our original digs on Plaza Drive -- an effort now underway with the smoking rules change.

In short, all of us doing business in our Grant Line Road environs need to think of it as an entertainment/dining district. My personal shorthand to describe it is North Side, which is geographically apt, although I'm open to better ideas.

In the future, when our stretch of Grant Line Road is reconditioned by its new owner, the city of New Albany, it would be wonderful if sidewalks (scandalously neglected back in the 90's during a previous refitting) and pedestrian crossings would connect Famous Recipe/El Nopal with NA Exchange with the rest of us on Plaza Drive.

In fact, recognizing that while the entire corridor was constructed as an automotive conduit, but always has connected Indiana University Southeast with Sam Peden Community Park, there is a strong case to be made for making roughly two miles of it both pedestrian and bicycle friendly, enhancing the experience for visitors and residents with cars parked.

Is it asking too much for 2011 mayoral candidates to address this thought?

In closing: Best of luck to NA Exchange. See you when there's time, guys.

Hell, it'll make you blind, son: More on the Tolling Authority's meeting this morning.

Bar none, the scariest sight in recent memory. Kerry Stemler and David Nicklies are the designated stewards of your transportation future, Kentuckiana. Are you feeling sick yet?

Coming two days after two governors and a mayor issued a largely meaningless press release, the order of the day was keeping the morale of Tolling Authority shock troops at a high level of self-congratulatoriness. Toward this end, Chairman Buddeke reminded the members that they are united as a team of unique ambassadors, selflessly undertaking sacrifice for the public good ... and we must be reminded of it at every opportunity.

No less than four times, executive director Steve Schultz (above, left) invoked the celestial intervention of Tuesday's "direct guidance from our leaders," leading me to question whether I was seated at Indiana University Southeast or Pyongyang Polytechnic.

Sounding more than ever exactly like his hero, George W. Bush, Kerry Stemler insisted to reporters that tolls are off the table for Spaghetti Junction, the Clark Memorial Bridge and the Sherman Minton, although he didn't mention whether future diversion coping measures might include the tolling of a few hundred yards of asphalt on either side of these key choke points.

Make no mistake about it: Tolls remain an integral part of the project. The new talking point to emerge today is that thanks to Tuesday's providential "guidance" from our dear celestial leaders, the Tolling Authority now can begin seeing to it that those tolls, which they denied considering for so very long, can be kept as low as possible -- just another example of the benevolence of St. Daniels, who's making all these asphaltgasms possible.

On the placard above, the Tolling Authority's freshly minted Job One is indicated right at the top: Global Developers, Global Contractors and Investors/Lenders. Political propaganda points are to be earned when St. Daniels informs voters that we are building (unnecessary; whatever) bridges with someone else's (read: China's) money, not our own.

Naturally, toll revenues will then flow outward and elsewhere for the remainder of the lifetimes of our grandchildren, but what the hey -- One Southern Indiana has its lifeline, and we have our 1950's transportation "solution" for 2050 realities.

Thirty solid minutes of these quasi-erotic buzzwords, like outsourcing, innovation, privatization, delivery models, design engineering, creativity and market options, produced a bizarre masturbatory fury -- although, like the good Puritans we'd expect St. Daniels' disciples to be, no one was much interested in prolonging the good feelings; rather, it was stressed that the element of time is crucial, and construction must begin in August 2012.

Just in time for the Republican convention in Tampa.

Goebbels snoozes as Tolling Authority congratulates itself.

Even former Courier-Journal bridges project propagandist David Hawpe could not muster consciousness during this morning's pep rally. As a friend suggested, why stay awake when you read (wrote?) the script before the meeting started?

Today's Tribune column: "A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Vol. 2."

Next week, it's the long awaited return of Councilman Cappuccino and Li'l Stevie. But now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Tolling Authorityberg Rally to catch.

BAYLOR: A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Vol. 2

Let’s begin the year with another revolving and evolving list of words, terms and concepts that provide a specialized vocabulary of life in the Open Air Museum. The first collection appeared Oct. 15, 2009.

It's a start. That's all. And there's a far bigger discussion waiting.

Cautious and guarded optimism is merited following yesterday's tepid "thaw" of a downsizing proposal, but as No 2 Bridge Tolls correctly notes, it's still very early. The timing of yesterday's press release obviously was meant to appease critics and lessen the intensity of the anti-toll effort. What this means is simple: Crank up the volume ... continue the full-court press ... trust, but more importantly, verify. Also, as Bluegill continues to presciently note:

"According to cost estimates currently in KIPDA's transportation plans, we can build the East End Bridge and a metro region-wide mass transit system for less than the cost of ORBP."

---

From: No2BridgeTolls.org

Our Indiana leaders now want to keep the Sherman Minton & Clark Memorial Toll Free! This means work is paying off! Some cost cutting measures, most importantly reduction in cost of Spaghetti Junction by the Indiana and Kentucky Governor's offices means they have initiated downsizing the project, which will lead to more victories for the No Tolls efforts in the future. Our organization is not in favor of the reduction of the East End Bridge. Indiana Governor Daniels was recently quoted as saying that a cost-cutting measure could be the reduction of the East End Bridge from 6 to 4 lanes. Our organization supports the current plan for 6 lanes and will actively push to keep it 6 lanes as planned.

Indiana Representative Todd Young, Indiana Ombudsman Carl Pearcy, and a representative from Senator Richard Lugar's office all last week said our calls are working and to make sure we keep calling.

We need to keep pressure on Indiana Representative Steve Stemler. While he may be strictly on the Bridges Projects side and a supporter of tolls, he has the Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels’ ear. With enough calls to Rep. Stemler’s office, our “No Tolls” message will reach Governor Daniels.

On the Kentucky side, Senators Perry Clark and Tim Shaughnessy announced they are filing an Anti-Toll bill that will prohibit tolls on existing infrastructure. No2BridgeTolls.org is opposed to Tolls on existing structures and supports a reasonable and affordable plan to improve the transportation needs of this community.

This update is good news but we must continue to raise our voices and pens to make sure our elected leaders do not allow the non-elected Bridges Authority’s tolling/finance plan to get rubber stamp approval.

Thank you for your efforts and support. Please continue to help us spread the word.

Following are links to yesterday’s news stories, in case you missed them:

Tribune/Evening News: http://newsandtribune.com/homepage/x1091524330/Governors-mayor-announce-cost-cutting-plans-for-Ohio-River-Bridges-Project

Fox 41: http://www.fox41.com/story/13784583/governors-call-for-reducing-bridge-project-by-500-m

WLKY: http://www.wlky.com/r/26363841/detail.html

WAVE: http://www.wave3.com/story/13779969/governors-mayor-announce-cost-cutting-plans-for-ohio-river-bridges-project

WHAS: http://www.whas11.com/news/Governors-mayor-announce-cost-cutting-plans-for-Ohio-River-Bridges-Project-112872194.html

Courier-Journal.com http://www.courier-journal.com/article/2011301040037

Catch? Maybe. And release? One way or the other, most definitely.

Sometimes the pure inanity of things like the bridges project gets too close for a thinking, feeling person and I start waving my white flag at daydreams of a place where life might matter just a bit more, desperately trying to get their (and my) attention.

ReWilding from Forrest Gander on Vimeo.

Photographs by Lucas Foglia, music by Brady Earnhart with Jeff Romano, poem by Forrest Gander (based on the words of the people depicted in the photographs)

About that ROD.

The News/Tribune talked with Will Wingfield, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation. Of the proposed Bridges Project changes, he says, "“What has been proposed today would not require the record-of-decision to be reopened," but that further changes would.

The Courier-Journal talked with Chuck Wolfe, a Kentucky Transportation Cabinet spokesman. He says the very same proposed changes may trigger “'a re-evaluation' of the federal Record of Decision."

So, is "a re-evaluation" the same as a reopening or could one lead to the other or does anyone actually know? And should I feel better that two states who are still seeking billions of dollars for an unwanted and unneeded project are unable to coordinate a story?

LEO's Meador notes the obvious: There's still about $2 billion to cut from the ORBP.

As so many of us have been saying all damned afternoon, the very fact that two governors and a mayor now begin talking about "downsizing" the ORBP means that everyone involved has been lying all along about the impossibility of changing the scope of the project without some form of celestial intervention.

Label me suspicious, because to date, listening to virtually any of Bridges Authority kingpin Kerry Stemler's condescending spoutings has brought to mind Hunter S. Thompson's apt description of Richard Nixon:

"Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning."

LEO's Jonathan Meador is totally on course with his assessment. Who else is in for Thursday's meeting?

Small victory for common sense in Ohio River Bridges Project… maybe?

... Here’s a bet: Ask anybody who knows about this project and isn’t getting paid by the Bridges Coalition, 1 Southern Indiana or Greater Louisville, Inc., and they’ll most likely tell you that an East Bridge would alleviate roughly a third (or so) of the expected traffic a proposed Downtown bridge might experience. So, why not expand the East End bridge, not shrink it, and do away with the downtown portion altogether? Or a series of low-cost local access bridges (Warnin’: PDF)?

(Oh, shit: Now I remember why…)

Needless to say, this week’s meeting of the Bridges Authority (to be held Thursday, January 6, at 10:00 a.m. at New Albany’s Indiana University Southeast) should be interesting, indeed.

The 'Ville Voice's coverage is better: "Beshear & Fischer Make A Bridges Announcement."

Read the whole press release, and answer this question: Is the Bridges Authority referred to therein as "exceptional" and "creative" the same Stemlerite rubber stamp we've seen in action so far?

Beshear & Fischer Make A Bridges Announcement

Breaking from the C-J: "States propose scaling back bridges project."

By Marcus Green, but for my money, it still doesn't go far enough (if true): States propose scaling back bridges project to save $500 million.

Curran sets St. Daniels straight on vital bridge matters while Clere seeks legislative paging.

Evening News columnist Kelley Curran gets it 100% right, clearly and forcefully ...

CURRAN: Daniels, downsize the bridges project, by Kelley Curran (News and Tribune)

Dear Gov. Daniels,

Hi. How are you? Locally, we have some problems with this whole Ohio River Bridges Project thing, and, with all due respect, it appears you’re on the wrong side of the issue.

... while our Rep. Clere, "non-partisan" friend of the little people, remains oblivious.

CLERE: Take a page from here and visit the Statehouse

In last week’s column, I suggested some ways to connect with state government. This week, as the 2011 legislative session gets under way, I want to focus on a special opportunity. Students ages 13 to 18 may serve as a legislative page for a day.

On the one hand, kids too young to drive still have time to adjust to whatever the Tolling Authority decides.

On the other, I suppose two weeks are sufficient to conclude that my outreach experiment was a failure: Dear Ed.

Given that it's 5:00 a.m. and I've been up since three, here's NAC's official position on the collapse of talks:

"Yawn."

It's copperhead season again, folks.

Alas, 2011 managed to be a respectable, non-threatening year for almost three whole days.

Now comes the harsh reminder that your holiday officially has ended. The city council meets tonight, and it will perform the usual year's opening housekeeping tasks, including the selection of officers.

Agenda here

I'm just wondering who's going to be appointed to the CESEARS BOARD -- and, by extension, if someone can answer this question: What is a CESEARS BOARD?

But seriously: Council aficionados know that in a municipal election year, the caterwauling and screeching -- the grandstanding, posturing and coiled copperhead preening -- reach fever pitch. There'll be no more entertaining spectacles at such a bargain basement price, and man, I really hate to miss the show tonight, although it is my intention to reschedule future Monday obligations so that attendance can be fully celebrated, and flasks consumed.

Can someone take pictures of the first ejection of the year?

Nationalizing the Norfolk Southern springs immediately to mind.

Some days it actually seems that the project will be finished before I'm too old to use it.

Obstacles remain, but Ohio River 'dreamway' taking shape, by Ben Zion Hershberg (Courier-Journal)

... But there are several stumbling blocks to completing the loop that will join Louisville and Southern Indiana, including work on making the Big Four bridge a walking path across the Ohio and obtaining pedestrian and bicycle access to the K&I Bridge between New Albany and Louisville.

There is no cultural relevance to be found in my list of favorite 2010 albums.

In terms of music, I’ll remember 2010 as the year of my overdue, yet grateful passage into Old Fartdom.

I'm outdated, I no longer matter, and I don't care at all. So there.

Granted, contemporary relevance in music long has been slipping from my grasp, and in 2010, I let it go without any noticeable regrets. Now, having arrived at the half-century plateau, my tastes are almost surely fixed -- and so be it.

I’ll always enjoy big bands and archival jazz, and most forms of “classical” music with the exception of the final frontier, opera, which continues to elude my sporadic efforts at comprehension.

Whatsoever the state of hip hop, rap, or whatever identity urban music goes by these days, I’m utterly oblivious, which is not to say hostile. It simply does not move me. Insofar as country music is played with instruments more suited to rock and roll, I’m willing to listen, but those vast chunks of country music devoted to chronicling the boundaries of rural cluelessness can remain where they are, safely out of earshot.

The very fact of my continued resistance to iPods and downloading, and a stubborn adherence to compact discs, testifies to the permanent passage of youth, and to repeat, that’s perfectly fine with me.

Pop and rock releases always will comprise the bulk of yearly favorites, and picking my top new albums (that word again) of 2010 is fairly easy, with the top five enjoying excessive and repeated listens.

I cannot choose between them, and so they’re listed alphabetically. What's the main difference between the first five and the second five? Catchier ditties, that's all. To paraphrase Ray Charles, if you can't whistle the tunes while walking down the street, the game isn't worth the flame.

Crowded House – Intriguer

Bryan Ferry – Olympia

Goldfrapp – Head First

The Hold Steady – Heaven Is Whenever

Manic Street Preachers – Postcards from a Young Man

The second five also are listed alphabetically.

Arcade Fire – “The Suburbs”

Dengue Fever Presents: Electric Cambodia

Elton John & Leon Russell – The Union

Robert Plant’s Band of Joy (eponymous)

Wild Beasts: Two Dancers (technically a 2009 release, but dominant in my life in January, 2010)

Tommy's is coping, Artesia is planning, and Downtown Diner is departed.

At the Tribune, in an article by Jerod Clapp, we learn that tax-related problems plague Tommy Lancaster's.

I fully empathize with the renewal difficulties at Tommy's.

All governmental bureaucracies are less than perfect, but the degree of kinship between the ATC and the revenue collectors is unusually high, and between them, they miss very few tricks. Think: Fine tooth combs, all the time.

One year, our license renewal got flagged for a stray $100 owed from more than four years before, as uncovered in an audit. They're brutal.

Meanwhile, with Tommy Lancaster’s still open for business, albeit bone dry, another downtown restaurant has closed. Downtown Diner’s Facebook page serves up the sad notice:

We regret to inform our friends that we will be closing our doors permanently on December 31. We have enjoyed serving you and will truly miss all of our loyal customers who have now become our friends. We want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support. It has been a pleasure to serve you.

Too bad, indeed; the breakfasts were excellent and offered quite good value. I’m told that the diner will reopen under new ownership as Earl’s Country Kitchen. Finally, also at Facebook, we learn of transitions at Artesia Fusion Bistro & Catering:

Artesia will be closed temporarily in preparation for dinner service. We are very excited about the long anticipated dinner offerings and hope very much to see you all at Artesia when we have our grand (re) opening!

You know the drill. The restaurant business is difficult in the best of times, and the past two years have been extraordinarily trying for all of us. I know you’ll join me in wishing these stalwart, independent, wonderfully local operators luck, whether coming, going, or at any temporary stage in between. We need them. They need you.