"It can be difficult to separate fact from myth regarding the House of David and its baseball history."

1927.

I could have sworn that I'd mentioned the House of David's barnstorming baseball cultists previously. Evidently not.

Ryan Ferguson's piece is a good introduction to the hirsute, pepper-playing celibates of yore, although I must concede to a measure of annoyance that the author is seemingly unaware of the Oakland A's of the early 1970s. Long before Boston's "idiots," the Swinging A's pioneered bearded and mustachioed modernity in baseball.

Ironically, I wrote about it only recently.

ON THE AVENUES: It no longer keeps me waiting.

1974.

The A’s became my team, and Reggie Jackson my favorite player. Unbeknownst to me, the A’s also were about to become quite good, winning five divisional titles in a row from 1971-1975, and three consecutive World Series crowns in 1972, 1973 and 1974. The players grew outlandish mustaches and beards during this period and wore white shoes, all of which outraged the older generation, endearing the team to me even more strongly.

Oddly, I cannot recall my father expressing an opinion either way about the House Of David. At the same time, he wasn't much of a churchgoer.

The religious sect that became baseball's answer to the Harlem Globetrotters, by Ryan Ferguson (The Guardian)

The House of David was an Adventist cult that banned alcohol, sex and shaving. But it also loved baseball – and its teams toured the country to enraptured crowds.

In recent years, extravagant facial hair has become increasingly popular in Major League Baseball. The fad likely began with the 2004 Red Sox, as Johnny Damon and other self-proclaimed idiots wore flowing manes in contrast to the clean-shaven Yankees, who they eventually toppled to win the pennant.

Since then, many players have gained attention for creative beards, with former Giants closer Brian Wilson perhaps the most famous. Yet while these modern exponents are perhaps more recognizable, the art of fine baseball beards can be traced back over a century, to the House of David, a virtuoso team of religious believers that toured the country for almost five decades. Theirs is a compelling tale.

"Straight no chaser. That was Artie Shaw."

That's right, Artie Shaw -- you know, tattoo artist/writer Jonathan Shaw's old man, although this Esquire piece on the son doesn't even mention dad's name.

Jonathan Shaw Explains His Old-School Obsession

As for me, I have nary a tattoo, but I own a box set of Artie Shaw's recordings with his small group, The Gramercy Five: Six Star Treats - The Complete Commercially Released Recordings.

This 5-disc set from Jasmine Records, entitled "Six Star Treats" is perhaps the most essential box of jazz clarinet recordings available. Not only does it bring together, for the first time, all of the studio recordings of the various groups to work under the Gramercy 5 name, but it provides alternate takes and many live performances, including some tunes the group never recorded in the studio.

Shaw's cantankerousness is the stuff of legend. Some persons took to it ...

Pen Mightier Than Clarinet For Artie Shaw, by David Fantle and Tom Johnson (Modern Times Magazine)

... If that sounds like the phlegmatic raving of an embittered misanthrope, Shaw would’ve been the first to admit (albeit in a bellicose manner) that he never lost his maverick streak.

 ... while others couldn't help noticing a darker side.

Artie Shaw: Swing and Loathing, by David Gates (New York Times)

(Artie) Shaw said his father “had to be a selfish bastard” for leaving his family. One journalist who conducted a long series of interviews with Shaw echoed both the syntax and the judgment in speaking of the son: “Absolutely he’s got to be the most selfish man that ever lived. So you’ve got this enormously narcissistic man in a cocoon, who is quite happy. There’s no tragedy, I guess — other than for some of the women, and the two sons.”

Artie Shaw: Quest for Perfection is the BBC Four documentary, and clicking the video embedded above takes you to entire film. The interviews with Shaw were conducted just before he died. Although the overall quality certainly isn't the best ever witnessed at YouTube, it suffices.

Now, back to the music.

Irv Stumler is not acting in an official capacity. Business owners, make your street grid feelings known using the e-mail address offered herein.

I'm a free agent at present, but I owned and helped to run a business for 25 years.

I understand as well as any other local business owner that when you're at work, you're busy working.

We all know what it's like to be in the middle of something at work and be interrupted by a solicitation. Many of these are legitimate. You're always being asked to post a sign, or sponsor an event. If I had a quarter for each of these instances during my time at NABC, I'd have long since moved to the Cote d' Azure.

Finally, I know how unsettling it can feel to be immersed in your daily routine only to be approached by someone like Irv Stumler, all frenzied and evangelical, who is asking you to take a side on an issue -- HIS side, and to commit on the spot, right now -- all the while making it sound as though there'll be some form of punishment if you don't agree with him.

Punishment like using his influence to alter your commerce?

Would he? Perhaps, or perhaps not, but he's not above implying it. He's also perfectly willing to be identified as an important agent of Keep New Albany Clean and Green, a non-profit organization with no connection to the city's management of the street grid.

Does this organization's board approve of the ongoing deception? Inquiring minds would like to know. 

The fact that Irv's out walking the one-way streets in support of his jihad against modernity should tell you something, but you can see this, and what I'm here to let you know is that the sanctity of the private ballot is still preserved in this instance.

Just thank Irv and tell him that you have made your feelings known to city officials, or will do so at your earliest convenience -- and please remember to follow through with a comment, whether for two-way streets, against them, or any shading in between. The e-mail addresses of city officials can be found at the the city's web site, and the official address for public comment is below. 

Irv may be on a mission, but it's strictly personal, and emphatically, he is not a priest. Irv has no right in ANY OFFICIAL CAPACITY to perform confessionals in or near your premises.

You can and should make your thoughts on the street grid known to the city, and that's that.  

The official e-mail recipient for public comments: Joe Dabkowski at RQAW Corporation ... jdabkowski@rqaw.com

Thanks for your time.

There's nothing like six whole days notice, but: "We Want Your Input on the City's Comprehensive Plan!"

And with the requisite and breathless exclamation mark, no less.

Sigh. I suppose I'll go. Will it matter?

---

We Want Your Input on the City's Comprehensive Plan!

The City of New Albany is currently updating its comprehensive plan, and we need your help and input!

What is a comprehensive plan?

The City of New Albany's comprehensive plan will help form a long-term vision for the community, looking at aspects such as economic development, growth and land use, housing, transportation, utilities, and quality of life.

How can you help?

As part of the comprehensive plan process, the City will be hosting a public workshop where residents are invited to attend and provide input and discuss priorities for the comprehensive plan.

When and where is the Public Workshop?

The workshop will be held Wednesday, September 28th at the Calumet Club (1614 East Spring Street). The workshop begins at 6 p.m.

An invitation from Mayor Gahan:

"I'd like to personally invite you to attend our comprehensive plan public workshop. This is a valuable opportunity to share your thoughts with us about how you would like to see New Albany moving forward over the next few years. By working together, we can ensure that we make New Albany the best city it can be for all of us, and we can work towards making our shared vision a reality."

The Green Mouse reveals Irv's stunning rate of return on propaganda investments.

ON THE AVENUES: On two-way streets, a modest proposal for the consideration of my disoriented one-way counterpart.

ON THE AVENUES: On two-way streets, a modest proposal for the consideration of my disoriented one-way counterpart.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I have an edifying idea to advance, but first, we must digress, as it seems one of those "street people" is loose again, stumbling through downtown, panhandling and scaring children.

We’ll call him Irv, and he's on a Mission from God.

The Lord hath said to Irv, go forth and put an end to the evil ways of those wretched, sinful ass-umers wandering naked and frenzied right out in the street where the blessed ordained semis ought to be navigating freely on government subsidized tarmac.

Irv: Hold on, can you repeat that, God? The part about those ass-umers?

Deity: (jeeebus -- can anyone down there follow simple instructions?) YES, Irv, the ass-umers. They ass-ume too much, and when they do, it makes an ass out of you and me. Well, more you than me.

As Irv placed the Celestial Phone back on its cradle, his brow was noticeably furrowed. How might a simple country boy of humble origins living the good life way up in Silver Hills possibly keep city streets running one way when the specter of Speckism was all around, tempting those ignorant tattooed youngsters with promises to snatch valuable lane width away from noble trucking magnates to give to trendy bistros with $25 entrees?

Get thee away, Speck ... and yet, God, hadn’t Irv done enough already?

Twice he’d patiently read voters his resume, over and over, clause by clause, each repetition as dry and wooden as the last, and both times they’d somehow rejected him at the ballot box.

Well, THAT sure wouldn't happen again.

What’s more, Irv was a Lifetime Achievement award recipient at the Erectile Metaphor Association (Steeple Chaser Division) annual banquet, and still no plaque on the amphitheater.

Deity: (sigh) I’ve tried telling Irv that hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on church buildings doesn’t feed the poor in times of social injustice, but he just keeps prattling on about appearances. Sometimes I just don't know.

Verily, Irv had done everything humanly possible to perpetuate the notion of cosmetic flourishes as preferable to fundamental reality; he’d even planted flowers in giant black ashtrays so passing cars (all of them observing the speed limit) could admire the arrangements via their rear view mirrors.

And all these efforts -- all the years cultivating an aura of stolid respectability -- couldn’t stave off the ultimate indignity. It was that commoner, that ruffian -- GAHAN!

Gahan had cruelly robbed Irv of the mayor’s office, even after King England III (The Tipsy) handed the keys right to him fair and square after those back alley deals – even after Irv pretended to be a Democrat!

Gahan even swiped Irv’s bedecked curbside ashtrays. Worst of all, Gahan’s lackeys at the Board of Works kept laughing at Irv, and this made him angriest of all, because so did the prissy progressives.

Who’d have thought that disrespect for Irv was the only thing Gahan and the progressives could agree on? Their chortling was shameful, but what did they know?

God wasn’t on their side, after all. There still was time to keep NA one way. The temporal fix may have been in place, and the Speckanic two-way street plan was moving forward, and yet ... His truth kept marching on!

No, not God’s -- Padgett’s.

Irv smiled. All those whippersnapper heathens would be no match for fully erect industrial cranes, and cold hard steel, and the gentle caress of fully lubricated internal combustion machines. Those fools would feel the sting of Stumler metal, and the paybacks would be merciless.

Irv lapsed into tumescent reverie. Richard Nixon, Charlton Heston, Strom Thurmond ... those dreamboats from way back when. Where did the time go, anyway? I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill, and Rocky Top would always be home sweet home to me … to me … I me … I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.

All through the day, I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.

Bystander: Hey – who invited that Tiger Trucking guy into this heavenly dialogue?

---

All right, enough of the introductory satire, because as Bluegill presciently notes,

As I and many others have repeatedly pointed out, all the evidence anyone has ever collected pertaining to a particular issue is irrelevant. You either blithely accept Stumler's self-appointed role as ultimate arbiter of good and evil or you're wrong. It's a combination of ego and spite that might well make someone a mainstream front runner for the presidency but one that doesn't serve legitimate community development efforts well at all.

Accordingly, like clockwork (orange), Irv's donned his street person regalia again, having commenced another shakedown expedition through downtown, and just as predictably, I’m once again hearing about it from various merchants and downtown stakeholders.

They’re all telling essentially the same story, and the déjà vu is palpable, because we’ve all been here before – 2015, to be precise.

Irv’s browbeaten methodology is to corral someone on duty at a downtown business and berate the poor unfortunate until he walks away with the scalp of another two-way streets "opponent."

Naturally, Irv doesn’t care who he speaks with, just so long as the person in question can be in any vague way connected to the business. Janitor, manager, dishwasher, Fed Ex dude making a delivery; it doesn’t matter one jot. You can almost hear Irv’s sales pitch:

Hello, I’m a powerful man taking a survey about two way streets. Do you like the marvelous fast moving one-way streets we have now, or would you rather have two-way streets that have been proven to cause Zika, refugees, flooding, AIDS, impotence, Black Lives Matter and those stupid hipsters? Well, c’mon, what’s your vote? One-way the HIGH way, right? Good. Thank you for your opinion.

Of course, for some of these interviewees, being mercilessly badgered to state an opinion makes them feel highly uncomfortable. Not only does Irv present himself as an establishment figure of wealth and importance, but he claims to represent others of the same lofty status (read: folks who might spend money in shops and eateries).

What’s a lowly prep cook supposed to say to this seemingly important fellow in a suit? Moreover, why should he or she be put in such a position in the first place?

Of course, Irv’s magical mystery boor is utterly contrived and filled with head-scratching drivel. After last year’s pleasure cruise to Fantasy Island, he triumphantly reported poll results of 45 votes in favor of one-way streets, 2 undecided, and not a single instance of a bludgeoned victim preferring two-way streets.

Gee, I wonder why?

If we’re to classify “undecided” as “no,” that’s a 96% tally, which grandly approaches the prevailing 98.5% approval rate in most totalitarian coronations, although Irv might want to consider both blades of the sword; in places like North Korea, bureaucrats may face dire consequences when failing to get the remaining 2.5%.

If we could only be so lucky.

Last year in the aftermath of Irv’s fevered canvassing, one restaurant manager described to me how his arm was twisted.

I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t let me be. The lunch rush was coming, and there were already a few tables. The customers were starting to look at us funny, and the only way I could make him go away was to agree with him.

So much for a fair ballot, though Irv already knows what happens when the voting is conducted in privacy. However, the restaurant manager’s conclusion is the saddest part.

I couldn’t help feeling bad for him. He embarrassed himself so awfully, but he didn’t even seem to notice. Not at all. It was like he was being possessed.

Of course, self-possession is what Missions from God are all about. Just imagine what Irv might be able to accomplish from a standpoint of balance, but no, it’s 2016, and he's at it again, and yes, perhaps the best course would be to suggest sans snark that someone who cares about the man's mental health should organize an immediate intervention.

However, as someone in favor of two-way streets, allow me to observe that as it stands now, with Irv’s increasingly crazed public demeanor producing titters and guffaws all over town, he’s currently the single best asset two-way street advocates possess.

---

Even so, I feel like spinning the wheel. Kindly indulge me as I advance this modest proposal. It’s a quid pro quo, "good faith" offering – a friendly gambit, a sporting challenge, and a two-pronged gift to the community.

You know me. I’m Roger, the loudest and most strident proponent of two-way streets.

He’s Irv, the persistent spokesman for sad sack one-way status quo.

Consequently, I propose that together, Irv and I bow out of this civic debate, completely and totally, and by doing so allow others to enter the game. 

The Board of Works will cast the deciding vote at some point between now and mid-November, and so we’ll phrase the period of non-engagement as the moment of my offer's acceptance through November 15, or when a final vote on two way streets occurs – whichever comes first.

Apologies, but let me be openly vulgar as a means of perfectly sincere clarity in establishing the simple parameters of my modest proposal.

Both of us, Roger and Irv, must shut the fuck up about streets.

No talking, no writing, no dog whistles ... no nothing. Perhaps I'm just as overbearing as Irv, so let's make room for new participants. I'm confident my peeps can carry the ball forward without me.

What about Irv? Can his troops muster a coherent argument? Rather than glowering from the back of the room, can the likes of Mark Seabrook actually speak aloud for himself?

Inquiring minds want to know.

What’s more, let’s posit a friendly wager. If Irv fails to hold his tongue during lockdown, he must donate $500 to a charity of my choice, with the scenario reversed if I fold. Verily, in the iPhone Era, plenty of folks will be tailing both of us in hopes of amassing video and audio evidence.

I'm tanned, rested and ready. Bring it on, Irv. Let's give the long-suffering citizenry a well-deserved break from ourselves, shall we?

Oh, and I almost forgot: Two Way Streets Now.

---

September 15: ON THE AVENUES Now for my next amazing conversion trick (KABOOM!!!) – look at those pretty windows on Schmitt Furniture.

September 8: ON THE AVENUES: It no longer keeps me waiting.

September 1: ON THE AVENUES: Complete ventriloquism, or the stagecraft of "throwing" your two-way streets.

August 25: ON THE AVENUES: You won't believe what happens next.

Democratic Party still silent about two-way streets, but heartily endorses NA-FC referendum.

But of course.

Meanwhile, there has been no two-way streets endorsement from any of these entities, from City Hall through Party, and including One Southern Indiana -- but let's not forget the school corporation. It hasn't addressed two-way streets, has it? I mean, fair's fair, right?

Has Develop New Albany?

Floyd County Democratic Party endorses NA-FC referendum; Referendum would add improvements to 9 facilities if approved, by Aprile Rickert (News and Tribune)

Let the Luddites know your position on two-way streets.

Option B is the "complete" two-way street plan submitted to the city by HWC Engineering. It calls for Elm, Spring, Market, Bank and Pearl to become two-way streets. Feel free to copy and distribute.

Concurrently, if anyone reading wants to know how to submit a written opinion (yea or nay) according to the federal provisions, e-mail me and I'll send you a .pdf of the form. It should be going out soon to downtown merchants on the monthly meeting list.

A compendium of links for the two Eastern USA Road Trip 2016 series.

NA Confidential has evolved in several unexpected directions over the years, but it still functions as my own damn personal blog -- so there.

In this cantankerous spirit, here are the paired links from my recent series, loosely titled Eastern USA Road Trip 2016.

My current preference in documenting our travels is to publish the overall daily narrative at NAC, while reserving beer and food explorations for Potable Curmudgeon. All these are back-dated to the day in question, and completed once I'm back home and have had time to think about it.

So, here's the compendium.

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Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 1: MLB, Minnesota Twins at Cleveland Indians.

Helluva beer selection at Cleveland's Progressive Field; the price is high, but I can live with that.

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Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 2: Across Ohio and New York to Brattleboro, Vermont.

A hand-pulled pint at McNeill's Brewery in Brattleboro, Vermont.

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Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 3: A varied melange of Brattleboro.

The view (with beers) at Whetstone Station Restaurant and Brewery in Brattleboro, Vermont.

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Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 4: Lunch in New Hampshire, and a last look at Vermont.

Very different and both enjoyable: Elm City Brewing Company (NH) and Hermit Thrush Brewery (VT).

---

Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 5: Ruby welcomes the Confidentials to Massachusetts.

About the Montague Bookmill, and a few beers in the Massachusetts countryside.

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Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 6: A trip to Gator's in Rhode Island.

A glorious pushing of buttons: Rauchbier at Fort Hill Brewery in Easthampton MA.

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Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 7: Northampton MA and Labor Day in a Blue State.

A lovely Best Bitter at Northampton Brewery.

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Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 8: Civil War history in Frederick, Maryland and environs.

Brewer's Alley and Monocacy Brewing in Frederick MD.

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Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 9: Antietam and a detour through Civil War medicine.

One vast hospital: Flying Dog's Saw Bones Ginger Table Beer.

---

Strictly speaking, there was a 10th day, which amounted to tad more than eight hours spent driving home through Western Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky. The scenery was stunning, and I wish there would have been time to properly appreciate it.

With luck, there'll be other times. Cheers.

At The Nation, the case for and against a vote for Jill Stein and the Greens.

At The Nation, read about the pros and cons of Jill Stein's presidential candidacy.

First, the case in favor ...

Don’t Waste Your Vote on the Corporate Agenda — Vote for Jill Stein and the Greens, by Kshama Sawant

Most progressives will vote for Clinton to keep Trump out of the White House. That’s understandable, but even more important is building an alternative to pro-capitalist parties.

Make no mistake: I want Trump to lose this election. But progressives should not support Clinton. Her close ties to corporate America and its brutal neoliberal agenda will serve to increase the appeal of right-wing populism even if she wins.

... and the case against.

Your Vote for Jill Stein Is a Wasted Vote, by Joshua Holland

If you want to join a party that has no chance of effecting progressive change, the Greens are for you!

Many Greens think that their vote isn’t wasted because it sends a powerful “message” to Washington. But why would anyone in power pay attention to the 0.36 percent of the popular vote that Jill Stein won in 2012, when 42 percent of eligible voters just stayed home? Political parties are merely vessels. The Green Party provides a forum to demonstrate ideological purity and contempt for “the system.” But the Democratic Party is a center of real power in this country. For all its flaws, and for all the work still to be done, it offers a viable means of advancing progressive goals. One can’t say the same of the perpetually dysfunctional and often self-marginalizing Greens.

Irv Stumler sez: If you're walking or biking, you have no right to use city streets. Get a car, or get lost.

Tyrannosaurus kooks.

The perpetually agitated Irv Stumler attended yesterday's Board of Works meeting to follow up on his "One Way Streets Forever" public meeting testimony of Monday evening, and while his superannuated boilerplate remained much the same, he tossed in an exciting new twist.

To summarize Stumler's increasingly embarrassing rantings (paraphrased):

"No evidence I've ever bothered to view supports two-way street reversions, because only my own assumptions can be trusted, not yours, since all the downtown business owners agree with me, anyway, and besides, if you're scared of fast-moving traffic, then as a taxpayer, you have no rights to use the street unless you're in a vehicle."

That's the disjointed size of it, and it's the latter point which he chose to emphasize at BOW's weekly confab -- with undisguised disdain and a palpably aristocratic sneer. If you are scared of urban streets used as industrial thoroughfares, then you're deficient. What are you, some kind of unemployed homosexual? Can't you afford a car?

It's the corrosive malady Stumler shares with his Silver Hills neighbor, council man Bob Caesar. Both are so fundamentally eaten up with knee-jerk opposition to the type of person who'd dare advocate change of any sort that whatever faculties of human reason they possess stand no chance, and are overwhelmed by a childish sort of spite ... with a heavy undertone of envy, but we'll leave this evaluation to the professionals.

In short, those people are not respectable people, and they cannot be allowed to win. 

And so, the simple fact is that Stumler and his ilk believe only motorized vehicles have defensible "rights" on city streets. We might point to evidence around the planet indicating alternative models, but since Stumler won't bother considering them, they don't exist. He looks the other way and covers his eyes.

Photos like this one ...

... are merely scurrilous pornography to Stumler, and of course those peddling the very idea of multi-modal streets are pornographers -- and we know what Puritans do with pornographers.

After all, there are no trucks in this photo, and without trucks -- and cement plants, and steelworks, and quarries -- how can there be an economy? Stumler missed his calling. He might have become the best centrally-controlled industrial economic planner a Soviet Five Year Plan ever saw.

Look, I'm no fan of HWC Engineering, but it's noteworthy that the firm ran computer models of New Albany street usage for 20 years into the future, and these established the seaworthiness of two-way streets with as few "assumptions" as possible. They had to do it, otherwise a criminally timid City Hall wouldn't do anything at all.  

Stumler hasn't mentioned this, not once, perhaps because it would require conceding that when enough facts are compiled, "assumptions" yield to percentages and probability.

When your eyes are wide shut, you tend not to see anything. Stumler is smart enough to know this, but a soul in torment is precisely the finest breeding ground for equations such as 2 + 2 = 37.

I wish Irv Stumler had stayed at the meeting yesterday to hear me speak. He'd have heard me patiently correct his many and mounting two-way street mistakes, from "there is no speeding on Elm and Spring" to "no downtown business owner wants two-way streets," and not excluding Caesar's perennial chestnut, "there are half as many parking places on a two-way street."

So I corrected them. Again.

It's nothing, really. Having been in the bar biz for so many years, you get used to cleaning up the vomit of others -- and as long as Stumler keeps spinning lies about the streets, we may need a bucket brigade before he's through.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: The World Is Full of Crashing Lackeys.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why all these newfangled words?

Why not the old, familiar, comforting words, like the ones you're sure to hear when asking the city's corporate attorney why the answers to my FOIA/public records request for Bicentennial commission finances, due to be handed over on July 8, still haven't arrived on September 21?

Bicentennial commission financial trail? What's two (yawn) weeks (shrug) after 463 days?

September 21 update: Make that 11 weeks since the FOIA record request's due date and  525 days since I asked Bob Caesar to tell us how many books were left unsold, and how much the city's 200-year "summer of love" fest cost.

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about intimidation through erudition. Rather, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even these very same iniquitous, bond-slush-engorged municipal corporate attorneys who customarily are handsomely remunerated to suppress information can benefit from this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, as we contemplate what they knew and when they knew it, all we have left is plenty of time -- and the opportunity to learn something, if we're so inclined.

Today's word is lackey ... and no, not Chicago Cubs pitcher John Lackey.

lackey or lacquey

[lak-ee]

noun, plural lackeys

1. a servile follower; toady.
2. a footman or liveried manservant.

verb (used with object), lackeyed, lackeying

3. to attend as a lackey does.

Origin of lackey 
1520-30; Middle French laquais, perhaps < Catalan lacayo, alacayo < ?

As used in a sentence:

Mayor Gahan's lackey eagerly approached with a freshly polished chamber pot, only to be brusquely ordered back to his office in the Public Works Projects wing of the Down Low Bunker.

Meat Is Murder: Morrissey at The Palace, 09/20/2016.

I'm gobsmacked at the recognition that it's been 12 years since the only other time I've seen Morrissey perform, also in Louisville, and also at The Palace.

How could this be?

Highly influential, Morrissey is widely credited as being a seminal figure in the emergence of indie rock and Britpop. He has been acclaimed as one of the greatest lyricists in British history, with his lyrics having become the subject of academic study. He has courted controversy with his forthright opinions – endorsing vegetarianism and animal rights, condemning royalty and prominent politicians, and questioning issues of British national and cultural identity.

Last night's show was brilliant, and short of lapsing into a formal review, I'll note only that very few of Morrissey's musical generation (he's 57) seem to have put as much thought into the dynamics of pure performance. Rock and vaudeville are joined, with huge dollops of agitprop courtesy of the video screen. To say the results are unique is to be guilty of understatement.

Check out the set list, and join me in appreciating a man who genuinely merits the description of icon. It was money very well spent for us.

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.

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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!

ASK THE BORED: The incredible disappearing two-way street vote, but there's a reason for it.

Last week it was reported that the Board of Works and Public Safety would vote today on HWC Engineering's two-way streets proposal.

This is not the case, as the agenda below indicates, and the reason was explained after last evening's public meeting at New Albany High School.

If you have personally observed speeding on Spring or Elm Street, Silver Hills resident Irv Stumler says you're a liar.

4-2-3: City council scorecard from Monday's public meeting on two-way streets.

The public meeting was a federal requirement, and the period for public comment extends until Monday, October 3. Consequently, the earliest BOW can give final approval is Tuesday, October 4.

4-2-3: City council scorecard from Monday's public meeting on two-way streets.

New Albany residents applaud two-way streets, by Madeleine Winer (Courier-Journal)

Plans to turn some one-way streets in downtown New Albany to two-way roads were mostly met with approval Monday as many residents said "it's about time" plans came to fruition.

Last evening's public meeting on the topic of two-way street reversions in New Albany was not an optional gathering. Because federal money is to be used, such a meeting is required. Of those members of the public speaking, my scorecard shows 14 - 5 in favor of Option B, or complete two-way reversions of Elm, Spring, Market, Bank and Pearl between Vincennes and State.

Six of nine city council members attended. Their district is noted in parentheses.

Present, speaking in favor of two-way reversions: Greg Phipps (3), Pat McLaughlin (4), David Barksdale (at large) and Al Knable (at large)

Present, not speaking: Matt Nash (5), David Aebersold (at large)

Absent: Dan Coffey (1), Bob Caesar (2) and Scott Blair (6)

If you have personally observed speeding on Spring or Elm Street, Silver Hills resident Irv Stumler says you're a liar.

Safety. You know, for human beings.

Is two-way the way to go in New Albany? Many residents think so; Public weighs in on conversion proposal, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — Although opinions on two-way streets differ, safety seems to be a top concern for residents.

I'm not sure why that's so difficult to understand.

Indianapolis: "Their deaths not only raise questions about whether the city is doing enough to protect its residents, but also call into question the city’s spending priorities over the years."

In New Albany, how many millions have been spent on showplace park projects?

Left in the dark: Indy's deadly streets, by John Tuohy and Tony Cook (Indy Star)

... In other cities, the motorist might have noticed a pedestrian walking along a busy, high-speed street such as Georgetown Road because it likely would have been illuminated by the most basic of city services — a streetlight.

But not in Indianapolis.

Here, city officials stopped adding streetlights more than 35 years ago to save money on the city’s $2.9 million annual electric bill. Compounding the problem, they also failed to build any new sidewalks for 20 years during that time.

It has made for a lethal combination.

An IndyStar investigation found that 585 pedestrians have been killed in Marion County since the streetlight ban in 1980. Last year, 27 pedestrians were run down, more than in any year since the moratorium started.

Return of the Son of the Summit Springs Zombie PUDD?

Well, lookee here.

Seems the Plan Commission meets on Tuesday, September 20. Might this sign spotted in the vicinity of the atrocity have something to do with this agenda item?

Docket C-05-16
Pat and Pam Kelley request a Primary Plat approval for a nine (9) lot subdivision in a PUDD, Planned Unite Development District, at 2303-2307 State Street, 220 Woodbine Drive and 2301-2320 Fawcett Hill Road.

Yes, the Kelleys. They never go away, do they?

The street addresses seem to be analogous with the previously minted clinging hillside developments. It's almost as though all these plans are being made under the assumption that stormwater run-off issues only happen near the Yangtze River -- not the Ohio.

Is this fix firmly in, or will there be a different ending? Either way, all we can say is "Hooray for (Scott) Holly Wood" ...

“Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.”
― Marilyn Monroe

ON THE AVENUES: High atop Summit Springs with friends (and relatives) in low places.

"Parking meters and opportunity costs."

It might be funny if not for the hair-tearing frustration of it. The same person who'll happily drive ten miles to walk back and forth across the Big Four Bridge will bitterly complain when "forced" to park two blocks from his favorite downtown restaurant.

Perhaps this is because the restaurant walk isn't as pleasing as the bridge walk, although it might be more pleasing if we weren't compelled to maintain downtown streets almost exclusively for cars, for the needs of cars as opposed to those of walkers, so as to ease our diner's transit from suburbia to the parking space just outside the front door of his destination -- you know, the one currently occupied by the business owner's personal car.

Obliquely, my favorite recent comment on this weird phenomenon comes from food writer Steve Coomes in a piece about the newly opened HopCat on Bardstown Road in Louisville. Is there enough parking?

HopCat will battle the same limited parking problem all its neighbors face. With just 23 spots on the lot, it’s expected diners will do as they do everywhere else: find a spot, any spot, park and walk to the restaurant.

I seem to have forgotten the point ... wait, yes; until New Albany's downtown parking garage is filled with cars every night, then the only parking problem we have is the inability of business owners and employees to park right there, in the parking garage. It's either cheap or free most of the time, and if the streets night are not sufficiently well lit or not pleasurable for walking, then by all means, please join me in making this point to City Hall.

But maybe if these parking spaces had value?

The opener ...

Parking meters and opportunity costs, by Daniel Hertz (City Observatory)

What if we could make parking spaces in high-demand areas more widely available, while also making better use of under-used parking spaces elsewhere?

Think of it as Uber’s “surge pricing,” but for parking. (Though it elicits some grumbles from a consumer perspective, we think surge pricing can make lots of sense: it encourages more efficient choices by riders, and brings out more drivers when they’re most in demand).

... and the closer.

But that’s not all that’s missing here. Proponents of “smart parking” say that one of their goals is to increase the usage of “underutilized” parking spaces. Often, that may mean increasing the total amount of driving. But, of course, driving incurs all sorts of extra social costs: pollution, wear and tear on public roads, injuries and deaths from crashes. When calibrating the appropriate price of parking on public space, should cities take those costs into account?