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Arkansas Times Craft Beer Festival benefitting Argenta Arts District

Friday, Nov. 2nd 6-9pm $25 Adv • $35 Door

On 4th Street in between Main and Popular in Downtown NLR (Argenta)

Join the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau tent and find out about the Locally Labeled Passport Program — your ticket to learn about and enjoy Little Rock’s 11 craft beer breweries, two wineries and historic distillery

Visit the Ale Trail tent to experience the Ozarks’ finest craft brews! The Fayetteville Ale Trail gives visitors and locals alike a glimpse into the unique craft brewery culture of Northwest Arkansas.

Live DJ with Dance Party! Food Trucks (available for purchase):

Riceland Mobile Café, Reggae Flavas, Say Cheese, Wok N Roll, K&T Hot Dogs, Loblolly Creamery, Black Hound BBQ and more!

Pa r t i c i pat i n g b r e w e r i e s AGAINST THE GRAIN BLUE CANOE BOULEVARD BRECKENRIDGE BUFFALO CORE CLOWN SHOES

CROSSTOWN DESTIHL DIAMOND BEAR DOGFISH HEAD ELYSIAN EVIL TWIN FLYWAY

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LOST FORTY MOTHER’S NEBRASKA NEW BELGIUM NEW PROVINCE OFF COLOR OSKAR BLUES OZARK

PINEY RIVER PRAIRIE RAHR & SONS REBEL KETTLE SAM ADAMS SHINER SHOCK TOP SIERRA NEVADA

M O R E TO B E A N N O U N C E D ! ! !

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OCTOBER 25, 2018

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WEEK THAT WAS

Inman left off

Commission Chairwoman Dr. Ronda Henry-Tillman objected strongly to the lack of a physician on the scoring team that PCG has assembled: “industry experts” in government regulation, cannabis, pharmacy, law and a nurse. Henry-Tillman said dispensaries should be evaluated as to knowledge of how to dispense medical marijuana appropriate to the disease process. She said the rubric for applicants requires dispensaries to be educated on what to do when an applicant comes in with one of the qualifying diseases. Public Consulting Group, the She said a nurse evaluation would be company hired by the Arkansas Medical “unacceptable.” Com m issioner Ja mes M i l ler, Marijuana Commission to evaluate dispensary applications, said it will try who participated in the meeting by to provide results to the commission conference call, asked Aldridge why within the 30 days agreed after receipt the company’s bid was so low. Aldridge of the applications — by mid-November responded that PCG, which largely works with health and human service or late November at the latest. First, however, PCG must train organizations on Medicaid issues, a team of scorers, who will grade believed working with Arkansas was independently, so that their evaluations an “opportunity to see how we can go of application components will be in and be helpful. ... We also might use consistent, manager Thomas Aldridge this as a jumping-off point for other told the commission. It will be up to the projects. We have no intention of commission to review the aggregate making a lot of money on this contract.” scores for location — 32 dispensaries Instead, it is a project that would help will be divided up in eight regions — and PCG establish a “footprint” in the award bonus points based on the rubric. cannabis business.

Marijuana scoring progress

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

State seeks to break agreement with LRSD teachers

C it i n g low s c or e s on m a n y Little Rock School District schools’ standardized test, State Education Commissioner Johnny Key, who acts as district school board under state control, has rejected a new negotiating agreement with the Little Rock Education Association. He wants a change that would allow an end to fair dismissal protection for teachers at schools with D and F grades. There are 16 schools with D grades among BRIAN CHILSON

Early voting in Arkansas began Oct. 22. When polls opened, the Garland County Election Commission had left Susan Inman, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, off the election ballot. Gene Haley, chairman of the election commission, said officials discovered last week during a testing process that not all primary election winners had transferred electronically to the general election ballot. So, some omissions had to be re-entered by hand. In the process, Inman’s name was left off. Her Republican candidates’ name was misspelled — John “Thurnston” instead of Thurston. A voter intending to vote for Inman noticed the omission at 8:15 a.m. Oct. 22 and notified officials, who immediately halted voting until the error could be fixed, Haley said. But 222 ballots were completed by then. The full ballot was later restored. There’s no corrective for ballots cast before the error was fixed. Election officials note that voters are warned not to cast ballots until they are sure they’ve made correct choices.

the LRSD’s 46 schools and 7 with Fs. In a notice distributed by Key, he said the LRSD “needs this greater flexibility to make staffing changes in struggling schools” than what the existing negotiating agreement provides. Th e L i t t l e R o c k E d u c a t i o n Association responded sharply in a news release. “Even murderers receive due process,” the release said and hinted at action to come. The teachers object that they are being held responsible for low grades in 22 schools though principals at 11 of those schools have not changed in the four years since the state took over the district” In the release, LREA President Teresa Knapp Gordon also faulted the state for a lack of assistance in the district while it approved charter schools that drained students and resources. The LREA also raised the question of where new teachers would come from amid a national teacher shortage if the district embarks on mass firings, without normal due process under the teacher fair dismissal act as Key proposes, for alleged responsibility for low scores in schools with D and F grades.

Time to vote

arly voting has begun and most of the choices are easy on my ballot. For example: * 2nd District Congress: A vote for Clarke Tucker is a vote for human rights, women’s rights and, most of all, broad access to health care, particularly for the sick and poor. If you’re a Wall Street banker, credit card company, payday lender or other form of blood-sucker or hold low regard for immigrants or people of color, then Republican U.S. Rep. French Hill is your choice. * Issue 2: This is the cookie-cutter national Republican vote suppression gimmick. Requiring a photo ID, on top of what’s already required to register and a validating signature at the polls, is meant (and has worked) to depress turnout by poor and minority voters. We should encourage, not dis-

OPINION

courage, voting. * Issue 4: What difference does it make, given the explosion of Internet gambling MAX BRANTLEY options? Note this: maxbrantley@arktimes.com Expanded casino gambling would open the door to Indian casinos in Arkansas, despite the past dark effort by the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce to stymie them to protect the Oaklawn casino. The amendment, as a sop to Oaklawn and the Southland racino, allows more types of gambling and cuts taxes at the existing duopoly casinos. At least the amendment would give them competition in Pine Bluff and Russellville. Maybe even on tribal land in Little Rock someday. * Issue 5: The proverbial no-

Tough choice

o date, I’ve remained neutral in the Little Rock mayor’s race for a number of reasons. As I was involved in both independent survey work in the race and in the planning for a series of five mayoral forums, I wanted to wait until after those activities were complete to take any stance. More importantly, I really wanted to watch the campaign play itself out. I wanted to see how the candidates that I know well performed through the pressure of a campaign. In the end, I’ve decided that Warwick Sabin is best positioned to be the kind of mayor that Little Rock needs at this vital time in our city’s history. In each of the three candidates that have the best chance to win this race, I see some of the attributes I’d like to see in an ideal Little Rock mayor: * Someone positioned by their personal background and work to date to tackle the divides in our city — especially our racial divide; *Someone who would avoid the provincialism that has too often stymied this city and instead would have broader perspectives on how cities across the country and region can be laboratories of innovative change; * Someone with a proven track record of managing larger institutions that left them better than when they found them; * Someone who would thoroughly

understand that diversity of all sorts is a strength of our city and that our mayor JAY should embrace BARTH substantive and symbolic actions to support inclusion of those traditionally invisible or not offered a seat at the table; * Someone who would represent generational change in a city that needs to look to its future rather than its past. Unfortunately, not all these attributes can be found in any one of these candidates. That said, we are left with three very good choices. I was thoroughly impressed with Baker Kurrus’ service as superintendent of the Little Rock School District during a challenging period. He was a great ally in my efforts on the state Board of Education for us to develop a plan of action before rushing into a dramatic expansion of charter education in the district. He was right in standing up on that important issue. Kurrus is genuinely dedicated to serving others and he’d bring that warmth to the office if he were to win the race. We would be in good hands, although I fear that he would tend toward micromanagement and would stymie efforts to craft the major structural reforms in city government that we need.

brainer. Increase the state minimum wage. $8.50 an hour is not enough to support a family. No study has shown an ill economic effect from higher minimum wages, despite what the white men in suits at the State Chamber of Commerce say. Then there’s the race for Little Rock mayor, a tough choice among, alphabetically, Baker Kurrus, Warwick Sabin and Frank Scott. A single-issue voter might think it’s easy. Oppose the 30 Crossing concrete gulch downtown? There’s a clear choice. Horrified by police drug raid conduct? Clear choice. Believe real public schools, not privately run charter schools, are the root of community success? Clear choice. Want more rigor in city hall budgeting? Clear choice. A warm, slow-to-anger disposition? Easy pick. Deep, diverse community roots? Clear choice. Best option for real change in a government desperately in need? Clear choice.

Note I didn’t identify the “clear” choice in the categories. What’s clear to me may not be so clear to you. I’m trying to consider all these factors. No candidate scores straight A’s. The good news is that the prospect of a win by any of the three isn’t depressing. That is too often not the case in many elections. I’m voting Democratic in the statewide offices, for philosophical preference, beginning with Jared Henderson for governor. But don’t forget to vote for Susan Inman for secretary of state. It’s about competence. She’s the single best qualified candidate on this year’s ballot relative to the office she is seeking She’s an election expert and veteran of the office who wants to broaden, not narrow, voting. I might add that Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge is the single LEAST qualified major party candidate relative to office. She’s a good reason to vote for a seasoned lawyer, Mike Lee.

I genuinely love Frank Scott Jr. as a person. We have built deep bonds across the years through conversations about divisions in our city and how we need to create “one city” if we are to truly thrive. I also appreciate the growth he has exhibited during this campaign, particularly on issues of diversity and inclusion; still, it remains clear that some components of inclusion don’t come easily for him. Scott continually mentions that he is thoroughly grounded in Little Rock, and most would see this as a good thing. My concern is that his deep grounding in this place inhibits his ability to think expansively about new solutions to our problems. Still, if he were to win this race, I have real confidence that he can continue to grow personally and become a very good mayor. But, Warwick Sabin is my pick for mayor. I have had hours of conversations with him over the years, have studied his record in his six years in the General Assembly, and have watched hours of forums during this campaign. You name the question, Sabin never gets it wrong. He has a clarity of progressive values that is resolute and a depth of understanding on any topic facing the city. Most importantly, he understands how other cities around the country have instituted policy change that have made their citizens’ lives tangibly better. I wish Sabin showed the warmth in public settings that I have often seen in one-on-one conversations, but a

depth of knowledge and a commitment to implementing big ideas is what we need in a mayor. Moreover, as he showed in standing up on the 30 Crossing project before it was an obvious political winner, he is willing to do things that are not politically expedient because they’re simply the right thing to do for our future. Just last week, the truly stunning reporting on Little Rock’s constitutionally dubious practice of no-knock drug raids disproportionately targeting black men did make me wonder whether, because of the systemic racism in this city, electing a person of color as mayor was our only path forward. But, even here, it was Sabin who was most clear in responding to a crisis that will meet the next mayor when he arrives at city hall. Just as he grasps every other fundamental issue, Sabin understands how the history of racism and division in this city stymies our collective futures. Some of my best friends — personally and politically — are strongly supporting either Scott or Kurrus. I can’t question their judgment, for they are supporting good people who care deeply about Little Rock. But, this election is about who can bring progressive and transformative change to a city that needs a jolt. We have a unique opportunity to elect a candidate unflinchingly focused on doing this. That’s why I’m supporting Warwick Sabin to be Little Rock’s next mayor.

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t’s not for nothing that the most Republican base, chilling scene in George Orwell’s in whose collecprophetic novel “1984” involves an tive lizard brain act of puritanical voyeurism. Secret lov- Mrs. Clinton still GENE ers Winston and Julia are lying together looms large.” LYONS in their hideaway in the London slums As if there were when a steely voice comes out of the wall. anything she could say that wouldn’t. “You are the dead,” it says. “Remain But what really got Cottle going was exactly where you are. Make no move what she called “an even juicier midterm until you are ordered.” gift for Trump & Company,” specifically Black-clad storm troopers burst in Hillary’s telling a CBS News interviewer and carry the couple away, never to see that, no, her husband shouldn’t have each other again. Under Big Brother, resigned over Monica Lewinsky. “desire was thoughtcrime.” Love affairs “President Trump being a pig and an threatened party solidarity. Even worse, alleged sexual predator,” Cottle wrote, Julia was a uniformed member of the “in no way excuses Bill Clinton from “Junior Anti-Sex League,” basically a being a pig and an alleged sexual predaGirl Scout troop for professional virgins. tor.” A passionate, if secretive, man Key word: “alleged.” mourning his wife’s sudden death, Over at Slate, Christina Caterucci reOrwell believed that nothing would so litigated the Clinton marriage: “Hillary dramatize the threat of totalitarianism exhibited atrocious moral, political and as government intrusion into citizens’ intellectual judgment by staying with bedrooms. Bill.” The author, whose bio indicates We do it differently in the USA, where that she was in third grade when these policing public figures’ sex lives has events transpired, is perhaps too young become the responsibility of the news to understand that other people’s marmedia. The instinct, however, remains riages are a foreign country where she sadistic. Keeping our own sins dis- doesn’t speak the language. creetly hidden, we newspaper pundits My view is that unless she’s runand TV talking heads pronounce upon ning for president in 2020 — a perfectly the romantic entanglements of the great. dreadful idea both for her sake and the Everybody’s a gossip columnist. The New Democratic Party’s — Hillary needs to York Times differs hardly at all in this stay off TV. Otherwise, she should tell respect from The Hollywood Reporter. interviewers that she’s already said The hypocrisy would be staggering everything she’s going to say about her if not so familiar. Everybody pretends husband’s wicked wandering eye, as to be horrified, when mostly, they’re that great Arkansan Johnny Cash put titillated. Nothing so thrills the partisan it, and will no longer answer questions mind as somebody from the opposite about it. party being caught with their knickThere ought to be a statute of limiers down. tations on adultery; if people want to Failing that, there’s always America’s stay married, they have to quit talkall-purpose punching bags, Bill and Hill- ing about it. ary Clinton. Even liberal pundits who’d As to “alleged sexual predator,” it’s staunchly defend your right to have sex a classic example of pundits being solwith armadillos appear to believe that emn when they can’t be serious. As all focusing upon Bill Clinton’s peccadil- cops and newspaper reporters used to los decades later constitutes the highest know, anybody can say anything about duty of a free press. anybody else. Hillary’s, too. Last week, the failed However, since Bill Clinton can’t 2016 Democratic presidential nominee very well sue anybody for libel, it’s open gave a couple of TV interviews. She told season on him. CNN that her party needs to toughen up. Would you call Brett Kavanaugh “You cannot be civil with a political party an “alleged sexual predator?” Absent that wants to destroy what you stand for, a proper investigation, I wouldn’t. But what you care about,” she said. then a real probe never took place. The As she didn’t say anything rude, it’s whole thing was upside-down. hard to know what Hillary meant. New Ironically, Kavanaugh himself had York Times columnist Michelle Cot- a role in investigating Bill Clinton’s tle, however, cowered like a domestic sins. And like every halfway skeptical abuse victim, worried that the remark reporter I know, came up empty apart was “extremely likely to electrify the from Monica Lewinsky.

Hey ladies

rkansas is a solidly red state. We you are not paying are near the bottom and poised attention to what to drop even lower in education is going on in the and life expectancy; but, if white women Little Rock School AUTUMN would stop voting for conservative candi- District, you should. TOLBERT dates, we could change that. Before you The state took over try to argue that “not all white women” the district, dissolved the elected school support the GOP, take a breath. I’m a board, and is selling off schools and trywhite woman who does not support the ing to weaken the teachers union, all with GOP. But, across the country, more of us the approval of Governor Hutchinson. On voted for Donald Trump than for Hillary the other hand, Hutchinson’s Democratic Clinton in 2016. The same trend looks to opponent, Jared Henderson, supports hold true in the midterms in Arkansas. public schools with a plan to raise teacher For the past few years, I’ve watched cen- pay across the state. Hutchinson, while trist Democrats try to coddle their way supporting tax cuts for the rich, called into winning over conservative women. Henderson “an out-of-touch liberal.” Is It isn’t working. It is time for tough love. supporting fair wages to the men and Because I’m a white woman who was women who spend all day teaching our raised in a conservative, evangelical com- kids “out of touch?” Do you really want to munity, I’ll take a shot and tell my fellow give millionaires more tax cuts while your white women that it is high time you stop children’s teachers work second jobs? voting for a party that does not value the The GOP wants you to believe that if health and education of your children. you support the Democratic Party canI’ll start with health care. I am flab- didates, you support a radical agenda. bergasted when I see those of you with Don’t be fooled by that nonsense. The chronically ill children supporting GOP 2018 Democratic Party candidates in candidates who literally laughed and Arkansas are nurses, teachers, cancer celebrated the vote to cut insurance to survivors and parents to public school women and children. Why would you children. The head of the Arkansas support a candidate who wants to bring Democratic Party is a soybean farmer, back lifetime caps on coverage or deni- for heaven’s sake. They aren’t crazy als based on pre-existing conditions? radicals trying to take your guns away Canada and Great Britain have both or lock up your sons for unsubstanhad a form of single-payer health care tiated rape charges as the Republifor decades. We should join them. Before cans want you to believe. The GOP you try to tell me the story of your co- has become the party of big business worker’s cousin’s husband’s brother and the rich. They use fear to try to who died waiting for heart surgery in convince you otherwise. For examCanada, remember that people die every ple, if your preacher, or candidate, or single day in the United States waiting the pundits on Fox News have you for care. Personally, I am tired of worry- convinced that supporting Demoing how to pay emergency room bills for cratic Party candidates means you are my children while still paying insurance supporting baby killers, think again. premiums and co-pays every month. I Research the links between greater bet you are, too. Medical bankruptcies access to health care, birth control, after a serious illness and GoFundMe comprehensive sex education, paid campaigns to pay for life-saving medi- parental leave and fair wages to lowcal treatments should not be the norm. ered abortion rates. Which party proWe should be electing progressive can- motes the types of policies that lead didates who want to move us toward to fewer abortions? It’s not the GOP. single-payer care. Stop voting for GOP So, to all the white women out there, candidates who are more interested in if you want your kids to have quality pubprotecting the insurance companies’ lic schools and access to health care that bottom lines and giving tax cuts to the doesn’t leave you bankrupt or depenwealthiest Arkansans than making sure dent on the open pocketbooks of others, your children have access to treatment. get with the program and vote with the On to education. The majority of kids women of color. When you go to your in Arkansas go to public schools. During polling place this year, go alone. Don’t the last legislative session, Arkansas GOP vote for the GOP candidates. Vote for legislators led the effort to take tax dol- progressives. Vote for Democrats. Do it lars away from public schools and give for yourselves and for your kids. Do it for the funds to private schools, as if our Arkansas. Your husbands and preachers public schools have too much money. If never have to know.

ARKANSAS S TAT E W I D E & FEDERAL AR02

CANDIDATE SCORECARD

The Indivisible LRCA Scorecard Committee researched each candidate’s positions using their voting records, public statements, and policy positions, and/or questions and interviews. The ratings reflect how their positions reflect Indivisible’s values of equality, inclusivity, compassion and justice. PROTECTING OUR DEMOCRACY*

AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE FOR ALL

ECONOMY, JOBS & WAGES

PROTECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT

CIVIL RIGHTS: JUSTICE & EQUALITY**

COMPASSIONATE IMMIGRATION REFORM

US CONGRESS • DISTRICT 2

French Hill (R)

Joe Swafford (L)

R R

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R R

Clarke Tucker (D)« GOVERNOR

Jared Henderson (D)«

Asa Hutchinson (R)

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R R

Frank Gilbert (L)

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Tim Griffin (R)

R R

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Mike Lee (D)«

R R

Leslie Rutledge (R)

R R

Christopher Olson (L)

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R R

John Thurston (R)

Mark West (L) LT. GOVERNOR

Anthony Bland (D)«

ATTORNEY GENERAL

Keri Hicks (L)

SECRETARY OF STATE

Susan Inman (D)«

COMMISSIONER OF STATE LANDS

Larry Williams (D): His experience, willingness to work with outside groups and his desire to donate properties not sold at auctions to cities, counties, schools, and colleges demonstrate his commitment to our communities. Tommy Land (R): In 2013, he was elected to a two-year term as County Chairman for the Republican party. Since March 2015, he has held the office of First District Chairman for the Republican Party of Arkansas. T.J. Campbell (L): He wants to: lower the salary of the land commissioner, transfer the responsibility of map preservation from the land commission to universities, and help people raise money to pay property taxes so they don’t lose their land. AR SUPREME COURT Courtney Goodson: Incumbent. She has been scored a -.48 by a Stanford Univ study of state Supreme Court judges’ political ideology, which indicates a moderate liberal leaning, on par with other Arkansas judges. David Sterling: He is a member of the NRA deciding on gun laws, and according to the Arkansas Times is a beneficiary of some $2 million in dark money donations to unseat Goodson. * Protecting voting rights; heightening election security; diminishing the role of big money in politics; strengthening ethics, transparency and accountability in government. ** Civil Rights—racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ rights. — — — Indicates candidate both meets and fails to meet some Indivisible values. «Indivisible LRCA endorses this candidate. ARKANSAS STATE BALLOT ISSUES: FOR OR OPPOSED

WE ARE OPPOSED

TWO: Require government photo IDs for voting

WE ARE FOR

FIVE: Increase minimum wage to $11/hour over the next three years

• Bring your photo ID to polls • If you have moved or had a name change, check your registration at voterview.org For research used to score candidates, please go to IndivisibleLRCA.org/scorecard. Ad paid for by Indivisible LRCA

arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

PEARLS ABOUT SWINE

Looking forward

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OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

omecoming was ho-hum for and Arkansas is now Arkansas, but it was a shutout an utterly pedesvictory, too, and as this agoniz- trian 2-6 after snap- BEAU WILCOX ing season has worn on, even a fairly ping the program’s uninspired performance by one objec- longest losing streak in four years. These tively bad team to oust another means Hogs still don’t have a win over an SEC a little around these parts. or Power-5 conference opponent, their What the 23-0 blanking of Tulsa may already-scant depth has been nearly not really encapsulate, though, is what it obliterated by two or three weeks’ worth might eventually symbolize as a minor of unwelcome injuries to critical conpivot point for the program. For start- tributors, and they have failed to puncers, Chad Morris’ offense was anything tuate at least two other potential victobut hyper-productive, but the guys who ries. So how much can it mean for the produced are the ones he’s going to be team to mildly drub the Golden Hurleaning on quite a bit in the future if ricane? The consensus will always be this program is going to make a quick, that an ugly win beats a well-played emphatic turnaround from its present defeat at any juncture, but that last leg moribund state. Rakeem Boyd proved of the schedule really looks like it could he could be a workhorse just as much as be much more dangerous than it origia big-play threat, carrying a season-high nally appeared. LSU is rolling, Missis22 times for 99 yards before being side- sippi State remains dangerous despite lined again with a minor injury. Fresh- its offensive woes of late, and Missouri is man quarterback Connor Noland got his always dangerous with its vertical attack. first career start, and was by no means Consider that the next opponent, dynamic but steady enough to get a win Vanderbilt, is a team that more or less is (10 of 16 with 124 yards, a touchdown, in desperation mode, too. Coach Derek and an opening-drive interception that Mason is assuredly fighting for his job might’ve been at least partially the fault at this point, with the Commodores of slanting senior receiver Jared Corne- having fiercely challenged the likes of lius, who has all but disappeared from Notre Dame, Florida and Kentucky, all the game plan). Another freshman, red- teams residing within the Top 15, but shirt tailback Maleek Williams, got the losing all of those games in painfully Hogs’ second touchdown on a short run close fashion. If Vandy (3-5, 0-4) saunlate in the game and showed a willing- ters into Fayetteville and loses, it almost ness to hit the line aggressively. certainly cements Mason’s fate, whereas On the defensive side, McTelvin Morris is essentially playing with what Agim had one of his better games and little house money he has in his first tour constantly found himself in the Tulsa through the conference. Accordingly, backfield, a sight that many expected expect a hungry Vanderbilt team with to materialize more consistently, but a productive, experienced quarterback the Southwest Arkansas product con- and a relatively stingy defense to treat tinues to battle against double-teams this game with significant urgency. and some flagrant, mostly unflagged Arkansas, meanwhile, is faced with holding calls to be more of a force this its fourth pre-noon kickoff in nine season than he was in either of his first games this fall, and given the team’s two years. He and Briston Guidry will be dearth of success, that means Saturgood anchors on the line next fall, to be day’s crowd won’t figure to be all that sure, and it was encouraging to see the electric. The Tulsa game was, at least, Arkansas secondary have a nice perfor- a sunny homecoming game with onemance after being thoroughly torched time Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryby Ole Miss quarterback Jordan Ta’amu ant in attendance for his official visit. the week before. It was the first Razor- Hard to fathom what fan turnout will be, back shutout in four years, and even if but the typically generous estimate of it came at the expense of an inferior foe, the Tulsa crowd as being nearly 57,000 it was a psychologically pleasing way strong (but 40,000 tickets scanned at to close out a team that pushed Texas the gates) is probable to repeat itself to the brink a month earlier and chal- again for Vanderbilt, and that’s not a lenged a very good Houston team for sizable group to show up for a league three-and-a-half quarters. game that still has a lot of importance Of course, Tulsa is still just a 1-6 team, for both teams.

THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

Back 40

he Observer right now is, as the old timers used to say, “down in the back.” Specifically, it’s the lower back, which has us hobbling around The Observatory like the cranky, broken version of Charles Foster Kane after his off-key caged songbird flew the coop. As we write this, we’re perched on a chair with a pillow stuffed behind us, desperately trying to keep our rickety bones in the perfect alignment required to prevent the pain from going off like somebody lit a cherry bomb between the knuckles of our spine. Cough, sneeze, reach for the coffee cup in just the wrong way, and ZING! An electric bolt races out from the spot and down our string of knobby pearls, the pain enough to keep us tied us to this chair and keyboard for as long as that is bearable, when we retreat to the slightly more bearable couch. If this goes on much longer, we’re going to have to look into getting our aging, non-HD flat screen bolted to the ceiling. In case nobody told you: Getting older sucks. We heard a comedian once — was it Wile E. Coyote-grade long-fallto-rock-bottom-victim Louis C.K.? — say that you know you’re old when the doctor stops talking about how she’s going to fix your problems and starts talking about how you’re gonna live with them until they either kill you or magically work themselves out. We’re crossing our fingers this is something we’re not going to have to just live with. We’re on day four now and hoping for the best. We come by it honest, at least. Pa had a legendarily puny back, inherited from his father and his father’s father, Pa poked and prodded and prayed over by everything from chiropractors to acupuncturists during the five decades Pa got on earth. Never surgeons, though, as he had a lifelong fear of sawbones getting up inside his bodily temple for a little remodeling. At least once or twice a year we’d come home from school to find him lying in the middle of the living room floor, trying to get a pinched nerve or slipped disc to go back to the hell it came from so he could bear to get out there and hustle. The Observer, who

doesn’t have to lift anything heavier than a pen or coffee cup to do our job, literally feels our Old Man’s pain. Right now, we’re six years and change from where he was when he cashed his chips, and for Yours Truly, there might as well be a big red clock on the wall counting down the seconds. And so here we sit, wondering whether the next time we stand will be pure, non-ouchie bliss or that feeling like a railroad spike being hammered between our vertebrae. Probably the latter, from the feel of it. There are times, Dear Reader, that we envy the invertebrates — slimy, squirmy and squishy as they may be. An exoskeleton might be quite nice right about now, we think, instead of this string of hair-trigger firecrackers that has replaced our lower spine. Then we imagine the old grubs and beetles and centipedes at their tiny version of a coffee shop, griping about carapace ache and wing warp and all the other things for which buggy doctors can only give them a teeny tiny pill and best wishes by way of a cure. If you watch this space, you know that The Observer is both as skeered of doctors as a turkey is of cranberry sauce, while simultaneously being one of the biggest hypochondriacs alive, sure that every sniffle, rumble or pain is the Big One that’s going to lay us low. While the women in The Observer’s family tend to go on until they resemble a row of dried apple dolls, wizened and wry and charming as hell about everything from love troubles to how to make epic chocolate gravy, the men in our family are hothouse flowers, great until they ain’t. We try not to think of that as we sit here, reminded of the fragility of these mortal bodies of ours by the dark tune growing between our L3 and L4 vertebrae, which jumps a half-octave every time we shift our keister in this chair. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re shuffling off to our bower, where we can find the momentary bliss of the horizontal for a little while. By the way: We’ve heard of standing desks, but does anybody make a laying down desk? If this goes on much longer, we may have to Google that. Ow. Ow-ow. Ow.

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Demand more

want you to think of the three biggest our challenges, but challenges facing Arkansas right now. we lack the politiTake a second and get them in your cal will to make mind. Anything you come up with is great. those investments. Got them? Instead, strings Was lack of economic opportunity or of governors and BILL systemic poverty one? Improving educa- legislatures keep KOPSKY tion? Community violence, or inequities selling that the Guest Columnist in the criminal justice system? Maybe you solutions to our thought of climate change? Or the dis- challenges are cheap taxes on the powparities resulting from the way we treat erful and weak public oversight. people of color or women? Maybe it was So in a state full of needs we get crazy a lack of good roads and internet access? stuff. The legislature has cut unemployOr lack of quality housing, or access to ment benefits despite the fact that we quality health care? I’d love to hear your know that traps more people in povideas and why you chose them. erty. Lawmakers are looking for reasons Now, how many of you think Arkan- to cancel people’s access to health care. sas is doing too much right now to solve Lawmakers ignored recommendations these problems? to create quality afterschool and sumI doubt many of you do. One of the mer programs, or expand quality pre-k, most frustrating things in Arkansas is that despite overwhelming evidence of their we have known what our biggest chal- effectiveness. Instead, they’ve attacked lenges are for generations. We are close to teachers, ignored the consensus solu50th in too many quality of life measures tions available and pushed private school and too close to first in too many negative vouchers and charter schools despite measures. And we know it. It’s practically little evidence they are effective. And part of our Arkansas DNA. Thank God the disproportionately poor and minorfor Mississippi! ity students segregated out of access to What’s even more frustrating is we also a quality education are blamed for their know the solutions to most of those prob- lack of opportunity. lems. We have endless studies, commisIt’s happening again this year. The sions and reports with recommendations governor and many Arkansas lawmakgathering dust, waiting for the political ers are again looking at the myriad chalcourage to implement them. lenges and opportunities facing Arkansas, Just a few years ago we had a task force and their key proposal is again a giant tax on poverty that made great recommenda- cut for the wealthy. All of the evidence tions. Ignored. A task force on special edu- is that this won’t help Arkansas. In fact, cation called for funding to solve critical it will leave us without the resources to failures. Again ignored. The current tax address the real needs of our state and it task force brought in economic experts to will exacerbate inequality. It’s as if they talk about stimulating economic growth, are trying to jump from 49th to 50th in and there have been dozens of reports quality of life measures. over the past 20 years on how to improve They are looking at the challenges facthe Arkansas tax code, which already ing Arkansas and saying we’re already taxes poor people twice the rate that we doing too much to solve them. tax the wealthy and corporations. Again It’s wrong at best. And it’s immoral lawmakers have ignored almost all of it. when we know better. It’s time for us It turns out that too many of us are vot- to remind lawmakers that we want real ing for politicians who believe that we’re solutions and real investments. Show doing too much to solve Arkansas’s prob- them you want living wages by supportlems. Or they look at the proven recom- ing the minimum wage increase. Show mendations from expert commissions but them you’re tired of voter suppression then choose to go their own way backed antics by rejecting the voter ID measure by the ideology of some special interest that solves nothing while ignoring proven with little evidence to support them. And solutions that would improve our elecso we remain stuck at 49th. tions. You already know what our chalMost of the time the stagnation comes lenges are. Election Day is Nov. 6. Let’s down to money. A lot of the solutions our do more to move Arkansas forward and communities need, from education to stop electing lawmakers determined to economic development, require invest- move us backward. ments in research-proven solutions. We could zoom Arkansas forward tomorrow Bill Kopsky is executive director of the with the amount of expertise amassed on Arkansas Public Policy Panel.

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

Boo Arkansas Times Ads Job# 201810010 General Dassault.pdf

10/9/18

2:33 PM

Rising wages lift all

minimum wage increase remains fied by two different on the Arkansas ballot this year, research teams. despite a lawsuit by the ArkanYes, our findings TOM sas State Chamber of Commerce. That’s went against the STANLEY good news for Arkansas. The chamber simplistic claims Guest Columnist and other conservative groups are still made in Economtrying to scare voters away from voting ics 101 — which I taught for several decades for their self-interest and what is best for at Hendrix College — and fearmongering the Arkansas economy. They say a higher from conservative business groups. Econ minimum wage will destroy jobs. 101 assumes there is a downward slope Well, it’s nearly Halloween. Sky-is-fall- to the demand for workers. According to ing claims about the minimum wage have this simplistic story, moving up and along long been debunked by actual economics this curve by raising the minimum wage research. Several highly regarded, cross- reduces employment because employers border, quasi-experimental studies have can no longer afford their entire workforce. investigated the effects when one state This thinking makes sense when we raised its minimum wage and a neighbor- are talking about the demand for a bushel ing state did not. None found any evidence of soybeans or a bale of cotton. It makes of employment declines. sense when there are countless potential For example, in 2015, when Alberta buyers and sellers with no notable control began increasing its minimum wage, the over the market. However, employers do Canadian Federation of Independent Busi- have substantial control; they can largely nesses claimed that doing so would cost dictate the wages they wish to pay. Notice them “between 53,500 and 195,000 jobs.” how slow wages have been to rise after a Reality calling! Instead, 25,000 low-wage decade of economic expansion in the U.S. jobs were created in Alberta from 2015 to In these less-than-perfectly-competitive 2017, during which the Canadian prov- conditions, there is no downward slope ince’s minimum wage increased by 33 per- to the demand for labor, and the job-loss cent. This same experience has been found claims of Econ 101 lose their sting. in dozens of U.S. states and cities. A separate meta-analysis of the effiIssue 5, the Arkansas proposal, would ciency-wage hypothesis, or EWH, progradually raise the state’s minimum wage vides further evidence in debunking the from $8.50 to $11 over a three-year period. scary story of lost jobs. EWH is the idea It would rise to $9.25 in 2019, then $10 in that paying workers higher wages will 2020 and $11 in 2021. The group campaign- induce greater productivity. It’s the oppoing to pass Issue 5 says it would benefit site of the old Soviet workers’ joke: “They over 300,000 Arkansans. pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” My own work as an economist con- EWH says that when we pay workers well, cerns meta-analysis, or research on they work harder. research. Meta-analyses are comprehenThis is a lesson that Henry Ford knew sive analyses of all research on a given sub- well. “We wanted to pay these wages [$5 ject — for example, the therapeutic effects per day] so that the business would be on a of antidepressants, the health risks of sec- lasting foundation,” he once wrote. “A low ond-hand smoke and thousands of other wage business is always insecure.” critical health and policy issues. MetaFord proved a century ago that when analysis is widely seen as the foundation low-wage workers are paid better, they of evidence-based practice in medicine, spend more money and buy more Fords. health, education and psychology. The entire economy benefits, including Nearly a decade ago, Chris Doucoulia- the wealthy. And, raising the minimum gos and I published a comprehensive meta- wage offers immediate, clear benefits to analysis of all research about the minimum low-wage workers, especially those who wage’s effect in the U.S. We looked at 64 are below or near the poverty line. With studies containing nearly 1,500 assessments an estimated 500,000 residents living in of the minimum wage’s effect on employ- poverty, Arkansas needs Issue 5 ment. The best research found almost zero effect. The resounding message was that “if Tom Stanley is emeritus professor of there is some adverse employment effect economics at Hendrix College and professor from minimum-wage raises, it must be of of meta-analysis at the School of Business a small and policy-irrelevant magnitude.” and Law at Deakin University. He lives in These findings were independently veri- Maumelle.

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arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

A BLUE WAVE IN ARKANSAS?

Dream on, Democrats. BY BENJAMIN HARDY, LINDSEY MILLAR AND MAX BRANTLEY

ationally, the 2018 midterms hold promise for those hoping for a check on President Trump and congressional Republicans. Yes, the U.S. Senate is probably out of reach, but Democrats will very likely capture the House. (It should be a certainty, given that poll after poll shows American voters

this cycle prefer a generic congressional Democrat by a margin of five to 10 points, but years of gerrymandering will help the GOP blunt that momentum somewhat.) Dems might also pick up control of governorships and legislative chambers in several states.

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

Arkansas won’t be one of them. Recent polls show something like twothirds of the state approves of Trump’s job performance. In many places, the president is a millstone for Republican officeholders. Here, he’s the wind beneath their wings. Though Democrats are fielding strong candidates in all four of the state’s congressional races, they’re each trailing Republican incumbents by wide margins. The contest in the 2nd District is the closest, but U.S. Rep. French Hill remains well ahead of Democratic state Rep. Clarke Tucker. At the state level, Democrats running for governor and attorney general aren’t anywhere near striking distance of their GOP opponents. And because downballot partisan races tend to follow trends at the top of the ticket, Democratic hopes of picking up a significant number of state legislative seats have faded away. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Remember the bloodbath of 2014 and the shock of 2016. Take those low expectations and ratchet them down another notch or two. That’s half our advice for Election Day 2018 in Arkansas. The other half is this: Get out, vote and tell everyone you know to do the same. Keep working after Nov. 6, no matter what happens. One way in which Arkansas does mirror national trends is the level of enthusiasm and energy this cycle on the Democratic side: Despite long odds, the party is fielding remarkable candidates this year in district after district. Progressivism may be chronically frustrated in Arkansas, but it’s far from dead. Here’s our roundup of the most interesting Arkansas races in 2018. Some are all but impossible for Democrats to win. In others, they have a fighting chance. Two nonpartisan contests, for Little Rock mayor and state Supreme Court justice, also bear close attention. (The biggest unknowns, however, are the three nonpartisan questions remaining on the ballot this year: voter ID, casino gambling and a big minimum wage hike. See a user’s guide to those ballot issues on page 20.) What follows isn’t comprehensive. We’ve left off a number of worthy contenders. There’s Democrat Mike Lee’s challenge to Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, whose kneejerk dedication to championing national Republican causes in federal court is an embarrassment to the state. There’s Hayden Shamel, a Hot Springs teacher valiantly running against incumbent Rep. Bruce

Westerman in the 4th Congressional District. We’re also watching several statehouse races not mentioned here, including Democrat Monica Ball’s bid to unseat Republican Rep. Mark Lowery of Maumelle in House District 39 and an open race between Democrat Andrew Collins and Republican Judith Goodson for HD 35, the legislative seat now occupied by Clarke Tucker.

2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT U.S. REP. FRENCH HILL (R) VS. STATE REP. CLARKE TUCKER (D)

If you care anything about state politics, you know the narrative of this race: This is Democrats’ best chance to pick up a congressional seat in Arkansas since Republicans rode an anti-Obama wave in the 2010, 2012 and 2014 elections to scoop up every federal and statewide office and control

of the state legislature. Little Rock’s Clarke Tucker is a dream candidate for Democrats, though to win he’ll need the stars to align just right: an overwhelming victory in Pulaski, which two-term incumbent French Hill has never won, along with significant gains on the performance of Democratic candidates of the recent past in the district’s much more conservative suburban and rural counties. Recent polls suggest he has a lot of ground to make up. The 37-yearold Tucker is a bladder cancer survivor, a fact he’s made prominent in his campaign when highlighting Hill’s vote to gut the Affordable Care Act. He’s also a two-term state representative, who, despite being in the minority party, was able to pass substantive criminal justice legislation and contribute significantly to the legal language in a complicated legislative gambit that convinced holdout senators to reauthorize Medicaid expansion. Tucker has been an adept fundraiser — he outraised Hill in the three-month period that ended Sept. 30, though Hill had a commanding advantage on overall campaign cash on hand at the end of September — and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has said it would spend $250,000 on ads supporting him. Meanwhile, ex-banker Hill, also of Little Rock, has been a reliable supporter of President Trump’s agenda in Congress, including voting for the deficit-exploding tax cut that largely benefits the wealthy. Not surprisingly, his wealth of campaign cash comes from Wall Street types, including a quarter of a million from Stephens Inc. sources. Prepare to be even more inundated with campaign commercials during the home stretch, including many straight from the Trump playbook that try to play off fear and racial stereotypes. None likely will be more offensive than an ad running on Central Arkansas radio stations that uses the recent U.S. Supreme Court confirmation fight over Brett Kavanaugh to suggest Hill would protect against white women making unfounded charges of rape against black men. One woman on the ad says white Democrats will bring back lynching. It comes from a North Carolina group; Hill has disavowed it.

Four-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve Womack chairs the House Budget Committee, which has introduced a budget proposal for 2019 that calls for $537 billion in cuts to Medicare, $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and $4 billion in cuts to Social Security over 10 years to pay for President Trump’s massive tax giveaway to the rich, which Womack, of course, supported. After Trump described Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries” earlier this year, Womack defended the president in an interview with a Northwest Arkansas TV station, saying, “if you’re only appealing to people from countries that are behind the times, depraved countries, if that’s the element you’re appealing to ... we should make the same or a better appeal to people from other European countries that can come in here and actually fit into the society as we know it.” Mahony, an El Dorado native whose uncle was longtime state legislator Jodie Mahony, is part owner of a natural resources company and past president of the boards of the Single Parent Scholarship Fund and the Ozark Literacy Council. His wife, Rhianon DeLeeuw, is an executive at Walmart. Mahony is a quality candidate who has said all the right things, but he’s almost certainly going to lose. A Democrat hasn’t carried the district since 1967 Still, Jay Barth, a political scientist at Hendrix College and a columnist for the Arkansas Times, notes that how much support Mahony can muster could be a gauge of whether the Democratic Party has a chance to make near-term inroads in Northwest Arkansas as it’s long hoped. “If he gets to 40 percent [of the share of the vote], there would be the sense that things are starting to change [in Northwest Arkansas],” Barth said. There haven’t been strong Democratic candidates in the 3rd District in recent election cycles, but there’s some reason for Democrats to hope that they’re gaining ground. Washington and Benton counties were among the only four counties in the state where Trump underperformed Mitt Romney’s share of the vote in 2012 (the other two were Pulaski and Faulkner counties).

3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT U.S. REP. STEVE WOMACK (R) VS. JOSHUA MAHONY (D) arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

A R K A N S A S SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE JUSTICE COURTNEY GOODSON VS. DAVID STERLING

This is a runoff election for Position 3 on the state’s high court. Goodson has been on the Supreme Court since 2011; she lost an election for chief justice of the court to Dan Kemp in 2016. David Sterling, the chief counsel for the state Department of Human Services, lost a bid to be the Republican nominee for attorney general to Leslie Rutledge in 2014. The position is officially nonpartisan, but Sterling is making every effort to link his candidacy with the GOP. His social media accounts show him making a nearly unbroken series of appearances at Republican functions. In the general election, which was held in May, Goodson received 37 percent of the vote; Sterling got 34 percent. (The third candidate was state Court of Appeals Judge Kenneth Hixson.) Sterling would be a crucial court vote for Republicans. Justice Shawn Womack is a former Republican state senator and remains intensely political with frequent legislative lobbying through Republican colleagues. Justice Rhonda Wood has used former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee in robocalls for her political campaigns and also made the rounds of Republican county committee meetings to campaign. A Sterling win gives the court three transparently partisan justices. Meanwhile, conservative dark money has poured into the race, all to the aid of Sterling. In the May general election, the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative political campaign organization, spent more than $900,000 attacking Goodson and Hixson. Another dark money group funded by business groups and tobacco companies has also spent six-figure sums. That’s led to a strange legal sideshow in this race: Goodson filed a lawsuit in the spring to block TV networks from airing one of JCN’s ads she said was 14

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

defamatory — a dubious argument, from a First Amendment perspective. Nonetheless, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza granted Goodson’s request for a preliminary injunction, which prevented the ad from running in certain markets in the final days of the general election. An appeal of that decision is now before the state Supreme Court and five special justices appointed by Governor Hutchinson; Goodson and most of her colleagues recused. Janine Parry, a professor of political science at the University of Arkansas and the director of the influential Arkansas Poll, points to research from Melinda Gann Hall, the author of “Attacking Judges: How Campaign Advertising Influences State Supreme Court Races.” Hall suggests that attack ads are most influential in nonpartisan elections, Parry said, since voters don’t have party labels to help them decide between candidates they otherwise know little or nothing about. “In the absence of any information, people will use the information that’s available. So that leaves an opening for an attack ad to be the only information that people have … and when they do have an effect, they depress the vote share for the incumbent,” Parry explained. She hastened to add that that was a general finding and the specifics of this race could yield a different outcome.

sas Works. He’s also rolled out a host of Medicaid “reforms” that seem determined to whittle down services for beneficiaries and keep costs low. Hutchinson wants to plow those savings into a new round of tax cuts in 2019, which will benefit the state’s wealthiest residents. Henderson, 40, has campaigned with remarkable energy for a longshot candidate and introduced policy plans for ethics reform, education and more. His resume shows the same work ethic: He grew up in Arkansas, earned two master’s degrees at Harvard and worked as a research scientist at NASA. He’s best known in the state for his work in public education, including several years as the director of Teach for America in Arkansas. This is his first run for office, but it seems unlikely to be his last.

GOVERNOR GOVERNOR ASA HUTCHINSON (R) VS. JARED HENDERSON (D) Like the other constitutional officer races, the outcome of this one isn’t in doubt. Hutchinson, who is seeking a second four-year term, is a fairly popular Republican governor in a Trump-loving state. His easy victory in the May primary over pro-gun activist Jan Morgan showed he maintains solid control over his base. Hutchinson’s first term could have been much worse, as far as GOP governors go. Though a conservative, he occasionally moderated some of the crueler voices within his party on social issues and retained the expansion of Medicaid established by his predecessor, Mike Beebe. Lately, though, there’s less to like. The Trump administration gave Hutchinson the green light to implement burdensome, arbitrary work requirements within that same Medicaid expansion program, Arkan-

SECRETARY OF STATE SUSAN INMAN (D) VS. STATE LAND COMMISSIONER JOHN THURSTON (R)

Don’t sleep on this race between eminently qualified Susan Inman and John Thurston, whose sole strength is the “R” beside his name on the ballot. Under term-limited Secretary of State Mark Martin, Republicans have done everything they can to limit voting, much as they have around the country. But unlike many of his fellow Republican secretaries of state, Martin was quick to hand over sensitive voter information to President Trump’s sham voter fraud commission, now defunct. The candidate that succeeds Martin will be responsible, along with the governor and attorney general, for redrawing state legislative districts following the 2020 Census, and he or she will be tasked with ensuring the security of our voting systems under the increasing threat of foreign interference. Such was the strength of the Republican wave (i.e., antipathy toward President Obama) in Arkansas in 2010 that voters elected Thurston, a political novice and security and maintenance man for a West Little Rock church, as commissioner of state lands. Over the course of two terms, he seemed to distinguish himself among Republican constitutional officers by keeping his head down. But recently, Blue Hog Report’s Matt Campbell revealed that Thurston had spent almost $30,000 on a boat equipped for bass fishing and used only six times in almost four years for its alleged purpose, searching for debris in Arkansas waterways. That’s a job not given by statute or custom to land commissioner, which manages tax delinquent land sales. Inman has been state director of elections under Secretary of State Sharon Priest and Pulaski County election director; she’s also a past county and state election commissioner. She wants to see an independent commission take on legislative redistricting and backs a voteby-mail plan, an idea enjoying success in other states. At a debate, Thurston said the U.S. Postal Service couldn’t be trusted. Inman’s response: The Postal Service handles military ballots. Is that untrustworthy, too? “He doesn’t know much about elections,” Inman commented. So true. And it’s only the most important part of the job.

LITTLE MAYOR

ROCK

BAKER KURRUS, WARWICK SABIN, FRANK SCOTT, ET AL. The politics in this nonpartisan race to replace outgoing Mayor Mark Stodola defy easy description. An early October poll by Talk Business & Politics/Hendrix College showed the three leading candidates in an effective tie, with a third of voters still undecided. While Kurrus, Scott and Sabin have each developed distinct constituencies, it’s likely that none will capture the percentage point threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Sabin, a Democratic state legislator representing Hillcrest, has a natural base among the city’s many frustrated progressives, who will likely turn out in high numbers due to the hot congressional race in the 2nd District. He also polls well among younger voters. Scott, a banker and former state highway commissioner who grew up in Southwest Little Rock, is the leading African-American candidate. He’s likely to capture much of the black vote while attracting some support from

the larger business community. The lack of a clear conservative candidate has created an opening for Kurrus, a corporate lawyer and businessman, to appeal to voters who tend to be older and whiter. He enjoys support among Republicans and independents. Yet he’s also retained goodwill among some liberals because of his service as Little Rock School District superintendent and his outspoken position against charter school expansion.

There are two other contenders. Vincent Tolliver, a writer and progressive activist, says he’s spearheading a “people’s campaign” but has little campaign to speak of; Glen Schwarz, a perennial gadfly candidate, talks mostly about reforming marijuana laws and building roller coasters. Neither will win, but their presence could have a decisive impact. If Tolliver and Schwarz captured a few percentage points, that could help force the contest to a runoff.

Scott and Kurrus both emphasize a message of unity. Sabin speaks of bringing real change to the city. Regardless of who wins, though, the next mayor will have to navigate Little Rock’s confusing hybrid system of governance, in which the mayor’s executive authority overlaps with that of an appointed city manager and the geriatric city board of directors too often calls the shots. In other words, unity and change are both easier said than done.

arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

HOUSE DISTRICT 84 STATE REP. CHARLIE COLLINS (R) VS. DENISE GARNER (D)

For four terms, Charlie Collins has been among the most dogmatic legislators in the state House of Representatives. The two issues he goes on about endlessly — on Twitter, in the well of the House and in the press — are guns and taxes. Collins is the godfather of the legislation to put more guns on college campuses and in other public places, including courthouses and the Capitol. He’s said his efforts will prevent mass shootings, despite ample evidence that guns on campus and in other sen-

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sitive places make us less safe. Collins is also a longtime champion of cutting taxes to benefit the wealthy, or “job creators.” He’s disparaged instituting an earned income tax credit in Arkansas, a method of rewarding work that’s historically been embraced by both parties, as “welfare.” Denise Garner is a retired nurse practitioner, partner in several Fayetteville restaurants, philanthropist and nonprofit co-founder and board member. She lost a bid to state Rep. Michael John Gray (D-Augusta) to be chair of the Democratic Party of Arkansas in 2017. She’s been a fierce campaigner, hammering Collins for his positions on guns and taxes and also his support, through General Improvement Fund cash, of Ecclesia College, the private Christian “work college” that’s been enmeshed in a kickback scandal involving two former legislators and the former president of the college. This is the race to watch in the House. Each candidate had raised more than $100,000 as of September filings.

HOUSE DISTRICT 32 STATE REP. JIM SORVILLO (R)

VS. JESS MALLETT (D)

HOUSE DISTRICT 41 STATE REP. KARILYN BROWN (R) VS. JONATHAN CROSSLEY (D)

Jess Mallett, the managing partner of the Peter Miller Law Firm, is the latest in a string of excellent Democratic candidates to run for this West Little Rock seat. The last three — Barbara Graves in 2012, John Adams in 2014 and Susan Inman in 2016 — fell short. Will Mallett benefit from the storied “educated white women fleeing the party of Trump” bump? She’s running on issues like raising public school teacher pay, fighting government corruption and requiring Arkansas companies to offer paid maternity leave. A Morrilton native, Mallett is the daughter of Bart Virden, longtime state Court of Appeals judge. Sorvillo has been a reliably conservative vote during his two terms but has done nothing to distinguish himself.

Jonathan Crossley, 30, is a dream candidate for Democrats. A first-generation college graduate, he landed in the Palestine-Wheatley School District in East Arkansas through Teach for America. There, after four years, he increased the percentage of his students performing at the proficient level from 32 percent to 92 percent. He was named Arkansas Teacher of the Year in 2014. The following year, he became principal of Baseline Academy in the Little Rock School District, where he’s getting rave reviews. He’s running

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an energetic campaign in this compact, suburban district that includes parts of Sherwood, Jacksonville and North Little Rock. In her two terms in the legislator, Karilyn Brown has been mostly a nonentity. Lowlights include signing on to a kooky bill intended to curb fluoridation in water levels (paging General Ripper) and supporting a nutty proposal aimed at the nonexistent problem of Sharia law in the American court system.

HOUSE DISTRICT 93 STATE REP. JIM DOTSON (R) VS. GAYATRI AGNEW (D)

Is Bentonville truly becoming more cosmopolitan? Democrats have talked wistfully about making inroads here and elsewhere in growing Northwest Arkansas for years. Jim Dotson, who has represented the district since 2012, has been one of the legislature’s most extreme members. He won his primary contest in May by fewer than 200 votes. Are voters growing weary of Dotson’s record? He slopped up almost $40,000 in expenses charged to taxpayers in 2017 — the second-highest total — on top of his $39,500 base salary as a legislator. He also directed $13,500 from the state’s General Improvement Fund to Ecclesia College, the tiny Bible college that’s been at the center of a kickback scandal. (Dotson, who is an Ecclesia alumnus, has not been implicated in a crime.) His legislative record includes sponsoring patently unconstitutional bills, including one that requires all state contractors to pledge that they won’t boycott Israel and another that mandated framed copies of the phrase “In God We Trust” to be displayed in every Arkansas public school classroom. He’s also been one of the leaders in attacking public education, most recently sponsoring a bill that would have established education savings accounts that can be used to pay for private schools — i.e., a voucher bill by another name. It failed in the House. Gayatri Agnew is a senior director of

the Walmart Foundation, the charitable arm of the Bentonville retail behemoth. A mother of two toddlers, she earned headlines and praise early in her campaign for successfully petitioning the state Ethics Commission to allow her to count childcare as a qualified campaign reimbursement. She’s running on nuts and bolts issues: infrastructure, economic diversification and schools. Leah Williams, Dotson’s Democratic opponent in 2014, also had Walmart ties and appeared poised to give Dotson a good run. She failed to get 30 percent of the vote.

HOUSE DISTRICT 22 REP. MICKEY GATES (R) VS. KEVIN ROGERS (D)

DON GLOVER (D) VS. RICKY LATTIMORE SR. (R)

in the district, including more after-school programs for children and workforce and technical training centers. He’s also said providing “adequate services” to juveniles in the criminal justice system would be a priority. Republican Ricky Lattimore, of McGehee, is longtime pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church.

Three-term state Rep. Mark McElroy decided earlier this year he didn’t want to be a Democrat anymore. He didn’t like being told how to vote by the caucus, especially when he felt like the interests of the party and his district in Southeast Arkansas were at odds. He’s also anti-abortion. But, “I’m too poor to be a Republican,” he told columnist Steve Brawner, explaining that Republicans’ policies cater to the 1 percent. Before he joined the House in 2012, he served as Desha County judge for two decades, so he’s got plenty of name recognition. His Democratic opponent, Don Glover of Dermott, is a veteran of the Peace Corps and the U.S. Army. He’s a retired Chicot County circuit judge. He’s running on increasing development and programs

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HOUSE DISTRICT 11 REP. MARK MCELROY (I) VS.

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TRYING TO TURN THE DELTA BLUE YOU CAN’T WIN IF YOU DON’T RUN: After spending eight years as an educator in economically depressed Helena-West Helena, Chintan Desai is asking East Arkansas to send him to Congress.

Despite long odds, the Democrat challenging U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford means business. BY BENJAMIN HARDY

hintan Desai knows a little it’s got racial dynamics which were very about learning on his feet. In different from what I grew up with. … And August 2010, the day after he on top of that, I was learning a new skill, a graduated from the University new profession, at the age of 21. ... I strugof California-Davis, he moved cross-coun- gled pretty mightily, but I made it through try to teach fifth-grade social studies in Hel- — not without thinking about quitting a ena-West Helena at KIPP: Delta College few times.” Preparatory. The charter school serves a One criticism leveled at Teach for student body that’s 92 percent low-income America is that its young recruits often and 94 percent African American. A new leave K-12 education as quickly as they Teach for America corps member, Desai entered. The nonprofit requires a twohad never set foot in the South. year commitment in the classroom, after “Take everything where I grew up in which many TFAers head to grad school, California, and take the exact opposite, and law school or a more lucrative career track. that was Helena, Arkansas,” he recalled. Desai was one of those who stuck around. “It’s a poor town, it’s got a lot of challenges, Eight years later, he owns a house in Hel18

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

ena and works as a project manager — a generalist administrator position — for KIPP’s small network of East Arkansas schools. (KIPP also runs over 200 schools nationally.) This fall, Desai is applying for a new job: U.S representative for Arkansas’s 1st Congressional District, which comprises most of the eastern half of the state. Republican Rep. Rick Crawford has held the seat since 2010, when Democrat Marion Berry declined to run for reelection. Crawford has been re-elected three times since then, each cycle with a higher margin of victory than the last; he didn’t even draw a Democratic opponent in 2016. Barring some extraordinary development in the next two weeks, he’ll win again on Nov.6. Glance at a county-by-county map of 2016 election results and one might think the region holds a glimmer of hope for a Democrat. Out of the eight Arkansas counties that voted for Hillary Clinton, six were in the 1st District — Delta counties like Phillips and Crittenden, with large African-American populations. But they are more than offset by white, rural, Trump-loving north Arkansas counties such as Randolph, Baxter and Independence. The numbers are grim for Desai: A Talk Business & Politics/Hendrix College poll in September showed the incumbent leading by 35 points among likely voters. Dr. William McLean, the chair of the political science department at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, said Desai had run a good race, considering the odds. “I think he’s done all the things that he’s supposed to do. … He’s very, very effective at retail politics. It’s not him personally that can’t get elected; it’s the institutional barriers that prevent it.” First, national politics dominates most any race these days, McLean said, and the 1st District is simply a conservative place. Second, Desai has low name recognition, having never held office before. (He ran for city council in Helena-West Helena in 2016 and lost.) Having a name that sounds unusual to many Arkansans likely doesn’t help, either, nor does the color of his skin. The child of first-generation Indian immigrants, Desai doesn’t fit neatly into the white/ black racial dichotomy that shapes life in many Delta towns. He’s become a well-known community figure in Helena-West Helena, but Desai acknowledged that he’s encountered “a little bit” of racism traveling to other places in the district. “And you know, I get it in a certain way,” he said. “When my parents moved here, if they had believed everything they had learned

about American pop culture based on the movies and the music and the TV they had seen and heard, they probably would have thought their only kid growing up in America would, you know, join a gang and start selling drugs. … They had a fear of the Other, and they wanted to make sure I lived a good and safe life. So if you haven’t encountered personally people who look differently or have a different cultural background, I can understand the fear that you might have initially. “But my argument is … if you meet me and you actually talk to me, you’ll see that I’m not that scary,” he added, grinning. McLean said Desai’s ethnicity hasn’t come up as an issue in the campaign. “Obviously, I think any nonwhite candidate faces some kind of uphill battle,” he said. But in rural Arkansas, he added, “I think it probably hurts him more just being an outsider/interloper rather than race per se: ‘Hey, you’re not from here, you’re from California.’ ” Desai has the same answer to each of these obstacles: Get out there and work. “We’re trying to meet as many people as possible. We went to all 30 counties in the district in 30 days in July.” Just as national Republicans once wrote off the 1st District as unwinnable, national Democrats now do the same, he noted. “I don’t know if Barack Obama ever came to Arkansas. I’m here. I’m getting everywhere. … That, to me, is the missing link,” he said. “There’s a clear contrast between what we were doing and what Congressman Crawford has been doing for years, which is being very inaccessible,” he added. Crawford has held one town hall in the past eight years and has shut down his social media page, Desai said. “Congressman Crawford has unfavorables north of 50 percent. … If you get my message out to enough people, I think we can surprise a lot of people in terms of how well we do,” he said. Asked for comment, Crawford’s campaign manager issued a statement: “Congressman Crawford has balanced his time as a legislator and with his family while traveling internationally doing his part to keep all Americans safe through better relationships with America’s strategic partners. He’s also sought to find new ways to connect and communicate with his constituents while trying to ensure online mobs and fake people aren’t degrading the engagement he has through platforms [that have] been compromised on multiple occasions. He will continue to do all of this, as well as the many meetings and visits he’s had all across the 1st District, should the voters choose to send him back to Wash-

ington to fight for smaller government, greater fiscal reforms, and a safe and secure America through enforcement of current immigration laws and stronger border security.” *** So what drives an ambitious young person to give up the better part of a year running full tilt at a goal that seems so clearly out of reach? Desai, who majored in political science in college, said he’s always had a “political itch.” When he pondered his logical next step in life, “the obvious answer was go to Capitol Hill and work as a staffer in D.C. … but I didn’t want to leave Helena yet. This area means a lot to me. I think the work that we’re doing [at KIPP] is really important. … So, I looked up the race, saw there wasn’t a Democrat, and I got mad.” “And, you know, the Trump thing a year before,” he said with a laugh. His family had “zero” interest in politics when he was growing up. “They voted for the first time in 2016, because I made them,” he said. Desai’s parents emigrated from Mumbai in the ’80s in search of a better life. In India, his mother had worked at a bank and his father had studied microbiology, but after they found their way to California — “with $50 in their pockets and not much else” — they had to take whatever work they could find. “My dad — there’s probably regret on his end, but you can’t just move to America and get a job as a researcher in microbiology. … When my mom got pregnant with me, he had to pay the bills, so he got a job at a fast-food restaurant. It’s just kind of what he was then locked into. He worked his way up, and he’s been a general manager at a Carl’s Jr. for the past 20-plus years. My mom worked at a motel, and eventually they saved up enough money to buy a house.” They settled in San Luis Obispo, a mid-sized city between San Francisco and Los Angeles, which, Desai said, afforded them (and him) “all the opportunities in the world.” That included access to great K-12 schools and California’s famed university system. “I realized at some point in college I got that great public education simply because of my ZIP code,” he said. That’s when he found out about TFA. “Learning about the educational equity gap kind of fired me up. … I was fortunate enough to get in, and I ended up in Arkansas.” Desai’s core campaign message attempts to link his parents’ immigrant experience with one of the great structural challenges facing East Arkansas:

outmigration. “It is not easy to leave everything that you know — your friends, your family, everyone you love — to come to a place where you don’t know anyone, where you don’t have any resources,” Desai said. “[My parents] had to start from scratch, and I want that to be first and foremost in people’s minds when they think about immigration. “What I’m seeing is that there are too many Arkansans that are faced with a similar dilemma. They feel like they have to leave Arkansas, leave where they grew up, to find a better life. Young people — they don’t think there are jobs here. Seniors, whose families have left them. That is the theme we hear over and over again, and to us it is about restoring opportunity right here in Arkansas.” His proposed remedy, unsurprisingly, starts with a national investment in public education, including universal pre-K, a boost in teacher pay, and more affordable college and career and technical education. He also proposes a massive national investment in infrastructure and expanding the social safety net, including an embrace of “Medicare for All.” Desai is only one among several former or current educators to run for office this cycle, a trend also seen in other red states. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jared Henderson ran Teach for America’s operations in Arkansas until last year. Several other teachers are running for state legislative seats as Democrats. But some education advocates see charter schools as an existential threat to traditional public schools and may be wary of Desai’s extensive background at KIPP. Little Rock has some charters that are underperforming and “ought to have been closed yesterday,” Desai said, but he defended KIPP’s results in the Delta. “We’re quadrupling the national low-income average in terms of college graduation,” he said. He also pointed to recently improved relations between KIPP and the Helena-West Helena School District, including a partnership in which the charter provides college counseling to students in the traditional schools. Desai said charters and traditional schools share a common enemy: “the general lack of resources that are attributed to public school education in the U.S. … Me, I think we need to widen the pie.” What’s next after Election Day? “I’m thinking until Nov. 6, and then we’ll see,” he said. “Hopefully, I’m a congressmanelect, right?” arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

A USER’S GUIDE TO THE BALLOT ISSUES The good, the bad and the disqualified. BY BENJAMIN HARDY AND LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

ISSUE 1: TORT REFORM This measure has been disqualified by the Arkansas Supreme Court, and votes for or against it will not be counted. It may still appear printed on ballots. Popular Name: “An Amendment Concerning Civil Lawsuits and the Powers of the General Assembly and Supreme Court to Adopt Court Rules” Obit: On Oct. 18, the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that struck Issue 1 from the ballot, handing a defeat to the state Chamber of Commerce and other business interests. The proposed amendment, which was referred to voters by the legislature in 2017, was the latest itera20

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

tion of so-called “tort reform.” It would have capped the dollar amount of punitive and noneconomic damages that may be awarded in a civil lawsuit, such as a medical malpractice case. (Noneconomic damages are awarded for harms that are hard to quantify, such as pain and suffering.) It would have also capped contingency fees for attorneys in civil suits. And, it would have stripped a good deal of power from the judicial branch by allowing the legislature to have final say over rules of pleading, practice and procedure in state courts. If that sounds like a lot to include in one package, well, that was exactly the problem. In September, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Mackie Pierce ruled that Issue 1 was unconstitutional “logrolling”

in that it was actually multiple proposals under a single title. A majority of the Supreme Court justices agreed that the sections of the amendment were not “reasonably germane” to each other. Look for the Republican state legislature to refer a more stripped-down proposal as soon as the next election cycle in 2020. The death of Issue 1 is a loss for big business, nursing homes and other health care interest groups. It’s a win for trial lawyers — and also for anyone who could find themselves in need of a lawyer to fight some powerful interest in court. Which means, simply, anyone.

ISSUE 2: VOTER ID

Popular Name: “A Constitutional Amendment Adding as a Qualification to Vote that a Voter Present Certain Valid Photographic Identification When Casting a Ballot in Person or Casting an Absentee Ballot” What it does: Issue 2 would enshrine a requirement in the state Constitution that Arkansans present photo ID when voting. People without photo ID could still cast a provisional ballot (which might or might not be counted). The state would be required to issue IDs free of charge to voters who don’t otherwise have them. Why it matters: Yes, Arkansas already has a voter ID law, but statutes can be overturned by the courts.

ISSUE 4: CASINOS Popular Name: “An Amendment to Require Four Licenses to be Issued for Casino Gaming at Casinos, One Each in Crittenden (to Southland Racing Corporation), Garland (to Oaklawn Jockey Club, Inc.), Pope, and Jefferson Counties”

A constitutional amendment is more impregnable. A brief history: In 2013, the GOPcontrolled legislature passed a law requiring voter ID. Its legality was challenged and the state Supreme Court struck down the law in 2014. Emboldened by big electoral wins in the intervening years (and a series of retirements on the court), the Republicans passed a second voter ID statute in 2017, making sure this time to address a procedural technicality that had helped derail the 2013 law. But the 2017 legislature also referred Issue 2 to voters for the 2018 ballot, just in case the new statute didn’t survive another court challenge. That “belt and suspenders” approach, as one lawmaker put it at the time, is a good indication of how important the issue is to Republicans, who appear convinced fraud at the ballot box is rampant (or have more cynical aims). Research points in the opposite direction. Voter impersonation, the specific type of fraud that ID laws seek to address, appears to be virtually nonexistent. Meanwhile, voter ID requirements tend to disproportionately disenfranchise elderly, black and Latino voters and may depress turnout generally. Will passage of Issue 2 change much on the ground in future elections? It’s not clear. First, though the 2017 statute was initially blocked by a circuit judge earlier this year, the Supreme Court overturned that ruling in October, meaning the law remains in place. (So, make sure to bring your ID to the polls this year.) Second, the amendment requires the legislature to flesh out important details, such as establishing exceptions to the ID law and specifying a process for resolving provisional ballots. We’re betting the 2019 legislature won’t make voting easier, but we’ll be happy to be proved wrong.

ISSUE 3: TERM LIMITS This measure has been disqualified by the Arkansas Supreme Court, and votes for or against it will not be counted. It may still appear printed on ballots. Popular Name: The Arkansas Term Limits Amendment Obit: The state Supreme Court blocked Issue 3 from the ballot on Oct. 19, just three days before early voting began. The amendment would have imposed stricter term limits on state legislators: six years for members of the House of Representatives (served in three twoyear terms) and eight years for members of the Senate (served in two fouryear terms). No member of the General Assembly could serve more than 10 years. Issue 3 would have restored the limits that were created by a voter-approved amendment in the ’90s and later undone by Amendment 94, which the legislature referred to voters in 2014. That measure, which was advertised as an “ethics amendment,” imposed limited ethics reforms for elected officials but also loosened term limits and increased legislative pay. Today, lawmakers may serve 16 years in either chamber or cumulatively in both. Under some special circumstances, a legislator may serve up to 20 years. A special master appointed to review petition signatures on the voter-initiated measure found in September that it was short of the required number by nearly 15,000, due in part to severe restrictions placed on paid canvassers by a recent law designed to limit petition drives. The justices were split 4-3 on whether to throw out the proposed amendment. The decision was a win for the state Chamber of Commerce, which filed the lawsuit to disqualify Issue 3 from the ballot.

What it does: Issue 4 would authorize two brand-new casinos, one near Russellville and one near Pine Bluff. It would also allow the state’s two existing gambling houses — which are attached to the Oaklawn and Southland racetracks in Hot Springs and West Memphis — to become true casinos. Oaklawn and Southland would see a big windfall from an effective tax cut. Why it matters: Issue 4 represents an alliance between in-state and out-of-state gaming interests, who seek to enlarge the gambling pie for everybody. Well, as long as “everybody” means “everybody who runs a casino.” For the rest of us, the benefits are a bit more uncertain. Right now, Arkansas has two quasicasinos, which operate next to the greyhound track at Southland and the horse track at Oaklawn. State law now only allows electronic “games of skill” at racing tracks. Issue 4 would allow “any game played with cards, dice, equipment, or any mechanical, electromechanical or electronic device or machine … as well as accepting wagers on sporting events.” Applicants seeking to operate a casino in Pope and Jefferson counties would have to submit letters of support from the county judge or a quorum court resolution of support. The Pope County Quorum Court has asked the county judge to withhold support if Pope County voters reject the amendment in the general election on Nov. 6. Driving Arkansas Forward, led by former Democratic state Rep. Nate Steel,

proposed the casino amendment. The Cherokee Nation and Quapaw Nation of Oklahoma, which operate casinos on their tribal land, are heavy contributors to the campaign. Issue 4 has survived two state Supreme Court challenges, one alleging that by issuing licenses to Oaklawn and Southland the amendment would create unconstitutional monopolies and the other that the ballot title was insufficiently clear. Originally proposed as a way to generate money for highways, the proposal was later changed to send more than half of the tax revenue generated by the casinos to the state’s general fund. The Arkansas Department of Transportation has distanced itself from advertising that it said continued to suggest revenues would be dedicated to roads. The revenue distribution would be 55 percent to the state general fund, 27.5 percent to local government and 17.5 percent to the Arkansas Racing Commission for racing purses at Oaklawn and Southland. The amendment sets aside $200,000 a year for programs to treat compulsive gamblers. An analysis by the state Department of Finance and Administration has found Issue 4 would result in Oaklawn and Southland paying less to the state and more to purse money, counties and cities. Supporters maintain the casinos will bring in thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars over the next decade, estimating yearly tax revenues at $120 million. They also say it will keep gambling dollars now going to Mississippi in Arkansas. Opponents dispute the economic figures the proponents have forecast, saying the casinos will only soak the poor and enrich out-of-state casino operations, not Arkansas communities. Those opposed to Issue 4 include religious conservatives like the Family Council but also others concerned about the social cost and regressive economics of increased gambling. Voters have rejected casino gambling

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bids three times, in 1984, 1996 and 2000. The state Supreme Court disqualified two proposals, in 2012 and 2016, based on ballot title deficiencies, voter signatures and the inclusion of sports betting, which was illegal under federal law at the time. (In May, a U.S. Supreme Court decision eliminated the federal restriction.)

ISSUE 5: HIGHER MINIMUM WAGE Popular Name: “An Act to Increase the Arkansas Minimum Wage”

What it does: Issue 5 incrementally raises the state minimum wage from $8.50 an hour to $11 an hour over three years. The rate would rise to $9.25 an hour starting Jan. 1, 2019; $10 an hour on Jan. 1, 2020; and $11 an hour on Jan. 1, 2021.

Why it matters: On Oct. 18, days before early voting was to begin, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that Issue 5 will remain on the ballot. The initiated act overcame a legal challenge led by

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Randy Zook of the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, who argued that petition signatures were insufficient. A special master disagreed and the Supreme Court unanimously upheld his findings. Arkansans for a Fair Wage, which had the support of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, Arkansas Community Organizations, the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and other groups, as well as restaurant owner and Little Rock City Director Capi Peck, argued that people working for the minimum wage could not keep up with the cost of living and instead had to rely on such government support as food stamps. They also noted that workers earning a higher wage will be able to buy more from local businesses and that those businesses will experience reduced turnover rates and better customer service. Research by the National Employment Law Project found that the increase would improve the quality of life for 300,000 Arkansans in all 75 counties. Republican political leaders, including Governor Hutchinson, Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin and U.S. Reps. French Hill, Bruce Westerman and Rick Crawford, have gone on record as opposing a raise in the minimum wage, with Hutchinson quoted in a state newspaper as saying it would be a “job killer for our youth”

and that implementing raises over three years “is playing with fire” because of an unknown economic future. National studies, however, do not support that position; for example, a 2018 University of California study found that minimum wage increases in six states had no impact on jobs in the restaurant industry, which typically employs younger workers. Another national study, conducted in 2006, found that small business income and employment grew faster in states with minimum wages higher than the federal figure of $7.25. In response to the stagnant federal

minimum wage, 21 states, including Arkansas, and the District of Columbia, have raised their minimum wage since 2014. Eight are tying their minimum wage to cost-of-living increases: Arizona, California, Colorado, D.C., Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Washington state. By 2021, when Issue 5 would raise the state’s minimum wage to $11, California’s will be $14, Colorado’s will be $12 and D.C. will be at $15. No Supreme Court justices dissented from Justice Karen Baker’s ruling upholding the legality of the petition for the initiated act.

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2019

Arkansas Times will present the 38th edition of our Readers Choice Restaurants awards in our January 31, 2019 issue. February 5th is our awards celebration party for the statewide winners, presented by our hosts and sponsors UA Pulaski Tech Culinary Institute, Ben E. Keith Foods, Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits and Glazer’s Beer and Beverage. Food, drink, interesting people and Ted Ludwig Jazz Trio will provide the entertainment. For more information contact phyllis@arktimes.com

ARKTIMES.COM/FOOD arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

CRAFT BEER PREVIEW

PREPARE YOURSELF!

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ay close attention, beer lovers. The party of the year is just around the corner. The Arkansas Times Craft Beer Festival presented by the Arkansas Rice Council returns to downtown Argenta from 6-9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2. The festival, which benefits the Argenta Arts District, has sold out in the past, so you’d be wise to pause reading this and go to centralarkansastickets.com and buy your tickets in advance ($25, $35 at the door). Because the Argenta Plaza is under construction, the festival will be in a new spot this year: It’ll be a block party on Fourth Street between Main and Maple streets.

This year we’ll have music from DJ extraordinaire Mike Poe, who’s bound to get the dance party started. Make sure you check out special tents from the Fayetteville Ale Trail and the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is promoting its Locally Labeled Passport Program. There will also be eats, for purchase, from the Riceland Mobile Cafe, Reggae Flavas, Say Cheese, Wok ’n Roll, K&T Hot Dogs, Loblolly Creamery, Black Hound BBQ and more. The event runs rain or shine. Read on for a preview of the participating breweries and what they’ll be pouring.

ARKANSAS BREWERIES BLUE CANOE BREWING CO.

Last year, Blue Canoe expanded operations to a 20,000-square-foot warehouse on 37 E. 15th St. while still keeping things hopping at its River Market taproom. The new space is also available to rent for private events, and with indoor and outdoor games, two bars and a beer garden, Blue Canoe’s brews can reach even more taste buds. It’ll be pouring Oktoberfest ale at the festival, an amber, traditional beer with strong malt emphasis and hints of nutty flavor. Their tasting table will also feature the fruity Berry Creek Raspberry-Blackberry Gose and Razorback RyePA.

CORE PUBLIC HOUSE

Established in Springdale by Jesse Core in 2010, Core Brewing Co. now has Core Public House locations in Bentonville, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Hot Springs, Springdale, North Little Rock and on South Main in Little Rock. They’ll be pouring Arkansas Red, an American red ale with a sweet base malt, a slight spice of rye and a hint of chocolate; Ouachita IPA, made with Simcoe and Amarillo hops, British ale malt and oats, and finished with a strong pine aroma; E-Stop Pale Ale, made with four hop varieties and dry hopped with Citra hops; Hazelnut Brown, their new seasonal Southern Brown Ale with hazelnut; and Warthog Helle, a Munich-style lager with German malts.

DIAMOND BEAR BREWING CO.

Founded 18 years ago, Arkansas’s first production brewery is named for two former nicknames for The Natural State: the “Bear State” and the “Diamond State.” Its brewhouse in North Little Rock is also home to the delicious Ale House restaurant. This year they’ll be pouring the English-style Pale Ale, which combines earthy malt with bright hops; Two Term Double IPA, a dry hopped IPA with “fruity esters” and intense malt character; Pig Trail Porter, a dark combination of chocolate, coffee and caramel; and Southern Blonde, a crisp, golden lager with restrained hops and a hint of caramel.

FLYWAY BREWING COMPANY

In the heart of the Argenta Arts District in North Little Rock, Flyway Brewing turns out yearround brews with titles that follow the brewery’s namesake: the Mississippi Flyway, the large migration route that takes birds over Arkansas to and from Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. Yearrounders, such as the Bluewing Berry Wheat, Early Bird IPA and Free Range Brown Ale, will all be available at the festival, along with Honeybird Blonde Ale. Nine Killer Imperial IPA from the Imperial Series will also be present on the tasting table, along with Coffee Cake Stout, the fall seasonal from the Traditional Cake series.

LOST FORTY BREWING

Arkansas’s largest brewery by volume, Lost Forty has become a local household name, with its brews served and advertised in restaurants and retail stores everywhere. It recently released a 2018 batch of the three-barrel-aged Nighty Night Imperial Stout with only 50 cases available for purchase — it won’t hit market shelves until mid-November — at the brewery’s Festival of Darkness release party. While Nighty Night isn’t slated to be at the festival, the Baltic Porter, Forest Queen, Month of Sundays and Pumpkin Spice Easy Tiger will be at the tasting table to help you wet your whistle.

NEW PROVINCE BREWING COMPANY

Derek and Megan McEnroe founded New Province Brewing Company in 2014, after Benton County voted to go wet in 2012. Their taproom and brewery in Rogers is in the middle of its first Trivia League season, and free brewery tours are conducted every Saturday afternoon. They’ll be pouring Café Muy Especial Imperial Stout, Kentucky Common and the Philosopher King IPA.

OZARK BEER CO.

Since moving in late 2016 to its new space in a historic building on the square in Rogers, Ozark has continued to expand the reach of its distribution, and four of its year-round canned beers can be found all over Northwest Arkansas and Central Arkansas. Marty Shutter, marketing director, said their motto “Hard Work, Honest Beer” translates in their efforts to keep prices accessible. “We keep our team small, our workload high and our prices low, hoping to dispel the notion that world-class beer can’t come at working-class prices,” he said. They’ll be pouring Ozark Lager, their newest year-round offering, a beer that Shutter said is “the hardest beer to brew but the easiest beer to drink;” Ozark IPA, with notes of pineapple, mango and pine; and the “roasty, yet light” Schwarzbier, a seasonal dark beer and their first dark lager, based on a Pilsen malt, with a dark color from roasted wheat.

REBEL KETTLE BREWING CO.

R e b e l K e t t l e ’s creative and experimental brews are sure to be in high demand at the festival this year. Its brewery and taproom in the East Village features an enticing menu of Cajun-inspired pub-grub, an outdoor stage and a cornhole setup. “The thing I love about Rebel Kettle is we take our beer seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” said David Breen, brewery sales manager. In that same vein, they’ll be pouring arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

the 11 percent alcohol-by-volume REDRUMPUM Imperial Pumpkin Amber Ale, aged in Caribbean rum barrels; Chug Life Malt Liquor, a craft interpretation of a malt liquor; Smooth Moves Smoothie IPA, brewed with tangerine, pineapple, vanilla beans and a bit of lactose to create the same flavor profile of a fruit smoothie; and the Alphaholic Mid-South Double IPA.

S T O N E ’ S T H R O W BREWING

S i n c e S t o n e ’s Throw opened at the vanguard of Arkansas’s craft brewery explosion in 2013, the cozy Lit tle Rock neighborhood brewpub has gradually added more seating indoors and outside, and its space and selection continues to draw g uests, both human and pooch alike. The brewery is working on a second location in the former home of Sandalwood Forest in Stifft Station. The new taproom won’t feature a kitchen, but it will offer more choices on tap and considerably more seating. At the festival, Stone’s Throw’s tasting table will include the very last keg of Rice & Shine, a beer it made with Arkansas rice in partnership with Arkansas Rice Depot, as well as the last keg of MacPark Marzen, which has been cellared since March to recreate their original Oktoberfest beers. They’ll also be pouring CranApple Cider and Riverdale Pale Ale.

SUPERIOR BATHHOUSE BREWERY

When Rose Schweikhart opened Superior Bathhouse Brewery in Hot Springs in 2013, she was still in the intensive federa l permit ting process for getting licensed to brew her own beer. So she served great food and beers from other brewers until she received the license in 2015, but since then she’s been perhaps the only brewery in the world to use hot spring-fed water to make beer. Superior is without question the first brewery to open in a national park, and its location in downtown Hot Springs has proven to be a popular attraction for both tourists and natives. Schweikhart wasn’t sure what beer they’d bring to the festival when we reached her.

REGIONAL

BREWING CO.

BOULEVARD BREWING COMPANY

Boulevard Brewing Co. has been brewing out of Kansas City, Mo., since 1989 and now boasts a 150-barrel brewery. This household name will bring its seasonal Nutcracker Ale, a hearty “winter warmer” brew with notes of molasses and spicy Chinook hops, as well as the grapefruit-forward Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale, which packs a surprising, peppery punch. They’ll also serve the Bourbon Barrel Quad, an 11.2 percent alcoholby-volume barrel-aged ale with hints of cherry, toffee and vanilla.

CROSSTOWN BREWING CO.

Memphis’s newest craft brewery, Crosstown Brewing Co., sits adjacent to the Crosstown Concourse, the behemoth former Sears, Roebuck & Co. distribution center turned modern living/dining/ arts hybrid in Midtown. Crosstown Brewing Co. does not distribute in Arkansas yet, so festival attendees will have a unique opportunity to sample brews on this side of the Mississippi. They’ll be pouring Traffic IPA, brewed in the West Coast tradition with flavors of grapefruit, mango, passion fruit and pineapple, and a Raspberry Gose.

INDEPENDENCE B R E W I N G COMPANY

Independence has been slinging beers in south Austin, Texas, since 2004, and these smooth, f lavorful beers are a testament to the indie spirit of the brewery. Austin Amber’s toasted malt f lavor and American hops make for a smooth, crisp sip. The Liberty Lunch IPA is an intensely drinkable IPA, with notes of honey balancing out “luscious stone fruit and tropical hop flavors,” according to the brewers. Stash IPA combines four different types of hops — Nugget, Columbus, Galaxy and Summit — to create what the brewers describe as a “dark, resinous and enlightening hop trip.” The Redbud Berliner Weisse is a sour beer with tart, refreshing lemon notes.

KARBACH 26

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Karbach Brewing Co. out of Houston uses German techniques to create beers and serve guests at its Biergarten and restaurant. Love Street, a Kolschstyle blonde, features delicate floral hops and a clean, refreshing malt profile. The Hopadillo IPA is a dry-hopped, bitter American IPA, according to the brewers. They’ll also be serving Lemon and Ginger Radler, a golden beer whose profile on the brewery’s site includes pairing recommendations of “hot afternoons” and “your next adventure.” Yule Shoot Ya Eye Out is a seasonal, smooth caramel malt with a citrus twist.

LAZY MAGNOLIA BREWING COMPANY

Built in 2005 as the first Mississippi packaging brewery since prohibition, Lazy Magnolia is known for its Southern Pecan, which it’ll be pouring at the festival. The lightly hopped brown ale is made with whole roasted pecans, used just like grain to create a nutty flavor profile, and it’s a part of their Welcome to the Porch series of beers.

MOTHER’S BREWING COMPANY

Mother’s, the Spring f ield, Mo., brewery behind such household names as the Lil’ Helper IPA and Towhead Blonde, will be pouring three brews at the festival this year: Nudie Suit, a bold American porter with big malt flavor and aromas of coffee and dark chocolate; Hands Down, a light, crisp pale ale with dry hopped citrus and berry flavors; and Winter Grind, a dry English coffee stout infused with espresso beans.

OSKAR BLUES BREWERY

With locations in Colorado, North Carolina and Texas, Oskar Blues Brewery claims the title of “original craft brew in a can” with the initial canning of its linchpin, Dale’s Pale Ale. The brewers say this was an effort to maintain the freshness of the beer, protect it from light, make it easier and safer to transport, and ensure its status as “infinitely recyclable.” They’ll be pouring Dale’s Pale Ale, Death By Coconut — a semi-sweet Irish porter made with dark chocolate — and the Ten FIDY Imperial Stout, an “immensely viscous” stout with flavors of chocolatecovered caramel and coffee.

PINEY RIVER BREWING COMPANY

An 80-acre farm in Bucyrus, Mo., is home to the brewery and taproom “BARn” of Piney River. Started by Joleen and Brian Durham as homebrewers, the Ozark brewery now houses a 15-barrel brewhouse and an eight-head canning line. No word on what Piney River plans to pour at the festival yet

PRAIRIE ARTISAN ALES

Innovation and creativity are at the heart of Prairie Artisan Ales in Krebs, Okla. Each bottle or can is wrapped in unique, intricate artwork, and the playful labels introduce eccentric brews. They’ll be pouring Bomb!, an imperial stout of aged coffee, chocolate, vanilla beans and ancho chili peppers, and Paradise, another imperial stout with notes of vanilla and coconut. Pink Guava Funk will also be available, as well as Standard, a hoppy farmhouse ale, and the intriguingly titled Phantasmagoria, a double IPA.

RAHR & SONS BREWING COMPANY

Brewing out of Fort Worth since 2004, the Rahr family behind Rahr & Sons comes from a long line of German brewers. Frederick William “Fritz” Rahr Jr. and his wife, Erin, opened Rahr & Sons 160 years after Fritz’s grandfather founded Eagle Brewery, the first lager brewery in Wisconsin, according to the brewers. They’ll be pouring Dadgum IPA, charged with Citra and Lemondrop hops and with notes of fresh cut pine; Paleta de Mango, a mango chili beer with lime; and the Adios Pantalones, a Mexican-style cerveza de sesión brewed with lemon and lime.

SHINER BEER

An iconic name in Texas beer, Shiner has been brewing out of Shiner, Texas, since 1909. The classic Shiner Bock, an American dark-style lager, will be poured at the festival, along with Shiner Blonde, Shiner Cheer — a holiday dunkelweizen brewed with Texas peaches and roasted pecans — and Shiner Ruby Redbird, a grapefruit lager with a kick of ginger.

SHOCK TOP BREWING COMPANY

Th i s S t . L o u i s brewery produces tart beers packed with citrus flavor. Try the Belgian White and a tart Lemon Shandy, as well as Ruby Fresh — a Belgian-style grapefruit ale — along with Citrus Pearls, a light malt with sweet lemon and lime flavors.

SWEETWATER BREWERY

A t l a n t a ’ s SweetWater Brewery started in 1997 as the brainchild of two college friends. After a 100,000-square-foot expansion in 2012, the brewery also broadened its distribution, and now also hosts 420 Fest, a beer and music festival in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park. At the craft beer festival, they’ll be pouring their most popular beer, the West Coaststyle 420 Extra Pale Ale. The tasting table will also feature Blue, a light bodied wheat ale with subtle fresh blueberry f lavor, along with 420 Strain G13 IPA, an “aromatic superhybrid sticky” IPA with Columbus and Simcoe hops.

TIN ROOF BREWING COMPANY

Tin Roof claims to be Baton R o u g e , L a .’s largest craft brewery, and with a location bet ween dow ntow n Baton Rouge and Louisiana State University, its large footprint and wide range of canned beers serves a big, thirst y crowd. They’ll be pouring the heavily dry hopped Voodoo, an American Pale Ale with melon, passion fruit and pine flavors; the Juke Joint IPA, a combination of Pilsner, Munich and Carafoam malts with berry and citrus aromas and earthy notes; and the kettle sour Uber Froot Blackberry Berliner Weisse, a dry, effervescent purple brew with fruity sweetness.

on producing beer that “could be fun, not stuffy or too proper for a rowdy time.” It was Louisville, Ky.’s first brewer-owned-and-operated brewery. Its canned brews can now be found in 43 states in the U.S. and in over 25 countries around the world. Against the Grain’s diverse variety of beers can be categorized by six main styles: Session, Hop, Whim, Malt, Dark and Smoke, and you’ll get a chance to taste its Citra Wet Ass Down IPA, a double IPA made with fresh, wet Citra and Mosaic hops, which, according to the brewers, is “a crusher.”

BRECKENRIDGE BREWERY

A 12-acre plot of land in Littleton, Co., for merly a carnation farm, is now home to Breckenridge Brewery. The brewery began operations in 1990 in Breckenridge, the mountain town of its namesake, before later moving to two locations in Denver and then outgrowing them, too. Their “fa rm-inspired” ca mpus in Littleton features a 100-barrel brewhouse, a barrel-aging room and the Farm House restaurant. Look for Breckenridge Vanilla Porter at the festival, featuring a roasted malt made from Madagascar vanilla beans and caramel and Munich malts.

DESTIHL BREWING COMPANY

located in historic downtown Lewes in coastal Delaware. The Dogfish philosophy is all about bringing “offcentered goodness to off-centered people” through their brews, food and hospitality. You can try some of that off-centered goodness for yourself at its tasting table. Dogfish will be pouring SeaQuench Ale, a sour mash-up of three German styles — “Kolsch, a salty Gose, and a tart Berliner Weiss” — brewed with black limes, sour lime juice and sea salt; a 60 Minute IPA, which is just that: a continually hopped IPA that’s boiled for 60 solid minutes with grassy, citrusy f lavors; and Namaste White Ale, a Belgian-style ale using ingredients of dried organic orange slices, fresh-cut lemongrass, peppercorns and a bit of coriander for a slightly spicy finish.

ELYSIAN BREWING COMPANY

Elysian Brewing is a Seattle powerhouse that operates four restaurants and a full-production brewery. The three-time Large Brewpub of the Year winner at the Great American Beer Festival has been brewing since 1996, and Elysian is “seasonally notorious” for its pumpkin beers. Elysian will be pouring the Space Dust IPA at the festival, a brew featuring what brewers call “pure starglow energy.” Chinook hops are

added first, to bitter the beer, and dry Citra and Amarillo are added later.

EVIL TWIN BREWING

Fou nde d by Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø in 2011, Evil T w i n Brew i ng uses a u n ique distribution model: Its beers are prepared in 10 different breweries around the world. Their “delicate, funky, extreme and by all means rare” f lavors also feature clean, geometric label designs that convey the Danish origin of the founder. They’ll be pouring Pappy’s Even More Jesus Imperial Stout, aged in Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon Barrels and brewed by Westbrook Brewing Co. in South Carolina; Falco IPA, an American IPA, brewed by Two Roads Brewing Co. in Connecticut; and Molotov Cocktail Imperial IPA, described by the brewery as a “tour de force in rebellious hoppiness,” also made at Two Roads Brewing Co.

FOUNDERS BREWING COMPANY

Founders Brewing prides itself on brewing beer not for the masses, but for people who enjoy big, bold flavors outside of traditional taste. This philosophy has rung true with beer lovers, bringing success — six World Beer Cup medals, four European

Dest ihl Brewer y, which vows to “support f lavor” and “boycott bland,” opened in Normal, Ill., in 2007. The Destihl Restaurant and Brew Works complex now sits on 6 acres of land, as well as at a second location in Champaign, Ill. Its list of beers continues to grow, and Destihl will bring three of them to the festival: Moonjumper Milk Stout, with notes of roasted and chocolate malts; a Gose; and Syncopathic, an acidic, dry hopped Sour Ale from their Wild Sour series with citrus and fruit notes of grapefruit, orange, lemon, tangerine, pineapple and hints of pine.

NATIONAL AGAINST THE GRAIN BREWERY

Since 2011, Against The Grain has prided itself

DOGFISH HEAD CRAFT BREWERY

With roots in Delawa re since 1995, the Dog fish Head empire now includes a brewery, distillery, restaurant and the Dogfish Inn, arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

Beer Star medals and three Great American Beer Festival medals — and the ability to keep forging ahead with new flavors and series. They’ll be pouring All Day IPA, Centennial IPA, Solid Gold, Porter and Dirty Ba st a rd f rom t he yea r-rou nd selection, and their tasting table will also feature three brews from their Barrel-Aged series: Backwoods Bastard, a scotch ale with earthy spice and a hint of dark fruit; KBS, a chocolate coffee stout brewed with a “massive amount” of coffee and chocolates; and Curmudgeon’s Better Half, an old ale brewed with molasses and aged in maple syrup bourbon barrels.

GOLDEN ROAD BREWING

Meg Gill a nd Tony Yanow are the beer enthusiasts behind Golden Road Brewing, which opened in Los Angeles in 2011. They’ve since partnered with Anheuser-Busch and expanded from their original pub and brewery in Atwater Village to locations in downtown LA, Anaheim a nd Sacra mento. Golden Road focuses on sustainably providing fresh beer to its local market, and it’ll be pouring Wolf Pup Session IPA at the festival, a core beer from its year-round offerings with a “a wildly aromatic tropical and citrus character.”

GOOSE ISLAND BEER COMPANY

Chicago staple Goose Isla nd Beer has garnered respect among craft beer drinkers since its inception in 1988. In 2011, it was acquired by Anheuser-Busch, and, according to the brewers, this has allowed Goose Island to distribute its craft brews nationally and internationally. They’re bringing 312 Urban Wheat and Goose IPA, and they’ll also be pouring vintage ales Lolita, Halia and Gillian, along with Bourbon County Stout, a bourbon-barrel aged imperial stout with intense aromas of charred oak, chocolate, vanilla, caramel and smoke.

HARPOON BREWERY (CLOWN SHOES BEER) 28

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Clown Shoes Beer strives to create craft beer “without pretension” while maintaining the “free and a little crazy” spirit behind its recipes. In 2017, Clown Shoes was acquired by Harpoon, a Boston-based employeeowned brewery, and it continues to produce unique and creative brews. They’ll be pouring Bubble Factory and Chocolate Sombrero — a Mexican-style chocolate stout — as well as Undead Party Crasher, an American Imperial Stout.

LAGUNITAS BREWING COMPANY

W i t h m u l t ipl e hubs, in California, Wa sh ing ton and Illinois, Lagunitas is sharing its brews with the “beer-loving disapora” across the country. They’re returning to the festival with some favorites, including their popular IPA; American strong ale Brown Shugga; and Super Cluster, “a Citrahopped mega ale of intergalactic proportions.”

NEBRASKA BREWING COMPANY

Homebrewer Paul Kav ulak and his wife, Kim, founded Nebraska Brewing Company in 2001 using a brewing system purchased out of Sasebo, Japan, and in 2014 they completed construction of their second facility, a packaging brewery and taproom just miles from the original brewpub. They distribute in several states and China, Japan and Germany. They’ll be pouring Brunette Nut Brown Ale, a blend of six different malts with notes of coffee, toffee and caramel; Little Betty Stout; Cardinal Pale Ale, a golden, dry hopped American Pale Ale with f loral and citrus aromas; and Nebraska IPA, a West Coastinspired IPA with Citra hops that creates citr us, pine a nd f lora l a romat ics t hat is “beaut if ully Nebraskan.”

NEW BELGIUM

Now t he fou r t hlargest craft brewer in the U.S., New Belg ium bega n operations in 1991 out of a tiny Fort Collins, Colo., basement. Inspired by founder Jeff Lebesch’s trip to Belgium, these Belg ian-inspired brews feature

several year-round beers as well as seasonal brews released throughout the year. Their tasting table will feature the beer they’re best known for, Fat Tire amber ale. They’re also bringing the Voodoo Ranger IPA, a golden IPA with tropical aromas and fruit f lavors from Mosaic and Amarillo hops, and the Hemperor HPA, a blend of hemps and hops they’re calling “the world’s dankest ale.”

SAMUEL ADAMS (BOSTON BEER CO.)

Samuel Adams beer began in 1984 with Jim Koch’s first batch of Boston Lager brewed in his home’s kitchen. That recipe dated back to the 1870s, when his great-great-grandfather had a St. Louis brewery. A mere six weeks after Koch first served his Samuel Adams Boston Lager to the public, it won the “Best Beer in America” award at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver. Since then, Sam Adams has grown exponentially: It’s now the secondlargest craft brewery in the U.S. They’ll be pouring Sam ’76, a lager and ale hybrid with Citra and Mosaic hops, and their New England IPA, a “hazy and juicy” IPA with pineapple and grapefruit hop character.

SIERRA NEVADA BREWING

While Sierra Nevada is now the third-largest craft brewery in the U.S., it started out on a much smaller scale. According to the brewer, founder Ken Grossman began homebrewing in the ’70s and would go on to help shape the future of craft beer-making in America. Sierra Nevada will be pouring its original and most popular beer, the Pale Ale, along with hop-heavy, unfiltered and unprocessed Hazy Little Thing IPA, and Oktoberfest, a German-American collaboration with Weihenstephan, the world’s oldest brewery, which features a malt backbone with subtle hop character.

SQUATTERS CRAFT BEERS

Squatters founding pa rtners Peter Cole a nd Jef f Polychronis opened the first brewpub in Salt Lake City in 1989. Wasatch Brewery and Squatters Craft Beers

make up the Utah Brewers Cooperative, and they’ll be coming back to the fest with Hop Rising Double IPA, a fruitforward IPA with notes of mango and citrus from exotic hops.

STILLWATER ARTISANAL

Br ia n St r u m ke founded Stillwater Artisanal in 2010 after a career as an electronica DJ and producer. His homebrewing experiments in the backyard of his Baltimore home eventually led to a distribution deal with Twelve Percent Imports, but to this day, neither Strumke nor Stillwater has its own facility. Strumke instead uses excess capacity at existing breweries and travels to each of them to produce his batches. The method must work because Stillwater has ranked on RateBeer.com’s Top 100 Brewers In The World list every year since its inception. It’ll be pouring Action Bronson’s 7000 Wild Ale, a dry hopped sour ale brewed with muscat grapes with notes of apricot, grapefruit and fresh grass.

STONE BREWING

Stone Brewing began as a small San Diego microbrewery in 1996, and it’s now been named “All-time Top Brewery on Planet Earth” by Beer Advocate not once, but twice. Stone Brewing has several locations in California, as well as “outposts” in Richmond, Va., Berlin and Shanghai. They’re bringing three brews to the festival: Fear.Movie.Lions., an unfiltered double IPA with tropical and citrus notes; Stone IPA, a crisp, extra hoppy brew with “tropical, citrusy, piney hop flavors and aromas” and a subtle malt character; and the citrusy Delicious IPA, with Lemondrop and El Dorado hops.

WASATCH BREWERY

Greg Schirf, founder of Wasatch Brewery, opened the first brewpub in Utah in 1989, and now is part of the Utah Brewers Cooperative along with Squatters Craft Beers. Wasatch Brewery will be pouring Polygamy Nitro Porter, a nitrogenated version of its original Polygamy Porter (more nitrogen gives beer a creamier taste), along with Devastator Double Bock and Ghostrider White IPA.

LOCAL, REGIONAL AND NATIONAL

BEERS

Friday, Nov. 2, 6-9 p.m. Buy tickets early. Admission is limited. $25 in advance, $35 at the door SPONSORS

Arkansas Rice Council Fayetteville Ale Trail Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau

MUSIC

DJ Mike Poez

FOOD

Food trucks will be on-site with food for purchase, including Riceland Mobile Cafe, Reggae Flavas, Say Cheese, Wok N Roll, K&T Hot Dogs, Loblolly Creamery and Black Hound BBQ.

Arkansas Times Craft Beer Festival benefitting Argenta Arts District

SPONSOR NOTE

The Argenta Downtown Council, founded in 2007 by local business and property owners, is committed to providing an environment for economic development to occur and to support the local businesses in the Argenta Arts District. The organization is recognized as a leader, advocate and resource in assuring that downtown is a safe, clean, green and vital place. The Public Safety Ambassador Program assists in creating a secure, well-managed and welcoming environment to everyone who visits Argenta. The Clean Team Ambassador program helps provide a clean, well-managed and welcoming environment to property owners, residents, guests and visitors of Argenta. The Green Team Ambassador program is responsible for improving the landscaping and annual color in the downtown area. Over 100 flower pots, 40 hanging baskets and 44 colorful beds are seasonally planted along Argenta’s unique streetscape. In the last five years there has been over $200 million in new or announced private and public investment, events have increased 200 percent, restaurant taxes increased 36 percent and hotel taxes increased 58 percent. arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

A R K A N S A S T I M E S C R A F T B E E R F E S T I VA L

Here’s your scorecard for the Nov. 2 event. ❏ Liberty Lunch IPA ❏ Redbud Berliner Weisse ❏ Stash IPA

KARBACH BREWING CO.

ELYSIAN BREWING COMPANY ❏ Space Dust IPA

❏ Love Street Kolsch-Style Blonde ❏ Hopadillo IPA ❏ Lemon Ginger Radler ❏ Yule Shoot Ya Eye Out

EVIL TWIN BREWING

❏ Oktoberfest ❏ Berry Creek Raspberry - Blackberry Goose

LAZY MAGNOLIA BREWING COMPANY

FOUNDERS BREWING COMPANY

CORE PUBLIC HOUSE

MOTHER’S BREWING COMPANY

ARKANSAS BREWERIES BLUE CANOE BREWING CO.

❏ Arkansas Red ❏ Ouachita IPA ❏ E-Stop Pale Ale ❏ Hazelnut Brown ❏ Warthog Helles ❏ Plus two specialty beers TBD

DIAMOND BEAR BREWING CO. ❏ Pale Ale ❏ Two Term Double IPA ❏ Pig Trail Porter ❏ Strawberry Blonde

FLYWAY BREWING COMPANY ❏ Bluewing Berry Wheat ❏ Honeybird Blonde Ale ❏ Early Bird IPA ❏ Free Range Brown Ale ❏ Coffee Cake Stout ❏ Nine Killer Imperial IPA

LOST FORTY BREWING

❏ Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan ❏ Nudie Suit ❏ Hands Down ❏ Winter Grind

OSKAR BLUES BREWERY

PINEY RIVER

GOOSE ISLAND BEER COMPANY

❏ TBD

PRAIRIE ARTISAN ALES – WORLD CLASS STOUTS AND ALES ❏ Bomb ❏ Paradise ❏ Pink Guava Funk ❏ Standard ❏ Phantasmagoria

RAHR & SONS BREWING COMPANY

NEW PROVINCE BREWING COMPANY

SHINER BEER

OZARK BEER COMPANY

❏ Ozark Lager ❏ Ozark IPA ❏ Ozark Black Lager-Schwarzbier

REBEL KETTLE

❏ Red Rum Pum Imperial Amber Pumpkin ❏ Chug Life Malt Liquor ❏ Smooth Moves Smoothie IPA ❏ Alphaholic Mid-South Double IPA

STONE’S THROW BREWING

SUPERIOR BATHHOUSE BREWERY ❏ TBD

REGIONAL BREWERIES BOULEVARD BREWING COMPANY ❏ Nutcracker ❏ Bourbon Barrel Quad ❏ Tank 7

CROSSTOWN BREWING CO. ❏ Traffic IPA ❏ Raspberry Gose

INDEPENDENCE BREWING COMPANY ❏ Austin Amber

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

❏ All Day IPA ❏ Centennial IPA ❏ Solid Gold ❏ Dirty Bastard ❏ Porter ❏ Backwoods Bastard ❏ KBS ❏ Better Half

GOLDEN ROAD BREWING

❏ Dadgum IPA ❏ Paleta de Mango ❏ Adios Pantalones ❏ Ugly Pug

❏ Café Muy Especial Imperial Stout ❏ Commoner, Kentucky Common ❏ Philosopher King IPA

❏ Even More Jesus Imperial Stout ❏ Falco IPA ❏ Molotov Cocktail Imperial IPA

❏ Dale’s Pale Ale ❏ Death By Coconut Porter ❏ Barrel Aged Ten Fidy Russian Imperial Stout

❏ Baltic Porter ❏ Forrest Queen ❏ Month of Sundays ❏ Pumpkin Spice Easy Tiger

❏ Rice & Shine! ❏ Riverdale Pale Ale ❏ Cellared MacPark Marzen ❏ CranApple Cider

❏ Namaste White Ale

❏ Shiner Bock ❏ Shiner Blonde ❏ Shiner Cheer ❏ Shiner Ruby Redbird

SHOCK TOP BREWING COMPANY ❏ Belgian White ❏ Lemon Shandy ❏ Top Ruby Fresh ❏ Top Citrus Pearls

SWEETWATER BREWERY ❏ 420 ❏ 420 Strain G13 IPA ❏ Blue

TIN ROOF BREWING COMPANY

❏ Voodoo Pale Ale ❏ Juke Joint IPA ❏ Uber Froot Berliner Weisse

NATIONAL BREWERIES AGAINST THE GRAIN BREWERY ❏ Citra Ass Down IPA

BRECKENRIDGE BREWERY ❏ Vanilla Porter

DESTIHL BREWING CO.

❏ Moonjumper Milk Stout ❏ Gose ❏ Synchopathic

DOGFISH HEAD CRAFT BREWERY ❏ SeaQuench Ale ❏ 60 Min. IPA

❏ Wolf Pup IPA

❏ 312 Urban Wheat Elysian Space Dust IPA ❏ Goose IPA ❏ Bourbon County Stout ❏ Halia ❏ Gillian ❏ Lolita

HARPOON BREWERY CLOWN SHOES BEER

❏ Bubble Factory ❏ Chocolate Sombrero ❏ Party Crasher

LAGUNITAS BREWING COMPANY ❏ IPA ❏ Brown Shugga’ ❏ Super Cluster

NEBRASKA BREWING COMPANY ❏ Brunette Nut Brown Ale ❏ Little Betty Stout ❏ Cardinal Pale Ale ❏ Nebraska IPA

NEW BELGIUM

❏ Hemperor HPA ❏ Voodoo Ranger IPA ❏ Fat Tire Amber Ale

SAMUEL ADAMS (BOSTON BEER CO.) ❏ Sam ‘76 ❏ New England IPA

SIERRA NEVADA BREWING ❏ Pale Ale Can ❏ Hazy Little Thing ❏ Oktoberfest

SQUATTERS CRAFT BEERS

❏ Hop Rising Double IPA

STILLWATER ARTISANAL ALES

❏ Action Bronsons 7000 Wild Ale

STONE BREWING

❏ Fear.Movie.Lions ❏ Stone IPA ❏ Delicious IPA

WASATCH BREWERY

❏ Wasatch Polygamy (Nitro) Porter ❏ Wasatch Devastator Double Bock ❏ Wasatch Ghostrider White IPA

HOT SPRINGS HAPPENINGS november 2018 in Hot Springs For a complete calendar of events, visit hotsprings.org SPONSORED BY OAKLAWN

NOVEMBER 3 15TH ANNUAL BARON’S BALL

NOVEMBER 17 SPA RUNNING FESTIVAL

Join us for a fun-filled evening at the Hot Springs Convention Center to raise money for Levi Hospital and its patients. Enjoy a silent auction, a cocktail reception, three delicious dinner courses, first class live entertainment and a DJ dance party with Doc Bryce.

The Spa Running Festival is proud to celebrate its 37th year as a 10K and its 4th year as a half marathon! This year, the festival is now literally running right through the National Park with the new inclusion of North Mountain in Hot Springs National Park. The Summit 2 Summit Half Marathon’s two NEW mountain routes will take runners directly through Bathhouse Row, past a plethora of historic sites and gangster lore, over North Mountain (also known as Tower Mountain) in National Park territory and then up and over West Mountain that past runners know and love. After the race, runners will enjoy hot soup, pizza and beer, as well as photo opportunities, music, and merchandise! Registration is open at sparunningfestival.com.

NOVEMBER 3 ELITE EVENT WITH LOST FORTY BREWERY AT OAKLAWN

NOVEMBER 10 BEER ED: DARK AND STRONG! Some are dark, some are strong and some are both! Jonathan Martin, head brewer at Bubba Brews Brewing Company, offers a beer-tasting event focused on dark beers and strong beers for the winter season. Exploring a range of color, clarity, and flavor profiles, this class will feature a five-beer tasting flight, accompanied with a history of each beer style, a guide to tasting notes, and a souvenir glass to take home! Garvan Woodland Gardens, Magnolia Room. $20 Members, $25 Non-Members. Reservations required! Call 800-366-4664. NOVEMBER 10 FOOD DRIVE FINALS AT OAKLAWN

NOVEMBER 10 & 11 MISTLETOE MARKET The market includes local shops as well as vendors displaying their artisan foods and products for a seasonal shopping event! At the Hot Springs Event Center, 116 Albert Pike Road, Suite C.

NOVEMBER 14 HIDDEN TREASURE GIVEAWAY AT OAKLAWN

NOVEMBER 15 TASTE OF THE HOLIDAYS Join Mid-America Science Museum for the 19th Annual Taste of the Holidays, Thursday from 6 – 9 p.m. Fun science, great food, and drinks, plus a silent auction that is out of this world! A wine wall, live DJ performances and so much more. Tickets at midamericamuseum.org. STARTING NOVEMBER 17 GARVAN WOODLAND GARDENS PRESENTS HOLIDAY LIGHTS The most celebrated outdoor light display in Arkansas for the holiday season opens the Saturday before Thanksgiving and runs through New Year’s Eve. The Gardens will be aglow with nearly 5 million lights in a myriad of natural settings. Features include the 50-foot tall Holiday tree which plays holiday tunes animated to a light show and traditional

OCTOBER 27 $13K LUCKY 13 DRAWING Now is the time to heal yourself of “triskaidekaphobia” (fear of the number thirteen) because Oaklawn is giving away $13,000 on Saturday from 5-10 p.m. in their Lukcy $13K Drawing for qualified guests. Info at oaklawn.com. ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT www.arktimes.com

OCTOBER 25, 2018 31

HOT SPRINGS HAPPENINGS holiday scenes in the woodlands. Conclude your walking tour with free hot chocolate! The Chipmunk Café is open nightly until 9 p.m. serving soups, sandwiches and snacks. 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. nightly. Free for members, $15 adults, $5 ages 4-12, fee ages 0-3. Purchase online or pay at the door.

NOVEMBER 17 NORTHWOODS MOUNTAIN BIKE TRAIL GRAND OPENING Visit Hot Springs, the City of Hot Springs and the International Mountain Biking Association officially open the first phase of the Hot Springs Northwoods Trails! Join us at the Cedar Glades Trail Head for a group ride through the Northwoods to the Waterworks Trail Head and back. Food trucks, vendors and activities will be on site! Free and open to all.

NOVEMBER 17 THE VILLAGE BIG BAND HOLIDAY LIGHTS OPENING NIGHT CONCERT The Village Big Band kicks off the Holiday Lights season with an entertaining concert of seasonal tunes! Free and open to the public. Garvan Woodland Gardens, Anthony Chapel.

NOVEMBER 18 ATTILA THE HUN MOUNTAIN BIKE RACE The Hot Springs Bicycle Association presents the Attila the Hun Mountain Bike Race! Visit the Facebook page for updates and registration information.

STARTING NOVEMBER 19 DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY LIGHTS DISPLAY The downtown Christmas Lights will be turned on November 19 during an event on Exchange

Street. Enjoy a stunning display of lights in celebration of the holidays on Arlington Lawn.

NOVEMBER 19 TOM DANIEL HOLIDAY CHILI COOK OFF Attendees can sample entries featuring traditional and non-traditional chili and vote for their favorite entry and the “People’s Choice” winner. First and second place winners determined by a panel of judges in both categories win a trophy and a cash prize. This popular annual event serves as the ceremonial kick-off to the holiday season in historic downtown Hot Springs including turning on the downtown holiday lights at dusk. $5. Tickets can be purchased online at hotspringsdowntown.com or at the event.

NOVEMBER 22 THANKSGIVING FEAST AT THE ARLINGTON Sit down with the Arlington for a Thanksgiving Dinner away from home, featuring a festive Buffet with an abundance of gourmet and traditional favorites. $39 for Adults, $19 ages 6-12, children 5 and under free. Call for reservations at 501-623-7771.

NOVEMBER 27 HIGH LIMIT PULL AT OAKLAWN NOVEMBER 30 I-GADGET GIVEAWAY AT OAKLAWN STARTING NOVEMBER 30 – “YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS” The Pocket Community Theatre presents the compelling story of eight-year-old Virginia and a young newspaper editor in this heartwarming play, just in time for the holiday season! 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday matinee. Admission is $15, $5 for children under 13.

Hot Springs

Live Music Calendar Sponsored by Oaklawn

NOVEMBER 1 (THURSDAY) Clyde Pound Trio @ The Ohio Club NOVEMBER 2 (FRIDAY) DeFrance @ The Big Chill NOVEMBER 3 (SATURDAY) Opal Agafia and The Sweet Nothin @ The Big Chill NOVEMBER 7 (WEDNESDAY) Josh Stewart @ The Big Chill Steve Malec Band @ The Ohio Club NOVEMBER 8 (THURSDAY) Steve Malec @ The Big Chill Clyde Pound Trio @ The Ohio Club NOVEMBER 9 (FRIDAY) Nace Brothers @ The Big Chill

NOVEMBER 15 (THURSDAY) Arkansauce @ The Big Chill Clyde Pound Trio @ The Ohio Club NOVEMBER 16 (FRIDAY) Relentless @ The Big Chill NOVEMBER 21 (WEDNESDAY) Josh Stewart @ The Big Chill Steve Malec Band @ The Ohio Club NOVEMBER 22 (THURSDAY) Clyde Pound Trio @ The Ohio Club NOVEMBER 23 (FRIDAY) Mister Lucky @ The Big Chill NOVEMBER 24 (SATURDAY) Mister Lucky @ The Big Chill

NOVEMBER 10 (SATURDAY) Nace Brothers @ The Big Chill

NOVEMBER 28 (WEDNESDAY) Steve Malec Band @ The Ohio Club

NOVEMBER 14 (WEDNESDAY) Steve Malec Band @ The Ohio Club

NOVEMBER 29 (THURSDAY) Relentless @ The Big Chill Clyde Pound Trio @ The Ohio Club

ARLINGTON LOBBY BAR

The Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa has live entertainment and dancing every Friday and Saturday evening from 7-11 p.m.! OCTOBER 31 $6,000 HALLOWEEN BASH The scariest party of the year! The $6,000 Halloween Bash! Boos & Booze will be haunting the grounds of Oaklawn, with drink specials and a hot dog bar in the Bistro from 5-7 p.m. Bring your most ghoulish disguise to parade your way through our $1,000 costume contest at 7 p.m. The sessions for the $5,000 drawing will be from 5-7 p.m. and 8-10 p.m. More information at oaklawn.com!

OCTOBER 25 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

For a complete calendar of events, visit

HOTSPRINGS.ORG

Mayday by Midnight

LIVE MUSIC AT OAKLAWN! 10/26-27: Mister Lucky 11/2-3: Highway 124 11/9-10: Mayday By Midnight 11/16-17: John Calvin Brewer 11/23-24: Highway 124 11/30-12/1: Big Dam Horns

The Starlite has karaoke every Wednesday and live DJs on Friday and Saturday nights!

6:25 p.m. Saturday, Downtown Hot Springs

WEEKENDS SHAKEN, STIRRED AND NEVER QUITE THE SAME. f ind t his place.

HotSprings.org. 1-888-SPA-CITY. ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT www.arktimes.com

OCTOBER 25, 2018 33

THE TO-DO LIST

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE, LINDSEY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK BY DAVID KOON, LINDSEY MILLAR, LESLIE MILLAR NEWELLL AND PEACOCK, JACOB ROSENBERG, STEPHANIE SMITTLE

THURSDAY 10/25

FRIDAY 10/26

FOUNTAIN FEST

ARGENTA READING SERIES: EDWARD MCPHERSON

5:30 p.m. Arkansas Arts Center. $25.

7 p.m. 421 Main St., North Little Rock. Donations.

Shall we gather by the fountain to see James Hayes’ take on a glass pinball machine? The sixth annual Fountain Fest, held by the Arkansas Arts Center’s Contemporaries, its group of younger patrons, will unveil Pine Bluff blown-glass artist Hayes’ design for the Carrie Remmel Dickinson Fountain, at the entrance to the Arts Center. Hayes gave us a hint recently of his design, which won’t be revealed until after our press deadline: Picture glass balls floating on the fountain and glass rays shooting up from the center. But Fountain Fest isn’t just about oohing and aahing over installation art: There will be live music by funk-rocker Brian Nahlen and rock-roots musician Luke Johnson, screen-printing with Electric Ghost and a raffle for a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23 year whiskey, which would run you big bucks at the package store. (Raffle is at 8 p.m.; tickets are $10.) There will be food, games and more art-making, all to allow the AAC to add to its permanent collection and for Contemporaries’ projects. Though the Contemporaries are throwing the party, patrons of any age are welcome to enjoy the event. LNP

In a literary and journalistic landscape littered with earnest, saccharine attempts to capture “the real America,” Edward McPherson’s essay collection “The History of the Future: American Essays,” reads as counterpoint. Perhaps the reason for its acclaim (a PEN Southwest Book Award, for one) is that McPherson doesn’t force a singular narrative or try to tie things up too neatly, letting towns be as complicated and bizarre as they are. Completed over the course of five years — and progressively darker “as things in this country seemed to take a grim turn,” McPherson told Midwestern Gothic — the book paints personalities of seven cities through their history and cultural touchstones: St. Louis; Gettysburg, Pa.; Los Angeles; New York; the Trinity nuclear test site in New Mexico; Williston, N.D.; and Dallas. His focus, he said in that same interview, was to explore “a kind of American amnesia, how trauma in the past was being forgotten or sanitized.” The oil boomtown of Williston, for example, is depicted by way of a headline in The Bismarck Tribune that reads “Bakken pollution catches everyone by surprise,” and a Craigslist ad for a room the homeowner will generously rent for free to any woman between 18 and 30 in exchange for a “casual hook up” — presumably on a regular basis,” the L.A. Review of Books said. McPherson has, we assume, assembled city profiles that are not wholly one thing or the other — profiles that acknowledge towns’ desperate and delusional bits as well as the charming. McPherson, who teaches English at Washington University in St. Louis, is also author of “The Backwash Squeeze & Other Improbable Feats: A Newcomer’s Journey Into the World of Bridge” and “Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat.” He reads at this spot in North Little Rock’s Argenta Arts District as a guest of the Argenta Reading Series. Readings begin at 7 p.m., and 107 Liquor provides box wine for prereading conviviality at 6:30 p.m. SS

AGGRO ROCK: Bully, from Nashville, comes to Stickyz.

THURSDAY 10/25

BULLY

9 p.m. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack. $15.

Whether or not they asked for it (and I suspect they didn’t), Alicia Bognanno’s Nashville outfit Bully has been linked with a long, troubled lineage of grunge rock, a genre whose unfinished business has been, mostly, TCB’ed in the spectre of the genre’s fallen demigods: Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell, Layne Staley. And yet, they’re seemingly free of those shackles, perhaps because Bognanno’s audio engineering propers have kept the identity/branding/marketing wolves away, leaving Bully’s confessional intros and volatile screams to be taken at face value. In the span of time between the band’s introductory 2014 EP and its second full-length album in 2017, “Losing,” Bognanno’s anger has moved from the sidelines to the center spotlight, vocally speaking, and if you’d prefer Bognanno make a return to the hummable la-la-la bits in tracks like “Sharktooth,” well, I’d refer you to the final lines of “Hate and Control”: “You can’t define my meaning/Who are you to stand me still/ You don’t like it when I’m angry/Tough shit learn to deal.” They’re joined at Stickyz by the revelations of one-man guitar/loop sage Joshua Asante. SS 34

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

CITY SCRIBE: Essayist Edward McPherson comes to the Argenta Reading Series to read from and discuss his book “The History of the Future.”

IN BRIEF, CONT.

THURSDAY 10/25

BIG BOOSEUM BASH

5:30 p.m. Old State House Museum.

As if the needle-in-the-caramel apple fearmongering weren’t enough, Mr. Chen’s is now carrying something called durian candy, so maybe you’re just better off toting your little ones to this safe municipal annual trick-or-treat event? “The Big Boo!-seum Bash was created to provide the public free access to our great local museums and cultural attractions,” Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau President Gretchen Hall said. “It’s a perfect time to visit an attraction possibly for the first time, or revisit one that you haven’t been to in a while.” Essentially, nine museums around town set up games and kids’ activities, and you take your (costumed) family around for monosaccharides and merriment. Stop at any/all of the following: the Terry House Mansion at 411 E. Seventh St., where the Arkansas Arts Center will set up a post; Heifer International at 1 World Ave.; the Historic Arkansas Museum at 200 E. Third St.; the Little Rock Visitor Center at Historic Curran Hall, 615 E. Capitol Ave.; MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History at 503 E. Ninth St., where the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum will also be set up; the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center at Ninth Street and Broadway, where the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site will have a station set up; the Museum of Discovery at 500 President Clinton Ave., where the Central Arkansas Library System will share space; the Old State House Museum at 300 W. Markham St., where the Arkansas Secretary of State will also be set up; and the Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center at 602 President Clinton Ave. SS

Saxophonist Marquis Hunt & Mood perform at South on Main, 8 p.m., $10. Emcee/educator Big Piph performs for Potluck & Poison Ivy’s “Silver Roof 2,” 7 p.m., The Joint Theater and Coffeehouse, $35. The sixth annual Made by Few Conference convenes with speakers/designers in multiple locations including CALS Ron Robinson Theater, the Clinton Presidential Library and The Dust Bowl Lounge, see madebyfew.com for schedule and details. Red Dirt country rocker Wade Bowen returns to the Rev Room with Dawson Hollow, 8:30 p.m., $15-$18. Carver Commodore plays a free show at Maxine’s in Hot Springs, 9 p.m. Jocko plays the happy hour set at Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m., free, and later, Mayday By Midnight takes the stage, 9 p.m., $5. JR Brow goes for laughs at The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., $8-$12.

FRIDAY 10/26 Yuni Wa anchors a bill at Vino’s with sets from Klubhouse, Mvk Lxuis and more, 8 p.m., $8. Don’t miss Arkansauce at Kings Live in Conway, with Jacob Pledger, 8:30 p.m., $5. B Level hosts a concert featuring vocalist Tawanna Campbell at Empire, 10 p.m. Nashville rockers Thelma & The Sleaze share a bill with Austin trio American Sharks and Dirty Fuss at Maxine’s, 9 p.m., $10. Praeclara performs “Seussical: The Musical” at Wildwood Park for the Arts, under the direction of incoming Executive Director Bevan Keating, 7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 3 p.m. Sat.-Sun., $30. Guillermo’s Coffee, Tea & Roastery hosts a comedy showcase with sets from Bradley Osborne, May Gayden and more, 7 p.m. The Rev Room hosts “Sweet Tees,” a dance party and clothing/blanket drive to benefit The Van, 8 p.m., donations. The White Water Tavern’s Halloween show features local acts tackling Deerhunter and Bikini Kill, 9 p.m. Brian Nahlen and Nick Devlin duet at Cajun’s for the happy hour crowd, 5:30 p.m., free, or come after dinner for Mary Heather & The Sinners, 9 p.m., $5. Mister Lucky takes the stage at Oaklawn Racing & Gaming’s Silks Bar & Grill, 10:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Phantom Flux 6 kicks off a weekend of workshops, camping and live music at Cadron Creek Outfitters, with sets from Pineapple Beatz, DeFrance, Cosmocean and more, see fluxfamily.com for passes and details.

JOIN YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS FOR A DAY OF CELEBRATION IN HISTORIC HILLCREST ENJOY A FULL DAY OF EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES FOR ADULTS AND KIDS OF ALL AGES PANCAKE BREAKFAST • DOG SHOW KID’S ACTIVITIES • FOOD TRUCKS GUMBO COOK-OFF • LIVE MUSIC 150+ VENDORS THE PARTY BEGINS AT 11 A.M. ON KAVANAUGH BLVD. BETWEEN WALNUT AND SPRUCE

www.harvestfest.us #HillcrestRecycles

DOUBLE FEATURE IGOR STRAVINSKY MAVRA LIAM WADE PART OF THE ACT

FRIDAY VIP ACCESS INCLUDES: GIAN CARLO MENOTTI THE TELEPHONE

AT THE STUDIO THEATRE

SATURDAY 10/27 The Arkansas Black Hall of Fame holds a 2018 induction ceremony at Robinson Performance Hall, 7 p.m., $35-$100. Discovery Nightclub throws a Halloween shindig with DJ Big Brown in the lobby, Disco Caliente’s Dia de Los Muertos party in the disco room and a midnight costume contest, 9 p.m. One-man band Paul Morphis performs at South on Main, 9 p.m., $7. In Conway, the HalCONTINUED ON PAGE 25

T R

NOV. 9 • 7:30 PM NOV. 11 • 2:30 PM

$30 GENERAL • $50 VIP

CentralArkansasTickets.com

Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies

arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

THE TO-DO LIST

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE AND LESLIE LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK BY DAVID KOON, LINDSEY MILLAR, NEWELLL PEACOCK, JACOB ROSENBERG, STEPHANIE SMITTLE

FRIDAY 10/26

COMBSY

10 p.m. Four Quarter Bar. $7.

Sure, Four Quarter Bar has been the spot for ear-splitting concerts from the likes of Black Oak Arkansas and Reverend Horton Heat, but it’s also quietly become one of the best venues for hearing jazz in the Central Arkansas area, with experimental throwdowns from avant garde percussionist Mike Dillon and hot club ditties from locals like the Matt Treadway Trio. Case in point: the Tulsa-based Combsy — all of whom I’m not certain will even fit on that cozy stage — returns to the Argenta spot with dirty horns, driving drums and adventurous arrangements. This one’s for fans of Snarky Puppy, Charles Mingus or Medeski, Martin & Wood, or anyone else who thinks they hate jazz and is ready to be proven wrong in the rowdiest of ways. SS TULSA BIG BAND: Combsy, known for its inventive arrangements, plays Four Quarter.

SATURDAY 10/27-SUNDAY 10/28

BRICK UNIVERSE LEGO FAN CONVENTION

10 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Statehouse Convention Center. $15.

Do you have materialist fantasies about what you’d buy if all of a sudden you had near-endless disposable income? I’d start with lots and lots of sneakers and then move on to all fancy woodworking tools I’m missing. But I wouldn’t have to go too far down the list to land on “all the Legos.” I’ve got sons who are 8 and 4 years old who love Legos and building blocks of all kind, and it doesn’t take much to summon a memory of elementary-aged Lindsey’s dreams of building something life-sized with the delightful Danish bricks. But at the same time, a not small voice in my head wonders, “But where the hell would you keep them?” (Also: “It’s gross to have these sorts of fantasies about owning a bunch of things.”) Finding a place for “just some of the Legos” is already a struggle. If this mental exercise resonates with you at all, this Lego fan convention is probably up your alley. There’ll be 20,000 square feet of hands-on Lego play space, where you can build your own creation and not have to worry about cleaning up afterward. More enticingly, there’ll be a host of professional Lego master builders showing off their elaborate models and lifesized sculptures. There’ll also be merchants selling a wide variety of coveted minifigures. See more info and get tickets at brickuniverse.com/littlerock. LM

SATURDAY 10/27

WAKANDA FOREVER FEST AND PARTY

7 p.m. The House of Art, 108 East Fourth St., North Little Rock. $15 advance, $20 at the door.

According to the Marvel Comics Atlas, vibranium-rich Wakanda is somewhere between South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia. For a few hours Saturday night, though, it’ll have a temporary consulate in the Argenta Arts District around the corner from the historic Argenta Drug Co. The House of Art is celebrating Halloween Marvel Comics-style, with a cosplay party/ House of Art fundraiser devoted to all things Wakanda, with a class in African dance from Orisha priestess Ifásèyí Bamgbàla, 7 p.m.; a class in African drum practice from Ghanaian drummer Zinse Agginie, 8 p.m.; and a 9 p.m. party with music from DJ Prophet. See Eventbrite for tickets. SS

BE A BIG KID, OR BRING YOUR KID: To Brick Universe, a massive celebration of Legos.

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

IN BRIEF, CONT.

FRIDAY 10/26-FRIDAY 12/14

“JUVENILE-IN-JUSTICE”

10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon-Thu., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri., 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. Windgate Gallery, Center for Humanities and Arts (CHARTS), UA-Pulaski Technical College. Free.

Last year, the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, the nonprofit investigative project I run on the side of my Arkansas Times’ work, produced a series on juvenile justice in Arkansas. We wrote about the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center, where we reported that children were confined alone in a barren cell for an entire day for small infractions like acting up in class. Two 15-yearold residents said they had been locked in a cell that had blood and urine streaked on the floor and wall. I also reported on two staterun South Arkansas juvenile lockups that failed to provide youths sufficient hygienic supplies and clothing. The heating and air conditioning units in many of the dorms were broken for long stretches. Juvenile facilities in Arkansas and elsewhere are meant to be rehabilative, not punitive. But, judging by the photographs on Richard Ross’ website (juvenile-in-justice.com), I suspect his traveling exhibit “Juvenile-in-Justice” will lay bare the cruelty of confining kids in prisonlike settings. The exhibit, which will be at the Wingate Gallery in CHARTS through Dec. 14, comes from Ross’ more than 1,000 photos of youths housed in more than 300 facilities across the country. Jim McGill, peer recovery coordinator with the state Drug Director’s office, will give a gallery talk at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26, amid the opening night reception that runs from 6-8 p.m. LM

loween party at Kings features sets from Cosmocean and Joey Fanstar, 8:30 p.m., $5. EJ’s Eats & Drinks hosts a Halloween cover-up show with Way Away, Shoplift and more, 8 p.m., free. A touring production of “Chicago” goes up at UCA’s Reynolds Performance Hall, 7:30 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., $27-$32. Squirrel Nut Zippers frontman Jimbo Mathus & Kinfolks gives a concert of mountain music favorites at the Ozark Folk Center, 2 p.m., $12. Tragikly White kicks off a dance party at Cajun’s, 9 p.m., $5, or come early and catch Andy Tanas, 5:30 p.m., free. Rock Town Roller Derby takes “Nightmare on Skate Street,” a double-header, to Arkansas Skatium Ice and Roller Skating, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. The Rev Room hosts an Adult Halloween Costume Party, with music by Haywood King and Dee Dee Jones, 9 p.m., $15. Randall Shreve & The Devilles return to Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack with some vaudevillian rock, 9 p.m., $7 with costume, $10 without costume. A Halloween party at Maxine’s features sets from the sexy/ terrifying Ginsu Wives, The Pack Ad, Landrest and Table of Mahogany, 9 p.m., $10. L.A Rose Entertainment and Dance with Passion host “The Vampire Ball” in support of Ballet Arkansas, 8 p.m., Ballet Arkansas Studios, $17-$20, organizers request attendees wear softsoled shoes.

SUNDAY 10/28

Support for OAC is provided, in part, by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, and the National Endowment for the Arts

Blue Ridge Mountain string band The Steel Wheels return to South on Main as part of the Oxford American Concert Series, 7 p.m., $20-$26. The musical “The Wiz” returns to the Rev Room, 7:30 p.m., $15-$20. Contemporary Christian quintet MercyMe takes the stage at Verizon Arena, 6 p.m., $23-$68. St. Luke’s Episcopal Church’s “Festival of the Senses” stages T.S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral,” 7 p.m., free. ArkansasStaged and Trillium Salon Series present Aaron Mark’s “Squeamish,” 7 p.m., 21c Museum Hotel, Bentonville, $10 suggested donation.

TUESDAY 10/30 CALS Ron Robinson Theater screens the film “Hocus Pocus,” 6 p.m., $5. Organist Timothy Allen performs a Halloween-themed recital with works by Saint-Saens, Wagner and others, 7:30 p.m., Greene Chapel, Hendrix College, Conway, free. UA Pulaski Technical College celebrates the 10th anniversary of the opening of its south campus at 13000 I-30 Frontage Road with an Oktoberfestthemed open house event, 10 a.m.-7 p.m., with German food catered by Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute students/instructors, free. The Connection Blues Band performs at the White Water Tavern, 8 p.m.

Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies

arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’

Cornbread can be light or dense, but the annual Arkansas Cornbread Festival has real heft. It’s about the Southern staple, yes, and because there are as many ways to make cornbread as all the iron skillets in all the kitchens in Arkansas, the festival reveals us to be a complex culture with delicious differences. But the festival, at 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 27, is more a celebration of the revival of South Main than a debate over whether you should or should not put sugar in your cornbread. In addition to the four professional and 11 amateur cornbread contestants seeking your vote — prizes of $1,000, $500 and $250 (for side dishes) will be handed out — food trucks will feed you, Arkansas music-makers will entertain you on two stages and crafters will have plenty to sell you on the four blocks of the festival, from 13th to 17th streets. To vote on the cornbread, you’ll need a tasting ticket ($8 in advance, $10 at door); admission to the festival is otherwise free. The public will determine the winners of the cash; professional chefs, including Matt McClure of 21c’s The Hive and Capi Peck of Trio’s Restaurant, will hand out blue ribbons. Pro cornbread competitors will include chefs from Dos Rocas, the taco eatery coming to Main; The Root Cafe; the Capital Hotel; and Cathead’s Diner. A vegan recipe (!) won last year’s first-place prize; another past favorite was a blueberry cornbread covered in maple butter sauce. Like we said, complex. If the cornbread doesn’t fill you up, you can drop in at restaurants on Main or food trucks The Dotted Cookie, Adobo to Go, Say Cheese Gourmet Sandwiches, Ockos Hibachi Island and Loblolly (with a new flavor developed for the festival) and other vendors, including Fassler Hall with housemade sausages. Brewmeisters Rebel Kettle, Stone’s Throw Brewing, Diamond Bear, Core Public House and Buffalo Brewing will be there to make sure you don’t get thirsty. The music kicks off at 11:30 a.m. with a lineup curated by blues songstress Charlotte Taylor: First up at the Main Stage at 13th and Main Street will be Americana group Brick Fields out of Eureka Springs. It will be followed by R&B guitarist Charles Woods and the Element (Ivan Yarbrough and Cecil Parker) at 1 p.m. and inestimable singer/songwriter/musician Bonnie Montgomery at 2:30 p.m. A block south, in the food court at Bernice Garden at 14th and Daisy Bates, versatile folk-country-jazz guitarist John Burnette will play at 11:30 a.m. and altcountry Ten Penny Gypsy (Justin Patterson and Laura Lynn Danley) at 1 p.m. There will be another food court on the 1500 block, near Esse Purse Museum, and the Cosmo’s Kids Corner in the 1600 block. Cornbread tents will be located throughout the festival. Tickets support community projects in SoMa, such as repainting crosswalks and the like. 38

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

PROPER PUB-GRUB: The grilled bean burger especially stood out.

The best kind of bar food Foghorn’s Express at Core Public House in Hot Springs offers topnotch healthy and greasy options.

fter a beautiful afternoon toodling around Bathhouse Row, we were ready for a late lunch. And good thing, because a late lunch is the only option at Foghorn’s Express at Core Public House Hot Springs, which opens at 3 p.m. on weekdays (and at noon Saturday and Sunday). Foghorn’s Express handles food for Springdale-based Core Brewing’s Public Houses across the state, including locations in Argenta and downtown Hot Springs — which, until the opening of a Core Public House on Little Rock’s South Main Street, was the Northwest

Follow Eat Arkansas on Twitter: @EatArkansas

Arkansas brewery’s newest. our attention — the Philly cheesesteak Chicken’s the thing for Foghorn’s, sandwich and the black bean burger. which apparently named itself after Foghorn’s Express also does nachos, the Looney Tunes cartoon fowl of yore. cheeseburgers and pulled pork barbecue, There are 16(!) “Signature Sauces” avail- but we kept going back to the black bean able for wings and tenders, from “Wun- burger. Having a vegetarian option in a der Sauce” to spicy garlic parmesan. place that’s literally serving bar food — (Side question: Is anything truly “sig- much less one heartily advocated by the nature” if there are 16 of them?) And wait staff — struck us as forward thinkthere are eight dry rubs, from ranch to ing. Our lifelong quest to eat well has led mango habanero. Furthermore, Tuesday, us to several regrettable veggie-based when we stopped in, was 79-cent bone- options; for many restaurants, it’s as if less wing day. But we’re leery of the very a lone focus-group holdout forced the term “boneless wing,” and the bartender placement of a veggie burger on their enthusiastically reccommended a cou- menus. But why have it there if it’s a ple of other items on the menu that got half-hearted affair? After hearing the

BELLY UP

Check out the Times’ food blog, Eat Arkansas arktimes.com

care in which the chef offered it — deepfried and then grilled to hold the patty together or simply grilled — we had to go for the black bean burger ($9.49). But we forewent the deep-frying, which seemed to go against the spirit of the black bean burger. Meanwhile, the Philly cheesesteak sandwich ($10.99) went to our lovely partner in crime. Lovely things looked even lovelier on Core’s patio, with autumn fully settled in at the Spa City. Located by DeLuca’s Pizza’s new Central Avenue address and perennial Hot Springs photo-op John’s Shoe Repair, the people-watching game is strong here, and the patio’s two garage doors could have easily been open. Happy hours are weekdays 3-6 p.m., with $5 ciders, $2 PBRs, $10 buckets and $3 domestics, which means Core’s Arkansas-made offerings, making them the most domestic beer of all. We enjoyed Core’s too-smooth Behemoth Pilsners (5 percent alcohol by volume) all the more knowing they were a paltry three smackers each. Other Core stalwart brews are its Arkansas Red (5.2 percent ABV), English Style Ale (5.5 percent ABV), Ouachita IPA (6.8 percent ABV), Albatross New England Style IPA (6.8 percent ABV), E-Stop Pale Ale (6 percent ABV), Leghound Lager (5.7 percent ABV), Warthog Munich Style Helles (4.7 percent ABV) and Core’s unique Toasted Coconut (5.6 percent ABV), which first converted us to Core fans after trying it at Eureka Springs’ Brews and Ozark Mountain Taproom (R.I.P.) several years ago. Seasonal Core offerings include its Cranberry Rye (6 percent ABV) and Beach Rat Pale Ale (6 percent ABV). Honestly, we could have happily sat there for a lot longer just enjoying Core’s beer, its Public House patio, and the day, but an even happier thing happened — our lunch arrived. And it was everything the friendly bartender (who also was our server) said it would be. Foghorn’s black bean burger was crispy, not chewy, with a tall bun angling for dominance over the patty. This burger’s prominent pickles and onion provided a cool, slightly sweet crunch without the raw onion elbowing out all the other flavors, as so often happens. An alleged spicy mayo, however, was sadly runny, and quickly disappeared into

Foghorn’s Express at Core Public House Hot Springs

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Quick Bite

Desserts at Foghorn’s Express are fairly basic — vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate syrup ($3.29) or fried pies, “ask for current flavor,” served a la mode ($4.99) — but even with our late lunch, dessert wasn’t even in the conversation. Happy hour is 3-6 p.m. weekdays.

Hours:

3 p.m. until 10 p.m. weekdays, 3 p.m. until midnight Friday, noon until midnight Saturday. 12-9 p.m. Sundays

the catacombs of the big bun, never to be tasted from again. A more viscous, less cowardly condiment would have been welcome, but in practice, we paid it little mind. Patties this flavorful, and buns this great — thick for the burger, thin for the Philly, and both griddled, as they damn well should be — get leeway. Speaking of the Philly cheesesteak sandwich, as much space as we have devoted here to deep thoughts on black bean burgers, Foghorn’s Philly takes a backseat to no sandwich, no matter how precious and rare. This finely chopped Philly, with tiny caramelized onions and cheese that nearly got lost in the flavor mix, was messy in the best way. We needed a fork straightaway to capture clumps fleeing from their baked confines. These sandwiches were supposed to be for sharing, but we nearly forgot to go back to our burger while sampling the tender Philly. We also got tots and fries for sharing (an order of either comes with your sandwich). The french fries seemed to be hand-cut and were well-seasoned without being overly salted — a rare and tough balance. Less notable, but still surely serviceable, were the tots. So generous were the helpings of both, we enjoyed them again for late-night snack after reviving them in the oven. Both paired well with Core’s beer. And while the beer is appropriately the star at Core Public Houses in Arkansas, Foghorn’s Express did such a thoughtful job on oft-mishandled and oft-maligned “bar food,” we can see going back again for a late lunch for both.

serving better than bar food all night long Oct

27 - Combsy 27 - Queen Ann’s Revenge/ Bloodlikewine/The Arkansas Shotgun Revival 31 - The Rocky Horror Pickin’ Show w/ The Crumbs

Nov

2 - Mountain Sprout w/ Big Still River 3 - FreeVerse 9 - Aaron Kamm and the One Drops

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arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

MOVIE REVIEW

XXXXXXXXxxxxxxxxx

Scares and believable characters

David Gordon Green successfully reboots ‘Halloween.’ BY SAM EIFLING

hen you call a Michael Myers movie “Halloween” — same as John Carpenter’s 1978 original that launched a franchise of nine mostly forgettable B-movies — then you better do something to surprise your audience. So, for this installment of a 40-year-old horror classic, Little Rock-born director David Gordon Green zagged by making a film that sits firmly in the horror genre while also finding real pathos and laughs and a kickass score. Why, it almost feels like someone set out to make a real movie here.

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

Yes, you’ll see people get croaked in some pretty ghastly ways (knife to the back, door to the face, scalpel to the throat, boot to the head) but what lingers more than the obligatory violence are the actual characters. Green co-wrote the script with Jeff Fradley and Danny McBride; between them they’ve managed to turn what could have been another rote slasher about a mute boogeyman into a funnier, weirder, more memorable work. There’s a boy who’d rather be in dance class than going hunting. A babysitter who’s watching a kid who just about steals the

Boos & Booze:

Hocus Pocus

Tuesday, Oct. 30 6 p.m. • $5

movie talking about weed. A couple of cops who discuss the finer points of Vietnamese sandwiches. Gender-fluid teens who have progressive conversations about consent. Come for the Michael Myers, stay for the likeable people he murders. Strategically it was a fine choice to ignore every movie but the first (again, a movie that shares the same name) because it frees Green to tell, in effect, a really simple story. We begin with Myers still in an asylum, where he hasn’t spoken for 40 years. A couple of British-accented podcast producers (Rhian Rees and Jefferson Hall) wangle a tour of the facility with Myers’ longtime doctor (a crazy-haired Haluk Bilginer). Even as they try to goad Myers with his old mask (that iconic William Shatner costume) it’s bupkis — the serial killer never even looks. So they try instead to coax a new story out of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, back in her original role). She has withdrawn to a house in the woods she’s outfitted as a full-blown prepper, complete with floodlights, closedcircuit cameras, a target range, a basement full of guns and canned foods, and a bunch of nifty trapdoor-y security measures. She’s been expecting a Michael Myers attack since, oh, let’s ballpark it at 1978. Laurie’s grown daughter, Karen (Judy Greer, who also played Karens in “Jurassic World” and “The Key Man”), disapproves of her mother’s survivalist bent, having grown up having to practice rifle training in case Myers ever got out of the asylum. And neither of them has just a fantastic relationship with Laurie’s teenaged daughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), who’s just getting ready to do some normal cool small-town stuff on a normal cool small-town

Halloween until … well, see, there’s an accident on a prison bus as they’re transferring Myers to a different hospital and, uh, Michael Myers is once again loose, reunited with his old mask, and skulking around town on the one night of the year when no one really looks twice at a hulking dude in dark coveralls and a rubber mask. So he gets to run wild, one loping step at a time, and Laurie’s left telling everyone she told ya so. Myers was never the freakiest of monster-movie villains: Silent, robotic, emotionless, he works quickly and seems to barely notice when he finishes. Most of the scares here are simply variations on the thought, what if you ran into Michael Myers in a (fill in the blank), and the answer is, he’d win. But Green does offer some flourishes to keep this lummox lively, like a four-minute single-take shot of Myers quietly killing in a neighborhood while trickor-treaters flutter around, mirroring a similar shot in Carpenter’s original. You’re also treated to Carpenter updating his old piano-and-synth score (which he apparently turned around in just three days when he was trying to get the first “Halloween” sold) into a fuller, creepier vision. More enjoyable, actually, is the movie’s serious treatment of the generational effects of trauma, and the simple moments of full characters leading real lives. The name “Halloween” was dragged into irrelevance with a winding series of disposable sequels, but this feels like a return to due respect for a piece of American lore. ’Cause if you can’t even be assured of a decent time at the movies when you want to see small-towners get ambushed by a maniac with a butcher knife, then what can you really trust anymore?

Ron Robinson Theater Library Square, 100 Rock Street CALS.org

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OCTOBER 27

MONSTER MORPHIS South on Main

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OCTOBER 27-28

BLACKBIRD – A PLAY BY DAVID HARROWER The Studio Theatre

NOVEMBER 3

BARRE & YOGA BRUNCH WITH ROBYN DAYER Old Chicago – Conway HARVESTFEST DOG SHOW 2924 Kavanaugh Boulevard, Little Rock

DIARY OF A WORM, A SPIDER, & A FLY UCA Reynolds Performance Hall tickets.uca.edu

NOVEMBER 9:

NOVEMBER 9, 11

OPERA IN THE ROCK DOUBLE FEATURE: A ‘50s NIGHT OF COMIC OPERA The Studio Theatre

NOVEMBER 10

NOVEMBER 10-11

NOVEMBER 14

QUAPAW QUARTER ASSOCIATION MEETING & GREATER LITTLE ROCK PRESERVATION AWARDS Historic Arkansas Museum

NOVEMBER 29

STEVE DAVISON AND FRIENDS CD RELEASE PARTY: with Opening Act The Dozier Hill Band The Joint, North Little Rock

NOVEMBER 29-30

A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE MUSICAL The Studio Theatre

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LIVE AND SILENT AUCTIONS 7 TO 10 P.M., ADOPTABLE PETS PREVIEW AT 6:30 P.M. NEXT LEVEL EVENTS, HISTORIC LITTLE ROCK TRAIN STATION

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

THE TEN TENORS UCA Reynolds Performance Hall tickets.uca.edu

NOVEMBER 12

THE SCIENCE OF MAGIC WITH BILL BLAGG UCA Reynolds Performance Hall tickets.uca.edu

NOVEMBER 17

HOT SPRINGS NORTHWOODS TRAIL GRAND OPENING Hot Springs

SECOND FRIDAY ART NIGHT Including Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Historic Arkansas Museum, Matt McLeod Fine Art Gallery, Bella Vita Jewelry, and more. facebook.com/2ndFridayArtNight

NOVEMBER 13

ELGAR’S ENIGMA Arkansas Symphony Orchestra arkansassymphony.org

PAUL COLLINS’ BEAT!!! Four Quarter Bar

PRESENTED BY HUMANE SOCIETY OF PULASKI COUNTY

THE HALLELUJAH GIRLS Murry’s Dinner Playhouse Reservations: 501-562-3131

OCTOBER 30

AARON KAMM AND THE ONE DROPS Four Quarter Bar

NOVEMBER 27

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CHICAGO UCA Reynolds Performance Hall tickets.uca.edu

LASKAROV PLAYS BRAHMS Arkansas Symphony Orchestra arkansassymphony.org

REZA: EDGE OF ILLUSION Griffin Music Hall, El Dorado eldomad.com

NOVEMBER 20-25

MOVIES AT MACARTHUR: DEATH AND THE CIVIL WAR MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History

ELF THE MUSICAL Murry’s Dinner Playhouse Reservations: 501-562-3131

The Center for Humanities and Arts at UA Pulaski Tech has two upcoming shows: Puddles Pity Party and Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn! Tickets will sell out so get yours soon! All tickets at uaptc.edu/CHARTS.

NOVEMBER 16

NOVEMBER 20

STARTING NOVEMBER 23

Arkansas Times presents the 8th Annual CRAFT BEER FESTIVAL, on November 2, 6-9 p.m. Sample great beers from more than 35 regional and national craft breweries. Food trucks + a live DJ! $25 in advance, $35 at the door. centralarkansastickets.com.

Celebrity Attractions presents LOVE NEVER DIES Robinson Auditorium

DON’T MISS THE “HOT SPRINGS HAPPENINGS” SECTION ON PAGE 31!

GP TO “ARKTIMES.COM/FOOD” TO VOTE FOR THE READERS CHOICE RESTAURANTS AWARDS. SEE PAGE 21 FOR MORE INFO!

MUSIC @ THE GRIFFIN

10/27: Chris Loggins 11/1: Big Piph & Tomorrow Maybe 11/3: Jimmy “Cadillac Crumb” Davis 11/8: The Drunken Hearts 11/10: Josh Love 11/15: Wood Newton & Rafe Van Hoy • 11/17: Chris Loggins • 11/24: Monty Russell 11/29: Ernie Biggs Roadshow

CHRIS LOGGINS

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November ! GIFT GUIDE Take someone you love! The ultimate love story continues in LOVE NEVER DIES, Andrew

Lloyd Webber’s spellbinding sequel to The Phantom of the Opera November 20th-25th at Robinson Performance Hall. For tickets call 501.244-8800 or visit Ticketmaster.com.

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OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

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UPCOMING EVENTS OCT

The Studio Theatre Evil Dead - The Musical

OCT

South on Main MarQuis & MOOD Blue Note Jazz

OCT

The Weekend Theater If/Then

25 -28

26 -28

Ballet Arkansas Studios The Vampire Ball

OCT

Prattsville Community Center “Back to the Future...with Grant County Democrats”

OCT

27 OCT

South on Main Monster Morphis

OCT

South on Main Scary Stories Told Live

OCT

South on Main A Stranger Halloween Party

NOV

The Studio Theatre Blackbird

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LOCAL TICKETS, ONE PLACE 46

OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

ALSO IN THE ARTS

FINE ART, HISTORY EXHIBITS

MAJOR VENUES

ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Fountain Fest,” art installation in the Carrie Remmel Dickinson Fountain, 5:30-8:30 p.m. Oct. 25, $25; “Independent Vision: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Martin Muller Collection,” through December; “Reveal/Conceal: Exploring Identity in Contemporary Art,” through Oct. 28; “Delta Through the Decades Deux: Selections from the Collection,” through Nov. 4; “Through Our Eyes,” works by students, through Nov. 11. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. ARTS & SCIENCE CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ARKANSAS, 701 S. Main St.: “Small but Mighty,” works from the permanent collection, through Oct. 27; “Pine Bluff Art League Juried Exhibition,” through Nov. 10; “Small but Mighty,” works from the permanent collection, through Oct. 27; “UAPB & ASC: Five Decades of Collaboration,” work by Tarrence Corbin, Earnest Davidson, Fred Schmidt, Dr. William Detmers and others from UA Pine Bluff in the ASC permanent collection, through Nov. 3. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 870-536-3375. ARTS CENTER OF THE OZARKS, 214 Main St., Springdale: “5X5,” small works, through Oct. 26. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday. 479-751-5441. CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSEUM VISITOR CENTER, Bates and Park: Exhibits on the 1957 desegregation of Central and the civil rights movement. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. daily. 374-1957. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER, 1200 President Clinton Ave.: “White House, Green Building,” through March 24, 2019; “White House Collection of American Crafts 25th Anniversary Exhibit,” through March 31, 2019; permanent exhibits on the Clinton administration. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 adults, $8 seniors, retired military and college students, $6 youth 6-17, free to active military and children under 6. 3744242. CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way, Bentonville: “Art for a New Understanding: Native Voices,” contemporary art by Native Americans, through Jan. 7; “Amy Sherald,” portraits by the artist who created the official portrait for Michelle Obama, through December; “In Conversation: Will Wilson and Edward Curtis,” Native American portraiture over time, through February 2019; American masterworks spanning four centuries in the permanent collection. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon., Thu.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed., Fri.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.-Sun., closed Tue. 479418-5700. ESSE PURSE MUSEUM & STORE, 1510 S. Main St.: “Up in Smoke,” smoking accessories and paraphernalia, through Oct. 28; “What’s Inside: A Century of Women and Handbags,” permanent exhibit. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun. $10, $8 for students, seniors and military. 916-9022. FORT SMITH REGIONAL ART MUSEUM, 1601 Rogers Ave.: “Todd Gray:

Pop Geometry,” sculpture, through Nov. 18; “Modern Master David Hayes: The Ventana Series,” through Jan. 27. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 479784-2787. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. 3rd St.: “History of Color: The Spectrum of Daily Life in Early America,” textiles, ceramics and fine art from the 18th and 19th centuries; “Ghost Mothers,” photoportraits, Cabe Foyer; “Space Between Teeth: Linda Lopez + Marc Mitchell,” through Nov. 4; ticketed tours of renovated and replicated 19th century structures from original city, guided Monday and Tuesday on the hour, self-guided Wednesday through Sunday, $2.50 adults, $1 under 18, free to 65 and over. (Galleries free.) 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351. HOT SPRINGS CONVENTION CENTER, 134 Convention Blvd., Hot Springs: “The Soul of Arkansas,” paintings by Longhua Xu, through Feb. 1, 2019. GALLERIES AT LIBRARY SQUARE, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “The Arkansas Blues: Photographs by Cheryl Cohen and Louis Guida,” through Dec. 29; “A Matter of Mind and Heart: Portraits of Japanese American Identity,” through Dec. 29; “A Legacy of Brewers: The Paintings of Nicholas, Adrian and Edwin Brewer,” through Oct. 27. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5790. MacARTHUR MUSEUM OF ARKANSAS MILITARY HISTORY, 503 E. 9th St. (MacArthur Park): 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun. 376-4602. MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, 9th and Broadway: “Respect: Celebrating 50 Years of AfriCOBRA,” through Dec. 2; permanent exhibits on African-American entrepreneurship in Arkansas. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 683-3593. MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY, 500 President Clinton Ave.: Interactive science exhibits and activities for children and teenagers. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 ages 13 and older, $8 ages 1-12, free to members and children under 1. 396-7050. OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM, 300 W. Markham St.: “Our Fair Ladies: Arkansas State Fair Gowns and Rodeo Attire”; “A Piece of My Soul: Quilts by Black Arkansans,” through fall 2019; “First Families: Mingling of Politics and Culture” permanent exhibit including first ladies’ gowns. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685. UA LITTLE ROCK, Windgate Gallery of Art + Design: “Faculty Biennial,” through Nov. 16; “Electrify: VSA Emerging Young Artists,” Kennedy Center touring show, through Dec. 2, reception 5-7 p.m. Oct. 26; “It Was There All Along,” Focus Gallery, through Oct. 26. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. 569-8977. UA LITTLE ROCK, Fine Arts Building: “Artist as a Catalyst,” silkscreens donated to the closed Alternative Museum to protest funding cuts for the arts, through Nov. 10. 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri. 5698977.

PLEASE SEND YOUR RESUME TO PHYLLIS BRITTON, PHYLLIS@ARKTIMES.COM.

ARKANSAS TIMES One of a Kind Arkansas Buffalo Rug

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Kaytee Wright 501-607-3100 kaytee.wright@gmail.com arktimes.com OCTOBER 25, 2018

November OAKLAWN

Special Events November is all about fun and games at Oaklawn Racing & Gaming. As always, you’ll experience the newest and most popular games, along with lots of food/drink specials, and awesome promotions packed with prizes! Come see why Oaklawn is the #1 tourist attraction in the state. Are you in?

iGADGET GIVEAWAY Fridays • 6-10 pm

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YES WE CAN FOOD DRIVE/DRAWINGS

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BIRTHDAY BASH Nov. 25 • 3–7 pm

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OCTOBER 25, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

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