Arkansas Times - March 17, 2016

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MARCH 17, 2016

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COMMENT

A party in disarray To say the least, our national Republican Party has quite a mess on its hands right now in the primary elections for president. One candidate, Ted Cruz, was not even born in the U.S. and may not be eligible to serve as president.

Another candidate, Marco Rubio, has a history of buying personal items with his GOP credit card. The most viable candidate is Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, here in Arkansas, Trump has already won the Republican primary race. Unfortunately, Gov. Asa Hutchinson endorsed Rubio, even though Rubio was a known credit-card criminal who has yet to pay his debt to society. Sure, Rubio admitted in 2012 to reimbursing the party for the items, but Florida’s Republican Party let Rubio off the hook. They made the poor decision not to charge Rubio with felony theft by deception. This reminds me of when Arkansas Attorney General Steve Clark, a Democrat, was charged.

Anyway, the big question now is whether Asa will actually support Trump as the Republican nominee.

After all, Asa has worked diligently all these years to promote the interests of wealthy capitalists over the interests of the democratic masses. He must now accept responsibility for helping create the candidate Trump.

Gene Mason Jacksonville

Krugman off Recently the state’s other newspaper ran a piece by well-known economist Paul Krugman. The article suggests Bernie Sanders’ recent primary win in Michigan may be the result of Sanders misleading the people of Michigan in regard to the effects of free trade. While I agree with Krugman on most points pertaining to the economy, I must disagree with his assessment of Bernie Sanders’ take on free-trade agreements and how they have hurt Americans living in what were once thriving industrial communities, like Detroit. I also notice Krugman’s attempt to compare Bernie with Donald Trump. I know Krugman’s a Hillary supporter, but likening Bernie to Trump shows him to be more of a lapdog pundit, at least in this case, as opposed to being a true liberal/progressive journalist.

Krugman willfully misrepresents Bernie by accusing him of “demagoguing the issue” of “trade liberalization,” making it out to be much more detrimental to American workers than 4

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ARKANSAS TIMES

the facts suggest. Krugman offers as evidence comments made by Sanders regarding the effects of “trade liberalization” on Michigan. Krugman’s words suggest Bernie blames “Hillary Clinton’s free-trade policies” for what happened in Detroit. I don’t think Sanders has ever said the loss of jobs in Detroit starting in the ’60s and ’70s was the result of trade policies enacted in the ’90s. That’s ridiculous. Bernie simply says that trade policies like those supported by the Clintons have contributed to, or exacerbated, the problems caused by “trade liberalization.” Ber-

nie doesn’t say we must stop all agreements with other countries. He says we must change these agreements in order to keep jobs from leaving our shores, and to stop other countries from taking advantage of laws that favor foreign workers over American workers.

Ultimately Bernie wants to help American workers. He’s not advocating the dismantling of established trade agreements. Sanders wants to negotiate with other countries over mutually beneficial agreements, so that everyone wins, not just America, as Trump boasts.

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Any way you slice it, free trade has not worked out for most Americans. It’s been great for the economic elites of the world, but the rest of us have suffered.

And, any way you slice it, Hillary has supported these measures.

Richard Hutson Cabot

From the web In response to Gene Lyons’ March 10 column, “Cats and dogs”: Kind of hard to equate any morality among animals basing it just on levels of joy. As noted by Gene, cats achieve levels of contentment that would make the Dalai Lama jealous, and the joy of dogs is often off the charts, so how can you measure any kind of morality?

Does it make a difference, does it prove the emotional capacity of dogs or cats?

Well, by a lot of easily observed data, dogs have it all over cats ... except when you dig deeper into stories of how cats defended their human companions from attack by human and animal.

I have been around critters most of my life. I was 13 when I rescued my first cat. She was a kitten that was put in a box and placed under a pinball machine. Kitty was a great cat. She got along with my pet rat, shared the pillow with me, and even walked across busy city streets on my heel, like a dog.

Many a night I would be reading and Kitty would lie on my lap for her hours’ worth of ear rubs. She would let me know her food was empty by jumping on my bookcase and knocking off my model airplanes. When I was sick, she was with me. When I was heartbroken, she would be there, rubbing against me and licking my hair. It would be years before I had another cat of her equal.

By the time I ended up with an awesome pair of cats, Jasper and Iggy Pop, I also had a pack of six wolves. The cats got along with the wolves and old Toby dog. During cold, northern Nevada winters when the outside temps were 19 below, the bed was covered by some wolves and some cats. Toby was too old to get on the bed, so one or two of the wolves and at least one of the cats would curl up next to Toby.

Toby died. I cried, the wolves howled, and I will be dipped if Jasper didn’t howl along. Iggy just kept looking for Toby. She didn’t understand the way the others did.

In all the critters I have raised, I poured all my love and affection into them. They were all indoor/outdoor

Many a night I would be reading and Kitty would lie on my lap for her hours’ worth of ear rubs.

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companions. I nurtured them like kids, and they grew in emotional scope. It was a discovery that humans are like animals and otherwise as well.

That which grows best is that which is imbued with values and training and regard and concern and sympathy. Like humans, animals have the capability to reciprocate in most emotional matters.

You mistreat an animal, they grow up distant, mistrustful, tending toward violence. You treat them well, they will stay by your side, mourn your loss, rejoice your joys, share your struggles.

Steven E Yeah, we really need another test to divide us into factions. Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of people almost demanding to know whether I’m a cat person or a dog person. (Where did this come from all of a sudden? Some TV show?) I guess it’s a question designed to immediately separate the wheat from the chaff, or the goats from the sheep. The question invariably confuses me and I usually answer, truthfully, that I like both dogs and cats. Of course, that answer satisfies none of the questioners. In one respect, it makes me a weasel person, unwilling to commit myself.

(I’ve never owned a weasel, however, so it’s hard for me to say. Although I HAVE known a couple of folks who were fond of ferrets, so weasels might not be all that bad.)

The last person who asked me the dog/cat question was ready for me when I weaseled out of it. She immediately asked me her backup question: Do I like guns or not? Rolling my eyes at the question didn’t seem to help my status in her eyes at all. I flunked her test on the spot. I was definitely not one to be trusted.

Yes, I’m a cat person and a dog person. More and more, though, a people person? Not so much ... .

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MARCH 17, 2016

5

WEEK THAT WAS

Quote of the Week:

“If the Texas law is struck down, it will put at risk the ability of states to properly protect its citizens. I am hopeful when the Court decides this case later this year it will recognize that Texas, Arkansas and all states have a legitimate interest in protecting the health of women and regulating the medical profession.”

— Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, deploying doublespeak to defend a Texas law that would effectively shut down the majority of that state’s abortion clinics in the name of “safety” (despite the facts that complications related to abortion are extraordinarily rare and that patients already have access to emergency medical care should they need it). Arkansas and 23 other states have joined in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court urging it to uphold the Texas law.

Equivocating on climate change Last week, the director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality appeared before a U.S. Senate committee to complain about federal EPA regulations aimed at curbing climate change. Becky Keogh, who worked for petroleum and mining company BHP Billiton before Gov. Hutchinson appointed her to head the state’s main environmental agency, is evidently still unsure whether the phenomenon is even real. When Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked her if carbon emitted from the burning of fossil fuels causes harmful changes to the environment, Keogh responded, “I think you can find scientists that say both — yes and no.” Whitehead then asked Keogh what she says. “I am not an expert,” she replied.

More importantly, that skepticism is reflected in policy. Keogh, along with Arkansas Public Service Commission Chairman Ted Thomas, last week announced that the state is halting its work on compliance with the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s push to cut greenhouse 6

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

gas output. The CPP faces an ongoing court challenge, but other states with less hostility to established science are making plans to comply with the carbon regulations in the interim.

Everything must go The legislature’s fiscal session is approaching, and thanks to some $100 million in federal money flowing to Arkansas this year from the expansion of Medicaid (also known as Obamacare), the state budget isn’t suffering quite as much as it otherwise might in the wake of last year’s regressive tax cuts. Still, some of the same Republicans who championed the 2015 tax cuts are now pushing to skewer select budget items. Sen. Bart Hester (R-Cave Springs) suggested last week that the state should sell Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium and cut funding for public television.

AETN cost the state $5.4 million last year, Hester complained. That’s an especially unwise choice “at a time when the free market offers such an ample array of choices in telecommunications,” he said.

Coming soon: Charter school showdown The state Board of Education voted last Thursday to review expansion proposals from two Little Rock charter schools, eStem and LISA Academy.

In doing so, the state board agreed to allow a public hearing before making a final decision on the matter, which has huge implications for the future of the Little Rock School District. If the two charter schools are allowed to expand their student capacity by several thousand seats as requested, the increased competition could sink the LRSD’s chances of a turnaround in the coming years. The state board has not yet set a date for the hearing.

Waiver madness Two school districts that have long been under control of the state Education Department will soon be released back to local control, the state Board of Education unanimously decided last week. The Pulaski County Special School District and the Helena-

West Helena School District will be released from “fiscal distress” — a classification that led the state board to seize governance of the districts years ago — pending new school board elections this fall.

This is hopeful news for both places, but the state board’s hearing on Helena-West Helena also contained a worrisome development: HWH administrators sought (and were mostly granted) a number of waivers to state law concerning everything from teacher licensure to sick leave and pay. Under a new law, the HWH district is eligible for such waivers because it competes with a charter school for students. Leveling the playing field with charters is a sympathetic goal — but not if it undermines good education policies in the process.

Jobs numbers looking up The unemployment rate in Arkansas in January dropped to 4.4 percent, from 4.7 percent the previous month.

That compares with a national rate of 4.9 percent.

OPINION

Election consequences

C

redit the Republican Party with discipline. When they take control, they take control.

The Beebe era — perhaps the last Democratic gubernatorial administration in my lifetime — was laissez faire. Friends were rewarded, certainly. Mike Beebe was a Democrat, but he governed cautiously and generally from the center. There was relatively little ideological flavor in agencies under his control.

Not so Republican Gov. Hutchinson.

His party’s agenda is reflected in every political appointment, every legislative decision and the operation of every government agency. That’s permissible, of course. What’s interesting is the general feeling that Hutchinson is something of a moderate. That couldn’t be more wrong, his willingness to continue the Obamacarefunded Medicaid expansion to preserve his budget notwithstanding.

He put down markers from the start: Income tax cuts that omitted 40 percent of low-income workers. Capital gains tax forgiveness for the super wealthy. An

unconstitutional order to stop reimbursement for nonabortion medical services at Planned Parenthood. Tacit MAX support for legislaBRANTLEY tion aimed at promaxbrantley@arktimes.com tecting the ability to discriminate against gay people in employment, housing and public accommodations.

We saw more of the Republican ideology at work last week in Hutchinsoncontrolled state agencies.

The Public Service Commission and the Department of Environmental Quality, now controlled by Hutchinson appointees, said they’d quit working on plans to comply with the federal rule aimed at reducing emissions from coal-burning power plants.

A court action has stayed implementation of the rule. Arkansas will dig in its heels until forced.

The ideology that puts business interest over cleaner air was illustrated again

Trump’s crowd

H

ere’s the big question of the season and maybe of our time: Has Donald Trump, his party, the electorate or the whole American political apparatus changed from the days when Trump was mildly reviled and driven whimpering from politics?

Trump, you may remember, looked seriously at the presidency in 1988 and 2000 and was so intimidated each time that over the three elections after 2000 he gave only wistful hints about his ambition. In 2015 it all changed and we now have the Trump Phenomenon and the greatest offensive by a political party in history to stop one candidate.

The quick answer is that Trump has changed his style not at all and his substance only moderately since he launched himself into national politics in the 1980s, but he has mastered the dark undercurrents of the body politic and of the modern Republican Party and turned a zephyr of discontent into a hurricane.

The new Trump is the Trump of the late ’80s, when he was publicly begging President Reagan to let him negotiate the

nuclear missile treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev. He would make a deal that would be great for America and ruin the communists. Reagan signed the treaty with Gorbachev in a love fest at the White House in 1987, perhaps his ERNEST greatest achieveDUMAS ment as president, although he had to endure right-wing critics. Trump went on Oprah Winfrey’s show soon afterward and talked about running for president against Vice President George H.W. Bush. He said he was tired of the rest of the world ripping off America and its weak-kneed leaders. Standing before waving “Trump for President” placards in New Hampshire in 1988 he said he would force countries that were “kicking us around” to pay off the giant national debt, which had tripled under Reagan.

In 1999, The New York Times reported that Trump was wondering whether there was a place in the presi-

when Hutchinson’s ADEQ Director Becky Keogh, whose previous job was working for a petroleum company and who is a sister-in-law of the GOP chair, told a U.S. Senate committee that she didn’t like the way the EPA treated the states. She complained that an EPA official had told her mandates could be demanded “just because we can.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) was skeptical. She asked Keogh to name the EPA employee who said this. Keogh has so far not responded to my question of whether she’s provided that information to Boxer.

Keogh also stood out when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked her: “Do carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning cause changes to our atmosphere and oceans that portend harm to people and ecosystems?”

Said Keogh: “I think you can find scientists that say both — yes and no.” Pressed for her own opinion, Keogh responded: “Well, I am not an expert either ... .”

Indeed. Whitehouse closed by ticking off a list of scientific authorities who, if asked his question, would have responded with “a plain and simple yes.”

Sensitivity to Republican political correctness gets very detailed. The Arkansas Times’ David Koon reported last week that the deputy director of the Department of Arkansas Heritage ordered a Black Lives Matter T-shirt removed from the Mosaic

Templars Cultural Center, the state-operated black history museum. The agency had concerns about “cultural sensitivity,” the museum director said. In other words, there was concern about offending white people.

The agency at first insisted the removal was in line with gift shop policies on sale of shirts directly related to the museum, but department director Stacy Hurst was forced by questioning to concede that, yes, the sensitivity issue had been discussed.

Hurst had a political reason to be sensitive. She was endorsed in an unsuccessful legislative race by the Little Rock police union. Little Rock cops are under legal fire for excessive use of force against black people. Black Lives Matter is a flash point in such discussions nationwide. But it is also a broad-based civil rights movement. When a Republican administration ordered removal of a civil rights T-shirt from a black history museum that sits at the site of Little Rock’s last lynching, it was easy to be seen as a statement about the relative importance of white and black lives. The T-shirt ban was lifted in the face of an outcry.

The Hutchinson administration prefers to implement its agenda more quietly. It has generally been successful. Make no mistake: It’s not a centrist movement.

dential race for a rogue like him. But he was going to run for the nomination of Ross Perot’s Reform Party, not the Republican Party. Trump told CNN’s Larry King that Oprah would be his vice president. This time, instead of forcing foreign countries to pay off the debt, he would make rich Americans do it by levying a 14.25 percent tax on the net worth of everyone worth at least $10 million. As president he would be his own trade representative and personally negotiate trade agreements. He denounced Saudi Arabia, Japan, Germany and France as lousy allies. He told Fox News that while he had liked Bill Clinton he would have had more respect for him if he had sex with a supermodel instead of fat Monica Lewinsky. He said the difference between him and other candidates was that “I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”

Still, Trump was getting ridiculed in the media. One of his ex-wives threatened to expose him if he ran; the other had accused him of raping her and yanking out fistfuls of her blonde hair. The right-wing populist Pat Buchanan, after two failed runs, had left the Republican Party, too, and was making a play for the Reform Party nomination. Buchanan

denounced immigrants with better effect than Trump, although his promise to tax the rich paled besides Trump’s.

Buchanan would raise estate and capital gains taxes.

Trump tanked in the polls as the angry electorate swarmed to Buchanan.

He gave up the chase, explaining that he could not abide being in the same political movement with Buchanan, whom he called a Hitler admirer, and David Duke, the KKK leader whom he now pretends not to know about.

By 2015, Trump had absorbed the lessons from his failures. He figured out how to raise his voice above the establishment, the chattering political wise men and the media critics. And the Republican Party gave him the perfect forum, an unending stretch of nationally televised debates that gave him unfiltered access to potential voters, both the angry and the perturbed.

Within weeks Donald Trump had the undying devotion of millions of angst-ridden white men. Nothing the establishment, the super-PAC ads or the commentariat says about him can alter it. The only question is whether there are enough left in the base to stop him. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

7

Trumped

I

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t’s not for nothing that Donald J. Trump was inducted into the professional wrestling Hall of Fame in 2013. The billionaire braggart’s entire presidential campaign is straight out of the WWE “Wrestlemania” playbook — all preposterous boasts, racialized taunts and simulated mayhem that threatens to turn into the real thing.

And wouldn’t TV news networks just love it?

Back last summer, when this column first took note of his uncanny impersonation of 1950s charismatic bleach-blonde bad guy Dr. Jerry Graham (“I have the body that men fear and women adore”), I was unaware of Trump’s enshrinement. Having outgrown pro wrestling after eighthgrade, I’d never witnessed the 2007 “Battle of the Billionaires” between Trump and WWE impresario Vince McMahon.

Anyway, if you want a laugh, Google the fool thing. Sure, it’s several minutes of your life you’ll never get back, but watching Trump posing, preening and throwing what a Rolling Stone reporter accurately characterized as “some of the worst punches in wrestling history” might wise you up to the game.

Alternatively, you could be a chump and show up at one of his campaign events to scream insults at some similarly deluded fool, or even get coldcocked by a 78-year-old patriot and watch it being broadcast in an endless loop by CNN. “I’d like to punch him in the face,” Trump said of a protestor at an earlier event, one of several similar incitements.

Yeah, well, the guy would probably survive.

For all of The Donald’s penchant for sleeping with friends’ wives and bragging about it (Chapter 11, “The Art of the Deal”), I doubt he’s had much pugilistic experience. Very few guys with full-time butlers also have educated left hooks. Surrounded by bodyguards most of his life, Trump appears to enjoy watching them bully people.

But could things get out of hand as the campaign proceeds? Sure they could.

This is the U.S.A. Riots-R-Us. Scaring people into supporting a strongman is Trump’s only real hope of running this scam all the way to the White House.

“For the Manhattan billionaire,” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough commented in the Washington Post, “manufactured chaos is just as profitable for his brand as Paris Hilton’s sex tape was for hers.”

Never mind that Scarborough and “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski until quite recently GENE fawned over LYONS Trump almost daily. He followed former Obama White House chief of staff Bill Daley (and son of Chicago Mayor-for-Life Richard J. Daley) in suggesting that the candidate scheduled a campaign event on the inner-city University of Illinois-Chicago campus precisely “for the purpose of provoking protests that would energize Trump’s own supporters.”

Let’s you and him fight. Worked perfectly, too. Does it matter that the students who boasted of their ability to shut the Trump rally down are Bernie Sanders supporters? No, but it figures.

As Scarborough also correctly observed, they’re political naifs who got played, giving Trump a fine opportunity to whine “on cable news channels about how his First Amendment rights were being violated. He was doing all of this while reaching a far larger audience than he could have ever done while actually speaking at a rally.”

Sanders would do well to emphasize to supporters his own reverence for free speech rights, which I do not doubt.

Why give the bully a chance to play at being the real victim?

On his Esquire Politics blog, my man Charles P. Pierce addressed the issue with characteristic understatement: “Let’s all stipulate that chanting for Bernie Sanders while you’re shutting down a Trump rally is just about as stupid a political move as there is.”

You want to protest? Fine. Pierce suggested setting up picket lines outside the arena. “Stop being played for such suckers. Stop enlisting yourself in his bloody vaudeville.”

Meanwhile, let’s remain calm, shall we? This is nothing close to 1968, that annus horribilis in American life. No Vietnam War, with its hundreds of conscripted dead every week. No cities in flames, and prayerfully nothing like the Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations that broke the nation’s heart.

A handful of hotheads at Trump rallies shouldn’t blind us to the fact, as President Obama recently pointed out, that the angriest people in America are those without a clue about what’s actually going on.

The Trump phenomenon

T

he political pundits are scratchthe past 55 years. ing their heads as to why DonWhen I was born in 1960, the popuald Trump is doing so well in his quest to become the Republican lation of the U.S. presidential nominee. Trump’s politiwas 85 percent white, 10 percal gaffes would have doomed the camAUSTIN paign of any other political candidate. cent black, 3 perPORTER He started his campaign by attacking cent Latino and Latinos and later Sen. John McCain (R2 percent other. Today, non-Hispanic Ariz.) But Teflon Don’s popularity conwhites make up only 63.7 percent of tinues to grow, especially when he talks the population. It is estimated that by about building a wall on our southern the year 2060, whites will make up just border to keep out Latinos and promis43 percent of the U.S. population. That ing to deport 11 million undocumented trend is causing fear among some of the immigrants (mostly Latinos). Trump electorate. Trump is seen as the “Great even promises that White Hope,” who the Mexican gov- The Republican Party will protect white ernment will pay America’s majority status. In the to build the wall. is running a raceAlthough his supminds of so many baiting campaign by porters know that whites, Trump can do no wrong he cannot deliver stating “we want our because he is on his outlandish the one who will promises, they still country back” and support him. keep whites as the majority race.

Teflon Don says “let’s make America that he can stand In the minds great again.” in the middle of of Trump and his Times Square and ardent supporters, shoot someone and not lose a vote. The America was great when it was 85 percent white and when the vast majority latest controversy to surround him came when he refused to denounce the of immigrants who came to this country Ku Klux Klan during an interview with were from Europe. When the Statute Jake Tapper of CNN. When Trump was of Liberty was erected in the United asked about certain white supremacist States, 88 percent of the immigrants groups endorsing him, rather than saywere European. These are the immiing, “I do not want their support,” he grants that Trump says he wants. Today, said that he needed to research these only 12 percent of the immigrants come groups, to determine whether it would from Europe, and over 50 percent come be appropriate to disavow their support. from Latin American countries.

Are there white supremacist groups that As Pew Research stated, “[S]hiftTrump favors? Again, nothing seems to ing demographics may cause fear or a stick to Teflon Don. tendency to become more conservative The Republican Party has adopted on the part of white Americans.” This a strategy that consists of stoking the is the reason that so many whites have fears of white America. The Republileft the Democratic Party, because it is a can Party accuses President Obama of party of diversity. No matter how hard being divisive, but Republicans have Republican presidential candidates seek the “Divider-in-Chief,” Donald Trump, out the few African Americans in the crowd, the Republican Party is still an poised to be its nominee. The Republioverwhelmingly white party. can Party is running a race-baiting campaign by stating “we want our country The RNC also realizes that withback” and “let’s make America great out significant support from the Latino again.” Implicit in these slogans is that community, it cannot recapture the America has been taken over by blacks White House. This is one reason why and Latinos — to its detriment.

Trump is causing a crisis within the According to United States census Republican Party. data and the Pew Research Center, the U.S. has become more diverse over Austin Porter Jr. is a Little Rock lawyer.

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MARCH 17, 2016

9

PEARLS ABOUT SWINE

Hogs in review

I

n the final summation, and after the Arkansas Razorbacks finished their 2015-16 campaign Thursday with another nipand-tuck loss to Florida to bow quickly out of the SEC tournament, I made this observation by way of the so-called “Facebooks”: “They were every bit of 16-16, 9-9. Average.

Good at home for the most part, but mistake-prone even there. Feisty on the road, but unable to finish.”

And as I posted that, I felt secure enough in it to carry it forward to print. That’s the grand summation here, with an undercurrent of disdain, frankly, for the fact that even in being .500, Arkansas couldn’t just do it by beating bad teams and losing to better ones. Instead, there had to be teasers all year, both toward unexpected excellence and embarrassing pitfalls.

The Hogs doomed themselves, to be quite fair, with a wretched nonconference effort. Six losses, only one against an NCAA Tournament qualifier (Dayton), and nothing distinguished about the six victories that preceded SEC play. In prior years, Arkansas could have survived a .500 showing in league games by simply winning 10 or 11 against out-of-conference foes. Even beating Texas Tech later in the year to secure one of only three SEC wins in the 10-game challenge with the Big 12 didn’t carry much cause for hoopla.

Had Arkansas been able to wrest victory from the jaws of defeat against the likes of Stanford, Mercer, Wake Forest and Dayton, two benefits would have been extracted: The first is that the team would’ve launched into SEC play with a 10-2 record, and would’ve ended up hitting the 20-win mark in all likelihood, which would have at the very least placed it in the NIT field. The second, more critical development would have been a knack for closing out tight ones, instead of the inverse trend that developed, and it might’ve even been parlayed into some additional SEC victories, namely against the likes of Georgia and Florida on the road, or Auburn at home.

Eight losses by four or fewer points all season, that was the drumbeat that got sounded early and then often when the Hogs scuffled in tight games. Even when the Razorbacks basically noshowed in Mississippi, losing to the 10

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

two schools there by a combined 49 points, and then wasted plum chances at Bud Walton to notch BEAU meaningful wins WILCOX against Kentucky and South Carolina, the mesmerizing and maddening propensity to falter in the final minutes was the signature of the season.

It also bedeviled LSU, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Ole Miss, too. Those teams at various junctures looked like they could sit on, or squeeze through, the proverbial bubble. All ended up on the outside, with only Vanderbilt getting a nod behind Texas A&M and Kentucky, and the Commodores were among the last four in and have to wrestle with a play-in game this week, too.

Arkansas, it stands to reason, should be better than all of those programs when the adages about ice-water veins and steely nerves are invoked. The Tide and the Gators had new coaches.

LSU had a complete dearth of chemistry, chargeable to Prof. Johnny Jones, who had no sense of how to govern the nation’s premier talent. Gamecocks, Rebels, Bulldogs … all decent enough teams, but in terms of style and leadership, arguably lacking compared with the Hogs, or what the Hogs should be.

The season is over because Mike Anderson was infatuated with playing the thoroughly ineffectual Keaton Miles when Trey Thompson would have benefited more from the court time. Or because he would at varying points late in the year have all three of his proven scorers resting simultaneously. Or because he would grimace and place his hands on his hips, when he should’ve been woofing and pointing at officials who continue to denigrate the conference at large by officiating so wretchedly as to create murmurs in Vegas rather than credibility in Birmingham.

An alleged nucleus of Moses Kingsley, Dusty Hannahs and unproven junior college talent seem poised to take the floor come autumn 2016. And for Anderson’s sake, that group has no choice but to deliver a return bid to the NCAA Tournament at a bare minimum. Short of that, we’ll be discussing a job search in this spot in 12 months.

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3/16 – 3/

22

THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

I want to believe

I

t has been interesting around The Observatory recently, what with Junior, now 16, having found his political wings.

The Observer’s own withered and dropped off some years ago, stunted by our heartfelt belief that Arkansas politics is steadily headed for Lowest Common Denominator Hell in a handbasket (and may well have been there for some time now), and our growing suspicion that if you don’t have at least $12 million in your checking account, you’re never going to be able to influence the political process anyway. A graying and cynical fart is Junior’s Old Man these days.

It has been a joy, however, to watch Junior have his Great Political Awakening, his mother and I shushing him when he’s moved to cuss at Trump, playing Devil’s Advocate when he wants to discuss the finer points of the Iowa Caucus turnout, listening at the dinner table when he goes on diatribes about the 10,000 ways Mike Huckabee is bad for America, or wanders off into Electoral College Math crystal-gazing.

A passionate son, then, as is his birthright. We remember boring our own Old Man — who was the great originator of our own cynicism about politics — when we were but a lad. Junior, though is much smarter about it than we were; deeper and more informed; a child of the Internet Age, with the vast and limitless knowledge of mankind literally at his speedy fingertips.

He knows the ways of Google Fu. Like a lot of young folks, the majority of Junior’s current enthusiasm about politics these days is a result of the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, that kooky-haired septuagenarian from Vermont with all the crazy ideas. You know, ideas like: People in the richest country in the world shouldn’t leave college with more debt than if they’d bought a beach house instead of tools to help push the wheel of the American economy.

Junior is nuts about Bernie and his chances, watching the Democratic debates the way most kids his age might watch a Razorback game, doing all but hissing and booing every statement from Hillary Clinton. He has convinced himself Hillary is the Sauron to Bernie’s Frodo Baggins, the two of them locked in a struggle to either wield or destroy the One Ring to

Rule Them All. To some extent, our young lad has convinced us of that, God help us.

He’s made his Old Man give a damn about politics for once.

What we haven’t had the heart to tell him, of course, is that in a country where it costs literally a half-billion dollars to run for a job that pays $400,000 a year, a guy talking sense about tearing down the growing oligarchy probably doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the presidency, even if he hadn’t been calling himself a socialist since LBJ was in the office he hopes to win. And yes, just for the record, The Observer understands the difference between being a socialist and being a democratic socialist. As Junior has explained to us ad infinitum, the vast majority of Americans are democratic socialists as well — lovers of paved highways, public schools, air traffic control and firetrucks. But good luck trying to split that hair with your average voter, so easily swayed by ominous music and TV ad monster shouting.

As much as Junior is feeling the Bern, it’s probably going to be Hillary for the nomination, and Hillary taking the oath of office next January, if the Republican Party goes through with its suicide mission of nominating an orange-haired reality TV buffoon whose answer to any question is to talk about the size of his John Thomas and say: “It’s going to be GREAT, OK? Fabulous.

You’ll see.” Hillary’s going to eat his lunch in the debates, and he will deserve every moment of that ass kicking.

Still, The Observer will be damned if we don’t want to believe in Bernie.

Junior’s enthusiasm for the process and for his candidate has puffed a little breath onto the dim coal of our own belief in the electoral system, managing to push away — at least temporarily — our nagging fear that this country might be doomed to devolving into a theocratic nightmare, overseen by some Mussolini-esque clown and his corporate masters. Turns out all the newest generation of would-be voters needed was someone to believe in. There will be more of those, even if Bernie can’t take the White House this November.

Maybe that’s all the old and cynical hands like Yours Truly need, too.

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MARCH 17, 2016

11

Arkansas Reporter

THE

Ninth Street matters The killing of a black army sergeant by a white city policeman on West Ninth Street in 1942 led to the appointment of black officers.

BY JOHN A. KIRK

The crowd that had formed outside the first aid station followed the struggle between Foster and the military policemen. Some demanded Foster’s release.

Others attempted to free the sergeant.

In the melee, one of the military policemen lost his nightstick and drew a pistol.

When Foster saw the gun, he grabbed hold of its cylinder. The other military policeman then hit him over the head with his nightstick to make him let go.

During the scuffle, the pistol went off, and city policeman Hay fired his gun in the air to clear the crowd. Foster pulled

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ARKANSAS TIMES

ONE OF THE ‘MOST BESTIAL MURDERS’ IN LITTLE ROCK HISTORY: That’s how the Arkansas State Press, owned by Daisy and L.C. Bates (right), described the shooting of Sgt. Thomas Foster on West Ninth Street.

waiting to take him back to Camp Robinson.

Just as Glover exited, Sgt. Thomas P. Foster, a 25-year-old black North Carolinian, also on a pass from Camp Robinson, saw the commotion. He pushed through the crowd and demanded to know why the two white military policemen were being so rough. He told them he had direct orders from his superiors to investigate and take charge of any incidents occurring in town involving the men of the 92nd Engineers. One of the military policemen told Foster he could investigate later. The other offered to take Foster to speak with a superior. Foster stood his ground and insisted upon immediate justification for the heavy-handed treatment of Glover.

The military policemen placed Foster under arrest and attempted to remove him from the scene. Each grabbed an arm and dragged Foster down West Ninth Street. Foster broke loose. They grabbed him again and a fight ensued.

clear and stumbled across the road. A section of the crowd followed to find Foster backed up into an alcove in a churchyard.

Hay offered to go grab Foster and put him in the army truck. However, when military policemen parted the crowd, instead of apprehending Foster, Hay dived on top of him and another fight ensued. When it appeared that Foster was getting the better of Hay, the other policemen weighed in with their nightsticks, hitting Foster over the head repeatedly until he let go of the officer. Hay immediately stood up and emptied his gun into Foster’s prostrate body, hitting him with four shots, three in the stomach, one in the arm, with a fifth bullet going astray. He then filled and lighted his pipe, blowing smoke over the dying soldier’s body while an ambulance arrived. At the hospital, doctors operated on Foster, but he died a few hours later. While Foster received treatment, city policemen flooded into the black downtown area of West Ninth

ARKANSAS HISTORY COMMISSION

he recent furor over the stocking of Black Lives Matter T-shirts at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center shines a light on racial issues in Little Rock and particularly on West Ninth Street, the historic heart of the black community. Over the years, West Ninth Street has been a venue showcasing black achievements while also providing a stark reminder of racial divides and intolerance. The burning of lynching victim John Carter at the intersection of Ninth and Broadway in 1927 is one of the most well-know instances of racial violence in the city. But it is not the only one. Seventy-four years ago this month, the shooting of a black army sergeant by a white city policemen on West Ninth Street caused uproar in the city and led to the appointment of the first black police officers in Little Rock in the modern era.

The incident began on March 22, 1942, when Pvt. Albert Glover of the 92nd Engineers was on West Ninth Street with a weekend pass from Camp Robinson.

Enjoying his free time rather too much, Glover got drunk. When two white military policemen sought to take him back to base, he resisted. Two white city policemen, Abner J. Hay and George Henson, intervened by beating Glover over the head with their nightsticks. The military policemen took Glover to a nearby first aid station for treatment. The altercation drew a mainly black crowd of about 400 people. City policeman Henson stood outside the first aid station with his gun drawn and trained upon them.

Inside, Glover remained uncooperative. He refused to submit to treatment and insisted that he would not leave the downtown area until he found “the boy I came into town with.” The military police dragged him outside to a truck

Street to quell what the Arkansas Gazette termed a “riot” that followed.

The following day, investigations of the incident began. In Little Rock, Chief of Police J.A. Pitcock and deputy coroner Dr. C.C. Reed Jr. took charge. At Camp Robinson, a Board of Inquiry was set up to determine if Foster had died in the line of duty. While military investigations were still underway, within three days the city investigation ruled the shooting a “justifiable homicide.” Reed said that statements given by the military police corroborated Hay’s testimony “in every detail” that Foster had grabbed Hay’s nightstick and was about to attack him when the policeman shot in self-defense. As far as the white authorities in Little Rock were concerned, this ended the matter.

The reaction from the black community was very different. The Arkansas State Press, owned by L.C. and Daisy Bates, reported the shooting of Foster as one of the “most bestial murders in the annals of Little Rock tragedies.” A Negro Citizens’ Committee (NCC) was formed to investigate. The NCC formally delivered its report findings on Sunday, March 29, at the First Baptist Church in Little Rock.

A large crowd gathered for the meeting, with blacks from all sections of the state turning up to hear the evidence. Secretary of the NCC, J.H. McConico, read out the principal findings of the investigation.

First, Foster was unarmed and lying on the ground when Hay shot him and “regardless of what had transpired previously, the shooting was unjustifiable.” Second, the white military police stood “idly by” and did not offer proper protection. Third, no rioting had taken place in the aftermath of the shooting as reported in the white newspapers. The meeting ended with a resolution to send the report, along with a petition for a more thorough investigation of events, to the mayor of Little Rock, the Little Rock prosecuting attorney and the U.S. district attorney. Copies also went to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and the commanding general at Camp Robinson.

Little Rock prosecuting attorney Sam Robinson promised a thorough investigation of Foster’s death. Yet no fewer than four subsequent city reports returned the same verdict of justifiable homicide.

Continued pressure from the Arkansas State Press and the NAACP’s national office, together with the national news

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headlines that the case began to attract, finally helped to bring federal intervention.

Inspector General of the War Department Virgil L. Peterson reviewed the Camp Robinson investigation and found significant conflict between its findings and those of city officials. Although the Camp Robinson report stated that Foster’s death was a result of “misconduct” since he “unlawfully resisted arrest,” it also criticized the military policemen’s handling of the situation with Pvt. Glover. More importantly, the report found fault with the actions of Hay, who “was too hasty in opening fire [and] his further action of firing three more shots into the body of Sergeant Foster and then lighting his pipe nearly caused a riot and are major factors in the present state of tension existing between the two races in this area at the present time.” Peterson’s office was informally advised that the Civil Rights Section of the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice was interested in the case since the circumstances surrounding the shooting seemed to be “far from justifiable.”

In late 1942, the case against Hay came before a federal grand jury. U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle sent a special assistant, Frank Patton, to present the case. On the opening day of proceedings, blacks packed a crowded courtroom.

Judge Thomas C. Trimble advised the 23 jurors, including only three token blacks, to use “common sense” in returning a verdict. Trimble said they should only indict Hay if it “would ... serve some useful purpose.” After hearing testimony from 25 of the 43 witnesses called, including 10 blacks, it took just two days for the jury to reach its verdict. The shooting, the grand jury reported, had been “investigated, considered, and ignored” by a vote of 19 to 4.

Testimony from white witnesses that indicated Hay had only fired at Foster when under attack partly helped to secure the police officer’s release. Of more influence in the case, the attorney general’s office concluded, was the “strong racial sentiment” involved, together with the ploy of the defense attorney in announcing that Hay had enrolled into the Army. These two factors — the racial element and the sense of not serving “some useful purpose” by indicting a white soldier — allowed Hay to escape scot-free.

The verdict of the grand jury left Little Rock’s black citizens far from satis-

fied. The Arkansas State Press called for the instatement of black police officers in black areas. The campaign proved so popular that white city businessmen, fearful of the negative impact it might have on the city’s image, attempted to put the paper out of circulation by withholding advertising revenue. When that failed, they offered a direct bribe to editor L.C. Bates to let up on the criticism. The Bateses weathered the boycott, refused the bribe, and continued to campaign for black police officers. When a new detachment of black troops arrived at Camp Robinson in August 1942, their white commanding officer Maj. Richard Donovan joined the Bateses in calling for change.

Donovan told businessmen that white city police officers should “make less use of the night-stick technique of reasoning with black soldiers.” Donavan also advocated the hiring of black police officers. The pressure finally led to the appointment of black police officers to patrol West Ninth Street, over substantial opposition from the Little Rock Police Association (LRPA).

The LRPA complained, in an effort to guard total white supremacy on the force, that black police officers would not strictly police black areas. Eventually, eight black policemen were hired with limited powers of arrest.

The black officers hired were not the first to patrol Little Rock. It seems that blacks had played some role in policing since the city’s early founding, a presence that significantly increased during the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. However, as Jim Crow racial segregation took hold in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the presence of black officers rapidly declined. It hit zero by 1920. The reappointment of black officers paved the way for a new era of black policing. The number of black officers slowly expanded. In 1978, the Little Rock Black Police Officers Association was formed.

Today, Little Rock has a black chief of police, Kenton Buckner. Nevertheless, despite the progress made, issues of race and policing, as the current Black Lives Matter movement demonstrates, remain contentious both in the city and throughout the nation.

John A. Kirk is the George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History and director of UALR’s Institute on Race and Ethnicity.

REMOVED, THEN RESTOCKED: Black Lives Matter T-shirts at the MTCC.

Screamprinting “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts pulled, then returned to the MTCC.

BY DAVID KOON

T

o be fair to the Department of Arkansas Heritage, “Black Lives Matter” — the slogan printed on T-shirts that were pulled from the gift shop of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center — is a whole lot more than a T-shirt slogan at this point. If you need an explanation of why that’s so, you haven’t been paying attention to the news of late. The question, however, is: Does the meaning of “Black Lives Matter” justify removal of T-shirts printed with the slogan from sale at a state-owned facility that celebrates the black experience in Arkansas?

The issue with the T-shirts first came to light after Arkansas Times received a tip saying the items, which had been sold in the gift shop since mid-November according to a post on the MTCC Facebook page, had been pulled from shelves at the direction of senior staff at the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

We reached out to Quantia Fletcher, interim director of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, who confirmed that the shirts had been removed week before last at the direction of her supervisor, who she identified as DAH deputy director Rebecca Burkes.

“We understand that everybody doesn’t necessarily agree with the Black Lives Matter movement,” Fletcher said. “So, even getting the shirts and getting the Black Lives Matter items, we have to think about whether or not it would be an item that was something that may cause people to feel a particular way — whether or not we were being culturally sensitive, and to make sure we’re having items in our store that kind of fit with the mission of the museum, which is to collect and preserve and educate about Arkansas African-American history.”

Fletcher said she was unaware of any complaints from visitors about the shirts, and said she personally does not find the “Black Lives Matter” slogan or campaign offensive, adding that it is part of black history.

“We tell the complete story of African-American history,” she said, “and sometimes that story isn’t always celebratory. Sometimes that story isn’t one that everybody wants to talk about.

Sometimes, it’s a story that is untold, or the story that’s rarely told. So what we try to do is always think about, OK, how can we best share the story of African Americans in Arkansas? It comes in all different forms.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 46 www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

13

BRIAN CHILSON

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

AN OLD STANDBY: The Plato 1947 at Heights Taco and Tamale Co., including a cheese enchilada, tamale, chicken taco, guacamole tostada, refried beans and green chile rice (with an Arkansas flag mounted in the tamales).

14

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

2016 READERS

CHOICE AWARDS Our readers have spoken. Once again, the Arkansas Times presents your choices for the best places to dine in Arkansas, from burgers to boeuf bourguignon. We’ve got your overall favorite place: The Pantry. We’ve got your choice for chef: Scott McGehee. And bakeries, barbecue joints, brunch spots and other bests.

We’ve fleshed out our list with articles on Star of India, whose owner, Sami Lal, knows your name; new juice bars, where concoctions of roots and fruits help you up your game.

For food truck aficianados, there’s a near comprehensive list of when and where you can find your favorites. We say ole to La Hacienda’s veinte anniversary. Keep a copy in the glove box next time you can’t decide where to dine out, and let the readers guide you.

START HERE

Overall

LITTLE ROCK Winner: The Pantry Finalists: Big Orange, Brave New Restaurant, Boulevard Bistro, Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co. AROUND THE STATE: Winner: The Hive (Bentonville) Finalists: 28 Springs (Siloam Springs) Arkansas Fresh Bakery Cafe (Bryant), Mike’s Place (Conway), Rolando’s Restaurant (Hot Springs)

New LITTLE ROCK Winner: Heights Taco and Tamale Co. Finalists: @ the Corner, Boulevard Bistro, La Terazza Rum & Lounge, Lulu’s Latin Rotisserie and Grill AROUND THE STATE: Winner: Oven & Tap (Bentonville) Finalists: The Grotto (Eureka Springs), Pasta Grill (Russellville)

Chef LITTLE ROCK Winner: Scott McGehee (Big Orange, Heights Taco and Tamale Co., Local Lime, Lost Forty, ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co.) Finalists: Matthew Bell (South on Main), Peter Brave (Brave New Restaurant), Ben Brainard (Heights Taco and Tamale Co., Local Lime), Chris McMillan (Boulevard Bistro), Jeffrey Owen (Ciao Baci) AROUND THE STATE: Winner: Matthew McClure (The Hive) Finalists: Diana Bratton (Cafe 1217), Tyler Hensley (Postmasters Grill, Camden), Rob Nelson (Tusk & Trotter, BenCONTINUED ON PAGE 18 www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

15

BRIAN CHILSON

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

A FAMILY AFFAIR: La Hacienda owner Ignacio Alvarez and his son, Angel.

Fresca, dulce, verde Twenty years of La Hacienda.

BY BENJAMIN HARDY

I

n 1990, four young brothers working in a San Diego kitchen loaded up their car and headed east to seek their fortune in Hot Springs. Ignacio Alvarez, 22 at the time, had never heard of the state, and neither he nor his brothers spoke more than a few words of English. But their brother-inlaw, who worked on a tree farm near Hot Springs, sensed an opportunity.

“He said, ‘Hey, let’s open a restaurant here. There’s nothing here.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ ” Sitting in a booth at the Little Rock branch of La Hacienda that he’s operated for the past 20 years, Alvarez remembered the trip and smiled. “It was an amazing experience. No English — nothing. We don’t have GPS. We got a map, and my brother said, ‘Look: Arkansas.’ ” He stabbed a finger on the tabletop to illustrate. “We put the line on the map. He said, ‘Get on Highway 16

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

40, and don’t get off.’ We said, ‘OK.’ ” And with that, La Hacienda was born.

Alvarez’s brother-in-law, Luis Oseguera, must possess remarkable powers of persuasion, because the rest of the family soon followed from Mexico.

Four more brothers, four sisters and their mother journeyed north from their hometown of Cotija, in Michoacán — a verdant state on the southcentral Pacific coast sometimes called “the soul of Mexico” — to pitch in.

None of them had experience in the restaurant business, Alvarez said.

“I remember somebody at a table asking for a spoon. I go tell my brotherin-law, ‘Hey, I don’t know what he wants.’ He explained to us, ‘This is the spoon, this is the fork, this is the knife.’

That’s when we started learning.

“We try to do the best we can, you know? When we opened in Hot Springs, the customers were very

patient for us. Because, when I was in Hot Springs, there were no Mexicans around. We’re talking about 1990. …

You know, we did not communicate very good. But my brother-in-law, he’s running everywhere trying to explain to people.”

In 1996, with six years of trial-byfire experience under their belts, Alvarez and two of his brothers moved to Little Rock to open a second Hacienda on Rebsamen Park Road. A few months later, they found a larger building on Cantrell Road that previously housed a Pizza Hut. Alvarez has been there ever since, turning out plates that have become staples for a generation of Little Rock residents — silky queso and succulent carnitas, pillowy Spanish rice and impossibly rich refried beans.

Everything is served with bottomless bowls of not one but three salsas: an uncommonly delicious pico de gallo (the fresca), a sweet stew of tomatoes and onions (the dulce) and a fiery green concoction (the verde) that begs to be swirled into the cheese dip. The salsa

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

@ heightstaco

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

17

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

SPRING FORWARD WITH BETTER HEALTH. Spring is just around the corner and that means getting out and doing the things you enjoy. Don’t let chronic back pain keep you from working in the garden, taking long walks or heading to the lake. It’s time for you to see Dr. Bev! We can help you feel better, get you up, get you out and get you going for a great, pain-free Springtime!

DR. BEV FOSTER

CHIROPRACTIC HEALTH & REHAB 2701 West Markham Street Little Rock, Arkansas 72205 (501) 371-0152 • DrBevFoster.com ARKANSAS TIMES 4 201

2014

B

OF THE

tonville), Luke Wetzel (Oven & Tap)

(Leslie), Sugarbelles Cupcakes (Ward)

Bakery

Barbecue

LITTLE ROCK Winner: Community Bakery Finalists: Boulevard Bread Co., Brown Sugar Bake Shop, Rosalia’s Family Bakery, Silvek’s European Bakery AROUND THE STATE: Winner: Arkansas Fresh Bakery Cafe (Bryant) Finalists: Ambrosia Bakery Co. (Hot Springs), Apple Blossom Brewing Co. (Fayetteville), Serenity Farm Bread

LITTLE ROCK Winner: Whole Hog Cafe Finalists: Corky’s BBQ, HB’s Bar-B-Q, Lindsey’s Hospitality House and Barbecue (North Little Rock), Sims BarB-Que AROUND THE STATE: Winner: McClard’s Bar-B-Q Restaurant (Hot Springs) Finalists: Craig’s Bar-B-Q (DeValls Bluff), Jones’ BarB-Q Diner (Marianna), Mean

CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

We’re Honored!

We look forward to serving you.

BEST NEW – AROUND THE STATE: RUSSELLVILLE • BEST ITALIAN – AROUND THE STATE: RUSSELLVILLE BEST ITALIAN – AROUND THE STATE: CONWAY • BEST RESTAURANT – CONWAY

915 Front St. Conway, AR | 501.205.8751 | pastagrillconway.com 319 West Main Street | Russellville, AR | 479.967.1707

18

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

verde is composed of “tomatillos, and green jalapenos, and Mom’s secret,” Alvarez said with a laugh.

According to Alvarez, his mother’s presence in the early years exerted a lasting influence on most dishes La Hacienda serves today. “She said, ‘Any kind of food you make — just do it with love.’ And she put the little spices on it, to make it close to Michoacán food.”

Which raises a question — how exactly do you classify La Hacienda’s fare? With its chimichangas and crispy tacos, much of the menu sounds like fairly standard issue Tex-Mex, but the food is too vibrant for the label; there’s no school bus-colored nacho cheese or Hormel chili to be seen. On the other hand, you won’t see tripe or lengua, either. It’s a menu that was originally tailored around Southern conceptions of what “Mexican food” means, but with an eye toward something fresher and truer to form — not so much Americanized Mexican as a sort of re-Mexicanized Tex-Mex, maybe.

Whatever it is, it works. In addition to the restaurant in Riverdale, the Hot Springs location is still around and a third Hacienda operates in Benton.

All are still family-owned, though

each runs essentially independently of the others. (An Alvarez brother also operates another Michoacán-accented restaurant in downtown Little Rock, Cotijas, which is open for lunch on weekdays only.) Now, Alvarez said, of the 15 employees at the Cantrell Road La Hacienda, only one is a member of his family. Longtime patrons know, though, that his workers tend to stick around.

“We try to keep them. … I try to teach my employees, because they’re the same as [me] when I started. They don’t speak very good English. I do everything for those guys — to help with the doctor, the bank, to be their driver. They need somebody to help.

And that’s why they’re still here — because I’m worried for those guys.

And I worry for their families — in Mexico, in Guatemala. We take care of those, too.”

Despite its evident success, the small empire forged by the Alvarez family has had its setbacks along the way. The Central Arkansas faithful will remember a Conway La Hacienda and another in West Little Rock, both since closed.

The issue was quality control, Ignacio said. He and his brothers are fiercely

BRIAN CHILSON

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

protective of the brand they’ve established.

“We try to keep the same reputation we have here, with the service and the food. That is the most important for us. That’s why we don’t open too many restaurants. … We got a lot of complaints from the customers from Conway. ‘The food is not good, the service is not good.’ We go and check a couple times, and we decide to close.”

The Chenal Parkway location, he said, was “the same deal. We gave it to guys working here, and they did a great job

ESPECIALIDADES DE LA CASA: Alvarez shows off the milanesa de pollo and alambre al queso.

when they start. But later — they don’t care, and we say, ‘No.’ ” The family wants to return to Conway eventually, and eventually expand to points beyond. “We’re waiting for the opportunity to open another one,” Alvarez said. “I’ve got three sons right now in college, at U of A — maybe they’ll start to do it.”

Thanks again to Arkansas Times readers for your continued support and for recognizing Brave New Restaurant among the best in Arkansas year after year.

CHEF PETER BRAVE

BEST OVERALL BEST CHEF, PETER BRAVE BEST BUSINESS LUNCH BEST OUTDOOR DINING MOST ROMANTIC BEST SEAFOOD

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

19

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

Pineapple ice cream treats.

Keep track: Facebook.

Duh. Try the pineapple whip.

A guide to Arkansas food trucks A survey of the most active (or at least most of them).

E

very so often, we wonder: Have we reached peak food truck in Arkansas?

After all, there is a truck that started in Searcy and now travels to Little Rock that specializes in Alaskan dumplings. There is also a truck that sells a homemade ice cream sandwich made of peanut butter ice cream and potato chips stuffed inside chocolate chip cookies and covered in hot fudge; one that’s recent best seller is a hot dog topped with mac and cheese and strips of bacon; and one that’s lately been running a special featuring locally raised goat. There are food truck parks in Little Rock, Conway and Fayetteville, where there are two, and there are weekly and monthly meet-ups too numerous to keep track of (though we’ve taken a stab at it).

Just as soon as we think we’ve seen it all, someone starts selling sandwiches in homemade bread cones. That sounds delicious … and maybe a tad gimmicky. But isn’t that the beauty of the food truck? For a relatively modest entry fee, an enterprising cook can give a wacky idea a go. Many will fail. But sometimes concepts that sound like gimmicks catch fire. See this year’s readers’ choice for best food truck in Little Rock, The Southern Gourmasian: Justin Patterson’s Southern take on Asian fare has proved irresistible, and despite graduating to a brick-and-mortar space, he’s kept on trucking, with great success. May others follow in his path. And let us never forget about the less flashy, but often cheap and delicious taco and sandwich trucks that have been slinging straightforward fare long before food trucks became trendy. They’re less likely to participate in the meet-ups. Seek them out.

This list is far from complete. Trucks are born and die and come out of hibernation all the time. Also, there are a number of trucks in Fort Smith and some in Jonesboro and probably other midsized cities around the state, but we didn’t have the space to feature them.

Central Arkansas ALMOST FAMOUS SMOKE HOUSE & GRILL Conway

BEAST FOOD TRUCK Little Rock Locally sourced paleo fare.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-551-1154.

Try the homemade sausage with chimichurri.

BLACK HOUND BAR-B-Q Jacksonville Barbecue.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-353-5637.

Get the pork sandwich.

BRAGG’S BIG BITES Little Rock Fried fish.

Keep track: Facebook, 501-650-3779.

THE CLEAN EATERY Little Rock Local organic health food.

Keep track: Facebook, 501-259-5491.

Try the Thai peanut chicken.

THE CRAZY TACO Benton Tacos and more.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-303-0547.

Usual stop: 1130 Military Road.

Get the pastor tacos.

EL BUEN GUSTO Benton Pupusas and tacos.

Keep track: Facebook.

EL CUBANO LOCO Little Rock Cuban food.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-773-7678.

Try the classic Cuban sand-

Barbecue, burgers and Cajun fare.

Keep track: @almstfmsfoodtrk on Twitter and 501-733-4248.

Don’t pass up the Boudin balls.

wich.

ARKANSAS PINEAPPLE WHIP

EL JALAPEÑO

Conway and Sherwood

Little Rock

JOIN THE HERD! LET US HELP YOU MAKE YOUR HOBBY MORE FUN! • Beer, wine, cider and mead making supplies • Cheese making supplies • Pickling supplies • Hydroponic, indoor, organic and aquaponic gardening supplies • New and used items 501-725-5296 • Fax: 501-725-5298 • www.thewaterbuf falo.c om 106 S Rodney Parham Rd., Lit tle Rock, AR 72205 20

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

Thank You for Voting for us!

BEST NEW RESTAURANT BEST OTHER ETHNIC Come See us Today for Healthy, Fresh, Delicious Latin American Food.

315 N Bowman Rd, Ste 2 501-228-5564 • luluslatin.com

Tacos and more.

To order ahead: 501-772-7471.

Usual times and place: 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

Mon.-Sat., next to Cloverdale Liquor (9107 Chicot Road).

EMMA’S TAQUERIA Little Rock Tacos and more.

To order ahead: 501231-9879.

Usual times and place: 9:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Mon.-Sat., outside Vela’s Used Tire Shop, approximately 5100 Baseline Road.

Cash only.

EXCALIBURGER Little Rock Hamburgers Keep track: Facebook, @excaliburger on Instagram and Twitter.

There’s only one thing on the menu: The Excaliburger, two 2 oz. Creekstone beef patties, topped with lettuce, tomato, caramelized onions and a house sauce, on toasted challah buns.

FATHEAD BBQ Alexander Barbecue, burgers, fish and chicken.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-353-9565.

THE FOOD COMMANDER Hazen Barbecue, chicken, seafood and burgers.

Keep track: thefoodcommander.com, Facebook and 501-516-5929.

Get the pork tenderloin and commander beans.

FORK IN THE ROAD Little Rock Breakfast treats, wraps and sandwiches.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-410-4425.

Try the bacon cinnamon roll.

HONEY PIES Little Rock It’s more of a mobile pie stand than a

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

¡MUY BUENO!

¡MIL GR ACIAS A TODO S!

Award Winning Original Family Mexican

Thank You To Our Local Fans!

BEST M

EXICAN

®™

DA LITT L

E ROCK

BEST M

EXICAN A BEST RE ROUND THE S TATE STA BEST RE URANT, BENTO , HOT SPRINGS N STAURA .

NT, HOT /BRYANT. SPRING S.

© LA HACIENDA 2016

3024 Cantrell Rd. • Little Rock • (501) 661-0600 3836 Central • Hwy. 7 S. • Hot Springs • (501) 525-8203 Live Mariachi! Fri 6-9 • 17401 Interstate 30 • Benton • (501) 776-9959

, HACIEN

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

21

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS Open for Dinner 5 pm to 9pm Every Night

Thank you Arkansas for voting us the Best Restaurant in Eureka Springs!

Award Winning Ermilio’s is family friendly, with dozens of authentic Italian choices served in a casual, comfortable, just-like-home atmosphere. No reservations are taken…

Come as you are!

(479) 253-8806

BEST RESTAURANT, EUREKA SPRINGS BEST ITALIAN AROUND THE STATE

26 White Street • Eureka Springs Located on the upper Historic Loop, old Highway 62B, just a few short blocks from the Crescent Hotel. www.ermilios.com

Thanks For Voting Us The Best!

truck, but it’s a member of the scene.

Keep track: myhoneypies.com, Facebook and 501-6137950.

The chocolate fudge brownie pie is Honey Pies’ biggest hit.

HOT ROD WIENERS Austin Fancy hot dogs.

Keep track: hotrodwieners.com, @ hotrodwieners on Instagram and Twitter, Facebook and 870-210-6416.

Try the Mac Truck — a wiener topped with homemade macaroni and cheese and bacon.

KATMANDU MOMO Little Rock Nepalese dumplings and the fixin’s.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-351-4169.

You can’t wrong with any variety of dumpling (momo) with spicy potatoes (aloo) and spring rolls.

LA FINA EXPRESS Little Rock Tacos and more.

To order ahead: 501-562-2272.

Usual times and place: 9 a.m.-10 p.m. daily, 6920 Geyer Springs Road.

K-LIENTITOS Little Rock Tacos and more.

To order ahead: 501-475-6036.

Usual times and place: 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

Tue.-Thu., 10 a.m.-3 a.m., 6 p.m.-2 a.m.

Sun., outside Oasis Cantina & Sports Bar (7121 Geyer Springs Road).

Cash only.

KINCAID’S COFFEE MOST DOG FRIENDLY – AROUND THE STATE BEST MEXICAN – AROUND THE STATE

Little Rock Coffee and mini donuts.

Keep track: kincaids.coffee, Facebook and 501-725-2883.

LA VAQUERA BEST RESTAURANT IN HOT SPRINGS

Little Rock Tacos and more.

Usual time and place: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon.-Sat., in the parking lot of the South Heights Strip Mall, 4700 Baseline Road approximately.

Cash only.

LOBLOLLY CREAMERY 1209 Malvern Avenue • Hot Springs • (501) 624-6262 www.tacomama.net 22

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

Little Rock Gourmet ice cream served from a solar-

powered truck.

Keep track: loblollycreamery.com, Facebook, @loblollycreamery on Instagram, @weloveloblolly on Twitter and 3969609.

Try it all. You can’t go wrong.

LUNCHERIA MEXICANA ALICIA Little Rock Tacos and more.

MARIA GRILL TAQUERIA Little Rock Tacos and more.

Usual times and place: 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m.

Tue.-Sun., across from the Arkansas Beauty School, approximately 5100 Baseline Road.

Cash only.

OCKO’S HIBACHI ISLAND Little Rock Japanese fare.

Keep track: 501-940-9735.

Get the tempura shrimp.

RED RIVER CATERING Little Rock Barbecue, catfish and more.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-231-8433.

Get the catfish.

REPICCI’S ITALIAN ICE Little Rock Italian ice franchise.

Keep track: repicisitalianicelr.com and 501-416-4660.

THE RIB CAGE BBQ Hot Springs Barbecue.

Keep track: ribcagehs. com, Facebook and 501520-4030.

RICK’S BEIGNETS Little Rock Savory and sweet beignets. Look out for a brick-and-mortar soon.

Keep track: ricksbeignets.com, Facebook and 501-400-3838.

Check out the buffalo chicken beignet sliders.

ROAD HOG BBQ Conway Barbecue.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-977-3685.

ROXY’S TWISTED SANDWICHES Conway Cone sandwiches.

Keep track: roxystwistedsandwiches. com, Facebook and 501-258-3478.

Try the Who Dat? — mac and cheese

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

Thanks for the Compliments!

CAKES · PASTRIES DESSERTS BREADS · COFFEE

Downtown 1200 Main (I-630 & Main) 375-6418 West Little Rock 270 S. Shackleford 224-1656

BEST BAKERY

BEST COFFEE

communitybakery.com

Because Ordinary Chocolates Are Boring! is Arkansas’s finest chocolate, hand-crafted in the Belgian style by the folks at Arkansas Fresh Bakery.

THANKS FOR VOTING US ONE OF THE BEST!

BEST DESSERT – AROUND THE STATE *6 piece *12 piece *24 piece and *custom orders for corporate gifts 501-847-6638 FOOD TRUCK FARE: (Clockwise from top left:) Chunky Dunk, The Mac Truck from Hot Rod Weiners and ribs from Southern Salt.

and Andouille sausage in a homemade bread cone.

SLADER’S ALASKAN DUMPLINGS Searcy Dumplings. The truck is in hibernation until April 1.

Keep track: sadcoak.com, Facebook, @ sadcoak on Instagram and Twitter and 501-203-4070.

Try ’em all: Dumplings, flavored with curry powder and chili sauce, come in beef, chicken and potato.

THE SOUTHERN GOURMASIAN Little Rock Southern U.S.-style Asian fare.

Keep track: thesoutherngourmasian. com, Facebook, @thesoutherngourmasian on Instagram and @SGourmasian

on Twitter.

Get the pork buns.

Check us out on Facebook to find a complete list of Cocoa Rouge retailers in your area.

Come see what all the buzz is about and visit our award winning Arkansas Fresh Cafe for breakfast, lunch, dinner or take-out dinners. Open 6:30 am - 7:00 pm.

SOUTHERN SALT CO. Little Rock Local gourmet breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-351-3838.

Start with the vegetarian Kitchen Sink sub.

BEST BAKERY • BEST DELI/GOURMET-TO-GO BEST SANDWICH • BEST RESTAURANT IN BENTON/BRYANT

TAQUERIA JALISCO SAN JUAN Little Rock Tacos and more.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-541-5533.

Usual spot: 11200 W. Markham St. (in the parking lot of Colonial Wines and Spirits).

Try the suadero (beef) tacos.

THE VEG Little Rock

BEST OVERALL

501-847-6638 501-213-0084 1506 N Prickett Road · Bryant 304 N. Reynolds Road, Ste. 5 • Bryant www.arkansasfresh.com www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

23

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS Vegetarian and vegan fare from the former River Market vendor turned food truck.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-838-3634.

Get the veggie burger.

WAFFLE WAGON Little Rock Savory and sweet waffles.

Keep track: Facebook and 501-3193132.

Go for Pigs! — half a waffle stuffed with lil’ smokies and topped with spicy brown mustard.

THE WUNDERBUS Bryant German fare.

Keep track: thewunderbusfoodtruck. com, Facebook and 501-920-0173.

Try the Jane Eyre — schnitzel served on a buttered bun with house mustard.

TAQUERIA SAMANTHA 1, 2 AND 3 Taco truck triumvirate Usual places: No. 1 parks outside of Welspun at 9301 Frazier Pike, catering to the working man; No. 2 stays at 7521 Geyer Springs Road; No. 3 is outside The Home Depot at 11 Mabelvale Plaza Drive.

Cash only.

Northwest Arkansas A SPOONFUL Bentonville Desserts, soups and sandwiches.

Keep track: Facebook; only open for special events.

Try the Bumblebee pie.

BURTON’S COMFORT CREAMERY Fayetteville Premium soft-serve ice cream.

Keep track: Facebook and Instagram @burtonscreamery.

Usual stop: Shulertown.

The Michael Jackson, soft-serve ice cream rolled in crushed Oreos and Nilla Wafers, is the best seller.

CHARLY’S TAQUERIA Springdale Tacos and more.

Keep track: Facebook, 479-751-7888.

CHUNKY DUNK A MILK AND COOKIES TRUCK 24

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

Fayetteville Cookies, ice cream and milk.

Keep track: Facebook and 903-9410808.

Try the Mork and Minty, a chocolate chip cookie and sugar cookie sandwich, with fresh mint chip ice cream inside, rolled in M&Ms and topped with chocolate sauce.

CRAZY PEAR Bentonville Wraps and salads.

Keep track: Facebook and 479-4452103.

Get the lime-poached salmon salad or wrap.

CREPES PAULETTE Bentonville Sweet and savory crepes.

Keep track: Facebook, @ crepespaulette on Instagram and Twitter, 479250-1110 Usual stop: 213 N.E. A St. (across from 21C); a brick-and-mortar is coming later this year at 706 S. Main, but the plan is to keep the truck going.

Go for la bête (the beast), made of Black Forest ham, genoa salami or grilled chicken, bacon bits, mild cheddar and eggs.

THE GREEN GOAT Fayetteville “Cuban food with Ozark soul.”

Keep track: greengoatgourmet.com, Facebook, @greengoatgourmet on Instagram and 479-310-5444.

Usual stop: Yacht Club (617 N. College Ave.).

Try the classic Cuban.

MA MERE’S FRENCH KITCHEN AND CREPERIE Fayetteville This French bistro to-go is a sister truck of The Green Goat.

Keep track: Facebook and 479-3105444.

Usual stop: Yacht Club.

Try the beignet bites.

NATURAL STATE SANDWICHES Fayetteville Really tall sandwiches.

Keep track: naturalstatesandwiches. com, Facebook and 479-435-5312.

Usual stop: 693 W. North St. How ’bout the Mango Jalapeno Bird — oven-roasted spicy chicken breast,

FOOD TRUCK PARKS Shulertown 372 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville

Conway Food Truck 1023 Main St. Opens April 1 Check Facebook

Yacht Club on College 617 N. College Ave., Fayetteville yachtcluboncollege.com

The Food Truck @ Stop Station 801 801 S. Chester, Little Rock Check Facebook

MEETUPS Cuisine at Calvary 5700 Cantrell Road 5-8 p.m. every third Wednesday of the month.

Check Facebook.

Good Earth 16501 Cantrell Road 5-8 p.m. every first Thursday of the month.

Check Facebook Hillcrest Farmers Market 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd.

8 a.m.-noon every Saturday Check Facebook Main Street Food Truck Fridays

mango and jalapeño chutney, onion rings and balsamic salad on toasted ciabatta.

NOMAD’S NATURAL PLATE Springdale Keep track: Facebook and 479-435-5312.

Try the black bean falafel with risotto bites.

PRIATO PIZZERIA Bentonville Neapolitan pizza Keep track: Facebook

Capitol and Main 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. every Friday from April 15 through June 17. The Main Street Food Truck Festival, the largest truck gathering in the state, is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 26 this year.

St. Margaret’s Mondays 20900 Chenal Parkway 5-8 p.m. every fourth Monday of the month Westover Wednesdays 6400 Kavanaugh Blvd.

5-8 p.m. every second Wednesday of the month Check Facebook

Usual stop: 213 N.E. A St. (across from 21C) Go for the Margherita.

ZUPPA ZUPPA SOUP KITCHEN Fayetteville Soup Keep track: Facebook and 479-595-4898.

Usual spot: Yacht Club Try Isabel’s Misto Cubano, a tomato and lime broth with black beans, red and yellow pepper, purple onion, hominy and reduced peach and mango.

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

BEST FRIED CHICKEN

THANK YOU ARKANSAS TIMES READERS! WE THINK YOU’RE THE BEST!

(501) 372-2211 300 President Clinton Ave

(501) 400-8745 400 N Bowman Rd www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

25

Pig (Cabot), Penguin Ed’s (Fayetteville)

BEST STEAK

Brunch

THANK YOU FOR VOTING US BEST STEAK! Lunch: Mon- Fri 11am-2pm Dinner: Mon-Thur 5:30-9:30pm • Fri & Sat 5:30-10pm FULL BAR & PRIVATE PARTY ROOM 1023 West Markham • Downtown Little Rock 501-376-1195 • www.doeseatplace.net

LITTLE ROCK Winner: The Root Cafe Finalists: Boulevard Bistro, The Fold: Botanas and Bar, Loca Luna, Trio’s Restaurant Around the state Winner: The Venetian Dining Room, Arlington Hotel (Hot Springs) Finalists: Arsaga’s at the Depot (Fayetteville), The Hive (Bentonville), Mud Street Cafe (Eureka Springs), Oven & Tap (Bentonville)

Buffet LITTLE ROCK Winner: Star of India Restaurant Finalists: Al Seraj Mediterranean Restaurant, Franke’s Cafeteria, Larry’s Pizza, Panda Garden Restaurant AROUND THE STATE Winner: Dondie’s White River Princess (Des Arc) Finalists: Abe’s Ole Feed House (Benton), Brown’s Country Store & Restaurant (Benton), Kelley’s Restaurant (Wynne), The Skillet Restaurant (Mountain View)

Thank you

Arkansas

for voting for us!

BEST BRUNCH – AROUND THE STATE BEST COFFEE – AROUND THE STATE BEST RESTAURANT – EUREKA SPRINGS

22 S. Main St. Eureka Springs, AR 479.253.6732 mudstreetcafe.com 26

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

per Grill, La Terraza Rum & Lounge AROUND THE STATE Winner: The Hive (Bentonville) Finalists: Arsaga’s at the Depot (Fayetteville), Cafe 1217 (Hot Springs), Local Flavor (Eureka Springs), Mike’s Place (Conway)

Butcher LITTLE ROCK Winner: Hillcrest Artisan Meats Finalists: Edwards Food Giant, Hogg’s Meat Market, Kroger, Terry’s Finer Foods

Catfish LITTLE ROCK Winner: Flying Fish Finalists: Burge’s, The Faded Rose, Lassis Inn, South on Main AROUND THE STATE Winner: Dondie’s White River Princess (Des Arc) Finalists: The Catfish Hole (Fayetteville), Eat My Catfish (Benton), Flying Fish (Bentonville), Mr. Whiskers (Hot Springs)

Chinese

LITTLE ROCK Winner: Big Orange Finalists: Asher Dairy Bar, Buffalo Grill, David’s Burgers, The Root Cafe AROUND THE STATE: Winner: Hugo’s (Fayetteville) Finalists: David’s Burgers (Conway), CJ’s Butcher Boy Burgers (Russellville), Mike’s Place (Conway), The Hive (Bentonville)

LITTLE ROCK Winner: Fantastic China Finalists: Chi’s Chinese Cuisine, Mr. Chen’s Authentic Chinese Cooking, Fu Lin Chinese Restaurant, Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co. AROUND THE STATE Winner: Hunan Manor Restaurant (Fayetteville) Finalists: Jade China Restaurant (Conway), Madame Wu’s Hunan Restaurant (Russellville), New China (Mena), Wok Express (Hot Springs)

Business lunch

Coffee

Burger

LITTLE ROCK Winner: Capital Bar & Grill Finalists: Brave New Restaurant, Cache Restaurant, Cop-

LITTLE ROCK Winner: Mylo Coffee Co. Finalists: Andina Cafe, Bou-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

You're Cooking With the Best!

Ready to Get Cooking? Give us a call at 501.978.5000 or download our Entrée App at shop.benekeith.com

1200 Pike Ave. NLR, AR 72114 | benekeith.com 3 ISSUE DATE, 2011 • PUB TITLE

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

27

BRIAN CHILSON

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

SERVICE WITH A SMILE: Sammy greets Kina and James Drinkwater.

‘Welcome home!’

Working the floor with the nicest Little Rock restaurateur.

BY DAVID KOON

T

here’s only two kinds of service you remember when you leave a restaurant. The first is horrible service, server-on-a-bad-day service, “May I speak to a manager?” service. The other is the flip side of that: service so good it makes you leave feeling like you’ve made a friend instead of somebody to tip. Both of those (thankfully, in the case of the former) are rare. Rarer still, however, is service so good that people speak as much about it as they do the food.

That’s often the case, however, with Sami Lal, the owner of Little Rock’s Star of India. With a relentlessly buoyant personality and a photographic memory of the names and personal details of his repeat customers, Lal has made a name 28

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

for himself as one of the nicest guys in the Little Rock restaurant world, a trait that keeps folks coming back to his little home away from home.

Born in India north of Punjab, near the famed Golden Temple, Lal has been in the restaurant business since 1973, starting out supervising a continental cuisine restaurant in West Germany.

He eventually moved to Dallas, working in restaurants there for several years before coming to Little Rock to start Star of India. It’s been in the same location, in Westchase Plaza at 301 N. Shackleford Road, since 1993. Cozy and fragrant with spices, the restaurant is a longtime favorite of James Drinkwater, who was dining at the Star of India lunch buffet with his wife, Kina, on a recent Friday.

James said they drive there from Conway three times a week for the food and Lal’s hospitality.

“He’s very friendly,” Drinkwater said.

“He’s just like family. Sami is truly fivestar. You don’t get better service. … The attentiveness to the table, greeting you at the door, there’s absolutely no difference, other than that Sami is probably happier than any greeter at a fivestar restaurant.” Drinkwater said Star of India is his favorite Indian food in Arkansas. He’d never tried Indian cuisine until his daughter talked him into going to Star of India soon after the restaurant opened over 20 years ago. Since then he’s been a regular. “Medicine is taking note of the Indian spices and their health benefits,” Drinkwater said.

“I’ve had some problems with my weight, but I can eat a really well-balanced meal here and it doesn’t affect my weight at all. This is healthful.”

As we spoke, Lal was hard at work, often greeting those coming in by name or with his customary, booming “Hey, my brother!” or “Welcome home!” One customer who came in introduced Lal to his actual brother, with Lal telling

him: “Welcome to the world!”

I caught up with Lal as he sped around the almost-full restaurant, checking on tables and greeting those coming in the door. One of my first questions was the thing a lot of regulars are curious about: Given the hundreds of faces he sees week to week, how does he remember all those names?

“It’s a very tricky system,” he said with a big grin. “It just comes to my tongue to say the name.”

Lal said that though he loves the restaurant business, he really got into it because he genuinely likes seeing people happy, before and after a meal. “To be honest with you, it just makes me feel good to take care of the people, you know?” he said. “I always love people, and people blessing me. I love to take care of all the people who come to eat here.”

The job of the hardest working man in show business waits for no reporter, however. Soon, the door opened again.

He excused himself graciously as another group in coats stepped into the warmth of Sami’s presence, all smiles when he called them by name.

Congratulations To All The Readers Choice Award Winners and Runner-ups.

Inspired by the

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MARCH 17, 2016

29

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

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MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

levard Bread Co., Community Bakery, Mugs Cafe (North Little Rock), River City Coffee AROUND THE STATE Winner: Onyx Coffee Lab (Fayetteville) Finalists: Arsaga’s Fayetteville Coffee Roasters, Blue Sail Coffee (Conway), Jitterbug Coffeehouse (Heber Springs), Mud Street Cafe (Eureka Springs)

Deli/gourmet to go LITTLE ROCK Winner: Hillcrest Artisan Meats Finalists: Boulevard Bread Co., Good Food by Ferneau, Market at Caper’s, Jason’s Deli AROUND THE STATE Winner: Arkansas Fresh Bakery Cafe (Bryant) Finalists: Breitweiser’s Meat

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Desserts LITTLE ROCK Winner: Loblolly Creamery Finalists: Brown Sugar Bake Shop, Le Terraza Rum and Lounge, The Pantry, Trio’s Restaurant AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Charlotte’s Eats & Sweets (Keo) Finalists: Cocoa Rouge (Bryant), Arsaga’s at the Depot (Fayetteville), The Hive (Bentonville), Rolando’s Restaurant (Hot Springs)

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CONTINUED ON PAGE 32 www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

31

2016 READERS 2016 READERS CHOICECHOICE AWARDS AWARDS

TOP NOTCH HOME COOKIN’: From Homer’s West, the readers’ pick (along with its sister restaurant in East Little Rock).

AROUND THE STATE: Winner: Taco Mama (Hot Springs) Finalists: Crepes Paulette (Bentonville), Rolando’s Restaurant (Hot Springs)

Food truck LITTLE ROCK Winner: The Southern Gourmasian Finalists: Beast, Katmandu MoMo, Southern Salt Food 32

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

Co., Waffle Wagon AROUND THE STATE Winner: Crepes Paulette (Bentonville) Finalists: Hammontree’s Grillenium Falcon (Fayetteville), Natural State Sandwiches (Fayetteville), Nomad’s Natural Plate (Fayetteville), Truckin’ Delicious (Fort Smith)

LITTLE ROCK Winner: Big Orange Finalists: @ the Corner, Asher Dairy Bar, Boulevard Bistro, David’s Burgers AROUND THE STATE Winner: David’s Burgers (Conway) Finalists: The Hive (Bentonville), McClard’s Bar-BQ Restaurant (Hot Springs), Mike’s Place (Conway)

French fries

Fried chicken

LITTLE ROCK Winner: Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken Finalists: Bobby’s Country Cooking, Popeyes, Slim Chickens, Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack AROUND THE STATE Winner: A.Q. Chicken House (Fayetteville) Finalists: The Hive (Bentonville), Holly’s Country Cookin’ (Conway), Monte Ne Inn (Rogers), Oven & Tap (Bentonville)

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

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Depot (Fayetteville), Gaskins Cabin Steakhouse (Eureka Springs), The Hive (Bentonville), Mike’s Place (Conway)

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33

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

BEST BUFFET Around the State

The Skillet Restaurant Information: 870-269-3139 • OzarkFolkCenter.com

BEST BRUNCH: The Root Cafe once again took top honors.

AROUND THE STATE Winner: Greenhouse Grille (Fayetteville) Finalists: Cafe 1217 (Hot Springs), Rolando’s Restaurant (Hot Springs), Serenity Farms Bakery (Leslie), ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway)

Healthy LITTLE ROCK Winner: The Root Cafe Finalists: Good Food by Ferneau, Three Fold Noodles 34

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

and Dumpling Co., Whole Foods, ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co.

Home cookin’ LITTLE ROCK Winner: Homer’s Restaurant Finalists: Bobby’s Country Cookin’, Dixie Cafe, Franke’s, K Hall and Sons AROUND THE STATE Winner: Holly’s Country Cooking (Conway)

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

sip LOCAL ARKANSAS TIMES

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THANK YOU ARKANSAS TIMES READERS FOR VOTING US AMONG THE BEST!

Finalists: Calico County (Fort Smith), Main Street Cafe (Searcy), Monte Ne Inn (Rogers), The Wooden Spoon (Gentry)

Ice cream/cool treats LITTLE ROCK Winner: Loblolly Creamery Finalists: Asher Dairy Bar, LePops Gourmet Ice Lollies, Red Mango, Rivershore Eatery

Indian LITTLE ROCK Winner: Star of India Restaurant Finalists: 4square Cafe and Gifts, Banana Leaf, Taj Mahal AROUND THE STATE Winner: Desi Den Indian Restaurant (Bryant) Finalists: Flavors Indian Cuisine (Bentonville), India Orchard (Bentonville), The New Delhi Cafe (Eureka Springs), R&R’s Curry Express (Fort Smith)

Come see what’s new @ The Corner, including more partnerships with local farmers, house-ground beef, & of course, even more delicious housemade modern diner cuisine. Follow us on social media to stay up to date on all the happenings @ The Corner.

201 E. Markham Street • Little Rock, AR 72201 501.400.8458 • atthecornerlr@gmail.com www.thecornerlr.com

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Call or email for information on catering or in-house events.

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MARCH 17, 2016

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ARKANSAS TIMES

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Italian LITTLE ROCK Winner: Bruno’s Little Italy Finalists: Graffiti’s Italian Restaurant, Ristorante Capeo, Vesuvio Bistro, Zaffino’s by Nori AROUND THE STATE Winner: Ermilio’s Italian Home Cooking (Eureka) Finalists: DeLuca’s Pizzeria (Hot Springs), DeVito’s Restaurant (Eureka Springs), Pasta Grill (Conway), Pasta Grill (Russellville)

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serie & Grill AROUND THE STATE Winner: Rolando’s Restaurant (Hot Springs) Finalists: A Taste of Thai (Fayetteville), Sala Thai (Fayetteville), Wiederkehr’s Weinkeller Restaurant (Altus), Via Roma (Hot Springs)

Other ethnic LITTLE ROCK Winner: Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe Finalists: Cafe Bossa Nova, kBird, La Terraza Rum and Lounge, Lulu’s Latin Rotis-

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Finalists: Raduno Brick Oven and Barroom, U.S. LITTLE ROCK Pizza, Vino’s, ZAZA Fine Winner: U.S. Pizza Hillcrest Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Finalists: Brave New RestauCo. rant, Cajun’s Wharf, La TerAROUND THE STATE raza Rum & Lounge, Pizza Winner: Oven & Tap (BenCafe tonville) Finalists: DeLuca’s Pizzeria (Hot Springs), Tommy’s Pizza (Mountain View), ConfidentialFamous Assessments LITTLE ROCK Rod’s Pizza Cellar (Hot available 24/7 at noZAZA’S charge Winner: Damgoode Pies Springs), Fine Salad

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37

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MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS ARKANSAS TIMES

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Place for kids LITTLE ROCK Winner: Purple Cow Restaurant Finalists: All Aboard Restaurant and Grill, Chuck E. Cheese, Larry’s Pizza, Playtime Pizza AROUND THE STATE Winner: Purple Cow Restaurant (Hot Springs) Finalists: Bulldog Restaurant (Bald Knob), Calico County (Fort Smith), Stoby’s Restaurant (Conway), ZAZA’S Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway)

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Romantic LITTLE ROCK Winner: One Eleven at the Capital Finalists: Brave New Restaurant, Cache Restaurant, SO Restaurant-Bar AROUND THE STATE Winner: Gaskins Cabin Steakhouse (Eureka Springs) Finalists: 28 Springs (Siloam Springs), Arsaga’s at the Depot (Fayetteville), The Hive (Bentonville), Rolando’s (Hot Springs)

Sandwich LITTLE ROCK Winner: Hillcrest Artisan Meats Finalists: Boulevard Bread, Lost Forty, The Root Cafe, Whole Hog Cafe AROUND THE STATE Winner: Arkansas Fresh Cafe (Bryant) Finalists: Breitweiser’s Meat Market (Benton), Craig’s Bar-B-Q (DeValls Bluff), Green Submarine (Fayetteville), Stoby’s Restaurant (Conway)

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www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

39

1/8/16 11:20 AM

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

Algae up Juice bars the new toast of the healthy drinking set.

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

BRIAN CHILSON

O

SHE CAN KELP YOU: Allie Lindley, at I Love Juice Bar, pours out a smoothie.

I Love Juice Bar

Midtowne Shopping Center 201 N. University Ave. 501-744-5842

Roots Juices

5501 Kavanaugh Blvd.

888-666-0290

Juice Leaf

402 Louisiana St. 501-615-8322 (Expected to open by the end of March)

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MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

ne of the classic scenes in the movie “The Thin Man” is when Nora Charles instructs the bartender to line up five martinis in a row so she can catch up, gin-wise, with her husband, Nick.

At Roots Juices last week, a regular did much the same: She lined up the four shots that come in the Power Boost ($5) — dandelion, lemon, ginger and watermelon — and said she drinks them one after the other. The only difference between the Roots Juices regular and Nora was fermentation and the inevitable next day’s headache.

Roots Juices would have had something for Nora, too: the Hangover Recovery Kit, made of “detox water” and fruit/vegetable drinks called Wakeup, Aloe Vera H20, Liver Cleanse, Chlorophyll H20 and Skin Glow, all cold-pressed and bottled at the Heights juice bar.

At I Love Juice Bar (the “I Love” signified by a heart for the dot in the i) in the Midtowne Shopping Center, a customer asked for the ever-popular Green Smoothie, made of spinach, kale, pineapple, banana, lemon, organic coconut milk and organic apple juice. (The apple juice adds the sweetness; juice bars use fruit, not sugar, to sweeten.) The customer said he’d lost 37 pounds since November by substituting the Juice Bar drinks for other foods he was eating.

A third juice bar, Juice Leaf, is expected to open in a couple of weeks downtown. The juice bar trend has a past — there was a juice bar downtown in the 1960s where my aunt got fresh carrot juice — and Whole Foods Market has been blending up greens and fruits for many years. Home juicing itself is not novel.

But the 21st century juice bar, which has finally found its way to Little Rock, serves up drinks that outdo the grass clippings of yore, adding such myste-

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

rious “superfoods” such as blue green algae (Aphanizomemon flos aquae) from Klamath Lake in Oregon; spirulina, another blue-green alga; maca root from the Andes (Lepidium meyenii); pink salt from the Himalayas.

And spices like turmeric and cayenne, seeds and nuts and cacao nibs and goji berries. There’s no rosemary or pansies, Ophelia’s treatments, but she might have said here’s bee pollen, that’s for energy; ginger for nausea; jalapeno for headache; matcha green tea to burn fat. They’re mixed with a veritable cornucopia of greens — celery, kale, spinach, cucumber, parsley, wheat grass, mint, carrot, avocado, beets — made more palatable by lemon, apple, blueberries, bananas, strawberries, mango, pineapple, even peanut butter.

Some of the drinks still resemble pond scum, but I can attest that the Green Smoothie at Juice Bar was delicious, and filling as well, if somewhat dear at $7.50. Expect to pay special prices at juice bars. That makes sense, because the drinks at both Juice Bar and Roots Juices contain 2 to 3 pounds of fruit and vegetable matter. The juice bars go through thousands of pounds of fruit weekly; I Love Juice Bar donates about 3,000 pounds of pulp every month to local gardens.

Though it doesn’t sound particularly healthy, there’s a coffee smoothie at Roots Juices, made with coffee syrup, almond milk, almond butter, cinnamon, cocoa and pineapple, a wonderfully bitter and rich concoction (and unlike the juices, packing a punch of 300 calories).

Cleanses are all the rage for those whose body is a temple, and I Love Juice Bar and Roots Juices offer a variety of cleanse packages. At Juice Bar, the essential cleanse (for beginners) is six juices that you drink over the course of a day. Juice Bar will sell by the day for $45 a day (includes six Mason jars) or $39 a day (you bring in your own Mason jars). Most cleanse aficianados go for multiday cleanses, and come in daily with their jars to be filled up. The Roots Juice cleanse is a three-day program ($50 a day) in which six juices (bottled and labeled at the store) are drunk one every two hours in a particular order, and like Juice Bar there are three levels of cleanse, for beginners, one for experienced juicers and one that is mostly vegetable-based and low in fruit sugar.

Both juice bars also serve the aforementioned shots, ($2.50-$3 for a single at Juice Bar, $3 for a single at Roots Juices).

The bars were founded by men who say they gained mental and physical benefits from juicing: Roots Juices founder Brent Rodgers gave up a career in a Fortune 500 company to bring the gospel of goji berries to people; Juice Bar founder John Hunt began juicing to shed pounds.

There are differences to both franchises: I Love Juice Bar serves fresh foods like sandwiches, wraps, quinoa salads, whole coconuts and pineapples. Roots Juices serves all kinds of vegan and gluten-free prepared foods, from popcorn to coco-roon cookies, oatmeal bites, Kize and other brand energy bars and other vegan snacks.

Roots Juices, where customers tend to hang out at a long bar, recognizes that some of its customers are flexible

in their definition of juice and sells a cocktail party mixer kit (Lean & Fit grapefruit mint, 2 bottles of Watermelon Cooler, 2 bottles of Pear Passion and 2 bottles of Melon Mania for $60.)

I Love Juice bar also sells its coldpressed juices straight for 42 cents an ounce; co-owner Barkley Boyd said one customer came in with an empty liter soda bottle for a fill-up.

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

41

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

Ride the ARKANSAS TIMES

BLUES BUS APRIL 16, 2016

TO THE JUKE JOINT FESTIVAL IN CLARKSDALE, MS

IT'S ALL ABOUT

THE DELTA!

Enjoy small stages with authentic blues during the day and at night venture into the surviving juke joints, blues clubs and other indoor stages.

Reserve your seat by calling 501.375.2985 or emailing Kelly Lyles at kellylyles@arktimes.com BUS TRANSPORTATION PROVIDED BY ARROW COACH LINES

$125

PRICE INCLUDES: + + + + +

Round-trip bus transportation Live blues performances en route Adult beverages on board Lunch at a Delta favorite Wristband for the nighttime events

BUS LEAVES AT 9 A.M. FROM IN FRONT OF THE PARKING DECK AT 2ND & MAIN STREETS IN DOWNTOWN LITTLE ROCK AND RETURNS LATE NIGHT.

The Arkansas Times Blues Bus is a related event and not affiliated with Juke Joint Festival or the non-profit Clarksdale Downtown Development Association.

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MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

Merci beaucoup for voting us best food truck around the state – two years running!

We’re adding a storefront Crêpes Paulette in Bentonville! Please follow us on social media for updates on both locations.

The Ideal Cutting Surfaces For Easier Food Prep!

take your appetite off the beaten path

Think outside the city.

4310 Landers Road • North Little Rock, AR 72117 (501) 687-1331 www.krebsbrothers.com • M-F 8-5 Sat. 9-5

Come find out for yourself why it’s worth a trip to Des Arc!

Think outside the city.

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2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS Brave New Restaurant, Cajun’s Wharf, Oceans at Arthur’s AROUND THE STATE Winner: Eat My Catfish (Bryant) Finalists: Dondie’s White River Princess (Des Arc), Fisherman’s Wharf (Hot Springs), Mike’s Place (Conway), Powerhouse Seafood and Grill (Fayetteville)

Donuts from Community Bakery

Steak LITTLE ROCK Winner: Doe’s Eat Place Finalists: Arthur’s Prime Steakhouse, Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, The Butcher Shop, The Faded Rose AROUND THE STATE Winner: Doe’s Eat Place (Fayetteville) Finalists: The Hive (Bentonville), Mike’s Place (Conway), Postmasters Grill (Camden), Tamale Factory (Gregory)

Vegetarian/vegan LITTLE ROCK Winner: The Root Cafe Finalists: Cafe Bossa Nova, kBird, I Love Juice Bar, Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co. AROUND THE STATE Winner: Greenhouse Grille (Fayetteville) Finalists: Cafe 1217 (Hot Springs), Farmer’s Table 44

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

(Fayetteville), Local Flavor Cafe (Eureka Springs), ZAZA’S Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. (Conway)

Wine list LITTLE ROCK Winner: One Eleven at the Capital Finalists: Arthur’s, By the Glass, Copper Grill, SO Restaurant-Bar AROUND THE STATE Winner: Bordinos (Fayetteville) Finalists: 28 Springs (Siloam Springs), Central Park Fusion Cuisine (Hot Springs), The Hive (Bentonville), Tavola Trattoria (Bentonville)

Yogurt/smoothies LITTLE ROCK Winner: Tropical Smoothie Finalists: I Love Juice Bar, Red Mango, Rivershore Eat-

2016 READERS CHOICE AWARDS

Depot (Fayetteville), Bordinos (Fayetteville), Greenhouse Grille (Fayetteville), James at the Mill (Johnson) HOT SPRINGS: Winner: Rolando’s Restaurant Finalists: Cafe 1217, DeLuca’s Pizzeria, Silks Bar & Grill at Oaklawn, Taco Mama

ROGERS/BENTONVILLE: Winner: Oven & Tap (Bentonville) Finalists: Foster’s Pint and Plate (Rogers), The Hive (Bentonville), Eleven (Bentonville), Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe (Bentonville), Tusk & Trotter (Bentonville)

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Best restaurants in areas around the state: BENTON/BRYANT: Winner: Arkansas Fresh Bakery Cafe and Eat My Catfish (tie) Finalists: Desi Den Indian Restaurant, La Hacienda CONWAY: Winner: Mike’s Place Finalists: Eat My Catfish, Pasta Grill, Stoby’s Restaurant, ZAZA’S Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. EUREKA SPRINGS: Winner: Ermilio’s Italian Home Cooking Finalists: DeVito’s Restaurant, The Grotto, Local Flavor Cafe, Mud Street Cafe FAYETTEVILLE/SPRINGDALE/ JOHNSON: Winner: Hugo’s (Fayetteville) Finalists: Arsaga’s at the

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MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen — speaking as a pastor and community leader — told the Times he was “quite honestly amazed that the people at the Department of Arkansas Heritage don’t understand the First Amendment better than they do.” Griffen went on to say there is nothing that warrants censorship of items bearing the Black Lives Matter slogan, adding that the fact that some people might disagree with the movement or the statement doesn’t justify removing items bearing the slogan from a state-owned gift shop.

“I think it is appropriate for a museum that explores the AfricanAmerican experience in Arkansas to have T-shirts saying Black Lives Matter,” he said. “It’s part of the cultural reality in which we live. The fact that people don’t like it doesn’t make it offensive. It just means it’s political speech. Black lives matter is political speech, and political speech is protected by the First Amendment.”

Griffen later took to his Facebook page to pen an open letter about the decision, encouraging Arkansans to contact Burkes and the DAH. He related a conversation with Burkes (we have not been successful in reaching Burkes for comment), saying: “Ms. Burkes also told me that a lot of the Black Lives Matter T-shirts have been sold, but that only a few were left, as if that justified removing them and banning the item from being restocked. Then she tried to talk with me about a coming exhibit, as if my concern about her decision could be mollified by attending it.”

DAH communications director Melissa Whitfield later issued a statement to Arkansas Times that said the T-shirts were removed because they were “not promoting MTCC specifically or any of its programs or exhibits. All other DAH gift shops, Old State House, Historic Arkansas Museum, and Delta Cultural Center, only sell wearable items with the specific name and museum logo or feature a specific exhibit or program.”

On Friday, after the Thursday blog post and continuing complaints from Griffen and others, DAH folded. Whitfield issued a prepared statement on behalf of department director Stacy Hurst, saying the shirts would be returned to the MTCC gift shop. Hurst said the shirts had been determined to be inconsistent with merchandise available in other museum gift shops. “Some discussion did focus on the fact that the T-shirts could be seen as controversial,” the statement from Hurst reads in part.

“I regret that the removal of the T-shirts has sparked a discussion that has turned divisive, and I have asked staff at MTCC to return the T-shirts to the museum store. The Department of Arkansas Heritage will continue to put considerable resources into Mosaic Templars Cultural Center and its mission of presenting the African-American experience and why it’s important that all Arkansans know it.”

The store was sold out of the shirts as of last Friday.

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Arts Entertainment AND

Sing like a horn A Q&A with Bria Skonberg.

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

their seats, and that’s very impressionable when you’re that age. You know, you’re 13 or 14 years old, and you’re watching the older kids, everybody’s having fun, just having a great time to this music. I was always under the impression that music should be made for people to have a good

T

rumpeter, vocalist and educator Bria Skonberg hails from Chilliwack in British Columbia, and has swiftly established herself as a respected interpreter of roots jazz traditions. A self-described “instigator of adventure,” Skonberg engages audiences with surprising takes on iconic jazz tunes and stretches the vocabulary of those classic styles in her original compositions. Skonberg is the co-founder of the New York Hot Jazz Festival, the recipient of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Swing Award, and was named Best Vocal and Best Trumpet by Hot House Magazine. She plays at South on Main on Thursday, March 17.

I love that you call attention to the great Anita O’ Day in your performances.

You’re both such rhythmic singers. You both have such a lyrical sense of line, but also the ability make your voice percussive.

Yeah, thank you. I think, while I realized she was my favorite singer, I didn’t think I sounded like her. She was just so much fun to listen to, especially as a horn player.

She doesn’t really do a lot of scatting with syllables, but she can paraphrase a melody in the coolest way.

So, I had to Google “Chilliwack,” and it’s stunning! I’m wondering how you ever left. Do you miss it?

(Laughs.) Every time I go back, it’s a little bit prettier. But, I mean, it’s not where you are, it’s who you’re with. I miss the relationships. I miss my parents and family members, but nowadays I can talk with them all the time. There’s Facetime, there are ways to feel close even when you’re far.

She sings like a horn.

Yeah! And we’re right in the same kind of register.

You came from a musical family?

Well, they’re musical hobbyists. My parents were teachers in public schools, so they were really great at getting us kids — I have two siblings — getting us all involved in lots of things from sports to dance to local politics, things like that. So, music was just one of those many things that we got exposed to, and took to, because of a great school community.

You’ve said that you played mostly jazz from between 1900 and 1940. Why that era?

I think that I have a kind of niche repertoire in that era because it’s less common.

Having gone to college and gotten a jazz degree, I can play bebop, I can play these different Latin styles, and I really enjoy that, but it’s kind of a part of American history and jazz history that’s been overlooked a lot. With post-secondary education, some-

experience, but then as I started to go into music, I started to ask the same questions. I was, like, how does this music get to Chilliwack? How does this all happen?

As I learned more, it’s like, “OK, I’ve been watching the movie, I haven’t read the book. I need to go to the source, and learn something about this.” So, my version of going to the source at that time was going to Mardi Gras, which, as you learn more about New Orleans and its people, you learn that going to Mardi Gras in New Orleans is like coming to New York and going to Times Square! I had some connections with friends, though, and I got to see a little bit of the culture that was down there. It definitely crossed into: “OK, this is something I could do every day.”

SKONBERG: Plays South on Main on Thursday, March 17.

times they’ll spend very little time on those formative years of jazz and just jump to the more academic, mathematic styles. I’ve been drawn to it because, yeah, it’s kind of a unique thing. I love melodies, I love that it was made for dancing, it was made for parades, it was made to get people out of

time, and to bring them through different sorts of emotions.

New Orleans is a long way from British Columbia. How did that sound make its way into the core of your playing?

Right! Well, I had this very organic

There’s a super rhythmic song on your new record called “Go Tell It.” I love it because, while it jumps like jazz we know, it situates itself lyrically in a current, collective sort of moment. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about where it came from.

Well, I mean, as far as the message, I was writing this album during the Olympics in Russia. Hopefully, you have something on each album that’s a little bit of a snapshot of the present day. One way of writing songs is to go to the public domain and look at familiar melodies and find inspiration, so I searched around, and “Go Tell It on the Mountain” was one of those. I thought about it, and I thought about Peter, Paul and Mary, and how they did their rendition for the civil rights movement. Then I thought, what’s the civil rights movement of our era? It’s LGBT rights. So, that song is just trying to get at all those elements. I CONTINUED ON PAGE 62

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ARKANSAS TIMES

ROCK CANDY

Check out the Times’ A&E blog arktimes.com

A&E NEWS PAUL MCCARTNEY WILL perform at Verizon Arena at 8 p.m. April 30. Tickets were still available at press time Tuesday but going fast: Buy them via Ticketmaster. The venue also announced this week that The Smashing Pumpkins will perform April 23 with special guest Liz Phair. Tickets go on sale Friday at noon.

LOOKING AHEAD in the Arkansas Times Film Series: On April 19, at Riverdale 10 Cinema, we’re screening William Friedkin’s 1977 cult classic “Sorcerer,” starring Roy Scheider and soundtracked hypnotically and brilliantly by Tangerine Dream. Friedkin’s follow-up to the massively successful “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist,” “Sorcerer” is a much stranger and more ambitious film, influenced — the director has claimed — by Werner Herzog and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Overlooked by many critics at the time, Roger Ebert judged it one of the top 10 films of 1977, and its reputation has only grown over the years — Quentin Tarantino named it among his 12 favorite films in 2012 and Stephen King placed it at No. 1 on a list of “20 movies that never disappoint.”

FAYETTEVILLE’S NEWEST music festival, On The Map Fest, debuts next week on March 24-25 at the Fayetteville Town Center featuring performances by Bleached, Pallbearer, Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, Water Liars, Adam Faucett and more. More info (and tickets) at onthemapfest.com THE FANTASTIC CINEMA & Craft Beer Festival, presented by the Little Rock Film Society and highlighting the best in independent genre film (sci-fi, horror and fantasy), returns this year April 7-10 at Riverdale 10 Cinema. Individual tickets cost $10, day passes are $20, “film fanatic” passes (allowing access to all screenings) are $40 and VIP passes (which include priority seating, plus all panels, parties and the filmmaker lounge) are $100. More information about ticketing (and the lineup) is at fantasticcinema.com.

RABBI EUGENE LEVY, formerly of the Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, has published a book through Little Rock’s Butler Center Books called “A Privileged Encounter: My Unique Experience with President Bill Clinton, 1987-2000.” A talk and book signing will be held at at noon March 30 in the Arkansas Studies Institute Building, Room 124.

ARKANSAS TIMES

READ read

LOCAL LETTERHEAD Damgoode Pies LLC

2701 Kavanaugh 6706 Cantrell 500 President Clinton w w w.damgoodepies.com 501-664-2239

Dear Central Arkansas,

E Z RI Z

THANK YOU!! Thank you so very much for bringing your appetite (and votes!) to Damgoode’s slice of the world. 2016 Represents Damgoode’s 15th year in business and 9th win of “Best Pizza” in our favorite Reader’s Poll. We are so excited to be here...again!

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There have been millions of successes and failures that got Damgoode Pies where it is today. From forgetting to put the little part in the Coke machine nozzle that keeps it from spraying everywhere to opening a 7000 sq ft restaurant in the River Market with a DAMBrewery built right in. (Oh my word, our beer is delicious!) Our history is as full of life-shattering heartbreaks as it is overwhelming triumphs.

There have been hundreds of lifelong friendships, a few Damgoode Weddings and, sadly, a few funerals too. It has been one hell of a ride, gang.

2015 Was absolutely the wildest year in Damgoode history. We permanently closed two locations, endured months of very disruptive road construction, remodeled our original location and (have we mentioned?) we opened a new restaurant in the River Market with a DAMBrewery built right in. (Oh my word, our beer is delicious!) The chaos of Damgoode’s transformation along with the every-day hardships all small businesses face left us feeling disorganized and spread thin by the end of the year.

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March 14th, 2016 (Pi Day!): With all major renovations completed, Damgoode Pies closed its doors for the day to regroup. It was a big training day to celebrate teamwork and togetherness...then we threw a party. (Oh my word, our beer is delicious!) Now we are geared up to make our company shine, and make every interaction Damgooder than ever.

TAKE OUT OUT DELIVERY IN occasionTAKE In honor DINE of this momentous and following the tradition ofTAPROOM Pi Days’ past, we’d like to buy you and a friend a slice of pizza. Please don’t all come at once. Or at least call if you do.

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Thank you again for all of your support, Central Arkansas. We love you!

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THE TO-DO

LIST

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK AND WILL STEPHENSON

THURSDAY 3/17

TREVOR GORDON HALL 7:30 p.m. The Joint. $20.

Hailing from the outskirts of Philadelphia, Trevor Gordon Hall is known for his mesmerizing, virtuosic performances on the Kalimbatar, a self-designed instrument that blends a traditional acoustic six-string with a kalimba (a so-called “thumb piano,” of African origin). Lest you think this is some sort of gear-head, showy, guitar nerdery, well, it partly is that, but it’s mostly just plain impressive, and fascinating to watch. Hall is a multitasker of the first order, combining intricate fingerstyle

wizardry with hand percussion and kalimba-plucking, a routine that might seem exhausting or cloyingly one-man-band-ish, but certainly doesn’t come across that way — he leaves room for space and silence, reverts to simplicity when appropriate, and avoids all those weird, over-determined facial tics that guitarists so often exhibit to make sure we’re aware of their intense physical exertions. He’s also a moving, intelligent songwriter, a talent that instrumental virtuosos too often neglect to bother with, in their Everest ascents to Guitar Worldstyle mastery. WS

FRIDAY 3/18

ARGENTA ARTWALK

5-8 p.m. Main Street, NLR.

Greg Thompson Fine Art is hosting an exhibition marking Thompson’s 21 years of art dealing, the last seven of which have been from his gallery, which he opened in 2009 at 429 Main St. in Argenta. The all-star show of regional artists includes work by John Alexander, Walter Anderson, Gay Bechtelheimer, Carroll Cloar, William Dunlap, John Ellis, Charles Harrington, James Hendricks, Pinkney Herbert, Robyn Horn, Clementine Hunter, Richard Jolley, Dolores Justus, Henri Linton, John Harlan Norris, Sammy

Peters, Joseph Piccillo, Edward Rice, Kendall Stallings, Rebecca Thompson, Glennray Tutor and Donald Roller Wilson. (Dunlap will be at the gallery in April to sign his new book, “Short Mean Fiction.”) Painter Katherine Strause is showing her work at Argenta Gallery. Laman Library’s Argenta branch will feature paintings by Susan Chambers that she says are inspired by home and garden, but don’t expect watery florals. She takes a hard-edge approach to soft subject matter; think playful Rousseau in Arkansas. Mugs Cafe opens “Networks,” paintings by Kasten Searles, art professor at Henderson State University. LNP

6-9 p.m. River City Coffee.

Compassion Works for All, a Buddhist prison outreach program, is holding an exhibition of art by 12 prisoners that the group says “explores communication, silence and the space between freedom and confinement in beautiful, raw and playful ways.” Many of the 12 did not begin to make art until they were behind bars, but found art to be an outlet, and one artist, 52

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

FRIDAY 3/18-TUESDAY 3/22

12TH ANNUAL VALLEY OF THE VAPORS

Low Key Arts, Hot Springs. $10-$75.

FRIDAY 3/18

PRISON ART EXHIBIT

SPA CITY UNDERGROUND: Valley of the Vapors returns to Hot Springs' Low Key Arts with a lineup featuring (clockwise, from top left) R. Ring, Adia Victoria, Gus Unger-Hamilton and Juiceboxxx, $10-$75.

Davis Carpenter, creates cards for other prisoners to send to families. Another artist, Lonnie Franks, does portraits from photographs given him. This is art that comes from a place of pain but can create joy, giving it a kind of profundity. “Ultimately,” the Compassion Works for All group says, “this collection is meant to give a voice to the voiceless.” The exhibition runs through April 19. Some of the work will be for sale. LNP

One of Central Arkansas’s best and most consistently compelling music festivals returns this week: Valley of the Vapors, the multiday celebration of independent music.

It was kicked off in 2005 by Low Key Arts founders Bill Solleder and Shea Childs, who hit on the idea of recruiting bands headed to and from Austin’s monolithic, overlapping SXSW by offering them a smaller, more intimate (and less grossly oversaturated) pitstop along the way. I was there last year and was genuinely impressed by its tight-knit, grungy allure and well-oiled, deceptively professional effectiveness. It’s the D.I.Y. ethos pulled off right — with taste, effortless grace and very affordable

Mexican food. This year’s event features R. Ring (featuring The Breeders’ Kelley Deal), Gus Unger Hamilton (of alt-J), Water Liars, Juiceboxxx, Adia Victoria, Christopher Denny, Big Piph and Tomorrow Maybe, Dikki Du & The Zydeco Krewe, Guerilla Toss and many more. There are also the festival’s famed workshops, which this year look more interesting than ever: Learn knitting from Kelley Deal (4 p.m.

Saturday); “junk cam” lo-fi photography from Bill Daniel (2 p.m. Sunday); instrument building from Bryan Day, sound artist and inventor of the Whiskerphone (3 p.m. Monday); and painting, scratching and drawing on 16mm film strips from Dan Anderson (3 p.m. Tuesday). Day passes are $10 and festival passes are $75. WS

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 3/17

TUESDAY 3/22

‘LABYRINTH’

7, 7:30, 7:45 and 9:30 p.m. Riverdale 10 Cinema. $7.50.

What better way to commemorate the passing of David Bowie than with a screening of the 1986 Jim Henson fantasy epic “Labyrinth,” which features a city of goblins, a maze full of monsters with detachable body parts, and an anthropomorphic fox named Sir Didymus. Picture “The Wizard of Oz” as reimagined by Shel Silver-

stein, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and the pervy outsider artist Henry Darger — this movie is so, so damn strange, a full-throated and commercially illadvised celebration of the discomfiting darkness usually left implicit in the works of children’s storytellers from Hans Christian Andersen to Maurice Sendak. The script was a collaboration between Henson, Monty Python’s Terry Jones, George Lucas and comedian-filmmaker Elaine May,

which is to say it’s an essential work of 20th century American art, coherence (and quality) be damned. Now that I think about it, the plot — in which David Bowie (as Jareth the Goblin King) attempts to seduce a 15-yearold Jennifer Connelly — is a kind of patently uncomfortable foreshadowing of the statutory rape allegations against Bowie that have resurfaced since his death. But I guess I’ll leave that to the psychoanalysts (and the lawyers). WS

The FOCAL Used Book Sale returns to the basement of the Main Library at 5 p.m. Thursday (and at 10 a.m. Friday and Saturday).

Comedians Rickey Reyes, Kurt Green and Steve Poggi appear in a triple feature at the Loony Bin at 7:30 p.m., $8 (and at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, $12).

The Wandering Troubadours play at Kings Live Music in Conway, 8 p.m., free. Flying Saucer hosts a St. Patrick’s Day Celebration featuring beer specials and live music by Good Foot, 8 p.m. St. Louis jam band Aaron Kamm and The One Drops performs at Stickyz at 9 p.m., $5. Nashville psych-rock outfit The Bad Signs plays at the White Water Tavern at 9 p.m.

FRIDAY 3/18 The Weekend Theater presents Leonard Nimoy’s “Vincent,” a oneman show starring Tom McLeod (based on the play “Van Gogh” by Phillip Stephens), 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, $16. Local comedy troupe The Main Thing performs “Little Rock and a Hard Place” at The Joint in Argenta at 8 p.m. (Friday and Saturday), $22. Waco, Texas, native and country songwriter Wade Bowen performs at Revolution, 9 p.m., $16. Steel drum virtuoso Darril “Harp” Edwards performs at the Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. Rap-rock crew Don’t Cry Paula plays at Vino’s with Fancy Animal, Alexa Dexa and Dance in the Dark, 9 p.m., $6.

Memphis singer-songwriter (and self-proclaimed “no-hit wonder”) Cory Branan plays at White Water, 9:30 p.m., $10. Little Rock indie-pop group Canopy Climbers performs at Fayetteville’s George’s Majestic Lounge with Brothers and Company, 9:30 p.m., $5.

SOFT SCENE: Cult L.A. shoegaze group Autolux performs at Revolution at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, $10-$13.

WEDNESDAY 3/23

AUTOLUX

8:30 p.m. Revolution. $10-$13.

Since their emergence in the turnof-the-century L.A. indie rock scene — a scene that has largely vanished into obscurity far quicker and more efficiently than anyone would have guessed, given the city’s intrinsic industry access (anybody listen to Acetone lately?) — Autolux has been championed by a range of successful, nominal taste-makers, from Trent Reznor and Thom Yorke

to T-Bone Burnett and the Coen Brothers. (That’s pretty cool, right? To have the Coen Brothers be on record as fans of your rock band? How does that even happen? Don’t they only listen to, like, the Anthology of American Folk Music?)

The band makes visceral, shoegaze-y, wall-of-sound art-rock with occasional digressions for electronica and earnest pop songwriting — common reference points are My Bloody Valentine and Portishead. In interviews, they reference

Orson Welles and William Blake and seem like generally well-rounded, interesting people. “I could spend the rest of my life just reading James Joyce,” band member Greg Edwards told The Quietus in 2010. Lucky for us, they decided to put down the Joyce and get back to work. Their new record — the inscrutably titled “Pussy’s Dead” — is due to be released on April 1, though you’ll get your chance to hear it early Wednesday night at Revolution. WS

SATURDAY 3/19 Heifer Village hosts its Spring Fling, featuring family-friendly games, scavenger hunts and crafts, at 10 a.m., free. The 2016 SEC Gymnastics Championships are at Verizon Arena starting at 1 p.m., $12-$16. Clarksdale electric blues stalwart Lightnin’ Malcolm returns to White Water at 9:30 p.m., $7.

North Carolina alt-country songwriter Caleb Caudle plays with local favorite Adam Faucett at Stickyz, 9 p.m., $7. Drummerboyinfinity presents “Dopeness: Rebirth of HipHop in the Rock” at Revolution, 9 p.m., $10. Consumers play at Vino’s with Chasing Pictures and Silent Waits the Archer at 8 p.m., $6.

www.arktimes.com

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AFTER DARK All events are in the Greater Little Rock area unless otherwise noted. To place an event in the Arkansas Times calendar, please email the listing and all pertinent information, including date, time, location, price and contact information, to calendar@arktimes.com.

EVENTS

Fantastic Friday. Literary and music event, refreshments included. For reservations, call 479-968-2452 or email artscenter@centurytel. net. River Valley Arts Center, Every third Friday, 7 p.m., $10 suggested donation. 1001 E. B St., Russellville. 479-968-2452. www.arvartscenter.org.

LGBTQ/SGL weekly meeting. Diverse Youth for Social Change is a group for LGBTQ/SGL and straight ally youth and young adults age 14 to 23. For more information, call 501-2449690 or search “DYSC” on Facebook. LGBTQ/ SGL Youth and Young Adult Group, 6:30 p.m.

800 Scott St.

THURSDAY, MARCH 17

MUSIC

Aaron Kamm and The One Drops. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $5. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

The Bad Signs. White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

Bria Skonberg. South on Main, 8 p.m., $20. 1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. southonmain.com.

“Inferno.” DJs play pop, electro, house and more, plus drink specials and $1 cover before 11 p.m.

Sway, 9 p.m. 412 Louisiana.

Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Maddie Robinson. The Southern Gourmasian, 6:30 p.m. 219 W. Capitol Ave. 501-313-5645. www.thesoutherngourmasian.com.

Mister Lucky (headliner), Alex Summerlin (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m.

2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com.

Open Jam. Thirst n’ Howl, 8 p.m. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com.

Open jam with The Port Arthur Band. Parrot Beach Cafe, 9 p.m. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994.

Ramona Smith. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8:30 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 8 p.m., free. 111 W. Markham St. 501-370-7013. www. capitalbarandgrill.com/.

Trevor Gordon Hall. Argenta Acoustic Music Series. The Joint, 7:30 p.m., $20. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

The Wandering Troubadours. Kings Live Music, 8 p.m., free. 1020 Front St #102, Conway.

COMEDY

Ricky Reyes, Kurt Green, Steve Poggi. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $8. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

EVENTS

Antique/Boutique Walk. Shopping and live entertainment. Downtown Hot Springs, third Thursday of every month, 4 p.m., free. 100 Central Ave., Hot Springs. #ArkiePubTrivia. Stone’s Throw Brewing, 6:30 p.m. 402 E. 9th St. 501-244-9154.

St. Patrick’s Day Celebration. With live music

by Good Foot and drink specials. Flying Saucer, 8 p.m. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-8032. www.beerknurd.com/stores/littlerock.

POETRY

POETluck. Literary salon and potluck. The Writer’s Colony at Dairy Hollow, third Thursday of every month, 6 p.m. 515 Spring St., Eureka Springs.

479-253-7444.

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MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

SPORTS

Horse Racing. Oaklawn Park, 1:30 p.m., $2.50$4.50. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-6234411. www.oaklawn.com.

BOOKS

BITTER SOUTHERNERS: Birmingham, Ala. rock group Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires play at White Water with Colour Design at 9 p.m. Wednesday, $7.

SPORTS

Horse Racing. Oaklawn Park, 1:30 p.m., $2.50$4.50. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-6234411. www.oaklawn.com.

BOOKS

FOCAL Book Sale. Main Library, 5 p.m. 100 S. Rock St. www.cals.lib.ar.us.

FRIDAY, MARCH 18

MUSIC

12th Annual Valley of the Vapors. Featuring Adia Victoria, Juiceboxxx, Kelley Deal, Water Liars and more. Low Key Arts, March 18-22, $10$75. 118 Arbor St., Hot Springs.

All In Fridays. Envy. 7200 Colonel Glenn Road.

501-562-3317.

Canopy Climbers, Brothers and Company.

George’s Majestic Lounge, 9:30 p.m., $5. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-442-4226.

Cory Branan. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $10. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

Darril “Harp” Edwards. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

Don’t Cry Paula, Fancy Animal, Alexa Dexa, Dance in the Dark. Vino’s, 9 p.m., $6. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Nerd Eye Blind (headliner), Richie Johnson (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m.

2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com.

Route 66. Agora Conference and Special Event Center, 6:30 p.m., $5. 705 E. Siebenmorgan, Conway.

Salsa Dancing. Clear Channel Metroplex, 9 p.m., $5-$10. 10800 Col. Glenn Road. 501-217-5113. www.littlerocksalsa.com.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 8 p.m., free. 111 W. Markham St. 501-370-7013. www. capitalbarandgrill.com/.

Upscale Friday. IV Corners, 7 p.m. 824 W. Capitol Ave. Wade Bowen. Revolution, 9 p.m., $16. Revolution, 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www. rumbarevolution.com/new.

COMEDY

“Little Rock and a Hard Place.” An original production by The Main Thing. The Joint, 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

Ricky Reyes, Kurt Green, Steve Poggi. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., $12. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www. loonybincomedy.com.

DANCE

Contra Dance. Park Hill Presbyterian Church, 7:30 p.m., $5. 3520 JFK Blvd., NLR. arkansascountrydance.org.

KENDALL-JACKSON Vintner’s Reserve

Chardonnay

12.99

$

Sale Ends March 23

2516 Cantrell Road Riverdale Shopping Center

366-4406

FOCAL Book Sale. Main Library, 10 a.m. 100 S. Rock St. www.cals.lib.ar.us.

KIDS

“Schoolhouse Rock.” Arkansas Arts Center, 7 p.m., $12.50. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www. arkarts.com.

SATURDAY, MARCH 19

MUSIC

12th Annual Valley of the Vapors. Featuring Adia Victoria, Juiceboxxx, Kelley Deal, Water Liars and more. Low Key Arts, through March 22, $10-$75. 118 Arbor St., Hot Springs.

Caleb Caudle, Adam Faucett. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $7. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

Consumers, Chasing Pictures, Silent Waits The Archer. Vino’s, $6. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

Craig Horton Bluesman, Stuart Baer. Kings Live Music, 8:30 p.m., $5. 1020 Front St #102, Conway.

Dopeness: Rebirth of Hip-Hop in the Rock.

Presented by Drummerboyinfinity. Revolution, 9 p.m., $10. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-8230090. www.rumbarevolution.com/new.

K.I.S.S. Saturdays. Featuring DJ Silky Slim. Dress code enforced. Sway, 10 p.m. 412 Louisiana.

501-492-9802.

Lightnin’ Malcolm. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $7. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www. whitewatertavern.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Pickin’ Porch. Bring your instrument. All ages welcome. Faulkner County Library, 9:30 a.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org.

Raising Gray (headliner), Brian Ramsey (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m.

2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com.

Symphony of Northwest Arkansas’s “Strings in the Spotlight.” Walton Arts Center, 7:30 p.m., $5-$50. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville.

479-443-5600.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 8 p.m., free. 111 W. Markham St. 501-370-7013. www. capitalbarandgrill.com/.

COMEDY

“Little Rock and a Hard Place.” An original pro-

“Run Free: The True Story of Caballo Blanco.”

An advance screening of a new documentary about ultra-running legend Micah True. Ron Robinson Theater, 6 p.m., $12 adv., $15 day of.

1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. www.cals.lib.ar.us/ ron-robinson-theater.aspx.

SPORTS

2016 SEC Gymnastics Championship. Verizon Arena, 1 p.m., $12-$16. 1 Alltel Arena Way, NLR. 501-975-9001. verizonarena.com.

Horse Racing. Oaklawn Park, 1 p.m., $2.50-$4.50.

2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www.oaklawn.com.

USAV Junior Girls Volleyball Tournament.

Statehouse Convention Center, March 19-20, $10. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

BOOKS

FOCAL Book Sale. Main Library, 10 a.m. 100 S. Rock St. www.cals.lib.ar.us.

KIDS

“Schoolhouse Rock.” Arkansas Arts Center, 2 p.m., $12.50. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www. arkarts.com.

Spring Fling. Family-friendly games, scavenger hunts and crafts. Heifer Village, 10 a.m., free. 1 World Ave. 501-376-6836. heifer.org/ heifervillage.

SUNDAY, MARCH 20

MUSIC

12th Annual Valley of the Vapors. Featuring Adia Victoria, Juiceboxxx, Kelley Deal, Water Liars and more. Low Key Arts, $10-$75. 118 Arbor St., Hot Springs.

Irish Traditional Music Session. Hibernia Irish Tavern, 2:30 p.m. 9700 N. Rodney Parham Road.

501-246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Marcus King Band. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8 p.m., $8 adv., $10 day of. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

R. Ring (Kelley Deal), Listen Sister, Daughters of Triton. Vino’s, 7:30 p.m. 923 W. 7th St. 501375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

Yale University’s Tangled Up in Blue. South on

KIDS

“Schoolhouse Rock.” Arkansas Arts Center, 2 p.m., $12.50. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www. arkarts.com.

MONDAY, MARCH 21

MUSIC

12th Annual Valley of the Vapors. Featuring Adia Victoria, Juiceboxxx, Kelley Deal, Water Liars and more. Low Key Arts, through March 22, $10-$75. 118 Arbor St., Hot Springs.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Monday Night Jazz. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., $5. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

Open Mic. The Lobby Bar. Studio Theatre, 8 p.m. 320 W. 7th St. Richie Johnson. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf. com.

QC:

Live: 1.875" x 5.25"

The driver of a motor vehicle overtaking a bicycle proceeding in the same direction on a roadway shall exercise due care and pass to the left at a safe distance of not less than three feet (3’) and shall not again drive to the right side of the roadway until safely clear of the overtaken bicycle.

AM:

AD:

CD:

CW:

overtaking a bicycle

PM:

Every person riding a bicycle or an animal, or driving any animal drawing a vehicle upon a highway, shall have all the rights and all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle, except those provisions of this act which by their nature can have no applicability.

PO:

Trim: 2.125" x 5.5" Bleed: 1none Closing Date: 3/4/16

Use of bicycles or animals

Pub: Arkansas Times

SPORTS

Horse Racing. Oaklawn Park, 1:30 p.m., $2.50$4.50. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-6234411. www.oaklawn.com.

USAV Junior Girls Volleyball Tournament.

Statehouse Convention Center, through, $10.

7 Statehouse Plaza.

drivers Please be aWare, it’s arkansas state laW:

MUST INITIAL FOR APPROVAL

FILM

EVENTS

Artists for Recovery. Located in the Wesley Room, a secular recovery group for people with addictions, open to the public. Quapaw Quarter United Methodist Church, 10 a.m. 1601 S. Louisiana.

Job/Order #:279607 QC: cs

EVENTS

Falun Gong meditation. Allsopp Park, 9 a.m., free. Cantrell and Cedar Hill Roads.

Hillcrest Farmers Market. Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd.

Historic Neighborhoods Tour. Bike tour of historic neighborhoods includes bike, guide, helmets and maps. Bobby’s Bike Hike, 9 a.m., $8-$28. 400 President Clinton Ave. 501-613-7001.

Pork & Bourbon Tour. Bike tour includes bicycle, guide, helmets and maps. Bobby’s Bike Hike, 11:30 a.m., $35-$45. 400 President Clinton Ave. 501-613-7001.

Main, 7 p.m., $10. 1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. southonmain.com.

Brand: Ritas Item #: PBW2016003

duction by The Main Thing. The Joint, 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

Ricky Reyes, Kurt Green, Steve Poggi. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., $12.10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www. loonybincomedy.com.

NOT EASY.

yoUr cycling friends thank yoU! http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/ Go to “Arkansas Code,” search “bicycle”

© 2016 ANHEUSER-BUSCH, BUDWEISER® BEER, ST. LOUIS, MO

LECTURES

Rosa T. Sheng, “Equity By Design.” Arkansas Arts Center, 6 p.m. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. www.arkarts.com.

TUESDAY, MARCH 22

MUSIC

12th Annual Valley of the Vapors. Featuring Adia Victoria, Juiceboxxx, Kelley Deal, Water Liars and more. Low Key Arts, $10-$75. 118 Arbor St., Hot Springs.

Blackfoot Gypsies, The Yawpers. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $7 adv., $10 day of. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

Currents. George’s Majestic Lounge, 7:30 p.m., $8. 519 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-4424226.

Jeff Ling. Khalil’s Pub, 6 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com.

Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Music Jam. Hosted by Elliott Griffen and Joseph Fuller. The Joint, 8-11 p.m., free. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

Paul Sammons. Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro, 6 p.m., free.

200 River Market Ave. 501-375-3500. www.dizzysgypsybistro.net/. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

55

MOVIE REVIEW

AFTER DARK, CONT. Tuesday Jam Session with Carl Mouton.

Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

COMEDY

Stand-Up Tuesday. Hosted by Adam Hogg. The Joint, 8 p.m., $5. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

EVENTS

Trivia Bowl. Flying Saucer, 8:30 p.m. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-8032. www.beerknurd. com/stores/littlerock.

FILM

“Labyrinth.” Hosted by Lost 40 Brewery. Riverdale 10 Cinema, 7, 7:30, 7:45 and 9:30 p.m., $7.50.

2600 Cantrell Road. 501-296-9955.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23

MUSIC

UNHINGED: John Goodman (right) heads an excellent bare-bones cast.

I think we’re alone now ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ a claustrophobic thriller.

BY SAM EIFLING

S

o you’ve just left your fiance in a huff and a sedan, stopping long enough on the way out of the apartment to grab a bottle of scotch and a box of not much. You hit the open road somewhere in the wilds of Louisiana and, a little after dark, you notice a big truck in the rearview. Then: an accident. Your car spills down an embankment. Next thing, you wake up on a thin mattress on a concrete floor, your banged-up leg cuffed to a pipe on the wall. Your host is a barely hinged Navy vet named Howard, who looks exactly like John Goodman, and he’s explaining that you can’t leave this basement bunker of his for the next, oh, year or so, because “there’s been an attack,” maybe

by Russians, maybe by Martians, and everyone above ground is toast.

This is the mousetrap that ordinary/ screwed protagonist Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, forever the Helen of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”) finds herself in to kick off “10 Cloverfield Lane.”

The thematic follow-up to the 2008 found-footage monster movie “Cloverfield” isn’t a sequel per se; essentially, it was a spec script (originally titled “The 56

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ARKANSAS TIMES

Cellar”) that caught the attention of J.J. Abrams’ production company and was folded into the “Cloverfield” universe to gin up interest. What could’ve been a perfectly serviceable little indie thriller thus was warped — maybe not for the better — to dovetail with the milieu and maybe the events of the under-explained “Cloverfield.”

The good news, though, is that the movie was made at all, and that its barebones cast is terrific: Goodman as the rational-to-the-point-of-deranged survivalist who had the foresight to build the bunker; Winstead as the unwilling guest who comes to trust her host’s paranoia even as other mysteries arise; and the affable John Gallagher Jr. as an amiable local named Emmett who managed to wangle his way into the bunker at the last moment. The production is spare; a decent community theater could’ve staged this in three acts on a single box set built like the basement from “That ’70s Show” as imagined by Costco. The unseen hero of the production is Bear McCreary, whose score and musical selections (particularly the inspired choice of “I Think We’re Alone Now”

by Tommy James and the Shondells) keep the story motoring ahead even as the walls constrict you.

Dan Trachtenburg directs here; you’ve never heard of him because this $5 million picture is the biggest thing he’s ever turned in. He may be stuck in a mole hole but he’ll have you looking at it from every cranny and corner, inside of ducts, looking down from ceilings. A couple of times he gets you close enough to doors to actually look outside. What’s there ain’t pretty, and only serves to turn up the burner on the poor schlubs underground. The twist that “10 Cloverfield Lane” plays on the usual claustrophobic escape flick is the bleakness it presents at the prospect of escape. So you get out — then what? But get out, you must.

Goodman’s turn as Howard is genuinely unnerving. The safety and comfort he’s offering, seemingly without an ask in return, still comes across as menacing, untenable. And he’s the rare antagonist who’s nearly as observant as the audience. Michelle and Emmett can barely stay ahead of him, and you’ve got only a smidge more vantage than they have.

What’s outside the bunker, when revealed, will remind you that it is in fact a J.J. Abrams-produced film and the year is indeed 2016. Even that few minutes isn’t enough to shake off the confines of being in a tomb for an hour and a half. Despite the intrigue the movie’s marketing built up, no one at the screening I saw hung around to see what came after the credits. Instead everyone went for the exits, toward fresh air and open skies.

Acoustic Open Mic. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

American Lions, The Head, Open Fields. Vino’s.

923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

Autolux. Revolution, 8:30 p.m., $10-$13. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www. rumbarevolution.com/new.

Brian and Nick. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf. com.

Drageoke with Chi Chi Valdez. Sway. 412 Louisiana.

Elise Davis. South on Main, 8:30 p.m., $10. 1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. southonmain.com.

Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com.

Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires. White Water Tavern, 9 p.m., $7. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Mark Currey. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 5:30 p.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www. afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

Open Mic Nite with Deuce. Thirst n’ Howl, 7:30 p.m., free. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com.

COMEDY

Andy Woodhull. The Loony Bin, March 23-26, 7:30 p.m.; March 25-26, 10 p.m., $7-$10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www. loonybincomedy.com.

The Joint Venture. Improv comedy group. The Joint, 8 p.m., $7. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

DANCE

Little Rock Bop Club. Beginning dance lessons for ages 10 and older. Singles welcome. Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 7 p.m., $4 for members, $7 for guests. 12th and Cleveland streets. 501-350-4712. www.littlerockbopclub.

POETRY

Wednesday Night Poetry. 21-and-older show.

Kollective Coffee & Tea, 7 p.m., free. 110 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-321-0909. maxineslive. com/shows.html.

BENEFITS

Compassionate Communication Ice Cream

Social. Proceeds benefit the Compassionate Communication program, which works with prisoners in the state’s Maximum Security Units.

The Green Corner Store, 10 a.m. 1423 Main St. 501-374-1111. www.thegreencornerstore.com.

and memorabilia from such atheletes as Clyde Scott, Bonnie Blair, Peggy Fleming and Venus and Serena Williams, through Sept. 11. Permanent exhibits on the Clinton administration. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $10 adults; $8 college students, seniors, retired military; $3 ages 6-17. 370-8000.

CORE BREWING, 411 Main St., NLR: “Salud!

A Group Exhibition,” March 18-May 20. corebeer.com.

ARGENTA GALLERY, 413 Main St.: Paintings ESSE PURSE MUSEUM & STORE, 1510 S. Main

by Kathy Strause, opening reception 5-8 p.m.

St.: March 18, Argenta ArtWalk.

“Caro Nan: The Women Behind the Baskets,” ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: handpainted basket purses from the 1960s to “Equity by Design,” lecture by California archithe early 1980s by Carolyn McDaniel and Nancy tect Rosa T. Sheng, 5:30 p.m. reception, 6 p.m.

Steele, March 22-May 1, $10, $8 for students, talk March 21, sponsored by the Architecture seniors and military; also “What’s Inside: A Cenand Design Network; “Dorothea Lange’s Amertury of Women and Handbags,” permanent ica” and “Industrial Beauty: Charles Burchfield’s exhibit. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sun. 916-9022.

‘Black Iron,’ ” through May 8; “Miranda Young: GALLERY 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Edges,” A Printed Menagerie,” museum school gallery, photography by Rita Henry; also drawings and through May 29; 46th annual “Mid-Southern pastels by Dominique Simmons and David Watercolorists Exhibition,” through April 17; Warren, opening reception 7-10 p.m. March “Admiration,” painting by William Adolph Bou19, exhibition through May 14. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. guereau, on loan from San Antonio Museum of Tue.-Sat. 664-8996.

Art, through May 15; “Life and Light: “Nathalia GREG THOMPSON FINE ART, 429 Main St., Edenmont: Force of Nature,” 10 large-scale NLR: “21st Anniversary Exhibition,” works by photographs, through May 1. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.John Alexander, Walter Anderson, Gay BechtelFri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. heimer, Carroll Cloar, William Dunlap, John Ellis, 372-4000.

Charles Harrington, James Hendricks, Pinkney BOSWELL MOUROT FINE ART, 5815 KavanaHerbert, Robyn Horn, Clementine Hunter, Richugh Blvd.: “Survey: Space and Form,” new work ard Jolley, Dolores Justus, Henri Linton, John

by Sheila Cotton, Winston Taylor and LaDawna Harlan Norris, Sammy Peters, Joseph Piccillo, Whiteside, through April 9, reception 6-9 p.m.

Edward Rice, Kendall Stallings, Rebecca ThompMarch 19. 664-0030. son, Glennray Tutor and Donald Roller Wilson, CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER, 1200 Presireception 5-8 p.m. March 18, Argenta Artdent Clinton Ave.: “American Champions: The Walk. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

1 film 2/11/16 Sat. 3:44 PM Quest for 021116-VOV-ArkTimes.pdf Olympic Glory,” photographs, 664-2787.

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Dining

Information in our restaurant capsules reflects the opinions of the newspaper staff and its reviewers. The newspaper accepts no advertising or other considerations in exchange for reviews, which are conducted anonymously. We invite the opinions of readers who think we are in error.

B Breakfast L Lunch D Dinner $ Inexpensive (under $8/person) $$ Moderate ($8-$20/person) $$$ Expensive (over $20/person) CC Accepts credit cards

WHAT’S COOKIN’ MORE GOOD NEWS FOR Arkansas’s craft beer explosion: Craft Beer Cellar, the 5-year-old Massachusetts-based craft beer store with 22 locations coast to coast and another 16 in the works, is in the process of opening its first outlet in Arkansas, at 120 Ouachita Ave. in Hot Springs. Speaking from Beer Cellar headquarters in Belmont, Mass., co-owner Suzanne Schalow says that though the permitting process grinds on, the target date for opening the Hot Springs location is Oct. 1.

Schalow said the location will offer not only many varieties of craft beer in bottles, but also fill-and-go growlers and “crowlers,” 32-ounce aluminum cans that can be filled and sealed in the store with your choice of suds. The canned growlers, she said, are more conducive to taking on outdoors activities like camping and boating than fragile glass growler jugs might be. Schalow said that if permitting goes through, the Hot Springs location also hopes to offer on-site beer sales in an attached taproom. “So, it’s part taproom, part bottled beer to go, part bottled beer,” she said, “all in synergistic balance and all in the name of good beer.”

While Craft Beer Cellar is known for stocking more obscure brews, Schalow says which beers will be on hand at the Hot Springs location depends a lot on what breweries have registered to distribute in the state. “Distribution is controlled by the 21st Amendment, and all states are able to control that themselves,” she said. “Much will depend on what is available in that state, what’s registered in that state, what breweries have already elected to come in that state. But because we’re in this thing pretty deeply, I feel extremely confident in saying a lot of breweries will follow us into the market.”

For more information about Craft Beer Cellar, visit craftbeercellar.com.

DINING CAPSULES

AMERICAN

1DOUBLETREE PLAZA BAR & GRILL The lobby restaurant in the Doubletree is elegantly comfortable, but you’ll find no airs put on at heaping breakfast and lunch buffets. 424 W. Markham St. Full bar, all CC. $$. 501-372-4371.

BLD daily.

EJ’S EATS AND DRINKS The friendly neighborhood hoagie shop downtown serves at a handful of tables and by delivery. The sandwiches are generous, the soup homemade and the salads cold. Vegetarians can craft any 58

MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

INDIAN MEETS ITALIAN MEETS MEX: The Indian Burrito, in a panini press.

Get some vindaloo Palak paneer and a burrito, too, at Banana Leaf.

B

anana Leaf, perhaps outside of a number of taco trucks in Southwest Little Rock, was among the first wave of food trucks to start up in Little Rock — in 2011 — and one of the longest lasting. Whether husband-andwife owners Shan Pethaperumal and Poorni Muthaian bring the Indian food truck out of hibernation, where it’s been since November, for special events or regular service is an open question. But fret not, truck regulars: Delicious Indian food served quickly is now available on weekdays in the ground floor of the Simmons Tower on Capitol Avenue.

Banana Leaf took over a small space formerly occupied by Sufficient Grounds, next to Subway, late last year.

Judging by a recent visit, it’s already established a regular following. The

small space, with only three tables, is set up for takeout. On our visit, Muthaian was manning the restaurant alone. Most of the day’s offerings were premade and kept warm in steam tables. Our pick, the Indian Burrito ($6.99), took her a few minutes to assemble, using slices of tandoori chicken, basmati rice, cherry tomatoes and sauteed peppers and onions in a spinach wrap. All that went into a panini press. It was massive, filling and delicious, with just a touch of heat. Dipping it in a cup of cucumber raita made it even better. On the side was a cool (but spicy as well) marinated salad of lettuce and purple cabbage.

Banana Leaf’s chicken vindaloo ($7.50) is a fiery dish, chunks of tender chicken swimming in an orange sauce of all the spices that make Indian food

the best in the world: turmeric, cumin, coriander, garam masala and enough cayenne pepper that the sting lasts a bit after the bite. On the side was the same marinated salad that came with the burrito, and a mound of basmati.

This is special rice. It’s clean and surprisingly flavorful. The dish comes with two pieces of naan, and it’s enough for two meals, though leftovers disappeared quickly on our desk.

Meanwhile, our companion declared her palak paneer ($7.50), a spinach curry made of garam masala, garlic and other toothsome spices and flecked with cubes of Indian curd cheese (paneer), to be among the best she’s ever tried. It, too, came with naan, rice and a side salad, and was too much for one hungry person to finish.

The menu, as it was with the food truck, is stripped down with rotating specials. We’re eager to return to try regular items like the chicken biryani ($8.50), chicken tika masala ($7.50) and the veggie chickpea curry ($7.50).

Recent specials include a chicken kebab roll ($4.99) and grilled chicken salad ($6.99). Banana Leaf’s Facebook page sometimes, but not always, posts the daily menu.

Pethaperumal and Muthaian come from the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where dishes like dosa (a fermented crepe), tamarind rice and fish curries are popular (restaurant dishes are typically served on a banana leaf in Tamil Nadu). We’d love to get some of those less familiar dishes in the rotation at Banana Leaf, though we get that it can be hard with such a small operation.

Banana Leaf

425 W. Capitol Ave. Suite 21 501-227-0860 facebook.com/bananaleaflr QUICK BITE Banana Leaf has a great selection of imported beverages, including some canned version of bubble tea and nonalcoholic ginger beer.

HOURS 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays.

OTHER INFO Cards accepted, no alcohol.

BELLY UP

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

DINING CAPSULES, CONT.

BARBECUE

CHIP’S BARBECUE Tasty, if a little pricey, barbecue piled high on sandwiches generously doused with the original tangy sauce or one of five other sauces. Better known for the incredible family recipe pies and cheesecakes, which come tall and wide. 9801 W. Markham St. No alcohol, all CC. $-$$. 501-225-4346. LD Mon.-Sat.

LITTLE ROCK’S MOST AWARD-WINNING RESTAURANT 1619 REBSAMEN RD. 501.663.9734 • thefadedrose.com

EUROPEAN / ETHNIC

ARBELA MIDDLE EASTERN GRILL Excellent Middle Eastern fare. Try the falafel. 323 Center St. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-374-2633. L Mon.-Fri. L E O ’ S G R E E K C A S T L E Wonderful Mediterranean food — gyro sandwiches or platters, falafel and tabouleh — plus dependable hamburgers, ham sandwiches, steak platters and BLTs. Breakfast offerings are expanded with gyro meat, pitas and triple berry pancakes.

2925 Kavanaugh Blvd. No alcohol, CC. $-$$.

501-666-7414. BLD Mon.-Sat., BL Sun. (close at 3 p.m.).

LITTLE GREEK Fast casual chain with excellent Greek food. 11525 Cantrell Road. Beer and wine, all CC. $$. (501) 223-5300. LD daily.

MUSE ULTRA LOUNGE Mediterranean food and drinks. 2611 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, all CC. 501-663-6398. D Mon.-Sat.

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CAFE PREGO Dependable entrees of pasta, pork, seafood, steak and the like, plus great sauces, fresh mixed greens and delicious dressings, crisp-crunchy-cold gazpacho and tempting desserts in a comfy bistro setting. Little Rock standard for 18 years. 5510 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-5355. LD Mon.- Fri, D Sat. MELLOW MUSHROOM Popular high-end pizza chain. 16103 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-379-9157. LD daily.

THE PIZZERIA AT TERRY’S FINER FOODS Tasty Neapolitan-style pizza and calzones from the people who used to run the Santa Lucia food truck. 5018 Kavanaugh. Full bar, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-551-1388. Tue.-Sat. RADUNO BRICK OVEN AND BARROOM The South Main neighborhood’s renaissance continues with Raduno, an upscale pizza joint that also features sandwiches and unique appetizers (think mushroom gratin). 1318 S. Main St. Full bar, CC. $-$$. 501-374-7476. LD Tue.-Sat., L Sun. ROMANO’S MACARONI GRILL A chain restaurant with a large menu of pasta, chicken, beef, fish, unusual dishes like Italian nachos, and special dishes with a corporate bent. 11100 W. Markham St. Full bar, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-2213150. LD daily.

U.S. PIZZA Crispy thin-crust pizzas, frosty beers and heaping salads drowned in creamy dressing. 2710 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-2198. LD daily. 5524 Kavanaugh

11am - 2pm

FREE CRAWFISH SATURDAY! RULES APPLY.

✁

ASIAN

A.W. LIN’S ASIAN CUISINE Excellent panAsian with wonderful service. 17717 Chenal Parkway H101. Full bar, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-8215398. LD daily.

BIG ON TOKYO Serviceable fried rice, teriyaki chicken and sushi. 400 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, all CC. $-$$. 501-375-6200. BLD Mon.-Sat. CHINA PLUS BUFFET Large Chinese buffet.

6211 Colonel Glenn Road. Beer and wine, all CC. $-$$. 501-562-1688. LD daily.

CHINESE KITCHEN Good Chinese takeout. Try the Cantonese press duck. 11401 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-2242100. LD Tue.-Sun. SEKISUI Fresh-tasting sushi chain with fun hibachi grill and an overwhelming assortment of traditional entrees. Nice wine selection, also serves sake and specialty drinks. 219 N. Shackleford Road. Full bar, all CC. $-$$. 501-2217070. LD daily.

SHOGUN JAPANESE STEAKHOUSE The chefs will dazzle you, as will the variety of tasty stir-fry combinations and the sushi bar. Usually crowded at night. 2815 Cantrell Road. Full bar, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-666-7070. D daily.

THREE FOLD NOODLES AND DUMPLING CO. Authentic Chinese noodles, buns and dumplings. With vegetarian options. 215 Center St. No alcohol, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-3721739. LD Mon.-Fri. TOKYO HOUSE Defying stereotypes, this Japanese buffet serves up a broad range of fresh, slightly exotic fare — grilled calamari, octopus salad, dozens of varieties of fresh sushi — as well as more standard shrimp and steak options. 11 Shackleford Drive. Beer and wine,

BEST STEAK BEST CATFISH

all CC. $$-$$$. 501-219-4286. LD daily.

WASABI Downtown sushi and Japanese cuisine. For lunch, there’s quick and hearty sushi samplers. 101 Main St. Full bar, all CC. $-$$. 501-374-0777. L Mon.-Fri., D Mon.-Sat.

✁

number of acceptable meals from the flexible menu. The housemade potato chips are da bomb. 523 Center St. Full bar, all CC. $-$$.

501-666-3700. LD Mon.-Fri., BR Sun. @ THE CORNER Salads, burgers and other sandwiches. Try the poutine, made with homemade french fries and tasty brown gravy. 201 E. Markham. No alcohol, CC. $$. 501-400-8458.

BL Tue.-Sat. WEST END SMOKEHOUSE AND TAVERN Its primary focus is a sports bar with 50-plus TVs, but the dinner entrees (grilled chicken, steaks and such) are plentiful and the bar food is upper quality. 215 N. Shackleford. Full bar, all CC. $$.

501-224-7665. L Fri.-Sun., D daily.

WHICH WICH AT CHENAL Sandwiches in three sizes, plus cookies and milkshakes, online or faxed (501-312-9435) ordering available.

Also at 2607 McCain Blvd., 501-771-9424, fax 501-771-4329. 12800 Chenal Parkway, Suite 10.

No alcohol. 501-312-9424.

WING LOVERS The name says it all. 4411 W. 12th St. $-$$. 501-663-3166. LD Mon.-Sat. WING SHACK Wings, catfish and more. 6323 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol. 501-562-0010.

WINGSTOP It’s all about wings. The joint features 10 flavors of chicken flappers for almost any palate, including mild, hot, Cajun and atomic, as well as specialty flavors like lemon pepper, teriyaki, Garlic parmesan and Hawaiian. 11321 W. Markham St. Beer, all CC. $-$$. 501-224-9464. LD daily.

North Little Rock • 10840 Maumelle Blvd.

(501) 812-0095 • nashvillerockingrill.com *SOME RESTRICTIONS APPLY

✁

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 17, 2016

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by

EASTER EDITION

Happy Easter Easter means many things to many people. From egg hunts to baskets to brunch, the overall theme spending time with loved ones and the unofficial start of spring. eme calls callls fo ffor or spen

Just Ducky

The Easter Bunny isn’t the only sign of Easter. Duckies and chicks are also a welcome sign this time of year. Head over to Rhea Drug in Hillcrest for some incredible finds for Easter baskets. We’re partial to the ducks and found these great pieces to build our Easter baskets.

Full of Whimsy

Forget the eggs and bring cupcakes instead! This cupcake carton features a whimsical egg carton design that’s sure to be the talk of the party. It’s an easy, adorable way to bring your cupcakes to any Easter gathering. Plus, score brownie points when you make your own cupcakes!

Find tems at Krebs Restaurant Store.

Celebrate Easter with family at The DoubleTree Little Rock. They’re hosting Easter Brunch on Sun., March 27 with seatings from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Reservations are encouraged and can be made by calling 372-4371. Parking will be validated with the purchase of brunch.

Easter Brunch Sunday, March 27th 11:00am - 2:00pm

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61 61

A&E FEATURE, CONT. think the rhythm behind it is one of those “call to action” drumlines, a New Orleans thing. Yeah, I just wanted to write something that was strong, and about having a voice. Honestly, I was just a little bit irritated about the situation [Russia’s antihomosexual stand] and just wanted to say something about it.

presents…

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On that recording, there’s a part where your trumpet sounds a little bit electrified. How do you get that sound?

Basically, I run a microphone through a guitar processor, and then that goes out into the speakers. (Laughs.) Yeah, I love that, because I get to use the plunger a lot — that’s that kind of “wah-wah.” I mean, it’s a plunger! So, this kind of bends the sound, and makes it sound cool like a guitar riff.

You’ve even made your trumpet sound like Jimi Hendrix.

Yeah! And in another song, I was quoting Guns N’ Roses.

Right! Listening to live recordings of your combo work is a little bit like playing “Name That Tune,” where you guys are slipping in these little references, having a total conversation — is it planned?

Well, that one, the riff on “Go Tell It,” that kind of Valhalla riff, that one was intentional. I just think today’s concertgoers come from a lot of different walks of life, and it’s fun to play something that someone will find familiar.

Can you tell me a little bit about your horn? It’s a pretty special instrument.

Yeah. I play a Bach Stradivarius, which was gifted to me and literally bought by some jazz fans and my trumpet teacher at that time, Warren Vaché. I was working hard, and he just said, “We need to get you a better trumpet.”

You’re the co-founder of the New York Hot Jazz Festival and the New York Hot Jazz Camp. How did all that come together?

So, people were being drawn to 1920s jazz, and that has to do a little bit with popular culture. You know, “Boardwalk Empire,” “Great Gatsby” type stuff. So, the director, Michael Katsobashvili, really wanted to tie all those elements together, and he admired what I did, so he enlisted me in helping bring those people together. It’s happened three times now; it’s pretty nuts.

It’s grown and grown, and now it’s a huge party. My personal vision, though, is to create a more thorough understanding of jazz history in music education, to teach jazz history alongside social history in elementary schools. The first part is all about New Orleans jazz and democracy, the second part is about jazz and the Harlem Renaissance, and The Great Migration, and then it’s jazz and the civil rights era. Jazz has really been a through line for American history and culture, and the soundtrack for a lot of different movements that have happened all over America’s history.

So, for the young festivalgoers: They’ve seen the movie, now they need to read the book?

Yeah! I see people that are falling in love with the music daily, and it makes me so happy, and yet I also see a lack of depth in the understanding of the connection it has to the soul.

Bria Skonberg and her quintet will take the stage at 8 p.m. at South on Main on Thursday, March 17, as part of the Oxford American Jazz Series. Doors open at 6 p.m. For tickets, visit metrotix.com, or call 800293-5949.

DINING CAPSULES, CONT. Blvd. Beer and wine, all CC. $$. 501-664-7071.

LD daily. 9300 North Rodney Parham Road.

Beer and wine, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-224-6300. LD daily. 3307 Fair Park Blvd. Beer and wine, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-565-6580. LD daily. 650 Edgewood Drive. Maumelle. Beer and wine, all CC. $$-$$$.

501-851-0880. LD daily. 3324 Pike Avenue. NLR. Beer and wine, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-758-5997.

LD daily. 4001 McCain Park Drive. NLR. Beer and wine, all CC. $$-$$$. 501-753-2900. LD daily.

ZAFFINO’S BY NORI A high-quality Italian dining experience. Pastas, entrees (don’t miss the veal marsala) and salads are all outstanding.

With a more affordable lunch menu. 2001 E. Kiehl Ave. NLR. Beer and wine, all CC. 501-8347530. LD Tue.-Fri., D Sat.

LATINO

BAJA GRILL Food truck turned brick-and-mortar taco joint that serves a unique Mexi-Cali style menu full of tacos, burritos and quesadillas.

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MARCH 17, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

5923 Kavanaugh Blvd. CC. $-$$. 501-722-8920.

LD Mon.-Sat. CANON GRILL Tex-Mex, pasta, sandwiches and salads. Creative appetizers come in huge quantities, and the varied main-course menu rarely disappoints, though it’s not as spicy as competitors’. 2811 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, all CC. $$. 501-664-2068. LD daily.

CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL Burritos, burrito bowls, tacos and salads are the four main courses of choice — and there are four meats and several other options for filling them. Sizes are uniformly massive, quality is uniformly strong, and prices are uniformly low. 11525 Cantrell Road. All CC. $-$$. 501-221-0018. LD daily.

CILANTRO’S GRILL The guac, made tableside, margaritas and desserts standout at this affordably priced traditional Mex spot. 2629 Lakewood Village Plaza. NLR. Full bar, CC. $-$$.

501-812-0040. LD daily.

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ARKANSAS TIMES MARKETPLACE TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SECTION, CALL LUIS AT 501.375.2985

HIRING MAUMELLE ENTRY LEVEL POLICE OFFICERS The CITY OF MAUMELLE is hiring entry level Police Officers. The first step in joining this team is to take and pass the Civil Service examination. The next scheduled examination is Saturday, March 26, 2016. Qualifications for taking the exam are: 1. Be a United States Citizen 2. Be the age of 21 on date of the exam (Police Exam) 3. Be able to pass a background check, a drug test, and/or physical examination 4. Possess a high school diploma or equivalent 5. Possess a valid Arkansas driver’s license Starting salary is $32,500.00 per year; the City offers an excellent employee benefit package which includes employee paid health and dental insurance, life and AD&D insurance, generous retirement program and many more benefits.

APPLICANTS may order the “NPST Candidate Orientation Guide” by going to http://www.fpsi.com/police-orientation-guidedownload-disclaimer/. The NPST Candidate Orientation Guide can be downloaded on the page following the instruction and disclaimer page that applicants must read and agree to. This will ensure the orientation guide is downloaded successfully.

Once the guide is in the FPSI shopping cart, applicants will be given the option to pay with a PayPal account or as a PayPal guest with credit card. The download link will be located on the Order Received-Checkout Page that appears on the FPSI website as soon as payment is submitted and applicants are redirected from PayPal back to FPSI. Applicants must pay close attention to ALL instructions on both FPSI and PayPal’s websites in order to download GUIDE properly.

The application process will begin immediately. For additional information visit www.maumelle.org.

For a free quote call

(501) 749-4222

There’s never any obligation

“EOE – Minority, Women, and disabled individuals are encouraged to apply.”

This ad is available from the Title VI Coordinator in large print, on audio, and in Braille at (501) 851-2784, ext. 233 or at vernon@maumelle.org.

High School Mathematics Teacher (Maumelle, AR and client sites) Prepare assignments and teach Mathematics classes to High School students. Bachelor Degree or equivalent in Mathematics, 2 years of experience and Mississippi teacher certification in Mathematics required.

Mail resume to Global Teachers Solutions LLC, Attn: HR, 11901 Crystal Hill Road, Maumelle, AR, 72113.

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