The Pulse - Vol. 7, Issue 1

MUSICAL SECRETS • TWELFTH NIGHT • HELPING TEENS

FREE • News, Views, Arts & Entertainment • January 7, 2010 • Vol. 7 - Issue 1 • www.chattanoogapulse.com • pulse news 95.3 WPLZ

President Jim Brewer, II

2010

Publisher Zachary Cooper Contributing Editor Janis Hashe News Editor Gary Poole Calendar Editor Kathryn Dunn Advertising Manager Rhonda Rollins Advertising Sales Leslie Dotson, Rick Leavell Leif Sawyer, Townes Webb Art Director Kelly Lockhart Graphic Design Jennifer Grelier Staff Photographer Louis Lee Contributing Writers Gustavo Arellano, Rob Brezsny Chuck Crowder, Michael Crumb Hellcat, Joshua Hurley Victoria Hurst, Matt Jones Phillip Johnston, Ernie Paik Rick Pimental-Habib, Ph.D. Stephanie Smith, Alex Teach Colleen Wade, Robert Yates Editorial Cartoonist Rick Baldwin Copy Assistant Bryanna Burns Online Services Sharon Chambers Contact Info: Phone (423) 648-7857 Fax (423) 648-7860 info@chattanoogapulse.com Calendar Submissions calendar@chattanoogapulse.com Advertising advertising@chattanoogapulse.com The Pulse is published weekly and is distributed throughout the city of Chattanooga and surrounding communities. The Pulse is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. No person without written permission from the publishers may take more than one copy per weekly issue. The Pulse may be distributed only by authorized distributors.

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ontents

11 A NEW YEAR, A NEW ECONOMY

By Gary Poole For several months now, leading economists and politicians of all stripes have been telling Americans the recent recession is over and things are starting to look up.

The most recent consumer confidence report, issued last week, shows that Americans are indeed feeling a bit more reassured about the future.

feature stories 18 NO SECRETS THIS YEAR

By Hellcat Due to the fact that Leaving Miss Blue had a show coming up and needed an article written, I didn’t get to do my year-end wrap up or my New Year predictions. Good news: I’m doing it now!

20 DIARY OF A MAD TWELFTH NIGHT

By Janis Hashe Unless you’re involved in the theatre process, either personally or as a parent proxy, you probably don’t know a lot about what needs to happen to create a show.

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The Pulse covers a broad range of topics concentrating on culture, the arts, entertainment and local news.

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AL e ls NU IS Pu AN HO 2? e W JD n Th R ki

JANUARY

By Joshua Hurley For hundreds of years, the Irish and Scots have waged a battle over the origins of whiskey (spelled with the “e” in Ireland and just across the channel in Scotland without the “e”.

24 TEN YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE MISSED

By Phillip Johnston Is it possible for any film critic hope to have a complete Top 10 list at the end of a given year? Not unless one does it for a living…and since precious few of us can pull that off, there are bound to be a couple films I’ve missed that didn’t make my list.

news & views 4 5 6 9 14 22 27 30

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR PULSE BEATS BEYOND THE HEADLINES SHRINK RAP LIFE IN THE NOOG SHADES OF GREEN ON THE BEAT ASK A MEXICAN

everything else 4 7 7 7 16 19 21 25 28 29

EDITOON THE LIST POLICE BLOTTER STREET SCENES MUSIC CALENDAR NEW MUSIC REVIEWS NEW IN THEATERS A&E CALENDAR FREE WILL ASTROLOGY JONESIN’ CROSSWORD

Cover layout by Kelly Lockhart.

Editoon

by Rick Baldwin

Letters to the Editor Agreeing With Ernie Paik So glad you liked the Flaming Lips and the Faust [“The Ten Best And The Ten Most Overlooked Albums”].

Those were definitely the real surprises of the year, and the former my favorite record of the year–definitely matched in unexpectedness this decade only by last year’s Portishead record.

M. Anireik Sustainable Meadows The Sierra Club and Sustainable Chattanooga are protesting East Lake resident Caara Fritz Stoney’s citation to appear before City Court at 11 a.m. Jan. 7, 2010 on an undeserved “overgrowth” ordinance citation from a Neighborhood Services yard inspector. Chattanooga residents should not be prosecuted for their conservation efforts on private property. They should be recognized for their leadership in trying to make Chattanooga a sustainable city. On Dec. 27, we partnered for a work day at Caara’s emerging meadow to support her courage, despite repeated citations, in upholding sustainable, low-cost, low-maintenance and LEED standards on her property. If we are to be considered a green city, such properties as Caara’s should be upheld as opportunities for the

city to educate citizens in sustainable techniques, not a vehicle for harassing responsible citizens into maintaining unsustainable turf-lawn standards, or destroying their property in a recession.

Elizabeth Tallman-Gazaway, Chair Cherokee Sierra Club Kudos To The Chattanooga Police This is the kind of interaction that you want to see between WalMart and the Chattanooga Police Department [“Off-Duty Officer Helps Make Arrest At Wal-Mart”]. After the actions of a former Chattanooga officer with a Wal-Mart greeter there had to be a level of bad feelings in the back of the minds of those who work there, no matter how the police department had handled it internally.

It’s things like this that help them restore the confidence in police over all and feelings of security where they work. Overall, a win-win for the police department and Wal-Mart.

Michael Antoniewicz II Yes, You’re An A**hole No sir, I don’t for a second think you would be less of an a**hole if you were unemployed [“Fire Me? Let Us Count The Ways”, On The Beat]. It just makes me uneasy that you think

the way you do and are actually a policeman, instead of a 20-something year old acne scarred dork still living with your parents, locked in the upstairs bedroom, looking at free porn and writing a Pulse column.

Herb Montgomery No, You’re Not Live strong, Alex, live strong! You are right, Chattanooga has some “special” people and they don’t all live at the “Bend’. I like your commenters and their support as I am giving in my own ineloquent way.

Lee Tripp

Send all letters to the editor and questions to info@chattanoogapulse.com We reserve the right to edit letters for content and space. Please include your full name, city and contact information.

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Pulse Beats

Quote Of The Week: A rundown of the newsy, the notable, and the notorious...

“It’s an all-volunteer program. You volunteer by breaking the law...

If you don’t break the law, you don’t pay.”

—Chattanooga Police Chief Freeman Cooper, speaking in support of speed and red light traffic cameras used in the city.

Salvation Army Exceeds Holiday Red Kettle Collection Goal One of the most common complaints people have about the media— be it print, radio or television—is that the news always seems to be bad. So it’s very nice to be able to report on some truly good news that benefits the community and shows how giving people are in this area, even in the midst of economic hardship.

The Chattanooga Salvation Army had set a goal of collecting $349,000 through their holiday Red Kettle campaign. Instead, the venerable organization found to their surprise that people in the Chattanooga, Cleveland and North Georgia areas had dug a bit deeper into their pockets this year, donating nearly $385,000.

Salvation Army Area Commander Major Jim Lawrence said it was humbling to know so many friends stepped forward to give generously so the Chattanooga and Cleveland Salvation Army can continue to meet emergency needs into the New Year.

The Salvation Army provided Christmas assistance to 2,769 children and seniors through the Angel Tree Program. The Army and its volunteers also delivered gifts to area nursing home residents and helped to feed approximately 100 homeless people on Christmas Eve.

negative blood. All eligible donors are asked to visit their local Blood Assurance location or visit a blood drive to help replenish the community blood supply.

As the only regional blood center in the area, Blood Assurance is responsible for providing blood products to all hospitals and healthcare facilities in the region.

“We tend to see a limited amount of donors around the holiday season. Many residents are traveling and schools or other organizations that typically host blood drives are not in session,” said Linda Hisey, vice president of marketing and public relations for Blood Assurance.

Donors must be at least 17 years old (16 years old with parental consent), weigh at least 110 pounds and be in good health.

There is no upper age restriction for donating blood. For a location near you or to locate a bloodmobile in your area, call (800) 962-0628.

Blood Assurance: Critical Need For Blood Donations

The Chattanooga Community Kitchen is operating as an emergency overnight shelter for homeless individuals and families and will continue to do so until temperatures rise.

“Because of the frigid temperatures,

Blood Assurance is in critical need of all types of blood, particularly O

Community Kitchen Appeals for Blankets and Volunteers For Shelter

Here is one of the more interesting agenda items set to be discussed at the January 12 meeting of the Chattanooga City Council.

VII. Resolutions: a) A resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of an amount not to exceed $55,000,000 principal amount of the City of Chattanooga, General Obligation Bonds, Refunding Bonds, Series 2010. b) A resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of an amount not to exceed $20,000,000 principal amount of the City of Chattanooga, General Obligation Bonds, Series, 2010.

we began opening up at night on Christmas Eve and had 60 people needing shelter. Last night we had 104,” said Community Kitchen Director Charlie Hughes. “We are seeing more people needing shelter than ever before.”

The Community Kitchen will continue to provide overnight accommodations through the end of this week and most likely into next week as the area experiences extremely low temperatures.

Due to the overwhelming number of people seeking shelter, the Community Kitchen is in desperate need of blankets and overnight volunteers. Please contact Charlie Hughes at 756-4222 for more information.

It’s the time of year when the city looks around and realizes that it needs some money to pay for everything in the budget and for future projects.

Hence, the issuance of General Obligation Bonds to raise money—in this case a total of $75 million—to cover planned and future expenses.

This is really just standard procedure and how cities operate. What helps is that the city has been able to maintain a good bond rating, created in large part by relatively conservative fiscal practices over the past several years, combined with a positive economic outlook.

The Chattanooga City Council meets each Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the City Council Building at 1000 Lindsay St. For more information on the agendas, visit www.Chattanooga.gov/City_ Council/110_Agenda.asp

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Beyond The Headlines

Making Time for At-Risk Kids

By Janis Hashe

“If they want to work with smaller kids, great, and if they want the challenge of working with teens, wonderful.

We’ll be sending out specific messages to specific groups to encourage them to volunteer.”

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tudy after study shows that a crucial time for kids—the time they are most likely to make decisions that negatively impact their lives—is the three-hour period between 3 and 6 p.m. on weekdays. During this time, after school and before working parents get home, many kids are on the street—and often, finding trouble.

To address this issue, which impacts many young people in our city, the City of Chattanooga Department of Education, Arts & Culture is kicking off a campaign to further raise awareness, called “The Most Dangerous Time of the Day.” But beyond just calling attention to the problem, the program will seek to provide solutions, by issuing a call for volunteers willing to spend one, two, or more hours a week working with and mentoring kids in city rec centers.

“Young people are dying on the streets every day because of pressing social issues that need to be addressed—drugs, gang violence, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, drinking and driving, the list goes on,” says EAC Founding Administrator Missy Crutchfield.

“When we started this department four-and-a-half years ago, we focused on trying to develop ways to connect with kids and their needs,” Crutchfield explains. “For example, we provided updated computers for the rec centers, and made them accessible after school.

“We’ve found through focus groups that after-school programs need to offer more than athletics,” she says.

“So we are partnering with United Way

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and the YMCA, as well as the city rec centers, and recruiting volunteers who can both mentor kids and potentially offer conversations about social issues—the idea that one bad choice can change your life.”

Crutchfield notes that several of the city’s rec centers are located in high-risk areas, where latchkey kids predominate. “I was a latchkey kid,” she says, noting that she’s seen what risks there are for these kids.

Asked if the volunteer effort is targeting specific demographics, such as seniors, she responds that EAC will match the volunteer with what they would like to do, and that every age is welcome. “If they want to work with smaller kids, great, and if they want the challenge of working with teens, wonderful. We’ll be sending out specific messages to specific groups to encourage them to volunteer,” she says.

EAC is also working with the rec centers in helping them to become

more like “venues,” Crutchfield says.

“They have the facilities, the lights are on, and we can help make the connection with artists and programs that need a place to connect to the community,” she says, pointing out that questions are often asked such as, “Why doesn’t the rec center have this or that program?”

“The centers do not have the money to offer unlimited programs,” she says, “but by providing space, and partnering with people who have programs to offer, everyone wins.”

“The Most Dangerous Time of the Day” will intersect with the EAC’s ongoing program, “Unbroken,” which, according to the department, is a “community building initiative, engaging youth in communities across the city to build literacy and address social issues through the arts.”

For more information, or to volunteer, contact the EAC offices at (423) 425-7823.

A weekly roundup of the newsworthy, notable and often head-scratching stories gleaned from police reports from the Chattanooga Police Department, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, the Bradley County Sheriff’s Department and the Dalton Police Department.

• Tattoos are becoming more popular every year, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to brand all of your children. A Chattooga County couple has been arrested after tattooing their children. The six kids, ages 10 through 17, were tattooed with a simple black cross on the web between their thumbs and forefingers. Police were alerted when the mother of one of the children saw the tattoo when she picked her child up from the blended home.

Sheriff John Everett says the couple used a homemade tattoo gun made up of an electric motor, sharpened guitar string and a bottle of ink. The parents say they see nothing wrong with what they did, that the kids all consented to the tattoos. The couples face charges of cruelty to children.

• The trend of “sexting”—teens sending explicit photos of themselves via cell phones—is not only a bad idea, but can land the “sexter” in jail. A 19-year-old woman sent nude photos of herself through her phone to her former boyfriend, who is 17 years old and a student at Whitwell High School.

Marion County police have arrested

the woman on a misdemeanor charge of sending lewd photos to underage children. Investigators said that after the two had an argument, she not only sent the photos to her ex-boyfriend, but also to about a dozen other students at the school, some as young as 13 years old. We’re still not sure what she was trying to prove with her actions, but hopefully she’ll have plenty of time to sit and think about their consequences.

• Last winter, it seemed as though nearly every week we came across a burglary report involving the breaking of a glass front door. It got to the point where we even nicknamed the suspected perp the “Front Door Bandit”. We advised business owners with glass doors to make sure to keep nothing valuable (such as cash or expensive merchandise) out in plain sight or where it could be easily accessible. Apparently, we need to remind everyone again, after the manager of a Signal Mountain Road business discovered their front glass door smashed and a cash box containing several hundred dollars missing. Luckily, the business did have a video security system, so the glass-hating crook has left a very nice recording of his inability to open the business safe.

Chattanooga Street Scenes

Most Popular Google Searches This Week 1. Consumer Electronics Show • If you plan on stealing a high-performance automobile, it’s a good idea to have at least a passing knowledge of how to actually drive such a vehicle.

Such was apparently not the case with a group of poor-driving car thieves who stole two Dodge Vipers, a Dodge Charger and a Jeep from a Ringgold car dealership. One of the Vipers, worth $100,000, was found wrecked in front of a fast-food restaurant on Highway 27 in Fort Oglethorpe. The Jeep was found wrecked in a ditch just a short distance away from the lot. Making things easy for police was the fact that cell phones were found in each of the wrecked vehicles, which led them to the two other vehicles and the arrest of three in the thefts. It’s a safe assumption that where they will be living for the next several years will not require any driving skills, which is probably a good thing for them.

Photography by Louis Lee

“Arriving Home” by Dennis Oppenheim at Miller Plaza.

2. Incarcerated Bob 3. Cisco Cotto 4. Dave Shelly and Chainsaw 5. Steve Czaban 6. New Years Resolution Worksheet For Kids 7. Artie Lange Hospital 8. Jim Zorn Fired 9. Jay Towers 10. Apple S Tablet It’s always interesting to see what people are searching for on Google. They even have a special application that ranks the most popular search terms every day.

Some of the entries are fairly selfexplanatory, like the Consumer Electronics Show, while others leave everyone in the newsroom scratching their heads in confusion.

For example, who is Bob and why are so many people wondering about his apparent incarceration? In fact, “Incarcerated Bob” would actually make a pretty good name for a band.

What is nice, at least from our standpoint, is that the “poptartlets” like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and their ilk are no longer as popular as there were just a few years ago. Though we are a little surprised that none of the search results involved women.

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Shrink Rap

By Rick Pimental-Habib, Ph.D

The Road to Wholeness W

hat is the most effective “treatment” for healthy selfesteem? For physical and spiritual well-being? For living in the present? For a life of bliss?

Would that such “remedies” could be found in a box or bottle, right?

Sometimes we think they are. But what we know, in the deep recesses where wisdom and common sense dwell, is that they are found in a journey.

Unfortunately, our society does not always encourage us to take this road less traveled. Stepping off the path of the “norm”, in order to pursue the wisdom of our own inner voice—the beat of a different drum, perhaps— requires great courage, independent thought, and faith, especially faith in oneself.

We are well conditioned, both by society and our upbringing, in the “best” ways to maintain physical, spiritual and mental health. We tend to follow the easy things we are taught, in a kind of non-challenging inertia, but is inertia really the best we can do?

With a take-a-pill mentality, we’ve allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into thinking that faster and easier is always better. We’ll readily use our minds to make shopping lists, calculate taxes, and to figure out how much tip to leave the waiter, but not to heal our diseases, soothe our anxieties, or fight our fears.

I wonder, when it comes to our own wellbeing, why don’t we trust ourselves more?

Why use your own mind to help your body—through the practice of meditation or breathing techniques, or by entering into a process of insightenriching psychotherapy, or by taking the time to learn from the wise sages who have come before—when you can just pop a pill? We’re so busy doing, acquiring, striving, and looking outward, that we seem to forget, or not bother to learn, about the limitless powers within.

Don’t misunderstand me: I count myself among those who are very grateful for “Western” healing and for well-trained, talented, tuned-in physicians. There are some bothersome knots on my own family tree. So, good self-care for me includes being conscious of genetics, and using medications when I need to, in order to maintain health.

But to me, this is just a small part of being well.

Thousands of years ago, the ancient Rishis, or seers, of India, took the mind-body position that we can make ourselves ill, we can make ourselves well, and we can watch ourselves doing both. They understood that the boundaries of the mind are humanset, not societally set. Unfortunately, we tend to forget lessons about health and healing proffered to us by the wise masters of those ancient times. Here in the West, in “modern” society, we fall far short of realizing our healing potential by accepting what others tell us are our limitations.

And so the false message is: The answers are all outside of yourself.

Ultimately, a physician’s greatest good is to teach a person to learn about their own health, and empower them in the ways to stay healthy, especially as a person ages and acquires ever-greater knowledge (as well as concerns) about their own body.

A psychotherapist’s greatest good is to help someone discover how to maintain psychological wellness and emotional growth as part of a lifelong journey, to whatever degree is possible for that individual. A spiritual leader’s greatest good is to challenge and encourage an independence of thought that leads to a person’s most rewarding relationship with their higher self and their higher power, whatever unique and personal form that may take.

Modern wise healers—physicians and nurses, therapists of all kinds, nutritionists, hands-on healers and midwives, spiritualists and clergy—are at the forefront of an important and growing movement whereby personcentered holistic healing is married with traditional medicine. This echoes the yin-yang within us all, that which we believe will work as the greatest opportunity for success, as a person aligns the mind, body, and spirit—

inescapably interwoven, each naturally empowered to help the other.

For example, I have a friend who, like myself, is quite holistic in his approach to mental and physical well-being. He puts most of his faith in natural vitamin supplements, organic teas and herbs, meditation, yoga, counseling and massage. He is comfortable with these tools and believes that the majority of his wellness concerns are well treated using these approaches.

There are some instances, however, when he wants to address the physical problem via consultation with his Western-skilled physician.

In conjunction with his usual daily health routines, and indeed his very philosophies around wellness, he will follow his advice of his medical doctor; supplement his self-care with Western care. He feels very positive about taking prescribed medicines because he has brought them into this natural lifestyle only after careful consideration and solid communication with his doctor. Because of his thoughtful approach, he believes in what he is doing, and is therefore wisely giving his combination treatment every chance for success. His mind and body are on the same team, working in harmony toward health and repair.

The point is, he trusts himself and uses his inner wisdom. He doesn’t blindly accept any healer’s suggestion, Western or Eastern, without first listening to his needs from within, educating himself when necessary, and then arriving at a decision he can wholeheartedly support. I consider him a role model for mindful wellness.

Human beings are wired to be well. The body and mind want to repair, whether we watch, participate or hinder. Self-awareness provides an opportunity to be involved in ourselves, to actively participate in the art of being human.

So whether your own road to health includes prayer and meditation, doctor visits and chiro adjustments, counseling, yoga, or chicken soup, it is ultimately your responsibility and your reward.

Until next time, I leave your with this affirmation for healing: With each deep breath I take, I feel myself becoming more centered and relaxed.

I trust my body and mind to work beautifully in harmony and precision.

I am in good hands.

I am well.

“Thousands of years ago, the ancient Rishis, or seers, of India, took the mind-body position that we can make ourselves ill, we can make ourselves well, and we can watch ourselves doing both.”

Dr. Rick Pimental-Habib, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist, minister, and educator, in private practice in Chattanooga, and is the author of “Empowering the Tribe” and “The Power of a Partner.” Contact him online at www.drrph.com

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Cover Story

A New Year, A New Economy

By Gary Poole

“I blame corporate greed for a lot of the current problems.

But individual selfishness plays its own part.”

F

or several months now, leading economists and politicians of all stripes have been telling Americans the recent recession is over and things are starting to look up. The most recent consumer confidence report, issued last week, shows that Americans are indeed feeling a bit more reassured about the future of the economy.

“A more optimistic outlook for business and labor market conditions was the driving force behind the increase in the expectations index,” said Conference Board Consumer Research Center Director Lynn Franco, head of the group who issues the monthly report. “Regarding income, however, consumers remain rather pessimistic about their

short-term prospects, and this will likely continue to play a key role in spending decisions in early 2010.”

That said, a series of interviews with regular people paints a different and far more pessimistic outlook on the new year. “I don’t really see an end in sight and am very concerned that the current administration is just doing what every other administration has done: throw money at problems hoping that the next administration can solve it,” says technician Robert Bean.

Bean, like many highly trained professionals, has had to make many changes in both his life and his finances. He recently lost his job of eight years and the only job he could find was one paying about half his former wage. He lost his house and is now living in an apartment. Even so, he tries to keep a positive outlook on life. “I am thankful I can think on my feet and have a skill that allows me to work 95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 1.7.10 The Pulse

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Cover Story when others are unemployed.”

Charles Simpson is another skilled worker who has had to make some serious changes. A former self-employed consultant in the computer networking field, he saw his consulting business dry up when the recession hit. “I just went to work full time. The economy was so slow I jumped at the chance for full time because when it comes to computers most companies are in a holding pattern and not upgrading or fixing anything unless they absolutely have to.”

In order to make ends meet, he now shares his house with three other people who combine to help cover expenses. Even so, he says he recently defaulted on his credit card debt, which he estimated at more than $50,000. He feels lucky that he has a fixed mortgage on his house, but has had to make many other lifestyle changes.

“Our eating habits have changed—buying cheaper food, not eating out as much, we only pay for expenses and the minimum,” he explains.

“We have consolidated and bundled a lot of our services such as phone and Internet, cut back on power usage. Everywhere we can shave a little we do. We have cut out pretty much everything that is not a necessity.

“I feel we are in the state we are in for many reasons but I blame a lot of it on gas prices.

When people had to start choosing between paying the mortgage and paying for gas to get to work, that’s when people had problems. I worry, as someone in the health care field, what government-run health care will mean to the health care worker. It seems anything to do with the government is already buried in paperwork.

I fear it will only get worse when everything is government run. I see our government spending trillions of dollars but I look at everyone in the area here and none of us have seen any changes and nobody feels stimulated. We all wonder where the money went.”

of the equipment used in aerial photography and remote sensing, lost his job two years ago. He tried to run a packing and shipping store after that, but the business failed and left him even further in debt.

“I spend a lot of time wondering if there will be more work, or if a payment for past work will come,” he says. “At least in my area, construction is minimal to nonexistent. The result is that most of the people I know are either unemployed or in burger-flipping jobs paying not much above minimum wage. Lots and lots of people are starting to deal strictly in cash and trying not to leave a paper trail—all the leading indicators of a fairly severe problem for everybody.”

Even union workers are far from immune to the economic changes. Bob Dwyre works in a union factory that makes fiberglass insulation. “The workforce at the factory has been cut back by more than half. Only being in the local union kept me from becoming jobless, and eventually homeless, like a lot of my former co-workers that got laid off,” he explains. “I had more seniority, so they got laid off and I got to keep working. But now I have to do their jobs as well as mine. Oddly enough, the upper management of the company recorded record profits and gave themselves big bonuses for ‘reducing operating costs’.”

Although he hasn’t been laid off or had his pay cut, he says that deep cuts in benefits combined with sharp increases in insurance costs and taxes

“We have consolidated and bundled a lot of our services such as phone and Internet, cut back on power usage.

Everywhere we can shave a little we do.”

One of the biggest problems facing many Americans is not just unemployment, but the lack of steady, decent paying jobs. Many of the people interviewed for this story told of losing jobs and having to take jobs with much lower salaries.

Ric Locke says it is ever harder for people like him, who are over 60 and can’t afford to retire.

Locke, a longtime consultant for technical details

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have necessitated lots of changes. “We’ve cut back to the bare minimum on spending; CF lights all through the house, turning the heat down in winter, plastic sheets on the windows to eliminate drafts, sweatsuits and warm bathrobes to stay warm, doing without air conditioning in summer, that sort of thing.”

He feels that in many ways he and his wife have reverted to way of life their grandparents would be more familiar with. “We cook several meals at once and freeze most for microwaving later in the week, clothesline rather than dryer for laundry, far fewer pleasure trips, vacations mostly spent at home, buying store-brand canned goods and groceries that don’t taste as good as the name brands, some small gardening at home, buying clothes at thrift stores instead of buying new clothes, no theater movies or DVDs or music CDs, and far fewer Christmas and birthday presents for the family.”

So who is at fault for the state we are in?

Dwyre believes the finger of blame can be pointed squarely at the selfishness and greed of people, both in management and the workforce. “I blame corporate greed for a lot of the current problems. But individual selfishness plays its own part. ‘Live for today. I’m gonna get mine and if you get shafted, then that’s just too bad’,” he laments. “Management-types intent on climbing the corporate ladder rather than caring about the customers or what the actual business of the company happens to be. The cost of everything soars, while the quality of everything plummets.

Few people seem to take any pride in their work.

Few care about anything other than accumulating possessions, rather than finding happiness and

Cover Story Some Good Economic News Not everyone in Chattanooga is pessimistic about the economy.

In fact, one of the people we spoke to said that his business saw “exponential” growth in the last part of 2009. Howie Burger owns an online company that sells a wide variety of artwork.

living full, enriching lives.”

Not everything is doom and gloom, though. It has been said for many years that the true bedrock of the economy is the small businessman. David Smotherman, who owns an art gallery and bookstore on the Northshore, remains optimistic. “I’ve mainly just tightened my belt,” he says. “I’ve scrutinized every business and personal expense and cut out all the fat. I live pretty simple to begin with, so the adjustment has not been very bad and we have been very lucky that the gallery had stayed financially consistent the last three years.” He feels fortunate that while his sales have been flat this year, they did not drop down as has been the case with many other small businesses.

“I am optimistic about the future economy. But I am just an optimistic person in general,” Smotherman continues. “However, health care is always a concern for someone who is self-employed and my biggest personal concern. I don’t trust the government to be in charge of it, and I don’t trust big corporate insurance companies either. No easy answer on that one.”

Like Smotherman, Robbie Wade is also a small business owner. He feels that a major part of the current economic problem is the current administration. “I am not very optimistic about anything improving till this current administration is voted out,” he says. “Taxes are going to get higher.

More hardship is going to be put on the very people and businesses that provide jobs.”

He is especially scornful of some of many of the stimulus programs, targeting the recent “Cash For Clunkers” program. “That was about the stupidest economic stunt I have ever heard of,” he proclaims.

“Now default on car loans are going to be at an alltime high because many people turned in perfectly good paid-for autos, for five or six years of payments they can’t afford. And the byproduct from destroying so many good used cars has driven the prices of used cars up.”

Legal secretary Dana Fly worries that even people with jobs are facing a rather bleak future. “I think in general the overall economy is looking up slowly but as for the average person who has no large pool of savings or investments, it will still be a struggle, as it has always been,” she predicts. “Many people were living paycheck to paycheck even before the recession hit. The only real difference is that many other people who hadn’t really had problems before will not bounce back so quickly.”

She expresses a deep frustration over what she sees as a lack of priorities with government at all levels.

“It’s hard to be optimistic when our local, state and federal leaders are more interested in arguing than solving problems,” she says. “The economy may improve, but it’s going to take a long time and some changes may be permanent. I think, in general, many people are finding out how much so many people struggle every day and they are shocked. If anything good comes out of this mess, maybe it will be a better understanding of what the average person faces each day, recession or no recession.”

Bob Dwyre sums up what the vast majority of the people interviewed are feeling. “I think that the value of having fun in life has become reduced, and that’s sad,” he says. “People, in general, can’t seem to find any joy out of living. That puzzles me. Even with the economy as it is, my whole family finds ways to live life to the fullest. What makes us different from the rest? My parents were kids during the Great Depression. My wife’s parents lived through World War II in England. Did that exposure to privation and suffering get passed on to her and me as ‘life lessons’ that are still helping us cope with today’s difficulties? I can’t say; I suppose I just don’t know.

“As for me, I’m just trying to keep a roof over my family’s heads, put food on the table, and keep the bills paid. As long as I can manage that, I’m ahead of the game.”

“My business is doing well but the more important observation is that the buying public is changing, and in a good way,” he notes. “They are becoming more sophisticated.

Hype does not work anymore.

People want honesty. Schemes don’t work as well.”

Burger started off selling art through eBay years ago but then moved into establishing his own web sites and working directly with a variety of artists, as well as making a move to what he sees as a more reliable and professional retail web site.

“My business was flat for the first six months of 2009 and I was becoming concerned,” Burger explains. “The problem I saw was that eBay’s business model was not working. Customers (the end users) want fast turnaround and the best price. The profit margin on fulfillment houses was thin.

EBay has little criteria [restrictions] on approval of sellers and the marketplace became diluted with hundreds of these types of sellers.”

So what did he do? He turned to Amazon. “Amazon saw the light and raised their selling standards.

They started requiring UPS codes and they only allowed a small number of sellers in each category and made it very difficult for new vendors to enter the marketplace unless they had unique product or an exceptional track record.”

Burger says that the real way to make money, be it online or through a “brick-and-mortar” business, which he has also been involved with in the past, is to make sure you keep your standards as high as possible. If you do that, he says, and are always honest with your customers, you can succeed no matter what the economy may be doing.

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 1.7.10 The Pulse

13

Life In The Noog

By Chuck Crowder

Remembering Susan Berry Wood J

ust before Christmas I heard that a friend of mine from many moons ago was struck and killed by an “alleged” drunk driver as she walked across the street to work one morning. That friend was Susan Berry Wood.

Susan and I graduated from Hixson High School together back in 1985. And even though I really hadn’t seen her since, I remember Susan as if we’d cut up in French class just yesterday. She was bright, extremely funny and had one of those glowing personalities that just made you smile every time you saw her.

Her laid-back, silly approach to the task of high school mimicked that of most of the people we ran around with back then. Whether we considered ourselves “above it” or were just trying to make the best of the situation, we “cool” kids saw the juvenile daily grind of the Breakfast Club years steeped in hilarious moments. And like me, Susan took advantage of every opportunity to laugh at it all.

Thinking back, I don’t think there’s a single Wildcat from the mideighties who could say they didn’t know or like Susan. She was just plain awesome. That’s why I’m sure there are many like me grieving our old friend right now.

As soon as I had a diploma in hand, I left high school and never looked back. I did attend our twentieth reunion a few years ago and sadly can’t remember whether or not I ran into Susan. One thing

14

I do remember was the table of photographs of everyone in our class who’d passed away since graduation.

And it saddens me to think that her picture will be there next time.

Her death was senseless, but it can serve to remind us of the fragile and precious nature of life. She was merely 42 years old—only half way through the big haul. To me, we’re not yet at the age where death should be an option. Bad accidents just don’t happen to people our age. Or at least they shouldn’t.

That’s why I can’t fully understand the circumstances of her death. The “alleged” driver of the car which “allegedly” hit her (I’m being careful not to give the defense attorneys any reason to think the media has already reached a verdict) told police they’d stayed up drinking all night. Why the hell would someone stay up drinking until 7 a.m. on a Tuesday? I guess the same kind of loser who’s stupid enough to get behind the wheel of a car afterwards.

Without being judge and jury here, I think the person found responsible

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for this senseless act should meet a harsh punishment that will forever change their life—much like the devastating way they changed the lives of Susan’s husband and her two kids.

But I assume that whatever happens in court, this person will never forget what they did to an innocent wife and mother, just two days before Christmas. I’m sure that if they have any sort of conscience at all, it will be tormented until the day they die.

For everyone else, this tragedy should teach us some valuable lessons. First of all, drinking and driving is extremely dangerous and should be avoided at all cost. Taxis are cheap and yes, there are plenty serving Chattanooga.

Secondly, the traffic logistics of Fourth Street need to be reexamined very closely. Having witnessed so many near-misses between pedestrians and cars trying to beat the yellow lights, I would say that if any street in downtown Chattanooga needs speeding and traffic light photo enforcement, it’s Fourth Street. And, it wouldn’t hurt to shorten the green lights to slow down the constant traffic and extend the length of the walk signs to enable safer foot traffic across the street’s six lanes.

But most importantly, the death of Susan Berry Wood should remind us that anyone can disappear from our lives at any moment. So let people know how you feel about them. Hug often. Kiss more often. And never take situations to spend time with those you love for granted. Life is short. But if you’re anything like Susan, you’re living it to the fullest.

“Let people know how you feel about them.

Hug often. Kiss more often.

And never take situations to spend time with those you love for granted. Life is short.”

Chuck Crowder is a local writer and general man about town. His opinions are just that. Everything expressed is loosely based on fact, and crap he hears people talking about. Take what you just read with a grain of salt, but pepper it in your thoughts. And be sure to check out his popular website www.thenoog.com

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 1.7.10 The Pulse

15

Music Calendar Thursday Spotlight

Robosapien, This Is Art & Ron Day Local and visiting musicians of the electronic age converge on the Rhythm & Brews stage for beats from the motherboard. Listen, dance, go Robo. $5 9:30 p.m.

Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. (423) 267-4644. www.rhythm-brews.com

Thursday, Jan. 7 Caveat Emperor and Jordan Holquist 7 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestaurant.com Before There Was Rosalyn, Stillglow, Judges, Tir Asleen 7 p.m. The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Rd., East Ridge. www.myspace.com/warehousetn Georgia Scruff Band 7:30 p.m. Northshore Grille, 16 Frazier Ave. (423) 757-2000. www.northshoregrille.com Open Mic 8 p.m. The Riverhouse, 224 Frazier Ave. (423) 752-0066. myspace.com/ theriverhousechattanooga Open Mic Night 9 p.m. Market Street Tavern, 850 Market St. (423) 634-0260. www.marketstreettavern.com Pink Cadillac Rockin Blues Band 9 p.m. The Palms at Hamilton, 6925 Shallowford Rd., #202.

(423) 499-5055. www.thepalmsathamilton.com Karaoke 9 p.m. Images, 6500 Lee Hwy. www.imagesbar.com Robosapien with This Is Art & Ron Day 9:30 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. (423) 267-4644. www.rhythm-brews.com

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Friday Spotlight

The Fevors, Mattress, and Till Plains 10 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd. (423) 266-1400. www.myspace.com/jjsbohemia DJ ScubaSteve Fox and Hound Pub & Grille, 2040 Hamilton Place Blvd, #150. (423) 490-1200.

DJ Lucky Lucky’s, 2536 Cummings Highway, (423) 825-5145.

Friday, Jan. 8 Live Jazz 7 p.m. Blue Orleans on Market, 1463 Market St. (423) 629-8080.

Ambush, Renae, Faded, Amity 7 p.m. The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Rd., East Ridge. www.myspace.com/warehousetn New Orleans Jazz trio 7:30 p.m. The Original Blue Orleans Restaurant, 3208 Amnicola Hwy. (423) 629-6538.

Chaotic Suspension,Every Word a Prophecy, 476, Backseat Bingo, and Rivercity Hustlers 7:30 p.m. Club Fathom, 412 Market Street (423) 757-0019. www.clubfathom.com Kathy Tugman Quartet 8:30 p.m. The Foundry, 1201 Broad St. (423) 424-3775. www.chattanooganhotel.com Karaoke 9 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestaurant.com Karaoke 9 p.m. Chattanooga Billiards Club East, 110 Jordan Drive (423) 499-3883 www.cbcburns.com Hopsing Project with Cadillac Saints and Jake Jones 9:30 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. (423) 267-4644. www.rhythm-brews.com Winston Chamblin Band 10 p.m. Market Street Tavern, 850 Market St. (423) 634-0260. www.marketstreettavern.com

One Shoe Untied, Danimal, and More 10 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd. (423) 266-1400. www.myspace.com/jjsbohemia Fried Chicken 10 p.m. T-Bones Sports Café, 1419 Chestnut Ave. (423) 266-4240. www.tboneschattanooga.com Live Music 10 p.m. Tremont Tavern, 1203 Hixson Pike. (423) 266-1996. www.tremonttavern.com Planet with Moth Monoxide 10 p.m. Riverhouse Pub, 224 Frazier Ave. (423) 752-0066.

DJ Spicolli Raw Sushi Bar Restaurant & Nightclub, 409 Market Street, (423) 756-1919.

DJ GOP The Palms at Hamilton, 6925 Shallowford Rd., #202, (423) 499-5055. www.thepalmsathamilton.com

Saturday, Jan. 9 Dead End Stanley, In This Hour, Thaddeus, Night After Dark 6 p.m. The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Rd., East Ridge. www.myspace.com/warehousetn Between Two Seas, Kisshergoodbye, Fallacy, Failing the Fairest, and Axiom 7:30 p.m. Club Fathom, 412 Market Street (423) 757-0019. www.clubfathom.com Punk Night with Skeptic, Random Conflict, Hold Fast, and Drop Dead Nasty 8 p.m. Ziggy’s Hideaway, 607 Cherokee Blvd.

(423) 634-1074. myspace.com/ziggyshideaway Karaoke 8 p.m. Rhapsody Café, 1201 Hixson Pike. (423) 266-3093.

Kathy Tugman Quartet 8:30 p.m. The Foundry, 1201 Broad St. (423) 424-3775. www.chattanooganhotel.com Bill and Kate Isles 8 p.m. Charles and Myrtle’s

One Shoe Untied, Danimal Start 2010 with the new resolution to discover more local music and make JJ’s ground zero. Here is your first pick of the new year!

You’re welcome! $7 10 p.m.

JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd.(423) 266-1400. www.myspace.com/jjsbohemia Coffeehouse, 105 McBrien Rd. www.christunity.org DJ at the Palms 9 p.m. The Palms at Hamilton, 6925 Shallowford Rd., #202.

(423) 499-5055. www.thepalmsathamilton.com Second Saturdays various live DJs 9 p.m. Market Street Tavern, 850 Market St. (423) 634-0260. www.marketstreettavern.com “Punk Out” Benefit featuring Six Live Bands 9 p.m. Riverhouse Pub, 224 Frazier Ave. (423) 752-0066.

Open Mic Night 9 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestaurant.com Matt Stephens Project and Soul Crush 9:30 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. (423) 267-4644. www.rhythm-brews.com Shawnessey Cargile 10 p.m. Tremont Tavern, 1203 Hixson Pike. (423) 266-1996. www.tremonttavern.com Oz and Jaynes 10 p.m. T-Bones Sports Café, 1419 Chestnut Ave. (423) 266-4240. www.tboneschattanooga.com DJ Spicolli Raw Sushi Bar Restaurant & Nightclub, 409 Market Street, (423) 756-1919.

DJ GOP The Palms at Hamilton, 6925 Shallowford Rd., #202, (423) 499-5055.

Music Calendar

Send your calendar events to us at calendar@chattanoogapulse.com

Saturday Spotlight

Punk Night at Ziggy’s!

Local line-up with Hold Fast on the ticket as well.

Punk sounds from Skeptic kick off their first live show of 2010. $5 8 p.m.

607 Cherokee Blvd.

(423) 634-1074. myspace.com/ziggyshideaway

Sunday, Jan. 10 Open Mic w/Jeff Daniels 4 p.m. Ms. Debbie’s Nightlife Lounge 4762 Highway 58, (423) 485-0966. myspace.com/debbieslounge Rick Rushing and Blue Strangers 6:30 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestaurant.com Divide the Sea, Dispel the Serpent’s Lie, Heroes for Tonight 7 p.m. The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Rd., East Ridge. www.myspace.com/ warehousetn Open Mic 8 p.m. Gene’s Bar & Grill, 724 Ashland Terrace, (423) 870-0880. myspace.com/genem14 Live Music 9:30 p.m. Northshore Grille, 16 Frazier Ave. (423) 757-2000. www.northshoregrille.com DJ GOP The Palms at Hamilton, 6925 Shallowford Rd., #202, (423) 499-5055. www.thepalmsathamilton.com

Monday, Jan. 11 Old Tyme Players 7 p.m. Market Street Tavern, 850 Market St. (423) 634-0260. www.marketstreettavern.com Abel, Lorien, Standing Small, This is Luke, The Night Shines, Joy in Tomorrow

Sunday Spotlight

7 p.m. The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Rd., East Ridge. www.myspace.com/ warehousetn Speak Easy Poetry and Spoken Word Open Mic 8 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestaurant.com The Palms at Hamilton 6925 Shallowford Rd., #202, (423) 499-5055. www.thepalmsathamilton.com

Tuesday, Jan.12 The Ben Friberg Trio 7 p.m. Table 2, 232 E. 11th Street, (423) 756-8253. www.table2restaurant.com Spoken Word/Poetry Night 8 p.m. The Riverhouse, 224 Frazier Avenue, (423) 752-0066.

myspace.com/ theriverhousechattanooga Billy Hopkins & Friends 8 p.m. Market Street Tavern, 850 Market St. (423) 634-0260. www.marketstreettavern.com Jonathan Wimpee 9 p.m. Northshore Grille, 16 Frazier Ave. (423) 757-2000. www.northshoregrille.com Open Mic 9 p.m. Tremont Tavern, 1203 Hixson Pike. (423) 266-1996. www.tremonttavern.com Karaoke 9:30 p.m. Bud’s Sports Bar, 5751 Brainerd Rd. (423) 499-9878. www.budssportsbar.com DJ ScubaSteve Fox and Hound Pub & Grille, 2040 Hamilton Place Blvd, #150, (423) 490-1200.

Editor’s Pick of the Week

Rick Rushing and the Blue Strangers Rick Rushing and the Blue Strangers provide live and local music at Mudpie.

Free 6 p.m.

Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. 423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestuarant.com

DJ GOP The Palms at Hamilton, 6925 Shallowford Rd., #202, (423) 499-5055. www.thepalmsathamilton.com

Wednesday, Jan. 13 Ben Friberg Trio 7 p.m. Market Street Tavern, 850 Market St. (423) 634-0260. www.marketstreettavern.com Johnston-Brown 8 p.m. The Palms at Hamilton, 6925 Shallowford Rd., #202.

(423) 499-5055. www.thepalmsathamilton.com Live Music 9 p.m. Northshore Grille, 16 Frazier Ave. (423) 757-2000. www.northshoregrille.com

Got a gig coming up that you want to tell the world about?

Discoteca Opening Night A former Tienda turned into our newest, and selfproclaimed, dive bar, this Main Street attraction bills itself as a low-fi bar with the “The Coldest Beer Ever”. Adding to its funkiness, it has been declared an “MP3 Free Zone”. Only live, vinyl, cassette and 8-track sounds will be allowed. Will there be grilled cheese sandwiches? Not sure if that initial feature is still in the works, but you can bet that the brains behind the operation will give you the low-fi goodness and a cozy camp to warm your soul.

Friday, January 8 9 p.m.

304 E. Main Street

All you need to do to get the word out for free is to send us your information (the basic when, where and time) and we will list it here in the weekly music calendar.

Email the particulars to us at calendar@chattanoogapulse. com at least ten days before the event.

And for last minute changes and updates, be sure to visit chattanoogahasfun.com for the most comprehensive music and events calendar in Chattanooga (and beyond).

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 1.7.10 The Pulse

17

Music Feature

No Secrets This Year

By Hellcat

“The Nim Nims released their follow-up album this year, called Patton Towers, and if you haven’t gotten it by now, or their first one…well, I’m not angry with you, just disappointed.”

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D

ue to the fact that Leaving Miss Blue had a show coming up and needed an article written, I didn’t get to do my year -end wrap up or my New Year predictions. Good news: I’m doing it now!

First, I would like to say that the highlight of my year musically, beyond the local scope, would have to be the release of Swoon by the Silversun Pickups. If you have their first album Carnavas, or their EP Pikul, you will not be disappointed. If you don’t, then you should definitely get those two first, as they each seem to have a life of their own. The evolution into Swoon brought the addition of a full string section, which in my opinion offers a more complex depth to the music that wasn’t there before, although I do like their raw sound as well.

I have also been digging on a bit of Phoenix, which is a French rock band that has been around since 2000, picking up momentum slowly at first, but it seems they exploded this past year with their new album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, and their inclusion on the break-out hit soundtrack of Where the Wild Things Are, which also included some solo songs from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O. Actually, that may just be the best soundtrack of 2009. I will go ahead and say, yes it is,

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at least to me.

But when is the last time there truly was an awesome soundtrack? Remember when soundtracks were something that could very well be amazing, and you had several in your CD or cassette tape library? Hopefully the success of this soundtrack will remind the music industry that combining mediums can sometimes work out for the best in both worlds.

Another band that I just got turned on to is The Temper Trap, an Australian indie-rock band with classic Motown undertones, that has been making quite a ruckus on the Australian and UK charts throughout this past year. The band is pretty epic. The album is called Conditions, and is definitely worth a listen.

If you want to test-drive a song, I would suggest going online and searching for “Sweet Disposition”. It’s a great song, and should give you an idea if you would be into the band or not. If you’d like a taste of the Motown, I would look up the song “Love Lost” and you will see what I mean. They will be headed to the US by way of SXSW, so I am sure you will be hearing more from them in the near future.

Oddly enough, there is another band that I can’t quite make up my mind about named Conditions. I know, it’s confusing, but this isn’t

an album name—it’s the actual band. They are on tour right now with Paramore, which is doing absolutely no damage to their publicity, but they are yet to be signed. They sound tight with a huge pop/punk influence, and I like their sound. The only problem that I have is that the singer’s voice slightly resembles that of Blink 182 and Jimmy Eat World. I love Jimmy Eat World. I hate Blink 182. Hence I am torn. Go to Youtube.com and type in Conditions, then pull up the song “Keeping Pace with Planes”. Let me know what you think of them, as I am undecided as of yet.

Moving on to local music, I have to give it up to our Chattanooga music scene this year! We’ve been productive, haven’t we? I would love to give some shout outs to some of our local acts that have accomplished a lot this year. First, The Nim Nims, which I cannot believe I forgot to mention in my Top 5, because they are totally in my Top 2! They released their followup album this year, called Patton Towers, and if you haven’t gotten it by now, or their first one…well, I’m not angry with you, just disappointed.

Second, I would like to congratulate The Icons for coming back together as a band in 2009 and being amazing. Also, Up with the Joneses finished their long-awaited album, Over the Sound, which is beyond impressive.

River City Hustlers seem to be moving on up, while we saw an end to local favorite Coral Castles. I hope that The Tammys find their way again in 2010. Turncoat Conspiracy called it quits, and Leaving Miss Blue came back from the dead. (The) Inanimate Tragedy emerged from a session of local musician musical chairs, and Night of the Wolf released an album, which proved to be a pretty wicked Christmas present.

We saw Chattanooga bring back a formal local music awards ceremony; awesome. Bring the Witch and Mother Monoxide have been gathering momentum; True Stereo is pretty rad and I want them to play more! Planet seems to be getting comfortable in their rock skin and The Distribution is completely unstoppable! The Unsatisfied are still laying down the rock and The Queers are coming back to JJ’s Bohemia in February so stay tuned! It promises to be a pretty good year in 2010 for local music! Bring on the rock!

New Music Reviews

By Ernie Paik

Pylon

Os Mutantes

Chomp More

Haih...Or Amortecedor...

(DFA)

(Anti)

In the rockpop realm, a cover song outshining the original is the exception, not the rule.

So, it’s not unexpected that R.E.M.’s mid-’80s cover of “Crazy,” by the fellow Athens, Georgia quartet Pylon, while undoubtedly reverent, wasn’t quite as inspired as the original. However, it is notable, and appreciated, for serving as the introduction for many newcomers (as it was in my case) to this unique band. Pylon seemed to be an anomaly, formed from art-minded Southerners with a sound more in common with tight, dynamic British post-punk groups than local contemporaries. What also set Pylon apart from the crowd was lead singer Vanessa Briscoe Hay, who could instantly switch between a reserved delivery to an agitated, distinctive halfshout.

Following the 2007 reissue of Pylon’s 1980 debut album, Gyrate, comes another lovingly assembled package. This one is centered on the group’s 1982 album Chomp, re-dubbed Chomp More, and it features a few bonus tracks, including the superior single version of “Crazy,” a longer version of “Gyrate,” “Yo-Yo” with slowed-down vocals, and an evil-sounding half-speed version of “Beep” called “Four Minutes.” As a whole, Chomp doesn’t seem as immediately satisfying as Gyrate, for a few reasons. First of all, the song sequence just doesn’t seem right; the album strolls in with “K” and saunters out with “Altitude.” However, the attention-grabbing “Beep” would have been the obviously better opening track, and the glorious “No Clocks” would have been a nice closer. While the tracks on Gyrate often had an urgent feeling to them, certain tracks on Chomp take time to wander about, including “Yo-Yo” and “K.” When judged song-by-song, though, Chomp fares better—it does feature some of Pylon’s best tracks, in particular the aforementioned “Beep,” “No Clocks,” and “Crazy,” arguably the group’s finest moment with a wistful release of energy.

Listeners who are only familiar with the Chomp tracks featured on the band’s compilation album Hits will be pleased to hear the songs left off that release, which are solidly in line with Pylon’s trademark style. Despite some quibbles, Chomp More is a good companion for Gyrate Plus, and in its newly re-mastered form, it’s never sounded better.

There is a 35-year gap between the last studio album from the beloved Brazilian outfit Os Mutantes (“The Mutants”) and the one at hand, the enigmatically titled Haih...or Amortecedor... (“Raven…or Muffler…”).

Despite the time gap between releases, it’s only fair to compare the present day Mutantes to the material of the band’s heyday since Sérgio Dias, the only original member present, decided to carry on with the Mutantes name—if you use the name, you need to deal with the history. And what a history to behold—the group’s mind-bending first three albums are full of vibrant, playful, often unpredictable, and sometimes endearingly warped psychedelic pop, in the midst of the fruitful Tropicália movement; after that, there are diminishing returns on the band’s catalog as key members departed, with the latter releases somewhat resembling a less ambitious version of Yes. Like on previous Mutantes albums, Haih...Or Amortecedor... partially employs the songwriting talents of other Brazilian contemporaries such as Tom Zé, who contributed lyrics for about half of the album, and Jorge Ben, who wrote the spirited “O Careca,” which has a fluid, driving feel with busy percussion and jazz-pop organ flourishes.

Conspicuously, at times the material touches upon politics, unlike material from the classic era, which never did so outwardly; the album actually begins with an excerpt from a speech

by Vladimir Putin, and tracks such as “Bagdad Blues” (sic) and “Samba do Fidel” are peppered with references to notable figures. “Querida Querida” (“Darling Darling”) is a surprisingly heavy onslaught of sound, with fuzz guitars, backwards passages, and the use of brass, winds, and strings, while “O Mensageiro” is on the opposite side of the scale, bringing to mind ’60s jangle guitar pop. “2000 e Agarrum,” with several abrupt stylistic changes, is the closest in spirit to classic Mutantes, but here, the spontaneity sounds a little forced. There’s a variety of approaches and nothing ostensibly objectionable on the album; however, it doesn’t feel sufficiently distinctive, like the best Mutantes material, which sounded naturally weird—like a proper mutant should sound.

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 1.7.10 The Pulse

19

Film Feature

Ten Movies You Shouldn’t Have Missed

By Phillip Johnston

“To miss this film on the big screen would be to miss the dawning of the future of blockbuster movies, a future that should have the pubescent Michael Bay cowering in the shadow of the mighty James Cameron.”

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I

s it possible for any film critic hope to have a complete Top 10 list at the end of a given year? Not unless one does it for a living…and since precious few of us can pull that off, there are bound to be a couple films I’ve missed that didn’t make my list. Nevertheless, here are my ten favorite films of 2009. Feel free to take them or leave them.

(Personally, I think you should take them.)

10. Moon. A strange and unique one-man show starring Sam Rockwell as a lone astronaut presiding over the harvest of Helium 2 on the moon.

Infused with a heavy, impending dread by newcomer Duncan Jones’s direction, Moon is a slick, polished affair with some staggering handcrafted special effects and a contagious score by Clint Mansell. Supposedly there is a trilogy in the works.

9. Where the Wild Things Are. Maurice Sendak’s classic story enchants yet again in Spike Jonze’s beautiful, expansive retelling. It isn’t a children’s film, but it’s perfect for those of us who grew up with the book and look back fondly on the days when we thought

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and spoke like children. It also wars with (500) Days of Summer for the best soundtrack of the year.

8. Lake Tahoe. A young man crashes his car against a telephone pole and looks for help in fixing his vehicle.

Lake Tahoe feels like a search in itself as the camera lingers on scenes with long takes of the sometimes desolate, sometimes beautiful scenery. When the reason for the movie’s title is revealed at the end, it becomes apparent that this young man who crashed his vehicle has been searching for something far more important than car parts.

Innovative and ponderous, Lake Tahoe may be an endurance test for some, but give it a chance—it may find a home in your soul.

7. Inglourious Basterds. Tension, tension, tension, from the first scene to the last. Quentin Tarantino’s latest is also a film nerd’s dream come true, complete with historical references, visual nods, and a diabolically satisfying finale in a movie theater.

Darn good entertainment.

6. The Soloist. Joe Wright’s lovely film about the friendship between a Los Angeles Times columnist and a homeless cellist was nearly forgotten by everyone in the midst of the spring movie dregs, but here’s hoping it will find a new life on DVD. You’ll find

beauty at every turn in The Soloist—in the relationship forged between the two men, the music that inspires one of them, the cinematography that verges on the divine, and so much more.

5. That Evening Sun. The story of an aging man trying to stake his claim on property that is rightfully his, That Evening Sun is a languid slice of Southern grit in which Hal Holbrook gives the defining performance of his career and director Scott Teems inaugurates his own career as a wise and sure cinematic craftsman. It’s a shame that this masterful film (shot entirely in Knoxville) hasn’t received more buzz. Keep watch for it in Chattanooga in the coming months.

4. Avatar. James Cameron’s latest sci-fi opus is three hours of unmediated wonderment with the most seamless use of CGI and 3D to date, classic story structure, a distillation of transcendental thought that would make Thoreau squeal in delight, and towering action sequences so thorough they could be considered separate films in their own right. To miss this film on the big screen would be to miss the dawning of the future of blockbuster movies, a future that should have the pubescent Michael Bay cowering in the shadow of the mighty James Cameron.

3. Up. Pixar achieves perfection again in their most visually arresting picture yet, a masterpiece of color and light with a G-rated story that could steal the heart of even the most calloused moviegoer.

2. A Serious Man. In the seconds after physics professor Larry Gopnik receives a phone call in the final minutes of A Serious Man, we become aware that Joel and Ethan Coen are yet again toying with our cinematic senses.

But this time, it’s on a cosmic level… and we’ve quite literally laughed up a storm.

1. Up in the Air. George Clooney is Ryan Bingham, the man your boss calls when he doesn’t want to fire you face-to-face, and his story is one for people who are daily forgetting the importance of communicating meaningfully with others—people like me, and probably you. Director Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You for Smoking) exchanges his smarmy “indie flick” sensibilities for something surprisingly old-fashioned (think Frank Capra without the cheese) and winds up with a funny, bracing, and thoroughly true film for our time and place. Up in the Air is one for the ages.

New in Theaters Youth in Revolt Michael Cera has become Hollywood’s go-to actor for movies involving lovelorn young men pining for the girl of their dreams.

With his liquid puppy-dog eyes in a face that seems to make women want to cuddle him and tell him everything will be all right, he is the type of actor who uses his physical looks to define a specific character.

Which is why what could easily have been another self-precocious indie-type romcom instead surprises by being one of the funnier films of the season. Cera portrays a wimpy teen—the appropriately named Nick Twisp—who, in order to win the girl of his dreams (Portia Doubleday in a breakout role) must become a “bad boy” and break all the rules.

What really makes the film click is one of better cast of supporting actors seen in a comedy in quite some time. M. Emmett Walsh, Mary Kay Place, Steve Buscemi, Ray Liotta, Fred Willard, Justin Long and Jean Smart all add their own unique stamps on a crisply written and directed comedy that will leave audiences pleased. And if there is any justice in the metroplex that has seen recent support of intelligent comedies, such as It’s Complicated, this film will also

do well and hopefully open Cera up to more varied roles. Yes, he’s very good at what he does, but one hopes to see him stretch and use his natural talents to explore some other aspects of the movie world.

Starring: Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, Justin Longe, Ray Liotta, Jean Smart, Steve Buscemi Director: Miguel Arteta Rating: R

Also in Theaters Leap Year (New) Amy Adams travels to Dublin to propose to her boyfriend, following a tradition requiring a man to say yes if proposed to on a leap day.

Daybreakers (New) In the near future, humanity nears extinction when an unknown plague transforms the world’s population into vampires.

Wonderful World (New) A failed folk singer’s life begins to turn around with the arrival of his ailing roommate’s beautiful sister from Senegal.

Crazy on the Outside (New) Tim Allen stars as an ex-convict fresh out of prison and ready for a second chance in life...but life has other ideas.

Bitch Slap (New) When three femme fatales attempt to steal $200 million from an underworld kingpin, things quickly spiral out of control Avatar

In director James Cameron’s latest sci-fi epic, a reluctant human hero fights to save the alien world he has learned to call home.

Sherlock Holmes Robert Downey Jr. stars as the legendary London detective, investigating a mysterious nemesis who threatens all of England.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel Alvin, Simon, and Theodore are back for another dose of mischief and musical mayhem... and this time, they’ve got company.

It’s Complicated Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin star as an amicably divorced couple who unexpectedly find themselves drawn into a renewed romance.

The Blind Side Sandra Bullock stars as a well-to-do suburban mom who forms an unlikely friendship with a struggling teen from a broken home.

Up in the Air George Clooney is a corporate downsizer whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he meets the frequent-flyer of his dreams.

The Princess and the Frog Walt Disney presents an animated female twist on the traditional Frog Prince fairy tale, set in New Orleans’s French Quarter.

Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant are a Manhattan couple who are sent to hide in smalltown Wyoming after they witness a murder.

Nine A film director reaches a creative and personal crisis of epic proportions while balancing the numerous women in his life.

Invictus Morgan Freeman stars as Nelson Mandela in the true story of how South Africa’s underdog rugby team united a nation.

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 1.7.10 The Pulse

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Shades Of Green

By Victoria Hurst

The Isle of Plastic Editor’s note: Our Shades of Green columnist, Victoria Hurst, has been under the weather. So we’re re-running an important past column, in case you missed this one the first time.

A

s I reached the checkout line at the grocery, I realized that I had, yet again, left my cloth bags in the trunk of my station wagon. I carried as much as I could in my arms and reluctantly put a few smaller items in a plastic bag. I justified it by telling myself that I would use it the next time I walk my dog. In fact, I hoard those plastic bags in my pantry because I can’t bear the thought of throwing them into the trash (which is another plastic bag) to find their way to a landfill or, worse, to the swirling vortex of plastic that resides in the Pacific Ocean.

No, I am not lapsing into science fiction. There is an area of pollution referred to as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” It is twice the size of Texas and made of plastic waste. These materials, the skeletons of bottled water, tampon applicators, trash and grocery bags, float on the surface, unable to fully decompose. Plastic is broken down by light in a process called photodegradation. The pieces become smaller and smaller but remain polymers down to the molecular level.

So there is a lot of plastic floating around in the ocean. What does it matter to the common land-dwelling human? Well, for one thing, these plastics not only leech toxins (such as bisphenol A) into the water but also absorb chemicals that have been dumped into the ocean. Many varieties of sea life consume these toxic morsels.

Small pieces ingested by jellyfish can, in turn, choke sea turtles that eat the jellyfish. As these turtles decompose into the ocean, the plastic that choked them remains, continuing to pose a threat to other sea life. As the pieces break

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down, they remain near the surface of the ocean, where microscopic organisms can feast. The non-biodegradable matter has been found in the bodies of blackfooted albatrosses. Plastic is entering the food chain. And as the sole animal species that has created and utilized it, this vortex of trash is our albatross to bear.

It may be actually impossible to reverse all of the damage done by this careless use of the ocean, but as of last year, 2009, steps are being taken.

In March, Ocean Voyages Institute (a California-based nonprofit) introduced Project Kaisei. This project was created to research the feasibility of collecting and recycling the island of plastic. On August 4, Ocean Voyages Institute launched the Kaisei out of San Francisco to begin investigating the size and concentration of the mass of flotsam.

The Kaisei was joined by the New Horizon, which will study the effects of the debris on wildlife.

While still in the early stages of a solution, it is encouraging that this issue, which was discovered in the ’80s and just a month ago made it into People magazine, is being addressed.

So, back to the grocery store. What can we do to (at the very least) not add to this growing mass of used and forgotten waste?

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Well, start with the bags. Do whatever you can to avoid accumulating clouds of grocery bags that you eventually throw away in a fit of frustration or a re-organizing binge.

This is an instance in which to employ your wise consumer skills. Choose items with minimal packaging. All of that fluff costs extra, and you only throw it away.

Avoid extraneous uses of plastic.

If you don’t want to do dishes the next time you grill out, consider biodegradable plates and utensils.

Use paper cups. Try biodegradable, or at least recycled plastic, trash bags.

Consider alternatives when it comes to personal hygiene products and toiletries. Buying in bulk or in larger containers generally reduces waste, but try to find products packaged in glass or cardboard. Anything that you consume on a regular basis—consider the waste and work to reduce it. Making a change in your day-to-day routine is the best way to make a significant difference in your personal output. For some purposes, plastic is the best for the job. There are some things that would be impossible in our modern society without it. However, for something that is designed to never decompose, we use it far too excessively and with little thought for the repercussions of convenience.

“There is an area of pollution referred to as the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch.’ It is twice the size of Texas and made of plastic waste.

These materials, the skeletons of bottled water, tampon applicators, trash and grocery bags, float on the surface, unable to fully decompose.”

Victoria Hurst is a proud resident of the Appalachian Mountains. She has recently graduated from Warren Wilson College with a B.A. in Creative Writing.

Spirits Within

By Joshua Hurley

Crowned Heads of Canada Editor’s note: Our friends at Riley’s Wine & Spirits had such a busy holiday that they didn’t have time to write a new column, so they asked us to reprint one of their favorites.

R

ecently in this column, we learned about bourbon whiskey, and how it is the official product of the United States. We also named Buffalo Trace Bourbon one of our “Great Buy” selections. If you are late joining The Pulse readership, “Great Buys” is where Riley’s Wine and Spirits on Hixson Pike in Hixson selects a special favorite from among our large selection of wine and spirits from around the world. Another “Great Buy” pick comes from Canada: the classic Crown Royal.

Whiskey or whisky (with or without the “e”), is made from a fermented mash of grain which usually consists of corn, rye and barley. For hundreds of years, the Irish and Scots have waged a battle over the origins of whiskey (spelled with the “e” in Ireland and just across the channel in Scotland without the “e”. Today the battle continues even here in the Colonies, as in the United States it’s spelled whiskey, and in Canada, whisky.

It’s the subtle differences that give whiskeys their distinctive characteristics from country to country.

Let’s take Scotch and Irish whiskey, for example.

The primary difference between the two is the drying process. The Scots use peat moss to dry their malt, which gives Scotch its smoky flavor. The Irish use smokeless anthracite, which gives Irish whiskey its lighter flavor.

One thing that’s commonly believed by most customers of whiskey, be it the finer-made scotches or bottom-of-the-barrel bourbons, is that age is synonymous with quality. Well, that’s not true at all. It’s the same as saying a 50 year old is smarter than a 30 year old. To make whiskey “high end” or “first class”, you must begin at the beginning of the process, which is the selection of grain. Second—the quality of water. The best distilleries are located next to springs with crystal-clear water. But the water and grain must be mashed and fermented,

distilled—then aged. Each step of the process is as important as the other and each can affect the whiskey's quality.

There are two types of whiskeys: straight or blended. Straight whiskeys are distilled from a base of 51 percent single grain and are aged in pot stills. Blended whiskeys are a seamless weave of a minimum of 20 percent straight whiskey and neutral grain spirits. All Canadian whiskeys, such as Crown Royal, are blended and are aged for at least three years before they are shipped to the United States.

In 1857, Joseph E. Seagram founded the Seagram Company in Canada, and by 1883, he was the sole proprietor. In 1911, his sons joined the fold and the distillery’s name was changed to Seagram and Sons. In 1939, Crown Royal was created to honor a visit by the king and queen of England to Canada.

Both were noted whiskey connoisseurs and while on a train tour of Canada consumed a rather large amount of it.

Since its arrival in the U.S. in 1965, Crown Royal has become the number-one selling Canadian whiskey in the U.S. “Crown” is fantastic straight up, with water and ice or with a mixer. The purple bag was chosen as a symbol of the brand’s royal heritage.

It's distilled in Gimli, Canada at the Gimli Distillery which is located on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. Gimli has the perfect natural resources, key to making this brand what it is. The glacier-fed lakes and rivers supply the water needed for the early, important step in the distillation process. Crown Royal is a blend of more than 50 individual whiskies, which is considerably more than all the other blends from Canada. These 50 different whiskies include seven base whiskies, 11 batch whiskies, 15 bourbon-style whiskies, 13 rye-type whiskies and some various whiskies used for flavoring. Upon maturation in American oak barrels, all of the individual whiskies are blended together by the master distiller. In addition to the original classic, there are three labels offered: Crown Royal—Special Reserve, Crown Royal—X-R and Crown Royal—Cask No. 16.

Crown Royal, the original classic, is gold in color, and has been aged to ensure perfection and

smoothness unmatched by no other Canadian whiskey. It is full-bodied with a sweeter honeyed taste followed by a peppery finish.

Crown Royal—Special Reserve is blended from the very best whiskies and given a little more extra care from the distiller. “Reserve” is bolder in color, richer in taste and smoother all-way-round. When you taste it, you’ll know where the extra money went.

Crown Royal—X-R (Extra Rare) was created using the last remaining batches of whiskey from the old Waterloo distillery, which closed in 1991. This whiskey is extremely smooth and should only be drunk straight up. Its tastes include vanilla, toffee and spice.

Crown Royal Cask No. 16, along with “X-R” are probably the two finest whiskies to ever come out of Canada. It uses ''Special Reserve'' whiskies for its blend, then is aged in French cognac casks. Like “XR”, Cask No. 16 should be enjoyed straight or on the rocks only. The addition of any other mixture diminishes the taste, which includes layer upon layer of flavor: butterscotch, raisin, peach and some pear, all balanced with the grain of whiskey and a sweetoaky finish. Cheers!

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 1.7.10 The Pulse

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Arts & Entertainment

Diary of a Mad Twelfth Night

By Janis Hashe

“In the world of Twelfth Night characters, some are on side of order and some, most, are on the side of chaos. The play explores what happens when too-rigidly ‘ordered’ people come up against completely ‘chaotic’ people.”

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U

nless you’re involved in the theatre process, either personally or as a parent proxy, you probably don’t know a lot about what needs to happen to create a show. I’m currently directing and producing the version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night opening Friday on the Main Stage at the Chattanooga Theatre Centre. (Shameless plug now out of the way.)

A production like this often starts with a meandering thought, “What would be a good show to do at this time of year? What about Twelfth Night?” Shakespeare almost undoubtedly wrote the play for presentation on the twelfth day of Christmas, so this was the pick. And as it happened, we had already done a public reading of the play and I had some strong ideas about casting.

George Quick, the CTC’s producing director, was amenable to the idea of our doing the show during the brief period before the CTC’s own season kicks in, just as we had done with The Othello Project two years ago.

That was the easy part.

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I had never done Twelfth Night, so my first stop was with that mad, misogynist genius Harold Bloom and his classic book, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.

“Everyone in Twelfth Night is wacko,” says Harold (I’m paraphrasing.)

“Also, I have never seen a production that whizzes along fast enough.” (More paraphrasing.) He goes on to talk about the concept I was intrigued by: Order vs. Chaos.

In the world of Twelfth Night characters, some are on side of order and some, most, are on the side of chaos. The play explores what happens when too-rigidly “ordered” people come up against completely “chaotic” people—all within the confines of some serious slapstick. Twelfth Night was Shakespeare’s last major comedy and there are darker themes. How to access these without overwhelming the comedy? H’mm…

On to auditions and casting. Here we struck it lucky…very lucky. Any director will tell you that a show can stand or fall on casting. Shakespeare Chattanooga practices color-blind and gender-blind casting, and in this case, I added age-blind casting as well.

Some of the traditional relationships are turned on their heads in this cast, as some characters are younger, and some older, than is usually played.

During auditions, we fooled around a lot. “Do the scene as if you were in a telanovela.” “What if your character was Foghorn Leghorn?” None of this Shaaakespe-uh stuff. Shakespeare himself would not have recognized Shaaakespe-uh.

Out of this process, and some subsequent casting, came Kim Jackson as Viola, Robert Bass as Orsino, E’tienne Easley as Olivia, Jonathan Nichols as Sebastian, Steven Disbrow

as Malvolio, Tom Conway as Sir Toby Belch, Carlene Conway as Maria, Dakota Brown as Feste, Luke LaGraff as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Dylan Kussman as Antonio, Stephanie Smith as Fabian, Andrew Miller as Curio/First Officer, Amber Brown as Valentine, Rodney Strong as Captain/ Priest, Judy LaMance as Second Officer, and Kate Conway as Servant. I am highly honored to be working with this insanely talented group.

Rehearsals began at the end of October with table reads and text work. What’s the difference between blank verse and prose? Why does Shakespeare use them when he does?

And is that line as obscene as it seems to be? (Usual answer: Yes.) We talk about breath…the pros mark every place where they breathe.

We warm up. I make them do yoga stretches and tongue twisters. They bring in their own warm ups, too, and we stand in a circle and make faces, or walk in a circle, watching each other warily for changes, or dance in a darkened room as the crazy director has become enamored of a Beatles song.

We begin to find the people in the play. What do they want? What was their history before the play begins?

What was your character doing before he walked into this scene? Always more questions.

Stephanie, music director, begins to bring in some of the music, which by design is all over the map. I meet with Paul Hartmann, lighting and set designer, and brainstorm on some simple concepts we have. Simplicity is our watchword in design, partly by choice and partly because we have no money. I get a kooky idea about the swords and find some art partners in crime to create them.

Right now, we are still dancing, asking questions, trying to get the cues right and finding this play. We hope, if you choose to come and see it, that you’ll see some funny and provocative results of our exploration. If you do— it’s all worth it.

Twelfth Night Presented by Shakespeare Chattanooga in partnership with the Chattanooga Theatre Centre $15 ($10 students/seniors) 8 p.m. January 8, 9.

2:30 p.m. January 10 Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Main Stage, 400 River Street. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com

A&E Calendar Friday

Thursday

The Legacy of the Kennedys: Social Activism from Camelot to Chattanooga Lecture in partnership with the Ochs Center illuminating the current Hunter exhibit.

Free 6 p.m.

Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View, (423) 267-0968. www.huntermuseum.org

Send your calendar events to us at calendar@chattanoogapulse.com

The Mystery of TV Talk Show 7 p.m. Vaudeville Café, 138 Market St. (423) 517-1839. www.funnydinner.com Josh Sneed 8 p.m. The Comedy Catch, 3224 Brainerd Rd. (423) 629-2233. www.thecomedycatch.com “Curious Spoonful” Mosaic Gallery, 412 Market St. (423) 320-6758.

“Angels” by Mary Ferris Kelly Exum Gallery, St. Pauls Episcopal Church, 305 7th St. (423) 266-8195.

Walking History Tours of Chattanooga Chattanooga History Center, 615 Lindsay St. (423) 265-3247.

Oils and Acrylics by Charlie Newton North River Civic Center, 1009 Executive Dr. (423) 870-8924.

Opening Night Reception for “Hot Mess” New AVA juried show featuring 13 artists.

Free 5:30-8 p.m.

30 Frazier Avenue, (423) 265-4282. www.avarts.org

Saturday

Still Jokin’ Comedy Jam Power 94 celebrates its 30th anniversary with Tony Woods, Boogie B., Hope Flood, Charles Walden and Darryl Dunn. $26.50 8 p.m.

Memorial Auditorium, 399 McCallie Avenue, (423) 757-5050. www.chattanoogaonstage.com

Monday “Speak Easy” Spoken word and poetry 8 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9040. www.mudpierestaurant.com Folk Art at Winder Binder Winder Binder Gallery of Folk Art, 40 Frazier Ave. (423) 413-8999. www.winderbinder.com “All Around the Block” In-Town Gallery, 26A Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9214.

“Hot Mess” Association for Visual Arts, 30 Frazier Ave. (423) 265-4282.

“Angels” by Mary Ferris Kelly Exum Gallery, St. Pauls Episcopal Church, 305 7th St. (423) 266-8195.

Walking History Tours of Chattanooga Chattanooga History Center, 615 Lindsay St. (423) 265-3247.

“All Around the Block” opening reception 5 p.m. In-Town Gallery, 26A Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9214. www.intowngallery.com “Common Objects” opening reception 6:30 p.m. River Gallery, 400 E. Second St. (423) 265-5033. www.river-gallery.com Preacherman-Gospel Musical 7 p.m. Chattanooga State Humanities Theater, 4501 Amnicola Hwy. (423) 622-7295.

Josh Sneed 7:30 & 10 p.m. The Comedy Catch & Giggles Grille, 3224 Brainerd Rd. (423) 629-2233. www.thecomedycatch.com Twelth Night 8 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Main Stage, 400 River St. (423) 267-8534.

Gene Hodge Comedy 8 p.m. Barking Legs Theater, 1307 Dodds Ave. (423) 624-5347. www.barkinglegs.org The Mystery of Flight 138 8:30 p.m. Vaudeville Café, 138 Market St. (423) 517-1839. www.funnydinner.com “Alchemy” Shuptrine Fine Art and Framing, 2646 Broad St. (423) 266-4453.

UTC Department of Art Student Juried Show Cress Gallery, UTC, Corner of Vine and Palmetto. (423) 425-4600. www.utc.edu/cressgallery “Themes of Identity” Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View. (423) 266-0944.

Mole Hill Pottery The Galleries at Southside, 1404 Cowart St. (423) 267-8101. www.molehillpottery.com

Sunday Mosaic Market 11 a.m. 412 Market St. (corner of 4th/Market) (423) 624-3915.

The Mystery of the Nightmare High School Reunion 6 p.m. Vaudeville Café, 138 Market St. (423) 517-1839. www.funnydinner.com Preacherman-Gospel Musical 7 p.m. Chattanooga State Humanities Theater, 4501 Amnicola Hwy. (423) 622-7295. chattanoogastate.edu/humanities Josh Sneed 7:30 & 10 p.m. The Comedy Catch & Giggles Grille, 3224 Brainerd Rd. (423) 629-2233. www.thecomedycatch.com Twelth Night 8 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Main Street, 400 River St. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com

The Mystery of the Red NeckItalian Wedding 8:30 p.m. Vaudeville Café, 138 Market St. (423) 517-1839. www.funnydinner.com “The Southern Comedy Tour” 10 p.m. Chattanooga Billards ClubDowntown, 725 Cherry St. (423) 267-7740 “The Kennedys: Portrait of a Family” Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View. (423) 266-0944. www.huntermuseum.org “Common Objects” River Gallery, 400 E. Second St. (423) 265-5033.

“Love Supreme: An Exhibit Inspired by the Legendary John Coltrane” Chattanooga African American Museum, 200 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-8658.

Tuesday

Wednesday

Chattanooga Writers Guild meeting 7 p.m. Chattanooga-Hamilton Bicentennial Library, 1001 Broad St. (423)757-5310.

“Those Who Can Do it All” UTC Professional Accompanist Concert 7:30 p.m Roland Hayes Concert Hall, UTC Fine Art Center, 615 McCallie Ave. (423) 425-4601.

Oils and Acrylics by Charlie Newton North River Civic Center, 1009 Executive Dr. (423) 870-8924.

“Alchemy” Shuptrine Fine Art and Framing, 2646 Broad St. (423) 266-4453.

UTC Department of Art Student Juried Show Cress Gallery, UTC, Corner of Vine and Palmetto. (423) 425-4600. www.utc.edu/cressgallery

“Themes of Identity” Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View. (423) 266-0944. www.huntermuseum.org “The Kennedys: Portrait of a Family” Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View. (423) 266-0944. www.huntermuseum.org Mole Hill Pottery The Galleries at Southside, 1404 Cowart St. (423) 267-8101. www.molehillpottery.com “Common Objects” River Gallery, 400 E. Second St. (423) 265-5033. www.river-gallery.com “Love Supreme: An Exhibit Inspired by the Legendary John Coltrane” Chattanooga African American Museum, 200 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-8658.

Twelfth Night Shakespeare Chattanooga presents order vs. chaos on the CTC’s Main Stage. $15 2:30 p.m.

Chattanooga Theatre Centre, 400 River St., (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com

Josh Sneed 8 p.m. The Comedy Catch, 3224 Brainerd Rd. (423) 629-2233. www.thecomedycatch.com Contemporary Art Hollis Gallery, 1401 Williams St. (866) 544-0896. www.hollisgallery.net Liz Kinder Stoneware Plum Nelly, 330 Frazier Ave. (423) 266-0585.

“Looking Beyond” Smart Furniture Studio, 313 Manufacturer’s Rd. (423) 643-0025.

Jazz Photography by Milt Hinton Chattanooga African American Museum, 200 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-8658.

“Earth” Warehouse Row Project Space, 1110 Market St. (423) 280-7182.

Editor’s Pick: Featured Event Of The Week

UTC Professional Accompanist Staff Recital Called “Those Who Can…Do It All,” this special concert features the people who make other musicians look good.

Tim Hinck, Jenny Parker, Terry Sanford and Penny Tullock get a chance to strut their own stuff.

Tuesday, January 12 Free 7:30 p.m.

Roland Hayes Recital Hall, UTC Fine Arts Center, corner of Vine and Palmetto. (423) 425-4601. www.utc.edu/music

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 1.7.10 The Pulse

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The Pulse 1.7.10 www.chattanoogapulse.com 95.3 Pulse News

On The Beat

By Alex Teach

Everybody Lies 2

010? Already? Well sweet bug-poo on a cracker, who could ever believe it? The fact that it’s here is something I attribute to mankind’s morbid curiosity of “what could happen next?” combined with a statistical likelihood of the stupid living eternally, as is the general rule in my experience.

So with that in mind…what better way to start the New Year off than with The Truth?

The Truth is, of course, essential to our being. Treachery? Lies?

Happiness? Ignorance? They are all interesting, sure, but they’re not the oxygen to our blood that Truth is.

They’re interesting wallpapers for it at best; dustcovers for the structure that Truth provides just beneath their thin veneers that gives not just shape, but a foundation from which all else is built. Lies are sand, Ignorance is mud, but Truth? It’s the glass-fiber carbon and stainless steel reinforced concrete upon which we build everything we know, from relationships to skyscrapers. It’s the ignorance and lies that tear them down—when not built in sand and mud in the first place. So, naturally, as a cop (as would an engineer), I rely completely upon the Truth as a basis for what I do, and how I do it.

And so also as a cop, I have come to hate the Truth. I need it. I despise it. I loathe it. That we need it like

air is irrelevant, because it generally only highlights the veneers and structures I have outlined above.

Doesn’t sit well with a badge?

Are your senses yet again mortally offended by the reality of a job you know only through Norman Rockwell paintings and the cinema?

Well, guess what—if you are offended, you’re an idiot who hasn’t seen what the Truth really is, or at least what it protects. If you’re not offended, you’re one who works hands-on with the disadvantaged and sick, a combat veteran, or a veteran cop yourself. The rest generally think the word originated with George Washington and an apple tree in an ideal world, but that world was not only more than two centuries ago, it was probably bullshit then, too.

I was recently told the Truth (again), and it pissed me off (again).

That’s because it started as a lie I could see off the bat. I could see it from the angle of the face, the tone of the voice, the direction of the eyes, the position of the hands, the shuffling of the feet, the increase of all of these unintentionally, and the decrease of such intentionally.

There are two problems with being of average intelligence and truly being able to tell the Truth: One is a complete lack of suspense in life in general, knowing the probable answers in advance, and the other is the utter disappointment in those around you whom you have caught lying—even before they have

a chance to finish. Your shoulders sag in advance, and you smile as you simultaneously congratulate yourself for being right about your hunch while requiring a shield to mask the feeling close at its heels of being woefully hurt and disappointed. To give this some sense of scale, albeit in my usual overly dramatic style, the high-end cousin of this sensation is having to kill someone when being forced to defend your own life or the life of another, yet still feeling guilty for what is still technically murder.

You had to do it to live, but you still feel dirty. (Hopefully.)

Everyone has the ability to do this, and some are better than others…but beat cops have to do this day in and day out, customer after customer—and in their off time? Friend after friend. Like blue-collar oncologists doing their best to deal with bad news and poor odds, but in your streets and alleys instead of soothing taupe hallways and clinical offices and with none of the formal training and rarely the closure.

2010. It’s off to a hell of a start with bone-chilling cold, and the fact that there is still one ever-present constant in this world: Everybody Lies.

Otherwise—Happy New Year.

“It’s off to a hell of a start with bone-chilling cold, and the fact that there is still one ever-present constant in this world: Everybody Lies.”

When officer Alexander D. Teach is not patrolling our fair city on the heels of the criminal element, he is an occasional student at UTC, an up and coming carpenter, auto mechanic, prominent boating enthusiast, and spends his spare time volunteering for the Boehm Birth Defects Center.

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Free Will Astrology CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “You are what you love, not what loves you,” says the character Charlie Kaufman in the film Adaptation.

(Kaufman is played by Nicolas Cage, who has three planets in Capricorn.) I urge you to work hard to make that perspective your own, Capricorn. Ideally, it will become a permanent addition to your philosophy of life. But please at least try to install it as your primary words to live by for the next three weeks. To do so will smooth out a distortion in your energy field, making it easier for people to love you.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I suspect you have to go down into the underworld for a while. But you have a choice about how it will play out.

You shouldn’t wait for some random goblin to come along and pull you down into the miserable abyss. Instead, be proactive. Shop around for a more useful abyss—a womb-like pit with halfdecent accommodations and a good learning environment—and go there under your own power. That way you won’t have to slog your way through musty fogs and creepy pests and slimy muck. You’ll keep your suffering to a minimum and attract adventures that are more intriguing than demoralizing.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): When my acupuncturist pushes a needle into my chest, my feet sometimes twitch involuntarily. A jab in my earlobe can cause my hand to leap off the table; when she pokes the bridge of my nose, my liver may throb. The lesson for me is that parts of the body are linked in ways that aren’t obvious. I invite you to expand this principle as you use it to evaluate the interconnections between different areas of your life. How do your attitudes about love affect your ability to attract money? (And vice versa.) Are there any ways in which your capacity for happiness is affected by your political views? How do your judgments about other people impact your physical health? More than even you farseeing Pisceans imagine, everything’s linked to everything.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “The more you complain,” says an old adage, “the longer God lets you live.” If that’s true, I hope you will be adding many years to your lifespan in the coming week. Would you like to live to the age of 100?

There are many rich and colorful opportunities for you to lodge protests right now. You have cosmic permission to rouse a ruckus in the name of improving the way everything works. But try to concentrate on constructive criticism that really helps transform what’s stuck. The Divine Wow is more likely to give credit for that approach than for mere narcissistic grousing.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): A reader calling herself Rebellioness collaborated with me to come up with five revolutionized approaches to the art of rebellion. I present them here for your use, as they identify the kinds of behavior that will be most nurturing for you to cultivate in the coming weeks. 1. Experimenting with uppity, mischievous optimism. 2. Invoking insurrectionary levels of wildly interesting generosity. 3. Indulging in an insolent refusal to be chronically fearful. 4.

Pursuing a cheeky ambition to be as wide-awake as a dissident young messiah. 5. Bringing reckless levels of creative intelligence to all expressions of love.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I want to tell you about Harj, a character in Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation A. He’s an enterprising young Sri Lankan man who sells “celebrity room tones” over the Internet. Each hour-long recording purports to convey the sound of the silence that pervades the homes of luminaries like Mick Jagger and Cameron Diaz when they’re not there.

I think that you Libras are now primed to learn from Harj’s example. Like him, you have the power to capitalize on nothingness and absence and emptiness.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Can you pull off a mid-course correction while hurtling through the air across a chasm during a leap of faith?

If anyone is capable of such a feat, you are.

However, I’d prefer it if that wasn’t necessary.

I’d rather see you prepare a little better, like by procuring the help you’d need to create a safety net or sturdy bridge that will stretch across the chasm. Or by getting one of those jet packs to strap across your back and allow you to fly. Or by taking as much guesswork as possible out of the details about how you’re going to get from the edge of one cliff to the edge on the other side.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): A guy I know broke up with his girlfriend recently. He used a time-honored strategy: making it sound as if he wasn’t worthy of her. “It’s like you’re a grandmaster at a chess tournament,” he told her, “while I just got my first checkerboard and am still figuring out how to play checkers.” He was implying that she was much more skillful than he was in the arts of relationship. I have a feeling that there’s a situation like this in your world, Scorpio—an alliance in which the two parties are at different levels of maturity. I’m not necessarily saying you should sever the connection. But you should at least acknowledge the gap and decide what to do about it.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Which metropolitan areas in America have the most brainpower? Not

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the best sports teams or the richest businessmen or the most powerful politicians, but the smartest people? The Daily Beast did a study and declared that the top two were the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina and the San Francisco Bay Area. Now it so happens that those are the two places where I’ve spent much of my adult life. It doesn’t mean I’m brilliant, but it does suggest I have an instinct for knowing where the brilliant people congregate. And I’m quite sure that they have been a very good influence on me. My recommendation to you in 2010, Cancerian, is to cultivate this knack. Gravitate toward genius. Surround yourself with deep thinkers and innovative dreamers. Hang out in the vicinity of brainstorms.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): According to my reading of the astrological omens, it’ll be a hairon-fire kind of week for you—and yet also a heart-in-repose kind of week. In other words, you have the potential to be fierce and relaxed, vigorously ambitious and sublimely poised. In fact, this might be one of those rare times when you can be both a justice-dispensing warrior and an enlightenment-seeking magician. Want to turn water into wine when the pressure’s on? Find the pearl of great price in the heat of the battle? Feats like these are quite possible.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): This is one of those rare times when you can get abundant access to insider secrets, unauthorized information, taboo knowledge, and forbidden wisdom. Proceed carefully. As much as I’m an advocate of you getting to the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it’s also my duty to remind you that it could be disruptive to find out all of the truth in one big swoop. You should ask yourself if you’re fully prepared to change what needs to be changed once the previously hidden stuff emerges.

If you’re not, it might be better to wait until you are.

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By Rob Brezsny

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In a million years, I would never authorize you to unleash your naked greed and give it unconditional license to careen through the world gobbling and acquiring and appropriating. However, due to an odd blip in the astrological configurations, I am at liberty to give you permission to unleash your discerning, elegant greed and grant it a temporary dispensation to sample more than usual of anything that captivates your ravenous imagination.

Homework: Thousands of amazing, inexplicable, even miraculous events occur every day. Report yours: http://bit.ly/Amazement

JONESIN’

By Matt Jones

“Best Of The Decade” –part four: 2006-07.

Across 1 San Francisco’s Fisherman’s ___ 6 Shore bird 11 Oktoberfest mo.

14 Boston-based New York Times correspondent Sara 15 “...___ man with seven wives...”

16 Pubescent start?

17 Heroic way to introduce oneself 18 His “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” was on Publishers Weekly’s Best Fiction of 2007 list 20 British “domestic goddess” Lawson 22 Torah repositories 23 Group whose album “St. Elsewhere” was #2 on Spin Magazine’s 40 Best Albums of 2006 27 Kid-___ (G-rated Blockbuster rentals) 28 Broadway actress Salonga 29 “Call me Ishmael” speaker 32 Tiny titter 35 Diplomat’s skill 36 NASCAR driver Earnhardt 37 Mentalist Geller 38 Rolling Stone’s pick for #1 song of 2007, by Jay-Z 41 Suffix for Wisconsin 42 Near

44 Big man on campus?

45 Deck full of cups and wands 47 Dull pain 48 “Slippery” tree 49 Infantrymen, for short 50 One of The Forbidden Planet’s “Best of the Year” movies of 2006 56 DVR brand introduced in 2000 57 “That’s freakin’ amazing!”

58 Buzznet’s #1 choice of “Top 10 Bearded Musicians of 2007” 62 ___ pedis (athlete’s foot) 63 Lawn dart path 64 Line to the audience 65 Open a toothpaste tube 66 “Go team!” cheer 67 Beermaking need 68 Cheats before Christmas?

Down 1 Clear (out), as a sponge 2 Guys getting ___ the groin (usual funny YouTube fare) 3 Onetime Commodore computer 4 Put on ice 5 More like lace 6 Part of some Muslim women’s attire 7 Ostrich relative 8 “What EEZ IT, man?” yeller

9 Prefix meaning “ear” 10 Present at birth 11 Typical do for young male anime characters 12 Notable times 13 Heady candy?

19 Quaking-in-one’sboots feeling 21 Leary’s drug 24 “The Heart of Dixie” 25 Enemy territory study 26 “I Kissed a Girl” singer Perry 30 Low choral part 31 Schrute Farms vegetable 32 Base for some casseroles 33 Actor Bana 34 Sound of some whistles or whines 35 Certain lymphocyte 39 Lofty poems 40 Bob Marley classic 43 Chuck overboard 46 Just plain stupid 49 Cardio locale 51 “That’s too hard to believe...”

52 “Habanera” composer 53 FDR veep John ___ Garner 54 Tinker with 55 Laundry piles 56 Giga- times 1000 58 Course figure 59 End of many languages 60 “My Life in Ruins” actress Vardalos 61 Manning scores: abbr.

©2009 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #0448.

Solution To Last Week’s Puzzle

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29

Ask A Mexican

By Gustavo Arellano

Special “Best-Of” Edition Dear Readers, The Mexican is still trying to shake off the Herradura from the previous year, so I’m reprinting this week a favorite column of mine from el pásado. To make up for my siesta, though, I’m bringing back the YouTube edition of this column, where I’ll take the questions of the non-anonymous brave and ramble muy funny. Just visit youtube.com/askamexicano every Thursday for the latest edition!

Dear Mexican, I just don’t get Mexicans and their grooming. The men slick their hair with baby oil, gel or Vaseline, or just shave it all off. The women wear it in ponytails with neon green hair bands or in pigtails, or they wear bangs created with the biggest curling iron in the world. Do they see themselves in the mirror before leaving home? Do they realize everyone is staring ‘cause they look bad??

— Tommy Toupee Dear Gabacho, Not only do we stare at our hair in the mirror, but we also blow kisses to our reflection and whisper, “Ay papi chulo, you’re más bonito than those gabachos feos.” If there’s one body feature that Mexicans can boast about—besides the glorious guts of our men and the asses grandes of mujeres—it’s follicles, repositories of the world’s hair DNA. Kinky, straight, curly or wavy, the Mexican head is pregnant with possibility, and Mexicans do everything possible to draw attention to what humans can do with a comb and three

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and previous boyfriends. I really feel like he thinks he is not good enough for me, although I don’t know why. He is gorgeous, hard-working and so kind. I have never been one to care about what someone does, where they are from or how much money they make. How can I get this guy to see that I really like him as a person and just relax?

— Enamorada Gabacha pounds of gel. Some hairstyles are utilitarian: the Mexi-mullet protects the neck from the brutal sun, while bangs allow our ladies to hide switchblades.

Other styles, like indigenous pigtails or the Zach de la Rocha’s frizzy ‘fro, sing the body Mexican.

But the best Mexican hair involves Three Flowers brilliantine, the lightly scented petroleum jelly revered by generations of Mexican for its tight hold, its pleasant smell and a shine that rivals a flashlight. Women use it to slick their hair into buns, men to sculpt Morrissey-esque pompadours.

Class: thy name is mexicano.

Oh, and contrary to popular belief, no self-respecting Mexican man shaves his head: that’s the domain of pendejo cholos and their Chicano cousins.

Dear Mexican, I am a nice looking white girl with a great job and life. I recently starting seeing a Mexican guy, who I’m pretty certain I scare the crap out of.

He has never dated a white woman before and seems very nervous around me. He also asks me about the education and status of my ex-husband

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Dear Gabacha in Love, The first draft of my answer to your question ended this way: “You want to soothe your Mexican man’s frayed nerves, Enamorada? Give him a blowjob.” Thinking this was too glib, I wrote a second draft in which I explained the minefield of race and class that you and your beloved will have to cross.

I noted that dating a gabacha is the pinnacle of a Mexican man’s sexual life, proof that he can navigate bedrooms as easily as borders. I cited the Orson Welles’ classic Touch of Evil (notice white-hot Janet Leigh is married to Mexican protagonist Mike Vargas—played by Charlton Heston in brownface) and I considered norteño super-group Los Tigres del Norte’s “El Mojado Acaudalado” (The Wealthy Wetback): “Decí-a una güera en Florida/’I love you Mexican men’” (Said a white woman in Florida/”Amo a ustedes hombres mexicanos”).

By the time I’d worked through all of that, I concluded that my first answer was best: Nothing eradicates ego and all of its clunky superficialities (race, class, culture), nothing says I love you, nothing says “Welcome to America” like an old-school blowjob.

“Kinky, straight, curly or wavy, the Mexican head is pregnant with possibility, and Mexicans do everything possible to draw attention to what humans can do with a comb and three pounds of gel.”

Ask the Mexican at themexican@ askamexican.net, myspace.com/ocwab, facebook.com/garellano, find him on, Twitter, or write: Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433!