The Pulse - Vol. 7, Issue 6

THE HOWLIES • OUR TOWN, YOUR TOWN • OSCAR PICKS

From the Ivory Towers to the Forgotten Towers

FREE • News, Views, Arts & Entertainment • February 11, 2010 • Vol. 7 - Issue 6 • 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 Rick Leavell, Leif Sawyer, Townes Webb Art Director Kelly Lockhart Graphic Design Jennifer Grelier Staff Photographer Louis Lee Contributing Writers Gustavo Arellano, Rob Brezsny Alison Burke, Chuck Crowder Michael Crumb, Hellcat Vincent Howard, Joshua Hurley Victoria Hurst, Matt Jones Phillip Johnston, Ernie Paik Rick Pimental-Habib, Ph.D. Stephanie Smith, Alex Teach Colleen Wade Editorial Cartoonist Rick Baldwin Editorial Intern Jonathan Selby Copy Assistant Bryanna Burns Video Services Josh Lang 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

12 INSIDE THE TOWER WALLS Story by Cody Maxwell Photos by Lesha Patterson Chattanoogans know the sound of the fire trucks and most of them know where they’re going when they hear them screaming toward downtown. The wailing doesn’t cause panic; for most, it doesn’t even arouse curiosity. But this time it was the real thing.

feature stories 22 HOWLIES TAKE DISCOTECA

By Alison Burke The Howlies are a garage doo-wop four-piece from Atlanta you can catch at Discoteca this Saturday night. Their first full-length album, Trippin’ with Howlies, came out this time last year and is jam-packed with fast, fun jams that stick in the brain like candy in your teeth.

24 RECALLED TO LIFE

By Vincent Howard As soon as the lights dim, we are addressed by the Stage Manager, who, we soon learn, will flesh out the setting—Grover’s Corners, a whistle-stop north of the Massachusetts line, in 1901.

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AL TO A e NU M OG Puls AN RLE NO he A T HA ATT k in

FEBRUARY

By Phillip Johnston In the blistering heat of a New Mexico afternoon, a 1978 Chevy Silverado pulls into the bare parking lot of a bowling alley. Out of the vehicle stumbles a gruff middle-aged man.

33 PICKS AND PANS OSCAR PREVIEW

By Janis Hashe and Gary Poole March 7 is going to be a bigger party than usual in Hollywood. With a giant blockbuster nominated for Best Picture (and nine other entrants in that category), new faces and old favorites in the acting categories.

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Pulse Beats

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

“[People say] the sheriff just knows how to run the jail, but not law enforcement. Well, that is definitely not the case in Hamilton County.”

—Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammonds, responding to what he feels is some recent criticism against his department in regards to merging law enforcement.

Kids on the Block Gets Huge Donation From Big River Grille In a time marked by dwindling charity contributions, Big River Grille & Brewing Works significantly bucked the trend last week by presenting a record $130,125 check to Chattanooga’s Kids on the Block. Kids on the Block is a United Way charity and Tennesseelicensed child abuse prevention agency that provides free programs to teach children and adults about social concerns and differences in a non-threatening manner.

The donation, generated by the 15th Annual Southern Brewers Festival sponsored by Big River Grille & Brewing Works each year, represents an increase of more than 30 percent over the previous year’s contribution and marks the largest single contribution the charity has received.

“This donation is significant not only because of its size, but also the timing. With the current stress on our economy, personal safety is an increasingly important issue for children everywhere and it’s crucial that we continue our work uninterrupted,” said Kelly Williams, Executive Director of Chattanooga’s Kids on the Block.

“Businesses like Gordon Biersch make a difference by giving our community the tools and resources that are vital to enhancing local quality of life.”

In total, Big River Grille & Brewing Works has donated more than $365,000 to Kids on the Block since the partnership began four years ago.

“We’ve been a part of the Chattanooga community for more than 16 years and are proud to support an organization like Chattanooga Kids on the Block that works so hard to improve the lives of children in our hometown,” said Kelly Wilson, Director of Marketing for Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Group, Inc. “Community involvement and charitable giving are core principals of our corporate culture and we are dedicated to making a difference in every city where we have a presence.”

For the past 30 years, Chattanooga’s Kids on the Block has used lifesize puppets designed to teach children and adults about social concerns and differences in a non-threatening manner, giving them skills to stay safe and healthy.

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Here is one of the more interesting agenda items set to be discussed at the February 16 meeting of the Chattanooga City Council.

5. Ordinances - Final Reading:

Chattanooga’s Kids on the Block is one of the oldest, most active and most respected troupes in the country, serving 12 counties in Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia. It currently provides more than 23 program topics on sensitive issues such as child abuse awareness, childhood obesity, autism, asthma and allergies, and accepting differences, among other issues.

Last year alone, Chattanooga’s Kids on the Block performed more than 480

programs in the 12 county service area, serving more than 53,000 children and adults.

The programs are free of charge to schools in the twelve counties served, thanks to funding from United Way, Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, Chattanooga Area Brain Injury Association, Tennessee Donor Services, individual donors and large scale fundraisers such as the Southern Brewers Festival.

Leading Inner-City Youth Among the hot topics discussed by more than 60 teens attending Boys & Girls Clubs of Chattanooga’s Leadership Conference on February 5 and 6 were closing the academic achievement gap, creating a network of support, and preparing for future employment.

Speakers included Mark Brock, BGCC board chair, who gave a “State of the Club Address,” Sheryl Randolph from the Hamilton County Department of Education, who encouraged teens to pursue their dreams through preparation and staying focused in their work, as well as presenters from Unum, Marion Environmental, Inc., UTC, and the Community Foundation, who discussed verbal and nonverbal communication, job readiness, and the importance of education.

Club teens had the opportunity to speak with business and school representatives from Old Navy, Unum, Tennessee Valley Authority, UTC, Miller Motte, and people from the Upward Bound program. Conference attendants were chosen from their clubs for their involvement in the Leadership program and the Club’s service organizations and because of their drive to graduate, which can be seen through their work in the College Bound program. The Leadership Conference is part of an outreach initiative providing mentoring, job training and counseling to at-risk youth, funded by the Team Tacala Charities/Taco Bell Foundation for Teens and through the local support of the Maclellan Foundation and Unum.

Brock noted, “Each of these teens are honored to be here, but really each of us should be honored they are here. With the circumstances these youth face daily, they consciously make the positive decision to come to the Club, work to help other youth, reach their academic goals, and make Chattanooga a better place to live.”

The BGCC provides programs for more than 3,000 boys and girls, ages 6-18, in educational enhancement and career exploration, leadership skills and character development, drug and alcohol prevention, delinquency intervention, and health and fitness. Contact Debbie Gray at (423) 266-6131 for more information.

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b) An ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code, Part II, Chapter 38, Zoning Ordinance, by removing in their entirety Sections 38-43(4) and 38-524, relative to twofamily dwellings in a R-1 Residential Zone.

There has been continual debate during the past several years about what to do with duplex and triplex units that are located within residential areas that have been zoned (or often re-zoned) for single-family dwellings.

A number of property owners have come before the council asking for special exemptions to allow them to keep their multi-family buildings in such zones, but have seen nearly all of them denied.

The council, working with the Planning Commission, has made it clear that duplexes and triplexes are no longer welcome in most residential neighborhoods, and this proposed ordinance is another step in clarifying what has often been a contentious issue.

Another issue that has come up in relation to multiple-family dwellings has been a problem with properties being sold without the buyer being aware that they are no longer in zoning compliance.

Councilmember Sally Robinson has expressed a desire to change the laws to require this disclosure in all real estate transactions in the city, a requirement not currently in place under city ordinances.

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

Editoon

by Rick Baldwin

Letters to the Editor Beck And Policing Mr. Beck should know by now that Chattanooga is a tiny little town where news travels fast. If you are going to suggest that you have been in the trenches of urban policing, you better have some cred to back that up, otherwise your proverbial “punk card” will be pulled. I have a huge distaste for people like Mr. Beck and others that assume they know what is proper or the functioning of law enforcement. It’s not a business, so it cannot be ran like a fly by night outfit.

Larry Stein

Beck And Tasers Perhaps if Commissioner Beck is so bent on law enforcement being tough enough to break up fights without using a taser, he would be willing to demonstrate the technique for doing so [“Greg Beck: Are You OK, Sir?”, On The Beat]. Perhaps the demonstration could be done on the job, in an actual fight. Mr. Commissioner, it is better to use the stun gun than to break a skull, arm or leg.

Chaplain/Deputy Jim Cox Wythe County, Virginia

Proud Of The Opera Just the fact that Chattanooga has a symphony and opera should be a source of pride for our city [“Operatunity in Chattanooga”]. We all need to look at the value of keeping it going. Opera does have an emotional impact on the psyche unlike any other art form.

Stephen Smith Fairmount Avenue Housing I think that the role of a housing authority and other government agencies is to compete for funds that the president has made available to create jobs. Looking at this, I think

that the housing authority has done just that; bringing four million plus dollars to Chattanooga is not easy when other agencies are competing for those same funds. Maybe the city should support this project and find ways to make this work. Improving the existing Fairmount site would be a plus for the residents.

Thomas Gooden Rescheduled GOP Debate The Chattanooga Tea Party and Campaign for Liberty have confirmed a new date for the LiberTea Debate of the six announced Republican candidates for Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for Saturday, February 27, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. at Woodland Park Baptist Church. The debate will be free and open to the public. The six candidates scheduled to attend the debate are Tommy Crangle, Chuck Fleischmann, Tim Gobble, Van Irion, Arthur Rhodes and Robin Smith. At the conclusion of the debate, citizens will be able to meet each candidate in a spearate room to discuss issues of interest to them.

Mark West Chattanooga Tea Party

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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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.

• The recent wave of school break-ins and thefts of computers has frustrated both law enforcement and school officials. Hamilton County School Superintendant Dr. Jim Scales even went so far as to tell the county commission that he believed it was an “inside job”. Turns out he was partially right, as a recent arrest of a city Parks and Recreation employee led to the recovery of a number of laptop computers stolen from Howard High School. However, the city employee says he bought the laptops from an unknown man in front a downtown night club. As a result, he’s only been charged with possession of the stolen property, and not the school burglary. He has also been relieved of duty until “sufficient and complete information is available” to determine his employment status.

• Threatening to kill a politician and burn his house down is generally considered a very bad thing to do. Luckily, the vast majority of disgruntled voters who express their displeasure with our elected officials in such a fashion are not exactly the best of brightest. Such as the man who called Hamilton County Commissioner Curtis Adams at his house last week and threatened to kill him, his wife and burn their house down. Adams im-

mediately alerted East Ridge police officials, who were able to easily trace the call to a cell phone belonging to the upset caller. He was arrested the next day, charged with civil rights intimidation, harassment and filing a false report, and given a bond of $225,000.

• Cops are often amazed at just how stupid some criminals can be. Even the simplest of things, like how robbing a house in broad daylight is generally considered a bad idea, seem to never occur to those who live the criminal lifestyle.

It does make officers’ jobs a lot easier, though, especially in a recent case in which Bradley County deputies responded to a house on Twin Creek Drive after a 911 call on a burglary. A home health nurse was at the front door of the house when she saw a man coming out of a window carrying a bag. Since she knew that the man was not living in the house, she called it in. The man was captured and the bag was found to contain prescription medications belonging to three people at the home. Not only that, but in the course of their investigation, they also discovered the man had a female accomplice who also ended up behind bars.

• And one of the least popular tools in the law enforcement arsenal—the automated traffic camera—is going away in Cleveland. However, it’s not because of citizen outrage, nor was it the city’s idea

Chattanooga Street Scenes

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to do away with the red-light cameras.

The real issue was money. Specifically, the lack of revenue coming to the company that supplies the devices. They informed the Cleveland City Council that the cameras weren’t generating enough revenue, and wanted them back. Apparently, Cleveland drivers have become so law abiding at the various intersections monitored by the cameras that the number of citations issued (of which the company gets a cut) wasn’t enough to cover the operating expenses. Which is an interesting lesson to those in opposition to the cameras: if everyone obeys the traffic laws, the cameras will likely end up going away. And everyone ends up safer… at least until everyone realizes the cameras are gone and goes back to their old driving habits.

Photography by Louis Lee

The repairs of The Passage are a bit past schedule.

1. Kindle Wireless: For the reader who doesn’t like lugging around their entire library.

2. Garmin nüvi 285W/285WT: GPS units are becoming a “musthave” for everyone who drives, not just the professionals.

3. Apple iPod touch 8 GB: When it comes to gadgets, Apple is the king of the hill.

4. Apple iPod touch 32 GB: Did we mention how crowded that Apple hill was?

5. Flip UltraHD Camcorder: Remember when you couldn’t fit a camcorder in your shirt pocket?

6. Garmin nüvi 765/765T: Another GPS from the company that’s starting to dominate the market.

7. Apple iPod classic 160 GB: Wow, another Apple gadget.

8. Sony BDP-S360 1080p Bluray Disc Player: You thought your HDTV looked good with regular DVDs…wait till you see Blu-ray in action.

9. Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 10.1 MP Digital Camera: One of the best cameras for the price we’ve seen yet.

10. Apple iPod touch 64 GB: Yes, four (count them) iPods make the top ten sales list.

Impressive.

Amazon.com has long been one of the “go-to” places online to shop for electronics. What also makes them helpful is that they keep track of what people are buying, giving us all a window into what is popular…and what isn’t.

Though the fact that the Kindle, Amazon’s own electronic book reader, tops the list may have more to do with Amazon than actual sales, though to be fair, we’ve seen a LOT of people with Kindles around town of late.

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Beyond The Headlines

By Stuart James

It’s Jobs (and the Economy), Stupid I

am fascinated by the political responses to the president’s State of the Union address.

I watched the address, read it, and came to one conclusion—Obama’s goals are good for America; he laid out a plan in which Americans see their tax dollars used in positive ways.

The speech is not as bad as Republicans want to make it—there is substance upon which Republicans and Democrats can reach common ground. Obama is giving both parties an opportunity to do what America wants-—stimulate the economy and create jobs.

The president gives Congress a good start on passing a jobs program: “...we can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow. From the first railroads to the interstate highway system, our nation has always been built to compete. There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.

“Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new highspeed railroad funded by the Recovery Act. There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help our nation move goods, services, and information. We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities, and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy efficient, which supports clean energy jobs. And to encourage these and other businesses to stay within our borders, it’s time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs in the United States of America.”

So what is wrong with developing jobs by building a new transportation infrastructure, allowing for the fast delivery of goods, services, and information? What is wrong with a tax break to keep jobs in the United States? What is wrong with using our tax dollars to make homes more energy

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efficient?

Congress must use our tax dollars in programs designed to build our economy with one single purpose—improve our economy by putting people to work.

However, President Obama’s plan for jobs and the economy is only a start; Congress needs to start rebuilding the nation’s failing power grid, repairing our failing bridges, providing security to our ports, rebuilding our aging sewer and water systems, and improving our highways. If Congress does these things, people will get jobs.

Tennessee is an example of how investing our federal tax dollars into economic and job stimulus works.

Recently, Gov. Phil Bredesen gave his State of the State address. In his address, Gov. Bredesen spoke of the money received from the Economic Recovery Act: “I very much appreciated the help to state finances in the Recovery Act; it enabled a much ‘softer landing’ than would otherwise be possible, and allowed us to preserve jobs and plan more carefully for the reductions we would need to make. I thought it was a good move.”

The Recovery Act preserved jobs. Isn’t it a good idea to use our federal tax dollars to create jobs?

You would think so, but here is what politicians are saying about the State of The Union and stimulus money.

Senator Johnny Issakson (R) Georgia: “the... problem with freezing [the budget] at current levels is it includes all money that’s been spent for stimulus.” Issakson apparently does not know that stimulus money saved jobs in Tennessee.

Robin Smith, a Tennessee candidate for Congress: “Sadly, President Obama’s call for restoration of the public trust in government credibility rings hollow. The priorities identified in his presidential campaign in his first year, healthcare reform and his stimulus, have resulted in backroom

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“[President] Obama is giving both parties an opportunity to do what America wants-— stimulate the economy and create jobs.” deals and political payoffs for votes.” In addition to ignoring the backroom deals of the past eight years under Republicans, Smith is ignoring the fact that in Tennessee the stimulus saved jobs.

A close examination of the State of the Union speech shows that the president outlined attainable goals designed to improve our economy by putting people to work. Republicans need to quit complaining, and Democrats need to invite Republicans to participate in the process.

The president, of course, must lead. We need a bipartisan effort to rebuild our economy by creating jobs. To do anything else means failure, and if our elected representatives fail, we need to hold them accountable.

Stuart James is host of The Stuart James Show and publishes The Truth Factor. The Stuart James Show airs weekly at truthfactor.org and on 95.3 FM WPLZ Pulse News.

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Shrink Rap

By Rick Pimental-Habib, Ph.D

Our Friends, Our Mirrors Dear Dr. Rick, I love your column and gain a lot of insight from it. I feel I’m becoming a more conscious person, in little ways and on a daily basis. I have incorporated many of the tips and suggestions you offer for growing into a happier, kinder, more aware human being.

I’m not writing to you with a specific problem, but something I’d like to share with you and your readers. I’m noticing a very positive shift in myself, and I’m seeing this mostly through my friends.

Recently there’s been a deepening of my friendships, and when I look around—and this may sound corny—I am more grateful for my friends than anything else in my life. I have this amazing circle of creative, smart, funny, loving people. There is a wide range of ages (my oldest friend is 71!), including male, female, gay, straight, and several ethnicities. Every one of them enriches me in some way. I believe that growing closer to my friends could not have happened if I weren’t working on my own stuff.

I understand how this is a process, and for the first time I know that more good things, and good people, are coming my way. Thank you.

— June M., Chattanooga Dear June, Your letter put a smile on my face, as becoming more conscious, working to develop our best selves, bit by bit, on a daily basis, is what it’s all about.

Sure, we might wish for a magic pill to make the journey easier, but that’s just not how it works. It works if we work it. And when we’re successful with our internal changes, this eventually becomes reflected in our external lives—through friends, loved ones, and experiences.

If we look around at the relationships and experiences we are having, and we understand that we are attracting these to us, then we begin to take responsibility for the lives we are creating. We draw to us the challenges that offer the lessons we need to learn. And we’ll keep experiencing these over and over until we finally do “get” the lessons. We also draw toward us the people and experiences that enrich our lives with excitement, joy, love—as we’re ready to.

So a very valuable way to take stock of how we’re doing along this journey is to look at our relationships.

Our friends (and indeed everyone in our lives) act as a sort of mirror, showing us parts of ourselves. What’s usually pretty obvious is what we have in common with our friends, i.e., we like to go running together, or have the same taste in movies, or have similar jobs, etc.

But if we look a little deeper at this “mirror” aspect of our friendships, we might notice something else, too: That we sometimes have strong reactions to different aspects of these friendships. You might notice, for instance, that this friend annoys you when he’s short-tempered. And when you think about it, your own temper is something you dislike in yourself.

Or this other friend gets jealous at times, as you do also. Or these friends have a lot of money and don’t mind showing it off, something that secretly bothers you. Perhaps you don’t like the “show off” part of yourself.

Another friend sees the good in people and seems totally at ease in any setting, mirroring to you something you strive for.

So you see the pattern here?

Friends as mirrors, often unnoticed until we start to think about ourselves,

and understand why we might have reactions to certain qualities they exhibit. Let’s bring this home and begin the process of becoming more aware of ourselves, by becoming more aware of what our relationships show us. Right now, I invite you to think of five or six people in your life. With each one, think about why you like/ love this person. What about them is positive to you? And how does that reflect something similar in yourself?

What qualities do you share—or strive to share—with each of these people?

Now think of what qualities may bother you about these friends. Be specific. Ask yourself if these very traits are also in you, whether you’d like to admit it or not. What are these friends showing you about yourself?

How do they push your buttons?

How are they a mirror to your own personality?

Now I’m going to let you in on something: This doesn’t only apply to close relationships. It applies to every person in your life, and every person you meet! From siblings to strangers on the street. So the next time you find yourself reacting negatively toward someone, from the loudmouth at the next table, to the tailgater on the Interstate, ask yourself how this person might actually be mirroring something you feel negative about within yourself. Sure, you can make a legitimate case for being ticked off at them. But if you want to use this experience to further your own selfawareness, look deeper.

And this is how everyone you meet offers you one more little gift of insight.

Until next time: “Our lives are short. Let us look carefully. Let us live deeply so that life does not drift away without meaning.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

“If we look around at the relationships and experiences we are having, and we understand that we are attracting these to us, then we begin to take responsibility for the lives we are creating.”

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

Story by Cody Maxwell Photos by Lesha Patterson

“Everyone seemed to be out, from governors and mayors to local farmers who came to town to see the new ‘skyscraper’.”

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Inside The Tower Walls C

hattanoogans know the sound of the fire trucks and most of them know where they’re going when they hear them screaming toward downtown. The wailing doesn’t cause panic; for most, it doesn’t even arouse curiosity. But this time it was the real thing.

Saturday morning it was the real thing.

Fire trucks and ambulances arrived at the Patten Towers in response to an apartment fire on the third floor. The building was evacuated and residents who had nowhere else to go were shuttled to the public library for shelter from the morning’s cold. No one was injured.

According to Chattanooga Fire

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Department Records, fire trucks responded to calls from the Patten Towers 302 times in 2009.

It wasn’t always like this.

In the weeks prior to its opening, the Hotel Patten was being heralded as one of the finest hotels in the country. It was among the finest in the world, some said, and on the morning of April 1, 1908, hundreds of local citizens lined the streets awaiting the hotel’s noonday grand opening.

Everyone seemed to be out, from governors and mayors to local farmers who came to town to see the new “skyscraper.” For weeks the local papers had been printing stories about the new construction almost daily, building a sense of anticipation and

Cover Story local pride the city had never before experienced. When the front doors finally opened, those first guests were unanimous in their surety that this architectural marvel would make Chattanooga as recognized and respected as any city in the country.

It was indeed a sight to behold.

Passing through the front doors, guests found themselves in a lobby with ceilings 28 feet high, supported by great columns made from local Georgia marble.

Surrounding the lobby on three sides was a balcony from which one could hear the sounds of a house orchestra. The chandeliers hanging from the ceilings were all individually designed by the architect to suit the room in which they were displayed and a grand piano had been specially ordered for the ladies’ parlor.

A restaurant on the first floor had walls of scagliola onyx and floors of marble tile. Plate glass windows touched gold leaf ceilings and flooded the dining room with the afternoon’s light.

On the menu were Russian caviar and English sole, prepared by a French executive chef.

A bowling alley, barbershop and billiard parlor made the basement the place to be when the guests found time for leisure. The walls of the billiard parlor were finished in Flemish oak and sported the finest custommade tables.

One of the hotel’s lesser-known accommodations was an underground tunnel that provided privacy for the famous and elite who visited the hotel. Jimmy Hoffa kept a room there when he was standing trial in 1964 at the nearby federal courthouse. John Kennedy visited the hotel, as did countless other Hollywood and musical celebrities who passed by train through the South. The Hotel Patten was by all accounts a place fit for kings and no expense was spared in providing guests with the most luxurious and modern pleasantries.

But by 2008, the Hotel Patten hadn’t been scraping the sky for many years. It had been renamed the Patten Towers and was a project-based residential facility with a lawsuit filed against it in Hamilton County Circuit Court. According to the suit, an elderly resident of the building was on his

“Everybody’s got to have somewhere to sleep. And ain’t nobody perfect. But it ain’t nothing like what you read about. I mean, you been in there. You know.” way to his room when he stepped out of his wheelchair and into a puddle of piss. He slipped and fell backward onto the grand old marble hallway and sustained serious neck and shoulder injuries. The lawsuit further claimed that the hallways of the once glorious Hotel Patten were constantly filled with “all manners of debris, including, but not limited to, urine, defecation, rotting food, empty beer cans, and other garbage.”

The nearest neighbor of the Patten Towers is the Pickle Barrel, a pub on Market Street whose back door faces 11th Street. I was sitting at a table by the window watching the sidewalk outside and I asked my server what she knew about the Towers. She laughed.

“They sell their crazy meds on the sidewalk out here,” she claimed. “And when they get their money they come in here and eat hamburgers. That’s where the taxpayers’ dollars are going,” she added as she walked away. “Hamburgers at the Pickle Barrel.”

Another employee sitting at a table beside offered a second story. She claimed to be standing near the back door one night and watched a puddle of liquid sneak in from under the door. When she opened the door

she found a man standing there pissing. She and a cook chased the man away, and she laughed when she told me how the man started yelling, “I only have one kidney! I only have one kidney!” She believed the man to be a resident of the Patten Towers.

The two girls went on to work and an old friend of mine came in for lunch and sat nearby. I asked him if he knew anything about the Patten Towers. He laughed and offered an explanation for the frequent fire calls. “They all get their checks on the first and start burning their mattresses,” he claimed. I told him that had to be bullshit but he said, “No. Residents of the Patten Towers set mattresses on fire when they get their monthly checks; it’s common knowledge.”

He couldn’t explain why they would do such a thing; he only knew that it was so.

It seemed the modern marvel had become a magnificent slum. What was once a source of community hope and pride had become a place where they shit on the floors and throw their garbage down the hallways. A scan of old newspaper clippings regarding the Patten Towers highlights numerous problems, the most notable of which being a quote from a

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 2.11.10 The Pulse

13

Cover Story resident who claimed she avoided the laundry room for fear of being mugged. Community leaders stepped in to help clean up the mess but the shadowy stories of what the Patten Towers have become persist.

Stories that said the building had gone from being a monument to progress and community pride to being ankle-deep in shit with fires breaking out constantly.

People missing body organs running around town spewing piss, and wheelchair-bound old women selling dope on street corners. It sounded like something out of a William Burroughs novel.

Reading between the lines, it seemed like the biggest free-for-all party in town and I had to see it for myself.

I was walked down 11th Street and up the old Hotel Patten steps. The front door was locked and the security guard at a desk behind the door was unwilling to let me in. I went back down the steps as a man was coming up.

I asked him if he lived there and told him I was going to write a story about the Patten Towers.

“I’m the one you need to talk to, then,” he said. “Come over here a minute.” He hurried back down the steps and out of sight of the door. He looked at me with a curious smile and asked if I was Robert T. Nash. I said I wasn’t and told him my name. His name was Robert Earl.

“Yeah, you don’t really sound like him. I’ve called in and talked to Robert Nash a few times. He hangs up on me too much. But look here, you got any credentials so I’ll know who you are? I’m not trying to be funny, but you know…”

I explained that I was a freelancer working for myself and didn’t have anything more than a driver’s license.

“Well, you seem all right. I usually get a feeling about people. I can tell. What is it you’re wanting to write about?”

I didn’t know. I told him I was interested in the building’s history and what it had become.

“Oh yeah, man. I lived here for five years.

signed my name on a visitor’s log with the security guard and was a bit surprised that he not only asked for my driver’s license but said he’d have to keep it until I left.

At the elevator around the corner Robert reappeared and told me we’d stop on the second floor. I recognized the ballroom there, but the elegance was gone.

It was full of folding tables and chairs and drab government-issue tile had replaced the Georgia marble. A few people roamed around but there was certainly no party, celebrity-filled or otherwise.

Robert explained that a local Seventh Day Adventist Church had for years served Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners to the residents here but for some unknown reason had not come this year.

The infamous laundry room was around the corner. New washers and dryers lined the walls and despite my expectations everything was surprisingly clean.

The floors were not littered and the few residents about behaved like the residents of any other apartment community.

The building’s gold ceilings and marble columns were gone.

Fluorescent lights had replaced the chandeliers. I didn’t hear any orchestra and no one offered me caviar or martinis. But I wasn’t mugged, either.

We walked up a flight of stairs and to Robert’s apartment. “Here we are. Home sweet home,” he said.

Home was an efficiency apartment overlooking the city. It was well kept and quiet. Pictures of his family hung on the walls and a blanket was thrown over the back of his couch. Recent newspapers and local periodicals were stacked neatly under an end table. Of particular interest to me was a bookshelf in the living room filled from end to end with books on spirituality.

I even caught Carl Jung’s name on a few of them. There were no beer bottles piled high or whores sleeping it off in corners.

“You know, this is a nice place,” he said “It’s not big or fancy but I got everything I

“Passing through the front doors, guests found themselves in a lobby with ceilings 28 feet high, supported by great columns made from local Georgia marble.”

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This place goes way back. It’s a real nice place. Presidents stayed here. What was that gangster’s name? Jimmy Hoffa. Man, it’s a nice place.”

I told him I’d like to see inside and he said he’d be glad to take me. We went up to the front door and Robert said, “Tell the guard up here you’re going to 102,” and then he vanished.

The guard took my presence in stride. I

The Pulse 2.11.10 www.chattanoogapulse.com 95.3 Pulse News

Cover Story “According to Chattanooga Fire Department Records, fire trucks responded to calls from the Patten Towers 302 times in 2009.” need.” I had to agree. It looked better than a lot of places I’d lived in myself and I started doubting that there was a story to be found in the old building.

On the way back down the elevator an older man stepped on. Robert asked him how a recent surgery had gone. The older man shook his head and smiled, saying it went as well as surgeries go. Hearing this I realized that I never asked Robert how he qualified to live there.

I didn’t ask him then, either. I didn’t think it was any of my business.

Of peculiar interest was a meeting on the way back out of the front door. A woman was coming in and Robert introduced me to her as Christina Mack, the property’s manager. I told her my name and that I was a freelance writer working on a story about the Patten Towers and its history.

She told me to call her if I needed anything and quickly walked away.

I called her that afternoon and was told by her assistant that Ms. Mack would not speak with me and that I would not be allowed back in the building. Subsequent phone calls yielded the same result.

Phone calls to the management company for whom Ms. Mack works were never returned.

A few days later I called Robert to ask him what may have gone wrong with Ms. Mack.

He told me all I had to do was look at the old stories in the newspapers.

“Let me tell you something about Chattanooga, man,” he said. “Chattanooga’s a negative damn town. Everybody’s always got something to say. Everybody wants to say something but they usually ain’t about nothing. You

know what I mean? Everybody’s got to have somewhere to sleep.

And ain’t nobody perfect. But it ain’t nothing like what you read about. I mean, you been in there.

You know.”

“Let me tell you something, though. I don’t mean to change the subject. This whole city is got a bad vibe. I took a class one time that showed you how to use your mind in different ways— how to use parts of your mind that you don’t normally use. I can feel stuff. I’m wrong sometimes but usually I’m right. I mean, this is a negative place. You know UTC used to be a prison with gallows, man. I know people who’ve walked around there and won’t go back. They used to kill people up there. I’m not saying it’s ghosts but it‘s something. It’s like that all over this town. This whole town’s like that.”

On Saturday I called Robert again. I was supposed to meet him that morning but he couldn’t make it due to the fire. He said he wasn’t going to stand out in the cold and went to a friend’s house.

I asked him what he knew about the morning’s fire. He said most of the fire calls were from people burning things on their stoves while cooking. He knew the woman living in the apartment where the fire started and said she shouldn’t have been cooking anyway. “She can’t even stand up,” he said.

I had my Pickle Barrel lunch alone. From my seat by the window, I watched the temporarily displaced residents mill about in the street and on the sidewalks until they were loaded up and taken to the public library for shelter from the cold.

This is not the end of the story.

But it may be the beginning of the most recent chapter.

Editor's Note: After writer Cody Maxwell was told by the Patten Towers manager that he would not be allowed back on the premises, The Pulse traced the building’s management company to Star-Holdings of Illinois, LLC. We placed a call to Mike Moore, who is listed on the company’s web site as the contact for “media inquiries.” We were directed to his voicemail, where we left a message requesting a return call about Patten Towers, and also requesting information about the owner of record. Mr. Moore did not return our call. We will follow up this story with another on Patten Towers later this year.

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 2.11.10 The Pulse

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The Pulse • Dining Out Spotlight

Happy Times at the Fabulous Formosa

by Colleen Wade

Let me start by saying I’m pretty fortunate…I have a pretty sweet gig here. I get to go to incredible restaurants and get the real story behind them—taste a little food, talk to the owners or managers. It’s incredible, but it’s a rare treat to come across a completely different concept, and that’s just what happened when I set foot in Formosa Restaurant in Hixson last week.

I had called the owner, Mitchell Lin, earlier in the week to set up a time to come out for an interview. He mentioned when we set the appointment wanting to do something a little out of the ordinary, but he wasn’t sure what just yet. I was intrigued, and anxiously awaiting the scheduled time for our assignation. The big day finally rolled around, and I had no idea what to expect.

As soon as I walked in the door of Formosa Restaurant, I could see this was not just another Chinese restaurant. From the elegant, yet simple atmosphere to the large saltwater fish tank designed to entertain diners while they wait, Formosa is a cut above. Then my eyes locked on Mitchell’s wall of fame. Wow! There are letters from congressmen, governors, heck—there was even something up there with a very prestigious return address in Washington, D.C. congratulating Mitchell on more than 20 years of entrepreneurship.

And those hang alongside the 11 CityScope awards for “Best Chinese Restaurant.”

Mitchell came in, introduced himself to me and led me to a table, where he seated me with a young man he introduced as Tyler.

He explained that he’s decided to have me interview three of his more experienced wait staff. Wait! What’s this? I’m gonna get to talk to the heart and soul of Formosa?

Mitchell brought Samantha and Spence over to our table and introduced them, then he left to prepare some food for the four of us.

Tyler Brandenburg, at two-and-a-half years at the Formosa, is the “rookie” of the bunch. At 19, he’s recently completed his associate degree and is saving money to attend MTSU, where he plans to be a guitar performance major. Samantha Lowy, at 20 years old, has already worked at Formosa for four years. She’s a student at UTC, where she studies psychology. Spence Guffey, the final member of our group, is another long-timer at Formosa.

Mitchell brought us three dishes to try: Princess Steak Kew Plus, hearty pieces of rib eye steak plus jumbo shrimp in a hot brown sauce, Sesame Chicken, lightly breaded white-meat chicken blended with a few vegetables in a brown sauce topped with sesame seeds, and Shrimp Lo Mein with Five Flavor Sauce. The guys explained that everything at Formosa is cooked to order.

Anything can be added or taken away from a dish. As we sat eating, I listened to the friendly banter between these guys. It was

almost like siblings without the rivalry—when suddenly I was hearing lots of numbers. 903, 519, 604…what in the world?

“Everything has got a number.

I make it a point to learn them all,” Tyler explained. “I’ve got a couple of regulars that like to quiz me every week. They come in every Saturday. They order by number and see if I can guess what dish it is and they’re always just so excited when I get it right.”

Do they all know all the numbers? I mean, the menu is massive. There are more than 30 seafood items alone! “It’s not required,” said Samantha, “but you just get to know them.” So how? How do you learn all these items? “You either start as a busboy or hostess and then you work your way up to server,” Tyler said.

Owner Mitchell Lin and manager Mike Hendrix are also what these servers count among the great things about working at the restaurant. Said Samantha, “We’re all kinda like one big happy family in a way. It’s just a good atmosphere. Mitchell is a great guy to work for.”

The great guy himself said, “We are very fortunate we have this group always very tight together. They work together as coworkers and after school they get together sometimes, get some fancy, crazy things to do.”

Formosa: excellent food, cooked to order, incredible levels of customer service, great prices…What more can you ask for? Happy employees! And you’ll certainly find them there.

Formosa Restaurant, 5424 Highway 153, #9 in Hixson, Tennessee. Call (423) 8756953 or find them on the web at www. formosa-restaurant.com.

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 2.11.10 The Pulse

17

On The Beat

By Alex Teach

The Games Wii Play T

he air inside of an emergency room is clearer than any I am aware of. They say the night skies near the poles are so crisp it gives you the feeling you can reach out and touch the stars; if that’s the case, then if there were an emergency room on the North Pole it would probably seem as if you could take a step onto another planet from the front automatic sliding door. Now that I think about it, the E.R. may as well be another planet.

I was in Trauma Intensive Care Room #6, ankle deep in plastic sterile dressing wrappers and bloody rubber gloves and standing before a man recumbent on an elevated stretcher, clothes in tatters and blood still congealing around his face and chest. A small puddle was forming on the floor below his left shoulder, and the crimson on the sheets was surrounded by a halo of plasma spreading outward like yellow foam ahead of a red tide.

When I bent in for a closer look, there was a sticker with a neat little arrow on it pointing toward the bullet hole that now graced his chest just below and to the left of his clavicle, as if God was using a virtual mouse pointer to show where the wound was. That, however, was the only obvious appearance of God in this room that night.

We were alone now, my customer and I, accompanied only by the steady thump and hiss of the respirator pumping air into his lungs for him through a tube that pulled his mouth open to the left at an ungainly angle, taped into place for function. Comfort was not a priority, of course, but it was as unnatural a pose as he could strike, exacerbated by the fact that his eyes were ever so slightly slit open. You would think this would bring comfort or at least humanize the situation, but it didn’t, because you eventually realized he wasn’t blinking. The eyes were just staring upward into the fluorescent lights with no life in them, much less moisture.

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I was overcome with the urge to reach up and close them, even move them up and down for the sympathetic dryness I was feeling just seeing him, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t allowed. I instead tried to focus on the steady shifting and jerking of his chest as the respirator continued its work and take comfort from its rhythm, making note of the “57” Crip set tattoo covering his shoulder. He face was freshly shaved.

I glanced over at the plasma screen above his bed and studied the digital X-rays of his chest and saw where the bullet currently lay. It had missed his heart, but enough arteries and lung tissue were disrupted to require the trauma C.P.R. that allowed him to live long enough to let science and the luck of the wicked keep him alive in the absence of his autonomic nervous system.

In the room to the right of mine, a man was having his cheek stitched from being pistol whipped with his own gun, apparently having made a poor choice of someone to attempt to rob with it. Across the hallway, a sheriff’s deputy braced himself against the wall outside his customer’s room, head leaning back, with his right heel pulled up to the wall below it, closing his eyes and wishing he were far, far away from the ranting drunk he’d been forced to handcuff to the bedrail. And here I was, watching over a man who was literally dead 45 minutes ago, shot over a dispute during a Nintendo “Wii” game.

The actual source of the argument was still being speculated upon, but I do know that it started while playing a Wii baseball game, and the argument was such that it apparently needed resolution with a table leg. The table leg was met with a box cutter, the box cutter met with a butcher knife, and the butcher knife met finally with a 9 millimeter. It was kind of a Turd (genuine police lingo!) equivalent to the police “use of force continuum”, and I had a keen appreciation for their escalation. That was where my amusement stopped, however.

Here we were, surrounded by the finest life-saving technology and professionals to administer it that

“A small puddle was forming on the floor below his left shoulder, and the crimson on the sheets was surrounded by a halo of plasma spreading outward like yellow foam ahead of a red tide.” our civilization had to offer. Years of research and training, and this numb-nut is breathing through a tube and nearly comatose over an argument during a video game.

Do Dear Alex a favor: Take this newspaper, fold it up, and place it in your coat pocket. That way, should we ever meet or should you enter a discussion with anyone about why cops (or in fairness, just me) are so cynical, don’t say a word. Just hand over this story, and if you have to explain further, relax: They wouldn’t understand anyway.

Thank God this E.R. has a “Sonic Drive-Through” ice machine, or I may just go crazy.

(I told you it had the finest technology our civilization had to offer.)

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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Music Calendar Thursday Spotlight

Sent by Ravens, Axiom, Everybody Loves the Hero, 100thandMay Get it all, from acoustic to thrash. $8 7 p.m.

The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Road, East Ridge. myspace.com/warehousetn

Thursday, Feb. 11 Zach Aderale, Amber Fults 7 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestaurant.com Sent by Ravens, Axiom, Everybody Loves the Hero, 100th and May 7 p.m. The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Rd., East Ridge. myspace.com/warehousetn Open Mic 8 p.m. The Riverhouse, 224 Frazier Ave. (423) 752-0066. myspace.com/ theriverhousechattanooga Channing Wilson 9 p.m. Bud’s Sports Bar, 5751 Brainerd Rd. (423) 499-9878. www.budssportsbar.com Southern Ground Tour: Sonia Leigh, Levi Lowery 9:30 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. (423) 267-4644. www.rhythm-brews.com The Weight, Fox Hunt, Goddamn Rattlesnakes 10 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd. (423) 266-1400.

DJ ScubaSteve Fox and Hound Pub & Grille, 2040 Hamilton Place Blvd., #150. (423) 490-1200.

Friday, Feb. 12 Uncle Lightnin’ 6 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd. (423) 266-1400.

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Friday Spotlight

Failing the Fairest, King Conquer, Brotherhood, Milosny, The Armory 7 p.m. The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Rd., East Ridge. myspace.com/warehousetn Overture for Rent 7 p.m. The Original Blue Orleans Restaurant, 3208 Amnicola Hwy. (423) 629-6538.

Mosquito Bandito, Elliot Rubin 8 p.m. Ziggy’s Hideaway, 607 Cherokee Blvd.

(423) 634-1074. myspace.com/ziggyshideaway Husky Burnette 9 p.m. Rhapsody Café, 1201 Hixson Pike. (423) 266-3093.

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 Underhill 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 Roger Alan Wade and friends 10 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd. (423) 266-1400. www.myspace.com/jjsbohemia The Cadillac Saints, Hasty in the Ruckus 10 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. (423) 267-4644. www.rhythm-brews.com Power Play Show Band 10 p.m. Bud’s Sports Bar, 5751 Brainerd Rd. (423) 499-9878.

Lon Eldridge 11:30 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043.

DJ Spicolli Raw Sushi Bar Restaurant & Nightclub, 409 Market Street, (423) 756-1919. www.myspace.com/jimstriker DJ GOP The Palms at Hamilton, 6925 Shallowford Rd. (423) 499-5055. www.thepalmsathamilton.com

Saturday, Feb. 13 Eddies of the Wind, Arthur Godfrey, Ericson Holt 7:30 p.m. Lindsay Street Hall, 901 Lindsay Street.

(423) 755-9111. www.lindsaystreethall.com Undead Viking Mafia, 476, Coathanger Abortion, Atrocious Abnormality, Toe Tagged 8 p.m. Ziggy’s Hideaway, 607 Cherokee Blvd.

(423) 634-1074. myspace.com/ziggyshideaway Open Mic 9 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestaurant.com Power Play Show Band 10 p.m. Bud’s Sports Bar, 5751 Brainerd Rd. (423) 499-9878. www.budssportsbar.com Live Music 10 p.m. Tremont Tavern, 1203 Hixson Pike. (423) 266-1996. www.tremonttavern.com Forest Magic, With No Cadence 10 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd. (423) 266-1400.

Perpetual Groove 10 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. (423) 267-4644.

The Howlies 9 p.m. Discoteca, 304 E. Main St. John Flynn 8 p.m. Charles & Myrtle’s Coffeehouse, 105 McBrien Rd. (423) 892-4960. www.christunity.org

The Cadillac Saints, Hasty in the Ruckus Saints march in again at R&B. $7 10 p.m.

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

Jon Shain 8 p.m. Barking Legs Theater, 1307 Dodds Ave. (423) 624-5347. www.barkinglegs.org DJ Spicolli Raw Sushi Bar Restaurant & Nightclub, 409 Market Street, (423) 756-1919.

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

Sunday, Feb. 14 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 the Blues Strangers 6:30 p.m Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestaurant.com Irish Sessions Music 6:30 p.m. Tremont Tavern, 1203 Hixson Pike.

(423) 266-1996. www.tremonttavern.com Open Mic 8 p.m. Gene’s Bar & Grill, 724 Ashland Terrace, (423) 870-0880.

Bring the Witch 10 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd. (423) 266-1400.

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

Music Calendar

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

Saturday Spotlight

Eddies of the Wind, Arthur Godfrey, Ericson Holt Psychedelic rock meets Americana tag-team. $5 7:30 p.m.

Lindsay Street Hall, 901 Lindsay Street.

(423) 755-9111. www.lindsaystreethall.com

Monday, Feb. 15 Old Tyme Players 6. p.m. Market Street Tavern, 850 Market St. (423) 634-0260. www.marketstreettavern.com I Am Terrified, Heartcake Party, Between Two Seas, Dispel the Serpent’s Lie 7 p.m. The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Rd., East Ridge. myspace.com/warehousetn Paul Lohorn’s 18 Piece Chattanooga Big Band 7:30 p.m. Lindsay Street Hall, 901 Lindsay Street.

(423) 755-9111. www.lindsaystreethall.com Karaoke 9:30 p.m. Bud’s Sports Bar, 5751 Brainerd Rd. (423) 499-9878.

The Palms at Hamilton 6925 Shallowford Rd. (423) 499-5055. www.thepalmsathamilton.com

Sunday Spotlight

The Ben Friberg Trio 7 p.m. Table 2, 232 E. 11th Street, (423) 756-8253. www.table2restaurant.com Billy Hopkins 8 p.m. Market Street Tavern, 850 Market St. (423) 634-0260. www.marketstreettavern.com Open Mic 8 p.m. Tremont Tavern, 1203 Hixson Pike. (423) 266-1996. www.tremonttavern.com Spoken Word/Poetry Night 8 p.m. The Riverhouse, 224 Frazier Ave., (423) 752-0066. www.myspace.com/ theriverhousechattanooga Karaoke 9:30 p.m. Bud’s Sports Bar, 5751 Brainerd Rd. (423) 499-9878. www.budssportsbar.com

Two Fresh, Big Gigantic 10 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. (423) 267-4644.

Slim Pickins 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 GOP The Palms at Hamilton, 6925 Shallowford Rd. (423) 499-5055.

Wednesday, Feb. 17 Red, Decyfer Down, The Wedding, Me in Motion 7 p.m. Club Fathom, 412 Market Street.

(423) 757-0019.

Editor’s Pick of the Week

Say I love you with some progressive metal. $7 10 p.m.

JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd. (423) 266-1400. www.myspace.com/jjsbohemia

AJ Valcarcel and the Bitter Lesson 7 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestaurant.com Ben Friberg Jazz Trio 8 p.m. Market Street Tavern, 850 Market St. (423) 634-0260. www.marketstreettavern.com Ellen Ireland 9 p.m. Bud’s Sports Bar, 5751 Brainerd Rd. (423) 499-9878. www.budssportsbar.com Rollin’ in the Hay 9:30 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. (423) 267-4644. www.rhythm-brews.com Off With Their Heads, The Fevers, What If? 10 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd. (423) 266-1400. www.myspace.com/jjsbohemia Got a gig coming up that you want to tell the world about?

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.

Tuesday, Feb. 16 Troy Underwood 6:30 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9043. www.mudpierestaurant.com Within the Ruins, And Hell Followed With, EWAP, Permillisecond, Thaddeus 7 p.m. The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Rd., East Ridge. myspace.com/warehousetn

Bring the Witch

I am Terrified, Heartcake Party, Between Two Seas, Dispel the Serpent’s Lie The weekend starts late with some scream rock coming on Monday night. Tell your boss Tuesday looks like a bad day for you. You’re not going to want to go back to your cubicle in the morning after a concert like this!

Monday, February 15 $8 7 p.m.

The Warehouse, 5716 Ringgold Rd., East Ridge. www.myspace.com/warehousetn

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 2.11.10 The Pulse

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Music Feature

By Alison Burke

Howlies Take Discoteca T

he Howlies are a garage doo-wop four-piece from Atlanta you can catch at Discoteca this Saturday night. Their first fulllength album, Trippin’ with Howlies, came out this time last year and is jam-packed with fast, fun jams that stick in the brain like candy in your teeth.

“Sea Level” is a crowd-friendly chant with a surf beat, “Angeline” takes a more straightforward rock route, and “Aluminum Baseball Bat” (my personal favorite) is a Four Seasons-style ballad about beating up an ex’s new boyfriend. But the real selling point for this band is their live show, which gets equal points for energy and dancibility. Last week, The Pulse hit up all four members—drummer Aaron Wood, guitarists Justin Brooke and Brandon Morrison, and bassist Matt Forsee—to chat about recording and life on the road.

Alison Burke: How did the Howlies become the Howlies? How long have you been working together?

Justin Brooke: I’ve been in bands with Brandon and Aaron since I was 14 or 15 years old. For most of that time we were just kids messing around, experimenting, learning how to play. There was a raw kind of magic there, but we hadn’t figured out how to hone it in. We all wanted to make a living at music, but we never toured, and the music we were playing was just too all-over-the-place. So we decided to call it quits. Then a funny thing happened. We accidentally wrote “Sea Level” together. Now that was something completely different. It was FUN. Suddenly, we were all jumping around the basement, drunk on our own song. To me, that was the birth of Howlies.

AB: How’s your current tour going? Any good stories?

Brandon Morrison: We unknowingly left Aaron at a gas station somewhere in the middle of the country.

We had been driving down the interstate for at least ten minutes when he called. We were by that time stuck in a construction-zone bottleneck and it took us another half hour just to get back and pick him up.

We all thought he was asleep under the sleeping bag in the back seat. If he hadn’t called or had left his phone in the van when he got out, we could have driven for hours before we realized he wasn’t there.

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AB: So, I hear that you guys all share a house together in Atlanta. What is your songwriting process like when you’re so close?

JB: Actually, I don’t think we could write the way we do if we weren’t so close. All ideas are welcome but not equal; the bad ideas get ripped to shreds.

I think our BEST songs happen when somebody has a good half-idea—like maybe verses and a melody but no chorus—and the other half of the idea comes from collaboration.

AB: How is the new record coming? How is this time different from recording your first one with Kim Fowley? Are you going in a new direction?

JB: It’s been different in almost every way. The first record was ultrarehearsed and ultra-rushed. It was a whirlwind of junk food and hotels. Kim Fowley’s presence was electrifying but also nerve-wracking. He had lots of brilliant suggestions, and I learned so much from him, but you will never win an argument with Kim Fowley.

This time, we’re self-producing. More like the way we recorded the first Howlies EP in our basement, except in a real studio. And painstakingly analogue. I think it’s a natural step forward. The early rock ‘n’ roll influence might be a bit less obvious this time around, but only because we’ve learned to make it more our own. Some people might think it’s a new direction, but you can still have sex to it.

That makes it a Howlies record.

AB: What are you listening lately? Do you currently have a favorite band?

Aaron Wood: I don’t currently have a favorite band and my musical taste is quite scattered at times.

I am really diggin’ on some Scott Walker right now and other singers that have this “in-your-face-shootfrom-the-hip-talking voice” kind of singing. Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Angel’s and Devils” popped up on my shuffle the other day and that song f***ing rules.

Ian McCulloch sort of has that same singing style going on and I wouldn’t be surprised if the uninformed listener mistook him for Lou Reed because it really has

The Pulse 2.11.10 www.chattanoogapulse.com 95.3 Pulse News

a Velvet Underground feel. I think that “Along came Jones” by the Coasters is genius.

BM: I have been digging on the newest carnation of Beck’s Record Club. They are doing Skip Spence’s record “OAR”. James Gadson is playing drums on some of the jams. I think he totally kicks ass. Also I have been spending a lot of time with Sam Cooke recently.

JB: Those Darlins are my favorite band right now.

I’ve been in love with them since I first saw them in 2007. That was before they had a drummer. I just saw them at the Earl two weekends ago. I have to say, they’ve become truly amazing songwriters, musicians, and snake charmers. I see big things in their future.

We tried to get them to come down and sing on the new record, but they’re always on tour. Ladies: the invitation stands.

AB: If you could use one word or phrase to describe your sound, what would it be?

Matt Forsee: Loquacious as a Mutha-F&$%*!!

JB: “The Howl of Love”.

The Howlies $4 9 p.m.

Saturday, February 14 Discoteca, 304 E. Main Street

New Music Reviews The Magnetic Fields Realism (Nonesuch)

“Realism is ostensibly the band’s folk album, inspired by orchestral British folk and Judy Collins’s early variety albums.”

Gil Scott-Heron I’m New Here (XL Recordings) Gil ScottHeron and early ’70s contemporaries the Last Poets are often credited with being forefathers of rap. Sonically, however, the two acts’ early work is ostensibly a bit like open mike night at a beatnik coffeehouse, with spoken poetry over bongo accompaniment, and not much like rhythm-loop-heavy rap as we know it. If you pay attention to the lyrics, then it’s a different story—it’s angry, thorny, uncompromising stuff that was in line with the concurrent Black Power movement. Scott-Heron shifted to a mellower soul-funk approach, and his most well-known number, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”—his

The latest Magnetic Fields album, Realism, is intended to be a counterpart to its predecessor, the feedback-drenched Distortion, and Stephin Merritt, the group’s songwriter and primary singer, even wanted to title one of them True and the other False to signify recording styles. Merritt stated that he couldn’t decide, however, which would be which; I would go as far to say that both albums would be called False. Distortion is obviously false (think of the sound manipulation as “a distortion of facts”), and while Realism was more-or-less recorded cleanly, using acoustic instruments, its title and execution show that Merritt is playing games with the listener.

Realism is ostensibly the band’s folk album, inspired by orchestral British folk and Judy Collins’s early variety albums, and a track like “We Are Having a Hootenanny,” a cheerful, strummy sing-along, recalls the structure of public domain folk songs like “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.” But the tidy, layered recordings of Realism belie folk music; in a way, the notion of “orchestral folk” itself is an absurdity—how can you fit an orchestra on some rickety, backwoods front porch? The album’s title makes the most sense when considering “realism” in the visualarts context. Art is intrinsically false, and Magritte’s painting of a pipe, with the caption “This is not a pipe” comes to mind (of course it’s not a pipe—it’s

a painting) as well as Picasso’s quote, “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.” It’s part of Merritt’s sense of humor, like the running joke on 69 Love Songs, which disguised certain romantic tunes as ersatz punk, gospel, or even civic-pride songs.

OK, so is it any good? It’s very much in line, quality-wise, with the previous two albums, i and Distortion, and on first listen, a few tracks seemed like trifles, like “The Dolls’ Tea Party,” with a toy piano accompaniment, or “Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree.” But, the melodies have a way of sticking with the listener, and more than a cursory glance at the lyrics reveal further themes of artificiality—the German-sung chorus of the latter track acknowledges the singer’s delusion, saying “No, maybe it’s not all a dream. It’s all a nightmare?”

The gorgeous “I Don’t Know What to Say” contains a pointedly nonfolk ending fadeout, which actually is a vital and clever part of the song; the singer, unable to express his feelings, pushes the love interest off a cliff, so the fadeout corresponds to what the falling person might hear.

An attentive listener’s appreciation will likely grow with each listen to Realism, and the irresistible “The Dada Polka” (not a real polka, by the way) ends with a perfect recap of the album’s deception: “Do something a little out of character: do something true.” — Ernie Paik

anti-couch-potato call to action—was updated from a bongo-infused rant to a superb funk excursion. While ScottHeron’s music became more satisfying, with much credit to collaborator Brian Jackson, his pieces became less visceral and agitated; also, his talents as a singer became clearer, particularly on standout tracks like his reverent “Lady Day and John Coltrane.”

It’s been more than 15 years since Scott-Heron’s last album, and they’ve been rough years for him, with drug troubles and time in prison; perhaps echoing this, his new effort, I’m New Here, has a pointedly dark mood, often with electronic arrangements. It’s largely nonpolitical, and even more surprising is that the title track is a cover of a song by Smog; it rambles without dips or peaks, with a fingerpicked acoustic guitar pattern and Scott-Heron sounding appropriately lost. Other covers include Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil,” with shadowy synth chords and beats that sound vaguely mid-’90s; the mysterious arrangement for the Bobby Bland

cover, “I’ll Take Care of You,” had more potential, with a piano and strings, but it’s apparent on that track that Scott-Heron’s singing voice is shot. Scott-Heron revisits his old piece “The Vulture,” renamed here as “Your Soul and Mine,” but the background electronics already sound dated.

Overall, the album seems a bit thin, clocking in at less than a half-hour, and four tracks are spoken “interludes” that are each less than 20 seconds long. The album begins and ends with him in storytelling mode, with familial reminiscences, but enough time isn’t provided for him to explore the stories.

Earlier Scott-Heron material worked best when the music was as strong as his lyrics and singing, but here the music isn’t up to snuff; simply putting an old-timer in a modern sonic setting isn’t enough. While his singing voice is rough, his speaking voice is possibly more compelling than ever; it’s deep, weathered, and fascinating and would have served a straight-up spoken word album well, with ample room for nuanced storytelling. — Ernie Paik

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 2.11.10 The Pulse

23

Arts & Entertainment

By Vincent Howard

Recalled to Life A

udiences for Our Town, Thornton Wilder’s classic play, had better be up for a talking to. As soon as the lights dim, we are addressed by the Stage Manager, who, we soon learn, will flesh out the setting— Grover’s Corners, a whistle-stop north of the Massachusetts line, in 1901—introduce the characters—a few average American folks— and serve as our narrator for the play’s three acts.

Needless to say, this chap has a lot riding on him: nothing less than the mood and momentum of the entire production. Thankfully, Rob Inman, the Stage Manager in the CTC’s Main Stage production of Our Town is up to the task. Donning tweed slacks, a dangling watch chain and an impeccable part in his hair, he exudes all the provincial trustworthiness of a Norman Rockwell creation. As the audience saw last Friday night, he is capable of steering a somewhat shaky production.

But he isn’t the only character in Our Town faced with unusual challenges. The cast must act out the various activities of everyday life under drastic set restrictions. Every aspect of the town’s physical character, from Main Street storefronts to kitchen props, must be imaginatively implied from a few tables and chairs, two ladders, and a bench. Housewives must shuck invisible beans, stir invisible batter and pour coffee from invisible pitchers. Children run off to school with books we can’t see.

Some of the actors are especially deft at going through these motions. Though he has help from some offstage sound cues, Andy Still, as milkman Howie Newsome, carries out his trade with a fervor that compensates for his lack of props. Randal Fosse, as Dr. Gibbs, lifts his saucer and sips his coffee with an effortlessness that conveys the full sense of this morning ritual. And Nancy Hammons, as Mrs. Webb, gestures the stirring of batter with intuitive ease.

Not all the cast members are quite as deft at this game. In his role as the drunken choir director Simon Stinson, Stacy Helton gives a comical turn, to be sure.

(In one of the play’s most humorous moments, he implores his choir to sing more quietly during rehearsal by screaming at them.) But as he pushes his hands over

24

what we can only assume is a piano, he might just as well be petting a dog as playing a keyboard. Perhaps we can be blame Stimson’s boozy demeanor for this lapse.

Why did Wilder choose to burden his cast with these seemingly unnecessary acting responsibilities? “Our claim, our hope, our despair are in the mind,” Wilder famously wrote, “not in things, not in scenery.” This quote sounds like the quip of a Gnostic dualist, or perhaps a reaction to Imagism, the early 20th-century literary movement led by William Carlos Williams’ famous mantra, “No ideas but in things.”

But what Wilder was really after with Our Town was a theatrical approach akin to Williams’s later poetic project, which aimed to capture the ordinary experiences of the 20th-century American Everyman. If Williams tried to show how ordinary Americans talked—by writing poems in the idioms of plain speech—Wilder wanted to show how those people lived, and, more importantly, what they lived for. By removing the artifice of a set, Wilder was drawing his audience’s attention to the supreme importance of his characters, since life’s essence, as he explains through Our Town’s Stage Manger, transcends the temporal. “We all know that something is eternal,” he says in the third act. “And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars... that something has to do with human beings.”

In the case of Emily Webb, one of Our Town’s main characters, this is not discovered until after her death.

In the first two acts, Wilder shows us Emily’s life, which by the standards of Grover’s Corners amounts to an average existence. She had attended school, earned her diploma, fallen in love with the boy next door, and married young. But in the third act, Emily gathers with the local deceased at the Grover’s Corners Cemetery, having died in labor. Now she pines to return to her living family. Though she is allowed to go back for one day, she is alarmed by what she finds.

“It goes so fast,” she cries to the Stage Manager.

“Do human beings ever realize life while they live it?

[They] are just blind people!”

The Pulse 2.11.10 www.chattanoogapulse.com 95.3 Pulse News

These lines, delivered passionately by Joanna Miller, serve as the emotional centerpiece of Our Town. Indeed, the pathos of Miller’s performance even pushes us to forgive that of her fellow lead, Tony Dagnon, whose turn as Emily’s suitor, George Gibbs, is fraught with screechy adolescent awkwardness. His is certainly a coming-of-age story, but the role demands a palpable sense of burgeoning maturity as much it calls for study-hall romping.

As Our Town draws to a close, the Stage Manager steps forward to wind his watch and remind us of the time. It is late in Grover’s Corners. Emily’s funeral is over, and the townspeople, those still alive, are heading off to bed. “You get a good rest, too,” the Stage Manager implores. But as the stage lights darken, we know that he means for our eyes to remain opened. His hope is Wilder’s hope: that we not stay blind to the beauty of life in Our Town, or any town.

On Thursday, February 11, the Chattanooga Theatre Centre will offer real-time captioning of the performance. Courtesy of new equipment from the Chattanooga Chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America.

Our Town $12 - $25 7 p.m. Thursday, February 11 8 p.m. Friday, Saturday February 12, 13 2:30 p.m. Sunday, February 14 Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Main Stage, 400 River Street. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com

A&E Calendar Thursday

String Theory Concert Series at the Hunter Chamber music series, this time featuring Prokofiev, Bartok and Mozart. $18 6:30 p.m.

Hunter Museum, 10 Bluff View.

(423) 267-0968. www.huntermuseum.org

Eye on the Prize Film Series Noon. Bessie Smith Cultural Center, 200 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-8658. www.caamhistory.org Mystery of TV Talk Show 7 p.m. Vaudeville Café, 138 Market St. (423) 517-1839. www.funnydinner.com Our Town 7 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Main Stage, 400 River St. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com “C.S. Lewis Onstage” 7:30 p.m. Dixon Center, Lee University, 1120 N. Ocoee St. (423) 614-8343.

Michael Mack 8 p.m. The Comedy Catch, 3224 Brainerd Rd. (423) 629-2233. www.thecomedycatch.com

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

Friday

Soul Cinema Dream Girls and a special beverage. Ages 21 and up. $10 7:30 p.m.

Bessie Smith Cultural Center, 200 MLK Blvd. (423) 266-8658.

Saturday

CSO Presents “Big Band Fever” Swing era returns to the Tivoli. $19 - $79 8 p.m.

Tivoli Theatre, 709 Broad Street.

(423) 267-8583. www.chattanoogasymphony.org

Monday Daniel Deronda Film & lunch: part 3 11 a.m. Jewish Cultural Center, 5461 N. Terrace. (423) 493-0270. www.jcfgc.com “Breast as Brush” Auction Reception 6 p.m. Asher-Love Gallery, 3914 St. Elmo Ave. (423) 822-0289.

Joseph Campbell Roundtable Discussion: Scaughdt, A Peace Pilgrim 7 p.m. Grace Episcopal Church, 20 Belvoir Ave. (423) 894-5371.

Chattanooga Bach Choir Annual Mardi Gras Ball 7 p.m. Walden Club, 633 Chestnut St. (423) 886-6469.

“Speak Easy” Spoken word and poetry 8 p.m. Mudpie Restaurant, 12 Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9040. www.mudpierestaurant.com

“The Sophisticated Teen and Love Groove for Adults” Spoken Word and Poetry 4 p.m. Loose Cannon Gallery, 1800 Rossville Ave. (423) 544-1597. www.rhymenchattpoetry.org “A Romantic Evening with God: Semi Formal Dinner” 7 p.m. National Guard Armory, 1801 Holtzclaw Ave. (423) 838-5054.

“Millennial Classicism: Recent Modern Monumental Oils”

by Daniel Swanger opening reception 7 p.m. Mosaic Gallery, 412 Market St. (423) 320-6738. www.mosaicchattnooga.com Music Documentary Film Series: Gypsy Caravan 7 p.m. Mountain Music Folk School, 250 Forest Ave.

(423) 827-8906. www.mmfolk.com The Deadlies 7:30 p.m. St. Andrews Center, 1918 Union Ave. (423) 987-5141.

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie 7:30 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Circle Stage, 400 River St. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com Michael Mack 7:30, 10 p.m. The Comedy Catch & Giggles Grille, 3224 Brainerd Rd. (423) 629-2233. www.thecomedycatch.com CSO Pops: “Big Band Fever” 8 p.m. Tivoli Theatre, 709 Broad St. (423) 757-5050. www.chattanoogaonstage.com Our Town 8 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Main Stage, 400 River St. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com

Sunday Mosaic Market 11 a.m. 412 Market St. (423) 624-3915. www.mosaicchattanooga.com “Penguin Encounters” 11 a.m. Tennessee Aquarium, 1 Broad St. (423) 265-0698.

“Ingenious Engineering Fun Day” Noon. Creative Discovery Museum, 321 Chestnut St. (423) 648-6096. www.cdmfun.org If You Give A Mouse A Cookie 2:30 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Circle Stage, 400 River St. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com “Textile Wall Hangings and Framed Pieces” by Martha McCallie artist demonstration 1 p.m. My Color Image Boutique and Art Gallery, 330 Frazier St. (423) 598-6202.

Mixed Media by the Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga 7:30 p.m. Mountain Music Folk School, 250 Forest Ave. (423) 827-8906. www.mmfolk.com The Deadlies 7:30 p.m. St. Andrews Center, 1918 Union Ave. (423) 987-5141.

Michael Mack 7:30, 10 p.m. The Comedy Catch & Giggles Grille, 3224 Brainerd Rd. (423) 629-2233.

“Hands Across the Sea: A Benefit Concert for Haiti” 8 p.m. Ackerman Auditorium, Southern Adventist University, 4881 Taylor Cir., Collegedale.

(423) 236-2880.

Our Town 8 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Main Stage, 400 River St. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com

Tuesday

Wednesday

Chai Steppers Noon. Jewish Cultural Center, 5461 N. Terrace. (423) 493-0270. www.jcfgc.com “ChattItUp” Open Mic Night 5:30 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Circle Stage, 400 River St. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com Classic Literature Book Club: Beowulf 6 p.m. Rock Point Books, 401 Broad St. (423) 504-0638. www.rockpointbooks.com Flicks from the 60’s: A Raisin in the Sun 6:30 p.m. Chattanooga-Hamilton Bicentennial Library, 1001 Broad St. (423)757-5310.

White Lightening 7 p.m. Chatanooga History Center, 615 Lindsey St. (423) 265-3247. www.chattanoogahistory.org

Photographic Society Member’s Choice Exhibit Gallery at Blackwell, 71 Eastgate Loop. (423) 344-5643. www.chatanoogaphoto.org “Talk Portraiture” Shuptrine Fine Art Group, 2646 Broad St. 423-266-4453. www.shuptrinefineartgroup.com Oils and Acrylics by Charlie Newton North River Civic Center, 1009 Executive Dr. (423) 870-8924.

“Icebergs and Moonwalks” Cress Gallery, UTC, 752 Vine St. (423) 304-9789.

“Themes of Identity” Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View. (423) 266-0944.

“New Spin” River Gallery, 400 E. Second St. (423) 265-5033. www.river-gallery.com

A Single Man Colin Firth is nominated for best actor for his role as a gay man in 1962. Part of the AEC Spring Independent Film Series Majestic Theatre, 311 Broad Street. (423) 265-5220. www.carmike.com

Our Town 2 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Main Stage, 400 River St. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com If You Give A Mouse A Cookie 2:30 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Circle Stage, 400 River St. (423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com The Deadlies 2:30 p.m. St. Andrews Center, 1918 Union Ave. (423) 987-5141.

17th Annual Simmons-O’Neal Memorial Concert 3:30 p.m. Greater Friendship Primitive Baptist Church, 1208 Glenwood Dr. (423) 892-1439. www.ccspaas.org Michael Mack 8 p.m. The Comedy Catch, 3224 Brainerd Rd. (423) 629-2233. www.thecomedycatch.com

Editor’s Pick: Featured Event Of The Week

Our Town Thornton Wilder’s enduring 1937 American classic has never lost its wistful appeal, which is even more poignant in the times we’re in today. Bob Willie of Chattanooga Ballet directs the CTC’s Main Stage presentation. $12 - $25 Thursday, February 11, 7 p.m.

Friday, Saturday February 12, 13, 8 p.m.

Sunday, February 14, 2:30 p.m.

Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Main Stage, 400 River Street.

(423) 267-8534. www.theatrecentre.com

95.3 Pulse News www.chattanoogapulse.com 2.11.10 The Pulse

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Free Will Astrology AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Happy Valentine Daze, Aquarius! In my search for the counsel that would be of greatest help to your love life in the coming months, I decided on this observation by psychologist Albert Ellis: “The art of love is largely the art of persistence.” I hope you take that in the spirit in which I’m offering it. It’s not meant to suggest that you will be deprived of love’s burning, churning pleasures; I just want to make sure you know that your best bet for experiencing burning, churning pleasures is to be dogged and devoted and disciplined in your cultivation of burning, churning pleasures.

fully appreciate the ways she expresses her adoration. She asked me to use my bully pulpit as a horoscope writer to convey a message to her lover, and I agreed, because I think it’s excellent advice for all of the Leo tribe this Valentine season. Here’s what she said: “Just because somebody doesn’t always love you the way you wish they would, doesn’t mean they don’t love you the best they can and with all they have.” Are you willing to consider the possibility that maybe you should take that plea to heart, Leo? I hope so, because then you’ll be able to get some of the good loving you’ve closed yourself off from.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In 2010, you will have more cosmic assistance than you’ve had in a long time whenever you seek to increase your experience of pleasure. Do you want to get more sensual joy out of eating and drinking and dancing and listening to music? This is your year.

Do you want to heighten your perceptiveness and find more beauty in the world and cultivate new ways to stimulate positive feelings and liberating emotions? This is your year. Do you want to intensify your orgasms and have more of them and learn how to use them to enhance your spiritual power? This is your year. And the coming weeks will be one of the best times in 2010 to move from charging up your pleasure to supercharging it.

Happy Valentine Daze, Pisces!

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Happy Valentine Daze, Virgo! I meditated on what message might best energize your love life, and what I came up with is a declaration by author Mignon McLaughlin: “Love unlocks doors and opens windows that weren’t even there before.” In other words, the love you should be most interested in during the coming months is the kind that opens your eyes to sights that were previously invisible and that creates new possibilities you’ve barely imagined.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Hate leaves ugly scars,” wrote author Mignon McLaughlin, but “love leaves beautiful ones.” If I’m reading the astrological omens correctly, Aries, you’re scheduled to receive at least one of the beautiful kind of scars in the coming months—maybe even two or three. In fact, I think they’ll be such lovely booboos that they will markedly add to your overall attractiveness. Rarely if ever have you been privileged to hurt as good as you will in 2010—thanks to the benevolent jolts of love.

Happy Valentine Daze!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In my view, 2010 is the year you should expand your world. That could mean enlarging your circle of allies or building a bigger web of connections. It might mean broadening your appeal or widening your frame of reference or opening your mind to possibilities you’ve been closed to. It may even involve extending your territory or increasing the range of your travels. However you choose to expand, Taurus, I urge you to put love at the heart of your efforts. Love should be the fuel that motivates you and the reference point that ensures you’re always making smart moves. For inspiration, memorize this line by poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.” In your case, Taurus, “thee” should mean the whole world.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Of all the signs of the zodiac, you Geminis are most likely to thrive if you experiment with new approaches to kissing in the coming weeks. To whip up your fervor, read incendiary texts like William Cane’s The Art of Kissing. Conspire with an imaginative partner to conjure up a new kissing game or even a sacred kissing ritual. And come up with your own interpretations of the following kiss techniques: the throbbing kiss, the sip kiss, the butterfly kiss, the tiger kiss, the whispering kiss. Happy Valentine Daze!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Happy Valentine Daze, Cancerian! After meditating about what advice would be most valuable for your love life in the coming months, I decided on this challenge from poet William Butler Yeats: “True love is a discipline in which each divines the secret self of the other and refuses to believe in the mere daily self.” In other words, create in your imagination a detailed picture of your loved ones at their best.

Each day, make it a point to feel joy and gratitude for their most excellent beauty and power—as well as the beauty and power that are still ripening and will one day appear in full bloom.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): A friend of mine has woven her life together with a Leo who doesn’t

26

The Pulse 2.11.10 www.chattanoogapulse.com 95.3 Pulse News

By Rob Brezsny

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Happy Valentine Daze, Libra! My astrological hunch is that you’d benefit from the specific teaching that would come from exploring a three-way relationship. But wait.

Don’t jump to conclusions. Here’s the form I think it should take: Fantasize that the merger of you and your lover or ally has created a third thing that hovers near you, protecting and guiding the two of you. Call this third thing an angel. Or call it the soul of your connection or the inspirational force of your relationship. Or call it the special work the two of you can accomplish together. And let this magical presence be the third point of your love triangle.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Happy Valentine Daze, Scorpio! After meditating on what advice would best serve your love life, I decided to offer you the words of psychologist Carl Jung: “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” As I see it, my dear, acting on Jung’s wisdom will help you carry out your primary task in the coming months, which is to bring novel experiences and fresh perspectives to your most engaging relationship. The best way to accomplish that is not with non-stop serious talk and intense analysis, but with a generous dose of playful improvisation and experimental fun.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): To prepare your Valentine horoscope, I did a lengthy meditation on your love life. I wish I could offer you a 20-page treatise on my conclusions, but there’s not enough room. So instead I’ll give you the single most important piece of advice I came up with: The coming week will be an excellent time for you to survey the history of your love life, starting with the first moment you ever fell in love.

I mean you should actually stream the memories across your mind’s eye as if you were watching a movie. Feel all the feelings roused by each scene, but also try to maintain some objectivity about it all. Watch for recurring themes. Be especially alert for unexpected insights that emerge about the past. And through it all, be wildly compassionate toward yourself and your co-stars.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “If I love you, what business is it of yours?” wrote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Now I’m offering his words for you to use as your mantra in the coming months. Your main job, as I see it, is simply to be a lover of pretty much everything—to generate, cultivate, and express love in abundance—and not to worry about whether your love is reciprocated or how it’s regarded. It’s a tall order, I know—one of the most difficult assignments I’ve ever suggested. And yet I think you have the soul power and the crafty intelligence necessary to accomplish it. Happy Valentine Daze, Capricorn!

Homework: Want some inspiration as you compose your romantic invitations? Go here: http://bit.ly/LoveAd

JONESIN’

By Matt Jones

“From Milk” –we derive these new phrases.

Across 1 Type of garden with rocks 4 The Good Witch from “The Wizard of Oz” 10 ___ de mer 13 Double-bladed weapon 14 Tell on 15 She plays Liz on “30 Rock” 16 Chew toy on Batman’s utility belt?

18 MIT grad, maybe 19 Sportscaster Dick 20 Like screwball comedies 21 System with paddles and a joystick 24 Explorer Juan Ponce ___ 25 “Arrested Development” narrator Howard 26 Fish served in filets 31 Mad scientist who is the enemy of Action Man 32 Prof’s admission that someone’s helping him temporarily?

35 Soul great Redding 36 Swear like a sailor 37 Pulls a heist on 40 Halloween costume that includes big ears, dark clothing and a bunch of charts?

43 Digital camera variety,

for short 45 They’ll help serve your Earl Grey 46 ___ Hill (R&B group) 47 Container for stir-fried vegetables?

49 ___ Lateef of jazz 51 Get the engine humming 52 Takes more Time?

56 PG&E opponent Brockovich 57 Visit Vancouver, say?

61 Grub 62 Fill with passion 63 Moving vehicle 64 Porker’s pad 65 Raptor’s grabbers 66 Self-help workshop movement of the 1970s Down 1 Turn sharply 2 Prefix for skeleton 3 Paycheck line 4 Semi-frozen drink similar to an Italian ice 5 Petting zoo critter 6 “Let ___” (Beatles hit) 7 Widow of King Hussein 8 Answer to the riddle, “What’s brown and sounds like a bell?”

9 Ending for emir 10 Spoke indirectly 11 ___ Wat (Cambodian temple) 12 Voice box

15 Blue-green shade 17 That girl 20 Take a baby off the bottle 21 Jason’s ship 22 Car horn noise 23 Like some sci-fi boots 24 In the most desperate way 27 Tended to a scratch 28 She came between Hillary and Michelle 29 Dos that get picked out 30 Backup group 33 Spicy General on a menu 34 Raw metal source 38 Dull person 39 Double-___ (Oreos variety) 41 Type of convertible 42 Uses of mentallybased propaganda, in CIA-speak 43 Shopping binges 44 Give a good staredown (not!)

48 Groan-inducing jokes 50 Ensign’s org.

52 Novelist Jaffe 53 List-ending abbr.

54 Pitcher Hideo 55 Bernanke subj.

57 “___ Smart” 58 5th or Mad., e.g.

59 “___ Boot” 60 Picnic pest

©2010 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 #0454.

Solution To Last Week’s Puzzle

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Shades Of Green

By Victoria Hurst

A Smaller Carbon Pawprint T

wo weeks ago, we took time to appreciate the services provided by the Humane Society in our area, but I realized that it would be impossible to overlook another amazing resource that serves our city.

The McKamey Animal Center serves the local area from within the city limits. They have quite an impressive facility, employing innovation and common sense to allow for a healthier and more enjoyable environment for the inhabitants. The foundations of this organization rest on four main pillars: spay/neuter, advocacy, enforcement, and education. There is a focus placed on prevention. Cats, on average, can have up to three litters (usually four to six kittens) in a year. Dogs can usually have two litters a year with an average of six to ten puppies. That’s an estimated 420,000 cats over a sevenyear period from just one female and her offspring. One female dog and her offspring could produce up to 67,000 dogs over six years. Talk about a population-control issue! This is why spaying/neutering is one of the most important steps when adopting a pet.

As much as we may try to impart our social restrictions on our pets, there are going to be some animal urges that we will never break them of, and I don’t mean just rummaging through garbage.

Out of the estimated 6,000 animal shelters in the U.S., the McKamey Animal Center is staying ahead of the curve with their facilities and practices. Homeless pets that come

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into care here will have access to 8,800 square feet of fenced naturalgrass area in addition to 4,800 square feet of septic-drained, fenced AstroTurf yard. There is also a oneacre fenced dog park for use by community members. All together, the property has 10 acres of wooded and grass-covered areas. Besides all of the great outdoor space, this shelter has design elements that increase the quality of both living and of the adoption process. When approaching the center on the main walkway (which has memorial bricks available for donation) and coming into the main entrance, there are featured animal rooms where guests to the center can view prospective pets upon arrival. There are also playrooms that resemble real rooms in a home, so that guests can get to know the animals in a realistic setting.

For the felines, there is a luxurious cat porch, so that resident kitties can still enjoy the feel of the great outdoors and be tempted by birdsongs. In this “Catanooga” section of the shelter, there are two “cat colonies” that provide a communal setting for the more social cats. For the stray cat holding area, individually vented cages prevent possible infection from spreading to others. In fact, all of the building and kennel spaces have separate ventilation systems with 100 percent air exchange every eight minutes to keep spread of disease and troublesome odors to a minimum.

Also, heat wheels are being used to reclaim conditioned air. Glazed block in animal holding areas provides nonporous, easy-to-clean surfaces, and

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the concrete block walls and floors are sealed with an impenetrable coating.

In addition to these innovations, the shelter also has an organic septic system to reclaim and purify waste water collected from the AstroTurf yard to be used to water the grounds.

An investment in state-of-the-art industrial laundry facilities guarantees that needs for clean bedding can be met for each animal. There is also a 48-square-foot, climate-controlled room for the more exotic species that may find their way to the shelter. A grooming room is made available for public use on the weekends, and the shelter also offers crematorium services.

The McKamey Animal Center goes above and beyond the basic service of saving animals. Their practices work towards ensuring safe, healthy, and positive environments for all animals that are fortunate enough to receive their care. By providing education in the classroom and conference areas for community members ranging from elementary and high school students to public citizens programs, and through local partnerships, this shelter is working towards not only solutions for animals today but also for the (hopefully less populous) generations to come.

On February 23, the McKamey Animal Center will be celebrating Spay Day with adoption promotions, education and contests. Spay Day is an annual event to inspire people to save lives by spaying and neutering their pets and feral cats.

McKamey Animal Center, 4500 N. Access Road. (423) 305-6500, www. mckameyanimalcenter.org

“Out of the estimated 6,000 animal shelters in the U.S., the McKamey Animal Center is staying ahead of the curve with their facilities and practices.”

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.

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Film Feature

By Phillip Johnston

Masterful Bridges Makes Crazy Heart Soar I

n the blistering heat of a New Mexico afternoon, a 1978 Chevy Silverado pulls into the bare parking lot of a bowling alley.

Out of the vehicle stumbles a gruff middleaged man who stares in disappointment at the shabby facility, grumbles a curse, and reaches back in the vehicle for an old plastic bottle half-full of urine; he dumps it on the pavement before slamming the car door, taking a swig of McClure’s, and walking toward the alley. This is “Bad” Blake— country star of yesteryear—and this is his gig for the night.

Despite being produced by A-list record producer T-Bone Burnett, Scott Cooper’s film Crazy Heart (now in wide release) is a not a music film. It has all the purity and rawness of real country music at its core, but the soul of the film is Jeff Bridges who hasn’t given such an infectiously good performance since The Dude (re: The Big Lebowski).

Bridges is all wear and tear, smoke and stress as Bad Blake, a country singer/songwriter who insists that no one will know his real name until he’s laid in the ground. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Jeannie Craddock, a young reporter who falls for the washed-up old star. Her blithe countenance, quiet demeanor, and face that radiates wisdom make the chemistry between Jeannie and Blake work. There’s not one lackluster performance in Crazy Heart.

Stardom is a thing of the past for Bad Blake and instead of playing to sold-out auditoriums of screaming fans, he’s relegated to smoky bowling alleys and barrooms, crooning his hits to the over50 crowd. The whiskey bottle constantly at his side keeps him oddly contented and forgetful of the glory days, but there’s one memory that boils inside of him: how young country music star Tommy Sweet (a subdued Colin Farrell) rode his coattails into stardom and cut and ran with fame and fortune.

Blake’s agent calls one day and says he’s been invited to open one of Tommy’s concerts. He

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reluctantly gives in and when the two men meet for the first time in years, Tommy is unpredictably grateful to Blake for the jumpstart he gave to his career. The two talk about how pop country music isn’t really country at all; Tommy says he’d love it if Blake would write him some new tunes.

It’s here that the differences between Bad Blake and Tommy Sweet become glaringly apparent. When Tommy takes the stage and is greeted by a roaring crowd of young fans, he exudes confidence to the degree that his song lyrics exude clichés. Comparatively, when Blake gets on stage, the audience is silent and listens as he sings with all the sincerity and life-worn weakness of a grandfather. His songs are thick and weighty; you can feel the price he’s paid to get those words.

“Sometimes fallin’ feels like flyin’,” he sings in his most famous tune and Blake soon hits the ground with a deafening thump. Despite the honesty of his art, the whiskey that courses through his body is wasting him away and becoming his ruin. After an irresponsible breach of trust, his relationship with Jeannie disintegrates and, as he collapses in shame on his bed, he realizes that the whiskey, his lifelong companion, must go.

In showing Blake’s struggle and misery, Cooper doesn’t romanticize the facts. Blake flips his Silverado while asleep at the wheel, loses a small child in the mall, blacks out mid-morning in front of the toilet, hurls drunk into a trash can, and lives in a filthy house that symbolizes years of careless living.

This fearless approach to reality will no doubt make stomachs churn, but it gives Bridges the opportunity to show what a limitless actor he is and how much he deserves the Oscar nomination for Best Actor he received a few weeks ago.

The fruit of Bad’s struggle is not a new existence

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on flowery beds of ease, but a constant process of reconciling the past with the present in the hope of a renewed future. The painful thing about redemption, he finds, is that it comes at the price (and with all the pain) of total purification. The new songs he writes for Tommy all center around this process: “Whiskey has been a thorn in your side / and it doesn’t forget / the highway that calls for your heart inside.”

Though we may have seen this story before (Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler comes immediately to mind), Crazy Heart is a film both poignant and true because of its great performances.

It makes us walk alongside a man struggling to take the high road not because it will bring him success, but because it is the only road that leads home.

And in the end, we’re all the better for it.

Editor’s note: We also highly recommend this week’s AEC Independent Film Series selection, A Single Man. Colin Firth is also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.

Crazy Heart Directed by Scott Cooper Starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell Rated R Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes

New in Theaters

Also in Theaters

Valentine’s Day

The Wolfman (New) Benicio Del Toro stars in the terrifying tale of an ancient, evil curse that turns the afflicted into werewolves when the moon is full.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (New) The Greek god Poseidon’s half-human son embarks on a fantastical quest to unravel a mystery more powerful than the gods themselves.

Dear John A soldier home on leave falls for a conservative college girl, but when he re-enlists, time and distance take a toll on the young lovers.

From Paris With Love John Travolta stars as a wisecracking, fastshooting, high-ranking U.S. agent who’s sent to France to stop a terrorist attack.

Edge of Darkness Mel Gibson is a veteran homicide detective who embarks on a dangerous mission to get behind the truth of his daughter’s murder.

When in Rome While traveling in Rome, Kristen Bell plucks some magic coins from a special fountain, attracting an assortment of odd suitors.

The Book of Eli

Director Garry Marshall, the creator of Happy Days and director of Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, and The Princess Diaries, among many other audience favorites, might have one of the best Rolodex files in all of Hollywood. Who else would be able to round up a cast of actors that reads like a Who’s Who of Hollywood elite, including Julia Roberts, Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Hector Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah and Shirley MacLaine? Seeing such a list of notables is even more striking considering that Valentine’s Day is a romantic comedy, not a genre normally associated with such an all-star ensemble cast. The film revolves around the lives of ten people in Los Angeles whose lives intersect on Valentine’s Day. What is even more impressive than simply getting all these stars, both established and up and coming, on the same set is that Marshall was able to generate such heartfelt and realistic performances. So many of them are used to being the center of whatever movie they are in, it’s refreshing to see them take a backseat to the story instead of trying to dominate whatever scenes they are in. The timing of the film

is also perfect, as this is an excellent date movie for a weekend devoted to romance. For those who see “dinner and a movie” as a perfect Valentine’s date night, this is the obvious (and rewarding) choice. Unless you would rather scare your date by seeing Benicio del Toro literally chew up scenery—and multiple body parts—in the oddly-timed release of The Wolfman. Romantic comedy vs. blood-spilling monster movie.

The choice is yours.

Starring: Just about everyone Director: Garry Marshall Rating: PG-13

Denzel Washington fights his way across a postapocalyptic wasteland to protect a book that holds the key to humanity’s future.

Extraordinary Measures Harrison Ford stars in the true story of a scientist who partners with a couple to develop a cure for a rare disease killing their children.

Legion A group of strangers in a desert diner must defend themselves against a legion of angels sent

by God to bring on the Apocalypse.

The Tooth Fairy Dwayne Johnson is a pro hockey player nicknamed the Tooth Fairy, who is ordered to one week’s hard labor as the real Tooth Fairy.

The Lovely Bones Peter Jackson directs the tale of Susie Salmon, a murdered girl who watches over her family— and her killer—from heaven.

The Spy Next Door Jackie Chan is an undercover superspy who must protect the family next door when one of the kids downloads a topsecret code.

Youth in Revolt Michael Cera stars as Nick Twisp, a high school student who reinvents himself to win the heart

of his dream girl.

Leap Year 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 In the near future, humanity nears extinction when an unknown plague transforms the world’s population into vampires.

Wonderful World 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 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 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.

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Film Debate

By Janis Hashe and Gary Poole

Pulse Picks and Pans Oscar Preview M

arch 7 is going to be a bigger party than usual in Hollywood. With a giant blockbuster nominated for Best Picture (and nine other entrants in that category), new faces and old favorites in the acting categories and the Industry coming off a banner year, the Dom Perignon will be flowing. And it ought to be pretty darn entertaining for those of us at home, too. Pulse editors Janis Hashe and Gary Poole site down to offer their unsolicited picks and predictions.

Hosts: Janis: Whoever thought of pairing Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin deserves an Oscar. The two witty wiseguys will inevitably get in a few zingers at the expense of Hollywood’s Most Pompous.

Gary: One of the problems I’ve had with the Oscar telecasts over the years was that too often they picked someone who wasn’t part of Hollywood. People like David Letterman and Jon Stewart are gifted comedians, but not truly of the acting world.

Best Picture: Janis: Though it has about as much chance of winning as the South African aliens film District 9, I’m putting in a vote for Pixar’s charmer, Up, the first animated film nominated for Best Picture since Beauty and the Beast in 1991.

Gary: All the pre-hype in this race has been centered on The Hurt Locker, which I watched a few weeks ago and was, honestly, a bit disappointed. It’s an excellent movie, but had some serious pacing issues and scenes that seem to lose steam. Avatar has all the buzz (and money) but I would love to see either Up or Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air sneak onto the stage in an upset.

Best Director: Janis: Another longshot, but I’d love to see Lee Daniels win for his fearless approach to difficult material in Precious.

Gary: This is a real slugfest between the exes, James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow. Everyone

says they get along quite well these days—their marriage ended nearly two decades ago—but if I had a ballot, I’d give the edge to Cameron.

Avatar is a film that is truly the brainchild of Cameron, and his work deserves commendation.

Best Actor: Janis: Gotta go with Jeff Bridges here. I’ve admired his work ever since the little seen but fabulous 1975 Hearts of the West, with Andy Griffith and Blythe Danner. Rent it. Also, he’s due, and the Academy loves to recognize that.

Gary: Complete no-brainer here. Jeff Bridges is the man to beat for a richly realized role that should be watched by all aspiring actors.

Best Actress: Janis: Gabourey Sidibe gives an indelible performance in Precious and I would love to see her win, but I don’t think it’s in the cards. Another personal favorite, Helen Mirren, will also not win, but at least we can see if she wins or loses the fashion derby. She’s done both.

Gary: While Gabourey Sidibe gives the performance of the year, as with many new actresses, one wonders how much was actual performance versus how much was simply the material and direction. My bet is on Sandra Bullock, one of the most popular actresses working today, for a role that she dove into with great passion, though one can never rule out Meryl Streep.

Best Supporting Actor: Janis: Christopher Waltz in a waltz.

Gary: Stanley Tucci gave us one of the creepiest performances on the year in The Lovely Bones, but Christopher Waltz will win. And I want to point out that Janis used the “waltz” pun before I had the chance.

Best Supporting Actress: Janis: The Academy loves actors playing against type and will give it to Mo’Nique for her monster mother in Precious. And she deserves it.

Gary: Mo’Nique’s performance scared the crap out of me, which is even more amazing considering that she is absolutely nothing like that character in real life. She disappeared into a role that must have been emotionally excruciating to inhabit day in and day out on the set.

Fashion Notes: Janis: Every year, I sigh for the old days when stars dressed themselves and no one had stylists.

Stylists have made sure that virtually no one makes huge red carpet faux pas, but have also made the choices very boringly predictable and same-ish.

“Listen up, starlets, strapless gowns in pastels and hair up and just a little messy.” We long for the days of Geena Davis and most especially, Darryl Hannah, who could be depended on to wear the most bizarre gowns on the planet. Luckily, the stars seem to be taking back a little more of their own choices, so we’ll see who shines and who shoulda stood at home.

Gary: Janis can write about women’s fashions, while I’ll tackle the men’s side of the red carpet.

Tuxedo. Done. That was easy.

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Life In The Noog

By Chuck Crowder

(Re)Calling All Cars M

y boss just bought a 2010 Toyota Highlander on a Wednesday. The very next day, on Thursday, the company announced one of the most massive recalls in automaker history which included (among most of its fleet) the 2010 Highlander. A resourceful woman with a short fuse when it comes to issues that affect her safety, livelihood and/or financial acquisitions; she immediately called everyone short of Toyota’s board chairman to receive restitution in the form of nothing less than a full refund and written apology for her trouble.

But who can blame her? The recall concerns a faulty sensor in the gas pedal that’s caused a few Toyotas to rapidly accelerate out of control, sending the driver and passengers careening into trees, ditches, other cars, etc. In fact, as many as 16 traffic fatalities have allegedly been linked to the defect so far. And, Toyota has admitted that re-designing and manufacturing the sensor from scratch for the millions of cars affected could take a while to achieve. Their advice if this happens to you in the meantime: jam the gear shift into neutral and coast to a stop. Nice.

These are the days when I don’t mind leaning over the seat to unlock the passenger door of my 2003 Nissan Frontier pick-up that has (literally) no sensors, power buttons, or anything related to something that would cause the car to lose control aside from

driver error. No, this truck is the most basic of basic.

I’ve had better, and I’ve had worse.

My first car was a late-seventies AMC Gremlin, periwinkle blue with the Levi’s denim upholstery package. Back then, the idea of a “small car” was to put a Plymouth 454 and full-size wheels on a short chassis so the raw power of its massive engine wouldn’t have to haul as much ass while it was hauling ass. But nothing on the inside of that car had the same power. Power steering and power breaks were still considered “hot features” in those days, for Pete’s sake. It did have a radio…AM. From there I graduated through a series of hand-me downs and about three model years of Toyota Tercels before buying my first (and only) new car—a 1993 Honda Civic. And, while it had power everything, it lost exactly one-third of its value the minute we turned out of the parking lot.

The next car I purchased (used) was a 1994 Jeep Cherokee. In an effort to save money, I went back to the “no power anything” mentality.

That car is still on the road (although I’m not driving it). But from there I flew to close to the sun. Forgot everything I knew about manual transmissions, window cranks and click locks. No, I went for the gold. I purchased a 2000 Volkswagen Jetta VR6.

That car had it all. Electric moon roof, electric locks, electric windows, leather, electric seat warmers, electric climate control, electric six CD changer with electric remote and best of all—it even had electric lights telling you which electric features were electrified at the moment.

In fact, the one light that illuminated the brightest and most often was the “check engine” light. And by “check engine,” they don’t mean pop the hood and look around. They mean bring it in to the dealership’s service department—and don’t forget your checkbook.

For you see, with all of these fine electrified elements come sensors that detect everything from how much gas is in the tank and when you might need a new air filter—to how long it’s been since they’ve milked another $400 out of you. That’s right; the check engine light on a 2000 VW Jetta VR6 is the “$400 indicator.”

That doesn’t mean cash and prizes for you, but additional income for your local dealership between regularlyscheduled $200 oil changes, I mean, “services.”

Now, I don’t want to offend our new German neighbors by implying that they are here to assemble an inferior product. I know many, many people who’ve owned Volkswagens and experienced no problems whatsoever. Of course, none drove the fully-loaded 2000 Jetta VR6— except me. But I’m sure Volkswagens in general are well-made, safe automobiles—which brings us back to my boss.

Until Toyota figures out a solution to tame its accelerators with minds of their own, she’s parked the brand new car in the garage and gone back to her old car. Meanwhile, I still love my truck. And due to my boss’s misfortune, have stopped bragging about its intermittent windshield wipers. Best keep that little jewel to myself during these desperate times.

Happy motoring.

“She immediately called everyone short of Toyota’s board chairman to receive restitution in the form of nothing less than a full refund and written apology for her trouble.”

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

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Spirits Within

Bubble Your Way Into Their Heart

By Joshua Hurley

“Castello

del Poggio Moscato is the new rage.

It’s light, sweet and enjoyable.”

W

ith Valentine’s Day on the way, I bet you’re looking for something sweet for your sweetheart. How about the wine everyone is talking about— Moscato—for this week’s “Great Buy”. Great Buys is where Riley’s Wine and Spirits on Hixson Pike in Hixson picks a favorite item from our large selection of wine and spirits from around the world and shares it with the readership of The Pulse.

This week’s selection is Castello del Poggio Moscato from Italy.

Castello del Poggio Moscato is a sweet white wine made from muscat

grapes grown in Piedmont, Italy within the famous Asti Spumante growing region. Piedmont in Italian translates into Piemonte, which means “foot of the mountain”. This refers to the town’s location at the foot of the Alps. The mountains create a natural boundary, separating Italy from France and Switzerland.

Piedmont contains four DOCG [Denominancione di Origine Controllata e Garantita] growing regions: Asti Spumante, Barolo, Barbaresco and Gattamara. You might have recognized the Italian word “Garantita”, which translates to “guarantee”. Well, this is the Italian government’s “guarantee” that the wine is of exceptional high quality. The Italian government

has official taste testers whose sole occupation is to judge and determine a wine’s worthiness by awarding it the coveted “DOCG” label strip.

You’ve probably seen this pinkish strip pasted on Italian wine bottles neck and cork.

Muscat is the oldest grape in the world, thought to have predated even the Romans. It grows widely around the world including in France, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, California and Italy. Muscat isn’t just used for wine—it’s found in juice, used for table grapes and raisins. It boasts a sharp, grapey flavor and a musky aroma. Muscat’s most famous usage is as the main ingredient in Asti Spumante sparking wine.

Castello del Poggio Moscato is somewhat similar to Asti. It’s not as bubbly, but it does have some bubbles, not enough to be considered an Asti. Where does its slight effervescence (bubbles) come from?

They are caused by carbon dioxide gas. After the muscat is crushed and fermented, a second dosage of sugar and yeast is added just before bottling. This process is called second fermentation. Once this fermentation occurs, some carbon dioxide is released inside the bottle, giving the wine bubbles. Castello del Poggio Moscato is the new rage.

It’s light, sweet and enjoyable. Its aromas of peaches, pears and apples give way to flavors of the same with a faint after-taste of honey. It pairs well with fruit salads and desserts or as a dessert. It’s the ultimate sweetheart wine. Cheers!

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Ask A Mexican

By Gustavo Arellano

Special Sexy Edition Dear Mexican, I’ve always been attracted to transgendered women since I was about 13. I’ve noticed, however, that most trannies are Hispanic. Now, before you say that this is ¡Ask a Mexican!, not ¡Ask a Hispanic!, I’ve also noticed that more than half of all Hispanic transsexuals are Mexican. What’s up with that?

Is it a cultural thing? Is it something in your genes? I mean, what is it?

— Self-Hating Hispanic Dear Mexican, Like any good male of the species, I was surfing porn on the Internet last week when I happened on an escort website. The site had several categories, depending on your sexual proclivities, I suppose.

While clicking through them, I got to the she-male escort section and noticed a curious thing: The percentage of transgendered escorts that were Latinos (by their admission) was 57 percent whereas Latinos only comprise 37 percent of the population in general. Given the legendary Latino male machismo how do you account for these statistics?

— Gabacho of the Straight Persuasion

said site (don’t know which orifice you pulled out the 37 percent stat for Mexis, though, as the Pew Hispanic Center’s 2008 survey of Latino demography in los Estados Unidos puts the population of wabs and their descendants in the States at about 31 million, about 10 percent of the total American population).

Cabrón: you ain’t straight, and that’s all right. To the wab: I don’t know where you get your numbers, either.

No reliable statistics exist on the number of Mexican transgendered people, whether in the motherland or el Norte, but what is known about this population is that they’re inordinately represented in HIV cases, as sexual-assault victims, and face rampant harassment. To the gabacho: Instead of ogling them, maybe you should spend your perverted dollars on donating to non-profits that help LGBT Mexis— and maybe they’ll be kind enough to help you with your own sexual hang-ups.

To the wab: you should donate, too. And to the both of ustedes and everyone else: this is ¡Ask a Mexican!, not Ask a Hispanic, Latino, Chili Belly or whatever other chingadera people confuse Mexicans as—ask accordingly!

Dear Wab and Gabacho, To the gabacho: I’m all for folks enjoying their different strokes, but you: straight? When you’re looking through the transgendered section of a prostitute web site? And were able to calculate to the exact percentile the number of Latin@ escorts on

Dear Mexican, I met a wonderful man from Mexico City and became romantically involved with him.

However, after just one month of dating, he dropped the te amo bomb on me, which I thought was a bit sudden. Coincidentally, shortly after

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this happened, a good friend of mine also started dating a chilango.

He said te amo to her after only one week! Now, while my gabacho friends saw these situations as red flags, my Latino friends blamed this on pasión, and said that these guys were “just being Latino men” and insisted not to worry about it. The latter reaction leads me to ask if it’s a cultural norm, in Mexico, for a man to tell a woman he is dating that he loves her, so soon?

— The Confused Hawaiana Dear Wahine, Chula, Mexican men get straight to the punto. Your chilango obviously told you he loves you so soon because he thinks your hips are child-bearing, your bosom bountiful, and your health good. No times for courtship—bring on the babies!

I’ll allow that mexicanos, brought up on decades of expert wooers like Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Juan Gabriel, Agustin Lara, and other songsmiths, might be more florid and expressive in matters of the corazón than their gabacho counterparts, who wouldn’t be able to quote “Night and Day” if you spotted them the Frank SinatraTommy Dorsey version and Frank’s solo, drunken effort. Let love reign, and its verbal couplets rain upon you, I say—now, start popping out those twice-bronzed brownies!

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

“Mexicanos, brought up on decades of expert wooers like Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Juan Gabriel and Agustin Lara, might be more florid and expressive in matters of the corazón than their gabacho counterparts.”