The Pulse 9.49 » Dec. 6-12, 2012

richard winham whigs out for the pulse 10th anniversary concert

walk of life davy rothbart arts delectable spectacle food veg out

2 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

INSIDE THE PULSE •december 6-12, 2012 •vol. 9 •no. 49 DAVY ROTHBART

• The writer and founder of Found Magazine visits Chattanooga on Monday, Dec. 10, to read from his new book of essays, “My Heart Is An Idiot.” Read the interview by Bill Ramsey.

WALK OF LIFE » P7

On the cover» The Whigs • Photographed by Joshua Black Wilkins

Since 2003

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EDITORIAL

Publisher Zachary Cooper The Editors Zach Cooper • Bill Ramsey Contributors Bailey • Rob Brezsny Chattanooga’sRich Weekly Alternative Chuck Crowder • John DeVore • Janis Hashe Matt Jones • Chris Kelly • D.E. Langley Mike McJunkin • Ernie Paik • Sarah Skates Alex Teach • Richard Winham Photographers Jason Dunn • Kim Hunter Josh Lang Cartoonists Max Cannon • Richard Rice Tom Tomorrow Intern Erin McFarland

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Phone 423.265.9494 Fax 423.266.2335 Email info@chattanoogapulse.com calendar@chattanoogapulse.com Got a stamp?

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the fine print

The Pulse is published weekly by Brewer Media and is distributed throughout the city of Chattanooga and surrounding communities. The Pulse covers a broad range of topics concentrating on culture, the arts, entertainment and local news.

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. We’re watching. The Pulse may be distributed only by authorized distributors. © 2012 Brewer Media

BREWER MEDIA GROUP President Jim Brewer II

chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 3

TALK OF THE NOOG chattanoogapulse.com • facebook/chattanoogapulsE SEND LETTERS TO: INFO@CHATTANOOGAPULSE.COM

WHISKEY RIVER CITY

the 2009 measure, the new Chattanooga Whiskey has been distilled in a facility in Lawrenceburg, Ind. Ledbetter and Piersant launched a social media campaign urging friends and whiskey fans to join them as they apthe reality of a commercial distillpeared in front of the commission on Nov. ery launching in Chattanooga—some15 and dozens showed up sporting “Vote thing that has not existed in almost 100 Whiskey” pins in support of the effort. years—took a leap forward recently Seven of nine county commissioners when a majority of Hamilton Counsigned a letter supporting the initiaS L PU E PUS T• H ty Commissioners signed off on a tive, citing the positive economic S N FA letter seeking approval from the impact the distillery would AREA state legislature to allow the bring to the area. Ledbetter county to legalize operations as said Chattanooga Whiskey has part of a 2009 law that allowed its eye on a renovated Southindividual counties to opt in to side building where it would legalized liquor-making. headquarter its operations, and The effort was spearheaded by would initially hire 10 employees Chattanooga Whiskey Company’s who would earn $35,000 per year.

Joe Ledbetter and Tim Piersant, who Piersant told the Times Free Press that launched the city’s first namesake liquor the county would initially net $78,000 in brand in a century earlier this year. But property and sales taxes from the operabecause Hamilton County opted out of tion.

Commissioners sign off on liquor-making

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4 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

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After the commission signed the letter, Ledbetter told Nooga.com that he is excited about the step forward, and he thinks he and his team have overcome their biggest hurdle in the way of local liquor production.

“Our understanding is that the folks statewide are saying, ‘If the local delegation wants it, then so do we,’” he said in the Nooga.com report. “We’re not done. [But] we think this is a huge win.”

Since launching the brand earlier this year, Chattanooga Whiskey has sold more then 3,000 cases locally and around the state.

—Staff

changing names

Allied Arts is now ArtsBuild allied arts, chattanooga’s private, nonprofit united arts fund and council, has adopted a new name. The organization will henceforth be known as ArtsBuild.

“As a name, ArtsBuild speaks more to our mission and describes the arts foundation the organization has established in the community,” Dan Bowers, president of ArtsBuild, said during a press conference on Monday, Dec. 3.

The organization also announced the 23 recipients of the Community Cultural Connections Grants. This new pilot program will fund up to $6,000 per arts project aimed at benefiting art experiences in social service agencies, neighborhoods and municipalities in Hamilton County. Community Cultural Connections Grants are a result of Imagine Chattanooga 20/20, Chattanooga’s cultural plan that created strategies to improve the community through arts and culture.

Under its new name, ArtsBuild will continue to support its 14 cultural partners, but will also turn its attention to the broader community as part of its effort to include arts initiatives outside the downtown area.

One of ArtsBuild’s main focuses in the coming year is to foster widespread support for the arts and encourage collaboration among the many arts-centered entities and diverse interests that exist within the city, Bowers said. —Staff

WHO WANTS TO BE

MAYOR? QUALIFYING DEADLINE • DEC. 20 Election • MARCH 5, 2013 Andy Berke Wholesome frontrunner has been campaigning for months. Conventional wisdom: He’s in.

sin may be geographical—and ing himself redeemed, claiming his polsubject to the laws of Your Own Peritics and not his past are what counts. sonal Deity—but hypocrisy is universal.

So far, DesJarlais’ party masters And while one may believe Your God have yet to publicly join the fray, but the has forgiven your trespasses (which evidence is solid enough for a growing amounts to wishful thinking at best), group of Republican challengers to step political partisans, if not blindly faithin, condemning DesJarlais while eyeful constituents, will judge you harshly ing his seat in 2014—or sooner. in this life.

Both Weston Wamp, son of former If God has truly (and 3rd District Congressman conveniently) forgiven Zach Wamp who ran for U.S. Rep. Scott Deshis father’s old seat this Jarlais, the 4th District year and lost to incumRepublican, Tea Party bent Chuck Fleischmann, darling and dead ringer and State House Assistant for Uncle Fester of “The Majority Leader Kevin Addams Family,” of his Brooks (R-Cleveland) sins—including sleeping have made statements afwith patients, romancing firming their interest in co-workers and supportDesJarlais’ 4th District ing his ex-wife’s two aborseat. State Sen. Jim Tracy tions—The Lord forgot to (R-Shelbyville) is also inupdate his Democratic terested. foes, the media and even Meanwhile, a freshly some Republicans. But absolved DesJarlais says in a recent radio interhe has no intention of view, DesJarlais claims stepping down and will God has indeed forgiven run for a third term in him and urged his “fellow 2014. Trouble is, he won’t Christians” and constitulikely have as much caments—sometimes not one paign cash. The TFP rein the same—“to consider ported on Sunday that doing the same.” medical-related political That’s a tall order of action committees who exoneration for a politicontributed a combined cian who rose to office $71,000 to DesJarlais’ and was re-elected on an campaign this year won’t anti-abortion, pro-life be directing funds to his platform. But maybe by 2014 run. Meanwhile, the appearing on a conserlaws of man may not be Separated at birth? vative radio talk show in far behind. The TennesNashville, DesJarlais figsee Department of Health ured he’d spare himself further grief in has opened a complaint file, which may the press. No chance, Scott. lead to an examination by the Board of The Times Free Press unearthed DesMedical Examiners.

Jarlais’ unethical past when a former Funny thing about the pro-life, fampatient (DesJarlais was a Jasper physiily values crowd is that when it’s one cian before running for Congress) came of their candidates under scrutiny, the forward before the November elections opposition is scorned for a lack faith, with the revelation that she’d had an afcompassion or the inability to forgive fair with him and he urged her to get an (the implication being that the accusabortion, according to a taped converers must be living in glass houses). But sation. The paper hammered DesJarpolitical parties—and, we suspect, the lais in news reports and in editorials— state medical board—are also less than conservative editorial page editor Drew forgiving.

Johnson even went so far as endorse his DesJarlais is even less bothered. “I’m Democratic opponent, Eric Stewart— ashamed of things that have happened, but the freshman congressman defeatI’m moving on, and I’ll be fine,” he has ed Stewart despite mounting evidence. said. We guess that makes abortion And now, it seems, DesJarlais is spendmurder only if it’s someone else’s aboring that “political capital” by pronounction. Glad we cleared that up.

Dizzy Town

Rob Healy Also-ran who lost to Littlefield in 2009 has “Romnesia,” says it’s time for a businessman to run the city. CV: Yawn.

Guy Satterfield Retired city employee fancies himself the Dark Horse.

CV: We love a Dark Horse!

CHATTANOOGA CITY COUNCIL All nine Chattanooga City Council seats are up for election this year.

Below are the current officeholders by district and a list of challengers.

MEMBER Deborah Scott Sally Robinson Pam Ladd Jack Benson Russell Gilbert Carol Berz Manny Rico Andraé McGary Peter Murphy

God forgives ‘Uncle Fester’

District 1 (not running) 2 3 (running) 4 (running) 5 (running) 6 (running) 7 (running) 8 9 (running)

QUALIFIED CHALLENGERS AS OF DEC. 4* Tom McCullough Priscilla Simmons Larry Grohn Jack Benson Russell Gilbert Carol Berz Tramble Stevens Ervin Mitchell Manny Rico Demetrus Menifee Peter Murphy Yusef Hakeem

1 2 4 4 5 6 7 7 7 9 9 9

*Hamilton County Elections Commission

chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 5

On the Beat

alex teach

Closure the stories i write generally fall into a few distinct categories. One is the generic “police story” that is actually the basis of this column, to tell you about something that happened that seems perfectly normal to me, but is apparently weird as shit, funny, horrifying or depressing to most anyone else that’s not on “The Job.” These stories are why I was asked to start writing here some time ago.

The others are either a story or an opinion piece that makes my bosses (or worse yet, their bosses) receive phone calls suggesting they “read the crazy shit Alex Teach wrote this week,” in which blood pressures rise, pupils narrow and, occasionally, phone calls are made, or have the same effect on my editor (which has the same effect and the story itself as it is chopped to pieces or scrapped altogether, though this is very, very rare to their credit).

Other columns cause both the editors and administrators discomfort, elevates my own blood pressure and makes me consider,

just say cheese

mellow mondays

however briefly, taking up smoking again.

That’s what came to mind when I decided to open this week’s column by saying I am sad that I will not get to see Jesse Mathews die with a needle in his arm.

I instantly think of a few paraphrased lines from (of all things) the movie “First Blood” where a local sheriff says “God, I really wanted to kill that kid.” An Army colonel, in response, says, “That doesn’t sit well with that badge, Sheriff.”

The sheriff agreed, but that last line has hung with me since before I wore a badge myself.

You have to be better than the lowest common denominator as a cop. You have to have control of those specific emotions, even when it’s personal (as it was with the man Jesse Mathews killed in cold blood, and the man he tried to kill with a bullet to the back like the rotten, cowardly son of a bitch that he is).

I remembered that line when I stood in darkness over the body of my friend Deputy Donald Bond and on the scene of the murder of

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“

The killer of my friend was sentenced to life (plus 25 years, for good comic measure).

Officer Julie Jacks. Now I think about it as Jesse Mathews pleads guilty to killing my friend Sgt. Tim Chapin during the course of an armed robbery so that he (Mathews) can dodge the death penalty.

The death penalty is redundant, it’s legal hypocrisy—being killed because you killed. Period. It takes 20 years for the execution, and it’s done humanely and not in public; it’s not a deterrent. But it does reek of justice, however dark, and the part of us that still has sharp teeth and is willing to pull another person down if it means not drowning likes that aspect of it, and in this

case the “beast” is denied. But I am allowed to feel this way, and I’m putting it on paper.

I am, however, relieved that he will never draw a breath of free air. That Tim’s family (all of us) won’t have to endure a trial, the inevitable appeals, all rehashing of every gruesome detail, that this, albeit less dramatically, is done, and with consent of the family. As “done” as it can be, anyway.

The killer of my friend was sentenced to life (plus 25 years, for good comic measure). I am not a bad person, you know; I have risked my life for nearly half the time I have been alive for strangers, and I believe in a just world. But while I am supposed to be Christ-like in actions and thoughts, I did want to see that son of a bitch dead, and you’ll just have to deal with it.

Because so … will … I. Alex Teach is a full-time police officer of nearly 20 years experience. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him on Facebook at facebook.com/alex.teach.

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6 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

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Lost & Found

Davy Rothbart, creator of Found Magazine, opens his own vault of private thoughts and experiences in his new essay collection, ‘My Heart Is An Idiot.’

By Bill Ramsey if davy rothbart’s heart is an idiot, as the title of his new collection of essays proclaims, his inner voice is pulling his wool cap over his eyes.

Rothbart, the founder and curator of Found Magazine—which solicits, collects and publishes discarded love letters and other personal ephemera—unabashedly shares his own misadventures with tender, if sometimes perverse, stories documenting the ease with which he falls in love—despite a gnawing intuition he blissfully ignores that tells him to tread carefully—in his new book, “My Heart Is An Idiot.”

To wit, in “What Are You Wearing?,” Rothbart recounts his months-long phonesex affair with “Nicole,” who called his Motel 6 hotel room in Austin, Texas, while on his last book tour without introduction and proceeded to easily seduce him. Nicole, we later find, is not a the horny, neglected girlfriend she claims to be. In fact, she is not a she at all—something Rothbart suspects yet denies in pursuit of a quick sexual release— but a gay black man.

It’s just one incident in a collection that reveals Rothbart’s tendency to trust too much, believe too easily and fall too hard for the wrong girl, or guy, as the case may be. But it is these traits that make his stories so compelling, hilarious and poignant.

So, when he calls from the road between Houston and Austin to talk about his upcoming visit to Chattanooga and his adventures on his current tour, I’m not surprised he has some inside stories to tell.

“One of the great things about this is that sometimes the people in my stories come to life,” Rothbart says. “I just learned that ‘Nicole’ will be in the audience tonight at my show in Austin.”

If Rothbart’s stories sometimes sound like long versions of the discarded love notes his magazine collects, it’s no mistake.

“I’ve been publishing a lot of other people’s most private thoughts and experiences for 10 years,” he says. “It only seems fair to share some of my own.”

And share he does, in the same sort of vivid, wide-eyed style that has made him a popular guest on “This American Life,” the public radio program hosted by Ira Glass.

Rothbart and his brother, Peter, are currently on the tail end of a three-month, 79city tour across the U.S. celebrating Found Magazine’s 10th anniversary that will land at the Association for Visual Arts Gallery on Monday. Prepare to be entertained.

Walk of Life

“My brother and I do this rowdy, energetic media and music event,” Rothbart says. “We get up on stage with our favorite stuff from Found. Peter plays songs based on our most interesting finds and I read from the book with all the energy and emotion it was written with.”

In between, Rothbart invites audience members up to interview them about their

lives. “They leave inspired—and exhausted,” Rothbart says. “People come up to me after the show and tell me, ‘You know a lot about me.’”

Found began with one note Rothbart found on his windshield one night in Chicago. “The note was addressed to Mario by a woman who said she hated him, lied to her and then asked him to page her,” he recalls. “I wanted to page her, but of course the note was to Mario and it didn’t include a number.”

With that, Rothbart cobbled together his first issue with plans to print 50 copies at Kinko’s and sell them to friends. “But the guy at Kinko’s loved it and printed us 800 copies. I’ve been amazed and kind of shocked that it’s resonated so much, but it’s really been cool to see it grow.”

Besides writing and touring, Rothbart is a frequent contributor to “This American Life,” which airs on Sunday evenings in Chattanooga on WUTC-FM, and he is finishing a documentary called “Madora,” about a struggling basketball team in the hardscrabble town of the same name.

But it is interacting with the real people he meets on tour that most feeds Rothbart’s interest.

“There’s been some interesting experiences, just a lot of interactions and moments on these trips,” he says, recalling a late-night conversation with a hotel maid who turned out to be the single mother of four who had struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. “That’s why I travel, to meet these people.”

Check out a sampling of Peter Rothbart’s music based on Found finds online at chattanoogapulse.com.

Found Magazine 10th Anniversary Tour with Davy and Peter Rothbart 8 p.m. • $5 Monday, Dec. 10 AVA Gallery 30 Frazier Ave. (423) 265-4282 avarts.org

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2003 The Pulse 10th Anniversary 2013

TenYears After...

The Whigs’ (left) Who-flavored power pop and rock fuels The Pulse’s 10th Anniversary Concert at Rhythm & Brews on Thursday, Dec. 13. Also performing are The Bohannons (top), St. Paul & The Broken Bones (above) and Browan Lollar.

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TheWhigs, The Bohannons, St. Paul & The Broken Bones and Browan Lollar fill the bill for an appropriate evening of vintage rock as The Pulse celebrates its 10th anniversary.

By Richard Winham

8 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

he Pulse is throwing a birthday party.

Marking its 10th year as Chattanooga’s alternative newspaper, it will host a rock ‘n’ roll celebration at Rhythm & Brews at 9 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 13, featuring four bands—The Whigs, The Bohannons, and a couple of great bands from the resurgent Muscle Shoals in Alabama. It promises to be a memorable evening of vintage rock—as befits a birthday bash for a local weekly created in 2003 by two young dreamers with barely a dime between them.

Zach Cooper and Michael Kull started the paper because they believed Chattanooga was undergoing a renaissance and wanted to be part of it.

And much of that renaissance has been fueled by the city’s passion for good music.

2003 The Pulse 10th Anniversary 2013 Headlining the show will be The Whigs, whose Who-flavored power pop anthem, “Rock and Roll Forever,” seems set to join the pantheon of songs celebrating the liberating impact of three chords and a yard of attitude.

With its muscular chords, driving bass and pounding drums, it’s “a bratty little song,” said guitarist and singer Parker Gispert, whose snarling delivery gives it just the right touch of garage punk veracity. As he said in Rolling Stone interview last summer, “Obviously we’re a rock band, that’s what we do. That’s what I’ve done my entire adult life— driving around in vans, touring rock clubs, just playing in a rock band. So it makes sense to have a song about what you do and the kind of music that you love.”

It does make sense. And when what they do sounds like “Waiting,” another track on their current album, it’s clear that all that time spent listening and playing has paid off. It has the seething, barely contained energy of one of The Who’s early singles. “We talk about The Who a lot when we’re making songs, and …. I think bringing out the Keith Moon aspects in our drummer, Julian Dorio, is always good,” said Gispert.

With the guitar and the bass locked into a staccato rhythm, drummer Dorio is free to play wildly wheeling patterns as Gispert sings against the beat before taking off on his own short, fiery solo.

The song captures the fierce fire of those early records so well it sounds almost like a forgotten outake.

That’s how Gispert works; he doesn’t analyze the records he loves, but internalizes them. “I tend to tap into a vibe or an emotion that I’m hearing in a record,” he told me. “It makes me feel a particular way and I want to make something that makes me feel that way.”

For him, rock and roll is simply “an attitude. It’s how you strike the instrument.” When he strikes one of those “Won’t Get Fooled Again” chords he embodies his belief that rock and roll is an ageless, open-ended, endlessly, joyously liberating force inviting everyone to sing along, “Aaaah, aaaah, aaaahhhh … rock and roll! For eeeever!”

Opening the show will be two bands representing the heady resurgence of Muscle Shoals. Renowned in the 1960s as the place where classic tracks by Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and Percy

Sledge (and the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers) were produced, it has been undergoing a resurgence of late with the much-celebrated Drive-By Truckers, as well as Alabama Shakes and Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit. And now St. Paul and the Broken Bones. Creating quite a stir in Birmingham—one blogger compared them to the Irish soul-shouters in Alan Parker’s love letter to the classic sounds of Memphis and Muscle Shoal in the 60s, “The Commitments”—they’ll be making their Chattanooga debut.

St. Paul and The Broken Bones’ lead singer, Paul Janeway, is a mild-mannered accounting major from the University of Alabama by day. But when he and his band take the stage at night, he turns into an uninhibited Wilson Pickett-style soul-shouter. “I am kind of a wild man on stage,” he told the Birmingham alt-weekly, Metro B. “Jesse and the other guys have to really stay on point while I am up to something stupid.

We were playing a show at Bottletree (a club in Birmingham) one night, and I was dancing around doing my thing.

For some reason I decided to stand on Jesse’s guitar amp and continue the dancing on the amp. Unfortunately, the amp toppled over. I fell on the stage and tore a ligament in my knee. I finished the show with a bad knee, but the next morning I was in so much pain I had to call someone to help me put my pants on. My father was really proud of me for that one.”

Before St. Paul and The Broken Bones take the stage, Muscle Shoals-born guitarist and painter Browan Lollar, who’s also been playing with The Broken Bones recently, will open the show with his own band, The Grenadines.

They’ve recently released a five-song EP on This is American Music (streaming on soundcloud.com). Until last year, Lollar was the second guitarist in Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit. Equally successful as an artist (he painted the cover for the last studio album by Isbell and The 400 Unit, Here We Rest ), Lollar is a gifted singer, writer and player. The EP is a broad ranging mix opening with “Freight Train Hearts,” a loping country rocker with some fine fractured fuzztone guitar dirtying up the rangy barband harmonies. The next song couldn’t be more different, it almost sounds like another band. Called “Cars,” it’s an airy upbeat Southern California pop

rocker. The harmonies are a ringer for the early Eagles, while the band sounds like Crazy Horse playing a light-hearted country boogie shuffle. “Hotel Bars and Ringing Ears” is another breezy pop sparkler, while “One of Every Color” is a low-key bass drum driven shuffle with a lazy dragging rhythm and a Ritchie Furay-style double-tracked vocal. Between them these two bands represent what one blogger called a “southern renaissance.”

Following on the heels of the two Alabama bands will be hometown boys The Bohannons, another reason people are starting to talk about the South rising yet again. Featuring vocalist and lead guitarist Marty Bohannon, his brother Matt on rhythm, Josh Beaver on bass, and Nick Sterchi on drums, The Bohannons are a blistering rock-and-roll band. Their new album, Unaka Rising (also on This Is American Music), is a solid slab of unstinting rock. Take “Tim Tim.” Opening with a nice, spiraling guitar riff and tight sibling harmonies driven by Sterchi’s furiously propulsive drumming, the song is a rocker worthy of the The Kinks or The Who at their mid-’60s pop peak. Another highlight a few tracks further into the record is the instrumental, “The Cradle.” It wouldn’t sound out of place on one of the early Led Zeppelin albums—a thunderous rocker with a wall of guitar bass and drums meshing into a seamless, steamrolling wave of sound. it’s a musical line-up—and birthday celebration—befitting The Pulse.

But probably not one either Cooper or Kull would ever have envisioned before they committed to the alternative weekly 10 years ago. Cooper had no intention of sticking around after college, much less creating a newspaper in his hometown.

“When I was a student at UTC (in the early 1990s) I could never have imagined that I would stay in Chattanooga,” Cooper said, echoing the feelings of many people his age at the time. The 1980s and early ’90s saw the city at its lowest ebb. The blocks between 2nd and 9th streets between Market and Chestnut, for example, were pockmarked with abandoned storefronts and broken windows. And good jobs were scarce. »P10 chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 9

2003 The Pulse 10th Anniversary 2013

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10 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

“I didn’t see much here,” Cooper recalled.

But in the early ’90s the city began reinventing itself. The much-admired partnership between private (often foundation) and public (tax) money began to rebuild the city. Cooper was initially skeptical, but then began noticing not only that young people who had “previously been fleeing the city in terror” were opting to stay, but that people from across the country were beginning to migrate to Chattanooga.

Cooper and Kull, both graduates of UTC’s School of Music, saw the paper as a voice for intelligent young artists and professionals who began investing in Chattanooga in the mid-’90s.

The city was still mostly potential at that point, but Cooper and Kull saw a place for a weekly paper promoting the burgeoning arts and cultural scene developing in pockets across the city.

“People often ask, ‘So, who are you writing for?’” said Cooper. “I always tell them, ‘Well, we’re writing for us.’

We’re producing this for ourselves,” he explained, “but we also think it reflects our audience.”

Cooper and Kull gambled on their belief that the city would support a paper with “intelligent writing.” They had enough money to keep it going for three months when they started in 2003. Luckily, they found a number of kindred spirits willing to support them. Tim Kelly (the president of Kelly Auto Group) and a number of other local (mostly small) business owners saw the paper’s potential and bought the advertising that sustained them while they found their audience.

Initially it was a struggle. “Our format was familiar to our readers and to the advertisers we were targeting,” Cooper said, “but the voice was quite different.” They assumed that their readers were smart, well-informed people who would be willing to read what they and their contributors had to say even if they didn’t always agree with it. “It’s a little bit of give-andtake with our readers,” said Cooper, who realized even then that people might sometimes get mad at some of the pieces published in the paper. He thought then—and still does today— that it’s important for the paper to take a stand.

Their confidence in what people

are now calling the “can-do” city has been borne out. Kull left the paper in 2008 when the partners opted to sell it to Brewer Broadcasting. Cooper stayed on as editor-in-chief and publisher. Despite the change in ownership, Cooper still thinks of the paper as an independent entity. “Having the same mindset as the person who owns a small storefront on Main Street is exactly how I think about the paper,” he said.

Two years ago Bill Ramsey, a graphic designer and journalist with more than 25 years of daily and weekly newspaper experience, joined The Pulse as creative director and became editor at the beginning of this year.

Ramsey embodies the attitude Cooper has always embraced. “In the year and a half I’ve been editor,” he told me recently, “I’ve turned the guns on local politicians and media, calling them out for their inadequacies, sometimes using language that makes some people uncomfortable.”

While he keeps Cooper grounded, he also regularly challenges him to maintain the ideals with which he started the paper. “I personally have upset people several times with things I’ve published—not only subjects, but our owners—mostly by telling some notable people to take a jump.”

They both work at least 50 or 60 hours a week, and both have trouble separating their personal and professional lives, but Ramsey’s long history helps keep them focused. “We’re not always fair and balanced, but that’s not our role,” he said. “The best altweeklies report with a flair and style that a certain part of the city’s culture ‘gets,’ and we do it on a shoestring, but still manage to tap the city’s best writers and photographers.”

After 10 years in business the paper is stronger than ever, said Cooper. His long shot has paid off, and he still considers himself “lucky to be able to do this week in and week out”—and now he’s ready to celebrate.

The Pulse 10th Anniversary Concert starring The Whigs with The Bohannons, St. Paul & The Broken Bones and Browan Lollar 9 p.m. • Thursday, Dec. 13 Rhythm & Brews • 221 Market St. rhythm-brews.com

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chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 11

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12 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

LIST

CALENDAR

THE DEC. 6-12

» pulse PICKS

THU12.06 MUSIC Dethklok After Party • Rage with local hardcore metal bands.

10 p.m. • JJ’s Bohemia • 231 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-1400 • jjsbohemia.com

EVENT

The Hearts In Light Ascend: Double Album Release Party • The Hearts In Light have produced an ambitious double album titled Ascend and will perform selections during a release party on Saturday. Also performing is New York City-based solo artist Tora.

See Music »P14 Ernie Paik’s Review »P20 SAT 12.08 • 8 p.m.

Barking Legs Theater • 1307 Dodds Ave. (423) 624-5347 • barkinglegs.org

7

$ Dissonance Crunch 11am 3pm » pulse pick OF THE LITTER

• Delightfully strange movie and a great band presented by Mise en Scenesters.

8:30 p.m. • Barking Legs Theater 1307 Dodds Ave. • (423) 624-5347 barkinglegs.org

WhiskEY tastiNG

FRI12.07 MUSIC Great Barrier Reefs, Milele Roots

fliGhts

• Reggae, roots music to start the weekend.

9 p.m. • JJ’s Bohemia • 231 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-1400 • jjsbohemia.com

EVENT

CLEAR PLASTIC MASKS

MUSIC

• Clear Plastic Masks, as the name of a band, might give you a sense of mystery. It may even peak your curiosity. That’s a good thing. But when you hear them, the name hardly matters. The first listen makes you immediately want to explore the next track in the cue. The Masks hail from Brooklyn, and what sets them apart from other bands that swim in the same familiar rock waters are their sensibilities—deep roots in classic, blues-tinged, American rock ‘n’ roll, but offered up through a prism of slight dissonance combined with grit, crunch and a healthy dash of psych-rock. Despite the attempt here to place Clear Plastic Masks in a digestible category, the nuances also set them apart. The band recently released a four-track,seven-inch to accompany their previous releases. Check them out when they stop by The Honest Pint, taking the stage with The Pollies and Eight Knives, on Thursday night. —Zach Cooper

Carolina Chocolate Drops

Clear Plastic Masks, The Pollies, Eight Knives

• Works by Seven, Rondell Crier and Kevin Bate.

5 p.m. • Graffiti • 629 Spears Ave. (423) 400-9797 • hillcityart.com

SAT12.08 • The Drops take the Track 29 stage with the Two Man Gentleman Band opening.

8 p.m. • Track 29 • 1400 Market St. (423) 521-2929 • track29.co

THU12.06

THU 12.06 • $5 • 9 p.m. • The Honest Pint • 35 Patten Pkwy. • (423) 468-4192 • thehonestpint.com

NiGht mith’s Black s B &B istro

ar

nEW HouRS!

11Am - 10 Pm dAilY

EVENT

SAT12.08

Delectable Spectacle at Artifact

RICHARD BUCKNER, Matt & Marty bohannon, tiffany taylor

• Pop-up holiday market. See Arts, Page 21.

10 a.m. -8 p.m. • Artifact Studios 1080 Duncan Ave. • teamartifact.com

1/4 BUrGEr comBo chips & DriNk

tUEsDaYs

“Holy Motors,” Mystical Motors

Graffiti Gallery: Street Art Wall Opening

Bistro lUNch!

• Buckner is on tour in support of his new album, Our Blood, and is playing a special early show at JJ’s on Saturday with Matt and Marty Bohannon and Tiffany Taylor also on the bill.

SAT 12.08 • 7 p.m. • JJ’s Bohemia • 231 E. MLK Blvd. • (423) 266-1400 • jjsbohemia.com

3914 St. Elmo AVE. (423) 702-5461

Find uS on FAcEbook blacksmithstelmo.com

chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 13

WIN FREE TICKETS!

The Pulse 10th Anniversary Concert

THE WHIGS THE BOHANNONS

ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES • BROWAN LOLLAR

THURSDAY, DEC. 13 • RHYTHM & BREWS EMAIL: WINSTUFF@CHATTANOOGAPULSE.COM

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Happy Hour 3-10 tue-sat • $2 beer & WINe • $2.50 WeLL drINKs Chattanooga’s Premier Dining, DanCing & nightlife loCation

RAW

Sound Check New music from Moonlight Bride, The Hearts in Light c h a t t a n o o g a-b a s e d indie-rockers Moonlight Bride have been curiously absent from the local scene since our cover story earlier this year. Now we know why. The band has been holed up recording a new EP and full-length album.

The new EP, Dead Language, was released digitally on Dec. 4, on all the major online retailers and was preceded by a performance on Nov. 30 at JJ’s Bohemia.

On their latest release, the foursome explore what it means to be dark yet warm, quiet yet loud, refined yet still retaining an often chilling rawness.

“I feel like good, stripped-down songwriting is becoming a lost art,” explained frontman Justin Giles. “Our generation is obsessed with the flash and flare of some pawn dancing around and pressing a couple of buttons and calling it electronic or dubstep. Dead Language is anti that.

“We’ve had the idea of doing this sort of B-side compilation for awhile now,” Giles continued. “It’s a group of songs we record-

Justin Giles

ed and always liked, but just didn’t seem to fit with the material that we’ve been putting together for the new album.”

The band is currently working on their new fulllength LP, which is projected to be released late next year. Dead Language sets the tone as the band progresses and is available digitally via iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and Rhapsody. The EP is available for streaming on thesouthrail.com, and includes five tracks: “Open Waters, “Wild Heart,” “Diego,” “It Could Happen” and “Silver Slumbers.” the hearts in light will mark the release of its new double vinyl album, Ascend, on Saturday, Dec. 8, during a performance at Barking Legs Theater.

“To my knowledge we are the first Chattanooga band to ever release a double vinyl which was completely engineered, recorded, produced and mastered in the Scenic City,” said Kyle Malone, who fronts the band with his wife, Stacey Sausa, plus bassist Seth Ferguson.

Malone describes the 22-track album as “new age/exotic pop song-cycle with radio-friendly and dance-pop singles weaving the album together and making it a combination of experimental new age and tribal-sounding synth tracks, as well as easily accessible pop singles— something like the Beach Boys’ Smile or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.”

Malone produced the album over the past year and took a few breathers to tour Alaska and the Bahamas, where the supposed ruins of Atlantis are located.

“I took the band there a few times over the summer to play gigs and dive at the ruins of Atlantis,” he said.

Pulse music critic Ernie Paik reviews the album this week in “Between the Sleeves” on Page 22.

LIVE MUSIC THIS WEEKEND

2.0 PARTY, REDEFINED.

FRI » 12.07.12

STEREOTYPE SAT » 12.08.12

STEREOTYPE

oPEN 7 DAYs A wEEk » Full mENu uNTIl 2Am » 21+ » smokINg AllowED

TWO FLOORS • One big paRTy • Live MuSic • Dancing • 409 MaRkeT ST • 423.756.1919

14 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

Ballet Tennessee Presents

D e c e mb e r D e c e mb e r D e c e mb e r D e c e mb e r

14, 15, 15, 16,

7pm 2pm 7pm 2pm

Guest Artists Fredrick Davis & Sean Hilton Hayes Concert Hall UTC Fine Arts Center

TICKETS ON SALE NOW BOX OFFICE: (423) 425-4269 • utc.edu/finearts

BalletTennessee.org chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 15

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16 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

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423.892.6767•dodgecityski.com chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 17

Chattanooga Live

MUSIC CALENDAR

Thu 12.06

Thursday • December 6 Dethklok After Party Unspoken Triumph Every Word A Prophecy

Friday • December 7

Milele Roots • Great Barrier Reefs

Saturday • December 8

SoCro • Opportunities • Sparks

Tuesday • December 11 Comedy Buffet

Wednesday • December 12

Eight Knives • Fly Golden Eagle James Wallace and the Naked Lights

Thursday • December 13 Nothing and The Nobodies

Friday • December 14 Bass Sermon

JJ’s Bohemia • 231 E MLK Blvd.

423.266.1400 • jjsbohemia.com

honest music

Metalocalypse: Dethklok, Machine Head, All That Remains, Black Dahlia Murder 6:30 p.m. Track 29, 1400 Market St. (423) 266-4323 track29.co.

Matt Chancey & the Lady Killers with The Ateliers 6:45 p.m. The Camp House, 1427 Williams St. (423) 702-8081 thecamphouse.com Chris Gomez 7 p.m. Sugar’s Ribs, 507 Broad St. (423) 508-8956 sugarsribs.com John Doyle 7:30 p.m. St. Marks Church, 701 Mississippi Ave. (423) 827-8906 johndoylemusic.com Open Mic with Hap Henninger 8 p.m. The Office, 901 Carter St. (423) 634-9191 “Holy Motors” (movie) and Mythical Motors (music) 8:30 p.m. Barking Legs Theater, 1307 Dodds Ave. (423) 624-5347 barkinglegs.org Clear Plastic Masks with Eight Knives and The Pollies 9 p.m. The Honest Pint, 35 Patten Pkwy.

(423) 468-4192 thehonestpint.com Zach Dylan and D-Railed 9 p.m. Southern Comfort, 511 Broad St. (423) 386-5921 southerncomfortchatt.com Shane Bridges Band with Taylor Mullins 9:30 p.m. Rhythm &

Brews, 221 Market St. rhythm-brews.com Dethklok After Party 10 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-1400 jjsbohemia.com

fri 12.07

HALL & OATES • Pop-rock hitmakers of the 1970s and ‘80s reunited and on tour, playing all the familiar hits and no filler, says John Oates.

MON 12.10 • 8 p.m. • Memorial Auditorium • 399 McCallie Ave. (423) 757-5156 • chattanoogaonstage.com

Matt Downer 5:30-9:30 p.m. Rock City, 1400 Patten Road Lookout Mtn., Ga. seerockcity.com The Great Barrier Reefs with Milele Roots 8 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-1400 jjsbohemia.com Husky Burnette 8 p.m. Acoustic Café, 61 RBC Drive, Ringgold, Ga. (706) 965-2065 ringgoldacoustic.com John Michael Montgomery 8 p.m. Memorial Auditorium, 399 McCallie Ave. (423) 757-5156 chattanoogaonstage.com Crawl, Order of the Owl and Myth 9 p.m. Moccasin Bend Brewing Company, 4015 Tennessee Ave. (423) 821-6392 bendbrewingbeer.com Get Hot or Go Home 9 p.m. The Office, 901 Carter St. (423) 634-9191 Power Players Show Band 9:30 p.m. Sugar’s Ribs, 507 Broad St. (423) 508-8956 sugarsribs.com

local and regional shows

Stereo Dig with Inglewood and Spoken Nerd [$5]

Wed, Dec 5

9pm

Clear Plastic Masks with Eight Knives and The Pollies [$5]

Thu, Dec 6

9pm

Endelouz with Nickels & Dimes and Iron Fez ($5)

Wed, Dec 12

9pm

Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes and Guests [$5]

Thu, Dec 13

9pm

Sun, Dec 16: Money Cannot Be Eaten with Rigoletto and Raenbow Station • 9 pm • $5 Sundays: Live Trivia 4-6pm • Free Live Irish Music at 7pm Dec 9: Bumper Jacksons • Dec 23: Molly Maguires Molly Christmas

18 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

Full food menu serving lunch and dinner.

11am-2am, 7 days a week.

35 Patten Parkway * 423.468.4192 thehonestpint.com * Facebook.com/thehonestpint

Stereotype 10 p.m. Raw 409 Market St. (423) 756-1919 Fly By Radio 10 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. rhythm-brews.com Kelsey’s Woods 10 p.m. T-Bones, 1419 Chestnut St. (423) 266-4240 tboneschattanooga.com Rosedale Remedy 10 p.m. Bud’s Sports Bar, 5751 Brainerd Road (423) 499-9878 budssportsbar.com

sat 12.08 Summer Hullender and The Embellishers 3 p.m. Jack A’s Chop Shop Saloon, 742 Ashland Terr.

(423) 713-8739 jackaschopshopsaloon.com Matt Downer 5:30 p.m. Rock City, 1400 Patten Road Lookout Mtn., Ga. seerockcity.com Richard Buckner, Matt & Marty Bohannon, Tiffany Taylor 7 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-1400 jjsbohemia.com Holly McCormack with Brian Minshew 7 p.m. The Camp House, 1427 Williams St. (423) 702-8081 thecamphouse.com Chris Young 7:30 p.m.

Memorial Auditorium, 399 McCallie Ave. chattanoogaonstage.com (423) 757-5156 The Hearts in Light with Tora 8 p.m. Barking Legs Theater, 1307 Dodds Ave. (423) 624-5347 barkinglegs.org Johnathan East 8 p.m. Acoustic Café, 61 RBC Drive, Ringgold, Ga. (706) 965-2065 ringgoldacoustic.com Power Players Show Band 9:30 p.m. Sugar’s Ribs, 507 Broad St. (423) 508-8956 sugarsribs.com Stereotype 10 p.m. Raw, 409 Market St. (423) 756-1919 SoCro with Opportunities and Sparks

LIVE MUSIC

10 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-1400 jjsbohemia.com Afro & Smooth Dialects 10 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. rhythm-brews.com Crunk Bones Jones 10 p.m. The Office, 901 Carter St. (423) 634-9191 Rosedale Remedy 10 p.m. Bud’s Sports Bar, 5751 Brainerd Road (423) 499-9878 budssportsbar.com

CHATTANOOGA DEC

with TAYLOR MULLINS

mon 12.10 Southside Casual Classics featuring River City Red Hots 7:30 p.m. The Camp House, 1427 Williams St. (423) 702-8081 thecamphouse.com Daryl Hall & John Oates 8 p.m.

Memorial Auditorium, 399 McCallie Ave. (423) 757-5156 chattanoogaonstage.com

tue 12.11 Summer Hullender with Tim Starnes 7 p.m. Sugar’s Ribs, 507 Broad St. (423) 508-8956 sugarsribs.com The All American Rejects 8 p.m. Track 29, 1400 Market St. (423) 266-4323 track29.co

wed 12.12 Dan Sheffield 7 p.m. Sugar’s Ribs, 507 Broad St. (423) 508-8956 sugarsribs.com Andy Grammer 8 p.m. Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St. rhythm-brews.com Troy Underwood 8 p.m. Acoustic Café, 61 RBC Drive,

THU. 9:30p

CLASSIC ROCK, ALL THE HITS

sun 12.09 Aradhna 6 p.m. Tyner Academy Auditorium, 6836 Tyner Road Carolina Chocolate Drops 9 p.m. Track 29, 1400 Market St. (423) 266-4323 track29.co

6 FRI. FLY BY RADIO 10p 7 AFRO/SMOOTH DIALECTS SAT. 10p 8 WED. ANDY GRAMMER 8p 12 THU. 9p 13 THE WHIGS SHANE BRIDGES BAND

FUNK, SOUL, JAZZ & WORLD BEAT RICHARD BUCKNER • Buckner is on tour in support of his new album, Our Blood, and is playing a special early show at JJ’s on Saturday with Matt and Marty Bohannon and Tiffany Taylor also on the bill.

SAT 12.08 7 p.m.

JJ’s Bohemia 231 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-1400 jjsbohemia.com

Ringgold, Ga. (706) 965-2065 ringgoldacoustic.com PeeWee Moore and Awful Dreaded Snakes 9 p.m. Jack A’s Chop Shop Saloon, 742 Ashland Terr.

(423) 713-8739 jackaschopshopsaloon.com Endelouz with Nickels and Dimes and Iron Fez 9 p.m. The Honest Pint, 35 Patten Pkwy.

(423) 468-4192 thehonestpint.com Arlo Gilliam 9 p.m. Bud’s Sports Bar, 5751 Brainerd Road (423) 499-9878 budssportsbar.com Fly Golden Eagle with James Wallace and the Naked Lights 10 p.m. JJ’s Bohemia, 231 E. MLK Blvd.

(423) 266-1400 jjsbohemia.com

Map these locations at chattanoogapulse. com. Send live music listings at least 10 days in advance to: calendar@ chattanoogapulse.com.

FREE SHOW presented by HITS 96 THE PULSE 10TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

THE BOHANNONS • ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES • BROWAN LOLLAR

12/14: RUBIK’S GROOVE 12/15: ABBEY ROAD LIVE 12/18: THE BEATERS 12/20: NEIL YOUNG TRIBUTE ALL SHOWS 21+ UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED • NON-SMOKING VENUE

221 MARKET STREET

HOT MUSIC • FINE BEER • GREAT FOOD BUY TICKETS ONLINE • RHYTHM-BREWS.COM

901 Carter St (Inside Days Inn) 423-634-9191 Thursday, Dec. 6: 8pm Open Mic with Hap Henninger (Closed Dec. 20 for repairs)

Friday, Dec. 7: 9pm Get Hot or Go Home Saturday, Dec. 8: 10pm Crunk Bones Jones Tuesday, Dec. 11: 7pm

Server/Hotel Appreciation Night $5 Pitchers $2 Wells $1.50 Domestics All shows are free with dinner or 2 drinks!

Stop by & check out our daily specials! ●

Happy Hour: Mon-Fri: 4-7pm $1 10oz drafts, $3 32oz drafts, $2 Wells, $1.50 Domestics, Free Appetizers

Facebook.com/theofficechatt

THURSDAY, DEC. 6 • 9PM

ZACH DYLAN

& D-RAILED

HAPPY HOUR SPECIALS! Southern Comfort Chattanooga’s Premier Dining, DanCing & nightlife loCation

511 Broad Street 423.386.5921

southernComfortChatt.com

chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 19

Between the Sleeves record reviews • ernie paik

mas t s i r h C ur Book yo Now! Party

US Party WITH ve!

Ear’s E

New Y es special coupl

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5840 LAKESHORE TERRACE • 423.870.0777 www.bartslakeshore.com

the 93-minute, 22-track double album (on both CD and vinyl) Ascend from Chattanooga’s The Hearts in Light— centered on the husband-andwife duo of Kyle Malone and Stacey Sausa, plus bassist Seth Ferguson—is a virtually unclassifiable beast: a songcycle featuring a new age spirituality, a pro-environment attitude, a fiercely antiauthoritarian political stance, a science fiction love story, an obsession with dolphins, and mystical prophecies surrounding the year 2012. If you need a pithy statement, here’s one: Greenpeace makes an electro-pop album. With Ron Paul. And a princess from Mars. And a dolphin.

Some may find just the idea of such a sprawling and complicated concept album to be ridiculous, but make no mistake—there is not a shred of ironic distance in the delivery.

The group is clearly serious about its music, although that doesn’t mean that the album is wholly serious. Playfulness abounds on Ascend, with animal sound effects, Malone’s distinctive singing and synthesized “world music” infusions.

One of the band’s clear influences are the Beach Boys, most apparent on the closing track “Lovebirdz,” particularly with its vocal flourishes. The sequenced arrangements and embrace of artificiality (think

cussion of fiat currency—and while it’s playing, this writer can’t help but be compelled to smile.

The Hearts in Light will play a record release show for Ascend on Saturday, Dec. 8, at Barking Legs Theater.

The Hearts in Light Ascend (Spiritual Peacock)

synth pan flutes and organs) make the album at times reminiscent of the soundtrack of the video game “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.”

Undoubtedly, the group has sweated over the making of this album, and they deserve kudos for presenting their own unique vision clearly; one can’t help but admire their spunk, and among the album’s noteworthy features are a willingness to explore and Sausa’s pretty soul-pop vocals. However, the band’s new age musical aesthetic is not exactly this writer’s cup of tea, although I will admit to having a soft spot for the early ’90s dancepop vibe emanating from tracks like “Ascension (I Have a Deer Heart).”

It’s an ambitious album— one that sports lyrics like “dolphin crystals glow in moonlight” along with references to an “evil agenda” and a dis-

the go-betweens never quite got their due here in the States, faring much better in the United Kingdom and their homeland of Australia, although insiders know the outfit as an important protoindie-pop group, anchored by the songwriting team of Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, who passed away in 2006. They’re one of those bands that words can’t do justice, just as mere descriptions of such bands as Galaxie 500 or The Bat can seem underwhelming, since they all rely on a subtle kind of energy and mood and not flash.

At the core of what makes The Go-Betweens so special is a hard-to-capture vividness, solid songwriting, memorable hooks and a warm, sincere delivery. The new career-spanning two-CD compilation, Quiet Heart, covering 1978 through 2005, replaces the previous 1999 compilation, Bellavista Terrace, with a better song selection and quality work from the band’s later years.

Fan favorites “Spring Rain” and “Head Full of Steam”

The Go-Betweens Quiet Heart (EMI)

from Liberty Belle and Black Diamond Express are obvious and apt choices, plus the easy-to-love girl/boy jangle of “Right Here” from Tallulah. 16 Lovers Lane is amply covered with the collection’s title track, the reflective, kinetic motion of “Streets of Your Town” and “Love Goes On!” And the post-reunion period of 2000 through 2005 gets a fair representation here as well.

While the first disc of Quiet Heart covers studio material. The second disc, Vienna Burns–Live 1987, features a decently recorded though not particularly spectacular show notable for the prominent presence of violinist Amanda Brown. Fans may quibble about the tracklist of, but Quiet Heart it serves as the best introduction to this underrated group, whose best material absolutely stands up to the test of time and repeated listening.

~OPEN CHRISTMAS DAY~

Home of the $2 High Life & $3 well drinks

5pm to 3am

~NEW YEAR’S EVE~ 11am to 1:30am

Join us for the first ever

Hair of the Dog Brunch

Neighborhood Chattanooga’s

Eat Local, Drink Local 20 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

Pub

New Year’s Day~11am to 2:30pm $2 Mimosas $10 Champagne Bottles All Your Brunch Favorites!

Delectable Spectacle

By Rich Bailey team artifact is throwing a holiday sale/party of art and eatable goods at their Duncan Avenue studio space. When Anderson Bailey—or Tyson, as he sometimes calls himself —announced this fact to me, it was a far cry from your run-of-the-mill press release. He wrote: “We gotta tightly wrapped pineapple straight from Duncan’s house gonna happen on December 7th itsa bone convention itsa all out really weird gemmed beacon sale gonna be a big tig. Me I’m gonna get all my berries and put em in one basket while Jimmi n Rita bring dey oak baskets n sellem to all de very short treasure hunters when dey come getta piece of de action fo de mimi n pappy.”

A pop-up holiday market featuring jewelry, ceramics, clothing, food and more at Artifact.

OK, this needs a little history. A few months ago, deeply impressed by something Tyson had written on Artifact’s blog in this Bizarro-surrealist creole, I shot off an email to him requesting an interview for this space in the same quasilanguage he used in that post, or at least my best attempt at it.

I studied surrealism in college but hadn’t had much chance to speak it in recent years. I knew I was taking a big risk. My effort could have been perceived as disrespectful, like I was mocking a speech impediment. Thankfully, it was taken in the friendly spirit in which it was intended. We kept up a correspondence, but never could connect for the interview. Finally, the stars aligned and I was able to interview Anderson/Tyson about Team Artifact’s origin and mission.

The original five members of Team Artifact banded together to create an entrepreneurial shared studio space in December 2011. Two of the original five—sculptor Shane Darwent and filmmaker and photographer Luke Padgett—left the group and have been replaced with two new members. Tyson described each of the current members.

Regarding Eric Smith, an artisan blacksmith who just received a MakeWork grant, he said, “He getta hammer’s blow away from you then u think he smashing u but he turn around twice— one for each moment the sun blinks an eye—then after the biggest and second turn he brings down a hairy blow of cantankerous blast to reveal an unearthed virtual gem of unbridled beauty.”

One of the new members, Conrad Tengler, is also an artisan blacksmith. “He can getta whiff of size brightness function reason and need— he make a tight inscription from his hand inside a bowl of jelly—he gets his melter, his slammer, his touncher, and his punty—he take his big breath of silent creativity —oops! he

turned a gesture of reason into a sitting and standing artform that lies in space in front of your own face right now,” Tyson said.

When the second new member, furniture maker Andrew Nigh, is not “busy circumventing society’s boundaries on the human spirit,” Tyson said he can be found “with his nose to de stone inside an investigation station whittling down the mountain to its visceral core.”

Jessie and Anderson Bailey collaborate on ceramics and also received a MakeWork grant. Regarding his wife, Anderson (aka Tyson) said, “She getta glass blow, she rub on dark clay, she is and i saw her sewing six hats with one hand, and then she made Lisa’s jewelry with an eye for infinity, all

Arts

while screen printed in a jester’s pool (which he wore while grocery shopping at my dad’s house).”

Speaking about himself, Anderson Bailey said, “As he formed the urn he whistled softly the tune of three songbirds at once, which gave him the idea of put a modern twist on the next vessel then the next and then so forth it happened.”

In addition to pursuing their separate artistic callings, Team Artifact’s members collaborate to produce group shows of their own and other artists work, including an exhibit of hand-made books that kicked off with an author reading.

“We all needed space, wanted a big, dirty teepee to get up inside and get real emotional within inside it and ourselves—a space when also we get like everybody else everywhere at the same time to come inside from it and see several things at once,” said Tyson. “Like we could have sixty roasted stones and they are the biggest beautiful stones Keith and Tara ever saw, and they had enough money so they took it. They took the stone.

We wanna show not only them but all other people like they are everywhere and they can see how this is the stuff i heard about in Cherry Tails, like its not true but i was wrong, and it is true.”

When the group took over the space last year, it was an emotional moment for everyone: “When Tony handed big dog the keys, he handed them slowly and said ‘I am no shaman but i does has a golden rose that smell like cheespepper, and with that rose i sew a stone to you.’”

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chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 21

Arts&Entertainment Love is a warm donut.

CALENDAR Thu 12.06

Deck the Falls 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Ruby Falls, 1720 S. Scene Hwy. (423) 821-2544 rubyfalls.com Holiday Open House 10 a.m.- 8 p.m.

Warehouse Row, 1110 Market St. (423) 267-1127 warehouserow.net Winter Wonders 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Creative Discovery Museum, 321 Chestnut St. (423) 756-2738 cdmfun.org 14th Annual Chattanooga Women Against MS 11:30 a.m.- 1 p.m.

Stratton Hall, 3146 Broad St. (423) 667-4332 Designers’ Tour of Trees 6 p.m. Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View Ave. (423) 267-0968 huntermuseum.org Savvy Shopper: A Tasting of Gift Wines Under $20 6-8 p.m. Back Inn Café, 412 E. Second St. (423) 265-5033 bluffviewartdistrict.com Jay Leutze and the Appalachian Mountain 6-7:30 p.m. Green Spaces, 63 E Main St. (423) 648-0963 greenspaceschattanooga.com Craig Shoemaker 7:30 p.m. The Comedy Catch, 3224 Brainerd Road (423) 629-2233 thecomedycatch.com

FRI 12.07 Pre-K Day 10-11 a.m. Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View Ave. (423) 267-0968 huntermuseum.org “Femme”: An Art Exhibition 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Shuptrine’s Gold Leaf Designs, 2646 Broad St. (423) 266-4453 shuptrines.com 29th Annual Holiday Gift Wrap (Thru Dec. 24) 10 a.m.- 10 p.m.

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22 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

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2100 Hamilton Place Blvd, (423) 757-5259 kidsontheblock.net Leadership Luncheon: Why Women Matter: Balancing Life, Work and Leadership 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.

Broad Street Grille, 1201 South Broad St. (423) 394-8173 cwli.org CSO Wind Quintet 1 p.m. St. Elmo Courts, 4625 St. Elmo Ave. chattanoogasymphony.org Kirsten Wolcott Memorial 5k Run 3-5 p.m. Southern Adventist University, 4881 Taylor Cir. Collegedale. (423) 236-2000 “Sand Transformed” Exhibition Opening Reception 5-8 p.m. In-Town Gallery, 26A Frazier Ave. (423) 267-9214 intowngallery.com Second Annual Delectable Spectacle 5-9 p.m. Artifact Studios and Gallery, 1080B Duncan Ave. teamartifact.com Juried Members Exhibition Opening Reception 5:30- 8 p.m.

AVA Gallery, 30 Frazier Ave. (423) 265-4282 avarts.org Yappy Meower 5:30-7:30 p.m. Mia Cucina, 345 Frazier Ave. (423) 305-6500 mckameyanimalcenter.org North Pole Limited Train Ride 5:45 & 7:30 p.m. Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, 4119 Cromwell Road (423) 894-8028 tvrail.com “Structural Influence” Opening Reception 6:30-8 p.m. River Gallery, 400 E. 2nd St. (423) 265-5033 river-gallery.com James Gregory 7-9 p.m. The Comedy Catch, 3224 Brainerd Road (423) 629-2233 thecomedycatch.com “The Nutcracker Christmas Carol” 7:30-9:30 p.m.

Chattanooga State Community College, 4501 Amnicola Hwy. (423) 697-2424 chattanoogastate.edu “Gods and Disasters” 7:30 p.m. Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga, 1918 Union Ave. (423) 987-5141

“gods & disasters” • Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga’s original piece pokes fun at the idea of the end of the world, tying it with the end of its season in dance, spoken word and poetry.

DEC. 7-16 • $10 • Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga St. Andrews Center • 1918 Union Ave. • (423) 987-5141 ensembletheatreofchattanooga.com ensembletheatre ofchattanooga.com “The Nutcracker” 8-10 p.m. Tivoli Theatre, 709 Broad St. (423) 642-TIXS chattanoogaonstage.com “Santaland Diaries” 8-10 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, 400 River St. (423) 267-8538 theatrecentre.com “Annie” 8-10:30 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, 400 River St. (423) 267-8538 theatrecentre.com Wide Open Floor 8 p.m. Barking Legs Theater, 1307 Dodds Ave. (423) 624-5347 barkinglegs.org Brian Aldridge 9:30 p.m. Vaudeville Café, 138 Market St. (423) 517-1839.

funnydinner.com Gary Conrad 10 p.m. The Comedy Catch, 3224 Brainerd Road (423) 629-2233 thecomedycatch.com

sat 12.08 Chattanooga Corporate Dodgeball Tournament 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Maclellan Gym, 600 Douglas St. (423) 892-8323 chattdodgeball.org Pancake Breakfast with Santa 9:30-11 a.m. Southern Belle Riverboat, 201 Riverfront Pkwy.

(800) 766-2784 chattanoogariverboat.com Second Annual Delectable Spectacle 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Artifact Studios and Gallery, 1080B Duncan Ave. teamartifact.com Chattanooga Holiday Market

10 a.m.-5 p.m. Chattanooga Convention Center, 1100 Carter St. (423) 649-2496 chattanoogamarket.com River Market 10 a.m. Tennessee Aquarium Plaza, 1 Broad St. (423) 402-9960 chattanoogamarket.com Juried Members Exhibition 11 a.m.- 5 p.m.

Ava Gallery, 30 Frazier Ave. (423) 265-4282 avarts.org Santa Brings Holiday Festivities to Warehouse Row 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Warehouse Row, 1110 Market St. (423) 267-1127 warehouserow.net Small Works Show 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Gallery 301, 1800 E. Main St. (423) 531-7411 gallery301.org Book Signing and Discussion with Raymond Evans 2-3:30 p.m. Chattanooga Public Library, 1001 Broad St. (423) 757-5310 lib.chattanooga.gov “Gods and Disasters” 2:00 p.m. Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga, 1918 Union Ave. (423) 987-5141 ensembletheatre ofchattanooga.com “Annie” 2:30-5 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, 400 River St. (423) 267-8538 theatrecentre.com Second Annual Delectable Spectacle 5-9 p.m. Artifact Studios and Gallery, 1080B Duncan Ave. teamartifact.com Northpole Limited Train Rides 5:45, 7:30 & 9:15 Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, 4119 Cromwell Road (423) 894-8028 tvrail.com Enchanted Garden of Lights 6-9 p.m. Rock City, 1400 Patten Road Lookout Mtn., Ga. (800) 854-067 seerockcity.com Holiday Starlight Parade and Lighted Boat Parade 6 p.m. 5th & Market streets, Ross’ Landing chattanoogapresents.com James Gregory 7-9:30 p.m. The Comedy Catch, 3224 Brainerd Road (423) 629-2233 thecomedycatch.com

»P24 chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 23

FRESH LUNCH & DINNER SPECIALS

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Free Christmas Concert

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Piano & n a g r O y r a r o ontemp Performing on C Hosted by

pilgrim Congregational Church 400 Glenwood at 3rd Street 423-698-5682 • pilgrim-church.com contact church to reserve childcare progressive • Inclusive • protestant Church

“The Nutcracker Christmas Carol” 7:30-9:30 p.m.

Chattanooga State Community College, 4501 Amnicola Hwy. (423) 697-2424 chattanoogastate.edu Choo Choo Chorus Holiday Benefit Concert 7:30-9 p.m.

Girls Preparatory School, 205 Island Ave. (423) 265-7464 choochoochorus.org Southern Wind Symphony, Jazz Ensemble, Ringtones Christmas Concert 8-10 p.m. Southern Adventist University, 4881 Taylor Cir. Collegedale. (423) 236-2000 “The Nutcracker” 8-10 p.m. Tivoli Theater, 709 Broad St. (423) 642-TIXS chattanoogaonstage.com “Santaland Diaries” 8-10 p.m. Chattanooga Theatre Centre, 400 River St. (423) 267-8538 theatrecentre.com “Annie” 8-10:30 p.m.

Chattanooga Theatre Centre, 400 River St. (423) 267-8538 theatrecentre.com Brian Aldridge 10:30 p.m. Vaudeville Café, 138 Market St. (423) 517-1839 funnydinner.com

sun 12.09 Chattanooga Holiday Market 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Chattanooga Convention Center, 1100 Carter St. (423) 649-2496 chattanoogamarket.com Annual Holiday English Tea and Open House

1-4 p.m. The Houston Museum, 201 High St. (423) 267-7178 thehoustonmuseum.org “The Nutcracker” 2-4 p.m.

Tivoli Theatre, 709 Broad St. (423) 642-TIXS chattanoogaonstage.com “The Nutcracker Christmas Carol” 2:30-4:30 p.m.

Chattanooga State Community College, 4501 Amnicola Hwy. (423) 697-2424 chattanoogastate.edu Chattanooga Girls Choir Grace Moore Singers 6:15 p.m. Jewish Cultural Center, 5461 North Terrace Road (423) 493-0270 jewishchattanooga.com “Gods and Disasters” 6:30 p.m. Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga, 1918 Union Ave. (423) 987-514 ensembletheatre ofchattanooga.com

mon 12.10 New Artist Spotlight: Karen K. Brown, Robert Calcagno, Paula Ann Ford & Maggie Siner 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Shuptrine’s Gold Leaf Designs, 2646 Broad St. (423) 266-4453 shuptrines.com Davy Rothbart: Found Magazine’s 10th Anniversary Tour 8-10 p.m. AVA, 30 Frazier Ave. (423) 265-4282 avarts.org Annual Mardi Gras Ball 9 p.m.-1 a.m.

Chattanooga Choo

Choo, 1400 Market St. (423) 698-0029

tue 12.11 Noon Nosh Luncheon 12:00 p.m. Jewish Cultural Center, 5461 North Terrace Road (423) 493-0270 jewishchattanooga.com CSO Wind Quintet 1 p.m. Boynton Overlook Apartments, 1201 Boynton Ave. chattanoogasymphony.org Holiday Hop ‘n’ Shop 4-7 p.m.

The Shoppes at CitiPark, 800 Chestnut St. “Scenes from American Life” 7:30-9:30 p.m.

Chattanooga State Community College, 4501 Amnicola Hwy. (423) 697-2424 chattanoogastate.edu

Wed 12.12 Open House at Lifepoint Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine 2-7 p.m. Lifepoint Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, 4513 Hixson Pike No. 106 (423) 523-9533 lifepointaom.com Enchanted Garden of Lights 6-9 p.m. Rock City, 1400 Patten Road Lookout, Ga. (706) 820-2531 seerockcity.com

Map these locations at chattanoogapulse. com. Send calendar listings at least 10 days in advance to: calendar@ chattanoogapulse.com.

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E BRAINERD 1414 JENKINS ROAD • STE 122 • 423.468.4960 NORTH SHORE 214 MANUFACTURERS ROAD • 423.580.1162 • PUREBARRE.COM 24 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

Screen

JOHN DEVORE

Fuggetaboutit “killing them softly” is a film that tries in earnest to say something poignant about the cutthroat nature of American business by comparing it to organized crime. It is sometimes successful, but mostly degrades into a celebration of violence. I get it.

The characters in this film all know each other, they all compete with each other, and they all are willing to eliminate each other despite positive personal feelings. American business pretends to be about relationships as well, up until the point vulture capitalism takes over. To me, it seems like the same point could have been made without brutal, slow-motion beatings and overly bloody gun violence. But I suppose the filmmakers wanted to show the violence in a realistic way, making it as horrible as possible so that the viewer can compare it to the very real financial carnage that surrounding the financial crisis. I don’t know that it’s necessary.

The film is a mob movie.

There are various players, various bosses, lots of money. It takes place in a post-Katrina New Orleans, a wasteland of parking lots and industrial squalor. Abandoned houses and lots make up the background, an obvious reference to the consequences of financial irresponsibility for the nation as a whole. Johnny Amatto (Vincent Curatola) plans to knock over the mob-protected card game of Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), a wise guy who once knocked over his own card game and got away with it. Johnny assumes that everyone will suspect Markie and he’ll get away scot free. He hires two dumb kids to do it and, of course, the mob

finds out and hires an enforcer (Brad Pitt) to kill the offenders and restore order. The goal is to get the money flowing again and set the criminal economy right.

I’d wager that if I wanted to look closely, I could find one-to-one comparisons between the players in the financial crisis and the characters in this film.

The financial industry itself is the mob, I guess; Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the dumb guys that knock over the card game; Lehman Brothers are the scapegoats and therefore Markie. If you wanted to, you could probably spend a few hours discussing the film with interested friends, looking for exact references. But I don’t especially want to spend my time that way.

I was taken out of the story by the amount of financial news the mobsters listened to—criminals aren’t that interested in the national economy.

The pairing of election and financial coverage with the violence and mayhem of the action was just a device to drive home a rather heavy-handed point. Again, I get it.

The filmmakers reiterate their point every few minutes, through dialogue, through actions, through news reports. Quite simply, it detracts from the story they are trying to tell. The story needs to be king. Maybe I just prefer more subtlety in my subtext.

The film is at least well acted. I’ve never seen a bad performance by Brad Pitt. James Gandolfini has an amusing part as a drunken and clinically depressed hitman who has recently had his heart broken by a hooker. And while I was put off by the violence in the film, I can’t deny that there was certain artistry to it—the hit on Markie was especially interesting to watch. But that doesn’t mean it was necessary. It felt more like the director was showing what he could do with special effects than including it to further the narrative. I’m never offended by graphic violence. I’m not offended by graphic nudity or graphic language, for that matter. However, filth without purpose is juvenile.

This film was fairly well received at Cannes and is likely looking for more recognition in hopes of an Oscar nod. It won’t get one. The film is too uneven. There is too much preaching about the loneliness of American society and the damage done by unscrupulous businessmen. It could have been a great movie if the filmmakers had restrained themselves from hammering their point home in nearly every scene.

There’s something to be said for understatement.

“Killing Them Softly” might have benefited from a competent script and a careful director. As it is, it’s just another forgettable film about the mob. chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 25

Sushi & Biscuits

MIKE MCJUNKIN

Vegging Out i have a confession to make: i am a recovering vegetarian. but before you judge me, please understand that it was the ’80s. I was young and trying to fit in with the cool crowd. I was living in Nashville as part of my failed bid to become the next Geddy Lee and didn’t think it would hurt anyone. My decent into herbivorous hell started with a salad here, some tofu there, but it wasn’t long before I was hanging out in vegetarian restaurants and showing up to family gatherings completely vegged out of my mind.

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FOOD & DRINKS UNTIL 3AM • DAILY LUNCH SPECIALS 26 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

I wandered around for months, lost in denial about who I really was and what I had become until one evening the radiating light of a Fuddruckers on West End Avenue called out to me, bathing me in its comforting and forgiving glow. I felt the burden of smugness and smell of patchouli immediately begin to fall away as I ordered my 1/3-pound medium-rare burger and fries. I never looked back to those dark days and have been living a successful, tofu-free lifestyle ever since. That was until last week.

Although it’s very hard for me to admit, I’ve fallen off the wagon a few times over the past few years, letting peer pressure lure me into an occasional hit of tofu and in one particularly weak moment, I did an entire veggie burger.

In spite of the guilt and distress I felt after these relapses, I’ve recently wondered if things had changed over the years.

Now that vegetarian food has broken free of the dark corners of grocery store aisles and cafes that also sell Grateful Dead candles and postage scales, was the food any better?

I did a quick survey of my vegetarian friends to determine where I should visit for a sample of local vegetarian restaurant offerings and came up with only two completely vegetarian spots—Green

Thumb and Sluggo’s. I arbitrarily chose Sluggo’s, at 501 Cherokee Blvd., and went into this meat-free dispensary completely solo, without as much as even an accountabilibuddy to help me navigate the menu.

Not surprisingly, these soy pimps were extraordinarily nice, even when I told them that I was a committed omnivore and may poke fun at them in print. Undeterred, their friendly staff brought out a feast of staggering variety and quality that looked surprisingly like actual food. I was ready to hate all of it on principle alone but found myself in the difficult position of actually liking some of the dishes.

They started me off with the Sweet Thai Chili Bowl and I immediately saw why this is their most popular dish. Vegetarian or not, this was a delicious and beautiful bowl of awesome. Brown rice, sweet chili sauce, veggies, pineapple and the only tofu I have ever eaten that didn’t remind me of flavorless, coagulated pudding skin.

Hats off to Sluggo’s for whatever voodoo magic they do in the kitchen to make tofu edible.

The next best thing I tried was the Culture Club sandwich. I was poised to mercilessly make fun of this atrocity of soy bacon combined with slices of tofurkey (the devil’s lunch-

meat) and marinated seitan. The horror. It mostly resembled a traditional BLT because someone figured out if you put enough smoke flavoring on anything it starts to taste like bacon. In all fairness, it was so good that I ate the whole thing, but I was never under the illusion that what I was eating was actually bacon and turkey.

As I ate my way through the Pecan Dusted Seitan with Mushroom Gravy and a Lentil Patty Melt Sandwich, I again realized why I am not a vegetarian. Meat “substitutes,” no matter how skillfully prepared, cannot compete with the perfect texture and flavor of actual animal flesh. If you’re already a fan of seitan, tofu, tempeh and other meat imposters, Sluggo’s will certainly satisfy your yearnings. But if you’re a recovering vegetarian like myself, or just know one, Sluggo’s can give you a quick reminder of what you loved or hated about vegetarian food. As for my recovery, with a little help from bacon and beef cheeks, I’m taking it one day at a time sweet Jesus, one day at a time.

Mike McJunkin has been in a funk since losing this year at the Mainx24 World Heavyweight Chili Championship. Cheer the poor guy up by visiting him on Facebook.com/SushiandBiscuits.

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chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 27

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Free Will Astrology SAGITTARIUS

(Nov. 22-Dec. 21): If you thoroughly shuffle a deck of cards, the novel arrangement you create is probably unique in all of human history; its specific order has never before occurred. I suspect the same principle applies to our lives: Each new day brings a singular set of circumstances that neither you nor anyone else in the last 10,000 years has ever had the pleasure of being challenged and intrigued by. I think it’s important for you to keep this perspective in mind during the coming week. Be alert for what you have never seen or experienced before.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

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I wish I could do more than just fantasize about helping you achieve greater freedom. In my dreams, I am obliterating delusions that keep you moored to false idols. I am setting fire to the unnecessary burdens you lug around. And I am tearing you away from the galling compromises you made once upon a time in order to please people who don’t deserve to have so much power over you. But it’s actually a good thing I can’t just wave a magic wand to make all this happen.

Here’s a much better solution: You will clarify your analysis of the binds you’re in, supercharge your willpower, and liberate yourself.

AQUARIUS

(Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In his book Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins talks about a gourmet who “gave up everything, traveled thousands of miles and spent his last dime to get to the highest lamasery in the Himalayas to taste the dish he’d longed for his whole life, Tibetan peach pie. When he got there ... the lamas said they were all out of peach. ‘Okay,’ said the gourmet, ‘make it apple.’” I suspect you’ll be having a comparable experience sometime soon, Aquarius. You may not get the exact treat you wanted, but what you’ll receive in its place is something that’s pretty damn good. I urge you to accept the gift as is!

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Having ‘a sense of self’ means possessing a set of stories about who we are,” according to William Kittredge in his book The Nature of Generosity. He says there are two basic types of stories: The first is “cautionary tales, which warn us” and therefore protect us. The second consists of “celebratory” tales, which we use to heal and calm ourselves. I believe that you Pisceans are now in a phase when you primarily need celebratory stories. It’s time to define yourself with accounts of what you love and value and regard as precious.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Spen28 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

rob brezsny

cer Silver was a co-inventor of Postit notes. Speaking about the process he went through to develop this simple marvel, he said, “If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.” I’d like to make him your patron saint for the next few weeks, Aries. Like him, you now have the chance to make practical breakthroughs that may have seemed impossible, or at least unlikely. Ignore conventional wisdom —including your own. Trust your mischievous intuition.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The axolotl is a kind of salamander that has an extraordinary capacity for regenerating itself. If it loses a leg in an accident, it will grow a new one in its place. It can even fix its damaged organs, including eyes, heart and brain. And get this: There’s never any scar tissue left behind when its work is done. Its power to heal itself is pretty much perfect. I nominate the axolotl to be your power animal in the coming weeks, Taurus. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you now have an extraordinary ability to restore any part of your soul that got hurt or stolen or lost.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In the coming months, I hope that you will get sweet revenge. In fact, I predict that you will get sweet revenge.

Keep in mind that I’m not talking about angry, roaring vindication.

I don’t mean you will destroy the reputations of your adversaries or reduce them to humiliating poverty or laugh at them as they grovel for mercy while lying in a muddy gutter. No, Gemini. The kind of revenge I foresee is that you will achieve a ringing triumph by mastering a challenge they all believed would defeat you. And your ascent to victory starts now.

CANCER

(June 21-July 22): I would love to speak with you about your hesitancy to fully confront your difficulties. But I will not speak forthrightly, since I’m pretty sure that would irritate you. It might even motivate you to procrastinate even further. So instead I will make a lame joke about how if you don’t stop avoiding the obvious, you will probably get bitten in the butt by a spider. I will try to subtly guilt-trip you into taking action by implying that I’ll be annoyed at you if you don’t. Hopefully that will nudge you into dealing straightforwardly with the unrest that’s burbling.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Drama is life with all the boring parts cut out of it,” said Leo filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. By that criterion, I’m guessing that your experience

in the coming week will have a high concentration of magic and stimulation. You should be free from having to slog through stale details and prosaic storylines. Your word of power will be succulence.

For best results, I suggest you take active control of the unfolding adventures. Be the director and lead actor in your drama, not a passive participant who merely reacts to what the other actors are doing.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): One of my spiritual teachers once told me that a good spiritual teacher makes an effort not to seem too perfect.

Why? To get the best learning experience, students must be discouraged from over-idealizing the wise advisors they look up to.

It’s crucial they understand that achieving utter purity is impossible and unrealistic. Being perceived as an infallible expert is dangerous for teachers, too; it makes them prone to egotistical grandiosity. I bring this up, Virgo, because it’s an excellent time to reduce the likelihood that you’ll be seduced by the illusion of perfection.

LIBRA

(Sept. 23-Oct. 22): This would be a good week to talk to yourself far more than you usually do. If you’re the type of person who never talks to yourself, this is a perfect time to start. And I do mean that you should speak the words out loud. Actually address yourself with passionate, humorous, ironic, sincere, insightful comments, as you would any person you care about. Why am I suggesting this?

Because according to my interpretation of the astrological omens, you would benefit from the shock of literally hearing how your mind works. Even more importantly: The cheerleading you do, the encouragement you deliver, and the motivational speeches you give would have an unusually powerful impact if they were audibly articulated.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast,” a grotesque human-like creature hosts the heroine in his home, treating her like a queen.

She accepts his hospitality but rejects his constant requests to marry him. Eventually, he collapses from heartache. Moved by the depth of his suffering, she breaks into tears and confesses her deep affection for him. This shatters the spell and magically transforms the Beast back into the handsome prince he originally was. Your life may have parallels to this story in the coming months, Scorpio. You might be tested. Can you discern the truth about a valuable resource that doesn’t look very sexy? Will you be able to see beauty embedded in a rough or shabby form?

Jonesin’ Crossword

HOSANNA HARVEST FOR HOPE

matt jones

o

wishes to say

THANK YOU! to the many generous

hire great people for free!

“Into the Great Wide Open”—a wild grid for the 600th Jonesin’ puzzle.

Across

1. What Burger King tried to serve on a sundae in 2012 6. Sheep’s sound 9. L times VI 12. Stopping point in a Carlo Levi novel 13. Fails to live up to 15. Arty district 16. Character voiced by Danny DeVito, with “The” 17. “See above,” in footnotes 19. Gp. for doctors 20. “You pick the place” 21. Cocktails with a recipe on the Kahlua label 28. Break room thefts that suck (especially when you put your name on them) 30. B, L or T, e.g.

31. Quicktime file extension 32. Genetic message “venue” 33. OTC sleep-aid introduced in 2012 34. H.S. diploma alternative 35. Three-letter Best

Picture nominee 36. “Later, skaters” 38. Bait shop stock 39. “Buffalo Stance” singer Cherry 40. Mountain chain in Utah 41. “Count us in!”

43. Quid pro quo deal 46. Highest-ranking 47. Botanist Gray 50. They’re not usually syndicated 55. Sighting subject 56. Costanza mantra 57. Blemish 58. Political theorist Hannah 59. Reggae musician ___-Mouse 60. Train depot, for short 61. Foot, in kid-speak 62. Rail option, to Rodrigo

Down

1. Strings virtuoso Fleck 2. Mushroom cloud maker 3. Possibly-venomous creature 4. Suffix after pay 5. Reject

6. Roy G. ___ 7. “___ was saying...”

8. Its symbol contains itself at the end 9. World capital that after which the chemical element hafnium is named 10. Sports Illustrated’s “Sportswoman of the Year,” 1976 11. It gets hung indoors 14. Medical device used to alleviate pain 15. Itch-inducing shrub 18. Surname in fashion 22. 1991 e-commerce company acquired

by Oracle in 2011 23. Former New Jersey Senator 24. Type of band with a clarinetist 25. From the 20-yardline to the goal line 26. Hidden attribute 27. English dogs with a keen sense of smell 29. Record half 30. The 411 32. ___ Nabisco (onetime tobacco merger)

37. Hurry, old school 41. Program from FDR 42. Bad blood 43. Seedy places 44. “Hawaii Five-O” nemesis 45. Tree-to-be 47. Jules or Ed 48. Fuel 49. Dam on the Nile 51. Exam for a future atty.

52. It’s nada 53. Cookie introduced in 1912 54. “Dark am ___ lovely” (passage from the Song of Solomon)

Jonesin’ Crossword created By Matt Jones. © 2012 Jonesin’ Crosswords. For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+ to call.

Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle No. 0600.

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OPEN CHRISTMAS DAY & NEW YEAR’S DAY

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30 • The Pulse • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

Life in the Noog

chuck crowder

McRib a McDelight? well, it’s been all over the news in the form of new mcdonald’s television spots—the McRib sandwich is BACK! Where it went I’ll never know, but now it has returned from its journey (but only for a limited time).

I’ve never had the pleasure of tasting a McRib sandwich, but I hear from those who have that it’s savory taste is something to relish, and ingest, as often as possible during the limited time period that “rib” is apparently in season.

I know what ribs are.

They are tasty strips of meat sandwiched between bones that once made up a pig’s rib cage, slowly smoked for hours and slathered with barbecue sauce every 10 minutes until they eventually melt in your mouth. It’s a southern delicacy.

I don’t know what a “McRib” is however. It appears to be a rack of ribs, it’s shaped that way, at least. There’s the larger piece of meat that has cross strips of what would be the bones of a traditional rib rack. But the entire shape of the McRib rack is made from the same type of meat stuffs, with no actual bones. This is the perplexing part. Do McRibs come from “boneless” pigs? Pigs made entirely out of rib meat?

And by the size of McRib’s McRack, miniature potbelly pigs at best?

Order a “rib sandwich” at a hole-in-the-wall southern barbecue stand and you’ll get a few actual pork ribs stuck between two pieces of white bread.

The idea of the “sandwich” in this case isn’t the convenience of portable handheld food as much as it is receiving a smaller portion of a traditional rack of ribs and two pieces of bread to eat with it.

McRib: culinary delight or fast food tragedy?

The McRib is entirely different. For some reason, people in McDonaldland prefer manufactured rib racks made out of what one hopes is actual pork, although likely not the rib meat, slathered with a sauce designed to enhance digestibility and placed on a hoagie roll garnished with the same onion flakes that don your child’s Happy Meal burger. To me that just ain’t right, but people have varying opinions on how “awesome” the McRib is.

We interview a lot of famous people for stories in The Pulse. For some reason the editors here tend to assign me the comedians.

I’ve interviewed many, many funny stand-up comedians, and I always ask the same question at the end of each phone conversation: “McRib sandwich: culinary delight or fast food tragedy?” Here’s how a few of them have responded over the years: S out her n-bor n-a ndbred Lewis Black: “Culinary delight in Maine because they don’t know shit about barbecue up there.

It should be banned in

the South because we all know better.”

The west coast comics had differing opinions. Bobcat Goldthwait said, “I don’t eat meat and I’d eat one. It’s all of the stuff from the scrap tray mashed together with barbecue sauce on it so it’s probably meatless anyway. And hey, my friends, get all excited when they bring it back out so whatever.”

Carlos Mencia, star of “Mind of Mencia” responded, “It’s something that sounds so good, and I would devour it, and then ten minutes later I would regret it and then an hour after that I would really regret it.”

But it was the most recent conversation I had with a comic that landed quite possibly the most poignant review. Louis C.K.-like comedian Doug Stanhope pointed out, “I’ll stick my dick in just about anything and have done just about every drug there is except for heroin, but I will not eat a McRib sandwich.”

I’m not sure I would either. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with McDonald’s. I’m with Mencia—McDonald’s food always sounds like a good idea before you eat it. So I’ll likely take the advice of Richard Lloyd, of the band Television, when I asked him the same question: “I don’t go in McDonald’s.”

Chuck Crowder is a local writer and man about town. His opinions are his own.

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chattanoogapulse.com • DECEMBER 6-12, 2012 • The Pulse • 31

The Pulse • 2003-2013 10th Anniversary Concert

THE WHIGS THE BOHANNONS ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES • BROWAN LOLLAR

9pm • Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012

Rhythm & Brews • 221 Market St.

Tickets On Sale Now! $13 @ rhythm-brews.com • $15 @ door