CityBeat | May 18-31, 2022

ABSOLUTELY

BY MARAH EAKIN

NO SKILL INVOLVED An Oral History of the Ohio Lottery’s 'Cash Explosion' Game Show

MAY MAY18, 4, 2022 - MAY 31, 17, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM

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VOL. 27 | ISSUE 10

PUBLISHER TONY FRANK

ON THE COVER: CASH EXPLOSION ILLUSTRATION: TALON HAMPTON

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ASHLEY MOOR MANAGING EDITOR ALLISON BABKA DIGITAL CONTENT EDITOR MAGGY MCDONEL SPECIAL SECTIONS EDITOR MAIJA ZUMMO STAFF WRITER MADELINE FENING CALENDAR EDITOR, WRITER SEAN M. PETERS ART DIRECTOR TALON HAMPTON CONTRIBUTING EDITORS MUSIC: MIKE BREEN ARTS & CULTURE: MACKENZIE MANLEY THEATER: RICK PENDER DINING CRITIC: PAMA MITCHELL

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NEWS COVER ARTS & CULTURE EATS

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS ANNE ARENSTEIN, BRIAN BAKER, STEPHEN NOVOTNI, BRIAN CROSS, HAYLEY DAY, JANE DURRELL, BILL FURBEE, JASON GARGANO, GREGORY GASTON, AUSTIN GAYLE, MCKENZIE GRAHAM, NICK GREVER, KATIE GRIFFITH, KATIE HOLOCHER, BEN L. KAUFMAN, DEIRDRE KAYE, JAC KERN, HARPER LEE, MADGE MARIL, ANNE MITCHELL, LAUREN MORETTO, TAMERA LENZ MUENTE, JACKIE MULAY, JUDE NOEL, GARIN PIRNIA, KATHY SCHWARTZ, MARIA SEDA-REEDER, LEYLA SHOKOOHE, SAMI STEWART, STEVEN ROSEN, KATHY Y. WILSON, P.F. WILSON, MORGAN ZUMBIEL CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS HAILEY BOLLINGER, SCOTT DITTGEN, JESSE FOX, PHIL HEIDENREICH, KHOI NGUYEN, BRITTANY THORNTON, CATIE VIOX EDITORIAL INTERNS LAUREN SERGE LINDSAY WIELONSKI MARKETING AND EVENTS DIRECTOR JESSICA TOMAIN SENIOR DIGITAL MARKETING CONSULTANT MARK COLEMAN SENIOR MULTIMEDIA ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE DAN RADANK DISTRIBUTION TEAM TOM SAND, STEVE FERGUSON

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MAY 18, 2022 - MAY 31, 2022

NEWS

Lebanon’s anti-abortion ordinance was passed in 2021.

P H O T O : G AYAT R I M A L H O T R A

ACLU Sues Lebanon Over Anti-Abortion Ordinance

The law criminalizes abortion providers and those who assist people in accessing an abortion.

BY M A D E L I N E F E N I N G

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he American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio (ACLU) announced it is filing a federal lawsuit against the city of Lebanon on May 10, challenging the city’s ban on abortion that was passed in 2021.

The announcement comes shortly after a leaked draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court indicated a majority of the court will vote to overturn the

1973 case Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide. The court is set to issue a ruling this summer.

Lebanon’s anti-abortion ordinance, passed in May of last year, deputizes individuals to report cases of abortion care within city limits, making no exception for cases of rape or incest.

While the city does not have an abortion provider, the law punishes those

who “aid or abet” a prohibited abortion, according to the ACLU. The law criminalizes abortion providers and those who assist people in accessing an abortion as a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Assistance includes providing advice, funds, transportation and other assistance to those seeking abortion care. A provision of the ordinance also makes the possession of “abortion-inducing drugs” illegal.

The lawsuit claims the ordinance’s language does not clearly define what it means to aid and abet.

“The term ‘abortion-inducing drugs’ is defined to include ‘mifepristone, misoprostol, and any drug or medication that is used to terminate the life of an unborn child.’ But it is unclear whether someone who drives a patient

home from an abortion clinic with misoprostol would be considered to ‘possess’ misoprostol, and under what circumstances,” the complaint reads.

The complaint also alleges the term “abortion doula services” is used without a detailed definition in the ordinance, making it difficult to know what conduct is prohibited in the city.

“Not all abortion doulas provide the same services or provide them in the same way,” the complaint reads.

While Lebanon is the only city in the state to have an anti-abortion ordinance (self-described as a “sanctuary city for the unborn”), Ohio is likely to ban abortion if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. An attorney with the ACLU of Ohio said the language in Lebanon’s ban makes it illegal in several ways, including violating due process and freedom of speech.

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“In the wake of the recent news of the Supreme Court’s leaked decision overturning Roe v. Wade, it’s all the more important to continue to defend abortion access and ensure that municipalities cannot criminalize lawful activity through vague, sweeping bans,” Jessie Hill, cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Ohio, said in a release. “The ordinance’s vagueness, coupled with its potentially sweeping breadth, render it unlawful on multiple fronts.”

Hill later emailed additional thoughts to CityBeat.

“Lawsuits like this take a while to put together, so yes, it has been in the works for a while. But the bigger point is that this lawsuit is not dependent on whether Roe v. Wade is overruled or not. We are arguing that the Lebanon law is vague and overbroad, and it criminalizes constitutionally protected free speech, such as giving truthful information about abortion,” Hill said.

“So even if Roe is overruled and the government is permitted to criminalize ‘aiding and abetting’ an abortion, it cannot do so in a way that is vague and impossible for ordinary people to understand and comply with. It also can’t violate the limits laid out in the Ohio Constitution on the powers of municipalities to create crimes, which this law does,” Hill continued.

Hill also noted that Lebanon’s ordinance has no geographical limitations,

“so it’s not clear whether it can even apply to people helping people travel out of state for abortions,” Hill said.

The ACLU lawsuit was filed with the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and Women Have Options – Ohio (WHO/O). Danielle Smith, NASW executive director, said in a release that the language of the ordinance prevents social workers from doing their job.

“Social workers are obligated to abide by the standards set forth in the National Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics and as state-licensed professionals legally required to follow the Ohio laws and rules that stipulate that social workers are to provide support to clients in alignment with what they self-determine is in their best interest. This ordinance thus asks social workers to defy their guiding principles for practice and their ethical obligations to their client or face criminal action,” Smith says.

The plaintiffs are asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio to declare the ban unconstitutional, to stop the city from enforcing the ban and to award the plaintiffs’ attorney fees.

The ACLU says language in Lebanon’s abortion ban violates due process and freedom of speech.

P H O T O : G AYAT R I M A L H O T R A

Hamilton County Now Offers Free Fentanyl Detection Strips to Help Reduce Local Overdose Deaths

BY A L L I S O N BA B K A A N D M A D E L I N E F E N I N G

Hamilton County now has another weapon in the fight against fentanylrelated deaths.

During the Hamilton County Commissioners meeting on May 10, health commissioner Greg Kesterman announced that county residents now can request fentanyl test strip kits by texting “FTS” to 22999. The test strips are free, and no name is required to receive them – just an address to where the strips can be mailed.

Fentanyl is a legal, potent opioid that frequently causes overdose deaths when misused. It often is laced into illegal substances like cocaine and heroin, and many users don’t know if what they’re taking has fentanyl in it.

Kesterman said that Hamilton County residents who plan to use illegal substances can first test those substances to see if fentanyl is present, noting that the county’s goal is

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preventing deaths. He said that fentanyl was “extremely deadly.”

“The key is that folks use these test strips before using any kind of illegal substance. Obviously it’s best that somebody doesn’t use the illegal substance, but if somebody has made the purchase, they are definitely planning on using it. By testing, they are able to alter their behavior,” Kesterman told commissioners on the United States’ first-ever National Fentanyl Awareness Day. As CityBeat reported in April, the standard protocol to test a batch of drugs for fentanyl involves dissolving a small amount of the drug in water and dipping a detection strip into it for 15 seconds. The strip then is placed on a flat surface for five minutes, when colored lines will indicate whether or not fentanyl is present. Typically, one line indicates that there is fentanyl in the

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Fentanyl detection strips are available in some Cincinnati bars and restaurants.

P H OTO : M A D E L I N E F E N I N G

drug and two lines means there isn’t, but packaging will show instructions and how to determine if the test is valid.

Kesterman said that the mere act of testing drugs for fentanyl can change someone’s trajectory.

“Through my team’s work over the last several years, we have actually known that 75% of people that use a test strip alter their behavior. They may choose to use with someone else that can help save them should they have a bad reaction to the fentanyl, they might choose not to use it at all, or they might make sure that they have Narcan (brand name of naloxone, a nasal spray used to stop a drug overdose) before using that substance,” Kesterman said.

“Obviously our number-one goal 100% of the time is getting people into treatment, but we know sometimes folks are using it (recreationally) and are not going to get access to treatment or not choose to get treatment because they don’t feel that they are addicted, so this is another tool to help keep people alive,” Kesterman continued.

Fentanyl is tasteless and colorless, with no smell or discernible features.

“We know that people are using recreationally and don’t know what they’re

using because they’re buying them off the streets. These test strips then can become lifesavers,” Denise Driehaus, one of Hamilton County’s commissioners, told Kesterman during the meeting.

“I have Narcan in my purse but I don’t have any test strips, so it’s interesting to look at these and see how easy they are to use for someone who maybe got a pill from a friend or something and they need to know what’s in that pill.”

Kesterman said that when Hamilton County residents text “FTS” to 22999, they will receive three links. One link goes to a form to request fentanyl test strips, one features instructions for using the strips, and one has information about where people outside of Hamilton County can obtain strips via the SOAR Initiative.

CityBeat went through the fentanyl test strip request procedure via text on May 12 and received the three links.

The request form asked for an address where the county can mail the test strips; it did not ask for a name associated with that address. However, users must affirm that they have read the instructions for using the strips. CityBeat successfully submitted the form.

Fentanyl-laced party drug overdoses

have become a rising problem in Cincinnati, Hamilton County and elsewhere in recent years. Officials from Harm Reduction Ohio, a nonprofit that tracks Ohio drug data, say that around 5,300 Ohioans died of an overdose in 2021, and 1,497 of those deaths were cocaine related. Data from the Ohio Department of Health on mortality shows that at least 1,083 of those cocaine deaths were caused by laced fentanyl.

Hamilton County is one of Ohio’s top 10 counties for overdose deaths as a result of cocaine, according to data analyzed by Harm Reduction Ohio.

Data from Ohio’s crime lab also shows an uptick in fentanyl appearing in other drugs at the onset of the pandemic, jumping from 21.8% to 29.5% in the second quarter of 2020. That number remained steady until the end of 2021, when lacing hit a record high of 35.9%.

In an effort to help reduce overdoses, bar and restaurant owners and managers have been reaching out to Harm Reduction Ohio for Narcan training, and many are making fentanyl detection strips available to customers.

Harm Reduction Ohio offers free

naloxone and fentanyl test strips at harmreductionohio.org. Participants must complete a training video to place an order. Those who are looking for inperson training and supplies can email CCS at ccscincy@gmail.com.

Naloxone and test strips also are available through other local organizations and pharmacies. Greater Cincinnati HIV/AIDS service organization Caracole has a harm reduction supply vending machine available 24/7 at its Northside headquarters (4138 Hamilton Ave.) that dispenses naloxone and test strips for free. First-time users must complete a survey before getting a 90-day access code.

The SOAR Initiative also mails free fentanyl test strips by request on its website thesoarinitiative.org.

Drug stores such as CVS and Walgreens dispense naloxone, though it is not free. Many insurance companies will pay for or reimburse people for brand-name and generic naloxone, but those without insurance are on the hook for a $90-$140 charge.

Cincinnati Bengals Announce 2022-2023 Schedule

BY A L L I S O N BA B K A

The Cincinnati Bengals are hoping that some of last season’s Super Bowl magic will stick around this year.

The Bengals announced the 20222023 regular-season schedule on May 12, and it’s brimming with both longstanding and newer rivalries, including an exciting home slate.

Fans can watch the Bengals in primetime a whopping five times this season.

At Paul Brown Stadium, the team will battle the Miami Dolphins at 8:15 p.m.

Sept. 29 (viewable on Prime Video) and the Buffalo Bills at 8:30 p.m. Jan. 2 (ABC/ESPN). On the road, the Bengals will take on the Baltamore Ravens at 8:20 p.m. Oct. 9 (NBC), the Cleveland Browns at 8:15 p.m. on Halloween (ESPN) and the Pittsburgh Steelers at 8:20 p.m. on Nov. 20 (NBC).

The team’s primetime spots are the maximum permitted by the NFL. See the full schedule and viewing opportunities at bengals.com.

1 p.m. Sept. 11 vs. Pittsburgh Steelers (home) 4:25 p.m. Sept. 18 vs. Dallas Cowboys (away) 1 p.m. Sept. 25 vs. New York Jets (away) 8:15 p.m. Sept. 29 vs. Miami Dolphins (home) 8:20 p.m. Oct. 9 vs. Baltimore Ravens (away) 1 p.m. Oct. 16 vs. New Orleans Saints (away) 1 p.m. Oct. 23 vs. Atlanta Falcons (home) 8:15 p.m. Oct. 31 vs. Cleveland Browns (away) 1 p.m. Nov. 6 vs. Carolina Panthers (home) 8:20 p.m. Nov. 20 vs. Pittsburgh Steelers (away) 1 p.m. Nov. 27 vs. Tennessee Titans (away) 4:25 p.m. Dec. 4 vs. Kansas City Chiefs (home) 1 p.m. Dec. 11 vs. Cleveland Browns (home) 4:25 p.m. Dec. 28 vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (away) 1 p.m. Dec. 24 vs. New England Patriots (away) 8:30 p.m. Jan. 2 vs. Buffalo Bills (home) TBD Jan. 7 or 8 vs. Baltimore Ravens (home)

Quarterback Joe Burrow and the Bengals will visit New Orleans, home to Burrow’s alma mater.

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Now in its 35th year, Cash Explosion was the little lottery game that could.

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or Ohioans under age 35, there’s never been a world without Cash Explosion.

The Ohio Lottery’s Saturday night game show launched in February 1987 with a cheap-looking set and gameplay that involved drawing index cards out of a painted wooden box.

But it’s come a long way since, now existing as a futuristic-looking, digitallydriven game that gives away $100,000 every week.

Even to non-lottery players, Cash Explosion’s humble beginnings and enduring legacy are impressive. It’s the longest-running state lottery game show and is currently the only one on the air anywhere in the United States.

Ohio Lottery officials say the show has given away more than $250 million in its decades-long run, and audiences have deep affection for game personalities like Sharon Bicknell, who was with the show off and on for about 27 years.

With its anticlimactic gameplay, ghostly remote shoots, and glitzy evening gowns, it’s been a bizarrely successful run.

Jump into the wayback machine and ride to a time when the lottery was suspicious and new and Cash Explosion was but a glint in a marketer’s eye.

Cash Explosion turned luck into a game.

P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY T H E O H I O L O T T E R Y

Part 1: “Don’t think that somehow you’re going to beat the system here.”

When the Ohio Lottery began in 1973, it wasn’t necessarily welcomed with open arms. Residents didn’t trust the process, and “numbers” drawings had already operated for decades in some cities and workplaces. Still, the Ohio Lottery Commission plugged along, gaining a little public support in the mid-’80s when the Ohio Legislature stated that a portion of the lottery’s proceeds should fund public education.

That’s also roughly around when scratch-off instant win tickets entered the picture. As Ohio Lottery workers struggled to figure out how to entice players to the new games, they began to kick around an idea: What about a lottery game show?

Tom Chema, former executive director, Ohio Lottery Commission: I was the ninth lottery director in the then nine-year history of the Ohio Lottery.

[Former Governor] James A. Rhodes was very concerned about organized crime infiltrating the lottery. In fact, he seemed to be more concerned about that issue than he was about selling a lottery ticket. So a lot of his lottery directors were involved in policing.

The man I succeeded had been the agent in charge of the FBI in Cleveland.

There were a bunch of police types in charge who knew nothing whatsoever about running a consumer business, and they ran it in a very poor way. There were also a number of scandals. One of my predecessors went to jail and the state had been investigating some of our employees for theft. Human nature is human nature. There was all this cash floating in and out of the office and some of it ended up in these folks’ socks and back pockets on its way to the treasury. While I was [at the Lottery], we fixed that.

David Gale, former marketing director, Ohio Lottery: In the ‘70s, the lottery industry had to fight to get the laws changed so that we could at least advertise our games on TV. In the ‘80s, it was a significant time for lotteries all around because they were finally gaining in popularity, but there were only a handful of games and that was it. The instant scratch off products of today? There was only one in the marketplace.

Chema: We were trying to broaden the base. With the popularity of the big money lotto game, we were generating more revenue, but it was from fewer people. That was not what we were trying to do.

We saw [scratch-offs] as a way to pull back some of the base that we had

lost and to further expand the base to younger impulse buyers who would go to our agents, whether it be a drugstore or the filling station, and think about the instant ticket game as a vehicle for them to take a chance and potentially make some money and have a little fun.

In 1984, we did this big reunion for everyone who had won at least a million dollars from the lottery. David Gale and I thought it would be really a good thing for us to develop a program that would show appreciation to people who played the instant ticket games and won relatively small prizes at that point in time. We wanted to give some publicity to both the games and the players, and also to the agents who sold the instant game tickets.

We got our heads together with Marcus Advertising, which was the vendor that did the lottery’s advertising, and came up with this idea of doing a studio TV show similar to some of the game shows that were popular back in the early to mid ‘80s.

that airtime and create an instant scratch off game where a portion of the prize fund goes to the top prizes and to the game show.” So there would be a second opportunity to play if you didn’t win, because non-winning tickets went into a drawing.

The fact that we used real people became the key to Cash Explosion. We talked a little bit about Andy Warhol’s theory that everybody likes their 15 minutes in the limelight, and it was an idea that we didn’t know if it would work, but we thought we would give it a try.

There were a lot of different objectives that we wanted to accomplish back then, and consumer education was an important one, where the money goes, how people benefit, the fact that people are winning and that kind of thing. We wanted to provide this opportunity to say, “Hey, I know this person! He or she lives down the street from me” or “We shop in the same store!”

Gale: We thought, “How can we diversify the instant product?” because more and more lotteries were introducing a second instant scratch-off that had a particular theme, like football or something.

We said, “Well, we have this airtime that is part of the lottery’s media buy.

Maybe there’s a way that we can use

Chema: I had to get the folks in Columbus, the governor and the legislature, comfortable with what we were doing. There were people in that era who still hadn’t come to accept the lottery as an appropriate thing for the state of Ohio to be involved in.

And so marketing in such a direct way and competing on television for other

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contestants to pull a one, two or three from a box on their podium. The corresponding number of lights would appear on a pyramid game board above their name, and the first few people to the top moved on to the next round.

Roberts: I had a couple of things that I started with that, as a longtime game show producer, I found interesting, which is that contestants picking numbers and whatever, but you might pick a bankrupt, which means you had to go home. They did that the first show, and they said, “Oh, we can’t do that.”

Bob Grossi, Cash Explosion’s first host: They stuck people from the auditor’s office on the set the whole time to make sure that it was in fact a game of chance and that nobody cheated.

They were just picking cards at random to add up to a certain number and the person with the most points got to the $50,000 pinnacle. It was a pretty simple concept, but it worked.

Part 3: “I’ve got something that you might be perfect for.”

Grossi had previously worked in Los Angeles but moved back to Ohio after running into a string of bad luck.

Longtime host Sharon Bicknell smiles on the set of Cash Explosion.

P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY T H E O H I O L O T T E RY

recreation dollars in a very direct way was something that not everybody in the administration thought was a great idea.

It was a major issue to get the state auditor to buy off on the show. The auditor was a guy named Tom E. Ferguson and he was not a fan. We had a lot of issues with him early on.

We had to make the disclaimer that it would be a game of chance, not a game of skill. Don’t think that somehow you’re going to beat the system here.

Part 2: “We were just looking for human beings who spoke English. That’s all we needed.”

With the vision endorsed by the state, the team was free to create the lottery game show. But how would they do it? Gale and Marcus Advertising knew they’d need outside help, so they placed an ad in Variety magazine looking for a game show producer willing to move to Cleveland for as long as it took to get the show off the ground. Les Roberts—who would later become one of Cleveland’s most beloved authors—answered the call.

Les Roberts, co-creator, Cash Explosion: I had written for and produced a lot of game shows [in Los

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Angeles], like Hollywood Squares. In fact, I was the first head writer and producer of that show back in ‘66.

Marcus Advertising put an ad in Variety looking for a game show producer, and I wasn’t working at the time.

I thought, “I’ve never been in Cleveland in my life, so what the hell?” So I called them and sent a resume and they hired me.

Gale: One of the things that Les Roberts brought to the table was his experience in Hollywood, working with several of the game shows that were being played then on a national basis.

Roberts: I arrived in Cleveland, I think, on Jan. 5, 1987. It was colder than hell, and I didn’t have any cold clothes.

They set me up in the office, and they got me a place to live.

When I came here, I didn’t even know Cleveland was on Lake Erie. I know it was in Ohio somewhere. All I knew about Cleveland when I got off the plane was Bob Feller, Jim Brown and the river burning.

Gale: We brought [Les] in to help us create the format and all of that stuff. It was a collaborative effort between Les, the ad agency and my office.

Roberts: I came up with several different ideas for the show, and most

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of them were shut down by Marcus immediately.

Roberts, Gale, and Marcus Advertising knew that to make a show that met lottery and auditor standards, everything had to be done by total chance, as if the contestant was spinning a wheel.

Gale: It was close to being [a wheel] in the first go round, because it was so long ago. The technology certainly wasn’t back then what it is today.

Roberts: They told me, basically, the kind of show they wanted to do, which was very different for me, because when you’re running a show for the lottery, it doesn’t mean that somebody has to be smart or anything like that. We were just looking for human beings who spoke English. That’s all we needed.

I thought, “How the hell am I going to do this?” But I figured it out, even though I had a very low budget. When the show was first shown on the air, it really was tacky. I begged for more money, but they said the lottery didn’t have it.

Gale: [Finding the format] was easy to do, to tell you the truth. It was more, “How do we make this entertaining?

How do we hold our audience? Is this something that’s good?”

The game’s initial format asked

Grossi: They were looking for a host for an afternoon magazine program at Channel Five in Cleveland, and so I called up there to see if I could get an audition.

Don Webster, who was the general manager then, is a former longtime weatherman. He remembered me from Channel 10 in Columbus, because I did the weather there, and he said, “Sure, come on up. Let’s talk.” So I went up and did an audition for them. For whatever reason, I didn’t get the job, but he liked something about me and said, “I’ve got something that you might be perfect for” and he put me in touch with Marcus Advertising.

Roberts: I was looking for a guy that had a great personality, who was halfway decent looking and who understood the tempo of a game show, which is very different even from being a stand up comic.

Grossi: When I auditioned for Cash Explosion, I bet there were 50 or 60 other people auditioning.

The lottery wanted to give Grossi a sidekick, a Vanna White to his Pat Sajak, as on Wheel of Fortune. Enter Sharon Bicknell.

Sharon Bicknell, longtime co-host, Cash Explosion: They had the concept

and they had been auditioning a lot of talent, primarily models. They were finding that because much of it was not scripted and that it was going to be improvisational with the contestants, that they were having difficulty throwing weird stuff at [the models].

My background was on stage. One of the producers at Marcus had seen several productions that I had done at the Cleveland Playhouse and knew that I did some ad work on the side, so he asked me to come and audition. It turned out to be a really good combination and a really good fit.

Stephanie Miller, former show coordinator, Cash Explosion: Sharon is approachable. She’s down to earth.

She goes out her way to make contestants feel they are special, and it’s not an act.

The modern-day set of Cash Explosion looks very different from sets in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY T H E O H I O L O T T E R Y

Bicknell: I loved the interaction that we were going to have with the contestants, and it really didn’t bother me that much that a lot of it was improvised.

We did the show live to tape, too, so we tried to do it so that it would need the bare minimum amount of editing, because we taped it on Friday and the show aired on Saturday. Because of my background doing live theater, I was more used to a live format, so that actually worked in my favor.

Grossi and Bicknell were paid Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists scale wages and hired on a provisional basis for, Bicknell says, “maybe 12 weeks.” No one knew how the show would do, or if people would even like it.

Bicknell: It was a really small, tiny, humble beginning. They were hoping for 12 weeks, but they weren’t even confident that it was going to go that long.

Grossi: I’d never done anything like that, and I’m not sure anybody else in the country working for the lottery was doing a show like that. We were paving a whole new path.

When I was hired, I stayed in Cleveland for about two weeks and went to Marcus Advertising every day. Les, who created the show, showed me what I needed to do as the host. Sharon was exactly like Vanna White on Wheel Of Fortune. Her role was simply to just turn the letters on the score, so she wasn’t involved in these rehearsals. I went in and every day and we practiced and practiced and practiced while the set was being built, etc. They were coordinating all of this with the folks at Channel Five, because we were using their soundstage to produce the show.

Roberts: We were shooting at WEWS in Cleveland, and I was working with

them on getting the set together. They said to me, “We can’t do the set the way you’re asking because we would need one more light.” I sat there and I stared at them and I said “Buy another light! I’m bringing you a big show! Buy another light!” And they did.

Grossi: After those two weeks of set up, we taped our pilot.

Bicknell: It was not all smooth and wonderful at the very beginning, obviously, but the format was solid. The first time we went through it, the episode ran about 45 to 50 minutes long, which was not going to work. So there was a lot to do.

Part 4: “Try to make it as suspenseful as you can.”

With talent and a show format in place, the lottery started to shoot episodes of Cash Explosion, though not on the schedule that fans know and love today.

Gale: We actually tested the concept for the first nine months by doing a quarterly show. We would just stretch out the entries over a three month period of time, and we took the show on the road. We took it to various communities throughout Ohio, and we even did one of the shows from the center of a shopping mall.

Bicknell: The prizes that we had to give away originally on our wheel, they weren’t awesome. Until we got started, we were an unknown entity and nobody’s going to give you anything if they don’t know you.

So, you would spin the wheel and

win a weird vase or a tanning bed. It was kind of bizarre. You’d look at those things and go, “Wow, I kind of hope I don’t win that.” But it was the fact that you won something, and eventually we got to cars and park trips and nice things after people realized we were going to be on for a while.

Roberts: I broke my ass trying to give a car away, and that worked for a while.

Grossi: We gave away a car from GM every week. The contestant would win by finding the car under one of the numbers or on one of the cards they were pulling up.

Bicknell: I believe people could take the money equivalent of [the car], but many of them took the cars. It’s always a little bit of a gray area, because not everybody’s totally aware that they have to pay the taxes and that everything is not 100% free.

Grossi: There was always a little bit of a pause. “Okay, Frank, you’re two points behind. Which card are you going to take?” We tried to make it suspenseful.

But I don’t think there was really any strategy. It was a game of chance. It was just a guess.

Bicknell: It’s the luck of the draw or the luck of whoever happens to just pick whatever they pick. People would say, “You can’t build suspense that way.

You can’t build excitement that way.”

But, especially in the early shows, it was unusual and because it was based on luck, that gave it something that other game shows did not have. Everybody had a chance, if you got the ticket. It didn’t make any difference. Everybody who came onto the show was on an

equal playing field. It didn’t matter what city you’re from, what educational background, nothing. It’s just the luck of the day.

Grossi: Rick [Alexander], our producer, was always telling me, “Try to make it as suspenseful as you can.” That was the fun part of being the host: trying to make it a lot more exciting than it actually was.

Part 5: “They had to move Hee-Haw.” Cash Explosion premiered Feb. 7, 1987, and the response was immediate.

Gale: After the first week of [the show] being in the marketplace, overall instant sales increased dramatically.

Chema: Even from the first pilot that we did, we were really surprised how many viewers tuned in.

We did a number of not horribly scientific surveys or polls, if you will, that we asked our sales agents to do at point of sale. We asked the instant ticket purchasers whether they watched the show and what they thought of it. Using that info, we developed some data points that were not supposed to be scientific or a real market study within three points. certainly, but it gave us a very rough set of data points that showed us that the show was very popular and that people liked it.

The old Nielsen ratings system also had the show… it wasn’t the Super Bowl or anything, but it got, relatively speaking, very high numbers. From the get-go, it exceeded our expectations.

Grossi: I hadn’t been on television in

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Columbus for almost three years, but once the show was on the air I started getting recognized all the time. “You’re the lottery guy. What do I need to do to get on the show?” The audiences that came to the show’s tapings were thrilled, too. I mean, they’d stay after the show and ask for autographs.

Gale: Since day one, we’ve had that Saturday night time slot, and the only other competition that I believe we had back then was Hee-Haw. It had a huge following, but it actually ended that at some point. They had to move the airing of Hee-Haw because we were building up our own huge following as well.

Part 6: “The hardest thing you have to do is pick a letter. [Then] you get money.”

Contestants clamored to be on the show, often preferring to win the show entry on the Cash Explosion scratch-off instead of the $500 top prize. Two of the show’s early contestants were Rodney Rollison and Jane Switzer, who were on in 1990 and 1993, respectively.

Rodney Rollison, former Cash Explosion contestant: My ex-wife and I still argue about this. She said I bought the ticket for her, and that’s not true. And I bought the ticket on Linden Avenue in Zanesville, I think at a Dairy Mart. And I hit the three entries.

Jane Switzer, former Cash Explosion contestant: I had seen the show and I said, “Boy, that would be a lot of fun,” so I started buying the tickets. I got one that said “entry, entry, entry,” so I sent it in.

My parents just happened to be in town that weekend for Thanksgiving, and I said, “You know, my ticket could be drawn tonight,” and my mother said I was nuts. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

And then I was the second one picked.

Rollison: I got this call that I was gonna appear on the Cash Explosion show, and hell, I’d just won a goldfish at the mall. I was like, “What the hell am I going to use this goldfish for? I guess I could use it for catfish bait.” I told my wife at the time, “I ain’t gonna kill this goldfish. I’m not gonna use it.

I’m gonna name it Cash Explosion.” So I named this damn goldfish I’m carrying around in a plastic bag of water at the mall, calling it Cash Explosion. I was talking to the bag, like, “You gotta win me big money, man.”

Switzer: At that time, you had to go up to Cleveland for the taping. I think I went up two weeks after the lottery contacted me. They had me go up the

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night before and gave me a hotel room.

I took four friends with me and my parents drove over from Niagara Falls along with my aunt and uncle.

At that time, they also gave the contestants a luncheon and then they took your family and friends on a tour of Cleveland. If I’m not mistaken, I believe they went in Lolly the trolley [Cleveland’s longtime tour and transportation service].

Rollison: My family was treated top notch. They put us in a Holiday Inn, and I was looking out the window at the lightning and thunder. It was the first time we all stayed in Cleveland, and along with the thunder, the biggest snowflakes I’d ever seen in my life were falling. I thought, “What the hell’s going on in my life right now?”

Bicknell: They came to the studio in a limo. They got treated like kings and queens. It was a full thing. And I mean, it’s Ohio. They’re not in California.

For years, I wore evening gowns for the show. We didn’t dress casually, because it was that special. Over the years, that evolved, but I’m always going to be partial to the early years, because there was so much emphasis on the contestant and the glamour of doing TV. Miller: After the hotel, the contestants came in and got makeup. They were the star of the show, which they are because without them there is no show.

Grossi: They had a luncheon for them, too, and [a producer] was there to prep them for what they were about to experience. Then Sharon and I would walk in at the end of the lunch and have a little chat with them before they went up on stage, just to sort of ease their anxieties.

There were some older people who were really nervous about it, and I’d go over and put my arm around them, especially if they were older women, and just sort of try to make them feel comfortable. The men, if they were nervous, they sure didn’t show it.

Rollison: It was nerve-wracking, but I was kind of laid-back. It was the first time I had a suit on in probably 20 years. I didn’t even wear one at my wedding. I got married in my blue jeans.

Gale: One of the advantages that traditional game shows had that we didn’t is they could screen their contestants.

When we pulled a winner’s name out of the hat, typically, that was the person that showed up to play the game. But we also quickly realized that we needed to have a policy for the winner to have a designated stand in.

We were very fortunate in the contestants that were drawn, because there were very few times where we had to say, “We need to get a stand in here,” But there were one or two times where we looked at each other and said, “Okay, we need to find out who your stand-in is.”

get this shit over with. That was mainly my attitude.

Bicknell: There were a couple standins that were unusual. Like, there was somebody who was supposed to be undercover who’s in the back and we couldn’t show their face. I’m not sure if they actually were government agents.

I just remember them sitting all the way in the back and I thought it was weird that they were actually in the studio because normally if somebody stands in it means somebody was sick or couldn’t come. I don’t know if it was any illegal thing that they were back there for, but it just seemed to me that they couldn’t be on camera for some reason. Maybe I just built that up in my mind.

Miller: Everybody goes home a winner. It’s a no-brainer – the hardest thing you have to do is pick a letter. You get money.

The players that did appear on screen didn’t necessarily come into the game with much of a strategy.

Rollison: Life’s a guessing game and so is Cash Explosion. Just give me a letter and let’s go. It was no big deal, let’s

Switzer: I won $7,300. At that time, you might have been guaranteed like $5,000 or so. The lady next to me just kept getting doubles and she went home with maybe $25,000.

Rollison: I never touched the keys to the car I won. I sold it.

Switzer: They advised us that when we got our winnings that we had to wait because they had to check to see if we owed any child support or something.

Miller: I’ve seen people come on the show and win, and I’ve seen how it’s transformed their lives. I can remember a young female contestant who was living with her parents and she had kids.

She won a van and some money. She gave the money to her parents, but she was able to sell the van so she could go back to school and get a place for her and her kids. It changed her whole life, just winning that amount.

Bicknell: The one that I remember the most was our first big winner. He borrowed bus money to get to our show, and he borrowed a suit to get there. Then he won the $50,000. He came back a year later and told us how much it changed his life.

I remember before we started really airing the show, we were on a morning show promoting it, and they asked me, “Is this change-your-life money?”

I remember saying, “I don’t know if it’s change-your-life money, but it’s makea-difference money.”

The reason I remember this guy so well is because he hugged us so hard and said that the money made such a difference.

Scott Lanum, managing partner, Mills James Productions: We’ve had regulars on the show, too. There have been several times when we’ve had repeat players on the show. They might not have done it 16 years ago.

sure.

He said, “I’m not going to stay for your taping today.” I said, “Oh, you didn’t get a ticket?” And he said, “No, that’s not it. My wife and I watched your show always and forever, and we always hoped you would come here. You did come but I lost my wife earlier this year so I just wanted to tell you how much it means to me that you are here in our town, but I just can’t come in.”

There were always moments like that.

I got a letter from a gentleman, and he and his wife had watched the show with their son, who had gone off to service and did not return. When he wrote this letter to me, it was some years after.

They had moved back to Ohio, and he said, “When we turn on the television, the one thing that meant so much to us is that we still found you. We had moved, and our life is different. Our son is gone. But we found a strange sense of comfort knowing that you were still there.”

Bicknell: I have to tell you one of the sweetest stories, though, about a remote show that we did. We got in town and we stayed overnight. The next day, we got to the theater early and there was a gentleman waiting outside.

He asked if he could talk to me for a minute before we went in and I said

To learn more about Cash Explosion, visit ohiolottery.com/Games/ Cash-Explosion-Show.

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ARTS & CULTURE

Ben Dudley worked with more than 20 artists on The Day the Cat Got Shot.

P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY B E N DUDLEY

The Cat’s Meow Cincinnati native Ben Dudley’s graphic novel The Day the Cat Got Shot weaves together tales of madness.

BY M AC K E N Z I E M A N L E Y

C

incinnati native Ben Dudley spent nine years working on his new graphic novel, The Day the Cat Got Shot. The book braids together the work of more than 20 artists based everywhere from the Queen City to Italy to Quebec to Venezuela and more.

Described on its Instagram account (@ thedaythecat) as an absurd spy thriller, the book was released in April and is gritty but features over-the-top dialogue and snarky humor. That’s intentional. Dudley

tells CityBeat that he wanted to parody the 1980s action movies he grew up with, like Rambo and Predator. The book has plenty of genre hallmarks: a vague South American setting, henchmen, two-dimensional villains and a troubled protagonist.

Dudley also was inspired by the Coen Brothers’ 2008 film Burn After Reading.

Like the movie, The Day the Cat Got Shot weaves together a wide cast of characters whose disparate antics eventually converge into one cohesive story.

“Burn After Reading was an inspiration in terms of, I like absurd situations and looking at them in a logical way,” Dudley tells CityBeat. “Like, what is going on?”

This line of thinking is a recurring theme in Dudley’s body of work. For example, one of Dudley’s plays, Boo Boo, which premiered at the 2016 Cincy Fringe Festival, follows a 30-year-old who lives his life as a toddler. Dudley describes the screenplay as silly with a sad, poignant end.

With more than 20 artists featured in The Day the Cat Got Shot, the finished product that can, at times, feel jarring.

Artists change every few pages, and some take over more sections than others.

Styles range from photorealistic to heavy graphic lines and childlike illustrations.

How did Dudley manage walking each artist, many of whom live across the globe, through his vision? The short

answer: emails––around 10,000, to be exact.

To prepare, Dudley compiled virtual folders for the artists, complete with his own sketches, written dialogue and action directions plus reference pictures of actors, buildings, clothes and locations that could be used for inspiration.

He also sent them illustrations from other participating artists to ensure that each character was recognizable from scene to scene. Artists sent preliminary drawings for Dudley’s feedback, and the editing process would continue until each comic panel was completed. Dudley then would add the lettering.

“I think the different styles really did complement the different stories,” Dudley says. “(The process) was mainly about always having open communication with the artists and a lot of back and forth with them having their own ideas. For me, I

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Artistic styles in the book range from photorealistic to childlike.

P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY B E N D U D L E Y

The cover of The Day the Cat Got Shot P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY B E N D U D L E Y

made sure those ideas meshed with mine and the overall story.”

The beginning of each section includes arrows with characters’ names to help readers keep track of who’s who between stylistic shifts. Artists also are credited at the start of each chapter by page number along with brief biographies in the back.

The graphic novel has its bizarre moments but often seeks to make a larger existential point about life’s purpose and humans’ interactions with one another.

One character, Eli, is directionless, letting life move through him and seeking others to lead him to his next destination rather than taking charge of his own life. There’s also the cat, Joan, which Dudley says looks like his own feline friend at home.

Joan is a constant but nonchalant observer appearing throughout the novel’s 202 black-and-white pages.

The cat, Dudley explains, ultimately represents the perspective that the book’s events are, in the end, all very absurd.

Like in Burn After Reading, Dudley’s ultimate conclusion is, well, not much of anything. The Day the Cat Got Shot serves up a nihilistic platter of screwball proportions.

“Everybody is scrambling thinking that they are heroes, and that they are the protagonist, and that they are doing important stuff,” Dudley says. “The cat is

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wandering around seeing bits of that, saying, ‘Ah, I’m bored.’ It’s just completely independent.”

A true multi-hyphenate, Dudley has worked as a teacher, writer, editor, standup comic and actor since earning his master’s in creative writing in 2012 at the University of Cincinnati. In 2013, he even had a brush with internet fame: A meowing cat named Pouncy “booped” him on the forehead. Captured in a 11-second clip titled “Interspecies Bonding,” Buzzfeed named it one of the 30 most important cat videos of 2013.

Though Dudley has written and produced over a dozen plays, The Day the Cat Got Shot marks his first graphic novel.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I’ve always wanted to be able to draw, and I’ve never been very good at it, unfortunately,” Dudley says. “There’s one page in the comic that I drew and it’s supposed to be bad, so that worked out well. I always had a lot of respect, admiration and jealousy for artists. The ability to see something and recreate it in your own style is really cool to me. I was pretty much always bowled over by what I saw when they sent me their pages.”

Dudley’s planning process dates back to 2013 when he began recruiting artists to work on the project. The same year,

MAY 18, 2022 - MAY 31, 2022

“I think the different styles really did complement the different stories,” Ben Dudley says.

P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY B E N D U D L E Y

he posted an Indiegogo campaign that raised more than $2,000 from 34 backers.

By 2018, the graphic novel was nearly complete, Dudley says.

“I’m a proofreader and editor by trade, so I would go through it with a fine-tooth comb and find any little thing I wanted to change,” Dudley says, later adding that the timeframe allowed him to update jokes and language and to think more critically. “I was tinkering with it from 2017 to 2019 or so.”

Now that his work is complete, there are still some elements Dudley wishes he could go back and change. Though he sent finished sections out to publishers, he heard that the market for graphic novels is small.

“When I was fully done around 2020, a niche market got even nicher,” Dudley says. “That’s when I looked into self-publication. When I went to grad school for

creative writing, there was a stigma about jumping publication (skipping traditional publication). I still had that with me, but I found out it was more common with graphic novels, and I really wanted to get the book out.”

Currently, the graphic novel is available at thedaythecat.com, but Dudley is looking toward getting his book into indie stores and at local comic cons.

“It was a huge relief to hold (the book) and be like, ‘Okay, my to-do list can have other stuff on it now instead of constantly adding a couple of things to the comic at any given point,’” Dudley says.

To purchase or learn more about Ben Dudley’s The Day the Cat Got Shot, visit thedaythecat.com.

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That Is So Fetch ONSTAGE

School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play is inspired by Mean Girls and tackles colorism and prejudice.

R E V I E W BY R I C K P E N D E R

School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play takes place in Ghana in 1986.

P H O T O BY M I K K I S C H A F F N E R P H O T O G R A P H Y

The chatter of high school girls about make-up, pop music, clothes and more is how Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play begins. But these are not giddy American teens: They’re adolescents enrolled at a boarding school in mountainous central Ghana in 1986.

The characters cross the spectrum: Mercy (Kayla Forde) and Gifty (Jasmine Cheri Rush) are a tag-team who often amusingly speak and move in unison to demonstrate their enthusiasm, especially for American pop star Bobby Brown. Ama (Matenin Sangare) is softer spoken and clearly an intellectual. And sweet Nana (Starnubia) lacks self-confidence because she is overweight.

Finally there’s the mean bully, arrogant Paulina Sarpong (Markia Nicole Smith), who is talented and knows it.

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She is not only confident that she can come out on top in an audition for the Miss Ghana Pageant, but she also bullies the other girls, especially Nana, who probably doesn’t have a chance.

But it’s evident that Paulina is covering up some of her own insecurity.

She naively misunderstands aspects of American culture that she speaks so confidently about, planning to wear a gown by Calvin “Klean” and admiring White Castle (“a castle with food”).

They are overseen by Headmistress Francis (veteran Cincinnati professional Burgess Byrd), who was once a student at Aburi Girls Secondary School and is stern but has a playful side. Eloise Amponsah (Patrice Bell), an uber-sophisticated alumna of Aburi and a 1966 Miss Ghana winner (as she frequently reminds everyone within

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earshot), has become a recruiter for the Miss Ghana contest. She ambitiously seeks a candidate to win the title of Miss Global Universe, a worldwide honor, in large part to expand her own fame.

Paulina’s dominant role is challenged when Ericka Boafo (Kaitlyn Boyer) arrives. She’s from America (in fact, from Ohio) and is considerably more well-versed in pop culture and style than the Ghanian girls. It’s clear that she and Paulina are on a collision course.

School Girls’ subtitle — or, the African Mean Girls Play — makes clear that

its inspiration was Tina Fey’s 2004 movie as well as the 2018 Broadway musical based on it. But Bioh’s play, which includes lots of humor and teen angst, takes it to another level, rooted in colorism and prejudice based on skin color. For example, Paulina is dark-skinned while Ericka is light-skinned and, with her American sophistication, Ericka is quickly deemed by status-seeking Eloise to have the best chance in the international contest because of her “more universal and commercial look.”

It becomes clear that Eloise was a bully

It’s a show worth seeing for the insights it provides.

Playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s parents emigrated from Ghana in 1968.

P H O T O BY M I K K I S C H A F F N E R P H O T O G R A P H Y

during her time at the school and continues to run roughshod over others to get her own way.

Following a horrendous choral rendition of Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All,” the conflict between the girls erupts and the play takes a sharp turn into an exploration of racism in a setting distinctly different from the United States.

We learn more about the prior lives of Paulina and Ericka; their stories are more complex than simple teens seeking status, with backgrounds they both are eager to escape.

Bioh’s play ends ambiguously, with the girls wondering whether it was worth the conflict.

The playwright is the daughter of parents who emigrated from Ghana in 1968. She experienced racial typecasting as a theater student at Ohio State, and her plays have explored these issues. Director Candis C. Jones has dug into what she calls in a Cincinnati Playhouse newsletter “the major socialpsychological principles of discrimination, conformity and prejudice” which affect all of these characters’ behaviors.

In the newsletter, she adds, “We rarely see how having lighter skin can be a

marker of privilege and a standard of beauty. The unspoken privilege can cause harm in Black female friendships and diminish self-worth.”

Bioh’s play does not resolve the issue, but it certainly brings it forward in a way that’s deceptively simple and cunningly inviting, couched in humor and teen banter.

There are a lot of laughs in the show’s first hour, but its final 20 minutes push home a more profound message about the corrosive impact of prejudice and discrimination.

The story ends with the girls watching the televised and perhaps-inevitable outcome of the Miss Global Universe pageant. We are right there with their disappointment for how things turn out.

It’s a show worth seeing for the insights it provides — whether you’re a schoolgirl, a mean girl or just your average theatergoer.

Bioh’s play does not resolve the issue [of colorism], but it certainly brings it forward in a way that’s deceptively simple and cunningly inviting.

School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, presented by the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (962 Mt. Adams Circle, Mt. Adams), continues through May 22. Info: cincyplay.com.

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CULTURE

Composer Jessie Montgomery Pays Tribute to Powerful Women in I Have Something to Say

BY A N N E A R E N ST E I N

Jessie Montgomery is a composer, violinist and educator.

P H O T O : J I YA N G C H E N

Cincinnati’s gem of a cultural tradition is winding down for the year.

The Cincinnati May Festival – a two-week choral celebration backed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra – concludes May 28 with a nod to joy and freedom.

The festival, which is nearly 150 years old, also will spotlight the Cincinnati premiere of I Have Something to Say

by Jessie Montgomery, an acclaimed composer, violinist and educator.

Incorporating powerful words spoken by abolitionist Sojourner Truth and climate activist Greta Thunberg, I Have Something to Say pays tribute to women speaking truth to power and challenges listeners to hear their messages.

“I like the idea of setting a political statement to music,” Montgomery says in a 2020 interview with Matthew Swanson, the May Festival’s associate director of choruses. The piece originally was scheduled for the 2020 season that was

canceled at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Cathedral Choral Society in Washington, D.C., joined the May Festival in commissioning the piece to commemorate the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. It’s Montgomery’s first composition for a large orchestra and chorus.

In a Zoom interview with CityBeat, Montgomery says that connecting past and present was a way of projecting into the future. But while researching Sojourner Truth, Montgomery made a startling discovery.

On May 29, 1851, Sojourner Truth appeared at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention held in Akron. She delivered a speech famously known as “Ain’t I a Woman,” but Montgomery says that the words most people highlight and attribute to Truth were not actually the abolitionist’s, according to some sources. The popular version was

published twelve years later by a white abolitionist who not only rewrote the speech, but also rendered it in a Southern dialect Truth never spoke, many sources say (Truth was born in New York and died in Michigan).

For her composition, Montgomery says she chose the actual words that Truth had approved for publication in 1851. Montgomery also includes thoughts from Thunberg, who spoke to the future in a no-holds-barred address to the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit.

“I knew I wanted the voice of a young woman juxtaposed with Sojourner Truth’s and I kept coming back to Greta Thunberg’s speech,” Montgomery says.

To create the text, Montgomery turned to her mother Robbie McCauley, the distinguished performance artist, writer and director.

“I’m a lot like Jessie. I read, listen and re-interpret text around scenes that

interest me,” McCauley explains in the 2020 interview with Swanson. “With Sojourner Truth, I returned to this sentence: ‘I have something to say,’ which is what she actually did say.”

“I had Greta say the same thing,” McCauley continues in that interview.

“So it shows two different generations of women opening a space for women who have something to say about vital topics.”

Montgomery says she and McCauley discussed that scenario and how Truth and Thunberg could speak across generations, with McCauley envisioning a public setting that becomes a courtroom. For Montgomery, it was especially vital and personal to have a children’s chorus sing the hopes for the future.

In her younger years, Montgomery sang in the New York City Children’s Chorus, and although she chose to pursue violin rather than voice, she says

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“I like the idea of setting a political statement to music,” Montgomery says.

P H O T O : J I YA N G C H E N

has a soft spot for children’s ensembles.

The May Festival’s Youth Chorus takes on the children’s chorus parts, and Montgomery acknowledges that there will be some adjustments made from the original writing for children’s chorus, but the voices will be young ones.

I Have Something to Say opens with orchestral improvisation that Montgomery describes as a sonic representation of a courtroom or public gathering place.

“There’s sounds of shuffling feet, rustling papers, a gavel, even fingers typing on a keyboard,” she says.

She adds that it’s clearly theatrical and even unsettling for an audience expecting clearly defined musical points of entry.

The audience will hear Truth and Thunberg singing the same melody, an effect Montgomery says creates a unified vision and a relationship between the two women. Their messages are strengthened by the large chorus repeating their words. The children’s chorus appears midway, ad-libbing and improvising until they sing as one.

I Have Something to Say premiered in March at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. May Festival Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena says the piece is full of “beautiful things, with wonderful sonorities for both chorus and orchestra.” He hears the children’s chorus as central to the piece “and quite rightly.”

“It’s so important that they’re the ones who take center stage at this point, they’re the ones who are now thinking about the future of our planet,” Mena says.

Mena adds that the experience will be much different from the National Cathedral performance.

“Our audience will [experience] a full orchestra, the full May Festival Chorus and the May Festival Youth Chorus in Music Hall, which is much larger and has a different acoustic than the

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National Cathedral,” Mena says.

Montgomery says she is eager to hear her piece in a large space and performed by a full orchestra and chorus.

“You can’t ignore a giant choir that’s singing these words!” she says.

Montgomery is working with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) for the first time, although she debuted as a composer when the CSO opened its 2020-2021 season with Banner, her acclaimed interpretation of the national anthem for string quartet and string orchestra.

“The CSO played it so tremendously,” she says.

Both Montgomery and Mena agree that I Have Something to Say has more urgency and relevance today.

“Greta Thunberg captured the attention of young people who are committed to taking care of our beautiful planet,” Mena says. “I love her words alongside those of Sojourner Truth. We still have so much to do for equality, for women’s rights, for the rights of people of color.”

Montgomery acknowledges that major changes face even more challenging obstacles. “For the sake of humanity and the planet, this message is even more present,” she says.

Sadly, McCauley never heard the finished work, dying on May 20, 2021. Her daughter calls the text “a microcosm of her aesthetic,” meshing historic events in a semi-fictional setting to challenge the listening audience.

“That’s really powerful, especially now. It will be so reaffirming to finally hear it,” Montgomery says.

I Have Something to Say is the final performance of the Cincinnati May Festival, 7:30 p.m. May 28. Music Hall, 1241 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine.

Info: cincinnatisymphony.org.

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FOOD & DRINK

Chef Jeffery Harris based Nolia on his New Orleans upbringing as well as his travels and other inspirations.

P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

Nolia Brings Elevated Southern Cuisine to Over-the-Rhine

BY S E A N M . P E T E R S

N

ew restaurant Nolia adds some Southern flair to Cincinnati’s foodie landscape. But while the restaurant serves unique dishes inspired by Chef Jeffery Harris’ upbringing in New Orleans, the fare stays authentic to the chef himself rather than to his hometown’s

traditional cuisine.

Situated in the space formerly occupied by Please (famous for its selfie-friendly bathroom and James Beard Award-winning chef’s stellar offerings) in Over-the-Rhine, the dining environment is upscale yet approachable. Nolia’s menu is stacked

with dishes like delectable smoked chicken slathered in Alabama white sauce, cider-stewed collard greens, redfish court-bouillon (pronounced co-boo-yon) and much more. All of the side dishes are vegan and, while you should not expect them to play zydeco or serve hurricane cocktails in novelty cups, the restaurant’s drink menu will truly laissez les bon temps rouler.

I meet with Harris and his team on a Thursday morning as they prepare for the evening’s dinner rush. Stock simmers on the stovetop, giving the room a savory perfume, while sous chef Stephanie Gonzalez deep-frys some rice paper — the kind used for spring rolls and the like — to make vegan chicharrónes. The exact spice blend for this dish is kept secret, but it’s reminiscent of an elevated crab boil seasoning

— similar to Old Bay, but heavier on the garlic. The one hint Gonzalez offers is powderized black eyed peas — not something you’d likely be able to just guess, but on the palate it’s uncanny.

The chicharrónes are a garnish for stewed okra with tomato, served over coarsely-ground Jimmy Red (a Southern corn varietal) grits, a simple side dish that borders on perfection. If you’re accustomed to instant grits, this is transcendental. Not a bad start to your meal.

“This whole restaurant was put together from my childhood,” Harris tells CityBeat. “Stuff that I love about my city, my hometown of New Orleans and my travels throughout the South — from Texas, to the Carolinas, to Georgia. We just tried to play on parts of the South and also give people a

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Chef Jeffery Harris wants to give diners “a reimagining of what Southern food is” at Nolia.

Nolia’s dining environment is upscale yet approachable.

P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

reimagining of what Southern food is.”

Harris also runs Jimmie Lou’s, named for his great-grandmother Jimmie Lou Green, to whom he credits his deep love for food and cooking. The menu at Jimmie Lou’s comes from the same heart and mind, but its restaurant location, inside Oakley Kitchen Food Hall, which could be compared to an upscale food court, lends itself more toward takeout for a really tasty picnic rather than Nolia’s fine dining environment that just begs you to sit at a table and savor the entire mealtime experience.

While Gonzalez works the front kitchen, chef de cuisine Nathan Penny tends to the chicken quarters smoking in the closed-off back courtyard behind the restaurant. He explains that when slow-roasting meats — especially chicken, which has particularly fatty skin that can get a bit gelatinous if cooked at a low temperature — you want to maintain the heat around 250 , or enough heat that the fat from the skin renders into crispy bliss rather than soggy leather.

The menu offers an assortment of seasonal dishes, including a raw bar filled at the moment with oysters with tasso mignonette (vinegar sauce with cured pork) and shrimp with cocktail sauce. Small plates run between the aforementioned transcendental grits with stewed okra and vegan chicharrónes, jerk fried oysters, sweet potato donuts, skillet cornbread and a country board laden with pork terrine and cured meats, cheese and seasonal pickles with toast from Allez Bakery. If you try any of the side dishes, you must

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go for the cider-stewed greens and, if you don’t drink up every last drop of the zesty braising liquor, there’s no hope for you.

“I tell all my staff there’s no ceiling, there’s no box, there’s nothing but space,” Harris says. “So how you fill that space is what’s going to become of it.

So, if we want to be great, then we’ve got to think greatly, we’ve got to think bigger than all the restaurants we’ve worked in. Like, every single person on my team, from dishwasher on up, they have a voice.”

Harris’ open-mindedness in the kitchen is indicative of a larger trend in restaurants across the globe: chefdriven culture is on the way out. Gone are the days of celebrating the tyrannical chefs in fine dining. Like many facets of life, the results are proven to be better when the leader listens to their team rather than throwing a temper tantrum at the slightest challenge (that vanity-driven culture is not erased and likely never will be, but it thankfully has diminished over the years). What’s more important than one chef’s ego?

A successful team that thrives in the workplace and is utilized to its fullest extent. While Harris must be commended for the phenomenal team he’s assembled, it seems what he’s most proud of at Nolia is the powerfully effective menu he credits to his staff.

Democracy in action.

Nolia, 1405 Clay St., Over-theRhine, noliakitchen.com.

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Nolia’s Peel-n-Eat Shrimp P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

Barbecued chicken with stewed greens and soused grapes P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

THE DISH

Recent Restaurant Openings and Closings in Greater Cincinnati

BY C IT Y B E AT STA F F

Per usual, Cincinnati’s dining scene doesn’t stay stagnant for long. Here are some recent notable restaurant openings you may have missed, plus a couple of eateries that said goodbye.

Openings GENKI RAMEN Get ready to slurp away! Japanesestyle ramen restaurant Genki Ramen now has a third location in Oakley.

The small chain’s newest spot opened April 18. Genki is expanding quickly, having opened its first Greater Cincinnati location in Mason in June 2020 and the second in West Chester in November 2021. Stop by any of the spots and choose from more than 10 different types of ramen — like the shio paitan, which consists of an enticing blend of chicken broth, kikurage mushrooms, bamboo shoots, fish cakes, a soft boiled egg and barbecue pork. 3200 Vandercar Way, Oakley, genkiramencincinnati. com. (Maggy McDonel) GIMENTII BAKING COMPANY Giminetti Baking Company is getting a new life following the announcement of its permanent closure in March after 37 years of operation. A group of local businesses — including Pompilios, KHI Food Brand and Sweet Tooth Premium Ice Cream and Candies — say that after the closure, they got together and made moves to purchase the wholesale bakery.

Mike Mazzei, a co-owner of Pompilios, says in a release that next year Pompilios will be 90 years old and the restaurant has “basically been serving Giminetti’s classic Italian white bread since they got started.” He adds that once he heard previous Giminetti’s owners Jim Ciuccio and Richard Ferguson were closing up shop, “we knew we had to find a way to keep their iconic bakery alive.”

Giminetti Baking, which is planned to be fully operational soon, will have a “customer-focused approach,” per the release from the owners. 2900 Gilbert Ave., Walnut Hills, giminetti.com. (MM) HEYDAY A new burger joint in East Walnut Hills is sizzling with promise. Hailing from the owners of O Pie O, Heyday opened in the former pie cafe location on April 6. Owner Lou Ginocchio tells CityBeat in an email that Heyday will serve a simple menu “using high-quality ingredients with employees who get

Heyday P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY H E Y D AY

Mama’s on Main P H O T O : C A I T Y V I OX F O R Z E S T C I N C Y

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the respect they deserve.” Guests can dine in or carry out flattop-smashed burgers and a side of Heyday’s unique hand-cut, dry-cured fries. Guests also can indulge in burgers and all of the fixings in the restaurant’s dining room, patio space or across the street at The Growler House, where they can order the full Heyday menu and get it delivered to their table. 1527 Madison Road, East Walnut Hills, heyday.menu. (MM) MAMA’S ON MAIN Covington’s Main Street — the heart of historically designated MainStrasse Village — boasts one of the best assortments of restaurants in Greater Cincinnati. A lion’s share of credit for that abundance goes to a restaurant group informally known as Otto’s Restaurant Family, helmed by MainStrasse residents Emily Wolff and Paul Weckman (Otto’s, Frida, The Standard, Larry’s).

The duo opened Mama’s on Main on March 4 after renovating the space formerly occupied by Commonwealth Bistro.

Mama’s folded paper menu is unpretentious, displaying a handful of offerings under each heading: Appetizers & Salads, Pastas and Entrees. The goal is to provide the neighborhood with traditional red-sauce Italian fare, starting with basic spaghetti and meatballs. Simpler dishes include popular standards such as cacio e pepe, rigatoni with vodka sauce and risotto made with artichokes and lemon. If you’d like some protein with or instead of pasta, try pork milanese, salmon piccata or chicken parmesan. Those going meatfree can enjoy eggplant parmesan.

Mama’s on Main, 621 Main St., Covington, instagram.com/mamas621cov.

(Pama Mitchell) NOLIA KITCHEN Southern-style restaurant Nolia Kitchen opened April 19, serving unique dishes inspired by chef Jeff Harris’ upbringing in New Orleans.

Situated in the space formerly occupied

by Please (famous for its selfie-friendly bathroom and James Beard Awardwinning chef ), the dining environment is upscale yet approachable, offering a menu stacked with dishes like barbecue chicken, redfish courtbouillon and Hoppin’ John. All of the side dishes are vegan and, while you should not expect them to play ragtime or serve hurricane cocktails in novelty cups, the drink menu will truly laissez les bon temps rouler, non? See the Eats feature in this week’s issue for more info. 1405 Clay St., Over-the-Rhine, noliakitchen.com.

(Sean M. Peters) SOUL SECRETS Entrepreneur Candice Holloway is bringing a taste of her grandmother’s cooking to Over-the-Rhine with Soul

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Arcade Legacy: Bar Edition P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R

Secrets, a Southern-style comfort food eatery. The fast-casual restaurant, which opened at the end of April, focuses on soul food with a menu that includes family-recipe fried chicken, fried fish, cornbread, collard greens, Hoppin’ John and mac and cheese, plus a selection of meat-free dishes like vegan salisbury steak and vegan pot pie.

Brunch will launch this summer with shrimp and grits, chicken and waffles and more.

For more than a decade, Holloway ran her own consulting firm focused on home healthcare and originally launched Soul Secrets “as a corporate catering service and way to connect with her teenage daughter,” says a release. When the pandemic hit, Holloway says she pivoted her focus away from her firm to work full-time on Soul Secrets.

“We had started doing pop-ups and we were receiving so many phone calls asking if we were open because people didn’t realize we were a catering-only business. I knew it was time to open a restaurant where we could share all our family’s recipes with anyone who wanted to try them,” she says. 1434 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, soulsecretscincy. com. (Maija Zummo) YOUYU AT HARD ROCK CASINO Patrons of Cincinnati’s Hard Rock Casino now will be able to slurp some noodles in between sessions at the slot machines. The in-house YouYu Asian street food-inspired eatery opened its doors on May 3.

According to a release, “YouYu offers Balinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese,

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Japanese and Vietnamese dishes.” The menu includes sections dedicated to sushi, noodles, wok-fried items and more. Some highlights are Korean fried chicken, bulgogi fries, brisket and beef ball pho, Chinese roast duck and wok-fried tofu and broccoli. For drinks, there’s boba milk tea, Vietnamese coffee, sake and Asian beers from Lucky Buddha, Hitachino and Sapporo.

YouYu’s chef is Daniel Binghak, who was born and raised in Bali, Indonesia, according to the release. Binghak, who went to culinary school in Singapore, previously worked at Masa in New York, Morimoto in Philadelphia and the Golden Nugget in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Hard Rock Casino, 1000 Broadway St., Pendleton, hardrockcasinocincinnati. com. (MZ)

Closings ARCADE LEGACY: BAR EDITION Fans of pinball and PBR soon will have to say goodbye to a favorite Northside haunt. Arcade Legacy announced on its Facebook page that Arcade Legacy: Bar Edition will be closing effective May 23.

But it’s not all bad news.

The gaming group says it has found a large space in Sharonville and will be relocating Bar Edition and its existing arcade in Cincinnati Mall into this spot.

Once home to Peg’s Pub, the storefront at 2241 Crowne Point Drive “is almost exactly the square footage of the Cincy Mall and Bar Edition combined,” reads the Facebook post.

“We will be keeping all business

concepts when we move,” Arcade Legacy’s post continues. “We will have the admission based all-you-can-play arcade, pinball and consoles. We will have an expanded premium pinball selection. We will have a dedicated console and event room. We will have the media store where you can buy, sell and trade. We will have food and drink.

We also have some other ideas up our sleeve and will see how they pan out.”

The team will build out the new Sharonville space, which was once a billiards and darts bar, in June and July, with a tentative reopening in September. arcadelegacyohio.com. (MZ) OTR CHILI April 13 was the last day of operation for a popular Over-the-Rhine Cincinnati chili spot. OTR Chili announced on Instagram that it was officially closing its doors. Owner Jim Cornwell wrote in the post that when his team set out to start OTR Chili, they wanted to create “the best Cincinnati chili possible” by using locally-sourced ingredients and working directly with Cincinnati-area farmers. He adds they also focused on creating the smallest environmental footprint as possible with their food.

But fans of OTR Chili shouldn’t give up hope.

“We do not believe that this is the end of the dream though,” Cornwall writes in the Instagram post, stating that his restaurant may pop up somewhere else in the city, maybe with a new name and some new faces. “We hope to see all of you again in the near future.” instagram. com/otrchili. (MM)

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MUSIC

Bright Eyes P H OTO : S H AW N B R AC K B I L L

Bright Eyes Shuffles the Deck for Upcoming Cincinnati Show Composer and pianist Nate Wolcott says the band has approached its album reissues with new perspectives.

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B

right Eyes composer/arranger/ multi-instrumentalist Nathaniel Wolcott admits the last two years have been “pretty wild.”

An extremely prolific musician, Wolcott did not sit by idly after touring came to a halt as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather, he turned his focus to The Stand soundtrack he recorded with fellow Bright Eyes member Mike Mogis. He also worked on an ambitious Bright Eyes album reissue campaign that involves the production of nine companion EPs for which the group recruited guests Waxahatchee,

Phoebe Bridgers, M. Ward and Becky Stark (of Lavender Diamond).

“Mike [Mogis] and I have been really busy,” Wolcott says via phone from Omaha, where Bright Eyes is rehearsing for a tour that will bring the band to the Andrew J Brady Music Center on June 1. “That was nine hours of music.

That certainly kept us busy that year.

Luckily, I’ve been able to work on a lot of music remotely. Last year, we were lucky enough to do a short run on the East Coast. That was really fun. It was a way to dip our toes back into the world of touring and now we’re hitting the

ground running for sure.”

“I’ve just continued to make music and record music, and we eased into the Bright Eyes EP project and are recording a lot of the material,” Wolcott continues. “We started it about a year ago. It’s been really fun and really cool.

The first couple of EPs date back to when [singer] Conor [Oberst] was just a teenager, recording on a four-track in his basement.”

Wolcott says the group has taken a “very modern perspective” to recording older Bright Eyes tunes that date back to the late ’90s.

“We think of it as turning the whole thing upside down,” says Wolcott. “It’s like if the material were written now, how would we approach the arrangement and recording. It’s an interesting process. As we get into the later material, it’s definitely fun to again turn it upside-down and approach in a completely new and different way.”

Wolcott says Bright Eyes has announced the release of the first three EPs and plans to release nine.

“We have taken totally different approaches with each one.”

A talented multi-instrumentalist, Wolcott first learned violin when he was 5, followed by piano, Suzuki piano and trumpet.

“I got really into jazz when I was a kid. I got pretty deep into that stuff. By the time I was in high school, I also just really liked the idea of playing rock music too,” Wolcott remembers. “I was lucky enough to meet some people including Mike [Mogis] when I was in high school and start recording and being in bands around that time.”

Wolcott says Lincoln is a small college town with a lot of opportunities to perform and record.

“I think I was in tenth grade when I first started going to Mike’s studio and started working on the early [indie band] Lullaby for the Working Class records. Those experiences were amazing,” Wolcott says. “It was about the time I met Conor. I remember him opening for a Lullaby show around that time. It was a cool and fertile scene and had a lot of crossover with the Omaha bands.”

Back in 2006, Bright Eyes evolved from being a Oberst project to being a band with Mogis and Wolcott as members. The shift “didn’t affect how we approached anything because we had consistently been a part of the live show

and making the records and all that stuff,” Wolcott says.

To build anticipation for the upcoming reissues, the band has released the tune “Falling Out of Love at This Volume,” a beautiful ballad that makes good use of retro-sounding synths.

“That was one of the few that had been a staple in the live show for a while,” Wolcott says. “It was almost a pretty straightforward documenting of how we had been playing it live.”

A new version of “Contrast and Compare” features vocals courtesy of Waxahatchee. It also includes some subtle pedal steel courtesy of Mogis.

“We were lucky to have Katie [Crutchfield] from Waxahatchee sing on that,” Wolcott says. “We wanted to make it different and interesting.

Rather than be guitar-based, we recorded the piano first. We wanted to involve people from the current scene and people we like and admire. Mike has got a great touch on the pedal steel for that tune.”

Wolcott describes “Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh,” a track that features Phoebe Bridgers, as a “deliberate attempt to do the song differently.”

“One of the ways we did that or achieved that goal was we had our friend Clark Baechle [founder of The Faint] program the drum beat for it,” he says. “It has a more electronic element, and that was fun.”

Wolcott says the band continues to tweak the setlist for the tour.

“We’re still figuring out how much of the EP stuff we will incorporate into the set. We are also duly focused on playing the material from the last album and adding songs from that record that we didn’t play last summer,” Wolcott says.

“The new record is tricky. There is a lot to sort out, and we have our hands full.”

Wolcott says the group has taken a “very modern perspective” to recording older Bright Eyes tunes that date back to the late ’90s.

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Bright Eyes plays the Andrew J. Brady Music Center (25 Race St., downtown) at 8 p.m. June 1. Proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID test is required for entry. Info: bradymusiccenter.com.

A version of this interview originally was published by CityBeat sister newspaper Cleveland Scene.

WWW.CITYBEAT.COM MAY 18, 2022 - MAY 31, 2022 |

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SOUND ADVICE

Tears for Fears P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY B B G U N P R E S S

Tears for Fears with Garbage May 20 • Riverbend Music Center Tears for Fears — aka singer/songwriters Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith — have written some of the best pop songs of the last four decades; sleek, immaculately produced tunes that dominated 1980s radio and remain staples to this day. Check out “Mad World,” “Shout,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and “Sowing the Seeds of Love” for proof.

The duo met as teenagers in Bath, England, in the late 1970s and began making music full of Beatles-esque harmonies, angsty lyrics and moody, era-defining synthesizers. They formed Tears for Fears in 1981 and released a trio of albums (1983’s The Hurting, 1985’s Songs from the Big Chair and 1989’s The Seeds of Love) that topped the charts and helped make MTV a cultural juggernaut.

The rapid success — the guys were all of 24 years old when Songs from the Big Chair hit No. 1 across the world — took its toll. Dissatisfied with his role as “the

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guy in Tears for Fears,” Smith left the band in 1991. Orzabal and Smith didn’t speak again until 2000, eventually reuniting to release Everybody Loves a Happy Ending in 2004. And now, 18 years later, Tears for Fears is back with The Tipping Point, an intriguing, quasiconcept album about growing old and seeing things from a markedly different angle four decades removed from the duo’s best-known work.

“If you’re going to be doing this when you’re 60, it seems criminal to do the same thing that you used to do when you were 19,” Orzabal said in an interview with Variety earlier this year. “Have you not learned anything? And I think this is, for me, the beauty of this album.

You’ve got people coming to terms with themselves, coming to terms with each other through a relatively — relatively — at times turbulent relationship. And also people who, as artists, are keen to share our perspective on the world: how we see it, not coming from a position on the left or a position on the right, but trying to spread education, information

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and awareness to try and make the world, dare I say, a better place.”

The show begins at 7:30 p.m. More info: tearsforfears.com. (Jason Gargano)

Miranda Lambert with Little Big Town and The Cadillac Three

May 22 • Riverbend Music Center Miranda Lambert has been there for me since, well, practically the very beginning. It’s always felt like each of her albums has landed right when it was needed, as if this musical twin flame was going through all the same crap I went through. From striking out on our own (“Mama, I’m Alright”) and then missing home (“The House That Built Me”) to second chances (“Pushin’ Time”) and trying to decide what to do with yourself (“Settling Down”), Lambert has single-handedly soundtracked the last two decades of my life and has even become part of my little girl’s life soundtrack (her favorite part of “Tequila Does” is singing, “They’re all

hat, no cattle”).

Lambert’s latest album, Palomino, still fits that relatable, heart-stirring bill while reaching something Lambert has seemed to grab at throughout her career. Palomino finds Lambert at her peak in the Outlaw Country genre. The first single, “If I Was A Cowboy,” is only just a tease of what the new release offers. “Carousel” offers something akin to “Pancho And Lefty” (Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard), while “Actin’ Up” And “Wandering Spirit” remind listeners once more of Lambert’s own wild, outlaw heart.

Are either one of us riding a painted Palomino off into the sunset anytime soon? Nah. But, maybe a tour bus and a hatchback are close enough.

The show begins at 7 p.m. More info: mirandalambert.com. (Deirdre Kaye)

Miranda Lambert P H OTO : B ROA D BA N D ITO, F L I C K R

The Smashing Pumpkins with BONES UK

May 27 • Promowest Pavilion at OVATION While it may not be the “cool” answer these days, The Smashing Pumpkins remains the only answer for many Xennials. Need to channel your inner teenager? Smashing Pumpkins. Need to ride around I-275 and dwell on your misfortunes? Smashing Pumpkins.

Need to just escape into some tunes and forget about literally anything else existing? Pumpkins. They boast eleven studio albums covering a range of topics, mostly related to frontman Billy Corgan’s love and trauma, so there are songs for any vibe you’re feeling… even if you’re just looking to get a little nostalgic.

That collection of tunes is about to grow yet, again. It was recently announced that a new album wasn’t just in the works, but in the can and ready for release. The Pumpkins’ last album, Cyr, was well-received by fans, and many are hoping for a part two.

That will surely be exactly what they’ll

get, too.

Don’t let Corgan’s hard work recording, touring, and managing a tea shop fool you, though — he still has time to pick a battle or two, most recently addressing rumors that his voice was failing. During a Memphis show, Corgan gave both a literal and figurative middle finger to the very idea, letting out a primal growl during a live version of “X.Y.U.” Oh, Billy, your ruffled feathers are part of your charm.

Check in on your favorite rock star’s “failing voice” or just swoon over drummer Jimmy Chamberlin’s forearms when the Pumpkins play their first show at OVATION this month.

Doors open at 6 p.m. More info: smashingpumpkins.com. (DK)

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Shari Kelly-Burrows Shelly Woodward Sherrie Kinderdine Sophie Wean Stephen Kuntz Stephen Sauer Steven Magas Stu Mcculloch Tammy Richardson Tara Keesling Teresa Brolley Thomas Hastings Thomas Scanlon Tiffany Vitagliano Tim Shumrick Timmy Broderick Timothy Dewald Timothy Reeder Tom Allen Tom Woodall Travis Gysegem Troy Brumley Tyler Waddell Vasilios Antoniadis Victoria Brink Vyronika Raevyn Wanda Nichols Zane Lesko

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