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When Ben Folds performs with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra April 9 at the Ohio Theater, the acerbic singer/songwriter will be making his second stop in six months and his fourth such visit since 2013 to the Capital City. Those who saw his Nov. 14 show at Express LIVE will most likely be in for a totally different experience. And that show was different from the 2014 concert at Columbus Bicentennial Park or the one he gave with the Ben Folds Five in 2013 at the Lifestyles Community Pavilion.

In a telephone interview from New York, Folds said that aspect is one of the many things he enjoys about his career.

“That whole 360 life thing makes me happy,” said Folds who was a judge on NBC’s acapella singing competition show THE SING OFF from 2009-2013. “I can go do an NBC television show, walk off that stage and walk onto another and play ‘Bitches Ain’t Shit’ by Dr. Dre, then go play with an orchestra, and then do a chat roulette gig. I dig that.

Just as I love America but Americans not so much, so it is with music and musicians.

Case in point: went to a Columbus Symphony show Saturday night and the two main dudes never showed up. Neither Tony "Big Fish" Dvorak or Franz "Hot Panz" Hadyn bothered coming to their own show, the ingrates.
 

Heard they were on Bill Clinton's friend's Lolita Express, partying with babes one-one-hundreth their age. Or maybe they were in rehab? I got in by claiming I was Barb Zuck's personal yoga trainer. That's the kind of night it was.
 

Thus it was a hastily-called crack pick-up band of chicks'n'dudes string players ripped from the bosoms of a number of Franklin County's lucrative if somnambulistic weekend rest home tour gigs around Franklin County were slapped together by an equally hastily-flown-in 'guest' conductor named Robert "Howdy Doody" Moody.
 

A few weeks ago, an acquaintance handed me a CD of his high school aged son's band, apparently with the wildly misguided notion that I have contacts in the music industry. He followed up a week or so later, and I gave it a quick guilty spin in my car before calling him back to tell him it was actually pretty creditable. I mean, most of the lyrics appeared to be riffs on a killer house party in Bexley last summer, but the band could play and it sounded professional quality.  

Where was this when I was in high school? In the summer of 1995, my senior year, I had a Yamaha MT120 4-track recorder, the purchase of which had nearly bankrupted me, a collection of RadioShack microphones and an ever dwindling supply of cassette tape on which I made horrific basement demos. My band was so bad I don't even remember our name (Bohemian Snowbeast maybe?), but that didn't stop us from mailing tapes to every record label under the sun.  

The first time I can remember talking to Correy Parks was directly after a #BlackLivesMatter march took over High Street from Goodale Park in route to the Columbus Police Headquarters. The intent of the protest was to deliver a letter demanding a Civilian Review Board to monitor Law Enforcement misconduct.

This was in Late November of 2014. It made the news as people taking over a major road and then crowding the circumference of the Police Headquarters would.

Here we are in Spring of 2016. I've always been curious what happened from that.

I met up with Correy for this article last week to talk about his newest album, “The Road Less    Traveled.” which takes it's name from a Vermont Poet Laurette Robert Frost writing about perseverance.

Currently, Correy is perhaps the most buzzing new rapper in Columbus. He was named to the Alive's Bands to Watch. He has been packing venues throughout town. The single for “On Our Way” (featuring Yogi Split) has gotten the attention of national press outlets.

(At press time, he was just featured on MTV.com.)

What would turn a happy, fun-loving dad into an eternal grouch? As far as filmmaker Jen Sanko is concerned, the culprit is Rush Limbaugh.

Sanko makes her case against Limbaugh and other purveyors of right-wing rage in The Brainwashing of My Dad, one of 16 films featured in the Gateway Film Center’s upcoming Documentary Week. (See schedule below.)

As demonstrated by the family’s home movies, Sanko’s father, Frank, was a joy to be around when she was growing up. In his later years, however, he discovered Limbaugh and became a perpetually pissed-off “dittohead.”

Frank even moved out of his wife’s bedroom so he could listen to the commentator’s rants well into the night. Eventually, he added Fox News and various websites to his daily diet of conservative vitriol.

Deciding a film was the best way to investigate her father’s metamorphosis, Sanko started a Kickstarter campaign to raise the necessary funds. The response surprised her. Along with money, strangers offered stories of their own family members who had been changed by right-wing media.

Condado is taking the Short North by storm with the best selection of tasty vegan taco options ever seen (by me anyway) in this part of the country. Thai Chili Tofu, Portabella Mushrooms (standards) Hominy and Jackfruit (specials) have been featured plant proteins. Exotic toppings such as jicama cabbage slaw, pineapple salsa and all vegan and gluten-free options are clearly marked. According to owner Joe Khan, other socially just considerations are that they use recycled/unbleached paper towels, and recycle all the cardboard products. No Styrofoam! Another awesomeness; the only things that are fried in the fryer are the chips, taco shells, and the Thai Chili Tofu, so you can safely indulge in the full Monty and have no risk of being unpleasantly surprised by the cross-contamination tastes and smells of fish or other animals.

Two weeks before the Ohio primary, OSU head football coach Urban Meyer was having none of that endorsement stuff. He said he was not going to run that play.

Coach Meyer had been burned in 2013 when he apparently was pressured by Columbus' big money dilberts to endorse the Columbus school levy. The tax measure went down in the flames.

Bad play. Don't run it again, coach.

Meyer may have stuck to that playbook until Donald Trump said at a rally in early March that Meyer had “said good things about him (Trump).” Trump did not claim an endorsement but the implication that Ohio's most popular public figure was in Trump's corner was inescapable.

That was back when the pride of central Ohio's big money dilberts, Gov. John Kasich, was scrambling to keep what was left of his loss-ridden presidential campaign alive by winning Ohio. But Kasich was trailing Trump in public opinion polls in advance of the state's March 15 GOP primary.

Kasich promised to drop out if he did not win Ohio's primary so the pressure was great on Ohio's absentee governor to win his home state.

After increasing pressure from North Campus residents, the high-end apartment developer behind The View on Pavey Square has drawn up another redesign. The developers said while previous designs were a mismatch, this new design complements Pavey Square, which is arguably one of the city’s most historically organic and visually distinct areas. Some of the North Campus activists, or the group Protect Old North, say this is another victory considering the developer, JSDI Celmark, has come back with several redesigns in response to their push back.

Some with Protect Old North have told The Columbus Free Press their position has always been that all development plans follow the University Area Plan, which calls for a maximum height of 45-feet for this area of High Street.

But does their position truly protect North Campus?

In a functioning democracy, all residents of a community should have an equal say in decisions that affect the entire community. But this hasn’t been happening in the Near East Side, Short North, Weinland Park, University District, and other Columbus neighborhoods.

With the blessing of a city government that is friendly to gentrification, developers and wealthy property owners have been on a frenzy of redevelopment in these areas — tearing down family homes and historic buildings to make room for luxury housing. Soaring housing costs in these neighborhoods have forced thousands of low- and middle income residents out of their homes.