Local
Image
When the Temptations pull into Columbus on Thursday, Otis Williams will be continuing to keep a promise he made to former bandmate Melvin Franklin some 50 years ago. When the two were teenagers, Williams and Franklin vowed they’d remain a part of the Temptations as long as they could perform.
Even after Franklin died in 1995, Williams has remained with the group through a series of changes.
“We made a pact when we were teenagers we were going to do what we loved and we weren’t going to let anyone stop us,” says Williams, the last remaining Temptation for the Motown super group. “We’re a small microcosm of the people who get to do what they love to do (for a living). A lot of people on this earth can’t say that. You take that as a special thing and you treat it as such.”
The current alignment of the group, Williams, Ron Tyson, Terry Weeks, Joe Herndon, and Bruce Williamson, will perform 8 p.m. Thursday at the Jeanne B. McCoy Community Center for the Arts (100 W. Dublin-Granville Rd. in New Albany).
In all Williams has seen 20 other members come and go through the Temptations.
Image
The roll call of U.S. Sailors who say their health was devastated when they were irradiated while delivering humanitarian help near the stricken Fukushima nuke is continuing to soar.
So many have come forward that the progress of their federal class action lawsuit has been delayed. Petitions on their behalf are now circulating worldwide at www.nukefree.org and elsewhere.
Bay area lawyer Charles Bonner says a re-filing will wait until early February to accommodate a constant influx of sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and other American ships.
Within a day of Fukushima One’s March 11, 2011, melt-down, American “first responders” were drenched in radioactive fallout.
Image
The band's picture on the flyer turned me off: I smelled Stone Temple Pilots.
The dead-on angle of the lead singer whispered 'Scott Wyland' which in my world is a term for “asshole.” Besides the face, the vest too bespoke of one of the worst lead singers in American fool's gold history.
Oddly, both the fellows to the right of him also struck more than a sliver of a STP/Scott-Arseland chord.
Wow--three STP clones in one band. Memo to me: avoid.
Then a couple of dudes of whom I have musical respect expressed enthusiasm for the flyer-ed band's upcoming Friday night gig at Woodlands Backyard. On occasion I listen to people.
So I went.
Verdict: unfuckingbelievable!
The Jim Jones Revue, from England, last weekend, was the single best rock'n'roll show I've seen in recent or even distant memory. I was naturally high for three days.
To paraphrase the socialist douche bag/rock critic Jon Landau who taught Bruce Springsteen how to read by tearing his Marvel comics out of his hands and shoving “Das Kapital” down his blowhard north Jersey throat: I have seen the past, the present and the future of rock'n'roll--and it is monsoon-like sweaty, Betty.
And redemptive.
Image
President Obama should know that his silence in regards to the military industrial complex is a betrayal of the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 exactly one year after, to the day, he profoundly indicted U.S. militarism. Obama unleashed the same militarism in his so-called Afghanistan surge. King's Silence is Betrayal speech, given at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967, denounced a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift.
In the middle of the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, the lack of a Green New Deal and jobs programs that make the U.S. less energy dependent are leading to imperial folly in Central Asia. Obama's popularity erodes as he embraces the same militaristic policies that destroyed President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.
Dear Lady Monster,
I masturbate a few times a day and am still ready to have sex a few more times. Sometimes I either don't have time or forget, but when I'm inspired, watch out! Does this make me a sex addict?
Love,
Once More Into The Breeches
Dear Once More,
In my opinion, sex addiction should be seen as other addictions are.
It's not about the amount of sex you're having (masturbation, intercourse, oral, etc), it's your emotions around the behavior.
Here are few questions to ask yourself:
1. “Is this a habit or an addiction?”
Do you know the difference? Simply stated, a habit is a choice, an addiction is a compulsion. If it's a habit, you can make the choice to stop. If it's an addiction, it is beyond voluntary control. You will need outside help to make the transition from these behaviors.
2. “Am I ready to admit that I have a problem?” Are you in denial or are ready to admit that you need help? There are a list of symptoms and signs of addiction. Most common are to consider, how does your behavior affect your life? Do you feel compelled? Do you relinquish your duties, responsibilities, social engagements, relationships in order to feed your cravings?
3.
Apeks Supercritical hosted the Ohio Rights Group for a tour of its facilities at 14381 Blamer Road in Johnstown, Ohio, on Saturday, January 11, 2014. Immediately following the tour, Apeks Supercritical President and military service veteran Andy Joseph presented the Ohio Rights Group with a check for a pledged donation of $10,000. The purpose of this pledge is to spur similar donations, with the goal of obtaining at least nine others to match it for a total of $100,000. The Ohio Rights Group will largely use the funds to hire disabled and out-of-work veterans to gather signatures for the proposed Ohio Cannabis Rights Amendment. Lincoln Horsley of cureyourowncancer.org also presented the ORG with a $1,000 donation.
Apeks Supercritical designs, builds, tests and refines subcritical and supercritical CO2 botanical oil extraction systems, used in part for the extraction of these oils from cannabis and hemp in order to create concentrates for medicinal use.
As a result of the growing demand for cleaner and safer oil extraction methods, Apeks Supercritical generated $3.2M in revenue for 2013, representing an increase of 250 percent over 2012 revenue.
The Problem
Over forty years after the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision established abortion to be a constitutional right, the state of Ohio has begun to deny women their ability to exercise it. Three abortion clinics were shuttered in 2013, with more facing closure soon. Within the span of a few years, access may be virtually nonexistent.
Toledo is likely to be the first major metropolitan area in the state without an abortion provider.
One clinic, Capital Care Network, has received orders to shut down and remains open pending a hearing with the Ohio Department of Health. Their chances of remaining open after the hearing are slim to none, although the move has bought some time.
The other clinic, the Center For Choice, closed in June after operating for thirty years. It had survived constant harassment, anthrax scares and even being firebombed. It could not, however, survive the smothering bureaucracy thrust onto it by a state government determined to scale back women's rights by half a century.
The Process
The systematic dismantling of abortion access in Ohio has been an ongoing project of the Republican-led state legislature for some time.
Image
Concerned residents of the Village of Yellow Springs held a community forum to better understand and discuss the merits of a proposed $1 million bond issue to support infrastructure for a business park on the edge of that storied Ohio town. The proposed “Center for Business and Education” has been in the works for more than a decade, and has drawn public funding for private development through a non-official community development corporation with strong ties to the village government and a small group of local business interests. A group of residents have aligned themselves to fight public funding for the project through a ballot referendum should a bond issue be passed. The group is concerned that a small number of well-connected residents stand to profit from the development while the public assumes the up front cost risks as debt.
About 50 village residents gathered to hear local commercial real estate professionals give a overall negative forecast for the profitability of the project.
Image
Issa Israel broke down for me the vision of Dirty Triff:
“It was a term I coined while making music with B-Banga. I wanted to use a word to describe the lifestyle that I felt that the young artists of the city were going through while trying to get their art out there.”
Issa continued, “I didn’t want to use cliché words like club kids or other words that are used to describe that lifestyle. I used Dirty 'cause when you think of dirty, you think of raw. I chose trifling because it's the same thing but even nastier. Something that society looks at as the bottom. It's the lifestyle of any medium whether it's models, promoters or graffiti artists. That whole lifestyle of just wanting to put your artwork out.”
Saturday’s Dirty Triff installment dubbed “Cometh Thy Children of the Night” will include some friends Issa has made since moving to New York City.
Dirty Triff is bringing in WestGay party promoter B. Ames. Issa describes B. Ames as “a phenomenal, voguey drag-artist.” B. Ames has made mixes for RuPaul’s Drag Race and has also done remixes for Alyssa Edwards from the aforementioned reality show.
Image
Over the holiday week I sat down via Facebook to catch up with Columbus’s #1 BB Girl, the comic book and performance artist Left Handed Sophie. We discussed the internet, gender evolution and the super hero within everyone.
AJ. What kind of art you do?
LHS: I consider my art sincere modern pop art, my foundation is cartooning and performance art which I consider very similar. I also incorporate the social network as a medium which i think is exciting and new, all to create an aesthetic I call "Left Handed Sophie." I see it as almost a multimedia mythology.
AJ. Who is Left Handed Sophie?
LHS: She's The Albino Queen of The Jungle, which has multiple meanings, but basically she's a young girl with advance psychic abilities who's been under surveillance her whole life by a shadow government who specializes in creating superhumans. They abduct her and attempt to harness her energy, she escapes and uses what she's learned against them becoming a super-heroine by transforming to an adult "super version" of herself...that's basically who she is.
AJ. How long have you been making this character?
LHS: I’ve had her in my head for about 10 years now.
AJ.