I met with two of the organizers of GRRRL’s Rock Columbus Music & Creative Arts Camp Mickey Mocnik and Marlena Bowen last week to learn about this amazing opportunity for Central Ohio girls. Mocnik spoke on the values of the GRRRL’s Rock Camp, “Building confidence in girls and musical expression. Giving them a space to take creative risks. Fostering an environment where what we do is more important than how we look. Supporting each other. Working together. Instilling values that I don’t think we get growing up as girls.” Mocnik’s band Nervosas just toured America successfully and has received adulation from DIY mainstay publication Maximum Rock N Roll. Mocnik is the product of an Athen’s Rock Camp which wasn’t a GRRRL’s Rock camp but still an example of what happens when there are outlets for people to assert themselves available. GRRRL’s Rock Columbus Music & Creative Arts Camp will provide workshops, lessons, band forming, lunchtime concerts and rocking out for girls, and gender variant youth ages 12-18 at the Methodist Church located at 82 E. 16th Ave Columbus, Ohio. The camp will be held August 3rd-10th.

I have three main claims to fame, such as they are: 1) Jeff Beck, the English superstar guitar player, once sought me out and hugged me on his tour bus after a local show because of a scathing Kenny G review I wrote many moons ago. He even read parts of it to me from his computer. Guess he really liked it. Then we talked shit about Eric Clapton. 2) Joan Jett once winked at me from the LC pavilion stage as she was performing. I was in the photo pit taking pics, wearin' my new groovy Puerto Rican race track hat. But she clearly winked at me. Me. Not my hat. Me. Well, maybe my hat. Ladies love a man in a sharp-dressed hat, to paraphrase ZZ Top. I felt all kinds of special all over. I winked back and then licked my eyebrows, my customary return of salutation, here and in Puerto Rico. And that was that. Never heard from her again. Sigh. 3) G. Love was in my record store the day of one of his shows at the Newport. We bonded over a sweet vintage double-LP John Lee Hooker album I'd brought in from my own collection which he bought. That night, again in the photo pit, he saw me and nodded affirmatively, clearly acknowledging my humble shutter-bugged presence. But no wink. Coowell!

I’ve written before about the mess that is today’s DC Comics. Since relaunching all their comics three years ago this September under the “New 52” heading, they’ve been the subject of constant news stories about over-the-top exploitative art, blatantly gimmicky events even for the comics industry, and creators chafing and leaving under unreasonable editorial demands. Marvel is even taking potshots in the theaters by announcing that Captain America 3 will open the same weekend as the upcoming Superman/Batman movie. So what’s the latest bad news? And is it a sign that DC editorial just isn’t even trying anymore? This time it’s the news that September solicits for DC’s comics – the list publishers put out to give comic shops information about what’s available to order – are all about an event called “Future’s End.” What’s been revealed about “Future’s End?” Well, apparently the most important thing about it is there will be lenticular covers and new #1 issues. There are some words about a story that flashes forward five years into the future, but that doesn’t seem to matter that much because no creative teams are listed for any of the books.

Back when “tin soldiers and Nixon” were “cutting us down” in 1970, a group of Ohio State University students and campus activists started an underground newspaper in Columbus. Driven mostly by the murder of four students at Kent State – Allison Krause, Jeff Miller, Sandy Scheuer and Bill Schroeder – shot during a demonstration that was opposing President Nixon’s illegal attack on Cambodia and the Vietnam War, the Columbus Free Press was born. Not surprisingly, the Free Press was the first western newspaper to expose Cambodia’s killing fields thanks to international law professor John Quigley’s reporting from Southeast Asia. In the first issue of the Free Press, the October 11, 1970 issue, a Free Press opinion attacked a special grand jury’s decision not to indict Ohio National Guardsmen for the Kent State killings. The Free Press wrote at the time: “The jury conveniently disregarded the FBI report which stated that the guardsmen were not ‘surrounded,’ that they had tear gas, contrary to claims of guardsmen following the shooting.”