Arkansas Times by Arkansas Times

ARKANSAS’S SOURCE FOR NEWS, POLITICS AND ENTERTAINMENT ■ JUNE 1, 2011

www.arktimes.com

MAN FIRE ON

STUNTMAN AND DIRECTOR HAL NEEDHAM HEADLINES THE

LITTLE ROCK FILM FESTIVAL, WHERE MORE THAN 100 FILMS WILL SCREEN. PAG E 1 0

THE INSIDER Money troubles

n Jason Meier, one of the developers of the proposed Sterling Center downtown, the focus of an article in last week’s Arkansas Times, was charged in March with forgery in the second degree and felony theft of property, the Times has learned. His case is pending in Pulaski Circuit Judge Leon Johnson’s court; plea and arraignment are sent for June 7. According to Sherwood police, Meier wrote 36 checks totaling $58,521 on the Zimmerman Motorcars account for deposit into his account. He’d been hired at Zimmerman to create a computer system for the business. The report said that the checks were made over the signature of John Zimmerman, but Zimmerman says the signature was not his. Meier declined to discuss the specifics of the charges. But he said his lawyer is working on getting the dispute transferred to civil court. His planned Capitol Avenue development? He said if he was sure he faced a criminal trial “I wouldn’t be pursuing what I’m pursuing.” RELATED CORRECTION: Restaurateur Donnie Ferneau, mentioned in the article as a potential participant in the Sterling development, said he had no connection with the project and planned to have no connection with it.

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n Charles Nestrud, one of the attorneys for the Hempstead County Hunting Club, which has been fighting to stop construction on the John W. Turk coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County, says SWEPCO is trying to complete construction on the plant before the matter is settled before the state Public Service Commission or the Arkansas Supreme Court. “I think that’s been their plan from the start,” Nestrud said. The state Supreme Court ruled last week that the hunting club had not exhausted all avenues to appeal the plant’s approval before the state Public Service Commission. SWEPCO has continued to build the plant despite a couple of earlier adverse court rulings. Will the hunting club go back to the PSC? “I think everybody’s looking at their options right now to see what our next move will be,” Nestrud said.

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Smart talk

Contents

New meters to run on sun n Two Little Rock city officials attended a parking meter conference in Pittsburgh — surely one of the least sexy junkets in the U.S. — last week to inspect first-hand solar-powered meters being considered for the River Market district. President Clinton Avenue — which has a two-hour parking limit — “has basically become a parking lot,” Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau COO Jim Rice said. Traffic enforcement officers must now chalk tires to keep track of time parked. Area businesses want better enforcement. Rice said the meters, which take cash or credit cards, are the “newest and the greatest on the market in other cities.” Only one of the solar-powered meters is required per block, an aesthetic advantage, and they don’t require power. They issue a receipt, which the parker puts on his car dashboard to indicate when his time expires. The meters cost between $6,000 and $8,000 apiece, more than conventional electronic meters, but fewer are required. Rice said the city will need only eight to 10, rather than 30 of the per-space meters; they’ll put out requests for bids.

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n The city has decided that the five solar-powered compacting trash receptacles you may have seen around were not worth their $4,000 price tag. The cans can hold five times the amount of trash as non-compacting cans and reduce the need for pickup. (Regular trash cans that you see on street corners cost more than you might think, around $600 or $700.) Although the trash cans have met huge success in larger cities like Philadelphia, Little Rock Recycling Coordinator Melinda Glasgow says they’re probably better suited for parks. “They keep critters out and trash doesn’t blow everywhere and make a mess,” she says. “Maybe the Parks Department would be interested in using them.”

8 Cell count How many mobile phones do state employees use? — By Gerard Matthews

10 Film feast NOT REALLY: Nellums and Clark.

Dumb and Dumber n On May 20, Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley released a report on what he said was a scheme between Little Rock School Board member Tim Clark, Mills High principal Michael Nellums, and Nellums’ neighbor Ervin Bennett to set up fellow school board member Gwen Williams in a video that made it appear she had accepted a bribe. He’s innocent, Clark claims, never talked to Bennett about setting up Williams and “will make every effort” to clear his name. No charges will be filed, because dumb apparently ain’t illegal yet, but the prosecuting attorney’s file that backs up Jegley’s report reads like a James Bond parody, including a cloak-and-dagger gas-station money drop of $2,500 concealed in a Ritz Cracker box, a hastily-scribbled phone script Bennett said Clark gave him during a clandestine meeting at Cheers restaurant in Maumelle and an audio tape Clark made during a meeting with a mysterious man he said he knew only as “Irv” on University Ave. The audio recording of that meeting, made after Clark knew investigators were digging into the matter, starts and stops 13 times in the course of under five minutes of tape, with the uncut parts coincidentally containing instances of Clark imploring “Irv” to tell the truth about what he knows about the case. It’s clear from the beginning that Clark is no master of international espionage, with the tape starting like this: UNKNOWN: “Is that thing on?” TIM CLARK: “Yes. I mean, no. It’s not on. It’s off. Why?” For lots more information on the case, browse our May 24 digest of the prosecutor’s file at arktimes.com/dumbanddumber.

Our guide to the festival includes our picks for best bets, a profile on pioneering stuntman and director Hal Needham and the complete festival schedule. — By Arkansas Times Staff

24 The South

rises again

The film ‘Slow Southern Steel’ documents the Bible Belt metal scene. — By Lindsey Millar

DEPARTMENTS 3 The Insider 4 Smart Talk 5 The Observer 6 Letters 7 Orval 8-21 News 22 Opinion 24 Arts & Entertainment 41 Dining 43 Crossword/ Tom Tomorrow 54 Lancaster

Words n “Staffers have noticed that both Obama and Hillary are methodical, secure and human-scale when you talk to them; they’re deductive thinkers who drill down into a problem. The former president, by contrast, is discursive, needy, and largerthan-life; he’s an inductive thinker with a connective mind.” Until fairly late in the 20th century, needy meant “impoverished, broke.” That’s the only definition given in my old Random House Unabridged. Today, needy has acquired a second meaning, and Merriam-Webster Online lists that one too: “marked by want of affection, attention or emotional support.” So I get the needy part, but I’m still uncertain about the rest of that description of Bill Clinton. The adjective discursive is a troublesome word. It has two dissimilar meanings. One is “passing aimlessly from 4 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

Doug S mith doug@arktimes.com

one subject to another; digressive; rambling.” The other is “proceeding by reasoning or argument rather than intuition.” I think the writer had Rambling Bill Clinton in mind – you know how he goes on sometimes – but I imagine the former president would object to being called “aimless,” and instead thinks of himself as “proceeding by reasoning.” And while this is not the writer’s fault, I always have to look up deductive and inductive. Induction is “any form of reasoning in which the conclusion, though supported by the premises, does not fol-

low from them necessarily.” Deduction is a form of reasoning “in which a conclusion follows necessarily from the premises presented, so that the conclusion cannot be false if the premises are true.” I think our writer was saying that Clinton is more of a free-wheeling thinker than his wife and President Obama, more likely to draw inferences. Obama and Hillary Clinton are Holmesians, the writer seems to be saying, while Bill Clinton is more like Dr. Watson. n Another misplaced qualifier: “30 killed as Syrian forces reportedly fire on crowds.” And how many were killed if the forces didn’t fire? Make it “30 reportedly killed” ... That’s the important point, and from that position, “reportedly” can be read as applying to the rest of the sentence too.

VOLUME 37, NUMBER 39 ARKANSAS TIMES (ISSN 0164-6273) is published each week by Arkansas Times Limited Partnership, 201 East Markham Street, 200 Heritage Center West, P.O. Box 34010, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72203, phone (501) 375-2985. Periodical postage paid at Little Rock, Arkansas, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ARKANSAS TIMES, P.O. Box 34010, Little Rock, AR, 72203. Subscription prices are $42 for one year, $78 for two years. Subscriptions outside Arkansas are $49 for one year, $88 for two years. Foreign (including Canadian) subscriptions are $168 a year. For subscriber service call (501) 375-2985. Current single-copy price is 75¢, free in Pulaski County. Single issues are available by mail at $2.50 each, postage paid. Payment must accompany all single-copy orders. Reproduction or use in whole or in part of the contents without the written consent of the publishers is prohibited. Manuscripts and artwork will not be returned or acknowledged unless sufficient return postage and a self-addressed stamped envelope are included. All materials are handled with due care; however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for care and safe return of unsolicited materials. All letters sent to ARKANSAS TIMES will be treated as intended for publication and are subject to ARKANSAS TIMES’ unrestricted right to edit or to comment editorially.

FOR INFORMATION OR SUBSCRIPTIONS CALL 501-375-2985

This weekend, we wanted to stay as far away from Riverfest as humanly possible, so we took a small trip to the southwestern corner of the state to visit some family. When we returned on Monday, we heard all kinds of reports on the music festival from our friends who braved the crowds to attend. Some were good. Others weren’t that great. But one story we heard topped them all. Some friends of The Observer were headed to Riverfest early Sunday afternoon. On their way past the Peabody Hotel, they noticed a momma duck and five baby ducks contemplating crossing the busy street in front of the hotel. Thinking that this was an accident waiting to happen, and being the animal lovers that they are, our friends started grabbing up the baby ducks. Although they didn’t know for sure, our friends had surmised that these ducks had grown tired of working at the Peabody, doing their daily marches to and from the water fountain in the hotel lobby, and were trying to escape. According to our friend, the momma duck flew away, never to be seen again. After the five baby ducks had been corralled, one of our friends walked inside the Peabody to find help. An employee came out with a cardboard box for the little duckies to call home until they could be returned to a more suitable environment. The ducks, as it turned out, did not belong to the hotel, but the employees were glad to help. Five more ducklings were also rescued from underneath a nearby grate on the street. Comforted that the ducks were now safe from being tromped upon by music festival goers or flattened by an oncoming car, our buddies proceeded on to Riverfest. Later that evening, they went by the Peabody to check on the ducks. The Duck Master was there and said the hotel had called their duck breeder, who came to rescue the ducklings. He said they were old enough to make it without their fleeing mother and that everyone would be under great care, and have plenty of room, on the breeder’s farm. The Duck Master then took our friends to the hotel gift shop and rewarded them all with souvenir rubber duckies.

For

Memorial

Day,

The

Observer went out to our aunt’s palatial spread out in the country, which we’re sure was placed here on earth simply to help us remember that there’s a God and He wants good things for us. It’s several acres of green grass and trees, with a pool in the middle of it, a nearby refrigerator perpetually stocked with beer, sodas and those long, skinny popsicles in plastic sleeves — the kind you used to eat as a kid. Nearby is a big grill that seems to be always smoking. This weekend, it was barbecued beef brisket, brats and grilled peppers and onions. Like we said: Good Things. Our auntie’s house is situated in a long valley, under the flyway for the Little Rock Air Force Base. All summer the C-130s come in low and turn in the blue sky over the pool. Floating on your back in the water, they don’t look quite real, up there with the cotton ball clouds and the birds. Could there be a better place to spend a holiday? Not on this continent, we suspect. The smell of chlorine, coconut-scented sunblock, beer and slowly-cooking beast haunch. This is summer. The Observer says: Welcome back, old friend.

The tornadoes up in Missouri and right here in the Natural State have us thinking of the old days a lot. We grew up in a farmhouse on a hill in Saline County. Ma Observer — whose grandparents had once had their house scraped clean to the foundations by a twister — was terrified of storms, so one of our first purchases when we moved in was a ’Fraidy Hole. The storm shelter wasn’t much more than a concrete box with an iron door, buried into the side of the hill. A flight of steel stairs led down into the earth. Whenever the weatherman said there was a tornado in the vicinity, off we’d go: Pa, our two brothers, Ma and the dogs, all into the hole. It was a close, dark, dank place. The flashlight down there was always yellow and dim with disuse. It smelled like the dirt, and of the wet dog. Ma was claustrophobic, so she’d always have to keep the door cracked. We remember her and Pa standing there, peering out into the darkness, their faces glimpsed in the lightning flashes while the wind whipped and howled, all of us huddling and waiting for the end of the world. www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 5

Letters arktimes@arktimes.com

Shut up, PETA I have never written a response to any letter before, but at this time I am so angry about what Jennifer O’Conner of the PETA Foundation had to say, I had to write. First off — Jennifer SHUT UP. How dare you assume to know how we took care of our elephant? While we had no control over what happened to her before she came to the Little Rock Zoo, she was loved and very well cared for while we were blessed to have her with us. Do you even know how she was treated? Have you ever talked to her caregivers? Were you there the day they had to make a decision to let her go and not make her live through any more unnecessary pain? Were you there when they had to take Ellen for her daily walk around the zoo without Mary? Were you there shedding tears with everyone who loved and respected her the day she left us? You live in Norfolk, Va. So the answers to all of these questions would be a big fat NO. As for Ellen, be assured she is being well cared for and most of all loved by everyone in our wonderful state. Keep your nose out of our business and we will keep taking excellent care of ALL of our zoo friends. Kerri Garrett Conway

Yes it would have been helpful if the waitstaff were experienced and knowledgeable enough to explain all of this to the reviewer, but in this age of the glorious internet, it’s not as if this information was not available to the writer, and it would have been a fairer and more accurate review if they had at least looked up the dish before starting. As it is, the review makes it sound like there was something “wrong” with the dish. Also, as someone who is half-Korean and has eaten a lot of my mother’s native cooking, a lack of spice or flavor in Korean dishes just doesn’t happen. I imagine the chef was dialing down the heat and

unusual flavors for an uninitiated customer and probably erred too far on the side of caution. Taken into context, that is a fixable mistake. Janie Ginocchio Paragould

Disappointed Since you are a community periodical that promotes itself as a watchdog of local elected and appointed officials, I have been hugely disappointed by your lack of coverage of the Edline issue in the North Little Rock School District. I am referring to the campaign by parents to convince the school board to enact a policy

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Korean food explained I’m really disappointed in the ignorance displayed in the Seoul review regarding the bibimbap. I understand the reviewer is unfamiliar with Korean dishes, but it’s not an obscure culinary movement. A quick Google search beforehand to familiarize oneself about the popular dishes, how they are supposed to be prepared and what ingredients might be used would have been useful. Korean food is in no way like Thai, Vietnamese or Americanized Chinese, and they shouldn’t be used as a point of comparison. The rice in dolsot bibimbap is supposed to become crunchy, and for many is the best part of the dish. From Wikipedia: “The bowl is so hot that anything that touches it sizzles for minutes. Before the rice is placed in the bowl, the bottom of the bowl is coated with sesame oil, making the layer of the rice touching the bowl golden brown and crispy.” Also the traditional condiment served with bibimbap is gochujang, which is a fermented soybean paste seasoned with hot pepper. Adding this melds the flavors in the dish and makes it, in a word, awesome. I’d be surprised if this wasn’t also served. 6 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

requiring teachers to update Edline weekly, as their counterparts in the Little Rock and Pulaski County school districts are already required to do. The 62-day delay in the formation of the Edline committee by Superintendent Ken Kirspel, the intentional exclusion of students from the committee and a glaring lack of parents on the committee (just two parents on the 13-member Edline committee are nondistrict employees), are clear indications of Kirspel’s manipulation of the process to affect the resulting committee recommendation. Why is your periodical failing to call out the superintendent for his shenanigans regarding the Edline committee? Don’t the parents and students residing in North Little Rock deserve better from the Arkansas Times? Jason Ray North Little Rock

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Congratulations to Mike Huckabee for garnering the media attention that otherwise would have been spent on Osama bin Laden’s porn stash. Too bad Huckabee could not have continued to pre-empt news of the latest European sex scandal or the rehash of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger’s historic Californication. The media need to grow up. Meanwhile, back in Florida, Janet Huckabee stands ready with the vacuum and the carpet remedy just in case some remnant of the Natural State might smudge her rug. The stepping-stone Governor Huckabee once referred to as a banana republic has served well. Fortunately, it may take years for the Huckabees to scrape Arkansas off their shoes. Huckabee has decided not to run for president. This decision allows Huckabee to rise to the top of the short list for vice president and still continue his career in show business. Unfortunately for America, Huckabee has also vowed to step up his efforts in his Huck PAC, an organization designed to promote Republicanism, the opposite of democracy. By lexicon definition, a republic functions in the opposite manner to that of a democracy. In a republic the bulk and flow of political power are controlled by an exclusive, privileged class of citizens, not the democratic masses. In America, Republicans want the captains of industry to pick and choose the privileged class, and to own the election software. Huck PAC is a tremendous threat to Democracy. Gene Mason Jacksonville Submit letters to The Editor, Arkansas Times, P.O. Box 34010, Little Rock, AR 72203. We also accept letters via e-mail. The address is maxbrantley@arktimes. com. We also accept faxes at 375-3623. Please include a hometown and telephone number.

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THE WEEK THAT WAS M AY 2 5 - 3 1 IT WAS A GOOD WEEK FOR…

RIVERFEST. The annual festival enjoyed three days of sunshine, a rarity in its recent history. Some 260,000 people attended, which broke the previous record by 10,000. HOT SPRINGS. The city won the right to continue to use the name Hot Springs National Park Arkansas in its trademark logo after a long legal battle with the National Park Service, which contended that the city did not have the right to use the park’s name in advertising. IT WAS A BAD WEEK FOR…

CLEAN AIR. The Arkansas Supreme Court said that the Hempstead County Hunting Club, which has argued that the Turk coal-fueled power plant in Hempstead County is unnecessary and environmentally damaging, had not exhausted avenues to appeal the plant’s approval before the state Public Service Commission. Until that avenue is exhausted, the court said, it cannot consider arguments that the plant wasn’t properly permitted. Meanwhile, construction continues on the plant. CITIZEN JOURNALISM. The Blue Hog Report, a Democraticleaning blog that notably exposed the unconstitutional expense reimbursements paid to Arkansas legislators of both parties, shut down following a recent spate of FOI requests from the Arkansas Republican Party related to phone records, e-mail and other employment data on Blue Hog contributors Matt Campbell and Jeff Woodmansee, both government employees. In a sign of solidarity, Jason Tolbert, author of the popular Republican blog The Tolbert Report, shut down his blog, too. TOMMY SMITH. The popular radio DJ, who has talked publicly about his struggles with alcohol addiction, was arrested following a hit-and-run accident and charged with DWI and possession of a controlled substance. THE CATHEDRAL SCHOOL The small, private Episcopalian school in Little Rock closed after 54 years of operation. Tuition had fallen more than $800,000 short of covering operating expenses this year, and the school owed more than $100,000 in unpaid payroll taxes to the IRS. 8 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

The Arkansas Reporter

Phone: 501-375-2985 Fax: 501-375-3623 Arkansas Times Online home page: http://www.arktimes.com E-mail: arktimes@arktimes.com ■

■

Tracking state cell phones Do California-style cuts really save money? BY GERARD MATTHEWS

n State governments across the country are looking for ways to trim their budgets as the country tries to pull itself out of recession. In January, California Gov. Jerry Brown made headlines by ordering that half the cell phones used by state employees, and paid for by the government, would be eliminated. The plan would cut 48,000 devices, saving the government $20 million. The move was welcomed by the Tea Party and other deficit hawks who lauded the governor’s decision as a model of fiscal responsibility. Others weren’t so sure. Technology analysts fear the move might actually hurt the government, eliminating efficiencies and employee mobility. In Arkansas, the Office of State Procurement (OSP) handles cell phone contracts for state agencies. The OSP is part of the Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA), an organization formed to allow states to cooperatively negotiate contracts with vendors in order to keep costs down. The WSCA and the OSP negotiate rates with three providers: AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. Agencies then choose the plans that are right for each employee. In fiscal year 2010, the latest data available from OSP, state agencies had a total of 15,074 lines (meaning cell phone plans, data plans and portable wireless Internet devices for laptop computers) at a cost of $8,921,915.95. The OSP gave the Times documents obtained from the telephone companies showing the highest number of lines each agency had at any one time during the year and the total annual cost of those services. The number of lines used by each agency changes from month to month depending on the agency’s needs. According to those documents, the Department of Human Services leads all other agencies and higher education institutions with 2,999 lines at a cost of $1,616,588.46 per year. The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences came in second with 1,508 lines at a cost of $1,329,574.64. The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville rounded out the top three, spending $823,485.87 on 1,299 lines in fiscal year 2010. Julie Munsell, who until recently served as the communications director for DHS, said cell phones are a good investment.

TOP 10 CELL PHONE SPENDERS AGENCY Arkansas Department of Human Services University of Arkansas Medical Sciences University of Arkansas at Fayetteville Arkansas National Guard Military Department Arkansas State Police Arkansas Department of Health Arkansas State University Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Arkansas Department of Community Correction Arkansas Department of Information Services

NO. OF LINES 2999 1508 1299 1184 760 962 368 872 612 274

TOTAL SPENT $1,616,588.46 $1,329,574.64 $823,485.87 $702,661.70 $433,300.88 $425,324.88 $343,420.49 $320,265.96 $254,122.00 $250,912.97

BIG 5 The five highestspending agencies spend nearly 55 percent of the total money spent for state cell phone use.

“I could understand why people would be skeptical of the cost for such a large agency, but we have 7,000 employees, give or take,” Munsell says. “We use them for two reasons and one is accessibility. There are people within the organization that you really need to be able to reach 24 hours per day, seven days a week, whether they’re managing or just providing a service and you need to get hold of them. The other is for folks who are in transit most of the time. I would guess that if you cross-referenced the number of miles that an employee travels with the use of cell phones you would find a very strong correlation.” When combined with all of its satellite campuses, including Cooperative Extension, the University of Arkansas System outspent every other state entity at $2,478,484.79 per year. That figure does not include the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. John Diamond, associate vice chancellor of university relations, says cell phones are a time-saving tool and can be helpful in emergency situations. “[Just look at] our resident assistants and resident directors at our housing facilities,” Diamond says. “They have cell phones because their job is to be wandering around the building and making sure everything’s OK and that there are no safe-

Top 5 agencies ($4,905,611.55)

The other 64 agencies ( $4,016,304.40 )

ty or security issues. Before cell phones, they would be hanging around their rooms or the front desk, waiting for someone to come down and tell them there was a water leak on the third floor.” DHS has also started to phase out some land-line telephones, moving toward VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) phones for some employees. “It’s a pilot that started with our technology people but it’s spreading throughout the agency,” Munsell said. “That’s another area where you would hope to see some call savings.” Munsell says every time a contract comes up for renewal or a change is made to a particular plan, the agency re-evaluates employee cell phone use. Diamond says the UA has a written policy to determine who gets cell phones and who does not. “Usually it’s a decision that’s made by a dean or a director or somebody higher up, like a vice chancellor or vice provost,” he says. “So there is an approval process and the measure of whether or not a person should be given a university phone depends on the nature of that person’s work.” For a list of all state agencies who go through the OSP for phone contracts, the number of lines they use and the amount of money they spend, visit www.arktimes. com/statecellphones.

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ORGANIZERS: Founder Bret Renaud, Executive Director Jack Lofton and founder Craig Renaud.

The Little Rock Film Festival continues to grow by leaps and bounds. By Lindsey Millar

s there a faster-growing film festival in the country than the Little Rock Film Festival? In four years, it’s built up its audience exponentially, jumping from 3,000 in its opening year to around 25,000 in 2010. This year, more than 100 films will screen with filmmakers (and often actors, producers or documentary subjects) accompanying all but a handful, according to LRFF co-founder Brent Renaud. From the beginning, Renaud and his other co-founders — his brother Craig Renaud and Jamie Moses and Owen Brainard — have emphasized that it’s a filmmaker’s festival. The Renauds, who’re internationally renowned filmmakers themselves, know the realities of the festival circuit, namely that most festivals don’t provide travel or lodging expenses. That the LRFF pays for all visiting filmmakers’ flights and hotels sets it apart. Combine that with nightly parties (with free booze for filmmakers), and it’s not difficult to see how the LRFF is scoring so many films that have only screened once before at major festivals like Sundance and SXSW. “We consider our festival a collaboration with filmmakers,” Brent Renaud said recently. After trying out a number of mottos in its early years, the festival landed on “an international festival with the Southern experience” last year. It’s been shortened this year to something that can fit on a T-shirt — “Head South.” But the “international” part of the programming formula re-

10 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

mains intact and thrillingly diverse, with films hailing from Iran to Indonesia. “The Last Ride,” the fictionalized take on the last days of Hank Williams, much of which was filmed in Arkansas, kicks off the festival on Wednesday. Director Harry Thomason, Jett Williams and much of the cast will be on hand for the film’s much-anticipated Arkansas debut. Jimmy McMillan, famous for his “the rent is too damn high” speech at a New York gubernatorial debate, comes to town, too, along with the world premiere about his campaign documentary, “Damn!” Fresh off his Critics Week win at Cannes, Jeff Nichols will return to Little Rock, but without his acclaimed new film “Take Shelter.” Nichols wanted a shot at the $10,000 Oxford American-sponsored award for Best Southern Film that the festival introduced last year. But his distributor, Sony Pictures Classic, has decided not to show the film again until its official release in October. Instead, at 8:15 p.m. Saturday at Riverdale, the Little Rock born filmmaker will show his debut, “Shotgun Stories,” screen unseen clips from “Take Shelter” and answer audience questions. In keeping with tradition, Movies in the Park closes the festival, this time with “Smokey and the Bandit,” the directorial debut from pioneering stuntman and allaround bad-ass Hal Needham, who’ll return to Arkansas, where he spent much of his childhood, to accept the festival’s Diamond Award and talk about his colorful career

(more on page 18). There are parties every night. And after parties. Among the highlights: On Wednesday, the Oxford American hosts the Opening Night Party in the Argenta Community Theater at 8 p.m. On Friday, the festival once again hosts a party aboard the Arkansas Queen, with The See, Emily Wells and DJs Cameron Holifield and Poebot providing the entertainment, 10:30 p.m. (gold pass holders get first priority). Saturday night there are three parties: the Peabody Fashion Show hosted by 607 with performances by Goines, Epiphany, Ear Fear and DJs Poebot and TJ Deeter, 9 p.m.; the “Slow Southern Steel” after party with music from Seahag, Hour of 13 and Music Hates You, 9:30 p.m. (see more on page 24) and the Ferneau Afterparty with music by Bryan Frazier and Adam Faucett, 11:30 p.m. (silver and gold pass holders only). Sunday, the Times hosts the festival gala and awards ceremony once again at the Clinton Library, 6 p.m. The bronze festival pass is $40. It gets you into just about everything besides the opening night film and the gala. The $100 silver pass includes access to the opening night screening and after party and to the sections of parties where there’s complimentary food and drink. The $250 VIP gold pass includes priority seating, access to a LRFF filmmaker lounge, the opening night festivities, a ticket to the gala and more. Visit littlerockfilmfestival.org for more info and to take advantage of an interactive feature that lets you plan your schedule.

Damn!

TEN WATCH TO

Our must-see picks from this year’s festival. By Lindsey Millar and John Tarpley

“DAMN!”

dir. Aaron Fisher-Cohen. 72 min. Of all the viral phenomena in recent memory — spaghetti cat, “Chocolate Rain,” “don’t tase me, bro!” — Jimmy McMillan seems perhaps most likely to enjoy some sort of lasting fame. Because, for one, the former New York gubernatorial candidate with the Rent is 2 Damn High Party is memorably odd. His facial hair calls to mind Santa Claus, a carnival barker and chin Afros. He seems to always wear gloves. And his resume — Vietnam veteran, black belt Karate master, private investigator, former stripper and ’70s soul singer — suggests that he’s a blaxploitation super hero come to life. But what truly sets him apart from all those other oddities we pass around on YouTube is his message. Sure, it’s delivered staccato with all sorts of funny flourishes, but we remember McMillan because he speaks the truth: The rent is too damn high. Fisher-Cohen’s film, which makes its debut at the LRFF, follows McMillan from his rise to fame to the media fixation that followed. Both he and McMillan will be on hand at the festival. 4:30 p.m. Sat., Clinton School; 3:50 p.m. Sun., Riverdale. — LM.

Dog Sweat

“DOG SWEAT”

dir. Hossein Keshavarz. 90 min. For decades, some of the greatest and most important films in all of world cinema have been exported from Iran. However, the country’s notoriously repressive powers have attempted, time and time again, to mute its filmmaker’s voices. Filmmaking (and watching) came to a virtual halt for years during the Islamic revolution. And now, with Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof currently imprisoned and barred from making movies, the state of Iran’s exceptional cinema is as turbulent as

ever. So it’s incredible that “Dog Sweat” even exists. Clandestinely filmed with a skeleton crew (and a ton of guts) in Tehran, the movie — verite by necessity — depicts a crew of young Iranians on their regular hunts for booze, rock music and sex, among other illegal indulgences. The audacious director even dares to address homosexuality, Iran’s ultimate taboo, with two of the male characters. For this film, “dangerous” isn’t just a cheap buzzword. Expect Keshavarz to give one of the liveliest post-screening Q&As of the festival. 6:30 p.m. Thu., 1:20 p.m. Sun., Riverdale. — JT. Continued on page 12

www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 11

THE NATURAL SLATE

The LRFF’s Arkansas-related offerings. By John Tarpley

he “Arkansas Docs: More Than a Story” program offers a double feature of locally-produced documentaries: Gabe Gentry takes a look at the history and recipients of Arkansas’s 25-year-old literary award with “Porter Prize,” and Tim Wistrand, Terrell Case and Corey Gatlin team up to explore the Pillow blatant environmental abuses in the Ozark Highlands in “The Natural State of America” (3:20 p.m. Thu., 11 a.m. Sat., Riverdale). “Arkansas Shorts 1: Slow Southern Drawl” skews and reframes the Southern Gothic tradiCollin Buchanan directs a cast that includes Natalie tion with four films: “Foot Soldier,” from Jon Bryant Canerday, Philip Martin, LRFF programmer Levi Agee Crawford, a Little Rock native currently working on an and a guy who looks suspiciously like Conway School MFA from UCLA’s film program; “A Christian Boy,” Board hopeful Dwight David Honeycutt in “Cotton from Mark Thiedeman, whose filmmaking history County Boys,” and Daniel Campbell, who won last reaches back to his time at NYU; “Seven Souls,” the year’s Charles B. Pierce Award for Best Film Made in afterlife thriller from local filmmaker Gerry Bruno and Arkansas, returns with the period road comedy “The co-written by the Times’ own David Koon, and “BalleOrderly” (8:15 p.m. Fri., 4 p.m. Sun., Riverdale). rina,” a tense black-and-white mood piece directed by “Arkansas Shorts 3: Run For Your Life!” makes Bryan Stafford and the second Koon-written script of room for emerging horror filmmakers with a four-flick the program (6:15 p.m. Fri., 4:40 p.m. Sat., Riverdale). line-up: Morals in the time of zombie outbreak gets Comedy takes a turn in “Arkansas Shorts 2: Hithe celluloid treatment in Bruce Hutchinson’s “Going jinks and Heart”: Tyler Tarver’s 2-minute hyper-short to Hell” and Eric Deitz’ “Never Stop Running”; diconstructs a conversation by using only hip-hop noms rector Allison Hogue revisits scary hitchhiker territory de mic in “Rappers Delightful Conversation”; Kim with “Hitchhiker,” and, sporting what’s probably the Risi directs a quick one about a magician who can’t do most gorgeously-filmed trailer for any short of this tricks in “Disillusioned”; Ben Aaron brings an eccenyear’s fest, “Pillow” is a sepia-tinted piece of Erskine tric dark comedy about two hillbilly best friends with Caldwell-style Dixie Gothic which earned brothers Josh “Sacred Ground”; an excommunicated court jester is and Miles Miller the Best Narrative Short award at this banished to the woods in Scott Edge’s “The Jester”; year’s Oxford Film Festival and Best Cinematography

at the Beverly Hills Film Festival (8:50 p.m. Thu., 2:30 p.m. Sat., Riverdale). Full-length films with an Arkansas focus run throughout the festival as well. “Independent for Governor: An Idealist’s Grueling Run” is Huixia Lu’s look at local musician/environmental activist/ political gadfly Rod Bryan’s shaggy dog campaign for governor in 2006 (6 p.m. Thu., 11:15 a.m. Sun., Riverdale). “Disfarmer,” Martin Lavut’s celebrated profile of the Heber Springs portrait photographer Mike Disfarmer makes its LRFF debut (4 p.m. Thu., 2 p.m. Fri., Riverdale). Chris Terry, better known as C.T., front man of Southern sludge metal kings Rwake, debuts his longawaited, even longer-in-the-making documentary on heavy metal in the Bible Belt with “Slow Southern Steel” (6:50 p.m. Sat., 1:50 p.m. Sun., Riverdale). See more on the film on page 24. And, with the West Memphis 3 case back in the headlines, Joe Berlinger is set to screen his provocative, influential 1996 documentary “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” (1 p.m. Thu., Argenta Community Theater), followed later in the day by “The Media and the West Memphis 3” (1:45 p.m. Thu., Argenta Community Theater), a panel discussion with director Berlinger; WM3 authority and author of “Devil’s Knot” Mara Leveritt; Damien Echols’ wife, Lorri Davis, and co-founder of Arkansas Take Action, Capi Peck-Peterson. Times editor Lindsey Millar will moderate.

TEN TO WATCH, CONT. “DRAGONSLAYER” dir. Tristan Patterson. 74 min.

A breakout hit on the festival circuit, this look at the price of skateboard romanticism took the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary (as well as a Best Cinematography honor) at this year’s SXSW Film Festival. The doc profiles a characteristically turbulent year in the life of Josh “Skreech” Sandoval, a brilliant but perpetually out-on-his-luck professional pool skater, as he breaks into abandoned pools, hustles hard for fast food and migrates from crash pad to crash pad. All the while, Skreech is dragging his heels towards adulthood, all but abandoning his toddler-age son for fireworks, weed and vague plans of “making it big.” Director Tristan Patterson, whose credits include Harmony Korine’s “Julien Donkey-Boy,” will be present for the festival. He’s currently at work with “Blue Valentine” producer Jamie Patricof on “Electric Slide,” his full-length narrative debut, starring Ewan McGregor as an ’80s L.A. antiques store owner, heroin addict and prolific bank robber. 8:25 p.m. Thu., 6:10 p.m. Fri., Riverdale. — JT.

12 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

“HELL AND BACK AGAIN”

dir. Danfung Dennis. 88 min. Like Tim Hetherington, the late co-director of “Restrepo,” last year’s LRFF Golden Rock winner for Best Documentary, “Hell and Back Again” director Danfung Dennis has a background in photojournalism. Since 2006, he’s covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for just about every major publication in the U.S. That means Dennis isn’t afraid to venture to the front lines and takes special care to get artful shots. The winner of Sundance’s World Cinema Jury Documentary Prize and World Cinema Documentary Cinematography Award, the film shifts between the frontlines with Sgt. Nathan Harris of U.S. Marines Echo Company and North Carolina, where Harris struggles to adjust to civilian life and recover from a serious injury sustained during battle. The Hollywood Reporter called it “brilliant” and “gutwrenching.” 2:15 p.m. Thu., noon Friday, Riverdale. — LM

“THE INTERRUPTERS” dir. Steve James. 162 min.

It’s only natural to be a tad apprehensive about a movie with a running time that flirts with a butt-numbing three-hour mark. But few directors can fill an intimidating stretch of film as expertly as Steve James. The documentarian earned his stripes (and status as a modern-day great) in 1994 with “Hoop Dreams,” the monumental basketball documentary. “The Interrupters” sees James turn his eye yet again on inner-city Chicago, tracking the work of CeaseFire, an organization whose members work to decrease soaring murder rates by mediating gang disputes in the city’s most dangerous war zones. Filmed right in the middle of the powder keg, the doc follows three entrenched counselors, all reformed ex-criminals with violent pasts, taking to living rooms, prisons, funerals and the literal streets to cool down hot heads, sometimes successfully and, on occasion, in vain. James himself will be on hand during the festival to discuss his brand of docu-journalism and his films at large. 4:40 p.m. Sat., noon Sun., Riverdale. — JT

her parents. Her boyfriend, a McDonald’s cook, is her tie to domesticity, even though he’s reluctant to leave his job and mother to come with Kati on a planned move out of state after her high school graduation. It’s an everyday story, sure, but the trailer for this backwoods Bildungsroman is one of the most compelling of the entire festival. Robert Greene will be in attendance to discuss his techniques and, let’s hope, update us on his half-sister. 5:55 p.m. Fri., 5:40 p.m. Sat., Riverdale. — JT Jess + Moss

“JESS + MOSS” dir. Clay Jeter. 82 min.

“Alamar,” a Spanish film firmly rooted in what’s alternately been called Slow Cinema and neo-minimalism, was one of the highlights of last year’s festival. This year, “Jess + Moss,” another atmospheric meditation on youth and its surroundings, is poised to stand out in the same light. Set on a Kentucky tobacco farm, the movie moves at a kudzu’s pace, exploring the depth of memory and the nature of family through two second cousins who spend a summer removed from the adults in their family. Judging from clips, the cinematography alone seems to warrant a viewing. Captured with more than 30 random 16mm film stocks, the slow, varied photography compliments the film’s Southern mood. (Think “George Washington,” the debut from Arkansas native David Gordon Green.) Those looking for a slice of adventurous, poetic filmmaking, make time for this one. Director Clay Jeter will be on hand for the weekend screenings. 5:50 p.m., Sat., 11:45 a.m. Sun. Riverdale. — JT

“KATI WITH AN I” dir. Robert Greene. 86 min.

It’s only natural for documentarians to gravitate towards extraordinary people, controversial issues, big questions or a mash of all of the above. It’s a noble calling, no doubt and an appreciated one. But often, cinema verite cuts to the core of things by simply turning a camera on a subject and letting a story write itself without any interference from the director. “Kati With an I” follows in this tradition, with director Robert Greene cuing in on his halfsister, a seemingly un-extraordinary teen-ager, naturally stubborn and hormonal, who’s spending her final months in Piedmont, Ala., living in her friend’s house, away from

Natural Selection

“THE LAST RIDE” dir. Harry Thomason

Without a doubt the most widely anticipated film at the festival, this biopic focuses on the mysterious final days of Hank Williams, when he hired a young man to drive his Cadillac from Alabama to Ohio and died en route. “Sparse and contemplative,” reads the LRFF description of the film, “the story takes us inside the heart of a man who knows he’s dying, and a dreamless boy whose fate seems already determined.” Henry Thomas, who most famously played Elliott in “E.T.,” stars as Williams, while Jesse James (“As Good As It Gets,” “Blow”) plays the young driver. Both actors will be in town for Wednesday’s screening along with Hank Sr.’s daughter Jett Williams, Thomason and “The Big Bang Theory” actor Kaley Cuoco, who has a small role in the film. Even though Arkansas doesn’t figure into the narrative, Arkansas native Thomason shot much of the film in the state with help from a largely local crew. There will be a Q&A with Thomas after each of the three screenings. 7 p.m. Wed., Argenta Community Theater ($100 opening night ticket, $100 silver pass or $250 all access gold pass); 8 p.m. Wed., 3:30 p.m. Fri., Riverdale. — LM

“MARATHON BOY” dir. Gemma Atwal. 98 min.

With a plot like something from Dickens, this documentary is an early favorite to win an Academy Award, according to the LRFF’s Brent Renaud. The film’s hero is Budhia Singh, a foul-mouthed young Indian boy turned marathon runner, whose life begins in poverty and grows more dismal when his mother sells him to an abusive peddler when he’s only 3. But things look up for Singh when he’s rescued by Biranchi Das to live at Judo House, a sports center and orphanage where Das trains some of India’s better judo competitors. After once sending Singh out to the streets at 6 a.m. to run for punishment for filthy language and finding him still at it seven hours later, Das

figures he has a sort of prodigy. Before Singh turns 5, he’s competed in 48 marathons and become a celebrity in the Indian state of Orissa. But when Singh breaks down during a world-record 65 kilometer run, public opinion begins to turn on the trainer and his precocious ward. Director Atwal, who’ll be on hand at the LRFF, captures the action as it unfolds. Variety called the documentary “epic” and “archetypal.” 2:10 p.m. Thu., 1:45 p.m. Fri., Riverdale. — LM

“NATURAL SELECTION”

dir. Robbie Pickering. 90 min. After winning nearly every prize at SXSW — the Grand Jury Prize, the Audience Award and prizes for editing, sound, screenplay and two breakthrough performances — this oddball comedy about a woman who gets to know her dying husband’s illegitimate 23-year-old son on a road trip makes its second festival appearance at the LRFF, where it’s surely the favorite to win the Golden Rock Award for Best Narrative Film. Here’s how Logan Hill, a SXSW juror, described “Natural Selection” on New York magazine’s Vulture blog: “It’s a wild road-trip odd-couple romp, a pitch-perfect satire of marriage and morality, a perversely satisfying romance, an oddly empowering women’s anthem, and, above all, the best sort of comedy — one that’s absolutely grounded in messy human drama.” First time director Robbie Pickering will be in attendance. 8:40 p.m. Thu., 2:20 p.m. Sat., Riverdale. — LM

FIVE MORE WITH PROMISE “American Animal” dir. Matt D’Elia, 95 min. Writer-director-editor Matt D’Elia also produced this narrative about a solipsistic, terminally ill man, also played by D’Elia, who lives with his best friend in a downtown L.A. apartment. Brent Renaud acknowledges that indies by multi-hyphenates are rarely good, but says this film heralds a major talent in D’Elia. 8:15 p.m. Fri., 3:20 p.m. Sat., Riverdale

“Fleurs du mal” (“Flowers of Evil”) dir. David Dusa, 98 min. YouTube footage of the 2009 post-election protest in Iran informs the budding romance between a Parisian hotel clerk and a Tehrani college student exiled in Paris by overprotective parents in this buzz-y, experimental drama.

“Happy New Year” dir. K. Lorrel Manning, 104 min. A fiction film about a mentally and physically scarred veteran trying to find his way in the psychiatric ward of a Veterans Hospital that’s earned comparisons to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” 6 p.m. Thu., 3:20 p.m. Sat., Riverdale.

“Revenge of the Electric Car” dir. Chris Paine, 90 min. Chris Paine’s sequel to his acclaimed “Who Killed the Electric Car?” follows the entrepreneurs and captains of industry as they furiously work to build affordable and normal-looking electric cars. 3:45 p.m. Fri., 11:15 a.m. Sat., Riverdale.

“Wrestling for Jesus: The Tale of T-Money” dir. Nathan Clarke, 70 min. How can you deny a documentary with a title like that? The plot’s even better: Evangelical Christian Timothy Blackmon founds an amateur Christian wrestling league and has to deal with injuries, balancing time with family and a rival backyard wrestling crew called the Throne of Anguish. 8:45 p.m. Thu., 2:05 p.m. Sun., Riverdale. www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 13

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LITTLE ROCK FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1 ≠ 6 p.m.: Opening Night Red Carpet Reception. Gold pass or opening night ticket required. Argenta Community Theater. ≠ 7 p.m.: “The Last Ride,” dir. Harry Thomason. Filmmaker present. 120 min. Argenta Community Theater. ≠ 7:45 p.m.: “The Last Ride,” dir. Harry Thomason. Filmmaker present. 120 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 8 p.m.: Oxford American Opening Night Party. Live music from The Salty Dogs, Mockingbird Hillbilly Band. Special performances from “The Last Ride” stars Henry Thomas and Jesse James. Downtown Argenta. ≠ Midnight: Argenta Rooftop Gold Pass Party. Argenta Community Theater. THURSDAY, JUNE 2 ≠ 11 a.m.: “First Dog,” dir. Brian Michael Stoller. 95 min. Filmmaker and dog present. Clinton Presidential Center. ≠ 1 p.m.: “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills,” dir. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. 150 min. Argenta Community Theater. ≠ 1:30 p.m.: “Abraxas,” dir. Naoki Kato. 113 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 2:10 p.m.: “Marathon Boy,” dir. Gemma Atwai. 99 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 2:15 p.m.: “Darwin,” dir. Nick Brandestini. 88 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 2:15 p.m.: “Hell and Back Again,” dir. Danfung Dennis. 88 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3 p.m.: LRFF Talks: The Art of the Short Film. Graham Gordy, Chris Olsen, Gerry Bruno, Grant Curatola and Amman Abbasi talk about their craft. 60 min. Filmmaker Lounge, Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:20 p.m.: Arkansas Docs: “More Than a Story.” Screenings of the “The Porter Prize,” dir. Gabe Gentry, 26 min., and “The Natural State of America,” dir. Tim Wistrand, Terrell Case, Corey Gatlin, 76 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:45 p.m.: “Stranger Things,” dir. Eleanor Burke and Ron Eyal. 80 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4 p.m.: World Shorts 4: “There Won’t Be Blood.” Seven horror shorts: “Death and the Blue-Eyed Boy,” dir. Grant Curatola, 17 min.; “Fabrica de Munecas (Doll Factory),” dir. Ainhoa Memendez Goyoaga, 11 min.; “The Window,” dir. Ryan Spindell, 9 min.; “Sidewalk Wars,” dir. Emil Stenberg, 2 min.; “Dentro del Bosque,” dir. Luis Caballero, 15 min.; “Chasing Cotards,” dir. Edward Dark, 13 min.; “The Candidate,” dir. David Kariak, 20 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4 p.m.: “Disfarmer,” dir. Martin Lavut. 60 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4:10 p.m.: “If a Tree Falls: The Story of the Earth Liberation Front,” dir. Marshall Curry. 85 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4:15 p.m.: “The Last Mountain,” dir. Bill Haney. 94 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4:15 p.m.: LRFF Talks: The Media and the West Memphis Three. Screening of “Voices for Justice” (dir. Mike Poe, 15 min.) followed by discussion with Joe Berlinger, Mara Leveritt, Lorri Davis, Capi Peck-Peterson. Moderated by Lindsey Millar. 60 min. Argenta Community Theater. ≠ 4:30 p.m.: Filmmaker Reception. 120 min.

American Animal Filmmaker Lounge, Riverdale 10. ≠ 5:20 p.m.: LRFF Talks: So Lost in the South. The making of the Oxford American National Magazine Award-winning video series. Videos follow by discussion with Dave Anderson and Warwick Sabin. 45 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 6 p.m.: “Happy New Year,” dir. Lorrel Manning. 104 min. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 6 p.m.: “Independent for Governor: An Idealist’s Grueling Run,” dir. Huixia Lu. 99 min. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 6:15 p.m.: “Prairie Love,” dir. Dusty Bias. 85 min. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 6:30 p.m.: “Left by the Ship,” dir. Emma Rosi Landi and Alberto Vendemmiati. 79 min. Filmmakers present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 6:30 p.m.: “Dog Sweat,” dir. Hossein Keshavarz. 90 min. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 6:30 p.m.: World Shorts I: “Adventures Great and Small.” Seven shorts celebrating the spirit of adventure: “The Man Who Knew How to Fly,” dir. Robi Michael, 24 min.; “Disco,” dir. Luke Snellin, 15 min.; “Richard Tuft’s Over the Top,” dir. Richard Tuft, 5 min.; “Missile Crisis,” dir. Jaye Davidson, 16 min.; “December 15,” dir. Ryan Russell Smith, 5 min.; “Statue,” dir. Andrew Bryan, 10 min.; “Karl Dahl and the Golden Cube,” dir. Christopher Kai Olsen, 12 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 8 p.m.: Arkansas Music Video Competition and Showcase. Locally produced videos from Year of the Tiger, Echo Canyon, Floor Plan, The See and more. Live music from Bobgoblin. Revolution. ≠ 8:20 p.m.: “The Devil’s Box,” dir. Jason Hammond. 93 min. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 8:25 p.m.: “Dragonslayer,” dir. Tristan Patterson. Filmmaker present. 74 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 8:40 p.m.: “Natural Selection,” dir. Robbie Pickering. Filmmaker present. 90 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 8:45 p.m.: “Wrestling for Jesus: The Tale of T-Money,” dir. Nathan Clarke. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 8:50 p.m.: Arkansas Shorts: “Run for Your Life!” Four thriller and suspense shorts: “Going to Hell,” dir. Bruce Hutchinson, 14 min.; “Never Stop Running,” dir. Eric Deitz, 17 min.; Hitchhiker,” dir. Allison Hogue, 12 min.; “Pillow,” dir. Miles B. Miller, 19 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 9 p.m.: World Shorts 2: “I’ve Got Issues.” Five shorts exploring society and morality: “Bullies on Vacation,” dir. Devon Gummersall, 17 min.;

The Orderly “Commerce,” dir. Lisa Robertson, 18 min.; “Two Birds,” dir. Francesco Saviano, 15 min.; “Between the Shadows,” dir. Zac Petrillo, 23 min.; “Hijo de mi Madre,” dir. Lucas Mireles, 13 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 11:30 p.m.: Afterthought Gold Pass Party. Live music from Emily Wells, Bonnie Montgomery Trucking, Mandy McBryde and John Willis. Gold pass required. The Afterthought. FRIDAY, JUNE 3 ≠ Noon: “Abraxas,” dir. Naoki Kato. 113 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ Noon: “Fleurs du Mal,” dir. David Dusa. 98 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ Noon: “Hell and Back Again,” dir. Danfung Dennis. 88 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 12:10 p.m.: “Darwin,” dir. Nick Brandestini. 88 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 1:45 p.m.: “Marathon Boy,” dir. Gemma Atwal. 99 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 1:50 p.m.: “If a Tree Falls: The Story of the Earth Liberation Front,” dir. Marshall Curry. 85 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 2 p.m.: “Disfarmer,” dir. Martin Lavut. 60 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 2 p.m.: World Shorts 7: “Death and Filmmaking.” Seven comedy shorts: “Love Analysis,” dir. Lucas Mireles; 1 min.; “Sudden Death!” dir. Adam Hall, 20 min.; “The Process,” dir. Nathan

Tear this page out. Tote it around. Watch films. Enjoy.

Boey, 4 min.; “Honk If You Miss Randy Todd,” dir. Joshua J. Smith, 10 min.; “The Filmmaker,” dir. Marcello Fabrizi, 17 min.; “Alternate Arrangements,” dir. Zack Bernstein, 10 min.; “The D-Monster,” dir. Kinga Suto, 20 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 2:20 p.m.: “Stranger Things,” dir. Eleanor Burke and Ron Eyal. 80 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3 p.m.: LRFF Talks: Indie Film Distribution. Panelists Diana Sperrazza, Erik Jambor and Mark Rabinowitz discuss the current landscape of film distribution. Moderated by David Allen. 60 min. Filmmaker Lounge, Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:45 p.m.: “Feathered Cocaine,” dir. Thorkell Hardarson, Orn Marino Arnarson. 80 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:45 p.m.: “The Last Ride,” dir. Harry Thomason. 120 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:45 p.m.: “Revenge of the Electric Car,” dir. Chris Paine. 90 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:50 p.m.: “Benavides Born,” dir. Amy Wendel. 91 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4 p.m.: World Shorts 3: “Existential Relationship Films.” Eight films: “sexting,” dir. Neil LaBute, 8 min.; “Nothing Happened,” dir. Julia Kots, 10 min.; “Ex-Sex,” dir. Michael Mohan, 9 min.; “Bedfellows,” dir. Pierre Stefanos, 16 min.; “Parts + Labor,” dir. Sean O’Malley, 7 min.; “Little Brother,” dir. James Morrison, 120 min.; “Voyeurnet,” dir. Stuart Parkyn, 10 min.; “El Orden de las Cosas (The Order of Things),” dir. Cesar Esteban and Jose Esteban Alenda, 19 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4:30 p.m.: Filmmaker Reception. Filmmaker pass required. Filmmaker Lounge, Riverdale 10. ≠ 5:30 p.m.: “Fambul Tok,” dir. Sara Terry. 90 min. Clinton School of Public Service. ≠ 5:30 p.m.: “Sons of Perdition,” dir. Jennilyn Merten and Tyler Measom. Filmmakers present. 88 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 5:30 p.m.: “Love Translated,” dir. Julia Ivanova. Filmmaker present. 83 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 5:55 p.m.: “Kati with an I,” dir. Robert Greene. Filmmaker present. 86 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 6 p.m.: World Shorts 5: “Things You Might Miss.” Five films: “Sand Mountain,” dir. Kathryn McCool, 34 min.; “Dr. Sketchy’s,” dir. Peter Bolte, 17 min.; “The South Will Rise Again,” dir. Ben Guest, 16 min.; “Convergence,” dir. Michael Marsh and Todd Kappelt, 8 min.; “No Tracks Home,” dir. Josh Harrell, 19 min., Riverdale 10. ≠ 6:10 p.m.: “Dragonslayer,” dir. Tristan Patterson. Filmmaker present. 74 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 6:15 p.m.: Arkansas Shorts 1: “Slow Southern Drawl.” Four Southern shorts: “A Christian Boy,” dir. Mark Thiedeman, 7 min.; “Ballerina,” dir. Bryan Stafford, 16 min.; “Seven Souls,” dir. Gerry Bruno, 15 min.; “Foot Soldier,” dir. Jon Bryant Crawford, 20 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 6:45 p.m.: “Moon Ring.” The Arkansas Film Commission presents a special screening of a film shot entirely in and around Hot Springs, funded by the state’s film incentive program. 120 min. Argenta Community Theater. ≠ 8:10 p.m.: “The Crab,” dir. Rona Mark. Guy Whitney and filmmaker present. 103 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 8:15 p.m.: “American Animal,” dir. Matt D’Elia. Filmmaker present. 95 min. Riverdale 10.

Continued on page 16

www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 15

SCHEDULE, CONT. ≠ 8:15 p.m.: Arkansas Shorts 2: “Hijinks and Heart.” Six comedy shorts: “Rappers Delightful Remix,” dir. Tyler Tarver, 2 min.; “Disillusioned,” dir. Kim Risi, 7 min.; “Sacred Ground,” dir. Ben Aaron, 8 min.; “The Jester,” dir. Scott Edge, 10 min.; “Cotton County Boys,” dir. Collin Buchanan, 30 min.; “The Orderly,” dir. Daniel Campbell, 11 min.; Riverdale 10. ≠ 10:30 p.m.: “Sync or Swim” Riverboat Party. Live music from Emily Wells, The See and DJs Cameron Holifield and Poebot. Gold pass required. Arkansas Queen. ≠ 11:30 p.m.: Starving Artist Afterparty. Silver or gold passes required. Starving Artist Cafe. SATURDAY, JUNE 4 ≠ 10 a.m.: World Shorts I: “Adventures Great and Small.” Seven shorts celebrating the spirit of adventure: “The Man The Man Who Knew How to Fly,” dir. Robi Michael, 24 min.; “Disco,” dir. Luke Snellin, 15 min.; “Richard Tuft’s Over the Top,” dir. Richard Tuft, 5 min.; “Missile Crisis,” dir. Jaye Davidson, 16 min.; “December 15,” dir. Ryan Russell Smith, 5 min.; “Statue,” dir. Andrew Bryan, 10 min.; “Karl Dahl and the Golden Cube,” dir. Christopher Kai Olsen, 12 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 10:30 a.m.: “First Dog,” dir. Brian Michael Stoller. 95 min. Filmmaker and dog present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 11 a.m.: Arkansas Docs: “More Than a Story.” Screenings of the “The Porter Prize,” dir. Gabe Gentry, 26 min., and “The Natural State of America,” dir. Tim Wistrand, Terrell Case, Corey Gatlin, 76 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 11:15 a.m.: “The Last Mountain,” dir. Bill Haney. 94 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 11:15 a.m.: “Revenge of the Electric Car,” dir. Chris Paine. 90 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ Noon: “Prairie Love,” dir. Dusty Bias. 85 min. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ Noon: “The Reconstruction of Asa Carter,” dir. Marco Ricci. 60 min. Clinton School of Public Service. ≠ 12:30 p.m.: World Shorts 2: “I’ve Got Issues.” Five shorts exploring society and morality. “Bullies on Vacation,” dir. Devon Gummersall, 17 min.; “Commerce,” dir. Lisa Robertson, 18 min.; “Two Birds,” dir. Francesco Saviano, 15 min.; “Between the Shadows,” dir. Zac Petrillo, 23 min.; “Hijo de mi Madre,” dir. Lucas Mireles, 13 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 12:50 p.m.: “The Crab,” dir. Rona Mark. 103 min. Guy Whitney and filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 1:05 p.m.: “Benavides Born,” dir. Amy Wendel. 91 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 1:10 p.m: “Fambul Tok,” dir. Sara Terry. 90 min. Riverdale 10.

≠ 1:30 p.m.: LRFF Talks: “The Conversation.” dir. Leon Tidwell. Filmmaker present, speaking to LRFF programmer Levi Agee about the challenges of being a blind filmmaker. Riverdale 10. ≠ 2 p.m.: “Hot Coffee,” dir. Susan Saladoff. Filmmaker present. 95 min. Clinton School of Public Service. ≠ 2:20 p.m.: “Natural Selection,” dir. Robbie Pickering. Filmmaker present. 90 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 2:30 p.m.: Arkansas Shorts: “Run for Your Life!” Four thriller and suspense shorts: 8:50 p.m.: “Going to Hell,” dir. Bruce Hutchinson, 14 min.; “Never Stop Running,” dir. Eric Deitz, 17 min.; Hitchhiker,” dir. Allison Hogue, 12 min.; “Pillow,” dir. Miles B. Miller, 19 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3 p.m.: World Shorts 7: “Death and Filmmaking.” Seven comedy shorts: “Love Analysis,” dir. Lucas Mireles; 1 min.; “Sudden Death!,” dir. Adam Hall, 20 min.; “The Process,” dir. Nathan Boey, 4 min.; “Honk If You Miss Randy Todd,” dir. Joshua J. Smith, 10 min.; “The Filmmaker,” dir. Marcello Fabrizi, 17 min.; “Alternate Arrangements,” dir. Zack Bernstein, 10 min.; “The D-Monster,” dir. Kinga Suto, 20 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3 p.m.: Music Licensing for Film and Television. Filmmaker lounche. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:20 p.m.: “American Animal,” dir. Matt D’Elia. Filmmaker present. 95 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:20 p.m.: “Happy New Year,” dir. Lorrel Manning. Filmmaker present. 104 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:20 p.m.: “Left by the Ship,” dir. Emma Rosi Landi and Alberto Vendemmiati. 79 min. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4:30 p.m.: “DAMN!” dir. Aaron Fisher-Cohen. Filmmaker and Jimmy McMillan present. 72 min. Clinton School of Public Service. ≠ 4:40 p.m.: “The Interrupters,” dir. Steve James. Filmmaker present. 162 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4:40 p.m.: Arkansas Shorts 1: “Slow Southern Drawl.” Four Southern shorts: “A Christian Boy,” dir. Mark Thiedeman, 7 min.; “Ballerina,” dir. Bryan Stafford, 16 min.; “Seven Souls,” dir. Gerry Bruno, 15 min.; “Foot Soldier,” dir. Jon Bryant Crawford, 20 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 5:30 p.m.: World Shorts 6: “Finding the Strength.” Five shorts about struggle and triumph: “Punch Drunk,” dir. Sam Wark, 15 min.; “Touch,” dir. Jen McGowan, 11 min.; A Marine’s Guide to Fishing,” dir. Nicholas Brennan, 15 min.; “Grounded by Reality,” dir. Elizabeth Strickler and Phoebe Brown, 8 min.; “Bright,” dir. Benjamin Busch, 40 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 5:40 p.m.: “Kati with an I,” dir. Robert Greene. Filmmaker present. 86 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 5:50 p.m.: “Everyday Sunshine: The Story of

Fishbone,” dir. Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler. Filmmakers present. 107 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 5:50 p.m.: “Jess + Moss,” dir. Clay Jeter. Filmmaker present. 82 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 6:50 p.m.: “Slow Southern Steel,” dir. Chris Terry and David Lipke. Filmmakers present. 90 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 8 p.m.: “Gun Hill Road,” dir. Rashaad Ernesto Green. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 8 p.m.: World Shorts 4: “There Won’t Be Blood.” Seven horror shorts: “Death and the Blue-Eyed Boy,” dir. Grant Curatola, 17 min.; “Fabrica de Munecas (Doll Factory),” dir. Ainhoa Memendez Goyoaga, 11 min.; “The Window,” dir. Ryan Spindell, 9 min.; “Sidewalk Wars,” dir. Emil Stenberg, 2 min.; “Dentro del Bosque,” dir. Luis Caballero, 15 min.; “Chasing Cotards,” dir. Edward Dark, 13 min.; “The Candidate,” dir. David Kariak, 20 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 8:15 p.m.: “Shotgun Stories,” dir. Jeff Nichols. Filmmaker present. 92 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 9 p.m.: The Peabody Party and Fashion Show. Designs from Missy Lipps, Kata Mari, Leslie Pennel and Barbara Graves. Live music from Goines, Epiphany, EarFear, DJs Poebot and TJ Deeter. Hosted by Adrian Tillman, a.k.a. 607. The Peabody. ≠ 9:30 p.m.: Slow Southern Steel Afterparty. Live music from Seahag, Hour of 13, Music Hates You. Revolution. ≠ 11:30 p.m.: Ferneau Afterparty. Live music from Bryan Frazier and Adam Faucett. Gold pass required. Ferneau. SUNDAY, JUNE 5 ≠ 10:30 a.m.: World Shorts 5: “Things You Might Miss.” “Sand Mountain,” dir. Kathryn McCool, 34 min.; “Dr. Sketchy’s,” dir. Peter Bolte, 17 min.; “The South Will Rise Again,” dir. Ben Guest, 16 min.; “Convergence,” dir. Michael Marsh and Todd Kappelt, 8 min.; “No Tracks Home,” dir. Josh Harrell, 19 min., Riverdale 10. ≠ 11 a.m.: “Love Translated,” dir. Julia Ivanova. Filmmaker present. 83 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 11 a.m.: “Hot Coffee,” dir. Susan Saladoff. Filmmaker present. 95 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 11:15 a.m.: “Independent for Governor: An Idealist’s Grueling Run,” dir. Huixia Lu. 99 min. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 11:45 a.m.: “Jess + Moss,” dir. Clay Jeter. Filmmaker present. 82 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ Noon: “The Interrupters,” dir. Steve James. Filmmaker present. 162 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 1 p.m.: World Shorts 6: “Finding the Strength.” Five shorts about struggle and triumph: “Punch Drunk,” dir. Sam Wark, 15 min.; “Touch,” dir. Jen McGowan, 11 min.; A Marine’s Guide to Fishing,” dir. Nicholas Brennan, 15

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min.; “Grounded by Reality,” dir. Elizabeth Strickler and Phoebe Brown, 8 min.; “Bright,” dir. Benjamin Busch, 40 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 1:15 p.m.: “Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone,” dir. Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler. Filmmakers present. 107 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 1:20 p.m.: “Dog Sweat,” dir. Hossein Keshavarz. 90 min. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 1:50 p.m.: “Slow Southern Steel,” dir. Chris Terry and David Lipke. Filmmakers present. 90 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 2 p.m.: “Fordson: Faith, Fasting and Football,” dir. Rashid Ghazi. Filmmaker present. 99 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 2 p.m.: LRFF Talks: “A Conversation with Hal Needham.” Paste Magazine’s Tim Basham talks to Hal Needham, legendary stuntman and director of “Smokey and the Bandit,” “Cannonball Run” and “Rad.” Filmmaker Lounge, Riverdale 10. ≠ 2:05 p.m.: “Wrestling for Jesus: The Tale of T-Money,” dir. Nathan Clarke. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:30 p.m.: “Sons of Perdition,” dir. Jennilyn Merten and Tyler Measom. Filmmakers present. 88 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:30 p.m.: World Shorts 3: “Existential Relationship Films.” Eight films: “sexting,” dir. Neil LaBute, 8 min.; “Nothing Happened,” dir. Julia Kots, 10 min.; “Ex-Sex,” dir. Michael Mohan, 9 min.; “Bedfellows,” dir. Pierre Stefanos, 16 min.; “Parts + Labor,” dir. Sean O’Malley, 7 min.; “Little Brother,” dir. James Morrison, 120 min.; “Voyeurnet,” dir. Stuart Parkyn, 10 min.; “El Orden de las Cosas (The Order of Things),” dir. Cesar Esteban and Jose Esteban Alenda, 19 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:45 p.m.: Gun Hill Road,” dir. Rashaad Ernesto Green. Filmmaker present. Riverdale 10. ≠ 3:50 p.m.: “DAMN!” dir. Aaron Fisher-Cohen. Filmmaker and Jimmy McMillan present. 72 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4 p.m.: “Fleurs du Mal,” dir. David Dusa. 98 min. Riverdale 10. ≠ 4 p.m.: Arkansas Shorts 2: “Hijinks and Heart.” Six comedy shorts: “Rappers Delightful Remix,” dir. Tyler Tarver, 2 min.; “Disillusioned,” dir. Kim Risi, 7 min.; “Sacred Ground,” dir. Ben Aaron, 8 min.; “The Jester,” dir. Scott Edge, 10 min.; “Cotton County Boys,” dir. Collin Buchanan, 30 min.; “The Orderly,” dir. Daniel Campbell, 11 min.; Riverdale 10. ≠ 6 p.m.: Arkansas Times Closing Night Gala and Awards Ceremony. Great Hall, Clinton Presidential Center. ≠ 8:30 p.m.: “Smokey and the Bandit,” dir. Hal Needham. Filmmaker present. 96 min. Rivermarket Amphitheatre. ≠ 10 p.m.: Crush Wine Bar Wrap Party. Crush Wine Bar.

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THE WORLD’S MOST INTERESTING MAN Hal Needham, in town for the LR Film Festival, has spent his life getting punched out, burned, blown up, run over and pushed off buildings. In between, he directed one of the most beloved movies of all time. By David Koon

here’s a series of beer commercials on the air now in which the spokesman is presented as “The World’s Most Interesting Man” — a suave, hottie-draped fella who intones: “Stay thirsty, my friends.” He obviously never met Hal Needham. Needham will take part this week in the Little Rock Film Festival, including

THE FALL GUY: Hal Needham (above) and a jump he made for a Chevy truck commercial. 18 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

introducing a special, outdoor showing of 1977’s “Smokey and the Bandit” — which he conceived and directed — at the Riverfest Amphitheatre on Sunday, June 5, beginning at dusk. Admission is free. Born desperately poor in Memphis and raised in sharecropper shacks all over Arkansas, Needham was a tree-trimmer and airplane wing-walker who went on

to become a pioneering stuntman in Hollywood, personally bringing many safety and technique innovations to the business. When he wasn’t falling from high places, Needham directed 10 films, including “Smokey and the Bandit,” “Hooper” and “Stroker Ace.” In his free time, he tried to break the sound barrier on wheels in a rocket car. If that wasn’t enough, he lived in Burt Reynolds’ poolhouse throughout the 1970s — very, very good years to be a houseguest and friend of Burt Reynolds. World’s Most Interesting Man? Yeah, I think Needham’s got a lifetime lock on that title. Plainspoken, with a hint of Southern twang, Needham, 80, is retired now. Little, Brown and Co. recently published his memoir, “Stuntman! My Car-Crashing, Plane-Jumping, Bone-Breaking, DeathDefying Hollywood Life.” In places, it’s a tale so crazy it sounds like fiction. The stepson of a farmer who regularly uprooted his family to follow the crops, Needham lived outside of at least eight different towns in Arkansas before he was 10 years old (I say “outside” because he said his family always seemed to light 10 to 12 miles from civilization). They were too poor to own a car, so when they moved, the family traveled by muledrawn wagon. “We were bottom of the totem pole,” Needham said recently in a phone interview. “We didn’t have running water. A couple of times we had a well out in the yard, but most of the time we had to go carry water from a spring or the river or some damn thing. No electricity, obviously, and the only heat we had was a fireplace and cookstove. We were poor. Really poor.” Continued on page 20

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NEEDHAM

Continued from page 19 Needham’s stepfather moved to St. Louis during World War II to work in the materiel plants there, and the family soon followed. When Needham was older, he killed off his fear of heights working as a tree-trimmer, and soon found work on weekends in a stunt show at the airport, dangling upside down from a rope ladder under a biplane while crowds gasped below. From there, it was on to Hollywood, where Needham slowly worked his way into stunt work. It was tough going in the early years. “The stunt business is kind of a closed business. A lot of it is fatherand-son, or father-and-daughter,” he said. “When you were like me, and you had no relatives and no help or anything, it was tough skiddin’. You had to go out and politick, and if you got an opportunity, you really had to show your stuff and be good.” Once he got his shot — showing off his tree-climbing skills while working as an extra on an episode of “Have Gun, Will Travel” about lumberjacks — Needham quickly made a name for himself as a man who would go bigger than everybody else. Before long, he was in high demand, doubling for John Wayne and doing stunts on just about every 1960s TV show you can name, from “Bonanza” to “Star Trek.” While earning his stripes as a stuntman, Needham also kept his eye out for ideas to make stunts safer and more spectacular. He was the first to introduce a trunk-mounted cannon to flip over a moving car (the initial testing broke his back, punctured a lung and knocked out several teeth). While speaking on a college campus, he happened to see polevaulters jumping into a large, air-filled bag. After talking to the manufacturer, he was the first to use an airbag system to cushion stuntmen doing high falls. Before that, they’d done their falls on whatever was handy, from stacks of boxes to piles of sticks covered with a tarp. After Needham introduced the airbag, the height a stuntman could safely jump instantly rose from around 40 feet to over 100. Soon, the jumps got higher. “I started directing about that time, but the young-gun stuntmen started getting bigger bags and going higher,” he said. “Today, they go 300 feet. You couldn’t throw me off a building 300 feet [high], you know?” He hears the Academy is considering giving him a special Oscar this year for his contributions to filmmaking, though that’s still up in the air. While he undoubtedly deserves it, Needham is firm when it comes to his feelings on giving awards for stunts, and balks at the idea that the craft warrants an Academy Award category (it’s one of the few aspects of filmmaking

that doesn’t have one). “Myself, I’ve never been for it,” he said. “ My belief is, when a person goes in and pays his money to see a movie, and he sees his hero up there doing something spectacular, you don’t want him to stop and think: ‘I wonder if that’s the star, or if it’s a stuntman?’ You want them to enjoy the movie. I think stuntmen should take their check and go on their way.” Even putting his stunt work and directing aside, Needham has lived a hell of a life. “Cannonball Run,” the screwball comedy he directed about an illegal, coast-to-coast race, was based on his actual experience running in the Cannonball Rally with automotive journalist Brock Yates. As seen in the film, Yates and Needham cooked up a scheme: build a high-horsepower ambulance capable of going over 120 miles an hour, dress like EMTs, strap a woman to a gurney in the back, and tell any cops who stopped them that they were taking her to California by road because her horrible lung condition didn’t allow her to fly. “If they stopped us and took us to jail for some strange reason, and something happened to that patient, they’d be in trouble,” Needham said, laughing. “Intimidation was our whole theory when we started that trip, and it worked!” Later on, Needham tried to break the sound barrier in a wheeled rocket sponsored by Budweiser, and founded a NASCAR shop that fielded the legendary Skoal-Bandit race team. When all is said and done, though, people outside the movie business will likely remember Needham for the first film he directed — “Smokey and the Bandit.” Born out of a friend’s comment that bringing Coors beer east of the Mississippi was considered bootlegging, the film — with a big truck, a cute dog and a hot car with Needham’s friend Burt Reynolds at the wheel — is reportedly second only to “Star Wars” in total lifetime gross for films made in 1977, and has become a redneck favorite since it made the jump to TV. While it’s undeniably a low-brow classic, Needham said he had no idea that it would ever become so popular. “I’ve talked to people who have seen that movie 30 or 40 times!” he said. “It’s amazing. I think it’s a real down-home folksy kind of movie, with Burt being the number one box-office star, and Jackie Gleason being a master of comedy, and the music with Jerry Reed — ‘East Bound and Down’ — being number one on the Country/Western charts for 16 weeks. That all helped.” Paste magazine’s Tim Basham will interview Needham at 2 p.m. Sunday at Riverdale, and Needham will introduce “Smokey and the Bandit” on Sunday around 8:30 p.m. at the amphitheater.

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To read a long Q&A interview with Hal Needham, go to arktimes.com/needham. www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 21

EYE ON ARKANSAS

Editorial n Have pirates seized control of the state’s flagship university? If not, they’re dangerously close, the fighting hand to hand. The Arkansas Farm Bureau, the lobbying arm of agribusiness, always more devoted to tax breaks and cheap farm labor than to education, has been campaigning diligently if furtively across the state to get a former Farm Bureau president, Stanley Reed, named the new president of the University. The Farm Bureau believes there’s cash to be milked from the university cow if the right man is doing the pulling. A farmer of sorts, Reed has no qualifications to lead an institution of higher learning. He does have a record of being on the wrong side of numerous public issues, including his support for private segregated schools and anti-gay laws, and his opposition to laws prohibiting cruelty to animals. For awhile, the Board searched for a new president in private, a majority of the trustees repudiating the state Freedom of Information law and their own duty to taxpayers, students, and parents. The Board found support for its secrecy from a chief counsel, Fred Harrison, who believes that university trustees, like vampires, work most efficiently in the dark. A change in the chairmanship of the Board has opened the process up somewhat, Harrison notwithstanding, and that glimmer of sunshine may hurt Reed’s chances, though his supporters on and off the board continue to connive. The Board’s raggedy reputation was further damaged last week, when the Times revealed that the Board has no policy prohibiting its members from doing business with the institutions they oversee. What little language the Board has concerning conflict of interest is intended more to protect the conflicted trustee than the university. One board member, Mike Akin of Monticello, has just entered a real estate deal with the University of Arkansas at Monticello; other trustees may have their own ventures working. This kind of thing should be banned outright, by statute if not by the Board. The UA Board ceded considerable authority to the Walton Foundation in exchange for a large gift a few years back. It’s never been made clear exactly how much the Board handed over, but we know the transaction produced a well-financed UA department whose purpose is to undermine the public schools. We didn’t expect the Board to offer the president’s job to the Dalai Llama while he was in town, but we’d rather not have a Blackbeard either. Cannot we add just an ounce of idealism to the search for a university president, some slight acknowledgement that university graduates should know of value as well as price, of truth as well as profit margins? Arkansas needs more than hustlers.

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The decks run red

FETCH: One of Ed Jakubowski’s Disc Dogs performs for a crowd at this year’s Riverfest in Little Rock. The three-day festival set an attendance record of more than 260,000.

The Pulaski school caper n I wrote briefly last week about the Keystone Kops caper in which Pulaski County School Board member Tim Clark and a district principal, Michael Nellums of Mills High, collaborated on setting up a video sting of Gwen Williams, another School Board member. Williams was a key vote last fall in a simmering controversy over the teachers union. Clark and Nellums shared an anti-union objective. People with whom Clark and Nellums dealt clumsily put together a video of Williams taking an envelope with perhaps $100, supposedly to influence a favor on a sidewalk contract at a school in her zone. The video and a bogus letter about it were sent to the School Board. As the instigators no doubt hoped, the video was turned over to authorities. Investigators did a thorough job. They uncovered, not a crime by Williams, but what Prosecutor Larry Jegley described as a “juvenile” plot to discredit Williams. Clark insists he had only been responding to what he thought was a legitimate complaint about Williams. Nellums has dummied up (and lawyered up), but his allies insist “everybody knows” Williams was prone to such suasion. Nellums’ allies also offer a number of other straw men, several racial in context. • The prosecutor just wants to put the black man – Nellums – down. Forget that, in doing so, the prosecutor exonerated a black woman and tabbed a white man as the financier of the plot. If Williams’ critics are so sure she’s dirty, why didn’t they just complain to authorities, rather than cooking up a scheme complete with a handwritten script, clandestine meetings, dozens of phone calls and a wad of cash stuck in a Ritz cracker box? • Williams is a poor woman, a discount store clerk, whose grasp isn’t sufficient for school board service. Let voters be the judge of that. • Williams went along with an unconscionable decision (pushed by Clark, by the way) to pour Pulaski school construction money into neighborhoods of white privilege, such as Maumelle, while forsaking

Max Brantley max@arktimes.com

black neighborhoods like College Station. This again, is no justification for a black principal’s schoolboy antics. • The prosecutor was tougher on Michael Nellums than on police in recent shooting investigations. I don’t buy it, but those cases aren’t on trial. The issue here is inexplicably stupid actions by people who lead school districts. (Nellums is also a member of the Little Rock School Board.) Prosecutor Jegley says he looked for every possible way to allege a crime. Had the instigators gone directly to authorities – rather than planting a bogus claim with the School Board – they could have faced a false report charge. Nothing else, Jegley said, “met the threshold for bringing the justice machinery to bear.” Mockery fits the offense. I like a reader’s photoshopping of pictures of Nellums and Clark into a picture of the cinematic heroes of the movie “Dumb and Dumber.” But stupid as those movie characters were, they had good hearts. There was nothing goodhearted about the scheme aimed at Gwen Williams. Nellums’ record, by the way, is littered with trouble – disputes with a co-worker; allegations of tricks by the man he beat for Little Rock School Board; funny business in the recent Little Rock School Board superintendent search. Williams’ attorney has said she’ll sue. Good. Meanwhile, the Pulaski School Board should make permanent Nellums’ suspension as a school principal. He and Clark also should resign from their school board seats, but that would require more grace than they’ve demonstrated so far.

BRIAN CHILSON

Medicare’s appeal n That most Americans, not merely the indigent elderly, care so much about Medicare that it will decide their vote seems to have come as a shock to Republican lawmakers, including Arkansas’s, although many owe their offices to that fact. In one of the nation’s most reliably Republican congressional districts, a Democratic county clerk upset a rich Republican lawmaker and the single issue was Medicare. The Republican said she would have voted with all the other Republican House members for the Paul Ryan budget, which would scrap Medicare in 10 years and replace it with a voucher system where the elderly and disabled would need to buy private insurance policies to cover their hospital and doctor expenses or pay for everything out of their own pockets. The congressional victory dramatically changed the calculus for the 2012 elections. Democrats are accorded good shots at scores of Republican-held seats, including two in Arkansas where Republicans won last year with the help of considerable Medicare demagoguery. The election, along with polls, has had a sobering effect on many in the GOP, but the mainline strategy is to keep trying to hornswoggle the voters into believing that Democrats, the fathers of Medicare, are out to destroy it and the Republicans, who fought it from the first, are its saviors. So simple is the Ryan equation that voters are not going

Ernest Dumas to be easily duped again. In spite of all their experience, Republicans still can’t quite believe that a government-run program can really be popular with people, especially those who are not yet in it. But nearly everyone has parents, relatives or friends who are on Medicare and are relieved they no longer have to fight the insurance company or worry about the bills. Republicans had ample evidence of the issue’s vitality with voters in 2009 and 2010. Having to beat a health-insurance law bill that was based on Republican principles and precedents, they took a page from the Democratic playbook. Tell people their Medicare benefits were going to be cut under the Democratic bill and that the government was going to “ration” medical treatment. That’s what Frank Luntz’s polling told them would work. Actually, Medicare benefits were going to be expanded under “Obamacare” and there was to be no rationing, but the idea was an easy sell because no one understood the massive reform bill and timid Democrats like those in Arkansas made no effort to counter the lie. Polls showed that in much of

While we were sleeping ... n HOT SPRINGS — From last week’s annual Arkansas Rural Development Conference, where officials of small communities pick up grants, I came away with a few observations. The first is that Secretary of State Mark Martin, the Republican having trouble getting his bearings in state constitutional office, is, shall we say, not a scintillating public speaker. It does not appear likely that he will be able to talk himself out of very much of the abundant trouble into which he has already found himself. That’s mostly over dubious spending in his office that defies the tea party spirit that elected him, including a reported $54,000 for an employees’ retreat in which a Wal-Mart-endowed institute at John Brown University was supposed to inspire everyone to work in a value-oriented way. You need to bring your pre-existing values along with you when you enter public office. You’re not likely to experience any

John Brummett jbrummett@arkansasnews.com

significant applied learning of new ones by going to a weekend retreat. I had no objection to the standing ovation the large audience gave Martin at the beginning and end of his mercifully brief luncheon remarks. In fact, there was something nobly egalitarian about a respectful demonstration, even perfunctory and tepid, for an office that, as its main duties, is charged with keeping the Capitol maintained and the Capitol lawn mowed. Here, then, are my recommended values for the secretary of state, offered for a $54,000 discount: Evenly cut grass looks best. Precision lawn edging is good. Marble looks exquisite when expertly cleaned. The panel of legislators I moderated im-

the country, including Arkansas, people over 55 overwhelmingly opposed the reform bill because they thought it cut Medicare. Angry tea-partiers at public forums raged about losing Medicare. That is the justification for the Ryan plan. It’s supposed to “save” Medicare by turning it over to the insurance market. But the difference is that anyone can instantly figure out how the Republican plan will affect him. It doesn’t require even a triple-digit IQ. The government will end its obligation to insure your medical expenses, you will need to buy a policy from an insurance company to cover them, the government is going to help you buy the policy less and less each year, and you know that the insurance companies must cover their large administrative costs and also make a profit with your premiums. That means you are going to get less care or else you are going to have to pay a lot, lot more for it, or both. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office calculated that under the Republican plan by 2050 a 75-year-old man would have to pay $52,000 a year in current dollars to buy a currently adequate plan and the government would give him a mere $10,000 to buy it. If that is not an end to Medicare as we know it, what would it look like? Now the strategy is that privatizing Medicare would save it from the rationing that the new health law plans for beneficiaries. People are terrified of rationing. Rationing is what we have now in its most extreme form. Those who can’t afford insurance or are denied it for pre-existing

conditions or chronic and acute illnesses are rationed out, except for emergency-room care. Ryan was on Fox News last week accusing the Affordable Care Act of setting up rationing through the Independent Payment Advisory Board, about which you are going to hear a lot the next two years—probably little of it true. Ryan said the president was going to take $500 billion out of Medicare and give it to the board so it could ration medical care among patients. Nonsense. The independent board—Congress would accept or reject all its decisions—is the Affordable Care Act’s biggest effort to restrain Medicare growth, the united goal of both parties for three decades. The board of medical experts and economists will find legitimate savings in the compensation rates of medical providers and ferret out procedures that are needless or don’t work but chew up billions of Medicare dollars. The law bars the board from cutting patient care or eligibility—the rationing that Ryan speaks of. The board is supposed to produce better care at lower cost, which Medicare is now trying to do by setting up a rigorous review of hospital treatment records. That is exactly what the most common private insurance plans—the HMOs and PPOs—are supposed to do: they control access to procedures and regulate payments in a way to hold down costs, such as paying less to doctors and hospitals that are “out of network.” You presume that Ryan’s insurance companies wouldt try to do that, too. But if insurance companies did it, see, you would not call it rationing.

mediately after lunch wasn’t much more scintillating than Martin had been, or didn’t seem so at the time. But then I kept discovering worthy comments as I remembered and reconsidered the discussion. House Speaker Robert Moore, while not compelling as a public communicator, is passionate about developing geo-tourism to try to save his beloved Delta. He’s also passionate about building good roads between dying towns to try to bring jobs. He said a couple of profoundly truthful things, one being that, in the Delta, they don’t covet business tax cuts to save or restore manufacturing jobs because there never were many manufacturing jobs there in the first place. Dozing audience members perhaps missed state Sen. Jack Crumbly’s poignant lamentation at the panel discussion’s 90-minute mark over the 10-year difference in the life expectancy for a child born in Phillips County and one born in Benton County. His point, a good one, is that our panel discussion of Medicaid should not center solely on those rising costs and how to reduce them, but on how Medicaid is the very lifeblood, indeed the only chance for a healthful start, for far too many of our state’s children.

The legislative panel following ours, moderated by colleague Doug Thompson of those Northwest Arkansas papers, was described as more lively. Having fled the haunting echoes of my own panel, I wasn’t there to behold for myself the scaling of this subterranean bar. One advantage was that Sen. Gilbert Baker of Conway — like him or not, and I do and you might not — was on that second panel, and he has some energy. He expended a little of that energy before lunch charting for me on scratch paper how the Republicans were going to gain three seats or more in the next election and seize outright control of the state Senate. He seemed to think legislative redistricting, at least on the 35-seat Senate side, would not be a matter of dramatic altering. He wondered how I might deal with GOP control. Actually, I tend to find the current crop of state Republicans more personable and personally enjoyable than the Democrats, with a few exceptions, of course, though I’ve said quite enough already about Mark Martin. John Brummett is a columnist and reporter for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 23

arts entertainment

This week in

Wakarusa kicks off

Willie Nelson to NLR

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and

TO-DO LIST 26

CALENDAR 28

MOVIES 38

DINING 41

DOWN SOUTH ‘Slow Southern Steel’ taps into underground metal at the LRFF. BY LINDSEY MILLAR

s there a genre of music more spectral than heavy metal? It’s all noise to outsiders, so explaining the differences between black metal, death metal, doom metal and dozens more subgenres and regional variants can feel like an exercise in anthropology. In other words, a good premise for a documentary. That’s where “Slow Southern Steel” comes in. The years-in-the-making documentary, which debuts at 6:50 p.m. Saturday at the Riverdale 10 as part of the Little Rock Film Festival, tries to identify what separates the Southern underground metal scene from the rest of the genre by methodically exploring the backgrounds and beliefs of the musicians who are a part of it. Which makes for a much better film than the typical music doc assortment of talking heads trying to parse influences and qualities. “Slow Southern Steel” teases at how silly that sort of approach can be with an opening montage of musicians having a go at explaining the scene: “It has its own smooth groove,” Christian Sweeney, of Beer Wolf, offers. “It’s just one fucking gigantic, massive riff that just steps on you the whole night,” Phil Anselmo from Down and Pantera says. It’s “an intangible thing, but it’s unmistakable,” tries Dave Grissom, of Arkansas’s Seahag. Plus, several people suggest gravy and sweet tea as the possible difference makers. Instead, “Slow Southern Steel” offers a humanizing look at a subculture that, frankly, most people are probably scared of. Never before have big bearded, terrifically tattooed dudes wearing pentagram shirts ever talked so candidly and warmly about their childhoods and their friendships and their musical roots. Taken together, a group portrait starts to emerge of a deeply independent, slightly pugnacious group of slow-living, hard-partying and fierce24 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

ly loyal musicians, most of whom grew up Southern Baptist, rebelled and never quit rebelling. Even if you can’t identify with the music, if you grew up in the South, you’re bound to recognize yourself in some of those interviewed. Like Hank III, Hank Williams’ metalloving grandson, who says in the film that he started rebelling after his Bible thumper mom burned his metal records, sent him to Christian school and forced him to go to church three times a week. Or Jimmy Bower, of Eyehategod and Down, who talks about racing dirt bikes as a kid. Or Kylesa’s Phillip Cope, who shares a love of LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells” as child. Producer Chris Terry — better known as CT, lead singer of the North Little Rock-based and internationally acclaimed band Rwake — got the idea for the film years ago from friend Christian Sweeney of Beer Wolf, who interviewed him for a book that was to be called “Slow Southern Steel.” CT loved the idea and told Sweeney right away that he was going to steal it to make a movie. (He got Sweeney’s blessing.) Director David Lipke, a long-time

editor with Little Rock’s JM Associates and a local metal fan, joined the project after pitching CT on a video idea for Rwake. Lipke had the technical knowledge to make the film and CT had the contacts and relationships with the musicians to set up the interviews and establish a narrative. “We needed each other, and it kind of jelled,” Lipke said recently. After three years, thousands of miles logged traveling to concerts throughout the South and dozens of McDonald’s dollar menu meals, CT and Lipke have produced a definitive portrait of a scene and a subculture. And one that should appeal to more than just metal fans. CT said recently that in making the film, he thought about his parents or someone else’s parents watching it. They’ll be hooked “if they can just sit through the loud song in the opening credit,” he said. After the film on Saturday, Revolution hosts an afterparty at 9:30 p.m. Chuck Shaaf of Deadbird will play a short acoustic set, followed by performances by Seahag, Hour of 13 and Music Hates You, all of which feature or have members that feature in the film. Admission is free for LRFF pass holders or a suggested $2 or $3 donation otherwise. If you miss the debut on Saturday, “Slow Southern Steel” will screen again on Sunday at 1:50 p.m. at Riverdale.

■ to-dolist BY JOHN TARPLEY

THURSDAY, JUNE 2

EUREKA SPRINGS BLUES WEEKEND Downtown Eureka Springs.

n Head for the hills, blues fans: For four days, the mountains and valleys of Eureka Springs are going to be echoing with electric, Delta, Chicago, Texas, 12-bar and just about every other type of blues you can imagine when the annual Eureka Springs Blues Weekend returns to a slew of venues and bars in the historic downtown. The lineup includes Elvin Bishop, the Chicago blues icon and founding member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band; Coco Montoya, the celebrated southpaw who spent years backing John Mayall as one of the legendary Bluesbreakers, and Tinsley Ellis, the high-energy and higher-volume electric guitarist, headline the festivities. Rounding out the line-up: Marquise Knox, a 20-year-old making waves in blues circles; Little Joe McLerran, who was recently tapped by Jazz at Lincoln Center and the U.S. State Department to be an American musical ambassador to the Middle East; and Rosie Ledet, an award-winning zydeco musician, among dozens of others. Weekend passes are sold out, but tickets to most individual shows are still available at the festival’s website, EurekaSpringsBlues. com.

WAKARUSA 2011

Mulberry Mountain, Ozark. $29 and up.

n It’s been three years since Wakarusa, the annual music and outdoors festival, relocated to Arkansas and, since, organizers have been focused on recreating the sights, sounds and smells of your dad’s hippie fests: jam bands, light shows, knotted hemp, stray clouds of sticky icky icky smoke. Stay fast, we say. But we’re thrilled to see the festival flirt with big names outside of the proverbial drum circle. This year’s line-up welcomes back the regular cast of friendlies — Ben Harper and Relentless 7, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Umphrey’s McGee, STS9 — while making room on stage for a few bright-lit names. Leading the pack of surprises: My Morning Jacket, the notSouthern-rock Southern rockers whose career path has taken the band from fuzz-ball “Live Rust” acolytes to ambitious, epochal critical darlings. The festival showcases other drawling indie acts like Mumford & Sons, the folk ravers who were handed the “Best New Artist” and “Best Rock Song” Grammys last year; the Oscar-winning songwriter Ryan Bingham; and a soon-tobe-huge Nashville grrrl-country act, Those 26 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

BUNDLE UP: My Morning Jacket, fresh off of releasing “Circuital,” highlights this year’s Wakarusa line-up. Darlins. The festival seems to be expanding its techno offerings, as well, booking Thievery Corporation, the jazzy, trip-hop duo; Shpongletron, a jam-friendly electro-eclecticist; and Austin electro-rockers Ghostland Observatory. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, those much-celebrated soul revivalists, also duck into the festival for a Friday evening set. Other notable names: Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Toots & the Maytals, Lucero, Minus the Bear, Budos Band, Lanhorne Slim, Peelander-Z and, one of Arkansas’s contributions to the festival, our beloved twoheaded beast, Tyrannosaurus Chicken.

FRIDAY, JUNE 3

BIG K.R.I.T.

9 p.m., Cornerstone Pub. $20 adv.

n With every new track, it gets harder to justify listening to any post-Rikers Lil Wayne. Jay Electronica is brilliant, but – imperfection be damned – he won’t make a peep for months at a time. Ditto Andre 3000. Bun B and Scarface are already part of the canon. So who are we supposed to get in a tizzy about? Right now, I and thousands of others are looking to Big K.R.I.T. to take the wheel and keep the South on track. Only 24, the Meridian, Miss., native has gone from rap-blog favorite to emceeto-beat over the last year, writing, producing and releasing two of the best mixtapes

K.R.I.T.-ICALLY ADORED: Almost surely the next big rapper to come from the South, Big K.R.I.T. brings his hyper-intelligent Southern bounce to Cornerstone Pub this Friday. in years with “K.R.I.T. Wuz Here” and its follow-up, “Return of 4Eva,” my pick for the best rap album of the year by a country mile. It’s essential listening, the sound of a buzzy draftee defying the high expectations and knocking any potential “over-” labels off of “over-hyped.” Since, K.R.I.T. (and his logo, a repurposed Basquiat crown) has broken through the Internet bubble, getting co-signs from NPR and the New York Times. He’s crossed the Mississippi to visit Little Rock a few times over the years, but this may be your last time to see the next big thing up close and without binoculars. K.R.I.T. gets local support from members of the Conduit Fam: Arkansas Bo, one

half of Suga City, opens alongside 607, who, alongside his brother Bobby, uses the night to release the latest Ear Fear album, “Art Class.” Because, as Lord Six says, “everyone enjoyed their mandatory art class.”

‘SHOOG RADIO LIVES!’

8 p.m., Maxine’s, Hot Springs. $6 adv., $8 d.o.s.

n Let it be known that we’re pretty sweet on Shoog. Every Monday afternoon from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., local lady on the scene Cheyenne Matthews takes to the KABF 88.3 airwaves to host an infectiously ramshackle block of local music. If the tunes

smile-about-town. And even now, nearly a year after he passed away, the events keep coming. This weekend, White Water hosts a benefit show to rally money and support for the Lucas Clayton Hunsicker Scholarship Fund, which provides a yearly stipend to a high school senior from Luke’s alma mater, Parkview High, who plans to pursue an education in the arts. Saturday, expect a helping of ’50s doo-wop, pop and soul – dancing and singing encouraged, if not irresistible – from a cast of Hunsicker cohorts and local musicians. Also, a wall of locally-made art pieces will be on display with sales going to the scholarship fund, as well. A BIG LEGACY: This Saturday, a cast of locals hits the White Water Tavern stage to raise funds for the art scholarship established in memory of Luke Hunsicker (above).

WILLIE NELSON’S COUNTRY THROWDOWN 3:30 p.m., North Shore Riverwalk Park. $34.

n We’re in the deep end of summer festival season, but make no mistake: This traveling showcase is the most Southern-fried of them all. The hyper-nomadic, red-headed septuagenarian has wrangled up a crew of hard-edged country singers to join him for the better part of five weeks, crisscrossing the map and laying into the guitars for Willie Nelson’s Country Throwdown, a sort of Warped Tour for the country crowd. Willie, of course, headlines. But a crew of young torchbearers round out the cast. Jamey Johnson, Randy Houser and Lee Brice, all Nashville slingers with a history of heavy songwriting, share the bold print at the top of the line-up. Two other stages feature up-and-comers like Brantley Gilbert, Craig Campbell, Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real and others, including Little Rock regular Austin Lucas, whose latest record, “Live at the White Water Tavern,” was recorded at the watering hole of champions and released by local Travis Hill’s alt-country imprint, Last Chance Records.

SUNDAY, JUNE 5 THE HIGHWAYMAN: Willie Nelson’s Country Throwdown brings a day’s worth of country music to the North Shore Riverwalk Park on Saturday. aren’t dialed up from her iPod encyclopedia, they’re performed, live on the air, from the rotating cast of locals who pack, elbows to butts, in the tiny Main Street studio. It’s one of the many small charms that Little Rock has to offer. And we want to see it keep keepin’ on. This weekend, the show is raising money for new equipment for the radio station by heading down the road to Hot Springs alongside a crew of Shoog regulars. The night’s lined up to offer sets from Adam Faucett, the inimitable local; Ace Spade & the Whores of Babylon, those long-tenured psychobilly prowlers; Bryan Frazier, who recently released a career-spanning anthology; Sweet Eagle, the testosterone-jacked crew of local Detroit rockers; and The Walking Lawsuits,

a Hot Springs trio with one foot in the ’50s and an amp in the early-’90s.

SATURDAY, JUNE 4

‘TIME FOR TENDERNESS’

9 p.m., White Water Tavern. $10.

n Our man Luke Hunsicker’s big-hearted legacy is going to live on for a long time if Little Rock has anything to say about it. During his fight with brain cancer, members of the local musical establishment banded together for a string of concerts, raising funds for medical bills addressed to the multi-talented musician and general

CONWAY PRIDE PARADE & FESTIVAL 2 p.m., “The Pink House.” Free.

n Conway, Ark., may not strike you as a bastion of LGBT culture. And you’d be right. But for eight years, Robert Loyd and his partner of 35 years, John Schenck, have spearheaded the annual Conway Pride Parade and Festival, which draws hundreds of paraders out to the streets. Kicking off at 2 p.m., the parade departs from “The Pink House” on 1605 Robinson before making the march to Simon Park. The festival offers food, refreshments, live music from Dee Jay MoonGod and a slate of drag queens, drag kings and live singers throughout the afternoon. For more information on one of Arkansas’s biggest pride parades, visit ConwayPride.com.

■ inbrief THURSDAY 6/2

n Hot Springs filmmaker/jazz pianist Chuck Dodson teams up with celebrated Nashville guitarist Joe McMahan, vocalist Kelsey Waite and Sigur Ros compadre Josh Varnedore for an adventurous night of music at Maxine’s, 9 p.m., free. Talking Heads fans look again: country kickers David Byrnes, Ryan Couron and Luke Williams bring their mud-crusted music to Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $8 adv., $10 d.o.s. The Little Rock Film Festival takes to Revolution for the Little Rock Film Festival Music Video Competition and Showcase, featuring music video premieres from a number of local acts, as well as live music from reformed punk wackos Bobgoblin, Roderick Anderson Bryan and the Western Easter Islands, Ear Fear and, back from hiding, The See, 8 p.m., $10. And at the North Shore Riverwalk, this week’s installment of Riverflicks offers up “Grease,” 7 p.m., free. R.I.P. Kenickie.

FRIDAY 6/3

n The RiverTop Party returns to The Peabody, offering up live music from The Venus Project, which brought out the largest crowd in RiverTop history in 2007 when the band drew more than 1,200 people. Epic. 8 p.m., $5. Local reggaeman Ras Levi celebrates his birthday at Juanita’s with a live set from Jamaican dance-hall crooner Everton Blender, 9 p.m. Melodic metalcore act The Black Dahlia Murder returns to Revolution with support from Beast in the Field, 8 p.m., $10. Town Pump gets a triple-bill from songwriters Alisyn Reid, Gene Reid and Justin Patterson, 10 p.m. For the blues fans, the Big John Miller Band returns for another Friday night at The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. Midtown Billiards is wrangling in another late night with Memphis’ Josephus and the George Jonestown Massacre, 12:30 a.m., $8 non-members.

SATURDAY 6/4

n Christian metal superstars Skillet land in Magic Springs’ Timberwood Amphitheater as part of the park’s summer music series, 7:30 p.m., $5-$10 plus regular admission. Velvet Kente takes its genremashing sonic fusion to Hot Springs for a gig at Maxine’s, $4 adv., $5 d.o.s. VooDoo Sauce fills The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. Big Silver makes a rare live appearance this weekend, taking over Town Pump, $10. Revolution hosts an afterparty for the premiere of “Slow Southern Steel,” featuring music from Seahag, Music Hates You, Hour of 13 and more, 9 p.m. And at Midtown Billiards, the celebrated, buzzy folk act The Romany Rye takes the stage at 12:30 a.m., $8 non-members. www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 27

www.arktimes.com

afterdark

All events are in the Greater Little Rock area unless otherwise noted. To place an event in the Arkansas Times calendar, please e-mail the listing and all pertinent information, including date, time, location, price and contact information, to calendar@arktimes.com.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1 MUSIC

Acoustic Open Mic Night. Hosted by Andy Warr. The Afterthought, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Acoustic Open Mic with Kat Hood. The Afterthought, 8 p.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-6631196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Bolly Open Mic Hype Night with Osyrus Bolly and DJ Messiah. All American Wings, 9 p.m. 215 W. Capitol Ave. 501-376-4000. allamericanwings. com. Chuck Dodson and Joe McMahan, Kelsey Waite, Josh Varnedore. Artchurch Studio, 7 p.m., $10. 301 Whittington Ave., Hot Springs. 501-3186779. www.artchurch.org. Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub. com. Karaoke. Hibernia Irish Tavern, 9 p.m. 9700 N Rodney Parham Road. 501-246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com. Karaoke with Big John Miller. Denton’s Trotline, 8 p.m. 2150 Congo Road, Benton. 501-315-1717. Steve Bates. Cajun’s Wharf, 5 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 5 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG.

FILM

Little Rock Film Festival 2011. The annual festival returns for five days of film, with workshops, parties, visiting filmmakers, a concluding gala and more. For more information, visit littlerockfilmfestival.org. Movies in the Park: “Twilight: New Moon.” Riverfest Amphitheatre, 7 p.m., free. 400 President Clinton Ave.

LECTURES

“The Rights and Rank to Which We Are Entitled”: A Retrospective on Statehood. Brown Bag Lunch Lecture features Dr. Thomas A. DeBlack on the people and events associated with the statehood movement in Arkansas. Old State House Museum, 12 p.m., free. 500 Clinton Ave. 501-324-9685. www.oldstatehouse.com. “Legacies and Lunch.” William D. Downs Jr. will discuss his latest book, “Stories of Survival: Arkansas Farmers During the Great Depression.” Main Library, 12 p.m. 100 S. Rock St. www.cals.lib.ar.us. Mike Huckabee. The former governor and Fox News personality discusses his new book, “A Simple Government: Twelve Things We Really Need From Washington (and a Trillion We Don’t!)” To reserve seats, call 683-5239 or e-mail publicprograms@ clintonschool.uasys.edu. Clinton School of Public 28 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

THURSDAY, JUNE 2 MUSIC

Chuck Dodson and Joe McMahan, Kelsey Waite, Josh Varnedore. Maxine’s, 9 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.com. David Byrnes, Ryan Couron, Luke Williams. Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $8 adv., $10 d.o.s. 1300 S. Main St. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. “V.I.P. Thursdays” with DJs SilkySlim and Derrty Deja Blu. Sway, 8 p.m., $3. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Into the Glory. Vino’s, 8 p.m., $8. 923 W. Seventh St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com. Jeff Coleman. The Afterthought, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Joey Arata. Markham Street Grill And Pub, 9 p.m. 11321 W. Markham St. 501-224-2010. www. markhamst.com. Karaoke. Zack’s Place, 8 p.m. 1400 S. University Ave. 501-664-6444. www.zacks-place.com. Knox Hamilton, Hoop Dreams, Dearspeak. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $5. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz. com. Little Rock Film Festival Music Video Competition and Showcase. Revolution, 8 p.m., $10. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Lyle Dudley. Cregeen’s Irish Pub, 9 p.m., free. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-376-7468. www.cregeens.com. Mac Sledge. White Water Tavern, 10 p.m. 2500 W. 7th. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Mr. Lucky (headliner), Shannon McClung (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5 and 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www. cajunswharf.com. Ol’ Puddin’haid. Thirst n’ Howl, 7:30 p.m., free. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirstn-howl.com. Port Arthur Band. Parrot Beach Cafe, 9 p.m. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994. Steve Boyster. Thirst n’ Howl, 9 p.m. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 5 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG.

COMEDY

Eric O’Shea. The Loony Bin, through June 2, 8 p.m.; June 3, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; June 4, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $6-$9. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

EVENTS

COMEDY

Eric O’Shea. The Loony Bin, 8 p.m.; June 3, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; June 4, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $6-$9. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

Service, 12 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5239. www.clintonschool.uasys.edu.

HOW VAIN: This year’s “Movies in the Park” series kicks off another season at the Riverfest Amphitheatre on Wednesday, June 1, with what’s sure to be a huge draw for area Twi-hards, “Twilight: New Moon.” The park opens at 6:30 p.m., movie starts at a more vampireappropriate time: sundown.

Hillcrest Shop & Sip. Shops and restaurants offer discounts, later hours, and live music. Hillcrest, first Thursday of every month, 5-10 p.m. P.O.Box 251522. 501-666-3600. www.hillcrestmerchants.com. “Taste of the Rock.” Food and drinks from area restaurants. For more information, visit littlerockchamber.com. River Market Pavilions, 5 p.m., $15 adv., $20 d.o.e. 400 President Clinton Ave. 375-2552. www.rivermarket.info.

FILM

Little Rock Film Festival 2011. See June 1. Riverflicks: “Grease.” North Shore Riverwalk, 7 p.m., free. Riverwalk Drive, NLR. www.northlittlerock.org. “Seraphine.” Directed by Martin Provost. 2008. Arkansas Arts Center, 7 p.m. 501 E. 9th St. 501-3724000. www.arkarts.com.

LECTURES

Central Arkansas Genealogical and Historical Society. Chris Stewart demonstrates step by step how to publish blogs on the web and how they can be used in genealogical and historical research. Arkansas Studies Institute, 6 p.m., free. 401 President Clinton Ave. 501-320-5792. www.arstudies.org.

FRIDAY, JUNE 3 MUSIC

Alisyn Reid, Justin Patterson, Gene Reid. Town Pump, 10 p.m. 1321 Rebsamen Park Road. 501-663-9802. Audrey Kelley, Midnight Cat, Josh Stoffer. Reno’s Argenta Cafe, 9 p.m. 312 N. Main St., NLR. 501-376-2900. www.renosargentacafe.com.

UPCOMING EVENTS Concert tickets through Ticketmaster by phone at 975-7575 or online at www.ticketmaster.com unless otherwise noted. JUNE 22: Lucero. 8 p.m., $15 adv., $17 d.o.s Maxine’s, 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-321-0909, maxinespub.com. JULY 20: CJ Ramone. 8 p.m., $15 adv., $20 d.o.s. Downtown Music Hall, 211 W. Capitol. 376-1819. OCT. 4: Taylor Swift. 7 p.m., $27-$71. Verizon Arena. 975-9000, verizonarena.com. Big K.R.I.T., 607, Arkansas Bo, DJ Discipline. Cornerstone Pub & Grill, 9 p.m., $20. 314 Main St., NLR. 501-374-1782. cstonepub.com. Big John Miller Band. The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www. afterthoughtbar.com. Bleu Edmondson. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9:30 p.m., $10. 107 Commerce St. 501-3727707. www.stickyfingerz.com. Burning Waco. West End Smokehouse and Tavern, 10 p.m. 215 N. Shackleford. 501-224-7665. www. westendsmokehouse.net. Cedric Burnside Project. White Water Tavern, 10 p.m. 2500 W. 7th. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Ed Burks. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, June 3-4, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. The Eoff Brothers (headliner), Darryl Edwards (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5 and 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www. cajunswharf.com. Everton Blender. Juanita’s, 9 p.m. 1300 S. Main St. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Joecephus and the George Jonestown Massacre. Midtown Billiards, June 4, 12:30 a.m., $8 non-members. 1316 Main St. 501-372-9990. midtownar.com. Katmandu. Thirst n’ Howl, 8 p.m. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com. North Little Rock Community Concert Band. Lakewood Village Amphitheatre, 7 p.m. Lakewood Village, NLR. Mayday by Midnight. Markham Street Grill And Pub, 9 p.m. 11321 W. Markham St. 501-224-2010. www.markhamst.com. Nine Lives Spent. Fox And Hound, 9 p.m., $5. 2800 Lakewood Village, NLR. 501-753-8300. www. foxandhound.com/locations/north-little-rock.aspx. The Paperboys. Dugan’s Pub, 9 p.m. 403 E. 3rd St. 501-244-0542. www.duganspublr.com. RiverTop Party with The Venus Mission. The Peabody Little Rock, 8 p.m., $5. 3 Statehouse Plaza. 501-906-4000. www.peabodylittlerock.com. Shannon McClung. Flying Saucer, 9 p.m., $3. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-7468. www.beerknurd.com/stores/littlerock. “Shoog Radio Lives!” Benefit for KABF 88.3 with live music from Adam Faucett, Ace Spade & the Whores of Babylon, Bryan Frazier, Sweet Eagle, The Walking Lawsuits. Maxine’s, 8 p.m., $6 adv, $8 d.o.s. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.com. Steve Bates. Cregeen’s Irish Pub, 9 p.m., free. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-376-7468. www.cregeens.com. The Black Dahlia Murder, Beast in the Field. Revolution, 8 p.m., $10. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/ CBG.

COMEDY

Eric O’Shea. The Loony Bin, June 3, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; June 4, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $6-$9. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

EVENTS

LGBTQ/SGL Youth and Young Adult Group. Diverse Youth for Social Change is a group for LGBTQ/SGL and straight ally youth and young adults age 14 to 23. For more information, call 244-9690 or search “DYSC” on Facebook. 800 Scott St., 6:30 p.m. 800 Scott St.

FILM

Little Rock Film Festival 2011. See June 1.

SATURDAY, JUNE 4 MUSIC

Big Stack. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz.com. Big Silver. Town Pump, 10 p.m. 1321 Rebsamen Park Road. 501-663-9802. Brian Nahlen and Steve Bates. Dugan’s Pub, 9 p.m. 403 E. 3rd St. 501-244-0542. www. duganspublr.com. Ed Bowman & The Rock City Players. Cornerstone Pub & Grill, 9 p.m. 314 Main St., NLR. 501-374-1782. cstonepub.com. Ed Burks. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. The Freds (headliner), Some Guy Named Robb (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5 and 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-3755351. www.cajunswharf.com. The Gettys. Fox And Hound, 10 p.m., $5. 2800 Lakewood Village, NLR. 501-753-8300. www.foxandhound.com/locations/north-little-rock.aspx. “Inferno” with DJs SilkySlim, Deja Blu, Greyhound. Sway, 10 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-9072582. John Calvin Brewer. Markham Street Grill And Pub, 9 p.m. 11321 W. Markham St. 501-224-2010. www.markhamst.com. Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub. com. Kyle & Corey. Cregeen’s Irish Pub, 9 p.m., free. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-376-7468. www.cregeens.com. The Meanies. West End Smokehouse and Tavern, 10 p.m. 215 N. Shackleford. 501-224-7665. www. westendsmokehouse.net. Roderick Anderson Bryan and The Western Easter Islanders. Juanita’s, 9 p.m. 1300 S. Main St. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Skillet. Magic Springs’ Timberwood Amphitheater, 7:30 p.m., $5-$10. 1701 E. Grand Ave., Hot Springs. “Slow Southern Steel” Afterparty. Seahag, Music Hates You, Hour of 13 and Brother celebrate the premiere of the locally-produced heavy metal documentary. Revolution, 9 p.m. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Team Lieblong. Flying Saucer, 9 p.m. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-7468. www.beerknurd.com/ stores/littlerock. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/ CBG. The Romany Rye. Midtown Billiards, June 5, 12:30 a.m., $8 non-members. 1316 Main St. 501-3729990. midtownar.com. “A Time for Tenderness: A Lucas Clayton Hunsicker Scholarship Benefit Show.” White Water Tavern, 10 p.m. 2500 W. 7th. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Velvet Kente. Maxine’s, 8 p.m., $4 adv., $5 d.o.s. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.com. VooDoo Sauce. The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. “Willie Nelson’s Country Throwdown.” With Willie Nelson, Jamey Johnson, Randy Houser, Lee Brice, Brantley Gilbert and more. North Shore Riverwalk, 2:30 p.m., $34-$74. Riverwalk Drive, NLR. www.northlittlerock.org.

COMEDY

Eric O’Shea. The Loony Bin, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $6-$9. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

EVENTS

Arkansas Farmers Market. Locally grown produce. Certified Farmers Market, 7 a.m.-12 p.m. 6th and Main, NLR. Falun Gong meditation. Allsopp Park, 9 a.m., free. Cantrell & Cedar Hill Roads. Farmer’s Market. River Market Pavilions, through Oct. 31: 7 a.m. 400 President Clinton Ave. 375-2552. www.rivermarket.info. Hillcrest Farmers Market. Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, 7 a.m. 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd. Scott Connections Spring Fellowship Dinner. The annual fundraiser dinner offers drive-through tours at 6 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m. For more information, visit ScottConnections.org. Illallee Plantation, 4

Continued on page 30 www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 29

CALENDAR

Continued from page 29 p.m., $60-$70. 3514 Walkers Corner Road, Scott.

FILM

Little Rock Film Festival 2011. See June 1.

BENEFITS

“Paws on the Pavement.” A 5K run, one-mile run/walk, family activities and events for family pets. For more information, visit CareForAnimals. org. Murray Park, 9:30 a.m. Rebsamen Park Road.

SUNDAY, JUNE 5 MUSIC

Fire & Brimstone. Hilton Garden Inn, 11 a.m. 4100 Glover Lane, NLR. Karaoke. Shorty Small’s, 6-9 p.m. 1475 Hogan Lane, Conway. 501-764-0604. www.shortysmalls. com.

Little Rock Wind Symphony: “Sunday Sarabande.” St. James United Methodist Church, 3 p.m., $10 general, $8 seniors, $5 students. 321 Pleasant Valley Drive. 501-225-7372. www.stjamesumc.org. “Margarita Sunday.” With Tawanna Campbell, Jeron, Dell Smith, Cliff Aaron and Joel Crutcher. Juanita’s, 9 p.m. 1300 S. Main St. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Sunday Jazz Brunch with Ted Ludwig and Joe Cripps. Vieux Carre, 11 a.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.vieuxcarrecafe.com.

EVENTS

“Wine & Cheese Tasting & More.” Fundraiser for the Hot Springs Jazz Society, featuring wines, single malt Scotch, unique beers and martinis. Dr. David “The Scotch Doc” McCoy leads scotch tastings. Forest Lakes Club House, 3:30 p.m., $35. 637 Willowbend Circle, Hot Springs.

FILM

Little Rock Film Festival 2011. See June 1.

MONDAY, JUNE 6 MUSIC Karaoke. Thirst n’ Howl, 8:30 p.m. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com. Richie Johnson. Cajun’s Wharf, 5 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf. com. Grateful Dead Mondays with Touch. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8 p.m., $5. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz. com.

TUESDAY, JUNE 7 MUSIC

Brian & Nick. Cajun’s Wharf, 5 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf. com. The Frontier Circus. White Water Tavern, 10

How To Use Free Social Media

To Sell!

Join Kelly Ferguson, one of Arkansas’s top social media marketing executives June 24 for an introduction to social media marketing using Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to sell your product or service.

Marketing Hasn’t Changed But the Tools Are New! Facebook, Twitter and the hundreds of other social media platforms are powerful new marketing tools and they are free, but you need to know how to use them. This two hour presentation by the Director of Social Media Marketing at the Arkansas Times will help you master this new and valuable technology. Kelly Ferguson • How NOT to use social media. Knowing social media business etiquette is the difference between success and failure. Here are the most common social media pitfalls. • How to find, monitor and respond to reviews and public postings about your business. Consumers are not only posting reviews on restaurants and hotels at Urban Spoon and Trip Advisor, there are more and more sites that host reviews of doctors, lawyers and other professionals. • How to take possession of your Google business page and use it as a powerful marketing tool. You have one whether you know it or not and in many cases, people are posting reviews of your business on it.

• How to employ videos, YouTube and photos to show your product or service using Facebook and other social media sites. • How to use FourSquare, Gowalla and other GPS-driven locational social media sites to attract and sell new customers with specials and contests. In the last 24 hours, over 2,000 people “checked in’ to a business in Little Rock using FourSquare. Did they check into your business looking for a special and find nothing? • How to reinforce what you are already doing to promote your business with these new social media platforms. • Learn how to use social media to compliment your website and occasionally, to replace it.

This two-hour seminar is free but you must rSVP. Seating is limited so please call 501-375-2985 or email kellyferguson@arktimes.com 9 a.m to 11 a.m. Friday June 24 at the Little rock regional Chamber of Commerce building 200 east Markham. Free (but limited) parking available at the Chamber from La Harpe PreSenTed by

HoSTed by

p.m. 2500 W. 7th. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Frontier Ruckus. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz.com. Karaoke Night. Cornerstone Pub & Grill, 8 p.m. 314 Main St., NLR. 501-374-1782. cstonepub.com. Karaoke Tuesday. Prost, 8 p.m., free. 120 Ottenheimer. 501-244-9550. Karaoke with Big John Miller. Denton’s Trotline, 8 p.m. 2150 Congo Road, Benton. 501-315-1717. Lucious Spiller Band. Copeland’s, 6-9 p.m. 2602 S. Shackleford Road. 501-312-1616. www.copelandsofneworleans.com. The Sword, Kylesa, Rwake. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $14 adv., $16 d.o.s. 1300 S. Main St. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Tuesday Jam Session with Carl Mouton. The Afterthought, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com.

DANCE

“Latin Night.” Revolution, 7 p.m., $5 regular, $7 under 21. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www.revroom.com.

EVENTS

Charity Bingo Tuesday. ACAC, 6:30 p.m. 608 Main St. 501-244-2974. acacarkansas.wordpress. com. Farmer’s Market. River Market Pavilions, through Oct. 31: 7 a.m. 400 President Clinton Ave. 375-2552. www.rivermarket.info.

LECTURES

“10 Years After the Lake View Decision.” Brown Bag Lunch Lecture features Dr. Jay Barth on the elements of the Lake View school decision, analyzing how consequential the decision was in reshaping the education received by Arkansas’ young people. Old State House Museum, 12 p.m., free. 500 Clinton Ave. 501-324-9685. www.oldstatehouse.com.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8 MUSIC

999 Eyes. Juanita’s, 9 p.m. 1300 S. Main St. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Acoustic Open Mic with Kat Hood. The Afterthought, 8 p.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-6631196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. The Black Angels. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz.com. Bolly Open Mic Hype Night with Osyrus Bolly and DJ Messiah. All American Wings, 9 p.m. 215 W. Capitol Ave. 501-376-4000. allamericanwings. com. Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub. com. Karaoke. Hibernia Irish Tavern, 9 p.m. 9700 N Rodney Parham Road. 501-246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com. Karaoke with Big John Miller. Denton’s Trotline, 8 p.m. 2150 Congo Road, Benton. 501-315-1717. The Monastics, Mutation of Thursday. Mediums Art Lounge, 9 p.m., $5. 521 Center St. 501-374-4495. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 5 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG.

COMEDY

John Roy. The Loony Bin, June 8-9, 8 p.m.; June 10, 8 and 10:30 p.m.; June 11, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $6-$9. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

SPORTS

Arkansas Travelers vs. Northwest Arkansas Naturals. Doubleheader to make up for the rainedout May 1 match. Dickey-Stephens Park, 6 p.m., $6-$12. 400 W Broadway St., NLR. 501-664-1555. www.travs.com.

THIS WEEK IN THEATER “Always Patsy Cline.” A revue of the legendary country singer’s greatest hits as told through her correspondence with fan Louise Seger. For tickets or more information, call 562-3131 or visit murrysdinnerplayhouse.com. Murry’s Dinner Playhouse,

Continued on page 32 30 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

Let’s recap n Around 13.7 billion years ago there was a bang. Gravity and all other forces that regulate physics were created almost instantly. Within a minute, the universe was a million billion miles across and expanding, swiftly and evenly in all directions, creating space as it went. A couple of minutes after that, the explosion had given rise to 98% of all matter that will ever exist. Jump nine billion years ahead. Some gas and dust about 15 billion miles across began to assemble. Almost all of it went to make the sun, but out of what was left, two infinitesimal particles collided, then with others, then with still more, growing bigger and bigger until, 200 million years later, the Earth was formed, finally weighing in at around six billion trillion metric tons. A hundred million years after that, an object crashed into Earth, knocking enough material out to form the moon, anchoring the planet enough to make it habitable. The magma core released gasses to provide us an atmosphere and magnetic field that shield us from cosmic radiation and a sun that, if it were 5 percent closer would burn us up or 15 percent farther away would freeze us. Simple, single-celled organisms arose, then sea plants, jellyfish, arthropods. Then plants appeared on land, then land creatures, forests, insects, dinosaurs. Their extinction gave way to the rise of mammals and then finally humans. Continents slammed into one another, mountains rose and fell and rose again, ice conquered then withdrew. The genomic blueprint of life exploded into myriad forms as men coupled with plant-gathering women to guarantee food while striving for the luxury of meat that our new, big brains needed. And within just 80 generations, on almost every continent, diverse humans came together to form villages, produce similar alphabets, languages, customs, and types of worship. Villages became towns, towns became cities, cities needed governments, governments became empires, empires rose, went to war, exploited their people, abused their resources, debased their tax system, corrupted their politicians, fell, and were replaced, until we evolved into the nearly 7 billion people and 300 million tons of biomass that we represent today. Each and every one of my ancestors on both sides — the duodecillion (or more?) lives on which mine is dependent — cared for their relatives, sought status, sought sex, hoped to impress peers, to gain allies, to be seen as good, to form and nurture alliances, and to neutralize rivals. They felt love, lust,

Graham Gordy We are the one creature that is capable not only of appreciating existence, but possibly, of making it better. And just as our brains have adapted to be the caretakers of our bodies, the Earth developed a caretaker of its own. And that’s us. compassion, reverence, ambition, anger, fear, guilt, obligation and shame. They avoided endemics, epidemics, comets, hurricanes, volcanoes, global warming, cooling, drowning, starving or being eaten, all the while managing to remain appealing enough to find a mate and dispatch enough DNA to the right person at the right moment to result finally, miraculously, in me. And what am I doing? Sitting at a computer. Eating a cheese sandwich. Going back and forth from Facebook to sports news to writing this. We are the one creature that is capable not only of appreciating existence, but possibly, of making it better. And just as our brains have adapted to be the caretakers of our bodies, the Earth developed a caretaker of its own. And that’s us. Look at your body. You have 206 bones, 640 muscles, 23 pairs of chromosomes. Look at your hand. The genes in each of the cells therein are direct descendants of the first replicator molecules, survivors of the earliest and most vicious struggles of life. Look at your lungs. You get 600 million breaths. Look at your heart. It beats 72 times per minute. It pumps 657,000 gallons of oxygenated blood each year to feed all of your body’s biological functions. It weighs only 10 ounces, but it will beat more than two and a half billion times before it stops. Look at the clock. The average life is 650,000 hours. At some point, all those atoms which have worked together for the commanding purpose of making us who we are will shut us down, break up into bits, and go off and become other things. So, get up now. Go. Do.

HeLeNA

aRKansas

Cherry Street Pavilion

free

admission

co-sponsored by Helena Regional medical center

WItH - Bobby Rush, Lonnie shields, Joe Pitts, Earnest Roy PluS - James morgan,

spoonfed Blues, Big Red & The soulbenders, new delta Jukes, The Live Wire Band!

141 cherry st., Helena, aR. 870-338-4350 or 800-358-0972 Delta Cultural Center is a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

deltaculturalcenter.com · facebook.com/deltaculturalcenter www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 31

LIVE MUSIC THURSDAY, JUNE 2 MAC SLEDGE W/ JIM MIZE FRIDAY, JUNE 3 CEDRIC BURNSIDE PROJECT(HOLLY SPRINGS, MS) SATURDAY, JUNE 4 A TIME FOR TENDERNESS: A LUCAS CLAYTON HUNSICKER SCHOLARSHIP BENEFIT SHOW CHECK OUT ADDITIONAL SHOWS AT

WHITEWATERTAVERN.COM

NOW SERVING LUNCH FRIDAY’S 11-2PM myspace.com/whitewatertavern Little Rock’s Down-Home Neighborhood Bar

7th & Thayer • Little Rock • (501) 375-8400

eBooks from TBIB You Can Support An ARKANSAS Bookstore When Buying Your eBooks To Help You Get Started We Will Have 25 Books Published by Unbridled Books Available for 25 cents June 9-11 Get Ready by Setting up an Account at www.tbib.com and at www.google.com Need Help? Call 1.800.844.8306 Watch Website for Recommendations

That Bookstore In Blytheville 1-800-844-8306 • fax 870-763-1125 tbib@tbib.com • www.tbib.com We welcome orders by phone, fax or e-mail.

June Books Calendar 1 William B. Downs (“Stories of Survival: Arkansas Farmers During the Great Depression”), 1 p.m., ML. 6 Martha Hall Foose (“A Southerly Course”), 6 p.m., TBIB. 10 Ace Atkins (“The Ranger”), 6:30 p.m., TBIB. 18 Chris Raper (“The Core Meaning”), 1 p.m., WW. 23 Frederick Lane (“American Privacy”), 6:30 p.m., ML.

MYSTeRY FANS AleRT April 12, 7pm

Area bookstores, and venues: Michael Lee West’slibraries 1st mystery

Gone with a Handsomer Man April 14, 7pm Rite Mae Brown Hiss of Death

CALENDAR

Continued from page 30 through June 8: Tue.-Sat., 6 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.; Wed., 11 a.m., $23-$33. 6323 Col. Glenn Road. 501-562-3131. murrysdinnerplayhouse.com.

GALLERIES, MUSEUMS The Musical Comedy “Always Patsy Cline”! “Sweet Dreams Again”-USA Today Now – June 26

The story of legendary country singer Patsy Cline’s friendship with fan Louise Seger, inspired by letters signed “Love always... Patsy Cline.”

Colonel Glenn & University • murrysdinnerplayhouse.com • 562-3131

NEW EXHIBITS, EVENTS

ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Fete du Film: ‘Seraphine,’ ” film based on the life of an artist at the turn of the 20th century, 7 p.m. June 2, lecture hall, in conjunction with “The Impressionists and Their Influence” exhibit. 372-4000. ART HOUSE, 517 Beechwood St.: Work by Jason Smith, Guy Bell, Brittany Jane Boyd, Pat Matthews, Tracey Gentry and Louis Watts, 6-9 p.m. June 2. ASHLEY-ALEXANDER HOUSE (ILLALLEE PLANTATION), 3514 Walkers Corner Road, Scott: 13th annual “Scott Connections Spring Fellowship Dinner,” fund-raiser to benefit the Scott Plantation Settlement, June 4, tours at 4 p.m., dinner 6 p.m., $70. 663-4563. CANTRELL GALLERY, 8206 Cantrell Road: “20th annual Mid-Southern Watercolorists Open Membership Exhibit,” opens with reception 2-4 p.m. June 5, runs through July 16; “Lee Nora Parlor’s Painted Photo Album,” oils inspired by photos in the artist’s grandmother’s album, held over until June 2. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 224-1335. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER, 1200 President Clinton Ave.: “Elvis,” memorabilia from films, including Elvis’ red MG from “Blue Hawaii,” June 4-Aug. 21; “Elvis at 21, Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer,” 56 black and white images taken in 1956 by RCA Victor photojournalist, June 4-Sept. 11; exhibits about policies and White House life during the Clinton administration. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $7 adults; $5 college students, seniors, retired military; $3 ages 6-17. 370-8000. L&L BECK GALLERY, 5705 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Go West, Young Man!” paintings by Louis Beck. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 660-4006. n Fayetteville FAYETTEVILLE UNDERGROUND, 1 E. Square Plaza: Sean Fitzgibbon, acrylics; William M. Flanagan, watercolors; Sharon Killian, pastels; Hank Kaminsky, sculpture, opens with First Thursday reception 5-8 p.m. June 2. Noon-7 p.m. Wed.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. n Springdale ARTS CENTER OF THE OZARKS, 214 Main St.: “Living Spherically,” paintings by Matt Miller; “Archetypical Debris,” paintings by Kim and Laurie Foster, June 3-July 1, reception 6-8 p.m. June 9, McCuistion-Matthews Gallery. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 479-751-5441.

ONGOING EXHIBITIONS

ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “A Couple of Ways of Doing Something,” daguerreotype photographs by Chuck Close, poems by Bob Holman, through July 26; “The Impressionists and Their Influence,” paintings and works on paper from the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, private collections and the Arts Center Foundation collection, through June 26, $10 adults, $8 seniors, $6 youth, members free; “Michael Peterson: Evolution/Revolution,” wood sculpture, through July 3; “Currents in Contemporary Art,” 32 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

CS: Clinton School of Public Service, Sturgis Hall, 1200 President Clinton Ave., 683-5200. FCL: Faulkner County Library, 1900 Tyler St., Conway, 501-327-7482. LL: Laman Library, 2801 Orange St., North Little Rock, 501-758-1720. ML: Main Library, 100 Rock St., 918-3000. TBIB: That Bookstore in Blytheville, 316 W. Main St., Blytheville, 870-763-3333. WW: WordsWorth Books & Co., 5920 R St., 663-9198.

“Masterworks,” “Paul Signac Watercolors and Drawings,” ongoing. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. ARKANSAS STUDIES INSTITUTE, 401 President Clinton Ave.: Arkansas Art Educators’ “State Youth Art Show 2011,” through July 30, main gallery; “Norwood Creech: Selected Works from the Northeastern Arkansas Delta,” through June 18, Mezzanine Gallery. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.Sat. 320-5791. BOSWELL-MOUROT FINE ART, 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Work by Elena Petroukhina, Astrid Sohn and J. River Caton. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 664-0030. CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 509 Scott St.: “Arkansas Pastel Society Member Spring Show,” work by Shirley Anderson, S. Caruthers, Gertrude Casciano, Lois Davis, Marlene Gremillion, Sheilah Halderman, Mary Nancy Henry, Susan Hurst, Melanie Johnston, Sister Maria Liebeck, Jo Magee, Diana Shearon, Cathy Span, Mary Ann Stafford, Debbie Strobel, Teresa Widdifield and Caryl Joy Young. 375-2342. CHROMA GALLERY, 5707 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Work by Robert Reep and other Arkansas artists. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 6640880. COX CREATIVE CENTER, 120 River Market Ave.: “Blank,” printmaking exhibition by UALR students; “Little Rock Is Working,” photography contest. GALLERY 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Amber Uptigrove, Sulac, new work through July 9. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 664-8996. GREG THOMPSON FINE ART, 429 Main St., NLR: “Best of the South,” paintings by Carroll Cloar, William Dunlap, Glennray Tutor and others. 664-2787. HEARNE FINE ART, 1001 Wright Ave.: Portraits in eight media by Arkansas artists, including Rex Deloney, Aj Smith, Bisa Butler, Edward Wade, Stephen Cefalo, Larry Hampton, LaToya Hobbs, Loni Harshaw, Marjorie Williams-Smith, Le Ron McAdoo, Bryan Massey Sr., Caroline Brown and Jacoby Warlick, through June 7. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat. 372-6822. KETZ GALLERY, 705 Main St., NLR: “Reflections,” paintings by Dan Thornhill and students Joyce Hasse and London Farrar; also jewelry by Coco Cohen, through mid-June. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 529-6330. LOCAL COLOUR GALLERY, 5811 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Art and jewelry by members of artists’ cooperative. 501-265-0422. M2GALLERY, 11525 Cantrell Road (Pleasant Ridge Town Center): “Westland: The Life and Art of Tim West,” artwork by West, photographs by Diana Michelle Hausam, with documentary filming. 2256257. RED DOOR GALLERY, 3715 JFK, NLR: Buddy Whitlock, featured artist, also work by Lola Abellan, Mary Allison, Georges Artaud, Theresa Cates, Caroline’s Closet, Kelly Edwards, Jane Hankins, James Hayes, Amy Hill-Imler, Morris Howard, Jim Johnson, Annette Kagy, Capt. Robert Lumpp, Joe Martin, Pat Matthews and others.10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 753-5227. REFLECTIONS GALLERY AND FINE FRAMING, 11220 Rodney Parham Road: Work by local and national artists. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. 227-5659. SHOWROOM, 2313 Cantrell Road: Work by area artists, including Sandy Hubler. 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri. 372-7373.

Continued on page 40

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RIVERFEST 2011

PHOTOS BY BRIAN CHILSON

POISONOUS: Bret Michaels riles up the crowd.

ST. LOUIS SWAG: Nelly and his crew wrap up Riverfest weekend.

WHO YOU CALLIN’ CHICKEN: The Times’ all but official favorite band, Tyrannosaurus Chicken.

PARTY NAKED: Ed Robinson of the Barkenaked Ladies.

IN AMERICA: Country icon Charlie Daniels headlined Saturday night.

THROW ’EM UP: Metal horns were required for Riverfest’s night with Poison. 34 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

SPRING A LEAK: Kids received relief from the sizzling temperatures at the Riverfront Park fountain.

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NETFLIX PIX: KEN BURNS’: THE WAR n A few weeks back, I reminded you of Ken Burns’ excellent series “The Civil War,” which pretty much rewrote the book on what a historical documentary could be when it appeared on PBS back in 1990. Given my love and admiration for his work, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give just as much space for his 2007 miniseries “The War,” which is available in its seven-part entirety on Netflix. It’s built around a premise as equally brilliant as “The Civil War,” which is this: To encapsulate the loss, fear, courage and triumph of the vast conflict of World War II by looking at the war through the lens of four American towns: Luverne, Minn.; Mobile, Ala.; Sacramento, Calif., and Waterbury, Conn. Using war diaries, moving first-person recollections of young soldiers grown old, artifacts and histories of families from those towns, Burns pulls off a kind of miracle: He makes the War — 50-odd years fought by then — real again for Americans who have never known that kind of national commitment and sacrifice. As in

MY BIG FAT GYPSY WEDDING 8 p.m. Sundays TLC n People love to steal a peek inside secret societies and closed worlds. The Italian mafia, the Freemasons, the Vatican, the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous — you name it, if there’s a velvet rope blocking the door to keep regular folk out, we’re always itching to speculate on what’s going on inside. Here, TLC — rapidly cementing its place as The Freak Show Channel, with more weird medical and mental conditions per hour than any other network on cable — gives viewers a look inside one of the world’s most secretive groups with the new show “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.” While that title sounds deceptively festive, the show is actually some of the strangest viewing on TV: a rare, behind-thescenes window into the world of Europe’s Irish Travelers. Secretive, full of cultural quirks and harboring what seems to be a strange duality about sex, the Travelers have purposely made themselves social outcasts for centuries. Even though their lifestyles suggest many of them are flush with disposable cash, most of SCENES FROM A WEDDING: A bride on “My Big Fat them prefer to live in what Gypsy Wedding.” we would consider to be “The Civil War,” Burns draws on some camping trailers — a throwback to the of the best voice talent in the business, days of horse-drawn wagons. Girls are with letters and newspaper clippings married off well before they’re 18 (ofread by folks like Tom Hanks, Samuel ten after they’ve quit school at a young L. Jackson, and Adam Arkin, and prinage to help care for their siblings) and cipal narration by Keith David. By the weddings and first communions are lavtime Burns’ searing exploration of that ish to say the least, with little girls and most crucial crossroads of the 20th brides often wearing custom-designed century came out in 2007, cable TV gidresses that weigh more than they do ants like The History Channel and The and including hundreds of yards of fabMilitary Channel had long since cracked ric, flashing lights, and imported crystal the bones of World War II and used the embellishments. Unmarried Traveler marrow to sell commemorative plates girls aren’t supposed to be seen alone and dish soap. That — along with more in public and adhere to fairly strict rules entertainment choices and the public concerning the opposite sex to avoid besuffering from hardcore Nazi Fatigue ing “scandalized,” but when they go to thanks to cable TV — was probably a club, the young women (the ones on why the ratings weren’t as big for “The the show, at least) dress in spangled hot War” as they had been for “The Civil pants and elaborate makeup like they’re War.” They should have been, however, going to Carneval in Rio, and when they because it’s nothing short of excellent. get there, they dance like strippers. Like I Catch it now on Netflix. If you’re a hissaid: Weird. Definitely worth a look, just tory buff, you won’t be sorry. for the sheer voyeurism of it all, and to — David Koon remind ourselves that the Good Old Way

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Due to the Memorial Day holiday, most theaters were unable to release their schedules before press time. Here’s a limited listing of movies to be shown around town this weekend; some movies are without theaters and times. Check www.arktimes. com for updates. Market Street Cinema showtimes at or after 9 p.m. are for Friday and Saturday only. NEW MOVIES In a Better World (R) – In Denmark, a bullied 10year old is befriended by the school’s new kid, a Brit who can’t cope with the recent death of his mother. Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film. Directed by Susanne Bier. Market Street: 1:45, 4:15, 7:00, 9:15. X-Men: First Class (PG-13) – Professor Xavier’s gifted students explore their new-found powers as the Cold War reaches a fever pitch. With James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. Rave: 10:15, 11:00, 12:00, 12:45, 1:30, 2:15, 3:15, 4:00, 4:45 5:30, 6:30, 7:15, 8:00, 8:45, 9:45, 10:30, 11:15. Riverdale 10: 11:15, 1:55, 4:35, 7:15, 9:55. RETURNING THIS WEEK Arthur (PG-13) – A drunken playboy in heavy-duty arrested development has to choose between an enormous inheritance and the woman he falls for. With Russell Brand and Greta Gerwig. Battle: Los Angeles (PG-13) – When Earth is brutally attacked by extraterrestrial forces, a platoon of Marines must defend Los Angeles, the final stronghold on the planet. With Aaron Eckhart, Ne-Yo. The Beaver (PG-13) – A down and out executive and family man tackles his debilitating depression with the help of a beaver hand puppet. With Mel Gibson. Directed by Jodie Foster. Market Street: 2:00, 4:20, 6:45, 9:15. Big Momma’s: Like Father, Like Son (PG13) —FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) reassumes his deep-cover alter-ego Big Momma to go undercover at an all-girls performing arts school. Bridesmaids (R) — After her best friend gets engaged, a broke, lovelorn maid of honor has to fake her way through crazy bridesmaid rituals. With Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph. Rave: 10:25, 1:20, 4:35, 7:45, 10:50. Riverdale 10: 11:10, 1:50, 4:35, 7:30, 10:05. Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules

(PG) – “Wimpy” Greg and his bullying older brother Rodrick have to deal with their parents’ efforts to make a brotherly bond. With Zachary Gordon. Fast Five (PG-13) – The fifth installation of the “Fast and the Furious” series sees the crew in Rio, stuck between a drug lord and a tenacious federal agent. With Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. Rave: 12:25, 3:55, 7:10, 10:15. Riverdale 10: 11:20, 2:05, 4:50, 7:35, 10:15. Gnomeo and Juliet (G) – Romeo and Juliet with gnomes. Voiced by James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine. The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (PG-13) – Morgan Spurlock examines the omnipresence of branding and advertising, all the while trying to persuade big-name brands to sponsor his expose. Market Street: 4:20, 9:15. The Hangover Part II (R) – The Wolf Pack ends up blacking out and having to retrace the night before again. This time in Asia. With Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms. Rave: 10:20, 10:55, 11:25, 11:55, 1:05, 1:35, 2:20, 2:55, 4:05, 4:40, 5:20, 5:55, 6:40, 7:20, 7:55, 8:35, 9:25, 9:55, 10:35, 11:10. Riverdale 10: 11:40, 2:15, 4:50, 7:05, 9:55. I Am (NR) – Four short films about identity and dignity in the modern Indian world. With Juhi Chawla and Manisha Koirala. Market Street: 2:15, 4:25, 6:45, 9:00. I Am Number Four (PG-13) – A teen-age fugitive with special powers is on the run from agents trying to kill him. With Alex Smith and Timothy Olyphant. Jumping the Broom (PG-13) – Two AfricanAmerican families from different socioeconomic backgrounds spend a wedding weekend together in Martha’s Vineyard. With Angela Bassett and Laz Alonzo. Rave: 12:10, 3:0, 5:50, 8:40. Riverdale 10: 11:45, 2:10, 4:40, 7:20, 9:50. Kill the Irishman (R) — The story of Irish thug Danny Greene, who worked with the mob in Cleveland during the 1970s. Market Street: 2:00, 7:15. Kung-Fu Panda (PG) – Po (Jack Black) is living it up as The Dragon Warrior, but a mysterious villain threatens to ruin his plans. Rave: 10:05, 10:45, 1:45, 2:30, 4:15, 6:45, 7:30, 9:15 (2D); 11:30, 12:15, 3:15, 5:0, 5:45, 8:15, 10:00, 10:45 (3D). Riverdale 10: 11:05, 1:10, 3:05, 5:05, 7:05, 9:15. Madea’s Big Happy Family (PG-13) – This is the

fifth Madea movie and the 10th flick Tyler Perry’s made in five years. Five. Years. Directed, written by and starring Tyler Perry. Riverdale 10: 11:00, 1:15, 3:30, 5:45, 8:00, 10:15. Mars Needs Moms (PG) – A kid finds out how much he needs his supposedly annoying mom after she’s abducted by aliens to mother their kids. Voiced by Joan Cusack, Seth Green. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (PG-13) — Capt. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) crosses paths with Angelica (Penelope Cruz), who forces him onboard her ship to find the Fountain of Youth. Rave: 12:30, 1:15, 3:45, 6:55, 7:40, 10:10 (2D); 10:00, 10:35, 1:55, 4:25, 5:10, 8:30, 10:55, 11:50 (3D). Riverdale 10: 12:00, 3:00, 5:50, 9:00. Priest (PG-13) – A legendary warrior-priest breaks his religious vows in order to save his niece from a pack of vampires. With Paul Bettany and Cam Gigandet. Rave: 11:30 p.m. Rango (PG) – A quixotic chameleon has to succeed at being the daredevil he thinks he is after winding up in an old West town. Red Riding Hood (PG-13) – In a medieval village that’s haunted by a werewolf, a girl falls for an outcast orphan even though her parents arranged for her to marry a wealthy young man. With Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman. Rio (G) – A domesticated macaw from suburban Minnesota takes to Rio de Janeiro to find the freewheeling bird of his dreams. Voiced by Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway. Something Borrowed (PG-13) – A perpetually single urbanite falls in love with her best friend’s new fiance. With Kate Hudson and John Krasinski. Thor (PG-13) – The comic book hero comes to life as the cocky warrior gets banished to Earth and has to defend humans from impending doom. Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Rave: 10:40, 1:40, 4:55, 8:10, 11:00. Riverdale 10: 11:50, 2:20, 4:45, 7:10, 9:35. Winter in Wartime (PG-13) – A 14-year-old in Nazi-occupied Holland comes to the aid of a wounded British paratrooper. Directed by Martin Koolhoven. Market Street: 1:45, 4:00, 7:00, 9:15. Chenal 9 IMAX Theatre: 17825 Chenal Parkway, 821-2616, www.dtmovies.com. Cinemark Movies 10: 4188 E. McCain Blvd., 9457400, www.cinemark.com. Cinematown Riverdale 10: Riverdale Shopping Center, 296-9955, www.riverdale10.com. Market Street Cinema: 1521 Merrill Drive, 3128900, www.marketstreetcinema.net. Rave Colonel Glenn 18: 18 Colonel Glenn Plaza, 687-0499, www.ravemotionpictures.com. Regal Breckenridge Village 12: 1-430 and Rodney Parham, 224-0990, www.fandango.com.

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‘THE HANGOVER PART II’: Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms star.

■ moviereview A headache The same formula doesn’t work in ‘The Hangover Part II.’ n The first sign, among dozens, that “The Hangover Part II” is going to forego humor in favor of unvarnished misanthropy comes in the first five minutes. The two semi-sensible returnees from the first bro-romp farce — that would be Ed Helms as Stu and Bradley Cooper as Phil — are parting after Stu, a dentist, has just given his friend a checkup. We’ve just gotten most of the movie’s necessary exposition: Stu is to be wed in a couple of weeks far away in his bride’s ancestral Thailand, and Phil is hacked off that he has to shell out for a plane trip to an Asian paradise rather than just see the knot tied in Vegas. As Phil leaves, Stu calls after him to return the prescription pad he apparently pinched. Phil walks back, pulls the crinkled pad from deep in his underwear and plops it on the counter. Stu tells his friend that stealing the pad is a felony, you know. Phil replies, “F— you.” F— you! Get it? No? Well that’s all the punch line you’re going to find here, so if you don’t like it, see above. That’s more or less the tone to this, the utterly contrived, wholly unnecessary sequel to the 2009 instant classic that became the highest-earning R-rated comedy ever. There are a few real punch lines in “The Hangover Part II” but more punches, a

It’s also lewd, unless you’re accustomed to seeing transsexual strippers’ genitals jangling free like janitors’ keys. few legitimate gags but more gagging. The Zach Galifianakis character, Alan, who turned irritable but earnest loneliness into pure hilarity in “The Hangover,” has been melted down to a petty, jealous whiner who’s about as likeable as rug burn. He’s the worst of the lot, but there may not be a single character in the entire movie that you look forward to hearing talk. Aside from the location scouts, who briefly enjoyed the world’s most enviable job, it’s not clear that anyone involved with making the movie had an ounce of fun. There’s nothing new here, and what’s repeated was made worse. The script (by returning director Todd Phillips plus Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong) unfurls more like a sendup of the original than a sequel. In the first movie, four friends (the aforementioned trio plus Justin Bartha as Doug,

featured sparingly in both) convene in Vegas for bachelor party debauchery too close for comfort to the wedding, and because Alan thinks it would be a hoot to drug everyone, he, Stu and Phil wake up amid hotel room mayhem with no notion of how they acquired a baby and a tiger and lost the groom. This time, Doug hangs back and again, Stu and Phil and Alan come to in a dirtbag Bangkok hotel room after a night of who-knows-what to realize they have no memories of how they acquired Stu’s face tattoo and a monkey in a Rolling Stones jacket and lost the bride’s teen-aged brother, whose finger, Stanford class ring and all, is floating in a bowl of water. And when one of them blurts, “I can’t believe this is happening again,” your heart goes out. That repetition in itself isn’t a dealbreaker; there’s no harm in a movie rhyming with another, if it’s funny. But “The Hangover Part II” simply isn’t, except in unsteady bursts. It is loud, though. Lots of gunfire and people shouting to calm each other down and cars going vroom. It’s also lewd, unless you’re accustomed to seeing transsexual strippers’ genitals jangling free like janitors’ keys. Considering all the grief it visits upon the so-called Wolf Pack, it seems fair to say that this movie hates its characters. It’s appropriate, too, that the most gratifyingly funny moment in the film comes when someone unexpectedly keels over, since the message to audiences couldn’t be plainer: Drop dead. — Sam Eifling

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■ artnotes That’s all right! You won’t walk alone when Elvis exhibits open at the Clinton Center. n Elvis and Bill Clinton go way back. The Secret Service code-named the charismatic 42nd president of the U.S. “Elvis” and Clinton wrote about his affection for the King in his autobiography, “My Life,” that he “thought he had a good heart.” Clinton Presidential Center supporters (and Elvis’ fanatics) have been looking forward to an Elvis exhibit there ever since the library opened in 2004. Now, they’re all shook up: Not one, but two exhibits about the man who invented rock ’n’ roll (John Lennon: “Before Elvis, there was nothing”) open Saturday, June 4, at the library. “Elvis at 21, Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer” is a Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibit of photographs made in

1956, when Elvis was on the first step of his ascent to the throne. Wertheimer was hired by RCA Victor to shoot promotional images of Elvis after they’d signed him on; the exhibit includes 56 images Wertheimer made of Elvis on the road, in the recording studio, in concert and backstage, and at home, including one of an unrecognized, pre-fame Elvis buying lunch at a vendor, just another face in a crowd. The second exhibit, “Elvis,” includes one of his white leather outfits and artifacts from Elvis’ movies, including the red MG he drove in “Blue Hawaii.” It’s being brought to the library through a partnership with Graceland in Memphis.

THE KING PRIMPS: “Elvis at 21” exhibit, opening Saturday at the Clinton Center, features photographs of Elvis at the start of his career. “Elvis at 21” runs through Sept. 11; “Elvis” runs through Aug. 21. Admission to the Clinton Center is $7 for adults, $5 for college students, seniors and retired U.S. military; $3 for youth 6-17 and free

CALENDAR

Continued from page 32 STATE CAPITOL: “Arkansans in the Korean War,” 32 photographs, lower-level foyer. 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sat.-Sun. STEPHANO’S FINE ART, 5501 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Work by Stephano, Patrick Cunningham, Liz Kemp, Jeff Waddle, B.J. Aguiar, Kelley Wise, Steve Thomas, Jeannie Clifton. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 563-4218. THEA FOUNDATION, 401 Main St.: Bre and David Harris, Brett Anderson, sculpture; Guy Bell, paintings. 379-9512. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: “Works from the UALR Permanent Collection,” Galleries I and II, through June 24. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri. 569-8977. n Benton DIANNE ROBERTS ART STUDIO AND GALLERY, 110 N. Market St.: Work by Chad Oppenhuizen, Dan McRaven, Gretchen Hendricks, Rachel Carroccio, Kenny Roberts, Taylor Bellot, Jim Cooper and Sue Moore. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. 860-7467. n Calico Rock CALICO ROCK ARTISTS COOPERATIVE, Hwy. 5 at White River Bridge: Paintings, photographs, jewelry, fiber art, wood, ceramics and other crafts. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Thu., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri.-Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sun. calicorocket.org/artists. n Fayetteville WALTON ARTS CENTER, Joy Pratt Markham Gallery: “Garden as Muse,” works by Sally Apfelbaum, Markus Baenziger, Syd Carpenter, Lois Dodd and Sarah McEneaney, Joy Pratt Markham Gallery, through June 4. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 479-571-2747. n Hot Springs AMERICAN ART GALLERY, 724 Central Ave.: “Flora, Fowl and Fauna,” paintings by Jimmy Leach. 501-624-055. GALLERY 726, 726 Central Ave.: Shirley Anderson, Barbara Seibel, Sue Shields, Caryl Joy Young, Priscilla Cunningham, Trey McCarley, Pati Trippel, Janis Gill Ward and others. 501-915-8912. GALLERY CENTRAL, 800 Central Ave.: Equine bronzes by Jan Woods. 501-318-4278. JUSTUS FINE ART, 827 A Central Ave.: New paintings by Donnie Copeland, also work by Robin Hazard-Bishop, Mike Elsass, Steve Griffith, Robyn Horn, Dolores Justus, Tony Saladino and Rebecca Thompson. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. 501-3212335. 40 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

SHOW EXTENDED: Thanks to the response, the “Lee Nora Parlor’s Painted Family Album” exhibit of oils inspired by photos in the artist’s grandmother’s album has been extended through June 2 at Cantrell Gallery, 8206 Cantrell Road. The show will be followed by the “20th annual Mid-Southern Watercolorists Open Membership Exhibit,” opening with a reception from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. June 5. LEGACY GALLERY, 804 Central Ave.: Landscapes by Carole Katchen. 501-624-1044. n Perryville SUDS GALLERY, Courthouse Square: Paintings by Dottie Morrissey, Alma Gipson, Al Garrett Jr., Phyllis Loftin, Alene Otts, Mauretta Frantz, Raylene Finkbeiner, Kathy Williams and Evelyn Garrett. Noon-6 p.m. Wed.-Fri, noon-4 p.m. Sat. 501-7667584.

ONGOING MUSEUM EXHIBITS

ARKANSAS INLAND MARITIME MUSEUM, NLR: Tours of the USS Razorback submarine. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 1-6 p.m. Sun. 371-8320. CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSEUM VISITOR CENTER, Bates and Park: Exhibits on the 1957 desegregation of Central and the civil rights

movement. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. daily. 374-1957. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. Third St.: “Mid-Southern Watercolorists 41st Annual Exhibition,” through Aug. 13, Trinity Gallery; “Reel to Real: ‘Gone with the Wind’ and the Civil War in Arkansas,” artifacts from the Shaw-Tumblin collection, including costumes and screen tests, along with artifacts from the HAM collection, including slave narratives, uniforms and more; through April 30, 2012; “Empty Spaces,” digital media by Jasmine Greer, through June 5. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $2.50 adults, $1.50, $1 children for tours of grounds. 324-9351. MacARTHUR MUSEUM OF ARKANSAS MILITARY HISTORY, MacArthur Park: Exhibits on Arkansas’s military history. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun. 376-4602.

to children under 6 and active military. The library is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, go to clintonpresidentialcenter.org.

MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, Ninth and Broadway: “Southern Journeys: African American Artists of the South,” works by 55 African-American artists, through Aug. 11; exhibits on African-Americans in Arkansas, including one on the Ninth Street business district, the Mosaic Templars business and more. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.Sat. 683–3593. OLD STATE HOUSE, 300 W. Markham St.: “An Enduring Union,” artifacts documenting the postwar Confederate and Union veteran reunions in the state; “Arkansas/Arkansaw: A State and Its Reputation,” the evolution of the state’s hillbilly image. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685. WITT STEPHENS JR. CENTRAL ARKANSAS NATURE CENTER, Riverfront Park: Exhibits on wildlife and the state Game and Fish Commission. n Calico Rock CALICO ROCK MUSEUM, Main Street: Displays on Native American cultures, steamboats, the railroad, and local history. www. calicorockmuseum.com. n England TOLTEC MOUNDS STATE PARK, State Hwy. 165: Major prehistoric Indian site with visitors’ center and museum. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun., closed Mon. $3 for adults, $2 for ages 6-12. 961-9442. n Jacksonville JACKSONVILLE MUSEUM OF MILITARY HISTORY, 100 Veterans Circle: Exhibits on D-Day; F-105, Vietnam era plane (“The Thud”); the Civil War Battle of Reed’s Bridge, Arkansas Ordnance Plant (AOP) and other military history. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $3 adults; $2 seniors, military; $1 students. 501-241-1943. n Morrilton MUSEUM OF AUTOMOBILES, Petit Jean Mountain: Permanent exhibit of more than 50 cars from 1904-1967 depicting the evolution of the automobile. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 7 days. 501-7275427. n Scott PLANTATION AGRICULTURE MUSEUM, U.S. 165 S and Hwy. 161: Artifacts and interactive exhibits on farming in the Arkansas Delta. $3 adults, $2 ages 6-12. Open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 501-961-1409. SCOTT PLANTATION SETTLEMENT: 1840s log cabin, one-room school house, tenant houses, smokehouse and artifacts on plantation life. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Thu.-Sat. 351-0300. www. scottconnections.org.

n Harry and Jorge’s, Daniel Bryant’s new sit-down Mexican restaurant in the former home of Flying Burrito, opened last week. The voluminous menu features all the standards we’ve come to expect from Americanized Mexican restaurants — plenty of burritos, chimichangas, fajitas, quesadillas and tacos. Plus, more unique fare — dip made of guacamole, jalapenos and chunks of blue cheese and several barbacoa (Mexican barbecue) options. The restaurant’s open 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. There’s a full bar. The phone number is 372-7272, and the address is 300 President Clinton Ave. To see the menu, visit arktimes.com/ harryandjorges. n Now you can celebrate a successful climb of Pinnacle Mountain with a hot dog. Big Daddy’s Dogs just scored a contract with Pinnacle Mountain State Park to serve hot dogs every Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. through November in the West Summit Park. Chris and Terri Roberts own the mobile food cart, which hooks to a trailer hitch on Chris’ Mazda hatchback. You can find Chris weekly in various locations around town. For up-to-date locations, check Big Daddy’s on Facebook. Big Daddy’s serves Nathan’s all-beef dogs and turkey dogs with the basic combinations, a chilidog, and several special dogs, such as one that combines bacon, ranch and blue cheese. Terri Roberts said she and her husband were hoping to expand within the next six months.

Restaurant capsules Every effort is made to keep this listing of some of the state’s more notable restaurants current, but we urge readers to call ahead to check on changes on days of operation, hours and special offerings. What follows, because of space limitations, is a partial listing of restaurants reviewed by our staff. Information herein reflects the opinions of the newspaper staff and its reviewers. The newspaper accepts no advertising or other considerations in exchange for reviews, which are conducted anonymously. We invite the opinions of readers who think we are in error. Restaurants are listed in alphabetical order by city. Other review symbols are: B Breakfast L Lunch D Dinner $ Inexpensive (under $8/person) $$ Moderate ($8-$20/person) $$$ Expensive (over $20/person) CC Accepts credit cards

LITTLE ROCK/ N. LITTLE ROCK AMERICAN 4 SQUARE GIFTS Vegetarian salads, soups, wraps and paninis and a daily selection of desserts in an Arkansas prod-

■ dining Classic pub grub Burgers, atmosphere make The Ohio Club a Hot Springs destination. n The Ohio Club, established in 1905 on Central Ave. in Hot Springs, purports to be the oldest bar in the state and to have hosted celebrities, gangsters and presidents. On the walls are framed photos of the place with horse buggies and Model Ts parked outside, newspaper clips about it getting busted for gambling and brief bios of the original owners, John Coffee Williams and his nephew, Sam C. Watt. That sort of historical marketing is all well and good, but the Ohio Club should be considered on its own merits, which are ample. First off, and really, this part is unavoidable, is the bar itself. That is to say, once you walk in and let your eyes adjust to the dark, the first thing you’ll notice is the massive, 19th century mahogany bar, 15 feet high and 24 feet wide, with an enormous mirror and hand-carved horse heads. No kidding, even if you never go there to get a drink or grab some food or watch a band, it’s worth stepping into the Ohio Club just to check out this beautiful, gigantic piece of art and reflect on how lame everything is nowadays and wonder why it is that America seemingly can’t have nice things anymore. Such is its power that even a giant flatscreen TV, that ubiquitous destroyer of ambiance that someone saw fit to install in the middle of it, doesn’t ruin it completely. Other than that, the inside of the place has an ideal bar climate: dark, cool and comfortable. The menu at the Ohio Club is made up largely of the kinds of fare you’d expect at a bar: deep-fried appetizers, salads, sandwiches and burgers. But here’s the thing: it’s all really good, or at least everything our crew tried out was. Fried pickle slices ($5) seemed off at first. The batter wasn’t the usual puffy, voluminous vehicle for grease that covers everything from cheese to jalapenos to Twinkies at restaurants and state fairs the world over. This was different — crunchy, but not too much so, with a nice kick to it that built up the more we ate. Naturally, it

came with a side of ranch. Cheddar cheese bacon fries ($6.50) were beyond plentiful and generally awesome. Sure, it seems like the kind of dish that would be pretty hard to screw up, but it happens more often than it should. But on to the real star of the meal: The Ohio Burger ($7.50 and worth every penny). A lot of folks get really worked up about burgers, about whether they should be kept simple, with the standard lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and cheese or if it’s acceptable to gussy them up with stuff like fontina and foie gras and caviar. But often what gets lost in that debate is that nothing matters if the burger itself isn’t right. No amount of expensive, exotic accoutrements can compare to a burger that was cooked perfectly on a well-seasoned grill, ideally with a lean-to-fat ratio that favors the good stuff. The Ohio Burger is the best of both worlds. In addition to the regular fixings, it’s got bacon, pepper jack cheese, an onion ring and Gulden’s spicy mustard. Each of these ingredients is tasty on its lonesome, but combined, they become something that’s much more than the sum of its parts. Plus, the burger patty was unbelievably flavorful and cooked to perfection, juicy and falling apart with every bite. The bun

had obviously come out of the oven very recently, too. For libations, we had a margarita on the rocks ($7) that was entirely respectable. It wasn’t too sweet and had a healthy pour of tequila. While it might seem that a bottle of Miller Lite would be the same no matter where you drank it, it doesn’t hurt when that sumbitch is served truly ice cold. If you find yourself in the Spa City and all that gambling or shopping or walking around in flip-flops has you parched and famished, the Ohio Club is an excellent palliative. The food comes out quick and it’s served up late — until midnight most evenings.

ucts gift shop. 405 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-244-2622. L daily. D Mon.-Sat. APPLE SPICE JUNCTION A chain sandwich and salad spot with sit-down lunch space and a vibrant box lunch catering business. With a wide range of options and quick service. Order online via applespice.com. 2000 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-663-7008. ARGENTA MARKET The Argenta District’s neighborhood grocery store offers a deli featuring a daily selection of big sandwiches along with fresh fish and meats and salads. Emphasis here is on Arkansas-farmed foods and organic products. 521 N. Main St. NLR. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-379-9980. BL daily, D Mon.-Sat.

ARKANSAS BURGER CO. Good burgers, fries and shakes, plus salads and other entrees. Try the cheese dip. 7410 Cantrell Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-0600. LD Tue.-Sat. ASHLEY’S The premier fine dining restaurant in Little Rock marries Southern traditionalism and haute cuisine. The menu is often daring and always delicious. 111 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$$-$$$$. 501-374-7474. BLD Mon.-Sat. BR Sun. BELWOOD DINER Traditional breakfasts and plate lunch specials are the norm at this lost-in-time hole in the wall. 3815 MacArthur Drive. NLR. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-753-1012. BONEFISH GRILL A half-dozen or more types of fresh fish

filets are offered daily at this upscale chain. 11525 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-228-0356. D daily. BRAVE NEW RESTAURANT The food’s great, portions huge, prices reasonable. Diners can look into the open kitchen and watch the culinary geniuses at work slicing and dicing and sauteeing. It’s great fun, and the fish is special. 2300 Cottondale Lane. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-6632677. LD Mon.-Fri. D Sat. BURGER MAMA’S Big burgers and oversized onion rings headline the menu at this down home joint. 13216 Interstate 30. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-225-2495. LD daily. BY THE GLASS A broad but not ridiculously large list is studded with interesting, diverse selections, and prices are

BRIAN CHILSON

what’scookin’

THE OHIO BURGER: $7.50 well spent.

The Ohio Club 336 Central Ave. Hot Springs 501-627-0702 Quick Bite

Besides being visually impressive, the Ohio Club has a good selection of hooch. It’s not all encompassing, but you don’t have to pick from 37 types of frosted-bottle vodka, either.

Hours

11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Mon.-Sat.; 11 a.m. to midnight Sun.

Other info

Beer, wine and liquor. All CC accepted. Smoking. 21 and up only. Small number of outdoor dining tables.

www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 41

Hot Springs’ Newest Restaurant For Fine Cuisine From Around The Globe Bleu Monkey Grill is honored to receive this prestigious award. Thanks to the people that voted us the best! If you haven’t visited us yet, make us your choice the next time you visit Hot Springs.

(501) 520-4800 • 4263 Central avenue • Hot SpringS bleumonkeygrill.com

50% OFF 2ND ENTREE *

WITH PURCHASE OF FULL ENTRÉE Half off least expensive entrée

Breakfast • Lunch • Dinner Dine in • Take Out • Patio • Full Bar Mon. -Fri. 10-10 • Sat. 9-10 Sun. 9-9

400 President Clinton Ave. (In the River Market)

Hours: 8 am 5:30 pm Mon - Sat 501-280-9888 372-6637 6820 Cantrell • 9am -10 pm THE BEST AUTHENTIC MEXICAN SEAFOOD IN TOWN

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Full Bar • Take out • Dine in For Gourmet Seafood lovers 501-868-8822 Monday • Friday: 10-10 • 18321 Cantrell Rd. • Hwy. 10 Saturday: 9-10 • Sunday: 9-9

*Must present coupon. One per party. Not valid with any other offers. Offer Expires 6/30/11.

1321 Rebsamen Park Rd Little Rock

501.663.9802 Non-Smoking

10% off lunch menu! (Excludes Daily Plate Lunch Special)

eat local Small Town

support your community

42 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

Restaurant capsules Continued from page 41

uniformly reasonable. The food focus is on high-end items that pair well with wine — olives, hummus, cheese, bread, and some meats and sausages. 5713 Kavanaugh Blvd. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-663-9463. D Mon.-Sat. CAFE HEIFER Paninis, salads, soups and such in the Heifer Village. With one of the nicest patios in town. 1 World Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-907-8801. BL Mon.-Fri., L Sat. CAPITAL BAR AND GRILL Big hearty sandwiches, daily lunch specials and fine evening dining all rolled up into one at this landing spot downtown. Surprisingly inexpensive with a great bar staff and a good selection of unique desserts. 111 Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-374-7474. LD daily. CAPITOL BISTRO Formerly a Sufficient Grounds, now operated by Lisa and Tom Drogo, who moved from Delaware. They offer breakfast and lunch items, including quiche, sandwiches, coffees and the like. 1401 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-371-9575. BL Mon.-Fri. CATERING TO YOU Painstakingly prepared entrees and great appetizers in this gourmet-to-go location. 8121 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-664-0627. L Mon.-Sat. CATFISH HOLE Downhome place for well-cooked catfish and tasty hushpuppies. 603 E. Spriggs. NLR. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-758-3516. D Tue.-Sat. CHEEBURGER CHEEBURGER Premium black Angus cheeseburgers, with five different sizes, ranging from the Classic (5.5 ounces) to the pounder (20 ounces), and nine cheese options. For sides, milkshakes and golden-fried onion rings are the way to go. 11525 Cantrell Rd. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-490-2433. LD daily. CIAO BACI The focus is on fine dining in this casually elegant Hillcrest bungalow, though tapas are also available, and many come for the comfortable lounge that serves specialty drinks until late. 605 N. Beechwood St. Full bar, All CC. $$$-$$$$. 501-603-0238. D Mon.-Sat. CRAZEE’S COOL CAFE Good burgers, daily plate specials and bar food amid pool tables and TVs. 7626 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-221-9696. LD Mon.-Sat. DIVERSION Hillcrest wine bar with diverse tapas menu. From the people behind Crush. 2611 Kavanaugh Blvd., Suite 200. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-414-0409. D Mon.-Sat. DOE’S EAT PLACE A skid-row dive turned power brokers’ watering hole with huge steaks, great tamales and broiled shrimp, and killer burgers at lunch. 1023 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-376-1195. LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat. DOUBLETREE PLAZA BAR & GRILL The lobby restaurant in the Doubletree is elegantly comfortable, but you’ll find no airs put on at heaping breakfast and lunch buffets. 424 West Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-372-4311. BLD daily. DOWNTOWN DELI A locally owned eatery, with bigger sandwiches and lower prices than most downtown chain competitors. Also huge, loaded baked potatoes, soups and salads. 323 Center St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-3723696. BL Mon.-Fri. DUB’S HAMBURGER HEAVEN A standout dairy bar. The hamburger, onion rings and strawberry milkshake make a meal fit for kings. 6230 Baucum Pike. NLR. No alcohol, No CC. $-$$. 501-955-2580. BLD daily. EJ’S EATS AND DRINKS The friendly neighborhood hoagie shop downtown serves at a handful of tables and by delivery. The sandwiches are generous, the soup homemade and the salads cold. Vegetarians can craft any number of acceptable meals from the flexible menu. The housemade potato chips are da bomb. 523 Center St. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-666-3700. LD Mon.-Fri. FIVE GUYS BURGERS & FRIES Nationwide burger chain with emphasis on freshly made fries and patties. 2923 Lakewood Village Dr. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-246-5295. LD daily. 13000 Chenal Parkway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-225-1100. LD daily. FLYING FISH The fried seafood is fresh and crunchy and there are plenty of raw, boiled and grilled offerings, too. The hamburgers are a hit, too. It’s self-service; wander on through the screen door and you’ll find a slick team of cooks and servers doing a creditable job of serving big crowds. 511 President Clinton Ave. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-3753474. LD daily. GRUMPY’S TOO Music venue and sports bar with lots of TVs, pub grub and regular drink specials. 1801 Green Mountain Drive. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-225-9650. LD Mon.-Sat. HOMER’S Great vegetables, huge yeast rolls and killer cobblers. Follow the mobs. 2001 E. Roosevelt Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-374-1400. BL Mon.-Fri. THE HOUSE A comfortable gastropub in Hillcrest, where you’ll find traditional fare like burgers and fish and chips alongside Thai green curry and gumbo. 722 N. Palm St. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-4501. D daily, BR and L Sat.-Sun. JIMMY’S SERIOUS SANDWICHES Consistently fine sandwiches, side orders and desserts. Chicken salad’s among the best in town. Get there early for lunch. 5116 W. Markham St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-666-3354. L Mon.-Sat. KRAZY MIKE’S Po’Boys, catfish and shrimp and other fishes, fried chicken wings and all the expected sides served up fresh and hot to order on demand. 200 N. Bowman Road.

Beer, All CC. $$. 501-907-6453. LD daily. LOCA LUNA Grilled meats, seafood and pasta dishes that never stray far from country roots, whether Italian, Spanish or Arkie. “Gourmet plate lunches” are good, as is Sunday brunch. 3519 Old Cantrell Rd. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-4666. L Sun.-Fri., D daily. LULAV Comfortably chic downtown bistro. 220 A W. 6th St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-374-5100. BL Mon.-Fri., D daily. MILFORD TRACK Healthy and tasty are the key words at this deli/grill, featuring hot entrees, soups, sandwiches, salads and killer desserts. 10809 Executive Center Drive, Searcy Building. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-223-2257. BL Mon.-Sat. NEW GREEN MILL CAFE A small workingman’s lunch joint, with a dependable daily meat-and-three and credible corn bread for cheap, plus sweet tea. Homemade tamales and chili on Tuesdays. 8609-C W. Markham St. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-225-9907. L Mon.-Sat. OYSTER BAR Gumbo, red beans and rice (all you can eat on Mondays), peel-and-eat shrimp, oysters on the half shell, addictive po’ boys. 3003 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-666-7100. LD Mon.-Sat. OZARK COUNTRY RESTAURANT A long-standing favorite with many Little Rock residents, the eatery specializes in big country breakfasts and pancakes plus sandwiches and other lunch plates during the week. Try the pancakes and don’t leave without some sort of smoked meat. 202 Keightley Drive. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-7319. B daily, L Mon.-Fri. PERCIFUL’S FAMOUS HOT DOGS If you’re a lover of chilidogs, this might just be your Mecca; a humble, stripmall storefront out in East End that serves some of the best around. The latest incarnation of a LR joint that dates to the 1940s, longdogs are pretty much all they do, and they do them exceedingly well, with scratch-made chili and slaw. Our fave: The Polish cheese royal, add onions. 20400 Arch St. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-261-1364. LD Tue.-Sat. PLAYTIME PIZZA Tons of fun isn’t rained out by lackluster eats at the new Playtime Pizza, the $11 million, 65,000 square foot kidtopia near the Rave theater. While the buffet is only so-so, features like indoor mini-golf, laser tag, go karts, arcade games and bumper cars make it a winner for both kids and adults. 600 Colonel Glenn Plaza Loop. 501-2277529. LD Thu.-Sun., D Mon.-Wed. PURPLE COW DINER 1950s fare — cheeseburgers, chili dogs, thick milk shakes — in a ‘50s setting at today’s prices. Also at 11602 Chenal Parkway. 8026 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-221-3555. LD daily, BR Sat.-Sun 11602 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-224-4433. LD daily, BR Sat.-Sun. 1419 Higden Ferry Road. Hot Springs. Beer, All CC. $$. 501-625-7999. LD daily, B Sun. SALUT BISTRO This bistro/late-night hangout does upscale Italian for dinner and pub grub until the wee hours. 1501 N. University. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-660-4200. L Mon.-Fri., D Tue.-Sat. SCALLIONS Reliably good food, great desserts, pleasant atmosphere, able servers — a solid lunch spot. 5110 Kavanaugh Blvd. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-666-6468. L Mon.-Sat. SONNY WILLIAMS’ STEAK ROOM Steaks, chicken and seafood in a wonderful setting in the River Market. Steak gets pricey, but the lump crab meat au gratin appetizer is outstanding. Give the turtle soup a try. 500 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-324-2999. D Mon.-Sat. STAGECOACH GROCERY AND DELI Fine po’ boys and muffalettas — and cheap. 6024 Stagecoach Road. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-455-4157. BL daily. D Mon.-Fri. TERRI-LYNN’S BAR-B-Q AND DELI High-quality meats served on large sandwiches and good tamales served with chili or without (the better bargain). 10102 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-227-6371. LD Tue.-Sat. (10:30 a.m.-6 p.m.). UNION BISTRO Casual upscale bistro and lounge. Try the chicken and waffles. 3421 Old Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-353-0360. WEST END SMOKEHOUSE AND TAVERN Its primary focus is a sports bar with 50-plus TVs, but the dinner entrees (grilled chicken, steaks and such) are plentiful and the bar food is upper quality. 215 N. Shackleford. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-224-7665. L Fri.-Sun., D daily. WINGSTOP It’s all about wings. The joint features eight flavors of chicken flappers for almost any palate, including mild, hot, Cajun and atomic, as well as specialty flavors like lemon pepper and teriyaki. 11321 West Markham St. Beer. $-$$. 501-224-9464. LD daily.

ASIAN FORBIDDEN CITY The Park Plaza staple has fast and friendly service, offering up good lo mein at lunch and Cantonese and Hunan dishes. 6000 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-9099. LD daily. FU XING Chinese buffet. 9120 N. Rodney Parham Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-223-0888. LD daily. GINA’S A broad and strong sushi menu along with other Japanese standards. 14524 Cantrell Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-868-7775. LD daily. HANAROO SUSHI BAR Under its second owner, it’s one of the few spots in downtown Little Rock to serve sushi. With an expansive menu, featuring largely Japanese fare with a bit of Korean mixed in. 205 W. Capitol Ave. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-301-7900. L Mon.-Fri., D Mon.-Sat. PHO THANH MY It says “Vietnamese noodle soup” on the sign out front, and that’s what you should order. The pho comes in outrageously large portions with bean sprouts and

BARBECUE BARE BONES PIT BAR-B-Q A carefully controlled gas oven, with wood chips added for flavor, guarantees moist and sweet pork, both pulled from the shoulder and back ribs. The side orders, particularly the baked potato salad, are excellent. 5501 Ranch Drive, Suite 4. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-868-7427. LD daily. CHIP’S BARBECUE Tasty, if a little pricey, barbecue piled high on sandwiches generously doused with tangy sauce. Better known for the incredible family recipe pies and cheesecakes, which come tall and wide. 9801 W. Markham St. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-225-4346. LD Mon.-Sat. DIXIE PIG Pig salad is tough to beat. It comes with loads of chopped pork atop crisp iceberg, doused with that wonderful vinegar-based sauce. The sandwiches are basic, and the sweet, thick sauce is fine. 900 West 35th St. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-753-9650. LD Mon.-Sat.

EUROPEAN / ETHNIC ARABICA HOOKAH CAFE This eatery and grocery store offers kebabs and salads along with just about any sort of Middle Eastern fare you might want, along with what might be the best kefte kebab in Central Arkansas. Halal butcher on duty. 3400 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-379-8011. LD daily. CREGEEN’S IRISH PUB Irish-themed pub with a large selection of on-tap and bottled British beers and ales, an Irish inspired menu and lots of nooks and crannies to meet in. 301 Main St. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-376-7468. LD daily. ISTANBUL MEDITERRANEAN CUISINE This Turkish eatery offers decent kebabs and great starters. The red pepper hummus is a winner. So are Cigar Pastries. Possibly the best Turkish coffee in Central Arkansas. 11525 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-223-9332. LD daily. LEO’S GREEK CASTLE Wonderful Mediterranean food — gyro sandwiches or platters, falafel and tabouleh — plus dependable hamburgers, ham sandwiches, steak platters and BLTs. Breakfast offerings are expanded with gyro meat, pitas and triple berry pancakes. 2925 Kavanaugh Blvd. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-6667414. BLD daily. SILVEK’S EUROPEAN BAKERY Fine pastries, chocolate creations, breads and cakes done in the classical European style. Drop by for a whole cake or a slice or any of the dozens of single serving treats in the big case. 1900 Polk St. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-661-9699. BLD daily.

Edited by Will Shortz

fresh herbs. Traditional pork dishes, spring rolls and bubble tea also available. 302 N. Shackleford Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-312-7498. SEKISUI Fresh-tasting sushi, traditional Japanese, the fun hibachi style of Japanese, and an overwhelming assortment of entrees. Nice wine selection, sake, specialty drinks. 219 N. Shackleford Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-221-7070. LD daily. SHOGUN JAPANESE STEAKHOUSE The chefs will dazzle you, as will the variety of tasty stir-fry combinations and the sushi bar. Usually crowded at night. 2815 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-666-7070. D daily. WASABI Downtown sushi and Japanese cuisine. For lunch, there’s quick and hearty sushi samplers. 101 Main St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-374-0777. L Mon.-Fri., D Mon.-Sat.

■ CROSSWORD

SANTO COYOTE Two years after opening in North Little Rock’s Lakewood area, Santo Coyote is still offering plenty of fresh Mexicaninfluenced favorites. We adore the fresh-made-at-the-table guacamole and have come to appreciate one of the best deals on the menu — a variety of sopes (corn mesa “cups” spread with beans) and tacos for $2.50 each. For the price, a diner receives one sope or two house made tortillas with the choice of toppings ranging from beef brisket to scallops. We’re particularly fond of the al carbon (beef strip steak) sope and also appreciated the vegetarian version (zucchini, mushrooms, red bell pepper and onion). 2513 McCain Blvd., North Little Rock. CC. Full bar. 501-753-9800. 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 11 a.m.-11:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sun.

No. 1014

■ UPDATE

Across 1 Sum of opposites 5 Send in, as payment 10 Surmounting 14 Tennis great Lendl 15 Not just stirring 16 Dump water overboard 17 Riviera city 18 Quaker State: Abbr. 19 Grotesque 20 Task that stands high on oneʼs list 23 It may be part of a pack 24 Bit of cyberchat shorthand 25 Photo ___ 28 Show people to their seats, informally 31 First Nations tribe 33 Little bump

35 Agree verbally 37 Exam with a max. score of 180 39 “Dies ___” 40 Words on a parental advisory label 43 Winter air 44 Food stamp? 45 Basketball Hallof-Famer Thomas 46 Mesmerized 48 Return envelope, e.g.: Abbr. 50 Quattro preceder 51 Cobb and others 52 Turnarounds, slangily 54 Corrida cry 56 Shiny shoe material 62 Campus area 64 Buttinsky 65 Brit of Fox News

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE O A S I S

B R A V O

G O M I C L D I N E S

E M O T E

A M A E F D E N L A D G E N E R E W O V E D L A R S C O T O E Y O T X E D G R E O G I S M A M A A R A N G E P L Y R U R A D A L O N O P E N D C E R

T W A N G R E S I L I E N T

S N L

G A R D E N S A L E

A R O M A

S L A I N

A E D B O O I L N S L A A L I S L S W E N S A V S A N G E N E O N D E N S

P O R T S O D E T E R S E

66 Kitchenware brand 67 Column order 68 Slanted type: Abbr. 69 Pretty low grades 70 “Family Ties” mother 71 Rabid dog in a Stephen King story Down 1 97.5% of a penny 2 Diabolical 3 Political contest 4 Center of the N.B.A. 5 Lil Wayne, for one 6 Common still-life subject 7 Expansionist doctrine 8 “No need to tell me” 9 Attack vigorously 10 Touch 11 Playground shout 12 Vinaigrette component 13 Practice, as a trade 21 Lake of “Hairspray” 22 Pacific battle site, familiarly 26 Flat 27 Do a slow burn 28 Online newsgroup system 29 Leipzigʼs state

24 31

38 42

47 52 56

23 28

50 55

Puzzle by William I. Johnston

30 Fourdimensional realm 32 Skull and Bones members 34 Morse code for “sissies” 36 Ceramic vessel 38 Open ___ of worms

41 Adorable one 42 Nabisco wafer 47 Wall Street option 49 Strong-arm 53 Register 55 Set of principles 57 Commotions 58 Island rings 59 Rwandan group

60 Key of Bachʼs second violin concerto: Abbr. 61 Employeeʼs move, for short 62 Letters seen during proofreading? 63 Island strings

For answers, call 1-900-285-5656, $1.49 a minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800-814-5554. Annual subscriptions are available for the best of Sunday crosswords from the last 50 years: 1-888-7-ACROSS. AT&T users: Text NYTX to 386 to download puzzles, or visit nytimes.com/mobilexword for more information. Online subscriptions: Todayʼs puzzle and more than 2,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). Share tips: nytimes.com/wordplay. Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/learning/xwords.

ITALIAN CAFE PREGO Dependable entrees of pasta, pork and the like, plus great sauces, fresh mixed greens and delicious dressings, crisp-crunchy-cold gazpacho and tempting desserts in a comfy bistro setting. 5510 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-5355. LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat. CIAO Don’t forget about this casual yet elegant bistro tucked into a downtown storefront. The fine pasta and seafood dishes, ambiance and overall charm combine to make it a relaxing, enjoyable, affordable choice. 405 W. Seventh St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-372-0238. L Mon.-Fri., D Thu.-Sat. GRADY’S PIZZAS AND SUBS Pizza features a pleasing blend of cheeses rather than straight mozzarella. The grinder is a classic, the chef’s salad huge and tasty. 6801 W. 12th St., Suite C. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-1918. LD daily. IRIANA’S PIZZA Unbelievably generous thick-crust pizza with unmatched zest. Good salads, too; grinders are great, particularly the Italian sausage. 103 W. Markham St. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-374-3656. LD Mon.-Sat. ZAFFINO’S BY NORI A high-quality Italian dining experience. Pastas, entrees (don’t miss the veal marsala) and salads are all outstanding, and the desserts don’t miss, either. 2001 E. Kiehl Ave. NLR. Beer, Wine. 501-834-7530. D Tue.-Sat.

MEXICAN CANON GRILL Creative appetizers come in huge quantities, and the varied maincourse menu rarely disappoints, though it’s not as spicy as competitors’. 2811 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-664-2068. LD daily. CAPI’S The eatery has abandoned its previous small plates format for Nuevo Latino cuisine heavy on tamales, enchiladas and Central American reinterpretation of dishes. Fortunately, they kept the great desserts. 11525 Cantrell Suite 917. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-225-9600. LD Tue.-Sun., BR Sat.-Sun. COTIJA’S A branch off the famed La Hacienda family tree downtown, with a massive menu of tasty lunch and dinner specials, the familiar white cheese dip and sweet red and fiery-hot green salsas, and friendly service. 406 S. Louisiana St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-244-0733. L Mon.-Sat. EL JALAPENO 9203 Chicot Road. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-772-7471. LD Mon.-Fri. LA REGIONAL A full-service grocery store catering to SWLR’s Latino community, it’s the small grill tucked away in the back corner that should excite lovers of adventurous cuisine. The menu offers a whirlwind trip through Latin America, with delicacies from all across the Spanish-speaking world (try the El Salvadorian papusas, they’re great). Bring your Spanish/English dictionary. 7414 Baseline Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-565-4440. BLD daily. 2630 Pike Ave. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-246-4163. www.arktimes.com • JUNE 1, 2011 43

The 2nd Friday Of Each Month June 10, 5-8 pm 2FAN June 11 press.pdf 1 5/26/2011 4:50:02 PM

Butler Center Galleries

Join us for two exhibition openings during 2nd Friday Art Night.

These venues will be open late. There’s plenty of parking and a free trolley to each of the locations. Don’t miss it – lots of fun! FREE PARKING at 3RD & CUMBERLAND FREE STREET PARKING ALL OVER DOWNTOWN AND BEHIND THE RIVER MARKET (Paid parking available for modest fee.) Sponsored by

Works bythrough Kathy Thompson A Walk Harmony Clinic needlepoint, oils,white watercolor, and mixed media a black & photographic documentary

by UALR student5-8 Ranaa artist reception pmTasneem

V.I.T.A.L.

(Visual Images That Aﬀect Lives) Artist Collective

CMY

libations and refreshments Opening Reception, June 10, 5 - 8 PM

The Art of Robin Tucker

Rex Deloney

The Butler Center Galleries are located in the Arkansas Studies Institute (401 President Clinton Ave.), on the Main Library Campus in the River Market District of downtown Little Rock.

Christ Church

509 Scott Street | 375-2342 www.christchurchlr.org Little Rock’s Downtown Episcopal Church

BUTLER CENTER

FOR ARKANSAS STUDIES

Opening Reception for

Forgotten Places: rhonda Berry and Diana Michelle Hausam Music by Bonnie Montgomery trucking

Central Arkansas Library System The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies - www.butlercenter.org/art

Featured artist

KATHY THOMPSON 501.374.5100

200 E. 3 St. 501-324-9351 rd

A museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage

220 West 6th Street Little Rock www.lulaveatery.com

www.HistoricArkansas.org

Gypsy Bistro 501.375.3500

200 S. Commerce, Ste. 150 River Market District (Old Vermillion Location)

300 Third Tower • 501-375-3333 coppergrillandgrocery.com

come ride the free trolley!

JUNE 1, 2011

movies &shakers The young and the stylish behind the Little Rock Film Festival

BY KATHERINE WYRICK PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

ow in its fifth year, the Little Rock Film Festival has grown well beyond its modest beginnings. We recently caught up with two stylish movers and shakers who help make movie magic behind the scenes— LRFF Executive Director Jack Lofton and Special Events Coordinator Anne Moore. Jack is a full-time fest employee—and cowboy boot clad man about town. By day, Anne works for The Oxford American, a LRFF sponsor; by night, however, she transforms into a volunteer extraordinaire. (In all her waking hours, she remains as dedicated to fashion as she is to the festival. Check out her blog: www.styleryder.com). CUE: How did you first become involved in the festival? Jack Lofton: Moving back from Los Angeles to Arkansas for graduate school (Clinton School and Law School), I was fortunate to arrive in Little Rock after the LRFF was founded by Owen Brainard, Jamie Moses, and Brent and Craig Renaud. It was perfect timing because I was able to help with the first

Continued on page 46

hearsay

Anne Moore wears a Nicole Miller top and skirt and shoes by Cynthia Vincent, all from BARBARA JEAN. Jack Lofton, holding a LRFF award, is outfitted in an oxford, tie, jacket and jeans from EVOLVE. (Kicks are his.)

➥ The devil made me do it. Award-winning cookbook author Martha Hall Foose makes a special appearance at EGGSHELLS KITCHEN CO. on Tuesday, June 7, 6-8 p.m. Foose will share recipes and stories from her book, A Southerly Course, and a tasting will be provided by local foodies. Also, if you feel that your deviled eggs are divine, bring a tray to compete in the Deviled Egg Contest. You could win a $100 gift card! ➥ Fall into summer. B. BARNETT presents the Hilton Hollis Fall 2011 Trunk Show, June 2-3, and the Armani Collezioni Fall 2011 Trunk Show, June 6-7. ➥ Westward ho! June’s exhibit at L&L BECK GALLERY is titled “Go West, Young Man!,” and is, no surprise, a series of paintings with a Western theme. ➥ Go, GO RUNNING! This community-minded, family owned sports shop celebrates its first anniversary. We’d say they’re off to a great start. ➥ KEN RASH’S Outdoor Furniture store is celebrating its19th Anniversary. The Anniversary Sale only has a few more days left so we recommend taking advantage of their in-store coupon for 19% off any decorative accessory OR a coupon for $50 off any furniture purchase ($950 or more). Saturday Scott will be cookin’ on the Hasty Bake Grill from noon till 3! Get there before the end of day June 4. ➥ Mark your calendars for the BEN E. KEITH Summer Restaurant Challenge. Check in on Foursquare at participating Ben E. Keith restaurants for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate. Look for full details in the Ben E. Keith ad in the June 8 issue of Arkansas Times. ➥ BARBARA GRAVES INTIMATE FASHIONS is offering a nice selection of casual wear at 40% off and some really cute summer dresses that double as swim cover-ups priced at $42! ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES • JUNE 1, 2011 45

MOVIES & SHAKERS Continued from page 45

annual LRFF. All of us were working around the clock to produce the first highly successful festival. After that year, I continued to work with the LRFF and have been fortunate to be involved and help take the festival from a three-day, city-wide event to a five-day regional festival that now screens over 100 films and has more than 25,000 people in attendance. I’ve been passionate about the LRFF’s mission to create a cultural event in Little Rock to showcase and promote films in Arkansas and from around the world while benefiting our community and helping to further the development of downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock. Anne Moore: I first became involved with the festival when I moved home after living in New York and Miami. I had worked for a year with the Miami International Film Festival, and my mother’s cousin, Jimmy Moses [father of Jamie], suggested that I get involved. CUE: Name one of your all-time favorite movies (in general) and a favorite fest movie. JL: One of my all-time favorites, although a bit cliché, is “The Godfather.” As a kid on a farm, I spent many a rainy Saturday watching I and II back to back. For me it starts with the story; you have a great story, and the actors deliver remarkable performances, it’s most likely a good film. When everything else (cinematography, production design, pacing, etc.) comes together, it’s a great film. My favorite fest movie would have to be last year’s “Winter’s Bone.” Like the classic film “The Godfather,” you have exceptional performances by the cast with a truly haunting and realistic story whose end result is a powerful film. AM: I’ve always loved “Breakfast at Tiffanys.” My mother used to find me watching it over and over again. I also love all Quentin Tarantino films and “A River Runs Through It. “ As far as festival movies, I can’t name just one! “Everyday Sunshine,” “No Tracks Home,” “Parts & Labor,” “The Orderly,” “Dr. Sketchy’s” and the opening night film, “The Last Ride.” CUE: Anything you’re particularly excited about this year? JL: We have an incredible slate of international and Arkansas films that always excites me. Also excited about the world class documentaries at the Clinton School of Public Service (“Revenge of the Electric Car,” “Damn!” with Jimmy McMillan in Attendance) and can’t wait to see who will win the Oxford American Best Southern Film Award with $10,000 cash prize. AM: I am extremely excited about the Opening Night Party and screening. I think it will be an event not to miss. The Riverboat party is always a blast, too! CUE: How have you seen the festival change since you began working for it? JL: I’ve been with the festival since year

one so it’s been exciting to see how quickly we’ve grown. It’s been an honor to be a part of the success, and I’m looking forward to continuing to grow the festival by helping to promote filmmaking in Arkansas and screening the best films from around the world. AM: When I first began working with the festival three years ago, we were a small team, and we still are. Now that I work for one of the sponsors, The Oxford American Magazine, I have a new perspective on all that goes into it. The spirit of the festival has not changed at all. Everyone involved is so enthusiastic about its success. CUE: What do you like about living in Little Rock? JL: I was born in Memphis and lived in Dallas, but from fourth grade on grew up on a farm in Hughes, Arkansas. I’ve always been a proud Arkansan and love living in Little Rock because it has this “New South” quality that combines the best of what larger cities and more rural communities offer. There is a vibrant cultural and arts scene sustained, in part, by organizations like the LRFF, the Rep, Oxford American, Clinton School (Speaker Series) and Argenta Community Theater. AM: I like living in Little Rock because I imagine it becoming a mini-Austin. Another reason I’m involved in the fest is that I think that there is so much opportunity throughout the city and state for growth. I also feel that it’s an open canvas of opportunities for the young people who live here. I believe that the more you make of it, the better it will be for people as individuals and the state as a whole. CUE: Do you have a favorite party? JL: Asking me which party is the best to attend is like asking me who my favorite sister is; I have five sisters. Each is arguably the best in its own right with the Oxford American Opening Night Party, Arkansas Music Video Competition and Showcase, Peabody Party and Fashion Show, “Sync or Swim” Arkansas Queen Riverboat Party, and the Arkansas Times Closing Night Gala and Awards Ceremony all vying for the top spot. In a Sophie’s choice situation, I would personally say the OA opening night because it kicks off the festival in a truly Southern way that showcases our community as a cultural center of the South. AM: I always love the opening night parties. Visit littlerockfilmfestival.org for complete details and the full schedule of movies and events. We strongly suggest buying a pass to ensure getting a seat at the film showings and into the parties. It’s worth every penny! The Wednesday Opening Night movie is already sold out. Tickets are still available to the Wednesday Opening Night Oxford American After Party and the Closing Night Gala & Awards Ceremony, Sunday, June 5, from 5-7 p.m., presented by the Arkansas Times, which takes place at the Clinton Presidential Center.

46 JUNE 1, 2011 • ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES

Home Tweet Home

hese delightful birdthemed home accessories make us want to sing! It’s a trend that’s holding fast in 2011 (like a tufted titmouse clinging to a branch on a windy day). Find all these bird-related items at Box Turtle. (And pick up some feather earrings while you’re there!)

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bydesign by design (n.) A place where we check in with tastemakers about town, from decorators to clothes designers and others in between.

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Gerritt Whittaker in her shop.

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othing says, “it’s mine” quite like a monogram—and it says it so stylishly! As you may have heard, the monogram has emerged as a big trend for 2011, appearing on pillowcases, luggage, glassware, linens, throw pillows, wall art—you name it. This isn’t news to Gerritt Whittaker, aka Mrs. Polka Dot, who has long extolled the virtues of the monogram. She’s the owner of Mrs. Polka Dot in the Heights and a life-long lover of this classic practice elevated to preppy art form. Whittaker opened shop in October of last year but, she says, “had the business running behind closed doors for three years.” Gerritt explains, “The opportunity presented itself, and we had a six-week-old baby, and we just decided to do it.” Seriously?! With a six-week-old baby?! Gerritt concedes, “It was a really big decision, but I love it.” Gerritt’s husband (Mr. Polka Dot, aka pro golfer Ron Whittaker) travels a lot, so daughter Abby, almost 5, and son Finn, now 9 months, can sometimes be found “helping” at the store. Gerritt carries a wide selection of baby and kid items but has expanded her inventory to include cute tunics and beach bags, as well as all things gifty and Greek. At the moment, she’s inundated with graduation orders, which include everything from coolers to totes. Gerritt explains, “We can monogram anything. You can even bring things in that aren’t from the store to be monogrammed, which surprises some people.” For groomsmen, Whittaker suggests duffle bags, overnight bags, baseball hats, dopp kit or tumblers. She also sells a lot bridesmaids and hostess gifts like trays and cosmetic bags. The only thing she won’t monogram is a christening gown. (One has to draw the line somewhere.) And speaking of drawing the line, I have to ask—what’s up with those monograms

Gerritt’s Top Five Beach and sun time

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on cars? Isn’t that just taking things too far? As we suspected, Gerritt insists, no, they’re perfectly acceptable; she’s had one on her car for years. Asked if she’s ever received any odd requests, Gerritt says no, unless you count karate uniforms and equestrian things. (I was hoping for something slightly salacious, but, oh well.) After I learn that the chicly preppy Gerritt hails from Long Island, I have to know if those above the Mason-Dixon line are as passionate about monogramming as their Southern counterparts. Gerritt agrees that Southerners are particularly fond of this practice. She’s quick to add, however, that her favorite monogram shop in the world is 20 minutes from her home in East Hampton. If you’re in the market for a monogrammed gift around these parts, however, remember: DO take it personally—and take it to Mrs. Polka Dot, conveniently located next door to Eggshells and across the street from Ozark Outdoor in the Heights. Please note that Mrs. Polka Dot is closed Sundays and Mondays. ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES • JUNE 1, 2011 47

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Pleasant Ridge Town Center 11525 Cantrell Rd • 501.716.2960 M-F 10-6 • Sat. 10-5 solematesboutique.blogspot.com

Dayna Duncan poses with her goods at the River Market.

Trailer made A super-cool mobile antique store makes tracks around town

2616 Kavanaugh Blvd. • Little Rock 501.661.1167 • www.shopboxturtle.com

The camper’s kitchen, located at the back, showcases vintage thermoses and outdoor guides chosen by Duncan’s son Corbin Otwell.

Stylish straw purses sit alongside hip furniture and home accessories. BY KATHERINE WYRICK PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

n their website, ratrailer.com, Roadside Attractions offers this fitting description of their business, “Roadside Attractions is that friend of yours with the stylishly decorated house. The friend whose aesthetic sense is elegant yet welcoming, both cozy and cool. The friend who always has just the right item to brighten every corner, the friend whom you are always asking, ‘where did you find that?’” Upon seeing Dayna Duncan’s mobile antique store parked at the River Market a few weeks ago, I thought it first a vision, my version of the promised land—an old-school camper spilling forth a cornucopia of vintage goods. Anywhere they set up camp, Duncan and her son, Corbin Otwell, create a memorable montage with their teardrop trailer serving as the backdrop. On this day, two vintage lawn chairs sit on a patch of astro turf surrounded by some of the coolest bric-a-brac you’re likely to find. Seeing this scene, someone once remarked to Duncan, “Who’s the artist?” “What artist?” she replied. “The person who gathered all this and displayed it! This is art.” I concur. Duncan wears a covetable seagull pin on her cardigan that I want to snatch like, well, like a seagull stealing bread; she says proudly that Corbin bought it for her at an estate sale. He obviously shares his cool mama’s excellent taste and has helped design her web site and choose items for the shop. Duncan says, “He brings the youthful side. He picks out things young people would like.” Corbin, who works in advertising, adds, “I like the outdoor stuff, like all the Golden Guides.” (Duncan’s other son, the dreadlocked one, hawks his wares just up the road at a booth selling feather hair extensions.) As for the trailer itself, a young man in Maumelle made it in his garage on a dare, just to prove he could do it. Duncan camped in it all last summer and found that it attracted many a curious onlooker. She thought, “I should be selling something.” Thus this cottage industry—or rather, camper industry—was born. “The teardrop trailer definitely draws ‘em in,” says a smiling Dayna. Duncan’s roving shop is one roadside attraction you don’t want to miss (unlike that giant ball of twine somewhere in the heartland). Check her web site or subscribe to the RSS to find out where she’ll be next.

C&F FLOORING AND RUG GALLERY !!"#$%&'()*++$,-&.$/$01((+*$,-234$5,$6!!"!$/$7"89:;;9;;"; !"#$%&'()*#$+%&,+-)./0#12)/'#)3//")$%)$)%&0#4

Since 1997 ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES • JUNE 1, 2011 49

don’t try to resist...

you know it’s better FRESH!

Mary Rutherford Jennings and Toni Tucker partner up for Proposals.

a modest proposal A wedding boutique gets an update with two new young owners

FRESH PRODUCE! located at Arkansas Garden Center, a fresh addition to...

501-868-9933 501-868-4666

thegoodearthgarden.com

ou can’t miss the pop of pink on Kavanaugh—that bright awning that announces Proposals, a unique Heights boutique. Anyone who has an upcoming event to attend, whether it be a fundraiser or wedding, has sought out this stylish shop. Mary Rutherford Jennings and Toni Tucker said “we do!” when they purchased the store in February from Dawne Vandiver. Their youthful energy and enthusiasm make the match with Proposals a perfect union. We recently caught up with the pair who share the following. CUE: What lead you to make the leap into retail? MJ: Toni and I had been discussing entering the retail business and had actually explored a couple of locations. When Dawne Vandiver, the former owner of Proposals, heard we were looking, she contacted us and we thought it was a wonderful opportunity! We love both the challenges and rewards it brings to us as young women entrepreneurs and we look forward to serving Arkansas women for many years to come. CUE: How do you envision the store evolving? MJ: In addition to the traditional wedding apparel, we are expanding our merchandise and offering more ready to wear options. We have a wide selection of dresses for all ages that will be perfect for charitable galas, special events, proms, and for this summer’s sorority rush activities. We’re very excited about our new lines of affordable casual apparel, jewelry, handbags and other accessories. Of course, we will continue to specialize in wedding dresses, bridesmaids dresses and mother of the bride/

50 JUNE 1, 2011 • ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES

groom attire. CUE: What are some popular trends in wedding fashion? What do brides want to wear now? MJ: We are very curious to see if long sleeves will make a comeback after the Royal Wedding, but we have a feeling strapless is here to stay for a while. However, it really does depend on the bride; everyone comes in with a different idea of the perfect dress. We have noticed a lot more detail on the bottom of the dresses, whether it be flowers, feathers or fabric. CUE: Bridesmaid dresses often (and deservedly) get a bad rap. Talk about how the ones you carry defy the stereotype. MJ: We have so many bridesmaids dresses that women have ordered this Spring to wear as regular dresses, and we think that is a great sign! The designs have become trendier and much less “bridesmaidy” in recent years, and we are thrilled. We also have a new line of bridesmaids dresses that we are debuting called Two Birds. These dresses are awesome because they can be worn 15 different ways! How could you not wear that again?! CUE: Since you both recently had weddings yourselves, any advice for future brides? MJ: The best advice we have for brides is to just have fun! Weddings can be super stressful, but if you try to focus on only those details that are most important to you (like the dress, of course!), and delegate the other tasks, it can be such a fun experience.

www.arktimes.com â&#x20AC;˘ JUNE 1, 2011 51

NATIVES GUIDE

BRIAN CHILSON

FENCING

Sports leagues

re you out of shape? Do you find yourself with some spare time throughout the week, thinking, “I should be doing something other than sitting in front of the TV watching the third hour of this ‘Jersey Shore’ marathon?” Do you simultaneously want to get in shape, but hate all of the things you would have to do to realize that desire? Well, Little Rock has a lot to offer runners, walkers and cyclists – not to mention plenty of gyms – but there are some more, shall we say, unconventional sports out there too. And they’re just waiting for you to come along and sign up. KICKBALL. His name is Larry Betz, but you can just call him Poo. As in “the grand poo-bah of all things kick ball,” he says. Betz started the league in 2004, nearly on a whim. Now, there are more than 100 kickball teams in 52 JUNE 1, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES

Central Arkansas. “The biggest component is the social aspect,” he says. “It’s a great way to get out and meet people and be active and introduce yourself to a whole new social circle.” There are fall and spring leagues. The fall league usually runs from mid-August until the end of October. The spring season goes from the first of March until around Memorial Day. Fall registration is gearing up soon. If you’re interested in starting a team, it only takes nine players but you can have as many as 20. If you just want to sign up solo, your name will go on a list and one of the team captains will pick you up. “We do community service and fund-raising every season,” Betz says. “Through our nonprofit, the Big Red Ball Charitable Foundation, we raised over $300,000 for charity. Animals and kids are what we focus on.”

For more information, check out www.lrkickball.com. ROLLER DERBY. “We will teach people how to skate if they can’t skate,” says Amanda Homan, a blocker for the Rockin’ Renegades, Little Rock’s own roller derby team. “Experience is great, but it’s not necessary. One of our best blockers could not skate when she first started.” Homan is also the secretary for the Central Arkansas Roller Derby league, which has been around since 2006. The league consists of one team with “varsity” and “junior varsity” versions, but Homan would like to see that grow. The Renegades practice together and travel around the South playing other squads from Dallas, Huntsville, Jackson and Joplin, to name a few. “The biggest stereotype we’re trying to break is that it’s fake,” Homan says. “It’s not. It’s really real and it’s

empowering for women. We still have the campy nicknames. I go by Kitty Kismet. We’ve got Cocoa Booty and Mary Lou Wreckin’. But nothing is fake.” The team meets for practices and bouts at Skate World off Mabelvale Cutoff in Little Rock. For more information, send an e-mail to recruits@ cearderby.com. You can also find the league on Facebook. Just search for Central Arkansas Roller Derby. BIKE POLO. Have you ever seen video of an old-school polo match and thought, “That would be really fun to do on a bike instead of a horse”? Well, a group of Little Rockers is giving it their best shot. The bike polo squad meets at MacArthur Park Monday and Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Nathan Vandiver has been playing with the bike polo team since it

SPORTS LEAGUES

first started. It’s fun and it’s easy to get started, he says. “You just need a bike. Really you could come without one and somebody would probably let you borrow one. We have mallets. We have extra helmets. It’s good to have gloves to help hold onto the handle bars and protect your hands if you fall. We have all the other stuff.” Worried about falling over? You probably should be, but it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it, Vandiver says. Look for “Little Rock Bike Polo” on Facebook to find out more, or visit lrbpolo.blogspot.com. FENCING. Steve Lein stated the Central Arkansas Fencing Club in 2009 and it’s done nothing but grow ever since. The club currently has around 40 members and there’s a new beginner’s class every few months. The sport, he says, is more than just swordplay. “Physical chess is a description I’ve seen used repeatedly,” Lein says. “It requires a lot of mental concentration, agility, strength and finesse. But the really cool thing is that it doesn’t matter if you’re 80 years old or 8 years old. If you’re tall, short, fat, out-of-shape — anybody can fence.” To sign up, send an e-mail to cafencing@gmail.com. The beginner’s class lasts 10 weeks and will teach you the basics. The starting fee, which isn’t due until after your first class, is $60 and that includes a glove. The club also has a website (www. cafencing.com) and Facebook page.

CRICKET. Do you know what wickets are? How about a crease? A stump? A bail? If you’re like most Americans you probably have no idea what any of these things are, at least in the context of cricket. But there’s a place in Central Arkansas where you can find out. The Central Arkansas Indian Cricket Association plays a 10-game season starting in late March and running through late October. Games are usually held at Burns Park or the field at Rose City Middle School, both in North Little Rock. It takes about seven hours to play a game, so if you want to stop by and watch bring a blanket. “Right now there aren’t a lot of Americans playing cricket,” says the league’s president, Anil Patel. “But if you want to learn something you can come. Cricket leagues are starting up in cities everywhere. When we started in 1997, we only had about 15 people. Now we have 236 on 11 teams.” If you’d like to join a team, you can e-mail Patel at patel64@yahoo. com. For most, there will be a learning curve, but Patel says that’s not a problem. “If you come continuously, you could probably learn in four or five weeks,” he says. “Basically you just have to learn the rules. We can explain the whole thing, when the innings are over and when to go bat and how to bowl. It takes time. You can’t come in one hour and learn everything. The first day you might not know what’s going on, but the next time you come you can see how it works.”

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Bummed n I’m sorry, everybody, I can’t do the column this week. I’m just too bummed. All the available topics are too depressing. I went through the whole list and not one didn’t make me want to jump off the house. New strawberries that are like eating cotton bolls. Dog and Beth Chapman with their respective blouses open to the waist and tufts and gobs and blinglets of God knows what hanging out and hanging down. Civil War reenactments — painting glory on old folly. All the young people being bored. Trying to lose weight. Trying to remember what it was like. Toenails determined to remake themselves into talons. “Whatever.” “It is what it is.” Ivy ascending the south wall, its progress the backward measure of my own. Expiration dates passing almost before you can get the stuff home and pantried. Bedbugs in goosestep like newsreel Heinies. Should make me feel like Leiningen vs. the Ants, but it’s Munch’s screamer instead. Crossing the bridge when you come to it. The same feeling as with America’s Funniest Home Videos, with the one connecting thread or theme: Somebody gets hurt in an unusual way, and everybody laughs. Why?

Bob L ancaster It’s depressing in several respects to read of someone with his or her tongue planted firmly in his or her cheek. And the other chestnuts and weary parts and figures. Remembering what the 20th century had that the 21st doesn’t; momentum as opposed to entropy. Whoa Nelly at Riverfest , his titles and lyrics oozing with niggaz and pimp juice and holy excrement and f-bursts like a fireworks show. Old hat for our reviewer but a hill to climb if you’re not hip to only-yesterday’s stylizing of grunts. Son of The Hangover said to be more clone than sequel so no point in looking there. All factors contributing to this columnkiller funk. It’s not going to lift anytime soon, I can tell, so I’m of a mind to take off and go fishing. I’d rather go with Ophie but she’s tubbed her last perch, so it looks like I’m obliged to seine the sewer pond for some live bait, borrow a boat, and go on alone. Except I just remembered that going

fishing has got even more depressing than not going fishing. What was I thinking? Success would amount only to bringing home a stink. Have to hire somebody to clean the bastards. And then somebody else to eat them, if the preacher refused, and after him the hogs. Youngsters and the used-up may get something out of it still, and honest trailer necks who believe you get more meat for the money in the bar-pit than the buffet line, but otherwise increasingly fishing becomes a ritual of despair, meant to lull the reaper, like Macomber’s safari, or like casino or racetrack gambling, where squandering your dwindling resources becomes a depressing metaphor for squandering your remaining time. Nature itself ratchets up the depression this time of year — skunks, snakes, tornadoes. Approaching perigee of the summer dog. Your poached deer all have madstones, even worser omens than aces and eights. Or I could cut some brush, as George W. Bush has been doing for three solid years now, without a single day off to decide decisions. Sucker’s cleared the greasewood out of three Texas counties by his lonesome, they say. He was in Little Rock last week promoting golf for kids. Golf is extry depressing, as you know. Golf coverage even moreso. How they moon over Tiger and Lefty. With endless reminiscences about how they were pretty fair country ball-strikers themselves

back about 75 years ago. So Lonesome George was here promoting golf for kids, and here’s something he said: “Certain values are timeless and true, and the golf course is a good place to learn those values.” GWB on values timeless and true! Golf-course values such as awarding yourself gimmes and mulligans and overs. Invoking “winter rules.” Pulling out the foot wedge early and often. Swindling feebs with bogus scats. Gaining precious green inches cheating on a spot. Just about all the hard-core vices I’ve ever viced I picked up at old Rebsamen, Burns Park, Riverdale, Hindman. So fishing’s out, golf’s out, no slingblading brush, no movie relief, camp meeting, bender, gruntalongs on the pod, and I guess I won’t follow up on my idea of inviting Lonesome George up for a patio derby racing de-winged flies. It would’ve required him to de-wing, train, and van his own fly up 30. But I lost interest in the proposal, afraid he and the fly would spurn the invite, maybe more afraid they wouldn’t. So no column this week — apologies again — or until this stupid muse gets a little bit unfunked. One of them revoltin’ developments Jimmy Durante used to talk about. Sorry about that, Chief — spoken into the shoe. This too shall pass, I must remember. Maybe by next week. Watch this space.

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