ARKANSAS’S SOURCE FOR NEWS, POLITICS AND ENTERTAINMENT ■ JULY 20, 2011
www.arktimes.com
SCORCHED EARTH
Extreme conditions are changing Arkansas farms. BY GERARD MATTHEWS PAGE 10
THE INSIDER
McDaniel to Hubbard: Get lost
n Last week, after Attorney General Dustin McDaniel’s office announced a new Spanish-language version of the attorney general’s website, Rep. Jon Hubbard (R-Jonesboro) fired off a couple of angry e-mails to McDaniel, copying reporters for the Associated Press and Jonesboro Sun and a host of fellow legislators among others on the messages. Taking a familiar bigoted tack, Hubbard suggested that the website afforded Hispanics special treatment and that McDaniel was “pandering” to Hispanics for their future votes. McDaniel’s forceful response deserves a direct quote: “We have legal citizens of this state who pay taxes and serve in the military and also speak Spanish. Our website has been updated to include Spanish sections to better serve those citizens. It cost the taxpayers not one dime to include this service, for two reasons: 1. We have had a Spanish version of our website for many years; and 2. Updating the translation and making the website more user friendly was done by my existing staff, including a naturalized U.S. citizen who speaks Spanish fluently. In short, I find your tone insulting and your premise to be without merit. I will refrain from characterizing your motivation, but one could easily infer that you are simply an angry, misguided person. I was proud to represent Jonesboro in the House seat you now occupy. Your lack of civility and substance, not limited to publishing my personal e-mail address and blind copying the press on your e-mail, make me embarrassed that you represent our community. No further comment on this issue is warranted, and your future angry e-mails will be forwarded to the press and will go unanswered.”
Moving on art studios
n Developer/contractor Scott Reed of Reed Realty Advisors says he plans to have studio and rehearsal space ready for occupation on the first floor of the Arkansas Building at Sixth and Main and in an adjoining building on Main in 12 months. Reed is negotiating with Tower Investments, which owns Lafayette Square, to buy those two buildings, the M.M. Cohn Building and the Boyle Building as part of a plan to develop a “creative corridor” on the 500 block of Main. Reed is putting up the city’s $150,000 match for the $150,000 Our Town grant awarded to the city last week by the National Endowment for the Humanities to design the corridor. That grant will go to the University of Arkansas Community Design Center and Marlon Blackwell Architect of Fayetteville. Reed, 34, will eventually put apartments in the artist studio buildings.
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501-376-2903 www.lrwastewater.com www.arktimes.com • JULY 20, 2011 3
Smart talk
Contents
WIEN ROMAN KLEMENTSCHITZ
New at the zoo
RATS WHO BOW TO A QUEEN: A file photo of an adult naked mole rat.
n The Little Rock Zoo has announced that some recent newborns are old enough to be on display — four naked mole rats and five bush dogs. According to the zoo, the mole rats, found only in parts of East Africa, organize themselves around a queen, who is the only female mole rat allowed to breed. The queen picks among a variety of choices; if a male not selected tries to breed with her, she typically kills him. Baby naked mole rats are born no larger than the size of a fingernail. Bush dogs, typically found in Central and South America, are relatives of the maned wolf. They look sort of like foxes with short tails and small grizzly bear faces.
Smart ALEC
Bikes Not Bombs
n The Nation, the Los Angeles Times and NPR have put a spotlight in recent weeks on an enormously influential conservative policy lobby that has long had tentacles in the Arkansas legislature — the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). It collects millions from corporate interests then holds meeting for state legislators who are sent home with cookie-cutter legislation to, among others, reduce governmental regulation, fight stricter environmental standards and make it harder for Democratic-leaning citizens to vote (voter ID). The same corporate interests also spend millions DINO?: Demonationwide to elect legislators who’ll join their cratic Rep. Linda ranks. Several ALEC bills popped up in the 2011 Collins-Smith is Arkansas legislature. An ALEC staffer, for exALEC backer. ample, testified for the bill it wrote for Republican Sen. Missy Irvin to hamstring implementation of health care reform in Arkansas. ALEC backers tend to be Republican, but Arkansas Democrats have participated over years. The current state co-chairs are Democratic Rep. Linda Collins-Smith of Pocahontas and Sen. Michael Lamoureux of Russellville. Few Democrats think Collins-Smith is a true Democrat, however. Party regulars are hoping she’ll have a primary opponent for her alliance with Republicans.
n An Arkansas veteran of the war in Afghanistan is trying to make a positive impact on the lives of children in the war-torn country. Jacob George, who served three tours in Operation Enduring Freedom, is part of a group called A Ride Til The End, a collective of veterans whose aim is to raise awareness about the realities of war. George will take part in a 250-mile bike ride from New York City to Washington D.C., called Bikes Not Bombs. The group ride will start at the site of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. The aim of the ride is to collect 250 bikes. According to the group’s website: “As a community of Afghan war veterans, we feel a peace offering is needed as we approach 10 years of war ... Upon collecting the bicycles, some will be sent to Afghanistan and others will be used to get more veterans on bicycles.” For more info, visit arktimes.com/bnb.
10 Rain or shine
Is severe weather the new norm in Arkansas? — By Gerard Matthews
19 Four-wheel-drive paradise
The Superlift Off-Road Vehicle Park in Hot Springs attracts drivers from all across the country. — By David Koon
28 The cupcake
queen of Little Rock
An interview with Christy Milligan, owner of Cupcakes on Kavanaugh and Cupcakes on the Ridge. — By Caroline Millar
DEPARTMENTS 3 The Insider 4 Smart Talk 5 The Observer 6 Letters 7 Orval 8-20 News 22 Opinion 25 Arts & Entertainment 45 Dining 53 Crossword/ Tom Tomorrow 54 Lancaster
Words VOLUME 37, NUMBER 46
n Miracle child: “Patrick Kennedy, 43, the son of the late Edward Kennedy and a former Rhode Island congressman, will wed his fiance on Friday ... ” I wonder which one he calls “Mama.” A comma after “Kennedy” would have made clearer that Patrick Kennedy himself, not a parent, is the former Rhode Island congressman. Rearranging the sentence would have been better still — “Patrick Kennedy, a former Rhode Island congressman and the son of the late Edward Kennedy, will wed ... ” But we’re talking commas today, prompted by a report (erroneous, it turned out) that Oxford University was changing its famous comma rule, the one that puts a comma before “and,” a practice offensive to many other punctuation pundits. This is from the Associated Press: 4 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
Doug S mith doug@arktimes.com
“A report that Oxford University had changed its comma rule left some punctuation obsessives alarmed, annoyed, and distraught. Passions subsided as the university said the news was imprecise, incomplete and misleading. ... Catch the difference between the two previous sentences? An ‘Oxford comma’ was used before ‘and’ in the first sentence, but is absent in the second in accordance with the style used by the Associated Press.” The people that Jim Quinn called “comma connoisseurs” take this sort of
thing very seriously. Most newspapers follow the AP style, and employ comma catchers to find and remove all commas appearing before and’s. My own rule, known as “the Smith comma and/or non-comma, whatever,” is to put a comma in if the sentence reads better with it, and leave the comma out if the sentence reads better that way. A sensible policy, I think, rejected out of hand by copy editors who value uniformity above all. n Between the two of we: “Morrison, 23, is in his first full season with the Florida Marlins, and he fielded questions from a New York radio station earlier this week regarding the Marlins’ struggles and his tweets, one of which relayed a conversation between he and his interim manager, Jack McKeon.”
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The Observer is prone to think about Hell when it gets this hot: that smoky, nigh-bottomless pit where Ol’ Splitfoot holds sway. We’re not as prone as we were as a lad to take all that brimstone stuff literally — does the Pope even believe in The Lake of Fire as a real place anymore? — but living in Arkansas in July, one does tend to ponder on what it would be like to be caught up in that subterranean land of endless summer until the mountains turn to dust. This is all to say that on a trip to one of those Big Box stores over the weekend, we were delivered a vision of our own personal hell, clear as the one had by that fella who wrote Revelation: An eternal 103-degree day. A never-ending trudge across a parking lot stretching as far as the eye can see, The Mobile Observatory lost somewhere there among the ocean of cars. No water. No shade. Just the smell of oil and exhaust and hot pavement, garnished with the dim hope that sooner or later — if we just keep plodding and don’t eventually sink up to our ankles in the liquefied asphalt — we’ll find our ride. If anybody needs us, we’ll be somewhere praying.
Moving on from Hell to Valhalla: The Observer visited Pea Ridge National Military Park this weekend — its terrific visitors center was updated just a couple of years ago — and learned a lot about mini balls, hollowed out cannon balls, solid cannon balls, cannons, and of course the history of the conflict on March 7-8, 1862, between the Rebels and the Yanks. It didn’t hurt that the ranger answering our questions was a handsome former Marine who was happy to tell us what he knew. A tour of the 4,300-acre park (which, when it’s 99 degrees outside, one is grateful to be able to make in a car) provides, at a stop on a bluff, a view of the vast field below where 10,000 Union soldiers massed for their final, successful drive against men led by a vainglorious Confederate general who left ammunition supplies behind so his soldiers could move more swiftly into a position behind the federal line. Bad idea. A film, which used diary entries from soldiers who survived, and battleground mockups that explained the progress of the troops and the various skirmishes were just the thing for The Observer, who knows almost zip about the Civil War, a lacking we
blame on our fair sex. We found the whole story fascinating, if bewildering — it’s hard to grasp the notion of tired hungry men standing in a field shooting cannons into the rocky bluffs to send shrapnel into their tired hungry brothers on the other side. When we were leaving, we signed the visitors register and noted the ravings of someone who had visited a few days before us. President Obama, we were warned, is conspiring to take over the farms of the South to create a “New World Odor.” Smells like fruitcake to us. Our friend, seeing the note, wrote next to her name: Love the exhibit, the preservation of the battleground, the helpful interpretation from the ranger, and glad to pay taxes to support it. People who share our friend’s gratitude for how the government spent her tax dollars to honor history would most likely not see eye-to-eye with factions who fear agricultural subjugation by the president — a black man, no less, whose election would have confounded the Rebels of Pea Ridge. But taking up arms — let’s hope — is now understood not to be the answer to conflict.
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The Observer went down to old Union Station in Little Rock a few weeks back to interview Susana O’Daniel, with Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. She’s one of the good’uns — a lobbyist who works on behalf of the downtrodden. In the midst of our interview, Susana got around to telling us that one of the most precious things she owns is the framed graduation certificate from her prekindergarten Head Start program, which she has held dear to her heart for around 25 years now. She keeps it in her office, she said, to help her remember why she does what she does. As we thanked her and rose to leave, The Observer’s knees pushed our rolling chair back, into the bookshelf. Down, down, down — like a slow-motion nightmare from which we could not awake — went her Head Start certificate, to smash into a fairy ring of glass and shame on the carpet. There are times when The Observer wishes we could jerk up our shirt, mumble a little Latin, and swirl away down our own bellybutton, disappearing from this plane of existence with an audible pop. That moment definitely qualified. Sigh. Sorry about that, Miz O’Daniel.
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www.arktimes.com • JULY 20, 2011 5
Letters arktimes@arktimes.com
Gay rights are human rights I have a few observations on the article on the governor’s speech to the Stonewall Democrats. While I can appreciate the governor’s opinion on marriage on a personal level for his own life, I question how and why it should affect government just as I questioned the marriage amendment when it was adopted. When we were fighting to put the Domestic Partner Registry into Eureka Springs in 2007 it honestly did start as a health care issue, but it quickly turned into a human rights issue. Night after night I would go home and remind myself that as the mayor I represented all residents of this city, their health and well-being. As I thought about that and knew that I was facing a battle, I just couldn’t find a valid reason not to help a certain segment of our citizens because of their personal sexual orientation. To discriminate against any constituent in housing, employment, health care, or equal rights under the law is not only unthinkable, it’s demeaning. Quite frankly, it’s beneath us all. I grew up in the ’60s in Texas and watched the racial wars. I never thought I would see the same thing happen in this day and age, but unfortunately it is. It’s just moved on to another set of people. Knowing that our legislature and governor willingly let legislation fail on hate crimes because of homosexual issues makes me question our ethics. How do you look at another human and judge them as less than you are simply because they don’t believe the same as you do? But be assured, gay and lesbian people deserve their rights just as we all do, and I feel sure that they will fight to get them. I just hope that Arkansas isn’t the last state to recognize them as human and equal. That would truly be embarrassing. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Dani Joy Eureka Springs
The president decides Even for a Chicago politician, this is an all time low. To take something as important as the staggering amount of debt that our country has accumulated in the last couple of years and turn it into a crass political ploy is not a pleasant thing to behold. The president knows, as does anyone who can count past 20, that the government has more than enough money coming in on a daily basis to pay our debt obligations and 70 percent of our budget obligations. What the president knows, but not everyone who can count past 20 6 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
knows, is that after the U.S. debt is serviced, it is the president who will decide who gets paid and who doesn’t with the huge amount of money that is left after debt service. When the president says he can’t guarantee that seniors will get their Social Security checks after Aug. 3, it is because the president, not Congress or the Republicans, chooses not to send Social Security checks to seniors. If the president chooses to spend the money that seniors invested in their retirement (Social Security) on other things of greater import, such as financing a Russian steel manufacturer to the tune of $730 million to up-
grade a steel mill in Michigan or keeping the hundred or so billion dollars left over from the stimulus program as his political slush fund or a couple of trillion dollars on his botched healthcare scheme (that most people don’t want), then we know where the president’s priorities lie. Make no bones about it, there is more than enough money to pay Social Security, the military (one of the only truly Constitutional functions of our government) and most of the government’s obligations if only the president would stop shoveling money at his friends and political allies. As we used to say when I was in the Marines, this man has stooped so low he
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could crawl under the belly of a snake with a high hat on. He can’t guarantee that the military will get paid or that seniors will get their Social Security checks. Who is President Obama trying to kid? For shame Mr. President, for shame! John “Jock” MacGregor Hot Springs
From The Web News of a Little Rock police officer shooting a man pointing a gun at him on the corner of Markham and Scott Streets at 2 a.m. early Sunday morning prompted a long and lively comment thread on the Arkansas Blog about crime in the River Market. For more comments, visit arktimes. com/rivermarketshooting. More cops are needed in the River Market. Memphis has tons of cops on Beale. Same for Bourbon St., many of them on horseback. Our city depends on tourism and convention business much more than most residents realize. If we can’t provide an environment in our entertainment district where residents and visitors feel safe, we will begin to lose that business. It’s not a good thing when the folks staying at the Capitol and Peabody are discouraged by staff from walking down to the River Market because it’s unsafe, but that’s what’s happening right now. Add cops, widen their patrol routes and run off loiterers. Buckshot We drove across the bridge last night around 1:30 a.m. on the way home from the Arkansas Queen trip. As we passed this location, there were several hundred youth standing around on corners right where the shooting happened. When we tried to make the turn onto 3rd, pedestrians were blocking the roadway and harassing motorists in their vehicles. We had to veer around three young men standing in the roadway who were staring at us while blocking traffic. They were being cheered on by a group of 20 or so young women on the sidewalk. I’ve lived in a city of 3 million and have visited most large metro areas of the US. I’ve never experienced anything like what I saw last night. Never seen anything like this in LR. I’ve been here most of my life, and what I saw last night will prevent me from patronizing any business in the River Market area after the workday rush is over. I’m sure glad I didn’t move into Block 2. The area is simply not safe. calmwriter If real estate developers create an artificial “entertainment district” where one never existed and if that “entertainment district” consists after dark solely of a bunch of bars serving young people, why would anyone be surprised when those young people get sloshed and cause trouble after midnight? Claude Bahls
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J U LY 1 3 - 1 9 IT WAS A GOOD WEEK FOR…
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM. The University of Arkansas Board of Trustees chose Dr. Donald Bobbitt as the next president of the UA system after interviewing three other candidates. The current provost at the University of Texas at Arlington, Bobbitt is a former dean of the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. His relative youth — he’s 54 — and his current deep experience as a top college administrator figured into remarks by Board chairman Dr. Carl Johnson about how Bobbitt had distinguished himself in the group of four candidates. ARKANSAS TROOPER ANDREW RHEW. The Arkansas State Police Commission ruled unanimously to reinstate the trooper, who was fired as a result of a fatal crash in which his patrol car collided in Manila with a car driven by Vickie Freemyer, a Blytheville teacher, while Rhew was rushing to a call in Osceola. IT WAS A BAD WEEK FOR…
DUSTIN MCDANIEL. The attorney general’s office spent $6,000 on a brief video in which McDaniel announced at a State Police awards ceremony his decision to take $700,000 won in a lawsuit against drug companies to give to the State Police Foundation to pay for a classroom building at the State Police shooting range. McDaniel was in Hawaii at the time of the awards lunch. THE ARKANSAS FARMING COMMUNITY. Stanley Reed, the 59-year-old former president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau, died in an auto accident Friday near Augusta as he returned to his farm. A former University of Arkansas trustee, Reed was one of the finalists to lead the University of Arkansas System. THE ARKANSAS HIGHWAY AND TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT. A Legislative Audit report found that members of the department’s legal division have been improperly getting a half-day off, with pay, every three weeks, and an additional two hours paid time off for doctor appointments and “personal errands” dating back to 1989. The auditors refer their findings to the Pulaski County prosecuting attorney. 8 JULY 20, 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 ■
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The deposit dilemma NLR Electric policy puts the squeeze on a struggling customer. BY DAVID KOON
n By his own admission, Sherwood resident William Kendrick has had his lights shut off for non-payment several times in the last three years. Like a lot of people in America, he’s having hard times. He bought his house in 2006, but lost his job, and suffers from a chronic illness that has required months of costly treatments. Now he waits tables, has filed for bankruptcy and tries to hold on. Before you judge him too harshly, ask yourself, how many paychecks am I from sitting in the dark? In a bad spot, Kendrick says the deposit policy of the North Little Rock Electric Department is making things worse. By city ordinance, North Little Rock Electric levies an additional $100 deposit every time it reconnects a customer’s lights — quite a bite for someone already struggling to pay his bills. The additional deposit is on top of a $25 dollar reconnection fee ($50 if you want them turned on after hours) and the outstanding balance that’s owed. North Little Rock Electric is currently holding $500 of Kendrick’s money as deposits. “I honestly didn’t realize exactly what it was until I called them and asked them to explain it to me,” he said. “I thought it was just the reconnect fee, but it turns out it’s not.” Kendrick said the policy doesn’t make sense for struggling consumers, especially in a shaky economy. “I think it’s an unjust policy for bad economic times,” he said. “If they’re already holding a huge amount of my money, and I need $175 to get my electric bill paid or they’re going to turn me off, why can’t they take that out of these deposits they’re already holding? Otherwise, what’s the point in taking all these deposits?” A spokesperson for Entergy Arkansas said that if one of their customers is terminated for non-payment, there is no deposit required if it’s the first time in a 12-month period. If service is terminated more than once in a year, each subsequent reconnection requires a $25 deposit. David Melton, customer service manager for North Little Rock Electric, said that the policy on deposits is determined by city ordinance. He said the electric company can levy a $100 deposit every time a customer’s power is shut off, up to an amount equal to twice
BRIAN CHILSON
THE WEEK THAT WAS
that customer’s highest-ever monthly bill (Kendrick’s highest-ever bill was just over $270). The additional deposit is reflected on the next month’s bill. Power is shut off 28 days after bills are mailed out, unless the bill is paid or the customer contacts the utility to arrange payment. A technician must physically go to the residence to turn the power on and off. Melton said that if a customer has a “good pay history” for 12 months — meaning, at most, one late payment — their deposits are credited to them with interest. Asked if it makes sense for North Little Rock Electric to shut off someone’s lights for non-payment rather than dipping into the stockpile of the customer’s money already on hand, Melton said North Little Rock Electric doesn’t have the power to alter the policy. “I’m not the decision maker,” he said. “The City Council is the decision maker. I’m required to follow that.” Ward 2 Alderman Maurice Taylor said he’s familiar with the North Little Rock Electric deposit policy, and didn’t know the utility charged customers who fall behind on their bill an additional $100 deposit every time their lights are turned back on. He said the City Council might
need to reexamine the deposit policy, especially given the hard economic times. “You’ve got people being laid off, businesses closing and people losing their income stream for one reason or another,” he said. “If that [the additional $100 deposit] is the case, then we need to look at reexamining things and maybe mirroring what Entergy does .... Maybe we can do a better job of helping people out.” But Debi Ross, Ward 1 alderman, said that customers who are having problems paying their electric bill can request a free energy audit through North Little Rock Electric, and can apply for financial assistance with their utilities through the Central Arkansas Development Council. She said North Little Rock’s deposit ordinance is in place to help protect the city. “Everyone seems to be having a tough time in one situation or another,” Ross said. “But we still have to protect the interests of the whole city, because this affects everybody in the whole city. If we’re losing money in one account, it’s got to be paid somewhere. I don’t want to sound like I’m not compassionate, but we do have to look after the interests of the city.”
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SEVERE IS THE Climate change, or whatever you want to call it, is changing Arkansas. BY GERARD MATTHEWS
A
rkansas has seen its share of extreme weather this year. Back-to-back snowfalls in late winter shut down schools and businesses for days at a time. Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes brought heavy rains and flooding in the spring that killed 18 and, according to Arkansas Farm Bureau estimates, resulted in crop losses of approximately $500 million. Temperatures in some parts of the state reached 100 degrees in early June, the earliest Arkansas has seen such highs, according to the National Weather Service. The U.S. Drought Monitor recently showed over 95 percent of the state experiencing some type of drought, ranging from “abnormally dry” to “extreme drought” in some of the southern counties. Make no mistake: the Natural State has forever been subject to dramatic shifts in the weather. But no matter what you believe about the reality of climate change, severe weather, higher temperatures, longer growing seasons and the threat of flooding and drought are the
10 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
new norm for those who live and farm in Arkansas. Dr. Robert Coats is a professor of economics with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture and has been involved in farming nearly all his life. He’s reluctant, as even the staunchest climate change believers are, to attribute the latest round of extreme weather events specifically to climate change, but says the weather over the last few years has caught his attention. “We’ve started this year with historic floods, wet weather, followed by dry weather, but the dry weather was accompanied by heat at an extreme level,” Coats says. “Whether you want to call it climate change or weather issues, we’ve had four years of outlier [weather] events … It has to be addressed. It doesn’t matter if you’re a hill farmer or a row crop farmer or what.” Ron Bell, a Batesville cattle and tree farmer and the former president of the Arkansas Association of Resource, Conservation and Development Councils, has noticed changes in Arkansas’s climate from his days
growing up on a farm in the 1950s. After spending time in the military, Bell began his own farming operation in the early 1990s. “I’m not going to enter into a debate about whether it’s something natural, or long-term cyclical change or short-term man-made change, but I can just describe what I’ve seen in my life as a farmer here,” Bell says. “The growing season has been extended about two weeks at each end. But how you manage your crops, both grain, cattle and others, is significantly affected by what happens during that dry period in the middle, which instead of being three or four weeks long is now closer to five or six.” Not only are high temperatures making some types of farming difficult, but it can be extremely costly too. In 2009, some crops like rice and soybeans, had to be planted as many as four times. Those costs ad up, Coats says. “The heat last year gave us milling yields that the
president of Riceland Foods said were the worst yields he had experienced in 40 years. You roll into this year and now you have another wet planting season, you have record flooding and part of the flooding issue is associated with breaches of different levees. Our producers have experienced back to back to back to back challenging planting seasons that have been costly.” Politically, the issue of climate change is a deeply divisive one. Democrats believe in it wholeheartedly enough to get behind cap-and-trade legislation like the unsuccessful Waxman-Markey clean energy bill that came before Congress in 2009. Republicans tend to ignore the scientific consensus around the issue, choosing instead to side with less than one percent of published scientists who raise questions about the conclusions of 99 percent of their colleagues. Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma even said that global warming was the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” The scientific community, however, is overwhelmingly in agreement on the question of climate change. Dr. Art Hobson is a retired physics professor with a keen interest in our changing climate. He designed a class while teaching at the University of Arkansas that taught students about the practical applications of complicated physics principles. The course, and the textbook Hobson wrote to teach it, also focused on other
BRIAN CHILSON
NEW NORMAL
BELL: The growing season has been extended.
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pressing scientific issues like climate change. “I teach the scientific consensus to the students and I don’t make any apologies about that,” Hobson says. “Today the scientific consensus is really in. There’s no question that the peer-reviewed scientific literature is essentially unanimous. It would be far less than one percent that is outside of this consensus, which is that climate change is really happening, that it’s here now. There’s a handful of half a dozen scientists that disagree with that consensus and they disagree loudly. They’re not stupid, they’re decent scientists. But they’re biased. In my view they’re extremely biased on this issue. They can’t look at the evidence objectively. They seem to be incapable of doing it.” But the general public doesn’t seem to be quite so sold on the idea. A poll conducted just over a year ago by the Arkansas News Bureau found that 66 percent of Arkansans thought “global warming,” as it was called by pollsters, was unproven. Only 25 percent said it was a reality. Nine percent did not know. Pollsters said those results were not particular to Arkansas, that similar responses were given in other states. But how could it be possible that such a high percentage of the general public believes one thing, while scientists who study climate for a living almost unanimously believe the contrary? Hobson says it’s part politics, part media. “For a long time it was the media, who unfortunately always look for both sides of every issue even if one side has nothing to say for itself. They’d give two minutes to one side and two minutes to the other side. So the public got the notion there was division on this when there wasn’t. But the news media’s gotten better at this in the last couple of years. Lately, it’s been more the fault of the conservative/liberal division in American politics, where conservatives tend to go along with business and a whole lot of them will tend to be dubious about global warming. They think it’s cooked up by a bunch of liberal scientists who are just a bunch of bullyheaded environmentalists. And that’s not true. These are very serious scientists.” Clair LaFrance thinks the public’s views on climate change are much more nuanced than professors, pollsters or politicians might expect. LaFrance is an environmental activist and executive director of the group Earth Cause Organization. She and her colleagues have been traveling the state for over a year and a half, filming a documentary to find out what Arkansans believe about their environment, how it’s changed over time and
what they expect from the future. “The issue is so politicized that people get heated about it,” LaFrance says. “But we’d have conversations where these people would say, ‘Well, Al Gore’s full of poop.’ Then they’d go off on the Democratic Party and five minutes later they’d be telling us how there aren’t any ducks on their land anymore, or how they can’t go to the pond behind their mother’s house in the winter and see it frozen over like it used to be. All these stories come out about what they can and can’t do and the differences they’ve seen over their lifetime here in Arkansas.” LaFrance and her colleagues interviewed over 200 people around the state, from local politicians and civic leaders to folks at Lion’s Club meetings and people walking down the street. “People did bring up weather, obviously,” she says. “That’s the most typical, real, tangible connection people have with climate change and its effects. The really dangerous territory is linking a specific extreme weather event to climate change because I don’t think the science is sound enough there. But it does make things more intense. The cold will get colder, the hot will get hotter. “It’s not like Arkansas is going to see a tidal wave or something. People are going to see the same things they’ve always seen. These things aren’t new. I think people are realizing – especially farmers who have a very deep connection to their fields and the weather – I think they are starting to understand the complexity of [climate change], and not in a political way but in an experiential way.” The future outlook for farmers is a difficult one, Hobson says. “The prognosis under global warming for the United States is extreme weather,” he says. “And we’re getting weather extremes. And sometimes it may be, paradoxically, extreme snow. That’s because of the extreme moisture in the air. But there are going to be lots of economic impacts from this and farming is one of the main ones because it has everything to do with the weather. Extreme rain means erosion and it means washing out the crops at the wrong times and things like that. Drought makes things difficult. Right now farmers are not sure that with the current drought they’re going to be able to get a second batch of hay grown and cut. So they’re really worried about their supply of hay for the winter.” That’s exactly the situation Bell finds himself in. Aside from about one half inch of rain in late June, his fields haven’t had a drop of precipitation since mid-May. He says those types of short term problems
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HOBSON: The scientific consensus is in. are manageable. It’s the long term he’s worried about. “I can do things at different times of the year, or I can cut back on my herd,” Bell says. “I can make those adjustments year by year and I’m sure others can too, but as a tree farmer my concern is this: How do I plant a tree now that’s going to be right for its environment 50 years from now when it reaches maturity? I’ve described how things have changed over the last 10 or 12 years and I wish I could project that out 50 years and know what climatic conditions were going to be like then, but I can’t do that. As a guy concerned about forestry, that really concerns me.” The changing conditions aren’t just a concern for timber farmers. Coats says some row croppers might have to make changes in what they plant based on what part of the state they’re located in. “From an economist’s perspective some of our row crop land is going to be forced back into timber,” Coats says. “For our producers, increasingly you develop these land resources where you can manage drought or flooding or rain events. You’re simply going to have to. Farmers in the Mississippi River Valley delta will have to become focused on developing their land resources so they can manage during wet conditions, flooding conditions, drought conditions.” A long-term solution, like some sort of cap-and-trade system, will be difficult to implement because of the political climate. But Hobson says that’s one of the only ways to curb predicted long-term shifts in climate. “We’re building up a whole pile of trouble for ourselves now,” he says. “We
really need to get on this. It’s sad, to say the least, that political divisions are one reason [there’s no movement on this]. There’s also a lot of oil and fossil fuel money going into making people feel good about the oil companies. What we need is a tax on fossil fuels or a cap-and trade-law on fossil fuels. If corrected, it would make a big difference.” Others are a little more hopeful. For one, LaFrance says that according to what she’s seen in Arkansas, the debate over whether climate change is really occurring is one that’s almost over. “Arkansans get spoken for all the time by their delegation,” she says. “I think politicians really take Arkansans for granted and probably even think these issues are too complex to talk about. I think decisions are being made on false assumptions about what people think about this issue. People really do understand this issue and they’re seeing changes, regardless of their political affiliation.” Bell says as long as the national debate on climate change continues, solutions will emerge, albeit slowly. “I think it’s the presence of the national debate that has gone on over a period of years and everybody’s been free to listen to that and take sides if they wish,” he says. “A lot of folks listen to that. And they know how to sort out the extremists from both sides, and they form their own opinions independently. So I think that’s healthy. In the long term, as that occurs and those kinds of folks have private conversations with their legislators, that’s probably what will drive future legislation. We’re probably a little ways away from that point yet. But we’ll get there.”
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Editorial n Someday, the people of Arkansas will vote to legalize medical marijuana, just as other states have done. That day may come next year. Another effort is under way to relieve the suffering of sick and dying Arkansans by allowing them to use medical marijuana, with a doctor’s recommendation. A group called Arkansans for Compassionate Care is circulating petitions to put medical marijuana on the ballot in November of 2012. The group needs about 62,000 valid signatures. Arkansans for Compassionate Care describes itself as “a coalition of concerned physicians, patients and allies” and seems, on first impression, to have more organization and more resources than previous petitioners. (Though no more sincere commitment.) It needs still more resources, of course, to overcome well-heeled ignorance and bigotry, and it is actively seeking both donations and volunteers. Marijuana can provide to some patients relief that is not available from legal medications. Indeed, some of the medications offered in place of marijuana make the patient’s suffering worse, not better. Only the hard-hearted could oppose the use of a substance that eases pain and has no harmful side effects. Speaking of the hard-hearted reminds us of Asa Hutchinson, the anti-drug enforcer of the benighted Bush administration. Here is a 2002 clipping about Hutchinson in San Francisco, sending federal agents to arrest medical marijuana growers and users, some near death. He appears to be enjoying his work, but most Arkansans are better than that.
Seek help, OSU n Was it Lou Holtz who called Ohio State the Rupert Murdoch of college football? There are similarities. Both believed they were too big and too smart to follow the rules. Both got caught. And just as exposure of the Murdoch empire’s wrongdoing forced the sale of its largest newspaper, and the resignation and arrest of top executives, so disclosure of Buckeye misdeeds has forced OSU to vacate all its “victories” from last season, including the Sugar Bowl, and to remove the head coach. As yet, there’ve been no arrests. Punishment is one thing and reform is another. We can’t expect much in that area from Murdoch – the leopard-andstripes thing – but OSU, once an institution of not-unfavorable reputation, might be salvageable. If, that is, OSU players, coaches, fans and administrators acknowledge that the NCAA is not the NFL, and that winning football games is not the only purpose of an institution that styles itself a state university. The Arkansas Razorbacks could provide valuable instruction in football ethics, and would be happy to, if we know Bobby Petrino. In exchange, OSU could hand over the Sugar Bowl trophy to its rightful owner. A win-win situation.
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BRIAN CHILSON
Again, a good idea
UNDERWAY: Abdulhakim Muhammad is led into court Tuesday under heavy security. Muhammad is charged with killing a U.S. Army soldier and wounding another outside a Little Rock recruiting center June 1, 2009. His trial began Monday.
Lawman McDaniel n Attorney General Dustin McDaniel is a strutting contradiction. He’s capable of making tough, principled decisions. He opposed the ballot amendment to discriminate against gay couples. He declined to join the bashing of President Obama’s health care legislation. He dispatched staff members to note — properly — the likely unconstitutionality of a batch of anti-abortion bills offered by the Religious Right in the last legislative session. Just this week, he called the hand of the xenophobic Tea Party Republican, Rep. Jon Hubbard, for trying to stir hate over McDaniel’s modest website outreach to Spanish-speaking people. But as his bid for governor in 2014 grows nearer, McDaniel is capable of baser stuff. His demagoguery of the Little Rock school case beats anything since the man who started it all, Orval Faubus. He’s stood up legally for actions that promote segregation in Pulaski County, the kind of thing that earned the state worldwide condemnation and court rebuke. He doesn’t miss a chance to prove his gun advocacy. McDaniel, a former cop, is probably sincere in his nuttery, though it’s not likely to assuage an NRA suspicious of him on account of his father’s lawsuit against gun manufacturers following the Westside school slaughter. He’s also a shameless publicity hound. Where other attorneys general went after polluting, rapacious utilities and major Medicaid fraud schemes, McDaniel has been less willing to take on entrenched powers. Instead, he’s himself a police force against Internet sex criminals. It’s an area not short in investigators. What’s worse, McDaniel made himself a sex crimes cop by self-appropriating state money won in a class action lawsuit for unrelated matters. He did another personal appropriation last week. He directed $700,000 from money won from drug companies for overcharges to build a classroom at the State Police shooting range. Guns? Cops? How could he lose? Here’s how. McDaniel was determined to announce his gift at a State Police awards lunch, even
Max Brantley max@arktimes.com
if it stepped on a speech by Gov. Mike Beebe. He was determined even though he was in Hawaii on a family vacation/legal meeting. So he spent $6,000 in taxpayers’ money to commission a video of himself announcing the gift. This grandiose gesture will come back to haunt him in 2014. The video and gift were questionable for more than the obvious use of the state’s money for campaign advertising. In the video, McDaniel took a swipe at legislators who’ve objected to his appropriation of so-called “cash funds” from lawsuit settlements rather than running the money through the legislature. There’s a mixed line of court cases on whether this is legal. McDaniel likes the line that supports his activities, naturally. But McDaniel brayed to State Police that the court order — he writes these orders in consent decrees for himself, of course — allowed his action. Really? Here’s what the drug company decree said about spending the money: “The state of Arkansas’s portion of this settlement shall be deposited into the attorney general’s consumer education and enforcement fund and be held in trust there to be used by the attorney general in his discretion to further efforts to investigate and prosecute consumer protection, environmental, public utilities and antitrust matters, and to educate consumers regarding such matters.” Do you see a mention of State Police or shooting ranges? I don’t. Asked to explain, a spokesman for McDaniel would only say, “Obviously we believe this distribution is consistent with the consent judgment.” It’s not so obvious to me. Perhaps a taxpayer with a lawsuit could pry more explanation from the state’s lawman.
BRIAN CHILSON
Republicans: not the brightest bulbs n What do you call a political group that assigns both its abject failures and finest achievements to the opposition and repudiates them all? In 2011, you call it the Republican Party. The evidence of the phenomenon lies across the landscape: the effort in the House of Representatives this spring to use the budget to block the regulation of greenhouses gases, which was mandated by President Richard Nixon’s Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970; the demonization of Democrats for the massive national debt, which is overwhelmingly a product of the proud policies of three Republican administrations; and the party’s flailing at the Affordable Care Act of 2010, which is a weakened version of Presidents Nixon and Ford’s health-insurance reforms of 1974 and of the Republican template in Massachusetts fathered by the GOP’s presidential frontrunner, Mitt Romney. The list goes on, and you can add to it the House of Representatives’ attempt last week to overturn the light-bulb efficiency law, written by a Republican congressman and proudly signed by President George W. Bush. Now, the Republicans characterize the law as part of President Obama’s plan to enslave America. House Republicans voted by a majority last week to overturn the law but they lacked the two-thirds vote to make it
Ernest Dumas effective, so they voted to strip the Energy Department of funds to enforce the law. You might expect Republicans to be boasting about an idea that in four years has spurred industry to spectacular innovations that will save American consumers billions of dollars, create jobs, reduce the world’s appetite for Middle Eastern oil and slow the warming of the planet. Instead, they are crediting Obama with the idea — he did vote for it as a senator — and demanding that it be stopped. Paul Krugman asked rhetorically last week in reference to the debt ceiling if the GOP had suddenly gone insane and then answered the question, yes it has. There is no better evidence than the light-bulb folly. It came about when the two parties got together in 2007 and adopted the Energy Independence and Security Act, which took very modest steps to increase energy efficiency and curb the nation’s appetite for oil. Oil congressmen still voted against it but both parties claimed it, and Bush signed it ceremoniously the next day. Rep. Fred Upton, a Republican from Michigan, wrote the small section on light bulbs, which may turn out to be its most
It may get personal in debt-limit end game n With Aug. 2 now only days away, the grown-ups in Washington are starting to engage in serious discussions toward a resolution of the debt-ceiling imbroglio. That means matters could get a tad personal. Real reductions in federal spending, you must understand, will either harm or inconvenience real people. For example, I refer to: • People poor and disabled who are on Medicaid. • More broadly, those paying state-level taxes to match potentially reduced federal disbursements for Medicaid. • More specifically, state-level politicians trying to balance a state budget as more and more people go on Medicaid and as the federal government tries to save money on its part of Medicaid and as Tea Party people contradict themselves by standing up to preserve reimbursement rates to doctors that compose the primary
John Brummett jbrummett@arkansasnews.com
drain on Medicaid. Here’s where we appear to be: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Mitch McConnell, realizing that defaulting on debt is a perilous economic prospect for the nation and a perilous political problem for their parties and incumbency, and realizing that the Tea Party insurgents in the House cannot be counted on for reason, have expedited a compromise that would start in the Senate. These are the elements: McConnell’s notion to let the debt ceiling go unattended other than to allow President Obama to raise it unilaterally would provide the foun-
significant feature. Upton’s little proviso said that most light bulbs would have to be 25 to 30 percent more efficient by 2014 and at least 60 percent more efficient by 2020. It would not outlaw the old incandescent light bulbs, but they would have to use 28 to 33 percent less electricity than existing models. If they use less electricity, that means less oil or coal will be burned to generate it. That did it for the Koch brothers, who made their billions from oil and gas refineries and pipelines. They had bankrolled Upton in the past but turned on him last year, as did his party after the tea-bag wing became agitated about the bulb conspiracy. Someone said during the campaigns last year that Obama was preparing regulations that would stop Americans from buying the incandescent light bulb they loved so much. It was the beginning of the end for freedom in America. Even though they were blaming Obama for ending bulb freedom, the Tea Party contingent demanded that Upton be punished. The party told him he could not be chairman of the Energy Committee when the Republicans took control of the House unless he promised to repeal his law. He did. Arkansas Republican congressmen Tim Griffin, Rick Crawford and Steve Womack voted with the Kochs and the oil industry and against consumers. Democrat Mike Ross voted with consumers. Here is how Upton described his law in a statement to his Michigan constituents back in 2007: “Current incandescent bulbs on store shelves are obsolete and highly inefficient
— only 10% of the energy consumed by each bulb is for light with 90% wasted on unnecessary heat. Today’s incandescent bulbs employ the same technology as the bulbs Thomas Edison first created over 120 years ago. This common sense, bipartisan approach partners with American industry to save energy as well as help foster the creation of new domestic manufacturing jobs. By upgrading to more efficient light bulbs, we will help preserve energy resources and reduce harmful emissions, all the while saving American families billions of dollars in their electric bills ... ” He actually understated its effect. It unleashed a torrent of innovation in the industry. Rather than denying Americans the God-given right to buy their beloved incandescent bulbs, as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck charged, the industry has produced two new incandescent bulbs that use far less electricity and last years longer than the ones then on the market. It has already produced dramatic innovations in the LED bulb, which uses a tiny fraction of the electricity used by Edison’s bulbs. The bulb industry and electric utilities urged Congress not to repeal the law. Lighting accounts for 22 percent of the electricity used in the United States. It’s estimated that the law will save Americans $14 billion a year, roughly $100 a family, and $18 billion if incandescent bulbs were replaced completely. That is the equivalent of the output of 80 coal-burning plants like the new Turk plant at McNab. That would keep 400 million tons of greenhouse gas poison out of the atmosphere. No self-respecting Republican of 2011 would want that on his record.
dation. Reid would go along with maybe $1.5 trillion in 10-year budget cuts as generally agreed to by the eventually blown-up bipartisan talks led by Vice President Joe Biden. Entitlement spending would be delegated to a bipartisan commission. Some of the specifics may emanate from the Gang of Five, meaning those three Democratic senators and two Republican ones for whom our U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor has been leading cheers. Medicaid, now matched according to state poverty-level population, would be converted — or might be converted through this commission — to a “blended rate” of federal matching that would be different for existing Medicaid patients, for children and for new patients brought in by Medicaid expansion in the new health care reform law. A state like Arkansas, where our Medicaid dollar gets matched by three federal ones, would have much at stake in the designing of this “blend.” The White House is quietly encouraging the Reid-McConnell talks. Meantime, there is talk of pandering to the Tea Party radicals in the unwieldy House by letting them pursue referral of a
balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. Ratification would take years. If enacted, such an amendment would amount to the same abdication of political responsibility to make wise and responsible cuts in spending as has been evident in the debtceiling debate. All of this bears on work under way by the Beebe administration to try to get a long-term grasp on rising state Medicaid spending. The idea is to move away from simple fee-for-service reimbursements to doctors and hospitals and toward “bundling” of medical services by which “episodes,” or medical conditions, would command a general price. Tea Party people tend not to like this idea. They prefer to cut services to the needy rather than reimbursements to doctors and hospitals. A leader in this resistance is a freshman Republican senator, Missy Irvin of Mountain View, whose husband is a doctor. As I said in the beginning, real spending reduction can get a tad personal. John Brummett is a columnist and reporter for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. www.arktimes.com • JULY 20, 2011 17
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TAKING IT At the Superlift ORV Park in Hot Springs.
B
ouncing a Land Rover along the rocky, rutted main loop at the Superlift Off-Road Vehicle Park near Hot Springs, park manager B.J. Richardson looks about as comfortable as a commuter on the freeway, even when driving down a slope a reporter wouldn’t try to walk down without a helmet and elbow pads. When he finally reaches over to put on his seatbelt, it’s enough to make me downright nervous. It’s been awhile since I took a ride with the four-wheel drive engaged (the wife’s all-wheel-drive Honda probably doesn’t count). That said, I’m not alone. Richardson said that the rugged-but-drivable former logging road that connects the web of more than 100 trails at Superlift Park is about as hardcore as most people with showroom-shiny SUVs, Jeeps and fourwheel-drive pickups will ever get. “They’ll put it in four wheel drive and play in the snow, or maybe go to deer camp,” he said. “Most deer camp roads aren’t any rougher than this, and this is our main road. We’re in four-high. We’re not even in low range.” If you own a stock or modified four wheel drive and want to test what you and your machine are made of, you can’t do much better than the Superlift ORV Park. Situated on 1,500 wooded, mountainous acres and with well-mapped trails numbered from 1 (stock 4x4) to 5 (unmitigated vehicular insanity), the park draws over 20,000 off-roading enthusiasts a year from all over the country. It’s celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
Named after a Louisiana suspensionequipment manufacturer that’s a partner in the park, Superlift allows 4x4, ATV and dirt bike pilots access to all their trails for a flat daily fee: $30 per day for 4x4 vehicles; $15 per day for ATVs and dirt bikes. There’s on-site camping and a small store. On a big weekend like the recent 4th of July, the parking lot and campgrounds are stacked with everything from daily-driver Jeeps to $100,000-plus, custom-built rock buggies — all-fabricated, near-bulletproof monsters that arrive on the backs of matching semi-trucks and which can take on most any obstacle the park can throw at them. The clientele is mostly middle class. The rougher element, Richardson said, generally doesn’t want to pay to play. “It’s very family oriented,” he said. “A lot of people perceive people with Jeeps and big trucks as being a bunch of drunken rednecks. That is the case at a lot of places, there’s no denying that, but that’s not the case here most of the time. Most of our customers are middle class or upper middle class. They don’t have junker four wheel drives. Some of these vehicles are over $100,000. It’s just like any other motorsport: it’s their hobby, it’s their lifestyle.” One of those “lifestyle” off-roaders is Eric Barnes, a computer programmer from Houston. Parked near his campsite at Superlift Park was his 1980 Jeep-based rock-crawler, which he’s sunk more than $100 grand into over the past decade. These days, sitting on huge tires, with a stout roll cage and five-point seatbelts to
keep the driver in the full, upright and alive position, it bears little resemblance to what came from the factory. “The gas pedal and the rearview mirror are still original,” he said, laughing. “Everything else has been replaced.” Barnes is the president of the Texasbased Southern High Rollers 4x4 club. He said his group includes people from all walks of life, from airline pilots to electricians. They come to Superlift Park often. “Superlift is probably the most picturesque park we come wheel at,” he said. “It’s very pretty. Lots of wildlife, and the challenges are awesome.” As a desk-jockey kind of guy in his work life, Barnes said he enjoys the design and building challenges of four-wheeling. “I enjoy fabbing [fabricating],” he said. “You find a rock you can’t get over, you go home and you fab whatever you need to get over that rock. You come back, climb the rock, and then you find a bigger rock and you do it all over again.” A lot of offroading is about camaraderie, he said. If a rig breaks down out on the trail, it’s often strangers who help get it running enough to get back to civilization. “I definitely carry parts that don’t fit my Jeep, just in case,” he said. “There’s a whole element of our sport that enjoys that. They try to put themselves in the most godawful position, just to see if they can get out before nightfall. That’s not necessarily my appeal, but there is an element of the sport that enjoys that.” Manager Richardson said the things that have kept guys like Barnes and the
BY DAVID KOON
members of his club coming back to Superlift Park over their years are the extensive network trails — with names like “Ingrid’s Revenge” and “The Can Opener” — along with the beauty of the site itself; former oldgrowth timberland that hasn’t been re-cut in 25 years or more, full of turkey and deer. From the highest point in the park (which serves as the exit to one of their most picturesque trails) there’s a sweeping view of the mountains to the south. Standing there, watching a line of streetable Jeeps wind up the steep slope from the valley below, it’s hard to believe you’re less than five miles from Hot Springs, and around an hour from downtown Little Rock. “There’s been tons of private off-road parks in the past 10 years, popping up and trying to make it,” Richardson said. “It’s a hard row to hoe. You have to have nearly the amount of property we have to make a full-time business out of it. You can’t entertain somebody for three days, you’re just not going to get the out-of-town business. People aren’t going to drive 300 or 500 miles for a day’s worth of riding.” Luckily, Superlift has them covered.
Superlift ORV Park
2100 Mill Creek Road, Hot Springs 501-625-3600
www.orvpark.org Hours: 9 a.m. to dusk, Thu.-Mon. year-round. Fees: $30 per day for 4x4 vehicles; $15 per day for ATVs and dirt bikes. RV camping space: $30 per night. Tent camping: $10 per night. www.arktimes.com • JULY 20, 2011 19
■ to-dolist BY ROBERT BELL
WEDNESDAY 7/20
C.J. RAMONE
8 p.m., Downtown Music Hall. $15 adv., $20 door.
n You could make a pretty solid case that The Ramones were one of, if not the, quintessential American rock bands. “Da bruddahs” from Queens rose from working class backgrounds and took the things they loved – buzz saw garage rock, AM bubblegum pop, lowbrow culture and self-aware, misanthropic humor – and wedded it all to some of the catchiest tunes ever written, in the process permanently altering popular music. On July 4, 1976, the band went to England and more or less singlehandedly upended the musical order of the motherland. As the band’s first manager, Danny Fields, put it in “Please Kill Me,” the beyond-essential oral history of punk rock, “On the two-hundredth anniversary of our freedom, we were bringing Great Britain a gift that was forever going to disrupt their sensibilities.” It’s really hard to believe that 35 years later there’s only one founding member still alive – original drummer and later producer Tommy Ramone. That leaves drummers Marky and Richie, and bassist C.J., who replaced Dee Dee in 1989 and is now hitting the club circuit playing Ramones tunes with the band’s former producer Daniel Rey. This tour could be seen as a blatant cash-grab, if you want to be all cynical about it. Or you could go to the show and hear a bunch of your favorite songs played by some folks who shared the stage and studio with the founders of one of the greatest bands ever. After all, this is about as close as you’re ever going to get to seeing The Ramones. Northwest Arkansas can check out the show Thursday in Fayetteville at George’s, 9 p.m., $13.
SEVENDUST
9 p.m. Juanita’s. $21 adv., $25 door.
n Sevin Dust the gardening product was what my grandma used to spray on her tomatoes to keep the bugs off. Sevendust the musical act is exactly the kind of band you’d expect to be included on 1997’s “More Kombat,” the “Mortal Kombat” soundtrack sequel. Not the soundtrack to the sequel to a movie about a videogame, the sequel to the soundtrack to a movie about a videogame. (Bonus trivia: the original “Mortal Kombat” soundtrack included “What U See/We All Bleed Red” by none other than Batesville’s Mutha’s Day Out!) That is to say, Sevendust is firmly a second-tier ’90s nu metal act, 20 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
RAMONE ON THE ROAD: C.J. Ramone, who replaced original bassist Dee Dee in the legendary New York City punk godfathers The Ramones, hits Downtown Music and George’s in Fayetteville for an all-Ramones set, with the band’s producer, Daniel Rey. playing an ever so slightly more accessible version of the mosh-friendly fare of acts like Slipknot and Linkin Park. Call it popKorn. But whatever. The band’s still going strong, carrying the nu metal banner in 2011. This stuff has a surprisingly durable popularity. While it’s not exactly at the top of the charts, nu metal has far outlived its predecessor genres of funk metal, groove metal, rap metal and the little-discussed but nonetheless historically significant salsa metal. Opening the show are Adelita’s Way, Seven Day Sonnet and Violence to Vegas.
FRIDAY 7/22
‘MY FAIR LADY’
7:30 p.m. Weekend Theater. $16-$20.
n It’s hard to imagine now, but back in the ’50s, when Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe sat down at the piano to create a musical based on George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion,” their task was seen by many to be an impossible goal. That opinion was shared by no less than Rodgers and Hammerstein, who’d already attempted it and given up. But Lerner and Loewe managed to find the music in a play that didn’t fill the traditional requirements for a musical, writing timeless numbers such as “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly.” They had an enormous hit in 1956 with “My Fair Lady,” helping make Julie Andrews a star along the way. The Weekend Theater’s take on the musical runs through Aug. 13, with 7:30 p.m. shows on Fridays and Sat-
“GET ME TO THE CHURCH ON TIME”: Or, failing that, get me to the Weekend Theater’s production of “My Fair Lady,” starring Ralph Hyman as Henry Higgins and Memory Apata as Eliza Doolittle, pictured above in before-and-after style.
OH MY DARLINS: Tennessee quartet Those Darlins returns to Little Rock with a markedly different sound from the country and rockabilly style they began with. The band’s new album is a much more raucous affair, and the show at Stickyz promises to be a rollicking good time. urdays and 2:30 matinees on Sundays.
THOSE DARLINS
9 p.m. Stickyz. $8 adv., $10 d.o.s.
n The latest album by Those Darlins finds these Tennessee gals and guy having abandoned their clogging and Carter Family covers in favor of a Runaways-vs.the-Ronettes-in-a-switchblade-fight sorta vibe. Nowhere is this more evident than on opener “Screws Get Loose,” also the title of their latest album. “Mystic Mind” offers some mildly foreboding garage psych in the vein of The 13th Floor Elevators’ more restrained moments, and “Be Your Bro” is an instantly catchy anti come-on with perfectly snarling lead vocals from Jessi Darlin. This change of course didn’t come completely out of left field (see “Red Light Love” from 2009’s self-titled album), but Those Darlins is a pretty different outfit here in 2011. In recent years, there’s been no shortage of bands mining the sounds of girl groups and early rock ’n’ roll — Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, Best Coast. Those Darlins’ version of wall-of-sound retro rock is more straightforward than say, the warped lunacy of Thee Oh Sees, but that’s not to diminish it. The band’s expanded palate is a good thing, and the album is ear candy in the best sense of the term. Correne Spero, Quin & Dodson and Vanhoose open the show.
band’s central message: Why don’t you just chill out, brah? So check your brain at the door, have a good time and knock back a drink or three while taking in the splendor of the Arkansas River and enjoying one of the city’s biggest, most diverse party scenes. Epiphany emcees the good times at the final Peabody Rivertop Party of 2011, so don’t miss out.
SATURDAY 7/23
BREAKFAST, BOOKS & BOOZE
Noon. White Water Tavern. Free or $5 after 7 p.m.
n On certain rare, blessed occasions, a really wicked hangover is something to be savored. That’s not to say it’s a condition that feels good, or at least not “good” in the traditional sense of the word. But every once in a while, a rough morning after can
leave you with a feeling of damaged grace. The awfulness you committed against your liver and central nervous system causes you to slow down, to be a bit more careful and deliberate, introspective even. What better setting for such a morning than to be surrounded with books, quiet acoustic music, brunch foods and perhaps a Bloody Mary or two to take the edge off things? Now, you don’t have to be hungover to come enjoy the sounds of Adam Faucett, Mandy McBryde, Kevin Kerby, No Hickeys and Correne Spero while browsing a wide array of underground literature and books from Mary Chamberlin’s Tree of Knowledge distribution and swapping LPs and 45s with DJ and man-with-a-million-records Seth Baldy. But it might augment the occasion. You never know.
ALIEN ANT FARM
9 p.m. Revolution. $11 adv., $15 d.o.s.
n If you have an unquenchable thirst for nu metal and managed not to sustain any serious moshing injuries at the Sevendust show, then by all means, don’t miss Alien Ant Farm. The Riverside, Calif., band was part of that unrelenting late ’90s tide of groups that combined rapping and metal with wearing Adidas gear and having dreadlocks and making a lot of hand gestures and jumping around and feigning some manner of angst-y sensitivity while generally acting like an agro jock. Alien Ant Farm is probably most often remembered for its worldwide smash-hit cover of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal,” which historians will surely someday acknowledge as one of the most disastrous moments of the early ’00s. It wasn’t as bad as Sept. 11 or anything, but still. MeTalkPretty (not a typo, the words are supposed to be run together like that; we’ve apparently run out of acceptable things to name a band) opens the show.
POPTART MONKEYS 8 p.m. Peabody Hotel. $5.
n Florida’s Poptart Monkeys don’t go in for subtlety or nuance. The band plays hybrid pop-punk party music, kind of like the lovechild of Sublime and Blink 182 on day five of an MTV Spring Break bender. Check out the band’s song “Choke Yourself,” which, to be clear, is in no way an endorsement of auto-erotic asphyxiation: “Worried about your brain / just save your mental health / tonight my hands won’t work / you’ll have to choke yourself.” The
DUDE, I JUST HAD A CRAZY THOUGHT: What if, like, some aliens came down and abducted a bunch of humans and they like took them back to their planet and put ’em in a big, like, ant farm for people? Better go see Alien Ant Farm at Revolution, just to be on the safe side.
■ inbrief
THURSDAY 7/21
The Tillman brothers – 607 and Bobby – bring the Ear Fear to Pizza D’Action with Poebot, 10 p.m., free. Adam Faucett’s singular take on haunting, melancholy folk is an excellent way to spend a Thursday evening at Maxine’s, 8 p.m. no cover charge. Does the evening find you in need of some funkelectrostonedoobifriediliciousfrikkylikkyikky vibes? Well just come on down to Revolution for some Muck Sticky, with openers Flaming Death Faeries, 9 p.m., $8. Get ready for the weekend with the good-time jams of Tragikly White and Josh Green, Cajun’s Wharf, 5 p.m., $5 after 8:30. The psychological drama “Proof” returns to Pocket Community Theater in Hot Springs, 7:30 p.m., $5-$10. The Wicked Good turns it up to 11 along with St. Louis rockers Driftless Pony Club, Vino’s, 9 p.m.
FRIDAY 7/22
Cool Shoes is where to go for a dubstep dance party with Art Majours, Cam Holifield and Red Six at Downtown Music Hall, 9 p.m. $5, $7 for 21 and younger. Get some screamin’ electric blues with Wes Jeans, The Trey Hawkins Band and The Cody Ives Band, Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $10 adv., $13 door. Trumpeter extraordinaire Rodney Block & The Real Music Lovers bring a blend of traditional jazz, gospel, hip-hop and more to The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. Community Theatre of Little Rock’s production of the racy musical comedy “The Great American Trailer Park Musical” returns to The Public Theatre, 7:30 p.m., $14-$16.
SATURDAY 7/23
North Little Rock outfit Ed Bowman & The Rock City Players brings the Chicago blues to The Afterthought at 9 p.m., $7. Dance all night at Discovery with the sounds of Big Brown, DJ Sleepy Genius and VJ g-force, a party that gets rolling around 9 p.m. and doesn’t stop until way into the wee hours. Brooding folk-punk outfit Real Live Tigers plays Super Happy Fun Land with the Denton, Texas, unhinged gutterfolk madmen New Science Projects, 9 p.m. Big-time ’80s power-popper Rick Springfield, he of the inescapable hit “Jessie’s Girl,” plays at Magic Springs’ Timberwood Amphitheater, $22.50-$55. Ryan Couron comes to Denton’s Trotline for a night of country in the vein of Randy Travis and Alan Jackson, 9 p.m., $10. Rockabilly legends and Sun Records veterans Sonny Burgess & The Legendary Pacers play Sunset Ballroom in Conway, 7 p.m., $8. www.arktimes.com • JULY 20, 2011 21
THURSDAY, JULY 21
www.arktimes.com
MUSIC
afterdark
Adam Faucett. Maxine’s, 8 p.m., Free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.com. Almost Infamous. Markham Street Grill And Pub, 8 p.m. 11321 W. Markham St. 501-224-2010. www. markhamst.com. “BLISS.” Music by DJ Greyhound and VJ g-force. Deep Ultra Lounge, 10 p.m. 322 President Clinton Ave. Ear Fear, Poebot. Pizza D’Action, 10 p.m., Free. 2919 W. Markham St. 501-666-5403. Jason Greenlaw, Buddafli, Shea Marie. Sway, through Aug. 10: 6 p.m., $5. 412 Louisiana. 501-9072582. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www. sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Karaoke. Zack’s Place, 8 p.m. 1400 S. University Ave. 501-664-6444. www.zacks-place.com. Mockingbird Trio. The Afterthought, 8 p.m., $5. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Muck Sticky. Revolution, 9 p.m. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Ol’ Puddin’haid. Thirst n’ Howl, 7:30 p.m., free. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-nhowl.com. Port Arthur Band. Parrot Beach Cafe, 9 p.m. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994. “Sway’s Summer Cure.” DJs Sleepy Genius and Silky Slim play pop, electro, house and more, plus drink specials. Sway, 9 p.m., $5. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 5 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG. Tommy Rock. Cregeen’s Irish Pub, 8 p.m., Free. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-376-7468. www.cregeens.com. Tragikly White (headliner), Josh Green (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. Wicked Good, Driftless Pony Club. Vino’s, 9 p.m. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.
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, JULY 20 MUSIC
Acoustic Open Mic. The Afterthought, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www. afterthoughtbar.com. Alternative Wednesdays. Features alternative bands from Little Rock and the surrounding areas. Mediums Art Lounge, 6:30 p.m., $5. 521 Center St. 501-374-4495. 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. CJ Ramone. Downtown Music Hall, 8 p.m., $15 adv., $20 door. 211 W. Capitol. 501-376-1819. downtownshows.homestead.com. Jason Greenlaw, Buddafli, Shea Marie. Sway, through Aug. 10: 6 p.m., $5. 412 Louisiana. 501-9072582. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www. sonnywilliamssteakroom.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. Mayday By Midnight. Cajun’s Wharf, 5 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, through Aug. 31: 9 p.m., $5. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz.com. New Music Test with Rare Remedy, Boom the Wheel, Far From Eden, Arkatext ft. DirtbagMC and DJ Discipline. Revolution, 8 p.m., $5 over 21, $10 under 21. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Sevendust, Adelitas Way, Emphatic, Violence to Vegas. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $21 adv., $25 door. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas. com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 5 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG.
COMEDY
Paul Hooper. The Loony Bin, 8 p.m.; July 22, 10:30 p.m.; July 23, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $7-$10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.
EVENTS
Arkansas Poker Championship. The build-up to the $25,000 Arkansas Poker Tournament began June 13 with the first of 20 qualifying rounds to be held over the course of 10 weeks. Oaklawn Park will host a poker tournament every Monday and Wednesday through Aug. 17. The top 60 qualifiers will go headto-head in the final set for Wed., Aug. 24. The final will offer $25,000 in guaranteed prize money with at least $10,000 going to the winner. Oaklawn, through 22 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
LAUGH IT UP: Actor and funnyman Eddie Griffin starred in a bunch of comedies that you’ve probably watched on cable on a weekend, including “Undercover Brother,” “Scary Movie 3” and both Deuce Bigalow flicks. Comedy Central just released his DVD “You Can Tell ‘Em I Said It” back in February. Griffin brings the yucks to Robinson Center Music Hall July 23, 7:30 p.m., $37-$47.
Aug. 17: 5:30 p.m., $60 buy-in amount. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411, ext. 602. www. oaklawn.com.
FILM
“Charles Portis: The Greatest Writer You’ve Never Heard Of....” This documentary about Little Rock’s Charles Portis will be screened prior to Movies in the Park’s presentation of the 2010 film “True Grit,” based on Portis’s 1968 novel. Butler Galleries, Arkansas Studies Institute, 7:30 p.m.,
free. 401 President Clinton Ave. 501-320-5792. www. arstudies.org. Movies in the Park: “True Grit” (2010). Riverfest Amphitheatre, 8 p.m. 400 President Clinton Ave.
SPORTS
Arkansas Travelers vs. Northwest Arkansas Naturals. Dickey-Stephens Park, through July 21, 7:10 p.m., $6-$12. 400 W Broadway St., NLR. 501-664-1555. www.travs.com.
The To-do lisTTO-DO The comprehensive list of everything worth doing this weekend from Times entertainment editor, Lindsey Millar. Whether it’s live music, dance, theater or an exhibit, Lindsey steers you to the best. The To-Do List email newsletter arrives in your in-box every Wednesday afternoon with an eye toward planning for your weekend. The To-Do List is a sure bet for your active life!
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ROBINSON AUDITORIUM THIS WEEKEND
Arkansas Travelers vs. Northwest Arkansas Naturals. Dickey-Stephens Park, 7:10 p.m., $6-$12. 400 W Broadway St., NLR. 501-664-1555. www. travs.com.
FRIDAY, JULY 22
LIST
AT THE BACKSTAGE PASS
EVENTS
Antique/Boutique Walk. Shopping and live entertainment. Downtown Hot Springs, third Thursday of every month, 4-8 p.m., free. 100 Central Ave., Hot Springs. Health Awareness Tour. Includes a public forum titled “Building a Healthier Community” as well as a gospel concert featuring Evelyn Turrentine-Agee & The Warrious, plus pastors and a community health fair and wellness expo Saturday. All events are free, with free dinner Thursday night and free lunch Saturday. Pine Bluff Convention Center, July 21, 6 p.m.; July 22, 7 p.m.; July 30, 10 a.m., Free. 500 E. 8th Ave., Pine Bluff. Wine Tasting with Bruce Cochran. The Afterthought, 5:30 p.m., $10. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com.
SPORTS
RIVERMARKET BAR & GRILL
➤➤➤
COMEDY
Paul Hooper. The Loony Bin, through July 22, 8 p.m.; July 22, 10:30 p.m.; July 23, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $7-$10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.
MUSIC
Bank Lauck Band. Cornerstone Pub & Grill, 9 p.m. 314 Main St., NLR. 501-374-1782. cstonepub.com. Cool Shoes Monthly Dance Party. Dubstep dance party with Art Majours, Cam Holifield and Red Six Downtown Music Hall, 9 p.m., $5, $7 for 21 and younger. 211 W. Capitol. 501-376-1819. downtownshows.homestead.com. David Korenblat & Joel. Capi’s, 8:30 p.m. 11525 Cantrell Suite 917. 501-225-9600. www.capisrestaurant.com. Dayton Waters. Oaklawn, July 22-23, 9 p.m. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www.
oaklawn.com. DJ Silky Slim. Top 40 and dance music. Sway, 9 p.m., $5. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Ed Burks. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Exit 111. Fox And Hound, 10 p.m., $5. 2800 Lakewood Village, NLR. 501-753-8300. www.foxandhound.com/locations/north-little-rock.aspx. Fallen Within. West End Smokehouse and Tavern, 10 p.m., $5. 215 N. Shackleford. 501-224-7665. www.westendsmokehouse.net. Joey Farr and the Fuggins Wheat Band. Midtown Billiards, July 22-23, 12:30 a.m., $5. 1316 Main St. 501-372-9990. midtownar.com. Josh Green. Flying Saucer, 9 p.m., $3. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-7468. www.beerknurd.com/stores/littlerock. Karla Case. Markham Street Grill And Pub, 8 p.m. 11321 W. Markham St. 501-224-2010. www. markhamst.com. Mockingbird Hillbilly Band. Faulkner County Library, 7 p.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-3277482. www.fcl.org. Poptart Monkeys. The Peabody Little Rock, 8 p.m., $5. 3 Statehouse Plaza. 501-906-4000. www. peabodylittlerock.com. Rodney Block & the Real Music Lovers. The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Jay Jackson. Denton’s Trotline, 9 p.m. 2150 Congo Road, Benton. 501-315-1717. Shannon McClung. Cregeen’s Irish Pub, 8 p.m., Free. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-376-7468. www. cregeens.com. Sweetwater Abilene, Seryn, Yes Inferno. Maxine’s, 8 p.m., $5 adv., $7 door. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG. The Good Time Ramblers (headliner), Some Guy Named Robb (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5 and 9 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. Those Darlins. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $8 adv., $10 d.o.s. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz.com. Tonya Leeks & Co. Dugan’s Pub, 8:30 p.m., Free. 403 E. 3rd St. 501-244-0542. www.duganspublr. com. Velvet Kente. White Water Tavern, 10 p.m., $5. 2500 W. 7th. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern. com. VJ g-force. Deep Ultra Lounge, 9 p.m. Deep Ultra Lounge, 9 p.m. 322 President Clinton Ave. Wes Jeans, Trey Hawkins Band, Cody Ives Band. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $10 adv., $13 door. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas. com. “Zodiac Party: Cancer Edition” featuring Punktronica. Revolution, 9 p.m., $10. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com.
COMEDY
Paul Hooper. The Loony Bin, through July 22, 8 p.m.; July 22, 10:30 p.m.; July 23, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $7-$10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.
EVENTS
Health Awareness Tour. See July 21. Jefferson-Jackson After Dark. Fundraiser for the Young Democrats of Arkansas. Historic Rogers House, 8 p.m., $25. 400 W. 18th St. 501-765-2677. 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.
LECTURES
“The Elvis Brand.” Scott Williams, vice president of marketing and media for Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc., will discuss the organization’s development and marketing initiatives. To reserve your seat, call or email publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu. Clinton School of Public Service, 12 p.m., Free. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5239. www.clintonschool.uasys.edu.
BOOKS
FOCAL Book Sale. Teachers and librarians with school ID will receive an extra 25 percent off their
purchases. Main Library, July 22-23, 10 a.m.; July 24, 1 p.m. 100 S. Rock St. www.cals.lib.ar.us.
SATURDAY, JULY 23 MUSIC
Ed Bowman & The Rock City Players. The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com.
MUSIC
Alien Ant Farm, Me Talk Pretty. Revolution, 9 p.m., $11 adv., $15 d.o.s. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. The Atom Age, The Last Slice, Half Raptor. Maxine’s, 8 p.m., $5 adv., $7 door. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.com. Battle 4 America battle of the bands. Vino’s, 6 p.m. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com. Big Brown, DJ Sleepy Genius, VJ g-force. Performers include Liyah Alize, Krystal Karrington and Dominique Sanchez. Discovery Nightclub, 9 p.m. 1021 Jessie Road. 501-664-4784. www.latenightdisco.com. Big John Miller. Dugan’s Pub, 8:30 p.m., Free. 403 E. 3rd St. 501-244-0542. www.duganspublr. com. Chris Henry. Flying Saucer, 9 p.m., $3. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-7468. www.beerknurd.com/stores/littlerock. Dayton Waters. Oaklawn, 9 p.m. 2705 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-4411. www.oaklawn. com. “Independent Music Night” Hip-Hop Showcase. Downtown Music Hall, 9 p.m. 211 W. Capitol. 501-376-1819. downtownshows.homestead.com. “Inferno” with DJs SilkySlim, Deja Blu, Greyhound. Sway, 10 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Jay Jackson. Fox And Hound, 10 p.m., $5. 2800 Lakewood Village, NLR. 501-753-8300. www.foxandhound.com/locations/north-little-rock.aspx. Jeff Hogart. Markham Street Grill And Pub, 8 p.m. 11321 W. Markham St. 501-224-2010. www. markhamst.com. Joey Farr and the Fuggins Wheat Band. Midtown Billiards, 12:30 a.m., $5. 1316 Main St. 501-372-9990. midtownar.com. Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub. com. Lance Daniels Band. Cregeen’s Irish Pub, 8 p.m., $5. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-376-7468. www. cregeens.com. The Last Straw, Lazy Bone. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $6. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz.com. Ramona & The Sould Rhythms (headliner), Andy Tanas (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. Real Live Tigers, New Science Projects. Super Happy Fun Land, 9 p.m. 608 Main St. Rick Springfield. Magic Springs’ Timberwood Amphitheater, 7:30 p.m., $22.50-$55. 1701 E. Grand Ave., Hot Springs. Ryan Couron. Denton’s Trotline, 9:30 p.m. 2150 Congo Road, Benton. 501-315-1717. Sonny Burgess and the Legendary Pacers. Sunset Ballroom, 7 p.m., $8. 1611 Oak St., Conway. 501-470-5113. Taylor Made. West End Smokehouse and Tavern, 10 p.m., $5. 215 N. Shackleford. 501-224-7665. www.westendsmokehouse.net. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG.
COMEDY
Eddie Griffen. Robinson Center Music Hall, 7:30 p.m., $37-$47. Markham and Broadway. www. littlerockmeetings.com/conv-centers/robinson. Paul Hooper. The Loony Bin, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $7-$10. 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. Latino Party Cruise. For additional information call 501-744-8842. Arkansas Queen, 10 p.m., $25. 100 Riverfront Park Drive, NLR. 501-372-5777. www.arkansasqueen.com. “Peace Begins with Me.” Learn about the signs and symbols for peace from cultures around the world, with lots of activities for children and plenty of family fun. Heifer Village, 10 a.m., Free. 1 World Ave. 501-376-6836. heifer.org/heifervillage.
BOOKS
Alan Sargent. Author Alan E. Sargent will discuss his Christian book, “Changing Your Stars: Empowerment for a Different Destiny.” WordsWorth Books & Co., 3 p.m. 5920 R St. 501-663-9198. www.wordsworthbooks.org. “Breakfast, Books & Booze.” Tree of Knowledge distribution book sale, with a record swap, brunch, drinks and musical guests. Acoustic sets from Adam Faucett, Mandy McBryde, Kevin Kerby, No Hickeys and Correne Spero. White Water Tavern, 12 p.m., $5 after 7 p.m. 2500 W. 7th. 501-375-8400. www. whitewatertavern.com. FOCAL Book Sale. See July 22.
SUNDAY, JULY 24 MUSIC
Karaoke. Shorty Small’s, 6-9 p.m. 1475 Hogan Lane, Conway. 501-764-0604. www.shortysmalls. com. Stardust Big Band. Arlington Hotel, July 24, 3 p.m.; Aug. 28, 3 p.m.; Sept. 18, 3 p.m. 239 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-623-7771. Sunday Jazz Brunch with Ted Ludwig and Joe Cripps. Vieux Carre, 11 a.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.vieuxcarrecafe.com.
BOOKS
FOCAL Book Sale. See July 22.
MONDAY, JULY 25 MUSIC
The Dave Williams Trio. The Afterthought, 8 p.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com. Karaoke. Thirst n’ Howl, 8:30 p.m. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com. Poet Fury, Sol Inertia. Super Happy Fun Land, 9 p.m. 608 Main St. Richie Johnson. Cajun’s Wharf, 5 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www. cajunswharf.com. Rigney Family Bluegrass. Collins Theater, 7 p.m., $5 suggested donation. 120 W. Emerson St., Paragould. Traditional Irish Music Session. Khalil’s Pub, Fourth and second Monday of every month, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www. khalilspub.com.
EVENTS
Arkansas Poker Championship. See July 20.
CAMPS
Ozark Folk Center Day Camp. Campers will enjoy a variety of projects and outdoor activities, including picnics, swimming and fishing. Ozark Folk Center State Park, July 25-29, 9 a.m.; Oct. 10-12, 9 a.m., $55. 1032 Park Ave., Mountain View.
TUESDAY, JULY 26 MUSIC
Bayside. Juanita’s, 8:30 p.m., $12 adv., $14 door. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www. juanitas.com. Booyah! Dad, Luscious Spiller. White Water Tavern, 10 p.m., Free. 2500 W. 7th. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Brian & Nick. Cajun’s Wharf, 5 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www. cajunswharf.com. Brian Martin. Maxine’s, 8 p.m., Free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. maxinespub.com. Full of Hell. Downtown Music Hall, 7 p.m., $7. 211 W. Capitol. 501-376-1819. downtownshows. homestead.com.
Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.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. 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. 501-8230090. 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. Tales from the South. Authors tell true stories; get schedule at www.talesfromthesouth.com. Dinner served 5-6:30 p.m., show at 7 p.m. Reserve at 501-372-7976. Starving Artist Cafe, 7 p.m. 411 N. Main St., NLR. 501-372-7976. www.starvingartistcafe.net. Trivia Bowl. Flying Saucer, 8:30 p.m. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-7468. www.beerknurd.com/stores/littlerock.
BENEFITS
Back-to-School Shopping Spree. The Salvation Army and Target need volunteers for the Back-toSchool Shopping Spree, which pairs volunteer chaperons with local elementary school age-age students for a school supply shopping spree. To volunteer, email kathy_barbeire@uss.salvationarmy. org. Target, 8 a.m. 4000 McCain Blvd., NLR.
CAMPS
Ozark Folk Center Day Camp. See July 25.
CLASSES
Beginners Genealogy Workshop. Learn the basics of family history research, including how to fill out pedigree charts, finding sources and searching records. Faulkner County Library, through : 2 p.m., Free. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27 MUSIC
Acoustic Open Mic. The Afterthought, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www. afterthoughtbar.com. Alternative Wednesdays. Features alternative bands from Little Rock and the surrounding areas. Mediums Art Lounge, 6:30 p.m., $5. 521 Center St. 501-374-4495. 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. Jason Greenlaw, Buddafli, Shea Marie. Sway, through Aug. 10: 6 p.m., $5. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Jessica Lea Mayfield, Ferraby Lionheart. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $10. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.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. Mayday By Midnight. Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, through Aug. 31: 9 p.m., $5. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyfingerz. com.
Continued on page 25 www.arktimes.com • JULY 20, 2011 23
CELEBRATING OUR 11th YEAR!
HELP WANTED ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
Friday, July 22 – Thursday, July 28 A Better Life PG13 2:00 4:15 7:15 9:15 Demian Bichie, Jose Julian, Eddie Piolin Sotelo the tree of Life PG13 1:45 4:20 7:00 9:30 Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain. Cannes Film Festival BiLL CunninGhAm’s new York nr 2:15 4:15 6:45 9:00 Bill Cunningham, Anna wintour, Michael Kors midniGht in PAris PG13 1:45 4:00 7:00 9:15 owen wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates. Directed by woody Allen suBmArine r 2:00 6:45 Sally hawkins, Paddy Considine, Craige Roberts Ben Stiller Presents CAve of forGotten dreAms G 4:20 9:15 Free Wi-Fi werner herzog, Dominique Baffier, Jean Clottes in the
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FitNess 24 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO VENTURE TO THE CINEPLEX: Here comes another superhero movie, “Captain America: The First Avenger,” starring Chris Evans as Captain America, defender of America’s most sacred interests: lucrative movie franchises.
JULY 22-23
movielistings All theater listings run Friday to Thursday unless otherwise noted.
Market Street Cinema showtimes at or after 9 p.m. are for Friday and Saturday only. The times for Harry Potter at Rave are for Friday only. NEW MOVIES A Better Life (PG-13) – “About a Boy” director Chris Weitz offers this tale about a father willing to do what it takes to give his child the chances that weren’t available to him. Market Street: 2:00, 4:15, 7:15, 9:15. Captain America: The First Avenger (PG-13) – The Marvel Comics patriotic superhero defends American values from the forces of something or other; starring Chris Evans and Tommy Lee Jones. Breckenridge: 1:00, 4:45, 7:40, 10:25 (2D), 12:30, 4:10, 7:10, 9:55 (3D). Rave: 10:00 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, 5:30, 7:00, 8:30, 10:00 11:30 (2D), 10:45 a.m., 1:45, 4:45, 7:45, 10:45 (3D). Riverdale: 11:00 a.m., 1:35, 4:15, 7:15, 9:55. Friends With Benefits (R) – Oh look, they made a movie about your 20s, but with better looking people like Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake. Breckenridge: 12:05, 2:35, 5:05, 7:45, 10:15. Rave: 10:30 a.m., 11:20 a.m., 1:30, 2:25, 4:30, 5:25, 7:30, 8:25, 10:30, 11:25. Riverdale: 11:10 a.m., 1:55, 4:20, 7:05, 9:45. RETURNING THIS WEEK Bad Teacher (R) – Cameron Diaz plays a bad teacher who suddenly becomes motivated to improve her students’ test scores through the magic of incentive pay. Breckenridge: 11:30 a.m., 2:05, 4:25, 7:35, 10:00. Chenal 9: 10:55 a.m., 1:05, 4:15, 7:05, 9:45. Lakewood 8: 11:15 a.m., 4:25, 9:45. Rave: 11:10 a.m., 2:00, 4:35, 7:55, 10:50. Riverdale: 11:45 a.m., 1:45, 3:55, 6:05, 8:05, 10:10. Bill Cunningham’s New York (NR) – This documentary traces the life and work of the iconic and eccentric New York Times fashion photographer. Market Street: 2:15, 4:15, 7:15, 9:15. 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. Breckenridge: 10:10. Rave: noon, 5:35, 11:10. Cars 2 (G) – A group of animated talking cars travel abroad for the inaugural World Grand Prix in this Pixar sequel. Breckenridge: 11:45 a.m., 2:30, 5:15, 8:00. Chenal 9: 11:00 a.m., 1:40, 4:30, 7:45, 10:25. Lakewood 8: 11:00 a.m., 1:35, 4:10, 7:05, 9:40. Rave 11:05 a.m., 4:50, 7:50, 10:40 (2D), 1:55 (3D). Riverdale: 11:20 a.m., 1:40, 4:05, 6:30, 9:05. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (G) — Werner Herzog films some of humanity’s oldest pictorial creations inside the Chauvet caves in southern France in this documentary. Market Street: 4:20, 9:15. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II: (PG-13) – The second half of the film adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s final Harry Potter book. Breckenridge: 12:15, 1:15, 1:35, 4:20, 4:40, 6:40, 7:25, 7:45,
10:30 (2D), 12:50, 4:00, 7:00, 10:05 (3D). Chenal 9: 10:30 a.m., 1:30, 7:50 (2D), 4:40, 10:45 (3D) 10:00 a.m., 1:00, 4:10, 7:20, 10:30 (IMAX 3D). Lakewood 8: 10:30 a.m., 1:30, 4:30, 7:30 (2D), 10:00 a.m., 1:00, 4:00, 7:00 (3D). Rave: 9:20 a.m., 10:15 a.m., 11:45 a.m., 12:45, 1:45, 3:15, 4:15, 5:15, 6:45, 7:55, 8:45, 10:15, 11:15 (2D), 9:45 a.m., 12:15, 1:15, 3:45, 4:55, 7:15, 8:15, 10:50 (3D). Riverdale: 11:25 a.m., 2:00, 4:35, 7:10, 9:50. Horrible Bosses (R) — A trio of frustrated friends takes advice from an ex-con and hatches a plan to permanently rid themselves of their awful bosses. Breckenridge: 12:05, 2:35, 5:05, 7:50, 10:15. Chenal 9: 10:45 a.m., 1:50, 4:20, 7:15, 10:00. Lakewood 8: 11:15 a.m., 1:15, 4:10, 7:10. Rave: 11:25 a.m., 2:05, 5:10, 8:10, 11:00. Riverdale: 11:40 a.m., 2:05, 4:30, 7:30, 10:15. Insidious (PG-13) – A realm called The Further threatens to trap a comatose child. His parents learn to battle something that science can’t explain. With Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne. Movies 10: 12:25, 2:50, 5:15, 7:40, 10:05. Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer (PG) — Judy Moody (Jordana Beatty) has planned an awesome summer adventure, but her plans are derailed by a series of small misfortunes in this kid comedy. Movies 10: 12:15, 2:25, 4:35, 7:15, 9:25. 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. Movies 10: 12:10, 2:45, 5:20, 7:55, 10:25. Larry Crowne (PG-13) — Tom Hanks stars in this Tom Hanks-directed rom-com as a victim of corporate downsizing who decides to enroll in college, where he meets Julia Roberts. Breckenridge: 11:50 a.m., 2:10, 4:35, 7:05, 9:40. Chenal 9: 10:50 a.m., 1:10, 4:35, 7:10, 9:55. Rave: 9:25 a.m., 3:00, 8:35. Riverdale: noon, 2:45, 5:25, 7:45, 10:00. 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. Movies 10: 12:30, 2:55, 5:25, 7:50, 10:25. Midnight in Paris (PG-13) — Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams hang out with literary heavyweights of the 1920s in Paris. Market Street: 1:45, 4:00, 7:00, 9:15. Monte Carlo (PG) — Selena Gomez and Leighton Meester go to Europe, flirt with young bachelors and party on yachts. Chenal 9: 9:50 p.m. Riverdale: 11:05 a.m., 1:25, 3:50, 6:20, 8:45. 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. Movies 10: 1:00, 7:00. Rango (PG) – A quixotic chameleon has to succeed at being the daredevil he thinks he is after winding up in an old West town. Movies 10: 12:05, 2:30, 4:55, 7:25, 9:50.
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. Movies 10: 1:25, 3:45, 6:05, 8:25 (2D), 12:20, 2:40, 5:00, 7:20, 9:40 (3D). Soul Surfer (PG) – In spite of losing an arm in a shark attack, a teen-age girl with a passion for surfing returns to the ocean. With AnnaSophia Robb and Helen Hunt. Movies 10: 1:10, 4:10, 7:10, 9:35. Submarine (R) – A 15-year-old boy hatches a complicated plot to save his parents’ marriage in this coming-of-age tale directed by Richard Ayoade. Market Street: 2:00, 6:45. Super 8 (PG-13) – After a group of friends films a train wreck in a small Ohio town, inexplicable things begin happening around the crash site and locals start to disappear into thin air. Breckenridge: 4:05, 10:15. Rave: 10:25 p.m. Riverdale: 11:30 a.m., 2:00, 4:25, 6:45, 9:10. 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. Movies 10: noon, 2:35, 5:10, 7:45, 10:20. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (PG-13) Robots disguised as cars and planes and such try to blow each other up. Again. Chenal 9: 10:30 a.m., 1:55, 7:00, 10:20 (3D). Lakewood 8: 9:45 p.m. (2D), noon, 3:30, 7:00, 10:15 (3D). Rave: 8:00, 11:35 (2D), 9:35 a.m., 11:55 a.m., 1:25, 3:30, 5:00, 7:05, 8:40, 10:55 (3D). Riverdale: 11:50 a.m., 2:55, 6:15, 9:30. Tree of Life (PG-13) — A spectral examination of childhood and memory from master director Terrence Malick. Market Street: 1:45, 4:20, 7:00, 9:30. Water For Elephants (PG-13) – After his parents are killed, a young veterinarian joins a traveling circus to tend its animals. With Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon. Movies 10: 4:00, 9:45. Winnie the Pooh (G) – Winnie, Tigger, Rabbit, Piglet, Owl, Kangaroo and Eeyore are reunited in this animated Walt Disney production. Breckenridge: 12:30, 2:25, 4:30, 7:20. Chenal 9: 10:15 a.m., 12:10, 2:00, 4:00, 7:30. Lakewood 8: 11:25 a.m., 1:15, 4:10, 7:10. Rave: 9:30 a.m., 11:35, 1:40, 3:50, 5:55. The Zookeeper: (PG) – Kevin James is a zookeeper who is so beloved by his furry charges that they decide to break their longtime code of silence and talk, teaching him the rules of courtship. Breckenridge: 11:35 a.m., 4:45, 7:10. 2:20 and 9:50 (open captioned). Chenal 9: 10:40 a.m., 1:45, 4:45, 7:40, 10:10. Lakewood 8: 11:05 a.m., 1:25, 4:30, 7:15, 9:35. Rave: 10:40 a.m., 1:50, 4:40, 7:25, 10:25. 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. Lakewood 8: 2939 Lakewood Village Drive, 7585354, www.fandango.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.
■ moviereview Harry’s last hurrah The boy wizard goes out with a satisfying bang in ‘Deathly Hallows, Part 2.’ n The family and I braved the dead of night last week to attend one of the midnight showings of the final Harry Potter flick, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.” Turns out it was a Potter film well worth standing in line with a bunch of sweaty, robe-wearing virgins. The darkest film of the seven-episode series, “Hallows 2” is, by turns, dangerous, suspenseful, funny and moving — it’s unafraid to kill off treasured characters and show onscreen death and battle as befitting war. Best of all, the film gives the ol’ heaveho to a lot of the filler and red herrings of Rowling’s text while keeping the stuff that matters. It’s a lovely end to a classic series. The film begins with Harry just having buried yet another of his heroic friends — the elf, Dobby, who has just saved the lives of Harry, Hermione and Ron from the clutches of the followers of Voldemort. Harry and his friends are still on the trail of a series of hidden horcruxes — pieces of Lord Voldemort’s soul, secreted in mundane objects, which allow him to be immortal. Find and destroy all the horcruxes, and you destroy the Dark Lord and save the
wizarding world. In the meantime, Harry’s old adversary Severus Snape has taken over Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after the death of former headmaster and Harry’s mentor Albus Dumbledore, turning it into a cruel place where punishment and torture are common. In order to find the remaining horcruxes, Harry, Ron and Hermione have to go on a series of death-defying adventures, including breaking into (and out of) Gringott’s Bank with the help of a semi-friendly dragon and going behind enemy lines to bust into the heavily-guarded Hogwarts castle itself. This scheme results in a rather thrilling siege of the castle and subsequent battle that put this reviewer very much in mind of some of the more sprawling war-making in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. In the midst of the conflict, of course, comes death for both old enemies and dear heroes, revelations about an unlikely ally and a new understanding about a person Harry thought of as one of his closest friends. It all culminates in a final showdown between Harry and Lord Voldemort, who holds the Elder Wand, the most powerful magical
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Glenn Road. 501-562-3131. murrysdinnerplayhouse. com. “The Great American Trailer Park Musical.” When Pippi, the stripper on the run, comes between the Dr. Phil–loving, agoraphobic Jeannie and her tollbooth collector husband the storms begin to brew. The Public Theatre - CTLR, through July 31: Fri., Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m., $14-$16. 616 Center St. 501-410-2283. www.ctlr-act.org/. “The Music Man.” A charming huckster posing as a bandleader cons the residents of a small Iowa town, only to fall in love with one of the town’s young women and risk being caught to win her over in Meredith Willson’s classic Broadway musical. Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, through Aug. 28: Tue.-Sat., 6 p.m.; Wed., 11 a.m.; Sun., 5:30 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m., $23-$33. 6323 Col. Glenn Road. 501-562-3131. murrysdinnerplayhouse.com. “My Fair Lady.” The classic tale, based on George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” of a voice coach who attempts to transform a Cockney flower girl into a proper lady. The Weekend Theater, through Aug. 7: Fri., Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m., $16-$20. 1001 W. 7th St. 501-374-3761. www.weekendtheater.com. Opera in the Ozarks: “Die Fledermaus.” Die Fledermaus (The Bat) is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée. It will be sung in English. Inspiration Point, Thu., July 21, 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. 16311 Hwy. 62 W., Eureka Springs. Opera in the Ozarks: “Le Nozze di Figaro.” One of Mozart’s most famous operas recounts a single “day of madness” in the palace of the Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. It will be sung in Italian, with translation presented. Inspiration Point, Wed., July 20, 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. 16311 Hwy. 62 W., Eureka Springs. 479-253-8595. www.opera.org. Opera in the Ozarks: “Little Women.” Mark Adamo’s work based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel. Inspiration Point, Fri., July 22, 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. 16311 Hwy. 62 W., Eureka Springs. 479-253-8595. www.opera.org.
Continued from page 23 Rob & Tyndall. Cajun’s Wharf, 5 p.m., $5 after 8:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. Set the Controls (Pink Floyd tribute). Revolution, 8:30 p.m., $8 adv., $10 d.o.s. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 5 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG.
COMEDY
Greg Morton, Matt Golightly. The Loony Bin, July 27-29, 8 p.m.; July 29, 10:30 p.m.; July 30, 7, 9 and 11 p.m., $8-$12. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.
EVENTS
Arkansas Poker Championship. See July 20.
FILM
Movies in the Park: “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (1971). Riverfest Amphitheatre, 8 p.m., Free. 400 President Clinton Ave.
CAMPS
Last Chance Day Camp. Open to boys and girls ages 9-12, with swimming, hiking, kayaking, lake tours, snorkeling, nature programs, crafts and more. DeGray Lake State Park, July 27-29, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., $70. Hwy. 7. 501-865-5810. Ozark Folk Center Day Camp. See July 25.
THIS WEEK IN THEATER “Everybody Loves Opal.” A comedy about three con artists who attempt to take out a hefty life-insurance policy on wacky recluse Opal Kronkie and then speed her demise, only to be thwarted by her oddball antics. Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, through July 23, 6 p.m.; Sun., July 24, 5:30 p.m., $23-$33. 6323 Col.
‘HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2’: Daniel Radcliffe stars. object in existence. In the midst of that battle, Harry comes to a lot of new conclusions about both himself and the people he thought he knew, including some truly heartbreaking insight about professor Severus Snape, his connections to Harry’s mother and Snape’s true motives since the moment Harry’s parents were killed. The moment Harry discovers the truth about Snape is moving, and Alan Rickman — like the rest of the cast — handles his big moment in the spotlight brilliantly, bringing several of the folks around the reviewer to tears. The Big Three — Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson — also bring sensitivity and a real sense of sacrifice to the
characters. It’s Radcliffe’s Harry, though, who winds up the magical Christ-figure, willing to give up his own life to save the world, and selling you on the gravity of that choice every step of the way. It probably won’t spoil anything for you to hear that Harry and his friends wind up triumphing over the forces of evil. The film ends on a two-decades-in-the-future coda that put the perfect cherry on the whole cycle. In short, it’s a lovely end to a fairly decent series. You shouldn’t miss this one, if only so you can tell your grandkids that you saw it in theaters. Like “Star Wars” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, it’s destined to be a big thing for generations to come. — David Koon
“Plaid Tidings.” The 2011 Searcy Summer Dinner Theatre season at Harding University will wrap up with this musical by Stuart Ross, with music by James Raitt, Brad Ellis, Raymond Berg and David Snyder. All shows are at the Ulrey Performing Arts Center and begin with a buffet dinner. Harding University, July 21-24, 6:30 p.m.; July 28-31, 6:30 p.m. 900 E. Center Ave., Searcy. 501-279-4580. www.hardingtickets.com. “Proof.” A troubled young woman who spent years caring for her father, a brilliant but mentally unstable mathematician, must cope with her own volatile emotions after his death. Pocket Community Theater, through July 23, 7:30 p.m.; Sun., July 24, 2:30 p.m., $5-$10. 170 Ravine St., Hot Springs. Dessert Theater presents “R.I.P. Emma Lou Briggs.” The day after Emma Lou Briggs’ funeral, her family gathers to decide what to do with her “things.” As it happens, each of her three daughters (played by Shelly White, Carolyn McNamee, and Suzanne Guymon) has a different opinion of what that means. Center on the Square, through July 23, 6:30 p.m., $15 (reservations required 24 hours in advance). 111 W. Arch Ave., Searcy. 501-368-0111. www.centeronthesquare.org.
opens with reception 5-8 p.m. July 21, runs through Sept. 3. 664-2772. SALVATION ARMY, 1515 W. 18th St., NLR: Dream Big free art classes for children in grades K-6, 1011:30 a.m. July 23, 30, parental consent required, sponsored by the Thea Foundation. 379-9512. RIVER MARKET AMPHITHEATRE: “Bubblefest!” 10 a.m. and noon July 27, 10 a.m., noon, 2 p.m. July 28-29. $1; Museum of Discovery members get in free with membership card. THEA CENTER FOR THE ARTS, 401 Main St.: “Flower Workshop with Tanarah Haynie,” two sessions 9 a.m.-4 p.m. July 27, $100. Limited to 10. Reserve at 379-9512 or 803-4630.
GALLERIES, MUSEUMS NEW EXHIBITS, EVENTS
THE ART LOFT, 1525 Merrill Drive: Studios and art gallery. 251-1131. BOSWELL-MOUROT FINE ART, 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd.: New work by Virginia McKimmey, opening reception 5:30-8:30 p.m. July 28. 664-0030. CANTRELL GALLERY, 8206 Cantrell Road: “Arkansas and the Range of Light,” photographs by Paul Caldwell, opens with reception 6-8 p.m. July 22, with music by Diane and Barry McVinney. Runs through Sept. 3. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 224-1335. HEIGHTS GALLERY, 5801 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Summer Birds,” recent work by Rene Hein,
ONGOING EXHIBITIONS
ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Building the Collection: Art Acquired in the 1980s,” through Oct. 9; work from the permanent collection, Stephens Gallery and Strauss Gallery (through Sept. 4). 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 3724000. BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “Renee Williams: New Works,” acrylic on paper; “The Art of Robin Tucker,” Atrium Gallery; “V.I.T.A.L. (Visual Images that Affect Lives),” work by Melverue Abraham, Rex Deloney, LaToya Hobbs, Ariston Jacks, Kalari Turner and Michael Worsham, Concordia Hall, through Aug. 27; Arkansas Art Educators’ “State Youth Art Show 2011,” through July 30, Main Gallery. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5791. CHRIST CHURCH, 509 Scott St.: Work by students of the Arkansas Arts Center Museum School. 3752342. 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. 664-0880. GALLERY 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd.: John Bridges, photographs; Baxter Knowlton, paintings, through Sept. 10. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 664-8996. GREG THOMPSON FINE ART, 429 Main St., NLR:
Continued on page 26 www.arktimes.com • JULY 20, 2011 25
BREAKING BAD: NEW SEASON 9 p.m. Sundays AMC n Since The Sopranos blipped to black, “Breaking Bad” might be the best show on TV. That’s no exaggeration. The show, created by former “X-Files” writer Vince Gilligan, is a week-to-week powerhouse, full of intrigue, moral conundrum, murder, lies, comedy, sadness and dynamite acting. If you aren’t watching it, you should be. “Breaking Bad,” which debuted its fourth season last Sunday night,
and the depths of depravity he’s willing to sink to in order to attain that Something appears to be a black and bottomless pit. At the end of last season, Jesse and Walter finally crossed the line from “questionable” to “unthinkable” to save their skins from squeaky-clean drug lord Gus “The Chicken Man” Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), who has them working in an industrial-quantity superlab. This season, with the pair sure to be always looking over their shoulders to make sure Fring isn’t sneaking up with a knife, is sure to be a winner. Watch it. Soon.
NETFLIX PIX: MARY AND MAX (2009) n To be honest, I didn’t really want to watch this one, but my kid twisted my arm and made me. For one thing it’s a claymation movie that I’ve never heard of. While I like Nick Park’s “Wallace and Grommit” films quite a bit, and got down with some Gumby reruns in my youth, the thought of spending an hour and a half watching some kid flick about lumps of clay didn’t really appeal to me. My son, however, knew what he was talking about. Turns out, “Mary and Max” is a true gem, full of beauty and wisdom. If you’re looking for something on Instant some night, be sure to keep this one in mind. It’s the story of Mary Dinkle (voice of Toni Collette), an Australian 8-yearold with an alcoholic mother, an emotionally awkward father and a facial birthmark that makes her an outcast at school. Mary has no friends her age, and is kind of a ‘BREAKING BAD’: Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston weird kid (she’s got a pet star. rooster, for instance). Given that, it makes perfect sense is the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranto her when she finds a New York City ston), a former high school chemistry phone book at the local post office and teacher who, on learning that he has what decides to write to a random person to try appears to be terminal cancer, sets out to and find a pen pal. By luck, the person she provide a future for his family by makwrites to is Max Horowitz (voice of Philip ing and selling the highest-quality crystal Seymour Hoffman), an autistic man livmeth anyone has ever seen. He and his ing alone in New York — a man who is partner, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), a just as lonely and awkward as Mary. They 20-something burnout who White paired begin to correspond via mail (these were up with only because he was once kicked the days before Internet, kids. Get someout of the school where Walter worked one over 35 to tell you about them), bondfor dealing drugs, have come a long way, ing over their love of chocolate and TV. from throwing the DEA off their trail, to The result is a lifelong friendship of the taking on a psychotic drug kingpin, to disstrangest sort, with each helping the other solving bodies in acid. Walter’s in remisovercome the anxieties that have kept sion now, but that makes his sticking to the them prisoner to fear, and the troubles that path of meth and money (not to mention plague them their whole lives. A gentle, what may well be his ongoing baby-steps funny, lovely little film, “Mary and Max” descent into out-and-out evil) somehow isn’t a kid’s movie; it’s a lovely piece of worse. It’s not about providing for his cinema. It’s definitely worth the time. family now. It’s about Something Else, — David Koon 26 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
CALENDAR
Continued from page 25 “Charles Harrington: A Sense of Place,” through midAugust. 664-2787. HEARNE FINE ART, 1001 Wright Ave.: “Poetry — Works on Canvas and Paper,” charcoal studies and paintings by Lawrence Finney, through Aug. 15. 372-6822. KETZ GALLERY, 705 Main St., NLR: Recent work by John Kushmaul, in collaboration with Tara Stickley, also work by Tim Jacob. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 529-6330. L&L BECK GALLERY, 5705 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Pick Your Favorite,” paintings by Louis Beck, through July. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 660-4006. LAMAN LIBRARY, 2801 Orange St.: “Feelin’ Groovy: Rock and Roll Graphics, 1966-1970,” through Aug. 21. 758-1720. LOCAL COLOUR GALLERY, 5811 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Art and jewelry by members of artists’ cooperative, 20 percent off Mary Allison jewelry through July 30. 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. 225-6257. 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. STARVING ARTIST CAFE, 411 Main St., NLR: Grav Weldon, photographs, through mid-August. 372-7976. 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.: New work by Stephano, Thom Bierdz, Tony Dow, Kelley Naylor-Wise, Michael A. Darr, Mike Gaines, G. Peebles, Steven Thomas, Alexis Silk, Paula Wallace and Ron Logan. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 563-4218. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: “Advancing Tradition: 20 Years of Printmaking at Flatbed Press,” through Oct. 2, Gallery I, Fine Arts Building. 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. SALINE COUNTY LIBRARY, 1800 Smithers Drive: Marsha Smith, photographs, Herzfeld Library, through July. 778-4766. n Bentonville SUGAR GALLERY, 114 W. Central Ave.: “Lines Across,” collaboration by students in the UA School of Architecture and the Fulbright College, through July 23. 2-7 p.m. Fri., 10-2 p.m. Sat. 479-273-5305. 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., noon4 p.m. Sun. calicorocket.org/artists. n El Dorado SOUTHEAST ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, 110 E. 5th St.: Annual Juried Art Competition, featuring work by 23 American artists, including Arkansans Karlyn Holloway, Kelly Campbell, Marlene Gremillion, Bryan W. Massey Sr. and Kenna Westerman. 870862-5474. n Fayetteville FAYETTEVILLE UNDERGROUND, 1 E. Center St.: Work by graduates of the Florence Academy of Art, Revolver Gallery; textile paintings by Jennifer Libby Fay, Vault; Michele Maule, Hive; sculptural
vessels by John Sewell, E Street. Noon-7 p.m. Wed.Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. n Heber Springs BOTTLE TREE GALLERY, 514 W. Main St.: Work by Maeve Croghan, Jonathan Harris, George Wittenberg. 501-590-8840. n Hot Springs ALISON PARSONS GALLERY, 802 Central Ave.: “Altarpieces — Intimate Exchanges,” mixed media by Lori Arnold, through August. 501-625-3001. AMERICAN ART GALLERY, 724 Central Ave.: “Flora, Fowl and Fauna,” paintings by Jimmy Leach. 501-624-055. BLUE MOON GALLERY, 718 Central Ave.: Raku pottery by Kelly Edwards, through July 30. 501-3182787. 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.: “Celebrating Summer,” new paintings by Dolores Justus and Robin Hazard-Bishop, with work by Hugh Dunnaho, Mike Elsass, Steve Griffith and Rebecca Thompson. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. 501321-2335. LEGACY GALLERY, 804 Central Ave.: Landscapes by Carole Katchen. 501-624-1044. TAYLOR’S CONTEMPORANEA, 204 Exchange St.: Sui Hoe Khoo, paintings. 501-624-0516. n Russellville RIVER VALLEY ARTS CENTER, 1001 E. B St.: Pottery by Gus Sprague, woven rugs by members of Booneville Human Development Center, through July 29. 479-968-2452. n Springdale ARTS CENTER OF THE OZARKS, 214 Main St.: “Characters,” paintings by Robert Andes, Golsa Yaghoobi and Kyle McKenzie,” McCuistionMatthews Gallery; “Elizabeth Noble,” paintings, Smith-Kelly Gallery, through July 29. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 479-751-5441. 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. Noon6 p.m. Wed.-Fri, noon-4 p.m. Sat. 501-766-7584. n Memphis DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS, 4339 Park Ave.: “Jean-Louis Forain: La Comedie Parisienne,” through Oct. 9. $7 adults, $5 seniors and students. 901-761-5250, www.dixon.org.
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. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER, 1200 President Clinton Ave.: “Elvis,” memorabilia from films, including Elvis’ red MG from “Blue Hawaii,” through Aug. 21; “Elvis at 21, Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer,” 56 black and white images taken in 1956 by RCA Victor photojournalist, through Sept. 11; free Super Summer Saturdays, kids’ activities, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. through Aug. 20; 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. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. Third St.: “Playing at War: Children’s Civil War Era Toys,” from the collection of Greg McMahon, through Jan. 10; “Forgotten Places: Rhonda Berry and Diana Michelle Hausam,” photographs, through Aug. 7; “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. 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.
n Porter’s Jazz Cafe will open to the public Aug. 4. The 9,500-square-foot restaurant/venue is located in the bottom level of the Gus Blass building at 315 Main St. A mezzanine on the ground level, which will house the cafe, looks down onto the stage below. The menu spans from pub-grub fare like corn dogs, chicken and waffles and burgers to more upscale items like Sesame-Seared White River Bass, Bourbon Beef Tenderloin and all sorts of steaks. The full menu is available at portersjazzcafe.com. The restaurant’s hours will be 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday and 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Sunday brunch will be served from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. The jazz venue will remain open until 2 a.m. Monday through Saturday. The phone number is 492-9120. n The Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches chain is coming to the corner of Seventh and Broadway, according to Mike South, chair of the Downtown Little Rock Partnership Commerce Committee. It’s scheduled to open this fall. It’ll be the second Jimmy John’s in Central Arkansas.
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; Little Rock-area restaurants are divided by food category. 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 ACADIA A jewel of a restaurant in Hillcrest. Unbelievable fixed-price, three-course dinners on Mondays and Tuesday, but food is certainly worth full price. 3000 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, CC. $$-$$$. 501-603-9630. D Mon.-Sat. BIG ROCK BISTRO Students of the Arkansas Culinary School run this restaurant at Pulaski Tech under the direction of Chef Jason Knapp. Pizza, pasta, Asian-inspired dishes and diner food, all in one stop. 3000 W. Scenic Drive. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-812-2200. BL Mon.-Fri. BLACK ANGUS Charcoal-grilled burgers, hamburger steaks and steaks proper are the big draws at this local institution. 10907 N. Rodney Parham. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-228-7800. BLD Mon.-Sat. BOBBY’S CAFE Delicious, humungo burgers and tasty homemade deserts at this Levy diner. 12230 MacArthur
Continued on page 29
■ dining The Terrace abides After 30 years in business, the Mediterranean restaurant still satisfies. n Thirty years ago this month, Terri and Jerry Barakat introduced Little Rock to a collection of simple Greek and Middle Eastern delicacies that were foreign in their heritage and foreign to Arkansans’ palates. Hummus, tabouleh, dolmathes, baba ganoush, gyros, falafel — for less than $10 total you could enjoy all those at the original Terrace restaurant in Breckenridge Village. The bonuses? The Barakats’ unparalleled warmth and hospitality — and a BYOB policy that thrilled at least one young, thirsty, underpaid journalist. Decades have passed, the Barakats have divorced and the Terrace has endured in several locations with Jerry at the helm. For the last 11 years the restaurant has been Terrace on the Green, anchoring the ground floor of Cypress Plaza, the attractive building that — thanks to a streetnaming quirk — can accurately be said to be at the corner of Rodney Parham and Rodney Parham. Franke’s Cafeteria is likely the only family-owned local restaurant with a longer tenure than the Terrace, as many of the enduring names — Bruno’s, the Villa, Browning’s — have been sold to other families at least once over the years. Now is a logical time for a return visit as Terrace on the Green has morphed into The Terrace Mediterranean Kitchen. Jerry Barakat’s daughters, Susi and Sandy, are now in charge, ably assisted by their mom, who splits her time between Spain and Arkansas, and Michael Mitcham, Sandy’s husband, who also has a long history on the local dining scene as a waiter, perhaps most notably at the renowned and lamented Spaule. The new team’s flourishes are immediately apparent — in the decor, the menu, the service and the food. The lunch menu has been revamped, but it is still recognizable to long-time Terrace fans. And that’s wise, because at a restaurant that has thrived for 30 years, change can be tough, particularly on the regulars. Plenty of standards that have spanned the decades live on. There are eight salads featured, the additions of salmon and chicken qualifying three as “entree” salads. The lunch menu also includes five Mediterraneanflavored sandwiches, two burgers and 10 “lunch plates,” none of which resemble the “meat-and-three” blue plates common in these parts. All but the Steak Frites are under $12. Our lunch choices were a pan-sauteed tilapia ($11.95) from the specials list — succulent and light but still with a pleasing
BRIAN CHILSON
what’scookin’
OLD STANDBY: The Terrace’s kitchen sampler, consisting of hummus, tabouleh and baba ganoush. butter component, served with a light rice pilaf — and the gyros sandwich ($5.95), which was almost comically overstuffed with tasty shards of crisp-yet-tender meat. A new dinner menu is on the way, we’re told, and in fact it may already be rolled out. It too will blend new choices with old faithfuls. On a recent dinner visit we were compelled to start with the standby sampler of hummus, tabouleh and baba ganoush ($8.25); all had bright, citrusy notes. The hummus and baba ganoush were creamy and rich, and the tabouleh featured strong blasts of fresh mint. The pear, gorgonzola and walnut salad ($6.75) was a hit. The Craisins provided a fruity pop and the somewhat oily vinaigrette was applied lightly enough to not overwhelm the taste of the fruit, nuts and creamy, only slightly blue, blue cheese. A dish billed as “House Specialty” in the “Old Favorites” section on the old dinner menu certainly will live on — or a veteran customer’s revolt might be launched. The broiled Norwegian salmon deserved its menu status. The huge, mild filet topped with a creamy lemon dill sauce was served with broccoli, slightly sweet carrot medallions and delicate rice studded with almond slivers. The star of the show, though, was another entree special — feta-stuffed lamb chops ($24.95). We were worried the sharp cheese might overwhelm the meat, but we shouldn’t have. Dabs of feta, mellowed by melting, oozed from five meaty lamb chops, including one two-bone behemoth. They were topped with rings of sauteed purple onion and a light garlic glaze. Gloria Ferrer chardonnay, a delightfully rich white from the Carneros region of California ($32) might not technically go with lamb, but ... who cares? It was dreamy
good, as was our dessert — bananas foster ($7.50) prepared tableside. In a muchappreciated gesture that surely owes back to his fine-dining days, maitre d’ Mitcham stopped by to pour complementary EOS dessert wine, a perfect match for the cinnamon/brown sugary dessert. There are other fine-dining touches to The Terrace Mediterranean Kitchen, though prices luckily are not among them. We returned to our table after a mid-meal break to find our napkin neatly folded at our place setting. Our waiter took much care to deliver and remove just the right silverware at several junctures in the meal — little things, maybe, but impactful. Long meal and story short: Our first experiences at The Terrace Mediterranean Kitchen with the second generation of Barakats running the show generated optimism that one of Little Rock’s longesttenured family-owned restaurants will continue to thrive for decades to come. If you haven’t tried it lately, you should. And if you have, you surely will again.
The Terrace Mediterranean Kitchen 2200 N. Rodney Parham 217-9393 Quick bite
A great blast from the Terrace’s past still awaits at the top of the menu — the kitchen sampler ($8.50), decent-sized portions of creamy hummus, tart tabouleh and piquant baba ganoush.
Hours
11 a.m.-2 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 5 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 5 p.m.-10:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat.
Other info
Full bar. CC accepted. www.arktimes.com • JULY 20, 2011 27
diningfeature
Q&A with Christy Milligan of Cupcakes on Kavanaugh and Cupcakes on the Ridge BY CAROLINE MILLAR
After spending an afternoon in the kitchen with Christy Milligan, who owns Cupcakes on Kavanaugh and Cupcakes on The Ridge, I realized that behind her moist, decadently iced cupcakes is an experimental chemist. Milligan shared with me the trials and triumphs of turning her family’s old cake recipes into cupcakes, baking with Guinness beer and the joys of vanilla. Where did you get the inspiration to own a cupcake bakery? I’ve always been a huge baker. My grandmothers, my great-grandmothers and my mother all from-scratch baked. My [father’s mother], you walked into her house any day and there were at least two pies, usually a chocolate cake and some kind of cookie. I majored in dietetics and food nutrition in college — I love the idea that I have a food nutrition background, though I did have someone walk in one time and ask me how I felt about contributing to America’s obesity. I said, “You know, I’m a huge advocate of portion control and I think a cupcake is a perfect portion.” I’d never advise someone to eat a dozen of them — and I’ve always been a foodie. My husband’s always been the cook, and I’m the baker. I was living in Charleston, South Carolina, and doing cooking demonstrations for Taste of Home magazine. There was a cupcake bakery there that we loved. But the cupcakes never really tasted like they were from scratch. But it always looked like such a fun idea. So I’d always go home and bake for the neighborhood and make everybody cupcakes and my friends would say, ‘You should open your own cupcake bakery.’
What kind of cupcakes do you sell? We’ve got our classics that we do every day — the Classic Vanilla, which is vanilla cake with vanilla icing; Vanilla Chocolate, which is vanilla cake with chocolate icing; our Ghirardelli Squares, made with Ghirardelli chocolate; our Black Tie, which is chocolate [cake] with vanilla butter cream, and we threw in Red Velvet because it was extremely popular. We have our Baker’s Choice, which [recently was] a Peanut Butter Fluff, which is chocolate cake with a marshmallow filling and a marshmallow butter cream icing drizzled with peanut butter and chocolate. We also have an Oatmeal Cream Pie, based on my grandmother’s recipe; it was her favorite cake.
How’d you get your business started? When my son was six months old I started writing the business plan. I’d been testing recipes for several years and people had been giving me feedback. I got lucky because my husband is in construction, my sister-in-law was an accountant and my brother-in-law is a banker. I had been sketching in a book — I still have the book — what my logo would be, sketches of a little table and chairs, a picture on the wall. And that’s what it looks like today. It was designed on a dime. My husband built every bit of it. I painted the canvases because I needed cheap wall art.
Are cupcakes just for kids? It’s funny — most of our customers are professional people. When I was doing my business plan my demographic was age 2 to 102. An adult with a little more mature palate is going to appreciate what we have more. My four-and-a-half year-old can probably just stick anything in his mouth and if it’s sweet he’s going to love it. So I think for $2.95 each, it’s a gourmet dessert. You can get a variety, because you know it takes enough time at your house to bake one. We have business people that come in here and get eight different flavors and take them to the office for adult birthdays.
28 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
We also do bridal showers, weddings and groom’s cakes. Many of your recipes come from your grandmothers. How do you translate their cake recipes into cupcakes? Is it difficult baking small? Yes, that’s a great deal of what I had to do in the testing. I had to change a little bit up. It’s very tricky making cupcakes taste as good as cakes. Some recipes are much harder than others; the vanilla is very tricky. The red velvet is my grandmother’s cake recipe that I’ve made into a cupcake, and one second it’s so not done and 10 seconds later you’ve got to get it out of the oven. You have to touch it; it really is a kind of a feel. You just kind of know. Every day is different. We crack all of our eggs. We don’t use any kind of egg substitute — not that there’s anything wrong with that — but some days your eggs might be a whole lot bigger than your eggs the next day. [In] one of the tests I did in the beginning, the [cupcakes] came out like hockey pucks. The next batch I did I overcompensated and it was like a sheet cake on top. It’s trying to find that perfect puff. It bothers me to see the wrapper on a cupcake. Some people think that our cupcakes are not normal sized. But they are; we just try to bake them out of the wrapper. The oven is tricky because there’s the fan that can pull [the cakes] this way
and that way. It’s like making little bitty cakes. How is vanilla cake different from white cake? White cake doesn’t usually have any yolks in it. And you wouldn’t use real vanilla in white cake because it would color the batter. So our vanilla cake has yolks and we use Madagascar Bourbon vanilla, which I think is so important. It’s a lot richer. Good vanilla is huge in my opinion. It’s what tops off the butter cream. I think it makes it a bit creamier. If something needs to be a little sweeter I add vanilla. Our vanilla recipe I developed on my own. I pulled [famous New York bakery] Magnolia’s recipe — you can get it online — and I didn’t like it because it didn’t have enough texture, plus I didn’t want to use someone else’s recipe. I pulled my grandmother’s recipe and it wasn’t working, it was too heavy. So I developed my own. Our vanilla cake is different from other bakeries’ because a lot of bakeries’ vanilla cakes have a pound cake taste or a lot of people put syrup on their cakes because if you bake them a couple days before, the syrup helps keep them moist. But we don’t serve anything that’s not freshly baked, or if it was baked the day before we tell you. Do you ever get bored doing just cupcakes? No, and I guess that’s a good sign! We try and change the menu up seasonally. We’re working on a stout cake — a man’s cake — it’s so yummy. The idea [came from] my baker at our Pleasant Ridge location. It’s chocolate-based with Guinness beer. It sounds like it would be heavy but it’s not; the fizz and the carbonation make the cake light. We’re trying to toy with what we want to do. Because the cake is so light and has such a good flavor I’m thinking just a chocolate ganache on top so that it’s sweet but not too much. How do you juggle running a business with having a family? It took us a long time to have our little boy — they gave us less than a 5 percent chance to have him, so when we [did] we made a promise to ourselves that one of us would be there with him and somehow we’ve stuck with it. But here he’s like a kid in the candy store! When we hire people we ask them “do you like kids?” But we had to make a choice at the first of this year. [Our son] asked us last year, he said, “Daddy, do you live in a cupcake store?” And he said “No, baby, I don’t live in a cupcake store. And he said “Oh, but Mommy you live in a cupcake store.” That’s when we closed on Monday again.
Restaurant capsules Continued from page 27
Drive. NLR. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-851-7888. BL Tue.-Fri., D Thu.-Fri. BOSCOS This River Market brewery does food well, too. Along with tried and true things like sandwiches, burgers, steaks and big salads, they have entrees like black bean and goat cheese tamales, open hearth pizza ovens and muffalettas. 500 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-907-1881. LD daily. BOUDREAUX’S GRILL & BAR A homey, seat-yourself Cajun joint in Maumelle that serves up all sorts of variations of shrimp and catfish. With particularly tasty red beans and rice, jambalaya and bread pudding. 9811 Maumelle Blvd. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-753-6860. L Sat., D Mon.-Sat. BUTCHER SHOP The cook-your-own-steak option has been downplayed, and several menu additions complement the calling card: large, fabulous cuts of prime beef, cooked to perfection. 10825 Hermitage Road. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-312-2748. D daily. CAJUN’S WHARF The venerable seafood restaurant serves up great gumbo and oysters Bienville, and options such as fine steaks for the non-seafood eater. In the citified bar, you’ll find nightly entertainment, too. 2400 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-375-5351. D Mon.-Sat. CAMP DAVID Inside the Holiday Inn Presidential Conference Center, Camp David particularly pleases with its breakfast and themed buffets each day of the week. Wonderful Sunday brunch. 600 Interstate 30. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-975-2267. BLD daily. CAPERS It’s never been better, with as good a wine list as any in the area, and a menu that covers a lot of ground — seafood, steaks, pasta — and does it all well. 4502 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-868-7600. LD Mon.-Sat. COAST CAFE A variety of salads, smoothies, sandwiches and pizzas, and there’s breakfast and coffee, too. 400 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-3710164. BL Mon.-Sat. COPPER GRILL Comfort food, burgers and more sophisticated fare at this River Market-area hotspot. 300 W. Third St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-375-3333. LD Mon.-Sat. DAVE’S PLACE Downtown’s premier soup-and-sandwich stop at lunch, and a set dinner spot on Friday night to give a little creative outlet to chef supreme David Williams. Beef, chicken and fish are served with continental flair. 201 Center St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-3283. L Mon.-Fri., D Fri. DAVID FAMILY KITCHEN Call it soul food or call it downhome country cooking. Just be sure to call us for breakfast or lunch when you go. Neckbones, ribs, sturdy cornbread, salmon croquettes, mustard greens and the like. Desserts are exceptionally good. 2301 Broadway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-371-0141. BL Sun.-Fri. DIZZY’S GYPSY BISTRO Interesting bistro fare, served in massive portions at this River Market favorite. 200 River Market Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-375-3500. LD Tue.-Sat. THE FADED ROSE The Cajun-inspired menu seldom disappoints. Steaks and soaked salads are legendary. Also at Bowman Curve. 1615 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-9734. LD daily. 400 N. Bowman Rd. Full bar. $$-$$$. 501-224-3377. LD daily. FERNEAU Great seafood, among other things, is served at the Ice House Revival in Hillcrest. With a late night menu Thu.-Sat. 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$$-$$$$. 501-603-9208. D Tue.-Sat. FOX AND HOUND Sports bar that serves pub food. 2800 Lakewood Village. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-753-8300. LD daily. FRANKE’S CAFETERIA Plate lunch spot strong on salads and vegetables, and perfect fried chicken on Sundays. Arkansas’ oldest continually operating restaurant. 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-2254487. LD daily. 400 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-372-1919. L Mon.-Fri. FRONTIER DINER The traditional all-American roadside diner, complete with a nice selection of man-friendly breakfasts and lunch specials. The half pound burger is a twohander for the average working Joe. 10424 Interstate 30. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-565-6414. BL Mon.-Sat. FROSTOP A ‘50s-style drive-in has been resurrected, with big and juicy burgers and great irregularly cut fries. Superb service, too. 4131 JFK Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-758-4535. BLD daily. GADWALL’S GRILL & PIZZA Once two separate restaurants, a fire forced the grill into the pizza joint. Now, under one roof, there’s mouth-watering burgers and specialty sandwiches, plus zesty pizzas with cracker-thin crust and plenty of toppings. 12 North Hills Shopping Center. NLR. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-834-1840. LD daily. HUNKA PIE A drive-up diner with burgers, salads, soups and a number of different pies, available whole or by the slice, fresh baked daily. 7706 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-612-4754. LD Mon.-Sat. (closes at 7 p.m.). KIERRE’S KOUNTRY KITCHEN Excellent home-cooking joint for huge helpings of meat loaf and chicken-fried steak, cooked-down vegetables and wonderful homemade pies and cakes. Breakfasts feature omelets, pancakes, French toast and more. 6 Collins Place. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-758-0923. BLD Tue.-Fri., BL Sat. MARKHAM STREET GRILL AND PUB The menu has
something for everyone. Try the burgers, which are juicy, big and fine. 11321 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-2010. LD daily. MCBRIDE’S CAFE AND BAKERY Owners Chet and Vicki McBride have been serving up delicious breakfast and lunch specials based on their family recipes for two decades in this popular eatery at Baptist Health’s Little Rock campus. The desserts and barbecue sandwiches are not to be missed. 9501 Lile Drive. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-340-3833. BL Mon.-Fri. RED DOOR Fresh seafood, steaks, chops and sandwiches from restaurateur Mark Abernathy. Smart wine list. 3701 Old Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-666-8482. BL Mon.-Fri. D daily. RENO’S ARGENTA CAFE Sandwiches, gyros and gourmet pizzas by day and music and drinks by night in downtown Argenta. 312 N. Main St. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-376-2900. RIVERFRONT STEAKHOUSE Steaks are the draw here — nice cuts heavily salted and peppered, cooked quickly and accurately to your specifications, finished with butter and served sizzling hot. 2 Riverfront Place. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-375-7825. D Mon.-Sat. RUDY’S OYSTER BAR Good boiled shrimp and oysters on the half shell. Quesadillas and chili cheese dip are tasty and ultra-hearty. 2695 Pike Ave. NLR. Full bar. 501-7710808. LD Mon.-Sat. SO RESTAURANT BAR Call it a French brasserie with a sleek, but not fussy American finish. The wine selection is broad and choice. Free valet parking. Use it and save yourself a headache. 3610 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-1464. STARLITE DINER Breakfast and the ice cream-loaded shakes and desserts star here. 250 E. Military Road. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-353-0465. BLD. TOWN PUMP A dependable burger, plus basic beer food. 1321 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-6639802. L Mon.-Sat. D daily. TRIO’S Fresh, creative and satisfying lunches; even better at night, when the chefs take flight. Best array of fresh desserts in town. 8201 Cantrell Road. Full bar. $$-$$$. 501-221-3330. LD Mon.-Sat. VIEUX CARRE A pleasant spot in Hillcrest with specialty salads, steak and seafood. The soup of the day is a good bet. At lunch, the menu includes an all-vegetable sandwich and a half-pound cheeseburger. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-1196. LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat., BR Sun. YOUR MAMA’S GOOD FOOD Offering simple and satisfying cafeteria food, with burgers and more hot off the grill, plate lunches and pies. 220 W. 4th St. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-372-1811. BL Mon.-Fri. ZACK’S PLACE Expertly prepared home cooking and huge, smoky burgers. 1400 S. University Ave. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-664-6444. LD Mon.-Sat.
ASIAN CHI’S CHINESE CUISINE No longer owned by Chi’s founder Lulu Chi, this Chinese mainstay still offers a broad menu that spans the Chinese provinces and offers a few twists on the usual local offerings. 5110 W. Markham St. All CC. $-$$. 501-604-7777. CRAZY HIBACHI GRILL The folks that own Chi’s and Sekisui offer their best in a three-in-one: tapanaki cooking, sushi bar and sit-down dining with a Mongolian grill. 2907 Lakewood Village. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-8129888. LD daily. FANTASTIC CHINA The food is delicious, the presentation beautiful, the menu distinctive, the service perfect, the decor bright. 1900 N. Grant St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-663-8999. LD daily. GENGHIS GRILL This chain restaurant takes the Mongolian grill idea to its inevitable, Subway-style conclusion. 12318 Chenal Parkway. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$. 501-223-2695. LD daily. LILLY’S DIMSUM THEN SOME Innovative dishes inspired by Asian cuisine, utilizing local and fresh ingredients. 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-716-2700. LD daily. MT. FUJI JAPANESE RESTAURANT The dean of Little Rock sushi bars offers a fabulous lunch special and great Monday night deals. 10301 Rodney Parham Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-227-6498. LD daily. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-227-6498. OSAKA JAPANESE RESTAURANT Veteran operator of several local Asian buffets has brought fine-dining Japanese dishes and a well-stocked sushi bar to way-out-west Little Rock, near Chenal off Highway 10. 5501 Ranch Drive, Suite 1. $$-$$$. 501-868-3688. LD. PAPA SUSHI Hibachi grill with large sushi menu and Korean specialties. 17200 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-821-7272. SAIGON CUISINE Traditional Vietnamese with Thai and Chinese selections. Be sure to try to authentic pho soups and spring rolls. 6805 Cantrell Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-4000. L Tue.-Fri., D Tue.-Sun. SEOUL A full line of sushi and soft tofu stews plus a variety of Korean dishes, mainly marinated and grilled meats teamed with vegetables served with rice in bibimbap style in a sizzling-hot bowl. 5923 Kavanaugh Blvd. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-227-7222. LD Mon.-Sat. SUSHI CAFE Impressive, upscale sushi menu with other delectable house specialties like tuna tataki, fried soft shell
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OFF IN
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Businesses in Arkansas, large and small, use social media to connect with customers and sell their products and services.
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social media 201 East Markham, Suite 200 Little Rock, AR 72201
Continued on page 30 www.arktimes.com • JULY 20, 2011 29
No. 0615 Edited by Will Shortz
■ CROSSWORD
Across 1 Parting word 5 Subject with limits and functions, informally 9 SALT concern 13 Dashboard accessory 15 Nothing more than 16 Food product whose name is an example of “foreign branding” 18 Straw in the wind 19 Big A.T.M. maker 20 Frank 21 Thousand-dollar sums, slangily 22 What 16-Across has? 24 Quark-binding particle 27 Hobby farm denizens
28 Guest worker, e.g. 34 Anonymous surname 35 Mower maker 36 Annie Oakley had a good one 39 What 28-Across has? 44 Proactiv treats it 45 Swiss 5-Across pioneer 46 Ribbon-cutting event 52 Back 40 unit 53 A villain might come to one 54 WWW access option 57 Oscar winner Kedrova 58 What 46-Across has? 60 Give ___ to (approve) 61 Really out of it 62 Some chevron wearers: Abbr.
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE T S P S
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K E N N E E D SS K O N A
63 ___ breve 64 Messes up Down 1 “All the Way” lyricist 2 Computer serviced at Genius Bars 3 Way out there 4 Online “Unbelievable!” 5 Jackal or coyote 6 Extra 7 Former NPR host Hansen 8 Hoodwink 9 Sidʼs sidekick of early TV 10 Fastener for basement flooring, perhaps 11 Greyhound and others 12 Top-2% organization 14 Projectionistʼs task of old 17 Mme. counterpart 22 ___ polloi 23 Moo goo ___ pan 24 [Iʼm mad!] 25 Actor Gorcey 26 Sleazy salesmanʼs site, stereotypically 29 N.Y. summer hrs. 30 Largest U.S. union 31 Business card abbr. 32 Sound from a Yorkshire terrier 33 Aloha shirt accessory
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crab, Kobe beef and, believe it or not, the Tokyo cowboy burger. 5823 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-9888. L Mon.-Sat. D daily.
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Puzzle by Jeffrey Weschler
37 Having four sharps 38 Boss of a sales staff: Abbr. 40 Diamond complements 41 Leftorium proprietor on “The Simpsons” 42 Shylock, for one 43 Big ape
Restaurant capsules
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44 Proceeding like a lob 46 Some fundraisers 47 Piece of kabuki costumery 48 Bamboo muncher 49 Ford who was the son of Henry Ford
50 Noel who played Lois Lane 51 Home of Bollywood
54 Peepholeʼs place 55 Urge on 56 Not including 59 Last word of Romeo or Juliet
For answers, call 1-900-285-5656, $1.49 a minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800-814-5554. Annual subscriptions are available for the best of Sunday crosswords from the last 50 years: 1-888-7-ACROSS. AT&T users: Text NYTX to 386 to download puzzles, or visit nytimes.com/mobilexword for more information. Online subscriptions: Todayʼs puzzle and more than 2,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). Share tips: nytimes.com/wordplay. Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/learning/xwords.
CHATZ CAFE ‘Cue and catfish joint that does heavy catering business. Try the slow-smoked, meaty ribs. 8801 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-562-4949. LD Mon.-Sat. CORKY’S RIBS & BBQ The pulled pork is extremely tender and juicy, and the sauce is sweet and tangy without a hint of heat. Maybe the best dry ribs in the area. 12005 Westhaven Drive. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-954-7427. LD daily. 2947 Lakewood Village Drive. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-753-3737. LD daily, B Sat.-Sun. WHITE PIG INN Go for the sliced rather than chopped meats at this working-class barbecue cafe. Side orders — from fries to potato salad to beans and slaw — are superb, as are the fried pies. 5231 E. Broadway. NLR. Beer. $-$$. 501-945-5551. LD Mon.-Fri., L Sat.
EUROPEAN / ETHNIC AMRUTH AUTHENTIC INDIAN CUISINE Indian restaurant with numerous spicy, vegetarian dishes. 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-4567. LD daily. CAFE BOSSA NOVA A South American approach to sandwiches, salads and desserts, all quite good, as well as an array of refreshing South American teas and coffees. 701 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-614-6682. LD Tue.-Sat., BR Sun. DUGAN’S PUB The atmosphere is great, complete with plenty of bar seating and tables. There’s also a fireplace to warm you up on a cold day. The fried stuff is good. Try the mozzarella sticks. 403 E. 3rd St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-244-0542. GEORGIA’S GYROS Good gyros, Greek salads and fragrant grilled pita bread highlight a large Mediterranean food selection, plus burgers and the like. 2933 Lakewood Village Drive. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-753-5090. LD Mon.-Sat. HIBERNIA IRISH TAVERN This traditional Irish pub has its own traditional Irish cook from, where else, Ireland. Broad beverage menu, Irish and Southern food favorites and a crowd that likes to sing. 9700 N Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-246-4340. LAYLA’S Delicious Mediterranean fare — gyros, falafel, shawarma, kabobs, hummus and babaganush — that has a devoted following. All meat is slaughtered according to Islamic dietary law. 9501 N. Rodney Parham Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-227-7272. LD daily (close 5 p.m. on Sun.). 612 Office Park Drive. Bryant. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-847-5455. LD Mon.-Sat. TAJ MAHAL The third Indian restaurant in a one-mile span of West Little Rock, Taj Mahal offers upscale versions of traditional dishes and an extensive menu. Dishes range on the spicy side. 1520 Market Street. Beer, All CC. $$$. (501) 881-4796. LD daily. YA YA’S EURO BISTRO The first eatery to open in the Promenade at Chenal is a date-night affair, translating comfort food into beautiful cuisine. Best bet is lunch, where you can explore the menu through soup, salad or half a sandwich. 17711 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-821-1144. LD daily, BR Sun.
ITALIAN BRUNO’S LITTLE ITALY This more-than-half-century-old establishment balances continuity with innovation in delicious traditional and original fare. The pizza remains outstanding. 315 N. Bowman Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-224-4700. D Mon.-Sat. GRAFFITI’S The casually chic and ever-popular Italian-flavored bistro avoids the rut with daily specials and careful menu tinkering. 7811 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-224-9079. D Mon.-Sat. PIZZA CAFE Thin, crunchy pizza with just a dab of tomato sauce but plenty of chunks of stuff, topped with gooey cheese. Draft beer is appealing on the open-air deck — frosty and generous. 1517 Rebsamen Park Road. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-664-6133. LD daily. PIZZA D’ACTION Some of the best pizza in town, a marriage of thin, crispy crust with a hefty ingredient load. Also, good appetizers and salads, pasta, sandwiches and killer plate lunches. 2919 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-666-5403. LD daily. ROCKY’S PUB Rocking sandwiches an Arkie used to have to head way northeast to find and a fine selection of homemade Italian entrees, including as fine a lasagna as there is. 6909 JFK Blvd. NLR. Beer, Wine. $$. 501-833-1077. LD Mon.-Sat. SHOTGUN DAN’S Hearty pizza and sandwiches with a decent salad bar. Multiple locations, at 4020 E. Broadway, NLR, 945-0606; 4203 E. Kiehl Ave., Sherwood, 835-0606, and 10923 W. Markham St. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-9519. LD Mon.-Sat., D Sun. VINO’S Great rock ‘n’ roll club also is a fantastic pizzeria with huge calzones and always improving home-brewed beers. 923 W. 7th St. Beer, Wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-3758466. LD daily. ZAZA Here’s where you get wood-fired pizza with gorgeous blistered crusts and a light topping of choice and tempting ingredients, great gelato in a multitude of flavors, call-your-own ingredient salads and other treats. 5600 Kavanaugh Blvd. Beer, Wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-661-9292. LD daily. 1050 Ellis Ave. Conway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-336-9292. BLD daily.
MEXICAN CANTINA LAREDO This is gourmet Mexican food, a step up from what you’d expect from a real cantina, from the modern minimal decor to the well-prepared entrees. We can vouch for the enchilada Veracruz and the carne asada y huevos, both with tasty sauces and high quality ingredients perfectly cooked. 207 N. University. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-280-0407. LD daily. JUANITA’S Menu includes a variety of combination entree choices — enchiladas, tacos, flautas, shrimp burritos and such — plus creative salads and other dishes. And of course the “Blue Mesa” cheese dip. 614 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-372-1228. L Mon.-Fri., D Thu.-Sat. RUMBA Mexi-Cuban spot in the River Market area, this restaurant and bar has a broad menu that includes tacos and enchiladas, tapas, Cuban-style sandwiches. Specialty drinks are available also. 300 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-823-0090 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. TACO MEXICO Tacos have to be ordered at least two at a time, but that’s not an impediment. These are some of the best and some of the cheapest tacos in Little Rock. 7101 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-416-7002. LD Wed.-Sun. TACOS GUANAJUATO Pork, beef, adobado, chicharron and cabeza tacos and tortas at this mobile truck. 6920 Geyer Springs Road. No alcohol, No CC. $. LD Wed.-Mon.
30 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
JULY 20, 2011
Alex Rey of Edwards Food Giant on Cantrell.
hearsay
Local butchers a cut above BY KATHERINE WYRICK PHOTOGRAPHY BRIAN CHILSON
N
ow that you’ve got that great grill (see buying tips on page 32) ... what to put on it? In recent years, consumers have become more concerned with food quality, especially when it comes to meat. A combination of disease scares, fear of genetic modification and concerns over animal welfare have made shoppers a lot more conscious of what they’re eating. Should you buy free-range? Organic? The options seem endless. One thing’s certain, when these select butchers around town weigh in on meat matters, it’s wise to listen. ARGENTA MARKET Argenta Market has made a name for itself, in part, because of their excellent, eco-conscious meat department and focus on local products. Premium Angus beef, grass-fed beefalo, locally-raised game, premium pork, free-range poultry and house-made sausage make Argenta Market a natural go-to for quality meats. Cody Nuehlhausen, the butcher, is always happy to help with questions or custom cuts. They also stock an assortment of fresh fish and seafood including gulf shrimp, scallops, sushi-grade tuna and salmon. If you’re looking for fresh cuts of Black Angus beef, you can’t do better than their selections from Creekstone Farms in
Arkansas City, Kansas. This beef comes from animals that have been humanely treated from birth to processing. Also, all animals have been born and breed in the United States. For a quick dinner grab some of Cody’s specialty burger patties made from ground Creekstone Farms beef. In their dedicated local meats freezer you’ll find a variety of selections from local farms. Look for grass-feed meats from Armstrong Beefalo in El Paso and beef, buffalo, and elk from Ratchford Farms in Marshall. They also carry a selection of meats from Youngblood Grassfed Farm. 521 North Main St. North Little Rock (501) 379-9980 argentamarket.com
EDWARDS FOOD GIANT Most superstores now package their beef in off-site locations and add solutions to help preserve the meat during transit, which makes Edwards Food Giant somewhat of an anomaly—a chain Continued on page 33
➥ Endless summer, endless sale. Continue to enjoy BOX TURTLE’S storewide sale, 40%-75% off summer clothing and accessories and 20% off everything else. It’s going fast so get going! ➥ Get your kicks. Head out to VESTA’S on Thursday, July 21, 5 p.m., for a Beer & Boots Girl’s Night Out. Every cowgirl knows that Vesta’s is the place to score cowboy kicks ’round these parts. ➥ Home on the range. CANTRELL GALLERY presents “Arkansas and the Range of Light,” a photographic study by Paul Caldwell of Little Rock. Check out the opening night reception Friday, July 22, 6:00–8:00 p.m. where you can meet the artist and view a collection of amazing Arkansas scenes. Enjoy refreshments and live music by Diane and Barry McVinney. Exhibit will remain on display through September 3. ➥ New belle on the block. A new home décor store called EMBELLISH just popped up in Pleasant Ridge Shopping Center. ➥ Bliss a miss. After less than two months in business, BLISS BOUTIQUE in the Heights (next to Ms. Polka Dot) is closing its doors. Official close date will likely be during the first week of August.
ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES • JULY 20, 2011 31
Cooking Simplified Great cooking gadgets from around town
Hamilton Beach 908 Bar Blender from KREBS BROS. The revolutionary Looftlighter ignites wood or coal in seconds. Get ’em while they’re hot at KEN RASH!
Cookbooks from HEIFER GIFT SHOP.
Grill guy Scott Phillips of Ken Rash's Casual Furniture.
Fair trade salad serving set handmade in Kenya and fair trade felt potholder from Nepal from HEIFER GIFT SHOP.
DO make a Rash decision
Zoku Quick Popsicle Maker from EGGSHELLS (freezes pops on the spot!).
when choosing a grill
Kuhn Rikon Melon Knife Colori from EGGSHELLS.
BY KATHERINE WYRICK PHOTOGRAPHY BRIAN CHILSON
Spring And Summer Shoe Sale
F F O 1/ 2 H u g e
ion s t c e l Se Style s •
Color • s e Siz
Real Prices • Real Savings www.shoeconnectiononline.com
2806 Lakewood ViLLage dr., NLr 501-753-8700 9100 N rodNey Parham, Lr 501-225-6242 32 JULY 20, 2011 • ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES
T
he only thing that can get this CUE staffer outside in this heat is the promise of food—specifically the grilled kind. Grilling brings out flavors in vegetables and meats (and, yes, even, fruit!) simply not possible with other cooking methods, and the process itself is as inseparable from summer as swatting mosquitoes (though much more pleasant). We recently consulted with Ken Rash’s resident grill expert, Scott Phillips, to help us navigate the wide world of grills.
CUE: Do you have a personal favorite? SP: My favorite grill is the Hasty Bake charcoal grill. It has a floating firebox that is adjustable to many heights, so you can grill, bake or smoke on it.
CUE: Which raises the eternal question, charcoal or gas? SP: It really just depends on personal preference. Some people think charcoal is messy and less convenient. The biggest difference is that charcoal gives you a lot more flavor. CUE: What’s the most popular grill CUE: Are all grills you sell? created equal? Scott Phillips: Smile for me daddy SP: Not all grills are That would be the (What ya lookin at) created equal. Some Big Green Egg. It is a Let me see ya grill are made to sell at the ceramic kamado style (let you see my what?) big box stores and are cooker that is all the ya,ya grill ya ya ya grill only meant to last a searage and even has a —Nelly, “Grillz” son or two. That way cult following. The they can sell you a new sealed ceramic holds grill every year or two. The specialty manufacin the heat and moisture and the shape allows turers design and build grills to last a lifetime, the heat to circulate. Everyone says it’s the not just a few seasons. For this reason they tend easiest grill to use. to be priced higher than the mass merchants. Plus the specialty store gives the customer CUE: What should you look for when more than just a grill; they offer great customer buying a grill? service for repairs when necessary and warSP: When you are looking to buy a ranty work when it needs to be done, on top of gas grill, look at the overall construction. personal service and cooking tips and advice. Aluminum and stainless steel are the best materials to withstand the elements. Cooking Ken Rash’s Casual Furniture grids and burners should be made of stainless 7214 Cantrell Rd. steel so they can withstand the heat and grease (501) 663-1818 kenrashoutdoorfurniture.com inside the grill.
Storewide SALe
40-75%
OFF
Summer Clothing & Accessories
20% OFF Everything Else
2616 Kavanaugh Blvd. • Little Rock • 501.661.1167 • www.shopboxturtle.com
Nathan Horn, Meat Market Manager of Terry’s Finer Foods in the Heights.
MEAT & GREET Continued from page 31
who cuts their meat right in the stores. You won’t see an ingredients label on their beef, because it’s not needed. It’s just meat! Alex, Rey, butcher at Edwards Food Giant’s Cantrell location, takes pride in his profession and his products. Rey, who’s been in this profession for 20 years, honed his skills in his homeland, the land of beef— Argentina. Rey, who hails from Mendoza, says, “Yes, it was a good place to learn,” and smiles at the understatement. Rey, who’s been with Edwards for three years, holds himself with a dignity and speaks with authority on the subject of meat. ““We have good prices and high quality. We have a special at the moment, five packages of meat for $20, frozen and fresh.” He continues, “We sell only Certified Angus Beef. We also have natural pork, and we make our own sausage here fresh everyday.” He points to rows of sausages, stacked neatly in their case, and says, “We have jalapeño, Italian, pork chorizo, chicken jalapeño sausage, bratwurst . . . polish sausage.” Rey himself is partial to the chicken sausage and bratwurst. He gestures to the seafood section and proudly states, “We also have fresh seafood; it’s never been frozen.” Even the tilapia? “Yes, even the tilapia, the grouper, the farm-raised Atlantic salmon, the halibut and tuna.” When it comes to beef, Rey says he likes a New York strip best but says his customers love their ribeyes. Pork loin is also very popular among customers. He adds, “People around this neighborhood say our tenderloins are the very best.” Grillers take note: Rey says that the biggest mistake people make when cooking a steak is overcooking. Tanglewood 7507 Cantrell Rd. (501) 614-3477 edwardsfoodgiant.com
TERRY’S FINER FOODS The first thing you notice about Terry’s meat market is that it has a distinctly French
feel (note the splayed rabbit in the corner, innards spilling out of the chest cavity). Nathan Horn, manager and meat cutter, concedes that it may look a bit different but that Terry’s meat market has always put quality first. Horn, one of two meat cutters now in his 12th year at Terry’s, says, “We just carry the best stuff. [since Lex Golden bought the store] we offer new choices; we’ve adding Waguy* cuts, aged beef, rabbit and fresh veal.” Horn admits that he’s not a big meat eater himself, but that he does enjoy a good steak on occasion. (An interesting side note: the butcher he trained under was a vegetarian!) Asked about his favorite cut, Horn says, “I love bone-in ribeyes. There’s so much you can do with them. You can cook them in the oven, you can grill them. They’ve got that great bone-in flavor and are perfect for dinner parties. I’m a ribeye fella. And now that we’re aging meat, it just gives it a whole new flavor.” Horn explains that they use trimmings from their ribeyes and tenderloins to make their ground beef. “That’s why our ground beef’s so good,” he says, “It’s something different to go on the grill. You can eat it like a hamburger or serve it as a chopped sirloin.” In the case now are delectable looking Portobello and smoked Gouda sirloin patties, just waiting for a cookout. “We also make bratwurst and Italian sausage,” adds Horn. As for meat from grass-fed cows, Horn says, “We’re looking into bringing that in, customers have expressed an interest in that and it’s something we want to try, but right now we’re really focusing on our aging process.”
shop local
support your community Small Town
501-225-M2LR M2LR.COM
5018 Kavanaugh Blvd. (501) 663-4152
*Wagyu beef is beef grown from Wagyu cattle. It was once nearly exclusively raised in Kobe, Japan, where it is considered the premium cut of beef because of its extensive marbling. In fact, while American Prime beef, the most expensive cut, is graded a 6 on a marbling scale of 1-12, Wagyu beef tends to be graded at 12, making it a very rich cut of meat. ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES • JULY 20, 2011 33
bydesign BY KATHERINE WYRICK PHOTOGRAPHY BRIAN CHILSON
by design (n.) A place where we check in with tastemakers about town, from decorators to clothes designers and others in between.
Krebs Brothers Keeping Arkansas kitchens well equipped for 75 years
I
n 1933, Leo Krebs founded Krebs Brothers Supply Company in downtown Little Rock. In the early years of the company, the place looked more like hardware store, locks and paint included. As years passed, however, Krebs Brothers evolved into the number one restaurant equipment supply company in Arkansas. They soon expanded their customer base to include hotels, hospitals and schools. Wally Gieringer Jr. joined Krebs in 1995, and his daughter, Jill Clarke, came on board two years later. When the company moved to its new, more spacious digs in North Little Rock in 2006, it was the beginning of another chapter in the rich history of Krebs Brothers. The move finally gave them the opportunity to open a retail outlet, which they did in July 2008, causing home cooks all over the area to rejoice and wildly wave their spatulas in the air. We recently caught up with Clark to ask how Krebs has evolved and what she keeps in her own well-stocked kitchen.
years I was in outside sales. My territory was pretty much north of I-40. I was out of the office two to three days a week visiting schools, hospitals and restaurants. In late 2005, Krebs began the move to NLR. At that time, I took on the title of Store Manager. I assisted in the design of our current retail store. I still do some purchasing for our retail lines that require travel to market in Dallas, but basically focus on day-to-day operations in store as well as our marketing.
CUE: Tell us about your own personal history with the business. Jill Clark: I began working at Krebs in the fall of 1997 after I graduated from college. It was only supposed to be a temporary fix until they found more help, but I’ve been here ever since. We were located off of 12th street in Little Rock then. I’ve done a little of everything; I’ve helped with basic office work, shipping and receiving, inventory management and purchasing. For several
CUE: What are a few kitchen items you can’t live without? JC: My paring knives. For years, Krebs has gotten calls looking for “that little red handle knife.” It’s made by Victorinox (Swiss Army Brands), and is hard to beat. Others ... my GIANT cutting board. It won’t even fit into my cabinets but makes prepping lots of veggies at once so easy! I also love my new stainless cookware! Cooking with it—as opposed to the coated aluminum I’d been
Jill’s Top 5 My daughter Diet Coke iPhone Air conditioning! Pizza
Jill Clark carries on the Krebs tradition. using—took some adjusting, but I love it! CUE: This might be a given, but do you enjoy cooking? If so, what do you like to make? JC: Yes! I love trying new recipes that I find online, in a cookbook or through one of our gourmet food reps. I’ve reached the point where I make most things with only fresh meat and produce and rarely buy any canned goods. CUE: How has the business changed since you’ve been involved? JC: The biggest change is probably our store. Anyone that visited the location in Little Rock can tell you that it was set up kind of like an old hardware store. The new store is much larger and user-friendly. Also, when I started working at Krebs, there were only two other women working at the company, one who’d been there nearly 50
years. I’m the only one still around from those days, but now there are several of us. As far as trends, I have seen a lot more homeowners taking interest in cooking. People see things on the Food Network, etc., and come into the store looking for the same things. Downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock have also changed a lot since I started here. When I began at Krebs, the Rivermarket was just beginning to attract restaurants. I remember working with both Sonny Williams and the Underground Pub before they opened, as well as the Clinton Presidential Library.
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34 JULY 20, 2011 • ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES
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NATIVES GUIDE Menswear
Mr. Wick’s The classic men’s clothing store, from the various styles of shirts and ties you’ll find on its shelves down to the hardwood floors and decor. When 36 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
GRAV WELDON
T
here comes a time in every young man’s life when he thinks to himself, “I look like a slob and I should probably do something about that.” The college days are over. You’re settling into a new job or career. That really cool “Less than Jake” shirt won’t really be appropriate in most of the social situations you’ll find yourself in and it doesn’t even fit like it used to anyway. But if you want to start building your wardrobe into something respectable, where do you start? One obstacle is shopping. It’s tedious, boring and most guys can’t even stand the thought of it. It’s also expensive, especially if you want to buy quality items that will last. But there are a few rules you can follow that will help you build up a suitable wardrobe with as little pain as possible. For one, when you talk about classic men’s fashion, there are certain things that never go out of style. Think about a blue oxford shirt, a navy wool tie, dark brown cap-toe Oxford shoes or a herringbone jacket. These things have been in style for decades and they probably will be for decades to come. Second, buy quality when you can. It may seem silly to spend $450 on a pair of Alden or Allen Edmonds shoes. But think of it this way: Take care of those shoes and you can probably wear them for 20 years. The cost evens out to buying numerous pairs of crappy shoes over time. Once you have a solid pair of brown shoes, that means no brown shoe shopping for 20 years. Third, another thing that will help you save money is making a list of everything you need. When one of those items goes on sale, buy it. For some more notes on what makes a basic wardrobe, there are some helpful blogs out there, including Put This On (at www.putthison.com), A Suitable Wardrobe (http://asuitablewardrobe. dynend.com/), Die Workwear! (http:// dieworkwear.tumblr.com/) and the London-based Permanent Style (http:// www.permanentstyle.co.uk/).
you try on shoes here, you don’t just saddle up on the nearest stool; you’re escorted into a side room, complete with a wooden end table, decorative lamp and a couple of shoe horns to choose from. The staff is friendly, knowledgeable and very helpful. Prices are high, but not exorbitant. Ties in classic styles can be found for around $75. There’s also a wide array of suits, belts, hats and sport coats. Most of the items are fairly expensive for a young man on a budget, but if you need a quality item in a pinch, Mr. Wick’s is a great place to go. Suits here start at about $350. 5924 R Street. Cash, check or credit cards. 501-664-3062. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. Bauman’s The word here is expensive. If you’re not looking to spend $100 on a shirt, maybe Bauman’s isn’t the place for you. However, if you’ve got some disposable income and don’t recoil at the site of a $900 price tag dangling from fine Italian leather shoes (these are at the upper end of the price spectrum, of course; other pairs are available for much less), then this is the ticket. The owners of Bauman’s pride themselves on selecting the best quality items at every price point, so while some things might be on the expensive side, you can be confident that these are quality items that will look good and last. One great thing about Bauman’s is it has its own line of suits that start out (including alterations) for $599. That’s not bad for a suit, especially one you can have tailored to fit just right. It’s also a much higher-quality suit than you’ll find at warehouse stores like Jos. A. Bank.
BAUMAN’S If you’re looking for fitted shirts, Bauman’s will take your measurements and have shirts made just for you, starting at around $150. 8201 Cantrell Road. Cash, check or credit cards. 501-227-8797 www.baumans.com. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon. and Sat., 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Fri. Greenhaw’s You’ll find a good balance between quality and price here with quality merchandise, but lower price tags than you’ll find at most other stores. There are basics for those concerned with building a wardrobe and some hipper, flashier items for those of you who like to add a little something extra to what you wear. What stands out here is customer service. If you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for, just talk to the staff. They’ll walk you through an outfit, from matching the pocket square to jacket, shirt to tie, shoes to slacks. Greenhaw’s also carries Allen Edmonds, the only handmade brand of dress shoes in the United States other than Alden. Allen Edmonds shoes are relatively affordable, of great quality and based on the same classic style you’ll find with Alden. If you’re looking for a lower price point, Greenhaw’s has plenty of other brands in classic styles to get you going. Look for suits here to range between $450 to $1,200. Also, look for fitted shirts to start around $135. 10301 Rodney Parham. Cash, check or credit cards. 501-227-8703. www.greenhawsmenswear.com. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon.Fri., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat. Jos. A. Bank If you look around many men’s fashion blogs, you’ll find a good
number of them trash Jos. A. Bank. Now, there’s probably good reason for that. In terms of classic men’s fashion, the Bank will keep in stock what they think will sell: mainly middle-aged country club type stuff. However, you can pick up a lot of classic items that hold up well and won’t cost you an arm and a leg, especially if you watch out for sales. One of the best items you’ll find at Jos. A. Bank is a line of no-iron, wrinklefree dress shirts. Just wash these with your other dress shirts, dry on the light cycle and you’ll never have to touch them afterward. They’re expensive, running around $89 when they’re not on sale, but if time is money, these things will be good for your wallet in the long run. From time to time, the store has half-price sales, so you can grab these up, as well as basic ties and pocket squares, for reasonable prices. 203 N. University Avenue and 12800 Chenal Parkway. Cash, check or credit cards. 501-614-9487, 501-225-5524. www. josabank.com. 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 12 p.m.-6 p.m. Sun. Goodwill Never underestimate the power of a good thrift store. Every now and again you’ll find a great sport coat, or maybe even a suit at a thrift store. A lot of thrift stores separate suits, so if you find a jacket you like, go ahead and search the pants section for the matching pair. Once in a blue moon you’ll find some great ties too. Cash, check or credit cards. Check www.goodwillar.org for locations and hours. Evolve Here you’ll find more modern styles, but there’s a vintage section in the back that’s worth a look. Great classic ties, picked up from vintage stores, are on sale here for $15-$18. The store has lots of classic patterns and textures, including polka dot ties and wool and knit varieties in many different colors. Be careful if you’re a bigger guy, though. Most of these are skinny ties. Also, if you’re looking for a good pair of worn-in cowboy boots, Evolve has vintage boots in spades. 207 N University Ave. Cash, check or credit cards. 501-661-0644. www.shoplikeaman.net. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1 p.m.-6 p.m. Sun.
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Share the Road
For Cyclists Share the road Tips for SAFE cycling on the road.
• Bicycles are vehicles on the road, just like cars and motorcycles. Cyclists must obey all traffic laws. Arkansas Uniform Vehicle Code #27-49-111 • Cyclists must signal, ride on the right side of the road and yield to traffic normally. Bicycles are vehicles on the road, Code #27-51-301/403 just like must cars have andamotorcycles. • Bicycles white headlight and a red tail light visible fromall 500traffic feet and have a Cyclist should obey laws. bell or warning device for pedestrians. Arkansas Uniform Vehicle Code #27Code #27-36-220 49-111 • Make eye contact with motorists. Be visible. Be predictable. Head up, think ahead. Cyclists should signal, ride on the • On the Big Dam Bridge... go slow. right side Represent! of the road, and yield to traffic other • As younormally pass, say “Onlike yourany left... thankroad you.” • On the River vehicle. CodeTrail... #27-51-301/403 use a safe speed, don’t Share the Road intimidate or scare others. Watch for dogs Give 3 feet ofCyclists clear space when and For leashes.
Tips for PREVENTING injury or death.
For to moreacycling information... Tips for(up SAFE the road. passing $1000on fine!) Bicycle Advocacyonofthe Arkansas • Bicycles are vehicles road, just like Code #27-51-311 www.bacar.org
cars andLeague motorcycles. Cyclists must obey of American Bicyclists
allwww.bikeleague.org/programs/education trafficby laws. Uniform Code Cyclist lawArkansas can not rideVehicle on the #27-49-111 sidewalk in some areas, some bikes • Cyclists must signal, ride on the right side can roads of theonly roadhandle and yieldsmooth to traffic normally. Code cracks, #27-51-301/403 (no potholes, trolley tracks). • Bicycles must have a white headlight and a LR Ord.#32-494
red tail light visible from 500 feet and have a
bell or warning devicewith for pedestrians. Make eye contact cyclists. Code #27-36-220
Drive • Makepredictably. eye contact with motorists. Be vis-
ible. Be predictable. Head up, think ahead.
Please ghost bikes. • On the prevent Big Dam Bridge... go slow. www.ghostbikes.org Represent!
• As you pass, say “On your left... thank you.” For more information: • On the River Trail... use a safe speed, don’t Bicycle Arkansas intimidate orAdvocacy scare others.ofWatch for dogs and leashes.www.bacar.org For more information...
League American Bicyclists BicycleofAdvocacy of Arkansas www.bacar.org www.bikeleague.org/programs/ League of American Bicyclists www.bikeleague.org/programs/education education
Ozark
Water
Turning your used and new shoes into clean drinking water.
To schedule a shoe drive at your business, church or school, contact us at:
(501) 733-6587 or (501) 231-1504
Projects The Ozark Water Projects team will export your donated shoes to distributers in South America, Haiti and Kenya. Shoe resale builds the local developing economy with micro-businesses and affordable shoes for pennies on the dollar or barter. Affordable shoes are a life-saving tool as they protect the new owner’s feet and overall health from foot abrasions, parasites and mites. Funds generated are used to purchase well-digging rigs, water filtration systems and other supplies to bring clean, fresh water to those in need.
Ozark Water Projects is a 501 c3 charity based in Little Rock, Arkansas. They work in conjunction with Shoeman Water Projects to provide affordable footwear and cup of clean, fresh water for those who thirst. For more information on Shoeman Water Projects, check out www.shoeman.org
Why aren’t there more mentors for our Latino youth?
Michel Leidermann Moderator
EL LATINO Program AETN-TV 10:30 pm, Sunday July 24 Broadcast in Spanish www.arktimes.com • july 20, 2011 37
Who or what, how or why n With Assmunch on the rubber chicken and at the Town Halls: Q. I just graduated last month, and wonder what my chances are of landing a decent job. A. Not good, unless you aspire to one that’ll have you wearing a paper hat for about 50 years. Q. You could hire me? A. To do what? Q. I don’t know. Personal security? A. Against who? Q. The weasels. A. You can’t defend against the weasels. They’re like the plague or tribbles or the Antichrist or sweetgum balls. Q. I’d make a good member of your posse. A. One of my goons? My gorillas? Q. Yes, sir. A. Barking up the wrong tree, son. Public-print scribes don’t have posses. Q. I’ve heard Tucker Carlson started out as a posse member of a newspaper guy named Mr. G. A. In the trade that’s what they call a cautionary tale.
Bob L ancaster Q. Well ... A. Here’s something you might look into. A position for newbies called “intern.” Best thing about it, no withholding. Q. Any tips for what to put on my resume? A. In the space where you’re asked what you hope to be doing five years from now, don’t write in: “Sticking it to the Man.” Q. Has there ever been anybody that understood the big mess they call “the economy” and how it can go as haywire as it has? A. The last one who mastered it completely, knew it like the back of his hand, was Wilbur Mills. Seems like only yesterday. And he did it without the help of a computer. Not one Google available to him when he was ciphering out Medicare. But it finally whipped him too, like it does
SEE THE ARKANSAS BLOG FOR LATE-BREAKING NEWS & EVENTS www.arktimes.com
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
Bridge of Faith Hospice & Palliative Care, LLC is seeking caring and compassionate volunteers to provide “A Special Kind of Caring” for terminally ill patients and their families.
For Orientation & Training, please call Bridge of Faith Hospice 657 Oakland Avenue Helena, AR 72342 (870)572-4333
Temporary/Seasonal (Aug.-Dec.) Full Time Account Representative (8am-5pm)
for the Heart of Arkansas United Way. Perfect for the recent college graduate or retiree. Duties will include account research, development and management. Qualified applicants will have a college degree, be outgoing, have excellent public speaking skills, be knowledgeable of computers, work well as part of a team, and be able to perform a variety of other tasks. Pay based on experience and qualifications.
Please send cover letter, resume, and references by July 29, 2011 to: Campaign Department, P.O. Box 3257, Little Rock, AR 72203-3257
38 JULY 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES 38 july 20, 2011 • ARKANSAS TIMES
everybody. Drove him to drink, and worse. Q. Call me a pessimist, Bubba, but I think it’s all fixing to come crashing down, the whole nine yards, and we’re all just royally screwed. A. I think so too. And sooner rather than later. Even now I’m restocking my Homeland Security bunker, knowing how foolish, how futile, that is. Comes the time when an ounce of turnip is worth more than a brick of gold, y’all’ll be coming after my stash with pitchforks and flambeaux, I know that. I want to think I’ll go down fighting but I probably won’t. Q. Who — or what — is behind all this craziness? A. It’s them weasels. Only a handful of them at first, darting about furtively as is the weasel wont. It was even semiamusing. Then more and more of them. And they were about as amusing as piranhas or zombies. Now they’re all over you like green flies or dog-peter gnats. Out of the woodwork, out from under rocks. They’re going to tear it all down because that’s what they do. Better people, publicspirited people, built it up, and broadened it to an unprecedented inclusiveness, and maintained it through generations; and all the contemporary weasels can think of is drowning it in the bathtub. Q. What’s your favorite Bible verse? A. First Corinthians 13:11. Q. How about John 11:35? A. Impressive for its conciseness. But
C
lachrymose. Q. You don’t remember how or why we got into this Afghanistan war, do you? Nobody else I’ve asked does. A. Wasn’t it something about letting little girls go to school? A trillion dollars ago; mighty fuzzy at this distance. Q. You know down at the lick log that this Yarnell’s going-out-of-business business was somehow or other President [N-word]’s fault. What’s the back-story there? A.You need to talk to your congressman about that. Doesn’t matter which one. All six members of the Arkansas congressional delegation are the same guy, working from the same script. He’ll fix you right up. Ask for the brochure. It has all the relevant talking points. Q. What are talking points, exactly? A. It’s yap disguised as discourse. It’s the voluntary giving over of your brain to a collective to give a prepared answer in your voice when a question is asked of you. It’s like a Xanax or automatic pilot. But if you get too dependent on it, your mind can absquatulate to a permanent vacation on Gilligan’s Isle when you’re least expecting it — when you’re announcing your presidential candidacy, say. When that happens, you suddenly might not know the difference between John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy. It can make you appear almost as dumb as you actually are.
S
LASSIFIED LASSIFIED
Field Workers-12 temp. positions; approx 10 months; Duties: to clean culvert with shovel, backpack spraying of crop, planting of cane by hand and to operate farming equipment in the fields during the sugar cane planting season. $8.97 per hour; Job to begin on 8/10/11 through 6/10/12. 3 months experience required. All work tools provided. Housing and transportation provided to workers who can not reasonably return to their permanent residence at the end of the work day; _ guaranteed of contract. Employment offered by Hebert Bros. Farms, Inc. located in Thibodaux, LA. Qualified applicants may call employer for interview (985)4473162 or may apply for this position at their nearest State Workforce Agency using job order # 387672. For more info regarding your nearest SWA you may call (501) 682-7719.
Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mt now hiring experienced Line cook. Must be able to work days, nights and weekends. Benefited, full time position. Salary commensurate with experience. Send resume to WRI, 1 Rockefeller Drive, Morrilton 72110 or email to hwelch@uawri.org or jfix@uawri.org . Web site http://livethelegacy.org/.
Employment
Field Workers-5 temp. positions; approx 5 months; Duties: to operate tractors during the preparation and maintenance of the sugar cane fields for the harvesting season and during the harvesting season. $8.97 per hour; Job to begin on 9/1/11 through 1/31/12. 3 months experience required in job offered. All work tools provided. Housing and transportation provided to workers who can not reasonably return to their permanent residence at the end of the work day; _ guaranteed of contract. Employment offered by Freyou Trucking located in New Iberia, LA. Qualified applicants may call employer for interview (337)380-1356 or may apply for this position at their nearest State Workforce Agency using job order # 387673. For more info regarding your nearest SWA you may call (501) 682-7719. $$$HELP WANTED$$$ Extra Income! Assembling CD cases from Home! No Experience Necessary! Call our Live Operators Now! 1-800-405-7619 EXT 2450 http://www.easywork-greatpay. com (AAN CAN) HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER AP CHEMISTRY. Available in Little Rock, AR with the Little Rock School District. Instruct in the subject of AP Chemistry. Bachelor degree, five yrs of experience, and current Arkansas Physical/ Earth Science 7-12\cf2 \cf0 Teacher Certification required. Contact: Robert Robinson \endash Recruiting Specialist HUMAN RESOURCES, Little Rock School District, 810 W Markham, Little Rock, AR 72201 or fax (501)-447-1162
Miscellaneous
Human Resource Mgr position. Qualifications: Strong Solid HR Mgnt experience in transportation industry, growth oriented entity, good knowledge of EEOC and Federal & State (TX & Ark) employment laws. Experience with 100+ employees, multi-office locations and safety knowledge a plus. Salary Commensurate to experience and knowledge. Mail resume to P.O. Box 565, Quitman, AR 72131. ì Babysitter needed Urgently for 3kids, salary $580/week. access to car. good working experience. for more details please respond via email to sm620955@gmail.com Paid In Advance! Make $1,000 a Week mailing brochures from home! Guaranteed Income! FREE Supplies! No experience required. Start Immediately! www.homemailerprogram.net (AAN CAN)
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Legal Notices Notice of Filing Application for restaurant wine & beer permit. Notice is hereby given that the undersigned has filed with the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division of the State of Arkansas applications for a permit to sell and serve beer and wine with food, only for consumption on premises, at:14810 Cantrell Road, Suite 140 Little Rock, Pulaski County. Said application was filed on June 23, 2011. The undersigned states that he is a resident of Arkansas, of good moral character; that he has never been convicted of a felony or other crime involving moral turpitude; that no license to sell alcoholic beverages by the undersigned has ever been revoked within five (5)years last past; and, that the undersigned has never been convicted of violating the laws of this State, or any other State, relative to the sale of controlled beverages. Chau-Wei Chang for Forbidden Garden Chinese Restaurant
Condos for Rent Furnished Condo with Penthouse view. 1 BR Rivermarket. $900/mo. Tenent only pays electric. Gated Parking. No Pets. Tom:501-912-5706
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Heart Connections Brings you
SATURDAY JULY 30 10 AM - 6 PM
SUNDAY JULY 31 11 AM - 5 PM
501-955-2063
Sharpump@aol.com www.sharlettepumphrey.coM NLR Community Center, 2700 Willow Street North Little Rock, AR 72114 Admission: $5.00 ($2.00 OFF with this ad)
The Arkansas Times is pleased to sponsor Liam’s Little League
2011 Arkansas Walk Now for Autism Speaks
Find the nearest happy hour any time. Hundreds of places to choose from! Search for “Arkansas Times” in the app store.
www.WalkNowForAutismSpeaks.org/Arkansas
Teams Forming NOW for October walk.
Restaurants with changes, corrections or for more information email cocktailcompass@arktimes.com Presented by your drinking buddies at
www.arktimes.com • July 20, 2011 39
Better together Bringing AT&T customers a stronger network faster. AT&T customers, including those who join us from T-Mobile, will see significant service improvements from the merger. The addition of T-Mobile’s spectrum resources and thousands of cell sites will quickly increase capacity and coverage, resulting in better call reliability and data speeds. Mobile data traffic on AT&T’s network has grown 8,000% over the last four years. With tablets, cloud computing, and a new generation of bandwidth-hungry devices on the horizon, demand is expected to increase an additional 8-10 times by 2015. Integrating T-Mobile’s network resources, while continuing AT&T’s network investment, is the surest, fastest, and most efficient way to meet this challenge.
Continued innovation for T-Mobile customers. Through the integration with AT&T, T-Mobile customers can continue to enjoy innovative technologies, devices, and services for many years to come. They will have the freedom to keep their existing pricing plans and phones, and will benefit in the future with expanded capabilities. T-Mobile customers will also benefit from network enhancements — such as improved coverage in remote regions and access to AT&T’s planned next generation networks.
Reaching more of Arkansas with LTE. LTE technology is a super-fast way to connect to the Internet. The combination of AT&T and T-Mobile will allow AT&T to expand its LTE wireless broadband network to cover over 95% of Arkansas residents. That means one million more people in Arkansas, many in small towns and rural areas, will get access to LTE due to the merger. Our customers will get a stronger network. The state will get a new choice for broadband. And more of Arkansas will get access to a cutting-edge wireless network and all the opportunities it brings.
MobilizeEverything.com
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