Arkansas Times | December 2019

TOAST OF THE TOWN | RACE AND ANTI-UNIONISM | BEST-SELLING CANNABIS

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2 DECEMBER 2019

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DECEMBER 2019 3

DECEMBER 2019

47 FEATURES 28 THE BEST AND WORST OF 2019

Our annual look back at what went down (or up) in Arkansas this year.

By David Koon

47 TOAST OF THE TOWN Our best of bar list.

9 THE FRONT

Q&A: Emmarie Gates The Inconsequential News Quiz: The “Don’t Stop Believin’ Edition.”

Orval: Congressmen on a leash The Big Picture: The Soophie Family Tree

19 THE TO-DO LIST

Catherine Russell at South on Main, Craft Guild Showcase at the fairgrounds, Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives at CHARTS, ASO offers “Home Alone.”

62 CULTURE

Kensuke Yamada puts ma in his art.

By Leslie Newell Peacock

Matt Besser, cannabis comedian.

By Rebekah Hall

73 HISTORY

Anti-union and racism in Little Rock.

By Michael C. Pierce

79 CANNABIZ Best sellers.

By Rebekah Hall

25 NEWS & POLITICS 88 CROSSWORD In memoriam: John W. Walker.

By Ernest Dumas

90 THE OBSERVER A year at the picture show.

ON THE COVER: Chad Morris, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Jeremy Hutchinson. Photo illustration by Mandy Keener.

4 DECEMBER 2019

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THE FRONT Q&A

Menstruators Unite

Emmarie Gates is tackling period poverty in Arkansas.

Why did a book about period poverty inspire you? Why not, say, a book you read about the Amazon rainforest?

Because it’s a problem that I know I could do something to help. With the Amazon rainforest, other issues like that, I could raise money, but this is something where I could actually see the results, and help my community specifically. Unlike a lot of other issues, this is solvable. You can do something about it, you just need to take steps toward that. And I just thought, “If it’s not in Arkansas, I want to bring it here.”

What did you do first?

Well, the first step was reading that book, which was in our school library. After that, I talked to my friends, and they were actually excited about it.

Once I got that feedback, I went to my librarian and she told me how to start a club.

BRIAN CHILSON

If you needed further proof that school librarians can be pivotal forces in young people’s lives, ask 16-year-old Emmarie Gates. When Gates’ librarian at Joe T. Robinson High School in Little Rock handed her a copy of Nadya Okamoto’s “Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement” earlier this year, Gates was shocked at the facts Okamoto cited: that one in four menstruators struggle to afford period products, or that 35 states in the U.S. still tax pads, tampons and other period products as “nonessential” items. Now, Gates is the founder of the first Arkansas chapter of Period, a movement that works to distribute tampons, pads and menstrual cups to those in need, and to educate people about the need for increased access to period products in schools and shelters. We talked with Gates following a National Period Day rally at the state Capitol in October.

Name: Emmarie Gates Hometown: Little Rock Age: 16 Favorite movie: “White Christmas”

might have barriers to accessing these products?

So, before National Period Day, a lady reached out to me — a grad student named Katie Clark — and asked to get involved, and kind of became our outreach coordinator. She’s amazing.

She reached out to Our House and to Arkansas Women’s Outreach, and organizations like that will take these [donated] products and make them into “period packs,” and then we go out to shelters to distribute them, or we give them to shelters — or to schools in need — to distribute. Shelters aren’t allowed to use federal or state money to buy period products the way they can buy other hygiene products, and you can’t use SNAP to buy them, so people end up resorting to unsanitary methods, like cardboard. It can open them up to other medical problems. Someone said to me, “We always expect women to have it all figured out. To always have period products.” This is something that we don’t talk about. They’re expensive.

What is the “tampon tax?”

The tampon tax is the luxury tax on period products overall. So, like everything else, it’s taxed, but it’s taxed as “nonessential.”

Obviously, it’s essential. If you don’t think period products are essential, you’re living in a bubble. The idea that they’re luxury items is something we need to fight against.

You held a rally at the state Capitol in October on National Period Day to raise awareness of the ways in which period poverty affects Arkansans, and to start doing something about it. How’d it go?

We had around 100 people show up, and got almost 200 boxes of products donated. Our speakers were probably my favorite part, and they Is anyone else in your age talking about this? came from a range of places — a representative What was the reaction?

Career/college aspirations: Get a from a shelter, a therapist who focuses on Everybody that I talked to was unaware of it. People scholarship to study pre-med PMS issues. It was awesome to open up those don’t realize this is an issue because we don’t talk conversations. I did a TV interview and got a lot about periods. Adults, too. of hate on the station’s Facebook page. I started reading the comments, which is not a good idea.

There is a stigma about talking about periods.

I think the main thing I took away from it is that people need to be How do you approach the subject? I mean, it’s a little different than educated. People were like, “Oh, your mother needs to be helping you saying, “Hey, I’m raising money for cancer research,” right? with this,” and it’s like, it’s too late to fix that problem. We’re trying Well, I like to talk about the statistics I got from the National Period to help these girls not miss school. I can’t miss school for one day Day rallies, because they are such jarring statistics. One in four without falling behind, and the idea of someone missing a week every women struggled to afford period products last year. One in five girls month is ridiculous. missed school because they didn’t have period products. And they did a citywide study in St. Louis — the first citywide study on period What’s the sort of pie-in-the-sky goal here? What would you love to poverty. Forty-six percent of [low-income] women there had to choose see happen? between buying food or buying period products. That’s a lot of people.

To have period products accessible in schools everywhere, and in It is an uncomfortable topic to talk about, for sure. I have to push shelters everywhere, and to get rid of the tampon tax. That would be the myself to talk about it more. You have to create that space, and when dream.

— Stephanie Smittle you do, a lot of people will actually talk about their periods.

Favorite book: the “Throne of Glass” series

What are the mechanics of this work? What organizations do you partner with to get connected to unsheltered people or students who

To donate or get involved, follow Period at RHS and Period Little Rock on social media, or email periodlittlerock@gmail.com.

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 9

THE FRONT

INCONSEQUENTIAL NEWS QUIZ

Don’t Stop Believin’ Edition Play at home, while thinking of what Harriet would do.

1) An 11-member task force that had been meeting since April recently gave its recommendations for changes to Little Rock city government to the Little Rock City Board. Which of the following are among the recommendations the task force made?

A) Starting an economy-destroying, completely unnecessary trade war with Maumelle.

B) Adding a badass loop-de-loop for motorists to zoom through along Seventh Street.

C) Any time Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) enters the city limits, he should be followed by a choir singing the Veruca Salt Oompa-Loompa Song from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”

D) The mayor should be given more power to make decisions and the size of the city board should be reduced.

2) Something had to be trapped and relocated after it was recently seen in the stacks at Arkansas State University’s Dean B. Ellis Library.

What was it?

A) The rarely seen Lower Delta Spotted Merkin.

B) Pygmy Fouke Monster, astride an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.

C) Alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos, who had earlier been seen on campus begging for someone to give a shit again about his opinions.

D) “At least” two raccoons, which apparently found their way into the library during a downpour.

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3) A 57-year-old Hot Springs man was arraigned last month in Garland County District Court on a charge of second-degree murder. According to police, which of the following are real allegations in the case?

A) The victim was the suspect’s brother.

B) The suspect allegedly pushed the victim from a moving Jeep.

C) Before succumbing to his injuries, police said, the victim told investigators his brother had pushed him from the Jeep because the two had been “arguing over corndogs.”

D) All of the above.

4) A lot of Razorback fans got their Christmas wish early when Chad Morris was fired as head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks immediately following a humiliating 45-19 loss to Western Kentucky in November. What’s are the downsides?

A) Morris quickly barricaded himself inside Reynolds Razorback Stadium and has refused to come out.

B) The Biology Department is at least a full season shy of perfecting the libidoless, motorcycle-phobic clone of Bobby Petrino they’ve been working on.

C) Experts in string theory will have to be brought in to design a rebuilding year for our current rebuilding year.

D) Even though the Razorbacks won only four of the 22 games Morris coached, he’ll receive a contract buyout of $10.1 million.

5) In November, a Conway police officer was suspended without pay for 30 days and given other punishments, with a reprimand letter from the Conway Police Chief saying in part: “Your actions have brought discredit and embarrassment upon the Conway Police Department.” According to allegations in the reprimand letter, what the heck did the officer allegedly do?

A) He appeared to get very, very drunk while off duty at Little Rock’s Discovery nightclub.

B) Then he stripped down buck-ass naked on the dance floor.

C) Then he danced wildly to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ “ until escorted away by bouncers, while onlookers captured cell phone video footage of the incident.

D) All of the above.

6) The results of this year’s respected Arkansas Poll were released last month, and showed some surprising attitudes in gunloving, blood-Red Arkansas when it came to the subject of firearms. Which of the following were findings from the poll?

A) 85 percent of Arkansans say background checks should be required on all gun sales, including purchases from private individuals and at gun shows.

B) 85 percent said the state should enact a so-called “Red Flag Law” that allows the temporary seizure of firearms from any person a court has deemed to be a danger to themselves and others.

C) 56 percent said the sale of military-style, semi-automatic firearms such as the AR-15 and AK-47 should be banned.

D) All of the above.

7) Sheree Miller of Bentonville tried an interesting tactic during her November protest seeking the removal and relocation of the Confederate memorial on the Bentonville town square. What did she do?

A) She held a sign that said: “It’s almost 2020. Can you believe I still have to protest this shit?”

B) She performed a song called: “If You Love Traitors to America and You Know It, Clap Your Hands.”

C) She used construction glue to affix a large plaque bearing the words “PARTICIPATION TROPHY” to the base of the statue, at last revealing its true message to the world while simultaneously making all right-wingers hate it.

D) Miller, who is African American, dressed up like the legendary slave liberator Harriet Tubman — the heroic subject of a recent Hollywood biopic — and held a sign saying: “What Would Harriet Do?” attracting loads of photo seekers and well-wishers eager to help her spread the word about her cause on social media.

ANSWERS: D, D, D, D, D, D, D 10 DECEMBER 2019

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THE FRONT

THE BIG PICTURE

The Soophie Tree Reason No. 1,265,838 Nate Powell needs a MacArthur genius grant: So he can make more stuff like this. The National Book Award-winning illustrator of U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ “March” graphic autobiography in three parts (and the new true crime graphic novel “Two Dead”) is, proudly, a co-founder of one of the most riotous and joyful performance art projects of Little Rock’s musical history, Soophie Nun Squad (1992-2006), and he’s documented the band’s offshoots and collaborations in an elegant family tree. Climb it here.

14 DECEMBER 2019

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THE FRONT

THE MONTH (OR SO) THAT WAS

Teachers, Impeachers

IMPEACHMENT The U.S. House of Representatives began public impeachment hearings of President Trump, calling witnesses to testify on Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden and Biden’s son Hunter. Republican 1st District Congressman Rick Crawford of Jonesboro gave up his seat on the House Judiciary to Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio. Jordan, who as a wrestling coach at Ohio State University apparently ignored reports of sexual assault, wasted no time in grandstanding in favor of his favorite assaulter, Donald Trump.

16 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

JOHN WALKER DIES Arkansas lost a giant in the struggle for civil rights Oct. 28 with the death of lawyer John Walker, 82.

Walker, who fought over the course of a halfcentury on behalf of minority children in the Pulaski County schools and the rights of African-American adults in all walks of life, changed Arkansas history, bringing a measure of equality that otherwise was not likely to have been achieved. In the 1960s, his was only the second integrated law firm in the South; at the time of his death he was serving in the state House, where he continued to fight for educational improvement.

MORRIS GONE Razorback football coach Chad Morris was fired after the Hogs’ humiliating 45-19 loss to the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. The Razorback Foundation will reward him with a buyout of a bit more than $10 million for the four years left on his contract, to be paid out on a monthly basis. Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek acknowledged a few days after the firing that he didn’t think the college buyout situation was “great.”

SALES TAX FOR ROADS Governor Hutchinson began a campaign to dedicate a half-cent sales tax the public will vote on next year to highway and road construction. Issue 1, a constitutional amendment to make permanent a half-cent sales tax scheduled to expire in 2023, was referred to the 2020 ballot by the legislature. The half-cent tax would raise an estimated $300 million annually.

DEMOCRATIC DROPOUT Josh Mahony, who’d been expected to run against Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, withdrew his name from consideration two hours after the filing period for candidates closed Nov. 12. Mahony cited family health reasons. Republicans threatened to sue if Democrats sought to field another candidate.

DEMOCRATIC DROP-IN Billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg traveled to Little Rock to file as a Democratic candidate on the presidential primary ballot. A late (but not the latest) entry into the Democratic presidential throng, Bloomberg previously filed paperwork to be on Alabama’s primary ballot.

NEWS ABOUT FAKES On the same day that state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge posted a warning against fake military charities, calling it “unbelievable that con artists will create charities similarly to existing, trustworthy organizations in the name of our beloved and dedicated military,” President Trump was told to pay $2 million in damages over a televised fundraiser the Trump Foundation said was for veterans but which went to the Trump campaign instead.

TRAVELS WITH ASA Asa Hutchinson III, son of the governor, joined his father’s junket to China in November to visit businesses that have received subsidies from Arkansas taxpayers. Hutchinson III, a lawyer, has been hired by one of those enterprises, which received $1 million that his father personally approved. Like Hunter Biden’s lucrative role with a Ukrainian company and the Trump children’s business dealings abroad, the connections are noteworthy. The governor defended his son’s trip, saying Hutchinson III paid his own way.

BRIAN CHILSON

UNDER THEIR THUMB Hundreds of teachers in Little Rock’s public schools held a one-day strike to protest the state Department of Education’s takeover of the school district and decertification of the Little Rock Education Association. More than half the students in the district stayed home, some of them joining teachers and supporters on the picket lines at schools and later at the state Capitol before a meeting of the State Board of Education. Nevertheless, the State Board turned a deaf ear and began consideration of a nine-member school board for Little Rock some believe was designed to weaken black representation. The State Board also voted to expand the district’s personnel policy committee from eight to more than 40, apparently to satisfy members of an anti-union group. Superintendent Michael Poore, however, said he’d received no complaints and said the change will cause delays in implementing a state law. The lawyer for the Education Department told the State Board that a motion to allow public comment when the issue was raised was necessary, but there was no motion, and chairwoman Diane Zook ordered removal of an audience member attempting to speak. Board member Fitz Hill was not paying attention, at least during part of the meeting, when he was tweeting about sports events.

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the TO-DO list

ALYSSE GAFKJEN

By STEPHANIE SMITTLE, REBEKAH HALL AND LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

MARTY STUART AND HIS FABULOUS SUPERLATIVES

SATURDAY 12/7. UA PULASKI TECHNICAL COLLEGE, CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES AND ARTS. $20-$100.

The craft of show business was alive and well when Marty Stuart took the stage in front of his former bandmate Johnny Cash’s boyhood home in Dyess in October for the Johnny Cash Heritage Festival. Stuart, with longtime colleagues and fellow virtuosos Chris Scruggs, Harry Stinson and Kenny Vaughn, appeared in matching rhinestone-outfitted black suits, studding their set with playful jabs at each other, fiery solos and a purist’s sensibility for bluegrass. The fact that Stuart’s been performing since he was 13 seems not to have made him world-weary, but quite the opposite: He’s a cheerful showman who champions the dignity and depth of country music, and he’s a charismatic bandleader to boot. As for his backing band The Fabulous Superlatives, it’s an ensemble of soloists who can hold their own when it’s their turn in the spotlight (and everyone gets a turn), but who blend seamlessly as a collective. At this concert, Stuart resurrects his 1999 record “The Pilgrim,” a concept album that serves perfectly as a bookend to his trippy, mystical 2017 release, “Way Out West.” Get tickets at uaptc.edu/charts. SS ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 19

the TO-DO list

BLACK JOE LEWIS, LIZ BRASHER

SATURDAY 12/7. REV ROOM. $16-$20.

2ND FRIDAY ART NIGHT

FRIDAY 12/13, 5-8 P.M. DOWNTOWN LITTLE ROCK ART GALLERIES. December’s after-hours gallery stroll will feel particularly festive at the Historic Arkansas Museum, where hundreds will make merry at the “15th Ever Nog-Off” eggnog contest. Noggers from the Capital Hotel, South on Main, Loblolly Creamery, Allsopp and Chapple, the Pioneer’s Association and more will compete for the coveted top prize. And, oh yes, there’s art: New exhibit “In the Garden” will address memory and loss with soft sculpture and wall pieces by Danny R.W. Baskin and paintings by Lee Byers. Other 2nd Friday venues include The Bookstore at Library Square (120 River Market Ave.), which will open “Circus of Imaginings,” representational works by DebiLynn Fendley, and the West Gallery of Roberts Library continues the “8th National Exhibition” of the Arkansas Pastel Society. Bella Vita Jewelry will feature jewelry by Amber E. Lee. LNP 20 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

CATHERINE RUSSELL BY SANDRINE LEE

Count Black Joe Lewis (pictured above) of Austin, Texas, as a torchbearer for a grand tradition — the one that takes hard truths, wraps them up in killer horn riffs and hurls them into the world like they were righteous weapons. He’s a potent guitar player and a fiery lyricist with a tight backing band, and the fact that he’s sharing this bill with fellow soul shouter Liz Brasher should seal the deal for anyone who’s caught the North Carolinian at the White Water Tavern over the last couple of years. “I’m half Dominican, half Italian and also Southern,” Brasher says on her website.

“It’s a different type of Southerner, and that’s why the music I make sounds like a different type of the South.” Get tickets at arkansaslivemusic.com. SS

CATHERINE RUSSELL

THURSDAY 12/5. SOUTH ON MAIN. 8 P.M. $35-$46.

As the daughter of the late Carline Ray, rhythm guitarist for the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the first integrated all-women’s band in the U.S., and Luis Russell, longtime musical director for Louis Armstrong, music was a bit of a given for a young Catherine Russell. She went on to ply the family trade, too, singing with David Bowie, Steely Dan, Cyndi Lauper, Jackson Browne, Levon Helm, Paul Simon, Rosanne Cash, Wynton Marsalis and many others. As a solo artist with musicians like Tal Ronen, Mark Shane and Matt Munisteri — “the best trio in the land,” she told us in a 2018 interview — she’s found a niche in interpreting jazz circa the 1920s, and she brings that swing and blues expertise to cap off 2019 for the Oxford American’s Archetypes & Troubadours Series. Get tickets at oxfordamerican.org/events. SS

SOMA AFTER DARK FRIDAY 12/6. 5-11:45 P.M. SOMA DISTRICT. FREE.

MELISSA DOOLEY PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF BALLET ARKANSAS

On the first Friday of every month, the businesses of Little Rock’s South Main Street open their doors with extended hours, food and drink specials and fun activities for SOMA After Dark. This year, December’s SOMA After Dark will feature the first SOMA Holiday Market, 5-9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6, and continuing 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7. Local makers, vendors and artists will be set up along Main Street, selling their wares and treats to help jumpstart holiday shopping. As part of SOMA After Dark, The New Gallery at 1619 Scott St. will host an opening reception for artist Kevin Kelley’s new exhibit of abstract paintings, “Tighty Whitey, Lefty Loosey.” The reception is free to attend and runs from 6-9 p.m. RH

ARKANSAS CRAFT GUILD CHRISTMAS SHOWCASE BALLET ARKANSAS: NUTCRACKER SPECTACULAR

FRIDAY 12/13-SUNDAY 12/15. ROBINSON PERFORMANCE HALL. $23-$102.

The sound of Tchaikovsky’s tinkling celesta calls up visions of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the holiday to just a few pirouettes away. Ballet Arkansas joins with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra to present the beloved ballet “The Nutcracker,” first performed in 1892 and millions of times since. The three performances will feature two choral ensembles and a cast of more than 250 children and adults from across the state. Tickets are available from the box office (501-244-8800) or ticketmaster.com; persons who purchase seats on rows D and E (the “sweet seats”) will receive a gift. Ballet Arkansas is also selling Nutcracker Spectacular commemorative ornaments at balletarkansas.org. LNP

‘IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE: A LIVE RADIO PLAY’

FRIDAY-SUNDAY, DEC. 6-8. ARKANSAS STATE FAIRGROUNDS. $5.

More than 100 artisans will fill the Arkansas Craft Guild’s 41st annual Christmas Showcase with all sorts of unique things to go under the tree. There will be hand-blown beads from Tom and Sage Holland of Fox; Ro’ark leather bags, wallets, briefcases and more from Michael Hicks of Gravette; ceramic teaspoons from Hot Springs potter Suzi Dennis; bracelets, earrings, barrettes and more by Yellville metal artist Patricia Bergman; bead-and-fossil necklaces by Ponca jewelry-maker Kate Baer; and more. Count on comfort food — honey, jams, jellies and chocolates — and see the works of several artisans new to the show.

Musicians will entertain and drawings for merchandise will be held. LNP

PRESERVATION CONVERSATIONS: RACE AND HOUSING

WEDNESDAY 12/4-SUNDAY 12/29. ARKANSAS REPERTORY THEATRE. $40-$60.

THURSDAY 12/12. OLD PAINT FACTORY, 1306 E. SIXTH ST. 5:30 P.M RECEPTION, 6 P.M. LECTURE. FREE.

This radio play reboot of Frank Capra’s classic 1946 film has managed for two decades to make its way onto the holiday rosters of theater houses everywhere, and with good reason. Joe Landry, who adapted George Bailey’s story for the stage, went full-on meta with Bedford Falls, scripting a scant five actors to play all the characters from the original movie, complete with an onstage foley artist — managing to capture the whimsy and allure of Capra’s telling while adding another layer to its central message. And, for those who would cry foul on any attempts to recreate the 1946 holiday staple, consider that the film was itself an adaptation of a short story by Philip Van Doren Stern, and that Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed reprised their roles for three radio productions of the tale. Here, The Rep welcomes back Patrick Halley, who shone in The Rep’s 2017 production of “The School For Lies,” as well as Larry Daggett, who both stars and directs the music. Get tickets at therep.org. SS

The Quapaw Quarter Association hosts this talk from Dr. John A. Kirk, the George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History at UA Little Rock, civil rights movement scholar and Arkansas Times contributor. Here, Kirk shares the results of his research on the impact of Urban Renewal policies on Little Rock’s built environment in a discussion titled “Race and Housing: How Urban Renewal Changed the Landscapes of Little Rock.”

The event is free and open to the public, but you’ll need to RSVP at centralarkansastickets. com. SS ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 21

IMDB

the TO-DO list

BONNIE WHITMORE BY CHAD COCHRAN

ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES: ‘THE WAR ROOM’

TUESDAY 12/17. RIVERDALE 10 CINEMA. 7 P.M. $9.

For a few decades now, reckoning with the Clinton legacy has been a sort of prerequisite for living in Arkansas — it’s the sort of thing folks elsewhere ask Arkansans about first, especially if they have little other Arkansas knowledge with which to fuel small talk. Here, in this 1993 film, directors Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker grapple with that legacy on the big screen, documenting some of the very same stories we here at the Arkansas Times reported on during the 1990s — specifically, how James Carville and George Stephanopoulos engineered Clinton’s winning campaign for the presidency in 1992. Filmed primarily in Pulaski County, the film features some notably recognizable spots in Little Rock, including the Arkansas Gazette building at 112 W. Third St. and the Old State House. “The War Room” caps off the 2019 Arkansas Times Film Series, curated by Omaya Jones.

Get tickets at riverdale10.com. SS

ARKANSAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: ‘HOME ALONE’

SATURDAY 12/21-SUNDAY 12/22. ROBINSON PERFORMANCE HALL. $16.

If you prefer your holiday season sprinkled with a bit of mischief and sweet, sweet justice, 1990’s “Home Alone,” starring a cherubic and cunning Macaulay Culkin, is the Christmas movie for you. Though the plot of the film may require some suspension of disbelief, especially if you’re a parent — a lone child left behind during a family vacation? — watching Culkin’s 8-year-old character Kevin set creative (and festive!) booby traps for the bumbling, wicked Wet Bandits is deeply satisfying. John Williams’ charming, sweeping score, which seems to combine traditional Christmas music with tunes befitting a bank heist, will be played live by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra during the film. There will be performances at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 21, and 3 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 22. Tickets are available at arkansassymphonyorchestra.com. RH 22 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

HOLIDAY HANGOUT

FRIDAY 12/6-SUNDAY 12/8. WHITE WATER TAVERN, LOST FORTY BREWING. $150.

What started as a celebration of Last Chance Records founder Travis Hill’s birthday has long morphed into a multi-day marathon of concerts from some of the American South’s finest rockers, held at the venerable White Water Tavern every December. These days, though, it resembles something more akin to a family reunion, drawing not only a dynamite roster of talent from Texas, Oklahoma, Memphis and elsewhere, but a tight-knit group of devotees to fuel the crowd singalongs. This year, the lineup is stacked as ever, with sets from The Legendary Shack Shakers, Patrick Sweany, Slobberbone, Samantha Crain, Jon Dee Graham, Lee Bains & The Glory Fires, Adam Faucett, John Paul Keith, Bonnie Whitmore, Clownvis Presley, Jeremy Pinnell, The Baptist Generals, Shane Sweeney, Isaac Hoskins, John Calvin Abney, Cory Branan, Matt Woods, Todd May, Kaylyn Fay and Brent Best. And, if you don’t manage to score a ticket, as the event routinely sells out, catch free performances from HHO artists at Lost Forty Brewing Friday, Dec. 6 between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., and check out HHO’s Sunday brunch/book sale, “Breakfast, Books & Booze,” which admits non-ticketholders to come in and browse spectacularly curated selections from Mary Chamberlin’s literature distribution project, Tree of Knowledge. Get tickets at lastchancerecords. us. SS

NEW YEAR’S EVE WITH THE BIG DAM HORNS

TUESDAY 12/31. STICKYZ ROCK ’N’ ROLL CHICKEN SHACK. 9:30 P.M. $15.

Look, there are going to be dozens of Little Rock businesses clamoring to charge you a hundo on New Year’s Eve in exchange for a champagne toast and a party favor, but do you know what those businesses will not have? The Big Dam Horns. If you appreciate fried chicken dipped in creamy dill sauce and want to ride into the new year with a band that can coax the most aloof of wallflowers to the dance floor, there is no safer bet than this one. The music will be loud, the drinks will be cheap and the people-watching in the River Market district will be choice; may the same be true of the year 2020. SS

NEW YEAR’S EVE WITH AKEEM KEMP BAND AND GREASY TREE TUESDAY 12/31. KINGS LIVE MUSIC, CONWAY. 8 P.M. $5.

Two of the slickest blues outfits in the area are teaming up for this New Year’s Eve double bill at Kings, and the cover charge is less than Starbucks will ask for a caramel macchiato. Conway County blues guitarist/vocalist Akeem Kemp channels Albert King with polished, gutsy riffs, and he’s been playing with his backing band so long there’s something near telepathy at play in their performances. They’re joined

by Jonesboro blues trio Greasy Tree, which has spent the last few years earning fans in Europe and here at home. For blues fans — or Conway residents who want to send 2019 into the sunset without a big Uber tab — this is the ticket. SS

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NEWS & POLITICS

In memoriam: John W. Walker THE LAW WAS ON HIS SIDE.

J

BY ERNEST DUMAS

ohn W. Walker, a state representative and longtime civil-rights warrior who died in his sleep the morning of Oct. 28 at the age of 82, would have to be described as a politician since he spent 60 years tilting at the political institutions in his state and actually ran for public office himself six times. But he was the rare and perhaps unique politician who didn’t care at all for popularity and seemed even to court resentment, if not hatred. He found resentment and hatred in full measure but also, in the end, a small measure of goodwill among those who had been eternally vexed at his unrelenting championing of equality for African Americans in the public schools and colleges, public institutions and workforce — vexed at his methods at least, if not his goals. His lawsuits — scores of them in federal and state courts all across the state — would cost millions and millions of dollars to defend and nearly always in a losing cause. The law — the Constitution — was on his side.

Now John Walker ought to be accorded the recognition that he deserves. Arkansas has a few icons from the civil rights movement, notably Daisy and L.C. Bates, but Walker did more than anyone in history to bring a measure of equality and fairness to the social and economic institutions of the state. We are

open to suggestions about the form of that recognition — no holiday, like Martin Luther King’s, but something ... maybe an equestrian statue of him somewhere — the square at Bentonville? — to replace a Confederate monument.

We have come a long way in Arkansas and everywhere else, though not far enough, since Walker began his quest for equal justice in the mid-’60s and began slapping lawsuits on school boards, state institutions and big corporations like Walmart and Georgia Pacific that denied black children and adults equal opportunity and the just fruits of their labor.

Walker went to a poor school for black kids at Hope, got accepted at the University of Texas but then was denied admission when it was discovered that he was a Negro, then got a degree at Arkansas’s only public college for blacks (Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College), and a master’s degree in education from the prestigious New York University.

Walker was actually qualified to be the state education commissioner in 2015 when Governor Hutchinson got the state’s legal qualifications for the job eliminated so that he could hire the politician Johnny Key as the education czar. Walker got a law degree from Yale University, the celebrated school that produces most U.S. Supreme Court justices, including men like ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 25

Brett Kavanaugh who, unlike Walker, hold that the Bill of Rights does not really mean what it says when it promises equal rights and due process for everyone, including women and ethnic, racial and sexual minorities.

After setting up a practice at Little Rock in 1964 and hooking up with the despised NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Walker took over the old Little Rock school case, which had led to the desegregation of Central High School in 1957 and the greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War. He was unrelenting and led the schools back into federal court, this time with the state government involved because, as he proved in court, the state had for many years imposed a burden on Little Rock to educate black children from elsewhere in its substandard black schools. For some years, the state would have to subsidize education in the Little Rock schools to compensate for the state’s failures, which made John Walker a scorned man with nearly every legislator outside the county and many of their constituents. He sued the other school

elaborately and Walker hardly at all. Walker politely needled the company’s personnel staff on cross-examination and turned them into blithering bigots, destroying the company’s case. The presiding judge, the conservative and segregationist former congressman Oren Harris, ruled decisively for the black employees and the union, and so did the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He won an employment-discrimination suit against Walmart for the company’s truck drivers.

So unpopular was John Walker that when Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller appointed him to the state Board of Education on his way out of office in 1970 that even the Little Rock senators went along with silently blocking his confirmation. He would have been the first black member of the board in history.

Even Razorback athletics was not outside Walker’s target range. He unsuccessfully sued to get three black football players reinstated for the Orange Bowl and sued, again unsuccessfully, to get Nolan Richardson reinstated as the basketball coach of the Hogs af-

Walker represented young African Americans or sympathetic whites who got arrested for picketing businesses that discriminated against blacks, for marching, for sitting in at lunch counters, for distributing literature on a state college campus, for trying to swim in a public pool, for trying to ride a commercial bus, or for trying to eat lunch at the cafeteria in the state Capitol. districts in Pulaski County and in the late 1960s many other school districts across eastern and south Arkansas that either stonewalled or dallied with phony measures like pupil-assignment systems to avoid putting white and black children into classrooms together, sometimes even with a black teacher.

With other young lawyers — Buddy Rotenberry, Norman Chachkin, Phillip Kaplan, Jack Lavey, Perlesta Hollingsworth, Richard Mays, John Bilheimer, Janet Pulliam, Frank Newell — who joined him in only the second integrated law firm in the South, Walker represented young African Americans or sympathetic whites who got arrested for picketing businesses that discriminated against blacks, for marching, for sitting in at lunch counters, for distributing literature on a state college campus, for trying to swim in a public pool, for trying to ride a commercial bus, or for trying to eat lunch at the cafeteria in the state Capitol.

He sued Georgia Pacific, the giant paper company at Crossett, because it hired blacks only for the dirtiest, hottest and lowest-paying jobs that no one else would do. Walker was notorious in the legal fraternity for his very casual preparation for trials. He apparently knew that he had the law on his side, so he just freelanced in the courtroom. At the trial, the corporation’s law team from Little Rock had prepared

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ter Frank Broyles persuaded the chancellor to fire the coach, who had complained about discrimination.

Earning the enmity of the Razorback Nation was the last thing any politician wanted to do.

Walker ran for the legislature anyway in 2002 and was defeated, ran again in 2010 and was elected and then re-elected repeatedly. Lawmakers, who generally found little in Walker’s long history that they admired and few of his legislative proposals they would vote for, expected a bellicose and divisive adversary. Instead, they encountered a cordial, witty and almost soft-spoken colleague, who nevertheless persistently reminded them of the restraints and obligations imposed on them by the Constitution.

Governor Hutchinson, rarely an ally, praised Walker effusively for his life of principle, as did another persistent naysayer, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. It was left to the Arkansas Legislative Black Caucus to wrap up his life appropriately: “Though often falling on unwelcoming ears, Rep. Walker never wavered on calling to attention that even today, the institutional, structural vestiges of racism and other injustices still haunt this American experiment called democracy. For him, the barriers to a high-quality education seemingly most offended his sense of justice.”

of peace, stability and hope this holiday season . . .

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DECEMBER 2019 27

It’s the

BEST & WORST I

2019

BY DAVID KOON

t’s December and the end of the year draweth nigh, which means it’s time again to tie one on and settle in with the Arkansas Times’ “Best and Worst” issue of 2019, our annual salute to all the odd, off, dumb, devious, newsworthy, tragic, nonsensical, head-scratching, hapless, weird and wonderful stories of the year. If you dare, read on for tales of tornado-proof closets, a locked-and-loaded showdown with 30-50 feral hogs, the Arkansas connection to Trump’s snit over Greenland, texts to a dead man that actually got a reply, what the blue stuff in your chicken nuggets might be, and more. It’s all here, perfect to help you while away those long, cold nights between now and the start of the 21st century’s third and sure-to-be most-terrifying decade so far. Whatever the roaring ’20s bring, here’s hoping 2020 nets you all the good things you deserve. Or the bad things you deserve, depending on your personal morality. No matter what happens, just try to make sure to keep your name out of the “Best and Worst” next year. While there are a few bright spots of note, being immortalized here is, in our experience, nothing you’d ever want to include on your resume.

WORST ATTORNEY’S FEES

BEST TESTIMONY

In a hearing before federal court in Little Rock, Jeremy Hutchinson’s former girlfriend Julie McGee described her relationship with the lawmaker as an “on again, off again” affair in which Hutchinson used campaign funds to provide her with gifts, vacations and a fake job with his re-election campaign. When asked by federal prosecutors whether she actually performed work for the campaign, McGee told the court, “if keeping him sexually satisfied is considered campaign work.”

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BRIAN CHILSON

Former Republican state Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, the nephew of Governor Hutchinson, who’d characterized as legal fees money he’d taken from an Arkansas orthodontist and state contracted Preferred Family Healthcare, pleaded guilty to bribery in federal court in Little Rock and conspiracy to commit federal program bribery in federal court in Springfield, Mo. He also pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return related to his use of campaign contributions for personal expenses and for underreporting income by $270,000. He surrendered his law license. He was awaiting sentencing as the Arkansas Times went to press.

WORST WEEKEND PLANS

In January, Zemarcuis Scott, 18, was sentenced to five years’ probation related to a July 2018 incident in which Scott — perhaps having played one too many rounds of “Grand Theft Auto” — hopped the fence at Texarkana Regional Airport and attempted to steal an American Eagle twin-engine passenger jet, which he hoped to fly to an Illinois concert by the rapper Famous Dex.

BEST OVER-ESTIMATING OF PERSONAL SKILLS

After his arrest, Scott allegedly told investigators that he believed flying a commercial jet was simply a matter of pushing buttons and pulling random levers in the cockpit.

BEST ROOTING OUT OF CORRUPTION

The Preferred Family Healthcare investigation also put state Sen. Jon Woods in prison and former Rep. Micah Neal in home detention.

Former legislators Hank Wilkins of Pine Bluff and Eddie Cooper of Melbourne and lobbyist Rusty Cranford have also pleaded guilty in the investigation.

WORST WHIPPER

Stewards at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs levied a 60-day racing suspension on jockey David Cohen after they said he allegedly used his riding crop to whip fellow jockey Edgar Morales as the pair thundered down the stretch astride their respective horses during a race April 6.

WORST BRAZEN

Police in Lonoke County said that while Magan Jackson, 29, of Cabot was visiting City Hall in Austin, Ark., for an April court appearance, she was allegedly caught on surveillance video trying to open the doors of three marked police cars before she found the unlocked vehicle of the City Hall office manager and helped herself to over $1,000 in items, including an Apple TV, a Bluetooth speaker, cash and his passport. She was arrested a half-hour later on several charges.

BRIAN CHILSON

WORST NIBBLES

BEST BARKEEP

Maggie Hinson, the fiery-red-haired owner of Little Rock’s legendary music venue and late-night hangout Midtown Billiards, passed away April 30 at the age of 72 after a lifetime of helping make Little Rock a slightly cooler place to live.

Officials with the Public Works Department in Texarkana announced in April that they had found the culprits behind the near-total blackout of streetlights along Interstate 30 through the city: rats, who had come to find the sheathing of the lights’ electrical cables delicious, causing what the city’s public works director called “a massive electrical problem.”

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DECEMBER 2019 29

BEST FIRST

BRIAN CHILSON

In January, Frank Scott Jr. was sworn in as Little Rock’s first popularly elected African-American mayor.

WORST CRATER

In March, 63-year-old Randall McDougal, a truck driver from El Dorado, was killed when the load of ammonium nitrate fertilizer he was hauling caught fire and exploded, the blast so powerful that it rattled windows for miles around, denuded trees near the accident site, and blew a 15-foot-deep crater in the middle of U.S. Highway 278 near Camden.

WORST BRAIN FREEZE

Shake’s Frozen Custard, a West Little Rock ice cream parlor, was evacuated and swept for explosives by Little Rock police after someone claiming to be a customer whose order had been screwed up called the business and threatened to blow up the building over the mistake.

WORST EXTRAS

Springdale-based Tyson Foods recalled more than 69,000 pounds of frozen chicken strips in March over reports that some strips were contaminated by metal shavings. The recall followed a January recall in which customers reported finding bits of soft blue rubber inside Tyson chicken nuggets.

BRIAN CHILSON

BEST STANDING HER GROUND

BEST RANT

Speaking out about a proposal that would have brought a controversial “Stand Your Ground” law to Arkansas, allowing gun owners to shoot to kill without the duty to retreat if they feel physically threatened, Sen. Stephanie Flowers (D-Pine Bluff), the only black person on the Senate Judiciary Committee, went on a fiery rant that soon went viral online in March, with Flowers saying she feared a Stand Your Ground law in Arkansas would lead to more shootings of African Americans.

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ARKANSAS TIMES

“It doesn’t take much to look on the local news every night and see how many black kids, black boys, black men, are being killed with these Stand Your Ground defenses that these people raise, and they get off,” Stephanie Flowers told the panel during her impassioned speech. “So I take issue with that. I’m the only person here of color. I am a mother, too. And I have a son.

And I care as much for my son as y’all care for y’all’s. But my son doesn’t walk the same path as yours does. ... I can tell you, for a long time since I’ve been back here in Arkansas, I have feared for my son’s life.

Now he’s 27 and he’s out of Arkansas, and I thank God he is when you’re bringing up crap like this.” The committee later voted 4-3 against the measure, with Republican Sen. John Cooper (R-Heber Springs) siding with the committee’s three Democrats.

BEST 30-50

BEST PROPOSAL NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

In August, Arkansas resident Willie McNabb saw his query go viral on Twitter after he responded to a tweet by musician Jason Isbell in which Isbell said there’s no reason to own an assault rifle. “Legit question for rural Americans,” McNabb wrote. “How do I kill the 30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?” The image of a rural Rambo facing down hordes of zombie swine in the wilds of Arkansas clearly set imaginations aflame, with over 50,000 tweets eventually musing on McNabb’s question, often to hilarious effect.

WORST MENTOR

In February, Little Rock police arrested registered sex offender Earl Williams, 64, of Little Rock.

The charge: that Williams spent six years volunteering with an LRPD program that mentors at-risk children. At the time of his arrest, Williams had been registered as a sex offender with the LRPD since 2008.

WORST LIVING UP TO STEREOTYPES

Michael Fowler Jr. of Sarasota, Fla., was arrested in March, accused of being one of five carnies who police say murdered a Wichita, Kan., couple, transported their bodies to Arkansas and buried them in shallow graves in the Ozark National Forest near Van Buren. Fowler reportedly told police he believed the murders were part of an initiation into “the carnival mafia,” though investigators soon came to believe the carnival mafia was actually made up as an intimidation tactic by one of Fowler’s alleged co-conspirators.

WORST MAULING AT THE ZOO

WORST COCK

Little Rock police arrested 53-year-old Curtis Coleman in April after he allegedly bit a woman who said she caught him rifling through the trunk of her car when she came out of the Little Rock Zoo.

Jasper was on edge in July as news went viral that a surly rooster named Junior had been terrorizing townfolk, chasing pedestrians and giving most anyone who walked past the home where he held sway a rooster-sized beatdown.

WORST SIGN-OFF

BEST GAMBLE

After battling liver cancer for three years with the same good humor and positivity that seemed to mark everything he did in life, former KATV, Channel 7, reporter and Gov. Mike Beebe’s spokesman Matt DeCample died on March 3 at the age of 44. Arkansas was instantly made a slightly dimmer place.

WORST ‘BLATANT’

In February, Travis Hancock of Hot Springs told lottery officials he’d used the last $10 in his family’s “savings jar” to buy a Natural State Jackpot ticket that came up a winner, matching all five numbers to win $190,000.

Citing what she called “blatant thieving” by employees of the Department of Human Services, Beverly Kindle — who is legally blind — closed Beverly’s Snack Shop, which had been located in the DHS central office downtown, telling the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in February that DHS employees

In March, a bill that would have made it illegal to drive farm equipment while drunk failed to clear the Arkansas Senate.

BEST LUCKY

Hancock said he was worried that he’d wasted his money on the ultimately winning ticket because the numbers on it, randomly selected by a computer, were 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 in sequential order.

routinely tried to pay for their purchases with fake money, insisted that $1 bills were more valuable denominations or simply shoplifted what they wanted. Though DHS eventually stationed guards near Kindle’s stand to thwart sticky-fingered state employees, Kindle said the accumulated losses eventually kept her from making enough profit to keep her small business afloat.

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WORST ANGER MANAGEMENT

BEST WEIRD

Lonnie Craig, a superfan of the comic musician Weird Al Yankovic since the 1980s, was disappointed that he would have to miss Yankovic’s Sept. 1 concert in Little Rock because he’d been hospitalized at UAMS for a low white blood cell count caused by his cancer treatments, but Weird Al saved the day by dropping by the hospital room to hang out before the show after being contacted by Lonnie’s sister, Julie, on social media.

Police say that in April, Latoshia Shunta Daniels, 39, a Little Rock social worker specializing in anger management, drove to Memphis and shot to death Brodes Perry, 36, formerly a pastor at Little Rock’s Saint Mark Baptist Church, and wounded his wife. Investigators said Daniels chatted calmly with Perry’s wife for about 30 minutes until the pastor arrived home, then drew a handgun and shot Brodes Perry multiple times as Daniels repeatedly shouted: “You broke my heart.”

BEST DOGGONE

Southland Casino Racing, which got its start as a greyhound racing track all the way back in 1956 but which has turned increasingly toward casino-style gambling for revenue in recent years, announced in October it planned to phase out greyhound racing entirely by the end of 2022.

BEST BEAUTY

In September, KLRT, Fox Channel 16, shared the story of Little Rock native Mahogany Wade, 23, who signed with international modeling agency IMG Models after being relentlessly bullied as a girl for her freckles and red hair.

Her unique look eventually caught the attention of a modeling scout who saw a photo of her on social media. “There’s been times when I felt hopeless,” Wade told a reporter. “But what’s important is to find your worth, find your self-love, find your purpose, because there is one.”

The Arkansas legislature finally got around to expelling disgraced Rep. Mickey Gates (R-Hot Springs) in October, almost two and a half months after he pleaded no contest to charges that he didn’t file tax returns for years.

Before he was given the boot by a resounding majority, Gates had repeatedly rejected public calls for him to step down, including from members of his own party and Governor Hutchinson.

BEST RAISE

On Sept. 1, a new law went into effect that raised the age to legally buy and use tobacco products in Arkansas from 18 to 21 years old.

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BRIAN CHILSON

BEST BUM’S RUSH

WORST ADVICE

In August, President Trump floated the nutty idea of buying Greenland, a proposal that quickly developed into a Trumpian snit after Denmark, which owns the massive, mostly frozen territory, tersely told him no sale. The Arkansas connection: The idea had apparently been put into Trump’s ever-impressionable ear by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). Cotton later wrote a New York Times op-ed touting the plan, beginning the column with a shameless suck-up to Dear Leader. “After news leaked last week that President Trump had expressed interest in acquiring Greenland from Denmark,” Cotton wrote, “his critics predictably derided him as crazy. But once again, the president is crazy like a fox.” Nope, Tom. Just plain ol’ crazy.

BEST 420

After years of foot-dragging and delays, the first medical cannabis legally sold in Arkansas since marijuana was outlawed in the state in 1923 was rung up for a customer at Hot Springs’ Doctors Orders RX dispensary on May 10. At the time of this writing, dispensaries in Arkansas have sold over a ton of legal weed at an average price of $15 a gram, with over 28,000 patients holding state-issued cards that allow them to legally buy cannabis.

WORST IOU

In February, police say a robber flashed a handgun and stole over $700 in cash from a 61-year-old Little Rock man, telling the victim before fleeing: “I will catch you again and give you your money back.” Good luck on collecting that, pal.

WORST 99 AND CHANGE

The White Pig Inn, a North Little Rock institution that had been dishing up pitsmoked barbecue near Protho Junction for over 99 years, served its final pulled pork sandwich March 8, with owner Greg Seaton saying his daughters weren’t interested in taking the reins.

WORST LOST IN TRANSLATION

Mei Ka Sin, 22, of Bentonville pleaded guilty in April to first-degree murder in the July 2017 shooting of his roommate and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The plea was surely met with relief by courtroom staff, given that if the case had gone to trial, prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed that up to five different interpreters would have been required for the proceedings, including fluent speakers of Burmese, Marshallese, Kirundi, Karen and Spanish. Sin speaks Burmese and the victim’s family speaks mainly Kirundi, while the other translators were needed for various witnesses to the crime.

WORST STUCK

In January, an unidentified employee of Little Rock billionaire Warren Stephens was found after she’d been trapped for three days in the elevator of Stephens’ New York City townhouse. The woman, who a statement said had been a valued employee of the Stephens family for 18 years, was freed by firefighters.

WORST TRUSTING

In January, a fully loaded 18-wheeler fell through the 90-year-old Dale Bend Bridge over the Petit Jean River near Ola, destroying the span, after the driver trusted the navigation directions from his GPS more than the weight limit signs on the bridge.

BEST COMEBACK

Julie Adams, who grew up in Blytheville before making over 50 Hollywood films, including the 1954 Universal horror classic “The Creature From the Black Lagoon,” died in February at the age of 92.

RETT PEEK

BEST STARLET

Arkansan Jason Macom, a former BMX bike racer who had to have his right leg amputated below the knee after he crushed his ankle in a 2010 bike crash, learned in February that he’d won a spot on the U.S. Paralympic National Cycling Team.

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DECEMBER 2019 33

WORST MAN VS. WILD

In February, Mountain Home native Travis Kauffman detailed for the press how he fended off a mountain lion that attacked as he was running in the woods near Fort Collins, Colo.: Kauffman managed to strangle the big cat to death with his bare hands in a terrifying, do-or-die battle that left him with over 20 stitches to his face and hands.

BEST RULING

In March, after over 18,000 disabled and low-income Arkansans were kicked off Medicaid because of the state’s new law requiring recipients to use an often-confusing online system to report at least 80 hours of work per month to continue receiving health care benefits, a federal judge blocked Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas and a similar program in Kentucky.

WORST CONCERNS

Citing unspecified “serious safety concerns,” Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. announced in April he had accepted the protection of a security detail staffed by Little Rock police officers. No other Little Rock mayors have had a security detail, understandable given an abject lack of attempts to do so much as ruffle the ceremonial sash of any mayor in recent Little Rock history.

WORST TWIN CITIES

A paper published by researchers from the University of Maryland in February found that thanks to global warming, the climate of New York City will most resemble the current climate of Jonesboro by 2040, while Little Rock will become a muggy climate-twin to current-day Hammond, La., just north of New Orleans. Have you ever been to New Orleans in August? We have. Stock up on deodorant, future dwellers.

BEST GOOD RIDDANCE

After a tenure marked by carrying water for the most shameless liar ever to infest the Oval Office, long droughts between White House briefings, and frequent displays of the surly attitude that marks the Trump administration’s approach to any member of the press who doesn’t work for Fox News or Wake Up, Moscow!, Arkansas native Sarah Huckabee Sanders resigned her post as White House press secretary on July 1, thereby abandoning a position that these days bears more than a passing resemblance to elephant dung shoveler at the zoo.

BEST EVIDENCE THAT MATH ARE HARD

As news of Sarah Huckabee Sanders resignation broke, President Trump fired off a tweet that lauded Sanders for her 3 1/2 years of service in the White House. At the time, Trump himself had only been in the White House around two years and five months. We know, Donnie. It seems longer than that for us, too.

WORST HOPE

In the same tweet, Trump finished his send-off with: “I hope she decides to run for Governor of Arkansas — she would be fantastic.” Lord, help us.

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WORST LIE

WORST ADVICE

Act 522 also requires physicians to tell their patients that, should they get cold feet after taking the first dose of RU486, they can find information on how to allegedly reverse the medication by “searching the term ‘abortion pill reversal’ on the internet,” effectively forcing doctors to recommend the always ill-advised practice of “medicine by Google” instead of, you know, encouraging patients to talk to the highly trained medical professional standing right in front of them.

BEST CLOSET

After a tornado roared through Siloam Springs on Oct. 21, Rachel Smith and her two children emerged from the closet of her family’s home to find the rest of the house almost entirely destroyed. Smith credited the mysteriously sturdy closet for saving their lives. “That and God,” Smith told a reporter. “That’s all I really know how to put it.”

BEST LIVING FOSSIL

In March, the legislature voted to make the toothy alligator gar the official state fish of Arkansas.

BEST YOUTH MOVEMENT The move to name the alligator gar as the state fish was spearheaded by 11-year-old gar fan Henry Foster of Fayetteville, who had been working on his @GARkansas project for over a year, including launching an online petition in which he encouraged prospective signers with the tagline: “Don’t be a copy-catfish! Vote for Alligator Gar!”

BEST BABY BITER

In February, state Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) called for a boycott of Little Rock’s Vino’s Brewpub after a promoter circulated flyers for an upcoming show by “sludge metal” band EyeHateGod that featured an digitally altered image of Rapert appearing to eat a baby.

Said the notoriously paper-thinskinned Rapert: “I call on Vino’s in Little Rock to cancel this event and apologize for such a disrespectful image that shows the dehumanization of babies lives.” With Vino’s apparently shrugging off concerns about potential overlap between those who care what Rapert says and fans of sludge metal, the show went on as planned.

BRIAN CHILSON

Act 522, which was signed into state law in March, requires doctors to effectively lie to their patients, forcing physicians to tell women seeking a chemical abortion via the two-dose RU486 “abortion pill” that it is possible to reverse the effects of the medication if a hormone pill is taken after the first dose.

Critics of the measure point out there’s zero medical evidence that taking a hormone pill is any more effective at “stopping an abortion” than simply not taking the second dose of RU-486.

BEST PUNK

In response to Jason Rapert’s call for the cancellation of the show, EyeHateGod frontman Mike IX Williams took to the band’s Facebook page to pen an open letter to Rapert, writing: “Thank you for all the attention you’ve given the EyeHateGod show in Little Rock, Arkansas. Any image that was used of you is protected under the First Amendment ... Please stick to destroying peoples lives by trying to ban same-sex marriage, opposing medical marijuana legalization, threatening minorities, and absolutely attacking women’s right to choose. Your moral crusade against basic human rights will be fought at every turn.”

BEST PINK

Arkansas State University Coach Blake Anderson was moved to tears in September when the ASU Red Wolves showed up for a game against the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga., to find that thousands of Bulldogs fans had shed their more familiar red for pink in honor of Anderson’s wife, Wendy, who passed away Aug. 19 after battling breast cancer. The tribute came together after the nonprofit Bulldogs Battling Breast Cancer tweeted out the idea with the hashtag #WearPinkForWendy, saying: “We want to show Coach Anderson that, regardless of the score on Saturday, he and his family are in our thoughts and prayers.”

BEST FRIENDS

In March, a story about Brandon Qualls, a senior at Caddo Hills High in Norman, Ark., went viral after a local news outlet reported he’d worked odd jobs for two years to save up enough money to buy his disabled friend Tanner Wilson a motorized wheelchair.

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DECEMBER 2019 35

WORST LAST CALL

After showing Little Rock a good time down on the river since 1975, the legendary bar and restaurant Cajun’s Wharf closed June 1.

BEST VEGANS FOR FREE SPEECH

In July, the ACLU filed a federal suit against the state on behalf of the company that makes the soy-based simu-turkey Tofurky over a truly dumb state law that threatens a fine against any company that uses words usually reserved for animal-derived products to advertise plant-based products, such as calling a mix of powdered almonds and filtered water “almond milk,” even though almonds have a distinct lack of udders. Turtle Island Foods, which makes Tofurky, claims among other things that the law is a violation of its constitutional right to call flavored tofu “turkey” if it wants.

BEST HOMECOMING

In February, several news outlets picked up the story of Dawn Geiber, who befriended a homeless man named James who had been on the streets of LIttle Rock for 15 years. Dawn and her husband, Jodi, not only helped James reconnect with his family in Illinois, but drove him over 600 miles to reunite with them. Until then, James’ family thought he was dead.

BRIAN CHILSON

WORST FLAMEBROILED

A Burger King restaurant in Beebe suffered heavy damage during an April incident in which a pickup truck hauling a 100-pound propane cylinder in the drive-thru lane burst into flame and exploded with the force of a bomb, an incident that was caught on video and widely circulated online.

BEST STICK-TO-ITTIVENESS

WORST FORGETFUL

WORST DELUGE

WORST PRUDE

On Sept. 6, the Bobcats of Corning High School ended their record 42-game football losing streak with a 30-8 win over Rector, marking the school’s first victory on the gridiron since October 2014.

Record flooding came to the state in late May and early June, ripping a 40foot breach in the Arkansas River levee near Dardanelle, drowning a good bit of the state’s farmland under several feet of water and requiring officials in Little Rock — where the Arkansas River eventually crested at 29.7 feet — to seal off several gaps in the Riverdale levee to keep the flooding mostly contained.

In September, police in Bryant arrested Lessie Marhanka, 22, after she allegedly pushed her shopping cart into a parking lot buggy corral and drove away, leaving behind both her wallet and her 2-month-old baby in the cart.

In April, a jury in Pine Bluff convicted Patricia Hill, 69, of second-degree murder after she shot her husband, Frank, to death because he’d subscribed to a porn channel on the couple’s satellite TV service. During the investigation, police said, Patricia Hill told detectives she considered porn “adultery with pictures.” Not much chance of seeing smut in prison, where she was sentenced for the next 16 years.

BEST ESCAPE

Trudy, a western lowland gorilla at the Little Rock Zoo who was the oldest of her species in captivity, passed away in July at the age of 63.

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BEST APOLOGY

In September, in what he said was his first visit to Arkansas after he was fired as Razorbacks head football coach following an April 2012 motorcycle crash that exposed his dalliance with a much younger subordinate, former University of Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino appeared at the Little Rock Touchdown Club and apologized for the incident. “I wanted to be able to come here and apologize to everybody, the fans, the players,” Petrino said, “and truly tell you how sorry I am for the way it ended.” Perhaps taking the Hogs’ lackluster recent seasons as a sign they should let bygones be bygones, the assembled Razorback fans gave him a standing ovation.

WORST DEFLECTION

In May, on the same day that the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 617 points and soybean prices cratered to their lowest levels in a decade, Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas appeared on CBS’ “This Morning” and said, when asked whether Trump’s trade war with China was hurting ordinary Americans, that “There will be some sacrifices on the part of Americans, I grant you that. But I also would say that sacrifice is pretty minimal compared to the sacrifices that our soldiers make overseas, that our fallen heroes who are laid to rest in Arlington make.” When there’s no good answer, hide behind the flag.

BEST TEXT

To help deal with her grief since losing Jason Ligons, a man she said was like a father to her, Chastity Patterson of Newport texted the late man’s cell number every day for four years with updates about her life, including her successful battle with cancer, finishing college and her relationship ups and downs. Then, in

October, Ligons told a local news outlet she received a response, when the man who had been assigned Ligon’s old cell number texted her back. “My name is Brad,” the texter wrote in part. “I lost my daughter in a car wreck [in] August 2014 and your messages have kept me alive. When you text me, I know it’s a message from God.”

BEST SHOUTOUT

After a March win in Nashville, mixed martial arts fighter and Texarkana native Bryce “Thugnasty” Mitchell used the post-fight interview to give a memorable shoutout in which he triumphantly told his Pappaw to call his Momma and tell her he was taking her for a steak, threw shade at his haters who said he wasn’t supposed to win because “Arkansas ain’t worth a piss,” and demanded that Reebok make him some camo fighting shorts.

BEST REBOUND

Bryce Mitchell’s win is even more of a Cinderella story given that many feared his fighting career was over following an August 2018 injury in which Mitchell, while working on a home-improvement project and lacking a tool belt, stuck a cordless drill down the front of his pants, accidently hit the trigger, and managed to mangle his scrotum with the power tool, later posting a gruesome photo of his bloodsoaked boxers on social media with the caption “I ripped my nutsack in half.”

BRIAN CHILSON

WORST NATURE

WORST LENIENCE

In July, President Trump commuted the sentence of Arkansas businessman Ted Suhl, who had been convicted in October 2016 and sentenced to seven years in federal prison for paying bribes to an official at the Arkansas Department of Human Services to keep state Medicaid funds flowing to his shady “faith-based” behavioral health centers in Northwest Arkansas. Suhl’s companies reportedly raked in over $125 million in taxpayer funds between 2007 and 2011.

In October, hunter Thomas Alexander, 66, died in Marion County after he was attacked by a buck deer he’d just shot while muzzleloader hunting. After taking his shot, Alexander apparently approached the wounded animal, thinking it was dead, but it jumped up and turned on him, delivering several puncture wounds to his body. Badly injured, he was transported to a local hospital, where he died. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said the injuries were complicated by a pre-existing condition.

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DECEMBER 2019 37

WORST NEWS FOR YOUR KIDS

A study released in April by the Bureau of Legislative Research found that the number of Arkansas college students seeking teaching degrees had declined by 50 percent in the past five years, with over 16 percent of new teachers quitting after only one year in the classroom and one in four teachers reporting they have seriously considered leaving the profession.

BRIAN CHILSON

WORST DRESSED MAN

BEST NOTORIOUS RBG

In September, Arkansas packed North Little Rock’s Verizon Arena to the rafters for a lecture by Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In July, police arrested Thomas Christian Miller, 25, in North Little Rock’s Argenta neighborhood after they said Miller, who was apparently heavily intoxicated, went into a stranger’s apartment, stripped, and then stole a full outfit of clothes, including a blazer, button-down shirt, blue jeans and brown leather shoes.

BEST FASHION SENSE

During his frightening ordeal in the woods, McClatchy — hungry, thirsty and alone — celebrated his birthday, turning 38 while wondering if he’d live to see 39.

Police were alerted to Miller’s alleged duds-theft by the actual owner of the clothes, who told cops he emerged from the Four Quarter Bar in Argenta just in time to see Miller walking past on the sidewalk wearing an outfit the victim recognized as his own.

BEST OFFER IF YOU GET SHOT AT A LOT

BEST SAVE

WORST BIRTHDAY

The Southwest Little Rock franchise of the Maaco body and paint shops chain made the news in July after offering a “Bullet Hole Special” on Facebook, with the post accompanied by a photo of a bullet-riddled car and the hashtag #WeWontTellTheCops

BEST INSTANT KARMA

In June, Cherie Renee Bolton, 34, of Siloam Springs pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and filing a false police report after investigators said Bolton, seeking revenge for being kicked out of their house by her husband, tried to frame him, telling police she’d caught him having sex with a 13-year-old girl and presenting investigators with three images of child pornography she said her husband had downloaded. Police said she later admitted downloading the images herself. She was sentenced to six years in prison, fined $2,000 and was required to register as a sex offender.

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In June, thanks to the efforts of more than 35 volunteers and a helicopter search team, Texas resident Josh McClatchy, 38, was located almost a full week after he texted his mother to tell her he’d become lost while hiking the rugged Buckeye Trail in the Caney Creek Wilderness Area east of Mena. Mom sent in the cavalry, and though spotty cell service in the area kept searchers from using McClatchy’s cell signal to get a bead on him, he was eventually located about 4 miles from the trail, dehydrated but OK.

BEST BELATED KARMA

On July 27, State Police reported that Drew Grant, 33, had been killed in Independence County after another vehicle crossed the center lane and hit his vehicle head on. Grant was a new name for the victim: He was Andrew Golden, who as an 11-year-old in 1998 with classmate Mitchell Johnson, then 13, carried out one of the most heinous crimes ever committed in Arkansas: They fatally shot a teacher and four children at the Westside Middle School in Jonesboro as their classmates emerged in response to a fire alarm. Ten others were wounded. Johnson and Golden/Grant were released from prison when they turned 21, Johnson in 2005 and Golden/Grant in 2007.

BRIAN CHILSON

WORST SANDWICH

BEST GREEN

In September, Arkansas-based fashion designer Korto Momolu brought dank styles to New York Fashion Week with a cannabis-themed collection.

WORST TCB

BEST ARKANSAS ON THE SMALL SCREEN

Season three of “True Detective,” a noir murder whodunit filmed in Northwest Arkansas and featuring a writing assist by Arkansas native Graham Gordy, debuted Jan. 13 on HBO cable.

BRIAN CHILSON

Korey Giles-Brown, 42, was stabbed six times in July after telling Elvis impersonator Dwayne Tuner, a.k.a. “Belvis the Black Elvis,” “If I were white, I would kick your ass ’cause you are the shittiest black Elvis ever.” At that point, witnesses told police, an unknown man standing nearby angrily accosted Giles-Brown over his criticism, starting a fight that ended with the victim being repeatedly stabbed.

Following the October arrest of Elizabeth Marie Catlett, 29, in Hot Springs on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, police say Catlett tried a novel explanation of why she might test positive for methamphetamine: that earlier in the evening her brother had fed her a meth-sprinkled sandwich and snuck a little meth into her soda.

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DECEMBER 2019 39

BEST CHANGES

In May, police said, a man walked into Little Rock’s Round Top Liquor Store on South Gaines Street and told the clerk: “You don’t have to rush. I’m not going to rob you today.” The clerk said that almost immediately after making the statement, the man struck him, grabbed two beers and fled from the store. Little Rock police soon arrested Ceodis Lasker, 31, who the clerk told cops he recognized from an earlier alcohol theft.

WORST FRIENDLY FIRE

In May, the Jonesboro Police Department disciplined a K-9 handler for not keeping his police dog, Rocket, on a leash at the police shooting range after Rocket rushed another officer shooting at targets from the firing line and attempted to attack him. Rocket, who was shot once in the shoulder during the incident, underwent surgery and was expected to recover. His handler, meanwhile, was suspended for one day and given a formal reprimand.

BRIAN CHILSON

In April, East Little Rock’s Rebel Kettle Brewing Co. took to Facebook to post new rules for patrons who want to bring their small children to the bar, including such seemingly common-sense edicts as children should be supervised at all times, must wear their shoes, no running, and, in what is likely the most welcome addition for those who eat at Rebel Kettle, no changing dirty diapers anywhere other than the restroom changing station. “We are not a playground, a daycare service or babysitting service,” the post concluded. “If you cannot be respectful of this, you will be asked to leave.”

WORST PROMISE

BEST VIGIL

On Oct. 9, thousands of concerned Little Rock residents wearing “red for ed” flooded the grounds of Little Rock’s historic Central High School for a candlelight vigil to protest a state plan that critics said would cleave the Little Rock School District by returning only a portion of the LRSD to local control. The state Department of Education responded with a plan that would leave the entire district under state control with a figurehead school board. It also ended recognition of the collective bargaining power of the Little Rock Education Association, the teachers union.

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WORST FINAL BELL

Citing financial difficulties, Little Rock’s St. Edward Catholic School, which had been educating children near MacArthur Park since 1885, closed in May after 134 years. Until then, it had been the city’s oldest elementary and middle school.

BEST LESSON

BRIAN CHILSON

Little Rock Central High School teacher Stacey McAdoo, a union member who also happens to be the 2019 Arkansas Teacher of the Year, delivered a speech for the ages during the vigil, telling the crowd: “Every single one of us — students, parents and teachers — should feel valued, heard and respected. ...

We’re not talking about facilities, structural buildings or compiled data. We’re talking about human beings, children. And they are watching. They are dear, sweet, beautiful, brilliant children who deserve our support, our love, endless opportunities, and most of all one district, one locally democratically elected board, and teachers who are respected.”

WORST HEIST

In September, the owners of Hamilton Farms in Bradley County were shocked to discover that someone had stolen the vast majority of their pumpkin crop, making off with the raw material for up to 4,000 jack-o-lanterns. Tracks at the scene showed the thieves used regular ol’ pickup trucks to accomplish the theft, with a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette estimating it would have taken over a dozen truckloads to steal them all.

WORST CAN’T TAKE A JOKE In May, Dobie Brown, 45, of Little Rock was arrested after police said he shot a longtime friend over a joke that implied the friend could ride a motorcycle better than Brown. Rather than laughing it off, witnesses said, Brown responded with “better go hide” and later shot the man in the leg.

WORST COMPLICATED

When a judge in Benton County asked Patrick Malone, 22, of Garfield, why he shot his mother to death in July 2017, Malone told the judge: “It’s complicated, your honor.” After Malone pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, the judge kept it simple, sentencing Malone to 35 years.

WORST VICTORY LAP

WORST PAPERWORK

BEST WATCHING THE WATCHMEN

WORST PUTTING THE ‘GROSS’ IN GROCERY STORE

Kellie Y. Traylor, 55, of Mayflower, was found guilty of first-degree battery in May after a May 2018 incident in Little Rock in which Traylor ran over a female rival with her pickup truck, crushing the victim against another vehicle and shattering the woman’s pelvis. Though Traylor claimed at trial that the incident was an accident, witnesses took the stand to say that as Traylor left the scene after crushing the victim, Traylor celebrated by pumping her arm out the truck’s window while “laughing hysterically.”

In July, Little Rock city directors approved an ordinance, championed

by Mayor Frank Scott, to create a five-member citizen review board that will investigate the actions of Little Rock Police Department officers in cases where cops are accused of corruption, discrimination or excessive use of force against suspects.

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

Franklin County Courthouse workers’ day was interrupted by something out of a horror movie in July when 39-yearold Charles Casey Fisher of Mulberry walked into the tax collector’s office drenched in blood from multiple stab wounds. A dazed Fisher, who told the clerks he was “just there to do some paperwork,” was eventually flown by medevac helicopter to Fort Smith, where he was treated and expected to recover.

Police soon arrested Coby Hutchinson, 27, of Ozark in the stabbing.

U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III ruled in July that J and L Grocery in Alma should be closed until the owners cleaned the place up, the move coming after a 2018 inspection by the FDA found “multiple live and dead rodents, rodent nesting, live raccoons, live cats, a dead possum, animal feces, and urinestained products” inside the store and adjacent warehouse. The U.S. Marshals Service seized food, medications, pet food, cosmetics and more to keep the tainted products from being sold to customers.

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BEST IMPROVISING

Jeremy Rose, an Austin, Texas, resident who drove over 500 miles in January to ease his injured shoulder with a therapeutic bath at Hot Springs’ Quapaw Bathhouse only to find the Quapaw closed for maintenance, was caught on video after he stripped down to swim trunks and took a dip in one of the steaming thermal water fountains along Bathhouse Row.

WORST UNLICENSED PHARMACY

Quincy Edward Boudreaux, 25, and two companions were arrested at Lake Ouachita State Park in July after police, following the smell of marijuana to where the men were sitting, searched a backpack and allegedly turned up not only weed. but a baggie containing 70 pills of various colors, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, crystal meth and dog biscuits that investigators say later tested positive for having been laced with LSD.

WORST RANDOM A TACK

Over a dozen bicyclists had to withdraw from September’s Big Dam Bridge 100 bicycle race after a vandal apparently salted part of the race course with tacks, leading to multiple flat tires.

By Joe Landry

COURTESY OF BIG DAM BRIDGE 100

TheRep.org / 501-378-0405

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ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

WARDROBE READY? WALK IN TO WICKS.

WORST NEWS FOR NEWSPRINT

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Publisher Walter Hussman announced the paper would go digital and no longer print a daily paper except in Northwest Arkansas. By the end of the year, the transformation was complete, with Central Arkansas subscribers the last to receive a print version. Instead, the Dem-Gaz, at a cost of millions of dollars, has provided Apple iPads to subscribers at the same rate, $36 a month. The Dem-Gaz will still circulate a printed Sunday newspaper.

Hussman said the move was necessary because of the collapse of print advertising; it will save on the cost of newsprint, production and delivery.

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 43

WORST LIE

WECARE FOR ALLOF YOU.

Act 522, which was signed into Arkansas state law in March, requires doctors to effectively lie to their patients, forcing physicians to tell women seeking a chemical abortion via the two-dose RU486 “abortion pill” that it is possible to reverse the effects of the medication if a hormone pill is taken after the first dose.

Critics of the measure point out there’s zero medical evidence that taking a hormone pill is any more effective at “stopping an abortion” than simply not taking the second dose of RU-486.

Sc hedul eonl i nef orbi r t hc ont r ol , STDt es t i ng, L GBTQ c ar e, and mor e:ppgr eat pl ai ns . or g

WORST ADVICE

Act 522 also requires physicians to tell their patients that, should they get cold feet after taking the first dose of RU486, they can find information on how to allegedly reverse the medication by “searching the term ‘abortion pill reversal’ on the Internet,” effectively forcing doctors to recommend the always ill-advised practice of “medicine by Google” instead of, you know, encouraging patients to talk to the highly- trained medical professional standing right in front of them.

BEST QUESTIONABLE

“Rock Town have upped their game a few notches, and in so doing have taken the micros into a whole new ball park...”

- Jim Murray’s 2020 Whiskey Bible

44 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

The obituary for Robert Craig Askew, 76, who died Oct. 9 in Ash Flat, was one for the books, claiming, among other things, that Askew had consulted with physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer on the creation of the first atomic bomb when Askew was only 2 years old, trained Chuck Norris in martial arts and was the only person to ever defeat Norris in an unarmed fight, and helped NASA put a man on the moon. “Later in his life,” the obituary said, “he would become responsible for naming the ever-present GIF. He pronounced it GIF.”

BEST ENDING

After a laundry list of achievements, Askew’s obituary ended in a coda that we’d hope would suit any of us just fine: “He loved his kids as much as he knew how. He was loved and will be missed.

You would have liked him.”

WORST MALE BONDING In March, Charles Ferris, 50, of Rogers presented to the local emergency room with a large bruise on his chest, telling doctors that, while acting as a bodyguard for an unnamed client, he’d been shot by a mysterious man in a white suit and had been saved by his bulletproof vest.

Police say they soon learned the truth, however: that Ferris and his neighbor Christopher Hicks, 36, had been drinking on Ferris’ back deck when they decided to test Ferris’ bulletproof vest by allowing Hicks to shoot him in the chest at point-blank range with a .22-caliber rifle.

WORST TIT FOR RAT-ATAT-TAT

According to police, Charles Ferris’ wife told investigators that the shot to her husband’s chest hurt so much that he became infuriated, made Christopher Hicks put on the vest, then pointed the gun at his friend and “unloaded the [rifle’s] clip into Christopher’s back.”

BEST STEAK

WORST TWINS SINCE ‘THE SHINING’

In June, two women reported that a pair of identical twins forced their way into their Garland County home shouting about an unpaid debt by a man named “Mike,” before eventually realizing they had the wrong house and leaving. With the pool of potential suspects about as narrow as can reasonably be, police soon arrested identical twins Eric Charles Norwood and Shawn Allan Norwood, both 32 years old, on several counts.

WORST DISAPPOINTED

In August, a man in a white Pontiac sedan sped away after allegedly attempting to run over an employee of a Taco Bell restaurant in Bryant. According to witnesses, the driver became enraged after an employee told him the restaurant was out of taco meat.

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Best Arkansas Brewed Beer

Jeff Rutledge (Arkansas rice farmer) & Grant Chandler (Lost Forty brewer)

GRAIN TO GLASS We’re proud to partner with local Arkansas rice farms to create a deliciously light and truly homegrown beer made in Arkansas,

by Arkansas, and for Arkansas.

HOMEGROWN Every batch of 2nd Rodeo is brewed with locally grown Arkansas rice that is milled just down the road from the farm.

Well...

it ain't our first.

We’ve been around the block a few times on our quest to create an exceptionally easy-drinking beer for Arkansans to enjoy any time of year. 2nd Rodeo is our lightest beer brewed with just a few simple ingredients – like naturally pure Arkansas water and homegrown Arkansas rice – for a crisp brew that’s low in alcohol, low in calories, and refreshing anytime, anywhere.

Saddle up, light beer lovers.

12 pack of beer on-site at the Rutledge farm ARKANSAS IS RICE We’re thrilled to partner with the Arkansas Rice Council in their mission of shining a light on and supporting the farming community that makes our home state one of the largest producers of rice in the U.S.A.

Arkansas Rice Council community builders ONLY IN ARKANSAS Every can of 2nd Rodeo is made and sold only in Arkansas to ensure maximum freshness and highest quality.

Each batch made and sold only in Arkansas

SADDLE UP FOR SUMMER Look for 2nd Rodeo in six packs and in 12 pack boxes.

Our boxes, our aluminum cans, and our can holders are all 100% recyclable to ensure we keep The Natural State pristine while enjoying its beauty this season.

120 Cals. | 4.1% Alc. by Vol. Taproom & Brewhouse open 7 days a week!

46 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

@LOST40BEER | Lost40brewing.com

WHERE ARKANSAS TIMES READERS BELLY UP.

I

n the service of sobriety, the Arkansas Times passed on the Toast of the Town in 2018. After a year’s break, and with a fresh palate, our readers once more held forth on their favorite watering holes, booze, beers, bartenders and other libation-related activities. Four Quarter Bar, in North Little Rock’s Argenta neighborhood, held on to the Best Bar ranking it received in 2017, and grabbed other firsts as well.

Atlas Bar made it on the map as well, winning Best New Bar, and a Hot Springs entry, the Starlite Club, was its runner-up (see the winners on page 54). Raise a glass and say sláinte to the following:

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 47

WORLD TRAVELER: Atlas owner Tony Poe.

WORLDLY SPIRITS TONY POE’S ATLAS BAR TAKES A PAGE FROM THE FAMILY BUSINESS.

BY LINDSEY MILLAR

T

he best new bar in Central Arkansas, as determined by the readers of the Arkansas Times, is something of a rarity in Little Rock: It’s a cocktail bar. There are plenty of other spots around town that serve an excellent craft cocktails, but with a few exceptions, those are restaurants with bars.

The vast majority of bars in town, where drinking is the main idea, are dives, sports bars, venues or pool halls (like Atlas’ South Main Street neighbor Midtown).

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Walk into Atlas at 4 p.m. on a sunny afternoon, and you’ll know where you are. The lights are low, the high-back barstools are quilted red leather and a giant glowing red BAR sign hangs above the bar. This is the cozy, urbane neighborhood bar that Little Rock has been missing.

Owner Tony Poe says he modeled Atlas on the sort of neighborhood bars he used to hang out in on Chicago’s north side. “I wanted to bring a big city environment to Little Rock,”

ONE MORE REASON TO SHOP COLONIAL

Thanks for voting us

BEST LIQUOR STORE

BEST BEER SELECTION

BEST WINE SELECTION in 2019!

11200 W. Markham

501-223-3120 866-988-8466

ColonialWineShop.com SHOP ONLINE: ColonialWine.shop @ColonialWines

craving bright, fresh, cali-mex inspired dishes? keep it local.

STREET-STYLE TACOS | CRAFT MARGARITAS AHI TUNA CEVICHE | FRESH SALADS ICE-COLD BEER | HOUSE-MADE DESSERTS ARTISAN COCKTAILS AND MUCH MORE

@LocalLime @LocalLime_Rogers

Arkansas Owned & Operated for 7 years LITTLE ROCK, AR & ROGERS, AR locallimetaco.com | #eatlocaltacos

LocalLimeTaco.com ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 49

Thank you for your votes!

BEST LIQUOR STORE BEST BEER SELECTION (LIQUOR STORE)

Check our great holiday pricing throughout the store...here’s one for you and one for me!

Hours:

Monday – Thursday 8AM-11PM Friday – Saturday 8AM-12AM

250 W Kiehl Ave, Sherwood, AR 72120 (501) 834-2134 107liquor.com

MIDTOWN MUSIC LINE-UP FOR DECEMBER Dec 6 Family Dog Dec 7 Clam Star Dec 13 Black River Pearl Dec 14 Ed Bowman & The Rock City Players Dec 20 Psychedelic Velocity Dec 21 Kurt Allen Band Dec 27 Fanstar Dec 28 Buh Jones Band

BEST LATE-NIGHT SPOT BEST PICKUP BAR

LIVE TRIVIA

EVERY TUESDAY AT 6 P.M. 1316 MAIN ST. • (501) 372-9990

50 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

Poe said. He’s been gratified to hear from Atlas customers from Chicago and New York that they feel right at home.

Little Rock is Poe’s hometown, but he inherited a peripatetic nature from his father, the late Fred Poe, founder of Arkansas’s best-known travel agency, Poe Travel.

Atlas reflects that sense of wanderlust. An airplane propeller hangs on a wall near the entryway. In the back corner, Fred Poe’s extensive map collection lines the walls.

The menu, too, has a global theme. In addition to an inventive craft cocktail menu, Atlas offers half a dozen “international libations,” including an Italian Aperol Spritz, a Japanese highball made with Suntory Toki Whiskey and a Barbados-inspired Dark & Stormy.

On the food menu, there’s a Thai beef salad, Mexican corn salad (with grapefruit!), a tofu bahn mi sandwich and nasi goring, Indonesian fried rice that Poe boasts is the best in town, rivaled only perhaps, he said, by the fried rice at Mike’s Cafe.

Early in his life, Poe worked in restaurants. As a teenager, his first job was as a busboy at Jacques and Suzanne, remembered as Little Rock’s first truly fine-dining restaurant. “They really taught me how hospitality worked. It’s where I really learned to serve,” Poe said.

During college and immediately afterward, in the early 1990s, Poe worked in restaurants around the country: a Malaysian restaurant in Washington, D.C., the Heathman Hotel in Portland, Ore., and in several restaurants in Chicago.

BEST BARTENDER: Atlas’ Kevis Smith, according to the readers of the Arkansas Times.

Here with his cocktail creation Me So Thorny, a twist on a gin mule.

As a child, Poe traveled with his family around the world. He’s kept it up as an adult. But from the time he opened Atlas in February until September, he didn’t take a trip. That was the most amount of time he’d stayed in one place without traveling in his entire life, he realized.

Poe’s professional career has also been all over the map, “from politics to finance to failed startups.” More recently, he spent time working in finance in Denver before

“When you go to Atlas bar, time stops.”

Pizza

WINNER 2019 BEST DIVE BAR

moving back to Little Rock in 2003 to work for Poe Travel, where he did marketing and PR. Then he worked for a luxury travel company in Fort Worth, Texas, and then an even more high-end luxury tour operator based in New York. “Finally, I got burned out on that,” Poe said.

Although he’d returned to live in Little Rock in the early 2000s, his focus was on traveling beyond Little Rock (his father always said the best part about Little Rock was that it had an airport, Tony quipped). But, he said, “I realized living in Little Rock, there’s momentum here,” and decided to try to get involved.

His first attempt was to work for the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau. He said he’d never worked for a government agency before, and it wasn’t a good fit.

He was about to turn 50, and he said he’d dreamed of opening a bar since college. “If I’m ever going to do this, now is the time to do it,” he remembered saying to himself, “because if I don’t do it and I die, I’ll be really mad at myself.”

A first-time bar owner’s early secret to success? “I went to great lengths to bring on staff who are creative, experienced and know what they’re doing, and I gave them license to run with it,” Poe said. He described his drinks of choice as vodka soda, bourbon or a glass of wine, but said, “My eyes have been open to craft cocktails.”

One of his favorites, and one of the most popular cocktails on the menu, is the Grey Eyed Goddess, a creation of general manager/bartender Samira Morshedi. Its distinctive and delightful pungent taste comes from Rocktown Vodka infused in Earl Grey tea; there’s also ginger, honey, lemon and a kumquat liqueur in the mix, too.

Poe said Cheyenne Gibson, owner of neighboring Southern Blonde and Co., has a line: “When you go to Atlas bar, time stops.”

“It might be a little dangerous in that regard,” Poe said with a laugh. “Even though it’s a new bar, I want it to be the best new ‘old’ bar in Little Rock. I want it to feel like it could’ve been from another time.”

A C T I O N

WINNER 2019 BEST PLACE TO SHOOT POOL/PLAY DARTS

KEVIS SMITH, ATLAS BARTENDER (left), TONY POE, ATLAS OWNER (right),

THANK YOU! FOR VOTING US BEST NEW BAR AND BEST BARTENDER, KEVIS SMITH.

1224 MAIN STREET | LITTLE ROCK, AR | 501.712.4713 | ATLASSOMA.COM

Thank you Arkansas Voted Best Brewpub and Runner Up Best Local Brewery

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 51

DOMESTIC The Forge:

Cheap frosties

75 cents 7-ounce Miller High Life.

Beer sophisticates might not mind plunking down $7 for a bot-

75 cents 7-ounce Miller High Life.

tle of beer, though most would draw the line at Samuel Adams’ Utopias at $210 a bottle. But there are days when the wallet is thin and a Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer will do. Experienced beer drinkers at the Arkansas Times knew that Leo’s Greek Castle sold PBR in a can for just 75 cents, two-bits times three. Was it the cheapest? We did the research, calling up a number of saloons to see what their cheapest beers were. Turns out, according to our (not exhaustive) survey, Leo’s wins. Here are other deals on suds in Little Rock and North Little Rock subject to change.

Four Quarter: Brewski’s Pub: $1 7-ounce Miller High Life.

Pizza D’Action: $1 Busch Light, Frio’s 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Prospect Bar: $2 domestics 3-7 p.m. daily.

Rack Um:

ALL BEERS Norm’s Lounge:

$2.50 domestics 4-7 p.m. weekdays, noon-7 p.m. Sat., noon-midnight Sun.

Fassler Hall:

$2 all beers 3-8 p.m. daily.

$3 domestics.

Khalil’s:

U.S. Pizza:

$2 all beers, $10 buckets of beer, 3-6 p.m. weekdays.

$3 bottled beers.

Local Lime:

$3 domestics 3-6 p.m. weekdays.

$3 Tecate 2-6 p.m. happy hour.

Samantha’s: Dugans:

Rotating specials $3.50.

$3.25 domestics, $1 off all beers 4-7 p.m. weekdays.

The Pizzeria:

The Oyster Bar:

Flying Saucer:

$4 16-ounce drafts 10 p.m.-close Fri.-Sat., 5-6 p.m. weekdays.

Raduno: $5 all beers 3-6 p.m.

$3.50 all domestics.

ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co: $3.75 Michelob Ultra.

Bar Louie:

PBR

$4 14-ounce draft domestics daily, $5 domestic buckets Wed.

Leo’s Greek Castle: 75 cents can.

Midtown Billiards: $1 12-ounce bottle, $2.50 24-ounce can.

North Bar: $1 can.

Pizza D’Action: $1.

Four Quarter: $1.50 bottles.

52 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

CRAFT

Hillcrest Fountain: $2 Piney River Ozarks Lager.

Rebel Kettle: $2.50 8-ounce, $4.50 16-ounce Working Glass Hero.

Vino’s: $3.25 4-6 p.m. weekdays, noon-6 p.m. Saturday, to 10 p.m. Wednesday.

FRESH LOCAL FOOD, HAND SQUEEZED DRINKS!

THANKS FOR VOTING FOR US!

Stone’s Throw Brewing: $4 Kavanaugh Kristalweiss.

Flyway Brewing: $4 pints Monday.

Best Margarita – Winner

ZAZA’s Wood Oven and Pizza Co.: $4 Lost Forty’s Second Rodeo.

Diamond Bear Brewing: $1 off pints 4-7 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, Southern Blonde, Strawberry Blonde and Pale Ale $5.

Lost Forty Brewing:

Best Drinking Brunch - Runner Up Best Patio or Deck for Drinking - Runner Up Best Bloody Mary - Runner Up 3501 OLD CANTRELL RD. (501) 916-9706 • THEFOLDLR.COM

$5.75 year-round brews.

Rocktown Distillery: $7.

Damgoode Pies: $2 Reno’s Argenta Cafe: $2 can.

Town Pump: $2 (also Busch Light) White Water Tavern: $2 (also Busch Light) Stickyz Rock ’n’ Chicken Shack: $2.50 can.

Esters: $3.50 16-ounce tallboy.

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 53

Wethinkyou’rethe best!

Thanks forthevotes! best bar best bar for food best bloody mary best bar for live music best neighborhood bar

Best Bartender,Jimmy Tolan Best Pick-Up Bar Best Dive Bar Best Bar for Pool,Darts,Shuffleboard

Check out upcoming bands at Fourquarter.com

Open until 2am every night! 415 Main St North Little Rock (501) 313-4704 • fourquarterbar.com

BEST BAR Four Quarter Bar Runner-up: White Water Tavern

BEST BARTENDER Kevis Smith (Atlas) Runner-up: Jimmy Tolan (Four Quarter)

BEST NEW BAR Atlas Bar Runner-up: Starlite Club (Hot Springs) BEST BAR FOR LIVE MUSIC Four Quarter Bar Runner-up: White Water Tavern

BEST HAPPY HOUR

JANUARY M USIC IN A RGENTA !

Jan 13: Ed Petersen

w w w . j a z za t t h e j o i n t . o rg

Jan 16: Alberto Lombardi w w w . a rg e n ta a c o u s t i c . c o m

Contact: Steve Davison

s

501.425.1528

s

steve@stevedavison.com

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD BAR Four Quarter Bar Runner-up: The Pantry Crest

BEST WINE BAR Crush Wine Bar Runner-up: By the Glass

BEST SPORTS BAR Prospect Sports Bar & Grill Runner-up: Brewski’s Pub & Grub

BEST PICKUP BAR Midtown Billiards Runner-up: Four Quarter Bar

BEST GAY BAR Discovery Runner-up: Triniti

BEST DIVE BAR Pizza D’Action Runner-up: Four Quarter Bar

BEST HOTEL BAR Capital Bar and Grill Runner-up: Agasi 7 Rooftop Bar + Kitchen BEST BAR FOR POOL, DARTS, SHUFFLEBOARD, ETC. Pizza D’Action Runner-up: Four Quarter Bar

BEST BAR FOR FOOD Four Quarter Bar Runner-up: Raduno Brick Oven & Barroom

BEST HAPPY HOUR The Pantry Runner-up: Big Orange Midtown

54 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

WINNERS: Petit & Keet’s martini, Tristan Cripps of Colonial Wine and Spirits and Pizza D.

BEST DRINKING BRUNCH Petit and Keet Runner-up: The Fold Botanas & Bar

BEST PATIO OR DECK FOR DRINKING Ciao Baci Runner-up: The Fold Botanas & Bar

COLDEST BEER Twin Peaks Runner-up: Hideaway Pizza

BEST COCKTAIL LIST Petit and Keet Runner-up: Atlas Bar

BEST BLOODY MARY Four Quarter Bar Runner-up: The Fold Botanas & Bar

BEST MARGARITA The Fold Botanas & Bar Runner-up: Local Lime

BEST MARTINI Petit and Keet Runner-up: Capital Bar and Grill

BEST LOCAL BREWERY Lost Forty Brewing Runner-up: Flyway Brewing

BEST NATIONAL BREWERY Lagunitas Brewing Co. Runner-up: Founders Brewing Co.

BEST LOCAL PALE ALE Lost Forty Pale Ale Runner-up: Diamond Bear Pale Ale

BEST LOCAL IPA Lost Forty Rockhound IPA Runner-up: Flyway Early Bird IPA

BEST LIQUOR STORE Colonial Wine & Spirits Runner-up: 107 Liquor

BEST BREWPUB Flyway Brewing Runner-up: Lost Forty Brewing

BEST BEER SELECTION (Bar or Restaurant) Flying Saucer Runner-up: Raduno Brick Oven & Barroom

BEST BEER SELECTION (Liquor Store) Colonial Wine & Spirits Runner-up: 107 Liquor

BEST WINE LIST Petit and Keet Runner-up: The Pantry

BEST WINE SELECTION Colonial Wine & Spirits Runner-up: Legacy Wine and Spirits

VOT E D

BEST • DRINKING BRUNCH

• COCKTAIL LIST • BEST MARTINI • BEST WINE LIST Named one of Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s "America’s 100 Best Wine Restaurants 2019"

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 55

NEIGHBORHOOD DINING GUIDE

Art By Carole Katchen

Sometimes we choose where to eat based on where it is located! Just the mention of Hillcrest and all the restaurants there come to mind. It’s the same for Riverdale, Heights, West End, Argenta and downtown. So here’s a tidy listing of neighborhoods and the restaurants in the area.

LITTLE ROCK / NORTH LITTLE ROCK / SHERWOOD AGASI 7 ROOFTOP BAR + KITCHEN Little Rock’s only rooftop bar is located atop the Hilton Garden Inn downtown. Agasi 7 offers a wide range of drinks, bites and amazing views.

Enjoy lounge-style seating around fire pits and portable heater towers or stay indoors and enjoy a signature smoke-infused cocktail. Voted “Best hotel Bar’ by Arkansas Times readers. 322 Rock St., 501-244-0044.

ATLAS BAR Named best new bar by readers of the Arkansas Times, Atlas Bar is living up to its intention: to be the best new old bar in Little Rock. It’s inspired by traditional American watering holes of the 20th century and influenced by the golden age of travel.

Come by for creative international libations created

by Arkansas Times’ Best Bartender, Kevis Smith, and delicious comfort foods from around the world.

Maybe play a game or two of pool. Great conversation is sure to follow. 1224 Main St., 501-712-4713.

56 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

BENIHANA For 55 years, Benihana has been serving legendary Mai Tais and other cocktails and famous Asian cooking. 2 Riverfront Place, North Little Rock, 501-374-8081.

BOULEVARD BREAD CO. Find fresh bread, pastries and a great selection of cheeses, olive oils, local vegetables and cooking supplies here.

Boulevard also caters. Three locations: 1920 N. Grant St., 501-663-5951; 1417 Main St., 501375-5100; 9601 Baptist Health Drive (Baptist Hospital), 501-217-4025.

BOULEVARD BISTRO A delightful casual dining restaurant nestled in the Heights neighborhood of Little Rock offers hand-crafted specialties each night in addition to the regular menu and a full bar. 1920 N. Grant St., 501-663-5949.

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

BUFFALO WILD WINGS It’s the Great American Sports Bar where fans meet up, let loose and bond over saucy wings, flavorful food, spirited drinks and celebrated moments. The neighborhood favorite boasts an awesome lunch lineup starting at $5.99, weekday $3-$5 happy hours from 2-6 p.m. and 9 p.m.-midnight, BOGO Tuesdays, 65-cent Boneless Wings Thursdays and $5 game day specials Thu.-Mon. The rotating tap list and custom-crafted cocktails pair well with new menu additions like beer-battered chicken sandwiches and tenders. Also new: free-to-play Picks and Props game on Buffalo Wild Wings’ app. Win huge prizes with just a few taps; all you have to do is check in to compete every week at Buffalo Wild Wings. So, don’t spend your season on the couch. Clear your schedule and get to Buffalo Wild Wings. 14800 Cantrell Road, 501868-5299; 4600 Silver Creek Drive, Sherwood, 501-819-5299.

39th

NOV 20 – DEC 31 AWARDS

VOTE NOW!

Vote for all your favorite restaurants in Arkansas!

Since 1981 Arkansas Times has asked its readers to tell us the best restaurants in Arkansas.

When the results are tallied, we publish the results in the February 2020 issue along with a fantastic party at the Ben E. Keith regional headquarters in North Little Rock, along with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits and the hot tunes of the Ted Ludwig Jazz Band. Restaurants work hard, play hard and deserve to be rewarded.

THROUGH DECEMBER 13 VOTING GOES THOUGH DEC. 13 at arktimes.com/choice arktimes.com/choice Help your favorite restaurants make the cut!

They work hard and deserve the recognition and praise! Results published in the February issue of Arkansas Times.

PRESENTED BY

AMERICA’S FAVORITE ORPHAN IS BACK!

CACHE RESTAURANT This one-of-a-kind fine-dining venue set in the heart of the River Market district is the perfect place for corporate events, private romantic dinners or simply for people who love to have memorable meals. There’s an outdoor patio upstairs and dining with a view. 425 President Clinton Ave., 501-850-0265.

DOE’S EAT PLACE This steakhouse offers convenient curbside parking and your choice of inside or outside dining. It has a down-to-earth, no frills Southern atmosphere, with great food and casual dining. Along with scrumptious T-bone, porterhouse or sirloin steaks, Doe’s serves hot tamales with chili, succulent broiled shrimp, tasty grilled salmon, mouth-watering hamburgers, cheeseburgers and more, all at reasonable prices. 1023 W. Markham St., 501-376-1195.

FADED ROSE Ed David, a New Orleans native, his wife, Laurie, and their son, Zac, have been serving great New Orleans cuisine since 1982 in a casual and friendly atmosphere. They are widely known for their steaks and their New Orleans Creole and Cajun dishes. They blend their own spices, cut their own steaks and make their own sauces, right down to the house-made mayo! They have gladly served Arkansans and guests from around the world for almost 40 years and invite you to come try The Rose tonight. 1619 Rebsamen Park Road, 501-663-9734.

42 BAR AND TABLE Experience the inspired, mouth-watering menu at 42 bar and table! Downtown Little Rock’s go-to lunch spot offers delicious food for a casual meal or business meeting. You’ll find newly crafted entrees and long-time favorites on the dinner menu, and happy hour specials at the bar.

42 bar and table is rated one of the best overall restaurants in Central Arkansas by diners on Open Table and Rock City Times they have “one of the strongest culinary teams in the city.”

You’ll enjoy unparalleled views of the Arkansas River from the inviting dining room or outside on the expansive patio. And take advantage of free valet parking during dinner.

Located inside the Clinton Presidential Center, 42 bar and table is open for lunch Monday through Saturday, dinner Thursday through Saturday, and Sunday for brunch. Make your reservation at 42barandtable.org or call (501) 537-0042.

SERVING UP FUN, FOOD AND FABULOUS LIVE ENTERTAINMENT SINCE 1967.

SEASON TICKETS ON SALE NOW! 10 SHOWS AND DINNERS FOR ONLY $180 Give the gift of entertainment!

MURRYSDP.COM 562-3131

Our Gift Certificates are available in any denomination and never expire.

‘TIS THE SEASON

FOR WINGS AND CHEER PUT SOME CHEER IN YOUR HOLIDAY SEASON AND ORDER FROM OUR PARTY MENU! CALL OR VISIT TODAY AND LEAVE THE COOKING TO US! 675 AMITY ROAD • CONWAY 14800 CANTRELL ROAD • LITTLE ROCK 4600 SILVERCREEL DRIVE • SHERWOOD ©2019 BUFFALO WILD WINGS, INC. BWW2019-0170566

DINE WITH US THIS SEASON. Let us prepare your holiday meal from start to finish. Call our Heights location for details.

1920 N. Grant St. • 501.663.5951 www.boulevardbread.com Located in the Heights, SOMA, and Baptist Hospital A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 57

NEIGHBORHOOD DINING GUIDE FLYWAY BREWING CO. This 10-barrel brewery in the heart of Argenta is getting lots of attention for its Bluewing Berry Wheat, among its other beers. The menu is a standout, with such items as venison goat cheese and bacon-wrapped quail breast. 314 Maple St., NLR, 501-812-3192.

FOUR QUARTER BAR This Argenta favorite doesn’t serve your average bar food. The menu features locally sourced pork, handmade sauces and famous hand-pattied burgers along with weekly specials that you won’t find anywhere else. Even better, the kitchen is open until 1:30 a.m. every night. Four Quarter also offers a great selection of rotating craft beer on draft. With great live music, a hidden patio, shuffleboard and dominoes, Four Quarter Bar has it all. 415 Main St., North Little Rock, 501-313-4704.

KEMURI This Hillcrest favorite is the most creative restaurant to hit the Little Rock scene in decades! Kemuri is not just a sushi lover’s paradise, but a full-scale restaurant serving some of the most exciting and delicious dishes Arkansas has ever seen and at a level you would expect to find in New York, Tokyo and L.A. At the heart of the kitchen is Chef Gilbert Alaquinez Jr., the master crafter behind the dishes, and extraordinary sushi Chef Haidar Assegaf. 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd., 501-660-4100.

LOCA LUNA One of Arkansas’s most celebrated restaurants, Loca Luna opened over 20 years ago under the direction of renowned Little Rock chef Mark Abernathy. This bold Southern bistro continues to plate excellent grilled fare and fresh seafood.

The lighter side of the menu offers a wide array of salads and appetizers, along with old-world pizza prepared in Arkansas’s first wood-fired pizza oven. Nothing goes better with great food than great wine, and at Loca Luna you will find one of the best-priced wine lists around. Its award-winning weekday plate lunch specials and weekend brunch make Loca Luna a great choice for every meal. 3519 Old Cantrell Road, 501-663-4666.

LOST FORTY BREWING Find this microbrewery in the East Village, where you can enjoy a S’morest Queen with your pancakes. 501 Byrd St., 501-319-7275.

MIDTOWN BILLIARDS This late-night favorite has been operating since 1940, serving hamburgers, ham sandwiches, turkey, spam and egg, grilled cheese and BLTs. Midtown’s hamburger has been voted “Best Hamburger in Arkansas.” 1316 Main St., 501372-9990.

58 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

PETIT AND KEET

DOE’S EAT PLACE

FADED ROSE

AGASI 7 ROOFTOP BAR + KITCHEN

CACHE RESTAURANT

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

KEMURI

PANTRY WEST/PANTRY CREST Tomas Bohm’s acclaimed restaurants feature Czech and German classics such as goulash and weiner schnitzel, as well as house-made charcuterie, salads, flatbreads, and desserts.

Nothing disappoints, ever. The full bar offers lots of specialty cocktails, including the Negroni, prepared and bottled by the restaurant. The Pantry Eateries, as they are known collectively, also cater and offer vegetarian and gluten-free menus. Pantry West: 11401 N. Rodney Parham Road. Pantry Crest: 722 N. Palm St., 501-725-4945.

PETIT AND KEET Excellent casual fine dining and bar from longtime Little Rock restaurateurs Louis Petit and Jim Keet. Check out the newly added Sunday brunch. 1620 Market St., 501-319-7675.

PIZZA D’ACTION Pizza D’ Action has been a staple of Stifft Station dating back to the ’70s. Since its inception Pizza D’ has morphed from a small pizza joint into a landmark at the corner of Kavanaugh and Markham. In January it appeared that Pizza D’ was closing permanently, but in May a group of new proprietors took over. With a conglomerate of industry professionals now heading up operations, Pizza D’ has regained its status as a cultural icon with new renovations, practices, and standards that make the 2019 Arkansas Times Dive Bar of the Year winner a go to destination for its atmosphere, food, gaming and neighborhood feel. 2919 W. Markham St., 501-666-5403.

RED DOOR Behind the red door, you’ll find modern Southern cuisine in a cool, casual and relaxing atmosphere. Another of Chef Mark Abernathy’s popular restaurants, Red Door features a delicious mixture of grilled meat and steaks, fresh seafood, hearty soups, creative salads and famous appetizers and desserts. Its award-winning and popular brunch is available Tuesday through Sunday. A full bar features several large-screen TVs and there is plenty of outdoor seating on two large patios. 3701 Cantrell Road, 501-666-8482.

RIVERFRONT STEAKHOUSE Prime steaks in a relaxed atmosphere are the draw to this longtime favorite. An excellent choice for parties, business or romantic dinners for two. 2 Riverfront Place, North Little Rock, 501-375-7825.

STICKYZ ROCK ’N’ ROLL CHICKEN SHACK Great food and great music in the River Market district. Sandwiches, burgers, salads and more plus a fun setting for music and happy-hour gatherings. Full bar. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 59

$9.00 RIVERDALE 10 VIP CINEMA 2600 CANTRELL RD

OFFERS EXPIRE JANUARY 4, 2020

CHRIS HEGEDUS AND DA PENNEBAKER’S

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60 DECEMBER 2019

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1.75 L JAMSON IRISH WHISKEY 1.75 L BULLEIT BOURBON 1.75 L GENTLEMAN JACK 1.75 L KNOB CREEK 1.75 L JOHNNY WALKER BLACK LABEL

ARKANSAS TIMES

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LITTLE ROCK: 10TH & MAIN • 501.374.0410 NORTH LITTLE ROCK: 860 EAST BROADWAY • 501.374.2405 HOURS: LR • 8AM-10PM MON-THUR, UNTIL MIDNIGHT FRI SAT 8AM-12AM FRI-SAT • NLR • MON-SAT 8AM-12PM

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

NOW TAKING RESERVATIONS FOR HOLIDAY PARTIES

NEIGHBORHOOD DINING GUIDE

DOE’S KNOWS LUNCH & DINNER.

HOT SPRINGS CAPO’S TACOS The handmade corn tortillas, awesome tacos, burritos, tortas made from slow-cooked meats and vegetables are traditional; the setting is modern. Premium ingredients like Angus ribeye and free-range chicken are used and the tacos are a steal at around $3. A bar, too. 200 Higdon Ferry Road, 501-623-8226 (TACO).

ROLANDO’S A fusion of Central and South American cuisine with beautiful presentation is Rolando’s style.

Some favorite dishes are the Quesadillas De Chivo, Popeye’s Burrito and Pescado De Mesías.

210 Central Ave., 501-328-6054.

Lunch: Mon- Fri 11am-2pm Dinner: Mon-Thur 5-9pm • Fri & Sat 5-10pm FULL BAR & PRIVATE PARTY ROOM

BEST STEAK

BEST CATFISH

1023 West Markham Downtown Little Rock 501-376-1195 www.doeseatplace.net

Unparalleled Views

SILKS BAR & GRILL With popular favorites such as hot wings, spinach artichoke dip, Oaklawn’s classic reuben sandwich and the Silk Burger, along with more than 30 large-screen TVs, Silks is the perfect place to grab the best food in town and watch the big game. Catch the best in regional live music on Friday and Saturday nights. 2705 Central Ave., 501-623-4411.

SQZBX An accordion-decorated restaurant located in historic downtown Hot Springs, SQZBX brews craft beer on site and creates some of the best pizza in town. The founders, two polka musicians, also opened the solar-powered radio station next door and won a historic preservation award for the effort in restoring the buildings containing the radio station and restaurant. 236 Ouachita Ave., 501-609-0609.

SUPERIOR BATHHOUSE BREWERY After lying vacant for 30 years, the Superior Bathhouse has been reimagined as a brewery, craft-beer tasting room, a full-service family-friendly restaurant and an event venue. The Superior Bathhouse Brewery is home to the only brewery in a U.S. National Park. The restaurant’s menu makes use of locally grown and produced food. 329 Central Ave., 501-624-2337.

TACO MAMA / TACO MAMA SIDE TOWN Hot Springs’ premiere Mexican restaurant offers a culinary experience for every taste, from green chile cheeseburgers and with potato-wrapped, cream cheese-filled jalapenos to classic Mexican fare, generously loaded with just about any filling imaginable. The menu also includes an assortment of health-conscious and diet-friendly plates.

Saturday brunch features favorites like Shane’s Special, two jalapeno corn cakes topped with carnitas and poached eggs. Taco Mama: 1209 Malvern Ave., 501-624-6262. Taco Mama Side Town: 510 Ouachita Ave., 501-781-3102.

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MORE THAN JUST PRINT. SEE FOR YOURSELF. ARKANSASTIMES.COM A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

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CULTURE

IN THE STUDIO: Kensuke Yamada and one of his ceramic sculptures, at UA Little Rock.

Putting the Ma in Art UA LITTLE ROCK SCULPTOR’S CERAMIC FIGURES BOTH INVITE, KEEP A DISTANCE.

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK PHOTOS BY BRIAN CHILSON

62 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

INNER MEANING: The elusive nature of rabbits informs Yamada’s symbolism.

K

ensuke Yamada’s ceramic figures — sturdy, child-like, encircled by inner tubes or accompanied by rabbits — both push and pull the viewer. Lidded eyes, barely expressive features, invite speculation. It’s an exercise in what the UA Little Rock professor calls ma, a Japanese term for the activation of space between viewer and viewed. So to “guide you to connect,” he said in an interview in the studio at the Windgate Center for Art and Design, his figures use simple gestures, or closed eyes, to be interpreted personally.

Yamada puts lots of space between him and his work. When it leaves the studio, “it’s not mine any more. … What’s the point in having my piece here?” He also puts space between himself and the viewer: “I don’t go to my own openings,” he said. “I didn’t even go to my thesis exhibit.” He can’t make small talk — “I didn’t grow up here, so I can’t talk about American politics,” which is apparently the banter he’s encountered most. Nor does he want to get between viewer and viewed, altering whatever ideas they have about him.

Yamada, 40, a native of Japan who earned his degrees from Evergreen State University in Washington and the University of Montana at Missoula, joined the UALR faculty in fall 2018 after numerous residencies and visiting artist positions across the country. Those included a stint as visiting artist at UA Fayetteville from 2013-16. Little Rock, he said, is “not too big, not too small,” a place where he spends his time

making art, which is his profession, and making art, which is also his hobby. He’s lucky, he says, that his hobby is his work.

Yamada paints, rather than glazes, his stoneware, refiring with each application of color; the work usually requires five trips to the kiln. The result is a sculpture of complicated, matte texture, with streaks of color, sometimes muddied.

His favorite work at the moment is a piece that was exhibited at Boswell Mourot Fine Art in the Heights neighborhood earlier this year, “Diver.”

The figure is seated with arms extended and is studded with cast rubber duckies. “Some people told me this looks like a tumor,” he said of the ducks. It didn’t sell. “I don’t know. I just love it. I don’t know why people don’t get it,” he said, smiling, which he does a lot.

The ducks represent migration, he said — reflecting his own peripatetic career in Montana, Pennsylvania and Kentucky and travels all over the country for exhibitions, lectures and demonstrations. The diving imagery — children holding their noses, wearing inner tubes, dressed in swimsuits — is about his own feelings of fear and excitement on the precipice of change.

Then there are the rabbits. “In Japan, we don’t see rabbits everywhere, but here, you see rabbits in your backyard,” Yamada said. “It’s really interesting. You sit outside on your porch and there’s a little light and the rabbit shows up. There’s the beauty of not catching it. It’s not possible. It’s a weird distance … the beauty of that staring.” Ma. ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 63

20I2C0IAN

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Winners Live Performance and Prize Package Includes: Arkansas State Fair Yadaloo Music Fest Palmer Music Company Gift Certificates to Trio’s Low Key Arts FestiVille Jacksonville Thursday Night Live at Murphy Arts District Valley of the Vapors and more to be announced.

‘DIVER’: “It didn’t sell,” Yamada says of his figure covered in cast rubber duckies. “I love it.”

A Q&A WITH KENSUKE YAMADA Where are you from originally?

Kamakura, Japan, south of Tokyo.

What is the best thing about making art in Arkansas?

It’s possible to [afford] a studio here. Little Rock has quite a bit of art community. There are artwalks happening every month. I hope the art community gets bigger.

What’s the worst thing about making art in Arkansas?

I don’t see any bad part. We don’t have the art that a big city offers. This is a little far away from [big cities]. That’s not a complaint. When I lived in Philly, I went to New York. But to me, that’s too much.

Also, it’s really hot here. I don’t want to go outside to fire!

What jobs do you hold besides making art?

I teach. Fulltime maker would be fun.

How do you relax and recharge so you can keep making art?

I watch movies. I like hiking. When I was in Northwest Arkansas, I went to the Buffalo River. But, I’m busy. Tomorrow [Saturday] I’ll be here [at UALR]. I paint at home. But, usually, I go home, pass out.

What galleries do you visit?

Exhibits make me anxious. I’m a maker. Even though I have favorite works, I probably don’t end up going to see them. I’m never going to beat them. I never get better than those! I’d rather be in my studio, making.

Name an artist whose work is not getting the attention it deserves.

My work! There are probably so many artists we haven’t seen. That’s very interesting, but at the same time a little scary. All artists deserve attention. They’re working hard, trying to make their life, trying to express themselves. They have a message they want to deliver.

How long will you be in Arkansas?

A long time, hopefully. I’m on a tenure track. Arkansas is great.

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 65

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CANNABIS COMEDY

A Q&A with Matt Besser on his stoner stand-up special, ‘Pot Humor.’

By Rebekah Hall Amid fluffy clouds of smoke in a dimly lit, wood-paneled room, comedian and Little Rock native Matt Besser commands a baked audience in his stand-up special “Pot Humor.” Filmed at the NW Cannabis Club in Portland, Ore., Besser’s special explores the semantics and evolution of stoner culture, with a theme about parenting his daughter. The comedian rips a bong halfway through the set, and reality-bending visual and sound editing follow, creating a trippy experience that’s dynamic to watch, whether or not you’re under the influence. I spoke with Besser about the special, toking in the Natural State, and parenthood.

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I understand you’ve been developing this material for a few years now, performing it at different festivals and shows. How did you decide to go ahead and commit to doing a fullblown pot special?

I guess specifically it started out at the 4/20, April 20th, shows we’ve always done at our UCB [Upright Citizens Brigade] theaters to celebrate the mythical 4/20 celebration of marijuana. I’ve always been the host of that show, and through the years, I just naturally developed material that I would bring back. It has been at least 10 years, and marijuana culture has changed so much in that 10 years that the material has changed with it. As the culture has changed and it’s become more accepted, I have been invited to do the show at major comedy and music festivals — South by Southwest, San Francisco Sketch Fest, Just Relax in Montreal — so whereas it used to be this kind of underground show where the audience would get high, and it almost had this speakeasy, literally illegal vibe to it, now it’s very mainstream, especially here in Los Angeles and the West Coast, where every other billboard on the street I live is about marijuana.

And even in places where it’s not as prevalent, like Arkansas, it’s still very much in the conversation. Even if you don’t have dispensaries in your town, or [if] your state is very far away from that ever happening or happening anytime soon, everyone is talking about it. So I felt like it was time to put it all together and put out a special. And also, I’ve had a child in the meantime, in the middle of all of this, and that’s changed my life much more than marijuana ever did, and that plays into the special, too.

Do you think the special is best experienced when the viewer is also high?

One thing I did do was, at about halfway through the show, I take a bong hit. And I wanted the editing of the special to reflect that after that point. And right after that point, I really messed with it. We always shoot two shows when you do a special — anytime a special is done, there’s usually two shows done, and they edit them together. And usually the second show is better than the first, and that’s how it was with me.

And I actually did not get high in the first show; I only did that in the second show. But [at a certain point] ... both shows are playing at the same time. The 8 o’clock show and then the 10 o’clock show. The 8 o’clock show is playing in the mirrors on the wall [on stage]. The bits are slightly different, and I [improvised] just a little bit on it. I’m pitching up the sound of one of them and pitching down the sound of another one, so you can sort of tell the difference. But that kind of stuff, where we just had moments of it where we really make this section trippy, without trying to take away from the material itself. That was one of the goals of the festival and putting posters on the wall that come alive.

In the past you’ve done this set in more underground settings. When filming this special, what was unique about being able to smoke and be high with your audience members, all out in the open? Was that a treat for you?

One of [my] concerns actually [was that] beer is the classic comedy lubricant, and weed is, but more in short-term than long-term. Doing 4/20 shows, I always noticed that the first halfhour got the most laughs, then people sometimes would slump into their indica chairs, and they might have a big grin on their face, but as a comedian, you want to hear the laughs. The bonus of the place I did it in, in Portland, [is that] this place had a license where you could smoke [throughout] the entire show. You keep it going, in other words. I never saw anyone that was truly in an indica down-energy zone, and that was a fear of mine — halfway through my special, are they going to zone out? But, they did not.

There was this kid in his mid-20s sitting next to my wife, and the first time the camera’s on him, he has his eyes fully closed, and I thought he was asleep. I was like, oh, no. He’s next to my wife, it’s going to be in the special, but then he starts rocking back and forth, and grooving.

He started grooving on my comedy the way you groove at a Phish concert to a jam. That’s exactly the dream for the cannabis comedian, is to have someone groove to their comedy like someone grooves to music.

So medical marijuana is legal now in Arkansas.

Yeah, so-called — it sounds like you have to crawl up a mountain to get it, or break into a safe.

Would your younger self have been surprised to know that dispensaries were popping up in Arkansas?

Yeah, without question. ... I was there [in Arkansas] in October, and I did a lot of this show in

Conway and Little Rock. Smoking a joint behind the building in a dark alley after midnight, when absolutely no one’s around, and ... still feeling paranoid, is a long-ago feeling for me, that returned. I’m like, “Oh wow, I get it.” It’s a bummer, and it’s ridiculous. And I don’t think it should just have to be medical. ... I talk about semantics a lot in my special, but it shows the semantics and the perception, and even the fact that you have to call yourself [a medical marijuana reporter] is showing, “Oh, we’re taking this very seriously.” When you should be able to not take this seriously. You should be able to write a review about this the way you write about someone making a homebrew [beer]. But you’re doing an article about a pot stand-up special, so I guess it’s not all serious.

Have you ever hit a bong on stage before?

I did a demo for this show in a vape lounge in Colorado, in Colorado Springs. And they did a dab rig for me there, which I’d never done before, period.

Like, ever?

Ever. That stuff is way too complicated for me.

After I did it, I was like, “I don’t know. This is the kind of pot-smoking that does resemble crack.”

But when in Rome.

Was it difficult for you to stay focused after you did that? Both in Colorado and in Portland?

Not in Portland, but that dab was a little bit more serious, I would say I was a little bit more unfocused in my demo.

I really enjoyed the way you talked about the second-hand high you get out of watching your kid experience joy, and seeing things for the first time — like the onion volcano at Benihana. Are there other connections you’ve made between some of the sensations you sought when you were younger, and your experiences as a dad?

In my immature teen years, I definitely have distinct memories of making Peter Pan vows to myself that I would never grow up. And I was also into punk music, where that message was being re-enforced — never trust anyone over 30 — I was very much into the hippie culture that my father came from. There were definitely lots of forces [saying] “Don’t grow up, that’s no fun.” Like I talk about in my special, I still have T-shirts with words on them, and I still have posters on my wall, so I’ve definitely achieved that vow, by becoming a comedian, and leading not-so-mature a life, for better or for worse. I did have a kid later than a lot of my friends; it took me a while to get to that.

Your daughter is 6 years old now. In this process of having a pretty young kid, do you feel that you’re learning more about your own self as a child, now that you’re parenting someone at that same age?

Not really, because my daughter is a lot different than I was as a kid. I was more introverted, and she’s supremely extroverted. She behaves more like me as an adult than me as a kid.

She’s very funny and a lot of fun, a lot more fun than I am.

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 67

39th

AWARDS Vote for all your favorite restaurants in Arkansas!

Since 1981 Arkansas Times has asked its readers to tell us the best restaurants in Arkansas.

When the results are tallied, we publish the results in the February 2020 issue along with a fantastic party at the Ben E. Keith regional headquarters in North Little Rock, along with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits and the hot tunes of the Ted Ludwig Jazz Band. Restaurants work hard, play hard and deserve to be rewarded.

VOTING GOES THOUGH DEC. 13

arktimes.com/choice PRESENTED BY

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A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION BY VISIT HOT SPRINGS AND OAKLAWN RACING CASINO RESORT

THROUGH DECEMBER Garvan Woodland Gardens Holiday Lights 2019, 550 Arkridge Road. Gates open at 4 p.m. for Holiday Lights. Go to garvangardens.org. Closed Christmas day.

DEC. 5-7 The Nutcracker Ballet, presented by the Hot Springs Children’s Dance Theater Co. at LakePointe Church, 1343 Albert Pike Road.

For tickets, go to www.hscdtc.org or call 501-655-6815.

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DECEMBER 2019 69

WINNER WONDERLAND & NEW YEAR’S EVE HIGHLIGHT DECEMBER ’Tis the season for winning this December at Oaklawn, with fun daily promotions culminating with the New Year’s Eve Celebration Dec. 31. Throughout the month, guests can come in from 6-10 p.m. Fridays to play Winner Wonderland.

Three names will be called every 15 minutes and these players will receive either a $100 gift card or $50 in free play. The final three guests called at 10 p.m. will earn a spot in the Grand Prize drawing for a $3,000 gift card Dec. 27.

Ring in 2020 at the biggest New Year’s Eve Party in town. There will be live music in both Pop’s Lounge and Silks, an elegant steak dinner for $26.99 in the Carousel Restaurant and a $5.99 breakfast special at the Bistro from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Oaklawn will be open 8 a.m.-6 a.m. New Year’s Eve.

SPECIAL DATES DEC. 25: Sissy’s Log Cabin gift card drawing, open noon-4 a.m.

DEC. 26: Visa gift card crawing DEC. 27: Race to the Finish drawing DEC. 29: Birthday Bash DEC. 30: Luxury houseboat rental draw DEC. 31: New Year’s Eve celebration

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS SUNDAYS: Ellen Degeneres Holiday Gift Set Giveaway with 150 pts., noon-8 p.m.

Cliff & Susan FRIDAYS: Winner Wonderland, 6–10 p.m.

Darts, 8–11 p.m.

Party Pit, 8 p.m.–midnight Live Entertainment in Silks, 10 p.m.–2 a.m.

SATURDAYS: Live Entertainment in Silks, 10 p.m.–2 a.m.

LIVE ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULE POP’S LOUNGE: EVERY THURSDAY: Team Trivia, 7–9 p.m.

Oreo Blue SILKS BAR & GRILL: DEC. 6: Canvas, 10 p.m.–2 a.m.

DEC. 7: Hans Duo, 10 p.m.–2 a.m.

DEC. 13-14: Oreo Blue, 10 p.m.–2 a.m.

DEC. 20: Tragikly White, 10 p.m.–2 a.m.

DEC. 21: Get Off My Lawn, 10 p.m.–2 a.m.

EVERY FRIDAY: Darts, 8–11 p.m.

DEC. 27-28: Mister Lucky, 10 p.m.–2 a.m.

TUESDAY, DEC. 31: Dino D and the D Train, 8 p.m.–2 a.m.

DEC. 31: Cliff & Susan, 7 p.m.–1 a.m.

MONDAYS: Monday Fun Day, 8 a.m.–10 p.m.

Gridiron Challenge, 5 p.m.

TUESDAYS: Catfish Dinner, 4–9 p.m. in Lagniappe’s WEDNESDAYS: Girls Night Out, 5–9 p.m.

Fun on the Floor, 6–9 p.m.

THURSDAYS: Hot Springs Village Days, 8 a.m.–10 p.m.

Gridiron Challenge 5 p.m.

Trivia, 7–9 p.m. in Pop’s Lounge Happy Hour, 5–8 p.m.

Dino D

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THURSDAY, DEC. 5 The 11th Annual Ice on Ice at the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa. The holiday season’s premiere event offers an opportunity to win one of four 1/2-carat diamonds.

MONDAY, DEC. 9 Hot Springs Christmas Parade in downtown Hot Springs. At 6:30 p.m.

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TA C O S AT A N O T H E R L E V E L

THURSDAY, DEC. 12 The Northwoods Full Moon Ride at the Northwoods Trailhead, 300 Pineland Drive.

Come ride with us for the full cold moon ride!

SATURDAY, DEC. 21 AAA State Cheerleading Finals at Bank OZK Arena, 134 Convention Blvd.

Arkansas Activities Association State Cheerleading Championship. Bank OZK Arena.

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A true holiday favorite, this beloved comedy classic features renowned composer John Williams’ charming and delightful © 1990 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

score performed live to picture by your Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.

Annual FREE Children’s Fair: DEC. 21 & 22, 2019 ROBINSON CENTER 426 W. Markham St. Little Rock, AR 72203

2 p.m. Sunday in the Historic Lobby!

CALL TODAY FOR TICKETS (501) 666–1761 ArkansasSymphony.org

72 DECEMBER 2019

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BUTLER CENTER FOR ARKANSAS STUDIES, CENTRAL ARKANSAS LIBRARY SYSTEM

HISTORY

RIGHT-TO-WORK SUPPORTERS: The Arkansas Free Enterprise Association was created by the State Chamber of Commerce and others to prosecute strikers. This page from an AFEA brochure shows some of its members.

The Racist Roots of Anti-Unionism MOTIVATED BY MONEY AND WHITE SUPREMACIST BELIEFS, THE STATE FARM BUREAU, CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND OTHERS LINED UP WITH SEGREGATIONISTS TO ENACT THE ‘RIGHT TO WORK’ LAW.

BY MICHAEL C. PIERCE

A

nti-unionism and white supremacy have been joined at the hip in Arkansas since World War II. As seen over the last five years, the forces that abolished the Little Rock School Board as soon as it had a black majority and have pursued policies that would resegregate the city’s public schools are the same ones who decertified the Little Rock Education Association. The current trouble in the city is deeply rooted in its past. Here’s the history of Arkansas’s racist underpinnings of its anti-union positions: Around 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 26, 1945, Otha Williams, an African-American strikebreaker, left the Southern Cotton Oil Co. mill on East Ninth Street in Little Rock through a side entrance, away from the Food, Tobacco and Allied Agricultural

Workers Union (FTA) Local 98’s picket line. As he and four other strikebreakers crossed the street, they encountered two strikers, Walter Campbell and Robert Brooks, both African-American. Although accounts differ as to what happened next, there was agreement on these essential details: Strikebreaker Williams pulled a knife, stabbed striker Campbell multiple times and left him to die on the street. A Pulaski County grand jury refused to indict Williams for killing Campbell, concluding that he had acted in self-defense, but it did charge six black FTA Local 98 members with violating an anti-labor violence law enacted by the Arkansas General Assembly in 1943 that made picketers criminally liable for any strike-related violence.

Charges against four of these men were later dropped, but Pulaski Country Prosecutor Sam Robinson sought to make an

example of the local’s leaders at the mill, Louis Jones and Roy Cole. The pair had not participated in the violence, but, nonetheless, Robinson put them on trial, secured convictions and convinced the judge to sentence each man to hard labor in the state penitentiary. The court proceedings so outraged civil rights activists Daisy and L.C. Bates that they published a blistering condemnation in their newspaper, the Arkansas State Press. The judge responded by jailing them for impugning the integrity of his court.

The killing of Walter Campbell, the convictions of Louis Jones and Roy Cole and the jailing of the Bateses were all part of a broader anti-union movement that was designed to keep black and white workers apart and competing against each other. The planters, bankers and utility magnates who had long controlled ArARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 73

BUTLER CENTER FOR ARKANSAS STUDIES, CENTRAL ARKANSAS LIBRARY SYSTEM

SCENE OF STRIKE: The Southern Cotton Oil Co. mill, circa 1920, 25 years before the FTA action.

kansas politics were alarmed by changes wrought by the New Deal and World War II. Blacks and whites were joining labor unions in record numbers; pressure to allow blacks, especially those serving in the military, to vote was building; and organized labor had emerged as a powerful force in Washington and within the national Democratic Party. All of these changes threatened the Jim Crow labor relations that kept wages low for both whites and blacks and allowed the Arkansas business community to prosper. Thus, anti-unionism and the fight to maintain white supremacy went hand-in-hand in post-World War II Arkansas.

The campaign to roll back trade unionism in modern Arkansas began during the war. In early 1943, the Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation and allies in the business community brought Vance Muse and his Christian American Association to the state. Muse chose the name Christian American for his organization to contrast it to what he saw as the nation’s gravest peril: Jewish Marxism.

In his mind, Judaism, Marxism, the New Deal, trade unionism and the struggle for civil rights were all parts of the same whole. Muse, a profane Texan, had long made a lucrative living by attacking these things. The DuPont family and General Motors’ Alfred Sloan had paid him to produce what Time magazine called “cheap pamphlets containing blurred photographs of the Roosevelts [Franklin and Eleanor] consorting with Negroes.”

Muse later defended the distribution of the most provocative photograph: “I am a Southerner and for white supremacy. … It was a picture of Mrs. Roosevelt going to some nigger meeting with two 74 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

escorts, niggers, on each arm.” Muse even considered President Roosevelt to be a Communist infiltrator: “That crazy man in the White House will Sovietize America with the federal hand-outs of the Bum Deal — sorry, New Deal. Or is it the Jew Deal?”

Muse and his Christian American Association went to work convincing the Arkansas General Assembly to pass an anti-labor-violence bill similar to ones they had helped enact in Texas and Mississippi. The measure, which made picketers — but not strikebreakers or management — criminally liable for any violence that occurred during a strike, was touted as necessary for labor peace while the nation was at war. During legislative debates, though, it became apparent that the bill’s primary purpose was to halt the biracial unionism associated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and its affiliate the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (STFU), which sharecroppers established in Poinsett County in 1934. White County’s senator complained about the CIO’s “communist tendencies” and insisted that it had long “dominated labor organizations and disputes in the state.” St. Francis County’s senator accused the STFU of causing “trouble” in the cotton fields, explaining “labor leaders … have told a large plantation owner that he would have to give some consideration to contracts with his tenants.” Chicot County’s senator justified his support by declaring simply, “I’m opposed to the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union.” Muse and his legislative allies usually avoided explicitly racist rhetoric, but the measure’s racial underpinnings

often bubbled to the surface. One Delta legislator urged passage to prevent a race war, insisting that the STFU sought to “organize the rural Negroes in Chicot County and wipe the white people out in one night.” Christian American literature promised the measure would allow “peace officers to quell disturbances and keep the color line drawn in our social affairs” and protect otherwise contented African Americans “from communistic propaganda and influences.”

Labor leaders countered that passage of the measure would only slow war production and encourage labor violence. Arkansas State Federation of Labor’s lobbyist pointed out that not one day of work had been lost due to a strike by one of its unions in the state. The president of the Little Rock Labor Council explained that the sheer size of plantations made picketing impossible.

Instead, he said the measure was intended to give anti-union thugs and scabs license to attack strikers with impunity. This, he concluded, would only increase the amount of time lost to labor disputes.

Labor supporters thought they had the measure defeated, but Muse orchestrated one last push. He brought in Texas Sen. Wilbert “Pappy” O’Daniel, a prominent race baiter who delivered a fiery speech in the Capitol and purchased full-page ads in each of the state’s daily newspapers. Most importantly, the measure’s proponents bought votes.

Labor’s chief lobbyist explained that Farm Bureau officials only won the vote after they arrived at the Capitol with a suitcase full of cash.

Planters, industrialists and their allies marked the passage of the anti-labor-violence law with a

ARKANSAS NATIONAL GUARD MUSEUM

LOCATED ON CAMP ROBINSON, NORTH LITTLE ROCK Hours: Monday-Friday 8:00 am – 3:00 pm Take exit 150 off I-40 and follow signs to Camp Robinson 501.212.5215 • arngmuseum.com

To come on Post you will need a driver’s license, proof of insurance, and vehicle registration.

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DECEMBER 2019 75

serving better than bar foodall night long Kitchen open until 1:30am

December

1 -Treasure Chest Burlesque presents “Thanksgiving Leftovers” 6 - Clusterpluck 7 -Angie ClementsannualToys forTots Xmas Partyw/ Nerd Eye Blind 13 - DoctorJunior 14 - CosmOcean 26 - Chris DeClerk solo (8pm - free) 27 - Big Dam Horns 28 -Weakness for Blondes 31 - NewYears Eve Bashw/ OpalAgafia andthe Sweet Nothings!

Check out upcoming bands at Fourquarter.com

Open until 2am every night!

415 Main St North Little Rock (501) 313-4704 • fourquarterbar.com

76 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

The VIA recruited returning soldiers to serve on squads of strikebreakers, arming them with brass knuckles and axe handles. huge celebration at the Hotel Marion, where they agreed to fund another Muse effort: the campaign to pass the nation’s first “right to work” law. A “right to work” law does not grant an individual the right to work, as the name would suggest, but rather prohibits employers and employee-chosen unions from agreeing to contracts that require employees to join the union as a condition of employment. The purpose is to make union organizing more difficult. The idea for “right to work” laws came from a Dallas Morning News editorial writer, who gave his blessing to Muse’s efforts to enact such laws. Muse, though, made little headway until he reached Arkansas, where the business community agreed to fund a 1944 campaign to add a “right to work” amendment to the state’s constitution.

Muse and his Christian American Association told Arkansans that “right to work” was essential for maintaining the color line in labor relations.

One piece of literature warned that if the amendment failed, “white women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes … whom they will have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs.” Similarly, the Arkansas Farm Bureau justified its support of “right to work” by citing organized labor’s threat to Jim Crow. It said passage of the amendment would help maintain the status quo and accused the CIO of disrupting it by “trying to pit tenant against landlord and black against white.”

Muse’s “right to work” campaign was helped by the fact that most Arkansas votes were “controlled” by county or local bosses who did the bidding of planters and business concerns. Bosses bought votes, stuffed ballot boxes, manipulated poll tax receipts and simply fabricated returns if need be. In Eastern Arkansas, planters purchased poll tax receipts in the names of their sharecroppers and then voted for them on Election Day. In 1943, former Gov. Carl Bailey identified only three Arkansas counties in which elections were determined by the “uncontrolled impulses of the citizenship.” In the other 72, bosses held sway.

The “right to work” amendment passed in an election marked by excessive irregularities, even by mid-century Arkansas standards. Eleven days after the election, only 68 counties had reported results. Several Delta counties held back their reports to ensure there would be enough votes to assure passage. Later, while discussing the pas-

sage of Arkansas’s “right to work” amendment, Muse unconvincingly denied that it was racist and anti-Semitic: “They call me anti-Jew and anti-nigger. Listen, we like the nigger — in his place. … Our amendment helps the nigger; it does not discriminate against him. Good niggers, not those Communist niggers. Jews? Why some of my best friends are Jews. Good Jews.”

After World War II, the planter and businessmen’s campaign against trade unions continued.

They were eager to remove federal labor policies that had allowed the Arkansas labor movement to grow so rapidly during the war. The strike at the Southern Cotton Oil Co. mill is the most prominent example of this. The federal government had required the company to negotiate with the FTA during the war, brokering a contract that gave the union recognition and the workers legal standing. The company, part of a multinational corporation that produced Wesson and Snowdrift shortening, welcomed the end of the war as an opportunity to break the union. Its refusal to bargain in good faith prompted 117 of the company’s 120 workers to walk off the job in December 1945. Union and black activists insisted that Walter Campbell’s killing was intentional and part of the company’s effort to operate union-free.

L.C. Bates claimed the incident was “engineered by those with much to gain.”

Planters and businessmen organized homegrown organizations to continue the efforts of Muse and the Christian American Association. In 1946, men connected to the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce/Associated Industries of Arkansas, Arkansas Expenditure Council and Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation created the Arkansas Free Enterprise Association (AFEA). At its first meeting, the AFEA dedicated itself to prosecuting the Southern Cotton Oil mill strikers and defending the “right to work” and anti-labor-violence measures. An AFEA statement declared that the “infiltration of union labor leaders, union labor bosses, union labor policies and union labor practices” was threatening the state’s prosperity and stirring racial discord.

Many of those associated with the AFEA, specifically Little Rock seed merchants Guy Cameron, Carroll Thibault and Hal Cochran, also secretly organized the much less respectable Veterans’ Industrial Association (VIA). Led by Jimmy Karam and promoted by Harding University’s George

Benson, the VIA recruited returning soldiers to serve on squads of strikebreakers, arming them with brass knuckles and axe handles. The VIA’s enthusiasm for violence — not just in Arkansas but throughout the South — alarmed even the nation’s most ardent critics of the labor movement.

The conservative syndicated columnist Westbrook Pegler considered the VIA to be a “potential fascist organization.”

The fight between organized labor and anti-union groups spilled into Pulaski County politics. The AFEA and VIA got behind Prosecuting Attorney Sam Robinson’s 1946 re-election campaign. Robinson made his prosecution of FTA Local 98 leaders Jones and Cole and his opposition to trade unions the cornerstones of his re-election.

Not surprisingly, the black community (1946 was the first year since disfranchisement that Pulaski County African Americans could vote in the Democratic primary) and labor movement lined up behind Robinson’s opponent, Edwin Dunaway. The race, according to the Arkansas Democrat, quickly “developed into an open fight between the Arkansas Free Enterprise Association and the CIO.” Dunaway squeezed out a narrow victory, and the contest realigned Little Rock politics: the business community and white supremacists on one side, and blacks and trade unionists on the other.

The political realignment seen in Pulaski County in 1946 expanded statewide in 1948. That year witnessed two pivotal elections. The first was the summer’s governor’s race. A coalition that Daisy Bates described as “labor, Negroes and liberals in the cities” got behind the candidacy of Sid McMath, while planters, businessmen and opponents of the civil rights reforms recently proposed

by President Harry Truman lined up behind Jack Holt. McMath’s victory set the stage for the presidential contest. McMath threw his coalition behind Harry Truman, working to defeat Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond. The Dixiecrats were Southern Democrats who broke away from the national party to protest Truman’s civil rights program, and Thurmond campaigned throughout the South as the champion of segregation and supremacy. Amis Guthridge and Gov. Ben Laney ran Thurmond’s Arkansas campaign out of the AFEA office. They told voters that organized labor had stirred up racial trouble in the state by manipulating ignorant African Americans and that only a vote for Thurmond and segregation would restore order. Though Truman received the state’s electoral votes and won re-election, the battles between the two factions continued to rage.

That was nowhere more apparent than on the streets outside of Central High in 1957. It is hardly surprising that two men who rose to prominence in Little Rock in the 1940s fighting organized labor — Amis Guthridge and Jimmy Karam — led the segregationist forces. Guthridge was the main spokesman for the city’s segregationist organizations — the Capital Citizens’ Council and the Mothers’ League of Central High — and Karam recruited former VIA goons to surround Central High to prevent the entry of the Little Rock Nine.

Likewise, those who sided with labor in the 1940s — L.C. and Daisy Bates, Edwin Dunaway, Sid McMath — were the most outspoken advocates for the Little Rock Nine.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE OZ FOR THE HOLIDAYS

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January 1–19 ROBINSON PERFORMANCE HALL GIVE THE GIFT OF WICKED 501-244-8800 • Ticketmaster.com Groups 15+ 501-492-3312

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THE ARKANSAS TIMES HOSTS

SHOULD YOU GROW IT? • HOW TO GROW IT • WHERE TO SELL IT PRESENTED BY:

FEBRUARY 14TH & 15TH, 2020 • WYNDHAM RIVERFRONT LITTLE ROCK COME HEAR THE EXPERTS — your fellow Arkansas farmers, as they pass on lessons learned growing industrial hemp during this last growing season. Meet hemp seeds men, processors, consultants, state & federal agriculture experts and crop scientists. In this era of tariffs and market uncertainty, you owe it to yourself to evaluate hemp as a new crop.

In addition to lessons learned by your fellow farmers, the conference will cover: • Regulatory and legal requirements • Best growing practices • Biggest greenhorn mistakes • Best varieties suited to different regions in Arkansas • How to work with processors • Finding your best market • Testing to minimize THC • Necessary farm equipment for large and small operations

The Arkansas Farmers’ Hemp Conference begins at 2 p.m. Friday, Feb. 14 at the Wyndham and continues through Saturday.

EARLY BIRD SPECIAL FOR $99 that includes happy hour reception on Friday night and lunch on Saturday.

Special Wyndam Riverfront in North Little Rock room rates are available at 501-371-9000.

Mention The Arkansas Farmers’ Hemp Conference in order to receive the rate.

PURCHASE YOUR TICKET AT CENTRALARKANSASTICKETS.COM

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, GO TO

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SUPPORTING SPONSOR

CANNABIZ

Ode to OG Kush

ARKANSAS DISPENSARIES SHARE THEIR BEST-SELLING STRAINS AND PRODUCTS.

BY REBEKAH HALL

A

s of Nov. 18, Arkansas’s 10 medical marijuana dispensaries have sold over 2,900 pounds of product, totaling over $20 million in sales. So far, dispensary workers say, their best sellers are potent indica strains: bud that’s high in THC, the psychoactive chemical in cannabis, with sleepy, relaxing effects that help with pain relief. Gummy edibles have also been flying off the shelves.

Of the eight dispensaries that spoke with the Arkansas Times, five said customers prefer OG Kush, an indica-dominant hybrid strain. Kattie Hansen, CEO of Native Green Wellness Center in Hensley, said the strain ranges from 19 to 24 percent THC and sells for $15 a gram. (Most dispensaries’ menus list OG Kush for $15 a gram.) As an indica strain, the effects of OG Kush’s potent THC content tend to manifest in the body. The heavy limbs and eyelids experienced by an OG Kush smoker are a testament to the popular mnemonic device used to remember the difference between the effects of an indica strain and a sativa strain: “indica” strains will render you “in-da-couch,” while sativa strains bring a user “sativ-up” for more of a productive high. Hybrid strains do a little ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 79

Block, Beer & Bourbon - and Burgundy!

7:00-9:30 p.m.

Saturday, January 11, 2020 Albert Pike Masonic Center 712 Scott Street Music by Rodney Block and The Rodney Block Collective Food from The Pantry and bourbon, beer and Burgundy tastings from O’Looney’s Presented by

PUBLIC RADIO

Supporting Sponsors

O’Looney’s Wine & Liquor

Jay Barth & Chuck Cliett Music Sponsor Lounge Table Sponsors First National Bank Mary and Jim Wohlleb The Design Group Kanga the Dog in Honor of John A. Krebs, H. Holmes Distinguished Professor of Music

Tickets: events.kuar.org 80 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

bit of both.

OG Kush is also a big seller at Natural Products dispensary in Clinton. Matthew Wilburs, a shift leader there, said OG Kush is the dispensary’s “most popular strain across the board,” in part because “it’s just kind of a staple of the cannabis community.”

“It’s such a common name that’s often associated with cannabis,” Wilburs said. “It generally sells out within 48-72 hours.”

After OG Kush, three dispensaries said the uplifting, buzzy sativa strain Sour Tangie has been popular among customers. It also boasts about 17 percent THC and costs $15 a gram at most dispensaries. Commerce City Kush, a knockout indica strain, also $15 a gram, is a best seller at two dispensaries; Lisa Murphy, CEO of Fiddler’s Green in Mountain View, describes it as “a sleeper.”

Matt Shansky, COO at The Releaf Center in Bentonville, said the strains that have been most popular among his patients all have “high appeal for medicinal properties,” and that they’re “more ‘mainstream’ or recognizable strains.”

“I’d imagine that may be partly why they’ve been best sellers,” Shansky said. “I’d say symptom-wise, pain, insomnia [and] anxiety have been the majority of what patients are seeking relief from.”

For patients who prefer a more tech-savvy inhalation method to joints, cartridges containing cannabis extract can be purchased and used in a vape pen or e-cigarette. Because they’re made from marijuana extract, cartridges can have considerably higher THC content than cannabis flower, which also makes cartridges an appealing product for patients who want more potency with less frequent use.

Dragan Vicentic, CEO of Green Springs Medical in Hot Springs, said the Sour Sooie cartridge has been popular with patients.

The “super concentrated” sativa extract has a hefty 86 percent THC, which Vicentic said means “one inhale is all it takes to medicate.”

“If you consider the price of vape oil pens, [cartridges are] the cheapest way of medicating,” Vicentic added. Cartridges at Green Springs Medical range from $14.99-$69.99, and very cheap to very expensive vape pens can be purchased from a variety of retailers, both in dispensaries and online.

Native Green CEO Hansen said the most popular cartridge at her dispensary has been

Blue Dream, a sativa-dominant hybrid that’s about 70 percent THC and costs $130.

Another popular method for ingesting cannabis is by eating it. Though the selection offered by the state’s cultivators is still slim, dispensaries say marijuana edibles are popular, especially among older patients who may be fearful about smoking or vaping their cannabis. These are not the chaotically dosed weed brownies users may have enjoyed in college, but gummies with doses measured in milligrams. Fruit-flavored gummies range from around $25-$45 per package of 10. Because each gummy has a known amount of THC, patients can better control what they’re ingesting and avoid getting too high. The effect of marijuana edibles also lasts longer than the high achieved through smoking or vaping; because they’re ingested, edibles take a bit longer to activate, but the resulting effects can last for several hours.

Vicentic said gummy flavors include blueberry, black cherry, green apple, caramel apple, watermelon and peach.

Fiddler’s Green’s Murphy said the dispensary “sells the heck out of gummies.” Natural Product’s Wilburs said a “very large part” of Arkansas Natural Product’s patient base is “elderly individuals” careful about their THC intake, and gummies make that possible.

Robbin Rahman, owner of Harvest Cannabis in Conway, said the two most significant factors in his patients’ purchases are the price point and THC level of a cannabis product. Erik Danielson, owner of The Source in Bentonville, said that was true at his business, as well: “What really drives sales is very simple: price and THC content.” Danielson said that of their recent sales, cannabis flower accounts for 75 percent of purchases, vape cartridges for 10 percent, edibles for 10 percent and other products, including tinctures, for 5 percent.

Danielson added he hopes the growth of the industry in Arkansas will encourage patients over time to try products based not on potency or price, but rather on the effects of specific cannabinoids: receptors in the body and brain that interact with the cannabis drug.

“We are constantly trying to tell people that potency is not everything, telling them to trust their nose,” Danielson said. “Your nose is directly wired to your brain. If it’s pleasing to your nose, that may be an indicator that it could be good for you.”

Arkansas Times local ticketing: CentralArkansasTickets.com

UPCOMING EVENTS

Nov 29, 30 & Dec 1 Dec 5-8 Dec 12-15

The Studio Theatre Elf: The Broadway Musical!

Dec 7

Dec 7

Bill & Margaret Clark Room - River Market The Ebony Expressions Art Show “Culture Therapy” Edition

Four Quarter Bar New Years Eve w/ Opal Agafia and the Sweet Nothings

Dec 31

Dec 10

Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church Arkansas Chamber Singers 40th Anniversary Holiday Concert

Junior League of Little Rock INSPIRE Wedding Show Little Rock - January 26, 2020

Dec 12

The Mising Room

Preservation Conversations: Race and Housing: How Urban Renewal Changed the Landscapes of Little Rock

by John Kirk, PhD.

Mar 19

St. James United Methodist Church Arkansas Chamber Singers 40th Anniversary Spring Concert

Go to CentralArkansasTickets.com to purchase these tickets and more!

Arkansas Times local ticketing site! If you’re a non-profit, freestanding venue or business selling tickets thru eventbrite or another national seller – email lucybaehr@arktimes.com – we’re local, independent and offer a marketing package!

LOCAL TICKETS, ONE PLACE ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 81

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

82 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

1 VINTAGE CLASSICS The Louis Vuitton Neverfull MM ($950) at Braswell & Son is the ultimate modern classic luxury tote, roomy enough to hold everything you need.

For more casual occasions, the smaller, Bohemian Louis Vuitton Artsy MM ($1,695) has a perfect slouchy style.

Braswell & Son, 501-228-7296, braswellandson.com.

2. HEAL WITH HEMP SKINCARE AND OILS Healing Hemp of Arkansas product line, alleviate that Christmas season stress with with cannabinol-infused herbal drops, hemp oil, relaxation oral sprays and gummies. Treat your face to CBD skincare with creams and toners from Healing Hemp’s Skincare line. All products have rigorous testing standards implemented. Healing Hemp of Arkansas, 501-313-5243, healinghempofarkansas.com 3. GIFT OF FLIGHT Give the Gift of Flight this holiday season. An introductory flight lesson with a Certified Flight Instructor. Sit in the pilot’s seat and take in the views of downtown Little Rock as you learn to take flight on this ultimate thrill ride!

Central Flying Service, 501-975-9330, learntofly@central.aero.

A Traditional Pharmacy

with eclectic Gifts.

Since 1922

2801 KAVANAUGH, LITTLE ROCK • 501.663.4131

Little Rock S chool Distric t

2020-2021 OPEN ENROLLMENT:

DECEMBER 2 - 13 P3 - 12

4. CHEERS! Get in the hometown Christmas spirit with products by Rock Town Distillery, where you can taste its locally made award-winning vodkas, bourbons and more from 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Tue.-Sun. (midnight on Friday and Saturday).

Rock Town Distillery, 501-907-5244, rocktowndistillery.com 5. EMPIRE BUILDER Mr. Wicks’ custom designed overcoat from Canadian company Empire Clothing will keep the man in your life warm as well as stylish this winter.

Mr. Wicks, 501-664-3062, mrwicks.com 6. CUSTOMIZED TREASURES At Bella Vita Jewelry, you can take the guesswork out of your gift buying with their Curated Gift Boxes. Each Gift Box includes an exclusive bracelet with a sun or a moon charm, a fair trade handwoven scarf, gemstone bath bombs, & a crystal chart art print. Order one of these curated sets or come in and create your own! Bella Vita, 501-396-9146, bellavitajewelry.net.

Some wonderful accomplishments to celebrate:

• Graduation rates improve from 74% three years ago to 82% this year • 16 National Merit Semifinalists and three National Hispanic Scholars for 2019 • LRSD’s 2018 Teacher of the Year selected as 2019 Arkansas Teacher of the Year - Stacey McAdoo • State Champs in Swimming and Tennis • 2nd Lien Loan Projects – HVAC, roofs, security camera/ alarm upgrades, air conditioning at all high school gyms, resolution of drainage issues at Dunbar, turf/track/field improvements for Central, Fair and Hall • Scholarship total of $23.0 million • ViPS Partnerships - $27.2 million in volunteer support • $150,000 grant for new Health Clinic at Chicot Elementary to support the Southwest community • Little Rock Southwest High School, slated to open in 2020, will be one of the largest state-of-the-art secondary campuses in Arkansas • LRSD’s Pre-K/Early Childhood Centers continue to serve as one of the strongest early learning programs in the State • Career Education Expansion – doubled student numbers in medical program and Police and Fire Academies

* Dates and times subject to change. Visit LRSD.org for calendar updates.

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

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DECEMBER 2019 83

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

84 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

1. INSPIRATIONAL GIFT GIVING Connie Fails’ upcycled flannel shirts are embroidered with President Clinton’s quote, “Be Brave and Chase Your Dreams.” Pair with flair, with Fails’ hand-knitted scarves.

Share the Statue of Liberty’s sentiment of welcome to immigrants with this paper mache Liberty Mask by Bulgarian-born American citizen Georgi Dukov. Clinton Museum Store, 501-748-0400, clintonmuseumstore.com.

2. GIFT GALLERY Find locally made and lovely gifts at The Galleries at Library Square of the Roberts Library, which carries Jennifer Perrin’s whimsical face bowls, fiber artist Bonnie Kastler’s infinity scarves, Marcus Lewis’ handpainted ties, the Mocking Bird T-shirt by Marianne Nolley and Brianna Peterson of LunaTick Designs, and more. The Galleries at Library Square, 501-320-5790, robertslibrary.org.

Forgive Our Persistence; It’s Just Our Passion

We strive to not only provide care for our clients but to ensure that their overall needs are maintained and to enhance their day to day well being.

Heaven Sent Adult Day Care Center provides these medically supervised services to the patient daily:

• Healthy meals • Vital signs taken daily •Workout Rooms/Exercise Daily (Authorization made by clients PCP)

• Appointments made by staff RN • Updates Made to Family Daily • Monthly Outings and much, much more

Contact Us Today!

501-313-2961 • www.heavensentadultcare.com Visit our blog: www.asecretgift.wordpress.com

Order a portrait your dog Order a portrait ofof your dog Order a portrait of your dog

Order a portrait of your dog

3. FEED THE HUNGRY Give the gift of your time this holiday season by delivering meals to Arkansas’s seniors and be part of the solution to insecurity among our older residents. CareLink delivers more than 900 meals a day to homes on Little Rock, Maumelle and North Little Rock.

CareLink, 501-372-5300, carelink.org.

4. HANDKNITS FOR HEADS Keep your family cozy with comfy wool hats lined with fleece by Nirvanna Designs.

Hand-knit with love by the women of Nepal so they can support their families from home. Hot Springs Hat Co., 501-463-9210, facebook.com/hatsprings.

5. READ ALL ABOUT US Books about Arkansas and written by Arkansans are great gifts, such as new titles “Arkansas Splendor,” Tim Ernst’s exploration of the Natural State; “The Grand Prairie: A History of Duck Hunting’s Hallowed Ground” by Brent Birch; “Arkansas Backstories: Quirks, Characters, and Curiosities of the Natural State” by Joe David Rice; and “The Education of Ernie Dumas: Chronicles of the Arkansas Political Mind” by Ernest Dumas. WordsWorth Books, 501-663-9198, wordsworthbookstore.com.

6. CHRISTMAS CRAFTY The Arkansas Craft Guild’s 41st annual Christmas Showcase features quality art and fine crafts by members of the Arkansas Crafts Guild and their guests, like Nathan Doster’s butcher block, Perry/Munn Pottery platters, Pam Alexander’s fine silver jewelry and Ruth Burgin’s hand-painted gourd and spindle decorations. The showcase runs Dec. 6-8 at the Arkansas State Fairgrounds, $5 at door. Arkansas Craft Guild, 870-2694120, arkansascraftguild.org.

by artist Carole Katchen

by artist Carole Katchen by artist Carole Katchen ckatchen@earthlink.net (501) 617-4494 ckatchen@earthlink.net (501) 617-4494

ckatchen@earthlink.net (501) 617-4494

Everybody’s favorite trees are always at Box Turtle.

M-F 10-6 • SAT 10-5 • SUN 12-5 2616 KAVANAUGH BLVD. LITTLE ROCK 501.661.1167 • WWW.SHOPBOXTURTLE.COM BEST GIFT SHOP A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 85

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

86 DECEMBER 2019

ARKANSAS TIMES

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

1. GRAB IT These leather clutches by Hammitt of Los Angeles have everything you need, from a cellphone pocket to crossbody strap, and style, too. Box Turtle, 501-661-1167, shopboxturtle.com.

2. SWEET AND LOCAL Loblolly Creamery’s marshmallow peppermints, Markham & Fitz’s chocolates and Boulevard’s own coffee cup are great gifts for your sweetie. Boulevard Bread Co., 501-663-5951, boulevardbread.com 3. IT’S FOR CHILDREN And Rhea Drug’s wooden Noah’s Ark will entertain the game of concentration! Two by two the animals entered; your kiddos will have fun matching the animals with their pair! Rhea Drug, 501-663-4134, rheadrugstore.com.

4. SOCK IT TO ’EM The stocking’s not full until it has socks!

Solmate socks are mismatched for fun feet. And Stifft Station Gifts has more: Mr. Perfect hair and body wash soap and Bang-Up Betty’s hand-stamped “Pull My Finger” keychains. Stifft Station Gifts, 501-725,0209, stifftstationgifts.com.

5. SILKY TOUCH Grab a silk velvet scarf in a dozen gorgeous shades for that special lady on your list — or for yourself ! Cynthia East Fabrics, 501-663-0460, cynthiaeastfabrics.com.

6. A GIFT FOR YOURSELF Let Edward’s take on some of the holiday chores, with its holiday party platters that feature cold cuts and cheese, chicken strips, and cookies. Whew!

Edwards Food Giant, 501-614-3477, edwardsfoodgiant.com.

7. RUN HOT AND COLD Some like it hot! Or keep it chill under the tree this year! The Hydro Flask is a double-wall vacuum insulated stainless steel bottle with a lifetime warranty.

Ozark Outdoor Supply, 501-664-4832, ozarkoutdoor.com.

8. SPIRIT OF THE HOLIDAY Check our ad on page 60 for all of our specials. Featured here: Bulleit Bourbon 36.99 Western Son Vodka 16.99 Warehouse Liquor 860 E Broadway Street, North Little Rock & 1007 Main St, Little Rock facebook.com/vick1v.

A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE ARKANSAS TIMES

ARKANSASTIMES.COM

DECEMBER 2019 87

1

INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERINGS

BY HOWARD BARKIN AND VIC TOR BAROCAS / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ Howard Barkin is a software quality-assurance specialist — and an ace crossword solver — from Hillsborough, N.J. He won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in 2016 and is a perennial top-10 finisher. Victor Barocas, who also competes, is a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Minnesota. The men became acquainted through the tournament when their last names appeared alphabetically adjacent in the results. The idea for this puzzle was Howard’s. They worked back No. 1020 and forth by email to make it. — W.S.

Across 1 What helicopter rotors do 5 “____ to Psyche” 8 Bartók and Lugosi 13 Seven Sisters school that went coed in 1969 19 Famous feature of the Florence Cathedral 20 Romulus, exempli gratia 21 It goes up with alcohol consumption 23 Cereal mascot since 1933 24 N.Y.C.-based dance troupe 25 ↑ Memoirist 26 Psalm 63 opening 28 Unable to choose 30 Blood drive worker 31 On the way 32 Many 34 Tactless 36 Marsh flora 38 Rapper Lil ____ X 39 ↓ Journalist and author 42 Maui setting: Abbr.

44 Downwind 45 Mimic 46 Quarry, e.g.

47 Raise one’s spirits 49 Weighed on 51 Gangster’s gun 52 Large print source 54 Org. for the Demon Deacons and Blue Devils 55 ↑ Sci-fi author 58 Observance on Yom Kippur or during Ramadan 61 H.S. class for future engineers, say 62 Spoke with a forked tongue 63 Guides of a sort 64 “From where I sit,” briefly 65 Increases 66 Word appearing on only one current U.S. coin (the nickel) 67 Bit 68 Yonder 72 Medium on display at Brickworld 73 ↓ Famed rights advocate 75 Agcy. that supports entrepreneurs 77 Many a middle schooler 78 Sounds during a strep test 79 1976 hit whose title is sung just before the line “Take it easy” 84 Buenos ____ 85 Sis’s sib 86 Isn’t in the black 87 Information on a game box 88 The so-called “winter blues,” for short 89 ↑ Noted politician and orator 93 “Honor”-able org.

95 Gush 97 Largest cell in the human body 98 Got by 99 Yeats’s homeland 101 Brings up 103 Award for Best Moment, e.g.

105 The “1” of 10-1, say 106 ↓ American composer and lyricist 109 Canyon maker 111 Kissers 113 “I can’t understand this at all” 114 Half of a blackjack 115 Hideout 116 Star of the “Taken” film series 88 DECEMBER 2019

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4 Moved, as in a greenhouse 5 ____ pro nobis 6 Factor affecting a bond’s rating 7 Took by threat 8 Actor on Time’s list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century 9 California’s ____ River 10 Reclined 11 Hex’d 12 Playing on both sides 13 “I ____” (sticker message) 14 “I’ll take that as ____” 15 Parts of a portfolio: Abbr.

16 Iconic environmental book 17 Maker of the classic Radarange 18 Concludes one’s case 22 “Ghosts” playwright 27 Forest mother 29 River through Dortmund 32 Model of vengeful obsession 33 Part of a Swiss bank account 35 One good at reading emotions 37 Boating hazard 40 Something a house might be built on 41 Epigrammatic 43 Brand in the dessert aisle 47 Clue collectors, for short 48 Grow a fondness for 50 Grub 51 Assoc.

52 Includes surreptitiously

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53 Melds 55 Left on board 56 High percentage of criminals?

57 No longer green, say 58 Popular sans-serif typeface 59 Truism based on a line by Gertrude Stein 60 Major source of coffee beans 61 Mass-produced response?

63 Inspiration for a horror movie?

64 Nobelist Pavlov 66 Hammer feature 68 U.K. honours 69 Choreographer Twyla 70 Trio often heard in December 71 Northern borders?

74 Can’t do without 75 Runners support it 76 Place of security 79 What causes a will-o’-the-wisp 80 Ann and Andy, notably 81 The King of Latin Pop 82 Popular sports news website 83 ExxonMobil abroad 85 Promise 86 Heavy responsibility 89 Comment following an unrepentant admission 90 Symbolic socioeconomic divider 91 Less bumpy 92 Suffix with sex or text 93 Get the show on the road 94 Número de Maravillas del Mundo Antiguo 96 Get one’s hair just right 100 Bits of work 102 Something a cobbler may hold 104 “It’s fun to stay at the ____” (1978 hit lyric) 107 Miracle-____ 108 Org. for docs 110 Bit of animation 112 About one-quarter of a high school: Abbr.

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THE OBSERVER

T

A Year at the Picture Show

he Observer is a movie buff of some renown, even though the ticket prices and fees and concession prices and all the other stuff that pays for Brad Pitt and our local theater owner to live in the style he is accustomed to can really rack up. Every once in awhile, however, when finances will allow, the price is a burden we’re willing to bear for that experience we’ve loved since Yours Truly was a kid, seeing movies down at the ol’ Royal Theater in Benton: entering the silent, dimly lit, faintly popcorn-scented temple to dreams made of light, settling yourself in and getting lost in somebody else’s world for a while. Junior, who will somehow turn 20 years old this month, broad-shouldered and shot up taller than his Old Man seemingly overnight like Jack’s magic beanstalk, rarely has time to hang with dear ol’ Dad these days, what with his college studies and cram-packed social calendar. We can, however, still coax him out occasionally for a trip to the flickers, which has made The Observer treasure our time at the movie house even more.

We’ve seen quite a few flicks this year, which is odd for The Observer, given the factors we’ve outlined above. Back in the day, The Observer used to review movies for the mighty publication you are perusing right now, as well as spending almost a decade teaching young folks about the intricacies of cinema out at the college. We miss both those pursuits greatly, so here, at the tail end of 2019, we thought we might genuflect to the great God of journalists, Phil D. Hole, by doing some brief reviews of a few of the notable winners and stinkers we’ve seen this year.

“Terminator: Dark Fate”: When Hollywood spends $196 million making a movie about a 63-year-old grandmother launching shoulder-fired anti-tank grenades opposite a 72-year-old grandfather playing a cyborg just

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so they can cash in on your nostalgia rather than doing the harder work of cooking up a new idea for a movie franchise, the entire industry needs to be slowly lowered into the molten steel for a final thumbs-up. When they get around to digging up Christopher Lloyd and pair him with a CGI-youthized Michael J. Fox for “Back to the Future Part 4,” skip that, too. GRADE: C+ “The Lighthouse”: Bleak, beautiful and black-and-white. If history is any guide, the Three Bs would be a sure-fire formula for Oscar chum even if Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson — the latter having shed every crumb of the vampiric body glitter he displayed in those terrible “Twilight” movies — didn’t manage to turn in Oscar-caliber performances. “The Lighthouse” is an eerie movie that will make you feel like somebody laced your popcorn with angel dust, in all the right ways.

Our money is on four-time nominee Dafoe to finally take home a statuette for this one, if Joaquin Phoenix (see below) doesn’t beat him to the microphone. GRADE: A “Overlord”: Zombies? Nazis? G.I. Joes? “The Dirty Dozen” meets “Evil Dead,” we guess? We don’t remember a lot about this one, which is probably the gore-trauma and our brain’s bullshit detector working in tandem. GRADE: D“The Rocky Horror Picture Show”: We caught this one again for the umpteenth time just before Halloween, and we’ve got to say that, while we admit we thought of Tim Curry’s corseted, stiletto-heeled Dr. Frank N. Furter as some kind of dangerous weirdo when we first laid eyes on this movie years ago, the wisdom of age has brought us around to the truth: Nobody was ever more badass than Frank. Also, can you believe this movie came out while Gerald Ford was in office?

GRADE: A+ with a cherry on top.

“Captain Marvel”: Editor’s note: The following is not a commentary on women, wom-

en in film, women in Hollywood, the power and/or resilience of women, superhero movies starring women, or the acting talents of Brie Larson, who knocked our socks off, and everyone else’s, in her Oscar-winning turn in 2015’s claustrophobic “Room”: Meh. Don’t @ me. GRADE: C“Doctor Sleep”: While Ewan McGregor does solid work as Danny Torrance (the all-grownup kid from Stephen King’s “The Shining” who still sees dead people), a kinda dumb plot about a tribe of psychic vampires and an extended scene where a Little Leaguer gets gruesomely tortured to death kinda put a damper on this one. Until, that is, the third reel, when the action leads our heroes to return to the Overlook Hotel, abandoned after Jack Torrance went all axe-murdery, with the sets lovingly recreated to match those seen in Stanley Kubrick’s iconic “The Shining” down to the absolute smallest detail. Can’t we just, you know, spend two or three hours hanging out there with the ghosts? GRADE: B “Joker”: Another super-bleak look at the human condition carried along by an epic performance, it’s our favorite film of the year.

Engrave Joaquin Phoenix’s name on the Best Actor Oscar now. GRADE: A “Us”: Once you manage to suspend your disbelief about a family attacked by their feral dopplegangers — with your belief-suspender forced to go all the way to 11 over the absurd, “exactly how would that work?” answer to where the doubles come from who are showcased in the last act — writer/director Jordan Peele manages to create one of the most unsettling flicks of the past few years while taking the next step toward his coronation as a 21st century master of auteur horror. GRADE: B+ Happy holidays, dear readers. The Observer will see you right back here next year. Here’s hoping 2020 will be a healthy, happy and prosperous one for you and yours. Us, too.

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