Robin Garr, Jeff Polk, Dan Savage, Marc Murphy, Rob Brezsny, James Wilkerson
Chief Executive Officer
Chris Keating Editor at Large
Jessica Rogen
Vice President of Digital Services
Stacy Volhein
Digital Operations Coordinator
Elizabeth Knapp
Chief Financial Officer
Guillermo Rodriguez
Courtesy photo
Erica Rucker is LEO Weekly’s editor-in-chief. In addition to her work at LEO, she is a haphazard writer, photographer, tarot card reader, and fair-to-middling purveyor of motherhood. Her earliest memories are of telling stories to her family and promising that the next would be shorter than the first. They never were.
FIRE MEETS FIRE: WORKING BLACK IN WHITE SPACES
BY ERICA RUCKER
When an employee is relieved of their duties, often the employer spins a narrative around that dismissal that makes it seem like it was the employee’s fault. Sometimes, it is the employee’s fault. Sometimes, the system of protecting the status quo, regardless of how wrong and toxic that environment is, takes precedence over the employee who was sacrificed to maintain it. This happens more if you are a person of color.
Right now, Keisha Dorsey, the former deputy chief of staff for Mayor Craig Greenberg, is fighting this fight. She was fired from her job while on an approved medical leave. The city claims Dorsey was missing work, falsifying records, and other misconduct including what they called “dishonesty” — a very loaded phrase for Black women at work. Dorsey says there are systemic issues that have affected not only her but other female and minority employees throughout the city. Particularly, under the Greenberg administration.
I think there is something to be said about that, as Greenberg seems to have had a rocky run as Louisville’s mayor so far. Greenberg has seen a fair share of ethics complaints about him, his wife and charges of nepotism and favoritism for his wealthy friends and their children. He’s received criticism from Metro Council and the public for his reneging on promises and working on bad policies with Republicans.
Dorsey is being supported by local organizations who see a similar pattern to the treatment of Black and other women in positions of leadership.
On Sunday night, in a panel held by the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression, Kathleen Parks, the president of the National Action Network in Louisville had this to say, “It seemed to be just from my perspective, that there is a pattern here of women, especially Black women, that have been terminated from key positions, high profile positions. It seems to be a similar pattern here in terms of the way that they were treated, and also we’re concerned about the personnel practices that have occurred with this particular situation.”
The organization has put its support behind Dorsey. Like most of these firing cases, it is a matter of fingers pointing in either direction and folks lining up in alliance on either side.
Who is right? That is something that may never be answered because what we have is one woman against a system built to protect itself. Even if it are found liable, it will still find a narrative to protect itself.
What I do know is that as a Black woman in a white workplace, you are so often up against the whims, forces and perceptions of people who don’t know or understand who you are.
Some years back when I began writing for LEO Weekly, I shared my own story of being let go from a job after a white woman, named Karen (y’all don’t know the giggles I’ve had since), turned on the faucet of phony tears to claim that I’d been harassing her when… I wasn’t. The idea of it is so antithetical to who I am and funny. White
women in the workplace are often far more concerned about you than you would ever be about them. This woman had a definite pattern of weird behavior, and harassment of me and other employees.
Similar to Dorsey’s complaint, there had been a pattern of Black women and men being removed from their positions due to a random series of made-up offenses including dishonesty.
If you’re a Black woman in the workplace, what you can’t do is just be regular and do your job. You may not be late. You may not be unhappy, sick or sad. You can’t dislike a coworker and avoid them. Basically, if you are a Black woman, you may not have any human emotion or response nor expect grace and compassion if you do.
The force of the events that followed my own run-in with workplace Karen were at first nightmarish — being made to work in a room that was a supply/copy room, being called almost everything short of a welfare queen by a gaggle of snow chickens in a meeting where I had little chance to speak, and being asked to sign a document that was a complete fiction made up by the HR director. When I refused to sign, the abuse ramped up.
Had I done anything different in my job before this? I finished my graduate degree, applied for a position of leadership that I was uniquely qualified for. In short, I stepped outside of their perceptions and became a “threat.”
For me, this situation now looks so ridiculous, and the people involved so very pathetic that I laugh, and thank them from afar for freeing me from that trainwreck to a much better, happier, and healthier life. Sometimes we don’t know that we’re being freed.
In Dorsey’s complaints, she’s asked for an investigation of 33 other firings of female employees including that of former Police chief Erika Shields and interim acting police chief, Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel. Gender and racial discrimination in the workplace is still very much a concern and active.
When I read this, I was reminded of my own when I cited several other Black people who were fired ahead of me. Like Dorsey, I filed complaints with little to no avail. Many of these committees hearing the complaints do little unless you’ve been called the “N” word on tape more than once.
For Dorsey’s sake, I’d love to see her complaints result in a change. I’m not hopeful because I’ve seen it too many times before and when we talk about allyship and showing up for racial justice, there likely won’t be any change until those folks do this in the workplace and not just within the convenience and space of rallies or demonstrations.
What I know is that for Black women the fight up the ladder of success is marred by barbs along the way. It is time for new rules, new organizations and new fights to make system-wide shifts. It is time for us to create these mechanisms because we can’t rely on ones that have been shaped by the very people holding the wheel of these businesses who continue to put white and male interests ahead of all others.
If you weren’t paying close attention to the markets last week, you may have missed the latest financial imbroglio, triggered by the rise in value of Japan’s currency, the yen, in the wake of the Bank of Japan raising short term interest rates. You still with me?
A chain of events that led to an unwinding of a curious Wall Street trade that spooked markets and prompted Donald Trump to make wild accusations about who was culpable for the volatility; accusations filled with standard fare red herrings and ad hominem attacks directed at his rivals—attacks, mind you, that ignored or outright obfuscated the real catalysts and culprits of the market turmoil.
At first glance, a discussion about foreign currency valuations, interest rate hikes and DJT embellishing for political points for the trillionth time may sound like a snooze. But it was arguably the meatiest, most under-hyped story last week, because it pulled back the curtain, if ever so slightly, on Wall Street’s Den of Vipers latest contrivance, and therefore is worth revisiting.
Tokyo & Trump Timeline
In the middle of a multi-day but shortlived global selloff that picked up steam on Wednesday July 31, and climaxed in the premarket Monday morning August 5, Trump and his sycophants saw a window of opportunity to knock Joe Biden and Kamala Harris down a peg or two.
Late on Sunday night, August 4, while U.S. markets were still shuttered for the weekend, Trump took to his social media platform, the publicly traded and incongruously named Truth Social, to write in all caps:
“STOCK MARKETS CRASHING. I TOLD YOU SO!!! KAMALA DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE. BIDEN IS SOUND ASLEEP. ALL CAUSED BY INEPT U.S. LEADERSHIP!”
At the time of Trump’s post, it was Monday afternoon in Tokyo, and Japan’s stock index, the Nikkei 225, was in the middle of a full meltdown. By the end of the trading day, the Nikkei would drop 12.4% after losing 5.8% the previous Friday. According to the Wall Street Journal, this “once-in-a-generation free fall” was Japan’s largest single-day sell-off since Oct. 20, 1987, the Tuesday after the infamous 1987 “Black Monday” U.S. stock market crash that sent the Dow Jones Industrial average tumbling 22.6%.
Subsequently, on Monday morning here in the states, 13 hours behind Tokyo, the contagion would hit lower Manhattan after spreading throughout Asia South Korea’s KOSPI fell 9%, Taiwan’ Taiex dropped 8.4%, while India’s Sensex closed down almost 2.7% down.
The S&P would open down 3.5%, “with fewer than 50 stocks in positive territory, while the Nasdaq slumped more than 5%,” as reported by Business Insider
Worse yet, at 8:30 AM, an hour before the bell in premarket trading, the VIX, an important volatility indicator, also known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” which had remained depressed for months due to an unrelenting bull market, spiked dramatically from Thursday-afternoon’s low of 15.71, shooting to a high of 65.73, “the highest level since the pandemic market plunge in 2020,” according to CNBC
Importantly, 8:30 AM would also prove to be a key technical pivot point, as buyers from big institutions, using complex (and opaque) algorithmic trading technology, jumped back into the market on heavy volume.
From this time stamp forward, stocks would rebound throughout the day and never let up a key fact no one in legacy media cared to mention. Moreover, the buying momentum
would carry over into Tuesday’s trading session, as stocks and indexes closed in the green, while the VIX would conversely fall back below 25, as The Fear quickly subsided.
But by now, Trump, like a rabid dog, had tunnel vision. Ignoring the signs of a reversal, after having devised a new alliterative nickname to pigeonhole yet another political opponent, at 10:02 AM Trump posted again to Truth Social, this time to brand Vice President Kamala Harris, “KAMALA CRASH”!
Following suit, fifteen minutes later, the House GOP Judiciary Committee tweeted, “If you look at your 401k today, remember that it was brought to you by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.”
Even Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance, got in on the action. The multi-millionaire author of the 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy”, and former venture capitalist, whose senate campaign was partially financed (to the tune of $15 million dollars) by his former boss, the conservative Silicon Valley billionaire and self-professed monopolist Peter Theil, wrote:
“This moment could set off a real economic calamity around the globe. It requires steady leadership the kind President Trump delivered for four years. Kamala Harris is too afraid to answer media questions and cannot lead us
through these troubled times.”
But nowhere in these reductive broadsides, described as “toddler tantrums” by one New York Times editorial, did Trump or his underlings provide any data or context around current market conditions, the cause of Japan’s crash, or the real saga hiding in plain sight: Wall Street’s latest leveraged scheme.
Background on Market Dynamics and Yen Carry Trade
Despite high interest rates and sticky inflation numbers, serious fears of a recession at the start of the year were averted due to both a strong labor force and soaring Big Tech stocks, fueled by an exuberant, if not propagandistic, AI innovation narrative that helped propel an indefatigable rally in all three major U.S. stock indexes. The market-cap-weighted S&P hit new all-time highs 31 times in the first six months of the year, led by the “Magnificent Seven” mega-cap tech stocks Nvidia, Tesla, Meta, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon but especially by the semiconductor Nvidia, which gained nearly 150% in the first half of the year. Nevertheless, because the pump was so unbridled and narrowly focused around AI euphoria, Wall Street analysts have been predicting for some time, while not raising
alarm bells about when, a healthy correction to the bullish buying mania would come. Last month that correction came, as bears at least temporarily took back control, while the “smart money” from large institutions began “rotating” out of overbought growth stocks.
But overbought mega-caps wasn’t the only factor weighing on traders and investors minds that contributed to selling pressure.
On July 31, at the Federal Reserve’ s news conference, Chair Jerome Powell announced, to some surprise, the Fed would keep interest rates elevated for yet another month between 5.25% and 5.5%. While Powell signaled they would finally make their first rate cut in September, concerns the central bank was cutting too late, and thus getting behind the curve, reinvigorated new fears of a recession and led to further selling.
The weight of the Fed’s decision was also compounded two days later by the Friday’s jobs report released on August 2. Although the labor market was still adding jobs, the rapid pace coming out of the pandemic had slowed, and July’s unemployment numbers grew to their highest levels since 2021, as reported by the Labor Department.
Furthermore, July kicked off the second quarter earnings season. Multiple big tech companies from Google to Microsoft to Amazon issued results that according to the Financial Times, “underwhelmed investors.”
Each of these catalysts played a role in recent market volatility, and one could tangentially try to link them to the White House.
But they weren’t THE story. The flash global selloff and sharp spike in the VIX last Monday had less to do with traditional stock rotation, the Fed’s intransigence, lackluster employment numbers, spotty tech earnings, or for that matter, Biden’s and Harris’s policies, and more to do with Wall Street’s latest Big Bet, in the world’s largest casino, that finally went bust.
A widely made bet across Wall Street but fairly shrouded from Main Street’s gaze, which once uncovered, would explain the symbiotic relationship between the tectonic rise of Big Tech stocks and subsequent rapid crash of Japan’s stock market.
The Yen Carry Trade
Since the 1990s, after a Japanese asset bubble burst, and followed by a period of deflation, Japan made it a priority to keep interest rates at hyper low levels for decades.
Even coming out of the pandemic, when many central banks around the world began to raise rates to fight rampant inflation, Japan stayed the course and kept rates suppressed, even in negative territory.
According to Business Insider, this created “ a divergence in monetary policy that affected the Japanese yen, which sank to a near four-decade low against the strong US dollar last month.”
This currency divergence created a trading opportunity, known as the carry trade that became in vogue among large Wall Street institutions, especially in the last several years amidst U.S. rate hikes that on the one hand made borrowing expensive at home, and on the other, helped turn Japan into the largest creditor nation in the world.
Investment banks, hedge funds and currency traders, all hunting for value and/or ways to manufacture money out of thin air, found a magical haven in Japan, and began borrowing vast sums no one knows exactly how much, some estimates are upwards of a trillion dollars of the devalued yen at or below zero percent interest rates.
Once the money was borrowed, these institutional players then “carried” the interest-free cash over, pouring it back into other asset classes that could produce a sizable return, i.e., U.S. treasuries, the Mexican peso, Big Tech stocks, as well as riskier assets like Bitcoin.
The banks and hedge funds were BETTING that both the Japanese currency would continue to flounder or fall in relation to the strong dollar, while Japan’s central bank would continue to keep interest rates at near zero levels. If the levels stayed the same, they could continue to leverage the capital they’d borrowed with little risk while dumping the money into high flying equities like Nvidia for a handsome return.
But there’s always a “but” on July 31, the same day as the Federal Reserve announced its decision to hold interest rates steady for one more month before beginning to cut, the Bank of Japan raised its interest rates from .1 percent to .25 percent to stop the slide of the yen against the U.S. dollar; this change came just four months after Japan raised rates above zero for the first time in 17 years.
These small but noticeable rate hikes had a profound impact on the yield on the yen, which increased in value 7.5% at the beginning of last week. That might sound good on its face. Yay! The price of yen is going up baby! Let’s pop some bottles of Cristal!
But for Wall Street whales banking on the currency to stay depressed and interest free, it was the worst-case scenario.
When the price of yen in relation to the greenback jumped, those who had borrowed now owed far more than the purchase price they bought in at, which led to margin calls,
requiring borrowers to put up a larger amount of collateral if they wanted to remain in their loans that had now ballooned in cost, or be forced to immediately pay them back.
Because a healthy portion of the money that was borrowed was sunk into U.S. tech stocks, investors began unrolling their trades in those stocks to pay off their debts owed in borrowed yen.
Worst yet, because these traders began selling viciously stateside and buying-back viciously abroad, it both sullied the momentum of our stock market (as well at the price of Bitcoin), and conversely pumped Japan ’ s
currency, which led to a currency SHORT SQUEEZE.
As more borrowers realized they were under water in their loans, more began paying them back, and as the currency debt was paid off, the more the yen increased in value, which created a nasty cyclical effect that ultimately led Japan’s stock market to crash.
Dénouement
Though Harris and Biden are intimately connected to Wall Street interests, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool or a liar, the yen carry trade and subsequent selloff albeit
modest and temporary is not of their doing.
(Of note, both the U.S. and Japan’s stock markets ended this past Friday at the same levels they were the previous Friday before the sell-off, while the VIX fell below 20 to close out the week, as if Monday’s flash-crash never happened).
It’s also important to point out: you should never associate the strength of the stock market with how everyday Americans are doing I understand this reality all too well personally.
Inflation is too high. Wages aren’t keeping up. Credit card interest rates are criminal. The housing market is inaccessible to most working-class Americans. And no matter what the talking heads and analyst worms on CNBC proclaim, for many Americans, life is more economically challenging now than it was five years ago.
Not because Trump was The Messiah, but because exiting the pandemic companies realized they could gouge customers on products we need, like groceries and gas, and there was very little we could do about it. A reality that’s unlikely to be curtailed under either a Trump or Harris administration.
Nevertheless, the stock market is the primary economic indicator DJT has pointed to time-and-again, in and out of office as proof of economic strength; ergo, if Trump were in office right now, he’d be gloating to hog heaven about how strong the stock market is.
Furthermore, the main takeaway is: no matter who is president, Wall Street and its house of cards is always up to some new
gimmick, that’s always the same old gimmick, just with a slightly different twist.
Like heroin junkies they cannot help themselves. Every five to ten years like clockwork their speculative bets break America’s piggy bank for which they should be held accountable but are not by a congress that fails to provide proper oversight and regulation WHICH OF COURSE THE GOP DEFINITELY DOESN’T WANT.
Generally, The Insiders get their own money out before everyday folks are left holding the bag. In the bag is a recession, layoffs, housing crashes and other excrement.
We’ll have to see if the unwinding of the carry trade is over. According to some analysts, it’s only 50 to 60% unwound.
Kit Juckes, a global strategist imparted his stance on the unfolding saga, in a message to his clients last Monday, as reported by CNN, writing:
“You can’t unwind the biggest carry trade the world has ever seen without breaking a few heads.”
VIEWS
LIGHT TWO TORCHES: ON PARIS, LA, AND AMERICAN DREAMING
Politics is the Art of the Impossible
BY MARC MURPHY
The Olympics are a platform for some of the fastest, strongest, and most determined athletes in the world. Television coverage invites us into a small part of their worlds, briefly, and we are often moved by the experience. “Citius, Altius, Fortius”: “Faster, Higher, Stronger” was the Olympic motto until 2021.
The Olympics are also a platform for the host nation. A national Chamber of Commerce fantasy. Paris took advantage of this and painted a bright and bold masterpiece soaked in everything the world expected from the French, and lots it did not but is better for it. There were missteps, of course. (Small poor nations shouldn’t have to ride in the Opening Ceremony like refugees in tiny boats in the actual wake of the large nations’ athletes in their luxurious barges. The unintended metaphor was terrible (in a French accent). (And it was “In-Seine” to force triathletes to swim in the city river that, even according to Paris officials, straddled the too-much-fecal-matter line daily, or hourly).
That aside the use of the iconic architecture of one of the world’s most beautiful cities for the Opening Ceremony and for sports venues and backdrops was inspired. As they say, Hang It In The Louvre. Hang it all in the Louvre. I’m surprised the Ping Pong finals weren‘t actually held . . . in the Louvre.
The Olympics are a carefully curated bubble, though, and France is a mess, of course. The last 250 years or so have been tough on representative democracies and republics. But, just days before the Olympics began the French people voted to reject a majority Far Right government. God willing and the creeks don’t rise as some of my people say, we’ll do the same in November.
The torch has literally been passed now to Los Angeles in the United States of America. “LA 2028” will be our time to shine and to paint our own masterpiece, to use the canvas of this quadrennial event to show the world Who We Are.
But, Who Are We? Who we are now leads the world in two categories: Percentage of our population imprisoned and military spending. Should the LA Olympic artistic director choreograph dancers in orange jumpsuits dancing in shackles down Sunset Boulevard? Maybe the Parade of Nations rolls down Rodeo Drive in tanks and armored personnel carriers instead of barges on the Siene while Lee Greenwood sings “I’m Proud To Be An American.” Or, instead of hiding or jailing the
unhoused who are bankrupted by unreimbursed medical expenses we assemble, hydrate, and train them to perform A Tribute To Capitalism, in the finale of which the world watches them Pull Themselves Up By Their Own Bootstraps. I’m getting chills.
Pity the artistic director, though. Depending upon the results of the election this fall - and whether the results are accepted in the event MAGA loses — 2028 America could be quite a different place than it is now. The director might want to wait until January or so before planning the ceremonies in detail. They can take some small comfort in the knowledge that if Trump wins Fascists throw great parades! The lines are straight, there are lots of soldiers, and everyone does what they’re told, including cheering on demand.
If, however, the Harris-Walz team prevails and other circumstances relegate just enough of the likes of Mitch McConnell to the sidelines — or home — where they belong, we have a chance to rekindle more than just the Olympic flame in the U.S. Can we, in the 4 years before LA 2028, at least begin to heal our most recent wounds and address honestly the wounds that have diminished us from our beginning, like slavery and its legacy? Can we cultivate a collective will to Make America Less Cruel and present to the world in those Opening Ceremonies a vibrant, humane, and enlightened America? It’s worth trying. To quote Olympic Gold Medalist and political commentator Kevin Durant: “A lot of bullshit happens in our country, but a lot of great things happen, too.”
It’ll take a leap of faith far more difficult than Tom Cruise’s tethered rappel from the top of Stade de France, and a kind of individual courage rarely seen in sports and almost never in American politics. The world news is filled daily with patriots dying for their countries but almost never with an American politician willing simply to risk re-election by voting to justly tax billionaires or corporations. Or to fully fund public schools. Or, god forbid, build efficient and equitable public transportation. There are exceptions, of course, but American politics is the living embodiment of W..B. Yeats’ description: “The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
The “worst” here wear MAGA red or are politicians beholden to them feeding their voracious racism, greed, and hateful religious zealotry with cruel and unnecessary legislation that actually kills people and further divides us. Meanwhile,
the “best” make and remake relentlessly embarrassing appeals to The Middle, impressing no one, changing no minds, engaging no new voters, and looking — ceaselessly — backwards. Yes, I know politics is the Art of the Possible. But generations of lowered expectations and gaslighting has shrunk our idea of possibility so much that we’re reduced now to hoping simply “preventing Fascism” is possible. We don’t dream as a country any more. We shrug and accept. We get teary-eyed watching an Olympic athlete overcome challenges and against all odds achieve her dreams then on the same TV screen later that night watch numbly as the city bulldozes a homeless camp, full of people who have dreams, too.
Olympians dream big, and inspire us to wonder what that would be like. Along with the Olympic flame, can we light a second one? A flame we hold in our current darkness to see ahead rather than behind? One that gives us the courage to say out loud things that even the least successful of the democracies in Europe long ago took for granted. Especially because, despite what you’ve heard, we can afford it. That healthcare is a right. That women are equal. That the poor have the right to housing and to travel, especially in their own cities, and the right to educate well their children regardless of their economic status. It’s an uniquely American Tragedy that the nation that can most afford these basic human goods rejects them — patriotically — but still brags like a tired, uncurious old man about being the first to the moon — 55 years ago.
The poor are never mentioned by even the Democrats any more, unless those poor are living on the streets (that we will surely “clean up” before the world arrives in LA in 2028) and then only because they’re bothersome and unsightly. The political battle for the Working Middle Class is a fine one, but also conveniently allows both parties to barely or never mention the growing hedge fund oligarchy that looms over everything
(and finances both parties‘ political campaigns) or the poor. It doesn’t have to be that way. The “best” from Yeats’ poem can begin by telling MAGA, with conviction, to take several seats while reclaiming from them the passionate intensity this important work will require. Bobby Kennedy said “Some men see things the way they are and ask ‘Why.’ I dream things that never were and ask ‘Why not.’” Some men today even understand he should have said “people” or “men and women.” That’s progress, too.
I do hope 2028 America is different than it is now. But, not because the Rule of Law is in the dust bin of history. I think people would love to be as inspired by social and justice change leaders as much as they are every four years by sprinters and gymnasts. In 2021 the International Olympic Committee added to its slogan. Since then, it has been “Citius, Altius, Fortius” and “Communiter” — Together. If we decide now that our strength lies in recognizing that everyone is made stronger by improving the lives of the poorest and weakest among us, the pride we display during LA 2028’s Opening Ceremonies will be less about the past, I do hope 2028 America is different than it is now. But, not because the Rule of Law is in the dust bin of history. I think people would love to be as inspired by social and justice change leaders as much as they are every 4 years by sprinters and gymnasts. In 2021 the International Olympic Committee added to its slogan. Since then, it has been “Citius, Altius, Fortius” and “Communiter” - Together. If we decide now that our strength lies in recognizing that everyone is made stronger by improving the lives of the poorest and weakest among us, the pride we display during LA 2028’s Opening Ceremonies will be less about the past, and more about America’s future.
Marc Murphy
BOURBON HERITAGE MONTH HIGHLIGHTS
SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS FROM BOURBON COMPANIES ACROSS KENTUCKY
The efforts are to keep enough wood across the country to put bourbon in barrels
BY CALEB STULTZ
As Bourbon Heritage Month is just around the corner, it’s important to look at efforts made by Kentucky-based bourbon companies to conserve enough trees for wildlife across the United States.
Many bourbon companies, like BrownForman, are actively looking to keep enough trees around not only for their own business purposes, but to keep wildlife safe and healthy, leading to more biodiversity.
According to the White Oak Initiative, American white oak trees occupy more than 104 million acres of public and private forestland across the eastern and central United States, making it essential to wildlife conservation in these areas. They also support plant biodiversity as well, while generating billions of dollars in economic impact for industries like furniture, flooring, cabinetry and wine and spirits.
However, there are many challenges to the conservation of these trees, and White Oak says it is willing to take on the challenges of today to protect tomorrow.
Because of shifts in how many lands are managed throughout these eastern and central United States, older white oak trees are not being replaced at a sustainable rate. Ecological changes have also made it difficult for more white oak trees to to be planted, supporting long-term sustainability.
Nearly 75% of all surveyed white oak acres, according to the White Oak Initiative through Brown-Forman, could be classified as as at least “mature,” meaning they were old enough to be cut down to be used. However, 60% of those did not have any white oak seedlings present, making it more difficult to replace the mature trees, and around 87% had no white oak saplings present.
A seedling is a very young tree, that is typically less than an inch in diameter, while a sapling is a bit taller, typically 1 to 6 inches in diameter. For white oak trees in these surveyed areas, that means most young trees that come after these matured trees will take much longer to mature.
What can be done to increase the sustainability of white oak trees moving forward?
For White Oak Initiative, the next move is to not only plant more trees, but to collaborate with other bourbon company industry leaders to make the practice of conservation more commonplace. According to its site, White Oak Initiative says it needs “active, cross-boundary
collaboration, participation and support from industry, resource professionals, policymakers, landowners and others who can align knowledge and resources behind the report’s 10 recommended forest management practices, before it’s too late.”
Below is a chart of the acreage of current age 51- to 100-year-old white oak trees in the next 100 years, based on current estimates: According to the chart, which was released by Dr. Jeffrey Stringer and the University of Kentucky’s Forestry and Natural Resources center, the projected volume of trees will shrink by as much as 77%, which could lead to disastrous effects for wildlife across the eastern and central United States, while also reducing tree canopies in these areas, making it much more difficult to deal with climate change during harsh summer months.
Animals across the nation could have major issues when migrating, including birds who are native to these lands. According to Dr. Stringer, many animals use white oak trees to make their homes.
“White oak acorns are one of the most preferred acorns for many animals, and warblers and some bats prefer to nest in white oak,” he said in the White Oak Initiative plans.
But with its plans in place, the White Oak Initiative says that it can reverse these changes, and keep forests in place through diligent work. By 2070, the White Oak Initiative says it envisions at least 100 million acres of forest within the central hardwood regions through a balance of young and mature white and upland oak trees. However, without the efforts outlined in its Conservation Plan, there will be a “significant reduction” in these trees in the eastern US.
In the short term, White Oak says by 2032, its goal is to treat at least 3 million acres of Central hardwood forests to release white oak seedlings and saplings, increasing the number of white oak acres in younger age classes.
“There’s no one-size-fits-all solution,” said Melissa Moeller, the White Oak Initiative director in its planning document. “We need to leave room for stand-level decisions that take into account ecological conditions and the landowners’ own goals and values. We also need to begin now to develop the support systems that enable and empower action across the landscape.”
FEATURE BOURBON IS, AND BOURBON AIN’T, BUT IT COULD BE
BY DANA MCMAHAN
The beginning of the end, for me, was when a man laughed at my order in an Old Louisville dive bar of, wait for it, Wild Turkey 101 with ginger.
“You’re drinking that?” he asked, his incredulity making it clear this man does not know his bourbon — or how to order at dive bars; you get a liquor and a mixer, dude. Ready for a fight (this wasn’t my first pour of the evening), I fixed my gaze on his sneering face. “If it’s good enough for Jimmy Russell, it’s good enough for me,” I replied.
Hi, I’m Dana McMahan, a longtime freelance writer who’s covered bourbon’s stratospheric rise since 2012, when a pitch about how bourbon “seems to be getting a lot of buzz lately” landed my first big travel assignment, a story on the Urban Bourbon Trail. Starting the day exploring the trail as an avowed bourbon hater thanks to that godawful introduction in college by way of far too many shots of Beam, I wrapped the night as a burgeoning bourbon enthusiast. This newfound appreciation was thanks to the patient guidance throughout the day from Louisville bartenders along the trail eager to share their love of our native spirit.
Barrel proof enthusiasm
For a few exuberant years, I rode the bourbon wave, feeling cool because I was part of this hot new trend, hobnobbing with master distillers and bourbon celebrities, thieving from the barrels in the ethereal glow of rickhouses, learning the magic and art and science of distilling, sampling the best of the best, often for free, and coming to love this spirit from my very own home with a passion and pride as fiery as juice right off the still. A few oceans of bourbon and a dozen years later, I’m a duly certified Bourbon Steward with a whole slew of articles under my belt, many of them thanks to bourbon’s rise and Louisville’s growing popularity fueling my own career. Today, though, I rarely drink it, and the bourbon scene is barely recognizable from that first day. With Bourbon Heritage Month upon us, and my feelings about the industry conflicted, I wanted to peel back some layers and talk with someone with deep ties to Kentucky bourbon — and someone who doesn’t mince words. One of the coolest friends in bourbon I’ve made along
this journey, Eddie Fieldhouse III has been involved in destination management and trip planning for people visiting Kentucky for more than a decade. Most recently he launched The Kentucky Hug, a centralized platform for booking bourbon experiences.
Maybe they’re in different sections, but Eddie and I have had front row seats to the bourbon boom. Undeniably that boom has come with good — economic growth, bringing people to our city and state. But not all growth is good, at least not if it’s running away without an eye to the future.
Lost to the angel’s share?
Ten years or so ago, ”I was taking guests to a factory in the woods, and we were meeting a blue collar worker,” Eddie says. “And at the end of that tour, we were taking a small taste of bourbon.” (This was through a loophole in the liquor laws that said your friends could serve you alcohol without having to go through the ABC, he says!) Visitors were people with a deep connection to bourbon through their own love of the drink, more than likely passed down through their families. And that’s what visitors wanted, Eddie says, was to make a personal connection with the people behind the product.
They rarely had the opportunity to buy a bottle, he says, let alone had they camped out overnight on the hunt for the latest hot new release. Meanwhile in Louisville, that bourbon newcomer like me could sit and chat with a bartender and come to appreciate the drink, even go on to make it a mission to bring more people into the fold.
Today? While they’re still here if you know where to look, it’s become a lot harder to find that bartender, Eddie says, because they’re in
the weeds “making sure that they’re lighting the wood chips on fire in the right way with the right glass and the right ice.” And if you’re on a distillery tour now at one of the dozens spangling the state, you’re not very likely talking to someone with close, personal ties telling their own story. What the hell happened?
Raising the bar (but why though)
As distilleries have commissioned slick visitor experiences (some hiring Disney alumni), as bars have opened with elevated cocktail offerings well beyond the humble bourbon and ginger and into the absurd, “we have changed the marketing at a brand level to be about the alcohol and not about the people… and that is where we’ve missed the
boat,” Eddie says.
Brands have also “specifically engaged with the higher and higher end [consumer],” says Eddie. And we’ve gotten away from the authentic story, he says, in favor of cleaned up, pretty stories that all sound the same. Along with the glowups and the big, shiny expansions at so many distilleries, and the bars spending money like they were minting it on fancy bar tops and such just because they can, we’ve missed the point. “It was all of the different stories that made it special,” he says. “That is authentic, that is American, that is the dirt and the grime in the corner. You know what I mean?”
Look at the rats. People love to post photos of a distillery cat on their Insta. What we’re not
talking about, he says, is that those kitties are there to eat rats. Because this is a production facility. In farm country. In Kentucky. And if we’re seeing what’s real, in the place where real people work, that’s just part of it.
But as “brand experiences” open in downtown Louisville or Lexington or Newport, he says, “you’re telling the customer, ‘no need to go out there into the state… you can just sit right here and drink this alcohol.’”
What’s behind the bottle?
Because the needle has also moved to emphasizing the booze in the bottle, he says. And yes, of course, the product itself has always been alcohol. But what are we losing when that’s the only headline?
“We have the ability in Kentucky to reshape how history is told in America from a first person point of view,” Eddie says, “through passed down verbal histories… This includes the working class, Black, brown, LGBTQIA, indigenous peoples, farmers and craftsmen… We have a piece of every person’s story.”
And bourbon has the avenue for us to create a better future for everybody, he goes on. “But we’ve got to put those people in the center of the story. Not the 300 years of what that brand is, but the 300 years of the people behind it.”
“What I want to see more of,” Eddie says, “is the person, the craftsman, the employee at the distillery, the person on the factory line being the one telling their story. We should change [the marketing] from the blurred out picture with an in-focus bottle to a picture of people at a distillery with other people. You know, that is what it’s about. It’s about the people. It’s about the community. It’s about the history.”
Double fisting it
To correct our course, we need to be thinking about growth on a long-term scale, beyond our lifetimes, Eddie says. “Because if you want somebody to be a long-term supporter of your brand, well, you’ve got to have something that’s going to survive the long term, that’s not a different product every three weeks, you know, with a different
label and a different color palette.”
“If we keep going down this road,” Eddie says, “we’re going to end up with a whole lot of very fancy, very dark-lit bars where only people from Wall Street drink to brag about their [bourbon] collections.”
I met those people when I visited Wild Turkey’s distillery on a media jaunt a few years ago. This trip was one of many I got to enjoy, part of my incredibly privileged bourbon education, coming up as the makers themselves were rocketing to fame. As the only local and the only woman on this press trip, I was positively giddy to ramble the grounds, hear master distiller Jimmy Russell and his son Eddie’s stories, and sip their favorite products alongside them (that’s where I asked Jimmy and learned his go-to sipper is 101).
At dinner we gathered at tables while the setting sun drenched the postcard-perfect hills in golden fire. Selfishly, I grabbed a seat next to Jimmy. Turns out, it didn’t matter. Were these out-of-town spirits writers vying to soak up firsthand knowledge from this legend? Nah. They were too busy comparing their bottle collections back home. I’m still pissed. And yes, it was their loss, but it’s to our detriment, too.
Preach it Eddie: “If you don’t plant your feet firmly in the ground here in Kentucky and say, ‘we are the authority, we are the people that are going to tell you what this is and what it means and how it got here,’ if we don’t say that and we say, ‘you know, you can listen that podcast while you’re sitting in traffic in LA and you can be more of an expert than anybody else here,’ we end up with the person that travels here from wherever they’re coming from, walks into a bar in Bardstown, and says, ‘do you know how to make an Old Fashioned?’”
Jesus.
The person working there, he says, probably “has lived in Bardstown for not just their whole lives, but [their families] for multiple generations. … And we have somebody from God knows where coming in and making that person behind the bar feel small and meaningless, and that person, regardless of how they choose to make that Old Fashioned, it’s the right way to do it, because it’s their way.”
We’re not LA, we’re not New York, we’re not Chicago, Eddie says. If you, the bourbon drinker, want it to be about the cocktail, go find a Death and Co., he says. “That’s not what Kentucky is for. It’s about … coming into these communities, and being respectful and understanding that you’re getting access to a place in the world that most people never get access to. And… those communities are welcoming you in with open arms and the warmest hospitality in the world.”
The case for slow bourbon
So how do we hold on to what made bourbon, and us, so special to begin with?
Because remember those early, heady days? I do. I freaking wallowed in them. Eddie does: “There is a tremendous amount of joy and excitement in Kentuckians and Louisvillians,” he recalls, “that ‘oh, my goodness, for the first time we are cool, you know, we are the place to be.’” I felt it. I lived it, hosting travelers in my Airbnbs during the early boom, proud to send them to my favorite bars and distilleries, to lead my own small-group bourbon tours for travelers thirsty for all things whiskey, Kentucky whiskey.
“This is gonna sound crazy,” Eddie says, “but slow down. The bartenders need to slow down, the brands need to slow down. And that sounds really counterintuitive to capitalism as we know it.”
But, he says, “that’s how we get away from being Broadway in Nashville… if we don’t want 2000 people just walking around with a glass, [going] place to place to get it filled up.”
After all, he says, “going way back, the reason why Louisville and Portland exist is because people had to stop here. You had to stop here and wait for the river to get high enough to be able to pass it.”
Thinking about those folks making their way along the Ohio, they were “sitting and meeting the community, being comfortable and having fun in this place that you had to wait in,” he says. “And that time of the year where people were waiting was what is now today, the peak season of tourism, you know, the warm months of the year when the water is at its lowest.”
And now a word to the industry
“That’s something we need to think about,” Eddie says, “that it’s okay to slow down… so that you have the time and the opportunity to talk to the person across the bar rather than trying to keep up with the rush of people that are coming in the door as if it’s going to end any day. We are standing in so much power as bartenders, as the service industry, as brands, and it’s so new and it’s so fresh that we have forgotten that. If we understand the power and authority that we carry and the ability to shape what this experience looks like, we can build more of what we want to see.”
To do that, we have to “be in charge of the customer experience that we’re giving,” Eddie says. “Be in charge of who you are, and the space and the power that you take up. And I think that’s something that myself included, that we struggle with, is that we don’t need to be anyone else. We can be ourselves and we are on the cusp of the South. We are the Midwest, we are the North, we are the East, we are the West, you know. So we are this crossroads of all things in America.”
And here’s where I add: for the love of fiery water, stop the cringe of calling ourselves the Napa of Kentucky.
Blue collar bread and butter Eddie wants us to remember who the customer has historically been. People drinking in this young, growing country weren’t millionaires; they were workers, he points out. “That is who the bread and butter of this industry has always been and always will be,” he says, “and we have made it more difficult than ever for that consumer to feel comfortable approaching a bottle, because it’s all about this allocated inventory, and the price is going all over the place.” It’s happened to all of us, probably, that our favorite, inexpensive bourbon lands on a podcast or in an article and suddenly we can’t afford it.
Media, and I’m as guilty as the next, certainly have had a hand in that. I’e posted more than my share of bottle shots, casually dropped the name of the latest impossible-to-get bourbon I’ve scored or sampled. But as a city, a state, as bourbon and tourism — industries that are intertwined like corn and water — we’ve all had a hand in bringing us to this point. This point that the very reason people want to come here is being lost in the rearview mirror. This point that bros chasing unicorns — and brands obliging — have made it damn near impossible to get a solid bourbon at a reasonable price. This point that the bitter taste of disillusionment has all but obliterated my early love for Kentucky bourbon. The optimist in me wants to think it’s not too late. That we won’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg. That we can hold onto our heritage. Our history. That we can be proud to share and celebrate our real stories with visitors who want to hear them and keep them coming back for more. That we can reclaim our pride in ordering a bourbon and ginger, and toast to the people who make that possible.
Courtesy photos
HOW WE LIKE IT: LEO STAFF TALKS BOURBON DRINKS
Bourbon makes the Kentucky go ‘round. Love it or hate it, bourbon is a huge part of life in the Bluegrass State. From the land it takes to grow the grains to the processing, bottling, and warehousing of the state spirit, bourbon is part of the fabric of Kentucky.
September is Bourbon Heritage Month and we thought we’d share a few of our favorite bourbon drinks and a bit of history about bourbon.
If by some rare chance you are unaware, bourbon is a barrel-aged American-style whiskey made generally from corn. The root of the name is French, however.
Since the 1700s, bourbon has been distilled in the United States, primarily in Kentucky. A common misconception, is that bourbon can only be made in Kentucky. To be called bourbon, the only rule is that the drink be made from at least 51% corn and be stored in a new charred oak barrel.
Elijah Craig, a minister, is credited with the invention of the spirit and its distillation in Kentucky. A man named James C. Crow is credited with the sour mash process, an integral part of the fermentation process.
The history and legality of bourbon has been up and down through prohibition and world wars. Currently, bourbon accounts for global sales of about $8 billion, and the United States has sold over 31 million 9-liter cases of American-made whiskey. By 2030, the global bourbon market is expected to reach $15 billion.
In short, bourbon isn’t going anywhere and, for Kentucky as one of the leading producers, it’s something we should be and definitely are proud of.
1881 Old Fashioned
Pin & Proof
400 S. 2nd St.
Head to Pin & Proof, the Omni’s speakeasy, for an elegant bourbon cocktail that will transport you back to the prohibition. With sleek bowling lanes in a dimly lit cellar room adorned with brass instruments, victorian mirrors and velvet couches, this prohibition era speakeasy has a sophisticated, moody vibe. They offer great bourbon cocktails made with special reserves, like the 1881 Old Fashioned made with Maker’s Mark private selection, demerara, and house blend bitters.
—Sydney
Catinna
King’s Court
Neat Bourbon Bar & Bottle Shop
1139 Bardstown Rd.
The King’s Court hosts a J.T.S. Brown BIB bourbon mixed in with lime juice and cherry juice. As more of a sweet tooth, I can’t get enough of the cherry blend with a sourness of lime mixed neatly together with this Kentucky bourbon as its base.
—Caleb Stultz
Eagle Rare 10 yr.
Single Barrel 90° (served neat)
Bourbon Bistro
2255 Frankfort Ave.
Bourbon Bistro is a favorite spot for a celebration with friends and despite their incredibly extensive list of bourbons, I always come back to a classic. The basic Eagle Rare 10 yr. Is a perfect bottle with a perfect neat pour. It goes well with the heart meals at Bourbon Bistro which are made to be enjoyed with a good drink.
—Erica Rucker
Ale8 Bourbon Slushie
Feast BBQ
900 E. Market St. #100
When two Kentucky classics meet, magic is made! Available all year, the Ale8 Bourbon Slushie from Feast BBQ is a cult classic -- cold, creamy, and the perfect contrast to a plate of sticky-sweet Kentucky BBQ. If you want to shake things up, the BBQ joint also has a special “Slushie of the Month” with creative combinations like Chocolate Covered Cherry, Vanilla Cream Slushies, and even non-alcoholic specials like the seasonal Bourbon Street Hurricane Slushie!
—Sydney Catinna
Locals Only
Neat Bourbon Bar & Bottle Shop
1139 Bardstown Rd.
If you’re from the area, there’s one drink you have to have, and it’s called the Locals Only for a reason. Another J.T.S. bourbon, the Brown BiB Bourbon mixes in Sea Legs with lemon, strawberry, tea and an Ale-8-One to give you the kick you need while sending each sip down smoothly.
—Caleb Stultz
Elijah Craig Small Batch (with three cubes and a splash of water)
Tartan House
1027 E. Main St.
I prefer this drink with a splash but Tartan House serves it with a big rock, and the splash. Nevertheless, sipping one of my favorite inexpensive bourbon sips in the coziness of Tartan House’s classy speakeasy vibe with friends is the best way to relax on a weekend night or after a busy day of work.
—Erica Rucker
Courtesy photos
EAT, DRINK AND SEE IN THIS WEEK’S STAFF PICKS
FRIDAY AUG. 30 – SEPT. 2
WorldFest
Belvedere | 141 N. 6th St. | Free
Head down to the Belvedere to experience one of the region’s largest international festivals, Louisville’s WorldFest. For more than 20 years, this festival has showcased and celebrated various cultures from around the world. There will be nearly 150 international booths with items such as art pieces, crafts, merchandise, and food. Don’t miss the Global Village highlighting cultures and customs from all over the world.
—Sydney Catinna
FRIDAY AUG. 30 – SEPT.1
2024 Sundance Short Film Tour
Speed Cinema | 2035 S. 3rd St. | speedmuseum.org | $12/$8 Speed Members | Times Vary
Come see this 110 minute exhibition of seven short films, including 3 Sundance award-winning pieces, curated from the Sundance Film Festival. For over 45 years, Sundance has supported the best in filmmaking and given rise to some of the best film talent in recent years. This is a special treat being held at the cozy Speed Cinema.
—Erica Rucker
SATURDAY, AUG. 31
2nd Annual American Whiskey Festival
Watch Hill Proper Bourbon Bar & Kitchen| 11201 River Beauty Loop | whpfestival.com | Free | 4 – 10 p.m. | All Ages
Watch Hill Proper out of Louisville is set to host its second annual American Whiskey Festival from 4 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 31. The festival will be at Norton Commons North Village Square. Guests can enjoy pours from many different distilleries including Angel’s Envy, Jack Daniel’s, Heaven Hill Distillery and more. You can attend for free or get VIP passes for $50 or $200 depending on your package.
—Caleb Stultz
SATURDAY, AUG. 31
Racing Louisville FC vs. Seattle Reign Lynn Family Stadium| 350 Adams St. | racingloufc.com | Prices Vary | 7:30 p.m. | All ages
Racing Louisville FC, Louisville’s premier women’s soccer team, is set to host the Seattle Reign, a dynamic west coast squad with lots of talent to show out at this game. Prices of seats will vary based on distance from the field.
—Caleb Stultz
SATURDAY, AUG. 31
Ohlm’s 15th Anniversary Celebration with Stone Holler and Introvert Planet of the Tapes | 640 Barret Ave. | planetofthetapes.biz | $10 | 8:30 p.m. | 21+
15 years is a long time to be plugging away at it as an original band in Louisville. Most local bands don’t even make it half that long. But then again, there are no local bands quite like Ohlm! Absolutely mind-blowing instrumental progressive metal that is on a whole other level of talent! To celebrate this milestone, the band is breaking out some of their older songs they haven’t played in years, and according to their Facebook page, they’ve got some surprises lined up as well. Joining them are groove-oriented hard rockers Stone Holler, (who’ve just put out an amazing full-length album called Roots), and Introvert.
—Jeff Polk
MONDAY, SEPT. 2
Hike, Bike & Paddle
Waterfront Park | Great Lawn | Free | hikebikeandpaddle.org | 8 a.m. – Noon | All ages
This year’s Hike will consist of a 4-mile walk with multiple points to turn around throughout. As for biking, there is a 12-mile route from the Great Lawn out to Shawnee Park and back. For paddlers, they have the option of launching at the Harbor Lawn or the UofL Boat Docks and paddle downstream to meet other paddlers. Free shirts are available for the first 2,000 people.
—Caleb Stultz
THURSDAY, SEPT. 5-8
Cirque du Soleil «Ovo»
KFC Yum! Center | Showtimes & prices vary | cirquedusoleil.com/ovo
Get ready, Louisville! The thrilling spectacle of Cirque du Soleil’s OVO is making its way to the KFC Yum! Center from September 5-8. This dynamic show, perfect for all ages with a mesmerizing blend of color, energy, and extraordinary acrobatics. OVO, which means “egg” in Portuguese, delves into the fascinating world of insects. This show is a lively portrayal of the bustling life within a colony, where insects’ unique personalities and abilities are showcased through stunning acrobatic performances. The show’s narrative explores the beauty and diversity of these tiny creatures, presenting a captivating and energetic performance that has something for everyone.
—Sydney Catinna
FRIDAY, SEPT. 6-7
Oktoberfest at the German American Club German American Club | 1840 Lincoln Ave. | gaclouisville.com | $10
Head to the German American Club for one of their biggest events of the year. The annual Oktoberfest celebration will feature German food, pretzels by Klaus, imported beers, live music, and plenty of Gemütlichkeit. The Friday night Oktoberfest will last from 4-11 p.m., and the Saturday event will take place from 2 p.m. until midnight. The River City Polkatz will play each night with Rheingold band also making an appearance on Saturday. The cost for the event is $10 for adults and free for children.
—Sydney Catinna
FRIDAY, SEPT. 6
Bad Wires, Prisoner, and Porcelain
Portal | 1535 Lytle Street | portal-louisville.com | $10 adv, $15 door | 8 p.m. | All Ages
So I have a dilemma on my hands. What do you do when two of your favorite local bands are playing on the same night at two different venues? The first half of my dilemma is Bad Wires. You’ve surely read about them and their metal/punk/thrash/hardcore/ noise rock/post-hardcore sound in the pages of LEO before. Their unhinged style of music combined with their energetic and downright frantic live show is a sight to behold! And their latest single “Kaleidoscope Eyes” is the best tune I’ve heard out of these guys yet. Also on the bill are Richmond, VA industrial/hardcore/death/doom/crust punk band Prisoner, and Austin, TX post-hardcore noise rockers Porcelain. This will also be the opening of the Bloodbath & Beyond art exhibition in ARTPORTAL. Jeff Polk
SATURDAY, SEPT. 7 – 8
Louisville Taco Festival
Fourth Street Live | 411 S. 4th St. | Search Eventbrite | $10+ | All Ages | 2 – 8 p.m.
Tacos and fun. This event will host over 20 taco vendors, tequila expo area, margarita bars, kids area, a churro stand, and much more. This event is fun for the whole family so no need to leave the kids at home. There will be plenty for everyone to do and plenty for everyone to eat.
—Erica Rucker
FRIDAY, SEPT. 6
Deady, Shrudd, Celray, and Crop Rot Mag Bar | 1398 S. 2nd St. | magbarlouisville.com | $10 | 8 p.m. | All Ages
The second half of my 9/6 dilemma is Deady, who are exactly where they belong - headlining! They’ve been doing a lot of shows lately opening for out of town bands that suddenly find themselves with a serious problem; having to follow them. If you’ve seen Deady live, you know exactly what I mean. Vocalist Mandy Keathley is one of the best front persons in town, and certainly the most energetic. And the rest of the band is right there with her, putting on one of the best shows you’re ever going to see in Louisville every time they play. And the music: catchy as fuck, upbeat punk rock! And you’ll also get the truly bizarre garage punk sounds of Shrudd, the more traditional and extremely catchy tunes of Celray, and the noisy punk jams of Crop Rot.
Jeff Polk
SUNDAY, SEPT. 8
The Adele and Leonard Leight Series: Art, Design and Innovation presents Amber Cowan Speed Museum | 2035 S. 3rd St. | speedmuseum. org | Free | 2 p.m.
The glass art collection of Adele and Leonard Leight gave the speed a stellar assembly of glassworks. With their donation, and through an endowment set up by the Leight children, the Speed has provided learning opportunities for those interested in glass art to speak with artists who are using glass in innovative ways. Amber Cowan’s talk with discuss how she uses pressed glass and created intricate works.
—Erica Rucker
LISTEN LOCAL: NEW LOUISVILLE MUSIC
LEO now has playlists for Listen Local! Search Spotify for LEO Weekly and have a listen!
BY JEFF POLK
Full Disclosure
“The Silence” - single
Following the opening organ intro that sounds straight out of a 1930’s horror movie, Louisville-based alternative neo-progressive rock band Full Disclosure launches into their latest track, “The Silence”, (the first single off their upcoming full-length album Elysium - to be released this Fall), with what sounds like the beginnings of a prog rock jam before falling into a deep, funky groove along the lines of Muse and The Mars Volta, but with a little 311 mixed in. Musicians Matthew Oney (bass), August Kingsley (keys), and Luke Stanton (drums), along with The Anchorites’ Luke Pinkowski on guitar lay down a solid performance that draws influence from equal parts modern alt-rock and ‘70s prog rock; certainly not an easy feat to pull off. But the real star of the show here is singer/songwriter Mason Beard’s vocals. The man certainly knows how to sing and honestly is not far off from Matt Bellamy of the aforementioned Muse. Regarding the upcoming album, Beard said: “I wanted to create a landscape that you can almost see in your mind while listening. I’m most inspired by music when it feels like I’m actually inside the song when I listen to it. That was kind of the goal here. A full journey with a clear point A and point B, but with vast dynamics in between so that you totally lose track of time along the way.” If “The Silence” is any indication, Elysium is going to be a journey you’re gonna want to take!
linktr.ee/fulldisclosure
Godawfuls
Half Hot and Bothered - EP
The Godawfuls’ latest five-song EP “Half Hot and Bothered” has been on repeat quite a bit for me since they released it a few weeks back. When you describe your band as “Three fellas from Kentucky makin’ songs about hard living, heavy drinking & fast women,” then you’ve got my attention! And they really landed on my radar after I caught one of their high energy sets at Air Devil’s Inn a few months back. There is a strong older punk scene here in Louisville, (guys and gals over 40 who, like me, have refused to grow up and leave punk rock behind - hey, not all of us are cut out to be Dave Matthews or Jimmy Buffett fans), and Godawfuls are a big part of it with their straight up grade A, homemade, Kentuckyfried Southern punk rock n’ roll! If I may get oddly specific here: imagine Nine Pound Hammer, Antiseen and Vibrolas jamming out Ramones covers of Chuck Berry songs, and that will give you an idea of what you’re in store for. Definitely punk, but with a 1950s/’60s bluesy rock underpinning. Although the lyrics are funny as hell, the songs are extremely well written and catchy as fuck with some great singalong choruses. They recently released the Rick Gideons/Fifty Eleven Media, (who had a feature story in the last issue of LEO Weekly), filmed and directed a music video for this EP’s closing track, “Her Dad Sells Pot” that’s pretty damn funny! For a band called Godawfuls, they’re actually really goddamn good!
linktr.ee/godawfuls
Nick Teale Glitterfingers - album
I love when Louisville singer/songwriter/guitarist Nick Teale sends me anything new he’s recorded because it’s always a fun surprise to see what style of music he’s going to take on next. And that’s what I absolutely love and admire about this man, his fearlessness in taking on whatever genre inspires him to write a song. Nick Teale’s niche in the music industry is that he doesn’t have one, and his second full-length album, Glitterfingers, certainly cannot be defined by any specific genres. You want Sturgill Simpson and James Taylor? There’s “Angel Wings”. Ever wonder what Meatloaf and Queen would sound like together? Here’s “Karaoke Queen”. How about a Russian folk ballad? “Aleksandra” (written by composer Sergei Nikitin, which Nick impressively sings completely in Russian). You want some Steely Dan-style jazzy yacht rock? You got it: “Half Genius”. Cat Stevens-style ballad? “Drive You Home”. Bluegrass with an upbeat ragtime tempo, (complete with kazoo)?
“Bigscreen TV”. Punchy, bluesy Americana? “Heavy Hand”, (which is a cover of A Girl Named Earl song). What about Bob Dylan? Nick’s got you covered with “Unclear”, (in which he sings with full Bob Dylan-esque enunciation). And why not cap it all off with some good old fashioned epic Viking metal: “Sail On”. Nick does it all! Every song is different, yet they all flow together seamlessly. Nick’s huge, booming voice the common denominator across all nine tracks here. And no one writes lyrics quite the way Teale is able to; often introspective and heartbreaking, but at the same time comforting and always with a shining beacon of hope. Glitterfingers is truly a showcase of Nick’s amazing talents, and proof that the Teale Appeal is the real deal, ya feel?
tealeappeal.com
Punji Pit
Sweating Bullets, Keeping Beat - EP
Louisville has a rich history with punk rock - one that goes all the way back to 1978. And I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see these new punk bands forming, playing shows, and keeping the scene alive. Having formed only a little over a year ago, Punji Pit is certainly one of the newest additions to the scene; however, their songwriting skills are on par with that of a band that has put in a lot more miles. I’m not even sure if these guys are aware of it, but I’m hearing a lot of late ‘70s/early ‘80s Louisville punk in their sound. This isn’t far removed from Babylon Dance Band’s early material. Mix in The Replacements and Nirvana and you’ve got a good idea of what Punji Pit is doing here. It’s definitely a very energetic, fun, upbeat, infectious sound full of big hooks that grab hold of you and make you want to pogo, old-school style. But I stop short of calling them a throwback band because there is most certainly a modern feel to this as well, specifically in the way the songs are structured. Although the surf rock-ish chorus of “Drummer Punk” and the grungy “Looking For Life” are strong openers for this foursong EP, it’s the second half that really grabbed me. “Counting Coins” is an energetic burner of a song that Paul Westerberg wishes he could have written. And if Punji Pit’s goal was to finish strong, they couldn’t have done better than EP closer “Erased”, where the band just flat out throws down and the energy level peaks. If this is the future of Louisville punk, then we are in good hands!
linktr.ee/punjipit
Gasoline Alley - EP
Having seen what band vocalist/guitarist Chief refers to as their “rolling billboard of a bus” a handful of times around the city, (if you’ve seen it - all decked out in band photos and logos - you’ll remember it), I knew who Wyld Ryde was before they contacted me. Or at least I had an idea of who/what they were: throwback hair metal. And I was wrong. Although there is definitely an ‘80s hair metal vibe, there is certainly nothing glammed up or pretty here. Wyld Ryde is ugly, gritty, grimy, fistin-the-air, down and dirty, razor-sharp, expertly played, headbanging, old-school hard rock-and-fucking-roll, warts and all. A cross somewhere between Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction , Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil, Kiss’ Creatures of the Night, and W.A.S.P.’s self-titled debut, with a little Motorhead, Bon Scott-era AC/DC, and late ‘80s thrash thrown in for good measure. This hits hard! It’s the kind of music that makes you feel unsafe and uneasy just listening to it. The kind of music where you can taste the dirt and blood in your mouth, and the smell of cigarette smoke, sweat, oil and gasoline suddenly permeates the air around you. The kind of music that makes you feel like you need a shower after hearing it. In other words; true rock n’ roll! The perfect soundtrack to an all-out brawl at a biker bar! The band is currently working on their first full-length record, (to be released in early 2025), and their 4th annual “One Wyld Nyght” show is coming up at Headliners on November 9th. officialwyldryde.com
Wyld Ryde
WHEATED BRINGS GREAT PIZZA AND A TASTE OF FLATBUSH
BY ROBIN GARR
You wouldn’t expect Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood to have a deep resonance with Louisville, but that erroneous conclusion overlooks the importance of Harold Henry “Pee Wee” Reese.
Reese, a native of Meade County, Ky., who grew up in Louisville, played shortstop for the old, beloved Brooklyn Dodgers, who played at the storied Ebbets Field in Flatbush. Reese may be most remembered for the public and supportive hug he gave Jackie Robinson, rejecting racist jeers at Major League’s first Black player at a game in Cincinnati in 1947.
Reese was also an excellent shortstop, earning his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1948. And he made a generation of Kentuckians into Dodgers fans, or so my parents told me.
That was our Flatbush connection then. Now we have another, with the arrival of Hall of Fame level pizza at Wheated Louisville in the Highlands, the second and only branch of Wheated Brooklyn, a pizzeria that has risen to the top of New York City’s fabled pizza scene in just over a decade. Founded in 2013, it quickly earned critical acclaim amid comparisons to local pizza icons like Tottono’s, Grimaldi’s, and Di Farra.
Why would a popular Brooklyn pizzeria spend major bucks to do a gut rehab on an old Bardstown Road bungalow and turn it into their only other location? It’s beyond me, unless it has something to do with Pee Wee Reese … or maybe it’s our bourbon.
Wheated has been a while coming. Sharp eyes at the LouisvilleHotBytes Forum spotted its a building permit in August 2021. It took nearly two years to convert the little building that had housed a skate shop into a stylish, homey pizzeria. It finally opened at the end of June.
We dropped in on a busy Thursday night and did not have a single disappoinment in food, mood, or service. Every component was just right: Stainless silverware, sharp knives with serrated blades, even oversize and strong paper napkins, sturdy reusable takeaway containers, and of course, all of the food.
The Louisville and Brooklyn menus appear similar. Kentuckians get a condensed form with 11 pizzas seemingly identical to the Brooklyn options. Flatbush diners have 18 to choose from. They’re all
generous 16-inch pies, and good news: ours are priced $2 to $5 less than our Brooklyn counterparts. They’re all named after Brooklyn neighborhoods, and range in price (in Louisville) from $21 (for the Ditmas Park, a simple tomato-and-cheese pie with basil) to $31 (for the fennel-sausage Canarsie or the meat-and-cheese lovers’ Supreme). Sides here are limited to a handful of salads and a side of meatballs.
The cocktail menu is built on a wide range of liquors and flavors, mostly riffs on standards like the Negroni, old fashioned, and horse’s neck. They’re all $14 except the $15 espresso martini.
Excellent salads just about filled us up before the pizza came. They are oversized, even the purportedly “small” Caesar ($12), and well made with quality ingredients. The Caesar filled a large white bowl
Left Page: This is what anchovies should look like: Wheated’s caesar salad checks all the boxes for this classic. (Yes, the anchovies are optional.)
The bread is the thing with Wheated’s excellent thin sourdough crust and charred edge; but the traditional New York-style toppings are worthy, too
Right Page: In a word, “refreshing.” While in season, enjoy these perfectly ripe, juicy melon cubes with cool cucumber and basil and a perky dressing.
Robin Garr
with crisp, fresh, green romaine lettuce lightly coated with a tangy, garlicky dressing, topped with clouds of finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and surmounted with five large, fresh salted anchovies. (Anchovy-haters may opt out, but these are the real deal.)
Watermelon salad ($12), a seasonal special, started with a structure of large, bright-red, juicy and super-sweet watermelon cubes mixed with thin-sliced English cucumbers, basil chiffonade, crumbled queso fresco, sea salt, and tangy lime juice that enhanced the salad’s refreshing vibe while highlighting the melon’s sweetness in contrast.
A pair of hefty meatballs ($12) the size of tennis balls made a side dish that was filling and complex in flavor. Light and fluffy and herby inside as New York Italian-style meatballs should be, they were coated with melted cheese and the thick tomato sauce that they had apparently been baked with. Billows of Parmigiano put a tasty snow cap on top.
I wanted all the pizzas but started with a simple option, my usual strategy for evaluating a new spot. The NY slice style pizza ($23) may not remind you of Manhattan street-corner slices, but it’s a fine representation of the work of Brooklyn’s beloved neighborhood sit-down joints. The sourdough crust is thin across the
base, swelling to puffy edges charred dark brown to charcoal and, tasted on their own, reminiscent of good, crusty Italian bread. Tangy low-moisture mozzarella, a slightly aged, drier version, is laid down first, forming a barrier to keep the crust dry and crisp. A simple, thick tomato sauce, a sweet yet tart puree, was spread lightly over the cheese, turning the pie into a Jackson Pollock work of artfully abstract yellow and red and brown. It was outstanding, and a protective sheet of textured paper beneath kept the leftovers from sticking to the cardboard box on the way home.
A memorable pizza dinner for two came to $62.54, plus a $14 tip.
Noise Level: This popular place is usually jammed, and it’s not quiet. We were able to carry on a conversation, though, with noise levels running around 78dB.
Accessibility: Multiple steps bar wheelchair access to the front of the building, but a wellbuilt ramp provides convenient access from the large parking lot in the rear.
502 LUMENS SHINES ITS RAYS ON INDEPENDENT HORROR FILMS FOR ITS FIRST LOUISVILLE FESTIVAL
BY LEO STAFF
Coming soon, just in time for the Halloween season, 502 Lumens will shine a light on independent filmmaking in Louisville.
The 502 Lumens Film Festival will host a one day celebration of local filmmakers with the perfect theme: horror. With Halloween and Samhain so close to the festival 502 Lumens is set to bring the weird and the spooky.
On Sunday, Oct. 20, join 502 Lumens at Portal (1535 Lytle St.) for the all-ages event. From 4 – 9 p.m., get a taste of horror folklore from a murderous scarecrow in the “Legend of Gourdface,” to “Anansi”’s African folk icon weaving a web into the mind of a local man, and finally, a witchy Slavic yarn in “Mind Body Spirit.”
A panel discussion will follow the screenings.
“Louisville has all the style of the Southern Gothic, a macabre sensibility just beneath the surface, like any other American city with a history full of ghosts,” says event producer Aria Baci in a release. “Louisville is also radiant with creativity, especially in storytelling arts like cinema. We are as excited as anyone else
about our city becoming a film production hub, but what a lot of Louisvillians might not realize is that there is a kaleidoscopic array of film production in the region already. So rather than waiting for a long-standing film festival to choose Louisville as its new location, we are ecstatic to be able to produce 502 Lumens, which takes an inclusive and multidisciplinary approach to the traditional structure of a film festival.”
The festival is named for the area code of Louisville and the word “lumens” which is a measure of visible light from an illuminated source. There will be an event-exclusive beer from Awry Brewery.
Tickets for 502 Lumens are $15 and seating in first-come, first-served. Follow 502 Lumens on Facebook and Instagram for updates. More about each film:
The Legend of Gourdface
Alyssa Couri and Hunter Hoskins are the co-writers and co-directors of The “Legend of Gourdface,” an homage to childhood favorites “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” and
“Goosebumps.” Film Production majors together at UofL, the two are also romantic partners. Their narrative is a love letter to their shared nostalgia for autumn. “Thematically, our project is based around the warm, affectionate, and sometimes foreboding energy that surrounded the fall months as a child — carving jack-o-lanterns, listening to spooky stories, and going trick-or-treating,” the couple says. “The Legend of Gourdface” is unrated but is appropriate for all ages. “The Legend of Gourdface” on IMDB.
Anansi
Louisville native Edward Hardin incorporates African folklore into his short film “Anansi.” In this narrative, the folk character Anansi takes the form of a menacing trickster, a spider who weaves a web inside the tragic protagonist’s mindspace. Hardin — the writer, director, producer, and star — says “Anansi” is based on his own lived experience with mental unwellness, especially during the pandemic era. “I wanted to express both the isolating nature of a mental health crisis and
the way in which invasive thoughts creep into your life. First you encounter them in passing, unsure if they’re even really there, and then they slowly become ever present.” “Anansi” is unrated, but includes intense themes. Viewer discretion is advised. “Anansi” on IMDB.
Mind Body Spirit
It would be too easy to describe Mind Body Spirit as Yoga With Adriene meets Hereditary, because writer and co-director (with Matthew Merenda) Alex Henes creates something truly unique. Taking an inventive approach to the found footage film, “Mind Body Spirit” makes resourceful use of a small cast to fill the frame with emotion — especially dread. This folkloric horror tale is set in the livestream era, and follows an aspiring yoga influencer as she stumbles from her yoga mat to the depths of arcane spellcraft. “Mind Body Spirit” is unrated, but features scenes of terror and gore. Viewer discretion is advised.
502 Lumens
Courtesy photo
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week of August 28
ROB BREZSNY
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Although there are over 7,000 varieties of apples, your grocery store probably offers no more than 15. But you shouldn’t feel deprived. Having 15 alternatives is magnificent. In fact, most of us do better in dealing with a modicum of choices rather than an extravagant abundance. This is true not just about apples but also about most things. I mention this, Aries, because now is an excellent time to pare down your options in regard to all your resources and influences. You will function best if you’re not overwhelmed with possibilities. You will thrive as you experiment with the principle that less is more.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus comedian Jerry Seinfeld, now 70 years old, has testified, “As a child, the only clear thought I had was ‘get candy.’” I encourage you to be equally singleminded in the near future, Taurus. Not necessarily about candy—but about goodies that appeal to your inner child as well as your inner teenager and inner adult. You are authorized by cosmic forces to go in quest of experiences that tickle your bliss.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I’m not saying I would refuse to hire a Gemini person to housesit while I’m on vacation. You folks probably wouldn’t let my houseplants die, allow raccoons to sneak in and steal food, or leave piles of unwashed dishes in the sink. On the other hand, I’m not entirely confident you would take impeccable care of my home in every little way. But wait! Everything I just said does not apply to you now. My analysis of the omens suggests you will have a high aptitude for the domestic arts in the coming weeks. You will be more likely than usual to take good care of my home—and your own home, too. It’s a good time to redecorate and freshen up the vibe.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): These days, you are even smarter and more perceptive than usual. The deep intelligence of your higher self is pouring into your conscious awareness with extra intensity. That’s a good thing, right? Yes, mostly. But there may be a downside: You could be hyper-aware of people whose thinking is mediocre and whose discernment is substandard. That could be frustrating, though it also puts you in a good position to correct mistakes those people make. As you wield the healing power of your wisdom, heed these words from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “Misunderstandings and lethargy produce more wrong in the world than deceit and malice do.”
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had an older sister, born under the sign of Leo. Her nickname was Nannerl. During their childhoods, she was as much a musical prodigy as he. Supervised by their father, they
toured Europe performing together, playing harpsichord and piano. Nannerl periodically got top billing, and some critics regarded her as the superior talent. But misfortune struck when her parents decided it was unseemly for her, as a female, to continue her development as a genius. She was forcibly retired so she could learn the arts of housekeeping and prepare for marriage and children. Your assignment in the coming months, Leo, is to rebel against any influence that tempts you to tamp down your gifts and specialties. Assert your sovereignty. Identify what you do best, and do it more and better than you ever have before.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): When an infant giraffe leaves its mother’s womb, it falls six feet to the ground. I suspect that when you are reborn sometime soon, Virgo, a milder and more genial jolt will occur. It may even be quite rousing and inspirational—not rudely bumpy at all. By the way, the plunge of the baby giraffe snaps its umbilical cord and stimulates the creature to take its initial breaths—getting it ready to begin its life journey. I suspect your genial jolt will bring comparable benefits.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Many people living in the Napo province of Ecuador enjoy eating a dish called ukuy, which is a Kichwa word for large ants. This is not an exotic meal for them. They may cook the ukuy or simply eat the creatures alive. If you travel to Napo anytime soon, Libra, I urge you to sample the ukuy. According to my reading of the astrological omens, such an experiment is in alignment with the kinds of experiences you Libras should be seeking: outside your usual habits, beyond your typical expectations, and in amused rebellion against your customary way of doing things.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The theory of karma suggests that all our actions, good and bad and in-between, send ripples out into the world. These ripples eventually circle back to us, ensuring we experience events that mirror our original actions. If we lie and cheat, we will be lied to and cheated on. If we give generously and speak kindly about other people, we will be the recipient of generosity and kind words. I bring this up, Scorpio, because I believe you will soon harvest a slew of good karma that you have set in motion through your generosity and kindness. It may sometimes seem as if you’re getting more benevolence than you deserve, but in my estimation, it’s all well-earned.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I encourage you to buy yourself fun presents that give you a feisty boost. Why? Because I want you to bring an innovative, starting-fresh spirit into the
ripening projects you are working on. Your attitude and approach could become too serious unless you infuse them with the spunky energy of an excitable kid. Gift suggestions: new music that makes you feel wild; new jewelry or clothes that make you feel daring; new tools that raise your confidence; and new information that stirs your creativity.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):On a Tuesday in August in 2012—one full Jupiter cycle ago—a Capricorn friend of mine called in sick to his job as a marketing specialist. He never returned. Instead, after enjoying a week off to relax, he began working to become a dance instructor. After six months, he was teaching novice students. Three years later, he was proficient enough to teach advanced students, and five years later, he was an expert. I am not advising you, Capricorn, to quit your job and launch your own quixotic quest for supremely gratifying work. But if you were ever going to start taking small steps towards that goal, now would be a good time. It’s also a favorable phase to improve the way your current job works for you.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Three years ago, an Indonesian man celebrated his marriage to a rice cooker, which is a kitchen accessory. Khoirul Anam wore his finest clothes while his new spouse donned a white veil. In photos posted on social media, the happy couple are shown hugging and kissing. Now might also be a favorable time for you to wed your fortunes more closely with a valuable resource—though
there’s no need to perform literal nuptials. What material thing helps bring out the best in you? If there is no such thing, now would be a good time to get it.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): For many years, I didn’t earn enough money to pay taxes. I was indigent. Fortunately, social programs provided me with food and some medical care. In recent years, though, I have had a better cash flow. I regularly send the US government a share of my income. I wish they would spend all my tax contributions to help people in need. Alas, just 42 percent of my taxes pay for acts of kindness to my fellow humans, while 24 percent goes to funding the biggest military machine on earth. Maybe someday, there will be an option to allocate my tax donations exactly as I want. In this spirit, Pisces, I invite you to take inventory of the gifts and blessings you dole out. Now is a good time to correct any dubious priorities. Take steps to ensure that your generosity is going where it’s most needed and appreciated. What kind of giving makes you feel best?
Homework: What supposedly forbidden thing do you want that maybe isn’t so forbidden?
Crown Castle is proposing to install a 46-foot telecommunications pole at the following site: 11454 Easum Road, Louisville, Jefferson County, KY, 40299, Lat: 8-10-8.25, Long: 85-32-45.09. Crown Castle invites comments from any interested party on the impact of the proposed action on any districts, sites, buildings, structures or objects significant in American history, archaeology, engineering or culture that are listed or determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and/or specific reason the proposed action may have a significant impact on the quality of the human environment. Specific information regarding the project is available by contacting Edward Reynolds, e.reynolds@ trileaf.com, and (314) 997-6111 during normal business hours. Comments must be received at 1515 Des Peres Road, Suite 200, St. Louis, MO 63131 within 30 days of the publication date of this notice.
SAVAGE LOVE
TOP FIVE
BY DAN SAVAGE
Dear Readers: Instead of digging through all the emails that hit my inbox this week, I grabbed the first five questions at the top of the pile and answered them in the order they came in. — Dan
I am a man. I met a beautiful Nepalese woman at work. The co-worker who introduced us basically told me this woman was unhappily married. We started spending time together, and we have now been seeing each other for almost three years. Everyone on my end knows about her (and knows she’s unhappily married) but the fact that we’re seeing each other is a mostly secret on her side, as only a few close friends of hers know. I have to pretend at work that we aren’t as close as we actually are, and it makes me feel like a shadow. She has no kids, and has told her husband she wants a divorce, which he won’t consent to. He doesn’t need to consent — she could divorce him anyway — but she’s leery to. The house is the only thing she owns with him, while everything else is in his name. Most of her friends, also Nepalese, have told her that white men can’t be trusted, which I can’t really disagree with, given our history as a nation. And they are telling her that having a baby with her husband will improve their relationship. I think that’ the worst possible reason to have a kid, especially when dude in question is an emotionally abusive POS.
I love this woman. She makes my heart flutter every time I see her. She’s kind, compassionate, intelligent, and hot. But after three years she still can’t leave him. Which I can only imagine is difficult, as she has a lot to lose, but I love her and want to be fully with her. But I don’t want to push her to do anything she’s not ready to do, or that she doesn’t want to do. That would make me no better than all the other men she’s had in her life. But I’m starting to feel like this isn’t going to happen. She sleeps in bed with him every night. He tracks everything she does and where she goes. I’m not sure how much longer I can be patient. I’m sick of being a shadow boyfriend, while she just keeps playing wife and we have to pretend we’re just friends. Should I leave this relationship? I’m I an idiot to think she’ll ever leave him?
–Leaving Isn’t My Best Option
I’m not sure what your whiteness or your girlfriend’s Nepalese-ness have to do with your question, LIMBO, which is one I get all the time. The genders are reversed — it’s usually a woman who’s getting strung along by a married man — but your predicament is a common one. And since you’re a regular reader of at least one advice column (that would be mine), you’ve most likely seen questions like yours in my column before, LIMBO,
and you’re going to get the same answer everyone else gets: If she was gonna leave him for you — which she’s not gonna do — she would’ve already left.
I’m guessing you weren’t able to independently verify that your girlfriend asked her husband for a divorce, LIMBO, which means you only have her word to go on. And as commenters on this and every other advice column are quick to point out, the word of a cheater isn’t worth much. And the reasons she’s given for not leaving her husband — the house is in the only asset that her name is on, her husband refused to consent to the divorce — sound more like excuses than reasons. If she lives in a marital property state, she’s entitled to half of everything, including assets that are in his name, and she doesn’t actually need her husband’s consent to divorce him.
Now, it’s also possible that she’s afraid to leave him — she may have legitimate worries about violence or social consequences in her community — but even if her reasons for staying with her husband are understandable (if deeply sad), LIMBO, like all mistresses, whether you’re willing to settle for what she’s able to give you is a decision you get to make. If being her side piece insults your dignity, you need to break up with her. If you love her too much to ever leave her, you’ll have to make peace with being her side piece.
My husband and I — straight, cis, and in our 30s — are very happy together, but our sex life has never really “clicked.” In our day-to-day lives we’re best friends, and we’re prone to silliness. The sex feels like it should work out: we’re attracted to each other, and we have similar sexual fantasies, mostly related to Dom/sub stuff. We like the same porn, for example. The sex we have is usually pretty nice, but it’s also very vanilla. I have more experience with kinky sex than he does, but always as a sub with an experienced Dom. We have never really managed to bring our shared interest in D/s into our bedroom. I think part of this is us not knowing where to start. Part of it is also that it’s hard to distance ourselves from our reality. We played with bondage, for example, but I didn’t find it particularly hot because it’s him tying me up and since I know he would never actually hurt me, it all feels like play. Any advice?
–Been Dithering Since Marrying
Picture this, BDSM: you and your husband are tied up together — maybe you’re strapped to the bed, he’s strapped to a chair — while the pro Dom you hired (or the amateur Dom you met at a munch) playfully-but-plausibly threatens to “hurt” you both. Finding a very
special guest star who not only shares your love of Dom/sub stuff but really enjoys playing with couples will take effort, BDSM, but calling in the kink cavalry — outsourcing the domination to someone who might (but wouldn’t) actually hurt you — could help you and your husband find a groove that makes kink feel more possible/plausible when it’s just the two of you. Or you might learn that bondage and D/s play doesn’t work for you in the context of a committed relationship, BDSM, and you’ll have to keep bringing in those special guest stars if you wanna keep that Dom/sub stuff coming.
Straight guy here in his late forties married to a forty-year-old straight woman. We’ve been married for sixteen years and have two young children. Our sex life is not satisfying, to say the least. I do not anticipate it will improve, as my wife is not sexually driven and not open to much outside of weekly PIV with one week off every month for her period. She is very vanilla, so the sex is always the same thing, at roughly the same time, and always in the same position. I’ve spent years trying to get her to open up, but she has given me one of two choices: I accept our sex life as-is or we divorce and move on. I feel satisfied with the other aspects of our marriage — I truly love my wife — and I don’t want to live separately from my children or break up our family. Is wanting a fulfilling sex life enough to blow everything else up? Am I being an asshole? Should I suck it up for the sake of my family? Please help.
–Despairing In Maryland
It’s always the partner who wants more sex or more sexual variety who gets told — by their spouses, by the sex-negative couples’ counselors, and sometimes even by themselves — that asking for more sex or more varied sex risks “blowing everything else up.” But couldn’t the same be said to someone like Mrs. DIM? By refusing to consider adding anything to the rotation — by refusing to suck it up — isn’t she risked a blowing up too?
Now, I don’t want anyone having sex under duress to save their marriages — of course not — but if my husband was so unhappy with our sex life that he was considering leaving and/or cheating, I would be motivated to make some changes. And if I didn’t wanna fuck my spouse more than once a week (or at all anymore), I would release my spouse from the monogamous commitment he made to me and give him permission to get some and/or all of his sexual needs met elsewhere — you know, to avoid blowing everything else up. Sadly, DIM, you’re not married to me, and
so you face a choice between sucking it up or blowing it up.
I’m a stay-at-home mom with three children, one of which is still a breastfeeding infant. I live semi-rural area with my husband and my mother-in-law, who is in decline and requires more and more care. My husband and I are great at co-parenting, home, family, and projects. But things aren’t great on the sex-and-romance side and neither of us has made much of effort to fix. We’ve talked about it, and we’ve accepted that things probably aren’t going to change, as we’re both burnt out caregivers hustling to the pay bills. Sometimes that feels like a cop out — if we wanted to prioritize sex, we wouldn’t be co-sleeping with our toddlers — and we were non-monogamous before we had children. But I haven’t had sexual intimacy in over a year and am so bored with masturbation. I am ready to meet someone. I want to find a consistent lover who wants to date a little and fuck a couple of times a month. The dudes on the dating apps where we are cosplaying at CNM/poly or they’re the same people I’ve been swiping left on for the past six years. I’d love to find a kinky feminist dad who is actually poly and up for a long-term thing. Any other ideas on who to find this unicorn? Do I stay on the apps and expand my range to include bigger cities two hours away? Or do I give up and accept my sexless life?
–Touched-Out Underfucked Cis Hets
Stay on the apps (you never know who might move to town), expand your range a little (good dick is worth the drive), and remind yourself every morning (or every time you masturbate) that you’re playing a long game. Because whether the right guy turns up two miles or two time zones away, TOUCH, you’re not gonna have time to go jump on that feminist poly dick until after your youngest is no longer breastfeeding and/or your MIL is dead. Giving yourself permission to seize the opportunity when it comes along — when the planets all align — can make the wait a little more bearable. P.S. If you’re interested in reviving your sex life with your husband again, TOUCH, get those toddlers out of your bed.
P.P.S. You should, of course, check in with your husband about your relationship and make sure your non-monogamous agreement is still in force.
Got problems? Yes, you do! Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love! Or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan! Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love
TAKE THE EL TRAIN
BY CARYN ROBBINS
Caryn Robbins is a retired editor living on the east end of Long Island with her husband and two Havanese dogs. An avid lifelong solver, she discovered puzzle-constructing during the pandemic through an online course. This theme came to her in the throes of planning her daughter’s nuptials, inspiring the example at 23-Across. Her favorite theme clue is 38-Across, which paints a great mental picture.
Across
1 Shoots for the moon
8 Saudi’s neighbor
13 Gets ready to surf, maybe
19 Annoyance for a shopkeeper
21 Japanese takeout option
22 Best of all possible worlds
23 Say ‘‘O di’’ instead of ‘‘I do’’?
26 Le Mans race unit: Abbr.
27 Keep from happening
28 ‘‘Once Upon a Mattress’’ prop
29 Longtime hair-removal brand
30 Word with hose or line
32 Sewing-machine pioneer Howe
34 Expert conclusion?
37 Like some wits and wines
38 Eviction notice sent to a New York deli owner?
43 Roadwork might push it back, in brief
44 Like many London skies
45 Something fishy
46 Back in time
47 Scatterbrain
50 ‘‘This thing is SHARP! It handles potatoes and carrots with ease,’’ e.g.
