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Jones <3’s Campaign Trump Jerry Lynch: Immigrants need not fear, but if you are here illegally and have committed crimes in the country then, yes, you should be concerned. Muddying the definition by trying to equate illegal and legal into “immigrant” is plain ’ol lying.

Marissa Elena: Too bad ignorant shits seem to perceive anybody who is slightly brown or speaks Spanish as automatically being “illegal” and have started to respond accordingly.

Brian Smith: Immigrants are the least of our worries and his rhetoric will actually increase crime. Statistically what he is doing makes no sense.

Derek Krewedl: This stain of a sheriff is nothing more than a Joe Arpaio wannabe. Vote him out!

Comments posted at Facebook.com/CincinnatiCityBeat in response to April 5 post, “Sheriff Jones’ ramped-up rhetoric is sparking increased fear among Butler County immigrants”

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What a Week!

BY T.C. Britton

WEDNESDAY APRIL 05

Coca-Cola is having the best week ever after Pepsi decided to run a problematic, protestcentered commercial that reeked of white privilege courtesy of Kendall Jenner. The “live for now” ad felt like a conservative’s interpretation of any recent protest movement: just a bunch of ethnically ambiguous, gender neutral pierced millennials protesting for literally no reason (marchers held posters with peace signs and vague language like “Join the movement”) with some celebrity cameos. The action comes to a head when Jenner approaches a lineup of cops and hands one a can Pepsi. A Coachella-esque celebration erupts. Oy. Everyone knows that Coke is king and Pepsi is disgusting. But we’re still shook over this commercial coming from the same soda giants that gave us the epic Britney Spears/Pink/Beyoncé Super Bowl ad of 2004! Within 24 hours, Pepsi pulled the ad and apologized to… wait for it…

Kendall Jenner! Poor Kendall. She probably thought she was going to come out of this looking like a woke Cindy Crawford (Pepsi’s previous spokesmodel), but will instead go down in history as the Kardashian who thought a cool beverage could soothe race relations. #PrayForKendall

THURSDAY APRIL 06

The world lost a comedic icon this week when Don Rickles passed away at age 90.

Rickles was an O.G. insult comic, the voice of Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story and a Las Vegas legend. The guy made “Roastmaster” Jeffrey Ross look like a little bitch. Those opposed to the apparent P.C. climate are

quick to bemoan how Rickles would never be able to work today — in addition to roasting everyone from strangers on the street to Frank Sinatra, he had no problem skewering race, religion, sexuality or people’s looks — but prior to his death, Rickles completed a TV project for AARP studios (go ahead and laugh — he would). Dinner with Don finds Mr. Warmth dining with fellow comics at some of his fave restaurants and should debut later this year. So suck on that, ya hockey pucks!

FRIDAY APRIL 07

In this week’s edition of “Cincinnati on TV,” local entrepreneur Rick Pescovitz pitched his business, Under the Weather, on Friday’s episode of Shark Tank. Pescovitz created a pod that shields sports spectators from the elements. The Under the Weather pods protect against cold, wind and rain and have become popular among parents of soccer players.

Pescovitz accepted shark Mark Cuban’s deal of $600,000 for a 15 percent stake in the company with an option to buy more. But the only valuation we’re wondering about is how much you have to bribe your kid to be seen with you in an embarrassing pod.

SATURDAY APRIL 08

But the Cincinnati spotlight doesn’t end there! The Tristate served as the location for two skits on Saturday Night Live. In the episode’s cold open, Alec Baldwin’s Trump chatted with residents in the coal-mining town of Union, Ky. (Wait, what?), basically portraying all Kentuckians as redneck Trump supporters that, despite getting

fucked by his policies, continue to back the president. Elsewhere, host Louis C.K. played a creepy soda jerk in 1950s Cincy, basically portraying all Cincinnatians as root beer-hawking pedos. Some regional stereotypes are more enduring than others.

SUNDAY APRIL 09

Greater Cincinnati’s first cat café, Kitty Brew, opened Sunday in Mason. The space serves as a traditional coffee shop with drinks and snacks and a feline hangout with cats available for adoption. The cat companions are in demand so much that a reservation is required to visit the kitty lounge (walk-ins are also welcome depending on availability). Ten bucks buys you 50 minutes of cat cuddling, and if you hit it off with one of the fuzzy friends, you can move forward with adoption on the spot. And yes: The cats stay in a separate space from where food and drink are prepared, so you don’t have to worry about coughing up any hairballs after eating a scone.

MONDAY APRIL 10

Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping this week and did not serve the leader McDonald’s, as Trump once promised. Despite obvious tension, the visit went pretty smoothly. We’re going to credit Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s 5-year-old daughter Arabella for that. The tiny Trump performed a song in Mandarin for Xi and wife Peng Liyuan, as you do. A 5-year-old speaking Mandarin, a beautiful working mother, the perfect family façade — the Trump-Kushner clan is totally straight

out of Big Little Lies. The name Arabella is suspiciously close to Amabella, the name of Renata’s daughter, which was repeated no less than 35 times per episode. Maybe they should embrace it and leave D.C. for Monterey. On second thought, Arabella might be the perfect go-between for her grandpa and the Chinese government. We need her more than ever!

TUESDAY APRIL 11

The MTV Movie Awards are known for golden popcorn trophies, silly categories like Best Kiss and bestowing lifetime achievement awards to fictional characters like Godzilla and Jason Voorhees. But this year, in addition to rebranding as the MTV Movie and TV Awards (a bit of a mouthful, but we’ll take it), the show got a progressive makeover. The awards did away with gendered categories among nominees (i.e.

Best Actor in a Show nominees are made up of two men and four women), and people of color and LGBTQ-related fare are pretty well represented. It’s also maybe the first awards show to nominate movies and shows in the some of the same categories.

Before you write off all other award shows entirely, remember this is MTV. Pretty Little Liars and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates appear alongside the likes of Moonlight and I Am Not Your Negro, which is definitely weird. But lest we forget, Suicide Squad won an Oscar. Unfortunately, the Best Shirtless Performance category has been retired, which sucks for Girls’ Lena Dunham, who would’ve been a shoe-in.

CONTACT T.C. BRITTON: letters@citybeat.com

New Sports Reporting Ideas!

BY JEFF BE YER, Digital Media Guru

In an unfortunate turn of events, The Enquirer just happened to post something frivolous online that same day — a one-minute video interview with Reds pitcher Rookie Davis about trying Skyline chili for the first time. “What did you order?” asks a reporter. “I had a 3-way. I had a 3-way,” says Davis. “I had heard so much about it that I had to give it a try.”

Should such content soon become the norm at cincinnati.com, we came up with more ideas for the paper company to consider in the coming months instead of reporting on actual games.

Amir in Munchkinland: Reds pitcher Amir Garrett will be escorted out to this staple for West Side teenagers who seek pointless and misinformed adventure. In this village of tiny houses, an offensive legend has it that when the bell in the center of the mini-town is rung, a hoard of angry little people, upset about being roused from their seven-dwarves-like symphony of snores and snorts, will seek revenge by hitting the offender with fun-sized sticks. All ages, genders and heights of Tristaters can delve deep into a West Side teenage tradition by watching videos of the 6-foot-6 Garrett “ringing up” those sleepy little jerks.

Joey Votto’s Light Beer Reviews: Really just repostings of Joey Votto trolling beeradvocate.com, but thought-provoking nonetheless. Votto’s opinions might spark local controversy in his findings that Labatt Blue Light has a much richer bouquet of corn and wheaties than the less-corny and Cheerios-esque Hudy Delight.

Votto’s review of Labatt Ice’s indistinct metallic flavor falling short

of Bürger Classic’s rich shelf-aged purplely tin gusto could finally convince Marty Brennaman that Votto is worth $20 million a year.

Jeff Brantley’s Ice Cream Social: How many scoops of ice cream can the Reds announcer eat? The answer is eight. The Enquirer will provide weekly coverage of Jeff Brantley eating eight scoops of ice cream from various UDF locations throughout the Tristate.

“Oh, baby is that good!” will become a city-wide catch phrase as Brantley, UDF and The Enquirer team up to bring Cincinnati what it needs: more unabashed and ubiquitous brand marketing.

You Bet Your Life with Pete Rose: Half challenge-bit and half tragicomedy exposé, The Enquirer can document Pete Rose as he tries to transport 4,192 autographed baseballs across the Western Hills viaduct before it collapses, while a Deadspin reporter heckles Rose about corked bats and Ichiro being the true Hit King. Sensational and perhaps demoralizing, but truly gripping journalism, this one might be a little too big, even for Gannett Media.

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 0 7

A new day is upon the Cincinnati Enquirer sports desk, according to an editor’s note published last week notifying readers that it will abandon something newspapers have done for about a hundred years: report game stories and box scores in print. “We’re shifting our priorities away from focusing on final scores and play-by-play to deliver more thought-provoking, insightful journalism to you, the reader,” the note reads.

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VOICES On Second Thought

Melania Trump’s Fake Photo BY: Ben L. Kaufman

locks that frame it. You don’t have to squint to make out individual strands of hair. The hair is in sharp focus. Her face is not.”

Givhan calls it “doll-like perfection.”

I call it fake.

But not her body language, arms folded across her torso, huge engagement ring confirming her husband’s wealth and power. That was genuine.

Givhan adds, “There’s plenty that one can infer from Trump’s official photograph. The body language is reminiscent of boardroom posture. It’s powerful and confident. But it’s also closed off. The framing is a closeup with little context. Yes, it was taken in the White House, but the window in the background could almost be anywhere. The photo emphasizes her, not the setting, which one could argue reflects the subject’s desire not to be defined or confined by the White House. Indeed, she is not living there. ” Which brings up another issue. The Washington Post — a leader among news media punching back at Trump attempts to delegitimize facts — appears troubled by the lack of time Melania spends in the White House.

I caught that in the Weekly Standard — no friend of POTUS — which said, “There once was an informal editorial motto that guided the selection of topics in Style, the Washington Post lifestyle section: ‘If a story is worth doing, it’s worth doing every year.’

“But in the age of Trump, that schedule has become rather compressed: The Post is now doing the same article about Melania every couple of months.

“It was at the end of January the Style section let loose with ‘The AWOL first lady,’ decrying Melania’s demure, if not diffident, approach to being the president’s spouse. ‘Melania Trump appears to be in no hurry to heed the call of duty,’ was how reporter Krissah Thompson denounced the Donald’s bride.

“And now, come March 28, the creative team at the Post is back, this time with a big Style section cover story, ‘Melania Trump’s vanishing act.’ Which raises a philosophical question: If Mrs. Trump was absent two months ago, how can it be that she is now ‘vanishing?’ ” Speaking of beautiful women in the public eye, Melania’s pussy-grabbing husband dismisses accusations of sexual harassment against Fox News star Bill O’Reilly.

The irony, of course, is that the Darwinian free market that Trump worships could bring down money-spinner O’Reilly.

Already skittish about any suggestion they are sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic and insufficiently green, advertisers are pulling out of O’Reilly’s evening program.

So far, according to NPR media critic David Folkenflik, GlaxoSmithKline, Allstate, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz are among firms that cancelled plans to advertise on The O’Reilly Factor.

There are lots of plots playing here, in addition to accusations against O’Reilly and Trump’s assurance that O’Reilly is a good man.

Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

So is the Wall Street Journal, a home-town

Read us on your phone when you’re at the bar by yourself.

“No one this side of Disney or Pixar has skin like that, so plastic it could be the Pillsbury Doughboy.” and national competitor to the New York Times. The Times broke the story on $13 million payments to settle claims of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior by O’Reilly.

The best part, if we credit his accusers, was O’Reilly’s access to attractive women at Fox News. He’s not alone in being accused of operating a casting couch at American conservatives’ favorite cable channel.

O’Reilly is one of the aging powers at Fox News to get into trouble over accusations of sexual harassment, including demands that younger female colleagues or aspirants provide sexual services in hopes of getting or keeping jobs or winning promotions. He denies any wrongdoing over more than a decade of similar accusations.

Those accusations cost Roger Ailes, the chairman who created Fox News with Murdoch, his job. Like O’Reilly, Ailes denied any wrongdoing.

And Trump, whose only known response to criticism is to attack, told the Times, “I think (O’Reilly) shouldn’t have settled; personally I think he shouldn’t have settled.

Because you should have taken it all the way. I don’t think Bill did anything wrong. …

I think he’s a person I know well — he is a good person.”

CONTACT BEN L. KAUFMAN: letters@citybeat.com

the all-new

.com

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 0 9

If you cruise internet news sites — especially nipple-obsessed dailymail.com — you can’t avoid images of young women who dedicate their wealth and bodies to looking like a Barbie doll or some cartoon character.

When I saw the White House’s first formal portrait of Melania Trump, I thought it was a prank: Her face was so smooth, so devoid of human signs other than bright eyes — so, well, cartoonish.

That’s too bad. She is an attractive woman who’ll be 47 on April 26. Lines enhance her beauty as she ages.

But not in the official portrait. Botox?

Makeup? Photoshop? I’d bet on Photoshop, probably ordered or approved by the president, a philanderer who discards the mothers of his children as they age.

Or by Melania, lest Trump inescapably face pictures of a third aging, yet still attractive, wife.

Enough about them.

The release of Melania’s formal portrait was a brilliant, manipulative White House exercise in fake news, worthy of Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer or Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News.

If Melania’s image were a painting, the absence of lines in her face wouldn’t be an issue. Painted portraits are, after all, exercises in how the artist sees.

This purports to be a photograph, and it lies. No one this side of Disney or Pixar has skin like that, so plastic it could be the Pillsbury Doughboy.

American news media accepted the image uncritically, cooing over first formal portrait of FLOTUS (First Lady of the United States). They lapped it up with the kind of enthusiasm that London dailies show for anything royal.

The image is fake and its release as a formal White House portrait is disinformation.

It’s an alternative image, close enough to appear credible.

Editors who went along with this Oval Office scam were enablers, news media complicit in misleading the public.

Melania’s airbrushed, Photoshopped portrait is a fraud, a fake, an alternative image, created and distributed by the Ministry of Truth where employees paid by taxpayers create facts opposite of anything verifiable.

Not everyone bought it. Pulitzer-winning Washington Post critic Robin Givhan said the photo “is jarring because her face appears to be heavily retouched, or perhaps just photographed through a lens smeared with Vaseline. It is devoid of fine lines and pores. It is not just the near-perfect face of a former model; it is a face that does not look real.

“The artificiality of her visage is even more acute when compared to the long, chestnut

news

Cincinnati Seeks a Cease Fire

Spike in shootings calls prevention efforts into question

BY NICK SWARTSELL

P H O T O : N i c k S wa r ts e l l

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I

n January, three armed men stormed into the imposing white house in Mount Auburn where 9-year-old Alexandrea “Sissy” Thompson lived. Her father, Alex Thompson, says he struggled with one of them before the man shot him four times.

One of the shooter’s bullets also struck Alexandrea in the chest, killing her.

Just 18 days into 2017, the Thompsons were Cincinnati’s 21st and 22nd shootings of the year. Alexandrea was the city’s fifth gun-violence fatality. The city had seen 11 shootings and four fatalities by that point the year before, and just 10 shootings and one fatality by that date in 2015.

That spike has continued. As of April 10, 118 people had been shot in Cincinnati this year — easily the highest number in the past nine years and much higher than the average of 91 per year during that time period.

With 2017 off to a grim start and the mayoral race looming in November, the spike in the city’s shootings has sparked a political battle and called current efforts at violence prevention into question. Some have pinned the carnage on drugs and petty neighborhood beefs. But others say the problem is systemic — rising from past exposures to violence and inequalities concentrated in predominantly black neighborhoods — and must be treated as such.

Underlining the stakes in the restless search for solutions is the deep sorrow pervading Cincinnati neighborhoods wracked by shootings.

“That spirit, that fight and that love that she had, that tenderness, it’s gone,” explained Freeman McNeal, who lives across the street from the Thompsons, to local media following Alexandrea’s death.

Gun violence in Cincinnati has waxed and waned in individual years but overall has remained steady for about a decade. Last year, 426 people were shot in Cincinnati — just above the past decade’s average of 421.

Part of this year’s swell comes from the March 26 Cameo Nightclub shootout, which killed two and injured 17. While the gun battle in the crowded East End club drew national attention and renewed pledges to address violence in the city, that incident alone doesn’t account for this year’s big numbers.

Law enforcement officials and Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters are quick to blame the violence on shifting battles over drug turf, social media arguments turned into shootouts or both.

“I can’t understand this behavior at all,” Deters said at a news conference earlier this month about the Cameo shootings. “Cincinnati’s a very safe place if you don’t hang

around with people who traffic in drugs.

Cameo had a lot of people in there who were not good people and who were dealing in drugs, who had multiple convictions for dealing in drugs.”

But those explanations draw ire from racial justice advocates, who say they pathologize predominantly black communities.

“You can’t blame the black community for what has happened,” said Black Lives Matter Cincinnati organizer Mona Jenkins at an April 8 discussion about the Cameo shootings. “You have to own up to the systemic issues that have caused this.”

Jenkins and other activists argue that much of the gun violence is caused by a lack of opportunities for education, employment, political participation, arts and recreation, along with other inequities, especially in Cincinnati’s black neighborhoods.

Gun violence has hit the city’s black communities hardest. Of the shooting victims so far this year, 102, or 87 percent, have been black, as have many of the suspects in those shootings. That’s similar to past years in a city that is 46 percent black and where nine of the 10 lowest-income neighborhoods are predominantly black.

The vast majority of the shootings have happened in those low-income areas of the city, which have seen little investment

A memorial for Alexandrea “Sissy” Thompson outside her house in Mount Auburn. Thompson was fatally shot in January when gunmen burst into the house. and few job opportunities. Avondale is 91 percent black with a median household income of just $18,000 a year, according to Census data, and saw 37 shootings last year.

The West End, which is 90 percent black with a median household income of less than $13,000 a year, saw 34. The list goes on — altogether, a small number of neighborhoods that are predominantly low-income and predominantly black saw about 65 percent of the city’s shootings last year.

Mount Auburn, where the Thompsons were shot, is one of those neighborhoods. It has already seen a total of four shootings this year, two of them fatal.

While groups like Black Lives Matter come at the problem from a radical, systemchanging frame, they’re not the only ones who have acknowledged that poverty and racial disparities in neighborhood violence are linked and that the reasons for those disparities are complex and larger than any one officer or department.

“There is a strong correlation between homicide... and income inequality,” UCLA social welfare professor Mark Kaplan told a crowd at a Jan. 26 presentation at the university about research around firearmrelated deaths in the U.S.

Kaplan, who has conducted extensive research on the intersections of violence, race and economics, highlighted that counties in the United States with the least inequality also have the fewest gun murders.

Because of a history of racial and economic disparities in the U.S., those dynamics fall hardest on black men. Young African American males have a gun murder rate of 89 per 100,000 — similar to rates in countries with some of the highest murder rates in the world.

And even Federal Bureau of Investigation officials, not known for their affinity toward radical social change, have acknowledged the link between inequity and crime.

“So many young men of color become part of (the justice system) because so many minority families and communities are struggling,” FBI Director James Comey said in a 2015 speech on race and law enforcement at Georgetown University. “They lack all sorts of opportunities that most of us take for granted.”

Eliminating socioeconomic disparities is a huge task in itself. In the meantime, continuing violence in Cincinnati has become a major point of contention in this year’s mayoral election.

SHOOTINGS BY YEAR, 2008 – 2017

So far in 2017, year-to-date shooting numbers are the highest they’ve been in a decade.

TOTAL • Year to date (Jan. 1–April 10)

479

418

416

430

427

427

375

374

101

108

82

2008

2009

2010

118 92

2011

101

2012

96

2013

82

2014

Richardson said in a statement about his policy proposals.

Not to be outdone, Cranley held his own news conference the same day as Simpson’s.

He criticized his opponent for relying only on a “soft approach” to crime and touted the city’s partnership with county and federal authorities to arrest gun offenders. He also highlighted his efforts to boost the number of police in Cincinnati.

“Our strategy to reduce violence is a blend of smart community oriented policing and developing holistically our City’s children to have greater skills to resolve conflict without resorting to gun violence and greater skills to pursue careers to provide for their families — a blended approach that is both hard and soft,” Cranley said in an e-mail statement.

Cranley also says the city is working to roll out a program called ShotSpotter, technology which picks up gunfire and alerts police immediately.

The mayor has made safety a keystone issue of his reelection campaign, but some of his moves in that arena have been controversial.

In November 2015, the Cranley administration, led by City Manager Harry Black, oversaw the ouster of Cincinnati Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell. A spike in gun violence played a role in Blackwell’s ouster, though Black and Cranley have said that

89

91

2015

2016

2017

low department morale and accusations of misconduct also led to his firing.

That year, the city saw 479 shootings — a big spike from the city’s average. The next year, under new CPD Chief Eliot Isaac, shootings dropped to 426. But they’re on pace this year to go higher again.

On the campaign trail, Cranley has pointed out that CPD has added about 100 new officers to the force during his tenure.

But simply increasing the number of police doesn’t necessarily reduce crime, some experts say.

“Last fall we published a study synthesizing all of the studies of police force size and crime and could not find a scintilla of evidence that expanding a police force would reduce crime,” says John Eck, a University of Cincinnati criminal justice professor.

For Eck, the key is changes in strategy, not changes in size.

CPD has made efforts to change its approach under Cranley. Last year, the department rolled out a new initiative called Place-Based Investigations of Violent Offender Territories, or PIVOT. PIVOT is designed to further efforts like the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence, or CIRV, which started in 2007. PIVOT combines CIRV’s focus on the networks linking offenders and the community with data-driven, intensive attention to chronic crime locations.

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 1 1

Days after the Cameo shooting, Councilwoman Yvette Simpson, who is challenging Mayor John Cranley in the mayoral primary, called a news conference to roll out a threepronged plan for preventing violence.

Those plans include first responders trained to treat psychological trauma at crime scenes, expanded treatment services for those exposed to violence, providing more opportunities for youth in low-income areas of the city and other public healthbased approaches to crime reduction.

“To have a real impact on crime, we must do things differently,” Simpson said at the March 30 news conference in Mount Auburn. “We must address the root causes of violence.”

Mayoral candidate and former University of Cincinnati Board Chair Rob Richardson Jr. released a statement the same day as Simpson’s news conference outlining his safety proposals. They included increased security requirements, like live security cameras for clubs with liquor licenses and histories of violence; boosting the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence; strengthening witness protection program CCROW; and other initiatives, including one that would strengthen jobs programs for those returning from prison.

“That’s the surest way to give them a stake in their community, money in their pockets, and a reason to stay out of a life of crime,”

426

Even some police reform advocates who have decried racial disparities in policing have applauded PIVOT as a possible way to reduce those disparities while chipping away at neighborhood violence.

Cincinnati Civil Rights attorney Al Gerhardstein, who was instrumental in the city’s 2001 Collaborative Agreement, last year told CityBeat he is hopeful about PIVOT. The key to the new approach, Gerhardstein said, is engaging community stakeholders, including landlords, nearby businesses, neighborhood residents and others, and by changing environmental conditions such as lighting and traffic patterns that make locations more conducive to crime.

It’s too soon to tell how well that approach will work, Eck says.

“Like most programs that are reasonable, rigor in implementation and sustaining them is important,” he says. “They usually wither once their champions move on — existing in name only.”

Ideas like Simpson’s public health-based approach face a similar problem.

“There is a statistical link between trauma and violence,” Eck says. But he cautions that such programs would have to be implemented and run consistently for a good deal of time before any conclusions could be reached about how well they curb violence.

Other cities, including Baltimore and Oakland, Calif. have begun those programs, but only recently.

“Dealing with trauma has great value to those suffering from it, and their loved ones,” Eck says. “That’s no small deal. But this does not mean it will reduce violence.”

What does work? Eck mentions CIRV, which brings together community groups, social service agencies, law enforcement and other organizations in a multi-faceted approach that utilizes community engagement efforts.

The program saw success during its first years, but is “a shadow of its former self” today, Eck says.

CIRV has seen budget fluctuations and leadership departures. The organization started with $600,000 in funding before dropping to just $190,000 in 2011. It has since climbed again, receiving $590,000 from the city in 2015 and $759,000 in 2016.

Despite increases in funding over the past few years to initiatives like CIRV and the adoption of new methods like PIVOT, shootings continue in Cincinnati.

To some, that’s a sign a more systemic approach removing racial and economic inequities is necessary.

“You can approach this problem as a criminal justice problem,” Kaplan said during his Jan 26 talk, “or approach it as a public health or social welfare or social justice problem, and that’s was missing in the discussion.” ©

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Mayoral Candidates Spar on Streetcar, Affordable Housing, Crime

from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays through April 21, from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. April 24-28 and during reduced weekend hours leading up to election day. (Nick Swartsell)

Cincinnati’s three mayoral primary contenders squared off April 10 in a mayoral forum hosted by WCPO. Though spirited, even heated at times, the 90-minute event was mostly a reprise of the candidates’ past two forums, featuring discussions about transit, reducing gun violence, affordable housing and more, but with little new information or fine-grained policy detail presented.

Mayor John Cranley sought to paint his opponents, especially Councilwoman Yvette Simpson, as ardent supporters of the streetcar. Cranley said Simpson and former University of Cincinnati Board Chair Rob Richardson Jr. supported a costly and exclusive transit project at the expense of funds for police, neighborhood development and other projects.

“The fact is that my opponents — both of them — the greatest accomplishment of their public careers has been the streetcar,” Cranley said. “Rob ran the campaign to make sure it didn’t get defeated at the ballot.

And, of course, council member Simpson has voted $100 million in capital.”

Simpson worked to depict Cranley as something of an autocratic mayor who has spent more time and money on parking garages for developers than on city residents and whose attempts to address the city’s poverty problem and other issues have fallen flat.

Simpson said Cranley hasn’t made good on a promise to lift 4,000 people out of poverty with his Hand Up Initiative. Cranley countered by saying he’s reduced childhood poverty by 5 percent during his tenure.

“There are too many people waiting on the world to change, and they are tired of people making promises they don’t keep,” Simpson said about Cranley’s promises to alleviate poverty.

Meanwhile, Richardson pressed the idea that both candidates have not made progress despite ample opportunities to solve problems, including the city’s loooming Metro bus shortcomings and 40,000-unit affordable housing gap.

“That’s something that both incumbents have failed to do,” Richardson said. “We have 75,000 jobs inaccessible to people all across the city. That’s something that’s been accepted by the incumbents because they have no policy. They have no vision.”

The mayoral primary is May 2. The two candidates with the most votes will then move on to the general election in November.

Early voting in the primary started April 4. Voters can cast ballots at the Hamilton County Board of Elections in Norwood

Federal Court: Ohio Execution Drug Cocktail Unconstitutional

A federal appeals court ruled April 6 that Ohio’s new lethal injection process is unconstitutional, putting yet another delay on the state’s efforts to resume executions.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court forbade the state’s use of midazolam, a sedative, in a three-drug cocktail after other drug cocktails Ohio has tried have also been outlawed.

Those mixtures in the past have resulted in long, possibly painful executions.

State officials say they could challenge the court’s decision at the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling further delays several executions Ohio has scheduled and then put off as it searches for sourcing for execution drugs. Three Hamilton County inmates are among those slated to be executed.

Ohio has faced various roadblocks to executing prisoners on death row since 2014. That year, the execution of convicted killer Dennis McGuire using a three-drug cocktail took 26 minutes.

McGuire experienced noticeable difficulties and discomfort, and the procedure took longer than any other in the state’s history. The combination hadn’t been used before. His family sued the state to block further use of the drug.

Another, subsequent execution in Arizona using the same method took more than two hours.

That incident and other botched executions across the country using the drug cocktail set up a host of legal challenges for the state.

Ohio stopped using that cocktail and changed its policies to allow other alternatives to be used. However, Ohio was then forced to cease executions altogether, as those alternatives are not readily available in the United States for use in executions.

The state would like to go back to using another, more powerful drug called pentobarbital. Earlier this year, defense attorneys for three convicted killers slated to be executed said they would prefer their clients be executed using that drug, which acts more quickly and is less likely to cause pain during an execution.

But that drug isn’t readily available — the main manufacturer in Denmark won’t sell it for use in executions — leaving Ohio scrambling to find a source before it can begin executions.

The state has attempted other ways to obtain drugs. Ohio Gov. John Kasich last year championed a law that made suppliers

of execution drugs secret. Ohio has also tried to work with some of the 60-plus compounding pharmacies in the state, which produce various drugs on demand. Neither approach yielded results. (NS)

Immigration Fight Lands in Butler County A woman from Mexico living in Butler County will likely be deported this week, despite previously receiving a work visa from federal authorities good until July.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents April 5 arrested Maribel Trujillo, a mother of four who hasn’t been accused of any crime other than her immigration status, near her home in Fairfield. Trujillo was held in the Butler County Jail until late last week, when she was transferred to Morrow County Jail, which is near a Columbus airport often used by federal authorities for deportation.

Trujillo’s deportation signals a departure under President Donald Trump from stated policy promises that he would be focusing on immigrants convicted of crimes.

A group of faith leaders and immigration advocates delivered petitions with more than 1,000 signatures supporting Trujillo to the downtown Cincinnati office of U.S. Sen. Rob Portman asking him to help intervene.

Representatives from the Clifton Mosque,

the Amos Project, Carthage Christian Church and others attended the event at Portman’s office and spoke in support of Trujillo, who came to the United States 15 years ago to escape drug cartel violence.

“She’s not the priority,” said Rev. Damon Lynch III of New Prospect Baptist Church in Roselawn. “She’s a priority to her family, to her husband, to her kids, to her community, to her church.”

Trujillo was picked up a decade ago during a raid at Fairfield’s Koch Foods plant, but remained in the country. After advocacy last year by Butler County faith leaders, she was granted a work visa that should have kept her in the country legally until July.

But in February, Trujillo was fitted with a GPS ankle monitor and told by federal authorities to arrange a flight back to Mexico by April. Trujillo bought plane tickets for herself and her oldest child, according to Father Mike Pucke at Saint Julie Billiart Church in Hamilton, where Trujillo worships, and was slated to leave later this month. ICE agents didn’t ask about her pending flight when they arrested her, and she had just had a meeting with federal authorities days before.

“I have no idea why an ICE agent would release her on Monday and then snatch her on the street,” Pucke told the Hamilton Journal News last week. (NS)

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i l l u s t r at i o n : j a m e s h e i m e r

Pillar s of F A VO R ITis m The Hamilton County courthouse clings to the ancient practice of hiring people on the basis of family, political and business connections

By James Mcnair

A

Last fall, CityBeat decided to see how nepotism, political patronage and cronyism played out in Hamilton County. We obtained the lists of employees in all county offices. We spoke with more than two dozen current and former county officials, current and former employees and local attorneys — Democrats and Republicans. We verified as many relationships as we could.

If a scent emerged, it came straight from the county courthouse. There, CityBeat found 63 employees who fit the mold. Most had a relative already in elected office or on the courthouse payroll when they were hired. Others were Republican Party honchos or suburban officeholders. A few cases were anomalous. In one, a lawyer and her fiancé were hired by an elected officeholder who

worked, on the side, for the lawyer’s father. A new hire is the son-in-law of county Democratic Party Chairman Tim Burke.

None of the hires fall under the state’s definition of nepotism. Ohio law makes it a felony for public officials to hire — or authorize or influence the hiring of — a family member into a public job. “Family member” includes children, parents, siblings, grandchildren, grandparents, stepparents, stepchildren and any person related by blood or marriage who lives in the same household. Ohio officials can hire all the cousins, nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts and in-laws they want, as long as they live apart.

And officials can hire each other’s relatives till the cows come home, unless influence was part of it.

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 1 5

s many people know all too well, locking down a job with generous pay and benefits takes you through an American Ninja Warriorstyle obstacle course of proving your educational record, showing work skills and surviving a barrage of interviews. But when an insider — a family member or another connection — shows you a shortcut, why bother with the usual apply-and-hope route?

Historically, that inside track is well-worn in local government across the country. Taxpayer-funded jobs often go to people as much for their personal and political linkages as their work credentials — if not more so. Even critics concede that the winners of elections reap the spoils. Jobs are some of those spoils.

Kenneth B r in k m e y e r

Tracy Win k le r

Cousin Bailiff Hired Nov. 18, 2014

Clerk of courts, 2011-16 Salary: $100,779

C a r o ly n B r in k m e y e r Cousin’s wife Clerk 2 Hired March 1, 2016

Ralph W in k l e r

CLERK OF COURTS

Husband Probate Court judge

Nephew Clerk 2 Hired June 12, 2015

Ry a n G l a n do r f

prosecutor’s office COURT OF COMMON PLEAS

Andrea Boettcher Daughter Administrative assistant Hired Jan. 12, 2017

The family way In Hamilton County, two offices stand out in their insider hiring — those of Prosecuting Attorney Joe Deters and former Clerk of Courts Tracy Winkler, who left office in January after her re-election defeat. Both are Republicans.

Take Deters, who served as prosecutor from 1992 to 1999, regained the job in 2005 and has held it ever since. Of his 186 employees, CityBeat identified 31 who were related to past or present county officials or employees or had political or business linkages with Deters at the time of their hire. Among them was Thomas Grossman, chairman of the Warren County Republican Party and the son of a retired Hamilton County judge when he was hired in 2009.

Another was Michael Florez, a longtime Republican Party operative hired in 2005. Both are assistant prosecutors.

Both are paid $119,480 a year.

Other hires were more tribal. Deters hired a nephew, Daniel Deters, in 2011 and a niece, Caitlin Deters, in 2012. Daniel is an assistant prosecutor making $56,650 a year, Caitlin a typist making $30,900. Deters’ daughter Mary Elyse, meanwhile, was hired by Winkler as a part-time clerk in

Nephew Office supervisor Hired Oct. 31, 2011

Jonathan Bauman R o ge r Gl a n do r f Brother Bailiff Hired May 29, 2001

1 6 • C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 , 2 0 1 7

John T r im b l e

2013. She left that job Dec. 28. Rachel Schoenling, the niece of Deters’ brother and former Municipal Court bailiff Buzz Deters, still holds a clerical job in the clerk’s office.

Deters’ employment largess extends to even fartherflung Deterses. Deters declared himself a part-time prosecutor in 2009 so he could moonlight as a private attorney on the side. In 2014, he went to work for disbarred lawyer Eric Deters on lawsuits filed for former patients of fugitive doctor Abubakar Atiq Durrani. The two Deterses are not related. The following April, Joe Deters hired Eric Deters’ daughter Erica Deters as an assistant prosecutor.

Four months later, he hired Erica Deters’ fiancé Cooper Bowen, also as a prosecutor. Married that September, they both make $56,650.

Eric Deters says the hire of his daughter and son-in-law stemmed from his 30-year friendship with Joe Deters, not his hiring of the prosecutor for legal work.

“Erica and Cooper both just became lawyers. They worked for me for a year. They are outstanding,” Eric Deters says. “Both wanted to do public service. I asked Joe if he needed any lawyers. He said I got lucky. He did.

Brother of son-in-law Fiscal officer Hired Aug. 3, 2015 Fired Feb. 17, 2017

Both applied. Both impressed. Both were hired. Both are doing great.

“Joe told me he has always relied on referrals from those he trusted because only once in all his hirings did it fail him,” he says. “If Erica and Cooper sucked, they wouldn’t have been hired. Brilliant young minds. And neither needed the job. They could have worked at and still work at Deters Law Firm.”

Winkler, during her five years in office, served as a textbook example of legal nepotism and political patronage. In October 2011, she was the wife of one Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judge, Ralph “Ted” Winkler, and the sister-and-law of another, Robert Winkler, when county Republicans handed her the vacant court clerk job, which pays a cool $100,000 a year. At the time, she was also on the Green Township Board of Trustees and was its chairwoman during a controversial event in 2010 — the township’s hiring of a new, $50,000-a-year executive assistant. Who got the job? The wife of Hamilton County Republican Party Chairman and former Common Pleas Judge Alex Triantafilou.

D a n ie l Deters

Jo e Deters

Nephew Assistant prosecutor Hired May 31, 2011

Prosecuting attorney, 1992-99 and 2005-present Salary $91,877

C a it lin Deters Niece Technical typist Hired June 28, 2012

prosecutor’s office

Erica Deters Daughter of Deters’ private employer, Eric Deters Assistant prosecutor Hired April 24, 2015

Cooper Bowen Son-in-law of Deters’ private employer, Eric Deters Assistant prosecutor Hired Aug. 18, 2015

CLERK OF COURTS

N i c ho l a s Croswell Mary Elyse Deters

R achel Schoenling

Daughter Clerk 2 Hired May 20, 2013 Left Dec. 28, 2016

Brother’s niece Clerk 2 Hired Jan. 15, 2016

— Joe’s brother — lost his election and left office. Joe came to the rescue and hired her as an administrative assistant. The job pays $37,500 a year.

Hiring by Merit?

In effect, the courthouse is like a scale model for ancestry.com, with overlapping branches of multiple family trees. Some in the community have grown weary of the absence of a formal merit system in the county courthouse. Robert Newman, who has practiced law in Cincinnati for about 45 years, called the hiring of family members a “pernicious” practice.

“Sure, there are some sons and daughters and nephews and nieces who were likely hired because Dad was a judge or a prosecutor and who are performing well on the job,” Newman says. “But some are not and are less qualified than others who applied or who could have gotten the job if the employment process were an open one.

“So they work side-by-side with people who are doing the job and they are not,” he continues. “This does not do them any good. It doesn’t do the office any good. It is not fair to

taxpayers. It is just bad personnel policy. Most businesses have policies against nepotism for these reasons.”

Aftab Pureval, a political outsider who in January became Hamilton County’s first Democratic clerk of courts since 1903, ran on a platform of depoliticizing the 220-employee office. In his first three months in office, he fired Rosiello, Baker, Bauman, Trimble, Carolyn Brinkmeyer and Annie Boitman, a deputy clerk who leads the Delhi Republican Club.

Under Winkler, the clerk of courts office had no written policy for posting job vacancies and hiring — one that could be found, anyway. Winkler’s office did not provide one in response to a CityBeat public records request.

Pureval offered to deliver it upon taking office, but could never find it. Winkler could not be reached for comment for this story.

Pureval, for the most part, has been hiring people free of the stench of patronage. The native of suburban Dayton, who quit his job as a Procter & Gamble attorney to become clerk of courts, says he posted job openings online and conducted competitive interviews. In February,

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 1 7

Once in office, Winkler opened the patronage spigots.

Two weeks into the job, she hired her nephew Ryan Glandorf — whose father Roger Glandorf is a Common Pleas Court bailiff — as an auto title clerk for $22,382 a year. The next month, she made Tony Rosiello, a Republican freshly elected to the Green Township board, her chief deputy for human resources. In 2014, she hired Jeff Baker — president of the Colerain Republican Club — as a clerk.

That’s when Winkler became a job creator for extended clan members. Late in 2014 she hired cousin Kenneth Brinkmeyer as a court bailiff. The following June she hired her nephew John Trimble as a clerk. Two months later she hired Jonathan Bauman, the brother of her daughter’s husband, as a $55,000-a-year “fiscal officer.”

And in March 2016, Winkler hired Carolyn Brinkmeyer, who is married to another cousin, as a clerk.

One favor begets another. This past January, Deters reciprocated Winkler’s earlier hiring of his daughter.

Winkler’s daughter Andrea Boettcher was available for hire because her previous employer, Dennis Deters

Son of former special prosecutor Scott Croswell, partner in law firm that handled Deters’ divorce case Asstant prosecutor Hired Sept. 2, 2014

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T h e f o l lo w i n g e m p lo y e e s , w h e n H i r e d , h a d a r e l a t i v e a l r e a dy i n e l e c t e d o f f i c e o r c u r r e n t ly o r f o r m e r ly o n t h e p u b l i c p a y r o l l : Employee name

Office

COUNTY hire date

Job title

2016 Salary

Jonathan R. Baumn* Carolyn C. Brinkmeyer** Kenneth J. Brinkmeyer Mark A. Caldwell Paul D. Cordray Mary Elyse Deters*** Ryan J. Glandorf

Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts

8/3/15 3/1/16 11/18/14 4/7/14 5/21/12 5/20/13 10/31/11

Fiscal officer Clerk 2 Bailiff Bailiff Bailiff Clerk 2 Office supervisor

56,662 27,352 36,238 36,238 36,631 7,488 36,926

Karen L. Kellums Percy J. Milton Jr. Jeffery W. Prem Rachel L. Schoenling Ragen R. Schrimpf Sandra A. Segbers Randall F. Slocum John J. Trimble** Christopher Wagner Joyce L. Wilburn

Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts

7/28/14 5/19/93 1/18/90 1/15/16 12/26/12 8/23/16 3/23/15 6/12/15 1/30/17 1/22/13

Courtroom clerk 1 Supervisor of opns.

Admin. Asst.

Clerk 2 Clerk 2 Clerk 2 Clerk 2 Clerk 2 Chief of compliance Bailiff

27,443 44,878 34,441 24,830 24,830 24,830 24,830 24,830 87,500 36,631

Tracy Winkler**** Emily M. Albrinck Carl H. Blackwell Mitchell A. Gillen

Clerk of Courts Common Pleas Common Pleas Common Pleas

10/12/11 1/1/15 9/13/93 6/1/04

Clerk of courts Constable Bailiff Bailiff

100,779 37,614 56,000 46,000

Roger J. Glandorf Bradley J. Seitz Judith A. Walters Joseph N. Kunkel

Common Pleas Common Pleas Common Pleas Dom. Rels. Court

5/29/01 12/16/02 9/2/04 6/2/08

Bailiff Jury coordinator Bailiff Deputy clerk

72,145 49,184 51,000 29,043

Mary T. Schulcz Jeremy T. Cordray Andrew J. Gillen Elizabeth A. Sundermann Brittany Nurre Aug Amy E. Bedinghaus Andrea Boettcher

Juvenile Court Municipal Court Municipal Court Probate Court Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor

10/5/92 9/25/14 2/6/86 9/1/98 6/12/00 8/8/14 1/12/17

Magistrate Assignment clerk Asst. court admin.

Magistrate Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Admin. asst.

53,901 27,235 62,598 71,050 63,754 56,650 37,500

Cooper D. Bowen

Prosecutor

8/18/15

Asst. prosecutor

53,666

Donald D. Clancy III

Prosecutor

8/8/16

Law clerk

28,240

Nicholas C. Croswell Tatiana J. DeGraffenreid Caitlin L. Deters Daniel T. Deters Erica C. Deters Leah M. Dinkelacker Kathleen C. Fischer Michael J. Friedmann Steven F. Gay James S. Ginocchio Jonathan M. Groppe

Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor

9/2/14 6/2/14 6/28/12 5/31/11 4/24/15 5/18/05 5/9/11 5/16/11 1/3/07 8/20/07 4/25/16

Asst. prosecutor Technical Typist 1 Technical Typist 2 Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor

56,650 24,642 30,900 56,650 56,650 56,650 63,754 54,169 120,553 63,754 53,666

Thomas E. Grossmann Jeffrey M. Heile Christopher T. Lipps David H. McIlwain

Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor

11/2/09 10/1/02 7/6/10 5/17/10

Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor

119,480 49,126 63,754 63,754

Mark J. Meckstroth Allison B. Oswall Nicole M. Otto Joseph J. Prem David L. Prem Pamela J. Sears Adam C. Tieger Mark C. Vollman Matthew C. Wallace

Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor Prosecutor

1/15/13 12/23/13 10/29/15 9/7/11 11/23/88 12/18/95 6/10/13 12/19/02 5/5/03

Clerk 1 Asst. prosecutor Technical Typist 1 Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor Asst. prosecutor

13,671 60,684 24,642 53,666 105,060 89,610 53,666 87,332 56,650

RELATIVE

Relationship to employee

Relation’s job or office at time of hire

Tracy Winkler Tracy Winkler Tracy Winkler Jeffrey L. Caldwell Bobby G. Cordray Joe Deters Tracy Winkler Roger Glandorf Tracy Kellums Melba Marsh David L. Prem Joe Deters Robert W. Schrimpf Melissa L. Segbers Lee Slocum Tracy Winkler Tim Burke Jim Neil Robert Winkler Ralph “Ted” Winkler Jeff Albrinck Kenneth Blackwell Andrew James Gillen Ray Gillen Ralph “Ted” Winkler Bill Seitz Robert Ruehlman Jerome A. Kunkel Pamela J. Sears Simon Leis Jr. Bobby G. Cordray Ray Gillen Hal Sundermann Thomas Nurre Bob Bedinghaus Tracy Winkler Ralph “Ted” Winkler Erica Deters Eric Deters Patricia Clancy Donald D. Clancy Sr. Scott Croswell Stacey DeGraffenreid Joe Deters Joe Deters Eric Deters Patrick Dinkelacker Pat Fischer Roger E. Friedmann Simon Leis James S. Ginocchio Rebecca Prem Groppe Mark Groppe David Prem David Grossman William Peter Heile Thomas Lipps Harry McIlwain Sr. Carol McIlwain Vicki McIlwain John R. Meckstroth William F. Oswall Jr. Virginia M. Otto David L. Prem Calvin Prem Jerome A. Kunkel Seth S. Tieger Carl Vollman Vincent E. Wallace

Brother’s mother-in-law Husband’s cousin Cousin Brother Brother Father Aunt Father Husband Stepsister Brother Uncle’s brother Husband Sister-in-law Father Aunt Father-in-law Brother Brother-in-law Husband Father Brother Father Late grandfather Brother-in-law Father Brother Father Stepmother Uncle Father Father Father Grandfather Father Mother Father Fiancee Father-in-law to be Aunt Late grandfather Father Mother Uncle Uncle Father Father Father Father Uncle Father Aunt Uncle Aunt’s brother Father Father Father Grandfather Aunt Mother Father Husband Mother Father Father Husband Father Father Father

Clerk of courts Clerk of courts Clerk of courts Clerk of Courts Clerk of Courts Hamilton Co. prosecutor Clerk of courts Common Pleas Court Republican precinct executive Municipal Court judge Prosecutor’s office Hamilton Co. prosecutor Prosecutor’s Office Clerk of Courts/former precinct executive Prosecutor’s office Clerk of courts Chairman, Hamilton County Democratic Party Sheriff Common Pleas judge Common Pleas Court judge Evendale City Council Former mayor, Bush appointee Asst. Munic. Court administrator Former bailiff Municipal Court judge Ohio state senator Common Pleas judge Prosecutor’s Office Prosecutor’s Office Hamilton County sheriff Clerk of Courts Bailiff Former Court of Appeals judge Common Pleas judge Former county commissioner Former clerk of courts Probate Court judge Prosecutor’s Office Joe Deters’ private employer Former clerk of courts Former congressman Special prosecutor Prosecutor’s Office Hamilton Co. prosecutor Hamilton Co. prosecutor Joe Deters’ private employer Common Pleas judge First District Court of Appeals Prosecutor’s Office Sheriff Prosecutor’s Office Former recorder Dom. Rels. Court, finance & HR director Prosecutor’s Office Former Juvenile Court judge Prosecutor’s Office Juvenile Court judge Former muni judge Former muni judge Clerk of Courts Prosecutor’s Office Delhi Twp. trustee Prosecutor’s Office Prosecutor’s Office Former prosecutor Prosecutor’s Office Prosecutor’s Office Prosecutor’s Office Common Pleas Court

* Terminated 2/17/17 **Terminated 3/31/17 ***Left job 12/28/16 ****Left office 1/2/17

he announced the hiring of a chief financial officer from General Electric, an information technology director from Fifth Third Bank and a human resources director who had worked at Welltower Inc., a Toledo-based operator of senior living centers and health care clinics.

“My charge coming into this office was to change the culture,” Pureval says, “and the way that I’m doing that is by recruiting the most qualified people to serve in this office.

The three folks that we announced this week all come from Fortune 500 companies. They’re frankly the best of the best.

“We got applications from all over the country,” he says.

“We had folks from Lorain County apply and we had folks from the West Coast apply. We were able to reach a broad audience to get the best talent. The results speak for themselves. These are folks at top private companies who wanted to come to the clerk’s office. That’s unheard of.”

Pureval didn’t ban the hiring of people with the right lineage entirely. His new $87,500-a-year chief compliance officer, Chris Wagner, is the son-in-law of Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Burke. Pureval says he had “no involvement” in Wagner’s hiring. Wagner actually has a contradictory aspect: In his nine years of managing the Ohio Attorney General’s office in Cincinnati, the last six were under Republican AG Mike DeWine.

Policy? What policy?

As one might expect, Hamilton County’s administrative office on Court Street serves as a hub for many of the human resources services for county employees. Its 265-page personnel manual is laden with policies, procedures and benefits. The rules for filling job vacancies are rigorous. The human resources department, for example, must sign off on applicants’ qualifications before they can be hired.

But this is county government. It reeks of the 19th century. Other than judges, Hamilton County has 11 elected officeholders who are their own bosses. Why a government would have elected court clerks, recorders and engineers in 2017 is a question for another day. Suffice to say, how they go about hiring and firing is entirely up to them. That is, as long as it’s legal and not discriminatory in any way.

CityBeat sent public records requests for the written hiring guidelines of various courthouse offices. Just like the clerk of courts, prosecutor Deters does not have any. Nor do the courts. Common Pleas Court Administrator Patrick Dressing said the courts must abide by the state constitution and hire on the basis of “merit and fitness.” Deters’ spokeswoman Julie Wilson said her office simply follows state and federal law in hiring.

Deters’ discretion in populating his office comes down to this state law: “The prosecuting attorney may appoint any assistants, clerks and stenographers who are necessary for the proper performance of the duties of his office.”

Translation: As long as he doesn’t break the law, Deters can hire whoever he damned well pleases.

CityBeat wanted to ask Deters if it was purely coincidental that at least one-sixth of his staff came aboard with one kind of connection or another. He turned down CityBeat’s request for an interview. Notification came from an assistant prosecutor, Michael Friedmann, who was one of those with an inside connection when he was hired in 2011. His father, assistant prosecutor Roger Friedmann, has worked in the office since 1976.

The exhaustive personnel policies of the Board of County Commissioners are meant to deter such premeditated hiring. Openings must be posted at least 10 days.

They should be filled, whenever possible, by qualified county employees. Candidates are evaluated by Human Resources. Then department heads choose finalists, conduct interviews and choose the “best-qualified” applicant based “solely upon merit and fitness.”

In her six years as the county’s human resources director, Cheryl Keller says she recalls no discussion of standardizing hiring practices across elected county offices. She says her office has no control over how other elected officials advertise and fill their jobs. Deters’ office, she says, does not post jobs on the county’s main jobs page. Nor did the court clerk’s office until Pureval took over. The county’s main human resources office, Keller says, does not monitor other county offices for hiring that skirts the line of nepotism.

“I really don’t know who gets hired in other agencies to know if they’re related to anybody,” Keller says. “I don’t know that anyone’s ever tried to look at that.”

Does anyone? The Ohio Ethics Commission does.

When a public official in Ohio violates the state nepotism law, enforcement falls to the OEC, in Columbus.

“Giving precedence or advantages to a family member in public hiring decisions is unfair to other applicants who may be equally or even more qualified,” says OEC Executive Director Paul Nick. “Public agencies should spend public dollars to hire the most qualified candidates and not those with the best family connections.”

It was the OEC that investigated a former West Clermont County school superintendent for recommending the district’s hire of a son, a daughter, a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law. In 2014, the OEC reached a settlement with Gary Brooks instead of trying to put him in prison or levy fines as the state nepotism law allows. Brooks retired and agreed not to repeat the offense if he ever returns to public employment. He also agreed to accept a public reprimand, which was devoid of shame value because the OEC did not disseminate it to any news media or even post it on its website.

Who’s a “family member?”

Such overt acts are pretty much where the Ohio nepotism law stops. Beyond that, Ohio is completely cool with officials’ free-wheeling hiring of the clan members

Employee name

Office

COUNTY hire date

Job title

2016 Salary

Jeffrey D. Baker*

Clerk of courts

4/21/14

HR supervisor

51,511

Anthony P. Rosiello** Clifford Bishop Michael Florez

Clerk of courts Common Pleas Prosecutor

11/14/11 8/19/16 1/31/05

Chief deputy clerk Bailiff Asst. prosecutor

87,154 46,000 119,480

Bruce K. Hust

Prosecutor

3/19/15

Asst. prosecutor

53,666

*Terminated Feb. 17 **Terminated Jan. 3

POSITION Former Cheviot city councilman/ president, Colerain Republican Club Green Twp. trustee-elect Sycamore Twp. trustee Longtime Hamilton County GOP party official/campaign treasurer Republican precinct executive

University of Cincinnati journalism students Lauren Moretto, Monroe Trombly and Huy Nguyen provided research assistance for this report.

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 1 9

e m p lo y e e s h i r e d a s t h e y h e l d n o n - c o u n t y e l e c t e d o f f i c e s o r p o l i t i c a l p a r t y p o s i t io n s :

of employees or business associates. Nothing prevents public officials from hiring each other’s relatives.

Ohio courts have upheld the status quo. Nick cites two instances of state courts quashing attempts to put the kibosh on blanket “no relatives” policies. In 1983, he says, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the city of Fairborn’s policy violated its charter requirement to hire on the sole basis of merit and fitness. In 1996, he says, the Fifth District Court of Appeals ruled that Delaware County lacked the statutory authority to ban all hiring of relatives.

So Ohio keeps the door open for the broader form of nepotism. Mary Rita Weissman, a partner at The Weissman Group human resources consulting firm in Dayton, says that, ultimately, it can lead to “serious problems.”

“If you’re going to hire a person just because they are a relative of somebody, chances are you’re also going to rate them just because they are the relative of somebody, you’re going to promote them just because they are the relative of somebody and you’re going to give them wage increases based upon them being the relative of someone,” she says.

“The first decision taints everything that comes after.”

Strict, qualifications-based hiring weeds out much of the favoritism. But nepotism laws elsewhere demonstrate that Ohio’s restrictions are entry-level.

The federal government, for one, includes nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts, first cousins, in-laws and halfsiblings in its nepotism ban. Texas extends its hiring ban to nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts, immediate in-laws and great-grand-relatives. Pike County, Ky. — site of the internecine Hatfield-McCoy feud — goes one further than Ohio by banning officials from hiring their in-laws.

No place, though, appears to take nepotism more seriously than the state of Missouri.

Missouri’s nepotism ban forbids public officials at any level of government from hiring relatives within four degrees of separation by blood or marriage. In other words, no one as far removed as cousins, great nieces and nephews and great-great-grandchildren.

James Klahr, executive director of the Missouri Ethics Commission, says the ban — in the state’s constitution for more than a century — has caused problems in locales with small labor pools.

“But it’s still on the books, and I’m not aware there’s been any effort by anyone to change or minimize it,” Klahr says. “I think people want to feel like they’re being hired for their merit, not because they’re somebody’s nephew or uncle or what have you.”

But discussion of clamping down on awarding county jobs as favors to family, friends and political allies appears to be a non-starter in Hamilton County. As one might say, it’s sooooo Cincinnati.

Justin Jeffre, the 98 Degrees band member who ran for mayor on a reform ticket in 2005, is now on the board of directors of Common Cause Ohio, a nonprofit group that seeks to hold power accountable. He says the selective hiring in the county courthouse is a conflict of interest.

“I think most people would agree that that’s not acceptable,” Jeffre says. “It’s hard to believe they’re so blatant about doing this again and again.”

The prosecutor’s office’s lack of written policy on posting job vacancies and hiring manifested itself as recently as January. Deters hired Tracy Winkler’s daughter Andrea Boettcher as an administrative assistant on Jan. 12. CityBeat sent the office a public records request for that job posting. The written response from Michael Friedmann?

“Our office does not have any records that would be responsive to your request.” ©

2 0 • C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 , 2 0 1 7

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teller’s of Hyde Park / The hyde park JeWeL / Maker’s Mark, apple Jack Brandy, Benedictine, dry Curacao, hs Bitters Blend

… ask your server for Maker’s Mark specials.

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April 16-22, 2017 GRE ATER CINCINNATI RES TAUR ANT W EEK 0 3

For menus & details visit

save the date Happy Hour Daily/ Private Rooms

Sit.

10808 Montgomery Road

Saturday June 3RD The Phoenix

Stay.

513.489.1212

For Reservations

www.eddiemerlots.com

0 4 GRE ATER CINCINNATI RES TAUR ANT W EEK April 16-22, 2017

Savor.

RESTAURANT + BAR OPEN WE’RE OPEN

THU-SAT / 5pm-9pm

FOLLOW US!

The Presidents Room @presidentsroom @presidentsroom

HAPPY HOUR

THU-SAT / 5pm-7pm

RESERVE YOUR TABLE via OpenTable or by calling us at 513.721.2260

MODERN AMERICAN DINING with lasting Italian + German influences • thepresidentsrm.com

4335 Glendale-Milford Rd. Cincinnati, OH 45242 (513) 794-1610 browndogcafe.com

Pick Your Pairing Tips for selecting the best type of wine to drink with your meal

If the thought of choosing a wine to go with your meal from a typical upscale restaurant wine list makes your head spin, you’re not alone. There are often hundreds of choices based on country, regions within a country, grape varietal, year, price point and more. So unless you’re a student of oenology — aka the study of wine — why not let the pros do their job?

Cincinnati restaurants are ripe with talented directors and sommeliers who have a comprehensive knowledge of available wines — everything from the grapes it was created with to its compatibility with a dish’s flavors and textures. They might even provide some background about the producer and family behind the wine. Even if you’re an aficionado, it’s well worth your while to defer to a sommelier who works closely with a particular chef and is familiar with his or her food.

In the event you’ve stumbled upon a restaurant without a sommelier or wine director, however, we’ve put together a cheat sheet with some general guidelines to help make your decision.

Rule No. 1: Have an open mind. You should never be afraid to try something new, even if you’ve never heard of a wine (and maybe can’t pronounce it) — you might just discover a new favorite.

Happy drinking!

Wine Pairing Cheat Sheet • For fish, seafood or shellfish — Avoid reds or whites that are overly tannic. Opt for wines that use very little oak or no oak at all.

• For pasta — When choosing pasta, let the sauce be your guide. If the is dish is exceptionally rich, look for wines that are crisp and dry to cut through the fat. Try a chardonnay to pair with a butter or cream sauce.

• For acidic foods — Dishes that are acidic, ceviche for instance, will fall flat unless they’re paired with a wine that at least matches the acidity of the dish. You can also err on the side of selecting a wine that is higher in acidity than the dish. Try Spanish

• For salty foods — Contrast the salt component in foods such as oysters, cured meat, cheese and tapas with wine that is high in acid or mildly sweet. The high acidity will help refresh your palate while dining.

Crisp sauvignon blanc goes well with charcuterie and sauternes and strong blue cheese is a classic pairing.

• For sweet foods — Some foods, like carrots, sweet potatoes and sushi rice, have some sugar in them or have a natural sweetness. Look to at least match the level of sweetness with a wine like a viognier or pinot noir. When in doubt, err on the side of the wine being sweeter than the dish. Going in the opposite direction by choosing a dry wine will often give the pairing an off flavor.

• If all else fails, you can always order Champagne or sparkling wine; it is the one style of wine you can pair throughout your whole meal — appetizers to desserts or cheese plates — and never go wrong.

Every Friday in May is Double Date Night!

First couple $88, second couple on us. Half off second bottle of wine.

513.530.5501 1 1 0 2 3 M o n t g o M e r y r d , C i n C i n n at i 4 5 2 4 9

April 16-22, 2017 GRE ATER CINCINNATI RES TAUR ANT W EEK 0 5

• For grilled, roasted or braised meats — Did you decide on that beautiful New York-strip steak for dinner? The fat in the steak needs a texturally rich wine, white or red. A beautiful right-bank Bordeaux or cabernet sauvignon will have the textural richness to match the fat in the steak. If you’re in the mood for a white wine, look for a white Burgundy or splurge on Champagne.

Albariño, and chardonnay from Argentina.

Offering comfortable fine dining in Over-The-Rhine

1324 Vine Street Cincinnati, OH 45202 513-421-5111

Valet Parking aVailable ReseRvations accepted

PRIMAVISTA The Food ~ The View Since 1989

810 Matson Place, Cincinnati, Ohio 45204

513.251.6467

www.pvista.com

Restaurant Week Menu FirSt courSe Caesar Salad | Chopped House Salad | Lobster Bisque Second courSe Filet Mignon > Black Angus Barrel Cut Beef Tenderloin, Garlic Mashed Potatoes Lemon Chicken > Mushrooms, Tomatoes, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Lemon Caper Beurre Blanc Grilled Halibut > Ginger Roasted Brussels & Carrots with a Brie Truffle Fonduta Sweet Pea Ravioli (Vegetarian) > Sweet Pea, Pearl Onion, Ricotta Filling, Lemon Beurre Monte’, Lump Crab (Optional) deSSert Trio’s Banana Cream Pie | Strawberry Short Cake

www.TrioBistro.com 0 6 GRE ATER CINCINNATI RES TAUR ANT W EEK April 16-22, 2017

7565 Kenwood Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45236

(513) 984-1905

MENUS eddie merlot's

Bistro Grace

4034 Hamilton Ave, Cincinnati 45223 (513) 541-9600 • bistrograce.com FIR ST COU R SE: Roasted Carrot & Spring Vegetable Salad Tomato Gazpacho with Herbed Yogurt SECOND COU R SE: Salmon with Lentils & Seasonal Vegetables Braised Pork Shank with Fingerling Potatoes THIR D COU R SE: Spiced Crème Brûlée Assortment of Cheeses

boi na braza

441 Vine St, Cincinnati 45202 (513) 421-7111 • boinabraza.com

the capital grille

3821 Edwards Rd, Cincinnati 45209 (513) 351-0814 • thecapitalgrille.com FIR ST COU R SE: Wedge w/ Bleu Cheese & Applewood Smoked Bacon Caesar Salad Clam Chowder SECOND COU R SE: Filet Mignon 8 oz.

All-Natural Herb Grilled Chicken Bone-In Dry Aged NY Strip 14 oz.

Seared Citrus Glazed Salmon Porcini Rubbed Sliced Tenderloin acco m panie m ent: Sam’s Mashed Potatoes French Beans with Heirloom Tomatoes

FIR ST COU R SE: Picanha House Special Sirloin Picanha con Alho Sirloin with garlic Leg of Lamb Pork Ribs Top Sirloin Pork Loin with Parmesan Pork Sausage Bottom Sirloin Chicken Leg Chicken Breast with Bacon

8080 Montgomery Rd, Cincinnati 45236 (513) 488-1110 • coopershawkwinery.com

SECOND COU R SE: Unlimited Salad Bar

7490 Bales St, Liberty Township 45069 (513) 463-9463 • coopershawkwinery.com

THIR D COU R SE: Caramel Turtle Cheesecake Key Lime Pie Carrot Cake Chocolate Mousse Cake

FIR ST COU R SE: Artisan Hummus & Roasted Vegetables Caprese Flatbread Chicken Potstickers

FIR ST COU R SE: Gnocchi Mac and Cheese (GF) SECOND COU R SE: Baby Bleu Salad (GF) THIR D COU R SE: Delmonico Ribeye

cooper's hawk winery & restaurant

SECOND COU R SE: Dana's Parmesan-Crusted Chicken Spaghetti and House-Made Meatballs Chef Matt's Favorite Pasta Jambalaya Maple-Mustard Pretzel Crusted Pork THIR D COU R SE: S'more Budino CH Chocolate Cake Salted Caramel Crème Brûlée w ine : CH Red or CH White

FIR ST COU R SE: Lobster Bisque Caesar Salad Merlot Iceberg Wedge SECOND COU R SE: Arctic Char Meunier Filet Del Mar Meyer Lemon Chicken THIR D COU R SE: Crème Brûlée Carrot Cake Triple Chocolate Cake

embers restaurant

8170 Montgomery Rd, Cincinnati 45236 (513) 984-8090 • embersrestaurant.com FIR ST COU R SE: Compressed Mango & Cucumber Maki Roll Smoked Tomato Bisque Caesar Salad SECOND COU R SE: Soy Marinated Hangar Steak Amish Chicken Breast Scottish Salmon THIR D COU R SE: Lavender Panna Cotta Chocolate Raspberry Tort

firebirds wood fired grill

5075 Deerfield Blvd, Mason 45040 (513) 234-9032 • mason.firebirdsrestaurants.com FIR ST COU R SE: Avocado Quesadilla Cup of Chicken Tortilla Soup or Soup of the day Chopped Kale, BLT, Mixed Greens or Caesar Salad SECOND COU R SE: Tequila Glazed Grilled Salmon Steak Frites Parmesan Crusted Chicken Tequila Glazed Colossal Shrimp THIR D COU R SE: Crème Brûlée Cheesecake Squares Chocolate Brownie Cake Sundae Key Lime Pie Warm Carrot Cake

Restaurants with more than one option in the courses listed will give guests a choice on selection. Menus are subject to change.

April 16-22, 2017 GRE ATER CINCINNATI RES TAUR ANT W EEK 0 7

brown dog café

4335 Glendale-Milford Rd, Blue Ash 45242 (513) 794-1610 • browndogcafe.com

THIR D COU R SE: Flourless Chocolate Espresso Cake Classic Crème Brûlée

10808 Montgomery Rd, Cincinnati 45242 (513) 489-1212 • eddiemerlots.com

golden l amb

Moerlein l ager house

27 S. Broadway, Lebanon 45036 (513) 932-5065 • goldenlamb.com

115 Joe Nuxhall Way, Cincinnati 45202 (513) 421-2337 • moerleinlagerhouse.com

FIR ST COU R SE: Sandwich & Salad Snack JP Mound Farm Oyster Mushroom & Black Truffle Bisque SECOND COU R SE: Emmitt Ridge Farm Center Cut Pork Rib Chop Seared Fresh Halibut THIR D COU R SE: Upside-Down Gelato Cone

jag's steak & seafood & piano bar

5980 West Chester Rd, West Chester 45069 (513) 860-5353 • jags.com FIR ST COU R SE: Camelot Chicken Tuna Tartar Spinach Artichoke Dip SECOND COU R SE: Spring Berry Salad Strawberry Walnut Salad Cream Of Pea Soup THIR D COU R SE: Grilled Filet Mignon Ora King Salmon Berkshire Pork Loin

kaze

1400 Vine St, Cincinnati 45202 (513) 898-7991 • kazeotr.com

11023 Montgomery Rd, Cincinnati 45249 (513) 530-5501 • meltingpot.com/cincinnati-oh

SECOND COU R SE: German Smothered Chicken Beef Short Ribs Pasta Cavatapi

FIR ST COU R SE: Green Goddess Cheddar Fondue Bacon and Brie Cheese Fondue

THIR D COU R SE: Buckeye Blitz Sundae Key Lime Pie

the melting pot

SECOND COU R SE: Filet Mignon Teriyaki Marinated Sirloin Cajun Chicken Roasted Garlic Shrimp Seasonal Ravioli Fresh Vegetable Medley THIR D COU R SE: Dark Chocolate with Chambord Milk Chocolate with Crunchy Peanut Butter

the mercer

1324 Vine St, Cincinnati 45202 (513) 421-5111 • themercerotr.com FIR ST COU R SE: Artisan Mixed Greens (V) (GF) Caesar Salad (GF) Pea Soup(GF)

FIR ST COU R SE: 1/2 OTR Roll (5 Pieces) 1/2 Misaki Roll (5 Pieces) Bibb Salad (Vegetarian)

SECOND COU R SE: Pork Tenderloin (GF) Chicken (GF) Risotto (V) (GF) Black Spaghetti

SECOND COU R SE: Short Rib Dumplings Pho Soup (Can Be Vegetarian) Pork Belly

THIR D COU R SE: Milk and Chocolate (V) (GF) Bread Pudding (V) Sorbet Lemon, Basil (V) (GF)

THIR D COU R SE: Katsu Bowl Steelhead Trout Hanger Steak 0 8 GRE ATER CINCINNATI RES TAUR ANT W EEK April 16-22, 2017

FIR ST COU R SE: Calamari Classic Caesar Salad Poached Pear Bruschetta

metropole

609 Walnut St, Cincinnati 45202 (513) 578-6660 • metropoleonwalnut.com

mccormick & schmick's seafood & steaks

21 E 5th St, Cincinnati 45202 (513) 721-9339 • mccormickandschmicks.com FIR ST COU R SE: Chilled Asparagus Potato Soup w/ Lump Crab Strawberry Bibb Salad Prosciutto wrapped Mozzarella Bruschetta SECOND COU R SE: Short Ribs with Foie Gras Risotto Herbed Shrimp with Polenta Prosciutto Wrapped Atlantic Salmon THIR D COU R SE: Mango Crème Brûlée Heath Bar Brownie

FIR ST COU R SE: Cress & Compressed Strawberry Salad English Pea Soup SECOND COU R SE: Gargenelli Grilled Chuck Roast Kentucky Silver Carp THIR D COU R SE: Peanut Butter Cake Custard Tart

morton's the steakhouse 441 Vine St #1h, Cincinnati 45202 (513) 621-3111 • mortons.com FIR ST COU R SE: Caesar Salad Morton’s Salad SECOND COU R SE: 6 oz. Filet Mignon Honey-Balsamic Glazed Salmon Fillet Chicken Bianco choice of side : Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes Chicago Style Horseradish Mashed Potatoes Sautéed Broccoli Florets THIR D COU R SE: Key Lime Pie Double Chocolate Mousse

parkers blue

4200 Cooper Rd, C (513) 891-8300 • pa

FIRST C Soup D Caesar Parkers Ho

SECOND Prime Rib Cedar Plank “Bay O

THIRD C Brûlée Ch Godiva Chocolat

pomp

600 Washington Ave (859) 581-3065 •

2 for

FIRST C Tossed Sala

SECOND Classic Mea Chicken Fettu Meat Or Che Eggplant P Shrimp R Chicken Pa Italian S Chicken C

THIRD C Can Tiram

the national exempl ar 6880 Wooster Pk, Mariemont 45227 (513) 271-2103 • nationalexemplar.com FIR ST COU R SE: Hungarian Mushroom Soup Prosciutto and Grapefruit Salad Pork Wings Smoked Salmon Dip SECOND COU R SE: Tagliatelle (V) Grilled Branzino Braised Short Rib Spring Lamb Lasagna Roast Chicken THIR D COU R SE: Carrot Cake Lemon Tart Chocolate Mousse Cake

the presidents

812 Race St, Cin (513) 721-2260 • the

FIRST C Little Ge Chilled P Sauerkra

SECOND Papara Spring Scal

THIRD C Espresso Cho Basil Pan

VISIT greatercincinnatirestaurantweek.com

primavista

810 Matson Pl, Cincinnati 45204 (513) 251-6467 • pvista.com

ue ash tavern

Cincinnati 45242 arkersblueash.com

COU R SE: Du Jour r Salad ouse Salad

COU R SE: b Of Beef Of Fundy” Salmon

COU R SE: heesecake te Ganache Cake

pilios

e, Newport, KY 41071 • pompilios.com

r $35

COU R SE: ad and Soup

COU R SE: at Lasagna uccine Alfredo eese Ravioli Parmigiana Ronaldo armigiana Sampler Cacciatore

COU R SE: nnoli misu

FIR ST COU R SE: Arugula Salad Burrata Potato Gnocchi SECOND COU R SE: Grilled Pork Chop Sautéed Verlasso Salmon Crab and Fettuccine THIR D COU R SE: Budino Di Panettone Tiramisu Milk Chocolate Custard

prime cincinnati

580 Walnut St, Cincinnati 45202 (513) 579-0720 • primecincy.com FIR ST COU R SE: Caesar or House Salad Lobster Bisque Soup Du Jour SECOND COU R SE: Spicy Crab Crusted Opah Citrus Marinated Pork Tenderloin Garlic Shrimp or Chicken 6 oz. Petite Filet THIR D COU R SE: Half-Baked Cookie Grippo Pretzel-Crusted Triple Chocolate Chip Brownie Key Lime Pie

ruth's chris steak house 100 E Freedom Way #160, Cincinnati 45202 (513) 381-0491 • ruthschris.com

ents room

ncinnati 45202 epresidentsrm.com

COU R SE: adelle Risotto llops

COU R SE: ocolate Cake nna Cotta

SECOND COU R SE: Petite Filet 12 oz. New York Strip Salmon Stuffed Chicken Breast choice of side : Creamed Spinach Garlic Mashed Potatoes THIR D COU R SE: Warm Bread Pudding

seasons 52

3819 Edwards Rd, Cincinnati 45209 (513) 631-5252 • seasons52.com FIR ST COU R SE: Signature Flatbreads Select one & share: Roasted Roma Tomato Garlic Pesto Chicken Blackened Steak & Blue Cheese All-Natural Pepperoni SECOND COU R SE: Seasonal Spinach Salad Organic Field Greens Crisp Romaine & Baby Kale Caesar third C O U R S E : Cedar-Plank Roasted Salmon Oak-Grilled Filet Mignon Southern Style Shrimp & Grits Wood-Grilled Pork Tenderloin All-Natural Roasted Half Chicken dessert: Two Mini Indulgence Desserts

204 W Loveland Ave, Loveland 45140 (513) 683-8266 • foodbytano.com FIR ST COU R SE: Grilled Citrus Shrimp Sprout and Snout Ricotta and Honey SECOND COU R SE: House Salad Quinoa Salad Chef's Inspiration Bowl Of Soup THIR D COU R SE: Parmigiana Stack Stuffed Salmon Seared Pork Belly Pulled Pork Smoked Pork Medallions

teller's of hyde park 2710 Erie Ave, Cincinnati 45208 (513) 321-4721 • tellersofhydepark.com FIR ST COU R SE: Grilled Caesar Salad SECOND COU R SE: Crab Stuffed Scallop

somm wine bar & kitchen 3101 Price Ave, Cincinnati 45205 (513) 244-5843 • sommwinebarcincinnati.com FIR ST COU R SE: Asparagus Soup with Lemon Potato Gnocchi Beef Tenderloin Carpaccio SECOND COU R SE: Magret of Duck Seared Diver Sea Scallops Beef Tenderloin THIR D COU R SE: Chocolate Pot de Crème Key Lime Pie

stone creek dining company

9836 Montgomery Rd, Montgomery 45242 (513) 489-1444 • stonecreekdining.com 6200 Mulhauser Rd, West Chester 45069 (513) 942-2100 • stonecreekdining.com

third C O U R S E : Blackened Bistro Steak dessert: Maker's Mark Bourbon Crème Brûlée

third & main restaurant 223 3rd St, Aurora, IN 47001 (812) 655-9727 • thirdandmain.com

FIR ST COU R SE: Heirloom Tomato Bisque Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato Salad Smoked Tomato & Watermelon Gazpacho SECOND COU R SE: Black Tiger Shrimp & Grits Mayan Braised Pork Belly Fried Mozzarella Caprese THIR D COU R SE: New York Strip Amish Herb Grilled Chicken Pasta Toscana (V) Wild-Caught Bay of Fundy BBQ Rubbed Salmon

trio bistro

FIR ST COU R SE: Seven Field Green Salad Spicy Garlic Shrimp

7565 Kenwood Rd, Cincinnati 45236 (513) 984-1905 • triobistro.com

SECOND COU R SE: Basil Pesto Fettuccine Sea Scallops 6 oz. Filet Mignon

FIR ST COU R SE: Caesar Salad Chopped House Salad Lobster Bisque

THIR D COU R SE: Cranberry & Golden Raisin Bread Pudding Crème Brûlée

SECOND COU R SE: Filet Mignon Lemon Chicken Grilled Halibut Sweet Pea Ravioli

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Tips for Tipping

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Tipping can be a baffling situation. In fact, most travelers to the U.S. are often perplexed by our system of 18 to 20 percent gratuity on top of food and beverage costs in a sit-down restaurant. In Europe, where waiting on tables is seen as a career as opposed to the transient position it is here, a standard service charge is automatically added to the bill, and in some parts of Asia, it’s seen as an insult to offer a tip.

But the question of how much to tip remains, and what about tip jars at counter-service places like Starbucks, where there really isn’t any service at all?

No worries — we’ve got your back with this handy-dandy guide to tipping etiquette.

• Did you know that due to a loophole in the structure of U.S. labor laws, only eight states require employers to pay waitstaff the same minimum wage as non-tipped workers? Tipped workers have been making $2.13 an hour since 1991, with no adjustment for inflation. Employers are supposed to make up the difference if tipped workers aren’t earning regular minimum wage through their tips, but it doesn’t always happen. As of today, 18 to 20 percent is still the standard tipping rate, but, yes, you can and should go higher if you’ve received exemplary service. And, contrary to what you see on YouTube, nobody at real, grown-up restaurants is spitting in your food if you’re a tightfisted tipper; these are professionals.

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• Counter-service places like coffee shops and fast food joints are different because those employees are paid minimum wage and above, so the decision to tip is your own. Throw a buck in the tip jar if you choose or add 10 percent to your tab. Or do nothing.

Your choice, but you probably won’t get that cute little heart in your latte anymore if you don’t.

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• “Tipping out” is the practice where waitstaff pool their tips with bus people and other front-of-the-house employees (those who interact with customers). Some, but not all restaurants use this type of method to ensure that all front-of-the-house staff is taken care of. Tipping out is great for the front-of-the-house, but what about the hard-working kitchen staff? Recently the dessert menu at Harvest in Louisville offered the opportunity to “send your thanks for a great meal to a thirsty crew” with a round of beers for the cooks for $10.

Along those lines, flat-rate tipping

policies as well as no-tipping guidelines are showing up at restaurants all across the country for this very reason. If a menu or restaurant says to tip a flat rate or to not tip, follow the instructions.

• It is never acceptable to stiff your server. If the service you received from your primary waiter/waitress isn’t up to snuff, ask to speak to the manager. In most cases, the waitstaff isn’t responsible for the length of time it takes to get your food. They’re also not responsible for the taste of your food. If the management winds up comping you a portion of your bill based on your grievance and it’s not the fault of the waitstaff, base your tip on what the bill would have been.

If you’re stiffing your server because you can’t afford to leave a tip, then you can’t afford to eat at that particular restaurant and you need to start making different dining choices.

• There’s a reason most restaurants automatically add a gratuity to large parties. More often than not, waitstaff get short-changed in those situations. Put yourself in that person’s shoes and take the time to treat him or her fairly.

• Don’t ever leave your tip in the form of a wet, wadded-up pile of bills on the table.

• Most servers at upscale restaurants take pride in what they do, oftentimes going above and beyond just covering the bases. Did your waiter know the menu front to back, offering beverage pairing suggestions and refilling that tasty bread basket as well as the water glasses without prompting? Exceptional service like that deserves to be recognized with a great gratuity. ©

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Staff Recommendations

p h o t o : p r o v i d e d b y f c c i n c i n n at i

WEDNESDAY 12

ATTRACTION: MANDELA: THE JOURNEY TO UBUNTU is a photographic exploration of the life of Nelson Mandela at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. See feature on page 26.

ONSTAGE: EQUUS Peter Shaffer’s searing British drama from 1973 is the story of Dr. Martin Dysart, a serious-minded psychiatrist struggling to treat Alan Strang, a 17-year-old boy suffering from a pathological religious fascination with horses. He is presented for treatment after he horrifically blinds six horses with an ice pick in a barn in rural Suffolk, England, an act that requires the doctor to plumb the depths of the boy’s obsession while wrestling with his own demons and existential questions. The show’s 1975 Broadway production won several Tony Awards, including the season’s best play. Through April 23. $26 adults; $23 students/seniors. Warsaw Federal Incline Theater, 801 Matson Place, East Price Hill, cincinnatilandmarkproductions.com. — RICK PENDER EVENT: PLAY WITH YOUR LUNCH: A NEW YORK STATE OF MIND Looking for a little noontime diversion?

Head to Memorial Hall for Play with Your Lunch, an afternoon event featuring four performances from some of Cincinnati’s finest actors — Susan Emerson, Justin McCombs, Barry Mulholland and Brooke Steele — performing pieces that in some way relate to New York. Expect to laugh (and cry) as they tackle short works from playwrights John Guare, David Ives and Israel Horovitz. Includes a catered lunch from Silverglades with a New York delistyle twist. Noon Wednesday. $35. Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, memorialhallotr.com. — MAIJA ZUMMO

THURSDAY 13

ART: REUSED + RECYCLED AT C-LINK GALLERY Held in conjunction with Brazee Street Studios’ first Open Studios event of the year, as well as their sixth-annual art material swap, C-LINK Gallery hosts an opening reception for a group show titled Reused + Recycled featuring work made with recycled materials. Using found objects as a jumping-off point for art-making and creativity, participating artists include

SPORTS: FC CINCINNATI HOME OPENER FC Cincinnati kicks off its home season against Saint Louis Football Club this Saturday, and to say the anticipation is high would be an understatement. FC Cincinnati shattered the United Soccer League’s single-game attendance record for regular season games last September against Orlando City with an estimated 24,376 fans, and Nippert Stadium drew an average 17,296 fans per game. The club is coming into only its second season with season ticket sales topping 11,000 — nearly double last year’s 6,000. We could very well see FC Cincinnati becoming one of Major League Soccer’s newest team additions in the coming years, and speculation has been thrown around as to where to build a new stadium. For now, the team is set to christen a recent $2 million renovation of Nippert, which widened the field to meet MLS and international standards. 7 p.m. Saturday. $5-$30. Nippert Stadium, 2700 Bearcat Way, Clifton Heights, fccincinnati.com. — MONROE TROMBLY

Andrew Neyer, Paige Wideman, Jonpaul Smith and Sara Caswell-Pearce. Opening reception 6-8 p.m. Thursday. Through May 4. Free. C-LINK, 4426 Brazee St., Oakley, c-linklocal.com. — MARIA SEDA-REEDER COMEDY: STEVE GILLESPIE Middle-aged men irritate comedian Steve Gillespie. “They have shit and that bugs me,” he tells an audience. “I know. I get it.

You have a house and a family and a job; go away. I’m bitter. I’ve got nothing.” Well, he has only two things: “I’ve got credit card debt and my friend’s Netflix password. It’s not even his password; it’s his cousin’s.

We’re all using like one of 10 Netflix logins.

If you have your own Netflix login, you’re in the Illuminati.” Middle-aged men also often ask him how much money he makes doing stand-up. “You want to hear I’m struggling so you can feel better about that soul-sucking sales job that you devoted your life to? You can’t fill the hole in your soul with my problems.” Thursday-Saturday. $8-$14. Go Bananas, 8410 Market Place Lane, Montgomery, gobananascomedy.com. — P.F. WILSON

FRIDAY 14

MUSIC: Multi-instrumentalist KISHI BASHI plays the 20th Century Theater.

See Sound Advice on page 36.

MUSIC: Alt Country group SON VOLT plays the Southgate House Revival. See Sound Advice on page 37.

SATURDAY 15

EVENT: BEER-LINGUAL Love is universal, especially in regard to fellow humans and, well, beer. Kung Food Chu’s AmerAsia is celebrating that love with a boozy block party in support of immigrants in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, with proceeds from the event benefitting the English Language Learning Foundation.

Beginning at 2 p.m., breweries including CONTINUES ON PAGE 22

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 2 1

MUSIC: Experimental musician ARRINGTON DE DIONYSO brings his This Saxophone Kills Fascists Free Jazz protest band to MOTR Pub. See Sound Advice on page 36.

SATURDAY 15

photo : haile y bollinger

orytelling An Evening of St in Clifton Saturday, April 22 7:00 - 9:00 PM

Storytellers from across the region tell stories in a variety of traditions and styles Omope Carter Daboiku (Dayton, Ohio) is a nationally renowned storyteller and will share stories from the diverse cultures of Appalachia Cheryl Maxine Couch (Cincinnati , Ohio) is a local actress and storyteller and will be performing a selection of original stories Jim Flanagan (Circleville, Ohio) is a national award winning storyteller and will tell a collection of both funny and very scary stories Kevin Cordi ( Columbus, Ohio) is an international award winning storyteller and author, specializing in world-tales, story craft, and imaginative thinking...he will also serve as the evening’s MC

FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE! FRE E! FREE ! FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE!

MONDAY 17

EVENT: GREATER CINCINNATI RESTAURANT WEEK Cincinnati foodies, get ready: CityBeat is partnering with area restaurants to put together memorable meals and one-of-a-kind dining experiences during Greater Cincinnati Restaurant Week. Through April 23, restaurants including Bistro Grace, Kaze OTR, Moerlein Lager House, Somm Wine Bar, The Golden Lamb, Metropole and many more will offer exclusive $35 three-course menus — just ask for the Restaurant Week menu. Bring your friends, make a date night of it or treat yourself to dinner and a drink from sponsor Maker’s Mark. Through April 23. $35 prix fixe.

Find a full list of locations and menus at citybeat.com. — CHRISTINA DROBNEY

FROM PAGE 21

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MadTree, Rhinegeist, Braxton and Urban Artifact will serve up brews in the parking lot adjacent to AmerAsia alongside food, games, vendors, live music and a raffle for baskets filled with rare and specialty beers.

Head inside the restaurant at 4 p.m. for a tap takeover with Three Floyds, Prairie Artisan Ales and Evil Twin Brewing. 2 p.m.

Saturday. Free admission. AmerAsia, 521 Madison Ave., Covington, Ky., facebook. com/kungfoodchu. — EMILY BEGLEY EVENT: GET LIT! CINCINNATI Get Lit! Cincinnati is an independent literature fair and book drive that offers the unique opportunity to meet and chat with some of the area’s most talented indie writers, all under one roof. Partnering with Pose Mortem Press, which specializes in publishing on a small, immediate and local scale, the day will feature breakout sessions intertwined with readings and performances, including sessions that deal with questions of self-publishing, indie screenwriting and the intricate process of poetry. Bring a new or gently used book to donate to Rockdale Academy in Avondale and you’ll receive a raffle ticket

for the chance to win some prizes. Find a full schedule of events, authors and small press participants online. Noon-6 p.m.

Saturday. Free. Urban Artifact, 1660 Blue Rock St., Northside, getlitcincy.com.

— MONROE TROMBLY EVENT: HOLLER FESTIVAL: A CELEBRATION OF KENTUCKY CRAFT BEER AND SPIRITS Several local breweries are looking to extend the tradition of camaraderie, fellowship and cooperation commonly associated with Kentucky bourbon distilleries to the craft beer and whiskey scene. Enter the second-annual Holler Festival. With a state that has nearly five million barrels of bourbon aging as we speak, it’s hard to think of a better cause to get behind (and reap the hoppy spoils of). Both general and VIP admission include drink tickets and light bites courtesy of McHale’s Catering.

VIP perks includes access to heavy hors d’oeuvres, exclusive tastings of New Riff’s OKI bourbon and a commemorative tasting glass. 6-10 p.m. Saturday. $50; $75 VIP. New Riff Distilling Event Center. 24 Distillery Way, Newport, Ky., newriffdistilling.com. — LAUREN MORETTO

photo : provided by sundry and vice

Discover why Anderson Township was again voted Greater Cincinnati’s Best Suburban Neighborhood! play, work, and call home.

Anderson Township is a first-rate place to

! n o s r e d n A in e n o y r e or ev f g in h t e m o s is e r e h T TUESDAY 18

EVENT: PLANNED PARENTHOOD FUNDRAISER Do you like alcohol and reproductive rights? Of course you do. Put on your best pussy hat and head to Sundry and Vice on Tuesday to stand with Planned Parenthood. One hundred percent — yes, 100 percent — of the evening’s proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio. That means the more you drink, the more Sundry and Vice gives. Added bonus: The bar will be debuting its new spring/summer cocktail menu.

Planned Parenthood is at risk of being defunded by the current administration, so the healthcare provider needs public support now more than ever. In 2016 alone, Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio served more than 20,000 patients seeking inclusive and affordable well-woman visits, pap smears, breast exams, HIV tests, STI tests, pregnancy tests, birth control and more. (Full disclosure: I am one of more than 30 local men and women acting as host/hostess for the event, which basically means I will be there drinking in a feminist-themed T-shirt.) 5-9 p.m. Tuesday. Free admission. Sundry and Vice, 18 W. 13th St., Over-the-Rhine, sundryandvice.com. — MAIJA ZUMMO

TUESDAY 18

At the core of township life, a variety of civic events, Anderson Center activities, local festivals and new restaurants and businesses lead to a unique sense of community found here.

Find out more at:

AndersonTownship.org AndersonCenterEvents.org FB: Anderson Township, Ohio

good general sense of Generationals’ habitforming magnificence. 8 p.m. Tuesday. $12; $15 day of show. Southgate House Revival, 111 E. Sixth St., Newport, Ky., southgatehouse.com. — MIKE BREEN

WEDNESDAY 19

EVENT: The CINCYSINGS corporate choir finale will be held at the Aronoff Center. See feature on page 27.

MUSIC: Kelley Deal and Mike Montgomery’s R. RING kicks off its Ignite the Rest tour at the Southgate House Revival. See interview on page 34.

ONGOING shows ONSTAGE Small Engine Repair Clifton Performance Theatre, Clifton (through April 15)

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 2 3

MUSIC: GENERATIONALS With catchy-as-the-bird-flu songs and a groovy Indie-Rock-meets-Electro-Pop vibe that’s equally enchanting, New Orleansspawned duo Generationals has built up a loyal following since forming in 2008, culminating with 2014’s fantastic Alix album. Fans with pent-up anticipation for new music from the twosome have so far been greatly rewarded in 2017 — there have been three singles released this year that are even better than the Alix material, and Generationals is currently in the midst of a nationwide spring headlining tour. It’s not hard to hear Generationals’ appeal and the sky-high potential their songs have to go even further — their music is the meeting point between ’80s New Wave verve, contemporary Dance/Electronic sonics and hip Indie-culture cool. Imagine if MGMT had made good on the promise of its first album and also grew and expanded its sound without alienating its fans and you have a

Tree-lined neighborhoods help define a community of excellent schools and public services, outstanding parks and trails, and numerous shopping opportunities. Anderson also offers easy access to Downtown and around town.

arts & culture

Liberating the Mysterious R. Gerard

Celebrated Mid-Century design merchant Rob Hofbauer shows his secret alter ego in new gallery

BY KATHY SCHWARTZ

PHOTO : haile y bollinger

2 4 • C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 , 2 0 1 7

R

ob Hofbauer, the owner of Leftcoast Modern vintage furnishings in East Walnut Hills, long ago selected MidCentury design as his defining style and found success with it. But he has another lesser-known artistic inclination, a kind of alter ego. He hasn’t flaunted it — until now.

Introducing the mysterious R. Gerard.

It’s the name Hofbauer, a part-time artist, uses when painting for his own pleasure and for jobs with locally made movies like Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead, the Patrick Wilson-Jessica Biel feature A Kind of Murder and The Life and Death of John Gotti with John Travolta.

At the beginning of the year, R. Gerard (Hofbauer’s first initial and middle name) also became the name of his newest enterprise: a by-appointment-only gallery on the edge of Over-the-Rhine, where he can paint and curate his best Mid-Century finds.

Almost as soon as Leftcoast Modern opened five years ago on Fourth Street downtown, the original store and its Spring Grove Avenue warehouse became the city’s source for furnishings from the 1950s-’70s, as well as newer pieces in the Modernist style — everything from atomic kitsch to prime offerings from Knoll and Milo Baughman.

It’s where the Miles Ahead team discovered all the props they needed, plus someone to quickly paint original artwork for the film.

Two years ago, Leftcoast Modern moved to its current location on Woodburn Avenue, where it also opened an annex three doors down. Hofbauer likes that the East Walnut Hills location, though busy, attracts curious patrons from Woodburn Brewery and passersby during the Friday night Walk on Woodburn events.

“I answer questions all day long,” Hofbauer says. He is constantly moving credenzas, sofas, posters and pottery in and out, yet he knows the history of every piece.

But Hofbauer had wished there was more time to turn a brief answer about a desk into an in-depth discussion about design. So to offer an educational and social after-hours experience for serious collectors, he moved his own art and pricier furniture and accessories out of that business and into his new 2,000-square-foot space at 1403 Central Parkway.

If the purple beast on the building’s exterior (part of a mural by neighbor ChoreMonster) doesn’t elicit a “Wow,” then the first look inside the bright R. Gerard Gallery will.

The place is stocked floor to ceiling with groupings of mod abstract paintings and sleek furnishings. “It’s filled with my favorite furnishings, which inspire my art, so what you put around you is all about form and

The new R. Gerard Gallery allows Rob Hofbauer to showcase his paintings made for films. beauty,” Hofbauer says. Though some items, such as an architect’s model used as a prop in Murder, are not for sale, Hofbauer emphasizes that he’s not running a museum. “I still want to sell,” he says. “Enjoy it, sell it and get something else.”

It takes a moment to soak in the surroundings. The set of Alcatraz green “prison bars” that he painted for Miles Ahead hangs on one wall, but oranges, golds, browns and reds seem to dominate most of the art and upholstery. In a tabletop case, Hofbauer has placed two pieces of 1907 Amphora pottery by Paul Dachsel, one of which he’s seamlessly repairing.

Though the vessels are not Mid-Century, their futuristic details and glazes clearly influenced later artists, including those at local Rookwood Pottery.

Hofbauer opens a Dunbar desk drawer to pull out a book and flip through more Amphora examples, but he could just as easily ad-lib an expert presentation about the down-filled Herman Miller Eames chair nearby.

“This (talk time) is what I want to do in Over-the-Rhine,” he says.

Hofbauer, a Chicago native, surprisingly didn’t major in art or design at Southern Illinois University, studying education instead.

He took art his freshman through junior

years of high school, but not senior year. By then, “I could paint anywhere; I didn’t need a class,” he says. As a teen, he innocently signed his abstracts “RH ’63” (his birth year), and sold them to people who initially thought the works were created by a mid-20th-century painter. His graduating class voted him most likely to become a famous artist.

At SIU, Hofbauer was exposed to the influence of onetime professor R. Buckminster Fuller, who popularized the geodesic dome.

“His forward thinking about art inspired me to keep (my paintings) abstract and incorporate art into a lifestyle,” Hofbauer says.

Hofbauer created his R. Gerard signature about five years ago as he started painting 1950s- and ’60s-style Pop Art and abstracts for movies and wanted to curate those works.

“It’s my Ziggy Stardust, as if I were David Bowie,” the onetime music storeowner says of his alter ego. “And someday he’ll die, as if I were Bowie.”

But before he kills off R. Gerard the way Bowie retired Ziggy, Hofbauer — who is 53 and says he feels a decade younger — is intent on building a legacy for both his entrepreneurial and creative personas. Though he’s scaling back mid-level items in favor of higher-end objects, this T-shirt-and-jeans guy says he’s not counting on any piece to be his retirement

fund. He will keep prices reasonable.

Whether he is working with paintings, home decor or film props, Hofbauer takes pride in supplying pieces that are periodcorrect and memorable. He provided 1970sera furniture for the office Robert Redford is using while making The Old Man and the Gun, and says he wouldn’t be surprised if some ends up on screen.

Hofbauer has been dealing in Modern furniture and art for 15 years, starting in Sarasota, Fla., and has collected such pieces for twice as long. Yet there were years when he did not paint. “Trying to please myself is exhausting,” he says. But once he began painting for movies, he started to enjoy his own art more.

“People see in my art what I don’t see on a conscious level,” he says. “When you paint abstracts, you open up people’s perception of art and movement and color. I wanted a third gallery for a place that inspires me and where I can step back 20, 30 feet and see art the way it’s meant to be seen.”

For an R. GERARD GALLERY appointment, visit Rob Hofbauer noon-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday at Leftcoast Modern, 2809 Woodburn Ave., East Walnut Hills. More info: facebook.com/ leftcoastmoderncincinnati.

a&c curtain call

Standouts at Louisville’s Humana Festival

BY RICK PENDER

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 2 5

I like to be surprised. That’s why I enjoy life while providing plenty of humor and annually attending the Humana Festival of humanity along the way.

New American Plays at the Actors Theatre Another Humana production, Molly Smith of Louisville, where six full-length producMetzler’s Cry It Out, portrayed a pair of very tions are premiered. different new-neighbor moms — Jessie and Advance descriptions tantalize but often Lina — cooped up with their babies, coming don’t do justice to the world premieres. I’ve together for coffee during naptime. The attended this celebration of new plays for title references a child-rearing philosophy two decades and seen more than 100 proof letting babies wail until they’re worn out ductions. Some I vividly remember; others instead of comforting them. But it applies to have evaporated entirely. more than babies, and there’s some serious, This year, I was pretty certain that deep-seated wailing going on elsewhere in Chelsea Marcantel’s Airness would be one the moms’ neighborhood with another new of those that wouldn’t stick. It’s about an air mom and her beleaguered husband. guitar competition. Here’s the published description: “When Nina enters her first air guitar competition, she thinks winning will be easy.

But as she befriends a group of charismatic nerds all committed to becoming the next champion, she discovers that there’s more to this art form than playing pretend. Following her mission to shred or be shredded, Airness is an exuberant reminder that everything we need to rock is already inside us.” Come on, I thought. Air guitar? Really?

Andrea Syglowski (left) and Jessica Dickey in Airness The play’s setting — a PHOTO : bill brymer well-stocked dive bar with a tiny stage — didn’t promise anything more than a fun ride through Truth be told, this struck me as a soap some Pop tunes with guys faking dramatic opera that I’d have a hard time connectmoves. But this was surprise No. 1 for me. ing with. Surprise No. 2. The quality of the “My favorite thing is a small tribe of actresses playing the two moms — Jessica people who have their own rules and valDickey as Jessie, an attorney on leave ues that are more important to them than from a demanding law firm, and Andrea anything outside the tribe,” Marcantel says.

Syglowski as Lina, a hospital clerk shar“It just so happens that this tribe wears a ing an apartment with a new baby, her lot of leotards and wigs and jumps around boyfriend and his likely alcoholic mother onstage. I started thinking about what a fun — made it relevant. While from different world that would be to live in.” worlds, Jessie and Lina find commonality.

She dug into the six “pillars” of air guitar, Cry It Out (publicized as “a darkly funny the rules guitarists live by: artistic merit, comedy”) went well beyond my expectaoriginality, feeling, technical ability, chations, especially when Jessie and Lina risma and “airness.” Each character came to disagree about another woman who seems epitomize one of these, with “airness” being disinterested in mothering her baby. The the most difficult to define. Her script notes play has a lot of humor, carried off in a suggest it’s “the extent to which a perforwonderfully naturalistic way by Dickey and mance transcends the imitation of real guitar Syglowski (the production was staged by and becomes an art form in and of itself.” guest director Davis McCallum), but it ends Marcantel crafted a set of characters on a somber note that leaves a poignant with grand personas and gave them very question hanging in the air about the impact human backstories. Nina, the show’s cenof mothers’ decisions on their children. tral character, evolves from a guitarist in a My assessments of other Humana Festival real band whose initial motive is personal plays can be found online. But Airness and and selfish to someone who attains selfCry It Out were useful reminders that one of awareness that validates her performance. the genuine pleasures of theater is meeting That’s a pretty solid message, and this and coming to understand people with very production, staged by Actors Theatre’s different perspectives from your own. associate artistic director Meredith CONTACT RICK PENDER: rpender@citybeat.com McDonough, brings these characters to

a&c visual art

Mandela’s Legacy at the Freedom Center

BY CASSIE LIPP

801 MATSON PLACE EAST PRICE HILL | CINCINNATI

APRIL 6 - THROUGH -

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INFO

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When Matthew Willman was 14 years old world and, by walking into a space, they’re in 1994, the 75-year-old Nelson Mandela now standing back in Africa.” became president of South Africa. It was “Ubuntu” is a Nguni Bantu word that the end of the country’s apartheid system means “humanity to others” or “I am what of government, which had slowly but I am because of who we all are.” Although sometimes violently been coming apart the exhibit specifically follows South Afrias a white minority tried to limit the black ca’s journey, Willman hopes the universality majority’s rights. Though Willman knew of Mandela’s life will serve as a platform nothing about politics as a young boy, he for the American audience. They can then was compelled by Mandela’s grandfatherconsider what Mandela would do to solve like, anti-racist presence. current issues. The overall message of the “Mandela was the only man capable of exhibit is one of hope, looking for ways to taking the reins in our country and drawing preach tolerance and unify all people. people together instead of creating anger, violence and retribution,” Willman says.

His fascination with Mandela did not stop, and he finally got to meet the man some nine years later.

At that time, Willman lived on Robben Island in South Africa to photograph its historic structures. It had been the home of the country’s maximum-security prison for political prisoners, and Mandela had spent 18 of his 27 years in jail for opposing apartheid there.

Photograph of Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island prison cell In doing his work, Willman P H O T O : M atth e w W i l l m a n earned the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s attention. He was then hired to document the final years For Willman and Mandela, the term of Mandela’s life. He died in 2013 at age 95. “ubuntu” is more about the process of achievMore than 40 photographs taken by Willing a goal, not the goal itself, Willman says. man are now on exhibit in Mandela: The Like Mandela, those who strive for peace Journey to Ubuntu at the National Underand justice may be imprisoned or even killed ground Railroad Freedom Center. It takes before their goals can be fully realized. visitors on a journey through Mandela’s life “(Mandela) set such a high bar in South and South Africa’s route to racial equality.

Africa that we are still trying to attain Willman came to Cincinnati for the exhibit’s those high ideals he worked so hard for,” recent installation.

Willman says.

“Mandela reminds us what it is like to be Aside from perseverance, the most human,” he says. important lesson visitors will learn from The photographic journey begins in the exhibit is forgiveness. Mandela: The Mandela’s birthplace in the village of Mvezo Journey to Ubuntu stresses why Mandela and follows him to the cities of Johannesforgave his oppressors and encouraged burg and Pretoria, where Mandela and other the rest of the world to do so. In his eyes, anti-apartheid activists went on trial in 1963, to forgive meant to say the atrocities of and finally to Robben Island. Four of the the past will never happen again. Knowing photos on display were personally chosen by history is important, Willman says, and is a Mandela to represent the 18 years he spent reason for this exhibit — forgetting about imprisoned there. Perhps the most moving the past will lead to repeating injustices that photo is a simple close-up of Mandela’s hand. once happened.

The exhibit also includes artifacts from Jamie Glavic, the Freedom Center’s Mandela’s life on loan from the Nelson director of marketing and communications, Mandela Foundation. They include recorded says, “People are going to leave this exhibit segments of the famous “I Am Prepared to thinking, ‘How can I make my corner of the Die” speech he gave from the defendant’s world a better place?’ ” dock in a Pretoria courtroom and a replica of MANDELA: THE JOURNEY TO UBUNTU is on Mandela’s prison cell on Robben Island. exhibit at the National Underground Railroad “We want the audience to be able to walk Freedom Center through Aug. 20. Tickets/more into a space (and feel) that they’ve left Cininfo: freedomcenter.org. cinnati,” Willman says. “They’ve left their

a&c ONSTAGe

Corporate Choirs Sing Out for Cincinnati

BY RICK PENDER

MASTERWORKS AND BEYOND WITH THE CCM BALLET ENSEMBLE

JIANG QI AND DEIRDRE CARBERRY, CO-DIRECTORS Featuring George Balanchine’s VALSE-FANTAISIE with a restaging by guest artist Viki Psihoyos, a world premiere created by Alabama Ballet Associate Director Roger Van Fleteren and new works by CCM faculty members Michael Tevlin and André Megerdichian.

COLLEGE-CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC

DANCE

APRIL 13-15, 2017 TICKETS: $27-31 adults $17-20 non-UC students $15-18 UC students VALSE-FANTAISIE is performed by permission of the George Balanchine Trust.

Image courtesy of Will Brenner.

513-556-4183 boxoff@uc.edu ccm.uc.edu

CCM Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor

Mainstage Season Production Sponsor

THE DANCE DEPARTMENT GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE SUPPORT OF THE CORBETT ENDOWMENT AT CCM. Dance Sponsor

Rosemary and Mark Schlachter

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 2 7

Since the 1850s, Cincinnatians have health network. It’s an eclectic group of found ways to sing together. Blame it on employees from all generations. those German immigrants who flocked Since forming, the group has performed here in the mid-19th century — they came for other hospital events. But CincySings is a from a rich tradition of choral singing special treat. Asked if they’ll return next year, and they laid the foundation for the city’s Clenney enthusiastically says: “Definitely!” legendary May Festival, the annual choral Drew Lachey — an SCPA grad, Broadmusical celebration that continues today. way veteran and onetime member of lateSinging expressed civic and cultural pride, ’90s boy band 98 Degrees — emcees the and that same spirit has inspired CincySfinals. “The arts enrich our lives and bring ings, a celebratory annual competition now people together,” he says. “Where else can in its fourth year. ArtsWave, the nonprofit you find someone from legal competing planner, promoter and fundraiser for against someone from accounting, competregional arts organizations, manages it. ing against someone from sales?”

To heighten awareness of ArtsWave’s annual campaign for funds, local companies assemble employee singing groups to represent them with vocal performances.

Some employers, including Procter & Gamble, have internal sing-offs, inviting employees to vote and select a team to represent their company in the final public event, set for 7:30 p.m. on April 19 (next Wednesday) at the Aronoff Center for the Arts’ Procter & Gamble Hall.

At the finale, 10 teams — Christ Hospital’s 98.6 Degrees singers also provide percussion. narrowed from a field of P H O T O : l i s a w o lt e r 21 — will present five-minute performances of songs drawn from Pop, Soul, Gospel, Rock & Roll and Ever the quick wit, he adds, “A lawyer, more. Many of them spice up their moment in accountant and salesperson walk into a the spotlight with costumes, choreography theater... insert punch line here.” and comedy. This year’s teams represent Four celebrity judges will determine the Macy’s, Cincinnati Insurance Companies, winners: Local 12 anchor Bob Herzog, CinDuke Energy, P&G, The Christ Hospital, Unicinnati Pops conductor John Morris Russell versity of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Children’s and Jazz musician Kathy Wade are back to Hospital Medical Center, Sibcy Cline, Westevaluate teams’ talent, cohesiveness, showern & Southern and BB&T Bank. manship and creativity. The Enquirer’s arts It’s the first time for the latter, a superwriter Janelle Gelfand, from CincySings’ regional bank new to Greater Cincinnati. official media sponsor, joins them this year.

“We didn’t know what to expect, but it’s been The audience will also get involved, a lot of fun,” says Virginia Copley, BB&T’s determining a Fan Favorite award. It’s Northern Kentucky private team direcdriven by funds raised via live voting during tor. “We have eight associates from across the April 19 event. While the judges tally the bank — branch managers, compliance, their votes, members of the audience can mortgage and wealth. It’s been a neat way select their choice by using a social media to get to know other people who have a platform and contributing $1 per vote. passion outside our jobs.”

CincySings is more than just an attentionThe all-female team, BB & Glee, will getting event. It uses the power of the arts perform a medley of ’60s girl-group songs — especially Cincinnati’s rich choral history — dressed as the Pink Ladies from Grease. to create community. The event has a proven Copley says BB&T wants employees to learn, positive outcome in its ability to employ the grow and be fulfilled by their work, and adds, arts in building employee engagement for “CincySings has certainly accomplished that.” participating companies. In fact, the program The Christ Hospital is part of CincySings has become a national model that Americans for the second year. Karen Clenney, human for the Arts encourages other cities to follow. resources professional and the team orgaCINCYSINGS finale will be held April 19 at the nizer for the group named 98.6 Degrees, says Aronoff Center for the Arts. Tickets/more info: the dozen singers come from 12 different cincinnatiarts.org. departments and shifts across the hospital’s

CCM’S MAINSTAGE DANCE SERIES PROUDLY PRESENTS

a&c film

The Burden of Being ‘Gifted’

BY T T STERN-ENZI

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LOAFERS loafers. afer com afers.

The first time I saw the trailer for Gifted, could have easily remained a sentimental the new film from director Marc Webb ((500) tearjerker. But I would beg audiences to Days of Summer), I was instantly reminded follow director Webb and screenwriter Flynn of the soft spot I harbor for Jodie Foster’s beneath the surface trappings.

Little Man Tate. Foster’s directorial debut The timely arrival of Frank’s mother presented a brief glimpse behind the mysEvelyn (Lindsay Duncan), the domineering tique of her own beautiful mind. On screen, Brit who hones in with furious and righteous as the single mother of a brilliant child, she intent on Mary as the successor to her mothradiated a fierce intelligence, the ticking of er’s capabilities, provides the antagonist an inner clock set to its own rhythm, and I we’ve been waiting for. Yet, as the familial wondered what it had taken in her to develop dispute between mother and son escalates and bring forth that quality into the world. into the inevitable courtroom battle, the Of course, you could argue that we creative team sneaks in several subtle twists shouldn’t attempt to read too much about a well-known director’s or actor’s life story into his/her films. Which is part of what makes Gifted a safer narrative case study.

There is no direct link or basis to a true story, just the emotional and psychological questions of the narrative.

The film’s screenplay was a 2014 selection of the Black List, an annual survey by film-industry executives of their favorite undeveloped scripts. Written by Lima, Ohio native Tom Flynn, it follows Chris Evans and Mckenna Grace in new drama Gifted the efforts of Frank (Chris P H O T O : w i l s o n w e b b / t w e n t i e th c e n t u r y f o x f i l m c o r p.

Evans), a single guy struggling to raise his young niece that upset our expectations. Throughout the Mary (Mckenna Grace — a kindergarten proceedings, Frank and Evelyn continue mini-me of Emma Watson), who happens to have intimate talks, catching up on one to be a mathematics prodigy. Frank has another’s lives with some degree of genuretreated from the academic towers and ine warmth and appreciation. Evans and think-tanks of Boston, settling down with Duncan remind us that these two are indeed Mary in Florida, where he repairs boat family and that those bonds, while strained, engines and hopes to raise the girl in as have not been completely severed. normal an environment as possible.

But the real gift of the narrative is the We come to realize that Mary’s mother focus on Frank, which presents him as a was also special, a gifted mathematician bright light in his own right. Before taking destined to solve a theoretical problem and over Mary’s care, Frank had an academic thus alter our understanding of science and career and ample time to enjoy the fruits of technology. But she lived such a sheltered his more personable attributes. By the time existence that she had trouble juggling this we see him, though, little of that former life higher purpose with the greater mysteries and man remains; instead Frank subsists on of human interaction. guilt and duty. Evans richly expresses all of Sometime soon after giving birth to Mary, these facets of Frank, even redirecting our she arrived at Frank’s doorstep with her associations of him as the perfectly steadfast infant daughter and a precarious plan she superhero Captain America. The toned set in motion when she decided to take her physique is there but, in this case, it bears an own life. impossible weight and vulnerability.

Thanks to a haunted performance by All of this transforms Frank into the ideal Evans, we appreciate the burden of Frank’s nurturing presence, but he’s also evolving. position. Six years later, he’s eking out a meaNo studio would ever dream of creating a ger living, safeguarding secrets about Mary sequel to a movie like Gifted, but I would and himself. His landlord (Octavia Spencer) love to catch up with Frank a few years keeps Mary Friday nights. But his desire for anonymity doesn’t last — he and Mary from now to see how this walking wound attract the attention of her kindergarten of a man with a beautiful mind of his own teacher Bonnie (Jenny Slate), who detects has grown. Maybe Evans and Foster should their obvious and quite extraordinary gifts. consider a marvelous teaming up. (Opens Gifted, under more traditional studio care, wide Wednesday.) (PG-13) Grade: B

ON SCREEN A Lowly ‘Queen’

BY T T STERN-ENZI

The gradual fall of empires seems to be the subject of Queen of the Desert, Werner Herzog’s latest film. The decline of the Roman Empire is referenced several times. The British Empire, such as it was, doesn’t quite realize it was likely already over during the setting of the film. And it could be argued that, despite the fact that Queen offers no obvious or direct nods to the current state of affairs, Herzog is holding up a mirror and begging us to reflect on international matters.

All of this would be quite welcome and intriguing, if the story — which captures the broad details of the life of Gertrude Bell, the British adventurer who traveled extensively in the Middle East in the early 20th century, writing and helping form the nation of Iraq — hadn’t reduced her life to a wispy romantic ribbon wafting across the desert plains.

While it makes sense to cast Nicole Kidman as Bell — she definitely brings a clipped, regal bearing that matches Bell’s stubborn independence nicely — she is ultimately wasted in a role that renders her as little more than an object of affection for every man that happens upon her.

We are supposed to marvel at the idea that Bell had great loves — men like T.E. Lawrence (Robert Pattinson), who saw her has a kindred spirit and was attracted to her piercing intellect and unquenchable curiosity. The film tells us many times that Bell loves the people of the region, but doesn’t show us this affection often enough to signal the growing respect she earns.

In place of that, Queen of the Desert gives us shots of her small team on camels wandering sandy dunes in between episodic bouts of sappy journal entries dedicated to the man of the moment.

Early on, Bell’s father (David Calder) expresses his dream of a changing world where women might lead nations. Based on Herzog’s telling of her tale, he might have sadly seen his daughter’s journey as just another sign (or a likely cause) of a collapsing empire. (Opens Friday at the AMC Newport on the Levee 20.)

(PG-13) Grade: D

a&c television

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Keeps Growing

BY JAC KERN

What started as a niche reality show on While none were in Orlando on that fateful little-known LGBTQ network Logo in 2009 night last May, some had recently perhas transformed into a runaway hit, and formed there and one would have been at as RuPaul’s Drag Race (8 p.m. Fridays, Pulse had it not been for a reschedule. The VH1) evolves, the show is staying true to its queens discussed the significance of this quirky, queer roots. attack and how it’s important to be “visibly With two queens eliminated and a previqueer” now more than ever. “Drag is a ous season’s contestant returned, Drag Race brilliant place to work through feelings of Season 9 is officially underway. The show’s pain,” Sasha Velour remarked. “Girl, drag is move to VH1 marks more than just a channel therapy!” Aja responded. change. The more recognizable network In this week’s episode of the reality helped usher in nearly 1 million viewers show/therapy session, the queens channel for last month’s season premiere, the most their inner Savannah Guthries in a morning watched episode in Drag Race history (or herstory, as RuPaul likes to say).

Creator, host and one of the world’s most recognizable drag queens RuPaul insists that drag is not and never can be “mainstream,” and while it is important to respect the art form’s history as something that had to be underground, there’s no denying this once subversive subculture has been elevated to a new level today.

Drag is now being recognized by those outside of the Contestants on new season of the hit series RuPaul’s Drag Race community like never before, P H O T O : c o u r t e s y o f V H1 and its commercial potential is just beginning to be tapped.

With that acceptance comes appropriation talk show challenge. Guest judges Naya (hello, bachelorette parties taking over gay Rivera (Glee) and Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman bars), but also genuine appreciation. There (UnREAL) join the judges’ panel. are so many different types of drag and reasons for using this form of expression that audiences have come to learn about via Drag The Leftovers (Season Premiere, 9 p.m.

Race. The show is in its ninth season, for Sunday, HBO) – This final season begins crying out loud, with no indication of slowing three years after the incident in Miracle, down (in fact, casting is open for Season 10).

Texas, finding Justin Theroux’s Kevin Sorry, Ru, but I’d call that mainstream.

Garvey returning to his role of police chief.

Like any good show, Drag Race’s appeal As the seventh anniversary of the Sudden lies in its endless entertainment, and there Departure nears, people fear another mysteis a lot of humor. You’ll find queens who rious event is looming. specialize in transforming their masculine Girls (Series Finale, 10 p.m. Sunday, HBO) features into feminine illusions, some who – Hannah starts a new chapter. Titled “Latchlip sync and dance better than a song’s ing,” a breastfeeding term, the series finale original performer and creative innovators will serve as a traditional epilogue, creator who serve as living art, but the best drag and star Lena Dunham has said. Regardless queens and most entertaining TV charac(and sometimes in spite) of Dunham’s offters can do a little of it all — with a heavy screen antics and the ensuing opinions that dose of comedy. swirled about her, Girls will go down as an Drag Race has real heart, too. Performexemplary show by and for millennials — ing as a female impersonator is not without and so much more. its prejudices, and the show’s contestants regularly speak on issues surrounding Veep (Season Premiere, 10:30 p.m. Sunday, being gay or trans. (While most contestants HBO) – Increasingly relevant for all the have been men, trans women are eligible, wrong reasons, Veep picks up one year after too. Drag Race has seen a number of trans Selina loses the presidency as she tries to women come out on or after the show, cement her legacy. Dan and Amy struggle to including this season’s Peppermint.) fit in at their new respective jobs.

In last week’s episode, the queens CONTACT JAC KERN: @jackern reflected on the Pulse nightclub shooting.

# I SUPPORT Fund and enjoy the arts. Donate $75+ and get 100+ exclusive deals through ArtsPass. Head to the Ballet. Take in some theatre. Root for the Reds and FC Cincinnati. “Amazing!” begins with theartswave.org.

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FOOD & DRINK

A New Type of Fusion

Lalo brings Asian flair to Latin-inspired dishes in the former Huit Craft BBQ space REVIEW BY GARIN PIRNIA

PHOTO : haile y bollinger

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curry peanut dip and a roasted pepper and piquant dark red tomato sauce.

And if all that food wasn’t enough, the platter came with a round iron skillet of queso fundido. A crispy top layer revealed corn chunks and spices inside thick cheese — so thick in fact, it was difficult to scoop up with the provided chips.

The menu is divided into tacos, burritos, tortas, rice bowls, specialty plates, soups and salads. I went with a black bean and corn quesadilla ($8) with sautéed black beans, melted Chihuahua cheese, bits of corn, kale, tomatoes and sides of sour cream and salsa.

I liked the addition of kale, which made the usually unhealthy quesadilla seem more wholesome and it added a nice crunch. I would’ve preferred it to have been cooked to a crisp; then again I like everything crispified to a pain­ staking degree.

My companion ordered the bibimbap ($10), which came in a big stone bowl, but unlike the traditional Korean version, the bowl wasn’t steaming. Instead, it’s comparable to a Mexican molcajete, a small stone bowl used to make salsa that also keeps food warm.

Lalo describes its cuisine — like chorizo-stuffed potstickers and chicken empanadas — as “Chino Latino,” an interesting marriage of Asian and Latin flavors.

For the bibimbap, you get a choice of grilled chicken, steak or pork al pastor and either fried rice, regular rice or brown rice; my friend chose steak and fried rice.

Like my quesadilla, the dish involved kale and also sliced radishes, black beans, pineapple chunks and carrots.

The steak was tender, not chewy, and complemented the rest of the bowl’s ingredients.

With our guts busted, we somehow mustered the strength to order dessert and tried the messy cheesecake flan ($4).

Flan covered the top and bottom of the cheesecake slice with meringue whipped cream on the side and a chocolate sauce drizzled over the plate.

Lalo serves a few teas, so I tried the oolong black tea, which tasted smoky and paired well with the cheesecake. At that point, people began to line up and wait and I could sense them eyeing our table.

I wanted to slowly sip on the tea but I instead gulped it.

Despite only having two waiters running around, all the food came out fast.

But if you don’t want to wait for a table, they also offer delivery through Uber Eats and local courier services.

Lalo is a good price for dinner for two, and with the immense amount of food they give you, you should have enough for leftovers.

Lalo Go: 29 E. Court St., Downtown; Call: 513-381-4848; Internet: lalocincinnati.com; Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday; noon-10 p.m. Saturday.

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 3 1

hen Latin-Asian eatery Lalo opened on Court Street in November, it joined a slew of new ventures and favorite mainstays including Queen City Exchange, Tom+Chee, AvrilBleh and the forthcoming Legal Lobster Bar. It also breathed some new life into the street’s dinner options.

The space that now holds Lalo used to be Asian barbecue spot Huit, but the owners — Tobias Harris, Trang Vo and Eduardo Reyes — rebranded and re­decorated the place while holding on to some of Huit’s signature dishes, like drunken brisket.

The team also opened Asian eatery Neuf on Main Street, a six-minute walk from Lalo. I’ve eaten at both places and think Lalo is the more innovative (and tastier) of the two.

The restaurant only holds 36 seats, including a few at the bar. Huit’s large wall murals of people eating wings and Asian barbecue have been replaced with a painted color scheme of vertical maroon, gray, yellow and white stripes. The restaurant is BYOB, so be sure to bring beer or a bottle of wine (no corkage fee).

Lalo takes reservations, but it seemed like everyone who came through the door on a recent Friday night was a walk-in, which led to a hungry wait by the time my dining companion and I left. The restaurant was so busy they actually ran out of menus and had to print more.

While alcohol isn’t on the menu, there are fun drinks like a jalapeño limeade fizz ($4). Sliced jalapeños float in the not-toosweet and not-too-spicy carbonated beverage, which would have been perfect with an added airplane-sized bottle of tequila.

If you don’t want agua fresca-like drinks, the restaurant also offers Coke products, fresh brewed iced tea, Carabello coffee and local Bip’s cream soda.

Lalo refers to itself as “Chino Latino” cuisine because Asia has a lot of Spanish and Latin influence. The best deal — and the most filling — is the appetizer platter ($17). It’s more than enough for two people, so much so that my dining partner and I almost didn’t have room for our entrées.

The platter came with white fish ceviche marinated in a pool of citrus and garnished with pickled jalapeño, cucumber, julienned carrots and mango bits, served in a martini glass.

It also contained three pillowy chicken empanadas stuffed with spicy chicken tendrils; pot stickers with chicken and chorizo; and a bowl of breakable, puffy chips served alongside salsa verde, a slow-burn

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4/12 - Wing Wednesday 60¢ House-Smoked Wings Live Music from Love Train 6-9pm

4/13 - Jazz & Wine Thursday

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$9 Wine Tasting Jazz from Steve Barone 6-9pm

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4/14 - Friday Live Music from TBA 7-10pm

4/15 - Saturday Live music from Lisak & Rowe 7-10pm

4/16 - HAPPY EASTER Brunch Specials. Closing at 4pm.

4/18 - Prime Tuesday A Savory Prime Rib Special Reilly Comisar & Friends 6-9pm 6818 Wooster Pk. Mariemont, OH 45227 (513) 561-5233

FUTURE

MAY 31 • RIVERBEND

F&D THE DISH

Look Who’s Eating: Mike Moroski INTERVIEW BY ILENE ROSS

Mike Moroski’s very public breakup with Prospect House. A number of the people who the Cincinnati Catholic school system in work here actually are all in recovery at Pros2013 didn’t stop the passionate educator pect House recovering from heroin addiction and community organizer for a split second. and other things. …I’ve been to Frisch’s with In fact, he hit the ground running with a millionaires and with my friends in Lower position at Community Matters in Lower Price Hill who make $9,000 a year, and that’s Price Hill, and a run — albeit unsuccessful my favorite part about it. Not to be melodra— for Cincinnati City Council. matic, but it is kind of like an equalizer. I get Fast forward a few years and Moroski is uncomfortable at fancier places. now the Executive Director at UpSpring, the CB: Do you always order the same thing? region’s only nonprofit exclusively serving MM: I do. I ordered a classic cheeseburger the educational needs of homeless children by mistake last week and I loved it. It was by and youth, and he is currently running for a position on the public school board. Moroski lives downtown with his wife Katie, bulldog Biggie and two cats, Eddie and Rosie.

CityBeat recently caught up with Moroski at his regular lunch spot, Frisch’s in Queensgate, where the aficionado proceeded to greet each staff member by name, point out that the china had recently been replaced and order his regular meal of salad, a Big Boy and fries, two sides of tartar sauce and Mike Moroski is a Frisch’s connoisseur.

Lawry’s seasoned salt. We PHOTO : haile y bollinger then proceeded to chat about food, what shaped his tenacious nature when it comes mistake, though. I always get a Primetime to fighting injustice and what it’s like to be a Classic Cheeseburger, which is a new item. I homeless kid in Cincinnati. also got a melt one time. It was excellent.

CityBeat: How often do you eat at Frisch’s?

CB: What do you want people to know Mike Moroski: About three times a week. about homeless kids in Cincinnati?

When I was a community organizer in MM: That they’re kids. That they’re just kids Lower Price Hill, I once ate there five times who want the same damn thing as every kid in one week. I don’t do it on purpose, but in Cincinnati — they want to play, they want it’s a nice central location. It’s my favorite to have fun, they want to eat ice cream. They restaurant and everybody likes it. don’t want to go to summer school, they CB: What makes Frisch’s your favorite don’t want to live in a shelter, they don’t want restaurant? to live in a car, they don’t want to live on a MM: Many things. I really, really like blue couch. They want to have their own room cheese and they have great blue cheese. I with a poster of their favorite band on the really like burgers and they have great wall, but they can’t. They don’t have those burgers. I really like tartar sauce and they opportunities. The only thing that makes have the best locally made tartar sauce in them different from any other kid, the only the world. They have the best pepperoncinis thing is that they just don’t have the access in town; they’re very juicy but not every to those same things — like going to the Frisch’s has pepperoncinis. This (Frisch’s) Museum Center, which I’m looking at out all around is the best. the window — through no fault of their own, What I love most about Frisch’s is if you and sometimes, oftentimes through no fault look around, everybody comes here and of their parents. Their parents are just stuck. everybody can afford to eat here. There’s a You know, more than half of the women group of older African-American gentlemen living at Bethany House right now have jobs, over there. A couple of them have Tuskegee but they live in a homeless shelter, which Airmen hats on; they’re here every Tuesday. should make people sad. Our kids are kids Sheriff Jim Neal sits in that back booth. and they just want to have fun, but they can’t.

That’s his “office.” That’s one of the corner LOOK WHO’S EATING is a conversation over food booths where he does most of his business. with local movers and shakers. Read a full version You see school board members here. You’ll of this interview at citybeat.com. see people in recovery that I know are in

F&D classes & events Most classes and events require registration; classes frequently sell out.

WEDNESDAY 12

Washington Platform Oyster Festival — Features 40-plus menu items, “Big Easy” oysters, oysters Giovanese, firecracker oysters and fresh-shucked oysters on the half-shell. Through May 13. Prices vary. Washington Platform, 1000 Elm St., Downtown, washingtonplatform.com.

Wines of Spain Dinner — Take a tour around Spain with a Basque-style tasting featuring a fusion of Spanish and French cuisine. 7-10 p.m. $95. La Petite Pierre, 7800 Camargo Road, Madeira, lapetitepierre.com.

Menu Planning: Leftover Delights — Colonel De leads this class on making leftovers amazing. 5:30-7:30 p.m. $20. Colonel De Gourmet Herbs & Spices, 18 N. Fort Thomas Ave., Fort Thomas, Ky., colonelde.com.

THURSDAY 13

Like Water for Chocolate — Mole is the quintessential sauce of Mexico. Learn to make your own from scratch with nuts, dried fruit and chocolate and serve it over poached chicken legs and farmer’s cheese.

6:30-7:30 p.m. $35. Artichoke OTR, 1824 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, artichokeotr.com.

SATURDAY 15

Beer-Lingual at AmerAsia — AmerAsia is hosting a block party to show love and support for the hard-working immigrants in NKY and Cincinnati. Breweries, including MadTree, Rhinegeist, Braxton, Urban Artifact and more will be slinging drinks, and AmerAsia will be selling food. 2 p.m. Free admission. AmerAsia, 521 Madison Ave., Covington, Ky., facebook.com/kungfoodchu.

Bread Making Demonstration — Learn to make bread the same way it was made in the 1800s at The Betts House, the oldest surviving brick building in Cincinnati. 1-4 p.m. $5. Betts House, 416 Clark St., West End, thebettshouse.org.

Easter Brunch at Forno Osteria + Bar — An Easter brunch buffet featuring dishes like pancakes, frittata, shrimp and grits, polenta and Bolognese and more. RSVP suggested. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. $25 adults; $10 children. Forno Osteria + Bar, 3514 Erie Ave., Hyde Park, fornoosteriabar.com.

Live Music Mon-Wed, Fri-Sat

Easter Brunch at The Phoenix — Easter brunch featuring live music, photos with the Easter bunny and a buffet with an omelet station, waffle station, carving station and a mimosa and bloody mary bar. RSVP. 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. $36 adults; $15 children; free 3 and younger. The Phoenix, 812 Race St., Downtown, 513-721-8901.

Easter Jazz Brunch at Washington Platform — Breakfast and lunch favorites, including an omelet station, cheesy grits, breakfast meats, a carving station, fried chicken and more. RSVP suggested. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. $27 adults; $22 seniors; $18 children. Washington Platform, 1000 Elm St., Downtown, washingtonplatform.com.

Easter Brunch at Coppin’s — A buffet brunch featuring smoked salmon, mini quiches, lemon-lavender scones, banana pudding shots, cooked-to-order omelets, buttermilk fried chicken and more. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Coppin’s at Hotel Covington, 638 Madison Ave., Covington, Ky., hotelcovington.com.

Easter Brunch at Prime — Menu includes eggs benedict, a carving station and other Easter favorites. 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. $37 adults; $15 children; $13 bottomless mimosas. Prime Cincinnati, 580 Walnut St., Downtown, primecincinnati.com.

Easter Brunch at Metropole — A twocourse prix fixe Easter brunch fully stocked with farm-fresh goodies, including quinoa hash and avocado toast. A special a la carte kid’s menu is available. 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. $30. Metropole, 609 Walnut St., Downtown, facebook.com/metropoleonwalnut.

MONDAY 17

Greater Cincinnati Restaurant Week — CityBeat is partnering with area restaurants to bring an exclusive, local dining experience. For a limited time, participating restaurants will be offering $35 threecourse prix fixe menus. Through April 23. $35. facebook.com/cincinnaticitybeat.

SUNDAY 16

TUESDAY 18

Sundry and Vice Planned Parenthood Event — Cocktail bar Sundry and Vice will be donating 100 percent of its profits to Planned Parenthood on Tuesday, April 18. Bonus: It’s also happy hour all day on Tuesdays. 4 p.m.-2 a.m. Sundry and Vice, 18 W. 13th St., Over-the-Rhine, sundryandvice.com.

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Holler: A Celebration of Kentucky Craft Beer and Whiskey — Sample spirits, whiskey and beer from Kentucky craft producers, snack on hors d’ouevres and get an exclusive OKI flight with tasting glass. 6-10 p.m. $50; $75 VIP. New Riff Distilling, 24 Distillery Way, Newport, Ky., hollerfestival.com.

Easter Brunch at Via Vite — Easter brunch, Italian style. Enjoy authentic Italian items and traditional brunch favorites, including Tuscan braised pork belly and cannellini bean ragout, buttermilk pancakes and Italian shrimp salad. RSVP suggested. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. $30 adults; $10.

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music

Ring of Patience

Duo R. Ring’s anticipated debut full-length, Ignite the Rest, is worth the seven-year wait

BY BRIAN BAKER

P H O T O : @ b s m i tt y d ot c o m

3 4 • C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 , 2 0 1 7

T

he old saying goes, “If you want to make God smile, tell Him your plans.”

If that platitude is true, the Big Man must have been paralyzed with laughter when Kelley Deal and Mike Montgomery formed R. Ring in 2010 with no defined goal of ever documenting their newly forged duo with an actual album.

To that end, Deal and Montgomery catalogued a handful of singles over the past half-dozen years, but finally concluded that they should pull the trigger and release a full-length. The result is the brief but potent Ignite the Rest, a mix of new and old tracks, plus a few re-recordings, that is being released April 28 on Dayton, Ky.-based SofaBurn Records.

“It was never our intention to make an album,” Deal says. “We’ve both done our share of studio-rat time, so I wanted to play live. The idea of doing singles came out really organically and, honestly, it wasn’t until a year and a half ago that I was ready to put these out on one record. It was just time.”

Deal and Montgomery entertained few expectations of their professional partnership. Guitarist/producer Montgomery divided time between his Post Rock band Ampline and his workload at his Candyland recording studio in Northern Kentucky, while Deal was occupied with her long-time, intermittently active Dayton, Ohio-based AltRock heroes The Breeders. They met when Deal was tapped to contribute to a Guided By Voices tribute and she asked local group Buffalo Killers to accompany her. The band suggested recording at Candyland and Montgomery helmed the session. When he and Deal mixed the track, they discovered common creative ground, creating R. Ring without considering the project’s potential longevity.

“I didn’t think I’d still be alive after this much time,” Montgomery says.

“That’s my answer, too,” says Deal. “I didn’t think Mike would still be alive after this much time.”

Since neither participant was interested in the album/tour treadmill, they contented themselves with tour dates and occasional limited-edition merch table/mail order singles. Montgomery and Deal ultimately realized their body of songs could comprise a potent album.

“They were all written for the album, it just took a long time,” Montgomery says.

“We reverse engineered it. Instead of taking singles from our album, we made an album out of our singles.”

Ignite the Rest is striking in its cohesion and continuity, considering the songs were created separately over a seven-year span.

For Kelley Deal and Mike Montgomery, R. Ring scratches a creative itch and is gratifying.

Some are taken directly from the singles (“Loud Underneath,” “Singing Tower”), some were re-recorded (the gorgeous “Steam”) and others are brand new or old but never recorded (“100 Dollar Heat” and “Cutter,” respectively). They still sound as if they emerged from a single session.

“I think that has to do with the fact that they were all recorded at the same place with the same engineer and the same gear by the same people,” Deal says. “There’s something to be said for how that affected the musical conversation. And if nothing else, we definitely have a point of view.”

It’s not a cop-out for R. Ring to repackage the singles for its debut. The original 7-inch copies were produced in such limited quantities that Ignite the Rest will basically be the first wide exposure for the songs.

“Who knows who’s heard these things?”

Deal says. “Unless you bought the 7-inch at our show or knew about it, they’re new.”

The bigger headline generated by Ignite the Rest is R. Ring’s place in the musical world. Although Deal and Montgomery remain actively involved in their respective bands/projects, the past seven years have solidified R. Ring and proven that it’s not a transient fling.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Deal says. “For me, the R. Ring experience and the working

with Mike experience is still filling a need of mine. It’s scratching an itch; it’s something I appreciate and I get something out of it.”

“There’s nothing fleeting about it,” Montgomery says. “It’s permanent in the sense that it’s always in my mind. It’s something you take into consideration when you’re allocating time for a family vacation or a tour with your other band or a work project.

It’s like, ‘What will this do to R. Ring?’ ” As R. Ring’s live component has taken up the bulk of the musicians’ time together, their songs have evolved over the band’s sevenyear existence. Simply playing together has been an education for Montgomery.

“I’ve almost always been in bands where there was just one guitar, so I’ve realized the way I play is a bit overbearing,” he says. “I’ll play something and Kelley will go, ‘Where do I play?’ It’s the idea of, ‘Oh yeah, there’s this other person, you can leave a bunch of room open and they’re going to handle that.’ I don’t have to hit every note and strum every chord.”

Even as R. Ring has become more entrenched in the pair’s schedules, they remain committed to juggling their various activities. Montgomery is still a full-fledged member of Ampline and an in-demand producer, while Deal is ready to rejoin The

Breeders whenever required. She’s also working with Cole Vargas, a young artist whose recorded debut is due this summer.

It seems natural to wonder if Deal and Montgomery will continue to present R. Ring songs in the episodic manner that has worked well for them to this point, or if they’ll sit down in the future and bang out a full album’s worth of material in a compact amount of time. Their answers are indicative of R. Ring’s come-what-may philosophy.

“I’m going to say yes to all of that because I have no clue,” Deal says. “I’d like to have a bunch of songs and throw them all on an album. I also like how we’ve done the last few years, where we put things out gently and cart them around. So whatever happens, I’m open to it.”

“Whatever you call that construct — the album cycle were you tour and it runs its course — it doesn’t have to work like that,” Montgomery says. “You can do whatever you want. You play whenever you want, drive or fly anywhere you want, write and record anything you want, and put it out whenever you want.”

R. RING begins its tour behind Ignite the Rest on April 19 at Southgate House Revival. Tickets/ more info: southgatehouse.com.

music spill it

The Dreamy Grandeur of Joesph’s ‘Temples’

BY MIKE BREEN

1345 main st motrpub.com

BY mike breen

Deep Clown Turns Sued Clown Who knew those dudes in Insane Clown Posse were so in tune with their emotions that they read Chicken Soup for the Soul? ICP twist: Then they stab it in the neck! Or at least they steal poetry from it and try to pull it off as their own, allegedly. The rapping literal clowns are being sued by an Ohio poet after a nine-year-old YouTube video of ICP’s Violent J reciting his “But You Didn’t” poem was brought to his attention. Stanley Gebhardt had his work copyrighted in 1993 and it was published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book and engraved in a memorial for veterans in North Merrick, N.Y. “But wait,” my Juggalo brethren are probably yelling, “how do we know J even pretended he wrote it, ninja?” Uh, the video was titled “Violent J’s Poem.”

wed 12

the prescription (nashville) carriers

thu arrington de dionyso (olympia) 13 jennifer simone fri 14

leggy, flasher (dc)

sat 15

modern aquatic, local waves

sun 16

the midwestern swing

mon 17

defrance (little rock) kyle lemaster & the honky tonk heroes

tue 18

writer’s night w/ mark free live music now open for lunch

Tweenage Dream Job Korn bassist Fieldy can’t do his band’s upcoming South American tour run, so the band found a replacement. Tye Trujillo got the gig, but he probably had to ask his dad first — because he’s 12 years old.

In Tye’s case, he was also probably pretty confident pops would say yes because his dad is Hard Rock veteran Robert Trujillo, bassist for Metallica.

Prince and the Convolution Ah, another week, another dead pop cultural icon’s estate suing a photographer who took a photo of another dead pop cultural icon so the photographer doesn’t sue the estate first. Pop Art legend/Velvet Underground pimp Andy Warhol’s estate is suing Lynn Goldsmith after learning that she was considering suing the estate over Warhol’s use of her 1981 photograph of Prince as the source for his series of paintings of the music legend. Warhol’s people say the works are “transformative” and therefore “fair use.” They claim Goldsmith long knew about the art, granting a license for use of one of the paintings on a 1984 magazine cover, but Goldsmith claims she only found out about the artwork last year when another magazine used a piece on its cover.

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nightly, saint mesa joesph album release show

the upset victory album release show

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C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 3 5

After teasing its release with the great Chinese folk music. The album’s highlight, EP Glowing Flower at the start of 2017, “Glowing Flower” (which appeared in Indie/Psych/Pop trio Joesph — which shorter form on the teaser EP), is like an began life as a solo recording/writing epic of trippiness that cycles through all of project for Joey Cook, formerly of the those mind-bending tints, perfectly tying acclaimed Cincinnati Indie Rock group the album together.

Pomegranates — will unveil its second Of course, some of Temples is just full-length, Temples, this Friday at the imaginative Indie Pop/Rock that doesn’t Woodward Theater (1404 Main St., Over(necessarily) conjure hallucinatory the-Rhine, woodwardtheater.com). Selfideation. It’s not hard to imagine album described “Spacey Americana Rock” group Carriers (featuring another former Pomegranate, Curt Kiser, who was also in Enlou) and “Garage Pop” trio Blossom Hall (formerly Soft Peaks) open the 9 p.m. show.

Tickets are $8 in advance through cincyticket.com or $10 at the door.

Cook — who was quickly joined in Joesph by drummer Devyn Glista (formerly of The Kickaways) and bassist Pierce Geary, another former Pomegranates member — says Temples is fairly different from Joesph’s debut album, last year’s There Comes the Lord, and the band’s well-in-the-works third album (currently titled I Dreamed You Were My Lover and, according to Joesph’s new Temples album a social media post by Joesph’s PHOTO : provided label, due for release later this year or early in 2018). That’s because Cook began writing the Temples opener “Past, I Quit You” being performed material almost nine years ago, as Pomeand recorded by Cook’s former band, while granates were working on their second album closer “Sometimes” is like what album, 2009’s Everybody Come Outside!.

God would play for Prince as he walked The label says Joesph’s first and next through Heaven’s gate, with its funky, album have more of a “straight-ahead sinewy groove and warm, unfurling layers ’60’s/’70s Psychedelic Bedroom Pop/Rock of vocal harmonies, synths, strings, harp feeling,” but Temples certainly contains and xylophone sounds. But like on another varying levels of that flavoring, too. The album highlight, “Temples,” even when “Pop” aspect seems to be in Cook’s blood Joesph might not particularly be trying to — the man has consistently knocked out sound psychedelic (or like anything else, classically catchy hooks seemingly with for that matter), the exploratory structurthe effort most people put into making a ing, passionate writing and absorbing cup of tea. But Temples mixes those arresttextures and production naturally lend ing melodies in and out with structural themselves to the music’s dreamlike aura. explorations and a multihued, dynamic Temples is entertaining and moving from brand of Psychedelia. the first note to the last, but it’s also quite Sometimes it’s of the vintage Beatles a head trip, the kind of album that, if you or Strawberry Alarm Clock or Easy let it, pulls you into another mental state.

Rider Psych archetype — “Mysterious And once you’re there, you are in no hurry Ways” gives off the fuzzy Kaleidoscope to leave.

Pop feels of The Zombies or Os Mutantes.

Temples will be available on CD and Other times the lysergic effect of the digitally on Friday at joesph.bandcamp. music comes from a more contemporary com, where you can also pre-order a veryexperimental place, less defined by an era, limited-edition “box” version that includes like “I’m Dead,” which opens with what the CD and “several items that will help sounds like a musical exorcism before the create a more immersive album-listening bombastic, distorted throb gives way to experience.” sunbeam melodies and plaintive acoustic CONTACT MIKE BREEN: mbreen@citybeat.com guitar that seems to reference traditional

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Arrington de Dionyso’s This Saxophone Kills Fascists with Jennifer Simone Thursday • MOTR Pub If you asked most people whether protest music needs to have lyrics, the instinctual reaction would be, “Yes, definitely.” It’s understandable given the songs most people think of as “protest music.” While the delivery can enhance the power of the protest, the words are what convey the direct message, as exemplified in everything from Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” and Civil Rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” to Fugazi’s “Reclamation,” Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” and Beyoncé’s “Freedom.”

But all forms of art are used to express varying emotions and points of view. Pablo Picasso didn’t need to paint “war sucks!” on his famous “Guernica” painting to make an obvious anti-war Arrington de Dionyso statement. And comP H O T O : L e n a S h ko d a posers and musicians, particularly from the worlds of Classical, Avant Garde and Jazz music, have forever used sounds and melodies as aural metaphors, translating melancholy, anger and resistance into notes.

Olympia, Wash. visual artist, composer and multiKishi Bashi instrumentalist PHOTO : Provided Arrington de Dionyso has been exploring various methods of music as a means of expression for more than 20 years now.

As guitarist/singer/visionary behind the adventurous Experimental Rock band Old Time Relijun, he put out several albums on K Records beginning in 1997. De Dionyso has continued to release music through K and other labels over the years, including solo excursions and collaborative projects. After Old Time Relijun, he picked up baritone clarinet and formed Malaikat dan Singa, uniquely blending Free Jazz, Psychedelia, Post Punk, throat singing and entrancing Indonesian ritual music. He even learned the Indonesian language so he could sing in it.

But back to “protest music.” Now playing various saxophones and other instruments, de Dionyso’s current project is This Saxophone Kills Fascists (a reference to a slogan the aforementioned Guthrie famously placed on his guitar). The inspiration for the project was the remarkably ridiculous #Pizzagate

conspiracy, which spread the outlandish theory (as truth) that a basement in a pizza place in Washington, D.C. was home to a secret child sex trafficking ring involving Satanic rituals, Hillary Clinton and top members of her campaign staff. A man was even arrested for shooting off a gun in the pizzeria after traveling to “investigate.”

The preposterous nature of the faux scandal (and the number of people who readily believe it… still) is so “sign of the times” that even from afar one could imagine it inspiring protest art. But de Dionyso found himself swept into the fake controversy directly because he once painted a mural at the restaurant, leading to death threats and harassment from delusional (or insanely gullible) “alt-right” maniacs.

Instead of forcing de Dionyso into silence or hiding, the artist took the experience as a jumping-off point for This Saxophone Kills Fascists, a Free Jazz project with which he has been touring the country, performing with different local musicians at his various stops.

He has posted a few recordings of the music’s unadulterated, impetuous expressiveness at thissaxophonekillsfascists. bandcamp.com.

“I’m using the spiritual legacy of Free Jazz to form a new voice for protest music, using abstract music as a form of protest,” de Dionyso recently said to the Phoenix New Times. “With all this stuff about the media and fake news, any words you put out there can just be twisted and turned around.” (Mike Breen) Kishi Bashi with Tall Tall Trees Friday • 20th Century Theater Classically trained violinist Kaoru Ishibashi — better known by his performing moniker, Kishi Bashi — sharpened his Pop chops by lending his talents to the music of such artists as Regina Spektor, of Montreal and Sondre Lerche. He’s also a founding member of Electro Pop outfit Jupiter One, but in recent years he’s stepped out as a solo artist (backed by a full band).

It’s no surprise that Kishi Bashi’s first two records —2012’s 151a and 2014’s Lighght — featured plenty of violin; less expected was their expansive Pop soundscapes,

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which ranged from otherworldly ethereal to textured foot-stompers that brought to mind Animal Collective at their most accessible.

Kishi Bashi’s most recent album, last year’s Sonderlust, was borne in the midst of a tough personal period for the Virginia native — he and his wife of 13 years went through a separation.

“This album is straight from my soul,” Ishibashi says in the press notes that accompanied the release of the album. “I questioned everything about what it means to love and desire. The difference between loving someone and being in love.”

The resulting record is a bit of a surprise: Sonderlust is as buoyant and beat-driven as anything Kishi Bashi has conjured. Album opener “m’lover” kicks things off in dynamic fashion, fusing violin and keyboards with booming drums and layered vocals anchored

by Ishibashi’s modest, high-pitched delivery.

“Hey Big Star” borders on straight-up Disco, its insistent beats and surging keyboards yielding a sugar high that wouldn’t have been out of place on Arcade Fire’s Reflektor. “Ode to My Next Life” opens with strings and cooing vocals before launching into the stratosphere via Son Volt swirling electronics P H O T O : D av i d M c C l i s t e r — think Daft Punk by way of Andrew Bird.

The Caribbean-flavored closer “Honeybody” is a curious concoction, dropping lyrics that name-check Parcheesi and CocaCola while at the same time suggesting the need to satiate carnal desires. It’s the capper to a collection of songs that finds Kishi Bashi moving into adventurous new realms.

(Jason Gargano)

live MusiC no Cover

Wednesday 4/12 Phil DeGreg w/ Joe Lukasik 8-11 Thursday 4/13 Todd Hepburn & Friends feat. Larry Bloomfield 8-11 Friday 4/14 Steve Schmidt solo 6-8 Steve Schmidt Trio feat. April Aloisio 8-12 saTurday 4/15 Steve Schmidt Trio w/ Mandy Gaines 8-12 Tuesday 4/18 Acclaimed British singer, Polly Gibbons w/ Steve Schmidt Trio 8-11 $10 • Limited seating Tickets at Eventbrite.com

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4/12 tim o’brien with jan fabricius, jd hutchison; lost coast: april artist in residence w/ nicholas & the pessimistics, moonshine & wine 4/13 john 5 and the creatures, bucko; live! on stage jonathan richman feat. tommy larkins on drums; william matheny, frontier folk nebraska 4/14 son volt, anders parker; arlo mckinley & the lonesome sound, tim browning & the widowmakers, brian combs 4/15 rock on the james 2017 benefiting parkinson support & wellness of greater cincinnati featuring: ky myle, white liger, bloodline, the jericho harlot, pheve, sQuirrel jam; shimmy & the burns, jeremy francis, ray vietti; noir - monthly dance night

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C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 • 3 7

Son Volt with Anders Parker Friday • Southgate House Revival The splintering of the very popular Uncle Tupelo in the mid-’90s provided conclusive evidence that its two massively gifted songwriters were better off on separate playgrounds. Jeff Tweedy has certainly been a diverse musical juggernaut with Wilco over the past two decades, but Jay Farrar has been an unparalleled sonic explorer, collaborating with the Flaming Lips’ Steven Drozd (on Farrar’s solo Sebastopol), Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard (on the soundtrack for the Jack Kerouac documentary film One Fast Move or I’m Gone), Varnaline’s Anders Parker (with their transformative Folk duo Gob Iron) and with his genre spanning band Son Volt.

With Son Volt, Farrar has examined the breadth of American music, from shambling

Rock to twangy Americana in all its varied Honky Tonk Country and dusty Folk glory, particularly on the band’s first three albums: 1995’s critically acclaimed Trace, 1997’s Straightaways and 1998’s Wide Swing Tremolo. During Son Volt’s subsequent six-year hiatus, Farrar charted an acoustic solo path before reconvening his Son Volt bandmates to contribute a cover of Alejandro Escovedo’s “Sometimes” to the Por Vida benefit album in 2004.

The reunion inspired plans for a new album, but the original band made some unforeseen legal demands, so singer/songwriter Farrar assembled a new version of Son Volt to translate his modern protest songs that made up 2005’s Okemah and the Melody of Riot and its companion piece, 2007’s The Search. Many reviews cited 2009’s American Central Dust as a return to form while docking points for not taking any chances with that form; the album still hit No. 44 on the Billboard 200 album chart, matching Straightaways for the best chart position in Son Volt’s history.

It would be four years before Son Volt dropped the lighter yet still introspective Honky Tonk in 2013, and another four until the recent release of the band’s Notes of Blue. For the new album, Farrar mixed his longstanding love of twangy American music and an equally lengthy appreciation of Blues legends Skip James and Mississippi Fred McDowell (specifically their propensity for alternate tunings) with direct nods to British Folk icon Nick Drake. As a result, Notes of Blue whispers with the best of Son Volt’s acoustic quietude and crackles with the band’s patented electric Neil Young and Crazy Horse intensity, a template that will likely inform their latest stage presentation. (Brian Baker)

111 E 6th St Newport, KY 41071

music listings

CityBeat’s music listings are free. Send info to MIKE BREEN via email at mbreen@citybeat.com. Listings are subject to change. See citybeat.com for full music listings and all club locations. H is CityBeat staff’s stamp of approval.

Wednesday 12 Blind Lemon - Drew Rochette. 8 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Bromwell’s Härth Lounge - Phil DeGreg with Joe Lukasik. 8 p.m.

Jazz. Free.

Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical H Garden - Tunes and Blooms with Hickory Robot. 6 p.m. Americana/Bluegrass/Various. Free.

Common Roots - Unplugged Monthly Acoustic Jam. 7 p.m.

Acoustic. Free.

Knotty Pine - Dallas Moore and Lucky Chucky. 10 p.m. Country.

Free.

The Liberty Inn - Stagger Lee. 6:30 p.m. Country/Rock. Free.

MOTR Pub - The Prescriptions with Carriers. 9 p.m. Indie Rock. Free.

Northside Yacht Club - Salvation with Smut and Clouded. 10 p.m.

Rock/Punk/Various.

Pit to Plate - Bluegrass Night with Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass. 7 p.m. Bluegrass. $2.

Silverton Cafe - Bob Cushing. 8 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Southgate House Revival (Lounge) - Lost Coast with Nicholas & The Pessimistics, Moonshine & Wine. 9:30 p.m. Roots/Americana/Various. Free.

Southgate House Revival (Sanctuary) - Tim O’Brien with Jan Fabricius and JD Hutchinson. 8 p.m.

Country/Americana/Bluegrass. $22, $25 day of show.

Urban Artifact - Blue Wisp Big Band. 8:30 p.m. Big Band Jazz. $10.

Woodward Theater - Jukebox The Ghost with The Elwins.

8:30 p.m. Indie/Pop/Rock. $16, $18 day of show.

H

Thursday 13 3 8 • C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 2 – 1 8 , 2 0 1 7

Arnold’s Bar and Grill - Dottie Warner and Ricky Nye. 7:30 p.m.

Jazz/Blues. Free.

Blind Lemon - Jamon Zeiler. 8 p.m.

Acoustic. Free.

Bromwell’s Härth Lounge - Todd Hepburn and Friends featuring Larry Bloomfield. 8 p.m. Various.

Free.

Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden - Tunes and Blooms with The Hot Magnolias and Mark Utley & Bulletville. 6 p.m. New Orleans/Jazz/Funk/Country/Honky Tonk. Free.

H

Common Roots - Open Mic. 8 p.m.

Various. Free.

Crow’s Nest - Fair Weather Bridge Burner. 9 p.m. Americana. Free.

The Greenwich - Brasilia. 8:30 p.m.

Brazilian Jazz. $5.

Danny B’s Lounge - Bob Cushing.

8 p.m. Acoustic.

Horse & Barrel - Sonny Moorman.

6 p.m. Blues. Free.

The Greenwich - Kelly Richey. 8 p.m. Blues/Rock. $10.

The Hot Spot - Bob Cushing. 7 p.m.

Acoustic. Free.

Jag’s Steak and Seafood - London Street Band. 9:30 p.m. Pop/ Dance/Various. $5.

Knotty Pine - Chalis. 9 p.m. Rock/ Blues/Pop/Various. Free.

Madison Live - TAUK with Peridoni.

9 p.m. Rock/Fusion/Jam/Prog/ Various. $10, $15 day of show.

The Mockbee - Keagen Gulley, Z Smith, Royal Jayy, Gabrielle Amari, Jack Sullivan and Alli Simms. 8 p.m.

Hip Hop. $10.

MOTR Pub - Arrington de Dionyso with Jennifer Simone.

9 p.m. Experimental/Free Jazz/ Various. Free.

H

Northside Yacht Club - Rhythm of Fear, By Force and Fail Me. 8:30 p.m. Metal/Hardcore. $8.

Plain Folk Cafe - Open Mic with Tery Metcalf. 7 p.m. Various. Free.

Southgate House Revival (Lounge) - William Matheny with Frontier Folk Nebraska. 9:30 p.m. Rock. Free.

H

Southgate House Revival H (Revival Room) - Jonathan Richman featuring Tommy Larkins on the drums. 8 p.m. Pop. $20.

Southgate House Revival (Sanctuary) - John 5 and the Creature with Bucko. 8 p.m. Rock/ Experimental/Various. $18, $20 day of show.

H

Urban Artifact - Split the H Abyss, Thrashhole and Fiakra.

7 p.m. Metal. Free.

Jim and Jack’s on the River - Stagger Lee. 9 p.m. Country. Free.

Joseph-Beth Booksellers - The Ron Purdon Quintet. 7 p.m. Jazz/ Swing. Free.

Knotty Pine - Bad Habit. 10 p.m.

Rock. Cover.

The Mad Frog - Carnage Bodybagg and more. 6 p.m. Hip Hop. $10, $15 day of show.

Mansion Hill Tavern - The Heaters.

9 p.m. Blues. $4.

Marty’s Hops & Vines - Bob Ross.

9 p.m. Jazz. Free.

The Mockbee - Underground H featuring Chuck Diesel, DJAB, Drew Simmons, Dreweybear and Suave. 10 p.m. Bass music/EDM. $5.

Saturday 15

Arnold’s Bar and Grill - Charlotte Berg. 9 p.m. Singer/Songwriter.

Free.

Blind Lemon - Charlie Millikin. 9 p.m. Pop/Rock/Various. Free.

Blue Note Harrison - DV8, Visual Kaos and Twistlock. 9 p.m. Rock.

Cover.

Bogart’s - Saved By The ’90s featuring The Bayside Tigers. 8 p.m. ’90s tribute. $10.

Bromwell’s Härth Lounge - Steve Schmidt Trio. 8 p.m. Jazz. Free.

The Comet - Fycus, Kerchief and Little Brother. 10 p.m. Rock. Free.

Northside Yacht Club - The ZGs, Lockjaw, Relex Machine, Slutbomb and Rights for Robot. 9 p.m. Rock/Punk/Various. $5.

H

Plain Folk Cafe - Joe Rollin Porter.

7:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

The Redmoor - 2nd Wind. 9 p.m.

Jazz/R&B. $10.

Silverton Cafe - Big Trouble Blues Band. 9 p.m. Blues. Free.

show.

Southgate House Revival (Lounge) - Arlo McKinley & The Lonesome Sound with Tim Browning & the Widowmakers and Brian Combs. 9:30 p.m. Roots/Rock.

Free.

Bromwell’s Härth Lounge - Steve Schmidt Trio with April Aloisio. 6 p.m. Jazz. Free.

Indie Pop. $7, $10 day of show.

Northside Tavern - Electric CitiH zen with Mothership. 10 p.m.

Hard Rock. Free.

Friday 14

Blue Note Harrison - Amy Sailor Band and Buffalo Ridge Band. 9 p.m. Country. Cover.

Woodward Theater - Joesph H (album release show) with Blossom Hall and Carriers. 9 p.m.

College Hill Coffee Co. - Ma Crow and the Lady Slippers. 7:30 p.m.

Bluegrass. Free.

Rick’s Tavern - Whiskey Daze. 10 p.m. Country/Rock/Folk/Various. $5.

Arnold’s Bar and Grill - Willow Tree Carolers. 9 p.m. Americana. Free.

Washington Platform Saloon & Restaurant - Garin Web and the Crackpot Theory. 9 p.m. Jazz. $10 (food/drink minimum).

MOTR Pub - Leggy with Flasher. 9 p.m. Indie/Rock/Pop/Various. Free.

Woodward Theater - Nightly with Saint Mesa. 9 p.m. AltPop. $10, $12 day of show.

20th Century Theater - Kishi H Bashi with Tall Tall Trees. 8 p.m. Indie Pop. $18, $20 day of

Washington Park - Tiny Deck Concert featuring Alexis Gomez. 7 p.m. Country. Free.

Southgate House Revival (Sanctuary) - Son Volt with Anders Parker. 8:30 p.m. Roots Rock. $20, $25 day of show.

H

Talon Tavern - Sonny Moorman Group. 9 p.m. Blues.

College Hill Coffee Co. - Wild Carrot. 7:30 p.m. Folk/Americana. Free.

H

Thompson House - C The Gray with Mizani & Quazay. 7 p.m. Hip Hop. $10.

The Comet - CATL, All-Seeing H Eyes and Halvsies. 10 p.m.

Rock/Various. Free.

Urban Artifact - Calumet, The High Definitions and Toon Town. 10 p.m.

Rock/Various. Free.

Nest - Redleg Husky.

HCrow’s 9:30 p.m. Americana. Free.

U.S. Bank Arena - Cincinnati R&B Festival with Keith Sweat, K-Ci & JoJo, 112 and Next. 8 p.m. R&B. $52-$125.

Common Roots - Fair Weather Bridge Burner. 8 p.m. Folk/Rock.

Free.

The Greenwich - Radio Black. 9 p.m. Various. $10.

Jag’s Steak and Seafood - The Company. 9:30 p.m. Dance/Pop/ Various. $5.

Jim and Jack’s on the River - Amy Sailor Band. 9 p.m. Country. Free.

Knotty Pine - Bad Habit. 10 p.m.

Rock. Cover.

Live! at the Ludlow Garage - Morgan James. 8 p.m. R&B. $15-$35.

The Lounge - Ben Levin and Ricky Nye. 8:30 p.m. Blues/Boogie Woogie.

Madison Live - The Nothing H with The Nightbeast, Tiger Sex and V-Twin Sin. 9 p.m. Rock/Punk. $8, $10 day of show.

Mansion Hill Tavern - The Dave Lewis Trio. 9 p.m. Blues. $3.

Marty’s Hops & Vines - Two Blue.

9 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Northside Yacht Club - Worship This! and Makewar with Two Inch Winky, Tooth Lures a Fang and Sagermen. 8:30 p.m. Rock/Punk.

Free.

Parkers Blue Ash Tavern - Encore Duo. 6 p.m. Acoustic Classic Rock/ Americana. Free.

Plain Folk Cafe - Dave Sams Band.

7:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

The Redmoor - Soul Pocket. 9 p.m.

Dance/Pop/R&B/Various. $10.

Rick’s Tavern - My Sister Sarah. 10 p.m. Rock/Dance/Various. $5.

The Show on 42 - The Refranes. 9 p.m. Rock/Pop. Silverton Cafe - Billy Rock Band. 9 p.m. Rock. Free.

Southgate House Revival (Lounge) - Shimmy & the Burns, Jeremy Francis and Ray Vietti. 9:30 p.m. Rock/Roots/Various. Free.

Southgate House Revival (Revival Room) - “Noir.” 10 p.m. Alt/Dance/ DJ/Various. $5.

Southgate House Revival (Sanctuary) - Rock on the James 2017 Benefiting Parkinson Support and Wellness of Greater Cincinnati featuring KY Myle, White Liger, Bloodline, The Jericho Harlot, Pheve and Squirrel Jam. 5 p.m. Various. $12, $15 day of show.

Stanley’s Pub - Frazier Band. 9 p.m. Bluegrass/Various. Cover.

Stanley’s Pub - Stanley’s Open Jam. 10 p.m. Various. Free.

Urban Artifact - Nellie Pearl and Jim Trace and the Makers. 8 p.m.

Rock/Roots. Free.

Washington Platform Saloon H & Restaurant - Holiday Jazz Buffet with Mike Sharfe Trio.

10 a.m. Jazz. $10 (food/drink minimum).

Monday 17

Arnold’s Bar and Grill - Arnold’s Old-Time Open Jam. 7 p.m. Americana/Various. Free.

Aronoff Center for the Arts - Rain: A Tribute to The Beatles. 7:30 p.m.

Beatles tribute. $35-$68.

Blind Lemon - Ben Armstrong. 8 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Mansion Hill Tavern - Acoustic Jam with John Redell and Friends. 8 p.m. Acoustic/Various. Free.

McCauly’s Pub - Open Jam with Sonny Moorman. 7 p.m. Blues/ Various. Free.

MOTR Pub - DeFrance with Kyle LeMaster & the Honky Tonk Heroes.

9 p.m. Rock/Roots. Free.

Northside Tavern - The Qtet. 10 p.m. Funk/Jazz/Various. Free.

Stanley’s Pub - Stanley’s Live Jazz Band. 10 p.m. Jazz. Free.

H Thompson House - Ekoostik H Hookah and Elementree Livity Project. 8 p.m. Rock/Jam/Reggae/

Tuesday 18

Various. $10.

20th Century Theater - Dave Mason. 8 p.m. Rock/Pop. $40-$60.

Top of the Line - Bob Cushing. 10 p.m. Acoustic.

Arnold’s Bar and Grill - Cheryl Renée. 7 p.m. Blues. Free.

Urban Artifact - Fun Machine, Sad Baxter, Mellow Cactus and Peace Attack. 9 p.m. Rock/Indie/Various. Free.

Blind Lemon - Nick Tuttle. 9 p.m.

Acoustic. Free.

Washington Platform Saloon & Restaurant - Jeremy Long Quartet.

9 p.m. Jazz. $10 (food/drink minimum).

Westside Venue - Southern Highway. 9 p.m. Country/Rock/ Blues. Free.

Woodward Theater - The Upset Victory (album release show) with Pluto Revolts and Current Events. 9 p.m. Alt/Pop/Rock. $7, $10 day of show.

H

Bogart’s - The Orphan, The Poet with Daniel in Stereo, You vs. Yesterday and Telehope. 8 p.m. Alt/ Indie Rock. $10.

Bromwell’s Härth Lounge H Polly Gibbons with the Steve Schmidt Trio. 6 p.m. Jazz/Soul. $10.

McCauly’s Pub - Stagger Lee. 7 p.m. Country/Rock. Free.

Northside Tavern - The Marmalade Brigade. 9:30 p.m. Roots/Jazz/ Americana/Various. Free.

Sunday 16

Southgate House Revival H (Sanctuary) - Generationals with Psychic Twin. 8 p.m. Indie/

MOTR Pub - Modern Aquatic H with Coastal Club. 9 p.m. Indie Rock. Free.

The Comet - The Comet Bluegrass All-Stars. 7:30 p.m. Bluegrass.

Free.

Urban Artifact - Brain Dead Breath, Emily Ash and Donotresuscitate. 9 p.m. Various. Free.

Northside Tavern - Build Us Fiction, Us Today and Lo The Loyal Conscripts. 10 p.m. Indie/Alt/Post Rock/Various. Free.

MOTR Pub - The Midwestern H Swing. 9 p.m. Western Swing/ Jazz. Free.

The Mockbee - SQUID LID, STRNGR, RELIC and BloodWerks. 9 p.m. Industrial. $5.

Blind Lemon - Jeff Henry. 8 p.m.

Acoustic. Free.

Electronic/Pop. $12, $15 day of show.

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