LEO Weekly Nov. 4, 2020

NOV.4.2020

PROTESTERS IN ARMS

WHY SO MANY CARrY AT THE

PROTESTS

POST-ELECTION, DON’T WORRY, DEMOCRATS! | PAGE 3 PLAN YOUR WEEK 9 WAYS | PAGE 11

DID TRUMP BREAK US? | PAGE 5 MUSIC: RMLLW2LLZ GETS PERSONAL | PAGE 14

LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020

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NOV.4.2020

ON THE COVER

PROTESTERS IN ARMS

WHY SO MANY CARrY AT THE

PROTESTS

PHOTO BY KATHRYN HARRINGTON

POST-ELECTION, DON’T WORRY, DEMOCRATS! | PAGE 3 PLAN YOUR WEEK 9 WAYS | PAGE 11

DID TRUMP BREAK US? | PAGE 5 MUSIC: RMLLW2LLZ GETS PERSONAL | PAGE 14

LOUISVILLE ECCENTRIC OBSERVER

Volume 30 | Number 48 974 BRECKENRIDGE LANE #170. LOUISVILLE KY 40207 PHONE (502) 895-9770 FAX (502) 895-9779 FOUNDER

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Aaron Yarmuth, ayarmuth@leoweekly.com PUBLISHER

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LEO Weekly is published weekly by LEO Weekly LLC. Copyright LEO Weekly LLC. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed herein are exclusively those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Publisher. LEO Weekly is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the express permission of LEO Weekly LLC. LEO Weekly may be distributed only by authorized independent contractors or authorized distributors. Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO) is a trademark of LEO Weekly LLC.

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ON: EDITOR’S NOTE, VOTE FOR THE BETTER CANDIDATE

No good... as much as you want to believe in a third-party victory, we have an unfortunate truth to face: Third parties rarely gain any support from the general population and only grab a minuscule amount of votes. That never even earns them a single elector’s vote. I mean, vote the third-party candidate if you want; it’s your right, but just know that candidate’s vote total won’t amount to much. —Ed Joe Snyder

ON: DEMOCRACY IN DANGER? WHAT WILL YOU DO IF TRUMP WINS?

What specifically has Trump done to put “democracy in danger”?

I have been seeing this lie repeated ad nauseum for some years, but the danger is clearly from the left. ... —Barry Cooper How Tax Cheat, Draft Dodging Donald Trump has taken advantage of the office of the president: 1. Quashed subpoenas looking into his illegal tax returns in both New York and the IRS. 2. Requires anyone seeking U.S. government favor to stay in his hotels and golf courses.

3. Pays virtually zero in taxes. (How much have you paid in the last four years?)

4. Required non disclosure agreements from anyone who has ever known him.

5. Dodged the draft by claiming for five years he has bone spurs.

6. Ask the Chinese government to help him get elected.

7. Wrote love letters to Korea’s communist dictator. ...

38. Lindsey Graham called him a kook.

39. Rand Paul called him a narcissist.

40. He mocks the disadvantaged.

41. He takes “no responsibility” for the COVID-19 crisis. ...

42. Threatens media critics with censorship.

43. Promised to drain the swamp, yet he is the swamp.

44. Watches TV instead of reading intelligence reports.

—Wynn Simpson

WHOOPS!

Sometimes you are right, but often when it comes to prognosticating politics, you are wrong. In February, we ran an intensely researched analysis by Ilene Zeldin that concluded that Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, married to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, worked with McConnell’s speechwriter to pen the infamous “Anonymous” op-ed in The New York Times. Anonymous was supposed to be a senior White House official critical of Donald Trump. Zeldin, analyzing word choices and writing style, updated her piece for LEO. Last week, on the very day that LEO published it, the actual Anonymous revealed himself: Miles Taylor, who was chief of staff to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. (Not exactly a senior official, but whatevs.) So, Zeldin swung and missed. But we say it was worth her time at bat, if only to uphold the LEO tradition of mercilessly needling McConnell and Chao on these pages.

VIEWS

EDITOR’S NOTE

THE DEMS ARE ALRIGHT

By Aaron Yarmuth | ayarmuth@leoweekly.com DON’T WORRY, Democrats. It really isn’t as bad as it seems.

Hot take-pundits are claiming Democratic failure, but that failure is measured against inflated expectations — rather, the disappointment Democrats may feel are the result of unreasonable optimism and ravenous aspirations for an electoral tidal wave to crash over the White House and U.S. Senate.

2020 appears to be resembling 2018 — when Democrats began election night by narrowly missing on electing “rising stars” Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum and Beto O’Rourke. In the end, Dems took care of business and achieved the core goal of taking control of the U.S. House.

But, it seems as though Dems could still get home on the ultimate goal of retaking the White House. And while the Senate is still unsettled, ironically, the nation may have stumbled backwards in the back door of the best possible outcome: a divided government.

First, why Democrats shouldn’t be

disappointed: Forget the pre-election optimism. Other than most polls being remarkably wrong in many states (and nationally), one other truism is clear from this election: It’s just not easy to unseat an incumbent.

Should Biden ultimately pull out a victory, Democrats and over 70 million Biden voters will have achieved a monumental feat: unseating an incumbent president. Only once in the last 40 years has an incumbent president lost reelection — George H. W. Bush — and that has been widely attributed to independent Ross Perot, who garnered nearly 20% of the popular vote.

I fell for it, too. I bought the hype that this could be the year for Texas to go blue — or some other surprise could lead to an early election night celebration. But, America just doesn’t throw out its presidents.

Similarly, Democrats are making gains in the U.S. Senate. Sure, more Republicans than Democrats had to defend their seats, in what appeared to be anti-Republican headwinds. But, over that same four decades,

only once have fewer than 80% of incumbent U.S. senators won reelection — “only” 75% won reelection in 1986.

Democrats have already flipped two of the 23 Republican Senate seats — Arizona and Colorado — and could still add more.

And, while it seems unlikely, Democrats could still take the majority in the Senate — either by winning undeclared races or by a Vice President Kamala Harris breaking a 50-50 tie.

“The greatest thing for America would be if Joe Biden won Texas. Because, if Joe Biden won Texas, it would break this fever in the Republican Party,” author Thomas Friedman said on CNN last week.

Well, Texas apparently wasn’t nearly as competitive as Democrats were led to believe. However, Trump won’t ever be president again. That alone should break the Republican fever.

Repeat with me: Don’t be disappointed.

Democrats did what we had to do.

The second reason for Democrats — even Republicans! — to be happy with the election results is that a divided government could lead to a ceasefire of extreme governing. Neither party can claim a clear mandate, and both parties will have to learn to coexist.

This is entirely contingent on Biden ulti-

mately winning and taking office in a timely, peaceful transition of power, but: Democrats will maintain a narrow majority in the U.S. House and, it appears, Republicans will have a thin majority in the Senate.

In this scenario, still-Majority Leader McConnell will have an even more fragile caucus to corral. Plus, without the Trumpadrenaline fueling the GOP base, it could be difficult for McConnell to operate the way he has for his first six years as majority leader, with only a one or two seat advantage.

Additionally, there will be no fewer than five(?), 10(?) or more Republican senators who will be running for president starting… any day now.

Finally, even if Democrats claw their way to winning the Senate, they won’t have the political strength to undertake the most progressive agenda.

Of course, this is the only real disappointment: Gone are the dreams of Medicare-for-All, rebalancing the courts, real climate change legislation and so on…

But, if McConnell is returned to Senate minority leader — and we aren’t forced to listen to Trump ever again — it’s hard to be disappointed.

Just don’t look at Frankfort. •

UNDERCOVER

MANOFMETTLE.COM LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020

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We decided to send Baby Girl into a foster home where she could recover away from the stress of the shelter. Since being in a foster home, Baby Girl now shows her true colors! You can tell how loyal, smart and sensitive she has been all along. Baby Girl currently lives with older children in her foster home and appears to be housetrained.

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BREONNA TAYLOR CASE HAS DAMAGED FAITH IN COURTS

By Ted Shouse | leo@leoweekly.com KENTUCKY’S courts run on faith. Citizens have to trust that the judicial system is run by people who try their best to follow the law. To keep this faith, judges, prosecutors and police must act with transparency. People deserve to see what transpires in court unless there is a very good reason for them not to. Two recent revelations significantly undermined that faith. The first involves our attorney general; the second is a procedural omission.

First: Two members of the Breonna Taylor grand jury asked the court for permission to share what happened in the proceedings. A third has also come forward.

This is extraordinary.

Most people reluctantly serve as jurors and are happy when their civic duties are finished. In this case, two jurors felt so strongly that a miscarriage of justice had occurred that they asked for an exception to the rule of secrecy. When granted permission to speak, one of the jurors flatly stated that Attorney General Daniel Cameron lied to the public.

If there was ever an event that could damage the public’s faith in the administration of justice, this is it.

Cameron announced on television that the grand jury was presented with homicide charges against the officers who killed Taylor. A juror said that wasn’t true — and that he and his fellow jurors were dismayed when they were denied the opportunity to consider homicide charges. These jurors believe that by coming forward they can help right a wrong. If that isn’t faith in action, I don’t know what is.

Prosecutors are charged with the impartial administration of criminal justice. Here, Kentucky’s chief prosecutor appears to have favored police officers and been less than candid about his decision-making process.

An innocent woman is dead and our attorney general has misled us about the investigation.

Our commonwealth’s attorney, Tom Wine, is uniquely situated to help remedy this mess. Wine’s resume as both a judge and a prosecutor gives him the insight to see that faith in the system is being damaged by each new revelation of impropriety. He should step in and investigate this case.

The citizens of Louisville have asked for and deserve nothing less.

The second revelation: Jefferson County’s judges continue to employ the same flawed warrant process that played a part in Taylor’s death. This is a more technical problem, but also significant. In collaboration with the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, WDRB reported that the judges’ signatures on search warrants are illegible — and when that was brought to the judges’ attention, the chief circuit judge shrugged it off. Let’s be clear: Our elected judges, with a few notable exceptions, didn’t think citizens needed to readily know who signed the warrant allowing police to break into and search their homes.

The administrative office of the courts ultimately issued new forms with a space for judges to print their names below their signatures. But LMPD officers continue to present the old forms and some judges continue to sign them. The new form is a step in the right direction; if LMPD refuses to use it, judges should commit to legibly signing their names.

In June I wrote an essay in which I called for two modest reforms to the warrant process.

I suggested that judges be randomly assigned and that the interactions between judges and officers be recorded — just like every other aspect of the criminal court. In Jefferson County District Court last week I watched a police officer arrive in court unannounced and approach the judge to get a warrant approved. The judge turned off the recording device, a brief conversation ensued, and the judge signed the warrant.

There is no record of what was said. We’ll never know what happened. That warrant was obtained just like the one that brought police to Breonna Taylor’s home.

Meanwhile regular Louisvillians continue to fight for justice in our city.

For more than 150 days citizens have demanded change.

They’ve been arrested, jailed, threatened and mocked by police officers.

But they have endured. They have kept the faith. • Ted Shouse has been a criminal defense lawyer for 21 years.

VIEWS

TUESDAY HAS TO BE A BEGINNING, NOT THE END.

By Marc Murphy | leo@leoweekly.com BROKEN. Regardless of what happened on Tuesday, America is broken in a way the removal of Donald Trump alone cannot fix. In the way cell phone video has exposed the brutal racism of our nation to those who are finally willing to believe with their eyes what our black neighbors have been telling our ears for generations, the pandemic has exposed our economic and social infrastructures for the wealth-serving, draconian frauds they have been at least since the rich convinced the white poor that taxes exist only to build a road to communism. The so-called political “division” hasn’t for a long time been between citizens of good faith with differing strategies to create a better country. There is in most respects now simply a right side and an irredeemable wrong side.

Even if he loses — and in the unlikely event he concedes without trying to finally execute our democracy — millions upon millions of Americans will have voted for a man who has moved past pretending to care about the truth, about the Constitution, about the world or about anything other than his own immoral interests. These millions, many of whom you know, work with, attend soccer games with and even celebrate holiday meals with, will have voted for him for reasons well known and well-explained elsewhere. For some of them, increasing their own wealth through the stock market, by lowering taxes and even by protecting their suburban property values is the limit of their interest in the “politics” they otherwise sneer at because they are insulated from the cruel world for others they help build.

Far more of those millions of Trump voters, however, are either the unwitting victims of the very economic and social strategies they support or have decided that protecting what has become their white Christian (in name only) world is worth the sacrifice. These are broad descriptions, but more detailed analyses paint these voters in no better light: The Catholics, for instance, dishonoring the Church’s social justice — truly Christ-like — tradition by supporting a man and a party who violate the Commandments and The Beatitudes daily in exchange for a so-called pro-life vote.

The pandemic rolled into the United States like the Germans into Poland because this nation — without universal healthcare,

without guaranteed basic income, without even a national impulse to care for others institutionally — was quite literally the least-prepared and most vulnerable allegedly developed country on the planet. Not only was there no national strategy, but there were lies, disorganization and self-interest in its place. The states were left to decide that, ultimately, families and businesses could ironically only afford to survive the virus financially if they were forced to risk surviving it medically by “opening up.”

The simple act of wearing a mask became weaponized and used by the president himself as a way to identify the weak and his enemies. The United States of America in 2020 decided, quite intentionally, that hundreds of thousands of deaths of mostly old and disproportionately nonwhite citizens were acceptable collateral damage. Like it always had.

America isn’t great.

In its history when it was doing great things it had its foot on the necks of the descendants of slaves, and 155 years after the end of the Civil War, and even after these last months of marching, we expect gratitude because *maybe* there will be revised Use of Force standards or some such thing for the police. The Democratic Party spent hundreds of millions of dollars this campaign cycle supporting candidates who can’t really distinguish themselves from their Republican opponents and even hope to appeal to Trump voters. America doesn’t

have a tradition of a true opposition party, and that’s why we live less in a democracy and more in an oligarchy, in which power and wealth continue to be more consolidated in the hands of a few, and the systems are perverted to serve only their interests. Interests that pay no taxes, because their private helicopters and three-ton SUVs don’t need new roads, they pay for their own healthcare and private schools, and they don’t give a shit about you. We should eat cake, they would say.

There are no gallows outside our Bastille.

But fundamental change can come through nonviolent means, and there were candidates this cycle willing to take the first steps down what will be a hard road.

“Decency” is nice, but it doesn’t buy a child’s surgery, it doesn’t fix her school, it doesn’t pave her road or provide — how is it I’m writing this in 2020? — clean drinking water. “Decency” doesn’t remake our militarized police departments from the ground up. “Decency” doesn’t make the minimum wage a livable wage. “Decency” tells everyone to be patient. We’ve been patient too long. Hundreds of thousands died because of it, and hundreds of thousands more will.

Tuesday has to be a beginning, not the end. • Marc Murphy, a Louisville trial lawyer, is editorial cartoonist for The Courier Journal.

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NEWS & ANALYSIS

BARDSTOWN GOES TO ONE LANE BOTH DIRECTIONS — AND BACK TO NEIGHBORHOOD STREET?

By Danielle Grady | dgrady@leoweekly.com ON Nov. 4 and 5, construction crews will convert a section of Bardstown Road through The Highlands into one lane both directions — the start of a plan that outgoing Councilman Brandon Coan hopes will turn it from a commuter highway into neighborhood street.

After Thursday, Bardstown Road from Eastern Parkway to Highland Avenue will no longer open up to four lanes during peak travel times.

Instead, the on-again-offagain parking lanes will become permanent, with turn lanes at most signalized intersections and spots for TARC buses to pull off.

“I think it’s going to slow the traffic, and I think it’s going to be a lot safer and more enjoyable environment for pedestrians and people on the street,” Coan said. “And, it will be safer for motorists, and I think it’s going to ultimately start to transform the business corridor as well.”

Reaction to the change on the private Highlands Neighborhood Facebook group was mixed, with some residents saying the same as Coan and cheering its potential to slow traffic and promote small businesses. But some of the same people also worried about increased traffic on neighboring streets, and others fretted about congestion. Westley Moore was conflicted.

“I’m trying to be open to this change but don’t understand the reasoning,” she commented. “If people just follow the AM/PM parking times, I really feel like traffic moved well.”

The changes are in accordance with the 2018 Bardstown Road Safety Study, which recommends the same lane treatment for the street as far as Princeton Drive, near the Douglass Loop. There are other alterations recommended for the corridor up to Brighton Drive. Coan said full implementation might occur in 2021.

This week’s project only includes

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020

THORNS & ROSES THE WORST, BEST & MOST ABSURD THORN + ROSE: KSP FINDS INNER HITLER

Bardstown Road between south of Rosewood Ave and Mid-City Mall Entrance. | IMAGE FROM LOUISVILLE.KY.GOV.

striping; the lane lights will be turned off but will remain in place. Eventually, Coan said, he would also like to see them taken down along with the hanging street signs and utility polls.

But, it will not happen under his leadership. Coan decided not to run for reelection this year and instead endorsed Cassie Chambers Armstrong, who takes his office in January.

In the past, Coan has told LEO that Bardstown Road’s problems date back to the ‘90s when the street became something of a highway for residents traveling from work downtown to their homes in the suburbs. Businesses serving drivers, such as fast food restaurants, gas stations and auto repair places, started popping up, Coan said.

But, there are still many independent restaurants and shops along Bardstown Road that might flourish under the new road plan.

Jimmy Flaherty, co-owner of Parkside Bikes, said he is “thrilled” by the lane switch-up.

“It’s going to be great for the neighborhood,” he gushed. “I see it being great for businesses. The street’s going to be way safer. I think it’s going to increase foot traffic and deter this being a through-highway hopefully.”

Flaherty said he often sees drivers going 50 mph on the 35-mph stretch past his store. He hopes the changes

will slow them down, and the new parking, in particular, will encourage people to stop, get out of their cars and explore the local businesses.

Still, there are more improvements that Flaherty would like to see: a reduced speed limit to 25 mph, perhaps, and more trees along the road.

The striping will cost around $50,000, Coan said, with money coming from District 8’s neighborhood discretionary and capital infrastructure funds.

A little over a year ago, Coan wrote a neighborhood newsletter proclaiming that the “The Doomsday Clock” for Bardstown Road was at “two minutes to midnight.” But, he also wrote in the newsletter that there was hope for the street despite a decline over the years.

As he prepares to leave office, Coan feels good about where the corridor is headed.

“I’m actually really thrilled to see this beginning to be implemented before I left office,” he said. “I think that, obviously if we make it through COVID, as a world, with a vaccine and our economy starts to come back, I really think we’ve laid the groundwork.

And transforming the road is really going to transform the corridor. And I’m optimistic that this is the beginning of really good times for Bardstown Road and for The Highlands again.” •

Two student reporters at the Manual RedEye get a rose for their scoop about how a Kentucky State Police training slide show included quotes from Adolf Hitler and Robert E. Lee and urged cadets to have a “mindset void of emotion” to “meet violence with greater violence.”

For its part, the state said the slide show is no longer used. But the KSP issued the students this shockingly lame defense, seeming to miss the significance of using the architect of 6 million Jewish deaths as a moral compass: “The quotes are used for their content and relevance to the topic addressed in the presentation.

The presentation touches on several aspects of service, selflessness, and moral guidance. All of these topics go to the fundamentals of law enforcement such as treating everyone equally, service to the public, and being guided by the law.” U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, who is LEO’s founder, tweeted: “I am angry. As a Kentuckian, I am angry and embarrassed. And as a Jewish American, I am genuinely disturbed that there are people like this who not only walk among us, but who have been entrusted to keep us safe. There needs to be consequences.”

THORN: POLICE CONTRACT IS BAD MATH

Louisville Metro government math: One woman killed by police during an ineptly planned and executed raid + a search warrant issued under suspicious circumstances + a cover-up by the state’s highest law enforcement official = raises for police, a possible housing stipend and no real guarantees to prevent another Breonna Taylor from being killed. That is what the proposed police contract adds up to...

THORN: HAVE WE ALL STOPPED CARING?

Kentucky has rocketed past 100,000 COVID-19 cases.

Gov. Andy Beshear refuses to enact strict rules as he had in March. The state Supreme Court is considering whether Beshear had overstepped his authority on those rules, and Republican lawmakers are frothing over the chance to rein in his emergency powers. Beshear has denied that steered his reluctance to revive past restrictions: “We are working very hard on enforcement, but we can’t enforce our way out of this.”

ABSURD: SCIENTIFIC POLLS ARE FOR LOSERS

What got prime real estate on The CJ’s page one last week? It was a story about “Psychic Hal” Fitzpatrick who works out of a booth at the Lake Cumberland Flea Market. The headline: “Forget the polls. We asked this Kentucky flea market psychic to predict the 2020 election.” His prediction for tRump’s chances of winning?

They were “going from ‘don’t know,’ to an almost ‘no.’ It’s switching now, and it’s going back to ‘yes.’”

PROTESTERS IN ARMS

GUNS AS PLENTIFUL AT PROTESTS AS THE REASONS PEOPLE CARrY THEM

By Cary Stemle | leo@leoweekly.com

Photos by Kathryn Harrington

JOHN SUBLESKI was standing near a row of storefronts on Baxter Avenue and holding his assault rifle across his chest while he watched 300 or so mostly white protesters march by.

No one seemed to take notice of him.

But it would be hard to miss Subleski, who is white, because he looked as if he were prepared for military battle. Along with the rifle, the 32-year-old corporate trainer wore a front-and-back vest with plates he said could stop armor-piercing bullets. It had been warm, so he’d left his usual ballistic helmet and night vision goggles at home, but his backpack and vest pockets were filled with items: a handgun, medical kits, zip ties, smoke grenades, a flare gun, flash bangs and a drone camera he keeps on hand for “hot” situations.

You could plausibly assume a white man at a racial justice protest was there to protest the protesters. But Subleski said he was there to protect the marchers as part of a militia called Urban Pharaoh’s Guard.

“We’re not protesters, per se — we’re more or less doing security for the movement itself to make sure they feel safe and have the ability to exercise their First Amendment right,” he told me later. “We ensure that and back it with our Second Amendment rights.”

In the not-so-distant past, the presence of a man with an assault rifle and military gear on a busy city street may have seemed remarkable if not alarming.

Not anymore.

The protests over police brutality in Louisville and across the nation — and the protests of government-enforced coronavirus rules — have revealed a seemingly new nonchalance about the public display of firearms.

There are a lot of guns at the protests in Louisville.

I took particular notice of this in late June, when an armed militia called American Freedom Fighters came to Louisville with the goal of marching to Jefferson Square Park, the hub of protest here. Waiting for them at the park were protesters young and old, black and white, male and female, also armed: pistols, rifles, shotguns and who knows what else.

But like Subleski, a range of people drawn to the protests also are armed. There may be as many reasons for carrying guns as there are people carrying. These gun carriers are diverse in their races, backgrounds and political affiliations. What they have in common, perhaps, is that they believe they need to be at the protests — and they need to be armed.

It is entirely legal, essentially.

Kentucky is an open carry state, meaning just The protests over police brutality in about anyone can openly carry a firearm without any Louisville and across the nation — and special permits. In 2019, Gov. Matt Bevin signed law a permitless concealed carry law, which the protests of government-enforced into allows eligible people to carry a concealed gun withcoronavirus rules — have revealed a out a permit or background check and safety training.

So, public displays of weaponry are increasseemingly new nonchalance about the ingly commonplace, including when white militia members carried long guns inside the Kentucky public display of firearms.

State Capitol last year. Guns have also been at There are a lot of guns at the protests recent Frankfort protests over Gov. Andy Beshear’s response to the coronavirus. in Louisville.

And guns have been used since protests in Louisville began more than 150 days ago.

Seven people were shot and wounded on the first night.

LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020

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Jefferson Square is surrounded by rooftops and open on three sides, and threats of snipers or drive-by shooters are more than esoteric. Police discovered two camouflaged men with long rifles, one with a bipod, on top of a parking garage. Officers took their guns, and sent them on their way with no charges. The guns were later returned.

Shortly thereafter, the worst came to pass when Tyler Gerth was shot and killed, allegedly by a man who’d been hanging around the protests for weeks.

More recently, two officers were wounded by a shooter during a night of protest. And shots have been fired between President Trump supporters in a car and protesters, fortunately with no injuries.

I asked Louisville Metro police what it’s like for officers to operate in an environment that includes so many guns.

Jessie Halladay, a police spokesperson, declined an interview request but provided this statement: “Guns are present throughout this community, so I would not say our approach to how we handle protests is shaped by the number of weapons we know are present, as that is a consideration we have for all our actions. Certainly, having guns so obviously present does raise tension, but that is a risk officers and the public face daily.”

So who is armed and why?

In an effort to better understand, I recently spoke with eight people who routinely carry. Here are their stories.

CHRIS WILL

As the head of a group called FIRM, which stands for Formation in Racial Matters, 33-year-old Chris Will is one of the most visible faces at Jefferson Square.

He had grown close to Gerth. Both were videographers, and Gerth, who was white, had just helped Will, who is Black, find a location to shoot a video for hip hop artist Marc DiNero.

Chris Will.

They planned to collaborate on a film documentary about the protests.

“Then he died,” Will recounted. “I literally grabbed his camera out of a pool of blood. I wanted to take him to the hospital and not wait for the ambulance. … I had bad dreams about it for months. I didn’t know it was affecting me, thinking everybody is trying to shoot me.”

Will often carries a handgun now, and he’s overseen by a security team that’s always armed.

“There’s always been people armed down here. It’s like the wild, wild West for real. I don’t think it’s the number of guns as much as the number of people increased. You see it more frequently, people walking down the street with big guns on their hip. Crime is up in Louisville; shit can happen.”

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Will said he’s had threats on his life. “It’s really wide open, and I’m concerned the police won’t help,” he said.

He describes a frightening incident that happened on a recent Friday night. “We were having a spooky movie for kids. Big crowd — one of my guys came and got me and said, ‘Hey man, two white guys — they gotta be carrying guns, because they’re wrapped up in towels, they just walked behind the bush over there [in front of Metro Hall near the corner of Sixth and Jefferson].

“I grabbed four or five security people, and we started walking that way. By the time we get across the street, we see a head pop up and a dude threw a towel and took off running with a gun on his leg. He pulls it out of his holster and turns around and fires it. The police apprehended them, then let them go because they didn’t find guns on them. Then, hours later they came out looking for shell casings. That makes no sense. I asked a lieutenant, how could you let them go? If one of us shot at a car driving by here, you all would come out here 100 deep to apprehend us.”

HANNAH DRAKE

As a vocal advocate for racial justice, you might assume that Louisville poet and activist Hannah Drake would be anti-gun.

Think again.

“I believe heavily in gun-ownership.

The way the world is, you simply have to protect yourself,” she said. “In this day and age, I feel it’s important for people to know I do have a gun. I have several, so don’t bother me. Leave me Poet Hannah Drake performed her poem ‘Formation’ outside of the First Unitarian alone. Being a black Church during the protests. woman, it’s the smart thing to do. … You have to be safe. This is long before Breonna Taylor.

“I think of Maurice Stallard and Vickie Jones, who were killed at Kroger doing everyday things,” she added, referencing the 2018 incident in which a white man was charged with murdering two Black people at the Jeffersontown grocery. “That could easily have been me.”

In a recent NBC News story about the Louisville protests, she told a reporter that she carries a Ruger 9mm and that she helped her daughter Brianna Wright purchase one, too.

Drake, 44, is a stickler for responsible gun-ownership.

Her partner also bought a gun recently, and they’ve taken training courses and regularly practice at a gun range. “We don’t just say let’s go buy a gun and wave it around,” she said.

Does the prevalence of guns at the square make her feel safer?

“I generally don’t feel unsafe at the square,” she said.

“The only time is when police are there, which is ironic because they’re the ones with huge guns and should be

protecting and serving people. Being at the square — it’s an open space, and people know we gather there. You wonder about people who may be racist and inclined to come shoot up a square or an event. You have to consider that when you’re in certain spaces.”

She feels less safe in other situations. Recently, as she walked back to her car after a protest, she heard one police officer tell another, “’Oh, that’s Hannah Drake.’ …

“Why do you know me, and why are you telling him that? Clearly, there’s some focus on who I am, probably because I’m vocal, but that’s a scary thought. The more visible certain people are, you draw attention. I get hate mail all the time. It’s not a secret who I am.

“People act as if it’s so far-fetched … Martin Luther King was one of the most peaceful protesters in the world, and you shot him anyway. And so this world, this nation, has a habit of taking out who they consider to be the leaders. And the more vocal you are and out front, people identify you.

That’s a concern, and I don’t think it’s a concern that’s farfetched, because that’s the history of America.”

Historically, she said, white society is afraid of a Black man with a gun.

“People act as if Black people shouldn’t carry guns,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Why do you have a gun? Why are you this or why are you that?’ Because it’s our right to. We have a right to bear arms.”

Drake said people were alarmed when the Black militia Not Fucking Around Coalition, or NFAC, came to Louisville. But when white militias come to the Capitol, she said, people excuse them as merely citizens just exercising their rights. “Why isn’t that the case when a Black person has a gun?”

I ask what might prompt her to use her gun.

“If I sincerely feel a threat to my life,” she said. “If someone’s threatening you on the street, you have the right to defend yourself. Yet somehow it becomes a problem when Black people do that. It’s ‘why did you do that? Why didn’t you just walk away?’

“If someone is threatening me, I have no problem — it’s gonna be them or it’s gonna be me. And it’s not gonna be me. Hopefully, that doesn’t have to happen.”

JIBRIYLL IZSRAEL JibryIll Izsrael, a 45-year-old, Black military veteran, is often seen on livestreams counseling restraint at Jefferson Square — “to be in between the police and the people. Whenever I do that, it always works. Nobody gets arrested, and there is no police brutality.”

He’s at the square to protest the death of Breonna Taylor but to also speak about larger issues.

“First and fore-

Jibriyll Israel.

most, give us liberty or give us death,” he said. “Freedom is essential for every human being on the planet. African Americans, and indigenous people who didn’t voluntarily migrate to the Americas, they haven’t known freedom in this country. It’s one of the things that gets missed as we focus on Breonna Taylor, but we try to make sure we don’t miss it.”

Izsrael began bringing his Smith & Wesson 9mm after learning about the Atlanta-based NFAC. “Twelve hundred men and women we’ve never seen before, they’re all legally armed and they’re not yelling, they’re not rowdy, they’re not riotous, they’re not chaotic. They’re disciplined, they’re structured. Immediately, I fell right in love with them. From that point in time, I started to bring a firearm with me every time.”

He said he later helped arrange NFAC’s visits to Louisville and to establish lines of communication with Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office and LMPD. “Me and my colleagues were concerned with, how do we get these folks out of town without anybody getting shot?”

Izsrael has been present at the square during close calls, including the Friday evening event referenced by Chris Will when two shots were fired.

I ask whether he feels unsafe downtown.

“I don’t, not at all. I’m in a place in my life where it’s OK if I die fighting for my people’s freedom. For my children to live their lives with honor.”

HOG GIRL

If you’ve watched the protests via livestreams or TV reports, you may have noticed a red-haired woman with a long rifle and military attire.

Her name is Tara Brandau, though she’s more likely to respond to Hog Girl, the nickname she acquired upon killing her first pig at age 5. Now she hunts wild pigs for a living, she said.

Brandau, a white Hog Girl. mother and grandmother who’s in her early 40s, commands the National Patriotic Defense Team, a militia she formed to focus on public safety and First and Second amendment rights. She said the group has more than 80 members in Kentucky and is apolitical.

“We’re constitutionalists,” she said. “You have a right for your First Amendment, and you have a right for your Second Amendment. We don’t have an issue as long as nobody’s trying to shoot somebody or burn the place down or beat each other up. But when the threats [reach] a higher level, that’s when we come out.”

Brandau emphasized they’re not white supremacists.

“My second in lead is Puerto Rican. My intelligence officer is Puerto Rican. I have Cubans, Mexicans, Blacks.

There’s some white but not that many, so for them to confuse us with being white nationalists really bothers me because we’re not a racist group whatsoever.”

She isn’t concerned about guns at the protests.

“As long as somebody is experienced, and there’s gun safety, they have every right to carry. It doesn’t matter what group it is or what color they are, they have the right to carry it. … I don’t feel threatened with it.”

I ask Brandau what her group would do if shooting starts.

“We are trained to disarm them,” she said. “We’re not trained to go start shooting people. That’s not what we do.”

three steps before I can fire. A lock on holster. Cock it.

Safety off — that’s three steps. I can pull on it all day long … unless you touch me physically, you’re not gonna get to my gun at all.”

Internal feuds are another problem: “This person said something about this person on their live feed, and they didn’t like it, and their friends didn’t like it, and they’re gonna argue with them down here.”

He doesn’t count on police to protect the protesters.

“Honestly, I don’t believe the police are here to help me at all,” he said.

CHRIS FOX

DAVID MOUR

Chris Fox Louisville recalled standing attorney David near a man who sudMour, who is white denly began firing and Jewish, is an a gun in the air at outspoken figure Jefferson Square. of the Louisville Fox pulled his wife, movement as a legal Shaila, out of their services provider parked car and and protest participushed her to the pant. He’s accusground, then drew tomed to guns — he his pistol and cocked served in the U.S. it. He pleaded with Air Force and was a the man to stop, police officer — but but the man started he began bringing shooting at him one to the square before firing into only after Gerth was the crowd, allegedly killed. killing Tyler Gerth.

“In my opinion, Chris Fox. the number of guns David Mour.

Fox said he had deliberated over has picked up along whether to fire, but then someone else shot and wounded the the way because of Tyler, and the fact that it became clear man.

LMPD will not do anything to protect protesters,” said “I get ridicule from people every day for not shooting Mour, 60. him,” Fox said. “In my head, in the split second of not pullFor example, he said, more than six minutes elapsed ing the trigger, I was thinking: ‘Am I gonna see both of my before police responded to Gerth’s shooting. By contrast, he kids again? Will I see my wife? What’s gonna happen to said, when a protester was clowning around and doused the our home if I go to jail? She won’t be able to pay the bills.’ eternal flame of a police memorial in the park, 30 police in They’ll put me in prison is what I thought.” riot gear quickly showed up.

Fox, 44, is biracial — his Mour also doubts offimother is Irish, and his father cial accounts that the man He normally carries a .380 is Black. He was born in police arrested actually pistol or a 9mm gun, but that shot Gerth — a somewhat Louisville but moved to Las Vegas in his teens, joining a frequent topic of converday, he brought an AR-15 gang. He didn’t grow up with sation at the square — guns, but said when he’d go rifle. The scene was extremely because the last shots he looking for hidden Christmas heard sounded like a long tense as 30 or 40 protestpresents, “I was always findrifle. “Then, they came ing a gun in the house.” in and trashed everything ers surged forward to keep He’s been coming to the in the square to hide Louisville protests since the approaching group from evidence,” he said.

Day One. He carries a pistol Mour was present reaching the square. to protect his wife, but he when the Angry Viking said he concerned about gun and his group marched to safety at the square. “Honestly, I don’t feel safe. There’s a the square, which was lightly occupied because many regulack of gun safety by others in the park. They’ll carry it like lars were at Churchill Downs to take part in protests there. this … You’re like, ‘Seriously, who carries a gun on their He normally carries a .380 pistol or a 9mm gun, but that shoulder?’ This is not 1865. It’s not the Civil War. day, he brought an AR-15 rifle. The scene was extremely “They have people with no safety on, one in the chamber, tense as 30 or 40 protesters surged forward to keep the no lock on their holster. Mine, I’m always in the holster, approaching group from reaching the square. There was LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020

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shouting, arguments and shoving but no shots fired. The police did not insert themselves to keep the groups apart for fear of escalating tensions, they told reporters, and they showed up only as the marchers dispersed on their own.

“Had shooting started,” Mour said, “we’d have been wiped out. I’m stunned no one got shot. There were a lot of people walking around with older weapons. A trigger and hammer weapon, like a shotgun — if you drop a cocked gun, it’ll discharge. That’s all it would’ve taken. I am, to this day, amazed there wasn’t a massacre.”

He attributed the outcome to “a little bit of luck. I think the livestreamers and some of the women who formed a buffer between the protesters and the militia caused clearer heads to prevail.”

Mour represents Robin Ash, who faces a felony charge after pointing a gun at a motorist during a protest on Hurstbourne Lane. Livestream video shows that driver brandishing a gun, then stepping outside his car and pointing his gun toward the marchers. Mour said Ash was acting in selfdefense, which he’ll assert when the case goes to a grand jury in December.

Mour and his daughter Lillie, who’s 14, were at the square on the recent Friday night when shots were fired. He pushed her to the ground and drew his weapon but couldn’t see where the shots came from.

“I’m trained to not point a gun where you can’t see and if you don’t have a target,” he said. “But that’s another example of why we carry weapons. I’m going to defend myself and my family. If I perceive someone is going to use deadly force, I would repel that attack.”

JACOBY GLENN

Jacoby Glenn was also guarding the Saturday march on Baxter Avenue where I noticed Subleski. Unlike his cohort in Urban Pharaoh’s Guard, he wore civilian clothes but also carried an assault rifle.

“We all watch out for different things,” he later told me. “I look for random acts in the crowd, people on rooftops, counterprotesters and people trying to take over the Jacoby Glenn. protests.”

Glenn, who’s 21 and Black, started coming to Jefferson Square on Day Two of the protests. He said his brother is a Louisville police officer who accompanied marchers to 26th Street and Broadway and took a knee with them in the early days of the local protests.

“I can pretty much play both sides of the party, because I have family in law enforcement and family who support Black Lives Matter,” Glenn said. “I knew I could come down and mediate, or I thought I could.”

He’s been with UPG for more than four months.

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“We’re in support of this movement, but we all have different views,” he said. “We all don’t think the same. We all believe everyone has their freedom of speech, and everyone can practice the Second Amendment.”

Do guns make him feel more or less safe?

“In a way it does both,” he said. “It’s more risky for people carrying rifles — it could give police a reason to shoot us. Everyone knows police don’t like us. They’ve told us multiple times they don’t like UPG. But it makes things safer for protesters than if we weren’t here to protect them.”

JOHN SUBLESKI

John Subleski grew up in Toledo, Ohio, and moved here seven years ago. He describes himself a “hardcore constitutionalist, about as far right as you can get without being a racist homophobe.” He was politically inspired by former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, a Libertarian and father of Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul.

Subleski recalled taking up arms in high school for a John Subleski. counterprotest of neo-Nazis demonstrating in Toledo. He feels a family legacy to stand up for victims, describing how his great-grandfather escaped from a Nazi concentration camp in Poland where he’d been imprisoned for helping to hide Jews, then emigrated to the United States and joined the military so he could return to Europe and fight Hitler’s army.

Later, Subleski said, he trained to join the Peshmerga rebels in Kurdistan but ultimately thought better of going.

He said he spent six months receiving paramilitary training in Marengo, Indiana, but had never injected himself into protests until George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police.

He began offering his downtown Louisville apartment as a safe house for protesters based at Jefferson Square.

Friends started bringing their rifles, and soon they went to the marches, looking to be a buffer between protesters and police, he said.

“Anyone who tries to silence these people or sever their ability to exercise their First Amendment rights,” he said, “we back them with the Second Amendment.”

Subleski dubbed the group Urban Pharaoh’s Guard, or Loujihadeen, and said their numbers have grown to about 30. After NFAC came to Louisville, UPG began occupying the square on a regular basis.

Subleski said he’s not anti-cop, but the authorities don’t like the group. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives have interrogated group members, he said.

During a march, he said an officer approached and said, “‘We’re glad you’re here, we support your Second Amendment rights.’ I cut him off and said, ‘What about their First?’

He realized we were not there to back the police or property, but we were there for the people.”

In fact, he said, where some militias turn out to protect property, UPG is solely concerned about physical safety.

“We have a stance on it as a group. How people choose to express themselves and their anger doesn’t have a damn thing to do with me till someone is being hurt,” he said.

“Just like we told law enforcement and federal agents — if they want to break windows or burn a car, it has nothing to do with us. We won’t intervene.”

I asked him if he’s afraid of dying.

“Yes and no. I’ve never been a guy that cared too much about myself. I probably care more about others than my own well-being. I expect the unexpected. I’m fully aware of the dangers and the credible threats against my life. I probably view death differently than some others.”

GUNS AND POLITICAL EXPRESSION

University of California Los Angeles law professor Adam Winkler, whose specializations include gun policy, noted that guns have been part of protests throughout American history. He cited labor strikes in the late 1800s, KKK rallies in the early 1900s, and the Black Panthers carrying weapons to the California statehouse in the late 1960s as just a few examples. The latter created a stir that led to more gun restrictions in the state, he said.

Winkler has noticed a resurgence of public displays of weaponry in the last 10 to 15 years, a period that covers the emergence of the Tea Party movement that arose after Barack Obama was elected in 2008.

“We often think about guns as a tool for hunting or selfdefense, but increasingly they’re used as symbols of political expression,” he said. “People with political views consistent with militia movements … think their political protest is more powerful when it’s done in military garb and with firearms.”

Guns at the protests might seem to reflect a conflict between the First and Second amendments, he said, adding, however, that the issue is nuanced. “It may not be much of a stretch to say the activity of having guns at a protest may not be protected by the Second Amendment, but protesters possibly have first a First Amendment right that involves having a gun at a protest.

“It’s another thing when the firearms’ existence intimidates and terrorizes other people. In that case, we could see that having a gun at a protest chills other people’s constitutional rights to express themselves and feel safe. It maybe discourages other people from even showing up at a protest because they fear violence and intimidation. That’s a First Amendment question that needs to be answered, too. It’s a whole mess, basically.”

THE DILEMMA FOR ACTIVIST LEADERS

It is exactly the ambiguity Winkler explained and other issues that make it more difficult for Louisville’s community leaders to tell young people to leave their guns at homes.

“I don’t choose to carry a gun, because I’ve lost too many people to gun violence,”said Shameka Parrish-Wright, who directs the Bail Project and helps lead efforts at Jefferson Square.“But I can’t tell people, in a strong gun-toting state that just relaxed its laws over open carry, not to carry.

“If there’s an event where we know it’s all just children,

STAFF PICKS THURSDAY, NOV. 5

Trans Initiative, A Night With DJ Syimone

Riot Cafe | 574 S. Fourth St. | Search Facebook | No cover | 7-10 p.m.

Part cafe and bar, part social justice center, Trans Initiative is a natural fit SAFE for the new Riot Cafe, from The Limbo owner Olivia Rose Griffin. This weekly meetup will be a safe place for trans men and women to gather and “feel seen” with resources and speakers. DJ Syimone hosts. —LEO

DJ Syimone.

The Urban Pharaoh’s Guard.

we say, ‘Hey can you not have your long guns for their own protection.” visible assault rifles out, because we want to Eddie Woods, who heads the No More make sure the kids don’t get scared.’”

Red Dots gun intervention program, said it’s hard to preach restraint when young people Parrish-Wright receives nearly constant don’t believe death threats. police will proAnd recently, tect them from when a woman approached her Parrish-Wright receives other groups.

“If the armed with a gun to nearly constant death protesters had air out a grudge, any idea that the the people of the threats. And recently, militias would be park surrounded dealt with if they her to defuse the when a woman did something of situation. approached her with a a confrontational A few years ago as Parrishgun to air out a grudge, nature, they might not carry,” Wright conthe people oft he park he said. “In a ducted surveys meeting, to gauge gun surrounded her to defuse Zoom one of the young ownership guys we’re menacross the city, the situation. toring asked, if it she learned that came to a physimany of her cal confrontafriends own three or four firearms. “I realized, ‘Oh, snap, tion between militias and protesters, whose side would police be on? I thought that was a lot more people have guns than I thought.’

They don’t have them out, they have them in a legitimate question that I don’t have an answer to.” • case of safety. What the militias and police didn’t know is that a lot of people in Louisville that are Black, brown and poor, have

THURSDAY, NOV. 5

Recipes For Resistance: Food And Fight For Women’s Su�frage

Zoom | conrad-caldwell.org/thirsty-thursday | $10 | 6:30 p.m.

Suffragists were, apparently, hilarious as well as badass SERVING SOCIAL JUSTICE fighters for human rights. They created cookbooks with recipes that bore such titles as “Pie for a Suffragists Doubting Husband” with instructions like, “mix the crust with tact and velvet gloves, using no sarcasm.” This cleverly promoted their cause and “were a strategic tactic meant to combat widespread images of suffragists as neglectful wives and mothers, busy politicking while their family starved.” Emily Denton, a UofL PhD candidate, will discuss these cookbooks with a kick at this virtual after-dark lecture hosted by The Conrad-Caldwell House Museum. You’ll be given a recipe of your own, along with your ticket, to make a themed cocktail to enjoy while watching. The lecture is the third in a four-part Thirsty Thursday series on “forbidden topics.” —Danielle Grady

LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020

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STAFF PICKS

THURSDAY, NOV. 5, 6

FRIDAY, NOV. 6-8

Gaslight Diner | 10509 Watterson Trail | jtownbeerfest.com | Prices and times vary

Waterfront Park | 231 Witherspoon St. | afsp.org/chapter/kentucky Donations accepted | Times vary

Cheers 101: A J-Town Beer Fest Event Missing our beer festivals is yet another sacrifice we’ve had to DRINK UP make because of this damn virus. This J-Town beer fest is a safe start to getting our beer escapades back online. Each session offers a professionally led tasting through eight, themed 5-ounce flights — plus a welcome beer and snack box. Three of the sessions include “Beers Around the World,” “KY Proud” and “Barrel Aged Beers. Now, to ensure everyone’s safety, all seats are reserved, and tickets will be sold to only groups of four (for $140, or $35 per person) or six ($210).

Everyone in your group needs to show up together, but it will be well worth it to get the beer flowing again. —LEO

Louisville Out Of The Darkness Experience This week is the annual Out of the Darkness walk by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Kentucky chapter. But, because of COVID-19, the event has been HELP changed to a weeklong digital experience and self-guided walk on Friday and the weekend. The walk portion is as interactive as it can be with stops for photo opportunities, a memory line and memorial tiles. There will also be a photo scavenger hunt with prizes. You’re encouraged to bring 4×6 photos of loved ones. And, in the days before the walk, you can participate by going to the Kentucky chapter’s social media pages for #WhyIWalkWednesday and #TalkSavesLivesThursday.

—LEO

One of the rare beers that will be at ‘Beers Around the World’ is from the brewery, Fantome, a one-person brewing operation in Belgium. Fantome’s HIVER is a dark spiced Saison style of beer.

THURSDAY, NOV. 5-7

Louisville’s International Film Festival Online | louisvillefilmfestival.org | $10 | Anytime

We know… films at home just don’t have the same allure. The screen isn’t as big, the sound isn’t as loud, and the popcorn doesn’t have that same fauxMOVING PICTURES buttery magic as you find in the theaters. But you can still enjoy the magic of 95 films submitted for this year’s International Film Festival, including 45 shorts, 14 feature films, 30 documentaries and six experimental and new media. All are available to watch at any time between 10 a.m. on Thursday and midnight Saturday. Plus, filmmakers will still be joining for Q&A sessions. Check the website for a full list of movies and scheduled Q&As, plus 24hour “lounge” chat rooms will be open to attendees, as well as filmmakers, actors and others involved with the festival.

—Aaron Yarmuth

‘ADAPTATION: Kentucky’ is among the films you can view virtually at the Louisville International Film Festival.

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FRIDAY, NOV. 6-DEC. 3

‘Nomads Facing The Weird’ By Hawk Alfredson Tim Faulkner Gallery | 991 Logan St. | Search Facebook | Free

To say Hawk Alfredson’s oil paintings are Surrealist doesn’t touch on all his styles. Even adding Magic Realism and Symbolism to the mix seems limiting. He creates visionART ary portraits, mystical objects and abstract circles based on the subconscious world of dreams. Alfredson’s influences include artists René Magritte, Hieronymus Bosch and Odd Nerdrum, film director Ingmar Bergman and writer Carlos Castaneda. “I want to transport the viewer into an altered state of consciousness,” he said, “[relating] to the images filtered through their own reality. Some see beauty where others can only see pain.” The Tim Faulkner Gallery will host the opening reception of Alfredson’s solo exhibition on Friday, Nov. 6 at 6 p.m.

—Jo Anne Triplett

‘Gypsum’ by Hawk Alfredson. Oil on canvas.

STAFF PICKS

SATURDAY, NOV. 7

TUESDAY, NOV. 10

Central Park | 1340 S. Fourth St. | Search Facebook | Free | Noon

Online | Filson Historical Society | filson.simpletix.com | Free | 6-7 p.m.

Free Yoga In The Park

We probably won’t have too many more beautiful fall days before the winter brings cold and gray, but Saturday looks like a perfect day for outdoor FIND YOUR CENTER yoga. Certified yoga instructor Jen hosts this free hour of yoga practice, suitable for yogis of all levels. Bring your own mat or towel, and get out while you still can. —LEO

The Boom Project: Voices Of A Generation

The current discourse on the Baby Boomer generation is dismissive. “OK, Boomer” is a KEEP READING phrase meant to brush off the Facebook ramblings of someone named Nancy with a flower as a profile picture. But, just as with every generation, there are Boomers who are empathetic and thoughtful. “The Boom Project: Voices of a Generation” is an anthology meant to “illustrate the varied experiences of writers who were born, or have lived in, the Ohio River Valley between 1946-64.” And some of the authors of that anthology will be discussing those experiences during this virtual, Filson lecture. Maybe you’ll discover yourself in the much-maligned Boomer. “This anthology will feel universal to anyone who has ever searched for identity, connection, and a place to call home,” organizers write. —LEO

SATURDAY, NOV. 7

Gnomes And Trolls

Horine Reservation | 12304 Holsclaw Hill Road | louisvilleky.gov/events $10 per person | 10 a.m.-noon Did you know that one of Louisville’s parks is MAGIC home to gnomes and a Forest Troll? It’s true! For this Saturday, anyway. Take the kids to the “magical” Jefferson Memorial Forest to build a shelter and eat a woodland treat — one for you and one for the Troll who guards the bridge. Pre-register by calling 368-5404. —LEO

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MUSIC

RMLLW2LLZ GETS PERSONAL ON CONCERTO NO.9 MOVEMENT II.V FOLLOW-UP EP BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR LOCAL HIP-HOP STAPLE

By Scott Recker | srecker@leoweekly.com RMLLW2LLZ’S NEW RECORD started taking shape in a van somewhere between Louisville and Columbus, Ohio.

Rmllw2llz, aka hip-hop artist Romell Weaver, and Dom B were out on tour, in between cities, and were ranking the albums that are the most important and influential to them and which ones they would remake if they had the chance.

Weaver mentioned Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak, an introspective, stylistic record that rearranged a genre back in 2008. As they were talking, Weaver expressed interest in achieving a sound and tone similar to the chilly landscape of 808s. He outlined his idea for an unrecorded song for Dom B, a producer and rapper, who started building and sketching out the production for the track right there in the van, on a drum machine that was plugged into the car lighter port. That ended up being the start of “A New Safe,” the intro to the new Rmllw2llz EP, Concerto No.9 Movement II.V, which will be released on Thursday, Nov. 5.

“We got to Columbus, and he showed me the beat, and I was like, ‘Shit dude, you made this in the car!?’”

Weaver told LEO. In title, Concerto No.9 Movement II.V is the follow up to 2017’s Concerto No.9 Movement II. And thematically, it also continues a trend toward the direction Weaver has been heading musically — writing that’s deep and highly personal, less focused on society as a whole, and more on letting the listener into his mind.

“Movement II was me opening up, Movement II.V is me pushing the throttle a little bit more,” Weaver said. “I’m just being a little bit more open, personally, versus it all being socially conscious. It’s just me telling people how I feel.

That it’s not always a sunny day.”

The five songs on the Movement II.V show a spectrum of emotions — there are songs in which he’s down and distressed, and there are others where he’s happy and counting his blessings. It’s very 2020 in that way — it’s hard not to be at least a little bit disgruntled this year, but, in some ways, it’s made us appreciate the people who are important in our lives. For instance, “Really Cool Love Song” is a breezy, sweet tribute to his wife, while “Fa Keeps” is rooted in the realities of a cold world.

“It’s a lot of gratitude with a little bit of attitude,” Weaver said.

Even though politics aren’t front and center in his music anymore, he still manages to weave in a few quick shots.

On the song “My God,” during a story about a sleepless,

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020

Romell Weaver (left) and Dom B.

thoughts-going-crazy sort of night, Weaver throws a jab at the president: “I feel like living is as unforgiving as Donald Trump / I ain’t as privileged plus I ain’t as dumb / So I say fuck it til the money comes / Until my cup runneth over and fuckin’ stains the rug.”

“I don’t know how to not be somewhat politically conscious or aware in my music,” Weaver said. “I just don’t want it to be all that anymore.”

Before the pandemic, Weaver was starting to tour more, having some success in other cities, but he said it’s hard for small artists who have success on the road and then come back to limited opportunities at home, especially in a year when live music has been almost at a standstill. But, he’s been trying to directly fight that for himself and others through his label, Kr8vn8vs Records, which has recently released music from Church Friends, Trap King Kai, Rob Lee and others.

“Every indie artist, in their city, at home, has felt this,” Weaver said. “At the beginning of their career, they feel… I don’t know, still not being taken seriously.

“But, in the same breath, I have the label, and being able to promote other artists and other things, has kept my mind

on things moving forward for all of us, so I just got to keep my head down and keep working,” he continued.

For the past half decade, Weaver has been extremely active in the local music scene, not only through his music and his label but also with his home recording studio, his collaborative projects such as his duo Barrel & Biscuit with Kendall Elijah Dynamite and several other creative endeavors. Business-wise and creatively, his goals have stayed pretty consistent, with a keep-moving-forward mindset that always explores new paths. But, one thing that’s changed over the years is the way he writes songs, which now is a more direct and streamlined process.

“I’m not thinking about it so hard anymore,” Weaver said. “Five years ago, it was like, ‘Oh man, I need to have that punchline and stories and I have to have this, and I have to have that.’ Now, I just want to feel it. And I want others to feel it. And I want it to jam. And I want it to be funky. Now, I’m writing more for the feeling and the vibe, versus writing just to show you I can rap.” •

FOOD & DRINK

RECOMMENDED

Hillcrest Tavern.

HILLCREST TAVERN OFFERS PURE COMFORT

By Robin Garr | LouisvilleHotBytes.com HALLOWEEN has come and gone, taking with it another piece of collateral damage from the pandemic: There was no Hillcrest Avenue Halloween decoration extravaganza this year.

But there is still a doggone good reason to go to Hillcrest — or to be more exact, to cross the railroad tracks, turn left onto Frankfort Avenue and drive a few blocks past Louisville Water Co. to Hillcrest Tavern.

You won’t be sorry.

The bar-style comfort food at this relatively new Crescent Hill eatery is good enough to help us forget the ghosties and ghoulies and things that didn’t go bump in the night this year.

Hillcrest Tavern opened in August 2019, joining a growing cluster of bars and eateries — FABD, Patrick’s and Hooked on Frankfort — in this busy block where Crescent Hill starts edging toward St. Matthews.

It gained immediate popularity. Starting with exposed brick, high ceilings and multi-paned front windows, it doubled down with vintage, neon local beer signs and a spectacular antique bar. That iconic 120-year-old mahogany Mont Oro bar was made by Brunswick, the famed billiards table maker. It makes an evocative home for Hillcrest’s extensive bourbon collection, beers and wines.

Owners Dan Borsch and Scott Lukemire

Mac and cheese is classic comfort food. Hillcrest Tavern elevates it with both a Tex-Mex version with spicy ground beef and this warm and filling veggie option with spinach, tomatoes and lots of comforting creamy cheese. | PHOTOS BY ROBIN GARR.

also own the Old Louisville Tavern as well as the Toonerville Deli, Burger Boy and Burger Girl restaurants and have won praise for them all.

Co-owner Scott Lukemire serves as chef over the group’s kitchens and, Borsch said, “has spent the last seven years at the Old Louisville Tavern perfecting our scratch-made sauces and recipes while training all our cooks to be focused on executing every order to our high standards, including to-go orders.

We are always looking at ways to improve our operations and continue to tweak recipes in the process.”

In the face of the pandemic, Borsch said, the team overhauled its to-go operations to ensure quality, including premium packaging and intense staff training.

They’re focused on pandemiclevel sanitation and constantly working to keep the restaurants’ environment safe.

Hillcrest’s menu is similar to Old Louisville Tavern’s. It’s bar food all right, comfortable and unthreatening, yet it’s elevated here and there with touches that

If you don’t think portobello mushrooms can be turned into tasty fries, you haven’t tried these thickly hand-breaded treats at Hillcrest Tavern.

LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020

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FOOD & DRINK

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | COMICS

YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD

COMIC BOOK REVIEWS! ‘The Autumnal’ No. 1

Writer Daniel Kraus and artists Chris Shehan and Jason Wordie Review by Krystal Moore, The Great Escape Louisville

Hillcrest Tavern’s patty melt was outstanding. It even maintained a little pink at the center after the drive home.

go beyond the ordinary.

It starts with 10 appetizers and five soups and salads, any of which could make a fine light companion to a drink at the bar or at home. The apps range from $7 (for hand-breaded fried pickle spears aka frickle spears) to $13 (for the Tavern Triple, a basket of buffalo wings, frickle spears and portobello fries). The soups and salads are from $6 (for cheese-topped tomato-basil soup) to $14 (for a salad topped with crispy fried chicken tenders).

Eleven sandwiches range from $10 (for a double-decker grilled cheese with American, cheddar and provolone cheeses) to $15 (for an appetizer portion of soy-glazed ahi tuna on a brioche bun). Nine burgers are similarly priced, from $12 (for tavern sliders on steamed buns) to $15 (for The Fancy Pants, a gourmet-style burger seasoned with white truffle oil and topped with herbed goat cheese and wild mushrooms). Burgers and sandwiches are all served with house handcut fries.

Ten generously portioned entrées wrap it up, from $14 (for a Veggie Mac’n’Cheese) to $21 (for the Tavern Surf and Turf, a seared garlic marinated sirloin with seared lump-crab cake).

It’s an impressive selection and everything we ordered for takeout scored, not only for preparation and flavor but because the sturdy black-and-clear plastic clamshell boxes kept our food hot all the way home… and yet, mysteriously, also kept a burger pink in the middle.

If you don’t think portobello mushrooms can be turned into tasty fries, you haven’t tried Hillcrest’s thickly hand-breaded treats ($9). An entrée-size appetizer, it included

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020

a dozen thick portobello slices the size of Indi’s potato wedges, each dredged in seasoned flour and deep-fried crisp. The crunchy coating and the tender mushroom within made a winning combination. It came with small tubs of creamy, tongue-tingling horseradish and chipotle ranch sauces.

The rye patty melt ($13) was outstanding. Two thick ovals of quality marble rye sandwiched a thick, juicy and tender beef burger that was still warm and touched with pink on the inside, with a nicely browned crunchy-crisp exterior. The mild Swiss cheese on top was melted by the heat of the burger and the bread had been spread with a thin schmear of Russian dressing. It came with a free side of excellent french fries, long, thin and crisp.

Mac and cheese is another favorite comfort food, and it gets even more interesting when you mix in tasty goodies. Hillcrest offers it two ways: Tex-Mex style ($16) with spicy ancho chile, ground beef, cheddar, jack cheese and poblano corn relish; and our pick, a warm and filling veggie version ($14), which was outrageously good.

Bite-size ridged pasta shells were cloaked in a rich, creamy, gently tangy cheddar and cream cheese sauce with fresh, small tomato dice and caramelized onions and four more delicious portobello fries on top!

An excellent takeout diner dinner came to a reasonable $36, plus an $8 tip.

HILLCREST TAVERN 3212 Frankfort Ave. 290-6917 hillcresttavern.com

KAT SOMERVILLE is a single mother on her way to a conference with the principal from her daughter’s school. We see pretty quickly that neither fit into what society would call normal-acting women. The scenery of the town is dark and grimy, colored mostly in steely blues by artists Chris Shehan and Jason Wordie. That evening, Kat receives a phone call informing her of the death of her mother, Trudy. Neither Kat nor her daughter Sybil are overly upset hearing the news, but finding out she’s left her house to them is quite exciting. With nothing keeping them in the city, they pack everything they have, including Stephen King’s book “The Eyes of the Dragon” they’d borrowed from the library that day, and take off for a new start.

When they arrive in their new town of Comfort Notch, the colors burst off the page in warm hues of red and orange. Daniel Kraus’ story takes a dark turn though, and we find the town may not be as pretty as it appears to be on the outside.

‘An Unkindness of Ravens’ No. 1 Writer Dan Panosian and artist Marianna Ignazzi Review by Krystal Moore, The Great Escape Louisville

WITH a title like that, you knew I’d pick up “An Unkindness of Ravens” No. 1. So far it is a bit of a spooky version of “Mean Girls.” Wilma Farrington is the new girl at Dansforth High School, which is hard enough, but add in her uncanny resemblance to a missing girl, and it gets downright bizarre. She’s even been given the girl’s old locker, which when opened has a glowing invitation to meet “by the birch trees,” that apparently only she can see. We meet the beautiful, rich girls as well as “the Ravens”, a group of outsiders who are decidedly witchy and obviously at the opposite end of the school’s social hierarchy. Which group will she choose to befriend and what happened to the missing girl? Hopefully, issue No. 2 will give us some answers!

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | BOOKS

‘LOUISVILLE ANTHOLOGY’ TIMELY, ANGRY Embrace the warmth of family and create

By T.E. Lyons | leo@leoweekly.com ‘The Louisville Anthology.’ edited by Erin Keane (Belt Press; 194 pages, $20) A COMPILATION of essays, reprinted articles and verse about a city. Sounds simple enough. Isn’t that the sort of reading material that gets revised every half-decade by civic organizations? You know, the “town fathers.” Or maybe a group of Realtors who are hungry for some new marketing handouts will fund one, as long as it’s printed in bright colors on slick stock for coffee-table appeal to the right kind of potential customers.

That’s not this book, not even close. The authors/poets/ journalists/essayists here have a much greater interest in addressing the emotional status of our city’s people.

And they convey that status with greater frequency (though with equal acuity) than they do providing guidance on history or geography of Louisville points of interest. Oh, there are many paragraphs that get readers into the thick of happenings that have been points of shift (or of reinforcement) to the city’s soul or that might lead you to want to break out a map to see where people come together — or come apart. But this is a book that looks to stir emotions. It holds a lot of anger.

Many of the pieces are timely — right up to the minute — and there are plenty of people who see this as a time of realization, if not reckoning. (By the way, the work that isn’t here and now has been very intentionally selected and carefully woven into the sequence, thanks to editor Erin Keane).

There are loose themes here, and the anthology has a distinctive flow. Early on we get tales of conflicted personal heritage and struggles of identity and fortune — following on from the editor’s introduction. She points to our locale mixing Midwest and South. Being an urban island surrounded by the rural. A Rust Belt town regularly refreshed with pockets of cultural innovation. And so on — we all know the song of Louisville’s dichotomies and paradoxes. But the writers ably dig deep here (especially about relations within and on the fringe of African American families).

Later, the editorial twists and turns designed to maintain reader interest become noteworthy. Pieces about graves include a clever poem about Cave Hill Cemetery. This becomes a pivot into Michael Jones’ fascinating, irony-laden history of the kindergarten teacher sisters who penned “Happy Birthday to You” (and who are in Cave Hill).

In turn this leads into music as a prominent subject midway in the program. The early days of the local punk scene and a recounting of regional roadhouse rockers’ mischief are brought to joyful life by Tara Key and company.

(Did the first local punk audience really have to look at the band across opposite haylofts of a barn?)

Next up are the experiences of transplants from other regions, fading into closer looks at neighborhoods with character (e.g., Butchertown, Old Louisville). The concluding pair of pieces, among the strongest in the book, thoughtfully confront church institutions — just some of the many stories here that remind us that there’s work to do toward fair sharing of the good life this city offers.

Don’t ignore the pairing of David Serchuk’s recollection of adapting to post-New York life — with concerns and kvetches gradually overcome with community warmth — and Aaron Rosenblum’s indignatious look at how his introduction to Derby culture displayed attempts to dress up the most exploitative aspects of horse racing past and present. All “about my town” compilations should be unafraid to include the likes of both. A lot of the joy in this bittersweet book is in nostalgia. But the bitterness is honest and earned.

ONLINE TALK WITH ERIN KEANE

Thursday, Nov. 5 carmichaelsbookstore.com Carmichael’s Bookstore To register: crowdcast.io/e/louisville-anthology-w Free | 7 p.m.

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2601 Charlestown Rd, New Albany, IN 47150 (812) 725-8407 www.facebook.com/mommaspizzaandmore If you'd like a LEO Weekly rack at your business, email distribution@leoweekly.com LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020

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show for which Toni Collette won an Emmy 109 Cow, in Cádiz 110 Bibliography abbr.

111 ____ vez (again, in Spanish) 113 Record speed, for short 114 Gadget that once came with a click wheel 116 Rip (on) 118 It might start with ‘‘I-’’: Abbr.for 40 years. He has been married for 33 years and has four adult daughters, all still in the Ann Arbor area.

The genesis of this puzzle was hearing about an actor who had [answer at 48-Across]. That made him think of Frankenstein, and an idea was born. This is Peter’s 114th crossword for The Times. — W.S.

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Indiana city that’s 100 miles west of Lima, Ohio Pale Quaint ‘‘not’’ Tidy up . . . or make less tidy Produce on a farm Poster heading Spy’s collection Billy in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Not up Fatty tuna, in Japanese cuisine Lead-in to phobia Common sight at a cash-only bar AM radio abbr.

Capone contemporary Bone: Prefix Like some Coast Guard rescues Superfan Do another take of Number of sides on a hendecagon More crafty ____ ark ____ Jeffries, chair of the House Democratic Caucus 97 Them’s fighting words!

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Kiss Oscar winner Dern Finish with Final destination, perhaps Long haul Title for Emma Bovary: Abbr.

Appreciative cry Arrive unnoticed ‘‘As I Lay Dying’’ father Two of Us? Fashioned Them’s fighting words! ‘‘It’s Raining ____’’ ‘‘This minute!’’

Formal admission Simple shelter Glossy gown fabric ‘‘30 Rock’’ was inspired by it, for short Apt thing to wear during allergy season?

Mortar = sand + water + ____ Gymnastics event With skill French towns What you’re doing at every moment Bassoon attachment Buck Like royal flushes Beg Museum offering Article of Cologne?

She raised Cain Hit ABC dating show, with ‘‘The’’ Component of béchamel sauce Celebration of a life, for short Clouds (up) Tickled Spam filter, of a sort Capital of Samoa Lentil, e.g.

Card’s place: Abbr.

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Objective Source of stress for a returning vacationer Homes staffed with butlers, say Heartburn-relief brand Snapple competitor At the Halloween play, when the black cat appeared, the ____ 25 Really bother 26 Sound of a candy wrapper 27 Collectibles-like ticket stubs and matchbooks 29 Glassy square?

30 ‘‘Critique of Pure Reason’’ philosopher 31 Enemy of Bowser in video games 33 Music producer Gotti 35 Fr. religious title 36 . . . the skeleton gave a ____ 43 Belle of a ball 46 Bradley or Patton: Abbr.

47 Citrus fruit with a portmanteau name 48 . . . Frankenstein had ____ 53 One of the kids on ‘‘Stranger Things’’ 57 Most common U.S. street name, surprisingly 58 Scarecrow portrayer 59 Blanket that’s worn 60 Follow closely, as the curb 61 Pitcher Satchel in the Baseball Hall of Fame 63 Chow 65 ‘‘Of course I remember you!’’ often 66 Glasses, in slang 68 . . . the critics loved the witch’s performance, ____ 71 Tickled 72 Dragon-roll ingredient 73 Friendly 74 Prepare, as mushrooms 75 Vexation 76 Cassandra, for one 78 Vocal critics 81 Hooded jacket 84 Great Lake name 85 . . . the ghost had ____ 88 Amazon, for one 90 Old-timey title 91 No-go area, in brief 92 . . . the vampire never ____ 99 ‘‘Evil Woman’’ group, for short 100 Most common English letter, in Morse code 101 Joyce Carol with two O. Henry Awards 102 Slumps

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106 Send emojis, say 108 Southern shade trees 112 It gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1991 115 Source of some tweets 117 . . . the mummy was a hit ____ 119 Try to make out 120 Tot’s spot in a lot 121 Certain Bach compositions 122 Fitting anagram of ANGER + E 123 In the style of 124 G.I.’s chow 125 Artoo-____

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PHOTO BY RACHEL ROBINSON

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SAVAGE LOVE

By Dan Savage | mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage

OLD TIMES

Q: I’m a nearly-80 straight male, with undiminished libido. I have no problem with it, just a persistent curiosity. Like, why now? And why so various? And is it common among us old geezers? Male and female?

I’m more sex-obsessed than ever before, including adolescence. Until my sixties, tits were my sexual focus, and other body parts were strictly subsidiary, whether I was looking, fantasizing, masturbating, or fucking. Now butts, bellies, assholes, cunts, legs, arms, shoulders are equal turn-ons. Well, I do have one problem: women aren't interested in me “that way” anymore. The secret smiles in public are no longer complimentary or inviting or challenging.

They’re just fond, polite smiles for a nice-looking old man. The availability of porn plays a big part in my obsessions. It primes the pump visually, mentally and physically, by showing more body parts and what can be done with them. Lack of a steady sex partner may also explain my obsession—but I was sometimes without a sex partner when I was younger and I wasn’t similarly obsessed. So is this the usual pattern? Does being relieved of the stress and distractions of work free all retired men—and women—to be perpetually horny or what?

Geezer Energy Rocks Id And Titillates Retired Isolated Chap A: “I don’t have statistics for GERIATRIC, but I can tell him that wherever his libido falls on the ‘none’ to ‘yowza’ scale, he’s normal,” said Joan Price, author of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex. “While it’s true that most seniors see their libidos decrease or at least mellow, I hear from people like GERIATRIC all the time—older folks who feel exuberantly sexy.”

What explains the sudden surge in libido experienced by some seniors?

“There’s a freedom to sex in our older years,” said Price. “We may still get those ‘at your age’ restrictive, shaming messages, but we’re happiest and most fulfilled when we ignore them. So I would advise GERIATRIC to enjoy his charged libido and not to worry about whether it's a ‘usual pattern.’ Who cares?

It’s your pattern. You do you!’

And Price says there are women who’d be down to do you too.

“As he sees it, his problem is that the women he desires ‘aren't interested,’” said Price. “As I see it, his problem is that he’s not actively seeking out women who are.”

Your days of picking up women on the street may be behind you, GERIATRIC, but they’re supposed to be behind us all. Instead of making women feel unsafe when they’re out in public by assuming a smile is a signal of interest, Price suggests looking for connections online.

“GERIATRIC needs to polish his seduction skills and get on the dating sites,” said Price. “He needs to show a potential bedmate what he has to offer—and I don’t mean a dick pic. He needs to woo a woman with his words—at least to begin with—and, most importantly,

he needs to show interest in who she is as a full person, not just the body parts that turn him on.”

But don’t get on dating sites if your bullshit detectors were removed with your gallbladder. If someone seems too good to be true—if someone seems too young and too hot to be interested in a guy your age— they’re almost certainly a scammer. And if a flirtatious exchange becomes a sob story becomes a money beg, hit the block button. I’m a firm believer in intergenerational romance, GERIATRIC, but for safety’s sake you should stay in your generational lane. That means getting on Our Time and/or Silver Singles instead of Tinder and/or Plenty of Fish. For while there might be a small handful of hot twenty-something gerontophiles in your area, the odds of that you’ll find one are too slim to bother trying. And you’ll have better luck going after women closer to your own age.

“Libidinous older women are out there, I can assure him,” said Price. But you’ll have to do the work, GERIATRIC, “since most will want to feel safe and appreciated as well as desired before they invite him into their beds.”

Finally, GERIATRIC, seeing as the horny old man has been a cliché for as long as men have existed, I don’t think you should blame online porn for your predicament. Some people’s libidos ramp up as they age, like Price said, and it sounds like you’re one of those people. Maybe instead of seeing porn as the cause of all your problems, GERIATRIC, you could see porn as your friend. Solo sex can be good sex and porn is there to help you enjoy it.

Follow Joan Price on Twitter @Joan Price. You can find Price’s books and the educational film she made about senior sex with porn star and sex educator Jessica Drake at her website www.joanprice.com.

Q: Pre-COVID I was in the whirlpool at a hotel spa when an elderly gentleman asked if I wanted a foot massage. There’s only one reason a guy offers another guy a foot massage: he was gay and into feet. I’m straight and not into feet but I said, “You can rub my feet—but just my feet, no higher.” My wife insists this means I had a “gay encounter.” I say it was gay for the other guy but not for me. What say you?

Fighting Over Our Terms P.S. We’re not really fighting.

A: Not all encounters with gays count as “gay encounters,” FOOT, but seeing as this was clearly an erotic experience for the elderly guy and you knew it—you weren’t being secretly perved on—I’m going to side with your wife. Even if you didn’t get off on it, even if you were just enjoying the massage, you knew the other guy was getting off on it.

Q: I’m a 45-year-old straight woman in a monogamous relationship with a 48-year-old straight man.

One thing that keeps playing over and over in my mind is something he said to me three months into our relationship. He spent the night for the first time at my place. We were laying in my bed the next morning, just talking and enjoying each other’s company, when

his phone beeped. He read a text and then said, “That was my friend Susan. I can’t wait for you to meet her. I think you’re really gonna like her—oh, and she sucked my dick twenty-five years ago at a rest stop in New Jersey.” It turns out “Susan” is his best friend.

I had not met her yet and this was the first thing I knew about her. When I asked why he told me this, his response was that he was half asleep. He wasn’t.

When I pressed further he told me it was something that happened a long time ago and that they laugh about it now but then told me it was none of my business! I agree! It’s none of my business! So why did he feel the need to tell me? Then he told me Susan can never know I know because she would feel humiliated.

But that’s exactly how I feel! Are Susan’s feelings more of a priority to him than mine? I’ve hung out with him and Susan three times. I have asked if we can get together again, as a group, so I would feel less insecure about the times they get together without me, but there’s always some excuse for why it’s not possible. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a relationship and I’ve invested a year in this man. He is a decent guy otherwise, Dan, but this nags at me.

Boyfriend’s Long-Ago Blowjob A: Your boyfriend was either playing head games— meaning he was fucking with you on purpose—or he lacked the emotional intelligence and/or impulse control to realize why sharing something like that, at a moment like that, was a bad idea. If he’s the kind of guy who enjoys tormenting the women he dates, BLAB, he would’ve done similar or worse things by now. (And a woman he dated a quarter of a century ago probably wouldn’t be on speaking terms with him, much less one of his closest friends.) Assuming he hasn’t done similar or worse—I’m guessing you would’ve included other examples in your letter if he had—perhaps he deserves the benefit of the doubt here: he said something stupid and thoughtless, he couldn’t come up with a good explanation for why he said it, and doesn’t like to be reminded of it. As for Susan… he’s known her for 25 years. If he wanted to be with her, he’d be with her. And he may be reluctant to get together as a group because he worries—perhaps not without cause—that you might bring it up. If he’s given you no other reason to suspect he might be cheating on you, cram this ancient blowjob down the memory hole. mail@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

On the Savage Lovecast, Dan chats with Adam Sass, author of Surrender Your Sons- an escape from conversion camp thriller. www.savagelovecast.com

CLASSIFIED LISTINGS LEGAL Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of a 1987 Toyota Corolla brown VIN #JT2AE83E7H3440120, Owner Tony Mattingly Lien Holder: none. Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice. Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-7279503, has intention to obtain title of a 2006 Nissan maxima White VIN #1N4BA41E86C83550, Owner Latosha Wolfork Lien Holder: none. Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice. Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of a 2007 Dodge Calibur Silver VIN #

1B3HB28B87D554745, Owner Hector Gallegos Lien Holder: ---Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice. Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of a 2007 Chevy Avalanc VIN #KL1TD56607B170231, Owner Kwel Aguer Lien Holder: none Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice. Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of a 1994 Ford FordRN Tan VIN #1FTCR14X9RPB22053, Owner Joseph Whitehead Lien Holder: none Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice. Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of a 1999 Honda Civic Silver VIN #1HGEJ7122XL060769, Owner Gerardo Garcia Lien Holder: none Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice. Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of a 2000 honda civic silver VIN #2HGEJ661XYH552636, Owner Mary Bowles Lien Holder: none Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice. Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of 2002 Audi Audi27 blue. VIN # WAULD64B92N042055 Owner Tiffany Yates Lien Holder: none Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice.Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of a 2007 Ford Crownvic VIN # 2FAHP71W27X116473, Owner LARRELL SIMMONS Lien Holder: none Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice.

Notice is hereby given by J T Classic Auto Shop LLC 2341 Millers ln Lou, KY 40216 (502) 309-5980. Owner has 14 days to respond in writing to obtain title to the following: 1996 Jagu, VIN-SAJHX1742TC762960. Owned

by Pavol Malek 9926 Tradewinds DR, Port Richey, FL 34668.

DIRECTV - Every live football game, every Sunday - anywhere - on your favorite device. Restrictions apply. Call IVS - 1-877-379-2505 Notice is hereby given by Nate's Automotive 400 E. Breckenridge Lou, KY 40203 (502) 408-7743. Owner has 14 days to respond in writing to obtain title to the following: 1997 Linc T/Car VIN-2B3KA73W78H271600.

Owned by Richard Dooley 3328 Algonquin Parkway, Lou. KY 40211 Lienholder Springleaf Financial 7031 Raggard Rd, Louisville, KY 40216.

MULTIPLE FACILITIES - MULTIPLE UNITS Facility 1: 5807 Bardstown Road, Louisville, KY 40291: November 11, 2020 – 1PM Units: B020 Facility 2: 7900 Dixie Highway, Louisville, KY 40258: November 11, 2020 – 1PM Units: 525, 543, 574, 619, 623, 660, 761 Facility 3: 6708 Preston Highway, Louisville, KY 40219: November 11, 2020 – 1PM Units: 109, 425, 496, 529 Facility 4 (ANNEX): 4010 Oaklawn Drive, Louisville, KY 40219: November 11, 2020 – 1PM Units: 9260 Facility 5: 5420 Valley Station Rd, Louisville, KY 40272: November 11, 2020 – 1PM Units: Facility 6: 8002 Warwick Ave, Louisville, KY 40222: November 11, 2020 – 1PM Units: 1130, 1131, 342, 344, 416, 541, 631 Facility 7: 4605 Wattbourne Ln, Louisville KY 40299: November 11, 2020 – 1PM Units: 230, 367 Facility 8: 11440 Blankenbaker Access Dr, Louisville, KY 40299: November 11, 2020 – 1PM Units: 668 Facility 9: 201 E. Market Street, Louisville, KY 40202: November 11, 2020 – 1PM Units: A103, A120, A153, B225, B329, C495, D599, D673, D691 Facility 10: 6456 Outer Loop, Louisville, KY 40228: November 11, 2020 – 1PM Units: 839, 913, 918, 6005, 9038 The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures.com.

Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. ExtraSpace Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.

REAL ESTATE - RENTAL Furnished Rooms For Rent Western Hostel, Large Rooms, All Utilities Included plus FREE CABLE. $120/wk, $480/month, Call 502-638-0636

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // NOVEMBER 4, 2020