Table of Contents August 24 2017 Insider 4 Kris Fisher 7 Whine Line 9 Feature 10 Local News 17 Cuisine Scene 20 Brian Regan 23 Metro Week 26 What’s Up 27 Calendar 28 Ben Folds 34 Nightlife 36 Sightings 38 The Eight 44 Austin Rhodes 46
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Bo Hunter Becomes a Richmond County State Court Judge WHEN GEORGIA GOV. NATHAN DEAL announced this week that he had selected local attorney Robert “Bo” Hunter III to be Richmond County’s newest state court judge, some locals were surprised by the news. Hunter was up against local attorney Freddie Sanders to fill the seat of retiring Richmond County State Court Chief Judge Richard Slaby. Some thought Sanders would be a shoo-in because of his long career with the Richmond County Sheriff ’s Office. Others hinted that it didn’t hurt that Sanders was also a well-known local Republican. Now, while everyone knows a judgeship is a bipartisan seat, politics is always important when it comes to matters dealing with the governor. But Hunter was chosen, not only over just Sanders, but he was also selected over a dozen other lawyers vying for the seat including attorneys Brandon Dial, Ben Allen, Monique Walker and Michael Arrington. With this appointment by the governor, Hunter will serve as a state court judge until the seat is up for election in 2019. This judicial appointment is a big deal for Hunter. He has wanted to don a judge’s robe for several years now. Just last year, Hunter was defeated in a runoff for a state court judicial seat by then Richmond County Solicitor Kellie Kenner McIntyre in July. It was a big blow for Hunter, an attorney who’s been practicing in the Augusta area since 1982. Despite Hunter’s best efforts to get the word out about his more than 30 years of service to the local legal community and his dedication to Richmond County, McIntyre ended up handily beating Hunter at the polls. McIntyre, who is also the daughter-in-law of former Augusta Mayor Ed McIntyre, managed to receive 56.7 percent of the votes cast in the runoff compared to Hunter’s 43 percent. The ironic part of the entire election was that McIntyre was heavily criticized by numerous media reports regarding her job performance as solicitor. Specifically, McIntyre’s effectiveness as Richmond County State Court solicitor general came under fire following a lengthy news story that was published in The Augusta Chronicle about the enormous backlog in the solicitor’s office. The Chronicle’s story reported that nearly $1.4 million from fines paid by thousands of residents for minor traffic tickets
before Jan. 1, 2014, and some cash bonds that people put up to get others out of jail had been sitting untouched in a bank account for years. The money had allegedly been just sitting there because of the backup in paperwork in the Richmond County Solicitor’s Office, according to the Chronicle. The Metro Spirit attempted to interview McIntyre before the runoff and give her an opportunity to address Richmond County voters, but she never responded to more than half a dozen requests for an interview. McIntyre also refused to debate Hunter before the runoff, but she still somehow managed to get elected to the bench. In an ironic twist, Hunter, who also served as the former solicitor general of Richmond County State Court beginning in 1988, was probably best known for quickly addressing the tremendous backlog of cases in the office during his eight years as solicitor. “With 33 years of experience as an attorney in Richmond County, I have had a lot of experience in state court, and I feel like I can really contribute to that court,” Hunter told a Metro Spirit reporter last year. “There have been some problems there that obviously I think I can straighten those out and really work with the other state court judges to find some solutions. Obviously, there is a backlog of cases that we can work on and get those done.” The only reason Hunter said he decided not to run for reelection to the solicitor’s office in 1996 was, he wanted to serve in the Georgia Legislature. “In 1996, I ran for a House seat against Jack Connell, the speaker of the House at the time,” Hunter said. “To be honest, I thought Jack was going to retire, but then he decided not to.” As a result, Hunter was caught in a tough situation. “I already encouraged Sheryl Jolly to run for solicitor’s office because I thought she deserved that opportunity and I couldn’t go back on her because somebody else had gone back on me,” Hunter said. “So I ran for the House and lost to Jack. And I’ve been in private practice ever since.” While in private practice, Hunter wasn’t known for taking easy cases. Whether he was facing a legal battle against the cigarette giant R.J. Reynolds or defending Richmond County Probate Judge Harry James III in a case involving the politically charged gun-owner-rights group, GeorgiaCarry.org, Hunter
stood by the law. Last year, Hunter seemed 100 percent ready to become a state court judge, and he was confident that he was going to defeat McIntyre. “I just think this is my time,” Hunter said, adding that he had a number of excellent attorneys work with him over the years who eventually went on to become local judges, including Superior Court Judge Sheryl Jolly, Magistrate Judge Scott Allen and former Columbia County Chief Magistrate Judge Bobby Christine. He was certain that he would win the 2016 runoff. Funny how things work out, eh? While 2016 may not have been Hunter’s “time,” this year is officially his year. Hunter will soon be enjoying the view of an Augusta courtroom from the bench.
Fees for Emergency Services Unfair TO THE EDITOR: I am a Richmond County resident, a senior and a widow on a fixed income. I just learned to great dismay that we residents, as of January 1, 2017, are no longer entitled to have a muchneeded service of police, fire and ambulance in case of an emergency without having to pay a hefty fee. I am only one of many seniors in this community who live alone and need this service. We now have to pay $400 for these services when calling 911. Unfortunately, I was in a bad car accident about two months ago from a speeding vehicle that forced me off the road and kept going. Then a couple of weeks later, an intruder broke into my house and hit my sleeping head with a brick and darted out. Naturally, 911 was called in both incidences, sending police, fire and ambulance whether I needed it or not. I just recently received a bill from Gold Cross charging $400 for each occurrence. My insurance refused to help me with this. I refused to take an ambulance because I knew it would
4 METROSPIRIT AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
be an extra cost and chose to see my primary physician instead. The personnel at Gold Cross treated me as if I was stupid and ignorant saying, “The notice was all over the news beginning January 1.” I watch our local news daily and never heard any mention of this! I have asked 30-50 people I know if they knew of this situation. All said no and were as astonished as myself. What are we to do in an emergency, wait for someone to come and find us injured or dead? I was told that this was decided by the City Council for Richmond County only! What are we to do? Help! Feeling Forsaken, S. Allison
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Our Amy Takes a Leap “NOPE, NOT THAT ONE. The other one. Yes, there is another one. There’s that one, then there’s mine. Mine can’t sing.” And so, it went, day by day … week by week. As PR professionals, marketing directors, heads of nonprofits, advertisers, et al, would ask “who do I contact to get XYZ in the paper?” I would tell them Amy Christian. I could tell by the excited look that would spread across their faces they were wrong. “Oh wow!” was usually the response I would get. “That is so cool!” Yes, Amy Christian is cool, all right. But most of the time it was Amy Christian, the local Augustan who was a backup singer for James Brown they were referring to, not the Metro Spirit’s longtime Arts Editor. “Oh.” was usually the response I got when I let them know they would not in fact be interacting with Mr. Brown’s backup singer but the pleasant, affable, highly capable Mrs. Amy Fennell Christian, wife of Jim and mother of Nola. Such is life when you are grinding away at an alternative weekly newspaper. All the glory goes to others while you make sure you spelled their name right. But Amy was, and is, in fact glorious. She has been a coworker & friend-her booming laugh music to my ears — for 15 years. Sadly, Amy has recently accepted the position as director of development for the Westobou Festival. Sad for us, yes, but also very exciting at the same time. She will be working alongside another former Spirit staffer at Westobou, senior graphic designer Jason Craig. As director of development, she will be apparently directing development for the festival. We
By Joe White
didn’t actually discuss what her job duties were going to be ... she was too focused being Amy … responsible, meticulous and thoughtful … training her replacement Amanda Main and making sure we were all taken care of before her departure. Amy has put her stamp all over the Spirit, from our approach to covering the arts, dining and music to the actual layout of the paper. Her smart insight and workhorse mentality has made her a vital part of our team. I know I speak for all our current and former employees when I wish her the very best in her new career, and we all look forward to seeing her byline in the paper again soon as a freelance writer.
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i Love the rumors Kris fisher One Of my favOrite things about being a dad is passing on the things I have learned to my kids. I told them early on that they should learn from my mistakes in life, of which there are a plethora. When they actually pay attention and use my suggestions, it’s among my favorite moments in life. I recently had a talk with my daughter about boys. One of many talks, actually. She’s getting to the point in life where the boys her age are starting to base their decisions off of other things than reason and responsibility. She kind of understood, but kind of didn’t. So I broke it down like this: One day, a boy who you think you know very well will do something completely out of his character so much so that it will make you feel like you have never known the boy at all. It may be heartbreaking, it may be disappointing, but it will definitely happen. She didn’t quite get what I was saying so I told her, “when it happens, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.” Just this week, she’s starting to get her first taste of that. A boy who she’s known for a little over a year is rumored to be doing some things that she doesn’t approve of. She came barreling down the stairs explaining to me in a frenzy how she just won’t stand for this, that’s not the type of person she is and if that’s who he is, then he can stay away from her, yada yada yada. Two dads showed up from me that day. The first dad was proud of her passion to stay on the right path in life and happy to see her want to distance herself from the boy. She’s my daughter, after all, boys need to stay away! Then, nerdy, teaching-moment dad showed up. I asked her what the situation was. She explained how these friends from school told her the boy was doing some things he shouldn’t be, legally. So I asked: “have you seen this?” She said “no.” I go on, “So how can you be so sure these things are true?” If they are true, which they very well could be, then she’s got the right reaction to it. However, I know how middle school kids can spread rumors. I told her that she can’t be so quick to judge a person on what a couple of other people say they do. I’ve been a public figure in several different cities and have heard different very false rumors about myself in each one. I also told her that she’d get a much more honest response if she approached the boy with it calmly and maturely rather than like the rabid chihuahua she sounded like just minutes before our conversation. Hopefully I’m right. Middle school is a weird time. It’s when kids start to figure out who they are and who they’re going to be. If that does turn out to be the person that kid is going to be, I’m glad my daughter wants to distance herself from it. I’m also very glad that she can take a lesson from the whole situation. As a dad of a beautiful young lady, I know that I have many years of these situations and talks with my daughter. I hope I can help along the way. I had a hard enough time figuring out who I was at 13; it’ll be tough figuring out who these other boys are and who they’re going to be to my daughter. As for the situation with the boy in question, it could end good or it could end badly. Because I usually find comfort in music, I put a note in her lunch the next day. It was a quote usually attributed to her favorite singer, Bob Marley (yea, I know, we raised a good one!). It read: “The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” KRIS FISHER is the midday host and program director for HD98.3 and an Augusta radio staple. He is a husband, father of three and lover of all things adventurous, as well as activities most people would have outgrown years ago. djkfish.com.
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MOB RULE , the social standard of the left!! And the next step is socialism and on to communism!! Watching The fall of the USA with shame and sorrow. First of all, I am white, born in Kansas. My Grandfather, Brother and I were Veterans, i.e., World 1, World 2, Korean War, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam. I can not believe what the hell is going on now, with this KKK, and white stupid ass follower’s, but, some of my best battle buddies (African Americans), had my back in Nam, and I had their back. KKK and the rest of you so-called punk’s, get the hell over it. My Grandfather always told me, it takes the black and white keys on the piano to play God Bless America.
WHINELINE@THEMETROSPIRIT.COM
Have something you want to get off your chest? Send your whines to whineline@themetrospirit.com. The Metro Spirit reserves the right to edit submitted whines for content, but we will otherwise print them pretty much exactly as you type them… spelling errors and all.
“If Hillary Clinton becomes a Methodist pastor we’re all going to hell in a hand basket…watch the offering plate closely.” — We are already in hell you moron. Big Don “Teddy Roosevelt” Trump is going to Make America Great Again even if he has to start World War III to do it, you can count on that and if the rest of you losers are not on board then get on the other side of our wall. Austin Rhodes worries that his interview with “Dr. Nira Cain” will be edited to make him look foolish. Don’t worry Austin, it will only require editing for length and clarity. (As an aside, the Metro Spirit staff should start an over/under pool on how many whines making this point you get.)
Thank you to Columbia County for finally running radar on Columbia Road to slow down these damn trucks and semi’s, it’s been long over due. Never before have I thougt about the Confederate stutues, neo-nazis, liberals, conservatives or white supremacy. With the barage of news everyday I am more divided from the people trying to destroy the statues, destroy freedom of speech and assembly and force their values on me! While we’re taking down monuments, do we really need a James Brown statue?
Imagine. Ron Cross voted to add still another subdivision to an already overcrowded Columbia County. Never, ever elect a developer to a commission seat. Has anyone checked into the program for the “Augusta Police Academy”? So called class leaders threatening to punch students in the face, calling them p@#*ys, and other fulger language! This is what we are teaching our newest and finest!!! Overbearing and verbal abuse, physical threats, and a lack of proper leadership!!!! If this is continued and allowed, God help the citizens of Augusta!!! Not to even mention the cadets being taught by these thugs!!!!! I was fortunate enough to observe the solar eclipse in North Georgia and it was an amazing sight. I can totally understand how a primitive people, steeped in religious superstitions, ignorant of the sciences, blindly following the fear mongering of their leaders … people like republicans, could believe that an event such as this was a message from God. Everything got dark and cold and not one ray of light emerged. That’s the way America viewed Trump’s speeches on Charlottesville.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the GA license department is handing out permits like candy corns now.
Deke Copenhaver is always saying how he looks for the positive in everything. He needs to be reminded of Ambrose Briece’s definition of positivism: “A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent.” Now the idiot-in-chief is whining about the “altleft.” Austin Rhodes, can you continue your blind support of this alleged leader? Is this what you are really about? Maybe the money spent on all the street lights, especially the ones that are on 24 hours a day could be used for a sheriff dept raise. No offense, but in the story about the Chronicle’s sale, in the discussion about Phil Kent, you missed the huge scandal that was his rampant plagiarism. His career has bounced back, but he’s no more ethical. I’m not saying McCollum did anything unethical or illegal to be terminated in Columbia County, but financial expenditures are public records... 24AUGUST2017
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Should Augusta’s Confederate monument come down? Following the violence in Charlottesville, the Augusta chapter of the NAACP is planning a rally this week in front of the Confederate monument on Broad Street THE VIOLENCE that erupted in Charlottesville, Va. earlier this month stemming from a protest led by white nationalists over the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee reopened some wounds in this country that have clearly never healed. When 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed after a car plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters gathered to oppose a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, everything changed.
“All of a sudden, these statues of Civil War generals installed in the Jim Crow era, they became touchstones of terror, the twisted totems that people are clearly drawn to, trying to create a whole architecture of intimidation and hatred around them that was visited around our town. It was evil.” -Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer 10 METROSPIRIT AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
By Stacey Eidson
The car was allegedly driven by a 20-year-old Ohio man described as a “Nazi sympathizer,” who has been charged with second-degree murder, along with several other felonies involving the horrific incident. When Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, spoke at her daughter’s funeral last week, she was speaking to the nation. “They tried to kill my child to shut her up, but guess what, you just magnified her,” Bro said, referring to the white supremacists and neo-Nazis. “I’d rather have my child, but by golly if I got to give her up, we’re going to make it count.” Not long after the violence erupted in his city, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer announced he had changed his mind about the Robert E. Lee statue in the city park. Prior to the protest, he simply wanted to create “a new context” around the statue of the Confederate general, according to CNN. Now, he wants it gone. “I think everything changed,” Signer recently told CNN, referring to the racial violence that broke out in his city. “I think that was one of those moments in the nation’s history where everything turns. I’ve been likening it in my mind to Dylann Roof, and the water hoses on the peaceful protesters in Birmingham, or Joseph Welch confronting McCarthy, saying ‘At long last, have you no decency?’” Seeing that kind of hatred overflowing in his city shook him to his core, Signer said. “All of a sudden, these statues of Civil War generals installed in the Jim Crow era, they became touchstones of terror, the twisted totems that people are clearly drawn to, trying to create a whole architecture of intimidation and hatred around them that was visited around our town,” he told CNN. “It was evil.” Unfortunately, two years ago, South Carolina was awakened to the horrors of racist hate groups when 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof walked into a Bible study meeting at the historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston on June 17, 2015, and viciously murdered nine of its African-American members. Roof, who proudly posed for several photos of him holding the Confederate flag, told friends that he wanted to start a “race war.” Instead, then-S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley demanded the removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the State House, where it had flown since 1962. “Today we are here in a moment of unity in our state without ill will to say it is time to remove the flag from our capitol grounds,” Haley said in 2015. “This flag, while an integral part of our past, does not represent the future of our great state.” 24AUGUST2017
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“The traitors of the Confederate States of America were soundly defeated over 150 years ago, and today, we as diverse Georgians, must send a message once and for all, that Georgia is the state too busy to hate.” -Phyllis Blake, president of the NAACP Georgia Then-President Barack Obama, during his eulogy of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney who was murdered by Roof, commended Haley for her call to bring down the Confederate flag in Columbia. “Removing the flag from this state’s Capitol would not be an act of political correctness,” Obama said. “It would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought — the cause of slavery — was wrong. The imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people, was wrong.” Following the violence in Charlottesville this month, the nation is once again faced with a difficult question: Should monuments to the Confederacy and its icons remain standing in public centers? Across this country, there are an estimated 1,500 symbols honoring the Confederacy in public spaces, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. That includes 718 monuments and statues, nearly 300 of which are in Georgia, Virginia or North Carolina. There are also 109 public schools named for Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis or other Confederate icons; 80 counties and cities named for Confederates; 9 official Confederate holidays in six states; and 10 U.S. military bases named for Confederates, according to research by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Over the past two weeks, several Confederate monuments have been removed around the country following the violence in Charlottesville. Or, if they haven’t been removed, many have been vandalized or covered for their protection. In Baltimore, four Confederacy-related monuments were hauled away on trucks under cover of darkness last week because the city’s mayor feared they would disrupt her city. “I thought that there’s enough grandstanding, enough speeches being made,” Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh of Baltimore said at a news conference. “Get it done.” Almost immediately after the violence in Charlottesville, the mayor of Lexington, Ky., announced plans to remove two Confederate-era monuments from his city’s former courthouse. “Today’s events in Virginia remind us that we must bring our country together by condemning violence, white supremacists and Nazi hate groups,” Mayor Jim Gray stated. “We cannot let them define our future.” In Durham, N.C., a 1924 monument of a Confederate soldier that stood outside the old county courthouse was pulled down from its pedestal and destroyed. On the engraved granite pedestal were the words, “In memory of ‘the boys who wore the gray,’” and on the other side was an image of a Confederate flag. The statue was left in a mangled pile as protesters continuously kicked the crumpled figure. Some of the protesters in Durham are now being charged with felony and misdemeanor charges. However, despite their very public display of vandalism, the protesters still have many supporters. Last week, hundreds of people showed up at the Durham County Sheriff’s Office to “confess” to vandalizing the statue and collectively accept responsibility for the protesters’ actions. In Knoxville, Tenn., a 1914 monument honoring fallen Confederate soldiers was splattered with paint and some residents are calling for it to be removed from a neighborhood near the University of Tennessee, The New York Times reported this week. Alabama’s attorney general also is arguing against the Birmingham mayor’s decision to cover a more than 50-foot-tall obelisk established in 1905 in the downtown area to honor Confederate soldiers with wooden panels. The attorney general claims it violates state law prohibiting the removal of historical structures, including those honoring the Confederacy. And leaders across the Peach State are debating whether the largest Confederate 24AUGUST2017
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monument in the country, the giant carving of three Confederate war leaders on Stone Mountain, should come down. Last week, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said the carving “remains a blight on our state and should be removed.” “We must never celebrate those who defended slavery and tried to destroy the union,” Abrams stated. However, not only would erasing the gigantic sculpture be an expensive endeavor and logistical nightmare, it also would require a change in state law. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported this week that the Georgia code clearly states that the memorial should be “preserved and protected for all time as a tribute to the bravery and heroism of the citizens of this state who suffered and died in their cause.” These are only a small fraction of the number of cities currently debating whether their Confederate monuments still have a place on public property. Now, it’s Augusta’s turn. On Thursday, Aug. 24, the Augusta chapter of the NAACP plans to rally at 6 p.m. in front of Augusta’s Confederate monument located in the center of the 700 block of Broad Street. The local chapter is asking for the removal of the 76-foot-tall monument on Broad Street that honors Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, Thomas R.R. Cobb and William H.T. Walker. On top of the monument is the statue of a lower-ranking Confederate soldier, Berry Benson, a native of Hamburg, S.C. “Constructed in 1875 by an Italian artist, the white marble memorial climaxed a 10year project headed by the Augusta Ladies Memorial Association. It was officially dedicated on Oct. 31, 1878,” according to The Augusta Chronicle’s archives. At the base of the monument is the inscription, “No nation rose so white and fair. None fell so pure of crime.” The late Augusta historian and author Ed Cashin told the Chronicle in 1993 that the Confederate monument was meant to memorialize the anonymous soldier. “They felt the enlisted man deserved the attention, so they put him atop the pinnacle,” Cashin said. About a decade after the Civil War ended, Benson chronicled his experiences on the battlefield in a collection of writings that were eventually published into a book called, “Berry Benson’s Civil War Book: Memoirs of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter” by the University of Georgia Press. In the book, Benson describes how Confederate soldiers were suffering from malnourishment and were forced to “scrutinize animal manure hoping to find grain as a diet supplement.” He also described that when Confederate soldiers were held as prisoners of war at New York State’s Elmira Prison, the rebels “humored themselves by chasing rats,” the Chronicle reported. 12 METROSPIRIT AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
According to the book, Benson and his younger brother never submitted to defeat, and walked home with their rifles in hand after Lee surrendered in 1865. His statue now stands on top of the Confederate monument on Broad Street. While most residents accept that the Civil War is part of Augusta’s history, following the violence in Charlottesville, the local chapter of the NAACP is now asking city leaders to remove the monument from Broad Street. Some residents believe the Georgia chapter of the NAACP sparked the Augusta rally after its president called on Gov. Nathan Deal, the Georgia General Assembly and all of the state’s mayors to remove all Confederate symbols from government property. “We, as the descendants of the Americans that were victims of the barbaric attacks of slavery which were perpetrated by the Confederate States of America, believe that it is past time to remove those symbols from government properties,” Phyllis Blake, the president of the NAACP Georgia, stated. Blake insisted that the Confederate monuments no longer have a place in the Peach State. “The traitors of the Confederate States of America were soundly defeated over 150 years ago, and today, we as diverse Georgians, must send a message once and for all, that Georgia is the state too busy to hate,” Blake stated in a press release. “Georgia is a great state and home to people of all heritages. Georgia and American values should trump the hate that flows from the continued celebration of Confederate States of America.” Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis and most of the Augusta commissioners have chosen not to publicly comment on their feelings regarding the Confederate monument. But everyone from politicians to professors to even descendants of Confederate leaders are speaking out about the monuments across the nation. In fact, two great-great-grandsons of Stonewall Jackson — William Jackson Christian and Warren Edmund Christian — wrote a letter
“While we are not ashamed of our greatgreat-grandfather, we are ashamed to benefit from white supremacy while our black family and friends suffer. We are ashamed of the monument.” -the two great-great-grandsons of Stonewall Jackson, William Jackson Christian and Warren Edmund Christian to the mayor of Richmond, Va., last week stating they believed the Confederate monuments honoring their ancestors should be taken down or moved to other settings. “As two of the closest living relatives to Stonewall, we are writing today to ask for the removal of his statue, as well as the removal of all Confederate statues from Monument Avenue,” the brothers wrote to Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney. “They are overt symbols of racism and 24AUGUST2017
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“If taking down the statues helps us not have days like Charlottesville, then we’re all for it. Take ’em down tonight.” -Robert E. Lee V, the great-greatgrandson of the Confederate general
white supremacy, and the time is long overdue for them to depart from public display. Overnight, Baltimore has seen fit to take this action. Richmond should, too.” The brothers stated that the violence in Charlottesville showed the nation “unequivocally that Confederate statues offer pre-existing iconography for racists.” “To them, the Robert E. Lee statue is a clear symbol of their hateful ideology,” the brothers wrote. “We are writing to say that we understand justice very differently from our grandfather’s grandfather, and we wish to make it clear his statue does not represent us.” The men say they fully accept the past realities of their ancestors. “While we are not ashamed of our great-great-grandfather, we are ashamed to benefit from white supremacy while our black family and friends suffer,” the brothers wrote. “We are ashamed of the monument.” A descendant of Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederate States of America, told the Associated Press last week that he supports moving the statues to more appropriate settings, such as museums. However, Bertram Hayes-Davis stated that he believes that “complete removal is wrong.” Robert E. Lee V, an athletic director at The Potomac School in McLean, Va., and the great-great-grandson of the Confederate general, said the family hates to see the Confederate statues be a source of division. “If taking down the statues helps us not have days like Charlottesville, then we’re all for it,” Lee told the Associated Press. “Take ‘em down tonight.” Professors all over this country also are voicing their opinions about whether or not removing these memorials and statues honoring the Confederacy will help heal our country or simply erase history. “Some say they are about heritage and history, not racism; others say we need to keep them in place to remind us of our dark past,” Karen Cox, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, wrote last week in The New York Times. “Confederate apologists in the South and around the country have rallied behind 14 METROSPIRIT AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
such monuments since they first went up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They recast Confederate soldiers as heroes fighting not for the institution of slavery but for the ‘Lost Cause,’ the mythology of the Confederacy as a grand patriarchal civilization.” These monuments celebrate soldiers and generals like Robert E. Lee, who many still claim was a “critic of slavery who only grudgingly joined the Confederacy,” Cox wrote. However, violent scenes like those in Charlottesville disproves the notion that these monuments are about “heritage, not hate,” she stated. “Confederate monuments have always been symbols of white supremacy,” Cox wrote. “The heyday of monument building, between 1890 and 1920, was also a time of extreme racial violence, as Southern whites pushed back against what little progress had been made by African-Americans in the decades after the Civil War. As monuments went up, so did the bodies of black men, women and children during a long rash of lynching.” That’s history, Cox argued. “In the civil rights era, segregationists again sought to push back any attempt to challenge white male supremacy. Once again, they rallied under the banner of the Confederate battle flag,” she wrote. “But this time, local and state officials from law enforcement and state agencies like the Sovereignty Commission in Mississippi joined them in their effort.” During the civil rights movement, more monuments to the Confederacy went up. “Once again, rather than seeing clearly that Confederate monuments stand at the very center of the white-supremacist imagination, too many people are clouding the issue,” Cox wrote. “Some of my fellow historians have naïvely suggested that we need to keep them to teach us the darker lessons of Southern history. But at what cost? The Lee monument and others like it have assisted the cause of white supremacy and the deadly violence that has accompanied it.” Therefore, Cox argued that communities across the region have a “moral obligation” to remove the statues.
“Artifacts of hate will be lost,” she wrote, “but their history and meaning will not.” Following the violent protests in Charlottesville, President Donald Trump was accused of defending white nationalists by also questioning if statues to the Confederacy should be taken down. “So this week it’s Robert E. Lee,” Trump told reporters. “I notice that Stonewall Jackson’s coming down. I wonder: Is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself — where does it stop?” Jon Meacham, a professor at Vanderbilt University and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of biographies of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, tried to answer Trump’s question in an op-ed this week. “To me, the answer to Mr. Trump’s question begins with a straightforward test: Was the person to whom a monument is erected on public property devoted to the American experiment in liberty and self-government? Washington and Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were,” Meacham wrote. “Each owned slaves; each was largely a creature of his time and place on matters of race. Yet each also believed in the transcendent significance of the nation, and each was committed to the journey toward “a more perfect Union.” However, the Confederate hierarchy fails that test, he wrote. “Those who took up arms against the Union were explicitly attempting to stop the American odyssey. While we should judge each individual on the totality of their lives (defenders of Lee, for instance, point to his attempts to be a figure of reconciliation after the war), the forces of hate and of exclusion long ago made Confederate imagery their own,” Meacham wrote. “Monuments in public places of veneration to those who believed it 24AUGUST2017
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their duty to fight the Union have no place in the Union of the 21st century — a view with which Lee himself might have agreed. ‘I think it wiser,’ Lee wrote in 1866, ‘not to keep open the sores of war.’ Of course, Lee lost that struggle, too.” But some professors across the country argue these statues should not be removed. Pamela Sterne King, a University of Alabama at Birmingham assistant professor with a focus on public history and historic preservation, told the Alabama Media Group this week that local cities should “consider the effects of sanitizing history.” “If we’re going to make a decision about what history we’re going to put out in the public space and what we’re going to decide not to put out there, it’s really important to do it right,” King said. “You’ve got to be careful when you edit history.” Groups such as the Daughters of the American Revolution began commissioning and erecting Confederate monuments in the late 1800s and early 1900s, she said. “Those monuments had to do with the Southern resurgence and a restatement of Southern pride, and all those things that were really indicative of that particular moment — the Progressive Era,” King said. “And as a public historian, I’m really hesitant to remove permanent structures because they’re controversial or because they evoke negative understanding. I’m always going to want to keep public history intact in the public square.” There are other communities around the country that openly embrace the Confederate symbols and memorials. In fact, a city commissioner in Eustis, Fla., came under fire last week when he suggested that cities and counties across the nation struggling to decide what to do Confederate statues and monuments should donate them to his city. Anthony Sabatini, a city commissioner for Eustis, asked that “any cities or counties that would like to donate their Confederate monuments” should give them to Eustis. “We will gladly accept and proudly display our nation’s history,” Sabatini wrote on his Facebook page. “Thank you.” However, some of his fellow commissioners in Eustis weren’t as eager to endorse his suggestion. But tension over the past few weeks have caused several political leaders to take a step back and look at their region’s history. While some leaders in CSRA are questioning whether the Confederate monument on Broad Street should remain standing, a few people in the community can’t help but consider other
“Confederate monuments have always been symbols of white supremacy. The heyday of monument building, between 1890 and 1920, was also a time of extreme racial violence, as Southern whites pushed back against what little progress had been made by African-Americans in the decades after the Civil War. As monuments went up, so did the bodies of black men, women and children during a long rash of lynching.” 24AUGUST2017
controversial past local politicians such as longtime U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. The South Carolina Republican was the longest-serving U.S. senator in history and the oldest person to serve in Congress. But Thurmond began his political career by vigorously defending segregation in the South. When Thurmond ran for president in 1948 as a “Dixiecrat,” he told the media that “on the question of social intermingling of the races, our people draw the line.” “All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, into our schools, our churches and our places of recreation and amusement,” Thurmond reportedly said. Thurmond’s opposition to integration, which he often attributed to Communism, was the hallmark of his career in Washington until the 1970s, according to The Washington Post. Thurmond’s 24-hour filibuster against civil rights legislation of 1957 still remains the longest filibuster in history. He became a major leader in the Republican Party even after describing portions of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 as “stupid and illogical.” After Thurmond’s death in 2003 at age 100, it was eventually revealed that the late segregationist had a biracial daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams. Thurmond had fathered the child with a teenage black housekeeper in 1925, but Essie Mae Washington-Williams kept her father’s identity secret until his death because she told reporters that she “never wanted to do anything to harm him.” Yet, despite his highly controversial legacy, Thurmond is still honored, even revered, in this region. There is a life-size statue of Thurmond in Edgefield, S.C.’s town square. In 1987, Congress voted to rename Clarks Hill Lake after Thurmond. The renaming of the lake and dam was quietly done without any real regard given to the lake’s true namesake, an Augustan named John Mulford Clark, who owned land where the community of Clarks Hill, S.C., now exists. And, of course, there is Strom Thurmond High School which currently serves a larger black student population than white students, and yet, the Thurmond name still stands. The only slightly controversial change in the school’s history occurred more than a decade ago when the high school got rid of the its former mascot, “Colonel Reb,” which resembled an old Southern aristocrat. Today, the school’s mascot is a Bluetick Hound Dog named “Rebel.” The truth is, history is difficult to grapple with sometimes, especially when politics is involved, stated Brian Rosenwald, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the co-editors of “Made by History.” Rosenwald pointed out in a column last week in The Washington Post that both Democrats and Republicans embraced controversial figures such as Thurmond over the years. “The Republican dance with the complicated politics of race in the South began when South Carolina Democratic Sen. Strom Thurmond jumped ship and joined the GOP on Sept. 16, 1964,” he wrote. “Thurmond had a long history as an arch-segregationist. When the Democratic Party came out in support of civil rights in 1948, he bolted, running for president as an independent. A decade later, he conducted a 24-hour, 18-minute filibuster of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. Despite this record, Republicans welcomed Thurmond with open arms. Thurmond quickly became a key figure in Republican politics because of his popularity with Southern whites, a constituency GOP leaders viewed as key to reviving the party.” However, Rosenwald warned, the chickens always eventually come home to roost. “When Republican Abraham Lincoln captured the presidency, white Southerners seceded from the Union,” Rosenwald wrote. “During and after the Civil War, Republicans became the party of emancipation, a legacy that their modern-day successors like to invoke to ward off criticisms of racism.” But the white supremacist campaign in Charlottesville to defend the legacy of the Confederacy in Charlottesville occurred under the banner of “Unite the Right,” he wrote. “The white supremacists proudly identified as part of the party that Lincoln built,” Rosenwald pointed out. “The horrific spectacle highlighted the complicated relationship that the modern Republican Party has with racial conservatives. ... Through a combination of racially coded phrases like states’ rights and law and order, the Republican Party has absorbed the rhetoric and ideas of the former Confederacy.” And caught in the middle of this country’s racial tensions are cities all across the country like Augusta, trying to encourage racial harmony, while still accepting its history and trying to build a stronger future. There is no easy solution, wrote Jon Meacham, the professor at Vanderbilt University. “Facts, as John Adams said, are stubborn things — and, for Southerners, they are also often uncomfortable,” he wrote. “If we don’t face them forthrightly, we risk living in worlds of fantasy and fable, subject not to reason, the greatest of gifts, but susceptible to passion, the most dangerous of forces.”
-Karen Cox, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
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A TrAnsplAnT for TrAvis When TrAvis Gibson woke up with a sore throat last December, he just assumed he had picked up a winter cold. After all, with three kids in the house ranging in ages from an infant to 16 years old, germs happen. But when he was still feeling ill by mid-January and began coughing, his wife, Emily, insisted that he needed to make an appointment with his doctor. “I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t want to go to the doctor just because I don’t like doctors,” Travis said, laughing. “But let me say this, if your wife tells you to go to the doctor, go to the doctor.” His primary physician tested him for a few things such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but the results came back negative. “So, he gave me some antibiotics and steroids, but after a week, or really less than a week, I could tell they weren’t working,” Travis said. “So I went back and the doctor took X-rays.” The second time around, his doctor thought Travis was suffering from walking pneumonia, so he was given another antibiotic and told to take it easy. But a week later, his entire family knew something was seriously wrong. “He was losing weight and having trouble breathing and catching his breath,” Emily said, so they rushed him to the emergency room. The ER doctor ordered a CT scan and another X-ray. It was Valentine’s Day. “The attending came in, and he just looked concerned,” Travis said. “I knew something was really wrong. At first, he said he thought it was a blood clot in my lungs.” But it wasn’t. That’s when Travis and Emily first heard the words “interstitial lung disease.” In the ER, Travis was given an IV dose of steroids and more antibiotics, and he was told to see a pulmonologist. “The doctor said, ‘You need to go tomorrow,’” Travis said, chuckling. “So I knew it was bad.” Travis and Emily got home that night and searched on Google the words “interstitial lung disease.” “It was probably the most horrific thing I had ever read,” Travis said. “It took a little while to sink in.” Interstitial lung disease is a term used to describe many disorders that cause scarring on the lung tissue. Exposure to hazardous materials, autoimmune disorders and sometimes unknown factors cause this disease and damage to the lungs. In Travis’ case, the doctors have no idea what caused the disease. “They’ve done numerous tests, and everything has come back negative,” Travis said. “They thought it might have been a fungus. Then, they thought it might be a virus, but everything has come back negative, so at this point, it’s an unknown. It just affects the way oxygen gets to my blood. So, I am attached to oxygen all the time, otherwise I can’t catch my breath.” On his 40th birthday, Travis was scheduled for surgery to have a lung biopsy performed. The results once again pointed to interstitial lung disease. When Travis saw the X-ray of his lungs, he could clearly see the disease. “Lungs are supposed to be dark on an X-ray,” Travis said. “My lungs just looked like clouds.” The scarring in his lungs was affecting his ability to breathe, which caused a decrease in oxygen to his bloodstream. That was why Travis was continuously out of breath. Therefore, Travis was prescribed oxygen around the clock. The next set of news that Travis and his family received 24AUGUST2017
from the doctors was earth-shattering. “The doctors decided to refer me to the MUSC Lung Transplant Clinic in Charleston for transplant evaluation,” he said. “They talked to us about a double lung transplant.” After a round of several pulmonary function tests and another biopsy, the doctors eventually told Travis he had Cryptogenic Organizing Pneumonia, which is one of the diseases that falls into the interstitial lung disease category. The doctors discovered that the disease had caused severe damage to both of Travis’ lungs. At first, he was given a very high dose of steroids, a strong antibiotic and an immunosuppressant for approximately three months to see whether there was any improvement. There wasn’t, so the doctors got Travis started on pulmonary rehab that included weight loss and strength training to prepare his body for a double lung transplant. The Gibson family also started a GoFundMe account to raise the $15,000 required to be put on the lung transplant list. Through the GoFundMe account and financial support from their friends and family, they’ve managed to raise enough money to get on the list. But there still are a great deal of expenses ahead. For three months after the transplant, Travis will have to live within 10 minutes of MUSC for continuing care and as a precaution in the event that a complication develops. During those three months, he will obviously not be able to work and will have to rent an apartment or house in Charleston. Also, if Travis receives a transplant, he will not be able to move his arms for eight weeks after the surgery in order to give his sternum time to heal. He also must be in a very sanitized, germ-free environment to prevent any infections. Therefore, for the first eight weeks, the doctors have told him that he will not be able to see his three children: Gigi, 16; Cat, 6; and James David, 1.
“That’ll be the hardest part,” Travis said, pausing for a moment. “That’s worse than the pain of the surgery. Not being able to see or hug my kids is really difficult, because there is nothing better than that in the world.” However, despite all that Travis is facing, he and his wife still manage to joke about the tremendous challenge their family has been given in just the past nine months. “It’s pretty much like you do a back flip and land on your head. That’s where my life is now,” Travis said, chuckling. “But I just put on my big-boy britches and do what I need to do for me and my family. We are going to do whatever we have to do to get through it.” In fact, Travis said he is grateful. Grateful for the time he’s been given to spend with his family and friends while he faces this challenge. “What I always tell people is, things could be worse,” Travis said, chuckling. “I’m here. I could have been hit by a truck and killed on the way to work. But I wasn’t. I have a beautiful family, and I have beautiful friends and a lot of people care about us. I’m here. I wasn’t taken, so I’m going to give it the fight of my life.” For more information on Travis Gibson and his family’s fight, visit www.gofundme.com/travis-gibson-double-lungtransplant-fund or www.facebook.com/transplantfortravis. Also, all proceeds from the 5th Annual Dealer Cup Charity Golf Tournament at Bartram Trial on Sept. 10 at 9 a.m. will support Travis Gibson’s double lung transplant. To register for the tournament by Sept. 1, call 803-634-3051.
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TWISTED UP
Serving the military a point of pride for Twisted Burrito’s co-owners
NoT EvEN TWo yEarS after opening their first location, the founders of Twisted Burrito now have a spot that directly serves Fort Gordon. As a disabled veteran, co-owner Jason Beall says it is special to him to have the location right off base. The location just opened in June. “We’re proud to have the second restaurant open up, especially serving the military. … I was a Marine myself, so it was great to be able to get close to the base,” he said. “We do provide a military discount, of course, but we’re also looking to get involved with the base as far as doing different stuff with the soldiers, so I’m really happy to do that, and having the chance to go out there and take care of those guys is pretty cool.” Beall and his business partner, Steve Fredericks, have known each other since the early ’90s. They both ended up being managers at an Applebee’s location and have been in the restaurant business ever since. Beall said before they got together for Twisted Burrito, Fredericks had moved to Kentucky for about 10 years before coming back. “(When) I heard he had moved back, I thought he was the perfect person to reach out to and say ‘hey, let’s do a restaurant together,’” Beall said, “so we came up with the concept, thought it through and took a chance.” The risk turned out to be a success. After getting together to start planning in 2014, they opened their first restaurant in Evans in September 2015, and it was a hit that lived up to its name. Beall and Fredericks took what people know about traditional Mexican restaurants and turned that on its head, offering burritos with ingredients that weren’t being used on burritos anywhere else in the area – such as french fries instead of rice and fried mozzarella sticks. 20 METROSPIRIT AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
By Amanda Main | Photos by Joshua Bailey
Their restaurants’ crew members also are taught to build the burritos a little differently from traditional burritos. “When you go to a regular burrito place, … it’s kind of layered — so they put the rice down, the chicken down, and the cheese,” Beall said. “But what we do is, we put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix it together. So when you do that, you get the same flavor in every bite. And that’s important because a lot of times, when you get a burrito, all the chicken somehow gets to the bottom of the burrito, or all the different stuff is down there and you’re just eating rice. So we try to mix it thoroughly before we wrap it up.” When someone comes into Twisted Burrito not knowing what
to try, the servers will often recommend the No. 1 seller — the Bob Marley — but also ask the customers what kinds of foods they typically like. “If someone says they like pork, I’ll steer them to the Boss Hogg, which is pulled pork with fries instead. … Everything that we have on the menu has a distinct flavor profile. You might try a burrito and say, ‘I don’t like that one,’ because of your taste, but you won’t dislike it because it doesn’t have any taste.” Beall said they smoke their own pulled pork. The Bob Marley burrito is described as containing jerk chicken, saffron rice, black beans, tomato, pineapple bruschetta, mixed cheese, crispy tortilla chips and chipotle mango aioli in a flour tortilla. For people who like Italian food, a popular choice is the Bada Bing, which contains smoked chicken, white rice, sundried tomato bruschetta, black beans, mozzarella cheese and pesto aioli in a flour tortilla. Beall said one of their top sellers right now is the Goodfella, which contains fried mozzarella sticks instead of rice. It also contains smoked chicken, marinara sauce, sundried tomato bruschetta and shredded mozzarella cheese in a flour tortilla. It is served on a plate topped with extra marinara, shredded mozzarella and pesto aioli. “It’s a fork-and-knife burrito,” Beall said of the Goodfella. In the mood for a meatless burrito? The Veg Head is filled with roasted squash, zucchini, sautéed peppers and onions, black beans, saffron rice, mixed cheese, crispy onion straws and chimichurri sauce in a whole-wheat tortilla. Vegetarians
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may want to substitute white rice. Plans are in the works to open a third location, which is still to be determined, and the location likely would be fastcasual, with ordering done at a counter. Their existing locations are casual dining, with full table service. “We’re looking at maybe the downtown/ North Augusta area,” Beall said. “I think we might do it a little different, like have somebody that delivers the food to you, instead of you having to come back up to the counter to get it. We’d still have alcohol, but it’d be a limited supply.” As for their existing locations’ bars, the Evans location has six beer taps, while the one on Jimmie Dyess Parkway near Fort Gordon has 12 beers on tap. They also serve wine, but they don’t serve liquor. “We have a variety of beer on tap, all craft,” Beall said. “We really pride ourselves on having beer that you’re not gonna find at a normal establishment restaurant. We’ve got Bud Light, Coors Light and all that stuff in the can, but we also have some great craft beers; we support the local craft, some craft beers out of Atlanta, just some really unique stuff on tap. And it really appeals to the military guys, too, because they’ve been overseas. They like to try the different beers, and that’s really where we went with that location.” Riverwatch Brewery and Savannah River Brewing Company are two local brewing companies represented on tap at the location near Fort Gordon. Spanning 2,660 square feet, the Fort Gordon location can seat more than 100 people, while the original location in Evans spans 2,400 feet and seats 45 to 50 people. The new location is larger because Beall and Fredericks were able to design it from the ground up, whereas the Evans location was built into an existing, former restaurant. “We’re still just proud of the Evans location;
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it’s kind of where we first started,” Beall said. “We’ve got such a great following. … We’re really lucky to be in the position we’re in.” Along with their larger burritos for adults, Twisted Burrito offers a kids’ menu for ages 12 and younger. They also have a dessert menu and offer catering services, usually served with lunch-size portion burritos. The fries Twisted Burrito serves instead of the traditional tortilla chips are a standout — they are specially made and called Sweet Georgia Fries. “What we do is, we take a twice-fried fry … no other fry would it work on, other than the double-coated fries, and we take a seasoning of brown sugar, chili powder and garlic salt,” Beall said. “So it’s got a little chili powder, but it’s got a little sweet taste in the end to it. So it’s totally different than anything you’d ever have on a fry. And people love it. “You know, we were four months in, and we had a couple people say, ‘Ah, I hate the fries, get chips!’ and so I was like, ‘there’s no other better way than to ask,’ so we got on Facebook and said, ‘We’re thinking about getting chips, what are your thoughts,
chips or the fries?’ and we had over 800 comments. And 780 of them were ‘the fries are amazing.’ And if you go to our Facebook page, you see that, you see people say ‘that’s the uniqueness of it, is the fact that I was totally expecting to get nacho chips and I got these fries instead, and they were amazing.’” The fries also may come unseasoned, by request. Beall said he and Fredericks are proud of how popular their concept has become since they first opened in 2015. In 2016, he said, they were voted best burrito by an area magazine’s readers, and they’re happy to have opened a second location so quickly — especially one that largely serves military families. “Our food prepares fairly fast, so it’s a quick way to get in and out,” Beall said of driving off base to eat there. For more information about Twisted Burrito, visit twistedrito. com or follow their page on Facebook. Call the Evans location at 706-869-4622, on Washington Road across from the Evans Walmart. Call the Jimmie Dyess Parkway location at 706-8145131, outside Gate 1 at Fort Gordon.
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Clean-Cut Comedian stays humble even big Comedy stars sometimes need time to just lounge around on the couch — such as the family-friendly Brian Regan. The comedian is set to make an appearance in Augusta once again on Friday, Aug. 25. He recently spoke about his life and influences — and about how one of his greatest comedy influences is someone he’s known from the time he was born. “I know there’s a silly component (to my comedy); my mom and dad — my mom is very silly, and I think that part of her has gotten into me. She’s very smart; you would never beat her at “Jeopardy,” is an English major, has a master’s in English. One of her favorite comedians was Andy Kaufman, and my mom would just sit there and laugh at him, and I remember trying to figure that out, and I like Andy Kaufman, too. But I liked the fact that my mom liked him and that she got a kick out of him. … I like to think I have a smart layer to (my) comedy, but I also certainly like throwing the silly on there.” With a career spanning more than a couple of decades, Regan’s first comedy album, titled “Brian Regan Live,” hits its 20th anniversary this year. In the time since he first broke out, his presence steadily has been growing. Netflix recently cut him a deal for two stand-up specials, the first of which was recorded earlier this summer in Denver and is scheduled to stream in November. The guy who’s known for having clean comedy says that unlike some of his colleagues, he needs to take breaks between work. “Some people put a lot of energy into what they do. And I like to take breaks; I need to regroup. As much as I like doing standup, I also like chillin’ and laying on the couch. I need to recharge. Some people are charged up throughout their whole life and their whole career, which is great, but what works for me is to be into it and then take my foot off the gas, and then do it again and take my foot off the gas.” As a resident of Las Vegas, one of his favorite pastimes is sitting down to a game of Blackjack in the casinos — when he can convince himself to get off the couch. “It’s funny, I was off last night and I didn’t have the kids, and I thought to myself, ‘Hey, why don’t you hop in the car and go play some Blackjack?’ So instead, I laid on the couch and went to sleep. Sometimes it’s more fun. … I like math, and (Blackjack is) a fun game because there’s math involved, and occasionally I get fortunate and could end up on the plus side of things, but I’m careful. I don’t risk my mortgage on it, but it’s a fun activity every now and then.” When asked who his biggest comedic influences are, he mentioned Jerry Seinfeld, whose internet show “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” Regan was on in 2012 during its first season. “I like his stand-up a lot; he has taken stand-up comedy to an art form, and the way he gets mileage out of everyday topics is very intriguing to me. But there are different comedians doing different things, and I like a woman named Maria Bamford who does these quirky characters. … She says something about herself through her delivery of these characters, and it’s very interesting. I like Chris Rock for how in-your-face he is and with his observations, and there’s a woman named Carol Leifer who doesn’t do as much stand-up as she used to, but she’s the person that Elaine was modeled after on the “Seinfeld” show. She’s very funny. Bill Burr, I’ve watched him do an hour, and I was like amazed.” Anyone who listens to podcasts can hear his appearances on shows including comedian Marc Maron’s “WTF with Marc Maron” and Bill Burr’s “Monday Morning Podcast,” among others. Regan says he enjoys the growing trend of promoting via podcasts rather than on traditional morning radio. “One thing I do like about podcasts, especially when comedians are at the helm, is that it’s a different animal than morning radio. I used to have to do morning radio throughout the country to promote our shows, and it always felt like a square peg in a round circle, like they want the funny too quickly and too much, and it didn’t feel natural. … The thing I like about podcasts is that there’s more ebb and flow. You can be serious and then you can be funny and you can be poignant and you can be outrageous … whereas morning radio seemed to be more ‘let’s just hit the funny,’ and it seemed a little unnatural.” Despite Regan’s growing fame and fan base, he maintains a humble attitude about it all. 24AUGUST2017
by Metro Spirit
“There’s the the comedy part of the equation, and then there’s the popularity part of the equation, and I’m not that into the popularity side of it, but to me it’s like, I just want to do what I think is funny — and if there are people out there who happen to be into it, great. And if that’s a sizable amount of people, that’s even better, but I’m not doing it for that reason. I’m just fortunate that there seems to be enough people that seem to like it. … I’m very lucky.” brian regan Bell Auditorium Friday, Aug. 25 8 p.m. $39.50-$44.50 877-4AUGTIX georgialinatix.com
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SOME BIG NAMES in boxing are expected to show up in Columbia County this week. The Sugar Bert Boxing Title Belt National Qualifier will be held Saturday, Aug. 26, and Sunday, Aug. 27. The tournament is open to area boxers, and registration will be held Friday, Aug. 25. A free concert also will take place Friday evening. Notables Myles Mizell, 2017 Golden Gloves Champion and a winner of the 2016 Sugar Bert Boxing Title Belt National Championship; Evan Holyfield (son of four-time World Champion boxer Evander Holyfield; and First Lt. Logan Burns of Task Force 1-25 at Fort Benning, 2016’s All Army Boxing Champion and another Sugar Bert Title Belt Champion, will be in attendance, along with some of the top boxers of the world. The double-elimination tournament is open to amateur boxers in various weight divisions. Winners in each division secure a spot in the National
Championship slated for Nov. 16-20 in Columbus, Ga. Boxing legend Evander Holyfield is expected to be in the audience at the tournament over the weekend. FRI AUG 25 Boxer registration for Sugar Bert Boxing Title Belt National Qualifier Columbia County Library noon - 6pm Double-elimination tournament open to amateur boxers in various weight divisions. Tournament takes place 12:30 p.m. through the evening Aug. 26 and 27. $20 entry for walk-in boxers; $15 for boxers who preregister online. Fees waived for Master and women boxers staying at host hotel or who live in Augusta. The first 500 boxers to register at the door will receive free backpacks. 770-833-7888 sugarbertboxingpromotions.com
“The Tony Howard Show” concert Columbia County Amphitheater, behind Columbia County Library 6pm Free concert includes guest appearance by DJ Nabs of Atlanta’s Boom 102.9. SAT, SUN AUG 26-27 Boxing tournament (Sugar Bert Boxing Title Belt National Qualifier) Columbia County Exhibition Center 11am to 7:30pm Boxing tournament features boxers from across the country and the Carribean. Open to area boxers. Boxing starts at 12:30pm and goes through the evening. General admission starts at $10. 770-833-7888 sugarbertboxingpromotions.com
WHAT’S UP
Calendar: 28 | An Eye on Life: 34 | Music Listings: 36 If you have any questions, or would like to submit an event to our calendar, please email Amy Christian at amy@themetrospirit.com. SAVANNAH RIVERKEEPER is hosting The Big Float for the third year, the morning of Saturday, Aug. 26. Anyone wanting to participate in the ride down the Savannah River is invited to bring their kayaks, canoes, SUP flotation device, homemade rafts and inner tubes. The event this year also will include the homemade raft competition, which formerly was a part of Paddlefest. Only hand-powered vessels or inflatables will be allowed in the float, but other boaters are welcome to be spectators of the float. The float begins at the North Augusta Boat Ramp and will end at the Boathouse landing at 105 Riverfront Drive in Augusta. An afterparty including food trucks, live music and beer will take place at 328 Riverfront Drive. All participants must have a lifejacket, water and paddler or oar (including people on inner tubes). The float will start at 9 a.m., but participants are asked to drop off their vessels between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. at the Hammond Ferry Boat Ramp. Food trucks will be available from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Registration is required. Tax-deductible admission for individual float participants starts at $30. Family packages start at $75 for up to five family members. Floating down the river sounds like the perfect way to wind down the summer. THE BIG FLOAT Hammond’s Ferry Boat Ramp, North Augusta Sat Aug 26 9am - 2pm $30 - $250 706-826-8991 savannahriverkeeper.org
THURSDAY, AUG 24
FRIDAY, AUG 25
SATURDAY, AUG 26
SUNDAY, AUG 27
If you’ve been feeling stressed lately, a relaxing evening of music might be just what you need. Augusta University faculty members Dr. Martin David Jones and Dr. Clara Park will perform a two-piano recital at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Grover C. Maxwell Performing Arts Theatre. Admission is $5, or free for AU and East Georgia State University students, faculty and staff. The program will feature music from the 20th century and beyond. Call 706-667-4100 or visit augusta. edu.
Hailing from Columbia, S.C., Dr. Mitch Butler brings his jazzy chops to Augusta from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Friday at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Augusta. Butler has been the trombonist and leader of a number of musical groups and was a member of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra from 2008 to 2010. His concert is the first of the fourconcert series Four Seasons Chamber Jazz. General admission is $23; $18 for seniors; and $13 for students and military with ID. Call 706733-7939 or visit uuaugusta.org.
Quack, quack — it’s back! The popular Rubber Duck Derby will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free to this event including music, entertainment, kids’ activities and food, but rubber ducks are available for purchase for a chance at winning prizes. Prices for the ducks start at $5 per duck, but are cheaper if bought in groups. The ducks will race at Savannah Rapids Park. Prizes include an EZ-GO golf cart, REC TEC Wood Pellet Grill, a year of unlimited car washes, and more. You may buy ducks online or at the event. The derby benefits the United Way of the CSRA. Visit ccduckderby.com.
Planning your financial goals can seem complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. The Columbia County Library is offering an Achieving Financial Goals class at 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Examples of topics to be discussed include understanding compound interest, making decisions about expenses and adopting lessons from self-made wealthy people. Pre-registration required. Call 706863-1946, ext. 4, or visit gchrl.org.
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For more information on these events, see our calendar of events on page 28.
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10:30am Conflict Resolution Diamond Lakes Community Center Part of the Winning in Augusta community empowerment workshop series for south Augusta residents. Free. Call 762-218-1950.
4 - 5:30pm Can We Talk About Religion? Jessye Norman School of the Arts Four-week series of roundtable discussions continues this week. Organized by area Baha’is. Free. Visit facebook.com/Augusta. Bahais.
Sun Aug 27
3:30pm Achieving Financial Goals Columbia County Library A financial awareness class. Pre-registration required. Call 706-863-1946, ext. 4, or visit gchrl.org.
Mon Aug 28
3:30pm - 5pm Intermediate Spanish Class Friedman Branch Library An adult class led by Edwin Perez of the Asociacion Cultural Hispanoamericana. Preregistration required. Call 706-736-6758 or visit arcpls.org.
AbunDANCE Le Chat Noir Sat Aug 26 8pm Program showcases wide variety of dance styles by Augusta’s top performers. $20 admission includes catering. 706-722-3322
ARTS Sat Aug 26
10am - noon Fairy Jar 175 N. Louisville St., Harlem A Harlem Arts Council class. $25; pre-registration required. Call 706-799-2631 or visit harlemartscouncil.org.
11am - 2pm Aiken Arts Alive Aiken Center for the Arts A free event that includes crafts, photos, face painting, artist demonstrations, a special appearance by Little Richard the trick pony and more. Free. Call 803-641-9094 or visit aikencenterforthearts.org.
DANCE Fri Aug 25
6pm - 9:30pm McBean’s Back to School Sock Hop McBean Community Center Dance for kids ages 7-12. $10 per child; registration required. Call 706-560-1814 or email jmeyer@augustaga.gov.
Sat Aug 26
8pm AbunDANCE 28 METROSPIRIT AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
5:30pm Beginner Spanish Class Friedman Branch Library An adult class led by Edwin Perez of the Asociacion Cultural Hispanoamericana. Preregistration required. Call 706-736-6758 or visit arcpls.org.
Wed Aug 30
6pm Tertulia: Spanish Conversation Group Headquarters Branch Library A group for beginner to intermediate Spanish speakers. Call 317-695-4748. Le Chat Noir Program showcases wide variety of dance styles by Augusta’s top performers. $20 admission includes catering. For tickets, call 706722-3322.
EDUCATION Thu Aug 24
5:30pm - 7:30pm Gadget Help with Alex Columbia County Library First come, first served. Call 706-863-1946 or visit gchrl.org.
Sat Aug 26
10am - 2pm Building Wealth Youth Workshop AU’s University Hall, Room 170 A seminar for men ages 11-18 presented by Dominique Bond of Ace Ambition. $15, advanced; $18, door. Lunch is included. Preregistration required. Call 706-350-1722 or visit richkids.eventbrite. com.
10am - noon Helms College Open House Helms College Campus tour. Call 706-651-9707 or visit www.helms.edu.
Thu Aug 31
5:30pm Microsoft PowerPoint Columbia County Library Learn PowerPoint basics and create presentation. Pre-registration required. Call 706-863-1946 or visit gchrl.org.
Ongoing
Professional Development Courses Jessye Norman School of the Arts The school offers classes in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and other software programs. Call or visit the website to see a schedule of spring and summer classes. Call 706-828-7768 or visit jessyenormanschool. org.
James Brown Family Historical Tour Augusta Museum of History Available each Saturday at 11 a.m. and lasting approximately two hours, this bus tour includes Brown’s elementary school, his childhood home, his statue and more. $15 fee, includes admission to the museum, 24AUGUST2017
which houses the largest collection of James Brown memorabilia. Reservations 24 hours in advance required. Call 803-6402090 or visit jamesbrownfamilyfdn.org.
Guided Tours 1797 Ezekiel Harris House Offered by appointment only MondayFriday and Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Last tours of the day begin at 4 p.m. Adults, $2; children, $1. Call 706-722-8454 or visit augustamuseum.org.
North Augusta Driving Tour Arts and Heritage Center of North Augusta Offered by appointment and includes a 30-45-minute guided tour and admission to the center. Self-guided tours are also available through an iPhone downloadable audio tour or a Google Maps-based tour. Guided tours: $5, adults; $3, students K-12. Call 803-441-4380 or visit artsandheritagecenter.com.
Tours of Boyhood Home of President Woodrow Wilson Guided tours, approximately 45 minutes long, are offered Thursday-Saturday on the hour from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Group tours are available by advanced reservation. Adults, $5; seniors, $4; kids K-12, $3; under 5 years, free. Call 706-724-0436 or visit wilsonboyhoodhome.org.
Historic Trolley Tours of Augusta Augusta Visitors Center Tours aboard the Lady Libby available at the Augusta Visitors Center with 24-hour advanced reservations. Tickets include admission to the Augusta Museum of History. Call 706-724-4067 or visit visitaugusta.org.
ELSEWHERE Fri Aug 25
11am The Influence of Mount Vernon Columbia Museum of Art A historic preservation presentation by Dr. Lydia Brandt, assistant professor of art history at the University of South Carolina. Visit columbiamuseum.org.
EXHIBITS Ongoing
Augusta Museum of History Includes the following: “The Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown; “Celebrating a Grand Tradition, the Sport of Golf”; “Augusta’s Story”; “A Community That Heals”; “Into the Interior: A History of the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company”; “Local Legends”; “One Man, Two Ships: Lessons in History and Courage”; “A Quilt Journey”; and “Canteens to Combat Boots”. Call 706-722-8454 or visit augustamuseum. org. 24AUGUST2017
Photo Walk Finds North Augusta Municipal Building Exhibition shows photos taken during Augusta Photography Festival’s photo walks. Runs through Sept. 27. Call 706-8349742 or visit augustaphotofestival.org.
FLIX Thu Aug 24
6:30pm “The Zookeeper’s Wife” Aiken Public Library Call 803-642-2023 or visit abbe-lib.org.
Fri Aug 25
2pm Movie Time for Adults Maxwell Branch Library Call 706-793-2020 or visit arcpls.org.
6:30pm Family Movie Night Kroc Center A free movie showing that begins at 6:45 p.m. Concessions will be available for purchase. Call 706- 364-5762 or visit salvationarmyaugusta.org/kroc-center/.
Sat Aug 26
11am Movie Time for Kids Maxwell Branch Library A rated G or PG kid-friendly movie will show. Call 706-793-2020 or visit arcpls.org.
Tue Aug 29
5:30pm Free Movie Tuesdays Headquarters Branch Library Movies begin at 5:45 p.m. Call 706-821-2600 for weekly selections. Visit arcpls. org.
HEALTH Thu Aug 24
6pm - 8pm Georgia Food Oasis Community Meeting Masters Table Soup Kitchen A meeting for those interested in improving healthy, fresh food access. “A Place at the Table” will screen. Call 678-702-0400 or visit georgiaorganics.org/georgia-foodoasis.
Sun Aug 27
3pm - 5pm The Daddy Class Doctors Hospital An infant care class for fathers only. Preregistration required. Call 706-651-2229 or visit doctors-hospital.net.
Mon Aug 28
1pm Music Therapy Georgia Cancer Center Sessions include music-assisted relaxation, drumming to the beat and group. Call 706446-4400 or visit augusta.edu.
1:30pm - 3:30pm Total Joint Education Class
Free class for people interested in knowing more about total joint replacement. Preregistration required. Visit doctors-hospital. net or call 706-651-3232.
6:30pm Refit Headquarters Branch Library A free cardio dance class. Call 706-821-2600 or visit arcpls.org.
Tue Aug 29
2:30pm Cancer & Nutrition University Hospital Pre-registration required. Call 706-288-3079 or visit universityhealth.org.
Doctors Hospital
7pm - 8:30pm Infant CPR Class University Hospital Pre-registration required. Call 706-774-2825 or visit universityhealth.org.
Fri Aug 25
10am Chair Yoga Georgia Cancer Center Open to anyone being treated at the center. Call 706-721-0472 or visit augusta. edu.
6:30pm - 9:30pm Weekend Childbirth Education Class University Hospital Class continues Saturday, Aug. 26, from 9am-5:30pm. Pre-registration required. Call 706-774-2825 or visit universityhealth.org. AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
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Wed Aug 30
12:30pm - 2pm Mr. Kenny’s Wondrous Stories, Songs and Play
AU Medical Center A four-week class meeting Wednesdays through Sept. 20. Pre-registration required. Call 706-721-8283 or visit augusta. edu.
Jessye Norman School of the Arts Participants will read, sing, play musical instruments and explore movement designed to help them develop literary and cognitive skills. Parents or caregivers participate in the class through age 3. Preschool & kindergarten children may attend with, or without, a parent or caregiver. $10; pre-registration required. Call 706-828-7768 or visit jessyenormanschool.org.
6:30pm - 9pm Childbirth Education Class
Thu Aug 31
11:30am - 1pm Prepare to Care Workshop Headquarters Branch Library An AARP event for those who are caring for an older adult or loved one. Free, but pre-registration required. Call 877926-8300 or visit aarp.event.com/librarylearningaugusta.
7pm - 9:30pm Baby 101 Doctors Hospital An infant care and development class. Pre-registration required. Call 706-651- 2229 or visit doctors-hospital.net.
HOBBIES Sat Aug 26
8am - 10:30am Georgia Southern University Swim Clinic Augusta Aquatics Center Free competitive swimming and diving clinic, open to swimmers ages 12-18. Pre- registration required. Visit doctors-hospital.net or call 706-651-3232.
Mon Aug 28
6pm Travel Pillow Tote Project Columbia County Library Learn to sew a travel pillow. Pre-registration required. Call 706-863-1946, ext. 4, or visit gchrl.org.
Tue Aug 29
6:30pm - 8:30pm Rock Painting Aiken Public Library The library will supply rocks and painting supplies to participants ages 12 and up. Pre-registration required. Call 803-642-2020, ext. 1131, or visit abbe-lib.org.
Thu Aug 31
6:30pm - 9:30pm Augusta Archaeological Society Meeting Big Daddy’s Bar & Grill The meeting’s speaker will be Dr. Andrew A. White, research assistant professor, SC Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, whose talk is titled “Kirk Projectile Points an Early Archaic Societies of the Coastal Plain.” Dinner, 6:30 p.m.; program, 8 p.m. Call 706-829-1615.
Ongoing
Sat Aug 26
10:30am Family Lego Time Appleby Branch Library Pre-registration required. Call 706-736-6244 or visit arcpls. org.
Mon Aug 28
10:30am Jr. Lego Club Headquarters Branch Library For kids ages 2-4. Legos provided. Pre-registration required. Call 706-821-2623 or visit arcpls.org.
Tue Aug 29
10am Big Kid Story Time Headquarters Branch Library For kids ages 3-6. Pre-registration recommended. Call 706821-2623 or visit arcpls.org.
Wed Aug 30
10am Story Time Maxwell Branch Library Pre-registration required. Call 706-793-2020 or visit arcpls. org.
10am Story Time for Tots Headquarters Branch Library For kids ages 0-3. Pre-registration recommended. Call 706821-2623 or visit arcpls.org.
10am Wacky Wednesday Story Time Barnes & Noble Call 706-737-0012 or visit bn.com.
10:30am Preschool Craft Time Appleby Branch Library For kids ages 3 and older. Pre-registration required. Call 706-736-6244 or visit arcpls.org.
10:30am Preschool Story Time Appleby Branch Library Songs, finger plays and stories for kids ages 18 months to 3 years. Pre-registration required for groups of six or more. Call 706-736-6244 or visit arcpls.org.
Basic Genealogy Tutorials Headquarters Branch Library’s Georgia Heritage Room Free sessions offered by appointment. Call 706-826-1511 or visit arcpls.org.
KIDS-TEENS Fri Aug 25
10:30am - noon Super Awesome Story Time The Book Tavern Juice and cookies provided by New Moon Cafe. Call 706826-1940 or email superawesomestorytime@booktavern. com. 24AUGUST2017
Thu Aug 31
1pm - 4pm Homeschool Adventure: Paddling and Archery
7pm - 9pm Graphic Novel Discussion The Book Tavern A group open to older teens and up. Call 706-826-1940 or email david@booktavern.com.
Thu Aug 31
10am - noon Morning Book Club Maxwell Branch Library “Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World Most Wanted Hacker” by Devin D. Mitnick will be discussed. Call 706-793-2020 or visit maxwellbookclub.wordpress.com.
Ongoing
Month-Long Book Sale Appleby Branch Library Held in the story hour room through Aug. 31. Call 706-7366244 or visit arcpls.org.
MUSIC Thu Aug 24
7:30pm Two Pianos AU’s Maxwell Theatre Faculty members perform a two-piano recital. Tickets $5; Augusta University and East Georgia State University students, faculty and staff free with ID. Call 706-667-4100 or visit augusta.edu.
Fri Aug 25
7:30pm - 9:30pm 4 Seasons Chamber Jazz Unitarian Universalist Church of Augusta Garden City Jazz presents Dr. Mitch Butler in first of fourevent concert series. $23, general; $18, senior; $13, student and military with ID. Call 706-733-7939 or visit uuaugusta.org.
Sat Aug 26
8am - 2pm Saturday Morning Swing Eighth Street Plaza Live music from local jazz artists and performing arts groups during the Augusta Market. Call 706-627-0128 or visit theaugustamarket.com.
7:30pm - 9:30pm Soiree: Jazz + Wine Jessye Norman School of the Arts Featuring classic live jazz and wines selected by the host. $7 advance; $10 day of show. Call 762-233-5299 or visit jazzsoiree.com.
Sun Aug 27
3pm The Raleigh Ringers Saint John United Methodist Church Part of the Concerts with a Cause series, this one benefiting Friendship Community Center and featuring an internationally acclaimed handbell choir based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Call 706-724-9641 or visit stjohnaugusta.org.
Mistletoe State Park Participants will take a paddling trip on the lake and spend time on the archery range. For homeschool students ages 7 and up. $10 per child, plus $5 parking: pre-registration required. Call 706541-0321 or visit gastateparks.org/mistletoe.
7:30pm - 10:30pm Candlelight Music Series
LITERARY
Mon Aug 28
Thu Aug 24
Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History
Augusta Common Participants are invited to bring picnics, blankets and lawn chairs at this weekly event. $8. Call 706-821-1754 or visit augustaga.gov.
7pm Meet and Greet with the Augusta Chorale AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
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First Pint Pour Raffle Riverwatch Brewery A fundraiser for Goodwill’s job training and career development services in which $10 raffle tickets will be sold for the following prizes: The first pint poured at Riverwatch Brewery after a new law that allows breweries to sell directly to consumers goes into effect; a table dinner for eight at Edgar’s Grille (a $500 value); and two tickets to Goodwill’s 2018 reNew & Brew event. The raffle tickets also will get the person buying $5 off a Riverwatch tour on Aug. 31, the last day of tours and the day of the drawing. Raffle tickets available at Riverwatch Brewery and Edgar’s Grill. Visit goodwillworks.org/firstpint.
SPIRITUAL
Touch an Animal Day UGA’s Savannah River Ecology Lab 9am - noon A free event in which participants will learn about animals native to the Savannah River Site and surrounding communities, as well as about the plants of the area. The event will feature live animals, an edible plant display and more. srel.uga.edu. Participants can speak with members of the Augusta Chorale, meet Artistic Director Dr. Phyllis Anderson and learn how they can become members or supporters. Refreshments will be served. $7, adults; $5, seniors; $3, kids. Call 706-830-0991 or 706836-9426, or visit augustachorale.org.
SENIORS Thu Aug 31
11am - 1pm Classic Movie for Seniors Diamond Lakes Branch Library Pre-registration required. Call 706-772-2432 or visit arcpls.org.
SPECIAL EVENTS Sat Aug 26
8am - 2pm Augusta Market at the River 8th Street Plaza, Reynolds Street The event features vendors of all kinds, activities, live entertainment and more. Visit theaugustamarket.com.
9am - 2pm Poker Run Timms Harley-Davidson All are welcome to this ride, which will end at Berry Center, Inc., where there will be food, raffles, door prizes and more. All proceeds will go to the center. $10 per person; $15 per couple. Call 706-738-6792 or email berrycenter3017@gmail.com.
9am - 1pm Rubber Duck Derby Savannah Rapids Pavilion 32 METROSPIRIT AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
An event that includes music, entertainment, kids activities and food from local vendors. The race begins at noon. Admission is free, but ducks available for purchase. $5, one duck; $25, six ducks; $100, 24 ducks; $1,000, diamond duck pack. Proceeds support the United Way of the CSRA. Visit ccduckderby.com.
9am - noon Shredding Day 3604-B Wheeler Road An event sponsored by the Georgia Association of Accountants and Tax Professionals in which participants are invited to bring old records for shredding. Limit of 10 cases of paper. The location for the event is behind the Waffle House on Wheeler Road. Visit gaatp.org.
Sat Aug 26
8am - noon March for Jesus Augusta Broad and 13th Streets Featuring Christian motorcycle groups, walkers and much more. The event will end at the Augusta Common with music, ministry, a prayer tent and food vendors. Visit facebook.com/augustaforjesus.
SPORTS-OUTDOORS Fri Aug 25
Noon - 6pm Sugar Bert Boxing Title Belt National Qualifier a water bottle. Families welcome. Visit augustalocallygrown.org.
11am - 4pm Egypt Day 2017 Islamic Community Center, Martinez Free cultural event presents education about topics such as ancient Egypt, Egyptian tourist sites and famous Egyptian women. Activities include Egyptian food and drinks, Henna hand painting and more. Call 706-210-5030 or visit isaugusta.com.
8pm & 9pm “Dark Shadows” Dupont Planetarium, Aiken Weather permitting, the observatory, housing the Bechtel Telescope, will be available for viewing after each show. $1$5.50. Call 803-641-3654 or visit rpsec.usca. edu.
9am - noon Touch an Animal Day UGA’s Savannah River Ecology Lab A free event in which participants will learn about animals native to the Savannah River Site and surrounding communities, as well as about the plants of the area. The event will feature live animals, an edible plant display and more. For information, visit srel. uga.edu.
Wed Aug 30
9am - noon Work Day
Arts in the Heart of Augusta Festival
Masters Table Soup Kitchen Gardens Volunteers will help tend to the gardens to help the Masters Table Soup Kitchen provide fresh herbs and veggies to those they serve. Participants should wear closed-toe shoes, sunscreen and bring
5pm The Wine Dinner Edgar’s Grille Four courses, four wines. Benefits Goodwill. $69 per person; reservations required. Call 706-854-4700 or visit edgarsgrille.com.
Ongoing
Badges for Arts in the Heart, held September 7-10 at the Augusta Common and on Broad Street, are on sale now. Badges, good for the entire weekend, are $7 in advance and $12 at the gate. Visit artsintheheartofaugusta.com.
Columbia County Library Double-elimination tournament open to amateur boxers in various weight divisions. Tournament takes place 12:30 p.m. through the evening Aug. 26 and 27. $20 entry for walk-in boxers; $15 for boxers who pre-register online. Fees waived for Master and women boxers staying at host hotel or who live in Augusta. Visit sugarbertboxingpromotions. com or call 770-833-7888.
7:05pm Augusta GreenJackets vs. Greenville Drive Lake Olmstead Stadium $8-$12. Call 706-922-9467 or visit greenjacketsbaseball.com.
Sat Aug 26
7:30am Run for the GreenJackets Lake Olmstead Stadium A 5K race that finishes inside the stadium. Racers will receive a gift and admission to that evening’s game. $26. Visit raceroster. com to register.
9am Butler Creek Trail 5K Phinizy Swamp $25 advance; $30 on race day. Call 706922-9650 or visit csra.recliquecore.com/ programs and search “5K.”
9am - 2pm The Big Float Hammond’s Ferry Boat Ramp, North Augusta A Savannah Riverkeeper event that will include a leisurely and family-friendly 24AUGUST2017
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paddle, float and tube down the river, as well as a homemade raft competition. Afterward, there will be a party with food trucks, live music, beer and more. Call 706-826-8991 or visit savannahriverkeeper.org to register.
11am - 7:30pm Sugar Bert Boxing Title Belt National Qualifier Columbia County Exhibition Center Boxing tournament features boxers from across the country and the Carribean. General admission starts at $10. Visit sugarbertboxingpromotions.com or call 770-833-7888.
6:05pm Augusta GreenJackets vs. Greenville Drive Lake Olmstead Stadium $8-$12. Call 706-922-9467 or visit greenjacketsbaseball.com.
Sun Aug 27
7:30am Heroes on the Water Darlin Hall at Fort Gordon Kayak fishing event on Big Smoak Lake
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helps wounded warriors relax, rehabilitate and reintegrate into society. Open to veterans, active duty, first-responders and their immediate family. Pre- registration at Eventbrite.com required. Equipment, guide and light lunch included. Email ft.gordonga@heroesonthewater.org.
11am - 7:30pm Sugar Bert Boxing Title Belt National Qualifier Columbia County Exhibition Center Boxing tournament features boxers from across the country and the Carribean. General admission starts at $10. Visit sugarbertboxingpromotions.com or call 770-833-7888.
5:05pm Augusta GreenJackets vs. Greenville Drive Lake Olmstead Stadium $8-$12. Call 706-922-9467 or visit greenjacketsbaseball.com.
Ongoing
Inaugural Golf Tournament
Applewood Golf Course, Keysville Registration is open for GrantWest Enterprises’ inaugural golf tournament Sept. 29 at Applewood Golf Course in Keysville. The deadline to purchase tickets is Sept. 22. $75 per person or $300 per team of four, open to adults 18 and older. Prizes will be awarded, and sponsorships available. GrantWest is a nonprofit organization that provides education to young people in the CSRA to reduce risks of teen pregnancy, HIV, Hepatitis C, sexually transmitted infections and substance abuse. Call 706627-3702 or 706-664-5900.
Fencing Classes Augusta Fencers Club Registration is now open for Introduction to Foil Fencing, a 10-week set of courses for ages 6 and older that begins the week of September 11. Those ages 6-9 will meet Thursdays beginning September 14 at 5 p.m.; Ages 10-13 will meet Mondays at 5 p.m. beginning September 11; and those ages 14 and older will meet Mondays at
7 p.m. beginning September 11. $180; all competitive equipment provided. Call 706722-8878 or visit augustafencersclub.com.
SUPPORT Mon Aug 28
Noon Holistic Grief Support Group Ronald McDonald House For caregivers, family members, students and employees. Call 706-721-2929 or email timothy.lark@gmail.com.
Tue Aug 29
10am - 11:30am Moms Connection Augusta University Medical Center This free weekly support group for new mothers meets in the Terrace Dining Dogwood Room on the second floor beginning at 10:20 a.m. All new moms and their babies are welcome and an international board certified lactation consultant/educator/perinatal nurse will answer questions and offer resources. Call 706-721-8283 or visit augustahealth.org.
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An EyE on LifE MusiciAn BEn foLds is well-known for his decades-long musical career, but anyone who’s less than a super-fan might be surprised to learn that he also is a respectable photographer. He is a member of the Sony Artisans of Imagery, and he had a stint as a photo editor for National Geographic, according to benfolds.com. Folds will be gracing Augusta with his musical talents on Friday, Sept. 1, at the Jessye Norman Amphitheatre. He is known as a rock musician who bends genres with his music, including pop albums as the front man for Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and collaborations with artists such as Sara Bareilles, Regina Spektor, “Weird Al” Yankovic and William Shatner. His most recent album blends pop and classical original works, recorded with the classical sextet yMusic. The tour that’s bringing him to Augusta is a solo tour similar to his earliest solo tours, which featured him rocking out alone on a piano. When he’s not creating music, he is in love with spending time in a dark room. “I love photography, of course. … I think completing the whole cycle to me is really important, and I certainly spend my time in the school of the dark room,” he said. “There are so many advantages to the digital method now, but having spent so much time in the dark room has really informed that, and I feel really lucky for all the hard time spent in that; as far as what I shoot and what I’m interested in is all over the map, and I don’t think that I have the voice as a photographer that I seem to as a musician, and so that’s really kind of good for both disciplines, because it gives you a perspective. I know I don’t take for granted that certain things come naturally to me as a musician when I have to work at it so hard as a photographer.” Folds likens the idea of capturing the perfect image to when somebody asks what you would grab from your home if you had two seconds to get something out while it’s burning down. He says if you had more time, you would grab everything, and the same concept applies in photography — that good photographers realize more of what’s important to them and take fewer shots. “I think it’s really interesting to spend time where someone says ‘OK, here’s how you have to see this landscape or this scene in front of you,’ or whatever it is that you capture, ‘you’ve got one shot at it, and in fact, you can’t even look through the lens when you’re making that shot.’ … I think that’s also a cool discipline.” Folds pointed out the concept of impermanence when it comes to taking photographs or making music, especially with today’s digital methods of saving art. “It’s an interesting trend isn’t it? I think it’s all a matter of capacity, you could photograph every moment of your life, literally, you could do that all f***ing day. But at some point, it’s going to go into a closet on a hard drive, the hard drive’s gonna get dusty, not start up, someone’s gonna throw the hard drive away, you’ll lose track of it,” Folds said. “Same thing goes usually for negatives. And the same thing is true of music these days, where it’s not all committed to vinyl or it’s not all committed to tape. It’s on a cloud somewhere, and when that cloud’s taken down, disconnected in some kind of way, people’s iPhones are thrown out to a plastic trash heap, then I don’t know, where is the backup? “I don’t think that’s a problem necessarily,” he continued, “because I think at the end of the day, you know, some music you can say it’s because it’s good, or some images and you can say it’s because they’re good, or because it was lucky — survived. Folds referenced infamous photographer Robert Capa, who shot several rolls of film on D-Day in World War II, but because of an intern’s mistake, he lost almost all of the images. However, the images that survived were printed. Folds referenced one of those images. “It is one of the most iconic photographs of World War II, and I think that’s not just because it was the best photo — it might have been the worst photo — but it was the one that survived. And he had an eye that was like, shooting everything as if it was the only photograph.” Advice he had for modern photographers: “Shoot the stuff that, if you’re gonna save one off
by Metro Spirit
of your phone, then it’s that one. … I think that’s the way you live your life, you try to live your life in the existentialist idea, like if you die while you’re being an asshole, then you’re remembered as an asshole, and that’s what you are. You’re just an asshole. … I think you have to kind of find some balance of purpose in your life in an era that you think you have all the choices, but you actually don’t have all the choices. You think you’ve got ’em all, but you don’t.” To see images captured by Folds’ eye, visit benfoldsphotography.com. BEn foLds Jessye Norman Amphitheatre Friday, Sept. 1 6 p.m. $25-$249.00 706-823-3288 cityspintickets.com
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Randy Lubas and Cooter Douglas Bell Auditorium - Brian Regan Sky City - Michael Jackson birthday tribute
Saturday, August 26 Live Music
Brother Oliver (pictured), Vilai Harrington, Celia Gary, Becca Richardson Soul Bar Mon Aug 28 8 p.m. to midnight No cover charge 706-724-8880 facebook.com/SoulBarAugusta-207973412586823/
8th Street Plaza - Saturday Morning Swing at the Augusta Market on the River The Backyard Tavern - Karaoke Country Club- Stephen Neal Coyotes - Robin Dixon & the Midnight Moon Band Fox’s Lair - Jerry Emory Shannon’s - Shinebox Southbound Smokehouse- Voodoo Visionary Stillwater Taproom - Matt Acosta Wild Wing - Scott Brantley Band The Willcox (Aiken) - John Vaughn World of Beer - Ruskin & Cam of King Size
What’s Tonight?
Helga’s Pub & Grille - Trivia The Highlander - Karaoke Imperial Theatre - Bobby Bones Sally’s - Claire Storm Cabaret Show
Sunday, August 27 Live Music Augusta Athletics Sports Bar & Grill - Randy Lubas and Cooter Douglas Augusta Common - Candlelight Jazz Capri Lounge - Vivian Valium & the Lounge Lizard Divas Wild Wing - Patterson & Nate The Willcox (Aiken) - John Vaughn
What’s Tonight?
Shannon’s - Karaoke w/ Mike Johnson
Bar West - Karaoke Capri Lounge - Game Night Chevy’s - DJ Richie Rich Pizza Joint (Evans) - Trivia w/ Mike Sleeper Polo Tavern (Aiken) - Karaoke w/ Tom Mitchell Sky City - Conspiracy w/ DJ Knightmare Southbound Smokehouse - Trivia Stillwater Taproom - Pub Quiz World of Beer - Trivia
Upcoming An Evening with the Vicky Grady Band
- Metro Pub & Coffeehouse August 31 Riverwalk Revival w/ Ben Folds
- Jessye Norman Amphitheater September 1 Ricky Scaggs and Kentucky Thunder
- Imperial Theatre September 8 Diggin’ It Music Festival w/ I Am Spartacus, Brooke McBride, Trust in Traitors
- Columbia County Amphitheater September 9 Clint Black
- Evans Towne Center Park September 14 Mary J. Blige
- James Brown Arena September 16 Tank
- Sky City September 19 Michelle Malone & Drag the River, Silvertown
- Sky City September 29 An Evening with Chris Robinson Brotherhood
- Sky City October 3 Kevin Hart
- Bell Auditorium October 7-8 Chris Janson
- Bell Auditorium October 21 Kansas
- Bell Auditorium October 25 Chicago
- Bell Auditorium November 1
JJ Grey & Mofro (pictured), Phillip Lee Jr., Michael Baideme The Country Club Thu Aug 24 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. $25 706-364-1862 augustacountry.com
Thursday, August 24 Live Music
The Alley (Aiken) - Amp the Alley w/ Lundy Duo Country Club- JJ Grey & Mofro Fox’s Lair - Open Mic Jam w/ Thomas Langley Soul Bar - Village Sticks w/ Patterns of Interaction Sky City - Bethany Davis’ Fam Jam w/ Special Guests Wild Wing - Robbie & Rushton The Willcox (Aiken) - Thursday Night Jazz w/ 4 Cats in the Dog House
What’s Tonight? Augusta Athletics Sports Bar & Grill - Comedy with Randy Lubas and Cooter Douglas Helga’s Pub & Grille - Trivia The Highlander - Butt Naked Trivia Pizza Joint (Downtown) - Trivia w/ Mike Sleeper Shannon’s - Karaoke w/ David Doane
36 METROSPIRIT AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
That Place Coffee - Open Mic w/ J. Martin-Moses
Friday, August 25 Live Music
Country Club- Murphy Elmore Coyotes - Nelson Curry the Sugar Shack Man Fox’s Lair - The Unmentionables The Highlander - State of Mind, Nic Sweat, Jaycie Ward The Loft - False Flag w/ Bullmoose Shannon’s - Anybody’s Guess Southbound Smokehouse- Trae Pierce Stillwater Taproom - Gaslight Street Wild Wing - Highway 14 The Willcox (Aiken) - John Vaughn World of Beer - Rian Adkinson
What’s Tonight? Augusta Athletics Sports Bar & Grill - Comedy with
Monday, August 28 Live Music
The Highlander - Acoustic Mondays Metro Coffeehouse & Pub - Blues Monday w/ Famous Last Words Soul Bar - Brother Oliver w/ Vilai Harrington, Celia Gary, Becca Richardson
What’s Tonight?
Shannon’s - Karaoke w/ David Doane Wild Wing - Trivia World of Beer - Open Mic Night
Tuesday, August 29 Live Music
Fox’s Lair - Irish Music w/ Dr. John Fisher and the Undefeated Army Joe’s Underground - Open Mic Soul Bar - On My 6, Willess The Willcox (Aiken) - Hal Shreck
What’s Tonight?
The Highlander - Game Night World of Beer - Karaoke
Wednesday, August 30 Live Music Shannon’s - Junk Yard Dogs Soul Bar - Jazz Night w/ Jim E. Jam Wild Wing - Shep Duo
What’s Tonight?
The Backyard Tavern - Karaoke
Elsewhere Ed Sheeran
- Infinite Energy Arena, Duluth August 25-26 Patti LaBelle
- Wolf Creek Amphitheater, Atlanta August 26 Perpetual Groove
- Variety Playhouse, Atlanta August 26 Dionne Warwick
- Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheatre, Peachtree City August 26 Goo Goo Dolls, Phillip Phillips
- Chastain Park, Atlanta September 4 Steve Earle & the Dukes
- Georgia Theatre, Athens September 5 The Afghan Whigs
- Terminal West, Atlanta September 7 Landy Antebellum, Brett Young, Kelsea Ballerini
- Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, Alpharetta September 8 TLC, Snap!, Naughty by Nature, Montell Jordan, Color Me Badd
- Infinite Energy Center, Atlanta September 9 Modest Mouse
- The Roxy Theatre, Atlanta September 10 Toto, Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo
- Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheatre, Peachtree City September 10 The Cranberries
- The Tabernacle, Atlanta September 13 24AUGUST2017
V28|NO34 B-52s w/ the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
- Symphony Hall, Atlanta September 14-15 Music Midtown w/ Bruno Mars, Mumford & Sons, Wiz Khalifa, Weezer, Haim, Collective Soul, the Strumbellas, Oh Wonder
- Piedmont Park, Atlanta September 16-17 Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade
- Infinite Energy Center, Atlanta September 21 Broken Social Scene, Frightened Rabbit, The Belle Game
- The Tabernacle, Atlanta September 22 Adam Ant, Glam Skanks
- Variety Playhouse, Atlanta September 23 Cold War Kids, Joywave
- Georgia Theatre, Athens September 25 Father John Misty, Weyes Blood
- The Tabernacle, Atlanta September 27 Indigo Girls, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
REAL PEOPLE REAL DESIRE REAL FUN.
- Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta September 27 Pinback, The Messthetics
- Hell at the Masquerade, Atlanta September 28 Ani DiFranco
- Center Stage Theater, Atlanta September 29 Drive-By Truckers, Strand of Oaks
Try FREE: 706-434-0108 More Local Numbers: 1-800-926-6000
- Variety Playhouse, Atlanta September 29 and 30
Ahora español Livelinks.com 18+
Kesha
- The Roxy Theatre, Atlanta September 29 Jack Johnson, Bahamas
- Lakewood Amphitheatre, Atlanta September 30 Rufus Wainwright
- Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta September 30
Meet sexy new friends
FREE TRIAL
706-434-0112
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SIGHTINGS
Michael Johnson | mejphoto.photoreflect.com
Mycan Bowles, Lisa Bowles and Donald Daniels at the Morris Museum Photo Discovery Camp exhibit
Milon, Sonya and Mayna Roland at the Morris Museum Photo Discovery Camp exhibit
Danielle Wilkins, Heather Grulke and Jessica Butler at the Country Club
BoJo and Hannah Lively, Morgan Lee and Henry Matthews at the Pizza Joint downtown
Briggs Belcher with singer/songwriter Dylan Scott and Sarah Cartrett at the Country Club
Lauren Printer, Jessica Kitchings, Corey Stone and Morgan Van Deventer at the Country Club
Angela Taylor, Angele Hatcher and Tara Andrews at the Country Club
Leah Locklear with singer/songwriter Kane Brown and Bridgette Miano at the Country Club
Jan and Tricie SchÖler with Candice and Will SchÖler at Wild Wing Cafe
Each month Westobou delivers a curated list of events, things to do and places to see, directy to your inbox. Subscribe now at westobou.org #westobou10 38 METROSPIRIT AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
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VOTE TODAY for Metro’s station with ALL THE HITS
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THE EIGHT
BOX TOPS RANK TITLES
WEEKEND GROSS TOTAL GROSS WEEK # LAST WEEK
1
THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD
$21,384,504
$21,384,504
1
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2
ANNABELLE: CREATION
$15,612,680
$64,156,901
2
1
3
LOGAN LUCKY
$7,600,036
$7,600,036
1
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4
DUNKIRK
$6,614,385
$165,422,464
5
2
5
THE NUT JOB 2
$5,092,344
$17,675,989
2
3
In Theaters August 25
ACTION “Birth of the Dragon,” rated PG-13, starring
FAITH “All Saints,” rated PG, starring John Corbett,
ANIMATED “Leap!”, rated PG, starring Elle Fanning, Dane
Philip Ng, Billy Magnussen, Terry Chen. This movie looks to be a throwback to kung fu films, inspired by the story of Bruce Lee and his reallife battle against master Wong Jack Man in 1965 in San Francisco. We’re betting that anyone who grew up on martial arts movies will want to see this. Hope you don’t get kicked in the head.
Cara Buono, Barry Corbin, David Keith. Based on a true story, a pastor who once was a salesman takes over a tiny church that was ordered to shut down. With the help of some refugees from Southeast Asia, he turns the land into a working farm to try to save the church. Watching this is sure to be a sappy time for the whole family.
DeHaan, Carly Rae Jepsen, Maddie Ziegler. A girl leaves an orphanage with the dream to be a ballerina, but to do so, she disguises who she is. Probably a safe bet for kids who are into girly stories, as this one sounds like the story of Cinderella — but in a tutu.
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Monument Protection Plan Authored by Democrats Austin Rhodes THERE ARE GEORGIANS who lament the day the Cross of Saint Andrew, better known as the Confederate Battle Emblem, was ever removed from our state flag. I am not one of those people, not because I was unsympathetic to the sentimentality, but because what the state got in return was far, far more valuable. You must remember that in 1998, then-candidate Roy Barnes promised he would not cave to protesters demanding the flag be changed; he told voters it was not an issue. A few years later, he engineered the plan to bring the flag down. To say that one move was important in the next two election cycles would be a massive understatement; it was more like it triggered the first salvo in what would be an electoral bloodbath for Democrats statewide. A few days after the 2002 Barnes defeat, no less, The New York Times lamented the voters’ rebuke: “In their first chance to vent their anger, white voters in rural areas turned out in record numbers to vote out Mr. Barnes in one of the most stunning upsets this year. The governor had been considered one of the brightest lights in the Democratic Party, a gifted speaker, moderate, strong on education and a possible contender for vice president or even president. “Much of the state’s Democratic leadership was swept out on Tuesday, after a campaign that featured frequent visits for Republican candidates by President Bush and harsh advertisements against Senator Max Cleland, a Democrat seeking a second term.” But the governor’s defeat was the biggest surprise of the night here, and in the morningafter search for answers, the flag issue surfaced as a leading explanation. ‘‘There was this huge undercurrent of resentment and anger about the flag, but I think we all missed it because it’s not something people discuss in the open,’’ said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. ‘‘The Confederate flag is still a very powerful symbol. A lot of white voters felt Barnes was not on their side when he pushed to change it.’’ While the demise of Barnes and his left-wing buddies was an unexpected bonus of the unpopular campaign that saw the state flag change, there was built into the very legislation that was their undoing, very specific protections for Confederate memorials and monuments. Those protections are still in place today. When newly elected Gov. Sonny Perdue began his efforts to replace the hideous, “politically correct” state flag that the Barnes team foisted upon the people of Georgia, the Legislature actually kept the language that had been presented to “placate” supporters of the old flag. That language articulately and specifically laid out a virtual guarantee that no other existing Confederate symbols in Georgia would be molested or disturbed in any significant sense. Their protection was guaranteed in perpetuity. Let me state this as plainly as I possibly can: The Democrat leadership in Georgia led by then Gov. Barnes, and his Senate Majority Leader Charles Walker, negotiated a plan that saw the “offensive” state flag removed, and it was. To secure the participation of much-needed rural legislative support at the time, there was a guarantee written into law that forbid any further assault on Confederate monuments. And that part of the law, written by them, remains in place today. Here we are 15 years later, and many of the same left-wing leaders want a do-over. One of the main targets to come down if they get their way is the Broad Street memorial dedicated to our Augusta-area Confederate war dead in 1878. This week, the Augusta NAACP is hosting a rally at the memorial to call for its removal, inspired in part by the disgusting display of behavior and backwards thinking we saw in Charlottesville, Va. The violence and eventual death of a participant there came during a protest of the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. The fallout of that poopshow has been well documented; here’s to hoping that locally, cooler heads and better decisions prevail. May I be the first to say that if one single Nazi sympathizer or white supremacist appears at the get-together, they should be ignored rather than encouraged by attention, and allowed to quietly crawl back under the rocks from which they came. The less said about those idiots, the better. For the anti-monument protesters, take your complaints to the Georgia state Legislature, which is the only body with the authority to act on your requests. But understand, the “big compromise” that was made on your behalf 15 years ago was supposed to have ended all this acrimony. If you have a problem with the deal your team cut, take it up with them — you may be able to find them at the retirement home where they keep defeated politicians. AUSTIN RHODES A long-time radio talk show host who can be heard weekdays on WGAC from 3-6 p.m. The views expressed are the opinions of Austin Rhodes and do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher.
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