Wal-Mart: The Little People are Fighting Back

by Jamie Moses

The Internet is not the only medium making dramatic changes in how we receive entertainment or information. Last year’s presidential election saw mainstream film distribution completely bypassed as independent films were shown at thousands of grassroots house parties across the nation. Home parties and church screenings launched films like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth from the political right, or producer/director Robert Greenwald’s Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism from the political left.

I am a long-time member of the Lexington Co-op and I was appalled at the information presented by Michael Niman in his article “The Food Coop and the Hate Group” (October 20-26, 2005) on Twelve Tribes and Common Ground. But I have been equally appalled at the discussion since that article, both in the “Letters” column and at the Coop General meeting. No one is talking about racism. Instead I hear phrases like “warm and friendly people,” “just don’t buy the bread,” “other bad food companies” and “cooperative principles.”

A Change of Heart

by Lauren N. Maynard

The Buffalo Zoological Society announced this week that it has decided to re-hire former Zoo President and CEO, Dr. Donna Fernandes (pictred). Fernandes, who made a tearful departure with her family this past August to head up the Chaffee Zoo in Fresno, California, seems to have had a change of heart about her prospects on the West Coast. She will return to work in Buffalo on December 1, 2005.

Who Killed Pat Tillman?

by Michael I. Niman

The American mass media are like tired old dogs, dutifully fetching official lies on command, dropping them like bones at the feet of an unsuspecting public. We in turn reward them by buying both the products and the myths that they sell to us. Eventually, however, the products fail and the myths unravel. When, despite the support of a compliant press, the government’s popularity wanes sufficiently, however, even old dogs can come up with new tricks, reviving the lost art of investigative reporting.

Attack on Women's Rights?

by Ken Ilgunas

The Buffalo News has recently reported that nearly 30 percent of pregnancies in Erie County result in abortion, ranking seventh among all New York counties. With the possibility of a conservative taking Justice O’Connor’s position on the Supreme Court, the plastic on this hot-button issue has melted in a political firestorm. Bush has appeased his right-wing critics with his nomination of U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Alito, whose conservative record has Democrats wishing Harriet Miers was still an option. The Supreme Court nominee has a history of pro-life decisions; one of which upheld a Pennsylvania law forcing women to notify their husbands of planned abortions. The confirmation of Alito could very well give the Court a majority to declare abortions unconstitutional, affecting thousands of Buffalo women and millions of Americans. Do you think conservatives will succeed in undermining women’s right to choose? What rights does the father have in this debate?

by Javier

Television personality Kathy Lee Gifford (pictured right) is certainly keeping busy these days. After vowing never to work on TV on a regular basis again, she is now appearing as a special correspondent on “The Insider,” covering Broadway and theater news. Her musical Saving Aimee (it had been called Hurricane Aimee until devastating Katrina hit the south) just finished a try-out run at the White Plains Performing Arts Center, and the hope is to take it to Broadway. The show, with music by David Pomeranz and David Friedman, is about the renowned evangelist of the ’20s, Aimee Semple McPherson. Gifford, who made her Broadway debut in Sondheim’s Putting It Together, had her first musical, Under the Bridge, produced off-Broadway last season.

A Natural Muse

by Cynnie Gaasch

The past month offered some of the finest tree reflecting opportunities I recall. The colors and lines of the mighty oaks and maples in Delaware Park have been downright awesome over the last couple of weeks.

A Fresh Twist on an Old Favorite: O'Connell's Hourglass

by Arthur Page

It was with no small amount of trepidation that I accepted the assignment to review O’Connell’s Hourglass at 981 Kenmore Ave.

Big Bosoms and Square Jaws

by Wheez Von Klaw

“In 1969 an ill wind was blowing out of the world’s ass, and its name was hard-core pornography.” Yes that’s right. I’m all agog over the new tome on sexploitation king Russ Meyer, the one true-blue red-blooded genius filmmaker to truly celebrate the female body with a razor-sharp editing style (often copied but never equaled) and a totally bonkers rock n’ roll sensibility. Add a healthy dollop of the ol’ ultra violence with a menagerie of buxotics and hillbilly weirdos and whalla. Folks, good old commie-hatin’ Russ Meyer was the Orson Welles of smut! The book by Jimmy McDonough has all the dirt and soap opera temper tantrums backed up by tons of interviews with all the likely suspects. It also has an almost pathetic, Howard Hughes-like ending that makes you laugh and cry simultaneously at Russ’s horrible death a few years back. (I’d heard he was sick with Alzheimer’s disease, but I didn’t know that his bitch of a handler was leaving the man covered in his own feces on a daily basis.) Real horror show, eh?

Busy Week Downtown

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

The Buffalo Bills may have been off this past Sunday, but in downtown Buffalo the sports scene was really hopping; here is a recap of the week’s events…

Call Me a Cab

by Jim Corbran

Seeing that this is a milestone column (YAK 100) it seemed appropriate to do, as they’d say on “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” something completely different. Keeping in that British vein, I headed downtown to check out another milestone—Buffalo’s only London Taxi. I found it on point (Londonese for “at the front of the taxi stand”) outside the entrance to the beautifully refurbished Larkin at Exchange Building (LCo.), located—surprisingly enough—at the corner of Larkin and Exchange Streets. The car’s a 2003 London Executive Sedan, just like the black cabs you see in London, only this one’s metallic silver.

Twice Told Tales: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Derailed

by M. Faust

A classicist will tell you that there are only a handful of stories, and that every new tale is merely a variant of one of those. Even if your criteria aren’t quite so stringent, though, it’s hard to dispute that there are certain stories that get reused over and over again. What matters is the panache each new teller brings to them.

No Effect

Yes. See the band live. We have not captured our sound on CD. The interaction and the love of what we are doing can only be experienced live.

Mark Constantino

by Donny Kutzbach

On the surface, Mark Constantino appears an average, mild mannered, happy-go-lucky sort of guy... then you watch him explode onstage. Sweating, screaming and flailing he seemingly channels Bad Brain’s vocalist HR and a snake-handling preacher bent on some twisted salvation. With The Exit Strategy, Constantino’s adrenaline-filled, pounding vocals act as a crucial counterpoint to the taut, precision dynamics and sonic intricacies of guitarist Steven Kabza, bassist Tony Flamia and drummer Tim Turcotte. (It’s also worth mentioning that Constantino does a performance 180 singing pretty melodies in the keen indie pop collective Amateur Thief.)

by Chuck Shepherd

■ As traditionally domineering husbands reach retirement age in Japan, the wives of as many as half of them may suffer some degree of Retired Husband Syndrome (rashes, ulcers, other stress symptoms), according to an October Washington Post dispatch. Said one morose, 63-year-old woman, “I had developed my own life, my own way of doing things, in the years when he was (working long hours),” but, she told the Post, she now can’t stand even to look at her husband across the dinner table and sits at an angle so she can stare out a window instead. According to psychiatrists treating RHS, the numbers may soon explode further unless husbands lower their expectations of spousal servitude.

by Rob Brezsny

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the 18th century, Horace Walpole coined the word “serendipity” after reading an old fairy tale entitled The Three Princes of Serendip. The heroes of the story, he wrote, “were always making accidental discoveries of things they were not in quest of.” Today “serendipity” has a broader meaning, but I’d like to invoke its original sense in order to provide a preview of what’s ahead for you. I believe you’re about to benefit from a lucky fluke or two. While looking for a certain treasure or revelation, you’ll find a different one.