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Cover Story

Death of a Dream: Mark Freeland 1957-2007

by Jamie Moses

Mark Freeland, one of Buffalo’s most enduring personalities of the past four decades, passed away last week. For many Freeland was as integral to Buffalo as Jimmy Griffin, Rick James, Christine Baranski, Jim Kelly or Michael Bennett. His story is worth telling for the simple fact that it reflects a great deal about our city and our lives.

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

■ The relatively recent creation of almost-obscene wealth has precipitated a crisis in Britain and New York City because the resulting demand for professional butlers far exceeds the supply. Longstanding butler schools in both countries are running at capacity, turning out debonair, refined manservants at salaries that may exceed $100,000 (plus, in the US, an extra $20,000 or so for one who speaks “British”), but fortunes are being created at an even faster pace, so that, increasingly, multimillionaires are just having to make do without one, according to recent reports in the Wall Street Journal and the Independent of London.

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

CANCER (June 21-July 22): How well are you capitalizing on this year’s unique opportunities, Cancerian? Now that we’re almost halfway through 2007, let’s take an inventory. I’m hoping that six months from now, you’ll look back and make the following declaration: “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this year I realized in many colorful ways that limitations are my friends. The obstructions I faced eventually forced me to become far more resourceful than I’d ever been before. The wastefulness I uncovered showed me how important it is to shed my trivial wishes and focus intensely on my top priority desires. The confusions I encountered taught me valuable secrets about how to master my emotions and dissolve my superstitious fears.”

Getting a Grip

Giuliani, Altar Boys & Weasels

by Michael I. Niman

The American mass media calls him “America’s mayor.” Critics often label him a fascist. Whether he’s the populist hero who “took charge” on September 11, 2001, or the frightening face of a new American Reich, it appears Rudolph Giuliani will carry George W. Bush’s torch into the 2008 presidential election. I guess this only makes sense, since, like Bush, Giuliani’s failing political career was rescued by the terrorists that attacked New York and Washington, DC on September 11.

Theater

Scene & Unseen

by Thomas Dooney

This summer, you and about 40,000 others can enjoy All’s Well That End’s Well (not seen here since 1987), and Othello (last in the park in 1990) presented by the good folks of Shakespeare in Delaware Park.

Literary

Mad Bomber Melville, Part Three

by Leslie James Pickering

Sam Melville grew up in Tonawanda in the 1930s and 1940s and was killed in the famed 1971 Attica prison uprising. In between, Melville waged an urban guerrilla war in Manhattan against government agencies and corporations driving the Vietnam War effort, inspiring a flood of similar revolutionary activity in the 1970s. The following is an excerpt, the second of four to be published here, from Leslie James Pickering’s new biography of Melville, Mad Bomber Melville.

Book Reviews

Company by Max Barry

by Julianne Phillips

Stranger in Town by Cedar Sigo

by Patrick Dunagan

Play Ball!

Good Eats at the Ballpark

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

The summer is now in full swing, school is over, and if you haven’t yet made that trek to Dunn Tire Park, now is as good a time as any.

Art

Castaway

by Lucy Yau

When Insoon Ha proposed her latest concept to Sean Donaher of the Big Orbit Gallery, he gave her carte blanche and even exceeded the budget in bringing her vision to fruition. The result is a powerful contemplation of exterior and interior space, an introspective view into voyeurism and the sometimes co-mingling and interchangeable states of victim and victimizer.

Film Reviews

Fierce Hearts: A Mighty Heart

by George Sax

Spruce Ark: Evan Almighty

by M. Faust

Film Clips

Once

1408

Music

Playing the Valentine Card

by Mike Shanley

Like many of his peers in the Chicago improvisation scene, Fred Lonberg-Holm can be heard regularly in a variety of settings. What’s especially unique about his musical resume is that his axe of choice is the cello, an instrument that isn’t exactly standard in jazz, free improv or any more conventional type of music, despite its sonic flexibility—especially when Lonberg-Holm is drawing the bow.

See You There

Women of Hollywood Film Series

by M. Faust

Queen City Roller Girls Battle Royale

by K. O'Day

Subliminal History of NYS

by Geoff Kelly

An Evening with Rickie Lee Jones

by Buck Quigley

Calendar Spotlight

Pearlene

Sleeping Kings of Iona

by Donny Kutzbach

Anal Pudding

Busted China

Sass Jordan

by Jodi Hahn

Hot Rod Revue

The Advice Goddess

by Amy Alkon

My wife of six months is the love of my life, and everything I want in a woman. We’ve been together two years, and have a six-month-old son. The problem is, and always has been, my looking at other women. I don’t usually realize I’m doing it, but my wife catches me, and is now just waiting to catch me. Honestly, when I look at them, I don’t have any sort of intentions, it’s just something I do. Yet, my wife is now threatening divorce because she believes it means I don’t love her. I realize I’m doing something horrible, and I’ve mostly quit, which takes a lot of conscious effort, and that’s what’s worrying me. Is something wrong with me? Should I get professional help?