Since 1985, in various formats, SLANT -- an independent voice based in Richmond's Fan District -- has offered its readers original commentary on politics and popular culture, including cartoons and selected sundries. Warning: Sometimes that means satirical content. All rights are reserved.
...Former-Mayor Doug Wilder delighted in the constant attention he earned from the working press during his four years in office. As mayor, in 2009, Jones has been nearly as quiet and invisible as Wilder was omnipresent. In that respect, Richmonders have lived through a year in which they experienced a noteworthy reduction in overcooked drama and raw bombast. Still, are we better off than we were a year ago?Click here to read the entire OpEd.
As the last 10 years has been an era in which fake has too frequently been admired as better than real, it's also been a decade awash in scams.
If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).Click here to read it.
"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."-- Henny Youngman
Been doing calendars since the mid-'90s. Here's this year's model. It costs $5.00 for one. Each print is hand-tinted. It's 11" by 17" on heavy cardstock. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)Executive vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato, owner Dan Snyder's right-hand man for much of the last decade, quit with three games remaining in a season in which his personnel choices again came under heavy scrutiny.Click here to read the AP story.
Throttle Magazine ended its 20 years of publishing with the passing of the century. Since then we have lived through a time during which technology has rocked the world of publishing. Online ‘zines, such as Richmond.com, paved the new way, then came Richmond’s blogosphere and more recently newer forms of social media.Click here to read "The Aughts: A Decade of Storms and Hype."
Today even the most stubborn of Luddites has a cell phone, even if they haven‘t joined the Facebook and Twitter crowd.
Our news hole isn’t big enough to relive all the bad moves—such transcendent Snyder deeds as the public emasculation of Jim Zorn and the broke-grandmother lawsuit are left out—but here are a few of the horrors Snyder unleashed on our community in these last 12 months.Click here to read the entire article by Dave McKenna
REA GIVES BIZARRE EDGE TO BLAB'S `MONDO SOFTBALL'
by Paul Woody (Richmond News Leader, July 5, 1990)
Years ago when Terry Rea was manager of the now defunct Biograph Theatre, he organized a softball team for the Fan League.
But this wasn't just any team. This team had two illegal French aliens.
"One spoke no English at all," Rea said. "Neither had ever seen a baseball game. But they went out to a yard sale, found some funky `50s uniforms and they were a laugh riot."
The Biograph team also had a life-size, cardboard figure of Mr. Natural, a comic-book character created by R. Crumb of Zap Comics. Rea and his teammates took Mr. Natural to every game. They would carry him onto the field and chant to him.
"Some thought it was funny," Rea said. "Some thought we were mocking them. Some thought we were mocking the game."
All Rea was trying to do was enjoy a little softball and make the team and the league, "a rolling comedy show," he said. "I'm not sure everybody on the team was 100 percent behind me on that."
Rea began playing softball in 1976, but now, at the age of 42, he's in semi-retirement. "I try in the offseason to lower my expectations, but I'm losing my game faster than I can lower my expectations," Rea said.
Rea, however, is hardly done with softball. In fact, he may be contributing more to the game than he ever did as a player. Rea, a freelance graphic artist by trade, is the originator, host and creative force behind "Mondo Softball," a weekly, one-hour talk and call-in show seen Tuesday nights at 9 o'clock on BLAB-TV (Continental Ch. 7, Storer Ch. 8).
Mondo is Italian for "world." Rea took it from the drive-in movies of his youth that were all the rage.
"There were a bunch of `Mondo' films," Rea said. "Then, you started to see it thrown in front of almost anything to give it a bizarre connotation. People just know it has some sort of bizarre edge to it. "And, of course, I'm using that."
Rea isn't the host of "Mondo Softball."
The host is Mutt deVille, a man of mysterious origin who always wears a baseball cap, sunglasses and softball jersey. Mutt deVille is Rea's alter ego. Mutt deVille was created by Rea as a pen name for the sports writer in Slant, the twice-monthly newsletter of commentary that Rea publishes, writes and edits.
DeVille initially existed to give some diversity to the pages of Slant, "and to create the illusion there was a staff of writers," Rea said.. But the more Rea wrote as deVille, the more he liked it.
"My name, and my approach to things, like anyone who stays in his hometown long enough, carries a certain amount of baggage with it," Rea said. "I could move more freely as Mutt deVille.
"When I decided to do a show and it was a sports show, it seemed like a good idea to use Mutt. That led to the idea that Mutt should become a character and the time I was on camera should be a performance. Mutt is a device to make me feel at ease on stage."
"Mondo Softball" is not like any other show you'll see on BLAB. It's a one-hour play, softball as kitsch. It's part news -- standings, results and tournament highlights provided by Paul Joyce, the `field' reporter and a veteran local player -- part conversation with a guest, questions from callers and wisecracks, subtle humor and outright gags whenever possible. It's clever, and it's as entertaining as a show on recreational softball can be.
Rea said he has borrowed from shows he's seen. From the "Tonight Show," Rea took the idea that Johnny Carson is at his best and funniest when things go wrong.
"Part of live TV is that there are a lot of glitches," Rea said. "I've tried to incorporate the production values of an old `50s sci-fi movie and try to go with whatever goes wrong."
Each week, there is a great uproar over the magic word. If a caller says the word, he or she receives a $20 gift certificate from a local restaurant. The magic word is straight out of "You Bet Your Life" with the late Groucho Marx. In that show, it was called the secret word.
"If you're going to steal, steal from the best," Rea said.
Part of the attraction of "Mondo Softball" is that you can never be sure what will happen next.
"I think some people watch shows on BLAB just to see if the set will fall over," Rea said.
Rea brings a unique element of surprise to the screen. He isn't afraid to take a chance or play a little joke. When he was manager of the Biograph, a repertory theatre located near Virginia Commonwealth University, Rea once offered free admission to "The Devil and Miss Jones."
The line for the show, which most believed to be a well-known X-rated movie, stretched around the 800 block of West Grace Street. But the X-rated movie was "The Devil in Miss Jones." "The Devil and Miss Jones" was a 1941 comedy.
"Most people thought it was funny," Rea said. "But you always have some who get mad about something like that."
"Mondo Softball" has something of the same problem. Hard-core softball players don't always appreciate Rea's attempts at humor.
"I've heard some don't like Mutt's approach," Rea said. "But that's the reason Paul is there. Overall, though, the reaction I get is that they (the hardcore players) like Mutt."
BLAB-TV likes Mutt so much that another show already is in the works. "Mondo Pops," covering everything from sports to who knows what will premier this fall.
It should be an interesting experience. Who knows, maybe even Mr. Natural will make an appearance.* * *
...His fondest memories will be of the outpouring of interest when the tacky house tour began 10 years ago. "I figured I could rent one of those trolleys for about 15 people," said Gottlieb. "That filled up right away. Then I rented a bus and that filled up in an hour. Then I rented another bus and that filled up."The tour of way lit up houses still goes on, although Gottlieb moved to San Francisco nine years ago. This year a group of local bicycle enthusiasts in the Fan District did their own lights tour, a knockoff of a more urban persuasion than the original, which usually focuses on the efforts of crazed suburbanites determined to outdo one another in pure wattage.
At one house decked out in blue lights, tour members spontaneously broke into Elvis' "Blue Christmas." At another house, they marveled at the lifelike figures on the roof wrapped in lights. "After a while, we realized that the lifelike figures were real people," Gottlieb said, laughing.
Barry greatly enjoyed meeting the people, getting their stories and so forth. Some he already knew because he saw them every year, others were new. At the end of the tour we judges voted and may have gone to a bar.
After that same night, I came to see that stretch limos were just not for me. Although I enjoyed my chance to judge tackiness, I’m happy to report I haven’t been in one since then.
The photo essay that follows is my effort to get in the Christmas spirit. It is made up of a series of stills I shot in the twilight today, on my way to happy hour at the Baja Bean. Ho! Ho! Ho! It's a SLANT exclusive -- The Fan Tacky Walk to Happy Hour 2005:
Fan Tacky Walk to Happy Hour, No. 2
Fan Tacky Walk to Happy Hour, No. 3
Fan Tacky Walk to Happy Hour, No. 4
Fan Tacky Walk to Happy Hour, No. 5
Fan Tacky Walk to Happy Hour, No. 6
Fan Tacky Walk to Happy Hour, No. 7
Fan Tacky Walk to Happy Hour, No. 8
Fan Tacky Walk to Happy Hour, No. 9
Eric E. Stanley, known as "Eric E" to his fans and "Rick" to some of his friends, died six years ago. The year before Rick died I wrote this profile of him for FiftyPlus, a local magazine. After his death Richmond.com reprinted it.Stanley, music director since January, has set out to make it [WRNL] Richmond's funkiest radio station, adding to the oldies format B-sides, album cuts, tunes that never charted in the era when sales in black-owned record stores, and often sales of black artists, weren't counted for the charts. Stanley draws much of his playlist from a personal collection of 5,000 albums, singles, tapes, CDs.His move to WRXL-FM marked the beginning of the Bebop Boogie & Blues Revue, which Eric E hosted on Sunday nights. Although it was Blues-based, this time he got the freedom to do something closer to what he had done with his Color Radio show. At this point he called his format "�free-form.�"
So, now we are left to imagine: Tiger Woods was ducking flying golf clubs as he jumped into his SUV in the middle of the night; maybe one of them smashing through his back window distracted him so much he ran over a fire hydrant ... then into a tree.
Originally published by STYLE Weekly in October of 1999With the turning of the leaves, The Fan District of Richmond, Va., will again be transformed into a living impressionistic cityscape. As they always do, the season’s wistful breezes will facilitate reflection.
All of which leads to the fact that yet another baseball season has come and gone. After 6,783 games, the last game ever has been played at Detroit’s fabled Tiger Stadium. The Giants and the Astros will be playing in new parks next season, as well. The World Series, first played in 1903, will soon be upon us. Although baseball’s claim as the National Pastime may no longer hold up, the colorful lore generated by the magic of events at baseball parks probably outweighs that of all the other sports, put together.
I began going to the Richmond V's (for Virginians) games at Parker Field with my grandfather when I was about seven. I eagerly drank in all I could of the atmosphere, especially the stories told about legendary players and discussions on the strategy of the game.
As I got older I began to go with my friends, most of whom played baseball. We usually took our baseball gloves with us to the game. We’d go early so we could watch the V’s warm up. As often as possible we talked with the players. If one of them remembered your name it was a source of pride.
When we cheered the heroics we witnessed and rose for the seventh inning stretch and stayed until the last out, regardless of the score, it was tantamount to exercising religious rites.A few seasons before they tore Parker Field down (it was dismantled in 1984 and in its place stands The Diamond), I experienced one last thrill at the old ballpark. This was when my daughter, Katey, was about seven or eight.
The home team by then — as it is now — was The Braves. Katey, her mother, and I were sitting in box seats as guests of neighbors who had gotten comps from a radio station. It was Katey’s first trip to Parker Field.
The spectacle itself was interesting to her for a while. As it was a night game, the bright lights were dazzling. The roar of the crowd was exhilarating. Being old enough to go along on such an outing, instead of staying at home with a baby sitter, was a boost to her morale. Nonetheless, by the middle of the game Katey (pictured above at about the age of this story) was getting tired of sitting still and bored with baseball.
During the sixth inning it fell to me to entertain, or at least restrain her, so the others could enjoy the game. I tried telling her more about the object of baseball, hoping that would help her pay some attention to the game.
That didn’t work for very long. She was soon climbing across seats again and this time she knocked a man’s beer into his lap. As the visiting team began their turn at bat, in the top of the seventh, I got an idea and asked Katey if she wanted to see some magic. Of course she did.
Then I got her to promise to be good if I showed her a big magic trick. She agreed to the terms without qualification. Making sure she alone could hear me, I pulled her in close and whispered my instructions.
The gist of it was that she and I, using our combined powers of concentration, were going to make everyone in the ballpark stand up at the same time. Katey was thrilled at the mere prospect of such a feat. I told her to face the ongoing game, close her eyes, and begin thinking about making the crowd stand up.
After the visiting team made their third out, I cupped my hand to her ear and reminded her to think, “stand up, stand up …”
As baseball fans know, when the home team comes to bat in the bottom of the seventh inning everyone stands up, ostensibly to stretch their legs. It’s a longtime tradition called “the seventh inning stretch.” There’s a mention of the practice in a report about a Cincinnati Red Stockings (baseball’s first professional team) game that took place in 1869.
Tradition aside — when Katey turned around, opened her big blue eyes and saw thousands of people standing up — it was pure magic in her book.
No one in the group gave me away when she told them what we had done. As I remember it, she stayed true to her word and was well-behaved the rest of the game.
It was a few years later that Katey confronted me, having learned how the trick worked. We still laugh about it.
Sports dilettantes today complain that baseball games are too slow and meandering. While I admit baseball has its lulls, nonetheless there are textures and layers of information present at baseball parks that are just too subtle and ephemeral for the lens of a TV camera to capture. To appreciate them you have to be there, and you have to bother to notice.
Sometimes there’s even a hint of magic in the air.
-- Words and photo by F.T. Rea
– 30 –
Dear Terry Rea:My letter to him was probably sent to an address in one of his comic books. In it I had asked him for permission to use Mr. Natural as the mascot for the Biograph Naturals, the theater's softball team in the Fan District Softball League. I didn't want to rip off his character without his permission.
Your letter was only just lately forwarded to me.... So, that's why this is so late...
So use Mr. Natural if you still want to use him.... Okay by me...
-- R. Crumb
When you get what you want in your struggle for self,Huh?
And the world makes you King for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.
For it isn’t your Father, or Mother, or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.
In 1998, with impeachment in the air and the Clinton administration being hobbled by the investigation of the nature of the president’s relationships with various women -- most notoriously, Monica Lewinsky -- eventually, I felt called upon to lampoon the scandal. So I created a series of caricatures featuring some of the main characters and wrote goofy captions for them.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who leaves office in January, today encouraged people with nonviolent felony convictions who have paid their debt to society to apply to have their voting rights restored.Click here to read the entire article by Jim Nolan at the RT-D.
At Richmond.com there’s a story up about Richmond beating Wm. & Mary on Saturday (13-10) that I wrote; the piece also looks at some of the colorful history of UR Stadium. For instance:
The advance notices for the two-day rock festival announced it would be a “No Hassles” event, which in the vernacular of the day meant marijuana-smoking would be ignored by the authorities. However, it seems nobody told The City’s policemen on duty at the stadium about ignoring anything, especially marijuana smoking. So, on the event’s first day there were hassles aplenty. When the cops began pulling what they saw as law-breaking pot smokers out of the stands, some of the bare-chested hippies resisted. Other young attendees came to the rescue and a battle started. A full-fledged four-hour riot ensued. Police cars were destroyed and heads were bloodied.
Click here to read the story, “Spiders Outlast Tribe: Ending an era at UR Stadium.”
Hoppers captain Jack Richardson with the Easy Rider Cup in hand
Founded in 1929, RKO stopped making movies in 1953 and eventually sold its lot and production facilities to television’s Desilu Productions.:6 Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.Yes, it's hard not to notice the verse that follows the one cited on the T-shirts. Are the people behind this sicko campaign glad it scares some of us who would rather not see Obama's children fatherless?
:7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.
:8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
:9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
:10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
SLANT's spokesdog, Rebus, wonders: All other considerations equal, would it be safer for us to have an atheist president with his finger on the button -- nuclear oblivion! -- than to have a Christian president, who truly believes in an afterlife? Wouldn't an atheist president, who couldn't hedge his bet, care more about the life we are living now on Earth?The Danville TEA Party plans a “Fired Up For Freedom” rally Nov. 21, which will end in burning Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th District, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in effigy, according to a news release from organizer Nigel Coleman.Click here to read the rest of the story at GoDanRiver.com.
“I am really disgusted by it,” [Rep. Peter] King told POLITICO Friday morning. “To me, it’s truly an insult to the memory of those killed on 9/11.”Disgusted? Insult?
