Monday, January 31, 2011

Springsteen on WGOE (1973)

This music and interview recording was made in 1973 at Alpha Audio. It was created to play on WGOE's AM airwaves. The featured artist is Bruce Springsteen. This is after Steel Mill but before the E Street Band.

The link came via the Facebook page for Fans of WGOE "All the way right."

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Is the future a prize to be won?

Unlike some of my readers, I am more happy than not with Obama's performance as president. And, I'm especially pleased with the positive momentum he has established in the last couple of months. I'm a realist, who recognizes that he can't invent a bunch of courageous, liberal Democrats in Congress. Nor can he invent Republicans who aren't afraid of the Tea Party's wrath.

However, while I don't quarrel with the sentiment of his administration's new slogan -- "Winning the Future" -- in the world of propaganda and buzz word-inventing, this grouping of words is a big fat dud. It reads like a subhead in a boring report that somehow got bloated into being the title.

"Winning the Future" is being mocked; it deserves just that. It sounds like a concept about striving that got focus-grouped out of shape. It vaguely resembles something from Newspeak in Orwell's "1984."

Although I love the strategy of going all upbeat and optimistic on the Republicans, with their rhetoric of doom, but the president's new slogan needs to be 86'd sooner than later. Call the printer ... cancel the bumper stickers.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Councilmanic Movie Critics and the Civil War

How Richmonders have viewed the events of the Civil War and its aftermath has always been complicated; we're still not sure what to call the conflict that began 150 years ago. Hey, we're still arguing over the value of silent movies about that time:
While the movie’s history is woefully twisted, since its release in 1915 "The Birth of a Nation," directed by D.W. Griffith, has evolved into an important historical document itself. It was America‘s first widely distributed feature length motion picture. Sadly, in its initial release many viewers swallowed its glorification of the KKK as genuine history. Now it stands as powerful evidence of how utterly determined some people were at that time to avert their eyes from the truth.
Click here to read my latest effort at Richmond.com, "Fresh Looks at Familiar History."

SLANTblog's VA Top Five: Jan 25

Each Tuesday during the men's college basketball regular season, SLANTblog will publish its new Virginia Top Five. For the fourth consecutive season this feature will attempt to rank what seem at the moment to be the best five teams from among the 14 Division I programs in the Commonwealth.

SLANTblog's VA Top Five

1. Richmond (15-5, 4-1 in A10; No. 66 RPI)
2. VCU (16-5, 8-1 in CAA; No. 55 RPI)
3. Mason (15-5, 7-2 in CAA; No. 30 RPI)
4. ODU (15-5, 6-3 in CAA; No. 32 RPI)
5. Va. Tech (13-5, 3-2 in ACC; No. 64 RPI)

Change from last week: Richmond went 2-0 to move up two notches. VCU also improved two positions by going 3-0. Likewise for Mason with a 3-0 mark. ODU tumbled from first to fourth with a 2-1 record for the week. Va. Tech moved back into the group with two wins and no losses. JMU went 0-3, ouch! to disappear.

Note: Only games against Division I opponents are counted in won/loss records. The RPI numbers, which are updated frequently, are from CBS Sports at the time of posting.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Candidate Allen: 'You know me'

George Allen (depicted in 2006 by yours truly) is back on the campaign trail. He wants Virginia's voters to return him to his old job in the U.S. Senate. Well, some Republicans in Virginia may be glad about Allen's announcement, which hardly came as a surprise to the Old Dominion's political blogosphere.

In his video taped announcement Allen said:
Friends, it’s time for an American comeback. A comeback with leaders in Washington who listen to We The People, adhere to foundational principles, rein in spending and start creating opportunities for more jobs.

Now to get [sic] we’re going to need more leaders listening to Virginia voices. Leaders who will fight to Repeal and replace this government mandated healthcare experiment, Pass a balanced budget amendment and the line-item veto, And reduce our families’ energy costs by unleashing our American resources and creativity.

Today I’m announcing my candidacy for the U.S. Senate. You know me...
Other Republicans may remember his 2006 campaign and wonder who has been advising Mr. Allen that most conservative Virginians relish the idea of supporting him in 2012. Before the infamous Macaca Meltdown in 2006, while eying a run for the White House down the road, wasn't Allen the guy who said the Senate was too slow moving, even boring?

More than a few Republicans and Independents must be remembering the utter disaster Allen's last campaign was. And, when recalling how Allen lost to Sen. Jim Webb, it's important to note that Allen's unfortunate video-taped remarks were followed by several weeks worth of bogus explanations, denials, and revised denials, etc.

Yes, the viral play of the video tape of an apparently drunk George Allen mocking a Webb campaign worker was what put the incumbent's campaign into crisis mode. But it was Allen's outrageously inept damage control that put his bid for reelection into a free fall. Comedians certainly made note of it at the time.

Then there was also that series of embarrassing revelations about a youthful Allen's bullying behavior over the years that came out of the woodwork. Relics of those stories and all the monkey jokes at Allen's expense will be easy for his opponents on either side of the aisle to reanimate.

Meanwhile, one candidate is already in the Republican field for Allen's old job -- Tea Party organizer Jamie Radtke. Other Republicans are sure to follow. So, until we see the entire field of hopefuls, it's premature to say Allen will cakewalk his way past his GOP opposition.

Yes, with his Confederate flags and cowboy boots, we know this self-styled Southern gentleman from Southern California. We know George Allen ... that's his problem.

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Note: The text of Allen's speech was copied from the email his campaign sent me.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

SLANTblog's VA Top Five: Jan 18

Each Tuesday during the men's college basketball regular season, SLANTblog will publish its new Virginia Top Five. For the fourth consecutive season this feature will attempt to rank what seem at the moment to be the best five teams from among the 14 Division I programs in the Commonwealth.

SLANTblog's VA Top Five

1. ODU (13-4, 4-2 in CAA; No. 34 RPI)
2. JMU (15-3, 5-1 in CAA; No. 62 RPI)
3. Richmond (13-5, 2-1 in A10; No. 80 RPI)
4. VCU (13-5, 5-1 in CAA; No. 71 RPI)
5. Mason (12-5, 4-2 in CAA; No. 49 RPI)

Change from last week: JMU went 2-0 to move up one notch. Richmond dropped one spot by losing its only game. Va. Tech split two games and dropped out. VCU went 2-0 to move up one position. Mason went 2-0 to join the Top Five.

Note: Only games against Division I opponents are counted in won/loss records. The RPI numbers, which are updated frequently, are from CBS Sports at the time of posting.

Friday, January 14, 2011

April 14, 1973: Discovering the Fan

Thirty-eight years ago an ad hoc group of 21 merchants in the VCU area cooperated for a one-time-only promotion that went over quite well -- Discover the Fan. Alas, none of the participating businesses are still there and open for business.


Click on Rebus' nose to enlarge the art.


On April 14, 1973 the weather was absolutely spectacular. For that Saturday afternoon the 800 and 900 blocks of West Grace Street, and environs, were packed with an unprecedented amount of foot traffic. There was live music. Hundreds of helium-filled balloons and free prizes donated by the merchants were given away. The street was not closed and the vehicular traffic was slowed to a crawl all day.

Motorists traveling toward the West End were shown something rather unexpected, given the neighborhood's bohemian image. (Grace Street was a busy one-way street heading west in those days.) There were thousands of ordinary-looking people milling about having a good time. Many of them seemed like tourists. Kids with balloons were everywhere. Suddenly that strip known for its hippies and beer halls looked safe as milk.

The handbill above was done by yours truly. With its list of participating businesses it provides a snapshot of the area in what was probably the zenith of the hippie age. Some of the characters who ran those businesses were rather interesting people.

At the time I had been the manager of the Biograph Theatre for a little over a year and the promotion itself was my project. Many people helped put it together, but it couldn't have happened without the help of Dave DeWitt and Chuck Wrenn.

Below is a piece about this event, written by the late Shelley Rolfe:
Shelley Rolfe’s
By the Way
Richmond Times-Dispatch (April, 16, 1973)

It was breakfast time and the high command for Discover the Fan Day had, with proper regard for the inner man, moved its final planning meeting from the Biograph Theater to Lum’s Restaurant. Breakfast tastes ran a gamut. Eggs with beer. Eggs with orange juice. H-hour -- the operations plan had set it for noon -- was less than three hours away. Neither beer nor orange juice was being gulped nervously.

Terry Rea, manager of the Biograph and the extravaganza’s impresario, was reciting a last-minute, mental things-to-do list. There was the vigilante committee, which would gather up the beer and soft drink cans and bottles that invariably infest the fronts of the shops in the 800 and 900 blocks of W. Grace St., focus area of the discovery.

The city police had promised a dragnet to sweep away the winos who also invariably litter the neighborhood. The day had bloomed crisp and sunny, the first dry Saturday since Groundhog Day. “I knew it wouldn’t rain,” Rea said with the brash confidence of the young. “Lots of young businessmen around here,” a beer drinker at another table said. The free enterprise system lives.

REA WAS assigning duties for the committee that would rope off two Virginia Commonwealth University parking lots that would serve as the setting for a fashion show and band concert. The committee to blow up balloons, with the aid of a cylinder of helium [sic]. One thousand balloons in a shrieking variety of colors. “If we only get 500 kids... two to a customer,” Rea said cheerfully.

“I need more people,” said the balloon task force leader.

Twenty-one businesses were involved in the project. Each of them had contributed prizes, and gift certificates had been put into plastic Easter eggs. An egg hunt would be part of the day, and Rea had a message for the committee that would be tucking the eggs away: “Don’t put them in obvious places, but don’t put them were people can get hurt looking for them.”

“We talked about doing this last summer but we never got it together,” Rea said. There had been fresh talk in late February, early March, and it had become airborne. The 21 businesses had anted up $1,500 for advertising, which was handled by Dave DeWitt, proprietor of a new just-out-of-the-Fan, small, idea-oriented agency.

“Demographically, we were aiming for people between 25 and 34,” Rea said. There had been newspaper advertising and spots on youth-oriented radio stations. “We had a surplus late in the week...” Rea said. The decision was made to have a Saturday morning splurge on radio station WRVA. “Hey,” said a late arrival, “I heard Alden Aaroe talking about it.”

“We wanted people to see what we have here,” Rea said. “People who probably close their windows and lock their doors when they drive on Grace Street and want to get through here as quickly as possible.”

Well, yes, there must be those who look upon the 800 and 900 blocks as symbolic of the counterculture, as territory alien to their visions of West End and suburban existence. Last November the precinct serving the 800 and 900 blocks went for George McGovern, by two votes. Not a landslide, but, perhaps, a trend.

NOON WAS approaching. Rea and DeWitt set out on an inspection tour. Parking lot ropes were being put into place. Rock music blared from exotically named shops. The balloon committee was still short on manpower. An agent trotted out of a shop to report, “They’ve got 200 customers ...” And how many would they normally have at this hour of a Saturday” “They wouldn’t be open,” Rea said.

Grace Street was becoming clogged with cars It would become more clogged. Don’t know how many drivers got out of their cars, but, for a while they were a captive audience making at least vicarious discovery.

Also much pedestrian and bicycle on the sidewalks. Merchants talked of espying strangers, of all ages. A white-haired woman held a prize egg in one hand, a balloon in the other. A middle-aged man had rakishly attached a balloon to the bill of his cap.

The fashion show went on to the accompaniment of semijazz music and popping balloons, most of them held by children. Fashions were subdued. A dress evocative of the 1840s. Long skirts. Loudest applause went to a man who paraded across the stage wearing a loud red backpack. Everybody’s urge to escape?

ON GRACE STREET a sword swallower and human pin cushion was on exhibition. No names please. “My mother ...” he said. He wished to be identified only as a member of “Bunkie Brothers Medicine Show.”

Discounted merchandise on sale included 20-yesr-old British Army greatcoats and a book fetchingly titled “Sensuous Massage.” Sales resistance remained firm.

On Harrison Street a sidewalk artist was creating. A wino, who had somehow escaped the dragnet, lurched across the sidewalk art muttering. “Free balloons ...” In a shop a man said, “I want the skimpiest halter you have ... for my wife.”

On an alley paralleling Grace Street, a man holding a hand camera and early on a VCU class assignment was directing actors. One stationed in a huge trash bin. “Waiting for Godot” revisited? The second, carrying a an umbrella in one hand, popcorn in another, approached the bin. A hand darted out for popcorn. “I ran out of film!” screamed the director.

Everything was being done again. The actor in the bin emerged, seized the umbrella and ran. “Chase him,” from the direct. Actor No. 2 did a Keystone Kop-style double take, jumped and ran. A small crowd that had gathered applauded.

LATE IN the day. Traffic still was at a saturation level. Early settlers said the territory hadn’t seen such congestion since the movie, “Deep Throat.” Rea spoke of objectives smashingly achieved. Euphoric talk from him on another day of discovery in September. City Hall would be petitioned to block off Grace Street.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Jan. 12: Palin's words; Obama's words

“Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel.”


"Let's use this occasion to ... sharpen our instincts for empathy."

Note: Click on either of the photos to see that speech in its entirety at YouTube.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Selectively choosing which words lead to action

Most of us like to believe that the words of our leaders can inspire us to put aside our self-interest to act responsibly, even heroically.

Yes, we remember: Jan. 20, 1961: “My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.” How many young Americans joined the Peace Corps, in some part due to hearing those words?

We remember: June 12, 1987: “Tear down this wall!” Didn’t those words turn into action?

Of course, for most readers I don’t have to say who uttered those words. Readers already know both quotations quite well. Or, at least I sure as hell hope they do.

However, now some of us like to believe our leaders’ words can only inspire us to do good things. At least, in the midst of the national public debate about deliberately heated political rhetoric, some of us say that’s what we believe.

According to that line of thought all the provocative angry words flung back and forth by shoot-from-the-hip politicians in recent years could not contribute to violence. Then again, I've heard fools say that advertising and political spin never influences them. That popular culture doesn't influence people, etc.

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Update: Meanwhile, baffling words -- Sarah Palin's "blood libel" -- can drive us to wonder what in the world the speaker could have meant -- click here.

Blood Isn’t Just Red

We are all being pushed and pulled by a chorus of voices. Did television or video games make the already crazy man a shooter? The Internet? Was it a humiliating rejection? Did his parents have any role in bending his mind? Were there some words of celebrities also rattling around in his head? Did his dog tell him to do it?

Pretending that people do things, even strange things, for a single reason doesn't usually get us closer to the truth. The piece that follows was published by the Richmond Times-Dispatch on its May 1, 1999 OpEd Page. The point it makes about the long-term effects of repeated violent images on television still seems apt to me.
Blood Isn’t Just Red
by F.T. Rea

Television has dominated the American cultural landscape for the past 50 years. A boon to modern life in many ways, television is nonetheless transmitting an endless stream of cruel and bloody images into everyone’s head.

However, if you’re still waiting for absolute proof that a steady diet of video violence can be harmful to the viewer, forget it. We’ll all be dead before such a thing can be proven. This is a common sense call that can and should be made without benefit of dueling experts. Short of blinding denial, any serious person can see that the influence television has on young minds is among the factors playing a role in the crime statistics.

How significant that role has been/is can be debated.

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m as dedicated to protecting freedom of speech as the next guy. So perish the thought that I’m calling for the government to regulate violence on television. It’s not a matter of preventing a particular scene, or act, from being aired. The problem is that the flow of virtual mayhem is constant.

Eventually splattered blood becomes ambient: just another option for the art director.

My angle here is that in the marketplace of ideas, the repeated image has a decided advantage. The significance of repetition in advertising was taught to me over 25 years ago by a man named Lee Jackoway. He was a master salesman, veteran broadcaster, and my boss at WRNL-AM. And, like many in the advertising business, he enjoyed holding court and telling war stories.

He had found me struggling with the writing of some copy for a radio commercial. At the time he asked me a few questions and let it go. But later, in front of a group of salesmen and disc jockeys, Jackoway explained to his audience what I was doing was wrong. Basically, he said that instead of stretching to write good copy, the real effort should be focused on selling the client more time, so the ad spot would get additional exposure.

Essentially, Jackoway told us to forget about trying to be the next Stan Freeberg. Forget about cute copy and far-flung schemes. What matters is results. If you know the target audience and you have the right vehicle to reach it, then all you have to do is saturate that audience. If you hit that target often enough, the results are money in the bank.

Jackoway told us most of the large money spent on production went to satisfying the ego of the client, or to promoting the ad agency’s creativity. While he might have oversimplified the way ad biz works to make his point, my experience with media has brought me to the same bottom line: When all else fails, saturation works.

Take it from me, dear reader, it doesn’t matter how much you think you’re ignoring the commercials that are beamed your way; more often than not repetition bores the message into your head. Ask the average self-absorbed consumer why he chooses a particular motor oil or breakfast cereal, and chances are he’ll claim the thousands of commercials he paid no heed had nothing to do with his choices.

Meanwhile, good old Lee Jackoway knows that same chump is pouring Pennzoil on his Frosted Flakes because he has been influenced by aggressive advertising all day long, every day.

OK, if repetition works so well in television’s advertising, why would repetition fail to sell whatever messages stem from the rest of its fare? When you consider all the murders, all the rapes, all the malevolence that television dishes out 24 hours a day, it adds up. It has to.

What to do?

I have to believe that if the sponsors of the worst, most pointless violent programs felt the sting of a boycott from time to time, they would react. Check your history; boycotts work.

It’s not as though advertisers are intrinsically evil. No, they are merely trying to reach their target audience as cheaply as possible. The company that produces a commercial has no real interest in pickling your child’s brain with violence; it just wants to reach the kid with a promotional message.

If enough consumers eschew worthless programs and stop buying the products that sponsor them, the advertiser will change its strategy. It really is that simple.

As we all know: A day passes whether anything is accomplished or not. Well, parents, a childhood passes, too, whether anything of value is learned or not.

Maybe television is blocking your child off from a lesson that needs to be learned firsthand -- in the real world where blood isn’t just red, it’s wet.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

On denying the connection between words and violence

The selling words of advertisements create action all day, every day. Our society runs on ads and other forms of propaganda. So, saying that heated political rhetoric didn't play a part in what drove a crazy man to commit violent crimes, just because no connection can be proven, is absurd.

Fifty years ago in the Deep South no decent person could deny the connection between heated political rhetoric and targeted violence. (The photo is of Alabama's angry-talking then-Gov. George Wallace.) At the Facing South web site Chris Kromm writes:
The tragic Arizona shootings that left six dead and others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) critically wounded, have sparked debate over an important question: What's the connection between violent political rhetoric and real violence? It's not a new debate, especially in the South, where the bloody civil rights era forced Southerners and the nation to confront how extremist and violent political messages can have deadly results.
To read the entire piece, "Do violent words cause violence?" which is short, timely and worthwhile, click here.

Still, it's probably a waste of time to try to make sense of the senseless actions of a person utterly detached from the concerns of morality and self interest that restrain most of us from shooting our elected representatives. It looks like that's the sort of person we have in this case. Time may prove different.

But if I'm right about him, our frustration with understanding the thinking of the Glock-wielding Arizona shooter is unlikely to go away. After all, we can only guess at his motives, because there's really no reason to believe anything he says. It isn't likely to do him much good to tell the truth ... if he knows it.

So partisans trying to game this tragedy might as well give up trying to find clues to his ideology. But trying to backpedal and say that dangerous words uttered by leaders don't sometimes lead to mayhem is ignoring history. We Southerners know better.

SLANTblog's VA Top Five: Jan 11

Each Tuesday during the men's college basketball regular season, SLANTblog will publish its new Virginia Top Five. For the fourth consecutive season this feature will attempt to rank what seem at the moment to be the best five teams from among the 14 Division I programs in the Commonwealth.

SLANTblog's VA Top Five

1. ODU (12-3, 3-1 in CAA; No. 30 RPI)
2. Richmond (13-4, 2-0 in A10; No. 74 RPI)
3. JMU (13-3, 3-1 in CAA; No. 63 RPI)
4. Va. Tech (10-4, 1-1 in ACC; No. 64 RPI)
5. VCU (11-5, 3-1 in CAA; No. 65 RPI)

Change from last week: UVa. went 1-1 and dropped out of the Top Five, VCU went 2-0 and moved into it.

Note: Only games against Division I opponents are counted in won/loss records. The RPI numbers, which are updated frequently, are from CBS Sports at the time of posting.

Seipel to lead VCUarts

Good news for Virginia Commonwealth University (the No. 1 public university school of arts and design in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report in 2009):
Joseph H. Seipel has been named dean of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, the premier public graduate school of arts and design in the United States, effective March 15.
Click here to read the entire story at the Fan District Hub.

El-Amin's Bridge to Bitterness

A new piece I wrote about the Harvey Family Memorial Bridge in Forest Hill Park is up at Richmond.com. It's called "El-Amin's Bridge to Bitterness."
However, when El-Amin suggested that racism kept the names of black victims off that memorial plaque in the park, he was ignoring the larger view. El-Amin was willfully averting his eye from the specific history that led to the naming of the bridge.
Click here to read this entire story.

For more background on the Harvey family, culled from SLANTblog posts in 2006, click here.

Monday, January 10, 2011

The GOP's crosshairs problem

Saying Sarah Palin's crosshairs graphics or spoken words inspired the Tucson shooter does no good. Who knows what sort of cocktail of influences led up to his violent demand for attention? Sicko video games? Slasher movies? Problems in his personal life?

Still, it's well worth looking back at how much rightwing commentators/bloggers enjoyed it when sassy Sarah's firearms propaganda gimmicks bothered Democrats last year. Remember that?

Moreover, when demonstrators showed up at political events packing heat, those same pundits had giggle fits when fussy Democrats protested such shenanigans in that context as implied threats. Instead of responsible reactions from the GOP's leaders, Second Amendment talking points were recited word-for-word with a smirk.

Well, a lot of those tactics were way out of line. That's precisely why the crosshairs graphics were so quickly scrubbed from Palin's web site on Saturday.

Spitting on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) was out of line, too. Remember that? But last year the leaders of the GOP turned a blind eye on all of it, because it seemed to be playing well with Tea Party activists and other hardcore extremists.

Now some of the Republicans who want to pose as responsible leaders have a little PR problem, and it is most surely of their own making.

Sunday, January 09, 2011

Inflammatory rhetoric is heard by all who listen

Instead of dwelling on particular connections we might cherry-pick, between Sarah Palin’s irresponsible rhetoric and yesterday‘s shootings in Arizona, we should just accept that everything is connected. Every word that appears in print/is heard on television has the potential to inspire a reader/listener. Every image has the potential to influence a viewer.

So what was wrong with Palin’s “gun sight” strategy map was wrong before the bullets started flying. Clearly, Palin the campaigner was more interested in striking a sassy pose for her fans than she was in trying to be a responsible leader. Before the shootings in Tucson, she and her followers laughed at those who criticized her use of firearms metaphors. Now web pages are being scrubbed to remove what were Palin’s deliberately provocative poses.

That doesn’t mean Palin’s influence was what drove a deranged man to gun down a congresswoman and anyone near her. Combing through a madman’s papers and actions for a singular motive is unlikely to prove much. So trying to paint the shooter as a liberal or conservative, gone wrong, isn’t likely to solve a mystery, or make sense of senseless actions.

What we should remember is that inflammatory rhetoric about using bullets to solve political differences will be heard by good citizens, as well as some unhinged individuals bent on payback. It will be heard by the wicked, too.

Everything is connected.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

SLANTblog's VA Top Five: Jan 4

Each Tuesday during the men's college basketball regular season, SLANTblog will publish its new Virginia Top Five. For the fourth consecutive season this feature will attempt to rank what seem at the moment to be the best five teams from among the 14 Division I programs in the Commonwealth. This is the first Top Five for this season.

SLANTblog's VA Top Five

1. ODU (10-3, 1-1 in CAA; No. 22 RPI)
2. Richmond (11-4, 0-0 in A10; No. 84 RPI)
3. JMU (11-3, 1-1 in CAA; No. 48 RPI)
4. Va. Tech (9-4, 0-1 in ACC; No. 67 RPI)
5. Virginia (9-5, 1-0 in ACC; No. 125 RPI)

Note: Only games against Division I opponents are counted in won/loss records. The RPI numbers, which are updated frequently, are from CBS Sports at the time of posting.

Richmond's Most Predictable Locals

Enough of recapping and analyzing 2010. Don't you want to know what's going to happen in Richmond in 2011?
...Richmond’s semi-savvy City Council will take bold new steps in its anti-noise campaign. Council will unveil new laws prohibiting the performance of live music after 11 p.m., if you can hear it at all. Likewise, Richmond’s movie theaters will only be allowed to show silent movies after 11 p.m., which should please fans of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Kops. When it comes to live comedy on stage at venues within the city limits, only mimes will be permitted to perform in public after the noise curfew.
Click here to read my predictions for Richmond.com, "2011's Most Predictable Locals."