I attended a taping of the Jerry Springer Show yesterday. Don’t worry, it wasn’t that bottom-feeding TV show of his… there were no midgets married to horses, no clown strippers, no trailer park homewreckers (at least as far as I could tell – it’s not something that you ask in polite conversation).
If you’re not from Cincinnati (and old like I am) you may not know that Jerry was once a city councilman for our fair burgh… albeit a councilman who got caught in a scandal because he wrote a personal check to a call girl. His political career survived that incident and he later became mayor of Cincinnati, then a local TV news anchor. And his syndicated TV show wasn’t always the hot mess that it is now.
In 1990, his TV station’s owner (which also produced Donahue and Sally Jesse Raphael) recruited him to host a new daytime talk show. “There was no expectation that it would last at all,” Springer recalls. “My first contract was six weeks.” At the beginning, The Jerry Springer Show emulated Donahue and tackled serious subjects. But the success of Ricki Lake in 1993 convinced Springer and his producers to target a younger audience and go full tabloid. “Young people are much more open in their lifestyles, so every once in a while the show would go crazy,” Springer says. By the late 1990s, Universal had bought the show—and dictated that Springer up the crazy. (Source: https://www.tvinsider.com/47933/jerry-springer-picks-10-of-his-best-of-the-worse-episodes/)
But Jerry’s podcast is something completely different. My friend Jene Galvin is Jerry’s sidekick, and they tackle political topics, along with some amusing banter among Jerry, Jene and co-host Megan Hils, plus a live performance from a roots/Americana band. (Last night’s musical guest was Wild Carrot.)
Jerry’s a lifelong liberal, so the show doesn’t just lean left, it’s a full 90-degrees left of center. But the man’s no dummy – he earned his law degree from Northwestern, spent more than a decade in local politics and won mutiple local Emmys for his TV commentaries. So he has an interesting take on the current political shenanigans (which often make the antics on his TV show look tame in comparison).
The podcast is certainly worth a listen. And if you’re in the area, I highly recommend that you attend the show, which takes place every other Tuesday at a neat little place called Folk School Coffee Parlor in the quaint Kentucky town of Ludlow, along the Ohio River. There’s also a local brewery/taproom next door called Bircus Brewing… but go after the show, not before… we don’t want any fights breaking out (save that for the TV show).
Yesterday afternoon the Neltner Family hosted their annual pig roast on the family farm. They’ve been hosting a pig roast for two decades – inviting generations of neighbors and friends to their place for an evening of great food and even better company. It’s old school all the way, like a church picnic… “bring a side dish or dessert to share.”
The Neltner family has been farming the same patch of land in Northern Kentucky since the late 1800s. Farming was their main occupation for generations. Plant some corn and tomatoes and apple trees, grow enough to feed your family and if the weather gods smile down upon you, sell your surplus. Nowadays, it’s more of a side hustle – the hardest side hustle ever. My friend Keith Neltner and his brother Rick are both graphic artists, and Rick does photography too. Which makes for an interesting mix of people at the pig roast:
But Keith and Rick and their siblings (and now their offspring) spend a lot of their “leisure time” working the farm.
Keith is one of the most talented artists in the world. Yet he spends his weekends doing manual labor to keep the family business going. That’s a tough row to hoe, literally.
The Neltners host a family festival at their farm several weekends in the fall. You won’t find a nicer family, or one more deserving of your hard-earned dollars. And it’s an honest-to-goodness working farm, not one of those “dump a bunch of pumpkins next to some hay bales and call it a ‘farm'” places.
Load up the family truckster. Stop by, say howdy, have some fun. And show a little appreciation for the hardest working folks around.
A couple of days ago, I helped our oldest child move into his freshman dorm room (and it was on the 11th floor, and the elevator line was too long, so we hauled his stuff up 11 flights of stairs… and it was snowing… wait, now I’m mixing up my hardship stories).
He’s not going far from home. He’s enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, which is about 8 miles from our house. But if home is where you hang your hat, he’s now living “away.” It’s been a long goodbye. He started checking out when he moved into his own room a few years ago. (It’s the one above the garage, the former guest room, a.k.a. “The Fonzarelli Suite.”) Then he got a job at a swimming pool one summer and was away even more. He added another job at Ramundo’s Pizzeria, and started driving, and hanging out with his friends more, and spending the night at their house quite a bit on the weekends… but that slow fade from our house doesn’t make his departure any easier. He doesn’t have to check in anymore, doesn’t have to text when he arrives at a friend’s house. He’s on his own… at least until laundry day (which for an 18 year old boy could be months).
As an alum of crosstown rival Xavier, I can’t help but feel that I’ve failed in my parenting. Then again, Xavier doesn’t have an engineering program.
His room at home has been empty most of the time for the past few months. But now it’s a different kind of empty.
It feels more hollow… in a way it mirrors the hole in our hearts, the void in our lives. I’m so happy for him as he starts his next adventure, and I’m trying to focus on that part of the equation. But it’s tough.
Wellsir (and madam), that was quite the music marathon that my ears just ran this weekend.
Friday night, I went to see Reverend Horton Heat doing a free show in the heart of downtown Cincinnati, at Fountain Square (as seen in the opening credits of WKRP in Cincinnati). I’ve seen the Reverend many times before, doing his souped-up version of rockabilly (he calls it “psychobilly”), but it had been quite a few years. My friend Todd convinced me to go (actually more like “cajoled”), and I’m so glad he did. Rev and his band sounded great, and he had Wayne “The Train” Hancock (an old school country yodeler ala Hank Williams Sr.) join him for part of the set, which was a lot of fun.
Saturday I drove an hour north of Cincy to Waynesville, Ohio (home of the annual Sauerkraut Festival!) to the debut Bellwether Festival. Saturday’s lineup included a nice mix of new and classic bands (and by “classic” I mean “bands that I used to play on 97X back in the 90s”).
And the headliners were The Flaming Lips, who seem to headline 50% of all outdoor music festivals in the country. Probably because they are so darn fun, and have a larger-than-life stage show (balloons! confetti! giant pink robot inflatable!) that’s perfect for an audience that may only be casual fans. It’s truly a spectacle.
After that long day (and 8 hours on my feet), you’d think I’d rest up on Sunday. But no, I could not rest. Mr. David Byrne was in town, at the PNC Pavilion. The former frontman for the Talking Heads is an artist in the true sense of the word, a renaissance man, a man of letters. How many other folks in rock would start a website about positive civic engagements called Reasons To Be Cheerful? His stage show is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen, and his band was amazing. I’ve seen hundreds of shows over the past 30+ years, but this one was easily one of the best, and certainly one of the most memorable.
Yes, it was a lot to pack into one weekend for an old man like me. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat. As David Byrne says:
Every day is a miracle Every day is an unpaid bill You’ve got to sing for your supper Love one another
Cincinnati loves its festivals. Every weekend during the summer, a Catholic church in the area has a fundraising festival. They all follow the same script: raffles galore, a silent auction, games of chance (lollipop pull and fish pond for the younger set, poker and blackjack for the adults), food and beverages (including alcohol). Some of the larger parishes will also throw in some carnival rides and local bands as the evening entertainment.
With the proliferation of casinos, bingo isn’t the fundraising juggernaut it used to be, but the summer festivals still draw a decent crowd.
I made it to two festivals in Cincinnati this weekend, but they were quite different in style. On Friday night my wife and I went to a church festival to see Cereal Killers, a local band featuring two friends of ours. They were stellar as always (see this blog post for more about them), which is especially noteworthy when you consider the fact that they really only play gigs a handful of times each year. But they do practice quite a bit. The lead guitarist Matt and his wife Amy are neighbors of ours, and in Amy’s eyes, “band practice” is just a convenient cover story for a guy’s night out every week. (If that’s the case, I may have to join Cereal Killers as their lead cowbell player.)
Saturday morning, I got up bright and early and rolled down to the Ohio River to participate in Paddlefest. Don’t worry, it’s not nearly as dirty as it sounds… it’s just 2000+ folks in canoes and kayaks (and on paddleboards) taking a leisurely paddle down the mighty Ohio.
The only festival in Cincinnati that I didn’t attend this weekend was Goettafest. Yes, we have an entire weekend festival dedicated to a pork-and-oatmeal food that was popular with Cincinnati’s horde of German immigrants back in the late 1800s, and remains a Cincinnati staple to this day.
They even have a vending machine where you can purchase rolls of goetta.
Don’t worry, it’s just my words… on second thought, you still should avert your eyes.
Wait, there’s a great illustration that redeems it. The illustration is not by me, of course… surely you’ve seen the hideous “design” of my blog site?
OK, without further ado or doo-doo…
It’s my first published magazine piece, in the August issue of Cincinnati Magazine. Tada!
You can read the entire thing here. It just a short intro and a few callouts in a two-page spread, window dressing for the visuals, really. It mentions beer a lot (go figure!). It won’t win a Pulitzer Prize. But it’s a milestone of which I’m proud.
Kevin Sullivan on Life advice from a man who lived it: “A good one Damian. Bring our lens into focus after the long weekend or our long life journey.” Jul 7, 09:38
Thomas Kuhl on We’re alive, because nothing happened.: “That is why we should celebrate every day when our feet hit the floor. Another to enjoy and share with…” Jun 25, 04:33
Thomas Kuhl on We’re alive, because nothing happened.: “This simply explains why we should celebrate every day our feet hit the floor. Another day to enjoy and share…” Jun 25, 04:31
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