'Cruising the Divide' @ 8pm today

Today is the first scheduled performance for “Cruising the Divide: From West Broadway to Churchill Downs”, a community-based play by the Apprentice Company at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

I covered it in LEO here.

Today's performance will be at Actors Theatre as will another on Saturday, May 17, 8:00 pm, which will also be followed by a community dialogue. On Friday, May 16, 5:30 pm, a special performance will be held in the backyard of The Braden Center located on 3208 W. Broadway.

Admission is free but a ticket is required, so call 502-584-1205 or stop by the box office at Third and Main Street. I hope to see you there

Does Eight Belles matter more than Kenneth Chandler?

I'm sorry, I care more about a human than a horse.

From MSNBC via WLKY-32:

"[Louisville] Metro Police are investigating a fatal accident involving an off-duty officer and a man on a bicycle.

The collision happened around 5:15 a.m. Sunday in the 4400 block of Dixie Highway. Police said the 3rd Division officer hit and killed a bicyclist. The coroner said Kenneth Chandler, 56, died of multiple blunt force injuries. Authorities said there were no witnesses to the crash."

I understand why the national media paid more attention to the tragic death of filly Eight Belles. It was an on-track death at the KY Derby. It was a sorrowful ending to an otherwise promising narrative for Derby '08.

However, local coverage of Eight Belles eclipsed the death of Kenneth Chandler, who was killed after being hit by an off-duty LMPD officer.

My tipping point on the matter was when the C-J produced an awkward video montage for the horse that was rightfully ridiculed by Stephen George over at LEO.

From LEO's General Sense of Outrage:

"...the folks over at Sixth and Broadway had to go and cheapen the damn thing by creating a video montage of Eight Belles working out, complete with sentimental piano music, awkward cuts to slow motion and closeups of things like the horse's name tag."

Seriously, does Eight Belles matter more than Kenneth Chandler? This is what David Simon was crucifying with his critique of the media in the 5th season of The Wire.

This is embarrassing.

The real Afri-Am connection to the KY Derby

Jimmy Winkfield atop Alan-A-Dale in the 1902 KY Derby victory

On Derby Eve, like everything else in America, we've forgotten the African-American origins of this 130 plus year racing tradition. Blame it on decades of racial discrimination that eventually excluded blacks from a sport in which they were commonplace. Call it a lazy reading of history by us all. For whatever reason, black folks have seemingly relinquished what goes on at Churchill Downs as a de facto "whites only" affair.

Not so!

Visit the KY Derby website here to learn more. Or read 'The Great Black Jockeys' by Edward Hotaling. Or order the KET episode, 'Black Jockeys: A Forgotten Legacy'.

My rant from LEO's "Run From the Roses: The Perfect Derby Issue":

"Being a child of the 1980s, born and raised in West Louisville, you might expect that my sole memories of the Kentucky Derby come from cruising on Broadway. And it’s true; I can’t recall anything noteworthy about the Chow Wagon or Churchill Downs.

Sadly, cruising — that now-defunct accumulation of spruced-up cars, family oriented vendors and wandering pedestrians that once filled Broadway — has voided an entire generation’s historical viewpoint of the Kentucky Derby’s relationship to African-Americans. Before black jockeys became a symbol of dehumanizing minstrelsy for the front lawn of many sophisticated rednecks, they were the premiere athletes of the late 19th century.

Shamefully, Oliver Lewis, who rode Aristides to victory in the inaugural Derby in 1875, is all but forgotten. Fewer still know about the 15-year-old phenomenon Alonzo “Lonnie” Clayton, who rode Azra to victory in 1892 — the youngest jockey to win a Kentucky Derby. If you’re lucky, Isaac Murphy, the greatest jockey of all time, who won three straight Derbys, makes the pop culture lexicon. Give credit to historians and the Kentucky Derby Museum for keeping them alive for posterity.

Fast forward more than 100 years.

Most of my peers’ anecdotes about this annual equine sprint are anchored to the good, bad and ugly happenings of cruising years past. Broadway is our Derby history archive.

Today, Lonnie Clayton is a 13-year-old kid dancing suggestively with a woman twice his age atop a car, her clothing suggesting she is an exotic dancer. His Aristides is a lime green candy-painted Impala.

I’m not particularly upset that cruising was aborted. Frankly, the arguments against it were better than the ones for keeping it. What I am bitter about is unimaginative city leaders and pigheaded hip-hoppers who have zero understanding of how the Kentucky Derby is related to the African-American community. That history is deep, rich and worth more than the embarrassing image of West Broadway abandoned on days designed to overflow the city with people."

Frankfort's Finest to turn Ali Center into political brothel for Thunder

Here's exactly what I meant when I wrote in LEO this week that with dull regularity the local media covers the customary sideshows leading up to the equine gallop. In the frenzy of Derby we neglect the important news for the entertainment bullshit.

This Saturday when 700,000 plus converge downtown to watch Thunder Over Louisville in a giant cluster &#*@, some of Frankfort's finest will turn the Ali Center into a whorehouse, a political brothel filled with lobbyists and state officials in the aftermath of one of the worst legislative sessions in recent memory.

hat tip to The 'Ville Voice:

"If you’re really planning to brave the chills downtown for Thunder, you’ll be pleased to know that the same state government officials who are slashing budgets in education and social services will be warm and cozy inside the Ali Center, noshing on top-of-the-line food and drink bought and paid for by lobbyists. You know, the folks who pressure politicians to make unpopular moves, like blocking cigarette taxes and a gaming proposal, despite overwhelming public support.

Members of the State Senate, led by President David Williams, are all lining up to get in for the expensive party as guests of lobbying firms, who will bend their ears over shrimp and martinis, peering out the Ali Center’s giant windows at the poor suckers fighting for a patch of damp grass on the Great Lawn, all the while watching the action on big-screen TVs...

It’s hard to find anything in local media not related to the big Thunder show Saturday...But through all the Thunder news, I caught a significant political story by WLKY’s Andy Alcock, in which he questioned the idea of lawmakers, fresh on the heels of a dismal performance in Frankfort, hobnobbing with lobbyists in the posh indoor climate of the Ali Center."

From the budget cuts in education to the failure of the steam bill to the abortion of the cigarette tax, this is rather shameful. Sadly, you probably won't hear much of it underneath the avalanche of Derby coverage.

For the rest go here.

'Cruising the Divide' in LEO

About two weeks ago I posted a story about 'Cruising the Divide', a theatrical play based on interviews with Louisvillians by the Apprentice Company at Actors Theatre of Louisville about our decade-long debate over cruising on W. Broadway.

In LEO this week, I wrote about the play and its message. Check me out. I'm also pulling double duty as a photographer for the piece, what do you think?

For more info on "Cruising the Divide: From West Broadway to Churchill Downs" go here.

One of the interesting people I interviewed for the piece was University of Kentucky doctoral student Benjamin Brandford, who is writing his dissertation on cruising entitled "From Celebration to Confrontation to Condemnation: The short life of ‘Derby cruising’." Branford, who studies geography at UK, was gracious enough to let me see a summary of his paper. With his permission I wanted to share an excerpt that peels off the layers:

"It is important to recognize the role of the ‘streets’ in both the symbolic significance of Derby cruising and the strongly oppositional stance taken by cruising opponents. In the U.S., the streets have been used traditionally to assert a group’s ‘right’ to the city and/or lay claim symbolically to a specific place or neighborhood within the city.

For African Americans in the largely segregated and stigmatized West End of Louisville, Derby cruising also offered an opportunity for participants to engage communally and promote cultural creativity...

The location of the festivities in the ‘streets’ also played a significant role in framing the opposition. Over the last several decades, the availability of public space in the U.S. has undergone a dramatic decline as municipalities increasingly direct communal activities to within private spaces...

The increasing usage of surveillance, such as security cameras, in public spaces, such as the streets and public parks, has signaled an increased regulation of what types of activities are considered allowable in public, as is demonstrated through the criminalization of homelessness. Because Derby cruising took place in the streets, critics framed the event as one that was ‘uncontrollable’ and ‘lawless’. These sentiments gained traction because of the public location of the festivities, not only in the streets, but in the streets of the stigmatized and racialized West End of Louisville."

Righteous. Lucid.

Branford's a Louisville-raised, Bluegrass public intellectual in the state's flagship university. Why again are we cutting funds for higher education?

Cruising the Divide

With Derby 2008 right around the corner the monotony of news coverage is bound to highlight what's become a decade-long debate over cruising on Broadway.

I covered the madness of Derby cruising in LEO a few years ago. Since then the topic has become a radioactive waste dump, a toxic mix of thoughtlessness cruisers and unimaginative policymakers. In 2006 the mayor ended it, which basically closed all of West Broadway for cruisers...and vendors, and families, and foot traffic, and local businesses.

As usual, when politicians can't fix something artists fill the vacuum with illuminating satire. So next Tuesday, at 7:30 pm at the Braden Center (3208 W. Broadway), Actor's Theater is inviting the public to hear a community reading of Cruising the Divide: From West Broadway to Churchill Downs, an interview-based play created by Actors Theater of Louisville's Apprentice Company.

Written by Will MacAdams, director of the apprentice/intern company, the script was developed from interviews conducted by the apprentices last winter and fall with over 60 Louisvillians from across the city discussing their views on Derby cruising.

"Our goal is to build dialogue and bring together people are not talking to each other," said MacAdams, who believes theatre is a communal way of putting people together in a room who would otherwise never meet to discuss divisive issues. He encourages the public to attend the reading and share their thoughts.

Although the final draft is not finished, the play is scheduled to be performed at Actors Theatre of Louisville on May 15th and 17th at 8pm. On May 16th, portions of the play will be performed in the backyard of the Braden Center.

All performances are free of charge.

To RSVP for the April 1st reading, call (502) 584-1265, ext. 3083 or e-mail MacAdams here.

KY Derby Festival poster unveiled

Yep, it's that time of year again.
The first symptom of Derby fever.


The abstract was created by artist Rick Garcia, of Santa Fe, N.M.
What do you think?