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If only we had known before Spoleto, we could have touted Patrick Sharbaugh’s Spoleto Buzz Blog as an award-winning production of the City Paper — because that’s just what it is. Friday afternoon in Portland, the winners of the annual alt-weekly awards were announced and Patrick’s blog took first place in a tight competition against the Arkansas Times and the Portland Mercury.
It’s a much-deserved pat on the back for Sharbaugh, who just spent 17 exhausting days providing insightful, street-level coverage of the beast that is Spoleto.
Congrats Patrick and great f’in job.
I’m currently in Portland at the annual Association of Alternative Newsweeklies convention where we’ve had a round-up of interesting speakers, from Arianna Huffington to Bill Hightower.
Unfortunately, I missed Huffington’s panel, but encountered her afterwards signing books. As she was inscribing my copy, she queried me on where I was from and asked if I was interested in “covering the races.” A bit flustered, all I could think of was, you know, the races — blacks, whites, etc. Being from Charleston, it was the first thing that popped into my head. But then I realized she meant election races. We exchanged cards and I quickly left to find some colleagues to tell me what the hell I had missed in the seminar. Turns out, she’s interested in altweeklies linking with the Huffington Post, enabling her site to become a hub for all the races across the country.
The convention’s been a blast and today, we have a free day in Portland, seeing as our flight got messed up and we were booked to leave last night instead of this morning. Oh well. Looks like we’ll have time to explore. We’re planning to hit the Body exhibit, which we missed when it was in Atlanta last year.
I’ll post some pics if I can ever find that damn camera cord.
Now that we’ve got two Spoleto issues down with only one to go, I’m able to get out and enjoy some of the festival. Meant to go to Caeti and Bills last night, but was too wiped out after a holiday weekend of too much work and not enough holiday. Made up for it tonight by seeing Harvard Sailing Team (who weren’t on my list until Stratton Lawrence gave them a glowing review). Their show was tight. It’s a big ensemble on a small stage, but there never seemed to be too many people or extraneous performers. They were all equally good and fun to watch.
After the show Theatre 99 doyenne Brandy Sullivan pushed me out the door with instructions to get over to the Caeti and Bills show, which was starting at 8:30 at the Charleston Ballet Theatre. I’m glad she got me over there. Funny, seamless, great dancing… What more could you want from an improv act?
A highlight for me and my date, (my eight-year-old son Jack, who was being allowed to stay up way past his bedtime in order to catch his first improv show) was walking into the CBT and seeing Jack McBrayer standing before us. McBrayer’s performed at previous Piccolos, but on this return, he’s riding the wave of a hit TV show — he plays Kenneth the page on 30 Rock, one of the best sitcoms EVER! (Please don’t bail on it Alec!).
My little fan was starstruck. And Jack McBrayer was equally struck by the fawning fan. I mean, how cute of an interaction was it. You’ve got a sweet, funny guy who seems a little surprised by a sweet little kid completely agog at being in his presence. I’ll let my Jack fill you in on the details of the interaction tomorrow. He was put in bed as soon as we got home (I swear, Ms. Belk, if you’re reading this! It’s the last week of school, so it’s not like he’s gonna be learning anything new anyway, right?!)
In the meantime, look at this picture! How adorable is that?!
Public service announcement: If you haven’t seen any Fringe shows yet, the Harvard Sailing Team has only one more performance on Thurs. May 31 at 6 p.m. at Theatre 99 while Caeti and Bills have two more. Thurs. at 9:30 and Saturday at 10 p.m. Get your tickets before they’re gone!
From the Swag Theory department:
A Transformers movie is coming out soon. How do I know that? Because the marketing people sent us a freakin’ 13-inch Transformer that turns into a semi-truck! Cool. The geeks in the office have been playing with this thing ever since it got cracked open.
 
Well, we knew there was a “Dav” in there somewhere. Janet at Spoleto Today kindly illuminated the identity of the super-talented violinist who wowed the crowds on Saturday at the Reggae party. His name’s Daniel Davis. Find out more about him here.
Took the family to the Reggae Block Dance last night. Here’s the 8-year-old’s assessment:
I thought it was fun even though I could not see. First of all if you’re taking kids, get there early. So you can get seats on the Custom House because if the kids get tired of the music and dancing they can play in that little lawn. That’s where ALL the kids hangout.
If you get there late and find an ok parking spot 2or3 blocks away take a pedicab. It’s the right thing to do. Also if you get there late don’t get stuck in traffic around the front and don’t go to either side you can’t see, go to the little lawn by The Custom House.
If you’re looking for food, go to the market, or just eat at home. But IF you’re looking for dessert go to Koolie, they have THE BEST ice cream in Charleston! I suggest that you should get the caramel. But it does not matter, they are all good! After you’re finished, go to the market when it’s not too crowded. We got a blinking necklace for 3 bucks. Also try to stop by the candy store. Mark my words, don’t go if you have a 5 year old or younger.’
The crowd was pleasant and happy to be there. The Dis n Dat Band, a local violinist (David… can’t remember his last name), and Pato Banton kept the crowd grooving, and the night was perfectly pleasant. Great night to be outside, swaying in the moonlight.
If you missed last night’s Reggae event, you’ll get a chance to catch a similar event next Saturday night when the Sister City Jazz Block Party takes over the same spot.
Music Editor Ballard Lesemann is out today after having some wisdom teeth removed this morning. He left me this voicemail.
Today, Charleston County school kids ate a lunch sponsored by, of all things, Shrek.
A report from my second grader:
“Today we had Far-Far-Away tacos and Shrek salad and Donkey milk. It tasted like a reguler lunch but the name made me have to like it. If you don’t like the name you must hate shrek and secend of all you must be crazy! I realy don’t know HOW Shrek GOT into the lunch menu. They must have a HOLE lot of MONEY!”
A whole lot of money is right. The lunch menu this month came home with two full-color ads on the printout along with the sponsored lunch on May 8.
Shrek recently came under fire by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood who took issue with the Dept. of Health and Human Services using Shrek in ads to encourage kids to exercise and be healthy. A big fat ogre promoting healthy living is ironic on a number of levels, sixteen of which are the promotional tie-ins with junk food.
As my eight-year-old says, you’d have to be crazy and hate Shrek not to like the stuff he’s pimping. Now, the obvious question: why are we letting schools give the pimps access to our kids?
Welcome to another installment of Marketing People Send Us the Stupidest Crap.
The last time we posted about the swag that crosses our desks, we had received a poorly-executed “art” book that celebrated the female ass and a faux-Wheaties box with Will Ferrell and Jon Heder on it (marketing material for Blades of Glory that proves Hollywood types have more money than they know what to do with).
This time around it’s smokeless snuff tobacco (ew) and a pair of sunglasses (thanks).
 
Over at Star Scientific Inc., they’ve discovered a growing market niche — “the smokeless tobacco” user. To meet the needs of this growing consumer category (6% annual increase!) and to answer the public health crisis smoking creates, Star has created patented dissolvable tobacco products that are — get this — “between 10 and 1,000 times less hazardous than smoking.”
Ariva® and Stonewall® will soon be available at a retailer near you — “the new dissolvable products flavors will be identified in the marketplace as ‘Better Than Cigarettes’® — Find Out Why.’”
Did we get sent some confidential company memorandums by mistake? Good thing they registered that trademark — it’s pretty catchy, that.
The second page of the release reads like a sinister tobacco company memo written by a lawyer: “This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company has tried, whenever possible, to identify these forward-looking statements using words such as ‘anticipates,’ ‘believes,’ ‘estimates,’ ‘expects,”plans,’ ‘intends,’ and similar expressions. … The risks, uncertainties and contingencies include, without limitation, the challenges inherent in new product development initiatives, particulary in the smokeless tobacco area….”
Ick.
The second item that crossed my desk this week was on a much lighter note. Marshall’s announced the opening of its new juniors boutique — The Cube — by sending out a cube-shaped box (is that redundant?) with a pair of hot pink J. Lo sunglasses on a nest of green paper. Now that’s the kind of swag I can take home and wear.
Interested in tonight’s Democratic presidential debate — the first of the 2008 election cycle — being held in Orangeburg?
Newsweek’s Howard Fineman has an astute analysis of the Democratic race and how S.C. will factor into the equation.
My favorite observation about S.C:
“This state has a way of making more than its share of history.”
April 26, 2007 – 12:27 pm
Apparently, according to this very long voice mail — voicemailnew.mp3 — GW Bush is an alien, his parents were never married, and Hillary can never be president because she’s a man. Oh, yeah, and Guiliani is a terrorist.
Boy, it’s fun working at a newspaper. The crazies all have your number!
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