Our FIVE. OH! TOO... newsletter is sent out every Friday and posted here every Monday. Subscribe here. View past newsletters here.
—————————
7.17.2020
“This guy lately deserves to have his political career ended with an asterisk.” — Louisville Urban League president and CEO Sadiqa Reynolds, in an open letter to Mayor Greg Fischer about his leadership in the wake of Breonna Taylor’s death
FIVE.
1. The office of Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron is still investigating the death of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black woman shot and killed by LMPD officers in her apartment on March 13. The felony charge against the 87 protesters arrested in Cameron’s East End front yard Tuesday has been dismissed. Cameron said in a statement, “Justice is not achieved by trespassing on private property, and it’s not achieved through escalation. It’s achieved by examining the facts in an impartial and unbiased manner. That is exactly what we are doing and will continue to do in this investigation.”
Hayes Gardner had an excellent C-J story this week, writing, “For 48 days of protests, a fire has burned in Louisville. Sometimes it blazes brightly, sometimes its embers smolder under the surface, but a hot tension remains between outraged protesters and fed-up police.” What happens to the “powder keg” if Cameron’s investigation doesn’t result in charging the officers? One protester told Gardner, “I don’t think this downtown area will be here.
“I’m not for violence, I don’t want it, but it’s just like when the Rodney King verdict came out.”
2. Louisville protesters have been in the streets since late May, and the New York Times documented the first 45 days with a video project you should scroll through. And with C-J updates like this one from this afternoon — “Breonna Taylor was alive after police shot her, records show. But no one tried to treat her” — none of us should expect the protesting to end any time soon.
On June 16, Louisville Magazine opened its office for a socially distanced discussion about Taylor, racism, the protests, Gen Z, police brutality, reparations and so much more. That discussion, which will appear in our next issue, included author and poet Hannah Drake, who said, “At one protest, an officer was talking to me and said, ‘We’ve been out here 15 days.’ I said, ‘We’ve been out here 400 years.’ So here we are. What we gon’ do?
“Black people — and many white people — it’s on our terms. We’re going to do it the way that we want to do it. And if it’s in the street, then it’s gonna be in the fucking street. Period.”
3. In a piece for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, Jacob Ryan writes, “More than 11,400 Louisville Water Company customers and nearly 23,000 Louisville Gas and Electric customers are behind on their bills,” providing “a glimpse into the broader economic crisis unfolding in Louisville and across the country” due to the pandemic. Gov. Beshear’s state-of-emergency moratorium on utility disconnections due to lack of payment is still in place. What happens if it’s not?
4. Emilia, my six-year-old, who’s supposed to be starting first grade this year: “Will I ever get to go inside my school again?”
5. One thing I promise I’ll never do again: criticize a Forecastle lineup that unsurprisingly includes Cage the Elephant. (I like Cage the Elephant, it’s just that they’ve played Louisville…a lot.) Today was supposed to be the first day of Forecastle 2020, and I miss it — and live music in general — so much that I’d be happy to see Cage the Elephant headline Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.
My favorite Forecastle performance has to be OutKast in 2014, with a 25-song set that opened with the tinkling notes of “B.O.B.” (goose bumps just thinking about it). And then THE NEXT NIGHT Jack White scorched us with a 25-song set of his own, with “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” as the opener and plenty more from his White Stripes catalog, not to mention a nine-song encore that included covers of “Misirlou” and Jay Z’s “99 Problems.” Oh, and of course last year during Chvrches, when Emilia was on my shoulders and she saw the lead singer and screamed, “Look at that girl!”
Through no-Forecastle-this-year tears, I asked several Louisville Magazine contributors for their favorite Forecastle moment.
“I wasn’t very familiar with LCD Soundsystem, so I got to see their 2017 show basically all new — which is honestly a cool experience. Big lights and energy. I had an artist pass and debated going backstage but chickened out. I regret that all the time.”
Michelle Eigenheer
Contributing writer
“Last year while shooting, the one band that stopped me was Jungle. They played good vibes under the highway to a smaller crowd that grew larger as they kept playing. Always a good sign.”
Andrew Cenci
Photographer
“When Robert Plant played in 2013, it started raining really hard but nobody left. Even after he had to stop, people huddled together under the overpass hoping he would continue after the storm passed. That is rock royalty.”
Michael L. Jones
Contributing writer
“I had my first Forecastle experience last year and absolutely loved every minute of Anderson .Paak and the Free Nationals. I attended with my sister-in-law and niece, who were also Forecastle first-timers, so that also made it extra special. AP had so much energy, and the band was fantastic.”
Cassia Herron
Contributing writer
“The Forecastle 2014 lineup was great for throwback bands like Slint and Seluah, but my favorite that year was the Replacements. I never thought I’d see them live, and their reputation for volatile and chaotic performances is right up my alley. They weren’t exactly that at Forecastle — which is great, because past a certain age drunken volatility becomes sad, even in rock ’n’ roll — but they were perfectly sloppy, laughing at themselves, not taking it too seriously and clearly wishing they had practiced a little more. They had to stop and restart songs more than once, but no one cared. We laughed with them, and it nurtured a connection with the crowd. To me, it was a great example of an iconic band that somehow never sold out but also grew up.
“And I wish I could live inside that Anderson .Paak performance from last year. I wish it could last forever. He’s like a rubber ball that bounces from one instrument to another. That show is my go-to daydream pick-me-up memory.”
Taylor Killough
Contributing writer
“My favorite was one that my partner and I barely caught in 2018 after getting the schedule confused and having to rush across the grounds: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. That was the first time I heard the song ‘If We Were Vampires,’ and for a few minutes the crowd disappeared and it was just the two of us, teary-eyed and transported.”
Alexandra Winters
Production and media manager
“Charles Bradley in 2017. I had no idea who he was, but walking up and hearing him sing gave me chills.”
Adam Mescan
Photographer
“Homeboy Jim James, minus the rest of My Morning Jacket, in 2013. Dressed in a chocolate-brown suit and dark tie despite the cloying late-afternoon heat, and performing with a ‘guest’ band in support of his first solo album, he sprinkled a little groove into a set of new tunes. When he put down his flying-wedge guitar and blew a few soulful sax solos, it assured us that more musical surprises—” (Yeah, like a cover of ‘Let It Be’ that made me cry. — Ed.) “—would be forthcoming from Louisville’s most dynamic musical presence.”
Bruce Allar
Contributing writer
Support for Louisville Magazine comes from the Eye Care Institute on Story Avenue. CEO Mark Prussian, who co-wrote the book One Eye or Two?: Insider Secrets to Help You Choose the Right LASIK Surgeon, wants you to know about LASIK, which — this is going to take some asterisks, but stay with me — is now cheaper than coffee*.
*If you buy a cup of coffee every day for a year**.
**For a total of $995***.
***Per eye.
The offer is good through the end of the month.
OH!
A little something from the LouMag archive.
The pandemic led Hillerich & Bradsby, the maker of Louisville Sluggers, to halve its workforce to about 90 people. Which reminded me of this 1959 Louisville Magazine story, back when Slugger was celebrating its 75th anniversary. The cover photo captures “some of the five to six million billets (Sluggers-to-be)” aging at a storage yard.
In the 1870s, J.F. Hillerich had a woodturning business on First Street between Main and Market, where he made bed posts, wooden bowling balls, balusters and more. From the story: “17-year-old Bud, who had started learning his father’s trade, lost his way back to the shop after lunch and found himself at the ballpark. Pete Browning” — remember Browning’s Restaurant & Brewery at Slugger Field, before Against the Grain took over the space? — “broke his favorite bat and agreed to accompany Bud to his father’s shop after the game. A piece of ash was selected, and young Hillerich went to work on it. Many times he removed the bat from the lathe so Browning could do a test swing, then returned it to the lathe for ‘a little off here and a little off there,’ until, at last, Pete pronounced it ‘just right.’ The Hillerichs were in the bat business.”
TOO...
I know I’ve given a lotta love to the (reminder: Pulitzer Prize-winning) C-J this week, but I gotta award a newsletter slow clap to today’s C-J headline for Joe Gerth’s column, about AG Cameron, aka the “Lawyer of Lethality,” who’s trying to strike down all of Gov. Beshear’s directives and orders to fight the spread of COVID-19. The headline? “Cameron bidding to become top serial killer.” 
Josh Moss
editor, Louisville Magazine
jmoss@loumag.com
Support for Louisville Magazine comes from Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana, whose 2020 Man Enough to Be a Girl Scout campaign “spotlights the importance of male business leaders and volunteers playing pivotal roles in the investment of girls, and is an effort to involve more fathers and business leaders in girls’ lives.” Know a deserving dude? Nominate him at gskentuckiana.org through Aug. 7. Questions? Email Clancy Hauber at chauber@gskentuckiana.org. The Girl Scouts will present the winner at the Tough Cookie fundraising breakfast. And, no: Nothing wrong with eating Samoas and Tagalongs for breakfast.
Hope you’ll subscribe to if you haven’t already, and hope you’ll send to somebody you think will enjoy reading this.
View past FIVE. OH! TOO... newsletters here.
