So claims H. Brown, announcing his 6th Annual Bulldog Awards on the Web site of the Fog City Journal, which calls itself "an online news organization" focusing on Bay Area news. "More balding hippies carry (the Bay Guardian's) Election Day crib sheet into polls than any other rag," explains Brown, who gives his own publication the nod at number two. Brown also says SF Weekly columnist Matt Smith is the city's third-best political writer, even though he's "lost a step" and "(s)eems nuts at times." Smith is brilliant, says Brown: "He can see yesterday, today and tomorrow as one multi-valved heart fed by money, greed and bigotry."
John Callahan was scheduled to sing the blues this weekend in Salem, Ore., performing songs from his new album, "Purple Winos in the Rain." Non-ambulatory since he was paralyzed in a car accident at the age of 21, Callahan's lyrics are as dark as his cartoons -- suicide is mentioned in nearly every song, reports the Statesman Journal's Michelle Theriault -- but "there are slivers of a humor as bracing as his cartoon work throughout the album," says Theriault.
Doug Harvey doesn't just sit around thinking about art; he also creates it. The alt-weekly critic will exhibit his paintings and sculptures in "Great Expectorations" this month and next at a gallery in L.A.’s Chinatown district. The gallery describes the exhibit as "a multi-faceted serial piece ... simultaneously disturbing and therapeutic." It's the artist-writer’s first solo show in almost a decade. ANOTHER ALT-WEEKLY WRITER-ARTIST: Austin Chronicle arts editor Robert Faires stars in "In on It," which returns this month after being "the Austin theater hit of the summer," says the Austin American-Statesman.
Gavin Borchert, an arts writer for the alt-weekly, has triumphed in the first Seattle Spelling Bee, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The newly crowned 43-year-old champion defeated 11 other contestants -- including fellow AAN-affiliated writer Andrew Bleeker of The Stranger -- in an alcohol-drenched evening of "cockalorums" and "gjetost." For his efforts, Borchert received $200 in cash and gift certificates. That, and glory glorious glory.
Newspeak, a Colorado Springs blog with a strong alt-weekly pedigree, says The Stranger's Slog is "one of the best blogs on the internet and you can skip the local crap if it doesn't interest you." In fact, the folks at Newspeak think the Seattle paper is "the only alt-weekly in the country to have figured out why blogging is an alt's best friend and do it with teeth, wit and style." Perhaps they haven't read the Arkansas Times' Arkansas Blog, which John Brummett of The Morning News calls "by far" the best Arkansas political blog.
The local chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners named Sally Barnes one of the four contestants for Business Woman of the Year, according to the Idaho Statesman. The winner will be announced on Jan. 19.
Veteran photographer and frequent Voice contributor Fred McDarrah is currently displaying highlights from his life's work at the Steven Kasher Gallery, reports the Villager. The exhibit features 120 of McDarrah's iconic prints from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, including portraits of downtown legends such as Allen Ginsberg (pictured), Andy Warhol, and Susan Sontag. "I remember every photograph, every single picture, I took in my entire life," says McDarrah, whose first job at the Voice was selling ads.
Freelancers Sherry Deatrick of Louisville Eccentric Observer and Jennifer Smith of Isthmus, and Byron Woods, theater and dance critic for the Independent Weekly (Durham, N.C.), have each received fellowships to attend the third National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater at the USC Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles. "All the American arts depend on media coverage and intelligent criticism," says NEA chairman Dana Gioia. "The NEA Arts Journalism Institutes provide professional development to improve both the quantity and quality of this country's arts journalism." The Institute, a $1 million NEA initiative, will be conducted next year from Jan. 30 - Feb. 9.
Voice art critic Jerry Saltz (pictured), dance critic Deborah Jowitt, and film critic J. Hoberman each took top honors in a poll of artists and industry insiders commissioned by Time Out New York and conducted by Samir Husni, chairman of the department of journalism at the University of Mississippi. Critics were rated in eight different categories; the Voice was the only New York publication to win three first-place awards.
Alternative newsweeklies "don't usually fare very well in Chattanooga," says Editor Bill Colrus, but his paper seems to be bucking the trend. According to Colrus, The Pulse's improving finances have led to an expanded news section, which brings the alt-weekly closer to its goal to be like the papers "we loved in other cities" -- Nashville Scene, Creative Loafing and the New Haven Advocate. The Pulse applied for AAN membership in 2005 and 2006.
