Ladies, Leif Garrett is in town.

Friday

• Leif will be performing along with the Bay City Rollers and The Cowsills at Hoosier’s Lounge. The whole event is being hosted by Greg Brady. The party starts at 7pm or 10pm depending on which show you want to attend.
• Looking for something a little bit more hardcore than 70’s dreamboats? Wired has This Autumn Night, Prevent this Tragedy, Tripwire and more starting at 7PM.
• Personally, I will be out at USI to see a screening of Notre Musique followed by Baba King. Film starts at 7:30 at Forum One on USI’s Campus.
• At 9PM The Jungle has Matt Clark on Jazz Piano.
• Fast Eddy’s has Louisville natives BSR performing at 10PM.
• At 10:30PM, Rich Hardesty will be playing at Ri Ra’s down in the district.

Saturday

Saturday is all about national acts coming to town.

• Leif Garrett and crew are still in town with two shows at Hoosier’s Lounge. First show is at 7:30PM followed by 10PM.
• 1123 has Cakecore 5 starting at 8PM. Can you guys not get into a fight this week? Thanks.
• If you’re wanting some country music and have a few bucks to spare, head to The Centre to see Vince Gill at 8PM.
• If you want to put on something nice and be cultural, the EPO is performing at Victory Theater starting at 8PM
• Lt. Dan’s New Legs will be playing at Eddy’s starting at 10PM. Best name for a cover band ever!

Anything we missed? Tell us in the comments!

• John Matthew Stephenson, who is on death row for killing 3 people in Warrick County, had his appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court rejected. He has a year to appeal to file a federal appeal. In other news, why do serial killers always include their middle name?
• Rather than speeding up service at your local post office, the USPS has opted to remove all clocks from post offices around the country.
• One man died and three were injured in a house fire near the intersection of the Lloyd and Vann Avenue.

photo courtesy of djh644

Want to help promote It’s Evansville around town? Why not get some of our stickers. We’ll be out around town over the next few weeks passing them out to spread the word, but we’re more than happy to mail a few to you as well. Our stickers are completely multifunctional. You can stick them on your car, your person, your binders or your Powerbooks.

If you’d like a few stickers, just send an email to justin@itsevansville.com with the address you want to send them to. You can also leave a comment on this post if you want to, but I doubt you really want everyone to know where you live.

While I was sitting at home yesterday trying to recover from this nasty flu bug going around town, I was watching a lot of Daytime TV. For about two hours of my day I watched Regis’ return from his bypass surgery followed by The View. During both of these shows there were several spots run previewing a story on the ABC25 news at 5 about lock bumping. For the uninformed, lock bumping is when a criminal has a special key made that he can just jam into a lock to open it. It should be noted that there have been absolutely no lock bumping cases reported in the tri-state area. Let’s see how many are reported in the next few months.

There’s nothing wrong with reporting on this type of story. My problem was with the teasers that ABC25 kept putting on the air with the ominous music and fear mongering dialog. In my opinion, the spots were preying on the fear of the viewer: if you don’t tune into our news, you might be a victim. What’s worse, there have been no reports of bumping in town, but the teases didn’t offer that up. They played out as if it was something that was happening frequently in the area.

This isn’t just a local thing. It has been happening with local news outlets all over the country. Opie & Anthony have a recurring bit on their morning radio show that highlights some of the worst of these news teases. Previous show favorites include teases that warn viewers that frequent hiccups could be a sign of cancer, how a law could _shut down religion, or city officials wanting to pack all it’s sex offenders into a single city block (it could be in your neighborhood!). If I had a VCR, I would have recorded this clip and sent it in. This is fear mongering at its greatest.

Am I the only one that is frustrated with what mainstream news has become in the past 10 years?

photo courtesy of dewitt

Let’s say you have an ex-wife or two. Now, let’s say you have some sexually explicit photos of each of them. Now, let’s say you want to extract revenge on your ex-wives for making your life a living hell. Obviously the solution to this problem is to spend countless hours making little packages containing the nude photos as well as their names, addresses and phone numbers and then litter them on lawns all over the West side.

That’s what one Evansville man allegedly did.

Husband of the year, Gordan Wayne Wright admitted to police that he did the dopey crime in order to get back at one of his ex-wives. Unfortunately for Wright, he faulted in two areas. First, it’s obviously a crime to distribute pornography on people’s front lawn. Second, he didn’t even have the correct address and phone number for his ex-wife: she had moved long ago.

Gordan Wayne Wright is facing two misdemeanor charges. One for distributing and exhibiting obscene material and the other for invasion of privacy.

photo courtesy of EPD

We here at It’s Evansville love to see local artists show their work around town: original music, photography, art or films. Tomorrow night we will be heading out to USI to witness one of these films. Ryan Jackson, a Harrison and USI graduate, will be in town tomorrow evening to screen his new short film: Baba King.

Baba King tells the story of a once-promising high-school athlete who faces a grim decision: whether to use his trusting little brother as a coke mule for a drug deal that will put him back on top of the streets. Jackson wrote and directed it, while his wife Darla handled production duties. The film, while depicted in Harlem was actually shot in Nashville where Jackson now resides. This is the first time he has shown one of his films in his hometown.

Baba King is a short film (17 minutes long) and will be featured as part of the closing of this semester’s film series put on by the Tri-State Cinema Society. The feature film tomorrow night will be Notre Musique.

We’ll write up our thoughts on Jackson’s film this weekend.

Baba King will be screened tomorrow night at 7:30 at USI Forum One on USI’s campus.

Karl Rove’s trip to Evansville this evening to speak at the Vanderburgh County Republican’s Lincoln Dinner has been postponed because Rove’s duties in Washington prevent him from making the trip to Evansville. Don’t fret Republicans, because your $100-$250/plate tickets still net you a Keynote speaker: Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan.

No word on whether refunds will be issued for people not satisifed with not seeing Rove or if he is even going to reschedule his appearance. If you still want to go, you can grab a ticket by calling 812-425-8207.

Usually a story about a professor’s contract not being renewed isn’t something I would post on It’s Evansville. I was prompted to for two reasons. The first is that I was sent a tip about this by four different people. Second, the professor in question is probably solely responsible for me pursuing writing as a semi-profession in the first place. That said, the University of Southern Indiana yesterday announced they would not be renewing the 3-year contract of associate professor Jim McGarrah.

McGarrah was not given any reason for his dismissal in the two sentence message he received last Friday. Some have speculated that his contract was not renewed because of his association with The Aerie, the compiled works of the USI Student Writers Union. Last year’s issue of the Aerie included a semi-nude photo of two females kissing. The photo caused an uproar with the USI College Republicans who questioned USI’s refusal to use the word Christmas but has no qualms with publishing soft-core porn (their words. not mine).

USI students have begun protesting the nonrenewal of McGarrah’s contract. Both students, English department professors and even the chair of the English department have signed the petition. They have also created online petitions via MySpace and Facebook groups to help spread the word that McGarrah’s dismissal is a bad move. If you have anything to share about Professor McGarrah or his dismissal, share it in the comments.

Update: The Courier & Press report that Dr. Michael Kearns was stripped of his title of department chair for speaking out in defense of McGarrah.

photo courtesy of USI English Department

This will probably be the only post today. I’ve been prescribed bed rest to hopefully get over this nasty virus I have.

• The local firefighter arrested for illegally obtaining prescription drugs pleaded guilty and was sentenced to drug court where he will must submit to frequent breathalyzer tests and urine screenings as well as random home inspections. He must also attend a daily 12-step meeting and weekly court appearances. Beats jail I guess.
• Speaking of jail, a prison riot broke out in New Castle, Indiana. The prison had a recent influx of inmates transferred from Arizona, and they didn’t appreciate Indiana’s smoke free prison policy. My mother always told me that if you can’t light a cigarette, light a prison on fire instead.
• The Front Door Pride program that is aimed at rejuvenating a few neighborhoods downtown came under fire. Metropolitan Development Director Gregg LaMar had to spend the evening answering his critics about the speed of the projects, the real estate contract and more.
• The Evansville Youth Center is on probation for six months and will be unable to take in any more kids. They apparently did not have the necessary paperwork that detailed background checks done on employees of the center.

photo courtesy of easylessons

I’ve been accused of being a fitness junkie. I workout at least once a day (sometimes twice) and eat fairly clean. Unfortunately, people like that are a minority these days. Everyone has a busy schedule with work, school, a social life, etc. We understand completely. It’s hard to find time to get to the gym or go out for a run.

The Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp.’s School-Community Council wants to do something about it and is sponsoring the second annual Healthier Evansville Week starting this Sunday and running through May 6. The program is designed to raise awareness of how to live a healthy lifestyle. Events include a health fair Sunday at Washington Square Mall, fitness walks throughout the week and exercises classes at Deaconess Hospital to name a few. For a full listing of events, check out the Healthier Evansville site.

Grab your iPod and some gym socks and get to exercising!

photo courtesy of ConspiracyOfHappiness