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HypeWeekly

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Inside:“Songs Come from among Us” Review - p. 4Manhattan Memories II - p. 10The Summer Thing at T-La-Re! - p. 15

2 - june 21, 2012 - www.thehypeweekly.com

US to You

HypeWeekly

The

issue #43 - June 21ST, 2012

Business BitsThe Hype Weekly, LLC

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(All content copyright 2012 The hype Weekly, llc)

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We do not have the E-Rabies!

This issue of The Hype Weekly painstakingly cobbled from the journal entries of like 45 little black

notebooks we kept as teenagers by :jimbo ivy, sarah sullivan, George Wame Matthews, Chad Howard,

Keegan D. Hudspeth, julie ivy, Ken Matthiesen, john L. Matthiesen, Marcus Jay, michael bidwell, frank siegle, lesly krome, jake pawloski, MISTI LEMOINE,

AS always the mysterious hypester.

Special Thanks to:our amazing families, Auntie Mae’s Parlor, Sisters of sound, on the wildside, Z 96.3, olson’s shoe repair, Action Pact Development, THE People’s Grocery,

the manhattan arts center, Arts in the park, Aggieville Bars, T-LA-Re, strecker nelson, evan tuttle, and the man, Jeff Denney.

COver By: Keegan D. Hudspeth

The Centerfold(Your Weekly Calender made of 100% Awesome)

The Beat(Stories you tell us to write)

4 - Songs Come From Among Us: Review

The Slant(Voices, yours and ours)

2 - Us to You3 - Stop the Presses!

10 - Manhattan Memories11 - NBA Finals: Anything is Possible!

The Voices(100% Right, 50% of the Time)

6 - Just There: “The Mission”7 - The Gay Agenda

The hype(Smug reviews and appraisals)

14 - Movies By Marcus

12 - Music = Life- Silver Sun Pickups Review

15 - The Summer Thing at T-La-Re!

13 - Manhattan’s Loius L’ Amour

Dear Manhattan,

With Stampede Week upon us, we’re sure many of you have your week-end plans sorted, but for those of you who don’t, our calendar is here to save the day! This week’s is packed extra full of fun stuff to do all week(end) long, so be sure to check it out rather than assuming Stam-pede will overshadow everything else.

If you’re headed out to Stampede, be sure to check out pg. 4 for info on the NSAI singer-songwriter performances that take place there by local musicians! They’ve been awesome to work with, so definitely go check them out as they ply their song writing trade on the stages.

Be sure to check out pg. 15 as well for info on a special event coming up Saturday; The Summer Thing! A day long event with sales, food and mu-

sic supporting local small businesses; you can count us in! We’ll be there at T-La-Re along with many other awesome businesses chatting and checking out the deals, so come see us from 8am-10pm on Saturday!

Reminder: Next Tuesday June 26th is the City Commission budget meet-ing in which our City’s Arts Program funding will be discussed. Might want to be there if you want to be sure great programs like the MAC, Arts in the Park and other City funded arts programs get what they need despite the cuts being proposed.

As always, come meet with us on Mondays at 7:30pm at Auntie Mae’s Parlor if you want to get involved with The Hype in any way. Until next time. :)

Love,The Hype Weekly

www.thehypeweekly.com - june 21, 2012 - 3

Stop the Presses!

Little Apple® Jazz Festival announces 2012 line up MANHATTAN—In the tradition of Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Sidney Bechet, the 2012 Little Apple® Jazz Festival headliner, Panorama Jazz Band, brings a New Orleans approach to various genres of folkloric music from around the world. The New Orleans natives have a plethora of performance highlights includ-ing the Istanbul International Jazz Festival and US Embassy and consulates in Turkey, the Buckman Performing Arts Center in Memphis, Tenn. and many others. Comprised of a clarinet, alto saxophone, trombone, accordion, banjo, tuba and drums, Panorama thrives on its passion of playing music acoustically to live audiences. The group’s eclectic and unique sound has been known to get an audience up and dancing. Joining Panorama at the 2012 Little Apple® Jazz Festival on Saturday, July 14 at Larry Norvell Band Shell in City Park are Watermelon Slim, Doug Tal-ley Quartet, Kelley Grant Quartet, 1ID Fort Riley Jazz Combo and Young Jazz Masters. The performance lineup for the 2012 Little Apple® Jazz Festival is as follows.

5:30-6 p.m. Young Jazz Masters6-6:45 p.m. 1ID Fort Riley Jazz Combo

6:45-7:30 p.m. Kelley Gant Quartet7:30-8:30 p.m. Doug Talley Quartet

8:30-9:30 p.m. Watermelon Slim9:30-10:45 p.m. Panorama

In addition to the line up at City Park, other jazz events will take place around Manhattan. Varsity Donuts will feature a jazz pianist 8:30-9:30 a.m. Saturday, July 14. Bluestem Bistro will once again host a jazz brunch from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday, July 15 featuring 1ID Fort Riley Jazz Combo. Sample CDs of festival artists can be picked up at the Manhattan Parks and Recreation booth during the Daddy Mack Blues Band performance in City Park June 16. Festival artists can also be found online at k-state.edu/upc. The free annual festival is part of the city’s Arts in the Park series and also includes food vendors and a family-friendly area with crafts and activities. The event is a collaborative effort between the Manhattan Parks and Recreation De-partment, the K-State Student Union Program Council (UPC) and Fort Riley’s MWR. Other sponsors are the Dow Chemical Multicultural Resource Center, Ag Press, Bluestem Bistro, Holiday Inn at the Campus, True Value Hardware, Varney’s Bookstore and Varsity Donuts. For additional information on the 2012 Little Apple® Jazz Festival or for a

complete list of all UPC activities, visit k-state.edu/upc or call the UPC office at 785-532-6571.

Zoo Staff Selected for Year-Long Program at the Kansas Leadership Center

Manhattan, KS – Sunset Zoo’s Marketing and Development Officer, Ella Casey, participated last week in the first session of a year-long leadership development program at the Kansas Leadership Center in Wichita. The Art & Practice of Civic Leadership Development is KLC’s newest program and cultivates partici-pant’s skills for building leadership capacity in others.

Twenty-five talented Kansans, all under the age of 40, were selected for this unique, year-long learning experience. Participants will attend follow-up ses-sions throughout the year, learning together for 11 days before the program’s conclusion in May 2013.

“Ella is committed to the future of Kansas communities, working for both state and local governments, as well as volunteering numerous hours in the commu-nity. We couldn’t be more excited for her,” said Scott Shoemaker, Zoo Director.

This is KLC’s third Art & Practice program in five years, but it is the organiza-tion’s first specifically designed for Kansans under 40.

“By developing a cadre of well-qualified, highly accomplished Kansans under 40 who can teach leadership to others, we are building the future of leadership development in Kansas,” said Ed O’Malley, KLC’s President and CEO. “We are excited to engage with these tremendous Kansans, to learn from them and with them, and are anxious to see their contributions to our state.”

Participants include: Tyler Alexander, Olathe; Ella Casey, Wamego; Amanda Ce-bula, Wichita; Andrew Conard, El Dorado; Lisa Coss, Pratt; Brittany Crabtree, Topeka; Matthew Davis, Salina; Anne Dewvall, Derby; Rickey Frierson, Wichita; LaShonda Garnes, Wichita; Katie Hill, McPherson; Miguel Jaramillo, Kansas City; Brandon Johnson, Wichita; Christian Keisler, Emporia; Sommer Keplar, Wichita; Katrina Lowry, Garden City; Allison Medina, Garden City; Brandi Nelson, Manhattan; Amy Nichols, Wichita; Jessica Noble, Topeka; Gary Palmer, Ft. Scott; Alicia Sanchez, Hutchinson; Renee Sweeney, Wichita; Julio Victorio, Dodge City; and Anna Villarreal, Wichita.

The program seeks to give participants a personally transforming leadership de-velopment experience, help them to learn and apply new teaching and facilita-tion skills, and nurture relationships to support their ongoing development and application of skills learned.

Upon graduation, participants will join a network of approximately 75 other Art & Practice of Civic Leadership Development alumni who are teaching, coaching, training, consulting and facilitating using leadership concepts in various sectors and locations across Kansas.

The Kansas Leadership Center opened in 2007 with a multi-year, renewable grant from the Kansas Health Foundation, and is charged with fostering civic leadership for stronger, healthier and more prosperous communities. To learn more, visit kansasleadershipcenter.org.


The Beat

Some of us perform on a national level, playing out in different cities every night while touring on a bus. Some of us play out as often as we can regionally, here in Kansas and the surrounding states. Some of us stay close to home and play the same gigs in local establishments any time they call. Some of us used to play but have grown tired of its lure. Some of us have never played anywhere. Some of us don’t play at all. But we are all songwriters, and we all share a common bond of being members of the Nashville Songwriters Association International.

The Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) came into my life about three years ago from a recommendation of some now forgotten music publisher who I had pitched song demos to. Pitching songs to a music publisher is very similar to saying a prayer, you’re always answered, but you usually don’t get the answer you hope for. This publisher couldn’t use the songs I was pitch-ing at the time, but thought enough of my writing to suggest this organization to me. I had already achieved some success and actually had signed a few songs into music catalogs for movies and television, and I had one single song publishing deal with a publisher in Los Angeles.

After looking over the NSAI website, I joined, spending a couple hundred bucks and kinda crossing my fingers. Man, am I glad I did. It was the springboard this songwriter needed to elevate my writ-ing to the next level and to open my eyes, and doors, to new areas I didn’t think I would ever enter. NSAI is the world’s largest not-for-profit songwriter’s trade association. They were established in1967 and now boast five thousand plus active and pro members spanning the United States and six other countries. They are hugely dedicated to protecting the rights of and serving aspiring and professional songwriters in all genres of music. The help NSAI provides the songwriting community worldwide is second to none.

After I joined on-line, I utilized a few of their web songwriting seminars and used their song evalu-ation service. It wasn’t too long when I was contacted by some folks in Kansas City that held NSAI chapter meetings, and I began attending these monthly meetings. After a couple months they had a guest speaker up from Nashville, a fantastic piano player/song writer who had an impressive list of performers that he had played for and had toured with. He offered everybody in the class fairly inexpensive piano demos. Having tons of lyrics, I jumped at the opportunity and was having several demos a year made, and solidified my first real Nashville connections, and the guy had many con-nections!

Soon after, I heard about a local NSAI chapter being started up here in the Manhattan, Kansas area. I inquired and attended a meeting in Junction City and knew right away I was part of something cool. Our group had grown little by little when I was asked to be a co-coordinator, which I gladly accepted. Then, totally out of the blue, I received an E-mail from the organizer of the Country Stam-pede. They had a ‘family tent’ and he wanted to know if I would fill an hour of time with local singer/songwriter talent. This was a no-brainer and I immediately jumped on the opportunity. We pulled off the first year somehow, and now this year we are filling every time slot they have available in between the main acts. For four days we are fortunate to be able to provide opportunity to singers who have dreamed of playing at this level all their lives.

In the last couple of years I havebeen to Nashville several times, I have met and have been able to become acquainted personally with many tremendous songwriters and performers, plus I have had some household names sing or play on demo songs I have had produced. Our local NSAI talent is also very good, the songwriting paralleling Nashville songwriting, and the live performing similar to what you would see at a writer’s round in the world famous Bluebird Café in Nashville. Some of our local NSAI performers have actually played in Nashville venues. We will showcase talent from Manhattan, Kansas City, Wichita, Western Kansas, and even have an act coming up from Nashville.While you’re at the Country Stampede this year, please come and visit with us, talk to us about writ-ing songs, and listen to our music. We will perform between the Main Stage acts and will happily

Songs Come From Among Us: Part 2

(Nashville Songwriters Association International)

by Ken Matthiesen

send you mp3 files of songs you like if you’ll leave your e-mailaddress. We’ll sign autographs, give away CD’s, have drawing for prizes from Nashville, even give away a grand prize of a one-year free membership to NSAI.

The people you will meet have a passion for songwriting, there will be songs played that you will hear in the future, maybe on a stage, in a movie, on TV, somewhere, guaranteed. If there is a song-writer in you, at any level from beginner to pro, you’ll want to visit with any of our performers to find out what NSAI can do for you. To help introduce our songwriters, I put together a questionnaire and had them write a few things about themselves. You can link to more performer information from the official Country Stampede webpage:

www.countrystampede.com/Lineup/family_stage.shtml

Coy Taylor

Craig Stennaas

Angie leDuc

Lucas Maddy

Tell us about how one of your current songs came about. One song that we are very proud of is our patriotic song called “Blood Shed” that we will perform for the first time at Country Stampede. This is a great song that will definitely touch everyone that hears it, because we wrote it in a way that everyone can relate to the lyrics. Whether you have been through war yourself or know someone who has, it will definitely leave you standing proud for your country!

Tell us about how one of your current songs came about. Dream Sweet is a song I wrote for a very close friend. It expresses the empathy and caring one person can have for another when life pulls them apart geographically. I can always look to the stars and know that, where ever she is, the same heaven is looking down on her.

When did you know you wanted music to be a big part of your life? Started singing and playing guitar when I was 7 years old, started working in a dance hall at fourteen. It was a dry county. I sang there every Saturday night from age fourteen to eighteen, and made $150.00 every Saturday. That’s when I decided I could make a living at it.

When did you know you wanted music to be a big part of your life? I have always considered music a large part of my life, but I believe I really considered pursuing music as a singer/songwriter towards the end of my junior year of high school with the support of my family, Music and English teachers, friends, and my community as a whole.


The Beat

Stephen Amos

Laura Lisbeth

Mark Garman

Gerry Monks

Rich O’Brien

Ken Matthiesen

Jim Thomas

Mike Benish

Dillon Cowing

David Thompson

Tell us about how one of your currentsongs came about.

I have a patient that is an alcoholic. His wife called me to let me know that he had a slip. I went to his house, picked him up and we went for coffee until he sobered up. When I saw him and his wife the next day she said to him ‘You know you think you can fool me and that I don’t know when you’re in trouble. But I can smell it when you lie.” I loved the line and a song was born “I Can Smell It When You Lie”.

Are you where you want to be rightnow with your music? Every year seems to get a little better when it comes to reaching new audiances. Even though I’m picking up a few more places to play every year I’m always searching for new clubs and festivals to perform at. I always wish I could write, sing, and perform more.

When did you know you wanted music to be a big part of your life? I spent my first three years of college run-ning track at Emporia State University. I started play-ing guitar again once I transferred to Kansas State last fall and I haven’t looked back.

Pick one: Fame, fortune, or gratitude. Why? Gratitude: it’s like being famous but only to the people you care about. Fortune is a close second, that farmland isn’t going to play for itself!

When did you know you wanted music to be a big part of your life? I guess you could say I was born that way because I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t singing, dancing around and generally trying to get everyone’s attention. It’s pretty much the same way now.

Who would you “Pay Forward” as soon as you hit it big? To all the young people who have the passion. I didn’t get serious with my writing until I was older. Probably more than fame, fortune, or gratitude enjoy the satisfaction of helping younger writers and performers to grow.

When did you know you wanted mu-sic to be a big part of your life? My parents started me on classical music in grade school. My dad had played in ‘cowboy’ bands a long time ago. He loved Sons of the Pioneers, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, etc. Somewhere along the way, I got sidetracked by the Beatles, but continue to play rock, folk, country and jazz.

When did you know you wanted music to be a big part of your life? A friend left a guitar at my house when I was 15 and showed me a few chords. I fell in love with the guitar, and soon was playing in rock bands. When I was in high school and col-lege, the most important part of my life was being in a band.

What are your goals? My ultimate goal is to write a song that gets nominated for Song of the Year! Winning would be gravy, but I would love to get dressed up in my tux and attend the awards ceremony!! I can’t think of anything musically that would top that!

When did you know you wanted music to be a big part of your life? After starting writing music at age 10, I discov-ered great solace in writing through the teenage angst of high school and college. After raising a family and having a little more free time, I rediscovered the love and art of songwriting.


The Voices

As a baby boomer, my parents of course were in their prime during World War II, WWII, the ‘War’. I grew up the son of a man who served in the army during the war, a man who met my mother dur-ing the war while over in England, a man who never, ever said a thing about the war. While growing up, I knew he had served during the war, mostly from tid bits here and there and stories from my mother. It was obvious from some of the things he said or from some of his actions that he had been ‘military’ trained.

Growing up during a time when you got up when it was still morning, you got out of bed and im-mediately made your bed. Once the bed was made you would then be expected to be able to bounce a quarter off it, the sheets should be that tight. “Front and Center!” usually meant I had done some-thing terribly wrong. Completion of chores and assigned tasks were subject to inspection. “Tally ho!” meant you better be in the car with all your body parts. Your parts, your sister’s parts, the friend’s parts, who ever’s parts. The driver (Dad) was in the car and the car was about to start moving. Seat belts would not have allowed our family to be mobile. Nowadays my grandchildren start screaming bloody murder if I get into a vehicle without them being strapped in first. The commercial with all the people crammed into a Volkswagen Beetle comes to mind anytime my family went anywhere. I remember Dad going through three different ‘bugs’, one of which had it’s hubcaps adorned with pretty flower power decals, compliments of my oldest sister. “Front and Center” was called out that day, I’m sure.

I was most familiar with the war through television. Tuesday night was “Combat” night. I remember that one well because it came on right after the “Flintstones”. Two other influential shows during my impressionable years were “Twelve O’clock High” and “The Rat Patrol”, or “The Rat Pack”, as Dad called it. Me and the neighborhood kids played war games based on these shows, games like ‘Spread Out’. We would start out together in a huddle, bearing our arms of makeshift weaponry, and ‘spread out’ to search for the enemy. I can still hear Vic Morror give the command “Alright, Spread out!” Hours, countless hours we spent playing this or with little army men reenacting one way or another these shows about war.

At home I think I remember uniforms hanging in closets. I kind of remember seeing other war related items, maybe souvenirs, I may never know. I even got to play with all the hats. I have no idea what the hats were called and I still don’t. They were the long, slender army green ones that you see folded and bent over the trouser belt of the guys in the movies and television shows from the period. Maybe they’re still part of the uniform, I don’t know. I never served in any branch of the military, I didn’t have to because my Dad had fought the war to end all wars and had won, ensuring that his own kids would never have to participate in anything like he and so many others had to participate in. I remember the hats because I took them to school one day, elementary school, and gave them out to my friends, essentially losing them. I thought I was a dead man, or boy rather, that dear old Dad would be madder than hell. He couldn’t have cared less.

Dad just never, ever said a thing about the war. I repeated that line, I know, but I think this is to be the point, or at least a major point to this story. I know that there have been many wars since World War II. Timing wise I was lucky. Had I been born a few years sooner Vietnam would have been the first country stamped onto my passport. I have a brother-in-law that served in Nam. He, like dad, just doesn’t talk about it. I have an uncle, my dad’s youngest brother, who served in Korea. I have never heard him utter a word about that war. I’m not sure, I need to find out, but I believe he was blown up in a jeep and wounded badly, others in the jeep may have died. My dad had two other (middle) brothers, both passed now, that both served in one branch or another during World War II. I don’t recall either of them ever talking about the war. My grandfather on my mom’s side served in the First and Second World Wars. Grandpa lived in Manchester England, therefore I only got to see him a couple of times in my life, but I never heard him speak a word about the wars.

‘My dad never talks or talked about the war’, I hear this all the time, where ever I go. Not from everybody, and I’ll talk about Norm Winters real soon, but almost everybody. And now, after I see articles in the media seriously challenging that the Jewish were ever slaughterer by the Nazis, or I

watch a movie with a mega star actor doing a movie seen by millions where the end of World War II is totally altered, I think there is a very real and a very scary reality that the ‘Greatest Generation of Americans’ will not be remembered properly. There have been fantastic movies done about the war. Tom Hanks is a genius and I think truly wanted to authenticate the ‘real’ war in the things he has done and by far his movies are the best that I have seen. I’m sure that he had lots of help up and down both ends of the movie production food chain, but I’m giving him the credit. I personally have aspirations of writing books and screenplays and would be happy to achieve, through movies, a one hundredth of what he has done.

Despite the fantastic movies, the real live, down to earth, human beings that built and drove Chevy’s and somehow managed to stay alive through this time period have not been adequately heard, much less understood and properly documented. I know this is just my opinion, but I can’t be alone in thinking this way. It would be a crying shame to let this monumental time period go to the grave with so many untold stories. There are internet sites, such as on the Library of Congress site, and many others, where stories can be sent in. The problem is the people of this generation don’t do the internet.

There are very few of these men and women still left with us, and the number is rapidly decreasing. I lost my mother February 24 this year and I’m afraid Dad now is not far behind. And the stories are leaving with them, all that served during this very romantic time in our history. Millions of stories, some I’m sure funny, some sad, some horrible. Love stories, hate stories, no matter how interesting or boring. Every man, woman or child at the time saw things from a different angle, a different rank, a different level of involvement, or a different age in life. Sometimes stories may be no more than a fleeting recall, some stories could be the basis for novels or movies.

Last October I asked my Dad to please start sharing his thoughts, his memories, his stories. I was talking with him on the phone, saying ‘way to go’ type things on his sixty third wedding anniversary, when I just came out and said that I wanted to know about his war experiences, hinting that I’d appreciate it soon because we don’t live forever. I mentioned that there is this old codger (this is the Norm I brought up earlier) that retired from where I work that still comes in once a month or so and has lunch with us, and that he talks about his World War II involvement all the time. I love listening to his stories, which mostly include rounding up and interrogating Nazis after the war. Norm Win-ters, bless his heart, takes time and actually talks to high school kids and tells them of the hardships of the time. The next opportunity I have, I plan on asking Norm to ‘get it in writing’ too.

All at once my dad started spilling his beans. He started off saying that most of the men considered the war a “Mission”, just a job to do, they went over, they did their job, no big deal. After a few cute stories, he went into a story about a master sergeant that was in his hospital, admitted for the sec-ond time (my Dad was an x-ray technician). This soldier had found out that my Dad could develop film, and wanted to know if Dad could develop a ton of rolls that he had taken. I think Dad said sixty rolls, but I don’t really remember, hell I’m getting old now, too! Dad did develop them and he was telling me that the pictures were from some of the concentration camps. Hundreds and hundreds of horrible pictures showing puny dead bodies stacked up on flatbed railroad cars, car after car of them, ready for incineration. There were pictures showing the remains from after the burning pro-cess, with massive piles of bones, all the skulls at the bottom of the ‘hills’, because they were round and would roll down to the bottom. I had to stop him and ask him to write all this stuff down. I want people to know that these stories are first hand, they really happened, they are not made up or mis-construed like stories can get when passed from this person to that person and so on.

The pages started coming in one at a time,one story neatly placed per page, miraculously by e-mail. This in itself is no small feat for people that are eighty something in age, for people that used to send telegrams and still wonder why you don’t write them. I am not going to edit them, they are just as I received them. And please take no offense, times were different back then, and ‘political correctness’ had not been added yet to the dictionary.

Just There:“The Mission”by Ken Matthiesen

The Hype Weekly will be printing all 16 stories in the “Just There” series chronicling John L. Matthiesen’s journey from basic to the bombed-out streets of

London, as a medic during World War II.


The voices

Hello, “The Hype Weekly” readers! My name is Michael Bidwell, and I am the newly elected chair of the Flint Hills Human Rights Project (FHHRP). I am humbled to be nominated to serve as chair and to work towards equal-ity for everyone in my hometown. I want to first thank immediate past chair Ted Morgan for his leadership over the past 18 months. His leadership put FHHRP in a position to focus on both political activism and social activities that will provide opportunities for LGBT folks to live in a community that is safe for them to be who they are. The newly elected board is a mix of both familiar and new faces. I believe this shows the dynamic and evolving nature of FHHRP and its ability to adapt to changing conditions while working to achieve equality and to create activities that bring the LGBT community together.

On June 5, I addressed the Manhattan City Commission regarding the repeal of at the time the strongest non-discrimination ordinance in the State of Kansas. In the address, I pointed out how other Kansas communities, such

as Lawrence, Salina, and Hutchinson re-cently amended their non-discrimination ordinances to provide protections for LGBT individuals. The mes-sage was that Manhat-tan is falling behind communities that we really should have an edge over when it comes to fairness, mar-ketability, and econom-ic development. In the region, both Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska have amended their non-discrimination or-dinances too. FHHRP is concerned that Man-hattan no longer has a protections for LGBT individuals in our local non-discrimination or-dinance and is working on various strategies to put the issue back in front of the public as soon as possible by fo-cusing on the 2013 city

commission election, increasing active member involvement, and working with other LGBT and community organizations on events and education. All of these approaches are critical in making Manhattan a place where everyone can feel safe and free regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Right now, there are many LGBT people who are “in the closet” because they do not feel safe. Together we must work to create a community of acceptance where all are welcome and treated equally.

In addition, to our political and advocacy activities, FHHRP also organizes social events for LGBT individuals and allies. There is a large and diverse LGBT community in the greater Flint Hills region. To facilitate and encour-age interaction among this community there are two fun upcoming events planned. First, on Wednesday, June 27, there will be a celebration of the anniversary of the Stonewall riots at the Kathouse Lounge. Stonewall is one of the most important events in LGBT history. It’s the night a group of drag queens fought back against the police who were raiding their bar and it’s the reason why Gay Pride is celebrated in June all over the world. To celebrate this day in history FHHRP is hosting a drag show starting from 10 pm to close. This is an event for those who are 21 years of age and older.

On Sunday, July 1, FHHRP is hosting a Gay Day picnic followed by going to the Wamego Carnival. We will barbeque and picnic from 6pm to 9pm at the Train Sta-tion next to the playground followed by going to the Carnival. All ages are welcome – there will be plenty of fun activities for everyone. Food and drink will be provided. Suggested donation is the amount of member dues ($5 student, $15 individual, and $25 family), but any amount will be accepted.

On behalf of the newly elected FHHRP board of directors, I encourage every-one to be active in the march toward equality. This is a wave that is coming to all communities across our country and it is time that Manhattan moves to the front of the line in equal rights. Please join the Flint Hills Human Rights Project as a member, “like” our Facebook page or go to http://www.fhhrp.org to keep up to date on upcoming meetings and events. I hope to meet you in person soon.

GayAgendaUptades from the Flint Hills Human Rights Project

by Michael Bidwell

hoochfor hea

lth!Lower your stress!

Clear your head!

improve your mood!

find it at

visit your Auntie!

www.auntiemaes.com 616 n. 12th street

be good and

your local spea

keasy!

mondays: $1.50

wells


Thursday 21

River Trails Beginner Mountain Bike Ride @Big Poppi BicycleDistance: 1-2 laps/4-8 miles. At this ride you will have the oppor-tunity to learn how to ride on off road trails and trail etiquette. A couple of the concepts you will learn are how to ride over a log or other obstacle, and how to position your body when riding downhill.

6:00PM

Friday 22

Ongoing AttractionsMonday Through Friday Weekend Hours May Vary

Saturday 23

Quiet Symmetry: The Art of Yoshiro Ikeda@The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of ArtAn internationally known artist in clay and a Distinguished Profes-sor of Ceramics at Kansas State University, Yoshiro Ikeda has for nearly four decades produced sculptural vessels that reflect on an ultimate harmony in nature. “Quiet Symmetry: The Ceramic Art of Yoshiro Ikeda” features work by this master artist which will be on display until September 2, 2012.

Exhibit: The Making of the Flint Hills Discovery Center @The Flint Hills Discovery CenterThe changing exhibit room in the Flint Hills Discovery Center features the making of the Discovery Center to the public. Learn about the people who contributed to the creation of the build-ing, and learn about four of the artists who made important contributions to this project.

Manhattan Municipal Band @City ParkThe Municipal Band plays Tuesday evenings from June 5th- July 17 in the Larry Norvell Band Shell in City Park at 7:30 pm. Addition-ally, they will perform at 6:30 in Cico Park on the 4th of July.

Brown Bag Lunch Storytime: Celebrate Volun-teerism!@Manhattan Public Library AuditoriumJune 21st is United Way’s “Day of Action.” Volunteers from the organization “Schools of Hope” will be reading stories for kids on the library lawn.

12:00PM

Go See It! Konza Prairie Biological Station@Flint Hills Discovery CenterOn the third Thursday of every month, featured speakers will highlight unique places to visit throughout the Flint Hills, and provide tips on how to pursue adventure in your own backyard. All Go See It! Lectures will be held in the classroom. This event is free!

7:00PM

Country Stampede@Tuttle Creek State ParkFour days of country music’s biggest stars! The largest country musical festival in the midwest, with more than 155,000 attend-ees- don’t miss it!.

All Day

Downtown Wednesday Farmers’ Market of Manhattan@5th & HumboltThese vendors come from all over Northeast Kansas bringing fresh produce, meat, eggs, crafts, jams & jellies, fresh baked bread, pies, cookies, and sweets.

8:00AM

Country Stampede@Tuttle Creek State ParkFour days of country music’s biggest stars! The largest country musical festival in the midwest, with more than 155,000 attend-ees- don’t miss it!

All Day

Live Music on The Patio: Mads Jensen & Andrew Zender @Bluestem BistroLive music every weekend on Bluestem’s patio featuring great area artists!

6:00PM


All Day

Exhibit: “Close to Home”: Scott Bean Photography@William T. Kemper Art Gallery, K-State Student UnionExhibit features Bean’s photographs that were all taken not far from Manhattan (within a 2 hour drive). It is easy to find beauty in new places, but just as easy to overlook what is “close to home”.

2012: Faith, Magic, Love & Death@Strecker-Nelson Art GalleryCationary Tales of the End of Times - An Extraordinary Travelling Art Exhibit. Artists include: Stephanie Hunder, Marc Berghaus, Marko Fields, Oscar Gillespie, Barbara Waterman Peters, Richard Notkin. Other Exhibitors include Jerry Moon, Margie Kuhn, Nina Irwin, Yoshiro Ikeda, Patricia Barry Levy and Bo Bedilion.

Watercolor Exhibit@ Manhattan Arts Center This unique yearly exhibit will include landscape, still life and flo-ral paintings. The Watercolor Studio has met weekly at the Arts Center for the past forteen years. Its purpose is to provide area painters with a venue to develop skills and techniques, share ac-quired knowledge, and gain feedback from other watercolorists.

The Summer Thing@T-La-ReWe will start the day with 6 yard sales in our parking lot, with do-nuts and coffee from Varsity Donuts. Kids can enter a contest to decorate a birdhouse with recycled items, Henna and face-paint-ing, belly dancers that would love for you to dance with them, food from local vendors, a Miss Thing contest and The Clearview Band, a local classic rock cover band, will be performing starting at 6:30PM.

8:00AM

Arts in the Park- Trinidad Tripoli Steel Band@City ParkTraditional Steel Pan music from the island of Trinidad. This group is from Ypsilanti, MI.

8:00PM


Sunday 24

Monday 25

Tuesday 26

wednesday 27

Downtown Wednesday Farmers’ Market of Manhattan@CICO ParkThese vendors come from all over Northeast Kansas bringing fresh produce, meat, eggs, crafts, jams & jellies, fresh baked bread, pies, cookies, and sweets.

4:00PM

Pagan Coffee@ Bluestem BistroPagan? Pagan-curious? Pagan-friendly? Come join Manhattan’s longest running pan-pagan social group.

6:00PM

5:00PM Around the World Dinner: Thailand!@Bluestem Bistro Try something new and tasty from a different country! For only $5 you can sample excellent cuisine from all around the world!

7:30PM The Hype Weekly Pitch Meeting@Auntie Mae’s ParlorCome give us your ideas, your concerns, your comments and questions! If you want to write, shoot, draw or work for The Hype, this is step one.

SUNSET Monday Night Lights River Trails MTB Ride@Big Poppi BikesDistance: 1-3 laps/6-18 miles. Looking for something really excit-ing to do to start off your week? Tired of Monday Night Foot-ball? Why not join us for a ride on your mountain bike at night? REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR LIGHTS!!!

Mountain/Cyclocross Bikes Gravel Ride@ Big Poppi BicycleDistance: 15-30 miles. Come join us for a gravel ride as we enjoy the Flint Hills and an incredible Kansas sunset. Bring your head-lights and taillights just in case. Don't have a light? Demo one of our high quality lights from the shop for FREE!!

6:00PM

Urban Street Ride@ Big Poppi BicyclesFor any bike with 2 wheels and no motor; Come on out to en-hance your technical riding skills .

9:00PM

9:00AM Linear Trail Historical Lifestyle Ride@Big Poppi BikesDistance: 5-10 miles. Join Big Poppi Bicycle Co and the Flint Hills Area Bike Club each Saturday morning for a casual ride on Linear Trail while learning interesting historical facts about Manhattan, KS.

Sing-A-Long with Mr. Steve@Bluestem BistroIf you want to bring your kids in for a fun activity, come join us in our meeting room as our manager, Mr. Steve, plays silly kid’s songs!

9:00AM

Tennessee Two Piece@Auntie Mae’s ParlorCost: $2

9:00PM

Women’s-Mountain/Cyclocross Bikes Gravel Ride@Big Poppi BikesDistance: 10-15 miles. Calling all LADIES! Come join us for a gravel ride as we enjoy the Flint Hills and an incredible Kansas sunset. Bring your headlights and taillights just in case.

6:00PM

River Trails Mountain Bike Ride@Big Poppi BikesDistance: 2-3 laps/12-18 miles. The pace of this ride will be medium/fast. As usual, all riding abilities are welcome on any ride at Big Poppi’s, but if you are ready for more of a challenge, come on out!

6:30PM

The Whistle Pigs@Auntie Mae’s ParlorCost: $2

9:00PM

The Junction City Rock N Roll Blood Drive @ Junction City Municipal Building (700 N. Jefferson)FREE t-shirt to everyone who comes to donate! 1-800-RED-CROSS (733-2767) or www.redcrossblood.org for an appoint-ment.

8:00AM

The Junction City Rock N Roll Blood Drive @ Junction City Municipal Building (700 N. Jefferson)FREE t-shirt to everyone who comes to donate! 1-800-RED-CROSS (733-2767) or www.redcrossblood.org for an appoint-ment.

11:30AM

Paws on the Patio@AJ’s New York Pizzeria PatioAJ’s New York Pizzeria and The Mutt School invite you and your dog to AJ’s patio, where you can enjoy pizza and your dog can enjoy the great smells, special pizza crust treats and the com-pany of other canines.

5:00PM

Fattyfest 2012- Shwan “Fatty” Alkhatib Memorial Triva Night@Auntie Mae’s ParlorJoin us for the first annual “Fattyfest 2012” trivia night. Proceeds from the event will go towards the Shwan “Fatty” Alkhatib memorial fund.

2:00PM

Anti-Stampede Show @Bobby T’sHate country stampede week? Come rock out with the ar-eas hottest rock bands. The lineup includes The Breakpoint Method, Bell Park Militia, and Gravity Defied.

9:00PM


All Day

Sunday Jazz Brunch@Bluestem Bistro Live jazz every Sunday morning during brunch.

11:00AM

The Chaotic Goods@Auntie Mae’s ParlorCost: $2

Live Music on The Patio: Randy Goble @Bluestem BistroLive music every weekend on Bluestem’s patio featuring great area artists!

8:00PM


The Voices

Manh

atta

n Mem

orie

s Movie going B.M. (Before Multiplexes) was something of a different experience.

Few films had a longer run than a few days, generally 2 or 3. Sometimes a particularly popular movie would be “held over.” The pre-feature format was a bit different than now. Ads were primarily local (Del Close Jewelers, Water’s Hard-ware, e.g.). There were “Selected Short Subjects.” Among them would be a newsreel of about 15 minutes. The ones I re-member most clearly were Movietone News and News of the Day. They were structured much like a newspaper, sort of like US Today: major stories, human interest, sports, fashion. There might be a travelogue. If there wasn’t a cartoon (usu-ally from the studio the feature came from) there would be some sort of comic short. What I remember generally in that category would be The Three Stooges or a short with “talking real animals,” given gags in voice over with special effects to make it seem they were actually saying the lines. Previews would be limited to only a couple of coming attractions. Ad-mission and concessions were quite affordable. One could go to a movie and spend well under a dollar, including popcorn and (if available) a coke. Candy and hot dogs came in the 50’s as I recall. Even then, buck fifty or two, tops.

Of course there was no ratings system because the Hays Of-fice and the Catholic Legion of Decency had strict rules about what couldn’t be shown or talked about in dialogue. There had had to be a “special dispensation” made for Rhett’s last line in “Gone With the Wind:” “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Today, the rules seem pretty asinine and silly to a great extent, but then that was just the way it was. All movies then would have been G or PG at most. I found an interest-ing tid bit while looking through old Mercurys: a Carlton theater add from the end of April, 1851. I checked it out on line and probably the raciest things about it were the title and that it was subtitled French and involved a manage-a-trois, one of whom is a male lover who sleeps around a lot. Also, it cost more to see.

Sometimes in the summer, there would be what was billed as a “Cartoon Carnival,” generally at the Wareham on a Satur-day morning: a collection of past Disney, MGM or Warner Bros. cartoons. There may have been a carni-val or two of UPA cartoons after that Columbia sponsored studio hit it big in the fifties. About the only one I really liked of theirs was Mr. Magoo.

Manhattan had four theaters: The Wareham, the Sosna in Aggieville (later to become the Campus in 1951,) the Carlton on 4th and Pierre, later to become the Co-ed in 1952, and the State, between 3rd and 4th on Houston.

When I grew to an age where I could go by my-self, I would spend a weekend with my Grand-mother here in town, and head down to the State Theater on Saturday for a cowboy double feature (often staring Johnny Mack Brown, who was my favorite cowboy hero) or a sci-fi

double feature. (I was heavily into dinosaurs and if there was a dinosaur movie, I wanted to see it.) Always a cartoon and a serial chapter.

The State was the “low rent” theater, showing previous releases and B movies from minor studios. It was also the least well kept of the four, though in its heyday as the Marshall Theater, it was one of the best. In my youth, it was where you went for a really cheap movie experience. I recall the basement, where the rest rooms were, often smelling somewhat from urine and vomit. But, if you wanted to see Johnny Mack Brown or other “Oater” heroes, that would be where you would likely go.

The Sky-Vue drive in theater on Stagg Hill Road opened in 1949. Later a second drive in, the Edgewood, opened on high-way 24. Thus were added 2 new “Passion Pits” to “Top of the World” and any other in the area known for parking cars and making out. Looking at ads from the time, the Sky Vue ran to westerns and action with a bit of “sleaze,” like drug exposes a la “Reefer Madness.” One that I saw in the old Mercurys centered on amphetamines and their danger to youth being led into deg-radation. There could be THREE cartoons at a showing instead of one. Sometimes a serial. I remember seeing a chapter of a rare Tom Mix serial, “The Miracle Rider;” one of the few talkies he made. A re-run from 1934.

As a final note, there were other area theaters my family sometimes frequented. There was one in Wamego we would sometimes attend, and even a makeshift summer “drive in” in Zeandale. The proprietors of the then grocery across from what is now the community center rigged up a makeshift screen be-hind the store, set out some chairs, and showed movies. I recall seeing “I Married a Witch” staring Veronica Lake there. Didn’t last long. My family never went to see a movie in Junction City that I recall.

In a future Memories I’ll give a thumbnail sketch of the history of the Manhattan theaters. In my researches I found a couple of tidbits that I think will prove verrry interesting.

Till again.

By

Fran

k Si

egle


The voices

As of Monday afternoon, the Miami Heat have taken a two games to one lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder. For the second year in a row, LeBron James finds himself two wins away from his first NBA championship. In last year’s finals, James (along with the rest of the Heat) suffered a monumental collapse in dropping three games in a row to the Dallas Maver-icks. Whether it was fair or not, many people blamed Miami’s inability to win last year on LeBron James. Any basketball player will tell you, however, one player does not win or lose a game (let alone three), teams win and lose games together. Why is it then that James gets all the blame? For the answer to that question, we will have to go back to the summer of 2010. LeBron James became a free agent at the end of the NBA’s 2009-2010 season. A native of nearby Akron, Ohio, James had played his entire seven year career for the Cleveland Cavaliers. James was presented with the choice of staying with the team that had drafted him straight out of high school with the first pick in the 2008 NBA draft, or moving on to one of many teams in the league who had cleared enough salary cap room to offer him a maximum deal. Ultimately, James along with the Toronto Raptors Chris Bosh (also a free agent that summer) chose to take less money and join Dwyane Wade in Miami. No one is blaming James for leaving Cleveland. He had given the Cavaliers seven years of service, and even taken them to the NBA finals in 2007 (only to get swept by the San An-tonio Spurs). James drew a great deal of criticism for the manner in which he announced his departure from Cleveland for Miami; an hour long primetime special on ESPN. That act of hubris, coupled with him proclaiming that the Heat would win not one, not two, not three, but eight championships together, and it becomes obvious why people are so critical of him. So once more James has the opportunity to redeem himself, with a 2-1 lead over the Thunder and the next two games being played in Miami, the Heat should cruse to a victory right? Not so fast I say. As expected, the Oklahoma City Thunder were able to easily win game one of the finals at home. Unfortunately for them, though, they dropped game two to the Heat suffering their first home loss of the 2012 playoffs. Predictably, Miami was able to use the momentum from their game two win, and the energy of their home crowd to win game three as well. Game four will be played Tuesday evening, and I believe that the Thunder will win this game. In all three games played thus far, the Thunder have gotten off to uncharacteristically slow starts. The Thunder are a young team that relies on its youth and speed to set the tone of them game in the early quarters. In the latter quarters the Thunder use their exceptional team defense and the uncanny ability of Kevin Durant to score at

Story and predictions by George Wame Matthews

NBA FINALSAnything is possible!

will in the fourth quarter to put teams away. The Thunders inability to get going early against the Heat has severely hurt them thus far in this series. If I, a lowly sports writer for a free weekly alternative newspaper in the little apple can see this, then Scott Brooks, the head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder, certainly sees it as well. Brooks has consistently proved his mettle this season. He was able to lead the young Thunder to their first finals appearance (and second consecutive trip to the western conference finals). He out coached the NBA’s coach of the year Gregg Popovich in the conference finals when he turned a two games to zero deficit into a four games to two series victory over the San Antonio Spurs. Brooks know what he is doing, and I believe that he will be able to make the necessary adjustments to win game four and ultimately the series. What those adjustments may be? How should I know, I’m just a lowly sports writer, not a multi-million dollar head coach in the best basketball league in the world.

Prediction: Oklahoma in 6


The Hype Weekly and Manhattan Music CoalitionPresent

Music = LifeReviews, news and stories from the musical

minds of MHK.

Sponsored By:

A Review of the Album “Neck of the Woods” by Silversun Pickups

By Lesly Krome

The first time I heard the song “Lazy Eye” by Silversun Pickups I raced to YouTube so I could listen to all of their current music. I immediately fell in love! I couldn’t believe how amazing these musi-cians were. I loved all of their songs: “Three Seed,” “Little Lover’s so Polite,” “The Royal We,” “Com-mon Reactor,” “Rusted Wheel,” etc. I listened to all of these songs on a

steady repeat and never got tired of them, not once. I could go on and on and on about how much I loved the Silversun Pickups. So you can imagine I was terribly excited with the recent release of their new album, “Neck of the Woods.” I picked up the CD which I had very impatiently waited to arrive in the mail (Yes, I could have downloaded it, but hey, what can I say? I prefer things old school). Finally the album had arrived and I could barely contain my excitement. I tuned in and was prepared to be blown away.Well…I wasn’t blown away. In fact, I was kind of disappointed. I’m not sure if it was the letdown from all of my built-up expectations or the Better Pecan Tofutti (my trying-to-be-healthy ice cream alternative) that left a sour taste in my mouth, but I was sorely put out after listening to the new album. That’s not to say the album was crap! In fact, it was a very nice record and I had a few favorite songs, specifically “Make Believe” and “Gun-Shy Sunshine,” which were excel-lent pieces. I really liked the lyrics to the latter song: “Faith and praise keep locked away, sentimental thoughts can stay. I suppose I’ve made mistakes; carry on so I can lay, with your gun-shy sunshine, with my headstrong highlights.” This piece is also quite well composed. It starts out with soft instrumentation and softly, sweetly sung vocals, gradu-ally increasing in volume and additional instrumentation as it leads up to the chorus. An interlude of guitar follows and the vocals begin again. Very nice.Perhaps it’s because I’m an impatient person that this album doesn’t do it for me. These songs are incredibly long (the shortest one is four minutes and 41 seconds) and the song intro before the singing begins can be very lengthy (the opening song, “Skin Graph,” didn’t begin until one minute and 23 seconds into the song…I felt like I was waiting for-ever to hear the words). All of the songs are also very, very mellow. There doesn’t seem to be any of those “hit” songs that really pumps a person up and energizes the audience. In case you are new to the band, here is a little background information about Silversun Pickups. The band consists of singer, guitarist, and songwriter Brian Aubert, bassist Nikki Monninger, keyboardist Joe Lester, and drummer Christopher Guanlao. The alter-native/indie rock band formed in 2002 under Dangerbird Labels. The band is currently on a North American tour promoting their new album.And despite my disappointment with said album, I will be taking full advantage of that North American tour to go see one of my favorite bands in concert when they arrive in my home-state later this summer. Yes, “Neck of the Woods” was not what I was expect-ing, but I still love this band. They make beautiful, artistic music and are incredibly talented. I cannot wait to see them and freak out with my friends in the audience when they play “Panic Switch.” And I will try to be patient when they play their newer, more mellow tunes.

“Reggae time!” “Soca time!”

Whenever The Trinidad Tripoli Steel Drum Band comes to AIP, these words float across the summer evenings along with the mesmerizing beauty of tra-ditional steel drum songs and rhythms.

Having performed at AIP countless times over the last 30 years, TTSDB has eshtablished itself as one of Manhattan’s favorite recurring acts. This group’s history goes back to the very beginnings of tuned steel pan music in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad in the 1940s. This authentic Steel Drum Band is known all over the world, and have had an amazing career that has included opening for Liberace, performing for Queen Elizabeth, and winning the “bomb” prize at Trinidad’s national Panorama steel band com-petition, given for best arrangement of a European classical composition for steel band.

The Trinidad Tripoli Steel Band is a family group that plays a repertoire of music that ranges from classical to rock and roll – using oil drums. This feat has astounded audiences not only because of the unusual use of oil drums as instruments, but also because of the group’s artistic versatility in playing modern, classical, reg-gae and Calypso music. Enjoy this fantastic band this Friday evening at 8pm!

Country / Bluegrass sweetness, Prairie Home

Companion veteran and Juno Award winning singer-writer.

Friday, June 8thRuth Moody

8pm at Larry Norvell Band

Shell

Friday, June 22nd at 8pmLarry Norvell Band Shell at City Park

Free Admission!

The Trinidad Tripoli Steel Drum Band


The Hype

Edwin C. Olson Sr.

1214 B. MoroManhattan, KS 66502

785-539-8571www.olsonsshoes.com

[email protected] 9:00-6:00

Sat 9:00-1:00

If you like westerns I could do worse than to recommend Manhattan’s own Harold G. Ross. He has written a number of well plotted novels of the old west and populated them with memorable characters. I want to focus on his novels concerning his ancestors because he writes of the pioneer west of our area. (He has also published a number of books of poetry.) Prior to taking up writing he was a local surveyor, draftsman, inspector estimator and construc-tion superintendent. He’s a graduate of Manhattan High and attended Kansas State. Though he has written other books in the historical/western genre, I want to tell you about his “family novels.”

In Horizons West he relates the tale of John Ross who immigrated to America from Scotland in 1775. His coming is more like an escape than a migration. He settles in the Virginia and fights in the Revolutionary War. He marries and raises a family. Fast forward to his grandson, James. He fights for the Confed-eracy and experiences the harsh Reconstruction period afterwards. In 1870 he pulls up stakes and moves his family to a homestead on upper McDowell Creek.

“The Midwest Book Review” had this to say: “Set in America during the Civil War (and with a side look at Scotland), Horizons West by Harold G. Ross is the story of the Ross clan being caught in the national rift that precipitated years of blood and misery, turn-ing brother against brother over questions of ideas, idealism, loyalties and politics. Written with a distinctively Old West flavor, and deftly presenting a harsh and tragic view of America’s internal conflict, Horizons West is a power-ful, emotional, compelling, original, and highly recommended narrative to anyone who enjoys the kind of historical novel that simply grips the reader’s total attention from first page to last. Set in America during the Civil War (and with a side look at Scotland), Horizons West by Har-old G. Ross is the story of the Ross clan being caught in the national rift that precipitated years of blood and misery, turning brother against brother over questions of ideas, idealism, loyalties and politics. Written with a distinctively

Old West flavor, and deftly presenting a harsh and tragic view of America’s internal conflict, Horizons West is a powerful, emotional, compelling, original, and highly recommended narrative to anyone who enjoys the kind of historical novel that simply grips the reader’s total attention from first page to last.”The Ross history picks up later in Emerald Prai-rie. James’ son Bruce leaves his home in Upper McDowell Creek in 1871 to experience west beyond Junction City. The book chronicles Bruce’s life by and large year by year with gunfights, cattle drives, searching for gold and the like. He returns to settle down in 1878. He meets the woman who will be his wife, Hughena (Enie) MacArthur, at a box supper on Humboldt Creek, and the remainder of the book

centers on his life farming and eventual marriage, with much local color from his new home and through Manhattan and the Big Blue Valley.

The third book, Brannick, tells a story of Ross’ maternal grandfather. I say “a story” because Ross acknowledges in an afterword that “…the circum-stances in the story are…mostly my creation.” Several names in the book I recognize, so I’m sure it’s not totally fiction. The story is set mainly in an area from Alta Vista and White City north into the Blue valley in the Stockdale/Randolph area. One gets a good picture of our area in the 1880’s. Jim Brannick works for several area ranchers and will eventually become a lawman, serving in Junction City, White City, Council Grove, Wakefield and for a good number of years in Alta Vista. But the book centers on his early pre law enforcement days.

Though he didn’t seek fame, he did come to the attention of an eastern writer and a piece on him was done in the 1920’s in “True Detective” magazine.

I haven’t read Horizons West, yet, but I’ve enjoyed the other two books, for more reasons than reading about people whose names I became familiar with as a child growing up in Deep Creek, though Ross was a name I was not famil-iar with. (I learned much later that Mr. Ross is kind of a step cousin of mine.) They are quite well written. The characters are true to life and the imagery of the environment is excellent. Ross does come from people with strong reli-gious convictions and religion is a part of the stories, for it informs the lives of the people written about. But I don’t think one would find it used in a heavy-handed way. There is much of the kind of action the genre calls for, and it is vivid. The lead characters are men of character, conviction and molded from the toughness of the times.

Manhattan’s Louis L’Amourby Frank Siegle


The Hype

The State of PlayHollywood Struggles to Keep Up in the Internet Age

So, you turn on a DVD and you’re immediately accosted by a dumb commercial advising you that illegally downloading movies is akin to stealing a car. Or, in an alternative scenario, Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart’s problems in Casablanca are re-contextualized into a moronic argument against pirating movies. To top it all off, in recent months, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), PIPA (Protect IP Act), and CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) have been introduced in Congress, in an effort to combat the internet piracy of movies and music.

While anti-piracy ads on DVD’s are harmless and, to an extent necessary, SOPA, PIPA and CISPA could present a serious threat to free speech on the internet and give Government unprec-edented access into our online lives. And, while Hollywood and Congress put up meaningless roadblocks, online piracy continues unimpeded, due to a lack of foresight and a reluctance to move on from a dying business model.

What can be done to reverse this course? Are Hollywood and the Internet doomed to linger in a weird limbo between semi-accep-tance and Quixote-esque denial of reality? Or, is there an alterna-tive? Can Hollywood adapt to a 21st century business model that protects its profit margins while still allowing room for those who prefer online distribution to theatrical distribution? The answer is either more or less complicated than you may think, depending on your point of view.

Problem one is Hollywood’s stubborn refusal to release films in multiple formats at once. A simultaneous Blu-Ray/DVD, digital download, and theatrical release would substantially cut into the business of movie bootleggers and online pirates. Currently, Hollywood and, more specifically, the MPAA (Motion Picture As-sociation of America) see this as a hindrance. Why would anyone go to a theater when they could simply walk into a store and buy a current release or download the film to their home computer?

The studios are afraid this will eat into their profit margins by shattering the window between theatrical release and home video release. However, this isn’t necessarily the case. Imagine if a film like The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises were to be simulta-neously released in multiple formats on the same day: a theatri-cal release, a barebones DVD/Blu-Ray, and a digital release via

Starring: Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta and Tom CruiseWritten by: Justin Theroux, Chris D’Arienzo and Allan Loeb

Directed by: Adam Shankman

Singin’ in the Rain is, perhaps, the best movie musical ever made for one simple reason: The songs are sung because the characters need to sing them. In a traditional film, this information would be relayed through dialogue, but in a musical it flows forth organi-cally as a song. That’s the key problem with Rock of Ages; most of the songs are shoehorned in because they are recognizable, not because the characters need to sing them. There are, however, two exceptions: Tom Cruise’s rendition of Bon Jovi’s Wanted Dead or Alive and Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand’s duet of REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight this Feeling. These songs are actually expressions of character, words that can only be expressed in song.

The plot is fairly bare bones, as one would expect from a film that is mostly a showcase for musical numbers. It stars Juli-anne Hough as Sherrie, who comes to Los Angeles in 1987 from Oklahoma. Upon arriving, she almost immediately meets Drew (Diego Boneta) and gets a job as a waitress at the Bourbon Room. The Bourbon Room, obviously a stand-in for the infamous Whiskey A Go Go, is run by Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin), an aging rocker who is way behind on his taxes and needs something big to turn the club around. Enter Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise), the most famous rock star in the world; Jaxx is like Axl Rose cranked up to 11. Dennis’s goal is to get Stacee Jaxx to play a show at the Bourbon Room and make enough money to pay of the club’s back taxes.

There’s also a moral majority mayor (Bryan Cranston) and his Tipper Gore-esque wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who want to shut down the bourbon and, of course, the plot boils down to saving the bar and Sherrie and Drew’s clichéd love story.

This is not a bad film and, under ideal circumstances, it could ac-tually be fun. However, in a less than halfway filled theater, where nobody is inclined to sing, we are left with a been-there-seen-that plot. There’s nothing here that wasn’t covered in Breakin’ or any other movie in which young rebels try to save their fave hangout from the clutches of conformity.

The standout character is Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx. In recent years, Cruise has shown himself to be adept at comedy and he is, surprisingly, a decent singer. When the spotlight is on Jaxx we forget about everyone else in the movie. Cruise also uses the Jaxx character, in a roundabout way, to parody his own couch jump-ing, wacky religion public persona and that is when Rock of Ages is at its best.

Julianne Hough looks like Julianne Hough, which solves most of the problems resulting from her nasally singing voice and lack of chemistry with co-star Diego Boneta. She’s effervescent and given the right script and director she could explode on film like nitroglycerin.

MOVIES by MARCUSReviews and Opinions by Marcus Jay

Rock of Ages The other standout is Malin Akerman as Rolling Stone journalist Constance Sack. Akerman plays Sack’s simultaneous hatred and infatuation with Stacee Jaxx perfectly. When she interviews Sta-cee, she can’t help but be repulsed and intrigued by his shaman-like mystique.

Fundamentally, to steal a word from Newt Gingrich, this film doesn’t really work cinematically. As a Broadway musical, audi-ence participation would seem almost mandatory. But, with the captive gaze of the big screen, it’s all one sided. We’d like to sing along but we can’t. Wait for the DVD, get together with some friends and some drinks and this movie will play exactly as it should: a fun-time, campy, sing-along.

iTunes or Amazon. First off, a studio could virtually guarantee a triple dip of film geeks like myself. In my opinion, nothing beats a theatrical viewing, so I’d spend around ten dollars to watch the film on the big screen. Then, I’d most likely be inclined to pur-chase a DVD copy so I could watch the film multiple times. That’s another 15-20 dollars. Several months later, after the film has fin-ished its theatrical run, the studio could release a special edition DVD/Blu-Ray chockfull of extras; that only people as obsessive about these things as I am could buy. There’s another 20-30 dol-lars. So, on one film the studio could make nearly 50 dollars from me. Multiply that fifty dollars by the tens of thousands or even millions of like-minded people and you’re talking a lot of money. And, everybody wins. The studio makes an even larger profit and people such as myself get to watch the film multiple times. This seems like a fairly simple way to stop online piracy. In the same way that drug legalization would cut off the profit of drug cartels, a simultaneous release would discourage Internet piracy. Why take the risk when you can buy the product legally?

So, what’s stopping Hollywood from this kind of business strat-egy? The biggest obstacle is NATO. No, I’m not talking about military alliance but the other NATO, the National Association of Theater Owners. NATO is justifiably worried about losing market share if studios begin to find alternate distribution strategies, especially with tent pole releases like The Avengers. NATO does have an argument to a point; The Avengers has been in general release for just over a month and has already earned enough money to make it the third highest grossing film of all-time.

However, this is due, in part, to the film being released in both 2-D and 3-D. It is also due to the time that Marvel Studios spent creating a universe for The Avengers to inhabit. Since the 2008 release of Iron Man, Marvel has been piecing together a film universe for its comic book characters that eventually grew to include Thor, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk and an Iron Man sequel. Marvel unveiled a film pairing all of these characters and thus, brought all of their fan bases together. This culminated in a juggernaut that films like Battleship simply couldn’t live up to and Battleship has the weak domestic box office receipts to show for it.

The argument for NATO is a lot simpler: Get on the train or get off the tracks. Obviously, the Internet is here to stay and no amount of hamstringing is going to stop people from accessing content. If it’s on the Internet to be found, someone will find it. As Mr. Universe in Joss Whedon’s Serenity says, “You can’t stop the signal.”

NATO has no choice but to evolve or die. Either cope with the fact that people might prefer to see films without the hassle of over priced concessions and bothersome crowds or cease to exist. I’d rather theaters stuck around because I happen to think that the theatrical experience is still the best way to see a film, however, if NATO doesn’t figure out a way to exist in an Internet based world they may be a thing of the past.

I don’t claim to have the ultimate answer to any of this and it’s possible I could be over or understating some of the issues but one thing is certain: the market has changed and Hollywood needs to get on board.


The Hype

sity Donuts. (Another great local business you should shop at, hint hint.)

Throughout the day, kids can enter a contest to decorate a bird house with recycled items, there will be Henna and face-painting, belly dancers that would love

for you to dance with them, food from local vendors, a Miss Thing contest and The Clearview Band, a local classic rock cover band, will be performing starting at 6:30. “We know this is Stampede weekend,” says Misti LeMoine, owner of T-La-Re, “But we are offering a fun-filled alternative for those who want of avoid the stampede.”

With great food from local vendors, great contest prizes from Acme Gifts and fun sponsors like Sisters of Sound Re-cords and (of course) The Hype Weekly, it’s going to a great

evening of fun, food and music supporting local businesses for the whole family!

Directions: T-La-Re

2047 Ft. Riley BlvdManhattan, KS

Head West on Ft. Riley BlvdPass 17th Street

Turn LEFT onto DelawareTurn RIGHT onto DunbarT-La-Re is on the left side

The Spring Summer ThingAt T-La-Re!!

This Saturday at T-La-Re, The Summer Thing is happening! What is the Summer thing? Here’s your answer, straight from the awesome thrift store’s (owner’s) mouth: “We did an event at T-La-Re last year that was all about supporting local businesses. We named it "Spring Thing" be-cause it was a thing in the spring. Well we missed spring this year but we are not willing to give up the "Thing" that shows support for local busi-nesses. “

This Saturday, June 23, from 8am - 10pm T-La-Re will be buzzing with activity from dawn until night. The day kicks off with 6 yard sales in our parking lot with great items for the whole family, along with donuts and coffee from the always amazing Var-

June 23rd from 8am-10pm

The Summer Thing atT-La-Re!

t-La-Re 2047 Ft. Riley Blvd.

- The Clearview Band from 630-10pm

- six family yard sale in parking lot

- Henna tattoos and face painting

- activities for kids and adults with prizes from acme gift

- Great food from Local Vendors

Jimbo want these rockin chair planters sooooo bad!

The Clearview Band will be performing from 630-10pm

Complete Disc Golf lines!

Lots of Funky Decor

New Spring Wear

Jewelry, Hacky-sacks & accessories

Incense, Candles, and Tarts

Do You Hookah?

785-776-2252

1128 MoroManhattan, KS

Open Monday- Saturday

T La ReA di� erent kind of secondhand store!

Awesome Local Art, Crafts, and Thrift Items!Thu 11-8Fri 11-6Sat 10-6

(785) 341-17302047AFort Riley Blvd.

Perfect for your home, decor, or designs!

Modern and classic reggae and calypso music.

An AIP and MHK favorite!

Friday, June 22nd

The Trinidad Tripoli Steel Drum Band

8pm at Larry Norvell Band

Shell

Chuggers

Home of Bull Snyder!$2 Chuggers and O-Bombs EVERY DAY

406 PoyntzMon - Sat 10-6

Eliza Bullock monotypes

Kristin Goering acrylic landscapes

“Like” us onFacebook

Local Vendor Green Market 4-6 p.m.

every Wednesday

Fresh Deli Sandwiches

Gluten-Free options available

The Hype Weekly #43

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Transcript of The Hype Weekly #43