A Literary Life

By Kate Jonuska

A Hollywood Western couldn’t have crafted the scene better: a dry lake bed, cottonwood trees, a bonfire, and a wooden bandstand and dance floor, lit only by stars and chandeliers crafted from clear Mason jars. While certainly unusual, the outdoor space is an ideal venue for the first pubic concert at Chico Basin Ranch, whose mission is to reintroduce visitors to our state’s rich ranching history.

“We run a cow/cattle operation, which is how we make our living,” says ranch manager Duke Phillips, whose family has a 25-year lease on the 87,000-acre working ranch, owned by the Colorado State Land Board. “But in addition to the cattle, have a very large education program that sees between 1,500 to 2,500 kids out to the ranch annually. One of the problems we’ve encountered is, how do we pay for it?” he asks. “That’s how the (concert) idea was born, as a fundraiser to support education on the ranch.”

Headlining the band stand will be Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans, who play a toe-tapping blend of country and Western and rock and roll, and are on tour for their recent “Losin’ Lately Gambler” album.

“Corb Lund, he’s from a ranching community in Canada and his songs are about living and working on ranches,” says Phillips, who explains that creating a conversation about the importance of the land and the people working on it with urbanites is the concert’s goal.

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the June 10, 2010 Gazette.

Have you heard the one about the guy who leaves the corporate world to buy a comedy club?

No joke. It happened to Pat Hawkinson, who took over Loonees Comedy Corner in December, after more than 25 years working in corporate training.

“We wanted to try to turn it into a family business, albeit a strange one,” says Hawkinson, whose son had worked at the club for several years. “It’s a place where everyone who comes here wants to be here. Most people are happy when they come in and happier when they go.”

Hawkinson follows in the footsteps of Larry Lee, who had 25 years working for Pearl Vision before taking charge of Loonees, which he owned for 15 years.
“It’s really a change,” Lee says. “You have a day job and suddenly you start getting home at 2 in the morning, after being used to going to bed after the news was over.”

Before Lee, the club belonged to comedian (and one-time mayoral candidate) Jeff Valdez. In fact, when it opened in 1984 on Union Boulevard, it was called Jeff Valdez Comedy Corner. Five years later, the club moved to its current location at 1305 N. Academy Boulevard and was later rechristened Laff’s Comedy Corner by Lee.

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this story, which published in The Gazette on May 11, 2010.

The 20-something crowd that pours into the Rum Bay complex on weekend evenings has made it the hottest night spot in town.

The business model clearly works.

But, of course, there’s a rowdy, messy downside to a business built on alcohol and younger clients. The popular downtown nightclub has scuffled with the city liquor board for various violations, and the number of police calls to the club is among the highest in the city.
But recent remodeling and improvement efforts show Rum Bay marketing toward a more mature, upscale and mellow crowd.

“We have 25 types of wine, 60 types of vodka, 12 scotches,” says general manager Chuck Schafer, who owns Rum Bay and its adjacent series of clubs with partners Kathy and Sam Guadagnoli, hosting a tour of the recently remodeled and reopened The Red Martini. “We’re going after that sophisticated crowd.”

Although situated near Rum Bay and partner clubs Blondie’s Ultra Lounge and Gasoline Alley on North Tejon Street, The Red Martini, at 20 N. Tejon St., is physically unconnected to Schafer and the Guadagnolis’ other clubs.

The more-upscale establishment cultivates a piano bar atmosphere, with plush chairs, low lounge tables and an imposing wood bar. Accessories such as mirrors, paintings and bookshelves add vintage charm, while sleek leather benches, a giant red-and-black lamp and a fire pit sit on the new outdoor patio area.

Schafer calls the style of The Red Martini classy, elegant and laid back and thinks the club’s live pianists will be a big draw.

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this story, which published in The Gazette on May 8, 2010.

By Kate Jonuska

After three albums underneath Christian music giant Sparrow records, followed by three albums with Columbia Records/Sony BMG, alternative rock band Switchfoot abandoned solid corporate ground to found their own label, lowercase people records. Judging from the burst of creativity that followed, the gutsy move was exactly the catalyst Switchfoot needed to move forward.

“It feels like a new chapter for us. It’s like starting the band over again,” says Tim Foreman, bass guitar and vocals, noting that the band produced four albums worth of material during that period of inspiration. “It really led to a prolific time of exploring what is possible for Switchfoot to do, of exploring our boundaries.”

The first fruits of this inspired new material emerged in November 2009 with the release of “Hello Hurricane,” with others sure to follow. Foreman says the title speaks to the individual and collective storms Switchfoot has weathered over the years, “that we can’t predict when these storms will occur or what they will destroy, but we can decide how we respond to them. We want to be singing into the storm and not running away.”

It’s a positive message that no matter how the group evolves, Switchfoot fans will recognize: The band has a long history with the Christian music scene and doesn’t shy away from speaking of their personal Christian faith.

“For us, it feels very natural to include faith in our music. Our songs aren’t afraid to tackle big issues or say we don’t have it all figured out,” says Foreman, who believes that faith and art are inseparable. “You can go places in a song you can’t go in a conversation. In a song, everything is fair game.”

Even so, the band eschews the label of “Christian rock,” explaining that Christianity is a faith rather than a genre.

“That label is a marketing question of where people rack the CDs. Our music belongs in bigger pond than that,” says Foreman. “As a band we’ve tried to stay outside a specific scene and make music that appeals to everyone, that doesn’t isolate people in boxes.”

Instead of singing only to one group or type of people, instead Switchfoot instead focuses on singing their hearts out, putting all their passion into making each live show unique, a strategy for which “Hello Hurricane” is ideally suited.

“This is an album where we were really focused on how it would translate live, and therefore it’s probably our favorite album to play live,” says Foreman. “Right now we have a renewed excitement for making music. It’s a great time to be a band, and we’re really thankful that we get to do this every night.”

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the GO! section of The Gazette on Feb. 19, 2010.

By Kate Jonuska

Apparently, the people over at Guinness World Records take the playing of imaginary instruments quite seriously, or so found the Air Force Academy Athletics department as they planned their most recent and rather wacky promotion: Rock for the Cure, an attempt to break the world record for largest air guitar ensemble during half time of the Air Force Women’s Basketball game against New Mexico on Feb. 20.

“The record is 1,436 held by a university in Canada,” says athletic marketing assistant and event organizer Matt Swearingen, who says the Falcon Athletic Center’s capacity exceeds 5,000. “We’d love to pack the place, just blow the roof off the building and crush the record, so we can be sure we’ll hold it for a long time. We’ve got to get (the record) back to the United States.”

The world-record attempt was conceived as a way of boosting attendance at the Feb. 20 game, which the AFA has dedicated to breast cancer awareness, providing information about early detection and cancer support organizations and offering free admission to all comers clothed in pink. The female-friendly theme seems fitting seeing that Feb. 20 is National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and AFA coaches are hosting a free clinic for female athletes in eighth grade and younger before the game.

“There’s so much going on in people’s lives that’s serious, so you need to take some time to be a little goofy and get out there with your friends,” says Swearingen. “We thought anybody could lay down a riff on the air guitar.”

Turns out that everybody can play, but not just anyone can take home the record. Guinness World Records has strict guidelines for hopeful air guitar ensembles, including that each participant must sign a ledger – witnessed by two people – and the group must be led by an air guitar expert, someone with experience in recognized air guitar competitions.

In addition, the group must play their invisible guitars in unison for at least three official air guitar moves. Yes, there are official moves, such as The Who’s windmill and AC/DC’s Angus Young duck walk.

“There’s all kinds of documentation, 15 pages of guidelines we need to follow,” says Swearingen. “It’s kind of a big deal if you’re going to be in the record book next to the woman with 8-foot-long fingernails or the world’s the tallest guy. You have to earn it.”

Anyone interesting in participating can log on to Air Force Athletic’s Facebook page (search “Go Air Force Falcons”) to choose the perfect song to pretend to play to. Wear pink for free admission, or log on to www.goairforcefalcons.com to purchase tickets. As for potential expert leaders, the choice is still up in the air and Air Force athletics would love to hear from any experienced air guitarists in the Pikes Peak Region ready to help bring the record home.

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in The Gazette on Feb. 19, 2010.

By Kate Jonuska

The kids had earned a moment to sit on the bench. But most seemed more content to dance around it and show it off. This, after all is their masterpiece, the ArtBench, a mosaic bench of concrete and tile that Manitou Elementary School fifth graders spent about six weeks to build.

The kids and artists at Concrete Couch, a non-profit passionate about engaging the community to create public art, unveiled the bench at a party Thursday afternoon.

“We don’t really work with concrete or drills in our normal art class. We just draw and work with clay, so this is really fun,” says Brooke West, 10, who received a T-shirt award for attending every work session. “I just loved doing it.”

At the unveiling, the kids jammed out with the Concrete Couch Jam Band, composed mostly of high school musicians, and then explained to the crowd the process of making the bench: creating the tiles, maneuvering concrete-filled wheelbarrows, mortaring and grouting and smoothing.

“Kids get so excited to do this,” says Steve Wood, director of Concrete Couch. “There is this element of education for everyone when people see what kids can do with only imagination and opportunity.”

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which ran in the Nov. 7, 2009 Gazette.

By Kate Jonuska

Sometimes a lyric isn’t just words. Sometimes a video isn’t just people dancing. In the opinion of filmmaker, writer and activist Byron Hurt, what we consume from media and pop culture are actually messages about who we are, how to behave and our place in society, and he dissects that idea in regard to hip-hop culture in the film “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” screening Tuesday at Colorado College.

“This film challenges everyone: consumers, artists, black, white, people who have issues with gays. It’s the kind of film that strikes a chord in many different demographic backgrounds,” says Hurt of his documentary, which aired at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006 and on national television in 2007. “Since that time, I’ve been on the road constantly showing the film and talking about the film. It’s amazing that it still has as much traction as it does.”

Perhaps its continued popularity stems from Hurt’s ability to cut away the veneer of hip-hop to expose the complex and often negative narratives underneath about masculinity, femininity, homosexuality, class and race ― narratives many don’t look deep enough to see.

“The process was to create a film that would be intelligent and entertaining, to borrow some of the aesthetic and look and feel of MTV and BET, but to flip that aesthetic so there’s a critique embedded there, too,” says Byron, who emphasizes that he’s in no way outside hip-hop culture even as he critiques it, calling hip-hop “the soundtrack of my life.”

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the Oct. 26, 2009 Gazette.

By Kate Jonuska

In 2008, 4,179 people in 10 countries costumed themselves as the undead and simultaneously performed the choreography from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video as part of the Guinness World Record-winning Thrill the World campaign. This year, Colorado Springs is adding a few more zombies to that total with a Thrill the World event on Saturday hosted by burlesque dance troupe Peaks and Pasties.

“It’s so fun to be able to teach people who are as nervous as I was when I first started dancing,” says Peak and Pasties dancer Kami Sutra, who helped lead a rehearsal attended by about 20 people earlier this week. She says that participants enjoy mimicking the Michael Jackson crotch grab the most out of all the dance moves, which also include the zombie march and menacing claw hands. “Everyone gets a huge kick out of it. No one in the group is judgmental. Everyone is really supportive of each other.”

Released in 1983, the 14-minute “Thriller” production is arguably the most popular music video of all time, a horror film homage in which a zombified Jackson dances with the undead, and “Thriller” has recently surged back to the surface of popular consciousness. Thrill the World began in 2006, for instance, videos of convicts dancing “Thriller” have been viral on the Internet, and Michael Jackson’s death earlier this year caused many media organizations to rebroadcast the video.

“It’s really funny. When you start teaching the dance to people, we find that they already know a couple eight counts without consciously knowing they did. People know those moves,” says Spitfire, who believes Michael Jackson and his dancing are woven into our culture. “I think people are drawn to Michael Jackson by his crazy sense of style, his dance moves and choreography, and just the way he entertained.”

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in The Gazette on Oct. 22, 2009.

By Kate Jonuska

Remembering her childhood, Paula Poundstone reminisces about her family’s regular dinners at the neighbor’s house, or more specifically, she remembers what happened after dinner at the neighbor’s: The adults would retire for coffee and conversation, and the kids were “forced” downstairs.

“But we would just have the best time down there,” says Poundstone. “I want (my performances) to feel like the being in that basement, where all the adults are upstairs somewhere and we’re dodging them.”

While she’s certainly moved on to larger venues than that basement ― Paula Poundstone plays the Pike Peak Center on Thursday, Oct. 8 ― she’s still improvising her fun as she goes along, never taking herself too seriously. Famous for her stand up as well as her role as a panelist on NPR’s weekly news quiz show, “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me,” the comedian is known for her vibrant spontaneity and audience interaction, as if she and her audience together are weaving an evening of laughs.

“Generally speaking, there is just a magic that emanates from a group of people that come out to laugh for the evening,” says Poundstone. “My favorite part of the night is just talking to the audience. I find really great stuff unfolds. I can almost predict that it will anymore.”

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published in the GO! section on Oct. 2, 2009.

By Kate Jonuska

For the first time in a long time, there won’t be a sign outside the Lon Chaney Theatre advertising the Star Bar Players’ next performance. But Lon Chaney or no, for the first time in a long time, there will be a show by the Star Bar Players, the recently revived theater troupe that went dark for a year after cash-flow and venue problems. The season opener is “The Weir,” a small-cast, Irish play rife with ghost stories running Oct. 8-24 at Five Star Decor.

“Being able to bring something like this back to the surface, I’m really excited about that,” says “The Weir” director Tammy Smith, who felt the absence of Star Bar keenly. “Everyone involved in it is really excited. We’ve had some difficulties. Finding a rehearsal place was rough, and some of the first rehearsals took place in my living room.”

But Alysabeth Clements Mosley, who sits on the Star Bar board and will play the character Valerie, prefers to reframe their lack of permanent theater space as a gypsy-like adventure. “Star Bar started out in weird venues,” before they landed the Lon Chaney, she says. “They did things in lofts above stores, they were in a church for a while, so I think part of the theatrical experience is the conversion of whatever space you’re in.”

Their space at Five Star Decor, a special events planning and decorating company with a large warehouse, is a black box theater with room enough for the one set of “The Weir,” the bar where the play’s characters spend much of their free time. Rather than dwell on size or shape, most of the players embrace the bright side of the unconventional venue.

CLICK HERE to read the full text of this article, which published on Oct. 2, 2009 in the GO! section.