Protest

Tech Park Authority meeting today: UPDATE

• Chancellor Joel Anderson

Leslie Newell Peacock is covering today's meeting of the Little Rock Technology Park Authority. Members of the authority have now voluntarily filed financial interest statements and they eventually will be available on-line. Until the law is changed to required such filing, there is, of course, no recourse against members who don't file or don't file complete or accurate reports.

Here's what I wanted to note right away:

Three of the four Occupy Little Rock protesters who were arrested today went straight to the meeting of the Tech Park Authority. If there's a better place to stand up to corporate dominance of the political process, it's this taxpayer-financed agency (created, controlled and administered by the corporate-agenda lobby known as the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, taxpayer-subsidized but public unaccountable.) The new agency is looking hungrily at booting hundreds of low-income minority citizens from their homes. Documents dislodged by the Freedom of Information Act request only contribute to circumstantial evidence that a neighborhood across Interstate 630 from UAMS is in the crosshairs.

More later.

UPDATE: It was a good day for the Little Rock Technology Park Authority, with a real estate attorney rising from the audience to tell the board that he represents 40 people with property in the Forest Hills neighborhood, the area just south of Interstate 630 under consideration for the park, and they look forward to selling. No fireworks from Occupy Little Rock, no angry outbursts from residents, support for one of the sites from the audience and Authority members UAMS and UALR got to cya on negative feedback from neighborhoods.

/more/  

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Midweek line

Two days to go. But first, an open line. Final words:

* NEW LEADER FOR ASMSA: University of Arkansas President Donald Bobbitt announced today that he'd recommended Corey Alderdice, assistant director for admissions and public relations for the Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science in Bowling Green, Ky., as the new director of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts in Hot Springs. Current Director Janet Hugo is retiring in June. The UA Board of Trustees must confirm Alderdice's selection. The competitive residential school has about 200 students.

* HILLCREST NEIGHBORHOOD SQUABBLE: I've written previously about the eternal squabble over what the state schools for the blind and deaf will do with an asbestos-riddled building once occupied by Easter Seals that sits on 10 acres owned by the school at the end of Lee Avenue in a residential Hillcrest neighborhood. Easter Seals keeps trying to convert the building into cash. The governing board is running out of patience. This week it indicated Easter Seals must renovate the building and serve students there as its land lease requires, or the lease will be revoked. Waiting in the wings is an offer by Doug Martin, a Hillcrest resident who works for Stephens Inc., to buy the acreage and use it for one single-family house, with most of the acreage being put in a conservation easement. He'd pay $1 million for the building and land, with about half of that necessary to pay for demolition. Further meetings are planned.

* THE CAT'S OWWW! A Logan County man said he was trying to shoot a stray cat (oh, that's OK), but shot a 29-year-old neighbor instead.

* I'VE MET MANY DOGS NAMED MAX BUT THIS BEATS ALL: Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan,, this report on the fastest rising names for newborns:

Briella, which jumped 394 spots, to No. 497. Briella Calafiore stars in "Jerseylicious," a reality TV show about battling stylists at a beauty salon in Green Brook, N.J. She's also in a spinoff called "Glam Fairy." Brantley was the fastest rising name for boys, jumping 416 spots to No. 320. Brantley Gilbert is a singer who had a No. 1 country hit called "Country Must Be Country Wide".

* SLIMEBALL REDUX: Another botched and misleading stunt by right-wing provocateur James O'Keefe.

* AS THE HOUSING AUTHORITY TURNS: The agency formerly known as the Little Rock Housing Authority is in turmoil. Its executive director, Shelly Ehenger, is suspended because she suspended someone else. That suspension turned on a memo about rampant employee unhappiness. An outside counsel, Arkie Byrd, was hired for $180/hr. to get to the bottom of it. She's gotten to the bottom of things before, a $10,000 report occasioned by Ehenger's complaint about a remark and anger displayed by Commissioner Brad Walker. I link it, you decide. You'll find the word "dysfunctional" therein. I'd second that. No action was taken by the board of commissioners following receipt of the report.

* THE LYING LIAR: U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin announced that he'd voted to renew the Violence Against Women Act today. What he didn't tell you is that he refused to vote for the Senate-passed bill, with bipartisan support, opting instead for a version that the president also opposes because it weakens protections for immigrant women and Indians provides no protection for same-sex couples. Domestic violence is domestic violence, except to thugs like Tim Griffin who thinks some people — gays, Indians and immigrants among them — are less deserving of equal protection.

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Beebe names Bunny Adcock to UCA Board of Trustees

• ROBERT "BUNNY" ADCOCK

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Music

Paste lists '12 Arkansas bands you should listen to now'

Stupid, lazy lede ("I know what you’re thinking: 'Music from Arkansas? It’s got to be just a bunch of hillbillies singing through toothless mouths and stomping bare feet.') aside, it's a pretty solid list that includes a lot of bands the Times has championed: 2012 Musicians Showcase winners The Holy Shakes, 2010 winners Brother Andy and His Big Damn Mouth, Bonnie Montgomery. Huge omissions: Tyrannosaurus Chicken, Velvet Kente (Amasa Hines makes the cut), 607, Rwake, Iron Tongue, The See. Also folks who've been doing it for a minute: Isaac Alexander, The Boondogs, Kevin Kerby, The Salty Dogs, Greg Spradlin. Etc.

Who else?

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Music

607 is not retiring

• Dero Sanford

"I can't just keep putting out music like I have; it's like throwing it out in the air and seeing what happens," he said Tuesday. "The money I make off of albums is increasing, but so is the cost of living."

So rather than put out his 38th album in June as planned, he's decided to go on a release hiatus, while he focuses on marketing and promotion.

"The only scenes that are sustainable are in Houston and Atlanta," he said. "That's because Houston and Atlanta sold a lifestyle."

Asked how Central Arkansas could ever hope to compare to such massive metro areas, he said, "Black people spend millions of dollar at the hair store. We fill up the 2 Chainz concerts. We situated. The money is there. We just have to make them subscribe to our brand.

"I wake up and go to sleep thinking about rapping. But I've got to carve out time to focus on getting money, so I'm not going to release music until I can get some legs, because this shit deserves some legs.

"I just want a chance to fail. One of my homeboys said to me the other day, 'Maybe you're just not meant to be the one in the front. Maybe you should focus on mentoring the next generation.' But I haven't even been to the combine, to tryouts even. I just want my chance to fail on a bigger stage."

607 cited the "start-up" money one of his heroes Tech N9ne got after years of middling success that helped propel him into a new level of fame. Which might be a good way for Six to present himself during his hiatus: "Invest in my start-up rap career."

Lest you remain unconvinced that 607 can hang with national rappers, see his remix of Azealia Banks' banger here. Or all the flips he did with Ants in My Trance. Or check out Six's latest, "Yikes!," which he's temporarily giving away free.

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What's going on / Theater

Thursday and Friday To Do: Arkansas New Play Fest 2012

• The Arkansas New Play Fest is May 17-18 at the Oxford American and May 18-20 at Nadine Baum Studios.

ARKANSAS NEW PLAY FEST 2012
7 p.m. Oxford American. $7 per reading, $20 full pass.

This marks the second year that The Arkansas Repertory Theatre has teamed up with TheatreSquared of Fayetteville to host a Central Arkansas production of The Arkansas New Play Fest (the Northwest Arkansas dates for the festival are May 18-20 at Nadine Baum Studios).

"The collaboration is designed to introduce promising new works for the stage to audiences in Northwest and Central Arkansas and to encourage conversation about the themes of these new plays," according to TheatreSquared.

This year's lineup includes readings of "Uprooted," a family drama by Clinnesha Dillon Sibley about a successful actress returning to her small hometown for her mother's funeral; "The Football Project," the story of a high school football team that becomes enmeshed in controversy and the reaction of the team's hometown, by Samuel Brett Williams; Robert Ford's "The Spiritualist," about a school cafeteria cook and self-proclaimed psychic who communes with dead composers; and "The Ballad of Rusty and Roy," the tale of two brothers — both musicians — whose careers follow different paths after they move to New York City, by Troy and Jonny Schremmer.

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