Lord knows I have blogs in the public arena as well as more personal. So I thought I’d do something fun here.

In light of the Windy City now featuring two of Major League Baseball’s most volatile personalities, I will use my space here to track how the White Sox’s Ozzie Guillen and the Cubs’ Lou Piniella perform when things are good and when they’re bad.

I’m dying to see if Ozzie can blabbermouth his way out of one of the premier gigs in baseball, and if Sweet Lou can make it in Cubdom without having a coronary.

Play ball!!!

Ah, yes… it’s finally over. This year’s April Fool’s joke from Vince McMahon rife with predictability and lumbering 7-footers that nobody wants to pay $50 to see. I guess it’s the spectacle that counts…

The theme of the show is “All Grown Up”, as in “Vince Sr. never thought his boy would succeed in the business by himself more than 4 years.” There’s a rock star stage, Aretha Franklin, PYRO PYRO PYRO and then it’s on.

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Seriously. Because it was garbage–predictably boring, linear garbage. I’ve been watching the WWE religiously since 1987. I’ve seen just about every Wrestlemania at the time of it’s broadcast. I have already starting planning my attendance to next year’s event in Orlando, Florida but I MAY NOT GO–not after last night. I’m going to run down the card with a “not so brief” analysis of the event.

Wrestlemania 23!

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It’s been four years since the Barfly cartoon by Wayne Bertsch began appearing in the pages of NUVO Newsweekly. After drawing nearly 200 strips reviewing local music, Bertsch, in conjunction with Birdy’s Bar and Grill, has put together the third annual showcase of live music hand picked by ‘Barfly’ as a sampling of the best live music Indy has to offer. The May 12th multi-genre show begins at 9:30 pm and boasts a diverse lineup that includes Indy’s best rock, pop, country and funk-inspired soul.

Bertsch’s Barfly strip was born four years ago after he drew a band flyer for local blues-rock cover band Karen and The Beast. The strip was reprinted in NUVO Newsweekly and soon became a regular feature of its music section. The strip is available every Wednesday in NUVO as well as online at its website NUVO.net. Barfly strips have also appeared occasionally at Indianapolismusic.net.

The line up for the May 12th show consists of 6 bands:

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 Rather than focusing on following in the footsteps to become the next Great White Hope of Hip-Hop, Mic Sol figures to blaze his own trail. With all-respect due to Beastie Boys, 3rd Bass, Eminem and the like–why should an emcee’s success be based on his skin tone. (It’s the music you should be listening to right?) But Yo, don’t let me preach or be your convincer–go peep the chat and you’ll discover (what we already know) that Mic Sol is ‘all-the-way-live’ in any color spectrum. — Capt. Westside

For starters, tell us a little about Mic Sol. How long have you been emceeing and when did your appreciation for hip-hop culture begin? How’d you get the name “Flowgun?”

My name is Mic Sol and I was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. My apppreciation for hip-hop began with Beastie Boys “Licensed To Ill” and Run DMC. After that it was NWA “Straight Outta Compton.” I used to have my older sister buy their tapes for me by flirting with the clerk (she wasn’t old enough to buy them either) at Coconuts (or Peaches) in Broad Ripple, where the organic grocery store is now across from McDonalds.

I had an old rhyme where i called myself the “Flowgun capitalist”, and I dug it up while I was working on my album. I like the double meaning of like a shogun with a microphone as a sword or your mind as a gun spitting lyrical bullets. Once I released the album, people started calling me that.

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