DOMESTIC DIVA
http://westernmass.craigslist.org/crs/1457698443.html
I happened across this ad in the services section under the tab creative and was immediately drawn to the title. This woman is offering a variety standard house care services – child care, pet sitting, green house cleaning – but I feel that there might be a story tied to the diva title she designates for herself. It seems unlikely that someone would designate themselves with such a tag if they do not have a vibrant personality, which would work well in an interview. She also has past experience as a former daycare owner and for 30 years as a nurse, from which stories could arise. It may end up not being worthy of followup upon inquiry, but I have a sneaking suspicion there is something to this ad.
http://westernmass.craigslist.org/lgs/1462468815.html
This ad posted under legal services also caught my attention. It is for Rollie McCarter Investigative Services, who offers private investigation for a number of circumstances. Obviously they have a number of stories and I think an interesting perspective to the story could be a comparison of how p.i.’s are portrayed on television and in the movies versus real life. This one may also prove to be difficult because I am not sure how willing they would be to talk about past cases. May be worth following up on though.
The Digital Buddhas
Here is a podcast that compliments my story on the Disco Biscuits in NoHo, which can be found two posts below.
Cincinnati.Com
I have never been to Cincinnati and from all accounts of people I know who have in fact been to the city, I never intend to vacation there. All preconceived notions aside, I decided upon the website of their primary newspaper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, to review.
Upon first glance, the website has many of the features I would look for if I lived in the area and needed a quick dose of up-to-the-minute news, including weather and traffic. The ‘Find It Fast’ bank on the right of the page also seems like a helpful amendment as it contains many non-news related features people actually would pick up a paper to find – classifieds, lottery results, sudoku, etc.
The ordering of the news on the website kind of threw me off, as I would expect the most important news to be towards the top of the page, however right after local news, they have obituaries listed. Placing this toward the bottom of the page or at least behind the Ohio or national news section would seem to make the most sense in terms of grabbing reader’s attention. People come to the website to peruse the news and if someone was in fact logging on to find an obituary, I’m sure they could probably do the proper searching.
Also, not the best look for a news website is the link to a photo album from a ‘Naughty Neon Party,’ containing a bunch of bug-eyed 20-something’s at what appears to be some incarnation of a rave. Again, okay to have somewhere on the site as it pertains to local nightlife, but probably not the best look to be so predominately displayed on the front page.
The bar at the top of the page containing the various sections of news is also a little hard to navigate as when it is scrolled over, it produces two drop down menus, both containing the same links.
Overall, the site appears quite jumbled and would benefit from less information. The storie headlines are really bunched together and difficult to skim through. For example, the Boston Globe website has a similar National and World news section with two links to stories and then a link to the main National/World news page, compared to the ten crammed into a comparable space on the Enquirer page.
The website most likely becomes easier to navigate upon repeated visits, but for people who wander onto the site looking for a particular story, I can see how it could be quite burdensome.
Arrests surrounding Disco Biscuits Northampton concerts
Bassist Marc Brownstein peered into the crowd Saturday night, grinning from ear to ear, and the crowd stared right back, eagerly anticipating his next move.
Disco Biscuits on stage Saturday night
“This is such a great crowd here in Northampton. We fucking love you,” said Browstein, before launching into a cover of Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn,” signifying the next stop on their current 32-date fall tour. The Disco Biscuits had succeeded in blowing the doors off a nearly sold-out Calvin Theatre for a second consecutive night and the venue was brimming with swaying hands and bobbing heads.
Outside was a completely different story, however, as the police geared up in an attempt to curb a repeat performance from last January. When the band played the theatre on Jan. 16 and 17, there were 14 drug related arrests and six were transported to the local Cooley Dickinson hospital to be treated for apparent drug overdoses.
During the band’s Oct. 9 and 10 residency at the Calvin Theatre, Northampton police made 49 arrests as a result of numerous drug and alcohol sweeps performed in the neighborhood parking lots, alleyways, streets and local hotels by uniformed and plainclothes officers. Most of the arrests were made at the Quality Inn hotel, located a couple blocks from the venue.
Confiscated was a laundry list of drugs, including more than 600 hits of LSD, 45 grams of cocaine, two nitrous oxide tanks, and varying amounts of Ecstasy, Klonopin, Xanax, mushrooms and a number of class E prescription medications.
Eric Suher, who runs Iron Horse Entertainment Group that owns the Calvin, allowed local authorities to heighten police presence by permitting officers inside the theatre. By most accounts, their efforts seemed futile.
“I saw one group of kids pool together $100, buy a huge bag of K[etamine, a common animal tranquillizer, used recreationally to create a state of dissociative anesthesia], and proceed to sniff the entire bag off a key,” said concertgoer Sean Grealish of a drug deal he witnessed inside the venue. “It was really pretty disgusting.”
Of the total of 63 arrests made at the four Northampton Disco Biscuits concerts this year, only two were of local residents. The other 61 were of people who traveled from outside the Western Mass area to see the band.
Not all arrests were for drug related. Of the 49 October arrests, 37 were for open containers or underage possession of alcohol.
The band has a checkered past with drug use at their shows. In July, a college student from California that attended the Disco Biscuits annual festival in upstate N.Y., Camp Bisco, was arrested at the Albany International Airport for attempting to board a plane with seven Ecstasy pills, two sheets of LSD and a small amount of marijuana.
The band does not condone drug use in any way. A group of fans unite at shows under the name The Digital Buddhas, after the namesake of one of their songs, to promote and support “clean and sober Disco Biscuit fans that love to get down and dirty,” according to their mission statement on their website. They set up a table at most shows and host a meeting during set breaks to discuss their experiences at the night’s show.
“The Buddhas’ approach to recruiting members is through attraction rather than promotion,” says east coast regional coordinator Daniel Hertz. “We have no opinion on drugs, but [we] exist and function solely to provide support for each other, so we can go in groups and have a great time at shows.”
In January, Brownstein was quoted saying he was surprised at the amount of arrests at the Northampton shows. “It’s really unfair to the 99 percent of our fans who are good kids,” Brownstein said.
They are currently on a break before resuming their tour on the 28th in Kalamazoo, Mich. The tour is in support of their new album, Planet Anthem, set to be released early in 2010.
NewWest.net Question
Your website focuses covers a wide range of areas (Idaho to New Mexico). What is the difference in content posted on your main site (NewWest.net) and the sub-blogs that focus on specific locales? Is there any overlap in content that goes between the multiple sites? Is it your belief that a story based in Bozeman be of interest to a reader in New Mexico?
leave a comment