Comic-strip fans Tom Scocca and Vincent Williams team up to fill the feature hole with a story about two young syndicated cartoonists with Maryland roots: Aaron McGruder and Frank Cho. Mobtown Beat is Jill Yesko on a local rabbi who is using Kabala study to help treat urban ills. The Nose covers a brouhaha over the relocation of a Southeast Baltimore gay bar and a sudden downturn in crime in Pen Lucy. Charles Cohen profiles G. Krug & Son, the ornamental iron works on West Saratoga Street ... [MORE]

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The Block, Baltimore's downtown adult-entertainment district, takes the stage in a two-story feature package by Van Smith: "Around the Block" and "What's Around the Block." Land deals in Washington Hill involving Baltimore City government and Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions have neighbors in a bunch, Molly Rath reports in Mobtown Beat. The Nose has good news about low-power and pirate radio stations. A breach of journalistic ethics involving Baltimore Sun reporters Jim Haner and Timothy ... [MORE]

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Michael Anft, in the Feature entitled "Councilmania," says the Baltimore City Council gets no respect. Sections devoted to the president and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th districts show why. In Mobtown Beat, Augusta Olsen covers the shuttering of the Golden Temple health-food store, and Brennen Jensen reports that Baltimore's bondage, domination, and sadomasochism scene is feeling the pain of a regulatory crackdown. Meanwhile, the Nose weighs in on Atlanta Braves relief pitcher John Rock ... [MORE]

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The feature is Eileen Murphy's celebration of renowned Baltimore artist Joyce J. Scott, to mark Scott's solo exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art. City Paper's decision to run Savage Love is debated in The Mail. In Mobtown Beat, Michael Anft reports on efforts to strengthen Maryland's brownfields law and Molly Rath explains state legislation that would force corporate-subsidy recipients to disclose facts about the jobs they create. The Nose is saddened by the retirement of Cafe Tattoo's owners ... [MORE]

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Geoffrey Himes, in his feature "From the Hills," explores the musical migration of bluegrass to Baltimore: "Bluegrass might be a recessive gene in Baltimore's DNA, just waiting for the right circumstances to express itself again." In Mobtown Beat, Tom Scocca covers the Playhouse Theater's revival showing Korean movies, and Eileen Murphy reports on artists protesting their displacement by West-side redevelopment. The Nose hangs out on a drug corner—one of 10 that new mayor Martin O'Malley ... [MORE]

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The cover story of City Paper's first issue of the new millennium is Joab Jackson's how-to guide to digitizing music from vinyl, advising that "digital music is still an entirely new way of thinking about recorded music." The sidebar notes that digital copies aren't always perfect. Mobtown Beat features Molly Rath on the co-dependent relationship between new Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley and his new Police Commissioner Ronald Daniel. In Media Circus, Eileen Murphy reports that WBAL-TV's Virg ... [MORE]

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In this week's feature, "Charmed Century," Tom Chalkley and Brennen Jensen scroll through the century's Baltimore news, with a time-line accompaniment. In Mobtown Beat, Andrew Reiner profiles the African Museum, part of Yahney Sangarey's effort to change perceptions about Africa, and the Nose sniffs out a film-in-progress about west side merchants whose businesses are being sacrificed for urban renewal. Charmed Life is Charles Cohen on Stan Lebar, the guy who developed the broadcasting technol ... [MORE]

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Michael Anft's feature about the impending demolition of Flag House Courts, the last of the city's public-housing high-rises, examines a city program that critics dubbed "a deliberate effort to reduce the density of poverty by reducing the number of housing units for the poor." In Mobtown Beat, Molly Rath anticipates that Laura Weeldreyer's arrival as the head of the New Schools Initiative will raise the public-schools program's profile. The Nose covers the auction of picked-over remnants of the ... [MORE]

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Staff writers Michael Anft and Molly Rath fill the feature hole by expounding "Ten Things We Love About 1999" in Baltimore news: Martin O'Malley as the new mayor, the flailing school-reform effort, the high murder rate, the weather, the Westside renewal project, the Annapolis battle over the Intercounty Connector, chronic poverty, expelled state Sen. Larry Young's saga, the mismanaged Orioles, and the closing of Haussner's restaurant. The Nose sniffs at: the City Council voting to give the city' ... [MORE]

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Jefferson Jackson Steele

Tom Scocca's feature on the Baltimore BayRunners of the International Basketball League showcases the hoops stars of tomorrow. Natalie Davis reports on a one-stop shop for those living with HIV/AIDS and remembers gay-rights activist Tacy Ranta in Mobtown Beat. The Nose hones in on a shady extra-work order approved by Baltimore's Board of Estimates and congratulates rabblerouser A. Robert Kaufman for getting a settlement in a lawsuit he brought against the city. Charmed Life's Charles Cohe ... [MORE]

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The feature is Michael Anft and Molly Rath assessing the three terms of outgoing Baltimore mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, known as "a thinker in a doer's job." In the Mail, editor Andy Markowitz bemoans the lack of letters from readers, and, with hopes of getting some reaction, says that City Paper backs animal testing and freeing violent prisoners, but opposes Star Wars, its sequels, "your favorite band," and "your mama." In Mobtown Beat, Terrie Snyder reports that a Baltimore police major who shot ... [MORE]

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The fifth incarnation of CP's Unsung Heroes features Brennen Jensen on environmentalist Michael Beer, arts impressario Richard Tryzno Ellsberry, community healter Clyde Harris, and poor-person's lawyer David Walsh-Little; Terrie Snyder on dispute resolver Lorig Charkoudian, community organizer Helen Quill, and coach Arnold Ross; and Tom Chalkley on mortgage-default counselor Frank Fischer, tutor Gail Parker, and problem-solver Irona Pope. Mobtown Beat features Terrie Snyder on the Baltimore poli ... [MORE]

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The introduction to the 1999 edition of City Paper's Holiday Guide advises readers to "exercise your freedom of choice to do what we tell you." The cover art—Shepard Fairey's "Obey Santa"—sets an appropriate tone. Suggested gifts include East German guard hats, items being auctioned from the recently closed Haussner's Restaurant (such as a giant ball of string), shrunken heads from the American Dime Museum, boxes of Millenios cereal, mistletoe belt-buckles, bookbinding classes, and ... [MORE]

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The feature hole offers a two-fer: Ian Grey's "The Sixth Sensibility: Why horror movies are back with a vengeance" ("Horror films are all about locating our psychic pressure points.") and "My Dinner With Jerry: Getting down to fundamentals with Soulforce and Falwell" by Natalie Davis ("You could call it a miracle that this summit ever took place."). St. Frances Academy basketball star Tim Payne makes news in Michael Anft's Mobtown Beat article. The whiff of uncertainty hangs over development p ... [MORE]

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Two tech-minded stories fill the feature hole this week: Steve Perry's "Y2K: Endgames and Entropy Curves: Notes on the shape of things to come" ("Y2K problems, on the whole, are far likelier to be chronic and nagging than acute and short-lived, and more likely to result in economic than civil upheaval.") and Lee Gardner's "Station Break: Will low-power FM change the face of radio? Not if the broadcasting industry can help it" ("Corporate radio has gotten bigger while small, locally focused radio ... [MORE]

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On the cover, it's the inaugural offering of "Ooh, Scary!"—City Paper's since-institutionalized Halloween masks. Frightfully depicted are: mayoral candidates Martin O'Malley (D) and David Turafo (R); Orioles owner/super-lawyer/developer/political kingmaker Peter Angelos; U.S. Senator-for-life Barbara Mikulski; Orioles player Albert Belle; WJZ anchorwoman Denise Koch; superhero Kweisi Mfume; and the ubiquitous John Waters. The Nose gets a "pre-premiere peek" at the since-closed American Di ... [MORE]

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Andrew Reiner's cover feature, "Wooden Ships," is a first-person account of learning about wooden boat-building by helping to construct a replica of the schooner Sultana at a boatyard in Cambridge, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. In Charmed Life Tom Chalkley recounts the early-1800s adventures in Baltimore of abolitionist editor William Lloyd Garrison, who didn't last long in Mobtown, and in Books, he explains cartoonist Ben Katchor, creator of Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer. Ballot Stuffi ... [MORE]

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In the feature, Rob Goldberg, a CP graphic designer at the time, writes about sharing his name with Rob Goldberg, professional wrestler: “This big guy with muscles and no hair has inadvertently had an impact on my life – and yet he has no idea. Maybe I should tell him.” Frank Diller reviews Joyce Carol Oates two latest books. Lee Gardner reports back from the High Zero Festival at the Fells Point Creative Alliance’s Lodge and from Fletchers, where Freakwater and Sally T ... [MORE]

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Eileen Murphy's feature, "Artists in Residence", describes how some artists, done with squatting, get help legitimizing their home-studio living arrangements. "Business and community leaders aren't involving themselves in such projects for the love of art or because of sympathy for its creators," Murphy writes. "As video animator Steve Estes, who's lived illegally in a number of studios, puts it, %u2018Baltimore thinks of artists as shock troops.'" The Nose criticizes The Sun's coverage of Wi ... [MORE]

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Martin O’Malley, now Maryland’s governor, had just been elected Baltimore’s mayor 10 years ago, and CP’s scribes wrote at length about it. Editor Any Markowitz ‘fessed up to voting for the white guy, while Eileen Murphy’s Media Circus column tore up TV’s vacuous election-night coverage, Michael Anft gauged the lame-duck City Council’s reaction, and The Nose waxed about The Times of London’s coverage of Mobtown politics. In other coverage, ... [MORE]

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