By Violet Levoit (Baltimore City Paper, 5/22/2013)

Baltimore Charm Quarterback Angela Rypien, left, and wide receiver Jeanine Batcher — Photo by JEFFERSON JACKSON STEELE

“For me, the hardest thing was when I put the uniform on,” says Angela Rypien, quarterback for the Baltimore Charm. “It feels like you’re in something you’d wear to the beach. But when you’re at the beach and wearing a swimsuit, you’re not wearing shoes.”

Angela Rypien, 21 years old, 6 feet tall, 150 pounds, wears number 11, just like her father, former Redskins quarterback and Super Bowl XXVI MVP Mark Rypien—except Rypien Sr. never had to play football in a bra and panties. But that’s the lay of the land for players on the Baltimore Charm, one of 16 North American franchises of the Legends (formerly Lingerie) Football League. The Charm start their 2013 season this Saturday, May 25, against the Jacksonville Breeze. Their home debut, at 1st Mariner Arena, comes two weeks later, against the Philadelphia Passion.

Spectators who come to see Charm games will see football—a 50-yard field, four eight-minute quarters, seven women per side—played by fierce, capable women wearing a bizarre combination of tacky and fearsome: cleavage-baring bras and boy-short panties in “performance material,” topped by football shoulder pads covered by a strange, elastic-hemmed piece of cloth that doesn’t hide the bra, giving the player a constant pulling-up-her-shirt look. It’s equal parts titillating and bizarre, a jarring mashup of the hypermasculine, he-man drag of football attire and “I dreamed I was playing tackle football in my Maidenform bra.”

Continue reading “Charm Offensive” at Baltimore City Paper.

More by Violet LeVoit:

• Best’s “Tilt” Showroom, 1978-1997
• The Adaptive Reuse Of Little Taverns

By Kurt Lockwood (Baltimore City Paper, 5/20/2013)

Photo by J.M. Giordano

I grew up in the Dundalk area of town and graduated from Patapsco High School way back in 1988. I’m a Baltimore Boy through and through – if you cut me I bleed Old Bay and Natty Boh.

It took many years for me to accept this about myself. When I was growing up in the 1980s in economically depressed and socially backwards, thinly populated Dundalk, I found it quite difficult (and painful) to be accepted as Patapsco High School’s resident counter-cultural-punk-rock-provocateur-artiste. Thankfully, things are quite different today. These days, I am celebrated for and indeed make my living as such, being an award-winning, internationally-known adult film star of nearly 1,500 pornographic scenes shot with the most attractive Penthouse Pets, Playboy models, and sexy adult starlets all over the world, and appearing on the nationally televised Showtime series, “Family Business.”

Penelope Stone shows off her domes while she gets a man lock on Kurt Lockman

Continue reading “Dundalk’s Prodigal Porn Star Writes Home” at Baltimore City Paper.

Related: Kurt Lockwood also performs as a standup comedian:

Related: ”It Used to be a Skill, Now it’s a Pill: A male porn star from Dundalk talks about sex, politics, and rock ’n’ roll – Baltimore City Paper

Mark Harp returns in spirit to SoWeBo Fest

I’m really looking forward to this year’s Memorial Weekend highlight, the 30th annual SoWeBohemian Arts & Music Festival (aka the SoWeBo Arts & Music Festival or, simply, The SoWeBo Fest) on Sunday May 26. Mainly because not only will the “Marble Bar Redux” stage at the corner of Arlington and Lombard once again feature musical blasts from the past that I actually remember (The Beatoes, The Motor Morons, Thee Katatonix), but this year will also feature The Mark Harp All-Stars paying homage (which sounds way too serious!) to – and having fun with (that sounds much better!) – the music of The Big Man himself, our dearly departed friend and musical-genius-mentor Mark Linthicum (aka “Mark Harp,” “Harpo,” “Corky Neidermayer” and “The King of Peru”), who left this mortal coil well before his time on Christmas Eve of 2004. Geesh, former Null Set/Cabal and Black Pete frontman – and longtime Harp collaborator – Bill Dawson (aka “Bil Dawson” back in the day) is coming all the way up from Jacksonville, Florida for this shindig, so that tells you something about what a big deal the Big Man was, and continues to be to those discerning music lovers in B-more who “get it.”

Listen to Null Set (Bill Dawson, Mark Harp, John Chreist, Lou Frisino) play their theme song.

Beatoes fans should get there early, as the Too-Ugly-for-MTV boys will take the stage at High Noon.

The Beatoes kick-start Marble Bar Redux at Noon

Watch The Beatoes guest appearance on The Scott & Gary Show.

Thee Katatonix will bring their Beltway Beat to Shake Shake the masses at 5 p.m., followed by Mongolian Glow at 6 p.m.,  The Motor Morons at 6:30 p.m., and The Mark Harp All-Stars (with a Cecil B. DeMille-worthy “cast of thousands”) at 7 p.m.

This incarnation of the All-Stars playing the Mark Harp back catalog will include Ben Watson (lead guitar), David Zidek (bass), Chris “Batworth” Ciattei (drums), Beefalo Bob Friedman (keyboards), Robyn Webb (rhythm guitar), Ceil Strakna (vocals), Cindy Borchardt (vocals), Valerie Favazza (vocals) and special guest appearances by Chris Dennestaedt (The Beatoes, Casio Cats, Poverty & Spit), David Wilcox (Chelsea Graveyard, Pooba, The Alcoholics) and, of course, the aforementioned Bil(l) Dawson.

Big thanks to Robyn Webb for orchestrating the Mark Harp All-Stars project; Robyn also MC’ed the Marble Bar Redux stage line-up last year. Returning to manage the line-up this year is none other than iconic Motor Moron and Pleasant Liver singer Fred Collins, who co-managed Marble Bar Redux 2012 with fellow Motor Moron Sam Fitzsimmons. (As they say in horse breeding parlance, those are studs with really good bloodlines for this racing card.) Like just about everybody associated with the Marble Bar line-up, Robyn and Fred once played with Mark Harp.

Watch a clip of Fred manically performing “Big Headed Baby” with the Pleasant Livers at the 2012 SoWeBo Festival, below:

I would be remiss if I did not post Scott Kecken’s short film “SoWeBohemian,” a video time capsule of the sights and sounds of SoWeBo festivals past – including cameos of a young, svelte Scott Huffines…

Svelte Scott says, “SoWeBo is an excuse to drink!”

…and the non-facial parts of Tom Warner‘s body that won’t break a camera lens (look for a below-the-neck shot of him holding a Zim Zowie flyer in his Robin the Boy Wonder t-shirt!).

And finally, as we count down the days to the “Marble Bar Redux Redux,” enjoy this field report from last year’s festivities,  “Marble Bar Redux,” posted by yours truly.  Hope to see you all out there Sunday! – Tom Warner

***

Marble Bar Redux @ SoWeBo Festival

by Tom Warner (Accelerated Decrepitude, May 29, 2012)

“I had a great time at the Sowebo festival yesterday! The Redux stage proved that it doesn’t matter how old you are, you can still rock out! I got there just in time for the Pleasant Livers, and then watched Thee Katatonix, Motor Morons and Ben Watson’s World Media War and everyone was fantastic. So good to see so many of you there!”
- Amy Linthicum, Girl Reporter (via Facebook post)

As usual, Amy Linthicum says best what I can only flail at with my forked tongue. But my tongue must flail, so here goes…Yes, SoWeBohemian Festival 2012 was a blast – and a true blast from the past for those 80′s Punk/New Wave relics like us who still fondly remember the Marble Bar (which closed its doors in 1985), the Galaxy Ballroom and its associated renegade musical spirit. The Marble/Galaxy contingent were treated to their own “old timey sounds” area, the “Marble Bar Retrospective” on the Redux Stage – where co-stage managers Sam Fitzsimmons (Motor Morons) and Fred Collins (Motor Morons, Pleasant Livers) oversaw the day’s entertainment. They were ably assisted by emcee Robyn Webb, who introduced the day’s numerous acts and kept the rock rolling smoothly.

Continue reading “Marble Bar Redux” at Accelerated Decrepitude.

Related Links:
Mark Harp’s All-Stars (Facebook event post)
SoWeBohemian (Baltimore Or Less)
Scott Kecken’s “SoWeBohemian” film short (YouTube)
Marble Bar Redux @ SoWeBo Festival 2012 (Accelerated Decrepitude)

“You can’t kill stupid; you can only attempt to contain it. Like on a very large infield.” – (Source: “The Quotable Tom Warner Omnibus.”)

“In 2009, the first year without B.Y.O.B., attendance plummeted to 77,850 from 2008′s 112,222…” (Source: Maryland Department of Business & Economic Development)

Shed a Tear Everyone. The Great Urinal Run at the Preakness Is No More.

From FanIQ (5/15/09)

The Running of the Urinals in bygone daze at Pimlico Race Course.

After last year’s Preakness, word broke that Pimlico was going to do the unthinkable, they were going to disallow patrons who attended the event from bringing in their own beer.

Now, at first, you’re probably saying to yourselves, so what? What do the snooty bastards in the stands with their million dollar horses need to bring their own beer in for?

Ah, but you see friends, the infield – not the stands – is where the action is always at. That’s where the debauchery and depravity happens. And it’s where the great Preakness Urinal Run was born. If you don’t know what the Urinal Run is, it’s quite simple. You get up on top of a row of urinals, and you dash across them as quickly as possible while people throw (oftentimes full) beer cans at you. Observe:

Is it ridiculous? Of course. Is it stupid? Oh, it’s beyond stupid. But it is tradition. And now, it will be no more.

Pimlico has officially canned it’s BYOB policy. You will now only be able to get beer at the track in plastic cups. And that’s not going over well with people.

Ticket sales are already down 15% (which could be due to the economy I guess) even though Pimlico will be bringing in ZZ Top (they’re still alive?) to perform this year.

I am devastated, and I know gearhead is too. Nothing beats dodging beer cans while watching horses race.

So, in one last tribute, I give you this great picture montage.

Don’t worry, he lived. But the BYOB policy did not.

Farewell, old friend. Farewell.

See also:

5 Best Preakness Toilet Run Videos (DailyCaller.com)
At Preakness, Not Everyone’s Idea of Fun (Joe Drape, NY Times)
“Preakness infield infamous for a different sort of race” (Examiner.com)
“Freakness at Preakness: Running of the Urinals” (Horsenation.com)
“And They’re Off!”: Port-a-Potty Racing 2007 (YouTube)

The only Triple Crown champion to be bought at auction, the undefeated Seattle Slew proved a steal, sweeping the 1977 Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

The anticipation of Saturday’s Preakness Stakes set us thinking: Who are the greatest Maryland thoroughbreds of all time — the horses who were bred, born, owned or trained here?

To that end, The Sun presents its Sweet 16 of Maryland racing history, an elite group of champion colts and fillies of the past century who have done the Free State proud.

See whether you agree.

Continue reading “Maryland’s Sweet 16″ at baltimoresun.com.

Anticipation of today’s 138th running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course made us think back to the biggest thoroughbred race in the history of Baltimore public access television. Yes, we’re talking about the historic Atomic TV Classic held at Pimlico on June 16, 2001 and presented by Atomic TV ‘s Tom Warner and Scott Huffines. Unlike the high-class, high-profile Preakness, the Atomic TV Classic reflected its low-budget, lo-fi public access roots: it was run over a course of five furloughs, featured a field of 2-year-old “maidens” (track parlance for glue-factory pedigree nags that have never won a race), and offered its champion an underwhelming purse of $25,000.

But, boy, what a field! It easily held the record for the most-creatively named mounts, making the 1st (and only) running of the Atomic TV Classic a veritable “Freakness Stakes” jewel (albeit zircon-encrusted) in Baltimore’s non-existent Public Access Triple Crown.

Note that many of the unusually named ponies (such as the coupled entry Pontiff in My Pants and Nun with Two Dicks) came from the unstable stables of legendary inbreeder Ivan Brunetti. They were all scratched and replaced by a new card; for details, stay posted for an update at Baltimore Or Less (www.baltimoreorless.com).

Related Links:
Conan’s Terrible Kentucky Derby Names (YouTube)
15 Best Names in Horse Racing (Bleacherreport.com)

Baltimore’s legendary “Sip & Bite” restaurant was profiled on the Food Network.

Grating goofball gourmet Guy Fieri (you know, the guy with the gruff throat-cancer voice trying way too hard to be cool with his SoCal Porn Star Look – dyed-blond hair, tats, earrings, Oakley wrap-around shades – and his shirt worn out to cover his fat belly, as is the current Hipster Vogue) visited the legendary Sip & Bite restaurant in Fells Point in April of 2012 for an episode of his Food Network television show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

The Sip & Bite is a family business that has been serving homemade diner and Greek delicacy food in town since 1948. Original owner Antonios Vasilades’s grandson Tony Vasilades now runs the 24-hour diner (lauded fo its “Best Breakfast … Best Late-Night Dining … Best Crab Cakes … Best Cheap Eats” – AOL City Guide, 2005) with his wife Sofia.

Guy really dug the couple’s Old Bay-seasoned crabcakes with their “big, fat chunks” of lump crab.

“You get two of them?,” he exclaimed. “Who can eat that much food?!” (We don’t think he’d have a problem with it!)

He also dug Sofia’s Famous Spanikopita, made from a spinach pie recipe handed down by Sofia’s grandmother and featuring healthy portions of flavorful goat and ricotta cheese .

Watch Sip & Bite featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

See also:
Sip & Bite (Facebook)

As a card-carrying AARP member and aging Baby Boomer who grew up in the ’60s, it’s needless to say that I grew up loving everything to do with The Beatles. So when I saw that “Good Ol’ Freda,” a documentary about their personal secretary Freda Kelly, was premiering May 9, 2013 at the 15th Maryland Film Festival, my Beatles-loving girlfriend and I immediately bought tickets. Little did we know that there was a Baltimore connection to this story from across the Pond. In fact, this film might never have been made without the efforts of a 16-year-old Arbutus Beatles fan, Kathy McCabe (a graduate of the Institute of Notre Dame and Towson State University), and her filmmaker nephew Ryan White. (We saw it last night and it’s great!) Thanks to Geoffrey Himes, who caught the film at its March 2013 SXSW Film Festival premiere, for spreading the news in his City Paper review! (P.S.: the film’s title comes from a Beatles Christmas record shout-out from George Harrison, who thanks her for all her hard work running the Beatles Fan Club!) – Tom Warner

GOOD OL’ FREDA
Baltimore connection brings the Beatles’ longtime secretary’s story to the big screen

By Geoffrey Himes, City Paper (May 8, 2013)

Freda Kelly and Paul McCartney

Good Ol’ Freda, a documentary about Freda Kelly, the Beatles’ personal secretary and head of the Beatles Fan Club, has been a hit on the film-festival circuit. When it premiered at the South by Southwest Film Conference in March, it sold out two shows, and in April it won a $5,000 audience-choice award for best film at the Cleveland International Film Festival. Just weeks before its local debut at the Maryland Film Festival, it was picked up for national distribution by Magnolia Pictures.

When I saw it in Texas, it wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t a thinly veiled excuse to make yet another movie about the Beatles; it actually did focus on Kelly, who deserves the attention, surprisingly enough. You can’t understand the phenomenon of the Beatles without understanding their strong connection to the teenage girls in their hometown of Liverpool. “No one took those girls seriously,” Kelly says in the movie’s key line, “but I did, because I was one of them.”

She was a 17-year-old secretary who spent her lunch hours at the Cavern, a nightclub near her office. Playing the lunchtime show every day were four scruffy lads in black leather: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Pete Best. She got to know the boys by chatting after the shows, and when their fledgling fan club became too much for another woman, Kelly took it over. Then, when the band’s new manager, Brian Epstein, needed a secretary, he hired Kelly.

Yet, her story would never have been told if it hadn’t been for a 16-year-old girl in Baltimore. That’s how old Kathy McCabe was in 1964, when she wrote to The Beatles Monthly, the magazine edited by Kelly and published by the Beatles Fan Club, seeking a pen pal from England. Before long, she and her 14-year-old sister Peggy were corresponding monthly with two Liverpool teenagers: Robbie and Sandra Malloy. The mutual interest was so strong that Robbie visited Baltimore in 1966 and Kathy visited Liverpool in 1970. McCabe met Billy Kinsley, Sandra’s husband and lead singer for the Merseybeats, the Liverpool band that played with the Beatles more than 50 times.

“To me, it was just unbelievable,” recalls McCabe, the producer of Good Ol’ Freda. “I was a die-hard Beatles fan, and like any other girl at that time, I just wanted to hear a Liverpool accent. Peggy and I used to do phone calls with Robbie when it was $2.50 a minute just to hear him talk. I met Freda, because she was part of Billy and Sandra’s circle. This group of guys and girls had this big friendship circle, and I became part of that circle. All these people had seen the Beatles play at the Cavern, and I wanted to know everything. For me, it was a dream come true.”

Continue reading “Good Ol’ Freda” at citypaper.com.

Kathy McCabe (second from left) and Freda Kelly (third from left) at SXSW Film Festival

*** See “Good Ol’ Freda” ***

Producer and Baltimore native Kathy McCabe is presenting “Good Ol’ Freda” in two screenings at the 2013 Maryland Film Festival: Thursday, May 9 at 5 p.m. at The Charles Theater and Sunday, May 12 at 12 noon at the MICA Brown Building.

*** Watch “Good Ol’ Freda” Trailer ***

Good Ol’ Freda: SFIFF56 Clip from San Francisco Film Society on Vimeo.

Kickstarter Trailer

*** More “Good Ol’ Freda” Links ***
Good Ol’ Freda (official site)
Good Ol’ Freda (Facebook)
Good Ol’ Freda (IMDb)
Maryland Film Festival Program Guide entry

*** More About Baltimore’s Kathy McCabe ***

Catonsville’s Kathy McCabe today (Photo courtesy of Kathy McCabe)

Kathy McCabe is an award-winning photographer and Beatles expert with widespread experience in the music industry.  She has worked as a publicist and manager, a music video and album producer, and also a recording studio manager.  She was a publicist and marketer for Pelada and initiated and engineered the production of Good Ol’ Freda.  Kathy was born in Baltimore, MD and graduated from Towson State University with a degree in Political Science & History.  She lives between Catonsville, MD and Gulf Shores, AL.  She is an avid wildlife photographer and travels regularly with her musician husband Mac Walter. For more than 30 years she sang in bands in the Baltimore area, and is especially remembered for her band The Uncertain Things, a popular band at The Bluesette. – 2013 Maryland Film Festival Program Guide

Check out The Uncertain Things’ on Facebook!

Not be outdone, McCabe’s husband Mac Walter is also musical – he plays with Governor Martin O’Malley’s band, O’Malley’s March!

Kathy McCabe with the Uncertain Things

In her blog “Dashboard Confessions of an Undisciplined Mind,” McCabe’s friend Kathleen Barker mused:

She flew through the hallowed halls of Baltimore’s Institute of Notre Dame, waving black-and-white Polaroid pictures for just one dollar each.  Where else could you get a personal memento of The Beatles U.S. debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on February 9, 1964?  Kathy McCabe was a promoter while still dressed in the pleated plaid skirt and saddle shoe uniform of IND, before she even knew what that term meant.  And she was absolutely crazy over this new group from Liverpool, England.  She LOVED music…so much so that she was almost expelled from the all-girls Catholic school for an in-school performance.  We sat through lots of performances during our time at IND:  choral groups, drama club, etc., but never had a student dared to put on one like Kathy did.  The curtain drew back to reveal (GASP) a group of girls performing a Beach Boys’ number, with Miss McCabe hammering away on a set of drums.  The principal rushed to the stage, her black veil flying behind her, and shut down such an affront to womanly decency.

If you happened to stop by the gathering place for local Baltimore music in the mid 1960’s and 70’s – The Bluesette – you’d have seen her, decked out in hippie chick garb, singing with The Uncertain Things band and elsewhere for over thirty years.  Time moved on, and many of us re-directed our youthful passions, but not Kathy McCabe.  I caught up with my former classmate recently and discovered that she has indeed continued to do what she always loved.

Her talent for picture-taking extended far beyond those Polaroids, too.  She is an award-winning photographer, who has worked as a publicist and manager, a music video and album producer, a recording studio manager, and a publicist and marketer for “Pelada”, a documentary film about pick-up soccer games around the world, far from the manicured fields of professional sports.  After making the rounds of about 30 film festivals, it was picked up by PBS and Netflix.  You can check “Pelada” out at pelada-themovie.com.

Kathy also happens to be an expert on all things Beatle.  If you are wondering what good it does to know everything there is about the Fab Four, well pull up a chair…

*** Watch Videos ***

 Freda Kelly at 2011 Beatlesfest in NJ

Beatles 1963 Christmas Record

Freda gets a shout-out from George (the not-so-quiet Beatle) at around the 4:20 mark!