John McConnell at Franklin's Barrow Civic Theatre has asked me to pass along the fact that tickets are still available for the Jason Michael Carroll show tonight at 8:00pm concert at the door. Venango County’s own Jeffrey Michael Lloyd will open the show.

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Speaking of the Barrow, The Franklin Rotary Club has taken on the project of refurbishing the Barrow Little Theatre and is looking for volunteers for the following:
July 13-- 6:00 to 8:30 pm Rip-up existing carpet
July 14-- 8:30 am to noon Begin cleaning and scrub down of walls
July 20-- 6:00-8:30 pm Finish Prepping Walls
July 21-- 8:30am - noon Prime Walls
July 27-- 6:00-8:30pm Paint Walls

Drop Ronnie Beith a line and tell her when you’ll be there and please mention you saw it here.

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HOLeY JEANS plays Oil City’s Concert series at noon tomorrow at the Central Avenue Plaza.

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Jerome Wincek plays Hollywood theater in Pittsburgh on July 12, 2007 at 7:30 pm

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After two years, Yankee Zydeco Company is calling it quits. Which I guess means they will not playing in OC later this summer as scheduled.

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Venangoland has been updates with a local treasures post.

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New Castle’s Hoyt Institute show, A Sampling of Contemporary Mid-Atlantic Artists, is running from now until Aug. 3. Look for a review here in the next week or so.

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New York's the Comics Page blog is excerpting the graphic novel Crossing Midnight.

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Poet Philip Booth has died.

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I’ve been listening to a lot of St. Vincent this summer. She’s profiled as Paste magazine's band of the week and some live tunes are available.

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The Sew Useful Contest, a joint project of Etsy and Instructables just extended their deadline to July 16th,

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Several years ago, my wife and I took her parents on one of the scheduled winery tours along Lake Erie. While I expected fancy pants like myself learning about local wines, instead there were busloads of drunks (include a group of Erie area teachers who somehow got permission to use one of the district buses – I’m guessing they didn’t mention the keg they placed on board. I will admit however, that I was less shocked by that than I was at the Volant Winery where the woman at the wine bar told my brother and me that Brokeback Mountain was the funniest movie she had ever seen) flinging elbows, cursing, and, then having a very special moment when one of the patrons wet himself while shouting nonsense.

That was the last time I went on one of the tours and I always try to steer people away from them. I thought it some sort of hillbilly spillover, but it turns out that all the nations’ wine regions are suffering from drunks.

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The New York-based National Coalition against Censorship has asked Three Rivers Arts Festival executive director Elizabeth Reiss to "clarify the festival's relationship with its various contributors and re-affirm [her] commitment to artistic merit, open dialogue and free expression."

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The Post Gazette lists upcoming readings including Lee Gutkind and Jim Daniels

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A Gannon prof who lives in Pittsburgh writes about his commute. Perhaps what's most interesting is not the commute (I know plenty of profs who do crazy long commutes), but how he characterizes Erie of being berefit of chess clubs and ballet. Ouch. On a side note, I too someday dream of ditching my current commute for a sweet teaching gig at Venango Campus. Someday....

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I know nothing about baseball aside from the fact that my wife likes the Seawolves and I like drinking beer in the sun. But when a gadget like Livebox comes out, geek-lust supercededs common sense.

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My friend Jared Cater’s latest book of poems, Cross This Bridge At A Walk, has been named a poetry finalist in the “Best Books of Indiana 2007” competition.

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The literary journal ginosko has asked me to pass on that they are accepting short fiction & poetry. Downloadable issues are available on their website.

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Thanks to fourth grader Casey Hall 450 people showed up to see RL Stine at SRU. To put it into perspective, yesterday, 250 people showed up at Sen McCain's rally to announce his presidential candacy. Now, can we get the kid to come back to the area when she grows up and book shows?

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Looks like a roadtrip kind of weekend. First and most important is Friday's Jerome Wincek show at Erie's Avalon Hotel (16 w. 10th st., Erie, Pennsylvania). The hardest working man in show business is playing from 9-1 .

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The Meadville Market House is hosting Emil & the Palookas on Friday, April 27th 8:00PM - 11:00PM, $4.00 cover (or "donation"as they put it, which I guess means I can write it off.) On Saturday in the Market House, it's the Blue Planet Cafe with Gaffer, Sally Wilcox, and Title Me Wrong playing from 7:00PM to 10:00PM. Another $4.00.

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While I'm a die-hard Seawolves fan (all right, I really just like drinking Railbender Ale in the stands on sunny days.) it was great to hear that SRU will host two professional sports teams this summer. The New Castle Thunder of the North American Football League, a minor league football organization, will play its home games at Bob DiSpirito Field at N. Kerr Thompson Stadium. The Thunder will hold practice sessions at Thompson Stadium, and out of its 10-game schedule will play five regular-season home games. Home games are scheduled for June 16 and 30, July 14 and 28, and Aug. 4.

Earlier, I wrote about the Slippery Rock Sliders, one of the newest teams in the independent Frontier Baseball League, calling SRU home for the upcoming season. The Sliders' home opener is set for May 29.

I'm kind of surprised that a place like Oil City hasn't tried to score a farm team.

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The line up for the Firefly Music Festival has been announced.
The Jul 27, 2007 festival on The Arthur Farm (28555 White hill RD. Cambridge Spring, PA 16403) features:
The Recipe, Big Leg Emma, Grassfire, The Yankee Zydeco Company, Sage, Gypsy Dave and the Stump Jumpers, Jay Hitt, Salmon Frank, The Sofa King Cool Band, Milo Page, Jim Froman's Hot Rhythm Club Band, The Great American Gypsies, Peppertown, Gaffer, Little Country Giants, Claire Stuczynski and Dan Wilcox.
That's a whole lot of hippie love, people. More acts will be announced.

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Seneca's Brother Bean has announced their upcoming Saturday acoustic shows. Shows start at 7 pm and are cover free:

4-28-07 Jesse Lavery
5-5-07 Psalters
5-12-07 Big Tone
5-19-07 Bruce and Sean
5-26-07 Donna Donahue
6-2-07 Newman
6-9-07 Jime Teifer
6-16-07 Jon Felton and his Soulmobile
6-23-07 Bruce Squared
6-30-07 Ryan Waterman
7-7-07 Dennis McCurdy and the Lonesome No More Band.

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The Monongahela Review is seeking submissions of poetry, prose (fiction or nonfiction), and photography/art. It's a .pdf publication which I think is a stunningly good idea for a small press lit mag.

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I wish I was headed to the 2007 Symposium on Lensless, Alternative and Adaptive Photographic Processes a four-day, Pittsburgh wide series of talks, workshops and exhibits on lensless, historic and adaptive DIY photography conference. It started today and is sponsored by f295.

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The six-day Russian Film Symposium, co-presented by the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Filmmakers, begins Mon., April 30, and offers a dozen films, to be shown on the Oakland campus and at the Melwood Screening Room, in North Oakland.

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The Three Rivers Arts Festival, taking place June 1-17, recently announced its music schedule. --Cowboy Junkies, Robert Randolph and Los Lonely Boys.

The local main-stage night will feature local psychedelic heroes Black Moth Super Rainbow and indie rockers Race the Ghost on June 4.

The Market Square stage, meanwhile, hosts the Circuits of Steel experimental/electronic showcase June 8, featuring Grand Buffet, Rein[Forced], Discuss and Xanopticon. Arts collective Unicorn Mountain's Storybook Wonderland is there on June 9, and new TRAF partner FLUX, the multi-disciplinary arts party that recently re-debuted in Braddock, will be held on June 16.

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My daughter and I were torn about going to the Pittsburgh Comicon. In the end, we decided that we would be more annoyed than amused and nixed it. But if your tolerance is higher than ours, head to the ExpoMart, Monroeville.When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday

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