@ Pritchard Park in downtown Ashvegas.

A server raving about his chef.

Such a simple thing, but when you're mulling a complex menu, there's nothing quite like it to inspire confidence and an adventurous spirit.

“I keep trying it at home,” ours said of chef-owner Hugo Ramirez's chorizo and sweet potato hash, “but I can't quite get it.”

This is Limones in Asheville, where Ramirez, a Mexico City native who worked in San Francisco, offers an inventive lineup that leans on both places (and some French technique, too).

“What Hugo does,” our server raved on, “is put things together.” He went on to recommend appetizers of housemade ceviche (fish or shellfish “cooked” with lime juice) and chicken tinga taquitos with chipotle caldillo. Tinga is a well-seasoned braise; here it's rolled into corn tortillas, fried and served in a spicy chile broth that's at once biting and smooth.

Can't wait to see 'em next weekend!

McLeod was stabbed in the parking lot of Beaucatcher Cinemas on Tunnel Road Friday night. He asked movie theater employees for help, and was transported to Mission Hospitals, where he died early Saturday morning.

Asheville police say McLeod was a native of Jamaica, but had lived in Asheville for five years. Anyone with information should call APD at 252-1110 or CrimeStoppers at 255-5050.

More as I get it.

John McCain may veer to the right, but make no mistake: The Republican presidential contender is a born lefty, just like his Democratic counterpart, Barack Obama.

Statistically speaking, based on their representation in the general population, a left-handed leader should emerge only once every eight presidents. Yet, come January, five of our most recent seven presidents will have been lefties. (That's counting Ronald Reagan, who allegedly converted to the right hand but used his left to point, shoot, and slap Angie Dickinson in one movie.) In fact, the presidency has been in the hands of lefties for 22 of the past 34 years, during all but the Carter and George W. Bush administrations.

Why the disproportionate number of left-handed leaders? Is a port-sided president more apt to right the ship of state?

Scientifically speaking, what this country may need is an ambidextrous leader.

"Those with a strong right or left hand are more likely to cling to beliefs and discount new information that contradicts those beliefs," says Stephen Christman, a professor of behavioral psychology at the University of Toledo. "Mixed-handers are better able to see both sides of the story. If you want change, you might be better with a mixed-handed candidate."

After examining hundreds of photos of the future Republican and Democratic nominees, Christman found that McCain appears to be strongly left-handed, while Obama uses his right hand for certain tasks, including hand-to-mouth (eating a sandwich or pizza). Even today, many cultures prohibit use of the left hand for eating from a communal pot or performing certain customs. In Indonesia, where Obama spent four years as a child, travel guides warn visitors not to use their left hands (it's considered rude), particularly when touching food or drink. This might explain why the candidate uses his right hand to eat finger food but his left to eat with utensils.

Or perhaps it's a way to fake out an opponent. Obama's personal aide, Reggie Love, who plays basketball with the candidate most mornings, told the New York Times, "A lot of people still don't know he's left-handed, so he can get to the basket and get his shot off, even though he's not the most explosive or tallest player on the court."

Life as a lefty also may instill some of the necessary qualities of a leader, social scientists say.

"Most left-handers of the older generation, and some of the present, were exposed to quite a bit of direct pressure" to use the right hand, says Michael Peters, professor of psychology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, "and their persistence in doing what they wanted to do speaks of determination and some independence of mind."

Forced to "adjust to a right-handed world, [left-handers] feel more marginal," Howard Gardner, professor of cognition and education at Harvard, suggests in an e-mail. "Marginality has its costs, but it typically allows you to see the world differently from other people," he explains, "and that can be a strength. Many artists, architects and other creative types . . . are left-handed, more than one would expect from chance. In the best of circumstances, this 'extra vision,' so to speak, may help you to discern trends more easily and to be less likely to be caught up in the conventional wisdom."

This summer, the Laugh Your Asheville Off Comedy Festival returns to downtown Asheville July 17th, 18th & 19th expanding last year's two nights of stand-up into a three-day festival. This year's festival is proudly presenting NBC's Last Comic Standing winner Alonzo Bodden, over a dozen touring comedians, a workshop for aspiring comics, a comedy magic show for kids and three different nights of performances making it the largest stand-up comedy festival in the southeast.

The Festival kicks off on Thursday July 17th with LYLAS, Asheville's first all female sketch comedy troupe. LYLAS will open the stage for an evening of stand up comedy featuring some of the funniest comics on the east coast leading to the headlining act DC's very own refreshingly hysterical Mike Storck.

Friday July 18th festival anchor, Alonzo Bodden will perform 2 shows at 7 pm and 9:30pm. Alonzo Bodden was launched into comedy stardom after winning the smash hit reality-television series Last Comic Standing on NBC. Bodden was born in Queens, New York. He has performed on numerous television shows including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Make Me Laugh, Late Friday, The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, and Comedy Central Presents. He is currently selling out theaters all across the country and he is also a talent judge on NBC's Last Comic Standing, along with Kathleen Madigan and ANT.

Saturday July19th, The Laugh Your Asheville Off Team welcomes back last years festival favorite comic Johnny Millwater to perform a child friendly comedy & magic show (11 am) as well as a stand-up comedy workshop (2pm) at 35 Below in the Asheville Community Theater. The Festival continues into the evening with a final comic blowout party performance at the Diana Wortham Theatre at 8pm, which also features Johnny Millwater along with a stage full of the funniest comedians on the East coast.

laughyourashevilleoff.com

myspace.com/laughyourashevilleoff

Buy tickets right here.

Limbaugh informed me that I was the first journalist ever to enter his home. Mary Matalin, the Republican consultant, calls the place “aspirational,” which is one adjective that fits. The place, largely designed by Limbaugh himself, reflects the things and places he has seen and admired. The massive chandelier in the dining room, for example, is a replica of the one that hung in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel in New York. The gleaming cherry-wood floors are dotted with hand-woven oriental carpets. A life-size oil portrait of El Rushbo, as he often calls himself on the air, hangs on the wall of the main staircase.

Unlike many right-wing talk-show hosts, Limbaugh does not view France with hostility. On the contrary, he is a Francophile. His salon, he told me, is meant to suggest Versailles. His main guest suite, which I did not personally inspect, was designed as an exact replica of the presidential suite of the George V Hotel in Paris.

Limbaugh is especially proud of his two-story library, which is a scaled-down version of the library at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. Cherubs dance on the ceiling, leatherbound collections line the bookshelves and the wood-paneled walls were once “an acre of mahogany.”

A fastidious man, Limbaugh has a keen eye for domestic detail. His staff lights fragrant candles throughout the house to greet his arrival from work each day. Limbaugh led me into his private humidor, selected two La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero Chisel stogies for us to smoke and seated me at an onyx-and-marble table in the study. The room opens onto a patio, a putting green and a beach. On the table was a brochure for Limbaugh’s newest airplane, a Gulfstream G550. It cost him, he told me, $54 million.

Here's the press release:

The third annual POPAsheville (POP 'A') will be held over Martin Luther King weekend, Jan. 16-18, 2009, at three venues in Asheville, NC. Focused on building and supporting a thriving touring scene in the southeast, and supporting a very nearly sold out crowd in 2007, POP 'A' band submissions are being accepted from July 7 - September 5, 2008. In addition to Asheville, NC, target cities are: Nashville, TN; Knoxville, TN; Chattanooga, TN; Charleston, SC; Boone, NC; Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA; Athens, GA; Raleigh, NC; Chapel Hill, NC.

POPAsheville is the first venue-based music festival ever held in the musically-rich city of Asheville, NC. POP 'A' is a three-day, 30+ band modern music festival held at three prominent indoor music venues (2008 sites were: The Grey Eagle, Stella Blue, and The Rocket Club).

Over the last three years, POP 'A' has grown from a modestly attended, 5-band evening (then called IdFest) to a ravaging feast of creative pop and rock, supported by nearly 1000 music fans from Asheville and beyond. Past performers include: founding band stephaniesid, Warm in the Wake, Heypenny, If You Wannas, Speedsquare, Ruby Slippers, Kellin Watson Band, Menage, EAR PWR, Jar-e, Jen and the Juice, and more.

POPAsheville's focus is to help create a thriving Southeast scene for touring bands in the pop/indie/rock genres. To this end, the POP 'A' weekend includes a music business panel discussion with industry experts, a musician's party, and other events with the goal of facilitating gig-swaps and helping indie bands with their touring and business careers.

The POPAsheville 2009 committee will offer performance spots to 20+ of the strongest pop/indie/rock bands from Asheville, NC, and also to approximately 5-10 bands that are based in or have a strong fan base in target cities.

Band Submission Criteria and Info:

1) Bands must be from or have a strong fan base in at least one target city.

2) Bands must play original pop/indie/rock music.

3) Bands must be specifically interested in active gig-swapping with other POP 'A' bands in the future, and have the realistic ability to do so.

4) Bands must have a strong live performance, as evidenced in the act's submission.

5) Bands must have recent, representative, broadcast-quality recordings (demos or EP's are OK).

6) Bands must be actively promoting shows, album, vision, etc.

7)Bands must have a website that is updated regularly with photos, shows, working links, etc. (myspace, etc. OK).

8) Bands must submit application by September 5, 2008 (details at www.popasheville.com). There is a $5.00 application fee

WHAT IS POP/INDIE/ROCK? For POP 'A' purposes, it tends (not always, but often) toward original hook-and-chorus based music (often the songs have a singable or memorable section, fans likely have a "favorite song"). So this means we could conceivably book anything from punk to arty experimental to dance to creative singer-songwriter bands to instrumental, hip-hop, r & b/soul, etc. Within the general "hook-and-chorus" guideline, we are looking for genuineness and creativity.

WHO WE WILL NOT BOOK: Overly commercial, Top 40-type bands, cover bands, bands based outside of Asheville or target cities. Also, for the main stages, we are not able to effectively promote solo performers, or bands outside the pop/rock/indie genres.

For more information, or for sponsorship information, see the POPAsheville website: www.popasheville.com.

]]>http://www.ashvegas.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-1966898.xmlAshFri, 04 Jul 2008 15:44:54 +0000http://www.ashvegas.com/journal/2008/7/4/gordon-at-scrutiny-hooligans-makes-bbc-story-on-obama.html18051:122862:1966896Gordon over at Scrutiny Hooligns gave us a heads-up earlier in the week that he had been interviewed for a BBC story on Obama's chances at taking North Carolina. I've watched the video, and Gordon articulately puts forth his stance that Obama has wide appeal.

Here's the BBC video. Gordon and the Asheville section comes near the end.

Here's the story. And a snippet:

he Democrats have not won North Carolina for the presidency since Jimmy Carter took the state in 1976 - and Mr Carter hailed from nearby Georgia so he had a big advantage.

But this year, for the first time in decades, the Democratic candidate - Barack Obama - is making a real pitch for this southern state.

Is it audacious hope or solid realism?

Since the 1960s, Democrats have largely abandoned the South, preferring to concentrate restricted campaign funds on swing states further north.

But what happens when the party nominates a candidate who has so much money he can afford to campaign in every state he chooses and who particularly appeals to one very important southern voting block - African Americans?

]]>http://www.ashvegas.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-1966896.xmlAshThu, 03 Jul 2008 18:42:30 +0000http://www.ashvegas.com/journal/2008/7/3/scooter-nation-unite.html18051:122862:1965278

Meeting is at 7 p.m. on July 7 in the Woolsy Dip along Merrimon Avenue, next to Ace of Spades tattoo parlor. Be ready to ride.

]]>http://www.ashvegas.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-1965278.xmlAshThu, 03 Jul 2008 11:57:31 +0000http://www.ashvegas.com/journal/2008/7/3/asheville-businessman-operates-hunting-preserve-in-tenn-is-i.html18051:122862:1964427The Times-News over in Tennessee has an interesting story about Robert Haun, who the newspaper describes as a businessman from Asheville, and his Grainger County hunting preserve.

Haun ships in rams, buffalo and zebras to roam a fenced in area, then charges people thousands of dollars for anybody who wants a trophy to come in and bag the animal.

Click on the link above to read the story and watch an accompanying video.

Haun's business is Clinch Mountain Hunting Adventures.

]]>http://www.ashvegas.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-1964427.xmlAshThu, 03 Jul 2008 11:53:20 +0000http://www.ashvegas.com/journal/2008/7/3/newspaper-carmichael-training-systems-helps-bikers-get-bette.html18051:122862:1964420The Tuscon Citizen has the story, which notes that Asheville is also home to one of these unique centers where bicycle riders can get performance testing and advice:

Modest beginnings - in this case a small, old single-floor house on Winstel Boulevard by the Rillito - beget great accomplishments.

With that credence, Tucsonan Gord Fraser has begun his second career with the same mind power that fueled his bicycle racing days. Except it isn't he who's doing the grinding.

The former Tour de France cyclist, 38, helps run Carmichael Training Systems on Winstel, one of three centers nationally where expert or novice riders can go for coaching and performance testing.

"Some people have simple goals, some big," Fraser says. "Some may want to beat their buddies on the Saturday morning 'Shootout' (a 60-mile loop, which begins at the University of Arizona, heads south on Mission Road to Pima Mine Road and returns via Old Nogales Highway)."

And some might be more motivated after watching the Tour de France, which begins Saturday and ends July 27.

CTS was founded by Chris Carmichael in 1999, a few years after he became Lance Armstrong's coach. When the two met in the early 1990s Armstrong was a world class cyclist, but not close to winning the first of his seven Tour de France titles.

When Armstrong began to win, after returning from cancer, Carmichael's coaching prowess became known worldwide.

"It's people getting elite type coaching at whatever level," says Jason Tullous, Fraser's business partner.

Tullous, 35, a former racer, moved from Flagstaff to take the position of co-director.

"We break down the demands of each sport," Tullous said. "The methodology is pretty basic. It focuses on three energy systems, the aerobic intake system, lactate threshold and V02 (maximal oxygen consumption).

Tucson became the third CTS training center last fall. Colorado Springs, Colo., and Asheville, N.C., are the other sites.

The "situation room" resembles an airport control tower as staff analyzes athletes - cyclists, triathletes, runners, even motor sports drivers - performances through sophisticated computer technology. Fraser relates that local walk-ins are increasing.

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