When Kix Roxx takes the Jazz Meets Origami Festival stage with his band, Razor Dragon Assault, he’ll be doing so for the final time.
  “I’m tired of being the only purveyor of eardrum destroying thrash that plays the Jazz Meets Origami Festival, and I feel that another finger-tapping wizard of shred should have the opportunity to rock the brains out of people drinking lemon shake-ups in the park,” Roxx said by phone during a break from recording RDA’s latest album, tentatively titled “Space Demon Wizards of the Night.” “We’ve been doing this for seven years now, and half the audience has plainly memorized most of our dive-bombing pinch harmonics and floating arpeggios – we can see them walking away as soon as we begin our first song! It’s time to usher in new acts like Flaming Sword of God to scorch the souls of those waiting in line to fold paper into amusing shapes.”

When I sing in the shower, or the car or am the weird dude rapping to himself, you might  catch me randomly yelling Kevin Gates lyrics like  “I’m f*cking with the plug daughter.” It’s probably because I lack the verbal dexterity to say, “Six years ago I purchased a car. Most likely something you can’t afford.”
  To be honest I lack the ability to go word for word with Gates, Wu-Tang Clan, Nas or most rap.
  I listen to rap. I tried to email the Louisiana rapper’s publicist prior to his concert Saturday. I wanted Gates’ opinion on the shootings in Lafayette, gun control, what his six jobs are, and insight on some of his more humorous interview subjects.
  But Gates either viewed the gun control/Lafayette question as problematic or just didn’t really need to talk to me because he is famous and transitioning from being someone who tours the club circuit to being a full-fledged rap star.
  He sold the Newport out.

As the FBI continues to scrutinize the relationship between Mayor Michael Coleman and Chinese business woman Jianhua Li, their investigation has exposed a tiny window into how local power brokers are wooing foreign nationals to ship their foreign-manufactured goods into Columbus’ booming and secretive Foreign Trade Zone hub at Rickenbacker airport. Where the corporate taxes are low and a significant number of workers are temporaries who “pick pack” the imported goods and paid $9-an-hour while being treated like second-class citizens, say local labor activists.
  The Free Press earlier this year wrote about Rickenbacker’s “Free Trade Zone #138,” an FTZ that by all accounts is growing into a juggernaut. In 2013 over $6.3 billion worth of merchandise was imported into Rickenbacker, ranking it in the top-ten for the nation’s 177 FTZs.

In early June The Columbus Dispatch and related publications were sold to New Media Investments for $47 million and became part of the hedge fund’s GateHouse Newspapers. Part of the deal reportedly was that current employees would keep their jobs for 90 days before the news owners could make cuts.
  That 90-day moratorium on layoffs ends around Labor Day, Sept. 7. How ironic that heads will likely roll around the time that we celebrate the working women and men of the United States.

  Typically, when a big chain purchases a family owned newspaper, the newsrooms are gutted to the tune of 25 to 50 percent. That means that dozens of Dispatch journalists will walk the plank and that eventually the paper will be a shade of its journalistic self. When the number of layoffs from other Dispatch departments is added to the journalist departures, it may cause a boost in the jobless rate in central Ohio.

  You won’t read about any negative consequences of the Dispatch takeover in the Dispatch because its editors are walking on pins and needles to please their new owners, hoping to save their jobs.

Ten years ago on August 2, 2005, the city lost an extraordinary man, Bill Moss. As an independent politician – with no Party machine to fund him, handle him, or promote him – he built his own movement of people who voted him onto the School Board for five terms.
   He fought relentlessly for equality for all children and a quality public education. He was an uncompromising advocate for the poor and the and repeatedly exposed corruption and sweetheart deals. His actions saved WCBE from being privatized and sold for pennies on the dollar.
   But Bill was more than a political maverick. He was a soulful prophet who warned us of the shape of things to come. He was Columbus' Berry Gordy, his Capsoul record company standing as a monument to his creative genius. He was the Nassau Daddy of barbeque and as “the Boss with the Red Hot Sauce,” one of the best damn disk jockeys in the city. The Reverend Moss also could preach a great sermon a la the Rev. Al Green and provide a rousing gospel music show to heal the afflicted and afflict the well-heeled.