Tuesday, May 11, 1999
Y2K may put a cork in high-priced bubbly
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Now we are miffed.
We put up with the boring Y2K bug stories. We endure the stream of drones arguing about when the millennium really starts. But when it causes a champagne shortage, well, the millennium becomes a crisis.
“We're already having trouble getting it,” says Peggy Kennedy, owner of Over-the-Rhine's Cabaret.
Right, agrees Bauer & Foss wine rep Mark Rehrig. “Places are stockpiling now so they'll have it later. It's an agricultural product and the Champagne region can only produce so much. When raw material runs out, that's it.
“Plus, the millennium is worldwide, so everyone everywhere is stockpiling.”
There is hope: Stockpiling, Rehrig says, is high end: “The $60-$120 range will be hard to find. I think there'll be plenty in the $30-$50 range.”
Other distributors agree: Rand Dalten, an East Coast distributor is, “certain you'll have a problem finding Dom's finest. But if you can live with a $50 bottle, you'll be fine.”
IN FULL BLOOM: Philip Thompson is dipping back 95 years to start a tradition.
Specifically, he's working like crazy to bring Bloomsday to Cincinnati. That would be June 16, 1904, the day Leopold Bloom wandered around Dublin in James Joyce's novel Ulysses.
So anyway, cities worldwide do Bloomsday with parties where guests read chunks of the novel, present papers and drink beer.
Cincinnati had its first Bloomsday last year when Thompson herded 46 like-minded souls into Arnold's. “It was loud, noisy and successful; this year, we need more room,” Thompson says.
No kidding. He has bagpiper Dave Palladino, harpist Nancy Bick Clark and singer William Williams sharing the stage with a pair of Joyce fans presenting papers and five readers. Plus 100 guests.
It's at Jack Quinn's in Covington and “might become a tradition, but what I really want is for people to read Joyce, whom I love.” It's free for the same reason. “I want them to discover Joyce.”
GHOULISH B'DAY: Wellsir, here's one that calls for a round of applause. Clap it for a guy celebrating 30 years of being ghoulish.
Referring here to Dick Von Hoene, a k a the Cool Ghoul, the late-night horror show host with Addams Family makeup, lots of orange hair and shrill scream.
He signed on May 3, 1969 after this introduction: “WXIX, with a great deal of misgivings, is nevertheless happy and proud to present ... The Cool Ghoul.”
The first film he screened was a dog about a surgeon who abandons the joys of appendectomies to dedicate his life to mixing martinis. (We like Winston Churchill's recipe: Fill a glass with gin, stare sternly at a bottle of vermouth, drink.)
A bunch of horror flicks, mostly dogs, followed until 1972, when the show died.
Nowadays Von Hoene hosts Northern Kentucky Magazine on cable.
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
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