As Bellator Fighting Championships — the second biggest Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) organization in America — prepares for Bellator 51, its Sept. 24 show in Canton, Ohio, the organization finds itself at a crossroad.
With Zuffa, LLC — the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) — purchasing fellow MMA group Strikeforce in March, Bellator remains as the lone major MMA group outside of the UFC umbrella.
The announcement that UFC will soon move its programming from SPIKE TV to the Fox family of networks has led to rampant speculation that Bellator, currently broadcasting its shows on MTV2, would soon move to SPIKE TV in response. The speculation was bolstered when it was announced that the network would begin showing Bellator preliminary bouts live on its website, SPIKE.com.
In an interview with Toledo Free Press Star, Bellator chairman/CEO Bjorn Rebney remained optimistic but noncommittal about his company’s broadcast future.
“We were blessed,” Rebney said. “Our relationship kicked off with MTV Networks, and MTV Networks is a larger corporate umbrella that controls everything that goes on — SPIKE and MTV and MTV2 and MTV3 and Comedy Central. And so since Day One, we’ve been able to leverage all the expertise of all the guys at SPIKE who, to a large extent, have been responsible for the general market crossover of MMA.”
Indeed, SPIKE TV is fairly synonymous with the sport, having been the home of UFC since its boom in popularity began in the mid 2000’s. For Bellator, founded in 2008, to find a home on SPIKE would be a major coup for a relatively young organization.
“All of the steps we’ve taken, everything that’s happened, we are in a very solid place,” Rebney said of the company’s current home on MTV2. “What the future will hold, six months, nine months, a year from now, remains to be seen.”
Rebney is also being careful with what would be another big step for the company — pay-per-view. The vast majority of UFC’s revenue comes from these premium buys, Rebney noted, but said Bellator is in no hurry to follow suit.
“What I’ve always said about pay-per-view is, it will come for Bellator when it’s right and if it’s right,” Rebney said. “In other words, our goal was always to build up the tournament format, build up the format, tell the stories behind our fighters. And if we can get to a stage where we are positioned to do pay-per-view, it will be — I hate to say it, but it will be obvious.”
The structure of Bellator’s presentation makes it unique in the MMA world. Every season (this is the fifth) is built around tournaments in a wide variety of weight classes that determine championship contenders.This structure was inspired by Rebney’s frustration with how title fights were traditionally organized.
“This is sport. You’re supposed to be able to earn your victories and earn your shot at the world title,” Rebney argued. “I think there’s justification for match-making early in a fighter’s career when a guy is making his pro debut. Or when a guy is three fights, four fights in — you don’t wanna put him against King Kong, that’s not fair. But when a guy is at a world-class level, when a guy is looking to win a world title — you should earn that.
“There should never be a moment where a fighter fights in a fight, and gives it everything he’s got, and he wins the fight. And before thanking God or mother or country or trainers or sponsors, that he looks for the promoter frenetically in the auditorium and begs for a title shot. That just — it always hit me as so untrue to sport.”
Four of the bouts in Canton will be part of the opening round of this season’s bantamweight tournament. Rebney practically glowed with excitement discussing the show, organized by Bellator and the Ohio-based North American Allied Fight Series (NAAFS).
“We formed that alliance with NAAFS and said, ‘Let’s put together a great show, let’s put together something that really sings. Let’s get big, big ticket draws and big names in the state of Ohio on the show.’ And we’ve been working with them really seamlessly to put this whole thing together and to really make it something special.”
Rebney promised a memorable event, for fans in the arena and those tuning in on MTV2.
“We offer something very special,” he said. “It’s about a four-plus-hour roller coaster of big-time excitement, big-time highlights, music videos and spectacular fights.”

Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis spoke to students at the Toledo School for the Arts this afternoon. The nine-time Grammy award winner and Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center played trumpet at the end of his lecture and took questions from students. One student asked when he started reading sheet music.

“My dad was a music teacher, so I always read music,” Marsalis said. “I wasn’t good at it, because in New Orleans the way we play you would always learn something by ear.”

Marsalis is giving another lecture tonight from 7-10 p.m. in the University of Toledo Student Union Auditorium as part of the Edward Shapiro Distinguished Lecture Series. Admission to the event is free, and seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Fresh off hosting its own festival in Bellefontaine, Ohio, The Werks is coming to Cla-Zel Theatre in Bowling Green to kick off its fall tour.
“It’s great to start the tour off at Cla-Zel,” said drummer and vocalist Rob Chafin. “We always love playing in Ohio. The fans are always a little more rabid. We always play off the crowd. If the crowd is getting into it, we explore it further and get into it even more. It’s a symbiotic relationship.”
Chafin describes the band’s sound as a fusion of genres including classic rock, jam, electronic, jazz and more. He has heard others describe the band as psychedelic dance rock and jamtronica.
“We all grew up on classic rock, so the influence is definitely prevalent,” Chafin said. “It’s nice being able to explore other aspects of music and bring it all back together. That’s what we’re all about, and it’s all about the improv that takes place while that happens.”
The Werks is truly a jam band, with most songs lasting more than 10 minutes. Chafin said the length of the songs varies at shows depending on the vibe they get from the crowd.

The Werks

“It’s almost impossible to play bad when there is a giant ball of energy in front of you,” Chafin said. “It makes you want to try your hardest and makes you better. It’s almost like I feed off of it. The bigger the crowd, the better we play.”
The band had plenty of energy to feed off at The Werk Out Music and Arts Festival as more than 3,000 people attended.
“It was absolutely amazing in our second year,” Chafin said. “Seeing everyone’s smiling face and telling me it was the best weekend of their life was very assuring that we’re doing something right.”
The Werks formed in 2005 after Chafin and keyboardist Dave Bartoletti won the University of Dayton Battle of the Bands competition with their band Thesaurus.
“It felt like we just won ‘The Price Is Right,’” Chafin said. “It was hilarious because we beat The Maji, and now two of them are in our band. It was reaffirming. The one thing musicians need more than anything is confidence. It’s hard to get on stage at first.”
Guitarist Chris Houser and bassist Chuckie Love from Cheezcake joined up with the members of Thesaurus after the competition. Houser also competed in The Maji with keyboardist Norman Dimitrouleas, who joined The Werks in 2008 after Bartoletti left to pursue environmental studies. Chafin still hasn’t let them live down the loss.
“I give Norman crap all the time,” Chafin said. “He hates it. He gets so pissed and always says it was rigged. Norman always has conspiracy theories.”
They were struggling to come up with a name for the band until they saw “the works” on the menu at a Steak ‘n Shake. They changed it to The Werks to make it different. Chafin enjoys the marketing opportunities of the name.
“We had these stickers all summer that said ‘Werk It’ on them,” he said. “We went through 50,000 of them over the summer. Girls were slapping them on their asses and tits. They were neon yellow and glowed in the dark. It was funny. You can go anywhere with a name like ours. Our street team calls themselves the Werkers Union.”
Unlike most drummers, Chafin sings lead on several songs and has a voice when it comes to songwriting.
“It’s something you don’t see every day,” he said. “If I can get away with doing it, I might as well. Being able to play keyboards and guitar really helps with songwriting. I’m able to help write songs for The Werks and they’ll actually listen to me.”
Chafin learned how to play a wide variety of instruments while growing up in a musical household. He began singing and playing piano and drums with his parents when he was 5.
“I’ve always looked at music differently than most people because I was around it so much,” he said. “It took being in a garage band in high school and having my guitarist tell me that out of everyone in the band, I could make it. That stuck with me. In college, it made me want to pursue musical performance as a major.”
His choice of major is paying off; The Werks performed at more than a dozen festivals this summer including All Good Music Festival and Rootwire Music and Arts Festival.
“It’s been wild and crazy, that’s for sure,” Chafin said. “I’ve gone to more festivals in one summer than most people go to in a lifetime. It’s great meeting so many different people with different views on everything. It’s very overwhelming.”
The Werks show is Sept. 21 at 8 p.m. at Cla-Zel Theatre. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Cla-Zel Theatre is located at 127 N Main St. in Bowling Green. Visit Cla-Zel.net for more information.

It seems like you can’t go on a social networking site lately without noticing a posting for “100,000 Poets for Change.” The global arts-based phenomenon, which is set for Sept. 24, is the brainchild of famed poet and publisher Michael Rothenberg.
What is “100,000 Poets for Change” and what separates it from countless other events? On paper, this show isn’t all that different from your average poetry reading or open mic at the local coffee shop. What really makes it different is, unlike so many other events, people seem to be listening and really coming together.
“100,000 Poets for Change” is a wonderful thing, but the true test of its success can’t be measured until after Sept. 24. Poetry is great vehicle for social change and community transformation, but in the end the goal is to be able to really see others, to see, that we are not only our differences but also our similarities. We are all human beings, no matter what our walks of life.
All too often, life resembles an open mic — we’re all just waiting for our turn to speak, not really listening to anything anyone else has to say. If you attend this event, do me a favor; just think about how it feels at that moment not to be alone. I don’t care if you don’t like poetry or music — OK, maybe I care a little — but it was never about that anyway. The theme of the show here is transforming Toledo and we’re not going to do that simply by caring about music or poetry, but by caring about ourselves and those around us. Rothenberg may be on to something, because “100,000 Poets for Change” seems like a good place to start.
Toledo’s own contribution to the creative effort will take place Sept. 24 from 7-10 p.m. at the Studio Theatre in the Center for Performing Arts at the University of Toledo.
The event will feature a number of notable poets and singer/songwriters, such as Trina Stolec, Rhadsody, Jane Butler, Joel Lipman, Lorraine Cipriano, Michael Hackney, Madhu Kavia, Alfred Frank, Kerry Trautman, Adrian Lime, Sophia Lime, Matt Sradeja, Andrew Field, Michael Grover, Kayla Williams, Arnie Koester, Michael Kocinski, Melvin Douglas Johnson, Leonard Kress, Jonie McIntire, Cindy Bosley Smith, Craig Firsdon, Jackie Koch, Rachel Richardson, Gregory Peters, Imani Lateef, Douglas Lutman, Shannon Smith and Emma Smith.
Admission to the event and parking are free. This will be the first event in the renovated Studio Theatre, the space generously donated by the University of Toledo’s Department of Theatre and Film.
Immediately following Sept. 24, all documentation on the 100TPC.org website will be preserved by Stanford University in California, which has recognized “100,000 Poets for Change” as a historical event, the largest poetry reading in history. The university will archive the complete contents of the website as part of its digital-archiving program.
For more information, call (419) 476-0959 or visit www.100TPC.org.
Until next time … keep your pencil sharp.

John Dorsey resides in Toledo’s Old West End. His work is widely published and has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize.

Toledo GROWs and the Lucas County Board of Developmental Disabilities (LCBDD) will host Garden Party for the Birds, a free community event celebrating a season of gardening and birdwatching by LCBDD members as well as debuting a mural designed by an LCBDD client.
The event is set for 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sept. 23 at Manos Community Garden, in Downtown Toledo near Jackson and 14th streets. It will feature light refreshments and live music from Candice Lang at 11:30 a.m. and Toledo School for the Arts’ Glass City Steel at 12:15 p.m.
“Celebrate Urban Birds” kits and posters will be given away to the first 100 people and attendees will have the opportunity to add a bird to a mural designed by Katina Wills of LCBDD’s Environmental Club.
Also available will be tours of the garden, nature and garden displays including live rabbits and chickens, and a drawing for a bird feeder.
Since March, LCBDD clients have been observing birds and sending data to Cornell University’s Celebrate Urban Birds project.
Helen Palochko, a nature-workshop facilitator at the site, said the project is appropriate for LCBDD clients.
“Developmentally disabled people are often sheltered and overlooked and it’s the same with urban birds,” Palochko said. “People will go out to Route 2, but these urban birds are overlooked. People are always looking out for new species and not looking at the species we have right here.”

The Bowling Green Parks and Recreation Foundation is hosting its 16th Annual Wine & Cheese Social on Sept. 23 in the Simpson Building from 5-8 p.m.
The event will feature a 50-50 raffle and both silent and live auctions with WTOL-TV anchor Jerry Anderson serving as guest auctioneer. Available items include vacations, dinners, tickets and gift certificates.
The foundation is raising money to increase the number of soccer fields due to a rise in the sport’s popularity.
The Simpson Building is located at 1291 Conneaut Ave. in Bowling Green. Tickets are available for $35 by phone at (419) 354-6297 or email at rblickensderfer@bgohio.org. Visit BGOhio.org for more information.

Mark Charles Heidinger

The son of a minister, Vandaveer founder/co-vocalist/guitarist Mark Charles Heidinger has been prepped for life on the move since he was a child. Born in Canton, Ohio, Heidinger moved to Kentucky in the early 1980s, where he remained through his college days at Transylvania University before making his way out to Washington, D.C., seven years ago.
“I’m a Kentucky boy, but with Ohio pedigree,” Heidinger said.
On Sept. 27, Heidinger will return to Ohio when alt-folk duo Vandaveer comes to Toledo for a free show at the Ottawa Tavern in support of its latest album — “Dig Down Deep” — which released in April. Though Vandaveer’s music harkens to folk and Americana, Heidinger’s inspiration to become a musician and came from a different end of the musical spectrum.
“I believe I was maybe a freshman in high school when Nirvana and Pearl Jam put out their first records, and when you’re 13, 14 and those records come out, it’s a bit like a punch to the gut, I guess,” Heidinger said. “And I thought, ‘I want to pick up a guitar.’”
It was Heidinger’s father who gave him his first guitar, a 1966 Gibson Acoustic J-50. Heidinger said the guitar’s sound, as well as his love for artists like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits and Tom Petty, led to his progression into writing in the folk and Americana vein.
“I’ve done all of my writing on this guitar,” Heidinger said. “It just has such a natural, weathered, woody tone that it’s kind of hard not to write these songs on this guitar.”
Heidinger started playing clubs at about the age of 17. While in Kentucky, he performed in a band called The Apparitions, but it became difficult to spearhead that group once he moved to Washington, D.C., with his wife, who was attending graduate school. It was there that Heidinger met other “folk-minded” musicians, including Vandaveer co-vocalist Rose Guerin.

Vandaveer

“We all sort of fell together and started a little collective where we would curate these monthly events, and for a few years it was really special,” Heidinger said. “We would bring people in from out of town. We would sort of cross-pollinate and people would collaborate informally and formally, but we were curating these monthly events, and it just began to grow. Out of that, sort of informally, [I] began playing with Rose.
“She was kind of on the ground floor of this little collective we had, and I felt like every time I heard her sing it was sort of an arresting experience.”
Vandaveer released its first album — “Grace & Speed” — in 2007, and has since released two more full-lengths and an EP. The band has played nearly 500 shows in the past four years.
“I don’t set out thinking, ‘I have to write a song that fits inside this neat, little box,’” said Heidinger, who plays just about every instrument in studio and guitar and occasionally piano onstage. “My main goal, really, is just to write music that can sustain my own personal interests. And if that works, then hopefully it will resonate with people who want to pay attention.”
In addition to the musicians he’s met, Heidinger also has some French friends who are filmmakers. They have shot multiple, high-quality Vandaveer music videos, including the one for “Dig Down Deep.”
“We have just been fortunate to cross paths with some really creative people over in Paris,” Heidinger said. “They just keep bringing several ideas to the table, and we sort of hash things out together and it works really, really well. I think the French are really good at things like film, and wine and cheese — things for the senses.”
Heidinger said there has never been a master plan for Vandaveer. A father and husband with the support of his parents and family on this journey, Heidinger is just happy and grateful to be a touring musician doing what he loves.
“If at any point I’m feeling sorry for myself, or I’m feeling down or I’m feeling depressed, I almost feel ashamed to be feeling those things. Because it’s such a blessing just to actually even be alive that you’ve got to come up with some way to sort of soldier through that,” Heidinger said. “And for me, it’s songwriting.”
On Sept. 27, Vandaveer, Sean Rowe and J.W. Carlson will play a free show at the Ottawa Tavern, located at 1817 Adams St. Doors open at 8 p.m. For more information on  Vandaveer, visit Vandaveer.net.

We’ve gotten enough in the way of processed questions and answers under our belts during recent Republican Presidential debates to violate the dietary requirements imposed on residents of NYC.  If such violations were not bad enough, I hear we’re going to use YouTube video questions in this Thursday’s debate to get people involved. Don’t get me wrong, I love technology; but the way that the media treats it we might as well decide which political candidates get to run for office by how many Facebook friends they have.

I’m not sure what, if anything, these “made for TV” events have taught us about the positions of the candidates, but we have learned something about the current nature of political debates themselves. So before the next one takes away 90 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back, I thought that it might be worthwhile to share some of that education:

• The debates are too short! There’s no way you can have more than half a dozen people effectively debate on current national policy, let alone on solutions to the problems that this country is facing, and keep the process limited to a mere 90 minutes.
• The debates are too long! You can’t expect to have these boring political debates last 90 minutes without having those watching on television (a small enough number as it is) change the channel to something more compelling (like old Super Bowl commercials), while those in the live audience either nod off or charge the stage to summarily end the proceeding (a Jerry Springer move which might actually help to keep the TV audience riveted).
• No news agency holding a right to broadcast seems capable of asking questions not written for them by People magazine or Cosmopolitan. Rather than maintaining a serious tone to an even more serious process, they inject inanity in their queries that reduce political debate to the level of “Hollywood Squares.”  They might as well be asking candidates what their favorite insect or breed of dog is. (Damn, I’m sure I’ll be seeing that in the next debate now.)
• The subtle picking of front runners by podium position selection is becoming really annoying. They ought to put numbers in a hat and have each candidate draw one out at the beginning of the debate, and then take that position. It might not be the best answer, but would at least be fair and prove whether each one does (or does not) know their numbers.
• Moderators of debates should moderate and not attempt to show us how smart they are by throwing in their own little clever asides. Leave the political punditry to the talking heads that come on after the debate’s over and do the job you were hired for. If being a pundit is the gig you want, go after it and don’t accept the moderator gig (and the camera time that goes with it).
• Kill the 90 second answer nonsense. Most of us already understand the only reason news networks broadcast debates is to get sound bites; but we’re tired of having our nose rubbed in it by having candidate answers limited to them.
• The ability to look good on camera and to have some snappy comebacks does not characterize a good national leader; it defines a good stand-up comic. Televised debates winners now seem to be defined by these catchy one-liners, which would great if we wanted to pick the winner of ‘Last Comic Standing’ and not the President.

How can the American electorate be expected to take elections seriously when the mainstream media makes political debate such a joke?  These debates are no measure for picking a candidate for the leader of the free world (or at least what used to be). What they’re giving us now is barely enough to give us the most photogenic candidate or the expert in clever repartee (which is great if we’re trying to pick Miss America, but for Presidential material … not so much).

If the debate process is going to be degraded, why not take it the rest of the way down the intellectual scale and make them a combination of “Survivor” and “American Idol.”  Candidates can be filmed on a 24-hour a day basis with the really juicy parts being broadcast once a week. They could move the show from network to network on a weekly basis so all the vultures can cash in, and we could all text in to a bunch of 900 numbers to eliminate unpopular candidates over time.  It won’t be any better of a way to pick a candidate than the debates are, but at least it will be compelling television.

Larry McDougle

The president of Owens Community College announced Sept. 20 he will step down Sept. 30 due to heart-related health reasons.
Larry McDougle has been president of Owens since June 2010 and before that served as interim president, starting in January 2010.
The 70-year-old said the decision to step down was difficult, but he feels it was the right one.
“I’m doing OK, but the nature [of the heart issue] is such that my doctor and my family and I are in agreement that it’s better if I step down,” McDougle told Toledo Free Press. “It is certainly one of the hardest decisions I have had to make in my life. I am enjoying my time here at Owens. It has really been an interesting journey. There’s a lot of great people here at the college and the college has some really wonderful initiatives. It’s going to be really hard to say goodbye.”
John Satkowski, Owens executive vice president of business affairs and chief financial officer, has been appointed by the school’s board of trustees to serve as interim president, starting Oct. 1, until a new president can be found.
“John is a very capable man and he will provide excellent leadership,” McDougle said.
McDougle said he and his wife, who live in Napoleon, plan to stay in the area, where he’d like to find a part-time teaching position.
“I am able to work; I just don’t want the demands and the pressure of a college presidency,” McDougle said. “I want to do something to stay involved and keep my mind active and stay as young as I can. Prior to coming to Owens, I was teaching parttime at the University of Toledo and they have indicated they would like to have me come back, maybe teaching one or two nights per week. If that opportunity presents itself, that’s the sort of thing that would interest me.”

John Satkowski

A student’s freshman year of college is often a year of firsts, their first steps toward a future career, their first time away from home, their first taste of freedom away from mom and dad and thanks the University of Toledo; it is also their introduction to First Read. This year’s First Read book is Ron Curry Jr.’s “Everything Matters!”

So what exactly is First Read? Here’s a little info from the University of Toledo’s website.

“The First Read Program is a partnership between the Division of Student Affairs and the UT Learning Collaborative that brings incoming students together to provide a common reading experience that will introduce students to a part of their academic life while developing a strong sense of community with their fellow students, faculty and staff, both inside and outside the classroom.”

“We try to get students talking about the same issues and social events by creating a dialogue through the use of the assigned text. By engaging them, students they are able to see things differently, to debate. What we do with our lives matters and that starts with reading and writing. This program is a great conversation starter. A lot of universities have First Read programs,” said Jennifer Rockwood, Director of UT’s First Year Experience program. “I think that “Everything Matters!” is a good fit for our program because it touches on everything, from mortality to drug addiction, to family.”

Curry will be speaking on the college campus on Tuesday, September 20, at 4pm in Doermann Theatre. He had this to say about his own writing and the First Read.

“My book is obviously a metaphor for how we deal with mortality. I don’t see it as a young adult novel, but simply as a coming of age story. I think it’s interesting that programs like this use fiction when we keep hearing that the novel is dying, My books are my way of dealing with how I think about things, but far as what students will take away from my work and the First Read experience, I want them to see that fiction still has value, both in terms of entertainment and cultural growth.”

Curry is also the author of “God Is Dead.” His presentation is free and open to the public. UT’s First Read program also includes live sessions, twitter feeds, an essay contest, and even an “End of the World” party.

For more information, visit www.utoledo.edu/coil/fye/first-read.html or call 419-530-2330.