SO YOU WANT TO MOVE TO ASHEVILLE?

SO you want to move to Asheville? Motivated to join The Last of the Hippie Tribe? Or thirsty for handcrafted beer? Or you read all these travel mag pitches about spiritual sweetness, healthy food living and happy, artsy people vibe? Let's see... Basics. Rent. The new normal in my city, according to Citizen-Times Asheville, is “living with roommates.” That is, if you are dependent on hourly wages in low-paying industries. The average cost of renting a home or an apartment in Asheville climbed 7.6 percent from March 2015 through March 2016, the highest surge in North Carolina. The median rent for a two-bedroom unit has reached $1,180 a month, the highest in the state for that size among a set of 10 large North Carolina cities selected by Apartment List, a research outfit based in Frisco. Charlotte and Durham are second and third with respective median rents of $1,140 and $1,100 for a two-bedroom unit.

          So unless you are moving to the mountain with hefty savings and with a partner who equally got that blessing, then go. Adventure. If not, and you're one of those young starry-eyed lovers who'd profess to equinox moon, “I will support my sweetheart's art because I believe in love,” think again. Okay, maybe a job? Okay, here's some more info for you. The good news, sort of. Asheville has one of the state's lowest unemployment rates, and that’s been true for years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since 2005, the city's unemployment rate has been lower than state and national averages. Get it? But here's the kick. The bad news, sort of.

          Most of those jobs come in what we call, BYOJ or “Bring your own job.” For years, jobseekers have compared Asheville to a some bad party, the kind where the host is broke and guests must bring their own PBRs and Trader Joe's wine. Sure, you know that BYOJ is cribbed from the party acronym BYOB, “bring your own beer.” So this means, you could either be a Trust Baby with moolah from mom and dad for an organic-only, gluten free ramen restaurant. Or you got this job option called telecommuting—like working in the relative comfort of your house for some start-up firm in Napa Valley or e-product sales outfit in Macau. Pay is not good but at least you can work with your Mickey Mouse PJs as you gobble Krispy Kremes all you want while Facebooking, right? Major perk is you are not working for some One Percenter corporate jerk that you love attacking on your page. Your soul is saved. Money doesn't change everything, you know.

          Or you can actually work as a dreadlocked server (that's okay) or spa front desk clerk. A college degree? Come on, you are not a Yuppie! We got hundreds (or thousands) of restaurants here—all over downtown and Western North Carolina, actually. Tips are good. Bob Dylan loves The Orange Peel and President Obama digs 12 Bones Smokehouse. The rich and famous love this town! Selfies with celebs and rock stars could be free, you know.

          So with those infos, think about it. I tell you thi, I am broke as ever. But I am still in Asheville—since winter of 1999, with two-year break (2007-09) in Los Angeles, to date. And I still got a helluva stock of ramens in the cupboard. Dig?

Why Asheville

WHY ASHEVILLE? I could be the “most ethnic” human being doing active community projects in Asheville, especially around 2003/2012. I never saw it that way though. Really. I never considered my skin color or cultural truths when I skirmished myself in the city... When I produced my first or second all-day “Bonfires for Peace” community/family event at Pritchard Park in downtown, I was motivated by just one fire. Diverse people coming together for music and dancing is Peace. Plain and simple. Peace without is peace within. When I see Asheville people happy together, I see my barriopeople oceans away happy. When I see a mom and dad and child and pet dancing at the park, I see my own family relishing life as one... Not easy though, never a picnic. No sound equipment, no money. I didn't know many people, or musicians, in town and my gibberish/accent needed a translator that time. Yet I planned 11AM to 9PM series of events spring to end of summer, two concerts a month and 7 bands minimum.

       Then, there was The Indie. Newsprint, pulp, “non-traditional,” guerrilla-styled, unconventional (syntax, grammar, “rules”). That little tiny diminutive paper existed from 2000 to 2007, then some in 2011, and then 2013... My “crazy” projects never enjoyed and relished such quiet acceptance and approval than how Asheville took them in. It wasn't perfect. I had detractors, of course. But the good stuff upstaged the bad stuff. I don't think I still have mental energy and physical defiance to translate that “madness” in any other city or town in any part of the world. Asheville is it! The city is changing, continually changing—geography and people—but I still feel this is my home away from home.

WAKING UP to WAKING LIFE: Men, Women, Sex, and The Internet

IN CASE you happen to be a resident of Asheville, then you know where this morning rant/rambling is heading. Thing is, I haven't heard of this absurd story till last night when my good friend Cindyrella mentioned it over dinner. I didn't immediately get the story though. Until early this morning when I skimmed through my Facebook Home page.

       Okay, it's about these two J dudes a.k.a. Jared and Jacob, co-owners of a West Asheville coffeeshop called Waking Life Espresso, who went on an online folly albeit anonymously (via blogs, podcast, tweets etc) about their “sexual trysts” smothered with sexist and misogynistic trash-talk. Normally, I'd easily consign such gargantuan waste of time to bored, drugged-up deadbeats—but these guys are supposedly responsible business owners in a respectable Asheville community. Their brains and limbs (and whatever's between their legs) should have been focused on passionate coffee warmth, you know... I mean, be creative. There must be a civilized way to let go heat coming from one's loins, right? Write a poem and launch an open mic, paint figures and hang them up, sculpt, eroticize the brew whatever—but go online for hours and hours to hyperventilate sexual insecurity and disregard of women, for what?

       Who cares about how many women one man could lure to a quickie in a basement or overnight nakedness in a motel room in staggering frequency? Or women who do the same... This happens in adultworld. But to disrespect a human being in full knowledge of the universe—is the lowest of low for a dude who fucks and tell.

       I read that these guys could've been coaxed by sites such as The Red Pill and Pick-up-Artist. I don't know that those sites exist... I must admit most of my love poems are inspired or moved by my own intimate moments in a privacy of a room (or somewhere where only trees and birds could see)... I also get excited and “horned up” quite a bit, you know. And I may translate those in a blog if my poetry doesn't suffice. But after reading the two J dudes' dirty stuff... Uhh, what were they thinking?

       I came from a culture where the woman is the boss in the house. A mere whistle to a passing lady on mini skirt invites an angry mob. “Would you want your mother or sister to be treated like that?” is the usual retort to disrespectful men. I remember those days when mere act of staring at a woman is considered low. I grew up and grew old at a time when a moonlit serenade is the noblest way to invite a lady to a stroll by the river or park the following weekend.

       But I also admit that I am far from a consistently gentle and nice guy. I get angry. I say terrible words (while in a relationship fight) that I later regret and apologize for. But although I share details of those “lovers' quarrels” with a very close friend/confidante or two, I NEVER shared details of my sexual or intimate moments with anyone. Those are mine. As I said, I can write poems and songs and paint and it's up to the public to take those as is—but I keep the privacy of that moment that moved me to craft such an art. She knows those are for her. For her only.

       Sometimes I still have a little culture shock with sexual openness in America but I try my best to view them on a positive light. Gifts of intimacy, blessings of human interaction. Freedom to give and take pleasure from our body and down deep to our heart. Although many times I fumbled bigtime, I didn't know how to confront it. Always a new experience. You see, the first woman that I slept with at age 24 was the mother of my firstborn. And although Anais Nin's diaries and Erica Jong's books “bothered” my manhood when I was a teenager, I didn't know how to deal with it... Even when I was in college, I didn't know how to pick women up in a bar or vice versa. I can say, “You are beautiful, can I write you a poem?” not as a pick-up line but a shy way of translating my admiration of a woman. So when I get the same compliment, I don't know how to respond. It's awkward.

       There is that grey area between appreciation of beauty and subtle disrespect of an individual's humanity. Many times, it is not easy to navigate that line—yet we know, both men and women, what is uncool and what is cool. We also know that things do happen out there—in a park bench, bar pool hall, coffeeshop veranda... Men meet women, women meet men. They hit it off and as consenting adults, they do whatever they feel is mutually good. It's an adult world.

       But what J and J did isn't even categorized as “adult,” it's inhuman. I don't believe a curious 17-year old on his right mind will do such reckless stupidity. Jared and Jacob, after the public apology, must also say their apology to their mothers and sisters and families, and the entire universe of women. I don't know if they'd be forgiven. But they should be forgiven. Asheville is a peaceful community. These guys blundered but they should be allowed to brew more coffee but this time, they should be grown up enough to keep the steam consigned to the espresso machine not between their legs while at work—and their fingers busy with serving more latte or tea, far from the internet.

[--PASCKIE PASCUA, 15-year resident of Asheville, North Carolina / editor-publisher of The Indie / founding executive director of the Traveling Bonfires / dad to four daughters and one son, brother to four sisters]

PORTRAIT OF A TRUE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN: Caleb Beissert

I WAS in a tiny bookstore called Montford Books & More in downtown Asheville yesterday, Feb 16, to attend one of Caleb Beissert's several readings in town to promote his first book, “BEAUTIFUL: Poems of Federico García Lorca & Pablo Neruda.” The less than 100-pager book, published by Thomas Rain Crowe's New Native Press, contains Caleb's translations/adaptations of choice poems, originally written in Spanish, by Lorca and Neruda.

     I already read (or heard performed) many or most of Mr Beissert's poetry—translations and original pieces. We have been consistently working or performing together since I met him in late spring of 2011 as he sets up a Wednesday night open mic at Vanuatu Kava Bar when it was still housed in a building in north Lexington Avenue. He also briefly wrote for my on and off newsprint, The Indie.

     In one of those in between shows chats, I asked him: “Why Lorca?” My subtext was, of course, rife with an intrigued sense of surprise—and quiet elation—that a young man, as young as my son Duane (who's also a poet and artist), would take on a non-American poet who produced bulk of his masterpieces in the 1920s, around a sociopolitical environment that is centuries-old worlds different from current realities. I mean, if he mentions Allen Ginsberg (which he also adores) or Charles Bukowski, I wouldn't be surprised. But that would also mean, Mr Beissert could be just another kid, trying to sound cool and hip...

     He is not.

     Beyond the Lorca and Neruda fascination and earnest—Caleb Beissert is a 52 year old ascetic in the body of a 20-something hipster. This soft-spoken dude is a worker, a quiet and patient and focused community organizer, band musician and torch bearer of Asheville's gasping poetry scene. Amidst the inebriated stupor of downtown where the defiant sublimity of a poem is drowned out by a sea of beers and “commercialized” music, he labors on like a true journeyman: silently, unassumingly, consistently, certainly. He doesn't trash talk or brag about how many gigs he got or what the hell is an MFA or how come he already read with the best poets in town his senior three decades back, and he still relatively new in town? He doesn't blabber such self-aggrandizing bullshit. That's not his gig.

     Instead, he opts to spend his time and energy on keeping the fire of poetry burning in town in a very unconventional dive, the Vanuatu Kava Bar. One shot of kava-kava, you are done. No beers, I am sorry... But he's been hosting this midweek open mic for almost 4 years now, no reprieve. Well, I took over twice or thrice because he had to be at another community concert—not because he needed to give time to a girlfriend, which I am not even sure he had one. Obviously, to Caleb—his concentration and discipline revolve around his work and his personal shit should be tucked inside his laptop case. But that doesn't mean, he's not family. Among the many people that I met and collaborated with in this town, Caleb is one of the few who personally introduced me to his mother and brother. Not just once but several times—since they are always in his shows...

     And I like that in a young man—when most of the young seemed more into enumerating the faults of their folks than sharing how it is to be a son with a mother who's always there to support her boy's little sweet madnesses.

     Why is Caleb so different?

     Maybe it's about Lorca and Neruda? I wanted to solve that sweet puzzle in my head. I got so involved with Lorca and Neruda in my college years that I took it upon myself to restudy Spanish (despite the fact that Spanish is spoken in the Philippines where I was born) to get a deeper look at the man's native language, and visited places (Andalucia in Spain, Columbia Univ in New York City) where he spent time and produced work. Lorca's spirit consumed me like fire—in the same intensity and passion that Neruda's life and loves and poetry gifted me a template that until now, I am so fond of traversing.

     Caleb's soul looks back at a time that is almost forgotten, consigned to musty bookshelves and devoured by the claustrophobic age of Kindle Fires and electronic detachment. That searing sensitivity and journeyman earnest, these are missing in youths these days... He didn't just look back, he devoted a body of work—his first book—to translate and deliver an old man's truths and messages so the world today may understand. Caleb is a deliverer of yesterday's soul and magic. He may not be there yet, not arriving yet, but he's certainly working things out so positively.

     Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of `27. He was murdered by Nationalist forces during the Spanish War. I may have connected with Lorca and Neruda's lives by virtue of how it was in the Philippines under the Marcos dictatorship in the 80s (when I was Caleb's age), as a young poet and journalist—but how'd Mr Beissert cross that sociopolitical terrain that is not only dissociated by time but also alienated by cultural realities?

     Easy. Caleb Beissert listens to the wisdom of the past and then tries his best to bring that gift to his peers, no questions asked—he's gonna do it whether you like it or not. As a worker, friend and poet—this young man should be supported and revered. He's still got a long way to go and tread, but he's definitely looking good. Let's clear his path to glory.

CHECK HIM OUT:
[ ] http://calebbeissert.wordpress.com/beautiful-the-book/
[ ] http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9781883197254/beautiful.aspx?rf=1
[ ] http://www.malaprops.com/book/9781883197254

Q & A: Paul DeCirce, frontman of Peace Jones

Music that transcends boundaries

of private and public life

THE INDIE: It’s almost been a decade since Peace Jones was formed here in the mountains. Was there a significant change from your inception years to current times? Did you somehow alter or modify your musical direction as per Asheville’s ever-changing or evolving persona?

DeCIRCE: Since our inception in 2004, the band has undergone an evolution towards a greater sound and vision for us. Energetically, we've gone through so many changes, it reflects. Our style is a mix of progressive and jazz rock , with the flute still at the front of the vibe.
Asheville is an integral part of the sound as PJ is seeped and created here, it is its home. But we represent the older style of Asheville, the wilder side when the scene wasn't as tourist motivated. We have and still represent the wild native spirit of this city, the original true voice that is in the wind and clouds and upon the tips of leaves. We are completely motivated for two things: jonesing for peace, and representing the true nature of our fair city.

THE INDIE: Asheville has grown so fast in the past few years, has this change somehow helped Peace Jones create a new or expanded audience or fan base? Are the clubs more open to local bands than before?

DeCIRCE: The scene is changing and evolving as well but the WNC greater region has always been excellent. We've developed fans all over the region and have been gigging downtown once a month or so. There is a lot of awesome talent in town and I keep myself up to date with all of the new acts. We like to gig with groups less known as we also represent an independent act, not part of any kind of clique -- we're open to jamming with whomever, wherever, whenever!

THE INDIE: As an individual or mainperson for Peace Jones, how do you keep up with your personal, family or married life while keeping tab with your professional musical career?

DeCIRCE: Music is first in my life and the new recording we're working on. I've been single again for about a year and half. I've been doing more work on the self and have having revelations in connection with art. Such as—the instrument, whether it be keyboard or paintbrush or woodwind instrument -- operates the same. It only 'works well' if you allow the instrument to create a resonance in your Self, your true nature. Then it works. For example, I am trying to get a good "E" note on my flute. E is not easy the flute as it's low down the scale. I blow, I get a note, but it's not a true note. I have to open. Open my throat, open my belly, open my mind. Open to the resonance of the note and then I become it…

We are the instruments. Our living blood, our living heritage. These things stroke our hands as we stroke our craft. Getting in touch with these things has allowed me to project myself, who I am, into stronger art. A deeper groove, a more insightful lyric, a move to love. This is all part of music for me, and transcends boundaries of private and public life.

THE INDIE: So what’s up ahead for Peace Jones?

DeCIRCE: We're working on a recording project which will reflect this growth. Also some special live appearances and a CD release next year.

[PEACE JONES is an innovative funk, Americana and ska-reggae band, based in Asheville. Members: Paul "P Jonesy" DeCirce: flute, leader; David Dhoop: guitar, backup vocals; Greg Terhune: bass, backup vocals; Eric "The Sizzla" Ciesla: drums and percussion. Peace Jones is the main act in the Traveling Bonfires’ “Occupy is The Word” benefit concert at the Flood Gallery on Nov 19. Band info: http://www.myspace.com/peacejonesband or find them on Facebook]

OPEN mics are like a box of chocolates. You don’t know what you’re going to get. Many times, I get spoilage and bitter stuff. However, last night’s open mic at Kava Bar in downtown Asheville was a subtle revelation. Although, it wasn’t near as fascinatingly active (as yet) as the demised Beanstreets Café open mic of yesteryears, it is still the most promising poets-singers gathering in my neck of the woods in the past few years.

Nestled on the ground floor of a relatively new south of Lexington Av condominium that also houses a bookshop and laundromat—Kava Bar is ideal enough for the kind of classy, cerebral, quiet dive that poet recluses like me prefer. Hardwood floors, intimate bedroom dim lighting, two handicap accessible bathrooms, patio/courtyard at rear entrance… Indeed, I just found myself a Wednesday night perch. The bar is advertised as “refreshingly elegant, Tiki atmosphere”—though I’d say, it’s more subdued and reserved beyond what we know of islander luau vibe.

I took a few minutes touring the place myself. The cork board displays flyers and business cards about new age-y, yoga, spiritual events and entrepreneurial endeavors. The wall book shelf has all kinds of radical stuff from Marx to Trotsky to Chavez and Mao. Figure that one out now… The performance room is the size of a $400/month college rental room, neatly groomed with emptied coconut husks sticking out overhead, folding chairs in attentive rows, and uniformed throw pillows upfront on the floor. Talk about bedroom intimacy… Yes, it’s wi-fi—but, of course!

I haven’t really ventured the menu yet (“delicious island and vegetarian cuisine,” the internet pitch said). The moment you step in, a perky lady-bartender with a wide aloha smile greets an unsuspecting visitor with a warm invite to try the house’s kava drink. Kava isn’t your average smoothie or fruit juice though. First timers concede it tastes like dirt, but as the bar muse offers, it’s an acquired taste. She’ll hand you a tiny dish of pineapple chunks as chaser.

But does this brew really tastes like “sweet dirt”? I mean, even a cool dude who sang pretty accessibly that night, chanted about the Kava as “dirt” drink. But don’t take me seriously on that one—I came from the islands, and I can attest this strange drink is a lot better than any of your healthcentric flavored bottled waters. It’s just that our first-world tastebuds are accustomed to anything sweet and delicious. So deal with it!

Kava (or kava-kava) is a crop of the western Pacific. The word is Tongan and Marquesan. Consumed throughout the Pacific Ocean cultures of Polynesia (including Hawaii), Vanuatu, Melanesia and some parts of Micronesia, the roots of the plant are used to produce a drink with sedative and anesthetic properties. Kava is sedating and is primarily consumed to relax without disrupting mental clarity. So there… Don’t get ideas.

And before I forget, if you are reading, you get a free Kava cup—the size of a cappuccino cup—so that’s already something that you may not respond with a “No, thanks!” After all, it costs $5. That is Pacific Islander hospitality right in the heart of beer-flooded downtown. Dig?

Back to the open mic.

QUIETLY amiable host Caleb Beissert, I reckon, unfurls the curtain each session with a few poems. Last night, he read a few of his own, plus the Allen Ginsberg cult classic, “Homework.”

I observed the young man as he set up the stage. It’s always mysteriously sublime to see people devote time and effort to these non-paying weekly gigs—assuming, of course, he’s not paid cash other than well, a Kava cup, for emceeing.

Still, he handled the show smoothly—cautiously and courteously cutting a performer or two who tended to slide past the allotted 8 to 10 minute time. There’s no radical mouthing, anti-this and that sociopolitical commentary, or boisterous cuss words that usually punctuate freewheeling open mics. Caleb does it business-like and professional—plugging other shows in town in between, as well as upcoming gigs by poets and musicians present at that time (of course, including my Tuesday, June 21, show at Firestorm).

The lineup was pretty decent. I particularly like the visiting singer-songwriter from Florida who sang about an iPhone that he just bought. There’s a guitarist (“Django”) who read a poem from his, well—iPhone (or cellphone), and another singer who did a 38^th parallel, North Korea bit. Another guy accompanied another one on bongos—whose outfit reminded me of an overdressed Angus Young, minus the long hair and Stratocaster. George Glass, a veteran of Beanstreets, was even there—and, yes, this chameleonic soul never fails to confuse me with his ever-changing looks (he’s not like he alters his hair color or puts in/loses weight each month, it’s just that he looks so different each time we chance to cross paths).

That was already a cool lineup for an otherwise bored midweek. I was so thankful that I didn’t encounter drunken open mikers who can’t seem to find the last bars and last words to their songs and poems; the ones that gave me such headache at Courtyard.  You know what I’m saying… If you’re a bit wary of “what you’re gonna get” in an open mic—such as unkempt urchins who’d haggle Marlboro and PBR money or inebriated denizens who lash out at the microphone over late rent funk… nah. Kava Bar is cool as a dorm patio run by a Buddhist monk who probably listens to Pink Floyd and reads Thomas Pynchon and Federico Garcia Lorca and keeps a strict hummus and tempeh diet. You get the drift… I mean, there’s even a folkie who did an easy lazy-by-the-windowsill cover of George Harrison’s “Something.” And a beatboxer fella with a Carrot Top redhead. Oh yes, I got a few applause and handshakes for my three pieces. How cool is that?

I hope that Kava Bar’s Wednesday open mic lives till it achieves a respectable status as that of Beanstreets. Many tried to replicate or duplicate that initiative but no one came even close to it—including my previous attempts at The Dripolator-Biltmore and Courtyard Gallery-Carolina Lane. But, with more support and attendance, this tiny convergence of poets and singers and stuff and things will be the talk of the town, and destined to re-live poetry nirvana in Asheville.

And, mark my word, Kava will be the next cool brew in this side of Appalachian heaven. Dirt, whatever.

Vanuatu Kava Bar is located at 151 S Lexington Ave, Asheville, NC 28801. Tel # (828) 505-8118. Open on Tuesdays – Saturdays, 4pm to 12am; Sundays – 5pm to 12am; Mondays – closed.

THIS blog entry is long overdue. Each day, I was meaning to get this over and done with—but like a rabid procrastinator, I always delay it, without meaning to. But here it is now… Things do work out.

IT WAS a random invite—to go check out “Scapegoat,” a debut effort by local filmmaker David Saich—in downtown Asheville’s Fine Arts Theater. Yes, it was free. “Free” is kind of scary. It meant, I needed to be nice—otherwise, if I don’t conform to neighborly niceness, then I’d be labeled an inconsiderate asshole. Imagine, how many friends I lost (and future freebies and guest-list passes that got out of my hand), just because I was blatantly, dastardly honest?

But then, I am known to be “un-nice” critic more than I’m recognized as a sweet dude, so… Besides, an hour or so in a dark room with strangers is still strange to me at this juncture. In the past few years (since moving back to the mountains from Los Angeles), I’ve been some sort of anti-social. So you get the drift, right? I do enjoy my reclusiveness, so if you dare pull me out of my shell, you gotta pay the consequences. You see, Netflix is still the handiest handle for me these days. If I really desire to let go off a few dollars for a big theater movie—it’s got to be huge. The last Fine Arts film that I saw was the excellent historical drama, “The Last Station,” and that was some cool bother.

So did “Scapegoat” come near “The Last Station’s” five-star rating? Of course not!

Anyhow, the life of my cream cheese popcorn and Amstel on my jittery, fidgety hands is only good for 15 minutes, max. Yet, I kept glued. Which means—I must concede, you ought to watch this little cinematic swig from the dude in the `hood.

THE first few frames of the movie bothered me a bit. I wasn’t sure if it’s the theater’s system or it was the film’s aesthetics. Camera work and lightning were distractive, or the editing was a tad unimaginative… And although, the audience’s impulsive reflex to each frame was largely inspiring—as in: “Oh my, that is my boy right there! Look at that, he’s so cute!!!” these can be annoying when overdone. (Enough already! I yelled within me). But then, what the hell—it’s a local movie shown in a local moviehouse, anyhow. It’s okay. Grandma and grandpa were watching…

I must say, despite its fundamental flaws, "Scapegoat" is still a compelling movie. However, I couldn't help whine: Some creativity in scene/shots selection would have been cool. Why not a chase scene right on the middle of a Friday drum circle at Pritchard Park or a clandestine chat at The Basilica in downtown or at Pack Library, or maybe at Tressa’s bar? I mean, this is Asheville, after all—why not involved the local geography, huh? Then, I could’ve also chuckled or exclaimed: “Oh my, that’s exactly where I sit on a Saturday afternoon! That’s my spot right there!”

However, sans my smartass rambling, I must admit that “Scapegoat” is still the best and most promising little locally-made movie that I’ve seen in years. The script is tightly-knit, and the acting—especially Daniel Clancy, as Charles Duncan, a white-collar worker—who found himself in trouble and had to reluctantly accede to John Capra’s (Ben Puckett) services. At least, he deserves a guest spot in a “Law and Order” episode.

The movie’s storyline despite a few circuitous turns and melodramatic takes still merits a major studio attention: About a man, Capra, who specializes in manipulating evidence and will even take the fall for whatever crime you’ve committed—for a fee… well, you got it figured out. This same deliciously convoluted premise is what makes a Hollywood crime caper work. Throw in a stubbled, sleep-deprived and harassed but eerily confident Ethan Hawke or Sam Rockwell (sorry, Mr Puckett) on the title role—plus a few steamy sex scenes, 10-minute car chase down Patton Av to Smoke Park Hwy, and computer-generated shootaround—then you got an economically-viable movie in the works. For one, that climactic shootout scene could have been staged better… but then, I digress.

Yes, this is not Hollywood. This is local indie movie… so I should lay off my Hollywood/Netflix fixations? Yes, maybe I should. But it all depends on whether Saich’s goal is just to make his local friend-actors’ families elated that they see their brood on big screen other than URTV or WLOS-ABC 13. Or, if he plans to elevate his promising work beyond Blue Ridge Mountains’ confines—I must say, go for it. Take “Scapegoat” out of the mountains and show it in bigger cities. It is a fairly credible enough pass to filmmaking respectability. All Saich requires is a few millions more and Ethan Hawke, then he’s on his way.