The Classics on Elmwood concert series returns tonight from a two-year hiatus with a performance featuring internationally renowned guitarist Mir Ali. Accompanying him will be members of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Amelie Fradette (cello), Betsy Reeds (flute), and associate concertmaster Amy Glidden (violin). This concert will also function as the quartet’s release of their collaborative CD, Amistad. Mir Ali, the Pakistani-born virtuoso, has graced these pages many times, and more notable accomplishments include composing music for movies, theater, radio, and TV—most recently for the documentary “Roots and Branches” which won the Award of Excellence from the Film Advisory Board of Hollywood. Amistad is Ali’s first recording in seven years, making this event a long-awaited revival for both the muscians and the Classics on Elmwood series.

—alan victor

Unitarian Universalist Church, 695 Elmwood Ave. / 8pm / $15

Word is that Brian Davis will resign claims he is not resigning the Ellicott District Common Council seat this afternoon at one o’clock, after pleading guilty this morning to two criminal charges brought by New York State Police in Judge Thomas Amodeo’s court.

Not a lot of callbacks on this story: Brian Davis isn’t answering his cell phone (his voicemail is full); Davis’s staff isn’t answering their phones, though a friend just strolled by his office and says they’re in there; the troopers have not returned calls.

So who will fill the Ellicott District seat? Word is that Mayor Byron Brown’s camp favors moving Erie County Legislator Barbara Miller-Williams into Davis’s seat, and with Janique Curry filling Miller-Williams’s seat. Attorney Bill Trezevant has had his eye on the seat for some times, as has firefighter Bryon McIntyre, who primaried Davis two years ago.

Under the rule adopted after Mickey Kearns won the South District seat vacated by Jimmy Griffin in 2005, the Common Council must advertise the vacancy, accept resumes, interview qualified candidates in public hearings, then vote in a replacement. In the past, the recommendation of Democratic district committee members was sacrosanct when it came to filling vacant seats, but the Common Council itself has the final say — if the committee members recommend someone the majority doesn’t care for, the Council could vote in someone else.

Champ Eve, son of the the legendary Arthur Eve, controls a substantial number of Democratic committee seats in the Ellicott District, as does Niagara District Councilman David Rivera and a number of others generally opposed to Grassroots, the mayor’s political organization. (Grassroots has some committee seats, too, but was greatly weakened in Ellicott in last year’s election.) So any candidate recommended by the party in Ellicott District is likely to be independent of the mayor. The question is whether that candidate will give the current five-member mjaority voting bloc and six-member super-majority that could ovverride Brown’s veto.

Just in time for the annual haggle over the capital budget.

UPDATE: Oh, right the charges: Jim Heaney of the Buffalo News, who’s been bird-dogging Davis all year, says it was personal use of campaign funds.He also pled guilty to filing incomplete campaign finance disclosure forms.

Davis’s lawyer said in court that the councilman did not intend to resign. I guess we’ll see: Erie County Legislator Butch Holt was removed from office when he ran afoul of the law, under the auspices of New York State’s Public Officers Law. Davis is reportedly  on his way to be fingerprinted and photographed right now. How can he stay in office if Holt had to go?

Erie County DA Frank Sedita will hold a press conference at 2pm.

For those who are interested in reading such things, here’s the operative part of the lawsuit filed last Thursday on behalf of Tom Golisano, Steve Pigeon, and Gary Parenti against the Erie County Board of Elections and its two commissioners, Democrat Dennis ward and republican Ralph Mohr.

Enjoy: RNY v ECBOE.

Margaret Cho started her career like a bottle rocket and, at first appearances, seemed to burn out just as fast. By her early 20s, the young comic was already doing acts for big names such as Arsenio Hall and Bob Hope, and had opened for Jerry Seinfeld. And in 1994, she starred in her own sitcom on ABC, All-American Girl. The show, however, was made on shaky ground, as the producers weren’t sure how to handle a sitcom family of Asian heritage. They wanted to keep things ethnic and edgy, but at the same time stay clear of anything that could be construed as racist.

Margaret Cho

The confusion resulted in a show that was muddled, watered-down, and cancelled after a single season. It was a hard hit for Cho, and led her into the throes of drugs and alcohol addiction. But by the 2000s, Cho, and her career, started to rebound. She returned to stage performances, having several stand-up specials as well as launching a burlesque-style variety show in L.A., and has become a prominent figure in the gay and lesbian rights movement. She has now returned to television with Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva, and is in the midst of entering the music world, recording her debut album, Guitarded, which is set for a 2010 release.

With her tour rolling into Buffalo on Monday, September 28, AV and Margaret had a brief chat.

AV: What’s it like to return to the harsh mistress that is syndicated television? Hopefully Drop Dead Diva is treating you better than All-American Girl.

MC: Yes. I love Drop Dead Diva. It’s an incredible show and I am so excited to be a part of it. We have incredible guest stars like Rosie O’Donnell—who I was laughing with about how we have done so much together, from standup comedy to writing books to playing in Cyndi Lauper’s backing band, me on backup vocals, Rosie on drums. Also we had Liza Minnelli and Paula Abdul and Tim Gunn. Every episode is like a gay pride edition of The Love Boat.

AV: On the topic of All-American Girl, it’s been reported that the show’s producers hired a coach to teach you how to “be more Asian.” Was that situation just as absurd and degrading as it sounds?

MC: They hired an Asian consultant to help with the “authenticity,” which is to me ludicrous. Do they need authenticity for any other ethnicity? It’s not like we were some remote tribe from the Andes. They were treating Asian people like we were some kind of extreme outsider culture—but there were never Asian people on TV then, so I guess that is why. Yes, it’s very insulting and absurd, but they didn’t know better and neither did I.

AV: It’s often been said that every comedian wishes he or she was a rock star. Now that you are touring for your upcoming CD, do you feel you are fulfilling a long-standing dream? And do you feel you are doing a better job at it than Eddie Murphy did (granted that “Party All the Time” is a unwaning classic)?

MC: Well, the songs are more like Eddie Murphy’s “Boogie in Your Butt”‘ than “Party All the Time,” although “Party All the Time” is a great song and was produced by Rick James! And it’s is true that all comics want to be rock stars, but we are also very sensible about it. What I want to be is a guitar comic—a long-lost profession, very popular in the ’80s but now they are extinct. I am bringing it back. So it’s joke songs, not serious at all.

AV: What should music fans expect from your show: hard-hitting punk; solemn, heartfelt folk; gangsta rap; jokes about people’s privates?

MC: It’s all there, every genre from hip hop to a bit of electronica, totally guitarded folk music, putting the “cunt” back in country. So everything.

AV: Hard-rocking, burlesqueing, politically outspoken, Asian-American comedians seem to be everywhere these days. What makes you so different?

MC: I am the greatest! [Laughs.] No but really…I am the fucking best.

—interview by geoffrey anstey

During his segment on WBEN this morning, developer Carl Paladino said he’d learned that Leonard Stokes had been pulled over by two Buffalo police officers last July in relation to a drug investigation in the Fruit Belt.

Well, not quite.

The two officers—Mark Swaggard and Mike DeLong—were warned to stay away from Stokes. Paladino claimed to have a copy of the memo telling them to stay clear: That’s it to the right.

As you can see, the subject of the memo is identified only as “Stokes.” Turns out it’s not Leonard. It’s his brother, Lamar.

The author of the memo indicates that the order to stay away from Lamar came from Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson, as the result of a complaint made to Mayor Byron Brown. Lamar apparently complained that the officers had stopped him twice, hit him in the head, and thrown his belongings on the ground.

Paladino said on the radio this morning that disciplinary charges were filed against the two officers, but the charges were later dropped. DeGeorge confirmed that there had been an investigation of the incident, and the two officers were cleared of any wrongdoing.

We asked BPD spokesman Mike DeGeorge to comment. In essence, DeGeorge confirmed that the BPD had conducted an investigation and that the officers were cleared.

So it would seem that this memo is something of a canard: It’s not about Leonard Stokes.

Why did Leonard’s brother, Lamar Stokes, address his complaint to the mayor? What did the mayor say to the police commissioner? We also sent an email to the mayor’s spokesman, Peter Cutler, with a copy of the memo. He has not responded to that email yet, but when he does, I’ll post his response here.

AV street correspondent John Duke sent in this photo of fans Kate Feroleto and her cousin Leah Feroleto with Keanu Reeves. Reeves was in town yesterday to get a feel for Buffalo’s City Court building, where filming for Henry’s Crime will take place.

Congratulations to Buffalo Niagara Film Commissioner Tim Clark for bringing the production to Buffalo. “It goes back to Keanu himself, who has very fond memories of Buffalo,” Clark said. “He grew up nearby Toronto and is pretty much insisting that this project be written for Buffalo.”

Reeves plans to winter in Buffalo. Anyone else got any Keanu sightings to share?

Carl Paladino is on Bauerle www.wben.com this morning until noon. Lots of fireworks. According to Paladino the incident with Stokes being freed from police custody isn’t the first time the mayor stepped in to save Mr. Stokes. Last year when police were looking into drug dealing in the fruit belt they picked Stokes up. The officers who did that were given a memo from police deputy commissioner Derenda to leave Stokes alone. They were also brought up on disciplinary charges but the charges were dropped because the administration realized a hearing would bring unwanted publicity. Tune in to WBEN if you read this before noon.

…but several sources confirm that the FBI have beaten him to the punch.

Common Council President Dave Franczyk is writing a letter asking the FBI to investigate allegations that Mayor Byron Brown convinced Buffalo police officers to release One Sunset restaurateur Leonard Stokes from custody back in the summer of 2007, after the cops had picked him up and handcuffed him on suspicion of  possession of a stolen handicapped parking permit. The story broke in the Sunday Buffalo News.

The story says that Stokes was apprehended outside the Ellicott Square Building, where police had observed a handicapped parking permit on his vehicle. There had recently been a theft of handicapped parking passes from City Hall, and so Buffalo police were on the alert for drivers who had them but didn;t seem to need them. Stokes, a celebrated athlete, seemed to fit the bill. He was arrested and cuffed, but pleaded with officers to call the mayor’s office. Eventually they did, and in the end delivered Stokes to the mayor’s office on the second floor of City Hall. Some time later, Stokes left the office a free man.

In today’s followup story in the News, there’s an audio file of Brown wigging out on reporters who asked him questions about the Stokes matter after a press conference on Inner Harbor development.

Franczyk said that the allegation—that an elected official had intervened in the criminal justice process—was as serious as they come, regardless of the nature of the charge against Stokes. No elected official has the power to instruct the police to do his will, he said. In addition to asking the FBI to look into the matter, Franczyk and other members of Council will ask the Police Oversight Committee to examine the issue. The chairman of that committee, of course, is Ellicott District’s Brian Davis, who is tied to Stokes and the One Sunset debacle.

Sources close to the officers involved in the case say they have already been contacted by the FBI. Further, they say that the officers made a record of the events of the day in question.

Franczyk said he would consider using the Council’s subpoena powers to get to the bottom of the issue.