Month: May 2001

Well, it was quite a vision. Glowing orange sun setting into cobalt-blue sky, then turning dark and full of stars and a full moon. The Mississippi River slowly rippling and shimmering its way south. The thin green line of Arkansas in the distance. And up on stage, with tight red curls and a long black sequined gown blowing in the wind, her arms akimbo and reaching toward the sky, her voice belting out a tribute to Mahalia Jackson, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Yes, you know how I hate to harp, but I’m talking about Mavis Staples at the Memphis in May music fest Sunday night. Yeah, Dylan was fine. Yeah, I heard Ben Harper was great. But Mavis. The woman looked and sounded like some kind of soul goddess up there. It was a great moment in Memphis. And because Mavis made her most memorable mark with the Staple Singers at Stax records, that’s all the more reason for someone out there to shell out the remaining money needed to get the Stax Museum of American Soul built. Because once it is and the music academy for inner-city youth is up and running, who knows how many other Mavises Memphis might find and teach and inspire. But now I’m tired of writing about this (for now, that is; you’ll be getting much more about the Stax Museum if the Rapture doesn’t get us first). The other night, while relaxing on my front porch, I was having a long talk with my cat. She is now 15 years old and has decided that at this age why bother going all the way to the back of the house to use the bathroom, when she can just go right in the living room and licking any piece of plastic she can find to let me know that she would like another can of Fancy Feast because she’s just not in the mood for the flavor I have just given her. So I was telling her that, despite these little things that make my life a little more complicated than it would be if I weren’t having to put newspaper all over the floors and work two jobs to feed her, I loved her very much and was worried because she was getting up there in years. Was telling her she was the real love of my life. You know, all that mushy cat-lover talk. And it finally dawned on me: I’ve been talking to this cat incessantly for a decade and a half, and she has not understood one word of what I’ve said. Not a word. In fact, it was during this long talk the other night that I had this epiphany — because she cut her eyes at me and cocked one of them, as if to let me know that I was totally wasting my time. As if to say, Pop, you’re a nice guy, but would you please be quiet? I am a cat, for Heaven’s sake. Just stop talking and let me live in peace. So I stopped and now I’m tired of writing about this. The other day, I saw the ultimate sign that perhaps that aforementioned Rapture is on its way. I saw a woman who has been homeless on the streets of Memphis for many years. I see her almost every day. Sometimes we chat. This time, however, she was chatting to someone else — on a cell phone. Yes, a homeless woman on a cell phone. I’m telling you, clean up your lives. Then end is near. It was funny too, because while she was out there, a guy on a motorcycle drove up, a guy on a skateboard rolled up, a guy in a car drove up, and a guy on a horse rode up. And who knew her? Only the horseman knew her. Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. I’ve been writing this for 11 years. The market for psychotropic drugs has not made that many great new strides.

Responding to a story in the issue of the Flyer that hit the streets yesterday (Wednesday May 9th), two Memphis men say they tried to pay the Memphis Light, Gas, and Water bill for a struggling south Memphis single mother. However, when they called MLGW both men say that the utility’s operators hung up the phone.

The two men, who have asked to remain anonymous, read the City Reporter story about Mamie Parker, a single mother of two severely asthmatic children who rely on a breathing machine for their lives and health. Parker, who is also caring for her mentally handicapped adult sister, says that the utility has vowed to turn off her power on May 11th if her entire bill is not paid in full. If her power is turned off, the children’s breathing machine will not function.

The bill, which is currently more than $400, is a hold-over from this winter’s natural gas crisis and MLGW’ s billing, which the Flyer reported was 25 percent over the national average. In her job as a custodian at Rozelle Elementary School, Parker makes $300 every two weeks. She says she has asked the utility numerous times to be included in the much-heralded SmartPay program, which divides steep bills into smaller monthly payments. Each time she has asked to be placed on the program she says she has been turned down without explanation. Parker also says she has asked to have a separate line in her house to power the breathing machine and has been denied this as well.

The two anonymous benefactors, who do not know each other, each told the Flyer that when they called MLGW’s general information line they were transferred several times and when they said they wanted pay Parker’s bill, the line went dead. Each man then called a second time, only to have this experience repeated.

MLGW’s chief communications officer Mark Heuberger, did not accept or return three telephone calls prior to Wednesday’s story and did not accept or respond to a call from the Flyer on Wednesday. The Flyer also left messages for MLGW President Herman Morris which were not returned.

An ongoing police investigation has yet to reveal why Robin Elizabeth Yevick was stabbed to death in downtown Memphis on Sunday, April 29th. According to officer LaTanya Able, the public information officer for the Memphis Police Department, investigators are “working diligently to solve the case but no new information has been discovered.”

Yevick, a 38-year-old resident of Hot Springs, Arkansas, was found dead just before 3 p.m., lying on Gayoso Avenue between Wagner Place and Front Street. She had apparently been stabbed in the throat several times. She had with her a black travel bag containing makeup and two small plastic bags.

On Tuesday, Memphis police were looking for a female suspect described as being a heavyset black woman with shoulder-length hair, standing about 5’7” to 5’9” and last seen wearing a blue shirt, blue pants, and white tennis shoes. Police were also looking for a man who may have witnessed the crime, but no description of the man was available.

Anyone with information on this crime is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 529-CASH.

What a weekend, right? Here is some fresh prose commemorating it, of special interest to us Memphians:

“There’s only one Bob Dylan. “The singular place in history of the great folk-rock singer-songwriter, who’s riding a crest of popularity as he nears his 60th birthday, was one of the driving forces behind last night’s huge turnout at the. . .

“Nashville River Stages festival.”?!

Nope, no misprint. During the same three days that Memphis was engaging in its annual three-day riverfront music festival, Nashville was engaging in its three-day riverfront music festival. There may be only one Bob Dylan, but there were two places for him to hang out and stretch his legend over the last weekend.

In Nashville on Saturday night, as writer Thomas Goldsmith in The Tennessean notes, Dylan made sure to do songs from 1969’s Nashville Skyline (and a selection from Roy Acuff as well). In Memphis on Sunday night, Dylan made sure to do “Memphis Blues Again.” No problem: like Walt Whitman, Bob Dylan is large. He contains multitudes. There’s enough of him to go around.

But why should Tennessee’s two major cities be competing on this brand new front? I mean, two concurrent fully-fledged festivals, awreddy!

Or is this to be regarded more as the proverbial embarassment of riches? The Beale Street Festival, as we know, was sold out for its three-day run and set attendance records. And we have Thomas Goldsmith’s word for it that the turnout in Nashville was “huge.”

Sporadically, over the years and over the past few weeks, especially, as Memphis seemed about to gather its political and civic wits in an effort to Draw Even with Nashville on the big-league sports front (as if the NBA could hold a candle to the vaunted NFL, huh, Phil?), I have observed the unusual sense of rivalry that seems to exist between the two Tennessee towns.

Rivalry, hell! Sometimes it looks like pure detestation, as when my friend Larry Daughtrey, a distinguished political writer for The Tennessean and normally the very model of analytical decorum, got off some roundhouse shots at Memphis a few weeks back. (I have previously quoted these a place or two; not to overdo, he used terms like “perpetual inferiority complex,” “simmering mess,” “racial conflicts,” “nagging poverty,” “substandard schools,” and “sweltering August heat” by way of characterizing our town and its alleged envy of, and hatred for, Nashville.

A word a propos (which I have also uttered before, more or less): Memphis does not “envy” Nashville, much less “hate” said catch-up sister city, and any resentment that comes along with the relationship is better characterized as a kind of annoyance with the fact that Nashvillians seem to expect some sort of envy as their due.

Does the boogie “envy” the two-step? Give me a break!

As for that Tennessean sportswriter who characterized Memphis as “Newark” to Nashville’s “Manhattan” a few seasons back Ñ one A.S. (for “Social”) Climber, as I recall Ñ we’ll take our North Mississippi All-Stars (William Faulkner, Shelby Foote et al.) over your Fugitives (Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, and company), our Esperians and Piazzas over your Dinah Shores, and our Mississippi over your Cumberland. Just for starters. As for impact on popular culture, music, especially, c’mon. Music Row’s is a mile wide; Sun/Stax/Volt’s is a mile deep. (And where do you think legendary producer/performer Jack Clement, -ex of Sun, learned to do his mesmerizing version of Hamlet’s soliloquy?)

But I rove.

Needs not these back-alley measuring contests. There are treasures in both towns. Ask Bob. As for the eternal question Ñ Aw, Mama, could this really be the end? Ñ the answer to that one sort of depends on which town you’re stuck in on a given weekend night. And which way you’re headed next on I-40.

(Jackson Baker KICKS BACK whenever the mood strikes on whatever topic interests him. In other words, watch this space.)

GETTING IT RIGHT

Herb Kosten is a giant in the history of the Memphis sports market. From his days at Central High School in the Fifties through his years with the University of Alabama baseball team through the period in which he was a respected umpire on the pro tennis circuit, Kosten has been someone that all Memphians could point to with pride.

I know all of that. But somehow in a story about Kosten’s involvement with the ABA Memphis Pros this week in the Flyer, I got his name mixed up. To say that I misspelled it, would be giving me the benefit of the doubt. I screwed up. Royally.

People often talk about something or the other being the First Rule of Journalism. Well, if there is such a thing as the First Rule of Journalism it should be this: Spell the names right.

There is something permanent about the printed word, even in a free alternative weekly. If you make a mistake on radio or TV, you correct it and go on. In the weekly newspaper biz we have to live with our mistakes for at least a week.

I called Kosten to apologize as soon as I realized my mistake. He was gracious and kind. I think it might have been easier for me if he had been angry, but that would not have been Herb Kosten’s style.

Kosten was a two-sport star at Central High School. A hard-hitting shortstop and second baseman, he made the all-city team three times and twice led Memphis high schools in batting. He was also all-city in basketball two years, leading the Warriors to a runner-up spot in the state tournament. He won a baseball scholarship to Alabama, where he was twice voted to the all-SEC team as a third basemen. Later he was selected to the All-Century Alabama baseball team. He calls it is his “greatest honor in athletics.”

Kosten has also had been among the top amateur tennis players in the region. His daughters, Julie and Lori, were both ranked junior players. And today, Kosten owns Little Miss Tennis, one of the top makers of children tennis wear in the country.

But it was his involvement with the Memphis ABA team in the early ‘70s that drew my interest this week. As one of several businessmen that kept the Pros (later the TAMs and Sounds) in Memphis for five years, Kosten played a major role in the development of pro sports in this city.

Kosten is a long-time Tiger basketball fan, having owned season tickets for 39-consecutive years — dating back to the days at the Fieldhouse. In fact, he wonders how Memphis basketball fans will handle the adjustment to the pro game.

“In the college game, you come out to root for your team every game,” says Kosten who frequently attends NBA games out of town. “With the pros, you come out to watch the best players in the world, and root for the home team. There is a difference.”

And he still laments the fact that he and his partners were unable to come up with a local owner for the ABA team. If they had, Kosten believes, Memphis might have made it into the NBA when the two leagues merged in 1977.

But they didn’t and now Memphis stands at the threshold of being in the big leagues. Kosten thinks we have already been there. “I contend that the ABA franchise that we had here was the only major-league team we have had here because that league merged with the NBA,” he says, pointing out that 11 of the 20 players who participated in the first NBA all-star game after the merger came from the ABA.

Who will argue the point? Certainly not me. I’m not feeling very argumentative after the week I’ve had.

PLAYING ROAD SAGE

Once upon a time, before there were many people living and working downtown and before Tom Lee Park was expanded, it may have been smart to close Riverside Drive for the entire month of May. But it makes no sense at all today. It creates extreme traffic congestion on Front and other downtown streets. disrupts businesses, and makes it difficult to get from I-55 to I-40. It’s time to say no to MIM. Close Riverside for the big events, like this weekend’s music fest, but the rest of the week keep it open to through traffic.

YOUR SERVE, NOLAN

John Calipari has made no secret of his dislike for the attention the area SEC teams get in Memphis. Like refusing to call the University of Mississippi by its preferred nickname, Ole Miss. By saying that he may not continue playing the Rebs and Arkansas. And by saying that his critics on talk radio are “just SEC fans.”

So it was only appropriate, on the day of Jim Rome’s “Smack-Off,” a story appeared in The Commercial Appeal in which Calipari talked a little smack of his own.

“We don’t need Arkansas to fill our building,” Cal told Zack McMillin. “Now, they might need us to fill theirs.”

Bet Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson,no shrinking violet himself, will have a comeback.

Quote Of The Week

“I think some of those same people, who were naysayers about our project are now coming to the ballpark and enjoying every minute of it. I think it will be that way with the NBA arena, you’ll have people who will be converted very easily.” — Redbirds co-owner Kristi Jernigan.