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News The Fly-By

EVERYBODY HOLLERIN’ GOAT

This just in: The kids are going crazy for that delicious, nutritious goat meat. At least that s what the Tennessee Goat Producers Association would lead us to believe. The group, which will hold its first marketing workshop for producers and prospective producers of goats at the Ellington Agricultural Center in Nashville on August 4th, claims it is the rise of ethnic populations in the state — not an increase in goat-sacrificing satanists — that has created this barnyard boom. Agriculture marketing specialist Margie Baker has been quoted as saying, This workshop will be important for anyone interested in meat goat production to learn how to select and produce a better quality carcass for the market Don t that just set your mouth to watering?

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We Recommend We Recommend

thursday, august 2

Tonight, the Memphis Redbirds play Sacramento at AutoZone Park. Down in Tunica, the ever-fabulous Go-Go s are bringing their comeback tour to the Horseshoe Casino. And here at home, The Dempseys are at Elvis Presley s Memphis tonight always a good show. Hank Sable and Beck Lester are at the Center for Southern Folklore. The Great Depression and John Murry are at the Hi-Tone. The Chris Scott Band is at Poplar Lounge. And Teresa Pate is now performing on Thursday nights in the M Bar at Melange.

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News

JOHN DALY’S ON A ROLL!

John Daly, the sometime Memphis-area resident who was the last major golfing phenom before the advent of Tiger Woods, may have had his troubles with women in the past, but, like other males before him, he’s discovered the truth of the old adage: When it rains, it pours.

This is the man who gained a reputation as his game’s biggest hitter in the ’90s but missed greatness while having problems with alcohol and a difficult first marriage.

He’s a newlywed again, though, and not only does wedlock seem to be treating him better this time, his new wife didn’t even mind when another female – Lady Luck, to be exact – turned up on the honeymoon in Tunica.

Some two weeks ago, the freshly married John and Sherry Daly visited Bally’s and, according to a well-placed source, left with some $700,000 of the casino’s cash.

Whether that was what prompted the gesture or not, another Tunica casino, Horseshoe, has since decided to hold its own wedding reception for The Dalys on the night of August 12th. And if John wants to try his luck afterward, well….We’ll keep you posted on how that visit turns out.

And, who knows? Yesterday, Bally’s. Tomorrow, Hollywood’s. Maybe in the not-too-distant future, it’ll be Augusta, Ga. Another Master’s championship jacket would like nice on Daly if he wants to keep collecting green.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

‘I PASSED OUT STICKERS FOR THIS FOOL!’

This is one reader’s response to this week’s On the Fly article, “Bredesen: ‘Manage, Don’t Tax,'” which bore the news that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Bredesen, who made several stops in Memphis, doesn’t favor an income tax or any tax increase at all just now. The author, Steve Steffens, circulated the email to his network of fellow Democratic activists. The communication began making waves; so we asked for and received a copy:

“I feel a massive rant coming on, folks. As some of

you may have noticed, I passed out stickers for this

fool at Kennedy Day, only to read this….

“Everyone in the legislature who has studied this time

after time knows that the only long-term fix is a

graduated income tax combined with the elimination of

the Halls tax, reduction of the overall sales tax and

the removal of the sales tax on food and prescription

drugs.

“So what does Bredesen do? He wimps out. I’ll tell you

this much: I WILL NOT SUPPORT ANY CANDIDATE FOR

GOVERNOR WHO DOES NOT SUPPORT THE INCOME TAX. PERIOD.

“It may not be popular, but we know it’s right, and the

people who support it have to do a better job about

getting the message out.

“You do realize that most of those folks who bum-rushed

the capital would have come out ahead under

Rochelle-Head, right? If we are to stop the rightward

lurch of this party, we have to fight tooth and nail

the BIG LIE technique of the Republican Party.

“The real question for 2002 and beyond for the

Tennessee Democratic Party is this: do we have the

guts to stand up and be Democrats, or just warmed-over

Republicans. My theory is that if you only give the

public a choice between pseudo-Republicans and real

Republicans, they’ll take the real ones….

“…[W]here

is Doug Horne on the income tax[?]….”

Steve

Care to respond? Click here.

Categories
News The Fly-By

EVERYBODY HOLLERIN GOAT!

This just in: The kids are going crazy for that delicious, nutritious goat meat. At least that s what the Tennessee Goat Producers Association would lead us to believe. The group, which will hold its first marketing workshop for producers and prospective producers of goats at the Ellington Agricultural Center in Nashville on August 4th, claims it is the rise of ethnic populations in the state — not an increase in goat-sacrificing satanists — that has created this barnyard boom. Agriculture marketing specialist Margie Baker has been quoted as saying, This workshop will be important for anyone interested in meat goat production to learn how to select and produce a better quality carcass for the market Don t that just set your mouth to watering?

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

wednesday, august 1

Go out and pick up a copy of this week’s Flyer. And be sure to take a lunch at Mud Island. It’s free to get in and you can stay a bit in the sun.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

INHERIT THE MONKEY

“There is no contradiction between faith and science — true science,” snaps Dr. Zaius in the original 1968 version of Planet of the Apes. The learned orangutan’s burden is a heavy one, and of his conflicted occupation he gravely notes, “I take no pleasure in this.”

He is not only the minister of science but also the chief defender of the faith. As such he is forced to refute any and all scientific discovery that is at odds with ape religion and charge offending scientists with heresy. He cannot let it be known that humans, now a race of primitive, parasitic mutes who devour their own food supplies then raid ape-run greenbelts like some kind of bipedal locusts, were once the masters of this wrecked planet. He knows that, just as the sacred scrolls point out, “a human will kill his brother to take his brother’s land.” He knows that should these hairless, foul-smelling, speechless, and, therefore, soulless animals ever be allowed to grow strong again they will initiate a second and perhaps final apocalypse. “The forbidden zone was once a paradise,” he announces. “[Humans] made it into a desert.”

Yes, of course, the message was a heavy-handed one: a thinking man’s Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston again in the lead. But the sledgehammer approach was well mitigated by savory storytelling, complex character development, and inspired, makeup-transcending performances from Maurice Evans, Kim Hunter, and Roddy McDowall. Everything from ape economics to romance, race, religion, and rebellious youth-culture was touched upon in the epically proportioned original. The undeniably cool ape costumes and Linda Harrison’s silent appearance in a wet buckskin bikini gave the film a wealth of drive-in appeal, making Planet of the Apes the rarest of all Hollywood birds: a smart, socially progressive manifesto aimed at the broadest of all possible audiences.

Don’t expect anything even half so smart from director Tim Burton’s startlingly vacant bowdlerization of the 1968 sci-fi classic. In his rigorously altered retelling, nonstop action usurps quality storytelling, hollow jingoism stands in lieu of thoughtful political commentary, and tidy stereotyping eliminates the need for anything like character development. And why would anyone bother creating genuinely comic situations when you can make smirking references to the original ape films? The new flick fearlessly asks the difficult question, “Do animals have souls?” It should have asked the same of Burton and, if no, to whom it was so recently sold.

Helena Bonham Carter singlehandedly inherits the mantle of original chimps Cornelius and Zira, the put-upon scientists whose faith is challenged by the appearance of a talking human. Carter’s Ari has no such conflicts. All humans can talk in this kinder, gentler land of apes, so why should she be conflicted? She’s a hot little bleeding-heart human-hugger with a Jennifer Aniston haircut, a Banana Republic pantsuit, and a cause. More than anything she functions as a possible romantic interest for Mark Wahlberg’s poor lost astronaut, and that’s more than a little creepy.

While Tim Roth is certainly fun to watch as the villainous Thade, he can’t keep our attention. The brand of snarling comic-book evil he embodies always ensures diminishing dramatic returns. Once you learn that this chimp’s a malevolent psycho, nothing he does can surprise you. And true to form, nothing does. Wahlberg’s character, Captain Leo Davidson, isn’t anything like Heston’s misanthropic philosopher turned astronaut. Davidson is a clean-shaven, cookie-cutter action figure, flirting with the ladies while spewing Dirty Harry-style one-liners like, “Never send a monkey to do a man’s job.”

The original Planet of the Apes was shot on location in a number of national parks. The sweeping, deep-focus desert shots not only made the world seem harsh and uninviting but amplified the film’s already mythic proportions. Burton built his Planet of the Apes inside the studio, and the resulting claustrophobia makes for surprisingly sloppy camerawork from a director known for his typically sumptuous visuals. Long-time Burton collaborator Danny Elfman’s percussion-heavy soundtrack is omnipresent and short on dynamics. It’s more ornamentation than punctuation, and it fades without a trace into the artificial background. The ape makeup, while far superior to the original, in no way improves upon the original. It alone is not, as they say, worth the price of one’s admission.

At a time when our beloved president uses economic scare tactics to empower both giant corporations and deeply prejudiced religious groups while thumbing his deviated septum at all scientific reason, it could do the world a lot of good to see Lady Liberty up to her neck in radioactive sand. Burton’s visually stunning but spiritually empty closing image lacks the original’s reverberating finality. All this new one does is scream out, To be continued (as if we didn’t know). Do yourself a huge favor. Ignore this furry carnival ride. Get the original on DVD and share it with your kids (who’ll love it) before their attention span gets any shorter.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

BREDESEN: ‘MANAGE, DON’T TAX’

The current governor of Tennessee, Republican Don Sundquist, couldn’t have been pleased to hear an old nemesis, Democrat Phil Bredesen, preach the virtues of a no-new-taxes budget this week in Memphis.

Neither could members of the Tennessee legislature — including many, perhaps most, of the ex-Nashville mayor’s own partymates — who will have to hunker down in the state Capitol next week, along with Sundquist, to try to find a way out of just such a budget.

The one passed hurriedly on the night of July 12th, amid crowd disorders in and around the Capitol, is generally regarded as an abomination, both because it starves a number of state services — notably higher education — and because it uses up one-time money, like all $560 million of the state’s tobacco-settlement allowance, to pay for recurring expenses.

Even hold-the-line conservatives are scandalized by the latter fact, and when the General Assembly reconvenes on Tuesday to deal with the governor’s veto, it is generally supposed that it will be hard to find enough votes (only a majority is needed) to override Sundquist’s veto. The Senate especially is considered iffy.

That didn’t stop Bredesen from indulging himself in a nod of solidarity to Sen. Jim Kyle (D-Frayser, Raleigh), who was in the crowd on hand at several Memphis stops, beginning with a Monday night meet-and-greet for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate at the home of Dean and Lisa White on Overton Park Drive.

In the course of his public remarks in the Whites’ living room, Bredesen hailed Kyle specifically and other legislators generally (Rep. Carol Chumney, like Kyle a candidate for Shelby County mayor, was also in the crowd, but Bredesen may not have seen her) for doing what they could “without much leadership from the governor.”

(Ironically, the politically influential Clement family, of which Kyle’s wife, Tennessee Regulatory Authority member Sara Kyle, is a member, is more or less publicly tilting toward Bredesen’s chief Democratic opponent, former state party chief Doug Horne.)

Most Tennessee politicians try to avoid discussing the fiscal problem. Not Bredesen. He didn’t wait for a Q-and-A period but raised the issue himself at the very beginning of his remarks. “I’m going to disappoint some of you by saying that an income tax is not the answer,” he said. “Management” was.

Dependent on the sales tax for much of its revenue, the state would inevitably have both good times and bad times, more or less in rhythm with economic booms and slowdowns. In the latter case, “it’s fair to ask the governor of our state to manage through the process” and “tighten up” where necessary.

That specifically included TennCare, the state-run program for the uninsured and uninsurable which is the bane of conservatives and which Democrats are usually more ginger about. Bredesen not only pinpointed the program for a tightening-up, he boasted his background, as a self-made near-billionaire in the health-care business, as proof that he could do so.

“Basically, what I did was take HMOs that were going under and put them back in shape,” Bredesen told his audience.

In a private interview before he made his public remarks, Bredesen had been even more explicit on the tax question. The budget passed on July 12th would “absolutely” serve the state through the next year, he said, and another no-new-taxes budget would do equally well for another year.

Right up to the time he expects to be sworn in as governor himself, Bredesen acknowledged, smiling.

The problem with Sundquist and his tax-reform efforts, Bredesen had said earlier, was the governor had been like a man who strapped himself into a fast-moving car and, heedless of reality, had headed straight toward a brick wall without slowing down or modifying course.

Bredesen is moving pretty fast himself these days, and he will be much in evidence in Shelby County for months to come. He plans to touch base in Memphis “an average of two and a half times every two weeks” for the foreseeable future.

For the time being he will focus on meet-and-greets like the one at the Whites, but Bredesen made it clear that later he will be calling on the attendees at such events for financial help.

It is not that Bredesen can’t run on his own fortune, as he virtually did in his 1994 run for governor. But one of the mistakes he thinks he made in that losing race, as the Democratic nominee against Sundquist, was not to involve as many other people in his campaign as he might have, and fund-raising was the key to that, Bredesen said.

Aware that opponent Horne’s game plan includes an appeal to the rural areas of Tennessee, where Bredesen — Northern-born and, as he said, “a big-city mayor” — might conceivably have weaknesses, the Nashvillian is targeting those same areas, where he will presumably point out, as he did at the Whites’ Monday evening, that he was born in New York, yes, but the state, not the city.

At a place called Shortville (pop., 1100), in fact, located “at mile-marker 340.” And he will undoubtedly use the same line out on the hustings as he did Monday night. “I can’t help where I was born, but I got here as fast as I could.”

********

JIMMY MOORE WANTS MORE

The latest public figure to contemplate a race for county mayor openly is Circuit Court Clerk Jimmy Moore, who met with a sizeable gathering of sympathizers Tuesday night at the home of veteran campaign donor Billy Babb on Sweetbrier in a posh section of East Memphis.

The point of the gathering, which included figures as diverse as mega-developer Jackie Welch and City Council member Pat Vander Schaaf, was to help Moore decide between three alternatives on the 2002 general election ballot.

The alternatives were: a run for reelection for Circuit County cler, a job which, to say the least, is undemanding and allows the golf-minded Moore ample time out on the links; a race for Sheriff, a high-profile post which Moore has always coveted; and, as of Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout’s recent decision not to run again, a run for the county mayor’s job.

Most of those present at Babbs’ house Tuesday night were trying to coax Moore into running for county mayor. Moore said he’d think about it, as he’s been thinking about running for sheriff for some months now. — J.B.