Month: February 2002

Categories
Cover Feature News

Money For Nothing, Leaks For Free

There’s a leak in Tennessee’s higher education system. Several, in fact. One sprung in Ashley James’ dorm room at the University of Memphis around Thanksgiving. The sophomore broadcast-news major came back to her corner room in Smith Hall one night and found four ceiling tiles on the floor and water everywhere. Other U of M students complain of buckets in hallways and classrooms to catch water dripping from the ceiling.

But there’s another sort of leak, one that has nothing to do with water. Last year, the state legislature passed a budget that shortchanged higher education in the state; institutions like the University of Memphis passed on an unprecedented 15 percent tuition hike to their students to make up the money.

So far, next year isn’t looking any better. Just last week state legislative leaders were trying to figure out a way to raise over $700 million in new funding to meet minimum budget requirements. But that number doesn’t include additional funding for higher education.

“It happens a drip at a time,” says Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) chancellor Charles Manning. “Our system doesn’t fall apart one year to the next. It erodes gradually.”

At the University of Memphis, things certainly seem to be eroding. According to data from the university’s office of institutional research, in the fall of 1998 the university had 508 tenured professors. In the fall of 1999 it had 489; in 2000, 462; and in the fall of 2001, the number had dropped to 451 tenured professors. Over that same time, the number of faculty has actually increased, with the biggest jump in those not on a tenure track.

And while the university has recently built a new library, a clock tower, and the Rose Theatre, its older facilities, such as James’ dormitory, are beginning to show their age. James used a combination of plastic bags and bowls to catch the water for about two weeks before the rain subsided and a maintenance crew could fix the problem.

“I immediately went downstairs and filed a report for maintenance. They came the first day,” she says. “My mom works for the university and has had problems getting maintenance. I told them, ‘I live here. I need help now.'”

James was relatively lucky. When she came back after Christmas, she was still missing a few ceiling tiles and there were still two buckets on the floor, each with about four inches of water in them, but the leak had been fixed. Unfortunately, other major maintenance projects — about $49 million worth –have been deferred until there’s money to fix them.

Under Pressure

Law schools are competitive and aren’t normally seen as nurturing environments. But at the U of M, second- and third-year students offer advice to their less-seasoned peers. Choice tidbits of wisdom include “Dress in layers” and “Don’t lean back in the amphitheater chairs; they’re broken.”

“If we had to have a law conference in our building,” says Valerie Allison, a third-year law student, “I think it would be embarrassing. It’s either extremely hot or extremely cold in the classrooms, but it never corresponds to the weather outside.”

Allison says that all the students and professors dress in layers, shedding sweaters and coats when necessary. She can tell you which rooms are always hot and which ones are always cold and which ones have no ventilation.

“I hate to complain about the heating and the air conditioning,” says Allison, “but it’s hard to concentrate, and in law school you have to concentrate. We always say there must be a psychological experiment going on: ‘How do law students behave under pressure and adverse temperatures?'”

Dr. Shirley Raines, the university’s 11th president, says maintenance is one of the areas hit hardest by the state’s budget.

“Those problems, frankly, are harder for us to address,” says Raines. “We have over $49 million in deferred maintenance listed — as HVAC systems and those kind of things — because we have a number of aging buildings.”

Asked what the staff members tell students when there are complaints such as Allison’s, Raines says, “We look to see where we’re at in getting that building fixed.”

That’s really all they can say. Because of the limited funding from the state for construction — all the new buildings on campus have been paid for by private donations or debt service — the university’s repairs are prioritized. Raines says they try to address the instructional spaces first but that the list changes almost daily. For instance, when the law school library flooded last August, that facility jumped to the top of the list.

“We’re systematically fixing the roofs, but we need more money to fix them well. We’d like to replace them instead of just patch them,” says Raines.

It’s a Band-Aid approach, but right now it’s all they’ve got.

“It’s just nuts. We don’t necessarily need a brand-new building,” says Allison, “but if we’re going to pay more each semester, we should at least have a building where you can turn the heat off.”

She sometimes regrets not going to another law school, but she partly came to the University of Memphis because the law school has the highest bar-passing rate in the state and passing the bar is, after all, her main goal.

“The teachers do a great job,” says Allison, “but it’s almost in spite of the building.”

A Hypothetical Question

PHOTO BY TREY HARRISON
U of M president Dr. Shirley Raines

Asked what she would do if someone handed her $1 million and told her to spend it today, Raines doesn’t miss a beat: “I’d spend it on faculty salaries.”

According to the Southern Regional Education Board’s (SREB) Fact Book on Higher Education 2000/2001, faculty salaries at Tennessee’s public four-year institutions were only at 88 percent of the national average in 2000. That’s down from 96 percent of the average in 1995.

“We attempted to address the salary issue,” says Raines, “with the 15 percent tuition increase for students. We put those tuition dollars into salaries to keep them competitive.” The money gave professors an additional raise over the 2.5 percent increase provided by the state.

Michelle Smith is a senior elementary-education major. A few years ago she participated in a student lobby group that went to Nashville and asked legislators not to cut funding for education. The effort failed; funding was cut.

“One of my professors said to our class, ‘I know I’m worth more than the university is paying me,’ Smith says. “That was really disheartening. I think the university loses a lot of professors because of that.”

While Smith may be disheartened, Raines chooses to look on the bright side.

“We have had a lot of faculty who have left, granted, but we have many brilliant faculty and extraordinary teachers who have decided to stay,” says Raines. “It’s not that I want to put that million dollars on people who are trying to leave, but what I would do is look at the people doing extraordinary jobs who are committed to this university. Those would be the people whose salaries I would enhance.”

Unfortunately, that’s only hypothetical. Under the current brain-drain the university has about 10 percent fewer professors than it should have. And if the money isn’t there, no one gets a raise, committed or not. One thing seems certain, however: The university can ill afford to lose many more professors.

Sticker Shock

When the TBR, the governing body of Tennessee’s public universities and technical centers, decided to raise tuition 15 percent for undergraduates in four-year institutions last summer, it was continuing a trend. In 2000 the TBR voted to raise the tuition 10 percent at the University of Memphis. In 1999 fees were raised 8 percent and in 1998 they went up roughly 6 percent. The bottom line: During the 1995-1996 school year, annual tuition and fees for in-state undergrads was $1,806. Six years later, the price tag is almost double, at $3,470.

Although Raines originally says during an interview that deferred maintenance and the faculty “brain-drain” are the university’s two biggest problems, she amends that later: “I guess it depends on how you answer the question. You could say the major problems with the budget have been that we had to increase tuition … followed by low faculty salaries and deferred maintenance.”

Whether or not another tuition increase is on the horizon for this year depends on what the Legislature does during budget sessions. If it passes one of the more politically challenging tax proposals, a tuition increase might not be necessary. But that option seems unlikely.

“It’s hard to say how much funding higher education will get,” says state Senator Steve Cohen (D-Memphis). “I don’t think it will be significant. We’ve been behind in that area for years. Even if we gave them more funding, we’d still be near the bottom.”

According to figures from the SREB, adjusted for inflation, per-student funding for public four-year colleges and universities averaged an increase of $40 from 1995 to 2000 nationally. In Tennessee during that same period of time, per-student funding fell $1,303.

And for the TBR, that means voting for higher tuition.

“I’m pretty sure there will be a tuition hike. What I don’t know is how much it will be,” says Manning. “As of now, students pay close to half the funding. Unless the state doubles its share, we’re going to have to raise tuition.”

The state only gives about 84 percent of its formula for funding higher education; that means that instead of students paying about 40 percent of higher education’s operating costs, which they do traditionally, they’re now picking up almost 60 percent of the tab. For instance, a fully funded formula would mean another $20 million for the University of Memphis alone.

But Raines wants to be clear on one thing: The U of M is still a bargain in higher education. At nearby Rhodes College, annual tuition and fees come to just under $20,000. At LeMoyne-Owen College, the tab is $7,500.

“For instance, an undergraduate, in terms of tuition, still pays just over $3,200 a year. We have people who pay more than that for tuition for preschools for their kids,” Raines says.

Even so, with the steady stream of tuition hikes each year, some students are struggling to make ends meet and, according to Smith, don’t understand how desperate the university’s fiscal situation is. “I think a lot of students say, ‘We’re paying all this money. I’m working all summer to pay tuition. What do you mean there’s no money?'”

When asked about the tuition increase at the law school, Allison seems reticent to talk. Graduate tuition went up about 10 percent last year and increased 15 percent the year before.

“Let’s put it this way: Your loans don’t correspond to it,” she says. “And your job isn’t going to pay you any more money just because your tuition increases. You just say, ‘Okay, I have less to work with.'”

Less To Work With, More To Do

That’s the attitude the TBR has taken as well after hearing about the funding they were getting to work with. In December, the group published “Defining Our Future,” a report to the General Assembly on the impact of current and future budget reductions. In an effort to find a way to operate more efficiently with less money, the report outlines six key recommendations, including reducing the cost of remedial education, eliminating off-campus locations that are not cost-effective, and sharing resources. But the report makes clear that it’s not a blueprint for success but simply a way to stay afloat.

“We must emphasize that in order to increase education-attainment levels and achieve the level of excellence the General Assembly, the education community, and our citizens desire more funding is required,” reads the report.

“We characterize [the report] as things worth doing,” says TBR chancellor Manning, “but it won’t solve the fundamental budget crisis.”

Ideas that can be put in place are being put in place, while others are still in the planning stages. In December, the TBR voted to suspend remedial classes at its four-year institutions and is now looking at a suggestion to reduce the number of hours required for graduation.

“With subjects such as engineering and nursing, basic accreditation requires more course work,” says Manning. “But in other areas, we just start to add things in. We’ll say, ‘This is something our graduates need to know,’ and sometimes it’s just easier to make another course. We think we can trim it down and still produce educated people.”

Essentially, this means that a student who knows what career he wants to pursue after graduation can get his degree faster and at less expense.

“Will they know a little less? Yes, they will,” says Manning. “Will it make a significant difference? No, it won’t.”

Students who are unsure of their career goals when they enter college will not benefit as much, but Manning says that he’s not concerned about it limiting the quality of education. The idea isn’t ground-breaking; similar plans have been undertaken by Georgia and Florida.

“We needed to take a hard look at what we’re doing. This way, we get a little more economy and still get great graduates,” says Manning.

Raines says when she came onto the job she wasn’t naive, but she wasn’t sure what they were going to do to raise the required funding.

“I’m still asking: What are we going to do?” she says. “When I arrived in July, I knew we were facing significant challenges and we still face significant challenges.”

One thing her administration is working toward is aggressively asking for alumni contributions and endowments, as well as partnerships with local businesses.

“We simply don’t want to be standing there with our hands out for them to help us. We are looking for donors and people who can endow more efforts that they think are in the community’s best interest,” says Raines. “We also think we have a lot to offer corporate sponsors.”

Gracing a wall on the president’s outer office is a photo showing members of the administration breaking ground for the FedEx Technology Institute. It is this type of project, she says, that will bring people from all over the world to work at the University of Memphis.

“It is in our very best interest as a community for this university to flourish,” says Raines. “Every student who graduates from the University of Memphis will earn four to five times as much in his or her career and pay back into the system three or four times as much in his or her career. That means if we have more college graduates, we’re going to prosper economically.”

Instead of the funding problem being self-contained at public colleges and universities, both Raines and Manning see the long-term aspects of a far-reaching problem for Tennessee.

“The more pressed we are for money, the harder it will be for the University of Memphis to grow,” says Manning, “not just in terms of students, but in terms of its potential: how it could grow and serve Memphis.”

Manning cites Nissan as an example. A few years ago, the automaker decided not to build two plants here. It wasn’t that the state didn’t have an educated workforce that could do those jobs. Rather it didn’t have enough of an educated workforce to fill those jobs. Most of the qualified employees already had jobs.

But the problem isn’t only one of economics. “Sticker shock” also has Manning concerned. The TBR’s main goal is to educate as many Tennesseans as possible. As the price of higher education rises, more and more potential college students decide they can’t afford college.

“Their goals and aspirations start to change,” says Manning. “They don’t believe the funds are there, so they don’t take academic courses and they give up.”

“I think it will be a very different place in Tennessee in 20 years if we don’t do anything about it,” he says. “You can put off repairs and use part-time faculty but they don’t have the level of commitment to the facility. It’s hard to see where you fall off the cliff.”

To keep it from going over that cliff, the system needs more funding. But in a state budget filled with needs, including things such as TennCare and pre-K education, the legislators have a hard call to make: deciding who gets what and how much.

Raines and U of M communications director Curt Guenther think it’s time the students themselves got more involved with the legislative process. At U of M, students outnumber staff and faculty by a ratio of 20 to 1. Along with their families and friends, they make up a substantial voting bloc. And they are, after all, the ones directly affected by the cuts. Raines and Guenther may get their salaries from the state, but they’ve already gotten their degrees. In fact, Raines says she wouldn’t be where she is today without her public education in Tennessee.

However, Senator Cohen, who’s in favor of a lottery and a scholarship program like the one set up in Georgia, isn’t sure student activism would make a difference.

“I don’t think it would,” he says.” I don’t think it’s possible to change the minds of some of the legislators who are not supporting higher education or aren’t in favor of meaningful tax reform.”

So what exactly does that mean for the state’s system? At the TRB, they’ll be working toward implementing more of the “Defining Our Future” cost-cutting measures. At the U of M, they’re deciding whether they need to limit enrollment to live within the existing budget. And at Smith Hall, Ashley James, whose dorm room began leaking again after thunderstorms late last week, will be hoping for clear blue skies.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Dressing For Failure

At a time when the question of uniforms in public schools is still generating a good deal of debate nationwide, it is something of an irony that the issue has been resolved, at least informally, at the University of Memphis Law School.

As we learn from this week’s cover story by Mary Cashiola, both students and teachers at the law school have adopted the “layered” look — but not because anybody has mandated it or because the style might be considered trendy somewhere else. They wear layered clothing at the law school because the building’s temperature controls are so antiquated and unreliable that room temperatures fluctuate wildly and unpredictably, and one has to be ready to take off clothing or add it on at a moment’s notice.

“It’s hard to concentrate, and in law school you have to concentrate. We always say there must be a psychological experiment going on: ‘How do law students behave under pressure and adverse temperatures?'” was one student’s way of explaining it.

The problem is money, of course. The ongoing financial starvation being inflicted on the University of Memphis is nothing new. Even in boom times, the state never got around to supplying some of the facility’s obvious needs. Almost uniquely among public institutions of its size and prominence, the University of Memphis has never had a major on-campus performance facility, either athletic or otherwise. It was slated to a couple of years ago, when private donors were already committed to supply matching funds in order to begin building the long-deferred performing arts center for which the administration of Governor Don Sundquist had budgeted money. The project came to naught, however, when the state came close to the brink of bankruptcy, a desperate edge it has never left since, mainly because the members of the General Assembly have refused to deal with the need for tax reform and have been content instead to pilfer reserve funds merely to keep an even keel.

But an even keel requires basic maintenance, and the state has not been able to afford even that for public institutions like the University of Memphis. Hence the layered look among students and the correspondingly disheveled state of physical facilities. And hence, too, the inability of the university to keep its salaries up to the level of competitive institutions elsewhere. Indeed, the University of Memphis is losing ground. In 1995, the university’s faculty salaries had climbed to a level of 96 percent of the national average. Only five years later, they were down to 88 percent. The implications of that are shocking; the ongoing fact of what university president Shirley Raines calls “brain-drain” is even more so.

“Money For Nothing, Leaks For Free” is the title of Cashiola’s article. Indeed. Politicians, like the ones who are even now debating in Nashville about whether to impose a one-cent sales tax (the most regressive kind, as we said last week) have seemingly given up on doing anything serious about the problem. Even that one-cent tax increase would yield only enough to keep the state going at the current level. It might or might not provide enough income to fix the leaks in the ceilings at the University of Memphis.

Tax reform — enough of it to generate a dependable source of financing for the maintenance and upgrade of the state’s public facilities — is no longer a theoretical issue. Education, just to take one example of fiscal undernourishment, requires investment. Ignorance — that hole in the ceiling of self-awareness — is free. It is high time we covered ourselves.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Hanging In There

Harold Byrd and friend before the faithful.

God never asked us to be successful. He asked us to be faithful.” Those words, part of a stirring oration by TaJuan Stout-Mitchell Saturday to the attendees at mayoral candidate Harold Byrd’s headquarters opening at 3183 Poplar Avenue, were a fair statement of the campaign’s root premises these days.

Whatever smoke might be blown from now on by Byrd’s supporters or by his opponents, or even by the candidate himself, the Bartlett banker — who began his quest more than a year ago and was firstest with the mostest in fund-raising — has long ceased to be the front-runner in the current Democratic primary competition for the office of Shelby County mayor to succeed the outgoing Jim Rout. (A single Republican, state Representative Larry Scroggs, has also declared for mayor thus far.)

From the point that he signaled an interest in the mayoralty late last summer, and especially after his formal announcement of candidacy in October, the clear front-runner — both in a poll or two and in more anecdotal surveys — has been Shelby County Public Defender A C Wharton, on the basis of perceived experience (he has toiled on public bodies dealing with law enforcement, mental health and education, for starters), personal likeability, and — though Wharton is an African American and a Democrat — his genuine ability to cross racial and political borders.

“Harold had it made until AC got in” is the phrase one hears from numerous pols sympathetic to both men, sometimes with a wistful shaking of the head on Byrd’s behalf.

And, as if to rub it in, Wharton was able to flaunt a key endorsement Friday — on the very eve of Byrd’s headquarters opening. It came from state Senator Jim Kyle, who thereby got on the same bandwagon as his three Democratic colleagues in the Senate — Steve Cohen, Roscoe Dixon, and John Ford — at a press conference choreographed to suggest a united front and irresistible momentum for the Shelby County public defender, last Democrat to enter the mayor’s race.

(Ford and Dixon, who had previously made their preferences known, were absent from the press conference; Cohen was present.)

Kyle, who had been the first to announce his interest in running for mayor early last year and the first (and so far the only) candidate to withdraw, had been talking privately for some time about what he saw as Wharton’s good chances for election. Thursday he described Wharton as “better” than other “good” candidates.

The two recipients of this left-handed compliment were Byrd, of course, and state Representative Carol Chumney, who had not yet convinced most onlookers that she’s a serious player — even though she has quietly picked up endorsements from the Shelby County Women’s Caucus and the AFL-CIO and could even be more of a sleeper than a spoiler.

Chumney also has ventured further and more explicitly into certain issues — notably, city-county consolidation, which she favors — though a key adviser or two are candid about her need to do so in order to overcome her better-heeled Democratic opponents’ advantages.

For roughly a month, rumors have circulated to the effect that Byrd was on the verge of dropping out of the mayor’s race before the final withdrawal date next month. “Not a chance,” said Byrd, who insists he is in for the long haul and suggests that such reports had been planted by the Wharton campaign to try to stampede Democratic voters — and financial supporters — in the public defender’s direction.

The timing of the Kyle announcement — as much as the manner of it, overseen by a public relations firm — was a confirmation both of Byrd’s suspicions and of the confident, almost languid manner just now of the public defender, who also happened to be coming off a fresh (and lucrative) fund-raiser or two.

Byrd had his own new endorsement Saturday — from entertainer/entrepreneur Isaac Hayes, who gave a testimonial to Byrd’s “morals, his character, his integrity.” The campaign’s hope clearly was that the impact of a cultural icon would prove more potent to a voting public than an endorsement by Kyle would be to political insiders.

The fact is, though, that Wharton is the clear front-runner and that it is no longer in Byrd’s interest to pretend otherwise. What the Bartlett banker does have, to judge by the turnout Saturday, is a large and loyal commitment from a grass-roots population (heavily black, to judge by the crowd) that will stick it out with him.

His chances now are not those of a comfortable front-runner but of a Rocky, the underdog with determination and spunk. In private, Byrd’s campaign people employ the rhetoric of “the people versus the powerful” to describe their view of the race, in testament to what they see as Wharton’s considerable number of supporters who are visibly well-off, politically established, and comfortable, but they have not yet ventured to make such rhetoric a strong and vivid part of their public appeal.

Nor do they (or can they) make much of another assumption shared by most of them — notably the African Americans in Byrd’s campaign. Namely, that a victory by Wharton in May might give the Democratic ticket in August an all-black look which, when complemented by the expected all-white roster of Republican nominees, could make the general election a de facto racial-line campaign, with resultant damage to a discussion of the issues.

Byrd himself seems to be having difficulty articulating what — at this stage, certainly — ought to be a populist campaign and tends to answer almost every question put to him with variations on his stock speech, which begins with his difficult growing-up in McNairy County and trickles out somewhere around the point that he begins talking about the mounting county debt that he says propelled him into the race.

The trouble with that is that he’s said that before and it sounded then, as it does now, too much like an accountant talking.

Still, the man is who he is — well-liked, determined, and feisty, if need be, as well as a sincere believer in opportunity for those who, more or less like himself back in those McNairy County days, will have to come up from nothing.

It is a considerable irony that his major opponent happens to be a primary exhibit in his own person of such progress, and Byrd can only hope that Wharton’s campaign style at some point begins to appear even more languid, lumbering, and complacent than it already does at times — to the point that voters might heed the strains of a candidate trying as hard as he can to come from behind.

* How’re you gonna keep ’em down on the farm? In the case of Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout, who was allegedly retiring from politics after the current term to devote time to family and private pursuits (including, yes, a farm), you may not be able to.

Rout, who considered running for governor this year before opting out of both a gubernatorial race and a race for reelection as mayor, went barnstorming Thursday in a statewide fly-around on behalf of former state Representative Jim Henry of Kingston, who seeks the Republican nomination for governor. That puts Rout on the other side of the GOP primary race from 7th District U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant, who held a press conference, along with other Shelby County GOP officials, to indicate his support for his congressional colleague, 4th District congressman Van Hilleary.

The Shelby County mayor and son Rick Rout, who is Henry’s Shelby County field rep, accompanied the candidate all the way from the Tri-Cities in northeast Tennessee to the one-day tour’s final stop in Memphis late Thursday afternoon.

“I knew I’d be working for a gubernatorial candidate named Jim. I just thought it would be a different Jim,” cracked Rick Rout as he presided over the occasion in Memphis at the Signature Air terminal in the airport. (Besides his father, two other Tennessee dignitaries — former Mayor Gene Roberts of Chattanooga and Mayor Dave Bradshaw of Oak Ridge accompanied Henry on the plane tour.)

After being introduced by Jim Rout Sr., Henry responded angrily to his third-place position in a poll released by presumed GOP front-runner Hilleary, calling the poll “bogus” and pronouncing Hilleary unelectable.

The poll, carried out under Hilleary auspices, showed the 4th District congressman running first among Republicans, little-known minister Bob Tripp second, and Henry third.

Henry challenged the poll’s authenticity and said, “We [Republicans] don’t need to be involved in something like that.” And he responded with a firm “No!” when asked if Hilleary, who is vacating his 4th District congressional seat to run for governor, could be elected.

“With the kind of trouble the state is in, people are looking for someone with experience in local and state government. They don’t want to take any chances,” said Henry, who cited “the good old days” when he worked with former Governor Lamar Alexander in several capacities, including that of House Republican leader.

Declining to reveal how much money he had raised in his campaign so far, the former state representative and Kingston mayor chided Hilleary for several press releases publicizing the congressman’s purported receipts, most recently to the tune of $2.1 million, saying, “If you make this a money game, we might as well concede the election to Phil Bredesen.” (Former Nashville mayor Bredesen, a Democratic candidate for governor, is independently wealthy and has also issued a press release claiming fund-raising totals of $3.1 million.)

Henry said to the supporters in attendance at the terminal that the election should be about “trust” and that he trusted the people to vote via referendum on whether or not the state should have an income tax.

Henry agreed with Hilleary about one matter, however — that of declining to sign an anti-income-tax pledge. “It would be irresponsible for a potential governor to take a position like that, especially if we’re asking the people to vote on it,” said Henry, who said he personally opposed a state income tax.

If Henry had Rout, however, Hilleary could boast a whole roster of Republicans at his press conference Monday. Not just erstwhile rival Bryant but the likes of county Register Tom Leatherwood, Probate Court Clerk Chris Thomas, County Clerk Jayne Creson, County Trustee Bob Patterson, state Representatives Paul Stanley and Bubba Pleasant, state Senator Mark Norris, and former local GOP chairman David Kustoff.

And, while he continued to protest his opposition to a state income tax and showed an affinity for the proper Republican buzzwords on most other issues, Hilleary also made an effort to suggest that his continued electability from Tennessee’s 4th District, which stretches from East Tennessee into Middle Tennessee and is, he says, predominantly Democratic, shows him to be capable of outreach to the political opposition.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Rank Behavior

While watching the Tigers dismantle another unimpressive team this weekend, my thoughts quickly turned to the question: Why aren’t the Tigers ranked in the Top 25? Cincinnati is and hasn’t played anybody. I don’t think Memphis is getting the respect it deserves!

The Houston game proceeded like so many others this year and provided fans with a microcosm of the Tigers’ woes with the AP and ESPN/USA Today coaches’ polls: It was another win against a nobody.

The Tigers (17-4) are currently ranked 44th in the latest RPI ranking, with a strength of schedule (SOS) ranking of 147. It should be taken into account that the RPI only counts games against Division I opponents so the Tigers’ win against CBU doesn’t count. Only one team ranked ahead of the Tigers in the RPI, Marquette (#37), which has a worse SOS rank (156), but the Golden Eagles are 17-3 in Division I on the year. Three teams ranked in the Top 25 have at least four losses. For example, Georgia and Mississippi State have four losses, but due to their conference games, their SOS rankings are 20 and 57, respectively. Michigan State has eight losses but plays the 29th-hardest schedule in the country.

But let’s forget about the numbers for a second and take a look at what got the Tigers where they are.

Games against Wofford, Old Dominion, Northwestern State, Southeastern Louisiana, CBU, Eastern Kentucky, Austin Peay, and UT-Martin didn’t help matters, especially when you are playing in Conference USA and can’t rely on conference games to give you wins against highly ranked teams. Only one C-USA team (Cincinnati) is ranked in either Top 25 poll.

Tiger opponents Iowa, Alabama, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Temple, and Arkansas seem strong on paper. Unfortunately, only Iowa and Alabama are ranked in the Top 25; the others are having down-years. The Tigers went 2-4 against that group, the two wins coming against Tennessee (8-10, 67 RPI) and Temple (6-12, 106 RPI).

Media and fans complained about how easy the schedule was when it was made known to the public on August 9th. Coach Calipari was quoted several times saying that he thought he did the 2000-2001 squad a disservice by making the schedule too difficult. Last year the Tigers started the season 2-6, with all six losses coming at the hands of Top 25 opponents. That 2000-2001 schedule also included five “buy” games — games in which higher-profile schools (Memphis) pay lower-profile schools (anything with a compass point in the name) to come and play so that they do not have to return the favor of a home-and-home series.

So what happened? Calipari fixed the previous year’s problem. Everyone complained about the difficulty of the schedule, so he did what most folks wanted. The result: more wins. But there was a catch.

Nobody counted on the schedule being this easy.

There is a bright side to all of this bickering over schedules and rankings. The Tigers have 16 Division I wins on the season thus far with nine more games before the Conference USA tournament in early March. Since those nine games feature only one ranked opponent, the Tigers should have no problem amassing 22 wins, which should guarantee them a spot in the NCAA tournament. Once a team is in the tournament, all that matters is what it does on the court. And that’s the bottom line after all.

One On One

The Clippers came to town and couldn’t match up.

By Chris Przybyszewski

In the human chess game that is NBA basketball, a player’s relative position on the court is second only to that player’s match-up. There are classic moments in the game when the Lakers’ Magic Johnson faced off against the Celtics’ Larry Bird or recently when the 76ers’ Dikembe Mutumbo played the Lakers’ Shaquille O’Neal in their respective championship series.

But in addition to those marquee moments of human pyrotechnics and clashing wills, NBA players square up against each other, fighting for domination, on a nightly basis. Coaches must recognize their players’ individual strengths and weaknesses and match those abilities with the strengths and weaknesses of that night’s opponent.

Sometimes answers to these riddles are scarce. Superstars like the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant or Toronto’s Vince Carter garner superstar status because no one can match the skills and talent they possess. But, as evident in the Grizzlies’ Monday night 119-115 overtime win against the L.A. Clippers, the Grizzlies are able to take advantage of key — if not marquee — match-ups.

For example, early in the game, Grizzlies head coach Sidney Lowe put Shane Battier on Clipper guard Eric Piatkowski. “Piatkowski is going to come off screens and we needed someone to chase him around,” Lowe said. “Shane’s going to be our guy.” Battier, a natural small forward, also has a couple of inches and a few pounds of muscle on Piatkowski and was able to exploit him on the offensive end early in the game.

That mismatch of Battier-Piatkowski forced Clippers coach Alvin Gentry to insert guard Quentin Richardson into the mix. Lowe countered by placing forward Grant Long on Richardson. “Richardson is more of a post-up [player],” Lowe said. “He can shoot the three, but he’s a strong two guard, so Grant can guard him.” But the Grizzlies could not rely solely on Long, an offensive no-show (5.9 ppg), throughout the game. The Grizzlies needed firepower against the young and talented Clippers and so brought in shooting guard Rodney Buford for some minutes and good production with 22 points.

Taking Long out meant that Lowe had to pick his poison: the fast Piatkowski or the strong Richardson versus Battier or Buford. Lowe put Battier on Richardson and let Buford take on Piatkowski. Battier has more bulk than Buford and could bang with the physical Richardson. And Buford’s athleticism allowed him to keep up with Piatkowski. The result? Piatkowski scored only five points and Richardson only 11.

That meant that the bulk of the Clippers’ scoring load fell elsewhere, namely to forward Elton Brand (26 points) and center Michael Olowokandi (27 points). When Brand fouled out late in the game, the Clippers found themselves in a bad way. Forward Pau Gasol alternately guarded Brand and Olowokandi, and while the Spaniard had four blocked shots, the Clippers obviously won that match-up on their offensive end.

With starting point guard Jason Williams sitting out with repaired ingrown toenails (of all things) on both feet, back-up point guard Brevin Knight got the starting nod.

Lowe said that the change brought a new flavor to the game. “Brevin can control the game, call the plays, get the balls to the right guys. Jason is a different kind of player. He can go one on one, he’s more up and down [the floor].” And a slow, more deliberate style of play fit against the Clippers. “[L.A.] picks up the tempo and tries to force you into playing their style of game, which is getting you up and down the floor first and then pounding inside to their big people,” Lowe said.

However, like Williams, Knight has speed to burn. And with the lightning-quick 5’5″ Clippers guard Earl Boykins in the game, Knight had his hands full. But instead of trying to outrun his opponent, Knight instead used his speed to match Boykins on defense. “We had a nice counter with [Boykins’] match-up with Brevin, to match his quickness and his toughness. Brevin might be a little bit stronger,” Lowe said.

Knight also plays under control, more like a surgeon, in strong contrast to the slashing, flashy Williams. He scored 19 points, passed out 15 assists, and had only one turnover. The result was six Grizzlies with double-digit scoring. And, most important, a win.

In one critical possession in the fourth quarter, the 5’10” Knight drew the 6’8″ Brand in a rebounding situation. Lowe certainly didn’t draw up this particular match-up, but Knight managed to box out Brand, grab the defensive rebound, and then draw the foul as Brand tried to strip the ball away. Knight earned a sizable bruise for the effort, but the lesson is that despite the carefully crafted match-up plans a coach may make, the game is a fluid thing and ultimately it comes down to players making smart plays.

Small dramas like this one happen every night in the NBA. Everyone looks forward to big names banging against big names, but games often turn on the small victories at other positions. Just ask the Clippers, who came to Memphis and found no answers to the puzzles the Grizzlies put on the floor. The game wasn’t Magic against Bird, but with this team, any winning combination is a masterpiece.

The Score

NOTABLE:

Those who followed the “NBA Now” versus “No Taxes NBA” debate will remember the rhetorical question: How many people will actually show up to a week-night game when the Grizzlies play the L.A. Clippers? Here’s the definitive answer from Monday night: 11,278.

The two top Grizzlies vote-getters for the 2002 All-Star game in Philadelphia are guard Jason Williams (170,807 votes) and center Lorenzen Wright (65,263 votes). Both players are in the Top 10 for their respective positions in the Western Conference, though neither is likely to be invited. The Grizzlies do have three players participating in the rookie game, with Pau Gasol and Shane Battier playing on the rookie squad and Stromile Swift playing on the sophomore team. The Grizzlies’ Chuck Daly will coach the rookie squad.

Pau Gasol has scored in double figures in 12 straight games and has scored 25 points or more six times during that span. He shot 60 percent (98-of-164) in his last 11 games. Gasol has not shot under 50 percent in a game since making 2-of-5 shots in a loss to Atlanta on January 4th.

Tigers senior forward Kelly Wise leads the C-USA in rebounding with 11.6 rpg. Freshman guard DaJuan Wagner ranks second in scoring with 21.2 ppg.

QUOTABLE:

“My job is to get wins. I look at what that score says. If the score is going good, then we’re going good and I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing. If the score is going bad, then we’re in trouble.” — Brevin Knight downplaying his 19-point, 15-assist, one-turnover effort against the Clippers. n

“We did do some things at the end of the game that I didn’t care for, but I told the guys we would talk about that tomorrow. I don’t want to take anything away from them.” An uncharacteristically forgiving Coach Sidney Lowe after the win.

“That’s what the game comes down to, a silly play. It doesn’t make any sense, this game, sometimes.” A very un-zen-like Lakers coach Phil Jackson, on the officiating in the Lakers 93-87 loss on January 27th.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Language Barrier

Seminal historic events always affect the language. Already we can see that Enron is of this shattering magnitude. A stick-up artist goes into the Jiffy Mart to pull a heist. He whips his heater and says to the clerk, “Put ’em up. This is an aggressive accounting practice.”

Or you take your car to Ralph’s Rip-off Garage to get a $50 problem fixed and, sure enough, he bills you $600. You say, “What an aggressive accounting practice!”

Euphemism of the Year, and it’s not even February yet.

The single most distinguishing feature of the Enron collapse is that no one is yet sure the company did anything illegal. (Aside from destroying documents, which arguably falls in the “seriously ill-advised” category.) As we gyre and gimble in the wabe of Enron, we run across such delightful items. Did you know that Enron’s board twice voted to suspend its own ethics code in order to create private partnerships? But how thoughtful of them to suspend the ethics code first! Otherwise, they might have violated it.

The funniest line of argument about Enron so far is “This is not a political scandal.” Boy, there’s a triumph of denial. Of course it’s a political scandal.

Business writers solemnly explain that Enron was in the business of buying and selling everything from natural gas and electricity to — as the company grew increasingly delirious — broadband telecommunications, water, and weather contracts. Also legislators, congressmen, governors, senators, and presidents — the company bought them with campaign contributions and then sold them on fatally foolish policies. Anyone who tells you campaign contributions only buy “access, not policy” needs to have his nose rubbed in this one. Just to mention a few highlights:

* Wendy Gramm’s key decision as chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to deregulate energy futures markets. She has been on the Enron board since 1992.

* Sen. Phil Gramm received over $97,000 in Enron contributions and passed legislation that exempted key parts of Enron from government

* President George W. Bush got $2 million in contributions from Enron and its officers over the years, and numerous administration officials have Enron connections. A key decision by the administration was to call off the Clinton-led effort to stop international money-laundering (used by terrorists, drug-traffickers, kleptocratic dictators, and tax evaders) by going after off-shore banks. As has been widely reported, Enron maintained more than 800 offshore accounts in order to avoid taxes — and paid none in four of the last five years.

There’s some serious business here. If we are lucky, plucky, and raise lots of hell, Congress will probably make some improvements in campaign-finance laws, the conflict of interest on auditors also working as consultants, and oversight of private partnerships. And that will not be enough.

As Bill Greider writes in the current issue of The Nation: “The rot consists of more than greed and ignorance. The evolving new forms of finance and banking, joined with the permissive culture in Washington, produced an exotic structural nightmare.

“They converge, with back-scratching in the business of lending and investing other people’s money. The results are profoundly conflicted loyalties in banks and financial firms — who have fiduciary obligations to the citizens who give them money to invest. Banks and brokerages often cannot tell the truth to retail customers, depositors, or investors without potentially injuring the corporate clients that provide huge commissions and profits from investment deals. Sometimes bankers cannot even tell the truth to themselves because they have put their own capital (or government-insured deposits) at risk in the deals.”

It seems pointless to continue the argument over free-market capitalism versus regulated capitalism. It is a theological, not a practical, argument, requiring perfect faith from the free-market fundamentalists.

The greater danger is that as these enormous financial institutions run into trouble, they’ll take everybody else with them.

Molly Ivins writes for Creators Syndicate and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Her work appears in the Flyer periodically.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Ruh Roh

Scooby-Doo, Where are You! debuted in 1969 and the show’s youthful ghostbusters, Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy, along with their perpetually frightened Great Dane Scoobert, have been solving scary Saturday-morning mysteries ever since. Given the entertainment industry’s decade-long obsession with feeding off pop-culture leftovers, it was really only a matter of time before Hollywood treated itself to a Scooby snack. With Mystery Inc.’s first live-action film just around the corner, Mark McKinney of Kids in the Hall fame talks about what led him to collaborate on Scooby-Doo in Stage Fright, a live stage version of this cartoon classic.

Flyer: Can you tell me a little bit about the path that leads a Kid in the Hall to a live production of Scooby-Doo?

Mark McKinney: It was a fairly direct path. Jim Millan, who was the director and who wrote the script, was an old friend of ours who we got to direct the Kids in the Hall tour “Same Guys, Different Dresses.” And it was a very successful tour. When they were looking for a collaborator to help with the writing and the comedy they thought of me.

Did you have a close personal relationship with Scooby before you started working on Stage Fright?

Coincidentally, a few years before all this started happening my son started watching it. And I started watching it with him because I wanted to be a good parent, you know? I didn’t want him to get lost in the tube. I grew up abroad, so I discovered Scooby-Doo through him. And he loved it. He was passionate about it. And he got me hooked on it.

It’s certainly been an enduring cartoon. Others have come and gone but it sticks around in some form. What has made it so special?

I think for one it’s a really great introduction to the idea of “scary.” Also, as adults we like watching sitcoms, shows that have a regular cast of characters. We enjoy identifying with and watching the writers capitalize on the obsessions of any given character. Like Norm on Cheers or Archie Bunker. It’s the regular cast of characters that becomes the crucible the comedy comes out of. For kids, Scooby-Doo is a neat intro to that kind of comedy because Scooby and Shaggy are both kind of cowards but are obsessed by food, Velma’s the smart one, Daphne is the attractive one who is always tumbling down stairs.

But it’s also got monsters. And it’s made for kids who are probably afraid of the monster under their bed or the ghost in their closet.

It’s spooky and there’re ghosts and it’s frightening, sure, but at the end of the day it’s all so, so manageable. And I think that is very reassuring. If Scooby and Shaggy can handle it, so can they.

So who is this version of Scooby-Doo for? Is it for the kids or is it for the grown-ups who grew up with Scooby-Doo?

I think it’s mostly for the kids. There’s no sort of post-modern tweaking to sort of wink at the audience. We didn’t do this to get laughs so much. There may be a few jokes but not the kind of winking at the audience that happens in some productions of things that get updated and de-con-struct-ed. The original episodes were very sincere and straightforward. What you will see is kind of a classic Scooby-Doo episode live on the stage.

But that has to be hard. There are things you can do in cartoons that make the cartoons so appealing that you can’t do live on stage.

Narratively, there wasn’t much we wanted to do that we couldn’t do. You can’t get that forced perspective you can get when you are doodling on a pad. A lot of it is on [the director’s] shoulders to figure out how to make it work. Like we have this sort of lunatic introduction where Scooby stumbles in rolling on top of a tire, which took us forever to get right. You just have to work it. And you have to maintain the right atmosphere of spooky. But [working on stage] also offers opportunities. Without much guile, Scooby and Shaggy stumble into the audience, and it may be the most electric moment in the show. When they wade into this audience of 6- and 8-year-olds, they go kind of ape.

Let me guess: The show ends with the line “And I might have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those pesky kids.”

You have to put that in. It’s the centerpiece of the show.

Scooby-Doo in Stage Fright is at the Orpheum through February 3rd.

Categories
Music Music Features

The Road Less Traveled

It was almost exactly a year ago that local blues player Richard Johnston saw his position in the city’s crowded blues scene take a giant leap. Representing the Beale Street Blues Society last February in the International Blues Challenge, an annual amateur contest sponsored by the Memphis-based Blues Foundation, Johnston competed with over 50 acts from around the world and took home the big prize. Johnston’s unexpected win was a definitive career catalyst, garnering him a plum performance slot on the Blues Foundation’s Handy Awards broadcast and a chance to hit the blues-festival circuit.

Johnston’s big year culminated this month with the release of his debut album, Foot Hill Stomp, and a purposefully unpublicized record-release party at the New Daisy Theatre on Sunday, January 13th.

But this overnight success was a long time coming for the 36-year-old Johnston, who ended up in Memphis about six years ago to play the Bluestock festival. While in town for the festival, Johnston hoped to catch a glimpse of hill-country blues legend Junior Kimbrough, whose music Johnston had never heard. Kimbrough ended up canceling at Bluestock and Johnston instead visited Kimbrough’s North Mississippi juke joint, where he again missed Kimbrough and instead saw a house band playing “Brickhouse” and Bo Diddley covers.

Johnston, at the time an aficionado of country blues in the vein of Robert Johnson and Robert Wilkins, returned unimpressed to Japan, where he’d been living for several years. But he was back in Memphis a few months later and soon found himself again at Kimbrough’s, where he fell in love with the electric hill-country blues and became a member of the Soul Blues Boys, a backing band led by Kimbrough’s son Kinney. “That was the best period of my life,” Johnston says of his tenure with the Soul Blues Boys. “I went down there every Sunday and played for $25, a chicken sandwich, and all the beer I could drink. And after two years I was up to $30. It was a real trip to be thrown immediately into the scene.”

Johnston’s first few years in Memphis were hardscrabble, living out of his truck sometimes. “When I came to Memphis I was over 30 years old, and it’s rough being 30 and poor. By all white standards, I was miserable. And that’s something I’ve had to learn,” Johnston says of his total immersion in Delta blues culture. “The exposure to the black culture, especially the rural black culture, gave me a lot of hope and relieved me of a lot of fears. Life is meant to be lived slow and long and relaxed. A couple of years at Junior’s and I felt like I was reborn. It was the most spiritual thing that ever happened to me in my life. The years that I spent out there will never stop giving back to me.”

When Junior’s burned down in April 2000, Johnston says he “came back to Beale Street with [his] tail between [his] legs.” “For the first year-and-a-half I was in Memphis I played on Beale, but I couldn’t work much country blues into it,” Johnston says, “and by the time I got back from Junior’s that’s all I would play.”

Johnston says he went door to door on Beale looking for a club that would let him play break sets. Legend’s agreed to take him in. Johnston played country blues in between other peoples’ sets at the club for about a year before the Beale Street Blues Society’s Dennis Brooks talked him into entering its annual talent contest.

Johnston had previously struck up a friendship with John Lowe, the owner of Xanadu Music & Books, who makes his own diddly bows (one-stringed, cigar-box guitars). Faced with competing against 50 of the world’s best blues bands in the International Blues Challenge, Johnston asked Lowe to experiment with a double-necked version of his diddly bow so he could play a bass and guitar at the same time. Johnston then rigged up a foot-activated drum system to go with the new instrument and became a one-man three-piece band. Johnston worked this novel arrangement into his more traditional solo set for the contest, a virtuoso performance style he has since demonstrated before countless local audiences.

His triumph at the Blues Challenge and the subsequent exposure it generated presented him with a wealth of career options, but Johnston has thus far made the unexpected but entirely sane choice to maintain his independence. Partly inspired by the entrepreneurial strategy of folk star Ani DiFranco, Johnston has deliberately opted out of the record-label game, instead putting Foot Hill Stomp out on his own under the self-created FTRC imprint — “Fuck The Record Company.”

“My first impression of the music business is nobody knows what to make of it, especially the musicians,” Johnston says of his attitude toward the conventional notion of “making it” in the music business. “They live in a constant state of nail-biting. First, it’s ‘Can we get a record deal?’ Then, ‘Are they going to release it?’ Then, ‘What’s gonna happen after we find out that we owe [the record company] money at the end of the tour?’ I’ve heard so many horror stories from friends who have been through it,” he says.

Johnston’s strategy for surviving “off the grid” is to foster a direct line of communication with his audience, largely through e-mail. “Here I was playing on Beale with a tip bucket, and I thought, What if I ask people to throw e-mail addresses in there too? Street musicians can go to the public library and get a Hotmail account, and that’s exactly what I did. I couldn’t afford a computer at the time. I figured that with all the people who I play to, if I could keep in contact with a certain percentage of them, why would I even need a record deal?”

“It’s important not to lose track of people that you’re touching,” Johnston says. “If I play out on Beale Street on a busy night, the way people circle the street, I can reach thousands of people. I tell people, ‘Put your name and e-mail in my tip bucket and I promise you I’ll never sign with a record company and I also promise you I’ll never charge you what they charge you. If it’s $15 down at Tower, I’m going to sell it to you for $10 and still make $7 more than I would with a record deal and you’ll pay $5 less and we’ll do it all over the Internet.'”

Johnston’s recent release party offered a modest demonstration of his growing fan base. A “private” party that Johnston publicized solely through his e-mail network, the show drew about 450 people, with Johnston estimating about 200 people from his e-mail network (which currently numbers over 2,000, according to Johnston) who live outside the tri-state area.

Starting about 7 p.m. and lasting well into the morning, Johnston’s was no typical record-release party. Rather, it was a revue that felt something like the Band’s famous Last Waltz concert, except this one was meant to be a symbolic beginning to Johnston’s career, not an ending. Johnston invited a slew of guests, among them, Blind Mississippi Morris and Brad Webb, the Soul Blues Boys, the Burnside Exploration, and, most dramatically, nonagenarian fife-and-drum master Othar Turner, who performed with a group that featured his young great-granddaughter Sade, whose own fife-work brought the house down. Johnston ran around all night acting as ringleader — introducing acts, sitting in, sometimes just sitting back and beaming. He also stopped in the middle of the show to hold an awards ceremony for those who have helped him along the way. Trophies went to Webb, Lowe, Turner, the Daisy’s Mike and Brad Glenn (for helping him “negotiate the politics of Beale Street”), and hill-country blues matriarch Jessie Mae Hemphill, who makes a crucial appearance on Foot Hill Stomp. Johnston says the night was a template for what he hopes will become an annual event.

And in case you were wondering at this point, yes, the record itself is good enough to warrant such an event and to confirm Johnston’s growing reputation. The most accomplished blues-based record to come from a Memphis artist since Alvin Youngblood Hart’s Start With the Soul a couple of years ago, Foot Hill Stomp is a ragged, invigorating take on the hill-country sound. Recorded at Webb’s studio last fall, Johnston mines material from Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and Rainey Burnette in a manner that, with a few added touches, replicates the one-man-band approach he’s perfected live.

Foot Hill Stomp also occasionally strays from the hill-country style with compelling results. A jaunty version of Robert Wilkins’ “That’s No Way To Get Along” (which most listeners may recognize from the Rolling Stones’ version, under the title “Prodigal Son,” from Beggars Banquet) hints at what Johnston’s music may have sounded like before he came to Memphis, while the sing-songy original “Chicken and Gravy” — a writing and performing collaboration with Hemphill — is a total charmer.

Can Johnston get his music out to enough people to make turning his back on the record industry worth it? “I may not get rich and famous,” he says, “but the people on my e-mail list feel like family to me.”

Richard Johnston’s Juke Joint Night

Every Wednesday

The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

UrbanArt Debate

To the Editor:

Chris Davis’ smug and arrogant treatment of anyone who would deign to have respect for Christianity and the American founding in last week’s cover story (“Legacy,” January 24th issue) is a spectacular illustration of the fact that he and all those associated with this disaster just don’t get it. The people responsible for this mess don’t have the right to use public dollars to attack the American founding and Christianity in my name (as a tax-paying Shelby County citizen). Quotations like those at the library represent the government’s version of the truth, whether intended or not. Therefore, the quotations infringe on my rights and the rights of the majority of citizens in this community who are Christian anti-communists.

There has been no serious offer of compromise, contrary to what Davis wrote. The UrbanArt Commission (UAC) has characterized anyone who might have the courage to express a different point of view as provincial, ignorant, or worse. The proposal to dedicate 2 percent of the budget for any public building project to art under the control of the UAC must be resisted at all costs. You consistently refuse to acknowledge perhaps the most egregious insult in the scroll at the library: “When the Missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.”

There are no other quotes that attack a religion other than this attack on the work of Christian missionaries. Do you really think that the people of Shelby County find this slander appropriate? Do you really think that the First Amendment allows government, as represented by an inscription on a public monument, to attack Christianity?

Finally, how is it possible that the defenders of the UrbanArt Commission and the library administration have forgotten that more than a billion people suffer under communist rule today? It is sad that you are so misinformed and insensitive to the First Amendment rights of others. At least you spelled my name correctly.

William W. (Bill) Wood

Shelby County Coalition to Save

the Memphis Library

To the Editor:

Carissa Hussong is a professional. As executive director of the UAC, she has graciously avoided a potential political slugfest over the phrase “Workers of the world, unite!” by turning the matter into a call for involvement and understanding. If everyone knew how much work and forethought went into that project, it would be easy to see how others might not be so graceful in the face of such criticism.

The phrase in question takes up about two square feet in a massive piece of art which poignantly points toward the past while serving as an entrance to a building built for the future. Surely we can all find something in the kaleidoscope of ideas to appreciate. As for offensiveness, the Communist Manifesto phrase is no more anti-American than “One if by land, two if by sea” is anti-British. The very fact that we have public art that celebrates our right to free expression is as American as it gets.

I am glad the Flyer gave its readers a look at some of the many public art projects brought about by the UAC. And many thanks to the UAC’s awesome leadership.

J.R. Devin

Memphis

A Good Liberal

To the Editor:

Like any good liberal, Rebekah Gleaves (Viewpoint, January 24th issue) blames failing schools, crime, and poverty on racist attitudes, when in fact just the opposite is true. If you check those three categories you’ll find all are overwhelmingly black. Yet anyone who moves to the county, where the crime and poverty rates are considerably lower and the schools considerably better, is labeled as the problem.

This is not a question of the chicken or the egg. Until Gleaves and her ilk quit making excuses and start accepting responsibility, those racist attitudes she abhors will continue. Putting the blame on people for doing what is best for themselves and their families is not helping.

Gary Shelly

Memphis

To the Editor:

Thanks to Rebekah Gleaves for her Viewpoint article. As a Memphis native who lived in Nashville for six years before returning here, I always heard references to Memphis’ “race problems.” Mayor Herenton’s proposed consolidation is an important first step in abolishing Shelby County’s “separate but equal” political systems. I once viewed consolidation as a dilution of the African-American voice. However, with one of the most evenly balanced black and white populations in the country, Memphis and Shelby County could be an example for the entire nation.

Martavius Jones

Memphis

The Memphis Flyer encourages reader response. Send mail to: Letters to the Editor, POB 1738, Memphis, TN 38101. Or call Back Talk at 575-9405. Or send us e-mail at letters@memphisflyer.com. All responses must include name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters should be no longer than 250 words.

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Together at the Bluebird Café

Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt,

Guy Clark

(American Originals Records)

Talk about a triple treat! This little gem was recorded in September 1995 at the intimate Bluebird Café in Nashville as a charity show to raise money for the Nashville Interfaith Dental Clinic. Guy Clark’s wife, Susanna, put the show together, and as she recounts in the liner notes, she just wanted the same bunch of ne’er-do-wells who regularly played around her kitchen table to perform (lucky woman!). She blithely asked for and got her wish.

The up-close-and-personal feel is evident throughout the concert, with the three artists shooting the breeze, telling tales, poking fun at each other, and just generally enjoying themselves. All the “hits” are here (Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty,” Clark’s “Dublin Blues,” and Earle’s “Copperhead Road,” among others), and I’d be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. But with Van Zandt’s death in 1997, I’d have to choose his rawbone rendering of “A Song For.” This tune, which always seemed to me to be a premature obituary in song, could not be more poignant and powerful. The way he plays down its darkness by introducing the song as “a little ditty” makes it even more haunting and precious. But in a lighter vein, hearing Van Zandt tell the hilarious story of how he gambled his gold tooth away in a drunken moment is worth the price of the album alone.

Together at the Bluebird Café is a rare treasure indeed for committed fans but would also serve as a good introduction for those poor, unfortunate souls who somehow have never been exposed to these three great singer-songwriters.

— Lisa Lumb

Grade: B+

Love Is Here

Starsailor

(Capitol)

A certain fog-like sense of despair has crept under my chamber door lately. All of my friends are getting divorced, layed off, or diagnosed with polysyllabic maladies. And now that I’m too old and chickenshit to try anymore “bathtub Ecstasy,” I am left to find solace in the latest Brit flavor-of-the-month to skip across the pond — spoon-fed to us by the faceless, corporate juggernaut of hype. I’m just being cynical and I know my predilection for derision is the very problem. I am in desperate need of aching solemnity, and if my panacea is a group of over-publicized, pale British boys, so be it. Recently it’s been Cold Travis and Doveplay, and now it’s Starsailor.

The band’s roots are fairly transparent: Elton John and Neil Young circa Tonight’s the Night. But the most obvious debts are to the fragile balladry of Jeff Buckley and his dad, Tim (from whose 1970 album Starsailor the band took their name). The standout feature of Starsailor’s debut release is the dulcet voice of 20-year-old James Walsh — a dash of Freddy Mercury and a soupçon of Bono diluted with two parts Thom Yorke. But, seriously, the lad’s pipes are truly seraphic. I choose my next words carefully: This music is absolutely transmutative. Amid all these gloomy, doomy days, these songs sidle up and insinuate themselves into your life like old friends encouraging you to buck up fer chrissakes. Bad times become good times.

It’s hard to believe that this band dropped from the womb less than a year-and-a-half ago with instruments perfectly tuned and songwriting honed. Or that a 20-year-old could write “Stay by my side/And the cynics won’t get in our way/Don’t you know you’ve got your daddy’s eyes/And your daddy was an alcoholic.” The sweeping epic style of the music might seem impersonal were it not grounded by the romantic realism of Walsh’s well-crafted lyrics — he even gilds his articles with emotional resonance. So for now, I’ll cherish this sack of sweet, sad songs and try hard to believe the album’s title.

— David Dunlap Jr.

Grade: A-

A Live Injection: Anthology 1968 to 1979

Lee Perry & Friends

(Trojan)

The cult around Jamaican producer/singer Lee “Scratch” Perry is so intense that it’s engendered an after-the-fact discography that seems to have no end. Perry cut over 2,000 sides during his ’60s and ’70s heyday, and it sometimes seems the number of Perry compilations is itself approaching that figure. And unless you’re a fanatic, deciding between them can seem daunting — which is where this double CD comes in.

A Live Injection isn’t really a definitive career overview. It’s way light on the late-’70s material recorded at Perry’s legendary Black Ark Studio, which is adequately covered on the three-disc Arkology. But it splits the difference between that overlong and somewhat redundant box and the endlessly playable late-’60s/early-’70s single discs Some of the Best and The Upsetter Collection, which many Scratch fanatics prefer. (A Live Injection cribs five tracks each from that pair.)

What all this means, the occasional useless American R&B remake (Busty Brown’s “My Girl,” Hortense Ellis’ “Just One Look”) notwithstanding, is a sumptuous combo platter. You get funky, MGs/Meters-inspired organ instrumentals (the Upsetters’ “A Live Injection” and “French Connection”), proto-rap “deejay” cuts (I. Roy’s “Space Flight,” Dennis Alcapone’s “Africa Stand”), a couple of dubs (such as Perry’s “Bush Weed”), and, crucially, a fistful of great songs. Perry’s “People Funny Boy” cemented the reggae beat (as opposed to those of ska or rock steady) in 1968. Dave Barker’s “Shocks of Mighty” is the greatest James Brown homage ever. Junior Byles’ “Curly Locks” remains the definitive Jamaican slow-jam. And the Gatherers’ “Words of My Mouth” may well be Perry’s greatest production, a snaking gaze into a pitch-black heart of darkness.

A Live Injection may not be a definitive career overview, but it’s as close as anyone has come to providing one.

— Michaelangelo Matos

Grade: A-

Absolutely the Best

Ernie K-Doe

(Fuel 2000)

“I’m cocky, but I’m good!” was an often-heard phrase at 1500 North Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans, site of Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-In-Law Lounge. K-Doe himself coined the saying somewhere around the time he proclaimed himself “Emperor of the Universe.” But until late last year, when Fuel 2000 released this 18-track collection of K-Doe tunes, stateside fans had to scour used-45 bins for the Minit label originals or content themselves with the measly 12-track compilation that Mardi Gras put out in ’99.

Absolutely the Best is aptly titled: The hits are here, including “Mother-In-Law,” “A Certain Girl,” and the sublime “Te-Ta-Te-Ta-Ta,” which shines in its newly remastered state. (The horn intro, soaring background vocals, and K-Doe’s immodest storytelling put this cut over the top.) There are dance numbers (“Popeye Joe”), tearjerkers (“Waiting At the Station”), novelty songs (“Get Out Of My House”), and rhythmic romps (“Wanted: $10,000 Reward”) aplenty, each track another chapter in the K-Doe legend.

Too bad Ernie himself didn’t live to see this collection. You can almost hear him in the background, muttering, “Absolutely the best? Damn right!” After all, as the good folks at Fuel 2000 realized, he was cocky — but he was good.

— Andria Lisle

Grade: A

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Sound Advice

What’s left to say about B.B. King? This one-time WDIA personality and Beale Street Blues Boy is one of the living giants of American music, earning a seat at the head table with the likes of Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Merle Haggard, and precious few others. With the death of John Lee Hooker last year, King stands alone as both the most important remaining blues artist and still the genre’s most beloved and recognizable ambassador. Oh, yeah, and he can still howl “The Thrill is Gone” and bend a guitar note like nobody’s business.

King makes his semiregular pilgrimage to his namesake club on Beale Street this week, performing two sets –7 and 10 p.m. — on Monday, February 4th. As of press time, tickets were going fast and may well be gone by the time you read this. To inquire about the availability of $35 general admission or higher-priced dinner/concert tickets, head down to the club or call 524-5464. The opportunity to see a musician this legendary in a setting this intimate is a rare thing indeed. This is definitely one show you don’t want to miss if you can help it.

But if you can’t get into B.B.’s to see B.B., a decent alternative might be to head down to the casino strip and see a guitar-slinger who has obviously been inspired by him. Former Fabulous Thunderbird and current Handy nominee Jimmie Vaughan is one of the guitar giants of the fertile Austin music scene and will be at the Horseshoe Casino on Saturday, February 2nd. —Chris Herrington