Month: June 2002

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Veni Vidi Vicious

The Hives

(Sire/Burning Heart/Epitaph)

The subject of some pretty breathless hype over the last few months, Sweden’s the Hives, with their minimalist matching outfits (black suits with white ties and white shoes) and carefully determined retro sound, are self-constructed garage-rock heroes on a par with unlikely American stars the White Stripes: From a distance, skeptics might think the group was concocted in a lab somewhere, like a hipper version of the boy-band phenomenon. But, as with fellow buzz bands such as the Stripes and the Strokes, listening is believing.

The band’s American debut, Veni Vidi Vicious (released overseas back in 1999), is a breathless, amateurish, 12-song, 28-minute barrage of joyful noise that must be confusing a lot of big-money modern-rock producers and commercial-radio types (“This is what kids are getting excited about? But it sounds so cheap and unprofessional“). On first blush, it sounds more like an ace genre record à la the Strokes’ Is This It than a sui generis masterwork à la the White Stripes’ more idiosyncratic White Blood Cells. For all the fuss, you wonder if this band is any better than Memphis’ own Oblivians were? Well, the answer is that they probably aren’t, but the Oblivians were pretty great, and so are the Hives, in a more calculating way.

Veni Vidi Vicious draws on the wilder side of ’60s and ’70s protopunk — more Sonics, MC5, and early Kinks than Count Five or Standells. The opening track, “The Hives –Declare Guerre Nucleaire,” is a galvanizing statement of purpose, a short, sharp, shrieking introduction that amounts to a “Kick Out the Jams” for the new garage-rock revival, only better. Lead singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist delivers some delicious sloganeering (“Had an atomic bore –in 2004/Did some atomic tricks — in 2006,” etc.) over detonating guitars then earns his moniker by telling the listener that, as for the odd-numbered years, “THE GUESS IS YOURS.” That’s when the true guitar meltdown occurs, and a more invigorating minute and 35 seconds of pure chaos you won’t hear anytime soon.

The “epics” here are the singles “Main Offender” and “Hate To Say I Told You So” and the anthemic “Die, All Right!” On “Main Offender,” an unaccompanied riff explodes into infernal noise like a messier update of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” while Almqvist’s broken-English invocation of shiftless teenage kicks manages a combination of vague and incendiary that rivals Kurt Cobain’s menacing gibberish. And “Die, All Right!” is about as punk a song as you could imagine about signing a big-money deal with a corporate record company: “Hey! I got some money, and tonight I’m gonna spend it/Yeah! They gave me a paper, and I went ahead and penned it/And I say, Thank you, Mr. CEO/I filled my pockets, now I might as well/Die!”

But the band is just as powerful when sticking to the loud/fast-rules ethos: A tossed-off number like the middle-finger-flaunting “A Get Together To Tear It Apart” has some of the land-speed-record locomotion of post-hardcore Hüsker Dü. The Charles Atlas revenge fantasy of “Outsmarted” is a snotty, breakneck shout-along gem. And the bass-drum beat and strangled guitars of “Supply and Demand” (opening line: “My boss is a probable bore/Put me hands and knees on scrub-able floor”) earn it a spot in the rock-and-roll “work sucks” pantheon alongside Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” and punk-era touchstones like the Clash’s “Clampdown” and the Replacements’ “God Damn Job.”

Only once over 28 minutes that feel more like 12 does this band vary from their go-for-the-jugular pace. And “Find Another Girl,” a faithful cover of an old Jerry Butler chestnut, is charming (how many young American bands would actually know a song like this?) but a little awkward. It shows that Howlin’ Pelle is more screamer than singer and the band is better at dive-bombing than nuance.

And if the sound of white garage bands playing mid-tempo, soulful numbers is really a commercially viable thing, Memphis’ Reigning Sound might get rich. But don’t bet on it.

Grade: A-

God Loves Ugly

Atmosphere

(Fat Beats)

On last year’s Lucy Ford, Minneapolis hip-hop duo Atmosphere (producer Ant and MC Slug) produced an underground masterpiece, its gulf between groundbreaking artistry and commercial marginality maybe the greatest in the genre’s history. As a follow-up, the new God Loves Ugly is a minor disappointment and an intentional left turn.

Multiracial mouthpiece Slug has emerged over the last few years as a hip-hop hero of choice among the eggheads and introverts who make up so-called indie rap’s backpacker/rock critic bohemian fringe. But on God Loves Ugly, Slug intentionally downplays the gifts upon which he’s built much of his audience: The epiphany-laden, unprecedentedly empathetic, carefully constructed story-songs that littered Lucy Ford have been replaced by an increased emphasis on off-the-dome stream of consciousness, the keenly observant character sketches replaced by more conventional first-person. The result is plenty of memorable moments and hip-hop quotables but far fewer memorable songs.

The album’s second song, “The Bass and the Movement,” is a declaration of independence disguised as a battle rhyme. Slug confronts preconceptions that his “emo” rap style (which he actually traces back to 2Pac) is as good for you as granola by unleashing some unlikely thug life then, Eminem-style, slips into a sotto voce aside that imagines what the reaction from old fans might be: “Oh, my goodness, Sluggo went and flipped his style/We haven’t really heard him act like this in a while.” And he expresses a similar rejection of expectations on “One of a Kind,” chastising his core audience: “One little, two little, three little indie rap/Headphones, backpack/Watch ’em all piggyback/Switched up my styles, they all complain.”

But as much as Slug may purposefully tweak his persona by making noise “for the women who swallow stuff,” he’s still a deep-thinking charmer who expresses his love for sparring with girls who “give good brain,” still the same doleful, anxiety-laden agonizer who practices hip hop as “therapy on top of turntable riffs.”

“Hair” is a classic Slug narrative, a tale of meeting a “groupie” (“Bands like us don’t have groupies. Haven’t you ever heard our music?”) after a show — flirtatious, nuanced, tense, and surprising — and then denying the expected payoff by having him and his lady friend die in a car crash on the way to her place. Elsewhere, songs such as “Give Me,” “Lovelife,” and “Godlovesugly” may lack the focus of Lucy Ford‘s best songs but are verbal and philosophical tours de force nonetheless. “The first rule is to make the verse true/Even if it hurts you/You have to wear the pain like a stain,” he raps on “Give Me.” He lives up to the promise throughout the album.

There’s a glimpse of Slug talking to a fan after a show about “that world you envision through the layers of tears/The ones you choke and keep hidden when the players are near.” There’s the kind of self-deprecating anti-braggadocio that’s at the core of his persona, opening one song: “I wear my scars like the rings on a pimp/I live life like the captain of a sinking ship.” There’s his penchant for community-building sloganeering that still never rescues him from his curse as terminally lonely outsider, as on the “Shrapnel” boast “My posse’s full of women, computer nerds, and thugs/Much to my dismay, I’m none of the above.” And, of course, there’s simple rhyme for rhyme’s sake (one of my faves: “From the top of Fiji/To the bottom of Christina Ricci/Big ups if you bought my CD!”).

And if God Loves Ugly is an album about independence, it’s one that cuts in more ways than one. After repeatedly tweaking alt-rap convention and establishing his allegiance to hip hop writ large, Slug opts out of that game too, setting off for a land of his mind’s design with “Breathing”‘s more subtle declaration of freedom: “Do you carry a gun?/I guess it all depends on where you come from/Surroundings are gonna dictate the needs/I’m out, I wanna live around lakes and trees.”

Grade: A-

Categories
News The Fly-By

NAKED CITY

A somewhat official missive recently turned up in our in-box, trumpeting a rather sensuous-sounding civic event, scheduled to occur on July 3, 2002. The letter, which contained more capital letters than one letter should, read, “The Mayor’s Office of Multicultural and Religious Affairs, Division of Public Services and Neighborhoods, City of Memphis anf The Multicultural Public Relations Committee, Cordially Invites You to Proclaim, Pledge, and Celebrate, ‘A Community in Love.'”

With all due respect to those involved, Fly On the Wall would like to officially respond, “Not Until After We’re Married.”

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

THE SCOOP ON SPORTS

HIGH MAINTENANCE

It’s about 4 a.m. You’re at home in bed, enjoying some REMs and dreaming. For Steve Horne, Memphis Redbirds director of field operations, this is one of his favorite times. “I have dreams,” he says, “and when I wake up, I put field patterns on paper and then talk to the guys on the grounds crew. After the pattern is mowed on the field, we get satisfaction from fans’ feedback.”

The three-man full-time crew works long hours through the Mid-South summer heat and winter cold all year round. “In July and August, it’s pretty hot,” says grounds crew worker Ed Collins. Just as the Redbirds have a strategy to win baseball games, the grounds crew has its own system to work through the extremes of Mother Nature. “You gotta come out in 20-minute shifts and drink a lot of water,” says Jeff Vincent, another crew member.

Despite an ever-changing and sometimes unpredictable schedule due to rain, the grounds-crew staff is passionate about the results of their collective work. “It’s a lot harder than I thought. It all pays off when you see how good the field looks at the end of the day,” says Vincent.

The normal routine for the crew includes pre-game field preparation mowing, applying fresh chalk lines and post-game care, such as raking and filling holes. Some people compare grounds-crew work to

gardening, but that’s like comparing redbirds to bluejays. “The difference between gardening and yard-building is I have about 25 guys who come out and attempt to tear

everything up that I do,” Horne says. “They’re out there to play a game. That’s their business. It’s our job to make it where they’re as comfortable as possible doing that.”

Most of the grounds work at AutoZone Park is unglamorous, to say the least. There are no fans in the stands, no hot dogs, no apple pies, and no excitement in the air. This ballpark scene is all about preparing the field of dreams.

Redbirds catcher Alex Andreopoulos says he admires and respects the job the grounds crew does. Andreopoulos also understands how hard work behind the scenes can often be overlooked. “The fans don’t see what they’re doing before the game, what they do after the game especially, and then in between innings,” says Andreopoulos. “You don’t see the guys doing their job, but it makes it easier for us to go out there and play.”

The grounds work is not just for show.

Maintaining a quality playing surface can help prevent injuries. The coaching staff and players can tell a good field from a bad one. “Say the field is too soft,” says Redbirds manager Gaylen Pitts. “You’re gonna have guys slipping and sliding out there. They’ll have a tendency to pull a muscle or whatever. If it’s too hard when they slide, they can hurt themselves. Or if the grass has some bad spots, if it’s loose, they can catch their spikes. A good playing surface is worth its weight in gold.”

Or diamonds. n

Categories
Music Music Features

Local Record Roundup

Originally released in 1994 and now rereleased with many tracks rerecorded, Triple 6 Mafia Presents DJ Paul Underground Vol. 16 For Da Summa (Hypnotize Minds; Grade: C) is a bit of old-school, street-level product from an outfit that may be in a precarious commercial position, given Gangsta Boo’s exit and Project Pat’s incarceration, but is still arguably the city’s most dominant musical force. From the use of the original “Triple 6” moniker to the liner notes’ photo spread of a young Paul wielding various firearms, DJ Paul Underground hearkens back to the era before the group toned down their sensationalistic content and broke out commercially. But, given the diminishing success of so-called gangsta rap nationwide and the city’s recent gunplay tragedies, is this really what Memphis wants to hear right now? Or, with the reports of violent crime on the rise again, is this style of hardcore due for a comeback?

This DJ Paul showcase features vocal assistance from regulars such as Lord Infamous, Project Pat, La Chat, and Crunchy Blac along with newcomer “gun-wavin’, misbehavin'” Frayser Boy. Much of the record is a mundane paean to typical Three 6 vices: “Glock In My Draws” is menacingly violent; on “Beatin’ These Hoes Down,” Lord Infamous proves what a big shot he is by kicking a woman so hard he has to pick her skin off his boots and pushing her head into a wall until “you hear that crackin’ sound”; and then there are drug songs like “Where Is Da Bud Part II” and “Twist It, Hit It, Lite It,” which aren’t at all troubling, just laid-back to a fault.

But amid the standard Three 6 generics, there is some true weirdness that may save the record for nonfans. The heavily pornographic “Still Gettin’ My Dick Suck” is pretty offensive but also completely bizarre, Paul chanting the title over a vintage soul sample in which a singer sweetly croons “Been waiting for you all my liii-fe.” Other unexpected highlights include an early Prince sample that breaks the monotony of “DJ Paul” a full 3 minutes in and the intentional comedy of Paul “sittin’ back watchin’ R. Kelly’s tape” on the song “King of Kings.”

A homemade project recently given proper release by Italy’s Hate Records, the Lost Sounds‘ Outtakes and Demos (Grade: B+) should be available at indie record shops in town and can be had at an unofficial record-release show with Bay Area band Erase Errata on July 14th at the Hi-Tone Café. This collection of extras and early takes from 1999-2001 is certainly not the place to start for one of Memphis’ most exciting bands –last year’s Black-Wave is a better bet — but it’s still an often-compelling listen on its own terms. The titles tell the story on this assemblage of guitar-and-keyboard-driven screamfests led by dual frontpeople Jay Reatard and Alicja Trout, with the likes of “I Don’t Count,” “Do You Wanna Kill,” and (a personal fave) “Going Home Alone Tonight” conveying the dark, tense tone of the music. An epic, incendiary early take on the Black-Wave standout “1620 Echles St.” might be the most powerful track here, with the well-titled new cut “Total Destruction” (which can also be found on Fields and Streams, a new double-disc compilation from the Olympia indie Kill Rock Stars) a close runner-up. The tinkly, wearisome instrumental “Sonic Mathematics” brings up the rear.

If little here displays the fullness and confidence of Black-Wave, that’s only to be expected –these are outtakes and demos for a reason. These tracks are rougher than the band’s regular releases, which are, in and of themselves, already maybe too raw for most ears. But Black-Wave has grown on me so much over the year since its release that I probably listen to it more now than any other local record from the last couple of years. Perhaps Outtakes and Demos will also reveal hidden pleasures over time.

Okay, so it isn’t exactly music, but Just Farr a Laugh: The Greatest Prank Phone Calls Ever! (Failed Pilot; Grade: B) is certainly a more entertaining listen than most local discs. Created by a couple of locals working under the pseudonyms Jude Carmona and Sheraton Giles Palermo, many of these 33 calls are funnier in concept than in execution, mostly due to a lack of interesting participation from the victims. Celebrity calls are generally the weakest of the bunch (especially a couple of grating ones pretending to be Morris Day), though one of the real highlights falls into the category “Christopher Fucking Cross.” On that call, Carmona and Palermo pose as the soft-rock superstar and his personal assistant and call Sun Studio to set up an after-hours tour despite the studio’s having booked a recording session. The good folks at Sun are polite to a point but take no guff: “We get calls like this all the time, man. You’d have to be John Lennon for me to say yes.”

The pair also have great fun with the city’s blues scene, calling one Beale Street bar to try and set up a gig for a “Quiet Storm” band called Bedroom ETA and torturing one poor chap who’s put a want ad for his blues band in these pages. First, they call as “Barbara,” a transplant from San Diego who loves Bonnie Raitt’s “stanky old dog” voice and just wants to “make asses shake.” Then they call back as Barbara’s ex-husband, apologizing for prescription-drug-driven issues. Ten minutes later, you wonder, Why is this guy still on the phone? But the recurring hero of this disc is “Bleachy,” a 4’10”, 250-pound Big Buford addict who harasses a series of establishments, including T.G.I. Friday’s, a Rally’s (of course), and, most hilariously, an Army recruiting station (pre-9/11), where Bleachy gets put on a speaker phone and berated by a commanding officer.

Hearkening back to the early days on Beale when outfits like Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers and the Memphis Jug Band produced some of the most exciting music of that era or any other, The Bluff City Backsliders (Yellow Dog Records; Grade: B+) is a bit of an anomaly on the current Memphis blues scene. The Backsliders are an old-fashioned jug band, even if they don’t actually use a jug. The eight-piece band melds drums, a couple of guitars, upright bass, piano, banjo, trombone, mandolin, and, occasionally, other instruments into a rootsy acoustic brew that evokes the city’s sweet, lazy, jazzy past without coming off as a costume novelty band. Individual players stand out — especially Mark Lemhouse’s slide guitar and Adam Woodard’s barrelhouse piano –but the earthy, enjoyable mix is the thing as the band works their way through a series of old-weird-America nuggets, including songs from Charley Patton, Howlin’ Wolf, W.C. Handy, and Blind Willie McTell (“Let Me Play With Yo’ Yo-Yo,” in which Jason Freeman’s lascivious vocals and Michael Graber’s kazoo work some sweet magic).

Categories
Music Music Features

Sound Advice

More Dread Zeppelin than BR5-49 or the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, in that they seem to know it’s a joke, Hayseed Dixie are about as unlikely a bunch of country stars as you could imagine. But there it is: The group’s recently released sophomore album, A Hillbilly Tribute To Mountain Love, debuted in the Billboard Top 40 country album chart. A follow-up to last year’s A Hillbilly Tribute To AC/DC, which saw the bluegrass foursome give the high-and-lonesome treatment to cock-rock standards such as “Highway To Hell” and “You Shook Me All Night Long,” the group’s latest finds them expanding further into the standard AOR playlist, applying fiddle and banjo to the likes of the J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold,” Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever,” and, to completely give the game away, Spinal Tap’s “Big Bottom.”

Dixie returns to the Delta this week when the band plays Newby’s on Thursday, June 27th (following an in-store appearance earlier the same day at Yarbrough’s Music). Whether the joke holds up over the course of an entire set, I couldn’t tell you. But there’s only one way to find out. — Chris Herrington

Let’s look into the crystal ball, concentrate on the year 2525, and see what the future holds: Following a successful exhibit titled “From Early To Mid-early Impressionism,” The Dixon Gallery and Gardens will hang a photography exhibit focusing on Memphis rock-and-roll at the turn of the 21st century. Most of the shots will be by Dan Ball, naturally. But there will be others, notably an eclectic jumble that ranges in style from stubbornly straight to Germanic noir by one Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury has documented some of Memphis’ noisier bands — notably the Lost Sounds and Vegas Thunder — and captured them in all their gritty and occasionally glammed-out glory. Shrewsbury’s work will be on display this Friday, June 28th, at Soho Gallery on South Main, where the photographer will also debut a short film he’s made about the pleasures of alcohol abuse, karaoke, and mustaches. Fans of the Lost Sounds may want to head down to check out Shrewsbury’s video for “Memphis Is Dead.” Fans of the dearly departed Vegas Thunder will get a kick out of seeing Elvis look-alike Joe Danger and little Johnny Taylor making two of the goofiest “Look, Ma, I’m making rock” faces yet. — Chris Davis

Categories
Cover Feature News

Hepatitis C

Carol Westmoreland didn’t think much about it when her body began to feel tired. Working 14-hour days as a client consultant, fatigue had become part of her job. One day in June 1997, she slowed down enough for a doctor’s appointment, and what started as a routine physical soon became the unthinkable.

Westmoreland was diagnosed with hepatitis C already in its late stages. Doctors estimated she had had the illness for at least 15 years. “I was already at stage 3 to 3 1/2 when the doctor found it, but [fortunately], I had no cirrhosis [of the liver],” Westmoreland says during a hepatitis C support-group meeting. She was immediately placed on the organ-donor list, given a short time to live and an even shorter time to find a donor. “I got my liver totally by coincidence,” she says. “The donor had hepatitis B, and I had taken the hepatitis B vaccine for an overseas trip. Of the people that matched the donor, I was the only person on the list who had had the vaccine.” After only four months, Westmoreland received a new liver.

Although she takes 30 pills a day and spends $2,200 a month on prescription drugs, Westmoreland is one of the lucky ones. A twitching in her hands is the only remaining trace of her illness.

The People’s Disease

Westmoreland is one of the four million Americans (estimated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) affected by the liver disease, one out of every 50 people. Although more than four times more people are infected with hepatitis C as have HIV, most of the carriers don’t know they are infected.

“About 80 percent of people who have hepatitis C don’t know it,” says David Sloas, a gastroenterologist with the Gastroenterology Center of the Mid South. “Many people are not aware that you can have hepatitis C and not have unhealthy liver enzymes. Until the disease becomes advanced, it usually causes very little in the way of symptomatology. That’s why it’s not picked up unless someone has routine screenings and the doctor notices that their enzymes are elevated or unless they give blood.”

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) gets its name from the inflammation (itis) of the liver (hepat) caused by the virus that lives inside liver cells and reproduces. Like hepatitis B, hepatitis C is a blood-borne disease. Because tests were not developed for the C-type virus until 14 years ago, the virus spread silently for years through blood transfusions (before 1992), needle sharing, and tattooing. Many of its recognized victims are 40- to 60-year-olds who are seeing their doctors for other reasons, only to discover they have late-stage hepatitis. “[Hepatitis C] is not a typecast disease. It is an across-the-board disease with no respect for race or gender,” says Sloas.

The American Liver Foundation reports that, following the increased number of blood donations made as a result of the September 11th tragedy, as many as 10,000 people nationwide learned that they were infected with hepatitis C.

No one knows how long hepatitis C has been around. Tests have long been given for the A and B types of the virus. But not until 1988, through DNA analysis, was type C isolated. Before this discovery, the illness was known as “non-A, non-B hepatitis.”

Laboratory tests used to detect hepatitis-C infection include the liver-enzyme test, which measures the amount of certain liver enzymes in the blood. High levels of these enzymes, especially alanine aminotransferase, can suggest liver damage. (Antibody tests are blood tests that look for antibodies against the virus in the blood.) A positive test means that a person has been exposed to the virus because the immune system has started to make antibodies in response to the infection. Doctors can also order viral-measurement tests to determine the amount of virus in the blood. A liver biopsy is performed after the disease has been positively identified. The procedure involves inserting a thin needle into the liver and removing a small amount of tissue to be examined. The biopsy can be used to confirm that a person has chronic hepatitis, to determine the condition of the liver, and to help establish the best treatment.

How Hepatitis C Is Spread

Infection Source

Transmission Possibilities

Definitely

 Rarely Suspected
Between family members

Job exposure to blood

Needle injuries

IV drug use (shared needles)

Transfusions

Hemodialysis

Orally

Sexually

Anal/Oral Sex

Mother to child at birth

Body piercing

Acupuncture/tattooing

Recreational cocaine

Source: American Liver Foundation

Disease Progression

David Prince was on a health kick when his illness was discovered. An avid runner, Prince visited his doctor in 1998 for severe foot fungus and stomach cramps. Thinking the symptoms were due to his exercise regimen, he was shocked to learn that he had been living with hepatitis C since 1975. “I think there’s still a lot that’s not known about hepatitis C,” says Prince. “Some of it is still a guessing game.”

The guessing game is due to the difference in each individual’s response to the virus. “The ongoing inflammation of the liver in some people will progress to cirrhosis, in which the healthy liver is replaced with scar tissue,” says Sloas. “More than 90 percent of the people who contract hepatitis C become chronic [with the disease lasting more than six months]. They do not ‘clear’ it, meaning they keep it, it stays active, they don’t make antibodies to it. And that’s the exact opposite of [hepatitis] B, in which 90 percent clear it and only 10 percent become chronic.”

Most patients live from 15 to 30 years after the point of diagnosis, until, if they are fortunate, a liver transplant is performed. During this time, HCV steadily progresses. The longer a person is infected, the faster the progression. With time, the disease doesn’t slow down, it speeds up. Advanced age and alcohol and tobacco use have been found to speed the progression, as have certain genotypes and subtypes of the virus, according to Sloas. There are six genotypes and many subtypes, with genotype 1 being the most difficult to treat. As the genotype number increases, the disease becomes easier to treat and can result in less damage. But Sloas warns that patients may develop several genotypes and subtypes because the virus can mutate. HIV co-infection increases the risk of cirrhosis and speeds up the progress of the hepatitis virus. Chronic HCV, left untreated, can also lead to liver cancer.

By the time many patients are diagnosed, they are already cirrhotic. Shirley Durst, leader of the monthly support group, explains that HCV is usually divided into four stages, with each stage progressing toward end-stage HCV. At age 57, she is at stage 4. “I have a very scarred, cirrhotic liver,” says Durst. “I’ve had to have my spleen removed because of the scarring.” Durst contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion. Since her diagnosis, she has held the support group together for 10 years.

The progression of the disease has made hepatitis C the leading cause of liver transplants. More than a third of the over 17,000 names on the transplant list have end-stage hepatitis C. The shortage in donor organs will result in almost 2,000 HCV deaths each year, according to the American Liver Foundation.
Estimated cost for a transplant and related procedures can be more than $300,000.

Treatment

“I had my first physical ever in January [2002], and my liver-enzyme levels were high. I had a liver biopsy two weeks ago, and that’s when I found out that I had had hepatitis C for 25 years before [doctors] found it,” says Lynne Andrews. Andrews is new to the support group and admittedly knew nothing about treatment for the disease.

HCV is usually treated with interferon shots (a protein produced by cells in response to infection by a virus) or alpha interferon with ribavirin. Ribavirin is used to slow virus replication and is taken in pill form. Treatment usually lasts six months to a year.

But not all HCV patients respond positively to interferon. “Interferon kicked my butt,” says Westmoreland. “My body would not respond to it. My only chance was a transplant.”

With the different combinations of drugs used to treat HCV, the treatment can be expensive, costing more than $20,000 for 12 months, and it can have uncomfortable side effects. “I had to take antidepressants to combat sudden mood swings,” says Prince. “My appetite was bad at first, but luckily, I stayed the same weight.” Some patients also report flu-like symptoms, including fatigue, fever, head and muscle aches, hair loss, and even worsening of existing heart conditions. Ribavirin may destroy some red blood cells, causing tiredness.

Even with the side effects, the treatments have a more than 50 percent success rate. The virus is never cured but goes into remission or is undetectable in follow-up tests.

Changing Attitudes

The American Liver Foundation predicts that the death rate for hepatitis C will triple over the next 10 years, exceeding the number of deaths due to AIDS. The number of people diagnosed with HCV will also triple. Volunteer doctors on the foundation’s hepatitis C commission estimate that 1.8 percent of a selected population is infected with the virus. “Based on the formula, these statistics seem too high,” says Sloas. “Yes, the number of people diagnosed with HCV will triple, but we will see fewer new cases develop. [For example], hepatitis C patients only make up 5 percent of my clientele.”

The 80 percent drop in new cases is due in large part to medical advances and lifestyle changes: Blood used in transfusions is now being tested for the virus; tattoo and body-piercing establishments must adhere to sterilization requirements for their instruments; and the danger of sharing needles for IV drugs is better known.

“Physicians’ perceptions were different in the past,” says Sloas. “Hepatitis C was thought of as a hippie, druggie disease. A lot of doctors thought a major infection source and transmission possibility was by sexual intercourse.” However, hepatitis C is less likely to be sexually transmitted than hepatitis B, which involves a greater number of bodily fluids, like semen. “The lifestyle choice that is prevalent in new cases is the use of nasal drugs,” says Sloas. Drug users inhale cocaine or other substances through straws. Often, nosebleeds result, leaving remnants of blood on the straw, which are then passed on to other users.

Celebrities have given the disease a face, bringing hepatitis C and its impact into the limelight. Former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson admits to being infected with the disease while receiving a tattoo in Tahiti, and country singer Naomi Judd has also announced her infection. “I’m glad to see that the stigma has been removed from [the illness],” says Sloas. “We’ve got to teach kids about hepatitis C the same way we teach them about sex.”

Looking Toward the Future

Winn Stephenson, president of the American Liver Foundation, Mid-South Chapter, sees education as the key to lowering HCV statistics. A hepatitis victim, Stephenson was diagnosed with auto-immune hepatitis during a 1985 routine physical and is unsure how he contracted the virus. Since taking the helm of the chapter in February, Stephenson’s plan for the chapter has included developing education and support groups. He plans to organize monthly awareness campaigns and provide members of the organization with information on treatment advances. “We have to blast the word [about hepatitis] from every place,” says Stephenson. “Nowhere is too small to give a quick elevator-length speech.”

But his main goal is funding. “As a country, we’ve got to swing government funding to get better medication and treatment,” says Stephenson. “At the end of the day, money buys power.”

“At present, it is not cost-effective or necessary to test everyone for hepatitis C,” says Sloas. “Only people who know they are at risk for previous exposure need to be tested. If you are at risk, ask your doctor to test specifically for hepatitis C.”

New treatments are currently in development by such companies as Vertex and Eli Lilly. The treatments may replace the common drugs or be added to them in a drug cocktail, as with HIV viruses. None of these treatments will be available for several years.

“The disease is a long ride,” says Prince. “You need patience because you have to wait on everything.”

Some Symptoms of hepatitis C

  • Fatigue is the most common symptom — nearly all people with hepatitis complain of some degree of tiredness
  • Stress
  • Depression
  • Muscle and joint aches and pains
  • Anxiety and irritability
  • Headaches
  • Sleep disturbances
  • Jaundiced eyes
  • Less common symptoms include pain or discomfort in the abdomen on the right side, itching, nausea, appetite/weight loss, and mental fuzziness
Categories
News

The Air Up There

Air-quality reports have become a regular feature of local television news: warnings from the Shelby County Health Department to the young, sick, and elderly that our air simply isn’t safe to breathe.

The threat is primarily from ozone, a pollutant exacerbated by the heat and humidity so common during Memphis summers. About one-third of the pollution problem comes from the region’s power plants, which have been harshly criticized by environmental groups for not doing enough to reduce emissions.

Stricter pollution guidelines were established in 1997, but power-industry lawsuits and the Environmental Protection Agency’s foot-dragging have delayed enforcement of the standards. The delay will push 59 Southeastern cities — with 23 million residents — into noncompliance, says a representative from the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), an East Tennessee-based environmental group that has filed an intent to sue the EPA.

“The eight-hour ozone standard [that was established] to protect human health in 1997 puts many more areas in non-attainment,” says SACE spokesperson Ulla Reeves. “The power industry has been fighting it, but recently, the courts shot down their appeals. Now, we are trying to hold the EPA’s feet to the fire to enforce the laws that protect public health and the environment.”

Another major air-pollution problem, Reeves says, is the Tennessee Valley Authority’s reliance on outdated, dirty coal-fired power plants. While 56 percent of TVA’s power comes from coal-burning power plants, those plants produce 93 percent of TVA’s nitorgen-dioxide emissions, the pollutant that reacts with sunlight to form ozone.

And sulfer dioxide, the tiny particulate matter that might be more harmful than previously believed, is emitted at twice the levels from coal-burning plants as from new plants.

These old power plants are allowed to slide by the new emissions standards due to a “grandfather clause” that gave power companies the right to operate older plants without installing new technology because they were soon to be retired. Reeves says power companies have invested tens of millions of dollars in these old plants under the guise of routine maintenance without updating their pollution-controls equipment. A lawsuit has been filed, but the case remains in litigation.

“Pollution knows no boundaries. That’s why we need a national cleanup,” Reeves says. “There are hundreds of grandfathered power plants that should have been cleaned up a long time ago. Industry made the upgrades but didn’t install the new technology, resulting in serious pollution problems.”

TVA is installing scrubbers at more than half of its coal-burning plants, including Memphis’ Allen Steam Plant, but this technology will only be used during peak pollution times, Reeves says. SACE recommends shutting down coal-fired power plants and looking for renewable energy options like solar, wind, and geothermal power. TVA currently derives only 1 percent of its power from renewable sources.

Diane Arnst, technical manager for the pollution-control section of the Shelby County Health Department, says Memphis and Shelby County are in compliance with current ozone standards and the standards SACE is suing to have imposed.

There haven’t been any days of dangerous levels of ozone yet this year, Arnst says, but she adds that it’s important to warn the public and commends local television stations for their cooperation. Elevated levels of ozone can cause irritated lungs in asthmatics, young people, and the elderly; higher levels can affect everyone. During high-ozone days, the Health Department recommends that pollution-sensitive people stay indoors with the air conditioning running, and that everyone avoid exercising outside between the peak ozone hours of 4 and 7 p.m.

Sulfer dioxide, tiny particles of soot that bypass the lungs’ natural defenses, might soon be monitored as closely as ozone, Arnst says, adding that preliminary research shows these particles could trigger heart attacks.

Arnst says the recent improvement in Memphis’ air-quality standards is due to a “significant” reduction of emissions from the Allen plant. Two new natural-gas power plants near Lakeland and Arlington are being constructed. Arnst says natural gas is cleaner-burning and provides more power with less environmental impact.

Earlier this month, the Bush administration finally caught up with the rest of the world and issued a report stating that global warming is caused in part by burning fossil fuels. The report detailed how the environment of the United States will be substantially changed in the next few decades — disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more stifling heat waves, and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes. However, the administration isn’t proposing any major shift in its policy on reducing greenhouse gases.

A report issued last month by several environmental groups, including SACE and the United States Public Interest Research Group, determined that over 860,000 Tennessee children live near coal-fired power plants. These children are exposed to pollutants that cause many health problems, from asthma attacks to neonatal death and slowed neurological development. The authors of the report urge legislation to protect our children from air pollution.

“[The report] shows that our children’s health is at stake if we fail to clean up these plants, especially since we have the technology to do it,” says Dr. L. Bruce Hill, senior scientist at the Clean Air Task Force and author of the report. “With a plan moving through Congress for a cleaner energy future, now is the time for parents to better understand the risks of air pollution on their children — and the ultimate cost of delayed action.”

Categories
News News Feature

Politically Incorrect

The last episode of Politically Incorrect will be broadcast June 28th. I’m going to be on it one last time, and I’ve promised myself I won’t cry on the air. Once the cameras go off — well, that’s another story.

You see, the show has been a touchstone for me over the last nine years — both in the evolution of my political ideas and the changes in my personal life.

My first appearance was in November 1993, when the show was on Comedy Central and taping in New York. I was on with Harry Shearer, Rep. Jim Traficant, and Dr. Peter Kramer, who had just published Listening To Prozac. Since then, Shearer — the brilliant satirist and voice of half the Simpsons characters — has become a close friend and co-conspirator, Traficant has been convicted of racketeering, and I’ve gone on to launch a mini-crusade disagreeing with Dr. Kramer’s rosy assessment of the miraculous effects of Prozac.

Doing PI was always a stimulating two-way street. Sometimes, it gave me the chance to mount my soapbox and sound off on subjects I care passionately about, and sometimes, it opened my mind to new topics and ideas that I then went on to write about.

For that initial appearance, I had flown up from Washington, where I was living with my Republican congressman husband and our two preschool daughters. When I do the last PI next week, it will be from Los Angeles, where, after a divorce from my husband and the Republican Party, I now live as a registered independent with my teenage daughter and her tweener sister.

In between, I made a few dozen appearances on PI, crossing swords — sometimes playfully, sometimes earnestly — with everyone from Michael Douglas to Jesse Jackson to Cindy Crawford to Chevy Chase to G. Gordon Liddy to Tom Arnold to Coolio. PI’s appeal has always been the simple notion of bringing together eclectic groups of pundits, politicians, and performers and letting the fur fly.

In the process, the show challenged the larger shibboleths of “proper” comment and debate in America. People tend to talk mostly to like-minded people who communicate in the same way. We naturally tend to fall into clichés. PI was about breaking those clichés, and the best moments came from unexpected juxtapositions: when a comedian popped the balloon of a pontificating politico, when a rapper had the last word on campaign-finance reform, or when Jerry Falwell revealed — yes, it’s true — a playful sense of humor.

In fact, the show was responsible for unleashing my own long-suppressed inner clown. In bed, no less. In 1996, during the Republican and Democratic national conventions, host Bill Maher lured Al Franken and me between the sheets to do political commentary from a specially constructed bed for a segment called “Strange Bedfellows.” It was the beginning of an oddball act of the same name that Al and I took on the road, trading barbs and double entendres at colleges, conventions, and trade shows. As an added bonus, I was probably the only woman in my profession to claim a tax deduction for lingerie. (I’m not sure whether Al deducted for his or not.)

Another thing I’ll miss is traveling around the country — to places like New Orleans, San Francisco, Aspen, and San Diego — to tape special on-location editions of PI. It was on one of these road shows that Chris Rock and I covered an Al Sharpton rally in Chicago, chanting “No justice, no peace” in our Greek accents. (Okay, maybe that was just me.)

For nine years, PI has been the best place on television to find edgy, political satire. But, because it’s a comedy show, people often forget the fact that it also offered a rare forum for certain “orphan issues” — important topics overlooked by the mainstream media.

PI delved into such knotty matters as the ongoing madness of the war on drugs and the destructive role of money in politics not just once in a blue moon but night in and night out. I regularly marveled at the ardor and wonkish knowledge Maher brought to these issues. In fact, he gave two rousing speeches on these topics at the 2000 Shadow Conventions that rivaled the experts in detail and far exceeded them in entertainment value. It is this blend of skills that makes him a first-class satirist in the tradition of Jonathan Swift, wielding his savage wit in the service of passionate conviction.

For some weird reason, I always ended up doing PI on emotionally charged days in my life, including the show we taped the day I moved into my post-divorce home in L.A. The movers were still carting in boxes when I hurried off to the studio. Then there was the now-infamous show I did a few days after September 11th. It was the first post-attack PI and showed Maher at his best: respectful of what truly mattered but courageously challenging everything else.

As Politically Incorrect ends its remarkable 1,600-plus show run, the appropriate farewell is not a eulogy but a 21-pun salute to a man and a show that encapsulate what our culture needs now more than ever: independence, fearlessness, and an increasingly rare willingness to speak truth to power.

On the personal side, it’s also a time to celebrate a treasured friendship that, thankfully, isn’t at the mercy of the whims of skittish sponsors and network executives.

Maher has said that he considers his last show not so much an end as a new beginning — “kind of like being transferred to another diocese.” Well, my friend, you can count on me to sing in your choir, whatever parish you wind up in.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

He’ll Have To Go

Before I can review Joe DiPietro’s Over the River and Through the Woods, I have to tell you a story about how I am a blessed man. I can boast something that not too many folks my age can: a 92-year-old grandmother who is still very much a force to be reckoned with. In other words, she’s not happy unless everybody around her is eating something. I recently bought her a CD player, and after the initial fuss about how I shouldn’t have spent so much money and how she’d never learn to operate such a newfangled contraption, we sat down and listened to Jim Reeves crooning “He’ll Have To Go.” It’s her favorite, and it has become one of mine.

Something happened that afternoon that I can’t fully explain. She began to tell me things I’d never known before. Things she normally wouldn’t speak of, even if you asked her. She told me all about her life before my grandfather, about having to sneak out of the house to go on dates, and about how her daddy had once run a potential suitor off with a shotgun. She told me how “mushy” my grandfather’s letters were. Maybe it was the music, I can’t say for sure. But as we listened to Jim Reeves, Hank Thompson, and some Elvis gospel, the years melted away. I saw my grandmother, maybe for the first time, as a young and exciting woman imbued with all the qualities that such a station entails. We had fully bridged the generation gap and, at least for a little while, all the language barriers that naturally grow between people so separated in years. I wanted that afternoon to go on forever.

I relate this little tale because Circuit’s Over the River and Through the Woods hammered home just how rare and wonderful it is to have such discoveries. It is the rare gem of a play that manages to be sentimental without being sappy. I’ve always said that the best theater is theater that changes the way we live our lives, for the better. If nothing else, Over the River will make you want to call your family more often, and that can’t possibly be a bad thing.

On the front end, OTR is Neil Simon redux with one tiny twist: The family in question is Italian, not Jewish. It’s about a young man having to tell his grandparents he’s moving far away and the various plots the scheming codgers hatch to prevent his leaving. Oh, yes, it sounds like the most dreadful play imaginable, but don’t be fooled. The script is so richly detailed and attuned to ideas of history, genetic and chronological, that it plays like John Sayles lite. A fantastic ensemble cast, doing what must certainly be some of the finest work of their careers, makes the Brighton Beach-style narration play like something out of The Glass Menagerie.

Perhaps as a result of playing the chaotic Mozart in Amadeus, John Maness has found a physical freedom he’s never exhibited before. He’s a far cry from the wooden actor who loped through Stoppard’s Arcadia only a few seasons back. As the ambitious young exec torn between his career and his family he is by turns ferocious, lost, and totally at peace. Marler Stone is similarly engaging as the loud, “passionate” Nunzio, who is called upon to make the show’s most difficult decision. It would have been wonderful to see Herman Markell (whose Italian accent charmingly drifts between Athens, Moscow, and Transylvania) actually playing that mandolin he so often fondles, but that’s a minor complaint given the quiet force of his supporting performance. While Janie Paris may be the most convincingly Italian of the two grandmothers, it is Dorothy Blackwood who carries this play’s warm and fuzzy heart it only looks like a ham-and-cheese sandwich. From Stephanette Isabel Smith’s fine set (which actually manages to look like a place where people have lived for decades) to the closing monologue, Over the River and Through the Woods is a revelation. It’s rock-solid proof that a play doesn’t have to be dark or even particularly tragic to be meaningful.

Take your grandparents, if you are lucky enough to have some around.

Through July 14th.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Not the Same

Vanderbilt University wants a few good men — preferably Jewish men (or women).

The Nashville school, determined to lift its academic standing, thinks that enticing Jews to its campus is a way to do it. It’s not the only school doing that. Texas Christian University, for one, offers merit scholarships specifically for Jewish students. You read that right: Texas Christian.

At these colleges and others, Jews are valued for what sounds like a stereotype — that Jews are smarter, for instance. Yet the numbers proclaim something like that to be the case. On the recent College Boards, Jews averaged 1161. Unitarians did somewhat better (1209), but the national average was 1020. At the elite Ivy League schools, Jews make up 23 percent of the student body. They are a measly 2 percent of the U.S. population.

“Jewish students, by culture and by ability and by the very nature of their liveliness, make a university a much more habitable place in terms of intellectual life,” Vanderbilt’s chancellor, Gordon Gee, told The Wall Street Journal. The very nature of their liveliness? Is this man out of his mind?

Actually, no. Gee is speaking both a specific truth and a larger truth: Not all groups are the same. This, I confess, is why I seized on the Vanderbilt story. For too long in this country, we have been determined not to notice what, literally, is sometimes in our faces: Groups, cultures, call them what you want, have different behavioral characteristics. I don’t know if Jews are smarter than other people, but I do know they do better than other groups on the College Boards. That makes them different.

Normally, though, tons of epithets would fall upon the poor head of anyone who would cite such differences. We go so far as to treat all airline passengers as equal security risks, defying what we know about the real risk. This is done in the name of some sort of equality — our national ethic that we are all the same.

So everyone is subjected to the possibility of a thorough stop and search. The individual whom Donald J. Carty, the CEO of American Airlines, called “Aunt Molly in Iowa” gets the same attention as someone who by virtue of age, sex, and ethnicity is the more likely risk. In a recent speech, Carty called this practice “nuts.” He is right. Treating all passengers as equal security risks costs money, takes time — and makes us no safer. In fact, it probably squanders resources.

Sometimes, the government’s insistence on maintaining a false sameness borders on the comical. In March, The New York Times reported that a study of speeders on the New Jersey Turnpike concluded that where the speed limit was 65 mph, blacks sped more than whites. This could not be, the Justice Department said — and it buried the report. The Justice Department did not say why this could not be, it just knew that because all people are the same, they drive the same and speed the same — and, therefore, if blacks are stopped more than whites, it has to be on account of racial profiling.

There is such a thing as racial profiling based on little more than bigotry. That, though, is not the same as racial profiling based on real behavioral differences among groups.

Some Jews don’t like what Vanderbilt and other schools are doing. I can understand that. If you single out Jews for real characteristics, what stops you from singling them out for fictitious ones? The answer, I both think and hope, is that we are past that.

I would say something similar about other groups as well. Jim Crow is dead. Racism exists, but it is waning, a spent force. We must insist on equality before the law. But we must insist also that we are not all the same.

Richard Cohen is a member of the Washington Post Writers Group. His columns frequently appear in the Flyer.