Month: January 2003

Categories
News The Fly-By

City Reporter

Dropping Out

Watson steps down as city schools superintendent.

By Mary Cashiola

After a two-week vacation from the school district, the Memphis City Schools superintendent announced Monday he would be stepping down from his post later this year. But he may not be the only district leader who goes.

Johnnie B. Watson distributed a short press release Monday morning, telling for the second time of his decision to retire from the school district. And, although recent weeks have seen the superintendent’s relationship with the board erode into a harassment complaint against board member Sara Lewis, the superintendent says that the board — or their view of his performance — has nothing to do with his decision.

“I knew when I accepted the job that I didn’t want to work much longer than three years, and I think the timing is right,” he said.

Watson’s contract is up in November. But if neither the board nor Watson said otherwise, it would automatically renew for another year. Since taking the job, he says there were times when he wanted to stay longer than his contract but has since changed his mind.

“By making my announcement at this time, it will allow the board to conduct a national search to find the best possible superintendent they can find,” he said. “It will also allow the new superintendent to be a part of the 2003-2004 budget discussion.”

But while those things are true, the superintendent’s decision also coincides with the release of his long-awaited formal evaluation and the preliminary findings of the district-encompassing MGT study. He says neither is a factor in his decision. At press time, he said he hadn’t read MGT’s preliminary finding on the district, saying he didn’t want the board to think he had any more involvement than they did.

“The evaluation has just not been a factor with me,” he said. “I don’t come to work every day to keep a job. I come to work every day to do a good job. Keeping a job was never a top priority for me. Certainly nobody wants to get fired, but at no time was I going to do anything to warrant my termination. We can have differences of opinion, but that’s okay.”

Watson, a Memphis native, was hired officially in October 2000 but started as interim superintendent in April of that year. Over the past three years, his vision has not always coincided with those of all the commissioners.

“We thought Johnnie Watson was the key to turning things around in the district,” said board commissioner Wanda Halbert. “But I feel that his hands-off approach is not what we need right now.”

Over the next year, Watson says it’s important to him to continue working on his strategic plan, improving student achievement, and gaining both the support and respect of all nine board members.

Depending on their relationships with other elected officials, however, Watson may last longer at the district than any of them. Mayor Willie Herenton said this week he would ask the Tennessee General Assembly to pass legislation enabling Memphis to have an appointed, rather than an elected, school board. Assuming the legislature does that, Herenton said he would personally lead a push for school-funding reform that would set boundaries for the city and county school systems and provide for single-source funding.

But Watson said it’s just time for him to go. “Nobody’s run me away; my evaluation is good,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned I’m going out on top.”

Ho Ho Ho?

D.A.’s office targets Whitehaven motels.

By Mary Cashiola

With action taken against the Graceland Inn and Casey’s Motel in recent months, a spokesperson for District Attorney General Bill Gibbons says other motels could be sanctioned.

Since May 1st, police have been called to the Graceland Inn 133 times and made 18 prostitution arrests. Casey’s Motel had 33 prostitution arrests on the premises last year. The Graceland Inn was shut down last month by the district attorney’s office and the owners were ordered to appear before Environmental Court Judge Larry Potter. It was allowed to open December 20th after a consent order was signed saying the owners would take steps to prevent illegal activity.

The D.A.’s office hasn’t started an official initiative on prostitution, but “it’s a crime that Gibbons feels very strongly about,” said spokesperson Jennifer Zunk. “There are four basic areas of crime we’re targeting: gangs, guns, drugs, and what Gibbons calls ‘broken windows.'”

“Expect to see more of this type of operation happen again,” said Zunk. “An assistant prosecutor went through lots of paperwork, and we were able to file a nuisance complaint.”

Neither business faced criminal charges, and both businesses signed consent orders allowing them to reopen. If the owners disobey the court order, however, they could face criminal charges.

“If there are more businesses with a large number of complaints, then they are at risk of being closed because of a nuisance order,” said Zunk.

All’s Well, Says Honeywell

Company officials defend cost of school HVAC project.

By Mary Cashiola

With city school board members scheduled to appear before the Memphis City Council on January 21st, members of Honeywell International are in town to speak to the board’s construction committee this Thursday.

“I’m here to move forward,” said Kevin Madden, vice president of North American Technical Services for Honeywell International. “We’re moving to a critical phase. We’ve been selected on the project through a very competitive process. The window of opportunity is starting to shut. … If we move beyond the January time frame before we get started, that puts at risk the fact that when these children return to [Longview Middle and Whitney Elementary] in August, they will have air conditioning.”

Last month, the school board held off transferring funds to cover the $14.8 million needed for the extensive HVAC project for the two schools. The project has been criticized for being at least, if not more than, $1 million over other estimates.

But Madden, who will spend the week meeting with city council members and community leaders, says the price is fair and reasonable. He cites the maximum price guarantee, the millions needed in renovations to meet city codes, and the fact that most of the work will have to be done at night and on weekends (to avoid disruptions to classes) as driving up the cost of the project.

“It’s kind of like changing the tires on a car while you’re going 60 miles per hour,” he said.

Honeywell was one of four companies that initially participated in the district’s request for proposals, but was the only firm that bid. The project was approved by the board last October but then faced a repeal by outgoing board member Barbara Prescott. The Commercial Appeal also published figures putting their own consultant’s cost estimate at about half of Honeywell’s figure.

“When you compare the 5,000-plus man-hours that we dedicated to understanding the needs of Longview and Whitney with a 30-hour take-off on a drawing, frankly, I would be concerned letting my team credibly stand behind those numbers,” said Madden. Although the CA has been asked for their information, it has not been released and Honeywell says it does not know where the numbers came from.

“I think one thing you have to look at is that we went through the competitive process,” said Madden. “Where were these organizations on bid day?”

Much has been made of Honeywell’s sole bid, but Madden said the company fully expected healthy competition on the bid. “I don’t think there’s been a lot of objectivity out there to date,” he said. “The feedback that we’ve gotten is that it’s time to tell the other side of the story. We’ve held off based on the competitive process that’s taken place, but we’re starting to speak out to move the project forward.”

B-17 Salutes Another B-17

Airport gate pays tribute to famed

Memphis Belle.

By Bianca Phillips

It was the first B-17 bomber to complete 25 European bombing missions during World War II, and now the Memphis Belle will be memorialized at Gate B-17 at Memphis International Airport.

On December 6th, Shelby County mayor A C Wharton presented the bomber’s pilot, Colonel Robert Morgan, with a plaque commemorating the gate’s dedication to the famous plane. Plans were also announced for a memorial wall at the airport, telling the story of the Belle, along with photos and reprints of posters from the 1944 documentary and 1990 movie about the plane. The wall should be complete within the next few months.

“She was a great airplane. History has shown that it was an indestructible plane that could take damage that the Boeing aircraft people couldn’t believe,” said Morgan. “At one time, we had six feet of the right wing shot off, and we once had four-and-a-half feet of the left wing shot off, but we could still fly it home. She was a great gal.”

Work has also begun on a World War II museum that will feature the Belle as its centerpiece. The Memphis Belle War Memorial Park would allow the plane to be housed indoors after more than 50 years of exposure to the elements. The Belle has been on display under a plastic canopy at Mud Island since 1987.

“Until we get the plane inside and dried out, it will not be protected. I think the birds are doing more damage than the Nazis ever did,” said Brent Perkins, executive director of the Memphis Belle War Memorial Foundation.

The museum, to be located at Nonconnah Parkway and Forest Hill-Irene Road, will also feature a virtual bomber gallery, displays of the homefront during the war, and a tribute to the Tuskeegee airmen. It is estimated to cost $10 million, which is being raised through public and private donations and fund-raisers. The ribbon-cutting is planned for Memorial Day 2004.

“The Memphis Belle got a lot of publicity, but it’s just a symbol of all the bombers that flew during World War II, those that didn’t come back as well as those that did,” said Morgan. “We weren’t any better than they were, just more fortunate.”

Categories
Cover Feature News

The long Goodbye

PHOTO BY JANEL DAVIS
Jim Fleming

Fleming Fine Furniture, the local family-owned company that’s been in operation for 56 years, is going out of business. No more commercials with talking computers, furniture-selling Santas, and kids bouncing on beds. No more sidewalk sales, price-matching promotions, and warranty offers. And, of course, no more Flemings on the local tube. We’ve heard it all before, haven’t we?

Not quite. This time the sale is for real and the company will close its doors in less than three months. “I was [in the furniture business] 37 years and only had three or four rough years. The other 33 were good and that’s a pretty good career,” says owner Jim Fleming. “Even though it didn’t end good, we certainly achieved a lot along the way.” According to Fleming, those achievements included being the first furniture company to have air-conditioned stores, same-day furniture delivery, and television advertisements.

Fleming’s eyes light up as he tells stories of his family’s company. Seated on a sofa marked with price-reduction tags, which will be sold to help pay off the company’s debts, he laughs as he remembers the first pieces the store sold and the early television commercials. “It’s been a good run,” he says, sighing, “but we weren’t able to do it any longer.”

The Golden Years

Fleming Fine Furniture started with some ingenuity and a lot of luck. The family patriarch, Partee, returned to Memphis after World War II and began an Army surplus wholesale business with his brother Bill (a third brother was shot down over Italy during the war) under the name Fleming Industries. The brothers set up shop on street corners and in empty lots with merchandise in the back of a pickup truck. The business grew to include furniture, and the first Fleming store opened in 1946 (the year Partee’s son Jim was born) at South Third Street and East Bodley Avenue. Partee, along with his wife, Anita, brother, and sister-in-law expanded the company to three stores. Business was good and customers, who had known Partee as a high school academic and athletic standout, were loyal to Memphis’ furniture family.

Partee’s Humes High School class of 1935 voted him “Best All-Around Boy” during his senior year. As editor of the school paper, member of the debate team, wrestling team, water polo team, ROTC, and student council treasurer, Partee was no stranger to hard work. He also won the prep school wrestling and boxing championships and was selected the most valuable high school football player in West Tennessee by The Commercial Appeal in 1934. Partee was probably the most famous student to attend Humes before being upstaged by Elvis Presley in 1948. After graduation, Partee went to Vanderbilt University, graduated in 1939, and became a reporter for the Nashville Tennessean and an English teacher at Wallace University School in Nashville before entering the war.

In addition to building a furniture business, Partee created Partee Cove in Memphis’ Cherokee neighborhood, where he lived for 21 years. Anita was known for her philanthropic work within the Catholic community. She and Partee donated land for the Church of the Holy Spirit on Hickory Crest Drive in 1975. For her more than 25 years of volunteer service, Anita was named Catholic Woman of the Year in the 1980s.

PHOTO BY JANEL DAVIS
A family affair: Chris Fleming and his father, Jim.

A Family Affair

“I kinda backed into the business,” says Jim Fleming. “Dad was closing down and had gone from three stores to one, but I got into [the business] and liked it. He had moved on to other things, like running for mayor (finishing second to Henry Loeb in 1959), real estate, writing books, and radio preaching. I was 18 when I first started.” During Jim’s first year, the company saw profits of $108,000. Jim reorganized the company and opened other Fleming Furniture locations.

Like his father, Jim, Chris Fleming also backed into the business. At 9 months old, he began appearing in the commercials that made him one of the most recognizable faces in Memphis. What was originally intended to be a onetime appearance of the three generations of Flemings grew into regular commercial spots with Chris as the main character. “The first thing he said in a commercial was ‘Buy from me,'” says Jim. “That was all he could say at the time, and he had such appeal that we kept [the commercials] going.”

Chris has come a long way from riding on ponies outside the stores during sidewalk sales. “People still find it hard to believe that I’ve grown up. Even though they’ve gotten older, they still want to keep me the kid in the commercials,” says the 27-year-old husband and father. “Whether people are 20 or 35 they all say they grew up with me.”

Chris’ brother Joey, 25, also made his acting debut in the Fleming commercials during “price knockout” promotions that featured the brothers as young boxers pitted against each other in “price wars.”

“People didn’t always like Fleming Furniture commercials,” says Jim’s wife Lisa. “But Jim said the commercials made people remember the company. They were never meant to be Hollywood quality. They were everyday commercials.”

During those years, the company received several Best or Worst Commercial Awards in the Flyer‘s annual “Best Of Memphis” issue. And Chris and Joey were voted Memphis’ most eligible bachelors in various magazine polls. Jim and Lisa also appeared in commercials and came up with the company jingle: “Fleming Fine Furniture Is Thinking of You.” Several celebrities also appeared in the spots, including the late Rufus Thomas, Jerry “the King” Lawler, and Willard Scott.

Trouble in Paradise

As the boys were growing, so was the company. But with expansion came loss. In 1984, Partee died at 67. With expansion came expenses which the company couldn’t handle. In 1985, Fleming Fine Furniture was forced to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Business attorney Robert Orians of the firm Martin, Tate, Morrow & Marston, which represented the company, blamed the financial crisis on overexpansion. “We eliminated some of their locations and got back to the two main locations, the Summer Avenue store in Perimeter Center and a location on Mendenhall,” he says. The company was able to meet payments on its $3 million debt during a five-year reorganization plan approved by its creditors. “The creditors wanted them to survive,” says Orians. “As you know, [Jim] was a big advertiser and was selling a lot of furniture, so of course advertisers wanted him to stay in business as well.”

After 1990, the business returned to profitability. According to Jim, the company shipped more furniture than any other furniture retailer in Memphis. Clients included former professional basketball player Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway and former President Jimmy Carter’s daughter, Amy.

“At our peak, we had eight stores doing $3 million in business each month and $36 million each year,” says Jim. During that time, Chris, a Notre Dame graduate, returned to Memphis and the furniture business. A Fleming administrative employee caught his eye, and Chris and Karey married, forming the third generation of couples in the business. “He always told me that working with me was the only thing he wanted to do,” says Jim about his son, Chris. “I had an offer to sell out about six or seven years ago and he begged me not to do it. We had the opportunity to work together a few years and thought we’d be doing it the rest of our lives.”

PHOTO BY JANEL DAVIS
Left to right: Karey and Chris Fleming (with their children), and Jim and Lisa Fleming.

The End

As the economy took a turn for the worse in recent years, consumers focused more on necessities and furniture purchases were put on hold. Unable to pay its creditors, Fleming Fine Furniture was again forced to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2001. Orians’ firm negotiated an eight-year payment plan in December 2001 for the more than $7 million in unpaid debts. “There were a number of bankruptcies [in the furniture business], from manufacturers to retailers,” says Orians. “The industry had been hit hard. That’s just how it happens.” Other industry companies such as Heilig Meyers, Montgomery Ward, Levitz, and Sears’ HomeLife division either were forced to reorganize and close several stores or also file for bankruptcy protection. “With a normal economy we would have been able to meet the payments in the plan, but with a bad economy we weren’t able to do it,” says Jim.

Bankruptcy records show the company’s creditors include Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Tennessee, Mid-South Music, and the Internal Revenue Service.

The repayment plan called for Fleming to make creditor payments beginning in March 2002. The business was able to make some of the payments but by September had fallen behind, says Orians. The company was forced into liquidation mode to repay its debts. Stores were temporarily closed to prepare for a final “survival” sale, which didn’t produce enough money to repay the debts. The company was unable to secure credit to fill customer orders and permanent closure became inevitable.

“We fought it awful hard the last couple of years,” says Jim. “We took care of our customers and gave great buys. Maybe that was our downfall. We always wanted to offer people a deal.” Fleming’s remaining employees were let go.

In October, a Connecticut liquidation company, Planned Furniture Promotion, was called in to oversee the closing sale. “We brought in about 100 of our employees to close out the company,” says sale manager Scott Lerner. He estimates that the sale will finally conclude in February. “Outstanding warranties are being handled and the backlog of customer deliveries is almost complete,” says PFP’s Bobbie Pine. For customers buying furniture during the going-out-of-business sale, an additional warranty (in addition to the manufacturer’s warranty) is being made available through Jondy Chemicals of Somerset, Kentucky.

“I hate to see a family business close that has struggled, had its ups and downs, and been successful before,” Orians says. “Fleming Fine Furniture was an institution in Memphis. I’ve been in Memphis since I was 5 years old and can always remember there being a Fleming Fine Furniture.”

After the stores are closed, family members will have to find other work. Chris and Karey Fleming have already moved to Olive Branch, Mississippi, to begin a mortgage lending company; Lisa Fleming will return to her previous career in nursing and sales. But for Jim Fleming it won’t be that easy. “At different times in life you have to turn a page to a new chapter,” he says. “But this will be a whole new book for me because I’ve never done anything else. I’ve given this company everything I had. I’ve never even had a boss.” n

How a “going out of business” sale works

A “sale” sign implies low prices and great deals. But some businesses have used “sales” to entice customers into purchasing imperfect merchandise with misleading purchase agreements and insufficient warranties.

In 1977, the state legislature passed the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act to combat deceptive sales practices. The act regulates everything from honest advertising to the length of sales.

“This law was enacted because people were being misled by advertisements implying that they were going to get a good price on merchandise,” says David McCollum, director of the Tennessee Division of Consumer Affairs. “That’s why you had companies going out of business forever and they never did go out of business.”

Businesses in Shelby County must obtain going-out-of-business/liquidation-sale licenses from the Shelby County Clerk’s Office, Business Tax Division. The $25 license lasts for 30 days and is renewable three times for a total of 120 days. Fleming Fine Furniture’s first licenses for its three Memphis locations ran from November 7th through December 7th. The licenses have been renewed for an additional period ending January 8th. If the licenses are renewed for the allowable two additional periods, the company will have until March 10th to end its sale and close its doors.

McCollum’s staff scans newspapers to catch unlawful practices. The office sends out letters to businesses claiming to be going out of business to remind them of the laws governing the sale. Although the office does its best to monitor these sales, McCollum advises consumers to ask questions.

Things to remember when shopping a going-out-of-business sale:

· A sale does not guarantee lower prices.

· A sale does not guarantee that deals will be offered.

· Get an understanding of extended warranties and gift certificates. Find out who will handle claims once the business closes.

· Know the law before purchasing any items.

· If you believe a company has violated the Consumer Protection Act, contact the Tennessee Division of Consumer Affairs at 1-800-342-8385. — JD

Categories
Editorial Opinion

A Good Fight

Johnnie B. Watson is a nice guy. But he’s perhaps too nice to be superintendent of the political landmine that constitutes Memphis City Schools these days.

Watson announced his retirement Monday, effective December 2003. In his typical style, he sent out an understated memo to the school board and media outlets and told his executive staff during the group’s Monday meeting. Then he held two hours open on his schedule and granted individual interviews to the media.

Watson’s openness with the community is one of his strengths, but unfortunately, openness isn’t enough, given this school board’s predilection for controversy. Watson did a great job of rebuilding bridges to the community and MCS staff that previous superintendent Gerry House seemingly had burned. He is beloved by his staff and the teachers and principals within the district.

But Watson suffers from a perceived lack of clout. He hasn’t ever come out strongly for or against anything (with perhaps the exception of KIPP Academy), a fact which seems to have encouraged certain members of the school board to run roughshod over him with insulting — and often misguided — public comments.

When the board started taking a more active role in the management of the school district, Watson sat back and said he worked at the will and the pleasure of the board. When the board became embroiled in conflict with the superintendent’s staff over contracts, change orders, and “he-said/she-said” issues (something that’s happened with more frequency in recent months), Watson’s typical response was to scrap the issue until it met with commissioners’ satisfaction.

In an interview with a Flyer reporter Monday, Watson said that neither his relationship with board member Sara Lewis, nor his relationship with the board in general, had anything to do with his decision to retire. While we respect his right to say so, especially with another year at the helm, we don’t quite believe him.

It’s admirable that Watson tried to stay above the petty wrangling that characterizes much of the board’s recent behavior, but it may not have been to the district’s advantage. Individual board members may have their own agendas, but Watson’s agenda should be solely focused on the 118,000 youngsters in his charge. And if that agenda did not correlate with the board’s actions, then he should have said so — forcefully.

It’s not going to be easy to find qualified applicants who will want to take on the challenges of Memphis City Schools. Superintendent jobs at large urban districts aren’t seen as the career-building plums they once were. With state takeover of schools looming, a budget crisis in full bloom, and Watson’s recently filed and dropped harassment complaint still fresh in the air, we don’t foresee a plethora of qualified applicants banging on the door.

The district needs someone who will lead a charge, someone with the mettle to stand up to the board. Or stand with the board, if that be the case.

After House’s tumultuous tenure, Watson was a comfortable fit for the position. He was an academic, a hometown guy beloved by his students, guaranteed not to ruffle any feathers. But the time for nice guys is over. We need someone looking for a good fight.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

Annual Comments

To the Editor:

Your listing of publications in the Annual Manual (January 2nd issue) was extensive. I keep a database of my own. Some other locally produced and/or locally appearing ones you might add are: Memphis Lawyer, The Keystone, Jabberblabber, Mid-South Sports & Leisure, Mid-South Christian Banner, Youth X Press, Active Years, Cotton Farming, Cotton Grower Magazine, HER News, Import/Export Wood, Wellness Guide, International Wood Trade, National Hardwood, Progressive Farmer, Physicians Postgraduate Press, Rice Farming, Hardwood Market Report, Ducks Unlimited, Memphis Medical News. There also are some national furniture magazines published here.

David McDonald Yawn

Memphis

To the Editor:

I was perusing your Annual Manual and noticed under the “Media” heading that you listed 52 magazines and newspapers. The rather shocking part to me was there were no children’s publications listed. I assume this was merely an oversight by someone on your staff … someone with no children.

I understand you are in a business to make money, and children (under the age of 10) are not yet reading your paper. My children read Jabberblabber magazine, a two-year-old free publication written specifically for children.

I believe Contemporary Media (the parent company of The Memphis Flyer) publishes Memphis Parent, which is geared toward parents. Needless to say, Memphis Parent made the list.

The way I see it, children will eventually be reading The Memphis Flyer. Do media and children matter to you? If your answer is yes, get them ready by listing all newspapers and magazines in your 2004 guide. Children and parents will thank you.

Lynne P. Wilkinson

Germantown

To the Editor:

Thank you so much for your Annual Manual, which has been designed to let Memphis and the rest of the civilized world know where to go in Memphis for government services, sporting events, movies, restaurants, museums, parks, art galleries. Many people will keep this issue and use it as a reference for locating services and venues for the year to come, which is what you surely intended. We here at Painted Planet Artspace, who are in your regular issues’ list of local galleries and who advertise our monthly artist spotlights in the Flyer, are so glad to see us omitted from the Annual Manual in favor of a gallery that has been closed for months (Mariposa) and three restaurants that secondarily have artwork displayed in their establishments (Java Cabana, Otherlands, and Automatic Slim’s).

Is it too much to ask that our local alternative paper be accurate, timely, and complete?

Danny Bowers

Painted Planet Artspace

Memphis

A Simple Policy

To the Editor:

The apparent inconsistency of the Bush administration when it comes to dealing with “evildoer” nations has caused some confusion. Actually, it is very simple. Here is the Bush policy:

If an evildoer nation has A) been designated by George W. Bush as a charter member of the “Axis of Evil,” B) promised not to develop nuclear weapons, C) admitted that it has in fact developed nuclear weapons anyway, and D) kicks inspectors out of its nuclear sites, the Bush administration response is to … negotiate, ask for help from our allies, and allow diplomacy to work. This, of course, assumes that the evildoer nation is not a major oil producer and did not embarrass the president’s father.

On the other hand, if another evildoer nation belonging to the “Axis of Evil” happens to be a major oil producer and is led by a tyrant who embarrassed Daddy, the Bush II strategy is quite different. Now the strategy is that we should preemptively attack Iraq, no matter what happens. First, we properly challenge Iraq to allow weapons inspectors, with plans for a preemptive attack if they refuse. Once they admit inspectors, we plan a preemptive attack if weapons are found. As a backup plan, we plan a preemptive attack if weapons are not found.

Simply put, this is folly.

B. Keith English

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
Film Features Film/TV

Act One

Chicago has been kicking around Hollywood for 60 years. Two previous film versions exist, and the story finally was

musicalized in a 1975 Broadway show directed by Bob Fosse and composed by Kander and Ebb, the songwriting team behind

Cabaret. Efforts to film the musical

Chicago have waxed and waned for years, with innumerable stars attached at various times: Rosie

O’Donnell, Goldie Hawn, Madonna, John Travolta, Kevin Spacey. Based on the 1942 play

Roxie Hart, Chicago captures a not-so-unique

period in history when Americans were obsessed with scandal and instant celebrity (see

The Anna Nicole Show, American Idol).

Keeping up with famous murderers was a national pastime.

Particularly intriguing among 1920s homicidal fascinations were the husband-killers.

Chicago introduces us to several of them — most prominently, Roxie herself (Renee Zellweger) who, in the ’20s, gunned down her lover when his promises of

helping her become a star turned out to be lies told to get her in the sack. A mousy beauty, Roxie is immediately out of place in

prison among harsher, angrier women. But it’s not long before she figures out the system and learns to stay afloat as the media

favorite. You see, there’s an attorney in Chicago who’s never lost a case: Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), and as long as he can make

headlines, he’s your best friend. When a new flavor-of-the-month comes along, so goes Billy’s attention. Roxie goes to substantial lengths

to make sure she’s Billy’s #1 star. Meanwhile, last

month’s flavor is Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), whose husband made

the fatal mistake of playing with the wrong half of Velma’s sister act. (So too went the sister.) Velma’s not used to being outshone

and does whatever she can to top Roxie’s celebrity. Velma’s glam-vamp posturings are no match for Roxie’s newly created Girl

Next Door routine. So, with a little help from the prison matron, Mama (Queen Latifah!), Velma concocts a plan to undo Roxie’s

defense and put herself back on top.

Richard Gere’s Billy Flynn, explaining what the jury and media and public really want, sings “Give ’em that razzle

dazzle.” Director Rob Marshall follows through on Billy’s advice and razzles and dazzles the hell out of this movie. Marshall, known

primarily as a choreographer and as the director of the TV

Annie a few years ago, delivers a powerful punch in the

sequins-and-feathers fabulousness department. The singing and dancing are great, and the quick and choppy editing of each sequence is

razor-sharp. (Some may hate this, and I suspect that it masks the more skilled hoofers standing in for the more complicated dance moves —

but pish! The results are dynamic and rousing.) The film’s only drawback is that, in dividing into book scenes and fantasy

musical numbers, the talky time just can’t sustain the energy and attention of the flashy songs and dance. Ah well — the musical

numbers are never far off.

Zeta-Jones, in particular, is fantastic. Her

opening number, “All That Jazz,” sets a high bar of pace and style for the rest

of the film, and her “Act of Desperation” (a plea for Roxie’s cooperation that displays her old act’s moves, sans sister) shows

that Zeta-Jones, a professional dancer before turning actress-cum-Mrs. Michael Douglas, truly has the right stuff.

Zellweger, more actor than dancer, is particularly good at suspending disbelief in high-concept dramadies

(Nurse Betty leaps to mind). She balances Roxie’s vulnerability and manipulation with great skill (in fact, she holds the movie together) and pulls off the

jazzier demands of the role just fine, albeit in Zeta-Jones’ formidable shadow but that’s okay — her star power is based on her scandal, not

her soprano. Additionally, there are extremely sound supporting performances from Gere (who has a strong, if not pretty,

musical-theater voice), Latifah (who steals the show with her bawdy “What Mama Wants”), and John C. Reilly as Roxie’s doltish husband.

Anyone expecting the depth of

Cabaret will be disappointed in

Chicago‘s relatively thin story and its broadly drawn

characters. However, even as Chicago mocks those in the spotlight who have arrived there by style over substance, it delivers that

style 100 percent.

Categories
Music Music Features

Browser’s Delight

Not much space to work with, so let’s make it quick: 2002 was a year short on major albums, major artists, and major developments (though I think the two records that top the list below would be worthy of their placement in any year) but one littered with minor cultural eruptions, good albums, and great singles. It was a year in which the most ubiquitous musical elements were mainstream media outlets salivating over Springsteen’s comeback, Nelly’s Jedi-mind-trick rewrite of the tired frat-boy taunt “Show me your tits,” and the president of the United States of White America, aka Eminem, having his best year yet with his least compelling album. But it was also a year in which the best hip hop that didn’t emanate from Virginia Beach was made by white people not named Eminem.

It was, as Short Cuts contributor Michaelangelo Matos attests, a year of microtrends: a great flood of Afropop reissues culminating in the rebirth of Senegalese masters Orchestra Baobab; a deluge of “rock is back” hype, media-created to the extent that it was driven by national magazines sick of pretending to like Linkin Park and Creed in order to sell copies but still with a higher artistic success rate (save the woeful Vines) than any other mainstream rock eruption in recent memory; a revolution of self-appointed remixers who took what the music industry gave them, improved on it in the form of illegal “blends” or “mash-ups,” and sent their creations out into the world.

More than anything, 2002 demonstrated that the great democratic impulse of popular music now manifests itself more in terms of pluralism than consensus. In other words, 2002 was a bad year for those who get all their music from commercial radio and MTV but a great year for browsers, searchers, dilettantes, and diehards.

Below is a partial list of the best albums and singles this critic heard in 2002. If space permitted, I could list twice as many albums without exhausting my “A-list.” And since there’s no room to comment on records not on my lists, suffice it to say if you can’t find (overly) celebrated records from Beck, Bruce Springsteen (a near-miss, actually), Solomon Burke, Coldplay, N.E.R.D., the Roots, or the Flaming Lips anywhere below, it isn’t because I didn’t hear them.

Top 40 Albums:

1. One Beat — Sleater-Kinney (Kill Rock Stars): In 2002, the era’s greatest rock-and-roll band released the best record of their lives, and far too few took proper notice. But that’s okay, because One Beat is also the record on which Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein, and Janet Weiss stopped worrying about their place in the pop-culture landscape and instead took on topics both bigger and smaller than all the metarock that had come before. In between the meditation on the mysteries of change that opens this album and the frightened prayer for a newborn son that closes it are songs about love energizing (“Oh!,” which earns its exclamation point) and enervating, a hymn to their hometown, and uplifting anthems of dissent. And yet, they could be singing in Swahili and this would still be my favorite record of the year, because the greatest thrill of all is the way these three women dramatize community and interdependence, the way Tucker and Brownstein’s voices and guitars come together and fall apart, and the way Weiss’ drums push everything skyward.

2. Original Pirate Material — The Streets (Vice/Atlantic): It’s fitting that, after Eminem, the artist that British MC Mike “The Streets” Skinner has been most compared with is Trainspotting novelist Irvine Welsh, because the shockingly assured debut album from this 23-year-old one-man-band is pop music of tangible literary value. Original Pirate Material is a breathlessly detailed ethnography of British flat-rat culture, but its greatness lies not just in how observant Skinner’s reports are but also how modest and good-hearted, how the guy-talk of “Don’t Mug Yourself” is matched by the romantic regret of “It’s Too Late,” how the menacing nightlife vision of “Geezers Need Excitement” and substance abuse of “Too Much Brandy” are balanced against the wistful nostalgia of the rave remembrance “Weak Become Heroes.”

3. The History of Township Music — Various Artists (Wrasse import): Pair this four-decade-spanning compilation with 1986’s classic The Indestructible Beat of Soweto, which picks up where History leaves off, and you’d have a fairly definitive overview of one of the planet’s great modern music cultures. Listen to the middle third of this album, from Solven Whistlers’ 1958 penny-whistle standard “Something New in Africa” to the fully formed mbaqanga of the Mahotella Queens’ 1968 “Mama Thula,” and the history lesson dissolves as exalted groove after exalted groove unfurls.

4. Specialist in All Styles –Orchestra Baobab (Nonesuch): The year’s most shamelessly beautiful record is a reunion album from this great Senegalese pop band of the ’70s and ’80s that has been accurately but insufficiently described as an Afropop Buena Vista Social Club. Co-produced by countryman and onetime spotlight-usurper Youssou N’Dour, this dispatch from the other end of the Afro-Cuban continuum is more commanding and more supple, led by guitarist extraordinaire Barthelemy Attisso and saxman Issa Cissokho.

5. Hip Hop You Haven’t Heard/Dying in Stereo –Northern State (Northern State Records): Three liberal-arts-schooled white girls who drop old-school hip hop infused with mad optimism and never once forget who they are. As they rap on “Rewind,” the best track on the four-song Hip Hop You Haven’t Heard and the only one not included on the full-length Dying in Stereo: “Beastie Boys always on vacation/Run-DMC lost the motivation/ODB is always on probation/Northern State is here, thank sweet salvation!”

6. The Best Bootlegs in the World Ever –Various Artists (no label): The infamous bootleg collection of Internet-swapped bootleg mash-ups is a bizarro-universe K-Tel collection, where the Stones and Fatboy Slim jam together, Xtina Aguilera fronts the Strokes, the Clash is the world’s greatest disco band, and Destiny’s Child and Nirvana collaborate on an anthem for the ages.

7. OOOH! — The Mekons (Quarterstick): This was the post-9/11 record that no one wanted to hear, brought to us by a musical collective that’s sounded like a band of ragtag war survivors for more than 20 years now. Their finest album since the first Bush administration, OOOH! is caustic, weary, foreboding, defiant, cynical, frightened and frightening, unsettled and unsettling — but it finds its greatest expression with the faint glimmer of hope peeking out from the dual meaning of “Hate is the New Love”‘s climactic lyric: “Every day is a battle/How we still love the war.”

8. Read Music, Speak Spanish — Desaparecidos (Saddle Creek): I prefer Conor “Bright Eyes” Oberst’s punk side project because I’d rather hear him yowl about suburban sprawl and grotesque consumerism than about his teen angst bullshit and because his band carves tunes from horrible noise like nothing since Zen Arcade. He may be shooting fish in a barrel, but they deserve to be shot. And if there was a more terribly moving musical moment in 2002 than when Oberst’s “Man and Wife” narrator croons, “But if you want to make a run for it, my love, I’d cover you” –thus positing the greatest act of love as the willingness to end a relationship and assume all accrued debt — I didn’t hear it.

9. Downhome Sophisticate — Corey Harris (Rounder): Blues schmooze. Harris’ best record yet is a roots-music opus that knows no boundaries –pan-African-diaspora pop in which acoustic Delta music is but a mere launching point. Lyrically, a collection of sketches. Musically, a tour de force.

10. Under Construction — Missy Elliott (Elektra): The Queen of Pop returns to form with her finest album since her 1997 debut. So consistently pleasurable and effortlessly ground-breaking that its musical sixth sense bulldozes over its not inconsiderable content problems.

11. Veni Vidi Vicious –The Hives (Sire/Burning Heart/Epitaph): Exactly 28 minutes of Kinks-meet-Stooges blare that is not only every bit as good as its press but also (well-meaning-but-awkward Jerry Butler cover aside) about a hundred times better than most anything else in its little corner of the world. This record doesn’t rock; it detonates.

12. Lord Willin’ –Clipse (Star Track/Arista): The Neptunes’ era-defining space-age-funk production meets its match in the form of two Virginia Beach siblings with a world view — a corrupt, borderline pathological world view but a world view nonetheless. Finally, gangstaploitation as the exhilarating pulp fiction that so many others were supposed to be.

13. Kill the Moonlight –Spoon (Merge): I loved this indie-rock underdog months before I ever attended to lyrics that outline just enough of a small-stakes lifestyle to give the music focus. And the music: Driven by percussion (drums, keyboards, piano, and tambourine), chalk-dry guitars, and the calculated catch in lead singer Britt Daniel’s voice, it’s the rare indie-rock record that swings. Except it doesn’t sound like indie rock or alt rock or garage rock. It sounds like rock-and-roll. And not quite like anything else out there.

14. Paullelujah! –MC Paul Barman (Coup d’Etat): Hip hop morphs into dorm-room Dr. Seuss as the (self-professed) Jew dork rhymes: “People repping clones accused me of using rap as a stepping stone/I thought about this crap when I was schlepping home/Is it ’cause I go for the laugh?/Because I’m not from the ave?/Because I target the fans that you wish you didn’t have?”

15. Giants of East Africa — Orchestra Super Mazembe (Earthworks): Eleven slabs of vintage (1977-1986), epic East African guitar paradise.

Honorable Mention (in order of preference): Handcream for a Generation — Cornershop (Beggar’s Banquet); Tallahassee –The Mountain Goats (4AD); Wish You Were Here: Love Songs for NYC — Various Artists (Village Voice); Best of Boom Selector Vol. 2 — Various Artists (no label); The Private Press — DJ Shadow (MCA); On — Imperial Teen (Merge); The Eminem Show — Eminem (Interscope); Murray Street — Sonic Youth (DGC); God Loves Ugly — Atmosphere (Fat Beats); Romantica — Luna (Jetset); I’m Sorry That Sometimes I’m Mean — Kimya Dawson (Rough Trade); Split Series Volume III — Rancid/NOFX (BYO); Jerusalem — Steve Earle (Artemis); Mondo Soukous — Various Artists (Mondo Melodia); The Shed Sessions — Bhundu Boys (Sadza); Lifted or the Story is in the Soil — Bright Eyes (Saddle Creek); Star Kitty’s Revenge — Joi (Universal); The Reputation — The Reputation (Initial); Transplants — Transplants (Hellcat); I Phantom — Mr. Lif (Definitive Jux); Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — Wilco (Nonesuch); Walking With Thee — Clinic (Domino); Dead Ringer — RJD2 (Definitive Jux); Don’t Worry About Me — Joey Ramone (Sanctuary); Minesweeper Suite — DJ/rupture (Tigerbeat6).

Top 10 Singles:

1. “Smells Like Booty” — Freelance Hellraiser: Beyoncé and Co. shake their jelly all over Kurt’s historic riff in the ultimate Frankenstein’s monster of a mash-up.

2. “The Night I Fell in Love” — Pet Shop Boys: The Eminem record of the year. A modern-day “Maggie May” about a high school boy who gets backstage at a concert and ends up spending an intimate evening with the most meanest MC, who “couldn’t have been a much nicer bloke.” Has to be heard to be believed.

3. “Hate To Say I Told You So” — The Hives: Erupting this year from any club, disco, lounge, house basement or block party, car stereo, stoop, or any other social gathering, the opening guitar noise of this alt-rock insta-classic sounded almost as definitive and every bit as essential as “Smells Like Teen Spirit” did a decade ago.

4. “Underneath It All” — No Doubt: No Doubt makes mediocre albums but they’re a great singles band, and this is their best yet: in which new-wave addicts’ vision of Kingston skank plus a Madonna fan’s attempt at vintage-soul vocals equals the year’s most swoon-worthy love song.

5. “Young Boy” — Clipse: Their spare, percussive “Grindin'” got more pub and play, but far better was this swaggering anthem, where the Neptunes’ (best ever?) drums-and-horns backing track serves a portrait-of-the-artists-as-young-criminals narrative of cinematic scope and grit.

6. “Don’t Let Me Get Me” — Pink: Retreat from the teen-pop wars as coming-out party as anthem of self-loathing: “L.A. told me/’You’ll be a pop star/All you’ll have to change is/Everything that you are.'”

7. “Love at First Sight” — Kylie Minogue: Disco lives!

8. “Work It” — Missy Elliott: The ultimate expression of Missy and Timbaland’s kitchen-sink aesthetic, where hooks pop like machine-gun fire and DJ scratches, electro beats, elephant roars, turntable crackle, backward vocals, and soft-porn onomatopoeia serve as ammo.

9. “On My Block” — Scarface: His block is your block is every ghetto every city is the genesis of all hip hop — and I’m a born sucker for the marriage of wistful piano loops and hip-hop beats.

10. “Long Time Gone” — Dixie Chicks: O Brother, not another roots-kitsch authenticity lament. No, an overdue reckoning with reality; the sound of “country music” breaking free. Now let’s move on.

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Addison Engelking:

1. One Beat — Sleater-Kinney (Kill Rock Stars): For me, Sleater-Kinney’s grand achievement was the best record of 2002 as early as July 17th, when I saw them headline a benefit concert for their native Portland’s fabulous Rock and Roll Camp for Girls. After 45 minutes of a VH-1: Storytellers-type show featuring career-spanning hits and anecdotes, the band launched into fearsome versions of the ebullient, clear-headed combat rock that makes One Beat local music that acts and feels like a global imperative. Girls ages 8 to 18 ran the sound board and light show, and 14 of the happy campers danced around and behind Janet Weiss, Corin Tucker, and Carrie Brownstein during the encore as I and several sets of rapt parents watched, awestruck, from our theater seats.

2. OOOH! — The Mekons (Quarterstick): Just when I thought One Beat‘s best tunes had epitomized 21st-century protest songs, this record came rumbling out of the ground like the drums of death pounding under the prologue of Gangs of New York. The imaginary and real wars that have preoccupied the Mekons for 20-plus years finally hit home September 2001, and though that may be good for artists, it might spell doom for everyone else. These 11 tribal battle hymns capture the imagination of disaster while insisting over and over that ancient hatreds will destroy us all or maybe not. “Better turn all the clocks back/I deserve to be happy” is just one of the hard truths scattered throughout the most frightening album in years.

3. Testament: The Complete Slash Recordings — The Blasters (Rhino); Send Me a Lullaby, Before Hollywood, Spring Hill Fair — The Go-Betweens (Circus/Jetset): These handsome reissues redefined the rock-and-roll canon of the 1980s and shed new light on such sere terms as “pop music” and “roots rock” in the process.

4. The Rough Guide to the Music of Nigeria and Ghana — Various Artists (World Music Network): I’m still too dumb to distinguish soukous from mbaqanga without a cheat sheet, but this is by far the funkiest Afropop comp I’ve heard. Thanks to Sir Victor Uwaifo and E.K. Nyame, it’s one of the purdiest too.

5. Songs for the Deaf — Queens of the Stone Age (Interscope): Turn it up.

Michaelangelo Matos:

1. Bootleg bonanza: From Boom Selection_Issue 01 (three MP3-CDs, 432 tracks, 34 hours) to under-the-counter compendiums like The Best Bootlegs in the World Ever to 2 Many DJs’ As Heard on Radio Soulwax mixes (Pt. 2 was legally issued by Pias Belgium, with Pt. 1 and Pt. 3 available less legitimately), 2002 was the year of the mash-up. In a year when none of Eminem’s singles had backing tracks as good as those surgically attached by Freelance Hairdresser or Jacknife Lee, it’s about damn time.

2. Original Pirate Material — The Streets (Vice/Atlantic): More catchphrases than you can throw a crumpet at, cheap-and-ready beats that retain their freshness dozens of listens in, a sense of humor broader than a season of Benny Hill, and more poignant than a very special episode of EastEnders, this was the best excuse for Anglophilia in ages.

3. Singles galore: As many good albums as 2002 offered, as a whole they weren’t a match for the singles. There are at least 40 legit, nonbootleg singles I could have happily put in my top 10, ranging from mainstream juggernauts (Kylie, No Doubt, Pink, the Hives, Clipse, Missy) to the more specialist likes of Shakedown, the Rapture, Royksopp, Sugababes, and DJ/rupture. So, uh, why does the radio still suck?

4. Microhouse madness: The beautiful bastard child of laptop glitch and club-bump kept on giving this year, thanks to mix discs by Triple R, Ellen Allien, and Swayzak, albums by Pantytec and Hakan Lidbo, and Herbert’s Secondhand Sounds collection.

5. Classic Afropop avalanche: Reissues of Orchestra Super Mazembe and the Bhundu Boys, not to mention comps like The History of Township Music, The Music in My Head 2, and African Salsa and Rumba, made living in the past sound every bit as inviting as the brave sonic tomorrows detailed above.

Stephen Deusner:

1. Original Pirate Material — The Streets (Vice/Atlantic): In the first verse of the first track of his first album, Britsploitation rapper Mike Skinner — aka The Streets — declares he’s “45th-generation Roman,” then he spends the rest of the album evoking a particularly Western world-weariness. His world contains “nothing but gray concrete and deadbeats.” What makes the album so powerful is his uncynical search for something more.

2. One Beat — Sleater-Kinney (Kill Rock Stars): With many people blindly swallowing the president’s war rhetoric, Sleater-Kinney have become the country’s new liberal conscience. One Beat‘s politics are best, though, when mixed with the personal: The album’s most haunting image is of Corin Tucker watching the 9/11 coverage with her new baby, both of them half a world away and helpless.

3. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots — The Flaming Lips (Warner Brothers): Forget the title character and her mechanical nemeses: The vague story line here isn’t nearly as important as the songs, which celebrate the wonders of human emotions — from love and happiness to fear and regret. The emotionally direct “Do You Realize??” is the most devastating pop song about death since “Everybody Hurts.”

4. Sea Change — Beck (DGC): God bless poor Beck. He splits with his longtime girlfriend and then records a breakup album that’s equal parts Pink Moon and Hot Buttered Soul. Sea Change marks the first time he’s been able to completely shed his various personae and reveal what sounds like his true self.

5. Songs for the Deaf — Queens of the Stone Age (Interscope): In 2002, the planets aligned as Mark Lanegan and Dave Grohl joined QOTSA mainstays Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri for Songs for the Deaf, easily the coolest album title of the year. It’s a lineup they probably can’t duplicate, but together they sound like they know there won’t be a tomorrow.

Andrew Earles:

1. Suicide Invoice — The Hot Snakes (Swami): My perfect rock record comes courtesy of the minds that teamed up 10 years back as Drive Like Jehu — a record that manages to convey a believably tense and troubled air without screaming or yelling about it.

2. Slanted and Enchanted: Live and Redux — Pavement (Matador): Holds up like a champ — a triumph, considering this is decade-old indie rock, and it’s difficult to think of anything that ages as poorly. Pavement was also borrowing heavily from early Fall and the Swell Maps long before turn-of-the-’80s post-punk was the bankable commodity that it is today.

3. This Night — Destroyer (Merge): This is music that gives Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) the night sweats and humbles every other contemporary singer-songwriter operating outside the mainstream. Attention, Ryan Adams: Get out your notebook.

4. Each One Teach One — Oneida (Jagjaguwar): Don’t blame laziness or apathy for Oneida’s appearance on yet another of my year-end lists. Blame Oneida for putting out a record this brilliant. Oh, and blame other New York spotlight stealers like Interpol and the Liars for repackaging past genres into the underground rock equivalents of boy bands. Conversely, you cannot trace Oneida’s sound back to anything concrete. With impeccable taste, they piecemeal the past 40 years of volume-heavy rock and emerge peerless.

5. Live at the Witch Trials + Bonus Tracks — The Fall (Cog Sinister): For those intoxicated by Joy Division’s latest revival via Interpol’s popularity or 24 Hour Party People, I offer a literate, rollicking, sarcastic post-punk alternative. Be warned: Though an official label, it’s occasionally apparent that Cog Sinister finds it amusing (I’m sure in some quasi-Situationist fashion) to master their reissue catalog straight from the vinyl originals.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

In with the New

As 2003 begins, real changes are underway.

A new Tennessee governor will be inaugurated next week — Democrat Phil Bredesen, the former Nashville mayor, who will see his vaunted managerial skills sorely tested in shoring up TennCare and figuring out how to carry out a judicial mandate requiring equalization of state teacher salaries. Among other issues, legislators will concern themselves with the mechanics of establishing the state lottery authorized by voters in November.

The new state House Republican leader is state Rep. Tre Hargett of Bartlett, a member of his party’s conservative wing. At the national level, the GOP’s Bill Frist is the new Senate Majority Leader, succeeding Mississippi’s Trent Lott in the wake of the latter’s remarks extolling the 1948 Dixiecrat presidential campaign of retiring centenarian Strom Thurmond.

Locally, the Shelby County Commission will decide next week on the fate of commission administrator Calvin Williams, under fire over conflict-of-interest matters as well as for intemperate remarks in a telephone conversation with Shelby County Assessor Rita Clark.

Johnnie B. Watson is out as city school superintendent, and the vexing issue of education clearly looms large on the agendas of both city and county. That became evident on the first day of 2003, in remarks by Memphis mayor Willie Herenton at city councilman Myron Lowery’s annual New Year’s prayer breakfast at The Peabody.

After a gracious introduction by Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, Herenton rapidly got down to business, musing on the “deep-seated problems” in local education. He could not be pleased, he said, when there were “two governments and two separate school systems, neither with appropriate resources.”

This was all on account of — or the cause of — too many “selfish agendas.”

Referring to a recent suggestion by Shelby County schools superintendent Bobby Webb that new county schools should be built at a safe distance from the annexation areas of Memphis, the mayor said he had a “message” for the superintendent, noting parenthetically, “He’s a newcomer. I’ve been around a long time.”

Such thinking was “unacceptable to me,” Herenton said, and so were the “reform” notions envisioned by Webb (and, by implication, Wharton, who recently suggested a plan of his own that would revise the funding formula, abhorred in the suburbs, that favors the city over the county by a ratio of three-to-one in the distribution of state capital-construction funds).

“I’m going to do all that I can to lobby the Memphis City Council and the Memphis board of education [against it]. And, Mr. Mayor [Wharton], that is no disrespect to your reform plan.”

There were just some things he needed to “make clear” to the suburbanites, Herenton said. “They boast of having superior schools. They ought to pay for them.”

The mayor said, “I came here today to put the gloves on and draw battle lines,” because the aforesaid suburban mayors “don’t want to do the right thing.” And: “If they don’t need Memphis, they don’t need our tax dollars.”

After promising that his own reform plan of a year ago — one which envisioned single-source funding but separate school jurisdictions — would be “back on the agenda” for the Memphis school board, Herenton said, “The school board is a disaster. It makes no sense.”

Singling out member Hubert “Dutch” Sandridge, who “tore up my proposal,” Herenton warned the board, “Your business is my business. … There is no law that my signature is not on. That proposal he tore up is coming back.”

He compared his own tenure as schools superintendent favorably with that of his successor, Dr. Gerry House, who, he said, “was a disaster,” a dilettante who had loaded the school system with unnecessary programs and “got herself a lot of awards” and moved on, leaving the frequently beleaguered Watson to clean up after her.

Herenton accused the board of “spending our dollars with arrogance.” Pledging again to draw “deep battle lines,” he said, “I have tried compromise. I’ve tried everything. I worked with these officials to try to get them to do the right thing.”

Promising to work with Wharton in devising a school-reform plan both could agree on, Herenton said, “These suburban mayors don’t want to do the right thing. They like you [Wharton] better than they like me. Let their schools be overpopulated.”.

The current two-headed educational structure and “piecemeal” approach to problems are not only ineffective but too expensive, he said, a constant goad to the city and county tax rates. “Ask the realtors; ask the homebuilders,” he said.

The latter point drew a grudging assent from Wharton, who, however, left the room quickly when the mayor had finished. Seemingly baffled by that fact, Herenton insisted that his remarks were “not personal,” that he had merely been trying to “challenge” Wharton and the other exemplars of local government.

At least one member of his audience, school board member Sara Lewis, took his remarks in that spirit. “Somebody should get the four units talking,” she said, meaning the city/county legislative bodies and school boards. “Maybe it’ll be me. Maybe I’ll call a meeting.”

Oh, and lest anyone out there hadn’t known, Mayor Herenton said after his speech that “of course” he’d be running again in 2003.

· Barbara Lawing, a Democratic activist much loved by political friends and foes alike, died unexpectedly on Christmas Day and was remembered at a wake and funeral held at N.J. Ford and Sons Funeral Home, followed by a reception at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers building on Madison.

Among the many paying tribute were former Vice President Al Gore, who telephoned condolences, 9th District U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., and State Representatives Mike Kernell and Carol Chumney.

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We Recommend We Recommend

Get a Clue

As American citizens, most of us have lived here for, well, all of our lives. But how well do we really know the rules and regulations that our own government has set up to guide and protect us? How well do we know our rights in any given situation? If you’re not a lawyer, police officer, or other authority figure, it’s quite possible that you fall into the “rest of us” category and could use a little guidance about American law. You may just be “legally clueless.”

That’s where three local young adults — Eric, Denise, and William Schnapp — come in. After 19-year-old Eric, the youngest of the trio, was pulled over for speeding, he realized he didn’t fully understand his rights. He lucked out with a warning, but the experience left him and his siblings, 20-year-old Denise and 21-year-old William, wondering about their rights in other legal situations.

What did they do? They researched a number of those situations and wrote a book about it. Legally Clueless: A Law Guide for the Rest of Us is a comprehensive guide to the who, what, when, where, and how of the law. And although it’s targeted at a young audience, it’s a helpful guide for citizens of any age.

“What we’re trying to do is inform people. We were ignorant of the law, but hopefully after reading this book, people won’t be as ignorant as we were,” says Denise. “We want it to help people in everyday situations get out of trouble and stay out of trouble.”

The book, which is written in a kind of FAQ format, contains common questions regarding common legal issues. Questions such as “What if I get an out-of-state ticket?” (mail in the fine) and “Can I withhold the rent if the landlord fails to fix the apartment?” (no) are followed by straightforward answers. The guide also lays out what to do when you find yourself in more serious trouble, such as getting arrested or sued in small-claims court.

Legally Clueless even debunks the legal myths. You may think you know the law because you’ve seen a similar situation in a movie, but the information in the Schnapps’ book goes to show that you can’t always believe what you see on TV. For example, you’ve probably heard that undercover cops have to identify themselves as undercover when asked. Not so, say the legally clued-in trio. That’s just an old rumor.

So how did three kids in their late teens to early 20s become such legal experts? Lots and lots of research and interviews with local authorities. After Eric’s close brush with the law, the Schnapps found that there really weren’t any law guides out there that made for a very pleasant read.

“Every book we found on law was too complicated or really simplistic, so we decided to sit down and write one,” says Denise. “We looked up a lot of information on the Internet and double-checked it through interviews with judges and police officers.”

None of the Schnapps is interested in a long-term career in law, at least not yet. William, who is currently attending Emory University in Atlanta, is an economics major with an additional interest in biomedical sciences. According to Denise, he did most of the outlines to determine what questions they would answer in the book.

Denise, who attends Vanderbilt University in Nashville, is a double major in political science and economics. She says she concentrated on the interviews, while her younger brother, Eric, the family “computer genius,” handled the layout and design. He’s currently enrolled at Vanderbilt as well.

All three played a part in writing the book. At the time of writing, Eric was still a senior at White Station High School, while the two older Schnapps were off at college. Since they were so far apart, they decided to divide the topics, write them on their own time, and e-mail the results to each other for editing and approval. After all the information was compiled, they had Judge D.J. Alissandratos proofread the book.

“From the idea all the way to print, it took about a year. Research took a lot of time, especially since we were in different cities. We went into this not knowing anything about how to publish or edit a book,” says Denise.

One thing they learned along the way was if they intended to keep the rights to the book, they’d be best off forming their own publishing company. So they did just that. After getting a license and patent, the trio were able to publish. And they plan to publish more in the future if Legally Clueless goes over well. Denise says they’d like to pursue a “Clueless” series that would include such titles as Medically Clueless and Financially Clueless.

“The experience turned out to be incredibly valuable, and I learned so much personally,” says Denise. “The thing is, you go through school and you think you know the law and your rights, but a lot of that information came from your friends or movies. A lot of things I learned really surprised me.”

Legally Clueless can be purchased online at LegallyClueless.com or locally at Borders Books & Music and Davis-Kidd Booksellers.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

River City Rivals

The old Southern river town had finally had enough.

Enough of the squabbling between city and county governments. Enough of seeing rival cities get the goodies. Enough of being the butt of jokes in the national media. Enough of being spurned by professional sports teams. Enough of the fading glory of yesterday’s stars and celebrities and the low profile of Conference USA. Enough of being displaced by its neighbor to the east as the largest city in the state.

So on Monday the city of Louisville officially consolidated with Jefferson County, Kentucky, to become Metro Louisville, going from being the 67th-largest city in the country to the 16th-largest and overtaking, among others, Lexington, Kentucky, and Memphis.

In his inauguration speech, Mayor Jerry Abramson said, “Our city has been fractured too long along racial and economic lines, along the lines of suburban and urban.” He talked about the importance of Louisville having one vision and one voice. It looks as if Abramson will be that voice for quite a while. He was mayor of Louisville for 12 years until term limits sidelined him four years ago.

The similarities with Memphis are striking, to a point. Louisville has UPS. Memphis has FedEx. The Louisville Cardinals have Rick Pitino. The Memphis Tigers have John Calipari. Louisville has Churchill Downs, business legend Colonel Harlan Sanders, and “The Greatest,” Muhammad Ali. Memphis has Graceland, business legend Fred Smith, and “The King,” Elvis.

Sportswriter Jim Murray once called Louisville “the nation’s bar rag.” Time magazine once called Memphis “a Southern backwater” and a “decaying Mississippi River town.”

The Louisville Chamber of Commerce likes to boast about its river, rail, roads, and runways. The Memphis Chamber of Commerce does too.

Louisville pursued Michael Heisley and the Vancouver Grizzlies before they came to Memphis.

Jerry Abramson, a Democrat with appeal to Republicans, is sometimes called “mayor for life.” Ditto Willie Herenton.

Consolidation opponents in Louisville twice voted it down. Some municipalities threatened to secede before a referendum passed in 2000. Consolidation votes have failed twice in Memphis and Shelby County and opponents threatened to secede the last time the issue came up five years ago.

So much for the similarities. Now, the differences.

Memphis has grown by annexation to encompass 300 square miles and over 650,000 residents — more than double the population of the rest of Shelby County. Louisville, before consolidation, was a city of 250,000 people surrounded by 83 municipalities. Louisville had barely half the population of surrounding Jefferson County.

Jefferson County is 77 percent white and 19 percent black. Shelby County is 49 percent black and 47 percent white.

The Louisville and Jefferson County school systems merged back in 1975. Memphis and Shelby County have separate systems, superintendents, and boards.

The new Louisville City Council has 26 members, including six blacks and 20 whites. Combined, the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission have 13 blacks and 13 whites. In other words, our fracture is bigger than their fracture, and the line goes right down the middle.

So don’t hold your breath waiting for Memphis to follow Louisville’s example in a surge of “so can we” spirit. Mayor Herenton, a proponent of consolidation, says only one thing will bring it about.

“The economics of funding government is going to drive us to a metropolitan form of government,” he said this week.

If so, it will probably be a hybrid with separate school system boundaries. Herenton has twice proposed such an arrangement, and this week he unveiled a plan to nudge it along via an appointed city school board.

One thing he won’t accept is what he sees as a “piecemeal” solution to the schools funding issue. “The best way to get this job done,” he said, “is to do it comprehensively.”

John Branston is editorial director for special projects for Contemporary Media, Inc., the Flyer’s parent company.