Month: May 2003

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Entanglements

In 1979, David Cronenberg released what was then and may still be his best film, The Brood. A relentlessly personal horror film about a vicious custody battle, the film is also something of a black comedy to the degree that one sees it as an unintentional answer film to that year’s Oscar winner, Kramer vs. Kramer, Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep’s far more respectable scenery-chewer about a custody battle.

Well, Cronenberg has done it again. There’s absolutely nothing funny about his latest film, the brilliant Spider, but it does act as a (presumably) unintentional corrective to another overblown Oscar winner, Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind. Both films are examinations of schizophrenia, but there is no calculatingly heartwarming ending to Spider, no platitudes about “beautiful heart[s].” And, where Howard’s film featured a powerfully showy performance from its lead, Russell Crowe, Cronenberg’s film is driven by an even more audacious yet understated performance from Ralph Fiennes.

Yet, despite the subject manner, Spider is not a clinical treatise or disease-of-the-week movie –not a film about schizophrenia, rather a film about a schizophrenic. And it’s a poetic, fairy-tale-like film suffused with a sense of existential dread. (It is set in the ’80s but seems to exist entirely outside of time.) Cronenberg has done Kafka before (see The Fly), but this is Kafka as told through the Brothers Grimm.

The film opens at a train station, with a shot of disembarking passengers that echoes the very earliest of film images –the Lumière Brothers’ turn-of-the-century shorts. But after this sprawl of humanity (and, thus, sprawl of possible protagonists and possible narratives) passes, the camera focuses on one lone figure hesitantly stepping off the train. This man — a shaking, nervous wreck in tattered clothes –is Dennis Cleg (Fiennes), aka “Spider,” a nickname given to him by his mother for not-quite-explained reasons, who has just been released from a mental asylum and sent to a halfway house in the same London neighborhood in which he grew up.

The halfway house itself is a gray, barren, sad place, governed by a stern caretaker (Lynn Redgrave). A full 15 minutes into the film, Spider utters his first, and one of his only bits of dialogue, telling a fellow tenant, with great effort, “I will not be here that long.” And he won’t.

Given a set of linens and assigned to a stark, mostly empty room, Spider spends most of his time standing in the corner of the room, scribbling into a small notebook, using a language presumably only he understands. He begins to revisit his childhood, and gradually the (very Oedipal) mystery of what happened to Spider and why he was committed to the asylum begins to unfurl. Spider returns to old haunts — his childhood home, with his gruff, menacing father (Gabriel Byrne) and gentle, put-upon mother (Miranda Richardson); the pub down the street where his father drank away the workday –and bears witness to his own life, standing in a corner, watching his younger self.

Cronenberg films these scenes in a very direct, economical style, conveying Spider’s schizophrenia with very little trickery. The look of the film is as drained of color and as minimalist as Fiennes’ shocking performance, with a web motif –a broken mirror, a giant, indeterminate metal structure outside the halfway house, a self-made system of strings and threads that Spider constructs in his room which is a manifestation of Spider’s internal imprisonment. Every bit as great as Fiennes is Richardson, who excels playing three roles in a bit of dream-logic reminiscent of Mulholland Drive or That Obscure Object of Desire.

The result is an intensely controlled, slow-paced but ultimately engrossing character study that stands with Cronenberg’s best work. Cronenberg has had his shot at Hollywood’s brass ring –a Stephen King adaptation (The Dead Zone), a big-budget sci-fi flick (The Fly), a glossy (though entirely uncompromising) prestige film (Dead Ringers) — but has lately seemed to withdraw back into the film-buff-fave semi-obscurity of his ’70s and early-’80s work. The difference is that he’s come out on the other side of this journey a far more accomplished filmmaker: Crash was a palpably disorienting glimpse into the taboo which many took for a masterpiece; the vastly underrated eXistenZ was a sort of low-tech yet superior answer to The Matrix, and it introduced a modest, organic style that Cronenberg continues here. Spider may be even more impressive, a film whose absolute virtuosity may be imperceptible at first precisely for how self-contained it is. On first viewing, the film peaked for me about half an hour after it was over, when the extent of Cronenberg’s achievement settled in. And it was even better on a second viewing.

A confession: I may be the only person I know who has no interest whatsoever in the upcoming Matrix movies, but I couldn’t wait to see X2: X-Men United, and I haven’t purchased a comic book since I was in elementary school.

Discounting something like Ghost World, director Bryan Singer’s first X-Men movie a couple of years back may have been this non-comic-book-fan’s all-time favorite comics-based movie, and X2 pretty much continues the first film’s charms: It’s a little grander and has a better finale but is perhaps a little less poetic.

The reasons these films work for me where so many other similar ventures don’t are many: The basic story that drives the series is more believable (within the realm of the unbelievable) than most of its ilk and is rife with more metaphoric richness than most (encompassing everything from the Holocaust to our present-day “Patriot” acts). The X-Men saga is predicated on a leap in the evolutionary chain, which forms a new race of mutants with special powers. These mutants are viewed with fear and hatred by many (as X2‘s opening voiceover observes, “Sharing the world has never been humanity’s defining attribute”), and the story of their attempt to find their place in the world and of the resistance they encounter is applicable to all of world history — any time and place in which “the other” has been feared and oppressed, which means anytime anyplace. And a vision of the ostracized fighting back with superhuman powers is no small part of the concept’s allure.

The contemporary relevance of this concept is made plain by the new film’s opening sequence, in which a mutant terrorist attack on the White House provides an excuse for mutant-hating human General William Stryker (supporting player extraordinaire Brian Cox) to suspend due process and sic the full power of the military industrial complex on the supposed evildoers. The addition of Cox’s Stryker completes a gravitas-lending triangle at the top of the film’s story-arc, alongside X-Men leader Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), an integrationist who wants mutants and muggles (to borrow a term from a different fantastical blockbuster) to live together peaceably, and nominal baddie Magneto (Ian McKellen), a Holocaust survivor who’s prepared to defend the mutant population against human aggression by any means necessary.

Thankfully, Singer and Co. respect the film’s story, allowing none of the jokey self-referentiality that might mar the film in other hands. This makes the X-Men movies the rare summer “escapist” series that cares about plot and character as much as action and pyrotechnics — and it doesn’t hurt that the film’s copious action scenes aren’t the kind of noisy, dull, disjointed, special-effects-driven set pieces that populate so many other contemporary popcorn movies.

Most of the previous film’s cast returns, including X-Men Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), an outlaw-hero type and mysterious self-healing mutant who can produce indestructible metal claws from his knuckles; Storm (Halle Berry), who can control the weather; Cyclops (James Marsden), who can shoot a concussive laser blast from his eyes; and Dr. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), whose telepathic and telekinetic powers seem to be growing. This group is shadowed by a new generation of teen mutants, most prominently the love triangle of Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), who can emit and control extreme coldness; Pyro (Aaron Stanford), who similarly controls fire, though he can’t create it; and the tragic Rogue (Anna Paquin), whose very touch robs other mutants of their powers and eventually kills them. On the opposite side of the mutant ledger, Magneto’s brood has been downsized to shape-shifting assistant Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos). The wild cards this time are a couple of new mutants not initially affiliated with either group: pious teleporting German Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) and Wolverine’s female doppelganger Deathstrike (Kelly Hu). Got all that?

The real reason these movies are so unexpectedly good may be that they’re filled with as much “business” as a Howard Hawks movie and directed with almost as much care. For all the allegorical weightiness of the story, much of the appeal here lies in how these mutants — with their unique powers and personalities — interact with each other and with non-mutants. To this end, the display of individual mutant talents is almost always wittily presented, and the film is rife with small grace notes and winning moments: Iceman and Wolverine’s testy relationship softening when Iceman cools his new friend’s cola by blowing on it; Iceman, aka “Bobby,” coming out as a mutant to his uncomprehending parents (Mom: “But, Bobby, have you tried not being a mutant?”); Mystique using her shape-shifting ability to play on Wolverine’s conflicted sexual desires; Iceman and Rogue’s comic yet truly sad attempt to physically manifest their romantic relationship despite incompatible powers.

Marvel comics changed the superhero genre by bringing these kinds of (super-) human moments to the fore, and last year’s Marvel adaptation of Spider-Man worked in much the same way whenever Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst were interacting. But when the mask went on and the webs came out, it was just another action movie. The X-Men series gets it right all the time. You don’t need to be a 14-year-old (literally or figuratively) to enjoy this movie.

Categories
Music Music Features

Broken-Necked and Atheist

On his Web site, Vic Chesnutt has distilled his biography into a series of simple lower-case phrases like “age 13 felt the need to listen to rock’n’roll” and “age 17 met johnny cash.” “car crash” is sandwiched somewhere between “fired because refused to tuck in shirt” and “writing vacuous pop songs.” Yet, for most fans, the wreck that left Chesnutt paralyzed is a defining element of this musician’s life.

It happened on a lonely stretch of road in Pike County, just outside Zebulon, Georgia. Chesnutt was 19 years old, a frustrated young man who “had a completely different set of beliefs,” according to interviews. Six years before the wreck, already emotionally affected by the small-mindedness and racism of his rural life, he’d rejected Christianity right in the middle of a church service. The crash, in more ways than one, served as an emblematic ejection from Zebulon: Chesnutt escaped to the nearby college town of Athens, but he broke his neck in the process.

A trumpet player since age 9, Chesnutt was given a guitar “for christmas 1980 to help me get over lennon’s murder.” Around that time, he began gigging with a group called Sundance, a cover band that played a rowdy Pike County roadhouse every weekend. Just before graduation, Chesnutt’s bio explains, he “discovered the new music” of Elvis Costello, the Jam, Nick Lowe, R.E.M., and the Replacements. After his wreck, he claims, he “can’t play guitar or trumpet but discovers a whole new understanding of music.”

Confined to a wheelchair in Athens, Chesnutt met “the bohemian types,” “suddenly [became] a solo artist,” and went to New York for the first time. He toured with Bob Mould, Live, and Victoria Williams and recorded nine solo albums, several of which Michael Stipe produced. After he was the subject of the Sweet Relief Two tribute album (a disparate crew of superstars including Madonna, Hootie & the Blowfish, and the Smashing Pumpkins presented their takes on his spare songs), Chesnutt landed on Capitol Records for one record, 1996’s About To Choke.

All in all, Chesnutt’s recorded for seven labels in a dozen years. His latest album, Silver Lake, is on the fledgling indie New West Records. Recorded by the same producer (Mark Howard) in the same location (the Paramour Mansion, in the hills above Silver Lake, California) as Lucinda William’s latest, World without Tears, Silver Lake is Vic Chesnutt to the 10th power — subtly polished so that his always-churning soul can shine right through.

“Forget everything I ever told you,” Chesnutt sings on “I’m Through” to open the album. “I’m sure I lied way more than twice/But understand I’m not Emily Post/You know I’m nowhere near that precise.” He could be speaking directly to his audience, as an actor might make an onstage aside. But by the chorus, it’s clear that this is the ultimate breakup song, Chesnutt’s voice — his most powerful instrument — swelling over his gentle guitar chords and a swirling Wurlitzer piano.

“I’m through, through, through/Carrying you on my shoulders/And I’m through, through, through/Hiding/And I’m through, through, through living my life for you/Yes I hope for both our sakes/I’m through, through, through,” Chesnutt sings on the chorus. Then, cutting through those world-weary lyrics, Chesnutt delivers this gem: “I’m tired of bleeding/For no good reason/Is that so hard to see?”

The key to that concise sentiment might be embedded in his bio, right under “starts strumming.” “shoplifts norton anthology of modern poetry. its footnotes were eureka,” Chesnutt notes in a barely-there explanation. His offhanded wordplay and remarkable knack for storytelling must come from somewhere deeper: Perhaps he’s tapped into the bubbling wellspring beneath the Southern United States which fed writers like Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, and Eudora Welty.

But like author Larry Brown (an Oxford, Mississippi, native), Chesnutt is definitely a product of the New South. His world is populated with meth addicts, trailer trash, and Wal-Mart employees as well as the dying Gothic gentility of days long past. Chesnutt will be the first to tell you that he’s more redneck than poet, a man who grew up hunting rabbits and pounding beers in a less than erudite childhood.

“Wren’s Nest” and “Band Camp” revisit Chesnutt’s former stomping grounds, as he name-checks places like Ruth’s Restaurant in Zebulon and the Key Club in nearby Griffin which he hasn’t visited in years. “Oh, so horribly intensely I prayed/Let me evaporate,” he croons, “but the dying autumn leaves are beautiful, too.”

“After I broke my neck, I symbolically broke my Pike County connection in a way,” Chesnutt told journalist David Peisner on a rare visit home last month. “I wanted to move on. I didn’t want to reinvent myself so much as I needed to grow,” he said, before amending his thoughts. “I’d be embarrassed. I’m all broken-necked and atheist.”

Fatalists might be tempted to think that Chesnutt had to sacrifice his body to free his mind. I’ll just say that he’s one helluva songwriter.

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Short Cuts

Rules of Travel

Rosanne Cash

(Capitol)

For the past 20 years, Rosanne Cash has earned a reputation as a classic singer-songwriter, displaying great courage and feistiness in exploring relationships in song. In what seems to be a classic female pattern, Cash lost her singing voice in 1998, when she began work on this, her 10th album. Like other female singers that this has happened to (Linda Thompson and British folkie Shirley Collins are two recent examples), Cash has also had to perform in the shadow of a great man — in her case, her father, Johnny Cash, a pretty tough act to follow.

Vulnerability and insecurity seem to be major factors in this vocal trauma, issues which over the years have become Cash’s stock in trade. In addition to making music, she’s spent the last couple of decades raising children, and she’s a celebrated writer as well. Losing her voice provoked a major identity crisis: Was she mainly a writer? A mother? Just a singer-songwriter on the side? It turns out, of course, that each of these paths is an equally important source of creativity in her work — whether it’s mothering, writing short stories, or singing songs.

After several years, Cash’s vocal condition righted itself. She admits that that episode freed her to see herself as a legitimate singer-songwriter. Rules of Travel finds Cash in more pop territory than before, but the result is a great listen, and her edge is still razor sharp. Just check out the alternately menacing, alternately intimate tune “Closer Than I Appear.” Musical guests include Sheryl Crow and Teddy Thompson, with an erotically tinged musical exchange with Steve Earle. The tour de force of the album, though, has to be “September When It Comes,” a duet with her father, a poignant reminder of loss and unresolved issues at the end of a life. Cash has resisted working with her father until now. But his serious illness, coupled with her newfound belief that she really is a bona-fide musician after all, prompted this moment. Hearing the grand old man struggling to sing his daughter’s prophetic words and harmonizing with her on this piece is heartrending. For my money, there’s nothing sexier than the intelligence with which this 48-year-old writes about the ups and downs of a woman’s life. — Lisa Lumb

Grade: B+

Hillbilly Boogie

Various Artists

(Proper, UK)

What ever would country music be without fads? Take boogie-woogie, a blues form that had seemingly exhausted itself by World War II, only to explode upon the country landscape in the late ’40s and early ’50s, with dozens of songs from the era containing the word “boogie” in their titles. Now the smart British reissue company Proper, which routinely offers budget-priced and frequently definitive four-CD box sets of jazz, gospel, blues, and country, has compiled 100 of them. Hillbilly Boogie‘s tracks are sequenced in conceptual arcs, with place songs (Curly Williams’ “Georgia Boogie,” Gene O’Quinn’s “Texas Boogie”), food songs (Art Gunn’s “Cornbread Boogie,” Wayne Raney’s “Catfish Boogie”), even name songs (Earl Songer’s “Mother-in-Law Boogie,” Johnny Bond’s “Mean Mama Boogie”) all set in thematic order, and it works better than it has any right to.

Most of Hillbilly Boogie‘s selections are straight-up party music, their loose-limbed rhythms, usually created sans a pronounced trap-drum backbeat, falling somewhere between good-time honky-tonk and outright novelty records. (Even the last track, Butterball Paige’s “I’m Too Old To Boogie Anymore,” finds the singer jolly about his predicament.) The dance beat unifies everything, particularly on disc four’s run of dance-specific cuts, including Roy Hogsed’s “Snake Dance Boogie” (complete with an interpolation of “There’s a Girl in France”!) and Hank Snow’s “Rhumba Boogie.” Blues shuffle shares space with country two-step, and there are even nods to jazz like the almost western swing-like “Zeb’s Mountain Boogie,” credited to Brad Brady but actually cut by Patsy Cline producer Owen Bradley and the Tennesseans. If you’re guessing that all this cross-pollinated boogieing around has something to do with the birth of rock-and-roll, give yourself a cigar. You may not necessarily need 100 songs containing the word “boogie” in their titles, but, like the activity itself, it sure is fun. n — Michaelangelo Matos

Grade: A-

Antenna

Cave In

(RCA)

Five years ago we would not be speaking of Cave In within the context of MTV2 daytime programming, Clear Channel rock radio, or malls. The once-thudding, screaming, metalcore band has now entered the vocabulary of the undiscerning alt-metal fan. The transition was an almost brazen commercial makeover, but the members of Cave In were not handpicked from a Slipknot concert and assembled into a band by an impresario. Cave In spent a few years eating crow as a ludicrously heavy, inaccessible, and somewhat intellectual alternative to EyeHateGo. Then, on 2000’s Jupiter, they befuddled longtime fans by adding a shiny coat of Radiohead to the package. There will be no longtime fans sticking around for Antenna.

Antenna was assembled for mass consumption, right down to the free-CD contest spots running on MTV2 as you read this. It’s heavy for listeners who don’t want, or don’t know, real heaviness, and there is nothing on this CD that even remotely recalls metal. The vocals are a precise synthesis of Queens of the Stone Age croon, emo-boy yelp, and early-’90s grungeternative snarl. It’s almost as if somebody loaded all of that crap into a computer program. There is even an acoustic/electric ballad (the strategically placed centerpiece “Beautiful Son”) that rips off Soundgarden’s initial major-label sound. Oh, how times do not change. Because Cave In are not a band that fell out of a tree yesterday, the songwriting is above average and on par with the Foo Fighters or the Deftones. Well-crafted for what it is, and if the street team pulls its weight, Cave In will be unavoidable in a matter of months. — Andrew Earles

Grade: C+

Categories
News The Fly-By

Innocent Criminal

When Olive Branch resident Raymond Sutherland loaned his 1985 Dodge Ramcharger to a friend visiting from Ohio, he had no idea the trouble he’d have to go through to get it back. No, his friend didn’t steal it or wreck it. It was seized by the Memphis police.

Sutherland’s friend, whom we’ll call L.R., asked to borrow the car to run an errand in Olive Branch on April 14th. Once L.R. was finished with his errand, he decided, without notifying Sutherland, to drive to Memphis to visit an old friend. While in Memphis, L.R. was pulled over at the corner of Poplar and McNeil by a Memphis police officer for having a headlight out and driving without a seatbelt.

It was quickly determined that L.R. was driving on a suspended license due to a Memphis DUI conviction in 1997, and what began as a routine traffic stop turned into what would become a legal nightmare for Sutherland. L.R. was arrested and Sutherland’s car was towed to the city’s impound lot.

Once Sutherland was notified of the circumstances, he contacted the impound lot and was told that a “hold” had been placed on his vehicle. He then contacted the vice-narcotics department, which handles all car seizures in Memphis, and was informed about a law that allows police agencies in Tennessee to seize vehicles involved in DUI-related cases, regardless of ownership.

The law allows for seizure and possible forfeiture of a vehicle when the driver is charged with driving on a suspended or revoked license due to a DUI conviction. A similar law allows for seizure and possible forfeiture of vehicles involved in a person’s second DUI arrest.

“I wouldn’t have had a problem with them impounding my vehicle and making me aware of the situation. But to threaten me with the loss of my vehicle when I’ve committed no crime! That goes against everything I’ve ever learned about the American justice system,” said Sutherland.

The state’s title for Sutherland is “innocent owner,” and according to Inspector Richard Sojourner of the local vice-narcotics unit, such cases are common, although he said it more often involves drug-related cases. However, he said, the term “innocent” can be deceptive.

“The law says it’s your responsibility to be aware of who’s driving your vehicle,” he said. “If I loan my vehicle to you, it’s my responsibility to know whether or not you have a valid driver’s license. If I don’t meet that responsibility, then my vehicle is subject to seizure.”

Three weeks later, Sutherland is still trying to retrieve his vehicle, which is now being held by the state Department of Safety. Ironically, all charges were dismissed against Sutherland’s friend L.R.

In the end, Sutherland will pay $945 to get his car back. The state requires a $350 fee. The Memphis police want $500, and he has to pay $75 for towing and $20 for a couple days’ storage at the impound lot. The money goes to the Department of Health, which administers drug and alcohol treatment programs.

Sutherland has the option of going to trial to avoid paying the settlement fees. However, if he loses, his vehicle will be forfeited and sold at auction. The odds are probably in his favor, but, according to Beth Womack at the Tennessee Department of Safety, the process can take up to four months.

If Sutherland had decided his vehicle — a 1985 model — was not worth the money he had to pay to retrieve it, he could have allowed the city to forfeit the car and sell it at auction. Sutherland says he’ll continue trying to get his vehicle returned because it’s his only car. He’s currently borrowing a friend’s car to get to work.

DUI car-seizure laws, which were enacted in 1998, are optional laws, and while the Memphis police choose to enforce them, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department does not. Steve Schular, public relations officer for the sheriff’s office, said he wasn’t able to find out why they’re not enforcing the laws, but says they probably will be soon, since the county and city police agencies are doing some functional consolidation. The Memphis Metro DUI Unit already has jurisdiction in the county.

According to Sojourner, Memphis police seized 27 vehicles in DUI/DOR (driving on revoked license) arrests in January, 39 in February, and 36 in March. They have no statistics as to how many of those cases involved “innocent owners.” He said these innocent third-party scenarios should send a message that people should be more responsible. But Sutherland added that he would like to see the law changed.

“They should just issue innocent owners a citation the first time this happens,” said Sutherland. “I’m being penalized and I don’t even have a ticket. They’re seizing property from a person who has committed no crime.”

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Taking Turns

In one sense, the continuing controversy in local Democratic leadership ranks is nothing unusual. The American political system, which somehow manages to reconcile a multitude of viewpoints within a two-party system, kindles controversy the way an automobile’s engine runs on internal combustion.

Normally, such a system’s outward manifestations are smooth, but sometimes the internal knocking gets out of hand and there’s a bit of a racket.

That continues to be the situation of the Shelby County Democrats. The real problem is that the party is about as evenly divided into halves as can be imagined, and as the party prepares for a final showdown Monday night on its month-long effort to elect a new chairperson, the lineup is still 21 votes for state Rep. Kathryn Bowers and 20 votes for current chair Gale Jones Carson, who doubles as press secretary to Memphis mayor Willie Herenton.

That’s how it was at the biennial party convention on Saturday, April 12th, when a Bowers supporter on the newly elected party executive committee took ill and had to leave, creating a temporary stalemate, and that’s how it has remained ever since.

That’s how it was again last Thursday night when the Carson faction, taking advantage of the temporary absence of three other Bowers supporters, elected its own slate of officers under the level of chairman.

The Bowers faction had protested that election and abstained from voting in it, preferring to elect the new officers along with the chairman at the May 12th meeting, but Carson insisted that party precedent mandated such an election Thursday night, on what she said was the accustomed post-convention meeting date. She also noted that her side made an effort to elect some members of the Bowers faction, all of whom, however, declined to let themselves be nominated.

Indications are that the full complement of members from both sides will be on hand at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union hall Monday night — a fact that should result both in a Bowers victory and, since her faction has pledged to rescind the results of last week’s balloting, in the selection of new officers.

But that’s not the end. The chief strategist for the Carson faction (as for most of Mayor Herenton’s campaigns) is ex-Teamster leader Sidney Chism, and Chism holds out what will doubtless seem to many Democrats an unnerving prospect.

“What they can rescind one month, we can rescind the next,” Chism said last week — meaning that the two factions could theoretically take turns voting each other’s officers out of power, the outcome for any given month depending entirely on which side gets more of its supporters out to this or that monthly meeting of the party executive committee.

Whether the party bylaws permit such reversals by a majority of those present at a meeting or whether they require an absolute majority of the committee membership (21 votes out of 41) and whether the chairperson is also subject to such recall are issues that are already being debated and researched by members of both party factions.

Again, contention is a necessary part of the democratic (and Democratic) process, but so is compromise, and the prospects of that other shoe ever dropping are beginning to look doubtful indeed.

· Candidate interest in the 5th District city council seat being vacated by two-term incumbent John Vergos continues to accelerate. Or so one would conclude from the sizable number of hopefuls who lined up at Shelby County Republican headquarters Monday night for possible endorsement by the party.

Among the familiar political names were physician/radio mogul George Flinn, who was the GOP nominee for Shelby County mayor last year; Jim Strickland, who once chaired the Shelby County Democratic Party but has numerous connections with Republicans (notably, in his law partnership with former local Republican chairman David Kustoff); and John Pellicciotti, who ran a stoutly competitive race last year as the GOP nominee against Democratic state Representative Mike Kernell.

Still mindful of the less-than-unanimous support he received from his fellow Republicans in last year’s unsuccessful outing against Democrat A C Wharton, Flinn is said to be reserving a decision on making the race, depending on whether he gets the party endorsement.

Of all the potential candidates, no one is so far organizing more busily than lawyer Strickland, who was the honoree at a Friday night meet-and-greet at the East Memphis home of Wes and Becky Kraker, co-hosted by banker Joe Evangelisti. The Kraker affair was well-attended, especially by members of Memphis’ Catholic community — a sometimes overlooked source of potential bloc support, as several of the attendees, mainly communicants of St. Louis Catholic Church, pointed out.

Former Memphis mayor Dick Hackett, who was successful in three elections before being upset by current incumbent Willie Herenton, also enjoyed considerable support from Memphis Catholics in his heyday.

· Old pros Winslow “Buddy” Chapman and Joe Cooper ended up out of the running as the Shelby County Commission voted Monday to complete its internal staff positions — naming as deputy administrators Steve Summerall, deputy administrator of the Shelby County Election Commission, and Clay Perry, district director for U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr.

Summerall and Perry will make $64,500 each to assist chief administrator Grace Hutchinson.

Though Perry’s selection had been long foreshadowed, support for Summerall’s candidacy was late-blooming. An issue all along had been the prospect of the commission’s ending up, as Ford said in a commission committee meeting Monday, with “too many chiefs.”

That criterion was evidently decisive in the commission’s ultimate turn away from Chapman, who had served as Memphis police director, and Cooper, who has long been a fixture in local politics. ·

Categories
Music Music Features

Sound Advice

Though best known now for penning five songs off Norah Jones’ Come Away with Me, including the smash, Grammy Song of the Year “Don’t Know Why,” Jesse Harris is no jazz cat as a performer. Instead, Harris and his band, The Ferdinandos, offer tuneful modern rock in the vein of the Wallflowers or John Mayer, though the best of his upcoming The Secret Sun (due May 20th on Blue Thumb Records) evokes ’70s SoCal soft-rock: When Harris and Jones team up for the duet “What Makes You,” the ghosts of Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks are definitely in the air. Harris & Co. will perform Monday, May 12th, at Newby’s.

A Boston guitar-drums blues-rock duo in the vein of the Black Keys or, ahem, the White Stripes, Mr. Airplane Man find their niche as an all-girl band but musically speaking more than hold their own against any of their subgenre competition (except for, ahem, the White Stripes). And these gals have beaucoup Memphis connections in the form of Jeffrey Evans, who introduced them to their label, Sympathy for the Record Industry, and the Reigning Sound’s Greg Cartwright, who did production work on the band’s most recent record, last year’s Moanin’, as well as their next, due later this year. The Reigning Sound, fresh off their first overseas tour, will be joining Mr. Airplane Man Saturday, May 10th, at the Hi-Tone Café.

The latest installment of the great local music series Tha Movement checks into bigger digs this week when it comes to the New Daisy Theatre Saturday, May 10th. On the schedule for this month’s set: neo-soul band Messiah Surrat, soul-rock band Raven, and DJ Nappy Wilson. Showtime is 9 p.m.

— Chris Herrington

I suppose I need to begin with a small apology to Eric Oblivian. In last week’s Music Issue, I credited Eric’s former bandmate Greg (Cartwright) Oblivian for writing the song “Guitar Shop Asshole.” As it turns out, that little ditty was Eric’s tune. So, to make things right between me and the least visible of the three Oblivians (Jack and Greg still play out all the time) let me begin my recommendations by suggesting that you Webheads out there stop and pay a visit to his Web site for Goner Records at Goner-records.com. It’s a great resource for fans of Memphis punk and garage music. Onward.

Now I have to admit I’m not a fan of The Gamble Brothers Band. Their funky jazz, blues, and rock fusion just isn’t my cup of tea. But there can be no doubt that these guys are players — they play great together, and we can probably expect good things to happen for them in the coming years. But, I wouldn’t go out of my way to see them, unless, of course, they were playing in the coolest venue in the world. And they are. The Gamble Brothers Band will be joined by Porter-Batiste-Stoltz of New Orleans funk pioneers the Funky Meters, at the old Tennessee Brewery, a huge castle-like structure on Tennessee Street, for a Memphis Arts Council fund-raiser called Artrageous. I’ll never forget seeing Memphis legends Mudboy & the Neutrons (with Jim Dickinson, Sid Selvidge, and Lee Baker) play a show there back in the mid-’90s. The show was so rocking and the event so cool that it even lured one of the neighbors (some woman named Cybill Shepherd) from her home. It felt like the coolest event in the world. And I can promise that a double bill with the Gamble Brothers and a few Funky Meters in that amazing space will be every bit as memorable. Check it out on Friday, May 9th. —Chris Davis

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

A Girl This Tall, Legs Incomparable

Ann-Margret doesn’t like to talk about her Viva Las Vegas co-star and onetime kissing-buddy Elvis Presley. And it’s understandable. She is a certifiable superstar in her own right. But once you fall beneath the shadow of the King, it’s hard to separate yourself from him, and although I’m not supposed to ask Elvis-related questions, I have at least one I want to sneak in. Maybe, I think, I can charm this famous beauty into telling all. Maybe we can even become buddies.

At 2 p.m. straight up the phone begins to ring. The caller ID reads “private.” It’s her. I know it’s her, and for a moment I freeze. This is, after all, Ann-Margret, the slightly trashy, fiery-spirited, red-headed apple of my adolescent eye. I only came to understand the word erotic after watching her writhe about in baked beans in Ken Russell’s screen adaptation of the Who’s Tommy. And there can be no denying it, I had lusted after her since I saw a certain film where Elvis Presley and Cesare Danova chase her around America’s gambling capital, asking everyone they meet, “Have you seen a girl this tall, legs incomparable?” Well, have you?

“Hello, this is Ann-Margret,” the voice from the other end of the phone line cooed. She really cooed. Or maybe she purred. I can’t be sure. One way or the other, I felt like I should be paying $3.99 a minute to hear someone talk to me like that.

“Ann-Margret,” I answer, “I’ve told you not to call me here anymore. My wife gets so jealous.” Laughter follows. Wonderful, giddy, sexy laughter. Things are going so well.

“So, do you ever watch American Idol?” I ask casually.

“No,” she answers, and the conversation goes dead in the water. This was not a good development. You see, as an amazing vocalist, fantastic dancer, and lascivious looker, Ann-Margret embodies (or perhaps once embodied) everything the American Idol judges claim to be looking for. During her heyday in the 1960s and ’70s, this motorcycle-riding performer had the stuff to make teenagers scream and to make parents nervous. I thought she would have quite an opinion on the subject.

“I have been in a lot of talent shows,” she offered at length. “I was on Morris B. Sach’s talent contest when I was only 13. I did the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. Oh, the nerves, the nerves, the nerves.”

“Can these kinds of contests prepare someone for superstardom?” I ask.

“No,” she says. More silence follows. And then she starts to open up. “I don’t think anything in the world can really prepare you for that sort of thing, when it happens to you. But one of the things I always tell kids, sometimes young kids who don’t really understand but their parents do, is that you really have to learn how to take rejection.” Margaret lost the Ted Mack contest to a man who played “Lady of Spain” on a leaf. Yes, a leaf. So she knows. “If you can’t take rejection, you’re going to be blown away,” she says. “It’s especially true for women in this brutal industry.”

And then Ann-Margret, the actress, songstress, and aging love-goddess of my dreams, makes a slightly embarrassed admission. “I have seen an episode of American Idol,” she says a bit sheepishly. “And I could never, not in one million years, go on a show like that and have millions and millions of people judge me. And I feel so sorry for those kids, especially the ones who are really truly sensitive. Because at an audition it’s just you and three or four people in the rehearsal hall. And when you are done they don’t talk to you. [When you finish] it’s just ‘Thank you for auditioning, goodbye.'”

Having been away from performing for nearly a decade, she says the need to entertain had grown too strong. “You can’t operate that need out,” she says. “You can’t eat it out or tear it out, and, honey, I want to put on a show. I’m like the Energizer bunny — I just keep going and going and going.” But what is an Ann-Margret show like today? Surely it’s not like the days of old when she would come roaring on stage on a motorcycle.

“Oh yes, we do have a motorcycle in the show,” she says. “I still ride bikes. I have one very girly bike. It’s lavender. Harley-Davidson is hand-painted in white script, and there are daisies painted all over it. It’s SO girly. And we are doing all kinds of music [in the show] — rock-and-roll, blues, and standards. I realized that I had never actually performed anything from Viva Las Vegas or Bye Bye Birdie live, so I’m singing the song “Viva Las Vegas” in the show and doing things from Bye Bye Birdie.”

At last the opportunity has presented itself. She has brought up the subject of rock-and-roll and Viva Las Vegas. Now, it seems, is my chance to ask about Elvis, but I decide to ease into the conversation with an easy question.

“What’s the best rock-and-roll film of all time?” I ask. “Bye Bye Birdie, Tommy, or Viva Las Vegas?”

“Well, Bye Bye Birdie isn’t really rock-and-roll. It’s Broadway. So it’s not Bye Bye Birdie. And Tommy isn’t really rock-and-roll either. That’s the ’70s, right? So it’s a completely different era. So it’s got to be Viva Las Vegas.”

“So,” I ask cunningly, “while on the subject of rock-and-roll “

“Oh,” she interrupts, sensing the inevitable, “look at the time. I really do have to run. I have another interview to do.” We say our thank-you’s, and she hangs up.

All I wanted to ask was, “You’re so talented, and your career has been fantastic, with Oscar nominations and tons of critical praise. Do you ever feel like your association with Elvis eclipsed your talent? Has that relationship become a burden over the years?” And although she never heard the question, I suppose I got my answer. It began “Oh, look at the time” and ended with a click.

Ann-Margret at Gold Strike Casino, Sat., May 10th

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Twentieth-Century Blues

My country right or wrong.” It’s a sentiment you hear a lot these days from flag-waving patriots ready to shout down (or worse) those who disagree with the current administration’s thuggish foreign policies and increasingly oppressive domestic agenda. We have been promised more jobs, but unemployment is on the rise. We were promised compassion, but instead we see offensive, flagrantly prejudicial commentary coming from elected officials, the very people sworn to promote equality. Freedom of expression has been challenged, and due process has, in certain quarters, been all but done away with. And in the midst of all this social unrest there are the flag-wavers singing patriotic odes and making their snarling pronouncement of blind alliance, “My country right or wrong,” as if they were actually proud to embrace the possible consequences of being entirely wrong.

I bring all of this up for one reason: E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime, which commingles fact and fiction to provide a snapshot of life at the beginning of the 20th century, reminds us that while we may have come a long way in the past 100 years, we haven’t really changed all that much. Playhouse on the Square’s production of Ragtime, a brooding musical based on Doctorow’s novel and smartly adapted to the stage by Love! Valour! Compassion! playwright Terrence McNally, hits all the right notes, and whenever a character is brought down for expressing an unpopular belief or an act of unspeakable violence is committed against an African American or an immigrant Jew, there is always plenty of flag-waving to accompany it. If there is a musical for the interesting times we live in, it’s Ragtime, and Playhouse very nearly gets it right.

Director Dave Landis has, with the aid of choreographer Jay Rapp, worked a minor miracle. They have staged a modern megamusical with a gigantic cast and crew in a relatively small space and without all the outlandish, over-the-top set changes we’ve come to expect from such extravaganzas. They have put their faith in Doctorow’s powerful and upsetting but ultimately hopeful story of cultural upheaval, and for their faith they have been rewarded with a powerful, upsetting, but ultimately hopeful production that, at this past Sunday’s matinee, elicited mid-song “bravos.” There are awkward moments when the stage becomes so crowded that near-collisions are inevitable, and the action gets lost in the crush of bodies. And when the lights went down at the end of the first act, there was an eruption of self-congratulatory voices from backstage that completely shattered the illusion of professionalism. But these are small complaints in the light of Playhouse’s achievement.

The plunking, asymmetrical rhythms of ragtime music form the base from which Ragtime‘s songs emerge, but for the most part the songs are closer in spirit to modern musical theater than to anything Scott Joplin ever penned, and that is a little disappointing. It’s disappointing because the songs fail to distinguish themselves as songs but rather blend together in a kind of bland tapestry. Again, a minor complaint, and one that has more to do with the play than with the production. It is the content here that matters; the form is almost secondary.

Ragtime tells the story of an upper-middle-class white family from the suburbs of New York. They are untouched by the problems facing African Americans, laborers, and immigrants and allowed to practice a sort of benign snobbery. They aren’t a part of the problem, but becoming a part of the solution would be unseemly. Of course, all of this changes when an abandoned black infant is discovered in the garden. Shortly thereafter the mother is discovered, and both mother and child are brought into the household. Before long, they will learn that even those whose hands are scrubbed clean and who do not involve themselves in cultural politics must shoulder as much of the blame for intolerance as the bigots who promote it.

To single out any actors for praise would be inappropriate, as this is truly an ensemble piece. The performers work together and successfully bring to life a time of unrest not that much unlike our own. It’s a time when opportunity is still golden. Success in the light of overwhelming odds is still possible. But the deck is stacked against those who are perceived as physically, morally, or intellectually different from the flag-waving pack. This show may have debuted in 1996, but it could have been written yesterday. See it. Think about it. Talk about it. Then talk about it some more.

Through June 8th.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Acting Our Age

Watching world leaders over the last few months, I have taken to dividing them into two camps: the adolescents and the grown-ups.

Among the adolescents are George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac, as well as Kim Jong Il, (the late?) Saddam Hussein, and nearly all other dictators. Among the grown-ups are Tony Blair, Colin Powell, Kofi Annan, and Vladimir Putin.

There are a few adolescents who make a good show of pretending to be grown-ups: Donald Rumsfeld comes to mind. On the other hand, there are a few grown-ups who seem on casual first glance to be adolescents: Bill Clinton, for example.

The adolescent/grown-up divide does not match up with age or political positions. It has to do more with a certain tendency of mind.

The defining characteristic of the adolescent world leader is his unwavering belief (or, at least, his pose) that, when it comes to world affairs, he knows all the answers, the same way your 16-year-old son or daughter knows all the answers. The adolescent’s defining mode of communication is bluster. His language is moralistic and repetitious. He entertains no contradictions; he will not even listen if you tell him he is wrong.

In contrast, the defining characteristic of the grown-up world leader is his recognition that everything in world affairs is complicated and that no one knows how things will turn out. The grown-up’s defining mode of communication is debate — that is, he listens to his opponents and shapes answers that directly address their objections.

A grown-up will sometimes appear to contradict himself, because he feels it when the tectonic plates of the world are shifting beneath him. A grown-up is not afraid to express his uncertainty, even while making the either/or decisions all leaders must make.

U.N. chief arms inspector Hans Blix is a grown-up, and so of course are Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, and Jimmy Carter.

Among leaders from the not-too-distant past, Mao Tse-tung, Lyndon Johnson, Charles DeGaulle, Nikita Kruschev, Margaret Thatcher, and the Ayatollah Khomeini were adolescents. Winston Churchill was pretty much an adolescent blusterer to the end, though a valuable one.

The difference between an adolescent and a grown-up is most vivid in George W. Bush and Tony Blair. In the run-up to the Iraq War, Bush gave a single press conference, at which, no matter the question asked by whatever preselected reporter, he gave one of three prefabricated, always-on-message answers.

Blair, on the other hand, regularly stood scriptless before the House of Commons in full debate mode, taking on the inflammatory objections, not to mention the catcalls, of the opposition, and he had to answer them extemporaneously and directly, else he would have been the laughingstock of his nation.

Go back and look at how Bush and Blair made their arguments for the Iraq War. For Bush, it was all simplicity: We’re good, Saddam is bad, we’ll make the world a better place in short order, by golly, and anybody who thinks otherwise or worries about what this means for the world’s future (read: the French) is a weasel. For Blair, it was more complicated than that: Saddam is dangerous and, regretably, we must risk the sad, uncertain consequences of war to get rid of him, and anybody who thinks otherwise may be well-intentioned but is, well, mistaken.

Bush seemed downright eager to go to war. Blair, at least, seemed reluctant, although committed.

Though I think he was wrong on the Iraq War, I respect Tony Blair. He’s a smart grown-up in a grown-up country. George Bush, on the other hand, is like a 15-year-old with a gun: He simply makes the world afraid. And as for the United States, well, we will earn the respect of the world when we once again elect a grown-up.

Ed Weathers is a former editor of Memphis magazine.

Categories
Hot Properties Real Estate

Bungalow Bill

It was as if the government mandated so many bungalows per lot in Midtown in the 1920s. I am sure there was a congressional act tacked onto some weightier matter, no doubt called the Bungalow Bill.

Bungalows were easy to build. A rectangular, shoe-box shape with a moderately low pitched roof, they usually had a full-width concrete-floored porch across the front with brick and/or stone columns. The simple shape made them fit on any width city lot, leaving room for a side drive and a carport in the rear. There was often a small basement and permanent stairs to the attic providing easy access for storage. Inside, floors were oak, and trim and doors were often tupelo or black gum, a local wood that rivaled mahogany in color and grain pattern.

Bungalows are easy to maintain. One reason that home buyers have always loved bungalows is the uncomplicated layout. Halls were kept to a minimum, and public rooms opened directly to each other, and sometimes to the front porch, through pairs of glazed French doors.

Materials like oak floors and black-gum trim needed little maintenance and certainly weren t designed to ever be painted. Likewise, the outside (brick and stone) was built to withstand the test of time. The only wood outside to paint was the window and door surrounds and the deep overhanging roof eaves. This was the first easy-living house after the Victorian era.

The expansiveness of the Victorians demanded not only a different fork for each course at dinner but likewise a different room for every function (morning room, sun room, music room, parlor, library, ad nauseum). Bungalows were the standard-bearers whose motto was Stop all that nonsense. Simplify life. Bungalows were a response to the passing of the Victorian Age when bigger was not always better or even attainable.

Bungalows remain flexible. Rooms were designed to be multifunctional. The use of French doors allowed a room to be thrown open as needed for bigger gatherings but just as easily closed and used as a guest room or office. The kitchen usually had an attached breakfast room with built-in cabinetry and, frequently, a rear-latticed porch to hold garden tools and the icebox.

Both of these rooms remain invaluable. First, the rear porch could be easily enclosed providing the perfect spot to add a washer and dryer when the outdoor clothesline went the way of the icebox. Secondly, the breakfast room can easily be incorporated into the kitchen by removing the wall and thus gaining space for a breakfast bar or a seating area.

This week s house exhibits all the best attributes of the bungalow. The white-oak floors need only a good buffing, and the red-gum trim and French doors remain unpainted and breathtaking. Regretfully, the rustic stone surround of the fireplace has been painted, but a little love and some paint remover can fix that. There is also that second front room that doubles as private or public as needed.

The kitchen has been nicely updated and finished in a palette of creamy whites. The back porch has been enclosed and the attic is fully floored. The breakfast room is still discreet, but a small amount of indiscretion and a sledgehammer would change that. The rear yard is privacy-fenced, and there is a freestanding carport with attached storage room. What s needed here is a little imagination with the color scheme, a few nifty light fixtures, and some fresh landscaping. Nothing too difficult, and this easy-living bungalow in Evergreen remains as rock-solid as an act of Congress.

414 N. Willett St.

Approximately 1,450 square feet

2 bedrooms, 1 bath

$139,000

The Hobson Company

Charlotte Liles, 761-1622