Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

Pollution Solution

To the Editor:

Thanks for such an informative article on companies that continue to contaminate the Wolf River (City Reporter, April 24th issue). We must hold these companies responsible for cleanup and we must not let them continue to police their own reports.

Balinda Moore

President, Concerned Citizens of Crump

Neighborhood Association

Memphis

Premature Speculation

To the Editor:

By no means do I believe everything the government tells me, but the question your Viewpoint is asking (“Where Are They, Mr. Blair?,” April 24th issue) is one year premature. Our military forces went to secure Iraq and render its forces useless, not to search for WMD. And you want results two weeks after the war is over? That is ridiculous. Iraq is the size of Texas. It will take more than two weeks to find the motherload stash. Until then, you can sit on your hands like every other citizen and run your mouth — just like me.

Matt Basham

Memphis

To the Editor:

So now the president admits we may not find weapons of mass destruction. This costly war with all the destruction and loss of life and limb by mostly innocent men, women, and children will never prove to be moral or justifiable, and our dim-witted eco-criminals and corporate criminals in the White House will go down as some of the greatest demons in human history. Even the Iraqi people want their so-called liberators out of their country. How long will we occupy Iraq? Will our troops be there as long as they’ve been in Korea?

Can we now work on liberating this country, which is owned and controlled by the multinational corporations, the Israelis, and the super-rich? Our major airwaves, our so-called free press are owned and controlled by the biggest multinational corporations in the world. The working people in this country work harder and longer hours for less pay than most of their European counterparts. Our right to privacy is slowly but surely eroding. What does this tell you about the richest, most powerful nation on earth? It tells me that liberation should start at home.

Don Johnson

Minneapolis, Minnesota

A Great Impression?

To the Editor:

Thanks for printing the unintentionally hilarious letter praising the “greatness” of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (April 24th issue).

Let’s see: arrogance, hubris, lack of respect for the views of other countries (including our allies), lack of respect for differing views back home in America (including those of Secretary of State Colin Powell and many other principled members of the Bush administration), lack of concern for the views of the Iraqi people, lack of concern for the looting of priceless antiquities in Iraq, lack of concern about the effects of his many boneheaded and ill-considered statements regarding Syria and North Korea — the list goes on and on.

Oh, Rumsfeld is making a great impression all right. He’s the epitome of the Ugly American. Only John Ashcroft rivals him for the title of the all-time worst member of the U.S. Cabinet.

B. Keith English

Memphis

Lottery Debate

To the Editor:

The people have spoken: The voters of Tennessee decided they wanted a state lottery (“Place Your Bets,” April 17th issue). It took years to get it on the ballot, now it appears it is going to take more years to get it implemented. Politicians and the religious establishment that were once opposed to the lottery are now fighting for the profits, even before they exist.

The reason the taxpayers voted in a lottery was for tax relief. Now, greedy politicians await the forthcoming lottery loot, and religious schools want a bigger cut of the pie, even though they were totally against the lottery in the first place.

Any bets on how long it takes before we have more scandals and corruption?

Elbert Howard

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

Tangled Webs

Sometimes, kid, style can get you killed.”

Words to live by in an age of roll-over SUVs, $250 tennis shoes, and Texas-sized cowboy patriotism. Such is the mantra of

“The King” — not Elvis, mind you, but a gnomish, hyperactive, bisexual Dustin Hoffman as revealed to smooth grifter Jake Vig

(Edward Burns). The King practices what he preaches, unshaven, unkempt in unflattering, rumpled short-sleeved shirts and his glasses

dangling around his neck. Jake, on the other hand, looks

reeeeal good. Nice suit, nice haircut, and just the right narrow-eyed poker face that

can effortlessly reel in equal amounts chicks and scams.

The inescapable bond between these two men: Jake has inadvertently scammed the wrong man — the King — of $150,000.

The King, in return, has had one of Jake’s team, Big Al, killed off. Jake wants revenge for his buddy’s death, and the King wants his

money back. So, Jake gutsily waltzes into the King’s lair, proposes a con that will set things aright, and the King, smitten with Jake’s

looks, moxie, and “style,” dangerous as it is, sets him to work.

The Grift: Morgan Price (Robert Forster), sleazy mob heir and oily banker — archnemesis of the King and ripe for the

plucking. The Plan: fake an upstart business that will secure a loan from an unsuspecting, horny lending officer. The Bait: luscious Rachel Weisz.

Remember her? She’s the hottie from The

Mummy and About a Boy. She’s Lily here, who casually picks Jake’s pocket one

day. Smitten, Jake seeks her out when he needs a replacement for Big Al. And who can resist Edward Burns’ smile? Few, when there’s a

$5 million payoff attached to it. That’s right. This is no paltry six-figure con. Five mil. This attracts the attention of special agent

Gunther Butan (Andy Garcia), who has been on Jake’s trail for years. The magnitude of this con is so huge and Jake’s ego so swelled that this

is just the scheme for Butan to finally nab his man. He blackmails two of Jake’s cronies (Luis Guzman and Donal Logue), dirty L.A.

cops, into setting up Jake’s fall even as they scheme for the money themselves. Jake’s plan is further complicated by the presence of

Lupus (Frankie G.), henchman of the King, assigned to assist Jake while keeping a watchful (and, again, smitten) eye on him.

Confidence is all about Jake’s meticulous navigation through this tangled web, where it is virtually impossible to tell the

spiders from the flies. As far as tangled webs go, this one is great fun.

I went on a preview night with my blue-haired pal Jesse and, in a trivia game, won a bag of

Bend It Like Beckham stuff by correctly identifying

Midnight Cowboy as Dustin Hoffman’s X-rated Oscar nomination. Sneak previews are fun, and this one was

especially so because lots and lots of kids were there with parents who were either uninformed or uninterested in the fact that this movie is

very rated-R. So, the first couple of times the F-word came up, there were some nervous titters. Then there was some rough violence,

soliciting sighs and moans. THEN there was hot lesbian sex in a show-booth at an adult club and there were gasps and squeals! In that scene,

the King scolds two female strippers for performing cunnilingually while billing themselves as actual sisters. Poor form! The King runs

a classy establishment after all. I think this moralizing satisfied concerned parents because nobody left the theater.

Confidence is a poor man’s Ocean’s

Eleven — lower budget, smaller-name cast, smaller-name director. (Oscar-winning

Steven Soderbergh of Traffic helmed

Eleven while Confidence director James Foley has

Who’s That Girl? on his résumé.) Mostly, though, what

Confidence lacks is a George Clooney. Clooney IS cool. He needs no cool lessons, nor does he have to swagger to achieve it. He’s likable, confident,

capable, and women want him while men want to be him — the measure of a true Hollywood superstar stud.

Edward Burns is a poor man’s Richard Gere, and what fails

Confidence is a lack of heart. Jake’s dilemma is entirely cold,

calculated, and without emotional payoff. It’s all about a revenge that isn’t entirely motivated and, of course, the money. More fun is

Hoffman, draining all possible glee out of his few minutes of screentime as the twitching, megalomaniacal lech. Also rewarding: watching

honey Rachel Weisz ascend the ranks to credible leading lady with more strength, style, and oomph than Burns deserves.

Regardless, there is a joy to watching

Confidence intricately unfold, with surprises at every corner and surprises within

every surprise. Check your heart at the door, and let your brain be tickled for an hour or so watching well-dressed crooks achieve their

American dream by embezzling ours. — Bo List

Categories
Music Music Features

The Music Issue

1. The Reigning Sound

As more than one voter who helped Greg Cartwright’s Reigning Sound run away with the Third Annual Memphis Flyer Local Music Poll remarked, the band’s name is prophetic: Their brand of soulful garage-rock really has become one of pop music’s reigning sounds over the past couple of years.

Anointing Cartwright as a leading figure in this new wave of old-fashioned rock-and-roll bands is not merely a result of voters with local-music blinders: The Reigning Sound are arguably Cartwright’s most accomplished distillation of his myriad musical influences, but it was his previous bands — the Compulsive Gamblers and the Oblivians — that set the stage for the current rock landscape, spurring on megaselling followers such as the Hives and the White Stripes in much the same way that ’80s Amerindie bands like the Meat Puppets and Hüsker Dü paved the way for Nirvana.

And where Nirvana turned their fans on to the Meat Puppets, the Hives have been doing the same for their heroes, taking the Reigning Sound along as an opening act on a West Coast tour last year. (The Sound was offered the entire tour but declined. “We all have day jobs,” Cartwright explains.) The Hives also covered Cartwright’s Compulsive Gamblers’ number “Stop and Think It Over” on a recent compilation. Hives lead singer Pelle Almqvist even told Rolling Stone earlier this year that Time Bomb High School was his favorite record of 2002.

This connection was further strengthened in recent weeks when the Reigning Sound made their first overseas appearances, touring Sweden and Norway in April, playing some shows with the Hives and playing a few festivals.

You might think that connection would result in a little major-label attention for Cartwright and Co., and you’d be right –to an extent. The band’s stint opening for the Hives prompted several majors to sniff around the band, but so far nothing has come of it.

“We’d have A&R guys calling us and asking for a copy of the record, and [my attitude was] you work for a major label, you’ve got an expense account. Walk down to the record store and buy it,” Cartwright says. “Or they’d be asking to be put on the guest list at shows. What’s the cover? Seven dollars? I’d love to be on a big label and sell more records to more people, but I’d [have to be] making the same records, and I’m not gonna bend over backward for it.”

If anything, the Reigning Sound seem like a band too established and too comfortable in their skin to worry much about becoming rock stars. After years in rowdier outfits (“The Gamblers were a rock-and-roll bar band. The crowd tended to be people who were drinking a lot, like we were doing then,” Cartwright says), Cartwright was looking for something different with the Reigning Sound.

“After having been involved with such a close-knit set of musicians, I thought I’ve got to get out of this; it’s a dead end. I really wanted to work with people who weren’t connected to the same crowd, who weren’t necessarily rock-and-roll lifestyle kind of people,” he says.

Cartwright wanted a new mix of collaborators and he found them in his Reigning Sound bandmates: Drummer Greg Roberson had recently moved back to Memphis from L.A. and hadn’t played with anyone locally in a while. Bassist Jeremy Scott had moved to Memphis from Philadelphia (where he was a guitarist, switching to bass for the Reigning Sound). Scott is also a good singer, allowing doo-wop fanatic Cartwright to explore vocal harmonies he couldn’t in previous bands. Rounding out the lineup is guitarist/keyboard player Alex Greene, an old hand on the Memphis scene who had recently returned to Memphis after living in Belize.

The band’s seemingly untoppable sophomore record comes off as something of an homage to the city’s teen-band garage-rock scene of the ’60s, with several covers from that period. The record coincided with local fan Ron Hall’s Shangri-La-published scene history, though Cartwight says there was no direct connection between the two projects. “I knew he’d been working on that and we’d regularly swap singles, but I’d always been a fan of that stuff and had done those songs in live sets for years,” Cartwright says. “I just thought it would be fun to represent that stuff for people who hadn’t heard it.”

The Reigning Sound’s next, untitled record (Cartwright considered a recent headline from a Commercial Appeal medical advice column — “PILL-POPPING MOM ONLY TAKING WHAT SHE NEEDS TO GET BY” –but has since scrapped the idea) will likely be a little different, featuring Reigning Sound-style covers of a couple of soul gems: Sam & Dave’s “You Got Me Hummin'” and Hank Ballard’s “Get It.” The record was completed recently at Easley-McCain Studio and is set for release this fall on In the Red, the same label that put out Time Bomb High School.

These days, when Cartwright isn’t working with his band or handling production chores for other bands (he helped produce the Porch Ghouls’ recent major-label debut, Bluff City Ruckus), he spends his time hanging out in his newish Cooper-Young store, Legba Records. Cartwright is a record geek of enormous proportions and tremendous taste — as anyone might gather from hearing a Reigning Sound record. Hanging out at Legba is a bit like finding oneself transported into the record-store scenes from High Fidelity, except the atmosphere is kinder and more laid-back.

On a recent Friday afternoon, just before the band headed out for their European minitour, Cartwright took time out from helping employee (and fellow local musician) Tim Prudhomme put together a new screen door for the store to discuss his favorite record-hunting haunts (Frayser — “That’s where all the rockabilly guys lived”), new finds (Blue Peter — an obscure Canadian power-pop group from the late ’70s), and the unique and persistent musical connection between Memphis, New Orleans, and Detroit (Cartwright offers a concise and eloquent analysis tying together jug bands, trade routes, and migrant workers).

In between helping Prudhomme with the door and fielding questions from this reporter, he finds time to attend to customers, turning one browser on to an early Alice Cooper record and gently chiding another who brings in a crate of records to sell –“So, you decided you didn’t like Jessi Colter anymore?” and “Hey, you’re trying to sell me records you know aren’t any good!”

But everything stops when Hall makes an unexpected appearance, new find in hand. Cartwright takes a look at Hall’s latest discovery, his body spins around, and he gasps, “Geez Louise!” It’s another Memphis garage-band record from the ’60s, but this time something no one’s ever seen — a full album, a live record from a Millington band called (could I make this up?) Tight Little Unit. The album was recorded live (could I make this up?) at the 11th Frame Lounge at Liberty Lanes Bowling Alley. Cartwright explains that it’s a record the band presumably had pressed to sell at gigs they’d play around the naval base. It contains covers of hits of the day, such as “Dancing in the Streets” and “Summertime.” But it also, oddly, contains a cover of a song by one of their local contemporaries, “I Don’t Believe,” by the Guilloteens. This is a song that the Reigning Sound covered on Time Bomb High School, but Cartwright has never heard this version. He races to the store record player and puts it on. The ongoing interview is suddenly forgotten, and this writer wouldn’t have it any other way.

Chris Herrington

Next local gig:

The Hi-Tone Café, with

Mr. Airplane Man

Saturday, May 10th

Voter comments:

Still the closest this town will ever get to duplicating the glory that was the Memphis teen-band scene of 1964-66. Better than the Gentrys and the Breakers and almost as good as Tommy Burke and the Counts. Greg Cartwright has a neat record shop in the form of Legba Records, but he lets too many gray-haired coots (like myself) hang out there. — Ross Johnson

Carrying on where the Oblivians left off, these guys get the crowd moving during their raucous live shows. Part garage, part punk, but all rock-and-roll, the Reigning Sound make music that the Strokes and Hives can only dream about. They should be and usually are given credit for helping with the current garage-rock resurgence. — Todd Dudley

No artist active in the Memphis scene today has proven him- or herself as able and willing to grow as Greg Cartwright. The songwriting is great and the band’s execution is flawless, putting on some of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. I’ll always love the Oblivians, but the Sound are just what I need for this stage of my life — rockin’, yet complex and subtle when they have to be. — Chris McCoy

Their name couldn’t be more appropriate given the recent explosion of bands on both the local and national scenes whose “sound” compares favorably to the ’60s garage-band inspired (but hardly retro) style of Greg Cartwright’s latest outfit. Speaking of style, allow me to nominate “Reptile Style” from Time Bomb High School as song of the year. What in less capable hands could simply be a “woman as snake-in-the-grass” genre exercise here becomes a tormented tale of casual sex, betrayal, and bitterness of almost biblical proportions.

Eddie Hankins

Not just “still good,” but better. Releasing that gem of an album helped.

Andrew Earles

Along with friend and former Oblivian bandmate Jack Yarber, Greg Cartwright can take some credit for the current garage-rock phenomenon. Between fronting the Reigning Sound, running Legba Records, and producing bands like Mr. Airplane Man and the Porch Ghouls at Easley-McCain, Cartwright is a one-man rock-and-roll machine.

Andria Lisle

Not only is every band [Greg Cartwright] has ever played in been great, [he] is constantly bringing cool bands to Memphis to play.

Mike Smith

The guy is a genius. — Kevin Cubbins

2. Lucero

While the last few months were somewhat tumultuous for these country rockers — guitarist Brian Venable quit the group in December, while his replacement, Steve Selvidge, left two months later — things seem to be settling down. “Todd Gill started with us just a week before we played South by Southwest,” bassist John Stubblefield remembers. “We threw him right in; he did 16 shows with us in 17 days, and things were fine.”

Lucero had a blast at the Austin, Texas, music conference. “We played four shows at SXSW,” Stubblefield says. “Our last gig was at a BMX company called Terrible One. We played on a big bike ramp. It was like playing in a swimming pool, so we like to say we capped off SXSW by playing in the deep end,” he quips, adding that the Memphis Music Commission-sponsored barbecue at the MADJACK Records party was “really awesome. We’d been there for four days, and we were broke. I had 25 cents in my pocket,” Stubblefield says with a laugh, “so the free food was great!”

The band is getting ready to record their third album,although Stubblefield demurs when asked for details. “We’ve been steadily writing songs,” he says, “and we’ve got a dozen or more tunes that we could lay down at any moment.” This summer, Lucero will be playing the festival circuit, heading to the Midwest in June and then to the Northeast in July. While he’s looking forward to the respite from a steamy Memphis summer, Stub-blefield says the band is most enthusiastic about a pair of gigs closer to home. “We’re headlining a show at the Batesville [Arkansas] Motor Speedway in June. Batesville is one of our biggest markets,” he says. “We went there over Christmas without expecting much, but we had 500 people at our first show there.”

And the other show? “We’re playing a wrestling match at the Old Daisy Theatre on Beale Street,” Stubblefield says, explaining that Pat Cox, an old hand on the Memphis punk scene who’s now a professional grappler, organized the show. “There’ll be three matches — with thumbtacks and glass and all that stuff — and three bands,” he says gleefully. “What’s the big tie between rock-and-roll and wrestling? Well, it’s all fixed!” — Andria Lisle

Voter comments:

Lucero’s Tennessee [is like] Neil Young meets Nirvana. Great melodies, great lyrics, great playing, great vocals: a totally un-self-conscious foray into the murky waters of alternative country (whatever that is). — Lisa Lumb

I had seen [Lucero’s] first public show at Barristers years ago. They only had an eight-song set, with a couple of songs they could barely get through, and you could tell even then that Lucero was going to be really special. I don’t like to describe music or compare bands. I just have to say I like what they do. It’s unique and real. When you hear their records or see this band live, you just want to come back and do it again. They’ve gained some great personnel and lost some. I think they are on the verge of becoming a significant and influential band.

James Manning

With the release of Tennessee and the addition of Todd Gill, Lucero could and should garner much success in the future. Ben Nichols writes songs that tug at your heartstrings. Already playing to packed venues where everyone sings along and the girls scream louder than at a Britney Spears concert, these guys are what’s great about Memphis music.

Todd Dudley

They played over 200 gigs last year and seem on pace to do the same this year. They got plenty of press at South by Southwest and their shows are regularly packed. A lot of people liked Tennessee, their last album, but I didn’t think it was as good or varied as the first one. Song after song of the same tempo gets old to me. But they are the most visible representative of the scene right now, and I for one would much rather be represented by a Frank Sinatra look-alike with a chain-smoking voice than by Saliva. Their founding guitarist [Brian Venable] recently quit, so it remains to be seen whether they can take it in a new direction as opposed to just resting on their laurels and descending into some kind of ego vortex. For all our sakes, I hope they can. — Chris McCoy

Not much fun to listen to, but they sure can pack a bar. One of the only bands to regularly incite dancing and hollering. — Kerry Vaughan

I think these guys have the best chance of really breaking out in the next year. Their live show is hot, and it is just a matter of time before they are huge. — Mike Smith

The sound of Midtown for the past few years. — Kevin Cubbins

3. The North Mississippi Allstars

“This is a really good time for Memphis music,” North Mississippi Allstars guitarist Luther Dickinson enthuses. “We pulled into Columbus, Ohio, for a gig recently, and both the Bloodthirsty Lovers and Lucero had write-ups in the local paper for upcoming shows. Then we realized that Saliva was playing a gig at the theater down the street. It makes me feel less homesick to realize that most of my friends are on the road too,” he says.

Although it was mastered more than two months ago, the Allstars have put off the release of their third album, Polaris, until September 7th. “Tone-Cool is still our record company, but ATO/BMG bought the rights to our distribution,” Dickinson explains. “We couldn’t be happier. We met the ATO team, and it’s gonna be a good run,” he says expectantly.

“We’ve been playing a majority of the songs [off Polaris] live,” Dickinson says. “On our second record, I was trying to write modern blues — real Mississippi poetry. But Garry [Burnside, an occasional member of the band] taught me to write from the heart, keep things simple and honest so people can relate. This album is about life and girls,” he says with a chuckle, “so hopefully everybody can feel it.”

“With Dwayne Burnside in the band for two years now, the band has become a collaborative effort,” Dickinson says. He shies away from the blues-band image that has pigeonholed the Allstars in years past, calling Polaris “a definite modern Southern rock statement. We’re taking things day by day,” Dickinson concludes. “Our mantra on the road is ‘Keep your shit together, and be ready to rise to the occasion at any moment.'” — AL

Next local gig:

The Beale Street Music

Festival, Budweiser Stage,

7:05 p.m.

Sunday, May 4th

Voter comments:

We all know by now what kind of talent they bring to the table, but what is so special is their unselfishness, always willing to help an up-and-coming band or a fallen hero. It’s just so nice to see this kind of respect toward the men and women that made this area the musical dynamo that it is. Othar Turner is smiling down on your integrity, boys.

Brent Harding

This is simply a great band, steeped in Memphis tradition and the blues. They were impressive when they were teenagers, way back in the DDT days. They have the ultimate respect of their peers and they never fail to make their fans happy. They have built a fan base that will be with them for a lifelong career. — James Manning

Just keep getting bigger and better. And Luther is rapidly becoming a guitar monster to be reckoned with. — Steve Walker

Even though they’re becoming the vets of this poll, the Allstars are still vital to the local scene. Each of their albums receives more attention nationally than the last one. — Julie Etheridge

I suppose they should be on everyone’s list considering all the attention they get. What’s cool about NMAS is they’ve packaged this area’s boogie-blues sound/feel with a jam-band groove that doesn’t sound packaged. The material they do, and their sensitivity to it, will give them staying power. — Jay Sheffield

4. Saliva

North Memphis has spoken, and, once again, Saliva makes the poll with a hefty number of votes. But they won’t be around to bask in the glory: These homegrown superstars are touring all summer long, as headliners in May and June, then as openers for the Aerosmith and Kiss tour slated for July.

It’s been a busy year for Saliva. Frontman Josey Scott was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Rock Song category for “Hero,” his duet with Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger, though he lost out to Coldplay. Scott has also become a ubiquitous presence in the rock press, dispensing romantic advice and dropping knowledge in magazines such as Spin and Revolver. Currently in heavy rotation: “Rest in Pieces,” co-written by James Michael and Mötley Crüe legend Nikki Sixx.

But rest assured that the band hasn’t forgotten their roots. “[Memphis music is] part of my culture and heritage,” Scott told Guitar World in an interview this spring. “I had aunts and uncles listening to that music while they fried catfish in the kitchen when I was 7 years old. It was all an indelible part of my life and education.” — AL

Next local gig:

The Library, in Oxford, Mississippi

Friday, May 9th

Voter comments:

It’s sad that Memphis’ most commercially successful band since Big Star is named after a bodily fluid. But as Jay “Jay Jay” Reatard said, “Memphis is not Midtown.”

Doug Golonka

Nü metal is a birth defect of a genre that should have been aborted. I mean that in a nice way. I’d like to see Saliva give a leg up to some of their Memphis metal brethren. I hope they explode (literally, not famewise just kidding). — Chris Walker

I have worked around these guys since they were literally children, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that they grab the brass ring. A gold record, Grammy nominations, American Music Award nominations, appearances on around 30 (THIRTY) movie soundtracks: They represent the biggest impact by Memphis musicians in almost 30 years. I can tell you firsthand that Saliva got there by talent, hard work, musical taste, and professionalism. Every member has a real desire to be a musician and an entertainer. These are qualities that very, very few bands from the underground to the stadium acts can put in one package. — James Manning

In a rock world where being a fun, charismatic lead singer seems to be a dying art, Josey Scott is a godsend. It’s more than appropriate that these guys have landed the opening slot on this summer’s Kiss/Aerosmith tour: Saliva was born to play arenas, not all-day outdoor nü-metal fests. — Steve Walker

Love ’em or hate ’em, Josey Scott and the guys are still bringing attention to the city that reaches past the critics.

Julie Etheridge

5. Cory Branan

More than 100 people crowded around the TV at the Young Avenue Deli last month to catch Southaven’s own pop idol Cory Branan on Late Night with David Letterman. His performance was worth staying up for — a pop-eyed Branan fronted a team of A-list players (guitarist Steve Selvidge, bassist Mark Stuart, and drummer John Argroves) on — you guessed it — the radio hit “Miss Ferguson.” (“It’s the only song the band knows,” Branan claims.)

“We had a good time jumping around and acting like assholes,” Branan recalls. “What surprised me was that we did the song seven times in rehearsal, but live they didn’t cut to Paul [Schaeffer, Letterman’s music director] on the four-bar break. I walked over to Steve to do the double-guitar Lynyrd Skynyrd bit, then when I saw the monitor I thought, Oh my God, we look so cheesy! It was so ridiculous and rock-star-like. People say I looked nervous, but I ask them, ‘Have you ever seen one of my shows?’ I always freak out like that,” Branan says.

But success hasn’t spoiled him yet: “I don’t mean to be all cute about it, but I don’t think about this stuff. I never asked for any of it,” he emphasizes. “I know what it’s worth: The Letterman thing was so fucking cool, but it’s gone as soon as it happens. All that stuff is superfluous to what I do, which is make music,” Branan insists.

In early fall, Branan will be heading to Manchester, England, where he’ll be recording his sophomore album for MADJACK Records, with Henry Alton (Primal Scream) and Jeff Powell co-producing. “I have 130 new songs ready to go,” Branan says, “and I’m like, Let’s go! I’m way overdue for a new record, but I don’t want to rush things,” he muses. “I’m gonna be doing this for the rest of my life.” — AL

Next local gig:

The Beale Street Music

Festival, Budweiser Stage,

3:50 p.m.

Saturday, May 3rd

Voter comments:

Well, he’s gone Hollywood. Personally, I prefer him playing drunk on his back at the Hi-Tone. He’s a superb storyteller and songwriter. — Doug Golonka

I have not heard many people put so much of themselves into a song. He’s a great songwriter and haunting, plaintive singer. I agree with those comparing him to John Prine and Tom Waits. He’s getting an unprecedented amount of attention, and he deserves it.

James Manning

Also not fun to listen to, but he seems poised to break onto the national scene. Hell, he was on Letterman; maybe I should vote for his agent instead.

Kerry Vaughan

With his recent appearance on David Letterman and his “exposure” in Rolling Stone, we will be hearing a lot more from this talented singer-songwriter over the coming year. — Lyndsi Potts

6. Viva L’American Death Ray Music

A year ago, I compared this Midtown rock-and-roll combo to the Modern Lovers, but as Viva L’American Death Ray Music frontman Nicholas Ray points out, the description no longer fits. “It was an overused comparison,” he says, “one that doesn’t apply any more.” As Ray explains, the band’s current sound has been refined over the last year as musicians in the group have come and gone.

“The new stuff we’ve been writing didn’t need all the accoutrements of a five-piece band,” Ray says, noting that it’s “easier and cheaper now” to operate as a trio. Without the chiming chords of keyboardist Brendan Lee Spengler, the music is “more herky-jerky,” says Ray, as evidenced on the band’s latest, A New Commotion A Delicate Tension (And the Exquisite Corpse of Mr. Jimmy), out now on the Misprint Records label.

“That title is a double reference,” Ray says. “It’s named for a friend of mine I bump into when wandering around the country — and then, of course, there’s the Stones’ reference in ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want.'” What can we expect from the current lineup (Ray on guitar and vocals, bassist Harlan T. Bobo, and drummer Jeff Bouck)? A tour of the East Coast later this month, followed by a new album this summer. — AL

Next local gig:

The Hi-Tone Café, with the Lost

Sounds · Wednesday, May 21st

Voter comments:

Forget the Strokes — these guys are the standard-bearers of garage rock! From Nick’s stage presence to Harlan T. Bobo’s stare, these guys have the look and sound for bigger and better things. — Doug Golonka

I would consciously miss this band during their first year or two, but something clicked to make them Memphis’ best alternative to, well, every other band in town. — Andrew Earles

A consistently good live band, making better records every time out. — Jared McStay

I know better, but there are moments of unreason when I think that “Hip Hugger Suit(E)” may be the best song ever recorded in Memphis. It’s like a lost cut off Lou Reed’s Transformer with its hypnotic midway-style organ and honking sax. Listening to it turns the whole world into a Max Fleischer cartoon where the dogs wear black leather and Betty Boop has fangs. — Chris Davis

7. The Bloodthirsty Lovers

Five years after the breakup of the Grifters, we find guitarist Scott Taylor masquerading as bluesy ax grinder Slim Electro in the Porch Ghouls, bassist Tripp Lamkins anchoring pop groovers the Paper Plates, and drummer Stan Gallimore staying at home and raising a family. Former frontman David Shouse, it seems, is the one apple that’s fallen closest to the tree, as he continues to churn out a carefully blended amalgamation of glam rock and indie rock as the leader of the Bloodthirsty Lovers.

Not that the Bloodthirsty Lovers are a Grifters rip-off. Far from it. To understand the evolution, you’d do well to check out the two albums Shouse released with Those Bastard Souls, the band he fronted in the interim. That group floundered under contractual problems with their label V2, and, Shouse explains on his Web site, the Bloodthirsty Lovers “was [his] rehab stint out of the numbing world of major-label sickness.”

The band’s eponymous debut, available locally for the past year, was picked up by indie label French Kiss Records in February. That record is largely a Shouse solo project, but the Lovers’ forthcoming sophomore effort will feature Shouse’s current bandmates Paul Taylor and Tom Krupski as well. — AL

Next local gig:

The Hi-Tone Café

Friday, May 16th

Voter comments:

Straddling the line between electronica and guitar rock, the Lovers have crafted a unique sound that brings packed houses wherever they play. David Shouse shows why he has earned his place as one of the most creative musical talents in Memphis. Having been through the corporate machine a couple of times, with the Grifters and Those Bastard Souls, it seems like Shouse [and Co.] are just a band having fun, experimenting with different styles and building a loyal following in the process.

Todd Dudley

Bringing together the lo-fi sounds of ’90s Memphis and 21st-century electronica with nearly always stunning results, both live and on disc. — Eddie Hankins

So much has been said of David Shouse’s musical pilgrimage that I’d need to buy a big thesaurus to come up with anything new to add. If you’re looking for music that has nothing to do with the blues tradition and everything to do with the existential living end, you’re in luck.

— Dan Ball

8. Richard Johnston

If 2001 was about the breakthrough for blues hope Richard Johnston, this past year has been more about consolidation. Johnston rode the success of his debut album, the proudly self-released Foot Hill Stomp, and the continued fallout from his head-turning win at the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge to a surprising second-place finish in last year’s Flyer poll.

No longer the new kid on the block, Johnston has nevertheless established himself as a rising blues star rather than a fluke. His status as a desired attraction on the blues festival circuit has been solidified (upcoming dates include Belgium and France). His embrace by the blues community has been further confirmed by Foot Hill Stomp‘s nomination for Best New Artist Debut at this month’s Handy Awards (where Johnston will compete with the more widely celebrated Robert Randolph and Precious Bryant, among others). And his status as preserver of his beloved hill-country blues has been illustrated by Foot Hill Stomp helping to restart the previously dormant career of duet partner and area blues matriarch Jessie Mae Hemphill.

And through it all, Johnston still finds time to ply his trade out on Beale –in the street, not in the clubs. —CH

Next local gig:

The Beale Street Music

Festival, Blues Tent, 9:20 p.m.

Saturday, May 3rd

Voter comments:

Richard Johnston is the hardest worker in the industry and leaves everything on the stage. — Dennis Brooks

His independent spirit is what keeps him on my list year after year. [Johnston’s] talent and passion are awe-inspiring and his connection to his audience is what fuels his career and will ensure the growth of his fan base. That way, 10 records from now, he will still be able to sell his art and keep his profits. — Wayne Leeloy

I think [Johnston] is a national treasure just waiting to happen. He’s a captivating live performer and his music is the real deal. The best part is, when he’s not on the festival circuit, you can see him for free right out on the Beale Street sidewalk on any given weekend; which may not sound so special until you see him sell around 100 albums a night — always more than the headline act playing the 1,000-seat venue right behind him. — James Manning

The most talented solo performer in town, Richard Johnston’s gritty, unpolished approach to the blues is a welcome change from the slick performances that are all too familiar. — Julie Etheridge

9. Jim Dickinson

“The new record did even better than I thought it would,” Jim Dickinson says by phone from his Zebra Ranch studio in north Mississippi. He’s talking about Free Beer Tomorrow, his first album in three decades, which was released last October. “I got some radio play, which I never expected,” Dickinson says. “We also got some great press, but I anticipated that, based on friendships and curiosity from my not having been in the marketplace for some time.”

Over the last several months, Dickinson has been hard at work as a producer — the credits on Sid Selvidge’s recent Archer Records release A Little Bit of Rain and the upcoming John Eddie album on Lost Highway (Who the Hell Is John Eddie?) attest to that. “The star on the John Eddie record is this guitarist from Nashville named Kenny Vaughn,” Dickinson raves. “He used to play with Lucinda [Williams]. He’s a fabulous player, smooth and cool in the studio.”

But what about his solo career? “It’s hard for me to play when my band’s on the road,” he laments, referring to his sons Luther and Cody Dickinson, hard at work with the North Mississippi Allstars. “That’s the trouble with recording with my kids; I really can’t play the music without ’em. But I may do some solo stuff this summer, my old coffeehouse act.”

“When I cut an album, I do it as a recording artist,” Dickinson explains, “but when I play on stage I do the same thing I’ve done for 40 years. I used to do the songs I knew, but now I just play the songs I remember.” Even so, he’s looking forward to his Memphis in May appearance this weekend, when he’ll be backed by Luther and Cody and former Flying Burrito Brother Chris Ethridge. “We’ve played together in certain amalgamations for years,” Dickinson notes. “He’s the one who introduced me to [Ry] Cooder.” — AL

Next local gig:

The Beale Street Music

Festival, Blues Tent,

6:05 p.m., Sunday, May 4th

Voter comments:

Best local album of the past year: Free Beer Tomorrow — Jim Dickinson, cuz it took him 30 years to make a second solo record; cuz he makes getting old seem kinda cool; cuz it sounds great. I don’t believe that Jim has tasted beer in decades, though. — Ross Johnson

The family that has ties from the Burnsides to Mudhoney. Doing a good thing the right way and sharing it with everyone. — Gary Crump

A joke was going around that the balloting for the Premier Player Awards ought to have a “Best Dickinson” category to keep the family from dominating the other categories. A Memphis music icon, gifted as a producer, performer, writer, and, obviously, dad.

Jay Sheffield

Like an old oak tree, he has reached pinnacles that others only dream of but has remained faithful to his deep roots and made manifest great fruits.

Pam McGaha

10. Memphix

Chad “Chase” Weekley, 25, and Luke “Red Eye Jedi” Sexton, 28, joined forces under the moniker Memphix a few years ago, putting out several excellent 7-inches of funky, DJ Shadowesque sound collages (search out Red Eye Jedi’s “Homegrown” especially); hosting some stellar, if not always well-attended local hip-hop shows; spinning all over town, most recently at their Thursday night Inner Sounds gig at the Hi-Tone Café; and making a considerable name for themselves in the global underground hip-hop and turntable community.

But in the coming year, Weekley and Sexton (with Chicago-based partner Dante Carfagna and local cohort DJ Armis) seem poised to break through the rather conservative genre-grid of Memphis music –blues, alt-country, garage rock, metal, and Southern rap –to become a major force in an entirely new way. The group’s CD “demo” of obscure black rock and funk 45s, Chains + Black Exhaust, has been an underground sensation, so much so that it’s scheduled for an above-board release in January. And Memphix will drop its full-length debut this summer with Carfagna’s Jeux de Ficelle. — CH

Next local gig:

The Hi-Tone Café, with Lee Fields & Sugarman 3

Monday, May 5th

Voter comments:

Known internationally for their DJ and producing expertise. Spreading historic sounds of Memphis to young ears worldwide.

Katherine Sage

Obscurities (the Fabulous Fugitives), rarities (the Sweet and Innocent), and forgotten treasures (Smithstonian, the Memphians): This DJ team knows more about Memphis soul music than anyone else around.

Andria Lisle

Serious record collectors: These guys are known worldwide; it’s time their hometown gives it up for them.

Andrew McCalla

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Situation Normal …

Everybody knows the famous Will Rogers line: “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” These days in Shelby County, that line could apply to both major parties, each of which has entertained moderate-to-major schisms over the last year or so. But it’s the Democrats who truly excel at the art of factionalism.

How much better can you do than to hold a knockdown/drag-out local convention, as the local Democrats did three weekends ago, only to end up the day with the race for Shelby County party chair deadlocked at 20 votes apiece?

That was how it went down at Hamilton High School back on April 12th, when the tie-breaking voter, Marianne Wolff of Cordova, took ill halfway through the proceedings and had to go home. Wolff was a newly elected executive committee member pledged to support State Rep. Kathryn Bowers for chairman over current chair Gale Jones Carson; so her absence was crucial.

As the stalemate continued into late afternoon back then, Bowers supporters beseeched Wolff via cellphone to return, and eventually she did — transported by her friend and Cordova neighbor, Nancy Kuhn, ironically enough a Carson supporter who had been defeated for a committee post by Wolff and who had taken Wolff home only hours earlier.

By the time of Wolff’s return, however, the convention had adjourned and had not yet agreed on a date to reconvene.

In the interim between that standoff and the final resolution of a runoff date (May 12th, agreed to by both candidates and approved by the state Democratic Party), both sides made feverish efforts to convert executive committee members on the other side, and each side steadfastly tried to hold on to its own loyalists.

Wolff herself felt so besieged that she took to misleading people about her exact address and even the spelling of her name, presumably to limit the extent of the hot-boxing she could be subjected to.

Wolff’s name appears (spelled correctly) along with the 20 other Bowers supporters in a letter sent to Carson and dated Monday of this week. The letter has two purposes, according to activist David Upton, a Bowers supporter who helped draft it: 1) to convince Carson that the handwriting is on the wall (actually, on the paper, with facsimiles of signatures for each of the signers, all standing firm for Bowers) on the issue of the chairmanship race; and 2) to dissuade Carson from going ahead with her plan to elect the new committee’s other officers (sans chairman) this Thursday night.

The issue is that two Bowers supporters on the newly elected committee can’t attend Thursday night’s meeting and that Carson knew that, Upton said. Nonsense, says Carson, who maintains that all she’s doing is following party bylaws to elect new officers on the first regular committee meeting after a convention. That would be Thursday night.

Ah, but that’s the meeting night adopted by the former committee, not the one elected on April 12th, counters Upton — to which Carson says, “We’re going to follow the bylaws and vote Thursday. The Thursday night date was adopted by the party way back on December 5th, 1995.”

The letter to Carson reads “it is our intention to have them [actions to elect new officers] rescinded on May 12th” if Carson oversees elections this Thursday. “This isn’t about unity,” said Carson. “This is about an effort by some to divide the party.” Carson, who is secretary of the state Democratic Party, charged Upton in particular with using his position as a member of the state party executive committee to “mislead” local Democrats about the facts.

Sometime between Thursday night and the May 12th date which will see either the reelection of Carson (who isn’t about to concede the outcome, signatures or no signatures) or of Bowers, things will presumably get resolved. Not organized, mind you; that would be entirely too un-Democratic.

Southern Strategies

Presidential candidates are beginning to turn up in these parts as the race for the Democratic nomination starts to get serious. Two principal Democratic contenders — Missouri congressman Dick Gephardt and Massachusetts senator John Kerry — have already checked in locally, and third — Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman — will be right behind.

Gephardt, a former candidate for the Democratic nomination (1988), was the beneficiary of a fundraiser held Sunday at the residence of Pat Kerr Tigrett. Lawyer David Cocke, a Yale classmate of Kerry’s, did the honors for the Massachusetts senator at the Summit Club on Tuesday morning. And an effort on behalf of Lieberman, to be held early in May, is being planned by local Democrat Pace Cooper.

All three candidates were supporters of military efforts to depose Saddam Hussein‘s regime in Iraq, and each voted for a congressional war resolution to that effect. After his appearance here on Tuesday, Kerry said he hoped to appeal to the “common sense” of Southern Democrats. — JB

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Chicks with Sticks

Quick, somebody call Senator Rick Santorum, the righteous guardian of traditional American values and get him to comment on this one: Thanks to Memphis marketing consultant LaShawn Parks of the sports marketing firm the Parks Group, women, that’s right, WOMEN are about to be educated in the fine and manly art of baseball. Next thing you know they are going to want equality in the workplace and the right to vote! Harumph! It’s an absolute outrage to misogynists everywhere. Besides, if women actually learn about baseball, they might learn to enjoy baseball and then who’s going to bring us men our beer while we are ensconced in front of the television set on a Saturday afternoon?

It’s all terribly, terribly upsetting. Furthermore, Parks is not the least bit apologetic about her class, Baseball 101, even though it threatens to upset the natural order of the universe in a way that may be irreversible. Here’s what she had to say for herself.

Flyer: Teaching baseball to women, huh? It all seems pretty radical. Where in the world did you get such a crazy idea?

LaShawn Parks: Well, I’ve been a huge sports fan all my life. I grew up in a family of sports fans. My mother was a big fan, especially of University of Memphis basketball and football. My father was a St. Louis Cardinals fan, so I grew up watching the Cardinals play all of the time. Anyway, I got my MBA, and [wanted to do something sports-related]. So I was surfing the Web, doing some research on the Atlanta Braves, when I saw that they offered a Baseball 101 class for women.

And that seemed like a good idea?

I thought it sounded like a great idea. I have women friends call me all the time, because they don’t understand the game and they want me to explain it to them. They want me to explain the rules and who the players are. And not just baseball. They want to know about football and basketball also, so we’re thinking about doing some more classes. Football 101 and Basketball 101 for women.

Now you say that this is just for women. That doesn’t seem fair. What about guys who are big sissies? Would it be good for them too?

You know, we have actually had three or four men call and ask, “Is the class really just for women?” I tell them, “Hey, if you don’t know anything about baseball, come on.” Of course, I haven’t gotten any registration forms in from any men yet.

So what are some of the things you are going to be teaching these women?

We’re going to learn how to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” We’re going to try to learn it. It’s an easy song.

Really? Are you going to get the Redbirds’ organ player to come and play it?

No, unfortunately, I’m going to have to play a tape. Since there is a Redbirds game [at AutoZone Park] we’re not going to actually have access to the field or the dugout.

But it will be a tape of an organ? If you’re singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” you have to be accompanied by an organ. I think it’s a law or something.

Yes, if I can find a tape of an organ.

But let’s say I was one of your female friends, and I was calling you in a panic because my husband and his friends were watching the game and I didn’t understand it. What would you tell me?

Well, I would start by explaining the players and their positions. Who they are and what they do. And I would explain the stats. Like batting averages, RBIs, etc. That’s what scares women. All the stats.

All those numbers can be pretty scary. Are these the kinds of things you’ll be teaching in the class?

We’re going to have two women speak. The plan is not to parade a bunch of men in front [of the students]. We’ve got Kim Jackson from the Memphis Redbirds and Margaret Carol, a softball coach in the Memphis City Schools. I think it’s important to teach women not just the basics but also a little bit about the history of baseball.

Baseball 101 for women will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 3rd, at the Plaza Club next to AutoZone Park. The price of the class includes lunch and tickets to see the Redbirds game, which starts at 2 p.m. For more information, contact the Parks Group at 240-9773.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Appetizer?

Sometimes a riveting performance by an actor can make an otherwise unremarkable play absolutely unforgettable. But in spite of an unquestionably stellar turn by onetime Playhouse on the Square company member Christopher Swan, Circuit Playhouse’s production of Fully Committed, an innovative one-man play penned by former Cosby Show writer Becky Mode, is ultimately unsatisfying. I would say it was a bore, but even during the show’s lowest, slowest points Swan is interesting enough to hold our attention. Still, like a brilliant appetizer at some swank bistro where portions are small and presentation is everything, Mode’s surprisingly traditional farce (wherein slamming doors are replaced by ringing phones) will leave the playgoing Clara Pellers of the world crying out, “Where’s the beef?”

Fully Committed is not so much a play as it is a skit. It’s a cliché-ridden sketch comedy about Sam Peliczowski, an unemployed actor/overworked reservations clerk at an exclusive “world fusion” restaurant in NYC. The chef is a pompous European egomaniac; the maitre d’ is a snooty French snoot; the cook is a testy Latino; and the clientele, an assortment of jet-setters, socialites, name-droppers, supermodels, gangsters, and even a few genuine VIP’s who will do virtually anything to get a table. And in the midst of all the chaos is Sam. Good old reliable, plainspoken Midwestern Sam, who is greeted by almost every caller with the Kafka-like comment, “Oh, I didn’t know you were still working there.”

Will the chef allow poor beleaguered Sam to go visit his recently widowed father for Christmas (you may begin to play the wistful violins now)? Will Sam ever project enough self-confidence to get a callback for a role at Lincoln Center? Heck, will he ever even get his lunch? A Cheeto? Will supermodel Naomi Campbell be able to get a table for 15 under special halogen light bulbs (to better highlight her famous beauty) with a vegan tasting menu and an all-male wait- staff to serve her? These are the points of conflict in Fully Committed, but the real question is this: Did Christopher Swan make a conscious choice to do a bad Jimmy Stewart impersonation when playing his own father, and if so, why didn’t director Gene Katz have the presence of mind to say, “Hey, that Jimmy Stewart thing you are doing, it’s nice. It’s really, really, um, nice. Now stop it.”

Anyone who has ever worked in the food-service industry knows that it can be stressful and nerve-racking and that utter humiliation lurks around every corner. Customers will say and do awful things to the wait-staff, if only because they are in a position of power, and they can. At one point in Fully Committed, Sam is called on to do a job that is outside his normal job description. It seems that a woman with diarrhea didn’t quite make it to the toilet, leaving a disgusting trail of — well, you know what — all over the ladies’ room. Reluctantly, Sam agrees to clean up the mess. Later, the chef calls to offer giggling thanks, asking, “Do your hands smell like shit?” and offering, “I can’t believe I made you do that.” This kind of awful degradation could have been exactly the thing to give the featherweight Fully Committed a little gravitas. But ultimately it amounts to little more than a running (sorry for the pun) scatological gag.

If the director’s notes are to be believed, Gene Katz saw Fully Committed Off Broadway back in 1995. He immediately called POTS’ executive producer Jackie Nichols and asked him to consider it for Circuit. So, given Playhouse on the Square’s reputation for bringing the best of New York theater to Memphis ASAP, why the eight-year wait for Fully Committed? Could it be that somebody, somewhere, knew it was a less than stellar piece of writing? And would this technically simple one-man show have been done at all if Playhouse wasn’t undertaking a massive production of E.L. Doctorow’s epic Ragtime, which requires an army of actors/techies to pull off? Maybe, but I doubt it. And while Swan’s performance is beyond competent, verging on a tour de force, all the fine acting only underscores how flat a bad joke can fall. Before the Food Network came along, it might have been funny to make fun of a menu offering “jicama-smoked Scottish wood squab poached in a ginger broth and wrapped in wilted spinach,” but nowadays, it just sounds like dinner.

Categories
News

Perfect Timing

I have this knack for showing up in a place at just the right time. I don’t intend to do it; it just happens. It’s like each place decides to reveal itself in its purest form, lest I think I’m somewhere else. After all, if you showed up in New York City and everybody was greeting you cheerfully and asking about life in your hometown, would you really be having a New York experience?

Here’s how my first arrival in New York went: I came in by bus at about 2 a.m. You may think the Memphis bus station is an undesirable place at 2 a.m. — though as a man who’s seen many a bus station, I can tell you Memphis’ is on the better side of typical — but the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan has over 300 gates. The words that come to mind are cavern, labyrinth, catacomb, bunker . I am not exaggerating when I say that after I cleared the diesel exhaust fumes of the bus, the first smell I encountered in the Big Apple was that of urine. And the first person — no, the first several people — I encountered tried to rip me off.

My arrival in San Francisco was something else entirely. I was a fresh 22-year-old when I emerged from the old bus station on Market Street — and that, let me assure you, was a bad bus station — and out on the street I saw there was a parade going on. I love parades, so I went to check it out. The first float I saw was covered with men wearing leather G-strings and doing the bump-and-grind. I had arrived just in time for Gay Pride Day; the parade was led by a couple of hundred Harley-riding women calling themselves Dykes on Bikes.

At the far end of the sociopolitical spectrum, one Sunday morning found me driving into Charlotte, North Carolina, at about 8 a.m. The freeways were absolutely choked with cars. I thought to myself that North Carolina has a heck of a church crowd. But then I noticed a sticker on the side of a car with a big “3” on it. Holy Trinity? No, Dale Earnhardt. Turns out the swarms that day were not headed for salvation; they were going to a car race. Charlotte is the hub of NASCAR world, and I soon found myself at a rest area where the Earnhardt people and the Jeff Gordon people were making snide remarks about each other’s heroes. Imagine an I-55 rest area on the morning of the Ole Miss-Mississippi State football game, and you’ll get the idea.

Long before I ever went to Oregon, I had heard the same thing everybody else hears about it: “It rains all the time.” Well, it doesn’t quite, but naturally it was when I arrived. Now, considering it rains about 150 days a year, this doesn’t make me unique. But when I first got there people were kayaking on city streets. About two weeks before, there had been an ice storm that brought down trees and branches all over Portland. Then a day of nearly 100-mph winds had taken out whatever limbs had survived the ice, thus ensuring that no creek or drainage ditch would be flowing properly. Then came the dreaded “Pineapple Express,” a warm, wet front from Hawaii that brought more than a foot of rain in four days, with 50-degree temperatures in the high mountains which brought down about 10 feet of the snowpack.

So there was just a bit of water in the system as my friend Chip and I made our way up the coast from California. Every night we would check into a motel — in the pouring rain — and the lead story on the network news would be the flooding in Oregon. First it was creeks and rivers out of their banks, then it was coastal towns being cut off, then children were being swept away, then the kayaks came out. A major waterfall on the Willamette River (featured, by the way, in a terrible movie called The Hunted) was completely submerged. By the time we got there, six of Portland’s seven bridges over the Willamette were closed, and an army of volunteers had been forced to build a six-foot seawall in a downtown park to keep the river out. On the day we arrived — on that very day, of course — the Willamette crested. It was three inches from the top of the seawall.

Weather was a factor on my first arrival in Alaska too. I went up there to work in the fishing business, and when I arrived, right about this time of year, there were still chunks of ice floating around in the ocean. It was also my first union job, so naturally the union went on strike soon after.

First time I ever went to San Antonio? 113 degrees. First trip to New Orleans? Mardi Gras. First trip to Detroit? The annual “Devils Night” binge of arsons, since remade as the annual Angels Night of community activism.

I guess this is all the equivalent of arriving in Memphis for the first time and going straight to the candlelight vigil at Graceland. I can tell you this, though: It keeps me on edge as I approach new places. And I tell my friends that if they want something exciting or classic to happen in their hometown, just invite me over.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Going Metro

Willie Herenton is planning on taking the city schools to court over a referendum to see if the voters want — as he thinks they must — a joint school system.

Perhaps when we talk about school consolidation, we should really be talking about total consolidation. Says Herenton’s press secretary, Gale Jones Carson, “Education is such an emotional issue. … The mayor’s idea is to take on the hardest piece first … and then the consolidation of both governments will follow.”

A good thought, but so far it’s only created tension and a growing disbelief that consolidation will ever take place. The county school board is digging in its heels and the city school board — as members have said numerous times — really needs to focus on student achievement before it tries to tackle anything else.

When the county and city school boards met together last week, city school board commissioner Michael Hooks Jr. joked he couldn’t remember what the beef between the two systems was about and maybe they ought to get together. “We could hold our board meetings right here in this room,” he suggested.

Hooks, a pol who has always said he is for consolidation in theory, was met with some friendly laughter and then a very polite thank-you-but-not-in-this-lifetime from county school board member Ron Lollar.

Though it’s a linchpin of Herenton’s most recent offensive, a reorganized city and county school board would simply be an added bonus to a larger issue.

The city and county governments both employ roughly the same number of people: 6,700. A C Wharton makes $150,000 a year as mayor of Shelby County; Herenton makes about $10,000 less. The current interim chief administrative officer for the city makes $117,000 a year, while the county’s CAO makes almost $130,000. Mark Luttrell Jr. makes $107,000 as the county’s sheriff. The city’s new police chief, James Bolden Jr., makes $110,000.

It’s almost laughable when you consider the Memphis City Schools system employs 14,402, more than the city and county governments combined, and that Superintendent Johnnie B. Watson’s salary tops out at $200,000. The county school system only has one employee who makes more than $100,000: its superintendent.

Several members of the city council have come out in favor of a totally consolidated government in a “good-for-the-gander” argument. So maybe consolidation should start with the goose.

Russell Gwatney, one of Herenton’s advisers on the mayor’s earlier school reform plan, says that combining school systems is the only way both governments will ever consolidate.

“Take the sheriff’s responsibility as a policing agent. As the city of Memphis grows, you’ll see a shrinking service area of the county sheriff,” says Gwatney. “With a shrinking service area, you assume there will be a shrinking need. As the population shifts into Memphis or Collierville or Bartlett, the county has no place to go. Memphis has its own police department; Germantown has its own; Bartlett has its own. Ultimately we’re going to have to realize these things.”

The real triumph of consolidation, though, would be creating a new mindset. For years, Memphis has been the victim of a second-class-citizen complex. With the spate of governments, there’s a constant tug of war for tax dollars, combined with some serious geographic and racial biases. “If it stays ‘us’ and ‘them,'”says Gwatney, “we’re going to keep fighting that war. It’s got to become ‘we.'”

Shelby County trustee Bob Patterson was at last week’s joint meeting and said he was ready for consolidation whenever the voters were.

“Atlanta has more than one county and over one and a half million people,” said Patterson. “Our community includes eight cities and a county, and our perception is completely different. Mentally, they have the attitude that they’re Atlanta.”

Maybe we should all just work toward learning to be Memphis.n

Mary Cashiola is a staff writer for the Flyer who covers education.

Categories
News News Feature

TRANSLATION: MEMPHIS: Rethinking Memphis

I have a friend who almost refuses to come to Memphis. A former transplant/resident, she left here in a flurry, convinced that the city would do anything in its power to keep her here.

To vouch for her sanity it did seem to try.

Memphis, for her, came to be something akin to purgatory. She likened it to a living creature.

Memphis was a living organism, insidious in her mind, with its own personal will.

Well, gosh, you’re probably thinking, that’s awfully depressing.

But in actuality, I think it’s kind of interesting.

A large part of said former Memphian’s response to the city was based on her perception that an extreme focus on the past, on the formidable history of the River City, operated to the expense of the future. She just plain grew tired of Elvis, I suppose.

But though I’ve only been here a short three years, I can see that something is changing–something that might have kept a person like my friend from running off so quickly.

There is an undeniable momentum building in Memphis wherein the redefinition of the city is being actively, not passively, pursued.

Take this week’s Memphis Manifesto Summit, in which the “Creative 100” will work to develop a plan by which cities can attract and retain a creative class of young professionals. I find it hard to believe that this meeting would have been in Memphis even three years ago.

But now it seems appropriate. So what has changed?

For one thing, the amount of development going on here is staggering. Everywhere you look there seems to be something new, from the arena downtown to the homes popping up along the riverfront. Not to mention South Main, the Powerhouse, and a slew of other new additions to the socio-cultural landscape.

But I don’t think development explains it all.

What really seems to be changing at an ever-increasing rate is the general attitude of Memphians in terms of perceiving change as possible, and even good and necessary.

Though I’d hate to say it, perhaps our getting the Tyson fight helped us get over our smaller-city inferiority complex. Maybe it whispered the word possibility into our collective ear. And didn’t bite it off–imagine that!

OK, Tyson doesn’t deserve that much credit.

I think it might just be our own creative class, our own young workforce, themselves creating and implementing the vision for the city that will attract new talent and keep it rooted.

And how exciting is that? How urban and progressive?

Whatever the cause, Memphis surely is actively engaged in the process of creating its new identity–a contemporary identity based upon creativity, talent, and local pride.

And I don’t think that this will be to the expense of our rich and varied history.

It’s just time for a new chapter.

Who knows, maybe my friend will even come visit me sometime soon

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thursday, 1

Revisit that summer of 1972 and the epochal music film “Wattstax”as the Stax resurrection and official homecoming continues. 8 p.m. at the Orpheum, and there’ll be a concert add-on from some of the luminaries involved. (Yes, they can still boogie. Oh, can they!)