Month: August 2003

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

A Moving Target

Of all the facts that are taken for granted in this political and governmental year, none has been more uncontroverted publicly than the following, concerning the office of Sheriff Mark Luttrell, still in his first year as Shelby County’s chief constitutional law-enforcement officer:

As the scenario goes: The highly regarded Luttrell, formerly county corrections department supervisor, came into office after campaigning last year on a pledge of fiscal solvency, promising to eliminate the excess spending that had characterized the administration of his tarnished predecessor, A.C. Gilless. The new sheriff, who beat several opponents handily, then set about fulfilling his promise.

First, he eliminated more than 500 positions, most of them in a blatantly overstaffed jail, where nepotism and cronyism had long padded the payroll. The savings attributed to this amounted to $19 million.

Next, Luttrell found himself pushed to the wall by the requirements of a budgetary process he has characterized as “Draconian” and was forced to make a series of further reductions. These, after some serious bargaining with the administration of county mayor A C Wharton and the Shelby County Commission, finally came to some $8.5 million — cutting his departmental needs to the bone.

Luttrell had fended off even further and more damaging cuts by several means, including a public threat to sue Shelby County government, direct appeals in the media (including an op-ed in The Commercial Appeal), and telling appeals on his behalf, like those made by several sheriffs’ deputies to the Shelby County Commission on Monday.

All these approaches had their effect, and both the administration and the commission eventually signed off on an understanding, made public at the commission meeting, that Luttrell could avail himself of another $2 million during the course of the current fiscal year if he could make the case that he required it.

All in all, an impressive accomplishment for a persevering public official, and there is much in this accepted version of events that still rings true.

There is, however, another way to look at it — and one that stands all these circumstances, and the accepted interpretation of them, on their heads.

Commissioner Tom Moss couldn’t shake a doubt or two after Monday’s meeting — which concluded with Luttrell’s having been granted a budget in the neighborhood of $126,250,000 and that tacit understanding of another $2 million to come. “Where,” asked Moss, “did that $19 million go?”

His question was predicated on the following circumstance: That Luttrell’s requested budget of record for the current fiscal year was $134 million and that figure, minus his currently awarded budget of $126-and-a-quarter million, yielded a figure of $7-and-a-quarter million.

How did that square, Moss wondered, with the previously reported voluntary cuts of $19 million, which, when added to the $8.5 million in additional reductions required by the budgetary process, add up to more than $24 million? That’s a difference of $17 million.

In other words, if the reported cuts were to be subtracted from his requested budget, Luttrell’s budget for the current fiscal year would be expected to be in the neighborhood of $110 million — not $126 million.

As it turned out, Moss wasn’t the only commissioner puzzled by the discrepancy in the arithmetic, which depends on some highly creative accounting. It is the sort of calculation that Commissioner Bruce Thompson, at several points in the budget process, characterized (though not especially with reference to the sheriff’s department) as “moving target” bookkeeping.

Here are some of the particulars, as vouched for by the commission’s chief administrator and acknowledged budget maven, Grace Hutchinson.

™ The figure of $19 million in reported cuts in paid positions includes a number of positions that had been vacant for some time, as well as many that had never been filled. The actual fiscal reduction in jobs actually held by real functioning employees? Perhaps as low as $4 million.

™ Further, last year’s baseline figure of $138 million against which the current budget is measured is not the true yardstick, because it includes an add-on figure of some $13 million in additional ad hoc appropriations granted to Luttrell during the course of the year. Without that, Luttrell’s budget for the coming year would be the same as that enjoyed by his “spendthrift” predecessor.

™ Moreover, the case can be made that the legitimate cuts made by Luttrell — and these are quite real, consisting in the main of jail positions — when added to and/or subtracted from the actual budgetary figures from the relevant years, leave him in possession of some $7 million more this year than he enjoyed last year.

That figure is arrived at by taking his face-value budget of fiscal 2002-03, with its additions, which is $138 million, then subtracting the face-value $19 million in claimed cuts, which leaves $119 million, and then comparing that figure to the actual allocated spending-money budget of $126,250,000, which the sheriff’s department will have at its disposal this year. That’s an apparent gain of $7 million. Confused? So has almost everybody been during the course of the current budget year. It’s just that Luttrell has been such a success in his public relations that few critics have taken a long, hard look at his numbers. Stay tuned. We’ll probably revisit this subject.™

In Passing

The calendar of late has included an usual number of deaths of prominent public figures, with a conspicuous overlapping of mourners.

There was the death of Memphis school board member Lee Brown, whose quiet and conscientious mien had impressed all members and all factions of an often fractious board. Although Brown, who doubled as a minister, had attempted to downplay his illness, he had been suffering from the effects of cancer for more than a year.

There was the passing, reported last week, of 80-year-old music legend Sam Phillips, the “godfather of rock-and-roll,” whose public and political concerns had always been more extensive than were generally realized. Phillips lay in state at Memorial Park Funeral Home last Wednesday, attracting an unending line of people, ranging from his faceless fellow citizens to the famous, who paid their respects from 3:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. A “celebration” the next day at the Cannon Performing Arts Center downtown crowned the observance.

There was the death of longtime Memphis political eminence Bill Farris, who himself had almost reached the age of 80. Hundreds of visitors would pay their respects at the Farris home on Sweetbrier on Friday and attend the funeral on Saturday at Eudora Baptist Church. Among them were Governor Phil Bredesen and former Governor Ned McWherter and countless eminences from the political and governmental worlds, including all factions and parties. (Symbolizing this was the participation in the funeral rites of Republican Brent Taylor and Democrat John Ford, both principals of funeral homes and both friends of the deceased.)

Two Memphians, entrepreneur Charlie Burch and Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, recalled in their visits to the Farris home on Friday separate occasions on which they had sat in a back room at Farris’ and knocked back a cocktail with — the aforesaid Sam Phillips.

Finally, there was the death just this week of Oscar Mason, a longtime local Republican activist who had been instrumental — even of late, when his health was visibly failing — in attempting to broaden the appeal and outreach of his party to his fellow African Americans.

It is often said after the death of someone prominent that we are the less for their passing. After last week, we are much the less. But much the greater too for the public legacies and contributions of the deceased. ™

The Whole Truth? (Not Really)

The following exchange, lifted directly from a videotape of the event, occurred last week during an attempted interview of MLGW officials by Bill Lunn, a reporter for WMC-TV, Action News 5. Lunn had for two or three minutes been questioning MLGW CEO Herman Morris in Morris’ office about details of the utility’s ongoing cleanup after last month’s windstorm, then attempted to move on to another matter — the still hazy one of why MLGW turned away offers of help from Mississippi-based Entergy, Inc.

Before Morris could answer, MLGW public relations officer Mark Heuberger, who had arranged the interview, interrupted: “I let you into his private office and you’re bringing up this crap!”

“Well, these are legitimate questions,” Lunn responded.

Heuberger then said, “Well, we’re not gonna — you know,” and signaled that the interview was at an end.

Lunn said that, up until that point, Morris had attempted faithfully to answer without evasion all questions put — unless one counts the following answer to a pointed question of Lunn’s about points raised in the Flyer‘s coverage of the post-storm aftermath:

“I don’t read the Flyer,” Morris maintained.

Lunn said he was dubious about the authenticity of that answer. ™

Categories
Music Music Features

Sound Advice

You’ve heard of “new Dylans,” right? Well, back in

post-Born in the USA 1986, John

Eddie was a “new Springsteen.” A New Jersey-based

bar rocker who was frequently joined onstage by the Boss himself, Eddie was a

well-hyped signee to Columbia Records, his only quasi-successful eponymous

debut apparently consigning him to the state of next big thing that wasn’t. But,

nearly 15 years after his last record, Eddie is on the comeback trail with a fine new

album on roots label Lost Highway, appropriately titled

Who the Hell is John Eddie?

Recorded locally at Ardent Studios with Jim Dickinson at the helm and

a passel of local luminaries sitting in, the record finds Eddie dropping

the Springsteen bent and settling for “Rodney Crowell with a broader

sense of humor,” and it works. Rowdy rockers with titles such as “Low Life”

and “Shithole Bar” convey the mood. But

the highlight is “Forty,” which contains

the following inspirational verse: “I guess

I’m fucking 40/That’s what my mamma said/But Bruce Springsteen’s fucking

53/And the Stones are almost dead.”

Eddie will perform locally this week on Friday, August 15th, on The

Peabody rooftop as part of 107.5-FM The Pig’s “World Class Concert Series.”

Showtime is 8:30 p.m., and the only way to get

tickets is to register online at RadioPig.com.

Elsewhere, there are a couple of promising shows at the Young Avenue Deli

this week: On Thursday, August 14th, Chicago’s We

Ragazzi, whose late-2002 release The Ache

is one of the most durable and interesting indie-rock

records I’ve heard this year, will join The Mercury

Program and Color Cast. Then, on Saturday, August 16th, the Deli

will host a benefit show for their Cooper-Young neighbor, the Memphis

Digital Arts Cooperative, whose second annual film festival is scheduled for early

September. The MeDiA Co-op has reportedly lost some funding sources for

the festival in the aftermath of last month’s windstorm damage, and they could

use the support. The Gabe & Amy Show,

Dan Montgomery, and Lucero frontman Ben

Nichols are scheduled to perform.

— Chris Herrington

Does anybody really need a reminder as to why they should be

calling Ticketmaster and ordering up their tickets to see

Mavis Staples at The Orpheum on Monday, August 18th,

and Tuesday, August 19th? Because in the ’60s, legendary Stax artists the

Staple Singers fused glorious sacred music with groovy secular music to create one of

the most distinctive sounds in the history of modern pop. With hits like

“Respect Yourself,” “We’ll Get Over,” and

the “sha-na-boom-boom” song, “Heavy Makes You Happy,” the Staple

Singers’ repertoire became the soundtrack for social protest in the ’60s and ’70s. At

the center of it all was Mavis Staples, whose unmistakable voice can melt butter

and peel the paint off the walls. Mavis’ first solo record was produced by the

Artist once again known as Prince, and she’s recently cut the rarest of duets with

none other than Bob Dylan. Staples hits Memphis on tour with

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, which, while weird,

is a good thing. Oh sure, Petty has cranked out his share of cheese in

the past 10 years, but “Refugee” still

rocks and you know you haven’t been able to get “Don’t Come Around Here

No More” out of your head since you saw that creepy video in the ’80s.

Now I know it’s not really prom season, but still if you’re a fella you

might want to consider busting out your powder-blue tuxedo with the ruffled shirt

and the flared pants. Ladies, I recommend a formal gown of burgundy with a big

bow right across the bum. And a tiara. Gotta have a tiara. If you can afford to rent

a limo do it, otherwise hire somebody to drive your old Pinto around for you

so you and your date can sit over the gas tank and neck. Because as far as the

Memphis rock-and-roll scene is concerned, Saturday, August 16th, is prom night and

the Hi-Tone Café is the high-school gym,

all done up in streamers and balloons. This special prom-night event is brought

to you in part by some of the good people in

Automusik (thanks, Rock Unit #2!) and features music by electro-rockers

The Pelicans, one of the more interesting bands to crop up on the scene in

the last couple of years. Also appearing: The Mutant Space Bats of

Doom. Now, we don’t know much about the Space Bats, who are new on the

scene, but with a name like that they’ve got to be more fun than a bowl of spiked

sherbet punch. — Chris Davis

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

The Body in Question

Much of culture consists of fictions that endow natural processes with symbolic importance,” writes Michael Sims in the introduction to his fascinating and very fun new work of nonfiction, Adam’s Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form (Viking). Then he goes on to observe: “There is no better example than our reaction to the talents and limitations of what we have variously called a machine for living, the temple of the soul, and our mortal coil — the human body. Every part and function of the body plays its symbolic role.”

With that in mind, take then the penis’ prepuce (aka foreskin) and that spectacular piece of fiction rich in symbolism and known to the Dark Ages as the Holy Prepuce — the centerpiece of the Christ child’s circumcision, the key moment in the redemption of humanity (“when the incarnated god first suffered human pain,” in Sims’ words, according to Thomas Aquinas), and an object of veneration throughout Christendom. Churches sought it or a smidgen of it as a miracle-worker. The court of Charlemagne stored it in a purse, thus inaugurating a fashion accessory. Agnes of Blannbekin envisioned eating it at Communion. And Catherine of Siena thought the “matrimonial” ring on her finger was a metamorphosed version of it. But beware phony foreskins. Specimens of the Divine Prepuce were in such supply to answer such demand that quality control required connoisseurs to judge it for authenticity. As David M. Friedman put it in his history of the penis, A Mind of Its Own (and as Sims quotes him in Adam’s Navel), “The most common of these tests was a taste test” (emphasis Friedman’s and let’s leave it at that).

Moving up a notch anatomically and a notch nominally but equally stomach-turningly, consider the focus of Sims’ title and the locus of the University of Sydney’s Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki’s fact-finding research into the navel — more precisely, the navel’s contents: lint. Thanks to this dedicated physicist and the contributions of some 5,000 volunteers, we now know that one-third of those surveyed said that their navel lint was a particular color (blue the commonest) and that the hairier the gut, the fluffier the belly button. However, as Sims notes, “[T]he navel-lint project may [emphasis the author’s] harvest unforeseen benefits, but scientists are not waiting with baited breath.” (Unlike editors at a magazine called The Annals of Improbable Research, who awarded Kruszelnicki an IgNobel Prize in 2002.)

And so it goes throughout Adam’s Navel, starting from Homo sapiens‘ hairy noggin to his/her hard-working big toe. Sims digs down deep into trusty sources (Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species; a scientific paper titled “The thermoregulatory advantages of hominid bipedalism in open equatorial environments”) and spans the globe digging up less than reliable commentators (Pliny the Elder writing in the first century C.E.; Yvonne (Mrs. Moses) De Carlo camping it up big-time in Cecil B. DeMille’s camp classic, The Ten Commandments), but the author’s interest here is skin-deep and that’s okay by him. His mission: a cross-cultural look at the naked ape as visible to the naked eye throughout history, art history, mythology, religion, and science and never mind any innards. Meaning: There’s weirdness enough simply on the surface of things and that goes for your hair, eyes, eyebrows, ears, earwax, nose, lips, tongue, arms, hands, fingers, breasts, genitals, butt, legs, feet, and toes big and small.

Consider: By the end of the fifth month, the unborn fetus is completely covered in hair. Baby laps it up the last few weeks of pregnancy. Mix in some mucus, bile, and “other substances,” and there you have it: your first bowel movement and everybody gets a good look at it.

Or: The skin of the hand can be removed like a glove, so you too can have an unidentified cadaver on your hands — literally. Simply don the removed skin, ink the deceased’s fingertips. Fingerprints last a good long while, as excellent an I.D. as ever there was one, barring bones, teeth, and everything else gone to mush.

Or: Our relative the gorilla’s knees can’t lock, so its upright stance looks … well, it looks “like Groucho Marx standing at attention.”

Or: the word “preposterous”: It derives from the Latin, meaning literally “ass-backward.” Or: the word “fascinating”: It derives from the Latin as well, fascinare: “to bewitch.” From fascinum, from Fascinus, a lesser deity in charge of sorcery; his symbol: (again) the penis! The word “impudent”: related to the name of the middle finger in Medieval Latin: impudicus: referring to “the finger’s possible role in insults” or to “its useful length in exploring the female genitals — a theory that assumes that, like impudent, impudicus derives from pudendum.” You make the call.

Or: that dingbat: ž. It comes not from the heart but from the buttocks, from cleft to curves. Maybe. (This news in the same chapter where Sims lifts lyrics from Alejandro Escovedo’s love song “Castanets”: “I like her better when she walks away.”)

Or: Frida Kahlo, a really late bloomer, according to Ovid and Petronius, who both refer to women’s fake eyebrows made of fur, a real class statement for the upper-crust of Greece and Rome cursed with two distinct brows.

Then consider the words of Oscar Wilde: “The great mystery of the world is not the invisible but the visible.”

Then consider the words of Michael Sims, former editor, former bookseller, former rare-books librarian, author of Darwin’s Orchestra: An Almanac of Nature in History and the Arts, contributor to the Nashville Scene and other alternative weeklies, and speaking by phone from Nashville, where he lives, fresh off a sinus infection, worsened by a national book tour but bettered by the unexpected attention being paid to Adam’s Navel:

“I’ve been reading around this topic for 20 years, easily: the intersection of cultural and natural history. But for this book I spent two full years doing nothing but researching and writing full-time. I started using all kinds of stuff I’d stumbled across and filed in the brain here and there. That was the ‘guideline,’ but the book did involve a lot of condensing. I’ll do endless jumbles of notes, sift through them, then go to another set of notes and sift through it, go back, see how things connect, what really connects, what ‘story’ there is that I can’t resist.”

Which has got to refer to the subject of sex, and Sims doesn’t deny it.

“I may have worked the hardest, and at first been the most afraid of, those sections of Adam’s Navel that are ‘radioactive’ culturally. I read a lot about the evolution of sexuality and nurturing and motherhood, but I hadn’t written much in that ‘corner.’ So I was a little worried about approaching the genitals and the breasts. And yet the Sunday Times of London specifically mentioned that those were their favorite chapters!”

And the titled object of interest?

“Reading around, I thought, No, I have absolutely nothing to say about the navel. Even it was too trivial for me. Then I ran across Karl Kruszelnicki, and I knew this was just too good to pass up. The same with earwax. I did consider slipping in a fictional article or something. But at no point did I want to undermine my credibility. This is a topic on which you don’t have to make up anything. People already have been for 10,000 years.”

Michael Sims reading from and signing

Adam’s Navel

Off Square Books, Oxford

Monday, August 18th,

5 p.m.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Questionable

It’s been a decade since the final curtain fell, but I’ll never forget the production of Charles Busch’s Vampire Lesbians of Sodom staged by a small, short-lived union of artists called Nice Boys From Good Families, under the direction of Brian Mott. It was produced at the then un-air-conditioned Marshall Arts Gallery in the middle of August. The unrelenting humidity made the show a steam bath, the capacity crowd, packed in like cord wood, and the blazing stage lights only made things worse. Anyone interested in seeing the show’s stars, Kevin Jones and Ann Marie Hall, in a state of undress only had to pass by the gallery’s garage doors, which were up, allowing the actors to get a little fresh, if still stifling, air between quick changes. Miserable doesn’t begin to describe the conditions under which this determined troupe of actors was working. And if the hellish location didn’t clue observers into the inspired poverty that brought VLOS into being, the set, a nickel-and-dime affair amounting to little more than some lushly painted backdrops hung like shower curtains on a bare stage, drove the point home in no uncertain terms.

But the capacity crowds came night after putrid night. And in the middle of a miserable August, they laughed until tears of joy mingled with the torrents of sweat pouring down their faces. It was, as DIY performance goes, an object of near perfection. I rhapsodize about these bygones for one reason only: Mott, who was once able to release the full force of Busch’s campy brilliance against nearly impossible odds, has not been able to repeat the magic working under the aegis of Memphis’ only professional theater, Playhouse on the Square. This past Friday night the wonderfully climate-controlled Circuit Playhouse was nearly empty, and laughs were few and far between. And while some of the blame may rest with questionable choices made by Mott and his actors, I suspect the working conditions made all the difference. Vampire Lesbians of Sodom was produced by a passionate group trying to make the absolute most they could out of nothing. The Lady in Question looks like a show that was schlocked together by professional corner-cutters looking to fabricate a relatively complex set as cheaply as possible. Any failings of the cast (and there are a few) are dwarfed by a looming, less than versatile, overwhelmingly tan set that might as well have Waiting for Guffman stenciled on it in big red letters.

Architect and designer Michael Walker seldom misses. In fact, he’s responsible for the most stunning designs to ever appear on a Memphis stage. (Far East, anyone?) But even conceptually, the design for The Lady in Question fails. The immovable unit set, a dollhouse recreation of a German manorhouse, can’t service a play that needs to move seamlessly and cinematically from a Bavarian train station to a manor to some creepy catacombs to the Swiss Alps. The serviceable but uninspired lighting design does nothing to aid with clunky awkward transitions or to define changes in location. The unbearably tan monstrosity neither provides an appropriate counterpoint for Busch’s colorful characters nor does it reflect the silver and black grandeur of the classic movies The Lady in Question so meticulously mimics. Its bland seriousness, unreflective of the play’s sources and style, casts a pall over the audience and obscures the frothy confection that is The Lady in Question. Given Walker’s track record, something must have gone terribly wrong.

The Lady in Question apes the Nazi-laden backlot thrillers of the 1940s so closely that, at first, it’s hard to know if you are watching a spoof of an old movie or just an old movie adapted to the stage. It tells the story of Gertrude Garnet, a onetime honky-tonk queen turned classical diva, on tour in Europe during the onset of WWII. The self-interested Garnet is, against both her will and her nature, drawn into a plot to free an American hostage from a Nazi prison. In the original production, Charles Busch put on the drag to play Garnet, and while it is not specifically a drag role, this no doubt helped the audience leap into parody mode. At Circuit, with the inestimably talented Mary Buchignani, a bona fide female, as Garnet, the spell takes longer to cast. And in this kind of comedy, time is of the essence.

Buchignani is a known commodity as a comic and character actress. Seldom does she get to play the glamour girl, however, and you have to wonder if the actress is totally comfortable wearing the feathers and furs. Often she seems to be acting in quotation marks — “can’t you see how grand I am?”– and not in a way that speaks to the character’s undeniable pretensions. She has no idea how truly fab she is, and in this role that’s a fatal flaw. Another known commodity, Jo Lynne Palmer, does some of her best work here and some of her worst. Sure, her accent drifts from Bavaria to Transylvania to Jackson, Mississippi, all in the span of a diphthong, but as both a stern German battle-ax and a flaky American actress, she hits all the right notes. Alas, Palmer has been given the show’s slapstick moments, and within the great all-encompassing tanness of it all, the slapstick stands out as forced and uncomfortable. Cort Winsett has all the rakish charm and angular mannishness to make him the ideal noir hero, and in a sexually deviant role partially inspired by the film The Bad Seed, Carol Wolder is both hysterical and terrifying.

Mott and Co. play the whimsical Lady in Question straight. Good for them. But there’s a fine line between straight and bland, and in this case, the set has made all the difference. n

Through August 31st.

Categories
News

Meeting Mandy

The local homeless were just taking up their positions when my friend dropped me at the Rochester bus station. It was before dawn and I needed coffee, but the only stuff available was out of a machine. So I had a nice cup of “1-A-3” (dark, no cream or sugar) and hid my face in a book.

We went through Syracuse and Albany, brick-and-smokestack cities that made me think of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. But the snow had a glistening crust on top, and it looked like we were traveling across a big birthday cake with candles and white icing. The sun was just coming up, but nobody on the bus was talking.

North of Albany, the country started to open up and get hillier, and the scenery changed to the kind of rolling, haystack farms you see in old French paintings. I started getting excited. I was headed for Mandy’s mountain hideaway! Mandy was a friend of a friend back home, and in those days I was the kind of traveler who jumped at statements like, “Dude, if you’re going to New York, you should visit my friend Mandy. She’s got a cabin in the Adirondacks.”

We went through Saratoga, famous for its springs. I saw the Lincoln Baths building and the Saratoga Spa Park. I saw people cross-country skiing through the woods along the road and all over golf courses. Then we started uphill, and the woods got deeper and closer to the road. The Adirondacks were beginning to rise to our left, and when the view opened to the right, I could see mountains that I knew from checking the map were in Vermont. Vermont! I sure was a long way from Tennessee. A sign said this was voted “America’s Most Scenic Highway” in 1966 and 1967.

I was sitting at the station in Plattsburgh when Mandy came in — “wild and woodsy,” just as described to me. She was short and stocky — not fat at all but thick and muscular, obviously a person accustomed to working and walking — and she was wearing unlaced duck boots, thermals visible through torn jeans, a down vest over a long-sleeved plaid shirt, and one of those caps with the earflaps. She stuck out a wool-gloved hand for a firm shake, and a moment later we were on the road to her cabin. Two souls of the road had found each other.

That was at about 7:30 p.m., and a conversation had begun that would last until past 2 o’clock in the morning. She said it had been 26 below zero the previous night at her place. She told me her land had been in her family for three generations. “Before that it was out of the family for three years, but before that it was in the family too.” Her 160-year-old cabin, the original pioneer building on the property, had been expanded “about 100 years back.”

I asked Mandy what she did for a living, and over the next 48 hours or so occupations would pop out of her mouth like clowns from a circus car. Among them — and these are just the ones I can remember — were river guide, back-country cook, gourmet chef at a private camp, horseshoer, registered nurse, taxidermist, writer, musician, candy maker, and BTI technician. That last one describes a treatment used against black flies, which are murderous in the north woods in June and July.

Finally, we pulled onto a small road, drove past a couple of houses in the dimly lit woods, then turned left onto a plowed road that was just exactly wide enough for her truck. I could make out the side of a cabin in the glow of the headlights.

A Malamute named Jack hopped on the end of a chain and put his paws all over me. A yellow Lab named Reggae, age 11, was much mellower but clearly glad to see mom come back. We entered a neat kitchen with a table hidden by a pile of stuff, then a cozy room with a woodstove, a stereo, a mattress to sit on, pictures all over the walls, and bookshelves. The books were mostly travel — Ireland, Alaska, the Adirondacks, Oregon — and religion/philosophy/spirituality of the Eastern variety. Mandy’s answering machine message went, “You have reached Mandy and the Adirondack Renaissance Amazon Women’s Preserve.”

During that night, we had a conversation — kept warm by the stove, cool by the beer, and mellow and rambling by the pipe — about life in the mountains, working and wandering in Alaska, not having a TV set, traveling so long you forget where you are, listening to John Prine, following the Grateful Dead, looking for spiritual meaning in life, the problems of “owning stuff,” third-time-around dÇjÖ vu, and a couple dozen other topics that completely got away from me by the next morning.

After the last candle was blown out and as I drifted off to sleep, we were still talking from neighboring rooms. I finally thought to look out at the stars. There was no moon, no electric light, no clouds, and the cold country air was perfectly clear. The Big Dipper looked like you could reach out and grab it. I saw stars that I hadn’t seen since summer camp, when we used to lie in our sleeping bags and stay up all night watching for shooting stars and satellites. Mandy said that every couple of weeks she saw the Northern Lights, and sometimes they filled the whole sky. I felt the High Mountain Magic, and through the frosted window, Orion wished us good night.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Open Boat

My friend is sick with cancer, and he may not survive. What am I to make of this?

I don’t believe his sickness is part of some god’s plan. I don’t believe it is his destiny. I don’t believe he did something to deserve it. He is an extraordinarily nice, humble, considerate man. He has wonderful grown children and a terrific wife. He takes care of himself, is extraordinarily fit, doesn’t drink or smoke, and eats a vegetarian diet. For him to get stomach cancer makes no sense. It’s just plain bad luck.

My friend doesn’t want visitors or phone calls while he’s sick. I understand that. He has work to do — the work of getting well — and he doesn’t need distractions from that work. He is also a proud man; it probably embarrasses him to be sick in front of other people.

I once knew a man who had broken his neck in a diving accident. He had no use of his legs and very limited use of his arms. Despite this, from his wheelchair, he was a successful university professor. I admired this man, but my more permanent response to him was this: Ever since I met him, every time I find myself carrying five grocery bags at once, two in my arms, two gripped in my fingers, another under my armpit, I immediately think of my friend in the wheelchair and remember how extraordinary and pleasant it is for a human being to be able to carry five grocery bags at once. Likewise, a few years back, a colleague of mine came down with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Gradually, over two years, he lost his ability to talk or walk or pick up his 3-year-old son. A delightful man, my colleague had been a fine golfer in his health. Every time I play golf now, I think of my friend with ALS and feel how extraordinarily lucky I am to be able to walk a golf course.

My friends’ sicknesses have, perversely, heightened the pleasure I take in my own health. This seems a horribly selfish reaction, but I can’t help it. Some people would say that that should be a consolation to those who are sick, that it gives their sickness some meaning: Their plight has increased others’ pleasure and appreciation of life’s joys.

I had another friend die, unexpectedly, a few years ago. My reaction to his death was simply to realize, a bit more vividly, that the trapdoor could open under any of us at any time, so we’d better concentrate a little harder on the living part of being alive.

I suppose having friends get sick from heart disease or cancer or ALS should spur me to give money to research in those diseases. But every disease has its victims, and I try to give money to research into lots of diseases. I don’t choose which ones based on whether they hit close to my own home.

I remember Stephen Crane’s famous short story “The Open Boat.” In it, a group of men are in a lifeboat, their ship having sunk. They’re trying to row to shore in a storm. Some are strong, some are weak, some are competent, some are incompetent. Some make it and live. Some drown. Nature, says Crane, doesn’t really give a damn about human beings. It’s all a crapshoot.

Once, when I was unhappy over something, I complained to a philosopher I know that I hadn’t done anything to deserve that unhappiness. He looked at me over his beer and snorted, “You think only bad people get hit by trucks?”

Okay, so good people get hit by trucks too. And by cancer. I can live with that. Yes, I’m happy and sad to say, I can live with that.

Ed Weathers, a former editor of Memphis magazine, writes a weekly column for the Flyer Web site, MemphisFlyer.com.

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News The Fly-By

(FRIENDS &) FAMILY AFFAIR

Family and Friends Magazine has always made the Fly smile. No doubt numerous members of the uptight set, certain that sodomy, and sodomy alone, is to blame for all our nation s woes, have picked up this free zine, fooled by the wholesome-sounding name, only to discover that F&FM is the Mid- South s premier publication for the gay, lesbian, and transgendered community.

The July issue was particularly eye-catching considering the bold-faced cover blurb reading, Al Gore exclaims, I m gay, damnit! as he leaves town with male lover. Alas, that delicious headline was just a spoof of supermarket tabloids. There was, however, was a curious profile titled Meet Your Neigbor about an androgynous person named Rob who looks like Elvis circa 1976, loves barbecue, claims to be a lesbian and who came down all the way from Detroit to enjoy Memphis Gay Pride Parade. Rob s favorite animal? None, (s)he answered, I hate animals. Rob s partnership status? Courtin , naturally. But when F&FM asked Rob to name her/his favorite thing about Memphis, things got a little weird. My Pooh, (s)he answered. While we ve heard that the water in Memphis can be therapeutic, let s hope Rob was talking about a little yellow bear named Winnie.

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We Recommend We Recommend

thursday, 14

First off, my money is on Gary Coleman for governor of California. My real hope is that someone with the last name of Willis emerges as a major opposing candidate, so that every time they debate and the opponent asks Coleman a question he can say, Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis? Now. Lest I be accused of plagiarism, let me say right off the bat that what follows is not original. It’s too hot outside to be original this week. This is something that made the e-mail rounds a couple of years ago, but in light of Pat Robertson’s new Operation Supreme Court Freedom — why does everything in the country have to be an operation ? and if Robertson is going to have an operation, why can’t it be a lobotomy or, better yet, a sex change, which he probably secretly wants? — and George W. Bush’s immediate We are all sinners response in regard to the threat of same-sex marriages and for those of you who are not on the e-mail chain, I thought it might be worth bringing this one up again. It was an open letter to radio haint Dr. Laura Schlessinger, in response to her remark that, according to Leviticus 18:22, homosexuality is an abomination and cannot be condoned under any circumstances. Here’s a letter to her written by someone who felt the need to point out a few other sins. The writer thanks Dr. Laura for making it clear that being gay is an abomination but has a few other questions, and here’s a version of them with some side notes by yours truly. 1) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is, my neighbors constantly complain that it is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them or try to find other ways to please Him so they’ll stop calling the police on me? 2) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as is sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. What would you guess the going rate for her is in this bad economy? 3) Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves as long as I purchase them from neighboring countries. I’m at my wit’s end trying to decide between Canadians and Mexicans. Does this also include Puerto Ricans? Can I have slaves from all three? 4) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, and, if so, can I just burn him with the next bull I set on fire? 5) A friend of mine says that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser one than homosexuality. I don’t see the difference. Did Leviticus leave any detailed notes about this? I really hate to give up

the oysters at Anderton’s. 6) Leviticus 21:20 states that I cannot approach the altar of

God if I have a defect in my vision. I have to admit that I wear glasses. Is that going to

make me go to hell or can I sneak through with contact lenses? 7) I know from Leviticus 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean. Does that mean no more Memphis in May Barbecue Fest and can I still play football if I wear gloves? And last but not least, 8) My uncle has a farm. He violates Leviticus 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does my aunt by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (she loves a cotton/polyester blend that doesn’t wrinkle too badly). Do we really have to get the whole town to stone them (Lev. 24:10-16) or couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family party like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws (Lev. 20:14)? And there you have it. Just some food for thought. In the meantime, here’s a brief — and very brief, because I have a plane to catch in a minute (next week’s column will be from an Internet cafe in Ireland and probably will be written in Guinness-speak) — look at some of what’s going on around town this week. Tonight’s Live at the Garden Summer Series concert at Memphis Botanic Garden is Mardi Grass in the Garden, featuring Marcia Ball and The Wild Magnolias. The Memphis Redbirds play Las Vegas at AutoZone Park. There’s live jazz at Le Petit Bistro (sitting outside on the balcony there with a bottle of wine is quite heavenly). And Dan Montgomery and Holly Cole are at Otherlands Coffee Bar.

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News

FEDEX’S SMITH BUYS INTO WASHINGTON REDSKINS

FedEx founder and chairman Frederick W. Smith and two others have bought approximately 20 percent of the Washington Redskins, the Washington Post has reported.

Redskins owner Daniel Snyder is selling a minority interest in the team for approximately $200 million, the newspaper reported. The other minority owners are Virginia real estate executive Dwight Schar and Florida insurance executive Robert Rothman.

Smith and Billy Dunavant led Memphis’ unsuccessful drive to secure an NFL expansion franchise ten years ago. Following that he owned the city’s Canadian Football League team, the Memphis Mad Dogs.

The Redskins renamed their stadium FedEx Field in 1999 as part of a 27-year, $205 million deal.

Smith and Redskins vice president Pepper Rodgers have been close friends for several years. Rodgers moved from Memphis to Washington D.C. and helped the team land head coach Steve Spurrier.

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wednesday, 13

Redbirds vs. Las Vegas at AutoZone Park, 7:05 p.m.