Month: August 2003

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Music Music Features

Good Girls Gone Bad

The Dixie Chicks didn’t become interesting artists on March 10th, when lead singer Natalie Maines decided to take on President Bush. Somehow both more traditional and more liberal than their mainstream country colleagues, the band’s megastardom is fascinating because of the way it sweeps up and speaks for a whole new audience — a generation of Sunbelt suburban cowgirls who prize their independence and don’t have much connection to the world of Tammy Wynette or Loretta Lynn. So the Dixie Chicks were a rich and compelling pop phenomenon long before Maines got the band in hot water.

But the Dixie Chicks didn’t become the culture heroes of the year in that moment either; Maines’ comment was glib, juvenile, and pandered to an audience primed to applaud just such a sentiment. Rather, the band found its voice and, unlikely as it seems, became heroic, in the aftermath of Maines’ off-hand rejection. They became heroic for knowing what to apologize for and what not to apologize for. They became heroic for their stubborn refusal to be bullied into a public mea culpa by Diane Sawyer and ABC. Most of all, the Dixie Chicks became heroic as a very public dramatization of embattled citizenship, their spat with Toby “boot in your ass” Keith (whose latest hit, “Beer for My Horses,” is an endorsement of vigilantism) presenting a clear choice between two visions of what it means to be a responsible citizen in this America — and giving a glimpse as to the consequences of the choice.

The Dixie Chicks were banned from most country radio stations in the immediate aftermath of Maines’ remarks this spring and widely denounced by the Nashville establishment and right-wing talking heads. But subsequent months have proven that Nashville needs this band a lot more than the band needs Nashville and that America, despite the current administration’s best efforts, is still a better country than that. And so, last Saturday night at The Pyramid, the Dixie Chicks took a victory lap before a sellout crowd eager to embrace them all over again.

Opener Michelle Branch out of the way, the band warmed up the crowd with an unapologetically defiant mix of pre-concert music — including “Our Lips Are Sealed”; “Band on the Run”; and, most perceptively, given their sudden, violent rebuke by the country-music industry, Lynn’s “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad.”

When this set ended with “Born in the USA,” the house lights all came on and 19,000-plus went nuts. My first instinct was “still misunderstood after all these years,” and maybe so, but it also felt like an honest affirmation, a feeling bolstered during the opening “Goodbye Earl” when one young woman waved an American flag at Chick Emily Robison, not to taunt but to exult.

The warm-up music wasn’t the only acknowledgement of the elephant in the room. Some songs were unmistakably topical — the utterly decent and apolitical wartime lament “Travelin’ Soldier” (where much of the crowd sang along with the last verse) and “Truth No. 2” (which begins, “You don’t like the sound of the truth/Coming from my mouth”); other songs became unintentional anthems, Maines, wearing a “Dare to Be Free” T-shirt, making sure the audience could hear the dual meaning in otherwise unconnected lyrics.

Prefacing “Truth No. 2,” which came with a companion video celebrating political protest and dissent, Maines made one of her few direct comments on “the Incident,” as she called it, encouraging her audience to visit the Rock the Vote registration booth outside, because “voting is a wonderful way to express your opinion.” She might not approve of the result: My guess is that most of the crowd Saturday night, if they voted at all, voted Bush and will likely do so again.

But by showing up and cheering along all night, this crowd wasn’t affirming Maines’ position on the president or his war. They were affirming something more important and more precious: The band’s vision of citizenship itself. This wasn’t the case of outspoken leftists — Sleater-Kinney or the Mekons — preaching to the choir. This is a country-pop band that has sold 30 million records. These are ordinary people asking ordinary questions — of their government, of their fans, of themselves — and taking the considerable risk of asking their vast, ordinary audience to come along for a ride that could end up anywhere. That the crowd gladly climbed aboard Saturday night (“They said people in the South might not come to see our show,” Maines said from the stage) made the concert feel like the 4th of July.

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News The Fly-By

Drafting the General

A group of about 100 people gathered recently on a Monday night in Little Rock to eat chips and dip and discuss their shared passion — General Wesley K. Clark. The bottom line among the group: They want him as their next president.

Little Rock is the place the former allied commander for NATO calls home. Clark was born in Chicago but grew up in Little Rock and returned in 2000 after a storied military career. This city, which watched Bill Clinton rise to global prominence, has recently become ground zero for the nationwide effort to recruit Clark for a White House run. Other “Draft Clark” groups throughout the country existed before this Arkansas group, but this is the one that matters the most now.

Jeff Dailey, the son of Little Rock’s mayor and a former Clinton staffer, created “Arkansans for Clark,” an online petition for Clark supporters. That group is working in tandem with the Draft Clark 2004 movement, which is now in 42 states with more than 100 chapters.

“General Clark has what it takes to ask Bush the tough questions, to really give Democrats a strong edge,” says Dailey, who hopped on the Clark bandwagon after hearing him speak. “He is the kind of leader we need to deal with international and national issues — brilliant and he knows the issues.”

The Draft Clark 2004 movement plans to move its national headquarters to Little Rock in the next few days. Clark supporters from around the country will descend on the city and work on a full-fledged campaign to convince the general to run.

Their hope is that this show of loyalty will go toward convincing Clark to plunge into the already flooded field of nine Democrats. The big question: Is Clark a Democrat?

Clark has yet to declare a party and plays coy when asked. Most of his close associates insist he is a Democrat because he bashes George W. Bush. His record leans left of center. He’s pro-affirmative action and pro-choice. He is against drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and sits on the board of Wavecrest Laboratories, a Virginia-based technology company that has developed a breakthrough electric propulsion system that transforms electrical energy into mechanical motion.

Since exiting NATO, Clark has pontificated around the country about global affairs, appeared regularly as a military analyst on CNN, worked for Little Rock’s Stephens Inc., the largest brokerage house off Wall Street, and traveled the world attending conferences and accepting awards. He has also launched his own Web site for Americans to talk about critical issues, which serves as an outlet to create a platform and gain media exposure. In September, Clark’s new book about the war in Iraq and terrorism hits the shelves, a surefire boost for his name recognition.

Recently, on National Public Radio, Clark said he is seriously considering throwing his hat in the ring for president. He still dodges party affiliation, but his admitted interest in running erases any thoughts that Clark craved media attention so that he could shore up support as a vice-presidential candidate. A former general accustomed to controlling troops, he doesn’t want to hang in the shadow of John Kerry or Joe Lieberman. Clark plans to lead his own campaign — if it isn’t too late for battle.

Clark has said that the one question Americans should ask themselves in 2004 is: Do you feel safer now than four years ago? The answer, he says, is probably no. With Clark as their candidate, Democrats get an inoculation against their perceived weakness on defense issues.

The general’s critics say he should forgo the games about party affiliation if he wants to be considered a serious politician. They also say he should also have jumped in the race months ago, and it’s really too late now. Most candidates have hired experienced staff who know the intricacies of Iowa and New Hampshire. Clark supporters point to Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, when the then-Arkansas governor didn’t enter the race until October.

But maybe Clark’s grand plan — slowly building an army of loyal, hard-working supporters from coast to coast — is working. They write letters, hold “meet ups” (the new online method to gain supporters), and recruit like-minded individuals to sign petitions. This support keeps the media’s attention and lands Clark on the Sunday-morning talk shows.

In Little Rock, Clark confidants say that he told them several months ago he wouldn’t run for president unless he was drafted. His request has definitely become reality. Every day more people log on and sign up to work for a man they know little about. Clark tells aides he will make a decision about the future before Labor Day.

Suzi Parker is an Arkansas journalist whose work frequently appears in The Economist and U.S. News & World Report.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Payroll Tax?

Some of his colleagues have already expressed misgivings, and some are evidently wide open to the prospect, but, whatever the case and ready or not, Shelby County commissioner John Willingham has prepared a version of what from his hand or someone else’s is likely to be the next new thing — and the focus of the next new battle: a payroll tax.

Moreover, he’s won the conditional support of an important ally, Cleo Kirk, the commission’s budget chairman.

The idea for such a tax arose several months back when county mayor A C Wharton, facing a budget crisis and looking for some revenue source besides that of a property-tax increase, proposed what he called an “altered facilities tax.” That was a diplomatic way of saying “impact fee,” and the county’s developers massed impressively at a subsequent meeting of the Shelby County Commission to turn it aside.

Wharton had another ace up his sleeve, though. He had already discussed the idea of a payroll tax as a fallback possibility with Commissioner Deidre Malone, and Malone dutifully put the idea forth during public discussion of the altered facilities measure (which would end up being tabled for further study next year). Commissioner Michael Hooks, a Democrat like Malone, promptly took the bait, and so did Republican Willingham.

Currently engaged in an underdog campaign for Memphis mayor against incumbent Willie Herenton, Willingham is not reticent about committing himself to innovative formulas (e.g., converting The Pyramid into a downtown casino).

Nor is Willingham bashful about overlapping his mayoral candidacy with proposals that do double duty on the commission agenda.

Bruce Thompson and David Lillard, two freshman commissioners who have assumed the mantle of conservative reformers, are on record as doubting the efficacy of a payroll tax, with Lillard suggesting last week that such a tax would “probably cost the county jobs.” But Joyce Avery, another first-termer who, like Thompson and Lillard, is a Republican and a conservative, is reportedly open to the idea. And so are Malone and Hooks, of course.

So, too, it turns out, is budget chairman Kirk, a Democrat whose willingness to compromise on a 25 cent tax-rate increase (Kirk, like commission chairman Walter Bailey, wanted more to take care of school operating costs) enabled last week’s decisive vote for a county budget after months of agonizing deliberation.

“I’m interested in the advantages of a payroll tax. Each year we go through all this intense anxiety over increasing the tax burden on property owners, and each year we go through this concern about finding alternative revenue sources. I think it’s time for something like this,” said Kirk, who went on to say, “If John’s figures are right, and if the legislature gives it approval, I think we’re three-quarters of the way there already.”

Here are Willingham’s figures, through at least seven drafts of his proposal: Setting the proposed payroll-tax rate at 2.5 percent, and assessing that against an estimated annual payroll amount of $19 billion-plus, would yield annual revenues in the neighborhood of $476 million. (For purposes of comparison, Wharton’s proposed altered facilities tax would have netted something like $4 million.) That level of revenue collections, estimates the commissioner, would allow the outright abolition of the county wheel tax ($141 million, annually), a rollback of this year’s property-tax increase and one from two years ago (totaling $94 million), and the reduction of the county’s sales-tax portion from 9 and a quarter percent to 7 percent ($124 million).

The tax, according to Willingham, would provide enough extra revenue to subsidize Oakville Sanitarium, Head Start, and The Med at currently suggested or, in the case of the latter, enormously increased levels. It would allow the county debt to be paid down by $80 million and provide a $9 million sum to be used for an “attack on crime” (a category in which Willingham would include a variety of social services for low-income residents).

“I want to be sure these figures are audited and accurate before I put myself on the line,” cautioned Kirk, and, indeed, there are numerous complications to be vetted before a payroll tax could end up even being voted on. The state legislature would have to authorize Shelby County to impose such a tax, for example.

Though he, too, believes a payroll tax deserves to be looked at carefully and very soon, Thompson makes no secret of his wariness. “First off, it’s an income tax in disguise. And I think it’s one of those variables which could put the county at a competitive disadvantage in attracting new residents and new industry.” It also could prompt various businesses to relocate in nearly out-of-state suburban areas or at least to diversify their operations geographically, Thompson said.

But, one way or another, the issue would seem to be about to hit the front burner sometime very soon.

Categories
Music Music Features

Sound Advice

It’s been a long time since I popped in a CD that made me get up and dance like someone had poured battery acid down my pants. But the eponymous EP from Knoxville’s Pink Sexies (which arrived courtesy of the good folks at Memphis’ tastefully named Wrecked ‘Em Records) did just that and then some. In fact, I’m still shaking like crazy over it. The first track, “Bye Bye Zombie (Baby)” is pure punkabilly, as ragged and raw as it is right on the money. But how could that have prepared me for the so-clever trash-rock confection “Do the Dance,” which is designed for no other purpose than to make listeners convulse with glee? Songs like “Speed Demon,” “Frankenhooker,” and “Tease Kiss” all deliver the hot-rod raunch and graveyard glam that defines the sweaty, juke-joint sound of Southern garage punk. I could listen to Pink Sexies frontman P.S. Corvette howl “If you’re going to kill me/Kill me with a kiss” all night long, and I just may when these guys roll into Murphy’s on Saturday, August 9th, with Nashville’s The Clutters and a noisy power duo from Kentucky called The Smacks.

The Clutters have that second-tier British-invasion sound. Imagine the Nashville Teens with a sense of humor and without all the blues pretensions and you’ll get the notion. Their song “Back of My Mind” is like a slice of ’60s psychedelia stripped down to only the rhythm tracks, while the goofy vocals on “Cup of Coffee and a Cigarette” are pure vaudeville. The Smacks, on the other hand, are just plain silly. They are alternately the best and the worst band in this lineup, with songs that range from the painfully noisy to the devilishly inspired. A little ode to insanity called “Locked in the Cellar” is the kind of lo-fi gem Dr. Demento would wet his pants over. Moving easily between rockabilly, incomprehensible punk, and ingeniously wrongheaded, lyric-driven madness, this duo can make you shake your head with despair and your ass with joy all at the same time. If you’re a fan of that grinding Southern trash-rock sound, don’t miss this show. — Chris Davis

Champaign-Urbana’s Absinthe Blind don’t sound like what you’d expect an indie band from the Midwest to sound like. They’re not alt-country, garage rock, or emo. Rather, they traffic in a big, bold, borderline-psychedelic sound that triangulates present-day prog-pop (Flaming Lips, with whom they share a producer), the shoe-gazing rock of a decade ago, and the kind of vanilla ’80s Top 40 synth-pop the band probably wouldn’t claim. But it’s an interesting mix and something you don’t hear much in Midtown clubs. They’ll be joined at the Hi-Tone CafÇ Wednesday, August 13th, by another band doing its own thing, like-minded locals Dora.

Also at the Hi-Tone this week, and at the opposite end of the sonic spectrum, is roots-music singer-songwriter Bruce Robison, brother-in-law of Dixie Chick Emily Robison and author of that band’s recent hit “Travelin’ Soldier.” Local singer-songwriter Dan Montgomery will open. n — Chris Herrington

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We Recommend We Recommend

I’m Going to Jackson

Picture yourself on a boat on a river “

Now that you’ve participated in that little exercise, go back a step and picture yourself on a boat on a river in a world where you don’t know the rest of that famous lyric by heart. Paul McCartney once said that without the inspiration of rockabilly pioneer and Sun recording artist Carl Perkins, there never would have been a band called the Beatles. That means no “Hey Jude.” No Peter Max cartoons of Pepperland. No “bigger than Jesus” controversy. Maybe even no Stones. Who can say? Imagine how many bands never would have played a chord had the Fab Four not inspired them into being, and perhaps you can understand why Carl Perkins, a hard-luck sharecropper from Jackson, Tennessee, with only one Top 40 hit to his name, holds such a high place in the rock-and-roll pantheon. Marrying hot hillbilly picking with nasty, nasty blues, Perkins was the total package: a soulful singer, an intense musician, and a rock-and-roll poet who wrote his own songs. His musical legacy includes such standards as “Daddy Sang Bass,” “Honey Don’t,” and the rockabilly masterpiece, “Blue Suede Shoes.” As part of the 2003 Rockabilly Fest, from Friday August 8th to Sunday, August 10th, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in Jackson will salute their favorite musical son by unveiling an eight-foot portrait of Perkins at the Sun Record Company Awards Party on Thursday, August 7th. The hall of fame will also unveil larger-than-life portraits of Elvis and the Sun King himself, Sam Phillips, whose death recently has been mourned around the globe. All three portraits are by Jackson-based artist Lendon Noe.

The musical lineup for this year’s festival ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous. The original Comets, Bill Haley’s clock-rocking band who were performing live in the studio on that fateful night when hipster deejay Alan Freed coined the term rock-and-roll, are the show’s headliners. At the opposite end of the spectrum are performers like Amy Beth, a female Elvis impersonator who claims to have a psychic link with Elvis that allows her to channel his actual voice. But music fans who, in the wake of Sam Phillips’ passing, want to soak up a little of that classic Sun Records mojo sans Elvis kitsch, will want to catch artists like Ace Cannon, the godfather of the rock-and-roll saxophone, and the certifiably great W.S. “Fluke” Holland, who played drums on Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes” and on the Million Dollar Quartet sessions before joining Johnny Cash’s band the Tennessee Three. Sun artist Narvel Felts, who had his greatest success in 1975 with the hit “Somebody Hold Me,” will be on hand, as will Sonny Burgess, one of the wildest hillbilly rockers of them all.

According to one autobiographical account of Felts’ first recording session for Phillips, Roy Orbison was sitting in the control room, Johnny Cash was just hanging out watching, Conway Twitty was sitting in a chair close to the microphone listening to every note, and Jerry Lee Lewis was chowing down in the diner next door. Talk about playing under pressure.

Phillips once called Ace Cannon “the greatest saxophone player who ever lived.” That should be recommendation enough. Before breaking out with his solo hit, “Tuff,” in 1962, Cannon was a Sun artist recording his own material and playing on countless sessions. He also blew for the Bill Black Combo, the honking instrumental group led by Elvis’ famously charismatic bassman whose onstage antics set the standard for rockabilly.

But of all the vintage acts performing in Jackson this weekend, a minor Sun recording artist named Sonny Burgess is the one not to miss. Burgess didn’t get his big break until the late 1950s, and by then the rockabilly craze was nearly over. Although his star never rose to the heights of predecessors like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, it wasn’t due to a lack of talent, energy, or flamboyance. Burgess was punk when Sid Vicious was still a zygote. When teen idol Ricky Nelson stole his thunder by releasing a copycat recording of “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It,” Burgess claimed, “[Nelson] turned beer into milk.” The Arkansas maniac dyed his greasy shock of hair a shocking shade of red to match his blazer and guitar. His band the Pacers put on wildly aggressive shows, leaping into the audience and smashing their instruments on stage. Their most famous move was to form a human pyramid on top of the bass without ever missing a beat. Today, Burgess plays with the Sun Rhythm Section, a geriatric supergroup including the incomparable Paul Burlison (accidental inventor of fuzz guitar) and Elvis’ drummer D.J. Fontana.

Elvis is gone. Carl is gone. Charlie Rich is gone, and so is Charlie Feathers. Johnny Cash isn’t getting around too well these days, and Jerry Lee has slowed way down. The rockabilly era is grinding to a halt, but if you’re up for a drive to Jackson this weekend, you can still catch some swinging echoes from rock’s Big Bang. n

The Sun Record Company Awards Party is Thursday, August 7th, at the Garden Plaza Hotel, Jackson, Tennessee.

Call (731) 423-5440. The 2003 Rockabilly Fest will be held at the Carl Perkins Civic Center in Jackson. Call (731) 423-5440 or check out RockabillyHall.org for ticket information.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Sam’s Town

Right up to the end he had that leonine look that led his friends to jest about a “pact with the devil.” He was 80 years old but didn’t look it. The red-haired mane, the rack of ivories bracketed by a pair of gleaming eyeteeth. He was one part Doctor Faustus and one part Dorian Gray, and that wasn’t the half of it. He was the man who, as they said, “invented rock-and-roll.”

It is hard to remember now in the age of orotund, over-the-hill Elvis imitators, but there was a time — even very close to the end — when the King himself was presumed to be forever young. No one is, of course, but it is one of the missions of the music to make you believe in the possibility. Sam Phillips, who always understood that that’s what Elvis and Jerry and Wolf and the myriad others were all about, was the Prime Mover in this belief. And the first believer himself.

One of the most fascinating dialogues ever recorded is that between Sun Records producer Phillips and youthful charge Jerry Lee Lewis on the day in the mid-1950s that the normally intrepid Louisiana piano man balked at recording a number called “Great Balls of Fire,” seeing nothing less than sacrilege in the lyrics.

The debate reduced to this: Jesus wouldn’t want me to do this, pleaded Lewis. On the contrary, argued Phillips: He wants you to do it in imitation of Him. Goodness gracious! The argument prevailed, and the song, to everybody’s satisfaction, got done.

That was one side of Sam Phillips: the preacher. The other side flared up one August day at the University of Memphis back in the 1980s, when the late Mae Axton, a representative of the other end of Tennessee’s Music Highway in Nashville and the composer of Elvis’ 1956 national breakout hit, “Heartbreak Hotel,” had lingered overlong to extol the importance of her song and her city with an Elvis-seminar audience.

“Goddamn!” Phillips, who had literally incubated Elvis at Sun, kept saying when it was his time to address the faithful. “Goddamn!” He needed neither to elaborate on his sentiment nor to apologize for it. The audience knew what he meant. Else they would not have come to Memphis, Sam’s town, that year as they had come before and they keep on coming, year after year.

People know who got what started and where. And they’ll be here this week and next to commemorate the lives and deaths of Sam Phillips and Elvis Presley, and the sense of the city as a shrine will be compounded now. You watch.

By interfering with various principals’ travel arrangements, the Great Storm of 2003 delayed by a week the Washington ceremony that formally hallowed the old Sun Studio on Union Avenue as a National Historical Landmark. Would it have been nice if the prophet himself, who had died just the day before, could have attended? Of course. But he was there.

Like any other self-respecting rock-and-roller, the Original never stopped looking to do new things. Phillips always wanted to produce a session with his close friend Bob Dylan (who once almost missed his own local concert by staying overlong at Phillips’ house on a visit), but somehow the two aging pioneers never got together on it. So much the worse.

Anwar Sadat, who tried to make the peace in the Middle East that is still elusive today and was assassinated for it in 1982, was another figure who loomed large in Phillips’ thinking. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him,” Phillips observed some years back.

It was the sadness of a man who had made his revolution for one who never got to. And those of us here, in the world capital he brought into being, can say the same about him: A day won’t go by that we don’t think about Sam Phillips.

Senior editor Jackson Baker wrote a profile of Sam Phillips which appeared in the Flyer on June 14, 2000.

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We Recommend We Recommend

thursday, 7

As God is my witness, I will never go without power again! Yeah, old Scarlett thought she had it bad just because the Yankees burned down Atlanta and her plantation fell into ruin and she had to live on dirty carrots, but then she never lived in Memphis in the aftermath of a storm like the one from which we are recovering. And while I won’t copy The Commercial Appeal and pen a daily diary of what it was like for my family and me until we got power, here are just a few highlights, at least the few I can remember, from the ordeal. Day of storm: Wake up underneath a window that is breathing in and out, look out window and see what is going on, figure a tornado is in my front yard and that I will die, fall back asleep on the couch to die in peace. Wake up later, alive, find cat under bed, look around outside at the damage, and panic — at the thought of drinking a cocktail with no ice, (a little later, of course). Try to be noble and take a shower in the dark and head for work. Whoa! Traffic is bumper-to-bumper like people are trying to evacuate the city as if John Ashcroft is running around naked in public. Go back home to dark house, fix cocktail before ice melts. Scratch work. Scratch head. Fix one more cocktail before rest of ice melts. Trek back out into mayhem to check on friend. Friend is frantically cleaning up broken potted plants and placing buckets in living room into which rain has been pouring. Scam artist tries to charge her a fortune to put a tarp on roof, which he says is missing many shingles but not enough for insurance to provide new roof. Offer to kick more shingles off. Friend’s brother arrives and climbs on roof to find that indeed no shingles are missing. We try to kill scam artist but he retreats in scam getaway car. We go to bar where friend works. No power. We fix cocktails before ice melts and load up some food before it spoils. Day two: We now have lights, electricity, and computers at work on backup system but no air conditioning. Spend next three days working in office that’s hotter than it is outside. All becomes foggy at this point. Begin falling asleep at red lights in middle of day. Read letter to the editor in The Commercial Appeal from woman angry because her wedding rehearsal dinner at Buntyn doesn’t take place because they have too many other hungry people to feed. First reaction is, What a greedy, petty person. Second and more important reaction is total horror — at the thought of having a wedding rehearsal dinner at a place where guests are asked if they want rolls or cornbread with their meal and if they want sweet tea or unsweetened tea. Heat getting worse and worse and still no power after four days. Day five: Contract full-blown narcolepsy. Ride around in car from place to place that has air, sleeping the entire way. Sleep through meals at restaurants. Have not had clean clothes for almost a week. Find home of friend with power, who is out of town and lets friends and me use house. Cook dinner for six and am found later passed out on tiny Victorian settee with legs dangling over edge and head on floor. Wake up and begin going from place to place that has air. Hear news of American soldiers killing Hussein’s sons. Could not f-ing care less. Have totally forgotten war in Iraq other than the lies Bush told to get us there. Want air conditioning, clean clothes, and my cat to stop glaring at me like all of this is my fault. Air conditioning comes back on at office and I am now sleeping there. Drive by house 16 or 17 times a day to see if power is on, to no avail. The sight of my neighbor’s open windows is like the red light on Birmingham’s Vulcan that lets you know there’s been an accident. Miraculously, on evening of day six, power at home is restored. Suddenly, the world is beautiful. Even my own shack is beautiful. The grass is greener. The tumbleweeds of cat hair blowing across the floor under the now-functioning air conditioner add “charm” to the room. I like everyone in the world except George W. Bush. And — drum roll, please — I can have ice! I feel sorry for the poor folks who still don’t have power, except the woman with the wedding rehearsal dinner and hope her power never comes back on. In the meantime, there’s reason to celebrate for many, and here is just a brief look at some of what’s going on around town this week. If you feel like taking a little road trip, today kicks off the four-day Sunflower Blues & Gospel Festival in downtown Clarksdale, Mississippi, with performances by, among others, Floyd Taylor, Honeyboy Edwards, and Willie King. If you go, make sure to have dinner at Madidi. Back here at home, tonight’s “Sunset Atop the Madison” on the rooftop of the Madison Hotel features live jazz by Pat Register.

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News The Fly-By

ONLY IN ARKANSAS

In our July 10th issue, Fly on the Wall commented on a story from West Memphis’ Evening Times headlined “Lost teeth prompts woman to complain.” It told the story of one Bridget Turner, a West Memphis woman who lost her partial bridge while being escorted from her home by police following a domestic dispute. Turner believed that the West Memphis Police Department should do the right thing and compensate her for those lost pearly whites.

Well, the saga continues. In a story headlined “Claim for lost teeth denied by commission,” ET staff writer Renette McCargo reports that by a unanimous decision the West Memphis Police Commission has determined they are not responsible for Turner’s unfortunate loss. The decision was based on witness statements, the arrest record, and a jail nurse’s report claiming that Turner had all of her teeth upon incarceration. Turner was, according to ET, not happy with the ruling and plans to appeal the decision using a famous legal technique known as the Arkansas Gambit. As McCargo reports, “[Turner] suggested that during the commission’s investigation they may have seen a former arrest photo and not the one [taken] on the day in question.”

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News

BILL FARRIS DIES

William Walter “Bill” Farris, “Mr. Democrat” to several decades of Shelby County and Tennessee Democrats, died early Thursday at Methodist Hospital Central from the effects of what a family member described as “either a heart attack or a stroke.”

Mr. Farris, who was a few months short of his 80th birthday, had been ailing for some years but did his best to keep up a round of social, political, and business activities. He attended the recent Jackson Day dinner of the state Democratic Party in Nashville and continued to monitor affairs at Farris, Mathews, Branan, Bobango, and Hellen, the current name of the influential law firm he founded some decades back.

Mr. Farris was born in Newbern and grew up in Dyersburg before coming to Memphis. His achievements in politics, both as a principal actor himself and as a behind-the-scenes presence, transcended a mere listing of his involvements, which were legion. During his long career, he served as an aide to the late former Governor Gordon Browning, as state Democratic chairman, and twice as local party chairman. He was a member of the Memphis city commission and chairman of the Shelby County Quarterly Court the two precursor bodies to the current city council and county commission, respectively. He was a member of the Tennessee state senate and made respectable runs for the offices of Memphis mayor and Tennessee governor.

But it was as a fundraiser, kingmaker, and all-around guiding hand to political hopefuls and office-holders that the name of Bill Farris was best known nationally as well as at state and local levels. It was largely through his efforts that the 1978 midterm Democratic national convention — the first of its kind — was hosted in Memphis.

He leaves his wife, Jimmie Wall Farris; three sons, Bill Jr.,Jimmy, and John; two daughters, Karen and Laura; 11 grandchildren; and two great grandchildren.

Visitation will be at the Farris home at 392 Sweetbrier from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, August 8th. Funeral will be at Eudora Baptist Church at 10:30 Saturday, and burial will be at Elmwood Cemetery. Memphis Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.