Month: November 2003

POLITICS

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date November 28, 2003

HITTING HOME

More or less off the radar screen, the District 89 state House race goes on to determine a successor to council member-elect Carol Chumney.

Since no Republican filed to compete in the February 10th special election, the winner in effect will be determined by the two entrants in the December 16th Democratic primary, either consultant Jeff Sullivan or activist Beverly Robison Marrero.

State Senator Steve Cohen, Marrero’s key backer, has been vocal on the subject that only his candidate currently lives inside the district. Candidate Sullivan and wife Maura Black Sullivan, director of planning for Shelby County schools, have meanwhile rented a house on Graham St. within the official confines of District 89. Maura Sullivan, who is expecting the couple’s first child on or about Election Day, says the couple’s current household on Reese St. was within District 89 until a re-drawing of legislative lines in recent years. “But we’re preparing to move,” she says, adding somewhat wearily, “I’ve got a job, a new baby, a move, and an election all happening at once.”

An interesting twist: Both candidates were asked at a recent forum how long they intended to remain in office if elected. Marrero, who will turn 65 in January, indicated she intended to serve indefinitely. The 39-year-old Sullivan, citing the fact that he’ll be dealing with a growing family, opined that he would be inclined to serve only a term or two.

Music Music Features

Queer Eye for the Punk Guys

Post author By Bianca Phillips
Post date November 28, 2003

In an imaginary world where men can bear children and Joey Ramone is still alive and having an affair with Brian Wilson, the couple’s offspring would be something like New Hampshire-based surf punks the Queers.

Although the ensemble hails from New England, the only thing “East Coast” about their sound is their “Blitzkrieg Bop” peppiness. Upon hearing their latest release, Pleasant Screams, the uninformed listener might assume the band was a bunch of beach brats. Let’s just put it this way: If Gidget traveled through time and landed on the steps of Vince Lombardi High School (from the Ramones’ movie-musical Rock ‘n’ Roll High School), this is the kind of music that’d be playing in her headphones. The Queers are pop-punk at its finest, and after a few songs, it’s hard not to long for the lazy, booze-guzzling days of summer.

The band has been around in some fashion since 1982, and they’ve tried their damnedest to stay true to their punk credo by keeping a low profile and refusing to sell out to a major label. Signed to Berkeley-based Lookout! Records, they’ve seen a few former labelmates make it big — Green Day, Rancid, the Donnas — but they’ve managed to settle comfortably into indie-punk status.

Their early albums, like Love Songs for the Retarded and Beat Off (both released in 1993), had that raw, punk sound that comes from little rehearsal and lousy production highlighted by scene-setting anthems like “Granola Head” (“Whacked-out hippies’ brains are scrambled eggs/Ugly chicks with very hairy legs/I think I’d rather be at home/Listening to the Ramones/Or hanging out and getting drunk with a bunch of useless punks”).

The band released two full-length albums, a couple of EPs, and a compilation before temporarily abandoning Lookout!. In the late ’90s, drummer Hugh O’Neil began having complications from a brain tumor and bassist B-Face left the band to join Lookout!’s the Groovy Ghoulies. Joe King “Queer” told Rock ‘n’ Roll Juggernaut magazine that Lookout! wasn’t treating the band well during that time, so with a new bassist and drummer in tow, the band made a temporary move to another DIY punk label, Hopeless Records. Joe Queer & Co. released two original albums, a live CD, and a few EPs on Hopeless, but their merry, surf-inspired sound was laced with angst and bitterness.

But time heals all wounds, and in 2001, with another new lineup, they rejoined forces with Lookout! to produce Today, a five-song EP that includes a cover of the Beach Boys’ “Salt Lake City.”

The band’s latest full-length album, Pleasant Screams (released in April 2002), presents a slightly more polished version of the Queers. Gone are the cheap equipment and careless production (although the ’93 releases and Pleasant Screams were both produced by Screeching Weasel’s Ben Weasel), but their stuck-in-junior-high, curse-filled lyrics and classic three-chord guitar prove that they haven’t lost their touch. With the ever-present Joe Queer on guitar and vocals, Dangerous Dave on bass, and Matt Drastic on drums, Pleasant Screams is the quintessential “welcome back” album.

Any bitterness left over from the Hopeless Records days has been channeled into songs like “Get a Life and Live It” (“You think that you’re perfect/So lovable and cute/But you’re just so pathetic that it makes me wanna puke/You stupid little shit/Go suck your mommy’s tit”).

Most of the songs on Pleasant Screams have a similarly in-your-face theme, but it’s clear that it’s all in fun this time around. In “Generation of Swine,” the band attacks punk sell-outs (“Jock-ass punks are a bore/Those sell-out fucks are all whores”), and “See You Later Fuckface” is the comical ballad of a guy at a punk show who, after witnessing his friends getting beaten up, tries to retaliate by stage-diving on top of the culprits only to find himself face-down on the floor.

And, by the way, the Queers aren’t gay, but they’re often mistaken for a queercore band. In the CD booklet from A Day Late and a Dollar Short (the 1996 compilation of early songs recorded before signing with Lookout! Records), Joe Queer said they chose their name “to piss off the pathetic local art community.” And that’s what the Queers are all about: pissing people off and having fun doing it.

In the days of pretentious, manufactured pop-punk boy bands with names that consist of one-syllable words followed by a number (i.e., Blink-182, Sum-41), the Queers offer a refreshing brand of bubblegum punk that, despite its poppy beat, still manages to retain enough lewdness to qualify as real punk rock. With a penchant for cursing and pre-teen antics, they’re cruising past the mass-marketed bands with their middle fingers proudly raised.

The Queers

The Hi-Tone Cafe

Monday,

December, 1st

News The Fly-By

Rock On

Post author By Janel Davis
Post date November 28, 2003

In the film School of Rock, failed-guitarist-turned-substitute-teacher Jack Black turns a class of fifth- grade smarties into a group of rock-and-rollers. As their music appreciation grows, so does their talent, as Black and his band take their show on the road.

The story is the same for kids in some Memphis classrooms — minus the famous teacher, a film script, and tour. In 11 elementary and one middle school, budding musicians are learning to play the guitar.

“The hardest part about learning to play the guitar was trying to get the D chord right,” says 10-year-old Tenisha Middlebrooks. The Coleman Elementary fifth-grader is one of 14 students in Maria Spence’s Little Kids Rock beginner guitar class.

In a music classroom adjacent to the gym, Spence directs the class of fourth- and fifth-graders in rhythm patterns while trying to ignore the sounds of basketball on the other side of the door. Inside the class are drums, xylophones, keyboards, and cymbals; guitars are the lesson of the day. “When [teachers] were approached to teach the classes, I volunteered,” says Spence. “I’ve never taught guitar before and it was different. The kids were excited because it’s something extra, and they soak it up like sponges.”

Spence, a local musician, has been teaching music for 10 years but has only played the guitar for two of those. Her classes at Coleman are composed of children from the after-school program. Scheduling conflicts have transformed the class into a regular-day activity, and students take shorter lunches and sacrifice recess to participate.

When Little Kids Rock executive director David Wish came to the Memphis area soliciting teachers for the program, Spence and others signed on on a pro bono basis. Coleman began its program in September. In addition to learning notes and scales, students are also taught proper care, use, and storage of their instruments.

Wish, an elementary school teacher, got the idea for the program in 1996, when his public school’s music-program funding was cut. Through donations and support from industry luminaries like Bonnie Raitt, John Lee Hooker, and B.B. King, Wish’s group was able to provide free classes and instruments to more than 1,000 children across the country. Twelve schools are participating in Memphis, with another 12 slated to begin as early as next year.

Teachers are allowed to create their own curriculum (Memphis’ is based on rock-and-roll), and students are encouraged to compose, perform, and record their own music. Nationally, the program has released four full-length CD compilations of children’s works. The latest, released this month, is a coast-to-coast collection of Little Kids Rock performances.

Spence’s goal is for her class to begin playing some blues progressions. “The classes really help the students. All music is math, and because we also have sessions on writing lyrics, it also helps with English,” she says. “The appeal of the guitar is that everybody can do it.”

In Memphis, the program has received assistance from Elvis Presley Enterprises. Since becoming a sponsor, the organization has donated more than $5,000, with $9,000 more expected. “[Little Kids Rock] contacted us to let us know about the organization, and we felt their mission was so on-target for everything that Elvis was about,” says EPE representative Scott Williams. The company has raised the funds through the official Elvis Collectors Club.

“I like guitar better than anything because I love Elvis and want to be like him,” says Middlebrooks’ classmate Stuart Settles. “My friends ask me about it and why I like it and now they want to do it, too.”

Spence expects to hold some sort of recital featuring the guitar students in the spring. Next year, she looks to expand the program to include more students and more guitars. “It’s wonderful,” she says, “especially in Memphis, to know that we get to make our own music.”

News News Feature

NO LIGHT AT END OF TUNNEL IN IRAQ, FRIST SAYS

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date November 28, 2003

On the same day that President Bush told a Las Vegas audience that things were “getting better” for the United States in Iraq, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist hedged that bet after a Memphis speech Tuesday night, responding, “No, it’s as bad as it looks,” when asked if there was “light at the end of the tunnel” in Iraq.

Otherwise, Frist , just concluding two weeks of intense labor in Washington, offered a relatively rosy scenario at an installment of the Chamber of Commerce “Frontline Politics 101” series at the Park Vista Hotel– particularly concerning the final passage early Tuesday of what Frist described as a “bipartisan” Medicare reform bill.

“This bill was seven years in the making,” Tennessean Frist, the Senate’s only physician, said of an administration-backed prescription-drug measure which he said had a “one in a thousand” chance just eight months ago. Frist praised Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, who fought passage of the legislation, as “a great friend” for whom the GOP majority leader said he had “a great deal of respect. But Frist added, “I won, by the way.”

Frist described the enacted measure, which includes subsidies to drug ompanies that extend prescription benefits to seniors, as superior to the more “bureaucratic, big-government, more costly” version favored by Kennedy and other Democrats. He said the Medicare bill had succeeded in three aims. “It was bipartisan, it is voluntary, and it will transform Medicare.”

Two other efforts supported by Frist had been forestalled, he acknowledged. One was the administration’s energy bill, which was successfully filibustered by Senate Democrats after the administration failed to expunge a provision from the Repubican-approved House version that would shield oil companies from litigation for water contamination by the gasoline additive MTBE.

Another rebuff came in the form of a Democratic filibuster against consideration of an array of the administration’s federal judicial nominees. Frist conceded that his decision to keep the Senate in session for a grueling overnight session two weeks ago had been unlikely to break the logjam but said he had thought it important to make a “symbolic” point to the nation about the “frustrating” and unprecedented filibuster.

Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

Post author By Flyer Readers
Post date November 28, 2003

The Root Problem

To the Editor:

Susan Ellis’ piece on her Ole Miss-addicted brother (Steppin’ Out, November 20th issue) brought a tear to my eye, seriously. I too suffer from the Rebelus-Saintsitus (a disease for which I have found no cure, nor — despite my continual complaining — do I really want one).

The root causes are the same as those of Ellis’ brother: Ole Miss, Archie Manning, New Orleans, Eli. My affliction also has complications. I occasionally bleed Tiger Blue during basketball season, and I am in a mixed-SEC marriage. (My wife is LSU and I am Ole Miss.) We won’t talk or acknowledge one another during the game but should be on speaking terms by Tuesday. This is acceptable, according to the rules set forth in the SEC interconference marital handbook.

This [last] weekend will be difficult on us both. Not to mention I will spend Thanksgiving in Bastrop, Louisiana. (Whether I will be eating turkey or crow remains to be seen.)

Ellis should tell her brother that the prayer chain needs to be set for 10:18 in every quarter. Don’t worry. He will understand.

Thanks for the article.

Ty Hardin

Memphis

Animal Instincts

To the Editor:

Thank you so much for publishing Bianca Phillips’ article about out-of-town rescue people bringing their animals to Memphis (City Reporter, November 20th issue). I have always wondered why they were here when we have so many homeless pets here already. I have seen them at local pet stores on the weekends many times. It would be different if we did not have a huge problem here already.

I think that the animals in Memphis that need homes should get them first. When we don’t have full shelters and local rescue centers, then bring in animals from other places. It just makes common sense.

Thank you for bringing this issue to everyone’s attention. It definitely deserves it!

Anna Kallecter

Memphis

An Abomination

To the Editor:

The oil-and-coal-friendly Bush-Cheney energy bill is indeed an abomination (Editorial, November 20th issue).

It provides token amounts of funding for the technology that can bring us the clean, safe, inexhaustible energy of the sun and wind and provides windfalls, of course, for dangerous, cancerous, and obsolete fossil-fueled technology.

A simple, painless conservation plan could enrich this nation like no other act in our history. It could wipe out our trade deficit, which is mostly a result of importing too much oil. It would conserve our diminishing resources, reduce deadly invisible air pollution, slow the ever-growing amount of mercury contamination in fish, reduce cancer deaths, reduce the megatons of greenhouse gases, and maybe move toward some kind of redemption for this troubled, gluttonous, and misguided corporate nation.

Maybe it’s appropriate that the megatons of extra-cancerous filth that will spew from the obsolete coal- and oil-powered power plants will travel on the prevailing westerly winds toward Washington, D.C. One would think if Congress and the administration can’t protect their constituents, they would at least think about protecting themselves.

Don Johnson

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Crazy Kids

To the Editor:

With all due respect to Jay A. Feinstein (Letters, November 20th issue), who wrote, “All the city needs is a few of those chain stores and restaurants that some of us crazy kids like these days,” I would like to share what I think we really need. It was best expressed by Senator Robert F. Kennedy in April 1968: “What we need … is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer … whether they be white or they be black.”

Have a nice Thanksgiving.

Arthur Prince

Memphis

Correction: The opening night for Disney’s The Lion King at The Orpheum is Friday, Nov. 28. It was incorrectly listed in last week’s paper.

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.

We Recommend We Recommend

thursday, 27

Post author By Tim Sampson
Post date November 27, 2003

Once, when I was very young, I accidentally hit the side of a parked car on the street in the middle of the night. Not wanting to go banging door to door to find out whom the car belonged to, I left a note on it with all of my contact information and the name of my insurance company. I ended up in court seven times and was put on probation for failure to report an accident. Of course, my probation officer turned out to be a pot dealer on the side, so it wasn t so bad, but it still tainted my reputation as a good citizen. Which is why I ask the question: How in the hell did Michael Jackson get nabbed for numerous counts of child molestation, walk into the sheriff s department, cut em a check, and then walk right back out and hop on his plane and head back to Las Vegas to finish filming one of his insipid videos? How can the freak get away with this? And the baby dangling? And being related to LaToya? Is there no punishment for all of this? I accidentally hit a parked car and spend a thousand bucks on attorney fees, and he cornholes a bunch of kids and flies back to the bright lights of Vegas in his chartered jet? I want restitution! And I think they ought to lock him up in a cell with Martha Stewart, once they finally put her into a place where she has to marry the woman with the most cigarettes. Maybe Martha and Mikey could while away the hours hot glue gunning a nose back on that thing you can only loosely call his face. And she could show him all sorts of different and new ways to have chicken in bed late at night. He could jump around the cell grabbing his crotch and moonwalking while singing Insider Traaaading! You Can t Beat It, Beat It, Beat It! If they let him keep a few of his personal belongings in the cell, maybe Martha could find a way to turn a giraffe into a handy place to store those beautiful holiday wreaths during the off season. And ol Martha might be able to figure out a way to use that hot glue gun to break em out of the slammer so they could escape together. Martha and Michael: On the Run. John Waters could have a field day with that one. He could have Martha in the bathroom of a gas station carving Michael up a little more with an electric turkey knife to help disguise him. And then when they get caught, the ferocious cops could lock them up with Terrence Buford. If you haven t heard about Terrence, he s the guy who recently drove his car into an Oklahoma City movie theater, forced people to bow in front of him, then hit them, then yelled out that he was Jesus Christ and demanded to know where the movie about Tupak Shakur was playing. Now why can t something that fabulous happen here? All we get are a bunch of men who dress up in women s clothing and bad wigs and rob banks. Oh, well, everyone s innocent until being proven guilty unless, that is, you are an American prisoner of war at Guantanamo Bay, probably the darkest spot on this nation s history. And now here s a little look at some of what s going on around town this week. Tonight is opening night of this weekend s Voices of the South production of Pre-sent/Pre-sent: BRAND spankin New at TheatreWorks, a collaboration with Project: Motion that combines theater and dance. There s a Makeshift Records CD-Showcase with Andy Grooms Living Room, Paul Taylor, Passport Again, and Original Cyndi at the Hi-Tone. And The Tyrone Smith Review is at Newby s.

News The Fly-By

M.O.M.’S ARMY III

Post author By Chris Davis
Post date November 26, 2003

Reporter Stephanie Scurlock of WREG-TV3 has noted, “The closing of the Mall of Memphis and the [ice] skating rink inside it could mean drastic cuts for the Mid-South’s only hockey program.” Oh sure, it’s always about hockey players, and the children who are hockey players. No body’s even bothered to ask about the poor shoplifters and parking-lot muggers who will see a substantial downturn in profits next year as a result of this unfortunate closing. Priorities, people! We’ve got this bad economy to turn around!

Politics Politics Beat Blog

POLITICS: Hitting Home

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date November 26, 2003

More or less off the radar screen, the District 89 state House race goes on to determine a successor to council member-elect Carol Chumney.

News News Feature

CITY BEAT

Post author By John Branston
Post date November 26, 2003

PLANES AND BRAINS

Just in time for the holidays, two new Memphis companies are going public with stock offerings, hoping to become mainstays of the airport and the medical center– or what’s left of it– for years to come.

This week, Pinnacle Airlines Corp., a subsidiary of Northwest Airlines, went to market with 19.4 million shares, priced at $14. Buy some and you’ll own a piece of one of the country’s largest regional jet services based out of Memphis, Detroit, and Minneapolis. Northwest bought Pinnacle in 1997 and gave most of the stock to its pension plans in 2002 and 2003. The CEO is Philip Trenary.

Risk factors listed in the prospectus include possible terrorist attacks, labor unrest among Pinnacle’s 2,438 employees, competition from Mesaba and other regional jets, more debt than capital, and heavy dependence upon Northwest.

On the plus side, business is good, on-time performance is among the best in the industry, service is offered to 76 cities and 29 states, and there’s a sweetheart deal with the Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority. By increasing its fleet and juggling routes, Pinnacle expects to grow a measurement called “available seat miles” 24 percent a year through 2006.

A second Memphis company, GTx, is the brainchild of AutoZone founder J R. “Pitt” Hyde, III. Its business is applied medical research into new drugs to treat prostate cancer, which Hyde himself has beaten, and other types of cancer. It is expected to start selling shares to the public in December or early in 2004.

GTx has actually been around since 1997 but has only 43 employees and a low-profile. That will change after the stock goes public, and if the company is successful in partnership with the University of Tennessee Medical School, it could remake the site of the old Baptist Hospital and the medical center in several years.

GTx has no revenues. In the start-up stage, investors will be betting on UT’s brains and intellectual property and Hyde’s business savvy and dedication. The stock price won’t be set until just before the offering.

Herenton scolds MLGW in letter

Add Mayor Willie Herenton to the list of Memphians frustrated by Memphis Light Gas & Water. And that could be bad news for the utility as it seeks approval for a rate increase next month.

In a letter to members of the City Council and MLGW President Herman Morris, Herenton says he has “yet to understand MLGW’s need to advertise and support costly promotions when, in fact, it is the exclusive service provider. Consumer information that is useful to the citizenry is understandable.”

MLGW’s “Hometown Energy” campaign extols the wonders of a public utility working tirelessly for its customers. The trouble is, for years many of those customers have had a devil of a time contacting the power company when they have problems.

The city has requested help from FedEx in developing a call center for all of city government and its entities, including MLGW.

“It also concerns me that Memphis Light Gas & Water has invested approximately $30 million in an automated billing system and CRM (Citizen Relationship Management) application that apparently has problems,” Herenton wrote.

The mayor said he intends to provide the council “with some pertinent information that will be helpful during the upcoming MLGW hearings.”

He left it at that. The council meets December 2nd. At this point, MLGW’s rate increase request has been denied, and Morris has not yet been named by the mayor for another term as president.

Calvin Williams Defense Fund

As chief administrator of the Shelby County Commission for four years, Calvin Williams was in a position to do favors for a lot of people. Now that he’s been indicted for official misconduct, Williams is asking friends to help pay for his legal defense.

In a letter this month from the “Friends of Calvin Williams,” potential donors are asked to make contributions by a bipartisan list of signers including zoning attorney Homer Branan III, local GOP activist and attorney David Kustoff, attorney Richard Glassman, the Rev. Lasimba Gray, suburban developer Jackie Welch, and George Reems Ñ a former employee of the Circuit Court Clerk’s office who was involved in a moonlighting venture with Williams that got both of them in trouble.

“I have spent the last 20 years of my life helping others in the community,” Williams says in the letter. “. . . I’m sure that I have helped you in some form in the past.”

Williams resigned under pressure from his $101,856 job as commission administrator in January. He was indicted on state charges in October. He has been given a lower-paying job in the county’s Equal Opportunity Compliance Office.