Los Cantadores are at the Blue Monkey Midtown tonight. Blue Jazz and Misti Warren & The Pop-Ups are at the Full Moon Club. And the headbanginest band in town, Hopes Like the Hindenburg, is at The Caravan, along with A Just War, Dystopia, and Blucka.
Smoke em if you got em. According to recent reports, it has been three years since state auditors told Memphis police officials that drugs and money could be pilfered from their crime-evidence storage room. And lo and behold it came to pass that drugs and money were eventually pilfered from the crime-evidence storage room. It should go without saying that when state auditors ask police officials if they have read and understood any given report, Dude, whatever is almost never an appropriate response.
Plante: How It Looks
Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) is a smart, attractive college guy. He had some rough spots in childhood, but he’s grown beyond them fairly successfully, thanks, in part, to a series of blackouts that occurred at crucial, difficult moments. But he’s been blackout-free for seven years cause for celebration with his enormous, amorous Goth roomie Thumper (Ethan Suplee).
When Evan takes a snoopy girl back to the dorm, a pile of journals is uncovered journals Evan was told to keep as a kid to help him fend off blackouts. The date goes bad when Evan is suddenly transported back to a creepy moment with a childhood girl pal’s father (Eric Stoltz) who has a new video camera and sleazy intentions for it.
Back in the future (er, the present), Evan tracks down the old friend, Kayleigh Miller (Amy Smart) to figure out what happened that night years ago. She gets upset and runs off, and later her nasty, violent brother Tommy leaves a voice-mail to let Evan know that he screwed up and that Kayleigh had killed herself.
It turns out that Evan’s journals hold secrets to several key moments in his childhood that served as turning points in his development: a vandalism prank that went awry and killed a mother and child, Tommy’s vicious incineration of Evan’s dog, a troubling drawing Evan did as a child showing what he wanted to be when he grew up, etc. It turns out also that by staring reeeeeeaaaallly hard at a journal entry, Evan can go back and relive an important moment. And he does, with predictably tragic results.
It’s not enough to stop the molestation of him and Kayleigh or to save the dog. Invariably, each resulting scenario is worse than the one before. Every time the past is changed, the future is also changed. In one variation, Evan becomes a frat guy, living blissfully with Kayleigh as his girlfriend but because he prevented the molestation of only him and Kayleigh, it turns out that brother Tommy got the brunt of it and turns out messed up. And Evan winds up in prison. Then in a psych ward. Then Kayleigh is a hooker, then a sorority girl again. Every future is different.
I would like to afford Kutcher some credit for the ambition behind this film. Known chiefly for his antic performances in That 70’s Show, MTV’s Punk’d, sophomoric movie comedies, and Demi Moore, he is tabloid fodder and the unfair target of Ben Affleck-sized scrutiny. Many will see this film to determine his acting ability. Let me save you some time: Yeah, he can act. He’s green and the inexperience shows in the form of nuance and diction (he mumbles some). But he’s earnest and committed and not remotely showy unless the strange script or direction forces him. Bravo, Ashton. If only the rest of the film were as earnest and wholesome as he.
The first 30 minutes are a parade of horrors: the exploding baby, an attack on an innocent moviegoer, the burning dog. Hell, back in the past they even go see the movie Seven and we relive the horrifying scene in that film where the murder investigation leads to the badly decayed corpse of a morbidly obese glutton. As if the bad luck in this film were not sufficiently terrible.
“The Butterfly Effect” is a component of chaos theory that suggests “if a butterfly flaps its wings where I am standing, then it can create a monsoon halfway around the world.” For that matter, so can a sneeze or a handshake or any decision whatsoever. Makes you think twice about doing anything. The problem in this movie (among a handful) is that the Butterfly Effect seems only to affect the “here” and gives no sense of “there.” Evan’s decisions have no bearing on anything outside of his own life. It’s like tossing a pebble in a pond and watching the ripples more than anything involving monsoons.
There is an amusing battle among nature, chaos, fate, and free will in this film, and by the end, we lose patience with Evan because his decisions are never very smart. When he goes back in time he always seems to do or say the wrong thing never learning from one trip back to the next. No wonder life gets so screwy! Kutcher, in his first attempt at generating box-office gravitas, deserves better than this complicated script that lets him go nowhere. While Kutcher goes back to the past for his gravitas, serious fans of time travel should go Back to the Future.
Maybe it was the answer to somebody’s prayers: Officers responded to a theft at 3633 Old Allen on Sunday after a woman realized she’d left her purse at church. Inside the purse were her telephone, her reading glasses, and her bank card. When she went back to retrieve them, the purse was gone.
Happy Birthday to You! A man was having a gathering at his residence on Oak Parkway last Saturday when he left briefly to go to the store. “When he returned, everybody was gone” and so were his laptop and two Sony televisions. There were no official suspects.
Does that mean they’re stopped up? On January 21st, employees at a maintenance-supply store on Sandwood called police because a regular customer brought a counterfeit $20 bill to their attention. The woman who made the police report said she was unaware who brought the bill into the store but said that “in all likelihood they may have received the bill from one of their irregular customers.”
The ever-changing language: In a disturbing incident, on January 22nd an elementary school student walking on St. Elmo was approached by a man driving an old, small, white truck. (According to police reports, it was probably a Nissan or a Toyota with a broken mirror on the right side.) The man told the student that he wanted to “get in your pants” and that the “goal’s looking good.” The student explained to police that “goal” is a new word for the booty. Or the badonkadonk, rump, derriere, or fanny, if you prefer.
The criminal prosecution of University of Alabama football booster Logan Young has opened a Pandora’s box of problems for federal prosecutors, the NCAA, and now it seems even the University of Tennessee and Coach Phillip Fulmer.
Way back in August 2001, U.S. Attorney Terrell Harris and Shelby County District Attorney General Bill Gibbons held a joint press conference to announce the indictments of high school football coaches Lynn Lang and Milton Kirk.
The prosecutors were going to do nothing less than clean up recruiting in Memphis. “We are sending a clear message that the sale of high school athletes for personal gain will not be tolerated in our community,” they said.
So where are we two-and-a-half years later?
Last week, Fulmer was identified as a confidential source in the NCAA’s investigation of Alabama, going so far as to secretly tape a potential witness for 90 minutes. Fulmer and UT boosters tattled on Alabama and peddled the story to the media, starting in the summer of 2000. Young’s attorneys plan to subpoena Fulmer and his notes, tapes, and records. All over Alabama, fans of the Crimson Tide are howling that Tennessee got a pass from the NCAA on its alleged football program violations in return for “private investigator” Fulmer’s cooperation.
On Monday, Young was in court for a brief appearance, vowing a fight to the finish with the best legal defense money can buy. An expensive three-year-old federal investigation is likely to get a lot more expensive, all on the flimsy grounds that high school coaches are “public officials” and that their auction of star player Albert Means was extortion, bribery, and a violation of the laws of interstate commerce.
The latest development in this overblown epic came out of Montgomery, Alabama, this week. Attorney and Alabama partisan Tommy Gallion demanded a congressional investigation of the NCAA investigation of the university. Whether or not he gets one, Gallion will remain Fulmer’s and the NCAA’s worst nightmare.
Thanks to overzealous prosecutors and Tennessee boosters, stacks of documents and tapes that otherwise would have remained locked up in NCAA files instead became public record and fodder for fresh stories. The NCAA is having to defend itself against charges of favoritism and criminalizing a recruiting investigation. And federal prosecutors got themselves deeply mired in a case that, at best, they will win at trial or, at worst, they will lose or see dismissed.
And all for what? Young was sanctioned two years ago by Alabama and disassociated from the football program. For someone as passionate as he is about Alabama football, that is serious punishment. Lang and Kirk are out of coaching. Means is playing for the University of Memphis. Fulmer faces months of embarrassment, subpoenas, and legal fees and may well have brought an NCAA investigation upon his own program. Reporters and lawyers get a big juicy case to work on.
And football recruiting and “the sale of high school athletes for personal gain” in our community? One well-regarded Memphis high school football coach told a Flyer reporter that corruption is still alive and well in football recruiting. Still, we doubt that many promising linemen these days are fetching $200,000 or $150,000 or whatever combination of cash, cars, and houses Lang plans to allege if and when he finally takes the witness stand against Young.
An NCAA investigation would have accomplished as much. Criminalizing the process was a questionable and apparently unwise decision. On the football field, it’s called piling on, and the penalty is 15 yards. In the courtroom, it’s called getting the case dismissed before trial. In this case, a lot of people probably are wishing today that it had never gotten to federal court, period.
To the Editor:
Twenty-thousand years ago, cavemen would bury their dead with the tools and weapons they would need in the afterlife. It is amazing how little we have evolved since then. When I read about the funeral director putting makeup on the face of a corpse for a closed-casket service so that she would be “dignified” (“A Grave Undertaking,” January 22nd issue), I shook my head in dismay. A body is a body, not a person. The millions of dollars and thousands of hours we spend on funeral rituals are typical of the primitive thinking that keeps the human species from moving forward.
As our cities choke, we devote thousands of acres to the storage of rotting meat. Under the guidance of avaricious ministers, poor families bankrupt themselves so “Grandma can rest in peace.” Processions of shining limousines wind through ghettos full of hungry children to bury Cadillac coffins in the ground. Religious fairy tales, backed by law, force us to preserve our dead in anticipation of some nonsensical resurrection fantasy.
The money wasted on embalmed corpses, gleaming coffins, and marble monuments should be spent on the living. Flowers that could bring cheer to a nursing home rot decorating graves. Burying usable organs in the ground is a crime against humanity.
Stop wasting time and money turning an awkward disposal problem into an expensive religious ritual.
Michael B. Conway
Memphis
To the Editor:
I feel that MLGW is the best utility company in the nation. As business manager of IBEW Local Union 1288, it is my desire to see politics cease to play a role in the mayor’s appointment of the next MLGW president. Without a president, there are many uncertainties among the bargaining-unit employees, who represent the majority of the MLGW work force.
Over the last few years, morale has been at an all-time low (safety issues, no management accountability, etc.). Hopefully, the mayor will renominate Joseph Lee as president. In my opinion, he is more than capable of working with the Memphis City Council, the mayor, the ratepayers of Memphis and Shelby County, management, and this union.
Comments have been made regarding Lee having only “finance” experience. Lee stated that he would surround himself with leaders with utility experience, and I have no reason to doubt him. MLGW’s primary problem, at this point, is finance. Lee has already shown his leadership ability in that area.
We need a leader who is respected in this community to bring this union and management together, and I think Joseph Lee is that leader. I want our members and the ratepayers to know that the mayor has personally told me that he has no desire and no hidden agenda to sell MLGW.
William (Rick) Thompson
Business Manager, IBEW Local Union 1288
Memphis
To the Editor:
I am a liberal Democrat, and after reading last week’s We Recommend, even I have to say: Let it go, Tim! We can’t change what happened in the last election, but there is one coming up in which we can make a difference. Isn’t that where our energies should be?
Kerri Lawless-Hopkins
Germantown
To the Editor:
Why have we forgotten to support our troops? Where are all the patriotic Americans who were waving their flags when the Iraq war began?
Soldiers who have served their time and want out of the war have been kept from leaving under “stop loss” orders. Often, soldiers have not had the necessary protective gear and equipment to protect their lives. Soldiers have been forced to pay their own way home during leave. And the 2004 budget will cut nearly $25 billion from veterans’ health-care programs over the next 10 years.
Who will fight to protect the freedoms of the soldiers fighting for our freedom?
Becki Barnhardt
Memphis
The Memphis Flyer encourages reader response. Send mail to: Letters to the Editor, POB 1738, Memphis, TN 38101. Or call Back Talk at 575-9405. Or send us e-mail at letters@memphisflyer.com. All responses must include name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters should be no longer than 250 words.
Can’t they all just get along? If the subject is the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), the answer is no.
When COGIC bishop David Grayson announced his plans last week for an elevation and consecration ceremony for the title of presiding bishop and chief apostle of his new denomination, all hell broke loose. In an unlikely break from the mother church, which is under the jurisdiction of presiding bishop G.E. Patterson, Grayson launched the Church of God in Christ (New Day). He explained the significance of the name (“It is a new day in the COGIC”) during the ceremony before a capacity crowd at Greater Harvest Church.
The established church rushed to block the use of the COGIC name and has filed a restraining order against Grayson and New Day in Chancery Court. Besides demanding that the new church refrain from “advertising, describing, representing themselves, or from utilizing the words ‘Church of God in Christ,’ the order also prohibits them from “using, taking, converting, or diverting any real or personal property” belonging to COGIC.
“I told [Patterson] in November 2001 of my intentions to request a Tennessee jurisdiction. I met with him again in November 2002,” said Grayson. “I didn’t expect him to endorse it, but he said that he would not block [the plan], remain neutral, and let the board vote on it.”
The vote never came before the COGIC delegates at the 2003 convention. In December, Grayson sent Patterson a letter of resignation after serving 35 years as a COGIC pastor. Tennessee Secretary of State databases show that the Church of God in Christ (New Day) received a certificate of authority with a name change on January 23rd.
“Everyone thinks that my desire to ordain women [as pastors] was the reason for the church’s actions, but I don’t think that had anything to do with it,” Grayson said. Maybe not. In addition to that break from tradition, Grayson also plans to extend membership to non-COGIC churches. “As long as [other denominations] believe in all of the full-gospel teachings of the COGIC church, they can be included,” he said. His denomination will host its own proceedings in July as the United Saints Convention.
So what makes the new church so appealing? “Bishop Grayson is inclusive, not exclusive,” said COGIC minister Darrin Young. “In the [mother church], if you’re not on the top shelf or if your church isn’t very large, you’re kind of left out. That’s not the way it is here. Thank God for a New Day.”
Patterson and COGIC have kept mum about the matter, choosing to present their case in court, but others have not been as quiet.
When serving court documents to Grayson last Friday, process server Rik Anderson said he saw the “not so Godly side” of COGIC (New Day). After attempts to contact Grayson for a “discreet” drop-off failed, Anderson said he arrived 10 minutes before the 7 p.m. jubilee service.
“I have no doubt that [Grayson] and his [public relations manager] Patricia Rogers had news crews alerted to come film the poor bishop as he was only trying to pray with his people and then was attacked by a mean ole process server,” said Anderson. “I wish the cameras had gotten her threatening me with bodily harm too.”
Both Rogers and Grayson denied that Anderson was threatened, but Rogers said she did alert the media.
Whether COGIC is successful in its case against the New Day church will be determined when the two sides meet in court February 9th. Either way, Grayson is not worried. “This too shall pass,” he said.
E-mail: jdavis@Memphisflyer.com
For store manager Craig Carter, the most difficult part of reopening his grocery store has been getting the word out.
“We’re just trying to let people know that we’re back and they can come down here again. With us being closed for about a month, people still don’t know we’re open,” he said.
Easy Way Food Store at 80 N. Main, a downtown landmark since 1932, reopened last Friday, 26 days after undergoing smoke and water damage from a predawn fire that destroyed Jack’s Food Store next door. The owner of the Jack’s building said he has not decided whether to rebuild.
Although no structural damage occurred to the Easy Way location, the store lost all of its merchandise. What was originally estimated as a five- to 10-day closing while fire officials inspected the area became an opportunity for the store to revamp its interior, said Easy Way vice president David Carter.
“We had a salvage crew come in, insurance adjustments were done, the entire store was repainted, and all the ceiling tiles were replaced,” he said. “We lost the three days before Christmas [in sales]. Those are the biggest days of the year, and we probably lost $75,000 in revenue.”
During remodeling, the 30 employees at the downtown location were transferred to the company’s seven other family-owned stores.
“We felt that we had to get back open for our customers,” said David Carter. “For some of them, we are their grocery store, for others we’re their bank, and for others we’re their meeting place. We’re one big family for our customers here.”
E-mail: jdavis@memphis-flyer.com
Just a couple of art openings tonight. They are at Midtown Galleries on Central for clay work by Hendren Silcox and photographs by Nancy Bickerest; and at Memphis College of Art for a faculty exhibition. On stage, it s opening night at Playhouse on the Square of The Philadelphia Story>, the hilarious comedy set in 1939 that finds a journalist covering the wedding of a feisty socialite. And at Sleeping Cat Studio, it s opening night of Full Gallop, a story about the ups and downs of fashion queen Diana Vreeland. The Memphis Grizzlies play Sacramento tonight at The Pyramid. The Dingo Entertainment Battle of the Bands is at the New Daisy tonight and tomorrow night. The Distraxshuns are at Patrick s tonight and tomorrow night. Cowboy Mouth is at Newby s. At the Hi-Tone, there s a wild, wild show by Fat Possum Juke Joint Caravan, T-Model Ford & Spam, Kenny Brown and Cedric Burnside, and Paul Wine Jones. And, as always, The Chris Scott Band is at Poplar Lounge.
NASHUA, N.H. — For three years, the ubiquitous red and blue map of 2000 (red for Republican states; blue for Democratic ones) has been the political landscape. However, a more interesting and complex color code is emerging in this election. Blue and gray may become very important factors in deciding who gets the Democratic Party’s nomination, with camouflage green dominating the background.
The elements of this new color chart emerged from the past week’s campaigning in New Hampshire. Ex-Vermont governor Howard Dean began a campaign built on a passionate opposition to the go-it-alone invasion of Iraq. In New Hampshire, his message changed to themes conveying the solid values of frugality, balanced budgets, and concern for the loss of community. Dean appears to be the embodiment of old-fashioned Yankee pragmatism and idealism. In a state where people prefer to live free or die, it plays well. Color him Yankee blue.
Massachusetts senator John Kerry is formal and less approachable; however, when he affectionately hugged fellow Vietnam veteran and former Georgia congressman Max Cleland, he evinced surprising compassion. Throughout last week, war hero Kerry directly challenged George W. Bush on national-security issues and the Iraq war by using the mantra “Bring It On,” in parody of Bush’s deadly bravado toward both issues. Like Dean, Kerry tells stories and lays out plans without much reference to geography or personal religious beliefs. Put this veteran in camouflage green.
In states north of the Mason-Dixon Line, stories of regional geography, family history, and religious faith are considered somewhat inappropriate for those campaigning for elected office. In the South, things are glaringly different. Southerners have a primal desire for personal narratives from politicians. Perhaps the history of storytelling and religious testimony makes it requisite for candidates to share upbringings, heritage, transgressions, and conversions. Only time will tell whether Governor Dean and Senator Kerry can resonate with Southern voters without the benefit of such touchstones.
It won’t be so with General Wesley Clark. On the stump this past week, Arkansan Clark punctuated his themes of patriotism, faith, family values, and leadership not only with nostalgic stories of childhood but with a Cook’s tour of his religious history and church affiliations. While he gave due attention to the issues of Iraq, jobs, health-care, and the environment, the substance of his rousing speeches was overshadowed by matters of style and personality. Soldierly green is a striking background for Clark’s distinguished shade of gray.
Although Senator John Edwards lacks military experience, he exudes understanding and concern for the plight of the common man — the underdog. Waxing nostalgic, this son of a small-town mill worker bashed Bush for dividing the country into two Americas — every speech a reminder that his honeyed North Carolina drawl can garner votes in the South. Color him in down-home colors, y’all.
Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Yankee raised by Russian immigrant parents, talked openly about his values and Orthodox-Jewish beliefs. He defended the Iraq war and mixed talk of deficit reduction and small-business tax incentives with references to his reputation as the “soul” of the Democratic Party. The genial Lieberman could prove to have a chameleon-like appeal.
The last time Democrats in New Hampshire went to the polls, Al Gore, son of the South and a Vietnam veteran, narrowly defeated Bill Bradley, a Northerner who did not serve in the military. Even back then, the color palette was somewhat mixed. But this year, Democrats are more busily scrambling to find a color code that can paint George W. Bush out of the White House.
Cheri DelBrocco, who writes a weekly column for the Flyer Web site, was in New Hampshire for the Democratic primary.