Month: March 2004

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Editorial

Bird in the Hand

We didn’t need this. Or maybe we did.

As was first reported in the Flyer‘s online edition last week, principals of the NBA Grizzlies are now threatening a full court press against the management of The Pyramid for daring to engage the show Sesame Street Live for some mid-September dates. That constitutes a “violation” of the operating agreement made in 2001 by the Grizzlies and local governments, responded Mike Golub, vice president for business operations of HOOPS, the ad hoc entity which represents the Grizzlies in contractual matters. That agreement, which has engendered renewed local controversy of late, gives HOOPS and the soon-to-be FedExForum first right of refusal for major attractions seeking a Memphis venue.

Pyramid officials countered that the arrangements were made in good faith for the Sesame Street production, which has been something of an annual attraction at The Pyramid, and that no starting date has yet been announced for the FedExForum. Unofficial word has been that the facility may not open its doors until October, the month the Grizzlies begin their exhibition season.

Even so, the booking “cannot be tolerated,” insisted Golub, who went on to demand that the matter be submitted to a dispute-resolution procedure provided for under the agreement. The existence of that procedure was largely unknown until recently, and news of it came as something of a ray of light amid the general gloom engendered in governmental circles by other disclosures from the agreement — notably, the revelation that The Pyramid must be preserved as a backup facility for the Grizzlies for a period of 15 years. Unless negotiated out of existence, that fact virtually precludes the possibility of finding productive new uses for a facility that is still being paid for by local taxpayers.

“Unbelievably arrogant” is how county commissioner Walter Bailey characterized the attitude of Grizzlies’ management toward the prospect of Big Bird at The Pyramid this September. We have difficulty disagreeing, especially since such problems are unlikely to occur when the FedExForum formally opens a month later.

However the Sesame Street affair ends up being adjudicated — whether by the dispute-resolution committee or by the courts — the issue does need to be joined, if only to clarify the prerogatives of the respective parties and facilities.

In the meantime, though, we can’t help thinking that Big Bird and company deserved better than to be given the bird in this manner.

Telling Us So

In remarks delivered to the downtown Memphis Rotary Club this week, state Senator Mark Norris made the case that he and other critics of state spending practices had been right in the alarms they have sounded over issues ranging from TennCare to medical malpractice reforms. And he cited the proposals made last month by Governor Phil Bredesen to limit TennCare benefits as a step in the right direction.

Besides a malpractice bill which he has introduced in the current session of the General Assembly, Norris is also pushing a measure — sure to be controversial — that would transform the state’s workers’ compensation laws to hold down costs. Otherwise, says Norris, Tennessee will find itself unable to compete with adjacent states for new industrial starts.

Maybe so, maybe no. (Though it should be noted that Governor Bredesen has already espoused, in principle, some form of action on the workers’ compensation issue.)

We’re not prepared yet to say that Norris “told us so,” but we’ll grant the justice of his complant that he and others may have encountered the kill-the-messenger syndrome in previous years. He — and his legislation — deserve a fair hearing.

Categories
News The Fly-By

A Last Resort?

They were the beloved companions of Queen Victoria and were prized by the pharaohs of Egypt. Picasso loved them so much that he named his daughter after them. They ferried messages for American and allied forces during World War I, and their image has been used time and again as the universal symbol of peace.

But in Memphis, they’re being poisoned.

At the Cargill Inc. facility on Presidents Island, hundreds if not thousands of pigeons, also known as rock doves, have found a haven. There’s water (McKellar Lake), shelter (ledges and tanks to perch on), and, most importantly, food. The Cargill plant processes about 200,000 bushels of corn daily to make food sweeteners. But company officials fear the birds’ droppings may pose a health risk to workers, and in late January, they began working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to eradicate the birds using corn laced with poison.

“We’ve tried everything, and this was pretty much a last resort,” says Bill Brady, a spokesperson for Cargill. “We tried trapping and relocating. We tried to limit their access to the corn. But if there’s a little spillage when you’re unloading, they know. So the USDA recommended this program.”

The USDA-administered program at Cargill utilizes DRC-1339, which according to David Lingo, district supervisor for the USDA’s wildlife services, is only toxic to “pest species of birds,” such as pigeons, blackbirds, and crows.

He says that, before baiting the pigeons, efforts are made to ensure that nontarget birds aren’t feeding at the site. Although the poison is formulated to kill pigeons, nontarget birds can be affected if they eat too much. Lingo says pigeons must ingest about two to five kernels to get a lethal dose. It would take much more to kill a nontarget bird. The poison can take from eight hours to three days to take effect.

Lingo says the USDA has no statistics on the number of pigeons poisoned thus far.

Judging by the size of the flock that still hovers over the plant each morning, one would expect the area to be littered with dead pigeons. But, according to Lingo, the pigeons don’t generally feed and roost at the same site.

“We spend a lot of time documenting where the birds are nesting or loafing, and that’s where we concentrate our efforts in picking up dead birds,” says Lingo. “Every effort is made to properly dispose of the carcasses, and there is someone monitoring the roosting sites. We don’t just leave dead birds lying around.”

However, Dave Roth of the Urban Wildlife Society, an Arizona-based pigeon rescue organization, says he saw dead pigeons lying all around Glendale (a suburb of Phoenix) when a USDA-administered poisoning program was in effect there. He also saw one toddler trying to eat a kernel of regurgitated corn lying next to a dead pigeon near an apartment complex.

The USDA claims the laced corn isn’t potent enough to affect humans, but Roth’s not so sure. He says it would be nearly impossible to track down all the roosting sites, meaning dead pigeons could end up anywhere.

“They can go fly off who-knows-where, and that’s what makes these pigeon poisoning programs so dangerous,” says Roth. “Pigeons don’t generally congregate in large roosts like waterfowl. They’ll have their own little spots, whether it be on a building or in a tree.”

There are several alternative methods of pigeon control often suggested by animal-rights groups — netting, artificial nesting platforms, and even motion-detectors that send out faux-hawk calls. The USDA claims that a DRC-1339 death is “apparently painless,” but Roth thinks otherwise.

“DRC-1339 is a nasty way to die,” says Roth. “It basically destroys the kidneys, and the birds die from toxemia. A kidney infection can be excruciating, and the birds just run around in agony waiting to die.”

Brady says the Cargill plant has had no complaints from animal-rights activists. Kathy Simonetti of the Memphis-Shelby County Humane Society said her organization has no official stance on the situation since they mainly deal with companion animals such as dogs and cats. And Rob Peeples of the local chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society, a bird-watching club, said his group isn’t really concerned with pigeons because they are not native to America.

Meanwhile, Brady says the program at the Cargill plant is ongoing. USDA administrators will leave bait out for two or three days or until it appears that the number of pigeons on-site has dwindled. Then, they’ll take a break and start the program again when too many pigeons return.

According to Roth, this cycle of poisoning actually makes the situation worse:

“One of the reasons pigeons breed so prolifically is because of our actions to eradicate them. There are pigeons in the wild that raise maybe two to four chicks a year, and that’s their natural state. But nature abhors a vacuum, so the more quickly we kill the birds off, the more prolific breeders they become.”

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

The Homosexual Agenda

To the Editor:

Those who promote homosexual unions misleadingly cast their issue as one about civil rights instead of what it really is — the open promotion of harmful behavior and a breakdown in the rule of law.

They complain the Constitution shouldn’t be amended to address the issue and fail to note the four Massachusetts judges who did just that. Amending the Constitution is an almost impossible process, but a handful of judges can do so at any time. Every ruling they purport to base on constitutional grounds is a de facto constitutional amendment.

The Massachusetts homosexual “marriage” decision violates established principles to adjudicate constitutional challenges and is an unconstitutional act of overreaching into the prerogative of the legislative branch.

The judges and media who are standing by watching this happen ought to take a close look at the trend line they’re putting society on.

Daniel Lee

Collierville

Lone Ranger

To the Editor:

Paul Loeb’s column, “Lone Ranger” (February 26th issue), makes some silly and misguided arguments. Loeb claims that Ralph Nader’s “core case in announcing his 2004 presidential candidacy” is his right to run. Nader has been forced to justify his decision following demands by a number of politicians and pundits that he stay out.

While one might easily gauge Nader’s zealous response to those who demand “Ralph, don’t run” an overreaction, it is laughable for a serious observer to suggest it is the foundation for his run.

Nader’s platform is (not surprisingly) very similar to his platform of four years ago, with the exception that now he bears the additional burden of explaining why he is not personally responsible for all of the ills he seeks to overcome. It includes, as Loeb hints, his mission to remind Americans that we are bound together by our citizenship and our consumerism. But Loeb’s analogy is strained when he claims Nader’s run now depends upon “fixating on his own absolute right to do whatever he chooses.” Nader’s activist causes have always involved his leadership and began with a small group of supporters, including all of his victories. He has gone and will go it alone to defend what he believes is the common good, regardless of what popular opinion says. To encourage a man of Nader’s experience to do anything different is a pointless and wrong-headed exercise.

Can Loeb really believe that a man so ostracized from the political mainstream in 2000 that he was barred physically even from attending presidential debates as an audience member ought to be deterred because he seems unwanted?

As to Loeb’s claim that Nader can raise awareness for issues he supports in arenas outside the presidential race, Loeb clearly hasn’t been noticing the attention he and his fellow media pundits are paying to Nader’s candidacy in the past week.

It would be nice to see as many stories focusing on other candidates so driven by their egos that they are willing to modify “beliefs” or misconstrue voting records for short-term political popularity.

Mark Zipkin

Somerville, New Jersey

The Real Tim

To the Editor:

Is that really Tim Sampson on page 26 (February 26th issue)?

He’s so clean-cut. Even kind of yuppie-looking.

Who knew?

We Recommend is the first thing I read in the Flyer each week. I had a picture in my head of Tim with shaggy hair (not so), a slight slouch (again, not so), and a weight problem, since he’s always telling us about his failed diets. I also pictured him with a devil-may-care grunge look.

But from the photo it appears I was wrong on all counts.

Now where did I get those visuals?

Marina Foster

Memphis

Correction: In last week’s City Beat, the Flyer incorrectly reported the experience of the city of Memphis chief administrative officer, Keith McGee. McGee previously served as deputy director and director of Human Services.

The Memphis Flyer encourages reader response. Send mail to: Letters to the Editor, POB 1738, Memphis, TN 38101. Or call Back Talk at 575-9405. Or send us e-mail at letters@memphisflyer.com. All responses must include name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters should be no longer than 250 words.

Categories
Music Music Features

Local Beat

Estelle Axton was undoubtedly the queen of the Memphis music scene. The co-founder of Stax Records (along with her brother, Jim Stewart), Axton never played an instrument, yet she was revered by bluesmen, soul divas, funky chickens, and R&B balladeers alike. She mortgaged her first home in 1959 to start Satellite Records, Stax’s predecessor, and presided over Soulsville U.S.A. for nearly two decades. Two years after Stax closed, Axton produced Rick Dees‘ “Disco Duck” on her Fretone label; the novelty song became one of the biggest hits in history, selling more than four million copies.

In years since, Axton played an active part in rallying support for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. By the time the museum opened, however, Axton was in ill health. She died in the hospice at St. Francis Hospital on February 24th, with her brother by her side. Axton was 85 years old.

Many young women have taken their cue from the lady the artists at Stax called “Mom,” including rappers Chopper Girl and Denea. Like Axton, both artists are white. And like their mentor, they’ve managed to infiltrate a scene that’s largely African-American and male.

On February 20th, Chopper Girl (aka 30-year-old Holland Taylor) previewed Dirty Dolla$, her brand-new album, for an enthusiastic crowd downtown. Local producers, DJs, and other scenesters were invited to a loft space above the Madison Avenue Walgreens to comment on the album. Responses across the board were “all good.”

“I’m gonna say I like this,” said Too Black, who runs his own label. “Is that a white girl?” he joked, as Chopper Girl’s heavy, Three-6-Mafia-influenced beats rolled out of the speakers. “I’d ride with this girl 100 percent.”

Delano Corleone States, a self-professed mix-tape wizard, agreed. “Chopper Girl is really diverse,” he marveled, pointing to the mixture of hardcore rap elements, rock-influenced snare-drum beats, and Detroit-inspired bass lines. “I would bump this,” he said, “especially cuts like ‘Where We From’ and ‘Still Buck.'”

At the end of the night, Chopper Girl and O.Z., a Humboldt, Tennessee-based rapper who produced a few tracks on Dirty Dolla$, grabbed a pair of microphones and rapped for the audience. Watching them, Keno “Da Don,“ a rapper on Too Black’s eponymous label, was all smiles. “Chopper [is] my girl,” Keno said. “She’s compatible with La Chat and Gangsta Boo. She can definitely make Memphis bad.”

If Friday’s response is any indication, Dirty Dolla$ will be a smash when it hits the street later this month. Listen for it on K97 and Hot 107.1, or pick it up at area stores. For more info, go to HoodooLabs.com.

While Chopper Girl was planning her preview party, Denea was packing her bags for New York City for an appearance on Harlem’s legendary “make you or break you” televised talent competition, Showtime at the Apollo.

“I took 15 people with me,” Denea explained. “I had my producers, designer, manager — the whole crew with me. We did our thing with the dancers and everything.”

“But the audience was tough,” the 26-year-old noted. “They booed everyone, even Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz. Mo’Nique [Imes-Jackson, the show’s host] told them that we were all the way from Memphis, and then they really booed us. Apparently, they didn’t want to hear anything from the South.

“It was rigged. At one point, these two girls were singing gospel, and when they got booed, Mo’Nique said, ‘I don’t want to hear that. These are my girls.’ They stopped the show and made them take it from the top, with the crowd cheering.”

While Denea’s appearance on Showtime at the Apollo won’t air until April, she was featured on the Today show while in New York. Memphis barbecue fan Al Roker conducted the interview.

“People ask me why I choose to do rap instead of other music,” Denea said. “But it’s always come naturally to me; I’ve been doing this since I was 11. I listen to everything from Kylie Minogue to OutKast. I’ve got some soul in me somewhere,” she added with a laugh. “The only thing I really don’t care for is country.”

Denea is currently label shopping. Look for her album Shinin’ — which features Chopper Girl alongside Gangsta Blac, Kingpin Skinny Pimp, King JC, Al Kapone, and DJ Trick — later this year. You can also hear her on former 2 Live Crew rapper Brother Marquis‘ newest release, which was recorded at Playalistic Studio in North Memphis. “I’m the only female on it,” she said.

Estelle Axton would be proud.

E-mail: localbeat@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Give ‘Em Hell, Mel

The pop-culture issue of the day surrounds Mel Gibson’s new film, The Passion of the Christ. Beyond any talk of quality, profundity, or interest is the issue of anti-Semitism and the film’s depiction of the Jews. A key component of Jewish persecution, from Christ’s death and through to our own 21st century, has been the role of the Jews in the death of Christ. “Christ killers” is, I believe, the favored derogatory. This is a most ridiculous slur, because whoever killed Christ has been dead for some 2,000 years. There is no element of Jewish culture that I am aware of attached to any kind of pride or accomplishment regarding a Jewish defeat of the Christian messiah. But I don’t imagine that anyone issuing such a slur would have first investigated the Jewish experience prior to the bigotry. That’s the thing about bigots: shoot first, questions later.

So, allow me to address the most pressing social concern regarding this divisive film: The Passion of the Christ is not an anti-Semitic film. It recognizes, with what I believe to be an accurate interfaith perspective, that Christ’s death was carried out by a cooperation between the Roman bureaucracy and Jewish Pharisees. To blame the entire Jewish people for the death of Christ would be the same as blaming all of the United States of America for, say, bombing the bejeezus out of Iraq rather than blaming the few who hastened and necessitated the action. My comparison has a political barb to it, yes, but allow me to elaborate further by likening it also to a select clutch of Islamic fundamentalists blaming all of the U.S. for Reagan/Bush/Clinton-era foreign-relations policies — and therefore finding it God’s will to topple two skyscrapers, full of civilians, with airplanes. Or blaming Christianity for the Holocaust. As we have witnessed for centuries, nothing fuels mankind’s hate like the desire for God’s love, and it is God’s bad messengers who have distorted the great teachings of love, goodwill, and peace.

Off my soapbox for a moment: Accusations of anti-Semitism come not only from the film but by controversial elements of Mel Gibson’s personal life and comments surrounding the release of the film. His father has been quoted recently as believing the Holocaust to be mostly fabrication. Gibson himself, when asked whether or not he believed that his own wife would go to hell because she is not Catholic, had this to say: “Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She’s a much better person than I am. Honestly. She’s, like, Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it’s just not fair if she doesn’t make it. She’s better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it.”

Gibson belongs to a sect of conservative Catholicism called “traditionalism,” which goes beyond Protestant fundamentalists by restricting heaven to Catholics only. It is therefore natural to look for anti-Semitism in a film by a director whose view of the afterlife of the Jewish people is so calculably clear. Similarly, it was not difficult to locate his well-known homophobia in his last directorial effort, 1995’s Oscar-winning Braveheart. Prince Edward II, noted historical homosexual, was depicted as a sissified fop, and Gibson (unhistorically) crafted a moment when the king pushes Edward’s lover out a castle window to his death for a desired humorous effect. Ha ha. Regardless, it is corrupted power that takes the blame here for Jesus’ death. Not the Jewish people. Whatever Gibson’s personal feelings, they are well-hidden.

That said, the film is a masterpiece. But a masterpiece of what? Not of narrative. The Passion of the Christ is not a story film: A) We know it already, and B) this film is less talk and more flogging. The acting is beautiful and appropriate, but there are (to its credit) no noteworthy performances. James Caviezel stands out only because he gets to play Jesus and endure endless torture. The mastery of this film, then, is in the experience of it. This is not so much a movie to see as it is an experience to be had. And the experience is violent. Jesus’ “passion” is not one of love but of suffering. In the Christian faith, this suffering tends to equal love, but in definition, it is all about the suffering. So this film is crafted entirely around the suffering, and its depiction is brutal, uncompromising, and utterly horrifying. The whipping of Christ is perhaps the most difficult to watch. We see his flesh sliced, ripped, and torn by switches, scourges, and a cat-o’-nine-tails that exposes his ribs. The crown of thorns, the nails in the hands and feet, and the spear in Christ’s side are depicted with equal lack of compromise.

Some critics decry that this Passion focuses only on the gruesome aspects of a death and not on the magnificence of a life. True? Yes. Valid? No. It’s not the point. There are other films to rent that glorify the teachings and the love of the man-god Jesus. This film is about sacrifice — God’s, yes, but Jesus’ more profoundly. Gibson, who spent $30 million of his own money on this film and fought to have it made in Aramaic and Latin with English subtitles, may be more accurately critiqued for some unnecessary flourishes. (Supposedly, Jesus invented the contemporary dining-room table. Satan appears as a creepy, androgynous woman, and once sports a scary, Gollum-like anti-Christ baby.) But message and messenger should be permitted some license in a work as profound as this.

Endnote: Consider this statement as you head to the theater: The Passion of the Christ is the most successful argument for the separation of church and state ever committed to film. Feel free to e-mail me at hungrygorilla@hotmail.com to share your comments. — Bo List

When you think of movies about dancing (Strictly Ballroom, Dirty Dancing, Fame), you probably think of florid emotions, big performances, and tales of triumph and transformation. But in Robert Altman’s The Company, a quasi-documentary feature filmed in conjunction with Chicago’s estimable Joffrey Ballet, it’s just another job –a job as fascinating and mundane as any other.

The film — a labor of love for “star” and ex-dancer Neve Campbell, who conceived the project, and for Altman — continues the director’s career-long interest in the working of subcultures: the country-music scene (Nashville), military-hospital units (M*A*S*H), domestic servants and their employers (Gosford Park), and political campaigns (Tanner ’88).

This subject matter has formal, visual strengths that other Altman subcultures haven’t provided, of course. From practices to rehearsals to performances, the dancers are worth watching regardless of the dramatic context, and Altman is able to explore the benefits of capturing dance on film.

The Company‘s greatest scene is an outdoor pas de deux between Campbell and a male partner that is threatened by wind and rain. Altman keeps the camera relatively stationary, cutting back to the audience and to the musicians for reaction shots (to the dancers and the weather). The pair engage each other slowly, elegantly, yet with great athletic strength and precision as leaves blow around the stage and rain begins to splatter the crowd. The head of the company contemplates stopping the performance the second the stage begins to get wet, but the dancers seem oblivious to anything happening around them. This simple, graceful, unabashedly erotic negotiation is one of the loveliest and one of the tensest scenes I’ve ever laid eyes on. If you go into a film like this wondering why people love dance, this might be the answer.

And yet one could see it as a miscalculation, since the scene dwarfs the dance pieces that begin and end the film. Indeed, nothing else in the film matches it for drama. The finale, a colorful storybook ballet with dancers in animal-oriented costumes, has a cluttered feel that obscures the dancing, but perhaps that’s more a criticism of the ballet being performed than the film that documents it. Because Altman’s film is about the creative process rather than about ballet specifically, focusing on this particular project seems to allow him to explore backstage elements (budget struggles, etc.) more than a simpler ballet might.

This sense of process is the key to appreciating the film. The Company is not a typical backstage drama, but rather an examination of the collaborative creative process. As such, The Company perhaps suffers in comparison to the best films of this type: my choice, by far, being Mike Leigh’s stupendous theater-troupe ethnography Topsy-Turvy, though Francois Truffaut’s film-set glimpse, Day for Night, is also great.

Altman, as always, is more interested in the community than the individual. The closest the film gets to lead performances are those of Campbell and Malcolm McDowell as the company’s artistic director. But even they are secondary to the whole. But perhaps that is also misleading.

Altman is really interested in how these individuals function as part of a community. So he gives you the performances, rehearsals, practices, business meetings, and social lives of this particular ballet company and those who exist in its orbit. He doesn’t force these lives into dramatic conventions but rather steps modestly through the textures that exist between and around dramatic moments — the scenes left out of other movies.

As a result, The Company is a little dull at times. And there is certainly nothing else that compels one’s attention like that early outdoor dance scene. But slip into its rhythms and live in it for a while, and you can appreciate what Altman is doing here.

Another thing The Company shares with Topsy-Turvy and Day for Night is an autobiographical bent. Leigh certainly saw himself in Gilbert and Sullivan, and Truffaut played the director’s role for his film-within-a-film. Likewise, Altman seems to identify with the company’s artistic director, Alberto Antonelli (McDowell), who is constantly massaging the money men for the meager funds needed to keep his projects afloat and managing his sprawling group of artists and technicians, much as Altman has had to do during a long, fruitful career on the Hollywood margins.

And that’s why, while The Company certainly feels like a minor Altman film right now — a mere footnote to one of the richest and most compelling bodies of work American film has produced — I suspect that it will age rather well.

— Chris Herrington

Categories
Music Music Features

Gimmie Indie Rock!

Austin’s South By Southwest music festival, which takes place in the Texas capital every March, might be the biggest underground rock gathering in the country. Festival passes are pricey, but for Memphians who don’t want to make the trip or pay the fare, our city’s status as logical tour stop on the way to or from Austin makes it possible to sample what SXSW has to offer without ever leaving the metro area. So far, we count 24 shows scheduled for Memphis or Oxford in March that are directly tied to SXSW, with a few more likely to emerge. What follows is a quick cheat sheet to a busy, busy month:

Saturday, March 6th

Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers (opening for Reverend Horton Heat)

Young Avenue Deli

Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers are a rowdy roots-rock band from Nashville that blends country, blues, and rockabilly (and, okay, punk) into a larger-than-life, theatrical blend. Formed by members of Hank Williams III’s touring band, the Shack*Shakers have purportedly become quite the live draw in Nashville, and their debut album, Cockadoodledon’t, released by venerable Chicago “insurgent country” label Bloodshot Records, confirms the suspicion that if you’re a fan of Southern Culture on the Skids or Reverend Horton Heat and wish those bands would freshen up their schtick, then Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers are for you. And, luckily enough, their local show this month will be in support of the good Reverend, who have seemingly been on tour since 1928.

Sunday, March 7th

The Forty-Fives (with The Lights and The Sore Thumbs)

Hi-Tone CafÇ

These Atlanta garage-rockers offer a sturdy, old-fashioned take on a durable genre, their sound full of fuzz-toned guitars, snapping backbeats, and stabs of organ. The band plays Memphis fairly frequently and has recorded here, but even if you’ve never seen them before, Memphis clubhounds should find something comfortably familiar in the Forty-Fives. They convey some of the ’60s-style charm of Memphis’ own Reigning Sound and quite a bit of the swaggering, for-those-about-to-rock-we-salute-you populism of locals the Subteens.

Wednesday, March 10th

American Minor

Young Avenue Deli

West Virginia’s American Minor is a five-piece, blues-based rock band whose sound has been compared to Lynyrd Skynyrd, early-’70s Rolling Stones, and Mountain. They’ll be playing a free show as part of the Deli’s ongoing “On the Road” series.

Friday, March 12th

I Am the World Trade Center and The Paper Lions

Young Avenue Deli

Do you sometimes pine for the swooning, danceable synth-pop of ’80s bands such as Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark and Human League? Well, Athens-by-way-of-New York’s I Am the World Trade Center prove that you’re not alone. The duo of singer Amy Dykes and musical mastermind Dan Geller formed in New York City pre-9/11, changed their moniker in the days after the towers fell, but eventually decided to go back to it. The romantic laptop pop style went over big last year in the hands of Seattle side project the Postal Service (which spun off from the city’s indie cult band Death Cab for Cutie), and I Am the World Trade Center’s catchy, endearing The Cover Up, which is due for release in May, suggests they can follow that lead into the fragile hearts of indie-pop fans everywhere. Atlanta’s Paper Lions, who record for Kindercore Records, open.

Saturday, March 13th

The Unicorns (with Vending Machine)

Hi-Tone CafÇ

After tours opening for such indie stalwarts as Hot Hot Heat, Cat Power, and the Walkmen, these Canadian indie rockers are starting to become something of a cause cÇlÇbre of their own, at least in the indie-rock specialist press, which is admittedly as navel-gazing as a subculture gets and not always reliable. The Unicorns offer lo-fi pop with “sacred” lyrics, and the band’s playful, childish live sets are said to sometimes make use of puppets or films. Whether they live up to their minor hype or not, locals Vending Machine, Robby Grant’s lovely experiment in alt-pop, is a sure thing. This will be an early show, with the Gamble Brothers Band scheduled to close things down at the Hi-Tone that night.

Sunday, March 14th

The Secret Machines and The Fever

Hi-Tone CafÇ

This pairing promises to be one of the month’s most intriguing shows. The Secret Machines are an epic, expansive band from Dallas (via New York), whose major-label debut for Warner-Reprise, Now Here Is Nowhere, is already available digitally (see secretmachines.com or iTunes). But it won’t be released in tangible form until later this spring. The record is strong enough to suggest they could be one of the year’s breakout bands. Some compare them to Pink Floyd, but I don’t hear it. (Jeez, they’re a trio.) I hear something more akin to mid-’90s Flaming Lips, when that band had a harder guitar sound, but with more straightforward lyrics (and equally straightforward emotions).

The Secret Machines shared space with the Fever on last year’s scene-sampling compilation Yes New York, and the latter band’s spirited, punky garage-rock (including a cover of Sheila E.’s “The Glamorous Life”) is also a good bet to develop into something.

Decibully (with The Klopeks)

Young Avenue Deli

Decibully debuted last fall with the album City of Festivals, for increasingly prominent indie-rock label Polyvinyl. Featuring members of emo giants the Promise Ring, the band pulls the much-kvetched-about genre in a direction that embraces both alt-country and chamber pop.

Dysrhythmia

The Caravan

This Philly trio concocts head-spinning, instrumental heavy-rock for fans of avant-garde jazz, progressive rock, and hardcore metal. The band’s most recent album, Pretest, wallows in some murky atmospherics, but just as often traffics in thundering riffs and energizingly sprung rhythms.

Monday, March 15th

Constantines and The National

Hi-Tone CafÇ

Toronto’s Constantines record for Seattle’s venerable indie Sub Pop, with their latest, last year’s Shine a Light, a considerable hit on college radio. The band has a pretty traditional rock sound without sounding retro, leading one to believe that they could have been mainstream stars in a different era. They’ll be joined by the New-York-via-Ohio country rockers the National.

Trailer Bride

Proud Larry’s

Led by singer-songwriter Melissa Swingle, this Chapel Hill-based band is what bluegrass might sound like as imagined by a moody alt-rock chanteuse. The band has been recording for nearly a decade, mostly for Chicago’s respected “insurgent country” label Bloodshot.

Tuesday, March 16

Modey Lemon and The Apes

Young Avenue Deli

Modey Lemon is a noisy, vaguely bluesy guitar-and-drums duo in the vein of the White Stripes, except that, instead of finding their inspiration in Depression-era blues, they reach all the way back to ye olde Iggy & the Stooges for a sound and attitude. But they pull it off in spades. Washington, D.C.’s The Apes, offer a similar kind of noisy blues-rock but follow it back to its garage and metal, rather than punk, roots.

Panthers and The Detachment Kit

Hi-Tone CafÇ

Brooklyn’s Panthers have shared stages with other currently hot NYC rock bands such as the Rapture, Liars, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs and boast an experimental, political, punk style that’s been compared to D.C.’s much-loved Nation of Ulysses. They’ll join up with Chicago’s angular indie-rockers The Detachment Kit, some of whose members have Memphis connections.

Wednesday, March 17th

Trans Am and Paris, Texas

Young Avenue Deli

Trans Am emerged from the mid-’90s “post-rock” scene whose most notable practitioners were Chicago’s Tortoise. The band’s experimental, largely instrumental sound takes on a newfound political bent on their latest, Liberation, which keeps their trademark sonic punchlines to a minimum. Instead, they splice together phrases from George Bush speeches in order to have him say things like “In the battle of Iraq, we destroyed hospitals and schools” to enthusiastic congressional applause. Openers Paris, Texas are an emo band from Wisconsin, so one can only assume that their moniker derives from excellent taste in film.

The Black Keys

Hi-Tone CafÇ

As bluesy, indie-schooled guitar-and-drums duos go, where the White Stripes cite Blind Willie McTell and Son House and Modey Lemon reach back to the Stooges and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Ohio’s Black Keys find middle ground between ’60s blues rockers (Canned Heat, Mountain, like that) and the hill-country blues of recent years. They’re the most straightforwardly bluesy band of their type, so it makes sense that they’d hook up with the label that brought hill-country blues to the rest of the world, Oxford’s Fat Possum, which released the band’s second album, thickfreakness, last year.

Saturday March 20

We Ragazzi and French Toast

The Caravan

We Ragazzi are a Chicago-based trio who mix and match keyboard and piano hooks, overactive drums, and Jagger-style vocals into a unique style. French Toast? Couldn’t tell you.

Sunday, March 21st

Armor for Sleep, Liar’s Academy, Silent Drive, and Bane

The Riot

Upstate New York’s Equal Vision is an indie punk and emo label that has gotten perhaps its most attention lately for Coheed & Cambria, the prog-metal-indie-emo outfit in town last month opening for AFI and Thursday. This label-showcase tour collects four of Equal Vision’s other Northeast punk hopefuls: New Jersey’s Armor for Sleep, Baltimore’s Liar’s Academy, and Massachusetts’ Silent Drive and Bane.

Don Caballero (with The Circuit Benders and The Klopeks)

Young Avenue Deli

Pittsburgh’s Don Caballero emerged in the mid-’90s indie-rock heyday with a form of heavy, smart instrumental rock for vaunted Chicago indie Touch & Go. A decade later, they’re still at it, as a new generation of instrumental rockers like Lightning Bolt have followed their lead.

Monday, March 22nd

The Rosebuds

Hi-Tone CafÇ

This Raleigh, North Carolina, indie-rock band released their debut album, The Rosebuds Make Out, last fall on Merge, the celebrated indie label that grew up around ’90s icon Superchunk. For anyone who remembers that band fondly (and, yeah, I know, they’re still together, amazingly enough), the Rosebuds’ energetic, hooky brand of rock should be worth checking out.

Thee Shams (with Danny Black)

Proud Larry’s

This Ohio-based psychedelic garage-rock band has joined the stable of Mississippi’s blues-identified Fat Possum Records and recently recorded their label debut at Fat Possum founder Bruce Watson’s Money Shot studio.

Tuesday, March 23rd

Ester Drang, The Reigning Sound, and Mr. Airplane Man

Hi-Tone CafÇ

The quasi-locals on this bill –Reigning Sound with now North Carolina-based Greg Cartwright and the now Memphis-Boston Mr. Airplane Man –should be more than enough to pack the Hi-Tone, especially since every Reigning Sound show these days feels like it could be the last. But shoe-gazing Tulsa indie-rockers Ester Drang, who record for Delaware’s respected Jade Tree records (Jets to Brazil, Pedro the Lion), could be worth the trip alone, especially if they make good on the ubiquitous comparisons to fellow Oklahomans the Flaming Lips.

Sleepy Jackson, On the Speakers, and Robbers on High Street

Newby’s

This atmospheric country-rock band from the wilds of Western Australia recorded their lavishly praised debut album, Lovers, for the dance/techno-identified label Astralwerks (home of Fatboy Slim and Basement Jaxx, among others). Though the album has a few electro elements, it’s mostly a confident, expansive update of rootsy ’60s rock, jumping from soaring late-Beatles pop (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” springs immediately to mind) to Gram Parsons-style folkiness to glammy swagger. This is probably the most hyped new band hitting town this month, and it’s not hard to understand why.

As for the openers: On the Speakers is the new project from Ian Sefchick, frontman for onetime coulda-been-contenders Creeper Lagoon, who released the well-regarded album I Become Small and Go in the late ’90s but never really developed on that promise. On the Speakers is an attempt to hit the reset button, and the catchy indie-pop of the band’s eponymous EP bodes well. Rounding out the bill are New York’s Robbers on High Street, whose debut EP, Fine Lines, is set for release this month.

Friday, March 26th

The Ponys, THE FUSE!,

and The Lost Sounds

Hi-Tone CafÇ

California’s In the Red Records has emerged during the garage-rock “revival” of the past few years as one of the best and most reliable indie-rock labels in the country and one with considerable local connections. Label chief Larry Hardy has long mined the Memphis-Detroit garage-rock nexus (the label’s flagship band, the Dirtbombs, representing the latter), and his showcase at SXSW this year will be headlined by locals the Reigning Sound and also contain one of the label’s newest signings, Memphis’ Lost Sounds.

On the way home, the Lost Sounds will bring a couple of their new labelmates for a smaller Memphis showcase that promises to be one of the month’s best shows. The Lost Sounds you know (or should), but the Ponys, a co-ed quartet from Chicago, you need to get to know. The band’s latest record, the truth-in-advertising Laced with Romance, which mixes the Ronettes and Richard Hell with equal ardor and understanding, might be the most durable and pleasurable straight-up garage-rock album I’ve heard since the Reigning Sound’s Time Bomb High School. Rounding out the bill is Los Angeles mod trio THE FUSE!. I haven’t heard them, but considering the lofty company they keep, there’s bound to be something good going on.

Sunday, March 28th

Throw Rag (with The Angel Sluts)

Hi-Tone CafÇ

This punkabilly would-be cult band from Southern California has been compared to the Damned and Social Distortion off the strength of their 2003 debut, Desert Shores, produced by indie-rock notable Tim Kerr. The Angel Sluts? I have no idea.

Wednesday, March 31st

Calexico

Hi-Tone CafÇ

The Tucson-based Calexico is a collaboration between multi-instrumentalists John Convertino and Joey Burns. Convertino and Burns are longtime bandmates who back Howe Gelb in the stalwart alt-rock outfit Giant Sand and have moonlighted in lounge-revival act Friends of Dean Martinez. As Calexico, they merge atmospheric Southwestern rock and novel instrumentation (marimba, accordion, cornet) with a typical guitar-bass-drums foundation.

Calexico is one of those side projects that was so successful that it became its makers’ main gig, establishing the eclectic duo as modern-day Ennio Morricones. Indeed, most of their albums could work as a soundtrack for an as-yet-untitled Quentin Tarantino spaghetti western homage. With this band’s potent use of not only Morricone but mariachi, tejano, and other styles atypical for indie-rock (country, jazz, surf, South American music, etc.), Calexico creates first-rate mood music for an America (real or imagined) that exists “out yonder where the snakes and scorpions run.”

E-mail: herrington@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Shattered Front

Fledgling city council member Carol Chumney, victorious last year in a multicandidate race to succeed John Vergos in District 5 (Midtown), got where she is today despite the private efforts of Mayor Willie Herenton, who was widely regarded as favoring two of her opponents — first, lawyer Jim Strickland, and later, during a runoff election, businessman/physician George Flinn.

Even so, Chumney has chosen to deviate from the more or less united front of her councilmates on issues on which they and the mayor have been in conflict. In a letter hand-delivered to the mayor last week, Chumney reminded Herenton that she “was the only member of the Memphis City Council to vote with you” against overriding the mayor’s veto of a council ordinance which asserted the council’s right to approve and control funding of interim mayoral appointees.

Comparing her action to the mayor’s statement last week renouncing his previous intention to litigate the issue, Chumney said, “Like you, I made the gesture in an effort to end the conflict and allow us all to focus on the real issues at hand.” She went on to request a private audience with the mayor “to discuss the process to select the new leader for Memphis Light, Gas & Water prior to any new nomination.” Chumney added, “I have some information to share with you which I hope will encourage you to nominate a person with substantial utility experience.”

The requested meeting did in fact take place (according to Chumney, in fact, the mayor had meanwhile begun his own overtures to her), and both parties later expressed themselves satisfied with how it went.

In an op-ed written this week for the Flyer (see “My Olive Branch,” p. 13), Chumney has amplified on her attitude, implying criticism of “certain members” of the council for engaging in “petty in-fighting” and suggesting that “the tone and name-calling by more than one elected official in this city have been divisive and unproductive.”

Though other members of the council have expressed a willingness to try to end the divide, especially after the mayor’s peacemaking initiative last Tuesday, they pointedly reasserted their prerogatives on the appointments issue during a council retreat on Wednesday. And they vowed to push ahead on an internal investigation of the mayor’s involvement in arranging brokering for last year’s prepayment arrangements of Memphis Light, Gas and Water with the Tennessee Valley Authority.

• It’s official: Memphis school board member Lora Jobe says she definitely won’t run again for her District 5 seat this year. Two potential candidates have so far expressed interest in the seat: lawyer Nick Bragorgos and physician Jeff Warren.

• Memphis attorney John Ryder, now in his second term as Republican national committeeman from Tennessee, will be succeeded later this year by former 4th District congressman Van Hilleary, for whom the post offers a new window of political visibility.

The succession, forecast in this space some weeks ago, was achieved unanimously at Saturday’s meeting of the GOP state executive committee in Nashville. Ryder had originally wanted to remain as national committeeman for another term so as to be serving in that role next year when the Southern Republican Leadership Conference is held in Memphis.

But Hilleary, who had meanwhile relocated in Nashville, let it be known that he wanted the post, and, as the party’s immediate past gubernatorial candidate, had enough clout to get his way. Ryder gracefully yielded (though some of his party allies felt burned) and will serve instead as chairman of next year’s party conference here.

GOP insiders say that Hilleary wanted to be party chairman so as to reinforce his statewide network prior to a likely run in 2006 for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Majority Leader Bill Frist. It is generally believed that Frist, who has presidential ambitions for 2008, will not seek reelection to the Senate.

Other likely Republican candidates for the Senate in 2006 are 3rd District congressman Zach Wamp; former 7th District congressman Ed Bryant; and current 7th District congressman Marsha Blackburn.

Former Memphian Stephanie Chivers, now of Kingston Springs, was elected to a second term as GOP national committeewoman.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Good Boy

It didn’t feel like I was in Memphis” was the frequently repeated refrain from audience members lucky enough to catch Saturday night’s performance of Tom Stoppard and Andre Previn’s seldom-seen 1977 work, Every Good Boy Deserves Favor.

And while this is a compliment that somehow diminishes the achievement, there was something rare about the performance, something wonderful and decidedly un-Memphis. Maybe it was the production itself, the first joint project between Playhouse on the Square and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, two of the city’s vanguard arts organizations. Certainly, Stoppard’s play, which compares the plight of a Soviet political prisoner to an inmate in a mental hospital, is shockingly accessible though bursting with political import. And no matter where you live, one-act plays that require a full symphony orchestra aren’t run-of-the mill.

And then, of course, there is the Cannon Center itself. The new concert hall is stunning, to say the least. For many theater fans not given to venturing out for classical performances, this was their first time to visit the spectacular new space, and it’s fairly easy to see why they felt so deliciously dislocated. One way or the other, Every Good Boy Deserves Favor set a new standard for collaboration between Memphis arts groups. In a city obsessed with the idea of becoming “world-class,” this production was a landmark event.

Bob Hetherington, chair of the theater and dance department of the University of Memphis, beamed as he looked out over the crowd and introduced the show. He offered special thanks to the production’s benefactors, including Facing History And Ourselves — an extremely appropriate alliance given the play’s subject matter. One might think Stoppard’s play, set in the Soviet Union during the height of the cold war, might be dated. Not true. In fact, as the play unfolds, many direct parallels can be drawn between Soviet dogma and the blindly nationalist sentiments fostered in America during the early 21st century.

“Why do this play when virtually nobody under the age of 15 or maybe even 20 remembers the fall of the Berlin Wall; when [Soviet] Communism has gone off the world stage?” asks MSO conductor David Loebel. “Because there are always governments cracking down on freedom of expression,” he says. “Because governments are always cracking down on religion of some kind, on the right to assemble, and, of course, on the arts.”

“It’s something special and timely,” adds Jackie Nichols, executive director of Playhouse on the Square.

Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, a one-night-only event, was two years in the making. The seed was sewn when Loebel called Nichols for advice one day in 2001, and somehow their conversation migrated toward the seldom-performed Stoppard/Previn collaboration. Both were interested in the idea of Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, but it took nearly a year just to set the date.

“I couldn’t even find the recording,” Nichols says. Actually, he found an original recording on vinyl but discovered it was warped. He later scoured New York record shops, to no avail. Just when he was about to give up, he stumbled across a copy that had been misfiled. According to Nichols, the live recording was difficult to listen to, but it was good enough.

Saturday night’s performance represented the best talent that the Memphis art world has to offer. Seasoned veterans of the Memphis stage such as Bennett Wood, Michael Detroit, and Irene Crist performed alongside promising newcomer Robert McDonough, a graduate of the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard and assistant professor at the U of M. Andre Leonard, who played Sacha, the troubled son of the Soviet dissident, turned 13 on opening night. Detroit was particularly fine as Ivanov, a potentially violent though generally good-natured fellow imprisoned because he thinks he plays the triangle in a symphony that does not exist. He made a fine counterpoint to McDonough’s Alexander, the brooding prisoner who might be set free if only he would stop going on hunger strikes and agree that the Soviet Union does not lock sane men in mental hospitals.

Throughout the play we are reminded that what is real and true is unimportant: All that matters is agreeing with the state, that hegemony means health, happiness, and wisdom. Even when both prisoners are released by way of an absurd error, it is still a triumph for the oppressive system.

The Memphis Symphony Orchestra never sounded better. Simply playing in the acoustically fine Cannon Center has to have a powerful effect on the players. Engaging in such a unique experiment in front of a large, unusually enthusiastic audience could only make things that much better.

“Even in mankind’s darkest moments, great art not only survives, it may be the only thing that tells the truth,” Loebel told the audience before launching into Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a. And even in cities not known for being on the cutting edge of world culture, great art can happen. Even in Memphis.

Categories
News

The Streets of New Orleans

My best guess is that, after bartenders and waiters and hotel staff, the number-one occupation in New Orleans is tour guide.

The city has ghost tours, vampire tours, cemetery tours, and voodoo tours, but consider a tour of the Garden District. That area is home to the city’s Big Rich, where the mansions lining St. Charles Avenue make the homes in Chickasaw Gardens look like shotgun shacks.

Along with a few family members, I once signed up for a Garden District tour, which was led by a woman who, at first glance, didn’t appear able to complete the tour herself. She shuffled along on a cane, stopping occasionally to adjust her balance and reset her red scarf across her shoulder with a dramatic swoop and a side-of-the-mouth remark. She looked as if today’s walk would be her only venture outside the house.

We wandered into the world of the ridiculously wealthy — and I choose that word for a reason. There is simply no reason to have as much money as some of these people do, much less to spend it in the way they spend it, which is purely and simply to impress themselves and others. The Garden District is a monument to Americans’ tendency toward royalism, and to tour it is to act, for a time, like members of the court, pointing out this or that trapping of wealth and power and gossiping all the way. After all, what is a tour of a residential neighborhood if not a gossipfest?

One of the highlights was a home being remodeled. Our guide informed us of all the critical facts — several thousand square feet, gold trimmings, $1.4 million for the place, putting more than that into it — and then informed us that the couple who bought it had no kids still living at home. Before I could get out the question “What on God’s earth do they need this house for?,” she told us that the couple would be living in the carriage house out back and using the main house for who knows what — very impressive parties, presumably. She said the husband, an oil man, bought the house “because his wife always wanted one.”

At another house, we were told that when the couple split up, the wife couldn’t leave the neighborhood, so she bought a house around the corner. At another, she told us, startlingly, that Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails owned the place. The neighborhood was quite concerned about this, but he’s turned out to be “a very nice young man.” However, when Courtney Love tried to move in around the corner, this was too much, and the neighborhood put a stop to it.

There was a house owned by a couple described as “gay but just lovely.” Another one where a body was found in the attic a few years ago. Another one where the wrought-iron fence that looks like a row of cornstalks is apparently worth more than the house itself. We saw the home of Anne Rice, the novelist, who has, shockingly, decided, since the death of her husband, to move to — gasp — the suburbs. “We just can’t imagine her in the suburbs,” our guide said. There was also the house of the Manning family, where, our guide told us, “We hear that Eli is actually better than Peyton, but they’re both such wonderful boys — and oh, do they love their mother!”

You might be thinking, at this point, what I was thinking: With all this “we” talk, this woman must be a denizen of the Garden District, privy to all the chatter among the socialites. But she isn’t! She lives in another part of town and is simply a dealer in that most basic New Orleans commodity: gossip. It is currency on the open market, to be traded for and doled out in portions just large enough to leave the user wanting more. This woman would say things like, “And this house here Oh, my goodness, some of the things we see going on over there! But that’s another story.”

She even gossiped about tour guides. We saw another group at one point, and she smiled and waved at the guide, then said to us under her breath, “That young man needs to get out of this business; he knows nothing about this neighborhood! He’s not even licensed!”

I was tempted to comment that being a licensed tour guide in New Orleans was like being a licensed watch salesman in New York, but by then we were already off to see the $2 million home of a man who moved from New York, which made everybody nervous, because you know how those New York people are, but he’s turned out to be okay, and now he’s dating a local woman, which means he’s a lifer. “You can’t take a New Orleans girl out of New Orleans,” our guide said, as she shuffled along the street.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

My Olive Branch

After 13 years of service as a state legislator, on New Year’s Day I was sworn in as a new member of the Memphis City Council from District 5. Many tell me that in moving from the state legislature to the City Council, I have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. I am starting to believe them.

During the past two months, I have tried to conduct council business in a professional manner while sparks have been flying between the mayor and certain members of the council. We all know that politics can get hot, and the saying goes if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. However, the tone and name-calling by more than one elected official in this city have been divisive and unproductive. (Remember the saying: It takes two to tango.)

I was the only council member who didn’t vote to override the mayor’s veto of the ordinance to limit the funding of interim appointments. I did so for several reasons: One, because this issue of interpretation of the city charter is best put to the people for a vote, not a judge. Two, because a court battle would have cost tax-payer money and proven even more divisive and distracting. Three, and most importantly, because the national search for the new president of our billion-dollar MLGW utility was put on hold by the mayor while the dispute was pending. And four, because this feud is beginning to harm our city’s image across the state and nationally, which can have long-range adverse implications for business development.

Apparently, the mayor has also decided that a court battle (and the feud) is not in the best interest of the citizens of Memphis. That doesn’t mean there isn’t still room for honest disagreement on important policy issues and continued debate and discussion. What it should mean is that the petty infighting stops and the real policy discussions begin.

Improving our schools, reducing crime, revitalizing neighborhoods, developing economically, and consolidating the city and county are hard issues that take thoughtful work and consideration.

Now, while the dust is clearing, it’s time to take up these important issues and move ahead. Leaderless, MLGW is a time bomb ticking, waiting to erupt into a major problem — with investor concerns over the bond issue, with no one in charge to handle another power outage, and without solid leadership to make important customer service improvements. My investigation has found that, almost without exception, every other utility in the nation has a leader with extensive utility industry experience. A search process needs to be commenced to find a new MLGW president who has solid and substantial utility and management experience.

As a new council member, I respectfully believe that, for the good of Memphis, the mayor and the council both need to stop the power struggle and focus on the real issues that will make a difference for the citizens of Memphis. The mayor’s done his mea culpa. Only a few council members have followed suit. And if council members want to exercise greater powers under the charter, then the public should expect them to dedicate more time to the job with greater scrutiny of issues in committee hearings prior to any vote at a full council meeting.

Let’s move ahead and make Memphis a better place to live!

Carol Chumney, who formerly was District 89 representative in the state legislature, now represents District 5 for the city.