Month: May 2004

Categories
Book Features Books

Truth or Consequences

Plain Heathen Mischief

By Martin Clark

Knopf, 398 pp., $24.95

For a popular preacher, 42-year-old Joel King is in a hell of a mess. When Martin Clark’s latest novel, Plain Heathen Mischief, opens, King’s at his laptop working on his final sermon before the good people of Roanoke First Baptist, but it’s too late, he reasons, to mention “sex or weakness or the girl.” So he opts instead to deliver something simple and “pale,” which he does, and no one’s the wiser. What he sees, however, as his eyes scan the congregation, is red — red in the sanctuary’s standard carpeting and red in the tie that circles the neck of one church member in particular, Edmund Brooks. What King’s also looking at is six months jail time. The charge: contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Translation: sex with a minor. King’s plea: guilty as charged. Or is he?

The “girl” in question is Christina Agnes Norway Darden, a rich 17-year-old at the center of the crime and a piece of work any old time. One semester into her freshman year at the University of Virginia and already she’s violated the school’s honor code. A week after King’s sorry sermon, Christy is high (or is it low?) on her combo of choice: speed, gin, Valium, champagne, and casual sex.

Fast-forward six months and King’s in an unholier mess: He’s served his time only to be served with divorce papers from his wife of 18 years and a whopping civil suit from Christy. The girl’s new charges: “sexual assault” and “intentional infliction of emotional harm.” Translation: rape. The price tag: two million in compensatory damages and three million in punitive damages.

Where is King to turn? He doesn’t have a prayer, but he does keep the faith. He doesn’t have a penny, but he does have a place to stay with his divorced sister in Missoula, Montana. He doesn’t have an attorney, but he does get a ride out West from Brooks, who knows a dandy lawyer in Las Vegas named Sa’ad X. Sa’ad, who knows an insurance scam where everybody gets rich and nobody gets hurt. King won’t hear of it, until King can’t land a job, can’t please his unscrupulous probation officer, and can’t preach a thing to his Godless but law-abiding sister, Sophie, screwed herself by a philandering, radiologist ex-husband but blessed with an angelic 5-year-old son.

Next stop for King: rock bottom, until he gets a phone call from Brooks and undergoes a change of heart. That insurance scam? Count him in (so long as it’s his sister and First Baptist that ultimately pocket King’s cut). The job market? Piece of cake if you’re willing to work for minimum wage and lie about your qualifications. The truth in general? Bendable if your goal is honorable and especially if a court deposition means nothing. Christy? A double-crosser with the best of them. And who’s among the best? Not just Brooks and Sa’ad but King, of course, who goes from half-innocent martyr and self-deluding hypocrite to first-class confuser of right and wrong, in spite of the upstanding examples afforded by Sophie, an Alzheimered mother, a semi-prostitute, and a tough-talking but good-guy fly fisherman who doubles as a father figure. On the conduct of the FBI the jury’s still out. The Montana state police? They’re just doing their job.

Pointless to try explaining how a wife-beating dentist, a painting stolen from the Jewish Museum in New York City, and an old-school hard-liner on all things biblical figure into all this. But they do, according to the tricky mechanics of a well-paced, entertaining legal thriller and the hard lesson-building of a modern-day morality play.

Clark, a circuit court judge in Virginia, made his debut as author in 2000’s rollicking hit, The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living. In Plain Heathen Mischief, it’s one man’s soul that’s at stake and so what if the question of belief gets a bit overbearing. Leave it, rather, to a female lawyer in the story’s closing pages to give King a good talking-to on the physics of cause and effect and the ethical blowback when right’s mixed with wrong. Nothing shady about it. That bright red King sees is God’s sure sign. Best to practice what you preach. n

Martin Clark reads from and signs copies of Plain Heathen Mischief at Off Square Books in Oxford on Tuesday, June 1, at 5 p.m. and at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on Friday, June 4, at 5 p.m.

LEONARD GILL

Categories
Music Music Features

Back to the Future

Here’s the story: Metal was born when four hoods decided that Black Sabbath was a much cooler name than Earth. There were lesser-knowns who approached the heaviness of Ozzy and entourage, but Black Sabbath took it to the people. Led Zeppelin too, in several of their permutations, were tough enough to be metal. Then Judas Priest’s late-’70s classics — specifically, the trio of Sad Wings of Destiny (1976), Sin After Sin (1977), and Stained Class (1978) — moved the music into the “new wave” of British heavy metal, a movement whose most famous exports would be Iron Maiden (important) and Def Leppard (after their first album, not so important).

At this point, things get really complicated. Punk, hardcore, and metal jumped in the sack, conceiving a new breed of heavy bands such as Motorhead, Venom, Discharge, and then Slayer, Metallica, and Megadeth. Then, in the mid-to-late ’80s, things got inexplicable. Subgenres such as thrash, death-metal, and grindcore would all hatch and flourish, finally establishing an underground that found rabid fans in Earth’s every nook and cranny. (Oh wait, I forgot hair-metal, because it’s not metal. Except for early Mötley Crüe, Hanoi Rocks, and, later, Guns N’ Roses, it was nothing more than pop music ripping off the New York Dolls and calling itself metal.)

And now, in 2004, this subterranean scene may finally be ready to send one of its own triumphantly to the surface: Metal fans, salute Mastodon, who, though named after an extinct creature, may nevertheless be the future of their genre.

Whereas most bands fit into predictable models –frontman and backup or core members and rotating players –Mastodon is the result of two distinct musical pairings. The first, Brann Dailor and Bill Kelliher, served as the rhythm section for Nashville’s early-’90s entry in the underground metal scene, Today Is the Day. To an almost disturbing level (especially live), Today Is the Day was a band that elevated the role of emotional catharsis in the music, and this was never more evident than on 1999’s In the Eyes of God album and tour, of which Dailor and Kelliher were an unmistakable part.

After splitting from Today Is the Day that same year, the pair moved back to their hometown of Rochester, New York, to decompress and plan the next move, which would turn out to be Atlanta. It was there that Dailor and Kelliher met the other half of Mastodon, Troy Sanders and Brent Hinds. The chemistry of the new band was such that fully formed songs were written within weeks. With one of the all-time greatest metal names secured, Mastodon hit the road in 2000. And by consistently sweeping the stage of the bands they shared bills with, Mastodon quickly established itself as a force not unlike a giant, extinct, hairy mammal clearing clubs of would-be competitors.

Mastodon cherry-picks the gems from over three decades of top-drawer metal and then updates all of the influences into a futuristic, unstoppable detonation. The not entirely unthinkable combination of the Voivod’s visionary exploits with heavy indie math-metal (Slint) and extreme metal (mostly death-metal) becomes a sucker-punching reality when one is in the presence of this band. All of this seemed to be fully gestated when Mastodon dropped Lifesblood in August 2001. The six-song EP was released on the metal safe house Relapse Records, the signing a result of the band’s whopping live reputation and incessant touring, where Mastodon was probably shaming a lot of existing Relapse bands with whom they were paired.

Less than a year later, Mastodon finished Remission (also on Relapse), a debut full-length that expanded the style of the EP. Lines were blurred in the wake of Remission: Rockers, metalheads, indie fans, hardcore kids they all came together in response to the sheer intensity and breadth that Mastodon was capable of delivering. To someone completely unfamiliar with underground metal, who thinks that metal means Poison or Cinderella, I liken the introduction to the first time Bill Cosby heard N.W.A. (Another incorrect assumption would be that Mastodon has anything to do with the metalization of inverted-baseball-cap hardcore as illustrated by roid-rage nincompoops like Hatebreed or Earth Crisis or the “nü-metal” of innumerable semiliterate halfwits like Slipknot/Staind/Limp Bizkit, which, to quote comedian David Cross, is like an 11-year-old girl’s poetry coming out of a 30-year-old man’s mouth.)

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

UP & AWAY

It’s hard to believe that just three-and-a-half hours away is an award-winning wine region in southern Illinois — yes, I said southern Illinois.

Recently, I visited Winghill Vineyards in Cobden, stopped by Von Jakob Vineyards in Pomona, and attended the Spring Wine Festival at Alto Vineyards in Alto Pass. All three are in the picturesque rolling green hills of Shawnee National Forest, making this area a perfect region for growing grapes, as grapevines flourish in the well-drained soil of hillside sites.

My first sip was at Winghill, where I sampled three of its current releases. I started with the Chardonel Reserve 2001, a lightly oaked, dry white wine. It had soft butter tones with slight aromas of honeysuckle and citrus and a nice crisp finish. Next was the Whipporwill White 2000, with its sweet, fruit-forward taste and fresh bouquet of wildflowers and melon. This one was definitely a summer wine for those unbearably hot days that call for something fresh. By far the most interesting wine I sampled here was the Hallsberry Blue, a wine made entirely from blueberries. The scent was fruity and had a hint of allspice and cinnamon, which misled me to expect a rich, sweet wine. But that was not the case at all. At first sip, I was shocked to taste an off-dry, velvety, complex wine that would be perfect to begin a meal.

My next destination was Von Jakob, the first winery in Illinois to grow and sell a Cabernet Sauvignon. To give you an idea at how successful it has been, it takes only two weeks to sell out every year it is released. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sample Von Jakob’s Cabernet, but the vineyard had other wines to try. The Hillside White is a white wine with hints of grapefruit and lime zest. My next taste was of the American Chambourcin, which was by far my favorite of the wines I sampled at this vineyard. This medium-bodied red had a full bouquet of blackberries, plums, and black cherries, along with soft tannins and a velvety smooth feel.

Finally, I headed to the Spring Wine Festival in Alto Pass, where two areas were set up for sampling Alto’s recent vintages. I sampled a handful of wines and was pleasantly surprised by every one of them. The most impressive was the late-harvest Reserve Gold, which is this vineyard’s version of an ice wine. It was a sweet, luscious dessert wine with depth and character that could stand up against any dessert wine from any region in the world. Another interesting and delicious wine was the Traminette, which is a hybrid of the Gewurztraminer grape. This wine had a soft texture and the big, juicy fruit flavors of honeydew and peach.

The festival’s second area sold by-the-glass pours of select wines for $5 ($3 refills), including a souvenir glass emblazoned with the vineyard logo and a full glass of estate wine. Along with the many wines to sample on the property was a quaint food tent where a local barbecue restaurant sold a scaled-down version of its menu. After spending a good amount of time in the tasting tent, I bought a glass of Rosso Classico and a plate of barbecue and sat down on the lawn to listen to a bluegrass band.

Along with other wineries in the area (Owl Creek, Pomona, Pheasant Hollow, Orlandini Vineyards, among others), there are many activities to fill up a long weekend. Just north of most of the wineries and right inside Giant City State Park is the town of Makanda’s Artisan Boardwalk, a classic row of buildings housing art galleries, glass shops, jewelers, and an ice cream parlor and café. The park’s beautiful rock formations are perfect for climbing, rappelling, or just hiking around. Little Grand Canyon, just north of Pomona Winery and Von Jakob Vineyards, is filled with large canyons, streaming waterfalls, and shimmering spring-fed pools.

In keeping with the wine-filled weekend, the best way to finish off a day of wine tasting is a dinner at Tom’s Place in Desoto. This annual Wine Spectator Award of Excellence winner is a rustic private-booth-filled restaurant with a stunning wine list and surprising menu. The wine list is reasonably priced and packed with boutique labels as well as the big boys in the wine world. Chef Lasse Sorenson’s menu reflects his years of training in Europe combined with his own creative flair with such offerings as rack of lamb with Dijon aioli and white truffle oil and grilled veal chop in cognac tomato crème reduction.

What a wonderful trip. I remember sitting at the festival with my wine and barbecue, looking out over the vines and the vibrant green hills of Shawnee National Forest. It was easy to forget where I was. I never thought of this area as being a part of Illinois. I’ve always thought of it as its own region, unclaimed by any state in the Midwest. n

For more information on the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail, check out ShawneeWineTrail.com.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Riverfront Cafe Society

If improving the riverfront promenade isn’t a justifiable public expense, then what is?

And why do both sides continue to insist that the job can be done for nothing or next to nothing in the way of public funds? The Riverfront Development Corporation says private development will pay for most of it. Friends for Our Riverfront says its alternative plan will cost $7 million.

Seven million dollars will buy a starting player and a backup on the Memphis Grizzlies for one season, or a waterfront lot on the Gulf of Mexico and a big house in Destin or Gulf Shores. So how can you bury two parking lots, tear down and relocate a fire station, move a public library, put the University of Memphis Law School in the Customs House, and build a big park and some sidewalks for $7 million?

Private investors can take their pick from a downtown garage sale of empty or half-empty buildings with river views, some of them on Front Street. The headquarters of National Commerce Financial may be added to the list now that the bank has agreed to be acquired by SunTrust. How can you pay for the promenade makeover by building 150-foot office buildings on the west side of Front? And who wants them?

Taxpayers already are paying for parking garages for Beale Street, Peabody Place, FedExForum, and Mud Island. Using public money to pay for downtown parking garages is well established. A promenade plan that doesn’t account for public parking is no plan at all. What happens during any disruption? And if new public garages are built, who gets to use them and when?

“Whether the RDC plan is implemented or not, we need the estimated 1,000 parking spaces that are in the two garages on Front and Monroe and Front and Jefferson,” said Jeff Sanford, executive director of the Center City Commission. “There is already demand for more public parking than exists.”

Public funds should pay for other components of the promenade. The Cossitt Library could be moved to another building. But the fire station could cost $15 million to replace, according to a speaker at last week’s City Council meeting. The University of Memphis, a public institution, would expect some public help to move its law school downtown. Parks have to be maintained. There is no $7 million solution.

So now that the City Council has voted to advance the RDC’s plan to the next first-down marker, it’s time for some ballpark figures. The RDC should put an estimated price on economy-to-luxury options A, B, and C. It should spell out how private investment would pay for public improvements. Property taxes already pay for public improvements. Is there a developer or corporate CEO out there secretly longing to move to Front Street? And will they come only if they can deal with the RDC instead of the City Council? And would whatever payments they make for “public” improvements be limited to Front Street instead of the rest of the more than 300 square miles of Memphis?

Both the RDC and Friends better be careful about overplaying their hand. All that media coverage notwithstanding, the promenade is not a big deal to the majority of Memphians. The proponents and opponents of the RDC plan are more alike than different — white, affluent, and vested in downtown. There were only a handful of black faces in the packed City Council chamber last week. This is no FedExForum, with a construction bonanza and a future Saturday- night sellout against the Lakers. The dream of the promenade crowd seems to be drinking a cappuccino in a sidewalk cafe. Don’t think City Council chairman Joe Brown, who is black and represents working-class North Memphis, didn’t figure this out when he made them wait all evening. The RDC is to some members of the City Council what optional schools are to the Memphis Board of Education.

Sanford, a former City Council member who has been a close follower of downtown’s progress for 30 years, doesn’t expect to see a tree planted or a building erected for several years. But the word is that Bruce Kramer, attorney for Friends, is out looking for common ground with the RDC. The do-nothing option, always a potent force in Memphis, was criticized by nearly everyone, including City Council members.

If it takes creating a slush fund for the heirs to fight over, so be it. Maybe that’s the cost of doing business here. It’s not like it doesn’t happen in class-action lawsuits all the time.

And if it takes public money to dress up Front Street, so be it. But it’s time to be up front about it. Give Memphians and their elected officials more specifics. Except for the annual desecration of Tom Lee Park in the name of Memphis in May, the RDC has made the riverfront a cleaner, prettier, more interesting place. I’m glad they won round one. n

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

thursday, 27

For Lease: The most unused piece of prime real estate in the Washington, D.C. area. Furnished. Spacious Rooms. Security system. Partial staff provided, including spokesmen who can make up the best excuses in the business. Conveniently located near most government buildings. Rose garden on the lawn. I keep waiting to see this ad for the White House, because someone who claims to work there as the leader of the United States doesn t seem to be spending much time there at all, and hasn t ever the dark day he was given the keys. No, last week while even more horrifying photographs and videos from the Abu Ghreib prison in Iraq were released, including American soldiers beating inmates, covering them with feces, making them eat out of toilets, and other lovely tactics of torture sure to make the rest of the world detest Americans even more and undermine our international credibility more than at any other time in history; and while other American soldiers he sent over there were getting killed and maimed; and while gas prices reached an all-time high; and while the American military bombed an Iraqi wedding and killed most of the women and children in attendance the ever hardworking President George W. Bush was having a little trouble of his own. He took a tumble and got scuffed up while mountain biking on his ranch, just before getting ready for the rounds of graduation parties in Texas and Connecticut for his daughters. Mountain biking. At his ranch. While the rest of the world falls apart. My, what a good president. Too bad he couldn t have been mountain biking in, say, the high Rocky Mountains of Colorado, where there are CLIFFS. Really high cliffs that, if you take a tumble, you might just tumble right off of and head down a mountain into a ravine or canyon below. Just like the time the woman in Olive Branch drove her car into the building where he was speaking but missed him, close but no cigar. But I guess it s better that he be off mountain biking than sitting in the White House deciding which country to attack and invade next. Or pushing through his Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to help save the country from all those dangerous, awful homosexual couples out to ruin life as we know it. It s a good thing he has that direct link to God, who speaks to him and tells him how to run the country. Too bad He wasn t around to tell Georgie to watch out for that rock in the path or whatever it was that made him go flying off his bike. Vacations can be so grueling. Just recently, I went on one myself that involved roughly 25 hours in an airplane; an encounter of a very interesting kind with a Peruvian Olympic finalist; eating a guinea pig cooked whole with its head on and its mouth wide open with teeth still showing; accidentally telling a bar full of people (while attempting to speak their native language) that I like to have sex with Monkeys ; being basically kidnapped and taken to a slum and forced to retrieve and hand over money from an ATM after leaving some catacombs full of bones and skulls all over the dirt floor; dodging wild pigs in the road; dancing with people from Minnesota; being told to fuck off at a college graduation because I am from the United States; white-water rafting and never really understanding why all of the directions are yelled out backwards; being set up with several single mothers looking for an American husband; having a hotel desk clerk ask if anyone tried to kill me; carrying a motorcycle part made of a mass of wires and fuses on an airplane; bathtubs full of fish; pimps and prostitutes; llamas,; limos; and, well, lots of other things to keep me occupied. Maybe next time I ll go mountain biking with Mr. Bush and a bunch of married homosexual couples and see if I can really distract him from what he s doing. In the meantime, here s a brief look at some of what s going on around town this week. Tonight, you can see one of the best views of the Mississippi River and downtown Memphis while sipping cocktails and listening to the live music of Carson and Pool at the Sunset Atop the Madison Series party on the rooftop of the Madison Hotel.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Eating, Moving, and Tuning

Pediatrician Beth Andrew has always enjoyed working with children because she likes taking care of healthy individuals. Unfortunately, though her preference hasn’t changed, the number of healthy children has.

“Until recently, I was not used to seeing children with health problems associated with a sedentary lifestyle,” she said at the official kickoff this week of the Tennessee Healthy Weight Network’s plan, “Eat Smart, Move More, Tune In.” Developed over the past two years, the plan hopes to promote a healthier lifestyle for Tennessee children by changing cultural norms about health.

Figures from the Centers for Disease Control show that, since 1980, the number of overweight adolescents has tripled. More than 20 percent of Tennessee children are currently overweight and early figures show many more to be at risk.

The figures have disturbing health-care implications: Type 2 diabetes, closely tied to obesity and once almost never seen in children, is increasing among youth. At the kickoff, a dietitian even mentioned that this generation of children might not have the life expectancy their parents did.

“One thing that was evident from the start was that this did not happen overnight or from one cause,” said Marian Levy, associate director of health promotion and grants management with the Children’s Foundation Research Center. She said increased use of technology, a decrease in the time allotted for physical education in schools, and more dangerous neighborhoods all contributed to the problem.

The plan includes recommendations for schools, faith-based organizations, and families. For instance, the plan recommends schools use fund-raisers like dance marathons or fruit sales rather than selling candy. For families, it encourages parents to plan physical activities they can do together and to limit TV and video time.

“It’s really up to the parents,” said Levy. “The parents are the ones who are going to the grocery stores and buying the food. They set the atmosphere.” n

E-mail: cashiola@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Players

Not unexpectedly, Shelby County had some players in the late legislative session. They ranged from perennial outsiders to relative (and actual) newcomers. These were some (more to come next week) of the moments from the 2004 session of the Tennessee General Assembly:

Ps and Qs: On the day in mid-May that the state House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a TennCare reform bill that trimmed the state health care system’s budget, limited its benefits and beneficiaries, and established fraud-and-abuse controls, state Rep. Brenda Turner (D-Chattanooga) could not refrain from gloating that Democrat Bredesen had achieved this result, whereas TennCare costs had spiraled out of control during the administration of his Republican predecessor, Don Sundquist.

That brought the GOP’s House leader, Tre Hargett of Bartlett, normally almost courtly in debate, out of his seat and into Rep. Turner’s face. Standing directly in front of her seat at the front of the chamber, Hargett jawboned with her for some time.

At the end of a conversation that seemed largely one-way, Rep. Turner signaled House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh for permission to make “a point of personal privilege.” Normally, this request signals a determination to plead one’s case against a perceived affront from a colleague or a misrepresentation of one’s position in debate.

In this case, Rep. Turner used the privilege to take a mea culpa, explaining that she hadn’t meant to suggest that former Governor Sundquist hadn’t also tried to reform TennCare and pare down its costs.

Hargett thanked his colleague for the admission. The irony here is that Hargett, like many of his House Republican colleagues, was often on the other side from the governor in a protracted struggle that focused on Sundquist’s unsuccessful attempts to enact a state income tax.

It’s an will wind …

… that doesn’t blow somebody some good. And when alarms arose this month about shortfalls in state lottery revenues, state Sen. Steve Cohen, universally regarded as the father of the program (one could almost say grandfather, since it took the senator 17 years to get a state lottery enacted) saw an opportunity.

“It gave me a chance to try to improve the scholarship program and make it less of an entitlement,” said Cohen this week, reviewing his successful sponsorship, in the session’s last days, of an amendment that raised scholarship requirements from last year’s ACT-test standard of 19 (along with a grade-point average of 3.0) to the higher standard of 21 (also with 3.0 GPA).

“That brings us to slightly higher than the state average for our scholarship students, and it allows us both to award all the scholarships that students qualify for and to provide money for pre-kindergarten and after-school programs,” said Cohen. Cohen estimated that leftover funds would translate to $20 million for pre-K programs and $5 million for after-school programs.

In an oblique comparison of his efforts this year to those of last year, when he and Governor Phil Bredesen butted heads on how to establish a control mechanism for the lottery (with the governor prevailing), Cohen said, “It was almost like the years of working without a lobbyist for the lottery amendment itself. It was a case of passing something without anybody on your side. The governor pretty much stayed out of this.”

Stepping Up: One Shelby County legislator who consolidated his growing reputation as a serious player was state Senator Jim Kyle, who was already regarded as “the governor’s man” in the Senate and did nothing to diminish that clout by moving, in the last days of the session, to sponsor an amended version of Bredesen’s controversial workers’ compensation reform, one that preserved the essentials that the governor wanted — notably, a reduced “multiplier,” the number establishing the maximum benefits for a workers’ comp claim.

In effect, Kyle took over supervision of the legislation from Goodlettsville Democrat Joe Haynes, whose reservations about some of the provisions desired by the governor had grown in the course of debate. From Bredesen’s point of view, it amounted to a rescue mission — saving him from what could have been his first serious legislative defeat.

Making a Mark: Another local senator whose stature was enhanced during the session was Mark Norris of Collierville. Though Republican Norris was stymied in his perennial efforts to achieve malpractice legislation and other tort reforms, he played a significant liaison role in helping to barter a workers’ comp bill that was satisfactory to Bredesen and various legislative factions.

Norris and state Rep. Bubba Pleasant (R-Bartlett) also succeeded in passing a bill — ridiculed last year but suddenly in vogue — prohibiting vehicles from playing pornographic videos that might be visible to others in traffic. But his foremost accomplishment was in taking the lead in beginning the constitutional-amendment process for a tax freeze on property owners 65 or over. The program would be subject to approval by city and county governments.

(More winners and spinners next week as space allows.) n

One Out, One In

Out: Carol Coletta, the entrepreneur/activist whose well-received WKNO Smart City public-affairs program is syndicated nationwide, is not repeat, not entertaining the idea of starring in her own political act.

“I couldn’t be elected dogcatcher! And I have no desire to run for anything,” she said with a modesty and conviction which seemed unfeigned while categorically dissociating herself from an associate’s sounding that was reported in this space last week concerning a potential 2005 city mayor’s race by her. (The associate later acknowledged having acted without prior consultation or permission.)

Coletta said she had supported Mayor Willie Herenton in his last reelection bid, “and I expect to do so again.”

In: A familiar name in local politics will be heard from again. Former county squire Joe Cooper, who has run for an abundance of offices and has served in a variety of appointed positions in county government, plans to make another run in 2006 for the District 5 county commission seat now occupied by Bruce Thompson, who, running as a Republican, beat Democrat Cooper in 2002.

Cooper, who has spent much of the last year recovering from a serious illness, insists that his candidacy is serious and that he is unlikely to make controversial proposals like his ill-fated call in his previous race for massive redevelopment on the grounds of Shelby Farms.

“I intend to listen to the people,” he said. n

Categories
Opinion

Cape Dear

At the tail end of our honeymoon, Gina and I found ourselves at the tail end of Africa with nowhere else to go. We were going over some of the highlights of the previous months with travel buddies while we sat in Mama Africa, a funky ethnic restaurant in Cape Town. We listened to an absolutely incredible marimba band and we drank Amarula, a creamy liquor made from marula fruits. Soon we stopped talking because it was time to dance, and it got wild in there. We realized we needed to work out a way to stay in this far-out place.

I found a job the following day teaching at a school in Constantia. Constantia is a posh suburb of Cape Town where Nelson Mandela, LaToya Jackson, Desmond Tutu, and Margaret Thatcher (among others) have beautiful homes. Thatcher’s grandson is in my geometry class.

It is stunning here, and as I sit gazing out my classroom window, I see the setting sun blaze over the distant hills just above Elephants Eye Mountain. The colors will go mad in a few seconds.

Constantia is a beautiful place indeed, but it is in stark contrast to other places just minutes away. The first informal settlement most visitors see upon leaving the airport is Langa, a sprawling network of closely huddled and vibrantly decorated shacks loomed over by two giant cooling towers (resembling the ones on The Simpsons or at Three Mile Island).These settlements are part of the townships and are a legacy of the apartheid era.

Nearby is Khayelitsha, one of South Africa’s largest townships and home to more than one million residents. If you increased the population density of Memphis by 45 percent, that would be the density of Khayelitsha. The majority of the people there are Xhosa and speak in a language marked by clicking sounds. More than two-thirds of the 45 million people in South Africa are black, made up of Xhosa, Zulu, and Sotho groups, among others. These groups banded together in 1912 and formed the African National Congress but remained without basic human rights under the rule of the white settlers from Holland and Great Britain until apartheid ended in 1994.

Nelson Mandela was elected the first black president of South Africa. That makes 2004 a special time, the 10-year anniversary of freedom for blacks in South Africa. They succeeded bravely in a long struggle, and now this country is ready for growth and diversity. With the dark shadow of apartheid lifted, South Africa is blossoming with possibilities. The currency is steadily strengthening against the dollar, and last year South African real estate increased in value more than any other country in the world.

Where else but Cape Town can you spot wildebeest and zebra grazing along a mountainside and then drive 15 minutes to some of the world’s greatest surfing beaches to watch whales breaching off shore? They name their winds here (that’s how cool this place is), and the surfers take it seriously. The famous “Cape Doctor” is a bracing summertime southeasterly wind that causes a strange mop of clouds to sit on Table Mountain, accessible by foot or cable car. On top of Table Mountain is a strange vegetation called fynbos, the world’s smallest floral kingdom. There is also dassie, which look like giant rats, but oddly enough are most closely related to the elephant.

Last year, Gina and I went to Kruger National Park, an area about the size of Rhode Island, to see the lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and the many varieties of antelope. And this year we camped in the Kalahari Desert where we saw many more lions in the wild, the world’s largest birds, and meerkats too.

Just the other day, Gina and I were on our way for a weekend trip to visit the penguin colony at Boulder’s Beach nearby, and we stopped to return a video. A large mix of people were crowded there watching the television as it was announced that the 2010 World Cup will be held here. You should have seen the people cheer and jump for joy. When we walked out of the place and got in our car, we noticed everyone was swerving back and forth, honking their horns and flashing their lights in celebration. It was a little scary but touching to witness this display and feel the hopeful spirit of this burgeoning country unified by this honor.

On the random now: Public transportation here is not very good. People cram into small vans. It’s better to try to get a car. Strangely, no one pumps their own gas. It is done for you to create jobs. The candy is amazing, probably because of the Dutch influence. They are one-fifteenth of the population and speak Afrikaans, which is to Dutch as Old English would be to English. No Mexican food. Instead, they have Portuguese. Peri-peri is hot stuff! Everyone runs around barefoot (even at banks and in fancy shopping malls). The health care is excellent, with some of the world’s greatest doctors. (Remember, this is the home of the first successful heart transplant.) The weather is a little like San Diego and helps to yield grapes the size of golf balls. There are baboons too, always getting up to mischief. And I’m still talking about Cape Town. That is just one tiny part of South Africa.

The long and short of it is that this is a sophisticated, forward-thinking, socially and environmentally conscious place with a booming economy and infinite options for fun and exciting ways of life, people to meet, places to visit, nature to experience, and things to do. We’re livin’ the good life here.

Come visit. There is room for everyone. n

Categories
Music Music Features

Music

Last week, The Bo-Keys took their Stax– and Hi-infused soul show on the road: They played three shows in New York (Piano’s and B.B. King’s Blues Club in Manhattan and the infamous Frank’s Cocktail Lounge in Brooklyn), a gig in Philadelphia (Zanzibar Blue), and a performance on independent FM station WFMU, then squeezed in an interview for The House of Blues Radio Hour — all in just four days.

Touring by plane, trains, subways, and cabs wasn’t easy, but the six-man band — leader/bassist Scott Bomar, guitarist Skip Pitts, drummer Willie Hall, saxophonist Jim Spake, trumpeter Marc Franklin, and organist Charlie Wood, the Bo-Keys’ newest addition — made the most of it, managing to check out tourist spots like Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff‘s True Sound of Philadelphia recording studio (where the Philly Sound — The O’Jays, The Spinners, etc. — was born) and Junior’s, a famous soul-food restaurant in Brooklyn.

At Zanzibar Blue, the Bo-Keys wowed the crowd — which included NPR‘s Amy Salit, producer of the Fresh Air radio program — with their laid-back rendition of “Ellie’s Love Theme,“ from the Shaft soundtrack. “That’s always been a sentimental piece for me,” remarked Pitts — who, along with Hall, played on the original version of the tune, recorded in 1971 by Isaac Hayes.

“It’s the kind of song that makes you want to make babies, not take babies,” Pitts continued. “A lot of rap music is about killing, but soul music is about creating life.”

A veteran of groups such as The Surgeons (“We billed ourselves as ‘The Doctors of Sound,'” Pitts said) and The Midnight Movers, Pitts served as Gene Chandler‘s bandleader when he was just 17 years old. And, although he’s played Memphis soul behind Hayes for the last 35 years, Pitts claimed that the Bo-Keys are something special.

“This tour has taken me back to my early years,” Pitts enthused. “We’re right up the alley of groups like Booker T. & the MGs and The Mar-Keys, and, playing these clubs, it’s almost like having the Stax revue back on the road.”

It ain’t New York, but Shawn Cripps is taking his group, The Limes, to Madison Avenue for a record-release party Saturday, May 29th. Sorry, folks. He’s still not celebrating the release of his long-awaited Easley-McCain recordings. Cripps owes the studio payment for the sessions, so he’s releasing two circa-1991 tracks (“Goddamn You Honeys,“ recorded at Monsieur Jeffrey Evans‘ Tillman Audio Research studio, and “Old Evil River,“ cut at Crosstown Studio) on a seven-inch single instead.

Federico Zanutto of Solid Sex Lovie Doll Records pressed up the vinyl in a limited edition of 300. Previously, the Italian label released singles by The Lost Sounds, The Reatards, and The Knaughty Knights, all favorites on the local punk/garage scene. “I don’t really know how this record came about,” Cripps confessed. “We played in Oxford, and one of The Preacher’s Kids said a few nice things about us. The label started asking around. They contacted Jack [Yarber, who splits drumming duties with Nick Ray in The Limes], who told me they wanted to do a single.”

Meanwhile, you can go to WeAreTheLimes.com to download portions of the Limes’ Easley-McCain session, which was cut last fall. “We were on tour with Mr. Airplane Man, and while we didn’t have enough money to pay off [the studio], we burned copies of the rough mixes and made Xeroxed covers and peddled CDs,” Cripps explained. “[Former Memphian] Chris Grayson bought one and created a Web site for me. I’d explained to him that these aren’t the real songs, but all of a sudden, those rough mixes are [on the Internet] for the world to hear.”

Catch the Limes with The C.C. Riders and The Dutch Masters at Murphy’s Saturday, May 29th.

Producer Jim Dickinson has been busy upgrading his Zebra Ranch recording studio in rural Coldwater, Mississippi. Dickinson has been getting help from Mark Neill, owner of the Soil of the South studio, in Sacramento, California, who also designed ToeRag, the U.K. studio where The White Stripes cut their last album, Elephant.

Dickinson and Neill will be taking part in TapeOp Con 2004, held in New Orleans this weekend. The Portland, Oregon-based magazine’s third annual conference, which is aimed at engineers, producers, studio owners, and home-recording enthusiasts, will feature several panels and workshops, along with performances by groups such as Calexico, Steve Wynn, Vic Chesnutt, and The North Mississippi Allstars. For more information on the conference, go to TapeOp.com. –AL

Music News and Notes: In the Mix, an exhibition of art by and about local musicians, is on display at The Dixon Gallery and Gardens through July 18th. Presented by the Memphis chapter of The Recording Academy, the exhibit features visual, graphic, photographic, and guitar art by regional musicians, among them Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi Allstars), Susan Marshall, Gerard Harris, Val Joyner, Cory Branan, Lamar Sorrento, Paul Thorn, Wayne Russell, Jimmy Crosthwait, Sid Selvidge, Jim Dickinson, and Greg Roberson (The Reigning Sound). Non-musician artists such as William Eggleston, Brooke Barnett, and Michael Carpenter are also represented Living Legends, the new album from seminal Memphis rappers 8Ball and MJG debuted at number three on The Billboard 200 album chart this week, the highest-ever debut for a locally connected hip-hop record. Released through Sean “P. Diddy” Combs‘ Bad Boy Records, Living Legends seems to be on its way as the duo’s biggest record yet The 2004 International Songwriting Competition is now accepting submissions. According to an organization press release, $100,000 in prizes will be shared among 50 winners in 16 categories. For more information, check out SongwritingCompetition.com The final round of the Guitar Center‘s “Spin Off” DJ battle is Tuesday, June 1st, at 7 p.m. at the store at 8000 Highway 64. Among local turntablists still in the competition are

Categories
News The Fly-By

Saying We’re Sorry

During the final few days of the 103rd General Assembly session, the Tennessee legislature passed a bill of conscience — righting wrongs levied on claimants who have been falsely imprisoned in state correctional facilities.

The bill, named for Shelby County resident Clark McMillan, pays innocent claimants up to $100 for each day served in jail. McMillan received national attention in 2002 when DNA evidence and the help of The Innocence Project exonerated him of the 1979 rape and robbery of a 16-year-old girl in Overton Park. At that time, McMillan had already served 22 and a half years of his 119-year sentence. Throughout his jail time, he steadfastly maintained his innocence even though he had been identified as the perpetrator by the girl and her boyfriend. This lengthy imprisonment was the second longest time served by any of the 140 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the country.

Senator Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) and Representative John DeBerry (D-Memphis) co-sponsored the bill, which allows the Board of Claims to award payments, not exceeding $1 million, in monthly installments to wronged individuals or their surviving spouses and children.

“This was a case of a person who does not, or will probably not, make a political endorsement to a particular legislator, but this is a bill of conscience,” said Cohen. “Unfortunately, the [state legislature] does not do enough of that, but I’m glad we were able to do it.”

McMillan became the first Tennessee claimant to qualify for the post-conviction DNA testing under a separate bill authored by Cohen and enacted in 2001. To qualify for the repayment, claimants must undergo a Board of Claims hearing determining them by “clear and convincing evidence” to be innocent. Claimants may also choose to receive a lump sum amount or establish an annuity.

“He had been out [of jail] for a couple of years now and no one was chomping at the bit to do anything for this man,” said DeBerry, who met McMillan while working on the legislation.

During McMillan’s time in jail he suffered a spinal injury, leaving him in severe pain. His sister, father, and grandmother died during that time, and his mother, attempting to fund his defense, lost her home.

Cohen said McMillan is expected to receive about $821,000 for his time served. As part of the legislation, no attorney will receive compensation for working on the case. n

E-mail: jdavis@memphisflyer.com