Month: June 2004

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

Brown Brought Us Down

To the Editor:

Brown v. Board of Education has become a sacred cow of American culture. Despite all the cooing and clucking in the Flyer (“Integration and Innocence,” May 20th issue), there is a dark side to Brown that needs to be considered, lest we repeat the mistakes of the past. It is incontrovertible that public education has declined seriously since Brown. Even Mayor Herenton admits that his segregated high school was a better school than it is today. Liberals say that the solution to this decline is spending more money on schools. However, more money has been spent virtually every year since busing went into effect, and every year standardized test scores have been trending downward. Parents seeking the quality of education they received in Memphis public schools before Brown are now forced to move to the suburbs or send their children to expensive private schools.

More importantly, Brown marked the point at which the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review began to be used cynically by a small group of social revolutionaries on the bench to transform society without the consent of the governed. The drafters of the U.S. Constitution never intended the Supreme Court to be the primary arbiter of social and cultural policy in America.

Subsequent judicial decisions — a constitutional right for abortion, taking prayer out of public schools, and numerous decisions making it more difficult to apprehend and convict criminals — are direct descendents of the blueprint for change used by the court in Brown.

Basically, Brown, in an effort to right a great wrong, undemocratically altered our constitutional system. This explains why there is currently such a bitter struggle about the appointment of federal judges. And this, unfortunately, is the ultimate legacy of Brown.

Keith M. Alexander

Memphis

Misdirected Outrage

To the Editor:

Most Americans were angered by the pictures out of Abu Ghraib not because of their love of “torture porn” (Viewpoint, May 27th issue and the Flyer‘s Web site) but because the pictures showed nitwits engaging in behavior that most Americans do not condone. Ed Weathers’ theory that most Americans are “titillated by the images of helpless, naked men forced to perform fellatio on each other and to pile into heaps of faux-homosexual activity” probably says more about him than it does about anyone else.

Weathers is right in his belief that not enough people read and that many couldn’t “draft a letter explaining an error on their credit card bill.” I often have to respond to letters from customers, and I frequently find myself wondering: Why did this company turn this person loose with a typewriter and their company letterhead? But when Weathers looks out at America, all he sees are a bunch of pseudo-literate puritanical perverts who love homoerotic S&M. Perhaps he needs to look with better eyes, because people — including Weathers — tend to see and hear what they want to see and hear.

Chris Leek

Memphis

To the Editor:

The behavior of the U.S. soldiers toward the murderers and terrorists under their supervision at Abu Ghraib was disgusting and beneath us as Americans. They will clearly be disciplined severely and deserve the punishment they will receive. So, enough already of the whining, hand-wringing, and misplaced outrage. How about some outrage over Nicholas Berg? How about remembering September 11th?

One of your letter writers asked, “Why are we in Iraq?” (May 13th issue). Perhaps she should ask the children of Iraq, especially the little girls who are attending school for the first time in their lives. Ask the sick Iraqi who is receiving care in one of the many hospitals we have opened. Ask the man who found his brother in one of Saddam’s mass graves.

We are at war! We are facing the most dangerous enemy the world has ever known. I am thankful to God every day for a president who has the courage to stand up for what is right, even when it is not politically expedient.

God bless America and God bless President Bush!

Paula Byrnes

Memphis

Falling Short

To the Editor:

Bo List’s review of Shrek 2 (May 27th issue) seems to have missed part of the moral of the two Shrek films. As I saw it, the message of these movies was: It’s okay just being you — unless you are too short or a “merry” man (wink, wink, get it?). If you fall into either of those two categories, then it is perfectly okay for people to ridicule you unmercifully and kick your ass for no good reason. Fine, funny films? Sure. But their uplifting message falls just a bit … short.

Michael B. Conway

Memphis

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Lying or Confused?

I confess. I’m not sure if President Bush lied or is just confused when he said in a recent speech that “full sovereignty” was to be handed over to an Iraqi government on June 30th.

Full sovereignty would mean that the Iraqi government could tell us to get out of the country, and we would have to either go or go to war against the new government. Full sovereignty would mean, as the British said, that the Iraqi government could veto any decision by the U.S. military commander.

It’s obvious that the president doesn’t intend for the new government to have that much authority. His draft of a United Nations resolution makes that quite clear. So, was he lying, or does he just not know what full sovereignty means?

In another part of his speech, one has to say that he told a deliberate fib. He said that the American embassy in Baghdad would operate like any other embassy. No, it will not. The embassy in Baghdad will have 1,000 employees. No embassy in any country in the world has that many employees, I venture to say.

Despite the president’s words, what is clearly contemplated is a continuation of American occupation under another name. It’s hard to reconcile the president’s statements with the statements of several military men who have spoken of U.S. forces being in Iraq for as long as 10 years, let alone an embassy with 1,000 employees.

So the question remains: Is Bush the most deceptive president in recent decades, or is he some incredibly naive empty suit who reads without understanding whatever words someone puts on his teleprompter? I don’t know. He’s certainly not stupid in the medical sense, but he does appear to be dangerously undereducated and lacking in curiosity.

To watch Bush’s speech, you would never dream that 800 Americans have been killed and nearly 4,000 wounded and that attacks against coalition forces continue at the rate of 50 per day. Nor would you guess that polls show that a majority of Iraqis want us out of their country now. One fellow has quoted an Army captain just back from Iraq as saying he met only two kinds of Iraqis: those who hated Americans and those who wanted Americans to get out of the country.

The president also misrepresented the situation in Fallujah. He called it a decision to share responsibility for security. Well, the Iraqi forces that “share” responsibility have not turned over any weapons or any members of the resistance, both of which we once demanded.

The oddest thing about his speech was that he had not the foggiest idea who will be in this new government he spoke so glowingly about. The people are being chosen by a United Nations official, but he apparently has not yet come up with a full list of names. The president certainly has high expectations for people who are entirely unknown to him. Either he knows they will have no choice but to do what he wants them to do, or he is in for a big surprise, and for George Bush, this whole Iraqi venture has been nothing but one unpleasant surprise after another: no weapons of mass destruction, no welcome, no links to al-Qaeda, but instead heavy resistance, a $200 billion bill, huge delays in reconstruction, high casualties, and falling approval ratings.

Never fear, though, for our president has not made a single mistake. We have his word on it. He is apparently one of those people who believe that they have merely to say something and it becomes true. Most people with such a disconnect from reality end up in houses other than the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. n

Charley Reese writes for the Orlando Sentinel and King Features Syndicate.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Confusion and Conflicting Statements

Three lawsuits filed last week challenge the Memphis police investigation and report of a fatal car accident one year ago involving Andrea Herenton, daughter-in-law of Memphis mayor Willie Herenton and wife of Rodney Herenton.

The accident occurred on May 29, 2003, near the intersection of Interstates 55 and 240. Prior to the fatal impact, Andrea Herenton’s 1999 Porsche Carrera made contact with Michael D. Simon’s 1995 Ford Taurus after he changed lanes. Simon, 30, of Memphis, was killed after his car veered across the interstate median and collided with two other vehicles. None of the surviving drivers was ticketed for a moving violation. A Police Department memorandum indicates the investigation was given “highest priority” because it “would be viewed by numerous individuals, including possibly the mayor.”

In a lawsuit filed against Andrea and Rodney Herenton in federal court in Memphis, Simon’s mother, Carolyn Watson, seeks $2 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. The suit says negligence on the part of Andrea Herenton caused the accident. “There is a question as to whether there was an objective investigation because of who was involved,” said Watson’s attorney, R. Lanier Fogg. Simon was tested postmortem for alcohol and drugs. Results were negative. No one else was tested.

In a second lawsuit filed in Circuit Court, Marshell Corum of Germantown sues Andrea and Rodney Herenton and Simon’s estate. It says both Simon and Herenton were negligent. Corum was driving a 2002 Cadillac Seville which was struck by Simon’s car. She suffered neck, back, and leg injuries, and her lawsuit seeks $1.5 million in damages. A third lawsuit was filed in Circuit Court by Marietta Corum and Tracy Corum of Germantown, who were passengers in the car driven by Marshell Corum. It also names the Herentons and Simon’s estate as defendants and seeks $1.5 million in damages.

According to a police report taken five hours after the accident, Andrea Herenton, 35, said she was driving alone at the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit and had not had any alcohol or drugs or prescription medicine the day of the accident, nor was she using a cell phone. Herenton told police she was on her way home, going west on I-240 in the left lane, when “a car in the center lane hit me on the right side. I swerved to the median. I think the other vehicle accelerated into the eastbound lanes.” She said the car struck the right corner of her Porsche, causing the airbags to deploy.

In a second police report taken two days later, Andrea Herenton said that Simon’s car was crossing from the center lane into her lane when it “came out of nowhere” and struck her. “The car was being driven so fast I couldn’t see the driver,” she said.

In their lawsuits, the Corums allege that both Herenton and Simon “were operating their vehicles in an unsafe manner and at a high rate of speed, such that a violent collision occurred between the two vehicles. … The Simon vehicle crossed the interstate, struck a trailer being towed by one Robert Burrows, and then became angled across Interstate 55 southeast lanes where it struck or was struck” by Corum’s car. Burrows told police he saw out of the corner of his eye Simon’s car coming at an angle toward his trailer, go up in the air as it came off the median, and then felt it hit his trailer and blow out the tires.

Watson’s lawsuit gives a different version. It says Simon was in the left lane, not the center lane, and Herenton “drove her vehicle into the rear of Michael Simon’s Taurus” and the impact forced Simon’s car into oncoming traffic. Photographs show heavy damage to the right front of Herenton’s Porsche. Roy Cook, who said he was driving in the center lane going the same direction as Herenton and Simon, told police the accident “happened within arms reach of the left side of my car.”

“I glanced to my left, saw a Porsche, saw the nose of the Porsche, then the collision, metal tearing all at the same instant,” he said in a police report. “The hitting car [Porsche] impaled the other car and they continued stuck together approximately 100 feet. The car that was stuck broke free, crossed the median, flipping at least three times in the median and then struck something in the median, flipped again, and landed in the opposing lanes.”

Questions have been raised about Cook’s account. He said he called 911 twice and reported the accident but did not go back and make a statement because traffic was backed up behind him. He phoned the Traffic Division the next day but, due to missed appointments or miscommunication, did not give his statement until June 24th, several days after giving media interviews. Other witnesses interviewed at the scene said a car cut in front of the Porsche, but it was a brown or taupe Cadillac. n

Categories
Music Music Features

Sound Advice

Gimmie indie rock: The Glands‘ eponymous sophomore record from 2000 still sounds like one of the genre’s decade highlights, though I’m not sure why the Athens, Georgia, band still hasn’t followed it up. On the lead track, “Livin’ Was Easy,” drums clatter; sweet, distorted guitars chime in unison; a whiny, disaffected singer wails cryptically; and suddenly you’re awash in perfect sound forever. It might have been the most glorious guitar-bass-drums white-boy rock since Pavement was screaming about summer babes and haircuts. And the album made audacious leaps, uniting no-wave and arena rock here, incorporating undertones of ’70s soul there. Four years later, can frontman Ross Shapiro & Co. still muster that record’s dual-guitar clamor and urgent mystery? Who knows? But you can find out at Proud Larry’s in Oxford Saturday, June 5th.

Also at Proud Larry’s this week (isn’t school out?) is a more recognizable indie lifer, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, which is the new moniker of alt-folk stalwart Will Oldham, who got his start with the wobbly, left-of-center would-be field recordings he cut in the mid-’90s as the Palace Brothers. Oldham’s never been my cup of tea, really (I’d rather watch him in John Sayles’ Matewan, which he appeared in as a teen), but he certainly has his cult. He’ll play Proud Larry’s Wednesday, June 9th.

Finishing up this week’s best alt-rock bets (other than, of course, the great Yo La Tengo, whom you can read about in the music feature on page 29) is Auf Der Maur, the new solo project from onetime Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur. I haven’t heard Auf Der Maur’s recently released debut album, so I can’t say whether the band is closer to the Smashing Pumpkins’ proggy pretensions or Hole’s punky directness. I hope for the latter and don’t expect much either way. But seeing the band in a last-minute booking at the Hi-Tone Café Sunday, June 6th, should be interesting.

Those looking for music that’s a little rootsier or that skews toward the older have plenty to choose from this week as well. Blues fans can catch New Orleans bluesman Mem Shannon at Huey’s Midtown Sunday, June 6th. Shannon recorded his most recent album, Memphis in the Morning, locally at Ardent Studios, with the Memphis Horns in tow, and the change of scenery seemed to agree with him: With its funky rhythm section, jumping piano, and the Horns’ trademark punch, “Drowning on My Feet” was one of the best approximations of the classic Memphis soul sound to come along in years. Another locally focused highlight was a jazzy cover of one of B.B. King’s signature tunes, “Why I Sing the Blues.” Blues fans can also catch British blues-rock band Savoy Brown — who came out of the same ’60s scene that produced bands as disparate as Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin –at Neil’s Saturday, June 5th.

Country fans will have to head south: Bluegrass chanteuse Alison Krauss, who owns one of the finest voices in all of popular music, hands down, will headline The Great High Mountain Tour when it stops off at the DeSoto Civic Center Wednesday, June 9th. Krauss will be joined by a handful of other contemporary bluegrass artists. Country fans can head to Horseshoe Casino to see one of mainstream Nashville’s better male singers, Brad Paisley, whose recent smash, “Little Moments,” I found both incredibly effective and unbearably condescending.

Or if you just want to catch some locals, there’s Mouse Rocket, who will throw a release party for their fine new record Friday, June 4th, at the Hi-Tone Café. The same night, over at Young Avenue Deli, two of the city’s most popular and most accomplished bands, The Gamble Brothers Band and Free Sol, will join forces. Then, Saturday, June 5th, also at the Deli, locals Lucero make what seems to be a monthly Memphis appearance, with Southern Bitch. n —

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

A State of Affairs

The name “Adam” conjures many associations and images, not the least of which is the biblical Adam. The implication: young, naive, corruptible by women, apples, and serpents. Young Adam, a taut and smoldering psychosexual study in slow-motion suspense, features nearly the opposite young, intelligent but oblivious, serpentine Ewan McGregor an involuntary corruptor of women and nobody’s husband.

Joe (McGregor) works a barge along the rivers between Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland. The barge is owned by Ella (Tilda Swinton) and run by her husband Les (Peter Mullan). Theirs is a utilitarian marriage with a child in tow, and all of their body language suggests a couple that live too closely together and have been together too long. Ella sneers and leers at Joe, perhaps aware of his lusty, calculating ways, or perhaps she’s just a sourpuss. One day, Joe spots the near-naked body of a woman floating nearby, and he and Les pull it ashore, finding themselves just shy of the newspaper spotlight when a murder trial ensues for a dim, married plumber who turns out to have been her boyfriend. Does Joe know this woman?

On a drunken, dart-playing, bar-hopping evening, Joe returns to the barge early, finding Ella as ripe and lusty as he. They copulate on a nearby trail and then return to the barge as though nothing had happened with Ella’s prickly disregard for Joe the perfect cover for what develops into a genuine affair. Since Les drinks a lot, Joe and Ella are permitted lots of opportunities for getting it on, and before long, they figure out how to mine impromptu liaisons out of each and every day. Les can’t steer the boat and search out adultery at the same time, can he? Eventually, of course, the two are careless, and Les spies them sleeping. Les leaves Ella and Joe to their awkward affair, with nothing in common other than sex. Joe’s not much of a talker, and Ella’s kind of a cold fish, so it’s not long before that relationship similarly implodes.

Joe reads a lot. And he tries to write. In flashback, we see a former relationship disintegrate when his young lover can no longer bear the frustration of working to support them both when all Joe does is sit at home and try to think of good books to write. The scene explodes sexually into an intense humiliation for the woman, as Joe reveals that while sexually virile, he is intellectually and creatively impotent. As is the case with impotence, there tends to be an overcompensation elsewhere in the psyche. He has no sense of allegiance to men or obligation to women, and he mates indiscriminately, be it with his friend’s wife, his lover’s sister, or his landlady. When a key opportunity arises to save a life, his decision is based not on right or wrong but on the level of inconvenience to him.

Young Adam is easy to admire but elusive to enjoy. There is no protagonist with which one can (or would want to) identify, and the sex isn’t fun. That’s the point, I think, with a sexual compulsive like young Joe. There’s no love in it, nor is there any joy in the seduction. It’s all about the accomplishment and the immediate gratification. You can tell that when Ella starts mentioning marriage, Joe’s mind has already checked out and is on to the next conquest, while guilt and suspicion linger ever overhead.

McGregor is a magnificent actor, exhibiting versatility unlike almost any other leading man of his generation, hopping effortlessly from breezy comedies like Down With Love to the musical melodrama of Moulin Rouge to the gritty drama of Trainspotting and Black Hawk Down. It’s great to see him here, underplaying and beneath the surface at all times a de-glamorized un-hero, and he captures the haze of loveless hunger perfectly. Swinton, an unconventional but compelling beauty, anchors what little morality can be found in the film by eventually getting around to doing the right thing, even if it is more out of desperation than uprightness. She is hot and cold at once, like and unlike McGregor’s lukewarm/cool drifter.

Curiously, there is no “Adam” in this film. Swinton, in an interview with The Washington Post, referred to the title’s Chinese translation, which is “The river remembers lost loves.” There is one nagging question that haunts me still: After all of the precious things Joe throws away into the river, why does he save the one thing he hates? Thoughtful, independent films like Young Adam typically offer more questions than answers, and amid all of the amoralities and betrayals, this one act of correctness was an unexpected virtue.

Categories
Music Music Features

Short Cuts

Killers and Stars

Patterson Hood

(New West)

On this home-recorded, solo acoustic album from Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood, there is only one song that’s a revelation –and it’s a cover. It’s Tom T. Hall’s “Pay No Attention to Alice,” written about a friend’s alcoholic wife. Of course! For all the comparisons that the Drive-By Truckers draw to classic-rock forebears such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Neil Young, and Bruce Springsteen, the band’s songwriting style and ethical sense owe a clear debt to Hall, and as a devout Hall fan, I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection before Hood made it for me. In retrospect, Hall’s sneaky-smart, deadpan-funny character sketches now clearly seem to be a model for great Truckers songs like “Guitar Man Upstairs” and “Margo and Harold.”

The disappointing thing about Killers and Stars is that the rest of the album runs away from this connection. Maybe that’s okay, since it would be better to hear Hood’s best efforts locked in to his band’s three-guitar attack (Killers and Stars is being slipped out between the releases of last year’s Decoration Day and this summer’s next DBT full-length, The Dirty South) than strummed casually in his dining room.

Hood’s gifts are for humor and detail, be it personal or, like Hall, observed. Only two songs on Killers and Stars fit into this vein –“Old Timer’s Disease,” clearly the former, and “Phil’s Transplant,” which seems to be the latter. The rest can be divided into two more groups: archetypal songs that come across like songwriting exercises and musings on some of Hood’s pop-culture obsessions.

The first group –with titles such as “The Rising Son,” “The Assassin,” and “The Hobo” –may well all be metaphors for things Hood was going through when he wrote them, but they don’t hit as hard or dig as deep as the songs Hood writes for the Truckers. These are strong songs, but they sound as if they could have been written by anyone.

Better are the pop-culture songs, which reflect more of Hood’s personality. “Uncle Disney,” with the opening lines “When they thaw out Uncle Disney/Gonna be some changes made/Pointing fingers, asking questions/Forty years of decisions made,” reaffirms Hood’s gift for subtle vernacular. “Frances Farmer” is no match for, say, Woody Guthrie’s “Ingrid Bergman” as musical mash note to an actress, but it gets in some good lines. The others are more up-to-date and far cheekier: “Belinda Carlisle Diet” (“Cocaine and milkshakes, milkshakes, cocaine/All that money down the drain”) and “Cat Power” (“My little disaffected sex symbol, you/If you was any more shy, you’d break in two”).

All in all, not a bad effort, though I think I’d rather hear Hood do a spoken-word record.

— Chris Herrington

Grade: B

Patterson Hood performs at the Hi-Tone CafÇ Thursday, June 3rd.

Panda Park

90 Day Men

(Southern Records)

What an odd little bird, this Panda Park, the third missive from the once-predictable 90 Day Men. Making ripples around 2000 with (It (is) It) Critical Band, the foursome added an assertive post-punk repetition to post-rock and post-rock fallout of fellow Chicagoans Tortoise. Now they’ve taken a novel course straight into the early ’70s, with an electric piano front and center. The vocals of Brian Case will never be mistaken for the polished pipes of Yes’s Steve Howe, and the music lacks the complicated discipline of those dinosaurs, but the feel and sway of the original heavy-hitters of prog rock is unshakable. The vocals will make or break this band for some listeners. Case is as tuneless as the day is long. Alternating between a murmur, a mumble, a yelp, an ill-conceived Prince falsetto, and a dead-on Scott Walker send-up, the vocals on Panda Park drive home the fact that singing isn’t really the point with this band. The point is that, while there is a Chicago post-rock flare, 90 Day Men also sound unlike any underground trends of the moment. Hats off to originality. I just wish originality had a different singer. n —Andrew Earles

Grade: B

E-mail: herrington@memphisflyer.com

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Remembering Mr. Fancy Pants

Kelly Wilson was always late,” gripes Automatic Slim’s owner Karen Carrier. “Every day, he was late. He was always late.”

“That’s true,” adds Kevin Keogh, who managed Slim’s for years before relocating to the Beauty Shop in Cooper-Young. “He was always late. Every single day.”

“But you couldn’t ever be mad at him,” Carrier continues. “Most people who are late like that, you would take them into the office and talk to them, then write them up and put it in their file, and if things didn’t change, you’d have to let them go. But not Kelly. He’d finally come walking in with a big grin. He’d say, ‘Hey, Miss Karen, I’ve been out picking blueberries with my grandmother,’ and he would always bring us fresh blueberries. Or he might say, ‘Hey, sorry I’m late. I was watching a ball game with my dad.’ These were the things that were really important to him. They were more important than work, that’s for sure. Then he’d walk back into the kitchen and go to work.”

In the summer of 2003 Kelly Wilson was murdered after getting off work in the wee hours of the morning. The crime has never been solved. Carrier has organized Commemoreat, a culinary tribute to Kelly on Sunday, June 6th, at Automatic Slim’s from 6 to 11 p.m.

Kelly was a grill chef and loved by everyone who worked with him. Cooks are a notoriously cranky, crusty lot — and for a good reasons. Kitchens get scalding hot, and in a place like Automatic Slim’s, which can easily turn 400 to 500 seatings on a weekend night, the pressure to get the food out can be intense. But Kelly wasn’t a typical cook. He did his job with a grin that, according to friends, never went away. When he had time to help out the waiters, he would. He’d help seat customers or collect the cover charge for the band. Restaurants can be cliquish places: The waiters hang tight, the kitchen staff stick together, and management has its own little thing going. But Kelly knew no boundaries. Every job was important. Nothing was ever beneath him.

“I’d see him at the door helping out the band,” Carrier says, “and I’d say, ‘Kelly, aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to go home?’ And he’d say, ‘No, Miss Karen, I’m fine.'”

Kelly’s co-workers called him Fancy Pants. Chef’s pants are notoriously ugly, baggy affairs that make scrubs and sweats downright stylish by comparison. But Kelly went out of his way to find chef’s pants with bizarre prints and patterns. They became his trademark. He was also known as the Spud King.

“He went through this thing where he was making all kinds of crazy mashed potatoes,” Keogh says. “Sometimes the ingredients could be out there, but they were always good.” Cheetos mashed potatoes, anyone?

Ask anybody who knew him. Kelly was a country boy at heart (hence the mashed potatoes). And sometimes country boys will do country things. On the last night of his life, Kelly was about to leave downtown with Slim’s sauté chef Scott McQueen, when he realized he had to go to the bathroom. He walked over to the Jolly Royal building on Gayoso to water the foliage. That’s when McQueen heard the shots and saw that his friend was covered in blood. McQueen held Kelly while three strangers circled. Certain that Kelly was dead, the murderers scrambled into a (possibly) black car and drove away, leaving McQueen unharmed.

“Kelly must have just walked up on something,” Carrier says. “Right place, wrong time. Wrong place, right time. Who knows? He was trying to take a leak. He was 24 years old.

“When I asked Erling Jensen [about Commemoreat], he said, ‘I will make ostrich!'” Carrier exclaims. The roster of chefs assembled for Commemoreat reads like a who’s who of Memphis fine dining. “We could have had a lot more too,” Carrier says. “Everybody wanted to pitch in, but there’s only so much room in the kitchen.”

Chez Philippe will provide desserts. There will be ribs from the Rendezvous, and bacon-wrapped shrimp from Café Society. Huey’s will grill mini-cheeseburgers — Kelly’s favorite food. Slim’s will prepare jerked ribeye, Kelly’s specialty. Other contributing restaurants include Yia Yia’s, Tsunami, Wally Joe, McEwen’s, the University Club, Felicia Suzanne’s, the Grove Grill, Café 61, the 5 Spot, Do, Molly’s, Garlands, Cielo, Ciao Bella, the Beauty Shop, and Another Roadside Attraction.

“Since we couldn’t keep Kelly alive, maybe we can keep something else alive,” Keogh says, expressing his frustration that his friend is dead and his killers are still at large.

“People who work in restaurants get off late,” Carrier says. “We need somebody watching out for us after last call. It would be great to have more police protection then. It could have been any of us.” n

All donations from Commemoreat go to the family of Kelly Wilson. For more information, call Automatic Slim’s at 525-7948.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Food NEWs

All across town, new signs, new menus, and new

designs are springing up in old spaces. Lorenzen Wright’s Sports Bar changes from a neighborhood tavern into a casual East Memphis lunch spot called Rambert’s. A group of friends upgrades a Grady’s to Vina Bistro. Cuban goes Mexican as Sabor Tropical moves out and Los Compadres moves in.

At first glance, it may not seem like much has changed at Rambert’s. A giant plasma TV still hangs over the bar where an ESPN announcer shouts the latest scores. The dining room looks the same, with the exception of a few feminine touches not likely to be found in most sports bars.

The biggest surprise is in the back, the Nathaniel Room. The door may look like it leads to a closet — because it did before husband-and-wife team Eileen and Anthony Collier transformed a storeroom into a VIP lounge.

With its burnished-wood bar, white tablecloths, and fireplace, stepping through the door is like stepping into a 1920s speakeasy. This little room, available for private parties, even has a separate entrance, sound system, and gated private parking.

Since the restaurant opened April 19th, the Colliers have used the room to host a special Mother’s Day brunch for Anfernee Hardaway and his family and a little girl’s English tea party.

Chef Eddie Spivey, who brings more than 20 years experience with the Radisson hotels in Chicago and Memphis, creates everything from home-cooked Southern soul food to baked salmon and grilled steaks.

Rambert’s, 3101 S. Mendenhall, is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. throughout the week and until 11 p.m. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

What makes Vina Bistro special is not the food, though Chef Todd Mallin draws on classical training, 13 years experience, and even a little humor to create a menu that would delight the most finicky epicure. No. What makes Vina Bistro stand out is the staggering variety of wines served by the glass: 93.

A group of friends, who worked together at Yia’s Yia’s in Germantown, wanted to create an upscale wine and cigar bar. They found financial support from Jara International, Inc., represented by Steve Baker, his wife Renata, and partner Maria Jara, and Vina Bistro rose from the ashes of Grady’s, 6080 Primacy Parkway.

The interior looks much the same with the exception of subtle color changes and a newly added sitting area in the bar. The group plans to add a humidor and will offer a limited late-night menu until 2 a.m.

Presentation is as important as flavor for Mallin, who sees the white linen tablecloths as a blank canvas, where he can build layers of color with food as his medium of choice. Some dishes are even served on artwork. Order the baked brie, and it comes with Chardonnay-poached pear, Granny Smith apple, lavender honey and toasted baguettes on a leaf-shaped plate made by local potter Susan Crenshaw.

Mallin, a New Jersey native, trained at Johnson & Wales in Charleston, South Carolina, and likes to add his own twist to recipes. For example, Todd’s Twisted Cobb Salad features fried chicken, and the potato-wrapped shrimp is served with Pepper Jack grits.

Open 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. daily, the restaurant offers reasonably priced food and wine with entrées ranging from $8 to $28 and wines from $6 to $14 a glass.

“We wanted to offer the attitude of fine dining without outrageous prices,” says manager Sean McClenden.

Los Compadres, 2617 Poplar, kicked off Cinco de Mayo with its grand opening. Once partners Roberto Ferie and Arturo Herrera (they also have two other partners) chose the location, the former site of Cuban restaurant Sabor Tropical, it took less than a month to renovate, add personal touches, and open for business. The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m., except Friday and Saturday when it closes at 11 p.m. n

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DOWN TO THE POINTS

It was only the third day, and all my FlexPoints were gone. Probably shouldn’t have gone to the deli so early in the week. And yet there I was, looking at a dessert called Ship Goes to Pieces Against the Rocks: mint ice cream on a brownie with fudge sauce streaked with raspberry. Must be 37 points in that damn thing, and it’s winkin’ at me.

This is the part where I use one of my Tools for Success. I’m supposed to remember why I’m doing it, remind myself that the goal is worthwhile, that I am worthwhile, something like that. I’m also supposed to have rehearsed for this moment, watched myself succeed in “the movie.” Or I shouldn’t be here at all, should have said no, or checked in with my buddy beforehand, asked for his support, asked him to not let me order dessert. All those shouldas, and now the Ship is headed straight for the Rocks.

It’ll be tough to explain to the women on Wednesday. Of course, there will be nods of understanding, but there will also be subtle mumblings of how I had been doing so well. There’s a mountain of rationalizations available — you’re in it for the long haul, give yourself a reward, make it up next week, learn a lesson about what I was thinking beforehand — but the truth is, the last thought that went through my head was “To hell with it. Gimme the menu!”

It’s a good thing I’m not on a diet or anything. I can’t imagine a diet that has room in it for Ship Goes to Pieces Against the Rocks. People see the weight that I’ve lost and assume I’m doing Atkins or South Beach or who knows what, then hear me talking about ice cream and peanut butter and jelly and a new kind of bacon I’m trying out, and they kind of look at me funny.

Often that funny look turns to shock when I tell them I’m going old-school: Weight Watchers. More than a few people have asked the same question I wondered about: Do they let men into that program? The answer, I have found, is yes, but the first time I walked in, it was me and about 35 women.

So it was that I was introduced to the Points. The Points come from some mysterious combination of dietary fiber, fat grams, and calories. This seems an appropriate time to point out that virtually no one knows what dietary fiber, fat grams, or calories are. Still, from the ooze of the unknown emerge the Points, doled out to us like an allowance: a certain number per day, with more earned through exercise, plus the FlexPoints, to be used whenever we like during the week.

During the week the Ship hit the Rocks, I had gone to a New York-style deli and ordered a corned beef and pastrami sloppy joe, with a side of macaroni salad. You get 35 FlexPoints in a week. When I added up the score of that sandwich, I gave up at 30 and didn’t even deal with the salad. The ladies cringed when I told them this, but the program does allow for the occasional bender — and oh have I bent.

The vibe at the meetings is considerably female and overtly cheery. Our leader claps a lot, and when you do good things, like exercise for 20 minutes four times a week, you get colorful little stickers to put on your record book. Five-pound milestones get you a star, and when you lose 10 percent of your starting weight you get to — no, you have to — get up and testify how good you feel about yourself. The fact that it’s true — I’m a “10-percenter” and have testified honestly to these things — doesn’t change the fact that it’s quite Stuart Smalley: “I’m thin enough, and gosh darnit, people like me!”

We also trade recipes, tips, and “food finds.” Perhaps the oddest recent milestone in my life was looking at the nutritional information on a fudge pop, realizing it’s only a point per pop and thinking, Dang, I’ve gotta tell the group about this!

Or asking the staff at Popeyes if they had nutritional info on their Web site.

Yes, it’s come to that. And no, they don’t do nutritional information at Popeyes. It’s like asking for a price at a Jaguar dealership, both in principle and in the numbers that pop up.

The thing about Weight Watchers is that when all the points are done, and your little book is covered with colorful fruit stickers and shiny five-pound stars, it boils down to a very non-quick-fix system: eat reasonable portions, get plenty of fruits and veggies, go easy on the sweets and fat, drink a lot of water, and get some exercise.

Pretty exciting stuff, huh? But it does work. It worked for me, anyway. Which means I am a success story! And I’m worth it! In fact, I’m going to stop typing and clap for myself right now! Yay! And then I’m going out to celebrate by crashing another Ship Against the Rocks. n

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wednesday, 2

Tonight s Memphis Brooks Museum of Art First Wednesdays series show is a continuing salute to 50 Years of Rock and Roll, with music by The Dempseys, a swing dance demonstration, a video installation, and a beer tasting. Nashville Pussy and The Subteens are at the Hi-Tone. And there you have it. As always, I really don t care what you do this week, because I don t even know you, and unless you can get my friends to stop saying that I have the only cat in the world who s gone blind intentionally because she just can t stand to see any more than what s she s already seen living with me, then I m sure I don t want to meet you. Besides, it s time for me to blow this dump and go see if ol George needs any repair work done on his mountain bike. I m volunteering to work on the brakes.

—T.S.