Month: March 2005

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Frances the Mute – The Mars Volta (Universal/Gold Standard Laboratories)

Since the demise of At the Drive-In, Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler have spent three albums putting their signature on, well, let’s call it “busy rock.” While the nearest thing on the radio is, regrettably, System of a Down, the comparison is based on the progressive elements and dramatic (but also dissimilar) vocals: The Mars Volta carry no nu-metal baggage.

The first single from Frances the Mute, “The Widow,” is now making the rounds on your nearest Clear Channel alternative station. As an attempt at creating a radio-ready four or so minutes, “The Widow” succeeds but nonetheless sounds displaced between Jimmy Eat World and the Killers. Furthermore, there couldn’t be a poorer representative of this record as a whole. As the single’s unedited album version devolves into an extended, unstructured church-organ freak-out, I can only imagine the twisted expression on the garden-variety mall-punker’s face as the following track, “Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore,” gives them exactly what they don’t want: 13 minutes of Spanish vocals, flashlight-in-the-face guitar solos like Carlos Santana trying to mimic Sonny Sharrock, and more changes than the entirety of Yes’ Tales From Topographic Oceans.

Grade: B+

Categories
Music Music Features

The Flyer’s music writers tell you where you can go

There can be no denying that Mem Shannon, a Crescent City cabby turned husky-voiced singer and guitar player, has strong chops and a keen sense of sonic heritage. But listening to his unfortunately named CD I’m From Phunkville, it occurs to me that something just isn’t right.

A postulate: If you are a performing artist playing in a blues tradition, it’s not cool to sing about the life and career of any golfer, including the undeniably great Tiger Woods. That should go without saying, but Shannon’s big-band-inspired homage to the Tiger suggests that somebody should have mention this a long time ago. Maybe, just maybe, someone could get away with singing about the exploits of a hard-living, party-loving, borderline scofflaw like John Daly so long as the lyrics never mentioned little white balls or swinging clubs outside the context of gross metaphor. But even that would be pushing the limits of acceptable lyrical content. Golf may be the most popular waste of time in the history of avocation, but it’s just not rock-and-roll. It’s not barrelhouse blues, gutbucket raunch, soul, samba, honky-tonk, or any of the traditions reflected by Shannon’s musical canon. So why on earth would an artist who can summon up the spirit of Professor Longhair and Dr. John and who occasionally channels the great Barry White commit such a dire sin and sing about the swing of a mild-mannered multimillionaire golfer? God only knows. But the band is hot, the bordello-style piano is all over the place, and Shannon’s baritone is always easy on the ears. He’s at Huey’s Midtown on Sunday, March 27th.

As a borderline metal-basher (well nu-metal, anyway), I’m as surprised as anyone by the fact that I’m recommending Cephalic Carnage. After seeing the extraordinarily awful O.C. Smith-inspired posters for the show, my interest was piqued, and I had to give this creepy grindcore band one more chance. What I discovered was a band that was stoned but sophisticated. Their sound is meaty, beaty, big, and anything but bouncy, with guttural, horrorshow vocals and solos that manage to be jazzy yet satanic. If I were at all inclined toward what passes for metal these days, I’d hop on Cephalic Carnage’s bandwagon when they play Zinnie’s Full Moon Club on Thursday, March 24th.

Clem Snide started out playing a kind of chamber country: cello-enhanced hillbilly music designed for listening rather than dancing. They quickly evolved into one of the cleverest turn-of-the-century rock bands going, using a variety of offbeat instruments to augment an offbeat indie-rock sound and lyrics that are as personal as anything from Neutral Milk Hotel and as clever and hooky as Guided by Voices. Clem Snide is at the Hi-Tone on Thursday, March 24th.

Ian Moore is another alt-country cutup who has turned away from the rootsy path by mixing indie rock and folk in equal measures. Moore, whose soaring voice is a true marvel, has drawn comparisons to Nick Drake, Richard Thompson, and Jeff Buckley. He’s at the Hi-Tone on Monday, March 28th.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Plante: How it Looks

Plante: How it Looks

Categories
News News Feature

Nail “The Hammer”

The Lone Star State has had some doozies in the past, but Representative Tom DeLay is writing a new chapter on dirty.

The John Wesley Hardin Died for You Society has a theme song that goes: “He wasn’t really bad. He was just a victim of his times.” I sometimes find this useful in trying to explain Texas political ethics to outsiders.

Some civilians believe the definition of an honest Texas pol is one who stays bought. But among pols of the old school, the saying was, “If you can’t take their money, drink their whiskey, love their women, and vote against ’em anyway, you don’t belong in the legislature.” Many of our pols have the ethical sensitivity of a walnut. All this has led many to conclude erroneously that Tom DeLay, an alumnus of the Texas legislature, is somehow our fault.

I grant you a certain resemblance to some of our more notorious standards: “Everybody does it” and “They did it first” are actually considered excuses here. But I categorically reject cultural responsibility for DeLay. Real Texas politicians are neither hypocritical nor sanctimonious. A pol does what he must — fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly — but no pol of the Old School, when DeLay served in the state legislature, would add self-righteousness to shady dealing.

This was before the time when religion was regularly dragged into politics. The idea that you were immune from ethical lapses because you had found Jesus did not fly here. Sanctimony stinks in the nostrils of the Lord.

Doing favors for big campaign donors may indeed be an “everybody does it,” but when those favors take the form of laws that directly hurt your people, you’re supposed to draw the line. Over-the-line is where Texas pols would put using a children’s charity as a cover for collecting soft money from special interest groups and then spending it on dinners, a golf tournament, a rock concert, Broadway tickets, and so forth. Because the money was supposedly for a charity, Celebrations for Children Inc., special interests who wanted favors from DeLay were able to give him money without revealing themselves as campaign donors. Cute trick, Tom, but a really cruddy thing to do.

In another example of ethical rot, DeLay took a $100,000 check from the Corrections Corporation of America, a company that runs private prisons in Texas and has a 20-year history that includes mismanagement and abuse. CCA wants the Texas legislature — over which DeLay exercises considerable sway because he’s a money conduit — to privatize the prisons. And that check? Made out to DeLay’s children’s charity, the DeLay Foundation for Kids. Barf.

Another quality that makes DeLay an un-Texas pol is that he’s mean. By and large, Texas pols are an agreeable set of less-than-perfect humans and quite often well-intentioned. As Carl Parker of Port Arthur used to observe, if you took all the fools out of the legislature, it would not be a representative body any longer. The old sense of collegiality was strong, and vindictive behavior — punishing pols for partisan reasons — was simply not done. But those are DeLay’s specialties, his trademarks. “The Hammer” is not only genuinely feared in Washington, he is, I’m sorry to say, hated.

Some of the ethics charges against DeLay are just plain old-fashioned grubby — letting a lobbyist pay for a fancy hotel in London and a golf trip to St. Andrews (DeLay claims he didn’t know it was lobby money, even though he was accompanied by the lobbyist). What sets DeLay apart is his response when his shoddy behavior is exposed.

He has been admonished three times by the House Ethics Committee. So did he clean up his act? Nope. He went after the chairman of the ethics committee, threw him out, got the rules changed, and then stacked the committee with his close allies. “The ethics process in the House of Representatives is in total shambles,” said Fred Wertheimer, a longtime D.C. crusader on ethical issues.

I haven’t even mentioned DeLay’s apparent violation of Texas campaign finance law — quite a feat, since we only have one. Or the whole nasty and absurd redistricting mess, or the dubious donations to his legal defense fund, or the Indian casino gambling saga, or, or, or …

The Houston Chronicle, DeLay’s home paper, has been vigilant about tracking his lapses. The paper recently summed up his M.O.: “When in danger of losing, simply rewrite the rules in the middle of the game to make it impossible for the other side to win.”

This guy smells like a slop jar. Get him out of there.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Painful Proposal

The three ambulances that pulled into the Hope and Healing Center on Union Avenue Wednesday morning weren’t carrying victims of strokes or heart attacks. Instead, they carried patients whose suffering will only get worse if their health coverage is cut by Governor Phil Bredesen’s proposal to scale back TennCare.

The TennCare Saves Lives Coalition held nine rallies in nine days in major Tennessee cities to show how the proposed cuts could affect thousands of people.

About 100 people attended the Memphis “Drive to Save Lives” protest. They chanted, “Hey, hey, Bredesen, let us keep our medicine.”

Bredesen’s plan proposes scaling back coverage for 719,000 Tennesseans. Of that number, 323,000 people would be completely cut off.

“There are a very substantial number of people in Tennessee who will die if they’re cut from the program,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.

Pollack said if Bredesen’s proposal is passed, it would be the largest state cutback in health care in the history of the country. Although Bredesen has acknowledged that the cuts will hurt, he says it’s the best way to balance the state budget. n

Categories
Music Record Reviews

I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning/Digital Ash in a Digital Urn – Bright Eyes (Saddle Creek)

Conor Oberst’s decampment from Omaha to New York City placed him in the midst of a bustling scene filled with likeminded people — young, liberal, and feeling politically disenfranchised. Although he’s been dating Winona and singing about parties at actors’ lofts, the move hasn’t gone to his head: He’s still a Midwestern manchild, only now he’s lost in the big city instead of the Nebraska plains. His world hasn’t shifted eastward as much as it has expanded, so much so that it took not one, but two Bright Eyes albums to capture it.

I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning, the more familiar and popular of the two, isn’t too far removed from Oberst’s previous albums, although it adopts a jangly, C&W-informed sound reminiscent spiritually, if not sonically, of 1960s folk rock. The emphasis on politics is altogether appropriate, especially filtered through Oberst’s first-person perspective.

Because he cannot write from any other point of view than his own, every event in Oberst’s life becomes an opportunity for self-scrutiny. “Lua” chronicles a drunken postparty hook-up through its small moments and next-morning regrets, and on “Train Under Water,” he frets about getting lost in Brooklyn. And yet, for all its introspection, Wide Awake is perhaps Oberst’s most extroverted album, evoking a larger world full of pain and confusion greater than his own.

Digital Ash in a Digital Urn sounds atrocious by comparison. It’s a Postal Service album gone horribly awry, pairing Oberst’s distinctive vocals with laptop-generated beats by longtime Bright Eyes collaborator Mike Mogis (under the name Digital Audio Engine) and Post-man Jimmy Tamborello. The darkly claustrophobic production and antiseptic beats of songs such as “Take It Easy (Love Nothing)” and “Light Pollution” change the natural cadence of Oberst’s phrasing, forcing him to draw out some lines while nervously condensing others. As a result, he sounds slightly drunken and careless, not comfortable or confident. A natural bandleader, Oberst is used to controlling the music, but on Digital Ash, the choppy rhythms control him.

Furthermore, this awkward new sound obscures his vision of a world beyond himself. Every song on Digital Ash sounds hopelessly self-absorbed. On “Hit the Switch,” he confesses, “I’m completely alone/At a table of friends/I feel nothing for them/I feel nothing!” But Oberst in fact does feel something, as Wide Awake ably proves. Perhaps it’s time to try a new city.

Grades: Wide Awake: B+;Digital Ash: C-

Categories
Food & Drink Food Reviews

Down From the Mountain

In the 1990s I worked as a waiter, bartender, cook, and occasional dishwasher at La Montagne, a “healthy” vegetarian-friendly eatery on Park, just a block east of Highland. The area was, as it is now, blighted with strip malls, but “The Mountain,” as employees called it with equal parts affection and animosity, was a cozy cottage tangled in grape vines and rimmed with an elegant garden. It was hidden in plain view, out of place, and inviting. Prices were competitive, which made it hard for employees to make much of a living from the bistro-sized, veggie-loving clientele. But for this U of M grad student who only needed rent money, beer money, and all the free beans and rice he could eat, La Montagne was ideal.

In 2003, the famously inconsistent restaurant — which opened in the early 1980s as a progressive vegetarian restaurant supplied by its own garden — finally closed. It reopened, however, in June 2004 with the same name and perfunctory nods to its healthy past. But the new La Montagne is owned by a meat-loving chef who thinks portions should be generous and customers know exactly what they want.

“I decided to keep the name La Montagne for one reason. It’s been around for a long time, and people already know where La Montagne is. They don’t have to go looking for a new restaurant,” says chef/owner John Bragg. “But it’s confused a lot of people who come wandering in looking for a $4 vegetable plate.”

In the old days, La Montagne’s fare consisted of a “spinach fantasy” served over green noodles, assorted seafood, and exotically named bean-based dishes involving shaved coconut, sweet potatoes, eggplant, or an exotic cheese like feta, with the option of adding grilled tofu, chicken, or shrimp. Today, the Mediterranean-inspired menu contains items such as a prime rib chop with red onion confit and mushroom Dijon sauce; beef tenderloin with a truffle-port reduction; and seared tuna with pancetta and lentils — a far cry from the days of the four-veggie special.

“Things that were considered fine dining 20 years ago are commonplace now. I think everybody knows what goat cheese is. You can get a chipotle sauce at McDonald’s,” Bragg says. “I’m [not the kind of chef] who’s going to make some wasabi-crusted whatever. In French cooking you learn that if you eat a potato, you should taste the potato. The first taste going in and the last taste shouldn’t be ‘whatever.’ It should be potato.”

Before reopening La Montagne, Bragg worked for top-notch Memphis chefs such as Karen Carrier of Automatic Slim’s and Cielo, Erling Jensen, and Aubergine’s Gene Bjorklund.

“From Erling I learned that the most important thing you can do is to give the people what they want,” Bragg says. “You can get food service in a hotel, a hospital, or a prison. Dining is about accommodating. It’s about not saying ‘no’ to your customers. It’s about entertainment.”

One thing that La Montagne has kept from the old days is its cozy environment. The rooms are small, simple. During the winter months diners can eat next to a roaring fireplace near the bar. The color scheme has changed, however, from battleship gray and dingy greens to bright ochers that lighten the dimly lit café and contrast nicely with the dark hardwood floors. Murals by David Mah have replaced the giant, crusty map that once hung in the restaurant’s back room, and paintings and photographs by Memphis artists are hung on the restaurant’s walls.

Appetizers range from grilled scallops with prosciutto and asparagus to citrus-marinated olives with hummus. Desserts include fresh sorbets, fruit tarts, soufflés, and a chocolate, coffee rum, and mousse cake called Il Diplomatico. Prices for entrées range from $12 to $36, with salads and appetizers starting at $7. La Montagne provides a full bar, a variety of imported beers, and a solid, moderately priced wine selection. La Montagne is currently open for dinner and for brunch on Sundays but will open for lunch beginning in April.

“What I want is for people to enjoy their food,” Bragg says. “I want them to walk away feeling like they’ve gotten more than they expected.”

For all of its faults, there was something charming about the old La Montagne. It blended bistro ambience with the Memphis-style funk of no-frills “meat and three.” It was suspended in a time when sundried tomatoes sounded like a farming error, pesto was only a myth, and homemade pizza seemed exotic. But it’s hard to look at the new menu and the invigorated interiors and not agree that change can be a very good thing indeed.

La Montagne, 3550 Park (320-9090)

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

POLITICS

BATTLE WOUNDS

NASHVILLE– John Ford’s case is beginning to resemble the apochryphal one about the child who murdered both parents and then asked the court for mercy on grounds that he was an orphan.

The beleagured state senator from South Memphis (and other points) sounded such a note last week when he petitioned a Shelby County court for lowered child-support payments on grounds that he has suffered the loss of a lucrative annual consulting contract worth almost $300,000.

Ford has lost that contract, of course, in the aftermath of court procedures that revealed it and other previously unknown income and in the wake of a raft of subsequent investigations into the senator’s affairs. The fact was that Ford’s decision to contest an increase in child support to one of the mothers of his several children was what led to the disclosure — and to raised child-support payments.

Next, the consulting company that had employed Ford (and had also represented a dental provider which landed an exclusive TennCare contract with the state) dropped Ford in the wake of all the publicity.

And that, to complete the circle, made the senator unable to come up with the add-on child support just ordered by the court . If Ford had quietly agreed to the increase in the first place, he doubtless would have avoided the chain of circumstances that now has him bound up tight.

As of last week, Ford seemed to have decent chances of escaping some of his recent misery — which, for starters, includes separate probes by the state Senate Ethics Committee, the state Election Registry, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On Wednesday, the members of theEthics Committee sat Ford before them and did their best to give the benefit of the doubt to the senator (they basically offered their Senate colleague forgiveness for what he — and they — seem inclined to regard as “oversights”), it appeared that Ford was halfway out of the woods.

Events later in the week worsened the senator’s predicament, however.

The first of those was a meeting on Thursday of the six members the state Election Registry, who gave themselves every chance to be as lenient as the Ethics Committee had been.. But, almost despite themselves, they backed and filled themselves into the most decisive action against Ford so far — a show-cause order, demanding more complete information from Ford concerning his challenged campaign expenditures.

Several early motions — all based on a citizen complaint from one Barry Schmittou — had failed. It was only when member Karen Dunavant made a show-cause motion which made no reference to the Schmittou complaint that the Registry formally put the onus on proof on Ford. The senator has 30 days to demonstrate why his expenditures, notably his apparent use of campaign funds to pay for a daughter’s lavish wedding, do not merit sanctions from the Registry.

The successful motion by Dunavant, a Republican appointee from Memphis, came as something of a surprise. Up to that point, she had seemed reluctant to turn the screws on Democrat Ford. During the discussion of the wedding video, she lamented, “Lovely girl! It’s too bad she has to go through all this.”

The only dissenting vote on Dunavant’s motion came, ironically, from Nashville lawyer William Long, another Republican, who had made the earlier motion throwing the ball back into complainaint Schmittou’s court.

“I’ve known Sen. Ford for almost 30 years,” said Long, who went on to suggest that without the senator and his records on hand it was improper to proceed. Echoing statements made by members of the Ethics Committee the day before, Long suggested that media pressure was the true cause of the various inquiries under way.

Member George Harding of Lebanon, a Democratic appointee, expostulated at one point: “You’re just trying to get this thing put off because Senator Ford is a friend of yours.” Long asked for, and at length got, an apology for those words

Schmittou, who is well-known on Capitol Hill for his protests against various governmental actions and whose formal complaints against Ford are the proximate cause of the multiple investigations of Ford now going on, professed himself satisfied after the hearing and opined that the Ethics Committee could have used somebody like Harding on Wednesday.

Ford had a real boost going into his moment of truth with the Ethics Committee. He had heard himself lionized in the Senate, just before adjournment, by soul-music legend Isaac Hayes during the course of the Memphis entertainer’s response to an official Senate resolution in his honor. John Ford is “my friend,” Hayes pronounced, and Ford, making the most of the moment, went on to claim that he, his brother Harold, and his brother (former state Representative) Emmett were all financed in their first races by Isaac Hayes. They were, Ford suggested, virtually Hays’ creations.

As preambles to what could have been an inquisition, that was about as good as it gets. The Ethics Committee hearing came in the late afternoon Wednesday, immediately after that edifying occasion in the Senate chamber. There were times during the hearing when Ford, flanked by his two lawyers at a table and facing the committee members up on the dais, seemed nervous, but as things wore on, it became obvious that the barely controlled tremor in his voice was due more to outrage at being haled before his peers.

“I have been impugned by others for reasons other than a violation,” Ford said early in his testimony. Further: “What this is all about is my integrity and the integrity of this body.”

As bizarre as that might have seemed to those whose sense of the case against Ford was based on TV teases and newspaper headlines, it conformed neatly with advance word from Senate sources that the Ford’s lodge brothers, regardless of party, would close ranks around him.

Long story short: They did. Committee chairman Ron Ramsey, who doubles as the Republicans’ majority leader, might have been expected to lead the charge against Ford, and he declined to accept the argument of Ford — and, it seemed, Senate clerk Russell Humphrey — that senators had liberty to offer late amendments to their financial disclosures, something Ford just did, in the wake of allegations by Schmittou.

But Ramsey seemed to speak for the body when he ended up using the word “mistake” to describe Ford’s original omission of his “consulting” arrangements in the Memphis senator’s first set of disclosures for both 2003 and 2004. Indeed, the committee’s discussion of the matter came to focus on the simple issue of whether the word “consulting” should have appeared in the list of the senator’s income sources.

“I have complied with every law,” Ford said. “I missed writing one word by error. I didn’t even realize it.” No one on the committee seriously contested that, although Nashville Senator Doug Henry probed a few other issues and came closest to a serious interrogation.

In the end, the committee decided that Ford should have come cleaner on the disclosure issue but that another issue, that of the senator’s alleged improper use of campaign funds was not the committee’s purview but the Registry’s, nor was a third matter, that of whether Ford actually lived in his district.

The committee promised to produce a formal report in something like 14 days, and Ford offered his gratitude for a “fair” hearing. And that seemed that, until the later surfacing of a letter to members of the committee before the hearing, to which Ford had appended a warning to his colleagues not to “throw stones” in a “glass house.”

The formerly compliant Ramsey responded to that sternly and indicated that the committee might ask for further information. In short, Ford might have talked himself into another jam.

.Schmittou made it clear later that, even if the Ethics Committee eventually washed its hands of the Ford matter, he hadn’t, and would be heard from again.

But regardless of that, or of further media pursuit, or of Ford’s ultimate fate with the Registry or with his newly aroused colleagues, the greater danger for the Memphis state senator lay ahead, with whatever consequence ensues from a parallel F.B.I.investigation of conflict-of-interest issues relating to the senator’s consulting activities.

“There’s nothing for a court of law to decide,” Sen. Ford had insisted at Wednesday’s hearing. But that remains to be seen — as, for that matter, does the question of what new complications the senator can manage to get himself involved in.

Hard Sell for A C: For a while, it seemed that A C Wharton might have had a harder time on Capitol Hill last week than Ford did. The Shelby County mayor had what amounted to a showdown with members of the General Assembly and got some serious backtalk for his pains.

County mayor Wharton has made frequent pilgrimages to Nashville of late, on behalf of proposed revenue measures pushed by his administration and approved by the county commission. He was at it again Wednesday, as the featured speaker at the regularly weekly luncheon of the Shelby County legislative delegation. It was County Government day on Capitol Hill, and other Shelby County officials were on the bill, including Sheriff Mark Luttrell and District Attorney General Bill Gibbons — all discussing their desired leislation.

Wharton’s appearance dominated both because of his rank and because of what he insisted was the urgency of devising some means other than “the everlasting escalation of the property tax” to fill Shelby County’s dangerously starved coffers. The administration, backed by an 11-0 vote of the county commission, is pushing a real estate transfer tax that would yield some $10 to $15 million in annual revenue, but, like any other tax proposal, that one has met with resistance.

With that in mind, a somewhat testy Wharton put it straight to his audience of legislators.

“If y’all come up with another bill, you’ll find me marching alongside you,” he said. “But this is the only horse I have right now. It may be a lame horse but it’s still in the race. Other horses haven’t shown up yet.”

As he goaded the delegation to action on his tax measure, the county mayor vowed, “I’ll be here by day and in your districts by night. Take the chains off the local hands and let us mold a revenue package that is close to the desires and wishes of the people of Shelby County” If the county had to pass another property-tax increase, it would, Wharton said, but he suggested that would be “driven by what happens or fails to happen here.”

Representative John DeBerry protested at that: “One thing I won’t accept is anybody saying this delegation is to blame,” he said, turning Wharton’s charge of inaction against county government itself. “Nothing is happening now that we didn’t say would happen five years ago, Things got out of hand, and now we’ve got to hold our nose.” He said, “I request and implore that his delegation be indemnified from blame.”

Things lightened up a bit later on, when state Senator Mark Norris offered what seemed like a deal. “We’re looking for a package that can be put together,” Norris said. “We need a comprehensive solution People want a [legislative] on their taxes, but they also want a vote on their schools.” Norris is a leading proponent of legislation to create a special county school district — the “elephant in the room,” as he described it Wednesday. Responded A C: “We’ve had some talks with school officials, and you’d be surprised at the room for agreement that exists.”

That was the one note of harmony in a session that otherwise generated measurable tension — the same sort that inures to most proceedings of the revenue-starved Shelby County Commission these days

Willingham vs. Meadows: One indication of tension to come on the Commission was in the form of a letter dispatched last week by Commissioner John Willingham to Stan Meadows, lawyer for the Memphis Grizzlies. The letter, maintaining that the NBA Grizzlies have a “strangle hold” on The Pyramid and the Coliseum through the team’s contract with the city and county, accuses the Grizzlies of “holding Memphis and Shelby County hostage.”

Willingham, who has proposed converting the taxpayer-financed Pyramid, still unpaid-for, into a potentially profitable casino, quoted Meadows as responding to a previous communication with these words: “Frankly, John, we would like to see the Pyramid shuttered If casino gambling were to come to Memphis, we would like to see it near the FedEx Forum or in the Peabody Place complex.”

The commissioner, who intends to raise the issue again at commission committee hearings on Wednesday, informed Meadows, “I will do everything in my power of influence to encourage them [members of the community] to go for your Achilles heal [sic], i.e., pocketbook. My hope is that you can reconsider your position!”

The annual Gridiron Show, the proceeds from which go to journalism scholarships, will be held Saturday, April 2, at the Al Chymia Shrine Center at 5770 Shelby Oaks Drive. “Champagne gathering” for the show, this year entitled “Where’s Willie?”, is at 6:30 p.m., dinner at 7, and curtain at 7:45. Tickets, tax-deductible, are $60.

Correction: Mike Ritz, a declared candidate for the county commission in 2006, was mis-identified last week as “Mike Rich.”

Special Senate Primary

With prospects for a low turnout making predictions uncertain, voters in state Senate District 33 will go to the polls Thursday to select the Democratic and Republican nominees to succeed Roscoe Dixon, now an aide to county mayor A C Wharton.

Democratic candidates are state Representative Kathryn Bowers, Shelby County Commissioner Michael Hooks, and James Harvey. Republicans are Mary Lynn Flood, Jason Hernandez, Mary Ann McNeil, and Barry Sterling.

General election is May 10.

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Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

FROM MY SEAT

SCATTERED THOUGHTS

You want to know why an entire community fell in love with Darius Washington over two missed free throws on March 12th? ItÕs the most elementary aspect of a relationship: empathy. Very few among us would have been able to equate with WashingtonÕs achievement had he made all three game-ending foul shots to beat Louisville and earn an NCAA tournament berth for his Memphis Tigers. But every last one of us shared his pain when he crumpled to the FedExForum floor after missing the last two. WeÕve all suffered crushing loss, when the tears and regret overwhelm what strength we have left.

Likewise, anyone in attendance last Wednesday night, when Washington was the first Tiger introduced before the teamÕs NIT opener at the Forum, could share the love that rode sound waves of cheer during the freshmanÕs extended standing ovation. ItÕs the only time IÕve ever experienced a game that was entirely anticlimactic to a pregame introduction. The highlight of the TigersÕ 25-point victory over Northeastern was certainly WashingtonÕs breakaway dunk seven minutes into the game, his first points since SaturdayÕs heartbreak. The crowd of 7,392 sounded twice its size. And life went on in Tiger Nation.

The TigersÕ third-round NIT game Wednesday night at FedExForum will be especially meaningful for Memphis senior Anthony Rice. In playing his 133rd career game, Rice will break a 19-year-old record held by Andre Turner and the late Baskerville Holmes. The achievement is further testament to RiceÕs durability and consistency, a fitting mark to be left by one of the most underrated Tigers in the programÕs history. But hereÕs the sad part. Only three of RiceÕs games were in the NCAA tournament. By comparison, Turner and Holmes played together in 12 games (between 1983 and Ô86) on the sportÕs brightest stage.

Say what you will about John CalipariÕs role in the disappointing 2004-05 season, but the guy is a walking 20-win season. This year marks his fifth straight 20-win campaign in Memphis (only achieved once before in the programÕs history, from 1981-82 through 1988-89) and he won at least 20 his last six seasons at UMass.

There are days when the immeasurable absurdity of professional sports makes me want to turn away from the television and sports page . . . forever. I read a hauntingly insightful excerpt from a book by Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs in the March 14th issue of Time magazine. Sachs explores the means and possibilities for helping the millions upon millions of people worldwide living in extreme poverty (measured as living on less than one dollar a day). Sachs advocates relatively simple, but to this point neglected steps that can be taken, like providing impoverished communities with fertilizer, clean water, even mosquito nets to fight malaria.

Then, last week in Sports Illustrated, I read about a couple of birthday gifts received by Shaquille OÕNeal from his wife: a $16,000 cake and a $100,000 Superman necklace. This is every bit as ugly, in my eyes, as reading of the latest big-league steroid abuse. Shame on Shaq. And shame on all of us fans for affording his ilk this kind of head-shaking, perspective-quaking luxury. Consider this the next time you pay $10 for a basket of popcorn at a Grizzlies game that cost, oh, 25 cents to make. Maybe the National Hockey League is on to something.

Mark McGwireÕs testimony before Congress on steroid abuse in baseball last Thursday was nothing short of pathetic. By now — particularly with his dodging any and all questions about his own possible use — itÕs clear the former Home Run King was juiced. (If Big Mac never used a steroid, I never used a pen.) But this is where McGwire — the man, the human being — could retain his heroic status. Remember, cheating damages his baseball credibility, his numbers . . . but it doesnÕt have to damage his role as a contributing member of society. This is a guy who has been active — with his wallet, Shaq — in helping abused children. He left millions on the table with an unsigned contract in St. Louis when he abruptly retired four years ago. Instead of straightening his broad shoulders before Congress, though, and taking a swing at baseballÕs most recent epidemic, McGwire leaned on the advice of attorneys, refusing to talk about Òthe pastÓ or Ònegatives.Ó The past and ÒnegativesÓ Mark, are the only reasons you were asked to Washington! The national pastimeÕs steroid mess just got messier.

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COMMENTARY: MEMPHIS-MUSIC WEB ACTION

It is a good thing no one is expecting anything from the Memphis Music Commission’s Web site as they cannot seem to find the extension cord to plug it in. It has been almost two years since self-proclaimed “technology guy” Rey Fleming took over the Commission. It has been almost three(!) years since they updated their old site. Fleming promised delivery of a new site by this past January. A new site is still not available.

Meanwhile there are many Web sites created for Memphis musicians, sending Memphis music and music information to the rest of the world. Soulsville has a few relatively new entrants. Let’s start with one of the Memphis Horns–Wayne Jackson. Jackson has had his site at www.sweetmedicinemusic.com (or www.wayneljackson.com) for several years. Currently Jackson’s site features news about his fantastic autobiography, In My Wildest Dreams: A Collection of Rock and Roll Tales, Vol., covering his forty (or so) year music career,. While Jackson, a West Memphis native, is not a major star, he is a major player in the history of Memphis music–from the early days of Stax Records and the Mar-Keys through the ‘80s playing with Robert Cray and continuing today as a much in demand session star with acts like Sting. Jackson is one of Memphis’ few musicians who has had a continuous career through good times and bad, and his perspective as a session musician on many famous recordings is precious. Wildest Dreams is an excellent, down-home, up-close look at many of the crazy music scenarios Jackson has encountered. While some of the stories have been told before by other authors, Jackson pulls no punches and provides some of the best laughs in first-hand accounts of Memphis music history. In addition there are many behind-the-scenes anecdotes about Jackson’s career never written about previously. Each copy of the book comes personalized with an autograph from Jackson with a total of four volumes promised. If all are as good as this first edition, they will be must reads for any Memphis music fan.

The lovely and talented Hi Records soul singer Ann Peebles was recently spotted in Soulsville central at the Stax Museum’s Funky Films and Soundtracks exhibit opening. Ms. Peebles has a new Web site at the hard to remember address www.acousticsoultour.com. The site includes new tour dates as well as a hot, sultry new song (hard to believe it’s her first new one in eight years!) called “Chase These Blues Away.” Peebles said that it was time for her to tour again as it has been too long since she has been on the road. She feels like there is more demand and appreciation for soul music now then there has been for many years. In addition to being featured at the Barbican Festival in London in April, she has a gig lined up in New York with more dates to come.

Soulsville and the Stax Museum itself also have a new Web site at www.soulsvilleusa.com. While I am not a fan of the inappropriately garish color scheme, the slow loading, or the dearth of information about the soul artists (For a better take on the history of Stax as well as current updates on Stax artists, check out http://staxrecords.free.fr), the site does contain information about the museum’s current programs and a nifty virtual tour. Most exciting is the new Last Mondays in Studio A series at the museum, featuring former LeMoyne Gardens resident and Stax star William Bell later this month. While these parties are expensive for each event ($20), members get in free! So these events are a great incentive to become a member of the museum at a $45 membership for a year. In addition, Memphis rarely hosts any events on Monday nights as exciting as this series promises to be.

Finally, one cannot discuss Memphis music and culture without praising the soul food of this city. While not a Web site specifically about music, www.dixiedining.com is one of my favorite new sites, featuring tasty Mom & Pops restaurants all over the South. Gary Saunders, a food nut and Memphis Riverkings’ Vice President of Sales, created this fascinating Web site and is the premier eater involved. This summer Saunders will release a book called Dixie Dining based on the restaurants featured on his site. Be sure to bookmark this site for your next Southern road trip!