Month: October 2005

Categories
Music Music Features

COMMENTARY: Mo’ Better Boogie

The first documented instance of a recording company
moseying on down south to Memphis to record the Memphis Sound occurred when
Victor Records came to cut the Memphis Jug Band almost 80 years ago at the Ellis
Auditorium in February, 1927.  (That’s according to blues historian and
University of Memphis music professor Dr. David Evans.)  Since then, Memphis as
a city has had one of the strongest recording careers in the whole industry of
recorded music. 

Sam Phillips’ success really inspired others to come to Memphis
to record, including:  Los Angeles’ Bihari brothers, who opened up Meteor
Records on Chelsea in the early ’50s; Jerry Wexler and his crew of Atlantic
clients who first recorded at Stax Records in the early ’60s and then at
American after Stax refused his business; and Larry Uttal, whose Bell Records
cut dozens of pop and soul hits at American in the ’60s and early ’70s.  Today,
Memphis studios continue to have national and international recording stars come
to guzzle the heady stuff in our vineyard.

One of the most surprising
clients of recent note comes straight outta The O.C. Peter
Gallagher, he of the beetle brows.  Gallagher, long a Broadway star and more
recently the father on the wildly  popular The O.C., came to
Memphis this past June to soak up the Memphis Sound at Ardent Records. He hung
with Stax vets Steve Cropper and arranger Lester Snell, along with 3rd-generation
soul stars of Joss Stone’s band.  Another testimonial to the great musicians and
studios that Memphis continues to have.

 

How did this session come about?  Apparently Gallagher sang
Solomon Burke’s “Don’t Give Up on Me” on The O.C. last fall and an
enterprising producer, Mike Mangini (also Joss Stone’s producer), came up with
the idea of cutting Gallagher doing a whole record of soul covers and classics. 
Mangini brought Stone’s band to town and partnered them up with a couple of
Memphis soul legends, producing what will soon be out as a dual disc (a disc
with video on one side; music on the other) as well as a CD.  The CD  is
7 Days in Memphis.  The dual disc features video of Gallagher cruising
around Memphis musing on his career, as well as on Solomon Burke, on Memphis
soul, and why he is singing soul music.

 

The music itself is solid Memphis soul — with  input
from Betty Wright as well as some of Memphis’ finest players.  While many
critics will dismiss the idea of an actor having a singing career (even though
Gallagher has sung on stage for years), the bigger point of all this, for
Memphis at least, is that the big shots know where to come to get the authentic
soul sounds:  Memphis studios with Memphis musicians (Another film star, Steven
Seagal,  is also one who knows a good thing in Memphis when he hears it —
having announced last week that he is doing a blues record in Memphis). 

Astonishingly,  the Memphis Sound will probably be featured some time this
fall on one of TV’s hottest teenie-bopper show — more proof of  the
staying power of Memphis soul.  Surely, the idea of having a hit record promoted
by a hit TV show crossed Mangini’s mind when booking the sessions; it’s
something any major record label would die for in these difficult days of record
sales.  The O.C. has been breaking indie rock bands like Modest Mouse and
Death Cab for Cutie.  Will they be able to sell soul music to this group of
kids?  7 Days in Memphis comes out next week on Epic. It’s not easy
getting Steve Cropper back to Memphis for a recording session.  Let’s hope there
are more to come.

 

Secret Stuff:
Did one of the members of the White Stripes cut music for a commercial in a
Memphis studio for an unnamed product in an unnamed country this summer?  Is
there a major positive announcement forthcoming for an historical outdoor
mid-town Memphis amphitheater?

 

 

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Categories
Sports Sports Feature

FROM MY SEAT: ‘Friends and Strangers’

Wednesday at FedExForum, Jason Williams will play his fifth opening-night tilt in Memphis, though this time it will be in a Miami Heat uniform. The best — and most revealing — Williams story I can share is centered around the first question I asked him. On November 1, 2001, the Memphis Grizzlies hosted the Detroit Pistons at The Pyramid. After decades of essentially being the country’s biggest Minor League Town, the Bluff City went Big League. To welcome the NBA, commissioner David Stern was in the crowd, Isaac Hayes — merely weeks after 9/11 — sang “God Bless America,” and Justin Timberlake sang the national anthem. 19,405 fans packed the pointy building and relished the city’s first step onto the national stage of professional sports.

After the game, in a crowded, ironically subdued Grizzlies locker room — Detroit had crashed the party, winning 90-80 — I asked Williams how this night compared with the other three lid-lifters of his career. His response? “Opening night is opening night to me.” Next question.

However much love Memphis NBA fans may have come to harbor for the talented, mercurial J-Will, that affection was decidedly unrequited. Anything Williams was asked to do beyond his responsibilities in uniform was a Herculean venture for the person making the request. (I witnessed pleading members of the Grizzlies media-relations staff ignored by Williams without so much as eye-contact being exchanged.) If modern professional sports is littered with mercenary, me-first, me-only isolationists, Jason Williams might just be the flag-bearer. So, welcome back to the Bluff City!

The irony in Williams’ character shortcomings is that he is so giving on the basketball court. His assists-to-turnover ratio over the four years he played in Memphis was among the best in the NBA (3.1 assists for every turnover). The eight-year veteran will need to be particularly charitable with the ball in south Florida, as he’ll be, at best, the fourth scoring option behind Shaquille O’Neal, Dwyane Wade, and Antoine Walker. (He’ll defer to Alonzo Mourning, too, with Udonis Haslem itching for more touches.) Just how well Williams blends into the Shaq/Wade mix will determine if the Heat can take aim at a championship firmly in the grip of the San Antonio Spurs.

Regarding title hopes, Memphis made its own moves, and the changes will be evident early. Unless you can get your hands on a player named Shaquille or Duncan, there is no quicker way to change the style and image of your basketball team than by changing point guards. And for the 2005-06 Grizzlies, this change is a double-scoop of freshness. While Damon Stoudamire will start where Williams once did, Bobby Jackson will come off the bench as a more capable scoring backup than Earl Watson ever was. With apologies to Eddie Jones and rookie Hakim Warrick, Stoudamire and Jackson are going to define how Year Five of the Memphis Grizzlies unfolds. You can bet, in addition, that Memphis fans will judge this pair relative to the performance of their predecessors.

“Memphis is a great town,” Jackson told me in mid-October after a preseason practice at FedExForum. “The organization is great, and everyone’s welcomed me with open arms.” A much different take, to be sure, from that of the last Sacramento point guard brought to Memphis in an offseason trade. (Jackson actually spent one season — 2000-01 — backing up Williams in Sacramento. He averaged 7.2 points that year, 11.1 the next.) Wednesday night, Memphis will get its first taste of a team whose ingredients have been more than a little shaken and stirred since last April. And the guess here is that it won’t be, ho-hum, like any other opening night we’ve seen.

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Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

POLITICS: Weekend Drills


Return of the Don: Don Sundquist was back on the reservation – literally. The former governor (1995-2003), who ran afoul of his Republican party-mates during his dedicated pursuit of a state income tax during his second term, was in Memphis Friday night at the Ridgeway Country Club and was warmly welcomed as one of the speakers in a well-attended tribute to retiring Shelby County Clerk Jayne Creson.

Sundquist, who retired with wife Martha to a home in Townsend in East Tennessee after leaving office, now serves as co-chairman, with former governor Angus King of Maine, of the federal Medicaid Commission, charged with making proposals for Medicaid reform.

Friday night’s affair, sponsored by the Shelby County Republican Women and organized by SCRW president Jeanette Watkins, also brought out another recent GOP luminary, former Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout, who served as emcee for the ceremony.

Attendance, which was generous and across the board politically, included both the previously declared Republican candidates for clerk in next year’s election – current Creson aide Debbie Stamson and Shelby County Commissioner Marilyn Loeffel.

On Saturday morning, Sundquist returned to East Tennessee and attended Saturday’s football game between the Tennessee Volunteers and the South Carolina Gamecocks in Knoxville.,/p>

Hanging With Sidney: Former Teamster leader (and ex-state Senator) Sidney Chism, now a candidate for the Shelby County Commission seat being vacated by veteran Cleo Kirk was the host/beneficiary of a meet-the-candidate picnic at the park grounds on Horn Lake Road Saturday. Among those attending were Chism’s long-time political ally, Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton and various other candidates and officials, including county clerk hopeful Janis Fullilove and sitting judges Arnold Goldin, Walter Evans, and Russell Sugarmon.

Serving as “deejay” for the affair was AM680 Air America radio talkshow host Leon Gray, who is currently under fire (See Flyer blog, “Let It Fly,” for entries) for on-air commentaries that some of his Democratic listeners regard as suspect. (The unapologetic Gray defended some of his controversial commentaries (q.v. , on blog) , saying, “’There is something called ‘the Christian Left.’”)

Ford Rallies: 9th District congressman Harold Ford was the beneficiary of a $75-a-head fundraiser Sunday afternoon at Felicia Suzette’s Restaurant downtown hosted by “a group of young professionals.”

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Categories
Politics Politics Feature

GADFLY: Fitz’s Knuckle Ball

The indictment of “Scooter” Libby, ONLY Scooter Libby, and ONLY on investigation- related charges (perjury, obstruction of justice, lying to investigators), is bound to be misinterpreted (read: spun), by ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum. Lefties (in addition to being disappointed that their favorite bete noire, Karl Rove, has seemingly evaded the prosecutor’s net) will feel like some of the wind has been knocked out of their sails because no crime was charged in connection with the underlying revelation of Valerie Plame’s identity (a key element in their assertion that such revelation was motivated by the need to discredit a vocal critic of administration’s casus belli for the war–Iraq’s possession or acquisition of nuclear weapons capability). And righties will revel in that same fact (i.e., since no crime was committed by the Plame outing, the outing was nothing more than a legitimate defense against the attack on the motivation for the war–in other words, politics as usual).

But, to continue Patrick Fitzgerald’s somewhat tortured baseball analogy, there is no reason either for joy or sorrow in Mudville. Mighty Casey (a/k/a Fitzgerald) has, in essence, taken a base on balls, four (or, in Libby’s case, five) lousy pitches, none of which he could really swing at, much less hit out of the park. And, just like a base on balls doesn’t count as an at-bat, in some ways Fitz still hasn’t stepped up to the plate. But, I suggest that what he may have done is to cork a bat for his next up.

Yesterday’s indictment was dictated by time more than anything else. With the grand jury’s term expiring today, if any indictment was going to be returned, this was the day, and I, for one, don’t question Fitzgerald’s statement that Libby’s obstruction of the investigation prevented him from getting to the truth about the so-called “underlying” charges (e.g., those associated with outing a CIA operative). Indeed, the obstruction charged against Libby prevented the prosecutor from furnishing the one element of the underlying crimes that may be the most difficult to prove: mens rea, as it’s known in the criminal law (i.e., a culpable state of mind). But, be assured: the last out in this game is still to come, and the indictment is a shot across the bow for a whole host of characters in this unfolding drama that should indicate to them sighs of relief would be premature.

First, we know that Fitz intends to continue the investigation, albeit with a new grand jury. That’s no big deal, since the evidence that was presented to the first grand jury will be available, word-for-word and page-for-page, to the next one for their examination and, if necessary, for further elaboration or elucidation either by the prosecutor or by additional witnesses. In other words, the new grand jury won’t be starting from scratch—not by a long shot.

Second, even the fact that Libby wasn’t indicted for any of the possible classified-information-related offenses doesn’t mean he still can’t be, since the special prosecutor has the prerogative of getting a superseding indictment from the grand jury which is to follow (not unlike what the prosecutor in Texas did in Tom Delay’s case). Thus, Libby is still, technically under the gun, and the indictment itself is rife with indications that there is another shoe yet to drop, something Fitz also strongly foreshadowed in his responses to reporters’ questions during his press conference. And, of course, neither Rove nor any of a variety of other characters whose participation was described in shadowy terms are, as yet, off the hook

Under the applicable federal rule, indictments are only required to be a “plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged.” The rule goes further to say indictments “need not contain a formal introduction or conclusion.”

The Libby indictment goes considerably beyond what the rule requires, or even envisions. It is what’s called, in courthouse vernacular, a “speaking indictment.” The purpose of a “speaking” filing, in any court proceeding, is to show the other side some of the stronger cards you’re holding in your hand, and this indictment is no exception.

The first 25 paragraphs of the indictment take great pains to lay out a factual scenario, replete with the identity (if not by name then by title) of the entire cast of characters, which, when carefully parsed, seems to set out the elements of at least one of the underlying classified information crimes, if not both. For example, the indictment indicates that the White House was well aware than Valerie Plame was a covert operative. Paragraph 9 states:

Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson’s wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division. Libby understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA.

Anyone with knowledge of the CIA’s organizational chart (but particularly Cheney and Libby) knows that the Counterproliferation Division is part of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations (i.e., where the spooks are), and not where the more benign employees (e.g., analysts) are assigned. The indictment also makes it clear that Plame’s status at the CIA was classified, and that disclosure of such status could jeopardize national security.
Paragraph 13 of the indictment takes the guilty knowledge of Plame’s status one step farther:

Libby spoke by telephone with his then Principal Deputy and discussed the article. That official asked Libby whether information about Wilson’s trip could be shared with the press to rebut the allegations that the Vice President had sent Wilson. Libby responded that there would be complications at the CIA in disclosing that information publicly, and that he could not discuss the matter on a non-secure telephone line.

The indictment makes it clear that Libby was authorized to have access to classified information (Paragraph 1), but also takes pains to point out not only that he was obligated not to disclose that information, but that he had signed a “Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement” the primary purpose of which was to let its signatories know, in no uncertain terms, that disclosure of classified information would be a big no-no.

Voila! All of the elements, at least of the Espionage Act (if not the Intelligence Identities Protection Act), have been made out in the indictment. So, why go to all the trouble of setting up the factual predicates for violations of the classified information statutes in the indictment (especially when he didn’t have to) and then stop short of charging them? The explanation he gave during his press conference (i.e., that he was balancing the interests of the First Amendment with the wisdom of charging the crime) does’t fly. Subpoenaing reporters, sending one to jail and threatening to do the same to another one demonstrate, I suggest, his less-than-overarching concern about the First Amendment. And, his expressed concern that the U.S. statute governing classified information not become subject to the loose application which has characterized its British analog (i.e., the “Official Secrets Act”) also rings hollow, especially given the fact that he trumpeted, loud and long, during his press conference the serious violations of national security the conduct in this case appears to have constituted.

No, the real reason to lay out as much factual detail as he did was for Fitz to show the world (and in particular, the world within the White House) that he has the goods, and that he won’t hesitate to drop the dime on some additional malefactors, particularly, Cheney. Let’s face it: Libby is only the consigliere to Cheney’s don. Even though the threat of spending 30 years in the pokey will be a powerful incentive for Libby to cut some kind of deal that might include turning on his boss, the possibility of the additional charges of revealing classified information, particularly against Cheney, is even more powerful since, presumably, Cheney does’t appear to be at risk of a truth-telling-related indictment.

Let’s agree on something else right now: Libby’s case will never get to trial, primarily because Bush and Cheney will never allow such a trial to become precisely the kind of exposé of the administration’s motives and actions in the run-up to the war they were worried the indictments would constitute. It would be their worst nightmare to have their war machinations presented to a jury of 12 ordinary citizens in the District of Columbia (read: predominantly African Americans) who would be sitting as proxies for the families of 2,000 plus military fatalities in Iraq and the plurality of the country that opposes the war. The risk there is not just exposure to the possibility of conviction in Washington, D.C., but a subsequent prosecution in The Hague as well.

Yes, my friends, Fitz is about to grab the pine tar rag, choose another, very special, piece of lumber and step back into the on-deck circle for the home run that is sure to follow. Batter up!

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Categories
News

Worth the Wait

Rather than our regularly scheduled rambling reminiscences, this week your humble travel correspondent brings you something useful: an update on this year’s fall colors.

In a nutshell, this year’s colors are running a week or two behind across the board. If you haven’t noticed, the weather in Memphis has been warmer and sunnier than usual, and while that’s mighty good news for football fans, it doesn’t kick the fall foliage process into full action. The trees are looking for a cold snap, and they’re getting it slower and later than usual this fall.

And while we’re waiting, how about a little civic boosterism? Did you know that in terms of variety and duration, the southern Appalachians are one of the places in America to see fall colors? New England is known for its bright colors, but those forests tend to have dense stands of one or two tree species, and typically they don’t cover much elevation. So you — along with 57 million camera-toting tourists — get a few intense colors for a brief period of time, then it snows for seven months.

Not so down here. Take the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, for example: It’s 800 square miles of old-growth forest, high meadows, and tall mountains. It typically takes several weeks for the fall colors to go from high-country debut to down-in-the-valleys finish. Then the show spreads south into Georgia as October rolls along into November.

This year, the greatest variety of foliage, in the mid to low elevation, won’t hit until early November in the Smokies. There are updates and Web cams at nps.gov/grsm.

Tennessee’s Cherokee National Forest was reporting fall colors at less than 10 percent and looking for a peak later than its usual third-week-of-October arrival. Recommended viewing routes include Cherohala Skyway, Forest Road 77, Highway 70 from Greeneville to Asheville, or one of the Forest’s lookout towers: Meadow Creek or Rich Mountain.

A luxurious option is a Fall Foliage Cruise being put on by Chattanooga Riverboat on Saturday, October 29th. It’s a five-hour cruise through the Tennessee River Gorge, with lunch, a band, and informative commentary. Call 800-766-2784 for more info.

Tennessee’s fall colors hotline, by the way, is 800-697-4200.

Just across the Mississippi River in Arkansas are the Ozark and St. Francis National Forests. Like everybody else, they’re reporting a slow start to fall — less than 5 percent on October 20th. The highway known as Scenic 7 is often listed among the top 10 most beautiful drives in the United States. It traverses the Ozark Mountains from Missouri to the Arkansas River, passing through the Grand Canyon of the Ozarks and across the Buffalo National River. Arkansas 309 is a National Forest Scenic Byway that winds from Paris to Havana.

Closest of all to Memphis is the Crowley’s Ridge Parkway, designated by the federal government in 1998. It winds through Chalk Bluff Natural Area, five state parks, and the St. Francis National Forest for 198 miles from Missouri to the bridge at Helena, and the closest place to get on it is Forrest City.

So what are you waiting for? Put down your New England in the Fall coffee-table book and hit the road!

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Wine For Breakfast?

I see Sunday brunch as one those slothful, decadent meals reserved for hangovers or when someone else is paying. Especially cool are the restaurants that keep the sparkling wine flowing, which cures the hangover and magnifies the excess. Most of the time, you’re pushing back from the table 10 pounds heavier, with eggs, pancakes, and those fantastic butt-burgeoning breakfast meats all gurgling in your tummy.

But what most folks don’t know is that wine at lunchtime can not only soothe an aching head but improve the flavor of the food. You might call it the Breakfast of Champions or maybe the Hair of the Dog — breakfast and wine can and do go well together. But maybe not the wines you think.

Our test meal was elaborate, covering the major food groups — protein, fat, carbs, and sugar: scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and cream cheese; Jimmy Dean original sausage and eggs; homemade pancakes slathered with syrup by Aunt Jemima; buttery croissants; mayo-laden, relish-free deviled eggs; gooey ham and cheddar-cheese omelets; and fantastic sweet-sour blueberry muffins. The wine lineup: dry California sparkling wine, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, dry Pinot Gris, sweet Italian Moscato d’Asti, French Vouvray, German Spatlese Riesling, an earthy California Pinot Noir, fruity California Merlot, and a dry California Zinfandel.

The common match with brunch grub is sparkling wine, but at this tasting, it fell flat on its face like a freshman at his first kegger. The wine alone tasted great, but the salmon tried to make friends and pretty much rejected it. Only the blueberry muffin, which turned out to be the cool kid that fits in with every other wine, tolerated its sparkling companion.

All the red wines were completely disgusting with breakfast as well. The savory, marbled sausage improved the rather bland, cheap Merlot, but that’s about all the reds accomplished. The muffin couldn’t even rise to the occasion. The dry whites, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris, found decent homes with the sausage and croissant, cutting through the acidity with the butter and fat. But I wouldn’t call them great breakfast wines.

The sweet spot was the sweet wines. Normally, sugars in food and the sugars in wine neutralize one another. As such, a dessert can transform a rich, sweet wine into a nearly dry and fruity experience. The pancakes and blueberry muffin found a home with the Moscato. Similarly, opposites can attract. Vouvray, a sweeter Chenin Blanc from France, transformed into a crisp creature with the smoky fat and salt in the pork products.

The overall winner came in the form of German Riesling, the king of all food wines. No matter what the dish — well, the deviled eggs just never found a mate anywhere — the Riesling pulled it out. With its low acidity, relatively low alcohol content, and high fruit factor, the king created a fan club much like the King himself.

Other options at brunchtime: Asti Spumante, extra dry (slightly sweeter than brut) sparkling wine, and any other German Riesling style. Don’t be afraid of the slightly sweet stuff … it loves brunch.

Recommended Wines

Schloss Vollrads 2003 Spatlese Riesling Rheingau (Germany) — Absolutely deliciously ripe with peaches, nectarines, red apples, and a minerally, slate flavor on the finish. Lightly sweet alone but pair it with food and that sugar melts into a rich, crisp wine. $19

Domaine Carneros by Taittinger 2001 Brut Cuvée (California) — Crisp lemon, fragrant honeydew melon, toasted pine nuts, and creamy vanilla come together in a sparkling wine worth your taste buds. Try it without eggs. $25

taylor.eason@weeklyplanet.com

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly On The Wall

The O.C.

And no, for once in a very great while, this post has nothing to do with a certain medical examiner who was wrapped in barbed wire and tied to a bomb. It’s much, much worse. According to E! online, The O.C. star Peter Gallagher is recording a CD of Memphis soul for Epic. The deal was struck shortly after the actor crooned a Solomon Burke song on the show last season and impressed the heck out of the wife of a record executive. Although we know Mr. Gallagher is a talented man, and a skillful vocalist, it might be a good time to remind the popular actor of three things: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, and Steven Seagal. I would include the name David Hasselhoff, but we understand he’s big in Germany.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Act One among the big winners at Indie Memphis.

The Indie Memphis Film Festival continues to run through Thursday, October 27th, at downtown’s Muvico Peabody Place 22 theater, but the festival’s award winners were announced last Saturday. Most awards, which are cash prizes ranging from $300 to $750, fall into two categories; “Hometowner” for locally produced films and “Indie Memphis” for regional fare.

The big winner, from a local perspective, was Act One, a very sharp, very polished comedy from East Memphis filmmaking collective Old School Pictures. It won Best Narrative Feature in the Hometowner category. The film, about a young screenwriter turning his rocky personal life into his next script, was written by and stars Allen Gardner and was directed by Brad Ellis. With the win, Ellis and his Old School cohorts become the first filmmakers to win the award twice, following their win in 2002 for the high school ghost story The Path of Fear.

Act One screens Thursday, October 27th, at 6:30 p.m.

Other winners included Best Narrative Short, Hometowner: Bright Sunny South by Andrew Nenninger; Best Documentary, Hometowner: Above God by Brett Hanover; and Best Music Video, Hometowner: in a new category, sponsored by LiveFromMemphis.com., John Michael McCarthy’s video for the Hives’ “Abra Cadaver.”

Local filmmakers also received a couple of special awards. The Ron Tibbett Excellence in Filmmaking Award (a sort of special jury prize awarded by the festival committee) went to Morgan Jon Fox, who screened two films — the documentary This Is What Love in Action Looks Like: The Preface and the feature Away (A)wake — at the festival and also acted in Brandon Hutchinson’s local feature Dollars & Signs.

Meanwhile, another new award, also given by the festival committee, is the Kodak Tennessee Filmmaker Award, which provides $1,000 worth of film to the recipient. Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury, who screened the short film San Quentin, took home this prize.

In the nonlocal “Indie Memphis” competition, the winners were: Best Narrative Feature: Say Yes Quickly, from Blair Witch Project producer Greg Hale; Best Narrative Short: Raccoon, by Trey Nelson; Best Documentary: Occupation: Dreamland, a portrait of American soldiers in Falluja, Iraq, directed by Gary Scott and Ian Olds; Best Animated or Experimental Film: Joyride, a computer-generated animation film from John Cernak.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the editor

Leon Gray

I’m glad Chris Davis (Fly on the Wall, October 20th issue) pointed out what I have also observed: Air America’s WWTQ Progressive Talk 680-AM took a sharp turn to the right by adding Leon Gray as its local talk-show personality. For many years, we have had a right-wing anti-gay Christian talk-radio show: Mike Fleming. Now we have two. WWTQ has added another conservative Christian fundamentalist voice against science, evolution, separation of church and state, and gay rights.

Gray claims he is not being anti-gay, but he continually dismisses the legitimacy of the gay rights movement, accusing gays of stealing “civil rights” from blacks, and promoting stereotypes about the “homosexual lifestyle.” He has every right to these views, but it is false advertising for a “progressive talk” radio station to call him a “liberal” or “progressive.” He would be great for a Christian program.

Why does Leon Gray think that only black people should have civil rights in this country? African Americans suffered greatly under slavery and segregation, and no gay person would deny that their oppression has been different from the oppression of gays and other groups. But as Coretta Scott King keeps reminding the anti-gay African Americans who attack her for supporting the civil rights of gays and lesbians, injustice against any group is an injustice against all of us.

And what about those of us who are not fundamentalist Christians? Where is the alternative voice on Memphis radio to defend the separation of church and state and counter the false argument that this is a “Christian” nation founded on the Bible rather than a secular constitution? Leon Gray sounds more like an African-American version of Mike Fleming on these issues. We need a progressive voice to defend freedom from religion.

Jim Maynard

Memphis

When I heard Leon Gray was going to be the local afternoon talk show host on the new Air America station, I was puzzled, because I used to listen to his old show on WLOK, and I didn’t think he was very liberal. In fact, the only difference between Gray and Mike Fleming is that Gray is a Democrat and doesn’t like George Bush.

On his WLOK show, Gray said there should be limits to free speech (beyond yelling “fire” in a crowded theater), that he thought homosexuality was evil, and that the separation of church and state was not necessarily a good thing. I wondered how long it was going to take for the real Leon Gray to come out.

Gray wants to bash vegetarians, people who smoke, and homosexuals and then claim to be a liberal. Gray needs to understand that liberals accept and conservatives reject. He is doing more rejecting than accepting and making it hard for liberals to listen to him.

K. Walker

Olive Branch

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Newspapers

In response to John Branston’s column “Support Your Local Newspaper” (City Beat, October 13th issue): ah, the good ole days. Let’s take Branston’s logic and apply it in another way. Here are five reasons why the horse and buggy is better than the car:

1. New-car smell doesn’t hold a candle to the horse-and-buggy smell.

2. No oil change necessary.

3. Ever tried to shoe a car?

4. No gas needed.

5. No need to wait in line for an auto inspection.

John Harris

Memphis

City of Bad Abode

About his latest brilliant strategy, “selling off our parks,” Mayor Herenton intones unapologetically: “We are moving away from neighborhood parks.”

That crass cluelessness about important quality-of-life factors fits in perfectly with a Memphis/Shelby County vision of life that includes 1) letting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars in the form of second-year-growth oak trees slowly die before our eyes this summer along the Sam Cooper expressway entrance to our city, because no one could bother hosing them once a week; 2) letting stands of trees, regardless of neighborhood pleas, be razed for the type of development that other cities learned to rethink years ago; and 3) allowing heaps of garbage to accumulate along our streets, sidewalks, and curbs.

Whether larger or smaller (including those cities with similar budget woes), no other metro area one can name even begins to approach the trashiness of Memphis. With leadership vision so retrograde, so apathetic and atrophied, the city becomes a deeply depressing place in which to live.

Memphis, once touted as “The City of Good Abode,” is now a loathsome, disgusting hell-hole. It is deeply painful to admit but true: Sometimes people, in critical mass, have to admit to a dire situation in order to begin improving it.Hadley HuryMemphis

Magical Little Rock Memories

If Memphis’ leaders want to consider “opportunity,” Little Rock-style (Editorial, October 20th issue), I hope they know what they’re getting into. There’s a reason that Arkansas scrubbed its “Land of Opportunity” motto some years back.

Taking Skip Rutherford at his word can be a gamble. What he did not mention in his Rotary Club speech is the cost to the city of Little Rock over the past decade. We have the chance to observe exactly what Little Rock did wrong with their wasted “opportunity” and learn from their mistakes:

1) The city bankrupted itself on a questionable bond deal to buy land for a presidential park. The Arkansas state legislature passed a retroactive law that made the deal legitimate.

2) Eminent domain was abused to seize private property for the presidential park.

3) Little Rock sold off its city parks, closed public restrooms, and even went so far as to clear-cut and sell city park trees to International Paper and Georgia Pacific.

4) Family gatherings at parks were actively discouraged by police.

5) The Little Rock Zoo, plunged into financial ruin, lost its accreditation. It also lost a runaway bear, an escaped wallaby (it drowned), and several large rodents.

6) Little Rock was sued by the Sierra Club because of raw sewage throughout the city, including in parks and playgrounds. The Sierra Club won the lawsuit.

7) The city manager, a vocal proponent of selling off Little Rock’s assets, resigned a few months after suspending civil rights during a riot that occurred at a demonstration downtown.

I can assure you, if Rutherford says people from Dallas and Memphis make up the largest portion of visitors to the Clinton presidential library, it is only because they are stopping off on their way from Dallas to Memphis or vice versa. Now Memphis is suddenly racing in a Little Rock direction with the mayor’s idea to view city parks as salable commodities. He took the City Council on a bus tour of city parks with a view to selling them. I wonder if this idea occurred to him after Rutherford’s little speech to the Rotary Club. If the city wants to take this direction, the results of Little Rock’s experiment with “opportunity” should be considered. The events in Little Rock through the late ’90s to the present are a matter of public record, so I urge Memphians to take Rutherford’s words with a gargantuan grain of salt.Denise ParkinsonMemphis

I want to thank Jim Dawson, the lone anti-Clinton protester, for making my recent visit to the parking lot of the Clinton Library a memorable occasion. After snapping several pictures of the appropriately designed tribute to the Clinton legacy (an abstract construct resembling a mobile home), the elderly Dawson captured my attention and later my heart.

Besides the large handwritten placards displaying the quote that will forever epitomize the Clinton presidency (“I did not have sex with that woman”), Dawson also proudly displayed the infamous blue dress! Or at least, a blue dress.

After a brief conversation, he handed me a reprint of an article from The New York Times concerning an abortion clinic in Little Rock. Dawson was described in the article as “the solitary protester.”

Dawson is not alone. America re-elected George Bush, who promised he would nominate Supreme Court justices who would adhere to our Constitution, which clearly protects the life of the unborn. Akansas can be proud of Mr. Dawson, a modern-day John the Baptist, whose voice in the wilderness awakened an entire world!Tony BarbaBartlett

Categories
Book Features Books

Lost and Found

The Outer Banks of North Carolina is famous for its fishing, deep-sea fishing especially, and you can credit that fame to the Great Depression, Ernal Foster especially. A commercial fisherman trying to make ends meet, Foster introduced blue-water sportfishing to the area in 1937, and his son, Ernie, still operates the family’s line of charter boats, the Albatross I, II, and III.

In 1984, Tom Carlson, English professor at the University of Memphis, first saw the Albatross fleet. He was vacationing with his own family: wife Mo (then a teacher at the Memphis College of Art), daughter Winnie, and son Dan. But time took its toll on the Outer Banks, the Fosters, and the Carlsons. If it wasn’t the hurricane weather, it was developers who threatened tiny Hatteras Village. Death took Ernal Foster, as it did Carlson’s wife, who died in 2002 after a lengthy battle with multiple sclerosis. But over the years, Carlson kept returning to Hatteras Village, to fish for marlin and mackerel, to learn from the landscape and the intrepid townspeople, and to remember his own upbringing on the New Jersey shore.

He writes of it, all of it, in Hatteras Blues: A Story from the Edge of America (The University of North Carolina Press), and you don’t have to be a sportfisherman to appreciate the book’s honesty and insight. During a break from his booksigning tour in North Carolina, Carlson spoke about the writing life and the issue of loss and recovery. And he did so not without humor.

Flyer: After 32 years, you retired from teaching nonfiction writing. And now you‘re on tour with your own book of nonfiction, Hatteras Blues. How does it feel being the object of public attention?

Tom Carlson: I’m new at this dog-and-pony show, and the Rolling Stones are on tour too. I’m not sure I’ve done as well. At some of the booksignings in North Carolina, for example, people stood there and read from the book about themselves. But so far, I haven’t been chased out of town. One woman, though, did complain that I’d called her house a mobile home. She took offense at that. I don’t know why. Where I’m from, if a house has wheels on it, that’s a mobile home. I should’ve called it a modular living unit?

But you‘re an old hand at feature stories. In fact, you were a founding writer at the Flyer‘s sister publication, Memphis magazine.

Yes, my first piece for the magazine was on drive-in movies. I went to every one in the city — suffered through that. I’ve written about malls, The Orpheum, the days of vaudeville, Elvis.

And how did it go — writing at book length compared to a magazine piece?

You mean, no word count? No deadline? It was absolutely wonderful. And with Hatteras Blues finished, now I can go back to fishing without taking notes.

As for the writing itself, I practiced what I’ve preached as a teacher, and once the story took on a life of its own, the question was where to stop. But Hurricane Isabelle in 2003 took care of that. The book starts with a hurricane 75 years earlier. When Isabelle hit the Outer Banks, I took it as a sign to end the book.

Given that you also taught American literature, were there writers that inspired you in Hatteras Blues?

Melville’s Moby-Dick throughout. It’s my favorite novel. Other influences? Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard and Men‘s Lives. John McPhee, James Agee, Annie Dillard, Joan Didion. If you’ve got good writers to go by, you steal from everybody. My work is tremendously influenced by everything I’ve read and I hope made better by it. But do I miss teaching? I don’t. I loved it, and I left when I think I was supposed to. I’ve since started a new life. And I’ve got some chapters on a new, autobiographical book. But I’m no celebrity, and I’m not a serial killer. I’m just somebody who came of age in the second half of the 20th century.

After the damage of Hurricane Isabelle, what’s the state of the Outer Banks today?

Hatteras Village is practically rebuilt. It’s stunning how quickly it happened when you consider half the town was washed away.

Loss and recovery. They‘re twin topics in so many ways throughout Hatteras Blues.

Changes in the land itself, how things disappear — loss is very much a part of the ecology of the Outer Banks. It ties into the other strands of the story, which is about more than deep-sea fishing.

The idea for the book began with the Foster family, about the loss of their livelihood to progress. Then it became the story of Hatteras Village — its impending loss to commercial development. But there were problems. When I started my research, I had to go slow, but once the people of the village accepted me, the challenge was to listen carefully.

The second problem was narrative honesty. I had to ask: Where do I fit in? Should I be an objective, outside observer? Am I even part of this story? Then came a revelation. The book became personal, confessional.

My wife was seriously ill, and I thought I was going to the Outer Banks to escape my own problems. But I wasn’t escaping my problems at all. I was learning how to accept them by learning from these people and this town — the way the Fosters and others have dealt with loss in a graceful and dignified way.

I was afraid my problems didn’t have a place in the book. But I’m told they do have a place, even if I don’t know if I got it right. Maybe I have.