Just in time for the travel-heavy Fourth of July holiday, MoveOn.org is holding a National Day of Action for an “Oil-Free” Congress, a series of rallies being staged at gas stations across the country. The aim of the event is to encourage congress to explore other energy alternatives such as biofuels and solar and wind power.
The Memphis rally is today at 5 p.m. at the corner of Highland and Poplar. For more information, go here.
Give the teacher an Apple. An Apple computer, that is.
Thirty Memphis City Schools principals attended a training session last week at MCS’ Teaching and Learning Academy to learn about podcasting, the Apple technology that streams free audio and visual content to computers, iPods and other portable media-players.
“Everybody in the room finished a three-minute podcast,” said Linda Eller, staff development coordinator in MCS’ technology department. “They went through it step-by-step and saw how easy it was. They were flabbergasted. You could just hear the oohing and aahing.”
Attendees said podcasting could be used if an instructor wanted to record lectures from his class so students could revisit them when studying for a quiz. Students could also listen to an NPR podcast about a location across the globe, or improve their French accent by listening to a native speaker.
“The world is wide open to bring every opportunity into your kids’ classrooms,” said Adair Caperton, a curriculum and staff development specialist with Apple. “It’s there. You just have to know how to grab it. It’s all about turning kids on to learning.”
Tim Tyson, a visiting middle-school principal from Georgia, told the principals how his school has changed in the past year since its website began featuring podcasts. Parent meetings can be downloaded by parents who were unable to attend. There are podcasts made specifically for staff, and podcasts made by students about special projects they’ve done.
“Not only have these kids created something, but they’re able to share it across the world,” said Tyson, whose website now gets over a million hits a month. “They think their iPods are an extension of them, so if we can get educational content and put it on their iPods, they’ll learn that content.”
It’s a challenge the principals seemed to embrace.
“I think they are so motivated and so pumped,” Eller said. “These principals are going to tell other principals and teachers, ‘Look what you missed!’ It actually gives me chill bumps.”
Gardenview Elementary principal Rhoda Stigall agreed. “One of the reasons I came out today was to see what was available and to learn about it. I’m so glad I did. Looking at the program today, I can see all the rave reviews of podcasting, and we definitely plan to use it a lot.”
Two and a half hours from Memphis and eons away from modern life is Dismals Canyon in northwest Alabama. It isn’t just old; it’s primeval. Any changes in the landscape have been directed by nature itself — this is nature as it has chosen to be.
A privately owned and operated conservatory that has been named a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service, Dismals Canyon is a fascinating glimpse at a lesser-known crossroads in the human narrative and a powerful reminder of the beauty we’ve abandoned for city life.
Potsherds and arrowheads have been found that date to the Paleo Indians (around 8000 B.C.), but no real archaeological excavation has been conducted in the canyon, reinforcing the feeling that this is a pristine land. You can walk the trail, take in the scenery, and see virtually the same thing that humans did 10,000 years ago.
Much later, Chickasaw Indians lived in the canyon. In 1838, the U.S. government captured the region’s Chickasaw and held them captive in the canyon for two weeks before taking them to nearby Muscle Shoals. From there, the Chickasaw began the long forced march known as the Trail of Tears.
The canyon has also been home, at least for a while, to a couple of America’s most famous outlaws. You can see where ex-Vice President Aaron Burr put down his bedroll for a while not long after killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Jesse James is also thought to have hid out for a time at Dismals.
The canyon is gorgeous, an explosion of green and gold as sunlight filters through the canopy in ribbons and pools on the foliage. And along the hiking path, towering above you in ever-changing, deliriously uncommon ways, is the canyon wall, slabs of rock, and other geological formations that make you feel small even if that hadn’t already been impressed upon you by life in the canyon.
(In addition to the visual fireworks, it must be mentioned, especially to any escaping Memphian, that it’s about 15 degrees cooler in the basin than it is topside.)
Arguably the most interesting things are the “dismalites,” tiny creatures that glow in the dark and populate the mossy walls. These “glow worms” exist only in this canyon and in certain parts of New Zealand and China. A dismalite, the larvae stage of the fungus gnat, is a hair-sized thing that builds a tiny web and glows in the dark to attract insects for food. They glow green-blue and look like a field of stars (or at least glowing-star stickers on the ceiling of a kid’s bedroom).
Tour guide Royce Crowell leads you into the canyon during a night tour to view the dismalites, along the way filling your imagination with tales of the people who have visited and settled in this neck of the South, the natural history of the area, the biology of the dismalites themselves, and even a tall tale or two.
As you descend into the canyon, your flashlight catches glimpses of natural wonder, but the periphery of its light can’t begin to capture the scale of the rocky walls or penetrate the jet-black distance between the sides of the canyon. When you finally penetrate into the heart of the canyon and arrive at a grotto-like overhang known as Burr’s Hideout, you turn off your light. The instant your eyes adjust to the dark, you can see the dismalites all around you on the walls and ceiling.
The constellation of creatures is beautiful, and it strikes you, as the sound of a nearby waterfall rushes on, that this is something that literally can’t be experienced anywhere else.
The NBA Draft commences at 6:30 p.m. tonight. The Memphis Grizzlies are slated to pick 24th, with players such UCLA point guard Jordan Farmar, Villanova point guard Kyle Lowry, Illinois point guard Dee Brown, and Florida State forward Alexander Johnson among the players on the Grizzlies’ radar. But trade rumors are also rampant, which means the Grizzlies could pick higher and could send some familiar names (Shane Battier? Mike Miller?) packing.
What will the Grizzlies do? For a sampling of mock drafts from around the country and other draft-related info — updated as the day progresses — check the Flyer’s Grizzlies blog, which returns for the beginning of a potentially busy off-season, here.
My wife and I spent the last week or so traveling up the East Coast, visiting our grown children and various uncles and long-lost cousins. (We called it the “it’s all relatives tour.”) I plugged in my laptop a couple of times, but for the most part I was off the grid — which I highly recommend to those of you who, like me, have become Web-addicted. There’s so much to learn out there in the great wide world of real reality.
For instance, while driving through South Carolina, I heard the song “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” for the first time. It changed my worldview and brought me up to speed on a lot of Chris Davis’ jokes that had previously gone over my head. Now, I’ve got it goin’ on like Donkey Kong. And whoo-wee, shut my mouth.
Speaking of my mouth, I ate one the best meals of my life in a Vietnamese restaurant in Brooklyn — run by Brazilians. It’s called Mekong Badonkadonk. (No, it’s not. It’s just Mekong. Go there soon and order the calamari with lemon grass au beurre sauce.)
We lounged by my uncle’s lush shaded pool in Greenwich, Connecticut, for a day and pretended we were characters in a John Cheever story. We took a water taxi around the Statue of Liberty, then walked past the World Trade Center site and visited Trinity Episcopal Church across the street, with its photos and memorabilia of the September 11th attacks. It was tear-provoking and inspiring and evoked the best kind of pride in being an American — not a swaggering cowboy patriotism but rather the sense that we as a people are capable of rising to any occasion with strength and courage beyond measure.
When I returned to Memphis and plugged back into the grid, I learned that Rush Limbaugh had been busted for illegal possession of Viagra and was facing a stiff penalty and that Michael Hooks Jr. had followed in his father’s indicted footsteps. And I found out that the venerable Zippin Pippin had been sold to the Honky Tonk Hall of Fame. Another piece of Memphis history gone, sold to the not-so-highest bidder. Badonkadonk.
Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor
Monday’s meeting of the Shelby County Commission was not the swan song of the current body before a newly elected commission is seated after the August 3rd general election, but there was something ex post facto about this week’s meeting, all the same.
Outgoing 5th District commissioner Bruce Thompson could not resist pointing out an irony in his colleagues’ unanimous and routine decision to award a $13 million contract to a private firm to provide
health care to the inmates in the county’s corrections system. “I’m all for private management and out-sourcing,” Thompson commented wryly — a reminder of his long and futile campaign to win commission approval for just such an arrangement to manage the county incarceration units.
Similarly, the appearance before the commission of Memphis schools superintendent Carol Johnson and members of her board to plead for additional funding had a pro forma air about it. Johnson later acknowledged to the media that she had mainly meant to “remind” the commission of its responsibilities to the schools. Meanwhile, a somewhat desultory debate had given commission members a chance to rehearse some of their familiar chorus lines. Republican John Willingham, a candidate for county mayor, allowed himself one more bromide on county government’s failure “to straighten out [its] finances and numbers,” while Democrat Walter Bailey indulged himself in one more lamentation that the city schools were the victims of “trickle-down” financing.
For all that, the county’s previously agreed-upon tax rate, which determined the rate of school funding, was whisked through with only perfunctory nay votes from Bailey and Michael Hooks.
Bailey mounted one more last stand when he waged what turned out to be a solitary campaign to prevent, or at least defer, a resolution to reauthorize the commission needs-assessment committee which, for the last year, has made an effort to predetermine the ideal spending ratios for the city and county schools. “A grave disservice to both boards — a shotgun approach,” he pronounced. But to no avail; the resolution went through handily.
Monday’s meeting also saw the wrapping up, more or less, of the various remaining protests against the use of the newly purchased Diebold voting machines. As Election Commission director James Johnson explained, state law, which forbids any ballot changes within 40 days of an election, rendered it too late to do anything about the potentially confusing number and arrangement of the various screens. And complaints about the accuracy of the machines themselves from Minister Yahweh (the community activist once known as Sweet Willie Wine) had been formally “received” and duly shelved as recently as the committee meetings held last week by the commission.
So it was that a variety of issues and problems belonging to the current commission’s tenure were passed along for probable reconsideration by the next one. And so it goes, as ever, at election time.
thursday June 29
The Delta: Everything Southern
University of Memphis, Fogelman Executive Center, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., $25 students, $50 nonstudents
A day-long seminar explores the history, culture, and music of the Mississippi Delta. Keynote speaker is James Cobb, University of Georgia professor and author of The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta. Call 678-4310 or visit the Web at
It’s Hot! Waterwise Gardening
Horticulture room at Agricenter International, noon
Bring a lunch and join environmentalist Susan Threlkeld for ideas on how to
conserve water while gardening during the summer months. Call 752-1207.
Carousel Memories: Echoes from the Heart
The Orpheum, 7 p.m., $6
More than 150 high school and college students from the Echoes of Truth arts program stage an original musical as tribute to the Libertyland carousel, the only ride not sold at last week’s auction. Student artwork of the carousel and other historic sites also will be sold before the show. Call 351-6460.
friday June 30
Finally Fridays
Gibson Guitar Factory, every Friday, 9 p.m.
DJs, food, and full bar turn a fabulous downtown view into an even better rooftop party. For more information, go to www.memphisfridays.com.
The Marshall Tucker Band
Sam’s Town Casino, 9 p.m., $10-$15
Check out the Southern rock band behind the hits “Heard It in a Love Song,” “Can’t You See,” and “Fire on the Mountain.”
Shirley Q. Liquor
Backstreet, 11 p.m.
Controversial performance featuring a white man in drag as a black woman with 19 children and a turquoise 1972 El Dorado Cadillac “Sammy Davis Jr.” edition.
saturday July 1
Eighth Annual Bluegrass Festival
Snow Lake Shores, MS (12 miles east of Holly Springs), 9 a.m.-9:30 p.m.
This bluegrass festival has a little something for everyone: music, barbecue, antiques, crafts, fireworks, boat parade, and free admission. Call 662-224-3913 or 662-224-8707 for more information.
Bobby Womack and Friends
Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, 8 p.m., $40-$50
“Looking for a Love” soul man Bobby Womack brings his legendary sound to Memphis. Call 525-1515 for tickets.
sunday July 2
Greece: Secrets of the Past
IMAX Theater, Pink Palace Museum, screenings every day
Actress Nia Vardalos (remember My Big Fat Greek Wedding?) narrates the latest addition to the IMAX library, Greece: Secrets of the Past. Digital recreations explore the original Parthenon and the volcanic eruption that buried Santorini in 1646 B.C. Rediscover the legacy left by the ancient Greeks, then explore what’s going on inside your own head at the Pink Palace’s current exhibit on the human brain. For show times: visit www.memphismuseums.org/show.htm.
tuesday July 4
Fishing Rodeo
Germantown Municipal Park Lake on Exeter Road, 9-10:30 a.m., $2
Youngsters ages 4 to 12 try to reel in a big one to benefit the Lions Club. Bring your own rod and tackle. Then, beginning at 5 p.m. there’s free rides, music, crafts, moon bounce, and a petting zoo. Fireworks go off at 9 p.m. Call 757-7375 for more information.
Light Rail is a Loser
I fully agree with John Branston’s comments regarding public transportation projects (City Beat, June 22nd issue). Will Hudson, the head of MATA, needs to resign or be replaced. Mass transit in Memphis is a dismal failure. Entire neighborhoods are opposed to his plans to expand rail service to Memphis International Airport. His claims that light rail will rejuvenate neighborhoods and stimulate retail development have not been shown to be correct. Businesses continue to fail on Madison Avenue and retail has never blossomed on Main Street Mall.
Walter Cygan
Germantown
Leon Gray
I’ll miss The Leon Gray Show. Apparently, so will you (Editor’s note, June 22nd issue). You’re right in your assessment that Leon was largely open to other views and that he meant well and cared about Memphis.
There’s another dimension to Leon that needs to be told. When he made negative remarks about the gay lifestyle, it created a firestorm of a reaction. Most of the reaction wasn’t positive. The issue was discussed in depth and in a civil manner on his show. Most good talk-show hosts would consider doing that to be enough. Leon, however, jumped at the chance when he was invited to a forum at a gay and lesbian organization. Not only did Leon attend and participate, he invited his straight listeners to the event. Since then, Leon has visited other gay events in the spirit of reconciliation and understanding.
We live in a society where many folks believe that sitting down with people with whom you disagree is a sign of weakness. They believe that conflict is superior to discussion. Any rational person knows this isn’t true. Unfortunately, the world, and particularly this part of the world, contains a lot of irrational people.
Memphis needs more people like Leon Gray. I hope he remains in public life. Whatever he decides, I’m sure he will be successful. I’m not so optimistic about the future of his former employer.
John Manasco
Memphis
Shabby Spelling
I realize that, even though I’ve lived in Memphis for over 20 years, being a native Louisianan probably renders my geographic knowledge of the Mid-South somewhat suspect. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but notice that three of the four counties Chris Davis mentions in his June 22nd “Fly on the Wall” column (namely, “Tiptoe,” “Faith,” and “Crittendon”) don’t exist on any map of Tennessee or Arkansas that I’m aware of. I guess I should be thankful that he got “Shelby” right. I can only imagine the “Shabby” possibilities that might arise with the name of our beloved county.
Nathan G. Tipton
Memphis Public Library and
Information Center
Editor’s note: Mr. Tiptoe, “Fly on the Wall” columnist Chris Davis has been known to take liberties with the English language.
Firing Back
I am writing in response to a letter from Jack Bishop (June 8th issue) in which he misinforms your readers about gun shows and guns.
First, he claims that AK-47s can be purchased at a gun show and converted to fully automatic weapons. If he were familiar with U.S. law, he would know that fully automatic weapons are illegal without a Class III federal firearms license. Fully automatic guns were banned in 1934 under the National Firearms Act. Banning fully automatic weapons didn’t make them go away, so how would banning other guns have any affect?
Modifying a semi-automatic into a fully automatic is also prohibited by the same act. Only a criminal would seek to do such a thing, because it would harm the value and integrity of the weapon. This is already illegal, yet, according to Bishop’s letter, is still being done. How would further bans prevent this?
Finally, Bishop claims that there are no background checks done at gun shows. This is not true, as I have had one done on me and have seen people in line be denied weapons because of their criminal background. Please, attend a gun show before you deride them.
The only thing that I could agree with in Bishop’s letter was the statement: “They will tell you that ‘guns kill people.’ That’s a fact. What they will not tell you is that criminals will kill anyone.” Guns aren’t the problem; criminal access to guns is the problem, and there are already laws in place to prevent that.
Stephen Smith
Cordova
When Leon Gray showed up at the WWTQ AM-680 studio a few days ago for his regular 4 to 7 p.m. Air America drive-time shift, he was told that his time was up.
“The parting was definitely not amicable,” he says.
Gray, a broadcast veteran of several radio and TV stations both here and elsewhere, acknowledges that declining ratings were part of his problem. But this he blames on shaky support from both the station and its corporate masters.
“If you look at Arbitron, that’s absolutely correct,” Gray says, “but I have to compare the promotion we got to what other stations do to promote their product, to what this company did. Intercom is ashamed of their product. If I bought a new car, I’d like to show it off. They didn’t. Dollar for dollar, we over-achieved. My performance was way above the anticipated, given the investment in me.”
Another obstacle to success was what Gray considers the over-the-edge commentary of Air America’s syndicated lineup. Beyond Al Franken and Jerry Springer, both of whom he admired, the station’s one and only local host found little else that was simpatico. “What certain members of the national Air America network did was take a mirror image opposite conservative radio and push it beyond the conservatives’ delivery of their negatives,” he says.
“For people in this area, knowing that this area is the buckle of the Bible Belt, both black and white, to openly — as the satellite programming does — denounce God or anybody’s expression of God while at the same time holding up with pride, as Janeane Garofalo and Rachel Maddow do, holding up their atheistic beliefs, their homosexuality, to say ‘let’s get rid of theocracy and religion and blah blah blah, accept my gayness,’ those kinds of things just don’t play, to even a lifelong, fourth-generation Democrat in the South.”
Don’t get Gray started on that. Though he insists backlash from his local progressive audience had “absolutely nothing” to do with his firing, he is well aware that his own religious, heterosexual, and anti-abortion agenda often clashed with the preconceptions of many listeners. But he interprets his demographics differently. “My callers may be somewhat accurately defined as center-left, but my listening audience as a whole would be better defined as center-right.”
Of his abrupt dismissal, he says, “I can see the big picture. It was never about me. I wouldn’t allow myself to perceive that as being about me.”
As for the prospect of acquiring future audiences, Gray is emphatic: “I will not seek another on-air job. I have definitely finished seeking on-air radio jobs. And I won’t seek working in news.”
Though he won’t say specifically, one possibility could be political. Gray has worked for several political campaigns in the past, and he is a known supporter of the senatorial ambitions of Memphis congressman Harold Ford Jr.
Gray, a Memphis native who returned to the city in 1994, makes this promise: ” I have developed a strong reconnect with this city. I won’t abandon it in this time of deepest turmoil.”
In other words: One way or another, stay tuned.
Nasty Nardo has Houston on his mind.
“As far as rap goes, Memphis complements Houston and vice versa,” the South Memphis rapper says. “We’re the only two cities where soul motivates our music. We both use real soulful instrumentation. We’ve both got that rich musical heritage, where a kid can go down the street and find someone who can pick up a guitar or a bass instead of always relying on beats. It’s a real big thing.”
S&S Entertainment publicist Go’diloX agrees.
“Houston is the hottest market right now; that’s our backyard,” she says.
H-Town rappers Paul Wall, Rick Ross, and E-40 are making the 575-mile trek to Memphis for CrunkFest ’06.
The locally produced rap festival, now in its third year, is scheduled to go down at the Mid-South Coliseum Saturday, July 1st.
This year, the Saturday concert is just one component of the event, which includes a CrunkFest Men of Comedy show with Shawdy Shawdy, Damon Williams, and EarthQuake at the Orpheum Theatre, a celebrity basketball tournament held at LeMoyne-Owen College, and an underground talent contest slated for Tower Records.
S&S Entertainment, which is headed by Yo Gotti manager Peppa Williams, regularly promotes and produces concerts at the Plush Club and other area venues.
“We’re the premier promotion team in Memphis,” Go’diloX says. “We pitched CrunkFest to BET, and they were excited, even though they’d never heard of it,” she says, explaining that Rap City host Mad Linx will emcee the concert, parts of which will be broadcast on the cable channel.
“We have a huge VIP list this year, people coming in from Miami, Houston, and New York,” she continues, “people who have never been to Memphis, but they know we’re the home of crunk.”
Still reveling in their Oscar win, Three 6 Mafia are slated to headline CrunkFest, which will also feature Remy Ma, Al Kapone, and local underground heroes Mac E, Criminal Manne, and Yung Kee.
This will be the second CrunkFest appearance for Nardo, who sees the event as a “huge opportunity” for both local performers and fans of the genre.
“We don’t get the chance to perform in a venue like the Coliseum very often,” he notes. “Most of the time, we’re on the chitlin circuit and shit like that. This gives us the chance to put a real show on.”
Plus, as both Nardo and Go’diloX point out, CrunkFest affords teenagers a rare opportunity to party with their favorite rappers.
“Unless we go out to the high schools, they never see us,” says Nardo, who will be performing his latest underground hits “Don’t Watch Me, Watch TV” and “Take a Picture.”
Despite media reports of it in past years, neither expects violence to come into play at the Coliseum, and, says Steve Fox, the facility’s manager, “CrunkFest is a standard concert for us.”
The first CrunkFest, held in June 2004, was marred by a feud between Three 6 Mafia and Yo Gotti.
“Both got ties to the streets, and when you had the two factions in there, the shit just jumped off,” Nardo says. “Now, Three 6 have realized that they’ve alienated themselves from everybody else. There’s a lot of resentment, and they’re feeling it now. It’s like, ‘Ya’ll got money, ya’ll on top of your game, but guess what — ya’ll can’t come kick it because of all the animosity.'”
This animosity has hurt the city’s rap scene, Nardo says. “All the separation between North and South [Memphis], all the different factions and divisions, have hurt everybody.”
“We’ll be running CrunkFest cleaner and quicker than in past years,” Go’diloX says. “We’re not allowing large entourages backstage, and we’ll be taking other precautions. But every event has some kind of altercation. We can’t be everyplace at once.
“When we’re not having a big show like this, we see these people every day on the streets. We’re giving [local rappers] an outlet to perform in front of 10,000 people, and we want them to stick to their art or their craft. A lot of ’em can’t wait for CrunkFest to come, and so they cooperate very well,” she says, playing down problems like opposing local factions, whose loyalties run deep.
Go’diloX is already envisioning the 2007 CrunkFest as a weeklong event with seminars, parties, and more.
“This is our time to celebrate, and we want everything to be as smooth as possible,” she says.