Month: March 2007

Categories
News

“Mayor of Frayser” Returns

If you’ve been searching the Web for the illustrious King of God’s Country (a.k.a. Frayser) lately, you may have come up empty-handed. The Mayor of Frayser’s Web site, once linked to the Stage Stop’s Web site, has been down for the last few months.

The Mayor (a.k.a. Ritchie Pierce) claims he was accused in something he calls “Operation Tennessee Gangsta Walk,” but recently cleared of all charges, he’s back in business with the newly re-launched MayorofFrayser.com

Fans of the old site will find all their faves (the Blunt Recycling Program, info on the Mayor’s plan to transform Mapcos into police substations, etc.). But the new site also features some fresh surprises, such as the menu for Chez Frayser (featuring fish-stick casserole and Spam cutlets), “fBay,” (where you can “bid” on mounted deer heads and potato guns), and the agenda for a Frayser Safari Tour (includes a visit to Puffy the weed dealer, a stay in Albert’s Cabins, and a ghetto home tour).

And do check the new FIF (Frayser in February) celebration pix. It’s, um, a little like Memphis in May, or Mardi Gras without all those pesky beads. Some are probably NSFW, depending on how picky your boss is.

To read more about the Mayor and his plans for Frayser, check out the Flyer’s exclusive interview.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Jim Maynard Rattles the Cage: ‘Gayness is a Choice Like Any Other’

There is little doubt that, at least among political adepts, one of Memphis’ most prominent spokespersons for the gay lifestyle (if not the most prominent) is Jim Maynard, who has also run at least twice as a write-in candidate for Congress on a left-of-center platform that includes — but is not limited to — a concern for gay and lesbian issues.

Maynard does his best in this week’s Flyer “Viewpoint” to restructure the argument for gay rights, rejecting both liberal claims of biological determinism and the religious right’s moral objections.

Go here to see.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Choosing the Gay Option

The religious right has traditionally argued that homosexuality is a choice and that gays and lesbians can, and should, “change” (i.e., become heterosexual through reparative therapy or religious conversion).

In response, liberal advocates for gay and lesbian civil rights argue that homosexuality, or sexual orientation in general, is not a choice and that gays and lesbians should have civil rights protections because they are born gay or lesbian and cannot change their sexual orientation. Both of these arguments are misleading and oversimplify scientific facts and research on sexual orientation.

The argument that human sexuality is biologically determined is contrary to social scientific research, which suggests that sexuality is largely socially constructed. It ignores not only the sociological evidence against an innate, unchangeable sexuality but also the radical insight of Freud that humans are not born “heterosexual” or “homosexual” and that the development of an exclusive “heterosexuality” requires the repression of homosexual desire.

Even Kinsey, the much misunderstood and misquoted sex researcher, rejected the concept of an innate sexual orientation, preferring to categorize people based on their sexual behaviors.

Kinsey never argued that heterosexuals and homosexuals were two separate innate sexual orientations. Like Freud, he believed that all human beings were potentially bisexual.

Why do many in the mainstream gay movement argue that it is impossible to choose to be gay or lesbian? Many radical feminists argue that women can choose to be lesbian — that identifying as a lesbian is a social and political choice available to women to liberate themselves from patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality.

The early radical gay liberationists argued that gay liberation requires the sexual liberation of everyone from the socially constructed hetero/homo dichotomy. They believed that everyone could be “gay.” They rejected the scientific claim that homosexuality was a biological or psychological pathology or that same-sex desire was even “abnormal.” The gay rights movement created a modern “gay” identity.

There have not always been “gay” people, so it is erroneous to claim that people are “born” gay. Bisexuals are also left out of the “sexual orientation is not a choice” paradigm, since they can choose their sexual identity. If we base gay/lesbian rights on the argument that it is not a choice, then we exclude bisexuals and deny their right to choose.

Why all the focus on the question of can gays change? Why not ask, “Can straight people change”? Both questions focus on the same issue: If we could change our sexual orientation/identity, do we have a right to make that choice? This is the important issue.

The purpose of the “ex-gay” ad campaign (and the public focus on whether gays can change) is to undermine the central claim of the gay/lesbian rights movement that people are born gay or lesbian and that it is not a choice since no one can change their sexual orientation. The religious right is exploiting an opportunity handed to them by the misguided strategy of the liberal/mainstream gay movement.

We should focus the political debate on the freedom of people to be gay, lesbian or bisexual regardless of how or why they arrive at their sexual identity, not wasting time on the futile “nature vs. nurture” debate.

The argument for “gay rights” should not be based on questionable scientific claims of the biological immutability of  “sexual orientation” but rather on the right of gays and lesbians to CHOOSE their sexual identity! This argument sets aside the biological argument and bases gay rights upon the constitutional right to speak and the freedom of conscience guaranteed to religious groups.

Our right to be gay or lesbian or bisexual is the right to be free from religious and government interference in our private lives, to make our choices about who we have sex with and who we want to have intimate relationships with (as long as they are consenting adults). Let’s not let those opposed to sexual equality take away our right to choose.

To be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight involves making a series of choices. Those choices should be a right like any other basic human right and not dependent upon scientific opinion about how and why a person arrives at their sexual identity. Let’s defend the freedom to choose our sexual identity and quit hiding behind questionable scientific dogma.

Jim Maynard is a local gay activist. This piece is a modified and abbreviated version of a longer essay.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Flying Blind

CREDIT: Kiyyah | Dreamstime.com

Last month, three local air traffic controllers lost their certifications after three planes landed too closely together at Memphis International Airport.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) guidelines require pilots and air traffic controllers to maintain at least five miles of separation between planes, yet the planes landed with 4.85 miles and 4.86 miles between them.

Though there is no way to prove that the errors occurred because air traffic controllers are overworked, local members of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) worry that such situations will become more frequent as new FAA guidelines lead to controllers working more overtime.

“This is a thinking job. All the work is done in your head,” says Pete Sufka, local president for NATCA. “The more time you spend on position with less chance to get away and recharge yourself, [the more] the quality of work begins to erode.”

Many Memphis controllers work 10 hours a day, six days a week, because of staffing problems at the Memphis Tower (which directs planes for Memphis International Airport and FedEx) and the Memphis Center (which controls the airspace above West Tennessee and most of Arkansas and Mississippi).

Last week, the FAA released staffing targets for the country’s 314 air traffic control facilities. Under that document, the Memphis Tower should employ between 59 and 72 fully certified controllers. The Memphis Center should employ between 244 and 298 controllers.

The local air traffic controllers’ union, NATCA, does not have a current contract with the FAA. However, staffing levels negotiated for a 1998 contract required the Memphis Tower to employ 75 controllers and the Memphis Center to employ 354 controllers, at least 50 positions more than what the FAA says the center currently needs.

“The controllers keep using those 1998 numbers, but 1998 was a long time ago,” says Diane Spitaliere, an FAA spokesperson based in Washington, D.C. “Those numbers have no bearing on today’s traffic levels.”

Spitaliere says the new staffing targets were based on traffic levels at each facility. However, she admitted that air traffic has grown in recent years.

“We’re up a little, and we think it will grow significantly in the next 10 years,” says Spitaliere.

Sufka says Memphis International has 23 more flights per day than it did before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Air traffic dropped dramatically for several years after the attacks but later rebounded.

Part of the understaffing problem is a result of more controllers retiring, moving into management positions, or transferring to other facilities. By the end of the year, after retirements and transfers, Memphis Tower expects to employ 51 certified controllers.

As a result, controllers are putting in more overtime. Though the FAA claims overtime is voluntary, Memphis Tower controller Peter Nesbitt says he’s on the “no-call” list for overtime, but that hasn’t stopped management from asking him to work nearly every one of his scheduled days off.

“I like to compare it to an emergency room trauma center,” says Nesbitt. “When you go to the trauma center, you want doctors who are alert, trained, healthy, and ready to go to work in the emergency room.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Q&A: Denise Parkinson, City Council candidate

If the core can learn from the edge — as business leader and public intellectual John Seely Brown attests — grassroots activist Denise Parkinson may be just the educator for the Memphis City Council.

One of the founders of the Save Libertyland! and a former mayoral candidate in Little Rock, Arkansas, Parkinson officially launched her campaign for the City Council’s District 5 seat last week against Jim Strickland. Carol Chumney currently holds the District 5 position but will vacate to run for city mayor. — by Preston Lauterbach

Flyer: What influenced your decision to run?

Parkinson: Memphis Light, Gas and Water, the Riverfront Development Corporation, and the Mid-South Fair. If you connect those dots, then you realize that there are shadowy, quasi-governmental non-profits that are systematically looting the system. It’s time for a change in the status quo.

It also has to do with seeing the skyline, the unique architecture of Memphis, being destroyed. I call it “government by demolition.”


What would you change?

For one thing, I would do everything I could to not set the precedent of paving over and bulldozing historic parks. I would do all I could to reopen the historic properties the city has closed. The Magevney House and the Mallory-Neely House have been closed for two, going on three years.

I want to make the city more family friendly, more kid friendly, and beef up our tourism. We’ve lost the way. We can unite the cultural and natural heritage of Memphis and make Memphis a destination again. When I was growing up in Arkansas, if you wanted to see a real city, you came to Memphis. That’s not the case anymore.

Are you running as a Democrat?

[Sighs] I suppose. What choice do I have? I think that when a City Council is abandoning the system of checks and balances and shirking their responsibility and being a rubber stamp for the mayor, [party affiliation] doesn’t matter.

Is there anyone in local politics that you look up to?

[Save Libertyland! member and County Commissioner] Steve Mulroy and Carol Chumney are two people with democratic principles that I would call my role models.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Bump in the Road

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

A few weeks ago, Keith Norman, matched against rival candidate Jay Bailey, seemed a good bet to become the next chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party.

His public boosters included both Shelby County commissioner Sidney Chism, the former Teamster leader and ex-party chairman who leads one of the major party factions, and Desi Franklin, a leader of the Mid-South Democrats in Action, a reformist group that came on the local political scene in the wake of the 2004 presidential campaign.

The combination of Chism’s supporters and the MSDIA group (abetted by members of Democracy in Memphis, an outgrowth of the erstwhile Howard Dean movement) was enough to put Matt Kuhn over as party chairman in 2005. At the time, Kuhn, a youthful political operative and veteran of numerous campaigns, was regarded as a compromise “third-force” choice — a break from the back-and-forth pendulum swings between the party’s “Ford faction” and Chism’s group, loyal, more or less, to Mayor Willie Herenton.

Jackson Baker

Keith Norman

To be sure, local Democrats are disputatious (maybe we should say “free-minded”) enough to do justice to 20th-century humorist Will Rogers’ line, “I’m not a member of an organized political party; I’m a Democrat.” Their loyalties are not so hard and fast as to be confined permanently to one bloc or another.

Lawyer Bailey, son of former longtime county commissioner Walter Bailey, had a span of his own, ranging from members of the old Ford faction to party loyalists grateful for his legal representation of several defeated Democratic candidates who challenged the results of last year’s countywide elections.

Even so, depending on how the delegate-selection process from the party’s March 3rd caucus actually sorted out, the Chism-Franklin arithmetic was regarded in many quarters as good enough to give Norman, a Baptist minister, the advantage in the forthcoming local Democratic convention, to be held on Saturday, March 31st.

This impression was bolstered by Norman’s speaking appearance late last month at a meeting of the MSDIA — one that was attended by curious party members from various factions.

At that event, Norman spoke eloquently and persuasively (as befits someone long used to dealing with a large congregation, in his case, the First Baptist Church on Broad Street). He proclaimed a “big tent” philosophy in which a variety of viewpoints would be welcomed within the party, talked turkey on matters of fund-raising, Get-Out-the-Vote efforts, and managed to skirt potentially divisive issues like abortion and gay rights.

Though Bailey is a trial lawyer with ample rhetorical skills of his own, it seemed obvious to attendees at the MSDIA meeting that Norman, a towering but good-natured presence, would be a hard man to match up to, one-on-one. It seemed clear, too — both from Norman’s presentation and from testimonials paid him by various Democratic luminaries and activists — that his appeal could be wide enough to transcend factional differences.

Jackson Baker

Richard Fields

Ninth District congressman Steve Cohen passed along his compliments, and even David Upton, a longtime Bailey associate and backer, had good things to say about Norman.

Some of his professed supporters, however, may have done him more harm than good.

The Fields Case (Continued)

There was the strange case of attorney Richard Fields, who in recent election years has comported himself in the manner of a would-be kingmaker. In fairness, Fields probably sees himself as some kind of public ombudsman, overseeing the political process in the interests of the people.

In any event, Fields made a big splash during the 2006 countywide election process, composing open letters about the attributes, positive and negative, of various candidates. His widely distributed observations on judicial candidates in particular were regarded as having had palpable effect in the election results.

Fields, however, was not universally accepted as an unbiased observer. Some African-American observers — notably blogger Thaddeus Matthews — argued that Fields was bolstering mainly white, establishment-supported candidates and selectively bashing independent-minded blacks.

The very charge, true or not, was ironic, given Fields’ background as a civil rights attorney, his marriages to black women, and the biracial nature of his several children.

In truth, Fields supported both whites and blacks and Democrats as well as Republicans, though Matthews and others, notably attorney Robert Spence, saw him as having hedged his endorsements, even changing several, in order to create a false appearance of objectivity.

As chronicled in a previous column (“The Fields Case,” February 1st issue), two white candidates for General Sessions judgeships — Janet Shipman and Regina Morrison Newman — saw their promised endorsements belatedly withdrawn by Fields in favor of equally qualified black candidates, Lee Coffee and Deborah Henderson, respectively.

Coffee and Henderson, who, among their other important endorsements, had that of the Shelby County Republican Party, both won, and Shipman and
Newman each later agreed with Spence’s assessment that they had fallen victim to Fields’ need to do some old-fashioned ticket-balancing.

Spence himself had serious arguments with erstwhile supporter Fields during his service some years ago as city attorney and later made unspecified charges that Fields had tried to extort unwarranted favors from him.

Jackson Baker

Legislative Leaders: West Tennessee may have lost some clout in the Tennessee General Assembly, but not Shelby County, which boasts both party leaders in the Senate. Here Mark Norris (left), Republican majority leader, and Jim Kyle, Democratic leader, mull over a compromise on medical tort reform.

When Spence became a candidate in the special Democratic primary to fill a state Senate vacancy early this year, Fields materialized yet again as a public scold, sending out an advisory letter warning voters of what he saw as Spence’s derelictions as city attorney. Spence lost to fellow Democrat Beverly Marrero, who also won the general election last week to succeed Cohen (and interim fill-in senator Shea Flinn) as state senator from District 30.

In any case, Fields’ ad hoc career as commentator on elections and would-be arbiter of candidacies was already well-launched when he rose during the last several minutes of Norman’s meeting with MSDIA members to make a point of revealing his own support of the minister, announcing, in fact, that he had “vetted” Norman’s candidacy beforehand.

That statement, together with Norman’s own wry revelation that Fields had made several telephone calls to him that day to make sure he would be in attendance at the MSDIA event, created an impression, right or wrong, that Fields was a prime mover in the Norman candidacy.

Confusion in the Ranks

Reaction to Fields’ intervention was virtually immediate. This was, after all, no judicial election for which Fields, as a longtime practicing attorney, could be thought of as supplying a pure, even-handed evaluation of credentials. This was the most partisan of all possible partisan matters — the selection of a party leader — and Fields was not exactly the ideal endorser.

He had, after all, been forced to resign last year as a member of the very Democratic committee that will have to decide on a new chairman. His offense? Pooling his legal efforts with those of the state Republican Party to overturn the 2005 special election victory of Democrat Ophelia Ford for reasons of possible election fraud committed on her behalf.

No one on the committee quarreled with Fields’ right to seek that legal end — just not as a member of the Democratic committee. (Ford’s election was, in fact, ultimately voided by the state Senate, though she won election to the seat overwhelmingly in last year’s regular election.)

Several rank-and-file Democrats expressed open displeasure concerning Fields’ involvement in the chairmanship race, and blogger Matthews would later report that Norman, when asked about it, “denounced” Fields as a potential supporter. Asked about that this week, Norman declined comment. He also would neither confirm nor deny that he had distanced himself, as reported by Matthews, from Chism’s support.

For obvious reasons, all of this fuss caused some rethinking about Norman’s inevitability as a chairman. The pastor himself would say only that he preferred to speak of “principles” rather than personalities, that he wanted to avoid immersion in factional disputes, that he had no wish to be judgmental, and that he had resolved to keep his own efforts “on higher ground.”

Last week saw the resolution of two political mini-dramas with the special-election victories of Democrats Marrero and G.A. Hardaway for state Senate and state House positions, respectively. (New District 92 representative Hardaway, a longtime campaigner for father’s-rights legislation in child-custody cases, will presumably bring with him his continued dedication to that cause.)

One other piece of news from the week (actually late last week): Shelby County Election Commission chairman Greg Duckett was named to the state Election Commission — which means that a new member will shortly be named to the county Election Commission.

Whoops! Here comes another political drama — maybe not so mini. The fact is, the local commission is facing not a single routine replacement but something resembling a total makeover — at least of its three-member Democratic Party contingent.

The commission as a whole has come under frequent challenge during the past year for alleged derelictions in supervising elections, and, while the commission’s two Republicans, Rich Holden and Nancye Hines, appear to have escaped their partymates’ wrath and seem assured of a safe return, the remaining Democrats are at risk.

As Senate Democratic leader Jim Kyle, a member of the Shelby County legislative delegation that will resolve the issue, put it on Thursday: “I wouldn’t be surprised if either Maura [Sullivan] or O.C. [Pleasant] went off, too. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they both did.”

A total swap-out for the Election Commission’s Democrats? Other legislators from Shelby County — like delegation chairman Joe Towns, who personally took no position on the prospect of a complete makeover — said they’d heard similar conjectures.

The list of Democratic applicants for one, two, or three positions include the two party holdovers, Sullivan and Pleasant, and several other well-known local Democrats, including former commissioner Myra Stiles’ recent countywide candidates Coleman Thompson, Shep Wilbun, and Sondra Becton and local AFSCME leader Dorothy Crook.

Some measure of Democrats’ discontent with the status quo on the commission can be gleaned from the fact that Suzanne Darnell, representing the local Democratic executive committee’s task force on the election process, has requested a meeting with Election Commission members and staff to discuss 14 separate points of misgiving concerning the way elections went last year.

The points ranged from doubts concerning election hardware and software to questions concerning the commission’s oversight and the fact that the post of deputy commission director continues to go unfilled. The late Barbara Lawing, a longtime Democratic activist and proponent of civil rights and feminist issues, will be the only posthumous recipient of the seven Women of Achievement awards that will be given Sunday at 4 p.m., at the University of Memphis-area Holiday Inn as part of National Women’s History Month. Other recipients will be the Rev. Rebekah Jordan, Donna Fortson, Nancy Lawhead, Gertrude Purdue, Modeane Thompson, and Sheila White.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: Do Say Gay

I’ve been thinking a lot about my Uncle Don this week. He was born in the 1920s, served honorably in World War II, then came back to civilian life and became a succesful pediatric dentist in St. Louis.

He lived a long and prosperous life, almost 30 years of it in the same elegant bluff-top home with his “roommate” Richard. When Richard died in the 1990s, Don started drinking too much. He died a few years later, sick and depressed, in a VA hospital in our small Missouri hometown.

He was a sophisticated man — a concert pianist in his spare time and an inveterate traveler. His presents were always fascinating, and the best thing I unwrapped most Christmases was usually something from his travels.

As was the custom with his generation (and with my Midwestern family), Don’s sexuality was never acknowledged. His brother (my father) often would say, “I wish Don would find a nice woman and settle down.”

By the time I was 16, I knew the score. And I’ve never figured out if my father was really clueless or just trying to protect me from the truth. I didn’t care. Don was cool.

I took my college girlfriends to St. Louis to stay at his groovy “bachelor pad.” He and Richard hosted dinner parties for us with artists and professors and bohemian types. I loved him. He was a wonderful uncle and a good man.

That’s why it infuriates me to hear the hypocrisy that came out of General Peter Pace’s mouth last week. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff called homosexuality “immoral,” adding: “I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral.”

This guy is the military equivalent of my father — clueless or ignoring the obvious. Recent estimates put the number of gays serving in the U.S. military at around 65,000. Imagine if all those “immoral” folks decided to “tell,” without being “asked.”

What is immoral is asking people to fight and die for this country without letting them be who they truly are.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

The MLGW Cover

Getting to the supermarket, DVD store, or Peanut Shoppe to get my copy of the Flyer is a weekly priority. Seeing the cover of the March 8th issue? Priceless!

S.G. Long

Memphis

Edmund Ford

City councilman Edmund Ford, awaiting trial on numerous charges brought forth by the FBI — not to mention his MLGW problems — berated every city councilperson and the media in a committee meeting two weeks ago (“Power Play,” March 8th issue). He pointed fingers and threatened some by name. And like a kennel of whipped puppies, they were laid to rest by the “undertaker.”

Ford says the MLGW charges are false and the bills are not entirely his. So what is the connection between Willie Herenton, Joe Lee, and Edmund Ford? Try this on for size: When Herenton nominated Lee to be president of MLGW, Ford praised him for his choice. And why shouldn’t he? According to his own statements, Ford is the one who married Joe Lee to his wife Mona!

Joe Mercer

Memphis

Let Them Eat a Stadium?

In 1789, a crowd of poor women marched into the Palace of Versailles and tried to petition their king for a fairer form of government. They were shouting that they had no bread and were hungry. To this, Marie Antoinette famously replied: “Let them eat cake.”

This is similar to the issue of a new football stadium raised by Mayor Herenton. Instead of educating our children or hiring enough probation officers to monitor sex offenders or dealing with our many other problems, we are told to “eat cake,” in the form of a new football stadium.

Frank M. Boone

Memphis

General Pace

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Peter Pace recently offered his opinion that homosexuality was “immoral.” I would first like to thank him for at least being honest and clear about his beliefs. However, I am one of the millions of “immoral” individuals he has insulted. I will not try to explain the natural connections and the human emotions involved. It is said best in biblical terms: After God created the earth and looked at what he had done, he saw that it was good. He said nothing about perfect.

So let us no longer pass judgment on one another but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. You are okay; I am okay — which means we’re both okay.

Gregory Vassar

Memphis

Agrees With Blackburn

I have finally found something about which I agree with my congresswoman. Representative Marsha Blackburn is right on when she targets banks that issue credit cards to those who are in our country illegally. This is a serious example of American business interests being put above our national security.

I encourage Congress to adopt Blackburn’s idea and make it the law of the land. I also encourage Blackburn to review her support for all those bank and credit-card fees and the sky-high interest rates banks have been allowed to charge. 

Only the payday loan companies are allowed to charge higher rates, and they have been like sharks in targeting our stressed military families. The last Congress passed some relief but not enough to provide help to those who are sacrificing the most.

Jack Bishop

Cordova

Playhouse Kudos

I’m a young actor, and I made my first trip to Memphis for the Southeast Theatre Conference auditions. Playhouse on the Square was the host, and I had the chance to see its production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Whatever that theater is doing, it is doing right! The actors were top-notch, and the production values exquisite. Who needs to pay the prices of Broadway, when great theater is happening right there in Memphis!

Charles Milton

Watertown, Massachusetts

Categories
News News Feature

The Festival’s New Groove

In 2006, the Memphis Film Forum opened its seventh edition of the Memphis International Film Festival with a special sneak preview of New Orleans Music in Exile, Robert Mugge’s downbeat documentary about Crescent City musicians coping with the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. As the closing credits rolled at the Paradiso theater and the attending filmmaker received his due ovation, Cowboy Mouth, a hard-touring New Orleans band prominently featured in Mugge’s film, launched into “Jenny Says” and electrified a near-capacity crowd at Newby’s, miles away on the Highland strip.

The timing of these two potentially synergistic events was purely coincidental. There was no official cross-promotion, no shuttle service trafficking festival attendees between the two venues. Was the Memphis International Film Festival failing to capitalize on this happy accident and its host city’s reputation as the primal nexus of modern American music? Could be.

“Our identity is about to change,” says Memphis Film Forum chairman Lisa Bobal. “The nature of living in a musical city like Memphis means we always get this great selection of music-oriented films. So in the future we’ll be moving more toward becoming a film and music festival.”

With its International Masters series and a selection of movies and music videos from around the globe, MIFF’s 2007 festival has plenty to offer fans of world cinema. But for all the foreign affairs, this year’s 58-film lineup has an unmistakably Southern accent. Oh Mr. Faulkner, Do You Write?, which opens the festival, is an effective concert film showcasing John Maxwell, an actor who has spent the last 26 years touring the world in a lyrical one-man show about Mississippi modernist William Faulkner.

Four very different documentaries — Living the Blues, Iron City Blues, Hard Times, and The Clarksdale Jook Joint Jam — explore and exploit different facets of the music that made Beale Street famous. The apocalyptic short film Quincy & Althea is a black comedy set in post-Katrina New Orleans with landscapes as futuristic and frightening as they are familiar.

“All of this happened on its own,” Bobal says.

Over the next five years, the Memphis Film Forum and its new concert-promoting sponsor, TCB Entertainment, will actively transform MIFF into an event that celebrates cinema all day and music all night.

The epiphany to change directions struck at the International Film Festival Summit, when Bobal was talking to Film Threat editor and author of The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide, Chris Gore, who was shocked to discover that a festival in Memphis didn’t have a strong musical component. When he asked why she didn’t capitalize on the city’s musical reputation, Bobal only had one answer.

“We’re all volunteers,” she says. “We just haven’t had the manpower … . But now with TCB as our sponsor, I’m confident we can step up the entertainment.”

There’s no ongoing musical component attached to this year’s festival, although Craig Schuster, a songwriter and pianist with a flare for Detroit soul and Southern rock, will play the festival’s Rat Pack-themed awards party at the Warehouse, 36 G.E. Patterson, on Saturday, March 24th. Admission to the party is $10 at the door, though festival-pass holders get in free.

Blues Notes

Films about hard times, disaster, destruction,disruption, and lawn-mower racing.

It’s 1958, and a 22 year-old, trench-coat-clad Dan Rather reports from the scene of an unspeakable terrorist attack on the American homeland: “Right now I’m standing in front of Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee,” he says. “Last night, it was rocked by a bomb blast. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the state fire marshal are investigating.”

The Clinton 12, Keith Henry McDaniel’s exhaustive, interview-driven documentary about the first integrated public high school in the South after the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, is a detailed portrait of dark and troubled times. James Earl Jones narrates the story of a black and white community that stood shoulder to shoulder — prejudices intact — to fight for justice against a wave of violent racial hatred. Its score is all improvisational jazz, but the interviews ring with the unmistakable sounds of white Southern gospel and gutbucket blues.

It’s just one of several films selected to appear at this year’s MIFF that deals with hardships and cultural unrest and that causes voices to be raised in song. Doug Lenox’s short film Quincy & Althea uses an uneventful domestic squabble between the title characters as a device to put New Orleans’ shattered, hopeless landscape on the big screen. Though set in New York, Cadillac Man tells the true blue story of a homeless man who finds success as a writer but is incapable of returning to a more conventional lifestyle.

Four other documentary films take a close look at the occasionally joyous, often sorrowful music born of hardship. Collectively, these films exult and exploit the song of the South and present a clear, sometimes disquieting picture of the 12-bar form we call the blues.

Living the Blues

Everybody knows the romanticized image of the bluesman. He’s a hard-drinking, fast-loving rapscallion with a guitar tuned by Satan and a gift for signing bad recording contracts. The familiar image doesn’t seem quite so romantic in Tim Bryant’s documentary, Living the Blues, an intimate portrait of nine elderly and often obscure blues artists, including Precious Bryant, Neal Pattman, and Etta Baker.

Bryant’s filmmaking style is visually static. The stories and music, however, are vibrant, colorful, and occasionally explosive. Pattman, a salty shouter and harmonica virtuoso, talks about losing his arm and the constant need to “come up fighting.” Rufus McKenzie angrily declares that he’s never been out of slavery and sadly recalls a time when a seemingly kind white couple served him a sandwich in their dog’s bowl. This film is the real deal, filled with loss, fury, joy, and, of course, music.

Iron City Blues

Biker and blues artist Big Mike Griffin wasn’t afraid to visit Iron City, Tennessee, a secluded town on the Alabama border that hasn’t had a police officer on the town payroll since the last one was run off in 1989.

“I’m 6′-10″ and had my trusty 40-cal. Glock with me,” he says. “So I felt really secure.”

Scott Jackson’s Iron City Blues is a frustrating but ultimately fascinating snapshot of a scary and occasionally bizarre world of meth, moonshine, kids racing lawn mowers — and bodies floating in the river. It’s also a less-than-satisfying document of how Big Mike turns his experiences in Iron City into a blues song.

“As far as I know, nobody’s ever made a documentary about how a blues song is made,” Jackson explains. “And I thought that would be an interesting way to approach the film.” Unfortunately, Big Mike and his “A-Team” of musicians aren’t nearly as interesting as Iron City’s last police officer, a mayor who can’t help “looking the other way,” or Monkey Tidwell, a 73-year-old gnome who loves his whiskey and knows where all the bodies are buried.

At its best, Iron City Blues captures a quirky, undeniably intimidating community of gun-toting rebels who would rather die free than live by somebody else’s rules. And then there’s Big Mike’s blues, which isn’t bad, but it can’t hold a candle to cigar-chomping children who delight in shooting blue lights off cop cars.

Hard Times

Scene from The Clinton 12

Filmmaker Damien Blaylock has martial artist turned musician Steven Seagal to thank for his recent exposure to the blues — and for Hard Times, a documentary portrait of St. Louis’ best-dressed harmonica player, Big George Brock.

“I was in Memphis working on a project for [Seagal]. He was bringing in all these guest artists, and that’s where I met Big George,” Blaylock says. It’s also where Blaylock and Roger Stolle, the blues and folk-art enthusiast behind Cat Head productions in Clarksdale, Mississippi, came up with the idea for creating a short promotional film about Brock’s life and career as a St. Louis tavern owner who’s played with artists like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Jimmy Reed.

“We realized pretty quickly that we were going to have to do something bigger than a short,” Blaylock says.

Hard Times follows Brock from St. Louis to the Mississippi cotton fields where he was born and raised. Even if all the close-up shots of Brock’s giant, ring-laden hands picking cotton are ultimately exploitive, any one of them would make a great album cover.

“I guess [my film] could be seen as propaganda,” Blaylock says, explaining why he only interviewed Brock and nobody else. “My goal was to make it a detailed portrait of him and his world.”

The Clarksdale jook joint jam

While driving through Mississippi working as consultant for the Robert Johnson estate, musician and producer Gary Vincent had an epiphany. “All the juke joints are disappearing,” he says. “There are lots of reasons: hip-hop, drugs … .” Vincent realized that somebody needed to preserve the authentic spirit of the Mississippi roadhouse on film.

Hard Times

Initially, Vincent planned to make live recordings of the regional musicians who play Ground Zero Blues Club, actor Morgan Freeman’s fabulously funky blues club. “But I realized that if we produce a lot of unknowns, we won’t sell a lot of product,” Vincent says. That’s when he came up with the idea of The Clarksdale Jook Joint Jam, a series of concerts shot at Ground Zero and featuring a slate of established recording artists playing alongside the bluesmen who influenced them.

“I don’t buy into the theory that real blues has to sound ratty,” Vincent says. “But you can make it too slick. Fortunately, you can’t make people like George Thorogood or Delaney Bramlett sound too slick.”

The first installment of The Clarksdale Jook Joint Jam preserves the authentic spirit of Delta juke joints by paring Delaware destroyer George Thorogood, whose inescapable hit “Bad to the Bone” has been featured in countless films and TV commercials, with Muddy Waters’ and Howlin’ Wolf’s saxman Eddie Shaw. The concert doc opens with Thorogood telling a whopper about how he gave Shaw and the Wolf their start in show business. Cute.

Being William Faulkner

Even director Jimbo Barnett isn’t quite sure what to make of his film Oh Mr. Faulkner, Do You Write?

“It’s always a tough sell putting a stage play on film,” Barnett says, “and I guess that’s why we tried so hard to disguise it as much like a movie as we could.”

Barnett has little need to worry, though his “disguise” — glamour shots of Maxwell walking through Oxford, Mississippi — is about as effective as putting a pair of sunglasses on an elephant.

Oh Mr. Faulkner is unmistakably a cinematic document of a live event, in the spirit of Spalding Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia. As Maxwell (playing Faulkner) holds forth on such topics as race, politics, and the death of his brother, the film captures the dark humor and cantankerous nature of one of literature’s most difficult personalities. If anything, the artificial construct is refreshing. The famously pithy author springs vividly from the screen, holding viewers in his thrall from the first grumpy salutation.

“That’s all because of John Maxwell,” Barnett says. “He’s a true Mississippi treasure.”

Memphis Flyer: It can’t be easy living in such close quarters with William Faulkner for 27 years.

John Maxwell: Well, I only know a very small part of who Faulkner was, and I don’t claim to do a definitive portrait. When I walk out on stage, I hope Faulkner is there with me. But he’s not around if I’m not on stage. Right now, I’m living in a kind of dream bubble. I never thought that I could make a living as an actor in Mississippi. But I have.

What was the inspiration for creating the piece?

I came up with the idea for doing a one-man show about Faulkner when I was teaching community college in Jackson, Mississippi. His letters had just come out, and when I read them, I told my wife Sandy, “I don’t know if I can do this, but I think there’s material here for a play.”

What was the attraction?

I guess it’s like reading any of the classics. I was attracted to the author’s internal rhythms. It goes beyond the cerebral and touches the soul. I know some people get tangled up in Faulkner’s convoluted sentence structures, but I grew up on a cotton farm in Pickens, Mississippi, and I know these rhythms. When I read these books, I have an emotional response — deep, archetypal kinds of feelings.

Does the passage of time change the play — either how you perform it or how audiences respond?

Well, my age affects it, certainly. I was 35 when I started doing it, and I’m 62 now. I used to have to age up, now I try to age down. And there are parts I play much differently than I did when I started. At some point, I realized I just needed to trust the material, settle in, and ride it to wherever it took me.

You’ve performed all over the world. Is any one audience better than the other?

I don’t like to generalize large groups of people, but Southern audiences are usually the best. They understand storytellers. They see the twinkle in Faulkner’s eye, and they get it. I feel no moral responsibility to tell the truth, but as a storyteller, I do have an ethical responsibility to entertain.

Memphis International Film Festival Schedule

Thursday, March 22, 2007

7:30 p.m. A Very Small Trilogy of Loneliness 7 min.

Short

Oh Mr. Faulkner, Do you Write? 83 min. Feature

Friday, March 23, 2007

2:30 p.m. International Masters – The Flower of Evil

– Claude Chabrol 104 min. Feature

2:30 p.m. Hello Again Everybody/Messenger

80 min. Documentary

4:30 p.m. The Silent/Beautiful Dreamer

116 min. Short/Feature

4:30 p.m. Soul of Justice/Building Bridges

75 min. Documentary

7:30 p.m. The Clarksdale Jook Joint Jam/Iron City Blues

97 min. Documentary

10 p.m. International Masters – All About My

Mother – Pedro Almodóvar 101 min. Feature

Midnight Cutting Edge Shorts: A.W.O.L., Broken,

Deface, The Grass Grows, A Perfect Day,

The Projectionist 95 min. Shorts

Midnight Music Videos: Gone,

The Squares-I’m Sorry You’re Perfect, Lost, She’s a Dog,

Slowly Surfacing, Twenty, Rock ‘N Tokyo

164 min. Music Videos

Saturday, March 24, 2007

10 a.m. Of Good Courage 61 min. Documentary

10 a.m. The Clinton 12 88 min. Documentary

Noon Hard Times/Living the Blues

109 min. Documentary

Noon Mojave Phone Booth 88 min. Feature

2:30 p.m. Comedy Shorts: Alive and Well,

And Now a Word From Our Sponsors,

Bye Bye Benjamin, The Frank Anderson, Karma Cafe,

Quincy & Althea 73 min. Shorts

2:30 p.m. An American Opera

92 min. Documentary

4:30 p.m. Animated Shorts: Barney the Terrier,

Everything Will Be Okay, Idea Development, Mirage,

Nasuh, Saul Goodman, The Waif of Persephone

76 min. Shorts

4:30 p.m. Forgiven 83 min. Feature

7 p.m. Isaac Hayes Tribute Feature

9:30 p.m. International Masters –

The Devil’s Backbone – Guillermo del Toro 106 min.

Feature

9:30 p.m. MIFF 8 awards party at

the Warehouse

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Noon Forfeit 83 min. Feature

Noon Stirring it Up/By the Side of the Road

142 min. Documentary

Noon International Masters – All About My Mother

– Pedro Almodóvar 101 min. Feature

2 p.m. Do Not Go Gently/Cadillac Man

93 min. Documentary

3 p.m. Cutting Edge Shorts: Grace, Broken,

Making Do, Pop Foul, Raw Footage, Rosario, Tell

Tale, Thomas in Bloom 108 min. Shorts

4:30 p.m. A Map for Saturday 90 min. Feature

5 p.m. Vanaja 111min. Documentary

7:30 p.m. International Masters –

Goodbye, Dragon Inn – Ming-liang Tsai – 82 min.

Feature

7:30 p.m. Last Flight Home 70 min. Documentary

Categories
News The Fly-By

For Beer! For Whiskey! For Ireland!

CREDIT: Jarek78 | Dreamstime.com

As much as I love the color green, spilled green beer has a tendency to stain the floor. For this reason, not as many pubs as you might think sell the stuff on St. Patrick’s Day. But people who take real pride in their Irish heritage come prepared.

A few patrons at Celtic Crossing in Cooper-Young did just that, bringing bottles of green food coloring to dye their beer. They were happy to share with the other patrons, assuring me that the best way to celebrate all things Irish is through imbibing Technicolor beer. I had to admire their resourcefulness, even if I was the one handing them their beverages instead of the one drinking them under the table.

It was St. Patrick’s Day, and I was a server at an Irish pub.

All kinds of people walked in the door that morning. A group of 20-somethings arrived with babies in tow, jokingly ordering whiskey to get the tots started early. One young man showed up with an inexpertly clipped moustache and a black bowler hat, claiming to be James Joyce. We even had a professional leprechaun.

Things got hectic around 1 p.m., when a group of Irish step dancers ages 7 to 15 filed onto the pub floor and began shaking the foundation. When an 8-year-old boy began dancing with two girls, both with ringlet curls and rainbow-colored dresses, he was greeted with rousing applause.

“Look at that little pimp!” someone shouted. The kid grinned without missing a step.

During the dance, the restaurant became packed with Irish and non-Irish alike, eager to partake in any excuse to drink to their heart’s content. Instead of pushing my way through the crowd, I found it easier to walk through the side door of the restaurant, round the patio, and come back in the front door. Going up the steps was tricky, as I had as many beers as I could hold without my arms collapsing under the weight. My feet started to hurt around trip 30.

Only once was I effectively blocked. The crowd was close around me, a table obstructed my immediate path, and to my right, the step dancers were kicking their legs into the air. I was carrying 12 beers and my arms were getting tired. I needed to get through.

I ducked under a table, avoided the dancers’ legs, and came out the other side without spilling a drop. My customers loved it. Luckily for me, most of the tables at the restaurant are a comfortable three-and-a-half feet high.

My mission that Saturday: to help hundreds of Memphians celebrate their Irish heritage. Judging from the happy staggers of my customers as they walked to their cabs, I think I can say that I succeeded.

Even if they did have to bring their own green food coloring.