“Well, we knocked off the bastard,” Sir Edmund Hillary famously said
after climbing Mount Everest. U of M fans may be tempted to say the same thing after the Tigers reached the mountaintop this weekend — Number One in college basketball. What a climb it’s been!
Read Frank Murtaugh’s take on the Big Moment at ”Sports Beat”.
Longtime Memphis political activist Gale Jones Carson, who has served for some years as state Democratic Party secretary, has had a new laurel bestowed on her — the position of national Democratic committee-woman from Tennessee.
Carson, a former administrative assistant to Mayor Willie Herenton who now serves in a similar capacity at MLGW, was informed of her appointment to the singular position over the weekend.
As an added fillip for local Democrats, Carson has informed friends that she was aided in getting the nod by considerable behind-the-scenes help from another longtime local activist, David Upton, with whom her relations have from time to time been strained. Upton, Shelby County Commissioner Sidney Chism, and Carson functioned a lobbying unit at the weekend’s meeting of state Democratic organizations Nashville.
Yet another party activist,Steve Steffens, was so impressed by this instance of cooperation between representatives of two different Democratic factions that he posted his enthusiasm at LeftWingCracker, his widely read blog.
Carson was also recently designated as one of three Memphians and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s statewide steering committee.
The number of national committee members from Tennessee has been reduced from four to three according to a formula gauged to the presidential vote, in which President Bush carried the state. The other two members are Bill Owen of Knoxville, Will Cheek of Nashville.
–Jackson Baker
“Their heritage runs deep, and their styles differ greatly, but there is no clear-sliced No. 1. In fact, all three look pretty dang good.
“Nevertheless, their passionate fans have ignited a debate.
North Carolina, Memphis or Kansas?”
This article from the Kansas City Star examines two vital claims to fame of college basketball’s leading teams: Hoops and barbecue.
Longtime Shelby County Trustee Bob Patterson died Saturday morning after suffering a massive heart-attack.
Patterson was first elected in 1990, the last year the trustee’s position was filled in a non-partisan election. Ironically enough, Patterson was then and subsequently a strong advocate of partisan elections for county-wide positions, and, once partisan primaries were instituted, he was re-elected four times as the official GOP nominee.
But compounding that irony was another: Patterson, like Sheriff Mark Luttrell and District Attorney General Bill Gibbons, was popular across party lines and made a point of frequently attending Democratic events. That was one of the facts that made him virtually unassailable at the polls.
Patterson was the sponsor of two annual events that were considered staples of the political year — his yearly barbecue at Kirby Farms and the annual Christmas Party he and his wife Virginia held on the first Monday of each December at their East Memphis home.
In 2006 and last December, however, Patterson did not hold his Christmas party. He explained to friends that the turnout had begun to exceed the available space in his home and that he intended to resume the tradition once he had settled on an appropriate larger venue.
The genial Patterson was locally famous for his good humor and the variety of wide-brimmed hats he customarily wore. But, despite a low-key personality, he was zealous about defending the prerogatives of his office.
This latter fact brought him into conflict with several other officials and branches of government, and in the last year or two Patterson had launched something of a public-information campaign challenging — as too rosy — the official fiscal projections of county mayor A C Wharton and others.
Funeral and visitation arrangements are so far incomplete
–Jackson Baker
Memphis is a political Safe Zone for Martin Luther King week. State and national politicians of both parties can pop in for a photo or a speech at the National Civil Rights Museum or the NBA’s sixth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day game on Monday. Republicans and mainstream Democrats can even rub shoulders with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
Everyone can be for “civil rights” and against 1960s-style segregation and police brutality without having to step on the landmines of modern-day public schools, health insurance, unions, taxes, and broken families and all those other tough issues that Willie Herenton (who has endorsed Hillary Clinton) has to deal with every day.
Sorry, but in terms of modern relevance, the NBA’s MLK game is an airball. It should draw a nice crowd, and honorees Bob Lanier and Kareem Abdul Jabbar seem like the most dignified and thoughtful of former athletes. I was a Detroit Pistons fan when Lanier and Dave Bing were all the Pistons had going for them.
So we’re all agreed that Dr. King was a great American and his assassination was tragic. What does support for “civil rights” mean in Memphis in 2008? I wonder what King, who stayed at the Lorraine Motel and dined on soul food potlucks and marched with the poorest of the poor would think of the modern NBA, and pro sports in general. Memphis gets “honored” with King-related events in basketball, baseball, and on the upcoming 40th anniversary of his death. And it is scorned as Tennessee’s problem child and black eye the rest of the year.
It was stunning that Hillary Clinton’s Tennessee campaign last week put out a “statewide” list of “women’s council” supporters without the name of a single Memphian on it.
Memphis Women Who Are Not on Hillary’s List includes teachers, principals, city division directors, prosecutors, directors of nonprofits, and recent candidates for city mayor and city council. Some are constrained from making endorsements, but most are not. And the argument from Hillary’s Nashville-based headquarters that Memphis was slow to respond is nonsense. You don’t wait for endorsements, you go get them.
Wouldn’t you love to be running Barack Obama’s campaign now that he has opened up an office. Suppose he shows up in person between now and Super Tuesday (February 5th) and Hillary doesn’t. “My friends, as I stand here in the city where Martin Luther King was assassinated, I ask you why my opponent … .” Or maybe that would just remind people that he is black.
Remember, Memphis Democrats handed Tennessee, and therefore the 1996 presidential election, to Bill Clinton and Al Gore by voting precinct margins of — these are actual numbers from Election Commission returns — 753-3, 482-1, 1009-8, 1040-5, and 362-0. Clinton won Tennessee over Bob Dole by 45,616 votes. Clinton won the 9th Congressional District by 86,897 votes. Without it, Clinton loses Tennessee.
Tennessee went Republican in 2000 and 2004. Gray Sasser, chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party, says 25.9 percent of voters in the Democratic primary are black. Statewide, voters aren’t asked about race when they register (although they are in Shelby County), so the number is an estimate based on key Zip codes.
The party’s dilemma in Tennessee 2008?
Finding common cause for lower-income African Americans who ride MATA, go to public schools, use the free-lunch program, and often come from single-parent homes with college-educated blacks and whites who don’t use public services and who like Bill, Hill, and Oprah but aren’t sure what to think about a place like Memphis.
Postponed in Nashville. Since Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton has been in contact with Gov. Phil Bredesen’s office for months, suspicions fall on his colleague, Mayor Herenton, for deciding to postpone their meeting on schools. Herenton sent out a statement saying more due diligence is needed. That seems like something you would do before setting up the meeting in the first place, which is essentially what Wharton said after the postponement.
You don’t get to see the governor often to ask his help, and when you do you don’t want to squander it by not having the specificity that he needs,” Wharton said. “On my end, I am burdened with the cost on the three-for-one funding formula. I have made it clear throughout that I would not seek nor support any larger role by county government.”
The postponement followed a meeting last week between Herenton and school board chairman Tomeka Hart, who has emerged as one of the system’s stoutest defenders on the pages of this newspaper in an exchange of opinion columns with former city councilman John Vergos.
“He didn’t give me any indication he was changing his mind because of our meeting,” Hart told me. She said she can live with an appointed board or an elected board, just so it’s effective.
“Government should be run more like a business.” Don’t hear that one much any more, do you? What business? Merrill Lynch? Citigroup? First Horizon? Bankers who couldn’t say no to unqualified borrowers were partly responsible for the current mess, including First Horizon’s 65 percent stock plunge and $248 million quarterly loss reported last week.
A contrarian at another financial firm in Memphis says a turnaround could be a year or two away, but First Horizon’s bond department and capital markets division had a good month because of lower interest rates and refinancings. The mystery, this source says, is what took them so long to cut the dividend.
Or maybe the “run more like a business” disciples mean the airline industry, where Northwest is looking at a merger with Delta. Except they both of them went bankrupt first. On second thought, maybe that is what it will take to consolidate city and county schools and governments — for one of them to go bankrupt first.
On a brighter note, Pinnacle Airlines CEO Phil Trenary said the Memphis airport should be fine even if Northwest merges.
“We manufacture connections, and we can manufacture them at a lower cost than anyone else,” Trenary said. “One misconception about our hub is that it is a weak hub. It was weak at one time. It is a small hub, but by having a mix of regional carriers and Northwest it has really changed the complexion and made it more successful financially.”
Best Recycled Political Slogan for 2008: “It’s the economy, stupid!”
Ethics in Gray Areas? In a Flyer interview last week, Shelby County Commissioner David Lillard talked about ethics in government.
Here’s my question: Obviously, if a commissioner or city council member has first-hand knowledge of criminal activity by a colleague then they should report it. But what about those gray areas? Should elected officials openly question their colleagues, or at least press them for more complete disclosure of potential conflicts?
Surely, Lillard and Diedre Malone had some knowledge of their colleague Bruce Thompson’s consulting work that finally got him indicted in 2007. Thompson went so far as to get a letter from Shelby County Attorney Brian Kuhn on the matter.
I think Thompson’s current legal problems could have been avoided by full disclosure and discussion of his arrangement with school contractors, including the ballpark amounts he was being paid and by whom. It would have been a tough thing to do, and might well have cost him the business, but it might have saved him some grief later on. But a collegial courtesy pass was ultimately no favor at all.
When reporters want to check an elected official’s financial statements they fill out a form and the official is notified. Why not have the commission and council give the media preemptive notice as standard procedure when one of their own officially declares or seeks clarification of a conflict of interest?
Nevermind Shakespeare. The Scottish bard Robert Burns has his own holiday in Burns Nicht, a Scottish celebration of Burns’ songs and poetry. January 25th will see Burns suppers held around the world, including a dinner here in Memphis hosted by the Memphis Scottish Society.
But, if you don’t register by January 19th, no haggis for you!
Burns suppers traditionally start with the “Selkirk Grace”: “Some have meat and cannot eat/Some cannot eat that want it/But we have meat and we can eat/So let the Lord be thankit.” This is followed by the piping and cutting of the haggis, set to the background of Burns’ famous “Address To a Haggis.”
The evening closes with a song even non-Scots will recognize: Burns’ immortal tribute to friendship and tradition “Auld Lang Syne.”
The Memphis Scottish Society’s dinner will also feature gorgeous Celtic music from the band Celtic World. This is an incredible opportunity to embrace the Scottish culture and enjoy the career of one of the world’s most talented poets.
Oh, and there will, of course, be a whiskey tasting.
The Burns Nicht supper is at 6 pm, Saturday, January 25th, at the Woodland Hills Ballroom (1111 Houston Levee Rd.)
Tickets for non-members are $60 each and must be purchased by January 19th. $10 discount for seniors. For more info, call 757-4200.
–Alicia Buxton
I’m reading a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Some of them are set in Afghanistan, where the British were fighting the Afghans in the 1800s. Funny how in 2008, the British are back in Afghanistan fighting the Afghans.
You would think that three wars with the Afghans would be enough, but apparently the imperial impulse dies hard, even after the original British Empire has left Great Britain a third-rate country whose leaders seem to think they have no choice but to play tag-along behind the Americans.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has no reason to exist, let alone be in Afghanistan. It is a relic of the Cold War that should have been disbanded when the Russians disbanded the Warsaw Pact. The American establishment, however, seems to think it is a handy way to drag the Europeans into our own imperial schemes.
Nevertheless, American forces have been in Afghanistan for five years now, and American officials keep saying the Afghan army is not ready to defend the country. They say the same thing about the Iraq army. Funny, we can take a kid out of high school, give him 16 weeks of training, and ship him off to combat, where he gives a pretty good account of himself. Why has it taken five years to field an army in Iraq and Afghanistan? I’ve never been able to get an intelligent answer to that question. I suspect the real answer is that the American government does not plan to leave either country for a very long time.
There is a lot of oil in one country and a route for a pipeline in the other. The U.S. seems to have decided to replay the “Great Game” with Russia over the Caspian Sea petroleum resources, just as the British Empire once played it with the Russian Empire when both had their eyes on India.
As most of you know, I would prefer that we abandon our empire, for it is, like every other empire in history, bleeding us of treasure and blood. We don’t need to have troops in South Korea, Japan, Germany, the Balkans, and the Middle East. None of those countries is a threat to us, and all of them are capable of defending themselves. We have many domestic problems that need both the attention and the resources of our government.
Of course, journalists have as much influence on national and international affairs as a fan sitting in the bleachers has on the management of a professional baseball team. We can only observe and cheer or jeer. Voters are the only plain people who can influence foreign policy, but they can only do it if they choose intelligently which politicians to retain in office and which ones to dump.
The American establishment, by and large, excludes the people from any discussion of foreign policy. Other than as a recipient of propaganda, we have no part to play in setting the policy of our own government. We should object to that on principle, but most Americans have little interest in foreign affairs.
Perhaps when the traditional population has been replaced (or should I say displaced) by new immigrants, which shouldn’t take that long at the present rate, the newly arrived citizens will be more interested in foreign affairs. By then, we should be multilingual as well as multicultural. We might even get a president who can read a foreign newspaper.
I am, at least, preparing for the future by developing a taste for Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arab, Hungarian, French, Persian, and Slovakian cuisine. All are easily available in the middle-class American city where I live. That in itself ought to tell you something.
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.
Flyer editor Bruce VanWyngarden asks: “What kind of complete idiot sends out an e-mail full of lies to millions of people and then includes a link to a site that disproves those lies?”
Find out here.
The Memphis-based Folk Alliance is gearing up for its annual conference, which kicks off February 20th at the Cook Convention Center. The Folk Alliance has recently announced Stax stalwart Mavis Staples as one of the recipients of the Elaine Weissman Lifetime Achievement Award for this year’s conference (other honorees: fiddler/banjo player Tommy Jarrell and Rounder Records) as well as a screening of Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, the acclaimed new documentary about the folk star. But the most interesting announcement may be one of the conference’s keynote speakers: former U.S. attorney general Janet Reno.
Turns out, Reno has pursued music with the help of her singer/songwriter nephew-in-law Ed Pettersen since leaving Washington, culminating in executive producing the recent folk compilation Song of America, which features new covers of 50 classic songs meant to tell, chronologically, the story of America. (Samples: John Mellencamp doing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”; soul/blues singer Bettye LaVette reimagining Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia”).
In the Clubs: The local hip-hop scene continues to try to carve out its own niche. The latest venture in this regard is Triple Feature Saturdays, a new monthly hip-hop night at the Full Moon Club in Midtown sponsored by Hemphix Productions, which is led by Tunnel Clones and Memphix DJ Redeye Jedi. Triple Feature Saturdays, which starts January 18th, will take place the third Saturday of each month and will showcase a group/MC, producer, and DJ/turntablist at each show. The first event features M.O.S., Fathom 9, and Sol Kontrol. Doors open at 9 p.m. Admission is $5.
At Midtown’s Buccaneer this week, a couple of indie-scene veterans will showcase their current talent-laden cover bands. Jared McStay fronted one of the city’s best rock bands in the ’90s, the Simpletones (later Simple Ones). These days, you’re more likely to see him behind the counter of Shangri-La Records than behind a microphone. But McStay will be a part of two bands on an enticing three-band bill at the Bucc Saturday, January 19th. McStay will join wife Lori McStay and Vending Machine‘s Robby Grant in The Glitches, a genre- and era-spanning cover band the trio initially formed to play a benefit for the school their kids attended.
McStay will also front the trio Nice Digs for a set of original rock. Rounding out the bill will be the return of the Ultracats, a rock duo consisting of Lori McStay (original Porch Ghouls drummer) and Alicja Trout (River City Tanlines). McStay and Trout haven’t performed together in a while, but I still have happy memories of hearing them bash out a spirited cover of Blondie’s “Hanging on the Telephone” at the Hi-Tone Café years ago.
The next day, January 20th, Jeff Golightly, who fronted the local power-pop group The Crime in the ’80s, will play an afternoon set with his British Invasion cover band Jeffrey & the Pacemakers, which features scene stalwarts Lamar Sorrento (guitar), Jeremy Scott (bass), and Ross Johnson (drums) backing him up. The group performs a set of “Mersey Beat, Memphis-style” from 4 to 7 p.m. Sunday.
In the Racks: It’s a busy couple of weeks for national releases with local connections. Memphis rockers Egypt Central complete a rocky journey with the January 15th release of Egypt Central on the indie label Fat Lady. Formed in 2001, the band built its reputation at the New Daisy Theatre and seemed poised to follow Saliva out of the local metal scene and into national consciousness after signing to Atlantic Records subsidiary Lava Records. But, with the band’s nü-metal style giving way to pop punk and other genres, the band was dropped from Lava before they could complete their label debut. Picked up by Fat Lady, the band has finished the record and is currently on the road promoting it.
On January 22nd, the North Mississippi Allstars are set to release their new one, Hernando, which they’ll celebrate locally with a show at the New Daisy on February 23rd.
Also in stores on January 22nd: Oracular Spectacular, the Columbia Records-released debut from Brooklyn-based alt-pop duo MGMT, a band featuring White Station High School grad Andrew VanWyngarden as principle singer and lyricist. Oracular Spectacular (made available online last fall and already a big college-radio hit) filters echoes of David Bowie and Prince (no, really) through a synth-pop sound with songs that are smart, melodic, and cheeky while still revealing palpable emotional undercurrents, especially on its fine lead single, “Time To Pretend.” The band — which also features Memphian Hank Sullivant in live form — is shaping up as one of 2008’s breakout alt-rock acts, which poses a bit of a dilemma for us at the Flyer, as this Memphis-connected success story hits a little close to home. Andrew VanWyngarden is the son of Flyer editor Bruce VanWyngarden. The group recently played Late Night with David Letterman, a performance easily found on YouTube.
Director Stephen Hancock is to be admired for the extraordinary work he’s produced in Memphis. In recent years, the U of M professor has staged several award-winning productions, but he’s also helmed some real stinkers. Hancock’s production of A Lesson Before Dying, on stage at Circuit Playhouse, falls squarely into the second category and may represent this notable talent’s least memorable endeavor to date.
Although the staging is awkward, it’s difficult to blame all of Lesson‘s failures on Hancock. Romulus Linney’s underwritten adaptation of Ernest Gaines’ celebrated novel doesn’t help. Neither does the fact that some of the actors haven’t completely learned their lines or their cues or how to deal with their costumes.
A Lesson Before Dying tells the unflinchingly bleak story of Jefferson, a young black man condemned to die for a murder he didn’t commit in a small racist town in Louisiana. Jefferson’s godmother arranges for the town’s minister and schoolteacher to visit the prisoner to save his soul and to help him discover what it means to be a man. Only Grant Wiggins, the cowardly teacher, is effective in helping Jefferson discover his humanity and worth.
Linney’s interpretation of Gaines’ characters is paper-thin in nearly every case, and his rendering of the relationship between an agnostic teacher struggling to find courage and an unlearned but cocksure minister is notably undercooked. Even the town’s racist sheriff (Sam Weakley) has been emasculated by the playwright and converted into a clownish politician, more to be pitied than despised.
True to the novel’s color scheme, A Lesson Before Dying is rendered in shades of black, gray, and brown, but fidelity is about the only thing Jimmy Humphries’ set has going for it. The large reproductions of photographs from the civil rights era that are used as a backdrop have more life in them than most of the characters on stage and distract from the action. There are several revelatory moments in the play’s second act, all of which stem from the production’s one fully developed relationship between Wiggins (Keith Patrick McCoy) and Jefferson (Darrin D. Miller).
Through February 10th
During intermission for Theatre Memphis’ engaging production of Craig Wright’s The Pavilion, I found myself in a debate with several of Memphis’ most respected directors. Each of them expressed their disdain for shows staged in the round. Though several reasons were listed, they all kept coming back to a common point: They didn’t like watching “half a show.”
All due respect, but I must confess a certain amount of shock, since I was sitting in the same theater and I didn’t see half a show. Quite the opposite, I saw four shows all at once as each quadrant of the theater had a slightly different perspective on Wright’s wordy meditation on time and its ability to change everything and nothing.
I heard every word, never saw an actor vanish as they moved away from me, and when my concentration broke and I saw a fellow audience member sitting across the aisle grinning, it only intensified the communal nature of a theatrical experience.
Set during a 20-year high school reunion, Wright’s play manages to be sentimental without becoming cloying or giving in to pretension. It tells the story of Peter and Kari, former sweethearts driven apart by horrible mistakes and kept apart by a pain that refuses to fade. In spite of having almost no chemistry between them, Theatre Memphis regulars Michael Khanlarian and Tracie Hansom are excellent as the couple who should have been but never were. But the show belongs to narrator Kell Christie, who, gracefully and with the simplest gestures, plays the rest of the class of ’88: stoners, cops, soccer moms, and everyone in between. Her greatest accomplishment is finding the promising 18-year-old that lives inside of each of these screwed-up adults.
The Pavilion is a lyrical ode to the middle-class children of the 1990s who came of age in relative peace and prosperity, so they never really had to grow up. Its themes will be familiar to fans of late-20th-century indie rock or to anyone who has ever rented the John Cusack film High Fidelity more than once.
With metaphors built around the concept of time and space, The Pavilion is an excellent play to enjoy in the round, provided you’re not naturally inclined to dislike this wonderfully liberating format, as some apparently are. Oh, well …
Through January 27th