Categories
Daily Photo Special Sections

wwe smackdown

Categories
Sing All Kinds We Recommend

De La Soul At Minglewood Hall August 4th

3267/1243881189-delasoul.jpg
Heroic hip-hop trio De La Soul will hit Minglewood Hall on Tuesday, August 4th as part of their “20 Years High and Rising Tour”. Tickets for the concert, which are $22 in advance, go on sale at 10 a.m. this Friday, June 5th.

The tour’s title is a reference to the 20th anniversary of the band’s landmark 1989 debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, an esoteric hip-hop classic that won that year’s Pazz and Jop national critics poll while pulling the generally declamatory genre in a whole new cultural direction. If De La Soul may have peaked at the outset, like so many pop geniuses before and since, they also, arguably, aged better than anyone else in what has largely been a young man’s form. The band’s overlooked 2001 album AOI: Bionix should be the standard-bearer for what hip-hop as “grown folks’ music” can be.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Maclin Off to Fast Start in 2010 Clerk’s Race

9e24/1243877167-king_cobra_and_corey_mackin_2j.jpgCorey Maclin, who has a background in the entertainment business, began seriously entertaining the idea of politics some time back. Maclin, who for the last several years has been Jerry the King Lawler’s partner in Memphis Wrestling, spent a fair amount of time wrestling with the notion of running for office, and now he’s doing so — as a Democratic candidate for Shelby County Clerk.

That’s the job which, in the last few months, has become a hot potato, with multiple indictments of office employees for a variety of improprieties and illegalities, including extortion. Incumbent Debbie Stamson, a Republican, has not been implicated but has served notice that she isn’t running for reelection.

Maclin expects company in the race, which will still be heating up a year from now, and he’ll likely get plenty of it, from both parties. In the meantime, he’s off to a head start with a series of public events, the most recent of which was a fish fry/fundraiser held in Frayser on Saturday.

Among the attendees were several current office-holders — including county Assessor Cheyenne Johnson, county Trustee Paul Mattila, both Democrats, and Sheriff Mark Luttrell.

Categories
Opinion

GM Shutting Down Spring Hill Plant

The General Motors auto factory in Spring Hill in Middle Tennessee is one of 14 scheduled to be idled in another blow to the Tennessee economy.

Spring Hill was home of the Saturn, “a different kind of car from a different kind of car company,” from the time production began in 1990 until 2007. GM began making the Chevy Traverse crossover vehicle at Spring Hill, but announced Monday that the factory will be shut down but could possibly reopen later.

Categories
News

Murtaugh Asks: Was the Calipari/Rose Scandal Inevitable?

In his weekly “From My Seat” column, Frank Murtaugh wonders if the Calipari/Rose imbroglio was inevitable.

Categories
From My Seat Sports

The Memphis/Calipari/Rose Brouhaha: Was It Inevitable?

As speculation grows about Rose’s possibly having cheated on his SAT before arriving in Memphis — speculation fueled by an NCAA investigation made public last week — the thrills of recent Memphis Tiger basketball history are beginning to look like a junk-food binge on the part of Tiger Nation. As good as it may have tasted going down, it looks like an emergency trip to the bathroom may be imminent.

As dramatic as the news may be — centered as it is around the Tigers’ star of stars from a 38-win team that came a free throw short of a national title — those surprised at the development have consumed more Kool-Aid than they should. Because this boils down to a central debate in modern college basketball: Can a young man who plays a single season of college basketball as merely a bridge to the NBA be considered a student-athlete?

While the likes of Dajuan Wagner, Shawne Williams, Tyreke Evans, and Rose are not cheating the University of Memphis by the letter of the law when they enroll for what amounts to a warm-up act for their pro careers, they are certainly cheating the spirit of the institution of higher learning they represent. Such manipulation has essentially been mandated by the NBA, with its recent adoption of an age requirement for potential draftees. But it remains the responsibility of individual basketball programs — and above them, individual colleges — to decide whether or not to play gamesmanship with the definition of “student-athlete.”

However deep your rooting interest may be in Tiger basketball, could you have doubted corners were cut to accommodate the one-year wonders who played such an integral role in John Calipari’s Tiger reign? Fair or unfair, Evans didn’t lose any sleep last winter writing papers or researching a presentation. The system being played must be accepted or rejected on your own terms. But to be surprised at a cut corner finally catching up with a player and the program?

A high school friend — from Vermont, well beyond Tiger Country as we know it — wrote me last week and described the NCAA’s investigation of a former Calipari program as “inevitable.” And it’s the word I keep returning to as I reflect on the profound — beyond credulity? — rise of Memphis basketball over the last nine years.

* What I do find befuddling is the timeline of events. And this goes beyond the four-month gap between the time the university was notified of the NCAA’s concerns and the information going public. The SAT in question had to have been taken no later than the spring or summer of 2007. So a year and a half goes by before the NCAA calls into question that test? Remember the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: “Three men may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

It has the stench of a cover-up, one where information was withheld just long enough for the two figures closest to the flame — Derrick Rose and John Calipari — to have Memphis comfortably in their rearview. As for Franklin’s rule, you have to assume this was more than a two-man game between Rose and his test-taking proxy. With the number of handlers Rose has had since he was in middle school — primarily his older brothers — this little secret was dancing in the heads of grown men who knew better.

* In the October 2000 issue of MEMPHIS magazine — a few weeks before Calipari coached his first game in Memphis — the late, great Memphis Flyer editor Dennis Freeland wrote the following: “Calipari has brought his game to Memphis, a town that knows a little about charisma. It also knows about con artists, having seen its share of both. That’s the Calipari conundrum: Is he smooth or is he slick? And, if he wins enough basketball games, will it even matter?”

You decide.

Categories
News

“The John Calipari Song” … and Other Silliness

Sing All Kinds, the Flyer‘s pop culture blug, features all kinds of fresh madness today, including “The John Calipari Song,” Jerry Lee Lewis’ fondness for Krystal burgers, and Jay Reatard. Check it out.