Mary Cashiola is feeling Wicked and stylish; Susan says Elmwood is no longer taking reservations; Bianca previews the gay pride trolley tour; and Vance reviews the Dobbs House Luau. Check out all the Flyer Blogs here.
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Month: June 2009
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Wicked’s Green
Last night, I went to see Wicked at the Orpheum. I’m not a reviewer, so this isn’t a review.
[We’ll have a review from Chris Davis in the paper next week. I will say that I enjoyed myself immensely and the costumes were SO well done.]
This is more a note about the economics of a phenomenon.
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The Dobbs House Luau
Old high school yearbooks can be surprisingly good resources for photos of “Lost Memphis.” Case in point: The Dobbs House Luau on Poplar, one of our city’s most popular eateries, and a place that has been on my “wish list” of photographs for years. But looking through a 1961 White Station High School Spartan the other day, I came across this photo of the entrance, showing the giant “tiki” head that was a Memphis landmark — and came to an ignominious end. The very phrase that, I fear, will be engraved on my tombstone!
I should explain, first of all, that the Luau was our city’s answer to the Polynesian-themed restaurant craze that inexplicably swept across this country in the 1960s. I have no idea what prompted it. Every city had such a place, it seems, featuring exotic interiors with waterfalls and coconuts and lots of bamboo, thatched roofs and palm trees on the outside, and a menu that — well, more about that later. Many of them were also decorated with those giant stone heads like you’ve seen on Easter Island.
What do you mean, you’ve never been to Easter Island? Well, surely you’ve seen pictures of the place, haven’t you? If not, stop right here and Google it, and then resume reading. Ready? Okay then. Let’s move on.
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Late for Supper at Elmwood
If you were planning on attending tonight’s “Supper at Elmwood Cemetery” — a fund-raiser for the upkeep and promotion of Memphis’ oldest active cemetery — we regret to inform you that your chance to secure seats has passed away.
The good news: Elmwood is already taking reservations for the next event on October 30th.
Tonight’s bill of fare includes recipes from Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays.
I’ll have a report from this afternoon’s press conference later and will probably wait until this weekend to deal with the aftermath of the draft in War and Peace form, but for now some quick thoughts:
1. Hasheem Thabeet: I’d voiced my opposition to the Thabeet pick here, but clearly my “value” objection was not, um, valid. Last night’s draft made it clear that the #2 pick, and the rights to Ricky Rubio, did not have the trade value that many assumed (or maybe hoped). Sacramento clearly wasn’t going to offer a significant package to get Rubio at 2 when they weren’t even going to take him at 4. The Knicks never had a compelling package to offer. As for Minnesota, there were some reports yesterday that Hasheem Thabeet was their target at #2, but if it was Rubio they were clearly right in not making a significant offer to move up. They got him at #5 anyway.
Via a combination of his legal issues in Spain and taking a closer look at his game, the shine clearly came off Rubio in the run-up to the draft. Did teams like Memphis, Oklahoma City, and Sacramento make a big mistake in passing up Rubio? Time will tell.
My other objections to the Thabeet pick are interrelated: There’s a long history of teams making a mistake by reaching for size high in the draft. Taking out the few centers considered obvious franchise players (Shaq, Yao), the bust-to-star ratio is something like three-to-one. And I especially didn’t like the Grizzlies taking the risk when center was not a position of need with Marc Gasol already in place.
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Gay Pride Trolley Tour & ENDA
South Main becomes Castro Street tonight during the monthly Art Trolley Tour. LGBT-supportive businesses in the arts district will be proudly displaying rainbow flags, thanks to the Center City Commission. In honor of Gay Pride Month, the commission passed out small flags to gay-friendly businesses. The trolley tour runs from 6 to 9 p.m. along South Main.
Here’s a little Gay Pride trivia: Pride is celebrated in June in commemoration of the Stonewall Riots, a series of violent demonstrations by gays and lesbians in response to a police raid at Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969. Stonewall is considered to be the first large uprising by the gay and lesbian community against government-sponsored homophobia.
In other news, Representative Steve Cohen was one of 120 sponsors of a fully-inclusive federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act filed in Congress Wednesday night. The bill would provide federal workplace protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees. Gender identity and expression were struck from an earlier version of this bill in 2007.
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Thabeet Goes On
It is a law that you cannot write about Grizzlies’ top draft choice Hasheem Thabeet without using a pun. So there. Check out Beyond the Arc for all the draft madness, including the madness of our obsessed commenters.
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The Draft Post
Alright. Here we go. This will be the forum for tonight’s draft. I’ll pop in here occasionally with commentary or maybe even news if I have any.
Let’s do this.
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Michael Jackson R.I.P.
Wow, just wow. The lead singer of the Jackson Five-turned-pop star extraordinaire — reduced, in more recent years, to a caricature of his former self — is dead.
I remember the death vigil TV news crews held for the Duke, and I recall our next-door neighbor in Lafayette, Louisiana, coming home for lunch with the news that Elvis was dead.
But, on a day that’s already been dominated by the death of Farrah Fawcett (and, in my personal rock-and-roll iconography, Sky Saxon), I never imagined I’d hear that Michael Jackson had left the building.
Sky Saxon, leader of iconic 1960s-era L.A. garage rock group the Seeds, died in Austin, Texas, today.
According to Austin360.com, Saxon was hospitalized on Monday with “an infection of the internal organs,” just two days after he performed at Antone’s with local group Shapes Have Fangs.
Sabrina Saxon, Sky’s wife, posted this message on Facebook: “Sky has passed over and YaHoWha is waiting for him at the gate. He will soon be home with his Father. I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep him here with us. More later. I’m sorry.”
Best known for British psych-meets-American blues rock numbers like “Pushing Too Hard” and “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine,” Saxon reportedly coined the term “Flower Power” in the ’60s, joined the Source Family religious commune in the ’70s, and resurfaced on the garage-rock festival circuit in more recent years. In 2004, Saxon and the New Seeds appeared at the Ponderosa Stomp Foundation‘s “Tryin’ To Mess My Mind” festival in New Orleans.