Month: February 2010

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

Houston Drubs Memphis Tigers

When the Tigers and Houston played on January 23rd at FedExForum the Tigers came out like a team that had just lost its first conference game in almost four years (which they had three days earlier, to UTEP). Aubrey Coleman — the nation’s leading scorer — got his 32 points, but Memphis pulled away in the second half for a 15-point win. Five Tigers scored at least 10 points, two of them 20 (Roburt Sallie and Wesley Witherspoon). The U of M shot a blistering 62 percent that night.

Tonight in Houston? Not.

Memphis missed 10 of its first 12 shots and was down by 15 midway through the first half. Willie Kemp, Wesley Witherspoon, and Elliot Williams all missed their first three shots, and never got hot. Double-figure scoring? Two Tigers reached the mark, and no one had as many as 20 in the 92-75 loss. Wesley Witherspoon led the Tigers with 18 points. Elliot Williams had one of the worst games he’ll ever have with six points and five turnovers. Goodbye, four-game winning streak. (Could be worse. They’re not the Russian Olympic hockey team. Ouch.)

Coleman had his third straight 30-point effort against the Tigers (34), hitting 11 of 19 shots.

The victory ends an 11-game losing streak for Houston against the Tigers, and just about clinches the Conference USA regular-season title for UTEP. (The Miners beat Southern Miss tonight.) For a berth in the NCAA tournament, Memphis will have to win a fifth straight C-USA tourney.

The Tigers will host Southern Miss Saturday night. Their next objective will be staying in C-USA’s top four to secure a bye in the conference tourney, which starts two weeks from tonight in Tulsa. Memphis still has two fewer C-USA losses than Tulsa, currently in fifth place in the league. There’s a good chance that the Tiger-Tulsa game on March 6th at FEF will be for a bye.

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Angela Woods of Girl Scouts Heart of the South Talks Cookies

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Angela Woods started as CEO of Girl Scouts Heart of the South on January 15th — just in time for cookie season. She took the time to answer a few questions for Hungry Memphis.

I’m picturing you in your office right now surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of boxes of cookies. Please confirm.
Girl Scout Cookies are back! They were delivered this morning and our office does look like a cookie warehouse. Girl Scout Troops are busy picking up cookies for those who pre-ordered their cookies in January.

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Woodlands Vegetarian Indian Cuisine Now 100% Meatier

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This week’s “Recommended Dish” by Bianca Phillips called for some last-minute editing.

In singing the praises of Woodlands’ Gobi Manchurian, a cauliflower fritter, she wrote, “I was certain someone had slipped a meatball on my plate. Thankfully, Woodlands is meat-free, so I knew that wasn’t possible.”

That last line was excised because Woodlands started serving meat on February 12th.

Categories
Memphis Gaydar News

“Images of Gabriel”

Jack Robinson

  • Jack Robinson

During Mississippi-born photographer Jack Robinson’s New Orleans period (in the 1950s, when he shot his famous Mardi Gras/Bourbon Street gay district photographs), he fell in love with a man named Gabriel.

Robinson became a bit obsessed with photographing his lover, often in the nude. His play with light and shadow created particularly sensual images.

Some of that work will be on display in an exhibit at the Jack Robinson Gallery (400 S. Front) through March. The show opens during the South Main Trolley Tour on Friday, February 26th from 6 to 9 p.m.

Categories
News

Johnny Depp to Speak Out for West Memphis 3

Actor Johnny Depp will appear on CBS’s 48 Hours Saturday night to promote the cause of the West Memphis 3. More here.

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Griz-Lakers Endgame: Mayo’s Misses, Lionel’s Tech:

With personnel changes at Beyond the Arc headquarters I’m finding it difficult to do the mammoth post-game reports that have been the semi-norm here over the past few seasons. This has me thinking of ways to rework how this blog operates heading into the summer and next season.

For now, I’m just going to feel my way through, probably with shorter, more subject-specific posts rather than long single-game previews and reviews. For starter, a few thoughts on the fourth quarter of last night’s exciting and disappointing 99-98 Grizzlies loss to the Los Angeles Lakers:

For three quarters last night, O.J. Mayo was having a terrific game. He’d scored 23 points on 13 field-goal attempts and was playing Kobe Bryant, if not even, then close enough for the Grizzlies purposes.

Then the fourth quarter came around and Mayo was mysteriously absent from the Grizzlies offense, getting few touches and only one shot attempt within the offense until the very end of the game. Mayo was still active, getting a couple of steals and a defensive rebound, but despite having been the team’s most effective player through three quarters, the offense seemed to go away from him. Mayo entered in the fourth quarter at the 9:26 mark and for the next four minutes was on the floor with one starter (either Marc Gasol or Zach Randolph) and three bench players. In that stretch, Mayo took one of the team’s eight field-goal attempts. The other seven went to bench players, who shot 2-7.

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Cookbook Sale at Central Library

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For the past year or two, I’ve been telling anyone who will listen: Casseroles are ready for a comeback. After stopping by the cookbook sale at Second Editions in the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library Tuesday evening, I’m either right (lots of casserole cookbooks) or wrong (lots of casserole cookbooks).

Categories
Opinion

Memphis: A Way Forward?

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I see that Mayor A C Wharton has focused on that “miserable city” tag hung on Memphis by Forbes magazine recently. Maybe it will be a tipping point like the “southern backwater” label stuck on Memphis in 1968 after the King assassination.

I wasn’t around then but over the years I have interviewed and gotten to know several people who were. What they seem to agree upon is that the negative perception became a cause for action for something positive. Memphis resolved to do better. It took many years and the results were decidedly mixed, but the general feeling, I was told, was that the rap had some truth to it and so what do we do now, short term and long term?

One answer may be found in two of our biggest companies and corporate citizens: AutoZone and FedEx and their relentless emphasis on customer service. Maybe that should be the not-so-new government motto.

Categories
News

Putt-Putt on Perkins

Local historian and resident Memphis magazine curmudgeon Vance Lauderdale remembers the Putt-Putt on Perkins.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Look, Ma! The County Commission on TV, Live.

CREDIT: JB

Unless functional consolidation can be achieved fairly quickly in local government, City Hall is going to have to go some to catch up with Shelby County in certain technological ways — most notably and most recently in the televising of legislative proceedings.

This Monday’s was the third consecutive public meeting of the Shelby County Commission that could be followed by televised image on the commission’s website. While proceedings of the city council can be followed via audio (as can those of the commission), interested citizens are still deprived of the opportunity to actually see Jim Strickland and Joe Brown cityside as they can Henri Brooks and Mike Ritz on the other side of the plaza.

Here is a still of Brooks in action Monday, sounding off on the merits of re-bidding medical care for inmates of the county’s correction system — the week’s hot-button issue.

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  • JB

There are three camera positions — one for long shots of the commission, another trained on individual commissions as they speak, and a third fixed on the commission dock where citizens and summoned witnesses come to speak. Camera movements are controlled by commission aides. Video quality and audio quality are both acceptable.

Here, by comparison, is an image of state Senator Mark Norris from a Monday evening session in Nashville, carried on the Tennessee General Assembly web page.

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  • JB

Commissioner Ritz, who, while affiliated with Germantown city government, was one of the pioneers of that city’s own televised proceedings of its government proceedings (a full 20 years ago!), credits former Commissioner David Lillard, now state treasurer, with beginning the move toward televised proceedings some three years ago.

Ritz said it is his ambition to help arrange for the commission’s televised meetings to be seen on a Comcast cable channel.