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Sports Sports Feature

Halfway Home

The most anticipated season in franchise history — as we called this Grizzlies campaign in our season preview — did not get off to a good start. First, before a single game was played, the Grizzlies lost their best reserve from a year ago, forward Darrell Arthur, to a season-ending Achilles injury. Then, four games in and already heading toward a 1-3 start, the big blow: the team’s best player last season, Zach Randolph, felled by a knee injury that promised to cost him two months, at least.

Many hoped for mere survival at that point. Try not to fall out of the playoff race completely and hope Randolph would return in time to rescue the season. But fans have happily gotten something more, as the Grizzlies begin the second half at 19-15 — 18-12 since Randolph’s injury — and find themselves in 7th place in a tight Western Conference playoff race. (Only two games out of a top-four seed — and, thus, home-court advantage in the first round — but also only two games out of 10th.)

Resiliency is becoming mundane in Griz country: The team went 15-8 last season after Rudy Gay’s injury, before all but throwing the final two games for playoff positioning by sitting key players. They also went 8-2 last season during O.J. Mayo’s 10-game suspension. The lesson to draw from all of this: This is a good team with plenty of good players. They’re talented enough and — at the demand of hard-nosed coach Lionel Hollins — play hard enough to overcome missing key players.

With Randolph likely back in the lineup within the next week, the Grizzlies are poised for a strong finish. But beyond their record, they’ve impressed in the season’s first half by maintaining much of their effectiveness and style of play despite the loss of key players.

Like last season, the Grizzlies have sported an aggressive, high-level defense that forces lots of turnovers and a middling offense that’s strong in the paint but weak beyond the arc.

Much of the focus early this season has been on the return of small forward Rudy Gay from last spring’s season-ending shoulder surgery. And while some fans are disappointed that Gay hasn’t been more dynamic in the absence of Randolph, he probably deserves a little more credit for maintaining his career norms while coming off his first major injury and a long layoff and into a lockout-compressed season — in the context of which scoring and shooting are down league-wide.

While Gay’s 18.9 points per game is 15th in the league and he found consistency in February after a couple of noticeably bad games in January, it wasn’t until the last couple of weeks that Gay started to show the kind of all-around play that marked his game at the time of last season’s injury. In his last five games before the break, Gay’s averages on rebounds, assists, blocks, and free-throw attempts were all significantly above his season averages. Is this increased activity a blip or a trend? The answer will have a lot to say about how good the Grizzlies can be going forward.

But while Gay has been under the microscope, perhaps more key to the Grizzlies’ ability to stay afloat in the face of injuries have been the performances of first-time All-Star Marc Gasol and returning icon Tony Allen.

Gasol, abetted by a sharp decline in his foul rate and seemingly better conditioning, has been able to increase his minutes (from 31.9 last season to 38.1) without a decline in quality. While he’s not quite the physical monster that fellow All-Star centers Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum are, Gasol’s joined them as the only members of the 10 rebound/2 block club at the season’s mid-point while showcasing a more developed all-around game — acting as a secondary playmaker, making more liberal use of his excellent mid-range touch, playing team defense like a bigger Shane Battier.

Now established in the starting lineup, Allen’s minutes have also gone up (from 20.8 to 26.3), and fans should be very pleased with what they’ve seen from Allen. His breakout season a year ago, at age 29, had all the makings of a classic “fluke rule” season, with regression to the mean likely. But Allen has retained most of what made him an impact player in his first season with the team.

Together, Gasol and Allen have been the inside/outside anchors for a near-elite defense, one whose 10th overall ranking in defensive efficiency might sell them short given that the team’s first-half schedule was heavy with games against elite offenses.

With Allen as catalyst, the Grizzlies again lead the NBA in both steals and opponent turnovers, and the starting perimeter trio of Allen, Gay, and Mike Conley has proven to be unusually deadly in this regard. The trio is first (Conley), sixth (Allen), and 11th (Gay) in steals per game, with Allen once again boasting the league’s best per-minute rate among players averaging at least 20 minutes.

Despite struggling with his three-point shot so far this season, Conley has been steady again after several years of inconsistency to start his career. And as the only point guard in the NBA at the All-Star break with more steals than turnovers, he embodies the Grizzlies’ rare combination of aggressive defense and controlled offense.

While the team’s defense has maintained last season’s excellence, the offense has understandably slipped, from 16th last season to 21st at the break. The good news is that this decline can be attributed almost entirely to the loss of Randolph and Arthur — although a contributing factor is the self-inflicted wound at back-up point guard, where the team foolishly jettisoned second-year playmaker Greivis Vasquez before knowing if rookies Jeremy Pargo and Josh Selby were truly NBA-ready. (So far, they aren’t.)

The Grizzlies have remained an elite offensive rebounding team (up from 6th to 4th) despite the loss of Randolph, getting improved offensive board work from Allen and Gay while newcomer Dante Cunningham has, perhaps surprisingly, outperformed Arthur on the offensive glass. And they’re once again the league’s least-prolific three-point shooting team (an area that’s arguably been underemphasized despite a paucity of reliable long-range threats).

The difference this season is that the team’s paint-oriented attack has shifted slightly but meaningfully toward mid-range shooting, with the exchange of Randolph (who took 24 percent of his attempts from mid-range last season) for Marreese Speights (43 percent of his attempts from mid-range this season) as the primary reason.

Speights, acquired for the little-used and oft-injured Xavier Henry, and Cunningham, signed as a free agent to a lower-level multi-year contract, were great finds given the team’s dire front-court needs. Speights has been a good-not-great rebounder and viable scoring threat while responding well to the on-court tutelage of post partner Gasol. Cunningham’s mid-range shooting has been a disappointment so far, but he’s ably replaced Arthur’s energy, defensive coverage, and transition play. But the return of Randolph — assuming he’s anywhere close to his old self — and the shift of Speights to a reserve role should have a significant impact on the team’s offense while only helping a defense that was terrific last season with Randolph as a neutral factor. (The Grizzlies have been significantly better defensively without Speights on the floor this season.)

Reinserting Randolph into a lineup winning without him will require some adjustment, but it should be minor. Randolph’s replacement, Speights, plays a roughly similar game and shoots the ball nearly as often as Randolph relative to his playing time, so the Grizzlies haven’t really altered the way they play all that much. Gasol is likely to see fewer low-post touches, but he’s proven that he can help the offense in a variety of ways and isn’t concerned about his own shots. And the constant question about “whether Zach Randolph and Rudy Gay can play together” is a silly one given that the duo has played more than a hundred games together and the team has been successful as long as Gasol wasn’t injured or Allen wasn’t getting DNPs behind multiple marginal pros.

Add it up, and there’s plenty of reason for excitement heading into a two-month sprint toward the playoffs. If Randolph can make a successful return from injury — and signs are good — this team has the potential to again be a dark-horse contender in a loaded Western Conference. And perhaps from a higher seed this time.

For more Grizzlies coverage, including expanded mid-season player breakdowns this week, see Chris Herrington’s “Beyond the Arc” blog at memphisflyer.com.

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We Recommend We Recommend

Make Bryan Laugh

Is laughter the best medicine? Scientific research suggests that it increases blood flow and may raise the level of infection-fighting antibodies. But what about nonscientific evidence?

The improv comics who make the FreakEngine run want everyone to know that this month’s midnight performance is the most important show they have ever done. And they want you to know that, as unbelievable as that sounds, it’s not a joke. For not quite 15 years, FreakEngine’s quick-witted and somewhat masochistic performers have brought audiences to TheatreWorks for midnight performances on the first Friday of every month. For most of those shows, comedy fan Bryan Sims — known as Kestrel to his friends in the Society for Creative Anachronism — has been in the audience. This show is his special show. He gets to pick the theater games. His key-word suggestions will carry more weight than other audience suggestions.

“We’re going to find a recliner for him to sit in and a crown for him to wear,” Freak-in-charge Michael Entman says.

Sims was recently diagnosed with an aggressive, drug-resistant strain of cancer, and, according to Entman, he’s fighting it with every tool at his disposal, including laughter.

The games Sims has selected include FreakEngine classics like “Marshmallows,” where the performers try to play a serious scene and not make people laugh. If laughter happens, the person responsible gets a marshmallow Peep stuck in his or her mouth and the scene goes on until mouths are too full of peeps to continue. They will also perform “Mousetrap,” their most famous game, which involves bare feet, 80 live mousetraps, and a blindfold.

“This show is a tribute and benefit. It’s geared to make Bryan laugh,” Entman says.

FreakEngine performs a benefit show for Bryan Sims at TheatreWorks on Friday, March 2nd, at midnight. Admission is $5, but separate donations will be accepted.

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We Recommend We Recommend

All Together Now

Sunday’s Footnotes 3 at the Buckman Arts Center will feature 13 dances from members of Bridging Souls Productions, Roudnev Dance Company, Children’s Ballet Theater, the Fred Astaire Dance Studio, Hybrid Performance Group, Inis Acla Irish Dance, the MJCC Markell School of Dance, and the University of Dance Program.

The evening will be under the direction of Sharona Rubinstein of Performance Art Network, a collaborative of dancers, musicians, choreographers, and visual artists.

“I like to bring people together,” Rubinstein says.

For this year’s performance, the third, there will be student dancers for the first time. A Community Activist Fair will be held in the Levy Gallery. Violinist Heather Trussell will perform Bach’s Partita Prelude for a piece directed by Rubinstein. And Rubinstein will take the stage as well for a cameo with the Roudnev Dance Company.

The last number will be performed by the Hybrid Performance Group and will involve drumming. For the finale, Rubinstein hopes to see everyone onstage — not just the performers but audience members as well.

When asked if having that many performers under one roof might bring about an unpleasant Black Swan situation. Rubinstein notes she hasn’t seen the film but says she’s witnessed only a communal spirit. “It’s everybody onstage,” she says. “It goes beyond our individual selves.”

“Footnotes 3” at the Buckman arts Center at St. Mary’s school, Sunday, March 4th, 6:30 p.m. $5-$10.

performanceartnetwork.org

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Music Music Features

That’s All, Folks

It’s been my fortune to know truly great men and hear the music of the spheres.” That’s a selection from the last words of Jim Dickinson as quoted by his son Luther in the song “Ain’t No Grave.” It was also my first impression of the 24th Annual Folk Alliance International Conference, and I couldn’t imagine a more perfect benediction as Jimmy Crosthwait scratched a spare rhythm on his washboard. Luther, in unadorned tribute to his father, played a lean country blues and moaned into the microphone: “If I had my way he’d be here today to sit down at the piano and play.”

After a fantastic six-year run, FAI is leaving Memphis. It’s off to Canada for the 2013 conference then on to a new home base in Kansas City. It’s an estimated $2.5 million annual loss for Memphis. But the beat goes on.

Personal conference favorites from last weekend’s Memphis finale:

Friday

The Electric Guitar Summit: A jam session with Bill Kirchen (Commander Cody’s Lost Planet Airmen), Chris Scruggs (BR5-49), Colin Linden (T Bone Burnett), Phil Hurley (Gigolo Aunts), and Mark Rubin (Atomic Duo). Highlights included Kirchen’s high-octane run-through of “Truck Driving Man” and Scruggs’ soulful organ-like steel licks on an even higher octane cover of Fats Domino’s “My Girl Josephine,” which was also initiated by Kirchen.

• Memphis’ Side Street Steppers rang bells, blew kazoos, stomped feet, and performed a lively jug-band rendition of “Elevator Papa and Switchboard Mama,” the risqué talker originally recorded by Butter Beans & Susie. The vaudeville-inspired ensemble was the conference’s only band to combine Celtic strings, Appalachian foot percussion, and belly dancing. Good show.

Dale Watson‘s sound was forged in Texas honky-tonks, but his latest release, The Sun Sessions, is all about Memphis. Watson, a perfect hybrid of Merle Haggard and Dean Martin (with Conway Twitty’s gravity-defying pompadour on top) liked recording at Sun and stopped in to record another 13 songs while he was in town for this year’s conference. Highlight: “Sorry About the Holes in the Wall” is a black-comic gem about divorce and suicide in the spirit of Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two.

Panorama Jazz Band: Best of show in my opinion. With horns and strings and sticks and accordions and no damn electricity, the Panorama Jazz Band bring Dixieland and R&B to bear on traditional Eastern European folk. Thrilling, haunting, hot.

Atomic Duo: Some Flatt, a little Scruggs, and a whole lot of Gil Scott-Heron. Just when you’re comfortable thinking these guys are a slightly irreverent novelty, Silas Lowe and Mark Rubin drop the Smothers Brothers routine and floor you with a song like “Texas City” and stunt picking as reckless as a game of chicken.

Deering & Down: The Memphis duo is a Folk Alliance favorite. She’s got a voice like Loretta Lynn swallowed Rod Stewart. He plays guitar like nobody you’ve ever heard. Great in a bar. Better in a hotel room. How’s that for a pull quote?

Saturday:

Occupy Folk Alliance: Folk musicians and protest go together like acoustic peanut butter and angry jelly. Naturally, some of the more politically active musicians would want to put on a show for Occupy Memphis campers. Highlight: He wears a white jumpsuit and he’s wrapped in the flag. He’s both the King and the Boss. He’s Elvis Jewstein. You really probably had to be there.

Sweetness: The Sweetness formed when two Texans and two Canadians met at last year’s FAI, jammed, and made instant fans. Somebody responded to a song by calling out, “Sweetness!” True story. I was there. A fan-funded European tour followed. Pretty people. Powerful voices. Great songs.

Melanie didn’t play “Brand New Key,” but she did make fun of it a little. And she had the quote of the conference: “Let’s face it, this is an audition. And it’s a little weird to be auditioning for a part you’ve already got.” She was funny, open, warm and weird, and “Look What They’ve Done to My Song” never sounded better.

Sam Baker is one of the best storytellers on the road. Nothing’s sacred. And everything is. Hard. Hilarious.

Ennis: Family harmonies and songs that connect generations. All the way from St. John, Newfoundland.

The Milk Carton Kids: Simon and Garfunkel meets Dmitri Martin. Breathy harmonies and quirky, deliberately literate songs about places they’ve been and dogs they’ve buried. It’s easy to see why this likable duo was a conference buzz band. Expect good things.

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Music Music Features

Madison Line Launches

Founded in 2000 by former Skillet guitarist Ken Steorts, the Visible Music College (formerly the Visible School Music and Worship Arts College) is a Christian, faith-based school that offers multiple music-industry-related degree programs in Memphis.

In 2008, the school announced plans to relocate from its original home in Lakeland, Tennessee, into the heart of the city — first at its current Midtown location shared with Lifelink Church and eventually downtown at 200 Madison Avenue (across the street from AutoZone Park), which was purchased in 2009 and became the college’s home last year.

Now, Visible Music College is rolling out the next phase of its plan with the launch of an independent, not-for-profit record label, Madison Line Records.

“Madison Line has been a component of the college’s strategic plan from its founding, and we will work with the college daily,” Madison Line Records CEO Sam Garrett says. “Visible Music College has provided artist development services to students for a decade. Simultaneously, the music industry has been asking: What is next for the industry? and Why is our model not working? Madison Line Records is the answer to these questions.”

At first glance, the creation of an indie label might not seem like such a bold or innovative concept, especially in a town like Memphis, which already has so many. But Madison Line intends to set itself apart by doing business in radically new ways.

“There are a number of distinctions between Madison Line Records and traditional record labels,” Garrett says. “We are artist-focused. We are transparent with the books, and writers receive 100 percent of the writer’s share of royalties. We introduce donors and patrons to artists. We are focused on artist development every day through constant attention. We exist to change the recording industry.”

To jump-start the process, Madison Line Records will start with an eclectic roster of newly signed artists from across the U.S.: alt-rock/pop bands Until June and She Said, ’80s-style Christian metal act J&R, alt-country singer Jo, and two locals: the Visible Worship Band and hip-hop artist/producer Cayerio.

“Variety is the spice of life,” Garrett says. “We believe that an artist community focused on contrasting styles and collaboration is the best environment for growth, both personally and professionally. Diversity is a cornerstone of Madison Line Records.”

Despite its close ties with a Christian-music college, Garrett says Madison Line will not strictly be a Christian-music label.

“We will sign a recording contract with artists who share our goals and vision and provide booking, production, and other services with any artist,” Garrett says. “Projects will be released into both the mainstream and Christian markets. Currently, we have six signed artists with two projects being released into the Christian market and four into the mainstream market.”

On March 1st, Madison Line will celebrate its launch with a kickoff party featuring live performances by all six of the label’s artists at the future home of the Visible Music College at 200 Madison, where the label will also share office space and recording studios. But despite the fact that Madison Line Records has yet to release an album (the signed acts have scattered release dates scheduled throughout this summer and fall), the label is already looking ahead to the next class of incoming talent.

“Madison Line is currently discovering and talking to artists across the country and in Europe. We anticipate signing another five to 10 artists this year,” Garrett says.

The Madison Line Records launch party is Thursday, March 1st, at 7:30 p.m. at the Visible Music College site (200 Madison). Admission is free, and the event is open to the public. For more information, visit visible.edu.

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Music Music Features

Heartless Bastards at the Hi-Tone Cafe

Erika Wennerstrom is a rare thing: a white blues/roots-belter utterly free of histrionics. There’s a simple power to Wennerstrom’s songs and singing that is perfectly matched by the sturdy accompaniment provided by the music of her no-frills band, born, appropriately, in rust-belt Cincinnati but now based in Austin, Texas. The band’s 2005 debut, Stairs and Elevators, was an oddly, almost ineffably inspirational album. It was so modest yet reached for so much. I never expected Wennerstrom to be able to repeat its charms. But she’s come mighty close with three subsequent collections of direct, bone-deep rock songs suffused with an air of cautious hope: 2006’s All This Time, 2009’s The Mountain, and now 2012’s Arrow. The latest is perhaps a little heavier and flashier than before, embodied by the lacerating guitar rave-up that ends “Parted Ways” or the metallic swagger of “Got To Have Rock and Roll.” But the clincher is still Wennerstrom’s strong, soulful, emotionally committed vocals. The Heartless Bastards play the Hi-Tone Café on Wednesday, March 7th, with the Fling. Doors open at 9 p.m. Admission is $15.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Cooking the Books

In their new book The World in a Skillet: A Food Lover’s Tour of the New American South, Paul and Angela Knipple explore the vast and varied renditions of Southern cuisine that exist within cultural enclaves — from the familiar Creole influences in crawfish étouffée to Vietnamese-style pickled mustard greens.

The couple traveled across the South to visit first-generation immigrants in the restaurant business. They made their way through Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia — skipping only Florida and Texas.

“We debated about the Florida panhandle because there are some great places in the panhandle. But a lot of it is historic, not first-generation immigrants like we were looking for,” Paul explains.

“Plus, Florida and Texas both have such huge immigrant cultures,” Angela adds. “It could have easily been two books on those states alone.”

Instead, the two focused on lesser-known cultures, like the Kurdish population of Nashville and a Liberian community in Richmond, Virginia, where a chef makes her signature “President Obama’s Casserole.”

The book is organized into 12 chapters, each detailing a different region’s influence on Southern cuisine. There are profiles of these first-generation immigrant chefs, along with choice recipes and informational sidebars.

“We started out with a list of 800 places before narrowing it down to 50,” Angela says. “We chose people with the best stories, with a passion for what they were doing.”

“Someone we’d just like to sit down and have dinner with,” Paul adds.

What did they learn from their culinary pilgrimage?

“Southern food isn’t static,” Angela says. “These people are Southerners, and they’re changing Southern food. Twenty years from now, a bottle of sriracha will be as common on a table as a bottle of Tabasco sauce.”

The Knipples will launch The World in a Skillet on March 6th at 6 p.m. at the Booksellers at Laurelwood. A five-course dinner and booksigning will be held at Restaurant Iris on March 18th at 6 p.m. Tickets for the dinner are $60 and can be purchased by calling Restaurant Iris at 590-2828.

Hot on the heels of Simply Salads and Simply Suppers, local chef Jennifer Chandler of Cheffie’s is taking on grilling, just in time for summer.

Simply Grilling hits the shelves in April, and like her other books in the “Simply” series, emphasizes quick and easy ways to put dinner on the table.

“Before I had children, I would cook things that took all day. The reality of it is, I don’t have time for that anymore, but I still want to put a good, home-cooked meal on the table,” Chandler says. “Grilling is a great way to do that.”

Chandler sets out to demystify grilling for those who might find it intimidating or assume it’s too labor-intensive for a quick meal. She relies heavily on marinades and fresh herbs to keep active prep time to a minimum. Her introduction includes a crash course in essential grill gear, grill maintenance, how to control the heat on both a gas and charcoal grill, and much more.

But she also reaches out to the experienced griller, offering sophisticated twists on old grilling standbys. Her grilled pork souvlaki elevates the conversation from ballpark franks to refined cuisine. Grilled avocado salad, a grilled potato salad, and even grilled desserts, such as bananas Foster and pound cake, will keep your summer cookouts interesting.

If you loved her Simply Suppers, consider this a lighter version, more suited to spring and summer, when fresh vegetables and farmers markets reign supreme.

Simply Suppers was about winter foods and comfort foods,” Chandler says. “I wanted to write something with a lighter, more summery feel.”

Chandler will hold a booksigning on April 26th at 6 p.m. at the Booksellers at Laurelwood and a second signing at Babcock Gifts on May 10th from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Touchdown

Every Memphian should see Undefeated. Scratch that: Everybody should see it. The film, fresh off an Academy Award win for Best Documentary Feature, opens here this Friday.

Undefeated had its local premiere last fall at the Indie Memphis Film Festival. But the movie is getting a significant national release now. The most high-profile documentary ever made in Memphis, Undefeated is also on the short list of the best films ever made here.

It tells the story of a season of football at Manassas High School in North Memphis. The program was a loser for decades and never won a playoff game in its 110-year history. That was until volunteer coach Bill Courtney began turning it around and instilling a winning attitude in the players.

The football scenes are riveting. With footage filmed with the assistance of the local company Running Pony Productions, the directors, Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, capture the nerves, the spectrum of amateur athleticism, the heart, the disappointment, the anger, the euphoria of high school sports. We get to hear Coach Courtney’s pre-game and halftime speeches and how he prepares the players for the game or pumps them up to make a comeback.

Not a football fan? That’s all right. This movie’s for you, too. Because Undefeated, more than a story about a football team, is about how a group of young men and their coach struggle through life together. The film accesses the universal themes of growing up through a very specific locale and set of circumstances. In one powerful scene, a guest speaker has the players raise their hands if their parents went to college; not many hands. Then he asks them if they have a close relative who’s been in jail; more hands.

Courtney teaches them that their teammates come first and that the character of a man doesn’t come from successes but what he does with failures. The message is no empty homily; it resonates with his players, who have known failure more than success in their lives and, odds are, will encounter more of the same. Growing up in these circumstances is scary. You can feel it.

The stories of three primary players are told: O.C., a right tackle with legit collegiate athletics aspirations but poor grades that might keep him from qualifying; Montrail “Money,” an undersized lineman with a lot of drive and good grades; and Chavis, a junior linebacker who returns to the team after spending 15 months in a youth penitentiary.

Courtney’s story comes out too. He’s more like the players than he may appear: He didn’t have a father growing up, and he knows the hurt that many of his players feel.

The season is a constant tug of war between Courtney and the young men, as he tries to teach them but the lessons don’t sink in. How much leeway should he give some of the bigger troublemakers? There are no right answers. Courtney admits he’s giving up emotional capital to his players that he’s not spending on his own family — a wife and four children. It’s a grind.

Formally, Undefeated is beautifully edited and reminds one of the great doc Hoop Dreams (a touchstone for Lindsay and Martin as they were making it), ostensibly about high school sports but really about so much more.

The filmmakers moved to Memphis in 2009 and lived here for nine months, shooting at football practice every day and at school several times a week. They wound up with 500 hours of footage. The film’s shape emerged in the editing.

Undefeated crackles with energy. It’s an emotional haymaker: There are at least two scenes where you will cry.

Undefeated

Opening Friday, March 2nd

Paradiso

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Film Spotlight

Better Than Something: Jay Reatard

After debuting as a work-in-progress at the On Location: Memphis film festival last spring and premiering as a completed work at Indie Memphis last fall, Better Than Something, the documentary portrait of late Memphis musician Jay Lindsey, aka Jay Reatard, gets a local theatrical run this week.

It was primarily filmed as a short in April 2009 but then expanded into a feature following Reatard’s January 2010 death. The bittersweet film opens, smartly, with a tart, revealing French TV appearance from 2008.

“I take myself very seriously, hence my name,” a sardonic Reatard tells his interviewer, who responds, “You feel angry when you’re onstage. Are you still angry?” This prompts a deflated, utterly honest answer: “No, I feel happy when I’m onstage. I feel angry when I do shit like this.”

That was Lindsey — “bad boy” surface and principled, often disappointed, suffer-no-fools core. Better Than Something humanizes Lindsey, as he gives a tour of the houses he lived in as a Memphis youth and tells some rough stories of things that happened in them (including the origin of his great Lost Sounds song “1620 Echles St.”), then hangs out, happily, with old friends at Midtown bar the Lamplighter. Interview subjects include some Memphians who knew him best, such as Lost Sounds bandmate and former girlfriend Alicja Trout and producer Scott Bomar.

Better Than Something doesn’t get into the details of Lindsey’s death, but it doesn’t shy away from his problems, either. One friend talks about smoking crack with Lindsey, a story Lindsey essentially confirms with regret and rueful amusement, while a Matador Records associate complains of fans trying to get close to Lindsey with offers of drugs.

The film concludes movingly, with Lindsey explaining that his unusually prolific catalog of recordings was born of a desire to document his life. “I try to make as much as I can with the time that I have,” he says. “I just make music because I’m afraid of everything else, I guess.”

Opens Friday, March 2nd, at Studio on the Square

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

“Let everybody say yeah.” All right, break it down, fellows, I got something I want to say. That’s right, now, bring it way down so I can talk to the ladies for a minute. LADIES!

Let me ask you a question. Did your old man come home drunk last night because he was laid off at the job, and he crawled in bed feeling all romantic? And while usually you might push him away, this time you didn’t since times have been so rough on everybody, only now you need the “morning after” pill, Plan B, or whatever they call it. So you go down to the corner drug store only to find that the pharmacist refuses to sell it to you because he has a religious objection to birth control? Well, did you know that’s just what Missouri senator Roy Blunt’s new bill will allow? Anyone along the birth control distribution chain whose religious views are opposed to contraception can claim a “conscience objection” and refuse to sell it to you. That includes clerks, shelf-stockers, and cashiers. Now, can I give the drummer some?

“Everybody, scream!” Let’s say you’re a single lady and you went to a party and met a nice guy who seemed attentive and funny, so you ended up having nightcaps at your place and Marvin Gaye was playing on the stereo and one thing led to another. Only, later you discover that the SOB is married and something is off with your cycle. It’s been less than a month, and since you would never consider carrying the child of someone else’s husband, nor do you consider a non-breathing zygote with a prehensile tail fully human, you wish to terminate the pregnancy. Only President Santorum has gotten his wish that abortion be criminalized and outlawed in all cases, and even rape victims should consider a resulting pregnancy as “a gift.” So, you turn to Planned Parenthood, but they’ve been defunded and/or bombed and all the physicians who performed the procedure have gone underground to avoid assassination from the anti-abortion zealots. And now, the only place left to go is underground. Can I get a witness? Ladies, having Rick Santorum as president would be like having Franklin Graham as your prom date.

Break it down, band, and let me talk to the fellows. Guys? You didn’t think this wasn’t your issue, did you? Imagine your 16-year-old daughter getting early admission to that prestigious college she’s been dreaming about. All the arrangements have been made, only at the last minute, she gets pregnant by her ex-boyfriend, who is joining the Marines. After your family has cried about it and prayed about it, you all decide the best course is abortion. Only, you live in Virginia, and the state legislature passed a law that requires any woman seeking an abortion to first have a state-mandated ultrasound in order to humiliate them into reconsidering. Since most abortions occur within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, this would require a “transvaginal procedure,” in which a probe is inserted into the vagina and manipulated to produce an image. Fellows, I don’t know about you, but forcibly penetrating a woman for no medical reason sounds awfully close to rape to me. The Virginia legislature might have known this had they consulted any women, but the bill was on the governor’s desk when even he pulled out, so to speak. Governor Bob McDonnell, looking like a graduate of preacher college, covets the vice presidency, so he decided to soften the bill by eliminating the invasive kind of ultrasound but not the procedure itself. Now, ‘scuse me while I do the Boogaloo.

People are always talkin’ ’bout less intrusive government, but that’s just about as intrusive as you can get. All these candidates for president are trying to prove who’s the most conservative. One guy says he’s “severely conservative,” while his opponents line up to say, “I’m the most,” “No, I’m the most,” when what they’re really saying is my penis is larger than yours.

And what about that congressional hearing on women’s reproductive issues held by Representative Darrell Issa? Women are 52 percent of the population, yet a House committee couldn’t find any to join their stag party.

“Issa in da House!” These GOP candidates aren’t running against Barack Obama so much as they’re running against the 1960s. Republicans want to run your sex lives when they can’t even run their own primaries.

“Now, I got one more thing I want to say right here.” I believe in the power of love, yet here comes this guy Ricky Santorum, who thinks he has the final definition of what love ought to be for you and me. He believes that sweet love should only be for married people and, even then, just for procreation. I know someone else who believes that way: Pope Benedict XVI. A long time ago, a Catholic man named John F. Kennedy ran for president and assured the electorate his allegiance was not to the Church in Rome but to the U.S. Constitution.

Now, this Santorum person runs for office claiming that JFK’s address was “a horrible speech” and that he prefers a papal edict. Not the kind of Christianity practiced by Obama, because according to Rick, “He has some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible.” The Sanctum Santorum believes contraception is against God’s will and has seven children to prove it. And in Rick’s world, prenatal screenings only cause more abortions to “cull the ranks of the disabled” in society.

So, good people, what I’m trying to say is that you should get down on your knees and say, “Thank you, President Obama, for being a moral family man who keeps his business to himself. Thank you, Barack, for concentrating on the whole house instead of just the bedroom. And thank you for being the only thing standing between us and the sexual Inquisition.” Any woman who votes for a Republican now has got it coming.

“Can I get an amen?” The name of the group is the Coat Hangers. Now, let’s hear it one time for the band. Goodnight, everybody!

Randy Haspel writes the blog Born-Again Hippies, where a version of this column first appeared.