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News The Fly-By

Break the News

Andre Ervin, a homeless vendor of Memphis’ street newspaper The Bridge, was arrested while selling copies of the paper. His charge? Obstructing a highway.

Ervin sells copies of The Bridge, which is written and edited by a team of homeless people and Rhodes College students, at the corner of Sam Cooper and Highland daily. He was there selling the paper on October 28th when a Memphis police officer arrested him. His court date is set for December 2nd.

“Andre sells there day in and day out. He’s one of our top salesmen,” said James Ekenstedt, a Rhodes student who serves as co-director of The Bridge. “He tells me that nine out 10 cops see him and they don’t care, but one cop told him, if I see you here again, I’m going to arrest you.”

Ervin could not be contacted for this story, but Ekenstedt believes the charges against Ervin are unfounded. Although Ervin is the only vendor to have been arrested for selling the paper, several other vendors have reported police harassment on the job.

“We’ve had four or five instances of people coming to us and expressing that harassment has occurred,” Ekenstedt said.

Vendor Toni Whitfield was kicked out of an area around Poplar and Dunlap while selling the paper, but she didn’t argue: “A police officer asked me to move on, and I just did that.”

“Police are claiming they’re doing business without a license, but as long as your annual income for your business is $3,000 or less, then you don’t need a license to do business in Shelby County,” Ekenstedt said. “Our vendors would fall into that category because no one has fallen over $3,000 annually yet.”

The Tennessee Business Tax Act exempts businesses that gross less than $3,000 annually from being required to have a business license. The Bridge vendors are independent contractors, so each person runs their own business. Vendors purchase copies of the newspaper for 25 cents each and sell them on the street for $1 per issue. Vendors keep all of their profits.

When Ervin was arrested, his family, which depends on him to pay for their hotel room each night with his earnings from that day’s sales, was left on their own.

“His family called that evening wondering where he was. We found out he was in jail. As a company, we covered the cost of the hotel room since he was arrested for selling the paper,” Ekenstedt said.

A representative of The Bridge and several members of H.O.P.E. (Homeless Organizing for Power and Equality) met with Colonel Russell Houston at the MPD’s Crump Station last week to discuss relations between officers and the city’s homeless. H.O.P.E. members suggested sensitivity training for officers. MPD spokesperson Karen Rudolph said the office is reviewing the proposal for training.

“On occasions, officers will deem it necessary to address a newspaper vendor due to potential hazards or ordinance violations,” Rudolph said. “It is our duty to ensure the safety of both the vendors and patrons. If an officer witnesses or responds to a complaint concerning violations such as obstructing a highway or passageway, it is their duty to respond.”

Ekenstedt said not all police interactions with vendors have been negative, however.

“One of our vendors used to sell near the downtown precinct. They would buy papers from him, and they supported him,” Ekenstedt said.

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News The Fly-By

Fly On The Wall

Getting High

Michael and Spencer Stoner have started a “soft wash” service (whatever that is) and given it the best name in the history of Stoner-owned soft-wash services: “Two Stoners on a Roof.” These signs depicting said Stoners and what appears to be a giant truck-shaped hookah, can be seen on Walnut Grove and list a variety of Stoner-certified soft-wash options. Although there’s no mention of rates, we kind of hope these guys charge time-and-a-half after 4:20.

Cool Things

With fewer and fewer employment opportunities for political cartoonists, lots of eyes are on Matt Bors, a 29-year-old artist who is determined to redefine the field. So what’s next for the 2012 Pulitzer finalist and pioneer of graphic nonfiction war coverage? In a recent interview with Time magazine, Bors said he would be covering the lengthy protest of Jacqueline Smith, the last resident of Memphis’ Lorraine Motel, who was evicted prior to the site’s transformation into the National Civil Rights Museum.

Verbatim

Singer/actor/comedian Justin Timberlake is the cover boy for GQ‘s annual “Man of the Year” issue. In his interview with the fashion magazine, Timberlake criticized his hometown and in the same breath demonstrated why he couldn’t be from anywhere else: “It’s a struggling city with a defeatist attitude. I’m from this town, and I grew up with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, so sometimes I find it funny that I’ve been able to acquire the patience it takes to be kind to people in our business. Because sometimes I just want to [expletive] kill everybody.”

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News The Fly-By

Q&A with Kyle Kordsmeier

Last month, 226 workers at Kellogg’s were “locked out” after negotiations with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ International Union fell through. Those workers remain locked out as of press time.

At issue is a disagreement between the union, which has claimed that Kellogg’s has failed to protect employees’ wages and benefits and plans to pay future hires less than above-market wages, and Kellogg’s, which wants to bring in temporary workers.

Organizers at the Workers Interfaith Network have been fighting for workers’ rights in Memphis since 2002, and their latest campaign is bringing to light the issue faced by workers locked out of the Memphis Kellogg’s plant. The group held a candlelight vigil outside the Kellogg’s plant near Airways last week.

Memphis Flyer: Why are workers’ rights so important?

Kyle Kordsmeier: Workers’ rights gave us the weekend, the eight-hour workday, and, ultimately, it’s our livelihood. When people work and they’re not paid, they can’t go on living the best part of their life, which is at home. They have to worry about bills. They have to worry about making ends meet. Workers’ rights and workers’ justice are more important now than ever. We’ve only got two investigators for all of West Tennessee — so one for every 180,000 workplaces.

Is the situation at Kellogg’s a reflection of the labor market in Memphis now?

It’s experiencing resurgence now because of companies like Kellogg’s who are trying to bring poverty/minimum-wage jobs to Memphis after employing people at a high level for so many years. Now they’re saying they’re going to join the race to the bottom and try to make us pick up the tab by paying workers so little, they have to get on government assistance. I think we’re seeing a resurgence of people who are sick and tired of being sick and tired.

What are the biggest issues in the Kellogg’s campaign?

The workers have a contract that said that they would allow 30 percent of the workforce to be temporary or part-time and not receive benefits. However, the company wants to make all of these plants 100 percent temporary workers or poverty-wage workers. That’s just something the union is not going to negotiate. Kellogg’s locked them out, and they’re trying to replace them with poverty workers.

How did the candlelight vigil go?

It started off with 300 people. It kept getting bigger up to about 450. It was a rejuvenating experience because no one in Memphis expected that many people to come out and support the workers.

Kellogg’s is trying to put these people on the street. They’re a company that made $14.2 billion last year. They have the audacity to ask us for a tax break and pick up the tab for their poverty-wage jobs that they’re trying to replace these workers with.

What kind of Memphis do you see when you work with Workers Interfaith Network?

I see a community that’s dedicated to standing up against injustice. I think we’ve always been a point of leverage in the state for labor rights and workers’ rights. To see the state government take us on and make laws just for our city, it’s very telling that they are in the hands of corporations. We have to stand up on the grassroots level. We have to seek justice in our individual workplaces.

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News The Fly-By

What They Said

MemphisFlyer.com

Greg Cravens

From “Family Dollar Airlines Expands Catapult Services To Include Memphis International Airport,” a parody piece about a new low-cost airline that will use catapults instead of planes: “Technically, this is feasible. With modern computers, you could easily calculate the correct trajectory and force needed to reach your destination. All you’d need is a really big net at the other end. Of course, the G-forces of takeoff might be hazardous or even deadly, but hey, we don’t call it Adventure Travel for nothing.” — Jeff

From “Midtown Nursery To Fight Food Truck Plan,” about an existing business being asked to move to make way for a food truck court:

“As a longtime food trucker, I will tell you this IS NOT COOL. We will NOT be participating in this ill-planned endeavor.”

foody

From “Memphis Actors Warned About Possible Talent Scam,” a story about an event promising to connect actors with talent scouts for a $650 fee:

‘”Don’t pay to audition, don’t audition in a private residence, and don’t take off your clothes at an audition,’ used to appear in every issue of Backstage magazine with the audition notices.” — RonGephart

Tweets

Tweet about the Flyer‘s new Grizzlies writer, Kevin Lipe:

“I have to admit, was worried @MemphisFlyer wouldn’t find suitable replacement for @HerringtonNBA but @FlyerGrizBlog has been phenomenal too.” — Cullen @Cullen4

Facebook

From a post linking to the “The Hamp,” last week’s cover story on good things happening in Binghampton:

“Great article! I love the area and the spirit of the people who are moving IN instead of abandoning the city. #choose901” — Monique Fisher

Categories
News The Fly-By

More Gas, Less Cash

Although prices for conventional petroleum gas have begun to fall over the last few weeks, there’s an even less expensive alternative for fueling one’s vehicle.

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), made from methane stored at a high pressure, is currently $1.57 per gallon at the city’s first public CNG station, which Memphis Light, Gas & Water opened this past July. That’s about half the cost of conventional gas and more than half the price of diesel per gallon.

The station is located at MLGW’s service center (1180 Tupelo) in North Memphis.

“If you go back to what our mission statement is as a company, it’s to improve the quality of life of the people we serve,” said Michael Taylor of MLGW’s CNG sales division. “If we can make a fuel available to the community and to businesses that’s half the cost of gasoline and diesel, we feel like that’s our responsibility to do that.”

According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuel Data Center website, CNG powers about 112,000 vehicles in the United States and roughly 14.8 million vehicles worldwide. CNG vehicles provide environmental benefits such as reduced pollution and lower levels of emissions. Some new vehicles are already designed to take CNG, but older models must be converted to use the fuel.

Current CNG-compatible vehicles on the market include the Honda Civic, the Chevrolet Silverado 2500, the Dodge Ram 2500, and the Ford F-250 pickup. Certain CNG pickup trucks come with a bi-fuel option, which means they can operate on either regular gas or natural gas. A new natural-gas vehicle costs several thousand dollars more than a conventional gas vehicle.

Taylor said a person could modify their conventional gas vehicle to run on natural gas for around $9,000.

“The ones who really can benefit right away are those really high fuel users like garbage trucks, transit vehicles, and large trucks,” Taylor said. “A lot of those vehicles only get four to five miles a gallon, so when they can save $1.50 a gallon, the savings rack up.”

Although MLGW introduced its first CNG station to the public in July, Ray Ward said the company has been using natural-gas-dependent company vehicles for years. Ward said more than 300 people filled up at MLGW’s CNG station in October.

“We have a lot of transient people. There are [CNG] facilities in Nashville and Little Rock, so they come here to fill up on their travels,” Ward said. “And there are some people here in town who fill up too.”

Heather Taylor owns a Honda Civic that is CNG-dependent. She said the only difference in driving a CNG vehicle versus a conventional gas vehicle is the price she pays at the pump.

“I used to drive a minivan that was getting about 18 miles a gallon, and it was costing me $3 or more per gallon to fill it,” Heather said. “Now I drive [a Civic], and I get between 30 and 35 miles per gallon. And the last time I filled up, it cost me $8.”

According to the Alternative Fuel Data Center website, there are about 1,000 natural gas fueling stations across the U.S., but fewer than 600 are available for public use.

MLGW aspires to have its next CNG station open to the public in mid-2014. The station would be located at MLGW’s south service center. MLGW plans to eventually have CNG stations available at all of its service centers.

Categories
Cover Feature News

For the Kids

A sales-tax increase in Memphis could raise millions every year to fund a program of pre-kindergarten education that supporters say could help break the chain of crime and poverty here, but first it’s got to fly with tax-weary voters.

Memphians will decide next Thursday, November 21st, if they want to raise the city’s sales tax by a half-cent. The idea is one of only two ballot measures before city voters that day. (The other vote will determine who will fill the state House District 91 seat, left vacant by the death of former state representative Lois DeBerry in July, and will be limited to voters in that district.)

If the increase is approved, the Memphis sales-tax rate will rise to 9.75 percent, the highest rate allowable in Tennessee by state law. The resulting new sales-tax rate would be equal to those of the six incorporated Memphis suburbs, which have already passed equivalently sized tax-increase referenda in order to pay for new school systems.

Some things would not change. If approved, 7 percent of each sale made in Memphis will be routed directly to the state coffers, and 2.25 percent will continue to go to the city, as before.

But the new tax, that additional one-half cent, is expected to raise $47 million annually, all of which would go to a new fund to be used only for a pre-kindergarten program. Once the program is up and running, any money left over from operations would revert to the city coffers for the sole purpose of reducing the city’s property-tax rate. Leak-proof escrow funds (or “lock-boxes,” in the sense made famous by presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000) would be created to fulfill both purposes.

The pre-K initiative is the brainchild of two Memphis City Council members —Jim Strickland, a six-year member, a two-time budget chair, and the body’s new chairman, and council colleague Shea Flinn, a former budget chair.

Shea Flinn

Strickland boasts a long personal history of fighting tax increases in city government but says he has supported the new sales-tax increase and co-sponsored the enabling ordinance for it because the use of the money is strictly defined in the ordinance so that it can’t be tapped for other city budget needs.

Beyond the arithmetic is the simple rock-bottom fact that many city schoolchildren aren’t performing like they should be.

“If I was a magician and I could do anything I wanted in Memphis, I would wave the wand and every third-grader would read at third-grade level, 100 percent,” Strickland said. “Pre-K is not going to make 100 percent of the kids read at third-grade level, but only 28 percent of them read at third-grade level now in the former city schools.”

There are conflicting studies on the long-term effects of pre-K, a few skeptical ones appearing to suggest that the differential boost in learning provided by pre-K might begin to even out after students pass the third-grade level. Strickland discounts this and says that it stands to reason that the ability to read at a third-grade level is a skill which, once acquired, is far more enabling for future purposes than reading skills that never reach that level.

The Urban Child Institute, a local nonprofit organization which has done yeoman-like research into the issue and is four-square in support of the tax referendum, recently quoted a teacher with experience in pre-K: “It’s very polarized in the classroom, between the ‘ready’ and the ‘not ready’ group. Those who are kindergarten-ready are on a whole different level than the kids who still need to know the basics, like letter names and numbers.”

The new pre-K program would be available for every 4-year-old in Memphis. Strickland said nearly 8,000 children in Memphis would be eligible for the program but estimated that only 5,000 of them would actually become new participants, as some are already in existing programs and others might not seek enrollment for one reason or another.

For example, an estimated 3,300 children are already being served locally in federally funded Head Start programs. Head Start, as both Strickland and co-sponsor Flinn acknowledge, overlaps somewhat with their proposed pre-K initiative and establishes a means-tested income threshold based on the poverty-line indices.

But even in the unforeseen event of 100 percent participation — 8,000 children — Strickland says the new sales-tax rate would generate enough money for all eligible children to go to pre-K.

As it happens, the current Head Start program is in flux, with Shelby County government, which has operated it locally for several years (mainly by outsourcing it to various agencies), discontinuing its administrative role. The unified Shelby County School District has applied to the federal government to take over that function in Shelby County, as has Porter-Leath, a privately funded nonprofit institute specializing in child care.

In any case, the proposed city pre-K initiative is designed to fill gaps in coverage which Head Start cannot fill — for example, to offer programs to children from families whose income exceeds poverty-line levels but cannot afford the tuition required by private pre-kindergarten institutions.

The exact number of pre-K children who might need to be served in the next few years is complicated by two more factors, Flinn points out: the cumulative effect of federal sequestration on previously endowed programs and the phasing out of Race to the Top funding in 2015.

Jim Strickland

Flinn said he and Strickland, who hatched the idea for the pre-K issue and were successful in gaining the support for it of their colleagues and Mayor A C Wharton, consulted numerous sources in coming up with their initiative. They relied on the formidable pre-K research of the aforementioned Urban Child Institute. Said Flinn: “They investigated every aspect of the matter and left no doubt of the lasting value of pre-K.” They also independently looked into model programs in Texas and Oklahoma.

“We talked directly with Mayor [Julian] Castro of San Antonio and others who had programs under way,” Flinn said. Castro, a rising political star who delivered the keynote address at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, has achieved national renown for his “Pre-K 4 S.A.” initiative.

Flinn acknowledges that “the default position” of a tax referendum is no, but, noting the yes votes of the six Shelby County suburbs — Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Arlington, Lakeland, and Millington — for a tax increase to underwrite their school systems, he expresses confidence in a similar answer when the ballots of Memphis voters are counted on November 21st.

One aid to passage has been a blue-ribbon pre-K commission appointed by Mayor Wharton [see list below] to help in the referendum campaign and, if successful, to oversee the distribution of pre-K franchises among local agencies, existing and ad hoc, which will bid for the opportunity to execute the program.

More help has come in the form of print ads, mailouts, broadcast commercials, and fast-proliferating yard signs stemming from a well-organized publicity campaign overseen by public relations maven Steven Reid. The Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce has put significant money into the campaign, as have other prominent local givers such as AutoZone’s J.R. “Pitt” Hyde.

There are opponents, too, of course, including veteran self-appointed fiscal watchdog Joe Saino of memphishelbyinform.com, who expressed doubts about the bona fides of the pre-K commission appointed by Wharton. “Do you trust such a commission?” Saino asked in his emailed newsletter, going on to express, without elaborating, his disbelief in the long-term benefits of pre-K, as well.

Saino’s pièce de résistance: “There should be no new taxes until the city of Memphis and the city council reform pensions and health care costs and get on a path to reduce unfunded liability as pointed out by the state of Tennessee.”

Co-sponsors Strickland and Flinn know they’re up against the usual suspects and the usual suspicion when a tax referendum is before the people (a Shelby County half-cent tax initiative failed badly last year), but they’re optimistic that this time is different and that help will soon be on the way for their intended beneficiaries, the children of Memphis.

MEMBERS OF THE PRE-K COMMISSION


Appointees named by Mayor A C Wharton are: the Rev. Keith Norman, pastor of First Baptist Broad Ave. and president of the local NAACP chapter; Brad Martin, well-known industrialist/philanthropist and interim president of the University of Memphis; Barbara Hyde, chair and president of the philanthropic Hyde Foundation; Barbara Holden Nixon, associate of the Urban Child Institute and member of the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth; Elsie Lewis Bailey, former principal of Booker T. Washington High School and awardee of the National Foundation for the Humanities; Kathy Buckman Gibson, chair of the board of Buckman International and of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce’s initiative to promote and support early childhood education; Kirk Whalum, president and CEO of Stax Music Academy; and Dr. Reginald Coopwood, president and CEO of the Regional Medical Center at Memphis.



CENTRIST STRICKLAND IS POTENTIAL MAYORAL CANDIDATE

It may come as a surprise to many people that new city council chairman Jim Strickland, a practicing attorney who has crusaded in recent years for economy in city government, along with reduction in property taxes and cutbacks in “non-essential” programs, is not a Republican. The 48-year-old Strickland certainly is simpatico to the habitués of the monthly Dutch Treat Luncheon, that haven of local Tea Party-hood, which Strickland addressed last summer to enthusiastic approval and to urgings that he run for mayor in 2014.

The genial giant (he stands 6′ 5″) needs little persuasion to seek the job of Memphis’ chief executive. A family man who resides with wife Melyne and two children in the University of Memphis area, Strickland has been meditating on a mayoral race for years — probably since his first city council race in 2003 — and in earnest since he won his current seat, representing District 5, in 2007.

A loser in his first council campaign (to former state legislator Carol Chumney in a field that also included radiologist/broadcast magnate George Flinn), he won the second time and was reelected in 2011 without opposition. His gospel of fiscal conservatism and social moderation seems clearly to resonate with his broadly middle-class, Midtown-based constituency.

Strickland is, in fact, a Democrat, having served a term in the mid-1990s as chair of the Shelby County Democratic Party. Back then, even before he emerged as an apostle of fiscal conservatism, his pro-life position on abortion, stemming in large part from his active Catholic faith, had caused him some grief in a Democratic Party teeming with pro-choice advocates, but he has remained loyal to the party and its candidates.  

As he expressed it cautiously this week, invoking the names of Tennessee’s most recent Democratic governors, both centrists, “Like Ned McWherter and Phil Bredesen, I am a fiscally responsible Democrat. Local issues and city elections, however, are not partisan. In my last two elections, I have received support from Democrats and Republicans.”

Strickland has expanded his political reach in more ways than one. In his 2003 council race, the first-time candidate jested to friends, with reference to his fund-raising support, “I’ve got the Catholics and the Jews. Now all I need is the Protestants.” The demographics of his electoral and financial base in his next two races indicate that he got them — and in quantity.

From the point of view of his future political ambitions, the question is whether Strickland can expand his across-the-board base to the city’s majority African-American population. Ninth District Democratic congressman Steve Cohen, beginning with a geographic and ethnic base similar to Strickland’s, seems clearly to have won the loyalty of his black constituents, winning over name African-American primary opponents with majorities ranging from 4 to 1 to 8 to 1.

But Cohen’s template, based in large part on the congressman’s attention to social programs of benefit to his African-American constituents, may not be the model for someone like Strickland, who hews closely to doctrines of fiscal austerity and has been a skeptic regarding proposals to provide pensions to sanitation workers and to lavish city funds on refurbishing Whitehaven’s Southbrook Mall.

Meanwhile, Strickland has passed muster with his council mates well enough to win the chairmanship, as of last week. His basic middle-of-the-road outlook seems an acceptable fit on a body which is elected on a nonpartisan basis. Even his professional life is politically ecumenical. His law partner is David Kustoff, the former U.S. attorney and state chairman of George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign. (Strickland and Kustoff, before becoming law partners, had both served as chairs of their respective political parties.)

Strickland’s current posture as co-sponsor of the city sales-tax referendum might surprise those who have followed his recent career, especially those mindful of his boast earlier this year that he had never supported a tax increase or voted for one.

His justification for what might in some ways seem an about-face is simple: The sales-tax increase is coupled with a commitment for a corresponding reduction in the city’s property-tax rate, and the cause of pre-K education is something he believes in. “I enrolled my children in pre-K programs, and I can see with my own eyes the benefits,” he says.

If the referendum succeeds and there are political benefits to him as well, he’ll happily take them, too. — Jackson Baker


Q&A WITH NEW CITY COUNCIL CHAIRMAN STRICKLAND

Why did you want the council chairman job?

The position itself does not have a lot of authority or power. It’s not like Washington or the state government in Nashville, where the speaker of the House or speaker of the Senate has a lot of authority. Chairman of the council does not. So, [that part of the job] is not that enticing.

The chairman can appoint who is chairman of each committee, and the chairman can appoint the members of the committees. If [a law] could fail in committee, that would be pretty powerful because you could load up a committee, and things could be killed there. That’s what they do in Nashville and Washington. But we don’t have that authority, so the chairman basically runs meetings and administers the office, because there is a staff of 14 or 15 people.

I wanted to do it because it’s a new experience. I think I’ll learn a lot. I’ll be exposed to a lot more information that’s going on in all the committees as opposed to just one committee.

 

What do you hope to change?

The thing I want to change a little bit is to try to get the good things that the council does out more. We get knocked a lot. But there are a lot of good things we do that don’t get out there. I still have disagreements on the council, and I’m not going to back off those. But I am proud to be a member on the city council. When I tell people that, they’re a little surprised.

I’m not going to be able to change that completely. But I think the full story is that we’ve got a group of people — for the most part — who are honorable and in it for the right reasons. Even if we have differing views on things, we handle it professionally. They don’t get the credit they deserve for some things they do.

 

What other chairman privileges do you intend to use?

I think [current council chairman Edmund Ford Jr.] has had weekly or bi-weekly meetings with the mayor. When big things come up, the first person they call is the chair and they leave it to the chair to sort of disseminate the information.

I think I’ll deal more with the administration and directly with the mayor. I think I’ll learn and be exposed to a lot more information and deal with a lot broader issues than just the budget.

 

Will you also be able to direct the tone of the proceedings?

I think so, because you can rule people out of order. You can also make rulings and they stick, unless seven members of the council want to overrule your ruling.

I would like to emphasize that to the entire council for next year. I think Edmund has started this process with the three-member [rules and procedures] committee he started, that we treat people who come before the council, whether they are the public or people who work for city government, with courtesy and respect and not threaten them.

 

Do you have any other goals for your year as chairman?

If the pre-K [trust-fund tax] gets passed, I want to help get that kicked off in the right way. Next fall, kids will be going to pre-K and that is huge. In my mind, it would be the most significant thing this council has done.

Another thing I’d like to do as chairman is to have the council as a whole develop a relationship with the county commission, the state legislature, and even the other municipalities. We don’t interact enough. A lot of times shots are fired back and forth. I think we ought to communicate more. — Toby Sells

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Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Urban Legend

For years, Craig Brewer’s The Poor & Hungry has held the title as the most famous least-seen movie in Memphis history. After years of production in Memphis, with a modest $20,000 budget, The Poor & Hungry was released in 2000 to much fanfare, including winning Best Digital Feature at the Hollywood Film Festival. It was a triumph of personal filmmaking for Brewer and the cast and crew.

But the “local indie film does good” story became a much more significant cultural touchstone when Brewer signed with John Singleton. The director of Boyz n the Hood and Shaft produced and financed Brewer’s followup, Hustle & Flow, based on the strength of The Poor & Hungry. And everybody knows what Hustle & Flow did: won Sundance, got a major theatrical release, and was nominated for two Academy Awards, winning one of them. Then there was another big release, Black Snake Moan, and then the biggest yet, a remake of Footloose.

It’s like an urban legend, but it happens to be true. And, because of the vagaries of the film industry, it means that most people haven’t seen the work that started it all, The Poor & Hungry. Apart from its initial release and festival tour, a few local screenings over the years, and a copy of the film that’s been M.I.A. from Black Lodge Video for years, The Poor & Hungry has been much more widely known by reputation than by viewings.

At last, that can change. Brewer, filmmaker Morgan Jon Fox, and producer Erin Hagee have spent a few years (about as long as it took to make the film in the first place) remastering and enhancing the film for its first release on DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital download. This week, The Poor & Hungry drops. It lives up to every bit of its mythology, like an untold origin story.

The Poor & Hungry is an out-of-circulation, missing link of Memphis filmmaking between Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train and Hustle & Flow. Filmed in black-and-white and depicting lives led on society’s margins, weeds growing up through the cracks in abandoned parking lots, The Poor & Hungry immerses itself in a gritty but realistic milieu. Watching it is like unearthing a time capsule: You’ll probably see some old friends and a few ghosts, including the since-scraped Butler Street Bazaar.

Lauren Rae Holtermann

Eric Tate stars as Eli, a thoughtful thief who procures cars for a chop shop run by the sinister Mr. Coles (John Still). Eli’s best friend is Harper (Lindsey Roberts), a hustler who’s never met a stranger, begging, grifting, cajoling, and otherwise earning every penny she can to get by. In the opposite of a meet cute, Eli spies Amanda (Lake Latimer): He’s stealing her car and peeping through her window as she plays her cello, oblivious to it all. One terrific chop-shop procedural montage later, Eli and Amanda encounter each other again at the police impound lot. They talk, and thus is a dramatic-romantic plot launched.

The Poor & Hungry is wonderful — and, maybe, because of the expectations, surprisingly so. First, the performances are all terrific. Tate is a quiet but engaging presence in the film. Listening to Amanda’s music, as he does in a few scenes, Eli’s eyes take on a kind of relaxed, joyful reverie. He’s convincing as a man who found something he didn’t know he was looking for. Brewer’s script gives his character ample meat, including a scene I love where he puts model cars together.

Roberts is fantastic but for all different reasons. Harper is a ball of fire, complicated and charming. You don’t believe her street patter but want to. Roberts’ performance is ecstatic, layered with energy properly wielded. “If there’s one thing I know about a Memphis stripper is they’ve got a warped sense of economics,” Harper says. In another scene, she hits the bathroom, peels a tampon, and uses the paper wrapper to roll a joint.

Latimer is the third, crucial leg of the ensemble, and it’s a heartfelt role. She has probably the most difficult assignment of the three leads: to appear the least complex and to slowly reveal who she is. Amanda has a fresh face like a John Hughes or other 1980s heroine: Molly Ringwald meets Ione Skye (and maybe a ’90s dash of Joey Lauren Adams). Amanda and Harper shares a scene at the P&H Cafe that’s reminiscent of the “50 eggs” sequence from Cool Hand Luke.

The Poor & Hungry was a true indie, starring a nonprofessional cast and shot guerrilla-style with a two-man crew — Brewer and his brother-in-law, Seth Hagee, credited as master technician — when everyone’s schedule allowed it. They filmed in real chop shops, massage parlors, and strip clubs. “Sometimes, Memphis can be dangerous,” says actor T.C. Sharpe (who plays a cowboy pimp) in the DVD extra Poor Man’s Process, a 27-minute making-of/retrospective doc. Brewer, Tate, Roberts, Latimer, the P&H’s Wanda Wilson, Hagee, Singleton, producer Stephanie Allain, and the P&H Cafe itself are at the fore in the documentary. Among the highlights are scenes from an aborted color version of the film, the origin of the film’s premise, reminiscences by Brewer on his father’s role in the film’s existence, and the scene that made and still makes Roberts cry.

You can buy The Poor & Hungry in several special packaging iterations, which, in addition to the film, including signed posters, a T-shirt that harkens back to the old P&H mural, a limited-edition silk-screened print (designed by Flyer graphic designer Lauren Rae Holtermann), and other goodies. You can also opt to get just a digital copy of the film for free download at thepoorandhungry.com.

“I really wanted the film’s rollout to be about love and friendship,” Brewer says. “The goal isn’t to make money. It’s for as many people to see The Poor & Hungry as possible.”

The Poor & Hungry

Now available


thepoorandhungry.com

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Jeff Sullivan’s Return

For those who like happy endings — or perhaps we should say “continuations” — to troubled stories, there’s the saga of Jeff Sullivan, a veteran political activist who, in the county election year of 2010, guided the successful election campaign for sheriff of then chief deputy Bill Oldham.

During the year or so after that, Sullivan served as a governmental liaison and spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office and was often seen, for example, in the dock of the county commission auditorium making the case for this or that piece of legislation desired by the department. His wife Maura Black Sullivan, meanwhile, was also working her way up the governmental ladder and currently holds the position of deputy CAO for the city of Memphis.

Jeff Sullivan’s career hit an unforeseen snag in the aftermath of a bizarre incident in Nashville, where he had gone on official Sheriff’s Department business.

Late one evening, Sullivan, who admits to having had a drink or two in the bar of his downtown hotel, thought he’d seen an unauthorized person, a hotel employee, leaving his room, as he ascended to his floor in the hotel’s glass-sided elevator. This was around 10 p.m., an odd time for a housekeeping mission, Sullivan thought.

Finding nothing amiss in his room, he nevertheless went downstairs and apprised the clerks at the front desk of his concern. “They didn’t seem to care,” Sullivan recalls. Later on, seeing the employee in the hotel garage, Sullivan voiced his suspicions to her, and the employee denied anything untoward. Sullivan shrugged and went upstairs.

An hour or two later, after he’d turned in, there was a knock on his door. He opened it to find the hotel night manager who told him, “You’ve got to leave.”

Puzzled but in no mood to argue, Sullivan dressed and got his belongings ready to move to an adjoining hotel, where he intended to check in. He moved his car from the original hotel’s parking garage to that of the adjoining hotel. As he was registering for the rest of the night, he was approached by Nashville police, who’d been tipped by a partisan of the employee whom Sullivan had suspected that Sullivan was inebriated, a fact Sullivan denied then and denies now.

The long and short of it was that Sullivan was booked and charged with DUI and with refusing to take a breathalyzer test. The situation was complicated enough that Sullivan was first suspended with pay from his sensitive job with the Sheriff’s Department, then, as he awaited trial, saw his duties transferred to another employee. He resumed some real estate work that he’d been doing beforehand, and that might have been that.

Except that, several months after the hotel incident, Sullivan’s trial came around, and he was exonerated. Period, end of story?

Not quite. As soon as another election season, that of 2014, began to loom on the horizon, Sheriff Oldham, who was as happy as Sullivan was about the not-guilty verdict in Nashville, decided he needed Sullivan’s help again and asked him to come aboard as campaign strategist for his reelection race next year.

So Sullivan is back doing what he likes doing best, and, in the course of getting back in the political saddle, he has acquired at least one more client, magistrate Dan Michael, who’s seeking to become Juvenile Court judge.

So it is that, as the holiday season approaches, the skies have cleared, the storm has lifted, and the planets are back in their orbit. For Jeff Sullivan, anyhow. Of course, he still has to worry about getting his guys elected.          

• Oldham is not the only incumbent who’ll be seeking reelection next year, of course, nor is he the only one making active preparations for his race. Juvenile Court clerk Joy Touliatos and District Attorney General Amy Weirich both had well-attended fund-raisers within the last week.

Touliatos’ was at Ciao Bella in East Memphis last Thursday, and Weirich’s was at the Pickering Center in Germantown on Sunday. Touliatos and Weirich are both Republicans.

 

• School board races, most of them uncontested and all of them drawing light turnouts, were concluded last Thursday in the six incorporated municipalities of suburban Shelby County that intend to operate independent school districts beginning in 2014.

In Germantown, focus of controversy these days because three of its schools are slated for use by the existing unified Shelby County Schools district, there was one contested race out of five. In that Position 1 encounter, Linda Fisher, with 1,094 votes, defeated opponents Paige Michael (877) and Edgar Babian (616). Other elected Germantown school board members were Mark Dely, Natalie Williams, Lisa L. Parker, and Ken Hoover.

Bartlett had two contested races — one for Position 2, in which Erin Elliott Berry (1,487 votes) won out over Alison Shores (415); and another for Position 5, won by David Cook (1,552) over Sharon L. Farley (365). Unopposed for the Bartlett School Board were Jeff Norris, Shirley K. Jackson, and Bryan Woodruff.

In Millington, there were three contested races — Cecilia Haley (306) defeating Oscar L. Brown (236) for Position 2; Jennifer Ray Carroll (394) winning out over Tom Stephens (113) for Position 6; and Donald K. Holsinger (289) besting Charles P. Reed (235) for Position 7.

Unopposed winners in Millington were Gregory Ritter, Chuck Hurt, Cody Childress, and Louise Kennon.

In Lakeland, the top five finishers of seven contenders become the board. They are: Kevin Floyd (642); Laura Harrison (639); Kelley Hale (610); Matt Wright (556); and Teresa Henry (475). Also running were: James Andrew Griffith (288) and Greg Pater (94).

Arlington, which plans to consolidate its school efforts with those of Lakeland, elected five board members without opposition. They are: Danny Young, Barbara Fletcher, Kevin Yates, Kay Morgan Williams, and Dale A. Viox.

Collierville also elected five board members without opposition. They are: Kevin Vaughan, Wanda Chism, Mark Hansen, Cathy Messerly, and Wright Cox.

• Radio talk-show host Michael Reagan regaled a packed Life Choices audience at the University of Memphis Holiday Inn on Central last Thursday night with stories about himself — and about his father, the late former President Ronald Reagan.

One tale he told concerned his father’s morning-after preoccupation in 1981 with the fate of the brown suit he had been wearing when he was shot by the would-be assassin John Hinckley — and the then president’s unusual suggestion as to how the Hinckley family might make amends.

Lamenting that his new brown suit had been cut away from his body and shredded at the hospital, the stricken president said he’d been told the Hinckley family had lucrative oil interests and wondered, “Do you think they’d ever buy me a new suit?”

The occasion, sponsored by the group’s Ladies’ Auxiliary, was a fund-raising dinner for the organization’s Pregnancy Help Medical Clinics. The clinic promotes adoption as an alternative to abortion and provides medical and counseling support toward that end.

Another affecting story told by Michael Reagan concerned the affectionate relationship he developed with the affable but famously remote president relatively late in his adoptive father’s life and how that relationship continued even into the final stages of Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s disease.

That story concluded with an account of how the former president, unable to speak and with his ability to recognize kith and kin long gone, still retained enough memory, as his son recalled, “to know that I was the man who gave him hugs” and, by taking “baby steps” toward the door and miming, insisted on one as Michael Reagan was leaving the Reagan household one day after a visit with step-mother Nancy Reagan.

The thrust of Michael Reagan’s remarks, in support of the host organization’s goal, was to emphasize that he, at least one sister, and both of Ronald Reagan’s wives, Jane Wyman and Nancy Davis Reagan, had been adopted children and were thus enabled to achieve productive lives. “We were a family put together by adoption,” as he put it.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

All is Lost: Ancient Mariner

Here’s Joseph Conrad in London, circa 1880: “All the tempestuous passions of mankind’s young days, the love of loot and the love of glory, the love of adventure and the love of danger, with the great love of the unknown and vast dreams of dominion and power, have passed like images reflected from a mirror, leaving no record upon the mysterious face of the sea. Impenetrable and heartless, the sea has given nothing of itself to the suitors for its precarious favors.”

Here’s Robert Redford adrift in the Indian Ocean, circa July 7, 2013: “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”

Aside from an opening-scene voiceover, that expressive expletive is one of the very few things Redford says during All Is Lost, writer-director J.C. Chandor’s grueling new maritime adventure. Chandor’s film documents the efforts of “Our Man” (Redford) to survive at sea after his 40-foot sailboat crashes into a large floating shipping container. It’s a surprisingly watchable, almost comically pure distillation of the conflict between man and nature.

Seriously, this is what the movie is about: Chandor puts an old man in the drink, sends a couple of storms his way, and watches what happens. Here’s what we see: He sleeps in a hammock over his waterlogged living quarters. He patches the hole in his boat’s hull. He downs a huge glass of whiskey once he finishes that job. He cooks dinner for himself. He tries to dry out his phone and radio. He prepares for a fierce tempest. He steers his ship amid sheets of rain. Over and over again, he replaces the wooden boards that protect him from the elements as he steps on deck and tries to steer his vessel.

He endures.

For the first hour, all of this is mysterious and engrossing. Chandor uses lots of hand-held camera work and sticks to ground- and ocean-level shots that pay off spectacularly when he slips in a between-the-legs shot of the boat from the top of the mast.

But when Chandor tries to get all significant and meaningful, he starts to lose his way. Thanks to a handful of God’s-eye point-of-view shots and a dollop of vaguely spiritual choral music, his straightforward survival tale threatens to become a religious allegory.

Yet, the religious angle doesn’t quite fit. If anything, the film is more successful and instructive as an allegory about the survival instincts of the very wealthy. Consider the film’s opening voiceover again, wherein Our Man is reading from a brief letter he’s written and stuffed into a bottle after eight days at sea. Over the course of a single paragraph, this unbelievably fit, trim, and hyper-knowledgeable alpha male, who radiates money, privilege, and grace under pressure, confesses his failings and wrongdoings. He says “I’m sorry” three times. Sorry for what, exactly? It’s not unreasonable to infer that something has put him out to sea. What, pray tell, is he hiding from?

Seen in this light, the question is not whether man is alone in the universe; it’s whether Robert Redford is too big — of a movie star, that is — to fail.

All Is Lost

Opens Friday, November 15th

Studio on the Square

Categories
News

The Pre-K Sales Tax Push

Jackson Baker and Toby Sells report on efforts by Shea Flinn, Jim Strickland, and others to pass a sales tax to fund pre-K education in Memphis.