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Sports Tiger Blue

Three Thoughts on Tiger Football

The Tiger penalties have to stop. Since the Oakland Raiders franchise was born (in 1960), no pro team has led its league (first the AFL, since 1970 the NFL) in penalties more than the “Silver-and-Black” made famous by outlaw owner Al Davis. While no other team has led the NFL as many as 10 times over the last 53 years, the Raiders have paced pro football in penalties no fewer than 15 times. Somehow, this is a lauded part of the franchise’s image for ferocity. If you wear Oakland Raiders colors, breaking the law is cool, and that translates to committing penalties on the field.

The Memphis Tigers are not the Oakland Raiders. They escaped last Saturday’s game against FCS foe UT-Martin with the help of two field-goal attempts off an upright and despite twelve penalties that cost the U of M 123 yards and a player (almost two). After eight games, the 2-6 Tigers “lead” (trail, really) all of FBS with more than 80 yards per game in penalties. And these infractions are costing the team wins. In the two-point loss at Middle Tennessee in September, Memphis surrendered 145 yards in penalties (called by the same crew that worked the UT-Martin game). In the 10-point loss at Houston, the Tigers were penalized for 86 yards (four lost fumbles didn’t help). And in the five-point loss to SMU last month, the Tigers were penalized for 110 yards. I’ll venture to say one of those games goes the Tigers’ way if the penalties had been cut in half.

It’s sloppy. And it’s an ugly reflection on a team being built on discipline by a still-new coaching regime. The penalties have to stop. Make the opponent beat you.

Brandon Hayes

• With every passing week, my favorite individual story of the season is that of Brandon Hayes. The senior tailback from White Station High School leads Memphis with 625 rushing yards and six touchdowns, two years after running for 556 yards — for the season — with Scottsdale Community College. Remember, Hayes walked on at Memphis as a freshman in 2010, only to lose that season to a broken foot. He returned to Memphis when Justin Fuente was hired before the 2012 season, and played without a scholarship until late October of his junior season. He led the Tigers with 576 rushing yards last year, surpassing 100 in each of the Tigers’ last two wins of the campaign.

Hayes has topped 100 yards in each of the Tigers’ two wins this season, meaning you can count on seeing a few carries by number-38 this Saturday at USF. Said Fuente at Monday’s press luncheon: “Brandon’s going to be our guy.” Hayes has a reasonable shot at a 1,000-yard season, which would place him in the top-15 in Tiger history. Better yet, he’s a nominee for the Burlsworth Trophy, given annually to the most outstanding college football player who began is career as a walk-on.

The Tigers have three realistic chances at winning their first American Athletic Conference game, the first this Saturday against USF in Tampa. The programs last met in the 2008 St. Petersburg Bowl, the Tigers’ last taste of postseason play. (The Bulls won what amounted to a home game, 41-14.) USF is dead last in the American in total offense (256.0 yards per game) and scoring (15.4 points). They’ve scored but 12 touchdowns in their eight games (third-lowest total in the country). But among common opponents, USF beat a Cincinnati team that handled the Tigers. Their other win came at UConn (13-10) five weeks ago. It’s not the Bulls’ offense that concerns Fuente, not based on his remarks Monday: “It’s going to be a rough game, the way they play defensively and the way we’re capable of playing defensively.” Sounds like one of those 16-13, who-plays-less-poorly kind of games. Keep the penalties down, boys.

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Blurb Books

From One Daughter of the White River to Another

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“Arkansas’ Gun Moll and the Prison Love Nest” is how Daring Detective described the story on the cover of its September 1935 issue. And no wonder that magazine picked up on the Helen Spence story. This is the young woman who caught the attention of The New York Times too. As its front-page headline on January 20, 1931, declared, “Girl Kills Alleged Slayer of Father in Court; Fires as Arkansas Jury Is About to Get Case.”

No two ways about it. That’s what happened. That’s what judge and jury and spectators saw: “river justice” in action. Helen, who grew up on Arkansas’ White River, was just 17. But her story hardly stopped with that courtroom gunshot.

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While awaiting trial for first-degree murder, Helen was in the custody of the county sheriff and his wife, and she waitressed at a restaurant in DeWitt until she put a stop to the unwelcome advances of the restaurant’s manager, Jim Bohots. One night, she shot him too. But that case was never fully investigated. No charges were filed. Bohots was widely hated in the area. Again according to “river justice,” he probably needed killing.

But Helen still needed sentencing for the murder of her father’s killer, and she got it: two years in the women’s prison near Jacksonville after she pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

A few months later, she was granted parole and moved to Little Rock, which is where she walked into a police station and admitted to killing Bohots, because the incident had “preyed on her mind.” With that confession, Helen’s new sentence was 10 years’ hard labor at the Jacksonville women’s prison (aka the “Pea Farm”), with these words of advice from the judge: that Helen “stay out of trouble” after serving her time.

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Helen didn’t stay out of trouble. She got into more of it while serving time. She escaped the prison by simply climbing a fence. Three hours later, she was captured and, in punishment, according to reports, flogged. Then she escaped again, was caught the following day, and put to work in the prison laundry. That’s where Helen used the checkerboard cloth napkins she was cleaning to sew herself a new dress, with her future in mind.

Word among the female prisoners was that they were to be bussed to Memphis and ordered to act there as prostitutes, but Helen had her own idea. She sewed the checkerboard dress to the lining of her prison garb, ducked into the West Memphis bus station bathroom, turned her clothing inside out, and, looking according to one witness like a “department store model,” made it almost to Brinkley before being recaptured. Back in prison, she got another 10 lashes. Helen was officially now the Pea Farm’s “most incorrigible, unmanageable prisoner.” And that’s not all.

She was soon to be a patient at Arkansas’ State Hospital for Nervous Diseases, where in December 1933 her diagnosis read: “constitutional psychopathic inferiority, without psychosis.” That hospital stay, however, didn’t last long. Helen was moved back to the Pea Farm, where she was separated from other inmates and locked inside a wooden cage, under these orders from the superintendent: “Be sure that you do not let her have any matches in the cell for I do not want her to burn it up.”

Helen never did get hold of any matches, but she did escape prison — again — after being assigned to work in the facility’s strawberry patch. And again she climbed a prison fence. But the next day, a posse caught up with her on a dirt road, a shotgun was fired, and a bullet pierced the back of Helen’s head. The next morning’s headline, all caps, on the front page of the state’s leading newspaper: “NOTORIOUS GIRL FUGITIVE KILLED BY TRUSTY GUARD.”

That guard was later charged with murder (but eventually acquitted), and prison officials were forced to resign. But Helen Spence got herself a fine funeral, where crowds paid their final respects — none more respectful than a friend who remembered Helen as “more sweet and refined than many a girl who is raised like a queen.”

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And she wasn’t raised like a queen. Helen Spence — kind and loyal to family and friends but born with real spunk and a spirit of adventure — grew up on a pontoon-style houseboat on the White River, which is why Denise White Parkinson has titled her book on the life and death of Helen Spence Daughter of the White River: Depression-Era Treachery & Vengeance in the Arkansas Delta (The History Press).

Parkinson, a freelance writer in Hot Springs and onetime staff member at the Memphis Flyer, knows the territory well. She spent summers growing up at her family’s converted houseboat/cabin near the White River. And to write this story, she’s worked with someone who remembers the girlhood of Helen Spence very well: L.C. Brown Jr. But Daughter of the White River is more than one woman’s story. Parkinson vividly recreates what it was like to live on the White before construction of the Bull Shoals Dam moved residents off the river for good.

It was a way of life that included “brush-arbor” worship services, mussel divers, and molasses makers. It was the era of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano in Hot Springs and manhunts for Bonnie and Clyde and the Ma Barker Gang. Most memorably, Parkinson evokes the natural beauty of the White River itself. But more importantly, she’s given Helen Spence, daughter of the river, a sympathetic hearing — something in its pulp version of events Daring Detective did not. •
Denise White Parkinson will be discussing and signing Daughter of the White River at Burke’s Book Store on Thursday, November 14th, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. For more information, call the store at 278-7484.

Categories
News

Moon Taxi at Minglewood

Nashville’s Moon Taxi plays Minglewood Wednesday. Joe Boone has a nice video teaser.

Categories
News

Local Fund Drive to Help the Phillipines

Louis Goggans reports on efforts by the UT Health Science Center to raise funds to help victims of Hurricane Haiyan in the Phillipines.

Categories
Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Sound Advice: Moon Taxi/Agori Tribe @ Minglewood Wednesday

Moon Taxi shot their whole dang video on iPhones. They’re from Nashville, but you wouldn’t know it.

Agori Tribe: funk with a touch of Pink Floyd.

Categories
Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Sound Advice: The March Divide at P&H Tuesday

The March Divide comes to P&H. According to this song, they’re still analog. There’s a person named Shannon who really should try to make it to the show. So should you.

Categories
Calling the Bluff Music

UTHSC Holding Fund Drives To Benefit Typhoon Haiyan Victims

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  • yahoo.com

On November 8th, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most devastating storms in history, claimed the lives of at least 2,000 people in the Philippines.

Nearly 2,000 bodies have been counted by officials thus far, but there are potentially thousands more who haven’t been found due to the heavy debris scattered throughout the island. According to the Philippine government, more than two million people need food aid — nearly 300,000 of them are estimated to be pregnant women or new mothers.

Touched by the catastrophe, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) will be raising money to aid the victims of Typhoon Haiyan. On Wednesday, November 13th, UTHSC will have two on-campus fund drives. The first fund drive will take place from 9 to 11 a.m. in the lobby of the General Education Building (8 South Dunlap). The second one will occur from noon to 3 p.m. in the lobby of the 930 Madison Plaza Building.

All of the money raised will go to the American Red Cross for Typhoon Haiyan relief. All checks should be made payable to the American Red Cross with “Pacific Typhoon Relief” written in the subject line.

“These two fundraisers are being held in two different campus locations in Memphis to give our faculty, staff and students the opportunity to more easily donate to this important relief,” said Ken Brown, executive vice chancellor and chief operations officer for UTHSC. “Our institution held exactly the same type of relief efforts in 2010 after the earthquake in Haiti and the flooding in Pakistan. People who are committed to health care have a strong desire to serve others, especially when the suffering is so great. It doesn’t matter that the typhoon victims are a world away. We want to reach out to support them in whatever ways we can as quickly as we can.”

Aside from UTHSC students, faculty, and staff, the institution encourages the community to participate in either of the two fund drives (or both) to contribute funds that will help countless lives affected by Typhoon Haiyan.

For additional information on how to participate or contribute, contact (901) 448-1164 or email phouston@uthsc.edu.

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Categories
News News Blog

Gun Found In a Student’s Backpack at Overton High

A gun was detected in the backpack of an Overton High School student this morning as the 15-year-old boy passed through the school’s metal detectors.

A .25-caliber RG26 handgun was retrieved from the backpack. It was not loaded, but the backpack also contained a magazine with five live rounds.

Shelby County Sheriff’s officers were called to the scene. They arrested the student and charged him with possession of a weapon on school property. He was transported to Shelby County Juvenile Court.

A .25-caliber RG25 handgun

  • A .25-caliber RG25 handgun
Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Concerns Arise as Gate to Evil Dimension Opens on Madison Avenue Bike Lane

Lykraalith the Plague-Bringer announces his companys imminent relocation to the site of Overton Squares old French Quarter Inn

  • Lykraalith the Plague-Bringer announces his company’s imminent relocation to the site of Overton Square’s old French Quarter Inn

Midtown — Business owners along Madison Avenue expressed concern as an inter-dimensional portal to The Ninth Level of Xibalba, an underworld of eternal damnation and chaos, erupted along the Madison Avenue bicycle lane today, spewing forth hell-demons and the resurrection of Lykraalith, god of destruction.

“I told ya’ll didn’t I?” quipped Dee Bunker, a bar owner on Madison and staunch opponent of the bicycle lanes. “I knew it was fishy how they pushed this on us and when they came to re-stripe the roads and started to bury crystal skulls in front of my bar, I knew they were up to no good.”

Ms. Bunker is one of many who tried to prevent the installation of the bike lanes but eventually caved due to the overwhelming support for a more bicycle and pedestrian friendly area. “I can say goodbye to my property value now. Who’s gonna come grab a drink when there’s a 900 pound Three-Headed Dog sleeping in front of my place?” exclaimed Ms. Bunker. She then attempted to shoo away the beast but was unfortunately engulfed and devoured by swarms of thousands upon thousands of Fire Spiders.

City of Memphis representative Red Taype released the following statement today at a press conference:

“We all knew there would be some bumps in the road getting bicycle lanes to become a popular addition to our thriving city. Whether it is enacting traffic laws, increasing awareness of greener transportation options, or bringing forth the end times through enchanted seances and summoning our true overlord of evil, Lykraalith, King of Vile and Death, cursed be the unbelievers’ souls, may He rule us mortal servants for eternity.”

City Councilman Phil Landers unveiled a bill today that would return Lykraalith and his minions back to their underworld home but it would require a taxation and licensing fee for all cyclists in Memphis and Shelby County for a thousand millenia. It is predicted that the bill does not have the support needed in the council to pass at this time.

However, not everyone sees the negative side to the impending demonic doom. Rex Carrs, an avid cyclist and long-time Memphian, likes the new look for Madison Avenue.
“I tell you what,” he says proudly. “Overton Square is really starting to look more and more like it did in its heyday.”

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Edward Valibus is a distinguished archduke of Lithuania currently residing in Memphis, TN. He spends his days frittering away his wealth making independent cinema with his production team Corduroy Wednesday. He holds the current world record for eating the most pudding cups in one hour and is a special contributor to Fly on the Wall

Categories
Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Local Video Blowout! Jimbo and Drake

It’s like an Antenna club music video night up in this town. New music videos are everywhere.

Drake shot his “Worst Behavior” video in Memphis partly at Royal Studios. The video is shot in parts. The first is a session at Royal Studios, where Drake’s Memphian father, Dennis Graham sings an R&B/blues number before the camera cuts to Drake. A second interlude with a wanna-be rapper played by OB O’Brien cuts to the quick of why I struggle to write about hip-hop. It’s hilarious and sad at the same time. Juicy J and Project Pat are hilarious. Lots of Memphis cameos.

Drake ~ Worst Behavior from OctobersVeryOwn on Vimeo.

Also on the video vanguard is Mississippian by way of Chapel Hill Jimbo Mathus. His outlaw-on-the-run concept for “Tennessee Walker Mare” includes animated sequences and some hanging out on the bridge over the Little Tallahatchie on Highway 7 between Holly Springs and Oxford. Mathus’ next album Dark Night of the Soul is due out in February.