Month: May 2014

Categories
Music Music Features

Morrissey Performs in Memphis

CREDIT: Michael Muller

It’s a good thing Morrissey’s people scheduled his first Memphis show for the end of May and not a few weeks earlier, when the city was reveling in smoked pork gluttony at the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.

Moz, a diehard animal rights activist and longtime vegan, has a history of refusing to play when he feels animals are being harmed or exploited. Well, frankly, he has a history of refusing to play for a lot of reasons.

Last year, he backed out of performing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! when he learned he’d be sharing the night’s billing with the stars of Duck Dynasty, whom the former Smiths frontman described as “animal serial killers.”

Also last year, he convinced the Staples Center in Los Angeles to close its McDonald’s stands and stop selling meat at its other concession booths (except in the upper concourse) for the duration of his show. He surely would have canceled that show had Staples not complied. You do what Morrissey asks you to do.

Just a couple weeks ago, he almost canceled another show because New York-based indie band We Are Scientists and Glasgow punk band PAWS were performing in an adjacent room at the Observatory in Santa Ana, California. He reportedly complained that the bands’ sound would bleed over into his show. PAWS posted on its Facebook page that Morrissey was a “rich, has-been, ego-maniac acting like a baby throwing toys from a pram.”

But unless the Orpheum starts peddling pulled pork sandwiches or schedules a band to play in the lobby (both highly unlikely), it’s assumed that the Morrissey show scheduled for May 27th will go on as planned. The singer is touring the U.S. in support of his new album, World Peace Is None of Your Business, which has an expected release date of July 15th.

According to Rolling Stone, on Morrissey’s latest U.S. tour, fans can expect a few Smiths songs, lots of solo material, and three tracks from the new album: “The Bullfighter Dies,” “Earth Is the Loneliest Planet,” and the album’s title track, “World Peace Is None of Your Business.”

That track, released for download on iTunes last week, is about as typical Morrissey as it gets. It’s an anti-government rant that, if you lean left (or even right) of center at all, will likely make you feel guilty for participating in the democratic process. When Morrissey croons, “Each time you vote, you support the process/ Brazil, Bahrain, Egypt, Ukraine/ So many people in pain,” it’s a little hard not to feel like you’re part of the problem.

And the chorus serves to unlock the inner anarchist in every Morrissey fan: “World peace is none of your business/ Police will stun you with their stun guns/ Or they’ll disable you with tasers/ That’s what government’s for.”

Just in time to promote the new album, Morrissey finally discovered Twitter. His profile page for @itsmorrissey shows that he created an account in June 2009. But he didn’t send out his first tweet until last week. The Independent described that tweet as something one might find scrawled on a “stoned sixth form English student’s bathroom door.” (“Sixth form” is European-speak for the final two years of secondary education.)

“Hello. Testing, 1,2,3. Planet Earth, are you there? One can only hope …,” Morrissey tweeted.

A few hours later, he followed that with “Follow, follow, follow. Twitter is the perfect metaphor for … something. Dunno what.”

That introductory tweet, however elementary, was favorited by more than 12,000 of his 230,000 followers and retweeted more than 16,000 times. Morrissey has a legion of devoted fans who have elevated him to god-like status. He was reportedly nearly crushed by hugs at his first U.S. show on the World Peace tour as fans rushed the stage to hug their idol during the encore.

But the man has been around for a long time, and, both with the Smiths and in his solo career, has produced a massive catalog of work. Born in England as Steven Patrick Morrissey, he grew up listening to pop music and later became obsessed with glam-punks the New York Dolls. And that love led him to front his first punk band, The Nosebleeds, in 1978.

His rise to fame began with legendary indie-pop outfit the Smiths, which he formed with Johnny Marr, Mike Joyce, and Andy Rourke in 1982. The Smiths recorded four albums together, including the The Queen Is Dead and Meat Is Murder, the latter of which contained the title track that has become a bit of an anthem for the animal rights movement. Morrissey reportedly forbade the rest of his group from being photographed eating meat.

But the Smiths split ways in 1987 after a series of problems between Morrissey and Marr. Morrissey claimed the lack of a manager and business problems as reasons for the breakup, but rumor has it that Morrissey didn’t like Marr working on side projects, and Marr was annoyed at Morrissey’s obsession with covering pop artists of the 1960s. Later, in 1996, the ex-Smiths became entangled in a legal battle over royalties.

Since the breakup, Morrissey has led a successful solo career, attracting more young fans who only learn of the Smiths after the fact, many likely attracted to him as a result of his being heralded as a mascot of the animal rights movement. Older Smiths fans wishing for a reunion have long given up hope of the group ever getting along. Morrissey is more likely to take up eating meat than the Smiths reuniting.

But since he’s been on his own, Morrissey has released 10 solo albums, beginning with 1988’s Viva Hate, which featured the hits “Every Day Is Like Sunday” and “Suedehead.” He has steadily produced albums and hit singles over the years, all the way to 2009’s Years of Refusal.

The long gap between that album and his latest work was a result of Morrissey waiting on a new record deal. He told The Village Voice in 2012 that he would not self-release an album but rather wait for a new deal. “I’m independent enough without selling CDs out of the back of a van,” he told the Voice.

World Peace Is None of Your Business will contain 12 new tracks recorded by Morrissey in France earlier this year.

And provided nothing stands in Morrissey’s way, Memphis fans will get a chance to hear a few of those tracks on Tuesday night in Moz’s first-ever Bluff City appearance. But remember: It’s Morrissey’s world. We’re just living in it.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Eddie Izzard To Perform at the Orpheum

CREDIT: Amanda Searle

British comic Eddie Izzard burst into the American pop consciousness as a false eyelash-wearing standup comic with performance sensibilities that owed as much to David Bowie as Monty Python. But Izzard is always evolving, having built a solid second career as a dramatic actor in difficult plays by David Mamet, mainstream Hollywood films like Ocean’s Twelve and in TV shows like Hannibal and The Riches. In 2009, he surprised the world by running 43 marathons in 51 days with no previous experience as a long-distance runner. In short, Eddie Izzard is not the kind of performer one can easily sum up in a few words, unless those words are smart, funny, and unpredictable.

Amanda Searle

Eddie Izzard

Flyer: I tried to learn your language for this interview, but I’m not gifted like that.

Eddie Izzard: I speak English.

So, this isn’t your first time in Memphis?

No, it’s not. In fact, my first ever performance in America was as a street performer in Memphis. There’s an Overton Park there, right?

Yes.

And an Overton Square.

Yes, but they aren’t the same. The park is park-like and the Square is…

It’s like a triangle or something. I did my first show in Overton Square in 1987. I was performing with the US Marines’ Military Band at the Memphis In May Festival. I was riding on a 5-foot unicycle escaping from a pair of handcuffs. I wasn’t paid for my performance. We were all flown over and all expenses were paid, but they didn’t pay us a fee because we were street performers, and we couldn’t command very much.

Did Memphis appreciate the unicycling act?

I think people were bemused. But it was a brand new show, so I didn’t know quite what I was doing. The main thing people would say to me — because I was walking around with this 5-foot unicycle — was “Ride that thang, Eddie boy.” In the end I’d say, “No, you ride that thang.”

I think “Ride that Thang” may be a good title for this piece I’m writing.

I play the Hollywood Bowl now, you know — “From Overton Square to the Hollywood Bowl” — that would be a good title.

Does comedy change from country to country and language to language?

It doesn’t change at all. The only thing that changes is the references. If a mainstream comedian in America and a mainstream comedian in Britain swapped over, it wouldn’t work. But if they lived in that country and got immersed in that country and were still doing comedy then it would work. In terms of a more progressive comedian like myself, I’m fascinated by the whole world, and I’m anxious to get out there and play it. So I’ve chosen references that are more universal. I use references like dinosaurs and God and human sacrifice. Why the hell did we do that? Ancient kings: were they idiots? You can play that in Moscow and people understand it. Or you can play that in Los Angeles or Memphis and people understand it. Everywhere in the world gets it.

So you really are trying to find a more universal kind of comedy instead of tailoring performances to suit different cultures.

Yes. Oh, yes. That would take a lot of work and I’m quite a lazy person. I’m like a big tanker ship. Once I get going I can keep going, but once I stop I don’t like to get going again. So I thought why not keep the comedy the same. Still intelligent. Still very silly and [Monty] Python influenced.

You mention the Python influence. What was it like working on Terry Jones’ film Almost Anything with all the surviving Pythons?

Unfortunately, I already shot my piece. It’s really more of a Simon Pegg and Kate Beckham film directed by Terry Jones, and I think all the Pythons are doing voices to animated characters. So we weren’t all there on the set together doing scenes.

You describe your work as Pythonesque, but they also claim you as well. I think John Cleese called you the, “lost Python.” That has to be affirming.

It’s totally fantastic. I was a huge student of their work and can repeat it endlessly: “Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.” It’s beautiful stuff.

And the surreal quality of that kind of humor also crosses languages.

Mainstream musicians play to mainstream audiences around the world. Alternative musicians will play to alternative audiences. It’s the same with comedy. Those audiences are there, you’ve just got to find them.

You described yourself as lazy, but you are constantly touring and doing film and TV. And you did that whole thing where you ran all the marathons.

That’s part of the big ship thing. Once it’s in motion, it can keep on going. Some of my gigs feel like rest. Two months in Berlin was quite restful, really. Two months in Paris.

When I read other interviews for “Force Majeure,” it seems like you’ve confused a few people. From fashion to material, they don’t always seem to understand why you aren’t the Eddie Izzard they expect or the Eddie Izzard they want you to be.

Right. That idea that people are saying there’s this one thing you do that we like that and want more of it, just doesn’t appeal to me. It’s my life so I get to write it.

There’s really no easy way to shorthand all that you do.

Yes, it can be quite difficult. I think some people may block me and say, “Oh, he’s that transvestite guy. I’m not going to watch anything he does.” I try to be open and honest and try different things. And I think people who care, who give a damn, who want to change the world for the better, also seem to give a damn about what I’m doing. That’s great. And I think the people who hate what I do are probably out there doing bad things in the world.
Eddie Izzard’s “Force Majeure” at the Orpheum, Sunday, May 26th, 8 p.m.

Categories
Music Music Features

Thursdays Squared Extends Series

The popular Thursdays Squared series doubled down on its good thing last week and announced the second half of the season, which has expanded emphasis on Memphis’ homegrown creativity. The first half of the season capitalized on the newly refurbed square and its ascendant cool factor. The advent of spring made this the thing to do on its namesake night. As it warms up, sponsor Resource Entertainment Group is revving up the local aspect of the series with bonafide Memphis music.

On May 22nd, things kick off with pajama enthusiast Muck Sticky joining the timeless wedding machine that is Dr. Zarr. May 29th, it’s the ladies: the Bouffants, Memphis’ most hairsprayed musical outfit, and the Memphis Dawls, who manage to be everywhere at once and keep people happy at the same time.

John Paul Keith

Memphis in June: Hoagy Carmichael knew all about it. (Look him up if you don’t.) We get right to the vanguard of Memphis’ music scene on June 5th with American Fiction. Go see them before they take over the world. Almost Famous opens. And on June 12th: Holy moly, it’s John Paul Keith and Star & Micey.

June 19th is an ’80s party, which is perfect for people who like ’80s parties. There will be a tribute to Michael Jackson.

Feeling all hick-hop? Rumble your diesel down to the Square, son, for Trademark on June 26th. They are the self-styled Motley Crüe of country music. Guess who else will be there: 8-Ball Aitken. Does that make him the Ratt of country music? Go see.

Enter July. On the third of July, this city will be jammed to its core by Kaleidophonix. Those who survive the jam will have their pimp goblets replenished by the Lord. Lord T & Eloise, jack!

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Godzilla Versus Meta-Godzilla

Near the end of Godzilla, a CNN-like cable broadcaster describes the eponymous creature as “King of The Monsters — Savior of the City?” That question mark both highlights mankind’s ambivalence toward Godzilla’s status as its defender and champion and indirectly touches on Godzilla’s eternally evolving status in popular culture. Sixty years after his debut, what has changed? What kind of inhuman hero do we deserve now?

Answering this question is tricky. Filmmakers who downplay or ignore the implicit campiness of a gigantic, fire-breathing lizard that scowls like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven do so at their own peril. But some form of distancing and detachment seems unavoidable, because Godzilla is one of the few pop-culture icons whose dozens of sequels and reboots strive to be less dark than the source material.

Like George A. Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead, IshirŌ Honda’s 1954 Gojira is both a high-concept genre exercise and a kind of national primal-scream therapy session. Released less than a decade after the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and less than a year after the infamous Castle Bravo nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, Gojira is a Japanese film about the horrors of nuclear war and the dangers of unregulated scientific research. While it is true that Godzilla’s first-ever onscreen appearance isn’t very scary — he peers over a hilltop in broad daylight like a nosy neighbor — Gojira‘s powerful undercurrents eventually surface. When Godzilla returns later in the film to attack Tokyo, which is fortified with military firepower and surrounded by an enormous, multi-storied electric fence, he reduces everything in his path to rubble and sets it ablaze with a shocking, indiscriminate fury that’s effective in part because it’s so impersonal. As flies to wanton boys are we to the Godzilla; he kills us for sport.

Bryan Cranston

Honda’s film unforgettably asserts that “humans are weak animals” whose grim fate is unavoidable. This is never more true than during the chilling scene where a widow crouches amid the flaming Tokyo rubble with her young children and comforts them by saying, “We’ll be with Daddy soon.” Gojira climaxes with an interspecies murder-suicide followed by a stern warning about environmental devastation from an aging, Lorax-like scientist. It’s clever enough to leave room for a sequel, but it’s downbeat enough to make people wonder whether they really want another sobering ecological nightmare.

Releasing a contemporary American blockbuster that condemns the impieties of progress as vigorously as Honda’s film is all but unthinkable. Yet the subtext is part of the Godzilla myth; ignoring it altogether causes just as many problems. If the filmmakers want to stage a simplified conflict between good monsters and bad ones, then Godzilla’s frightening independence and agency lose all meaning. This all-powerful creature shrinks and becomes a scaly, prehistoric Rin Tin Tin that answers the bell for mankind whenever Mothra or King Ghidorah start poking around.

Elizabeth Olsen

With the 2014 Godzilla, director Gareth Edwards and his team of technicians seem aware of the traps and contradictions of the Godzilla mythology, and they split the difference between scary and silly better than you might expect. Their monster is a big, pear-shaped, angry old cuss whose status as an apex predator in a world of enormous, ornery super-beasts unintentionally works in mankind’s favor. But since Godzilla is not human, he feels no remorse for the buildings he topples and the hordes of screaming, terrified people he steps on. The destruction he leaves behind is the price we pay for security — a message relayed through an overhead shot of Godzilla swimming from Hawaii to the mainland while flanked by a pair of Naval battleships.

Edwards keeps his ill-tempered star hidden from view for as long as he can — a visual strategy as old as the classic horror and sci-fi movies he draws from. This secrecy is apparent during Godzilla‘s opening credits, which wed historical photographs of atomic bomb explosions to blocks of text that are quickly redacted as though they conveyed sensitive classified information. (However, the only full credit I got before it was blacked out was “Produced by the fire-breathing Thomas Tull,” which probably means that this is one of the movie’s only jokes.)

Off-screen sounds and blurry photos are parceled out sparingly, and the first appearance of something inhuman is actually a sly fake out: the huge, glowing curlicue emitting radioactive pulses in an abandoned Japanese city is actually a “Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Object” or MUTO, an enormous pointy-headed insectile thing that snacks on warheads and glides around like a leathery stealth bomber.

My favorite example of Edwards’ tendency to withhold what people most want to see occurs just before Godzilla’s big reveal, when the Army fires off a round of flares to see what’s causing all the commotion. The flares soar up into the sky, but they only reveal part of Godzilla’s hindquarters; the full sight of him is still too much to absorb at once.

Those twin senses of moderation and awe fuel the best stretches of the movie. Forget about its all-star cast of puny humans (Juliette Binoche, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, and others), who exist largely to fill in plot holes. Godzilla is about imagery, and its shadowy visual poetry excels whenever Edwards and company try to convey the world-flipping emotional impact of an average person coming face to face with something out of a prehistoric creation myth. There’s a great shot from the point of view of an indefatigable military man (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who parachutes into San Francisco and passes by the expanse of Godzilla’s spiny backside before touching down. First, you hear his heavy breathing. Then, almost involuntarily, you start to share his breathlessness.

That moment of fearful excitement sustains you all the way through the final battle, which takes place under the kind of malevolent grey skies that portend the end of history. The monsters have some tricks up their sleeves, and the fight and its aftermath manage to evoke some real pathos. But when it’s all over, it will be hard to suppress a cheer, or a roar, of victory.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

A Review of Locke

When you get down to it, every film is just a series of conversations. Even the ones that depend on big explosions and space battles have to hold the occasional conversation to explain to the audience why they should care about the onscreen pyrotechnics.

The new film Locke by writer turned director Steven Knight (Eastern Promises) asks what happens when you boil a film down to that essential element and beyond. The entire movie takes place during a fateful car trip from the north of England down to London. The car’s sole occupant is Ian Locke, played by Tom Hardy, last seen onscreen beneath a frightening muzzle as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Christopher Nolan’s favorite actor is the sole face audiences see in Locke, sharing the screen with only the snazzy BMW crossover he drives and a whole lot of fashionably out-of-focus shots of the British road system at night. That Locke is much more entertaining than it sounds is a tribute to Knight’s skill as a writer and Hardy’s handsome, expressive mug.

Tom Hardy stars as Ian Locke in the surprisingly rich story written and directed by Steven Knight.

The film begins with a long, slow pan over a giant construction site at dusk. This is where Locke works, and he is apparently very good at his job as a construction executive. Tomorrow is a big day for Locke, as we come to find out that he is going to be responsible for “the largest concrete pour in Europe outside the defense and nuclear industries” that will (hopefully) be the foundation on which a 55-story building will rise. Construction, specifically concrete, is not only Locke’s job, it is his great passion. The only time he waxes poetic in the film is when he’s speaking about his job. “You don’t even trust God with concrete,” he says. So why is he driving away from the jobsite at 90 kilometers per hour? I don’t want to give too much away about the surprisingly rich story Knight wrings out of the bare-bones premise of an almost real-time chronicle of the worst night of a guy’s life, as the gradual revelation of the circumstances leading up to the night drive are a key component of the film’s delicate pleasures.

When artists first start out, we tend to believe that unfettered freedom of thought is necessary to create great things. But in practice, imposing limitations on some aspects of your craft can lead to big breakthroughs in the remaining aspects. Such is the case with Locke, which puts all of the pressure on the dialog and Hardy’s canny growl to deliver the goods. The film bumps up against its limitations early and often; by the end, the bokeh photography crosses the line from hypnotic to tedious. While it is not as effective a one-hander as 2013’s Bob Birdnow’s Remarkable Tale Of Human Survival and the Transcendence of Self, Locke does manage to pack a wide range of emotions onto the M1 highway to London.

Locke
Now Showing
Studio on the Square

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

The Release of Cigarette Girl

This weekend sees the climax of May’s Mike McCarthy love-in. Friday night, May 23rd, Black Lodge Video hosts the DVD release party for Cigarette Girl, McCarthy’s latest feature, first released in 2009 and remastered and handsomely packaged by Music+Arts Studio. The DVD includes a director’s commentary from McCarthy, loads of special features, and a CD of Jonathan Kirkscey’s brilliant score. The party starts at 9:30 p.m., and it will include live music from Mouserocket and Hanna Star (McCarthy’s daughter).

Saturday night is the main event, with a marathon of McCarthy’s films showcased just where they ought to be: at a drive-in. Time Warp Drive-In celebrates 20 years of Guerrilla Monster films with a screening of Cigarette Girl, Teenage Tupelo, The Sore Losers, Superstarlet A.D., Elvis Meets the Beatles, Midnight Movie, and more. Among the “more”: live music from the Subtractions and popcorn baptisms (!).

Time Warp Drive-In is the work of McCarthy, Malco’s Jimmy Tashie, and Black Lodge’s Matthew Martin. They launched Time Warp Drive-In last Halloween season with a “Shocktober” screening of horror classics such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Evil Dead 2.

“Let’s have fun,” McCarthy says of the concept. “I talk about the past a lot, but I’m actively living in the present and looking forward to the future. But I want the past to travel with me.”

In April, Time Warp Drive-In settled into a regular format, screening the last Saturday of each month. April was tagged Soulful Cinema, with Hustle & Flow, Purple Rain, Superfly, and Coffy; June has road classics like Two Lane Blacktop and Bullitt; July celebrates Stanley Kubrick’s birthday; August memorializes death week with a selection of Elvis films; August also revs up for bike films such as The Wild One and Girl on a Motorcycle; September honors Tim Burton; and October brings Shocktober back with more horror.

“I can’t say enough nice things about Jimmy Tashie at Malco,” McCarthy says. “He is this presence who understands the 20th century and what the drive-in was originally there for.”

McCarthy’s films will look great projected in the Memphis night air. 

Cigarette Girl DVD Release Party

Friday, May 23rd, 9:30 p.m.

Black Lodge Video

Time Warp Drive-In Presents the Underground Cinema of Mike McCarthy

Saturday, May 24th, dusk

$10 per person

Malco’s Summer Drive-In

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From the Editor: Groundhog Day at Beaver Creek

As longtime readers of this column know, I slip off to my old haunts in Western Pennsylvania for a trout-fishing trip each year around this time. I just got back. It’s always the same two friends (once three, tempus fugit), and the same cabin on the same little creek in the Laurel Highlands, near Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural masterwork, Fallingwater.

We call the trip “Groundhog Day,” after the Bill Murray movie of the same name, in which events repeat themselves day after day. Each year, we cook the same meals, drink the same brand of beer, stop at the same country store to buy licenses, etc. Even the jokes are old:

Priest says to Mary, “How are you, my dear.”

“Not so good, Father. My husband just died.”

“Oh, sorry to hear it, lass,” says the priest. “Did he have any last words?”

“Yes, Father, he said, ‘For God’s sake, Mary, put the damn gun down.'”

But every year, I learn a few things. For instance, I learned this year that one of my friends, a lawyer who took early retirement, got BlueCross BlueShield medical insurance through Obamacare that saved him $200 a month. He’s a nominal Republican. Or was.

I also learned, as I do every year, to be thankful that Tennessee isn’t as backward as Pennsylvania when it comes to its liquor and beer laws. All alcohol in the Keystone State is sold through state stores. The hours are very limited and you can’t buy less than a case of beer at a time. You have to go to a different state store for liquor and wine. The closest liquor store to our cabin was 24 miles away. Talk about roughing it.

And I learned it costs big money to drive across Pennsylvania. Because of the vagaries of Delta Airlines pricing, I flew into Cleveland instead of Pittsburgh, this year. One of my friends, who drives in from Detroit, picked me up at the airport. Entering the state of Pennsylvania on the turnpike costs $7. Just to enter. When we got off the turnpike, 90 miles later, we paid another $6. This might be something Tennessee should consider. Imagine what we could charge to drive from Memphis to Johnson City.

But I digress. It was a great trip. My friends are well and happy. The weather cooperated. And I caught the largest trout I’ve ever caught — a 24-inch rainbow — and let him go.

I’m hoping he’ll still be there next year and want to take part in Groundhog Day.

Bruce VanWyngarden
brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
News The Fly-By

Elvis Presley Enterprises Presents Plans for Upscale Hotel

Whitehaven is getting all shook up with news that a hotel will be built next to Graceland if everything goes according to plan.

According to a presentation by Elvis Presley Enterprises last week, the 450-room hotel would be built next to Graceland at the corner of Elvis Presley Boulevard and Old Hickory Road. The Guest House at Graceland, as it will be called, would create 75 to 100 new jobs.

The $70 million hotel plans are the first major development since the organization was acquired by Authentic Brands Group in New York City in November of last year. If everything goes as planned, construction could begin in August.

At the public meeting detailing the plans for the hotel last week, City Councilman Harold Collins said building the Guest House at Graceland would help attract more higher-end businesses to the Whitehaven area. He was responding to a question from a young woman suggesting there are too many fast food chains along Elvis Presley.

“When the Guest House goes up, when the lounge goes up, we will be able to recruit businesses that you all have been wanting,” he said.

Homer Branan, the attorney representing Elvis Presley Enterprises, said the organization is eager to begin building the Guest House. Demolition has already started at the site.

Plans for The Guest House at Graceland, a 450-room upscale hotel, are in the works for Whitehaven.

“The biggest challenge right now is time. They want to be under construction now,” Branan said. “We’ve got to get this through the Land Use Control Board and the City Council as quickly as possible. The engineers are already doing the plans — the drainage plans, the grating plans. The architects are doing the plans to get a building permit. We’ve got to get a building permit as quickly as possible.”

When it is ready, the hotel won’t just be for Elvis fans.

“We’re not far from the airport,” Branan said. “They think they will get a lot of people coming to the Guest House from the airport area.”

He said the Whitehaven community’s needs have been a focus since they began designing the hotel.

“[The hotel] is important to the city of Memphis, and especially Whitehaven, because it shows a real investment in the community,” Branan said. “Whitehaven needs a really nice hotel — there are none out here. We’re always very concerned about the neighborhood to be sure that what we do, they appreciate. That’s the reason that [Elvis Presley Enterprises] has spent all this time and money in designing this thing. It’s going to be absolutely fabulous.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly On The Wall 1317

Neverending Dutschke

The last time we heard from James Everett Dutschke, the Tupelo martial arts instructor accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Obama and framing an Elvis impersonator, he was pleading guilty and facing a lengthy prison sentence. Now Dutschke has recanted his previous confession, blaming his incarceration on a government conspiracy and comparing the Elvis impersonator he allegedly framed to Barney the purple dinosaur. Upping the Elvis imagery, Dutschke offered to pour the contents of all the letters in question onto a peanut butter sandwich and eat it.

In related news, Paul Kevin Curtis, the Elvis impersonator who was originally accused of sending the letters, played a concert at the Lyric Theatre in Oxford last week to help fund his documentary I Didn’t Do It.

Dark Fantasies

The Memphis Comic and Fantasy Convention announced that the group will not be opening a geek-themed activity center in Ashlar Hall, the rundown castle-like structure formerly owned by Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges. The comic con’s founder Joe Thordarson cited prohibitive rental costs as the reason. On the bright side, this opens up the possibility of developing the property as an asylum to house Memphis’ most deranged super-villains.

Neverending Elvis

Last week, Priscilla Presley told SiriusXM radio host George Klein that she’s developing a Broadway show about her early life with Elvis. Presley is currently preparing to step into the role of the evil stepmother in the London production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Memphis Girls Launch Bath and Body Product Line

CREDIT: Cherita Frison

From tomboys who climb trees to little angels who play dress-up, 10-year-old Madison Star and 8-year-old Mallory Iyana have all sorts of girls covered with their new line of clothing and bath and body products.

The sisters have created the brand Angels and Tomboys, which caters to girls with diverse interests between the ages of six and 14 years old.

Cherita Frison

Madison (left) and Mallory (right)

Angels and Tomboys will launch Friday, May 30th at 6:30 p.m. at Art Village Gallery (410 S. Main) during the monthly South Main Art Trolley Tour.

“I hope girls get out of this being able to have their own perfume, smell-good lotions, soaps and stuff. And just to love being yourself,” Madison said.

“We want girls to be who they are. Girls struggle with that,” Mallory added.

During the launch event, attendees will have the opportunity to sample and purchase products, enjoy a candy buffet, meet Madison and Mallory, and watch them perform their song “Angels and Tomboys.”

The kidtrepreneurs have created six signature scents for their line of lotions, body sprays, and soaps — Candied Star Glamour, Frozen Hot Chocolate, Peanut Butter Jelly Time, Deep Fried Ice Cream, Crispie Crème Lemon Cake, and Cotton Candied Apple. The line will also feature T-shirts and bowties themed around the six scents. The average cost of an item is $10.

The sisters hope their brand sparks a “girl power” movement throughout the Bluff City that eventually spills over into other areas. They say they hope to inspire girls to embrace themselves for who they are.

Madison and Mallory decided to market the line to girls with a variety of interests considering that they each have differing personalities and hobbies. Madison loves dancing, sewing, and ballet. She says she wants to be a fashion designer and work in cosmetics when she grows up.

“I’m the girly girl. I like the mall and everything,” Madison said. “I like wedges for little girls and skirts and dresses and bows and earrings. I don’t like getting dirty.”

Her younger sister Mallory is the opposite. She likes playing basketball, skating, and listening to hip-hop. But although she considers herself a tomboy, Mallory aspires to be a hair stylist.

“I’m the rough one,” Mallory said. “I like sports a lot. I don’t like dresses. I like to wear pants. I like to get dirty.”

One thing the girls do have in common is the desire to inspire confidence for girls through their Angels and Tomboys brand. They’ve been brainstorming the creation of Angels and Tomboys since last year, but were intrigued with the world of entrepreneurship since early childhood. The girls cite their mom, Viara Boyd, as their biggest inspiration.

Boyd formerly owned Silver Feet Dance Academy and is now the director of V-Rock Productions, which organizes fund-raising events for local charities. She assists her daughters with creating items for Angels and Tomboys and provides funding for the brand.

“We want girls to just be unique and embrace every part of being a girl,” Boyd said. “Girls want their own stuff. They don’t want their mom’s or their sister’s things. [Angels and Tomboys enables] them to have something that belongs to them.”