Month: December 2014

Categories
From My Seat Sports

Frank’s Top Five Memphis Sports Moments of 2014

The five most memorable sporting events I attended in 2014.

5) Tigers 60, Gonzaga 54 (February 8) — It was a birthday block party Joe Jackson — and every witness at FedExForum — will never forget. With his Tigers trailing Gonzaga by 11 and 13:45 left to play, the 6’1” point guard rose (and rose . . .) and blocked a dunk attempt by 7’1” Zag center Przemek Karnowski. An arena roared, and the Tigers outscored Gonzaga 29-12 the rest of the way. Jackson played in four NCAA tournaments for the Tigers, won three Conference USA tournaments, and finished his career seventh on the school’s all-time scoring chart. For many, though, the single play he left for posterity is a jaw-dropping blocked shot. (Jackson blocked 19 shots in his college career.)

4) Redbirds 2, Nashville 1 (July 7) — Monday night in the minor leagues. If you’re desperate to catch a foul ball at a professional game, this is the one to attend. After packing the house twice — a total of more than 20,000 fans — over the holiday weekend, the Redbirds welcomed empty seats back to AutoZone Park for the opening game of a four-game series with division-rival Nashville. The Sounds held first place in the Pacific Coast League’s American Southern Division, the Redbirds last . . . but only four-and-a-half games back of their intrastate rival. The Milwaukee Brewers’ top prospect, Jimmy Nelson, held Memphis scoreless for seven innings, and the Redbirds trailed, 1-0, entering the bottom of the ninth. Xavier Scruggs led off with a single and came around to score the tying run on an infield hit by Jermaine Curtis. Two batters later, Curtis scored on a sharply hit ball to short by Luis Mateo and the Redbirds had a five-game winning streak for the first time in almost two years . . . walk-off variety. Fewer than 1,000 people were in the park as Mateo was mobbed by his teammates at first base. I was glad to be one of them.

3) Tigers 72, Louisville 66 (March 1) — Memphis hadn’t swept its arch rival since the 1996-97 season, Larry Finch’s last as head coach. The Tigers were playing less than 48 hours after losing at Houston. And this was 7th-ranked Louisville, for crying out loud, the defending national champions. When Cardinal forward Montrezl Harrell slammed home an offensive rebound with 4:44 to play in the game, the Tigers trailed by eight points (65-57). They outscored Louisville the rest of the way, 15-1. Tiger senior Geron Johnson converted a steal into the tying points, Chris Crawford drained a dagger three (his fourth of the game), and the home team hit four of six free throws to pull away. Rick Pitino’s program is now part of the ACC, so it will be a while (if ever) before these two again face each other multiple times in the same season. A win — and sweep — to relish, well beyond 2014.

2) Grizzlies 98, Oklahoma City 95 (April 24) — This was Tony Allen in full Grindfather form, the match — off the Memphis bench — for the powder keg that is FedExForum on a playoff night. Allen scored 10 points in just 11 minutes in the first half while helping keep MVP-to-be Kevin Durant under control (12 points in the first half). And after 40 minutes of play, the Grizzlies appeared to be unequivocally the superior team. But over the game’s last eight minutes, Oklahoma City outscored the home team, 21-4, to force overtime. All four of the game-saving points were Allen’s. And so, you might say, were four scored by Thunder guard Russell Westbrook on a three-pointer (plus free throw) converted after an Allen foul. Mike Conley drained a three-pointer and converted a Durant turnover into a layup midway through the overtime session to give the Grizzlies just enough for a 2-1 series lead. Dating back to the 2011 postseason, this was the fifth game (among 15) between these opponents to require overtime.

1) Tigers 41, UConn 10 (November 29) — This game made for a Thanksgiving weekend local football fans will never forget. Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch opened up a tight game by throwing three touchdown passes in the third quarter to help the Tigers secure their sixth straight victory (the program’s longest winning streak in 45 years) and a share of the American Athletic Conference championship (the program’s first league crown in 43 years). With the dreadful (2-8) Huskies playing a long way from home, there was no doubt who’d win this game during warm-ups. Nonetheless, to walk the Liberty Bowl field after the game, under falling confetti as coach Justin Fuente accepted the AAC trophy, was to live in the surreal. Three years after finishing 2-10 and ridiculed as the worst college football program in the country, the Memphis Tigers were champions.

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

The Howling Monkey Reads The Comics: 12-28-14

Alright, look. We do this live and record it live. So the production values are shoddy at best.  So just listen to this and laugh and laugh as we explain why the Sunday comics are funny. Allegedly.

[audio-path:http://www.thehowlingmonkey.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/the-howling-monkey-reads-the-comics-122814.mp3]

The Howling Monkey Reads the Comics is a feature of The Howling Monkey blog. Joey Hack is a regular contributor to The Fly On The Wall blog and is a member of The Wiseguys improv troupe.

Categories
Memphis Gaydar News

New Year’s Eve at Club Spectrum

Club Spectrum, also known as Drink-N-Drag, opened its doors at 616 Marshall four years ago on New Year’s Eve. They’ll be celebrating the club’s anniversary and the end of 2014 on Wednesday, December 31st with a New Year’s Eve Celebration.

The party features music Krutch and DJ Spaceage, and there’s a special drag show at 11:30 p.m., following by a champagne toast at midnight. Admission is $10 at the door or $15 for VIP. Doors open at 9 p.m.

Categories
Music Music Features

Larry Raspberry at Lafayette’s

2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the Gentrys’ hit “Keep on Dancing.” The Gentrys spawned two enduring Memphis characters: wrestling titan Jimmy “the Mouth of the South” Hart and Larry Raspberry, leader of the Highsteppers. Raspberry plays Lafayette’s on Sunday, December 28th.

The wrestling trickster and the wildman bandleader have a similar way of behaving in public: Look them up on YouTube to witness the manic, messianic urge to rile people up. Dewey Phillips had it. Jerry Lee Lewis had it. Where did the two Gentrys get it?

“Jimmy and I were actually roommates when we would stay in hotels on the road,” Raspberry says. “He was always a rabid and avid fan of wrestling. I have to give him propers, that if there was any kind of methodology or anything to pick up, he picked it up. For me, mine was the rhythm and blues, Solomon Burke-type delivery that went on in between songs. I heard an interview with Sam [Moore] of Sam & Dave, and he made the comment that they would — he called it ‘preach.’ I very much resonated to that. I don’t think I can tell you that Jimmy and I pulled that from the same well. But I accept the similarities. They are kind of raving, aren’t they?”

Raspberry played the old Lafayette’s. His voice-in-the-wilderness song set-ups made an enduring impression on one film director.

“Terence Malick came to a gig in 1976,” Raspberry says. “We shot some gigs in Austin. [He] remembered one of these ravings for all these years. That song ‘Pee Wee’ is a spoken-word song. And it is one of those set ups. He remembered and asked if I could do it still. He asked me to send him a tape to prove it. I did, and that’s what he wanted. No rehearsals. Just show up on that day and do it.”

— Joe Boone

Larry Raspberry plays Lafayette’s on Sunday, December 28th. With the Joe Restivo 4 opening.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

2014: The Year Television Kicked The Movies’ Ass

Television continues to be the narrative televisual storytelling medium par excellence. It allows you to identify traits with human faces over a longer period of time, instead of for two hours, and thereby more easily dupes you into believing fictional people exist.

Game Of Thrones

This year Game of Thrones continued to get better and better at being subtly modern, showing us a world in which major problems are ignored for short-term politics. It was nowhere near The Wire, but still unique in using the medium to create a complex, multilayered world, more than any large scale cinematic shared universe. The show’s problems continue to be its backwards treatment of women and women’s bodies. Women are naked in traditional male gaze fashion, while penises are mostly off limits. Elsewhere, the show added a sexual assault to the adapted storyline and seemed to be confused about whether there actually was one and why it was there. The director and showrunners gave different answers in interviews, and the character in question blithely pursued his heroic arc.

True Detective

True Detective also had problems writing its female characters, but was distinguished by a beautiful opening credits sequence and fun Matthew McConaughey monologues set in a generically miserable Louisiana. McConaughey’s philosophy wasn’t anything you couldn’t find on the atheist section of Reddit, but it was operatic, poetic and accurate. Almost everyone else around him was cardboard. The series undercut this exciting pessimism by ending with action scenes and hope, not horror, with all the resounding tonal shift of a wet fart.

Orange Is The New Black

The show that was best at humanizing even its most minor characters was Orange Is The New Black. Although it may not be the most accurate depiction of the prison industrial complex, wherein we throw everyone possible in prison and make money off it, it certainly stressed the dehumanization of our system and treated the prison population with empathy. Despite all the stand-up routine style jokes, that made it a political show. Those politics were a rarity even as mainstream attention to the way police and prisons can treat civilians (murderously or corruptly) came to the forefront of newscycles this year. Television is a landscape of cops eternally breaking rules to throw criminals away. As public discourse changes, media companies sometimes allow politics that actually concern us to appear on our screens, and this is an example.

Probably my favorite cringeworthy horrible show of our modern era, 24, a show that actively and aggressively tried to act as an apologia for torture and once cast Janeane Garofalo so that its main character could yell at her, returned this year, as stupid as ever. The few episodes I watched seemed slightly more tasteful and less likely to suggest that torturing the hell out of someone is a superheroic act, but it had also lost its campy, 80’s action movie vibe.

Agents Of Shield

A lot of shows are mostly concerned with cross promotion —for example, Gotham which was mainly meaningless call-forwards to Batman characters. Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD had the 24 aspect of praising rule-breaking government agents with no oversight, but when it tried to be morally gray it just came off creepy. It got better this year, but was still most clear about its goals when advertising other products or films.

A procedural I did like was Happy Valley, a Netflix British import, because of the strength of its acting and writing, with only a little War on Drugs paranoia thrown in.

Attack On Titan

Other standouts included the anime Attack on Titan, widely available in the U.S. this year. The actual writing was horrible but whenever its overtly psychological monsters appeared it was wonderful. Hannibal’s Grand Guignol improved its procedural, and Transparent took Jeffery Tambor’s crossdressing from Arrested Development and remixed it humanely into the story of a transgender woman coming out to her family.

Black Mirror

Another import, Black Mirror, was accessible previously in the U.S., but just became available to most U.S. consumers via Netflix less than a month ago. Its scant six episodes are nice modern Twilight Zone parables, none better than the science fiction worldbuilding in “Fifteen Million Merits,” which dramatizes how the emptiness in working towards buying meaningless things does not go away when consumers recognize it. A consumerist system persists because it is easy to co-opt rebellion against it as a critique. Here, that means a dystopian society composed of people looking at computer screens from elliptical bikes get no catharsis when they watch an America’s Got Talent show. Their attempts to disrupt it only upgrade its edginess.
In terms of direct politics, one half of Comedy Central’s continuous critique of mainstream news, Stephen Colbert, abdicated for CBS. Given how David Letterman lost most of his verve upon decamping there, it is not a good sign. Meanwhile Aaron Sorkin’s humorless but passionate retelling of news from a few years ago, The Newsroom, finally died. From what I’ve seen of the show it seemed to be so mired in Sorkin’s voice that its political opponents were strawmen.

Finally, one of America’s most beloved television dads was revealed to be a serial rapist. This was a fact long ago: we’re just learning it. It is better to know, and for a corrupt, powerful person to be shamed if they cannot be prosecuted. His downfall was brought about in part because his handlers did not understand how new media works. For as long as it takes them to learn it, the world will change.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Protests, Rape Kits, and Trolley Fires

January

• The Memphis City Council approved the $24-million purchase of AutoZone Park. The park will be paid for with a mix of tax credits, tax rebates, and $300,000 in annual lease payments from the Memphis Redbirds baseball team.

• Easy Way co-owner David Carter was found dead with a single gunshot wound to the chest at the Easy Way Distribution Center on January 20th. Although it was originally believed that his death was the result of a robbery, the Shelby County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled Carter’s death as a suicide.

D.A. Amy Weirich

• Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich refused to discipline Assistant District Attorney Thomas Henderson after he was censured by the Tennessee Supreme Court over the 2013 holidays. Henderon’s censure came after he pleaded guilty to charges of misconduct and violating state rules governing prosecutors. Attorneys in the murder trials of Michael Rimmer say Henderson purposefully hid exculpatory evidence that could have helped their client. Weirich issued a statement defending Henderson’s record. Later in the year, Weirich herself came under fire for claims of hiding exculpatory evidence in two other murder trials.

February

• The Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority announced plans to “modernize” Memphis International Airport by demolishing the southern ends of concourses A and C and enhancing concourse B with walkways, higher ceilings, and more windows. The downsizing was a result of Delta removing its hub status.

• The Hamp Line, the bidirectional bicycle path leading from Overton Park to the Shelby Farms Greenline, broke ground. Parts of the path are already in use, but construction of the Tillman section isn’t expected to begin until spring 2015.

Get Off Our Lawn protest

March

• The Get Off Our Lawn group formed to protect Overton Park’s Greensward, which they said was being “destroyed by overflow parking” from the Memphis Zoo. The group held sit-in-style protests on the greensward on busy zoo days, physically blocking cars from parking. Eventually, the group, the city, and the Memphis Zoo compromised to reduce the number of days zoo patrons could park on the greensward.

• Victims of serial rapist Anthony Alliano brought a lawsuit against Memphis and Shelby County for damages stemming from the delay in law enforcement handling their rape kits. Alliano was arrested in May 2012, but the victims’ rape kits, along with about 12,000 others, sat untested for years. The city still struggles with a rape kit backlog.

April

• The National Civil Rights Museum reopened after being closed for months for massive renovations. The changes included upgraded and expanded exhibits, some of which are interactive.

• A movement to get special on-street parking permits for Overton Square residents began. Some residents had reported that visitors’ cars were blocking their driveways and alleyways. In December, the Memphis City Council agreed to allow permit-only parking for residents on a portion of Monroe near Restaurant Iris.

• The “Untapped” pop-up beer garden inside the Tennessee Brewery opened and sold out of beer the first weekend. Restaurateur Taylor Berger, attorney Michael Tauer, commercial real estate executive Andy Cates, and communications specialist Doug Carpenter organized the spring beer garden to raise awareness about the need to save the building, after its owner said he’d demolish it by summer if no one purchased it. In November, cell phone tower developer Billy Orgel closed on his purchase of the brewery, which he plans to convert into apartments.

Aftermath from a trolley fire

May

• After Memphis In May festivities were over, the city closed off two lanes on Riverside Drive to create a protected, two-way bicycle and pedestrian path. Vehicle traffic was reduced to two lanes between Beale and Georgia. City officials will evaluate the traffic impacts until Riverside is up for repaving next summer, and they’ll determine then whether or not to keep the bike lane.

June

• Memphis Area Transit Authority suspended trolley service indefinitely following two trolley fires on the Madison line — one in November 2013 and another in April 2014. Temporary buses began operating on the trolleys lines. Experts are still studying what caused the fires, and there is no estimated date for their return.

• Beale Street Landing, which cost $43 million, opened to the public after years of rising construction costs and delays. The landing features a boat dock, a playground, a gift shop, and a bar and grill.

• The Memphis City Council passed a nearly $600 million budget for the city that made deep cuts to employee benefits. The approved changes took away some major health-care subsidies from retirees over age 65 and will replace them with Medigap coverage or another plan. The changes will also cut the spouses of city employees from the city’s health insurance plan if they are eligible to get insurance from their employer. The changes will also levy a higher monthly charge of $120 for smokers on the city insurance plan.

July

• Beginning on Independence Day weekend, hundreds of Memphis Police officers and a number of Memphis firefighters called in sick to work during what was labeled the Blue Flu and the Red Rash, a protest to cuts in their health-care benefits, salaries, and pension benefits.

• MATA hires a new general manager, Ron Garrison, who previously served as head of customer service at a South Carolina-based electric bus company.

• The city of Memphis issued a cease-and-desist order for ridesharing services Uber and Lyft because the companies didn’t have permits to operate in the city. Both companies refused to stop operations and instead began months-long negotiations with the city on setting new regulations for their businesses. The Memphis City Council is expected to vote on those new rules in January.

August

• Terri Lee Freeman was chosen to run the National Civil Rights Museum after longtime president Beverly Robertson announced her retirement. Freeman spent the past 18 years running the Washington, D.C.-based Community Foundation for the National Capital Region.

• A man was beaten and lay unconscious in a pool of his own blood on Beale Street in the wee hours of a Sunday morning. Bystanders recorded videos and snapped pictures of his motionless body. That incident led the Downtown Memphis Commission to enact a $10 entrance fee after midnight on Sunday mornings when the street seemed overcrowded. The fee was dropped a couple weeks later when the DMC realized it was “bad for business and unpopular with many,” according to a letter from DMC President Paul Morris to Mayor A C Wharton.

• The Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors voted to retire Memphis’ Allen Fossil Plant in Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park and replace it with a 1,000 megawatt natural gas plant by December 31, 2018.

September

• Three people were brutally beaten by a mob of teens in the parking lot of the Poplar Plaza Kroger. The victims, two teenage Kroger employees and a customer, were chosen at random for the attack. The incident was caught on video, and it went viral after being posted on Facebook. The incident led to “Love Mob” demonstrations and lots of bickering about whether or not the attack constituted a hate crime.

• Memphis firefighter Ronald Ellis allegedly shot and killed his ex-girlfriend Torhonda Cathy in the parking lot of the Colonial Avenue Target. Ellis fled Memphis but was later arrested in Georgia.

October

• The West Tennessee Multi-Agency Gang Unit announced a court-issued gang injunction against the Dixie Homes Murda Gang. The injunction established a “safety zone” within the boundaries of I-240 on the east, Jackson Avenue on the north, North Danny Thomas on the west, and Poplar Avenue to the south. Gang members are no longer allowed to gather there.

November

• A day after a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting unarmed teen Michael Brown, protesters gathered at the intersection of Poplar and Highland. They held signs with phrases like “Film the Police,” “Protect Us, Don’t Kill Us,” and “No Justice.” A few days later, activists held a die-in at the National Civil Rights Museum to honor Brown and Eric Garner, who was killed by a New York City police officer.

• Construction began on the $17.5 million project to add a bicycle and pedestrian pathway across the Harahan Bridge. That 10-mile project will link Downtown to West Memphis, Arkansas.

December

• The Hi-Tone’s longtime owner Jonathan Kiersky sold the Crosstown rock club to former Newby’s manager Brian “Skinny” McCabe. McCabe said he’ll leave the club’s bookings the same but will add a kitchen.

• Swedish-based home goods retailer Ikea announced their intention to open a store on Germantown Parkway in 2016.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

It Was What It Was

The year 2014 began with a call for unity from several of the political principals of Memphis and Shelby County — remarkable circumstances given that just ahead was another one of those knock-down, drawn-out election brawls that characterize a big-ballot election year.

Speaking at an annual prayer breakfast on January 1st, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen called for an end to bipartisan bickering in Congress and touted the achievements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (aka Obamacare). Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell asked for civility in county government, and Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, amid a good deal of wrangling over city pension reform, among other matters, said something similar and declared, “I’m through with whose fault it is!”

Surely no one is surprised that few of these hopes were fully realized in the course of 2014.

Not that some concrete things didn’t get done. The nervy national website Wonkette crowned Tennessee state Representative Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) “S***muffin of the Year,” and, lo and behold, the voters of Knox County would come to a similar conclusion down the line, voting out the incumbent madcap whose most famous bills had come to be known, fairly or otherwise, as “Don’t Say Gay” and “Starve the Children.”

State Senator Brian Kelsey had mixed results, losing again on a renewed effort to force Governor Bill Haslam into a big-time school voucher program and in a quixotic attempt to strip Shelby County of two of its elected judges but getting his props from those — including a majority of Tennessee voters — who supported his constitutional amendment to abolish an income tax in Tennessee for all time.

All four constitutional amendments on the state ballot would pass — including one to strip away what had been some fairly ironclad protections of a woman’s right to an abortion and another to transform the selection and tenure procedures for state appellate judges. Another little-noticed amendment guaranteeing veterans the right to hold charity raffles also passed.

The battle over the key three amendments all reflected a growing concern that Republican-dominated state authority had begun to enlarge its control over local governments and individual citizens alike, not only in the nature of the constitutional amendments but in the legislature’s effort to override local authority in matters including firearms management, public school oversight, public wage policy, and the ability of localities to establish their own ethical mandates.

Shelby County Democrats, who had been swept by the GOP in 2010, had a spirited primary election, with most attention focusing on the mayor’s race between former County Commissioner Deidre Malone, incumbent Commissioner Steve Mulroy, and former school board member and New Olivet Baptist Church pastor Kenneth Whalum Jr.

When votes were counted on May 6th, Malone emerged to become the head of a Democratic ticket that would challenge several well-established Republican incumbents. Democrats’ hopes were high at first, but two of their expected election-day stalwarts began to suffer self-destructive moments at an alarming rate.

The two were lawyer Joe Brown — the “Judge Joe Brown” of nationally syndicated TV fame; and County Commissioner Henri Brooks, a former legislator who had an abrasive way about her but who had recently won laurels as the watchdog on Juvenile Court who had forced the Department of Justice (DOJ) to mandate a series of reforms.

Both District Attorney General candidate Brown, through his celebrity and what was thought to be his ability to bankroll much of the Democratic ticket’s activity, and Juvenile court Clerk candidate Brooks, riding high on her DOJ desserts, were thought to be boons, but they rapidly became busts.

Brown, it turned out, had virtually no money to pass around, even for his own campaign efforts, and he got himself arrested for contempt in Juvenile Court. When, late in the campaign, he launched a series of lurid and seemingly unfounded attacks upon the private life of his opponent, Republican D.A. Amy Weirich, he was dead in the water.

Brooks engaged in successive misfires — browbeating a Hispanic witness before the commission; assaulting a woman she was competing with for a parking spot; and, finally, turning out not to have a legal residence within the commission district she represented.

The bottom line: Shelby County Democrats — underfunded, under-organized, and riven by internal rivalries — were overwhelmed once again on August 7th, with county Mayor Mark Luttrell, Weirich, and Sheriff Bill Oldham leading a Republican ticket that won everything except the office of county assessor, where conscientious Democratic incumbent Cheyenne Johnson held on against a little-known GOP challenger.

All things considered, the judicial races on August 7th went to the known and familiar, with almost all incumbents winning reelection on a lengthy ballot in which virtually every position in every court —General Sessions, Circuit, Criminal, Chancery, and Probate — was under challenge.

Meanwhile, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, who had dispatched a series of Democratic Primary and general election challengers since his first election to Congress in 2006, faced what appeared in advance to be his most formidable primary foe yet in lawyer Ricky Wilkins. Cohen won again — though only by a 2-to-1 ratio, unlike the 4-to-1 victories he was used to.

The final elections of the year, including the referenda for the aforementioned package of constitutional amendments, would take place on November 4th.

But for the amendments, there was no suspense to speak of. Two Democrats running for the U.S. Senate — Gordon Ball and Terry Adams, both Knoxville lawyers — had run a spirited and close race in the primary, but winner Ball ran way behind Republican incumbent Senator Lamar Alexander, despite Alexander’s having barely eked out a primary win over unsung Tea Party favorite Joe Carr.

Haslam, the Republican gubernatorial incumbent, easily put away Charlie Brown, an unknown quantity from East Tennessee who had won the Democratic primary mainly on the strength of his comic-strip name.

Throughout the year, there had been persistent wrangles in City Hall between Wharton and members of the city council over dozens of matters — including pension and health-care changes, development proposals, and failures to communicate — with the result that influential councilmen like 2014 council Chairman Jim Stickland and Harold Collins were possible rivals to Wharton in a 2015 mayoral race that might draw in a generous handful of other serious candidates.

Toward year’s end, though, Wharton pulled off a series of coups — announcing new Target and IKEA facilities and appearing to finesse the pension and school-debt matters — that underscored his status as the candidate to beat.

In Nashville, Haslam seemed to have achieved the high ground, finally, with his espousal of a bona fide Medicaid-expansion plan, “Insure Tennessee,” and a determination to defend the Hall income tax and at least some version of educational standards. But battles over these matters and new attacks on legal abortion loomed.

We shall see what we shall see.

Categories
Calling the Bluff Music

Throwback Thursday: Project Playaz’ “WTTWGALOM”

Gritty Memphis-bred rap group Project Playaz dropped their debut album, Til We Die, back in 2000.

The group, primarily composed of Criminal Manne and Thugsta, used the effort to touch on Memphis’ unique culture, lucrative underworld, and issues of crime and poverty.

The album also served as an outlet for the spitters to reflect on personal experiences.

On the album’s track “WTTWGALOM,” Thugsta single-handedly shares chapters of his life over a mellow vibe crafted by DJ Squeeky.

Stream the track below. 

WTTWGALOM | Listen for free at bop.fm

Throwback Thursday: Project Playaz’ ‘WTTWGALOM’

Check out my website
Follow me on Twitter
Friend me on Facebook

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

A Merry Little Christmas

So, I’m pushing a cart through the aisles of Kroger in Midtown, stocking up for an onslaught of holiday company. I’ve made it all the way to the frozen foods on the far side of the store. My cart over-floweth with Christmas bounty. I’m humming along with Al Green’s version of the Bee Gees’ classic “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” which is playing over the intercom. It’s weird, but Al is nailing it.

Then I hear a page: “Will the owner of a silver Xterra, license plate xxx-xxx, please come to the customer service area?”

That’s my car. “Damn,” I think. Someone must have backed into me or something.

So, I wheel my heavily laden cart to the customer service area, where I see a very large woman at the counter with a basket of bagged-up food. The Kroger clerk says to me, rather brusquely: “You need to move your car. You parked too close to her car, and she can’t get in.”

I was apologetic. “Sorry,” I said. “I must not have been paying attention. My bad.”

So, I leave my cart at the service desk and walk out to my car with the large lady. When we get to the scene of the crime, I notice right away that my car is parked precisely between the lines of my space. Right in the middle. The driver’s side of her car, on the other hand, is parked on the line between our cars, and even intrudes a little into my space.

I’m no Columbo, but it seems obvious that what has really happened here is that I’ve parked correctly next to a badly parked car, and that I’ve been called away from my shopping to fix a problem this woman created for herself.

I look at the woman over the top of my glasses. She looks at me. Something unsaid passes between us.

What do you think happened next?

a.) A mob of pizza-crazed teens came out of nowhere and started hitting us with pumpkins.

b.) I pulled out my pistol and said, “Let me introduce you to my little friend.”

c.) It turned out the woman was Jesus in disguise.

d.) She turned to me, smiled sheepishly, and said, “I guess if I lost a little weight and learned to park better, this wouldn’t happen.” And I smiled and said, “No big deal. I can move it.” Then we each said, “Have a Merry Christmas,” and went on with our lives.

e.) And then I shot her.

The answer is d. A little Christmas spirit prevailed. And, it was good, and for that, I say, God bless us, every one.

We hope you enjoy this special end-of-the-year double issue, which allows all of our employees to get a nice break for the holidays. We’ll see you in 2015!

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Council and the Mayor

When I heard it, I thought, “This is the quote of the year.”

Thomas Malone, the ever outspoken president of the Memphis Firefighters Association, railed in frustration, “The city administration is like an addict on crack. They will buy, steal, and do anything they can from anybody, to get what they want!” So, Tommy, tell us how you really feel, huh?

Based on the events of 2014, there are a lot of Memphians bewitched, bothered, and bewildered by the actions of the administration of Mayor A C Wharton and the Memphis City Council. Malone’s bitter assessment came just days after the council rammed through a surprising vote on the long-debated city employees’ pension plan.

After nearly a year of discussion, with the Wharton administration at first presenting a proposal with Draconian cuts to appease a warning from the state comptroller on addressing a more than $500 million pension deficit, the council decided on a 9-to-4 vote to go with Councilwoman Wanda Halbert’s plan to only apply the benefit cuts to city employees with seven-and-a-half or fewer years of service. It also happens to neatly include council members, as elected officials. Halbert’s plan was a complete reversal of her previously staunch support of city employees seeking no cuts to benefits. Her apparent flip-flop will be the fodder for much discussion as she reportedly will seek to unseat incumbent Thomas Long for the city clerk’s office in 2015.

But, after nearly a year of debate, why was Halbert’s proposal fast-tracked for a vote? As Malone told me, he asked for time for actuaries to run the numbers again on all the plans presented. His request was rejected. It certainly makes you wonder.

Certainly the communication gap between the mayor’s office and the council has never been more obvious than with the proposed settlement agreement Wharton and Shelby County School (SCS) Superintendent Dorsey Hopson privately reached. The facts are that two courts have ruled against the city’s counterclaim that they are owed the interest on $100 million given to legacy Memphis City Schools for buildings. They alleged their claim trumps the $57 million both courts ruled the city owes the school system, dating back to 2008. Councilman Myron Lowery told me last week the majority of his colleagues feel their counterclaim will win out as both sides continue mediation efforts. Two glaring discrepancies come to mind as the battle lines are drawn for the upcoming showdown over whether the council will approve funding for the school settlement in early January.

It doesn’t surprise me that Wharton, Hopson, and the SCS board members are happy with this deal that essentially amounts to $43 million in cash and other amenities, such as $2.6 million in police protection for schools and a balloon payment of $6 million in February. What bothers me is how Wharton decided to communicate this agreement to the council in a terse, written memorandum delivered just as the pension vote was about to be made. He apparently hadn’t even told those council members on the mediation team he’d reached a deal. It’s an example of Wharton’s confounding “lawyers know best” mentality. He comes from the world of plea bargains and deals in criminal justice. But, as the city’s chief executive, he has to be more open and candid about his dealings, especially when the final approval for funding lies with the council.

And speaking of the council: Back in 2008, tired of the “maintenance of effort” in voluntarily funding city schools for years, they went rogue. That proved to be a costly mistake for all concerned. It can be reasonably argued that their failure to pay the $57 million led to the collapse of the legacy Memphis City Schools two years later. Their decision to divest themselves of that obligation led to millions of taxpayer dollars being wasted on the protracted litigation between the city and the county that followed.

Now the ball is in their court again. A second chance to begin to right the foolish mistake the city council committed six years ago. If council-members decide to reject this settlement because of bruised egos or personal agendas, then they should be made to pay the price at the ballot box in 2015. It will be a fitting answer for those we elect who once in office suffer from the “addiction” of power. If we as voters don’t respond? Maybe we’re on crack.