This week’s contest involves creative recycling …
The first person to correctly ID where I’m eating wins a fabulous prize. To enter, submit your answer to me via email at ellis@memphisflyer.com.
The answer to GWIE 61 is the Hearty Multi-grain soup at Ecco, and the winner is … Ashley Phoummavong!
JB
Winner Wagner (l) and opponent Weiner
Anyone who is confused about the reasons for Republican domination of Shelby County politics — a fact of life that flies in the face of what would seem to be a demographic preponderance in favor of Democrats — should have been at the local party’s biennial convention Sunday.
The event, like the GOP’s nominating caucuses some weeks back, was held at the Bartlett Municipal Center on Stage Road. And, though the delegates and onlookers were not numerous enough to fill all the spaces, large and small, of the venerable community center (as was the case on the prior occasion), they — the elected remnant of that earlier meeting — certainly had the sprawling banquet hall filled to capacity.
Yes, this impressive turnout of several hundred was virtually all-white, as at least one of the many vying candidates at Sunday’s affair was candid enough to say from the dais (and this was by way of boasting his command of Spanish). But, whatever the nature of its ethnic identity, this party is organized in depth. That fact was made obvious when, at the very beginning of the convention, outgoing GOP chairman Justin Joy lined up, successively, long rows of the party’s internal officers and its elected public officials at the front of the room.
By anybody’s definition, this was a display of active grass roots politics.
Another lesson of Sunday’s convention was that, while there was no dearth of competition — either for the party chairmanship, won by Mary Wagner over Arnold Weiner, or for the numerous other offices up for grabs — the Tea Party rebellion which flared up at the 2013 Republican conclave and in attempted power grabs at several local Republican clubs has been contained. There was no Tea Party slate as such, with adherents of that somewhat diversified, quasi-libertarian point of view to be found on both contending slates, Wagner’s and Weiner’s.
There was a message to be had, though, in the fact that the slate headed by Wagner, a relative newcomer to party politics whose last position was that of Young Republicans president, all but swept the slate led by Weiner, a longtime party veteran who had been, most recently, a party vice chair and immediate past president of the East Shelby Republican Club. And that “all but” is required mainly because Curt Cowan, the Wagner slate’s candidate for Primary Board position #5, was prevailed upon to drop out in favor of Dr. George Flinn, the wealthy radiologist/broadcast executive and sometime political candidate who still maintains a high profile in the local Republican Party.
The other 35 contested positions — for chairman, at-large steering committee members, district representatives, and primary board members — were won by the Wagner slate.
The message, quite simply, is that there is a Republican mainstream, and it is back in full command — though there is, and always has been, a dissenting minority, which this year collected around Weiner. This year, as always before, that minority can — in today’s political vernacular — “make a statement” (mainly that it opposes whoever is in charge), but it cannot attain control or set forth, much less establish, a coherent ideological
JB
Outgoing chair Jujstin Joy convenes the GOP cadres.
alternative.
The relative balance of power is accurately reflected in the ratio of Wagner’s victory —317 votes for her, 97 for Weiner.
The outcome had to be painful for Weiner, who has certainly paid his party dues in sweat equity for several decades and who, ironically, may have achieved the apex of his influence a few years back when, at the height of the Tea Party surge, he organized a massive turnout of traditional Republicans to turn back an organized effort by the Tea Partiers to wrest elective control of the influential East Shelby Republican Club.
Though the fact surfaced only sotto voce in the run-up to Sunday’s GOP convention, Weiner’s devotion to Republican causes may have been offset — or at least balanced — by the highly idiosyncratic nature of his distinctive and often self-absorbed personality. He is generally regarded as likeable, in the teddy-bear sense, but he managed to seriously undermine that aspect of his reputation by an ill-considered convention-eve innuendo in a Facebook post against a member of his opponent’s slate.
Weiner is nothing if not resilient, however, a point indicated in a post-convention online text from him: “Even though I lost for chairman I was elected district 85 rep on steering committee. I am persistent.” (It should be noted that there was not a Wagner-backed candidate for the District 85 slot.)
There were strange moments at Sunday’s convention, which began at 2 p.m. and drifted well into the evening (though it was nothing like the seven-hour marathon of two years ago). There was the candidate who based his pitch to the delegates on his claimed support for former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton in a past reelection effort against John Ford. Odd, considering that that both of these worthies are Democrats. Even odder, inasmuch as there was never any race in which they ran against each other.
And there was the candidate for party treasurer who rose to say he did not want the position for which he had been nominated but then launched into a vigorous and prolonged accounting of his qualifications for the job. (He lost.)
But mainly, after the long and drawn-out event finally came to an end, Sunday’s convention amounted to one more attempted reaffirmation by Shelby County’s de facto governing party on behalf of GOP talking points and the amorphous concept that Warren G. Harding once famously referred to as normalcy.
(UPDATE: a few non-Wagner choices at the district level. See comments below.)
The St. Louis Cardinals played a total of eight exhibition games at AutoZone Park over the stadium’s first decade, starting with the game that opened the park on April 1, 2000. (Fernando Vina delivered the first hit, Eli Marrero the first home run.) The Redbirds’ parent club returned in 2002, then played two games on visits in 2004, 2007 (one of them the inaugural Civil Rights Game), and 2009. Including the 2009 campaign, though, six full seasons have passed since the Cardinals have taken the field at Third and Union, thanks to a rainstorm that cancelled the game scheduled to be played late last March.
A lot has happened in the Cardinal system over the last six years:
• Only two current Cardinals were with the club for that 2009 exhibition. Catcher Yadier Molina and pitcher Adam Wainwright — both former Redbirds — were best remembered at the time for their embrace after clinching the 2006 World Series championship for St. Louis. Molina had won his first Gold Glove in 2008 (he’s won six more since) and Wainwright was coming off a 19-8 season in which he finished third in the Cy Young Award voting (and won his first Gold Glove). You can now find Wainwright in second place on the Cardinals’ all-time strikeout chart (behind Hall of Famer Bob Gibson) and eighth on the team’s win list with 119. Molina is the only Cardinal since 1950 to play in four World Series.
• This will be the first Cardinal exhibition game since 2000 without one Albert Pujols. The man who homered to win the 2000 Pacific Coast League championship for Memphis came back and delivered home runs in 2004, 2007 (helping the Cards win the Civil Rights Game), and 2009. Pujols, of course, is entering his fourth season with the Los Angeles Angels. You can still find the red seat marking his famous homer on the rightfield bluff at AutoZone Park, just inside the foul pole.
• David Freese, Allen Craig, and Jon Jay were all Memphis Redbirds in 2009 and would play big roles in leading the Redbirds to their second PCL championship. Two years later, they were central figures in bringing the Cardinals their 11th world championship. Jay delivered a key single in the 10th-inning rally that kept St. Louis alive in Game 6. Craig hit three home runs (and caught the final out) against Texas. And Freese, of course, hit the most famous triple in Cardinals history, followed it with a home run to win Game 6, and earned MVP honors for the Fall Classic. This trio helped the Cardinals win another National League pennant in 2013, but only Jay remains with the team. Freese is a teammate of Pujols’s with the Angels and the Cardinals traded Craig to Boston last summer.
• The Cardinals have developed three everyday players — via Memphis — since the Cardinals last played here. They make up three-fourths of the St. Louis infield: first-baseman Matt Adams, second-baseman Kolten Wong, and third-baseman Matt Carpenter. Carpenter hit .300 in 2011, his only season with Memphis and two seasons later became the first player since Pete Rose to lead the major leagues in runs, hits, and doubles in the same season. Adams led the 2012 Redbirds with 18 home runs in just 67 games (he hit .329 before being promoted to St. Louis) and has slammed 32 long ones over the last two years with the Cardinals. Wong hit .303 and stole 20 bases for the 2013 Redbirds before taking over second base in St. Louis last season. He delivered a walk-off home run in Game 2 of last year’s NLCS, the Cardinals’ only win against San Francisco.
• Four of the Cardinals’ five-man starting rotation toed the rubber at AutoZone Park with the Redbirds, three of them since 2009. Wainwright should make his fourth Opening Day start when the Cardinals face the Chicago Cubs next Sunday. Following him in the St. Louis rotation will be Lance Lynn (13 wins and 141 strikeouts to lead the PCL in 2010), Michael Wacha, and the winner of a competition between Carlos Martinez and Marco Gonzales.
Friday night should be a special renewal of what is now an 18-year baseball partnership between Memphis and St. Louis. Here’s hoping the Cardinals don’t take six years before coming back.
Larry Kuzniewski
Marc Gasol still wasn’t fully engaged, but he did look better than he has.
A Loss to the Spurs
It was a loss, and it was a loss that saw the Grizzlies lose their lead over the Southwest division and fall from the 2nd seed to 3rd behind the Houston Rockets, so it’s hard to reconcile why Sunday night’s 103-89 road loss to the San Antonio Spurs felt like it was more silver lining than cloud itself. (Insert “Touch of Grey” joke here.)
The Grizzlies lost to the Spurs, sure, but they did it while playing more or less like the Grizzlies. They weren’t close to being the early season Griz, to be sure, but they showed signs of life that had been severely lacking in the last two outings against the Cavaliers and Warriors. They played with more aggression even though the shots weren’t falling (especially for Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, and Courtney Lee—stop me if you’ve heard that one before). The defense was good for stretches, even with Tony Allen out with the hamstring injury he suffered towards the end of the Golden State game. They looked halfway decent again… but the outcome was ultimately the same, record-wise and standings-wise.
The Spurs kept running out to double-digit leads—13 points at one point during the third quarter—and the Grizzlies kept reeling them back in. All night long, until the Griz finally won the third quarter and cut the San Antonio lead to 4. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Joerger outsmarted himself a little bit and played a three point guard “super smallball” lineup of Beno Udrih, Mike Conley, Nick Calathes, Vince Carter, and Jeff Green.
[jump]
Larry Kuzniewski
Tony Allen’s one-on-one defense was the only thing that could’ve stopped Kawhi Leonard, but Allen was out with an injury.
Maybe if Tony Allen had been in the game to deny Kawhi Leonard the ball, it would’ve worked—Allen is the only guy on the roster who could’ve hoped to do that kind of a defensive job one-on-one on Leonard—but he wasn’t, and Leonard promptly scored 15 straight points for the Spurs and the Griz found themselves sliding back down into a double-digit loss. By the time the starters got back in, it was too late to do anything about it. The Spurs Machine had already ground them up into little pieces as they do so often.
This is the Spurs team that won the title last year, or a close approximation of it. When the Grizzlies beat them (twice) earlier this season, the Griz were in a much better place, and the Spurs in a much worse one. Now those tables have turned, and it’s San Antonio who is back on track and the Grizzlies who just aren’t quite on their level. In a seven-game series, who knows, because the Grizzlies do have the ability to compete with them if they’re playing at their best, but I’d prefer that the Grizzlies do whatever it takes to miss seeing them until the Western Conference Finals.
Perhaps most reassuring for the Griz even in the midst of the third loss in a row was Zach Randolph. He looked like himself. After only managing a combined 15 points and 6 rebounds in the last two games, Randolph came out in something approximating Vintage Z-Bo form and hung 20 points and 13 rebounds on the Spurs, single-handedly carrying the Grizzlies through a rough first quarter in which nobody else made more than 1 shot. He was ready to play last night—something that has been a genuine question as of late—and his body language looked better. When the game was out of hand and Joerger pulled the starters with 40 seconds left, Randolph sat on the bench with a towel on his head, very obviously furious that the Griz couldn’t pull off the win. And that’s, frankly, been missing a little bit lately. After the Cavs and Warriors game, Randolph was mostly catatonic, not sure what to say about it. I wasn’t in San Antonio to hear what he had to say in the locker room, but it was obvious from the broadcast that he was mad. Mad Z-Bo, as we know, is the best, most motivated Z-Bo. Maybe that’s the spark the Grizzlies need right now.
Marc Gasol looked terrible at first and slowly came back alive as the second half wore on, but it was too little too late. At first he was hesitating to shoot, and not making anything when he did. As the game ran its course, Gasol started to get into a little bit of a rhythm—still not making many shots; he was 7-15 from the field for 16, 6 and 6—and playing like he wanted to be on the floor, getting more aggressive than he’s been in a while. But he still just didn’t look right. Early on he was clearly playing distracted and overthinking what he was doing—to the point that I was making Twitter jokes about how he was trying to convince the Spurs they didn’t want to sign him—but as things kept going, he got a little more into it.
I’ve got no idea what’s going on with Gasol, and I don’t think anybody else does either—nobody who’s talking to the media, anyway. But the Grizzlies need him 100% back. I know these games “don’t matter” or whatever, but that’s not even true anymore. With the 2nd seed going to Houston but very much still within the Grizzlies’ grasp, every game does matter again.
Larry Kuzniewski
At this point, Courtney Lee’s floor spacing ability (or lack thereof) is a key indicator of how far the Griz will go in the playoffs.
Big Picture Playoff Implications
And that’s what really matters at this late stage of the regular season: who the Grizzlies are going to play in the first round. In 3rd place, the Grizzlies would play the Spurs in the first round, which is probably a worst case scenario in terms of Grizzlies advancement.
If they can get to the 2nd seed, and win the division from Houston—something very achievable if they can be trusted to actually, you know, win some games they’re supposed to win, which is a thing that hasn’t happened with any consistency for a couple of months now—it means a probably first round matchup with the 7th-seeded Dallas Mavericks, who I don’t think are going to catch the 6th-seeded Spurs or 5th-seeded Clippers.
Barring that, if that for some reason becomes unattainable, the next best option is to rest every single starter for the rest of the season and tank (yes, tank) down to the 5th seed to play Portland. Portland is already locked into the 4th seed as a division winner, but the Griz would have a better record, so even as the 5th seed they’d have home court advantage in a 4/5 series against Portland, which… would be a really exciting playoff series, too.
The problem with being in a 4/5 matchup with Portland—a problem that doesn’t happen if they win their way back to the 2nd seed—is that then in the second round the Grizzlies would have to play the Warriors. I feel better about their chances against the Warriors in the second round than I do about their chances against the Spurs in the first round—they’re too out of sorts for me to feel comfortable with their having to win four games out of seven against the Spurs right out of the gate of the playoffs. In the 2nd spot, they’d play the winner of Rockets/Spurs in the second round, or—if the Spurs keep winning at this rate—the Spurs may win up to the 5 seed and that second round opponent may be the winner of Rockets/Clippers—a very winnable series for the Grizzlies.
That’s the “easiest” path back to the Conference Finals, where the Griz would presumably either face the Spurs or the Warriors, at which point, if they’re playing like they played in December and January and Courtney Lee can space the floor a little bit while Marc Gasol puts up 25-10 stat lines, they could beat either team. Or, if not, they’d lose. But at least they’d be in the Conference Finals when they lose, and not in the first round after an entire season of “this is the year” and “now is the time” and “we’re all in for this season.” A first round exit would lead to some serious Bad Vibes around this organization, and should be avoided at all costs.
Tweet of the Night
No, I actually hadn’t considered this, Greg, but it does explain things:
Did anyone consider that the Griz might have given up playing basketball good for Lent?
— Greg Akers (@GregAkers) March 29, 2015
JB
New Democratic chair Randa Spears moves on past an effort by runner-up Del Gill to raise a post-election procedural issue…
The brightly lit electronic overhang on I40W, headed toward its junction with Sam Cooper Boulevard, said “EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.” Never mind that the message had to do with roadwork, it struck me that it might apply as well to the forthcoming Shelby County Democratic Party convention at First Baptist Church Broad, just west of where the freeway portion of Sam Cooper turns into a divided local highway.
So I was ready for the unexpected. The first sign of the Apocalypse came when, climbing out of my car in the church parking lot, bundled up against the prospect of wintry chill reviving the cold I’d had all week, I saw snowflakes falling and, walking through them toward the church just ahead of me, an unconcerned young woman in a blue T-shirt.
That turned out to be the delightful Mary Kyle, daughter of Chancellor Jim Kyle and state Senator Sara Kyle, there to join her mother at the party convention. For the record, the T-shirt bore a vintage election slogan of her late aunt’s: “Elect Anna Belle Clement O’Brien for Governor.” That unlikely event had not occurred, but — to skip to the chase — one that was close kin to it did happen at the convention on Saturday.
Namely, the election of longtime Democratic activist Randa Spears as Shelby County Democratic chairman — the first white female to hold the position in the local party’s history.
As unexpected as it was, Spears’ ascension to party leadership, after 32 years in the gruntosphere, made perfect sense. It was a reward for faithful service — including a recent stint as campaign manager for Deidre Malone, the Democratic nominee in last year’s County Mayor race. It was a nod to the longstanding prominence of women in party affairs (as in local social and civic life, generally). And it was a clear signal to Shelby County’s white population that the SCDP was not, as it has sometimes seemed in recent years, a monolithically black organization.
Asked about that last fact in the aftermath of her second-ballot win over runner-up Del Gill, Spears was discreet, diffident, and diplomatic. “I don’t know that that is important. I think it’s important that someone with my focus and experience and enthusiasm is chairman. And I think I’ve worked with almost everybody in this room, except for the new folks, on one campaign or another. So I look at this as all one group.”
Malone, who, in an exchange of roles this year, had been Spears’ campaign manager, addressed the point more freely. “I do think it’s important to have elected a white chair — and especially a white female. It makes a statement.”
Just as it might to elect a female mayor at some point, she was prodded? “Yes,” she nodded, in gratitude for the implied tribute to her pathfinding 2010 and 2014 mayoral campaigns.
For the fact is, American politics is all about constituent groups (or blocs, if you choose). The more different ones your party can address satisfactorily, the more broadly based — and successful — is your party likely to be.
For the last several years, the evidence of the ballot box has been that the Shelby County Republican Party has done a better job of being more things to more people, at least at election time. Winning campaigns, whether by the GOP or by individual Democratic candidates, have involved significant crossover voting. All campaigns based on appeals to a single bloc — on the assumption that a greater supply of registered African-American voters means guaranteed success, for example — have failed. You can look it up. In Shelby County as elsewhere, voters are more discriminating — in the best sense of the word; i.e., color-blind — than they are given credit for.
Randa Spears knows this, and the bi-racial majority of the new 29-member Democratic executive committee that elected her do as well.
JB
…but hears him out at meeting’s end.
All the candidates on Saturday’s ballot had something to say for themselves. Gill could boast his four decades of party work, newcomer Jackie Jackson was a fresh breath, just a little too new to most committee members to win; and pre-convention favorite Reginald Milton, a well-respected County Commissioner, was conspicuous in his efforts to unite disparate party factions — if perhaps a mite too cautious and by-the-numbers about it.
Or maybe just too abstract. Politics is also all about trade-offs, and Spears’ victory owed much to longtime party broker Sidney Chism, who, for whatever reason, tipped his support, and that of his still significant network, to her.
Gill, who — all things considered — was not that far behind Spears, at 11 to her 16 on the second ballot, was visibly discouraged by this, his latest in a string of defeats. But, Gill being Gill, that did not mean he was prepared to fall in line behind Spears. Seemingly oblivious to the meaning of his inability to add to his original first-ballot-leading total of 11 on a second go-round, he put up a fuss at meeting’s end about some typically arcane hair-splitting issue — apparently, it was whether the voice vote of the new committee to continue the party’s bylaws should have been made earlier by the convention as a body instead.
The point seemed both anti-climactic and pedantic, and no complaints were heard from the ranks of the newly reconfigured party committee when Spears, politely but firmly, gaveled him down and moved on to complete the day’s business. She was sure-handed and no-nonsense about it, and that, too, was taken well by Democrats who of late have seen too much sleight-of-hand and wasted effort and too little focus on organizing for success. Still, she said she was willing to avail herself of the “wealth of experience” of Gill and whomever else.
On Sunday it’s the ShelbyCounty Republicans’ turn to elect a new steering committee and choose a new chairman — presumably either Mary Wagner or Arnold Weiner, the two announced candidates — at Bartlett Municipal Center.
Larry Kuzniewski
Mike Conley played a great first half last night before the Warriors completely overwhelmed the Grizzlies.
The Grizzlies lost to the league-leading Golden State Warriors on Friday night, 107-84, in their second consecutive blowout loss to a championship-contending team. I don’t think I have to run down how the game went: the Grizzlies came out playing tough but not executing well, and not making great decisions. Mike Conley was on fire early and did a number on Stephen Curry defensively, but without the play from Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph to back it up and establish the Grizzlies’ presence on the interior, the Grizzlies were quickly overmatched and outgunned.
The Warriors’ incomparable backcourt of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson combined for 66 points on 22 of 39 shooting, and the Warriors as a team went 16 of 31 from three-point range. The Grizzlies’ defense, good though it may be, just couldn’t keep up with that kind of barrage, not when their own offense was sorely lacking in outside shooting and the open shots they were able to create for themselves—mostly on the interior, where they count for one fewer point—weren’t falling.
The Warriors, the way they’re playing right now, are one of the best basketball teams I’ve seen play in person. Everything they do, whether it’s passing, shooting, defending, running sets, everything, they do at an elite level. They’re clearly the best team in the West and probably the best team in the league.
And that’s the whole problem that the Grizzlies have against these teams like the Cavaliers and Warriors right now: they’re just better. They’re playing their best basketball, and the Grizzlies are still stumbling around trying to find their way, or maybe coasting, or who even knows what the problem is anymore? There are tiers of teams right now. The first tier is Golden State, Cleveland, Atlanta, and probably San Antonio. The Grizzlies—despite having the third-best record in the league—don’t belong in that group by virtue of their uneven play.
That’s not to say that the Grizzlies are hopeless. They could very conceivably get to the playoffs, where every game matters again, and flip a switch and return to form, with the offense and defense both firing on all cylinders the way they were at the beginning of the year. It’s not hard to imagine that happening; we know they’re capable of playing like that, or at least they were. It’s entirely possible that they end up in a first round matchup with, well, anybody but San Antonio, and take care of business in five or six games while rounding into form to pummel whoever the second-round opponent is.
The problem is that there are only three weeks and nine games between here and there. They’ve been sleepwalking since before the All-Star break. There’s just no way to know what they’re going to look like—what type of intensity they’ll play with, how well they’ll execute—until the playoffs start. If last night is an indication of anything, it’s just proof that the Grizzlies have a long way to go before they’re in “playoff shape.”
But let’s talk specifics. Here are two things that are going wrong for the Grizzlies right now that are actually worth being concerned about, long-term.
Zach Randolph is not playing like Zach Randolph, and he hasn’t for a while. Last night against Golden State, Z-Bo had 3 rebounds and 10 points on 4-10 shooting in 27 minutes. This is the same Randolph who ripped off a string of 20-out-of-21 games worth of double doubles barely more than two months ago. He’s just not playing like himself right now; he’s not the physical interior threat he normally is, he’s not fighting for rebounding position, the Grizzlies are settling for the same old isolation sets for him that they always have… it’s just not good. I don’t know why that’s happening, and neither does anybody else. But Randolph’s decline, when paired with Gasol’s, is a huge reason the Grizzlies can’t beat anybody right now: it’s pretty much the only way they had to score anyway, and with Randolph a non-factor they really can’t keep up with jump shooting.
I’d like to assume that Randolph is just coasting to the playoffs, whether intentionally or not, and that he’ll be fine by the end of the year. Veteran guys have that habit. But if that’s not what it is, and there are some kind of issues, physical or otherwise, that are keeping him from playing his best, that’s a huge problem.
Larry Kuzniewski
Courtney Lee has regressed from not making shots to barely even taking them.
The second thing: Courtney Lee is a shooter/scorer who neither shoots nor scores. Lee started the season on a hot streak, and since then he hasn’t just returned to earth, but rather has fallen through the floor, through the bottom of the basement, and is now searchin for his shot somewhere deep within the mantle of the earth, on a mission somewhat like the movie The Core.
Without Lee hitting threes—because, let’s face it, nobody else is hitting any either, with the exception of Mike Conley, and Mike can’t do everything all the time—the Grizzlies are right back where they’ve always been every other year: pack the paint and shut down Gasol and Randolph, and there’s nowhere for them to go. Teams have been doing just that all spring now, and Lee, for his part, doesn’t appear to be shaking off the slump any time soon.
The worst part about Lee’s slump is that he’s progressed beyond taking shots and missing them, and now he’s got a hand injury of some kind and he isn’t even taking them anymore. Against Cleveland, he played fourteen full minutes before even attempting a field goal. Against Golden State, he was 1-6 in 22 minutes, which is better, but (obviously) still not good.
And it’s bad for chemistry. The players know the fact that Lee won’t shoot the ball is a problem—one or two off-the-record locker room grumbles confirmed that. Front office folks know it’s a problem, too. There doesn’t appear to be anything that anybody can do about it, short of hoping that Vince Carter somehow completes his return to his form from last season’s Mavericks team that almost knocked off the eventual-champion Spurs. And, much as I hate to say it, that doesn’t seem likely.
So, it’s not just me worrying about what’s going to happen—those two issues, Randolph and Lee, are concerning trends as the Grizzlies get ready for the postseason. If there’s no shooting to space the floor—and honestly, I’m just so, so tired of wondering when the Griz will finally acquire “a shooter” so they can make something approaching the league average number of threes—and if Zach Randolph isn’t able to fill that “garbage man” role because of some real reason, beyond “I don’t care until April”, they’ll be even farther away from that top tier of NBA teams.
Let’s be honest: Sunday night’s game in San Antonio against the surging Spurs is probably not going to go well, either, given the way the Grizzlies are playing right now. It’s more important that they look like they want to be there and that they play like they actually want to win than whatever the result ends up being. Lee has to take shots. Randolph has to get rebounds. Gasol has to be a little more assertive, or at least look less confused. Someone besides Mike Conley has to play like they’re worried about the outcome.
Without those things, this team just isn’t very good. Whether or not they’re really the 2nd best team in the West, as their record would indicate, they’re far better than they’ve been playing lately, and I, for one, would just like for them to put together a good game and prove that they’re still capable of hanging with these top-tier teams. Is that too much to ask?
The Indie Memphis Film Festival has announced the resignation of Executive Director Erik Jambor.
In his seven-year stint as the festival’s first full time executive director, Jambor has overseen the expansion of the festival from its roots as a locally focused, all-volunteer affair into an internationally renown event, screening more than 100 films annually, with year-round programming. The festival became one of the first major events to be held in Overton Square, selling out screenings in Playhouse On The Square and Circuit Playhouse and raising the profile of the entertainment district at a crucial time during its redevelopment. Attendance peaked in 2012, with approximately 12,000 festival goers.
However, as the festival continued to expand and add screens, attendance has leveled off and dropped over the last two years. In private conversations, Indie Memphis board members have pointed to several factors, including failed outreach beyond the core cinephile audience and the fact that the festival weekend has fallen on the distraction-filled Halloween holiday in the last two years.
A significant shortfall in the festival’s $200,000 annual budget became apparent at the end of 2014, kicking off an internal debate among the board members about the future of the festival. Indie Memphis’ other full time employee, Brighid Wheeler was laid off in January, and Jambor stopped taking his salary in February before finally resigning this week.
In a press release late Friday newly elected board president Ryan Watt, a Memphis-based film producer, said that a search for a new director has begun, and that the search will concentrate on finding someone with non-profit fundraising experience. A scaled-back version of the festival will take place in the fall—although definitely not on Halloween weekend. Watt said this year’s festival will be more locally focused, and that he hopes to reschedule the festival to a more opportune time of year in 2016 and revamping the festival to reflect the changing nature of film audiences. No call for entries has been posted at this time.
Both members of the board and Jambor have characterized his departure as a mutual decision. Jambor has accepted a film fellowship in Italy, and has stated he hopes to return as a consultant to the festival in the future.
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This week was all about the Stax Soul Singles Box set, a 10 disc retrospective that the Concord Music Group was nice enough to release. Volume 2 covers 1968 through 1971 and this box covers 1972 through 1975. Both volumes feature stalwart Stax R&B artists including Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor, Carla Thomas, the Bar-Kays and William Bell, as well as bluesmen Little Milton, Albert King and Little Sonny, and “second generation” Stax hit makers like Jean Knight, the Soul Children, Kim Weston, the Temprees, and Mel & Tim.
What We Listened to this Week: Stax Soul Singles Vol. 3 (4)
While Volume 2 of this collection focuses on the era when Stax was forming its own identity, Volume 3 covers a very different era, one of success and excess, right before Stax was on the verge of shutting down. During this time period the label recorded a wealth of of different styles of popular black music, ranging from jazz and easy-listening to the blues and even the beginning stages of disco.
What We Listened to this Week: Stax Soul Singles Vol. 3 (2)
In 1976, faced with involuntary bankruptcy and an unsuccessful distribution deal with CBS Records, Stax was forced to close its doors. In his liner notes for Vol. 3, compilation co-producer Bill Belmont writes, “Stax’s difficult and inglorious end in no way diminishes its vital contributions to rhythm and blues and soul. Today, the music of Stax maintains a strong and steady presence, heard continually in cover versions by major artists, in movies and on television. Simply put, the Memphis Sound lives.”
What We Listened to this Week: Stax Soul Singles Vol. 3 (3)
Stax Soul Singles Volume 3 in all it’s glory.
Memphis Rail & Trolley Museum
Central Station in the year it opened in in 1914
New plans for Central Station were unveiled Friday and they include a hotel, a movie theater, a restaurant, a market, a new apartments, and renovations of the existing apartments in the building.
The plans for the building at 545 South Main, were made public during a special meeting of the Memphis Area Transit Authority’s finance committee.
The hotel and commercial space are slated for the main terminal building. The movie theater would go in the Powerhouse (behind the main building) and on the land behind behind the Powerhouse building. The restaurant and market would go in the northwest corner of the site. New apartments would be built on the southwest portion of the site.
The plans also call for the relocation and consolidation of trolley and bus transfer points on Main Street. It would also put parking no the western portion of the site. Also planned is a connector concourse for pedestrian access through the site, and pedestrian, bicycle, and streetscape improvements.
The plans are from a team with the Henry Turley Co. And Community Capital LLC. Both companies were selected by a MATA evaluation team for the project more than a year ago.