Month: April 2015

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

To Nobody’s Surprise, Mickell Lowery Announces for Dad’s Council Seat

CREDIT: JB

JB

Mickell Lowery, backed by family and friends, announces candidacy for Super-District 8.

It remains to be seen whether Mickell Lowery might be a chip off the old block — the block being retiring Councilman Myron Lowery — but the voters in the Council’s Super-District 8, which covers half the city has and has been represented by the senior Lowery since 1992, will have a chance to make that judgment on November 3.

As was widely anticipated, especially since Myron Lowery’s announcement of non-candidacy last week, Lowery the younger, a sales representative at FedEX, announced on Monday his intent to succeed his father in Position 3. The announcement came at high noon, from the steps of LeMoyne-Owen College, his alma mater as well as his Dad’s.

The choice of venue, said the aspiring councilman, was symbolic in that the school represented “advancement in our community,” a quality he saw as consistent with his campaign theme, “New Leadership for a Better Memphis.”

Candidate Lowery added that he wanted “to make sure that the priorities of City Hallo match the priorities of the community.” He named crime reduction as one of his priorities and may have intended to cite some more.

But just then a chip off his block — his toddler daughter Milan, who nestled in Granddad’s arms — made a bit of a noise, and Daddy Mickell demonstrated his quickness on the uptake with what seemed a relevant segue: “I intend to be talking with students as early as elementary school,” he said.

Asked about his advantages in what may well be a competitive and well-populated race, Mickell Lowery stressed what he said were years of “hard work” for the community as a neighborhood football coach and “on various boards.” By way of further emphasizing his community work, he added, “That’s why I didn’t try to run 10 years ago, simply off my last name.”

Even so, his beaming father was on hand as a backer, as well as Mickell Lowery’s wife Charisa and a decent-looking collection of friends and family.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Vending Machine World Premiere

On today’s Music Video Monday, we’ve got the world premiere of “White Squared Potato” from Robby Grant’s ongoing music video project for his new Vending Machine album Let The Little Things Go. Director Andrew Trent Fleming takes us on a chase through space in a rickety, retrofuture rocket. 

“When Robby asked me to make a video for his new Vending Machine EP, I knew I wanted to do something off the wall,” says Fleming. “I wanted to do something I’d never done in a music video before (space setting, 3D graphics) and make it silly but a little dark. I also wanted to make a small joke about the plethora of locals (myself included) who shoehorn some iconic Memphis landmark into videos in which they don’t make any sense.”

Music Video Monday: Vending Machine World Premere

If you’d like your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email a link to cmccoy@memphisflyer.com. 

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

Q & A: Justin Fuente

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Q & A: Justin Fuente

Ten wins, a conference championship, a bowl victory, and a Top-25 ranking. When it comes to the University of Memphis football program, that is so 2014. No sport has a shorter offseason than college football. Less than four months after the Tigers beat BYU in a thrilling Miami Beach Bowl, the team takes the field Friday night in its annual culmination of spring practice, the Blue-Gray Game. I sat down last week with coach Justin Fuente, now among the brightest rising stars in his business.

What kind of celebration did you allow yourself since the win in Miami?
It takes a while to decompress, because you’re on the go for so long, trying to balance football and recruiting. I took some time off, took my family to see my parents [in Oklahoma]. Then it was back to recruiting, on the road. You get to the first week in February, and you can kinda relax before getting ready for spring practice. It’s a time to reacquaint yourself with your family a little bit.

Fuente1011.jpg

Is your oldest daughter old enough to appreciate the season Dad just had?
She’s old enough to know we won, that it was different. She was kind of spoiled. She’s 7 now, and the first three years of her life [when Fuente was an assistant at TCU], we went 36-3. It was a bowl game every Christmas. She realized we struggled when we started [here], and she knows we did better. She knew it was fun and would like to do it again.

Share some perspective on the 2014 Tigers, a team that will live in the record books as a Top-25 squad?
That was a special group of kids. Some appreciated [the success] more than some other people may have. They didn’t take it for granted. They serve as a great example for our younger guys, all the things you try and preach in building a team: continue to work hard, don’t point the finger, but look at yourself to get better. There was a core group of seven or eight guys who did a great job and left an impression on our younger guys: Al Bond, Brandon Hayes, Bobby McCain, Martin Ifedi, Charles Harris, and a bunch more. I hope they look back and each considers himself as good a football player as he could be. I hope they come back.

Was there a point last season when you felt a validation of your plan, when you recognized this program had turned a corner?
We preached the concept of team from the start of two-a-days. We didn’t worry about the opponent as much as making sure we were selfless, that we worked hard. When we got to the bye week after the first six games, I felt we’d reached that [standard]. We were 3-3 and had played some close games against really good teams. We turned the page after that, to the “1-0” mantra. That took off; the kids embraced it.

It’s a short offseason. What has been your chief priority during spring practice?
We’ve got a tremendous amount of work to do. We lost eight starters on defense and three backups. We have a lot of guys who have played, but they’ve never been the first guy in line. We have to develop that ownership [of a position]. It’s always been, ‘Let Charles Harris do it.’ With new faces and new skill sets, you have to find out what guys can do. It’s been relatively easy the last few years, because it’s been basically the same guys playing on defense. Each team is different. Each individual is different. We have to feel out how they respond to things. It’s paramount.

Who are some players you see emerging into larger roles next fall?
Some of our returning players on defense: [linebacker] Jackson Dillon, [linebacker] Leonard Pegues has played a lot, [linebacker] Wynton McManis. [Safety] Reggis Ball has played quite a bit. [Defensive end] Ernest Suttles played a lot last year as a freshman. They’ve continued to get better, and are starting to feel comfortable in their own leadership styles.

As a sophomore last season, Paxton Lynch set a Tiger record with 35 total touchdowns (22 passing, 13 rushing). What do you expect from him as a junior? Where can he improve?
He has plenty of room to keep improving: decision-making and ball security. The next step for him leadership-wise is to cross over to the other side of the ball [as a leader]. It’s hard. Some guys can’t do it. He needs to improve his physical strength. He made great strides between his freshman and sophomore seasons, and it showed in his play. He can make more strides the next two years. He knows that if he works like we’re going to demand, we’ve got his back. He’s very athletic, moves really well. Almost like a basketball player. He’s not a tall, stiff guy.

Charles Harris — a senior linebacker in 2014 — was named the American Athletic Conference’s football scholar-athlete of the year. That’s an honor an entire university can celebrate. Is he the prototype for a college football player at the U of M?
He is exactly what you want from your son or what you’d want your daughter to bring home someday. He’s got a great family. He’s done everything we’ve ever asked of him. All of the recognition he gets, he deserves. And I don’t usually say something like that.

The more success you have here, the more your name will be mentioned when higher-profile programs make coaching changes. How do you juggle the pull from other schools with your devotion to building the Memphis progam?
There are several facets, and one is handling the media. It gets brought up. I’ve tried to be as honest and straightforward as I can. We have a tremendous amount of sweat equity built up in this program. I think we can accomplish wonderful things. There’s tons of untapped potential. We’ve worked very hard to get to this point and I’d like to be around to enjoy it.

That said, if something where there’s mutual interest comes along, then we’ll listen and talk about it. I’m really happy here. It’s been easy for us. My day-to-day life is very, very nice. In recruiting, it comes up. It’ll only come up when you’re having success. Anybody who can guarantee you anything in this business, in terms of longevity, is telling a fib. It’s just too volatile a situation, up and down. We address it up front. We’ve had very low staff turnover. It certainly hasn’t become a distraction.

Kickoff for the Blue-Gray Game is 7 p.m. Friday night at the Liberty Bowl. Admission is free.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Donuts for Dessert!

CREDIT: Stacey Greenberg

Ginger Donuts with Coconut Sorbet

“When my family eats at the restaurant, they always get the ginger donuts,” says Tsunami’s owner and chef Ben Smith.

The ginger donuts with coconut sorbet ($8) at Tsunami have been a solid seller for five or six years. Smith says they tie nicely into the restaurant’s Pacific Rim theme, while also honoring the South’s love of deep-fried foods.

Stacey Greenberg

Tsunami’s ginger donuts

The ginger donuts are about the size of golf balls and have a crusty exterior and a cakey, gooey interior and are dusted with powdered sugar. They aren’t too sweet. Their deliciousness lies somewhere between coffee cake and funnel cake.

Smith says they aren’t your standard donut as they are a bit denser and are laced with fresh ginger. “The fresh ginger makes a big difference and gives a big punch of flavor,” he says. There are three per order, and it is a hearty dessert.

He didn’t always pair them with a big scoop of his coconut sorbet, but once he did he found it was the perfect match and provided balance. The final touch on the dish is a light coating of ginger syrup, also made with fresh ginger. “It’s a double whammy of fresh ginger,” says Smith.

Zappolies

Down the street, Josh Steiner is making a name for himself at Strano by sharing his family’s Sicilian and Moroccan influenced recipes. His carrot cake has been creating a lot of buzz, but the Zappolies ($7.50) on the brunch menu are a must try. (They are available by special request at dinner.) There are six per order.

The Zeppola is a traditional Italian pastry. Billed as his “Family’s Recipe for Donuts Rolled in Cinnamon Sugar with a side of Berry Sweet Sauce,” the Zappolies are reminiscent of a traditional beignet. Let’s call them cousins. The Zappolies are a tad smaller, a little more free form in shape, and feature cinnamon sugar rather than powdered sugar. The texture is almost exactly the same.

Stacey Greenberg

Strano’s Zappolies

What make Strano’s Zappolies really special are the accompanying dipping sauces. The “Berry sweet sauce” includes a little Campari and is devilishly sweet. As a bonus, a heavenly hazelnut dipping sauce also accompanied my order. Imagine a thinner, warmer Nutella. It was hard to say which sauce was better for dipping, but it was fun trying to figure it out.

Korean Doughnuts

Crazy Noodle chef Ji Won Choi says her Korean donut holes ($5.99) are traditional, but the dessert presentation is not. She makes them with wheat flour mixed with green tea powder, so they are not at all sweet, but they have a very appealing flavor.

Slightly larger than marbles, the donuts are cakey and quite dense — perfect for repeatedly popping into one’s mouth. The menu shows them to be a bit larger, but my order had nine of the small donut holes surrounding a heaping mound of vanilla ice cream, crisscrossed with generous amounts of chocolate sauce, and topped with a heavy dusting of sugar and cinnamon. The presentation is quite festive — so much so that it seemed like it was my birthday. Or someone’s!

The dessert is definitely a crowd pleaser. My children practically licked the plate clean.

(The menu description says “this dessert contains nuts,” but no actual nuts were observed — only donuts!)

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker’s BBQ Veggie Burger

Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker at Southland Park does push the idea that this is place that, indeed, rocks. There’s the cool menu (above) and such menu items as the Red Rocktail (Hagar-branded rum, plus peach schnapps!), Head Banging Shrimp, and the Three Meat Box hamburger. But they’re not particularly obnoxious. And while one might expect it to pretty loud in there, and maybe it is at night, at lunchtime, the scene was chill. 

There’s much to admire about the Red Rocker’s BBQ veggie burger. The presentation, for one, with its fantastic almost-entire pickle garnish. The veggie patty itself is hearty, with just enough sauce for flavor not mess. It’s topped with both pepper jack cheese and haystack onions. Everything works.

Categories
Blurb Books

Newstok Takes Stock of the “Mountaintop”

“A cosmopolitan heritage that belongs to us all” is how Scott Newstok, associate professor of English at Rhodes College, describes it: our shared cultural history. That’s one of the main points he makes in an essay called “The Crafts of Freedom,” which was recently posted on Chapter 16, a website devoted to Tennessee “writers, readers & passersby.”

It’s a timely post, because the subject of Newstok’s essay is the “Mountaintop” speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. on the evening before he was shot and killed in Memphis. Newstok looks at that eloquent, impassioned speech in terms of its artistry — the art of rhetoric. But he reminds us too of the tradition that went into it — the tradition of a liberal-arts education, the education King received at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University.

Today, April 4, 2015, first read Newstok’s essay here. Then return to the “Mountaintop” here, but for the full force of King’s speech: hear. •

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies 100, Thunder 92: Glimmers of Grindhouse

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Larry Kuzniewski

Jeff Green had an incredibly efficient and effective game last night.

Last night, the FedExForum started to feel like the Grindhouse again. It was tentative, fleeting, contingent on whether the Grizzlies could actually hold on to defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder, contingent on whether the team could snap out of the amnesiac stumble that’s marked their last eight weeks of play.

Of course, these Grizzlies always (only?) play at their best with their backs against the wall, and with San Antonio and Houston both eyeing better playoff seeding—the Grizzlies remain in 2nd in the West, but could theoretically finish anywhere between 2nd and 6th—last night was pretty close to a must-win for them. They came out and played like the Memphis Grizzlies, against a team they’ve seen more times than any other since the 2010-11 season.

The biggest thing to take away from last night is that for whatever reason, the Grizzlies are starting to look like themselves. Whether it’s because the playoffs are finally visible on the horizon, or because the seeding battle is tightening and they can finally tell that every game matters (as if it didn’t before, when they were losing to Detroit and Utah and whoever else), or because they had three days off to practice and hang out at home and eat meals with their families, it’s happening. I’m not going to say that they’ve turned a corner—this team is far too unpredictable of late for me to make any kind of pronouncement like that—but they’re showing signs of life, and that’s the best thing that’s happened down at 191 Beale in weeks.

Game Notes

Larry Kuzniewski

Marc Gasol looked like himself last night for the first time in a while.

➭ Marc Gasol looked like a different person than the jersey-ripping emotional maniac who played against Sacramento on Monday night. Even before the game, he just looked different, like he wanted to play basketball. The game followed from the attitude: Gasol finished with 19 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 blocks, and 2 steals, and he looked comfortable.

Gasol is such an emotional player. His mental state is readily apparent on the court, from the way he carries himself to the way he fights for rebounds to the way he talks to himself after plays while he gets ready to shoot free throws. The comments about Gasol’s stress level around the Sacramento game—what probably came off as jokes about the fact that he was in some kind of mental distress—weren’t jokes. Something was wrong with this dude.

It’s been a long year for Gasol. He played (hard) in the FIBA World Cup this summer, he and his wife had a baby (who is about the age to be undergoing some kind of sleep regression—since my own daughter is almost a year old, I have recent experience with that ghastly phenomenon), he’s got free agency in the back of his mind looming after the end of the year… Gasol has a lot on his plate, and has since this summer. As the Grizzlies’ play stagnated and things started to go pear-shaped, it was only another stressor on top of the pile he’d already acquired, and no wonder it made him a little crazy.

At any rate, just like the overall team, I’m not going to say “Gasol is back” just because he’s had one good game. This season has been far too inconsistent to make statements like that. But last night was the first time in a while that he (1) played at a very high level and (2) looked like he was enjoying himself, and did both at the same time. Which is a good sign as the regular season winds down.

➭ If you’re going to sit down and map out what the ideal Jeff Green game looks like, you’d probably draw up something like Green’s performance last night: 22 points on only 12 shots, 2 of 5 from 3, 5 rebounds and 2 blocks, and playing inspired, tough defense on Russell Westbrook. (He wasn’t so good defending other folks, but on Westbrook, he did a number on the white-hot force of nature.)

Lately, Green is looking a lot more comfortable in the flow of the Grizzlies’ offense, both with the starting unit (Green returned to starting last night with Tony Allen still out nursing his hamstring injury) and with the second unit. His defensive positioning is still mostly subpar, but he’s gotten “okay” enough that it’s not always the problem that it was early in his Griz tenure.

Larry Kuzniewski

Russell Westbrook prepares to experience an unpleasant collision.

His athleticism and ability to get to the rim completely change the nature of what the Griz are able to do offensively. Instead of having to shoot a last-second long jumper to bail them out when an offensive possession goes badly, they can swing the ball to Green and have him run at the basket, where he’ll probably either get a layup or go to the foul line. Not having to rely on jump shooting as a relief mechanism is a big deal for these Grizzlies, who mostly still can’t hit the broad side of a barn.

➭ Courtney Lee aggressively looked to score last night, even though his 3-pointer wasn’t really falling. Lee was 1-4 from long range, but that was only a small part of his game. He still had a rough night accuracy-wise (5 of 13 for 13 points isn’t exactly the most efficient performance) but his determination to get a layup or something on a pull-up from midrange was much different than he’s been as of late, opting to just not shoot at all. A Lee who is scoring, even if it’s not from 3, is much more valuable than one who isn’t. If he can keep his scoring aggression up—and he’s clearly still somewhat hampered by the hand injury he suffered, whether physically or mentally, so one can probably assume it comes and goes depending on how he’s feeling—the Grizzlies have a much higher ceiling.

➭ The Grizzlies should always be attempting 20-ish 3-pointers in a game. If they’re taking the shots, eventually they’ll fall. The Griz were 4 of 21 from long range last night, and the shots were almost always open looks. Everyone knows they can’t shoot—if they were even slightly below average at hitting 3’s instead of abysmal, last night’s game would’ve been a 20-point victory—but the more they take, the more they make. If they’re only going to make 20% of the 3’s they take, they need to take a lot more of them so they’re still hitting 5 or 6. On the nights that they actually make 35% or 40% of them, they’ll be unstoppable.

Tweet of the Night

Jeff Green kneed both Enes Kanter and Russell Westbrook in the face last night. He was going up for a rebound when he did it to Kanter—Kanter fell down under the basket and Green landed on him knee-first. He got Westbrook while jumping to block a shot—yes, he jumped so high his knee was even with Westbrook’s face—and he clocked Westbrook on the chin. Westbrook, of course, has been playing with a mask due to a broken cheekbone, so he was down for a while recovering from the accidental blow.

Either way, it was just another moment in the Grizzlies-as-wrestling narrative:

Categories
Blurb Books

Steele Magnolias

“If something happens and I need to speak, I just speak,” says Tennie S. Self, 89, of Clarksdale, Mississippi. That’s what Self has to say in a promo video for a new book featuring more than 50 “jewels” — Delta Jewels: In Search of My Grandmother’s Wisdom (Center Street) by photojournalist and author Alysia Burton Steele.

[jump]

Delta_Jewels.jpg

Steele will be discussing and signing Delta Jewels on Thursday, April 9th, at 6 p.m. inside story booth at 438 N. Cleveland, with books provided by The Booksellers at Laurelwood. But you can get a preview of Steele’s book and the women profiled and photographed in it at the author’s website, alysiaburton.com. That’s where you’ll meet some of the female church elders who spoke to Steele in this book of oral histories — personal histories that recall hard times in the heart of the Jim Crow South.

Steele, a photojournalist, isn’t Mississippi-born, but Mississippi is where she lives now: Oxford, to be exact, where she teaches in the journalism department at the University of Mississippi. Before that, she worked at newspapers across the country. At one of them, the Dallas Morning News, she earned a Pulitzer Prize as a picture editor for that paper’s team coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

The official launch of Delta Jewels will be at Square Books in Oxford on April 7th. But on this, the day before we remember the death of Martin Luther King Jr., take time to meet some remarkable women who survive. Their personal stories, thanks to Alysia Burton Steele, can be previewed here and here.

Categories
Music Music Blog

What We Listened to this Week: Vatican Dagger

The first single from Vatican Dagger came across my desk just in time for Good Friday. Released by Orlando label Total Punk Records, this single is short and sweet, featuring two blasts of treacherous punk rock, similar to the demo recordings of the now-defunct Connecticut band Guilty Faces. Hailing from New Orleans, Vatican Dagger features Gary Wrong (FKA Captain Beyonce) of the Gary Wrong Group and Wizzard Sleeve in addition to members of Necro Hippies. The A-side “Not To Be” isn’t that far removed from the type of scuzzy punk that the Gary Wrong Group creates, but B-side “The Mess” shows Vatican Dagger have more than a few tricks up their sleeves.

Josh Miller

Vatican Dagger playing a recent show in Orlando, Florida.

The artwork for the single was created by Wrong’s daughter Orb, and it’s a safe bet that she’s probably the only kid at her day care designing punk single covers. Total Punk Records has been cranking out the hits for a couple years now, so if Vatican Dagger gets your blood pumping be sure to check out the rest of the Total Punk Roster.

What We Listened to this Week: Vatican Dagger

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

George Flinn Seeking Chairmanship of State GOP

CREDIT: JB

JB

George Flinn

George Flinn, the wealthy radiologist/broadcast magnate who is well known to his Shelby Countians — and to the state at large — as a political candidate ever willing to put his energy and assets on the line as a candidate for office or as a backer of causes, has a new goal.

Flinn wants to be chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, to succeed Chris Devaney of Chattanooga, who made a surprise announcement recently that he would be resigning to become head of a home-town non-profit.

“I think our party has become dominant in Tennessee because of its conservative principles, and I believe we should stick to those principles, but we need to guard against having too narrow a focus,” Flinn told the Flyer. He said that would strive as chairman to be as inclusive as possible in incorporating new people and elements within the party.

In a letter to members of the GOP’s state executive committee this week, Flinn wished the recipients a “Happy Easter” and indicated he was “looking forward to talking with you in the next few days.”

He posed the question, “Now that we Republicans are at the top of the political game, how do we stay there?” He answered his own question this way: “Internal dissension is the only thing that can ruin us. Being in leadership requires us to be organized and united if we want to advance our ideals and receive another overwhelming mandate from the people.”

Another part of the letter makes indirect reference to the fact that Flinn’s own resources would enable him to carry out the duties of chairman without being dependent on a salary or on party members’ contributions:

“If you believe that a full-time, highly paid Chairman is best, then I am probably not your man. If, however, you believe that somebody who still has his foot in the real world of running a business and is willing to volunteer half his time for the good of the state is the way to go (like the county chairs), then please consider me as your candidate of choice.”

Flinn told the Flyer that he would be willing to consider matching the contributions of donors in order to expand the party’s capability.

His pursuit of the state party chairmanship is but the latest indication of Flinn’s continued interest in playing a role in party affairs. At last weekend’s convention of the Shelby County Republican Party at Bartlett Municipal Center, Flinn sought a position on the local party’s Primary Board and was the only member elected who had not been previously pledged to what turned out to be the winning slate.

Flinn, a former Shelby County Commissionr, has been a major contributor to GOP candidates (as well as to his Democratic son, Shea Flinn, an outgoing member of the Memphis City Council), and has conducted numerous campaigns for public office, most recently as Republican nominee for the state Senate position vacated last year by Democrat Jim Kyle, now a Chancellor, and ultimately won by Sara Kyle, the former incumbent’s wife.