Frank Chin braved the ghouls and goblins and zombies to take these shots of last weekend’s Haunted Mid-South Corn Maze.
Month: October 2015
Larry Kuzniewski
Are the Grizzlies trying to make a run at a title this year or reload for the future?
I was prompted to write this by a tweet I saw on Sunday that echoed some thoughts I’ve been floating in my head for a while now:
Just started thinking through a theory that next year could be the real shot for the Grizzlies.
— Chase Lucas (@deepfriedcouch) October 24, 2015
I’ve had the same thought while looking at the Grizzlies’ roster headed into this season.
The conventional wisdom is that with Marc Gasol’s return on a five-year contract, the Grizzlies are essentially “running it back” this year with the same guys (plus or minus a couple of role players) and rolling the dice to see if they can end up with better seeding and better matchups in the playoffs, thus making it to the Conference Finals or maybe even the Finals. On paper, it looks like that’s exactly what’s happening.
But I’m not really so sure. Yes, the personnel is mostly unchanged from last year, but while adding Brandan Wright to the bench is a huge deal for what the Griz can do offensively, and Matt Barnes is a proven role player who makes a place for himself no matter what team he’s on, outside the “core four” the team is mostly made up of young guys who havent proven themselves, veterans in contract years, and old guys on the verge of retirement (OK, maybe that’s just Vince Carter).
Which leads me to the question in the title of my post: Is this really a stealth rebuild with a bunch of roster churn where the Grizzlies try to stay good while flipping pieces around and really loading up for next year?
Let’s think through this “stealth rebuild” hypothesis. Obviously, the Grizzlies have been an excellent team for the last five straight seasons. That has to end at some point—people age and their careers end. With Zach Randolph entering the season at age 34, and Tony Allen turning 34 in January, it’s obvious that age will catch up with these two guys at some point. Who are the guys who are going to step up if it happens to be this year?1
(crickets)
Exactly. Those guys aren’t on the roster right now. There was talk of Jarnell Stokes being “Z-Bo replacement” material, but that was a stretch at best, and now, after seeing his mediocre preseason, it seems like a cute fantasy. So right now, the Grizzlies don’t have a backup plan. The way to have a backup plan is to build your next core group while your current core group is still playing. The Spurs did this right around the time that some team from Memphis knocked them out in the first round, and came out of it with future Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard. It’s worth remembering that they looked completely done in that Memphis series, but all the while some of the pieces that would help win them their next championship (Danny Green, Tiago Splitter) were already on the roster.
The Grizzlies don’t have that right now. They’ve got a bunch of guys who could be that but haven’t played much, and they’ve got some guys who are probably going to be gone after this year (and a couple they’ll probably bring back), and then they’ve got the Core Four and Brandan Wright.
This team has a lot of expiring contracts and a lot of decisions to make this summer. Guys who are free agents after this season (according to HoopsHype):
- Mike Conley
- Jeff Green
- Courtney Lee
- Beno Udrih
- Matt Barnes
And these are the guys who have team options after this year, meaning the team can decide whether to pick up that option or to make them free agents:
- Jordan Adams
- Jarnell Stokes
- Russ Smith
- JaMychal Green
Don’t forget, either, that Vince Carter’s final year of his contract is $4.2mm on paper but is only partially guaranteed, meaning they don’t have to pay him the whole thing if he’s waived.
That’s a lot of potential for turnover after this year. All nine of these guys are basically going to have to prove their worth this season (well, except Conley, one assumes). Courtney Lee has had a really strong camp and preseason, and Matt Barnes is still finding his rhythm in the Grizzlies’ offense, but the rest of these guys? Adams is a question mark, Smith is going to have to show development, Udrih is going to have to prove he can maintain last year’s level of play, JaMychal Green is probably a rotation player but the team doesn’t seem so sure, Stokes might be playing his way into being replaced by Ryan Hollins, and Jeff Green has yet to prove whether he can actually make this team better as a starter.
There’s also health. The last two or three years, Mike Conley has been so banged up by April that it’s hurt his play in the postseason. Tony Allen has missed 20+ games with injury the last two years, and that’s before you count the hamstring that bothered him all spring and kept him out of Game 6 against Golden State. Gasol’s knee injury almost imploded Joerger’s first season, and last year, in the midst of his best season since his MCL tear in 2012, Zach Randolph missed several games resting a knee injury to keep it from getting worse. These guys are going to have to play fewer minutes, and I’m not sure there’s the personnel or scheme in place to let that happen smoothly this year.
I’ve said all this and it makes it sound like I think the team is going to win 30 games. I don’t believe that. I think, as good as this group of players is, health is the only thing that could keep them out of the postseason. I think the Grizzlies are going to be good this year. (You’ll get to read more about that next week in the Flyer‘s annual Grizzlies/Tigers preview issue.) But I do think we’re going to see the start of that roster churn this year, heading into the summer. I think guys are going to get traded. I think they’re going to struggle to get it together because there are some interesting depth issues and some real crowds at the forward positions. I think all along, the organization’s eyes are probably on being as good as they can this year while trying to build the next great Grizzlies team around Gasol and Conley leading into this summer. This year is when they recharge what they’ve got while still trying to make noise in the playoffs. It’s a rebuild without a teardown. They did say they wanted to be more like the Spurs, right?
-
I don’t think it’s going to be this year, but one can’t rule it out.↩
Categories
National Baseball Day
A sports column is no place to get political. This being campaign season, though, allow me to dip a toe in the vote-gathering waters. My support, you see, is up for grabs. I won’t plant a Donald Trump sign. (He lost me when he killed the USFL. Haven’t listened to him since.) And Hillary Clinton needs to improve those “likability” numbers (at least in my living room) to earn my vote. But there is a way a presidential candidate — any candidate but Trump, really — could pull me in. Just add National Baseball Day to the platform.
The stretch between Labor Day and Thanksgiving — three long months — screams for a national holiday. A real holiday, with schools and businesses (most of them, anyway) closed, a national pause from the daily grind as days shorten and temperatures drop. Not only would National Baseball Day nicely interrupt this drought, but America would also finally have a holiday celebrating what this country does best: spectator sports.
Here’s how it would work. On the day Game 1 of the World Series is played — typically a Tuesday — Americans stay home in honor of this nation’s original pastime. No one plays like Americans. Entire industries are devoted to recreation. Finally, National Baseball Day would allow us to celebrate these healthy instincts.
The game would begin at 3 p.m. Eastern, allowing every child from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, to see every pitch, hit, stolen base, and strikeout if he or she so chooses. Using modern technology, families split across time zones could fire up their computers or smart phones and share in the exploits of the latest World Series hero. Families and friends would have some extra bonding time built around a baseball game. Imagine that.
Not a baseball fan? This holiday is for you, too. No viewing required. Enjoy a picnic with your family (if you live in a warm region). Or catch a movie you haven’t had time to see. Better yet, open that thick book you’ve been meaning to read, but “never have the time.” The idea is to relish a day of leisure, courtesy of baseball.
The TV fat cats will be the hardest to budge. (The last daytime World Series game was played in 1987, and it was indoors, under the roof of the abominable Metrodome.) Upwards of $200 million in ad revenue will go into the FOX coffers, depending on how long the Series goes. Why mess with such a golden goose? Well, why not consider the possibilities — revenue-wise — if a Series game is broadcast as the centerpiece of a national holiday? With entire families viewing, not simply that 25-45 male demographic considered most precious. Seems the Super Bowl broadcast has found its way to profitability, with kickoff in the late afternoon on a Sunday. Why must World Series games end after midnight in New York City?
My daughters are now old enough (16 and 13) to stay up past bedtime to see a World Series game completed. But their interest is based largely on stories I’ve shared from years their little bodies needed sleep more than the pageantry of the seventh-inning stretch. (I woke up one of my daughters when David Freese delivered his epic game-tying triple for the Cardinals in the 2011 Fall Classic. Bless her heart, she didn’t remember being awoken the next morning.) Keep reading the stories of how baseball is dying, how kids are losing interest in a game that’s “too slow” for the modern attention span. Then check the start times for the sport’s most important, compelling, talked-about games. These are related.
The time has come, ye presidential hopefuls, for National Baseball Day. Consider my vote a free agent, ready to sign.
The Mississippi state flag, which features the Confederate battle flag, was removed from the University of Mississippi campus in a ceremony Monday morning.
The move comes after student, staff, and faculty organizations all voted to remove the flag in meetings last week.
As the campus opened Monday morning, University Police Department officers lowered and furled the flag in Lyceum Circle. The flag will be preserved in the university archives along with resolutions from students, faculty and staff calling for its removal.
“The University of Mississippi community came to the realization years ago that the Confederate battle flag did not represent many of our core values, such as civility and respect for others,” Interim Chancellor Morris Stocks said in a statement. “Since that time, we have become a stronger and better university. We join other leaders in our state who are calling for a change in the state flag.”
Stocks noted that other public universities and local governments have already taken this step, and he continues to encourage state leaders to create a new flag.
“Mississippi and its people are known far and wide for hospitality and a warm and welcoming culture. But our state flag does not communicate those values,” Stocks said. “Our state needs a flag that speaks to who we are. It should represent the wonderful attributes about our state that unite us, not those that still divide us.”
Categories
#18 Tigers 66, Tulsa 42
With their defensive players apparently prepping to play Saturday, Memphis and Tulsa went ahead and played a football game Friday night in Oklahoma. Behind 447 yards and five touchdowns (one of them rushing) from junior quarterback Paxton Lynch, the 18th-ranked Tigers earned their seventh win of the season and school-record 14th straight dating back to the 2014 campaign. Memphis accumulated a total of 704 yards of offense (a season high) to give coach Justin Fuente a victory in his first visit to his hometown since taking over the Memphis program in 2012. 
The game was the Tigers’ fifth this season in which the teams combined to score at least 70 points, and the combined point total of 108 is the highest in an FBS game this season. Memphis has now scored a total of 342 points for the season, putting the team well ahead of last season’s record-setting 471 points (in 13 games).
Starring alongside Lynch were receivers Mose Frazier (10 catches for 128 yards) and Anthony Miller (five for 106). Doroland Dorceus had his best game on the ground this season with 138 yards on 32 carries while freshman Jamarius Henderson added 112 yards on 14 attempts. In scoring 12 points, junior kicker Jake Elliott moved into third place on the Memphis career-scoring chart (now behind only Stephen Gostkowski and DeAngelo Williams). Lynch has now thrown 17 touchdown passes on the season with only one interception.
Tulsa scored touchdowns on consecutive possessions in the third quarter to close within seven points (42-35), but Memphis answered with a scoring drive capped by a three-yard bootleg by Lynch.
Among the game’s 15 touchdowns,six went for at least 30 yards, including a desperation heave by Tulsa quarterback Dane Evans that was caught on a deflection as the first half expired by Golden Hurricane wideout Keyarris Garrett. Garrett finished the game with 14 receptions for 268 yards and three touchdowns.
Tulsa had 535 yards of total offense, the third time this season the U of M defense has allowed at least 500.
The Tigers improve to 7-0 (3-0 in the American Athletic Conference), while Tulsa falls to 3-4 (0-3). Memphis returns to the Liberty Bowl on Halloween night to host Tulane.
“Anyone can put clothes on; that’s easy, but what I want to know is the story your clothes tell.”
– Thuyvi Vo
Today, Thuyvi tells her story both through her words and through her inspiring style. A believer that clothes can speak gracefully about the life you love, she gives insight into her passions and how they’ve helped develop her sense of style – the definitive example of effortless.
[jump]
Thuyvi, pronounced /tree-vee/, moved to Memphis from Vietnam with her parents and two older brothers at age five. “My family moved to America for the single reason most people do – better opportunities,” she says.
It’s also clear from knowing Thuyvi that she has a strong love for Memphis specifically, actively supporting and encouraging other Memphians around her. Her artistic endeavor Dear Sir Paper Co., illustrates it well with watercolor quotes such as “Memphis is It.” As a creative, she often incorporates local artists and artisans in store events at Madewell in Saddle Creek, where she is store director. What does she take most from living in Memphis? – “the pride!”
“I genuinely love Memphis. It’s such a wonderful city. There are so many cool things happening here, and to be in the middle of it and witness the growth from the ground up is something I will always treasure. The resurgence of Overton Square, Crosstown, downtown and everything in between is truly remarkable. It just goes to show what we can accomplish together as a unified city with a vision. If you’re a naysayer, I’m sorry, but you can’t sit with us. Sorry for going Mean Girls on you.”
When asked about how her personal style developed, Thuyvi takes us back to her early childhood. She credits her mother for her love for clothes.
“I am the youngest of three and the only girl, so naturally, my mom was ecstatic when she found out she was having a little girl. I think my childhood closet could rival that of Carrie Bradshaw’s. My mom made all of the clothes, and I definitely rocked the ’80s trends like no other. However, somewhere in the middle, though still very interested in fashion, I cared less about the dresses and colors, and moved towards the minimalist and tomboy, much to my mother’s dismay. It was in finding my true style that I think I finally found my identity: simple and understated yet artful and refined, with touches of edge. Sometimes I like to push the envelope.”
Using the beautifully renovated Lofts at Merchants Row as our stage, Thuyvi shares 7 outfits that define her style from everyday to a night out.
“When I paint, jeans and tees are the way to go. Like I said before, I love simple graphics and own so many tees from all the places I’ve visited. If there’s a festival, and you’re selling t-shirts, I’ve probably purchased something from you. I tend to get paint on a lot of my clothes, but I still to wear it out. It’s a reflection of who I am and the life I live. Those little things, in my opinion, are the elements that specializes what you wear. Anyone can put clothes on; that’s easy, but what I want to know is the story your clothes tell.”
“This is very much a “Monday” outfit for me. My typical Mondays are spent in the office crunching numbers and analyzing data. In order to do that, I need to be in my element, clothing and all. Nothing says comfort better than a sweatshirt, loose-fitting jeans and sneakers.”
“I am a Madewell fanatic as you can clearly tell; however, I like to invest in interesting pieces that are timeless, like this top. I love simple graphics, especially ones that are linear. Confession: I have an obsession with shapes. For me, black and white is never a regrettable choice.”
“Talk about a denim tuxedo! It’s so interesting to me – people assume, because I look pulled together and “cool,” that I must spend a lot of time getting ready. Truth: I don’t. I wake up at 6:45am, make my way out of bed by 7:00am and leave the house by 7:15am. If you are purposeful in buying pieces you love that are versatile, you ultimately save so much time trying to get ready. The beauty of this formula – generally everything in your closet complements each other well. “
“This is one of my favorite outfits because it feels so effortless, yet it’s got this total cool-girl vibe. It’s my “Look Good and Get Shit Done” outfit.”
With Her Other Half – Jacob
“I met my husband at Republic Coffee through mutual friends. We share a lot in common – travel, arts, fashion, and best of all, he’s my favorite person to goof around with. And let me tell you, we are a pair of goofy people.
He works at Gibson and helps build guitars. Specifically, he works in final assembly, the last step before the guitars hit the market. He’s also their team leader, and he’s pretty fantastic at what he does, but it also helps that he has incredible worth ethic. That’s also another trait we share. I don’t think I could’ve ever married someone who wasn’t motivated to succeed. On top of it all, he’s an amazing guitarist. That’s how his job at Gibson all began – because of his passion for playing the guitar.
Though I am a terrible singer, Jacob and I really love making up songs. We’ll make songs about each other’s names, how our days are going, the weather – it doesn’t really matter. If it’s a part of our lives, we’ll make up a song for it. During these sessions, he’s usually playing the guitar or some kind of instrument picked up from around the house and I’m the choreographer. And by choreographer, I mean I usually bust out with moves you’ve probably never seen or probably never want to see.”
“Black is my go-to date-night outfit. It’s easy, simple and classic, just like everything else in my closet.”
Pictured above is her favorite quote. “She has fire in her soul and grace in her heart. That quote embodies how I want to live my life. The juxtaposition of those two words – fire and grace – is part of why I love this quote. I want my ambitions to burn bright like fire but be poised in execution,” she explains. Below she also explains the inspiration for finding quotes like these to paint.
“[Dear Sir Paper Co.] started as a creative outlet to offset my constant need to work 24/7. This forced me to make time to paint, so I wasn’t burned out from working constantly. I’m a big fan of social media, so I began posting my work just to share with my friends. I slowly started receiving requests for commission work, and that’s when I realized I could make this into something more. I participated in two juried holiday markets, Porter Flea and Memphis Indie Holiday Market, and absolutely loved it!
“As for what inspires the art I make, it most definitely depends on my mood and the experiences that have helped shape those moods. There are days where I am jovial and in a quirky mood, those are generally the days I come up with my punny cards i.e. “You’re the radish.” Then there are days where I read these amazing stories about women empowering one another, and I’ll find this really great quote that coincides with it. I feel like I bring those words to life in a way when I am able to make art from it. It makes me feel like I played a small part in telling their stories. And every time I read the quote, I feel empowered because of it. It’s like my circle of life in art form: create art through use of powerful words, be inspired by powerful words, repeat.”
Using style powerfully is also something she has taught other women when they ask for her help in developing their wardrobe.
“One of the most frustrating things I hear is when people ask me about ‘the rules,’ as if there is some kind of handbook for dressing. I know this is totally cliche to say, but the only rule is that there is no rule. If you want to wear black and navy together, do it. In fact, I highly encourage it. Those colors look great together. And if you want to wear white after Labor Day, I’m certain there is no mythical taser that will zap you if you choose to wear it.
Aside from that, I would encourage women to look in the mirror and list their favorite physical features and learn how to accentuate those features. For instance, I like my shoulders, so I try to wear tops that are sleeveless. I like my legs, so I cut the bottoms of all my jeans (that, and I am also short), so a little ankle skin is on display. Showing off the smallest part of your ankle helps elongate your legs, too. It’s all about finding the parts that make you feel beautiful.
And before you leave the house each day, look in the mirror and tell yourself that you look good and will get shit done.”
[slideshow-1]
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Special thanks to Lofts at Merchants Row, APG Furnishings Memphis, Stock & Belle, Madewell, and Farmhouse Marketing.
All photos taken at Lofts at Merchants Row.
Categories
Film Review: Bridge Of Spies
I’m not sure I’m qualified to critique a Steven Spielberg film. Large parts of my definition of how to make a good film come from Spielberg, who, in turn, distilled the ideas of old masters such as Hitchcock, Kubrick, Harryhausen, and Capra into wildly popular entertainments. Of all of the extremely talented directors to come out of the 1970s — Lucas, Coppola, De Palma, etc. — Spielberg is the most prolific and populist. Only Martin Scorsese rivals his artistic batting average. Sure, Spielberg can be cheesy, but Scorsese never really tried to make a big-tent spectacle picture, while Spielberg has occasionally elevated simple monster movies to the realm of high art. Since Spielberg’s been copied six ways to Sunday, it’s easy to take him for granted. That is, until he drops an atomic bomb of greatness like Bridge of Spies.
Like Saving Private Ryan, Bridge of Spies opens with a huge, bravado sequence that sets the realm of the film’s conflict. But it’s 1957, and the Cold War is in full effect, so instead of storming the beaches at Normandy, we’re treated to an interlocking series of tracking shots of FBI agents stalking Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) through Brooklyn.
There are no dinosaurs or sharks or aliens in Bridge of Spies, but there is a giant monster looming just off-screen: nuclear war. I think it’s hard for people who didn’t spend their childhood in abstract fear of Soviet missiles raining atomic death to understand people’s motivations in spy movies of the period. Directors didn’t have to explain the stakes, because everybody knew that a tiny slipup could lead to the destruction of civilization. But Spielberg, ever the effective communicator, conveys the mood of the times perfectly with a single scene where his everyman hero James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks) comforts his young son Roger (Noah Schnapp) who has been traumatized by a “duck and cover” instructional film.
Donovan is a lawyer who distinguished himself at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals, but is now living a comfortable life practicing insurance law. Because of his experience and integrity, he is chosen by the New York State Bar Association to be Abel’s attorney. His job, he is told, is to demonstrate the superiority of the American legal system by mounting a defense of the accused spy. He earns the ire of the press and his colleagues when he saves Abel from the electric chair. After an American U-2 spy plane is shot down over Russia and its pilot Francis Gary Powers is captured, Donovan is called on to defuse the potentially explosive situation by negotiating a prisoner swap in East Berlin.
Working from an excellent screenplay by Matt Charman that was rewritten by Joel and Ethan Coen, both Hanks and Spielberg are at the top of their game. Hanks is unmannered and charming, able to summon a laugh or a gasp with a raised eyebrow or tense gulp. Spielberg can convey in one perfect composition what it takes most contemporary directors three or four quick cuts to get across. Even his scene transitions are things of beauty.
The most important thing about Bridge of Spies is its vision of America. Early on, Donovan sums up his philosophy by saying “It can’t look like our justice system tosses people on the ash heap.” To fearful 21st-century America, Bridge of Spies is a rebuke that reverberates from Ferguson to Guantanamo Bay. Too many contemporary stories, from 24 to San Andreas, put sociopathic jerks in the protagonist role and all but order you to accept them as heroes. But Hanks and Spielberg understand that heroes need to behave heroically. Here, they’re putting forth a real-life lawyer devoted to upholding America’s highest ideals, even for its enemies, as a hero to be emulated. As Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. said, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Donovan might like Scotch in his Nescafé, but he represents an America that at least pretends to be good.
The Memphis Housing Authority [MHA] agreed to stop paying Robert Lipscomb, its embattled director, but will not yet fire him.
Lipscomb was accused of rape on August 30. On September 2, the MHA board voted to suspend Lipscomb but agreed to continue to pay him as the investigation into the allegation continued. The board appointed Maura Black Sullivan, the city’s deputy chief administrative officer, as MHA’s interim director.
The MHA board unanimously stripped Lipscomb’s paycheck in a meeting Thursday but will allow his suspension to continue.
He was fully relieved of his duties at his other job as the city’s director of Housing and Community Development [HCD] in late August. Lipscomb resigned as HCD director on August 31 as news of the rape allegation caught fire in the media.
A man now living in Seattle said he was a homeless teenager when Lipscomb forced him into oral sex. The relationship continued, the man alleges, as Lipscomb bribed him into secrecy with money and promises of a house and a job.
The man filed a formal complaint with the Memphis Police Department against Lipscomb in 2010 but officers were not able to find the homeless teen.
News of the allegation spread and more accusers came forward, calling Memphis Mayor A C Wharton’s office. MPD officers searched Lipscomb’s house and took computers, folders, and a camcorder as evidence.
So far, no formal charges have been brought against Lipscomb.
The Flyer is now accepting nominations for its annual 20<30 issue, to be published in January 2016. The story profiles 20 Memphians (under 30) who are engaged in making Memphis a better and more interesting place to live. Candidates can come from business, nonprofits, the arts, music, government, politics, etc. To nominate someone, please send a cover letter outlining the candidate's qualifications and a recent photo to Richard Alley (richard@contemporary-media.com). We also need the candidate's contact information. Nominations will close November 20th.
Some people will believe anything. Those people are invariably armed to the teeth.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the toilet it’s time to discuss The Legend of Boggy Creek, a low-budget documentary-style tingler about a three-toed Arkansas Sasquatch that will flat knock you off the pot. With Halloween just a week away, it’s also time to talk about what it means to be genuinely afraid. See, it’s easy to make an audience jump in their seats. But those momentary jolts? Those are nothing compared to the big furry fear that followed a lot of people home from the drive-in movies back in 1972.
The Legend of Boggy Creek isn’t campy, it is kitschy—an authentic souvenir from a time before slasher films existed as a genre. Before the proliferation cable TV and pagers, when people felt a little more alone, and a little less entertained. But Boggy Creek doesn’t quite fall into the so-bad-it’s good genre of horror schlock, either. It’s a legitimately terrible campfire story of a film that comes on like a populist political candidate, gaining credibility from its rough edges and ineptitude. The things that make it silly beyond belief — from its Ken Nordine-esque narration to its wildly inappropriate musical interludes — are indistinguishable from the things that make it convincing.
A card at the film’s opening reads, “This is a True Story. Some of the people in this motion picture portray themselves… in many cases on actual locations.” Authenticity is seldom clever or slick.
Boggy Creek was shot in and around Fouke, Arkansas and features a cast of drawling homespun locals, right out of central casting. It’s sometimes described as the Blair Witch Project of its day because both films were cheaply made faux-artifacts that earned millions in revenue. But Boggy Creek is also the big bang of modern bigfoot culture. It’s the prototype film for cheaply made docu-horror and much of the History Channel’s inexplicable monster programming. Written and directed by autodidact/auteur Charles B. Pierce, this independently produced feature crawled out of Texarkana and started attracting crowds like a tent revival. Not only did it turn audiences into true believers, convincing them Bigfoot was real, it convinced them he was violent and wouldn’t hesitate to attack victims while they were pooping. That’s the stuff terror is made of.
If you don’t know what it is, shoot it.
Boggy Creek plays out like an ambitious home movie because in so many ways that’s exactly what it is— an ambitious home movie made for ordinary folks, by ordinary folks. Ordinary folks who live out in the boondocks where they fish, whittle, drink Coca Cola, and love shitty music unironically.
This seems like as good a place as any to randomly insert the lyrics to the film’s impossibly saccharine theme song, “Lonely Cry,” as performed by Chuck Bryant (AKA writer/director/producer Charles Bryant Pierce).
Horrortober: The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)
Lonely Cry
This is where the story plays,A world on which we seldom gaze,A page from the book of yesterdays,Birds and beast and wind and water.Here beneath the bright blue sky,No man smoke blinds the eagle’s eye.And things that crawl or swim or fly,Feed and breed and live and die.Here the sulfur river flow,Rising when the storm cloud blows.And this is where the creature goes,Safe within a world he knows.Perhaps he dimly wonders why,There is no other such as I.To touch, to love, before I die,To listen to my lonely cry.
(spoken)
Where he searches where he goesThis of course nobody knows.But once you’ve heard his lonely cryYou can guess the reason why.Whether he’s a beast or man,what drives him wandering across the land,
Is love for others of his clanAnd loneliness he cannot stand.
(sung)
Perhaps he dimly wonders why,There is no other such as I.To touch, to love, before I die,To listen…To my lonely…
Cry
Like a perfectly respectable church propaganda film about Hell torture (for sinners), or the dangers of gay Satanic drug cults, Boggy Creek’s awkwardness proves its earnestness. The reporting is fair and balanced too, thanks to the testimony of Herb Jones, a grizzled old hermit who likes his privacy as much as he likes his tobacco and who walks with a limp because he shot off part of his foot in a boating accident. Jones swears he’s been living in the bottoms for 20-years and has never seen nor heard any consarn monster. If that testimony doesn’t confirm Boggy Creek’s journalistic integrity, I don’t know what can.
Herb Jones, grizzled as shit.
F is for fake, according to master hoaxter Orson Welles (and the alphabet, I suppose). It’s also for Fouke. And Boggy Creek concludes with the filmmaker, Charles B. Pierce himself, stepping into the frame to silently explore the ruins and grounds around an old shack where he grew up listening to a depressed wild man scream his fool head off. As the melancholy filmmaker pokes about the woods and the wreckage, first-person narrator Vern Stieman gives audiences permission to doubt the story they’ve been watching. Then he ties the whole thing up in a spooky, weirdly sentimental bow reminiscent of the epilogue from Welles’ War of the Worlds. And his commercial voiceovers too.
“I decided to drive out to our old home place, now run down and abandoned,” Stieman says in voiceover, as sunlight fades and Pierce walks through the Arkansas countryside. “Standing out in this field it all comes rushing back and an icy tingle starts down my spine when I recall that terrible, lonesome cry. It was so long ago it seems incredible that the creature is still out there somewhere. Maybe even watching me. Of course you may not believe that, or any of this story. You may think the whole thing’s a hoax, and that’s your privilege. But if you’re ever driving down in our country, long about sundown, keep an eye on the dark woods as you cross the sulphur river bottoms, and you may catch a glimpse of a huge hairy creature watching you from the shadows. Yes, he’s still here. And, you know, I’d almost like to hear that terrible cry again, just to be reminded that there is still a bit of wilderness left. There are still mysteries that remain unsolved, and strange unexplained noises in the night.” Cue the bullfrogs, roll the credits.
Horrortober: The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)