Month: March 2016

Rats’ Asses and Other Issues

Post author By Susan Wilson
Post date March 31, 2016

CREDIT: Chris Bence | Dreamstime.com

Chard, Proton, Toile, and Glacier are my four adorable little rascals. Four kids in five years was tough, but thankfully our surrogate was chosen specifically for her impeccable breeding hips. We spend most weekends volunteering for the rights of vegan aardvarks and decorating Cheerios to look like tiny donuts which we then give out to the nice ladies on Lamar Avenue. You should see their looks of wonder when little Toile hands them a matchbox full of tiny chocolate “donuts” with sprinkles! My darling husband Digby Ingerham Tinsley Throckmorton III (yup, we call him Ditty!!) and I spend all our time with them when Ditty isn’t working at his job as Chief Experience Officer for a company that provides ethically sourced glass jars for the craft pickling industry called Dilligent Sourcing (“Innovations With Relish!”). We’re in the process of building a LEED Platinum-Certified luxury yurt in the hopping Binghampton area, but we’re having problems finding an architect who really understands our need for an eight-bedroom yurt and who won’t argue that I don’t actually know what a yurt is.

Chris Bence | Dreamstime.com

I’m kidding. I just spent 10 minutes finding and printing out “doggie pinups” for our dog Grumbledore’s man cave and writing Planter’s to beg them to bring back those cheese puffs they used to make that came in a canister. Those things were like crunchy unicorn dreams. Our kids are out of the house, too. That’s great because now we can turn on the Barry White and turn down the lights whenever we want. And by that I mean we fall asleep by 10 while watching Ally McBeal on DVD.

I’m coming to that age where I am getting low on rats’ asses to give. My grandmother used to say she only wore makeup because other people had to look at her; and if anyone ever broke into the house at night, they’d get what they deserve. I feel the same way. I once had a pizza delivery guy tell me he could never eat pizza when he had the flu and reminded me to stay hydrated. I was perfectly healthy. I try to look on the bright side. Looking perpetually contagious keeps people from invading my personal space.

My grandmother also said that at a certain age all you can do is be clean and well-pressed. If I have to interact with people who haven’t known me long enough to know I often tie a scarf around my dog’s head and pretend he is Masha from old country (in Russia, butt licks dog), I can be — not put together, but a reasonable facsimile thereof. Years ago at work I had this awesome jacket. You know the one. You put it on, and you’re like Wonder Woman. I was wearing it one day, and one of my employees said to me that a woman had just told her it was a great outfit and you could just tell I had it all together. Let me stress that at the time she said that, I was wondering if both buttons of my trousers were going to slither off, or just one. Also I was wearing shoes that made my feet smell like the breath of rabid buffalo by the end of the day. I was the Doug Henning in Ellen Tracy.

I think about doing stuff and looking nice while doing it. Like making chandeliers out of plastic spoons or painting my nails to resemble Renaissance paintings, but it distracts me from my hobby of reading dog-shaming websites. Oh, and dusting and working and stuff. I live in an area of town where young moms walk their babies competitively. Makeup is involved. Hair is blown out. The babies who can’t even walk yet wear tiny workout suits from Boden and play on iPads mounted to their strollers. The combined total price of the workout wear of one pack of them is as much as my mortgage. And I LOVE them. Because I know every one of them has something they’d just die about if the other pack members knew. Secrets involving a love of spray cheese, an itch in an unmentionable place, perhaps one of them thinks Donald Trump is hot. We’re all total messes! Their messes just have better highlights than mine.

It used to be about having it all. Now it’s about looking like you have it all and perfecting the humblebrag: “Omigosh, sooo many people stop me as soon as I get out of my new Tesla to ask about it and I’m like, can I put my baby in my sling first?” Not that I haven’t perfected mine too. Just the other day I was all can you believe all these stains on my shirt are from one meal?

Am I doing that right?

Susan Wilson writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not begin at Highland.

Tags Cheetos, Doug Henning, Ellen Tracy, Fashion fails, rats' asses, tiny Cheerios donuts

News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1414

Post author By Chris Davis
Post date March 31, 2016

You Are Here

Last week, the Brooks Museum of Art announced that it would celebrate its 100th birthday by giving the city of Memphis a special gift. The gift will take the form of artist Kurt Perschke’s “RedBall Project,” a temporary site-specific work in which an enormous inflatable red ball is installed in various artist-chosen places all around the city.

The big red ball will make life in Memphis more fun in a number of ways, especially if it fulfills its ultimate destiny and attracts the Big Red Dog.

Verbatim

“There’s going to come a time when there’s going to be one or two Elvises left out here, and it’s going to be all there is to it.” — Mark Rumpler, who officiates Elvis-themed weddings in Las Vegas, is quoted in a new CBS report about Elvis Presley’s rapidly diminishing influence on Vegas culture. Rumpler told CBS that the number of Elvis-themed weddings his organization performs dropped from 40 percent to 15 percent in only one year.

Tags Clifford the Big Red Dog, Elvis Presley, Mark Rumpler, RedBall Project

Letter From The Editor Opinion

Vendor in the Grass

Post author By Bruce VanWyngarden
Post date March 31, 2016

The lady doth protest too much, methinks. — William Shakespeare

Is there such a thing as “bad activism”? I’m asking because I’m seeing a lot of criticism of the folks who are protesting the Memphis Zoo’s encroachment onto the Greensward at Overton Park.

Some people mock the protesters for making such a fuss over “grass.” These folks don’t understand that parks are public spaces, created as a natural and necessary escape for uban dwellers who spend their lives negotiating streets, parking lots, and traffic. This city has plenty of asphalt already, and it can make more. Green space? Not so much. Turning an historic and beautiful lawn into a parking lot is foolish, when so many other options are possible. It’s not about “grass.”

The “misplaced priorities” argument is also getting a lot of play on social media (often from people whose Twitter feeds are filled with commentary on such vital issues as the Grizzlies, barbecue, and craft beer). It goes something like this: “With all the problems this city has, why are people wasting time and energy (and space on my social media) on the Greensward? There are bigger issues.”

Well, of course, there are bigger issues. Lots of them: Poverty, illiteracy, crime, rampant obesity, income inequality, to name a few. But why would you presume that the folks protesting the zoo’s takeover of the park only care about one issue? Because the other issues are not showing up on your social media?

How do you know that some of these park activists aren’t mentoring underprivileged youth, giving their time and money to fight poverty and racism, working to spread the arts to the underprivileged, trying to change our transit system, fostering children, volunteering for literacy, delivering meals for MIFA, fighting for a living wage, cleaning up our rivers and streams, or opposing our stupid gun laws? You don’t. In fact, I know that many of them are doing these things. But those activities don’t often lend themselves to television coverage.

People who have been working for years to improve Memphis Animal Services hear a variation of the same criticism: “If only they cared about people as much as they do puppies.” It’s a specious slight. People care about what they care about, and they can care about many things. You may not have the same priorities, but recognize that every activist is working to improve something or to right a perceived wrong — which helps your city and helps you. They should be applauded for caring enough to work for change, not criticized.

Then there’s the criticism that the Greensward is a “white people” crusade, that this squabble is about Caucasians exercising their privilege. And I get it: If you’re poor and black and struggling, spending your Saturday protesting parking on the Greensward is not a priority. But if you visit Overton Park on a weekend — the playgrounds, the picnic areas, the dog park, the trails, and the Greensward, you’ll see that the users are diverse — old, young, black, white, Hispanic — a classic city park crowd. These activists are not working to save Memphis Country Club.

Maybe those protesting the zoo’s ever-growing encroachment into Overton Park would get less criticism if a private entity — controlled by a board of wealthy white folks and the city’s largest corporation — were filling Riverside Park or Tom Lee Park or Audubon Park with hundreds of cars several days a week. I don’t know.

I do know that we’re ill-served as a city by sniping at each other for caring passionately about something — no matter the issue. And we need more people willing to put themselves out there for a cause. We’re all in this together.

Tags 'more important issues', criticizing the protesters, Memphis Animal Services, Memphis Zoo parking in Overton Park, Protesters on Overton Park Greensward, white privilege

News The Fly-By

Greensward: Protests, Parking Brigade, Spotify

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date March 31, 2016

CREDIT: Courtesy Get Off Our Lawn

Energy surrounding the Overton Park Greensward parking issue flashed in a peaceful (yet police-involved) protest last Saturday, but that energy grew largely on Facebook, which has become a major tool for grassroots efforts around the issue.

Planned originally as a “Greensward Play Date,” Saturday’s event eventually brought hundreds to throng around the dirt path the Memphis Zoo uses to park cars on the Greensward. But the play date turned into a formal protest as people began to lie down on the dirt path, refusing to let cars pass.

The Memphis Police Department sent officers to monitor the event. It ended as protestors, with the help of U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, forged a compromise with the zoo to allow parking on only the top third of the Greensward.

Courtesy Get Off Our Lawn

A play date event on the Greensward last weekend turned into a protest.

• A few hundred yards from the Greensward, another protest — in which some people dressed as large, orange parking cones — was underway.

The Free Parking Brigade formed earlier this month after the Memphis City Council voted to give the zoo control of much of the Greensward. On peak zoo days, the brigade’s members encourage zoo visitors to park on city streets or, as was the case Saturday, in the empty parking lot of Snowden School.

Laura Lanier, one of the group’s founders, said some friends and “Facebook folks” formed the group to channel their anger and frustration over the council vote into something positive. The intention is to inform zoo-goers and to express those frustrations.

“It is to show the zoo and the council that we know exactly what they’re doing and that we’re watching,” Lanier said. “But we also are trying to point out that there is a viable alternative.”

• WREG lead anchor Richard Ransom took to Facebook Saturday, saying the “anti-parking folks are a bunch of well-to-do Midtowners with too much time on their hands.”

Ransom posted again later saying “I’m done with the zoo debate!” This came after his earlier Facebook post was barraged with negative replies that he said included “name-calling, profanity, and threats.”

“Richard’s comments were uncalled for and his statements are not a reflection of our collective beliefs at WREG,” according to Jessica Bellucci, a spokesman for WREG owner Tribune Media. “Station management has addressed this internally with Richard.”

• Park supporters packed the Hi-Tone last Sunday for “Greensward Aid,” a benefit concert for the Overton Park Conservancy legal fund and Get Off Our Lawn.

• One Greensward supporter created a Spotify playlist called “Save the Overton Park Greensward.” It includes “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell (which includes the line “pave paradise and put up a parking lot”), “No Parking on the Dance Floor” by Midnight Star, The Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out,” “Green, Green Grass of Home” by Elvis Presley, and others.

Tags Greensward, Memphis Zoo, Overton Park, Overton Park Conservancy

Music Music Features

Strong Come On

Post author By Chris Shaw
Post date March 31, 2016

CREDIT: Jamie Harmon

Three garage rock titans take over the Highland Strip this Saturday when the Oblivians, Jack O and the Sheiks, and the Leather Uppers play Newby’s in celebration of Eric Friedl’s 50th birthday. As the founder of Goner Records and member of bands like Bad Times, True Sons of Thunder, the Dutch Masters, and the New Memphis Legs, Freidl has been an integral part of the Memphis garage-rock scene for decades. We caught up with Friedl the week before his 50th birthday party to find out more about Saturday’s blowout. — Chris Shaw

Memphis Flyer: How did the show come about and what made you want to host it at Newby’s?

Eric Friedl: We wanted to do something around my birthday and get a bunch of people in town to basically just have a good time. We looked around, and, by the time we had everything in order to book it, everywhere we’d normally play was unavailable. Jack had already been booked at Newby’s for that date, so we just decided to piggyback on his show.

The other thing that was attractive about Newby’s is that we’ve never played a show there, so it’s kind of new territory for us. I have no idea how many people they can fit in there or how many people will be able to get in. There are people driving in from Austin for this show and other places, so it should be pretty interesting.

When the band was more active, did you guys ever play the Highland Strip?

Oblivians never did, but my other band True Sons of Thunder made it over there a couple times. We played the Rally Point, and I’m pretty sure we played the side room in Newby’s one time. The Rally Point may have been the worst venue I’ve ever played in or been in. That place was bizarre; it was unbelievable.

Is this the only local show currently booked for the Oblivians?

I think this is it as far as local shows go, at least for now. We are playing the In the Red birthday party in Los Angeles in July, and doing some European dates in July as well. Jack (Yarber) and Greg (Cartwright) have their own things going on, so we just fit the Oblivians in when it makes sense for everyone to do it. It’ll be a good mix because the Oblivians kind of know what we’re doing, but Jack’s band is incredible right now. They have been killing it lately.

Let’s talk about the Leather Uppers. They’ve been around about as long as the Oblivians right?

They started in the mid ’90s, and they released a bunch of 45s that were later compiled into an LP by this guy Ryan Richardson. He’s basically like an archivist or a librarian when it comes to collecting.

The Leather Uppers were just this really raw and funny three piece. They existed in their own world, and they were one of those bands who, when we first started doing Gonerfest, we knew we had to have them play. It was kind of like “We will probably never get to see them otherwise, so let’s just ask and see if they’ll come down.” They said yes, and they’re just a great, ridiculously fun band. Saturday’s show will be their only U.S. appearance.

What is the Leather Uppers relationship with Goner like?

After Ryan released the singles compilation on his label, we released their follow-up album. By the time our record came out, the band had kind of moved on, but Ryan still had all those copies of the record he released, so we bought them from him and repackaged it as a Goner release.

How’d they get on the bill?

I already had the Gories play my wedding, so I wasn’t going to ask them again. I started thinking about who I’d like to see, and I thought “I’ll ask the Leather Uppers,” and they said yes again. They are a two piece now, but they agreed to do it.

At this level, they aren’t doing it to make a bunch of money or anything like that. They are basically just interested in coming down and spending a weekend in Memphis in between playing crazy rock-and-roll. They are both living in Canada, so I think they are excited about coming down.

50 is a pretty major milestone in terms of being a touring musician. You’ve been playing with this band longer than some of your fans have been alive.

The Oblivians has been a great opportunity to make noise that turned into an opportunity to travel and meet new people. We’re playing Finland in July, and I’ve never been to Finland. That’s not a place I could just go by myself. As long as we are having fun and it makes sense to do the band, we’re going to do it.

We’re not out to change the world, but writing a new record a few years ago was a kick in the pants and kept us from playing the same songs that are almost 30 years old at this point. We never set out to do much with the band, and we’ve exceeded all our expectations, so there’s no reason not to keep it going. If it gets to the point where we feel like geezers up there, we will stop playing, or other people will tell us to stop playing.

The Oblivians, Leather Uppers, and Jack Oblivian and the Sheiks, Saturday, April 2nd at Newby’s. 8 p.m. $15 admission.

Tags Eric Friedl, Goner Records, Jack Oblivian, Memphis Music, Newby's, Reigning Sound, The Oblivians

Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said …

Post author By
Post date March 31, 2016

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Joey Hack’s post, “Questions Raised by Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man'” …

The answer to these questions, and many more like them, is that in 1974, Prozac had only just been invented. It wasn’t until years later that it went into wide circulation.

OakTree

He should be wearing a piano key necktie in that photo. And why is Billy Joel brandishing a Telecaster, anyway?

Packrat

I love that moment when he hits that soaring final chorus in “Piano Man,” and dozens of catheters come flying onto the stage.

Mark

Who cares about all the damn metaphors in “Piano Man”? I understood what he was saying. I also remember when Billy and his small group played to a packed house at the old Lafayette’s Music Room at Overton Square in the early 1970s. I listened to it live on FM-100. Billy loved Memphis, and Memphis loved Billy. He became a superstar almost overnight after that show.

Paul Scates

About Jackson Baker’s Politics column, “Another City/Suburban Battle” …

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but did the city not determine that South Cordova was going to lose money for the city immediately after annexing it? I’ve been saying for a while that the annexation strategy is and has been failing.

If you were to do a postmortem on the annexations, I believe you’d find that even the ones that at first were profitable for the city likely are no longer profitable.

The big problem the city has is that the minute it annexes an area, property values in the area drop. So any business case the city did based on the potential tax revenue of the annexed area was wrong if they didn’t assume that the pool of funds would be reduced after annexation. Knowing how most governments operate, I doubt that kind of analysis was ever done on any of the annexations.

GroveReb84

Mark Luttrell: 26%; George Flinn: 11%; Brian Kelsey: 9%; David Kustoff: 8%; Tom Leatherwood: 7%; Steve Basar: 1%; Undecided: 38%.

Given the choice of the above, it’s easy to see why Undecided is winning.

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Medium Cool” …

Maybe the Flyer is too “cool” to educate themselves on Trump’s policies, but you can read them here if you can find time between comparing IPA’s: donaldjtrump.com/positions.

Clyde

Dubya was cool to a certain segment of the country — largely the same segment that loves Trump, and for many of the same reasons. The difference is that many of the people who voted for Dubya but weren’t fond of his cool trusted that his handlers would actually run the country for him. They don’t have the same trust with Trump. They know he’ll surround himself with yes-men and do whatever he damn well pleases, and that’s what scares them.

Hillary Clinton’s cool is 10th-grade math teacher cool — the teacher everybody hates after the first day of class, but toward the end of the year decide she’s all right, and by the time they graduate, remember her quite fondly as one of the best teachers they ever had.

Jeff

Bruce, you’ve gone too far. How dare you insult the noble brotherhood of “Siding Salesmen.”

I prefer to think of Trump as more like the guy who owns a bunch of sleazy and failed businesses and has the audacity to show up uninvited to the party, referring to himself as a “Business Genius, and VERY, very rich to boot.”

Oh … Wait a minute. Never mind.

So maybe we can just call him what he is: the turd in the punch bowl of the 2016 election year. And that’s not cool.

John Shouse

I dunno, I have sat in a bar with John Kerry and voted for him anyway.

CL Mullins

Tags Bill Clinton, Billy Joel, de-annexation, George W. Bush, Jackson Baker, Joey Hack, John Kerry, Obama's 'cool', Piano Man, Ronald Reagan

We Recommend We Recommend

Midtown Opera Festival at Playhouse on the Square

Post author By Chris Davis
Post date March 31, 2016

In the early 1980s, visionary Royal Shakespeare Company director Peter Brook teamed with composer Marius Constant and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere to create The Tragedy of Carmen, a highly concentrated, 80-minute variation on Bizet’s popular three-hour epic. French soprano (and proud Memphian) Marie-Stéphane Bernard had an opportunity to assist at one of the show’s early productions and describes the work as a huge sensation. “It was incredible,” she says. “So powerful, so new, and so modern.”

The Tragedy of Carmen is the first of two intimate, and strikingly different, chamber operas being presented by Opera Memphis at this year’s Midtown Opera Festival. The second is a bawdy 1911 farce by Maurice Ravel titled L’heure espagnole, which means “Spanish Time” and tells the story of a clockmaker’s wife who attempts to hide three lovers from her husband. “It’s a little jewel,” says Bernard, who stars as the wife. “It’s very funny, very feminine, and very avant garde.”

Marie-Stéphane Bernard

In addition to appearing in L’heure espagnole, Bernard will also perform a concert titled April in Paris, which uses the music of Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker, and Charles Trenet to take audiences on a tour of France in the 1950s. “The idea came from my presence here in Memphis and from being French,” she says, describing the street singers she enjoyed so much as a little girl. “We threw pennies from the windows, and they were happy,” she recalls.

The Midtown Opera Festival always includes relevant programming by partner organizations. This year New Ballet Ensemble performs a festival-inspired version of its annual Springloaded concert, and Rhodes College’s Dave Brubeck Festival stages a rare performance of the jazz maestro’s seldom-seen musical, The Real Ambassadors.

News News Blog

Pets of the Week

Post author By Bianca Phillips
Post date March 30, 2016

Each week, the Flyer will feature adoptable dogs and cats from Memphis Animal Services. All photos are credited to Memphis Pets Alive. More pictures can be found on the Memphis Pets Alive Facebook page.

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Tags Memphis Animal Services, Memphis Pets Alive

News News Blog

City Responds to Lawsuit Filed Over Hispanic Grocery Store Beer Permit

Post author By Bianca Phillips
Post date March 30, 2016

Guadalupe Tienda Hispana

A Berclair-area grocery store owner who filed a lawsuit against the city to obtain a beer permit “was the victim of a lawyer who filed an expensive but frivolous federal lawsuit,” according to new information from the city of Memphis attorney’s office and permit’s office.

Honduras native and long-time Memphis resident Marco Sabillon filed a lawsuit back in November, alleging that the city ordinance that prevents beer sales within a 250-foot radius of a church or school is discriminatory. Sabillon, who purchased Guadalupe Tienda Hispana at 658 Stratford two years ago, had been operating it without beer sales, but he said business was slow because he couldn’t sell beer, due to his proximity to Grimes Memorial United Methodist Church. In order to obtain a permit, his attorney Drayton Berkley filed a lawsuit.

On March 10th, the Flyer ran a story about Sabillon’s lawsuit, which was eventually dismissed by the court. The city permits office didn’t respond to the Flyer‘s request for an interview until after press time, but the office reached out this week to weigh in on the lawsuit.

According to the city, Sabillon did not need to file suit because if beer sales are less than 10 percent of the store’s total gross sales, he would be exempt from the church proximity restriction. That exemption was added to the city’s beer ordinance in 2012. The Flyer‘s story erroneously reported that Sabillon was granted a permit because of the lawsuit.

“The pending lawsuit played no part in the granting of Mr. Sabillion’s beer permit application. His application was approved because he qualified for it,” according to a statement prepared by the city’s attorney’s office.

“Obtaining a beer permit is a relatively simple process, and an attorney is not required. The vast majority of beer permit holders obtain their permit without the services of a lawyer,” continues the statement.

Tags Drayton Berkley, Guadalupe Tienda Hispana, Marco Sabillon