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News News Blog

Greensward: Mediation Costs Rise, ‘Fringe Element’ Reviewed

Memphis Zoo

Memphis City Council member Kemp Conrad said those responsible for vandalizing this sign are part of the ‘fringe element’ he spoke of Tuesday.

As the dust settles on the Memphis City Council’s first vote on the Greensward ordinance, the Overton Park Conservancy (OPC) says the mediation process with the Memphis Zoo is pushing its expenses way up and council chairman Kemp Conrad further clears the air on his “fringe element” comment.

In a blog post Wednesday, OPC officials said while they signed a confidentiality agreement and could not speak on details on the mediation process, “what we can tell you is that this process is expensive.” Mediation has cost the group $37,000 so far, noting “those costs will only increase.”

“Those costs will only increase,” OPC said. “That’s on top of the $75,000 we spent to commission the transportation and parking report. When we set our annual budget in fall 2015, none of these costs were anticipated. Our original 2016 budget of $805,000 has climbed by 14 percent (and counting).”

With this, OPC asked supporters for donations.

The OPC statement said, also, that the council’s ordinance “does nothing” to affect is commitment to finding parking and traffic solutions for the park.

“If anything, it underscored the value of the mediation process, which is being informed by the participation of the community and park partners in the transportation and parking report,” the statement said. “That input is invaluable in mediation, where we are advocating for solutions that respect the historic design of the park and protect it from further encroachment.”

The “fringe element”

The air sucked out of the city council’s small committee room Tuesday as council chairman Conrad spoke two words: fringe element.”

The room was packed with Greensward supporters who had come to city hall to hear the council review the ordinance that will, in theory, legally capture the result of the mediation between OPC and the zoo.

Conrad’s words came as he delivered a heated retort to council member Martavius Jones who wondered what the council would gain by fast-tacking the ordinance through the council’s legislative process (as they did, ultimately).

“What do we gain by waiting?” asked Conrad. “If you’re going to make decisions to please the fringe element so they don’t get mad and do bad things, this job is probably not for you.”

The Greensward supporters griped about Conrad’s words after the meeting, some even venting their frustrations to a bank of television news cameras.

But by the time the council’s regular meeting got started moments after, the Greensward supporters had already re-claimed Conrad’s pejorative description. They’d embraced the term “fringe element” as many had already re-claimed Memphis Zoo CEO Chuck Brady description of Greensward supporters as “interesting people” in a Flyer story earlier this year.

But at the meeting, Conrad made it clear he did not mean all Greensward advocates were the “fringe element” he was talking about. Instead, he said the term was meant for those protestors who have vandalized park signs and zoo property and who have written nasty things online.

Conrad went on to clarify his point in a “council recap” posted Wednesday evening. The recap is the first from Conrad (or any council member in recent memory) and it explains what happened at council Tuesday.

The post mentions the budget, the potential sale of the former police building, and police cameras. But, mostly, the recap focuses on the Greensward ordinance and Conrad’s “fringe element” comment.

“My comments have been taken out of context, as I was not referring to park supporters who don’t want parking on the Greensward – indeed, I am one of them,” Conrad said. “This comment was clearly directed at only a small few who have vandalized Overton Park and zoo property the past two weekends and make threats and illegal offenses at law abiding people; these actions are costing the city precise police resources.”

“More importantly, this small minority of people are, knowingly or unknowingly, dealing and sabotaging the prospects of a reasonable compromise and reconciliation through mediation. Moreover the strident and disrespectful public commentary by some has effectively mooted the advocacy of other well intentioned citizens who support a resemble resolution through the legislative process.”

Conrad finished by reminding that at the council’s meeting Tuesday that he said “I genuinely cherish the positive civic activism and engagement” of those who spoke before the council.

Conrad’s note also included some examples of “inappropriate commentary” found online.

One note from a Facebook user called “Damn Daniel” says nothing will done about the parking situation “until you people show up with guns and are willing to star a fight with police.”

Another says things are “going to get extremely ugly” and says “let’s just say I wouldn’t park my car on the Greensward this weekend.” Another proclaims “it’s spray painting weather!”

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Onward to the Past

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after. — Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”

While many of you were at Beale Street Music Fest or at the movies or drinking yourselves silly with craft beer last Saturday night, I spent the evening watching “Nerd Prom,” otherwise known as the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Yes, I know, I need to get out more.

The WHCD is an incestuous affair, one in which the Beltway elite dress up and endure polite jabs from the president, and then, after the the leader of the free world’s remarks, get skewered more forcefully by a comedian. This year’s dinner went pretty much true to form, except that comedian Larry Wilmore of The Nightly Show had the bad fortune to follow a president who had funnier material and a better stage presence.

Obama took shots at Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Reince Priebus, Ted Cruz, and, of course, Donald Trump. He was in rare form, obviously feeling some relief that this would be the last such dinner he would ever have to attend. “Next year at this time,” he said, “someone else will be standing here in this very spot, and it’s anyone’s guess who she will be.” Ow.

The president even poked fun at himself in a video in which he received “advice” on retirement from former Speaker John Boehner, who offered Obama a cigarette and suggested that having a beer in the morning wasn’t the worst idea ever. Which is true.

At the end of his speech, when Obama literally dropped the mic, I thought about how much I’ll miss having a president with a sense of humor and an ability to be self-deferential, a national leader who can be joyful and use Snapchat and charm children and shoot hoops with Stephen Curry — and bear with grace and humor the most vitriolic and coordinated attacks on a president’s character in my memory.

I can’t imagine Donald Trump, for instance, ever making fun of himself. To do so requires genuine self-confidence, not the insecure macho bluster that is Trump’s stock in trade. As we trundle toward what now appears inevitable — a presidential contest between Trump and Hillary Clinton — I cannot help but feel the country is taking a step backward, with two candidates in their late 60s, neither of whom seems in touch with the nation’s current zeitgeist.

Even so, the choice between Trump and Clinton will be not a difficult one for me, nor will it be for the majority of Americans, if current polling is to be believed. In 2012, Obama beat Mitt Romney in an Electoral College landslide, and it’s unlikely many Democratic voters will switch to Trump in 2016. There simply aren’t enough angry, xenophobic white people to swing a national election to the GOP. Nor are there enough Democratic voters who “feel the Bern” of Sanders’ efforts to tackle the country’s increasingly troubling income disparity.

But there is an overlap there between Trump’s frustrated blue-collar followers and Sanders’ underpaid and over-leveraged young folks. The candidate who can reach both groups and show them their common interests — and their common enemies — will have a shot at creating genuine change. It’s not happening this year, but I get the sense that we are only waiting for this moment to arrive.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

Greg Cravens

About Jackson Baker’s Viewpoint “Restless Bedfellows” …

Isn’t there some mouth-breather in the Tennessee House who can be persuaded to introduce bills to sell off TVA, rescind all divorces, and make missionary the official state coital position. Just to move things along here.

CL Mullins

CL, I think they would be against missionary being the official state position since it doesn’t work with farm animals. Also, it would depend on the denomination of the missionary. Don’t give them any ideas about TVA, though.

Jeff

The Democrats should embrace an economic message, but the Tennessee Taliban will tar Democrats with being atheist Satan-worshipping, baby-murdering homosexuals no matter what. So why not embrace the social change that the rest of the country is embracing as time goes on and the obits continue to roll for the Social Security- Medicare-receiving social conservatives?

Packrat

About Bianca Phillips’ post, “Local Transgender Community Bands Together in Wake of Anti-LGBT Bills” …

What a self-defeating agenda. There is no home for LGBT people in conservative churches. You need to assist LGBT people in their exodus from those brainwashing institutions rather than playing at seeking tolerance within conservative religion. It may exist among nominal members, but it cannot exist where the Bible and traditional theology are taken seriously.

Brunetto Latini

Faith is not synonymous with the conservative social agenda. It is important for those who understand this — who are actually the majority — to be vocal in providing an alternative viewpoint when those with a political agenda try to conflate them and to point out that faith doesn’t demand archaic views.

OakTree

The current Republican transgender bathroom scare is just more of their crusade and fearmongering against gays, trying to fool an inattentive American public.

For all the anti-gay evangelicals who haven’t been out of their own bathrooms in years: Get a grip! Bathrooms have been transgender all over the world for decades. We were in Europe 30 years ago, and both sexes, all sexes, were using the same toilets. Heaven forbid! 

The latest farce by Republicans and religious extremists will blow over, just like their marriage-equality brouhaha. Then Republicans will put some other sexual taboo on the table to stir up their religious base.

Ron Lowe

About Memphis priorities …

Building bike lanes, green lines, supporting sports teams, subsidizing the zoo and other attractions, revitalizing communities, and providing tax incentives to attract new business and promote population (tax base) growth without investing in education, mass transit, and police and fire services is like trying to bail out the Mississippi River with a teaspoon.

Yes, we need job growth, but you don’t get that by pulling the plug on education and destroying our precious and limited urban green space. No one wants to raise their family in a city that doesn’t offer adequate public educational opportunity or open green space for them to play on.

How many other companies or corporations will join ServiceMaster in the search for a new headquarters before our city leaders wake up and smell the coffee? Memphis really doesn’t need to be “a great place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there” destination.  

Daniel Dixon

Last weekend, my family went to the Memphis Zoo. They saw many parking spaces in the zoo lot but were told by two zoo staff members that they had to “fill up the grass lot before putting people on the pavement lot.” It seems like the zoo is now purposely trying to put cars onto the grass, regardless of the open spots we saw in the paved lot.

Carley Hanson

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Dear God … Why Prince?

Dear, God …

No, I’m not just saying “Dear, God” to be saying it. I’m writing an open letter. So here goes.

Dear, God, at this point I’m just pissed off. If you are indeed real, are you the one running this universe? Are you the one aligning or misaligning the planets? Are you the one who let Merle Haggard and David Bowie both die earlier this year — on their birthdays, no less? And now Prince? PRINCE? At age 57?

Mark Milstein | Dreamstime.com

Prince

What in God’s name (Oops! Sorry!) were you thinking? Have you lost your mind? I know you have that giveth and taketh away thing going, but really? Prince at 57? I think you can do better. My best friend cried for two solid days about Prince. Are you happy you made her do that? This is one of those losses — like John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and John John Kennedy — that will make us all remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news. I, for one, was having my brain examined in a workshop with my coworkers. You don’t want to know the results. And learning that Prince had just died didn’t help matters at all.

Why don’t you take out someone whom we’d be better off without, like Ted Cruz? Take that idiot now, and give us back Prince. Hell, (Oops! Sorry again!), take Tom Cruise. Take him and all the rest of the Scientologists. We don’t need them.

Mark Milstein | Dreamstime.com

Prince

Oh, dear. I can hear my phone ringing and email pinging now. The last time I mentioned the Scientologists, just in passing, their public relations person at the celebrity center in Nashville contacted me. Apparently, someone in Collierville (Collierville!) turned me in. Who would have thought there were Scientologists in Collierville?

She was all unnerved because I made a crack about them and told me I should call her if I wanted to find out what Scientology was really all about. So I told her, “Look, I had to deal with you people for years when Isaac Hayes was still alive, and you people are freaks. Don’t try giving me the runaround, because I know you, and not one of you is able to explain this without lying through your teeth.”

I don’t think she was too thrilled. I wonder if that’s why I found a dead rat in my bedroom the other morning. No, that was a gift from my tomcat, who also knocked over my flat-screen television (I finally got one!) the other day and caused me to crack a rib trying to catch it before it hit the floor. So now I have a torn intercostal muscle in one side of my ribs and a cracked rib on the other side. AND I have a spider bite on my arm. I’m falling apart. I have high blood pressure, low blood sugar, tendinitis, sinusitis, carpal and ulnar tunnel in my wrists, arthritis, vertigo while driving, degenerative disc disease, horrible allergies, dry eye syndrome, acid reflux, anxiety disorder, and a cyst the size of a fig on my elbow. But at least I have a tomcat!

I also have a handwritten letter on my office wall from former United States ambassador to Germany, Philip D. Murphy, which opens with the salutation, “Dear TimCat.” I kid you not. It ends with the line, “You make me so proud to be an American!” Yes, he underlined it. Can you believe that? He wrote me the letter (by hand!) a few years ago after I took some Stax Music Academy students to Berlin to perform for him and a lot of other people, AND he cried after they performed. So there.

But back to my open letter to God about Prince. Why would you take such a sweet, handsome, fashionable, shy musical genius from us and let all of these terrorists and Republicans stick around to drive us nuts? Is this some kind of a bizarre test? Why not take Donald Trump? Good Lord (Oops! Sorry again!). You’re going to let someone with that hair stay alive and take Prince away from us? Have you even heard “When Doves Cry”? Well, the doves are sobbing their guts out now, so thanks for nothing.

Why not take Marie Osmond, the most frightening person ever to walk this insane planet? Oh, wait. You may have created this planet. Sorry. But if you did, you could still do better. Look at Houston. All flooded. Oh, sorry. There’s no flooding anymore; it’s “ponding.” When did flooding become “ponding”?

ARE YOU UP THERE? If you are, what are you doing? Deciding which genius musician to take out next? We not only want Prince back, but we also want Alex Chilton as well. We’ll give you Ted Cruz, Tom Cruise, Donald Trump, Marie Osmond, AND Taylor Swift if you’ll give us back Prince, Alex Chilton, Isaac Hayes, Maurice White, Bobby Blue Bland, David Bowie, and Merle Haggard. Sound like a deal?

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Appeasing the Bern

What does Bernie Sanders want in exchange for endorsing Hillary Clinton?
And what can Clinton and the Democratic Party give Sanders to get him to campaign aggressively for her in the fall, harnessing the voting power of the passionate, mostly young, white, left-wing voters who favor him?

Obviously, Sanders expects a prime-time speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention. Neither the Clinton camp nor the party’s leadership will have a problem with that demand. But wh

at if he wants to be the vice presidential candidate on a Clinton-led ticket? That’s a reach.

Sanders’ “socialist” label is a liability in a general election. The Vermonter will hurt Clinton’s effort to win support from political moderates, especially older voters. Sanders would also be a bridge too far for Republicans disenchanted by their party’s wild primary season and the prospect of either Donald Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz as the GOP’s presidential candidate.

But if Sanders is not to be made the prospective veep, Democrats will have to find something else to give him. He has exceeded all expectations during the primary season. The depth of his support was underlined by his three strong victories in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. And Democrats fear him mounting a third-party run along the lines of the populist campaign run by Ralph Nader in 2000 that arguably gave the White House to George W. Bush.

The heart of this troublesome political puzzle for Democrats is how to get Sanders’ passionate supporters to line up behind Clinton. In early March, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found a third of the people voting for Sanders saying they “cannot see themselves voting for Hillary Clinton in November.” The Nation magazine reported recently that “nearly 60,000 people have signed the ‘Bernie or Bust’ pledge,” vowing to remain loyal to him even if Clinton wins the nomination.

President Obama is now getting involved in this escalating debate. According to The New York Times, the president privately told Texas Democrats that Sanders’ continuing campaign against Clinton stalls party organizers, donors, and activists from getting started on beating the GOP in the fall campaign.

The president and leading Democrats in Congress are all but calling for Sanders to get out of the race now. The Democrats’ unstated anxiety is that Clinton, while a clear winner among primary voters, does not set the campaign trail on fire. Sanders and Trump, the leading candidate for the GOP nomination, are arsonists by comparison. Sanders has continued to condemn a “corrupt campaign finance system which is undermining American democracy.” Clinton’s campaign is taking money from political action committees while Sanders’ is not.
Sanders is also casting an unfavorable light on Clinton by celebrating the “energy and excitement” of his crowds and claiming that it is because “we are telling the truth.” He does not mention Clinton, but the comparison is obvious, if implicit.

Sanders’ big issue is income inequality. He continues to accuse Clinton of being too close to Wall Street, further arguing that this makes it implausible that she will rein in wealthy bankers and hedge-fund managers. It is easy to see how his followers might be convinced Clinton is the no-change, establishment candidate and become permanently turned off to her.

Sanders’ lack of formal connection to the Democratic Party is another part of the problem. At an Ohio town hall meeting, he admitted having considered running for president as an independent but decided to run as a Democrat because “in terms of media coverage, you have to run within the Democratic Party.”

Last year, former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner (D), whose wife Huma Abedin is a top Clinton aide, publicly expressed the reservations Democratic insiders still have about Sanders.

“What exactly does he think he’s doing in a Democratic presidential primary?” Weiner wrote in Business Insider last July. “Why is he asking for the nomination of a party he always avoided joining? Now he wants to not only be a member of the party but its standard bearer?”

To bring Sanders inside the camp, Democrats will have to do more than make him a TV star at the convention. They will also have to put Clinton, union organizers, and money behind his issues, creating a permanent movement inside the party for a living wage, for lower-cost college education, and a sharper critique of Wall Street.

The party is going to have to buy into Sanders if they want him to buy into them.

Juan Williams is an author and political analyst for Fox News Channel. His latest book is We the People.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

New ownership at Bluefin and Sean’s Cafe

After working through some internal miscommunication, closing the doors during holiday season for inspection, operating two months without a liquor license, and weathering other tweaks and construction, Bluefin‘s new owner James Woo is excited about what he has to offer his customers.

Woo purchased the Main Street sushi restaurant in December after visiting the Bluff City on vacation and chatting up his friend and the eatery’s former owner Jimmy Ishii.

“He was talking about selling, and I thought this was a very nice town and a very nice restaurant,” Woo says. “It is similar to my hometown in South Korea, Kongju. We had a river in the town similar to here where after school we would go and fish and swim.”

Bluefin’s new owner, James Woo

Woo, who has worked in the restaurant business since childhood — his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were all in the business — endured a staff walk-out two days into his new ownership because of miscommunication concerning the staff reapplying for their jobs and working for lower wages.

He overcame the complications of living in a new city with no connections and managed to bring in some star sushi chefs, including Sang Park, who worked at Robert De Niro’s famous Nobu restaurant in New York and Nishino in Seattle, as well as Brian Seo from California and two new kitchen chefs.

“One is from Japan and the other worked at the casinos, preparing Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai food,” Woo says.

Woo has launched a new menu that includes a hibachi grill and a continuation of its edgy sushi, and, after rebuilding the lobby bar, also has plans for the small side bar north of the restaurant.

There he plans to open a coffee and tea bar that also offers healthy smoothies and other alternatives.

“I want everyone to know we are ready and open for business, and we have a new menu,” Woo says.

Bluefin is open Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 11 p.m., Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., Saturday, 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., and Sunday, 5 to 11 p.m.

Sean’s Cafe and Smooth Moves is also getting an overhaul under new ownership, and even getting a new name.

Californian Rickie Valentino took over the Mediterranean deli and smoothie shop eight months ago and has slowly and quietly added a few new menu items while tweaking some of the old standbys.

“I love this area, Midtown. The restaurants are so eclectic with so many options and styles and cultures. The opportunity came up for this place, and that attracted me,” Valentino says.

With a lineage of Lebanese, Sicilian, and Indian, Valentino has put his own stamp on some of the familiar dishes.

The swordfish, served either as a wrap, $7.99, or a platter, $11.99, which comes as a kebab with rice and two sides, is dusted with jerk seasoning, lemon juice, and peaches.

The turmeric rice is cooked in a chicken base and tossed with celery and carrots, and his shawarma, with either chicken, beef, or leg of lamb, is prepared with red wine vinegar, oregano, lemon juice, olive oil, paprika, and cardamom.

“Essentially, I wanted to create an atmosphere that offers light, good food,” he says.

He’s even come up with an alternative to French fries — zucchini fries served tempura-style and dusted with panko.

And vegans, take note. Balewa will be back, with his own room on the west side of the shop.

“I think he complements what I’m trying to do with my place really well. He has such extraordinary vegan cuisine, and I think the best-tasting wheatgrass in town,” Valentino says.

As of now, you can still find the restaurant in the e-world under Sean’s Cafe and Smooth Moves both on the web and social media, but not for long. Soon Valentino will see his own name in neon lights over the establishment under the moniker Rick’s Cafe Americain (yes, just like in the movie) and Smooth Moves and in all the incarnations online.

“There’s been a little buzz going around. I’m excited,” he says.

Rick’s Cafe Americain and Smooth Moves is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Valentino plans on extending his hours and hopefully including delivery.

Categories
Music Music Features

Dream All Day: Ken Stringfellow

This Friday, Seattle alt-rock icons the Posies will roll through Memphis for an already sold-out show at a secret location to promote the group’s eighth studio album, Solid States, in a nearly 30-year history. Co-founding members Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer should be no strangers to followers of the Memphis music scene, as they were the backbone of the Big Star reunion that started in 1993, alongside original members Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens (the two were inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame as a part of Big Star in 2014). Stringfellow, who has also served time in R.E.M., Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, and, most recently, Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg, spoke to the Flyer this week.

The Memphis Flyer: Why did you guys decide to do this tour in this format, secret shows at non-traditional venues? Did your recent house-show tour with Holly Munoz (Texas singer-songwriter) influence that decision?

Ken Stringfellow: Definitely, Holly’s way of touring opened my eyes. I know bands do house concert tours. I know there’s an entire agency, Undertow, who does only house-concert tours. But the tour Holly and I did was not just house concerts. We played in a few different kinds of spaces — a cave, a chocolate factory, the NASA Johnson Space Center. For the Posies, most houses would be too small, but we found some incredible spaces to do the tour.

For this tour, so much is different — the way our label functions, the fact we have a new drummer, the fact we’re touring with electronic accompaniment. We thought it would be great to do a paradigmatic shift in the way we tour as well.

You and Jon have spent a fair amount of time in Memphis over the years. How connected to the city and the music scene here do you feel?

Well, we’re in the Memphis Music Hall of Fame! And we love coming to Memphis. The core of people around Big Star and Ardent are super important to us.

Are you surprised by the continued and increasing interest in the music of Big Star?

The range of Big Star’s influence and the protective loyalty of that fan base is definitely astonishing. Until you consider the quality of the music. Then it’s more like, “of course.” It’s some of the greatest music of all time, from which, behind the scenes, many of the indie-rock notions we take for granted were generated.

Most of the people I’ve spoken to who knew Alex say he would have hated all of the attention the band has received lately, especially for the Third album. Do you think that’s true?

Oh my goodness. Yes. He would have definitely been against any kind of celebration or edification or museum-izing of Big Star’s music.

How did Solid States come together?

We started the writing process in early 2015. We basically blocked off January to write and demo and share things with each other. A lot of the recording, then, was done in February, each of us working in our respective home studios. The idea was to add drums last and let the electronic elements take the foreground. Then, something unimaginable happened, when our drummer of 15 years, Darius Minwalla, died suddenly.

There was no going back to the way things were — we almost didn’t find the strength to go forward. It was a major shock. We did regroup and the record entered a second phase, where several new songs were written or completed as a way to deal with this loss. Darius is a major part of the album. It’s dedicated to his memory.

What inspired the increased use of electronic and synthesized elements on Solid States?

It’s kind of where music is these days. But also, as producers, these kind of textures are pretty common on albums we work on. Both Jon and I wondered why we were doing these extremely modern sounds and textures on albums for other people and not benefiting from these skills we’ve acquired for our own work.

Was it hard to adjust to playing live along with electronics and a metronome?

Credit is due there to Frankie [Siragusa, the Posies’ new drummer], who really brought the Ableton elements to life. Jon and I spent some time in Berlin last year learning how to use Ableton, but I have to say Frankie made it come to life, and as the guy who has to play drums to the metronome, makes it feel spontaneous and real every night. We didn’t rehearse together until the week before the tour, so we had no idea if it was going to work. I mean, there’s the Ableton stuff, and then there’s playing with a new drummer. As great as Frankie is, I was unsure how this would really work live — chemistry, groove, etc. Also, I added a synth to our lineup, and on this tour I have the piano and synths in front of me, and I play those and guitar at the same time.

I understand that Solid States is currently only being sold at your shows and won’t be widely available until after the tour. Why did you decide to “soft release” the album this way?

Just to shake it up. Drive the tour ticket sales. Like Led Zeppelin used to say: “We don’t tour to promote albums. We release albums to promote the tours.”

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Marcus, or the Secret of Sweet

Before reviewing the Hattiloo’s fun but flawed production of Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet, I’d like to say just a few words about a special event that happened this past weekend on the Rhodes College campus. Students and community actors who performed in each of the McCoy Theatre’s 35 seasons returned to Memphis to honor retiring theater professor Julia “Cookie” Ewing. The surprise party/cabaret packed the theater and included a live performance by an ensemble comprised of 43 alumni. Ewing’s the kind of committed, challenging educator who inspires good students to be better students — and better people while they’re at it. She was my faculty advisor. She’s never stopped being my teacher. The abundant love and legacy on display this weekend evidenced Ewing’s virtuoso performance as a mentor to generations. Standing O.

Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet shows incredible potential, but is undermined, ultimately, by an inattention to technical detail. A fine group of actors have come together to present the last chapter of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s deceptively challenging “Brother/Sister” trilogy, and with the help of director Dennis Darling, these actors share many fine moments together. Unfortunately, on the night I attended, all those moments happened in near darkness, obscuring faces and hiding the twinkle and the terror in the actors’ eyes. There was no front lighting to speak of and very little texture in either the lighting or scenic design. It’s a superficial problem, but one that makes it difficult for me to wholeheartedly recommend a piece of theater I’d normally want to stand up and cheer about.

McCraney’s a certifiable wunderkind who writes stylized family dramas overlaid with ritual. His sense of community calls to mind the August Wilson canon, but, formally speaking, the two writers couldn’t be more dissimilar. McCraney’s scripts borrow from African mythology, with dialogue so musical his characters sometimes have no choice but to burst into full-throated song. In many regards, Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet is the most conventional play in a set that includes In the Red and Brown Water and The Brothers Size. But it’s hardly conventional. Dream sequences weave in and out of an already dreamy narrative while ghosts and confused lovers follow one another through a swampy Louisiana landscape. In some regards, it’s a lot like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but with all of the old fairytale’s original mystery and danger restored.

Marcus tells the story of a young man’s sexual awakening and an accompanying compulsion to learn more about his father. Marcus is “sweet” — a euphemism for effeminate. Maybe he’s gay. Maybe it’s more complicated than that. At any rate, the curious young man is trying to learn the secret codes that exist in a tightly knit African-American community where homosexuality is kept on the DL. He wants to make connections, not only with new friends and lovers, but with history and also to some much bigger ideas. You don’t need to be familiar with the other “Brother/Sister” plays to follow the action, but the show will be richer for those who are. It will be richer still for those who go the extra mile to learn about all the African thunder gods and gender-bending trickster deities McCraney alludes to throughout.

Cameron Yates is so vulnerable as Marcus — able to stop hearts with his quiet reticence and warm them again with shy, schoolgirl laughter. He’s strongly supported by Mary Ann Washington (Oba), Hannaan Aisha Ester (Shaunta Lyun), Derrick Johnson (Shua/Oshoosi Size), and an able ensemble cast that is collectively responsible for some of the season’s most satisfyingly human interactions. What’s surprising, though, given director Darling’s background as a musician and conductor, is how all of these interactions occur in the context of a production wanting for shape and dynamics.

I get that much of Marcus’ action occurs at night. The challenge is to create the illusion of evening and shadow while still framing the characters and punctuating the action with light. But instead of blossoming into the bright sunflower it’s supposed to be, this production just kept audiences in the dark.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Memphis Parkour: On the Rise

A steady rain was falling from ominous, dark clouds over downtown last Friday, and the occasional thunderclap was so loud, the earth seemed to vibrate. But it was the first-annual We Jump the World Day, a worldwide celebration of parkour and freerunning, and the Memphis Parkour group wasn’t about to let a little bad weather ruin their good times.

A planned parkour meetup outside Bass Pro Shops was moved at the last minute to a dry spot in a covered enclave behind Alfred’s on Beale. It was there that I watched Kevin Hetzler run down a covered alley, scale a flight of stairs, use his hands to propel himself over a concrete wall, and then jump up to grab a stair railing that he proceeded to climb — all the while followed by his buddy Navii Heru filming the sequence with an iPhone camera on a selfie stick.

A few minutes later, 17-year-old Anna Holt, a life-long ballet dancer who told me she just started practicing parkour a couple months ago, hopped a stair railing, lifted herself up onto a wall, and then jumped off the wall into a front flip on the concrete below before landing gracefully on her feet. After the sequence was done, she grinned from ear to ear as her mother, who sat watching from a concrete bench, beamed with pride.

I stayed for more than a hour as Hetzler, Heru, Holt, and University of Memphis student Kenneth Shields took turn after turn demonstrating new ways to jump, swing, run, and vault over the architectural obstacles in their path. When I left to head back to the office, they were still going strong — rain be damned.

What Is It?

Parkour and freerunning — terms that may or may not be interchangeable depending on who you ask — are athletic disciplines that involve running, jumping, climbing, vaulting, swinging, rolling, flipping, or pretty much any movement used to get from one point to another.

Watching its practitioners (called traceurs) in action is akin to watching primates moving around in a jungle — hopping over brush, using their hands to propel them over logs, swinging from branches, doing whatever it takes to move over obstacles with grace and speed.

The parkour scene exploded in the U.K. back in the early-2000s, and it caught on in the U.S. soon after. But the parkour scene in Memphis didn’t emerge until a few years ago, mostly as a sort of underground pastime for athletic males in their late teens and mid-20s. But now, thanks to the efforts of a few Memphis parkour enthusiasts, the art is moving to the mainstream, attracting kids as young as 3 and adults of all ages to a series of classes hosted weekly at Co-Motion Studio in Crosstown. Co-Motion parkour coach/Memphis Parkour member Jonathan McCarver has seen such success that he’s planning to open a dedicated parkour gym near the airport this summer.

“I see a big boom for Memphis Parkour this year, at least by the end of the year. Memphis Parkour has been around about seven years, but it’s really just now breaking into the scene,” says Hetzler, a 27-year-old traceur who helps coach both the teen and all-ages classes at Co-Motion.

Hang on — classes at Co-Motion Studio include Parkour for Everyone, Sundays 1-2 p.m.; Low Impact Parkour, Sundays 2:15-3:15 p.m.; and Parkour Skills (13+), Tuesdays 6:30-7:30 p.m. Sign up at comotionmemphis.com.

The French Connection

Parkour’s roots trace back to 1902, when French naval officer Lieutenant Georges Hébert rescued more than 700 people from an erupting volcano on the Caribbean island of Martinique. Hébert was inspired by watching the survivors move — some successfully and some not so much — through obstacles in their path. The experience caused the well-traveled Frenchman to become interested in the physical development and movement skills of the indigenous people he’d seen in Africa and elsewhere.

He drew on those movements to create a military training discipline that using running, climbing, and man-made obstacle courses to recreate a natural environment. He dubbed the discipline “the natural method,” and it eventually became the basis for French military training. French soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam used the style to develop what they called parcours du combattant, meaning “the path of the warrior.”

In the early 1980s, former French special forces soldier Raymond Belle, who had trained under that style, passed it on to his son David, who was already training in gymnastics. David and his best friend Sébastien Foucan used those skills to create the modern discipline of parkour, which, in a nutshell, simply meant getting from point A to point B — over, under, and through obstacles in one’s path —  in the most efficient way possible.

They called its practitioners traceurs and started a parkour group called the Yamakasi. The Yamakasi style was featured in a 2001 French film of the same name, and the movement exploded in Europe.

“It took a long time to make it to the States, but it flourished all over Europe,” McCarver says.

Foucan eventually split from the traditional parkour style by adding flips and wall spins — moves that may not be the most efficient way from one point to another but still look really cool. Remember the famous scene in 2006’s Casino Royale where James Bond chases the bad guy through a construction site — flipping, running, and eventually climbing and balancing on a beam hundreds of feet in the air? That bad guy was played by Foucan.

While it was originally developed as a military tactic, these days, parkour is more about fun than military prowess.

“Historically, you could say that parkour is more tied to functional capabilities, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone is doing it to have fun,” McCarver says. “It encompasses all of the arts of movement that are just moving your body through your environment. It’s broad and it’s vague, and that’s what makes it interesting.”

There are no rules in parkour or freerunning, which sets it apart from traditional gymnastics, an art that utilizes specific equipment in a specific way. And although there are parkour competitions these days, it wasn’t really intended as a competitive sport.

“Competitions are less in the spirit of parkour. People tend to associate it with things like American Ninja Warrior, and it has strong crossover, but that’s not really parkour training,” McCarver says.

There’s a World Freerunning Parkour Federation (WFPF), and they certify coaches, but even that organization’s mission statement is intentionally vague in keeping with the spirit of the art.

From the WFPF mission statement: “We aren’t here to argue or try to regulate what Parkour/Freerunning is or is not, and we certainly don’t have any interest in actions that result negatively for the community. We encourage all individuals to find their own training, to discover new ways of seeing their environment, to be pathfinders for us all as they overcome whatever obstacles seem to be standing between them and where they dream of going.”

People all over town are flipping for parkour at Co-Motion Studio.

Ninja Acrobatics

When attempting to schedule an interview with Heru, I suggested we meet for coffee. His response: “Overton Park is nice. And not a big coffee drinker, sorry.” That’s when it dawned me — of course, you’re supposed meet up with a parkour guy in his natural environment.

We met up at noon in the picnic pavilion near the Rainbow Lake playground, and Heru, a tall and lanky 29-year-old who looks like he was built to flip, pointed out the various spots in the park where he’s sustained minor injuries practicing parkour.

“I sprained all 10 toes right there. I sprained my ankle over there,” Heru says with a chuckle, pointing in different directions.

Heru, who calls parkour “ninja acrobatics,” got his start about six years ago, inspired by a parkour video game called “Mirror’s Edge.” Now, he’s a parkour coach at Co-Motion Studio.

“I was watching the character move, and I was like, man, that stuff is totally doable. I started researching moves and watched a few tutorials, and then I just took off. I practiced by myself for about a year and a half, and then I Googled and found the Memphis Parkour Facebook page and Jonathan McCarver.

“He said he’d meet me one Sunday on the East Parkway side of Overton Park, so I met him there. And all these other guys showed up and started jumping in,” Heru says.

The Facebook page is primarily used to organize spontaneous meetups, sometimes thrown together an hour before meetup time. The traceurs often meet in Overton Park or spots around downtown or the University of Memphis.

“Surprisingly enough, we’ve never been kicked off the [Shelby County] Courthouse lawn. We use those big ole chunky concrete walls and the stairs,” McCarver says. “Beale Street Landing would be good, but they hate us. They made signs to discourage us from training there.”

Heru, who works at Subway by day and as a security guard at night, says parkour has not only given him “monkey strength,” it’s also helped him overcome depression.

“It’s a really good stress reliever. Parkour unwinds me, and it teaches me to overcome life’s obstacles, like being depressed. It’s like a Zen-meditation-type thing. It’s like a vacation inside yourself,” Heru says.

McCarver, 33, who works as a software developer at Lokion and does a little acting in local theater, discovered parkour after watching the action movie District B13 about 10 years ago.

“They used all of these skills, and I looked up parkour and found out what the discipline was. It was like, oh cool, there’s a name for what I’ve done my whole life. I’ve always been a movement person,” McCarver says.

Hetzler, who had previously studied kung fu and admits that he’s “always wanted to be a ninja,” began practicing about a year ago after learning about the Memphis Parkour group. For him, it all started with a magical night run.

“I finally got in touch with Jebediah [a member of Memphis Parkour], and he took me out for a run. I was brand new, fresh, green. We went outside and played on the vault box a little bit, and then he said, ‘Are you ready?’ before he took off running through his apartment complex.

“I just started following him, jumping over what little I could. We climbed through a hole in the roof of his apartment building, and that’s when I realized I couldn’t turn back. But I made my way up, and the sun was going down. I just smiled and thought, this is it. We ran for about five hours that night.”

It wasn’t long after that McCarver, Heru, and Hetzler began teaching classes together at Co-Motion.

“Parkour is about finding yourself and learning who you can be,” Hetzler says.

Of course, there’s a practical side, too.

“I’ve never had to run for my life, but I have been on my way somewhere in a hurry and used my parkour skills to get me there faster,” he says. “Someday, if someone is burning in a building, I want to be able to run in and save them. I’ve always had a superhero thing.”

And that points to, perhaps, the most important thing about parkour — it’s fun.

“We’re actually in the midst now of putting together some kind of gig where we dress as superheroes and entertain kids,” Hetzler says. “So now I can work on my superhero status.”

Parkour for Everyone

I sat in on a Tuesday night teen and adult parkour class at Co-Motion in early April. Teen boys whizzed past me — flipping, rolling, and vaulting over wooden boxes — as I scribbled notes. At one point, McCarver held a gold-and-purple hula-hoop a few feet off the floor as the five students — mostly teen boys and one 34-year-old man —  took turns bounding off a wooden block, diving through the hoop, landing in a front flip onto a mat, jumping onto a wooden vault box, and then jumping down to a balance beam. A death metal jam by Paranoia blared over the speakers, adding to the high energy in the large cavernous space.

Hetzler was there as well, demonstrating McCarver’s instruction as the boys followed his lead. Hetzler effortlessly sprang from a wooden box on the black-and-white tile floor, glided through the hoop, and managed a front flip before landing smoothly on his feet.

“I love teaching the kids. They’re really my soft spot because they’re still innocent. They don’t understand the hardships of life,” Hetzler told me after class.

Co-Motion Studio in Crosstown is primarily a hula-hoop dance studio, offering classes in hooping, yoga, and, occasionally, belly dance or hip-hop dance. But on Tuesday nights and Sunday afternoons, it transforms into a parkour gym as McCarver uses mats, wooden vault boxes, old tires, and balance beams to create an obstacle course for students.

The Tuesday night class is for teens and adults, and the skills taught are more advanced. McCarver says it currently attracts mostly teen boys, but a few girls and older adults come from time to time.

He encouraged me to pop by one Sunday afternoon to watch the all-ages class, and it was a completely different scene. Although that class is advertised for all ages, the class has become more of a youth class, attracting lots of little kids and a few tweens. On the Sunday I dropped by in late April, there were about 15 kids ranging in age from 3 to 12. Parents stuck around to watch, and some even helped coach.

During the the warm-up, McCarver instructed the kids to crawl like zombies, using only their arms to propel themselves as they drug their legs on the floor behind them. Hetzler and Heru crawl around with the kids, too. And once the zombie kids made it around the room, a couple of parents gave it a try.

After the warm-up, McCarver, Hetzler, and Heru broke the kids into small groups to work on mastering the cartwheel. Some kids got it immediately, and others, try as they might, landed with plops on the mat over and over again.

One of the parents, Charles Mitchell, watched as his 4-year-old son, a cute blonde kid named Graham, bounded around the room. Mitchell says he enrolled Graham in parkour when he was 3.

“I read about parkour in a book called Natural Born Heroes, and I started researching it and watching videos. I thought my son would enjoy it,” says Mitchell, a local defense attorney. “I can tell it’s really benefitted him in his natural movements and his balance and spacial recognition. Whether he ends up playing traditional sports like soccer or baseball, what he learns here will translate to that.”

While the Sunday class caters to all ages, adults who aren’t parents might feel more comfortable in the Sunday low-impact class, which, while advertised to all ages, tends to attract students well into adulthood. I signed up for a low-impact class to see what it was all about.

The room was set up in a similar fashion to the advanced Tuesday night class, with mats, balance beams, and vault boxes arranged in an obstacle course of sorts, but McCarver assured me that I wouldn’t have to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with. As an injury-prone runner with a half-marathon on the horizon, I told him I’d rather not try flipping in the air.

McCarver led me (I was the only student that day) in an hour of instruction that involved using my arms to lift my body up and over high wooden vaults, doing shoulder rolls on a mat on the floor, and learning to balance on beams a few inches from the floor. Nothing dangerous or out of my comfort zone but certainly things I didn’t realize I was capable of. The next day, pain in my left shoulder was evidence that I’d worked muscle groups that don’t get much action in my day-to-day. I’ve clearly got a long way to go.

Susan Penn, 66, is a regular in the Sunday low-impact class, and she says it’s opened her up to new ways of moving her body. Penn, who also takes hula-hoop classes and yoga, is accustomed to physical activity, but she recently brought a friend who has some mobility issues to class, and McCarver customized the moves for her.

“It’s interesting how you can adapt physical activity to people with a variety of limitations in a way that’s fun and healthy. Old people tend to stop moving, and they shouldn’t,” Penn says. “After going to class a few times, I began to see more possibilities and ways to get around obstacles. Parkour is making me more playful. It’s making me try things that I suddenly feel like I might be able to do.”

For now, Co-Motion is the only place in town offering parkour classes, but McCarver is working on transforming a warehouse space at 2850 Lamb Place near the airport into a dedicated parkour gym. He doesn’t have an exact opening date in mind yet but says he’s aiming for some time after Memorial Day.

“At Co-Motion, we have space constraints, and we have to set up equipment and take it down for every class. We’ll be able to have things set up all the time, and we’ll have taller obstacles,” McCarver says.

He says he’ll keep some of the Co-Motion classes though, for those parents and students who would prefer the Midtown location. Once the gym is up and running, he hopes to expand parkour’s impact in Memphis even further.

“My mission is to show any person at any age and any skill level that, not only can they do parkour, but they can get healthy through fun and movement and play without repetitive, boring exercise,” he says. “I just want to get people moving.”

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Film Features Film/TV

The Jungle Book

As my wife said when we were leaving The Jungle Book, “That was a lot better than I was expecting it to be.”

She’s right. Jon Favreau’s entry into Disney’s campaign of remaking its classic animation titles as CGI-heavy live action films is a solid little adventure story starring talking animals. Mowgli (Neel Sethi, in his feature debut) is one of only two real humans onscreen. His co-stars are a menagerie of CGI animals that constitutes the film’s biggest achievement.The computer-generated animation and backgrounds on display here are astonishing. The animators get all of the little things right, like the ripple of a wolf’s fur or the quiver of a porcupine’s quills, making this one of the visually best CGI-driven films since Avatar.

We meet Mowgli, the foundling raised by his wolf mother Raksha (Lupita Nyong’o), as he’s trying to run with the pack. Try as he might, he can’t keep up, but alpha wolf Akela (Giancarlo Esposito) encourages him to keep trying. A drought brings all the animals of the jungle together in a water truce, where they promise not to eat each other while gathered around the last pond of drinkable water. It’s here that Shere Khan (Idris Elba) first sees Mowgli. Shere Khan carries scars inflicted by a human wielding the “red flower” of fire, and Mowgli becomes the focus of his grudge. The angry tiger threatens the wolf pack if they don’t turn over Mowgli, forcing the boy on a dangerous jungle sojourn with Bagheera (Ben Kinglsey), the black panther, as his guide. His ultimate goal is to make it to the human village, but Mowgli is unsure if he really wants to go, leaving him trapped between worlds.

Wolf boy — Neel Sethi as Mowgli.

The voice casts are all quite good, led by America’s spirit animal Bill Murray as jovial slacker bear Baloo, and including Scarlett Johansson as the hypnotic python Kaa and the recently departed Garry Shandling as Ikki the porcupine. Favreau and company devise a series of cleanly executed set pieces to put Mowgli in peril as he navigates through the dangerous jungle.

Favreau’s Jungle Book is visually lush and innovative, but you know what else was visually lush? The 1967 animated adaptation of The Jungle Book, which was the last film Walt Disney worked on before his death in 1967. That version sanded some of the rough edges off of Rudyard Kipling’s colonialist source material and imbibed the characters with some of the best songs in the Disney canon. Orangutan King Louie, played in 1967 by Louis Prima, flirted with racial caricature, but his version of “I Wanna Be Like You” is a heavy-bopping freight train of a song. Favreau turns the colonialist overtones way down by casting Christopher Walken as King Louie and referencing Brando’s performance in Apocalypse Now. Walken delivers a fine take on the song, but not fine enough to erase the memory of the original. Along with “Bear Necessities,” it’s one of only two songs to make it into this version, and that’s the problem in a nutshell. Disney wants to make some kind of slightly gritty reboot of The Jungle Book that will appeal to the hypothetical kids today, but also channel the spirit of the original, but in trying to thread the needle, Favreau takes a middle path that fully satisfies on neither level. The Jungle Book is not quite as inessential as last year’s Cinderella, but ultimately it still fails to justify its own existence.