Month: July 2016

Categories
News News Blog

City Council: Residency Rule Could Get City-Wide Vote

Memphis residents may get to vote on whether or not all employees of the city of Memphis must live in Memphis.

An ordinance to establish a city-wide referendum on the matter was slated for its first review by the Memphis City Council during a committee meeting Tuesday morning.

If the ordinance is passed, Memphis voters would be able to vote on the issue on Nov. 8, 2016, the same day as the national presidential election.

The question (as it is now) would ask:

“Shall the charter of the city of Memphis, Tennessee be amended to require all persons employed solely by the city of Memphis to live and reside within the city of Memphis, Tennessee?

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Happy 4th of July from Music Video Monday

This week’s Music Video Monday falls on the 4th of July, and we’re here to instill you with pride. 

Last week, The Memphis Grizzlies released a video they commissioned from director Craig Brewer called “Mike Conley – Our Conductor“. The video was a tribute to the baller, who was up for contract renegotiation, and a plea to stay. It must have worked, because Conley signed a $153 million dollar, 5-year contract to stay in Memphis. 

To make “Mike Conley – Our Conductor”, Brewer enlisted a who’s who of Memphis film talent, including producers Morgan Jon Fox and Erin Freeman, cinematographer Ryan Earl Parker, assistant director Sarah Fleming, Brandon Bell, and Firefly Grip and Electric. Prolific composer Jonathan Kirkscey was tapped to write an inspiring score, which would be performed by musicians from the Stax Music Academy and members of local orchestras, and the Grizzline drummers. Dancers from Collage Dance Collective, joined jookers from the Grit N’ Grind Squad. The conductor is Dr. James Gholson. 

Editor Edward Valibus says the first step in assembling the video was to lay down the music bed and edit together footage from a shoot at the FedEx Forum. Before any of the interviews with Conley’s friends and teammates were added, a cut was circulated to the Grizzles PR team, who went bonkers for it. “The first rough cut got such a tremendous response, we wanted people to see it it so the individual artists could get some recognition,” Valibus says.   

So here it is, the “Artist Only Remix”, showcasing some of the best musical and filmmaking talent our city has to offer. Happy Independence Day! 

Happy 4th of July from Music Video Monday

If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Trump and the “H” Word

Donald Trump’s emergence as the presumptive GOP nominee should be anything but surprising, given the party’s racist strategy for the last 50 years.  What is shocking is that GOP leaders did not know this at the beginning of the campaign, which is a measure of how out-of-touch they are with the white working and middle classes. That any Americans voted for Trump is a measure of how desperate they are for change. But voting for Trump because you want to shake things up is like burning your house down because you need to clean out your closets. A President Trump will almost certainly take us down the path to nationalist politics that could destroy our republic. And despite all the polling that indicates his support is waning, a Clinton landslide is far from certain.

In a recent interview on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show, Larry Pressler, a former Republican senator from South Dakota, mentioned his academic work as a Rhodes scholar on the German elections of 1927-28 and how our current political climate contains parallels. I am loath to compare politicians to Hitler, but it may be time to get over my squeamishness, because the wave of sentiment that has carried Trump this far is not unlike Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. And Germany’s elites objected to him, too.  

All revolutions spring from dissatisfaction with the status quo. From Louis XVI’s date with the guillotine, to the murder of the Russian czar, to the overthrow of Batista in Cuba, citizens chose to man the barricades and risk death, rather than starving while the oligarchs stuffed their bellies.  

Into this political maelstrom comes a Robespierre, a Lenin, a Castro — and the rest, as they say, is history. How much difference is there between a “strong” leader and a “strongman”?

My mother came of age in the Depression and regaled me with stories of how Germans would roll wheelbarrows of cash into stores in their efforts to stay ahead of an exchange rate that at its height in 1924, was 4.5 trillion German marks to one U.S. dollar. Then came Hitler, swept along by nationalist fervor and economic insecurity. Compare his propaganda regarding Jews with Trump’s on Hispanics and Muslims, and his promise to make Germany into a major power again, and one cannot easily ignore the parallels.  

Insecure, fearful people are, by definition, not rational. They care little for what history has to teach — they only know that once they had a secure place in society, and now they don’t. They’ve heard all the promises before, but their jobs disappeared anyway.

So, when House Speaker Paul Ryan blathers on about the “dignity of work” while opposing an increased minimum wage, people intuitively understand how little the GOP has done for them. When conservative pundit David Brooks allows the phrase “creative destruction” to float so effortlessly across his lips when discussing technology’s elimination of jobs, workers hear that the elites don’t give a damn about the dislocation of flesh-and-blood human beings.  

What’s truly laughable is the GOP’s sudden interest in “conscience” as they try to engineer the ousting of Trump. Ever since LBJ’s civil rights legislation was passed, Republicans have been playing to the racial fears of the people whose jobs they were simultaneously helping CEOs to outsource. Now they’re unhappy with the GOP People’s Choice? 

I guess they’d like to forget that Reagan’s 1980 campaign was announced in Philadelphia, Mississippi — site of the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964.  If that doesn’t explain their strategy, I don’t know what does.

Not that Democrats have much to brag about in protecting the interests of the everyday American. Their own standard bearer is pretty cozy with some of the same elites. If you doubt this, ask if Goldman Sachs would pay Hillary Clinton a quarter of a million dollars to take them to the proverbial woodshed.  

Neither candidate is likely to significantly improve the outlook for the working and middle classes, but our descent into anarchy will be slowed if Clinton is elected. In the meantime, maybe we can avoid societal chaos by convincing former Trump supporters and other constituencies that our best shot at making this country great is by working to elect more “small d” democrats.

America is not so special that we cannot fall under the spell of a Hitler-like demagogue during uncertain times. Those times are here and that demagogue’s name is Trump.

Ruth Ogles Johnson is a frequent contributor to the Flyer.

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Woman Stabbed for Spilling Cheese Dip; It Wasn’t Even Pancho’s

There needs to be an addendum to the old saying, “Don’t cry over spilled milk.” Don’t stab people over spilled cheese dip, especially if it’s not Pancho’s.

Seriously, don’t do that. 

A 35-year-old Memphis woman was rushed into surgery at Methodist hospital this morning after she wrecked a car she was driving to the emergency room.  She’d been stabbed by another woman who, according to reports, became unreasonably upset after the victim spilled a container of Rotel the two women were sharing with an unidentified male.

Ongoing. 

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Swiss Army Man

Swiss Army Man hits theaters with quite an advance buzz. Vanity Fair said it could be the strangest movie in the history of the Sundance Film Festival. I can’t say if that’s the case or not, but it’s certainly in the running.

The film was written and directed by Daniel Scheinert and Dan Kwan, collectively known as Daniels. The duo of Daniels created the video for DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s megahit “Turn Down for What,” which is one of the most demented dance videos since Spike Jonze sent Christopher Walken flying through the air for Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice.” But if that’s not enough Daniels for you, the film stars another one. Yes, that’s Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, as Manny, the titular corpse whose advancing state of decomposition imbues him with strange powers.

The most senior member of the creative team not named Daniel, Paul Dano, is the other half of this epic two-hander. He stars as Hank, an everyman stranded on an unnamed Pacific island. The opening images of various bits of trash Hank has sent floating into the sea with messages like “HELP ME” lead straight into a shot of the castaway fitting his neck into a makeshift noose. It’s a brilliant little bit of visual storytelling that condenses a whole story of hope and desperation into a few seconds. Just as Hank is about to step off into oblivion, he sees Manny wash up on the shore. Thinking his rescue is at hand, Hank narrowly avoids strangling himself, only to find that his would-be savior is not only dead, but also posthumously flatulent. But Hank quickly discovers that Manny is so supernaturally flatulent that he is able to propel himself through the water, and thus does the guy who played Brian Wilson ride the corpse of the guy who played Harry Potter like a fart-powered jet ski to freedom.

Daniel Radcliff (left) and Paul Dano in a film about farts and friendship

Or so he thinks. Just getting to the mainland doesn’t solve Hank’s castaway problem. Now he’s lost in the coastal rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, with nothing but a stiff for company. But Manny turns out to be a most versatile corpse, and when Hank the castaway starts talking to him out of desperation for human companionship, Manny eventually starts responding. Having hit the functional edge of their concept, Daniels turn Swiss Army Man into a kind of Man From Mars story. Manny has no memory of his life, but he has a lot of questions, which forces Hank to try to explain concepts like love and home and bus fare. Thus, the suicidal castaway and the flatulent dead guy regain the will to live together, and along the way figure out a kind of philosophy.

Hank’s arc is something akin to Tom Hanks’ travel from despair to joie de vivre in the 1990 cult classic Joe Versus the Volcano, and Hank’s habit of creating little worlds out of trash is very Michel Gondry. Swiss Army Man is a worthy successor to the great works of 21st-century surrealist quirk like Being John Malkovich. What at first seems like a premise that’s just strange for the sake of being strange opens up into a wider exploration of what it means to be alive, punctuated with fart jokes. Swiss Army Man is not quite an allegory, but it’s at least a rich, thoughtful film that shows what comedy can be capable of.

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Zoo President Shot After Falling Into Gorilla Enclosure

Former friends Chuck & MJ

Gorilla keeper Inna Myst says her team of large primate experts responded appropriately after Memphis Zoo President Chuck Brady fell into Primate Canyon’s gorilla exhibit. “We understand the public’s concern,” Myst says. “We shot the chief executive of a major zoological attraction and Memphis deserves an explanation. I just want  everybody to understand that a lot of thought goes into our contingency plans and once Brady fell into the gorilla exhibit, taking him out was the only option that made sense.”

According to Myst, Brady is “genetically hardwired” to be a dick. “This isn’t really about the gorillas,” she says. “If he hadn’t been taken out of the picture quickly and efficiently, there’s no doubt in my mind he’d have done tremendous self-inflicted damage to himself and to the zoo.” 

Eyewitness and longtime Memphis Zoo member Clondyke Barr confirms Myst’s assessment. “Brady spoke some really mean and, to my mind, completely unnecessary words to those gorillas. But he didn’t seem dangerous,” he says. “But then it was like he just couldn’t help himself. Outta nowhere he chest bumps the hell outta this big monkey. Starts yelling about the status quo, and how little obese and crippled children shouldn’t have to walk. Stuff like that. It was embarrassing as hell.”

“He may have seemed reasonable to people who can’t read CEO body language,” Myst elaborates. “But we’ve spent years studying these creatures. They expect to be rewarded whether they make good decisions or bad decisions, and given a choice between any conciliatory action or pure assfaced dickery, we have strong reasons to believe that Brady will always choose the later. He’ll tear the whole place apart — gorillas and all — and then expect someone to throw him some Monterey Jack cheese cubes.”

Reports from the Zoo infirmary suggests that Brady, having no heart to stop, will make a full recovery and go on to bigger and better things in the future. “That’s a completely natural outcome,” Myst says.

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Stein: Mike Conley agrees to 5-year, $153mm deal with Grizzlies

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Mike Conley may be the most important player in this series for the Grizzlies.

According to Marc Stein of ESPN, Mike Conley has agreed to return to the Grizzlies:

If those numbers hold true, it would make Conley’s contract the highest in NBA history, a true reflection of the heights to which the NBA’s salary cap has risen. Conley’s five-year deal would be worth somewhere around $30mm more than the 5-year deal signed last summer by Marc Gasol.

It’s not exactly a surprise that Conley is returning. Trades by Indiana and New York took the Pacers and Knicks out of the running to sign him, and once Dallas (1) missed on signing Hassan Whiteside and (2) lost Chandler Parsons (a noted friend of Conley’s) to the Grizzlies thanks to recruitment by David Fizdale, JB Bickerstaff, Justin Timberlake, and maybe Conley himself in some way, they didn’t seem like a likely landing place either. It was always a question of whether the Grizzlies would offer Conley a full five-year max, and even that never really seemed to be that much of a question.

To be sure, the Grizzlies still have major health concerns moving forward for Conley, Parsons, and Marc Gasol. But by re-signing Conley they’ve proven they’re willing to spend to build a contender, and paid back Conley for years of service on a contract that made him one of the best values in the league. (You know, the one that Matt Moore called “franchise suicide” at the time.) (Sorry, Matt, I had to.)

Conley probably won’t actually sign anything until after the Grizzlies have completed their free agent pursuits. The Grizzlies should still have somewhere in the vicinity of $8mm to $10mm in cap room assuming they’ve renounced their hold on Matt Barnes and/or waived Vince Carter via the stretch provision. My assumption is that they’d like to keep Carter around if possible, so Barnes is likely the one moving out of the way to make it possible for the Grizzlies to retain Conley and add Parsons. Either way, the Griz still need some kind of a shooting guard who can defend, as Tony Allen is currently the only guy on the roster who is a credible starter at the 2 spot. They should be able to take a gamble on a young guy with that money, or perhaps trade one of their burgeoning stockpile of young bigs for a wing player. Time will tell.

With Conley back in the fold and Parsons officially joining the team, the Grizzlies have radically changed the face of the franchise in the course of a few hours. In a summer when we knew everyone would be spending money, the Griz have taken a gamble on a future core that could take them very far.

Categories
News News Blog

Zoo President Calls Strickland Proposal ‘Disappointing,’ Wants ‘Status Quo’

CREDIT: Memphis Zoo

Memphis Zoo

Memphis Zoo president Chuck Brady

Memphis Zoo president Chuck Brady said in a statement Friday that Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s proposal to stop Greensward parking is “disappointing for a number of reasons” and said he’ll ask Memphis City Council members to on Tuesday to “maintain the status quo”

Brady said Strickland’s proposal will “put a cost burden of $3 million” on the zoo because the “Overton Park Conservancy (OPC) will NOT [capitalization is Brady’s] be able to fund any of the costs.”

Strickland’s proposal says the zoo and OPC will share the costs.

Brady said the idea of shuttling zoo visitors has been tried before, failed, and that under Strickland’s proposal, “families with small children will be required to either walk more than a mile through the park to the zoo’s entrance or pay for third-party transportation on surface streets in order to reach the zoo.”

Here’s Brady’s statement in full:  

Today, Mayor Strickland announced his proposal regarding parking for the Memphis Zoo and Overton Park. This option puts a cost burden of $3 million, plus additional operational costs, on the Zoo. While this proposal does allow the Zoo to use the public parking in General Services area, it fails to account for the need to transport visitors between the lot and the Zoo safely, easily and efficiently.

This outcome is, to say the very least, disappointing for a number of reasons. Primarily, we want to reiterate that fact that ALL the costs in the mayor’s new proposal fall to the Memphis Zoo, as Overton Park Conservancy will NOT be able to fund any of the costs associated with the creation of extra parking and ongoing transportation for use by not only zoo guests but also general park-goers.

Under this proposal, families with small children will be required to either walk more than a mile through the park to the Zoo’s entrance or pay for third-party transportation on surface streets in order to reach the Zoo. Not only has this been tried before, it was a failed experiment by the previous administration. During the six weeks in 2014 that a free shuttle ran between the Overton Square parking garage and the Zoo, just 89 people utilized it.

This “solution,” proposed by the mayor, is a great disservice to the Memphis Zoo – the number one tourist attraction in the Mid-South – and the citizens in the Memphis community. 

[pullquote-1]
The lack of consideration for appropriate and convenient transportation – such as highly efficient trams through the park – will impede many families from easily accessing the Zoo on its busiest days.

Because we are not being given the ability to provide our visitors with the quality experience they have come to expect, this move will negatively impact both the Zoo and the other businesses that reap the benefits of economic activity brought in by Zoo visitors.

We will continue to work toward a viable solution with the city council, on Tuesday, July 5, as we attempt to best serve not only Zoo visitors, but the Memphis community as a whole.

This is the administration’s proposal for a solution. Our proposal to the City Council on Tuesday will be to maintain the status quo.

Dr. Chuck Brady

Memphis Zoological Society

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Reports: Chandler Parsons agrees to four-year max deal with Grizzlies

CREDIT: NBA.com

NBA.com

Chandler Parsons

The Grizzlies have made a big splash on the first day of NBA free agency by landing wing Chandler Parsons, formerly of the Dallas Mavericks, on what appears to be a 4-year, $94mm deal. The move was first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical and was quickly reported by others.

It’s a big day for the Grizzlies. Even with the injury concerns surrounding Parsons—and make no mistake, there are certainly injury concerns—Parsons is the first big-name free agent (who wasn’t already in Memphis) ever to choose the Grizzlies, unless you count Darko Milicic, which I do but no one else does. Parsons adds immediate offense to a wing rotation that has needed it desperately for years. I think my preference still would’ve been for Nic Batum, but I (along with the rest of Grizzlies media) didn’t really have Parsons on my radar until the last couple of weeks, when we started to hear rumblings from the Griz that they planned on targeting Parsons.

Is there a chance that Parsons can’t stay healthy? Sure. But there’s also a chance Gasol and Conley can’t stay healthy. Assuming—as ESPN’s Marc Stein has reported—that Conley had a part to play in the Grizzlies’ recruitment of Parsons, his return seems like a fait accompli at this point, but let’s not count those chickens until they hatch.

For the first time ever, the Grizzlies had max cap space while they were also a playoff team, and they made it pay off. It also sounds like new head coach David Fizdale and his associate JB Bickerstaff also played a large role in the Parsons recruitment. Things are starting to trend upward for the Grizzlies in terms of (1) the caliber of player they’re starting to be able to sign, starting with Vince Carter and (2) the reputation of their coaching staff among players around the league. As one Griz source pointed out to me, also, Parsons has spent a lot of his career in Houston and Dallas playing against (and finishing lower in the Southwest standings than) Grizzlies teams that went deeper into the playoffs.

Assuming Conley re-signs, the Grizzlies are now in a good position to retool for the future around a new rotation. Even if he doesn’t, I guess, at least they finally got a wing who can score. According to reports, Conley is meeting with the Mavericks right now, so we’ll see what happens there and report as news happens.

Categories
News News Blog

Strickland Proposal Ends Greensward Parking

CREDIT: Brandon Dill

Brandon Dill

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland rolled out a plan Friday that he says will permanently end parking on the Overton Park Greensward.

The mayor’s proposal comes after the negation deadline passed between the Memphis Zoo and the Overton Park Conservancy (OPC) Thursday. The mayor asked the organizations to enter into mediation in January after both had filed separate lawsuits claiming control of the Greensward.  

Even though mediation did not yield an agreement, Strickland said his plan is a by-product of the mediation talks. 

The final decision on the plan, though, will fall to the Memphis City Council, which meets Tuesday. However, council chairman Kemp Conrad, who said he supports the mayor’s plan, said he will ask his fellow council members to delay the vote for two weeks. 

City of Memphis

This map shows Mayor Jim Strickland’s plan to enhance parking around Overton Park and, perhaps, eliminate parking on the Greensward.

[pdf-2]
Here’s what he proposed:

• Reconfiguring the Zoo’s existing lots (main and Prentiss Place) for a net gain of approximately
200 spots.

• Adding approximately 100 spaces by constructing permanent parking on the southeast side of the
Zoo’s main lot, where a tree-lined swale exists to separate it from the grassy, usable Greensward area.

A berm will be constructed to obscure the view of cars from the Greensward, and new trees will be planted to replace ones lost. The berm solution was proposed in this year’s parking study and is supported by the Overton Park Conservancy.

• Utilizing approximately 200 spaces on North Parkway, which will be activated by a new entrance on the north side of the Zoo. The North Parkway parking will include a designated waiting area for buses, thus freeing up spaces in the Prentiss Place lot.

• Building a new lot on the General Services area on the southeast corner of the park that will provide hundreds of spaces. It will be serviced by buses that will run on peak days and will transport guests to the new Zoo entrance via public roadways outside the park.

It will also provide parking for all other park entities, especially the park’s East Parkway-facing facilities and the Old Forest. General Services’ departure from that area allows the opportunity not only to add parking but also for additional amenities and greenspace to be added to the park.

• Adapting a technology solution to aid with the efficient loading and use of all existing parking space.
 
Some constraints

“All of the parties participated in good faith in the mediation, and I appreciate their efforts,” Mayor Strickland wrote in an email to constituents Friday. “There was no easy solution to this complicated issue.

“The proposal I am putting forth is the best possible result, given the constraints with which we are dealing.”
[pullquote-3] Those constraints, he said, were the cost of building a parking garage, which he said was about $14 million. Also, he said the citizens in the nearby Galloway neighborhood voted against reg parking structure.  

Other constraints included opposition to parking on the Greensward, opposition to using trams through the Old Forest, and oppositions to using buses to ferry zoo visitors from the General Services lot on a daily basis.

Council Vote is Next 

The mayor’s plan must be approved by the Memphis City Council, which has an ordinance prepared for a third (and final) vote on the matter. The next council meeting is Tuesday, July 7 but council chairman Conrad said he hopes to delay the measure by two weeks.

““This issue requires ample time for the public to review it and offer input, so I will strongly recommend to my colleagues to delay the final vote on the ordinance that considers the plan until July 19,” Conrad said. “I support this plan.” 

OPC and the Zoo react  

Richard Smith, a FedEx executive and zoo board member, said Strickland made a tough decision.

“Having been told I’m simultaneously ‘selling out’ and ‘ruining’ the zoo by one side, and that I’m ‘destroying’ Overton Park by the other, I do not envy the mayor on this day,” Smith said. “He’s having to step up and make a call on behalf of the citizens of Memphis, who own both amenities, and is trying to balance the interests of all constituencies in maintaining access to valuable city resources.” 
[pullquote-2] OPC executive director Tina Sullivan her organization supports the mayor’s plan.

“With any compromise, there will be some who are not entirely satisfied,” Sullivan said. “But we look forward to this being a permanent end to the Greensward used as overflow parking.”

Sullivan said she would have to consult with her attorney before answering questions about the OPC’s still pending in Shelby County Chancery Court. However, she said if the mayor’s plan is approved, she said the lawsuit could become unnecessary.

OPC likes the berm that will surround the Greensward. Here’s how OPC described its affect on park visitors in a blog post Friday:

“For the first time in decades, people enjoying the Greensward won’t even be able to see the zoo parking lot. They’ll just see a park, as George Kessler originally intended.”
[pullquote-1]

Facebook community

After the deadline passed, and before Strickland’s announcement, Memphians took to Facebook on groups like The Fringe Element, Stop Hurting Overton Park, Get Off Our Lawn, and more to express frustration with the process and nervous anxiety for the future.

One Facebook poster said the mediation process was a farce. One person claimed already that Mayor Strickland was going to “pass the buck” on the decision to the city council on Tuesday and that the zoo were going to bus people in to protest the vote. It was also noted that the council would “slam us” with Tuesday’s vote and many called for Greensward supporters to pack the council chamber.

Some pointed to the fact that the Levitt Shell’s “Patriotic Pops” concert Thursday night drew thousands, though none of them parked on the Greensward.

Fergus Nolan, one of the two people arrested last month during a Greensward protest, said it was time to shut down the zoo and “free the animals.”

A new Facebook group, called Pardon Imprisoned Animals, called for the end of “the imprisonment of animals within Memphis, specifically within the Memphis Zoo, and circuses.”

“Zoos, circuses, and other institutions that profit off of captive animals do not have those animals’ best interests at heart,” reads the group description on Facebook.

Saturday will bring activity and likely protests (in one form or another) to the Greensward. Citizens to Protect Overton Park will host a Greensward Play Date from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Facebook invitation asks “do you believe in a better and brighter future for our great city of Memphis?”

“We don’t know whether the June 30 resolution of the secret city/zoo/OPC mediation will embrace these ideals or continue to harm our park,” reads the invitation. “Either way, we are ready to joyfully celebrate and/or peacefully protest on the People’s Greensward.”

On The Fringe Element page, Nolan suggested “direct action” on the Greensward Saturday and gave tips to anyone who may be arrested.