Month: August 2016

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News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1435

CHOAS 901

Remember Elvis Week 2016? Gosh, it seems like it was only last week when fans of the King assembled in front of Graceland to light a candle and stream up the hill and through the mansion’s Meditation Garden. And all the Black Lives Matters demonstrators showed up to engage in a bit of modestly disruptive protest, so police showed up in numbers sufficient to ensure there wasn’t any fan base mingling at the party. And it rained like hell. Those were the days, my friend. Or as WMC-TV put it in an alarming all-caps headline: “Elvis Week CHOAS.” As in “Get CHOAS a proofreader” maybe?

What does CHOAS even mean? Is it a run-of-the-mill typo or a new word for something worse than ordinary CHAOS because it’s chaos inside of CHAOS? Is it local TV’s Superman Dam Fool moment? Is it a startling vision of Memphis’ future? Is CHOAS inevitable? Stay tuned.

Verbatim

“We’re devastating people’s lives, and I can’t be part of that.” — Michael Rallings announcing his opposition to loosening marijuana laws during a forum on heroin use because REEFER MADNESS! It’s hard to know whose lives the new police director thinks will be destroyed by loosening current pot laws, since, according to data compiled by the ACLU, 88 percent of the 8.2 million marijuana arrests in the U.S. between 2001 and 2010 were for simple weed-only possession, and blacks were 3.73 times more likely to be arrested in spite of relative equal usage rates. Blue Crush service techs, maybe?

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We Recommend We Recommend

Beer Flight Theatre Night at the Evergreen Theatre

“I’ll walk alone and be blown thinner and thinner. And thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner — Till finally I won’t have any body at all, and the wind picks me up in its cool white arms forever, and takes me away!” — Tennessee Williams, Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen

Threepenny Theatre Company — the ambitions independant troupe with classical sensibilities and a “pay what you can ethos — has never shied away from the difficult side of canon. They’ve produced Shakespeare on a shoestring, adapted Moliere, and plunged headfirst into Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Even the company’s Beer Flight Theatre Night finds the troupe sharing a slate of seldom seen one act plays paired with craft beers selected by Andy Ashby, a co-founder of Memphis Made Brewing Company.

The best-known play on the menu is Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, where Memphis actors Michael Khanlarian and Corey Parker as Peter and Jerry, a transient and a family man and publishing executive, struggle over a park bench, and much more. Talk to Me Like The Rain and Let Me Listen may not be set in the South, but it’s Tennessee Williams-distilled. With image-laden dialogue that aims to match the rhythm of a steady rainfall, Williams tries to capture the essence of lower Manhattan: an unnamed man (Michael Ewing) who drinks too much and an unnamed woman Jaclyn Suffel who’s growing thinner and thinner and might just disappear. The New World Order is one of British playwright Harold Pinter’s most bluntly political plays. In this production, Steven Brown, David Galloway, and Andrew Glenn get right down to the essence of torture. For 10 wrenching minutes, a lone figure sits bound and gagged while two men discuss in vague, Pinteresque terms what they plan to do with him.

Did I mention beer?

Categories
News The Fly-By

Freewheel Bicycle Ride Highlights Medical District and Downtown

In Detroit, more than 1,500 cyclists turn up every week for Slow Roll, a group bicycle ride that explores neighborhoods throughout the city. The laidback ride became so popular that it eventually expanded to Chicago, and now a Slow Roll-inspired ride is coming to Memphis.

The Memphis Medical District Collaborative (MMDC) and the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) have partnered to launch Freewheel, a bi-weekly, free, slow ride through neighborhoods in their districts.

“Slow rides have become pretty popular in the past few years as really intentional, very slow, group rides, like eight miles per hour. They’re used to connect neighborhoods and people,” said Sara Studdard, project manager for Explore Bike Share at Doug Carpenter and Associates. “We’re using that model to really highlight all of the great things happening downtown and to show how close downtown is to the Medical District.”

Each ride will have a different theme. Some will be destination-based, which Studdard said might involve the group riding to a park for a picnic or to a bar for a few beers. Other rides will be exploration-based, meaning the ride will have a tour guide and can be a learning experience.

“For one, we’ll ride to Victorian Village and get a historical tour and talk about what may happen in that area in the future,” Studdard said.

The first ride will be a tour of the Medical District with a talk on the past, present, and future of that area led by MMDC President Tommy Pacello. It’s scheduled for 6 p.m. on Wednesday, September 7th.

Freewheel has 30 rehabbed, vintage bikes.

Future themes will include a music history ride, an exploration of downtown and the Pinch District (with a stop at Loflin Yard), and a tour focusing neighborhood connections with downtown and the Medical District. Ride dates are set for September 21st, October 5th and 19th, and November 2nd. A new Freewheel season will begin again in March of next year.

“Memphis has this really exciting and interesting bike culture,” said Abby Miller, director of programs and data for the Medical District Collaborative. “We want to encourage more people to understand the great bike routes we have and how safe and exciting the area is. We’re not just one neighborhood, but we’re a collection of neighborhoods, like the Edge, Victorian Village, and Peabody/Vance.”

Cyclists will meet at 600 Monroe in the Edge neighborhood, next door to High Cotton Brewing Co. Riders can bring their own bikes, but there will be 30 rehabbed, vintage bikes available for use on a first-come, first-served basis at no cost. The bikes were donated to the MMDC and salvaged and repaired by the Carpenter Street Bike Shop in Binghampton, which trains young people in marketable skills.

“If you work downtown and don’t want to schlup your bike downtown or don’t have access to a bike, you’ll be able to reserve, as part of your registration, one of these bikes. They’ll be maintained and have air in the tires, and there are a variety of sizes and comfort levels,” Studdard said.

The rides are designed to be safe and welcoming for cyclists of all skill levels, and Studdard said each ride will include support volunteers who can assist those who aren’t comfortable riding in the street. Plus, there’s safety in numbers, said Doug Carpenter, who is helping to promote the rides.

“You’re riding in a group, so you basically take over the road. It’s a big mass, like a giant snail moving down the road,” he said.

Leslie Gower, director of marketing with the DMC, said the slow group rides may have the added benefit of helping people become more comfortable riding in the street.

“Memphis is growing into this amazing bicycle-oriented city, but a lot of people have a bit of anxiety about riding their bicycles in urban settings,” Gower said. “Freewheel is a great way to make people feel more at ease navigating on city streets and to help create better connections between the Edge neighborhood and the downtown core.”

Categories
Music Music Features

Sweatfest II at Shangri-La

This Saturday afternoon Shangri-La Records will host their second annual Sweatfest in the store’s front parking lot. Much like Sweatfest I, Sweatfest II is a gathering of local rock-and-roll bands playing in the middle of the day in what is normally the hottest month of summer. There will also be discounts on all music memorabilia, including budget CDs, LPs, 45s, cassette tapes, and everything else that Shangri-La decides to slap a sale sticker on. The fest is “bring your own whatever,” but cooling tents and water will be available for those who can’t take the heat.

Cody Dickinson

The music starts at 2 p.m., and, while the set times haven’t been announced yet, the lineup is finely curated and features some of the best local rockers in town. Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars is the biggest name on the bill, and it’s a safe bet his performance will be closer to the end of the evening. Another highlight is the Subtractions (featuring the great Jeremy Scott), who just got done performing at the first annual Monkee-Mania show at Lafayette’s Music Room. Ben Baker will perform with friends, Graham Winchester and the Ammunition, plus, his other band, the Sheiks, will be on hand, in addition to James and the Ultrasounds. SVU and Ten High are also set to play.

Shangri-La has had a busy month, first hosting the listening party for the Johnnie Frierson reissue Have You Been Good to Yourself, and then having the first two Grifters albums reissued by Fat Possum Records out of Oxford. Viva la Vinyl!

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Editorial Opinion

Two Political Milestones in Shelby County

So it’s come to this: There is, as pointed out this week by state Young Democrat president London Lamar, only one “chartered Democratic organization in this county,” and it isn’t the Shelby County Democratic Party, a body which was officially “decertified” last Friday by state Democratic chair Mary Mancini. It is, in fact, the Shelby County Young Democrats, led by Lamar’s colleague Alvin Crook.

Surprisingly, given the fact that the SCDP was a hotbed of internal dispute, there was very little remorse at its passing. It would seem that Mancini’s action was widely regarded by all sides as something of a mercy killing.

Meanwhile, Lamar and Crook promise that the Shelby County YDs will  pursue “initiatives” and, in effect, act in the stead of the now defunct “state SCDP,” pending its reconstitution.

That reconstitution will take some doing, in that the party organization, as such, has been so locked into pointless disputation for some time as to have been of little consequence in influencing political results in Shelby County — at least to any positive end. 

In elections for local countywide office, only two Democrats — Assessor Cheyenne Johnson and General Sessions Clerk Ed Stanton Jr. — have been able to gain office and be re-elected in recent years. To rescue an often-abused phrase, their cases are the proverbial exceptions that prove the rule. Both Johnson and Stanton are county-government veterans with demonstrable records of competence and with support across partisan lines. Their success at the polls would seem to clearly debunk the claim made by losing Democratic nominees in every county election in this century that the defeats of party candidates must be due to some infamy or illegality perpetrated by the county’s Republican Party or by the admittedly error-prone Election Commission, with its current preponderance of three Republican members to two Democratic ones.

For whatever reason, in a county which, by the usual demographic and economic measures, should possess an overwhelming majority prone to voting Democratic, Republicans rule the roost instead. It is high time that local Democrats cease looking for the blame elsewhere and begin a long overdue reexamination of their own premises.

Under the circumstances, the plucky resolve of the county’s Young Democrats is a welcome first step.

Ann Morris

Speaking of pluck, the huge turnout this week at the visitation and funeral rites for Ann Ward Norton Morris, across various kinds of lines, political and otherwise, was in large part a testament to that quality in her life — as well as to the virtues of courage and perseverance, which Morris continued to demonstrate, even after a severely disabling stroke suffered in 1997 deprived her of most of the faculties which the rest of us take for granted. Remarkable also was the heroic care-giving service rendered unstintingly over that nearly 20-year period by her husband, former Sheriff and County Mayor Bill Morris, who regards that service, and not any office he gained, as the summit of his own life’s work. 

Categories
Music Music Features

Late Summer Record Reviews

CREDIT: Alec Hawkins

Hartle Road — Maxx (Jenny Records)

Hartle Road have been gigging around Memphis and Oxford, Mississippi, for a while now but have only just recently picked up traction at dive bars around Midtown. The band hails from Columbus, Mississippi, so it makes sense that they’d make the drive to Memphis to draw a fan base, which now includes a lot of musicians loosely or directly associated with Goner Records. On Maxx, the band’s debut LP, Hartle Road flirt with garage rock, Krautrock, and ’60s psychedelia. Album opener “New!” is most certainly a nod to German band Neu!, and the song is aiming at the same target that bands like Neu! and La Düsseldorf hit back in the ’70s.

The other nine tracks on Maxx stay within the groundwork laid out by “New!,” with a few detours into post-punk thrown in for good measure. While things start to get weird on “To the Maxx,” there aren’t a whole lot of wrong turns on Maxx. The 10-track album is a concise and fully realized piece of work, and it serves as an interesting first look into the outsider world that the members of Hartle Road must find themselves living in given their home base.

It’s a safe bet that this is the most interesting band from Columbus, Mississippi. Hell, they might even be one of the most interesting bands currently on the Murphy’s/Lamplighter/Hi-Tone dirt circuit. Maxx was recorded in Mississippi by Myles Jordan and Max Hartleroad (hence the album name) and is available on vinyl and on cassette through Jenny Records. If you like Krautrock, off-center psych rock, or identify yourself as any kind of weirdo, Maxx is definitely recommended.

Favorite track: tied between “Garbage Wizard” and “Lemmy”

Various Artists — The 123s of Kid Soul (Numero Group)

Much like the record label Light in the Attic, Numero Group is responsible for digging up some of the best “forgotten music” out there, from stoner rock to forgotten soul. The 123s of Kid Soul is a collection of kid/teenage singers and bands who were seeking the same fame that the Jackson 5 found with their kid-centric songs. The album features 19 tracks, and while some might be a little, umm, childish, this isn’t a kids-only affair, especially “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” cover by the Brothers Rap. If you were a fan of the Home Schooled compilation that came out on Numero a decade ago, The 123s of Kid Soul should definitely be in your collection.

Favorite Track: The Dynamics — “I’m Free, No Dope for Me”

NOTS — Cosmetic (Goner Records)NOTS opted to record their follow-up album to We Are NOTS with Keith Cooper instead of Doug Easley, making for a less polished, more “garage” sound.

Album opener “Blank Reflection” starts with a snare-centric beat before the synth rolls in and Natalie Hoffmann’s familiar scream takes command of the song. The following eight songs don’t exactly reinvent the sound that NOTS has been creating for the past four years, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Punk music — or synth punk, if you insist on calling it that — doesn’t need to reinvent itself to remain relevant or interesting, and the members of NOTS know that. So do their fans.

Keeping that in mind, Cosmetic serves as an excellent second helping of NOTS. The songs are mostly short and sweet, and the dissonant synth parts have been brought to the front of the mix, which was probably a product of the Keith Cooper treatment. His studio might be getting a few more phone calls from local musicians once this album drops.

Favorite Track: “Cosmetic.”

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Bardog celebrates eight years with 5K and street fest.

CREDIT: Bardog

In 2010, as local restaurateur Aldo Dean was planning for Bardog’s second anniversary alley party, one of his former employees tossed out another idea.

“She wanted to hold a 5K for our Salty Dogs running club, and she wanted to do it for charity. One of our bar patrons, Kevin Washburn, had a son who was being treated for leukemia at St. Jude, so I said, why don’t we donate the money to [Kevin’s] family? But Kevin said St. Jude pays for everything, so why don’t we donate the proceeds to St. Jude?” says Dean, who also owns Slider Inn and Aldo’s Pizza Pies.

That former employee, Jen Barker, also worked at Breakaway Running, so the locally owned running store got involved in organizing the event.

“I don’t know anything about running a race, so that’s why we got Breakaway involved,” Dean says.

Thus, the Breakaway Bardog 5K was born. The 3.1-mile race has coincided with Bardog’s outdoor anniversary party ever since. The race and party — now dubbed the Monroe Avenue Street Festival — is scheduled for Sunday, August 28th.

That first year, the race attracted a little more than 200 runners, many of whom were associated with Bardog’s Monday night running club, the Salty Dogs. But last year, Dean said the race involved 1,500 runners and raised $32,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Bardog

The Breakaway Bardog 5K draws an impressive crowd.

Runners form fund-raising teams, and the team that raises the most for St. Jude will win a $2,000 bar tab at Bardog. The group with the second highest fund-raising total will get 10 pairs of running shoes from Breakaway.

The race starts at 9 a.m. at Bardog and makes a loop around downtown. Beer bottle-opener medals featuring the Bardog logo will be awarded to the fastest runners in each age group. Afterward, there’s a post-race party, and runners get access to free beer and food until 11:30 a.m.

“The race and the post-race party kicks into the Monroe Avenue Street Festival, so most of the runners stick around and party all day,” says Bryan Roberson, owner and manager of Breakaway. Roberson and his girlfriend, Jessica Grammer, codirect the Breakaway Bardog 5K.

At 11:30 a.m., the Monroe Avenue Street Festival opens to the public. Although it’s the seventh year for the 5K, the festival is in its eighth year. Dean held the first Bardog anniversary alley party in 2009, and the event has now grown so large that he’s had to move the party from the next-door alley to an entire downtown block. Monroe Avenue from Front to Main will be closed to traffic, and the party takes place in the street.

“It’s a fun event, just a big community party. And it’s one of the few local street festivals put on by a business,” Dean says.

The party is free, but some vendors will be accepting donations for St. Jude. Food will include dishes from Dean’s restaurants — Bardog, Slider Inn, and Aldo’s Pizza Pies — as well as food from Felicia Suzanne’s, McEwen’s on Monroe, and other downtown restaurants. MemPops will be on-site with their popsicle food truck. There’s a VIP beer tent with more than 25 craft beers.

“If you’re going to drink more than two beers, it’s worth paying for the beer tent,” Roberson says.

At 4:30 p.m., the eighth annual I Busted Grandma’s Balls contest will pit amateur competitive eaters against one another in a meatball-eating tournament. There’s a dunk tank and a prize raffle benefiting St. Jude.

Bands will play all day, and a few featured include Dead Soldiers, Michael Brothers, the Mighty Souls Brass Band, and the Sheiks.

The event is family-friendly and will include face-painting and cotton candy for the kids.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Seismic Shift in Voting Demographics

A seismic demographic shift in the United States has forced some to consider what actually “makes America great.” This debate has been fully displayed within the Republican Party, referred to — somewhat ironically given the recent rhetoric — as the Party of Lincoln.

Beginning in 2008, a vocal base of the Republican Party — whiter, older, and less formally educated — rebelled against the “otherness” of President Barack H. Obama. They challenged his veracity, religion, and citizenship. In that campaign, Senator John McCain had the decency to push back against the know-nothings in his own party.

Now the same party has nominated for president a man who has exploited this relentless wave of ignorance, once claiming that he sent investigators to Hawaii to uncover the secrets of President Obama’s birth certificate. Such overt racism has infected the party at all levels. Who can forget the revealing 2010 rant of State Representative Curry Todd (R-Collierville) against the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause when he suggested that Latinos would multiply like “rats”? He was reelected two more times by the people of his district.

Though the GOP has been handed over to racists and xenophobes, there are signs that the American public has had enough of hateful speech and fearmongering. Representative Todd’s political implosion and Trump’s tumbling poll numbers may be omens of what’s to come.

Demographics are the harbingers of the inevitable failure of this movement. Latinos number 27.3 million eligible voters, and their participation in November will prove critical in many states. In New Mexico, 40.4 percent of the electorate is Latino; their voice, their history, and their concerns will greatly impact that state’s vote.

To ignore or offend the Latino community in swing states makes little sense. For the past several years, education, jobs/economy, and health care have been the top three issues rated for registered Latino voters. But, immigration will be at the heart of the Latino vote for the foreseeable future because it directly affects nearly every Latino family.

For many Latinos in the United States, Obama will leave behind a nebulous legacy and an opportunity for Republicans. While signing executive orders (DACA, for example) which established a temporary status for young, undocumented immigrants, his administration also pursued deportations at an unprecedented level, earning him the nickname of “Deporter-in-Chief” from some activists.

The Republican response nominated a man whose rhetoric toward the Latino community is unidimensional and built on vilification, and who has plans for deportation and national isolation via construction of a wall.

The vast majority of Americans are rejecting this posturing. They are not fooled by a disingenuous campaign that focuses on a few bad Latino apples and completely dismisses the hardworking, tax-paying, social security-contributing people who are part of the basic fabric of our communities.

America’s greatness does not come from harkening back to a mythical past, but from the sueño Americano — the American Dream — built on dynamism created by constant influxes of new immigrants who are hungry to earn their place, contribute to their communities, and raise their kids. The energy, vitality, and optimism that still influences and guides this nation are not to be found in every nation, but here, it still endures.

Shifting demographics create challenges, opportunities, and, for some, fear. We shouldn’t ignore that. There are serious problems with our immigration system, but hateful speech and reactionary policies can never lead to a better way. Only a reasonable, bipartisan, comprehensive immigration package set by Congress, that offers a pathway to citizenship for millions of hardworking people who have been contributing to our nation for decades, can address immigration misunderstandings.

America is not the unhinged mob that Trump hopes to lead. Trump’s downward spiral shows us that any person in America who aspires to public office has to live in a world defined by the demographic data upon which we’re anchored.

Trying to alter that data, through mass deportation, is not the America to which we aspire. We hope that Todd and Trump represent the last gasp of a movement that’s completely contrary to that which makes this nation unique and great.

Bryce W. Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and board member at Latino Memphis; Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Intermission Impossible Theater

Disgraced Sets A Course for Conflict

To be, or not to be… framed?

So a muslim, a white liberal, a black, and a jew walk into a theater… And no, that’s not the beginning of a joke that got someone shamed off Twitter. There’s no regrettable punchline here unless, of course, you mean the punch in the gut delivered by Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize winning one-act play Disgraced, which is available for local consumption at Circuit Playhouse through September4.

And who doesn’t love a good punch in the gut now and then?

Disgraced is a play you need to see if you’re a fan of fine acting and/or argumentative, politically-charged drama.  Irene Crist, who directed Circuit’s vividly-realized production, has done her part to give the acclaimed show the life and wit it deserves. Still, I’ve got mixed feelings, no matter how much tough truth it spills in 90 overly-familiar, coincidence-packed minutes.

The show is often described as being about cross-cultural identity and the obstacles facing Muslim-Americans post 9-11. But since the proscenium’s frame turns the mundane into myth, so it also functions — less fortunately — as a domesticated metaphor for globalism, radicalization, and terrorism, with the latter part expressed as a shocking moment of rage-fueled violence. 

The story: Amir (Gregory Szatkkowski), is a hotshot Pakistani-American lawyer with a shot at becoming a partner at the prestigious Jewish law firm where he works harder than anybody. He’s derailed when his artist wife Emily (Natalie Jones) talks him into helping an Imam who’s been accused of raising money for extremists. It’s not paranoia when people really are conspiring against you and after his name’s associated with a suspected Islamic radical, the knives come out for Amir. He becomes increasingly (and understandably) agitated by snubs, and other signs that he’s falling from favor professionally.

Emily’s an artist gunning for a show at the Whitney. She’s also -in an unguarded moment- bedded Isaac, the Jewish man (Gabe Buetel-Gunn) who can make that show happen and who just happens to be married to the African American attorney (Jessica “Jai” Johnson) who, unbeknownst to Amir, has been given the partnership he was expecting. The hard-drinking dinner party that brings all these characters together to nibble on fennel and anchovy salad, plays out like a deconstruction of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf as imagined by God of Carnage playwright Yasmina Reza using snippets of a real life newspaper comment section argument for dialogue. Noteworthy too, in a trivia-conscious play about American identities, everybody eats pork.

Disgraced Sets A Course for Conflict

There are things you can be sure of. Like when somebody produces a gun on stage you can bet it will fire  before the show’s over. While there are no firearms in this play, there are linguistic equivalents, and they strongly telegraph certain outcomes. Similarly, it’s common enough for certain kinds of plays to climax with seemingly openminded characters revealing their prejudices by shouting racially-charged epithets in a moment of rage. Those familiar with the trope may find themselves anticipating this ugly inevitability. Akhtar might be appropriating these things ironically and aiming for ritual, but the effect is a little closer to deja vous.

Amir describes himself as an apostate and the Quran as hate mail to humanity stating, “There’s a result to believing that a book written about life in a specific society fifteen hundred years ago is the word of God: You start wanting to recreate that society… That’s why you have people like the Taliban. They’re trying to re-create the world in the image of the one that’s in the Quran.” Events that follow result in a similar simulacrum, and Amir gives in to his scriptural destiny.

There’s a frustrating air of fatalism to Disgraced, as atavistic pride bends toward violent predisposition.  But never mind the complaints. Terrific casting and scenic design evocative of Manhattan privilege help make up for predictability, and naked provocation. 

Disgraced picked up its Pulitzer in 2012 — a presidential election year, but not like this one. The newly-minted Tea Party, emboldened by it’s reactionary, anti-Obama midterm success, was just starting to stir a white nationalistic pot of extreme conservatism that bubbled over into Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign for the White House. Today Disgraced‘s cast of characters represent a microcosm of that candidate’s clearly defined enemies. There are brown people, black people, immigrants, “East Coast Intellectuals,” and liberals “with blood coming out of their whatever,” all gathered together in one place to rehearse — as it is written — their parts for the end of the world. And so a play that aims for hard questions and complexity begins to feel a bit like propaganda. Nevertheless, its clearer and cloudier moments will both leave audiences with questions of their own, and that may very well be the point. 

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News News Blog

Pets of the Week

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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