Month: July 2017

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Letter to My City

There are dead and dying black people everywhere.

I haven’t logged on to Facebook in two weeks, partly because people talk too damn much, partly because I don’t want to watch endlessly looped videos of black and brown people’s slaughter and share sadface emojis because I don’t have any more meaningful words about their deaths.

Words are data-mined and used in targeted ads: Quality proofreading services, Marvel’s Defenders series, black and brown people vomiting blood from gunshot wounds in 4k resolution on your screen — aren’t these new phones amazing? Look at that quality; you can see each individual shudder in that death rattle. Check out these suggested videos. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Cry.

I love Memphis, but does Memphis love me?

Last night, I was driving home from dinner in my mom’s car. My neighborhood is belted by extreme affluence on one end and extreme poverty on the other. I live squarely in the middle, in the liminal space, which is lowkey my existence because I’m the kind of millennial that people aren’t talking about when they talk about millennials. Charleena Lyles was a millennial, too. I wonder if her love of avocado toast is to blame for our failing economy. I wonder how many degrees of separation there are between avocado toast and her murder. There are dead and dying black people everywhere.

I was driving my mom’s car last night to get dinner for my family. My route is always the same when I’m heading west toward home: turn on the rich people’s street to get to the street designated for the not-rich black people, most of whom are dying from incarceration, from poverty, from generations of advancing bare centimeters and you all should be grateful, we could just wall off your part of the neighborhood and leave you in Memphadishu, dude, but I’m cool, bro, so here, have a swig of my 201 Hoplar what do you mean you don’t like IPAs? I don’t even know who Duanna Johnson is, dude. Forget it, we’re building the wall, don’t say we never tried to give you anything.

The rich people’s street on my side of the ‘hood has 24-hour security patrols. The rich people’s street on the other side of the ‘hood has 24 hour security patrols and those police blue eyes in the sky that are possibly the blue eyes of the precogs rifling through our black minds for prethoughtcrimes against the white supremacist order, the better to justify our murders. Data-driven probable cause, but all the artificial intelligence is racist.

My route is always the same. I turn on the rich people’s street to get to my street. As I am sitting in the lane to turn on the rich people’s street, a blue eye — a blue life? — pulls up short, creeps behind me as I am sitting in my mom’s car, a bag of food in my wife’s lap. The other blue eye winks from across the street, as if to say to the blue life behind me, “Do what you gotta do. Fear for your life if you need to.”

Thankfully, my child hasn’t been born, so they won’t have to see my black life taken by this blue life. All I’ve done is buy dinner. I have guacamole in the bag. How many avocadoes is my black life worth? I contemplate having my wife turn on Facebook Live — if I go, I’m going out in 4k. But we’re working-class blacks and we can’t afford 4k tech on a writer’s salary, so I don’t bother. I haven’t committed a crime, but neither did Philando or Sandra or Tamir or Darrius or eight-year-old Aiyana or Laquan or anyone else on this charnel house list that started, really, in 1619. There are dead and dying black people everywhere. Listen to the high definition sound quality of those rattling chains.

That winking blue eye followed me through my dreams. On my way to work, I pass two signs: “I <3 Memphis” and “Memphis Loves Everybody.” Let’s do the math: One of those is true; the other is bullshit. Memphis don’t love me. Memphis loves those other millennials, the ones who think quality avocado toast goes well with craft IPAs. Memphis don’t love me. Memphis glares at me suspiciously in its tourist sandals while I’m going to pick up my slices from Memphis Pizza Cafe, even though I’ve been going there since I was 16 and the millennials Memphis loves just got here last year. Memphis loves grit and grind. Memphis loves urban displacement, platitudes, preserving historic standards, saving the Greensward. Memphis loves being number 3 on the Best New Mid-Sized Cities for Millennial Homebuyers list. Memphis loves progress as long as it comes with a shaggy surfer haircut, a pantsuit, a startup with a Grizzlies blue-and-gold material UI logo, a digital rendering of a pistol, and an insensitive ironic slogan because that’s the new Memphis, man. Memphis loves not loving me and people like me.

I finally log on to Facebook. People are still talking. Dana Loesch is in an NRA ad calling for people to take up arms and defend America in its noble struggle against its oppressed. City, county, and state politicians are still debating whether it’s more economically viable to smother us slowly or to bleed us out with a single bullet. The Commercial Appeal is “exploring” Memphis’ problem with gun violence. A blue life creeps by, armed and armored in the same kind of van that Freddie Gray was killed in. Memphis loves Everybody. There are dead and dying black people all over this city. I love Memphis.

Troy L. Wiggins is a Memphis writer whose work has appeared in the Memphis Noir anthology, Make Memphis, and The Memphis Flyer.

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

All Hail the Voice of Welcome to Night Vale, Cecil Baldwin

What in the world is going on in the sky high above the Arby’s sign? Who are the mysterious hooded figures milling around in the town dog park? What’s the real deal with Carlos, the beautiful — maybe too beautiful — new scientist in town, with his teeth so white and perfect like the gravestones in a military cemetery? And what’s up with that glowing cloud moving in from the west? You know, the whistling, glowing, color-shifting cloud that may change in appearance from observer to observer. Perhaps some of these questions will be answered when Welcome to Night Vale, the enormously successful podcast and long-running experiment in dread, brings its touring show “All Hail” to Germantown Performing Arts Center. But probably not.
Welcome to Night Vale is a dark, listener-supported satire of community radio broadcast from a fictional desert town where ghosts, aliens, and all manner of odd characters and conspiracies are just a common part of everyday life. It’s a surreal kind of place where math and English might switch names. It’s a friendly spot where old woman Josie, who lives out by the car lot, might sell you a burned-out light bulb that was changed by an angel. She’ll give you a real good price, too.

The format for “All Hail” is similar to that of a typical Welcome episode. Cecil Baldwin, the dulcet voice of Night Vale community radio reads news and PSAs while tense music builds in the background — hypnotic, terrifying, hilarious. Live shows also feature musical performances, special guest appearances and audience participation, if you dare.

And now, an interview with the voice of Welcome to Night Vale, Cecil Baldwin.

Cecil AKA Cecil.


Fly on the Wall: I know, for a while, you were doing Welcome to Night Vale and still performing with one of my favorite theater companies, the Neo-Futurists. Now that Night Vale has blown up with all these different components, do you still do both?

Cecil Baldwin: I do. I’m no longer a full-time [Neo-Futurist) company member. The traveling involved with Welcome to Night Vale is too intense to do both jobs simultaneously. But I try to go back whenever I can. I’m actually going back and doing a few shows with them later this summer, but it’s more of an informal capacity kind of a drop in drop out thing.

That’s such a creative and collaborative group. I know with Night Vale you work primarily as talent. I was wondering what you did these days when you had the urge to write or make something.

The Neo-Futurists is always a great place because you’re kind of a writer. performer, and director. I try and do that whenever I can. When I’m back in New York I’m try to work on web series or other podcasts. One of the things I’ve fallen into doing Night Vale, I started guest hosting on NPR’s Ask Me Another which is a lot of fun.

Everything about Night Vale started small. And now it’s enormously successful with tours and publishing. Can you just maybe talk a little about the show’s evolution?

 Joseph Fink had an idea. He was trying to make it as a writer and he was having a hard time getting published. Then he realized, “well I love podcasts.” The threshold for entry is low. And it’s low financially. It’s like self-publishing you just put it out there. So he needed a narrator and he knew me from the net Neo-Futurists. And he really just started making a show. I think when you’re used to working in sort of an off-off-Broadway mentality you just want to do the work. You hope people show up and you just continue to make things hoping something will be seen, some of it will be entertaining, and some of it will—  knock on wood — make you some money eventually. But mostly you just kind of keep plugging away at it and do it for the love of it. We may have gone for a good year-and-a-half before anyone, I think, outside of our friends and family started listening to it. And then it got more popular. And then, one summer, it just snowballed and became this overnight success, even though overnight took a year-and-a-half.
[pullquote-1]That’s actually pretty fast for an overnight success. And so much of the success comes from having these really engaged fans making all this fan art and sharing it. Have you guys found ways to engage and encourage more of that or does it really just continue to happen on its own?

In the beginning it just happened on its own. It’s one of those things. The kind of people who really discovered Night Vale were in the Tumblr,and  Reddit online communities, and a lot of those people spend a lot of time online finding things on the Internet and sharing  with their friends. When you’re sharing a TV show or a movie or something like that there’s a visual component to it already. With Night Vale there’s not. So people would share quotes from the Twitter page but with nothing to give visual reference to these weird funny scary things. So people started putting visual components along with it and the best way to do that was to create it themselves. All of a sudden fan art became a thing.  Part of the popularity of the show was related to listening and deciding for yourself what you think of these characters. From there is got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until, by the end of that summer, we were the most downloaded podcast in the world — knocked This American Life off their number one spot for a few weeks, you know.

When you’re making something and people express their appreciation by taking all your ideas and making their own responsive art or fiction — and there’s so much of it — it seems like it would be really hard for it to not influence the original.

Joseph and Jeffrey specifically don’t read fan theories. They don’t read fan fiction. I think their point is that’s for the fans, it’s not for the creators to approve of their fan theories or to go, “Yes that could potentially happen in the world of Night Vale.” I love looking at the fan art and I find it very inspiring to know that something I’ve helped make has inspired other people to, in turn, create their own kinds of art. That’s interesting. I feel kind of the same about cosplay. Whenever people send me photos, or I see photos online of people dressing up as Cecil or Carlos going to Comic-Con. That’s a kind of an inspiration. You’ve inspired someone to take a better part of their day to lovingly craft an Eternal Scout uniform from scratch and then go out and share it with the world. I find it very inspiring. 

With its slow-burning narrative, and relentlessly dreadful, but also often whimsical tone I think Night Vale is kind of a Rorschach blot. People are going to see a lot of different things in it. And lie the glow cloud, it will change from observer to observer. What do you think fans are finding?

There’s a lot of different elements at play. I think part of it is the fact that Night Vale is this very dangerous place. It’s sort of filled with existential dread — a place where normal things are terrifying and big terrifying things are considered normal. It’s almost like Gilbert and Sullivan. In its topsy-turvy kind of way it has its own twisted dream logic. And it’s presented with such hope. This is a world where ancient gods are out to kill everyone and where tiny civilizations that live under bowling alleys  attack people. Yet at the same time the people that live in Night Vale have such love for each other, and for their community, and their town. I think in a lot of ways it’s very inspiring to people. Especially people who feel disenfranchised — people of color, or people that are gay or transgender etc. etc. etc. People who feel like they’re somehow on the outside in the real world. They’re like, “Wow, this world I live in is sort of topsy-turvy. We don’t always have the best values or our own best interests at heart. But, at the end of the day, I still love the world I live in, and I love my neighbors. It’s very inspiring.

We’ve talked about everything but the show. Which may be different from other shows fans might have seen.

We try to do a unique live show every year we take it as many places as we can and then we put in the vault afterwards. So every time we come back to your town it’s a different show every time. This show is “All Hail.” It centers around the Glow Cloud. It’s one of our more fun shows and we’re going to tour it through 2017 and into 2018 and then it will be locked away in the vault never to be seen again.

Which brings us back to the Neo-Futurists who are all about impermanence, and retiring work.

It’s very much inspired by the fact that these are live shows. We acknowledge the fact we’re in the room performing something live in front of you that cannot be repeated. Even if you do the show 75 times, each one of the shows is going to be different every single time. And I think it’s that sort of commitment to the live experience that’s very similar to the Neo-Futurists.

All Hail the Voice of Welcome to Night Vale, Cecil Baldwin

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Little Big Town

I was wandering through the Midtown Kroger on a recent Saturday night. Sounds like the beginning of a really bad novel, right? Or maybe I just have a lousy social life? Neither, actually. We were having friends over the next day and I needed a couple of things, and decided I’d rather go at night than battle the Sunday post-church crowd.

So, there I was, pondering whether or not I needed another package of bacon, when I saw former Mayor A C Wharton, also shopping alone. He was wearing a sharp, pin-striped seersucker suit. Crisp white shirt. No tie. I felt a bit under-dressed.

“Hello, Mr. Mayor,” I said.

“Why, hello,” he responded. “How are you?”

“Pretty good, sir.”

“You have plenty to write about these days, don’t you?”

“I sure do.”

The former mayor went on to mention that he really liked a column I wrote about President Trump’s cabinet meeting — the one where everyone in the room toadied up to Trump with fulsome praise.

“I now require my staff to praise me at the beginning of each meeting,” Wharton said, grinning.

“Good plan,” I said. “I do the same. Keeps them on their toes.”

And on we went about our shopping. It was such a Memphis moment. At that same Kroger I’ve seen tons of Grizzlies players, notable musicians of every stripe (from Stax legends to opera singers to current stars), leaders in the arts and education and theater, congressmen, chefs, hotshot lawyers — you name it. Everybody in Memphis goes Krogering, it seems. It’s the great equalizer.

Ronnie Grisanti’s restaurant at Poplar and Humes was also that kind of place. You’d see Wharton, Harold Ford, Steve Cohen, Willie Herenton, Jerry West, and every Grizzlies coach who ever coached, including the three Italians in a row we once had (Fratelli, Barone, and Iavaroni), each of whom I saw hanging at Ronnie’s bar on many occasions.

It was the center of the Memphis dining universe from the mid-’90s to the mid-aughts, and it was often my habit to go on Tuesdays after we put the Flyer to bed. I never had a boring evening or a bad meal.

And Ronnie was at the center of it all, greeting everyone by name, shuffling you to the bar with a bit of gossip in your ear while you waited for your table. No reservations at Ronnie’s. You showed up and took your chances. And if you were a regular, at some point Ronnie would take your picture and put it on the wall somewhere. Mine was on the men’s room door, but hey, it was there, a badge of honor, a sign I’d made it. Or something.

Ronnie died last weekend, at 79, marking the end of an era. He’d moved his restaurant out to Collierville in recent years, out of my dining comfort zone, but I’m sure it was a nice place, because he was a nice man — larger than life — and he’ll be missed by all who knew him.

I spend my Tuesday nights at another joint now, a cozy, friendly place at Cooper and Peabody, near my house. I call the owners and bartenders my friends. I can’t go there without seeing 10 people I know. And that’s the way I like it, a home away from home. A place where everybody knows your name.

In these tempestuous times, where change comes at the drop of a tweet, it’s good to have traditions and to savor them, like you savor your food and your friends and your family.

And your memories.

Bruce VanWyngarden
brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Time for Town Halls on Health Care

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

A group of local Democrats, acting on the premise that several key elected officials representing this area have been less than accessible to constituents wanting to express themselves on pending health-care legislation, have scheduled their own “town hall” meeting on the matter for this Saturday, July 8th, at the IBEW Meeting Hall on Madison.

It remains to be seen how much of a turnout this event will generate beyond the party cadres who organized it, although the city and its environs certainly contain a fair number of health-care activists, as well as a considerable complex of medical-related sites, and, needless to say, as a poverty capital of sorts, a largish number of individuals whose need for medical care is both acute and problematic.

Greg Cravens

Local Republicans may either ignore the event or dismiss it as a political stunt, which, in some measure, it may very well be. But that does not diminish the need for such public ventings of the health-care issue, especially since the three elected officials pinpointed by organizers of Saturday’s event — Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker and 8th District congressman David Kustoff — have indeed not been as forthcoming to their constituents as they might be, though all have, to some degree, posted official statements on the matter.

Unfortunately, these tend to reflect standard Republican talking points against the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) rather than involving direct interactions with members of the public, many of whom depend on the ACA and fear its extinction. To the extent that statements by the three officials have been part of an actual discussion, they belong to the rote responses and the dueling positions of a highly partisan Capitol Hill.

To be sure, any effort to discuss the health-care issue in a genuinely open public meeting risks being caught in a crossfire of conflicting accusations and demands. We have all seen clips of such meetings held elsewhere. So far there have been none locally, beyond a three-hour no-holds-barred town meeting in the cavernous East High School auditorium held earlier this year by Memphis’ Democratic congressman Steve Cohen. As it happened, discord was not a feature of that jam-packed affair, though Cohen has certainly been willing to take his risks and, as may be, his lumps — which was the case in 2009 when a Tea Party crowd challenged him for his support of the Affordable Care Act at a boisterous meeting at the Bridges building downtown.

Now, with repeal-and-replace efforts underway in Congress but with the issue still hanging fire, it is the turn of ACA’s opponents — including Corker, Alexander, and Kustoff — to put themselves on the line and take their chances in free and open public assemblies. We earnestly hope that current efforts by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to ram through a hastily concocted version of TrumpCare will continue to fail, giving our elected officials a chance to do so in the forthcoming August recess.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Night Vale at GPAC

What in the world is going on in the sky high above the Arby’s sign? Who are the mysterious hooded figures milling around in the town dog park? What’s the real deal with Carlos, the beautiful — maybe too beautiful — new scientist in town, with his teeth so white and perfect like the gravestones in a military cemetery? And what’s up with that glowing cloud moving in from the west? You know, the whistling, glowing, color-shifting cloud that may change in appearance from observer to observer. Perhaps some of these questions will be answered when Welcome to Night Vale, the enormously successful podcast and long-running experiment in dread, brings its touring show “All Hail” to Germantown Performing Arts Center. But probably not.

Welcome to Night Vale is a dark, listener-supported satire of community radio broadcast from a fictional desert town where ghosts, aliens, and all manner of odd characters and conspiracies are just a common part of everyday life. It’s a surreal kind of place where math and English might switch names. It’s a friendly spot where old woman Josie, who lives out by the car lot, might sell you a burned-out light bulb that was changed by an angel. She’ll give you a real good price, too.

The format for “All Hail” is similar to that of a typical Welcome episode. Cecil Baldwin, the dulcet voice of Night Vale community radio reads news and PSAs while tense music builds in the background — hypnotic, terrifying, hilarious.

Live shows include musical performances and audience participation, if you dare.

“Welcome to Night Vale All Hail” at Germantown Performing Arts Center, Tuesday, July 11th, 8 p.m. $25. gpacweb.com

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Project Motion’s Stir

Louisa Koeppel didn’t realize what was in store when she attended Project: Motion’s first dance concert at the original downtown version of TheatreWorks, which was located on South Main in the current home of the Village Art Gallery. She was a 14-year-old “bunhead” studying ballet.

“My ballet teacher wanted us [her students] to see modern dance, so she took us,” Koeppel says, reflecting on the unexpected, undeniably life-altering moment. “I remember sitting in the audience thinking, ‘Oh my God, dance can be this way too?’

“I was so wrapped up in ballet — much to the chagrin of my mother who had been a modern dancer,” Koeppel says. “Then this changed everything for me. Two years later, while I was still in high school, I started dancing with them.”

This summer, Memphis’ enduring modern-dance company Project: Motion turns 30, and the dancers and their fans are celebrating with STIR! A 30th Birthday Celebration, which is both a party and performance at the Jay Etkin Gallery, featuring new works and new faces in addition to original company members and remounts of popular favorites.

“The goal is to make it a fun cocktail party atmosphere, then throughout the night dances pop out,” says Koeppel who’s dancing in a new work by Playhouse on the Square choreographer Courtney Oliver and recreating “Spoons,” a whimsical piece about losing a spoon in the garbage disposal. Other choreographers include Emily Hefley and Wayne Smith.

“Stir! A 30th Birthday Celebration for Project: Motion” at Jay Etkin Gallery. July 8th-9th, 7 p.m. $12. Projectmotiondance.com

Categories
Music Music Features

Steve Earle: Outlaw Attitude

Steve Earle is a country-rock singer with an attitude, both poetic and angry, perceptive and stark, often in the same song. Having just released his 16th album, So You Wannabe an Outlaw, he’s hit the road and will be in Memphis on Saturday. As I’d always been impressed with Earle’s dexterity at injecting political awareness into his songs, the lack of lyrics about the current state of our union in his first post-Trump release came as a bit of a surprise. Naturally, that was the first thing I asked him about.

The Memphis Flyer: You’ve often expressed a level of political awareness in your music that you don’t often hear from other country-rockers, but I don’t get that as much from the new record.

Steve Earle: Well, I try to find the human part of it — to tell stories and create characters that are affected by the things that I see happening politically. And I still write political songs. I wrote one for Joan Baez, for her record she’s working on with Joe Henry right now. But this record I just made because I was reconnecting to where I came in when I got to Nashville in 1974. That became interesting to me musically for a lot of reasons. Basically, I wrote the songs not knowing that this [presidency] was gonna happen, and then the election happened in November. It was literally three weeks later that we started the record. And I thought about scuttling it and writing some new songs quickly and making it more political. But I said, You know what? Let’s just let this record be what it is.

I supported Bernie Sanders, until he was out of the race, and then I voted for Hillary Clinton. I went on stage November 8th, thinking the worst that was gonna happen was Hillary Clinton being president of the United States, which … we know what that is, and it would have been the first woman to be president of the United States. And I came off stage, and we had elected the first orangutan to be president of the United States. So I just wasn’t prepared for that. I guess you can let diversity go too far sometimes.

So this record is inspired by the first days of Outlaw Country?

I kinda have this unique perspective on the term “Outlaw.” I’m from Texas. I was at the Dripping Springs Reunion — I bought tickets; about that time, all of the sudden Willie Nelson moves back, and Doug Sahm moves back, which a lot of people forget about. And it was Doug who suggested to Willie that he play [Austin counterculture hot spot] Armadillo World Headquarters. Doug introduced Willie to Jerry Wexler, and that’s how Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages got made. And then Waylon Jennings hears those records.

Those guys figured out that rock acts had artistic freedom they didn’t have. And that’s what Outlaw’s about; it’s not about getting f*cked up. Look, George Jones was not going to a liquor store at 4:30 in the morning on a lawn mower. There aren’t any liquor stores open in Tennessee at 4:30 in the morning. He was going someplace else, to get something else. Country singers have always taken drugs, all that shit. But these guys wanted to make records the way they wanted to, that’s why they got called Outlaws.

Waylon Jennings’ Honky Tonk Heroes is one of my very favorite records. And that record sounds like it does because Waylon got to do what he wanted to do. It’s all built around his electric guitar. And this new record is built around me on the back pickup of a Fender Telecaster. It’s full of great guitar tones.

It’s a 1955 Telecaster through an AC50 [Vox amp]. And then Chris [Masterson] is playing a lot of baritone guitar on this record, a Collings baritone that he used. This record is a connection to the past, but it’s also the future. It’s new a musical direction. I love this band, this configuration with Ricky Ray Jackson on steel and Brad Pemberton on drums. The rest of the band [including Masterson, Kelly Looney on bass, and Eleanor Whitmore on fiddle] has been together for a long time and Ricky’s come along and made it hit this other level. And I’m really interested in that musically, so. … Now we’ll be on tour, and I’ll start writing songs for this band. And the next record will be just as country as this one, and way more political, is my guess.

Steve Earle and the Dukes play Minglewood Hall Saturday, July 8th, at 8 p.m., with opening band The Mastersons.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Scrum for Corker’s Seat?

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

As of the 4th of July weekend, there was no significant change in the prospective lineup for next year’s race for governor to succeed the term-limited Republican incumbent Bill Haslam.

The two definite Republican entries — former state Economic Development Commissioner Randy Boyd and Nashville businessman Bill Lee — are still the only formally declared candidates on the Republican side. Fourth District U.S. Representative Diane Black, state House Speaker Beth Harwell, and State Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris of Collierville are still the main GOP figures on the maybe list. (Norris also remains one of the serious maybes to fill a vacant federal judgeship.)

Former Nashville mayor Karl Dean is the only Democrat to have made a 2018 governor’s race official, but state House Democratic Leader Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley is considered a likely candidate, as well.

All that is same-old, same-old. Where there is renewed speculation on the statewide political scene is in regard to the U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican Bob Corker. The Senator is chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and is also an important and active member of the Senate’s Banking and Budget committees.

Since his election in 2006 in a close race with Democratic nominee Harold Ford Jr., Corker has steadily become one of the more prominent GOP voices in Congress. In 2016, he was seriously considered by then-candidate Donald Trump as a possible vice-presidential running mate. And there have been off-and-on rumors that Corker wants to run for president at some point.

It has long been assumed, and still is, that Corker will be a candidate for reelection to his Senate seat, which comes due again in 2018. But other scenarios have been floated — including a possible Corker race for governor in tandem with a Haslam race for the Senate seat that would then be open.

Whatever the case, other candidates are eyeing a race for Corker’s seat next year. At least one Democrat, Nashville lawyer and Iraq war vet James Mackler is already running and has sent out an elaborate mailer statewide boosting his candidacy.

And there are also Republicans who are looking covetously at Corker’s Senate seat — especially on the GOP’s right wing and in its Tea Party constituency, where Corker’s oft-professed readiness to work across the aisle with Democrats on various issues has aroused suspicion.

The senator may also have raised hackles on the Republican right with recent statements expressing concern over actions by Trump, such as the Senator’s statement, in the wake of his firing FBI Director James Comey in May, that the president seemed to be on a “downward spiral.”

More recently, Corker has vowed to block arms sales by the administration to member nations of the Middle Eastern Gulf Cooperation Council, including feuding U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

UPDATE: Senator Corker’s office has forwarded this comment on the Senator’s proposed block on the arms sale:

Just wanted to note that the senator spoke with Secretary Tillerson in advance of sending the letter regarding future arms sales and that his goal is to give the administration leverage as it works to resolve the dispute.

The White House press secretary also made positive comments about the senator’s efforts, noting the administration shares his goals…

:

White House response:

Q: Senator Corker says he will use his authority as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to block the sales to Saudi and Qatar until that crisis is resolved. Is that a constructive step in your view?

Sean Spicer: I think we share Senator Corker’s goal on two fronts. One, obviously we want to resolve the situation. I know that the states that are involved are viewing this as a family matter and Secretary Tillerson is helping to facilitate some of the that. We believe that is positive. We share that concern. We also share the concern about terror financing that Senator Corker has, and I think we can work together on both those goals.

Seventh District Congressman Marsha Blackburn is said to have considered a Senate race, and other names mentioned as possible Republican opponents for Corker include Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett, State House Representative Andy Holt, and Americans for Prosperity Tennessee state director Andrew Ogles.

Another possible GOP challenger is Mark Green, the state senator from Clarksville who was recently nominated by President Trump to become Secretary of the Army but had to withdraw from consideration amid objections to his ultra-conservative social views from Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Previous to that, Green had been considered a prominent prospect to run for governor, but he has since said no to resuming that quest. A brand-new website boosting his possible candidacy for the U.S. Senate has appeared under the auspices of Nashville activist Rick Williams, however, and it is known that Green has ambitions to serve on the federal scene.

• Shelby County Democrats, whose squabbling and ineffective local party organization was decertified as dysfunctional by state party chair Mary Mancini two years ago, are about to rise again.

David Cocke and Carlissa Shaw presiding, bylaws will be adopted and representatives will be elected to serve on two distinct local bodies — a county committee and a new group to be called the Democratic Grassroots Council.

The county committee will function as the party’s executive arm, while the new council will deliberate on policy, discuss possible projects, and in general serve as a sounding board for party objectives.

• No rest for the weary department: The Shelby County Commission, having punted on approval of a budget at its June 26th meeting and thereby having missed the traditional July 1st deadline beginning the new fiscal year, was scheduled for another try at resolving differences during committee meetings this Wednesday.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1480

Art

Last week a 22-year-old photograph of Memphis golfer John Daly and a streaker interrupting Daly’s shot at the British Open made its way around Twitter with the tag, “Basically a Renaissance painting.”

Others instantly tested the theory by running the photo through art filters, and measuring it against the golden mean. Measures up.

Verbatim

“Make yourself the preeminent conservative in the state. Remember, it is a competition, and by passive aggressively one-upping all other politicians, you can appear to be really nice, but in reality, you are crushing the reputations and political futures of potential opponents.

Which is good to do because self-centered, attention-grabbing is a useful skill to ensure your future political success.” — Fake Mae Beavers.

This passage is a brief excerpt from a long, brutal email parodying Beavers, the porn-busting Conservative state Senator and gubernatorial candidate. The email went public last week after being circulated by political insiders.

Neverending Elvis

“Million Dollar Quartet made money, and it was great and had no negativity about Elvis. But it was no Jersey Boys or Lion King.” — Corey Salter, an executive vp for EPE’s parent company, Authentic Brands Group.

Salter was talking to Deadline Hollywood about Heartbreak Hotel, a new musical by Million Dollar Quartet playwright Floyd Mutrux. Heartbreak Hotel starts tryouts this summer, aiming for an eventual Broadway run.

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News The Fly-By

Natural Healing

Arkansas fired the starting pistol on its medical marijuana program last week as applications went public for patients, growers, and dispensaries.

Arkansans approved medical marijuana in 2016 with a constitutional amendment that won 53 percent of the vote. A similar measure was narrowly defeated there in 2012. State officials have been working since November to design and implement the program.

Applications were available last week.

Starting Friday, patients could apply for a medical marijuana ID card for a cost of $50. Arkansas officials said they expect 20,000 to 40,000 patients to apply. Those cards will be issued 30 days before Arkansas dispensaries begin selling marijuana, which is expected in early 2018.

Also, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission (AMMC) began accepting applications for “cultivation” facilities, or marijuana grow operations. The AMMC will issue only five licenses but can issue up to eight if necessary or less than five if qualified applicants don’t meet the September 18th application deadline.

The commission also started to accept applications for 32 dispensaries across the state. The commission carved up the state in eight geographic zones, and each zone will get four dispensaries. The zone closest to Memphis stretches from the Missouri boot heel to Crittenden County, home to West Memphis.

“The applications [for growers and dispensaries] will cover a lot of subjects and will require a lot of information from the applicants,” said Dr. Ronda Henry-Tillman, chairman of the AMMC. “The goal is to have the best possible facilities here in Arkansas, and we’ve designed the applications to help us find the very best.”

Not all cities are required to have medical marijuana dispensaries, though. The law passed by voters allows cities to opt out. So far, only Hot Springs and Siloam Springs have chosen bans (but those bans are only a few months long).

Of course, the law does not give marijuana patients carte blanche to smoke just anywhere. According to the law, marijuana cannot be consumed on a school bus, on the grounds of any preschool or primary or secondary school, in a motor vehicle, any government building, health-care facility, and other designated areas.

Also, those who qualify for the program must have a doctor’s note verifying they have a lawmaker-approved malady such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV, Crohn’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and more.

While the program is not yet off the ground, business is already growing around it. And why not? Arkansas’ medical marijuana industry is expected to grow to about $70 million in the next seven years, according to figures from KUAR, Little Rock’s public radio station.

Companies wanting in are dispensaries and growers, of course. But others aren’t so on the nose. Last week a company called Herbal Compliance held meetings at Horsehoe Lake to lure investors in hopes of raising between $100,000 and $1 million. The minimum buy-in was $100.

That money will be used to finance a business that aims to help marijuana companies navigate the waters between state law and federal law.

It’s unclear so far just how having legal marijuana across the river will affect Memphis. Only Arkansas residents can apply for the program.