Month: December 2018

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

From Us to You: Thanks!

Frequent Flyer lapel pin

Whew. Another year under our belts at the Flyer. That makes 29, if you’re counting. And we are. In fact, in February, we’ll celebrate our 30th anniversary as Memphis’ only independent, locally owned weekly paper. That’s a long time in newspaper years, especially these days. It’s the kind of anniversary that makes an editor want to take stock of things, and maybe even brag a little.

Each year, I collect a stack of the past 52 issues on my office desk, and every December I look through them, trying to get a perspective on the year’s work. In 2018, we instigated a series of stories called the Justice Project — in-depth investigations on issues such as food deserts, environmental racism, the Memphis immigrant community, and the Memphis City Council’s attempts to end-run democracy, to name a few.

We also published insightful cover stories on the Midtown “skinny houses” building boom, the fight over the future of the Fairgrounds, the member/board/employee struggles at WEVL and the Children’s Museum of Memphis, and the burgeoning reboot of our riverfront.

As I look back on the year, I’m proud of our commemorative MLK issue and the retropective look we took on the work of Ernest Withers. And our annual 20<30 issue has become a community project that’s grown by leaps and bounds each year.

When it comes to politics, I don’t think anyone in town can top the Flyer and Jackson Baker for local coverage and insights. Just sayin’. Actually, I can say similar things about all the Flyer staffers. And maybe I just will.

Associate editor Toby Sells is as solid as they come, an ace reporter who pulled together many of the stories mentioned above and edits the Fly-By news section. No one in town tops Chris Davis for theater, entertainment, and media coverage — not to mention, he’s one funny dude. Music editor Alex Greene is hard-wired into the scene as only a long-time musician can be. Chris McCoy absolutely owns the local film beat. Fight me. And Maya Smith has emerged as one of the city’s best young reporters; she can tackle anything you throw at her. And we’ve thrown a lot at her.

Helping to pull it all together is long-time managing editor Susan Ellis, who helms our entertainment, arts, books, and food coverage, and copy editor and calendar editor Jesse Davis. And, of course, there’s Michael Donahue, who graces this week’s cover and is our writing Jack of all trades — and the life of 1,000 parties.

Andrea Fenise is our fashion editor, which, if you’ve seen how we dress, you would know is a necessary thing. In sports, Frank Murtaugh covers all things Tigers and Redbirds like the roving outfielder he once was, and newcomer Anthony Sain is now helming our Grizzlies coverage.

That’s a solid damn team and I’m proud and privileged to work with all of them.

As I look at the past year’s covers, I’m also struck by how much fun we have around here. Consider our hard-hitting cover story on … cheese dip. Or the annual barbecue issue, or our in-depth look at the city’s best hamburgers, or our first annual Dog Issue. Arf!

Then there’s, well, beer. We like beer. Do you like beer? I like beer. So, in March, we do an annual beer bracket challenge to determine the city’s best craft beer. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has been invited to be a guest judge this year. We haven’t heard back from him yet, but we’re sure it’s just an oversight.

We also won a boat-load of regional and national writing awards in 2018. Fact.

But enough about us. None of this would happen without your support. All of us want to thank all of you who keep picking up the Flyer each week. Our 90-percent-plus pickup rate is the envy of alt-weeklies around the country. And thanks go also, of course, to the folks who pay our bills — our advertisers in print, online, and at our events. We love you and appreciate what your support means.

I’d also like to thank the 275 (and counting) members of our Frequent Flyer program — folks who support what we do with their monthly pledges. (Go to support.memphisflyer.com, if you’d like to learn more — or better — join them.)

I could keep name-checking our staffers — art director Carrie Beasley and her team; ad director Justin Rushing and the sales crew — but I’m running out of space. Look just to the left of this column, at the masthead, and you’ll see everyone involved in making the Flyer happen. Blow them a kiss.

We’ve got great plans for the year ahead, including a print redesign in the next few months. Join us; 2019 is going to be great. And thanks again for keeping us flying.

Categories
Cover Feature News

2019: The Year Ahead in Politics, Business, Government, Theater, Film, Food, and Music

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Politics

As the year 2018 began to fade into the archives, a new year and very likely a new and unpredictable new era were beginning to emerge. To be sure, there were some personalities and issues that would carry over into 2019. One was Jim Strickland, the mayor of Memphis since his inauguration on January 1, 2016, who was active in the waning days of the old year, raising money and pressing the flesh for a reelection campaign that is already well under way and, superficially at least, seemed destined to be invincible.

Jackson Baker

(l to r) School Board member Kevin Woods, state Representative Larry Miller, and School Board member Michelle McKissack.

Strickland, a genial, giant-sized man, is armed with a fresh poll showing his approval ratings to loom large over any and all potential opponents. Former Mayor Willie Herenton, one declared opponent, can match Strickland in height and more than match him in mayoral tenure (17-and-a-half years, beginning with his 1991 election as the city’s first elected black mayor). But Herenton’s stock had run low indeed by the time of his 2009 resignation (or “retirement,” as he chose to call it), and his dismal, underfunded comeback attempt in 2010, a challenge to 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, resulted in a five-to-one wipeout. So far, there is no detectable groundswell whatsoever for his current, second comeback attempt — apparently fueled by his stated desire, in the wake of this year’s MLK anniversary events, to carry on the Great Martyr’s crusade. In that regard, it augurs badly for Herenton that the reelection bid of Strickland, who is white, is underscribed by a generous portion of the city’s African-American office-holders.

Nor is there any sign of momentum for Memphis Police Association president Mike Williams, whose own crusade on behalf of equity for his union members is only modestly buttressed by support from a small community of activists and dissenters.

Yet who knows, really? Surely one of the lessons of the 2016 presidential election, with its come-from-nowhere Trump win, is that politics — all politics — is undergirded by tectonic plates that can shift unexpectedly. Speaking of which, there’s a whole lot of shaking goin’ on with the Memphis City Council, where three of the body’s 13 seats are vacant and must be filled with interim occupants even before all 13 seats come open in the quadrennial city election of 2019. A deadlock between a mainly white faction responsive to the city’s business elite and an African American bloc espousing the cause of grass-roots nominees has so far frustrated agreement on council-named appointees, and sentiment at year’s end was building toward a possible special election early in the new year.

Shelby County government meanwhile seems to be on an unusually harmonious path, as new county Mayor Lee Harris attempts to build support for an ambitious reform agenda by mending fences with a county commission whose holdover members are veterans of a prolonged struggle for dominance with former Mayor Mark Luttrell. Harris’ gamble is that allowing the commission its own legal counsel and other concessions will not tilt the power balance against him.

On the state front, a special election for the state Senate seat vacated by newly confirmed federal Judge Mark Morris is the only local electoral matter on tap for 2019. A new Democratic momentum in 2018’s legislative races did not transform the fact of a Republican super-majority in Nashville, and the appealing personality of new Republican Governor Bill Lee co-exists with his espousal of educational vouchers and open-carry gun legislation and his resistance to Medicaid expansion. These and other positions carry the seeds of a contentiousness that could curtail Lee’s political honeymoon in the legislative session of the 2019 General Assembly. — Jackson Baker

Theater

Calm down, people. I know you’re so excited to have an opportunity to see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical theater phenomenon when it comes to the Orpheum Theatre in Memphis. But here’s the catch: Hamilton‘s not rolling into town until July 2019, individual tickets have yet to go on sale, and no date for individual ticket sales has even been announced yet.

Flyer readers have been calling in or emailing, outraged because they’ve gone online to buy Hamilton tickets only to find third-party websites charging $600 or more per ticket. These sites aren’t legitimate, and it’s not too difficult to predict that anybody who advance purchases a bogus ticket at that price will be sorely disappointed when the show finally comes to town.

To help combat the problem, the Orpheum has added the following information to its website: “An on-sale date for single tickets has not been set, and individual tickets are not available through any verified ticket seller. Please note: Any ticket obtained prior to the official Orpheum Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster on-sale period for this show is counterfeit or is being resold by a third-party vendor at potentially inflated prices.”

With Ballet Memphis having moved into its new Overton Square facility in August 2017, and the Tennessee Shakespeare Company moving into Ballet Memphis’ old Trinity Road building in time to open its 2018-19 season, there are currently no major moves in the works, for the first time in several years. Tennessee Shakespeare is, however, halfway through a capital campaign to fully renovate the interior of a space that was designed with dancers, not actors in mind.

Circuit Playhouse Incorporated, the parent organization of Playhouse on the Square, launched in November 1969, so anticipate opportunities to celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary in 2019.

Theatre Memphis is also approaching a major milestone. The East Memphis playhouse launched in 1920, and is entering its 99th year of existence. That sets local theater lovers up for two solid years of celebrating the lively arts in Memphis.

— Chris Davis

Development and Business

Forget feeling bullish on Memphis. We’re in a full-on stampede. 

Development projects with multi-million-dollar price tags seemed to fall out of the sky in 2018. So, take a drive around town and take some mental images. This is all about to change, y’all. And 2019 is the year we’ll really start seeing that change, especially in the Downtown skyline and the ever-bustling Midtown. 

One Beale: Dirt is slated to finally turn next year on the nearly 15-year-old One Beale project at Beale and Riverside. The latest version of the plan puts construction at $225 million and includes a hotel, apartments, restaurants, retail, and more. The first, $130-million phase of construction is set to begin in January. It’ll bring a 227-room Hyatt Centric hotel, 227 apartments, and a 475-space parking garage. That phase is expected to be complete by 2020.

The Citizen, Madison@McLean, Union Row, One Beale, Hyatt Centric, and the Mid-South Fairgrounds — will Memphis “build up, not out” in its 200th year?

Union Row: The Daily Memphian called the $950-million Union Row project the largest mixed-use project in Memphis history. Marinate in that a minute.

Roughly centered at Union and Danny Thomas, the 29-acre Union Row project is expected to bring a mix of retail (including a grocery store), residential, a garage, office space, and a hotel. But it’ll also bring parks, public spaces, and pedestrian connections to more points Downtown. More than half of the lots Big River Partners want to build on are vacant. The company is hoping to get $100 million in public help for the project. Should it get it, the company will begin closing on the properties in February and begin construction in June. The first phase is expected to open in August 2021.

Mid-South Fairgrounds: All right, no dirt is gonna move at the Mid-South Fairgrounds next year, but paper might. City leaders have worked for years on a project that would transform the now-sleepy Fairgrounds into a youth sports destination. The possibly $181 million plan includes an $80 million youth sports complex, a parking garage, upgrades to the Liberty Bowl, basketball courts, a track, a soccer and football field, and more.     

City leaders scored a huge win in 2018 as state officials approved a new Tourist Development Zone for the project. The move allowed city officials to start collecting commitments of the $61 million in private funds needed to fuel phase two of the project. State finance officials will only sign off on the $90 million in bonds city leaders will issue for their part of the project if they can raise those private funds. So, state officials are slated to vote on the plan again next year. 

Other projects: Expect to see work crews in the Memphis Zoo parking lot this year as its re-do is expected to forever halt overflow parking on the Overton Park Greensward by 2020. 

Look for the grand openings of two high-profile apartment projects started in 2018 — The Citizen at McLean and Union, and the five-story Madison@McLean.

Watch hammers swing early next year on The Ravine, a new public greenspace concept between Union and Madison in the Edge District. Developers DSG want the $5 million Ravine to be the Edge’s true gathering spot with an active retail plaza, kid-friendly play structures with water features, flexible seating, an amphitheater-style performance venue, and festival and event spaces. Phase one of the project is expected to be finished in May.

Construction of a new seven-story, 109-room hotel was set to begin in the Edge this winter and wrap as early as 2020.

Renovations continue at Central Station, to transform the century-old train station into a hotel, restaurant, and retail space. Malco officials recently told The Commercial Appeal its new Downtown theater could be open by the end of 2018.

Finally, construction was set to begin on Wiseacre’s new 43,500-square-foot brewery and taproom close to South Main sometime this winter. 

None of this is even to mention the ongoing, $1 billion expansion of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Phew. Buckle up, y’all. — Toby Sells

Film

The biggest event in Memphis film due in 2019 will be Craig Brewer’s Dolemite Is My Name. Written by The People vs. O.J. Simpson‘s Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the biopic stars Eddie Murphy as pimp-turned-blacksploitation auteur Rudy Ray Moore. With a generous budget and a supporting cast that includes Chris Rock, Snoop Dogg, and Keegan-Michael Key, this Netflix production promises to be epic. The street date is still up in the air.

January 4th brings the Memphis release of If Beale Street Could Talk. Barry Jenkins’ brilliant followup to Best Picture winner Moonlight is a must-see. Later in the month, we get Samuel L. Jackson in Glass, the sequel to M. Night Shyamalan’s best movie, Unbreakable.

February looks wintry with an unwanted remake of the 1990 mind-bender Jacob’s Ladder and James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez’s live-action anime adaptation Alita: Battle Angel. A possible bright spot is The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. March will be ruled by the superhero blockbuster Captain Marvel. I’m sorry, but the first images from Tim Burton’s live-action Dumbo adaptation look hideous.

Big studios come out swinging in April, with DC’s Shazam and reboots of Pet Sematary and Hellboy, before Avengers: Endgame blows everything else out of the multiplex. I’m most excited for It Follows director David Robert Mitchell’s long-delayed neo noir Under the Silver Lake.

May has Pokemon: Detective Pikachu and a third John Wick film, but I’ll be lining up for Godzilla: King of the Monsters. In June, Dark Phoenix takes another crack at the best X-Men storyline, in which Game of Thrones‘ Sophie Turner does Jean Grey’s heel turn. July 4th weekend brings Spider-Man: Far From Home, then later in the month Quentin Tarantino’s Manson Family epic, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

August looks pretty dire unless you’re a Dora the Explorer fan. I’m telling you right now I’m not sitting through another Angry Birds movie. September will no doubt be dominated by the scary clown sequel It: Chapter Two. October kicks off with Will Smith playing clones in Ang Lee’s Gemini Man and the godforsaken Joker movie starring Joaquin Phoenix.

November sees Ahnold back as the Terminator, a Sonic the Hedgehog film, and schlockmeister Roland Emmerich remaking the World War II drama Midway. Bet instead on Rian Johnson’s star-studded murder fest Knives Out. The box office matchup of the year comes in December when the Taylor Swift-led adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats bows on the same weekend as J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode IX. And finally, Greta Gerwig helms a promising Little Women with Saoirse Ronan as Jo, Emma Watson as Meg, and Meryl Streep as Aunt March.

City Government

Council Conundrum: The Memphis City Council, down three members, is slated to fill its three vacancies at the first meeting of the year on Tuesday, January 8th. The council began its attempt to fill the first of the three, the District 1 seat vacated by Bill Morrison, in late November. As of press time, the body has been at a deadlock and unable to reach the necessary seven votes for any one candidate.

Both of the top two contenders for the seat are out of the running, as Lonnie Treadaway pulled his bid for the seat, and Rhonda Logan was eliminated. Only Tierra Holloway, Paul Boyd, Mauricio Calvo, and Danielle Schonbaum remain as candidates for the District 1 seat.

Maya Smith

The Memphis City Council (above) has been much in the news in 2018 and still has hanging business to be completed in the new year.

The council has been unclear about how it will move forward with filling the position, if they will consider the aforementioned candidates, or if the application process will be re-opened.

The vacant District 6 and Super District 8-2 seats, which were slated to be filled at the council’s most recent meeting, will also be addressed at the January 8th meeting.

At this point, after the council has had hours of debate and is still seemingly unable to reach a decision for the District 1 seat, some Memphians, including representatives with the Memphis chapter of the NAACP, are calling for a special election to fill all three positions.

Tension has been a constant in the council chambers throughout the process, with accusations of racism and gerrymandering being thrown at council members, outbursts from onlookers, and spats among members. The fate of the 10-member council for 2019 is unknown.

Third Century Plans: Memphis could adopt a new comprehensive plan — dubbed the Memphis 3.0 Plan — as the city enters its third century. Drafted with input from more than 15,000 citizens, public and private partners, and city officials, the hundreds of pages of the plan detail a plan for future growth in the city: “Build up, not out.”

The Memphis 3.0 plan largely revolves around improving public anchors — centers of community activity — in the city’s core and surrounding neighborhoods. In sum, the plan focuses on connectivity, opportunity, and land, touching on everything from transportation, safe streets, housing, parks, the environment, as well as access to fresh food, jobs, and education.

Public comment on the plan, which will be reviewed by the Office of Comprehensive Planning, is accepted through February 8th via email, mail, or fax. If adopted by the Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board and subsequently the Memphis City Council, the plan will be the guiding document for the city’s future development and investments for the next 20 years.

Bag Tax: The bad news is you could start paying seven cents for every plastic bag you get from certain stores. The good news: The environment could benefit.

At its January 22nd meeting, the city council is set to vote on the third and final hearing of a city ordinance that would implement the seven-cent tax at stores that have more than 2,000 square feet of space or are part of a chain.

Seniors and those in the SNAP program would be exempt from the fee. The council said the motive behind the move is not to make a profit, but to help sustain the environment. Specifically, council chairman Berlin Boyd said he wants the ordinance to protect the city’s waterways, which he claimed are overly polluted by plastic bags.

Local environmentalists such as Scott Banbury with the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, agree that plastic bags are a problem and that taxing them is a good step toward addressing the issue.

— Maya Smith

Food and Restaurants

For 2019, keep your eyes peeled on various locations that once held restaurants.

There are some key spaces in some key locales waiting to be filled. One of them is the Kitchen in Shelby Farms. There is interest in this pretty spot, and Shelby Farms expects to have a restaurant up and running there in 2019.

Plans for Beale Street Landing, which once held Front Porch, are fuzzier. The site is currently being used for special events and is part of the overall Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) overhaul of Tom Lee Park and other Downtown public spaces. In 2019, the MRPP plans to set up Beale Street Landing as an “engagement center.” According to George Abbott of MRPP, “Quality food and beverage options will be a part of the new park experience, but we’re not sure yet how they will be provided — and what role [Beale Street Landing] will play in that.”

Justin Fox Burks

The Kitchen

Other spaces up for grabs include the old LYFE restaurant Downtown, Paulette’s/Stanley BBQ in Overton Square, Indian Pass near Overton Square, and Strano in Cooper-Young.

A few projects that were set for 2018 have spilled into 2019. David Scott of Dave’s Bagels, announced his brick-and-mortar spot earlier this year. He says he’s still working on it. Bogard was supposed to go into the old Paulette’s/Stanley BBQ spot, but that project fizzled after a couple partners backed out of the deal. But don’t count Bogard out yet. They are aiming for a spring or summer opening in an unnamed location. Porch & Parlor, going in the old Bar Louie space, is now looking at a spring opening. It’s set to start its construction phase in January.

Rizzo’s on South Main will be closed for a few weeks for some necessary renovations. A leaking wall caused damage to the electrical system and the floor. Michael Patrick says the restaurant will be closed, starting in early January and probably throughout the month. Patrick has been actively feeling around for places to hold pop-up shops. He says his main concern is keeping his staff intact. “I have a great team,” he says. “I don’t want to lose them.” The goal is have to restaurant back open by Valentine’s Day.

Salt/Soy, Nick Scott’s sushi pop-up, is making it permanent with a brick and mortar restaurant somewhere in Cooper-Young. And Pop-a-Roos, the gourmet popcorn seller, is due to set up shop some time in January at Crosstown Concourse in the spot vacated by So Nutz.

— Susan Ellis

Music

We get announcements of upcoming releases all the time, but a few on the 2019 horizon have us especially impatient. Next month, Big Star’s Live on WLIR, recorded during the band’s final tour in 1974, will be available again thanks to Omnivore Recordings. February will see the release of previously unheard tracks by Alex Chilton. Songs from Robin Hood Lane (Bar/None) mixes tracks from his Clichés album with others featuring the singer and a full jazz band, lending his distinct voice to standards like “Look for the Silver Lining.” Also in February, the soundtrack for Waiting: The Van Duren Story, a documentary about the songwriter, will drop before the film itself. It collects choice tracks from his debut, Are You Serious?, with a few from later in his career.

NOTS

Goner promises new albums from both Hash Redactor and NOTS in the months to come, and Negro Terror, the African-American hardcore band, whose live shows have everyone flipping, promises a new work, Paranoia, sometime next year. Finally, the City Champs have been playing again, most notably in a show with Al Kapone at the Railgarten. Could a new album be far off? And what Champ collaborations does this portend?

Speaking of live shows, GPAC promises eclectic fun with shows ranging from the Fred Hersch Pocket Orchestra, to Shawn Colvin with Amy LaVere and Will Sexton, to Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. The Bar-Kays will be bringing the funk to Soulsville’s “Staxtacular” event, February 8th. The Buckman Arts Center will bring eclectic shows into the spring, including the intriguing “Italian World Music” of Newpoli. And in April, the old reliable Lucero Family Block Party will take over the Minglewood Hall environs once again.

Speaking of spring, the Beale Street Music Festival should be interesting in May, as they coordinate with designers overseeing the remodel of Tom Lee Park. Performers have not yet been announced, but tickets are on sale. The Levitt Shell will no doubt bring another jam-packed schedule of musicians of all stripes to Overton Park for music under the stars. As will the Live at the Garden concerts.

Despite rumors to the contrary, September’s Gonerfest 16 is on! The new year will also bring events celebrating the record store/label’s quarter-century mark.

And, finally, MemphoFest looks to be back at Shelby Farms for another year.

— Alex Greene

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

He’s Not Z-Bo, But …

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

The Grizzlies need to continue to feed Jaren Jackson.

During the aftermath of the Grizzlies’ five-game losing streak, I decided to visit a fan page on Facebook to sample what the responses were. I stumbled upon a comment thread that included someone basically saying that Jaren Jackson Jr. needs to be more of a focal point — and that he was “Z-Bo 2.0.” A couple of people responded with agreement, but I, for one, want no part of it. Joe Murphy/NBAE

Jaren Jackson Jr.

I’m a huge Zach Randolph fan. He and Mike Conley are easily my two favorite Grizzlies ever. He had amazing touch around the basket, he was as strong as an ox, and his hands swallowed offensive rebounds like Pac-Man threw down power pellets. He was the team’s leading scorer during the Grit ‘n Grind era and he embraced and reflected everything that was the heart of this city. What Randolph meant to this team and this city will never be duplicated — but that’s not the issue I had with comparing Jackson to Randolph.

Despite all of Randolph’s strengths, and the contributions that he made to the franchise, he still had a game that was mostly limited to scoring around the basket and from mid-range. He showed the ability to occasionally knock down three-point shots, but for the most part, his bread-and-butter plays were made in, or near, the paint. You knew what Randolph was — and what he wasn’t. No one expected him to dunk on someone or lock somebody down on defense. He was Z-Bo and we expected him to do Z-Bo things.  Larry Kuzniewski

Jackson, on the other hand, has a ceiling that is almost literally through the roof. Many draft analysts and NBA minds projected him to be a stretch big with limited post skills and elite defense. Not many predicted that he would be as good in the paint as he has already showed so far this season, and even fewer foresaw his ability to get to the basket off of the dribble. In just 34 games this season, Grizzlies fans have seen him showcase an ability to shoot three-pointers at an increasing rate, score in the paint and in traffic, get to the basket off of the dribble, roll to the basket or pop out to the perimeter when setting screens, score off screens set for him, and, of course, do awesome things like hit a step-back three-pointer in LeBron James’ face to seal a victory.

Jackson’s potential is scary-high and it seems as though Coach JB Bickerstaff — and Jackson’s teammates — are finally realizing, after initial stubbornness, that a player like Jackson should not be treated as a project or as a cherry on top of the team sundae. He has the potential to be this Grizzlies team’s first or second option — something that it needs in order to balance out Conley’s high usage and point production. Even in games like Wednesday night’s 95-87 victory over Cleveland, where Jackson finished with 11 points, 5 rebounds, and 1 block after struggling for most of the game, Bickerstaff continued to use him. This wasn’t the case just a few games ago.

No, Jaren Jackson Jr. is not Zach Randolph, but even on past Grizzlies teams that had Marc Gasol and Conley in their primes, Randolph was still consistently the team’s leading scorer. Even though the offense was run through Mike and Marc pick and rolls, they still managed to get the ball to Z-Bo enough to let him carry the scoring load. Jackson is not the same type of player, especially when it comes to rebounding, but he has the tools to be called upon more as a scorer for this team. And he has defensive skills that Randolph never had.

Jackson doesn’t need add muscle or start wearing a headband to try to live up to short-sighted comparisons. He just needs to be the given the opportunity to be the best version of Jaren Jackson Jr. that he can be.

Categories
News News Blog

New Study Looks at Link Between Smoking, HIV Treatments

CREDIT: University of Tennessee Health Science Center

University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Kumar

Smoking makes it harder for HIV-1 therapies to work, and a professor here won a $1.71 million grant this year to figure out why.

Santosh Kumar, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), won the five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health in November. Kumar’s team will review the role of certain enzymes that enhance HIV-1 replication in smokers.

“Despite the success of antiretroviral therapy, effective treatment outcomes for people living with HIV-1 occur in only a third of the total population who receive treatment,” reads a statement from UTHSC. “While reduced adherence to antiretroviral therapy is an increasing concern, substance abuse, in particular smoking tobacco, is one of the major contributing factors for ineffective treatment outcomes.”

Kumar said his team’s studies suggest that the enzymes are induced by smoking tobacco and that it interrupts the metabolization of HIV therapies.

“Our ultimate goal is that once we know the target, what is causing this progression, we can develop a drug that inhibits the enzymes, either in the exosomes, the brain, or primary sources like the liver and lungs,” Kumar said.

The project would impact the treatment of HIV-1 patients who smoke by providing a new target for therapeutic interventions, and potential application of exosomes as therapeutic carriers in effectively treating these patients, UTHSC said.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1557

Year in Fly

It’s yet another year’s end column looking back at the best, worst, and stupidest moments of the last dozen months.

Of course, by “best” your pesky Fly on the Wall means the best of the worst. (Except for that one time when Memphis successfully removed its Confederate statues, and somebody changed the Wikipedia page for an unreconstructed and mostly vindictive Tennessee House of Representatives to read, “We got tricked by a city we hate, now we’re mad.” That was pretty awesome.)

FOTW had its finest moment digging deep into claims by U.S. Rep. Diane Black that grocery store porn is a “big part” of the “root cause” of school shootings. We visited many grocery stores and pharmacies but just couldn’t find the dirty. We did find copies of Hog Hunting, Sniper, Guns & Ammo’s AR-15 Pistol Edition, and other periodicals showcasing big weapons on their covers. Hawt.

2018 was mostly spent documenting the hazards of out-of-town editing as illustrated by Memphis’ Gannett-owned newspaper, The Commercial Appeal. Like when they mistook Memphis’ popular, all-dude band Lucero for Mexican superstar Lucero, a female vocalist. Or that time when they named Harding Academy student Lauren Deaton, Volleyball of the Year.

Lastly, WMC deleted a tweet reading “Nashville is Still Trash,” claiming it didn’t represent the station’s “values or views.” They are now dead to us.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Statues, Scooters, and Surveillance

January

Officials unveiled a plan for the Memphis Zoo’s new parking lot, which included paving green space and taking about 2.4 acres of parkland.

Downtown stakeholders discussed allowing open containers on Main Street, but the idea was nixed later.

Memphis was passed over for Amazon’s new headquarters despite offering an incentive package worth about $70 million.

J.T. Young was chosen as the new CEO of Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW).

February

The Memphis City Council approved a one-year, 2 percent rate hike on MLGW’s gas and electric rates.

The Tennessee Comptroller reviewed the transactions that allowed city officials to sell three Memphis parks and remove Confederate statues and later deemed them lawful.

Hundreds marched demanding a $15 an hour minimum wage.

The council voted to remove several “offensive” murals installed by Paint Memphis.

The Tennessee Attorney General requested execution dates for eight death row inmates.

FedEx Corp. refused to axe discounts to the National Rifle Association (NRA) but said its positions on gun policy differed from the gun rights group.

March

Angus McEachran, once an editor of The Commercial Appeal, passed away.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) said it would not operate wells drilled into the Memphis Sand Aquifer and, instead, would buy water for its plant from MLGW.

Mid-South students joined a national walkout to protest gun violence.

Ground broke on the new $28 million Raleigh Town Center.

The Tennessee Supreme Court began setting execution dates for death row inmates.

Will Batts announced he was leaving his post as executive director for OUTMemphis.

The Riverfront Development Corp. was rebranded as Memphis River Parks Partnership, and the new group would be led by Kresge Foundation senior fellow, Carol Coletta.

Memphis Rox opened in Soulsville.

Thousands (including Senator Bernie Sanders) rallied and marched to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

April

A week of events commemorated the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death.

The city council approved Cooper-Young’s historic district status.

State lawmakers voted to take $250,000 from Memphis because city leaders removed Confederate statues.

A new law allowed liquor stores to be open seven days a week and for grocery stores to sell wine on Sundays.

Trolleys returned Downtown.

May

Graceland officials and Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland squabbled over a project to build a new performance and convention center in Whitehaven.

Phillip Spinosa resigned from his position on the city council to join the Greater Memphis Chamber.

The council gave historic district protections to Speedway Terrace.

Strickland signed a letter of intent with two companies to redevelop 100 N. Main building as the new convention center hotel.

A court ruled that the city’s sale of two Downtown parks and the removal of Confederate monuments from them was legal, dismissing a lawsuit initiated by the Sons of Confederate Veterans Forrest Camp.

Ford Canale was installed to fill Spinosa’s empty council seat.

Explore Bike Share launched.

June

Federal officials approved a $71 million project to upgrade Lamar Avenue.

Stormy Daniels brought her “Make America Horny Again” tour to The Pony.

Protesters called for an end to the separation of immigrant families at the U.S. border.

Bird debuted its electric scooters on the streets of Memphis.

July

New regulations for wells were approved in the wake of TVA’s controversial plan to pump from the Memphis Sand Aquifer.

Hundreds rallied against Trump’s immigration policies.

Strickland proposed de-annexing two areas in East Memphis.

The Daily Memphian, a new online news source, was unveiled.

Memphis Greenspace cleared out the remaining Confederate memorabilia from Memphis Park “to say goodbye to the past.”

State officials were ordered to stop revoking driver’s licenses from those who can’t pay traffic-ticket fines and fees after a lawsuit filed by Just City and others.

August

Sports betting began in Tunica under new laws in Mississippi.

Lee Harris was elected as Shelby County Mayor.

REI opened.

A court case began to determine whether or not the city of Memphis violated activists’ First Amendment rights with a system of surveillance that included extensive monitoring of social media.

State lawmakers found 538 exceptions to the state’s Open Records Act.

Aretha Franklin passed away.

The Friends of WEVL called for change at the volunteer radio station.

September

Restaurateur Bud Chittom passed away.

XPO warehouse workers filed a complaint about working conditions.

A modernization project kicked off for Memphis International Airport.

Purple Haze closed after a string of violence in and around the club.

A Memphis Police Department (MPD) officer turned off a body-worn camera during the shooting of Martavious Banks.

Facebook asked the MPD to cease using fake accounts for surveillance.

Greater Memphis Chamber president and CEO Phil Trenary was shot and killed in Downtown Memphis.

October

Nuclear Development LLC told the city council the city could save about $500 million per year if it bought its electricity from the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant.

Voters complained that the three council-related referenda on the November ballot were misleading. Early voting samples replaced key words from the actual ballot. Election machines here could also bump Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Karl Dean to a second page.

National Civil Rights Museum leader Beverly Robertson was picked to be Greater Memphis Chamber’s interim president and CEO.

Mighty Lights, the new lights on the city’s bridges, went live.

A court ruled the MPD violated a 1978 consent decree barring political surveillance of citizens.

November

The University of Memphis won a $5 million contract to study the Memphis Sand Aquifer.

Memphians said no to extending term limits for the mayor and city council, repealing instant runoff voting, and eliminating runoff voting altogether.

State officials gave the first of two approvals needed for a Tourist Development Zone that would transform the MidSouth Fairgrounds into a youth sports destination.

The city council began what would become a long, contentious process to fill one of three empty council seats. Later, they decided to stall the process until next year.

Wiseacre Brewing Co. announced plans to build a new, bigger brewery close to South Main.

December

XPO announced new policies on working conditions after Congress members threatened an investigation.

Descendants of Nathan Bedford Forrest filed a suit for the alleged desecration the family’s gravesite.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

2018: A Transitional Time for Politics

In what may have been something of an omen, the first significant local event of the political year 2018 was the death on January 4th, at the ripe age of 100, of Lewis Donelson, legal and civic eminence, political pathfinder, and  patriarch of both the Shelby County and Tennessee Republican parties.

Donelson, who hand-picked such Republican standard bearers as Howard Baker and Lamar Alexander, transformed the state GOP from an insignificant relic of the Reconstruction period into a dominant mainstream party. But he also lived to see that party, in the age of Donald J. Trump, morph from his own brand of moderation into an instrument he feared had become intolerant, monolithic, and regressive.

swept Shelby County.

If there was a predominant leitmotif in the subsequent year’s politics, it concerned whether that state of affairs would continue or yield instead to the restoration of a two-party political system, which, more than the supremacy of a given party, had been the true object of Donelson’s life-long activism.

That was the overriding political question of 2018, and the year would produce competing and contradictory answers to it.

In one sense, the concept of a “blue wave” favoring Democratic revival moved from the status of a speculation to one of reality in the course of the year’s several electoral cycles. But in another sense, this regeneration seemed confined to the metropolitan areas of Memphis/Shelby County, where Democrats swept the county general election and showed surprising strength in suburban legislative races, and in Nashville/Davidson County, where Democrats maintained their local hold on legislative races and, as one Flyer story noted, no avowed Republican even ventured to run for a county office.

In the state as a whole, however, Republicanism — and a conservative version of it, at that — continued to prevail and even extend its dominance. The GOP’s nominees for governor — Franklin businessman Bill Lee, a newcomer and pleasant personality — and for U.S. Senator — 7th District U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn, a right-wing populist — triumphed handily over their Democratic opponents, gubernatorial aspirant Karl Dean and Senatorial candidate Phil Bredesen. Both losers were former Nashville mayors. Early in the century, Bredesen managed to secure two consecutive terms as governor as an old-fashioned conservative Democrat.

Moreover, the political exigencies of the year seemed to have extinguished the relative moderation of the statewide Republican office-holders who were in power at the beginning of 2018. Governor Bill Haslam, who had attempted, in what may have been too feckless a manner, to accept the opportunity for Medicaid expansion offered by the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), delivered his final State of the Union address in January. His successor Lee would propose such seemingly retrograde notions as universal gun carry and educational vouchers and declared himself opposed to Medicaid expansion.

Senator Bob Corker, another relative moderate, was widely considered to have bowed out of a reelection bid in 2018 due to the near-certainty of a challenge from Blackburn, and, though his Senatorial colleague Lamar Alexander, celebrated for his willingness to work across the aisle, faced no immediate challenge, Alexander announced in December that he would not run for reelection in 2020, leaving the way open for another fire-breather.

Charles Burson, the former state attorney general who served as Vice President Al Gore‘s chief of staff, appeared at Memphis’ Novel bookstore in December on behalf of his book, The Ground Game, a work of photojournalism that chronicled the 2016 presidential election. He told the audience at his reading that the future would require yoking together the traditional power politicians of the Democratic Party and the progressive activists who have emerged in the movement for resistance to Donald J. Trump.

There are certainly several of the latter on the scene in Shelby County. After becoming unmistakably visible in the successful effort to force removal of Memphis’ Downtown Confederate monuments, Tami Sawyer ran for and won a race this year for the Shelby County Commission, where she continues to call for overdue reforms. Other members of her progressive cohort have joined with more traditional politicians, like University of Memphis law professor Steve Mulroy, a former commissioner himself, and an exponent of voting reforms, to call to account the members of the Memphis City Council, grown notorious in the service of in-group politics.

Council sessions during the year involved numerous verbal battles between the body’s dominant business-friendly bloc and critical attendees who challenged the council’s endorsement of referenda that would nullify earlier referenda in favor of term limits and ranked-choice voting, a process designed to eliminate the need for sparsely attended runoff elections. The regressive referenda were defeated, but a new, still unresolved battle was joined over the issue of electing new members to replace departed ones rather than submitting the matter to an appointment process under the de facto control of the dominant council bloc. When a deadlock — essentially between black and white members — ensued for 100 votes on what was intended to be the council’s first appointment decision, that conundrum was destined to be resolved in the new year.

Chancellor JoeDae L. Jenkins was kept busy during 2018, having to rule on disputes between citizens — mainly Democrats in particular and African-Americans in general — who feared that the Shelby County Election Commission was practicing subtle and not-so-subtle forms of voter suppression. Jenkins did his best to clear the way for an untroubled turnout for Shelby County’s several elections.

The activism of the year had, earlier in April, joined memorably and more seamlessly with world history and the evolution of human ideals during the weeklong commemoration called MLK50. On April 6th, the date on which, a half century ago, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel, a host of dignitaries — including Dr. William Barber, Al Green, Jesse Jackson, and Bernie Sanders — joined city officials in a day-long commemoration of the slain martyr at the National Civil Rights Museum.

The year was also marked with transitions in the lives of influential local citizens. Johnnie Turner, longtime head of the local NAACP, resigned her position as a state representative, one which she assumed a decade earlier upon the death of her husband Larry Turner. And besides that of the aforementioned Donelson, were several other important deaths of politically active Memphians, including those of Democratic activist Lois Freeman, and Republican legislator Ron Lollar.

There were other memorable personalities and moments, in addition to those mentioned here, and the year ahead — which includes the 2019 city election — will bring even more to the fore. We’ll do our best to let you know about them.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Free Shipping Isn’t Really Free

If you’ve logged onto your Amazon Prime account the last few weeks to order your holiday gifts, you may have browsed through all of Amazon’s finely curated online deals. From gift guides to “last-minute” deals, the online super-retailer can be overwhelming, sending you through a sea of recommended products and leaving you to explore the site for hours on end. We’ve all probably started with a simple phone case search and ended up reading reviews for heated, battery-powered jackets that are waterproof and windproof. Did I recently learn there’s a market for that? Yes, I did. But in Memphis, where we can experience all seasons in a week (or a day), I doubt it’s a significant one.

Expediency is one of many allures of online shopping. We can browse a site and make quick decisions on what we want to purchase without ever having to get up from our seat. Amazon even has the option for “1-Click Ordering” which I can see as very dangerous grounds for impulse buyers. We see it, we want it, and as we add it to our cart, we can expect it to arrive in two business days.

Generally, you won’t find folks reviewing catalogs of products but rather shopping online through store websites and mobile apps. To be fair, I’ve never been much to review a catalog of anything, except Aldi’s four-page spread highlighting next week’s selection of deals, so I am reflecting on observations of young folks adding to their Urban Outfitters shopping cart during classes and lectures and middle-age folks shopping for matching polos for their partners on Vineyard Vine’s mobile site. For those who find themselves last-minute shopping for holiday or birthday gifts, I get it. “FREE two-day shipping” is a saving grace. But as we turn the pages to 2019, one small thing we must reconsider is what this hot button actually means.

“Free” shipping isn’t ever free. By that, I don’t mean the actual cost of having a Prime account that affords such a luxury of expedited shipping. I’m talking about the human cost. While technology is surely affecting much of the presence of human labor through, for example, self-checkout and other automated-type kiosks, we still find that the on-the-ground movement of products from one point to the next requires people to physically do that work. E-commerce companies depend on this type of labor in warehouses to move and distribute their products. As a distribution center, Memphis’ employers and employees especially know this to be true.

We now expect that our purchases arrive at our doorstep in the same week. We have gotten so used to the ease of one-click ordering and two-day shipping that we forget the work that is required for it get there. For folks working in warehouses, this expectation of expediency has a real physical and mental toll. While we can see that e-commerce companies are becoming successful businesses, the profits of this success do not reach the people who make it all possible.

On the business side, companies speak about the increasing labor costs as dialogue spreads on what should be minimum wage, but the reality is that the cost of labor has always been there. It has just been significantly undervalued because human labor is undervalued. When we talk about cost of labor, rarely do we bring up or question the cost of these massive bonuses that executives and CEOs receive.

Arguments against living wages that keep up with inflation suggest that increasing wages of workers will hurt the business, but these company executives know that increasing wages won’t necessarily affect the cost for the consumer but will instead cut into their personal bonus checks. The real cost to the consumer happens when wages stay below the living wage measured for a specific city and state. We as consumers and taxpayers pay for what companies such as Amazon refuse to because it cuts into their profit margins, but in particular, the individual executive profits. When workers aren’t compensated fairly and their wages aren’t adjusted like those executive salaries, then their dollar is stretched thin. They have to carefully choose where to put their money, whether it be food, housing, health, or savings. Putting more into one bucket may mean needing to find available public services and programs to help out with the other. I say “available” because at the state of where many public programs are now … well, they could definitely be better. We still do not allocate adequate funds in the city’s budget to address homelessness, and for folks who may have access to forms of housing, the conditions of the housing are not necessarily livable (i.e. slumlords and section eight housing in Memphis).

The one-click options for fast shipping distract us from the many steps that happen between placing our order and receiving it. The influx of warehouse job positions, similarly, are appealing, but we must question how companies are not only compensating their workers but also treating them. At the end of the business day, and into the late shifts for many warehouse workers, what happens in the warehouse and in other sectors of the labor market, the violation of humane working conditions, wage theft, lack of concern for worker health and safety, affects us all.

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian pursuing an Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies degree at Rhodes College.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Marvel Universe Live at Landers Center

And there came a day unlike any other (except for the last time Marvel Universe Live came to town), when Earth’s mightiest heroes were united to perform an arena-sized show featuring motorcycle stunts, massive CGI projections, explosions, and even more explosions. On that day, the Avengers of Marvel Universe Live! were born. The massive touring show coming to the Landers Center, has often combined Marvel’s trademark characters in ways that ownership rights and studio wrangling has made impossible in the cinematic universe. It pairs Avengers with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Fist, and Black Panther, and it pits this superhero supergroup against classic villains the Lizard, the Black Cat, all the forces of Hydra, and sometimes gravity.

Assemble!

The latest iteration of Marvel Universe Live! is a fast-paced and action-packed race against time to keep the sorcerer supreme, Dr. Strange’s mystical Wand of Watoomb from falling into the hands of Norse God of mischief, Loki, who also died in Infinity War. Clearly, this stuff all happens outside of continuity.

Marvel Universe Live! is a frenetic endeavor mixing extreme gymnastics, motorcycle stunt riding, web-swinging, pyrotechnics, and non-stop fight choreography. Just how big is it? Since Mighty Heimdall died in Avengers: Infinity War, and there’s nobody available to open the Bifrost bridge for the purpose of magical teleportation, it takes 30 trucks to move the the high tech stage and gear from town to town.

A Helicarrier or Quinjet would probably make transportation easier, but sadly they don’t yet exist in the real world.

Marvel Universe Live at The Landers Center, December 28th-30th. Tickets start at $20. www.marveluniverselive.com

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Movie Move

Blame it on Hamilton. The Orpheum’s summer film series is no more, due, in part, to the fact that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical’s coming to camp in Memphis for almost the entire month of July. As it happens, this is great news for fans of old movies who like to see their favorite flicks projected on the big screen. Instead of being confined to the hotter months, Movies at the Orpheum is now a year-round film series, and the new tradition gets underway Friday, January 11th with the classic Hollywood musical, Singin’ in the Rain.

Singing in the Rain

Singin’ in the Rain‘s a perfect film to launch with. When it came out in 1952, The Orpheum was Malco’s Downtown movie palace. And the best thing about this tuneful story, apart from the all the fancy dancing and great chemistry between its principal players, has always been its delicious film-on-film satire. Singin’ in the Rain is a movie about movies and about how Hollywood transitioned from silence to sound, starring Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, and, perhaps most importantly, a flickering silver screen. With wall to wall standards like “Good Morning,” and “Make ’em Laugh,” some singing along seems likely.

There’s no official schedule yet, but Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny team up in Space Jam Friday, March 15th, and, in celebration of Memphis’ bicentennial, the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line screens Friday, April 26th.

Additional dates and titles will be added throughout the year.

“Singin’ in the Rain” at the Orpheum Theatre, Friday, January 11th 7 p.m. $8 for adults and $6 for children 12 and under. orpheum-memphis.com/movie.