Month: August 2019

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We Recommend We Recommend

Eve of Great Battle: Full-contact Steel Fighting at Hi Tone

CREDIT: MAFC

Memphis Armored Fight Club throws down the gauntlet for an eve of great battle Saturday night at the Hi Tone.

A few of their 25 armored men will showcase the sport of full-contact steel fighting by pummeling each other in the heads with blunted weapons, which may or may not include polearms, axes, or swords.

Despite the way it sounds, co-founder Nicholas Homa says the sport is relatively safe.

MAFC

Single combat!

“It’s an extreme sport,” he says. “It’s safe compared to boxing, where you have no equipment preventing injury. But accidents happen sometimes.”

Risk always comes with reward, though, according to Homa, who says there are numerous benefits to armored fighting.

“We have members who range from their early 20s up to their mid-50s, and they’re getting themselves in shape and receiving cardio they’ve never had before,” he says. “They’re also establishing healthy habits, like losing weight and eating better, to better help support themselves in the sport.”

Each set of armor members wear weighs between 40 and 70 pounds, and a lot of strategic research goes into ensuring replicas stay true to medieval times.

“Most of our armor is all from the 14th to 16th centuries,” he says. “Everything we use, we have to be able to document it from an actual source from a museum. So we’ll have to find images of something that we want to have made and put together a complete kit that’s within a 50-year time range.”
Memphis Armored Fight Club, Hi Tone, Saturday, August 10th, 8 p.m., $10.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Enough, Already: Lack of Sensible Gun Laws is Killing Us

CREDIT: Kbiros | Dreamstime.com

Thirty seconds.
Nine people killed, 27 injured. Thirty seconds is all it took with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and a high capacity magazine to wreak that kind of havoc in Dayton, Ohio, last weekend. Local police took the suspect down in record time. But still.

Thirty seconds.

How long before this happens in Memphis? When could it be “our turn”? It is a terrible thought, but isn’t that on everyone’s mind right now? 

Kbiros | Dreamstime.com

We are going to have to stand up and say “enough is enough.” And it isn’t going to be easy. No single solution is going to wipe out all of this violence. But something — anything — needs to be done. I honestly thought Sandy Hook would do it. Then I thought maybe Vegas would surely knock some common sense into our elected leaders. But no.

It is time for our government to institute real change, and it is going to take ordinary citizens like all of us to force the change. Our voices do indeed matter. It doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you are on, and it has nothing to do with your “platform.” These are people’s lives in the balance, and tomorrow, it might be your kid.

We have to take an honest look in the mirror and realize that no other country in the Western civilized world has the massive amount of issues with gun deaths as our own country. Over 30,000 dead each year! The statistics overwhelmingly point to a serious issue, yet Americans’ undying love of our gun culture somehow overrules common sense when it comes to keeping the public safe.

People talk about our “freedom” that we have in the U.S. And we do have a lot of freedom. Maybe too much sometimes? I’m sorry, but there are just some folks who should never have the opportunity to own a lethal weapon — especially something that can kill nine people in 30 seconds.

As a former cop in the military and, for a while, in civilian life, I can state without a doubt that these types of weapons should not be in the hands of civilians.

And I am here to say that no, folks, Democrats do not want to “take your guns away.” What Democrats and, in fact, about 70 percent of the country’s voting public want, according to a recent poll, are sensible gun laws, including:

• Comprehensive background checks

• Psych evals

• Red flag laws

• Ban high-capacity magazines

• Assault-style weapons ban or strict regulation

These are all sensible, reasonable ideas that will help cut down the carnage. And if not an outright ban on these high-capacity, rapid-firing weapons, why not do it just like the military? Require people to store them in an armory at a gun range, and they can check them out when they want to target shoot. This is what we did in the military. Not one of us took home our M-16s. It should be no different, if not more strict, in civilian life.

Let me put it this way. We have to take a test to drive a car, which can be lethal but rarely kills nine people in 30 seconds. And if you can’t pass a written or practical test, guess what? You don’t get to drive on public roads. Sensible firearm regulation should be the same, just as it is in so many countries around the world who have strong gun regulations and very little gun crime.

My next statement will no doubt piss a few people off — maybe more than a few — but it is true: The Second Amendment was written during a time when our country was brand-new, and the founding fathers sought to arm a “well-regulated militia” (i.e. a military unit) to ensure that the checks and balances that were put in place would stand and that no foreign powers could easily come and overthrow our fledgling nation.

The times have changed. It’s been 250 years. The Second Amendment should be amended, or other laws should be put in place around it. I am a responsible gun owner, and I am more than happy to take any test you throw at me. If you aren’t willing to take and pass a test or to undergo a simple background check, you don’t deserve to own a lethal weapon.

The right to live peacefully in our country, without fear of getting mowed down by someone with a gun, supersedes the Second Amendment.

Zach Bair is CEO of Music Technology Company VNUE, a Mid-South recording artist, and owner of two live music venues in Memphis.

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Hack Memphis & 901 Memes

MLG&Waiting

Posted to Instagram.

Hack Memphis

Last week, Reddit user runfreedog asked the internet for pro-tips or life hacks for living in Memphis.

Memphisvol8668: If you want to feel alive, drive in the lane closest to the sidewalk on Poplar in either direction.

KimJongHard-un: Or, alternatively, ride in the middle lane between a MATA bus and an 18-wheeler.

PenBandit: There’s no such thing as jaywalking in Memphis. If there’s no traffic, go on and cross. No one cares. We joke about turning your flashers on to park anywhere. This is not true. The parking enforcement people Downtown are some MFing, grade-A ninjas.

plentyinsane: If you grocery shop on weekends, do it (Sunday) morning when everyone is at church.

Posted to Memphis subreddit.

Memphis AF

That moment when FedEx said screw it and turned Memphis AF.

Posted to Facebook by Memphis Memes 901.

Categories
News The Fly-By

After the Attacks

In light of the recent deadly mass shootings in the country, the Memphis Police Department (MPD) has upped its presence at shopping centers, malls, and Walmart stores here.

Over the weekend, the department implemented this directed patrol to maintain high visibility of law enforcement officers and to assure the safety of shoppers in these areas, MPD director Michael Rallings said.

“We know that with all these recent shootings, a lot of folks are on edge,” Rallings said. “We are reassuring the community that we are taking proactive steps to keep you safe.”

However, Rallings said the department is currently hindered by the 1978 Kendrick Consent Decree that prohibits political surveillance. A federal judge ruled the department had violated that decree last year and appointed a team to monitor MPD’s compliance to the decree.

“Law enforcement needs to know what’s going on,” Rallings said, citing a manifesto posted online by the El Paso gunman shortly before the shooting. “As we continue to work with the courts and work with our monitor, we’ll come up with some solutions, some methods, some measures to do what law enforcement does all over the nation to keep people safe.”

Rallings said the department has done “a number” of active shooter trainings and plans to increase those in the future.

“This is something that we do all the time,” Rallings said. “But obviously with these situations coming up more and more, we’ll do more of that.”

There have been 255 mass shootings in the United States so far in 2019, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA).

The latest mass shootings took place last weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, resulting in 31 total deaths.

The GVA is a not-for-profit corporation that collects data for law enforcement, media, government, and commercial sources in an effort to provide real-time data on gun violence. The GVA is one of a handful of organizations that track mass shootings and publish the data.

The GVA defines mass shootings as a shooting in which four or more people, not including the shooter, are injured or killed in a single location.

Based on that definition, there have been three mass shootings in Memphis this year, according to the GVA. One person was killed as a result, and 13 people were injured.

None of the shootings here were considered active-shooter incidents, which the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) defines as a situation in which “an individual is actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.”

Since 2015, three active-shooter incidents have occurred in Tennessee, according to the FBI. In 2016, one person was killed and three were wounded after a gunman opened fire at a Days Inn in Bristol.

In 2017, a man shot and killed one person and wounded seven after opening fire in the parking lot of Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch.

In 2018, a gunman opened fire in a Nashville Waffle House, killing four people and wounding four others.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Brian Banks and the Road to Redemption

In 2007, Tom Shadyac fell off his bike. “I thought everything was fine, but within a few hours, everything wasn’t fine,” he recalls. “I couldn’t see in a room full of light because the light was too sharp. I couldn’t be in a room with sounds because sounds were torturous, whether it was a clanking plate or a car going by. I quickly knew something was wrong, and it wasn’t getting any better, it was getting worse. I looked it up online, and I checked every box of post-concussion syndrome.”

Shadyac spent the next three years recovering from his injury. “I’m a pretty athletic guy. I’ve had a number of concussions before. You only get so many concussion chips, then when your chips are out, you develop traumatic brain injury (TBI). And that’s what happened. I fell off my bike, and I’d had too many concussions. It wasn’t a terrible concussion, but it just never went away. I was sensitive to light and sound, I had to sleep in a closet. I had mood swings. I couldn’t engage in any kind of social life. It took a long, long time to heal. It’s one degree a day of a thousand degrees that have to be recalibrated.”

In 2007, Brian Banks got out of prison. Five years earlier, he had been an outstanding high school linebacker with scholarships on offer from the University of Southern California (USC) and a possible future in the NFL. When he got out, he was facing life as a felon and a registered sex offender.

Katherine Bomboy / Bleecker Street

Brian Banks in the new film by Tom Shadyac. Sherri Shepherd plays his mother, Leomia.

Banks had proclaimed his innocence of the charge of rape a high school classmate brought against him. But he never got a chance to present a jury with his exculpatory DNA evidence or to challenge his accuser’s shifting story in court. The DA and his lawyer cooked up a plea bargain where Banks, who was facing more than 40 years in prison, pleaded no contest to a single charge in exchange for probation. The 16-year-old was given 10 minutes to decide his fate — and then, after he accepted the deal, the judge sent him to jail anyway. Faced with a bleak future of ankle monitors and menial jobs, he had little choice but to set out on an improbable quest to clear his name.

“I Couldn’t Picture Myself In A Suit And Tie”

Tom Shadyac’s first exposure to show business was from comedian Danny Thomas. “My dad [attorney Richard C. Shadyac Sr.] and he were good friends, and my father, of course, helped to found St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital,” he says. “But I saw what entertainment could do, especially for people like my mom. My mom was handicapped, and she had some issues with pain and spasms. She was paralyzed — a semi-paraplegic. We used to watch the Johnny Carson show together, and I saw how that lifted her up. I think that was sort of my rooting in the power of what entertainment, humor, and storytelling can do in a life.”

While in high school, in the mid-1970s, Shadyac started a joke-of-the-day series with a friend, and started writing short comedy skits for talent shows. He went to the University of Virginia with the stated intention of being a lawyer like his father, but says, “I couldn’t picture myself in a suit and tie for the rest of my life. So I took a shot at writing some humor.”

His first break came in the early 1980s, when his uncle introduced him to comedian Bob Hope. “While he wasn’t exactly my style — I was from a different generation — it was an opportunity to work with someone at the top of their field and to learn the building blocks of how to write a joke.”

Writing for the workaholic Hope was a comedic trial by fire. “It was kind of like being a doctor on call,” Shadyac says. “He would reach out at all hours of the day, any day of the week. He would say, ‘I’m at Walter Annenberg’s estate tonight, and the Queen of England is going to be there. Can you write me some jokes?’ Once, I was skiing with my friends on the weekend. I came off the mountain, and I wrote jokes.”

After writing for Hope for three years, Shadyac bounced around Hollywood until 1989. “I had tried nearly everything in show business,” he says. “I had written jokes, I had written sitcoms, I had written scripts. I had done some acting, I had done stand-up comedy, I had taught acting and improvisation. I decided to go back to film school to make a short film. I went to UCLA film school, and the first day of making my student film, I was squatting under a sink in the bathroom, doing the first shot of someone looking in a mirror. And it hit me — this is what I’m going to be doing the rest of my life.”

Katherine Bomboy / Bleecker Street

Director Tom Shadyac

Innocence Project

Brian Banks spent the first years of his post-prison life just trying to survive. His mother had sold their house and her car trying to finance his legal defense. He tried to get back into football, with limited success. His accuser had sued the Long Beach School District for creating an unsafe situation and won a $1.5 million settlement. Banks pursued rumors that his accuser had told her friends that he hadn’t raped her, but to no avail. He had made repeated appeals for help to the California Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization based in San Diego dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions, but since he had already served his sentence, they denied him assistance.

Katherine Bomboy / Bleecker Street

Actor Aldis Hodge had to possess both the physicality and emotional depth to portray Brian Banks. “Aldis was that combination in one person,” says director Tom Shadyac.

A “Childlike” Filmmaker

In 1993, “I had gotten out of film school, and I was taking some meetings,” Shadyac says. “There was a script for Ace Ventura, but it was more of just an idea. It had some storytelling challenges, so I came up with a way to rewrite it.”

Shadyac had first seen a young comedian named Jim Carrey at The Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. He was a breakout star of the sketch comedy show In Living Color. “He was literally just this genius, bright light chewing up every scene he was in.”

Shadyac’s decision to cast Carrey would be a watershed moment in both of their lives — and in the annals of American film comedy. “Jim acted the movie out at the Hamburger Hamlet, a restaurant on the Sunset Strip,” Shadyac recalls. “I was there, and we put on a little show for the Morgan Creek executives, and they financed the movie.”

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective became a sleeper hit, earning $107 million at the box office on a $15 million budget. It made a superstar out of Carrey and put Shadyac on the Hollywood map. Shadyac would go on to work with Carrey again in 1997’s Liar Liar and 2003’s Bruce Almighty. “He’s got gifts and skills that I am in awe of — his intelligence, his specificity, his work ethic,” Shadyac says.

Shadyac’s skills with comedy talent didn’t go unnoticed by other actors. He made Patch Adams with Robin Williams and Evan Almighty with Steve Carell. In 1996, he directed Eddie Murphy in a remake of The Nutty Professor. “I think Eddie’s probably the most brilliant actor in the history of our business when it comes to becoming another character — creating a life, a specificity, a rhythm, an emotional history,” Shadyac says. “And he can do it on the spot.”

The director could have gone on making goofy (“I use the word ‘childlike,'” Shadyac says.) comedies indefinitely. But he was on the lookout for something different. “I always want to grow as an artist, so growth is its own challenge. I’ve tried not to repeat myself. Yes, there is a certain pressure that comes with success. Your last movie made this much money, so your next one needs to make more,” he says. “Success can breed stagnation. You stop listening. You feel your own power. You get less collaborative. For me, the challenge has always been, how do you keep those negative ideas at bay and try to grow as an artist?”

In 2002, he wrote and directed a drama called Dragonfly. “If you knew me, you would know that I’m not walking around yukking it up all the time,” he says. “I’ve got a spiritual side. I’m interested in what we call fate and God. What is this universal energy that puts the space and time drama in motion? Dragonfly was a way to express something different.”

Katherine Bomboy / Bleecker Street

Exonerated

Brian Banks had been on probation for four years when something unexpected happened. He was contacted on Facebook by the woman who, almost a decade earlier, had accused him of rape. She wanted to meet up and talk to him. Banks was wary at first — meeting his accuser face to face would be a violation of his parole. But it turned out to be worth it. The accuser admitted to Banks that, fearing she would get into trouble after being discovered out of class, she had lied about the rape. Banks, with the assistance of a private detective, recorded the confession. Armed with new proof, he finally got the California Innocence Project to take his case. In May 2012, the DA who had convicted Banks moved to dismiss all charges against him and expunge his record. The next year, Banks signed with the Atlanta Falcons, becoming one of the oldest rookies in the history of the league.

Katherine Bomboy / Bleecker Street

The Road To Memphis

“The bike accident made me want to express other parts of myself,” says Shadyac. “I realized my time was limited. I was staring death in the face, and death is the great clarifier.”

After years of recovery, he directed the documentary I Am, which he calls “the most personal picture I have done.” He started a homeless shelter in Charlottesville, Virginia, sold his house, and moved into a trailer park in Malibu. He started teaching film at Pepperdine University until his brother, Richard Shadyac Jr., CEO of ALSAC, asked him to come to the University of Memphis.

“So I did, and it’s turned into seven years. I never left,” he says. “There’s a soul to this place. There’s a reason that soul came out of here, and rock-and-roll. There’s a soul to this place that’s deep and dark, bright and rich. It can get ahold of you … I came here to teach, and I ended up being the one who was taught. I learned about my students’ stories and what they face with such courage and perseverance. It inspired me and changed me.”

Shadyac bought property in Soulsville and opened Memphis Rox, which was the first climbing gym in Memphis. “It’s a safe space for kids from all over Memphis to recreate,” he says.

As he taught, he was still trying to get back in the director’s chair. “There’s this misconception that I took 10 years off,” he says. “But the past 10 or 11 years, I’ve faced more than my share of rejection. … It was all part of me needing to be reinvented as an artist.”

In 2016, while he was teaching at LeMoyne-Owen College, Shadyac was contacted by producer Amy Baer. “She met Brian Banks and thought his film had to be made,” he says. “It felt very much like the stories of my students, who had faced challenges with courage and positivity. Because of my experience in Memphis, I felt that I might have the credibility to tell this story. I certainly was passionate about social justice issues, and young people that I cared about had been facing so many injustices and doing it with positivity. I started to explore it and think about the possibilities.

“When I met Brian, it sealed the deal. Brian is such a unique, brilliant soul, who has faced the darkest possibilities that a society can impose on a person. He remained positive and came out of it shining like the sun. That light that Brian is changed me, and we hope that it will change others. They’ll see a part of America that they didn’t know existed, and they’ll also see the power of an individual who can meet a challenge with such persistence that it can change everything around them.”

In the film, Aldis Hodge plays Banks. “I didn’t pick him. He seized the role,” says Shadyac.”It’s a really difficult role. There’s a physicality to it, so that automatically eliminates about 90 percent of the actors. Brian was a linebacker and destined for the pros. You have to have that strength and physicality. You have to have that depth of experience and soul. Aldis was that impossible combination in one person.”

Brian Banks was shot here at Shadyac’s Memphis Mountaintop Media, a film campus he developed in Soulsville. “In L.A., the gates are closed,” he says. “Here, we’re keeping the gates open. We want to serve the community with our art, and we want the community to be part of that art. … I believe accessibility is important. The misunderstanding about the movie industry is that everyone is a writer/actor/producer. No. Cooking is an art form. You have to feed a crew of 150-200 people. Makeup is an art form. Hair is an art form. Construction is an art form. There’s this myriad of jobs available, and communities like South Memphis need jobs.”

LeMoyne-Owen College graduate Jeffrey Garrison was one of 30 young Memphians who interned on the Brian Banks set. “I shadowed the different departments and ended up staying with the camera department. I even took off work to be up there almost every day,” Garrison says. “That was the first time I was around people shooting films. Everything was new to me, everything was just breathtaking. … That was 2017. Ever since then, I have been working in the film industry. Right now, I’m an office production assistant for the TV show Bluff City Law. So I’m still in it, and I have aspirations of becoming a producer. There’s no turning back for me. I made my mind up.”

Justice For All

When Brian Banks premieres this weekend in Memphis and all over the country, it will be the culmination of a long journey. Banks and California Innocence Project attorney Justin Brooks (played in the film by Greg Kinnear) are co-executive producers of the film.

“I’ve screened a lot of movies in my day and have had a lot of strong reactions. This movie is about the strongest reaction I have ever had from a film,” says Shadyac. “I think it’s an important picture, especially for people who want to see a part of America that they’re not familiar with. There’s not yet a system of justice for all. I think it’s important to see the African-American experience, where the scales of justice are not weighted in their favor. They’re forced to take pleas and serve sentences that are not just. We all have to look at it and take responsibility for it.

“The reason I did this picture was that Brian reflected such positivity in the face of such darkness. It’s a metaphor for whatever we’re going through. Brian was put into prison physically, but we’re all dealing with some kind of prison in our own lives. Brian provides a role model to meet those challenges with light and courage and positivity. If he could get through what he got through, most of us could certainly get through what we’re going through.”

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Family Matters: It’s Father vs. Daughter in Council District 6 Race

While the Memphis city election was still in the petition-pulling phase, it looked for a while that there might be several family members — mostly named Ford — who might be running against each other in pursuit of the same office.

By the time last month when both the filing and the withdrawal deadlines had come and gone and the Election Commission had certified an official candidate list, however, most of those intriguing matchups had failed to materialize. They were cases, generally, in which various candidates had considered a variety of races before settling on one, and, when the settling occurred, the potential familial rivalries disappeared from the election roster.

There was one exception: the District 6 City Council race, in which two candidates named Bond are competing — Perry Bond and Theryn Bond. They are father and daughter, as it happens, and when the two of them, along with candidates for other offices, turned up at AFSCME headquarters on Beale Street last Thursday for a forum sponsored by various Demoratic Party groups, the only reference to the pairing came from the senior Bond, who noted for the audience, “My daughter is in this race, too, and she has every right to be there.”

Jackson Baker

Theryn Bond Perry Bond

In her turn, Theryn Bond described her race as a venture in courage — appropriately enough, since, as she explained, she has in the last several months faced and overcome cervical cancer. Even before that, Theryn Bond made something of a name for herself at council meetings as an articulate and consistent opponent of the established order of things on the current council.

Alphabetical order being what it is, the two Bonds lead the list of candidates on the October 3rd ballot. That should help their vote totals in a district race which already has some drama. Edmund Ford Sr., the former holder of the seat, is attempting to regain it, and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, engaged in a running feud with Ford’s son, Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr., has endorsed yet another candidate, Davin Clemons, a minister/policeman who serves as the MPD’s liaison with the LGBTQ community.

• Yes, it’s true: Steve Cohen has an opponent. The 9th District Congressman, who has knocked off a serious string of Democratic challengers since 2006, when he first emerged victorious from a multi-candidate primary field, now faces a 2020 bid from Corey Strong, the former Shelby County Democratic chairman.

Strong acknowledges that Cohen has made the appropriate votes in Congress, supported legislation that a Democrat should have supported, properly backed up Democratic President Obama, and has correctly opposed Republican President Trump. Further, says Strong, the congressman has successfully become a factor in key national dialogues.

What he has failed to do, Strong maintains, is to bring jobs to a home region that desperately needs them. Strong even finds evidence of this alleged failure in a well-publicized stunt staged by Cohen last spring on the House Judiciary Committee. That was the occasion in May when the congressman ridiculed the failure of Attorney General William Barr to answer a subpoena by wolfing down pieces from a Kentucky Fried Chicken basket at his seat on the committee.

Cohen got headlines, both pro and con, and, says Strong, “I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is that we’ve got all kinds of local fried-chicken enterprises here in Memphis, and he could have made his point with them if he wanted. But he didn’t.”

Strong is well aware that Cohen, who is white and Jewish, has easily dispatched all previous would-be party rivals in his predominantly African-American Memphis district since that first victory in 2006. He has triumphed over Justin Ford, Willie Herenton, Tomeka Hart, Ricky Wilkins, and Nikki Tinker, all of whom had either name recognition or financial support or both.

He has done so, as Strong acknowledges, by careful attention to the needs of his constituency in most ways — save the aforementioned inability to raise the income level of his district.

Strong believes he can succeed at that task, where, he says, Cohen has not. And one way of demonstrating his prowess will be to raise a campaign budget that will allow him to compete with the financially well-endowed incumbent Congressman on relatively even terms.

“I will do that,” says Strong, a Naval Reserve officer who in 2017 became the renovated Shelby County Democratic Party’s bounce-back chairman after it was decommissioned by the state Democrats a year earlier during a period of internal stress and discord within the local party.

Strong acknowledges that Michael Harris, his successor as local party chairman, has had a difficult problem arousing support from party cadres because of issues stemming from his suspended law practice. But, says Strong, local Democrats have a duty to support their party.

The future congressional aspirations of current Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris have become so obvious as to make Harris’ ambitions something of a public proverb, and a good race next year by Strong, even if unsuccessful, could serve the purpose of setting up a future challenge against Mayor Harris. But Strong insists he is in the 9th District race this year to win.

• The 2019 session of the Tennessee General Assembly is over, but one of the key pieces of legislation that emerged from it — a bill to permit private school vouchers via public money — is apparently still subject to change.

It will be remembered that the bill barely passed the state House of Representatives, and did so only because then-House Speaker Glen Casada held open the vote for an hour, during which time he bargained with members opposed to the measure in an effort to change at least one vote.

That vote turned out to be that of Representative Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville), who succumbed to a pledge from Casada that the voucher bill would be rewritten to exclude Zachary’s home city.

With an eye toward future potential opposition in the state Senate, the bill was rewritten, in fact, to exclude all localities except Memphis and Nashville, which became the sole subjects of what was now styled as a “pilot” program.

A vigorous opponent of the bill, which was a pet project of Governor Bill Lee, was Representative Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville), who has now become Speaker in the wake of a scandal that forced Casada out of the position.

Sexton continues to oppose vouchers and wishes at the very least to delay their onset. Lee, meanwhile, has reacted to the change of circumstance by expressing a desire to speed up the implementation of vouchers from 2021 to 2020. The coming legislative session may well come to focus on the struggle over the issue between the two leaders.

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Moondance Grill Slated to Open Early September in Germantown

Get ready for “Moondance Grill,” a new Germantown restaurant from Liz and Tommy Peters and the Beale Street Blues Co., which brought you Itta Bena, the restaurant above B. B. King’s Blues Club, and Lafayette’s Music Room in Overton Square.

Peters, president of Beale Street Blues Co., came up with the name. “After my favorite artist — Van Morrison,” Tommy says.

The new restaurant, slated to open in early September, is at 1730 Germantown Parkway. The restaurant actually is “on Neshoba off Germantown Parkway,” Tommy says. “In front of Germantown Performing Arts Center.”

“We wanted to have a nice, social bar in Germantown and a place for people to have fun,” Liz says. “We didn’t want it to be stuffy. We didn’t want it to be formal. We didn’t want it to be too casual. But somewhere in between.”

“We can’t ever duplicate Itta Bena,“ Tommy says. But, he adds, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s influenced by elements from four or five of our favorite grills across the country.“

The restaurant will feature an oversized bar area with a rectangular bar with 32 seats.

Moondance will have a grand piano, acoustic guitar, and “some saxophone,” Tommy says. “All background music. Quiet music. Everything we do has elements of music to it.”

It will feature an open kitchen, “which we’ve never done before,” Tommy says.


Food will range from “good seafood to steaks and great salads,” he continues.


And a “large small-plate menu,” Liz says.


Moondance will feature a raw bar with a jumbo shrimp cocktail and other items.


All the food is “classic-style” with “good quality,” Tommy says. “Food with simplicity. Real butter. Lemon.”


They don’t plan to change their menu, unless something doesn’t work, Tommy says.

Moondance also will include a 42-seat weatherized patio with air conditioning, heat, and a roof.


So why is Morrison Tommy’s favorite artist? “He is a true artist ,and he plays from his heart and soul for himself,” Tommy says.

Tommy, who’s seen Morrison in concert “probably 22 times,” says Morrison “plays how he feels.”


And why did Tommy choose “Moondance” over other Morrison songs? “If you put that song on, it’s the vibe that I want from this place,” he says, quoting the line, “What a marvelous night for a moon dance.”


“What I do is create subliminal moods through the music,” Tommy says. And, he adds, “If you listen to ‘Moondance,’ that’s the vibe I want every piece of this place to evoke. If you listen to that song and have a glass of wine and you’re seeing people talking around you, it’s sensual. Music is spiritual. And it’s the one medium that can take you back and make you feel.


“People will want to escape and feel great when they’re in our environment. And hopefully get away from their troubles.”


Categories
News News Blog

Memphis Pets of the Week (August 6-August 12)

Each week, the Flyer will feature adoptable dogs and cats from Memphis Animal Services. All photos are credited to Memphis Pets Alive. More pictures and more information can be found on the Memphis Pets Alive Facebook page.

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Memphis Gaydar News

CHOICES Receives Grant to Support LGBTQ Health Care

CREDIT: Facebook/CHOICES

Facebook/CHOICES

CHOICES’ main clinic on Poplar

CHOICES: Memphis Center for Reproductive Health is receiving a $5,000 grant to assist in its efforts to transform LGBTQ health equity in the South.

CHOICES, a non-profit that offers reproductive health care services here, including transgender healthcare, is one of four recipients of the community grant.

The Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE), an Asheville, North Carolina-based organization working to improve LGBTQ equality in all areas, also awarded grants to organizations in Asheville, Greenville, South Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia.

CSE awarded a total of $30,000 to CHOICES and the other three organizations in an effort to “promote innovations in providing health care to better serve LGBTQ Southerners.”

“The infusion of funding to organizations on the leading edge of serving LBGTQ Southerners is designed to support new models in the South that increase access to care and ensure that people are treated with dignity and respect in health care settings,” a statement from CSE reads.

More than one third of all LGBTQ Americans live in the South, where they experience “disproportionate health disparities,” according to the group.

“The South is the epicenter for the modern HIV crisis in the United States, particularly for transgender women of color and black men who have sex with men,” CSE’s statement continues. “Transgender and non-binary Southerners are frequently confronted with ignorance or discrimination while seeking care.”

Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of CSE said health care is a “human right that is fundamental to being able to survive and thrive.” The goal is for the grant recipients to use “innovation and grit to create new models to help Southern LGBTQ people access the care they need and deserve,” Beach-Ferrara adds.

With the grant, CHOICES plans to provide free sexually-transmitted infections (STI) testing, education, and referrals to LGBTQ patients through a pilot program in partnership with OUTMemphis.

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“With funds from the Southern Equality Fund, CHOICES is excited to work with our local partner to provide free STI testing and linkage to care for LGBTQ persons in Memphis,” Katy Leopard, assistant director of CHOICES, said.

Currently, CHOICES provides wellness exams to LGBTQ patients that include breast exams, birth control consultation, HIV testing, hormone management, and overall health evaluations.

Leopard said the clinic has nearly 200 transgender patients in the Mid-South area and that it can be difficult for those patients to find care elsewhere in Memphis.

“It’s very difficult for that population to find caring providers who ask questions in the right way and don’t ask unnecessary questions,” Leopard said. “A lot of our transgender patients have been wronged by the healthcare system. So they have a real wariness when coming to see a healthcare provider at all. So the fact that they see CHOICES as a place where they can come and be respected and valued is really big.”

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Music Music Blog

From Continuum Fest to A Change of Tone, Crosstown Keeps It Edgy

CREDIT: Ben Rednour

Ben Rednour

Jenny Davis plays amplified cacti in John Cage’s ‘Child of Tree’ at the 2018 Continuum Fest

While several cities have renovated former Sears, Roebuck & Company warehouses/retail centers, including Minneapolis, Atlanta and Boston, Memphis’ own Crosstown Concourse may take the cake in terms of grounding such projects in community art projects and concerts. And, far from curating softball ‘pops’ concerts and blockbuster movies, Crosstown Arts, the nonprofit that jump started the local Sears building’s revitalization in 2010, has kept the “urban” in its original vision of a “mixed-used vertical urban village.”

In this context, urban means bringing to Midtown the kind of pioneering music that one might find at world-class halls like the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) or C4 Atlanta’s FUSE Arts Center.  With three venues, an artist fellowship program, a recording studio, a music film series, and other resources for local and international musicians (and other artists), Crosstown Arts has become one of the nation’s premier centers of innovation.

Case in point: the upcoming Continuum Music Festival, now in its third year, which, in hosting events in the Crosstown Theater, the Green Room, and the East Atrium Stage, may make the fullest use yet of all the old retail center’s environs. As a festival of new sounds, from experimental to electronic, classical to multimedia, Continuum is beyond most precedents in the local scene. Headlining is Project Logic, featuring local bass wunderkind MonoNeon, guitar virtuoso Vernon Reid (Living Colour), and drummer Daru Jones. The festival also features Opera Memphis’ staging of the transgender-themed work As One, a chamber opera created by Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell, and Kimberly Reed.

CROSSTOWN ARTS PRESENTS: CONTINUUM MUSIC FESTIVAL 2019 from Crosstown Arts on Vimeo.

From Continuum Fest to A Change of Tone, Crosstown Keeps It Edgy

The kick-off show on Thursday, August 15th features the Blueshift Ensemble playing compositions by longtime collaborators from the ICEBERG New Music collective and is to be held at Crosstown Brewing Company.The festival will also feature a Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel, a concert by multi-instrumentalist New Memphis Colorways, and a performance of Sarah Hennies’ ‘The Reinvention of Romance’ by Two Way Street.

Finally, like any good gathering of the tribes, there will be many interactive workshops and talks: Sweet Soul Restorative (Yoga with Live Music); The Quest for the Perfect Pop Song; The Metaphysics of Sound; Sheltering Voices: Impactful Community Storytelling; Breaking Boundaries: The Music of ShoutHouse; and The Sounds of ‘Starry Night:’ Writing Music to Van Gogh’s Masterpiece.

But Continuum is really only among many examples of the cutting edge curation of the Crosstown Concourse space going on now. In addition to last year’s Mellotron Variations or this spring’s Memphis Concrète electronic music festival, more ideas are percolating in the wings. For example, musical artists who are pushing the very boundaries of how concerts are experienced will be featured in next spring’s A Change of Tone concerts.  

Four such shows are planned for April 18th-21st, 2020, but we don’t yet know what we’ll hear. Musicians of any genre are applying to be featured as we go to press, and may do so until September 10th of this year. Click here to submit a proposal.

One thing they all will have in common is thinking outside of the music box, or rather, outside of the venue. Subtitled “In/Out of Sync,” the concerts will be organized around a weirdly specific, yet open ended theme: Musicians will “exhibit” their music for a listening audience over loudspeakers in one venue as they simultaneously perform it in another, creating a non-traditional listening experience.

With a live-feeds between The Green Room music venue and Crosstown Theater, audio from the latter will be piped over to the audience in The Green Room to listen to, as the musicians, out of sight, perform their original work live in the otherwise empty Crosstown Theater auditorium. The second feed will video-capture The Green Room audience for the performing musicians in the theater to see on a screen, so that they may virtually watch their audience as they play. With such technological feats, concert organizers hope the performers “might achieve a vivid and seemingly living omnipresence.” As the organizers further expound:

Similar to the experience of being inside of a haunted house or abandoned building, this spectral approach to auditory perception will be, among other things, a sonic experiment in vulnerability. It will be an attempt to enhance and heighten the audio-sensory experience for the listener, and perhaps will intensify the presence and impact that music can have when our fight-or-flight response is instinctively activated, giving the sounds we hear the power to demand our full attention.

It’s an embarrassment of riches, really, for those hoping to reimagine their sonic art. In fact, the many series at the Concourse may be remaking the musical arts as Crosstown Arts remade the empty shell of an abandoned retail center only a few short years ago.