Month: August 2019

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Ready or Not

Weddings should be a joyous time — a celebration of love between two people, and a joining together of two families. The ceremony and reception bring the community together. It is one of our most enduring rituals.

But let’s face it — weddings can also be a stressful time. Emotions are running high. A lot of money is being spent to ensure that everything goes exactly as planned. There’s a lot of opportunity for family conflict to spill out into the public sphere. Just because the bride and groom love each other doesn’t mean that the new in-laws have anything in common.

Also, there’s an outside chance that your newest relatives will try to kill you.

Samara Weaving plays a deadly serious postnuptial game of hide and seek in Ready or Not.

Grace (Samara Weaving) is about to get the wedding of her dreams. Her fiancé Alex (Mark O’Brien) is the scion of the Le Domas family, and they are loaded. We’re talking one-percenter rich, with a huge, sprawling family mansion that dates back to the Victorian age. They’ve got so much filthy lucre you’d think they made a deal with the devil a few generations back.

But Alex doesn’t necessarily get along with his family. As Grace and Alex get their courage up for the ceremony, we learn that he hasn’t been home in years. They only met 18 months ago, and Grace didn’t even know about all the money until recently. The introductions to the Le Domas family have been a little awkward, to say the least. Dowager matriarch Helene (Nicky Guadagni) glares at Grace with a silent, barely contained malevolence. Alex’s father Tony (Henry Czerny) openly criticizes his son and new daughter-in-law, and mother Becky (Andie MacDowell) makes only token attempts to defend the new girl in the family. Alex’s sister Emilie (Melanie Scrofano) sees the ceremony as yet another excuse to party. Cousin Fitch (Kristian Bruun) sees the whole thing as a tedious inconvenience. No one is thrilled about letting a potential gold digger like Grace get a claim on the family fortune, especially since she and Alex eschewed the usual three-year courtship for an “18-month bone-a-thon.” Maybe they should have just eloped.

But no, Grace is determined to get into the family’s good graces. So the guests — so, so many guests — arrive, the vows are exchanged, the cake eaten, and the champagne sipped. Things go off without a hitch. Then, just as Grace is getting ready to slip out of her exquisitely tasteful wedding gown and get down to postnuptial coital business, Alex stops her. There’s one more wedding tradition to attend to, one the Le Domas family takes even more seriously than the vows. You see, great-grandfather Le Domas made his initial fortune in playing cards before expanding to board games and then, eventually, owning professional sports teams. They’re all about playing games and sticking to the rules. After all, that’s how they amassed this ungodly fortune. So every time a new spouse is added to the family, she or he must draw a card from a special box. On it will be the name of a game, like tiddlywinks or Parcheesi. Then the assembled Le Domases will play the game together, and the new family member will be officially welcomed into the fold.

But maybe since Grace and Alex saw each other before the ceremony on their wedding day, Grace draws the one bad card in the bunch: hide-and-seek. Grace is given a 100-count to hide somewhere in the sprawling mansion, and then the other family members have until dawn to find her and sacrifice her to Satan.

You don’t remember weddings or hide-and-seek going like that? Maybe you were doing them wrong.

Ready or Not is a nasty little bit of exploitation satire in the tradition of Little Shop of Horrors, and I’m frankly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Once things get rolling, it basically becomes Die Hard in a haunted house. Weaving, whose pretty wedding dress tracks the progression of the plot by becoming more and more torn and blood-stained, carries the picture. Her surly, foul-mouthed asides call to mind Bruce Willis’ star-making turn as put-upon policeman John McClane. Like Willis, she plays the whole thing with a little wink to the audience, like when she pauses for a second when she sees a mirror to admire how her ammo bandolier sets off the lace in her wedding dress. The Le Domases are a parade of rich-jerk stereotypes (the fright-wigged Helene gets a laugh when she arms herself with a literal battle axe), and it’s lucky for Grace that none of them are very good shots. I guess the rich really are different from you and me — unless, that is, you’re a murderous Satanist.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Al Rayess: Drinking Lebanese Beer in Iraq

CREDIT: Facebook

You’ve never really seen the sunny Shi’a south in Iraq until you’ve seen it at midnight, when it’s still 91 degrees. It looks pretty much like you are picturing it right now, unless you haven’t turned on the news for a decade. Then it’s hard to explain.

Earlier that evening, I’d attended a meeting of community leaders discussing the establishment of a regional medical center and had managed to accidentally get myself on national television. Which is why I always travel with a blazer or a suit: You really don’t want to get caught in an international incident and not be properly turned out.

This was all pre-ISIS, back when no one was taking the civil war all that seriously. In the north, around Baghdad, you could buy booze. Despite the U.S. “withdrawal,” our people are all over the place there. Things were a little trickier in the south, where there were what we’d call Blue Laws. And like drinking in a dry county, life was easier if you knew a guy. During a civil war, everyone has a guy.

Facebook

Which is how I wound up with some of the nicest, most interesting people I’d ever met, drinking Lebanese beer in the back of a café. It was called Al Rayess, and it tasted, more or less, like an Amstel Light. I know this because there was some of that in the cooler as well — imported courtesy of the U.S. Armed Forces. How the café owner managed to get his hands on the stuff way down south, I have no idea. It seemed rude to ask, but I suspect there was a quartermaster sergeant somewhere in the Green Zone sending some fat checks back to the family — and more power to him.

The Arabs prize eloquence almost as much as Americans sneer at it. A formal debate is like dueling orations, theatrical and profound, and to Westerners, a bit stifling. Then you break rank and head out to some café that’s supposed to be closed. But you know a guy and you have a beer and it tastes like an Amstel Light.

The eloquence is still there, the poetic allusions and the vivid imagery, but the stifling orations evaporate. That’s when the theatrics get replaced with humor. While I was a lad at CBHS, for instance, they failed to lean into the part in the Epic of Gilgamesh where the priestess of Inanna has sex with a feral man in order to make him human. And then gets him drunk. Now that’s funny.

And I was drinking the best beer in the world. Not the one with the innovative take on a traditional style, or the most traditional style for that matter. Sometimes where the hops come from or how its malted makes less difference than a clean, light cooler that tastes like Amstel Light on a hot night, in a not strictly legal café, taking shelter from a world gone mean and unspeakably cruel.

And why not? Al Rayess is a refreshing beer, crisp and light. Fortunately, my translator, whom I’ll call Rafiq, was drinking a non-alcoholic Almaza NA, so while the conversation relaxed, we were still making ourselves understood. I asked Rafiq how the Almaza was, and he gave me the squinting-and-rocking-the-hand-back-and-forth motion. Apparently the “This’ll do” sign is universal, across all languages and beers.

They thanked America for overthrowing Saddam Hussein, which they either couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Either way, we did, and they were grateful. Like eloquence, Arabs also prize good manners, again almost as much as Americans like to sneer at them. So they were very polite when they asked why, despite the withdrawal, the Americans were still around? They liked me personally, they said, and asked — still smiling but not entirely joking — if we could please just go away.

I drank to that. Oh, boy, did I drink to that.

Categories
Cover Feature News

By Air and By Land! Memphis Football Goes for Glory

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

We measure eras differently when it comes to University of Memphis football. Can three years possibly represent an “era” in Tiger history? In the case of the three seasons (so far) under head coach Mike Norvell, the answer is a resounding yes.

Under Norvell, Memphis has won 26 games, as many as his predecessor, Justin Fuente, won in four seasons and more than Rip Scherer (remember him?) could win in six. With merely five wins this fall — count on them — Norvell will move into fifth on the Tigers’ all-time wins chart. Still just 37 years old (he turns 38 on October 11th), Norvell’s fourth Memphis team has been picked to win its division of the American Athletic Conference a third straight season. The Norvell era is still taking shape, yet has already established historical status in these parts.

Photographs by Larry Kuzniewski

“Each day is an opportunity to get better,” says University of Memphis head football coach Mike Norvell.

“I’m excited about where we are,” says Norvell. “When you take a job, you have hopes that the program will progress, that it’s going to be perceived well locally and nationally. You want to recruit and improve personnel each and every year. Looking back over the last three years, I think we’ve done that. We’re relevant nationally. We had to show that Memphis football could sustain success. We’ve shown that Memphis football is here to stay.”

Despite a 1-3 start in American Athletic Conference play last season, the Tigers reached the AAC championship game by winning their final four regular-season games. Memphis lost (again) to UCF in the title game but finished the season with an 8-6 record, giving the program five straight winning seasons for the first time in four decades (1973-77). Throw in a pair of Top-25 finishes (after the 2014 and 2017 seasons), and the U of M has indeed reached a tier unrecognizable to previous generations of Tiger fans.

“We’ve enhanced the program in lots of ways, on the field and off,” emphasizes Norvell. “Three of the last four semesters we’ve had the top GPA academically in the program’s history. So it’s all over. I take a great deal of pride in that. But we talk about that hard-earned culture. It’s every single day; we are challenged, and we challenge others. Each day is an opportunity to get better.”

For a second straight year, the Tiger offense is losing a first-team All-America, with running back Darrell Henderson now cashing checks with the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. A team that averaged 45.5 points per game in 2017 (second in the country) and 42.9 last year (seventh) intends to reload, and with some familiar faces.

Damonte Coxie and Patrick Taylor

Back in the fold this year is Henderson’s 2018 ball-carrying partner in crime, Patrick Taylor, who managed to rush for 1,122 yards and 16 touchdowns last season despite playing a supporting role to Henderson. Taylor actually carried the ball only six fewer times than Henderson in 2018, though the latter averaged a ridiculous 8.9 yards per carry. Taylor averaged “only” 5.4 yards. With 1,012 yards this season, Taylor would pass Henderson for second place on the Tigers’ career-rushing chart.

Taylor may have the best smile on the Tigers’ roster, but he’s almost placid in evaluating the role he expects to play as a senior. “I want to be the best player I can be for my teammates,” he says. “The best leader I can be, and help our team win games. I know I have to step up, and the standard has been raised for me. If the team needs me to carry the ball more, I’ll do it. Stay true to myself.”

Also back to help fuel the Tigers’ attack is receiver Damonte Coxie. The junior from Louisiana had the impossible task last year of following Anthony Miller (a 2017 All-America) as the Tigers’ primary downfield target. But even with a pair of 1,000-yard rushers, Coxie managed to catch 72 passes (fourth-most in Memphis history) for 1,174 yards, a total that would top the Tiger record book were it not for Miller’s last two seasons in blue and gray.

“I practiced and played with Ant,” says Coxie. “I knew how he worked, the way he would grind. I knew if I worked that way, I’d be all right.” Coxie is the opposite of the pass-catching divas who seem to absorb camera time on NFL Sundays. He goes about his offseason work methodically, with an emphasis on improving his nutrition and getting the right amount of sleep (he won’t stay up past 11 p.m.). And forget playing for statistics. “My mom, my family . . . that’s my personal goal for everything,” says Coxie. “I want to make sure I’m doing right for them. I want to make sure we all stay focused. Last year, we got high and low, ups and downs. It’s easy to get complacent.”

Coxie will lead a receiving corps that includes Pop Williams (33 catches for 304 yards as a junior) and not one, but two senior tight ends who could land all-conference honors: Joey Magnifico and Sean Dykes.

Tiger quarterback Brady White has embraced Grind City.

They’ll be catching passes from quarterback Brady White. After transferring from Arizona State before the 2018 season, White started all 14 games, passing for 3,296 yards with 26 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. (White will play this fall as a redshirt-junior.) Less about numbers than attitude and approach, White has embraced what he recognizes as a football culture designed — intentionally — for sustained success.

“It starts with one day at a time,” White notes. “What are you doing in the spring, in those times by yourself? Are you maximizing that time? In the off time, are you taking care of your body, recovering properly? Little things help you stack those boxes of success and get one-percent better every day.”

When White struggled last season — at Navy, at Tulane — all the Tigers’ star power wasn’t enough to earn a win. With a year under his belt, White sees his own improvement wrapped into the “hard-earned culture” Norvell is creating in Memphis. “It’s how we grind,” says White. “This is Grind City, right? Our mentality is what sets this culture apart. It’s not me, but the guys who came before me. We’re trying to build on that standard. When you don’t have the strength coaches yelling at guys for missing lines during runs, that’s player-led [growth]. I feel like I’m a part of that [leadership] group, my brothers on this team. I see people stepping up, being more vocal. This is it. You hold your best players accountable, and they set the standard.”

The offensive line entrusted with protecting White returns only two starters: senior center Dustin Woodard (the former guard is on the Outland Trophy watch list) and sophomore guard Dylan Parham. But Norvell likes the depth of this position group, and Taylor — the man craving gaps through which to run — sees little reason for concern. “The offensive line made some good strides in the spring,” Taylor says. “They opened a lot of holes, and they’ve gotten better with summer conditioning. I’m very confident in them.”

“I don’t have any concerns,” White adds. “We have young guys with a lot of ability, and they’ll step into their roles. They’ve shown a lot of growth since spring [practice]. They’re super-talented, so the potential is really high. Day by day, rep by rep.”

Veteran linebackers should fuel the Tiger defense under new coordinator Adam Fuller. Austin Hall, J.J. Russell, and Tim Hart were among the Tigers’ top 10 tacklers a season ago. Senior Bryce Huff led the team with 9.5 sacks last season and moves up to the defensive line this year, where he’ll torment opposing quarterbacks from the edge. Leading the secondary will be junior cornerback T.J. Carter, a second-team all-conference honoree in 2018 and on the watch list for the Jim Thorpe Award this season.

While the Tiger offense has surged in recent years, the defense has surrendered its share of points, finishing 94th in the country last season with 31.9 points allowed per game. Fuller smiles when asked about his plan for the Memphis defense: “To not give up points,” he says. “It’s not broken here on defense,” adds Fuller, who joins the Tiger program after six years at Marshall, the last as DC. “They’ve played well enough to play for the conference championship the last two years. But there needs to be improvement. When we talk about how we want to look, we want a fast, tough, smart group. That’s all-encompassing. And it’s not just running fast. It’s being able to teach fast, to learn fast, to get lined up fast, to react fast. Communication needs to be clean and concise.”

With the exception of Huff, there’s been little position shifting under Fuller’s watch. His chief interest is in seeing how the position groups meld into a single, solitary, game-changing unit. “The pass rush and coverage work in unison,” he emphasizes. “They’re not independent of one another. Whether you’re playing man or zone coverage, they always work in unison. Full-unit meetings are important. That’s when you sell the cohesiveness, the reliability on each other.”

It’s not just veteran talent that will shape the Tigers’ 2019 season. In one conversation, Norvell mentions no fewer than eight members of his most recent recruiting class he expects to make an impact immediately: defensive linemen Everitt Cunningham and Jalil Clemons, cornerback Maliek Stallings, defensive back Rodney Owens, running back Dreke Clark, and a trio of receivers (Tahj Washington, Javon Ivory, and Cam Baker). This is how success multiplies upon itself in college football, how a legitimate era is built. Lose a class with four winning seasons in the books? Welcome another with four winning seasons to create.

Motivation for the season ahead? You might start with those two losses in the AAC title game (both played in Orlando). Memphis shared an AAC championship with two other teams in 2014, before the league split into a pair of divisions, but an outright title has remained elusive. Then there’s the program’s bowl performances. Since beating BYU in an epic Miami Beach Bowl after the 2014 season, the Tigers have lost four straight postseason games, including the 2017 AutoZone Liberty Bowl, played in their home stadium. Work remains to be done.

“You want to finish a season hoisting a trophy,” Norvell says. “We’ve had [losses in] two one-possession games. There have been unique circumstances: coaching changes, players not available. But we compete to win every single game. We learn from our experience. You have to trust the process. We’ve been in position to win but just came up short.”

“The big thing about goals,” adds White, “is that they have to be realistic. For me, I expect to go 1-0 every week. That’s my team goal. Personally, I have goals, but I lay them out in phases. There’s an ultimate goal for the end of the season, but there are smaller goals — month by month — that I need to achieve to reach that ultimate goal. You can’t overlook anyone. Even the games you may feel confident going in, you need to get the job done. All that matters is going 1-0.”

Patrick Taylor ran for 1,122 yards in 2018.

The two players on the cover of this week’s issue will have a significant impact on the 2019 Tiger football season, and there’s some irony to their leading the program’s continued rise. Taylor is a native of Humble, Texas, and Coxie hails from Reserve, Louisiana. It’s hard to be humble, much less reserved, if the goal is an AAC championship or — dare we dream — a New Year’s Six bowl game.

Leave it to Coxie for a final thought on what’s to come for Memphis football. “We want a [conference] championship,” he says. “We want to win a bowl game. We talk about what we want, but now we get to see how much we really want it. We gotta go get it.”

Categories
Music Music Features

HEELS: Good People Doing Bad Things

Good People Even Do Bad Things is the title of the new HEELS album. “That is a Mr. Rogers reference,” says Joshua McLane, who is one half of HEELS. “And also an Insane Clown Posse reference.”

“It’s a Mr. Rogers sample that’s at the beginning of a song by the Insane Clown Posse,” says Brennan Whalen, the other half.

“Every time we come home from a tour, we listen to the same Insane Clown Posse song called ‘Southwest Song,'” McLane says.

The song means they’re off the road and headed home, he says. “To a certain degree, it means if ‘Southwest Song’ is playing, it’s time to wake up because you’re about to have to pull some gear into the house before you go home.”

To raise money to make the record, which was produced by Toby Vest and Pete Matthews, McLane sold “hundreds of comic books” and “dozens of wrestling toys.” They also held a raffle. Whoever won the raffle got to shock McLane and Whalen, who were wearing dog collars, with a remote control. “There was one dude that held it down for a little too long,” Whalen says. “This one random dude who put in like 100 bucks.”

Last March, HEELS signed with Altercation Records. “It’s a punk label out of Austin and New York City,” McLane says. Which means he and Whalen don’t have to “physically put those albums in those record stores.”

McLane and Whalen bonded in 2012 when they were in the metal band, Hombres. Whalen wrote a song, “Our Savage Lord,” which was about wrestler Randy Savage. McLane and Whalen began hanging out, watching wrestling together. Whalen wanted to continue playing his Americana-style solo songs, so he asked McLane if he’d play drums with him. HEELS, a wrestling term for “bad guy,” was formed.

Brennan writes most of the lyrics, and McLane “orchestrates” and also “brings songs to the table.”

“King Drunk,” the first single from the album, is “essentially like a breakup song with my on-again off-again partner — alcohol,” Whalen says.

One of the lines is, “If you see her, tell her I was wrong. If you see her, tell her I didn’t write this song.”

“That’s maybe one of my favorite lines Brennan’s ever, ever written,” McLane says.

Another favorite Whalen line is from “Antics”: “I don’t love you because we’re different. I don’t love you because we’re the same. I don’t love you.”

“‘Bright Red’ is kind of a love song from the point of view of somebody that’s going through dementia,” Whalen says. “So it’s like you’re basically singing to somebody you’re forgetting about.”

“Box of Porn in the Woods” is a “hyper-sexualized love song” to his wife, Whalen says. “It’s about thinking my wife is really hot and also how I want to build a Ted Kaczynski compound somewhere with her out in the middle of the woods.”

McLane wrote the music and lyrics to “Picking Fights Like a Coward,” which he says is “about starting shit with people on local news comment sections at three o’clock in the morning when you want to feel good about yourself. I like quoting Bible verses back to people who are being very racist or hateful.”

He and Whalen didn’t labor over each song for months like they did on their other four recordings. “We didn’t want to, for lack of a better term — ‘Leonard Cohen’ it — keep working on it till it’s just dead in the water. Not fun anymore.”

But each song still sounds like a HEELS song. “It’s still upbeat. It’s Brennan making you very sad with his lyrics while you still love him more, which is just something insanity does. And me getting bored with dynamics very quickly.”

HEELS is the perfect musical partnership, McLane says. “I’ve never been in a band where I could say whatever I want about whatever I want, whether that be with a riff or a lyric or anything. And that’s what this is.

“We’re brutally honest when it comes to ourselves and to each other. And that can’t help but come out in the songs. That, and we just want everybody to think we’re cool.”

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

No Mayoral Debates; Herenton and Strickland Opt Out

With little more than a month left in the city election contest, the bad news is that there will almost certainly be no public debate featuring the three major candidates for mayor against each other.

The key point is that former Mayor Willie Herenton will not debate. He has made his position clear, most recently last Friday night, on the occasion of the Shelby County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day banquet, which both he and Mayor Jim Strickland attended. (Mayoral candidate Tami Sawyer harshly criticized them both for doing so.) 

In between bouts of glad-handing with the GOP gentry, Herenton engaged in a running criticism of the local news media, which he maintains have never treated him fairly. He somehow drew a connection between that highly arguable premise and the concept of facing off, even if independently of any direct control by the media, against his mayoral opponents.

Herenton shmoozing at GOP dinner

“I understand the idea of ‘fake news,'” said Herenton. “I’ve always had to deal with it myself.” He said he was writing a book about his public life as superintendent and mayor, one that would feature numerous instances of bad faith treatment of him by the media.

The former mayor formally rejected an invitation to appear in a now-aborted September 19th debate co-sponsored by several local entities, including The Commercial Appeal, the NAACP, and WMC-TV, which had planned to televise it. He seemed to be irritated by the fact that the affair was established as to time and place before he was notified of it, though he indicated that he would have been disinclined to participate in any case.

Herenton’s refusal to be involved led to the cancellation of the event, inasmuch as Strickland had made it clear that he would not consent to any debate format involving Sawyer that did not also involve Herenton. Strickland had initially accepted the debate invitation “conditionally” but withdrew his willingness to participate in the wake of Herenton’s refusal.

Only Sawyer and LeMichael Wilson, the other two candidates who had met the benchmark requirement of having raised at least $30,000, had made unqualified acceptances of the debate invitation. And Sawyer has been especially avid for an opportunity to appear on the same stage as Strickland, who has been just as determined to avoid any situation that had the appearance of being a one-on-one with her, or anything close to it. A debate sans Herenton would, in his estimation, have created that situation.

Photographs by Jackson Baker

Strickland at GOP Lincoln Day dinner

Bad feeling between Strickland and Sawyer has persisted at least since the prolonged public debate involving removal of the city’s Downtown Confederate monuments. 

As a councilman, Strickland had voted in favor of removing the statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis from their pedestals in Downtown parks. And, as mayor, he worked through existing legal channels to have them removed, until, repeatedly rebuffed by the state Historical Commission, he and legal advisor Bruce McMullen hit upon the expedient of deeding the parks over to an ad hoc nonprofit organization, which then removed them.

But Sawyer, whose Take ‘Em Down 901 organization was at the forefront of public protests demanding removal of the monuments, had been dissatisfied with the mayor’s leadership in the process of removal, deeming it slow, over-cautious, and too accepting of existing legal obstacles. She oversaw daily vigils at the site of the Forrest statue, demanding radical and immediate action.

In the aftermath of the statues’ removal, both Strickland and Sawyer received their share of kudos, but each felt that the other had received too much credit. 

In the current campaign, Sawyer has continued her harsh criticism of the mayor and what she considers his unresponsiveness to social needs in the community at large. She campaigned locally with CNN pundit Angela Rye and did not repudiate Rye’s statement that Strickland was a “racist.”

As of now, in any case, the three major mayoral campaigns are all proceeding along separate pathways, with no opportunity for joint appearances or collegial presentations. Another likely casualty of this circumstance is a Mayoral Candidate Meet-and-Greet, co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Tennessee Nurses Association and set for Friday, September 6th, at the National Civil Rights Museum. Herenton had also reportedly turned down an invitation to debate from the Urban League.

While at the Lincoln Day dinner on Friday night, Herenton explained to the Flyer and Peg Watkins of the League of Women Voters, which is continuing to seek his participation in its meet-and-greet, that his campaign strategy would be based on a series of meetings which he would control — an instance of which was a Women for Herenton rally held on Saturday in South Memphis. 

At the rally, attended by upwards of 1,000 women, virtually all African-American, Herenton told the attendees, “I don’t mind telling you what part of our strategy is. We’re going to win the election in early voting. We’re going to have a caravan of buses. We’re going to have vans called the Herenton Express. We’ll do an early voting like they have never seen before.”

Sawyer, who has been holding a series of neighborhood meet-and-greets, has built up something of a Midtown base. She also got a boost this week with a public endorsement from Our Revolution, the national progressive organization that was founded as an offshoot of the 2016 presidential campaign waged by Bernie Sanders. She also tweeted with justifiable pride an endorsement by Hillary Clinton via the progressive vehicle Run for Something.

Strickland, meanwhile, has launched an extensive series of radio and TV ads touting his accomplishments and has indicated he is prepared to spend every penny of the $1 million in his campaign budget in the course of this election battle.

Editor’s note: In an earlier version of this story, it was inferred that candidate Tami Sawyer was connected to a protest by a group of activists who intruded on Mayor Strickland’s lawn. Sawyer was not a participant in that event. — BV

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Beat the Train: U of M Pedestrian Bridge Opens

CREDIT: Trey Clark/University of Memphis

Last Wednesday, University of Memphis’ new Hunter Harrison Memorial Bridge opened to the public, allowing students to cross over the railroad tracks that divide the campus between Walker and Southern Avenues.

“This bridge is a huge accomplishment, especially for the students, because for decades, they’ve been having to go across the railroad tracks to get from the south part of campus to the main part of the campus,” says Connie Thiemonge, assistant director of alumni relations at the University of Memphis. “We’re always concerned for student safety. And this has been years negotiating with the railroad companies and making sure that we can make this happen to keep the students safe.”

Construction on the bridge (and a new parking garage and amphitheater) began in May 2018 and wrapped up this month, right on track with the original projected deadline and just in time for the fall 2019 semester.

Trey Clark/University of Memphis

Like a bridge over busy train tracks

Trey Clark/University of Memphis

“We’ve been getting some fantastic responses from our alumni and friends on social media,” Thiemonge says. “Our alums can remember having to cross those tracks and ‘beat the train’ to get to class. Now that situation won’t be a problem. So we’re very excited to be able to offer this to our students.”

To celebrate, the University of Memphis Alumni Association hosts a bridge lighting in the new UofM Alumni Mall Amphitheatre this Friday. Open to the public, this event features performances by Mighty Sound of the South, Memphis Second Line Jazz Band, the Spirit Squad, and Pouncer.

“Pouncer is going to have a special guest push the magic button and bring the lights up,” says Thiemonge.

Guests are welcome to bring lawn chairs and blankets, and food and drink will be available for purchase.

Hunter Harrison Memorial Bridge Lighting, University of Memphis, Friday, August 30th, 7-9 p.m., free.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Celebrate 901 Day at Exposure

CREDIT: New Memphis

Since 2016, New Memphis has hosted Exposure in conjunction with 901 Day and to carry along its mission of seeing to the prosperity and success of the city through growth, exposure, and support of local businesses, talent, government, communities, and education.

This year’s Exposure event, which falls three days before September 1st, celebrates the Bluff City while connecting longtime Memphians and newcomers alike to more than 175 local businesses and organizations.

“The event is kind of twofold,” says Anna Thompson, marketing communications manager for New Memphis. “If you’re a lifelong Memphian, you might not know all that Memphis has to offer because we’re moving, changing, and evolving every year. So we help to reignite Memphians’ love of their city. The second part of that is if you’re a newcomer, we want to ‘expose’ you to all of what Memphis has to offer, which is why it’s called Exposure.”

New Memphis

Expose yourself to good times.

Organizations representing categories like arts and culture, community, volunteer opportunities, fitness and outdoors, and social and entertainment will be set up in FedExForum’s concourse, with interactive activities like Southern Reins Center for Equine Therapy’s pool-noodle horse races and Memphis Escape Rooms’ 10-minute escape room challenge.

The Beale Street Flippers, Goldperms, and Opera Memphis are just a few of the performers providing entertainment on the two stages in the plaza and on the concourse.

Other events and offerings include giveaways to the first 200 attendees, celebrity bicentennial games, New Memphis T-shirts for sale, and a scavenger hunt with prizes like tablets and Explore Bike Share memberships.

For more information, visit exposurememphis.com.

Exposure, FedExForum, Thursday, August 29th, 6-8 p.m., free.

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Nuggs for a Ho, Skeletor, and NextDoor

A round-up of Memphis on the World Wide Web.

Nuggs For a Ho

This East Memphis Wendy’s did some “targeted advertising, next level,” according to Reddit user u/cats_dinosaur.

NextDoor Classic

Midtown social media is the place for wild speculation and opining.

Last week, a NextDoor user wondered what new business was going into the former Henry Smith building on Cooper. She’d heard it was a biker bar and wanted to confirm.

The answer was/is CycleBar, a new gym and cycling studio. This answer was given in the second comment on the post.

That didn’t stop NextDoor users on the thread from speculating that it was going to be an “upscale gentlemen’s club,” wondering if a cycling studio was really necessary, complaining about “unused” bike lanes, complaining about people complaining about the “unused” bike lanes, and opining that “Midtown is getting so yuppie-fied.”

Random of the Week

Someone thought last week that drivers on Sam Cooper needed to know that “Skeletor Lives.”

Posted to Reddit by u/R_Hugh_High

Categories
Intermission Impossible Theater

30 Days of Opera Popping Up for the Eighth Year

CREDIT: Jillian Barron

Jillian Barron

Jordan Wells lights up a camel at a past 30 Days of Opera event at the West Tennessee State Fair.

It’s safe to say now that 30 Days of Opera has become a tradition. The monthlong multi-event held by Opera Memphis has been around since 2012, put in place by the organization’s general director Ned Canty. The idea is to bring opera to the people with a series of appearances around the area, from concerts at the Levitt Shell to random pop-up performances at busy intersections, farmers markets, dog parks, or anywhere that people may gather.

It’s been growing in size and scope since its start, and Opera Memphis says that to date, almost 500,000 people have experienced opera in hundreds of performances in almost every ZIP code in Memphis. It’s gotten big boosts from the National Endowment for the Arts, which has given Opera Memphis annual grants for its programs the past five years. Opera Memphis has received 63 grants totaling $377,000 since FY2012.

Opera Memphis

Nikola Printz with 30 Days of Opera at Overton Square in 2017.

This year will again have music every day of September, including a return to the Levitt Shell where Opera Memphis will perform as part of the Orion Free Music Concert Series in Overton Park on September 13th.

Sandwiched between performances are a couple of related events. Representatives from opera companies nationwide will gather for OPERA America’s Civic Action Regional Meeting September 11th and 12th. OPERA America is an advocacy group, and the meeting and workshops in Memphis will look at how opera can serve as a tool for civic action, successful community engagement programs, and future programming and practices.

There will also be a symposium on opera and race hosted by Rhodes College and Opera Memphis. The academic and performance event — Opera & Race: Celebrating the Past, Building the Future — puts a spotlight on the role of race on and off the stage. The two-day series is September 12th and 13th and will include a concert by Opera Memphis on the 12th and lectures from guest speakers on the 13th. They are:

  • Naomi André, associate professor at the University of Michigan, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and author of Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement
  • Giovanna Joseph, mezzo-soprano and founder and director of the award-winning OperaCréole
  • Anh Le, director of marketing and public relations at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

The opening concert of the symposium on September 12th celebrates the music of lost or rarely performed composers of African descent. It will include excerpts of Jonestown, an opera by Dr. Evan Williams of Rhodes College, performed by Opera Memphis, a featured performance by Carami Hilaire, and a solo performance by Marcus King of Margaret Bond’s Three Dream Portraits. All symposium events are free and open to the public. A full schedule of events, lectures, and panels can be found here.

This year’s 30 Days of Opera will feature a photo contest open to the public for a chance to win prizes. Attendees to any of the 30 Days events can tag Opera Memphis using the #30daysofopera hashtag on their posted photos for a chance to win two tickets, a swag bag, and more.

For event locations and dates, and information about the photo contest, go here or follow Opera Memphis on Facebook @Operamemphis.

For more information about all Opera Memphis events go here or call 901-257-3100.

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Tony Manard’s Big Ole Band Captures A Big Small Town Called Memphis

“Getting by in Memphis…Getting high in Memphis…Getting fired in Memphis.” So end the first three verses of Tony Manard’s “Fool From Memphis.” On the way, he name checks Wild Bill’s, Joe’s Liquor Store, and Raiford’s, and remembers how “downtown smelled like Wonder Bread.” Then comes the chorus, like the recurring story of a neighborhood drunk: “I saw Jerry Lawler wrestle Junkyard Dog at the intermission of a monster truck show, Mid South Colieseum.”

It’s all narrated in such a casual, offhand way that you really will feel Memphis around you as you listen, and that captures one of the hallmarks of Thanks Y’all!, Manard’s newly self-released album: its fine-grained sense of place. The city is a recurring character through many of the songs here, all written by Manard, and he savors his lyrical images of the city like photos of an old friend. And it’s all set to an Americana-esque blend of folk, bluegrass and country rock with a mildly funky vibe.

The lineup gives one a sense of the overall sound:
Tony Manard – Guitar, Vocals
Cecil Yancy –  Guitar, Vocals
Alice Hasen – Fiddle, Vocals
Carlos Gonzalez – Mandolin, Vocals
Brian Mulhearn – Electric Guitar, Vocals
Jimmy Stephens jr, – Bass
Vinnie Manard – Keys
Stephen Chopek – Drums
Evan Farris – Dobro, Lap Steel, Vocals

Tony Manard

The arrangements sound remarkably uncluttered for such a big ol’ band, with some standout solos by Alice Hasen on fiddle and Carlos Gonzalez on mandolin.

It should be noted that Manard’s local cred goes beyond shouting out place names. The ongoing saga summed up by the punchline,”Man, the sun’s goin’ down and I feel pretty good/Made a pontoon boat from a Cadillac hood” is a perfect portrait of the D.I.Y. spirit that’s alive and well in this city. Manard relishes every detail of building the “Party Barge” in a song reminiscent of Johnny Cash’s “One Piece At a Time,” destined to accompany the sound of pneumatic tools in garages for years to come.

Finally, the sense of place is palpable in more ways than one on the album’s closer, “Ain’t No Freedom.” The music video was shot live at Clayborn Temple this February and released on April 8, the anniversary of a 40,000-strong march in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., just days after his assassination. And the tune, a call for a more just society, is entirely appropriate to his legacy. As Manard writes in the press materials:

This is a staple of our live shows, but I had no intention of recording it in the studio. We got the opportunity to record it live, and make a video at historic Clayborn Temple. This was the rally point of the 1968 sanitation worker’s strike and the place the iconic “I am a man” signs were made an distributed. Tony Barnshaw Dickerson, a fantastic writer, singer and choir leader, came to our rehearsal to work with us on the phrasing and added his beautiful voice. We also recruited our friends Annie Freres and Kathleen Quinlen to sing with us. We invited a bunch of our friends to join the chorus and be in the video. Everyone there felt the energy of the location. We couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. Walt Busby handled the live recording. Jared Callan shot and Christian Walker directed.

Check the video out below. Thanks Y’all! is available at local record shops and at Tony Manard shows, which may either be solo or feature the Big Ole Band.

Tony Manard’s Big Ole Band Captures A Big Small Town Called Memphis

Tony Manard appears at the Halloran Centre, Sunday, Sept. 15, at 4:00 pm.