Month: August 2019

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet

Rudd Reveals

University of Memphis president Dr. David Rudd revealed the new community basketball court planned for Orange Mound on Twitter last week. (Rudd is great on Twitter, BTW.)

Posted to Twitter by @UofMemphisPres.

The Doctor Is In!

When Memphians see good barbecue, we tell each other. That’s just what Tumblr user memphispbarbecue did last week when he saw Dr. Bar-B-Que’s food bus parked at Evergreen and Jackson.

Posted to Tumblr by memphisbarbecue.

Waterbed redux

Want to see Donald Trump’s 1995 Pizza Hut commercial? What about ads for Crystal Pepsi and New Coke? YouTuber Consumer Time Capsule has it all.

Last week, it reminded Memphis of the 1985 Master Bedroom Waterbeds 14th-anniversary sale. “A complete waterbed for $99 — $99 I said! Wow!”

Posted to YouTube by Consumer Time Capsule.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Bag Ban Blocked

The Memphis City Council voted 6-5 against a plastic bag ban last week, but even if approved, the measure might not have been implemented right away.

City officials would not have been able to enforce the ban without state approval, even if the council okayed it, said council attorney Allan Wade. A recently passed state law prohibits local governments from regulating the “use, disposition, or sale of an auxiliary container.”

“It may not go anywhere, it may go somewhere, but right now all you can do is advance the ball down the road, get it enacted, and try to get it implemented,” Wade told the council before the vote. “You can’t take a step without taking a step.”

Councilman Berlin Boyd, who sponsored the legislation, along with chairman Kemp Conrad, said if the council had voted favorably for the ordinance, it would have “given us the leverage to negotiate on a state level.”

“We will not implement anything,” Boyd said before the vote. “We can’t implement anything. We can’t mandate anything because of the state law. The only failures in life are failures of not trying. … This is just an effort for us to try to do something different in the state of Tennessee.”

Councilman Worth Morgan, who voiced opposition to the ban in a previous council meeting, abstained from the vote last week. He said later that the ban “has merit, but to move forward without a clear legal strategy is a waste of time and resources.” He said the council has “a lot of achievable work to focus on.”

Councilwoman Cheyenne Johnson, who voted against the measure, said the ordinance would not have had a direct impact and that it would only be “symbolic of the need for plastic bag reformation.

“I began hoping for a gentler, proactive resolution — a resolution that would encourage merchants to accelerate their efforts with providing alternatives to these bags and/or promoting a city-wide plastic bag recycle campaign,” Johnson said.

The ban would have prohibited the distribution of single-use plastic checkout bags in retail establishments with 2,000 square feet or more. Each violation of the ordinance would have resulted in a $50 fine.

Boyd, who first brought forth the idea of plastic bag regulation in November, said the goal of the ban would be to protect the environment and reduce overall waste, citing plastic-bag-riddled streets, waterways, and trees.

Scott Banbury, Tennessee conservation programs coordinator for the Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club, said the use of single-use plastic bags has “obvious impacts on the environment.”

“It’s a problem that really needs to be addressed,” Banbury said. “The whole goal here is to ask people to reuse bags. It doesn’t seem like a huge thing to ask. Just for convenience’s sake, people are willing to cause so much harm to the environment.”

Banbury said the state legislation prohibiting a ban on plastic bags is a “matter of local control. Why shouldn’t we be able to address our own problems, and who is Nashville to say we can’t?”

Categories
Music Record Reviews

Bobby Rush is Back, Grooving the Blues Away

The title of Bobby Rush’s new album, Sitting on Top of the Blues (Deep Rush/Thirty Tigers), might conjure up deep echoes of Howlin’ Wolf singing the masterfully weary classic, “Sittin’ On Top of the World,” itself a cover of the original by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon of the Mississippi Sheiks. But really, the title is merely a feint to the left while Rush prepares to wallop us with a lively right hook.

What this disc serves up instead is a consistently funky, soulful, boogie record, more reminiscent of classic Rufus Thomas than the Wolf. And that’s just fine. There’s an openness to the distorted tones of the modern guitar, yes, but nothing to the extent of iconic North Mississippi hill country blues like R.L. Burnside. Instead, the record has the punch and panache of timeless Stax tracks, full of clean lines punctuated by the occasional horn stabs. Mostly, though, it’s all guitar, drums, bass, organ or piano, and harp.

It kicks off with the heavy mid-tempo funk of “Hey, Hey Bobby Rush,” which is very Staxy indeed. “I’m a blues man!” he sings, with a more lively take on that role than Albert King’s classic “I’ll Play the Blues For You.” Here, the arrangement snaps with quick turnarounds and sudden guitar breaks that catch you off guard.

Rush has a way with a vocal hook, as in the opener’s titular chant, which sounds almost like “Hey, Hey Pocky-Way,” or with the infectious “Get outta here, which ya ____!” in the song of that name. In true blues fashion, the blank is left open to the listener’s judgment, or lack thereof.

There are some slower moments, of course, as with the stripped down acoustic number, “Recipe for Love,” or the the sultry soul of “Slow Motion.” “I wanna make love to your sexy body,” he sings, “but first I wanna make love to your mind.” And if his live show features the same slow-phased guitar and steady groove of the record, he’ll have them fainting in their seats.

And true Bobby Rush fans, or even the idle dabblers among us, can find out for themselves at tonight’s record release show, Friday, August 16th at the Blues Hall of Fame Museum. It’s an all-too-rare show in this remarkable space, presided over by a master of the living craft, living right here on our doorstep. 

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Best Bets: BBQ Bologna Sandwich at Payne’s Bar-B-Que

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Michael Donahue

BBQ Bologna Sandwich at Payne’s Bar-B-Que

The BBQ Bologna Sandwich at Payne’s Bar-B-Que is my standard when it comes to barbecued bologna sandwiches.

I could probably eat two or three of them, but over the years I’ve only ordered one per visit. It consists of a thick slab of barbecued bologna slathered with Payne’s slaw and barbecue sauce between two pieces of white bread.

That sounds simple, but it’s not. Ron Payne, one of the owners, sat down and elaborated on the sandwich.

The bologna begins with a bologna stick that’s placed in the barbecue pit with the shoulders and ribs and “smoked a couple of hours,” Ron says. “Some like it deep fried even after it’s smoked,” he says.

The sweet slaw is made with a secret ingredient, which Payne says is “a sugar-based substance.” Brown sugar is my guess, but I don’t know.

You can order with hot, mild, or medium sauce. Hot is “cayenne peppery,” mild is “sweet, tangy,” and medium is “hot and mild mixed,” Payne says.

And the white bread. I couldn’t imagine the sandwich made with wheat or rye, but Payne says, “Some people like it on a bun.”

The BBQ Bologna Sandwich was on the original menu when Ron’s parents Flora and the late Horton Payne opened the restaurant in April, 1972 Ron says. The coleslaw and the BBQ sauce are “family recipes” from his grandmother, the late Emily Payne.

Their chopped pork sandwich is their best seller, but the bologna sandwich and the smoked sausage sandwich come next, Ron says.

The barbecued bologna sandwich was featured twice on TV shows: “Best Food Ever” on TLC Network and “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern” on the Travel Channel.

The sandwich got “really popular” after it was featured on TV, Ron says. It’s the first thing tourists who’ve seen it on TV order, he says.

I’ve never wavered when I’ve ordered Payne’s BBQ Bologna Sandwich, but, I confess, I have to try it on a hamburger bun. That sounds mighty good.

Payne’s Bar-B-Que is at 1762 Lamar; (901)-272-1523


Categories
Music Music Blog

“Black August” and Black Oppression

Ronald Herd II, Najee Strickland, Jeanelle ‘TBJ’ Jones, and her daughter, Sonnet Rose.

“Black August” will explore the fight against black oppression through music, art, poetry, and dance.

“It’s a show that includes theater with all-original scripts I wrote, dance choreographed by me, and poetry,” says producer Jeanelle ‘TBJ’ Jones.

“Black August,” which will be held at 7 p.m. on August 17th at JamRackBar & Lounge at 630 Madison Avenue, also will feature guest artists.

“There is an actual resistance movement called ‘Black August,’” Jones says. “It’s a combination of freedom fighters and socio-political fighters who are against racial oppression.”

During August, events around the country focus on “different things that have happened, whether freedom fighters’ deaths or their births or different resistances and attacks against the community.”

Events around the country will highlight the Nat Turner Rebellion, the Haitian Rebellion, and anti-apartheid fighter Steve Biko.

Jones took some of those historical events and people and “created productions around them.”

Director and creative founder of Afrotense, Jones produces live shows and films. Her “Black August” will include “scenes about Black Lives Matter and a response to that. And some scenes about Michael Jackson: ‘What happened to the black Michael Jackson?’”

“Black-on-black crime” is one of the topics. “Sometimes we’ll ostracize black celebrities. We’ll put them on a pedestal, but do one thing wrong, and we’re ready to tell them they no longer have a black card.”

Also participating in “Black August” are Najee Strickland, who will feature paintings from his “Black Fist” series, and J. Bu$y, who will perform his cover to the song ‘Be Careful’ by Cardi B. “But it’s not anything that song is about,” Jones says. “It’s about Black Lives Matter and fighting racial oppression.”

Diamond Long will dance to “Neo-Fight,” a poem written by Jones. “A lot of people think because we don’t hear about lynchings and things like that anymore, that they don’t happen. But they happen all the time.”

Ronald Herd II will be the emcee or “elder host” of “Black August,” Jones says. “Some of the things we did not touch on – because it would be a three-hour show – he is going to mention and talk about. Enlighten the audience while he hosts the show.”

Tickets to “Black August” are $15 per person or two for $25 and are available at Eventbrite. For information, visit facebook.com/afrotensepresents.

Ricky Willis, Freddy Ledlips Hodges, and Julius Nathaniel Hunt are in ‘Black August.’

Categories
News News Blog

Memphis Pets of the Week (August 13-19)

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.

Categories
News News Blog

Group Calls Committee’s Interruption of CEO’s Testimony ‘Disrespectful,’ ‘Dismissive’

CREDIT: Matt Anderson

Cherisse Scott

Head of a Memphis organization that works for reproductive justice was cut short during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday as she spoke against legislation that would essentially ban abortion in Tennessee. 

Cherisse Scott, founder and CEO of SisterReach, an organization meant to help women and girls of color, women living in low-income and rural areas, and the LBGTQ community obtain reproductive justice, was cut off five minutes into what was meant to be a 10-minute testimony by chairman of the committee Senator Mike Bell (R-Riceville).

“Reproductive justice seeks to liberate and emancipate vulnerable populations from all forums of reproductive and sexual oppression,” Scott said early in her testimony. “It challenges us to expand our analysis beyond abortion to be inclusive of the myriad of other issues that preclude women and people that give birth from achieving reproductive and sexual autonomy.”

Scott called the legislation in question an “outright and intentional abandonment by the Tennessee state legislator of these vulnerable people.”

She said the legislation would be the “final straw in a political pattern of vile, racist, un-American, and un-Christian legislation.”

[pullquote-1]

Scott continued citing “harmful” policy making that intersects with abortion rights. She noted the need for sexual education in schools, access to health care, education reform, and more behavioral and mental health care.

She said the legislators have “created an environment that leads Tennesseans to need more abortions, under-care or neglect their children, regardless of whether or not they want to or able to parent.

“And if all this isn’t heartbreaking enough, you weild your political power in Jesus’ name,” Scott said. “Many of you who claim to be conservative Christians have weaponized the word of God to forward your political agendas and maintain power and control over the most vulnerable Tennesseans. You manipulated Biblical scripture to align with your colonialism and supremacist ideologies, instead of showing mercy.”

Matt Anderson

Cherisse Scott continues to speak as she is approached by the sergeant-in-arms

This is when Bell interrupted Scott: “That’s enough. Your time is up.”

Scott continued to speak though, prompting Bell to call for the sergeant-in-arms to escort Scott from the room.

“I have sat here and I have watched you all to allow people to talk and talk, but you won’t allow me to talk as a Christian because I disagree with the way that you believe?” Scott said, noting that she hadn’t gone over her allotted 10 minutes.

Bell asked for Scott’s microphone to be turned off, as she continued to speak, and then he called for a five-minute recess, and left the room.

“Either you care about people’s bodies or you do not,” Scott told the committee. “Either you are here to save my life or you are not. Stop being an impostor of God’s word and do your jobs.”

Scott’s words garnered applause and cheers from members of the audience. Watch Scott’s interrupted testimony here or read the entire testimony here.

Of the 21 witnesses that spoke before the committee, Scott was the only one prohibited from completing her testimony. She was also the only African-American witness, and one of nine women.

SisterReach called the committee’s actions a “bold declaration of the staunch, disrespectful, and dismissive attitude toward women.” 

Many watching the hearings agreed and took it to Twitter.

Group Calls Committee’s Interruption of CEO’s Testimony ‘Disrespectful,’ ‘Dismissive’ (4)

Group Calls Committee’s Interruption of CEO’s Testimony ‘Disrespectful,’ ‘Dismissive’

Group Calls Committee’s Interruption of CEO’s Testimony ‘Disrespectful,’ ‘Dismissive’ (5)

Group Calls Committee’s Interruption of CEO’s Testimony ‘Disrespectful,’ ‘Dismissive’ (2)

Group Calls Committee’s Interruption of CEO’s Testimony ‘Disrespectful,’ ‘Dismissive’ (6)

Group Calls Committee’s Interruption of CEO’s Testimony ‘Disrespectful,’ ‘Dismissive’ (7)

Group Calls Committee’s Interruption of CEO’s Testimony ‘Disrespectful,’ ‘Dismissive’ (8)

The legislation up for discussion, sponsored by Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) seeks to redefine viability and outlaw abortion at the moment of conception, or when a woman finds out she is pregnant.

Others who testified against the legislation include Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee. Weinberg called the arguments made in support of the legislation “certainly creative,” but “irrational.”

“Abortion restrictions disproportionally harm women in rural areas and women with limited incomes,” Weinberg said. “Forcing a woman to carry to term increases existing hardships. It’s unconstitutional.”

If the bill is passed, Weinberg said the ACLU will sue and “We will win.”

Group Calls Committee’s Interruption of CEO’s Testimony ‘Disrespectful,’ ‘Dismissive’ (3)

Wrapping up the two-day hearing, Pody admitted that the issue is “very, very contentious,” but also “extremely important.”

Pody also noted that the bill isn’t “necessarily a heartbeat bill” and that no other state is “hearing something like this.”

“I think it’s going to boil down to this: When does life begin?” Pody said. “And who’s going to decide? So far it’s been decided by the Supreme Court, but I believe at one point everybody thought the world was flat. I believe at one point, people of color didn’t have the same rights,

“I believe at one point, women didn’t have the same rights. As we grow as a society, we want to make sure everybody’s protected. If there’s life in the womb and that life is human, I believe that that life deserves protection as well.”

Categories
News News Blog

Conservative Group Pushes for Death Penalty Alternatives

CREDIT: Death Penalty Information Center

Death Penalty Information Center

Stephen Michael West

A group of conservatives in Tennessee are speaking out against the death penalty. State officials began executions again in Tennessee last year and another execution is scheduled for Thursday night, August 15th.

Nashville resident Amy Lawrence, state coordinator of Tennessee Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, said in a news release, that the death penalty goes against the “basic tenets” of the group’s beliefs, that ”murders should be followed with swift and sure justice,” and that a change in thinking is taking place now on the death penalty in red-state legislatures.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced yesterday that he will not intervene in Thursday’s scheduled execution of Tennessee death-row inmate Stephen Michael West. According to The Tennessean, West was moved into a cell next to the execution chamber in Nashville yesterday and will order his last meal sometime today.

“After thorough consideration of Stephen West’s request for clemency and a review of the case, the state of Tennessee’s sentence will stand, and I will not be intervening,” Lee said in a statement Tuesday.

West was convicted for the 1986 murders of a woman and her 15-year-old child in Union County, according to The Tennessean. West was also convicted of raping the young girl and inflicting 17 “torture-type cuts” to her stomach, according to the paper.

West argued he was present during the murders but he didn’t do it. Instead, he said it was the work of a friend of his from work.

West’s will be the state’s fifth execution since state officials began scheduling them again last year. Before that, the state’s last execution was in 2010, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. There are now 56 prisoners on death row in Tennessee.

Next month, New Orleans will host the first annual national meeting of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. Lawrence and others from Tennessee will attend. She spoke with us regarding her group and its aims. — Toby Sells

Death Penalty Information Center


Memphis Flyer: How does the death penalty violate the basic tenets of your group’s beliefs?

Amy Lawrence: I believe that the core tenet of conservatism is small, limited government, and as conservatives, we apply this concept to a variety of issues, whether that be taxation, healthcare, or regulations. This is the same tenet that should be applied to capital punishment.

Simply put, the death penalty is anything but small, limited government. It is a prime example of a bloated, broken government program. It is costly, it risks executing an innocent person, and it leaves the ultimate power over life and death in the hands of a fallible system.
[pullquote-1] MF: You also said that, “murders should be followed with swift and sure justice.” What does that justice look like to you?

AL: Well, it sure doesn’t look like years of appeals and decades of court proceedings for the victims’ family members.

The death penalty does not provide swift and sure justice but instead drags families through decades of litigation, where in at least half the cases in Tennessee, the sentence is overturned and the convicted receives a life sentence anyway.

Life without parole begins as soon as the trial is over and allows families to at least have some legal finality.

MF: What alternatives to the death penalty does your group hope lawmakers will consider?
[pullquote-2] AL: Tennessee already has a life sentence of 51 years before parole eligibility and life without parole, which does not allow for parole ever. These are the two sentences that the majority of murderers already receive.

Death sentences are on the decline statewide and have been for some years with roughly only two death sentences in Tennessee between 2013-2018. More and more prosecutors seek the alternative sentences because of the cost of seeking the death penalty and to spare victims’ families while juries are also less likely to impose death sentences.

Death Penalty Information Center


MF: Is an alternative to the death penalty a hard sell in the broader conservative community?

AL: I really focus on what unites conservatives on this issue — limited government, fiscal responsibility, and pro-life stances.

We know that government and human decisions are error-prone. We simply cannot guarantee that we can carry out capital punishment with 100 percent accuracy. While the punishment might be just in some circumstances, we cannot carry it out justly.

We also have limited resources and with death sentences costing $1 to $2 million more than life without parole. I think the majority of people would support having those resources go towards victims’ compensation, law enforcement, and mental health programs.

MF: What is the next step for your group in this push?

AL: We continue to educate the public about the shortcomings of our system and will continue to push for laws to make the system more just.

MF: Is there anything else you’d like to say or anything I left out?

AL: Absolutely! If you would like to learn more about our organization, check out our website www.tnconservativesconcerned.org. I’m also happy to talk to civic groups and faith communities about this work.

For more information about Tennessee and the death penalty, visit the Death Penalty Information Center. 

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché Explores The Beginning Of Narrative Film

A scene from one of the 1,000 movies made by pioneering director Alice Guy-Blaché.

Everything that seems natural to us now about video content is actually deeply unnatural. It was all invented. An edited video, consisting of different clips strung together to produce a narrative, is profoundly different from the way we visually experience reality. We don’t get to skip over the boring parts, and we rarely have the best angle to view the action.

If all of this film language we now take for granted was invented, that means there was someone who did the inventing. Thomas Edison and the Lumiere brothers are usually put forward as the inventors of film, and that’s true enough, from a technical standpoint. But their idea of a good movie was filming the workers leaving the Lumiere factory, or a train entering the station — literally “moving pictures”.

The person who came up with the idea of using motion pictures to tell a story was a former secretary named Alice Guy-Blaché. She was arguably the first film director, as we now recognize the job description, who made more than 1,000 films over her career, including the very first film with an actual story, The Cabbage Fairy, in 1896. She invented the close-up, and experimented with synchronized sound two decades before it would be commonplace in theaters. She founded her own studio, Solax, which was the largest film studio in America in the 1910s. And yet, while many giants of that era like D. W. Griffith are remembered today, Guy-Blaché has been largely forgotten. Pamela Green’s film Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché wants to restore her place in history.

Be Natural screens on Thursday, August 15 at Crosstown Theater as a part of their Arthouse film series. Afterwards, Memphis filmmaker Laura Jean Hocking will lead a remote Q&A with director Pamela Green. You can win two tickets to the show by either emailing cmccoy@memphisflyer.com or sending The Memphis Flyer a direct message on Facebook or Twitter. We’ll draw the winner at noon on Thursday. Good luck!

Be Natural : The Untold Story Of Alice Guy-Blaché TRAILER#1 from Be Natural on Vimeo.

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché Explores The Beginning Of Narrative Film

Categories
News News Blog

Artist Mia Saine Inspired by Flyer Cover Story

When graphic artist and illustrator Mia Saine read Maya Smith’s July 2018 story on Memphis food deserts and the ongoing problem of food insecurity in the city, she did what artists do: She created a visual response.

We saw it posted on Saine’s Instagram account, and thought Flyer readers might enjoy seeing it. The work was recently shown at the National Civil Rights Museum.

Here’s a version of the work itself: