Month: January 2020

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News News Feature

CannaBeat: Play Ball!

CREDIT: Body and Mind

Here we go!

The General Assembly cranked back up last week, and while it seems some new leaders may have dampened efforts toward medical cannabis, some other cannabis bills have already been filed.

New House Speaker Cameron Sexton said of cannabis legislation, “It’s against federal law. And so, until that changes, it’s hard to have a discussion.” However, other states have passed medical cannabis despite speakers’ reluctance, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. Gov. Bill Lee said he wants to “explore alternatives before we go there.”

However, Rep. Rick Staples (D-Knoxville) filed a bill last week that would allow referenda in Tennessee counties that would “authorize the growing, processing, manufacture, delivery, and retail sale of marijuana within jurisdictional boundaries.” The bill also “decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of marijuana statewide.”

The Memphis City Council tried to lower punishments set here for the possession of small amounts of cannabis back in October 2016. The move would have allowed Memphis Police Department officers to charge anyone in possession of less than a half-ounce of marijuana with a $50 fine or community service. However, state lawmakers voided the rule.

Sen. Sara Kyle (D-Memphis), who sponsored a raft of pro-cannabis legislation last year, is back this year with a new bill. Kyle wants to allow medical cannabis patients from other states immunity from Tennessee laws. If a person carries a medical marijuana patient identification card from another state and has less than a half-ounce on them, they “do not commit an offense in this state.”

So, say you’re a patient from West Memphis and you carry your legally prescribed cannabis with you across the bridge. If Kyle’s bill were law, police here could not arrest nor charge you for carrying your medicine.

A number of other cannabis-related bills remain from the first part of the 111th legislative session. However, no major bill has yet been filed that would organize a medical marijuana system in Tennessee.

Buds of Summer

ICYMI: Major League Baseball (MLB) players won’t face drug penalties from the league if they use cannabis.

MLB and the MLB Players Association announced last month that marijuana had been removed from the league’s list of banned substances, and its consumption among players will now be treated the same as alcohol. Up to now, players were fined $35,000 if they tested positive for cannabis.

The new policy begins with spring training 2020, which starts on February 21st when the Rangers meet the Royals in Arizona.

Body and Mind

Coming soon to West Memphis

West Memphis

Work is underway for three dispensaries to be open soon in West Memphis, according to WMCTV.

The dispensary sites were approved by the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission in 2018. At the time, no work had begun on any of the West Memphis sites. Plans were filed for the shop on OK Street in October. That one is from Body and Mind, a Vancouver-based, publicly traded company that offers dried flower, edibles, topicals, extracts, and vape pen cartridges.

West Memphis Mayor Marco McClendon told WMC that the lure of medical marijuana could help people from Memphis to move to his side of the Hernando DeSoto bridge.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Scribble Me That: Exhibition of Pizza Box Drawings

CREDIT: Photos by Shelda Edwards

This Friday, the Hive Collective presents its first Scribble Exhibition, a collection of works scribbled on pizza boxes.

These works materialized from The Hive’s monthly Scribble events at Midtown Crossing Grill, where artists and creatives are invited to join and doodle their hearts out on whatever materials are around.

Shelda Edwards, founder of the Hive, says Scribble began in September 2019 when she approached the owner of Midtown Crossing about doing a type of “drink and draw” event.

Photos by Shelda Edwards

Pizza plus art equals awesome.

“I had a relationship with Octavia, the owner of Midtown Crossing Grill, and I asked if she would be willing to let us take over half of her restaurant once a month,” she says. “She is the one who suggested, ‘Well, I can get y’all pizza boxes if you want to draw on those, too.’ So that’s where that came from. She just offered it, and we were very pleased and happy to draw on pizza boxes because, if you know creatives, they will draw on anything.”

Edwards says the subjects sketched onto these unique canvases are up to the artists’ imaginations.

“The subjects range from pizza-themed things to nothing that has to do with pizza,” says Edwards. “They’re basically just representations of the various different artists who have come together and created things.”

This and other Scribble events are free to attend, and all ages are welcome.

“We’re not there to get super lit,” says Edwards. “We just want to draw together.”

This event will be hosted by Shelda Edwards, Sarah Edelstein, and Kathryn Hicks. 

Scribble Exhibition Vol. I, Midtown Crossing Grill, Friday, January 24th, 7-10 p.m., free.

Categories
Music Music Features

NLE Choppa: Young Memphis Rapper Tops Emerging Artist Charts

“The Percs killin’ me slowly,” howls bad boy local rapper NLE Choppa on his signature song, “Shotta Flow.” If Choppa, 17, is suffering under the yoke of addiction, you can’t tell from his music, which is spry, rambunctious, and geyser-like — in other words, the exact sort of club-rap on which this city has long staked its reputation. You could say Choppa lends a 2020 makeover to earlier configurations of Memphis hip-hop.

Choppa is protective of his hometown: “I don’t know,” he tells the Flyer. “So many good artists are in Memphis. It’s always been a lot of good artists, but we’re just kinda underappreciated.”

For Choppa, turning up comes as naturally as breathing; he’s a creature of Memphis’ strobe-lit skating rinks. Not only that, but his mother Angela seems to have passed down a rapturous and very Jamaican appetite for fun. Had it not been for her, Choppa’s sturdiest achievement so far — sprinkling patois in rap’s everyday vocabulary — might never have come to pass.

NLE Choppa

“‘Shottas’ is really just a Jamaican thing, a Jamaican term,” he says. “And my mom being from there, I was exposed to that culture.” Asked if he was reared on dancehall music, Choppa doesn’t miss a beat: “Oh, yeah.”

Choppa had a softer landing than many in hip-hop, where broken homes far outnumber stable ones. (His father, like his mother, is, by all accounts, present and supportive.) But this dude is self-made. As he puts it, “My success mostly comes from having that independence. I never asked for nothing.”

It was Choppa who, if not pioneered, then certainly perfected one of the greatest flows in current hip-hop, a galloping, joyously bumpy cascade of syllables. It was Choppa who built a thriving brand from scratch. And it was Choppa who proved a hard-nosed negotiator: Rare is the teenager who knows a skunk, or a lousy distribution deal, when he smells one. (Over the summer, Choppa launched his own imprint, the Warner-aligned No Love Entertainment, but not before clearing his share of hurdles.)

“My phone was blowing up; I had all these offers, but I didn’t get overwhelmed because this is what I wanted,” Choppa says. “This is what I had been praying for for so long.”

All of which is to say young people have good reason to idolize Choppa. And idolize him they do, ascribing a near-liturgical weight to his every public utterance. Part of it has to do with Choppa’s charisma, which is almost generational; it stopped millions of fans cold the first time they heard “Capo,” last year’s crunk-and-disorderly street anthem. Only Choppa could paper the airwaves with a tacit endorsement of the NFL’s most reviled QB (“I got good aim in the pocket like I’m Brady”) and not catch any grief for it.

On record, Choppa sounds like he’s nearing transition from man to Tasmanian devil. In conversation, he’s much different. He speaks in a serenely undaunted drawl. He seems content — a justifiable state of mind when you consider the year he’s had. For months now, he’s sat atop Billboard‘s Emerging Artists chart. His songs have been streamed over one billion times. “Shotta Flow” is at 850 million streams and counting. He’s currently touring behind Cottonwood, his EP from late December. Cottonwood is awash in guns, gore, and splatter, but it’ll get your shoulders shimmying. It also includes a verse from the great Meek Mill, who, like Choppa, is telegenic but quarrelsome. “Meek is definitely an influence just in how true he stays to himself and how outspoken he is,” Choppa says.

If you stay apprised of his Twitter activity, you know Choppa gets asked this question more than any other: “When’s the album coming out?” Fans were hoping to ring in the new year with Choppa’s new full-length, Top Shotta; now, it looks like they’ll have to wait until spring. Meanwhile, Choppa himself is looking farther afield.

“I wanna be the biggest artist,” he says matter-of-factly. “And I don’t see why I shouldn’t be.”

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Breakfast Nachos, Anyone? Here’s a Recipe.

CREDIT: Ari Levaux

Migas are a delicacy as old as tortillas. The word is Spanish for “crumbs” — specifically the crumbs of tortillas of a certain age. North of the border, the tortilla fragments are usually served with salsa, beans, and sour cream.

The basic concept of cooking old chip shards has been independently invented countless times by folks who are weary of dipping increasingly smaller chips into their bowl of salsa and wish for some way to use those tasty, unwieldy crumbs at the bottom of the bag. At one time, that weary tortilla eater was me.

I found myself staring down the dregs of a bag of La Cocina de Josefina tortilla chips, determined to not allow that resource to go to waste. Taking the obvious route, I fried the little crumbs with bacon. The eggs followed the bacon, and the salsa followed everything. After that, and ever since, the bottom of a bag has been a time to rejoice.

Ari Levaux

Breakfast nachos with egg, carrots, and spinach

These days, I sometimes don’t wait for the crumbs. Instead, I make a migas variation with whole, unbroken chips. Breakfast nachos, as I call them, are for when migas just aren’t big enough.

I soak the chips in beaten egg and pan fry them with vegetables. This treatment gives the formerly crunchy chips a moist, pliable texture that’s somewhere between a tamale and a cheesy enchilada.

While happy hour-style nachos are a legendary beer sponge, breakfast nachos are at least as good at absorbing coffee, thanks to those eggs. And when you’ve got eggs and coffee, you’ve got breakfast. Hence the name.

This eggy tortilla matrix can absorb whatever vegetables and proteins you could think to add, with each addition cooked as needed so as to be ready when the eggs are done. Bright-green broccoli florets may not be a typical topping for nachos, but the egg helps them fit in. Fry ground meat ahead of time. Add leftover pulled pork at the last minute.

Migas are about improvisation, and that spirit lives on in my breakfast nachos. I’ve swapped the corn chips for potato chips and would do it again. One thing I won’t be doing is waiting for the end of a bag to make my migas.

Breakfast Nachos

Breakfast nachos are pan-fried like migas, rather than baked like nachos. You need a pan with a tight-fitting lid, preferably a heavy pan that can hold heat. Unless it’s a really big pan, you should prepare this dish one serving at a time, as you would an omelet.

In today’s rendition, I’ve included carrots and spinach, as they are currently in season, but you could prepare it with whatever vegetables you care to eat with breakfast. Jalapeños are good. Mushrooms, too.

Makes one large serving.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

¼ cup milk

½ cup (loosely packed) grated cheese

2 tablespoons oil (or bacon or side pork, chopped)

1 carrot, sliced into ¼-inch thick rounds

2 cups whole corn chips (shake the cup so they settle)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 handful of spinach or baby bok choy

Serve with: salsa, coffee

Instructions:

Beat the eggs and milk in an oversized bowl. Add the chips and gently toss them so they are completely coated and sitting in a pool of egg wash.

Heat the pan on medium. Add the carrot and oil (or chopped bacon), everything scattered so each piece makes contact with the pan. Give it a stir after about 4 minutes. After another 2 minutes, add the garlic, stir everything around, add the spinach on top, and cook another minute. Add the soggy chips and quickly give them a gentle stir to mix them with the carrots, garlic, and spinach. Spread the chips evenly around the pan, then add the remains of the egg wash, sprinkle the cheese on top, and cover.

Cook for a minute with the lid on, then take a peek. If it looks like it’s setting up, with the egg on top looking close to cooked and the cheese melting, then turn it off and let it finish in place on the hot stove. If it’s not quite there, cook another 30 seconds with the lid on and check again. Repeat until it’s almost there, then turn off the heat and let the pan sit covered for about 10 minutes.

Stack it all into a steaming pile and serve with copious amounts of salsa and coffee.

Nachos for breakfast, anyone?

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

All the President’s Hits

CREDIT: Laurence Agron | Dreamstime.com

And the hits just keep on coming. The President killed an Iranian general in a drone strike early this month, and it’s already old news. There’s an old Southern expression you’ve probably heard. When a bad person comes to a violent end, somebody’s bound to say, “He needed killin’.” If anybody needed killing, it was General Qasem Soleimani, a brutal terrorist with buckets of blood on his hands. The president could have basked in reflected glory for a moment or two, but he couldn’t resist embellishing the event by claiming that the general was planning “imminent” attacks on at least four U.S. embassies, with absolutely no evidence. President Norman Bates then threatened to target 52 Iranian sites, one for each hostage taken 40 years ago, including cultural sites, which is against international law and considered a war crime.

A shooting war with Iran on the eve of the House of Representatives’ vote approving impeachment articles seemed inevitable, and the world held its breath waiting for the Iranian response. Everyone exhaled a bit when the Iranians shot rockets onto U.S. bases, causing no loss of life, then accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet and lied about it.

Laurence Agron | Dreamstime.com

Nancy Pelosi

That may have tempered their retaliation for now, but you’re kidding yourself if you think this is over. Recent reports emerged saying Trump approved the strike seven months ago. That’s a long way from “imminent.” In return, the Iranians said they will no longer restrict the enrichment of uranium, something they had agreed to in the Obama-brokered nuclear deal. I’ll confess I never heard of Soleimani until they killed him, but I was stunned at how many of my Facebook friends suddenly became experts in Middle Eastern affairs.

On the cusp of the Senate impeachment trial of DonJohn the Cruel, I’d like to take back all the unflattering things I’ve written about Nancy Pelosi in the past. I sincerely apologize and freely admit that she is a badass. Her strategy of holding onto the articles of impeachment produced two beneficial results: She got under Trump’s skin, bigly, and every day that has passed has produced more incriminating evidence regarding the president’s crime ring’s dealings with Ukraine.

The two-part interview with Rudy Giuliani’s co-conspirator Lev Parnas by Rachel Maddow blew the lid off the entire shadow government conspiracy to coerce the Ukrainian president to publicly announce an investigation into the activities of Joe and Hunter Biden. An actual investigation wasn’t necessary, just the announcement would suffice to dirty up Biden.

Mr. Parnas said “everyone was in the loop,” including the president, Vice President Pence, Rudy Giuliani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Attorney General William Barr. This isn’t an administration. It’s a criminal enterprise that includes the Departments of Energy, State, and Justice — and whatever and whoever Rudy represents.

Parnas claimed one of his reasons for going public was that he didn’t trust William Barr. “Am I scared? Yes,” Parnas said, making an end-run around the attorney general to get the truth in the open. I understand Parnas is under indictment for campaign finance charges, but I’d believe him before the proven serial liar who claims he doesn’t even know the guy who sat next to his personal attorney in numerous meetings together.

Now that this mess is in the Senate’s hands, I’ll never understand why the House allowed government officials and the White House to stonewall their investigation. Trump instructed his minions not to cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee in any way, including providing document requests and appearances, and when nothing happened, it was — correctly — assumed that they got away with it.

Doesn’t anyone remember Susan McDougal? She was a Clinton associate prosecuted for fraud in the Whitewater investigation, which ultimately morphed into the Lewinski affair. She was offered a deal if she implicated Bill Clinton in wrongdoing. When she refused, she was declared in contempt of court and was incarcerated for 22 months, eight in solitary confinement. Shouldn’t the same fate befall Mick Mulvaney and Mike Pompeo? Getting numerous court orders might drag the process out until the election, and since the president’s noxious behavior was becoming more erratic by the hour, the House opted to just go ahead and impeach the morally challenged capo di tutti capi. 

Trump tweeted in all caps, “I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!” It turned out to be the perfect justification for impeachment.

We’re about to see if the Senate will hold a real trial, including witnesses, or if “Grim Reaper” Mitch McConnell will bury the evidence and make it all go away. If witnesses are allowed and the Republicans want to call Hunter Biden, let ’em. What can he say that’s relevant to this conspiracy? Impeachment manager Congressman Adam Schiff said John Bolton’s testimony would be a “game changer,” although I wouldn’t expect Bolton to do the Democrats any favors. One positive is that a subpoena from the Senate can’t be ignored. If attempted by, say, the attorney general, the Senate sergeant at arms can forcibly retrieve him. Or he can take the Susan McDougal approach and go to jail until he changes his mind. Barr wouldn’t be the first attorney general sent to jail. Nixon’s A.G. John Mitchell holds that distinction. The Trump bunch should take a close look at the Nixon example. Everything always comes out eventually. Even if Trump completes his term, a plethora of books will be written by insiders ready to cash in. The senators who will decide the president’s fate have sworn an oath “to administer impartial justice, so help me God.” Since Trump is fond of quoting scripture to his rapture-crazed devotees, here’s something from Matthew 5:33: “You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.”

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Commission Stalemates on MATA

CREDIT: JB

The question of whether — or how — Shelby County government should reinforce and expand MATA (Memphis Area Transit Authority) was no JB

Amy Spicer, on hand on Wednesday to present local GOP’s objection to the wheel-tax proposal, chats with audience member and frequent commission attendee Joe B. Kent.

t resolved during an extended committee session on Wednesday morning.

The meeting, held in the first-floor auditorium of the Vasco Smith County Building, flowed this way and that, but never in the direction of a settled point of view.

Indeed, when discussion of the MATA issue finally subsided in the early afternoon of a meeting day that began at 8:30 a.m., all the commissioners had managed to agree on was that they could not agree, and the residue of that disunity was embodied in a substitute proposal from a bipartisan group of commissioners.

That proposal, which allowed for a bifurcation of funds taxed under the rubric of the county’s long-controversial wheel tax, would allocate roughly $9 million of the funds raised from a new $20 surcharge to MATA, along with a stipulation for expanded routing, while another $3 million would go to pay the salaries of new sheriff’s deputies in the freshly de-annexed portions of former Memphis suburban areas.

But the proposal — an obvious effort to allay the reservations of suburban members — did not gain approval per se as a finished proposition. It was merely remanded to the attention of a new ad hoc task force created by commission chairman Mark Billingsley for the purpose of re-examining the larger matter of transportation policy in Shelby County.

And the effect of the substitute was undermined by an add-on resolution from Brandon Morrison, a customarily low-profile Republican first-termer who was the only GOP member to be numbered among the sponsors of the original bifurcation proposal and was the sole author of the final substitute. Morrison’s add-on — presented as a companion measure and offering a recipe for reducing the presumably unpopular wheel tax by $5 — would necessitate eliminating the commission’s community grant funds, by means of which each commissioner has the discretion to endow projects considered desirable to his or her district.

Though it was defeated, the add-on will be voted on again during the commission’s regularly scheduled public meeting on Monday, and by drawing forth the votes of several Republicans, exposed the enduring polarities of a legislative body that generally aspires to bipartisanship.

The same underlying cleavage was revealed by the 2-7 rejection of a proposal to abolish county-residence requirements for Shelby County employees. That resolution, proposed by GOP member Mick Wright, was scuttled by uniform opposition from the commission’s city residents. But it, too, will get another vote on Monday.

A third matter of potential controversy (but one generally lacking partisan outlines) — that of new paper-trial voting machines involving hand-cast ballots versus machine-case ballots — was deferred for lack of time, though Bennie Smith, a member of the Shelby County Election Commision, was on hand to make the cast for voting by hand.

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

Tulsa 80, #20 Tigers 40

For late January, this was a marquee matchup. One team atop the American Athletic Conference standings (Tulsa) hosting the AAC’s top-ranked team (Memphis). But you can’t judge a game by the marquee.

The Tigers missed all 10 of their three-point attempts in the first half, trailed 40-17 at the break, and never closed within 20 points in the second half. The win is Tulsa’s fourth straight and improves the Golden Hurricane to 13-6 for the season (and 5-1 in the AAC). Memphis falls to 14-4 (3-2). The Tigers have now lost five straight at Tulsa, last winning as visitors in the series on March 3, 2012.

Jeriah Horne led Tulsa with 21 points. Precious Achiuwa scored 10 to pace the Tigers but fell short of his seventh-straight double-double (only five rebounds). The loss is, far and away, the Tigers’ worst (as measured by scoring margin) under coach Penny Hardaway.

The Tigers return to play Saturday afternoon when they host SMU at FedExForum. Tip-off is scheduled for 3 p.m.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

At War With the Obvious

The photograph on this week’s cover is by world-renowned Memphis photographer William Eggleston, who, in the 1970s, stunned the art world when his prosaic and groundbreaking images of Southern life were shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Eggleston’s 1976 show is widely recognized as the singular event that brought color photography into the world of high art. Prior to Eggleston’s emergence on the scene, black-and-white images had been the only photography recognized as such since, well, the invention of the camera.

Now, nearing 81 and still living in Memphis, Eggleston has secured his status as a major American artist and pioneer with decades of subsequent work. His photos are celebrated and analyzed in books and essays. They are displayed in museums and galleries around the world. There is, as you may know, much discussion about a possible Eggleston museum in Memphis that would showcase his work — and works by others who’ve followed in his artistic footsteps. Read Jon W. Sparks’ cover story for all the details.

Type C print

I first encountered Eggleston’s photographs in the early 1990s, when I moved to Memphis. I had (and have) friends who knew him and who would delight in telling me tales of his eccentricities and his unconventional lifestyle. To be honest, I knew of him as an iconic Memphis character before I knew his work. When I first saw his photos at a gallery, I was stunned by their apparent simplicity, their depth of color, and their audacity.

Intrigued, I read more about Eggleston and discovered many more of his oddly compelling images: the front of a car parked against a brick wall, a gaudy McDonald’s restaurant next to an equally gaudy Foto Hut, a stack of tires between two vehicles, a solitary rusty tricycle in a suburban street. And there were his photos of women, often of a certain age, Southern females gone to seed, wearing gaudy bell-bottoms or floral prints, matronly types smoking in a diner or walking to a car.

There were others that struck me: a child staring from an open car door, bright tomatoes on a kitchen counter, a vase of flowers, and famously, a blood-red juke joint ceiling. Every photo was saturated with dye-transfer color that pulled the eye all over the piece. Every shot provoked questions: What exactly is happening here? Who is this person? What am I supposed to see?

That may be the point: There is nothing to see and there is everything to see. And you’re not “supposed” to see anything. The photograph is what it is — and what you get from it is up to you. Eggleston’s work sprung from his theory of a “democratic camera” — a nonjudgmental glass eye that allows us to see all-too-familiar sights as new — and look at them as long as we like.

There were those I knew in Memphis who thought it all rather silly. Eggleston’s pictures were just weird snapshots, they said. Anyone could take them. What’s the big deal? It’s just a picture of a tricycle. The emperor has no clothes.

They were wrong, I think.

The writer Richard Woodward has called Eggleston’s work “fearless naturalism — a belief that by looking patiently at what others ignore or look away from, interesting things can be seen.” Eggleston himself has said he is “at war with the obvious.” And, of course, sometimes what seems obvious is anything but. Or is that too obvious?

Maybe it’s more difficult to understand Eggleston’s impact now, when almost literally everyone you know is a photographer, when the simplest of snapshots from a phone camera can be manipulated with dozens of filters, resized, cropped, enhanced — all with the swipe of a finger. Every day, millions of people are creating often striking and compelling photos of children, cars, food, pets, sunsets, faces, etc., though few would argue that they’re creating art.

With our social media photos, we are advertising ourselves, creating virtual scrapbooks for the world to take in, using a lens through which we want others to see us. What’s personal becomes very public.

Maybe that’s the true secret of Eggleston’s genius. His art runs exactly counter: What seems at first glance to be public becomes an experience that’s very personal.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Booker T. Jones’ Heartfelt Homecoming at Crosstown Theater

CREDIT: Alex Greene

Alex Greene

Booker T. Jones and band with Carla Thomas

“My first guitar was a Sears Silvertone,” quipped Booker T. Jones during his appearance at Crosstown Theater Saturday. Looking up at the walls around him, he added, “I must have bought it right here.”

Crosstown Concourse, of course, was then the regional warehouse and retail center for Sears. He went on to recall how he quit buying records at Sears after he discovered the Satellite Record Shop, the storefront at the entrance to Stax Records in its heyday. At Sears, he noted, you couldn’t hear the record until you bought it. “But Steve Cropper was happy to play records for you.”

Such are the perks of hearing one of the progenitors of classic soul play his hometown, where, once upon a time, lightning was captured in a bottle, or at least on vinyl. And Jones seemed to revel in the memories.

But the magic of such anecdotes paled before the majesty of the music, unerringly played by Jones and his band (which included his son Ted on guitar, Melvin Brannon, Jr. [aka M-Cat Spoony] on bass, and Darian Gray on drums). Time stood still as the sounds of Jones on the Hammond organ, complete with rotating Leslie speaker, filled the auditorium with the harmonies known from so many classic records.

Though Jones’ latest album, Note by Note, surveys tunes from across his lifetime as a player and a producer, Saturday’s set was decidedly Memphis-heavy, with a heaping dose of originals by Booker T. & the M.G.’s. There was “Green Onions” in all its minimalist glory, and “Time Is Tight,” complete with its powerful coda. “Hip-Hug Her” also was honored, albeit with a twist: flowing lyrics rapped over the tune by Gray.  Alex Greene

Booker T. Jones and son Ted Jones

“And now, here’s a piece by George Gershwin,” Jones noted, before launching into the M.G.s’ arrangement of “Summertime,” as perfect a showcase of his organ mastery as any of their cuts.

But the legacy of that Silvertone guitar was also alive and well, as Jones picked up a Telecaster and sauntered to the front of the stage from time to time, delivering very personal interpretations of “Hey Joe,” a la Jimi Hendrix, “Purple Rain” by Prince, and others. At times, he sang sublime harmonies with his son.   Alex Greene

Booker T. Jones on guitar

But the most sublime harmonies of the night came when Jones called “an old friend” to the stage, none other than the Queen of Memphis Soul, Carla Thomas. Jones, noting the importance of the Thomas family, and especially Carla’s father Rufus, described seeing the movie Baby Driver and unexpectedly hearing her sing in the soundtrack. Then they launched into “B-A-B-Y,” one of Carla’s greatest Stax sides. She was in fine voice, her delivery full of her trademark sweetness and wit. It was a luminous moment, with Carla, Jones and the band breaking out into beaming smiles throughout.

It was a dramatic moment, especially because Jones typically approached each song with a solemnity that seemed to exhort the audience to listen with care. And listen they did, the entire room rapt with adoration for the grooves and the moves that helped put Memphis on the map.

Opening the set were students from the Stax Music Academy, who did right by such classics as “Soul Man,” “Soul Girl,” “When a Man Loves a Woman,” and even Peter Gabriel’s Stax-influenced “Sledgehammer.” For those who slept on it, let it be known that Memphis Soul is alive and well and kicking. 

Categories
News News Blog

On the Scene: Homeless Point-in-Time Count

CREDIT: CAFTH

CAFTH

Volunteers passed out surveys to individuals experiencing homelessness

About 100 volunteers met at Calvary Episcopal Church Downtown early Wednesday morning to help with the annual Point-in-Time Unsheltered Count.

The count is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and done across the country. It’s meant to serve as a snapshot of those experiencing homelessness on a particular night in January. Each count is planned, coordinated, and carried out locally by volunteers.

Here, the Community Alliance for the Homeless (CAFTH), which leads a community effort to end homelessness, organized the count.

Inside the church, volunteers received brief instructions before breaking into groups and heading to assigned neighborhoods to collect data on homeless individuals. I joined three other volunteers, including a bishop and one of the organizers of Wednesday’s effort, Christine Todd, to cover Downtown.

As the sun rose and broke through the clouds, Todd drove us through Downtown looking for anyone that might be homeless. The goal was to locate unsheltered individuals and ask them a list of survey questions, including basic information such as their birth date, ethnicity, and how long they have been homeless, as well as more personal questions, such as whether or not someone making them feel unsafe or drugs or alcohol use has contributed to their homelessness.

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We wore yellow traffic vests and name tags and carried two canisters, one with hot chocolate and the other with coffee. We looked down alleys, on park benches, and doorways. We even knocked on a Porta Potty door looking for a man named Marcus, who had recently told Todd that’s where he had been sleeping.

Todd, who is the community ministries coordinator at Calvary Episcopal Church, has built relationships with homeless individuals living Downtown through her work with the church.

On Sunday mornings, the church opens its doors to homeless individuals, serving them breakfast and providing them with clothes, blankets, and toiletries.

“Did you sleep outside last night?” Todd asked, as we approached a young man curled in a sleeping bag directly behind city hall. The man, who Todd recognized as a regular at Calvary, shivered as he peeked out from under his blanket. He agreed to do the survey, telling us he’s been homeless for four years. He has no job and no sources of income.

During our three-hour shift, we surveyed about a dozen individuals. We encountered most of them in the courtyard of St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral on Poplar, where every Wednesday morning there is a service and free community breakfast.

A group of individuals gathered around a fire pit in the church courtyard. Some passed by on their way into the church service, speaking to any familiar face they saw.

I surveyed a man in his late 50s who has been sleeping in a tent on the church grounds for a couple of years. “I’ve been down on luck” and unable to find a job, the man said as he splashed some lighter fluid into the fire pit, rekindling the flame. “The winters are the worst,” he said.

The man said he spends his days looking for a job, but he doesn’t like to venture too far from his homebase, as he worries someone will steal his belongings. Despite his circumstances, the man said he’s grateful for the resources and services he’s able to get from places like St. Mary’s, the Memphis Union Mission, and soup kitchens nearby.

“Obviously, no one wants to be homeless, but if you’re in this area and you don’t have anything, there are plenty of places around to give you what you need,” he said. “There’s no reason to not have the basic stuff.”

The information collected Wednesday will be submitted to HUD and used to determine what resources Shelby County needs to address homelessness and provide housing for unsheltered individuals.

Last year’s count, recorded a total of 1,325 homeless individuals in Shelby County. Of that number, 58 were unsheltered, and 1,267 were in transitional or emergency shelters.

Todd questions the accuracy of the number of unsheltered individuals, saying there are never enough volunteers to count every person sleeping on the streets.

Cheré Bradshaw, the executive director of CAFTH, said Wednesday’s count is not 100 percent accurate, of course, but data on homelessness is collected throughout the year by alliance’s partner organizations.

“So we have a really good idea there,” Bradshaw said. “This is just a snapshot that HUD uses to figure out how many homeless people we have, if we’re doing okay, or if it’s increasing. And they realize this is not totally accurate, but we keep doing it the same way so you can see some trends.”

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Bradshaw said homelessness is a big issue in the county, “but we’re doing really well ending it, at least for a lot of people.” CAFTH’s goal is to end long-term homeless and make future homelessness “rare, brief, and one-time,” Bradshaw said. “We know that people will become homeless, but they don’t have to sit out there for a year.”

CAFTH uses a housing-first model to get people into permanent housing through a permanent supportive housing initiative. The initiative provides chronically homeless individuals with affordable housing assistance and other support services.

“And people stay,” Bradshaw said. “Ninety-six percent of the people that go in stay, which is really good.”

The alliance also helps families with rapid re-housing. “We have a pretty good amount of that, so there’s never enough for everyone. But we’re trying.”

Bradshaw said CAFTH also helps find emergency shelters for those in need, but “we don’t have enough of those either.” She said that additional emergency shelters are likely the greatest need in the county right now.

“So we know how to do it, if we just had enough money to do it.” Bradshaw said. She adds that the county could benefit from additional funds for emergency shelters and affordable housing, as well as services that help families navigate the housing system. “We don’t have the funds to do that at the level we would like to.”


Bradshaw’s work is motivated by the notion that “no one should be homeless.”

“To tell you the truth, my father was really sick and if he hadn’t had the resources and the care that me and my sisters were able to provide for him, he would have probably been homeless,” she said. “When I see people on the street, I can see how that could have been my dad. The only difference is my dad had the resources. And that makes me want to help people.”