Arlo McKinley plays the Green Room tonight (Photo courtesy Mempho Presents)
Before the pandemic, one of the freshest spots for new, unpredictable music was Crosstown Concourse. Thanks to Crosstown Arts, both the Crosstown Theater and the Green Room set a new standard for world-class, often edgy music in the Bluff City, hosting everything from down home soul by Booker T. Jones to wildly eclectic jazz by Marc Ribot to the avant-garde classical outings of the Continuum Festival.
As of tonight, that spirit is back in force, and Memphis is the better for it. Yet when I hear from Crosstown Arts Music Department Manager Jenny Davis that both Crosstown Theater and the Green Room will be presenting live music again, the first question that springs to mind is, “That’s great! Will the Art Bar be reopening?”
She laughs and says, “I think I hear that question more than any other.” But, she notes, while drinks will be available at tonight’s show in the Green Room, she can’t commit to a set date for the watering hole. “But,” she reassures me, “it will be reopening sooner rather than later.”
The artist set to bring Crosstown Arts’ venues back to life for the first time since the pandemic, singer/songwriter Arlo McKinley, who plays the Green Room tonight at 7:30 p.m., will be presented by Mempho, a familiar name in the Memphis music scene, thanks to the Mempho Music Festival. Later in the fall, Mempho will be presenting another concert, The Wood Brothers, at Crosstown Arts in the Crosstown Theater.
There will be plenty more between those two, however. “Of course we have Reigning Sound on Saturday, July 24th,” she laughs, partly because (full disclosure) I’m playing in that one, but also because she’s just getting used to how much music is already slated for the two venues. The staff has done a sudden hard pivot into the here-and-now. “Up until just a few weeks ago, we were anticipating late 2021, definitely 2022, for shows happening again here. So we were working on 2022 shows and that was all really looking exciting. Then we found out that we can have shows now. And both the Green Room and the Theater will be fully open, at full capacity.”
Elizabeth King (Photo courtesy Bible & Tire Recording Co.)
Many films dot the upcoming dates, but the one screening on July 29th is actually a hybrid film and live music event. “This is part of our film series,” she says. “We’ll have a weekly film every Thursday for $5, and this will be our first one: Elizabeth King singing on stage at Crosstown Theater to a silent film from 1930, Hell-Bound Train. It’s a film that presents all these terrible situations, with Elizabeth King singing gospel songs in contrast. It’s going to be a really cool combination. She’ll be singing with Will Sexton and Matt Ross-Spang and Will McCarley.” Other live-score events may be part of Crosstown Arts’ future, but nothing is settled yet.
“Then we have two shows in the Green Room that same week,” Davis adds. “The film is Thursday, and then on Friday, July 30th, in the Green Room, it’s Rachel Maxann, a Memphis-based musician, with Oakwalker opening. I’m really looking forward to that show. Then Those Pretty Wrongs, with Jody Stephens and Luther Russell, will be at the Green Room on July 31st.”
Davis stresses that what’s being announced on the Crosstown Arts event calendar is far from all the music being planned. “There’s definitely more to come,” she underscores. “We’re still working on details. We should be back to having shows every single week, starting this weekend. Although there will be no Continuum Festival per se, Blueshift Ensemble is still going to perform pieces by the ICEBERG composers from New York, in two concerts with five pieces each, Friday, August 20th and Saturday, August 21st.” Beyond that iceberg’s tip, she hints, there lurk many other musical delights, including a special screening of the recent chronicle of female electronic music pioneers, Sisters with Transistors, on September 2nd. As always, keep checking the Crosstown Arts website for the updated schedule.
The Midtown site of the upcoming Tonica bar/restaurant.
Get ready for Tonica — a new drinking and eating establishment from the folks who brought you Ecco on Overton Park and Libro.
That would be Sabine Bachmann and her sons, chefs Armando and Mario Gagliano, and John-Paul Gagliano.
It’s slated to open in October at the location of the old Marena’s restaurant at 1545 Overton Park, two doors down from Ecco, says Armando.
“It’s going to be a bar, but a bar that serves food,” he says.
Tonica will be a “neighborhood bar,” where people can get small plates and more substantial dishes. But, he says, “I don’t want that to be considered a tapas bar or anything like that, but it will be more focused on the cocktails. We’re going to put more focus on the cocktails and the wine list.”
And, he says, “The food is not going to be an afterthought. It will be really good — a Spanish influence with a little bit of Italian-Mediterranean twist.”
Bachmann came up with “Tonica” for the name, which is Spanish derived. “The Spanish national drink, believe it or not, is gin tonics, which in Spain is ‘gin tonica,’” Bachmann says. “That’s where I got the name.”
“They are very known for their different types of gin tonics,” Armando says. “They do a lot of tonics with gin and different spirits and herbs and liqueurs.”
Customers will be able to get similar drinks as well as European and South American wines, he says.
John-Paul, who is general manager of all their restaurants, wants Tonica to also be a place people can enjoy while waiting for a table at Ecco, Armando says.
Decor will be “similar to Ecco, but a lot more floral. More plants hanging off the walls. Very white background. A lot of greenery around.”
“Natural wood for the bar and everything,” Sabine says. “Light and airy.”
As of now, Tonica will be a “Thursday through Sunday type of deal,” Armando says. “Something like 4:30, 5 p.m. to around midnight. Kitchen closing at 10 each night. But also some small plates to serve from 10 to close. Like olive trays and bruschetta and stuff like that. Hot food stopping at 10 p.m.”
And the menu won’t be limited to just small plates, Bachmann says. “We also will have paella and some Spanish-influenced main dishes as well.”
His mother always liked Marena’s, Armando says. “My mom loved the location when she lived in the neighborhood long, long ago.”
“Marena” was named for Rena Franklin. “Her cooking was just amazing,” Bachmann says. “Also, she featured different countries every month. It was just wonderful. Then I liked Jack a lot. Her husband, who was always front of the house. They really left a legacy there.”
Bachmann and her sons had previously looked at the location. “It wasn’t right for us at the time,” she says. “Now it’s really right for us to go in there.”
The location previously housed Parish Grocery, which moved to Cooper-Young. “It just seemed like a really good place to put a smaller sister restaurant in the neighborhood,” Armando says. “Like a smaller tavern, but maybe not even that. Just a very local bar, especially to the Evergreen district.”
“Walk to your bar,” Bachmann says.
The rear of Tonica has a New Orleans courtyard feel.
As for seating, Armando says Tonica will be “somewhere in the neighborhood of what we have inside Ecco and then some. There is some sidewalk dining — not too much — but there’s also this really cool back alley that almost has this New Orleans vibe to it. It’s kind of tucked away, a really tight space. It has a lot of brick back there.”
It has “almost a courtyard kind of feel, but very homey. It’s very intimate.”
Stay tuned. Tonica sounds like a tonic for the neighborhood.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris nominated Dr. Michelle Taylor to be the next director of the Shelby County Health Department.
The nomination comes after the March resignation of former director Alisa Haushalter amid a state investigation of wasted COVID-19 doses and untidy vaccine record-keeping. Dr. LaSonya Hall has been serving as interim director.
Taylor is a graduate of White Station High School. She has a B.S. from Howard University, an M.D. from East Tennessee State University, and an M.S. the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She also earned a Doctor of Public Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, and a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University.
“I believe Dr. Taylor is the right person to lead our health department and pull us all toward shared responsibility,” Harris said in a statement. “She will bring to the job a wealth of knowledge and, as important, compassion and commitment to community.”
Taylor said she was a “military brat” and “Memphis was the only place I lived for more than three years.”
“God didn’t bring me here with all of this expertise not to give back to the community that has nurtured me and helped me to grow up in so many different ways,” she said.
Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner said “Taylor is exactly what Shelby County needs.”
“She has the academic credentials, professional skills, and knowledge to lead our health department well into the future,” Turner said. “The fact that she is from right here in Shelby County is an added benefit, but even if she weren’t from here, she’d still be an excellent candidate for this job.”
Taylor has served with the department for several years. She also worked as the associate medical director and deputy administrator for the Maternal and Child Health Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program. Most recently, Taylor worked as an aerospace medicine division chief in the Office of the Air National Guard Surgeon General in the Air National Guard Readiness Center.
Taylor will be presented to the Shelby County Board of Commissioners’ General Government Committee on Wednesday, July 21st. The full commission will vote on her appointment on Monday, July 26th. If approved, she will begin work on August 2nd.
With the Delta Variant keeping COVID-19 in the news, a stay-at-home option is looking appealing to more of us lately. While not every artist wants their show to be live-streamed, the clubs listed here are typically broadcasting live footage. And individual artists continue to sing their songs from home studios and elsewhere. All of them help keep the return to live performance in perspective, as some music fans remain vulnerable.
ALL TIMES CDT
Thursday, July 15 8 p.m. Parker Millsap — at Hernando’s Hide-a-way Website
MEMPHIS, TN - July 8, 2021: The Kelly family spend time together in their living room at their home in the Douglass neighborhood in Memphis. Starting July 15, the Kellys will be among more than 36 million U.S. families who may be eligible for an expanded federal child tax credit, which for the rest of the year will be paid directly to them in monthly installments.
(Credit: Brad Vest for MLK50)
This story is co-published with MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit Memphis newsroom focused on poverty, power and public policy — issues about which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. cared deeply. Find more stories like this at MLK50.com.Subscribe to their newsletter here.
What would Renita Kelly’s family do with an extra $800 a month?
The question will soon no longer be hypothetical. Starting Thursday, the Kellys will be among the 39 million U.S. families who are eligible for a federal child tax credit of up to $3,600 per child that will be paid directly to them in monthly installments through the end of the year.
Kelly said some of the money will go toward bills, including rent and utilities for the duplex apartment she and her husband Briant rent in the Douglass neighborhood. Their 10-year-old daughter Kaitlyn and 6-year-old son Kolten need clothes and shoes, and Kelly loves the idea of karate or gymnastics classes for them. Plus, the money will help with expenses for 5-month-old Keeon.
“It’s a little bit difficult,” Renita Kelly said of her budgeting process for a family without a steady income. Sometimes she wishes she could do more to keep the kids busy, especially after the turbulence from the pandemic last year. “But you have to choose between buying a pair of shoes and doing this and that,” she said.
Experts said they expect the influx of child tax credit money to dramatically help Black families in Memphis, where the child poverty rate is 40% for Black children and 35% for children overall – the second highest in the nation for large cities. That direct infusion of money will, in turn, boost the local economy, with an initial impact of at least $234 million, said a local economist.
Nationally, the tax credit could nearly halve the child poverty rate, according to the Brookings Institution. The IRS estimates 88% of families with children will receive monthly payments. In Tennessee, it could cut the child poverty rate from nearly 13% to just over 7%. Research shows that children who don’t grow up in poverty have better educational, economic, and health outcomes, among other benefits.
The American Rescue Plan makes three main changes to the existing child tax credit:
Expands who can receive the credit, now including children up to age 17. Previously, only children below 17 were eligible.
Changes the way parents and guardians qualify for the tax credit, making it available to them regardless of whether they owe taxes. Under the old tax credit formula, some households with very low incomes didn’t qualify for the maximum refund.
Increases the amount of money per child as much as $1,600.
The expanded qualification criteria means more families will be eligible for more money now that the maximum credit can be received without having to owe taxes, according to a Congressional Research Service report. It found that before the expansion, around one in five taxpayers with a qualifying child had incomes too low for them to receive the maximum credit amount.
The refund has jumped from $2,000 for all children to $3,600 for children under 6 and $3,000 for children between 6 and 17.
All families below an income threshold of $240,000 for single filers or $440,000 for joint filers will get some credit. To get the maximum credit, single filers must make less than $75,000, head of household filers less than $112,500 and joint filers less than $150,00, according to the IRS.
Payments will be made monthly between July 15 and the end of the year unless a family opts for a lump sum on next year’s tax return. After December 31st, the remainder of the payments from the first six months of 2021 will be paid out in next April’s tax returns.
That means Kelly’s family is set to receive $800 a month – $250 each for Kaitlyn and Kolten and $300 for baby Keon.
Neither Kelly nor her husband, Briant, have full-time jobs, she said. In the past, Kelly has worked as a customer service representative and as a tax preparation assistant. Briant has worked as a certified tire technician and now does construction work sometimes, but he hasn’t gotten much work since the pandemic started, she said.
They rely on financial help from friends and family and donations related to their community outreach, which focuses on music and motivational speaking, often at neighborhood events. She’s considering ways to turn that volunteer work into a nonprofit, but for now, it doesn’t generate much income.
Kelly wants to focus full-time on parenting her children, including homeschooling them, she said, so the tax credit money could make a difference for the family.
She’d heard bits and pieces about the tax credits but didn’t know how much was coming or when.
“I really haven’t done the math to think about it. I just leave it alone because you really don’t know what’s going to happen until it happens,” Kelly said.
Memphis second in child poverty
Nearly 22% of Memphians live in poverty, according to census data from the 2020 Memphis Poverty Fact Sheet. The fact sheet is a yearly report compiled and released by Elena Delavega, associate professor of social work at the University of Memphis, and Gregory M. Blumenthal of GMBS Consulting.
The Memphis poverty rate is more than double the nation’s 2019 poverty rate of 10.5%. But the rate of poverty is not borne evenly across the city, with 26% of Black Memphians and 29% of Latinos living below the poverty line. That’s compared to slightly more than 9% for white Memphians.
The overall child poverty rate in Memphis is 35%. Just under 10% of white children live in poverty in the city while 40% of Black children and 33% of Latino or Hispanic children do. Among cities with populations greater than half a million people, Memphis ranks second in childhood poverty, behind only Detroit.
But the economic reality for families is even worse than the poverty numbers show. The federal poverty threshold of $26,500 a year for a family of four is much lower than a livable income, which is the amount needed to meet minimum living standards, said Robert Moffitt, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University. In Memphis, a living wage for a family of four with two working adults and two children is $74,944 before taxes – or about $18 an hour for each working adult – according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator. Even families who live above the poverty line may still struggle to make ends meet.
“If you work at the minimum wage ($7.25 an hour) and you work full-time – 50 weeks a year at 40 hours a week – you’re still below poverty. That’s not enough to get you above the poverty line if you have a family of three or four and kids to support,” Moffitt said.
Even if the tax credit doesn’t officially lift people out of poverty, it’s still a huge benefit to a family with children, he said.
A “major injection” into economy
Given the instability of the last year, Kelly will not budget the money until it comes in. But when it does, the family will spend it “almost immediately” because they have immediate needs, she said.
Because their needs are often more urgent, lower-income people are more likely to quickly spend money that comes in, as opposed to middle- or higher-income people who may put money in college funds or other bank accounts, Delavega said.
There isn’t enough data now to quantify the local economic impact, said economist John Gnuschke, former director of the Sparks Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Memphis. Still, the money will be a “major injection” into the local economy, he said.
About 25% of the county population is under 18, according to census data. If each of those children qualifies their family for an additional $1,000 in refund credit over what the families previously received, that would bring an initial economic impact of $234 million. And that estimate is the low end since families with children under 6 could qualify for $1,600 more, said Gnuschke, who’s also president of the consulting business 901 Economics.
“A substantial share could be local spending including all the range of consumer expenditures (such as) housing, food, and retail sales,” Gnuschke said via email. “Large positive impact is guaranteed.”
When money is labeled as being for children, it often gets spent on them, said Elaine Maag, who researches programs supporting low-income families and children at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute. That could include goods – such as laptops, book bags, school supplies or toys – or intangibles, like Kelly’s dreams of karate or gymnastics.
And the tax credit could also help create and fill jobs, Delavega said. People who had to stay home with children now could use the tax credit on childcare, allowing them to head back to work. Experts have said lack of childcare may be holding back some workers from re-entering the labor force. And in doing so, it also could generate new or better-paying childcare jobs, one of many ways the money will have ripple effects, Delavega said.
“Putting money in the hands of the low-income people immediately improves the economy of the community,” she said.
Investment in children
The credit is a temporary, one-year change – for now. Democrats have said they want to make the tax credit permanent, and experts have said it may be politically difficult to walk back the expansion.
But the investment in slashing child poverty is well worth it, said Kellie Spilman, director of the Early Success Coalition at Porter-Leath, a nonprofit serving at-risk children and families in Shelby County.
“We know that policies that are designed to reduce child poverty lead to better outcomes throughout the lifespan — educational, economic, health outcomes and interaction with the juvenile justice system,” Spilman said.
The tax credit will “generate about $800 billion in benefits to society,” the Center on Poverty and Social Policy found. It will increase the children’s future earnings by $80.6 billion dollars, save $32 billion in taxpayer health care costs, and increase parent health and longevity, according to the center.
Kelly hopes the payments, when they come, will be extended beyond a year.
“It’d help us be able to save for future problems, future emergencies and things of that nature. We’d probably be able to save to make other investments,” Kelly said. “We could save to look into (our) own business, or anything … to help us get out of the poverty or low income that we’re in.”
MEMPHIS, TN – July 8, 2021: Renita Kelly lays down her youngest son, Keeon, five-months-old, for a nap at their home in the Douglass Neighborhood in Memphis. Starting July 15th, the Kellys will be among more than 36 million U.S. families who may be eligible for an expanded federal child tax credit, which for the rest of the year will be paid directly to them in monthly installments. (Credit: Brad Vest for MLK50)
Q&A
When many families look at their bank accounts Thursday, they might notice some extra money. That’s because that’s when the first of six monthly federal payments is expected to land. Families will receive the money as part of the expanded Child Tax Credit. Here’s a quick Q&A on what the credit is, who qualifies, how much money people will get and what else you need to know.
What is the Child Tax Credit?
The federal child tax credit has been around since 1997 and has gone through various changes. In recent years, it was a partially refundable credit, which meant if a person made enough money to pay taxes, they’d get some of those taxes reimbursed as a credit. People who didn’t make enough to get a tax refund could not get the full credit.
This year, Congress passed President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief package called the American Rescue Plan, which temporarily made substantial changes to the credit. Now, the credit is unrelated to whether or not someone pays taxes, meaning every person below a high-income threshold and who claims a child up to age 17 for taxes is theoretically eligible for the full payment. Congress also increased the maximum amount families received by at least $1,000 per child and changed the default payments to installments instead of a lump sum on tax returns.
When do the payments begin and how will families receive the money?
Between July 15th and December 31st, families will get a monthly payment either mailed by check or, if the IRS has up-to-date bank information, deposited directly in an account. After the end of the year, the remaining portion of the 2021 tax credit will be distributed in a lump sum with tax refunds. The credit is a temporary, one-year change for now, though Congressional Democrats have said they want to make the changes permanent.
The IRS has sent letters letting families know the money should be coming, but people who don’t file taxes will need to use the IRS’ Non-filer Sign-up Tool to file simplified tax returns. If families haven’t yet done so, that’s okay. People can update their information online anytime.
Who gets the money and how much will they get?
Anyone with a child will receive $300 a month for each child under 6 years old and $250 per child between 6 and 17 years old, up to a high-income threshold (the previous age limit was 16 years old). If the child’s parents file separate returns (for example, if they’re not married), only one parent can claim the child as a dependent and get the credit.
The payment amounts begin to decrease after $75,000 in income for single filers, $112,500 for head of household filers, and $150,000 for joint filers. Still, families will not receive less than they did before the change to the tax credit.
Parents will be able to change the number of children they are claiming or update their income by using the Child Tax Credit Update Portal, which will be available by late summer, the IRS says.
Who will not get money?
People who make more than $240,000 for single tax filers and $440,000 for joint filers will not get a refund.
Undocumented people may qualify for the tax credits if they have an Individual Tax Identification Number and their children have social security numbers.
Americans spent 10 percent less on food during the COVID-19 pandemic and economic recession of 2020, according to federal data.
Citizens spent 8.62 percent of their disposable income (which the government counts as all money left after paying taxes) on food, the lowest in 60 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Spending on food has been steady for the last 20 years, decreasing only slightly from 9.95 percent of disposable income to 9.58 percent from 2000 to 2019.
Spending on food away from home (restaurants, fast food places, schools, and others) took the biggest hit during the pandemic as Americans spent 22.2 percent less of their incomes on dining out. They spent slightly more (1.4 percent) on food at home from supermarkets, convenience stores, warehouse club stores, supercenters, and other retailers.
The historic changed was fueled, in part, by government assistance programs that gave some Americans more disposable income through stimulus payments and unemployment benefits.
From 1960 to 2000, Americans cut food spending by about about 7 percent, according to the USDA, from 17 percent to 9.9 percent. During that time, Americans cut spending on food at home from 13.7 percent to 5.7 percent. Spending on food away from home rose from 3.3 percent to 4.2 percent.
“The declining share of income spent on food at home in the United States over 1960 to 2000, in part, reflects rising disposable incomes and efficiencies in the U.S. food system, which kept inflation for food-at-home prices generally low,” according to the USDA. “Higher incomes mean food at home can take up a smaller share of income and allow for more funds for the generally more expensive option of eating out.”
Food prices rose from 2000 to 2019. Food-at-home prices increased by 44 percent. Food-away-from home prices rose by 68.3 percent, according to the USDA.
Once again, I’m scrapping a half-finished column for this space in favor of something more timely. The other piece was a little more hopeful, a little less serious. It’s evergreen, good beyond this news cycle, so I hope to get a chance to share it with you soon. I will if our state leaders will cool their jets for a week. (Smart bets say you’ll never see it.)
This morning, I read something in The Tennessean that seriously frightened me. On Monday, July 12th, (yesterday as of this writing), the Tennessee Department of Health fired Dr. Michelle Fiscus, the top vaccine official in the Tennessee state government. Fiscus claims she was fired to appease Republican state lawmakers who are angry about efforts to vaccinate teenagers. Maybe you remember the month-old consternation about state health officials “targeting” teens with ads on Facebook and social media? First of all, teens don’t spend too much time on Facebook these days, and, second, “targeting” youth with ads for a life-saving vaccine is a little like “attacking” people with a campaign encouraging them to eat their vegetables and drink eight glasses of water a day.
Fiscus issued a statement, published by The Tennessean, that recounted the pushback she received for doing her job, for simply trying to protect Tennesseans. Though it deeply disturbs me to think that any of our elected officials would prize political party over the health and safety of their constituents, I would be lying if I said it surprised me. That’s been the play, hasn’t it? The messages have been “get back to work” and “don’t live in fear” and “come visit Tennessee,” totally ignoring that if every eligible Tennessean were vaccinated, we could all go back to work — and to restaurants and on vacation and wherever — with relative safety.
Why have we wasted time and energy and money pursuing unconstitutional and discriminatory laws about who can use which bathroom? (A law that was in effect for just eight days before a federal judge issued an injunction — those are our tax dollars at work paying lawyers to defend a disgusting piece of legislation.) Why does our governor spend his time on trips to the southern border of the U.S., on promotional videos with Brad Paisley? Wouldn’t it promote travel to Tennessee if our vaccination rate was above 40 percent? Well, sure, but that’s not going to win anyone a spot on a GOP ticket. The game now is to out-Trump the competition, to vie for a sound bite on Fox News, the only currency that matters.
I think these people are far beyond shame, and I want to use this space for something constructive. So I am again writing an earnest plea for all who can to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
I say “all who can” because I recognize that some Memphians cannot be vaccinated. There are people with health conditions that preclude their ability to get the shot. And of course, there are children younger than 12 years old who can’t legally get the vaccine. Those kids will be back in school this fall. It’s for the sake of those who can’t that the rest of us must do so.
And I’ll say right now, I’m fully vaccinated. It was quick, relatively painless, and absolutely free. I’m not asking anyone to do something I wouldn’t do myself. The side effects were mild. The day after each shot, my shoulder was a bit sore. The day after my second shot, I felt a little tired and muddle-headed. To be honest, I’ve had worse hangovers and far more uncomfortable bouts of the common cold.
Why am I writing this now? Well, it seems we could use a boost. Hospitalizations and positive test rates are rising. The Flyer’s Toby Sells reports that the seven-day COVID-19 averages have more than doubled since last week. The reproductive rate of the virus is 1.22, the highest it’s been since June 2020. Meanwhile, The Tennessean’s vaccine tracker site reports that about 34.56 percent of Shelby County’s population is fully vaccinated, and the Delta variant is knocking on the door.
Remember, every single person the virus infects is another chance for it to mutate, to become resistant to vaccines. To undo all the work we’ve done to claw our way back toward being able to see each other in public again. Because an incompletely vaccinated population presents multiple opportunities for this dreadful disease to become more contagious, more resistant to vaccinations and treatment measures, choosing to be vaccinated is in the public interest. It’s not just a personal choice. No, it’s the cost of living in this world with other people.
Sometimes you have to do things to help protect your neighbors. It’s really that simple.
Servers at Saturday’s “Elephants in the Park” homeless feed. (Naser Fazlullah front and center, with shades on) (Photo: Kristina Garner)
Political parties, as is surely no secret, are constantly looking for converts, and, to that end, normally have what is designated as an “outreach” officer or branch.
The Shelby County Republican Party, which in recent years has lost a shade of its former demographic edge, has one of the best and most effective outreach officials in Naser Fazlullah, a native of Bangladesh and a small business owner who, in the 20 years or so of his American experience, has employed his natural enthusiasm and work ethic to forge ties and friendships across all sorts of boundaries, political and otherwise.
A case in point was an event he conceived and brought to fruition on Saturday at Morris Park on the edge of Downtown. Called “Elephants in the Park,” it had cadres of the local Republican party working side by side with off-duty judges, members of law enforcement, and community activists like Stevie Moore, founder of Freedom From Unnecessary Negatives (FFUN), a renowned anti-violence group — all toiling at food tables handing out meal boxes (fish, spaghetti, fries, coleslaw) to a population of hungry Memphians recruited from three local homeless agencies, an estimated 300 people before the day was over. The food came from both Fazlullah’s own Whitehaven restaurant and from other donors.
Politics, as such, figured not at all. The idea was to make people-to-people connections, for the sake not merely of the beneficiaries but of the servers who worked for the day on their behalf — like John Niven, a veteran GOP activist who commented, “I’ve never done anything that made me feel as good as this did. The homeless basically don’t vote, and those who do probably vote Democratic, but so what?”
• The most common political name right now? That’s an easy one. It’s “Harris.” There’s Lee Harris (county mayor); Sheleah Harris (school board); Michael Harris (Shelby County Democratic Party’s chairman); and Linda Harris (candidate for district attorney general).
And, of course, there’s Kamala Harris (vice president of the United States).
The one who was on display Monday morning at The Hub in East Memphis (to a group of politically astute ladies calling themselves “Voices of Reason”) was Torrey Harris, first-term state representative for House District 90.
State Rep. Harris discussed with a rapt audience the ins and outs of how Democrats struggle to make their influence felt in the supermajority Republican legislature. His auditors were especially interested in — and aggrieved by — the majority’s passage in the last session of a bill outlawing the teaching in the state’s public schools of “critical race theory,” which, as Harris noted, is (a) not taught in the public schools, and (b) is the GOP’s catchphrase for attempts to deal honestly with the nation’s racial history.
Running as a Democrat last year, Harris had defeated former state Representative John DeBerry, whose long-term sympathy with Republican positions caused the denial of his right to run under the Democratic party label.
The defeated DeBerry, who ended up running as an independent, was rewarded by GOP Governor Bill Lee with a well-paid job as gubernatorial advisor, and one of the ex-Democrat’s main functions, Harris explained, is — wait for it — that of liaison with the House’s Democratic members.
BLP Film Studios partners (l-r) Cecilia Barnes, Jason Farmer, and Carolyn Henry (Photo: Courtesy KQ Communications)
Memphis is a city of innovation — from rock-and-roll to self-service grocery stores, FedEx to Gebre Waddell’s Sound Credit software, that fact is undeniable. It’s also a city known for Black arts, in myriad forms. Now, three local Black-led organizations adept at marrying art and innovation, BLP Film Studios, Tone, and Unapologetic, aim to make Memphis a beacon in the South. In doing so, they’re making the city a better place.
The Road to Whitehaven
Jason Farmer’s journey to arts entrepreneur started simply enough. In 2008, he took his son Jason II to see the first current-era Marvel movie, Iron Man. “He started saying, ‘I want to be a filmmaker,’” recalls Farmer. “As a parent, you think that’s going to be a quickly passing thing, but he stuck to it. He started to make little sets at the house. We bought him a camera, and he started to film his sister acting out roles.”
Farmer decided he needed to figure out how to support his son’s ambitions, but since his background is in military and law enforcement, he knew nothing about the movie business — or even where to begin. “I posted on social media that I needed someone to reach out to me who may be in a film space, and a friend, who I hadn’t seen in a number of years, reached out to ask what it was that I needed. I told her what my dilemma was, and she started to send me out to various independent film projects, to various agencies and film festivals. And that’s what started the journey.”
Jason II’s passion for filmmaking inspired his father Jason Farmer to start BLP Film Studios. (Photo: Courtesy KQ Communications)
Now, Jason II is a film student at Morehouse College, and Farmer is spearheading BLP, an ambitious project to create one of the largest film production facilities in the South right here in Memphis.
Farmer is not the first person to try to kickstart a homegrown film and television industry here. In 1929, one of the earliest sound films in history was filmed in Memphis. Director King Vidor’s Hallelujah was a musical with an all-Black cast, which introduced many people to authentic gospel and blues. Modern filmmaking in Memphis can be traced back to the establishment of University of Memphis’ film department and the creation of Marius Penczner’s 1982 monster noir, I Was a Zombie for the F.B.I. In 1989, Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train, filmed entirely in the then-moribund South Main neighborhood, became a seminal work in the independent film movement. That inspired some Memphians to see the city through Jarmusch’s eyes as a shabby chic nexus of popular culture waiting to be rediscovered. In the 1990s, homegrown auteur Mike McCarthy made three psychotronic films by the skin of his teeth. Meanwhile, the city played host to its first major Hollywood productions in decades: the John Grisham adaptations, The Firm and The Rainmaker, and Milos Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flynt. In 2000, an upstart-film festival called Indie Memphis found its first star in Craig Brewer, who gained attention in Hollywood with the pioneering digital film The Poor & Hungry and then fought for four years to produce Hustle & Flow in his adopted hometown. The aughts brought more big productions, such as the Oscar-winningWalk the Line and 21 Grams.
But after the 2008 financial crisis, things changed. Hollywood productions became much more reliant on state-level tax incentives; in the South, Georgia and Louisiana offered more generous deals than Tennessee. In 2010, Brewer’s remake of Footloose, which was originally written to be set in rural West Tennessee, was lured away to Georgia. The nascent Memphis film industry essentially collapsed, as experienced crew members departed for the greener pastures of Atlanta. Local filmmakers continued the indie tradition of creating daring works on shoestring budgets, but the city would not host another major production until 2019, when NBC filmed the TV series Bluff City Law here.
That’s the environment Farmer found himself working in — and trying to change. “I’m not a creative,” says Farmer. “I started to look at it from a business aspect. What was the business case for the Memphis film industry — or lack thereof? What were those challenges?”
One big problem has always been a lack of adequate facilities. “For 30 years now, major productions in Memphis have always been able to ‘make do’ with such existing spaces as warehouses and factories — or various other empty spaces that fit the specifications for a soundstage space,” says Memphis and Shelby County Film and Television Commissioner Linn Sitler. “The minimum specifications have always been the same: 28-foot to 30-foot-tall ceilings, clear span, no windows, and non-metal roofs. Our clients look for a space that would also provide an overall quiet outside environment with lots of parking and nearby offices.”
The lack of suitable soundstages was almost a deal breaker for Bluff City Law, Sitler says. “Only at the last possible moment was a former skating rink located, which did meet the minimum soundstage requirements. The offices were still miles away. The traffic noise of Summer Avenue was right outside, but it was the best we could offer.”
The Atlanta area, by contrast, offers producers several full-service production facilities, including Trilith Studios, where much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is produced, and the homegrown Tyler Perry Studios. “I spent really a lot of time doing background research on these other places,” Farmer says. “What emerged from that was, without challenges here in Memphis and in Tennessee, we had an opportunity to carve out a niche space that had really not been explored. We really needed to look at it as creating infrastructure and the supporting ecosystem that it takes to support projects. We want to go after the industry, as opposed to going after one-off projects.”
Farmer says his research suggested that the situation was far from hopeless. “We came up with a model that allowed us to use our natural asset, which is the great cultural history here. … At the same time, there were some things that were starting to happen with the industry trying to be more attentive to marketing to Black and brown audiences.”
For decades, Black productions were a hard sell in Hollywood. Conventional wisdom in the white-dominated boardrooms was that white people would not see Black films, and that African-American casts could not sell a picture in vital overseas markets like China. This thinking willfully ignored counter-examples, like the immensely successful films of Tyler Perry. Recent breakthroughs, such as the success of 2016 Best Picture winner Moonlight and Jordan Peele’s Get Out, have exposed conventional wisdom about race in Hollywood as myth. Earlier this year, Craig Brewer’s Coming 2 America, which features an all-Black cast led by Eddie Murphy, became Amazon Studios’ biggest hit ever, driven by huge international interest, particularly in Africa. Black films, Farmer says, are good business. “There have been a number of studies that have supported the argument, most recently the McKinsey & Company study that said the industry is leaving about $10 billion a year in potential revenue on the table by not backing productions that are reflective of the communities we live in.”
It’s not enough to just market to BIPOC audiences. Hallelujah might have been a groundbreaking Black musical, but since King Vidor was a caucasian raised in Jim Crow Texas, it is also rife with harmful stereotypes. Many big content producers are now actively recruiting Black producers and directors to create stories that better reflect the community. “With Memphis positioned as the largest suburban minority population in the country, it makes it easy for us here,” Farmer says. “We’re trying to help them answer questions around DEI — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — and we can do it in an organic manner here in Memphis because of the community makeup.”
BLP Film Studios seeks to close Memphis’ infrastructure gap by creating a sprawling film and television production campus in Farmer’s native Whitehaven. Located just west of Highway 51 near the Mississippi border, BLP Studios will feature 12 soundstages and assorted support and administrative facilities. Farmer says the area meets the criteria of available land and easy access to air and ground transportation. “I knew that Whitehaven had a lot of untapped potential,” he says. “There were just a lot of things that, from a business standpoint, when you looked at creating a platform to attract people from around the world, made Whitehaven the obvious choice. And I had great confidence because I come from that community. Whitehaven embraces its children, so to speak.”
Orange Mound Tower as seen from below (Photo: Chris McCoy)
Orange Mound Tower Rises
Vacant for two decades, the United Equipment building is an Orange Mound landmark. From the front door of Tone’s gallery space, Victoria Jones can see the former feed mill towering over Lamar Avenue.
Jones, whose first job out of college was with Crosstown Arts, founded Tone in 2015 as The CLTV. “My goal originally was just, how do I get more Black artists into Crosstown?” she says. “But we had an opportunity to see through programming how needed it was for the rest of the city and for artists.”
Jones says Black artists have never had the freedom to create like their white counterparts, immersed in the privileged high-art world. “What does it mean for Black artists to have a touch point, to do some experimenting, to get creative outside of this kind of white space? A lot of times, when we get new spaces, we have to toe the line of perfection for fear of losing access to the space. What happens when we carve out a space where Black folks can show up authentically and fully themselves in that experimentation? We got to see that start to happen as we were doing programming at Crosstown. It just became really important to us to dig in somewhere, create a home, and build a foundation, so that artists have this touch point consistently.”
Victoria Jones of Tone (Photo courtesy Tone)
Jones’ nascent organization signed a lease on a former retail space at 2234 Lamar, where they could stretch out and mount new and daring shows and performances by Black artists. But Jones says their eyes were always on the future. “We weren’t the first for Black artists, but the lack of sustainability has caused every generation to have to start over. So we have been thinking since we started for real about what it means to sustain. What does it mean to hand this baton off to the next generation of artists? And so for us that came with property, having access to consistent space. What would that mean for generations of artists, creatives, entrepreneurs?”
The arc of urban gentrification goes something like this: Artists looking for cheap studio space move into blighted neighborhoods where they can create art, mount shows, and host events without getting the cops called on them for disturbing the peace. People who would normally avoid such places attend the events, have fun, and get used to the neighborhood. Landlords see the renewed activity in properties they had long ago given up on and encourage more artists and associated businesses to move in. Then, when a critical mass of activity is reached, they raise the rents, which makes the area unaffordable to the very people who put in the work to make it attractive again. Artists are evicted in favor of more well-heeled businesses looking to burnish their brands among young people flocking to the hip neighborhood. The poor people who lived there all along are also evicted as collatoral damage to the landlords’ rising fortunes.
IMAKEMADBEATS (Photo: Tae Nichol)
Unapologetic founder IMAKEMADBEATS says the only way to break the cycle is for the creatives to become owners, not tenants. When he tells people he grew up poor in Orange Mound, “People look at me like I survived Baghdad or something. We didn’t think anybody was fighting for us or fighting for change. Nobody cared. We were just the selected ones to go through it, the 6 percent to 8 percent that’s got to go through poverty.”
As Unapologetic’s fortunes increased, IMAKEMADBEATS says finding a permanent home in Orange Mound became an urgent priority. “Whether it was to fulfill our ideas as founding partners or to protect the neighborhood or doing our part to help establish wealth and sustainability for the community to be able to buy into, there’s so many reasons to take the longer, harder route of ownership and doing what’s necessary to become developers.”
With the successful Crosstown Concourse model as a guide, Tone and Unapologetic set out to buy the Lamar-Airways Shopping Center, where Tone’s gallery is located, but the deal fell apart at the last minute. Then Jones looked out the window and saw Orange Mound Tower. “I think as soon as we really started considering the tower as a viable option, it became the best option. It’s obviously way more work, but we can start from scratch and build a state-of-the-art campus for Black innovation, Black artists, Black culture, and Black businesses.”
With the vital assistance of Historic Clayborn Temple Executive Director Anasa Troutman, Tone and Unapologetic secured a grant from The Kataly Foundation in Lancaster, California. “She brought those funders to Memphis to introduce them to other organizations,” recalls Jones. “On their trip, they stopped by the gallery. We didn’t even go on-site. They just looked at [the tower] from the gallery, and we told them what it would mean to Black creatives, what it would mean to this community, what it would mean to Memphis as a whole. They are so dedicated to empowering grassroots, community-led organizations, as opposed to paying somebody from outside the community to come fix or save it. They empowered us to purchase the building, with the catch that we find a local match.”
The Kataly grant encouraged local donors and investors who were on the fence to join the project. “It set us up to get a funder that we had kind of warmed up, but couldn’t get them fully commit,” says Jones. “They saw someone else believe in us. It’s the domino effect that can happen with matches.”
The Orange Mound Tower development will include ample residential and commercial space, as well as a massive performance venue and incubator facilities for nascent entrepreneurs. Unapologetic will occupy a three-story office and recording-studio space.
The prospect of refurbishing such a huge space for creative reuse is daunting, but Jones says they have had nothing but encouragement from the community. “We got a chance to watch Crosstown work through some of that. Todd Richardson offered up the advice to pilot as much of it over here as we can before we move across the street. I’m talking about Memphis becoming the cultural beacon of the South. We’re actively putting those pieces in place now.”
Unapologetic and Tone celebrated the purchase with a massive Juneteenth celebration that attracted thousands to the first of what will be many concerts on the grounds of Orange Mound Tower. “If our success is any indication, every time we open our doors, people come,” says Jones. “These folks have been wanting a place to go. Our folks have been needing a home, and so to be able to offer up a home that we actually own is going to truly change the city.”
She also sees this as an opportunity to encourage more grassroots activism and local Black ownership. “Memphis is too big and too Black for us only to be one, so every move where we can kind of stretch out some and offer up space to even more folks, we’ll take it. Then just watch what happens.
Now that the Fourth of July is past us and we’ve had the usual full-plate serving of ridiculous posturing of how great we are, can we have an honest discussion about what a shithole this place has become? At what point does a great society hit a point of no return? At what point do you have to throw in the towel? Let’s play a game of divorcing you from your beliefs.
What if, let’s say, Ecuador were only 250 years old, and — depending on how you defined it — they’d been in anywhere from 83 to 134 wars. What if it weren’t even clear if their president needed congressional approval to declare war anymore? Now, except for the War of 1812, what if Ecuador had never been invaded? How would you feel about Ecuador if they did this? Seriously? Wouldn’t you think they were a warlike people? What if they said it was all in the name of defending their country and democracy as a whole? But they only attacked other places and fought on foreign soil? Wouldn’t you think that was pretty stupid? What if Ecuador spent more money on their military than the next 10 countries combined? Would you think that was coincidental? What if Ecuador were the number-one arms manufacturer in the entire world, and the people who made the weapons controlled their government? And made billions from war? And they had the second-highest instance of gun-related civilian deaths in the entire world? Would you think that was sort of kind of suspicious? Or would you just blow it off?
What if, on closer examination, you realized that Ecuador had the highest taxes in the world, but 40 percent of their discretionary budget went to the military? Wouldn’t that be nuts? What if you then found out that they were the only country out of the top 35 industrialized countries in the world that didn’t have free healthcare provided, despite taking all that tax money? What if you realized they were the only country in the world whose public education was funded by local taxes, thus ensuring the poorest people got the shittiest education, thus continuing an endless cycle of poverty?
What if in Ecuador, 1 percent of the population owned more wealth than the bottom 92 percent of the country? And could give as much money to politicians as they wanted during elections? And 75 percent of people lived paycheck to paycheck with zero savings? Would you think they were a democratic and representative society? Would you think that was a good standard of living or low-stress?
What if Ecuador had 4.25 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison population? And the jails in Ecuador were privately owned, and the companies that owned them made about $46,000 per person per year through forced labor and making them pay for supplies? Would you begin to wonder if maybe a lot of those people shouldn’t be in jail?
What if in Ecuador, the number-one cause of bankruptcy was medical bills, and one in three GoFundMe campaigns were to raise money for medical needs because it was too costly to get sick? What if Ecuador had a declining life-span age, as well as the fastest-growing chronic disease, suicide, depression, and addiction problems in the world and was the only country in the world that allowed pharmaceutical companies to advertise on TV? What if Ecuador had giant farms that had completely taken over food production, if there were almost no regulation on pesticide use, GMOs, steroids — in fact, what if the biggest chemical agribusiness in the country sat on the FDA or EPA there? Would you think maybe that was a conflict of interest and not good for people’s health?
What if in Ecuador, if you had enough money, you could pollute as much as you wanted? What if you also didn’t have to pay any taxes if you were rich? Would you think it was a corrupt society, or is that normal? What if Ecuador was 44th in the world in freedom of the press? Would you think there was probably a lot of government-controlled propaganda? What if Ecuador was 128th in the world in safety? How would you feel about going there or living there if you had kids?
What if Ecuador was the country most in debt in the entire world, despite being the largest economy, and if, in fact, that debt was greater than their total GDP? Wouldn’t you think that the government there was totally corrupt and irresponsible? What if, to combat this, 40 percent of the currency in circulation in the entire country was printed in the last 12 months? Would you think of investing in that currency? Would you think maybe that would be why Ecuador was seeing rampant inflation of goods?
What if there was rampant racism, fascism, mass shootings, childhood poverty, homelessness, and violence in Ecuador? Would you think it was awesome? Would you feel that was normal? If five to 10 people every day on the news in your city died or were wounded from gun violence that had nothing to do with the military — how would you feel about that? Is that good? Is that normal?
At what point do you guys think a great society has hit a point of no return? Would you say maybe Ecuador was about to collapse? Or is it just something that needs to be sorted out? Kevin Ferner is the owner of The Memphis Guitar Spa and Ferner Fine Instruments, and is not dead yet.
