A Shelby County court has denied the request of the Shelby County Election Commission to force the Shelby County Commission to fund its call for the purchase of ES&S electronic voting machines to replace the county’s existing election machinery.
Both bodies agree that the old voting machines must be replaced, but have disagreed on what should replace them, with the county commission maintaining that, as the entity empowered to pay for and to “adopt” the replacement devices, its twice-expressed official preference for devices employing paper ballots should prevail over the Election Commission’s choice of the $5.4 million ES&S ballot-marking devices, as recommended by Election Administrator Linda Phillips.
After a hearing Thursday afternoon, Chancellor Gadson W. Perry denied the Election Commission’s petition for a writ of mandamus, which would have forced the issue in the EC’s favor. The judge cited contradictions in specific Tennessee statutes, with one of the several laws discussed in the hearing concretely giving the EC the right to select election machinery, while another, just as firmly, supported the county commission’s contention that its control of funding precluded a “duty” to rubber-stamp the EC’s choice.
The bottom line, said Perry in denying the writ of mandamus, is that the warring statutes in effect endowed the differing parties with a “push-pull” relationship on the voting-machine matter, with an implicit imperative to work out some agreement between themselves.
Allan Wade, attorney for the Election Commission, promptly indicated he would appeal the ruling to “higher authority,” presumably to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Since the request for the mandamus writ was but one of several legal remedies being pursued by the EC, Wade followed protocol in asking Chancellor Perry’s permission to appeal, which was promptly granted.
Here comes October, and the fall chill can be so conducive to setting up a screen on the back deck and enjoying a concert. If you’re inclined to continue social distancing, Memphis has you covered. Some brave artists have taken up a permanent weekly residence online; some monthly; and some frequent those clubs that continue to prioritize online options. Don’t call it lock down, call it a staycation … a stay-safe-cation.
The person suspected of shooting and injuring a student at Cummings K-8 Optional School in South Memphis is in custody and Memphis Police Department (MPD) identified the shooter as another student.
The shooting was reported by police Thursday morning. The male victim was transported to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and was said to be in critical but stable condition by police.
The shooter was identified as a male Cummings student, MPD said at a news conference Thursday morning. The shooter fled after the incident and could not be found in or around the campus after an initial search. The suspect later turned himself in at a local MPD precinct.
However, MPD said it was “way too early” in the investigative process to discern a motive.
Beyond a Thursday-morning tweet from the Memphis Police Department, no new details have yet been released of an apparent school shooting at Cummings K-8 Optional School in South Memphis.
The school is just south of Elmwood Cemetery in the College Park neighborhood. It is close to Lemoyne-Owen College and Chandler Park.
Earlier this year, Knox Shelton became executive director of Indie Memphis after the departure of former director Ryan Watt. Preparations for the 24th edition of the film festival, which will run from October 20-25, are well underway, but Shelton took a few hours out of his busy schedule to watch a movie he’s never seen before: Inherent Vice (2014, available at Black Lodge). Our conversations have been edited for length and clarity.
Chris McCoy: What do you know about Inherent Vice?
Knox Shelton: I know that it is a film by Paul Thomas Anderson, adapted from a novel by Thomas Pynchon, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, a ton of other pretty well-known actors and actresses.
CM: Why did you pick this movie?
KS: One, it’s been on my watch list for a really long time. I’ve probably not watched it for the same reason that I’ve owned a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow for I don’t know for how many years, but I’ve never read it. And I told myself that I would read the Pynchon novel before watching the movie, and that’s probably not going to happen. So, it’s time to just watch this movie. And we’ve got the festival upcoming, so I was trying to find some great connections there. One of our films this year, C’mon C’mon, is starring Joaquin Phoenix, so I thought this would be a great film to watch.
150 minutes later…
CM: OK! Knox Shelton, you are now someone who has seen Inherent Vice. What did you think?
KS: I thought it was really good. It was really funny, which I don’t think I expected going into a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, given his most recent films. It’s definitely a movie, I think, to watch a few more times, to let it all sink in. I was immediately drawn into loving the dynamics between Bigfoot and Sportello. They were a really fun little pair.
CM: I have watched it a whole bunch of times and I see new stuff in it every time. Paul Thomas Anderson took the novel and did the whole thing in a screenplay format, and then edited it down into this movie. What really struck me this time was that this is Pynchon doing hard-boiled detective language. If you think about it, The Big Sleep and stuff like that has very flowery dialogue. But you don’t think of it as flowery, ’cause it’s being growled by Humphrey Bogart. That’s what I was really listening to this time, the musicality of the dialogue — really throughout the whole thing. Everybody kind of talks alike, but it’s just so beautiful that you don’t care.
KS: You’ve got this Big Lebowski element, where you’ve got the stoner detective. But the dialogue is so much more elevated, and of course other elements of the film, I think, are a little more elevated too. It’s really artistic and delightful throughout.
CM: I think you’re right that there is a straight line from The Big Lebowski to this movie. When this movie came out, a lot of people did not get it. I had a conversation with Craig Brewer where I was like, “Oh my God, have you seen this?” And he was just like, “Meh.” I fell in love with it immediately. But he was like, “People are whispering. I can’t understand what’s going on. They’re talking about characters who are never seen on the screen.” Well, yeah! But it really works for me. I have a real emotional attachment, I guess, to this movie.
Owen Wilson as Coy and Joaquin Phoenix as “Doc” Sportello
CM: So, you’re a head of a film festival now. How do you sell something like this to a festival crowd? It’s kind of an “eat your vegetables” thing for some people. But on the other hand, like you said, you were surprised that it was funny.
KS: That’s a good question. I think I’d want to highlight that it was a funny and entertaining movie. You also have to be upfront about it too, right? ‘Cause I think you can tell someone it’s entertaining, but they’re probably not expecting two and a half hours. Paul Thomas Anderson’s gotten really good at the slow burn, and this to me was a slow burn, but it was funny, and you still get a little bit of that reward at the end that you get with a lot of his films.
CM: You’re right, it’s got a great ending, an emotional wrap up like Boogie Nights. Are you generally a PTA fan?
KS: Yeah, generally. Ahead of this, I re-watched The Master. My wife had not seen it, so we watched that this past weekend. I hadn’t seen this or Punch-Drunk Love.
CM: A lot of people love that movie, but I am not a fan.
Joaquin Phoenix as private investigator “Doc” Sportello.
CM: What did you think about Joaquin Phoenix?
KS: I liked Joaquin Phoenix. I think he’s done some great stuff. In The Master, his performance really stuck out to me. That was, I think, a very physical performance. Not to move away from Joaquin, but to go back to this: it’s a period piece, but it’s not obsessed with being a period piece. You feel it in the dialogue, with Manson, paranoia…
CM: The Mansonoid Conspiracy!
KS: This came out around the same time as American Hustle, which is just obsessed with being a period piece. This has none of that feel at all, which I think is great and feels very natural, very contemporary.
CM: There is a lot of subtext about the end of the sixties, and the corruption of the counterculture. Sportello is a total creature of the sixties counterculture, a hippie to the bone. He’s shocked when Shasta shows up, wearing what he calls “flatland gear.” It looks like it’s about a real estate scam, when it starts. That’s basically Chinatown, you know? Then it sort of wanders off from there. Did you feel like you could follow the plot?
KS: Yeah, reasonably so.
CM: That’s good, because I think to a lot of people, it seems like gibberish.
KS: I feel like I could capture it. Maybe I’m being overconfident. That’s definitely why I said I need to rewatch it. I got the commercialization of the counterculture, and especially the real estate part of it. I was not real clear on how we got to Adrian Prussia.
CM: That’s a big plot hole that they hang a lampshade on. The narrator Sortilége says something like “he threw himself onto the karmic wheel.” He’s the guy I haven’t checked out yet. So it’s a very loose connection. But then it turns out to be the key to the whole thing. You know, the basic film noir structure is pretty simple: The detective just goes and bounces off one person after another until he solves the crime. Or not.
Joaqin Phoenix as “Doc” Sportello and Josh Brolin as “Bigfoot” Bjornsen.
KS: There’s something with Paul Thomas Anderson and male friendships, and it’s in this movie, too. There’s something kind of fun and sweet about it. Sportello and Bigfoot have these dynamics that are established in our society all around us. You’ve got Doc, the hippie, and Bigfoot this sort-of Republican, super buttoned-up man. Yet they’re able to understand each other on a deeper level than just sort of, “Hey, we’re both detectives.” There’s something very sweet about that connection.
CM: Turns out when Sportello finds out that Adrian Prussia killed Bigfoot’s partner for the Golden Fang, he’s like, “Oh my God! I understand this guy now!” He has empathy for him, you know? Then there’s Benicio del Toro, the lawyer, which is another conflicted male friendship. “Clients pay me, Doc. Clients pay me.”
Benicio del Toro and Joaquin Phoenix.
Lemme ask you: Sortilége, the narrator. Do you think she’s a real person?
KS: I mean, no. It’s interesting. He’s using Joanna Newsome, who’s got probably the most otherworldly voice I could imagine, and using her for this character that kind of just floats in and out, and sometimes she doesn’t even have a body. Until you asked the question, I didn’t think about it, though.
CM: Seriously, I had watched it a couple of times until I realized, she’s not actually a person, she’s just in his mind.
KS: Wait, there’s a scene when they’re in the car together, towards the beginning, where she just kind of fades away.
CM: You see them in the car, then the angle reverses, and she’s gone. She’s his internal monologue. And she also fills that film noir voiceover role. You know, “That’s me, floating dead in the pool …”
Joanna Newsome as Sortilége, Phoenix, and Katherine Waterson as Shasta
KS: It’s a very film-y movie without being overly film-y. I think of Boogie Nights, where the opening scene has a very Spielberg feel, like he’s like paying direct homage. He doesn’t do that here. It feels natural.
CM: The cinematography is incredible.
KS: Yeah, all the blues and yellows. I keep thinking of that opening and closing. It’s not quite the closing shot, but the ocean in between those two buildings, it’s a beautiful, beautiful start to a movie. It’s a really gorgeous, gorgeous film. And I heard y’all kind of react to it, at the end when he’s driving with Shasta, and the lights are coming in, right in his eyes. It’s got this sort of dream-like light. It’s almost like they’re floating in the air.
CM: It’s full of these weird dualities, and fascists lurking in the background, like the Jewish builder who hangs around with Nazis. And the bit, “Is that a swastika?” “No, that’s a Hindu symbol of luck.” Nah, it’s a swastika tattooed on that guy’s face!
KS: It goes back to what I was saying about Sportello and Bigfoot — the more liberal hippie Sportello and the very conservative, super buttoned-up cop who were able to get along.
CM: And the Black Panther who comes in and tries to hire Sportello to find out who killed his Aryan Brotherhood friend.
Joaquin Phoenix and Michael K. Williams
KS: And rest and peace to Michael K. Williams. I did not know he was in this movie. He just passed away.
CM: I didn’t realize that was him! I mean, seriously, the cast is amazing.
KS: Oh yeah. Maya Rudolph is in like, what, two scenes maybe? She’s just the receptionist!
Maya Rudolph’s (center) cameo in Inherent Vice.
CM: One of the things I like about film noir, and you see it in this movie, too, is that everybody’s playing a game against everybody else, and everybody’s a rational player. Everybody’s looking two or three moves ahead, which allows the dialogue to be very subtle because everybody’s anticipating each other’s moves. That’s one of the things that appeals to me about noir. Everybody’s smart and savvy. But real life is not like that at all. People are stupid. If you expect rational actors, it’ll mess you up. I’m very distrustful of people.
KS: And that’s on steroids in this with all the paranoia that he’s already feeling from the pot.
Coy’s (Owen Wilson) surf band’s pizza party becomes The Last Supper.
CM: Sportello doesn’t actually solve anything! He gives the dope back to the Fang and Shasta just comes back on her own.
KS: He helps out Coy, which seems like the most insignificant of all the connections that are made. And you’re like, “Wait, so the end prize is that he gets to go home to his wife and kids? Like, okay, great.”
CM: Maybe that’s what’s challenging about it: This movie’s not holding your hand. It presents all the information, but you gotta put the work in. And to bring us back around to Indie Memphis, maybe that’s what you want out of festival movies. It’s not just passive viewing. Right?
KS: No, absolutely not. I think one of the things that we find really important is that the festival is finding films that do a good job at that in such an entertaining way — this is a really good example — and then making sure that there is a conversation, because films like this deserve a conversation like we’re having here. Whether that be from our local filmmakers, whether that be from national films, they all deserve a really thoughtful conversation. That’s what the festival is really all about — being able to celebrate creative and artistic endeavor and give it the honor that the work deserves through thoughtful conversation and celebrating the artist.
Patrick Crider of Odd Fellow Sock Co. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Patrick Crider is making his footprint in the men’s hosiery business with his Odd Fellow Sock Co.
Crider, 41, who has described himself as a “sockpreneur,” says, “Insurance is my day job. I started this sock business about five years ago on the side because, honestly, I was looking for some socks and I couldn’t find some I wanted. And I thought maybe I could figure out how to get them made or where to get them made.”
Owner and founder of The Insurance Shoppe of Tennessee in Collierville, Crider was searching for socks about four or five years ago to match his bowtie. “I was going to a wedding and I wanted some Tennessee Tristar socks.”
That’s the Tennessee flag logo that depicts the three regions of the state. “I had a bowtie at that time that had a Tennessee Tristar, so I wanted socks and just looked all over the place and couldn’t find them.”
So, he thought, “I’ll try to figure out how to do this on my own.”
He looked online and found companies in the United States that produce socks. But, when he told them what he wanted, “Pretty much all of them laughed at me.”
They told Crider he needed to order a minimum of 50,000 pairs. Crider responded, “I don’t know if I would be able to sell anything close to that.”
Crider had to search out of the country. “I ended up getting them sourced in China. We wanted to make sure that it was safe manufacturing. We got all these different certificates from them to make sure it was a good, honest manufacturer. Where U.S. manufacturers didn’t want to talk to me and laughed at me, the person I talked to in China was incredible. He responded quickly.”
And, he says, “They kind of bent over backwards to do it.”
The initial order was “different variations of these Tennessee Tristar socks. The first order we did, if I remember, was maybe 4,000 to 6,000 of about five or six different designs I wanted to get.”
Crider designed the socks. “I’m not a graphic designer, so I don’t know how to do it. I have designs, but don’t know how to do the technical stuff. The first round I did, what it would take a graphic designer 15 to 20 minutes to do it, would take me a week to figure it out or even longer.”
Odd Fellow Sock Co. socks (Credit: Michael Donahue)
As for the physical sock itself, Crider says, “I just went and bought a bunch of different kinds. And the ones that I liked the feel, those were the ones when I was talking to the manufacturer I said, ‘I’ve got to have this. I’ve got to have that.’ So, it was just the different blends. I don’t know the percentages, but there’s got to be a certain amount of cotton, but also nylon. And they did really good at steering me in the right direction.”
Crider found people who could take his idea and “essentially put it into a template.”
Recalling the first design, Crider says, “It was a very simple design, but I just thought it was cool. And I was hoping other people would think the same thing. The original is a red sock with a navy circle with white stars in it. And then we did some that almost are school-related colors. One is a gray sock with an orange circle that could be a UT color.”
The “Beale Street” sock is “a Memphis gray sock with Memphis blue.”
“The Beale” (Credit: Becka Lynn Wigton)
Crider makes sure he gets samples of the socks from the manufacturer before they go on sale. “We try to get samples of everything because what looks good on paper or on the computer doesn’t necessarily translate to the sock.”
And, he says, “From concept to actually getting them in hand can be 90 to 120 days.”
Crider originally advertised the socks on Facebook. “It took off pretty quickly. And then we had vendors reaching out to us. Oxbeau reached out to us. And they still carry them. Alumni Hall carries them. That has eight locations that reach out to us, so that has been a great vendor.”
Odd Fellow Sock Co. now carries between 15 and 20 designs. “A lot of them are the Tennessee socks, but we’ve got Alabama socks, South Carolina ones. We got 901 socks for Memphis. We’re slowly but surely trying to expand the different things, but I’m slow with my designs.”
Odd Fellow Sock Co. (Credit: Becka Lynn Wigton)
Crider likes the idea of designing socks for different states. “With all 50 states it would be a very strong business. But I didn’t do that.”
He would like to make “socks that support a cause” like breast cancer awareness and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “We can donate portions of those proceeds. That’s one of the big things I want to do.”
Crider is a fan of his own socks, which sell for $12 a pair. “I wear them every day. And a lot of people have told me they’re one of the most comfortable socks they’ve worn. They love them because they’re kind of dress socks.”
But they’re not like some other dress socks, he says. “Sometimes you’ll get some that stretch out at the top and fall down. But that’s not what these do. Where you put them is where they stay. They do really good at not falling down. “
It took Crider a while to come up with his sock business name. “I went through probably 100 different names and finally got so mad at myself. I was wasting time just coming up with a name. Odd Fellow was the one I landed on.”
The name “Odd Fellow” doesn’t refer to that leftover sock you find in the dryer; it refers to the guy who wears his socks. “Socks, to me, are a kind of a unique way of being different. To me, the typical black or navy blue or whatever is so boring. And this was kind of a way to stand out. That’s how I looked at it. Being odd as a good thing.”
His slogan is, “Why be boring? When you can be odd.”
A native of Trenton, Tennessee, Crider put thought into the socks he put on his feet from the time he was a teenager. “I always had weird socks, but it was almost a conservative weird sock. Maybe they were plaid or something like that. Probably until I got in the business world where I was wearing a suit or slacks everyday was when I started wearing weirder socks because it was something different. You could still be a professional and have weird socks on.
“I think I had some that were not the usual black or navy or brown sock, but it wasn’t anything I gave a lot of thought to. For some reason, as I got older I like the brighter colors. It’s just soothing to me. It just sticks out. You’re in a bland suit. This is something that helps you stick out.”
His Odd Fellow socks are still on the conservative side, but Crider says, “The stores that I talk to always tell me the weirder the better. Those are the ones that sell like crazy.”
He’s had people ask him, ‘Do you have Fortnite socks?’” and “Can you make them?”
“That video game. I never did them, but I’m sure whoever did them did really well. I think the weirder ones I have had were Star Wars or something like that.”
Sales of his socks, which are $12 a pair, vary, Crider says. “Christmas time is when it gets really busy with online orders, so I’ll hire somebody to help me during that time. When I started this, my oldest son was a baby. Now I’ve got two kids that are six and seven. So, typically, I would do my day job and I would come home, play with the kids, and when they went to bed I would work on it, doing everything from designing to packing orders and shipping them out.”
He came up with “sockpreneur” for his Linkedin account. “I just thought of it one day. I thought it was funny. I feel like here in the past 10 years everybody wants to call themselves an entrepreneur and I thought that was a funny spin on it.”
Crider has been an entrepreneur since he graduated from University of Memphis with a degree in finance. “A couple of years out of college, me and a buddy started a landscape company.”
He opened his insurance company in 2012. “I’ve either always been self employed or had my own business.”
Crider doesn’t want to branch out into any other clothing. “There’s still so much I can do with the socks. I feel like, to some degree, if I did other things right now it would take away the limited time I have to work on the socks. So, I think right now my main focus is to come up with better designs and stick with that.”
As for sock designs he’d like to make in the future, Crider says, “I think it’d be funny or cool to have Christmas Vacation socks or Elf socks, or things like that. Although the licensing part gets a little tricky, those are some of the other things I would look into. Classics. I think those already have such a strong following. People would like that.”
Crider doesn’t know how many socks he’s sold since he began, but, he says, “When I started it in my mind I thought, ‘Okay. I could sell $10,000 or $20,000 worth of socks, that would be incredible.’ And we’ve surpassed that by a lot.”
His most popular sock probably is the Tennessee Tristar gray sock with the orange circle. In addition to appealing to UT fans, the socks “also have the Tennessee state pride as well. I think those have been our best ones.”
Odd Fellow Sock Co. (Credit: Becka Lynn Wigton)
Crider does sell a Tennessee Tristar sock for children. “And I have one that is a women’s sock that is almost like the women’s UT Vols basketball team colors. A baby blue with orange.”
He’s gotten email requests from women. “They would get the socks for their husband and wish they would have them.”
And, he says, “That’s the goal, too. We haven’t even tapped into other markets or other demographics. It’s mainly been men. That’s the thing. There’s a lot of things we can still do with socks that we haven’t tapped into.”
Ironically, Crider’s day-to-day socks aren’t seen by many people. “I almost hide my socks because I wear cowboy boots so much. But I still have them on. Every day I’m not in shorts, I’m wearing those.”
To order and view Crider’s Odd Fellow Sock Co. socks, go to oddfellowsockco.com
• Troubling trends. With a third of the season behind us, there are at least two statistical trends Memphis coach Ryan Silverfield and his staff would like to see reversed in the coming weeks. Despite winning three of their four games, the Tigers have been outscored in the fourth quarter (52-38). And that’s with three of the four games being played on home turf at the Liberty Bowl. Memphis has dominated the first quarter (58-20), and that’s an important factor, too. But championship teams finish strong, as measured across a season and as measured over a 60-minute game. The Tigers scored 21 points in the first quarter last Saturday to take a big lead against UTSA. But they only scored once more (a Brandon Thomas touchdown late in the third quarter). Meanwhile, the Roadrunners put up 17 fourth-quarter points to steal the win.
Another troubling figure: The Tiger offense has scored touchdowns on just over half its possessions in the red zone (inside opponents’ 20-yard line): 8 for 14. (Conversely, Memphis opponents have reached the end zone on 12 of 17 possessions.) The stat is somewhat misleading, as the Tigers have quick-strike capability and can score from well beyond the 20. All four of their touchdowns against Mississippi State (including one scored by the defense and another by special teams) chewed up more than 20 yards. But settling for three points (or worse, no points) when seven points are within reach is deadly, big picture. Look for Silverfield and offensive coordinator Kevin Johns to figure this out. The Tigers have too many weapons, both through the air and on the ground, to come up short in the shadow of the goal posts.
• Calvin’s catches. Be careful with “on pace for” statistics. Injuries, opponents, and even weather can distort projected numbers, both for a team and individual player. But Calvin Austin III is teasing Memphis fans with some ridiculous reception figures through four games. The Harding Academy grad is second in the country with 533 receiving yards, a number that puts him — here we go — on pace for 1,599 yards in the regular season, a total that would shatter Anthony Miller’s record of 1,462 (accumulated over 13 games in 2017). Austin has put up the yardage total on only 27 catches, making his average just under 20 yards per reception (19.74). Like Miller before him, Austin could climb from walk-on status to All-America recognition over the course of his Tiger career. And hey, he’s good for a memorable punt return now and then, too.
• Philly stakes. There’s nothing “brotherly” — and not much love — about the Tigers’ recent trips to play Temple in Philadelphia. A blown call in the fourth quarter two years ago (on a Joey Magnifico catch) cost the Tigers an undefeated regular season. The previous trip to face the Owls was almost as painful, a 31-12 beat-down in 2015 (that Memphis team went 9-4). You have to go back to 2014, the Tigers’ first road game against the Owls, to find a Memphis win. How to avoid a second straight loss this season? Start with the areas mentioned above: score touchdowns when deep in Temple territory, and win the fourth quarter. This is a team that was eviscerated (61-14) by Rutgers and lost ugly (28-3) to Boston College. Conference games have a different feel, with actual standings in the mix. Perhaps the UTSA loss is just the motivator the Tigers need to reverse the “feel” the Temple series has generated to this point.
The Memphis Flyer’s annual Best of Memphis readers’ poll winners are here — Memphis has spoken. From restaurants to radio, family fun and festivals, and everything in between, you chose your favorites. Winners with “BOM” next to their name dominated their category. Any ties have also been noted.
This issue was written by Samuel X. Cicci, Shara Clark, Jesse Davis, Michael Donahue, Michael Finger, Alex Greene, Chris McCoy, Abigail Morici, Julie Ray, Toby Sells, Maya Smith, Jon W. Sparks, and Bruce VanWyngarden. It was designed by Carrie Beasley with images by Justin Fox Burks and illustrations by Bryan Rollins.
Thanks to our readers — those who submitted nominations and voted, and those who didn’t. Y’all are the true Best of Memphis. And we thank our advertisers, who make it possible to keep the Flyer free, always.
Growing up, Libro at Laurelwood executive chef Mario Gagliano would rather shred guitar than a head of lettuce.
“I was definitely musically inclined at a young age,” says Gagliano, 27. “I got a cheap guitar from my mom for Christmas when I was in the fourth grade. Just one of those things I picked up on pretty quickly. Just strummed notes, messing around with my fingers, putting them at random spots.”
He was serious about music. “I was a rapper. I was pretty mean with it, too. But there was so much money going in and none going out. I was paying for studio time. Paying for discs. At that time, I had to pay to perform for shows and all this. And one day I was just, ‘What am I doing this for?’”
He helped out at Fratelli’s, which at one time was owned by his mother Sabine Bachmann. Gagliano, who joined his brothers Armando and John-Paul Gagliano, began as a server and dishwasher and later became head cook.
But, he says, “It was just a job. Granted, it was my mother’s business and all. I was in my late teens, early 20s. I just wanted to do other things. I wasn’t really focused on that.”
Things changed after his mother opened Ecco on Overton Park. “I was at Rhodes College playing basketball one day a few months after Ecco opened and Armando calls me and says basically they need somebody on ‘garm’ [garde manger]. I didn’t really have a choice. I dropped the basketball thinking I’m going to come help one day. I came back the next day. I was on that cold side for five years.”
Mario eventually began cooking. And he got feedback. “You would get servers coming back, ‘Hey, compliments to the chef.’ Or seeing the plates come back empty. I really started getting satisfaction: ‘Hey, I made somebody’s night with that food.’”
His cooking career was sidelined for a few months after he fractured his wrist. He couldn’t go to work, but, he says, “I was infatuated with cooking shows. I was able to read books. I couldn’t do anything because this was right when the pandemic was going on. Nothing much to do. Nowhere to go. All I had was food and trying to figure it out, trying to get as much knowledge as possible.”
Mario then went to work at Libro, also owned by Bachmann, inside Novel. “I was pumped. I was super excited to get back there and put what I learned to use.
“It was the first time I was cooking without Armando being there. He was at Ecco all the time. Any time I had a question about anything I would ask him. Because he wasn’t there, I had to do things the wrong way and figure out the right way to do it by messing up.
“I would just tweak things. Instead of doing this like this, I’ll do it like this ’cause it seemed to come out better. Trial and error.”
Monthly specials were daunting. “I figured out how to come up with a good dish. However, I’m still not one to understand, really, what it means when someone ‘puts themselves on a plate.’ I get that it’s something you come up with. But I just need to really understand the ‘express yourself through a dish’ kind of thing.”
His popular jackfruit pulled-pork vegetarian sandwich is one of his recent specials. “It was kind of left field.”
Mario is confident in his career choice. “Oh, yeah, 100,000 percent without a doubt. I get far more satisfaction doing this than music or anything else. I can’t imagine what else I’d be doing if it wasn’t this. You’ve got the camaraderie of the kitchen. You have a high-stress job. You have a challenging position. You have to be creative. You have to put in long hours. You’re going to make mistakes. These are all things I don’t feel like I could do anywhere else and get as much fulfillment out of it.”
“I am sitting in my car because the building next to my apartment is on fire,” Belinda Carroll tells me on a phone call in advance of her stop at Memphis’ The Comedy Junt this Friday. “The building is abandoned. Nobody’s hurt at all. It started last night, and I got home from a gig and saw all these fire trucks.”
When she’s not sitting in her car watching fire trucks, Carroll spends time sitting in her car as it rides the roads between stops on her comedy tour. In fact, the Portland, Oregon-based performer will be bringing her Clown Car Album Tour to Memphis.
“You have to come to my show. It’s a joke in my act, and I’m not going to explain it at all,” Carroll says when asked about the tour’s “Clown Car” name. She does hint though. “I’m bringing friends,” she says, noting that she’ll have some fellow comedians in tow for the tour. “We all like each other so far.”
The tour is an 11-stop affair, with shows in Nashville, Atlanta, Memphis, and Huntsville, Alabama, on Pride Weekend. “I am a member of the alphabet, so I’m a member of the LGBTQ community,” Carroll says, noting that she’s the founder of the Portland Queer Comedy Festival. “I do smart comedy. I talk politics, I talk dating.”
As if being a festival founder and comedian aren’t enough on the resumé, Carroll says she’s also a former blues singer, which is why she wanted to be sure to stop in Memphis. “I will be doing a little bit of singing in my act.”
How’s that for a carload of talent?
Belinda Carroll’s Clown Car Album Tour, The Comedy Junt, 4330 American Way, Friday, October 1st, 8-10 p.m., $15.
