A documentary is always judged first by its subject. People will love a slapdash doc about a subject they’re interested in more than a skillfully put together documentary about a boring or obscure subject. Judging from the sheer number of documentaries made about him in the last 50 years or so, no one is more interesting than Muhammad Ali.
I’m not a sports fan, but one of my all time favorite documentaries is When We Were Kings, the 1996 Best Documentary Oscar winner about the 1974 fight between Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. But that’s the tip of the Ali iceberg. Just last year, documenter Antoine Fuqua dropped What’s My Name? Muhammad Ali.
Now, Ken Burns, a contender to the title of The Greatest when it comes to documentaries (television, anyway) takes his swing with a four-part, eight-hour PBS miniseries called simply Muhammad Ali. It is predictably Burnsian, with all of the strengths that implies, but fewer of the weaknesses.
Burns’ strengths are access, thoroughness, and clarity. The man literally has his own nonprofit foundation dedicated solely to financing his docs, so money to license archival footage is not an issue. After burnishing his reputation for decades as the filmmaker of record for American history, no one is going to say no to talking to him on camera. And Burns’ completely transparent filmmaking, a descendant of the high BBC style seen in epic documents like The World at War, only looks easy because it’s designed to be digestible. It is in fact extraordinarily difficult to pull off, but time and again, Burns does it with low-key panache.
His signature move of isolating details on still photos and then slowly pulling out to reveal the entire image is deployed to great effect — the key is to find the most interesting face in the picture, and start there. Nine times out of 10, that’s Ali. Inspired by wrester Gorgeous George, he bragged about how beautiful he was, and he was right. Young Ali was startlingly good looking, in better shape than just about anyone on the planet, and dripping with charisma. During his gold medal-winning stint at the 1960 Olympics, a journalist described him as “the Mayor of Olympic Village.”
Coverage just doesn’t get more thorough than devoting eight hours of prime time television to your subject. Ali was one of the most photographed and filmed people in history, so there’s plenty of material to work with. One of Burns’ best decisions is to let the fights play out much longer than a two-hour doc would allow. From the first time he fought as a teenager, Ali said he would become the greatest boxer of all time, and the proof is in this fight footage. Especially during the second episode, (also entitled “What’s My Name?”) Ali looks superhuman in the ring. Burns sets up the easy cynicism of the boxing press and announcers, only to knock it down when he lets you hear the awe slip into their voices while they watch Ali methodically take apart opponents who were supposed to beat him.
The length allows Burns to avoid pure hagiography by diving deep into subjects like Ali’s involvement with the Nation of Islam. In what was the most shocking moment of the entire doc for me, personally, Ali praises segregationist governor George Wallace, and says he thinks Black people and white people shouldn’t mix. Burns presents the moment in an extended clip, so there’s no doubt that the director wasn’t taking his subject out of context. Ali meant what he said at that moment, but Burns also shows Ali’s moral evolution and growth as the barely educated Louisville kid sees more of the world and his understanding deepens.
His rhetorical style of trash talking would go on to inspire everyone from Michael Jordan to Donald Trump — which means he was also responsible for bringing a lot of negativity into the world, as people without his smarts and talent tried to emulate him. Trolls today wish they had Ali’s insight into what will get a rise out of his opponents.
Burns’ weakness is that he’s long-winded to the point of being boring. But here he is saved by his endlessly fascinating subject. Ali was many things, but he was never boring. And that makes Muhammad Ali essential viewing.
Carla Thomas in the 1960s (Photo courtesy of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music)
Tonight will represent an apotheosis of sorts for one of the most original voices to emerge from Memphis, via that crucible of unique voices, Stax Records. Carla Thomas helped create one of the very first hits for the precursor to that label, Satellite Records, with “Cause I Love You,” which she sang with her father Rufus Thomas in 1960. Now, over 60 years later, she’ll be honored with an Inspiration Award at the 20th Annual Americana Honors & Awards show in Nashville, during a ceremony at the Ryman Auditorium. It’s the hallmark event of the association’s annual Americanafest, taking place Sept. 22-25.
It’s fitting that she’s being recognized as an Americana artist. After Valerie June released her recent track “Call Me A Fool,” she told NPR that her collaborator on the vocal duet, Thomas, “remains a queen and total superstar, Aretha-equivalent.” And for June, that had a very personal dimension. As she told the Memphis Flyer this past spring, “I needed her, because the record is a bunch of songs to inspire dreamers. I think the world needs more dreamers now, and as we look around at all the things that need to change, it’s like a dream journey. You always have to have what I call a fairy godmother, that wise voice. And Carla was the fairy godmother of this record. She might be the Queen of Memphis Soul, but for me, she’s my fairy godmother. She’s the wise voice.”
Of course, “Cause I Love You” was just the beginning of Carla Thomas’s run of recordings for Stax and Atlantic Records through the 1960s, which made her the “Queen of Memphis Soul.” With an effervescent and romantic voice that laid bare her teen and 20-something emotions, Thomas bridged soul, country, and gospel as one of the key artists of a great musical and social movement.
She practically grew up at the Palace Theater on Beale Street where Rufus was an emcee. Inspired by singers Jackie Wilson and Brenda Lee, Thomas was singing early, joining WDIA’s Teen Town Singers at age 10. After recording “Cause I Love You” with her father, she hit early as a solo artist with the pop and R&B charter “Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes).” She’d be popular on the label for more than a decade, appearing on American Bandstand and cutting a full album of duets with Otis Redding months before his death in 1967. She was also a top performer at the influential Wattstax concert of 1972.
In later years, Thomas turned more of her energy to Artists In The Schools, a youth-focused non-profit. The Rhythm & Blues Foundation honored her in 1993 with its exclusive Pioneer Award. The Inspiration Award has been granted only once before, to Thomas’s Stax/Atlantic colleague Mavis Staples.
• The fates favor . . . Memphis! The Tigers’ win over Mississippi State last Saturday at the Liberty Bowl was as improbable as it was scintillating. The Bulldogs ran 83 plays, 30 more than did the Tigers. MSU gained 469 yards to the Tigers’ 246. The visitors held the ball 37 minutes (to the Tigers’ 23). Do you know how many times the Tigers snapped the ball inside the Bulldogs’ 20-yard-line (“the red zone”)? Zero. Show these numbers to anyone who has observed as many as three football games and they’ll tell you the winner, and it wouldn’t be the team that scored 31 points (to the Bulldogs’ 29) last weekend.
Calvin Austin’s “dead ball” punt return will be talked about as long as blue meets gray on the gridiron in these parts. But perhaps that improbable — impossible — play swung more than a football game. Perhaps Austin’s heroics are another reminder that the football “fates” — whoever, whatever they are — now shine happily over the Tiger program. An opponent’s missed field goal two years ago helped Memphis reach the Cotton Bowl. How far will the upset of Mississippi State take the 2021 Tigers?
• No panic. When it comes to the fabled intangibles, composure under duress may be the most season-defining such trait for a football team. The Tigers found themselves down 10 points (17-7) at halftime last Saturday. So players (and coaches) had their first 20 minutes of mental duress of the season. The game’s first half made it feel like one the Bulldogs would have to stumble to lose; Memphis hadn’t presented the kind of threat that suggested a comeback victory. But the Tigers scored the next 21 points, Joe Doyle delivered a late, clutch field goal, and the Memphis defense held just enough on that final two-point conversion attempt by MSU.
“There was no panic in the locker room,” emphasized Tiger coach Ryan Silverfield after the game. “That opening drive to start the second half was not beautiful, but guess what? We have an 18-year-old at quarterback with moxie who says, ‘I got this.’ He threw an interception, but then made the tackle. Our defense was playing their tails off, so it gave everybody a lot of belief. When I walked the sideline, I didn’t see a single young man hanging his head.” The Tigers will trail again this season. Last Saturday established a template for how to respond.
• Roadrunners can be dangerous. UTSA is the only remaining undefeated team in Conference USA. This Saturday’s game is no automatic extension of the Tigers’ 17-game winning streak at the Liberty Bowl. Roadrunner quarterback Frank Harris has completed 66 percent of his passes, many of them to Zakhari Franklin, who averages 15.7 yards on his 22 grabs (with three touchdowns). UTSA ranks 29th in the country in total offense (Memphis is 20th) but more impressively, 10th in total defense (Memphis ranks 123rd out of 130 teams). Now, UTSA has put up its numbers against Illinois, Lamar, and Middle Tennessee, not the kind of teams that will be playing for conference championships. The Tigers will be favored, but this feels like a prototypical “trap game,” falling between Mississippi State and the Tigers’ American Athletic Conference opener (at Temple). Will Memphis be able to sustain offensive drives against that 10th-ranked defense? As always, keep track of the turnovers. This one feels like another fourth-quarter, sweaty-palm affair.
I’m sitting in a kayak somewhere between Lamar and Airways Boulevard. There are two barbs from a fishing lure’s rear treble hook embedded in my left calf. The lure’s front treble hook is snagged on the backpack in the bottom of my boat. To simplify, I am attached to my backpack by a fishing lure. It hurts. A lot. I’m too tired to panic, but I am starting to wonder why I am here — and how I will get out.
Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden
How It Started
It’s a story that began with a simple pitch to my editor: I’ll float Nonconnah Creek from somewhere in East Memphis all the way to McKellar Lake. It will be a quirky lark, and it could be interesting to see what I find in and along the Wolf River’s unsexy sibling, a creek that follows I-240 through the southern underbelly of Memphis. A couple freelancers wrote about it for the Flyer a dozen years ago, but things have probably changed since then. I pitched it as a fun urban adventure. He went for it, probably because I’m quite the smooth talker.
While planning my trip, I quickly learned that getting onto Nonconnah Creek is not an easy thing. There are no access points, no parks, no trails, no obvious spots where you can slide a boat in. After much searching on Google Maps, I finally spotted a nondescript motel near Perkins Road that appeared to have a parking lot that backed up to the creek. When I drove there, I discovered the lot was only 30 feet from the stream, with no fence to impede a launch. I figured it might be dicey if security cameras caught me, but knowing I could be in the water in five minutes made me confident I’d be paddling before anyone could ask questions. I just needed a getaway driver.
For that, I enlisted my stepson, Roman, who cheerfully drove me to the lot around 8 a.m. last Tuesday. It all went off without a hitch — no motel gendarmes, no hassles — as we schlepped my kayak down to the creek. I tossed in a backpack filled with four cans of water, three power bars, two bananas, a rain jacket, two phone chargers, sunscreen, and a small box of fishing lures. And I stuck a spin-casting outfit in the rod holder.
The author naively enters the stream. (Photo: Roman Darker)
As I waded in and pushed off, Roman snapped some pics. McKellar Lake was 11 miles away. I told Roman I’d meet him at the Riverside boat ramp in Martin Luther King Jr. Park, probably around 2 o’clock, figuring on a leisurely two-miles-an-hour paddle, including time to dawdle and fish and take pictures. Piece of cake.
“I’ll text you when I’m near there,” I said. “Thanks for bringing me.”
“Have fun!” he said.
The water was slightly murky at the put-in, three to four feet deep in most places, but you could easily see the bottom. There didn’t seem to be much flow. Wildlife was abundant. Turtles fell like stones from logs. A night heron calmly watched me pass by from a low branch, showing no fear. At the first bend I flushed eight wood ducks and a white egret from a gravel bar. I felt like David Attenborough should be narrating this trip. Except for the plastic bags.
If you aren’t opposed to plastic bags, paddling Nonconnah Creek will change your mind. There’s pretty water and lots of wildlife, but hanging from countless limbs and branches are plastic bags, left during high water, festooning the shoreline like ghostly Halloween decorations. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Anyway … think about it.
The first rock-pile traverse of the day at Perkins. (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)
Twenty minutes in, I spotted the Perkins Road bridge ahead — and a massive pile of rocks beneath it, all the way across, dry as dust. I made a note on my phone recorder: “Looks like I’ll have to spend a few minutes dragging the kayak over a pile of rocks.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was finally back in the water on the other side. My shirt was soaked through with sweat. I broke out a can of water and inhaled it. Hopefully, not all the bridges between here and McKellar Lake were going to be like this one, I thought. Mentally counting, I could think of eight: Getwell, Lamar, Airways (two), Nonconnah Road, I-55 (at least two), and Highway 61. Yikes. Surely the water will get deeper, I hoped, knowing if it didn’t, I could be in for a very long day.
How It’s Going
The creek between the Perkins and Getwell bridges had pools of paddle-able water interspersed with a shallow channel snaking between gravel bars that I had to wade, pulling the kayak behind me. It was beginning to dawn on me that I should have checked the creek’s water level more thoroughly than I did. It had seemed fine at the motel lot. Downstream, it appeared, not so much. I was spending more time wading than paddling. After one exhausting 10-minute drag, feet going six inches into the mud with every step, I came to a long, deep pool — no gravel bar in sight. The Google map said I was getting near the Getwell bridge. I plopped into the kayak with a sigh of relief and began to paddle.
I spotted some minnows being chased in the shallows, so I tossed a small Rapala lure near the nervous water. It was immediately whacked by a 10-inch largemouth, which jumped and ran and finally slipped the hook. I cast again and hooked another bass, which I got to the boat and released. My mood improved immensely. Finally, I was paddling and catching fish, just as I’d hoped I would be. Things were looking up. A great blue heron glided past. Surely a good omen. Nope.
A black-crowned night heron surveys the hapless paddler. (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)
The Getwell bridge was another nightmare — 50 yards of arduous rock-pile leading to a drop of three feet into the next pool. Beyond that pool, 100 yards downstream, I could see an immense gravel bar. I was beginning to understand that reaching McKellar Lake was probably not in the cards. I’d been on the creek for almost three hours and was approximately one-sixth of the way there. At this low water level, Nonconnah wasn’t a stream. It was a series of still pools and gravel bars.
An abandoned railroad bridge below Lamar provides another obstacle to be portaged around. (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)
I pulled out my phone and looked at the Google map. The next two bridges were quite a ways downstream — first Lamar, then a mile or so later, Airways — both busy, multi-lane highways. Even if I could somehow drag an 80-pound kayak up to either road, there was no place to wait for pickup. I was beginning to realize that Nonconnah Creek was going to be just as hard to get off of as it was to get onto.
Just past Airways on the map was Nonconnah Boulevard, a smaller road — not a highway — as I recalled. After that, it was a long way to the next bridge. Nonconnah Boulevard would have to do, somehow. I texted Roman and told him the new plan and that I’d call when I got there.
There was a sense of relief in the decision. The goalpost had been moved closer, and I was halfway there. Making things better was the happy discovery 20 minutes later that the bridge at Lamar had no rock-pile. I paddled blissfully under the road, thanking the stream gods as the pools seemed to grow longer and the sandbars fewer. An osprey, chased by two kingfishers, skirted the treetops.
Welcome to the Hotel California
It was early afternoon and I was thinking writerly thoughts — about how I might reconfigure my Nonconnah Creek story in light of the fact that it had changed from a fun float to McKellar Lake to a grueling slog about a fourth of that distance. I was thinking about fresh headlines: “Nonconnah? Not Gonna!” Or maybe, “Nonconnah, the Hotel California of Creeks.” Because, you know, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Like that.
Still, I was feeling better, a burden lifted. I was paddling more than I was wading, and I only had another hour or so to go, with any luck. I slammed another can of water, ate a banana, and decided, what the hell, why not fish?
I will say this about the stretch of Nonconnah Creek between Lamar and Airways: It has very good fishing. I caught one feisty bass after another. I was actually enjoying the day again. After a few hundred yards of this, I tossed the Rapala near a submerged log about 30 feet away and was startled by a huge eruption. The biggest fish I’d seen so far lunged to the surface but missed the lure. Hurriedly, I tossed the Rapala back to the same spot and jerked it a couple of times. It got stuck on the log underwater. Dammit. I gave the rod a hard jerk and watched the Rapala shoot like a bullet into the kayak, simultaneously hooking my calf and my backpack.
There are moments in life when something so ridiculous happens so suddenly you don’t realize its import. It takes a minute. I sat there observing the absurdity of my situation, unable to move without making it worse, stuck in the middle of a creek with no one around to help or commiserate with me — or even laugh about it.
In this situation, as any fisherman will tell you, there are two basic options. One is to force the embedded hook-points out through the skin, flatten the now-exposed barbs with a pair of pliers, and then slide the hooks back out. The other is to just rotate the hooks as far back out as possible, then jerk them out the rest of the way, barbs be damned. I didn’t have any pliers, so option two was pretty much it.
I used my pocketknife to cut away the backpack from the other end of the lure. The Rapala hung from my calf, like a leg earring. I paddled to the shore to get firm footing for the coming pain festival. I sat on the gravel, slipped the blade of my pocketknife under the bend in the impaled hooks, took a deep breath, and popped it away from my leg, quick and hard. It hurt, but it didn’t bleed much, and I had a bit of a “fuck yeah, I did that” moment. Then I poured fizzy water on it and ate a power bar and got back to paddling. It looked like I’d been bitten by a tiny rattler.
Nailing the Landing
There were three roads to go under at Airways, but the water was high enough under all three that it made me think that the wading-and-dragging sections were finally behind me. I did note that all three bridges were at least 40 feet above the water and that there were no discernible paths up to the roadways through the undergrowth. I hoped Nonconnah Boulevard would be different, thinking it would be somehow poetic if I could end this misadventure on a street named after the creek I was on.
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in my kayak on Nonconnah Creek underneath Nonconnah Boulevard. Nonconnah possibly understand the joy I felt when I saw that this bridge was lower, closer to the creek, and that the angle of the terrain to the top was not overgrown and considerably more reasonable than any I’d seen so far. I left the kayak and clambered up the slope, paddle in hand as a walking stick. At the top, just under the bridge itself, I found a flattened grassy road of some sort. Eureka! As I emerged from under the bridge, I surprised three people sitting in the bed of a pickup truck with a gas company logo on it. They looked at me as though I were strange or something. Go figure.
“I need to bring my kayak up from the creek,” I said. “Is there a place around here I can put it until my ride gets here?”
“Sure,” said one of the guys, pointing. “That office building parking lot right there ought to be okay.”
This was the best news I’d had for a while. I went back down to the kayak, texted Roman my location, and laboriously dragged the boat up the slope to the parking lot. It was 3 p.m. I’d been on Nonconnah Creek for seven hours and gone about four miles, wading and dragging a kayak about half of that distance. I was as exhausted as I’ve been in many a year.
Friends, I do not recommend this float to you, unless the water level is at least a foot higher. And even at that, I recommend you start at Lamar, where the creek gets a bit deeper and the fishing is good, and you can get out in fairly short order. This is not a stream to mess around with. Take it from someone who messed around with it.
In the bond market, the most recently issued Treasuries are known as “on the run.” They are the most liquid, most desirable, and slightly more expensive than the exact same bonds that are not hot off the presses.
As a habitual contrarian, today I want to recommend some “off-the-run” books for you. These are some of the more strange, unusual, and meaningful books I’ve come across as an avid reader of investment literature.
• Early Retirement Extremeby Jacob Lund Fisker
Without question, this is my No. 1 most recommended and gifted book, and I’ve read it myself countless times. Fisker trained as a physicist and retired from salaried work after just a few years as a postdoc. He reportedly continues to live a vibrant and rich life on less than $7,000 per year — and has done that for almost 20 years now. He has sailed, traveled, explored hobbies, and even worked full-time at a hedge fund for a few years for fun, not because he needed the money. While his lifestyle isn’t for everyone, his approach to personal finance and life is mesmerizing, and I feel my mindset adjust each time I read about it. Fun fact: He is the reason the financial independence community is known for eating lentils, though he does not eat them today.
• Capital in the Twenty-First Centuryby Thomas Piketty
It’s unfortunate that this book, about how wealth inequality evolves in capitalist economies, is so politically divisive. After reading it, I had a much more intuitive grasp of the fundamental meaning of capital and how its quantity and distribution has waxed and waned over the centuries. While I don’t agree with all his conclusions, I highly recommend it — especially to those who don’t think they will agree either. A bonus recommendation: I have the exact same feelings about the late David Graeber’s book, Debt: The First 5000 Years. It’s a fascinating exploration of debt throughout history and its continuing influence on the human experience.
• The Education of a SpeculatorbyVictor Niederhoffer
I have a hard time even describing Victor Niederhoffer’s first book. It’s an investing book, but it’s also a rambling lope through not just the markets but also squash, horse racing, checkers, deception, attraction, music, the depths of the human soul, and much more. Niederhoffer famously worked with George Soros, wears loud pastel clothes, goes shoeless, and gets all his news exclusively from the National Enquirer. He probably would be known as one of the greatest fund managers of all time had he dialed in his risk management and avoided blowing up his fund (twice!). I wouldn’t emulate his trading style, but there is something irresistible here to even the most conservative long-term investor. For bonus Vic, try his Twitter feed @vicniederhoffer. It’s refreshingly unfiltered, unedited, and often completely unintelligible.
• Inside the Yield Book by Martin L. Leibowitz and Sidney Homer
With stocks, you own a tiny piece of the company and your stock closely follows the company’s fortunes. Bonds are different — there’s a lot of math. There’s also a lot of choice — most companies have dozens of different bond issues to consider, and there are about a million unique municipal bonds out there. When people say they want to understand bonds, I direct them here. As the dot matrix graphics suggest, it was written just when bond investing was catching up to the computer age, yet the lessons are timeless. If you read and understand every page of this book, you’ll be well on your way to understanding bonds better than virtually any amateur and most professionals.
Gene Gard is Co-Chief Investment Officer at Telarray, a Memphis-based wealth management firm that helps families navigate investment, tax, estate, and retirement decisions. Ask him your question at ggard@telarrayadvisors.com.
Photo courtesy of
filmmaker Gary Moore, writer, director, and producer of The Suburban Itch, a story about flipping the script — what happens when a white man is stopped by police for running in a Black neighborhood?
“Necessity is the mother of invention” is a derivative of Plato’s words “our need will be the real creator” from the Republic, a Socratic dialogue about justice and happiness.
What does this ancient Greek philosophy have to do with the Black Film Festival this week? Everything. But first things first.
For $10, viewers can see well-known Black films — $20 for Red Carpet VIP tickets on opening night, featuring Harriet (7 p.m.) at the Pink Palace. Amazing Grace screens on Saturday (7 p.m.) at Crosstown Theater. Just Mercy (2 p.m.) and Best of Enemies (7 p.m.) will close the festival at Playhouse on the Square, followed by a panel discussion.
The most innovative and interesting aspect of the festival will be on Friday at 7 p.m. in the UC Theatre at the University of Memphis. That is where the New Film Makers’ Production, featuring six independent short films, will be screened.
“Last year we had a glitch,” says Dorrit Gilliam, COO of the Gilliam Foundation. “On Film Makers’ Production night, instead of screening each short film in its entirety, we mistakenly only had one montage of clips from each film.”
Necessity is the mother of invention. Gilliam did some quick thinking, pivoted, and brought all the filmmakers on stage to talk about their films instead.
“It was a huge success with the audience,” says Gilliam. “And we’re bringing it back this year.”
This year, the films will be shown in their entirety, about 10 minutes each, and the new component will be rolled over from last year giving filmmakers a platform to talk about their films and backstories.
WLOK Black Film Festival, various locations, visit wlok.com for movie schedule, Thursday, Sept.23, through Sunday, Sept. 26, $10 per event, $20 VIP Red Carpet.
As I type these words, it’s Tuesday morning, September 21st. I’ve made several false starts on this column, looking over what I’ve written and deciding to start over.
I had hoped to use this space to acknowledge some high points for Memphis over the past week or so. I’m sure we could all use a moment to celebrate, and I don’t want to become one of those people who spouts anger or doom-and-gloom on a weekly basis.
The three-day mission of Inspiration4 marked the first all-civilian flight to orbit the Earth, and one of the crew was Hayley Arceneaux, a former patient of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and current St. Jude physician assistant. The mission raised $210 million for St. Jude. If that’s not something to celebrate, I don’t know what is.
In other good news, the University of Memphis Tigers beat the Mississippi State Bulldogs at the Liberty Bowl last Saturday. I don’t know much about football, but people seem pretty excited about that turn of events. Go Tigers!
Also last weekend, I drove past the Luciann Theatre on Summer, its marquee lit up and glowing. The Luciann is the as-yet-undecided business making its home in the former site of the Paris theater, itself the former site of the former Luciann Theatre. Whatever confusion with names — or what the building’s eventual use will be — is, to me at least, secondary to the knowledge that a cool, old building in a too-little-celebrated part of town will be put to use instead of being torn down. William Townsend, the Luciann’s owner, discusses potential options for the space in a great Memphis Business Journal article, published last summer, by Jacob Steimer.
Memphian Carmeon Hamilton’s Reno My Rental premiered on discovery+ and HGTV on Saturday, September 18th, and seems to be getting a lot of well-deserved attention. I hope the show brings Hamilton all the support and success.
Finally, philanthropists Hugh and Margaret Jones Fraser and the Carrington Jones family of Memphis donated 144 acres to T.O. Fuller State Park.
So, yes, that’s all good news, and I think we should all take a moment to celebrate it.
But the news this morning is not so good, and I felt a little sick to my stomach trying to will the bad to the back of my mind in order to write more about the celebration-worthy successes I’ve mentioned above. Images have surfaced depicting U.S. Border Patrol agents chasing and apparently whipping Haitian migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. They are not pretty pictures. Men mounted on horseback seem to snarl at the barefoot men and women they tower over. It is as clear an abuse of power as I’ve ever seen, not to mention that it’s, put simply, inhumane. Seeking asylum is legal. It’s a basic human right, and it’s a foundational principle of this country. Or at least, we like to say it is.
The Department of Homeland Security has vowed to investigate. Meanwhile, Senator Marsha Blackburn has made hay, tweeting about the crisis, the security of the border, and that old standby, “The solution to ensure this doesn’t happen is to build the wall.”
I know that it’s how the political game is played, but there is something incredibly cruel about labeling human beings with nothing more than the clothes on their backs as “threats.” These are people, human beings. I don’t claim to have a solution, but pointing fingers at the U.S. immigration system when it’s time to fundraise without ever attempting to make it work for those who need it is no solution at all.
In other distressing news, The Tennessean’s Brett Kelman reports that Tennessee state government is recommending that the monoclonal antibody treatment for Covid be denied to vaccinated patients with the disease. This will not apply to vaccinated Tennesseans who are immunocompromised or immunosuppressed, which is one small mercy at least.
On the one hand, unvaccinated people who contract Covid are more likely to need that highly effective treatment. Of course, the surest way to prevent being hospitalized with a severe case of the disease is to be vaccinated. It reminds me a little bit of an unvaccinated friend who is helping several Covid-positive members of her church. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’re taking precautions. We’re taking supplements.” Doubtless, those supplements are not approved by the FDA, but she refuses to take the Pfizer vaccine, which does have FDA approval. It does not make sense.
This week’s column has been a bit of a roller coaster, I know, but so has the last week. I hope we can all take a moment to acknowledge the good — and that it gives us strength to keep doing the work to make sure the good news is not ever in short supply. Jesse Davis
Tennessee Capitol, Nashville. Photo: Dave Newman | Dreamstime.com
The most recent rumors coming out of Nashville, unsurprisingly, have to do with the matter of redistricting. The talk is mainly on the part of the state’s Republican officeholders, who for years have enjoyed control of every statewide office that counts, including a supermajority of the seats in both chambers of the legislature.
So hard and fast is GOP domination of the General Assembly, and so notable is the continuing population surge in the suburban “doughnut” counties surrounding the state capital of Nashville that the Republicans hope to gin up their numerical domination even further.
Corresponding with the rising population figures in areas of metropolitan Nashville already in Republican hands is the simultaneous population drain in districts still held up to this point by Democrats, especially in Shelby County, where the county seems certain to lose a seat apiece in state Senate and the state House.
Where the Republicans hope to show some real potentially game-changing ambition is in the area of congressional redistricting. For the last several years they have possessed seven of the state’s nine congressional districts, failing to gain only the urban areas of Memphis and Nashville, Districts 9 and 5, which have been represented by Democrats Steve Cohen and Jim Cooper, respectively.
Although redistricting efforts are technically proceeding under the aegis of a bipartisan commission of legislators, the group, like the legislature itself, is heavily dominated by Republicans, and the GOP’s word will hold corresponding greater sway.
Republicans involved with the process are said to be giving serious consideration to a slice-and-dice formula for Metro Davidson County’s District 5, the bulk of which, at present, consists of Nashville’s urban core and has been as dependably Democratic for Cooper as it was for his predecessor, Bob Clement, and had been for previous Democrats as far back as historical memory stretches.
Various GOP proposals currently being looked at reportedly involve splitting the Nashville urban core into several longitudinal slices, each of which could be paired with a generous portion of the surrounding and overwhelmingly Republican suburban “doughnut” areas, giving GOP contenders strong chances of prevailing in any or all of the newly configured districts.
The demographics and geography of Memphis and Shelby County make a similar reapportionment virtually impossible in this end of the state. Cohen is virtually assured of a Democratic voting base in any potential redistricting of the 9th, but the GOP strategy, if successfully implemented, could make him the sole Democrat representing any area of the state in Congress.
Democrats — and some Republicans — have cautioned that the slice-and-dice strategy could backfire and that several of the potential new hybrid districts to be carved out of pieces of Nashville could turn into politically competitive urban/suburban areas in the same way that so much of Atlanta’s adjacent suburbs did in the 2020 election — and in the same way that Tennessee House of Representatives District 96, spanning part of Memphis and Germantown, has done in the last two election cycles, electing Democrat Dwayne Thompson to what had been a dependably Republican seat.
Annabelle Wallis stars as Madison Lake, whose visions of shocking murders become her reality.
What is the appeal of a movie like Sharknado? It’s bad, everyone involved knows it’s bad, and the audience knows it’s bad. Nevertheless, the original 2013 Sharknado was one of the biggest hits in Syfy network history and spawned five sequels.
The cultural theorist in the corner pipes up to say, “It’s camp!” And that’s true enough. But I think it’s simpler than that. The title tells you what you’re going to get — a tornado full of sharks — but it also tells you that this movie doesn’t give a fuck. It’s not trash that’s going to pretend to not be trash. It rejects your notions of “intelligence” and “decency” in favor of the sheer, undeniable pleasure, represented by a tornado full of sharks eating people who thought they were safe on dry land.
Which brings me to Malignant. It’s a film that lacks a solid, Sharknado-style hook, but it does have director James Wan, the co-creator of torture-porn progenitor Saw and the guy who made the warmed-over Exorcist vibes of The Conjuring into a billion-dollar franchise. Kudos to him for trying something fresh, but what, exactly, is the hook for Malignant? Wan knows how this works; Saw is a trashy film about watching people saw their own limbs off. Turns out, looking for the hook is part of the hook! Checkmate, Sharknado!
Madison Lake (Annabelle Wallis) is a pregnant woman in an abusive relationship with her husband Derek (Jake Abel). She desperately wants to have a baby, but she’s had three miscarriages, for which Derek blames her. During one particularly terrible argument, Derek slams Madison’s head against the wall, and she locks herself in their bedroom. While he’s sleeping off his drunk on the couch, a killer appears and stabs him in the head. When Madison awakes, she sees her husband has gotten what he deserves and is then attacked by the mysterious, hirsute killer, who looks like Cousin Itt joined Ministry in the mid-’90s.
When Madison wakes in the ICU, her sister Sydney (Maddie Hasson) informs her that she has lost yet another baby. Enter the FBI (or the police or some other law enforcement body. Whatever. Malignant DGAF) in the persons of Shaw (George Young) and Moss (Michole Briana White). The investigative team has doubts about Madison’s explanation as to how her hubby got a chef’s knife in his cranium. Sydney sets out to prove Madison’s innocence.
I could go on about the plot, but it’s not going to help it make sense. There’s a mystery surrounded by red herrings — but is it really a red herring if the writer has no idea what’s supposed to be happening? Malignant seems like it’s pasted together from leftover scenes and gags cut from better movies. Sydney seems to be a refugee from a sitcom. Madison lives in a creepy old Victorian house in Seattle that really should be haunted but isn’t.
And yet, I kinda liked it because it doesn’t give a fuck. Sharknado rules are in effect. Wan knows what he’s trying to do — create some gonzo horror scenes — and he does it. When you stop rolling your eyes, the stuff on screen looks pretty badass. There’s something to be said for a movie that knows what it wants to be, and fully becomes itself — even if its true form is pretty stupid.
Photo: Posted to Twitter by @inspiration4x via @johnkrausphotos
Memphis on the internet.
St. Jude in Space
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was a central focus of the all-civilian Inspiration4 mission to space last week. Memphian, St. Jude physician’s assistant, and former St. Jude patient Hayley Arceneaux served as the mission’s medical officer aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience capsule.
The mission began with liftoff on Wednesday.
Photo: Posted to YouTube by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
On Friday, St. Jude patients got a once-in-a-lifetime chance to speak to Inspiration4’s astronauts as they circled the Earth in low orbit.
Photo: Posted to YouTube by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Patients asked the astronauts about their sleeping bags, what they do for fun in space, whether or not there are cows on the moon, their favorite space food, and whether or not there were aliens in space. Arceneaux then gave the patients a tour of the Dragon’s cupola, the largest window ever in outer space.
Photo: Posted to Twitter by @inspiration4x
The crew safely splashed down Saturday. The mission raised $210 million for St. Jude after a $50 million donation by SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
