“Want to see a free mind-reading trick?” magician Hayden Childress asks on his website. “Whatever you do, DON’T read this sentence. Amazing isn’t it? You couldn’t help read but the sentence! Also, you probably didn’t notice ‘but’ and ‘read’ were switched in the sentence above, did you? Magic!”
“Is this some kind of mind game?” you might ask. “Surely, this isn’t ‘magical.’” Well, according to Childress, “Magic is just inherently tricks on your mind, something that’s messing with your perception of the world.”
But Childress’ on-stage tricks go beyond switching words around in a sentence. He prefers to use everyday, practical props. “Like, I might borrow a phone from the crowd,” he says. “Everything I do is very interactive. A lot of it involves me bringing a person up. It’s sleight of hand, comedy, and psychology with a lot of these tricks — messing with how people think or the decisions they’re going to make.”
And if you think that there’s no way someone can trick such a smarty as yourself, think again because Childress has been practicing his sleight of hand since he was 10. “I got into [magic] the same way most people got into it,” he says. “I saw some magic on television. Right away I went to the public library and picked up a bunch of books on magic and studied them front to back. And when I was about 11, there was a magic shop at a shopping mall about an hour from where I lived. I used to go there, and the magic shop owner saw that I was really into it and just let me work for tips doing tricks outside the shop. I would walk up to people at a table in the food court and say, ‘Hi, can I show you a magic trick?’ I did that pretty much every weekend.”
Childress also picked up gigs in high school, working parties. “I knew I could make some money doing it,” he says. “I wasn’t sure how doable it was to do it full-time because I didn’t know many people who did it at the time.” So, by his late teens, he was stuck between choosing college or pursuing magic, but as fate would have it , two established and successful full-time magicians (one of whom was David Copperfield), upon meeting him, advised him to do both. “Because if you fail with the magic, you have a fallback of a normal career so that way you can take more risks.”
So, instead of going to college parties, Childress took any gig that he could while pursuing his degree in business. Oddly enough, some of his business lessons have applied well to his magic — particularly in learning about consumer behavior, he says. “So like how does Amazon make you buy this brand of pen? A lot of it is the same psychology. Like how did Hayden make me think of ace of hearts? It’s kind of like using those same techniques in the show, but I use them for magic. It’s less marketable but it’s more fun.”
Now a full-time magician, Childress says of his work, “I hope that after someone sees it that it might make them think of the world differently. But if they don’t, they can just enjoy any magic trick.”
Hayden Childress, Halloran Centre, Friday, May 20th, 8 p.m., $28-$35.
A Facebook group, called Memphis Formula, was organized this weekend to help families find baby formula during the shortage. This is the MEMernet at its best.
Grizz
The Memphis Grizzlies’ season ended Sunday with a Game 6 loss to the Golden State Warriors in the semi-conference finals. NBA on ESPN summed it up nicely with this tweet: “What a season for the Grizzlies. The future is bright in Memphis.”
Barbecue
Posted to Instagram by @tom.rainey.
Last week, the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest brought thousands of people from 212 teams, tons of charcoal, piles of pork (and more), plumes of smoke, a heaping helping of good times, and dozens of locals complaining about the fireworks on Nextdoor.
Though he settled in New Orleans to hone his craft as a poet, the faces and voices of Florida still haunt Thomas Dollbaum’s songs. “Nothing good comes from Florida, including you,” he sings with a weary croon, and he could be singing about himself or that hooker “riding high with some trick” — or both. Indeed, the song “Florida” is the perfect lead track on Dollbaum’s debut, Wellwood, out this week on Big Legal Mess Records.
Imagine a Tampa kid who grows up seeing more than he bargained for. Caught between the metal and rap scenes, he holes up at home to write songs evoking the damaged, yearning souls around him. “Going to high school in Florida, heroin was becoming really big again,” Dollbaum says. “I wasn’t that involved with it, but a lot of my friends ended up getting addicted in the opiate epidemic. Seeing people you grew up with ending up lost, where you don’t even know where they are anymore, those kinds of stories have always been wild to me.”
Dollbaum is a songwriter who completely inhabits his characters. Points of comparison might be Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, or other singers with a poetic bent, but unlike them, Dollbaum is writing from a land without a past. “Florida is cookie-cutter,” he says. “Everything’s new. Nothing’s got any history to it. People from all over move down there to start again. Everyone I knew as a kid was from somewhere else.”
The melodies are as sparing and unsentimental as the words, delivered unhurriedly, as when he sings “I walk hand in hand with my death.” The final result has a freshly minted quality, even where influences are apparent. Though the songwriters Dollbaum admires are in the mix, from the Silver Jews’ David Berman to Townes Van Zandt, Joni Mitchell, or Neil Young, every move grows organically from the songs, Dollbaum’s own distinctive voice, and the lives he conjures up.
As Dollbaum stresses, these songs are more than mere diary entries. “Even in poetry, everything’s moving more to confessional stuff. I just don’t have much interest in that. These are songs and characters coming from growing up in Florida, a mixture of my own life and some of it very fictional. Lou Reed does that too. A lot of it is made up, but he makes these interesting worlds. That’s always interested me.”
Music has always fascinated him as well, though not the polkas his father played on accordion in his youth. “I played bass first, until fifth grade or so,” he recalls. “And then I wanted to write songs, so I moved to guitar. I’ve always been playing music.” Extended family in Indiana both taught him guitar and introduced him to the music of John Prine, and folk-rock graced with a realist poet’s vision is what Dollbaum has aspired to ever since.
He first won accolades for his poetry, which in turn took him to the University of New Orleans. Having completed his master’s degree there, now laboring as a carpenter, he and friend Matt Seferian began recording the demos that grew into this album just before the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Work continued under lockdown conditions, as they slowly built up tracks that initially featured only acoustic guitar and singing. From those labors comes a painstakingly crafted album that sounds as airy, natural, and flowing as anything from the 1970s’ Golden Age of singer/songwriters.
But this isn’t the California of a half century ago. The setting of Dollbaum’s debut is more like today’s America: a broken land that wanderers still flock to, in search of whatever they can’t find at home. Perhaps growing up in such a land gives you a sixth sense for uprooted souls and the desperate dreams that drive them. They’ve burned themselves into Thomas Dollbaum’s mind in ways he may never shake. Instead, he builds worlds for them and invites us in.
Thomas Dollbaum appears with Bailey Bigger and Kate Teague at Bar DKDC on Saturday, May 28th, 8 p.m.
There is a great instinct to try to distill complex investment matters into simple solutions. For years, online experts insisted that you could get all the benefits of the market by just investing in one index like the S&P 500. Now that the shine of U.S. large cap growth is wearing off, a new reductionist approach is gaining traction — U.S. Treasury Series I Savings Bonds, or “I Bonds.” The siren song is simple — why expose yourself to the ups and downs of the stock market if you can buy a principal-protected investment with a current high yield? How could anyone disagree?
There’s nothing wrong with I Bonds, but there are good reasons why they’re not a substitute for your diversified portfolio — or maybe even your bonds and cash:
• Your rate on these bonds is exactly CPI for Urban Consumers, so technically you only just keep up with inflation. Generally, the purpose of an investment portfolio is to achieve returns in excess of inflation in the long run — these bonds won’t help do that unless you can perfectly time the market. If you could perfectly time the market, you’d probably invest in much more exciting things than I Bonds!
• The interest is taxable, so by buying these currently you’re locking in a slight loss after inflation in real dollars. You’re technically losing purchasing power.
• The current yield is attractive at 9.6 percent, however it will almost certainly not persist this high. The rate resets every six months so really you only get 4.8 percent the first six months and then an unknown rate after that. You have to hold for at least a year and if you redeem before five years you lose three months of interest. I Bonds aren’t even great for an emergency fund due to that one-year lockup, and it’s very likely you will get less than 9.6 percent holding for one year when the second six-month rate (and early withdrawal penalty) is factored in.
• If we all had unlimited time horizons and no short-term cash needs, we probably wouldn’t own any bonds. One of the main reasons to buy bonds is so that if stocks drop significantly, yields are likely to fall and bond prices go up. Since these are floating rate bonds, you don’t get that potential increase in your bond price, which is a reason it’s not a substitute for a traditional bond allocation.
• You can only put $10,000 a year into I Bonds per person, so chasing this high interest rate means you’re only hoping to make hundreds of dollars (not even $1,000) the first year. By the time you can put more money in, yields probably won’t look this good. For investors with larger portfolios, I Bonds won’t make much difference. If $10,000 is most of your portfolio, you’re probably younger and should reconsider going 100 percent bonds to begin with!
There’s nothing wrong with I Bonds, they just aren’t the panacea that some would have you believe. At the end of the day, it’s hard to imagine a long-term scenario where an investor would be better off buying I Bonds rather than adding to a well-planned diversified portfolio. There will always be one-size-fits-all investment ideas, but in the end we believe it’s worth navigating a little complexity to make the best decisions toward a secure financial future.
Gene Gard is Chief Investment Officer at Telarray, a Memphis-based wealth management firm that helps families navigate investment, tax, estate, and retirement decisions. Ask him your questions or schedule an objective, no-pressure portfolio review at letstalk@telarrayadvisors.com. Sign up for their next free online seminar on the Events tab at telarrayadvisors.com.
Italian barbecue pasta at Tamboli’s (Photo: Miles Tamboli)
Since May is the month of the big “B” in Memphis, more area chefs share their thoughts on barbecuing. After all, this is Memphis. Barbecuing is sort of second nature. Right?
Miles Tamboli, owner of Tamboli’s Pasta & Pizza: “I made a barbecue pasta sauce that I’m really proud of to this day. I broke down barbecue sauce to its basic flavors and recreated it from scratch using Italian ingredients. Tomato base, caramelized onions, garlic confit, red wine, balsamic vinegar, smoked paprika, anchovy, and some more stuff. Tasted just like barbecue sauce. We tossed bucatini in it and topped it with seared sous vide pork belly from Home Place Pastures and nasturtium micros. It was excellent.”
Karen Carrier, chef/owner of restaurants, including The Beauty Shop: “Applewood smoked barbecued char siu salmon with crystallized ginger, candied lemon zest, and an avocado, watermelon, radish, and orange supreme relish.”
Joseph Michael Garibaldi Jr., Garibaldi’s Pizza owner: “We use a combination of fine- and medium-chopped hickory smoked pork shoulder and combine it with just the right amount of our sweet and sour sauce for it to caramelize the brown sugar on top and keep the pork moist and tender. … Our fresh, hand-tossed crust, signature fresh-packed tomato pizza sauce, and shredded mozzarella cheese provide a perfect base for the perfect barbecue pizza.”
Andy Knight, chef at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar: “Opening Loflin Yard and Carolina Watershed — both on Carolina Avenue — I attempted Carolina barbecue with a Memphis twist. I would cook the butts Carolina style — vinegar-based — then lather them up later with a rich Memphis-style sauce. Both locations were successful, but could never beat Memphis-style. From vinegar-based pork butts to 12-hour smoked beef brisket, nothing beats the dry rub and a rich barbecue sauce of Memphis-style barbecue.”
Betty Joyce “B.J.” Chester-Tamayo, chef-owner of Alcenia’s: “Barbecued chicken. I bake it first if I’m doing it at the restaurant. Sometimes I marinate it overnight with my Italian dressing.”
She also uses her eight seasonings, including Italian dressing, fresh rosemary, and even some of her homemade apple butter. She adds her barbecue sauce when serving. “I take barbecue sauce from the store and add my own ingredients: lemon juice, ketchup, Lipton onion soup mix, and other seasonings.”
Jonathan Mah, chef/owner SideStreet Burgers in Olive Branch, Mississippi: “My signature is the Korean barbecue — Le Fat Panda. My favorite cut is the pork steak marinated in Korean flavors and grilled. It’s a soy-based marinade with honey and mirin, green onions, and sugar, as well as sesame oil. Red pepper flakes for a little spice. Chargrilling is my favorite so that you burn that sugar a little bit on the grill. That’s the best part, to me.”
Jeffrey Zepatos, owner of The Arcade Restaurant: “We used to do barbecue at the Arcade. And we had a barbecued grilled cheese sandwich. So, I’d stick to something along those lines. Smoked pulled pork barbecue on Texas toast with a smoked cheddar cheese to top it off. Now we obviously don’t have smokers at the Arcade, so I was buying a great pork shoulder from a local vendor that we could heat up on our griddle. I think that was fun because it added flavor from our griddle to the barbecue, which gave it a unique taste from all the bacon and sausage we cook on it.”
Mario Gagliano, Libro chef/owner: “I’m from Memphis and I only know pork ribs with that classic vinegary Memphis sauce. All I’d do is take some baby backs and massage them with a nice dry rub, lightly sear it on low heat so as not to burn the sugars in the rub. Flip them and render some of that flavor off the bone. Then halfway submerge the ribs in boiling pork stock. Cover in foil and cook in the oven for a couple hours on 400 degrees. Remove them, brush some Memphis barbecue sauce and broil for a few minutes. Essentially, braising the pork, but it falls off the bone, super tender and moist. And you can find it cooked just like this at Libro at Laurelwood all through the month of May, baby.”
I ran into Bobby White, Greater Memphis Chamber Chief Public Policy Officer, at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.
Of all the tents, booths, and lean-tos I’ve been inside during the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, SMOKE wins first prize in my book as the most over-the-top barbecue location.
And I was at the very first Memphis in May barbecue contest back in the day. Behind the Orpheum Theatre, as I recall.
The SMOKE tent’s furnishings included a 12-foot S-shaped couch that could seat 18 people, two crystal chandeliers, and four electric fireplaces, which had the flames flickering in the 80-or-something-degree weather.
Part of the SMOKE tent decor during Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
A large photo of pro golfer John Daly hung on the wall.
John Daly?
“It used to sit over our bar,” says SMOKE team member Andy Lamanna. “He was our homage. That’s why the bar lights up with rows of stacked Titos going all the way up. The bottles change colors. We have lights in them.”
Drew Harrison and Mike Thannum at the 2021 Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. (Credit: Shelly Thannum)
The team has a connection to Daly, says Drew Harrison, the team’s head cook. He purchased equipment for their team’s tent “from a restaurant auction of John Daly’s old restaurant in Conway, Arkansas.”
Their tent included five refrigerators, a beer cooler with “50-case-plus capacity,” a cold table food server, hot table food server, a 125 gallon water tank with 1.5 horsepower water pump, three-compartment kitchen sink, a dishwasher, and a “military grade smoke machine.” They also had 100 amp electrical service.
Harrison, who is with Harrison Energy Partners in Little Rock, says, “I’m a nerd engineer.”
He bought the outer furnishings on Facebook Marketplace, among other places. It was an “anywhere-I-could-buy-something-I-bought-something kind of deal.”
In addition to the sofa and the fireplaces, Harrison also brought an armoire that was converted into bar shelves with custom LED under lighting. “The bar shelves, liquor shelves, two chandeliers, and two back-lit LED signs are all controlled by a single DMX controller so they change colors in unison to the beat of music.”
Another look at the bar inside the SMOKE tent. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Daly’s photo that was over the bar was moved to another spot this year, Lamanna says, “We replaced it with our team photo when we won. We got 10th in shoulder last year.”
Their tent, by the way, was “30 by 30,” Harrison says. “The front porch was 20 by 30. And the kitchen was 20 by 30.”
Mike Thannum was this year’s team captain. Team members come from “all different places. We come from different states,” Harrison says.
But what brought them all together is “barbecue and Memphis.”
SMOKE didn’t win anything this year, but the team still celebrated the experience by indulging in their annual Saturday-of-the-event tradition, Harrison says. “Watching Top Gun on our 65-inch television.”
Around and About MIM World Championship Barbecue Co0king Contest
Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest is a family event. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Memphis Grizzlies weren’t forgotten by the People’s Republic of Swina team during the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Grilled chicken anyone? (Credit: Michael Donahue)You could also BUY barbecue at MIM World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Memphis in May president/CEO James L. Holt visits Ghana’s barbecue team at the MIM World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. Ghana was this year’s MIM honored country. (Credit: Michael Donahue)Michael McCaffrey and Ben Prudhomme bring in the reinforcements for the Cadillac Grillz team at MIM World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. (Credit: Michael Donahue) We Saw You
A year ago, the Black artist and nonprofit leader Victoria Jones captured the city’s attention with her plans for a $50+ million development meant to bring hope, revitalization and wealth to a long-disinvested Black neighborhood.
With the help of friends, sobriety and therapy, Jones is now in a healthier mental place. The fear isn’t gone, but she’s handling it better. She’s realized it will be okay if she fails. And now, she wants to pass along what she’s learned.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Find mental health resources for people of color here and additional resources here. — Jacob Steimer
Victoria Jones: I gotta talk about this out loud so I’m not pretending to be impenetrable.
In the production of perseverance and strength, I’ve tried to act like hurting and fear don’t exist in this journey. And that isn’t serving anybody. I’ve leaned into and leaned on the Black Girl Magic thing. I’ve romanticized struggle because it made some of the painful moments make more sense.
But I needed permission to not be strong and not persevere and just fall apart. If I had tried to just persevere, I’d still be in a really bad place. I want folks — especially Black women — to have permission to just fall apart.
Growing up, my folks were in the military, so we moved every other year. The one thing that was consistent my entire life was my family.
In mid-May of last year, my parents moved, and then my sister moved and then my little brother. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t hop in my car and go see my momma.
Then in late May, we changed [our nonprofit’s name] from The CLTV to Tone and announced the tower project.
What’s the latest on the tower?
Jones and the rest of the development team have made significant progress since announcing the project a year ago. A development team is in place, and initial designs and financial models are completed. Now comes refining those designs and projections, getting companies and nonprofits to commit to the project, and raising more money from philanthropists. The team still intends to start construction by the end of 2023. A new goal of Jones’ is to make sure the project provides mental health services to the surrounding community.
There was an intense anxiety around like, “Will people receive this?”
When the first story, by Elle Perry, hit and it was loved on and shared and re-shared, there was some intense excitement for, like, three days. Everybody pulled their cars into one of the warehouses; music was going; we were really celebrating.
But a couple articles later, it started getting scary. We were encouraging people to hope for this tower but then there’s this immense pressure to make it happen.
After, like, four years of sobriety, I started drinking, convincing myself it was celebratory drinking.
As that excitement begins to fade and anxiety continues to grow, it becomes a lot easier to rely on drinking in a completely different way.
Anxiety is just a constant state of being for me at this point. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I came out of college. And so I’m just riding that anxiety like it’s a normal thing. But thenThe New York Times article came out in November, and it was strictly anxiety, no excitement, no joy.
I was visiting my parents in Florida. My mom and sister and I were riding around this little suburb outside of Orlando for an hour and a half, looking for copies of The New York Times.
It’s late, and we’re tired, and I’m like, “Why aren’t you celebrating me?!”
They were celebrating me, but they couldn’t feel it enough for me to feel it.
While I was in Florida, I was sober. Then I got home, and between Christmas and Thanksgiving, I had these tough few weeks. It’s dark, and it’s cold, and I’m drinking every day. And it’s just, like, all the things.
Credit: Gabrielle Brooks for MLK50
Dealing with bipolar disorder, it’s always on my back. And I know there are these routines and practices I can invest in that will keep it in the rearview. I watched it get closer, closer, and closer. Then when the sun literally stopped coming out, it caught me completely and took a really, really, really good grasp on me.
I tell myself these things, when it is a bit rockier, about my worthiness or lack thereof: I have to do certain things to get love or to be worthy of relationship and community. I didn’t have many, if any, relationships that existed completely outside of work. All my closest friends work here at Tone. So — as far as it was from the truth — it was easy to convince myself that nobody loved me just because they wanted to.
One evening, there was a program here at the Tone gallery, and I had been drinking. And I remember walking in and thinking to myself, “If I die, it would not be me that they mourn, it’d be this project.” And I remember being devastated by that.
I was angry at everybody because I had convinced myself that the only way I’m worthy of love is if I can do really great work and be the strongest and be the toughest.
Credit: Gabrielle Brooks for MLK50
And it’s not because people don’t love me — my brain and I are coming up with fantastical narratives. Everything about my body chemistry is like, “You are alone, and this shit sucks.”
There were day-to-day contemplations about suicide.
I was like, “I don’t know how to get out of this; I have no idea how to shake this.”
When I am drinking, the bottom is taken out. I can get mood swings if I’m sober, and depression still exists. But there’s a bottom.
When I’m drinking, I can fall forever.
And what’s becoming more clear is drinking is also a self-sabotage mechanism for me.
I used to play basketball when I was younger, and I’m competitive to my core. One time, we were about to have to race different teammates. I remember pretending that I was hurt because the person I was up against might win. I was like, “I’m not running a race if I don’t know if I’m gonna win.”
For the first time in my career, I had come upon a goal that I believed I could do but I don’t know I can. It was terrifying.
The worst day came right after I moved houses that winter and was on the tail end of all the stress that comes from moving. I had told myself I was done drinking. But I had had a shit day; I was feeling miserable because I was drunk and lonely and felt like I had crumbled into the smallest version of myself.
My assistant director at Tone, who’s also my closest friend, who I thought I had pushed away, showed up.
I’m laying down in my bed and I got a call, and he’s like “I’m outside.” It was like, “Oh wait. So I’m not by myself?”
Credit: Gabrielle Brooks for MLK50
That was the worst night, but it also led to hope.
From there, my therapist was like, you need to make some friends. She said, “Low hanging fruit: Who wants to hang out? Hit them up and go hang out.”
Historic Clayborn Temple executive director Anasa Troutman has pulled other Black women into a community. And I was not being asked to do anything to be part of it. I was not being asked to be smart or thoughtful — just to be there, to watch a movie or eat food or crack jokes.
I felt like — for the first time in a long time — I was being given permission to just be human.
I started trusting them to support me when bad things happen.
These women tell me often that I don’t have to do anything for them to love me. It used to be so hard for me to hear the phrase “if the project doesn’t work …,” but letting them speak that and follow it up with “we will love you,” was a lot. They’re going to be here either way, and I am allowed to fail.
I can fail and still be worthy of love.
Credit: Gabrielle Brooks for MLK50
The national helpline for individuals facing substance use disorders is 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
And now I’m not drinking. But I had to care about what happened to me to stop drinking. When you’re around people who are telling you you’re worthy of love and who are actively loving on you, it’s easier to be like, “Maybe I should be nice to myself.”
I don’t think we’re supposed to be as individualistic as we are. I sometimes feel the desire to be this “self-made,” “independent” woman, but that would require me to be alone, and that shit is for the birds.
Jacob Steimer is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Email him at Jacob.Steimer@mlk50.com
This story is brought to you by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit newsroom focused on poverty, power and policy in Memphis. Support independent journalism by making a tax-deductible donation today. MLK50 is also supported by these generous donors.
A religious freedom group wants the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate a controversial, conspiracy theorist, witch-hunting Tennessee pastor for preaching politics at the pulpit.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State claimed in a Monday letter to the IRS that Greg Locke, pastor of Mt. Juliet’s Global Vision Bible Church, violated the Johnson Amendment, a law that prevents nonprofits from endorsing or opposing political parties or candidates.
“If you vote Democrat, I don’t even want you around this church,” Locke said in a sermon Sunday (posted online here). “You can get out. You can get out, you demon. You can get out, you baby-butchering, election thief.
“If you vote Democrat, I don’t even want you around this church. … You can get out, you baby-butchering, election thief.”
Greg Locke
“You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. I don’t care how mad that makes you. You can get as pissed off as you want to. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation.”
In the same sermon, Locke insulted President Joe Biden many times (“that sleepy old fool is going to bust hell wide open”), claimed “Obama is behind” all of America’s problems, doubted that the recent shooting in Buffalo, New York was racially motivated, repeated the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, promised another insurrection if “you keep on pushing our buttons,” and warned of demons and witchcraft. Locke also promised to be at the U.S. Supreme Court building Tuesday to “raise hell for the life of them babies.”
President Joe Biden “is going to bust hell wide open.”
Greg Locke
“Now, when our democracy is threatened by white Christian nationalism like never before, the IRS must investigate blatant Johnson Amendment violations like Locke’s remarks and enforce the federal law that protects the integrity of both our elections and our houses of worship by ensuring nonprofits don’t engage in partisan politics,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United. “Tax exemption is a privilege, not a constitutional right. The government has attached sensible strings to that privilege. This rule, which is broadly popular among religious and nonreligious Americans alike, ensures charitable donations meant for the common good are not spent on corrosive partisan politics.”
“Tax exemption is a privilege, not a constitutional right.”
Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United
“Global Vision Bible Church” could not not be found in database searches of charities by the IRS, the Tennessee Department of State, or nonprofit navigator Guidestar. The domain suffix of the church’s website is “.com” instead of “.org,” perhaps signaling it is a for-profit company. However, no business called “Global Vision Bible Church” appeared in a search of the Tennessee State Department site.
Calls to the church and a media relations number requesting the church’s most-recent tax forms were not immediately answered.
A January news release from the church claimed that a “reverse offering” event at the church in December raised $66,000, which was dispersed ”among those who are carrying financial burdens and living on little.”
“Global Vision Bible Church has a habit of giving back,” reads the news release. “Despite inflated reports and rumors of Pastor Locke’s net worth, he lives a modest life, giving abundantly in moments like the December 19th service.”
Americans United said that in his Sunday sermon, Locke “clearly told congregants to vote a certain way,” a clear violation of the Johnson Amendment. But, they said, he did not spare Republicans either.
“You need to be delivered from voting Democrat,” Locke said. “I think in that list in mass deliverance I’m going to start putting ‘spirit of Democrat.’ Come out in Jesus’ name.
“By the way, that doesn’t mean that I’m a full-fledged Republican, either. They’re two heads of the same snake. My loyalty is not to a party, my loyalty is the Kingdom of God.”
Jon Button, Billy Nicholls, Roger Daltrey, Zak Starkey, and Pete Townshend of The Who perform onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)
Power pop takes many guises, but few would dispute that The Who played a pivotal role in its birth, combining soaring melodies and rich harmonies with crunchy guitar riffs and other sonic delights. Granted, a rock opera like Tommy steps outside the three-minute parameters of the ideal pop song, but even that example is littered with brilliant singles, mixed in with the “Overture,” “Underture,” and other instrumental passages.
The band’s hand in perfecting power pop, and the sheer artistry of their very deep catalog, whatever the genre, was eminently apparent at their appearance at the FedExForum last Friday night. Of course, purists are quick to point out that the most anyone can see these days is half the Who, and that’s technically true. But that rock band, by any name, was only part of the recipe Friday, as the group comprised only about one sixth of the total musicianship onstage. The Who that played Memphis Friday was a symphonic Who.
The core band was a powerhouse, of course. Front and center were the two original members, singer Roger Daltrey and songwriter/lead guitarist Pete Townshend. The late Keith Moon has long had a worthy stand-in with Zak Starkey on drums, who’s style owes more to the inimitable Mr. Moon than his own father, Ringo Starr. And the guitarist/backup singer was Pete’s brother, Simon Townshend. The shoes of the late John Entwistle, who passed away in 2002, were filled by the enthusiastic Jon Button. One special guest, who crafted pop singles in his own right back in the day and has written many charting songs, was backing vocalist Billy Nicholls. Keyboardist Loren Gold mastered the often tricky synthesizer, piano and organ parts capably, augmented by second keyboardist Emily Marshall. Finally, orchestra conductor Keith Levenson, lead violinist Katie Jacoby and lead cellist Audrey Snyder were joined by a few dozen classical players from Memphis.
Pete Townshend introduced the latter musicians, saying they were “Memphis born and bred, though only about five of them are any good at basketball.” Though stoically focused on their scores during the performance, many of the local players could barely conceal their delight after the show.
Tom Clary’s office last Friday (Credit: Tom Clary)
“I got to sit right by Pete Townshend and his amp…it was awesome,” quipped one player. Another said, “They were amazing! So cool to see Pete Townshend do the windmill in real life. It was a dream to hear them and be a part of their sound.”
Trumpeter Tom Clary posted a photo with only the caption “Jumbotron,” featuring a moment when his face loomed on the large screens flanking the stage.
Trumpeter Tom Clary on The Who’s jumbotron screen (Credit: David Torres).
In bolstering the sound of the Who, local classical musicians were carrying on a long tradition of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, players from which have graced pop and power pop records for over half a century now. And, under Levenson’s direction, the woodwinds, brass, strings and percussionists turned on a dime, from precise and delicate passages to outright bombast.
The sheer size and complexity of the mix may have diminished the sheer rocking abandon of The Who in their prime, especially when Townshend seemed to approach his role with great humility, blending in with the other orchestra players and generally keeping a low profile. At first, his guitar was notably quieter than one would imagine, until about midway through the set.
That was appropriate, as it turned out, as that half focused on material from Tommy. The irony, as Townshend pointed out after “Pinball Wizard,” was that there was no orchestra on the original album. “Our producer Kit Lambert wanted to use an orchestra, but I thought The Who were better than any orchestra.” The only nod to the classical world on the original release, Townshend noted, was John Entwistle’s French horn.
And yet the rock opera was receiving orchestral treatments from the first year of its release, even being transformed into a musical by Townshend in the 1990s. Last Friday, the orchestrations blended perfectly with the solid hammering of the rock band, bringing a bit of shimmer to the ethereal chords of Tommy‘s “Overture.”
A contemporary bit of inspiration made an appearance during Tommy as well. As the classic refrain of “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me” gave way to “Listening to you I get the music/Gazing at you I get the heat,” Townshend cranked his guitar up a notch and the lights glowed with the blue-and-gold of Ukraine.
Pete Townshend of The Who performs onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)
Townshend sang relatively little through the night, explaining that a recent illness had left his voice sounding “like a cross between Elvis Presley and Louis Armstrong,” even as he belted out “Eminence Front” very much like that latter. At one point between songs, he pulled out his phone and fiddled about with it, saying, “I’m not checking my phone, I’m adjusting my hearing controls,” referring to Bluetooth-connected in-ear monitors he wore.
But he took the occasion to wax nostalgic about Keith Moon’s great desire to have an old-school rotary phone by his drum kit during shows, which would ring between songs, requiring him to answer it. “Hello, darling,” Townshend mimicked Moon. “Yes, everything’s fine, the show’s going well. Please don’t call me at work!”
Roger Daltrey of The Who performs onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)
Daltrey, for his part, was in fine voice throughout the night, delivering the high notes and even the scream in “Won’t Get Fooled Again” as if he was fifty years younger. Indeed, hearing him carry so many of the band’s greatest songs was a stark reminder of what a force of nature his voice still is.
Midway through the set, fans were able to hear The Who as an honest-to-god rock band, or at least a relatively stripped-down seven piece, kicking into “The Seeker” with both guitarists on acoustics. This was also the segment that featured a rare non-hit, which Daltrey called “one we recorded for the Lifehouse project,” albeit unreleased until the Odds and Sods LP: “Relay.” Perhaps egged on by Gold’s blistering organ solo, Townshend finally revved up his guitar during the number.
Eventually, the orchestra returned, and it was a very welcome re-augmentation as the collective launched into songs from Quadrophenia, Townshend’s lesser known, if more literary, rock opera. The titular instrumental number from the opera was a revelation in this form, as Time-Life style images of great moments in history from the ’60s onward flashed on the screen (a bit predictably). The photos did include local headlines about the death of Elvis. But the grandeur of the music made such a montage redundant. And that was brought home when, after an artful solo piano introduction by Gold, the entire ensemble erupted into “Love, Reign O’er Me.”
With “Baba O’Riley” and its extended fiddle outro by Jacoby (who changed into a Grizzlies shirt for the occasion), the night was over, as Daltrey blessed us with the words, “May you all have wonderful lives ahead of you!”
Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who perform onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)
Setlist: With Orchestra Overture 1921 Amazing Journey Sparks Pinball Wizard We’re Not Gonna Take It Who Are You Eminence Front Ball and Chain Join Together
Band Only The Seeker You Better You Bet Relay Won’t Get Fooled Again
With Orchestra Behind Blue Eyes The Real Me I’m One 5:15 The Rock Love, Reign O’er Me Baba O’Riley
Cooper-Young landlords want to evict the owners of FancyStudios (formerly Heaux House) because they were “not operating a yoga studio,” as spelled out in the lease, but a “photography studio specializing in pornographic images.”
Credit: Toby Sells/The building at 2163 Young Ave.
Sharon and Dante Andreini own the property at 2163 Young Avenue, according to county data. The building is across the street from Grivet Sports and 901 Comics. Randii Reaves rented the space from them and opened Heaux House there in mid-January. In March, Reaves received a letter from Derek Whitlock, an attorney for the Andreinis, telling Reaves she violated the terms of her lease.
“It has been brought to my client’s attention by numerous neighbors, local officials, and concerned citizens that you are not operating a yoga studio as required in the lease,” Whitlock wrote. “Judging by the the advertisements you have placed in social media and in the public space you are operating a photography studio specializing in pornographic images.
You are operating a photography studio specializing in pornographic images.
Derek Whitlock, attorney
“The titling of your business as the ‘Heaux House’ further calls into question precisely what services are being offered in the premises.”
Whitlock said Reaves was operating an “adult-oriented establishment,” which violated the lease, and violated the Shelby County Uniform Code by operating such a business within 1,500 feet of a church, children’s schools, and family residences.
A mural on the side of the building once read “Welcome to the Haus. Heaux House” in large letters that spanned the entire east-facing side of the building. Reaves’ attorney Jacob Brown said the landlords said the mural was a problem. Reaves painted over the letters with black paint. The mural was in this state Monday morning.
Credit: FancyStudios/Facebook
Credit: Toby Sells
Brown said the very next contact from the landlords was that letter claiming she was running a porn studio, not a yoga studio. It was not a cease and desist letter, Brown said; it said, “basically, you need to get out. We’re terminating the lease.”
She’s not operating a pornography studio.
Jacob Brown, attorney
“I’ve reviewed the lease and I don’t think there’s any way in which Randii’s breached the lease,” Brown said. “She’s not operating a pornography studio. She’s operating a photo studio that she had the landlord’s permission to operate in connection with her yoga studio. The photography studio had sets and props that catered to boudoir themes.”
A scroll through the FancyStudios (formerly Heaux House) Facebook page shows images from several photo shoots inside the building. In many of them, women in lingerie and other revealing clothes lounge on a bed or a chaise lounge or otherwise pose on sets with props like roses, wine glasses, vases, and pillows. A January TikTok video shows a couple’s session in which a pair pose in various sex positions. The woman wears lingerie and the man wears boxer briefs for the entirety of the video.
One Facebook post sought to “clear up any misconceptions we may have” about the term “heaux.” It said the word was “not to be used in a derogatory way,” explaining that it came from the idea “that women can take empowerment back from words used so long to destroy them.” Another post says, “not tryna slut shame, but y’all could definitely be sluttier. Step it up.”
The Facebook feed is also filled with yoga videos, aerial yoga videos, and the studio’s daily yoga schedule. The company also advertised twerking classes, “Swerk” and “Twerking After Working.”
In May, Reaves announced on Facebook that she “was forced to change our name” from Heaux House to FancyStudios.
Some outside sources have been telling lies about us and sending them pictures from our social media.
Randii Reaves, owner FancyStudios (via Facebook)
“[The landlords] have never visited us or stepped foot into our business since they gave us possession,” Reaves said on Facebook earlier this month. “Some outside sources have been telling lies about us and sending them pictures from our social media.”
Credit: Toby Sells
Reaves said she tried to speak with the Andreinis to resolve the issue “but they have proceeded with their prosecution.” They sued Reaves to vacate the building. The first hearing in the case was last week. The issue is due back in court on Monday, May 23rd.
“At the worst, it’s malicious,” said Brown, Reaves’ attorney. “Maybe they’re trying to get her out so they can get someone else in if they can charge a higher rent, too. At the very least, it’s completely misunderstanding what’s going on there.”
