Month: December 2022

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Music Music Blog

Elvis Costello & The Imposters Get Magnetized in Memphis

Elvis Costello (Photo: Mark Seliger)

Having our hands full with new Memphis releases, we don’t often write up non-Memphians’ albums here at the Memphis Flyer. But let no one claim that Elvis Costello hasn’t earned some Memphis bona fides, having deeply connected with the city whilst recording 2004’s The Delivery Man at Sweet Tea Studio in Oxford, Mississippi. The DVD Club Date: Live in Memphis, filmed at the Hi Tone, captured his first Memphis ramble well.

In the nearly 20 years since, Costello’s concerts here have often been peppered with covers of deep cuts from Memphis history, and he’s sometimes lingered before or after those shows. Now, he’s released an album made on two such stops here, recorded at the “purpose-built vintage” Memphis Magnetic Recording Company, profiled in the Flyer upon its opening in 2019.

Sharing a title with this past January’s Grammy-nominated The Boy Named If, the new album gets more specific: The Boy Named If (Alive at Memphis Magnetic). And it’s on the latter that Costello and The Imposters really shine as a live band. For while the original studio album version was recorded long-distance during the pandemic, each player overdubbing their parts in isolation, it was not until gathering in Memphis to rehearse months later that the group played the material face to face.

Luckily for them, they chose to rehearse at Memphis Magnetic. And, as a bonus, the usual lineup of the group was supplemented by the guitar artistry of Charlie Sexton, erstwhile Dylan sideman and the brother of Memphian Will Sexton.

This new album features live-in-the studio renditions of songs from The Boy Named If, a slower, soulful version of Costello’s “Every Day I Write the Book,” numbers by The Rolling Stones, Nick Lowe, The Byrds, and Paul McCartney, and a new remix by the Japanese duo chelmico.

Recorded live in the studio during tour rehearsals in October 2021 and May 2022, the album captures the band playing, as Costello puts it in a press release, “Some of our favorite songs while negotiating with any tricky angles in our new tunes.”

The band’s performances during their Memphis stint are the perfect blend of loose and on-point. This was clearly a band gearing up for a major national tour. The harmonies and arrangements are spirited yet precise. By the time someone hit the record button, they knew the songs well enough to get playful with them, even as they drove them home. See the full track sequence below, and marvel at the choice selection of covers.

Nonetheless, the first song to be released is the sole track not recorded in Memphis, a new remix of “Magnificent Hurt” by Japanese female rap duo chelmico, who Costello first heard performing the theme to the anime show Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!  (Watch HERE)

In a public statement, chelmico noted that they “can’t believe we did a collab with Elvis Costello & The Imposters!! Who knew this could happen in real life!? When we were talking on a Zoom call, Elvis said we can do whatever we want so we just did! Please enjoy our interpretation of the world of Magnificent Hurt. The beats by ryo takahashi is just a perfection! We’re all HAPPY that Elvis is happy with the track!”

Appropriate to the Beatle-y spirit of the cover versions, The Boy Named If (Alive at Memphis Magnetic) is released on EMI, with Capitol Records as the release partner in the U.S. — just like the Fabs.

The Boy Named If (Alive at Memphis Magnetic) track listing:

Magnificent Hurt (Costello)
Truth Drug (Nick Lowe)
Penelope Halfpenny (Costello)
So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star (McGuinn/Hillman)
What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love? (Costello)
The Boy Named If (Costello)
Let Me Roll It (Paul McCartney/Linda McCartney)
Every Day I Write The Book (Costello)
Out Of Time (Jagger/Richards)
Here, There and Everywhere (Lennon/McCartney)
Magnificent Hurt remix (Costello/chelmico)

Finally, Costello himself wrote out his thoughts on this unique project:

THE BOY NAMED IF (ALIVE AT MEMPHIS MAGNETIC)
By Elvis Costello

When The Imposters and I entered Memphis Magnetic studio in October 2021 it was the first time we’d been face-to-face or side-by-side while playing the songs from The Boy Named If.

That album had been recorded over “electrical wire” in late 2020 from our respective lairs and cupboards under the stairs but now we were in Memphis on pretext of rehearsing for our first full tour ever since the world ended in March 2020. Now we were three days from opening on the Soundstage at Graceland but what better way to prepare than playing some of your favourite songs while negotiating with the trickier angles in our new tunes.

In the summer of 2021, we’d invited Charlie Sexton to join us on the guitar when we were unable to obtain Steve Nieve’s “Letters Of Transit” from France to play a couple of shows and liked the outcome so much that we all agreed to proceed as a quintet.

We set up with stage monitors, a plan that Pete Thomas and Steve Nieve would have recognized from the Blood & Chocolate sessions only without all the sulking and sniping.

Now, Pete Thomas once vaulted over a fence to retrieve a brick from the demolition site of the original Stax Studios building. He told any musicians with a faltering groove in his own basement studio – Bonaparte Rooms East – “That brick has heard, “(Sittin’ On) the Dock Of The Bay”.

We celebrated our return to the city by Pete and Davey Faragher putting a little Memphis magnificence into “Every day I Write The Book” with Steve leading us on the Hammond and Charlie filling in around my voice, one of a number of repertoire songs that we re-arranged for the tour.

The album, The Boy Named If, set out to be an antidote to our mutual isolation. Now with my co-producer Sebastian Krys and his assistant Daniel Galindo in the Memphis Magnetic booth and our road crew tight to the walls of the studio or in the hallway outside, we put on the red light and began finding our way around these new numbers in the same room and at the same time, and shaking off a little dust by tearing through songs like Nick Lowe’s 1976 Dutch release, “Truth Drug”.

Having played our first appearance of 2022 at JazzFest in New Orleans before celebrating the opening of the Bob Dylan Centre in Tulsa and even working up an encore of “Like A Rolling Stone” in the dressing room of “Cain’s Ballroom”, we had now returned to Memphis Magnetic to rehearse for upcoming U.K. and European dates and while we let The Imposters and Charlie loose on the Hey Clockface numbers that I’d recorded alone in Helsinki but would now earn their place in the coming shows before lighting “Indoor Fireworks” with a different match and finding a minor mood in “Brilliant Mistake” and filed them away for a future collection called, “King Of America & Other Realms”.

It seems we remained in a freewheeling mood as we cut, “Out Of Time”, the Jagger/Richards tune that I first learned from Chris Farlowe’s Immediate Records release, to which I later added, tambourine, maracas, a second piano and a few other tricks and diversions, after all, we were in a recording studio.

We certainly got the sense of where a tune like, “What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love?” might be headed from night to night, when Charlie opened up on his guitar solo.

In the evening I returned to my room at the Peabody Hotel and over the next three nights, I heard seven new songs ringing ‘round the walls but that’s a tale for another day…

At the October 2021 sessions, we’d crashed out of “Penelope Halfpenny” into The Byrds, “So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star”, now we did something similar, as Paul McCartney’s “Let Me Roll It” emerged from “The Boy Named If” title song. At the end of the final session, we turned off the monitors entirely and recorded a hushed birthday card serenade of “Here, There & Everywhere”.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, chelmico had been working away on a complete re-model and re-fit of “Magnificent Hurt”. Over the last few years we’ve presented some of my songs in other languages on the album “Spanish Model” and the French language E.P. La Face de Pendule à Coucou but this track is something of an entirely different stripe.

One of the gifts of the recent interlude from the traveling life has been the time gathered around the family jukebox, a stack of vinyl or the comic book world of film entertainment.

While, his brother and mother were elsewhere working on their own schemes, my son Frank and I worked our way through the entire anime series, “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!”, an ingenious look at every aspect of animation from storyboarding to the final cut, through the eyes and escapades of three young Japanese students. Each episode kicks off with the chelmico track, “Easy Breezy”, a cool flow of verses and rhymes over a beatbox and some slide guitar.

A couple of calls later and I found myself on a video conference to Tokyo with Mamiko and Rachel and was delighted that they agreed to work up their own version of “Magnificent Hurt”. My only directions were, “You can do anything you want. Cut it up. Turn it round. Wipe it out. Say anything you want. You can’t be wrong”.

As you will hear, the song is now an entirely different story in both words and music, re-harmonizing my interjections between their verses and it is this new Japanese model of the song that closes the storybook on The Boy Named If (Alive At Memphis Magnetic).

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News News Blog News Feature

State Executions Remain Halted as State Reviews Lethal Injection Protocols

State Capitol (Credit: Tennessee State Government)

Investigators have completed an independent review of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocols, and Governor Bill Lee said he’ll share the report to the public by year’s end. 

Lee halted all executions in Tennessee in May. Officials discovered lethal-injection chemicals had not been screened for toxins before the scheduled execution of Oscar Franklin Smith, convicted for the 1989 murder of his wife and her two sons in Nashville. 

The lethal-injection chemicals had been tested for potency and sterility, but not for endotoxins. The toxins could cause respiratory and other distressing issues. Screening for them is mandatory under Tennessee’s execution protocols. 

Neither Lee nor the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in the execution based on the merits of Smith’s case. At the time, Lee said, “I review each death penalty case and believe it is an appropriate punishment for heinous crimes.” But he called the death penalty “an extremely serious matter” and paused all executions here based on questions surrounding the testing protocols. 

He then appointed Memphian and former U.S. Attorney Edward Stanton to oversee an independent review of the state’s execution procedures and protocols and make recommendations for the future. The review was to “ensure any operational failures at [the Tennessee Department of Corrections] are thoroughly addressed.” Lee then temporarily stopped all state executions. 

Tennessee death row inmates can choose to be executed by lethal injection or the electric chair. Though lethal injection is the default method, three of four executions here have been done by electric chair since 2019. 

Smith’s execution was to be the first in Tennessee since February 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It was the first of five set to take place this year. 

The Tennessee Supreme Court is responsible for setting executions in the state. No executions have been set for 2024 so far. 

The actions come as more and more states are considering a repeal of the death penalty. Republican-sponsored repeal bills are now or recently have been before legislatures in Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Georgia, Utah, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Washington, according to a national group called Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.

The Tennessee chapter of the group says the death penalty is a “bloated and broken government program” that is not fiscally responsible, risks executing innocent people, and “neither decreases violence nor insures accuracy.”

“As a fiscal conservative, I am concerned about the exorbitant cost of the death penalty to Tennessee taxpayers compared to a sentence of life without parole,” said state Rep. Steve McManus (R-Cordova), according to the site. “Given the state of the current system, there is no way to cut these costs without increasing the risk of executing an innocent person.”

What Conservatives Are Saying

There are now 46 men and one woman on death row in Tennessee. Male offenders are housed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Female offenders sentenced to death are housed at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville.

Of the men, 24 are Black and 24 are from Shelby County. Seven offenders have two death sentences, four offenders have three death sentences, and one offender has six death sentences.

Most of the offenders are from the state’s most populous counties: Shelby (24), Davidson (4), Knox (4), and Hamilton (1). Most offenders were convicted in West Tennessee (29). East Tennessee (10) ranks second and Middle Tennessee (8) is last. 

Smith, whose execution was paused this year, is the oldest on death row here at age 72. Christa Pike, the lone female on death row in Tennessee, is 46. 

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News News Blog News Feature

TN Textbook Commission Struggles to Wield New, Wide Powers

Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash

Tennessee’s textbook commission has wide new powers to determine which books students can and can’t access in public school libraries. But members say the panel doesn’t have enough resources to finish its most pressing new task: providing guidance to school leaders on how to comply with several recently enacted library laws. 

The all-volunteer commission blew past a statutory Dec. 1 deadline to finalize its guidelines, and decided last week that it can’t do so without first getting legal advice. 

“We have gotten zero guidance from any attorneys — zero. And we’re just out here as volunteers doing this,” said commission member John Combs, a school superintendent from Tipton County.

The new laws require schools to periodically screen their library materials for “age appropriateness,” based on local standards and community input. They also empowered the 13-member Tennessee Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission to rule on appeals to local decisions about individual books — and to even ban challenged books statewide — a significant expansion of the commission’s original mandate. 

With the commission’s final vote on guidance likely weeks or even months away, school administrators are on their own for now to figure out how to navigate changes in the law.

This month’s missed deadline, though, is a symptom of a larger concern that commission members are grappling with as they prepare for a potential onslaught of appeals of book challenges in a state that’s one of the nation’s leaders in banning literary, scholarly, and creative works.

When GOP lawmakers passed the library appeals law in the waning hours of the legislative session this spring, they provided no funding for the commission to hire staff to manage its new appeals work. The law’s fiscal impact was identified as “not significant,” according to an analysis by legislative staff.

But essentially, it was an unfunded mandate.

Established in 1983, the textbook commission has no offices, no full-time staff, and no independent lawyers with whom to confer. Most members have full-time jobs and lean on administrative support from the state education department to fulfill the body’s core responsibility of approving textbooks and instructional materials, and establishing contracts with publishers to guarantee availability to schools at the lowest price.

In its new appellate role over school libraries, the panel will have to dive into local disputes over age-appropriateness and community standards. That means setting up processes to make sure complainants are eligible to appeal, reviewing all documentation leading up to the local decision, and analyzing the materials in question, possibly with statewide consequences.

“It’s a lot of work to be added to people who already have a full load,” commission Chair Linda Cash told a legislative subcommittee in September.

Cash, who is school superintendent in Bradley County near Chattanooga, has asked Gov. Bill Lee’s administration for recurring funding to hire staff and set up offices similar to several other education agencies. For instance, the 2-year-old Public Charter School Commission, which Lee championed, has a 14-member staff to help its nine appointed members manage charter school appeals. The State Board of Education has 15 employees who help its 11 appointees set policies ranging from academic standards to teacher preparation and licensing requirements.

In a Nov. 22 letter obtained by Chalkbeat, Cash told Tennessee Finance Commissioner Jim Bryson “it is imperative” that the commission hire an executive director, an attorney, and administrative support to help it carry out both its old and new responsibilities. And during last week’s commission meeting, she also cited the need for a policy adviser and additional support from the state education department.

“Our goal … is to follow the legislative intent and to provide guidance on this law on the age-appropriate materials in school libraries,” she told fellow commissioners. “Limited staffing often makes our task more difficult.”

Rep. John Ragan, who co-chairs the legislative committee overseeing government operations, has endorsed Cash’s request. He called the panel’s newest charge from the legislature “yeoman’s work.”

“If they need additional support, let’s make sure we try to get it for them,” the Oak Ridge Republican told representatives of the state education department in September.

But state Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Nashville Democrat who spoke against the school library bill on the House floor, questions the need to add another bureaucratic layer and notes that the legislation came from the political party that claims it’s for less government and more local control.

“The core function of the law is to pull books off of bookshelves, and now we’re faced with implementing this bad and dangerous education policy,” Clemmons told Chalkbeat. “Tennessee taxpayers are going to be on the hook for the whole thing.”

As commissioners seek to staff up, the big unknown is the workload they’ll face under Tennessee’s new school library laws, which were enacted at the urging of Lee and House Speaker Cameron Sexton following several high-profile challenges over books and curriculum in 2021.

Katie Capshaw, president of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians, says it’s “very rare” for school librarians to receive complaints about items in their collections in the first place. 

And Cash has been optimistic that local attention and diligence in addressing complaints will make appeals unnecessary.

But Commissioner Laurie Cardoza-Moore, whom Sexton appointed from Williamson County to represent parents and who has allies in the conservative activist group Moms for Liberty, has said the panel should prepare for a wave of appeals once it formally establishes its appellate process next year.

“I just received a packet that I shared with all of you this morning,” she told fellow commissioners last month, “and there are numerous items that are being challenged.”

According to PEN America, a group that advocates for free expression in literature, Tennessee trails only Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania in logging the most restrictions or attempted restrictions on books. Most of the objections have to do with sexuality, LGBTQ themes, and issues related to race and racism.

In the last month, school leaders in at least two Tennessee districts have addressed book complaints with different outcomes.

Wilson County Schools, east of Nashville, pulled two books that its board deemed sexually graphic — “Tricks” and “Jack of Hearts” — from high school libraries.

Sumner County Schools, north of Nashville, voted to keep “A Place Inside of Me” on its shelves. The book includes a poem and illustrations showing a Black child dealing with his emotions after a police shooting. 

Nationwide, the number of attempts to ban or restrict library resources in schools, universities and public libraries in 2022 is on track to exceed record counts from 2021, according to preliminary data released in September by the American Library Association.

Tennessee’s textbook commission has been drafting broad guidance for school districts on how to comply with the laws. Much of its draft is based on model guidance developed by the Tennessee School Boards Association and already used by many school boards and charter school governing bodies across the state.

During last week’s two-hour virtual meeting, commissioners nailed down a timetable that would require complainants to file their request for appeal within five school days of a local decision. The originating district or charter school would then have up to 20 school days to submit documentation of deliberations and decisions. And the appeal would be heard at the next regularly scheduled meeting of the commission, which meets twice a year.

Among the panel’s considerations would be whether the material is suitable and consistent with the school’s educational mission; appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access it; containing literary, historical, and/or artistic value and merit; and offering a variety of viewpoints.

A student, parent, guardian, or school employee would be able to file only two appeals in a single year. And appeals couldn’t be filed on a book that the commission has already ruled on until after three years, which would be timed to the appointment of new commission members.

But commissioners wouldn’t necessarily have to read an appealed book in its entirety before voting — unless they want to.

Commissioner Lee Houston, a school librarian in Cumberland County, sought to include that requirement because “context is important,” she said. But her motion failed for lack of a second after Commissioner Billy Bryan said a simple review should be sufficient, without reading the entire book. 

“We don’t know how many appeals we’re going to get and how many books we’re going to be required to read,” Bryan said. “And there’s a limited amount of time on my already busy schedule for reading who-knows-how-many library books.”

Since the commission has no staff attorney of its own, members voted to seek legal counsel from the state attorney general on its draft guidance, but to go to lawyers for the legislature or education department if necessary.

In the meantime, school leaders are relying on their own processes for reviewing challenged books and materials.

“I believe we’re in compliance with these new laws, but it would be affirming if the commission could reinforce what we’re already doing,” said Danny Weeks, director of Dickson County Schools, west of Nashville, where the school board has voted on two book challenges in 10 years.

“State guidance,” he added, “would be nice to have.”

Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies Decimate Bucks

Ja Morant (Credit: Memphis Grizzlies Social media via @memgrizz)

On Thursday night, the Memphis Grizzlies put a thrashing on the Milwaukee Bucks at FedExForum, 142-101. At one point, the Grizzlies were up by as many as 50 points. 

Memphis has now won seven in a row and has the longest active winning streak in the association.  

The Grizzlies climbed to 13-2 at home, 19-9 over-all for the season and now sit first place in the Western Conference, after the New Orleans Pelicans lost to the Utah Jazz in overtime, 132-129. 

Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins was impressed with his team’s discipline after the decisive win. “I thought we did a really good job just kind of taking them out of the paint. We held them to 38 points in the paint.”

At one point, [the lead] was in the teens late in the game, so that was a huge priority for us tonight. We knew we had to have multiple efforts showing crowds and getting out, but our guys’ communication … they were dialed in, in that first quarter. That really set a tone for us, and then our pace was just relentless.”

Jenkins added, “We did a really good job rebounding in rebounding. [They have] multiple guys that could hurt us on the boards but our guys kept building a wall early in possessions, late in possessions, and that just let us get out and just play Grizzlies basketball on offense.”

The Grizzlies put up 47 points in the third period, the team’s highest point total in any quarter this season. 

Eight players scored in double figures, including five from the bench unit. The reserves scored a season-high 80 bench points.

Ja Morant recorded his seventh  career triple-double (3rd of the season) with 25 points, 10 assists, and 10 rebounds. He became the first player in the organization’s history to record a triple-double before the start of the fourth quarter.

“We’re playing some of our best basketball right now,” Morant said. “When teams face us, they have to be ready to come out and play. I feel like that’s the message we are sending to the league. Also, showing that we have multiple guys that go out there and score that ball is even better. You go to your scout and you have to name everybody on the list.

“We have a lot of guys playing with extreme confidence. I feel like everybody is in a rhythm. Me and [Desmond Bane] have been talking game-after-game on this homestretch that we felt like we’re about to get on our stride. We had last year, a couple of times, where we won 10 straight. As you can see, we’re flowing and playing pretty good right now. We just can’t let it get away from us. We’ve got to keep our hunger, but also continue to be humble and go out and know every game means something to us.”

Dillon Brooks scored 18 points and Tyus Jones chipped in 16. David Roddy scored 15 points, a career-high, and Santi Aldama added 14.

“Help my teammates, be in the shifts, just playing physical,” Brooks said of his defensive performance. [Khris Middleton] doesn’t like being physical. He caught me on one of those moves to get a foul call. I still wanted to put physicality on him, because I know he can change the game and just my willingness to be disciplined, contest shots, and make everything difficult for him.”

Brooks wanted to hold Middleton scoreless. He said, “Yeah, I wanted to. I honestly thought he already made a layup beforehand, until he hit that three, I looked up and he had three points. That’s just my competitive nature; if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it all the way.”

Brooks concluded, “Just try to continue to be that defensive presence every single night out, regardless of who I’m guarding — and work on my discipline without fouling. I feel like I’ve been doing a good job this year of not fouling, being able to contest, fight through screens, and get back in front. Put less pressure on my bigs at the rim.”

Brooks believes he should be in the Defensive Player of the Year conversation. He said, “One-hundred percent. I don’t get the steals or the big-time blocks, but I’m going to give fits to whoever I got that night. Whoever’s the ball handler or whatnot, or whoever’s going to be featured in that game with the offense. I’ve been doing it for four or five years now, guarding the best players, and I’m only getting better at it. So, for me to be in the recognition now, it’s only going to be more and more in the years (to) come.”

Meanwhile Brandon Clarke was perfect from the floor, going 6-6 with 12 points. Ziare Williams had his best game of the season with 11 points, five rebounds, and two assists. Steven Adams put up 10 points, 6 rebounds, and a game-high five blocks. 

The Wave

The game got out of hand so bad the crowd and the Grizzlies bench participated in the Wave and Morant was excited about it.

“I’m a big fan of the wave,” the All-star guard said. “I felt like, early on, we all peeped that everybody wasn’t engaged. Once we did it that first time, they were like, ‘They did it!’ and then it went crazy.” 

Morant continued, “I felt like obviously we deserved it, with how we played tonight. The fans have been here the whole time, rooting us on and helping us win games every time we needed them. A lot of credit goes to them. I know that’s a great feeling, for the players to actually be involved in the wave. I know they won’t forget it and it’ll make them respect us even more, love us even more, to start that.”

Morant Responds to Memphian of the Year honor

“Big time, that’s who we represent. That’s what’s across our chest when we’re out there on the floor. Being able to represent Memphis and win that award is an honor for us, and we’re going to continue to do whatever we can to represent the city in a good way and give back and show love to the city as well.”

Up Next

Grizzlies head to Oklahoma City to battle the Thunder on Saturday night. 

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Tennessee Sees Decrease In Teen Speed-Related Crashes, Increase in Seatbelt Usage

Photo by Samuele Errico Piccarini on Unsplash

The Tennessee Highway Safety Office (THSO) said that teen speed-related crashes are down nine percent for federal fiscal year 2021 to 2022. This reduction includes teen-involved crashes and fatalities.  There was a larger reduction in speed-related crashes involving teenagers compared to other drivers. 

According to THSO, this information was collected through an annual roadside observational survey conducted by the University of Tennessee’s Center for Transformation Research.

THSO director Buddy Lewis said this is a result of campaigns such as Rule the Road, Slow Down Tennessee, Operation Southern Slow Down, and more. THSO also received a $20,500 grant from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association and Ford Driving Skills For Life.

This information was collected at 190 pre-identified roadway locations throughout Tennessee, and researchers observed almost 26,000 “vehicle occupants.”

The survey also provided information on seat belt usage for the state of Tennessee.

Shelby County’s seat belt usage rate increased by 10.7 percent (88.8 percent). The state of Tennessee’s usage rate was 90.49 percent, which is approximately a 0.4 percent increase compared to 2021 (90.12). Occupants in vans had the highest usage rate in Shelby County (93.48 percent), while those in pickup trucks had the lowest (75.36 percent).

In terms of the state of Tennessee, THSO said that 96 percent of occupants used seat belts in sport utility vehicles. These occupants had the highest belt usage rate, with pickup trucks having the lowest (80.6 percent.)

THSO also said that female occupants have a higher usage rate than males, and that front-seat passengers had a higher rate than drivers.

While teen speed-related crashes are down, and seat belt usage is up, information from The Auto Club Group (AAA) said that there has been a national increase in unsafe driving behaviors, from 2020 to 2021. In the past three years, these numbers were steadily declining.

AAA said that a study from its Foundation for Traffic Safety found that this rise in behavior was a result of speeding, red-light running, drowsy driving, and driving impaired due to cannabis.

The largest increase was in drivers who said that they operated their vehicle after drinking over the legal limit.

There has also been a 10.5 percent increase in traffic deaths from 2020 (38,824) to 2021 (42,915). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that actions such as speeding, alcohol, impairment, and failure to use seatbelts “account for a considerable proportion of the increased fatalities.”

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

“Alexa, Thank My Driver”

Photo: Wicked Monday | Unsplash

“Alexa, thank my driver.”

These words rubbed me the wrong way last week when Amazon announced a campaign to allow customers the opportunity to say “thank you” and send a $5 tip to their delivery driver. Not that giving thanks is a bad idea. We should all show more gratitude more often. It’s just that coming from one of the most profitable companies in the U.S. — and on the heels of reports of a lawsuit launched against it, for withholding employee tips of all things, in addition to impending layoffs which include jobs in its Alexa division — it sounds like a bit of a joke.

For the 12 months ending in September 2022, Amazon exceeded $502 billion in revenue and $11 billion in net income. Billion. In a society where instant gratification has become the norm, and where with a few mouse clicks or screen taps, we can have just about anything we’d ever need or want delivered to our front doors in a matter of hours or days, the irony of asking a robot to say thank you to the humans doing all that work does not escape me.

According to Amazon’s announcement: “Starting December 7, any time a customer says, ‘Alexa, thank my driver,’ the driver who delivered their most recent package will be notified of the customer’s appreciation. And, in celebration of this new feature, with each ‘thank you’ received from customers, drivers will also receive an additional $5, at no cost to the customer. We’ll be doing this for the first 1 million ‘thank yous’ received. And, the five drivers who receive the most customer ‘thank yous’ during the promotional period, will also be rewarded with $10,000 and an additional $10,000 to their charity of choice.”

Okay, sounds good. But what’s $5 million to Amazon — a corporation that netted $33.3 billion in profits in 2021? While this year thus far has shaped up to be the first in recent past that the company has shown a decline in profits (2021 showed a 56.41 percent increase from 2020; 2020 an 84.08 percent increase over 2019), that amount is but a drop of water in the ocean.

According to ZipRecruiter, the average national salary for Amazon delivery drivers is $43,794, depending on location, with an average of $41,050 per year in Tennessee. There are also a slew of Amazon Flex drivers — a program that launched in 2015 as the uptick of services like Uber, Lyft, and the like saw more people using their own cars to make extra cash. Those Flex workers are independent contractors who do not receive reimbursement for gas, mileage, parking fees, etc. — and who, Amazon reports, earn $18 to $25 an hour, again depending on location and how quickly they complete their deliveries. Not bad for an hourly rate, but factor in gas, vehicle wear and tear, and physical demands, and you’ve gotta wonder what that balances out to. Of course, people choose to work at Amazon and could seek employment elsewhere at any time. But that’s not the point. Folks who work in the warehouses and in shipping and delivery are among the most integral parts of the business. Do consumers need to log on to an app or ask an electronic device to ensure they’re appreciated or properly compensated?

The “thank my driver” campaign hit its limit just one day after the launch, with Amazon announcing December 8th, “We have received more than 1 million ‘thank yous’ concluding the promotion offering $5 per ‘thank you’ to eligible drivers. You can still share your appreciation by saying, ‘Alexa, thank my driver.’ We are thankful for the enthusiastic response to the promotion and the appreciation shown to drivers.”

So yes, of course, continue to thank your driver. (Although I’m curious if they’re being inundated with constant, now-annoying notifications.) Maybe put a little care package out with snacks or a gift card. But this whole thing reeks of a PR stunt to show Amazon as a company that cares for its workforce. And maybe it does. It could be a great place to work; I wouldn’t know. But I do know that its founder, Jeff Bezos, is reported to be the fourth-wealthiest person in the world, and that doesn’t happen without a certain level of smarts — and, I dare say, greed.

While we’re in the spirit of gratitude, if the opportunity arises, be sure to express thanks to your other delivery drivers, postal workers, restaurant servers, retail associates, and everyone else who keeps the ships afloat, especially this time of year. And consider stopping in a locally owned shop for some of your holiday gifting needs this season. They could use the support much more than Amazon.

Categories
Cover Feature News

From the Army to Arbo’s

From posing with an Apache helicopter in Afghanistan to holding his own cheese dip (Photo: Courtesy Andrew Arbogast)

Editor’s Note: This story includes frank discussion of trauma and PTSD.

Andrew Arbogast has a continuing nightmare in which he crashes his helicopter while on military duty in Afghanistan.

“It’s usually at takeoff or landing,” he says. “The blade stops spinning and I go upside down and crash the helicopter. That never happened. Right? But it’s a recurring nightmare that, in a way, kind of reminds me that life is not guaranteed.”

A former Army Apache helicopter pilot, Arbogast, 39, was deployed to Afghanistan in 2014. “There were some very traumatic moments in combat. I have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. And I have to live with demons that, unfortunately, will never go away.”

Photo: Michael Donahue

Arbogast is owner of Arbogast Foods LLC, which includes Arbo’s Cheese Dip. Since hitting High Point Grocery May 15, 2021, the dip, which comes in original, spicy, and queso blanco, is in about 300 stores. “We’re rocking and rolling with Kroger. They’ve been ordering and selling out nonstop.”

He plans to add more products. “I don’t know if it’s because of the Army or the military or if I’m cut from a different cloth, but I’m so disappointed if I don’t have something to look forward to.”

But while Arbogast has successfully created a line of dips that are growing in popularity, an unsettling memory from his Army days continues to haunt him.

Taking Off

A native Memphian, Arbogast grew up with his dad’s spicy cheese dip, a family gathering essential.

He loved to cook and thought about going to culinary school but ended up switching his major from food service to psychology after getting an ROTC scholarship to finish his education at Northwest Missouri State University.

He then spent 10 years in the Army, which included a stint in Iraq. Instead of asking his mom to send him fresh socks, Arbogast asked her to send a George Foreman grill.

Arbogast was then deployed to Afghanistan, where he was air mission commander. Still all about food, he remembers sitting down with his soldiers and “breaking bread” with them, slicing a foot-and-a-half summer sausage and smoked Gouda cheese, while planning their mission to Afghanistan. “Food is morale,” he says.

When he got out of the service, Arbogast went to work as a category manager at International Paper. But in November 2020, he decided he wanted to do something with his dad’s cheese dip recipe.

He got thumbs-up during cheese taste-testings with friends. The dip is smooth, has character and body, but chips won’t break during dipping, Arbogast says.

A year after the business began, Arbo’s dip was in local grocery stores as well as non-grocery stores. In August 2022, the dip became available in major Texas cities. They’re sold at H-E-B Grocery Company’s Central Market stores. On October 22nd, 100 Kroger stores in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi began carrying his dips.

Everything happened fast.

Arbogast and his wife Erin selling cheese dip (Photo: Courtesy Andrew Arbogast)

Arbogast’s cheese dip business sounds like a sweet dream. But, he says, “With as many good things that have happened, double have been failures through all of this. Which is what people don’t really see. They see success, but they don’t understand or are not privy to how much of a struggle this has been to grow this quickly and reach Texas, for example, or Kentucky. It didn’t come overnight.

“Going into this I was just so naive with, ‘Oh, all you have to do is make cheese dip and people will buy it.’”

Not so, he says. “I’m tired. I’m constantly stressed. But there is a key component that I’ve acquired from my time in service, time in combat. When things are at their worst, you have to remain resilient and positive in order to get through the day, the week, the month.”

His days include trying to meet the demands of Kroger and other retailers while striving to come up with new product ideas. “I’m still at that point where I’m managing everything as a single person. I’m managing the orders, the purchases of raw materials, bookkeeping, operation, and, most importantly, the sales. That’s one of the biggest struggles.”

Like the time an order of $25,000 worth of cheese had to be disposed of because it wasn’t put in a cooler. “I never have a day that goes as planned.

“At this point, I’m still running with it, but I need to hire someone, even if it’s an administrative assistant, to help me with some of the ordering or some of the logistics. Or a bookkeeper. It’s very hard to keep up with all of it effectively.”

Since Pancho’s Cheese Dip was bought by Minnesota-based food distributor Sabrosura Foods in 2021 and is no longer made in Memphis, Arbogast also has had to contend with competition from other local cheese dip makers.

“I’m kind of hanging on by a thread. Or, what I would refer to in the Army, when you’re task-saturated: ‘You’re hanging on to the stabilator.’ It’s the most rear part of the aircraft. You’re hanging on to the tail of the aircraft, basically.

“It’s hard not to treat every issue as an urgent priority. I’m still learning. And it feels like I have a long way to go. I’d love to sit down and just relax and take a deep breath. I haven’t figured out a way to do that. But I want to do it all, and I want to do it now.”

But, he says, “I’m afraid of losing control. I’m afraid at the end of the day.”

Then there are the nightmares. “It’s stuff unrelated to cheese dip,” he says, adding, “I don’t know if some of this stems from PTSD from the military or are just those things that continue to resurface.”

(above, below) Arbogast on duty in Afghanistan (Photo: Courtesy Andrew Arbogast)

Not Just a Dream

The helicopter nightmare harkens back to a real incident that involved Arbogast on March 6, 2014. “I was responsible and at the trigger of what we call a blue on green attack. What that means is ‘blue’ being the United States, the Army, our military, against the ‘green,’ allied forces or Afghan forces. Where we have mistaken them for the enemy.

“I took the lives of our allies. I think about it every day. And I still don’t know if I will be forgiven on judgment day.”

Recounting that incident, Arbogast says, “We were cleared to do what we were supposed to do in order to prevent loss of American lives. The guys were just at the wrong place at the wrong time and weren’t wearing uniforms. We had cleared it through our headquarters that these were supposed to be enemy bases where they were and where they were positioned. What we perceived as the enemy position was on a small ridge line. At the top of the ridge line was a heavy machine gun, a DShK, which is a threat to our aircraft.”

Arbogast later found out the “enemy” they were looking at was actually “an Afghan army.” But, he says, “They were out of uniform and their location was not plotted on a map that was current.

“Because of that we were cleared to engage because we saw that as an immediate threat. Once we had expended every bit of ammunition from our Apaches, we went back to re-arm.”

Then, he says, “There was a call over the radio that an Afghan army was being attacked at that location.”

This took place at night. “They didn’t know what was going on when they were being destroyed.”

Arbogast hasn’t forgotten the slightest details. “I remember everything vividly from that night. What I had for dinner: It was cold pork chops, carrots, and peas. We went out to just do our jobs.

“I don’t know how the other guys feel. It’s not something we talk about. Morally, I think it’s easier for some of them to believe that they were truly Taliban.”

A technical investigation took place, and Arbogast and the other soldiers were cleared. But in the report, one of the Afghan soldiers said they radioed into their headquarters and said, “We are being attacked. But we are not in fear. The Apaches are here to save us.”

Those words still haunt Arbogast. “Half a dozen were killed or maimed when they were trying to fight for their country. And I have to live with that.

“You push it down and you go on about your day. What do you do? Until it bubbles to the surface. No matter how many pills you take, how many hours of therapy or group sessions, it’s something that will continue to haunt you.

“What would have been the alternative? If our helicopter were shot down? As hard as it is to live like this, that would be even worse to imagine.

“War is hell. People don’t come back the same. And what you do with yourself will define you.”

Erin and Andrew Arbogast (Photo: Courtesy Andrew Arbogast)

A Positive Turn

Arbogast didn’t tell the story to his wife, Erin, for four years. “I didn’t see the good in discussing it. It’s just something you suppress. I don’t want anyone to worry about me. I just have to have a way to overcome it. So, talking about it or even just doing something that makes me happy will continue to bring progress. So, cheese dip it is.

“I turned all that moral injury, anger, and aggression toward something positive. The cheese dip. It’s almost one of those things that if I didn’t experience anything like that, would I have the courage to start this business?”

At one point, Arbogast thought he might retire and “live a boring life.”

But, he says, “You have nothing else to live for if you’re not continuing to hustle.

“This is the biggest thing I have ever done in my life. Even my time in the service, 10 years. This feels bigger than that. This is something where I put the onus on me to be successful for my family, and for my community. I don’t want to let myself down. And I don’t want to let others down. Because what I have is a good thing. And it would be a terrible waste to let this go at this stage.”

Arbo’s dips are a popular item at Grind City Brewing Co., says event director Ian Betti: “We sell a ton of it. It’s one of those snack-y, communal types of meals that work out really well.”

And, Betti says, Arbo’s dips are also a great way to support Arbogast. “He’s a casual, down-to-earth, genuine person. But also knowing he is a former Army aviator is super important to us, too, because we love supporting vets.

“We work with Folds of Honor, the organization that supports and raises funds to hand out to the family and children of fallen and wounded soldiers. He’s part of that.”

Arbogast is a newly appointed Folds of Honor board member. A portion of Arbo’s Cheese Dip sales proceeds go to the organization. “I can continue to serve outside of the uniform,” Arbogast says. “The mission has a direct impact on the families of service members that made the ultimate sacrifice. It’s better for me to devote my life to making sure the families of those that didn’t make it back are not forgotten.”

Arbogast wants to add more dips, salsa, and maybe Arbo’s seasoned pretzels to his business.

“One day I do have a dream of selling this brand. It’s not just the money I’ll earn, but it’s going to allow me to do something else with this short speck of time that we have. I feel like this is just one chapter and I have more chapters and I will continue to build.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get content in this life. When I do, it’s time to hang up the helmet and gloves. That’s what one of my flight instructors would tell me. The minute you think you’ve got it all figured out and you don’t need to learn and develop, it’s time to hang up the helmet and gloves. Because you’re done.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Help Find Those Bears, Tree-troversy, and 12 Days of Memphis

Posted to Facebook by Bethany Rose

Memphis on the internet.

Make It Happen

The post office says a package containing these bears was delivered to Memphian Bethany Rose late last month. But they weren’t. The hunt for the bears now spans nearly every MEMernet social channel with tons of folks pitching in. Why?

“My dad recently died and I had teddy bears made for my kids out of his most loved shirts,” Rose wrote.

No bears as of last week, but Rose said she was “overwhelmed with the kindness of everyone trying to help my kids get this last Christmas gift from my dad.”

Tree-Troversy

Whitehaven leaders replaced Southland Mall’s old tree with a new one recently after individual donations and a $25,000 gift from the SchoolSeed Foundation. Critics said the old tree had seen better days.

Over on the Where Black Memphis Gets It! Facebook page, Marie Springfield said the new tree “steal[s] the style” of a tree standing at Bellevue and Walker in South Memphis and said the money getting it was wasted. An amazing comment thread erupted from the post with drama, comedy, and one who said, “Mane, it’s a fucking tree!”

12 days of Memphis

Posted to YouTube by Star & Micey

It’s time to break out the Memphis Christmas music. If you have some, send a link to toby@memphisflyer.com. For now, give a spin to Star & Micey’s classic “12 Days of Memphis.”

Categories
Book Features Books

Jamie Harmon’s “Memphis Quarantine”

Grayson Oberg (Photo: Jamie Harmon)

“The Memphis Quarantine Project started on March 13, 2020,” writes photographer Jamie Harmon in the opening lines of his new book, Memphis Quarantine (Amurica), and noting the date only heightens the new volume’s sense of time travel. By that Friday the 13th, the World Health Organization had declared Covid-19 a pandemic and area schools were transitioning to remote learning or extra time off. With the city’s official lockdown more than a week away, most of us were already radically rethinking our routines — and at that point, many feared contagion from just touching groceries. There was but one suggestion of increased safety: the great outdoors.

And so Harmon hit the streets. “I asked a friend if I could photograph them from outside their home,” he writes. “This led to posting an open invitation on social media and the project quickly grew to over 1,200 dwellings.” Luckily for Memphis and the world, Harmon is a photographer with a keen eye for flashes of character in the moment; his bio says he’s a visual anthropologist, and that’s closer to what he does with a camera. With it, he casts a wide net to capture the culture of Memphis in all its diversity: a multitude of porches, windows, apartments, garages, pets, and various states of parenthood reveal themselves from more or less the same zone — between the inside and the outside.

From only a few yards away or through double-paned glass, the distance is always there, looming in every image. A family crouching on a screened-in porch; young housemates gathered with their instruments just inside the door; a couple represented by two heads framed in separate windows; someone playing a guitar solo in green graduation robes; a porch-sitter obscured by the Memphis Flyer she’s reading, her dog alert. Yet all of them also feature another silent subject: the distance itself.

In each shot, Harmon puts himself into what anthropologists call liminal space, a realm betwixt and between different states of being. The photographer keeps his pandemically correct distance, yet simultaneously peers across it, illuminating those interior safe spaces to which we all retreated. Harmon occasionally keeps his spot flash in the frame, throwing light from just outside the window into the spaces where humans live. These pictures capture both how people defined a safe distance in those dark days, and how they defined the interior space of their bubble.

As Harmon was taking images and posting them on social media, just glimpsing them in a scroll was somehow hopeful, albeit ephemeral. Others first saw these portraits in Memphis magazine, or when exhibited by Crosstown Arts in February. But it takes the more contemplative space of a book in your lap to bring it home: Here was someone seeing all of us, bearing witness, even as we bore witness to the friends and neighbors we saw through Harmon’s work. In pairing strangers with more familiar faces, this book forges an all-embracing, democratic vision of who we were.

Writ large, the expressions lean toward the grim, the anxiety-ridden. They’re not unlike dignified 19th-century portraits where subjects presented themselves before the lens in stillness, with the gravitas of the ages. Yet others defy such seriousness of purpose, determined to keep some fun or beauty to their lives, through funny ears, pets, or mugging for the camera. Or, as with that person wearing a tyrannosaurus rex suit in their living room, through all of the above.

It’s a credit to the inventiveness of both Harmon and his subjects that the book presents hundreds of variations in setting, color, lighting, and mood. Some, like Ben Siler, Andria Brown, or Flyer alum Chris Davis, offer writings from or inspired by the time. But most of these portraits are resolutely anonymous, all of us reduced to that stalwart everyman or everywoman bent on survival. In a nod to the many who agreed to have their portrait published (some didn’t), Harmon lists the 814 folders of images in the order he shot them over two and a half months. They’re not meant to identify the subjects; they’re just another artifact of this anthropologist’s journey, from the outside to the inside in the click of a shutter.

Categories
News News Feature

2022 U.S. Dollar Review

In high demand (Photo: Reynaldo #brigworkz Brigantty | Pexels)

Fish in the ocean probably don’t have a sense that they’re underwater, just as we don’t think much about being surrounded by air all the time here on the surface of earth. Nevertheless, those environments are critical to everyday life for fish and people, even if they are easy to ignore.

Similarly, everything we do economically is tied to the U.S. dollar, and it’s easy to forget how important it is to our daily lives. Americans have to think even less about other currencies than most global citizens because oil and a great deal of international trade is priced in dollars. Nevertheless, the U.S. dollar is not a fixed measure but fluctuates in value frequently — against other currencies, commodities, and anything else priced on a large scale worldwide.

The best-known index of the dollar’s value is the DXY index, which compares the dollar against six other major currencies. According to the DXY index, the dollar has appreciated by about 30 percent over the last ten years and is up 10 percent this year alone. A strong dollar might seem like a good thing, and it does make imported goods cheaper and international vacations more affordable. However, dollar strength can create problems throughout the world, including here in the U.S.

When the dollar rises, exports from the U.S. are less affordable, which hurts U.S. businesses. The price of oil becomes less affordable for the world, as global oil trade is still almost always priced in dollars. This makes goods more expensive even in the U.S., since oil is critical to almost every aspect of production and transportation in global trade. Smaller countries feel even more pain, since they often issue dollar-denominated bonds, which become more expensive to service and ultimately pay off.

Several phenomena can cause dollar strength. The demand for the dollar is uniquely strong, since it is required to settle so many sorts of international payments throughout the world. Also, when geopolitical tension rises, investors tend to buy up dollars and U.S. treasuries as a safer place to park money. But perhaps most importantly, demand for the dollar is driven by interest rate differentials, since currency traders prefer holding currencies that generate the most “carry,” or net interest on investment in the currency.

The Fed has quickly and consistently hiked interest rates in 2022, and the carry created by these rising interest rates means that demand for the dollar went even higher this year. The Fed’s actions pushed USD up almost 20 percent at one point in 2022 alone, which is a startling move for an asset class that is typically much less volatile.

The natural swing of the dollar up and down over time suggests you probably want some exposure to non-dollar assets like international stocks at all times. If the status of the dollar as the reserve currency or treasuries as the reserve asset is meaningfully challenged then non-dollar assets can do some real work in your portfolio.

The dollar was up 20 percent in 2022, but since the peak it has fallen about 10 percent on expectations the Fed will pause or cut rates in the future (reducing the carry). As one consequence of this, the international indexes we follow are dramatically outperforming U.S. markets in Q4 of this year.

Fish may not be able to diversify out of water and we can’t diversify away from air, but we can definitely diversify our investments. As Nobel Laureate Harry Markowitz once said, diversification is the only free lunch, and it’s likely that international exposure could be increasingly important to your secure financial future in the years to come.

Gene Gard CFA, CFP, CFT-I, 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.