Jay Williams found a gem, or a grail, as those in the thrifting game may call it.
He recently unearthed a 1995 KISS World Tour shirt. There are a number of things that make this shirt an enviable cop: the crazy colors, double-sided design, allover print, and the fact that it features all of the band members.
However, for Williams, the value is in the stitching. The single stitch is a major thing in the thrift community, Williams said.
“It verifies that it’s from a certain era,” said Williams. “It’s stamped 1995, by KISS, it’s just a crazy piece. It goes for like $400-$450.”
Credit: Jay Williams
Williams got this shirt, and about 17 others for “80 cents a pop.”
One can easily find a shirt similar to this from retailers like Urban Outfitters, and it’ll still look cool, said Williams. But to him it loses value because it’s a reprint, not an original. With finds like the KISS shirt, he said the value is in the era.
“I think that brings more value, the fact that it’s from an actual era,” said Williams “A day and a time where that piece was relevant.”
Williams is a thrifter. They scour racks and bins to find treasures that are usually sold at a fraction of the original price. Many build their wardrobes with their latest finds, while others, like Williams, sell their pieces on platforms such as Instagram and Depop.
While perusing his Instagram account, @grindcityvintage, you’ll find rows of enviable, vintage finds such as a Dale Earnhardt Jr. hat, and an old-school University of Memphis Tiger football shirt. Williams even has a few sports jerseys left on display, which he says he’s been lucky to find on occasion.
He recalls digging through the bins at Goodwill on the day that Kobe Bryant died. Within an hour of making small talk with fellow thrifters, he came across a Champion jersey, with the number “8,” Bryant’s number before sporting the iconic #24.
Williams started the Instagram account in 2019, after attending a sneaker event in Memphis, and being captivated by the array of vintage and retro clothing on display.
When you hear the word thrifting, your mind may be drawn to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. These places have become staples in the thrift community, and in fact it’s where thrifters like Bryant Smith fell in love with the hobby.
“I’m big on vintage,” Smith said.
Smith, a Memphis native, has been thrifting for 11 years, he said. He remembers stopping at a Goodwill hours before a wedding and finding an outfit for under $11.
“All of it was name brand,” Smith said. “I think the blazer was Brooks Brothers, khakis from Ralph Lauren, and the loafers were Gucci.”
While Smith has fondly recalled times where he would scour the racks at Goodwill, he and Williams agree that expanding their search to other parts of the city has helped them to find a number of good finds. Smith said that for him, the hot spots are places like Collierville, Cordova, and Bartlett.
Williams has found some of his favorite pieces at garage and estate sales, which is where he not only fell in love with thrifting, but got the idea to open his Instagram shop.
“I just fell in love with the hunt of it,” Williams said. “I started posting stuff on my personal page, my Instagram page. I was getting some bites and people were actually buying stuff. I did that for about six months, and then I was like ‘man I might as well start my own page.”
Interested customers can visit Wiliams’ Instagram page, where he’ll post his latest finds to his feed.
“If you see something you like, just DM,” said Williams. “I try to list the price of what it is. We take Cash App, Venmo, you know stuff like that. If they’re local we can meet up with them and give them the piece they purchased. Or, we can ship it out.”
Williams also sells items on Depop, another online platform where customers can find vintage finds.
Tyus Jones and Jaren Jackson, Jr. on January 10, 2022 against the San Antonio Spurs (Credit: Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images)
On the second night of a back-to-back, the Memphis Grizzlies defeated the San Antonio Spurs 121-113 to complete their seventh straight victory, which is the longest active winning streak in the association.
Memphis’ record at home now stands at 17-3 after the victory. The Grizzlies improved to 27-13 on the season.
Due to right thigh soreness, Ja Morant missed his second consecutive game. In Morant’s absence, Tyus Jones assumed the role of floor general and put on a performance of his own, leading all scorers with 24 points on 11-of-19 shooting, six assists and three steals.
After the game, Jones talked about his relationship with Morant. He said, “Me and Ja are extremely close. We’re always talking hoops and what we see to help one another out. Coming here, I knew what my role was going to be, but Ja was extremely open to welcoming me, welcoming that relationship, and that was extremely huge.”
“You don’t always see that with No. 2 picks coming in with the keys to the franchise but still being open to learning or pointers, talking through what you see and just being a good teammate,” added Jones. “Our relationship has taken off since that first year with us both being point guards and both wanting to get better and not feeling like we know it all. That’s been huge. Both of us are humble enough to say we don’t know everything and talk the game through and take pointers from each other.”
Jones has scored 20 plus points in his last four starts. So what’s the secret behind Jones’ improved play? One word: confidence.
The Duke alum said about the difference in his aggressiveness this season, “Just confidence. Confident in my abilities, confidence in my game. The guys in this locker room, this coaching staff are extremely confident in me as well and just give me that freedom to hoop. I’m just trying to take advantage of that, playing my game and doing what everybody needs me to do on a nightly basis. And if that’s scoring, if that’s being aggressive, looking to score, if that’s setting my guys up… just doing whatever it takes. That confidence is definitely there, and I can tell.”
Jaren Jackson Jr. continues to impress on both ends of the floor. The Block Panther finished with 16 points, six rebounds and back-to-back games with five blocked shots. The 23-year-old set new franchise records with 11 straight games of 2 or more blocks, surpassing Pau Gasol, and six-straight games with three or more blocks. He now ranks third in the NBA in total blocks (79) after having played just 24 games this season.
“There are so many great stretches that he’s done protecting the rim,” said Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins on Jackson’s rim protection. “He set a tone on that first quarter with multiple; I think there were a couple possessions. One, in particular, where he had two blocks on the same; he does that seemingly every single night.”
Jenkins continued: “It’s just very impressive what he does on both ends of the floor. I think he’s playing really well on the offensive end too. When he sets a tone defensively, that means a lot. We had him switch in, guarding shooters there. At one point in the fourth quarter, I thought he did a really good job. We know what he can do on the on the rim, protection wise. I’m not [going to] apply a grade, but this is definitely a great stretch.”
In the last seven games, Jackson is averaging 18.4 points, 7.1 rebounds, 3.9 blocks while shooting 55 percent from the field.
Jackson believes he’s a better shot blocker now than he was in his younger years. He said, “I think guards were just worse back then, and I could just let them go by and surprise them, but now I think I’m definitely better. Who knows? It wasn’t really in my head to do all this. Blocking shots, like maybe a year ago, I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was just trying to stay out there, play solid defense and be stronger and just deter shots. Blocks are icing on the cake.”
Up Next
Both teams will play again at FedExForum on Wednesday night, as Memphis looks to extend its win streak to a season-high eight straight games.
When Tennessee legislators passed a tough third-grade reading law during their 2021 special session on education, they didn’t seek the input of many educators.
But they’re hearing a lot of feedback now, as the law’s stricter retention policy kicks in with this year’s class of third graders. Educators are warning about the potential for thousands of students to be held back because of low reading scores, along with a slew of logistical challenges created by the law.
Revisiting the controversial third-grade reading law is expected to top the list of education priorities heading into this year’s 113th General Assembly, beginning Tuesday in Nashville.
Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Bill Lee will unveil details of his legislative agenda and proposed budget several weeks after being sworn in for his second term on Jan. 21.
This year, the GOP may flex its supermajority power again on socially divisive issues, including one bill that seeks to limit health treatment for transgender youth.
But whether charter school advocates will try again to pass charter-friendly legislation is still uncertain after several Republican-sponsored proposals sputtered last year and the fallout over charter applications linked to Michigan’s Hillsdale College galvanized supporters of traditional public schools.
As for the Democrats, their minority status limits their influence over legislation. But expect them to hammer their messaging around themes of restoring local control over education and the potential fiscal effects of expanding Tennessee’s charter school sector and private school voucher programs.
Here are five things to watch for as the General Assembly convenes:
During his first term, the governor spent significant political capital to pass major education laws — launching a private school voucher program, creating a powerful state commission to oversee charter school growth, expanding vocational education options for middle and high school students, and replacing the state’s 30-year-old resource-based funding formula with a student-centered one called Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA.
Last fall, Lee suggested the dizzying pace would continue, with a campaign pledge to teachers and parents that he would “make the most of the next four years.”
But legislative leaders working closely with his administration say this year’s education focus will be to execute what’s already passed — not introduce new major initiatives.
“We’ve done a lot, and I think it’s going to be a quieter year on education,” said Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, who carries bills on the governor’s behalf.
Specifically, he said, Lee wants to monitor this year’s rollout of the funding formula and third-grade retention policy. “We may need some tweaks and improvements on those but, in terms of any new broad initiatives, I don’t anticipate anything from the administration,” Johnson told Chalkbeat.
When Lee pressed last year for an education funding overhaul, he pledged an additional $1 billion annually for students if TISA passed, beginning with the budget that takes effect this July 1. With state revenues continuing to exceed expenses, the expectation is that he’ll make good on that promise.
On other budgetary matters, Lee has said he wants to continue upping teacher pay. He’ll also likely set aside money so the all-volunteer state textbook commission can hire staff to manage a new library book appeals process authorized by the legislature in 2022. And he’s expected to propose more funding for the state agency for children’s services, which is severely understaffed and short of beds for abused, neglected, or foster children who are taken into state custody.
Meanwhile, the legislature will review ways to continue tapping state or federal dollars for perennial educational wants, from more social services for schools to expanded access to pre-kindergarten and early child care.
Vowing to stop the cycle of letting students who can’t read move up to the next grade, Lee pressed for the new third-grade reading law, which tightens state retention policies that generally haven’t been enforced under a 2011 law.
The 2021 law made it more likely that schools will hold back students who aren’t considered proficient in reading by the end of third grade, based on the results of annual state tests this spring. It also authorized new summer school and after-school tutoring programs that can help struggling third graders avoid being held back.
But with only a third of Tennessee third graders projected to test proficient in reading, educators insist that state test results don’t tell the full story about a student’s reading ability. They want more local input that takes into account the results of periodic “benchmark” tests administered throughout the year.
“This is the No. 1 concern I’m hearing across the state with superintendents, school boards, and parents,” said House Education Committee Chairman Mark White, who says he’s open to adding benchmark test results into the calculations. “We cannot ignore it.”
Expect other legislative proposals to try to improve the quality of education before third grade, especially to support literacy.
Rep. Scott Cepicky, for instance, is looking at raising the minimum age to begin kindergarten. Currently, Tennessee law requires children entering kindergarten to be at least 5 years old on or before Aug. 15 of the school year they’re entering.
His proposal is based on a recent analysis by the state comptroller’s office, which found that Tennessee students who were older at kindergarten enrollment performed better on third-grade literacy tests than their peers.
After overcoming a string of court challenges, private school vouchers became available this school year in Memphis and Nashville. Now Sen. Todd Gardenhire is looking to expand the “pilot” program to Hamilton County, where he lives.
The Chattanooga Republican had voted against education savings accounts in 2019, but said he’s changed his mind since the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the controversial law last spring. He’s also frustrated that Hamilton County Schools has abandoned a $20 million school improvement plan for its lowest-performing schools.
Gardenhire filed his bill last month and recruited White to co-sponsor the measure in the House.
The state comptroller’s first report on the program’s efficacy isn’t due until Jan. 1, 2026.
Both state and national data suggest that teacher shortages are limited to certain districts, schools, and subjects, not an across-the-board problem. But with the churn of educators and school staff worsening during the pandemic, expect several new proposals to try to strengthen teacher pipelines beyond Tennessee’s existing grow-your-own programs, as well as to support those already in classrooms.
The Tennessee School Boards Association is urging the legislature to incentivize potential teacher candidates by reimbursing those who pass the Praxis exam, which measures knowledge and skills needed to be a teacher. The test generally costs about $120. (The State Board of Education is also considering dropping EdTPA, another licensing test required currently of about 900 “job-embedded” candidates, who make up about a third of the state’s teacher pipeline.)
Cepicky and Sen. Joey Hensley have filed a bill to provide teachers with $500 annually to pay for classroom supplies, instead of the current $200, so that they’re not counting on charity or personal funds to cover those costs.
But for many districts, an even bigger staffing issue is hiring enough support staff.
South of Nashville, Williamson County Schools has only three-fourths of the school bus drivers needed by the suburban district and is also understaffed for teacher aides for special education students.
“Every little tool you can give us in our toolbox, if it can fill one or two spots, it’s worth it,” Superintendent Jason Golden told his local legislative delegation during a weekend workshop.
“We’re looking at it,” responded Hensley, a Hohenwald Republican. “We know it’s a big issue.”
"Arbor Day," circa 1945, by Doris Lee. (Credit: Estate of Doris Lee, Courtesy of D. Wigmore Fine Art in New York)
I made my first pronouncement on the art scene around age 18. It was during my first formal sit-down dinner in the late ’60s or early ’70s at the home of the late philanthropist Clarence Day. I actually had to ask a young woman next to me which spoon to use for something or other during dinner. Just like in the movies.
As I recall, we moved to a room with expensive oil paintings and lots of books following dinner and we were sipping Grand Marnier out of snifters when the question was asked, “Who is your favorite artist?”
I said, “Doris Lee. She’s a contemporary artist.” Emphasis on “contemporary” as if to prove I knew what I was talking about. I told them her painting “Arbor Day” was my favorite painting. I didn’t notice any rolling eyes, but “Doris Lee” probably wasn’t up there with Cezanne or Monet or whoever was on their lists.
Decades later, “Arbor Day” is still my all-time favorite painting. I first saw it in a book we had at home when I was little. Looking at it again I notice how a lot of the subjects in that painting came true in my life. It’s set in the country. It reflects my love of gardening. Even the two horses are the same colors as mine.
So when I noticed a listing in the Memphis Flyer announcing a Lee exhibit, “Simple Pleasures: The Art of Doris Lee,” at Dixon Gallery and Gardens, I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait to see it. I’d only seen maybe two other paintings by Lee over the years.
On a beautiful 70-degree day after the holidays I made a visit to Dixon to see the show.
It’s fabulous.
The exhibit, closing January 15th, is a delight. With the temperatures on the mild side and the throng of daffodils sprouting in the the Dixon garden, now is a great time to take in this show.
Sadly, “Arbor Day” isn’t in the show because it couldn’t be loaned, says Melissa Wolfe, who, along with Barbara Jones, curated “Simple Pleasures.” But there is a depiction of the painting in a Maxwell House coffee ad in the exhibit.
Wolfe, who is curator of American Art at the St. Louis Art Museum, sums up Lee’s work with one word. “I really connect it with joy,” she says.
And Lee’s work is accessible, Wolfe says, “You relate to what she’s doing. But that can sometimes be easily dismissed.”
Lee had her detractors. But, Wolfe says, “She always had major representation. She was one of the most successful artists of her era. We tend to think of it as more serious if painting deals with trauma and doubt and it’s big and turbulent and dramatic. If art speaks to tragedy or something we think of those things as big and serious. You think of the New York School — Pollock and Rothko — and big gestures. But why not think of joy as this incredibly profound experience that ties us together?”
Lee’s works in the ’40s, which are more on the folk art side, are what draw me in. The subjects include people celebrating a family reunion around a long dining room table, building a new house in the country, and people conducting an outdoor dance rehearsal.
“Dance Rehearsal” by Doris Lee. (Credit: Estate of Doris Lee, Courtesy of D. Wigmore Fine Art in New York)
“We inevitably relate to it,” Wolfe says. “You think of things in our own wide world. You think of a beautiful spring day or a horseback ride we had. It pulls us into our own memory and our own experiences. It’s important enough to us that they’re still in our memories.”
Wolfe was always attracted to Lee’s work and she wanted to do a show on her. She feels Lee was one of the “American scene artists” from the 1940s and ’50s who “was one of the most successful and still maintained an artist vision and coherence.”
Lee’s work was “not just pretty and lovely — all the things it got called even in her own day.”
Her paintings are figurative and she “simplified things,” but she also does “profound things” in her work, Wolfe says. She was a “colorist” and her paintings are “incredibly designed.” “I just think it’s very sophisticated in a way we sometimes too readily overlook.”
Lee’s paintings in the ’40s and into the early to mid-’50s were “simplified narrative” works. Her painting style evolved to works with “often very little action, sometimes abstract.”
She wanted her later paintings to be “calming and meditative,” Wolfe says. “She felt that an artist has one subject. And they might change how they get to that subject. But the subject is always the same.”
Lee was actively involved in the art world, jurying art shows and exhibits. She also was “very engaging,” Wolfe says. “She knew Gottlieb, Rothko, Grant Wood. So, she was well aware of what was going on. And like any other artist, she was looking and thinking about ways to get at her subjects.”
But it boiled down to one thing, according to Wolfe. “Lee said, ‘My subject is life and the world around us.’”
Lee, who had a home in the Florida Keys and in Woodstock, New York, relied on her memory and “what comes to mind” when she painted. She considered memories as “good at distilling down the most important factors” of what she wanted to paint, Wolfe says. “She changed her style to get better at that.”
“Garden in Moonlight” shows Lee’s work evolving from the strictly narrative. It’s a view from a porch, but it’s not like her 1945 painting, “Harvest Time.” That one depicts a woman standing on a porch watching people drink beer as they sit at a long table in the countryside. “Garden in Moonlight” leans toward abstract. “She wants to get at what it’s like to be alive — the experiences we have. That’s a perfect example. It’s one of my favorite paintings. It’s based very specifically on her back porch. You have to get rid of the world around us and enter the painting. I heard sounds and smells. It’s very serious and it’s very absorbing. That painting, I feel like you hear the sounds of a country night. And the flitting of light through those trees.”
Wolfe says, “Her paintings sort of ask us to slow down and connect to what’s inside of our life and our memories and our own experiences. And it’s very sensory. I think that’s the magic of it.”
“Garden in Moonlight” by Doris Lee. (Credit: Estate of Doris Lee, Courtesy of D. Wigmore Fine Art in New York)“Harvest Time ” by Doris Lee. (Credit: Estate of Doris Lee, Courtesy of D. Wigmore Fine Art in New York)
Lee gets earthy on another level, too. In her 1935 painting, “Noon,” which is featured in the catalog, a shirtless, barefooted farmhand with his hat and shoes nearby is on top of a clothed also barefooted reclining woman behind a hay stack. A lot of sexual innuendo is included in the painting.
“Noon” by Doris Lee (Credit: Estate of Doris Lee, Courtesy of D. Wigmore Fine Art in New York )
“That painting is lost. It’s been lost for decades. We only know it from reproductions. That’s an early painting. And I think, again, that shows this perspective of the world from a woman who is comfortable being a woman.”
And, Wolfe says, “I also think one of things that ties her work together is this female experience.”
Lee, who was so prominent, was “almost always the only female on a teaching faculty,” Wolfe says. “She gave a talk on women in the arts. And she said women need to embrace their sex. They need to embrace being female and who they are. She felt femininity was as powerful as masculinity.”
Julie Pierotti, the Martha R. Robinson Curator at the Dixon, worked with the “Simple Pleasures” curators to bring the show to Memphis. Lee’s painting, “The View at Woodstock,” which is on the cover of the hardback catalog, belongs to Dixon trustees Susan and John Horseman, who live in St. Louis. “They heard we were working on a show and said, ‘We want to be a part of it,’” Pierotti says.
In addition to the Horseman’s painting, Dixon added other paintings, including one of the paintings about the Broadway show Oklahoma! that Lee did for Life magazine. That painting is on loan from a Memphis couple.
Pierotti also is a fan of Lee’s paintings. Her paintings from the ’40s are “like a warm hug,” she says.
But they’re more than that. “They’re so approachable and so inviting and non-intimidating, but spend time with them and they’re pretty complex. There’s more than meets the eye.”
Talking about Lee’s 1945 painting, “Prospector’s Home,” Pierotti says, “It looks like a folk art painting, but if you look at it again, you feel ghost forms in it. Where there’s an outline of a duck, an outline of a water pond. And the mountains in the background are kind of these zig-zag lines. What seems, originally, like this naïve picture, really shows her awareness and embrace of modern art. Early twentieth century art. It looks in some ways like folk art, but when you look at it again, it’s got a lot of depth to it. As Melissa says in the catalog, they (the paintings) are about depicting joy in the format of serious painting.”About Lee’s detractors, Pierotti says. “Some people saw her work as maybe not serious because it’s about happy things. But that made her so popular as an artist in her time. She was very well known in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s.”
She did paintings for Lucky Strike cigarettes and Maxwell House coffee. She also got work from magazines. “That’s the part of the story that’s really interesting to me,” Pierotti says. “These paintings that are so American and so sentimental — kind of in the best way — many of them were done for ads for major corporations.”
And, she says, “On top of that, Doris Lee is the main woman getting these commissions.”
“Simple Pleasures: The Art of Doris Lee,” Pierotti says, “is just a happy show that feels right in 2022 and 2023 to remind us of why we love art. I think it’s kind of the emotions that her paintings evoke and theories they evoke in us.”
And, she adds, “The feeling you get stays with you.”
“Simple Pleasures: The Art of Doris Lee” runs through Sunday, January 15th at Dixon Gallery and Gardens, 4339 Park Avenue. Free admission.
The MEMernet got practical, fancy, and kinda weird on Google last year.
The online search giant released its annual search trends for cities late last year. Memphians googled many expected things but the list had some odd surprises.
“The Memphis, TN, area searched for ‘5 star restaurants near me’ more than anywhere else in the country,” according to Google.
Memphians also searched for “power outages near me,” as a surprise to few. However, the only other city to search for “power outages” as much as we did is the upstate New York town of Utica.
Credit: Downtown Utica/Facebook
Our top-trending recipe? Probably wings or barbecue, right? Nope. Shakshuka.
Credit: Wikipedia | Calliopejen1
Wikipedia says it’s “a Maghrebi dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, olive oil, peppers, onion, and garlic, [and is] commonly spiced with cumin, paprika, and cayenne pepper.” Memphis was the only city in the country with shakshuka as its top trending dish, Google said.
Yes, rap was the city’s most-searched music genre last year.
Credit: Yo Gotti/Facebook
As for animals, Memphians like Tigers and Grizzlies. Turns out we also have some fascination with the muntjac deer, the city’s top trending animal in 2022. Known as “the barking deer” or “rib-faced deer,” muntjacs are small deer native to South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Looks like this:
WTF, MEMernet?
The city’s top-10 trending “near me” searchers were:
Xavier Tillman Sr drives to the basket against Lauri Markkanen. (Credit: Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images)
Sunday afternoon, the Grizzlies faced off against the Utah Jazz and when the final buzzer sounded, they came away with a 123-118 win and pushed their current winning streak to six games.
Let’s get into it.
Memphis was missing two starters. Ja Morant was out with hip soreness and Steven Adams with a non-Covid related illness, so Tyus Jones led the charge from the point guard position and Xavier Tillman Sr. made his first appearance this season in the starting lineup.
A 43-point second quarter put the Grizzlies up by 14 at the half and helped ensure a win. The Jazz outscored the Grizzlies in the second half, but good defense and ball security allowed Memphis to stay on the course to victory. Memphis had a season-high 16 steals and forced the Jazz into 21 turnovers, leading to 27 points for the Grizzlies. Dillon Brooks and Santi Aldama were the only two Memphis players to not record a steal.
Utah guard Jordan Clarkson was ejected near the end of the third quarter for a flagrant foul 2 after hitting Desmond Bane across the face. There was a brief moment where it looked like Clarkson and Jaren Jackson Jr were about to come to blows, and Clarkson was still running his mouth as he was led away from the court.
Desmond Bane is slowly working his way out of a shooting slump that has plagued him since he returned from injury and shot a team-best 4 of 7 from distance. When asked about the altercation with Clarkson, Bane remarked “Yeah, I mean, it was weird. He hit me in the head, of course, and then backpedaled, and I didn’t know if he was squaring up with the ref or [Jaren Jackson Jr.] or what he was doing, so that was kind of funny.”
Head Coach Taylor Jenkins had this to say about Bane’s improving performance postgame: “I think career-high for him in assists, so kudos to him. He’s fully capable of that from a playmaking standpoint, but I think you kind of said it there. As he’s kind of working his way back, he’s still working his way back, finding that energy and that groove, you can still make an impact on the defensive side; you can play make. I love how when the ball is in his hands, he spaces the floor with his movement.”
By The Numbers:
Desmond Bane led all scorers with 24 points, 6 rebounds, a career-high 9 assists, and 2 steals. Bane also led the Grizzlies in outside shooting, going 4 of 7 from beyond the arc.
Tyus Jones finished the night with 21 points, 2 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 steals. Jones also hit a couple of clutch three-pointers that were key.
Jaren Jackson Jr closed out with 19 points, 8 rebounds, 3 steals, and 5 blocks. Jackson is currently leading the odds race for Defensive Player of the Year.
Santi Aldama led the bench unit with 12 points and 5 rebounds, including going 2 of 4 from the three-point line.
Who Got Next?
The Grizzlies are back at it again tonight, facing off against the San Antonio Spurs. Tip-off is at 7 PM CST.
Happy New Year from Music Video Monday! Since New Year’s Day was officially celebrated last Monday (which means we had the day off), Brian Blake’s “New Year’s Day” had to wait a week to become our first Music Video Monday of 2023.
This is the Memphis-based singer-songwriter’s debut on MVM, and “New Year’s Day” showcases his careful songwriting craft. Director Melanie Hopkins and cinematographer Daniel Hopkins captured Brian playing at the 175-year-old Crumpler Ferguson log cabin in Hernando, Mississippi. Start your week with a little sun-dappled melancholy.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Six months after one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws took effect in Tennessee, state lawmakers are ready to loosen it.
Sen. Ferrell Haile (R-Gallatin) confirmed to the Tennessee Lookout this week he is preparing legislation to make rape and incest exceptions to the “trigger” law, which was enacted in 2019 before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.
Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Ken Yager (R-Kingston) also is set to sponsor a bill to change the “affirmative defense” mechanism that criminalizes physicians who perform abortions to save the life of a mother going through a deadly pregnancy.
“I’m certainly going to support that piece of (Yager) legislation going forward, and I’m still looking at some other options,” Haile, a Gallatin Republican, said this week.
Haile and Yager are both leaders of the Senate Republican Caucus and are likely to be given leeway by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) to carry their bills through the legislative process without him trying to quash them, though McNally is satisfied with the law as written.
Yager recently said his legislation would “strengthen protections” for doctors who perform abortions to save the life of the mother or stop her from suffering the loss of bodily functions by changing the “affirmative defense” exception “to a clear exception when the life of the mother is in clear jeopardy.”
House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) says he would back measures to create exceptions to abortion restrictions; GOP Sen. Ken Yager, Kingston, and Sen. Ferrell Haile of Gallatin confirm they are set to sponsor legislation. No such legislation has been proposed in the House.
“Although well intended, the affirmative defense provision is not only overly burdensome for physicians but it can prevent them from performing life-saving abortions for fear of litigation, which puts at risk the lives of pregnant women who require medically necessary abortions,” Yager said in a statement.
The Kingston Republican noted he has heard from constituents and doctors who support such a bill. He added that “abortion would remain illegal” under his legislation in Tennessee.
Yet another heavy hitter, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, is saying he would back exceptions to the abortion restrictions.
“Speaker Sexton believes clarification is needed in the current law, as well as a change to affirmative defense — meaning someone has to prove their innocence which runs contrary to our judicial system. A doctor should not be singled out under affirmative defense instead of the usual standard of being innocent until proven guilty,” spokesman Doug Kufner said this week. “As with any legislation, should a proposal with agreeable language make it through the committee system to the House floor — including exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother — the speaker would be supportive.”
Sexton is expected to appoint a committee when the General Assembly convenes this week, along with standing committees, that would shepherd such legislation through the House.
Tennessee Right to Life PAC, which pushed the “trigger bill” to passage, withdrew an endorsement of Republican Sen. Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville) for saying he supports changes to the law. It will be interesting to see if they harangue Speaker Sexton, Yager, and Haile. Former legislator Roger Kane, leader of the Tennessee Right to Life PAC said last week he doesn’t expect to pull any other endorsements, even if legislators sponsor bills to tweak the law. Briggs was targeted, Kane said, because he kept seeking out the media to make his point.
Right to Life counsel Will Brewer said this week he is set to meet with Yager and Haile and is waiting to see the legislation but still opposes “any changes in the abstract.”
Democrats said last summer they would be proposing a litany of bills designed to turn back the state’s abortion ban, which is among the most stringent in the nation.
Rep. Yusuf Hakeem (D-Chattanooga) is sponsoring HB10, that specifies a criminal abortion doesn’t include a procedure necessitated by a medical emergency affecting the physical or mental health of the mother or one performed on a patient whose pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. It requires the doctor who performs the abortion to verify the patient reported the offense to law enforcement before the procedure.
Hakeem filed his bill weeks ago, but it would be fairly amazing to see this Republican-controlled Legislature allow a Democrat to turn back a bill they worked so hard to pass, only to realize they angered every physician in Tennessee, in addition to many women who, like it or not, go to the ballot box.
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According to the state of Tennessee, this act states that abortion-inducing drugs must be provided only by a qualified physician in a medical facility. This prohibits the distribution of the drug, even by pharmacies, physicians, and qualified physicians, through delivery and mail services.
This does not ban Plan B or other emergency contraceptives.
Recently, the Food and Drug Administration announced that they would be expanding access to abortion-inducing drugs. This means that pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens will be able to provide pills such as Mifepristone.
As of December 1, 2022, the Guttmacher Institute says that medical abortions account for 54 percent of all abortions. While this law took effect this year, abortion is still illegal in the state of Tennessee. Governor Bill Lee signed the Tennessee Abortion-Inducing Drug Risk Protocol Act into law in May of 2022, prior to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Many were thrilled regarding the FDA’s announcement, as it marks a monumental step in abortion access. In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union said, “The FDA’s decision comes at a crisis moment for reproductive freedom, as access to abortion has plummeted nationwide in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade.”
However, Tennesseans, such as state House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland), did not share this excitement. In regards to abortion-inducing pills, Lamberth recently tweeted, “In Tennessee we value the lives of mothers AND their children. It isn’t just a pill, this pill kills a child.”
On August 25, 2022, a Tennessee law went into effect that made providing abortions a felony.
As we reported in August, the Human Life Protection Act “was passed in 2019 just in case the U.S. Supreme Court ever overturned the landmark Roe. v. Wade.”
The current law does not allow abortions in cases of rape, incest, or any fetal abnormality that could prove fatal to the baby. The law only allows an abortion in Tennessee if giving birth would kill the pregnant woman or would prevent “serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function.”
The text of the bill defines abortion as “the elective use or prescription of an instrument, medicine, drug, or other substance, or device, with the intent to terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a patient, with knowledge that the termination by those means will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the unborn child.”
According to the text of the bill, a qualified physician has the “ability to identify and document a viable intrauterine pregnancy,” and “assess the gestational age of pregnancy and inform the patient of gestational age-specific risks.”
Among other duties, a qualified physician must also “supervise and bear legal responsibility for an agent, employee, or contractor who is participating in any part of a procedure, including, but not limited to, pre-procedure evaluation and care.”
The bill also defines an “abortion-inducing drug” as a “medicine, drug, or other substance provided with the intent of terminating the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a patient, with knowledge that the termination will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the unborn child.”
This also includes drugs “known to have abortion-inducing properties that are prescribed specifically with the intent of causing an abortion.” Some of these drugs are Mifepristone, Misoprostol, and Methotrexate.
Violation in this act results in a Class E felony, and the individual can be fined no more than $50,000. The patient, however, will not receive any criminal penalties.
Renters across Shelby County could easily find contact information for their landlords on a new registry proposed by state Rep. Dwayne Thompson (D-Cordova).
The bill would require property owners and landlords to publicly list all the rental property they own or manage. Thompson said the list would help ensure that renters would be able to contact their landlord or their agent, helping to eliminate absentee landlords who hide their identity and try to avoid renters seeking maintenance, security, or other services.
“This is a fairly simple consumer protection bill that could streamline renters’ access to their landlords and hopefully give them the means to avoid a long legal battle,” Thompson said in a statement.
“My hope is that this will offer more peace of mind to the hundreds of thousands of Shelby County residents who rent or lease their home.”
Rep. Dwayne Thompson (D-Cordova)
Current law allows a landlord registry if a county has a consolidated, metropolitan government and more than 500,000 residents. This means they’re only allowed in Nashville, which has such a registry.
“My hope is that this will offer more peace of mind to the hundreds of thousands of Shelby County residents who rent or lease their home,” Thompson said.
The bill will be heard during coming session of the Tennessee General Assembly. State lawmakers are due to convene in Nashville on Tuesday.
