Month: March 2023

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Fish Breading From Chef Peggy Brown Now Online

Peggy Brown with a package of her fish breading, now available online (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Peggy Brown, meet e-commerce.

Brown, 74, chef/owner of Peggy’s Heavenly Home Cooking restaurant, is now selling “Ms Peggy’s Just Heavenly Good Gourmet Fish Breading” online at mspeggysjustheavenlygood.com.

Her breading comes in four flavors:

Hot and Spicy — “I cannot tell you everything that’s in it,” Brown says. “It’s got cayenne pepper in it, let’s put it that way. Black pepper and cayenne.”

Cajun — “A little spicy, but not too spicy. Cayenne and paprika in it.”

Lemon Pepper — “Basically, it’s got salt, black pepper, and it’s got dehydrated lemon peels in it.”

Regular — “It’s got the flour and the meal. Got white pepper and seasoning salt.”

And that’s all she’s going to reveal about the ingredients in her fish breading, which went online about a month ago.

“Well, the history of the fish breading is it’s been in the family for two or three generations. Back in the day, my dad and them ground up their own meal. And my grandmama made her own fish breading. Back then we went to the pond and fished and fried fish and everything. My grandmama cooked fish all the time. Most of the time bream and catfish.”

Her grandmother made her fish breading out of yellow meal, self-rising flour, salt, black pepper, and red pepper. “My grandmama would mix it up in a big old bowl and when dad and them would get through cleaning fish and washing them, she’d put them in that bowl and roll them around in that meal and drop it in that big black skillet and fry that fish.”

Brown used that same recipe until she got a job as a cook in the employee cafeteria at The Peabody in the early 1990s and met noted chef/journalist Burt Wolf, who was the hotel’s head chef. “He told me all about different spices. All kinds of different spices you could mix together that have a good taste. 

“When I got my restaurant, I started mixing the fish breading together, but I added different spices. And everybody has loved that fish breading.”

Peggy Brown with her daughter, Katina Brown, and granddaughter, RaShondrea Alston (Credit: MIchael Donahue)

Customers always ask where she buys her fish breading, Brown says. “I told them I didn’t buy this. I make it.” And their response usually is, “Girl, you need to be selling this stuff online.”

“I decided to put it online. I made up my mind I wanted to do it over a year ago, but I never put it online. So, a friend of mine was eating fish and he said, ‘Miss Peggy, you need to get this stuff online.’ He decided he would do the website for me. Ronald Jackson did the website. He bought the domain for me.”

They went online and Jackson picked out the plastic bags. And he designed and printed the labels. “But I told him how I wanted it.”

She wanted angel wings on the label to go along with the “heavenly” in the name. “I told him I wanted wings on the side, but he decided to put the wings on me. I just wanted the wings basically on the packaging. He said, ‘No, Miss Peggy. I got another idea.’”

Brown wants to eventually get her products in Kroger and other stores. “I’ve got a couple of things going on.”

For now, her fish breading is available online or at her restaurant at 326 South Cleveland Street.

Brown isn’t stopping with the fish breading. “Oh, we’re going to put other products on the website. We’ve got a lot of people who love the turnip greens. We got people that drive all the way from Nashville to Memphis to get these turnip greens. They have a fit about these turnip greens. They said, ‘I can’t find any turnip greens like these. They’re the best I ever put in my mouth.’ They want me to put those turnip greens and candied yams online.”

Which is do-able, Brown says. “Now greens and yams, I can freeze them and ship them anywhere in the country. You can freeze greens. You can freeze yams.”

She wants to package them in two and four-pound containers. But, she says, “This is something we aren’t doing yet.”

Brown is working on getting a Midtown kitchen space, where she can prepare and package her products. It also will serve as as a store. “We’re going to have a kitchen, but we’re also going to have a retail space where you can come in and pick up your banana pudding, come in and pick up your greens, come pick up yams. I’ll cook them. All you do is order them online. Or call me and I’ll cook them.”

Her famous banana pudding is an item that will strictly have to be picked up. She can’t ship it. “Banana  pudding is something you can’t freeze. If you freeze banana pudding, it isn’t ever the same when you thaw it out. When you freeze bananas and thaw them out, the bananas usually turn dark.”

Fried catfish with greens and yams at Peggy’s Heavenly Home Cooking restaurant (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Now Playing in Memphis: Scream VI, 65, and Woody

Ghostface in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group's "Scream VI."

Good news, fans of accurate naming systems — they’re numbering Scream movies again! After the 2022 Scream, which had no number (perhaps to confuse you into believing you’re buying a ticket for Wes Craven’s 1996 masterpiece of meta-horror) but was actually the fifth Scream, the Roman numerals are back, baby! Anyway, in Scream VI, Ghostface returns, he’s got a gun, and you’re trapped on the subway with him. 

Yay, more numbers! Adam Driver stars in 65 as an astronaut who crashes on a distant planet, only to find that it’s not really a distant planet, it’s the Earth 65 million years in the past. Think the Planet of the Apes scenario, only with hordes of dinosaurs who don’t take kindly to strangers. Legend Sam Raimi produces, and A Quiet Place helm team Scott Beck and Bryan Woods wrote and directed. 

Woody Harrelson is Marcus, an NBA G-league coach who has a bit of an anger problem, in Champions. After a legal entanglement, he is ordered to perform community service by coaching a team of players with intellectual disabilities. It’s tough at first, but by golly, he’s gonna take this band of misfits all the way to the Special Olympics! 

One of the strangest high-concept films in recent memory is The Magic Flute. German director Florian Sigl takes Mozart’s opera, which debuted in 1791 and is still performed regularly today, and makes it literal, with the help of some expensive CGI and Hollywood scholockmiester Roland Emmerich. A hit in Germany last year that is just now hitting the States, it looks entertainingly weird.

Don’t hibernate on the year’s biggest sleeper hit. She’s black, she’s bad, she’s a bear, and she’s on hard drugs. Spoiler alert: She eats O’Shea Jackson Jr. But is this East Tennessee mom serving as a good role model for her cubs?

On Wednesday, Indie Memphis continues their long-running Microcinema series with A String of Pearls: The Film of Camille Billops and James Hatch. Three of the pair’s short documentaries from the 1980s and 1990, “Older Women and Love,” “Suzanne, Suzanne,” and “Take Your Bags” have been restored to spread the word about the groundbreaking documentarians. The screening at Crosstown Theatre will be pay-what-you-can.

Categories
Art Art Feature

Forms Meet Functions Live Painting Show

LueElla Marshall was driving home from her job at Kroger when she got a call from God. The streets in her neighborhood of Orange Mound were filled with litter — a sight that weighed heavy on Marshall’s heart. “It used to be a beautiful community,” she says, having lived in Orange Mound since 1966. “But for a long time, this community has been going down. Every day I came home, it looked like the city was getting dirtier and dirtier. So I said, ‘Lord, when is the City of Memphis going to come out here and clean this trash up? It’s just been so long since they’ve done that.’ So God said to me while I’m there riding in the car, he said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ 

“And I looked around and wasn’t nobody in the car but me. So I said, ‘Me?’ God said, ‘Yes, it’s you. Why don’t you do it?’ So, all right, I had to think about it. But,” Marshall continues, “when God tells you to do something, you do it all right.”

What came from this calling was Marshall’s 2016 “Art Cans” initiative, through which neighborhood artists and students painted large trash cans to be placed around the neighborhood. Marshall hadn’t really thought much of the arts, she says, until this project. “I got to learn that art is everything. I used to drive past them and think they were beautiful works of art, our receptacles,” Marshall says. “I wanted a place to show them.” And so she opened Orange Mound Gallery (OMG) that year through a grant from ArtUp. Though the gallery has hosted several exhibitions, Marshall had never shown her receptacles in the gallery setting — until now, that is, thanks to the help of artist and arts educator Lurlynn Franklin.

Franklin, Marshall says, brought a new energy to the project that had gone dormant a few years ago. Since the initial trash cans were placed around Orange Mound, many of them have been stolen or destroyed by cars crashing into them. “But I never gave up,” says Marshall, “even when I had to pay people outta my pocket to clean [up] and empty the trash every week. This is a spiritual thing. God told me to do it, but once I started, I still didn’t know what to do ’cause I didn’t get the proper support until Ms. Franklin came to me.” 

“I was just moved to help her,” Franklin says. “She’s never had an exhibition of her cans because once they’re painted, they go out in the community. And I just told her this could be a good way to fundraise and it could be good exposure for artists.”

Earle Augustus, radio program director and personality, begins work on his trash receptacle which he will continue painting upon at the “Forms Meet Functions” live show. (Credit: Abigail Morici)

And so, with Marshall’s blessing, Franklin reached out to artists through word of mouth to paint on the receptacles. The receptacles will be displayed at the University of Memphis’ Fogelman Gallery in September, and later will be sold to fundraise for OMG, with 60 percent of the profits going to the artists. Before then, the artists Franklin has gathered will participate in a live painting art show, entitled “Forms Meet Functions,” this weekend at the gallery

“People can go and watch the project’s process, talk to the artists, look at the work that they’ve created, look at their sketches, and connect the dots,” Franklin says of the evening event. “Something happens for people when they can see that.”

From left to right: Walter “Sir Walt” Andrade, Zelitra “Madamn Z” Peterson-Traylor, Toonky Berry, Lurlynn Franklin, Andrew Travis, and Clyde Johnson Jr. (Credit: Abigail Morici)

The group of more than a dozen artists range in their experience and exposure. Two of them — Michael and Lylah Newman — are still kids in grade school, and they’ll facilitate a collaborative paint-by-numbers trash can for those who attend the show to add to. Also participating are Michael and Lylah’s mom Darlene Newman, Walter “Sir Walt” Andrade, Toonky Berry, Clyde Johnson Jr., Najee Strickland, Andrew Travis, Zelitra “Madamn Z” Peterson-Traylor, Kierston Nicole Williams, Steven Williams, Earle Augustus, and Christie Taylor. 

For the project, Franklin wanted the artists to inject their own style into the cans. “Like form and function,” she says, “the can, it’s all ready to function, but you have to build the art around it. … We’re not going to have empty concepts on these cans. We’re not just slapping anything on them.” These, Franklin says, are meant to be accessible pieces of art that function as trash cans, and indeed, each can is distinct in its style, as evidenced as the artists begin their processes before the show. “It’s about people being able to truly engage with the work, the energy coming off the work.”

Madamn Z paints the basic shapes of her subject, which she will refine at the live painting show on Friday. (Photo: Abigail Morici)

For Madamn Z, the trash receptacle she’s working on harkens back to what she considers her most inspirational piece — a portrait of the model Winnie Harlow. “I use art to heal myself from Crohn’s disease,” she says. “So all of the works that I’ve done, I’ve been able to not only heal myself with, but I hope to inspire other people. … And I think [Harlow] stands out so much because our ideal of beauty has been distorted by mainstream media. And she’s like, ‘You don’t have to be perfect.’

“I remember watching her on Top Model and they called her Panda,” she continues, “and I remember how that hurt her. But she took that and she built a career, and look at what she’s doing now. So it just shows how you can go from thinking you’re on the low end of the spectrum and that you’re not worthy and that you’re trash, you feel like trash, but you’re not. You’re beautiful.”

In addition to painting the cans, Franklin also commissioned the artists to create a piece alluding to the subject of environmentalism for the show. “They were supposed to read these articles I provided and come up with a piece of art that was based on those articles,” she says. “So it’s layered. [As a viewer] it makes you curious, and you wanna dig. Like what the heck is this really about?”

One article, which was the source of a painting by Madamn Z, spoke to Dr. Martin Luther King’s environmentalism. Her piece is divided into two, with one image illustrating police brutality during the I Am a Man strike in Memphis, and the other rendering a child and parent watching that same scene on a television today. “I wanted to focus on how, although King’s dream has been realized somewhat, the reality of it is that our children are still exposed to the same dream he was trying to portray and unify everyone under,” she says. “As a mom raising two young children, that’s not a picture I want my children to be accustomed to watching, but today on the news, that’s all we see.” 

Walter “Sir Walt” Andrade touches up his painting, which will be on display as he works on his trash can at the live show. The receptacle, he says, will feature symbols representing Tyre Nichols, Gangsta Boo, and Young Dolph. (Credit: Abigail Morici)

Put simply, King’s dream is a work in progress — a sentiment Marshall echoes. She says of the 55-gallon cans used for her initiative, “Those are the drums that we used to burn our trash in when the sanitation was stopped. I got taken back to when Dr. King was marching and when T.O. Jones and his followers sent for Dr. King to come to Memphis. … I didn’t know God was going to give me something to do that Dr. King was connected to. I always say this [work], it is the spirit of Dr. King and T.O. Jones. It has been a blessing for me.” 

Marshall now also heads the Orange Mound Neighborhood and Veterans Association Inc., in addition to her work with OMG, which she hopes to grow as a community space and improve through grants and donations. 

Andrew Travis paints his can in his distinct abstract style. Behind the table, as with each table at the show, are samples of the artist’s work. (Credit: Abigail Morici)

“I didn’t know all this was coming,” she says. “See, I’m 75. Faith had to get me here, and I’m still going. People don’t know this gallery here; we don’t have any signs outside — that’s how broke we’ve been. But you see, we still didn’t give up. You can feel the spirit. I can feel it when I’m talking about it and thinking about it. How God just put tears in my eyes. I wouldn’t have known this. I didn’t see it. I didn’t even see it coming. We are onto something that’s really cool.”

Join the Orange Mound Gallery for “Forms Meet Functions: The Trash to Treasure Live Painting Studio Art Show,” Friday, March 10th, 5-7:30 p.m. The gallery is located in the Lamar-Airways Shopping Center next to TONE, 2232 Lamar Ave. 

“Forms Meet Functions: From Trash to Treasure” will be on display at U of M’s Fogelman Gallery, September 1st-October 1st. The opening reception is September 1st, 6-9 p.m.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Governor’s Safety Bill Threatens Penalties for Schools If They Don’t Lock Entrances

Gov. Bill Lee delivers his 2023 state address on Feb. 6. The Republican governor pledged to further bolster school security on Tennessee’s K-12 campuses. Courtesy of State of Tennessee

Gov. Bill Lee is proposing sweeping changes to enhance school safety across Tennessee, requiring all K-12 public schools to keep their exterior doors locked, or risk losing escalating amounts of state funding with each violation.

Legislation from the Republican governor, introduced this week in several legislative committees, also mandates several new safety-related drills when students aren’t present; tweaks training requirements for armed and unarmed campus officers; and requires new security features for school buildings constructed or remodeled after this July 1st.

In addition, Lee wants more top law enforcement officials on the state’s school safety team and proposes to transfer its oversight from the Department of Education to the Department of Safety, the agency responsible for homeland security and state troopers.

The governor’s proposal comes after the state fire marshal’s office identified 527 unlocked exterior doors during inspections of about 1,500 Tennessee public schools this school year, according to state officials.

Last June, Lee signed an executive order directing Tennessee school leaders and law enforcement to work together to double down on existing school safety protocols after a deadly shooting in Texas, where a gunman entered an elementary school through an unlocked door and killed 19 children and two teachers.

Lee also promised Tennesseans that state troopers and local police would conduct more unannounced security inspections of schools to make sure entrances are locked to prevent unauthorized access. More than 20,000 doors have been checked so far, state officials said.

Lee’s plan would continue Tennessee’s emphasis on fortifying its school campuses rather than reducing its number of firearms. 

Despite having one of the nation’s highest rates of gun deaths, the state has enacted numerous laws under Lee’s leadership to loosen requirements for gun ownership. In 2021, he signed a law allowing most Tennesseans 21 and older to carry handguns without first clearing a background check, obtaining a permit, or getting trained on firearms safety. 

This year, however, the governor’s administration is opposing several new bills from Republican lawmakers who want to loosen those regulations even further.

The new safety legislation fulfills a promise Lee made at his state address last month. “We’ve done a lot to make schools safer,” he said, “but I don’t want to look up months from now and think we should’ve done more.”

His proposal, outlined in a 14-page amendment, would require schools to keep all external doors locked when students are present and to limit access through one secure, primary entrance. 

The legislation authorizes state and local law enforcement officers to inspect doors — and requires immediate actions to address any infractions. Written notifications describing violations must be sent within 24 hours to the school’s administrators, district leaders, the parent-teacher organization, and state officials in the departments of education and safety.

If a campus does not have a law enforcement officer on site and violates the locked door requirements two or more times in a school year, local school officials would have to post a full-time officer there within 30 days of receiving notice and undertake a corrective action plan. If they do not comply, the legislation directs Tennessee’s education commissioner to withhold 2 percent of its annual state funds, escalating by 2 percent for each subsequent violation, up to 10 percent.

A campus that has a full-time officer faces similar financial penalties for its district or charter organization if it violates the locked door requirements.

“To be clear, the purpose of this proposal is to help schools resolve any security flaws and ensure students and teachers are safe,” said Jade Byers, the governor’s press secretary, in a statement to Chalkbeat on Wednesday. “School funding will only be temporarily withheld while the (district) takes corrective action to resolve the issue.”

Tennessee school leaders have lauded the governor’s prioritization of school safety and, in recent years, taken advantage of millions of dollars in state grants to upgrade building security and hire law enforcement for their campuses. For instance, a grant program championed by the governor in 2019 placed more than 200 school resource officers (SRO) in schools.

But they say that more money is needed to hire more officers — and that the governor’s proposal doesn’t address their staffing challenges.

According to the state’s most recent school safety report, for the 2021-22 school year, fewer than 1,300 of the state’s 1,800-plus schools had a trained SRO on site.

“The attention and focus on keeping our schools safe is appreciated, but financial penalties will not help add the security measures needed,” said Dale Lynch, executive director of the state superintendents organization, which has lobbied for enough funding so every Tennessee school has an SRO.

Money isn’t the only challenge that districts face, according to Mike Winstead, director of Maryville City Schools, near Knoxville.

“One of the punishments under this bill is that you might have to hire an SRO within 30 days, but that’s easier said than done,” he said. “Many districts across our state have tried to secure SROs from their local police departments, but there’s a shortage of personnel. Police are losing a lot of officers to the federal government, where they can triple their salary.”

Lee also proposes to add annual drills — without students present — for emergency bus safety, and also to prepare school staff and law enforcement agencies on what to expect in an emergency situation at a school.

State law already requires schools to conduct periodic fire drills and annual armed-intruder drills, plus three additional annual drills to prepare for potential emergencies such as an earthquake or tornado.

Altogether, the legislation serves as “an additional meaningful step to secure schools and further enhance school safety,” said Byers, the governor’s spokeswoman.

But striking the right balance between school safety and educational climate is also a concern, says Winstead, a 2018 finalist for national superintendent of the year.

“We want our schools to be friendly and welcoming to students and their families,” said Winstead, “and we don’t want to make our kids feel like they’re going to school in a prison.”

He says collaborative working relationships between school officials and law enforcement are more productive than punitive ones. He’d also like to see more state investments to support student mental health beyond the governor’s $250 million student mental health trust fund, established in 2021 as an endowment to pay for future services.

“Drills are important, SROs are important,” said Winstead, “but the most important thing we can do is foster strong relationships between students and adults.”

You can track the bill’s progress on the legislature’s website. 

Marta 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.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

The Whale

Brenden Fraiser in The Whale. (courtesy A24)

The nominees for this year’s Best Actor Academy Awards include powerful performances, from Austin Butler in Elvis to Paul Mescal in Aftersun, but it’s going to be hard to outshine Brendan Fraser in The Whale. Offering a message that extends far beyond its two-hour screen time, The Whale interprets how society understands mental health and how we connect with others.

When we first meet Fraser as Charlie, he’s wheezing uncontrollably and clenching his chest in imminent fear of death. Shortly after this incident, Liz (Hong Chau), Charlie’s friend and occasional caregiver, diagnoses him with congenital heart failure. Charlie has been struggling with morbid obesity, but that’s hardly the only problem affecting his mental health. His partner, Alan, committed suicide, and his relationships with his ex-wife Mary (Samantha Morton) and daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) are distant, at best. Overall, the prognosis for Charlie’s life is not good, especially since he refuses to go to the hospital or seek any outside help. Instead of saving his own life, Charlie uses all his energy to help others, despite what they think about him or themselves. By the end of the film, Charlie’s physical hindrances become the foundation for recognizing the inherent goodness of humans and the need for people to lean on others. 

I have to admit to not having seen many of Brendan Fraser’s films, beyond loving him as Elliot in Bedazzled (2000). Before watching The Whale, the biggest thought I had was, “Is Brendan Fraser going to prove that Oscar nomination right?” When starting the movie, I wasn’t immediately starstruck. Charlie, although representing realistic problems, was a relatively normal character. He was struggling, yet optimistic about life, and wasn’t afraid of death. Nice thoughts, but they could easily fall into cliche. But Fraser drew me in, and by the second half, I had so many tears in my eyes that my right contact lens fell out, and I had to pause to collect myself as the lights came up. That’s all a tribute to Fraser’s ability to transform this potentially flat character into a desperate man just trying to embrace damaged people with love. 

Fraser’s talent is evident in Charlie’s relationship with Ellie. She’s a fiery spirit, violently angry at the world and at Charlie, who abandoned her nine years prior. For her to even consider spending time with him, he has to pay her $120,000. In return, she feeds him sleeping pills and repeatedly calls him disgusting. Despite all this, Charlie keeps telling her she is amazing, perfect, and smart. The emotion between Charlie and Ellie is so real, and raw, and important in a tale about mental health. Their relationship shows how even the most damaged and wrongful people can come back from their mistakes and learn to love again. 

Appropriately for the story of a homebound person, The Whale is set in just one room of Charlie’s apartment, with staging that sometimes resembles a play rather than a movie. There is little to no music, which forces you to listen and pay attention to what each character has to say. Your sustained attention helps director Darren Aronofsky build complex characters such as Liz. She diagnoses Charlie with congenital heart failure, and then proceeds to feed him a jumbo sized bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. She is Charlie’s only true friend, but over time, she uses him as a crutch to evade her own suppressed trauma.  

Hidden from the spotlight for some time, Brendan Fraser has definitely come back strong. I will be rooting for him for Best Actor recognition, and continue rooting for him long after the award window closes. Overall, this film definitely gave me hope that the film industry is not saturated with remakes and Marvel movies, but instead yields movies that can deliver a good watch, a good cry, and a heightened perspective. 

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We Recommend We Saw You

WE SAW YOU: Jalen Harris of Memphis Stars in Ain’t Too Proud at The Orpheum

The cast of Ain't Too Proud – The Life and Times of The Temptations" gets a standing ovation. (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of The Temptations is one of the best shows I’ve seen. It’s joyful, yet it can also make you shed a tear or two. I saw it on opening night — March 7th —  at The Orpheum, where it’s playing now through March 12th.

The musical, which chronicles the ups and downs of the longtime Motown singing group, is a musical where you already know the songs before you sit down. But, as one of the group’s song titles states: “Get Ready.” You’re in for a treat. The songs, the performers, the fabulous story, and the Tony Award for Best Choreography that go with it make this a memorable blockbuster on the boards.

The captivating performances include Elijah Ahmad Lewis’s wildly-out-of-control David Ruffin, and Michael Andraeus’s trying-to-keep-it-together unofficial group leader Otis Williams.

Another captivating performance is by Jalen Harris, who plays Eddie Kendricks. What makes him even more captivating — in addition to his flawlessly fluid dancing and his powerful vocals — is the fact he’s from Memphis. We can claim him.

Jalen Harris in Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations (Copyright 2021 Emilio Madrid)

I talked to Harris the next day. A native Memphian, Harris is a graduate of Harding Academy.

He’s done just about everything. When he was 15, he sang on season 10 of American Idol.

He’s a model, who recently did runway work for some bridal shows for Men’s Wearhouse.

As an actor, he appeared in HBO’s Lovecraft Country. “I played the Moroccan bartender on episode seven.” 

And he’s an R&B crossover artist with “some new music coming up.”

Asked what it was like to portray Kendricks in Ain’t Too Proud, Harris says, “It’s a dream come true. And I myself am a musician and this is my first time ever to do any biographical work as an actor.”

And, he adds, “I’ve learned things about myself. Also, in my journey portraying him.”

Their similarities include “growing up in the church and singing gospel music and branching off into rhythm and blues. I definitely went down that same path.”

Harris sang at Williams Temple Church of God in Christ. He was lead singer in his brother’s group, City Mix.

Also, Harris says, “It’s an honor because I am etched into history as a Temptation for the rest of my life.”

Jalen Harris (center) in Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations (Copyright 2021 Emilio Madrid)
Elijah Ahmad Lewis as David Ruffin, center stage; Jamel Harris as Eddie Kendricks, second from left in Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations (Copyright 2021 Emilio Madrid)

He loves “being from Memphis and doing something so special regarding Detroit and the Motown sound. I was at Stax today seeing all the musical history there at Soulsville here in Memphis. I feel like I’m in the best of both worlds.”

Being from Memphis means he’s “part of something so much bigger” than himself, Harris says. “Politically, creatively, and artistically — musically as well — I feel like it’s a responsibility for me as an artist.”

Like when he travels to other places. “They see Memphis when they see me. And they hear Memphis. That is so important to me.

“The same blood that runs through the veins of the other musicians in Memphis runs through me, too.”

Harris obviously loves his hometown. He got a chance to recently perform an important job at The Peabody. “I’m so grateful, honored, and humbled to be the Duckmaster the other day.”

He thought, “I’m not worthy of this.”

Jalen Harris pictured in my program. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Anne and Pat Halloran were first nighters at the show. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Phyllis Roy (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Kevin and Haden Kane (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Ron and Vicki Olson (Credit: Michael Donahue)
WE SAW YOU
Categories
News News Blog

Korean War Hero, Former School Board Member Jim Brown Dies at 92

Photo courtesy Nelia Dempsey.

Anybody who spent any time at a Memphis City Schools School Board meeting in the ’90s will recall member  Jim Brown, who passed away on March 3rd. He was 92 and will be remembered at a memorial service at 11 a.m. Thursday, March 9th, at Memphis Funeral Home on Poplar.

On the board, James Milroy Brown, Jr., was a meek-as-a-lamb, polite and conscientious member who worked hard and dutifully for two terms. A University of Memphis graduate, he had also served as a teacher and administrator in the city school system over a 25-year period and once wrote an informative Viewpoint in this publication about Board matters.

What I find most memorable about Brown was his prior service in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War. He earned a Purple Heart with Gold Star, Korean Service Medal with three Gold Stars, Presidential Unit Citation with two Bronze Stars and Combat Action Ribbon with three Gold Stars. 

He was one of the Marines who got trapped in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir on the Yalu River when the Chinese entered that conflict in late 1950. Brown wrote and lectured often on that experience. It was one of the most difficult moments in this country’s military experience, requiring an arduous escape under fire that lasted weeks over many miles of mountain landscape in sub-zero temperature, culminating in an ultimate sea rescue by the Navy.

His conversations about that experience were both enthralling and inspiring. He often appeared in full uniform at remembrance events involving the Corps and presented the colors at the 2012 funeral of fellow ex-Marine Hunter Lane, a former City Councilman and Memphis mayoral candidate.

In the picture accompanying this article, he was officiating at a 2014 ceremony honoring Sgt. Walter Singleton, a Medal of Honor winner, at the Singleton Community Center in Bartlett.

Brown is survived by his wife, Betty Sue Brown; sons Jimmy Brown, Joey Brown, Tommy Nichols, Ed Nichols; grandchildren Jason Brown, Zach Nichols, Rachel Nichols; great grandchildren Jaxon and Kenneth; and siblings Pauline, Philip, Joe, Gale, Rosie, and Betty.

After his memorial service on Thursday, a funeral procession will follow to West Tennessee Veterans Cemetery where he will be laid to rest following military honors from the Marine Corps League. 

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Memphis In May Will Return to Tom Lee Park This Year

Music lovers at the 2018 Beale Street Music Festival (Photo courtesy Memphis in May)

Memphis In May will officially return to Tom Lee Park this year.

Memphis in May International Festival (MIM) signed a contract with Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) on Friday, according to an image posted to MIM’s Facebook page Tuesday. 

The two agencies have tangled publicly since MRPP’s plan to renovate the riverside park was unveiled in 2019. That $62 million plan includes adding contours, built amenities, trees, and landscaping to what was a flat, open plain. 

The plain was an empty canvas for MIM’s big festivals, the Beale Street Music Festival and the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. MIM has been vocal for years now that the new park amenities would shrink the size of the festivals and their crowds. However, MRPP contends it will not.

(Credit: MRPP)

However, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland entered the two groups into mediation to hammer out a plan. The plan ensured the park could be renovated and have spaces big enough for MIM’s festivals. 

Both signed the agreement, though MIM president and CEO Jim Holt has continued to complain about the park plan, as recently as last month when he told Memphis City Council members the plan put his festivals “in jeopardy.” At the time, the MRPP and MIM contract was snagged on insurance provisions and council members asked the groups to work together for a resolution. 

MIM president and CEO Jim Holt

On Tuesday, the council approved a resolution to use up to $500,000 in taxpayer money to pay for damages done to the park. Anything above that amount will be paid by MIM. 

(Credit: MIM/Facebook)

“Signed, sealed, and delivered!” MIM posted (above) on Facebook Tuesday. “Memphis in May has a signed lease for Tom Lee Park. There was never a doubt we’d be back home on the river in 2023.”

However, Facebook commenter Eric Groff said, …“except for all the doubts you folks expressed in the media…”

In a statement on Facebook, MRPP said park construction is now more than 80 percent complete. 

“Memphians can now look forward to the opening of a great park at the edge of our nation’s most storied river,” read the statement. “An unforgettable civic celebration will mark the opening this Labor Day weekend.” 

Categories
Memphis Gaydar News News Blog

Advocacy Groups Promise Legal Action Against Transgender Healthcare Bill

(Credit: Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash)

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, and Lambda Legal, a national organization “committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and everyone living with HIV,” issued a statement where they have promised legal action against the Tennessee law that will prohibit gender affirming care for minors.

“We will not allow this dangerous law to stand,” said the statement. “We are dedicated to overturning this unconstitutional law and are confident the state will find itself completely incapable of defending it in court. We want transgender youth to know they are not alone and this fight is not over.”

Senate Bill 1 was recently signed into law by Governor Bill Lee on Thursday, March 2nd. The law will prohibit healthcare professionals from administering gender-affirming care to minors. This makes Tennessee the fourth state to ban this care for people under the age of 18.

This legislation will make gender affirming hormone therapy and puberty blockers inaccessible, and trans people in Tennessee will not have access to this care until they reach the age of 18. Similar restrictions have been made in states like Arkansas and Alabama.

A report entitled “LGBTQ Tennesseans: A Report of the 2021 Southern LGBTQ Experiences Survey,” released by the Campaign for Southern Equality in January 2023 defines gender affirming healthcare as “ an individualized experience for all trans and nonbinary people. There is no single surgery or standard path that all trans people access and each transgender person has their own unique needs related to gender affirming care.”

The report said that about 84 percent of transgender respondents from Tennessee said that “when they were under the age of 18, having access to gender-affirming care was important to their overall well-being.”  

“Restrictive laws and policies related to gender affirming care can lead to increased stigma for transgender people, resulting in delays or avoidance in seeking necessary medical care, ultimately resulting in worse health outcomes for this population,” the study stated.

In response to the signing of the bill into law, Emma Chinn, co-author of LGBTQ+ Tennesseans, special projects coordinator at the Campaign for Southern Equality, and a master of public policy candidate at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, said that research states that “access to transgender-related healthcare is critical to the physical and mental health of transgender people and their ability to thrive in their daily lives.”

As the law does not go into effect until July 1, 2023, advocates are also offering resources and steps for families to take action now.

A resource guide provided by the ACLU of Tennessee, Inclusion TN, and Campaign for Southern Equality lists the following recommendations:

  1. See current provider as soon as possible to discuss current needs and options for continued care;
  2. If you and your family  have been planning to pursue gender-affirming care, try to initiate care before July 1 when the law takes effect;
  3. Fill current prescriptions with regard to gender-affirming medical care;
  4. To view a list of trans-affirming providers in Southern states, please visit the Trans in the South guide at www.transinthesouth.org. 
  5. For any questions related to navigating gender-affirming care in Tennessee, please fill out this form at www.southernequality.org/tnresources or email TennesseeResources@southernequality.org

The Campaign for Southern Equality and Inclusion Tennessee have also partnered to give out rapid response emergency grants of $250.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Creed III

Michael B. Jordan takes to the ring once again as Adonis Creed to face off with Jonathan Majors, playing his wronged friend from the past.

Boxing has always been good fodder for filmmakers. The sport plays to the strengths of the form, offering compelling characters, clear conflict, and visceral violence. None did it better than Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Rocky, the 1976 Best Picture winner directed by John G. Avildsen, but forever associated with its writer and star, Sylvester Stallone. They are both working-class stories about driven men overcoming long odds, but they have very different takes on what being a sports hero really means. For Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, the championship is an empty prize. For Rocky, the search for glory becomes less important than personal integrity.

In 2015, Ryan Coogler rebooted the Rocky story with Michael B. Jordan starring as Adonis “Donnie” Creed, the son of Stallone’s frenemy, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). The Black Panther helmer is one of the greatest genre directors of our age, and his skills fit perfectly with the needs of the boxing picture. For Creed III, Jordan followed in the footsteps of Stallone by directing the film he’s starring in. And whaddaya know, the guy’s got chops!

The film begins in flashback, where a 15-year-old Donnie (played by Thaddeus J. Mixson) sneaks out of his mom’s house to go to a Golden Gloves boxing match with his buddy Damian “Dame” Anderson (Spence Moore II). Dame wins big, but while they’re on their way home, Donnie gets into an altercation in front of a package store. Dame pulls a gun to get his friend out of trouble, but he’s the one who gets busted when the cops show up.

Fifteen years later, Donnie is fighting to unify the heavyweight championship. He retires a champ and is settling in with his wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent), when he gets a visit from an old friend. Dame, now played by Jonathan Majors, is out of prison and wants to get back into the fight game. After all this time, he thinks he’s still got “a little gas left in the tank.” Donnie feels more than a little guilty that it was Dame who paid the price when he started the fight all those years ago, so he offers to help train him at his appropriately Greek-branded Delphi Gym.

Dame’s got a lot of aggression to work out, but he’s a ferocious fighter. Donnie, who is trying his hand as a manager, is trying to arrange a title bout for his protégé, Felix Chavez (José Benavidez Jr., an actual professional boxer.). When his would-be opponent is mysteriously assaulted at a party, Donnie recommends Chavez fight Dame instead. After all, it was great publicity when Apollo Creed gave Rocky a title fight. “Everybody loves an underdog.” But Donnie’s plan backfires, and you better believe that the two former friends are headed for a final showdown in the ring.

During his press junket for Creed, Jordan has talked a lot about how his anime obsession shaped the way he approached his first outing as director. You can see it in his bold compositions, particularly in the fight scenes. The first match plays out in sweeping Steadicam close-ups that are more Scorsese than Watanabe. But during the final showdown in Dodger Stadium, the fans melt away, and the two titans slug it out like gundams. Cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau shoots the fights in a high frame rate, allowing Jordan and editor Tyler Nelson to speed up and slow down the action as needed.

Jordan’s performance is fearless. The key to the Rocky stories has always been just the right combination of strength and vulnerability. Jordan is not afraid to cry in an extended double close-up with Tessa Thompson or wear a frog onesie to a tea party with his hearing-impaired daughter. Majors is a perfect foil to Jordan, delivering a nuanced performance that, like Jordan in Black Panther, is not, strictly speaking, villainous. Creed III can go toe-to-toe with the heaviest hitters of boxing cinema.

Creed III
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