Monday night’s venue (Photo: Halloran Centre | Facebook)
By now, the much-ballyhooed first of two mayoral forums to be conducted by the Daily Memphian has come and gone. The five billed participants at Monday night’s event at the Halloran Centre were Paul Young, Michelle McKissack, J.W. Gibson, Frank Colvett, and Karen Camper.
The fact is, only one of these participants can be ranked among the leaders at this early pre-petition stage of the mayoral race. That would be Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Young, who is indisputably the most successful fundraiser among all the candidates.
Young reported $432,434.97 on hand in his second-quarter financial disclosure, just outdoing Sheriff Floyd Bonner, who reported $400,139.12. Young is also known to have significant support among the city’s business and civic social elite, who make up a large percentage of the donor class.
At this juncture, the main disadvantage facing Young vis-à-vis rival Bonner is a fairly enormous name-recognition gap favoring the sheriff, who has out-polled every other contestant for whatever position in each of the last two Shelby County elections.
Clearly, the need to narrow this gap is one reason, along with his undoubted public-spiritedness, that impels Young to take part, along with other relatively unknown candidates, in every public forum that comes along.
Keeping their distance from such events so far are Bonner and Willie Herenton, the even better-known former longtime mayor. Almost as hesitant to appear at such affairs has been local NAACP president and former County Commissioner Van Turner, who, like the other two, was absent Monday night, as he had been at a recent mayoral forum at First Congregational Church.
Turner, also, can claim a respectable degree of prior name recognition, and he brought into the mayoral race a fairly well-honed constituency among the city’s center to center-left voters.
The relevance of all this to this week’s forum, and to other such opportunities for exposure that may come along before petitions can be drawn on May 22nd, should be obvious. Those who need to enhance their share of public attention are likely to be attendees; those who feel more secure in their familiarity to the electorate may not be.
To be sure, both Bonner and Turner pleaded the fact of previously scheduled fundraising events as reasons for their absence on Monday night. A reliable rule of thumb in politics is that the existence of “prior commitments” can always be adduced to explain nonparticipation in a particular event.
Still, to win, it is necessary to be an active competitor, and Bonner, Herenton, and Turner, who — not coincidentally — topped the results in the only poll that has been made public so far, can be expected to rev things up in fairly short order. Bonner and Turner have been stalled somewhat by their ongoing litigation against a five-year residency requirement posited by the Election Commission.
That matter may be effectively resolved in Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins’ court at a scheduled May 1st hearing.
Herenton, meanwhile, has habitually stonewalled multi-candidate appearances throughout his long public career — out of apparent pride as much as anything else.
None of the foregoing is meant to suggest that other candidates, including the five involved Monday night, can’t break out of the pack. Politics is notoriously unpredictable.
Abraham Lincoln (Photo: Alexander Gardner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Here’s something of an ode to the South, my home for 30 years now. It’s called “Red States.” Enjoy.
Red States, where the state amphibian is the gerrymander; where the GOP supermajorities rule with a closed fist and minorities have no voice; where legislators are mostly rural, ignorant, and mean; where the governors are small men with small intellects and smaller hearts.
Red States, where Confederate flags still fly; where racism — subtle and blatant — still lives; and where its long, ugly history isn’t allowed to be taught in school.
Red States, where LGBTQ rights are threatened; where drag queens are vilified; where you can’t say gay (or gender) in school; where hateful ignorance (and lustful hypocrisy) comes dressed in the cheap suit of a rural preacher.
Red States, where books are banned; where libraries get unfunded; where public schools are starved and tax dollars go to private academies; where college students are urged to report their professors for thought crimes.
Red States, where abortion is murder; where forced pregnancy is the law; where doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and pharmacies must conform to a religious doctrine; where 10-year-old rape victims must carry their rapist’s baby to term.
Red States, where more people live in poverty; where salaries are lower; where hunger is more common; where more housing is substandard; where homelessness is rampant.
Red States, where voting is harder; where precincts are fewer in poor neighborhoods; where students have to jump through hoops to register; where you can’t offer rides to the polls or a cup of water to those waiting in line.
Red States, where hospitals are dying from a lack of funds because Obamacare was named for a Black man; where health insurance isn’t for everyone; where alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes kill more people; where the infant mortality rate is high and getting higher; where life expectancy is low and getting lower.
Red States, where guns are sacred totems untouchable by the laws of man; where you can buy a pistol in 10 minutes and walk out with it strapped to your body; where innocent people are slaughtered; where the shrieks from grieving families go unheard; where mass shootings by disturbed humans carrying weapons of war are a necessary sacrifice, an offering that must be made to the Holy Church of the NRA, blessed be thy name. …
Oh Lord. Amen.
I’m so sick of this shit, so sick to death of what is happening in our so-called red states. And I’m particularly angry — and sad — about how this hateful cabal is slow-murdering the American South, turning it into a one-party banana republic and rolling back the calendar to the 1950s for all who dare to color outside the lines.
Not all red states are Southern, but all Southern states are red (with the possible shaky exception of Georgia). And those of us living here are experiencing what the entire U.S. would look like under unbridled GOP rule. Yes, we reside in a “blue” city, but you have only to look 180 miles to the east, to Nashville, where now-unchecked GOP legislators are trying to take over the airport authority, and where they attempted to reduce the number of members of the Nashville Metro Council because it voted to reject holding the Republican National Convention there. And if these bozos are jacking with Nashville, just imagine what mischief they could do in Memphis — a city they already hate because we have the nerve to be majority Black. (Not to mention, that uppity Justin Pearson comes from here.)
So is there any hope of changing any of this? Yes. Tennessee, for example, was a blue state until a decade or so ago. We can hope that the gun-reform furor that erupted in the wake of The Covenant School shootings will sustain, here and elsewhere. We can hope the pro-choice vote that has swung elections around the country in the past few months will turn out in 2024. And we can hope that at some point the South will rise again. Only better.
I’m reminded of a closing line from Abraham Lincoln’s second Inaugural speech, given as the bloody Civil War was staggering to a finish. It summed up his hopes for his divided country: “With malice toward none,” he urged, “with charity for all.” Amen to that. Amen, amen.
In Evil Dead Rise, maybe mother doesn’t always know best.
The release of Evil Dead Rise, the big screen reboot of Sam Raimi’s influential horror-comedy franchise, makes it obvious that the general public is woefully unprepared for the eldritch horrors which surround us.
In writer/director Lee Cronin’s wildly fun film, residents of a condemned Los Angeles apartment building make many avoidable errors in their dealings with demonic undead forces and face fatal consequences. If you or someone you know is a Person Experiencing Demonic Infestation (PEDI), these nine safety tips could save your life — or at least make your death more entertaining.
1. Satanic troves: Whether you are exploring the dark, twisted forests of Tennessee or, like Danny (Morgan Davies), entering a deserted bank vault underneath your haunted apartment building whose existence was discovered thanks to a mysterious earthquake that only seemed to affect your block, be respectful of any Satanic or necromantic ritual objects you may encounter. A good rule of thumb is, if you didn’t bring it in, don’t take it out.
2. Infernal literature: Signs the book you just found in the Satanic trove may be infernal include: A. Its cover and binding are made from human flesh. B. It is covered in insects of unknown species. C. It contains horrifying illustrations in red ink that looks like human blood. D. It has a mouth and tries to bite you. If you find any tome exhibiting one or more of these traits, return it to its putrid canvas sack and rebury it. Remember: They call it The Book of the Dead for a reason.
3. Magic words:Should I say them? In general, no, you should not say aloud magic words written in infernal literature. Precautions like recording the words backwards on a 78 rpm record which is then buried in a bank vault until years after your death from demonic possession are useless if the person recovering the record is, like Danny, an aspiring DJ. However, if you or a PEDI nearby has already read some magic words, it may be necessary to read other magic words to undo the resulting demonic infestation and/or time travel. In this case, it is vitally important that you enunciate clearly. Remember: Magical incantation is best left to the experts, and they died a long time ago.
4. Interacting with the formerly deceased: Studies agree that coming back from the dead may sound fun, but in practice, it’s extremely dangerous. If you see someone you are certain was recently dead, like single mom Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), who is now ambulatory, DO NOT ENGAGE. What if, like Beth (Lily Sullivan), it’s your sister; or like Danny, Kassie (Nell Fisher), and Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), it’s your mother? Again, DO NOT ENGAGE. It’s not them, it’s a demon driving their hideously reanimated corpse like a rental car. Remember the safety phrase: “Mommy’s with the maggots now.”
5. Beware of contagion danger: While the initial rending of the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead requires magical intervention, demonic possession, once unleashed, can spread like a disease. Signs of impending PEDI status may include wounds that turn black and sprout spiderweb-like growths, excessive vomiting, and blood spurting from the eyes. Avoid contact with all fluids discharged from a PEDI.
6. Clear your escape route: When entering an abandoned cabin or haunted apartment building, always scope out an escape route, as you will inevitably need to flee. Make sure the path of your retreat is free from tripping hazards.
7. When in doubt, destroy the brain: Normal violence will not be enough to stop the undead, as they are technically dead already. Depending on what level of undead you’re dealing with, a solid headshot may or may not solve the problem, but it will usually slow them down enough to give you time to run.
8. Don’t stick around: Look, the dead are taunting you and trying to infect you with their evil. It doesn’t matter if they’re in your house, it’s their house now. Get the hell out! If you land a successful attack, don’t stick around to see what effect it will have on the PEDI. Just run.
9. Wood chippers:Friend or foe? It depends on who is at the controls. For advanced PEDI, mere dismemberment or immolation may not be enough to neutralize the threat. Complete bodily disruption, such as that provided by an industrial grinder, may be required. But be warned that total liquidation carries significant risk of cross contamination and, thus, the potential for further sequels.
Bud Light introduced a limited-edition Pride Bottle in 2019, with a portion of proceeds donated to GLAAD. (Photo: GLAAD | Facebook)
Bud Light has gone woke. Can you believe it? The tried-and-true, most America-hell-yeah beer ever apparently has an agenda, and folks are angry, by god.
Earlier this month, in a seemingly innocuous move, Bud Light partnered with trans activist and TikTok sensation Dylan Mulvaney. The 26-year-old is best known for her Days of Girlhood series of videos, where she’s documented her gender transition since early 2022. On April 1st, Mulvaney shared a video announcing some sort of beer-sponsored March Madness contest, and — to everyone’s dismay — that Bud Light sent her a tallboy with her face on it.
This made rock/hip-hop/country artist Kid Rock really mad. So mad he put on his MAGA hat and shot up a bunch of beers. In a video uploaded to his social media channels on April 3rd, the 52-year-old “American Bad Ass” said, “Grandpa’s feeling a little frisky today …” and proceeded to blast cases of Bud Light with a semi-automatic before adding, with a middle finger raised, “Fuck Bud Light. Fuck Anheuser-Busch. Have a terrific day.”
He hates those cans!
The backlash landslide continued from there, with conservatives across the country boycotting the brand — mostly by buying it and pouring it out or violently destroying it in one way or another and documenting the whole ordeal on social media. “Hey, let’s stop supporting Bud Light by buying Bud Light and fuggin’ it up! We’ll show them!”
An interesting thing to note is that Kid Rock’s down-home fan base is rallying behind a man who basically built his career on a false narrative. “I ain’t straight outta Compton, I’m straight out the trailer,” he proclaimed in the late-’90s hit “Cowboy.” The truth is, though, that Mr. Kid, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, was raised by well-to-do parents in a 5,600-square-foot house that sat on five-plus acres in a suburb of Detroit. His father owned several successful car dealerships, and Kid spent his younger days picking apples on the Ritchie orchard and helping care for the family horses. A real cowboy, that guy, just like the song says — but an affluent one who had a personal tennis court, indoor jacuzzi room, and five-car garage at his boyhood home. Hmm.
Another note of interest: Many boycotters boast they’ll now be drinking Corona (owned by Constellation Brands, which has publicly supported LGBTQ events — a Corona Pride rainbow flag can be found on its website). Or Coors (whose parent company, Molson Coors, has a variety of long-standing equality-focused programs, including Tap Into Change, which has raised more than $600,000 for LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS nonprofits since its inception). Or Miller (also owned by Molson Coors and has contributed $450,000 to the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Federation as part of the brand’s Open & Proud program). People are blindly boycotting Bud Light by switching to brands that also support diversity and inclusion! Gasp!
The fact that a pretend blue-collar Kid started this whole mess by murdering cans with a rifle when gun violence has become a national epidemic astounds me. And so many right-wing celebrities have gotten in line to bash the brand alongside him. What are they really pissed off about? Freedom of choice?
Could this have been a marketing ploy drummed up by Bud Light to rile and stir the public? We all know Bud is the equivalent of piss water, but allies everywhere are heading out in droves to buy the stuff to, eh, boycott the boycott. “We don’t like your beer, but we like what you’re doing! We’ll show them!”
Maybe we should take a second and figure out who “they” are. Who has the agenda? What are we supporting with our dollars? What is proven with mindless boycotts?
Trans rights and gun laws have been at the forefront of news cycles for months. Somehow, Kid Rock of all people brought beer into the mix of things that divide us. It’s all about as nonsensical as his lyrics. Bawitdaba it is.
First and foremost, Robert Allen Parker wants you to know he is a musician, not a director. Even so, for the better part of a decade, Parker found himself consumed in making a documentary on music in Memphis. That film — Meanwhile in Memphis: The Sound of a Revolution — premiered at the Indie Memphis Film Festival in 2013, and now it’s returning to the big screen for a special 10th anniversary screening at Malco Studio on the Square.
Meanwhile in Memphis, Parker explains, is an “overview of the modern Memphis music community from the late ’70s to roughly 2008. There’s all the old history — with Elvis, the blues, and B.B. King — that’s well-documented, but there’s not much on what’s happened since then. It was a big undertaking, but I had the drive and the ambition. That was kind of a risk and a gamble because I had never done anything film-related before.”
After a meeting by happenstance, Parker enlisted videographer Nan Hackman as co-director. “We were both wanting to promote the music scene and try to get out and do something,” he says. “She had the technical perspective to make it happen. She really made this happen.”
Together, Hackman, who has since passed, and Parker interviewed over a dozen artists and bands, including, among others, Jim Dickinson, Al Kapone, Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, Alicja-pop, and Mud Boy and the Neutrons. “We just wanted to tell the story of a couple of musicians, but of course then it grew bigger and bigger as we interviewed more people,” Parker says. “It basically expanded to a point to where it was really overwhelming. … And it became more of a historical document.”
With so much to work with, the direction of the film could have gone in a number of ways, Parker says, but ultimately, the through line that the filmmakers landed on was the “DIY mind” of Memphis musicians. “It doesn’t matter what genre of music they’re doing, just the fact of them being in Memphis and creating something here has an extra magical force to it. Whether it’s rap, garage, rock, blues, alternative, whatever, it’s a certain amount of DIY, like a raw passion. It’s not so much commercially driven. It’s just from the heart and soul. It’s something that you know it when you hear it and see it. … I got a new perspective on everything. It inspired me as musician.”
Because Hackman and Parker had so much footage, they ended up making a series of short films on a few of the artists interviewed, including one on Jim Dickinson which will accompany the Meanwhile in Memphis screening on Thursday. In between the short film and feature, Jimmy Crosthwait, the last living member of Mud Boy and the Neutrons, will perform with Parker and others backing him.
“When we made the documentary,” Parker reflects, “I wanted it to be made in a way where someone could watch it 10 or 20 years from then and for it to still be relevant.” So far, at the 10-year mark, the musician has found this to hold true.
Irony Your Mates Brewing Co. has recalled cans of its Watermelon Sour Beer because of “excess alcohol,” United Press International reported. The Australian brand said the beer could pose a risk of illness; it was unintentionally fermented twice, causing it to have a higher alcohol content and carbonation. The brand is sold in Queensland and online Down Under. [UPI, 3/7/2023]
Police Reports • Belinda H. Miller, 50, was in jail four days after a Feb. 18 incident at a Popeyes restaurant in Richmond County, Georgia, WJBF-TV reported. Miller became angry when her order was missing biscuits, the store’s manager told police, and the mistake was corrected — but that didn’t appease her. Instead, she allegedly drove her SUV into the store’s front window, narrowly missing a worker standing inside. She continued driving until debris inside the building stopped her car. Miller was charged with aggravated assault and criminal damage to property. [WJBF, 2/23/2023]
• Hayato Baba, 21, of Narashino, Japan, was taken into custody in March because he allegedly assaulted another man and stole his wallet outside a convenience store, Japan Today reported — all because the guy was taking too long in the restroom. Baba admitted to punching the victim twice in the face and taking the wallet. [Japan Today, 2/19/2023]
Creme de la Weird Already this year, representatives of a fictional country called the United States of Kailasa have participated in two meetings at the United Nations, Oddity Central reported. Founded by Indian fugitive and “supreme pontiff of Hinduism” Nithyananda Paramashivam, the virtual nation claims to be a sovereign state for Hindus who have been “persecuted for over a decade.” In January, Kailasa suggested it had been officially recognized by the United States of America through a sister-city agreement with Newark, New Jersey, but U.S. authorities later rescinded the arrangement. A U.N. representative explained the country’s access by saying the meetings are open to the public. [Oddity Central, 3/13/2023]
Awesome! How did your bracket hold up? If it busted, here’s some other basketball news that might cheer you up. Sporting goods company Wilson is reinventing the basketball, Oddity Central reported on March 13, with a new prototype that doesn’t require inflation. The Wilson Airless Prototype uses a “research-grade” polymer material to achieve the necessary bounce; the surface is a lattice design that keeps the traditional binding pattern so players can grip the seams of the ball more easily. There are still kinks to work out, including how to manage small objects that can get inside the ball. [Oddity Central, 3/13/2023]
Florida A flamboyant woman named Ashley Cream went before the Boca Raton Planning and Zoning Board on March 2 with a pressing concern: She suggested that March 10 should be designated Sugar Daddy and Mommy Appreciation Day. WFLA-TV reported that Cream, accompanied by an elderly man in a wheelchair, started her appeal by telling board members they were “looking absolutely fabulous, a little bit serious.” She went on to say that sugar daddies and mommies are “responsible for college educations, cars, homes, rents, jets, Birkin [bags], and the occasional body enhancement” — though she claimed to be “all natural” as she gestured toward her chest. Councilman Arnold Sevell replied that her idea is “a city council issue,” and she and her companion left the meeting. [WFLA, 3/10/2023]
Update News of the Weird reported in July 2022 that Dean Mayhew of Sussex, England, had his Tesco grocery loyalty card QR code tattooed on his arm. While Mayhew claims he has “no regrets” about the body art, Metro News reported on March 14 that after eight months, he’s saved only 18 British pounds’ worth of points. His goal is to save enough by the end of the year to pay for his Christmas food. “Sometimes when I go in there, the cashier doesn’t believe it’s real — I have to tell them, ‘Just scan it, please!’ and they’re shocked,” he said. “I love the tattoo so much.” [Metro News, 3/14/2023]
Reny Alfonso’s favorite catch phrase — “Does not suck yo!” — could apply to his career choice.
He almost had to become a chef.
“My grandmother, I remember vividly, every week we would pick a different country we were learning about and she would make something from that country,” says Alfonso, director of operations at Celtic Crossing and Bog & Barley.
Born in San José, Costa Rica, Alfonso remembers his grandmother making “straight-up paella” from Spain one time. “When we did the United States, she made apple pie.”
Alfonso loved being in the kitchen. “I’ve always liked the heart of where all the parties were.”
His father’s best friend, who held all-day cookouts at his house, taught Alfonso how to grill. “It would start out with sausage on the grill. And you’d eat that with some bread and some chimichurri. Someone would throw on some sweet breads and some octopus after that. A short rib would go on. Then a prime rib.
“The kids would be in the pool swimming and I’d be on the grill.”
Alfonso’s first restaurant job was Mark’s on the Grove in Coral Gables, Florida. One night, his brother-in-law couldn’t pick him up after work. “The chef said he would take me home. On the way home, we went to a bar. And I stood there at a bar having a beer with all the cooks and shit. And I said, ‘I definitely want to do this for the rest of my life.’
“For me, it was almost like finding a second family. A bunch of people with one direction and one goal. And just having a good time doing it at the same time.”
Alfonso, who went to culinary school at Johnson & Wales University – North Miami, worked his way through some of the top restaurants in Florida and New York.
In 2005, he became executive chef of Chez Philippe at The Peabody. “We changed the menu, the whole format, to a French-Asian concept.”
He began doing charcuterie after a trip to Austria, where he watched The Peabody’s pastry chef Konrad Spitzbart’s family cure meat. “I converted my house in Mud Island to a cure room. I had two cure boxes set up in my garage, three set up in The Peabody, and then I built a giant smoker in the garage at my house for cold smoking.”
The Chez Philippe menu featured “whatever was coming out of the cure box at the time of service. We did from snout to tail.”
In 2010, Alfonso moved to Philadelphia to work for Starr Restaurants for the next decade.
Alfonso’s friend DJ Naylor, who owns Celtic Crossing, told him his new restaurant idea. “He always had a dream to build something bigger than what a traditional Irish pub would be, but still with the heart and feel of an Irish pub.”
In 2021, Naylor and Alfonso began working on Naylor’s dream restaurant: Bog & Barley. “‘Bog’ is ‘from the earth.’ And ‘barley’ is for the whiskey aspect.
“The idea I had for this is, ‘Yes, it’s an Irish restaurant. And, yes, we have Irish dishes on the menu. But I don’t want to do them the way they’re stereotypically portrayed.’ I had managed so many different restaurants over the last 10, 15 years, I wanted to incorporate a little bit of what I learned at those restaurants.”
Alfonso keeps a little bit of Ireland in his non-Irish dishes. “I took steak au poivre and, instead of using brandy, we’re using Irish whiskey in the sauce. For the pork porterhouse, I’ve got an Irish cider glaze on it.”
Alfonse hired Joel Lemay as Bog & Barley’s executive chef and Max Williams as Celtic Crossing’s executive chef. “I’m in the kitchen with both of them.”
Alfonso doesn’t want Bog & Barley to be stuffy. “This restaurant, as fancy as it may look, is not a fancy restaurant. You can come in whenever you want and have whatever you want. It’s affordable.”
The restaurant is “approachable on a regular basis, not just a special occasion.”
Bog & Barley is at 6150 Poplar Avenue, Suite 124, in Regalia Shopping Center.
Life is messy and writing is messy. (Photo: Glenn Carstens-Peters | Unsplash)
The future tapped me quietly on the shoulder the other day and suggested that I take a moment to learn about the writing bots. They’re coming!
Excuse me, they’re here. And they struck me as alien invaders, this recent manifestation of artificial intelligence on the internet, which college students, high school students — anybody — can download, feed a topic, and get it to write an essay for them. Is this technology’s next step, after Roomba the robot vacuum cleaner? Humanity is relieved of one more odious task — writing stuff.
“The chatbot,” Kalley Huang pointed out recently in the New York Times, “generates eerily articulate and nuanced text in response to short prompts, with people using it to write love letters, poetry, fan fiction — and their schoolwork.” Apparently, all you need to do to get the AI bot to produce a piece of prose (or poetry?) is give it a subject and whatever other information is necessary to define the topic you want it to blather about. It can then access the entire internet for its data and produce whatever — your English paper, your love sonnet. The possibility of student cheating has suddenly become dire enough that college professors are starting to rethink their writing assignments.
I have some advice for them. But before I get to that, I need to calm my own pounding heart. Writing — to me, as a lifelong journalist, essayist, poet, editor, writing teacher — can be difficult as hell, but every hour devoted to a project is a wondrous adventure, a reach into the great unknown, a journey of discovery, of learning, of becoming. I have described the columns I write as “prayers disguised as op-eds,” and it’s that word, prayer, that swelled and started palpitating as I stumbled on the existence of the writing bot. Should we let AI start writing our prayers? Should we shrug and simply stop being our fullest selves? Life is messy and writing is messy — it has to be. Truth is messy. If we turn the writing process over to the AI bots, my existential fear is that humanity has taken a step toward ending its evolution, ensconcing itself in a prison of conveniences.
“Due to its free nature and ability to write human-like essays on almost any topic, many students have been reaching for this model for their university assignments,” according to the website PC Guide, focusing its attention on an AI bot called ChatGPT, which recently proved smart enough to pass a law bar exam. “And if you are a student hoping to use this in the future, you may have concerns about whether your university can detect ChatGPT.” These words start to get at my primary concern about the whole phenomenon: Critics are missing the point, as they lament that the university’s grading system is under assault. OMG, has cheating gotten easier?
And suddenly it gets clear. When it comes to writing, there’s always been a gaping hole in the American educational system, a mainstream misunderstanding of the nature — the value — of actually learning to write … finding your words, finding your wisdom, finding your voice. Let me repeat: Finding your voice. That’s where it starts. Without it, what do you have? I fear this is a silent question that plagues way too many students — way too many people of all ages — who were taught, or force-fed, spelling and grammar and the yada yada of thematic construction: opening paragraph, whatever, conclusion.
I quote my mentor and longtime friend, the late Ken Macrorie, one of the teachers who bucked this system oh so many decades ago, when I was an undergraduate at Western Michigan University. He was a professor in the English department: “This dehydrated manner of producing writing that is never read is the contribution of the English teacher to the total university,” he wrote in his 1970 book, Uptaught. He was writing about his own career. He was trapped in a system that disdained most undergrads and their writing and often managed to force the worst out of them, aka academic writing, such as: “I consider experience to be an important part in the process of learning. For example, in the case of an athlete, experience plays an important role.”
Dead language! May it rest in peace. Artificial intelligence can no doubt do just as well, probably a lot better. Macrorie quoted this oh so typical example in his book — the kind of writing that is devoid of not only meaning but soul. His breakthrough discovery was what he called free writing: He had his students, on a regular basis, sit down and write for 20 minutes or longer without stopping — just let the words flow, let fragments of truth emerge, and share what you have written. Worry later about spelling, grammar, and such. First you have to find your voice.
I wound up taking his advanced writing class in 1966, two years after he began using free writing as his starting place. Wow. I found my way in … into my own soul. I learned that truth is not sheerly an external entity to be found in some important book. We all have it within us. Doing a “free write” is a means of panning for gold.
And this is the context in which I ponder this recent bit of techno-news: that students don’t have to rely on plagiarism to fake an essay. They can simply prompt a bot and let it do the work.
But that’s not the essence of our social dilemma. As long as the system — let’s call it artificial education — focuses on “teaching to the test” and insists on reducing individual intelligence to a number, and in so many ways ignores and belittles the complex and awakening potential of each student, we have a problem. AI isn’t the cause, but it helps expose it.
Robert Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. He is the author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): According to a study by Newsweek magazine, 58 percent of us yearn to experience spiritual growth; 33 percent report having had a mystical or spiritual experience; 20 percent of us say we have had a revelation from God in the last year; and 13 percent have been in the presence of an angel. Given the astrological omens currently in play for you Aries, I suspect you will exceed all those percentages in the coming weeks. I hope you will make excellent use of your sacred encounters. What two areas of your life could most benefit from a dose of divine assistance or intervention? There’s never been a better time than now to seek a deus ex machina. (More info: tinyurl.com/GodIntercession)
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): After the fall of the Roman Empire, political cohesion in its old territories was scarce for hundreds of years. Then a leader named Charlemagne (747–814) came along and united much of what we now call Western Europe. He was unusual in many respects. For example, he sought to master the arts of reading and writing. Most other rulers of his time regarded those as paltry skills that were beneath their dignity. I mention this fact, Taurus, because I suspect it’s a propitious time to consider learning things you have previously regarded as unnecessary or irrelevant or outside your purview. What might these abilities be?
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I’m turning this horoscope over to Nigerian poet Ijeoma Umebinyuo. She has three messages that are just what you need to hear right now. 1. “Start now. Start where you are. Start with fear. Start with pain. Start with doubt. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling but start. Start and don’t stop. Start where you are, with what you have.” 2. “You must let the pain visit. You must allow it to teach you. But you must not allow it to overstay.” 3. “Write a poem for your 14-year-old self. Forgive her. Heal her. Free her.”
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Historical records tell us that Chinese Emperor Hongwu (1328–1398) periodically dealt with overwhelming amounts of decision-making. During one 10-day phase of his reign, for example, he was called on to approve 1,660 documents concerning 3,391 separate issues. Based on my interpretation of the planetary omens, I suspect you may soon be called on to deal with a similar outpouring. This might tempt you toward over-stressed reactions like irritation and self-medication. But I hope you’ll strive to handle it all with dignity and grace. In fact, that’s what I predict you will do. In my estimation, you will be able to summon the extra poise and patience to manage the intensity.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Is it even possible for us humans to live without fear — if even for short grace periods? Could you or I or anyone else somehow manage to celebrate, say, 72 hours of freedom from all worries and anxieties and trepidations? I suspect the answer is no. We may aspire to declare our independence from dread, but 200,000 years of evolution ensures that our brains are hardwired to be ever-alert for danger. Having provided that perspective, however, I will speculate that if anyone could approach a state of utter dauntlessness, it will be you Leos in the next three weeks. This may be as close as you will ever come to an extended phase of bold, plucky audacity.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Dear Sunny Bright Cheery Upbeat Astrologer: You give us too many sunny, bright, cheery, upbeat predictions. They lift my mood when I first read them, but later I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ Because, yeah, they come true, but they usually cause some complications I didn’t foresee. Maybe you should try offering predictions that bum me out, since then I won’t have to deal with making such big adjustments. — Virgo Who is Weary of Rosy Hopeful Chirpy Horoscopes.” Dear Virgo: You have alluded to a key truth about reality: Good changes often require as much modification and adaptation as challenging changes. Another truth: One of my specialties is helping my readers manage those good changes. And by the way: I predict the next two weeks will deliver a wealth of interesting and buoyant changes.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Poet Pablo Neruda wrote, “Let us look for secret things somewhere in the world on the blue shores of silence.” That might serve as a good motto for you in the coming weeks. By my astrological reckoning, you’ll be wise to go in quest for what’s secret, concealed, and buried. You will generate fortuitous karma by smoking out hidden agendas and investigating the rest of the story beneath the apparent story. Be politely pushy, Libra. Charmingly but aggressively find the missing information and the shrouded rationales. Dig as deep as you need to go to explore the truth’s roots.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): We’ve all done things that make perfect sense to us, though they might look nonsensical or inexplicable to an outside observer. Keep this fact in your awareness during the next two weeks, Scorpio. Just as you wouldn’t want to be judged by uninformed people who don’t know the context of your actions, you should extend this same courtesy to others, especially now. At least some of what may appear nonsensical or inexplicable will be serving a valuable purpose. Be slow to judge. Be inclined to offer the benefit of the doubt.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I completely understand if you feel some outrage about the lack of passion and excellence you see in the world around you. You have a right to be impatient with the laziness and carelessness of others. But I hope you will find ways to express your disapproval constructively. The best approach will be to keep criticism to a minimum and instead focus on generating improvements. For the sake of your mental health, I suggest you transmute your anger into creativity. You now have an enhanced power to reshape the environments and situations you are part of so they work better for everyone.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In the 17th century, renowned Capricorn church leader James Ussher announced he had discovered when the world had been created. It was at 6 p.m. on October 22 in the year 4004 BCE. From this spectacularly wrong extrapolation, we might conclude that not all Capricorns are paragons of logic and sound analysis 100 percent of the time. I say we regard this as a liberating thought for you in the coming weeks. According to my analysis, it will be a favorable time to indulge in wild dreams, outlandish fantasies, and imaginative speculations. Have fun, dear Capricorn, as you wander out in the places that singer Tom Petty referred to as “The Great Wide Open.”
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): We often evaluate prospects quantitatively: How big a portion do we get, how much does something cost, how many social media friends can we add? Quantity does matter in some cases, but on other occasions may be trumped by quality. A few close, trustworthy friends may matter more than hundreds of Instagram friends we barely know. A potential house may be spacious and affordable, but be in a location we wouldn’t enjoy living in. Your project in the coming weeks, Aquarius, is to examine areas of your life that you evaluate quantitatively and determine whether there are qualitative aspects neglected in your calculations.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Dear Dr. Astrology: Help! I want to know which way to go. Should I do the good thing or the right thing? Should I be kind and sympathetic at the risk of ignoring my selfish needs? Or should I be a pushy stickler for what’s fair and true, even if I look like a preachy grouch? Why is it so arduous to have integrity? — Pinched Pisces.” Dear Pisces: Can you figure out how to be half-good and half-right? Half-self-interested and half-generous? I suspect that will generate the most gracious, constructive results.
It was a dark day in 1989 for Memphis music fans when word got out that the old Stax Records building on McLemore, then owned by the Southside Church of God in Christ, was slated to be demolished. It had been in disrepair for some time, unused since the company’s 1975 involuntary bankruptcy, with crumpled PR photos and odd reels of tape scattered in the debris, languishing in limbo between the hopeful past and an uncertain future. Ironically, Stax fans had only seemed to multiply in the meantime. On this day, those in Memphis worked their landline phones, alerting others to a protest that was brewing.
Deanie Parker, who had headed artist relations and publicity at Stax before it was forced to close, was in on that phone tree, but she was not having it. “I started getting phone calls from people who knew me, and they said, ‘We’re getting ready to protest the razing of the Stax building!’ And I said, ‘Okay.’ And they asked, ‘Are you going to join us, are you coming?’ And my attitude was, ‘What good is it going to do? Why are we trying to save a run-down building that was already run-down when we converted the theater into a studio? Who in the hell is in the building? Is it doing any good? Are they cutting any records there? Are they providing jobs for anybody? What the hell — let ’em tear it down!’ And I felt badly after I had done that because I understood their passion, and I knew what they were trying to do. But this was deeper for me. What was that raggedy-ass building going to do? It wasn’t going to bring Stax back.”
Deanie Parker at Stax (Photo: Courtesy the Concord API Stax Collection | Bill Carrier Jr. All rights reserved)
Parker, as it turned out, was playing the long game. She knew better than anybody that Stax’s magic wasn’t in the building’s walls, but in the people who walked its halls. Now, nearly three and a half decades after the original building bit the dust, those faithfully reconstructed walls are celebrating their 20th year of being peopled again, animated by the same spirit that made Stax unique in the first place. On the eve of a 20th anniversary gala on April 29th, Parker notes that the creation of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music benefited from “the things that happen when people are working together. Allowing their creativity to take over, in the spirit of cooperation.”
Or, as executive director Jeff Kollath says of the Stax Museum now, “This is such a people-driven endeavor. And this is a Memphis people-driven endeavor.”
Carla Thomas and Al Jackson Jr. (Photo: Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music)
The Birth of the Soulsville Foundation
The campus built around the Soulsville Foundation, under which the museum, the Stax Music Academy, and the Soulsville Charter School operate, is striking in just how closely it resembles Parker’s original vision. Called to protest the building’s demolition or to invest in a Stax-themed nightclub on Beale Street, Parker instead asked, “What’s wrong with a museum and a companion school of some sort, an academy or a performing arts center?” She recalls telling other parties, “I’d like for people to study and preserve and promote what we did. And pass it on, with an educational component and a museum that people could come and see.”
By the early ’90s, the working group sharing Parker’s vision called itself CISUM, reverse-spelling the word at the center of it all, having architectural renderings made and securing a license to use the Stax name for some 20 years. Nothing came of that, but by the decade’s end, Sherman Willmott of Shangri-La Records had started a new nonprofit, Ewarton, using letters from the names of Stax’s co-founders, Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, that had not been used when “Stax” was coined.
After years of false starts, Parker recalls, “What I said to them was, ‘It’s about doing the right thing, and it’s about damn time! So count me in.’ And that was where we started. Sherman and I worked together, and he was busy procuring artifacts from everywhere and anywhere. And a curator, he was not! But nevertheless, he had the passion and the vision and he was making hay while the sun was shining.”
And, Parker’s lack of interest in the old building notwithstanding, the original lot on McLemore Avenue was a prime concern. “We felt very strongly that success rested on us getting the original site back. There’s something spiritual about that place, I’m telling you. It wasn’t in that raggedy building. It was a sense of place. A sense of place.”
Soul Comes Home
That in turn led to a change in priorities. “We were driven by building the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. But then I became reaquainted with that community and realized how that area had decayed after Stax was closed. That area had deteriorated beyond recognition. People didn’t give a damn because they felt that they had been thrown away and that nobody cared. So it was good that the board decided to switch horses, and you know what we finished and cut the ribbon on first? The Stax Music Academy. That was opened a year before the museum.”
Meanwhile, as Ewarton became the Soulsville Foundation, seeing a new museum facility take shape according to the blueprints of Stax Records’ original home was emotional for many. “Every day until that museum was opened, I walked from the front door to the back door of that place,” says Parker, “and the day that I walked through there and didn’t cry, I knew we had achieved what we were trying to do. By that time I was too tired; I was all cried out! It was an emotional thing, seeing it come alive.”
True to the Stax spirit, that also meant reuniting the people who’d made the label what it was. As befitting a people-driven enterprise, Parker was the ideal recruiter. “One of my responsibilities at Stax Records had been artist relations. And as the publicist, I was acquainted with all of them in some way. I was connected,” she says. But she found that it wasn’t as straightforward as she’d hoped. “I focused on galvanizing the Stax family. But I got mixed responses. Some of us left there bitter. People who were essentially told to go to hell, with nobody ever saying, ‘Thank you.’ Some of us left there with all kinds of damn baggage — baggage that I’m still finding out about today.”
Nonetheless, most of them were moved by the finished space. Touring the museum with his extended family, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn enthused that everything looked the same but now had air conditioning (the original space had none). “After it opened, Eddie Floyd told me, ‘I went through there 12 times.’ They were ecstatic,” says Parker. “It was tangible evidence of Memphians finally celebrating what we thought was great and wonderful.” The greatest celebration was not the ribbon cutting on May 2, 2003, but the concert at the Orpheum Theatre anticipating it. Dubbed Soul Comes Home, the Stax and Memphis music reunion concert (featured on this week’s cover) included Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the MGs, Mavis Staples, the Rance Allen Group, Jean Knight, Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Carla Thomas, Ann Peebles, Al Green, Jimmie Vaughan, and other luminaries.
William Bell, Johnnie Taylor, and Carla Thomas (Photo: Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music)
Back to the Future
Now, 20 years later, it’s impossible to imagine the Soulsville neighborhood without the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the Stax Music Academy, or the Soulsville Charter School. The museum alone has hosted enough art exhibits, book discussions, and music events to keep it at the forefront of ever-evolving scholarship on American soul music. But over time, the exhibits themselves have not evolved much — until now.
The 20-year mark has inspired some long-overdue makeovers to the museum this year. As Jeff Kollath points out, “The public isn’t really aware how much our collection has grown in the last five to 10 years. We see it because our shelves are full, and we’re always connecting with new objects and new materials in the archives. [Collections manager/archivist] Leila Hamdan is doing a lot of organizing and getting a better handle on some of our documents.”
Now some of that will see the light of day, but, Kollath stresses, “This isn’t an expansion. We’re prettying the place up and changing some things out for the first time in 20 years. And we’ll have a rolling, gradual opening of new exhibits. We’ll be correcting errors, especially where they have birth and death dates. Some things have aged out. And we’ll include more Memphis history: how Stax sprang up in this city, and what about this city made that happen? The big thing is relating the end of Stax Records as accurately and as engagingly as possible. Currently, the end of Stax is on three oval panels with no photographs; it’s a book on a wall. And it’s not totally accurate, either. People want to say Stax was dead, but it never really died. Obviously we’re the legacy of that.”
Retelling the story of Stax Records’ latter days will also include a heightened focus on the political activism of the era. “We started looking at that side of Stax Records in 2018 with the ‘Give a Damn’ exhibition we did at Crosstown Arts,” says Kollath. “That was built around activism at Stax. Artists felt more compelled to speak out, to act, and became more involved in the community here in Memphis, and in the case of Isaac Hayes becoming internationally involved in charitable pursuits. That peaked with future presidential candidate Jesse Jackson acting as Isaac Hayes’ hype man at the WattStax festival. There’s all these reminders of the cultural and political impact of Stax that I don’t think are addressed enough.” Look for more of that, not to mention Rufus Thomas’ blazing-hot pink hot pants, as this anniversary year progresses.
The Night Train and the Church
Having duly recognized the sociopolitical impact of Stax, it should be noted that the prevailing mood at the Soulsville Foundation these days is more in line with those hot pants: “Let’s party!” This museum does not take the launch of its third decade lightly, and from 7 p.m. till midnight on April 29th, its walls will witness some serious celebrations. As Soulsville Foundation president and CEO Pat Mitchell Worley says, “The party itself is a trip through Black music. That’s why we call it the Night Train Gala. It reflects how important the train has been historically for African Americans, as far as travel, especially in the South. It’s how the Chicago Defender was delivered to the South, when Pullman porters would give copies of the Defender to people who wanted news that was important to African Americans. The trains went through the South and then up North, mirroring the map of how music was moving.”
Pat Mitchell Worley (Photo: (Photo: Courtesy Stax Museum of American Soul Music)
Such an implied journey, complete with signature drinks and Pullman porters in each room, will underscore the degree to which the Stax Museum is indeed representative of all American soul music, as party patrons move through different stages in the evolution of Black music. “We’re owning that we’re the global capital of soul,” says Mitchell Worley. “The event will start with Shardé Thomas’ Rising Stars Fife & Drum Band to give that nod to Mississippi, and then we’ll move to jazz with Joyce Cobb and then on to a capella doo-wop. Then we’ll come to the sweet soul music, with our Stax Music Academy Alumni Band performing with special guests. A couple of Stax artists will jump up for a song or two. That’s going to be fun! From there we’ll go into hip-hop ciphering and spoken word, in recognition of those styles’ place in the story of African Americans. It’s an important piece because from the ciphering came rap. So we’ll end with the hip-hop piece and a multiple DJ battle focused on all the Stax songs that have been sampled. It’ll be interactive, so if people know the song that was sampled, they can go put it up on the board. Sort of like the Soul Train board!”
Yet as the party righteously rages on, patrons would do well to remember the quiet, beating heart at the center of the Soulsville Foundation, embodied in the first thing that most patrons see when entering the museum: a little country church, fully reconstructed, that represents both Stax’s musical roots and its people-centered mission. In this case, it’s a direct expression of Deanie Parker’s people. “My grandparents were buried on a lot at Hooper’s Chapel A.M.E. Church in Duncan, Mississippi,” she says. “It was the first church I ever attended in my life. One weekend when I took my mother down, over 20 years ago, she looked at the church and said, ‘I’m afraid that one day lightning is going to strike this church, and I don’t know if I could bear to see it burn. I’d almost rather tear it down.’ And I thought to myself, ‘What a wonderful opportunity it could be if we could dismantle this church, move it to Memphis, reassemble it so that it would fit into that Stax museum, and serve as a means of helping people appreciate the roots of soul music.’”
That church still stands in the heart of Soulsville today, much as Parker’s original dream stands in the form of the museum, the music academy, and the charter school. “Those three programs are dynamic and make the Soulsville campus and foundation distinctly different from any other in the world,” she says with more than a little pride. “Because we’re doing exactly what I dreamt we should do the first time I had an opportunity to communicate my vision: to showcase and preserve the incredible contributions of Stax Records, and to pass on and teach that style of music. And most importantly, we’re doing something for the children.”
