Prescott Porkers at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Prescott Porkers can now say its barbecue is “award-winning.”
The team placed ninth in pork shoulders at the 2023 Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, which was held May 17th through 20th in Tom Lee Park.
“This is our first placement right here,” says Garrett Sapp, 23, Prescott Porkers co-head chef with Chase Smith. “Finally, we got our first trophy for our team.”
One thing that sets them apart besides their barbecue is their age. “Our median age is 23, 24,” Sapp says. “I think the youngest person is 22.”
Sapp grew up around barbecue. His dad, Roger Sapp, co-owner/co-founder of Central BBQ, also participates in the Memphis in May event. “I’ve been going to barbecue fest since I was about two,” Garrett says. “My dad would bring me there in a wagon.”
Garrett was familiar with the grill at a young age. “Probably when I was younger, backyard barbecuing. Burgers and stuff like that. Grilling by the pool.”
He began smoking meat during his freshman year of college. “Dipped my toe in that. I had a small smoker attached to the side of my grill. Eighteen. Nineteen.”
The time then came for Garrett to make the break from his dad’s team. “Once I got old enough I said, ‘Why don’t we start a team for the new generation?’”
Garrett Sapp, co-head cook in the Prescott Porkers team (Credit: Michael Donahue)
As for why they chose the name Prescott Porkers, Garrett explains, “About five of us lived on Prescott Street during college. We all knew each other and watched football games and all that stuff and cooked meat and grilled.”
Garrett didn’t give away any secrets, but, he says, “We injected this year to get some flavor inside of that meat.”
He injected the shoulders with a mixture of apple juice and their seasonings.
They also added a glaze to “add some moisture on the outside. It gives it a really good bite.”
Garrett says they also tried commercial sauces made by other award-winning barbecue teams before coming up with their own sauce this year. “Seeing what they do and modeling it after that.”
He described their sauce as “smokey and sweet. And it’s got a tail end of heat.”
Their sauce is “not too spicy,” but, he says, “That’s something we might add in the future. We might end up doing two sauces.”
That’s to give the judges some options, he adds.
Garrett and Smith focus on the shoulders and wings. They let other teammates, who want to get involved, barbecue the seafood and turkey.
Val Smith and Austin Williams at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
And, Garrett says, “We do have fun and like to party, but we are very focused on the meat.”
The day before the judging, Garrett and Chase are “all in the back of the house prepping and getting ready. We’re trying to earn a little respect from the older guys. I know that we’re young.”
So, is the idea in the back of Garrett’s head to maybe one day open his own barbecue restaurant? “Not for me. But our other head cook, Chase Smith, mentioned to me about doing a Texas-style barbecue and mixing Texas and Memphis styles together.”
The Prescott Porkers’ goal for the 2024 Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest isn’t surprising. “We want to place again. And place every year if we can.”
Some guy with some barbecue at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Gates)Clark Shifani and Ben Prudhomme at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Kylan Chandler, Montae Nevels, Kim Jackson, Marcus Moore, Kandace Moore, Rosalind Chandler at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Stephanie, Walter, and Paul Stephens at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Taylor and Savannah at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Travis and Ayden Markham at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Natasha Gooden, Sam Mensa, Marquita McClain at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Robert Teems, Auburn Underwood, Samantha Bisignano at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Alex West at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Kandie Dogan, Mark McGuire, Dr. Audrey Elion at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Connor Ryan and Alexandra Lucchesi at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Claire Rossie, Ellen Kaplan, Kristi Muniz at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Porter Kelly, Ben Turner, Sumner Ford, Frank Pitt at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Tannar and Maggie Rehrer at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Ronan and Kevin Keough at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue)Memphis in May president and CEO Jim Holt at Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (Credit: Michael Donahue) We Saw You
One of the hallmarks of Louise Page’s sound is the arranging skill she brings to her songs. Her solid piano playing always keeps things grounded, but her crack band often supplements that with horns, inventive rock guitar, and other elements. That’s not the case with her latest album, though. The whole point of Play Nice, an album written and recorded during the first year of the pandemic and released in 2021, is to strip all of that away. Befitting the isolation of those times, the album presents only a singer and her piano: intimate, raw, and real.
The unvarnished sound is matched with some of her most personal lyrics as well, and that’s one of the striking qualities of this single, “Little Icarus,” where she questions both her own trustworthiness and that of her lover or other person in her life. And yet, like the fabled mortal of Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun and suffered for it, there’s a romantic yearning in the song as well. It’s a theme ripe for bringing to life visually, and Page, director Ben Siler, and producer Chris McCoy (the Memphis Flyer’s film editor) have done so with stunning clarity.
As Page herself writes, “I’ve always loved using mythological references in my music, and the story of Icarus has been one that I’ve loved for quite some time — it has inspired so much art, both ancient and contemporary. Something I loved about working with director Ben Siler was his interest in making homages both to the original story of Icarus and also to the various works across time inspired by Icarus.”
Look for local rapper and producer Lawrence Matthews for his star turn as Icarus here. Often celebrated for crafting his own videos with a painterly sense of the visual, he brings that same attention to detail and artful integration to this project. And if the song asks some tough questions, it also revels in romance, with palpable chemistry between Page and Matthews as the video progresses.
“Little Icarus”
As Page further contemplates the song and the video, there is certainly love here, but … it’s complicated. “From my perspective as the writer, the song ‘Little Icarus’ is a love song, albeit a tragic one, that the Sun is singing to Icarus,” she writes. “My thought process was, while the sun isn’t a personified character in the original myth, the sun is responsible for melting Icarus’ wings. One might say the sun is responsible for his downfall — although most would say his own hubris brought about his fall. This thought process of personifying the sun became a metaphor for myself and my own fears about hurting others and being hurt by love.”
Page is also quick to share the credit for this vivid teleplay with her collaborators. “Ben Siler, the director, had the idea of there being two Louises in the video — one inspired by Sun God imagery and one more inspired by David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth. These two versions of self are open to interpretation by the viewer. Is one version of Louise reality and the other fantasy? If so, which is which? It’s up to the viewer to decide.”
The absence of Shawn Cripps and his band, Limes (aka The Limes), on the local scene is still difficult to process for many. His death in a highway accident at the age of 55 in 2021 was so sudden as to seem surreal, especially because his art — in the form of three celebrated albums and even more unreleased material — lives on so vividly. As reported in 2019, The Limes’ “mesh of crunchy guitar tones, sharp rock rhythms, and Cripps’ acerbic lyrics” occupied a niche all their own in the local scene.
This weekend, as part of the ongoing River Series at the Harbor Town Amphitheater, a group of his friends and fellow musicians will offer some closure as they honor Cripps’ unique, unflinching talent. They’ll be opening for headliners Spider Bags, who were also friends and fans of Cripps.
I spoke with Chris Owen, who helped organize the ad hoc group known simply as “Limes Tribute,” about the challenges of recreating the sound of The Limes, the way Cripps’ songs captured the imaginations of die hard fans, and how those songs inspired them to form groups of their own.
Memphis Flyer:Who will be playing in Limes Tribute? Were they all in The Limes at some point?
Chris Owen: Yeah, the core is me and Jack [Oblivian], who played with Shawn a lot, and Tim Prudhomme, who played with Shawn a few times. And then the Spider Bags guys — we went on tour with them twice. There were a few bands that idolized Shawn for whatever reason. He was kind of an enigma, in the sense that he was just a normal person sitting at the bar, like many of us here in Memphis, and then you go out on tour with them and inevitably at every show some crazy fan would come up who just worshiped him. It was an era when it was really cool to know a band that no one else knew, when I was playing with him, which was around 2008-10. Because Shawn was my friend, he was just another musician. But once we got on that first tour, it was like, ‘Oh, this guy is very well liked!’ So it was always fun to meet people that were just obsessed with his music. Dan [McGee] from Spider Bags was one of those people, and so we ended up going on tour with them.
I guess the bands and artists who dug him so much are real songwriters’ bands. Was it his unique lyrical approach that they dug most about him?
I think the inclinations of a songwriter would certainly guide you to Shawn’s music, but also I think his guitar playing was so strange that people had a hard time figuring it out sometimes. I know for a fact that everybody that’s ever played with him was constantly trying to figure out what the hell he was doing. And I don’t think anybody ever did. Playing with Shawn was very seat of your pants. Sometimes it would be a disaster and other times it would be euphoric. He would use standard tuning but he he stayed in this G chord kind of thing — I think most of his songs are in G, but he could make a G chord sound 10,000 different ways.
Did he lead The Limes through their arrangements?
Well, his picking style was really strange. He didn’t have any training. It was all just him sitting in his apartment with a guitar and singing all the time, and it created this very unique sound. The songs are built off of the nuances that those of us that have played with him could hear, enough of to sort of form an arrangement around them. He had no idea that that was even there. Like he couldn’t say, ‘Oh, yeah, it goes like this.’ It would just be something that came out of the garden of his music, and we all just tried to pick those things out. Make sense? Some of the more unique arrangements are just things that Jack and Harlan [T. Bobo] picked out of Shawn’s craziness and said, ‘Okay, well, you’re doing this here. Let’s make that a part of the song, let’s make that a theme.’ I don’t know what you’d call that but he was like a genius who doesn’t know they’re a genius.
The Limes at Gonerfest 16 in 2019. L-R, Shawn Cripps, Chris Owen, Jack Oblivian, and Seth Moody. (Credit: Alex Greene)
What was your time in The Limes like?
I got to know the most of those guys, Jack and Harlan and everybody, and started hanging around, and at some point Shawn asked me to play drums. I was like, ‘Dude, I’m not a drummer.’ And he was like, ‘I know, that’s why I want you to play drums.’ Finally he convinced me and I went on three tours. So that that line up was me and this girl Stephanie Richards. She was part of the co-op scene and played bass with us. She was very melodic and complex, and she had an innate ability to key in on what Shawn was doing. She passed away about seven or eight years ago, from gastrointestinal cancer. She died super young too; it was really sad.
So we went on three tours with that line up: west coast, east coast, and then a little southern/southwest tour. And we recorded probably three records that no one has ever heard. Shawn probably recorded 20 albums and only three of them have ever been put out. We did some stuff with Doug Easley, and he’s got a reel somewhere in his collection. We actually mixed it and everything and Shawn just never did anything with it. He was was never finished with anything. You know, it was always, ‘Oh, I’ve got a little bit more work to do on that,’ and then years would go by and nothing would ever come of it. He was so prolific, but had a hard time getting it out there, you know?
Will you be playing any of that unreleased material on Saturday?
Yeah, I’m going to play a song called “Hey Killer” that was part of that period of his writing. Eventually there’s potentially going to be a collection of his unreleased stuff. They located all the reels and his notebooks and everything.
He tended to record to tape, didn’t he?
He was recording on reel-to-reel tape machines he had in those later years. He had a fascination with those things. And one of his frustrations was that could never find somebody to work on them. So he just started tearing them apart and putting them back together again, and ended up being able to fix a lot of the old stuff that he was buying. He got them working and so he did a lot of recording on old ’70s-era, reel to reel machines.
It must be difficult, putting together a set without him.
We’re going to try not to be trying, so as to embody Shawn’s ethos, and not be stressed about anything. It was really hard to get Shawn to do anything if he didn’t want to play music. He wasn’t like a regularly disciplined kind of guy. He’d say ‘Hey, I got a show, you know, let’s practice.’ So I guess it’s apropos for The Limes to be slapdash. It’ll be quick and dirty, for sure. We’re anticipating having a couple of acoustic jams. Just people playing songs that they like, and sort of ramping up to a full bands for a few numbers, depending on what Spider Bags want to do. And then of course, the Spider Bags are amazing.
You know, you never really think about how valuable people are to you until they’re gone. And Shawn was a perfect example of that, because we spent so much time together and that was just a normal part of life, to have him around. Now that he’s been gone for a year and a half, I’m realizing he inadvertently had a huge effect on my life. And a lot of other people’s, too. Without even trying! He could just so casually change somebody’s life. He was a magic man, for sure.
The River Series at the Harbor Town Amphitheater, featuring Limes Tribute and Spider Bags, takes place Saturday, May 20, 4-7:30 p.m., behind the Maria Montessori School. $10 for adults, $5 for children. All proceeds support the Maria Montessori School.
Vin Diesel and Daniela Melchior do car-related things in FAST X. (Courtesy Universal Pictures)
Did you know The Fast & The Furious, the 2001 film that started it all, was named for a 1954 B-picture by Roger Corman? The legendary schlockmeister traded the title for access to Universal Studio’s stock footage library. Now, it’s a billion dollar franchise that made Vin Diesel a household name and street racing cool.
This weekend, the tenth and perhaps last (or second-to-last, or even third-to-last, depending on who you believe) film in the series, Fast X, premieres. What’s it about? Who cares? Big muscle guys make cars go vroom.
In other car-related Memphis movie news, this month’s Time Warp Drive-In is on Saturday (May 20), and the theme is “Sing-A-Long Sinema: Mad Musicals in May.” The opener is based on a Roger Corman film (there’s that name again) from 1960 that became a classic musical in 1986. Little Shop of Horrors is directed by Frank Oz (yeah, the Muppet guy) and stars Rick Moranis as Seymour, a florist with a taste for the exotic who finds a plant from outer space. It’s a hit for the flower shop, owned by Mr. Mushnick (Vincent Gardenia), but Seymour’s got a secret. The plant, named Audrey II, is sentient, has an amazing singing voice (provided by Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops), and thirsts for human blood. When Audrey II offers to help Seymour land his love interest Audrey I (Ellen Greene in an all-time great supporting role) by disappearing her dentist boyfriend (Steve Martin, in an all-time great dual cameo with Bill Murray), things get interesting. The doo-wop revival songs, the impeccable puppetry, and a cast of legends at the top of their game, make Little Shop of Horrors an absolute must-see for people who like to have fun.
The second musical of the evening probably needs no introduction. So I won’t give it one. Instead, let’s just watch John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd cook with an all-star band, including Memphis muscle men Duck Dunn, Steve Cropper, and Matt “Guitar” Murphy, while reflecting on the fact that Belushi broke his foot the night before he filmed this scene.
Rounding out this absolute unit of a triple bill is The Wiz. The 1978 Sidney Lumet film is an all-Black musical adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, with a score by Quincy Jones. When Indie Memphis revived it at the drive-in in 2020, it was a blast and a half. Watch Micheal Jackson slay, even though he’s stuck on a pole as The Scarecrow.
The Time Warp Drive-In is Saturday, May 20 at the Malco Summer Drive-In. Show starts as dusk.
Chris Dean recently remembered a conversation he had with filmmaker Tom Shadyac, in which Shadyac asked him what the South Memphis community needed. Dean recounted going to a neighborhood meeting that was held at a church next to LeMoyne-Owen college and being handed a physical list of everything required to improve the area.
As the story goes, Dean in turn handed the list to Shadyac, who was determined to help the community.
“On the list was a recreational space, space for the youth, food, a place to exercise, and so many more,” said Dean.
He explained that while the list was exhaustive, it failed to include how much these necessities would cost the community.
But the two wanted to help, and while they didn’t know what exactly they were going to create, the end result came to fruition as Memphis Rox Climbing and Community Center, located at 879 East McLemore Avenue, and is now celebrating five years in the business.
According to the organization, Memphis Rox is the “first nonprofit climbing gym of its size, standing at 32,000 sq. ft. with yoga and meditation spaces, a fitness area, and system board.”
Shadyac explained that they are very much a “child of the St. Jude” model, with accessibility being at the heart of their purpose.
“We don’t want to turn anyone away for their inability to pay,” said Shadyac. “We keep our doors open and accessible to all people. We ask if you don’t have money – first it’s pay what you can afford – but if you have no money, we ask that maybe you volunteer in the neighborhood, you volunteer at your church, you do something positive as a sort of energetic exchange and a contribution to what we’re all trying to do.”
According to One Family Memphis’ 2021 annual report, the organization helped create 1,802 volunteer hours served and 518 volunteer impacts (which refers to anytime a volunteer completes a volunteer service). The report also stated that all volunteer hours totaled to a value of $44,203.06.
With accessibility being a major component of the work done at Memphis Rox, the organization still relies on some of the building blocks of rock climbing, such as collaborating and cooperating on the wall.
Dean, who grew up in South Memphis and now serves as creative director at Memphis Rox, explained that his first love was basketball, and that was what everyone in his community did, “from sun up to sun down.” However, he also noted a surplus of basketball courts and facilities, and thought young people needed exposure to more opportunities.
“We already know the numbers don’t work of how many people make it, right,” said Dean. “People get in fights on basketball courts, most of the fights I’ve gotten into have been on basketball courts.”
Dean went on to explain that the culture of sports and basketball incites the feeling of excitement more so when someone is injured, or in contact with another player. He explained that as a society, we are taught to celebrate the exact moment when “someone could have died.” A sport like climbing “turns all of that on its head.”
“Rock climbing is not about me versus you,” said Dean. “It’s about me versus me.”
While Memphis Rox may appear to be your standard rock climbing gym, Shadyac believes it’s simply a way to access a relationship.
“Anyone who comes in our doors, from the community, to grab a meal, to work out, or to climb, we listen to,” said Shadyac. “When we listened to the community we realized there were certain needs that weren’t being met.”
Aside from rock climbing activities, the campus also houses the Juice Almighty café, the Soulsville Community Closet, and an “educational food garden.” The organization also partners with Sister Supply for their Period Power program to “provide menstrual products to women in the community who are unable to afford that.”
“We want the whole city to embrace this culture of climbing and wellness and health and community,” said Dean. “There are young people in the community that don’t have access to all the rest of those things anywhere else, so you just come here and bring a little bit of yourself.”
He’s explored its many styles over the years. He’s made plenty of it himself. He’s written about it before. And he’s writing about it again, this time with a fresh approach and a laser focus on the Memphis craft scene.
Erskine, a veteran (and now former) Memphis newspaper reporter, launched the Memphis Beer Blog in January. The launch comes years after shutting down shop on FuzzyBrew, a must-read blog for Memphis craft beer buds that ran from 2010 to around 2017. Erskine ran the blog with his pal Grant Smith, and only stopped when Smith moved away.
FuzzyBrew was “a blog about homebrewing, craft beer, and beer news in Memphis, and beyond,” to quote its (still live) Twitter description. Erskine has focused the Memphis Beer Blog on local breweries, their beers, their events, and their stories.
His motives are simple.
“I want to expose more people to good beer,” Erskine said, “and I want to see our local breweries succeed.”
We caught up with Erskine to learn more about the blog, craft beer’s progression in Memphis over the past decade, and what’s next. — Toby Sells
Memphis Flyer:How did the Memphis Beer Blog come about?
Mike Erskine: I ran into Davin Bartosch at Mempho Music Festival last year. Davin is one of the two brothers behind Wiseacre. He suggested that I resurrect FuzzyBrew because there really was no resource for news about local breweries and local beers.
So, it took me a while to warm to the idea, but I decided that I needed a new creative project and I launched memphisbeerblog.com in January of this year.
It’s everything that I’ve always kind of wanted to do, but never had time to do it. It’s everything from different breweries to a roundup of all of them to different projects they’re working on to individual beers that they’re releasing. There are features on what I think are some of the tastiest beers in town and events happening at local breweries in the community.
I want to expose more people to good beer, and I want see our local breweries succeed.
We’re about 10 years into a craft beer boom in Memphis. What do you think about the progression and where we are now?
Yes, this is a big anniversary year for beer in Memphis. 2023 marks 10 years since Wiseacre, High Cotton, and Memphis Made opened.
So, Ghost River was the only game in town prior to that. I think it opened around 2007. But it was really an extension of Boscos — same ownership. It was a way to get Boscos beer in bars around town and on store shelves without using the Boscos name.
So, when Wiseacre, High Cotton, and Memphis Made opened that year, that really launched a new era of craft beer in Memphis and paved the way for the vibrant scene that we have now.
Prior to 2013 for fans of craft beer, what you could buy in Memphis was really limited. Back then you might head to Walgreens in West Memphis to get beers that are not sold in Memphis. You might travel to Nashville and bring home beers from breweries that didn’t distribute in Memphis.
So, when those three breweries opened in 2013, there was a shift, and all of a sudden you had options for a good, local beer.
Memphis is not gonna make it on a list of best craft beer cities in the U.S. anytime soon. But the beer scene in Memphis is healthy. It’s still growing, which is great.
There’s about a dozen breweries in Shelby County now. I think four of them have opened since 2021. There are more on the way. There are two that I know that are either opening or planning to open soon.
The growth of breweries in Memphis has been slow relative to places like Asheville, Boulder, Portland, and San Diego, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Other cities have seen many local breweries open and close in the last decade.
So far, everyone here has made it, and even more new breweries are opening. It will be interesting to watch how the beer scene in Memphis evolves in the next 10 years.
What is next for the Memphis Beer Blog?
With new breweries opening, new beers coming out, and events happening all the time, I have plenty to write about. But I’m also planning to expand the site to feature some of the best beer bars in town, as well as the best places to buy good beer on store shelves.
Also, one of my favorite things to do when I was writing on FuzzyBrew was to share stories about the breweries I visited when I traveled outside of Memphis. I’m planning to do that for Memphis Beer Blog, as well.
On Mother’s Day, we woke up to the news that Ja Morant was playing with a gun on Instagram Live. This was not the incident that happened in March. It was something new.
Just over two months after being suspended for similar behavior, the Memphis Grizzlies guard was suspended from team activities on Sunday for displaying a handgun on IG Live once again.
Hasn’t he learned a lesson? We all pondered. Why is he fascinated with displaying firearms? He served an 8-game suspension for the first incident and took steps to curtail that behavior.
His ill-advised actions have made him the topic of conversation throughout the world. His destructive and immature behaviors sparked discussions about a wide range of social issues.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was somber speaking to ESPN’s Malika Andrews on Tuesday night about Morant. Silver was disappointed because he took Morant’s word that he understood the severity of his actions and was contrite.
Silver said he and Morant had talked “directly about the consequences” after the March incident that showed Morant at a Denver-area nightclub briefly holding up a gun in a video that was recorded and shared on various social media platforms.
“Honestly, I was shocked when I saw that video this weekend,” Silver told Andrews. “Now, we’re in the process of investigating it, and we’ll figure out exactly what happened as best we can. Again, the video’s a bit grainy and all that, but I’m assuming the worst. But we’ll figure out exactly what happened there.”
The entire interview can be watched here:
“Honestly, I was shocked when I saw this weekend — that video. Now, we’re in the process of investigating it."
“I know I’ve disappointed a lot of people who have supported me,” the 23-year-old said in a statement Tuesday night shortly after Silver’s interview. “This is a journey and I recognize there is more work to do. My words may not mean much right now, but I take full accountability for my actions. I’m committed to continuing to work on myself.”
Yes, it is disappointing, and the stakes are high. It not only affects Morant but his family, his friends, his teammates, the Grizzlies organization, and the NBA too. He has everything to lose.
But was he ready for the spotlight that he has been given? Is the pressure too much for him?
Morant lost about $668,000 in compensation during his first ban, and since he didn’t make an All-NBA team, he lost $39 million.
Morant sought counseling after his incident in March because he believed his “stress level had been becoming a problem” before the nightclub incident. “I had considered [seeking help], but I was back and forth,” he said. “I was pretty much afraid to leave the team. I felt that it was needed, and it helped me out a lot.”
He says it’s an ongoing process. Two months ago he talked about his off the court behavior, and we are at a crossroads again. He has work to do.
Morant has been reckless, true enough, and he has so many things to work on. But the one thing that is most concerning is that he keeps putting the gun to his head on both videos. Why? Only Morant can answer that question.
We are a country that loves guns. Tennessee is an open carry state; it is legal to carry a weapon without a permit as of July 1, 2021. Tennesseans who have been convicted of driving under the influence, domestic violence, or stalking are not eligible. Neither are felons or individuals who have been committed by the court to a mental institution.
Morant can legally be in possession of a firearm. If it’s legal, why are people so mad about it? Martenzie Johnson eloquently wrote, “Morant is a representation of this country’s infatuation with guns, but because of his celebrity … and recklessness … and defiance … and skin color, he’s not the visual representation of gun ownership that this country seeks out. He’s not the All-American white boy who likes to hunt or protect his family or whatever other excuse there is to own weapons in this country. He’s viewed as just another ghetto boy from the inner city who brings back memories of the crime-ridden 1980s and 1990s.”
He is viewed as a criminal who has little kids looking up to him and that will somehow make them criminals. That is the optics. Memphis is riddled with gun violence. We see it daily on the news, EVERY DAY! Morant has accountability, but is this viewed differently than when we see assault rifles displayed in photos or videos or carried in your local Wal-Mart? What’s the difference? This is not excusing Morant’s behavior, we just want to know why one is accepted and the other is not.
JJ Redick asks “Why are we trying to lay down the hammer on a 23-year-old who didn’t break a law?” when there’s no consequence for Greg Abbott telling people to buy more guns pic.twitter.com/dUc8imA9dj
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 17, 2023
The NBA is going to protect its brand, and Morant will serve another suspension again. The question is how long. He will be judged by his past incidents, and the suspension may be severe due to conduct detrimental to the NBA, and for lying to Adam Silver’s face. He may be punished harshly for hypothetical violence instead of actual violence. Miles Bridges was suspended for 30 games without pay (with 20 already served even though he wasn’t signed to an NBA team last season) after he pleaded no contest to felony domestic violence. Bridges’ incident was far worse than Morant’s however, the Grizzlies guard might be made an example of.
We can be all disappointed in Morant’s behavior but still show him some grace. We don’t know when we will need such grace. It’s all up to him to take care of his well-being.
The Tennessee Legislature recently passed a recommendation from Governor Bill Lee that will allow for the University of Memphis to receive $5.488 million for campus safety and security upgrades.
According to the university, these upgrades will be for this current fiscal year, and the investment is non-recurring.
In a statement, U of M president Bill Hardgrave said that a “safe, thriving campus,” is their number one priority. The money will be used to “fund proven measures that ensure our students, faculty and staff feel safe on our campus.”
The Flyerreported that the university was named the safest large campus in 2022 by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
The university said that the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) and Homeland Security did a campus-wide assessment in 2021, which they used to determine five different areas that would receive investments from the funding. The following breakdown was provided by the university:
$2.193 million for upgrade and installation of LED lighting
$1.46 million for perimeter fencing and parking lot access control
$773,000 for intelligent camera installations
$750,000 for a comprehensive notification system
$312,000 for mobile trailers and patrol vehicle replacements
While the investment will be used to upgrade and install equipment around campus, the university said that they are continuing to work with partner organizations such as MLGW.
“In addition to making the strategic investments [noted above] to improve campus safety and security, the UofM is continuing to work with MLGW to improve lighting on perimeter neighborhood streets,” said the university in a statement. The school will also work with the Memphis Police Department to better coordinate efforts on police patrols on and around campus.
“The UofM will also coordinate with other law enforcement and community partners such as the University Neighborhood Development Corporation to curb crime, specifically auto related crime,” the university said. The majority of crimes on campus are auto-related.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) released its 2022 Crime on Campus report, which provided “information on crimes, reported to TBI through the Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System, that occurred on college or university campuses.”
According to the report, a majority of the crimes reported at the University of Memphis were larceny and theft offenses (111.) While 36 of the crimes reported in this category were “theft from [a] building,” there were 26 reports of theft from a motor vehicle, and 32 reports of theft of motor vehicle parts.
There were also 47 reports of motor vehicle theft, according to the report.
The university has previously encouraged students and other members of the campus community to utilize the LiveSafe app, which provides an avenue for students to directly communicate with police services on campus through text, pictures, video, and audio. However, Everbridge Crisis Management will replace the app this summer.
“Everbridge will orchestrate all crisis response activities, teams, and resources to accelerate critical event recovery times and allow the UofM to continue prioritizing safety and security,” added the university.
Nearly one in five Tennessee children live in poverty, a measure of well-being that varies sharply by geography.
In rural northeast Lake County, for example, the number of children living below the poverty line is double the state average; meanwhile in wealthy Williamson County, fewer than 4 percent of children are being raised under such economic strains.
The data, released Tuesday by the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, paints an uneven portrait of Tennessee’s children in county-by-county snapshots that also measure rates of low birth-weight babies, educational outcomes, childcare costs, child abuse and family circumstances.
County poverty rates coincide with other stressors facing families with children. The ten counties with the highest rates of poverty for kids also are among those with the greatest rates of low birth-weight babies, child care cost burdens and food insecurity, according to the agency’s annual 2023 County Profiles in Child Well-Being, which measured 52 different metrics that impact the states’ children.
The high poverty rates straddle both rural and urban areas. Among the top 10 counties for child poverty are Shelby and Davidson, which include Nashville and Memphis, the state’s largest cities. Small-population counties of Haywood, Hardeman and Madison Counties in west Tennessee and Campbell in eastern Tennessee also have outsized numbers of poor children.
The report also revealed wide educational disparities.
A child living in the lowest performing county was half as likely to be proficient in TCAP reading than the state average, the report found. A child in Perry County was far more likely — by a factor of nearly 10 — to be absent from school than a child in Blount County.
The disparities also extended to rates of child abuse and neglect, a data point that could signal either higher incidents of harm — or differing levels of investigations or enforcement actions by state child welfare officials or local law enforcement.
Clay County had the highest rate of substantiated abuse or neglect at nearly 34 per 1,000 children. Moore County had the lowest at 0.8 per 1,000.
“These county profiles always serve as a reminder that the experience, opportunities, and access to positive outcomes can look vastly different for each child in Tennessee.” said Richard Kennedy, executive director of Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth.
The report is released annually by the commission, an independent state-funded entity responsible for providing objective analyses and serving as a watchdog for the Department of Children’s Services.
The commission earlier this year survived an effort backed by the administration of Gov. Bill Lee to dissolve it, after it released a critical report on the DCS’s work
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.
I experienced my first deep loss at 5 years old — a great-aunt committed suicide. My young mind couldn’t make sense of it. We used to spend afternoons together, taking walks in the neighborhood. Most memories have faded now, but I do recall her smiling and laughing. I could never understand why she chose to end her life. After that day, every time I’d visit or pass that house, I’d envision her outside, wrestling with the idea, and ultimately pulling the trigger. It was a lot for a child’s brain to process.
In my early twenties, I lost three friends to suicide — by hanging and by gun. Later, a person very close to me slit her wrists. I remember receiving the phone call and rushing to the hospital, where she told me, essentially, that she’d failed that time, but I’d eventually have to let her go — she wasn’t meant for this world. In an unbelievable turn of events, after being medically treated, she was sent to jail (please see editor’s note at the end of this article). Not released to go home, to family, to be with friends for encouragement and support. She spent about a month in the county jail before being transferred to a mental health facility and eventually being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Why jail was ever a step in this situation always baffled me — what a place to be when you’re already in such a fragile state. (I’m grateful to report today, all these years later, that she is healthy, happily married, and living a full life.)
These losses and experiences have been on my mind of late, as May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Of course, mental health challenges don’t always lead to suicide or suicidal ideation. They can present in the form of emotional outbursts, isolation, mania, insomnia. Anxiety, depression, substance-abuse disorder, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and post-traumatic stress disorder are among the technical terms for such diagnoses. And many of us have either struggled with one or more of the aforementioned or know someone who has.
There is often a stigma surrounding mental health, which can make it difficult to address. How do you treat yourself if you’re experiencing overwhelming stress or incredibly low lows? Do you reach out to friends or family? Do you go to therapy? Do you consider discussing with a doctor? Do you hold it all in and wait for the storms to pass?
If a loved one expresses anxiety or depression and shares with you stories of their battles, do you lend a sympathetic ear? Or do you tell them in short to buck up, buttercup — “It’s all in your head. You can control that. Just use your willpower, honey. You’re stronger than this.” (Don’t do the latter, please.) Sometimes, a person needs only for you to sit with them in silence, be present alongside their sadness or stresses — not offering solutions, just your attention.
It’s never an easy path to navigate in either situation, whether it’s you or another person going through it. But it’s important to look for signs and symptoms, and address them as soon — and as gently — as possible.
Throughout the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, many people’s mental health took a hit. During the peak and aftermath of Covid, suicide and overdose rates swelled. This could be attributed to heightened instances of domestic violence as people were forced to stay home; loss of income due to society shutdown; increased anxiety and depression amid endless news reports and statistics, and confusion and fear of the virus. We experienced collective trauma, leading to loneliness and even cognitive and behavioral changes that some have yet to recover from. And while, in the grand scheme, the worst of that is behind us, many are still finding it difficult to engage in the same ways they did pre-pandemic.
We all handle life’s challenges differently. We carry our own traumas. No two brains function the same when it comes to confronting or working to overcome mental health crises.
Think of your own internal landscapes, how they ebb and flow, and use this knowledge when interacting with others. You never know what weight someone’s carrying with them.
If you find yourself in a dark place today, remember that your success rate for making it through tough days so far is 100 percent. Hang on, hang in.
You are enough. You are worthy of love. You are never a burden. And there are many beautiful tomorrows — sunrises, sunsets, smiles, handshakes, hugs, hot meals, cool breezes, soft blankets, so many lovely things — waiting for you around this bend.
Help is available 24/7 if you need it. Call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.
*Editor’s note: Since publishing this article, it has come to our attention that the person who attempted suicide had their civil rights violated by being detained. Attempted suicide is not illegal in the United States.
