Devil Train releases its debut record, Eye Explain, after 18 years together. (Photo: Molly Kennedy)
There’s nothing like having a new record out, chock-full of originals, to prove that your group is not “just” a jam band. That’s how those well-known Memphis players in Devil Train see it, anyway. Certainly they can jam, and there’s nary a Midtowner who hasn’t kicked back a few drinks to one of their regular Thursday night sets at B-Side Memphis or in other venues. Yet even at their most improvisatory, Devil Train has always felt grounded in roots music — that’s also grounded them in the art of song.
Their many covers of classic folk and blues tunes aside, they’ve amassed quite a catalog of originals between the six members, all of whom write songs. The group’s been around with largely the same personnel for 18 years, including banjo player Randal Morton, Clint Wagner on the fiddle and guitar, mandolinist/guitarist Jonathan Ciaramitaro, and guitarist James Ray. Current bassist J.D. Westmoreland is a more recent recruit (barely), as is drummer and producer Graham Winchester, but the latter has played a large role in making the new LP, Eye Explain, a reality. As one third of Blast Habit Records’ head honchos, he was eager to get this group, who has soundtracked most Memphian’s lives over the decades, onto vinyl.
“I was sneaking in to see them play at The Buccaneer when I was still in my late high school/early college years,” says Winchester. “Then when I started playing with them 14 years ago, I was the last person to join up with them, and it’s been the same six-person lineup ever since.”
Having joined the group at a relatively young age, the band is part of Winchester’s musical DNA. “It’s definitely the gig where I cut my chops drumming on a lot of different styles,” he says. “I remember my first gig with them. I was rushing into a song and they were like, ‘Hey, man, chill. There’s something called playing behind the beat.’ They taught me that Memphis drumming swagger that we all talk about.”
As the newcomer, Winchester was a bit puzzled that the band had never released any of their original songs. “It is kind of crazy to have an original band for 18 years with no released recordings,” he says. But having recently started Blast Habit with partners Lori and Jared McStay, he could now do something about it. “I was looking at it on paper and thinking, ‘This doesn’t add up — there’s no record and there have been literally thousands of shows.’ So I said to the band, ‘Let’s change that, guys.’”
Appropriate to a band that brings an old-world vibe even to originals that could have sprung from the groovy ’70s, the album was cut straight to tape at the Bunker Studio with engineer Andrew McCalla. It also features two songs recorded elsewhere. “They were put on there as bonus tracks,” says Winchester. “One recorded with Boo Mitchell at Royal Studios many years ago, and the other one recorded recently with Crockett Hall at Sun Studio.”
Winchester’s quick to point out how the album’s credits perpetuate the name of a beloved local songwriter, long since departed, whom the drummer never even met. “There’s a song on the album called ‘Roll and Stink’ that was written by Craig Shindler,” notes Winchester. “He’s somebody I wanted to bring up because we play about seven or eight or nine of his songs, and Clint and Jonny were in Craig Schindler’s bands, Easy Way and Mash-O-Matic. At Devil Train shows, there is a segment of the crowd from those Mash-O-Matic and Easy Way days who know all the words to those songs. So they’re just part of the Devil Train catalog now. Clint and Jonny were dear friends of Craig Schindler and have done a great job of kind of preserving his music through Devil Train.”
Honoring Schindler is, for Winchester, just another sign of the greater collective spirit that has fueled Devil Train through all these years. “You know, it’s kind of a family band,” he says, “but it’s also a community band. We have a lot of people sit in and jam with us. And we’ve had a lot of loss in Memphis recently, and it’s like Devil Train’s weekly show is that familiar thing people can rely on. I feel like it means a lot to a lot of people, including myself.”
Nate Strong Jr. at Smoky City BBQ Grill & Diner (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Visiting the amazing number of barbecue restaurants in Memphis is like visiting the plethora of Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (WCBCC) booths; there’s variety in the barbecue taste, as well as the atmosphere.
It recently hit me how many Memphis-area barbecue places I’ve never been to. I usually go to the same ones.
I was astounded at the number of them on Google. So, I set out to visit some unfamiliar places.
Ty’s Smokehouse, located at 7174 Stage Road #101 in Bartlett, was first. It was packed. Shiny trophies — a good sign — glistened on the wall.
Ty’s Smokehouse (Credit: Michael Donahue)Ty’s Smokehouse (Credit: Michael Donahue)
“We opened July 1st, 2013,” says owner Tim Theisen. “We used to have a team, TNT Smokers. We used to do mostly the KCBS (Kansas City Barbecue Society) circuit.”
Theisen helped out during Memphis in May’s barbecue contest, but he didn’t participate. He couldn’t afford to take a week off from work. “I worked in construction at the time.”
I ordered a fabulous pulled pork sandwich from the restaurant. Great smoky taste.
Ty’s Smokehouse (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Kevin Barber, Derek Davison, and Cleitis Blackwell joined me at my table. They’re with Tower King II working on a project.
Barber, who lives in Dallas, Texas, hadn’t been to Ty’s since they did some work in Memphis back in March of 2018.
They visited barbecue places on their last trip. “I think we tried five and we kept coming back to this one,” Barber says.
Next, I traveled to 1023 Jackson Avenue to try barbecue at Smoky City BBQ Grill & Diner. Nate Strong Jr., who owns the place with his dad, Nate Strong, tells me they opened in 2016.
I loved this barbecue, which reminds me of classic barbecue sandwiches I ate growing up in the 1950s. Strong says the mixture of wood and charcoal is one reason it tastes so good.
He let me sample a dry and a wet rib. “They come off the bone,” he says. “And they love our dry rub.”
Smoky City BBQ Grill & Diner (Credit: Michael Donahue)Smoky City BBQ Grill & Diner (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Mike Hollis walks in the restaurant, looks at me, and says, “Steven Spielberg. What’s up, bro?” (I usually get “Howard Stern” or “Einstein.”) Hollis is a Smoky City fan. “I’ve never had a bad experience,” he says.
He orders a catfish plate, one of the many items besides barbecue sold at Smoky City.
Mike Hollis at Smoky City BBQ Grill & Diner (Credit: Michael Donahue)
BallHoggerz BBQ at 1404 Airways Boulevard was my next stop. Owner Merritt Bailey, a longtime friend, is the son of Adrienne and the late judge D’Army Bailey. I forgot Merritt owned a restaurant.
Merritt Bailey at BallHoggerz BBQ (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Between 2014 and 2017, Merritt was on a WCBCC team that went by the same name as his restaurant. His team won awards every year, including first place in the chicken, shoulder, and turkey legs categories, and second place in ribs, in 2017.
Hence the name. “We hog the trophies,” he says.
Merritt used to “move place to place” selling barbecue from his truck with the grill in the bed. He opened the restaurant six years ago.
Merritt Bailey at BallHoggerz BBQ (Credit: Michael Donahue)
His tantalizing barbecue sandwich with a couple of dill pickles on top of the bun was delicious. It’s the “long and tedious smoking process to get the meat tender.”
They also have a great dry rub and a popular “mild, tangy sauce.”
BallHoggerz BBQ (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Merritt obviously loves his job. “We’re grillin’ and we’re partyin’.” And, he adds, “If you’re not having fun, you’re doing the wrong thing.”
A big picture of D’Army hangs near the front door, but Merritt says his dad didn’t teach him how to cook barbecue. “He wasn’t really a grill guy.” Merritt learned by “trial and error.”
But his dad did give him advice about owning the restaurant. “He said it wasn’t going to be easy, but stick to it.’”
A picture of the late D’Army Bailey can be found at BallHoggerz BBQ (Credit: Donahue)
Finally, I have to preface Fat Larry’s BBQ at 7537 Highway 70 in Bartlett as a place I visited several times years ago.
Fat Larry’s BBQ (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Owner Larry Mayes died since I was last there. But even though Mayes is gone, the barbecue is “still made with the same amount of love, the same amount of passion,” says Dan Dippery, a Fat Larry’s fan.
The succulent barbecue was slathered with sweet sauce. It brought back a lot of memories.
Fat Larry’s BBQ (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Fat Larry’s sells more than barbecue. The brown sugar pork chop on the menu caught my eye. And the server told me about their homemade coconut cake.
Larry’s wife, Ginny Mayes, tells me the name “Fat Larry” came about when her husband and Larry Ohrberg had a barbecue cooking team that participated in the Kansas City circuit. “They both had bellies,” she says. “They called themselves ‘Two Fat Larrys.’”
And Mayes was the hog cook on a team with John Maki called Custom Cookers. Their awards include first place in whole hog at the 1999 WCBCC, she says.
Larry’s entire family cooked. “His brother owned a barbecue restaurant.”
Fat Larry’s restaurant opened in February 2008. Larry died on Halloween 2020 in New Mexico, Ginny says. “Our cook and our servers, everybody just carried on.”
Ginny and their daughter, Hallie McIlvain, decided to keep the restaurant going. “I couldn’t see putting an end to all of Larry’s hard work.”
They also wanted their employees to keep working. “We kind of feel like this is Larry’s legacy. We feel like we need to keep cooking.”
Larry believed in making his customers feel like family, Ginny says. “Make people feel at home. That’s just the way he was. No pretension. It is what it is.”
As her husband used to say, “I’m fat and I love to cook. And I love to watch people eat.”
In 1992, May was officially designated as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPI Heritage Month) by the George H. W. Bush administration, but more than 30 years later, this May marks the first time Memphis celebrates AAPI Heritage Month in an official capacity, thanks to the work of SunAh M. Laybourn, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Memphis.
“I just didn’t want another AAPI Heritage Month to go by and for there to be nothing [in Memphis],” she says, especially after last year. “I was feeling sensitive with the rise of and attention to anti-Asian hate, and with it being the one-year anniversary of the Atlanta spa shooting and then what happened with Tommy [Kha’s portrait being removed and reinstated] at the airport, it really just made me so upset. … Last year, I remember googling ‘AAPI Heritage Month list’ just to see if maybe I missed a news story, or maybe I missed some sort of celebration, but I couldn’t find anything. I’m seeing national celebrations where my Asian-American friends in other cities are having this great month of events, and there’s nothing here in the city that I love, in the city that is my home. And so I said, ‘I’ll do it.’”
For this first AAPI Heritage Month in May, Laybourn and community partners have planned a number of activities, including happy hours, screenings, book displays, and the upcoming “Asian American in the South” art exhibition, presented by Google. The exhibition will include artists Tommy Kha, Erin Kim Siao, Anna Cai, Shameka Carter, LiLi Nacht, Yidan Zeng, Sharon Havelka, Vivian Havelka, and Neena Wang.
The exhibition, throughout the planning of AAPI Heritage Month, was a priority for Laybourn, stemming from a conversation last year with Tommy Kha following the airport saga. “I was like, ‘We have to have an art show if nothing else.’ I felt like we needed more visibility of Asian-American artists — because it gives the opportunity for people to understand who Asian Americans are in the South.” After all, the art featured in this exhibition reflects a gamut of experiences, offering unique insights into the Asian-American community in the form of paintings, sculptures, videos, photography, and graphic illustrations. “Oftentimes we can have a limited view of other cultures and ethnicities,” Laybourn continues, “and, for me, when talking to the different artists, I said, ‘The theme of the show is Asian Americans in the South, and you can interpret that in any way you want.’”
In addition to perusing art, the first 100 guests will also enjoy a limited-edition, custom AAPI Heritage Month Phillip Ashley chocolate collection, and Inkwell will have themed cocktails available. Admission to the exhibition is free, but make sure to RSVP at aapiheritagemonthmemphis.com/events, where you can also find more information on other upcoming events.
“This is definitely just the start of creating community, not just in May, but throughout the year,” Laybourn says. “And Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month — that’s not just for Asian Americans — it’s for everyone.”
“Asian American in the South,” Museum of Science & History, Thursday, May 18, 6-9 p.m., free with rsvp.
If you commit a crime in Memphis, odds are you’re going to get away with it.
The “clearance rate” is a standard measure of police effectiveness used by the FBI. It measures the ratio of crimes reported to arrests made. Crimes cleared by “exceptional means,” such as when the perpetrator is known to police but died before they could be arrested, are also included.
In 2021, the most recent year for which numbers are available from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s Crime Statistics Unit, the Memphis Police Department’s clearance rate for all reported crimes was 22 percent — less than half the national average of 54 percent. For murder, the MPD’s clearance rate was 38 percent. For forcible rape, it was 17.8 percent. For theft from motor vehicles, the rate was 3 percent.
“I think it’s important to point out that, compared to the national average, and compared to cities of comparable size, it is abysmal,” says Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy.
Mulroy emphasized that he was not “throwing shade” on MPD, which he called under-resourced. Nor did he blame Police Chief C.J. Davis. “It takes more than a year and a half to change the culture of an organization that size.” Nonetheless, the below average clearance rates were, in his view, a big problem.
Josh Spickler (Photo: Courtesy Josh Spickler)
“They don’t clear cases,” says Josh Spickler, Executive Director of Just City, a nonprofit devoted to reforming Memphis’ criminal justice system. “That’s the one thing we have to talk about — they don’t solve crime.”
As of press time, the Memphis Police Department did not respond to emailed questions about the department’s clearance rates.
Most police officers, Spickler says, “do the best job they can, even though it’s an impossible job we’ve asked them to do … This is not a critique of the individuals. They’re not put in a position to solve crime. It’s just a disaster. No one is getting justice: Victims are not getting justice, you and I are not getting justice, the taxpayers who are paying for all this are not getting justice. I think something must be done. Something real, something big, something bold and courageous.”
Indeed, the three major national news stories from Memphis in the last year (which did not involve the Memphis Grizzlies) all contained elements of police failure.
The first was the kidnapping and murder of Eliza Fletcher on September 2, 2022, which caused a national media frenzy. The alleged perpetrator, Cleotha Abston-Henderson, was accused of rape in September 2021 by Alicia Franklin, who provided police with his name, phone number, and dating app profile. She submitted to a rape kit examination, but could not conclusively identify Abston-Henderson from an old photo police showed her, and no arrest was made. The case remained one of the 273 uncleared rape reports from 2021 until the rape kit was finally processed in the wake of the Fletcher murder, and Abston-Henderson was charged for both crimes. Franklin sued the city for failing to properly investigate the rape, but the lawsuit was recently dismissed. “They had more than enough evidence that night when they interviewed me to get him off the streets, but they didn’t,” Franklin told ABC News.
The second crime was the mass shooting perpetrated by Ezekiel Kelly on September 7, 2022. Kelly killed his first victim, Dewayne Tunstall, at 12:33 a.m. The murder was immediately reported, and first responders arrived promptly. But Kelly remained at large for another 15 hours before killing his second victim, Richard Clark, at 4:35 p.m. It wasn’t until after 6 p.m., when a 911 caller tipped police to the fact that Kelly was live-streaming his mobile murder spree on Facebook, that police knew Kelly had become a mass shooter. He was finally captured at 9:15 p.m.
Then came the police murder of Tyre Nichols.
Tyre’s Legacy
On January 7, 2023, Tyre Nichols was driving to have dinner at his parents’ house in Hickory Hill when he was stopped by two unmarked police cars. As Demetrius Haley and Emmet Martin III, plainclothes officers from the MPD’s SCORPION unit, were pulling Nichols from his vehicle, a third unmarked police car, driven by Preston Hemphill, arrived at the scene. As seen on Hemphill’s body cam video, Nichols offered no resistance, and tried to de-escalate the confrontation with officers, who yelled conflicting orders at him while they pinned him to the ground. One officer attempted to pepper spray Nichols, but instead sprayed the other officers, obscuring their vision. Seeing his chance to escape the assault, Nichols ran. When police caught up to him they took turns kicking and beating him as he cried out for his mother.
Amber Sherman (Photo: Brandon Dill)
Before Nichols died in the hospital on January 10, 2023, photographs of his bruised and broken body were already circulating in Memphis. “When I saw those pictures of him, I was like, this is Emmett Till-level. This is someone beaten so viciously as to be completely unrecognizable. When you look at the picture of how he looked before that incident and afterwards in the hospital, it’s two totally different people,” says Amber Sherman, community organizer and activist behind The Law According to Amber podcast.
On January 27, 2023, the day the body cam and SkyCop videos of Nichols’ murder were released to the public, Sherman led the protests that shut down the I-55 bridge. They demanded the SCORPION unit be immediately disbanded. As excerpts from the videos played on national television, Sherman spoke to Mayor Jim Strickland on the phone. “I know you have the sole authority as the mayor to shut this down,” she told him. “So if you don’t want to use that power, cool. We’ll stay on the bridge.”
The police presence at the protest was minimal. “Of course they weren’t gonna show up, because people are watching y’all literally beat somebody to death on TV right now,” Sherman says. “Within 12 hours of us doing that protest, they shut down the [SCORPION] unit.”
Violent rioting had been predicted by some media and law enforcement. “I expected folks to hit the streets and make those calls for justice,” says Sherman. “What we expected to happen, happened. I think there were folks being upset that there wasn’t a riot or something like that. I always remind people that most protests that happen are pretty peaceful. That’s how they go. They don’t get violent until the cops come.”
Steve Mulroy (Photo: Steve Mulroy | Facebook)
DA Mulroy says he was not expecting violence, either. Two days before the videos were released, he announced charges of second degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, official oppression, aggravated assault, and official misconduct against officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith, all of whom had beaten Nichols at the second crime scene. It was three weeks since the initial traffic stop, a remarkably short period in these matters. “That was always in my mind: Let’s get the video out as soon as possible. But then we started to realize the video is gonna be really incendiary and could provoke a violent response. So ideally, if we could announce charges before release of the video, that would go a long way towards calming everybody down,” he says.
“I think the primary reason we didn’t see unrest in Memphis — and really, because of that, around the world — was because the wheels of formal justice and accountability had already begun to spin with those indictments,” says Spickler.
Besides, Mulroy trusted the activists. “We have a proud tradition in Memphis, going back decades, of public protests on these issues that were non-violent. In 2016, they took over the bridge, no real violence. In 2020, the summer of George Floyd, there were all kinds of marches and sit-ins and protests. Memphis activists always kept the peace.”
Mulroy was elected in 2022 on a platform that promised reform of the criminal justice system. He says he prioritized transparency in the case not just out of a sense of fairness, but also practicality. “I had campaigned all along on the [premise that] the public lacked confidence in the fairness of our justice system, particularly in the Black community. We needed reform not only for reform’s sake — which is sufficient reason in and of itself — but also as a means to the end of restoring public confidence, so that the community would start cooperating with law enforcement again in a way that they haven’t in recent years. That would be the key thing to bend the curve on violent crime.”
The Nichols killing was a prime example of why the community doesn’t trust the police, Mulroy says. “You had a specialized unit that was supposed to be, and was billed as, focusing on violent crime, that instead tried to get some easy collars and went to regular traffic stops to try to rack up some points. But they still took that violent crime warrior mentality with them, and it led to over-aggressive policing. I think probably the evidence will indicate that young Black males were targeted. As we’ve seen over and over again when we have these specialized units, they tend to be over aggressive. They tend to target young Black males. You had a culture develop — or maybe it had already been in in place, but was put on overdrive. You had a lack of supervision, inadequate training. That perfect storm led to that [incident]. I think we can surmise from the video that this wasn’t an isolated incident. It wasn’t just five bad apples. There is a cultural problem here that needs to be addressed.”
Mulroy declined to press charges against Preston Hemphill, the officer who had been at the initial traffic stop but couldn’t keep up with the fleeing Nichols and so never made it to the second scene where Nichols was fatally beaten. Hemphill is white, and the five officers who were charged were all Black. Mulroy says he concluded that the video evidence against Hemphill was too ambiguous to obtain a conviction. “It’s possible to act in a way that brings dishonor to the uniform and rightfully results in termination from the police department and rightfully results in revocation of the person’s eligibility to ever serve in the law enforcement capacity — it’s possible to do all those things without actually violating the criminal statutes of Tennessee.”
Nichols’ family’s attorney Ben Crump supported the decision not to charge Hemphill, given that he is cooperating with the investigation. But Mulroy’s reasoning rings hollow to Sherman. “The fact that those [charged] were all Black officers, I think they wanted to remind them that, at the end of the day, you’re Black first and we’re gonna treat you just like we treat other Black folks in the street when we overcharge them or when we target and prosecute them. We’re gonna treat you the same exact way. They don’t get any special class or special privilege they thought that they would have as police officers.”
The Community Rises
The officers on the scene said they pulled Tyre Nichols over for reckless driving. On January 27th, as the videos of the stop and beating were being released, Police Chief C.J. Davis admitted there was no proof that Nichols had broken any laws. It was a pretextual traffic stop, says Chelsea Glass of Decarcerate Memphis. “A pretextual traffic stop is like a non-moving violation; for example, a brake light is out, your windshield is cracked, your bumper is missing. Another common one now is if you have drive-out tags. Even if your drive-out tags are totally legal, you’re at risk of being stopped because they’re trying to find out if the car is stolen or not. That’s what they say because the whole thing about a pretextual traffic stop is, it’s a pretext to look for other violations.”
Decarcerate Memphis’s 2022 report “Driving While BIPOC” analyzed data from 10 years of traffic stops. “We found that Black and brown communities were disproportionately overrepresented in the data. So while Memphis is a predominantly Black city, we still found that they were overrepresented out of proportion with their population.
“This is something that we’ve been working on for years,” she continues. “We’ve talked to hundreds of people across Memphis. To be quite honest with you, the campaign itself took very little education. People know what the police are doing and why they’re doing it. I think the people who are less affected by these issues are the ones that are a little bit more easily confused by what’s really at stake and what’s really happening.”
LJ Abraham (Photo: Courtesy LJ Abraham)
After the initial burst of public protests, activists like Sherman, Glass, and West Tennessee Regional Organizing Director for the Equity Alliance LJ Abraham concentrated their efforts on the City Council. “I actually think the momentum is a lot higher right now, because we’ve been able to pass some of the ordinances through City Council,” Abraham says. “That’s just a general basis of beginning actual police reform in Memphis, like ending pretextual stops, ending the use of unmarked police cars, doing data transparency, and just making sure that there is accountability on the side of police. … I think the situation around Tyre Nichols has kind of catapulted the fight for actual reform a little bit higher based on the manner in which he was killed.”
The fight has been emotional and bruising for everyone. Sherman was banned from City Council meetings (illegally, she says). “ I don’t care if they like me,” she says. “I care about being effective in getting policies put in place to keep people safer.
“I think we’ve changed public opinion on pretextual traffic stops,” Sherman continues. “I think public opinion around unmarked cars was always that they were not okay. A lot of folks are really appreciative of that, because they don’t agree with using unmarked cars for traffic enforcement.”
The pretextual traffic stop ordinance which passed the council is narrower than what Decarcerate Memphis wanted, says Glass. “It’s still considered a win, but it’s not entirely what we asked for. Ultimately, we’re pleased with the items that did pass.”
Can We Fix It?
The word that comes up over and over again when discussing police reform is “culture.” Many police, the argument goes, see the public as an enemy, and act like an army occupying a hostile land. “When I was younger, we got along with the cops,” says Abraham, who is 42. “I used to hang out with the cops, sit out on my porch and laugh and joke with them. But growing up and seeing the direction that policing has actually gone is probably one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen in my life. It can’t be this way. I think the police officers we hire, they’re really terrified; just scared for themselves, and not scared for anything else. But how can you take that job where you’re supposed to exhibit some level of bravery?”
The so-called “elite” units, like the SCORPION unit Chief Davis founded with a promise to “take the gloves off,” are a product of the “warrior cop” mindset. “I do believe there are people that we need to take care of us, to guard us, to protect us,” says Spickler. “That’s the mission of a police officer. It is not [to be] out there to wage war, not to battle, fight, and all these words we use when we talk about crime. But that’s what it’s become.
“We were told we’re gonna do whatever it takes to make sure there’s no repeats,” he continues. “But then, we had this battle at City Council where the community was very organized and very clear on what it wanted in these ordinances about traffic stops. The mayor’s administration comes in and says, ‘We can’t do that. Here’s the reason why.’ That’s as clear evidence as you need that they’re not serious. They’re not ready to do the things that need to be done.”
Crime and policing has become the central issue in this year’s mayoral election. Defenders of the status quo maintain that insufficient incarceration is what is driving the city’s crime rate. Cleotha Abston-Henderson served 20 years of a 24-year sentence for kidnapping. Ezekiel Kelly was convicted of aggravated assault when he was 16, and tried as an adult. He was released from prison early during the pandemic. On May 12th, Mayor Jim Strickland, who is not up for re-election because of term limits, led his weekly email newsletter with the image of a Monopoly “get out of jail free” card. “Someone is giving these out,” the newsletter read. “It’s not the Memphis City Government. It is not the Memphis Police Department or the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department. It appears that it is multiple people within the criminal court system at 201 Poplar and the Juvenile Court. And what’s worse — the bad guys know it, and they are encouraged to keep committing crimes.”
DA Mulroy says, “The narrative you hear from critics of reform is, one, the cops are doing a great job bringing everybody in, but two, the liberal DA and judges are letting them right back out. Three, they immediately re-offend, and four, that’s why we’re having a high crime rate. Every one of those assertions, one through four, is false. The clearance rates indicate that they’re not bringing them in. The DA doesn’t set bail. The supposedly liberal judges are not letting them out the way the public thinks. Although I may have disagreed with some of the individual, controversial bail decisions, nonetheless, the narrative that it is just a revolving door is false. They are not re-offending when they do get out. Less than one in four re-offend at all while they’re on bail — and less than 4 percent re-offend violently. And then finally, that’s not what’s driving crime. Because if you added up all the cases in which people who were let out on bail re-offended while they were out on bail, it would be less than one eighth of the total crimes in any given year. Even if we decided to violate the constitution and deny everyone bail, we would still have an unacceptably high crime rate. So we are focused on the wrong thing.”
Simply hiring more police to enact the same policies won’t work, says Spickler. “It’s the old hammer and nail metaphor. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Sometimes you need a hammer. Sometimes that’s the right tool for the job — but not all the time.”
“The tough-on-crime approach is not working,” says Glass. “If it did work, we would see the fruits of that labor. We need a leader that is interested in investing in the communities and healing the city. People are really suffering in Memphis, suffering from trauma, suffering from poverty. There are real issues that need to be addressed, and by addressing some of those issues, like education or the housing crisis or low-wage jobs, naturally the outcome is that crime will be addressed. As long as we are able and capable of meeting people’s needs, the other stuff takes care of itself. Nobody believes that there are communities of people that are inherently bad or inherently violent. There are communities that are oppressed, and that oppression, it’s like an illness, the trauma, the sickness. Let’s start treating poverty like a public health crisis instead of treating communities like they’re just irredeemable and only worthy of punishment and punitive measures.”
*The online version of this story has been modified slightly to clarify several quotations.
Election Commission head Mark Luttrell asked for permission to ditch old voting machines. (Photo: Mark H. Luttrell | Facebook)
Each of the major legislative bodies operating in Shelby County presents challenges to its members, to the various publics that wish to influence it, and to the matrices of other governmental bodies that it must coexist with.
Take the Shelby County Commission meeting of Monday, May 15th, a six-and-a-half-hour affair. The commission opened up its Monday session with an agenda of 21 “consent agenda” items and an additional nine “regular” items. In theory, the consent agenda items are matters whose import has been sufficiently chewed over in committee as to be generally acceptable already, whereas the regular items must be tackled anew.
It doesn’t work out that way. On Monday, a clear majority of items on the commission’s consent agenda were singled out for additional discussion by one or more — a fact clearly indicating that consent had not been reached. Most of these items involved the approval of public grants to this or that person or body to achieve some public purpose.
Commissioner Britney Thornton and, to a different degree, Commissioner Henri Brooks have chosen on a weekly basis to focus on the demographic distribution of these grants, wanting to know if a sufficient number of minority firms were invited to participate in the bidding for these projects. Thornton’s summing up of Monday’ results — “a flat zero” of ultimate participation by minorities.
This is one leitmotif of a typical commission meeting. Another is the dependable insistence of Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr.that commissioners — the “electeds” of county government — must be vigilant in preventing the “appointeds” of Mayor Lee Harris’ administration from usurping commission prerogatives.
At one point, Ford asked a yes-or-no question of administration budget director Michael Thompson, insisting, “Do not give an essay answer. I will cut you off and bust you out.” Mick Wright, one of four Republican commissioners on the 13-member body, challenged the decorum of that.
Wright and Ford bumped heads again on Wright’s proposal to route $3.5 million into needed upgrades for Regional One. Ford successfully insisted the money be spread around among the 13 commission districts for members’ preferred projects.
Ford was also instrumental in deferring action on Mayor Harris’ proposal to raise the county wheel tax to finance work on Regional One as well as two new schools.
The bottom line is that work on an ambitious 2024 budget has been remanded into the future with a target date in mind of June 30th, the end of the current fiscal year.
With surprising unanimity, the commission approved a $3.39 tax rate, as well as a desire to establish a county civilian law-enforcement review board like those now operating in Memphis and Nashville city governments. The commission also gave conditional approval to the Election Commission’s wish to dispose of “useless” old voting machines, so long as significant information from them was retained. Commissioners also approved a $2.7 million budget item providing medical backup resources for the county specialty courts dealing with veterans, mental health, and drug issues. And it readies for future voting a matching proposal to provide psychiatric rehabilitation for prisoners deemed incompetent for trial.
Overall, the import of Monday’s commission meeting was that a lot of cans got kicked down the road. More of this anon.
The author as a college freshman (Photo: Courtesy Mary Loveless)
This is a repurposed version of a speech I gave at the “Memphis Monologues” program, in which women tell real, personal stories to raise awareness of their experiences.
In light of writer E. Jean Carroll’s recent rape and defamation suit against Donald Trump, I felt my story had some currency. Seeing Trump lawyer Joseph Tacopina going after Ms. Carroll with the same old “attack-the-victim” ploys we might have hoped had died out, I thought it time to dust it off.
I was raped in college. This event isn’t something that defined me, and it’s not something that derailed my life or rewrote my story; it’s just a real thing that happened.
Growing up, I was the goody-goodiest of all goody-goodies, and to say that I was innocent doesn’t begin to cover it. I started college, wide-eyed and chaste, and immediately began dating an upperclassman. He was cute, he drove a cute car, he had cute friends, and his fraternity had great parties. It was fun to be liked, and I really liked him.
By the end of freshman year, we were fighting a lot — specifically over sex. He wanted it. I didn’t. I always made sure we stopped short of my definition (and Bill Clinton’s) of “having sex” — when a penis enters a vagina — and until you did that, you were a virgin. I was determined to remain that virgin until I was married. We went on like that through my sophomore year.
I was away for the summer after my sophomore year, and when I returned home in August, I decided to break up with him — but first, we had to go to Florida with a big group for a wedding.
One night, he dragged me out of a fun house party. He wanted to leave, I didn’t, and I was highly annoyed. Out in the driveway, he wanted to go somewhere so we could make out, but I was having none of it, so I turned to go back into the house. He grabbed my arm, spun me around, and slammed me against a car door. Whatever I said in response, it made him mad enough to hit me in the face.
That was it. One strike and you’re out. I told him we were done, went back inside, and drove home to Tennessee after the wedding with my roommate, telling him to find his own damn way home.
Over the next two weeks, he called, wrote, cried, and sent flowers, but I stuck to my guns. I arrived back at college excited for the new year. Friends had already started setting me up with dates.
I don’t remember what he said that made me drive over to see him at the off-campus house where he now lived, but I must’ve felt sorry for him, or needed to pick up some mementos or pictures. Or something. Anyway, I went.
I could go into a lot of detail here, but it’s not really necessary. And I don’t want to give him too much focus.
In his room, he begged me not to break up, but I told him it was too late. He pinned me down. I thought I heard someone else in the house, so I hollered for help and he hit me — again, to shut me up — and then he raped me. I struggled, got away, and left. In one fell swoop, he had taken from me what I’d refused to give him for two years.
But the bigger story, now, is not the rape itself , but how everyone in my life reacted to it.
First, how I reacted. It didn’t occur to me to report it — after all, I had gone to his house, and we had dated for two years, so who’d ever believe me? Also, then everyone would know — horrors of all horrors — that I. Was. Not. A. Virgin. I reacted, like most women in my generation probably did, with a combination of silence and shame.
I did Olympics-caliber mental gymnastics to convince myself that it never really happened. I took this memory like a piece of chewed-up gum in a tinfoil wrapper and balled it up into the teeniest little morsel and then buried it deep in the back of my mind, rarely —if ever — even thinking about it, and NEVER breathing a word of it to another living soul.
Then, in 2016, the odious Donald Trump slithered onto the national scene. Late that October, before the election, my wonderful husband Bill and I were talking about the Access Hollywood pussy-grabbing tape and the first group of Trump sexual assault accusers who had come forward.
Bill — like most men— couldn’t understand why the women wouldn’t have sought justice all those years ago. “If something that horrible happens to you, you report it!” he declared.
I argued that of course those women would NOT have come forward, for any of a million reasons — fear of not being believed or being blamed, the need to protect a job, power disparity, being ashamed that it happened.
Suddenly, 42 years of tamping it down, keeping it secret, and even pretending it had never happened fell away, and I blurted out, “I believe the women because Scumbag Jones raped me in college, and I’ve never told anybody!”
Bill was shocked. I told the story, and he started asking questions: “Why did you go over to his house?” “Why didn’t you report it or tell anybody?”
Let me tell you what one of my daughters said about this part of the story: “Usually, those questions would sound ignorant and would make me indignant. But because I know Dad, I kind of hear those questions as coming from the same desperate place as when you’re watching a horror movie — ‘Oh, God, why is she going in there?! Doesn’t she know there’s a monster in there?! Stop!’”
After a lot of talk and healing, and newfound understanding on Bill’s part, we got past this bump in the road, and Bill came out of it much more supportive of me, and a much stronger ally for women.
Shortly thereafter, I told my daughters, and while they were marvelously sympathetic and caring about it, they didn’t seem surprised. I’m not sure if rape is more common today or if it’s just less taboo, but they didn’t take it as earth-shaking news.
One daughter said: “My generation processes it with anger, while yours processed it with shame.” One thing’s for sure: They do not blame the woman.
For a couple years, I rocked along with only my family knowing about this. Not that I was hiding it. It just never came up.
Then came the Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings, and the stunning and compelling testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. I wondered, if my rapist had been nominated for high office, would I have the courage to come forward and speak out? Hmm.
He actually did become a lawyer. But the higher office thing never happened, because at some point he was convicted of some kind of white-collar fraud and went to prison for awhile.
Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it?
Later that week, I was at lunch with a couple of friends, and one asked if we believed Dr. Blasey Ford. “Yes, absolutely!” I exclaimed. “Because I was raped in college and I never told anyone!” After I told my story, another of the friends told us that she also had been raped and had never told anyone. A few months later, I told some college friends, and likewise, everyone had their stories — whether it was them, or a daughter, or another friend — everyone had them.
And the funny thing about telling a woman friend that you were raped in college and never said anything about it for 42 years — she doesn’t ask you a bunch of questions. She just reaches across the table, grabs your hand, and says, “I’m so, so sorry.”
Flash forward to the E. Jean Carroll trial, which ended last week with the jury finding Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her. The things she’s been attacked for by Tacopina are infuriating. (Side note: Tacopina looks — and acts — more like a mob lawyer than most movie mob lawyers.)
How could a rape take place in a little dressing room? I’ve been in those dressing rooms at Bergdorf Goodman — indeed, Bill’s been in there with me when I looked for a formal dress — and they are huge.
Why didn’t she scream? Any of a number of reasons, and Carroll answered that on the stand — numerous times.
Why didn’t she report it? In a way, she did report it, since she told two women friends, when I never told a single soul for 42 years.
Why didn’t she report it to the police? See my reasons above, especially the one about power disparity. One of her friends actually told her not to report it because of Trump’s power and cadre of lawyers who would “bury” her.
It seems to me that E. Jean Carroll’s experience with Trump mirrors that of so many other women, and I’m in awe of her bravery for following through.
You go, Ms. Carroll. I believe you.
Mary Loveless is a sexual-assault-surviving, gun-owning, Planned-Parenthood-patient-escorting Southern debutante, and a former writer/editor for Memphis magazine.
General advice given to young people is to do their work well, lest they be fired from their job. Being fired holds a negative stigma and of course, for most people, can affect the likelihood of future employment, especially in the same industry.
Yet this does not hold true for police officers, it seems. Time and again we see police officers engage in misconduct of all sorts yet remain on the force. Even officers who have lost their jobs are often reinstated due to powerful police unions that negotiate pro-cop contracts. Worse yet, officers who have lost their jobs have been hired by other police agencies as if they did nothing wrong. Most recently, Louisville, Kentucky, Officer Myles Cosgrove, who was fired in 2021 for the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, was hired by a neighboring county. Cosgrove fired 16 rounds after officers entered Taylor’s apartment for a narcotics raid on March 13, 2020. Her boyfriend, not knowing they were officers, fired back with his lawful firearm and officers returned the fire, killing Taylor in the hallway.
Neither Cosgrove nor the other officer whose bullet struck Taylor were charged. Because, sure, this makes sense — killing someone and failing to utilize the required body camera during a raid on her apartment should definitely guarantee one future employment as an officer. Ugh. But that is exactly what the Kentucky Law Enforcement Council voted in November 2022 to reinstate Cosgrove’s license.
The problem of officers remaining on the job or being rehired after engaging in terrible work-related misconduct is remarkably common. In August 2021, Wisconsin Public Radio reported that some 200 officers who had been fired or resigned amidst misconduct investigations were still in the state’s employ.
This is seemingly terrible decision-making on the part of the hiring agency, as studies, including one published in the Yale Law Journal found that cops who were fired previously are more likely to be fired again or to receive complaints of “moral character violations.” In another example, Timothy Loehmann, the officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland in 2014, had previously resigned from a suburban police force before being fired for numerous issues. The Cleveland Police Department evidently did not check his personnel file.
Eddie Boyd III resigned from his job as an officer in St. Louis, Missouri, after he pistol-whipped a 12-year-old girl in the face, then a year later hit another child in the face with either his gun or handcuffs and then falsified the report. No worries, Boyd was soon hired by a police department in St. Ann, Missouri, before moving on to — wait for it — Ferguson, Missouri.
Never to be outdone, Florida’s German Bosque, often called “Florida’s Worst Cop,” was fired for various misconduct than re-hired seven times. The last time Bosque was caught on body camera coaching a subordinate how to conceal the truth about a crime scene. Other allegations were for excessive use of force, misuse of police firearms, and stealing from suspects.
How is this possible?
First, there is no national database of officers who have been fired or who resign during misconduct cases, although it is clear in the case of Cosgrove that Robert Miller, chief deputy in Carroll County, was well aware of the officer’s past when he hired the man. In other cases, perhaps the hiring agency did a poor job of conducting a background check, however absurd that sounds when hiring for a position that involves the use of lethal force.
Additionally, as Ben Grunwald, a Duke University law school professor, noted, sometimes hiring agencies actually want someone with a “cowboy cop” reputation. For example, in 2020 in Brevard County, Florida, there was an advertisement seeking to hire rogue officers, with the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of the Police posting on Facebook specifically to the “Buffalo 57” and “Atlanta 6” that it was hiring. The Buffalo 57 were 57 officers who resigned following the suspension of two of their colleagues for pushing a 75-year-old protestor to the ground, and the Atlanta 6 were booked on felony charges for assaulting two college students who were Black Lives Matter protesters.
It is no wonder that community trust in police has been declining for years. A Post-ABC poll found in early 2023 that only 39 percent of those surveyed were confident that police are adequately trained to avoid using excessive force, the lowest level since polling of its sort began in 2014. Likewise, a 2022 Gallup poll found only 45 percent of surveyed Americans were generally confident in police, even lower than in the aftermath of the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
While there is much to be done to address the many problems with policing in the U.S., the fix here seems quite simple: Stop hiring and rehiring people who are not good at their jobs.
Laura Finley, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, teaches in the Barry University Department of Sociology & Criminology and is the author of several academic texts in her discipline.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries dramatist Samuel Beckett, winner of the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote 22 plays. The shortest was Breath. It has no dialogue or actors and lasts less than a minute. It begins and ends with a recording of the cry of a newborn baby. In between there are the sounds of someone breathing and variations in the lighting. I recommend you draw inspiration from Breath in the coming weeks, Aries. Be succinct and pithy. Call on the powers of graceful efficiency and no-nonsense effectiveness. Relish the joys of shrewd simplicity.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the coming weeks, you Bulls must brook no bullies or bullying. Likewise, you should tolerate no bullshit from people trying to manipulate or fool you. Be a bulwark of integrity as you refuse to lower your standards. Bulk up the self-protective part of your psyche so you will be invincibly immune to careless and insensitive spoilers. Your word of power is BUILD. You will align yourself with cosmic rhythms as you work to create situations that will keep you strong and stable during the next 12 months.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): How much do you believe in your power to become the person you want to be? Ninety percent? Fifty-five? Twenty? Whatever it is, you can increase it in the coming weeks. Life will conspire with you to raise your confidence as you seek new ways to fulfill your soul’s purpose. Surges of grace will come your way as you strive with intense focus to live your most meaningful destiny. To take maximum advantage of this opportunity, I suggest you enjoy extra amounts of quiet, meditative time. Request help from the deepest core of your intelligence.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Early in the 19th century, cultural researchers Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm gathered an array of old folk stories and published a collection of what we now call fairy tales. Because the two brothers wanted to earn money, they edited out some graphic elements of the original narratives. For example, in the Grimms’ revised version, we don’t get the juicy details of the princess fornicating with the frog prince once he has reverted to his handsome human form. In the earlier but not published stories of Rumpelstiltskin, the imp gets so frustrated when he’s tricked by the queen that he rips himself apart. I hope you will do the opposite of the Brothers Grimm in the coming weeks, Cancerian. It’s crucial that you reveal and expose and celebrate raw, unvarnished truths.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Is there a job you would love to have as your primary passion, but it’s different from the job you’re doing? Is there a calling you would delight in embracing, but you’re too consumed by the daily routine? Do you have a hobby you’d like to turn into a professional pursuit? If you said even a partial yes to my questions, Leo, here’s good news: In the coming months, you will have an enhanced ability to make these things happen. And now is an excellent time to get underway.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo-born Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) was a versatile virtuoso. He excelled as an essayist, biographer, playwright, editor, poet, and lexicographer. How did he get so much done? Here’s one clue. He took his own advice, summed up in the following quote: “It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote. Present opportunities are neglected and attainable good is slighted by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.” Johnson’s counsel is perfect for you right now, Virgo. Forget about the future and be focused on the present. Dive into the interesting work and play that’s right in front of you.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I would love you to go searching for treasure, and I hope you launch your quest soon. As you gather clues, I will be cheering you on. Before you embark, though, I want to make sure you are clear about the nature of the treasure you will be looking for. Please envision it in glorious detail. Write down a description of it and keep it with you for the next seven weeks. I also suggest you carry out a fun ritual to formally mark your entry into the treasure-hunting chapter of your life.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In the coming weeks, you’ll be guided by your deep intelligence as you explore and converse with the darkness. You will derive key revelations and helpful signs as you wander around inside the mysteries. Be poised and lucid, dear Scorpio. Trust your ability to sense what’s important and what’s not. Be confident that you can thrive amidst uncertainty as you remain loyal to your core truths. No matter how murky this challenge may seem, it will ultimately be a blessing. You will emerge both smarter and wiser.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): If you take the Bible’s teachings seriously, you give generously to the poor and you welcome immigrants. You regard the suffering of others as being worthy of your compassionate attention, and you express love not just for people who agree with you and share your cultural traditions, but for everyone. Numerous Biblical verses, including many attributed to Jesus Christ, make it clear that living according to these principles is essential to being a good human. Even if you are not Jewish or Christian, Sagittarius, I recommend this approach to you. Now is an excellent time to hone your generosity of spirit and expand your urge to care for others.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1982, Capricorn actor Ben Kingsley won an Oscar for his role in the film Gandhi. Then his career declined. In an animated movie in 1992, he voiced the role of an immortal frog named F.R.O.7. who worked as a James Bond-like secret agent. It was a critical and financial disaster. But Kingsley’s fortunes rebounded, and he was nominated for Academy Awards in 2002 and 2003. Then his trajectory dipped again. He was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor for four separate films between 2005 and 2008. Now, at age 79, he’s rich and famous and mostly remembered for the great things he has done. I suggest we make him your role model for the coming months. May he inspire you to emphasize your hits and downplay your misses.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I’m devoted to cultivating the art of relaxation. But I live in a world dominated by stress addicts and frenzied overachievers. Here’s another problem: I aspire to be curious, innocent, and open-minded, but the civilization I’m embedded in highly values know-it-all experts who are very sure they are in command of life’s secrets. One further snag: I’m an ultra-sensitive creator who is nourished by original thinking and original feeling. And yet I constantly encounter formulaic literalists who thrive on clichés. Now here’s the good news: I am a successful person! I do what I love and enjoy an interesting life. Here’s even more good news, Aquarius: In the next 12 months, you will have a knack for creating rhythms that bring you closer than ever before to doing what you love and enjoying an interesting life.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Most of us suffer from at least one absurd, irrational fear. I have a daft fear of heights, even when I’m perfectly safe, and a manic fear of mosquitoes dive-bombing me as I sleep, an event that has only happened four times in my life. My anxiety about running out of money is more rational, though, as is my dread of getting sick. Those worries help motivate me to work hard to earn a living and take superb care of my health. What about you, Pisces? Do you know which of your fears are preposterous and which make at least some sense? The coming weeks will be a favorable time to get a good handle on this question. Ask yourself: “Which of my fears are misdirected or exaggerated, and which are realistic and worthy of my attention?”
KOKH-TV reported that on March 12, a woman in Dickson, Oklahoma, was attacked by her neighbor’s pet monkey, Jack, resulting in her ear being ripped “almost completely off my head,” the victim, Brittany Parker, said. “He started grabbing handfuls of my hair and just ripped it out,” she added. Dickson police were called, and as they looked for the monkey, two shots were fired. “The shots came from the area of the victim’s residence. Officers went back to the house and found that a family member of the victim shot and killed the primate,” police said. Parker said she will need plastic surgery to fix her ear. P.J. Carter, Jack’s owner, is distraught: “I lost my best friend and pet due to it all,” he said. “He was my super monkey. I feel sorry for [Parker] and her injury. My friend and pet Jack lost his life over a massive misunderstanding and the lack of knowledge and education with an exotic animal,” Carter added. The district attorney has declined to file charges. [KOKH, 3/17/2023]
Creme de la Weird
The Mondaiji Con Cafe Daku (loosely translated: Problem Child Concept Cafe) in Sapporo, Japan, was forced to fire one of its waitresses in April after she was discovered to be adding her own blood to cocktails, the Daily Mail reported. The cafe owner called her actions “absolutely not acceptable” and said the establishment would close while every drinking glass was replaced. “We will hire a contractor to clean the store, change glasses, and dispose of alcoholic beverages that may have been contaminated,” he said. He called her actions “part-time job terrorism.” A local doctor said anyone who had patronized the cafe should visit a doctor and have a blood test. [Daily Mail, 4/13/2023]
It’s a Mystery
Over the last several months, Don Powell and his wife, Nancy, have been puzzling over uninvited inhabitants of their fancy mailbox in Orchard Lake, Michigan. USA Today reported that in August 2022, two small dolls, a miniature couch, and a small table appeared in the mailbox, which is custom-built to resemble the Powells’ home, with windows and a solar-powered interior light that comes on at night. The dolls were accompanied by a note: “We’ve decided to live here. Mary and Shelley.” Powell thought a neighbor might be spoofing him, but after exhaustive investigatory work, he’s no closer to knowing the source of the figures. Over time, the home gained a four-poster bed, a dog, a rug, and art for the wall. “The whole thing got rather whimsical,” Powell said. At Halloween, Mary and Shelley were replaced by two skeleton dolls dressed in black, and at Christmas, tiny, wrapped gifts appeared. Now, Powell is thinking of writing a children’s book about the mailbox mystery. “I think it creates a novel story,” he said. [USA Today, 4/13/2023]
The Continuing Crisis
Angel Footman, 23, a teacher at Griffin Middle School in Tallahassee, Florida, was arrested on April 7 and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, the New York Post reported. The charges came after school administrators learned Footman was allegedly hosting violent brawls between students in her classroom. Naturally, she set down rules: no recordings, and no pulling hair. No screaming (draws attention). Fights must be limited to 30 seconds each. However, several sixth-grade girls alerted administrators, and video turned up showing Footman at her desk while students fought each other. She’s scheduled for arraignment in May. [NY Post, 4/10/2023]
Bright Idea
Drivers along Interstate 5 near Eugene, Oregon, were startled on April 11 to see $100 bills floating through the air, Fox News reported. In fact, many cars stopped along the highway to grab the loot. When the Oregon State Police tracked down the source, it was Colin Davis McCarthy, who told them he’d been throwing the money out of his car to “bless others.” He said he thought he’d dispersed around $200,000. The OSP later revealed that McCarthy’s family had been in touch; he had depleted a shared family bank account for his Robin Hood moment. [Fox News, 4/14/2023]
Empire State Building (Photo: Nbogdev | Dreamstime.com)
“25 Empire State Buildings Could Fit Into New York’s Empty Office Space.” Now that’s a headline. The article, in the May 10th New York Times, was equally compelling, citing the high office-vacancy rates in the nation’s major cities and suggesting some creative possible solutions.
As many sociologists have pointed out, the physical layout of most large American cities is not set up to handle the work-from-home economy that was spurred by the pandemic. After the onset of the high-rise office building, circa 1920s, American cities became increasingly segmented into geographic spaces for home, work, and play.
That 100-year-old urban game plan is no longer working. The national office-vacancy rate as of April 5th, according to an FDIntelligence report, was 18.5 percent. The rate in Memphis for the first quarter, according to Cushman-Wakefield, was 16.2 percent. From Cushman-Wakefield: “The [Memphis] office market continues with lower than typical leasing activity though absorption remains positive. … Tenants continue to downsize into smaller spaces.”
The company I work for, Contemporary Media, Inc., is doing just that, moving from a lovely old Downtown building with brass elevators to a space that makes more sense economically. We learned during the pandemic that we are capable of putting out the Flyer and Memphis magazine and our other publications with our writers, editors, art staff, and sales staff working from home.
I’m writing this column from my couch (along with my dog, Olive), and have the Flyer’s Slack app open on my laptop so as to be able monitor communication between my co-workers and chip in with editing help when needed — or when I feel like joining in the genial smack talk. It’s like a free-flowing group text, only much more useful. We do have weekly in-person staff meetings, as well, so we can put on grown-up clothes, brainstorm, gossip, and remember what we look like. But it’s a far cry from the 40-hour-a-week office-and-cubicle farms we occupied for the first 40 years of the company’s existence.
Back to the Times: “To create a city vibrant enough to compete with the convenience of the internet, [cities] need to create mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods that bring libraries, offices, movie theaters, grocery stores, schools, parks, restaurants, and bars closer together. We must reconfigure the city into an experience worth leaving the house for.”
Is Downtown Memphis worth leaving the house for? Well, I can look out my soon-to-be-former office window and see the nascent construction of a new Memphis Brooks Museum, one that will cascade down the bluff to the river. There, it will overlook the spectacularly reimagined Tom Lee Park. A Downtown grocery store has sprung up on the south side, not far from a snazzy movie theater, which is adjacent to the city’s largest farmers market and the thriving South Main district. The Cossitt Library has just been beautifully redone. New restaurants are coming on, and long-time favorites are still thriving. Old buildings are getting new life. FedExForum, home of the Grizzlies and Tigers and big-ticket touring concert acts, is getting a multi-million-dollar facelift, as is AutoZone Park, home to the AAA Redbirds and the 901 FC soccer team. And I can think of at least five standalone breweries in the 38103. So yeah, I’d leave the house for some of that action — and do.
“We are witnessing the dawn of a new kind of urban area,” the Times concludes: “the Playground City.” That sounds nice, but it can go wrong. Consider, for example, how Downtown Nashville’s party wagons, mobile hot tubs, and cheesy honky-tonks are choking the city’s urban center at night — and demonstrating how a “playground city” can chase locals away rather than attract them.
Memphis needs to be smarter. If we want more people to live Downtown, we need to keep the noise down after a reasonable hour and restrict the more boisterous action to Beale Street and other designated areas. (Talkin’ to you, party wagons.) And Downtown needs to be closely monitored by police, with a presence that protects citizens and visitors without stifling the Memphis vibe.
The truth is, our Downtown probably doesn’t even have one Empire State Building’s worth of vacant office. We’re fortunate that mid-size cities like Memphis are poised to recover and adapt to a post-pandemic economy much more quickly than mega-cities. Let’s not screw it up, Memphis.
