Month: August 2024

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Cover Feature News Sports Tiger Blue

2024 Tiger Football Preview

Roc Taylor Photo: Wes Hale)

There’s no such thing as a perfect football game. Or is there?

In their 36-26 victory over Iowa State in the 2023 AutoZone Liberty Bowl, the Memphis Tigers put three zeroes on the stat sheet that have never been seen together in these parts, and may never be seen again. Memphis committed zero turnovers and zero penalties and (sit down for this one) allowed the Cyclones zero rushing yards. In baseball terms, it was a form of no runs, no hits, no errors … perfection.

“All season, you want to play a complete game,” says Ryan Silverfield, entering his fifth season as head coach of the Tigers and ninth with the program. “It’s getting harder and harder. We had games where the defense carried us, then the offense or special teams. We finally saw a cumulation of a lot of things going well, and at the right time. Beating Ole Miss [in 2019] was great, College Gameday, the Cotton Bowl, beating Mississippi State [in 2021]. But I had more people tell me that winning the AutoZone Liberty Bowl meant the most to them, 60-year-old fans or teenagers. It capped off the season, and it was a relatively clean beating. It set up a great deal of momentum going forward, sort of a snowball effect of positivity.”

With six wins, Seth Henigan would break the record for career victories (28) by a Memphis quarterback. (Photo: Wes Hale)

Perfection may not be a fair standard for the 2024 Memphis Tigers, but let’s say the bar is high for this team. For the first time since joining the American Athletic Conference in 2013, Memphis has been picked to win the league championship in the preseason media poll. Last season, Memphis finished sixth in the country in scoring, averaging 39.4 points per game. And the Tigers have the luxury of the most experienced quarterback in the country returning to lead their offense. Senior Seth Henigan is the only FBS quarterback returning for a fourth year as a starter at the same program. The MVP of that Liberty Bowl victory, Henigan has already broken the Memphis record for career passing yards (10,764) and needs just 12 touchdown passes to top Brady White’s record of 90. Most significantly, with six wins, Henigan would move past White’s 28 for the most victories by a Tiger signal-caller.

“Seth started [his college career] as a 17-year-old,” notes Silverfield. “It was like starting a rookie in the NFL. Two years later, he wins 10 games. We all get better. Seth learned how to win games last year. Now he can carry the team, be a leader. It’s his team. Push the standards for everybody on a day-to-day basis. Not just throwing the ball nicely and putting up good stats. When adversity hits, be the one saying, ‘No, this is the way we do things.’ He embraces it fully.”

Ryan Silverfield has won more bowl games (three) than any other coach in Memphis history. (Photo: Wes Hale)

“Watch lists” — those compendiums of candidates for myriad college football individual awards — tend to be more hype than substance, but a single player being on five lists grabs your attention. Henigan is included among contenders for the Maxwell Award (most outstanding player), the Walter Camp Player of the Year, the Davey O’Brien Award (best quarterback), the Manning Award, and the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award. If he tops his 2023 season (3,883 yards and 32 touchdown passes), Henigan could well be a finalist for one of these trophies.

Considering his lengthy track record, how does Henigan improve this fall? “He’s got to play the next play of his life perfectly,” says offensive coordinator Tim Cramsey. “Every single day, however many reps he has. That’s hard to do for an entire game. But not for the next play.”

Henigan will have his share of targets, starting with senior wide receiver Roc Taylor, a second-team all-conference pick (like Henigan) in 2023 who caught 69 passes for 1,083 yards to lead Memphis in both categories. Also back are Demeer Blankumsee (901 yards), Koby Drake (352), and tight end Anthony Landphere (260).

“Since I’ve been here, it’s been a grind,” says Taylor, starting his fourth season alongside Henigan. “Building friendships. The loyalty [the program] has given me, I’m giving back. I want to leave my own legacy here. I watch a lot of film on myself, and there are little things I can work on to get better. Knowing reads, when to run a route at a certain speed, and having a connection with Seth.”

The Tigers’ running game will look different this season with Blake Watson (1,152 yards last season) having exhausted his eligibility. But returning are Sutton Smith and Brandon Thomas, both to be pushed by South Carolina transfer Mario Anderson (707 yards for the Gamecocks in 2023). “We have high expectations,” says Silverfield. “Sutton Smith is a dynamic football player. I’m pleased with our depth.” Thomas rushed for 191 yards in a 2021 win at Arkansas State. The idea that he might be the Tigers’ third option on the ground speaks to that depth. 

Linebacker Chandler Martin aims to be the Tigers’ “quarterback on defense.” (Photo: Wes Hale)

The Tiger defense will be led by junior linebacker Chandler Martin. A preseason All-America candidate, Martin led the Tigers with 95 tackles last season including an eye-popping 17 behind the line of scrimmage. “Sometimes it’s that kid from the FCS level [East Tennessee State] who gets here, does a good job, and takes the bull by the horns,” says Silverfield. “He’s a leader for our team and was appreciative of the opportunity we gave him; he could have gone to larger schools. He does it the right way all the time, a complete student-athlete.”

Like Taylor, Martin heard from other programs over the offseason. But he’s back in blue and gray, and there wasn’t much deliberation. “It’s about loyalty,” he says. “They believed in me here, gave me the chance to be the best version of myself. I’m happy to be back, and be a leader for this team.”

Defensive coordinator Jordon Hankins is relying on Martin being the linebacker we all saw a year ago, but with the added duty of role model for the rest of the Tiger defense. “You don’t have the success he had individually,” notes Hankins, “without understanding you can’t do it without the people around you. He bought into that leadership role. People in the locker room want to be around him. He keeps everybody level-headed. We’re as good as our last play. That’s how he is, every day.”

Alongside Martin will be the most significant transfer arrival of 2024: junior Elijah Herring from Tennessee. Herring led the Volunteers last season with 80 tackles but wasn’t guaranteed a starting spot this fall, so he moved west. Among the veterans returning to the Tiger defense are linemen CorMontae Hamilton and Keveion’ta Spears and senior safety Greg Rubin, a three-year starter who played locally at White Station High School.

“We just have to make sure we stay locked in,” emphasizes Martin. “On the same trajectory, with the same standards. Coach Silverfield does a great job, showing us how we do things. Personally, I want to be the quarterback on defense. Last year, I was just trying to figure it out, fit in. My goal is always no missed assignments. Making sure I do my job within the framework. Once I get the assignment down, how can I make secondary plays? Little details.”

Why are stars like Henigan, Taylor, and Martin back for another season in blue and gray when the transfer portal — and likely more NIL (name/image/likeness) riches — beckon at every corner? “They’re great young men,” stresses Silverfield. “I think loyalty is one of those things that’s getting lost in society, and especially in sports. When I sat down with Roc, I told him about all the positives we have here, and also the negatives. What’s the best choice for him? When the dust settles, a lot of guys are finding that this is the best opportunity: the culture and what we’re trying to do. If we have a lot of good things going, don’t go to the unknown. We have good relationships. They appreciate the truth. And they can maximize everything they want in their college football experience right here.”

The Memphis football program has rarely made national headlines during the summer, but it did in June, when Antwann Hill Jr., the third-ranked quarterback in the 2025 recruiting class, announced his intention to play for the Tigers. If he signs in February, Hill will become the highest-ranked signee in the program’s history. It’s one more effect of that “positivity snowball” Silverfield mentions, a snowball made dramatically larger last fall when FedEx founder Fred Smith announced a $50 million donation toward renovations at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium. (The university is matching the figure on top of $120 million in funds from the state of Tennessee.)

“We are so grateful to the Smith family,” says Silverfield. “I consider them friends. It truly is a game-changer. We were too far behind with NIL. I worried about our ability to compete, no matter how good our staff was. It’s getting harder and harder to build a roster without NIL. It’s allowed us to compete. Do we want to be relevant or not?”

Renovations to the Tigers’ home stadium — a facility that opened in 1965 — will be done with eyes on relevance in the next round of FBS realignment. What was once a “Power 5” is now four mega-conferences: the SEC (16 programs), the Big 10 (18), the Big 12 (16), and perhaps the most likely landing spot for Memphis, the ACC (14). For now, though, Silverfield’s message is clear and direct: Win the American Athletic Conference championship. Earn that trophy and the bonus may be a berth in the newly expanded 12-team playoff for the national championship.

“Winning helps a lot of things,” says Silverfield, “but it’s not what will decide conference realignment. SMU wanted to move to a larger conference, so SMU put a ton of money into football. Tulane wanted to get better at football, so they put a ton of money into football. Our goals always start with winning the conference. Realignment? We know it’s not done. No one ever woke up thinking Rutgers and UCLA would be playing a Wednesday night volleyball match. I can control what I can control, and I stay up to date. But head football coaches can’t decide that.”

Having “won” the preseason media poll, the Tigers can’t exactly play the no-respect card, a rarity in these parts. But Martin speaks for his teammates in accepting the role as AAC favorites. “It puts a chip on [our opponents’] shoulder,” he says. “Everybody’s going to give us their best shot. It just makes us have to lock in even more, pay more attention to details. You gotta take it week by week.”

Even teams outside those four “power leagues” can aspire to win a national title now, the postseason dance card having expanded from four teams to a dozen. “I use the heck out of that in recruiting,” emphasizes Silverfield. “It makes Memphis that much more special. There are teams in the SEC that have no chance at making the playoff. We do. We need to focus on having our best season, look up in December, and see where the chips fall.” 

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Opinion The Last Word

Healthcare at a Crossroads

Kamala Harris plans to expand access to healthcare. (Photo: Hush Naidoo Jade Photography | Unsplash)

As the November election approaches, the nation again nears a crossroads on healthcare, with candidates diverging on a basic question of equity: Who is to bear the risks and costs of care? For Donald Trump, his congressional allies, and conservative policy analysts, the answer is clear: cut government spending and shift the risks and costs back onto individuals, employers, and states. For Kamala Harris, the priorities move in a strikingly different direction: expand access to healthcare, strengthening the federal government’s role in guaranteeing healthcare for all Americans, no matter what their socioeconomic status may be.

The differences show up most pointedly in the candidates’ positions on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid. Fourteen years after Congress passed the ACA, providing subsidies that enabled millions of Americans to obtain health insurance, the percentage of uninsured Americans has declined to a historic low of less than eight percent. Vice President Harris has advocated for, and defended, the ACA, and is expected to support the extension of enhanced subsidies, introduced during the pandemic, beyond their expiration date of 2025. These subsidies have made it possible for many people to obtain marketplace coverage.

Donald Trump tried and failed to repeal the ACA in 2017, and since then he has vowed he “would make it much better than it is right now,” though without providing specifics. One likely course of action, however, would be to target the ACA’s protection of individuals against insurance denial because of preexisting health conditions. As president, Trump authorized the expansion of short-term insurance plans as an alternative to the more comprehensive ACA marketplace plans. These short-term plans allowed insurers to bar people from coverage because of preexisting conditions, and to set rates based on their medical histories.

More recently, the Republican Study Committee, a group comprising four-fifths of Republican congressional members and their leadership, released a budget proposal calling — among many other things — for an end to the federal government’s regulation regarding preexisting conditions, and allowing states to decide whether or not to keep the rule.

Medicaid also represents a major difference between the candidates. A joint federal-state program established in 1965 along with Medicare, Medicaid now provides health insurance for almost 75 million low-income Americans. When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2014, it included a provision to expand Medicaid coverage to all Americans earning up to 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. Forty-one states, including the District of Columbia, adopted the expanded coverage, along with federal matching grants to go with it, and 10 states (primarily Republican-controlled states) rejected it, keeping insurance out of reach for many low-income residents. 

As president, Donald Trump approved waivers allowing states to set work requirements in order for people to receive Medicaid, and waiver programs have proved costly and ineffective. The Biden-Harris administration withdrew those waivers, claiming that work requirements do nothing to advance the purpose of Medicaid, which has been to expand access to healthcare.

What should voters make of these differences? One way to begin answering the question is to listen to people closest to the issues. An internist working at a San Francisco public hospital writes of treating an indigent man who requested hospice care rather than undergoing an amputation for a bone infection in his arm, an infection that didn’t respond to antibiotics. The man explained that with an amputated arm, he’d be much more vulnerable to assault on the streets, and thus he opted for hospice — unless he was able to get housing — a goal far out of reach in a city with a critical shortage of available housing.

The man eventually died of sepsis (the physician refers to the cause as “end-stage poverty”), and the internist explains, “ … that illness in our patients isn’t just a biological phenomenon. It’s the manifestation of social inequality in people’s bodies.”

The U.S. spends more money per capita on healthcare than any comparable nation in wealth and size, and yet life expectancy in the nation is lower than that of any peer nation. There are many reasons for this, one certainly having to do with the U.S. being the only advanced nation without universal healthcare for its citizens. Poverty and racism factor significantly as well, with persistent indicators like major racial gaps in maternal and infant mortality. A recent California study found that babies born to the poorest Black mothers have almost twice the mortality rate of the poorest white mothers, and even babies born to the wealthiest Black mothers have a higher mortality rate than the poorest white mothers.

The U.S. has been slowly moving in the direction of other advanced nations, gradually increasing the federal role in guaranteeing healthcare for all. This November’s election will be a referendum of sorts, indicating a continuation of the present direction or a significant reversal of policy. At stake is a choice between leaving individuals more or less to their own devices in a highly unequal society, or recognizing that healthcare — and the eradication of inequity — is a collective responsibility. 

Andrew Moss, syndicated by PeaceVoice, writes on labor, nonviolence, and culture from Los Angeles. He is an emeritus professor (nonviolence studies, English) from the California State University.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Snapshots of a Feeling

Joe and Kamala (Photos: Jackson Baker)

CHICAGO — All the president’s men, women, courtiers, and supporters and well-wishers of all stripes were surely attuned to his appearance Monday night at Chicago’s United Center.

It was not Joe Biden’s farewell to public life — he would continue to campaign for the Democratic ticket, he promised — but it was his sayonara song as head of that ticket. For all the pre-planned choruses of “We Love Joe!” and “Thank You, Joe!” emanating from the massive arena crowd, it was impossible not to see the man’s deep regret as he spoke, dry-throated, in anapestically rising cadences, of his achievements and unfinished ventures as president: the post-pandemic recovery act, the lessoning of Big Pharma, the infrastructure initiatives, the re-establishment of NATO solidarity, and all the rest.

“Bittersweet” doesn’t begin to do it.

Nevertheless, the torch was passed, the guard was changed, and Biden’s successor as standard-bearer, Kamala Harris, would make an appearance on stage to hug and embrace and celebrate her predecessor, along with members of Biden’s personal and official families.

The evening, first of a week’s worth to come in the 2024 Democratic National Convention, was replete with snapshots from the party scrapbook, new faces and old ones alike.

There was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — “AOC” in the vernacular — wildly applauded for the progressive congresswoman’s spicy personality and her recollections of working-class origins in New York.

There was Hillary Clinton, the defeated Democratic candidate from 2016, able now to voice rebukes of her conqueror (“We have him on the run now”) via hopes for the new avatar Harris (“Something is happening in America. You can feel it!”)

True Gretch with Tennessee delegation

• That there was a palpable feeling of hope and exhilaration as this convention began was undeniable. It was obvious, too, in the daily morning breakfasts of the Tennessee delegation at Chicago’s quite posh Hyatt Regency.

On Tuesday morning, another of the Democratic Party’s new stars, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (aka “True Gretch,” after the title of her just-published memoir), came into the delegation’s meeting room to deliver an energetic pep talk. She was followed somewhat later by an energetic exhortation from New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who, after being introduced by Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen, stood atop a chair and, sans mic, declaimed his largish hopes for 2024.

The two national party figures bracketed remarks from a Tennessee hopeful, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, who hopes to win what is certainly a long-odds contest with the ultra right-wing Republican incumbent U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn.

Who knows? For the moment, all things seem possible for the Democrats, and their mood of optimism seems certain to crest at week’s end when Kam-ala (broad “a” in the accented first syllable) takes the stage for her official acceptance address. 

Stayed tuned for next week’s cover story on the Democratic National Convention. 

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At Large Opinion

Commie!

Mikhail Gorbachev in 1992 (Photo: Konstantin Gushcha | Dreamstime)

Look, comrades, I grew up at a time in this country when the thing we kids were taught to fear more than anything else in our little Midwestern lives was COMMUNISM! 

Communist Russia — the USSR — was the big, scary enemy, a country led by authoritarian leaders like Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, who were attempting to take over the world and destroy democracy and the American way of life. They were the commies, the pinkos, the red menace — a nuclear-armed adversary who was also our rival in space, with their cursed Sputnik satellites. The Russians were so bold they even propped up Fidel Castro in a communist state 90 miles away from Miami. Russia, we were told by our teachers and parents, was determined to force everyone in the world to live in a commune and toil under communism, a fate presumably worse than death. 

In our schools, we had two kinds of drills: fire drills, in which at the sound of a long bell, every student high-tailed it “single file” down the stairs and out the doors onto the schoolyard lawn, goose-assing and laughing all the way. (If you were lucky, you attended a school that had one of those cool fire-escape slides out a third-story window, which livened up the process.) But the real serious stuff took place during the air-raid drills, where, at the sound of a keening siren, we had to “duck and cover” under our desks, which, as everyone knows, will protect you against nuclear holocaust. Mainly, of course, it just scared the crap out of us and traumatized a couple generations.

This went on through the 1980s, at which point, President Reagan had turned standing up to Russia into performance art (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”). It turned out to be a surprisingly effective gambit, or at the worst, Reagan’s timing was spot-on. The Soviet Union’s economy was collapsing during the 1980s, leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and lending a measure of stature to Reagan’s latter years in office.

If there was one benefit of this strange, decades-long international game of Russian roulette, it was the fact that we were actually taught what communism is. We learned most of Karl Marx’s greatest one-liners, including the scariest one: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” which we Americans were taught to see as the mantra of a system that destroyed ambition and the drive to succeed that American capitalism was built upon. I think that’s simplistic, but it’s also mostly true. Living on the dole is living on the dole. All communism does is narrow economic opportunity to oligarchs. Everyone else? Pass the beans and borscht and keep your head down, comrade.

The fact is that communism has proven to be a horrible system of government, one that concentrates power under an authoritarian rule, censors books and newspapers, offers only rudimentary education for the poor, discriminates on the basis of gender and race, and controls healthcare. In communist countries, posters of the authoritarian Dear Leader are plastered on every open space. Flags with his image are flown in every public square. 

That’s why it seems so absurd to me to hear MAGA types — and Donald Trump himself — call Kamala Harris and Democrats “communists.” It sounds like you’re being tough when you call someone a communist, but they literally appear to have no idea what a communist is. 

Think of the two major American political parties: When it comes to a cult of personality, one that features posters of Dear Leader, flags, religious iconography, clothes, and even tattoos, which party comes to mind? Which party has come out in support of banning books? Which party wants to give public tax dollars to private schools? Which party openly demonizes LGBTQ Americans and people of color? Which party wants to centralize power and give it to an authoritarian who will “be a dictator on day one”? Which party wants to control the healthcare decisions of the country’s females? Which party literally rejected democracy in 2020? 

If your answer to those questions is anything other than the Republican Party, you’ve gone down into a scary rabbit hole, a place where the light of the obvious won’t penetrate. It’s like you’re in a permanent duck-and-cover drill. 

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Alien: Romulus

One of the things I’ve always loved about Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi horror film Alien is that its protagonists are working-class. The crew of the USCSS Nostromo aren’t noble explorers, like in Star Trek, or space wizards and chosen ones, like in Star Wars. They’re not even soldiers, like the crew of the Sulaco in James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens. No, the Nostromo is a cargo tug hauling industrial equipment to a mining colony, and Captain Dallas and Warrant Officer Ripley are basically space truckers. Their dinner conversation is about their contracts, they bicker about working conditions, and no one has any training in what to do if you encounter alien life. That makes their struggle against an invading alien xenomorph all the more desperate, and Ripley’s eventual escape more dramatic.

It also clarifies who the real bad guys are in this scenario. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation time and again chooses a chance to capture and experiment on the extremely dangerous alien xenomorphs over the lives and well-being of their own employees and crew. In Prometheus (2012), it is revealed that the megacorp’s founder Peter Weyland’s search for the secrets of an ancient alien race was actually responsible for unleashing the xenomorphs in the first place. 

Should Rain (Cailee Spaeny), who grew up in the mines, be that handy with a pulse rifle?

It takes Captain Dallas’ space truckers a while to figure out that they’re just bait in a Weyland-Yutani bug hunt. In Alien: Romulus, it’s clear from the beginning that the corporation has no one’s best interests at heart, except maybe their shareholders. The film opens with a W-Y probe collecting artifacts from the debris field formerly known as the Nostromo. Then we shift to the surface of a colony planet in orbit around Jackson’s Star, a place so covered in toxic clouds that there is basically no sunlight. Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is an indentured worker, performing dangerous tasks in the planet’s mines. She’s an orphan, but her father left her with Andy (David Jonsson), a Weyland-Yutani brand “synthetic person” who he rescued from the scrap heap and reprogrammed to protect Rain at all costs. She and her adoptive brother are applying for visas to leave the planet, as they have both worked their allotted time to release them from their indenture. But those crafty W-Y execs have updated the terms of service without their knowledge, doubling their terms in the mines because of a labor shortage brought about by her fellow miners’ high mortality rate. 

Denied a “legitimate” way off-world, Rain and Andy are forced to try their other option: escape. Rain is reluctant because it means trusting her ex Tyler (Archie Renaux) and his friends Bjorn (Spike Fearn), Navarro (Aileen Wu), and Kay (Isabela Merced) to fly a spaceship. The Corbelan IV is a barely functional bucket of bolts that may or may not get the crew to their destination, Yvaga, a colony where there are actual sunsets. But before they try the nine-year interstellar flight, they need cryosleep chambers. After all, no need to remain conscious for a decade-long commute if you don’t have to. 

Yet since the Weyland-Yutani Corp. maintains a monopoly on cryosleep chambers, like what the courts recently ruled Google has in internet search, they can’t just buy them on the open market. (Also, they have no money.) But Tyler and company have a solution. They’ve discovered a derelict ship in orbit around the colony, and it seems to have just enough working cryosleep chambers to get this ragtag crew to freedom. Except for Andy, the android, whose access codes are vital to the heist, but who will have to be scrapped to avoid difficult questions at their destination. 

Once Rain decides to roll the dice, the Corbelan IV rendezvous with the target ship, only to find that it is actually a state-of-the-art research space station. They can’t tell why such a valuable asset has been abandoned, but the corp’s accountants have them pulling stuff like this all the time, so it’s not a pressing question — until the party is knee-deep in water in an abandoned cryolab surrounded by hungry aliens. Yes, the reason the Romulus space station was abandoned was because that’s where they brought the xenomorphs for study. Now it’s face-hugger central, and they’re on the menu. 

Director Federico Álvarez, who is probably the most famous person from Montevideo, Uruguay, previously helmed the home invasion horror film Don’t Breathe. This excursion into the Alien universe has a similar tense vibe. Our heroes aren’t on a mission from their employer, they’re freebooters, and if they could call for help, it wouldn’t do any good. They are isolated, and must rely on their own ingenuity to escape the ravenous xenomorphs. Álvarez’s biggest advantage with Alien: Romulus is that he has a very tight script, which he co-wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues. In past installments of the series, the plot is enabled by some truly stupid behavior on the part of the astronauts, like breaking quarantine to bring unknown alien organisms onto the ship or looking directly into a glowing space egg as it hatches. (I prefer my alien encounters at a safe distance, thank you very much.) At least the crew of the Corbelan IV has the excuse of being amateurs. In fact, as the going gets more dangerous and the xenomorphs more numerous, they come off as a little too competent. Should Rain, who grew up working in the mines, be that handy with a pulse rifle? 

But that’s a minor quibble. Alien: Romulus isn’t the product of a visionary mind like Alien, nor a thrilling left turn like Aliens or Prometheus. But it is a tightly executed genre exercise with some memorable images and no shortage of visceral thrills. It’s a working-class film that gets the job done. 

Alien: Romulus
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We Recommend We Recommend

Southwest Twin Puts on Community Days

Southwest Twin’s first community day of the season (Photo: Courtesy DCA)

Established in 1956, the Southwest Twin Drive-In was Memphis’ second-ever drive-in. Back then, it was called the 61 Drive-In until Malco Theatres purchased it in 1965, adding a second screen and growing its capacity to 600 cars. It closed in 2001, and after a brief stint as a flea market, the property sat unused and vacant until 2022 when the city of Memphis and Shelby County each committed $1 million to reactivate and revitalize the site.

“It all started with a big push from community members for the city to do something with the site,” says Ashley Cash, director of Housing and Community Development for the city. “It’s been blighted for decades, so there’s been a lot of discussion around what should happen there.”

The plan, so far, is to establish a library and police precinct on the site, but with 20 or so acres of property and two screens, its uses could extend far beyond just those two facilities. “It’s a community anchor,” Cash says. “And so our whole strategy around anchors is to come in, invest in the anchor, to encourage the private market to either reinvest or invest around it and really support and stabilize neighborhood.”

Still during the planning phase, with construction not set to start until the beginning of next year, Cash says, “we also wanted to make sure that [the site] remained a vibrant community space, and community members could see themselves there. They can still have opportunities to provide input and they can ask someone for additional information.”

That means programming that engages neighbors before everything is even rebuilt. Last quarter, Southwest Twin focused on cleanups, rehabbing and reinvesting in the site. In the coming weeks, it’ll be host to a series of community days with a focus on “setting roots” — pun intended, as the days are gardening-centric, with workshops provided by Everbloom Farmacy.

In addition to activities, games, and giveaways, attendees will be able to pot seedling starters at each community day. Saturday, August 10th, kicked off the programming season with 1,368 seeds sowed; Southwest Twin partners have a goal to hit 3,000. 

At the next community day on August 24th — titled Grow Basics for Gardening at Home — attendees can listen to an overview of basic garden considerations and watch a demo of grow methods. Plus, Memphis City Beautiful will hold a free mulch and compost giveaway, where folks can fill their own bucket or container to bring home and garden or compost themselves. There will also be chess, basketball, arts and crafts, trivia and games, and music and movement led by musician Ekpe Abioto and instructors Ayanna Campbell and Kaila Matthews throughout the morning. Youth of Westwood, which gives food to the Westwood community twice a week, will provide food.

Upcoming community days include Planting Your Fall Garden on September 7th, Managing Your Garden & Your Health on September 21st, Harvesting & Eating From Your Garden on October 5th, and the Community Harvest Celebration & Festival on October 19th. More information on these events can be found at southwesttwin.com. 

Grow Basics for Gardening at Home, Southwest Twin, 4233 South 3rd St., Saturday, August 24, 9-11 a.m., free.

Categories
Fun Stuff News of the Weird

News of the Weird: Week of 08/22/24

Least Competent Criminals

Thanks to tracking devices in two Lamborghinis, a couple of car thieves were found in Wyoming, KDVR-TV reported on June 12. The two supercars were stolen in Salt Lake City and headed east on I-80, where Wyoming State Patrol officers tracked them near Rawlins. When troopers caught up to them, one of the vehicles was going over 100 mph; both drivers were taken into custody. [KDVR, 6/12/2024]

That Rule Doesn’t Apply to Me

At Brights Zoo in Limestone, Tennessee, squeezable fruit snack pouches are prohibited inside the zoo, NBC News reported. Nonetheless, on June 8, Lief, a 7-year-old sitatunga antelope, choked to death on the plastic cap from a snack pouch. Lief “still had a lot of life to live,” the zoo said in a statement. In fact, sitatunga antelopes live about 22 years in captivity, according to the Smithsonian National Zoo. “Some ask why we don’t allow squeezable pouches in the zoo,” zookeepers posted on Facebook. “The reason is simple — the packaging is dangerous to our animals.” [NBC News, 6/12/2024]

The Aristocrats

According to the Surfrider Foundation, a water quality nonprofit that tests beaches around the country, Mecox Bay in Southampton, New York, has some of the worst fecal matter levels in the United States. The New York Post reported that the beach, surrounded by multimillion-dollar homes, has dangerous levels of enterococcus, an intestinal pathogen. Residents say that the bay there collects a lot of the runoff from businesses, farms, and homes in the area. Along with old septic systems and cesspools, a heavy rain can mean a lot of human waste filtering into the popular beach. Scott Horowitz, president of the Southampton Town Trustees, said they would fight to keep Mecox Beach safe. “It’s sad to see that you have areas that are absolutely magnificent and at times they’re regarded as public health hazards,” he said. [NY Post, 6/12/2024]

It’s a Dirty Job 

Perhaps the stresses of HOA board membership just weigh heavily on some people. An unnamed 74-year-old woman in New Palestine, Indiana, is facing charges of criminal trespass, criminal mischief, and public nudity after she was caught not once, but twice, defecating in broad daylight against the side of a neighbor’s home, Fox59-TV reported. According to court documents, the homeowner was mowing his lawn on May 29 when he discovered a pile of human feces next to his air conditioning unit. His surveillance cameras had first caught the culprit on May 2, but after the second incident, he contacted police. The woman can clearly be seen in the video lowering her trousers and squatting to empty her bowels. She initially denied the act but admitted it once confronted with the evidence; she said she had nothing against the homeowner and simply had to go. She has stepped down from her position on the HOA board. [Fox59, 6/26/2024]

The Continuing Crisis

Edward Kang, 20, is facing a long stretch without gaming after he allegedly assaulted a fellow online gamer on June 22, ABC News reported. Kang, who lives in New Jersey, flew from Newark to Jacksonville, Florida, on June 21, where he checked in to a hotel and purchased a hammer and flashlight at a hardware store. Late on June 22, he arrived at the victim’s home in Fernandina Beach, entering the home through an unlocked door, “apparently to confront the victim,” said Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper. When the victim got up from gaming to use the restroom, Kang allegedly attacked him with the hammer. The victim’s stepfather heard the altercation and helped to wrestle Kang to the ground; officers said the victim sustained severe head wounds and they found “a significant amount of blood.” Kang told deputies that the victim is a “bad person online.” He was charged with attempted second-degree murder and armed burglary. [ABC News, 6/24/2024]

Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.

NEWS OF THE WEIRD
© 2024 Andrews McMeel Syndication.
Reprinted with permission.
All rights reserved.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Chukis Restaurants Are Humming Along

Abraham Valenzuela, Rogelio “Chuki” Barreto, Rafael Valenzuela (Photos: Michael Donahue)

Rafael Valenzuela doesn’t wear a chef’s hat when he cooks at Chukis Tacos No. 2 in Memphis and Chukis Deli Mexicana in Olive Branch, Mississippi.

Rogelio Barreto, aka Chuki, does most of the cooking at the restaurants, which are owned by Valenzuela and his brother, Abraham Valenzuela. “[Barreto]’s the main cook,” Rafael says. “He’s our foundation. He teaches everybody.”

And Rafael doesn’t wear a sombrero when he plays the vihuela (rhythm guitar) in his family’s mariachi band, Mariachi Guadalajara. “[Sombreros] are heavy. They’re hot. They’re usually just used when there’s a big presentation or something more elegant.”

And, he adds, “To tell you the truth, I’ve only worn it once in my whole life.”

It was music first for Rafael, Abraham, and their brother Pedro when they were growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico. “We were raised as musicians. Music was our first job. Actually, that’s the only work I’ve known before doing the restaurant.”

Guitar wasn’t Rafael’s first instrument. “I went through violin first in elementary. Then trumpet for a few years after that. Then, again, violin.”

When he was around 13, Rafael began playing violin in the family mariachi band, which also includes his dad, at “serenades and parties.”

Rafael began playing the vihuela in the band after the family moved to Memphis in 1994. Pedro plays the guitarron (the Mexican bass guitar), which, like the vihuela, is shaped differently from other guitars. “The back part is like a turtle conch,” he says. 

Both guitars are the “foundation of the rhythm for mariachis,” which also can include a regular guitar, violins, trumpets, and a harp. “The vihuela and the guitarron are always paired together.”

When he’s performing, Rafael wears a “mariachi suit. Black, most of the time.” The custom-made suits also come in brown and gray.

Abraham was the first to move to Memphis. They eventually reunited the family in the mariachi band.

In 1997, Rafael, Abraham, and Pedro opened a grocery store, Supermercado Guadalajara, at Winchester Road and Mendenhall Road. About a year and a half later, they moved to a bigger location, where they also opened a restaurant. It was the first time they ever thought about opening a restaurant, Rafael says. They said, “Let’s go for it.”

They hired cooks, but Rafael’s mother also pitched in. “Some of the cooks knew what to do. My mom said, ‘Hey, let’s do this this way.’ We just kind of got it together and it worked out.”

Then Barreto showed up. “He came in asking for work.”

He began working in the kitchen. “He always had a touch. Now, he did learn a lot from his mom.”

They eventually sold the grocery store/restaurant. Abraham opened another restaurant, Rancho Grande, in Southaven before branching out to an Olive Branch location. He later sold the Southaven location. 

Ten years or so later, Abraham learned the old Steak Escape space at 7425 Goodman Road next to Kroger was for lease in Olive Branch. “We jumped into it.”

Calling it “Chukis” began as a joke, Rafael says. “We were going to call it ‘Chukis’ and we just laughed. Probably a good two weeks we went through names. All sorts of names. And we didn’t like anything, but ‘Chukis.’ It sounded good.”

Barreto is now a partner in the restaurant, Rafael says. They also used “Chukis” in the name of their Poplar location, which they opened a year later at 3445 Poplar Avenue Suite Number 1.

The cuisine at both restaurants isn’t from any particular region, Rafael says. “The way a lot of people have described it is ‘a sit-in taco truck.’ To me, it’s like home-cooking. The flavor. The way it’s cooked is maybe street food or something like that. It’s really served the way we eat it at home. Same flavor.”

Tacos birria
Salsa bar at Chukis Tacos No. 2

The birria items are their most popular offerings, Rafael says. Birria is a soup made with brisket garnished with onions and cilantro. It’s served with tacos, nachos, or burritos. People dunk the items in the birria the same way they do with roast beef and au jus sandwiches.

The Torta Cubana is another popular item. The sandwich, which is like a Cuban sandwich, includes breaded chicken, steak, pastor, or hot dogs. Pastor is “marinated pork with a little bit of pineapple, red marinade, and achiote.”

The same menu is available at both Chukis locations, but breakfast is only served at the Olive Branch restaurant on Wednesdays through Sundays. 

Chilaquiles are one of their breakfast staples, Rafael says. “It’s chips that are simmered in red or green sauce and then it’s cooked. Once it’s cooked we put an over-easy egg on top. On top of the egg, sour creams and queso fresco. That’s like a Mexican fresh crumble cheese.”

Rafael and his family have performed with their mariachi band on Cinco de Mayo at the Olive Branch restaurant. They also play between 6 and 9 p.m. every other Thursday night at Rancho Grande. The band has played for many years at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art’s Día de los Muertos Festival & Parade.

Abraham is slated to open another restaurant, which he will call Azaderos, in about six weeks on Forest Hill Irene Road. 

They want to eventually open another Chukis location, but Rafael says, “We haven’t jumped into it yet. I guess once we find a spot it’ll be the same way that it’s happened with these: ‘Okay. Boom. Let’s go for it.’”

Categories
Music Music Features

Amber Rae Dunn Is Giving It Her All

Amber Rae Dunn with The Royal Blues Band at “A Tribute to the King” (Photos: Michael Donahue)

If you heard Amber Rae Dunn sing for the first time at the recent “A Tribute to the King,” you might want to know more about her.

The captivating singer filled the stage of Lafayette’s Music Room with her voice and personality at the event held August 11th, featuring headliner Ronnie McDowell as well as The Royal Blues Band with Wyly Bigger on keyboards.

“I am from Schererville, Arkansas,” Dunn says. “I grew up with six siblings and my dad was just a barber and my mom was a stay-at-home mom who took care of all of us. There was not a lot to do, but we had a three-acre garden. Just about every memory of my life, I have it in the garden. My favorite animal is a turtle, and I loved that I got to collect worms off tomato plants to feed to my turtle.”

Dunn also sang. “All the time. Everywhere around the house. I was definitely the loudest kid my parents have.”

Dunn with Leon Griffin

If she wasn’t singing “This Little Light of Mine” in church, Dunn was listening to her mother’s Al Green, Michael Jackson, and Prince albums and her dad’s ’90s country music. “So, I’m sure I was singing those songs as well.”

Like she still does, Dunn worked at her dad’s barbershop, Larry’s Hair Design, in West Memphis, Arkansas. She learned how to cut and style hair when she was in high school. “Other kids go to soccer practice or others take acting. I enrolled in hair school.”

She began singing on stage while attending Memphis College of Art for a degree in sculpture. Yubu Kazungu, a fellow student, invited her to join him at an open mic. She asked Kazungu, who heads Yubu and the Africans, why he thought she could sing. She says he told her, “I can hear you humming in the sculpture room working on a pot. You hum on key, and I feel like you can sing on key.”

Dunn joined Kazungu’s band and appeared with the group at open mics around town.

Kazungu “had been pestering” her to write a song, so Dunn came up with “Arkansas Line.” After some persuading from Kazungu one night at a soul food restaurant, Dunn sang the song in front of an audience while keeping the beat by snapping her fingers.

People at the show told her she was really good, but that she needed to go to Nashville because “that’s not really the type of music we have in Memphis.”

So Dunn got a job at Wayne’s Unisex, a Nashville barbershop. She went to clubs at night to “work tips for the band.” She did whatever she could, whether it was “do handstands” or “pinch cheeks,” to get customers to put money in the tip jars. “Then, finally, at the end of the night when everyone was good and drunk and half the people were gone, they would let me get up and sing two or three songs at 3 in the morning.”

Dunn was realistic about living in Nashville. “My plan was five years. If nothing happened, I was like, ‘Okay, I guess this isn’t the path I’m supposed to get on.’”

But nine months after she got to Nashville, one of her brothers was killed in a motorcycle accident, so she returned home to comfort her parents. “I’m a sucker for family.”

Starting at an open mic at Earnestine & Hazel’s, Dunn thought, “I need to meet people. If you build it, they’ll come.”

Mark Parsell stopped in one night and invited Dunn to check out his venue, South Main Sounds. Singing at one of Parsell’s Friday night shows, Dunn met Andrew Cabigao, who helped her get a job as social media representative at Mark Goodman’s MGP The Studio. While there, Dunn recorded her first album, Arkansas Line. Attending a songwriters workshop at Visible Music College, Dunn met Billy Smiley, founding member of White Heart, a Dove Award-nominated Christian rock group. He invited her to come to Nashville and maybe do an album at his studio, Sound Kitchen Studios.

She was two songs into the album when Covid hit. She released a couple of singles, but the album, I Guess That’s Life, wasn’t released until March 2023.

One of those songs, her popular “Barbershop,” is “just kind of talking about my dad’s barbershop and the type of customers we have. It’s just nostalgic.”

She also began going to workshops in and outside of Memphis in addition to bartending on Friday nights at South Main Sounds and performing with her band, Amber Rae Dunn and the Mulberries.

Dunn is thinking about a new album, but it might go in another direction. “Vocally, there’s a lot of soul and blues to my voice. But there’s also a lot of country. So, I don’t know. I feel like there’s a way to navigate the two.”

She’d like to mix “a Memphis sound” with her “traditional country sound.” 

When she’s not cutting records or cutting hair, Dunn, who is married to Justin Craven, is performing with her band around town. She’s also a guest host with Leon Griffin on Memphis Sounds on WYPL. 

Not forgetting her visual art chops, Dunn, who recently got into mosaics, currently is working on a mural at the Super 8 motel in West Memphis.

But Dunn is primarily sticking with songwriting, which she decided at 25 was going to be her journey. She told herself, “I don’t know what the outcome is, but I’m going to give it my all.” 

See Amber Rae Dunn live at Momma’s, 855 Kentucky Street, Wednesday, August 28th, 7 p.m., with Mario Monterosso.

Categories
News News Feature

Five Habits of Successful Retirement Savers

Be a successful saver. (Photo: Annie Spratt | Unsplash)

A recent report indicated that a mere 46 percent of American households have savings in a retirement account. Of those who have saved, 6 percent reported having more than $100,000 in retirement savings, and only 9 percent have more than $500,000, indicating a significant retirement savings gap between the amount they say they need for retirement and the actual amount saved for many Americans. 

The good news is that successful retirement savers can teach us a lot about how to set aside money for the future. The following habits of successful savers can help you bridge the retirement savings gap.

1. They start saving early in life.

Successful retirement savers understand the importance of saving early and consistently throughout life. This practice allows them to maximize the benefits of compound interest over time because as investment gains accumulate, they increase an account’s balance and begin earning their own interest. Over the years, this cycle can lead to significant earnings. 

2. They gradually increase the amount they save. 

Successful retirement savers understand that gradually increasing the amount they save over time can have a significant impact on their assets, with a minimal impact on their current lifestyle. These savers often make an effort to increase the amount they contribute to their retirement accounts by 1 percent to 2 percent each year. Over time, small, regular increases such as these can have a big impact on your retirement savings, and you’re unlikely to even notice the difference in your net income. 

3. They prioritize saving for the future. 

Saving for the future requires focus and dedication. Successful savers often prioritize saving over paying for nonessential expenses. A great way to prioritize saving is by incorporating it as a line item on your budget. Just as you need to pay the electric bill each month, so should you save for the future.

4. They remain focused on the long term. 

Successful retirement savers understand the importance of taking a long-term approach, both with their investment allocation and their savings behavior. For example, they tend to establish a long-term investment allocation and stick with it rather than trying to time the market. 

In addition, successful savers typically avoid behaviors that could derail their savings goals, such as taking 401(k) loans or withdrawals before retirement. 

5. They save in multiple accounts. 

Successful savers often save in multiple accounts. For example, you may wish to start by saving enough in an emergency fund to cover three to six months of unexpected expenses. At the same time, be sure to contribute to your workplace retirement account. If you have additional funds available, make regular contributions to an IRA and a health savings account (HSA). Regularly contributing to multiple accounts can help maximize your savings over time. 

Gene Gard, CFA, CFP, CFT-I, is a Partner and Private Wealth Manager with Creative Planning. Creative Planning is one of the nation’s largest Registered Investment Advisory firms providing comprehensive wealth management services to ensure all elements of a client’s financial life are working together, including investments, taxes, estate planning, and risk management. For more information or to request a free, no-obligation consultation, visit CreativePlanning.com.