Whew. It s a good thing I watched the news this morning. As is often the occasion on spring days in Memphis, the lead story was that because it was raining, the streets were wet. What would we do without the dissemination of such valuable information? And I did catch the first little bit of the Today show s Where in the World is Matt? segment. I didn t get to watch it long enough to find out, but wherever he was he was on a beach with a 5 o clock shadow in dark sunglasses and a black shirt and his hair actually moving in the wind and it was not at all hard on the eyes. But then there was the sad story of Dionne Warwick. Poor, poor, Dionne Warwick. Nabbed at the Miami International Airport for trying to slip through with 11 joints tucked into her lipstick tube. Eleven? These must have been pin joints, which probably means she was A) low on weed, or B) had some really good weed. And the lipstick tube, I grant her, was a pretty good idea. Before all this terrorist mess she probably could have gotten away with it. Which is to suggest that she s probably been getting away with it for a long time up until now. And come on. Who really cares? With all the horrific things going on in the world right now, who really cares if old Dionne gets a little high every once in a while? At least she didn t choke on a pretzel and faint, like some people do when they ve had too much alcohol. The mere fact that alcohol is legal and pot is not is one of the biggest mysteries in this country. It s insane, if you really think about it. Which brings up another obvious question regarding Dionne: If she is a psychic, why didn t she think about it and know ahead of time that she was going to get popped? It s not like she s totally out of control like her crack-head cousin Whitney Houston, who should be jailed simply on charges of stupidity. I ll tell you why Dionne got caught trying to slip a few doobies on a trip. It s karma, pure and simple. See, when Ms. Warwick performs in a nightclub — like she did for the grand opening here of Isaac Hayes Food, Music, Passion — she stipulates in her contract that no food or beverages can be served while she is singing. I was there. And yes, while the work she has had done has placed her near the La Toya scale of strange looks, her voice did sound wonderful. But while singing, the bartenders — located all the way across the large club — were not allowed to serve a drink. They were not even allowed to be behind the bar. So for a good two hours, no one was allowed to get a cocktail. This did not go over well. By about the fourth song, you could hear people at the bar whispering, All right, old bag. Let s get it over with so I can have a martini! Or something like that. I can t remember exactly how I put it at the time. So there. Dionne, from now on let us have our cocktails while in a cocktail lounge, and maybe you ll have better luck slipping through airport security with your grass.
In the meantime, here s a brief look at some of what s going on around town this week. Tonight, Tyler Perry s Madea s Family Reunion opens at The Orpheum; I m not exactly sure what this is all about, but from the television commercials I ve seen it has something to do with a very large black man dressed as a woman and looks like it might be pretty funny. The Memphis Redbirds play Salt Lake tonight at AutoZone Park. Tonight kicks off the three-night run of Ballet Memphis Interiorworks Performance at Ballet Memphis Studios, featuring the choreography of Ballet Memphis dancers and benefiting the Artists Resource Fund. That crazy trio — Bobby, Fred, and Hunky Rusty — is at Alex s. And, of course, today opens the big Memphis In May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. C mon, Matt. We won t tell if you come.
