Author: Ben Popper

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Life in the Fast Lane.

In a ground-floor window in a building adjacent to the drag strip, there is, positioned beside large, glossy advertisements, a small homemade sign. It reads: “Rooster you da man!”

Randy “Rooster” Newberry stands about 20 feet from that sign directing cars into position, checking for seat belts and helmets, and every so often letting out his trademark crow. As two cars prepare to challenge one another down the drag strip here at Memphis Motorsports Park, Rooster is engulfed in the clouds of white smoke steaming off burning tires. Before the fog has even begun to clear, Rooster is signaling in the next two drivers, who are eager to see what their machines can do.

Test and Tune, the event which Rooster oversees, opens the drag strip to the public, giving everyone the chance to race. According to Jason Rittenberry, the park’s vice president and general manager, there are two distinct groups who show up for these events, which are held Tuesday and Thursday nights. The original concept was to have a space for the competitive racers who run their vehicles to test and tweak their performance. Then there are the kids. “As street racing became popular again, especially among the younger set, kids 16 to 22, we found that a lot of them were coming to the park,” Rittenberry says.

The drag strip is down the road from the Motorsports Park’s oval and dirt tracks and is a two-lane, quarter-mile course with bleachers on either side. In order to race, drivers pay a $15 entry fee and cars must pass inspection. About 35 vehicles are entered tonight, and some will race as many as a dozen times. The array of motorcycles and cars ranges from Suzuki “crotch rockets” to souped-up imports to American muscle cars and trucks, and even vehicles right off the lot. “I seen a fella bring in a brand new $30,000 truck,” Rooster says. “I said, ‘Man, you sure you wanna do this?’ and he told me if it broke, he’d just tell ’em he was pullin’ stumps.”

Serious Test and Tune racers invest quite a bit of time and money into their vehicles. “The guys who race every weekend probably put about $10,000 to $25,000 a year into their vehicles to stay competitive,” says Kenny Boyce, a longtime racer. Boyce, who has been racing in Memphis since he was a teenager, says being a dedicated racer is a lifestyle.

“My car is basically my wife,” he says. “I would love to see this place open later and more often so that more of the street racing could be done here.”

The Motorsports Park offers its drag strip as an alternative to street racing. Here, young drivers can race at the same speeds they do on the street, but under the eye of professionals and on a contained track. Interacting with professional staffers and racers, the kids might even learn something about racing and safety.

Safety comes first in the form of the vehicle inspection, but the next line of defense is Rooster himself. Before one race, he coaches a teenager who is smoking his tires, a technique used to heat up the rubber and provide better traction for the run. “You see Rooster? He’s makin sure no one has to go home and tell their mamma they broke her car,” says Doug Franklin, the park’s public relations director.

Rooster talks to everyone who pulls up to the drag strip, looking them in the eyes and gauging them with the concern of a boxing referee who might stop a fight. “I’m usually looking right at them,” says Rooster, “but they are looking past me, straight down to the end of that track.”

Rooster agrees that the track is a much safer environment for racing than the streets. “I wish I could find someone to sponsor these kids,” he says wistfully, knowing it’s impossible to secure big sponsors for local racers. “I want this place open more nights and from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., ’cause when they get done here they just go straight to [the streets]. Between these walls, they can only hurt themselves.”

Trying to eliminate street racing probably requires more than just offering a safer alternative. “The kids like to feel like outlaws,” Rooster explains. “I know. I used to be just like them.”

The possibility of arrest, fines and loss of vehicles is not enough to deter many avid street racers. Kerwin Whitfield, who works with the Wicked Racing team, explains: “The problem here is they have the boards turned on, so people can see your times.” Street racers want to be able to go head to head, without their challengers knowing exactly what kind of times their cars are capable of making.

On the drag strip, two motorcycles are in a fast duel, topping out at 153 mph. In the parking lot, a crowd has gathered. “Beat that time? You can’t beat that time!” one man says to another. A third man steps in and ends the argument matter-of-factly: “Just tell ’em we gotta race.” n

Test and Tune is 5-10 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Memphis Motorsports Park, 5500 Taylor Forge Drive.

Ben Popper

Categories
News The Fly-By

Get Smart

A few years ago, Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, was asked to write an article about a think tank in Texas. That article turned into the book Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse: A Closer Look at Intelligent Design, which she co-wrote with Paul R. Gross. “I started with an article, and then as I began to uncover the facts, it just kept growing,” she says.

Forrest’s goal was to expose and debunk the theories behind “intelligent design,” which she describes as the newest incarnation of the creationist movement. On Saturday, July 16th, Forrest will be in town to deliver a lecture hosted by the Memphis Freethought Alliance, a group dedicated to the separation of church and state.

Intelligent-design (ID) supporters appear to straddle the fence between science and faith. A leading proponent behind intelligent design is William Dembski, a mathematician, philosopher, and senior fellow with the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle. In the late 1990s, he proposed building a think tank at Baylor University to work toward integrating science and faith. Forrest was assigned to write an article on the think tank for a secular Web site.

Dembski proposes that the structural complexity of living organisms clearly indicates a designing intelligence. Dembski is careful to define this designer as nontheistic: “Intelligent design,” he’s written, “presupposes neither a creator nor miracles. Intelligent design is not creationism.”

But it does have political support. In 2001, Senator Rick Santorum, a Republican from Pennsylvania, introduced a resolution into the No Child Left Behind Act. It stated: “A quality science education should prepare students to distinguish data and testable theories of science from religious and philosophical claims that are made in the name of science.”

Though the resolution did not become part of the official act, it was included in the report language, which is a guideline of sorts for enacting the legislation. The wording of the passage seems to be calling for separation of church and state on controversial educational issues. According to Forrest, however, it bears a closer inspection. “The advocates of ID realize they must sanitize their language in order to accomplish their goals,” she says.

The report is careful to align itself with the separation of church and state, science and religion. Santorum presents intelligent design as a valid scientific school, an alternative to standard evolutionary theory that has no direct theistic convictions, which deserves a place in the educational system.

However, when one follows the semantics to their source, the language used by Dembski and Santorum appears in a different light. A document leaked to the public in March 1999 helps clarify the major goals of the Discovery Institute, Dembski’s company and the source of the intelligent-design movement. This document, known as the Wedge Strategy, states clearly the institute’s true intentions: “To replace materialistic [read: empirical] explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.” The vague pseudoscientific agenda of intelligent design is revealed to be raw creationism.

It is precisely this wolf in sheep’s clothing that Forrest is attempting to uncover in her book. “The advocates and representatives of ID realize that they must appear to respect the divide between science and religion,” she says. “They have carried out all aspects of the Wedge Strategy except for one: the hard scientific research.”

Gross, her co-author, states, “There is no, repeat, no scientific legitimacy so far in the putatively scientific claims of the ID movement. This isn’t just my opinion. It is the official and considered judgment of all the worldwide evolutionary scientists and of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Teachers Association, and the Academy of Sciences.”

Here in Memphis, some prefer their creationism straight-up. In February, Shelby County school board member Wyatt Bunker proposed that county high schools put disclaimer stickers about evolution on science textbooks. He is concerned the text covers only scientific views and ignores creationist beliefs. “These days,” says Forrest, “a curriculum is only as safe as the next election.” n

Barbara Forrest will be speaking Saturday, July 16th, at the Central Library, 1-3 p.m.

The Memphis Freethought Alliance holds monthly meetings, which are free and open to the public. For more information, check out geocities.com/memphisfreethought.

\

Categories
News The Fly-By

Hot Topic

Seven hundred Homeland Security cameras set up around downtown were just the beginning.

The Shelby County Commission recently approved $850,000 in Homeland Security funding to purchase personal protection equipment for first responders, a 4-by-4 truck, thermal imaging cameras, and a hazardous materials identification system.

Chief Clarence Cash Jr. with the Shelby County Fire Department says the $125,000 Haz-Mat ID system is a computer program that enables emergency workers to identify hazardous materials and view information on how best to deal with them.

“We get the info: material composition, wind direction, et cetera. We feed that into the program and proceed from there,” he says.

The county – along with the Germantown Fire Department – will also get new thermal imaging cameras. The cameras detect heat and translate different temperatures into color, allowing rescuers to analyze hazards or locate victims.

Assistant Chief John Selberg of the Germantown department says they already use a thermal imaging camera but its larger size is a bit unwieldy. The new model, he says, is smaller and more mobile, similar to a 35-mm camera.

Because the cameras detect heat, emergency personnel can use them for a variety of functions. For example, if there was an electrical fire contained inside a wall, the camera can look through the panel to see if the fire has spread, Selberg says.

“Another main use for the camera is looking for a person trapped in a burning building,” Selberg says. “In situations like that, there is often a lot of smoke and visibility is drastically reduced. The camera can look through smoke to spot, say, a child who is hiding.”

Homeland Security funds spent at the state level have come under criticism for some questionable purchases. A recent New York Times article cited the purchase of $233,000 worth of emergency equipment and gear – including radio equipment, decontamination tents, headlamps, and even rubber boots – for Northwest Arctic Borough, a 7,300-person community in the Arctic Circle. But local officials don’t see it that way.

“Homeland Security has been very helpful in accomplishing our different requests and helping us to be successful,” Cash says. n

by Ben Popper

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Skills Required

Sante Gayle, aka 757, chuckles about the heat. He’s just finished playing a tour date in Oklahoma City. “Thank God. We got air-conditioning on the bus,” he says. But when asked about a different kind of heat — the pressure of being an unsigned player on the And1 Mixtape Tour — he grows serious. The high-flying dunks and ball handling of this supercharged form of basketball is what thrills the crowds, but the competition for coveted spots on the And1 team creates a far more potent drama simmering beneath the players’ showmanship.

The And1 Mixtape Tour had its genesis on the basketball courts of playgrounds and back lots where a looser, flashier game called streetball was played. Footage of streetballers performing jaw-dropping feats was edited together, set to a hip-hop soundtrack, and released by the sneaker company And1 as Mixtape Volume One in 1999. A year later, And1 had its first Mixtape tour. Since then, the tour has spawned a video game, a reality TV show on ESPN called StreetBall, and endorsements for its players.

The tour consists of a core group of 15 players, who have permanent spots on the roster and have names like Helicopter, Half-Man Half-Amazing, Main Event, Hot Sauce, and Baby Shack. Some of them also play in the American Basketball Association league or overseas, but their reputations were cemented in neighborhood courts across the nation, where their abilities are the stuff of legend.

The group travels by bus across 30 cities over the summer. At each stop on the tour, And1 holds an “open run,” where locals can compete for a chance to play on the tour.

Four ballers, selected from the open run, get to play against the established team. They join four regional players and three players, like Gayle, who have been chosen from previous open runs and are traveling with the team. These players are half-applicants/half-guinea pigs. Some might earn a chance to travel with the team, competing city-to-city toward a contract, until another prospect knocks them off. Those who don’t shine become prey for the established team, the fall guys for dunks, dribbles, and trick plays that leave the crowd roaring.

“At those open runs, you have 50 guys all fighting for the same dream. It can get pretty rough out there,” says John Humphrey, aka Helicopter. According to Humphrey, being a member of the traveling team doesn’t make things much easier. “It just gets harder because now there are people fighting to take your job. You can’t get complacent.”

The world of the And1 tour is a far cry from the lengthy and lucrative contracts of the NBA. Here, every game is a notch up the totem pole. Gayle earned a spot on the tour last year but was eliminated later on. This year, he is back and more determined than ever to win a contract.

“It’s all work and determination,” he explains. “I try and keep both a trick game and a real game. To make it onto the And1 team you have to be able to win the game and you also have to be able to win the crowd.”

Gayle has been through a lot in his life. He lost two daughters to a degenerative disease before he was 20 years old. He played in the ABA last year but had problems receiving his salary. “I look at that as a learning experience, a part of growing in this game,” he says. The And1 contract would be a big break. In 2003, a contract took Grayson Boucher, who is known as the Professor and is the only white player on the team, from bagging groceries to bagging assists.

Last year, the established players had to decide among themselves which prospects would stay and who would be eliminated. “This year, the coaches do the picking and that takes a lot of pressure off of us,” says Humphrey.

Back for his second year, Gayle is familiar with some of the players. “Last year, they hated on me,” he says. “But things have gotten better this year.”

The open run is at the FedExForum at 4 p.m. Friday, but show up a few hours early to get a spot. The game begins at 7:30 p.m. and will give four Memphians a chance to showcase their best against the nation’s top streetballers. 

Categories
News The Fly-By

On the Scene with Ben Popper at the Someone To Call My Clone

At the Memphis Media Co-op on a recent Saturday afternoon, it was the moment of truth.

A talkative crowd sat in the screening room, nervously awaiting the delivery of the final cut of Someone To Call My Clone. Though the Media Co-op often screens small, independent films, this picture was unique.

Someone To Call My Clone was written, performed, filmed, and edited by eight members of a small class studying theMeisner technique, an approach to acting which focuses on complete and personal truth in the moment.

Sanford Meisner was one of the founding members of the group that brought method acting to prominence in America. Meisner, however, grew dissatisfied with the method.

The core of the Meisner technique is repetition. One student will say to another, “You have brown hair.” The other will respond, “I have brown hair.” The actors will continue to say the lines, trying to be as truthful and unaffected as possible.

It may be a bit Zen-like for some people, but local participants found the class fulfilling on both a creative and personal level. Kim Hooss, one of the stars of the film, said, “Taking the class allowed me to become more expressive, both physically and verbally. I’ve learned to connect more comfortably with others.”

Orlando-native Amber Nicholson teaches the Meisner class and says that stripping away complications in acting can teach students to strip unnecessary complications from everyday life as well.

“Once you stop suppressing your creativity, it flows to all areas of your life,” she says.


Finally, Clone author and Commercial Appeal reporter Jon Sparks entered the room. In his hand was a single DVD, the final result of eight weeks of intense training.

The basic four-week class, which has become popular among actors in the local indie-film scene, is billed as “Meisner for the Creative” and is followed by anoptional four-week intensive.

Someone To Call My Clone, the result of the four week intensive, isa futuristic adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and depicts the star- crossed lovers as a human-clone couple. The film takes on science, romance, and reality TV, all through the lens of Shakespeare.

Anyone interested in the technique can attend a free workshop June 28th from 7:30 to 9 p.m., in the Media Co-Op at 1000 South Cooper. 

Categories
Music Music Features

Soul Serenade

Break out your satin sheets and call the baby sitter. Memphis will be getting a double scoop of sexy when Brian McKnight and New Edition play The Orpheum on Thursday, June 23rd. Both acts are known primarily for their smooth R&B sounds and sensual soul ballads. McKnight sometimes strays into even smoother territory, playing jazzier compositions. New Edition, often credited as the originators of that early fusion of R&B and hip-hop known as new-jack swing, will give audiences more of a chance to shake their butts.

McKnight, who recently left his longtime label, Motown, came to music through the church. He started writing music while he was still a teenager and at the age of 21 found himself signed to a major label, Mercury. His first single, “The Way We Love,” went to number 11 on the R&B charts. His next hit, “Love Is,” a duet with Vanessa Williams, didn’t register so well with R&B fans. Instead, it went to number three on the pop charts, situating Mc-Knight as a musician with serious crossover potential.

Since then, McKnight has consistently released successful albums, including his latest, Gemini, mixing his heart-rending ballads with up-tempo love songs and hip-hop guest stars such as Juvenile and Talib Kweli.

McKnight speaks fondly of Memphis and its musical legacy: “When you think of Memphis, you think of Elvis. You don’t realize the incredible history of black music here. I went to the Stax Museum the last time I was here, and I really have a lot of respect for those artists.”

McKnight is also excited to be playing in Memphis because of the city’s size. “When you play a big town like New York or L.A.,” he says, “there are a lot of people in the front who don’t know you at all. They’re just there for an experience. When you play a small city like Memphis, the crowd comes to see you. I really appreciate that.”

New Edition is a group whose achievements are often obscured by roster changes and side projects. The group began performing as a trio in Boston during the late ’70s. The three original members were Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Bobby Brown. The boys were still in elementary school and started singing for pocket money. They began winning local talent shows and added Ralph Tresvant and Ronnie Devoe to the group.

They eventually caught the eye of impresario Maurice Starr, who saw his chance to form a Jackson 5 for the ’80s. With Starr, New Edition released their debut hit, “Candy Girl.” A few songs later, MCA offered the boys a deal. With the release of their eponymous MCA debut, New Edition became full-fledged pop stars. As they grew, their sound become less popcorn. “All for Me” (1985) was funkier and more mature. In 1986, Brown left the group to pursue a solo career and was replaced by Johnny Gill.

Heart Break, released in 1989, was the first New Edition album produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The two men refined the New Edition sound, giving it the harder hip-hop edges that came to define new-jack swing in such New Edition spin-off hits as Bell-Biv-Devoe’s “Poison” and Brown’s “My Prerogative.”

Brown returned to the group briefly in 1996 for Home Again. It was a successful project, but the group drifted apart again. They began to tour in the early years of the new millennium and caught the attention of P. Diddy. He signed New Edition, sans the troubled Brown, to his Bad Boy label, and the group released a new album, One Love in 2004.

New Edition and McKnight are soul veterans, and Mc-Knight, for one, is enjoying his time on the road: “This is one of the best tours I’ve ever been on. Of course, with this many guys, there have been some shenanigans.”