Author: Jesse Davis

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Trump 2.0: Time Travel, Tech Bros, and Tyranny

Donald Trump (Photo: Palinchak | Dreamstime.com)

As I write these words, on January 16, 2025, Mr. Donald Trump is still President-elect, though he’s certainly acting as though he’s already been inaugurated. Thanks to the peculiar time traveling magic of print periodicals, President Trump will have been in office for at least three days before you read these words, such as they are. (Look, I’m not any more excited to write about the guy than you are to read about him, but news is news.)

Despite a compelling farewell address (more on that below) from the 46th president of the United States, the absurdity machine is already winding up here in the final days of President Joe Biden’s term in office, as a casual glance at recent headlines attests. 

“Trump Taps Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight as Hollywood ‘Ambassadors’,” from The New York Times. Makes sense. At 69, 78, and 86, respectively, those venerable gentlemen surely have their collective finger on the pulse of the generation. When I think about connecting with Gen Z, my mind immediately goes to the co-star of 1972’s Deliverance and prominent right-wing nutjob Jon Voight. With Los Angeles devastated by historic and tragic winter Palisades fires, Trump’s move shows he still has all his old tricks, ready to go. It’s performative, backwards, and it toes the line between casual cruelty and cluelessness. We are off to a great start indeed. 

Worse than Trump’s sycophantic set of Hollywood “Ambassadors” are the rich and empathy-deficient tech titans lining up to pull the president’s strings. In his farewell address, Biden warned of this oligarchy of the super-rich and the influence they wield, particularly through technology, and I agree with almost everything he said — save one minor detail. Biden warned that this tyranny of tech bros is on its way; I say it’s already here. I worry our nation will be as successful ousting the tech-industrial complex as we have with the military-industrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in his farewell address in 1961. 

Trump is notoriously susceptible to flattery. His own former national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, already admitted as much in an interview in 2024, not that we needed an expert on security to attest to that fact. With Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg announcing that Facebook and Instagram are letting their fact-checkers go, it will be that much easier to suck up to the new president. He really did have the biggest inauguration crowd of all time — and no one is allowed to prove otherwise! 

Jokes aside, if abandoning fact-checking wasn’t Zuckerberg’s way of saying, “standing by, dear leader,” I’m not nearly as well-versed in the speech patterns of near-human replicants. All those hours watching Blade Runner on repeat and Star Trek: Next Generation on reruns really were wasted, I guess. 

Social media — and the tech industry in general — are criminally under-regulated. Well, that is to say, their actions aren’t technically crimes, because there aren’t really any regulations. But it should be a crime. Unfortunately, a loosening of tech’s stranglehold on U.S. policy seems increasingly unlikely. Between Trump’s burgeoning friendship with the AI Axis of Evil — the aforementioned Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, the grifter who bought Twitter, renamed it X, and is now poised to poison Memphis’ water — and an aging and out-of-touch legislative branch who don’t see the harm in a little social media, it seems to me that the tech-industrial complex keeping Biden up at night have already set up shop. 

Though I’m sending this missive from a presidency in the past, I sincerely doubt that all hope is lost already, on Thursday, January 23, 2024. You can fire the fact-checkers, but you can’t burn all the facts everywhere. That doesn’t mean that the coalition of the mean and greedy little minds won’t try. It just means to remember that everyone (including yours truly!) has bias, that book burning is never the last move in someone’s playbook, and that libraries are a truly radical and wonderful place. 

Anyway, at least I’m sure I’ll get a good laugh out of the “article” my uncle shares on Facebook as proof that the Mississippi is supposed to be on fire, actually, and annual ice storms can’t be climate change, because it’s global warming, not global icing, dummy. 

Jesse Davis is a former Flyer staffer; he writes a monthly Books feature for Memphis Magazine. His opinions, such as they are, were minding their own business in Memphis on January 6, 2021. Were yours?

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Home Is Where the Ho Show Is

Susan Marshall, Reba Russell, and Bobbie Stacks perform at B-Side. (Photo: Jesse Davis)

“Have you ever had a good birthday?” my wife asked, incredulous, after I had lovingly described one of my childhood’s better birthdays. 

“Well, sure,” I countered, “I’ve had all great birthdays since I met you. Also when I turned 7 years old and got walkie talkies. My friends and I played flashlight tag outside, so it must have been a warm December. That was definitely a good birthday.” 

My wife and I had this discussion on the way home after my most recent celebration of another spin around the sun, a quiet day spent bopping around Memphis and culminating in a leisurely stroll around a holiday art market at Minglewood Hall. We went to the market to see my sister-in-law, Kaylee Hammer (@k.hammer.art on Instagram), and critique her art display. Because we had already had a full day — and we’ve got quite a few Kaylee Hammer originals and prints on our walls — we almost decided to head home early. We caught a second wind, though, and it blew us back to Midtown and into the big building that used to house Strings and Things. 

That was when my wife and I stumbled upon the Ho Show, a special holiday-themed “early Ho Ho Ho party” at B-Side inside the Minglewood Hall plaza, in the form of a writers-in-the-round-style performance from Memphis songwriting greats Susan Marshall, Reba Russell, and Bobbie Stacks. Russell’s voice, instantly recognizable to any amateur-level appreciator of Memphis music, called to me from around the corner. I wandered toward B-Side in a trance, like a sleepwalker summoned forth. Nothing sounds quite so sweet as unexpected and familiar music.

The concert was fully audible at the art market in Minglewood’s central gallery, so I perused the locally made art while grooving to a soulful cover of The Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down.” 

Of course, most cities have some music on offer most nights, and in bigger or wealthier cities the variety on display can be a veritable cornucopia of concerts. There is something distinctly magical about the quality of art on display in the Bluff City, though. To stumble onto a packed concert featuring respected and veteran performers, all cracking jokes and getting loose in a decidedly unscripted performance, side-by-side with a local artists’ market on a doggone cold, drizzly Sunday night in a city as small as Memphis? That’s magical. 

The level of Memphis-cana on display was notable as well. I chatted about Memphis-made beer (including Memphis Made beer) with a local candlemaker. I saw Tigers and Grizzlies aplenty, recreated in different artists’ individual styles. References to the pyramid’s crystal skull or Three 6 Mafia illustrated the fierce hometown pride that seems to permeate the air here. 

Chatting with one of the artists, I learned about a Holiday Bazaar at the Lamplighter Lounge — yet another chance to supplement my traditional locally made and bought seasonal gifts with even quirkier options! 

The long and the short of it is that, instead of calling it a night and retiring with Netflix and some leftovers, I spent a little time in our city, and it rewarded me with music and art and conversation. Those kinds of unplanned moments can offer a little soul sustenance when the grind toward year’s end gets going in overdrive, and I know I am looking for every opportunity to feed my soul these days. 

As an adult, it’s easy to feel strapped to the wheel, careening from Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s Day at a breakneck pace. If there are children in our lives, it can be tempting to focus on the added responsibilities of ensuring their happiness. Holiday and end-of-year parties offer a welcome chance to unwind, but so too do they clutter up the already overfilled calendar with more appointments. Year-end goals loom, and next year’s resolutions await. 

In my limited experience, this season brings stress in exponential levels — and so much of that self-same stress is absolutely unnecessary and utterly unproductive. Kids seem to be as enchanted with the season itself as with the specific presents. It’s fun to have time off school, make a tremendous mess with wrapping paper, and have the go-ahead from parents and grandparents to watch cartoons and eat cookies all day. Parties and reunions should be a chance to catch up and reconnect, not a reason to worry about the menu or the wardrobe or an appropriate gift to bring. And anyone who always meets their annual goals and perfectly sticks to their resolutions is trying too hard; cut yourself some slack. 

More often than not, magic falters when forced. It’s by keeping our eyes open to whatever magic comes our way that we create a memorable experience. True, that requires trust and letting go of control, but it’s worth it. The cultural undercurrents here are as wild and weird and strong as the Mississippi. Go with the flow, and Memphis will reward you. 

Jesse Davis is a former Flyer staffer; he writes a monthly Books feature for Memphis Magazine. His opinions, such as they are, are setting up firm boundaries about talking politics with family.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Where Did My Rose-Breasted Grosbeak Go?

Elections don’t keep rose-breasted grosbeaks awake at night. (Photo: Jesse Davis)

“Wow, that is one honking big sparrow,” my wife said, peering out our bedroom window and into the backyard. The bird in question — a mottled, dun-colored songbird — perched on one of our backyard bird feeders, occasionally munching on safflower seeds, and staring into the middle distance in a way that I’m sorely tempted to describe as “uncanny.” It dwarfed the little song sparrows and fox sparrows hopping amid the fallen seeds and shells beneath the feeder.

The next morning, there were more of the birds. 

It wasn’t until the red-throated, black-and-white males of the species showed up that we realized we weren’t being invaded by massive sparrows, but were dealing with a different kind of creature altogether. So, after consulting our handy, dandy Birds of Tennessee Field Guide (Adventure Publications), we realized that our backyard had become a migratory pitstop for rose-breasted grosbeaks, on their way south and west from East Tennessee in early autumn. 

Photo: Brian Kelly | Unsplash

By this time of year, now that our clocks have fallen back an hour, after the leaves aren’t just turning but falling, the grosbeaks have gone. They’re in Central and South America, far from any, ah, shall we say “North American concerns” that may be troubling the rest of us left behind in Memphis. 

This time of year is truly one of change, when the world feels poised on the brink of something, hesitating before the charge into new seasons. Some of those changes are human-made — the grosbeaks, rose-breasted or otherwise, have no use for clocks and time zones and Daylight Saving Time. Their bodies tell them when to fly and where to stop. Elections, though they have far-reaching consequences on the natural world, won’t keep a blue jay or mourning dove up all night, stress-drinking, doom-scrolling, and refreshing a vote count. The raccoons who steal black-oil sunflower seed from my birdfeeders by the fistful are also blissfully ignorant of politics. 

Lucky them, right? 

There is also the headlong holiday rush from Halloween to New Year’s Eve, and though its onset always leaves me anxiously checking and rechecking my bank balance, it also brings the excitement of friend and family reunions, of kids’ surprised smiles. The Pink Palace Crafts Fair and the Corn Maze give way to the Enchanted Forest and Starry Nights. Zoo Boo precedes Zoo Lights. 

Evening shadows lengthen and come sooner, as autumn sunsets yield to lengthening night earlier with each passing day. Fallen leaves crunch underfoot; squirrels scurry from tree to tree, increasingly frantic as winter’s onset draws near. Everything prepares to hunker down for the cold. 

I thought about the grosbeaks — and our other seasonal visitors, in spring and autumn both — as I walked this week. The reminder of the natural world, with its reassuring certainty of cycles of warmth and cold, has been a source of comfort and inspiration both. Those polite birds have yet to overstay their welcome. I never worry about the peaceful transition of power from autumn to winter. (Though winter to spring often feels anything but certain when mid-February rolls around, but that’s a topic for another day.)

It seems telling to me that I have yet to reopen Facebook since November 5, 2024, but I feel called to walking trails, parks, and other public greenspaces. Some inner voice, quiet but persistent, is pushing me toward interactions that nourish the soul. In this time of uncertainty, change, and mind-numbing existential dread, I’m especially thankful for that inclination to step outside, instead of reaching for the junk food dopamine hit of social media. The smell of decomposing leaf litter on an urban forest trail is far more palatable to me right now. 

If, like me, you have rushed toward natural rhythms as a source of comfort, then I can only say that soon we will have to return the favor for Mother Nature. Even the usually staid AP Times sounds downright alarmist on the impending second term of former President Donald Trump, with a new piece by Jennifer McDermott and Matthew Daly warning that the President-elect’s planned rollbacks could be a serious hurdle to green energy measures. So, to everyone else whose comfort place is Overton Park, I say now is our time to shine. We should look to our local leaders, especially those with environmental experience, like Rep. Justin J. Pearson, recently re-elected to District 86. Memphis Community Against Pollution, Protect Our Aquifer — these folks’ fight is about to get harder, and they need our help. 

In the meantime, I’m going to take a walk, crunch some leaves, and touch some damn grass. 

Jesse Davis is a former Flyer staffer; he writes a monthly Books feature for Memphis Magazine. His opinions, such as they are, are his own and not the fault of his overworked editor. 

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Until We Meet Again

Jesse Davis (Photo: Jon W. Sparks)

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time in journalism, it’s to always, always double-check the spelling of “public.” If I’m allowed to say I’ve learned two things, I’d have to admit it’s true, you shouldn’t bury the lede. So I’ll skip the preliminaries and announce my official resignation as editor-in-chief of the Memphis Flyer.

When I accepted the editor gig, former Flyer editor Bruce VanWyngarden told me, “It’ll eat your life.” Or, as another colleague put it, somewhat more delicately, “There’s an element of being ‘on call’ to this job.”

Yeah, that’s true, and for the most part, I’ve loved it. Every job comes with its own kind of stress, and the stress of meeting deadlines, reworking a story, or teasing out the best way to word a complex idea is, for me, nothing less than thrilling. “Thrilling” might be underselling it a bit — it’s a kind of high. I’ve never been much of an athlete, but if a runner’s high is anything like the zap an editor gets from slicing 1,000 words from a story and hearing its author say it reads better now, well, let’s just say I can begin to understand the folks who jog even in these brutal Memphis summers.

I’ve been the one to break news of a court ruling and of an escaped wallaby. I’ve worked with Flyer writers to decide how best to tackle big issues — gun violence, reproductive rights, and Memphis beer. There’s only one free print paper in town, and being at the wheel has been a responsibility I have cherished. But for most of my life, I’ve collected responsibilities like baseball cards, and it might be time to admit I’ve become something of a responsibility hoarder.

By necessity, I’ve lived as a “duties first” person. In the past few months, my family circumstances have changed unexpectedly, and I want to try my hand at being a “family first” kind of guy. It’s a new kind of challenge, a different sort of responsibility. For most of my childhood, my parents weren’t always around — also usually by necessity. For years, my dad worked at an airline in Memphis, putting in 40-plus hours in three days’ time before turning around to drive the 90 or so miles to our little white house on the county line. He’d sleep for a day, and then we would have a few days together before he had to drive back to Memphis for half a week. My sister and I knew we were loved, but it was still tough at times.

Within the next year, my dad will turn 70, my nephew will turn 5, and I’ll get married. I want to be there for these people, really be there, not just when work allows, or be there physically albeit distractedly as I delegate some editorial tasks. I’ve answered work emails and phone calls while I was supposed to be playing dragons with my nephew, and it left me with an all-too-familiar feeling, like seeing myself on the other side of a mirror, 30 years ago. I’ve had Zoom meetings while on a long-deferred vacation with my fiancée, all while a family reunion went on downstairs. It comes with the territory. I know some people could easily juggle the different demands of family and a fast-paced job in a notoriously exacting field, but I think I might just like that aforementioned high of hitting deadlines a little too much. Might as well face it, I’m addicted to responsibility.

It might seem clichéd, but in a world where even the people who agree on most things can’t ever seem to get on the same page because of a few minor differences, I like the idea of embracing the people who choose to love me even when we don’t agree on anything. Not only that, but my fiancée and I want to start our own family before too long.

So maybe it’s selfishness or naivete, but I think I’d like to focus my energies a little more on my own group of weirdos — not that I don’t love the snarky, creative, somewhat dysfunctional Flyer family I’ve adopted in the last eight years. I do. Deeply. But I also trust them to deliver the news in true Flyer style, even if I have to miss out on the newsroom brainstorming. So I’m choosing to accept a new opportunity I’ve been granted, cherish the time I’ve spent with this wild bunch, and leave knowing the Flyer will keep flying, charting a course unlike any other paper in town.

There’s no shortage of senior talent ready to help keep this paper on course while the search for a new editor gets underway. Managing editor Shara Clark, associate editor Toby Sells, and senior editors Jon W. Sparks and Bruce VanWyngarden (remember that guy?) will make sure the same exceptional paper hits stands on time each week. And they’ll have help from Inside Memphis Business editor Samuel X. Cicci. So I feel confident about the Flyer’s future. Oh, and if you or someone you know would like to apply for the editor-in-chief position, send a resume to hr@contemporary-media.com.

In the meantime, I’m excited about the prospect of being a Flyer reader, and of finding new ways to give back to the Memphis community.

What else can I say? That’s all, folks. Thanks for reading.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Crime is No Quick Fix

© Nomadsoul1 | Dreamstime.com

Archie waved me over to the pastry case. He sort of crouched down on my level — I was 11 or so at the time and quite a bit shorter than the tanned, mullet-sporting man my mom was dating — and he spoke in something approaching a loud stage whisper. For Archie, that was as close to being incognito as it got. His voice was a boom with a ragged edge. He wore a small gold hoop in his ear, was perpetually clad in a hoodie and shorts, glowed with an incandescent suntan, rode a motorcycle, and had strong opinions about everything. Whispering was not his style.

“Watch this,” he said, as he stuffed a dozen or so cookies in the front pocket of his hoodie. 

Stealing isn’t really stealing if it’s food and you need it, he explained. And if you were stealing from someone who could afford to eat the cost. It’s best to steal things that are hard to inventory — bakery items don’t have barcodes, and you don’t really look too conspicuous grabbing things from the serve-yourself section of the store. As long as you act cool, you’re not likely to get caught. Or so Archie said.

That was my first brush with crime. My mother’s boyfriend (at the time) taught me how to steal food from big grocery store chains. 

I was a Good Kid though, the kind who never really wanted to make trouble, so of course I was completely petrified. It felt as though someone threw a switch and aimed three or four spotlights at me. Sweat prickled on my brow and the back of my neck. My skin flushed. My back went rigid, and all my movements were strangely stiff. In short, I was a caricature of conspicuousness. I felt sure that someone had seen, that — as foolish as it might sound — everyone knew. The cookies in Archie’s hoodie pocket might as well have cast a cartoonishly green radioactive glow. At any moment, I was sure a plainclothes detective would grab me by the arm and steer me into the store’s interrogation chamber. 

Of course, none of that happened. Archie and my mom paid for a few items at the register, we strolled out the automatic door, and Archie offered my younger sister and me a fistful of stolen cookies. If memory serves, I declined. As protégés go, I was off to a rotten start. 

Not long after that, my mom decided it was too onerous a task to keep hiding her drug use from me and enlisted me as a sort of partner-in-cover-up, if not an actual partner-in-crime. Though she eventually made the leap to stronger stuff, at the time it was just marijuana, so no big deal. (Though, of course, I was again petrified. Gasp! “Reefer madness! In my own home?!”) Now, I often wonder if my mother ever would have dabbled in more dangerous drugs if there weren’t such a stigma associated with drugs in general. It’s easy to feel locked out of so-called “normal” society, locked into a cycle of illicit activities, black market solutions, and stolen cookies. Would things have been different if she felt like she could have gotten help without being arrested or fired or shamed? If, maybe, it was a little easier for a waitress at a diner to feed and house her kids. If there were more readily accessible services to help single mothers, people with chronic illness — all categories she falls into. In other words, if we viewed crime, which is, after all, a social construct, a little differently. If we spent our resources on prevention, instead of protection and punishment. 

This has been much on my mind of late. Maybe because crime has been a hot topic in the Shelby County District Attorney race. Maybe it’s because of the Jan. 6th hearings, detailing some of the most brazen crimes ever committed. High crimes, treason, that the “law and order” crowd seem, well, more or less okay with. I suppose that has something to do with what we consider crime. When asked to imagine an illegal activity, theft might be the first thing to come to mind. That could be because property is so tangible. Or because gains from social spending would take years or even a generation to show clear results. Hard to campaign on that, I suppose. Maybe it just pays to keep people focused away from crime committed on a larger scale. 

It can be seen in our national priorities, in our bloated police budgets. It doesn’t seem in keeping with the way society has changed to continue this way, to view criminals and crime as a force of nature, something that just occurs. 

I’m biased, of course, but it seems like we’ve thrown dollars at “protection” for decades with little to show for it. There are costs, too, in seeing dangers lurking everywhere, in the belief we need protection from other people. “Tough on crime” sounds good on the surface, or is at least straightforward and easy to digest, but if it worked, wouldn’t we have seen results by now? Call me a bleeding heart, a liberal looney tune, but I can’t help but wonder what the world would look like if we stopped viewing our fellow citizens as dangers against which we need protection, if instead we saw crime as evidence of a social system out of balance. It would take a massive shift in how we view the world, not to mention how cities draw up their budgets. It would be a difficult, lengthy process. 

But maybe it would be worth it. 

Jesse Davis
jesse@memphisflyer.com 

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Horror of Our Time

Photo: © 1933 King Kong Promotional Image | Wikimedia Commons

I’ve been something of a monster movie maniac ever since my dad took me, at age 5, to see King Kong (1933) as part of The Orpheum’s summer movie series. As I sat in the gorgeous old theater watching silver-hued stop-motion dinosaurs decimate the landing party, watching Kong, the king of Skull Island, take Fay Wray to his mountain keep, my velcro-clad feet barely sticking past the edge of the seat, something was awakened inside me. From that moment on, I was absolutely mad for monster movies.

I’ve written about it before, I know, though I don’t know if I’ve gone into the inception of my mania. I wrote about the anniversary of the publication of Dracula not long ago. (How did Flyer senior editor Bruce VanWyngarden do this for 20 years and keep his subjects straight? I’ve got respect.) It may be that I’ve mentioned monsters a few too many times in what should be a column for general audiences. But, as Flyer film editor Chris McCoy points out in this week’s film feature, mass media is experiencing a horror renaissance, and one that shows no signs of stopping. It’s touching nearly every element of popular culture — streaming services, movies, novels. Horror is hot right now. Even subgenres are tinged with it. My sister texted me this morning to say her favorite part of the not-exactly-new (but still in theaters) Doctor Strange movie was the “horror overtone.” Stephen Graham Jones’ postmodern Scream-like novel My Heart Is a Chainsaw won a truckload of awards. Oh, and Scream got another sequel last year. Stranger Things is the subscription driver at Netflix. The trend is evident in the artsier world as well, with one of America’s most impressive auteurs, Jordan Peele, apparently committed to the genre. His newest offering, Nope, due later this year, is on all the “most anticipated movie” lists.

I could go on, but why beat a horse with a dead stick? Horror is hot.

Why, though? And why does the trend show no signs of fizzling? Largely, I would argue, because at its heart, horror is about things feeling out of control. Whether it’s the arthouse horror film about processing trauma, the low-budget weekend slasher flick, or Stephen King’s newest bestseller (and they’re always bestsellers), at the bloody heart of the horrific piece of art, there’s something bigger and more powerful than the (usually teenage) protagonists.

And these days, who doesn’t feel at the mercy of something bigger, older, and more powerful than themselves?

The recent decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States are, to put it mildly, cause for alarm. Overturning Roe v. Wade, ruling that states may not pass certain (apparently restrictive?) handgun carry laws, that states may funnel tax dollars to private and religious schools, and, most recently, that school coach Joe Kennedy’s 50-yard-line prayer counts as private and protected speech — all of these are wildly unpopular and out of sync with the majority of public opinion. It almost seems as if SCOTUS is some grim eldritch horror. They’re protected by barricades, deep within some impregnable keep, ruling for life and able to wield powers no common citizen can imagine. Frankly, I think I’d rather be a middle school Dungeons & Dragons nerd facing some betentacled monster. It seems like the conflict with the better odds. Because, though the recent SCOTUS rulings have come with the speed and frenzy of a series of werewolf bites, they’re not exactly out of step with the court’s history. Their ruling that settled the 2000 recount dispute between Bush and Gore was a political act as well.

And that’s just politics. Many pundits far smarter and more politically plugged in than I worry about the future of federal environmental regulations given these recent rulings. From there, it’s not much of a mental leap to conjure the specter of climate change, a seemingly unstoppable spirit that’s haunted public discourse for my entire life.

So, yes, given the larger-than-life threats we must contend with each day, it does seem all too natural for the general populace to have an insatiable hunger for horror. Fiction, after all, is a way of confronting our fears in a safe space, working out what frightens us and why. It’s also a source of strength, at least for some people. If high school-aged babysitter Laurie Strode didn’t quit when faced with the seemingly unstoppable Michael Myers, then neither will we when we’re forced to confront our own boogeyman.

How do we fight these out-of-control monsters plaguing society? For that, I suggest looking for the people — the organizers, the volunteers, the visionaries — who have been doing this work for a long time. They know what they’re doing, and they know how best we can help. Don’t be a hero, be a helping hand. There’s no room for ego, and there are people far better suited than I to be our guides, our Dr. Loomis or Professor Van Helsing.

Maybe, in confronting this monster, we can shift the cultural needle. If it means securing hard-won rights, I won’t mind if the next decade is characterized by a craze for rom-coms or sports biopics. Heck, I’ll learn to love ’em.

Categories
Music Music Blog Record Reviews

Memphis-Based Wraysong Records Releases Hyle King Movement Albums

The cover art for the HKM collection, art by Jeff Wack (Courtesy Wraysong Records)

It all started in 1967 when Mac Davis was managing Metric Music in Hollywood California. Davis put Memphis-based duo Hial Bancroft King and Ray Chafin together to collaborate on a music project. Liberty Records wanted something to follow an Elton John and Bernie Taupin album. Both members sing and play multiple instruments, but King was something of a musical virtuoso (and an avid experimenter, especially with synthesizer music and sound effects) and Chafin had a deft touch with lyrics and conceptual form.

Thus the Hyle King Movement was born. Unfortunately, the group was short-lived. Metric Music balked at the more experimental song composition, and the group’s demos were shelved. 

For a time, that put a pin in the group’s musical endeavors — at least together. King wrote symphonies and conducted orchestras, played concerts, and was endorsed by many legendary conductors. He worked with Leon Russell, Lou Rawls, Jackie DeShannon, and Brian Wilson, among a cadre of charting artists. Chafin went on to record two of the duo’s songs on Bob Marcucci’s Chancellor Records and appeared on American Bandstand with Dick Clark.

Now, after a 30-year hiatus, Hyle King Movement’s two-volume collection has been remastered and released on Wraysong Records. I spoke with Ray Chafin about (with input from Hial Bancroft King) about the journey to get these songs out in the world.

Memphis Flyer: The synth-driven sound wasn’t what I expected based on looking at the cover. Can you tell me a little about how you crafted the sound for the album. 

Ray Chafin: All the songs on the album were recorded on multi-tracks with Hial playing all the instrument parts on multiple sessions of overdubbing. The synthesizer was the main instrument for both sound and effects. He also sang all the parts in the extensive vocal backup, along with Grammy winning artist Darlene Koldenhoven. Each song was recorded at different times over several years, in Hial’s state-of-the-art King’s Studio. 

The album is quite atmospheric. Can you talk a little about the decision to include sound effects in the music? 

We, as songwriters, believe songs should be felt as well as listened to, visualized as well as heard, and sound effects add that touch of being there, witnessing, and experiencing what the words describe. 

Would you talk a little bit about your musical influences? 

Hial was raised in Hollywood during those years of classic filmmaking. His award-winning grandfather, actor George Bancroft, set the environment for Hial to become the child prodigy he was, and the extraordinary musician he is today. I, on the other hand, was born and raised on a farm in West Virginia, with country music and bluegrass festivals as my major influence. I didn’t play an instrument until my late teens. 

At least in “Silvery Dawn” it seems that science-fiction is one influence. Is that true? 

Absolutely! What was considered fiction 50 years ago is finally becoming reality today. This song stems from the prediction of coming events that are not clearly explained. However, in making the video I considered it science-reality. Having witnessed a UFO encounter with my mother in I952, I gained great respect for the notion that we are not alone in this vast universe.

Again talking about “Silvery Dawn” but it seems faith plays an important part in the lyrical composition. Would you talk about that? 

As a child we were taught about the coming rapture, Hial explained it as a childhood fear that became this visionary dream with biblical origins. Rapture, they say, or an ethereal garden, perhaps.

“Cozy Little Corner” seems to have more of a lounge feel. Do you enjoy experimenting with different genres? 

Certainly. We both love to tread outside the musical boundaries of the norm. Hial is the “king” of versatility, as shown in his work. He can do it all!

Is there anything else you would like to add? 

It has been said, “The chase is more enjoyable than the catch,” and in our case it rings true. We had the good fortune to create songs, play music, and share special times with some pretty amazing people.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Like Get Back, But Smaller

Reminiscing on old memories (Photo: Jesse Davis)

Not long ago, my fiancée and I helped my sister pack up her belongings and move into a new house. My sister hates packing — it gives her the rabbit-in-the-headlights panic that makes anything difficult, especially when you’re also juggling childcare, transferring utilities, signing leases, balancing a job, and all of those other little delights that come with moving. So, since Sydnie, my fiancée, has a particular flair for organization and I don’t really feel strongly about packing one way or the other, we helped out in that arena. It’s just part of what family does.

In the process, I rediscovered a handful of mementos from our youth. My sister has held onto a few things — Grannie’s special colander for making jelly and jam, a sweatshirt from Catalina Island, old books and T-shirts, and other assorted items. It was an interesting exercise in memory.

These days, remembering anything before March 2020 or, for that matter, November 2016 seems like trying to vividly conjure memories of a different universe. So much has changed, and for at least the first year and a half of the pandemic, time seemed to take on an odd immeasurable quality. I’m sure my job plays some part in it, too — on any given day I might work on projects with deadlines that afternoon, next week, and next month. It can be a bit tough to keep track. (Allow me to take this opportunity to say I’m sorry if I missed your birthday, friends and family.)

Maybe that’s why packing my sister’s possessions had such an effect on me and why Sydnie and I ended up looking through an old notebook of mine last weekend. We were trying to find some tome hidden in one of our bookcases when she spotted a folder designed to hold yellow legal pads. She asked what it was, I said it probably held unused song lyrics, and then nothing would do except to go through and unpack each half-finished sketch of a song. It was like our own private Get Back, except not for the most famous band in the world.

Some people keep journals; some people keep diaries — I’ve never been able to tell the difference. There are scrapbookers and compulsive photo-takers. I have several notebooks’ worth of almost-songs. Most of them aren’t worth looking at. There’s a reason they were never finished, or they’re an odd archipelago of one-liners, nothing coherent enough to tell a story.

Then there are the songs I cannibalized to finish other songs.

“Hey, this chorus would make a third verse for that tune I can’t seem to finish.” Or maybe the two tunes with suspiciously similar themes meld together, and like alchemy, a collection of chorus-less verses begets a fully fleshed out song with verses, chorus, and a bridge. Work smart, not hard, as the old pros always say.

And there were the silly songs. The things I heard a friend or bandmate or stranger say and just had to write down. “Curse These Metal Hands” is a great title, but the lyrics, such as they are, should remain forever locked away in my memory — or on a well-used yellow legal pad.

Among all that were the little snapshots of life, often bolstered by poetic license and imagination. In songs, if not in newspaper columns, getting the rhyme and rhythm is more important than total adherence to fact. Still, there were lyrics about Syd’s and my first date, about holidays spent working and missing family, about someone who got a new dog (that one has the ring of truth, in my mind, though I can’t remember the actual event it references). So it was fun, if a bit nerve-racking (as I said, most of these unfinished sketches didn’t become actual songs for a reason), to share these memories with someone. Syd caught glimpses of my life before we met, when we first began dating. She saw both clumsy and careful attempts to make a rhyme. Times I stuck the landing and times I slipped off the balance beam, fell down the stairs, and landed in an arrhythmic heap on the floor.

Does that time spent reminiscing and puzzling out meaning deserve a column in the paper? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just trying to capture it for some future me. Maybe I hope I can give the reader a chance to pause, take stock of the slow slip of time in a world that, at present, feels stuck in fast-forward. Maybe it’s as simple as wishing I could jog a happy memory for someone else.

In the end, who knows? All I can say is, whatever feat of storytelling I’m attempting, I hope I stick the landing.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Take Three

Much ado has been made over the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. Some people wonder if “insurrection” is the proper term for the violent storming of the nation’s Capitol; others, namely the Republican National Committee, argue that the attack was “legitimate political discourse.”

As of this writing, two of seven promised hearings on the event have concluded. Some citizens wonder why all the hullabaloo, why the first hearing was aired on prime time. Others seem to agree that it would be a good idea to understand what happened and why. Those who don’t understand the attempted violent overthrow of the government by a militant political minority are doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes.

But I can’t bring myself to spill more ink over this subject. Feeling obligated to do so, I gave it my best shot. I typed out a sincere column about the difference between political discourse and political violence, and I wrote a satirical column about more or less the same thing. Neither attempt felt right to me, and I would rather start over a third time than publish something I’m not proud of.

So, with a deadline looming, I’ll use this space to preview this week’s excellent issue of the Flyer.

Our cover story, “Sun Shine,” is about the promise and potential for solar energy in Memphis and Tennessee. It’s a complement to our “Sun Block” story, in which we outlined many of the challenges and shortcomings related to that issue. Toby Sells, who wrote both pieces, has spent a great deal of time considering the subject of solar power, and you, dear reader, get to be the beneficiary of his hard work. You’re welcome!

Sells also wrangled the Fly-By section. This week we have stories about the Tom Lee Park renovation project, a dancing baby man, and Tennessee governor Bill Lee’s plans for school safety.

In “Bogus Is as Bogus Does,” our politics correspondent, Jackson Baker, writes about yet another phony ballot. These fraudulent lists of candidates purportedly endorsed by a local branch of a political party have become something of a frequent occurrence here in Memphis, and Mr. Baker has covered the issue diligently over the years. Read his most recent report on page 8.

In both our Steppin’ Out section and Last Word columns, we discuss the Juneteenth national holiday, albeit from different perspectives. In Steppin’ Out, Abigail Morici writes about Juneteenth festivities happening this week, while in the Last Word, TONE’s Victoria Jones considers the holiday as a chance to celebrate the successes and sacrifices of previous generations of Black Americans, while also paving the way for future generations. It’s a beautiful column, and I’m proud to feature it in the Flyer.

Our music editor Alex Greene pays tribute to the late Alan Hayes, an electronic music pioneer and producer who helped many young artists discover their sound. Hayes was involved in the production of a variety of styles of music, which stands as a testament to his versatility and open-mindedness. Greene’s writing is a touching tribute, handled with the care and kindness I’ve come to expect from our resident music historian.

Fitting, considering the upcoming release of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, our food and party columnist Michael Donahue interviews Mario Torres, the senior food and beverage director at The Guest House at Graceland. Torres has a great story, which will come as no surprise to any devotees of Donahue’s column.

In this week’s film column, Chris McCoy takes on the newest installment in the Jurassic Park series, Jurassic World: Dominion. McCoy is always especially entertaining when he doesn’t love the movie he’s reviewing, and this week is no exception. I won’t spoil it any more than I already have, except to say that if you like actor Jeff Goldblum, this one is definitely worth your time.

That takes us through this week’s issue of Memphis’ only free print alt-weekly. I hope you’ll continue to pick up this paper on newsstands and read our new stories (posted daily) on the web.

As always, thank you for reading.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Mass Death is No Price for ‘Freedom’

© Sheila Fitzgerald | Dreamstime.com
An obsession with guns is killing us.

I don’t remember the first time I shot a gun. I was raised around guns. I remember my grandfather telling me to hold a rifle pointed toward the ground, to make sure the safety was on. I remember my uncle laughing out loud when I refused to shoot right-handed. (It seems I’m left-eye dominant.) I remember my dad and uncles and older cousins shooting mistletoe out of tall trees. My mother used to work for Wild Hare, a sporting goods manufacturer that specializes in clay pigeons. 

I make all these points because, at first glance, I might look like someone who has a blanket distaste for firearms because I’m unfamiliar with them. That couldn’t be further from the truth. But we have a national obsession with guns, and it’s killing us. 

On May 14th, an 18-year-old white supremacist man shot and killed 10 people in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. On May 24th, an 18-year-old shot and killed 19 young children and two teachers in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. It was the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook in December 2012. It’s been 10 years, and nothing has changed, except that some states have implemented permitless carry laws. 

There are obviously multiple factors at work. The shooting in Buffalo was motivated by a poisonous racist ideology, which we know because the perpetrator left behind a racist screed. Racism is one of this country’s most horrible diseases, one we often refuse to acknowledge. But we don’t have to allow violent, racist individuals access to military weaponry. We certainly don’t have to glorify such weapons, treating them as though they’re avatars of freedom, or, as former state Rep. Andy Holt used to do, giving them away as part of campaign events. 

There are multiple factors that contribute to the United States’ ongoing legacy of gun violence. But we would be fools not to admit that one of them is the sheer number of guns here. According to the most recent Small Arms Survey, the United States has the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world. We also face an epidemic of gun violence, and mass shootings here have become the norm. There is a link, and to deny it is madness. 

Last Saturday, six people were shot in Chattanooga, Tennessee. There is no time to grieve from one mass shooting before the next happens. The publication date for this issue of the Flyer is June 2nd, nine days after the shooting in Uvalde, practically an eternity in the news world. But the people in Uvalde and Buffalo face the rest of their lives without loved ones. That’s the real eternity. So I believe we cannot let the fury and hurt die down. We cannot move on. 

I am choosing here not to engage with many of the usual arguments around gun control or to acknowledge them only in the most cursory way. The concerns about the Second Amendment are spurious — an individual with a closet full of AR-15 rifles is not a well-regulated militia. Even the most well-armed individual has no hope of standing their ground against the entire military. No one really believes that “too many doors” in schools is the root of the problem. Mental illness, violent video games, those things are not unique to the United States. But we have a warped fascination with death, a fetish for armament, and a strange impulse to believe that freedom means never making compromises with the rest of society. 

Everyone should have the freedom to go to school, church, the grocery store, a concert, a dance club, or the mall without fear of death. I have almost had this job as the Flyer’s editor for a year, and I’ve already written about gun violence twice. Not because it’s a particular hobby horse of mine, but because it’s a sickness that plagues our nation and I believe I have a duty to acknowledge that. I believe we all do, because most Americans believe in common sense gun laws, in background checks, that no individual should be able to buy a weapon that will let them fill a room with bullets in seconds. 

There is a small minority that believes this constant parade of death is the price we must all pay for their freedom to own weapons of war. And they and the NRA and the elected officials who take campaign donations from them are holding the rest of us at gunpoint. 

Jesse Davis
jesse@memphisflyer.com