Category: Cover Feature

Business Unusual at MATA

Post author By Kailynn Johnson
Post date November 20, 2024

MATA Interim CEO Bacarra Mauldin (Photos: Courtesy MATA)

When we spoke to the Memphis Area Transit Authority’s interim CEO Bacarra Mauldin in August, she called the state of affairs at MATA “business unusual.”

This summer, Mauldin and her team were in the process of finalizing the budget for Fiscal Year 2025 (F25). They had promised their board they would present a balanced financial plan after it was announced that the agency was in a $60 million deficit. The balanced budget, with plans for bus route suspensions and more than 200 layoffs, was unanimously passed, and would only further affirm Mauldin’s confidence in her own assessment of the current climate as “business unusual.”

“It’s not everyday that you have your whole board replaced at once,” Mauldin says now, reflecting on the most recent move made by Memphis Mayor Paul Young.“I trust Mayor Young, we’ve partnered, and he has a vision for how he wants this to go. He sent a clear message that he wants things to change — and we intend for them to change — and I support his vision,” Mauldin says.

Young made the move to replace the entire MATA Board of Commissioners in October, following a draft report from transportation consulting firm TransPro. The 117-page recommendation — which one city council member called “scathing” — summarizes recommendations for the agency and analyzes bus usage, ridership, and on-time performance, among other things. Its purpose was to highlight the pressing challenges the agency faced and call for urgent action.

TransPro conducted its analysis from August 19th to October 11th — during which time the board passed the budget without questions. This proved to be a point of concern for TransPro when evaluating MATA. “Existing MATA board fails to provide reasonable oversight,” the report said. “Just a month ago the MATA board unanimously adopted a budget with no questions … for a fiscal year that started more than 100 days prior.”

The consulting firm found only 26 percent of the community believed in the agency’s ability to efficiently handle public funds. In order to gain the public’s trust regarding management of funds, they recommended the entire board be replaced.

“The MATA board as currently constituted should be replaced with new members who will take seriously their responsibility to act as the policy and oversight entity of the agency,” the report said. “New board members should be trained on expectations and responsibilities.”

Mayor Young’s decision exemplified his intentions to start a “clean slate” at the transit authority, which had been at the center of controversy and public discourse for months.

The new MATA board members pose for a group picture following their Oath of Office ceremony at City Hall on November 15, 2024.

In the Interim

In February, Mauldin was named interim CEO following the retirement of former MATA CEO Gary Rosenfeld. Her appointment came a few months after the agency opted to nix their controversial 2023 proposed winter service changes.

These changes were proposed as a way to enhance the agency’s on-time performance and efficiency. This included stopping service after 7 p.m. as well as suspension of numerous routes. After hearing from the public at both board and public meetings, as well as from state leaders such as Justin J. Pearson, the board of commissioners opted to keep service as usual.

MATA touted these adjustments as a way to give the public more reliable
service, by addressing their shortage of mechanics and bus repair backlog. At the time, officials said they were missing 20 percent of all of their scheduled trips.

Mauldin took over as interim CEO in the aftermath, and one of the first things she did in her official capacity was retain the services of an external CFO, Hamish Davidson of J.S. Held LLC. According to Mauldin, MATA had not previously had a CFO — a crucial position in stabilizing the organization’s financials.

Shortly after publicly announcing that the agency had been operating in a deficit, officials presented their budget proposal to the Memphis City Council, who has historically been the agency’s primary source of operating funds. The council allocated more $30 million to the agency for FY25. During this time, they also said they would be more involved in MATA’s budget moving forward. Officials instantly began their process of refining the budget. Mauldin said their largest expense was wages and fringe benefits.

In the summer, Mauldin admitted that if they were still operating in the way they had been previously, they would require a budget of $85 million; instead, she proposed a draft budget of $67 million. With this draft proposal, Mauldin acknowledged there would be cuts that would impact routes, staff, and other factors. She added that these changes would “hurt,” yet they would provide the agency with a “solid sustainable foundation” to thrive.

The interim CEO said they had not been able to identify funding for their current operating system, which has caused them to make the proposed cuts. According to MATA, they would also be streamlining staffing and vendor costs, as they prepared to submit the final budget for approval.

Days before the agency presented their balanced financials, officials announced they would be suspending trolley services, after discovering a brake issue which resulted in a “costly recommendation” from Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT). MATA opted to “temporarily suspend the service as opposed to making that spend” at the time. Eighteen employees were laid off as a result. The new budget was approved by the former MATA board at a meeting that same week, which included a plan to lay off more than 200 employees and suspend several ridership routes.

While the new board of commissioners voted to delay the proposed changes until February 2025, several problems have been left unanswered.

In analyzing these problems, many commentators note that these aren’t the result of one administration. Bennett Foster, executive director of Memphis For All, says most of these problems come as a result of previous leadership and people who “lack imagination.”

“Frankly, these white men who have been running MATA and running our city for the past eight years, they not only lack imagination for what MATA could be, but they also lack political will to do anything about it because of who MATA serves,” Foster says. “Black, working-class Memphians are not getting the services they need because of the people in charge and the people those leaders were serving.”

Foster says Mauldin has the “imagination and power to bring in people — both federally and statewide — to help progress the agency forward and bring in revenue.” But barriers remain in getting past these issues.

“Nobody wants to take blame for what happened, and politicians want to point the finger at management and management can’t really respond because [Mauldin] doesn’t know where they kept the receipts — it’s not her fault,” Foster says. “Of course as soon as a Black woman takes over it’s like, ‘Okay, now we need to hold you accountable.’”

Bacarra Mauldin hugs a MATA rider moments before a February 2024 event honoring the late MATA leader, William Hudson.

A Two-Fold Discussion

Conversations about MATA seem to fall in two different categories — evaluation of leadership and funding solutions — with many of the conversations intersecting. Groups such as the Memphis Bus Riders Union and Citizens for Better Service say these cuts sent the wrong message to riders and drivers, and that the changes sent a message that “[the board] was in favor of service cuts and layoffs.” Sammie Hunter, co-chair of the Memphis Bus Riders Union, was quoted as saying the budget was enough of a reason for Mayor Paul Young to “clean house.”

Further criticism of the administration and the board stemmed from a September city council presentation by the agency. Councilwoman Yolanda Cooper-Sutton said Mauldin had been “gifted an issue from her predecessors” and condemned the agency for not asking for help in their budget crisis.

Officials reported they had been operating in an unrestricted budget deficit for the last 10 years, which also caused Cooper-Sutton to call out the board of commissioners, saying they should “share in accountability for the agency’s financial burdens.” Mauldin said the board did not know the state of affairs, and when she was given full visibility over their finances, she shared the information with the board.

“I know that it’s unbelievable,” Mauldin said. “I know that it’s unacceptable, but we have done everything in our power to bring this in-line so that we could provide the service this city needs and deserves.”

But there’s another side — funding — and that doesn’t solely rest on the shoulders of the agency. Much of the public discourse about MATA sheds light on the turbulence, but people like Foster say this doesn’t help procure additional funding.

“The people who are going to be impacted by these conversations are people that actually ride the bus,” Foster says. “It’s being used as an excuse to not take action and protect MATA from crumbling. Protect these riders — it should be talked about as a service, not [to talk about] these people who are in charge. Are we going to save MATA? People are thinking about the management — no, think about the riders. Are you willing to do what it takes to make sure they don’t experience an end to their bus routes?”

L. Rochelle Hubbard depends on MATA’s services for her day-to-day activities,with no part of her life that isn’t impacted by reliance on transit. Hubbard says she doesn’t feel like ridership is a priority in decision-making.

“It comes across that we’re at the bottom when decisions are made,” Hubbard says.

She adds that she’s thankful for advocacy groups such as Better Transit for a Better Memphis who have helped amplify their voices, but she can’t help but feel that, although the agency hears their riders, “very little is done.” Still, Hubbard hopes that the new board, who she says has members that represent the voices of riders, will bring new change.

“Keep the riders at the forefront of this fight to establish a better transit for better Memphis,” Hubbard says.

Cardell Orrin, executive director of Stand for Children, says, in his advocacy work, public transit has consistently been among the top issues people have talked about, by both community members and elected officials.

“We’ve had studies that show how things could be better for people to access jobs, healthcare, food, education, workforce development — almost anything you can think of could get better if we had a better transit system,” Orrin says. “We’ve created a transit system of necessity. Only people who have to ride transit for the most part ride it, even though a lot of people we hear from would like to ride public transit, whether it be for convenience or the environment … but we can’t rely on an ill-functioning and an ill-funded system.”

Ridership has plummeted as a result of Covid-19, playing a major factor in the state of transit, Mauldin said in a previous conversation. Agencies are also in the aftermath of Covid-19 relief funds running out.“That really propelled the state of financial instability for transit agencies across the country, large and small,” Mauldin said.

Mauldin says the agency’s debt has been growing due to the increased cost of doing business, decreased ridership, and flat funding. Officials say funding also impacts on-time performance.

With the city being the agency’s primary funding source, many people such as Foster say the city shares in the responsibility to maintain transit service. Foster says the agency seems to have not been a priority in current and previous administrations.

Fuel to Move Faster

These months of turmoil reached a climax when Memphis Mayor Paul Young said he was looking to start a “clean slate” by replacing all members of MATA’s board of commissioners following the release of a draft report from TransPro.

The analysis indicated that public transportation has its share of financial challenges — which MATA officials have continuously noted, citing lack of funding contributing to their budget woes. However, TransPro said MATAs challenges “are further amplified by a lack of focus on the daily needs of customers, poor financial management and oversight, and the pursuit of major projects that are straining the limited staff and fiscal resources of the authority.”

While many people have applauded the report — as it led to a change in board leadership — it isn’t without flaws. Orrin, for example, says people have problems with public transit and where the money is going. But, he says, the report fails to provide context for how public transit is funded locally as opposed to other cities.

“I affirm that people are concerned about having adequate public transit. I think working back from that, the cause is not necessarily what they relate there about whether [it’s funding] being put toward these bigger projects, because the challenge of making that kind of connection is that the bigger projects they list are supposed to make transit better.”

One example Orrin refers to is MATA’s Memphis Innovation Corridor, the first bus rapid transit (BRT) system in Memphis. BRT is commended as representing the future of public transit, as a bus route that operates like a rail line with 31 stops along the way.

Mauldin says they have not made any decisions to scale back from the project at this time, as they also value the contributions from federal partners such as Congressman Steve Cohen and the Federal Transit Administration.

“The BRT project is the core of the mobility system,” Mauldin explains. “We’re continuing to work with Mayor Young and his administration to see that project through at this point.”

She adds that the report also indicates making a new operation system a priority, a recommendation they are following.

“Overall, the report didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know,” Mauldin says. “Things were already underway, so it’s good to have that report to validate some of that. We’re using that report as fuel to move us a little faster in that direction that we were going. We’re well aware of some of the problems that existed, but again, those problems didn’t start on February 1st when I became the interim. We definitely are working very hard — from the moment I took over — to try to rectify as many of those as necessary, but the fundamental issue for all of that is a lack of funding. We just don’t have the dedicated funding.”

What’s Next?

Mauldin’s recent appointment as interim CEO comes after being at the agency for three and a half years. Though this year has had its share of controversy and setbacks, Mauldin views it as a valuable step forward in elevating public conversations around transit.

“Public transportation is more of a conversation today than it was when I first got here,” Mauldin says. “People are truly giving it the time and attention that it’s really needed for quite a long time. The fact that we’re talking about it means we’re on the right path to truly fixing it because we all know this community really needs and deserves quality transit.”

Currently, MATA is working on a financial plan to bring the trolleys back, with Mauldin saying they expect to bring something to the board “very soon.”

In evaluating the TransPro report, Mauldin says they are taking a “hard look” and working with Young on solutions, but there are a lot of things the report showed that they already knew.

Moving forward, MATA is looking to work with city, state, and federal partners to get more funding while also working with community groups and riders. And Mauldin says they’re not running from accountability.

“We’re not happy about the state of the transit authority right now and the service we provide,” she says. “We’re working every day, all day, half of the night even, trying to make service better, and I’m actually very proud of our team and what we’ve been able to accomplish so far along the journey.”

In the midst of chaos and discourse, Mauldin says she doesn’t want the work of the operators to get overlooked. While there is work to be done, she says the resilience and commitment of her team is important to address.

“The story of MATA is going to be a story of resilience,” Mauldin says. “We’re going to be the comeback kids. I believe that with all of the attention, all of the interest and development of our system, we’re going to be better on the other side because of this.”

Foster says they’re hopeful about Mauldin and her administration, saying they agree with who should take priority in decisions — the riders.

“I like her. I like the new board,” Foster says. “That’s promising, that’s giving me hope, and I do think what we saw in Nashville with the transit referendum is kind of sending a signal that people want public transit. People want that service, so I think we should prepare for something similar. We can put that on the ballot in 2026 and try to get some dedicated revenue.”

Tags MATA board of commissioners, MATA interim CEO Bacarra Mauldin, Mayor Paul Young, Memphis Area Transit Authority, TransPro report

Cover Feature News

A Festival of Dreams

Post author By Chris McCoy
Post date November 13, 2024

Brandon Wilson stars as Turner and Ethan Herisse as Elwood in director RaMell Ross’ NICKEL BOYS, from Orion Pictures. (Photo: L. Kasimu Harris © 2024 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved.)

The mission of the Indie Memphis Film Festival is to bring films to the Bluff City which we could not see otherwise. Some Indie Memphis films return to the big screen the next year, like American Fiction, which screened at last year’s festival and went on to win an Academy Award for writer/director Cord Jefferson. For the last 27 years, it has been an invaluable resource for both beginning and established filmmakers in the Mid-South. Early on, the festival launched the career of Memphis-based director Craig Brewer, whose recent limited series Fight Night was a huge hit for the Peacock streaming service. Many others have followed.

This year’s festival brings changes from the norm. First of all, it takes place later than usual, with the opening night film, It Was All a Dream, bowing on Thursday, November 14th, and running through Sunday, November 17th. There will be encore presentations at Malco’s Paradiso on Monday, November 18th, and Tuesday, November 19th. “We are having encores because our biggest complaint is that we have too many films back to back that people want to see. So that was a direct response to our audience,” says Kimel Fryer, executive director of Indie Memphis.

Opening night film It Was All a Dream is a documentary by dream hampton, a longtime music writer and filmmaker (who prefers the lowercase) from Detroit, Michigan. Her 2019 film Surviving R. Kelly earned a Peabody Award and was one of the biggest hits in Netflix history.

“I’m really excited to see how everyone thinks of our opening night film,” says Fryer.

It Was All a Dream is a memoir, of sorts, collecting hampton’s experiences covering the golden era of the hip-hop world in the 1990s. “I really enjoyed watching it, especially seeing footage of Biggie Smalls, Prodigy from Mobb Deep, Method Man, and even Snoop Dogg before they became icons. They’re just hungry artists. Even Q-Tip is in it, and the other night, Q-tip was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. So I was thinking about that as I was watching the awards. He was such a baby in this field, he had no clue 20, 30 years from now he was going to be on this stage,” says Fryer.

The festival is moving in space as well as time. While the festival will return to its longtime venue Malco Studio on the Square, there will be no screenings at Playhouse on the Square this year. The 400-seat Crosstown Theater will screen the opening night film and continue screenings throughout the long weekend. On Saturday at 11 a.m., it will also be the home of the Youth Film Fest. “This is the first year we’re combining the Youth Film Fest with the annual festival,” says Fryer. “That’s really cool, being able to allow the youth filmmakers to still have their own dedicated time, but also to be able to interact and see other films that are outside of their festival. We do have some films that are a little bit more family-friendly than what we have had in the past.”

Among those family-friendly films are a great crop of animated features, including Flow by Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis. Flow is a near wordless adventure that follows a cat and other animals as they try to escape a catastrophic flood in a leaky boat. The film has garnered wide acclaim in Europe after debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, and will represent Latvia in the International category at the Academy Awards.

“I thought it was interesting because, of course, when Kayla Myers, our director of programming, selected these films, we had no idea some of the more recent impacts from the hurricanes and things of that nature would happen,” says Fryer.

Julian Glander’s Boys Go to Jupiter is a coming-of-age story about Billy 5000, a teenager in Florida who finds himself tasked with caring for an egg from outer space. First-time director Glander is a veteran animator who did the vast majority of the work on the film himself. The Pittsburgh-based auteur told Cartoon Brew that he and executive producer Peisin Yang Lazo “… did the jobs of 100 people. I have no complaints — it’s been a lot of work, but it feels really good to make a movie independently, to not have meetings about everything and really own every creative decision.”

The festival’s third animated film, Memoir of a Snail by Australian animator Adam Elliot, is the story of Grace (Sarah Snook), a young woman who escapes the tedium of her life in 1970s Melbourne by collecting snails. When her father dies, she is separated from her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and put into an abusive foster home. We follow Grace as she navigates a difficult life, full of twists and turns, with only her snails as a constant comfort. “Memoir of a Snail is an adult animated film,” says Fryer. “Bring the kids at your own risk.”

The spirit of independence is what puts the “indie” in Indie Memphis. The festival has always been devoted to unique visions which question the status quo. Nickel Boys, the centerpiece film which will screen on Sunday night at Crosstown Theater, is by director RaMell Ross. “I’m really excited about that film,” says Fryer. “But also, it uses film as a critique. It’s based on the novel from Colson Whitehead that won a Pulitzer Prize.”

Nickel Boys takes place in 1960s Florida, where a Black teenager, Elwood (Ethan Cole Sharp), is committed to a reform school after being falsely accused of attempted car theft. There, he meets Turner (Brandon Wilson), and the two become fast friends. The film is shot by Jomo Fray, who was the cinematographer behind All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, which opened last year’s Indie Memphis festival. It is highly unusual for its first-person perspective, which shifts back and forth between the two protagonists, so that you are put in the perspective of the characters, who are battling to keep their humanity in a deeply inhumane environment.

Fryer says bringing radical artistic works like these to Mid-South audiences is central to the organization’s mission. “I think that’s honestly one reason why people like Indie Memphis. Don’t get me wrong, people do like to see the very well-known films, the more commercial films, the ones that get a lot of press. But I think the people who enjoy coming to Indie Memphis also enjoy seeing things outside of the box, seeing things that push the narrative. And it makes sense when you think about Memphis. Memphis is never going to be this cookie-cutter place, and people who live here love it because it’s not.”

Funeral Arrangements

This year’s festival has a strong local focus, with seven features in the Hometowner category. One of the locals is a 15th anniversary screening of Funeral Arrangements by Anwar Jamison. The writer/director is low-key one of the most successful Memphis filmmakers from recent years, having produced, directed, and starred in Coming to Africa and its sequel, which were both big hits in Ghana and other African countries. Funeral Arrangements was his debut feature.

“Man, talk about a passion project,” Jamison says. “I just think back to being in film school in the graduate program at the University of Memphis, and now, it’s a full-circle moment because I’m teaching at the University of Memphis, and I have grad students and I’m working on these projects. I look back like, ‘Wow! That was me!’ And now I understand why my professors were telling me no, and that I was crazy to try to do a feature film for my final project, when I only needed 15 minutes. But I’m like, ‘No, I have this script!’ We had a bunch of young, hungry crew members. No one had done a feature, whether it was the crew or the actors. We had a lot of theater students in it, and everybody was just like, ‘Wow, this would be cool!’ They all saw my vision. I had the script, being that I come from a writing background, and everybody really jumped on board to make it happen. I feel like it was the perfect storm of young creativity and energy, and it really showed in the final product. I’m proud of it!”

The idea for the film began with an incident at work. “Most of the things I’ve written start out as something that happened in real life, and then I take it and fictionalize it,” Jamison says. “It was based on an experience I had working a job that really was like that. I couldn’t be absent again, so I really lied to the supervisor and told him I had to go to a funeral. And he really said, ‘Bring me the death notice or the obituary.’ In real life, I didn’t do it, and he didn’t bother me. I ended up keeping my job. But as a writer, in my mind it was like, ‘Whoa, that would be funny. What if the guy really went to a funeral, and now he gets caught up in a situation?’ It just came from there.”

It was this idea that got Jamison’s talent noticed. “When I was an undergrad, actually in the very first screenwriting class that I took, my professor called the morning after we had the final project, which was to write the first act of a feature film. I’m like, ‘Why is this professor calling me?’ And she was like, ‘I really enjoyed the script. Could we use it as the example in class to read for the others?’ That let me know I was onto something.”

Jamison says he’s ready to celebrate the past and looking forward to the future. “I have the third Coming to Africa that I’m preparing for, and I hope to do in 2025, if all goes well, and wrap that up as a trilogy. But what I found, once you get there, there’s just so many stories that connect the diaspora and Ghana in so many ways. There’s so many natural stories to tell that I would love to keep telling them.”

Bluff City Chinese

“I actually got into filmmaking through fashion,” says Thandi Cai. “I was working in textile art for a while, and I was making a lot of costumes. A lot of the things that I was making didn’t really make sense in our reality right now, so I was starting to build stories around the costumes I was making. Then I wanted to create films out of those costumes and realized, ‘Oh, this is a potential career that I could follow!’ So then I started doing videography commercially, in addition to all these little small fashion films on the side. Film and video started becoming more of my storytelling practice, and a tool of how I could explain and share what I was learning with the world.”

They began work on their documentary feature debut Bluff City Chinese in 2020. “It originally started out as an oral history project. And because, like I said, I think film is such a powerful tool, I started recording oral histories visually. But then didn’t know what we were going to do with it.”

Several people suggested Cai apply for an Indie Grant. The Indie Memphis program, originated by Memphis filmmaker Mark Jones, awards two $15,000 grants each year, selected from dozens of applications by local filmmakers. Cai was awarded the grant in 2022. “I really didn’t have very high expectations of getting it, so I was just blown away and really grateful that we did.”

Indie Grants are nominally for short films, but Cai said their project grew to 45 minutes. “It was just a huge, huge help. I think it made a really big difference because prior to getting that money, the vision for the documentary was very DIY, really lo-fi. I was not expecting this to be a full-fledged film, really. It was like, let’s try to get these oral histories out there by whatever we need to do to get it out there. To be able to have that money to really just dive in and see how far we could take the actual production value was just enormous. And yeah, it’s much more beautiful than I ever thought we could make it, and I think that will just help us be able to share these stories with more people.”

Cai grew up in Memphis, but they say it wasn’t until later in their life that they were aware of the long legacy of Chinese immigrants who had made Memphis home. “That’s the crazy part! Growing up as a Chinese American in Memphis, I didn’t learn about any of this until 2020, and it was only because of all the things that were happening in the world, and especially to people who look like me. That’s why I’m pushing this film so hard because this isn’t something that a lot of us get to learn when we’re growing up. There haven’t been a lot of discussions or platforms that are sharing these stories. I consider a lot of the people that we talk about as my ancestors or my elders or my community members, but I didn’t meet a lot of them until very recently. I really hope that no matter how late someone is in their journey, that when they do find this connection to their roots, they feel like they can just jump in and embrace it.”

Marc Gasol: Memphis Made

Director Michael Blevins is the head of video post-production for the Memphis Grizzlies. “Basically, the way I describe it is anything that gets edited, it comes through me and my team,” he says. “So the intro video that gets played before the game, I will edit that, and commercial spots or behind-the-scenes stuff about the current team.”

Before coming to Memphis in 2016, Blevins had previously been with the Chicago Bears, the Houston Astros (“I believe we had one of the worst records in baseball history,” he says), and the San Francisco 49ers. “Then I came here, and I overlapped with the subject of the documentary, Marc Gasol, for his last three seasons in Memphis. So I got to know him and Mike Conley really well.”

Blevins normally works on a very quick turnaround, but the world of documentary films is quite different. It requires patience and flexibility. “In a project like this, the scope becomes bigger. In terms of production, in terms of lining up interviews, shooting, all that stuff, we were able to spend seven months on it. But in the same time, you then have 50 interviews. You got to tell an hour-and-a-half story basically. So a month or two to edit something in a vacuum sounds great compared to the usually quick turnaround of a current NBA team. But then you want to tell a story perfect because it is telling his whole story of his professional basketball career. So it’s not like with current content, when there’s always another game coming up. This is it. It’s a little dramatic, and he has a sense of humor, so we laugh about it. But it’s like writing somebody’s obituary. You’re not going to get another chance to do it. It’s their basketball career.”

It was important to Blevins to go beyond the surface image of the star basketball player and uncover the emotions that drove him. “Marc is a super competitive guy, and the big thing was, as the people that knew him say — and a lot of people didn’t realize this from the outside — is that competitiveness would spill over a lot of times in terms of trying to deal with teammates. That’s one of my favorite segments in the film. It’s like 20 minutes about different stories people were telling about Marc being very competitive and looking back at everything through a different lens of today. And I think he looks at it very differently, where he felt like he could have been better. But he knows in his head, and different players say it in the film, they needed him to be like that. If that was a spillover of him chewing him out during the game and then after the time-out was over, he was going to give it all and make a play on defense to save that guy, or make a play on offense to set that guy up. It was going to be worth it. But I think athletes, and all of us in general, as we get older, sometimes if you reach success or you’re happy with what your career has done, you start to look back and think, ‘What was the cost of that?’”

Cubic Zirconia

Jackson, Tennessee, native Jaron Lockridge’s Cubic Zirconia is the only locally produced narrative feature in a field of thoughtful documentaries. “I’ve been filmmaking now since about 2016, and just self-producing feature films, and going that route now that technology makes it easier. I just decided to jump out there and don’t take no for an answer.”

Cubic Zirconia
Jaron Lockridge

Lockridge, who began as a writer, produces, directs, lights, shoots, and edits his films. “When I found quickly that I couldn’t afford to hire people to produce my work, I just became that multi-tool to start producing my own work, and getting to this point now.”

Cubic Zirconia takes place in what Lockridge calls The Stix Universe, which is tied into his self-produced web series. “It’s a good old-fashioned crime mystery, I like to say. It’s similar to something like Prisoners or maybe even a touch of Se7en, for people who like those type of movies. It follows a missing family, and these detectives are trying to find some answers to what happened. When they locate the deceased mother of this missing family, then it’s just an all-out blitz to find the children and figure out the ‘why’ behind it all. You’ve kind of got to pay attention. But when it comes to the end and you realize what’s happened, I believe it’ll be a shocker to a lot of the audience members.”

Keith L. Johnson stars as the police detective on the case. “I’ve worked with him several times before. He’s one of my regulars, so we just have a great chemistry together to the point where I can just give him a script and give him very little direction. He just understands my work.”

Memphians Kate Mobley and Kenon Walker are also veterans of the Stix Universe. Terry Giles is a newcomer. “He was one that I haven’t worked with before, and he was a very pleasant surprise. He only has a small time on the movie, but when you see him, you notice him. He commands the screen, and he’s a talent that I’m looking forward to working with again. I’m very excited about the performances in this movie.”

Passes and individual screening tickets are on sale at imff24.indiememphis.org. There, you can also find a full schedule for this weekend’s screenings and events.

Tags Anwar Jamison, Bluff City Chinese, Boys Go to Jupiter, Coming to Africa, Cubic Zirconia, Flow, Funeral Arrangements, Indie Memphis, It Was All a Dream, Jaron Lockridge, Marc Gasol: Memphis Made, Memoir of a Snail, Memphis, Memphis Grizzlies, Michael Blevins, Nickel Boys, Thandi Cai

Cover Feature News Politics Politics Feature

Down to the Wire

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date November 6, 2024

The 2024 election season had its share of both suspense and drama.

That was certainly true of the quadrennial national election for president (arguably the most momentous one since the Civil War), which went down to the wire and frazzled millions of nerve endings before a winner could be discerned.

As all prognostications had it in advance, the presidential picture seemed headed for a resolution later than election night itself. Such opaqueness as lingered in the vote totals abruptly dissolved by the morning’s light, however. Shockingly, Donald J . Trump was back. With a vengeance.

At the center of the suspense had been the three so-called “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It was presumed that a victory for Democrat Kamala Harris in all three of these habitually Democratic states would give her the presidency, but just barely. A victory for former GOP president Trump in any of them could drastically derail that prognosis. In the event, he appears to have won them all, as he did in 2016.

Kamala Harris (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Donald J. Trump (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Nor was drama absent from the local side of the ballot. There is little prospect of the local results being challenged, as is always possible with the presidential numbers, but their effect may linger and, in some cases, simmer.

This is especially true of the series of referenda that Memphis voters were asked to pass judgment on. As of late Tuesday evening, election commission totals had all the referenda winning handily.

The most significant ones — the outcome of which was never much doubted — had set city against state and enraged the guardians of statehouse authority well in advance of the individual items receiving a single vote.

In brief, the offending referenda items of Ordinance 5908, asked city residents to approve (1) restoration of permits for the right to carry firearms, (2) a ban on the sale of assault weapons in the city, and (3) a “red flag” proviso empowering the local judiciary to confiscate the weapons of demonstrably risky individuals.

All of the items are “trigger laws,” to be activated only when and if state law should permit them.

Even so, the Republican Speaker of the state House of Representatives, Cameron Sexton, had made bold to threaten the city of Memphis with loss of state-shared revenues unless the offending referendum package — unanimously approved by the city council — was withdrawn from the ballot.

That was enough to make the Shelby County Election Commission blanch, but the council itself was not cowed and, led by Chairman JB Smiley Jr., sued to have the measures restored. Chancellor Melanie Taylor Jefferson obliged.

As did Memphis voters, in their turn. All three questions of Referendum 5908 passed by gigantic majorities of 100,00 votes or more.

Other referenda passed on Tuesday would: strike down the city’s existing ban of runoffs in at-large elections (Referendum 5884), impose a two-year residency requirement for Memphis mayoral candidates (Referendum 5913), and authorize the city council to determine the salaries of the mayor, council members, the city chief administrative officer, and division directors (Referendum 5893).

All in all, it was a good night for the referenda, as well as for the council itself. And, arguably, for the citizens of Memphis.

Perhaps predictably, the form sheet also held for elective offices, with incumbents of both parties doing very well indeed.

Marsha Blackburn (Photo: United States Senate, Public domain | Wikimedia Commons)

Republican U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn held off a challenge statewide from Knoxville state Representative Gloria Johnson, her Democratic opponent, though in heavily Democratic Shelby County, Johnson was leading, 156,303 to 104,633.

Another Republican incumbent, 8th District Congressman David Kustoff led Democratic challenger Sarah Freeman by a 2 to 1 margin in Shelby County’s portion of the vote, 66,398 votes to 30,255.

Steve Cohen (Photo: U.S. House of Representatives, Public domain | Wikimedia Commons)

Meanwhile, 9th District Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen was overwhelming his perennial Republican opponent Charlotte Bergman even more dramatically with vote totals in the county of 162,299 to 47,634.

On the legislative scene, the much-ballyhooed District 97 state House race saw Republican incumbent John Gillespie edging out his Democratic challenger Jesse Huseth, 15,859 to 14,600.

And, in another state House race where Democrats nursed upset hopes, in District 83, incumbent Republican Mark White held off Democrat Noah Nordstrom, 19,283 to 13,713.

Most attention — locally, nationally, and even worldwide — remained on the showdown between Trump and Harris.

As late as the last weekend before this week’s final vote, the presidential race was being referred to as a dead heat, a virtual tie, a sense of things apparently corroborated by a string of polls in the so-called “battleground” states — the Rust Belt trio of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin; the Sun Belt states of Nevada and Arizona; and the competitive Southern states of Georgia and North Carolina.

A freakish outlier poll in the presumably red state of Iowa showing Harris with a last-minute edge over Trump in Iowa, though, was an indicator of possible unexpected volatility.

That the presidential race had even gotten so measurably close was a reflection of a political standoff in which halves of the nation had seemingly cleaved against each other in a variety of different and sometimes paradoxical ways.

This was not the same old story of Democrats versus Republicans. Both of those coalitions had undergone profound changes over the years. No longer was the “working class” (ditto, the “middle class”) to be grouped in a single body. Upward mobility had revised people’s notions of class, then stalled in such a way as to confuse them further. Generational change was rampant, and ethnicity was no longer a dependable metric for determining political attitude. Disagreement over social matters like gender identity and abortion policy had sundered the old divides.

The center could not hold. It was not only, a la Yeats, that the falcon could not hear the falconer. Social media and impatient ways had created multitudinous new sources professing to be the latter.

The nation’s two-party political system had atrophied to the point that, seemingly, neither was able to generate a dependable bench of A-list players. Donald J. Trump, the Republicans’ once and would-be future president, had come from the worlds of seat-of-the-pants commerce and TV showbiz to reign over a hodgepodge of time-servers, has-beens, and sycophants in his party, and Democratic incumbent president Joe Biden, a survivor of his party’s dwindling corps of traditionalists, headed up the Democrats.

That’s how things were at the end of the early-year primaries, and there were no few voices wondering aloud: Was that all there was, this uninspiring rematch of moldy oldies?

To give Biden his due, he had done his best to wreak from overriding political inertia some promising legislation, especially in the rebuilding of the country’s decaying infrastructure. To give Trump his due, he had recovered from a stupefying series of misdeeds, including, arguably, an aborted coup against the political system, to regain his political stature.

When the two met on a late-June debate stage on the eve of the two party conventions, the 81-year-old Biden, who had fared well in the earlier presentation of his State of the Union address, crumbled so visibly and profoundly that to many, probably most, observers, the presidential race seemed over then and there, especially when the 78-year-old Trump would go on to defiantly survive a serious assassination attempt two days before the opening of the GOP political convention in July.

But desperation in the Democrats’ ranks had meanwhile generated a determination to replace the compromised Biden at the head of the party ticket. Enough pressure developed that the incumbent finally, if reluctantly, had to yield, and realistically, given the lateness of the hour, the most feasible outcome proved to be that of elevating Vice President Kamala Harris, the erstwhile California senator and former prosecutor, in Biden’s stead at the Democratic convention in August.

Once the matchup between Trump and Harris got established, it quickly settled into an even-steven situation, a kind of free-floating draw in which the two sides always stayed within reach of each other.

From the Democratic point of view, this would seem something of a miracle. Nikki Haley had based her runner-up GOP presidential race on the conceit that a female could win the presidency, either herself or, with the aging Biden still a candidate, his vice president, Harris, still regarded at that point as a nonentity. It was Haley’s way of mocking the opposition.

Indeed, even in Democratic ranks, Harris was long seen to be something of a liability, a drag on the ticket. That this was due to the way she had been used — or misused — by the incumbent president (in the ill-defined role of “border czar,” for example) became evident only when she was freed to become her own person.

On the stump in her own right, she proved to be a natural, with unsuspected reserves of charisma and an appeal that was fortified by her selection of the pleasantly homey governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, as her running mate. (Trump’s choice as potential veep, the edgy Ohio Senator JD Vance, was clearly head-smart and acceptable to Trump’s base among the MAGA faithful but kept bumping up against his own innate arrogance.)

The change in tone among the Democrats was almost instantly evident. It came to be symbolized in the concept of “joy” and in Harris’ slogan, “a new way forward.”

While coming across as a certifiable New Thing, she was also able, credibly, to posit herself as the defender of constitutional values against the alleged schemes by the usurper Trump to override them in the interests of personal power.

“We are the promise of America,” she would say, uniting her own purpose with those of her audience members.

Against this, against Harris, the ebullient rock-star presence on stage, Trump seemed buffaloed. In his fateful June debate duel with Biden, he had seemed vital, a hurricane of restless energy hurling scorn and unchecked charges at his befuddled opponent. Now it became more and more obvious that he, too, was a near octogenarian, with no new promise of his own to offer.

The shift in positions was fully demonstrated, post-conventions, in the follow-up debate with Harris when, matador-like, she had baited the bullish Trump with mockery of his rallies (which, in fact, were becoming more and more disorganized and less and less focused and empty of real content). His red-eyed response, that Haitian immigrants were eating the dogs and cats of Middle Americans in Ohio, was perfectly framed for the television audience by the split image of Harris’ gleeful wonderment at this out-of-nowhere non sequitur.

It was not long afterward that Harris’ progress was slowed somewhat, as much by a petulant media’s insistence that she submit to interviews as a sign of her seriousness as anything else. Dutifully, she did, and emerged with appropriate talking points — a middle-class tax cut, subsidies for small business and new housing starts, and legislation to suppress price-gouging. These would become highlights of the “to-do” list which she would juxtapose against what she characterized as the brooding Trump’s ever-multiplying enemies list.

It became a cliche of press coverage that the former president’s seething ire at an imagined “enemy from within” was displacing what his would-be handlers wanted him to discuss — a supposedly intractable inflation and the pell-mell overcoming of the nation’s borders by a horde of illegal invaders. Both menaces, as it happened, were in something of an abatement — the former by a plethora of relatively rosy economic indices, the latter by fairly resolute, if delayed, executive actions taken by the lame-duck president in the summer and fall.

What Trump’s audiences were getting on the stump instead was the overflow of his ever more naked id, a witches’ brew of resentment and machismo — insults against his adversaries, threats to use the machinery of government against them, and improvisations on themes ranging from Arnold Palmer’s junk size to nostalgia for “the late, great Hannibal Lecter.”

Partly, this was due to what Harris characterized as her opponent’s presumed “exhaustion,” but partly, too, it was Trump’s instinctive reliance on what had always been the source of his appeal, an exposure of pure personality, a willingness, for better or for worse, to let it all hang out, to be The Show, a cathartic vehicle for release of his followers’ emotions.

It was this penchant, after all, that had allowed him to sweep past a stage full of practical Republican politicians during the primary season of 2016 and, later that year, to surprise the calculating and overconfident Hillary Clinton at the polls.

GOP eminences — even those who, like Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, despised Trump, or, who, like senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, had been vilified by him, learned that they were no match for his carnival-like presence and resolved to use him for their own purposes, only in the end to be used by him instead for his.

It remained a fact that, for all his defects, real and imagined, Trump was able to sustain a plausible hope of regaining the office he had lost to Biden in the pandemic-inflected campaign year of 2020.

And, beyond the presidential race itself, Republicans still nursed hopes of holding onto their slim majority in the House of Representatives as well as of capturing the Senate outright. At stake were such matters as healthcare, climate change, and reproductive policy domestically, as well as of meeting the economic challenge of China and in the conduct of foreign policy in the Middle East and vis-a-vis Russia in its challenge to NATO in Europe.

Tags Donald Trump, election 2024, John Gillespie, Mark White, Marsha Blackburn, Politics, presidential electional, Steve Cohen

Cover Feature News

Ghost Fishing

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date October 30, 2024

(left to right) Bob Roy, Barbara Roy, Emily Guenther, and Stephen Guenther (Photos: Toby Sells)

Ghosts haunt Earnestine & Hazel’s.

You get that info in your Welcome to Memphis starter pack, tucked next to other fact cards that read, “Central has great wings” and “The trolleys ain’t for transportation.”

I’d heard about the bar’s many ghosts, and its haunted jukebox. Chris McCoy, our film and TV editor, had, too.

“The first time I ever heard about Earnestine & Hazel’s, the first thing they said was, ‘Oh yeah, it’s haunted,’” McCoy said. “There’s a lot more crazy stuff about this place besides that but … if any place is going be haunted around here, it’s this place.”

I’d heard. McCoy had heard. So had Abigail Morici, our culture editor. None of us were sure, however. None of us had ever had a paranormal encounter in the place. But I knew some people who had, some people with the tools, the know-how, the experience, and a dogged curiosity about what lay beyond the veil to help us turn our second-hand knowledge into, maybe, a firsthand experience.

Last week, the investigation team from Historical Haunts Memphis showed us around Earnestine & Hazel’s in a spooky nighttime adventure that offered the ultimate Memphis Halloween experience, and, perhaps, a glimpse into the spirit world.

Prologue

I don’t work many nights. I get my journalism-ing done in daytime hours so that evenings are clear for family, dinner, and show-binging with my wife. But this was an offer impossible to pass up.

I’m a ghost guy. Well, I celebrate all of paranormalia, really. And I mean really. For proof, look to my first book, published this year — Haint Blues: Strange tales from the American South. It’s full of ghosts, monsters, aliens, and even a psychic horse. Wrote a whole-ass book on this stuff, y’all.

But I’ve never had a paranormal encounter. Never seen Bigfoot. Never spotted a UFO. And never have I ever had an encounter with anything even remotely ghostly — no apparition, nor shadow figure, shade, specter, phantom, presence, revenant … you get it.

I’ve watched a million hours of ghost evidence videos on YouTube, enough to believe that likely 90 percent (or more) were hoaxed for cheap internet attention. But my mind was wide open heading into our guided spirit investigation last week. And as I left Cooper-Young, I also had my antennae up, a sort of low, gnawing anxiety that I could not quite put my finger on nor dispel as regular reporter jitters.

Even as I turned onto South Main from Crump, the “ghost” in Ghost River Brewing took on a strange dread. I love Ghost River and I was truly excited to maybe encounter a real ghost. So what was this anxiety? I wasn’t sure.

Then, I saw the caboose of a Canadian National train pass over me as I drove under the trestle, and thought I remembered that to be an omen of either good or bad. I couldn’t remember which. It didn’t matter. Because just thinking about it underscored that I was, in fact, having some sort of weird anxiety about the evening. Then, I saw the sexy-posing, winking screw on the Active Bolt and Screw Co. building and thought, “Well, there’s that, at least.”

Meet the Team

The Earnestine & Hazel’s building earns the bar’s “ragged but right” ethos. Usually, I revel at a chance to celebrate in those vaunted rooms of peeling paint, uneven floors, low light, and murky history. But that Tuesday evening, the bar slumped on the sidewalk, unlit and sad — like the face of friend lost in an unpleasant revery when they think no one can see them. And, yes, this description fits under the “meet the team headline,” for it was as big a character in our evening as any there with a pulse.

Thomas, a super nice guy in a Pantera T-shirt, unlocked the doors, pulled away the massive door bar, and allowed us entry, leaving us to our own endeavors. The lights seemed lower than usual, casting deeper shadows into an already dim room. Wheel of Fortune played silently on flat screens above, the audience applauding someone who’d just solved the puzzle — “Purple Rain, Purple Rain.” The air was close but not stifling, scented with roasted onions, a hint of stale beer, and the dusty passage of time.

Meanwhile, Bob Roy sat his blue tool tote on a table and began checking his many devices. Though the bag he rifled through was “the small one,” ribbed his wife Barbara Roy.

“We started with just one cheap little meter,” Bob said. “A year later, we probably had $1,000 worth of equipment.”

That’s Bob all over, the data hound. He works in tech and trusts his tools to measure physical aberrations that may hint at a presence our eyes cannot see.

Then, there’s Barbara, the sensitive one. Spiritual abilities run in her family, enough for her to once correctly foretell her sister’s pregnancy. She respects the spirits she connects with like the living.

“I’ve always felt like there was more out there for us to understand,” Barbara said.

During the load-in, settle-in, meet-and-greet beginning of our investigation, Emily Guenther seemed at home in the darkened barroom, at ease, checking her phone and the windows. She’s a well-tuned empath, among other things, who has spent hours in that very place doing the very thing we were about to do, so her ease was no surprise. That experience was a calming influence for the uninitiated, like us, as she tried to contact spirits, even inviting one to sit in her lap.

Emily’s husband, Stephen, served as a sort of a lead guide for us that evening. He, too, has spent countless hours investigating countless haunted sites, attempting to glimpse other realms in real life. In a Flyer story ages ago, I called Stephen the “Mayor of Spooky Memphis” for his familiarity with the city’s spirit side, a title I’ll renew here, but not just for his knowledge. Stephen can break down complex spiritual concepts and draw them broadly enough that even I can understand.

Chris McCoy, who we met earlier, has worked on Memphis’ independent film scene for more than two decades. He loves a good story in the theater, but on the street, he’s a man of science. Ask him about rocketry or the chemical reasons hemp can get you high, and you’ll see what I mean. Still, it was plain Chris came to the evening with an open mind and an open heart.

When I asked Abigail Morici, who we also met earlier, if she’d ever had a paranormal encounter, she immediately (and shockingly) replied, “Well, my mom says I had a ghost friend when I was 3.” Dorea, Abigail named the ghost girl. Though, when I asked her to spell it, she didn’t know. She was 3, she explained.

“I told my mom things like she wore pantaloons, and she came on a boat with her brother and her mom,” Abigail said. “We lived in New Orleans, in this house right by all the cemeteries. [Dorea died of] yellow fever, we think, maybe. It gave my mom the creeps and she won’t talk about it to this day.”

The Set Up

Our team assembled under the bar’s bare naked light bulbs by the downstairs bar. All the hands were shook, introductions made. Bob explained how he uses all his tools. Stephen explained the evening’s basic run-of-show. Then, he explained some of what we might expect.

“Sometimes, especially here at Earnestine & Hazel’s upstairs and in the backrooms, at times it’s very heavy,” Stephen said. “It almost feels like barometric pressure, like you can almost feel a bit of pressure.

“Some people get touched, never violently. You may feel, particularly women, someone touch your hair.”

Then, he explained what we should not expect.

“Ghost hunting is a bit of a misnomer; it’s really like ghost fishing,” he said. “You just go sit somewhere, set up your stuff, and wait.

“A lot of the [ghost hunting] TV shows are about … 22 minutes long, without commercials. That might be days of filming — three or four days — edited down to the best parts.”

Much of the evening, Stephen warned, might be boring. We’d snug in somewhere, sit in the dark, and ask a lot of questions. Actually communing with the dead, it turns out, can be every bit as tough and tedious as any other worthwhile endeavor made to look easy by a charismatic TV host. (I’m looking at you, Bill Dance.)

Questions would form the core of our evening’s commune. That’s how we let the spirits know we were there and there to listen to them, not drink Hi-Life and draw cuss words on the wall. And there were a few best practices for those questions.

Ask binary questions, not open-ended affairs. So, Stephen explained, instead of “What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?” ask “Do you like chocolate?” That way, a spirit can more easily communicate with the team — lighting up a motion sensor or tripping a meter rather than soliloquizing about frozen desserts. While the veil may be thin in places like Earnestine & Hazel’s, it can be hard to be heard through the curtains, it seems.

Some other guidelines for clarity: Keep conversation to a minimum. Use your voice to “tag” human noises like passing cars, passing pedestrians, or even passing gas. (Stephen joked his team has a strict no-Taco-Bell rule before their investigations.) Phones go in airplane mode to not give trip electro-magnetic equipment for false positives.

With the team and ground rules established, it was time to wobble up the familiar wobbly back stairs and into the must-odored heart of the unfamiliar, the unknown.

We let the spirits know we were there to listen to them, not drink Hi-Life and draw cuss words on the wall.

The Black Room

You’ve sat in this room. Make a 180 right turn at the top of the stairs to the end of the hall and choose the room to the right. The walls are painted black, illuminated with a single blue light bulb. Being in this room with a beer and your friends is one crazy stitch in the fabric of this great city. But in that room with ghost hunters, the room vibrates with some silent expectation that had me focused to the very edge of senses.

“Emily, if you sense anything, you let us know,” Stephen said as we settled into the Black Room’s squishy seats.

“I sense the batteries in my audio recorder are dead,” Emily said.

“So,” Stephen began, “we usually just start talking. This is Stephen. I’m here with Emily, Bob, and Barbara. We have some guests with us. They wanted to come over and hear and just kind of experience for themselves how it feels here. So many have expressed the presence of spirits here. So we hope that you’ll interact with us tonight.

“We come peacefully, just to talk. We like to tell your stories. That’s how people live on. We tell their stories.”

Silence. Focused silence. Extended silence. I busied myself taking photos of the scene. Chris angled his phone video rig around the room. Abigail clutched her bag on her lap with two arms as if in fear of some ghostly ne’er-do-well. Bob moved a small, black, digital device back and forth.

“It got up over one just a second ago,” Bob said, almost to himself as he watched the readings. This drew a mild hmm from Barbara.

Stephen asked if any of the spirits were women and promised that the men in the room would leave if that made them feel more at ease. Silence. “Any waitresses or servers among us?” Emily asked. “The building was once a church,” Barbara said.

“When it was a church, did a little girl fall down the stairs?” Barbara asked.

More silence. Who else? The team asked if any among them had been cooks, clergy, or musicians — horn or piano players. Silence. Stephen said aloud he’d heard there were no spirits in Earnestine & Hazel’s, a gentle taunt to coax communication. Nothing.

Barbara said she’d spoken once with the spirit “Mr. George,” Russell George, the bar’s former manager who had committed suicide in the building, about his famous Soul Burgers, and their famously secret sauce.

“Does anybody here know the secret?” Emily asked.

There was a soft pause and Chris then softly said, “Worcestershire sauce and pickle juice.”

After some gentle snickering, Stephen said to the spirits, “Chris just shared the secret. Is that okay?”

The men eventually did leave the Black Room but it was not enough to bring any spirits to the fore.

Nate’s Bar

You’ve been in Nate’s Bar, too, at the far other end (the front) of the building. There, Stephen said he’d heard reports of encounters with the spirits of Ike and Tina Turner, Ray Charles, and B.B. King. He himself connected with the ghost of Wilson Pickett there one night. (The details are creepy and amazing. Ask him.)

The team continued with familiar questions: Any one with us tonight? Anyone had a drink here? Silence.

Stephen then turned on a spirt box. It’s a digital device that (to my unscientific ear) produces a skipping stutter of static. With them, ghost hunters can ask direct questions and, sometimes, get direct answers. When Emily asked, “Any musicians here?” amid a pause in the stutter, a voice could be heard to say, “yeah” or “yup.” Later, this prompted Stephen to begin talking about Ray Charles and his alleged carousing at the bar.

“I don’t know why people have to bring out the negative all the time,” he began. “Clearly, we each have things we struggle with. So …”

With that, one of the motion-sensor balls lit up in a sparkle of multi-colored lights. Barbara and I had been four feet from the dark thing for at least 15 minutes. Neither had moved to touch it — even to look at it — as it lit up. This drew shallow, excited gasps. This was the moment we’d planned for, organized for, and waited patiently for.

“Oh, hello!” Stephen said. “Thank you! I hope you agree with that. You should talk about the good times and the contributions of folks …”

With this, another motion light dazzled in a spray of color, a different one, drawing another wave of muted, respectful exultation, and a “thank you” from Barbara.

Heading Home

There it was. Something I could not explain, in an environment I thought I knew. In short, it was a paranormal experience, my first in the more than 30 years since I fell into the rabbit hole of myth, legend, and the unexplained.

In the moment, my heart raced and eyebrows went wide. Though, the situation called for respect and calm, I wanted to yell, “Holy fucking shit!” I didn’t.

Instead, I felt kind of warm. And in the place of that weird anxiety on my way there, my way home was a state of sort of quiet contemplation. Did I witness a sign or message from the dead? Did the veil open just feet from where I stood? If it did, what then? Is there an afterlife? If not, what did I see?

I decided to not think too hard about the answers to those questions. Instead, I put on some Wilson Pickett and decided that Bob was right. It’d be easy as hell to spend big money just to have that experience one more time.

Tags Earnestine & Hazel's, ghost, ghost hunting, halloween, Historical Haunts, Memphis, Paranormal Investigation

CannaBeat Cover Feature News

Getting Real … Real High

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date October 23, 2024

Cannabis is real in Tennessee.

Real business people have real dollars at stake. Real consumers are facing real consequences (like jail time) running afoul of real laws. Real law enforcement officials do real work to simultaneously follow state and federal rules that often conflict. All of it, for now, runs easily into real gray territory as all of the players navigate a foggy system for a product once only the punch line of bad Willie Nelson jokes.

Foggy? Take this statement, for example: Ice is legal in Tennessee; water is illegal.

This confusing analogy was the simplest way the director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) could describe a serious cannabis law-and-evidence situation back in August. That situation may have the realest consequences.

Some in Tennessee have been wrongly thrown into a tangled thorn bush of law and science, state’s rights versus federal law. Customers here bought a cannabis product made legal by the legislature in 2023. But the product became illegal (chemically speaking) while in the customer’s possession or after it was taken by police. But neither questions of science nor jurisdiction were likely on that cannabis customer’s mind as they sat in a dingy jail cell for following what they thought was Tennessee law.

This real-world scenario has proven one of the hardest turns in Tennessee’s zigzag efforts to create and nurture a safe and legal cannabis marketplace here since 2018. With its hard-line refusal to make cannabis legal for recreational use (as 24 states have done with more likely to come) or to create a legal marketplace for medical use (as 38 states have done), Tennessee finds itself in that legal/scientific thorn bush, splitting hairs with customers’ freedom in the balance.

But Tennessee is certainly not alone as it tangles with hemp-derived THC products or their marketplace. The U.S. Congress created these — and their many issues — when it made hemp legal on the federal level. Some have said the intent was the plant itself, not the many “intoxicating” substances scientists have been able to pull from the .3 percent of THC hidden inside legal hemp plants.

To some lawmakers, these products and their marketplace were “unintentional” and they’re working to close the “loophole.” Other states, like Georgia, have moved to allow the products but ban big product categories, like smokeable flower and THCA. Of course, other states, like Colorado, have made all marijuana products legal but closely regulated and richly taxed. All of these things are happening while the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is working through the process to remove cannabis from its list of the worst drugs.

That move would likely change things dramatically in Tennessee, from consideration of a medical cannabis program to outright recreational use across the state. Until then, Tennessee lawmakers, consumers, businesses, and law enforcement officials operate in gray areas that could go quickly black and white, depending on who’s asking.

That’s just what happened to George Worden in Middle Tennessee in 2019.

Unapologetic about “unreliability”

Worden, of Gallatin, bought nine grams of a hemp product (a plant material, likely flower) at a local cannabis store. Stopped by police, they tested his purchase. One test was negative, the other inconclusive. The local district attorney general sent Worden’s stuff off to the TBI.

Worden refused to admit wrongdoing or take a plea deal. He took the charge to court. There, the TBI’s report said his hemp contained more than 1 percent of delta-9 THC, and a TBI chemist testified in court that it was “marijuana.” In 2020, Worden was convicted, fined $1,500, and sentenced to 60 days in jail. He paid up and served his time. Still, the blemish on his criminal record remained.

In February of this year, Worden’s attorney got a shocking phone call from the Sumner County District Attorney General’s office. The TBI admitted its testing method may have raised the levels of THC in Worden’s legally purchased hemp. The DA there wanted to reverse Worden’s conviction.

“Considering this new information about the potential for unreliability in the TBI’s THC testing process at the time of the investigation, combined with the doubts raised in the trial proof regarding inconclusive field test results, the evidence in this case does not support the defendant’s conviction beyond a reasonable doubt,” wrote Sumner County Criminal Court Judge Dee David Gay in the order vacating Worden’s conviction.

Later in 2024, the TBI told the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference about changes in their cannabis testing methods. The changes could overturn some convictions, like Worden’s, and suggested the DAs review some recent cannabis cases. With that, Worden’s conviction may have been the first case overturned with the new information. But it likely won’t be the last.

Yet you won’t hear TBI Director David Rausch admitting problems with his agency’s testing. Nor will you hear him give an apology to anyone — like Worden — who may have spent time behind bars because of TBI tests.

“I have no apologies because I don’t have anything that I need to apologize for,” Rausch told reporters in August as word about THC testing issues began to surface. “We owe no apologies based on what we do because there is no flaw in the effort that we have put forward.”

In fact, Rausch said, “I take offense” to some of the “inflammatory statements made” about his agency and its testing. He said, “Our testing is solid.” However, in that same news conference Mike Lyttle, the assistant director for the TBI’s Forensic Services Division, admitted, “We don’t have instruments in place right now to tell the difference between THCA and THC.” While the TBI is now spending around $600,000 for equipment to do the tests, they send about 1,000 THCA samples off to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) for testing in those cases.

Rausch said his team only provides results and data. Anything beyond that — possession charges in Worden’s case — are completely up to DAs. Further, when the Tennessee General Assembly changed hemp laws last year, his office interpreted them in-house. With that, they changed from reporting the amounts of delta-9 and began reporting it all as total THC. Then in the news conference, Rausch sort of threw up his hands at the minutiae.

“Remember, federally, this plant is still illegal, right?” Rausch said. “It doesn’t matter if you call it hemp. You call it whatever you want to call it. Federally, it’s still an illegal product.”

It was clear Rausch wants that simple, hard line on cannabis back in Tennessee. He said the bureau’s position is that all cannabis should be illegal once more here, and said confidently that there’s a “legislative fix” for it. However, he said he does not lobby the legislature but would work with them to “clarify” the situation, noting that “making it illegal again would also be clarifying.”

“Not totally wiped out”

But making it illegal again would also wipe out a hemp-derived cannabis market in Tennessee roughly valued at more than $208 million over the last 12 months. In that time, the 6-percent tax on hemp-derived retail products has yielded $12.5 million in Tennessee tax revenues, according to Kelley Mathis Hess, CEO of the Tennessee Grower’s Coalition (TGC).

New rules from the TDA wouldn’t go that far. But they would ban THCA products, mostly smokeable, raw, hemp flower products. If those rules are implemented, “that segment of the industry is over,” Hess said, noting that the segment can count as much as 70 to 80 percent of an individual retailer’s sales.

“If the state does implement these rules, the people that lose are small businesses, consumers, and the state itself with the generated tax revenues,” she said. “Because it’s federally legal, I can still go online and order it from Florida, Texas, Oregon, New York — wherever it’s legal — and ship it here. A lot of people will probably just go back to the black market, get back on opioids, or something else.”

State lawmakers passed regulations on cannabis last year and put the TDA in charge of managing the program. This meant that agriculture officials — not lawmakers — have made decisions about the future of the cannabis market here, including the one that could possibly ban smokeable THCA products.

For now, TGC has filed its major grievances with the state on the new rules, hoping for some flexibility, some relief. If the state won’t budge and bans smokeable THCA, the group has two months to file a lawsuit.

However, Hess said she hopes it doesn’t come to that. The industry has been flexible, following three different sets of rules in a matter of eight months. But right now, the industry is “in limbo.”

“It’s new and we expect it to get bigger,” Hess said. “We just want the opportunity to mature, and continue, and not be totally wiped out.”

The Georgia experience

Georgia’s cannabis industry was dealt a massive blow from state lawmakers this year and, yes, it could be a sign of what’s to come in Tennessee.

The two states look similar when it comes to cannabis laws and approaches to the industry. Full recreational cannabis use is illegal in Georgia, like it is here. A limited number of patients can use medical cannabis oils there as here. However, state lawmakers in Georgia have allowed for certain cities — like Atlanta, Savannah, and Athens — to decriminalize cannabis possession for personal use. Meanwhile, Tennessee lawmakers overrode a Memphis City Council move to do the same here back in 2016.

Both states began to wrangle with a burgeoning cannabis industry that arose after the signing of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp that contained small amounts of psychoactive substances. Industries in both states grew to see the familiar, green cannabis leaf appear in myriad shop windows. Industry groups arose in both, too, to lobby lawmakers and protect the business interests of cannabis growers and retailers.

Tennessee and Georgia also both decided to put cannabis regulation under the control of their departments of agriculture. The move has left some seemingly minute details in the hands of bureaucrats instead of lawmakers. In Tennessee, this is done even though those details can, maybe, make or break the bottom lines of businesses in a state that loves to say how business-friendly it is.

At the beginning of the year, Georgia lawmakers sought to regulate the state’s cannabis industry. The House, Senate, and governor approved the Georgia Hemp Farming Act, a set of regulations for age restrictions, labeling guidelines, testing protocols, licensing, and more everyday matters for so many industries.

But the Georgia law outright banned smokeable products and THCA. The legal reasons for that go back to the idea of THC amounts rising when these products are heated. The real reason, though, is likely because it gets you high and Jesus doesn’t like that very much (nor does the liquor lobby, conspiracy theories say). But that’s not how lawmakers said it.

“Here in Georgia, the safety of our residents is top priority, especially that of our children and young people,” said Governor Brian Kemp in a statement. “Consumable hemp products are dangerous to minors and unregulated hemp products are a danger to all Georgians.”

So the state enacted some commonsense regulations and then completely removed two whole product categories — not just products — from store shelves. Imagine the state government telling a bookstore they couldn’t carry nonfiction or magazines anymore. Why? Well, we just don’t like them and we’re protecting our community. That ban began on October 1st.

State officials said they’d give retailers a 90-day grace period to sell their remaining stock of now-illegal products. In the beginning, officials said they’d focus on educating the public. But a September statement from Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper gave a different vibe.

“The laws regarding under 21 sales and the sale of raw flower products are very straightforward and will be strictly enforced by our Law Enforcement and Hemp Program Divisions as well as other state and local law enforcement starting October 1st,” Harper said in a statement.

The Georgia Medical Cannabis Society said the new law was passed with “legislative sleight of hand” away from public comment and transparency. It’s also just bad for business.

“At its core, [the new law] presents a labyrinth of compliance hurdles that threaten to ensnare the unassuming farmer, processor, retailer, and consumer alike,” reads a LinkedIn post from Yolanda Bennett, operations manager for the society. “From fields of uncertainty for our farmers, ensnared by increased compliance costs and regulatory burdens, to processors caught in the crossfire of heightened testing and licensing expenses, the bill casts a long shadow of operational and financial strain.

“Retailers and dispensaries, once bustling hubs of community and healing, now face a constricted market, hemmed in by zoning restrictions and naming conventions that stifle their identity and outreach. At the end of this domino effect stand the consumers, bearing the brunt of increased product costs and reduced accessibility, their hands tied by the invisible chains of regulatory excess.”

The news had some Georgians scrambling. A number of Reddit posts in recent weeks have some saying they stocked up on their favorite flower or pre-rolls. Others said they planned to buy THCA products from online retailers in other states and have them drop-shipped through a Georgia retailer — a move that is totally legal, they said.

Some were going to just quit cannabis but would miss it. Some suggested other hemp-derived cannabinoids like delta-8 or delta-9. Others suggested getting a medical cannabis card, which could grant them access to buy low THC oil. These products contain less than 5 percent THC. Some were just going to call up their trusty illegal weed mane.

Again, this scenario could be a look into Tennessee’s crystal ball. Legalizing any intoxicating cannabis substance has been a bitter pill for state GOP lawmakers, no matter if cannabis supports agriculture and commerce, Tennessee’s official state motto.

But should it, like Georgia, ban these perception-altering products, it will hardly be alone. New laws in Virginia had some retailers saying they could wipe out 90 percent of the products on their shelves. In August, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed an executive order outlawing all intoxicating hemp products. But the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services had to walk that one back, saying it would once again allow the sale of “psychoactive cannabis products” and instead it would focus on “misbranded” cannabis products.

Fed moves

Tennessee’s hard line on cannabis could end if the feds reclassify it, which would decriminalize it. That move is underway. While many here celebrate the light at the end of what’s has been a very long tunnel, GOP lawmakers are trying to dim those hopes.

The DEA announced this year would begin the process to remove cannabis from its list of the worst drugs. The public comment period in this move ended this summer. In those comments is a letter of opposition from several members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. David Kustoff (TN-8) and Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty. Among other things, the letter says the DEA was “not properly consulted” on the move, which suggests they were pushed into the change (allegedly by the Biden administration, though it’s never mentioned directly).

The letter says not enough is yet known about marijuana to loosen its laws. The lawmakers point to several studies claiming to prove that the drug raises rates of schizophrenia in young men, psychosis, anxiety, cognitive failures, adverse respiratory events, cancer, cardiovascular outcomes, and gastrointestinal disorders.

Sexual dysfunction was twice as high in men who used marijuana, they said of another study. They said marijuana use is responsible for more car crashes, violent behavior, alcohol use among veterans suffering PTSD, and a spike in emergency room visits, especially by young Black men.

“It is clear that this proposed rule was not properly researched, circumvented the DEA, and is merely responding to the popularity of marijuana and not the actual science,” reads the letter.

Yet another GOP-led move would ban all hemp-derived products — all of them — from the current Farm Bill, not waiting on any move from the DEA. This move would close the “loophole” that was “unintentionally” created in the 2018 Farm Bill that allowed hemp to be legalized, said U.S. Rep. John Rose (TN-6).

“Hemp is a product that requires and demands the correct guidelines, and if we do not provide these guidelines, we are threatening the safety of Americans,” Rose said during a House Committee on Agriculture meeting in May. “This amendment draws the much-needed line between the naturally occurring plant and adjacent particles, and the enhancing synthetic additives combined with the plant and placed on store shelves.”

Not all Republicans want to ban the products, however. During that same meeting, U.S. Rep. Jim Baird (IN-4) said he’d vote no on the measure because “farmers around the country have invested their time and treasure over the last six years to develop a domestic supply chain of hemp and hemp products.”

The Senate version of the Farm Bill has not yet been released, though Democrats and Republicans alike have floated ideas to regulate the “intoxicating” hemp market, estimated to be worth around $30 billion in the U.S. last year.

So, what’s a Tennessee cannabis consumer to do?

“Be smart consumers,” said TBI director David Rausch. But also, “If you want marijuana, go buy it.” As far as legal hemp products purchased legally, Rausch advised consumers to:

1. Keep your receipt from the store. That will go a long way to convince a cop during a pullover stop that the cannabis flower you bought is supposed to be legal.

2. As you drive or transport it home, keep your product in its original packaging, unopened. If you’re carrying legal stuff in a baggie in which police are used to seeing illegal stuff, you could run into a legal challenge.

3. As you’re driving, keep everything in your front seat, in plain view of an officer. This way it doesn’t look like you’re hiding anything.

4. Remember there is a chance of buying a product marked legal by a store, that may turn out to be illegal. You might not know until the police, the TBI, or the TDA test it.

Tags cannabis, David Rausch, Delta-8, delta-9, Farm Bill, George Worden, Georgia, hemp, Kelley Mathis Hess, marijuana, Memphis, Tennessee, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Tennessee Grower’s Coalition, THC, THCA

Cover Feature News

Election 2024: Party Time

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date October 16, 2024

The Flyer recently highlighted several referenda for Memphis voters on the November 5th election ballot. This week, which will see the onset of early voting (October 16th through October 31st), we look at partisan contests in several key races.

Legislative Races

Noah Nordstrom, tall, stately, with long blonde hair he ties into a bun, says people tell him he looks like Trevor Lawrence, the ex-Clemson quarterback who now pilots the Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL. “Either that or Thor,” Nordstrom says. “I’ll take either one.”

Images aside, Nordstrom is paradoxically mild-mannered and not macho at all, indeed somewhat diffident, as befits his day job as a public school teacher.

What else he hopes to take is the title of state representative for Tennessee’s District 83, an enclave that straddles the southeastern rim of Shelby County and the western edge of Germantown. Challenger Nordstrom, a Democrat, has his work cut out for him. The seat has been held since 2010 by Republican Mark White, a fixture in the state GOP’s legislative supermajority in Nashville and the chair of the House Education Committee.

Education, as it happens, is also the central concern of Nordstrom, who teaches Spanish at Overton High School and is sounding the alarm about what he calls the “radical” ideas of the current legislative Republican supermajority. The specific moment that galvanized him into running came, he says, “when I realized that my state representative, Mark White, is pushing the voucher bill.”

That bill, a main priority of GOP Governor Bill Lee, is described by Nordstrom as “a proposal that would defund our public schools across the entire state of Tennessee.” A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but the premise of the proposed legislation is that substantial amounts of taxpayer money would be siphoned out of the general fund to provide tuition at private schools, which, arguably, are in direct competition with the long-established public school system.

“I live just over on the Memphis side [where] Memphis has set up against it completely,” said Nordstrom. Also, as he notes, “The leaders here in Germantown, the entire school board, and the mayor stood up and said, you know, we don’t want this. … Even the Republican-leaning communities don’t want it. And so I decided to throw my name in.”

Indeed, opposition to school vouchers is universal in Shelby County school circles, not only in the urbanized Memphis-Shelby County Schools, but in each of the six county municipalities — Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Lakeland, Arlington, and Millington — that won the right to establish their own public school districts during the school merger controversy of the county’s previous decade.

Opposition to vouchers is one of the key wedge issues, along with demands for gun safety, also linked to public schools, that Democrats — presumed to be a minority in District 83, as they certainly are in the state at large — hope can support a political comeback for the party.

“We can do better for our kids, and so that’s been one of the main issues,” Nordstrom said at the Future901-sponsored meeting, held in a Germantown household, where he recently spoke his views. “Obviously one of the other major ones is gun violence. It’s overwhelming to realize that you might not be able to save some of these kids. We see it every day, wondering whether they’re going to make it home safe.”

Unforgotten is the “good trouble” of spring 2023, when mass protests were held at the state Capitol following a lethal episode of gun violence at a Nashville school. In the aftermath, three Democratic House members, including Justin J. Pearson of Memphis and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, a candidate this year for the U.S. Senate, were held to accounts by the Republican majority for their passionate support of protesters’ demands for gun safety legislation.

Pearson was expelled by the vengeful majority, along with Justin Jones of Nashville, the third member of the “Tennessee Three.” Johnson survived expulsion by a single vote. All three were celebrated nationally for their stands, and Pearson and Jones were hastily returned to office in special elections.

Realistically, Democrats don’t envision any immediate regaining of the hegemony the party held for much of Tennessee’s history, but they do hope to achieve at some point a competitive status with the Republicans, who established their dominance in the statewide election years of 2010 and 2014 and have never looked back.

At the Future901 meeting in Germantown, there was a fair amount of partisan bear-baiting of Republicans, to be sure, but there were also expressions of concern regarding the increasing takeover of the GOP by MAGA ideology and a corresponding erosion, as attendees saw it, of commonsense shared values among Republican office-holders.

White, Nordstrom’s opponent, and state Representative John Gillespie, the incumbent Republican in House District 97, were specifically cited as case studies of GOP moderates shedding their scruples, or at least trimming them at the edges, while going along to get along with the MAGA-minded majority.

As Nordstrom noted, “Now the gun lobby is so strong they say, ‘Don’t vote our way and we’ll find a candidate for the primary, and we’ll pick you out.’ And that’s part of the reason why Mark White has gotten so much more radical. You know, at one point he opposed getting rid of the permitting system for concealed carry. And last year, he voted to arm teachers, and that’s because he knows they” — members supported by the gun lobby — “are comfortable.”

Democratic activist Diane Cambron, an attendee, concurred: “That’s one of the reasons why [District 96 Democratic state Representative] Dwayne Thompson is not running for reelection. He didn’t run for reelection this time because, according to him, when he first got elected in 2016 there were some moderate Republicans with whom he could work, but every year, those moderate Republicans drop out, they don’t run, and they’re replaced by younger, more radical Republicans, and that is what our Republican legislature is becoming. Even though they have a majority, they’re getting more and more radical all the time. There are very few moderate Republicans left.”

It should be said that White, the criticism notwithstanding, is widely regarded as being able to work across party lines. And, as the old joke has it, White can cry all the way to the bank. As is the case with most incumbents, especially well-heeled establishment figures, his cash receipts dwarf those of opponent Nordstrom, a first-time candidate.

His Education Committee chairmanship is consistent with his background in that, before attaining some success with a party-favor business, he was an elementary school teacher and a principal. He co-founded something called the Global Children’s Educational Foundation, which provided financial assistance and educational opportunities to impoverished children in Panama. And he won the Tennessee Community Organizations’ Legislator of the Year award in 2016 and the Tennessee CASA Association’s Legislator of the Year award in 2012.

He is no slouch, no easy target.

All of which is to say that Noah Nordstrom and the Democrats will have their hands full in District 83. They remain hopeful, though, that they can build on the incremental success they began in 2016 — ironically the year of Donald J. Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton nationally. The victory in 2016 of the aforementioned Dwayne Thompson over incumbent Republican Steve McManus in District 96 was just as much of an upset locally. As then constituted, District 96 also straddled city and county lines and the accustomed bailiwicks of either party.

So does House District 97, where the case can be made that Democratic challenger Jesse Huseth might even be regarded as a favorite over incumbent Republican John Gillespie. The two opponents have raised approximately the same amount of money, each with cash on hand of just under $100,000, and, as currently configured, the district lines encompass a territory where Democrat Jason Martin, a distant second to incumbent GOP Governor Bill Lee virtually everywhere statewide, actually out-polled Lee. And the same can be said of Joe Biden in his presidential race against Trump.

The district’s current configuration remains one of the mysteries of Election Year 2024, since Gillespie, as a member of the GOP supermajority, had the opportunity to call the shots during the redistricting that followed census year 2020. And he decided to discard two Republican-dominated county precincts in return for two politically ambivalent ones further west in Memphis proper, presumably lowering his chances for reelection.

There has yet emerged no satisfactory explanation for Gillespie’s decision. One theory is that, as someone not regarded as slavishly partisan, he fretted over the prospect of being challenged in this year’s primary by a MAGA type in the formerly configured district. Another is that he was determined to prove that he could still win the more problematic district as a presumed Republican moderate — one who conspicuously deviated from GOP orthodoxy on the issue of guns, among other issues. Yet a third theory is that Gillespie simply wishes to represent the concerns of Memphis’ Poplar Corridor business community.

In any case, the District 97 race is regarded statewide as something of a coin-flip race — a test case of sorts regarding future partisan tendencies and the Democrats’ best chance of altering the current statistical ratio in the House, which stands at 75 Republicans and 24 Democrats.

The race could hinge on the two candidates’ contrasting positions on crime, which reflect an ongoing showdown between state and city. Huseth is a strong supporter of three referenda on the Memphis ballot that seek citizen support for “trigger” laws that would allow possible local reinstitution of gun permit requirements, the banning of assault rifle sales, and the imposition of “red flag” laws allowing judges to confiscate firearms from likely offenders. The Democratic candidate is an adherent as well of District Attorney General Steve Mulroy’s call for a new Memphis crime lab that would facilitate detection and prosecution of violent crime.

Gillespie has allied himself with state Senator Brent Taylor, a declared foe of Mulroy, in aggressive sponsorship of legislation strengthening anti-crime penalties and counteracting local options on matters of sentencing. Gillespie authored a bill striking down the Memphis City Council’s ban of “preemptive” traffic stops based on minor infractions.

Partisan races exist in several other legislative districts, where the incumbents are heavily favored. The contests are: Democratic incumbent Larry Miller vs. Republican Larry Hunter in House District 88; Democratic incumbent G.A. Hardaway vs. Republican Renarda Renee Clariett in District 93; Democratic incumbent Antonio Parkinson vs. the GOP’s Cecil Hale in District 98; and Republican incumbent Tom Leatherwood vs. Democrat William P. Mouzon in District 99.

U.S. Senate

Democrats have not come out ahead in a statewide race in Tennessee since then-Governor Phil Bredesen fairly handily won reelection in 2006. By the time Bredesen was next on the ballot, in a race for the U.S. Senate in 2018, he was defeated with equal ease by arch-conservative Republican state Senator Marsha Blackburn.

Nothing more clearly indicates the sea change in Tennessee partisan politics which occurred in the meantime, with the rapid shift of Tennessee from the status of a bellwether state to one in which Republican domination of state affairs had become a given.

Blackburn is up for reelection this year, and Democratic hopes are vested in the aforementioned Gloria Johnson, who won prominence as a member of the “Tennessee Three,” the Democratic House members who drew the ire of the Republican leadership for their assertive support of gun safety protesters in 2023.

Both Blackburn and Johnson have well-deserved reputations for intense partisanship, with Blackburn being a mainline supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, of strong action against illegal immigration, and of MAGA causes in general, and Johnson being equally vigorous in espousal of Democratic positions on such matters as reproductive freedom and climate change. She has clashed repeatedly with Republicans in the legislature and, after being gerrymandered out of one state House seat by the GOP supermajority, returned to the General Assembly as the representative of another.

Efforts by Democrats and others to arrange debates between the two candidates have so far foundered on a confident and financially well-endowed Blackburn’s reluctance to entertain them, but various polls have suggested that underdog Johnson, beneficiary of a recent fundraiser at the Annesdale Mansion in Memphis, may be within striking distance.

Congressional Races

Incumbent Democrat Steve Cohen is heavily favored against Charlotte Bergmann, a perennial Republican opponent of his in the Memphis-based 9th District, while Republican incumbent David Kustoff in the 8th District has a scrappy challenger in Sarah Freeman of Germantown, who hopes to revive a dormant Democratic base in the rural enclaves of that West Tennessee district.

The effect of the 2024 presidential race on any and all of these local races is somewhat harder than usual to estimate. Normally a heavy Democratic turnout in Memphis precincts for the presidential race inflates the totals of Democrats running in local districts. And that effect could be augmented by a larger turnout than usual among women voters who favor the Democratic position on behalf of abortion rights and who might be influenced by the fact of a woman, Kamala Harris, heading the Democratic ticket. But local Republican candidates, too, can expect a boost, from whatever turnout the Trump/MAGA base can command.

Tags Charlotte Bergmann, David Kustoff, Election, election 2024, Gloria Johnson, Jesse Huseth, John Gillespie, legislative races, legislature, Mark White, Marsha Blackburn, Noah Nordstrom, Sarah Freeman, Steve Cohen, U.S. Senate

Cover Feature News

Birthing a New Approach to Pregnancy Care

Post author By Sono Motoyama
Post date October 9, 2024

left to right: Kemetra King, Dr. Alexis Dunn Amore, Dr. Nikia Grayson, Talita Oseguera, Dr. Nekea Smith, and Jasmine Bates-Marshall (Photo courtesy CHOICES)

“I was told I would never be able to have my own children,” said D., a nurse who is married to a military officer and lives in the Memphis area. Her voice is tense and urgent over the phone, a rush of words to get her story out.

D. has a number of conditions that, doctors informed her, would make a pregnancy unlikely, including a genetic condition that increases the chances of developing abnormal blood clots and is associated with severe pregnancy complications. Yet her treatment by doctors and nurses at a Memphis hospital only made her situation worse — much, much worse — which is why she gave testimony at a “tribunal” held by the birth justice organization Elephant Circle in Memphis last December, and subsequently spoke to the Memphis Flyer.

Despite her diagnosis of infertility, D. (who has asked to use only her initial to preserve the couple’s privacy) became pregnant spontaneously, much to her and her husband’s surprise and delight.

Early on, she began to have concerns about her obstetrician at Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women, when he contradicted her previous obstetrician’s prescriptions and recommendations. (She had seen doctors in Atlanta, early in her pregnancy, before moving to Memphis.) Having been a labor and delivery nurse for six years in Atlanta, D. herself had extensive knowledge about pregnancy and childbirth.

Despite some misgivings about her care, her pregnancy seemed to be proceeding normally until her cervix dilated at 16 weeks. Her doctor then performed a procedure to keep her cervix closed and prescribed bed rest, either at home or in the hospital.

“I assumed because I would be around doctors and nurses, it would be safer for me to stay in the hospital,” she said. “That was a mistake.”

Throughout the seven weeks of her hospital stay, she had numerous health concerns, which she attempted to bring to the attention of the hospital staff. Rather than the care and concern she expected, she said, she was labeled a “difficult” patient. She and her husband suffered racist remarks. Nurses called her husband the “baby daddy” and called D. “girl” or “the woman with dreads.”

At 23 weeks, she was transferred to labor and delivery in the middle of the night to have an induced birth. (Generally, doctors decide to induce a birth at this stage because of concerns for the health of the mother or the baby.) She kept her eye on the fetal heart rate monitor and saw the rate was higher than normal.

“It kept on tapering up,” she said. “I was like, ‘Can I see the doctor?’” The nurse replied that the doctor said to just monitor the situation. D. began to urgently insist on seeing other hospital personnel, such as the hospitalist, the director of medicine, the director of nursing, the house supervisor, the shift supervisor. No one came.

“I literally watched my son die for 12 hours,” she said.

In the early morning hours, after having seen an abnormally high fetal heart rate, she then watched the fetal heart rate steadily drop.

“Every time I watched it drop, my heart sank with it because as a labor and delivery nurse, I knew my child was dying. And I kept on asking and crying, begging for somebody to walk into that room and help me. And no one did. No one helped me.

“I told everyone at the hospital, ‘You guys made me a statistic.’”

Dr. Alexis Dunn Amore (Photo: Courtesy CHOICES)

Shelby County gets a grade of “F”

Nationwide, we are experiencing a maternal health crisis, with one of the highest maternal mortality rates among high-income nations. The mortality rate is even higher among Black women.

“We know that particularly for Black and brown populations, the risk of dying in childbirth is two to three times higher than other groups,” said Dr. Alexis Dunn Amore, the midwifery director of the CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health. “And that holds true for Shelby County as well.”

Though the maternal mortality rate has improved post-pandemic, both in the U.S. and abroad, the U.S. still has the highest mortality rate among wealthy nations, at 22.3 per 100,000 births, according to 2022 statistics. Black women died at a rate of 49.5 per 100,000 — more than twice the average. By comparison, Norway had zero maternal deaths in 2022.

The most recent Centers for Disease Control figures, for the years 2018 to 2022, rank Tennessee as having the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, at 41.1 per 100,000 births — 84 percent higher than the current national average. Tennessee gets a grade of D for preterm birth rates from the nonprofit March of Dimes, and Shelby County an F.

Black and brown women also have higher rates of preterm births, low birth-weight births, and births for which they received inadequate (or no) prenatal care compared to white women. Black women have the highest rate of preterm births (14.6 percent) among all races, about 50 percent higher than white (9.4) or Asian birthing parents, who have the lowest rate (9).

A report by the healthcare foundation Commonwealth Fund cited the lack of a federal paid parental leave policy and a shortage of maternal care workers, including OB-GYNs, as a cause of the high maternal mortality rate in the U.S. And the report particularly noted the lack of midwives in this country.

**Birth center suites at CHOICES offer a bit of luxury.** (Photos: Courtesy CHOICES)

**The birth center family lobby** (Photos: Courtesy CHOICES)

“We want people to feel loved and cared for”

Midwifery has a long history in the American South, Amore points out. Her great grandparents were sharecroppers in Marshall County, Mississippi, where at the time, midwives were prevalent. Midwives especially helped Black mothers in rural areas, who were barred from segregated hospitals.

“I remember my grandmother telling me stories about when her mother gave birth,” Amore said during an interview in her office. Midwives were “the standard of care back then.”

One of 21 children, her grandmother even assisted in the births of some of her siblings. But as privatized medicine grew in the U.S., doctors and public health officials persuaded women to abandon midwifery. In 1900, nearly all U.S. births occurred outside of a hospital; that fell to 44 percent by 1940 and to 1 percent by 1969.

Amore’s own mother gave birth to her in a hospital. Yet when, during her nurse’s training, Amore found out about training for modern nurse midwives, she went back to school to become one herself.

Being a nurse midwife, she said, “just feels like it’s family-oriented, community-focused, and all of that just aligns with who I am as a person.”

When CHOICES began offering pregnancy care in 2018 at its previous location, it provided midwifery as part of those services. CHOICES’ new, bright green building, opened in September 2020, includes modern birthing suites.

CHOICES reproductive care in general is focused on reproductive justice, Amore said, meaning that women make their own decisions about whether or not to have a baby and what sort of care they desire.

CHOICES also makes a point of serving marginalized communities, including low-income people. Serving a population that is largely on Medicaid and predominantly Black, CHOICES intentionally created a beautiful, welcoming space for patients who are often relegated to subpar clinics.

“The marginalized society, they never get the best. And so we really want people who come in this building to feel that they’re loved and cared for,” Amore said — both in the provided services and the design of the facilities.

The CHOICES facilities do present a striking contrast to a hospital environment. A tour of the three birthing suites reveals rooms that are more like a luxury hotel suite than a hospital, tastefully decorated, and equipped with a bathroom, large shower, birthing tub, access to an outdoor patio, birthing balls, ballet bars in the hallway (to squat between contractions), a diffuser for essential oils, and dimmable lighting. Moms-to-be can bring their own playlists to the Bluetooth-equipped suites. There is also an area for families to relax, watch TV, and cook.

In case of an emergency, there are also oxygen tanks and emergency medications; all staff is trained in neonatal resuscitation. CHOICES is purposefully located within minutes of Regional One Health and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, where patients can be taken if needed.

Compared to a noisy, crowded hospital, CHOICES’ space “helps your body to not feel stressed, for the natural physiologic processes to proceed a little bit easier,” she said.

Patients go home four to six hours after a birth, following a thorough check of the mother and baby. Hospitals generally impose stays of at least 24 hours. CHOICES midwives make home visits to new parents the day following the birth.

CHOICES improves on state and local stats

Evidence shows there are improved outcomes — fewer medical interventions and cesarean sections — with midwives compared to hospital births in low-risk births. (Many midwives also provide care for high-risk pregnancies, partnering with specialized physicians.)

Working with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), CHOICES has conducted research indicating that the outcomes of its birthing center are dramatically better than state and county averages.

“When you compare CHOICES to Shelby County and the state of Tennessee, we have much lower rates of cesarean birth, low birth weight, preterm birth,” Amore said. “We’ve had no maternal deaths.” There were also no newborn deaths.

Alden Blair is research director for UCSF’s Global Action in Nursing group, which is partnering with CHOICES on its research; he also happens to be married to a certified nurse midwife.

According to the data Blair helped analyze for the 407 CHOICES births from 2018 through 2023, patients come from 58 zip codes in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Some come from more than 300 miles away.

Sixty-nine percent of CHOICES patients are on public insurance and 84 percent are Black. (Midwifery services are generally covered by insurance, including Medicaid.)

Because of the socioeconomic challenges of CHOICES’ patients, Blair said, “We would expect to see higher C-section rates, higher rates of preterm birth, higher rates of low birth-weight babies. But that’s not the case.”

In fact, a CHOICES patient is 4.5 times less likely to have a C-section than elsewhere in Tennessee, 4.8 percent less likely to have a low birth-weight infant, and 2.2 percent less likely to have a preterm birth. These stark differences are similar when looking specifically at Shelby County data.

Citing March of Dimes statistics, Blair said Shelby County had a 12.9 percent rate of preterm births, rising to 14.7 percent for Black parents, compared to CHOICES, which had an overall 5.1 percent rate of preterm births and an even lower percentage for Black parents, at 4.1 percent.

CHOICES also keeps costs low, charging $6,800 for pre- and postnatal care and delivery, a mere fraction of the $24,000 national average for patients with employer insurance. Tennessee is among the states with the highest out-of-pocket expenses for families. Compared to costs for an uncomplicated hospital delivery, charges increase with a cesarean section, which account for about one third of U.S. deliveries. Costs rise exponentially for high-risk pregnancies.

National, Tennessee, and Shelby County rates for C-sections are above 32 percent; whereas, the World Health Organization recommends a level between 10 and 15 percent. Among CHOICES patients, only 9.8 percent have a cesarean, performed after they are transferred to a hospital.

“When mothers are given to labor in a healthy, safe environment, we see better outcomes,” Blair said. He noted too that research indicates that racial or ethnic concordance between the patient and provider improve health outcomes.

Blair pointed out that CHOICES is conducting research on its methods to both improve itself and share effective procedures for others to replicate.

“They’re not trying to keep their special sauce,” he said.

“People want to be listened to”

Nurse midwife Talita Oseguera came to Memphis from California about three years ago specifically to work at CHOICES, where she hoped to address racial health disparities — and to honor the history of Black midwifery in the South.

“One thing that attracted me to CHOICES was the idea of the restoration and acknowledgment of Black midwifery,” she said.

As part of her graduate training, she interviewed patients of color about their pregnancy, labor, and postpartum experiences. Her research reinforced her desire to find alternatives to traditional hospital birthing practices.

Echoing D.’s experience, patients told her over and over again that medical professionals had “an intolerance of Black pain,” she said, and saw Black patients as too loud or too abrasive. Hospital staff often did not listen to patients, who often felt they were subject to procedures without their consent — even being physically pinned down.

Even during prenatal care visits, patients told Oseguera, they were subjected to microaggressions or outright racism.

Midwifery, by contrast, attempts to “treat and partner with the whole person,” Oseguera said. People who have experienced both a hospital and midwife-attended birth have told her that the latter is an eye-opening experience, where they feel seen and heard.

“What people want is safety,” Oseguera said. “What people want is to be listened to and honored and not die.”

Tags CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health, Dr. Alexis Dunn Amore, maternal health, maternal health crisis, maternal mortality rates, Midwifery, pregnancy, preterm birth rates, Talita Oseguera

Art Cover Feature News

Fall Arts Guide 2024

Post author By Abigail Morici
Post date October 2, 2024

Robert Petkoff as Harold Zidler and the cast of the North American tour of Moulin Rouge! The Musical (Photo: Matthew Murphy | MurphyMade)

As the temperatures are cooling down, the Memphis arts scene is heating up — with exhibitions, performances, and unique experiences. See for yourself in our Fall Arts Guide.

ON DISPLAY

“ABZ2: Artists’ Books, Prints, and Zines”
Corkey Sinks’ collection spotlights contemporary approaches to print media.
Beverly + Sam Ross Gallery, through Oct. 4

“Dear Grandmother”
Heather Howle explores themes of nostalgia and familial connection.
ANF Architects, through Oct. 17

“Troubling the Line: New Dimensions in Drawing”
The works of Melissa Dunn, Terri Jones, Paula Kovarik, Mary Reid Kelley, and Patrick Kelley complicate the idea of drawing.
Clough-Hanson Gallery, through Nov. 9

“All Rise: Memphis Bar Association at 150”
Through arresting objects and powerful images, the exhibition showcases the Memphis Bar Association’s historical significance and continuing relevance.
Museum of Science & History, through Nov. 10

“Bracelets, Bangles, & Cuffs”
This collection of contemporary bracelets reveals the wide-ranging creativity of artists working in the jewelry form between 1948 and today.
Metal Museum, through Nov. 17

“The 6 Points Artists”
This exhibition features Sharon Havelka, Mary Jo Karimnia, Paula Kovarik, Carrol McTyre, Jennifer Sargent, and Mary K VanGieson.
Bornblum Library, Southwest Tennessee Community College, through Nov. 27

“Beyond the Surface: The Art of Handmade Paper”
Handmade paper creations explore the shape-shifting quality of paper.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, through Dec. 15

“Andrea Morales: Roll Down Like Water”
Andrea Morales’ first solo museum show features 65 photographs spanning her decade of photojournalism in Memphis and the Mid-South.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, through January

“A Hidden Culture”
Master Metalsmith Preston Jackson who gives voice to those overlooked in the history books.
Metal Museum, through Jan. 26

Lester Merriweather, “ANA•LOG” (Photo: Courtesy Crosstown Arts)

“ANA•LOG”
Lester Merriweather examines the concept of agency over Black visualization within American popular culture.
Crosstown Arts, fall

Alex Paulus, “Size Matters” (Photo: Crosstown Arts)

“Size Matters”
Alex Paulus’ current series focuses on the juxtaposition of small figures within expansive landscapes.
Crosstown Arts, fall

“Still”
Michelle Fair’s latest works delve into the process of painting.
Crosstown Arts, fall

“Chromatic”
This exhibit merges explores the two worlds of sounds and color in a synergistic full-bodied experience.
Arrow Creative, October 3, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

“Two Rivers”
Huger Foote captures the moments when day slowly turns to night from Memphis and the Mississippi Delta to the Hudson River Valley.
David Lusk Gallery, Oct. 8-Nov. 16

“I Saw the Light in Your Eyes”
Ceramic sculptors Renata Cassiano Alvarez and Anthony Sonnenberg work through complex ideas of identity through abstraction.
Sheet Cake Gallery, Oct. 12-Nov. 23

“Our Love Is a Shady Garden”
Yanira Vissepó studies the ecosystems between her birthplace in Puerto Rico and adopted home in Tennessee.
Sheet Cake Gallery, Oct. 12-Nov. 23

MadameFraankie
Works by MadameFraankie.
Beverly + Sam Ross Gallery, October 21-December 8

“2024 Accessions to the Permanent Collection”
This exhibition celebrations the more than 170 pieces added to the Metal Museum’s permanent collection.
Metal Museum, November 27-November 2, 2025

ON STAGE

Concerts in the Grove
GPAC presents some of the best musicians in the area in a park-like setting.
The Grove at Germantown Performing Arts Center, select Thursdays, 6:30 p.m.

Sounds of Memphis
Each week, a new Memphis powerhouse presents a unique concert — from the Handorf Company Arts of Opera Memphis to YOBREEZYE.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Thursdays, 6 p.m.

The 8th Annual Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series: The Comedy of Errors
This 90-minute, madcap romp is performed outdoors throughout Memphis.
Various locations and dates, through Oct. 20

De Aquí y de Allá
Accompany the courageous Don Quixote of La Mancha and his trusty sidekick, Sancho Panza, on an adventure full of fun, music, dance, culture and more.
Orpheum Theatre, October 4-5

Paradise Blue
This dynamic and musically infused drama shines light on the challenges of building a better future on the foundation of what our predecessors have left us.
Hattiloo Theatre, through October 6

Girl from the North Country
The Tony Award-winning musical reimagines Bob Dylan’s songs into a story about a group of wayward travelers.
Orpheum Theatre, Oct.8-13

The Mousetrap
Theatre Memphis presents this murder mystery.
Theatre Memphis, Oct. 11-27

Lizzie: The Lizzie Borden Musical
New Moon Theatre’s Lizzie is American mythology set to a blistering rock score.
TheatreWorks@The Square, October 18-November 3

The Smell of the Kill
This tantalizing dark comedy has malicious housewives and miserable husbands.
Germantown Community Theatre, Oct. 18-Nov. 3

Amadeus: The Music and the Myth
Opera Memphis explores Mozart through the lens of music from the award-winning movie Amadeus.
Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, Oct. 19, 7:30 p.m.

Michael Feinstein featuring the Carnegie Hall Ensemble
Michael Feinstein pays a heartfelt tribute to the legendary Tony Bennett.
Germantown Performing Arts Center, Oct. 19, 8 p.m.

Dracula
Ballet Memphis’ original production builds from Bram Stoker’s novel.
Orpheum Theatre, Oct. 25-27

*Firebird* (Photo: Courtesy Collage Dance Collective)

Firebird
Kevin Thomas boldly reimagines The Firebird.
Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, Oct. 25-27

(Pilobolus re:Creation Photo: Courtesy Grant Halverson)

Pilobolus re:Creation
Imagination knows no limits with this experimental dance company.
Germantown Performing Arts Center, Oct. 26, 8 p.m.

Variations on a Theme: The Tell-Tale Heart & Other Tales to Terrify
Opera Memphis, in collaboration with Iris Collective, presents these evenings of music and one-act operas.
Opera Memphis Headquarters, Oct. 26, 7:30 p.m. | Oct. 27, 3 p.m.

Rumpelstiltskin
A young girl is locked away until she spins straw into gold.
Bartlett Performing Arts & Conference Center, Oct. 26, 2 p.m.

Moulin Rouge! The Musical
Baz Luhrmann’s revolutionary film comes to life.
Orpheum Theatre, Oct. 29-Nov.3

The Three Bs: Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven
Memphis Symphony Orchestra presents.
Crosstown Theater, Nov. 1, 6:30 p.m. | Scheidt Family Performing Arts Center, Nov. 3, 2:30 p.m.

Iris Collective Orchestra: Transformations
Memphis-native Randall Goosby and conductor and Iris founder Michael Stern will be joined by the Germantown Youth Symphony.
Germantown Performing Arts Center, Nov. 2, 7:30 p.m.

Taikoproject
Taikoproject traces the history and lore of the ancient Japanese drums.
Buckman Performing Arts Center, Nov. 7, 7 p.m.

The Orchestra Unplugged: Leonard Bernstein
Music director Robert Moody of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra guides audiences through the life and legacy of the American Maestro.
Halloran Centre, Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m.

Junie B. Jones: Toothless Wonder
This family-friendly show takes audiences on a humorous journey of growing up with Junie B. Jones.
The Circuit Playhouse, Nov. 8-Dec. 22

Parallel Lives
Two actresses play men and women struggling through the common rituals of modernity.
Theatre Memphis, Nov. 8-23

The Wizard of Oz
Dorothy isn’t in Kansas anymore.
Playhouse on the Square, Nov. 15-Dec. 22

The Rake’s Progress
Opera Memphis presents Igor Stravinsky’s neoclassical opera.
Scheidt Family Performing Arts Center, Nov. 22, 7:30 p.m. | Nov. 24, 3 p.m.

NutRemix
New Ballet Ensemble sets The Nutcracker on Memphis’ iconic Beale Street.
Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, Nov. 23-24

Peter Pan
This high-flying musical comes to Memphis.
Orpheum Theatre, Nov. 26-Dec. 1

Who’s Holiday
Cindy Lou Who returns in this riotously funny and heartwarming adults-only comedy.
Circuit Playhouse, Nov. 22-Dec. 22

A Motown Christmas
Celebrate the holiday season with this musical of all your favorite Motown tunes.
Hattiloo Theatre, Nov. 22-Dec. 22

Twelfth Night
Shakespeare’s most charming comedy finds itself on the Tabor Stage.
Tennessee Shakespeare Company, Dec. 6-22

A Christmas Carol ’24
Theatre Memphis presents this holiday classic.
Theatre Memphis, December 6-23

Bright Star
Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s bluegrass musical tells a story of love and redemption in 1920s and ’40s North Carolina.
Bartlett Performing Arts & Conference Center, Dec. 6-8

Tía Pancha
Tía Pancha is Cazateatro’s bilingual adaptation of the classic A Christmas Carol but with a Latin and female twist.
TheatreWorks@The Evergreen, Dec. 6-14

A Charlie Brown Christmas: Live on Stage
The whole family can enjoy this adaptation of Charles M. Schulz’s timeless story.
Orpheum Theatre, Dec. 7, 2 p.m., 5 p.m., 7:30 p.m.

The Nutcracker
Ballet Memphis’ production of this holiday classic returns.
Orpheum Theatre, Dec. 13-15

AROUND TOWN

Art Club
The Brooks’ Art Club with Mallory Sharp gives participants an in-depth look at a different work of art each month.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, monthly

Appetite for the Arts
Enjoy a picnic and/or food truck fare while feasting your eyes on music and dance films.
The Grove at Germantown Performing Arts Center, Wednesdays in October, 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Super Saturdays
Enjoy free drop-in art making workshops for families and free admission to the Brooks.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Saturdays, 10:30 a.m.-noon

Free Family Day
On the second Saturday of the month, the Stax has live music, outdoors, food trucks, games and activities, arts and crafts for children, and free admission to the entire museum.
Stax Museum of American Soul Music, second Saturdays of the month, 1-5 p.m.

Artoberfest
Off the Walls Arts showcases Memphis artists and musicians for a day of music, vendors, a costume contest, activities, and fun.
Off the Walls Arts, Oct. 5, 2-10 p.m.

V&E Greenline Artwalk 2024
Meet and shop from local artists, and enjoy music, entertainment, children’s activities, and artist demonstrations.
V&E Greenline, Oct. 7, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Paint Memphis
A hundred or so artists will be painting murals all day long and it’s a spectacle to behold.
Willet and Lamar, October 12, noon-7 p.m.

Come as Thou Art
Guests will don their most imaginative attire, either inspired by the night’s theme — the world of Tim Burton — or the spirit of a designer. The evening will be capped off with a fashion show by Sonin Lee.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Oct. 18, 8 p.m.

Art on Fire
Enjoy tastings from local restaurants, live music, thrilling fire dancers, and a vibrant art sale — all set around a roaring bonfire.
Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Oct. 19, 7-11 p.m.

Dracula Party
Celebrate Ballet Memphis’ reprise of Dracula and help raise critical funds to support its mission with a Halloween party where you can party like a vampire.
Mollie Fontaine Lounge, October 19, 7:30-10:30 p.m.

Repair Days
Bring your metal items to have them restored their former glory at the Metal Museum’s largest fundraiser, which also includes the Dinner + Auction and Family Fun Day, where visitors can participate in hands-on activities, explore the galleries, and watch metalsmith demonstrations.
Metal Museum, Oct. 17-20

RiverArtsFest
The region’s largest and longest running fine arts festival showcasing works from 200+ participating local and national artists returns with an artist market, artists-at-work demonstration station, hands-on artist station, performances, and plenty of food and beverages.
Riverside Drive, Oct. 20, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

28th Annual Quilt & Fiber Arts Show and Sale
View around 100 antique, vintage, and modern quilts, plus meet with vendors and demonstrators and see a new special exhibit.
Davies Manor Historic Site, November 1-3, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Orpheum Soiree
Enjoy an evening including glittering entertainment, live auction, specialty cocktails, exciting eats, and fun surprises.
Orpheum Theatre, November 15, 7 p.m.

…

ARTSassist

In August, ARTSmemphis announced the inaugural distribution of ARTSassist grants to 22 individual artists, providing these artists in dance and visual arts an unrestricted $5,000. This makes it the only unrestricted grant program supporting individual artists in Shelby County.

The program comes as an expansion of a pre-pandemic grant program for visual artists, known as ArtsAccelerator. As ARTSmemphis CEO and president Elizabeth Rouse says, “About 10 years ago, thanks to some local artists in the community who asked questions of us, we began a grant program to support visual artists. … We started with visual artists because at the time, they had fewer other networks of support and fewer other opportunities to be hired.

(top) Dorian Rhea; (below) Therrious Davis (Photos: Courtesy ARTSmemphis)

“But that really, thankfully, put us in a position to launch an artist emergency fund for individual artists in 2020 as artists of all different types immediately lost work during the pandemic. And we supported about 800 artists during the pandemic with emergency funding totaling almost a million, right around $900,000. From 2020 through 2023, we focused on emergency and recovery funding, so coming out of 2023 we wanted to reintroduce an unrestricted grant for artists and expand it rather extensively.”

That meant bringing on an artist advisory committee made up of Memphis artists to make sure artists’ needs were met, and out-of-town jurors to select the grantees without local bias. That also meant, in addition to supporting the 22 selected grantees, partnering with Indie Memphis to support a filmmaker through Indie Memphis’ Black Creators Forum and partnering with Music Export Memphis (MEM) to support three musicians through its Ambassador Access program. “It was a way for us to be efficient and not create something new, but to support and complement,” Rouse says. “We hope, long-term, to be supporting even more types of artists. But it makes sense, just based on the makeup of artists in our community, that we start out with visual, dance, music, and film.”

This first cohort will use their grants for a variety of reasons, Rouse says. Therrious Davis, an illustrator, comic book artist, and occasional muralist, has used his grant money to buy a new computer and tablet. “I had this laptop for close to 10 years now,” Davis says. “It was starting to show signs of its age.”

Davis has been developing a comic project called Exodus of Love, premised on the question, ‘What if Cupid didn’t know what love was?’ But not having reliable or capable equipment has been holding him back from making headway. “The goal will be to make more videos following the development of the comic book project and to give people a chance to follow it from the ground up.” (You can follow Davis’ progress on Instagram @therrothekid.)

Meanwhile, choreographer Dorian Rhea plans to use his grant to fund future movement-based programming at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. “It’s going to be jazz. It’s going to be social dance, known as hip-hop styles, accompanied by excerpts and texts to contextualize the history,” Rhea says. The classes will be for young kids and their parents, an experience that Rhea, as a new dad himself, hopes will “sow the seeds for much more later down the road.”

Rhea will also use his grant to attain a technique certification in Giordano dance, a style of jazz that originated in Chicago. “I’m hoping that with bringing that style to Memphis, we elevate the cultural exchange that I think is already taking place [between Chicago and Memphis],” he says. “Knowledge is power. Art is all about telling a story and communicating the narrative, sharing an experience, and so as someone who believes in art activism — using arts as a vehicle for creating change and sparking the catalyst for evolution, growth, progress — the more grounded my work is in the history of those who’ve come before, the richer I can articulate lessons.”

No matter their personal goal, Rouse says, “We know how important it is to have a strong community of artists and to be a city that is a city of choice for artists. They’re just so critical to our culture and our economy, so … we intend for this to be an annual grant.”

On Monday, in alignment with this goal, ARTSmemphis, in partnership with Music Export Memphis, also announced a new, first-ever Artist Emergency Fund for local artists, which will support artists in times of unexpected and catastrophic emergency. For more information on both of these grants, visit artsmemphis.org.

…

Andrea Morales: “Roll Down Like Water”

Andrea Morales has been making photographs since she was a child, and yes, “making photographs” is the right phrase here. Not taking photographs, capturing, or shooting. For Morales, these words are too aggressive to describe a process that is about building trust and intimacy between the photographer and the photographed individuals, or, as Morales calls them, her collaborators.

She’s been working in Memphis as a photojournalist for a decade now, making photographs of the community. You probably recognize her name from her work as the visuals director at MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, but she’s also been featured in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and TIME Magazine, among many others. Now, to add to her impressive resume, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art has opened an exhibit of 65 of her photographs of Memphis and the surrounding region, titled “Roll Down Like Water.”

Andrea Morales, *Southern Heritage*, 2017 (Photo: Courtesy Andrea Morales)

Taking its name from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech in Memphis, in which he said, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” the exhibit, says its curator Rosamund Garrett, is “a portrait of America through Memphis.”

“There are some tremendously famous photographers from this area,” Garrett says, “but I really feel that Andrea looks at things through a very fresh lens, and she looks at this region very directly, very earnestly, in a way that still allows the magic of this place to come through.”

But in this exhibit, not appearing in a publication with someone else’s byline, a headline she didn’t choose, or quotes she didn’t pull, the photos can stand alone. “It does feel like something’s being restored, I guess,” Morales says. “I’m struggling with identifying exactly what, but it feels like something’s restored. It’s like back to that feeling of the moment [of making the photo] because you have that moment and then you kind of have to tuck it away because this photo has to exist in this one context [of an article]. But this is all existing in the context of me and Memphis right now.”

“Roll Down Like Water,” Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, on display through January 2025.

…

We All We Got

Binghampton is putting on a play. The actors are young and old, some seasoned and many freshly-minted to the spotlight. Kids at Carpenter Art Garden are building scenic elements, and community members are tuning their instruments for a show their stories helped create.

It all started over a year ago when the Orpheum Theatre Group launched its Neighborhood Play Program. After working with the Refugee Empowerment Program in Binghampton, making original plays out of participants’ stories, Orpheum staff “realized one of their favorite moments in it was when they got to step out of their story and play the characters that were in other people’s stories,” says Taylor St. John, Orpheum’s director of education and engagement. “There’s something powerful about telling your own story, but there’s also something powerful about participating as a community in a fictional story.”

Ann Perry Wallace (Photo: Courtesy Orpheum Theatre)

So came the Neighborhood Play Program, through which the Orpheum partnered with various organizations and formed “story circles” to create a neighborhood play. “For six months or so, we got people in a circle and asked them questions about their community, things that they found beautiful, things that they found challenging,” St. John says.

These stories, in turn, would be the inspiration for the fictional story that playwright Ann Perry Wallace, author of the one-woman play Live Rich Die Poor, would weave. They then presented this fictional story in another round of story circles for feedback.

“I felt like I had a lot of responsibility to deliver something that was representative of what I had heard,” Wallace says. “You are responsible for these stories that have been told, you are responsible for putting out this image of the people, and so that is a weight that I carry with honor and take seriously. There’s nuance. And so I’m having to hold all of that in a way that gives dignity where dignity is due and have to show the complex struggles where they are present. It is a dynamic place, and I hope for people to see the intricacies, or just a snapshot of those intricacies come out.”

As for the plot of the play, titled We All We Got, St. John says, “The story itself centers on two young Black girls living in the neighborhood, one from a generational home and one living in the apartments who’s a refugee, and how they navigate the world and encounter all of the various characters of Binghampton.”

The hope, both St. John and Wallace point out, is to highlight the different experiences within Binghampton. “It’s one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Memphis,” St. John says. “There’s over 20 languages spoken there, and so we really tried to honor the stories that do not otherwise get highlighted.”

With all those differences, St. John adds, “It’s been exciting, in the last couple weeks, to see all those people from all those different groups that do different things and have very different beliefs and sometimes cultures now all be in the same room, and we’re all working on this thing together, and it just feels like a great exercise in community.

“We think it’s so important that the people in Binghampton can hopefully see themselves in this play, or see reflections of their ideas and other stories in this play. But it’s also really important that as a city, we’re able to come together [by seeing the play].”

The play is set to premiere in November, with community members acting both in the scenes and behind the scenes. Already, just watching rehearsals has Wallace “thrilled.” “You are seeing people who have pride in the neighborhood come out to be a part of it and really stretch themselves in creative and artistic ways,” she says. “Not all of them are normally doing this in their day-to-day life, and then we do have some actors who are in it, but particularly the community members, them showing up and performing best, to me, that’s pride, and that’s dedication, and that’s belief in their community.”

All three performances, which will take place at First Baptist Broad Church in Binghampton, will be free to attend, and Backbeat Tours will provide free transportation at designated locations.

We All We Got: A Binghampton Play, First Baptist Broad Church, Friday, November 1, 7 p.m. | Saturday, November 2, 1 p.m. | Sunday, November 3, 2 p.m.

Cover Feature News

Ballroom Rebirth

Cheri Lie Maid flicks her fan and struts during her judge’s introduction. (Photos: Ziggy Mack)

On a late-June night, Caleb Armstrong stood in front of an intimate crowd at Black Lodge. It was among the venue’s final events before closing last month, which made this night — and the images captured — all the more special. Armstrong was readying to emcee an event he held close to his heart.

Donning a chic all-black ensemble and a pair of stiletto boots — playing with both masculine and feminine undertones — he grabbed the mic. The audience looked on, excited to be a part of the birth, or rebirth, of ballroom here in Memphis. Some posed and vogued in their seats. Outfits enhanced the ambiance — with people dressed in one-of-a-kind pieces that fit the night’s various performance categories.

Like a quiet storm, one participant commanded the room in a smart black suit and a hat ornately decorated with small crystals. As they flicked their fan, they had both the accessory and the audience in the palm of their hand. A sultry vixen would dramatically ditch her trench coat, leaving little to the imagination as she faced a shirtless competitor in the “sex siren” category. Rounds later, a woman sported what could be described as “model basics” — a simple black top and relaxed jeans. She would later reveal her secret weapon— a face card that scored 10s in the “face” category. Others wore fits ranging from streetwear to full-on drag. Regardless of garb, this would be a night to remember — with the promise of more to come.

**Tito Giuseppe (left) and** **Caleb Armstrong (right)**

A New Era

“Ballroom is back!” Armstrong exclaimed from stage, pulling power from his high heels. The 28-year-old fitness instructor and longtime ballroom aficionado was seeing the end product of a long-sought dream and a much-anticipated revival.

This was one of those pinch-me moments for Armstrong. And he’s experienced those more frequently in the past few years. (Read on to hear about his brush with Beyoncé.)

This night was about ballroom, which may not be what you associate with “ballroom,” and doesn’t involve celebrities competing to revive their careers. Still largely underground, ballroom can be thought of as the ultimate face-off, with the collateral being pride, ferocity, and the ability to “serve.”

Participants come dressed in their best representation of the competition’s categories, mixed with the theme of the function. In a “sneaker vs. sneaker” face-off, one may choose to break out a sought-after pair of Jordans to go head-to-head with Comme des Garçons Converse, with the defining element being how the contestant sells the look to the audience and judges. Those in the “body” category may rely solely on their weekend Pilates classes and physiques to flex their goodies.

Outfits and presentation are only part of what the judges score. To receive 10s across the board, the contestant must command the room — marking every corner with their uniqueness and fierceness — thus garnering snaps, fan flicks, and audience applause.

If the judges like what they see, they’ll use their hands to display all 10 fingers to signify a vote of confidence. Those who compete in a category either receive “10s across the board” or are “chopped.”

Historian Tito Giuseppe’s presence at Black Lodge that summer night was notable. With his wealth of knowledge and experience, some might say he is ballroom history. He’s also the founder of the House of Giuseppe (more on “houses” later).

“Shout out to Black Lodge! Can we give it up for Black Lodge, y’all?” Giuseppe said as he joined Armstrong on stage and took the mic. “You all right now are a part of ballroom history. You people here tonight are really a part of an evolving culture that has been around for 53 years — and it’s making a resurgence here in your backyard.”

It was a night that was years in the making, one that encapsulated lifelong passions, a history spanning decades, and the desire to revive a sacred space for community in Memphis. Giuseppe called the night — the first ballroom event in Memphis in a long time — “groundbreaking,” and those who were lucky enough to witness it would agree.

Lessons in Serving

Giuseppe, who grew up in the North but now lives in Memphis, dates his entry into ballroom back to 1989 when he was a student at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Back then, there wasn’t representation of ballroom on TV or in the media. He says when he coaches and talks to the new guard, he wants them to understand the foundation upon which they’re building. While he believes there are upsides to increased exposure in popular media — including the iconic documentary Paris Is Burning, Ryan Murphy’s Pose, the ballroom competition show Legendary, and Beyoncé’s album Renaissance — understanding the culture’s origins before such exposure is crucial to its longevity and respect.

“Everything still stems back from 1971, when they started,” Giuseppe says. “[Things like] how you’re being judged, 10s and a chop [which essentially denotes a win and a loss] — those things stem from 53 years ago in its inception.”

As someone who lived in the movement during its golden era, Giuseppe today considers himself both a mentor and educator in the South, encompassing Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Mississippi. He says he is often approached by different houses in these areas to help cultivate and grow the culture.

“This is a teaching moment because we want you to understand. We don’t want you to say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve seen this on YouTube and now I get to see it in person,’” Giuseppe told the audience. “No. I want you to walk away with a knowledge of what this is. Not only do you educate yourself, but you get to talk about it with your girlfriends.”

Giuseppe says ballroom is known to have started in 1971 by Crystal LaBeija and Pepper LaBeija as a way to rebel against the prejudiced practices in drag pageants. The two African-American people of trans experience would enter events similar to drag pageants (also known as drag balls). While the LaBeijas were “really, really good,” they would never find themselves past first-runner up in a mostly Caucasian-dominated culture.

The LaBeijas’ original ballroom functions aimed to address the inequities in the drag space in that era, and, over time, Giuseppe says, they evolved. Today, people of all races, cisgender folks, and heterosexual women have dominated in the performance
categories.

“It’s an underground culture that allows those of us who are participants in the culture to compete in different categories like ‘face,’ ‘realness,’ ‘runway,’ ‘body,’” Giuseppe says. “Think of it as the Olympics, so to speak.”

And “houses” are an integral part of ballroom culture. They serve as teams for participants — who aim to bring honor to said teams with trophy wins. They’re also considered chosen family. The houses are often named after luxury designers and fashion brands, such as Hervé Léger, Thierry Mugler, or Balenciaga, Giuseppe says, and “the house itself operates under a name, and those members are all considered ‘house members,’ but they operate like a family.”

The founders of these houses are considered founding mothers and fathers. Giuseppe, for example, is the founding father of the House of Giuseppe. There are then a set of “overall parents,” who, although they did not start the house, operate them on a “day-to-day basis from a wide standpoint,” he says.

“All of the chapters from the various cities, states, and countries answer to those two overall parents,” he says. “Then you have state parents, like a Texas mother and father, a Tennessee mother and father, and then it breaks down into cities. … They compete in those regions as the house itself.”

The idea of a chosen family is appealing to many, which is why people like Armstrong turn to ballroom for a sense of community. After coming out publicly “five or six years ago,” he sought to figure out his identity beyond sexuality. And that’s precisely how he “stumbled into the ballroom world.”

“I really admire the framework of the chosen family relationships that ballroom is founded on,” Armstrong says. “I think that’s kind of the heart of ballroom. I really spent years looking for genuine friends, and cultivating those friendships and relationships.”

A Revival With Purpose

The summer ball at Black Lodge was the brainchild of Armstrong and his closest friends — with the help of Giuseppe. During the event, one of those friends, Octavia Jones, commonly referred to as DJ Space Age, or Space Age, kept the runway booming and the vibes copacetic. In June of 2022 Jones launched Queer Memphis, an organization dedicated to curating networking and social events in hopes of creating more spaces and events for the local queer community. In her 15 years as a DJ, Jones has been able to see “what isn’t happening and things people wanted to see.”

Jones has attended ballroom events, but they’re “few and far between” in the city, happening once or twice a year, she says. Recognizing that dearth evolved into collaborating with Armstrong and others to put on their first ballroom event this June, with the hope of establishing consistency.

“I haven’t seen anything that’s been consistent, I think, ever in the city of Memphis,” Jones says. “I know myself and especially Caleb have attended balls outside of Memphis, in New York, Nashville, and Atlanta. We kind of ended up talking about just pressing the reset button and activating something in Memphis.”

The culture and history are the major draws for Jones, who feels ballroom serves as a way for the LGBTQ community to take a multifaceted approach to self-expression. And she wanted to have a hand in giving people more outlets to express themselves beyond the local drag scene, producing events such as the one at Black Lodge.

Cheri Lie Maid, a Memphis drag performer and ballroom enthusiast, served as one of three judges at the event, alongside Mariah Da’Goat Kelly and Juan Martinez. Cheri says their affinity for makeup and LGBTQ
culture led them to discovering ballroom, which served as an entry point into drag.

“I came across ballroom on YouTube and the first thing I was watching was a butch queen up in drag — a man who is in makeup, or in hair and heels, performing ballroom voguing but in a different element, basically,” Cheri says, “which means it’s feminine and not like old-wave or new-wave.”

There are some drag elements in ballroom, as it was birthed from that art form, Cheri says. But there are also elements of ballroom in drag. And while ballroom was Cheri’s first love, drag serves as a way for them to marry that interest with a love of makeup.

“Ballroom is very much a masculine field and a feminine field,” Cheri says. “We understand that those two are very humanly categorized, so we tend to think those are the only two categories we can go through, that it’s either/or. Some people like to play with both.”

This is part of what Cheri appreciates about ballroom though — it’s made to encompass and welcome as many queer people as possible.

“That’s what it means to be a part of the LGBTQ community,” Cheri says, “because you know what you are and you know what you present, but it’s better for you to be among your people who want to bring you up and see you as a better person.”

Armstrong echoes these sentiments, as he drew inspiration from the iconic OTA (open to all) Balls in New York. He wanted to incorporate these themes not only into his events but also into the community he hoped to create out of them. He knew ballroom had more to give than just an experience.

“When I was looking for friends, I was looking for friends who had that special light but needed a platform to showcase that,” Armstrong says. “A lot of my friends are drag queens. We are in the club bucking it, twirling it every weekend, giving a look — being those girls. I think a piece of that goes back to representation and visibility. I try to be the person I wanted my inner child to see growing up.”

**Mariah Da’Goat Kelly performs before sitting at the judge’s table.**

This Is What I Wanna See

For Armstrong, things have come full circle. He remembers watching a “nasty” Vogue Femme Final ballroom battle between Lasseindra and Ida “Inxi” Holmlund on YouTube in 2015 and being captivated by the subculture for the first time. Fast-forward to being featured in a project praised for its contributions to both pop culture and queer iconography.

In one of the biggest flexes of the 21st century, Armstrong was able to add the credit “Featured in Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé” to his Instagram bio.

“My friends will tell you they are sick of me,” Armstrong says with a laugh. “I’ll be like, ‘Do y’all know that Beyoncé knows me?’ I’ve loved her for so long, and to be featured and recognized by not only Beyoncé but that project specifically holds such a special place in my heart. Renaissance obviously did something for the Black queer culture that can’t be undone, and it represents us so well.”

That project was the 2023 musical documentary that was the culmination of Beyoncé’s summer tour celebrating her seventh studio album, a blend of Black dance music, disco, and house, with samples from Donna Summer, Teena Marie, Moi Renee, Big Freedia, and more.

Armstrong remembers getting into Club Renaissance and being thrust into a full-on vogue-off prior to Beyoncé taking the stage. Not only did his infectious energy catch the attention of Beyoncé’s team, his bold, fringed, silver two-piece outfit in the tour’s TV-test screen set (ingeniously modeled after the Progress Pride flag) truly defined being “the visual.”

“For her to see me, that was my most joyous, my most authentic [self]. … I was feeling opulent, I was feeling ova [high], I was feeling the fantasy,” Armstrong says. “For me to be my complete, extra, over-abundant self and for her to see me and amplify it even more … it was the biggest love letter.”

Representation is an important part of an individual’s path to authenticity, and, like many things in queer culture, it is not monolithic. While people are familiar with some of what Memphis LGBTQ life has to offer, they’ve only gotten a taste. In the absence of consistent ballroom culture here, many travel to other cities. Giuseppe encourages people to experience it. Cheri does too, and believes no one should have to travel for it, as it has the ability to touch and change lives — like it did theirs.

This ballroom revival gives Memphis a chance to be a part of history while adding the city’s own signature. Cheri, Jones, and Armstrong have seen the way culture builds on top of itself, through people like Giuseppe, and through visiting places where the scene originated. They’re respecting tradition while building on that foundation. Their dreams are as big as the groundwork laid before them, and they know the legacy they’re stepping into.

“We have our own style, our own culture here,” Armstrong says. “Why don’t we cultivate that? Let’s put Memphis on the map. I feel like Memphis, no shade, we’re a Southern city, so we’re very ‘banjee’ [have swagger]. We’re very gritty, very raw. … Once we continue with the balls, our style will create its own signature and [people will be able to] say, ‘Oh, that’s a Memphis girl. … Oh, we see Memphis is in the house, we see how she’s bucking it.”

Ready for more Memphis ballroom? Prepare to mash at Atomic Rose’s Monster Ball on October 25th. Visit @QueerMemphis on Instagram for updates.

Tags Ballroom, Black Lodge, Crystal LaBeija, drag shows, Pepper LaBeija, Tito Giuseppe

Cover Feature Film Features Film/TV News

Fight Night

Post author By Chris McCoy
Post date September 11, 2024

In March 1966, Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted into the Army to fight in the Vietnam War, citing his Islamic faith as a reason and claiming conscientious objector status. At the peak of his boxing career, he was banned from the sport and spent the next four years in and out of the courtroom. In October 1970, he was finally granted a license to fight in Georgia, and on October 26th, he faced Jerry “The Bellflower Bomber” Quarry in Atlanta. In front of a sellout crowd, Ali took Quarry down in only three rounds, setting off a night of celebration in Atlanta’s Black community. At one infamous party, a group of Black gangsters celebrating the victory were set up and robbed at gunpoint by another group of Black gangsters, setting off a chain reaction of botched reprisals and mutual misunderstandings worthy of a Coen Brothers movie.

Years later, journalist Jeff Keating, writing for the Atlanta alternative weekly Creative Loafing, discovered that the person who threw the party, an ambitious hustler known as Chicken Man, was not killed, as had long been reported, but instead had survived the ordeal and was living under an assumed name in Atlanta. Keating recounted the too-weird-to-be-true story in his true crime podcast Fight Night. Released in 2020 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, it became a huge hit. Writer/producer Shaye Ogbonna and comedian Kevin Hart pitched the story to Universal Television, who ultimately ordered an eight-part limited series for their new streaming service Peacock.

Craig Brewer poses at the *Fight Night* premiere in New York City (Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Peacock)

One of the first calls they made was to Memphis director Craig Brewer. “I got this job the old-fashioned way,” he says. “I got a call from my agents saying that [executive producer] Will Packer and Kevin Hart wanted to meet with me on a project. … Shaye, the creator, has been a fan of my films, particularly Hustle & Flow, which he saw in Atlanta.”

Brewer was intrigued by the story and impressed with the rough drafts of the first two episodes, which were all that existed at the time. “I remember reading the script and thinking to myself, ‘This guy Shaye and I, I think are gonna really get along.’ We have the same interests in movies and TV and music. But more importantly, it’s something I always remember John Singleton talking to me about: ‘Is there regional specificity to this voice?’ And I was like, yeah, this feels like a guy from the South, in Atlanta, making movies from his heart, his culture, and his experience. It felt real to me; it felt furnished and honest and, above all, exciting.”

Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist was on its way to the screen.

Putting the Team Together

Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat and Will Packer Media had produced the podcast, says Brewer. “Kevin was always going to be Chicken Man. That was from the jump. Then I came on and we started putting together the other cast members.”

Kevin Hart stars as Chicken Man, the small-time hustler who gets in over his head in *Fight Night*. (Photo: Eli Joshua Adé/PEACOCK)

Samuel L. Jackson, an acting legend who Brewer worked with in 2006’s Black Snake Moan, was quickly cast as New York gangster Frank Moten. Taraji P. Henson, who was the breakout star of Hustle & Flow, came onboard as Vivian, Chicken Man’s partner in crime. “She was always at the top of the list,” says Brewer. “Then Will Packer called me and said, ‘We gotta go get your boy Terrence.’”

**Gangsters “Cadillac” Richie (Howard) and Frank Moten (Jackson) land in Atlanta with their entourage.** (Photo: Parrish Lewis/PEACOCK)

Jackson as Moten ignores the press before the big fight. (Photo: Eli Joshua Adé/PEACOCK)

The producers thought Terrence Howard, star of Hustle & Flow, would be perfect for gangster Richard “Cadillac” Wheeler. “I’m speaking to you from New Jersey, so I’m speaking to you from Cadillac Richie’s territory,” says Brewer.

**Terrence Howard and Marsha Stephanie Blake** (Photo: Eli Joshua Adé/PEACOCK)

After Hustle, Brewer had directed Henson and Howard in the hit TV series Empire. “I called up Terrence, and I was kinda talking him into doing the show. I said to him, ‘Listen, it’s me. I’m gonna let you get up on that tight rope like you usually do. I’ll be your net. What I want you to do is bring your creativity to this and create this character because he’s an important character as the series goes on. I’m gonna just agree to anything you wanna do and help you get it.’ Then he said, ‘Well, I wanna look like one of the Bee Gees. That’s what I wanna do.’ I just remember feeling like, ‘Oh no, what is this gonna look like?’ But then he showed up, and I thought, ‘This cat is gonna steal this show because he looks amazing. … I don’t know if he’s gonna take it off ever again.’”

Detective J.D. Hudson (Cheadle)
protects Muhammad Ali (Dexter
Darden) before the fight.
(Photo: Eli Joshua Adé/PEACOCK)

The final big get for the cast was Don Cheadle. The actor/director was on Brewer’s bucket list. “I have always wanted to work with Don, and it was everything that I could have dreamed for and more. He’s a great actor, yes. But I would say that with him — and I would put Sam Jackson in the same category — you’re not just getting somebody’s acting talent, you’re getting their experience of making, watching, and living the art of storytelling. They have an eye for things that some younger actors do not have. Are we telling the right story? They make you better because they hold you to a standard of making sure that you’re doing right, not only by their character, but how their character interacts with everybody. So there were countless times that Don Cheadle would take me and Shaye off into his trailer, and we would work a scene. By the time we left the trailer, Shaye and I would look at each other and just go, ‘Man, the scene is just so much better!’”

Fight Night is filled with star power, in a way very few TV shows have ever been. “The thing about movie stars is, they are decided by the people,” says Brewer. “This show is packed with five movie stars.”

Hotlanta

Fight Night was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia. The series features extensive location shoots among the split-level ranch houses of the suburbs and in the dense city center. Crucial scenes were shot in the distinctive Hyatt Regency Atlanta, whose 22-story atrium influenced hotel design for a generation.

“There is a crucial monologue in episode two that Sam Jackson delivers, where he’s talking about his vision for Atlanta,” says Brewer. “He wants Black people put in places of power, and for the economic future of Atlanta to be Black. It’s funny because you look at the monologue, and you can imagine if it were being said in 1970 to an all-white audience, it may seem outlandish. But last night at the premiere, there were cheers because you realize that dream is here and realized. So it’s very interesting to talk to young people about Atlanta at this crucial time in its history, in the early 1970s, where they were on a campaign that I feel is comparable to Memphis’ history, and to Memphis’ present, which is to deny that you are living, working, and thriving in a Black city. It is to your own peril if you fight against it.

“Atlanta is a city that is open for business. We’re too busy to be dealing with any of that racist bullshit. We’re here to make some money, and I’ll be damned if that’s not the Atlanta that I go to all the time when I’m filming these movies. This is my third project in Atlanta. I’ve been there the whole time that Atlanta has said that they wanna be the next Hollywood. And so many people saying, well, that’s not gonna last, or this is gonna be transitional, or the industry is gonna change. I am telling you right now, no one wants to call it out, but production in Atlanta is there to stay. I don’t see this returning back to Hollywood as long as there’s places like Atlanta.”

Brewer had worked on episodic network TV with Empire, but Fight Night was his first limited series, a form that has become more common in the streaming era. Brewer compares the experience to shooting an eight-hour movie. Brewer directed the first two and last two episodes, and collaborated on the writing of the entire series. He describes the process as a mixture of careful prep and on-the-fly improv.

“I got a call from Shaye saying, ‘We got this idea to do the scene between Sam Jackson and Don Cheadle in an interrogation room,’” Brewer recalls. “We locked ourselves in a room and banged out this scene, probably had it written by like 8 o’clock, 9 o’clock at night. Then, the following morning, I went down to the sound stage and there they were, doing the scene that mere hours ago we had worked on. It’s amazing how fast it all happened. It was just so special because there’d be these moments where Shaye and I would write something, and we knew, ‘Okay, right here, Sam’s gonna probably make this part better. So let’s move on and know that he’s gonna come up with something great to say here — and sure enough, he did! It was this great moment of watching these titans just being amazing.”

Kevin Hart, one of the driving forces behind the development of the series, took the most chances. One of the best-known comedians in the country found a new lane as a dramatic actor. “I had a moment where I saw something that I had never seen before, and it kind of knocked me on my ass,” says Brewer. “It’s in episode two where Kevin Hart’s character is in grave danger, and he has to make a plea for his life. I’m sitting there at my monitor, and I watch Kevin make this tearful plea. That was one of the most real things I’ve ever seen an actor do. I remember just sitting there in awe thinking, ‘How could someone as successful as Kevin Hart actually have a whole other store of talent inside of him that we’ve yet to see? How can it be that he could drop everything that he is as the funniest man on the planet and actually be a dramatic actor?’ You make an assumption about a person, that maybe they don’t have this particular arrow in their quiver, and then suddenly they hit a bull’s-eye. I was stunned. Everyone was stunned. Terrence came up to me and he goes, ‘That cat’s the real deal.’”

Making the Music

Fight Night is set in 1970, a high point in the history of soul, funk, and R&B music. For Scott Bomar, producer and musician behind such acts as The Bo-Keys, that’s his wheelhouse. Bomar and Brewer have worked together on five movie and TV projects, beginning with Hustle & Flow in 2005. “I feel like I got spoiled working with him early on because he’s so musical,” Bomar says. “I find that the way Craig shoots, the way he directs his actors, the way he edits, it’s got a rhythm to it. I’ve worked with him enough now to kind of know what his rhythm is.”

Bomar says he was in “summer home repair mode” when Brewer called him out of the blue. “He said, I’m working on this TV show. Theoretically, if you had this gig, would you be able to do it? Are you available? And I’m like, sure, yeah. I can do it. I knew it was a pretty quick turnaround, but I had no idea exactly how quick of a turnaround it was. I think there were people involved who had their doubts on whether or not it was possible to do what we did in the amount of time we did it.”

Mixing engineer Jake Ferguson and composer Scott Bomar lent their talents to the series. (Photo: Chris McCoy)

Bomar and Brewer recorded the score to Fight Night at Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis. They had one week to take each episode from concept to final mix. “I can’t say enough about my collaboration with Scott Bomar,” says Brewer. “It’s something that truly is a collaboration. I see the scene, and Scott and I start just kind of grooving to a beat, to a track that has yet to be written. We start with rhythm. It really is kind of a Memphis way of doing it.”

Bomar enlisted several of his stable of veteran Memphis players, including drummer Willie Hall, who played on Isaac Hayes’ “Theme From Shaft.” Joe Restivo played guitar; Mark Franklin, Kirk Smothers, and Art Edmaiston contributed horn parts, along with Kameron Whalum, Gary Topper, and Yella P. Behind the board were veteran producer Kevin Houston and Jake Ferguson, who recently returned to Memphis after collaborating with superstar producer Mark Ronson. Most recently, Ferguson worked on the soundtrack to Barbie. “I feel like Craig came in and basically taught a master class on TV scoring,” Ferguson says.

“It’s quite a bit different than film because the schedule’s so accelerated,” says Bomar.

A 1970s vintage mini Moog synthesizer Bomar found in a closet at Sam Phillips Recording played a major role in creating the series’ soundscapes. In some cases, Bomar says they didn’t have time to assemble a full band, so he would have to play almost all of the instruments himself. “I’d say that this is the closest thing to a solo record I’ve ever made,” he laughs.

“It was fascinating to hear Scott and Craig talk about Atlanta in the ’70s and all the inspirations they had,” says Ferguson. “Musically, it was so cool to see how we can take, quote, unquote, ‘modern instruments’ and make them feel like you’re back in the ’70s. When we finished the first two episodes, it was just incredible to see how much the scenes would come to life with the music we added.”

“When we had the first mix, one of the producers said, ‘We asked Scott to do the impossible, and he’s done it,’” says Bomar. “That’s one of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten.”

Final Fight

The first three episodes of Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist premiered on Peacock Thursday, September 5th. New episodes will drop every Thursday for the next five weeks. The night before it hit streaming, there was a star-studded premiere at Lincoln Center in New York City. I interviewed Brewer the next morning, as he was beginning preparations for his next project, a film he wrote called Song Sung Blue starring Hugh Jackman. The director was still reeling from the reception to Fight Night. “When you’re dealing with a brand like Will Packer and Kevin Hart, that means it’s gonna be a party. You can’t just do wine and cheese and a floral arrangement. There were dancers dressed in some of the outfits from the show. There was a Cadillac in the middle of the dance floor. It’s just a party and everybody was there! My son [Graham], I had to pull his ass off the dance floor last night at like 1 a.m., saying, ‘I gotta work, son! Let’s go!’ But he was out there, doing the wobble with everybody else. … It was such a great thing to see it with a crowd. Yeah, I think we got a great show here.”

Tags Craig Brewer, Don Cheadle, Fight Night, Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, film, Kevin Hart, Memphis, Muhammad Ali, Peacock, Samuel L. Jackson, Scott Bomar, Shaye Ogbonna, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard, TV