Category: Opinion

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Festival International

CREDIT: Photo by John Haley

It was exactly 6:07 p.m. on a Friday when we ordered our first Abita on our way to the Vermilion Stage to see a group from French Guiana (reggae to zouk). We had made the trip in just under seven hours and were ready for a break from Memphis music.

In its 15th year, the Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette, Louisiana, packs in nearly 200,000 people for five days of world music, offering a wonderful alternative to our own Beale Street Music Fest, or for that matter that other festival in New Orleans you’ve heard so much about. Actually, the Southern Arts Foundation claims Festival International “surpasses the New Orleans Jazz Festival in scope and variety of performance.” A word of caution, however: Be ready for a major difference — no drunks, no fights!

The Mouton sisters attribute the atmosphere to their culture. Cajun grannies from Lafayette, they have never missed a festival. We met them as we maneuvered through a sea of chairs for a front-row position for the Super Rail Band de Bamako from Mali, a group we would eagerly see again the next day. “We’re such a friendly culture that nobody fights,” they bragged.

We didn’t argue the point, but in our combined years touring festivals, never have we witnessed a more amiable gathering. The police? They actually wave and ask if they can help. Lines for the porta-potty? Forget it. Beer lines? Be ready with your tickets before you get there. You prefer Tequila shots? No problem. The Continental flight attendants who volunteered to man (and woman) that booth (all drinks were donated by the distributors) were more than happy to help. One lime or two?

With a paid staff of only four, the festival relies on over 1,000 volunteers to keep the gathering free to the public. And this on a budget of $400,000. (The government of Quebec not only has a tourist booth, it’s actually a contributing sponsor.)

Spread over a 12-square-block area in downtown Lafayette, the festival features five stages with nearly 500 musicians from 14 countries. And the food — oh, the food. What do you follow your alligator kabob with? Crawfish maque choux or boudin? How about a bread pudding or freshly boiled crawfish? We sampled these and many more during our three-day stay. With prices ranging from $3 to $5, who could complain? And we’ve never experienced oyster po-boys quite like those we had at Chris’ restaurant on Jefferson Street. Not overcooked, the oysters exploded in your mouth — all 11 of them.

Mousta Largo’s Mektoub Tour at the Lafayette Stage interrupted our eating. Based in Belgium, this astounding Moroccan group performed Maltian reggae, Moroccan salsa, and Argentinean flamenco. They even entertained the kids with tales of the Arabian nights the next day at La Place des Enfants, a stage reserved for the under-10 set.

When the schedule ends around 11 each night, anyone up for more music migrates to the Grant Street Dance Hall. Fortunately, we had enough energy left to go and be there the night when the best band in the world played (except for maybe the Rolling Stones). The festival program describes Suroit as “pure energy on stage,” and we wouldn’t argue that. For nearly three hours they performed what their manager labeled “traditionnelle Celtique de haute mer” (traditional Celtic of the high sea).

The group hails from Iles de la Madeleine, a small island group off the coast of Nova Scotia. “We are Cajuns just like you,” the accordionist said while introducing a song that could have migrated with the 18th-century Acadians to Louisiana. Their mix of fiddle, accordion, bagpipes, and mandolin, backed by drums and guitar, made for quite a show. After securing a promise from the manager that he would try to book them into the Hi-Tone in the near future, it was back to our motel for a few hours’ sleep.

When in Lafayette we usually reserve our Saturday morning for a pilgrimage to Mamou, just northwest of the city. Fred’s Lounge is the place to hear authentic Cajun music broadcast live on a local AM station. The small bar recently celebrated its 50th anniversary and on any given Saturday you might sip your Bloody Mary next to a biker from California, a student from Australia, or a Fontenot from Eunice.

The festival tries to bring in new groups each year, consistent with its mission to introduce world music to Louisiana. Although there are mostly groups from French-speaking nations (the festival bills itself as the largest Francophone event in the country), there are occasionally others. The Puerto Rican salsa band Jimmy Bosch and the hard rock of the Native-American band Indigenous are two examples.

Of the nearly 100 performances over the weekend, about 40 percent are regional Cajun groups. At Stage Louisiane you could attend a workshop in traditional Acadian music or marvel at master fiddler Rodney Fontenot. Undoubtedly, the surprise of the festival was the French band Les Yeux Noirs (the Black Eyes). The group was concerned that their music might not be appreciated in Cajun country; they shouldn’t have worried.

“The French know the music of Eastern Europe, but what about America?” asked Eric Flabiak, the lead fiddler. The members’ ethnic mix includes Russian, Polish, and Romanian. Previously known as the Black-eyed Gypsy Soul Sensation, their passionate songs, some in Yiddish, soon had the audience roaring its approval, forcing two encores.

By the time Sunday rolled around we were drinking nothing but bottled water. Unfortunately, one of the few cancellations of the festival was the Mahotella Queens from South Africa, who in the early 1960s experimented with traditional African music, rhythm and blues, soul, marabi (South African Jazz), and American gospel. Their music became the anthem of the resistance to apartheid.

Suroit (did we say they were the best band in the world?) played again that afternoon, and after Zachary Richard finished his set at 4 p.m. we were ready to face the trek back to Memphis. We were home before midnight carrying some of the best musical memories of our lives.

To access the festival’s Web site, go to www.festivalinternational.com. For more information on world-music festivals see Peter Gabriel’s womad (world of music, arts, and dance) site at www.womad.org.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

Equine Scatology

To the Editor:

I was thoroughly disgusted by your favorable cover story about Hickman Ewing Jr. (“Me and Bill and Hillary,” May 10th issue) and the Whitewater investigation. His assertion that “the whole matter would have ended if Susan McDougal had provided required testimony” is equine scatology. Ken Starr blatantly extended his legislated authority, anointing himself as some sort of latter-day Cato the Elder, and wasted more than $50 million in a calculated witch hunt to find something, anything, with which to bring down the president, a Democrat.

Sure, Bill lied, but what was he lying about? A tryst that bore no relation to his capacity to govern the nation and that really wasn’t our business. And that’s why he was acquitted by the Senate. The most revealing event of the impeachment process was when that Dimsdale, Robert Livingston, stepped up to the podium and ceremoniously fell on his sword. I regret that this was the result of evidence that Larry Flynt paid to obtain; albeit no slimier than the slush-fund that kept Paula Jones, and therefore Starr, in the news.

Your portrayal of Ewing as a charming gentleman lawyer conceals the fact that he, as Starr’s minion, tried to usurp the Constitution. Atticus Finch he is not.

Ben King, Cordova

Nashville vs. Memphis

To the Editor:

I just picked myself up off the floor from laughing so damn hard at Rebekah Gleaves’ piece on Nashville (“Why I Left Nashville,” May 10th issue). Absolutely hysterical.

I grew up in Middle Tennessee and went to school in East Tennessee before moving to Memphis in 1993. I’ll be the first to admit that it was indeed a culture shock — not a negative one, just a different one. Memphis is a great city with an unmatched history (both good and bad) but an unfortunate self-esteem problem.

Nonetheless, I have never read an article about the two cities from someone who has actually tasted a little of both and enjoyed the realism of Memphis as opposed to the wannabe urban chic that Nashville believes it has.

Jeffrey Phelps, Memphis

To the Editor:

The silicone vs. real thing analogy in Rebekah Gleaves’ piece was particularly apropos. Misconceptions abound with residents of both cities and it’s a shame that there can’t be better understanding, considering that both cities’ distinctive flavors are derived from their contributions to our musical heritage. Having lived in both for extended periods of time, I’d like to offer the following observations:

1) Most Memphians’ visions of Nashville as a soulless, money-driven, status-seeking, rhinestone cowboy of a town, though not entirely inaccurate, are over simplified. There are an incredible number of talented and artistic people living there and the selection of quality music of all kinds on the local level is quite amazing. The ratio of bands/artists to clubs is much higher than in Memphis, which, of course, makes it almost impossible to make a living working in clubs (hence the preponderance of “singer-songwaiters”). The 300-pound gorilla of “country” music (as well as the 200-pound gorilla of “Contemporary Christian” music) sucks a lot of these talented people in, stifling creativity and nuance in the name of corporate profit.

2) Most Nashvillians’ visions of Memphis as a simmering armpit of racial division, crime, and slow-cooked pig meat are way over simplified. It used to grate on my nerves to hear white Nashvillians (most of whom had never set foot in Shelby County) prattle on about how everything in Memphis was “racial.” Easy words from people in a city whose white to black ratio is 80/20, where black people have virtually no say in local affairs. Memphis has a long way to go in race relations, but we’ve come a lot farther up that mountain than Nashville has even bothered to attempt. The Nashville media feed into this not-so-subtle racism by reporting mostly unfavorable news about Memphis, playing up the supposed “jealousy” Memphis has toward Nashville, and wishing that we’d be annexed by Mississippi.

Memphis has nothing to be jealous of and Nashville has no cause to feel superior to us, except that they have more money, a pretty shallow reason. Sports teams don’t make cities better places to live; educated, culturally aware, civic-minded people do. And my Rev. Al Green greatest hits CD sounds pretty good back-to-back with my O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack CD.

Ross Rice, Memphis

A Bad System

To the Editor:

The current “system” for open enrollment for the Memphis City Schools is ridiculous. What are single parents supposed to do? What about poorer families that cannot afford for either parent to take a day (or days) off work to stand in line or answer the roll-call.

When you have a process like the one in place, it will inevitably break down. Why not use a simple lottery system? If you want your child to go to a certain school under the open-enrollment plan, you put your name in the pot and hope it is called. This is the only method that is fair to all parents of children in the school system.

Nancy S. Pearson, Memphis

The Memphis Flyer encourages reader response. Send mail to: Letters to the Editor, POB 1738, Memphis, TN 38101. Or call Back Talk at 575-9405. Or send us e-mail at letters@memphisflyer.com. All responses must include name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters should be no longer than 250 words.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Memphis Blues

What a weekend, right? Here is some fresh prose commemorating it, of
special interest to us Memphians:

“There’s only one Bob Dylan.

“The singular place in history of the great folk-rock
singer-songwriter, who’s riding a crest of popularity as he nears his 60th
birthday, was one of the driving forces behind last night’s huge turnout at
the …

“Nashville River Stages festival.” ?!

Nope, no misprint. During the same three days that Memphis was
engaging in its annual three-day riverfront music festival, Nashville was
engaging in its three-day riverfront music festival. There may be only
one Bob Dylan, but there were two places for him to hang out and stretch his
legend last weekend.

In Nashville on Saturday night, as writer Thomas Goldsmith noted
in The Tennessean, Dylan made sure to do songs from 1969’s Nashville
Skyline (and a selection from Roy Acuff as well). In Memphis on Sunday
night, Dylan made sure to do “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis
Blues Again.” No problem: Like Walt Whitman, Bob Dylan is large. He
contains multitudes. There’s enough of him to go around.

But why should Tennessee’s two major cities be competing on this
brand-new front? Or is this to be regarded more as the proverbial
embarrassment of riches? The Beale Street Music Festival, as we know, was sold
out for its three-day run and set all-time attendance records. And we have
Thomas Goldsmith’s word for it that the turnout in Nashville was
“huge.”

Sporadically, over the years and over the past few weeks,
especially, as Memphis seemed about to gather its political and civic wits in
an effort to draw even with Nashville on the big-league sports front, I have
observed the unusual sense of rivalry that seems to exist between the two
Tennessee towns.

Rivalry, hell! Sometimes it looks like pure detestation, as when
my friend Larry Daughtrey, a distinguished political writer for The
Tennessean and normally the very model of analytical decorum, got off
some roundhouse shots at Memphis a few weeks back. I have previously quoted
these a place or two; not to overdo, he used terms like “perpetual
inferiority complex,” “simmering mess,” “racial
conflicts,” “nagging poverty,” “substandard schools,”
and “sweltering August heat” by way of characterizing our town and
its alleged envy of — and hatred for — Nashville.

A word apropos (which I have also uttered before, more or
less): Memphis does not “envy” Nashville, much less “hate”
said catch-up sister city, and any resentment that comes along with the
relationship is better characterized as a kind of annoyance with the fact that
Nashvillians seem to expect some sort of envy as their due.

Does the boogie “envy” the two-step? Give me a
break!

As for that Tennessean sportswriter– one A.S. (for
“Social”) Climber, as I recall — who characterized Memphis as
“Newark” to Nashville’s “Manhattan” a few seasons back,
we’ll take our North Mississippi Allstars (William Faulkner, Shelby Foote et
al.) over your Fugitives (Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, and company);
our Esperians and Piazzas over your Dinah Shores; and our Mississippi over
your Cumberland. Just for starters. As for impact on popular culture, music,
especially, c’mon. Music Row’s is a mile wide; Sun/Stax/Volt’s is a mile
deep.

But I rove. No need for these back-alley measuring contests.
There are treasures in both towns. Ask Bob Dylan. As for the eternal question
— Oh, Mama, can this really be the end? — the answer to that one sort
of depends on which town you’re stuck in on a given weekend night. And which
way you’re headed next on I-40.

Flyer senior editor Jackson Baker covers state and local
politics and often heads both ways on I-40.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Why I Left Nashville

All the NBA talk these days seems to have resurrected the sibling rivalry
between Memphis and Nashville. But contrary to Bluff City beliefs, it’s more
city envy than rivalry. Most Nashvillians only think about Memphis long enough
to say, “I wish it would just fall into the river,” “Isn’t that
the largest city in Mississippi?” or simply, “Memphis is such an
armpit.”

Actually that last one was mine. Having grown up in Nashville,
that’s what I used to tell tourists when they asked me if visiting Memphis was
worth the three-hour drive. I’d puff up and insist that Memphis was a sweaty
den of misfits and crime, crumbling buildings and bad roads. And the faces of
these tourists, no doubt having envisioned a romanticized, Route 66-ish trek
to Graceland, would fall. For as a native Tennessean, I was an expert, even
though I’d never really been to Memphis.

So a couple of years ago, when I began telling people in
Nashville that I was moving to Memphis, I got looks of utter confusion. They
might have been less shocked if I had told them that I was getting reverse
liposuction so that I could add fat to my hips and thighs. And at first it did
seem like a bad move, so I drove back to Nashville every weekend. But the
longer I stayed away from Nashville, the sillier the Music City seemed.

Chalk it up to all the silicone and saline, the botoxed cheeks
and collagen-plumped lips. Even analogously speaking, Nashville is a breast
implant and Memphis is the real thing. Implants are fake and look perfect.
Real breasts, however, are apt to sag, have stretch marks, and be irregular.
It’s all a matter of preference, really. But most everyone I’ve talked to that
has a preference seems to agree that implants just feel weird. And that’s why
I’ve stayed in Memphis.

You can only take so much of a porcelain-veneered city before
your psyche starts screaming for reality. The latest U.S. census figures
missed some important factors — like the massive numbers of retro-cowboy cool
boys in Nashville or how many men in that city consider fashion to be a white
spandex T-shirt with a tacky gold chain and a nipple ring. Sporting
aggressively gelled hairstyles, they rapidly drop their ever-present platinum
cards and hold huge, phallic cigars while constantly eyeing their
conspicuously parked Ferraris. And that’s just the men. Never mind the roving
posses of attention-starved, puddle-deep Shania Twins or the endless
supply of songwriters. Even my dry cleaner there had a demo tape and a
publishing deal. (I took to calling them “singer-songwaiters” before
I left.)

Plus, it’s not the town to be in if, like me, you’ve got a low
tolerance for Contemporary Christian Music stars hanging out in titty bars
while hard-line Baptists talk only about keeping a lottery out of the
state.

I tired of the fake smiles and even faker laughs, and the fake
hair plugs and fake extensions that cap the fake-orange tans. Oh, and then
there’s the cocaine. And the cocaine. And did I mention the cocaine? After I
moved, one of my favorite bars in Nashville combined the men’s and women’s
bathrooms into one (a la Ally McBeal) and installed nose-level mirrored
shelves on the walls. Just to make a quick snort even quicker, you know, keep
the line — the bathroom line, that is — from getting too long.

In fact, a typical night out in Nashville goes something like
this: You have drinks in one bar and then dinner in the trendy-nouvelle-
California-pan-Asian restaurant of the moment with the hottest dumb hostesses
and hottest dumb bartenders. After dinner, you have drinks in another trendy-
nouvelle bar, but in this one the servers wear all black and never, ever
smile. Next you hit a meat market bar (because even the married people seem
single in Nashville), where “everyone” drinks a jumbo-sized
raspberry-coconut-lime-martini and yells into their cell phones the whole time
because “there’s no one here,” though the line at the bar is three-
deep. “Everyone” then heads downtown to the corporately owned dance
club of the moment.

After dancing for an hour or so, “everyone” decides
that it’s lame, if they hadn’t decided that the moment they entered. So you go
to the new as-yet-unproven club, and it’s packed, and “everyone’s
there,” so you stay until it closes. And then you go to an after-hours
club, do whatever bathtub drug is en vogue and drink a lot of bottled water.
(In the über-trendy club scene, alcohol is passé.)

These are the reasons why I left. Seriously, People of Memphis,
stop with all this sibling-rivalry talk. Why would you want Memphis to be
Nashville? With all of the sprawl to the south, sprawl to the north, sprawl to
the east and the west, Nashville is hell-bent on first becoming the “next
Atlanta” and then the “next L.A.” — and I don’t know about
you, but I hate both of those cities. I’ll take Memphis’ grit and, well, soul
over Nashville’s plasticized and airbrushed takes on reality any day.
It stopped being a cool place to live about 10 years ago when someone on Music
Row realized that “cool” could be marketed, exaggerated, adulterated
— and ruined.

Nashville’s a shopping mall of a city. Everything is clean,
perfect, and meticulously showcased for your browsing pleasure — a Pottery
Barn-ed, nonoffensive collection of mediocre attractions and “something
for everyone” offerings. I’ll pass. Give me some dirt, some grit, some
depth, and soul. And keep your implants to yourself.

You can e-mail Rebekah Gleaves at gleaves@memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

More NBA

To the Editor:

Now is the time when we all need to pull together and support the
NBA in Memphis. We can’t just sit and watch Memphians continue spending the
entertainment dollars in Tunica. We must provide more high-profile
entertainment.

Even more importantly, an NBA team will help other employers
recruit top-level talent to the city. If the NBA comes, we’ll be the only city
within a six-state radius to have a team. We are a city ready for growth. We
have a local group, and FedEx, who are ready and able to invest in this
project.

We can’t let this opportunity pass us by. A new arena is needed,
and the pursuit team has already developed a financial plan that creates a
viable and effective public-private partnership. I urge you to support the
efforts to bring an NBA team to Memphis.

Michael H. Thompson, Chairman and CEO, Thompson & Company,
Memphis

To the Editor:

To the professional, testosterone-driven corporate supporters of
the $250 million Grizzlies arena I offer a deal: I will vote “aye”
and work hard for a referendum that irrevocably ties a publicly financed arena
to a consolidation of county and city — administration, courts, police,
health department, schools, etc. The savings from a unified metro government
like the one in Nashville would probably pay for the white elephant arena in
25 years.

It’s not the lack of a money-sucking, declining sports team that
makes us a small town but rather a racially divided, patronage-driven,
inefficiently run government.

Gene Katz, Memphis

To the Editor:

The arena could be built in exchange for letting the public own a
minority share of the NBA team. Offer 5 million shares at $50 each. A pursuit
team with an ownership group of 500,000 people would send a powerful message
that Memphis is ready. NBA Now.

Teddy King, Memphis

Dog Deaths

To the Editor:

I just finished reading your puff piece on the Memphis Animal
Shelter (“A Dog’s Life,” April 26th issue). You say that they are
doing the best they can under the circumstances and the problem will be fixed
with a new building.

The problem with this city murdering 13,000 dogs a year will not
be fixed with a new building, though I suspect they will become more efficient
at what they are doing. Las Vegas has adopted an aggressive “zero
euthanasia” policy for its animal shelter, as have Dallas, New York, and
Phoenix. A new building won’t cure anything without a fundamental change in
thinking on the part of our city managers.

Your newspaper could be a voice for the 13,000 dogs who die each
year. Instead, you preach that things will be better in the “sweet by-
and-by.”

Clark D. King, Memphis

Festival Moments

To the Editor:

You won’t see this in the CA, I bet: When Bob Dylan’s bus
came down the Riverwalk to the south (AutoZone) stage at the Beale Street
Music Fest, the full moon was shining down. And in the bus’ front windows
three “full moons” shone upon us as well!

That’s okay, what a great show they put on!

Dan Spector, Memphis

To the Editor:

It’s no wonder that America is losing its war on drugs. After
attending the Memphis in May music festival Sunday afternoon, it appears that
we have already surrendered. I had expected to see the usual sloppy drunks
down there but was surprised to be surrounded by kids smoking methamphetamine
in glass pipes, adults selling drugs, and the air saturated with dope smoke.
There were no signs of any attempt to curb the open use of drugs. This was
particularly disturbing when I saw very young children with their parents.
What are they thinking when they see teenagers doing this?

I suppose that like everything else in our culture today money is
the supreme ruler. Perhaps calculations have been made indicating that not
allowing drugs into the festival would cut attendance and reduce profits.
Reduced profits are no longer an option in our society, for any reason.

This will be my last visit to the festival.

Roy Tamboli, Memphis

The Memphis Flyer encourages reader response. Send mail to:
Letters to the Editor, POB 1738, Memphis, TN 38101. Or call Back Talk at 575-
9405. Or send us e-mail at letters@memphisflyer.com. All responses must
include name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters should be no longer
than 250 words.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Getting Game

As any veteran basketball fan can tell you, many an important game is lost
in the last quarter, when nerves or a loss of focus or maybe just an imperfect
game plan can do a team in. At this writing, only weeks remain before the
National Basketball Association and Vancouver Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley
will make a decision on whether or not to relocate the Grizzlies to Memphis
for next season. We’re in the last quarter, all right.

It is impossible to say how Memphis’ latest quest for a major-
league sports franchise will come out, but the local would-be owners’ group
and its associated booster organization, NBA Now, are making the kind of
adjustments that could end up putting enough points on the board to build a
new arena and bring the Grizzlies here.

For one thing, the local pursuit team’s principals, notably
including its tireless spokesperson Gayle Rose, have opened up their game a
bit, practicing candor with the news media, local government bodies, and the
community at large. We, all of us, now know a good deal more then we did about
the separate funding sources proposed by the ownership group and Mayors
Herenton and Rout and how they’re intended to generate a revenue stream for
the arena.

We know enough, in fact, to be reasonably certain, as we
suspected in the first place, that some substantial private money is going to
be needed to defray the costs of building a new arena from scratch. Enough
static has come out of Nashville, where the General Assembly has so far not
even decided on revenue sources to meet the state’s basic needs, that the $40
million the ownership group was hoping to get from the legislature now seems a
remote possibility at best. At least $20 million, and possibly more, will have
to come from as-yet-unknown sources to flesh out the entire $250 million
package.

We therefore welcome the announcement this week by one of the
principals, J.R. “Pitt” Hyde, that the ownership group is
“trying to put something together” that would cover the expected $20
million shortfall with private funding. Hyde was just a mite coy about it —
suggesting various solutions short of an outright commitment from himself and
other members of the ownership group to put more money in. They’re already
investing generous sums to acquire equity in the team, but this money stays in
the family, so to speak, and doesn’t filter directly back into the community.
The proposed arena would become a tangible asset, an enduring part of the
city’s infrastructure, and the need for private money there is not just a
financial reality, it is a symbolic one.

Some doubts remain about construction of a new NBA-worthy arena,
not just in the councils of state government but in those of city and county
government as well. Many citizens still need to be convinced of its value, and
virtually everybody who’s looked into the matter is somewhat suspicious of the
arena’s price tag, wondering if the costs can’t be lowered a bit.

But, on the evidence of the last couple of weeks, the proponents
of an NBA franchise are keeping their heads and making some right moves. They
have a far better chance of both success and community support than they
started with.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

Flagging Interest

To the Editor:

The people of Mississippi have spoken. They had the chance to take off the dunce cap, but, just like the jock afraid that getting the question the teacher asked right will make him seem uncool, they decided cool is better than smart, or for this matter, decent.

Whether we as white people ever realize and admit it or not, there definitely is a debt owed to the black people of this nation. Part of the foundation of the economic prosperity we enjoy today was built upon the subjugation of an entire race of people.

If we want to take history for what it is, which seems to be the case for so many advocates of the Confederate flag, then we must do so wholly and without exception. Maybe the flag in question was not originally intended to be a symbol of oppression, but that is what it became, and that is what it stands for today.

And this is the symbol the people of Mississippi choose to represent them. Maybe it was poetic justice that on the same day this vote was cast I learned of the government study that ranked Mississippi dead last in education.

Kevin Vaughn, Memphis

Air Ball

To the Editor:

While your editorial (April 12th issue) raises some legitimate questions about the NBA arena financing, I believe it missed in two important ways.

Who cares if Gayle Rose and Pitt Hyde aren’t life-long NBA fans? They are trying to help Memphis realize a long-held dream of bringing a major-league sports team to the city. You may argue with the deal they propose, but your assertion that they aren’t “really hardcore basketball fans” seems a petty criticism.

And you write that there has been no appreciable demonstration of public support. True. But I don’t think that means the deal is artificial. I believe what it really means is that Memphians, having been disappointed and embarrassed so many times before by the teams we did not get, are going to hang back until we see that it is real. Just six weeks ago, no more than a handful of Memphians could even imagine landing an NBA team. Now, even though the deal seems close to reality, it’s still hard for most Memphians to believe it will actually happen. Just give it a little time to sink in. I predict people will be celebrating in the streets.

Let’s get answers to the remaining questions, cut a reasonable deal, and get this done for Memphis.

Carol Coletta, Memphis

Utility Peculations?

To the Editor:

While public officials were busy pillorying the Flyer for its overstatement of the amount taxpayers have had to pay for our sheriff’s peculations, an article of major importance apparently escaped the attention of both our elected officials and the community at large. Rebekah Gleaves’ article about the MLGW winter heating bill rip-off (“The ‘Perfect’ Storm,” April 12th issue) was first-class stuff and detailed the gouging Memphians have received at the hands of their public utility.

Where is the outrage of our public officials about the fleecing we all knew we were the victims of, and what steps are being taken to call the utility to task and force it to be accountable for its fraud (i.e., telling us it was magnanimously reducing our winter bills knowing we would instead be experiencing a 100 percent or more increase)? When can the rate-payers expect that action will be taken to return the millions of dollars in excessive charges we were forced to pay by a utility that seems more interested in feathering its own nest than in serving its constituency? And where was our newspaper “of record” during all this? Dutifully acting as MLGW’s lackey, of course, passing along, with every self-serving bit of the utility’s public relations pap.

Thank goodness for the doggedness of Ms. Gleaves’ investigation. Look out, MLGW. You’re being watched.

Martin H. Aussenberg, Memphis

Burning Bush

To the Editor:

Richard Cohen said it best in his article “An Arsenic Era” (Viewpoint, April 19th issue): Bush may be as dumb as we thought he was. It’s nice to know that if there’s money to be made, Bush is going to do his best to make sure he and his buddies get it. Forget our environment, what’s important is that Bush gets every drop of oil from the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and anywhere else he sees fit to drill. The air is still breathable, so why do we need to sign the Kyoto Treaty? What we really need to do is make sure none of the corporations lose any money because of the restrictions the treaty would place on them.

It must be terrible if you’re a CEO and you see forests that need to be torn down, air that needs to be polluted, or toxic waste that needs to be dumped, but you’re unable to do so. What do you do then? Well, obviously Bush has the plan: You appoint those CEOs — the people who contributed the most to your campaign fund — as our leaders. Corporate leaders control our media, jobs, and lives, so why shouldn’t they do the same with our politics.

Joe Stanley, Memphis

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Categories
Opinion

Karmic Relations

I was raised a Catholic. I went to church every Sunday, religious education every Wednesday, and ice cream socials every summer. These days I’ve lapsed, which basically means that I can’t get out of bed on Sundays. I want to, I do, but it is just physically impossible.

This, I’ve found, makes me more open to other religions. One Friday, my friend and I were hopping from restaurant to restaurant, hoping that somewhere had a wait less than three hours long. Eventually, we were seated so far in a corner that our waitress had to use a mirror on a stick to take our orders. Needless to say (as I did not have a mirror on a stick), scoping out the other diners for possible dates was out of the question. So my friend and I had to resort to talking instead.

After an hour or so, our food was still lost in the kitchen and we had run out of her gossip, my gossip, celebrity gossip, and political gossip and had resorted to talking about spiritual matters: in particular, dating karma. If you cheat, love too much, love too little, or lie, does it come back to you in kind?

Now, if that’s the rule of the universe, I’m in trouble. It’s not that I’ve been a raging bitch to my past likes, loves, and lusts, it’s just that, well, I have icewater in my veins. And that can’t bode well with karma.

After dinner, my friend headed off to hang out with her boyfriend (obviously her karma is much better than mine. But what can I say? She’s Hindu, so it’s more her bag), and I sauntered off to the Hi-Tone to drink a beer and listen to a band. I was ignoring everyone in the crowd until a man directly behind me tried to get my attention. I turned and raised my hand and hit him in the face.

(Last time this happened I was at Young Avenue Deli and the guy trying to talk to me was rather intoxicated, the music was rather loud, and as he came in close to yell something witty in my ear, the bill of his cap hit me in the eye. And it hurt, so I raised my hand, ostensibly to keep my eyeball from falling out, and instead slapped him across the face, and that was the end of that.)

But this guy wasn’t fazed and offered to buy me a drink. I could say it was a nice gesture, but I would just be saying that to make myself look good. He looked a bit older than me and he had that smooth sort of veneer that makes me cringe. Plus, I already had a beer, so I excused myself. Okay, I didn’t really excuse myself; I just turned around and walked away.

The next day I was out walking my dog around my apartment building. Now there happens to be this cute guy who lives in the building. And let me just say for the record, I am not stalking him. I haven’t changed my daily routine or used binoculars or gone through his trash.

But I am keeping an eye on him. The importance of face time should never be underestimated. If someone doesn’t know you’re alive, it’s very difficult to get busy with said person.

So I’m in the parking lot with little Fluffy and there he is, cute apartment guy, bearing down upon us.

“Can I pet your puppy?” he asked.

My puppy is friendlier than Kathie Lee Gifford on speed. She regularly throws her entire body upon my neighbors; she has french-kissed my postman; she has french-kissed me. There was no way this guy was getting out of petting her, not when he was within leash range. But I couldn’t tell him that.

I couldn’t tell him that, because suddenly I had forgotten how to speak. Nothing would come out. Not “She’d love that.” Not “Go right ahead.” Not “Yes.”

No, I just stood there, in my sweatshirt and early Saturday morning makeup (read: makeup left over from Friday night) and smiled weakly.

Finally, after an unusually long silence (I’m not kidding about this; he probably thought I was mute) I blurted out, “Didn’t you used to drive a blue car?” Immediately I thought, Damn. Now he’s going to think I’m stalking him. Which, as I have said before, I’m not.

“Yeah, I just bought that one last week,” he said and gestured behind him. Meanwhile my mind is racing:Tell him you’re a journalist. Tell him you’re trained in observation. Tell him you have a photographic memory. Tell him something!

But what did I say? “Oh, I thought you had just repainted it.”

Well, that pretty much ruined the moment, and he went his way and I went mine. It might have just been my own ineptitude. But there’s that other option: Should I take this as a sign that karma does exist? Because he’s cute, but he isn’t that cute. Certainly not speechless, tongue-swollen-in-mouth cute.

I guess from here on I’m going to try an experiment: I’m going to actually try and be nice to people. It’s going to take a lot of work, but it’s been something my mother has been saying I need to do for years. And if it comes back to me in kind, well, I might think about converting. Then again, would that mean I’d have to get up on Sundays? Because, like I said, I just can’t do it.

Read the latest installment of Falling into Disgraceland Fridays at www.memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

A Sisterly Feud

Legislators right now are about to get their nightgowns over their heads (as former Governor Ned Ray McWherter used to say, memorably) concerning a series of simmering disputes between the Davidson County legislative delegation and what we might call the Western Axis, meaning the General Assembly’s West Tennessee leadership in league with the Shelby County delegation.

All balled up in this are matters as mundane as parking places and as serious as a thermal plant and the projected basketball arena in Memphis.

The latest dispute to pop up was a quiet little bill to give the state veto power over Metro Nashville’s ability to close any street in conjunction with any event at the state Capitol, Legislative Plaza, or War Memorial Building.

As best as one can tell the bill is being pushed by the legislative leadership because at some time or other in the past some legislator got his or her nose out of joint because she or he could not get into the legislative parking lot under the plaza.

There is speculation that some legislators were in a snit because the plaza, including the legislative parking lot, was closed off twice this past year by the Secret Service for security reasons involving public appearances by then Vice President Al Gore during his presidential race.

Well, if our legislators think that a little state law is going to make any difference to the Secret Service, they better think twice. Any agency that could and did invade a funeral parlor unannounced and commandeer a hearse and a coffin for the just-assassinated President John Kennedy is not going to give a tinker’s damn whether a state legislator can get into his or her parking place.

In order to fully understand some of these legislative tug-of-wars, one has to understand that Nashville is not in the center of the state when it comes to power in the General Assembly. In fact, if you measured that power by weight, the fulcrum would probably be underneath a point near Jackson.

This uneven situation exists because so many of the big shots in the legislature hail from so far west. For instance, Rep. James Naifeh (D-Covington), Lt. Gov. John Wilder, and Attorney General Paul Summers are all from counties adjoining Shelby County, home of House Speaker Pro Tempore Lois DeBerry.

Thus, four of the most powerful state officials — three of them legislators — live so close to each other at the western edge of the state that a crow could fly from each of their homes to the other, take a little side trip for a drink from the Mississippi River, and arrive refreshed at the end of the circuit.

Another skirmish in this ongoing guerrilla warfare came recently over a bill, sponsored by Rep. Matt Kisber (D-Jackson) and Sen. Jim Kyle (D-Memphis), that attempts to block Metro Nashville from doing anything with its thermal plant that would raise the state’s cost of heating and cooling its downtown buildings.

Before a vote could be taken, Reps. Ben West and Mary Pruitt (both D-Nashville) began protesting, saying that Nashville mayor Bill Purcell was trying to work something out on the thermal plant. “I just noticed that several members of this committee are from Memphis,” West said. “Now it’s my understanding that Memphis might want some help from us on its pro basketball arena. These things can work both ways.”

“Is that blackmail?” one member of the committee shouted.

“You’re darn right it’s blackmail,” West snapped back.

Kisber agreed to delay his bill. In the meantime, it will be a question of whether legislators draw even more battle lines between Metro Nashville and the Western Axis, or if they will remember the advice of their former leader, Ned McWherter. He would advise them not only to keep their nightgowns below their heads but to cover their backsides as well.

Joseph Sweat is a free-lance writer from Nashville.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

“I Am a Man”

“It is history. It serves as a sounding board, and everybody I talk with has been overwhelmed by it.” That’s the quotation from Memphis photographer Ernest Withers with which Flyer staff writer Chris Davis began a profile/review in March of last year, on the eve of a national tour of Withers’ “Pictures Tell the Story” exhibit.

The exhibit, which was just then getting under way in Norfolk, Virginia, has passed through several American cities since then — leaving hosts of overwhelmed viewers in its wake, you may be sure — and has finally arrived home for an extended showing at Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

Withers is one of those indigenous artistic greats — some others, historically, have been Elvis, Carroll Cloar, Burton Callicott, William Eggleston, and, of course, that near neighbor, William Faulkner — whom the outer world began to celebrate long before we caught on to what we had with us. People everywhere owe their visual sense of what the civil-rights revolution was all about to some poignant or powerful Withers image. He is the photographic chronicler of the movement that transformed America and regenerated the country’s most noble dreams. Withers’ work is history, all right. It captures the pain and suffering of the time, along with the grandeur.

Many an eminence stands fully revealed in one of Withers’ candid snapshots — Martin Luther King, B.B. King, and the pitching genius Satchel Paige are just a few — but the most telling photograph the master ever took was probably one of massed picketers all holding signs reading “I Am a Man” during the valiant and troubled sanitation strike which eventually brought Dr. King to Memphis — and to the last tragic chapter in the Nobel Laureate’s destiny.

No more profound statement of the aspirations of Everyman to claim a fair share of life’s possibilities has ever been captured. Not in words. Not on canvas. Not on TV or in the movies.

Be sure of one thing. Withers himself, that witness to history, is properly overwhelmed by it, but he has never, not for a second, been overwhelmed by himself. No more modest a man exists than this gallant patriarch who in his own being encompasses so much of Memphis’ past and present (among other things, he was — way back in the 1940s — the city’s first black policeman) and who raised several children to maturity and distinction, all to make a daddy proud.

Two of Ernest Withers’ children died unexpectedly within months of each other a few years ago — his namesake oldest son and his son Teddy, who had been one of the founders 10 years ago of that political milestone, the “People’s Convention,” which would coalesce a new voting consensus and produce the city’s first African-American mayor, Willie Herenton.

Ernest Withers grieved and staggered under the burden of such an unkind double blow, but he never went down. Indeed, he kept on working and has continued to take the photographs that will document some of the pivotal moments of our time.

For now and for some while into the future, we trust, we have one in our midst who truly has the right to say, “I am a man.”