Category: Opinion

Categories
Opinion

Step By Step

They enter, arms akimbo, pink feathers flying. Three rosy boas dangle from each arm and silver rhinestones drip from each ear. On their faces are thousand-watt smiles; on their heads are fountains of feathers. Their bikinis sparkle as if woven with diamonds.

“I want to be a showgirl,” my friend whispers in the dark.

The seven women take the stage in a whirl of plumage, feather fans swishing furiously for the Isle of Capri Casino’s Las Vegas Nights show, a sampler platter of Vegas standards: magicians, comedians, singers, and stuntmen. They salsa to a Ricki Martin cover, tap like Lord of the Dance, perform the can-can.

I want to be up there, too.

Other women can get away with wearing bikinis (to the beach), gloves (black-tie functions), and fake eyelashes (um, around the house). But who else gets to wear tiaras or crowns on a daily basis, much less two-foot-tall trees of glitter and glitz on their heads? No one.

“Our lives are not like the movies,” one of the showgirls tells me after the show.

“No Gs,” a few of them say, almost in unison, referring to the Mississippi state law that forbids them from wearing a G-string on stage. They are seated around a table in the theater, still wearing their costumes from the finale, red bikini tops with silver studs and red trunks, talking about what a showgirl’s life is really like.

They work two shows a day, six days a week. They’re sore after every show; they’re always injured. They go to Wal-Mart after the show because their adrenaline is still pumping, and nothing else is open. Most shows run a couple of months — if that — so they almost literally live out of their suitcases.

“We all love dance,” says Chali Jennings, one of the featured dancers in the show. “You wouldn’t make it if you didn’t love it.”

As they speak, pieces of their costumes are taken off and discarded in a pile of finery in the middle of the table: red satin gloves, throat pieces adorned with beading, headdresses the size of small European countries. Even without the entire costumes, they have a uniform beauty: long, fake eyelashes, hair pulled back with wig caps, and rosy red cheeks.

“Everyday, we’re not glamorous,” they say. On their days off, they don’t wear makeup. They work out. They eat chocolate.

“There’s a minute when I feel glamorous,” one of them says. “When we get in the costumes, we are.”

And as much as it sounds like showgirling is hard work, I want to be glamorous, too. They show me and my friend how to turn the headdress upside down, hold the brim with both hands, lean our heads into the headdress, and scoop.

When I scoop, something is not quite right. An elastic strap is supposed to hang down from either side of the headdress and clasp underneath the chin to hold it in place. But somehow I’ve managed to get the whole thing on sideways. I take it off and try again. Again the elastic hangs down between my eyes like a limp noodle.

One of the dancers tucks the offending elastic into the band of the headdress and I totter a few steps in my sneakers. The few pounds of headdress wobble to and fro without the strap, keeping me off balance. The flash of my friend’s camera is not helping.

Balancing act: Kristi Rankin, left, and feathered friend.

“How in the heck do you dance in this thing?” I ask.

“Try it in three-inch heels,” Kristi Rankin, whose headdress I’m wearing, retorts.

Partly, they say, you just get used to it. But of course, there’re also years and years of dance training. All of the women, ages 19 to 26, have been dancing since before kindergarten. Which is a good thing, because they don’t get sick days.

“So if you have cramps you still have to dance?” my friend asks.

They giggle and Jennings says, “If you have a broken leg, you still have to dance.”

“The show must go on,” someone else adds.

When we get our photos back, well, my friend and I look like goobers. Goobers in big feather hats. Perhaps without the fake eyelashes and high heels, it just doesn’t work.

And then it hits me. The showgirls were the real magicians of the show. They were out there killing themselves and we didn’t see anything but the sparkle.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

A Tale Of Self-Absorption

My apologies to the spokespersons for liquid dietary supplements and all the local radio deejays who sing the praises of herbal diet pills. This is not an article about shortcuts in the weight-loss process as much as it is a caution to avoid the potentially fraudulent marketing pitches that permeate the diet industry.

One year ago in February I visited my physician for treatment of a minor infection. Part of the office visit routine involved the ritual weigh-in. To my dismay, I tipped the scales at a personal all-time high. I anxiously asked the doctor about the new generation of weight-loss drugs.

He told me that his experience was that people who lost weight on the medications invariably put the weight back on, and sometimes even gained more poundage after ending the prescription treatment. Some things just had to be done the good old-fashioned way, he said.

Driving home, I was embarrassed that I still had asked for a magic pill, even though I knew there was no such thing.

People don’t decide to change in a vacuum. It is our interaction with others that can have resonating effects. My experience was no different. My wife’s respectful attitude had always been that I would lose weight only when I decided the time was right. She had the wisdom not to hound me, but she’d been right. I also wanted to set a better example for my young daughter.

I took it all as a call to get back to basics. In a world where we cannot control all we might care to, it made sense to focus on the goals that are within reach. After all, at 40-something, I was essentially beginning the second half of my life.

Mine would be an “existential” diet, built on choices. It had taken a long time to put on the extra weight, so it was reasonable to assume that it would take a long time to get it off. I began restricting my fat intake and started to count calories. My target was 1,500 per day, with enough flexibility to max out at 2,000.

The key was always having the right kinds of food within easy reach. Portion-controlled foods are generally more expensive than bulk items, but I was willing to pay a premium for convenience and certainty. Ironically, as a family we actually spent more on food. The cost per pound of protein — often $8 to $10 a pound, including prepared and portioned soy products — is generally much higher than typical carbohydrates and fatty foods. The unexpected bargain was switching to the convenience of inexpensive instant oatmeal packets in the morning.

After taking on the sweaty rigors of yardwork to aid in burning calories, I started to average a two-pound-per-week weight loss. I never experienced extreme hunger, and with the better food choices, I never felt deprived. I marveled at how efficiently my body processed the portioned amounts of food. I was never one to weigh myself daily, but I could see the changes in my body shape emerge, initially in my face.

In fact, it wasn’t long before the neighborhood pizza delivery franchise sent me a note saying they missed our business, along with some attractive coupons.

As my weight slowly dropped my large-size wardrobe became totally useless to me. The joy of being back into a normal size range was tempered somewhat by the expense of having to put together a transition wardrobe. It’s particularly hard to make that investment when you have not yet reached your final size and the new clothes that you are buying, to some extent, are only temporary.

When the morphing process became more apparent, people invariably asked what prescription drug I was taking, or whether or not I was a disciple of the Suzanne Somers, Pritikin, or Weight Watchers programs. (One person even asked me if I was experiencing an illness.) It is, however, intriguing how so many people who haven’t seen me in a while have all said the same thing: “You’re a shadow of your former self.”

People respect weight loss. But trying to tell folks that you have undertaken a “lifestyle change” doesn’t have much sizzle or impact. This January, when the media turned its focus to post-holiday dieting, an article on the USA Today Web site coined the term “CRE” — chronically restrained eating. New research indicated that the only people who lost weight and kept it off were practitioners of CRE. Finally I had found an explanatory term to satisfy curious inquirers.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about food choices and the amount I eat. I eliminate most of the poor choices and my body has relearned the sense of fullness that non-obese people enjoy. Food tastes better because I have learned to savor the flavors.

The toughest unexpected challenge is being around people who are not yet ready to deal with their weight situation. I let them know that their food choices are a completely neutral event to me and refrain from talking about my weight loss unless they bring up the subject. Then I share my conviction that they will only take action when the time is right for them.

Last month, almost one year since my turning-point visit to his office, I went to see my doctor again. It was both amusing and satisfying to witness his double-take at my 70-pound weight loss. He was genuinely touched when I gave him credit for triggering my decision to make a change. I don’t think that it occurred to him that his words would have such a profound impact upon my life.

Finally, I thanked him for his wisdom in not writing me a prescription for a magic pill.

William Steinberg is a certified financial planner for Kelman-Lazarov. You can e-mail him at bill@kelman-lazarov.com.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Yawnergate

I recently turned 60. I didn’t hit the lottery again last month. I tend to miss the sun this time of year. I thought these were the reasons I was down in the dumps. Then the true explanation hit me: I am suffering from George Bush Syndrome.

GBS, as it shall henceforth be known, is rooted in the fact that Bush may be the dullest president since Calvin Coolidge. In the month or so he’s been in office, Bush has pledged to do better by education, raise the pay of our brave servicemen and women, and give us all the tax cut we so unarguably deserve. I know all this stuff is important, but I can hardly write these words without falling into a stupor.

Is it any wonder that Bill Clinton — wonderful, newsworthy, controversial, hated, loved, polarizing Bill Clinton — still dominates the news? We journalists cannot let go. It’s true, of course, that Clinton continues to provide material — the pardons, the gifts, the office rent, the move to Harlem. My heart leaped when the always creative Senator Arlen Specter said that Clinton could still be impeached. Oh, yes: news! Bring back Henry Hyde and the boys.

But Bush? He’s an abstraction, the genial face of an issueless time. He wants to get along, go along, and, of course, get his own way. Sooner or later, he may get into a real fight with the Democrats in Congress, but at this moment it’s hard to see what the issue will be — and whether anyone will care. Bush cannot make news.

Last month Bush went to war against Iraq — for a day. A bomb here, a bomb there, and then it was over. Purely routine, he said — and a day later there was nothing more to write. In contrast, when Clinton did something similar — bombed an Osama bin Laden camp in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons facility in the Sudan — he broke off his Martha’s Vineyard vacation and winged it back to the White House. Bush undoubtedly would have stayed where he was. He’s not going to let something “routine” break his routine.

Bush is for faith and against crime. He wants every kid to read. Math would be a good idea, too. He’s for chastity, charity, and, probably, chocolate. This is not the stuff of table-thumping columns.

I have been through this before — and survived. I lived through the Ronald Reagan era. He was frustratingly agreeable, too. Once, when I was writing a column of such blistering criticism the words fairly smoked on the page, I got a message from Air Force One. It was a birthday greeting from the president. I walked around the newsroom trying to get my dander up. It was hard. Reagan was such a nice guy.

I survived Reagan, I’ll survive Bush. But I was younger then, more confident in my judgment, wisdom, and, yes, brilliance.

I just knew Reagan was wrong about everything. Looking back, I can see that here and there — such as the way he handled the Cold War — he was just possibly right, but what’s more important is that he made news. He fired the air traffic controllers right off. Maybe Bush will fire the forest rangers. I call this “faith-based optimism.”

I despair. It’s been a couple of days since Bill Clinton last made news. Maybe something will break soon — an armed robbery or something his aides talked him into at the time. I know I can’t count on Bush. Mr. Nice Guy! Mr. Routine. I’m counting the days. Less than three years until the presidential campaign starts up again. Only one person can lift my depression.

C’mon, Hillary.

Richard Cohen is a member of the Washington Post Writers Group. His columns frequently appear in the Flyer.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

A Gift Horse?

The news this week that the National Basketball Association is interested in relocating its Vancouver team to Memphis had the city buzzing. It was trumpeted by some as the last best chance for Memphis to obtain “major-league” status. Local sportswriters, fans, and government leaders seemed amazed at the prospect. One almost expected them to pull a collective Sally Field and proclaim to the National Basketball Association, “You like us. You really, really, like us.”

Well, of course they like us. Why shouldn’t they? The NBA’s own studies show that we’re the best city available. We have some profitable large corporations, a booming economy, and there are no other major-league sports franchises within 200 miles. In fact, the closest NBA team is in Atlanta.

To all this, we say, Fine. Bring us your team. The problem is: How to pay for it? Shelby County is already facing a budget crisis. The city, while not in crisis mode, would be hard-pressed to toss $250 million at a new venue for a team, however big-time, without solid guarantees of long-term tenancy

Meanwhile, there’s The Pyramid — not a perfect venue, to be sure — but we might suggest to the NBA: If you don’t find this venue (only 10 years old) adequate for your purposes then why not consider helping us out with the financing for an alternative? Maybe we could go 50-50 on it or find some equally creative solution. Tax breaks? Possibly. And we could even find some state money for the project if we can guilt-trip the legislature and the governor into matching what they did for Nashville’s major-league bids.

Let’s stay open to all prospects. But as a city, let’s make sure that whatever we undertake is feasible. We don’t want to be a hard sell, but we’ve been spoiled by the example of Dean and Kristi Jernigan, who managed to figure out how to give us a hot new baseball stadium and a team worth rooting for — a publicly owned one at that! — without breaking our public bank. We’re all for going big-league, too — but not if it’s a sucker deal. Let’s be prepared to welcome this gift horse, but let’s not be reluctant to look it in the mouth until we’re sure we can accept it with long-term security — in every sense of that term. While we’re checking out the NBA and they’re checking us out, let’s note some ancillary material.

Last week’s edition of Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal included a study of 172 possible markets for expansion or relocation of professional sports teams, and the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce helpfully provided us with some highlights of the survey. Gratifyingly, Memphis is listed among the top NBA contenders, with the note that the city has enough money and at present has a lack of professional competition. Believe it or not, Norfolk, Virginia, may be an unsuspected rival. The chamber’s figures identify Norfolk as the largest metropolitan area without a big-league franchise of any sort. And we thought we were! That’s the bad news. The good news is that Norfolk sounds like somebody we can beat. Provided, as spelled out above, the game turns out to be worth playing.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

PostScript

Who Knew?

To the Editor:.

This week Action News 5 “investigative reporter” Rudy Koski discovered naked women dancing in Memphis topless clubs, complete with concealed camera footage. It must be sweeps week.

I have to laugh every time Rudy comes on. I suppose when he went “undercover” for his hard-hitting report he hitched up his tie and donned a sports coat to hide the suspenders. If this report is any indication, I suspect we can expect more startling exposes in the future.

Koski discovers thousands of fish living just below the surface of the Mississippi River.

Koski finds poor people living in Memphis slums.

Koski uncovers thousands of fleas living on a junkyard dog.

And finally, be sure to tune in as investigative reporter Rudy Koski gets behind the scenes at a city-owned prison for wild animals in Overton Park.

The funniest part is that Rudy seems to take himself so seriously. At least [Channel 3’s] Mike Matthews seems to understand that he’s only playing a reporter on TV.

Bob Koenig, Memphis

Liberal Hypocrisy

To the Editor:

It’s nice to see that liberal hypocrisy has overtaken conservative hypocrisy with this week’s Eminem flap and the recent Viewpoint column (February 22nd issue) against a state lottery.

So let me get this straight: Marilyn Manson is okay, even lauded, when he attacks and scares white suburbo-conservatives. But when Eminem does the same thing targeting a liberal cause all hell breaks loose. I thought it was just music. I thought the things we see and hear on TV and the Internet and in movies don’t really affect behavior.

Never mind that Eminem explains the whole thing is a persona/joke more than Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, or Manson ever did. He even comes out in favor of gay marriage on one track. It’s hilarious to see gay activists and liberals occupying the same moral ground as Adrian Rogers and Dr. Laura.

Along those same lines, here comes the moral left to save us all — well, the poor and minorities — from the evil lottery. The last time I checked, no one holds a gun to your head and makes you buy those tickets. Whatever happened to defending choice and expression even when those things might be dangerous, such as drinking, smoking, gambling, or legalizing marijuana?

(And don’t even get me started on the underrepresentation of whites, Asians, and Latinos in the NBA players association.)

Chris Wood, Memphis

The Real B.S.

To the Editor:

In reply to Mark A. Nolan’s comments (Letters, February 1st issue) on the “B.S.” of police and jailers in Shelby County, I would say the real blight on the city is that Memphis is the true crime and bankruptcy capital of the free world. I have retail stores in eight Southern cities and the crime we endure in Memphis is 10 times more frequent and severe than any other city. Half the people of Memphis are working hard. The other half are working hard to rip off the first half.

I’m sure most of the police in Memphis are very professional. They are just overwhelmed with the volume of crime and the lack of respect. I agree with Nolan’s statement that we need more jails and better paid jailers. However, we also need zero tolerance for criminals and more rights for victims.

Bruce H. Carlock, Music City Record Distributors, Nashville

Boomers Rule, Dude

To the Editor:

In Chris Herrington’s review of the Beatles’ classic movie A Hard Day’s Night (February 15th issue), he writes: “I’m sick of the never-ending cycle of baby-boomer nostalgia cluttering a culture that should be more concerned with the here and now.”

Perhaps the “here and now” isn’t offering very much in popular music, unless one gets off on recycled sociopathic rap or over-produced lightweight teen acts. Today’s disposable music scene is sadly lacking in originality, excitement, experimental musical innovation, and social importance.

When it comes to rock-and-roll and generation-defining youth culture, baby boomers pretty much wrote the book. Most musical trends since the 1960s youth and musical revolution pale in comparison. That is why the music of that era is called classic rock — it transcends generations and keeps on having an impact on present day youth.

Randy Norwood, Memphis

Corrections: In last week’s Steppin’ Out interview with Dave Hickey (“Arousing Dissent”), a paragraph by writer David Hall was not italicized, which gave the impression that it reflected the thoughts of Hickey. The paragraph in question began: Well, I know the Memphis art community is rather inbred. There is often a relationship between getting one’s work in the marketplace and having some other kind of credential. …

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

Lottery Yes!

The state lottery in Georgia, upon which Tennessee’s constitutional provision is modeled, has been hailed as the finest scholarship program in the country and the best constitutional lottery provision as well. Tens of thousands of Georgia students have tuition paid through the HOPE scholarship and then join the state’s work force, which fuels Georgia’s economic engine for the 21st century.

Seventy-five percent of the best and brightest students in Georgia now attend Georgia universities rather than the 25 percent prior to the establishment of the HOPE program. SAT scores have risen by 11 percent since the inception of HOPE, and pre-kindergarten programs have provided an early start to children in reading and learning — and a great start toward a HOPE scholarship.

Critic Nell Levin, a state income-tax advocate, missed the point when she wrote in the Flyer last week that “a lottery creates few jobs and no useful product.” It creates hundreds of thousands of jobs and better workers who enter the work force debt-free because of the proceeds of the lottery. Further, when people go out of state to buy lottery tickets they often purchase groceries, alcohol, and gasoline. If those people buy their products in Tennessee, they contribute to Tennessee’s economy and pay Tennessee taxes.

Levin suggests that the lottery will not solve Tennessee’s revenue problems. On this she is right, of course; it will also not cure cancer, malaria, or whooping cough.

It took 17 years to get the lottery on the ballot in Tennessee. Its failure to do so did not help the cause of those who advocate tax reform, and its passage this year will not hinder them either. A lottery isn’t a tax. It is a voluntary form of funding scholarships and participating in a game, which is a form of entertainment. People play the lottery in approximately the same proportions as their income levels. In fact, the typical player is middle income and a high school graduate.

Tennessee’s program has not yet been developed, but I would advocate not allowing Pell grants to be used, as they can be in Georgia, as a credit against lottery scholarships. This would benefit lower-income families while not disadvantaging students from other income levels.

Ours will be one of only three states whose constitutional provision for a lottery mandates education spending on new and specific programs. The amendment requires that the money supplement, not supplant, education funding.

Tennessee may be late getting into the lottery game, but a study by the state’s Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations estimates we will net $300 million for college scholarships and post-secondary technical and educational improvement opportunities, in addition to pre-kindergarten and after-school programs and K-12 capital construction improvements.

We might have made more had we started earlier, but for right now and the past 17 years we have gotten nothing. It is like buying a stock for a penny a share, which climbs to 300 million in the first year. If it should fall to 250 or 200 million, we still bought it for a penny. That is a pretty good investment for Tennessee shareholders whose dividend will be a better-educated work force and citizenry.

I have always played the lottery wherever I go and have won a few small returns. I enjoyed picking the numbers and look forward to seeing the winning numbers. My only regret is that I have helped other states meet their needs rather than my own state.

I look forward to making a voluntary contribution to a Tennessee lottery game and know Tennessee’s future will be better for it. It is a sure-fire winner.

It says yes to Tennessee, it says yes to young people with ambition and ability, and it says no to Tennesseans traveling to Kentucky, Georgia, Missouri, Virginia, and other states — as they have done with more than $200 million — to play the lottery in those states. Lottery yes!

State Senator Steve Cohen is the sponsor of the statewide lottery referendum, coming in 2002.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Herenton’s Baby

Right now, school consolidation — the subject of a controversial state bill which is floundering, or about to — is an idea without a constituency, and that’s a recipe for irrelevance. The only person who might be able to change things is Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton.

If there is a case to be made, Herenton, the former city schools superintendent, and his friend Johnnie B. Watson, the current superintendent, are the people to make it. They need to explain three things: what the cost savings would be from city-county school consolidation, where those savings would come from, and how classroom instruction would be affected.

Herenton needs to say more than what he has said — that, without consolidation, school costs are going to bankrupt this city and its school system. Where is there duplication in the city and county systems? How many administrative positions could be cut, and at what savings? How would the two school boards be merged? Would the 45,000-student county system become an adjunct to the 116,000-student city system? That seems to be one of the fears of the county administration and school board, who maintain — not unreasonably — that any aggregate containing 20 percent of the student population of Tennessee might become an entity too unwieldy to manage.

It’s understandable that Herenton may not want to come out with a detailed plan for consolidation. He has done so before, only to find himself leading a charge without any troops behind him. The problem back in the mid-1990s, when Herenton was focusing on governmental, not school, consolidation, was that black politicians in the city feared loss of their power, while white suburbanites dreaded the thought of being involved with what they imagined as crime-ridden, defective inner-city schools.

Back then, Herenton attempted to defuse the consolidation issue by separating the schools from it, constructing his consolidation pitch around the maintenance of independence for both the city and the county school systems. Now he’s coming at the issue from the other end, professing a desire to consolidate the schools first and the rest of the two separate governments later.

To be sure, he has cut the base of resistance in half, but as was made obvious from the intensity of county school board members’ reaction, the suburbanites who doubted consolidation almost a decade ago when its chief specter was concealed are bound to be more adamant than ever now that the disguise is off.

Herenton, now in his third and presumably final term as mayor, is at an optimum time politically to make a new bid for consolidation. Considering how easily he won the most recent mayor’s race against several opponents (including one from the rival Ford political clan), the mayor might be inspired by the apparent determination of George W. Bush to push an agenda that his hairbreadth victory hardly gave the new president a mandate for.

If Herenton can pull off consolidation, or any important component of it, during his third term, that fact could become even more of a legacy than his being the city’s first African-American mayor.

Incontestably, the consolidation issue is Herenton’s baby.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Postscript

A Worthy Alternative

To the Editor:

The Friends of Shelby Farms wish to add to the statement made by Mayor Rout in The Memphis Flyer (City Reporter, February 1st issue). We agree with attorney Richard Glassman that Alternative F is worthy of serious consideration. We anticipate further discussion once the roadway is presented in specific detail. It is important to note that this latest alternative, like its predecessors, is subject to the federal laws pertaining to roads through parkland. The citizens of Memphis and Shelby County should have the final decision.

Steve Eppel, Friends of Shelby Farms, Memphis

In Defense of Ashley

To the Editor:

I am writing in response to a recent letter to the editor (February 8th issue) in which Ashley Fantz was taken to task for her article on Grandmaster Fu Wei Zhong. I too had a strong negative reaction when I first read an article by Ms. Fantz months ago. However, after I read and re-read that particular article (of all things to get irked over, it was a book review), I felt that my criticisms were perhaps not entirely fair and held back on firing off the two-page letter I had written.

I have subsequently read Ms. Fantz’s work with a somewhat skeptical (albeit amused) eye and have found that, while I do not agree with everything she writes, I find her work to be relatively balanced, well written, serious when needed, humorous when appropriate and simply fun to read. Sadly, it’s predictable in today’s oversensitive society that when you skewer a few sacred cows — even when done with tongue-in-cheek humor — those on the receiving end have a hissy fit.

Chris Leek, Memphis

Bogus Logic?

To the Editor:

John Branston’s Viewpoint column (“A Bogus ‘Choice,'” February 1st issue) posed the question, “Why do 118,000 students stay in the Memphis City Schools?” He uses the number of children enrolled in the Memphis schools as evidence to refute the idea of vouchers. He says that choice exists in Memphis through the optional schools, the Memphis Opportunity Scholarship Trust, and the ability to move to a desired school attendance zone. Well, what’s bogus is Branston’s analysis.

First, the vast majority of Memphis City Schools’ student population lives in poverty. People in poverty need before- and after-school care, free breakfasts, free lunches, transportation, etc. The schools located in the depressed areas of Memphis offer those services through a designation as an “entitled” school. Many optional schools do not provide these additional services.

Then there’s Branston’s idea that transportation is a small issue. He must not live in a household that has only one or even no reliable automobile. Reliance on public transit is problematic at best. When on a limited income, the additional time and expense of getting a child across town for school and then getting yourself to work are huge hurdles. Such parents do not have any options; even their housing is usually limited to the rentals that are eligible for government subsidy.

Second, the Opportunity Trust limits its assistance to low-income persons. Has Branston looked at the cost of the city’s top schools — Presbyterian Day School, St. Mary’s, Lausanne? A $1,500 check doesn’t go far for tuition, and tuition is just a portion of the costs for private schools. Would Branston feel the same if the waiting list for scholarship aid contained 116,000 names instead of its present 2,000?

Third, I’m one of those “mobile” folks who chose his school by buying a home miles from his workplace. Did I have any influence over Mayor Herenton’s annexation frenzy? My mobility has gone the way of doubled taxes and a neighborhood with “For Sale” signs and foreclosure notices everywhere. I was forced to go to the school board building three times last week: once to sign up for a spot in the 900-plus-person line, a second time for a roll call to keep my number 369 place in line, and a third time at 5 a.m. to languish in line until 8:25 a.m. This, just to hand in applications for my two oldest children for a chance to attend an optional program miles from our home. And, since few optional schools include kindergarten, who knows where my rising kindergartner will be next fall?

Last, Branston countered his own view by noting that the economically advantaged have fled to Germantown, Collierville, and private schools, leaving the poor to MCS. Doesn’t that clearly indicate that over 100,000 students do not have a choice? Branston concludes that my children will be in Memphis schools because I do not believe MCS is a poor choice for my children or I choose to ignore its problems. It is neither. My children will be in Memphis schools because I make too much money to get scholarships but too little income to send three children to private schools or buy a more expensive house in an “annexation free” Shelby County area.

By the way, does Mr. Branston have children in Memphis City Schools?

Raymond Miller, Memphis

(Editor’s Note: John Branston has two children in Memphis City Schools.)

To the Editor:

Mr. Branston with his Viewpoint column “A Bogus ‘Choice'” unfortunately defends the failing status quo against vouchers and charter schools and tax credits for private and parochial school tuition. Branston basically grants in the column that many public schools are largely failing. Branston also seems to grant that teachers’ unions and bureaucrats might rule the public schools. Branston is then struck by the fact that 118,000 students “choose” to attend public schools in Memphis. (Branston has obviously never heard of the mandatory school attendance law in Tennessee.)

Branston then diverts our attention to another bogus notion: that Memphis City Schools has sufficient “choice” through its optional school program for gifted students. But the point of Mr. Bush’s programs, as I understand it, is to expand the choices to all students, whether gifted or not. (And this doesn’t mean that elite students could not enroll in the Memphis City Schools optional program under Bush’s programs.) The heavily taxed citizens of America and their children deserve a greater range of choice. So, now, who is really missing the more important point?

Phillip Stephenson, 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

About Bob

I write in defense of the bump and grind.

And the spotlighted shoulder-roll invitation. Pigeon-toe coyness. The peep-show nod of a bolo hat, sheer black tights, and a bar-back chair. A hand holding a cigarette, its smoke outlining the curve of a woman’s hip.

I write in defense of Bob Fosse.

Not that Bob Fosse, the man, the choreographer, the director, the self-styled dancin’ man, needs defending. He won mainstream accolades galore: an Emmy, a Tony, and an Oscar in one year. It’s his artful mixing of the bawdy and the sophisticated on stage before anyone else and better than anyone else that has been seemingly forgotten in modern musical theater. Consider contemporary adaptations of Fosse style. And if you think you don’t know Fosse, you do. His razzle-dazzle combination of jazz, burlesque, ballet, acrobatics, and Tin Pan/vaudevillian choreography has influenced every major performing artist from MTVers to Carnegie Hallers. Yet, try as some might to mimic the choreographer’s magic, it’s clear that stage entertainment will never be as complex, interesting, or fun as Fosse made it.

True, Fosse, the biographical musical which opened to a full house Tuesday night at The Orpheum, was not choreographed by the man himself but by Ann Reinking, his protegÇ and current Broadway diva since Liza with a Z gained 400 pounds. Though the show appears to be Fosse turned up a notch, with almost identical staging of his most famous numbers from Chicago, Sweet Charity, Cabaret, The Pajama Game, and Dancin’ — missing are Pippin and Damn Yankees — Reinking has carefully placed transitional interludes between numbers as a way to introduce the audience to a different side of the artist. But she doesn’t mess with the essence of Fosse’s special brand of vaudevillian entertainment. “Steam Heat,” Fosse’s trademark piece, stands out in the revue as does “Big Spender” from Sweet Charity. The show is a genuine ode to Reinking’s mentor. And as with anything associated with Fosse, the musical maintains its unapologetic sexiness.

But not every musical that Fosse placed a hip-swivel and finger-snap to has avoided sexual contrivance. Nineteen ninety-seven’s Broadway revival of Cabaret, directed by American Beauty‘s Sam Mendes, is a crotch-grabbing mÇnage Ö trois screw-fest that took Fosse choreography and added a helping of over-the-top titillations. The revamped version is not much like Fosse’s 1972 Oscar-winning film version starring Liza Minelli as the too-talented for a strip club Sally Bowles and Joel Grey as the emcee. Mendes downgrades Bowles to a karaoke-level star in this 100-percent perverse adaptation. “Two Ladies” doesn’t indulge the imagination and, oddly, Bowles’ love interest is a closet homosexual — a twist that isn’t alluded to in Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, which the musical is based on. All of this is not to imply that Mendes’ version isn’t worthy; it won a slew of Tonys for a reason. But there is a distinct absence of Fosse’s talent for making the raunchy complex and the profound more digestible.

The film Cabaret was very different from the stage version. It was revolutionary in its depiction of a bleak, upsetting future run by a government of hate bent on destroying all free thinking. Though it wasn’t the first film to feature androgyny, Cabaret‘s Joel Grey in clown makeup likely inspired fascination among glam-rockers and was cinematically echoed by films like A Clockwork Orange. Fosse’s film was a post-modern feat, showing shadows of shadows, stage-like devices such as red ribbons strewn across the ground of a Jewish ghetto to intimate bloodshed, and people in fun-house distortion behind glass bricks. When was the last time a musical was turned into a beautiful, well-choreographed film? Forget Evita. During its dance scenes, the camera managed to cut off all the actors’ feet.

Broadway has become anesthetized, cleaned with giant Disney sponges, its subway stations dripping with plastic cartoon numbers. The hookers of Times Square who could have easily sung their tired hearts out in Sweet Charity have been replaced by Donald Duck and Goofy. What is playing on the Great White Way? Annie Get Your Gun, Beauty and the Beast, Rent, Seussical (starring Rosie O’Donnell, no less). New York Times theater critics as recent as Frank Rich and as far back as Walter Kerr have lamented that there’s nothing exciting happening to characters on Broadway.

Fosse, however, offered dancers a chance to become more than wallpaper for the actors. For the choreographer who died of a heart attack after rehearsals for a mid-1980s Chicago revival, singing, dancing, and acting were interchangeable. And the most concise example of that is Fosse, a musical revue that he had nothing to do with but is dedicated solely to him.

Fosse, Through February 25th, The Orpheum

Categories
Opinion

Magic in a Digital Age

Millions of people fly across the country every year. We’ve made computers that can think faster than we do. We’ve mapped the human genome. But show us someone who can guess our card was the Ace of Spades and we still sit up in awe.

For Kevin Spencer, this is what makes magic worth performing.

“To be in this age of technology and to still be able to bring wonder to anything, to be able to create that emotion in people, is great,” says the magician and illusionist. Spencer is a performer in the escape tradition of Houdini or Harry Blackstone Jr. But neither of them shared the stage with his wife.

“The fact that my wife and I work as a team makes it a better show,” says Spencer. “We know each other so well and so many of those things are expressed on the stage. Who we are together works well on the stage.”

Cindy Spencer got involved in magic through Kevin. She was working as a diamond consultant and dating Kevin’s roommate when the three of them started performing together. After the roommate left the act, Cindy and Kevin continued to work together and eventually fell in love. They’ve been married for 18 years.

Spencer, on the other hand, has wanted to be a magician ever since he was very young.

“I was 5 or 6 when I saw my first magic show. It was so completely fascinating.” After getting a magic kit for Christmas, he started putting on shows, eventually doing them for local civic groups during junior high and high school.

“I lived in a farm town in Indiana. Everybody knew I was the little boy who did magic.”

During college, he majored in clinical psychology and worked his way through by continuing to give magic shows.

“I was going into it to help people with their minds,” Spencer says and laughs. “Now all I do is mess with them.”

It was around this time he saw Doug Henning perform, talked to him backstage after the show for over an hour, and decided that he was going to do magic for a living. But Spencer says his show is a little different from most of the magic shows you see in live venues or on television.

For one thing, the Spencers perform with a lot of audience participation.

“That’s the most exciting part, when people can experience it for themselves,” says Spencer. “When they can be close to it, it becomes incredible.” But it also lends credibility to the show. After an audience member comes off the stage, his friends and neighbors can ask him what exactly happened.

But the main difference, Spencer thinks, is that they try to present the show with a theatrical twist.

“A lot of times when you see magicians perform, they bring the illusion onto the stage and then they carry the box off after they’re through.” This is not the way the Spencers work. Using elements from the theater — music, lighting, scenery, special effects — the duo tries to bring a sense of heightened tension and fluidity to the production.

“Like any good play or musical, the audience experiences a wide variety of emotions,” says Spencer. “There are light-hearted tricks and then there are very dramatic moments.”

But all that sleight of hand is building toward one key moment.

“Each illusion is a kind of act on its own. They are each dressed differently until we get to the finale.” The Spencers try to tailor each show to the stage on which they’re performing. On the stage of the Bartlett Performing Arts Center, that means Houdini’s water trick: A milk tank is filled to the brim with 50 gallons of water, and Spencer is chained and padlocked inside the tank.

“And I have to get out,” says Spencer. “It’s pretty intense. Not many people do it anymore. I’m not sure if that’s because of skill or stupidity.”

He laughs and decides it’s a question of skill.

The Spencers: Theatre of Illusion

8 p.m., Friday, February 23rd

$15

Bartlett Performing Arts and Conference Center