Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Wellness and Inclusivity in Fly-Fishing

MacKenna Stang and Melissa Ceren (Photo: Courtesy Mid-South Fly Fishers)

Fly-fishing has been around for centuries, with evidence of its existence going back to antiquity. By the time the 18th and 19th centuries rolled around, it became a pastime for wealthy white men in England and the U.S. Today, in the 21st century, the sport is still dominated by white men, but avid fly-fishers are looking to change that. The Mid-South Fly Fishers, for their part, are taking active steps to becoming more inclusive, like with their Fly-Fishing for Wellness event this Sunday.

For the event, the club will be joined by Colorado-based Melissa Ceren, “The Fly Fishing Therapist,” and MacKenna Stang, a fly-fishing influencer and women’s advocate, who will speak on the benefits of fly-fishing for better mental health and using fly-fishing to build community and well-being among women, respectively. Ceren will also lead a therapeutic exercise.

“My piece in it is that I’m a mental health therapist and fly-fishing guide,” says Ceren. “So I combined the two a lot because obviously it feels good to be in the outdoors. It’s nice, and I actually was having a conversation the other day that although fly-fishing can be relaxing, it’s not always just relaxing, like you get a knot and you lose fish and it can be really frustrating and sometimes you want to snap your rod. But all that to say is that it builds confidence in skills and resilience, which is transferable obviously outside of fishing, too.”

“There’s just so many different tactics you can use in fly-fishing,” adds Stang. “You just have to be skillful with it and it makes it more rewarding. … So, I wanted to connect with people who had the same passion for fly-fishing and learn from them and inspire other women to join the sport, and social media just kind of took off and I’m very grateful for it.”

For both women, they hope to engage fly-fishers — men and women — and those who just might be curious about fly-fishing. “This is all about inclusivity,” Stang says.

As for the Mid-South Fly Fishers, Drew Harris, the club’s vice president, says, “we really have three kind of core areas that we exist to support and it’s fellowship, education, and conservation around fly-fishing.” And with that, Harris says, comes a great sense of community. “We’ve formed these kind of relationships, friendships, and bonds around fly-fishing that have been really great and nurturing in all aspects of my life.” He has even had his two young daughters join him in fly-fishing. “I wanted to develop a community and kind of have them tag along with me so that they can grow up around it.”

And the Mid-South Fly Fishers give back to the community, too, through conservation efforts and by supporting the Veterans Affairs hospital in Memphis by teaching veterans how to fly-fish as a way to manage trauma and promote well-being. In fact, several items such as a Wrangler and Crosswater will be up for auction this Sunday, with all funds going to support the program.

Tickets for Sunday’s event can be purchased at msff.org and include a complimentary beer.

Fly-Fishing For Wellness, High Cotton Brewing Company, 598 Monroe, Sunday, February 4, 2-6 p.m., $20.

Categories
Art Art Feature

A Memphis Legend: Calvin Farrar

Photo: Courtesy Calvin Farrar

Whether you realize it or not, you’ve seen Calvin Farrar’s artwork. It’s practically everywhere, his window paintings a part of the city’s landscape as they fill up the fronts of businesses from Midtown to Orange Mound to Downtown. The cartoon illustrations he paints create delightful scenes for passersby and patrons to enjoy; smiling snowmen, waving scarecrows, and dunking Grizzlies offer a moment of whimsy in a city of grit and grind. Today, as I speak with him, he paints the windows of Babalu in Overton Square, outlining cheery elves and Santa first in white paint and pencil, before intuitively adding in colors for the Christmas scene he’s created. His own smiles spread across his face as he steps back to look at his painting, his love of the work obvious.

For the past 25 years or so, Farrar has steadily grown his window painting business, from his first solo job at the old Ed’s Camera Store, then to The Bar-B-Q Shop and a Huey’s location, then to all Huey’s locations, and from there it blossomed to a year-round job all around town that allows him to pursue what he’s always wanted to: art.

“That’s the only thing I know how to do, is paint,” Farrar says. He took to it naturally as a child, his high school teacher, especially, encouraging his talents. Later, when he was an adult, his neighbor, Artiek Smith, also an artist, introduced Farrar to window painting, inviting him along to job sites before Farrar embarked on his own.

Calvin Farrar at work (Photo: Abigail Morici)

Today, as he works, he paints with ease, his strokes confident and smooth. He mastered his signature style a long time ago. When I ask him if he’s proud of his window art — that he can go just about anywhere from Brookhaven Pub & Grill in East Memphis to Superlo in Orange Mound and catch a glimpse of his work — he simply nods, beaming.

Yet window murals — no matter how much of a Memphis staple they’ve become — are temporary, meant to last only a season at a time. “A lot of people don’t want to take it down,” Farrar says. But, alas, they must.

For an artist, like Farrar, these window paintings are only a taste of a legacy that art can offer, so in his free time, he paints in oils, a medium much more permanent. Entrenched in nostalgia for the Delta and the blues, these folk-inspired paintings are rich in color and smooth strokes that suggest the artist’s assured process. When he paints, he says, “I just paint. If it’s a good subject matter, I work on it. … I just get a feel for it.”

“A lot of people didn’t know I painted oil paintings,” Farrar adds. In fact, it wasn’t until this past October that he had one of his first gallery shows “since a long time ago.” The First Presbyterian Church on Poplar hosted the duo exhibition, titled “When the Spirit Moves,” with Rosa Jordan. “I thought it was pretty cool,” Farrar says.

Already, his next show is on display at Buckman Arts Center at St. Mary’s Episcopal School. This exhibit, titled “It’s a Memphis Thang” and done in conjunction with Anna Kelly, features works from across his years as an artist, as well as Kelly’s mixed media works of Mid-South icons. “Calvin has spent so many years charming Memphians with his art,” says Cindi Younker, director of Buckman Arts Center. “Buckman is delighted to offer him a proper show to celebrate this living legend and his work.”

“It’s a Memphis Thang” will be on display through March 7th. The opening reception will take place on Friday, February 9th, 5 to 6 p.m. at Buckman Arts Center at St. Mary’s, 60 Perkins Extended.

Categories
Music Music Features

Stax Meets Motown

Rickey Fondren III center with microphone (Photo: Claire James)

“If you want to master something, teach it,” the great physicist Richard P. Feynman is said to have remarked. “The more you teach, the better you learn.” That’s certainly borne out by the recent experiences of students who teamed up to create a new musical film and instructional package on African-American history for the Soulsville Foundation. Once it premieres online this Friday, February 2nd, it will be available as a free download for educators and students throughout Black History Month and into September. Producing such a film for the national event is a tradition the foundation began after Covid made live performances risky, and it’s continued ever since. And taking the project’s mission to heart caused this year’s student-producers to learn much along the way.

“What Stax wants to do is keep the history and message of soul music alive, but especially that of Stax Records, and the impact that the label had not only on the Memphis community, but the world at large,” says Anaya Murray, a high school senior and Stax Music Academy (SMA) student who served as the film’s co-writer and co-producer. “Black History Month is an opportunity to remind people of this important part of Black culture and American culture. In our film, Stax Meets Motown, we focus on two record labels who were rivals and competitors, and what they both contributed to music, but it’s about more than that.”

Anaya Murray (Photo: Ayanna Murray)

Indeed, the film and companion study guides delve into the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the Detroit Riots of 1967, the history of Black radio, the recording industry, and fashion. At the same time, the topic is also perfectly suited to a musical. “Think High School Musical and Grease,” Murray says of the film, which she masterminded with fellow high-schoolers Andrew Green and Rickey Fondren III. Green and Fondren attend SMA, as does most of the cast.

“There are moments where they’ll break out into song, where there’s dancing, and it’s all Stax and Motown music. And then, I’m one of the songwriting students at the Academy and we wrote an original song for the end credits. So we pay homage to Stax and Motown and then add something new. And all the sounds that you hear are Stax students singing and playing.”

That includes Murray herself, who also studies voice at SMA, and the story, set entirely in Booker T. Washington High School (which many Stax artists attended), is designed to both teach and give performance, recording, and songwriting students a chance to shine. As Murray explains the plot, “Lisa, the lead, moves from Detroit to Memphis, and it’s the simple story of her learning about Stax and the culture, but also of the Memphis kids learning from her about Detroit and Motown.”

Yet ultimately the film reveals the SMA’s support for more than music. As Murray says, “I’ve been a student at Stax Music Academy since my first year of high school, and once I started to show an interest in filmmaking over the past two years, Stax noticed that and gave me an opportunity to assist on the script for last year’s [Black History Month] film.” She also developed her own material, winning the 2023 Indie Memphis Youth Film Fest Jury Award for her film, Father’s Day.

Eventually she was tapped to write this year’s screenplay. “I’m really excited about the opportunity because screenwriting is something I love to do,” she says. “Then I was able to get Andrew Green, one of my film friends, on board. He’s also planning to go to college for screenwriting and directing. And Rickey is a singer at SMA, but acting is really where his passion lies. He’s actually co-starring in the film as the love interest, but he was really excited to go into screenwriting as well, so he helped a lot with doing research to make sure that we were really providing accurate information.”

Thus did the writers learn as they progressed, and gaining the Soulsville Foundation’s stamp of approval was proof positive that they got the facts right. Now the film and instructional materials are being readied for their premiere. As Murray explains, all involved are aware of how important this educational mission is: “When it goes live, they send that link out to students not only in the United States, but worldwide as well. It is a global event.”

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Origin

Origin weaves together stories from contemporary America, the Jim Crow South, Nazi Germany, and colonial India.

In 1915, D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation revolutionized film. It became the first big crowd-pleasing blockbuster by basically inventing the modern chase scene. Covering the Civil War and Reconstruction in its epic three-hour length (it was also the longest American film to date), the adaptation of Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman is horrifically racist in its depiction of Black Southerners and glorification of white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan. Even as the film was raking in the dough at the box office, its blatant racism was called out by everyone from the NAACP to The New Republic.

Griffith responded to his critics with his next film. Intolerance was another three-hour epic which pushed at the boundaries of the form — this time by crosscutting between four stories from four different time periods, each about a different historical tragedy brought about by hate. Griffith’s response to his critics was not so much an apology as an observation: “Everybody hates for different reasons.”

It is ironic that, more than a century later, director Ava DuVernay would use the same technique as Griffith in a film that tries to place the American experience of racism into the larger context of world history and anthropology. In Origin, she weaves together stories from contemporary America, the Jim Crow South, Nazi Germany, and colonial India, trying to find the commonalities. These stories are recounted in the 2020 book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson; the film is the dramatized story of the writing of the book. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor stars as Wilkerson, who became the first Black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1993. (In more Griffith-related irony, Ellis-Taylor also starred in Nate Parker’s 2016 film about the Nat Turner slave rebellion, The Birth of a Nation.)

When we meet Isabel, she’s trying to find her mother (Emily Yancy) an assisted-living facility and figure out what to do with the house she grew up in. Her husband Brett (Jon Bernthal) is a great help to her, even as they navigate the tricky social ins and outs of an interracial marriage. Meanwhile, the editor of The New York Times opinion page (Blair Underwood) is trying to get her to write about the Trayvon Martin killing, which was then fresh in the headlines. When her husband dies suddenly, Isabel deals with her grief by throwing herself into a new book, which neither she nor her agents or editors really understand.

Wilkerson’s book was a huge bestseller in the wake of the Black Lives Matter summer and seriously engaged with scholarship studying oppression around the world. It identifies eight “pillars of caste,” including the belief that the oppressive social order is the will of god and that the upper castes are “pure” and must be protected from contamination by the impure lower castes.

The problem DuVernay has as a filmmaker is that her subject is nonfiction, and heavy with sociological theory. Her solution is to smuggle the ideas in through Isabel’s personal melodrama like a science-fiction writer smuggles ideas with spaceships and lasers. We learn the history of liberationist Dr. B. R. Ambedkar by traveling to India with the writer and visiting his museum, for example. It doesn’t always work. At times, I felt like Caste would have been better served with a documentary series that explored each of the pillars in turn. In the last third of Origin, Isabel breaks out the whiteboard to help explain her theories, and we sit in on documentary-style interviews with both scholars and ordinary people. Four-time Tony winner Audra McDonald shines in one interview as a Black woman whose father named her “Miss” so white people would be forced to use a term of respect. These are the film’s most compelling and memorable moments.

Even with the attempts to make its message more palatable, Origin does not shy away from the big picture. The script even engages with the biggest critique of Caste when a German Marxist (Connie Nelson) points out that the origin of American racism was in service of capitalist exploitation of free labor, while Nazis sought to completely exterminate their out-caste group, the Jews of Europe. Wilkerson and DuVernay argue that even though people might think their hate is unique, in the end, it all looks the same.

Origin
Now playing
Multiple locations

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Memphis In May Triathlon Owner Looks Back as Potential Sale Looms

Credit: Blair Ball Photography via Memphis In May Triathlon

Memphis-based PR Event Management is getting out of the triathlon business, as we reported earlier this month, in hopes of finding a buyer for the area’s biggest events — the Memphis In May Triathlon (MIM Tri) and Annie Oakley Buffalo Bill Triathlon (AOBB Tri).

The MIM Tri event turned 40 last year. There for most of that event’s history has been Pam Routh, triathlete and co-founder of PR Events. She and company co-founder Wyndell Robertson also serve as race directors for the events. 

In Olympic-length triathlons, participants swim for .93 of a mile, bike for 24.8 miles, and run for 6.2 miles. The sport was born in America and Memphis served as an important proving grounds for it early on, Routh says.

The race was once part of the Memphis In May International Festival (MIM), part of a sports weekend. The triathlon later broke out for its own weekend. The rights to the event (and its bike racks) were later sold to three Memphis triathletes for $5,000, Routh said, and are not part of MIM.  

Those athletes later tired of helming the event and offered it up in a group meeting of Memphis triathletes. Routh stepped forward, thinking the next morning, “Oh, how many beers did I drink?” 

But in her time running the MIM Tri, it has grown from 600 participants to 1,800, one that has attracted top pros in the sport because “we ran a tight race.” The event here also touted the biggest purse in the sport for years. 

The MIM Tri was one of the races that helped get the sport into the Olympics, Routh said, and helped train its race officials when it debuted in 2000 in Sydney Summer Games. Memphis was also a practice race for national officials to test drug-testing protocols.

We recently caught up with Routh about the sale. 

This interview has been condensed for space and clarity. — Toby Sells

Memphis Flyer: What was the special sauce that made The MIM Tri so successful here early on?

Pam Routh: Because every person involved was a triathlete and we knew our business. We also wanted to put on a race that we wanted to go to.

[Inviting those from out of town] was basically like inviting people to my neighborhood to enjoy my race course, and my festivities, and my fellowship. It’s a very warm community.

What about now?

Memphis is a great community. We have Elvis that runs in with the last finisher. We usually have barbecue. We have beer. We throw a throw down and we always have. 

It’s also always a very, very well-run race. All my triathletes and staff are just the best of the best. 

Any fun stories?

[Years ago], I’m out at the race site two weeks out at Edmund Orgill Park. This girl is in the parking lot. I show her my [race] brochure. She’s in cutoff jeans and smoking a cigarette. She says, “I might do this.” I was like oh yeah, girl? Uh huh. But I say, “we’d love to have you.”

[Later], I was cleaning up the hospitality tent. The race is over and everyone is gone. This woman walks up and says, “well, I just finished.” I said, “what did you just finish?” She said, “I just finished the race.”

Because I have such a good team, they were following her. She borrowed a bike. She rode in the MIM Tri without ever having trained in a pair of cutoffs and in a pair of deck shoes. 

[The Commercial Appeal] did an article on her. People gave her a pair of running shoes. She got a bicycle. She started training. I almost started crying.

Now you’re ready to pass the baton?

I’d love to keep this thing strong. I’d like to find somebody to adopt it. Is it a business sale? Yes. 

And I know that emotions get in the way when something’s 40 years old. But not many events can say that you really have something and we have a strong brand. We are blowing and going and I want to get people back into being healthy. 

I’d like to see the right person buy this. So, “pass the baton” is really that. I really want to pass it on and adopt this out. I don’t want to shut it down. 

Categories
Music Music Blog

Lawrence Matthews Comes Out Swinging

Lawrence Matthews at The Green Room at Crosstown Arts (Credit: Gabrielle Duffie)

If you thought Don Lifted concerts used to be rare, Lawrence Matthews shows are even more so, leaving all who attended last Saturday’s sold out performance at the Green Room feeling lucky. Of course, the two artists are one in the same, Don Lifted being Matthews’ stage name for many years even as he built a name and a reputation in visual art under his given name. Then, back in September of 2022, Don Lifted took his final bow during one last show at the Overton Park Shell. A few minutes later, out came Lawrence Matthews, rapper, spitting tougher rhymes than ever, flanked by Idi x Teco.

That announced a new direction in Matthews’ music, but it also turned out to be a hiatus of sorts. The one sign of action was Matthews’ release, last May, of the single “Green Grove (Our Loss),” the first cut from what is still the unreleased album Between Mortal Reach and Posthumous Grip. And while that track sported some very Don Lifted-esque atmospherics until its harder-hitting beat kicked in, it then featured Matthews’ new voice, full of grim determination yet mixed with a new playfulness that made it even scarier as he sang of “This blood, this soil, infused, this river …”

Last Saturday, after the pre-show playlist of classic soul wound down, that same tune was the first thing audience members heard as Matthews stepped into the center of the chairs in-the-round, mic in hand. In stark contrast to the often elaborate sets and multiple screens of Don Lifted shows, this show was stripped bare, the music’s auteur wearing the utilitarian garb of a mechanic or delivery driver in a single beam of light.

Meanwhile, some of the sounds were downright lush, as other prolonged samples of soul, gospel, and blues (most taken from the Fat Possum-owned Hi Records catalogue) often shaped the intros, sometimes drenched in effects like echoes from the past, before giving way to harder, more militant beats and Matthews’ angrier raps, almost reminiscent of classic KRS-One, delivered solo as he prowled the floor for most of the night (except for a brief, powerful cameo by Idi x Teco).

Lawrence Matthews in The Green Room (Credit: Gabrielle Duffie)

At one point, that lush soul threated to engulf the night, as Matthews turned one track’s prolonged intro of “(Lay Your Head on My) Pillow” by Tony! Toni! Toné! into a singalong of sorts. Ultimately, it always came back down to hard slamming raps and beats (often co-created on the upcoming album with Unapologetic producer C Major, who was low-key in attendance Saturday night).

“It’s been a year and four months since I performed,” Matthews noted. “All through 2023, I was just tucked away, not really recording music, not really practicing anything.” Indeed, the album he promises to release later this year was essentially finished in 2022. “And while I was away, it just seemed like shit kept getting worse and worse in the world. And in this city, too.” He noted how he began hearing people’s “weight, frustration, and tightness, until it turned into desperation.”

All of that came out in his performance, and even in one moment in which Matthews, like his audience, simply listened and grooved along. That was when Matthews the performer was set aside and the artist implored us to simply listen to a track, “An Acquired Taste,” from his upcoming album. He too became a fan as it played on, featuring a powerful cameo by the singer Uni’Q.

Then it was back to business, as the pounding beats and atmospheric samples ground on, ultimately providing background to one of Matthews’ latest tracks, a meditation on the murder of Breonna Taylor by police officers titled “Breonna’s Curse.” In that final moment, however, the militant, simmering rage of most of the night’s beats and raps faded away somewhat, and Matthews ended the concert with something unexpected: a profound sense of mourning.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Music Video Monday: “Here I Am” by Line So Thin

Today on Music Video Monday, we bring you some big rock. Line So Thin’s “Here I Am” has a monumental sound which expresses a very personal sentiment.

“Really for me, ‘Here I Am’ is about the journey of struggle that comes with love and commitment,” says Line So Thin’s Dustin Allen. “Saying, ‘We can make this work, just don’t try and change each other.’ We accept each other for all that we are, the good and the bad, and realizing it was all worth it in the end.”

Blake Heimbach directed the music video, which was produced by his Hotkey Studio. It stars the band, plus MVM frequent flyer Alexis Grace and Ben Abney as a quarreling couple, and Memphis Flyer writer Jon W. Sparks lending gravitas.

If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies Three-Game Win Streak Ends

Vince Williams Jr. goes to the basket during a game against the Indiana Pacers on January 28, 2024. (Photo by: Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images)

The Grizzlies lost a close game in Indiana due to mental mistakes, a breakdown in the third quarter, and squandered opportunities. The Pacers defeated Memphis 116-110 to snap their three-game winning streak. 

Indiana capitalized with 24 points off the Grizzlies’ 13 turnovers and grabbed 11 offensive rebounds that resulted in 15 second-chance points.

Jaren Jaren, Jr. led Memphis with 25 points, five rebounds, four assists, and two steals. He also tied a career-high with 11 made free throws.

In January, Jackson Jr. averaged 24.3 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 2.8 assists as the Grizzlies went 8-6 in the month.

Vince Williams Jr. continues to impress, game by game. He finished with 20 points while shooting 8-of-12 from the field, and had eight rebounds.

“They had a lot more offensive rebounds than us, and that led them to easy baskets at the rim,” Williams Jr. said on how the Pacers closed out the game. “Honestly, the bigs got nice rebounds and put it right back up on us, and that kind of hurt us at the end of the day.”

Despite missing key players, the 23-year-old believes the team is up for the challenge of competing against anyone. “We all come in together; we work hard together; so honestly, team chemistry is still there all the way. We just came up short tonight, and really it was just offensive rebounds that hurt us.”

Williams Jr. took responsibility for his blunders down the stretch, which Indiana took advantage of to pull out the win. 

“My two missed layups, and I missed my free throws,” said the VCU alum on the differences in the last three minutes. “But they just out-hustled us, which led to some easy buckets in the fourth too, and they got some wide-open threes, and we had to play catch-up.”

“Not really, because we were still in the game at the end,” said Williams Jr. when asked if the Pacers wore them down due to key players being out with injuries. “We come out and play hard each and every day, and we just try to put ourselves in the best position to win.”

When GG Jackson II is given extended minutes, he takes full advantage. In 28 minutes off the bench, the rookie finished with 18 points and four rebounds on 6-of-9 shooting. 

“I feel like it just shows the depth that this team has,” said Jackson II of the tenacity of the team. And fully healthy, I feel like we can be a serious contender going deep in the playoffs and even contenders for a title.”

“The first half, we tried to keep it tight and were really keen on personnel,” explained Jackson II on what went right for the Grizzlies in the first half. “The ball was popping a lot,  multiple guys were scoring, and Jaren (Jackson, Jr.) was getting his sweet spots again with the left-hand hook. 

The 19-year-old continued, “I feel like overall we were playing really good basketball, and then later in the second half (there were) costly turnovers and lackadaisical effort sometimes. You gotta have 110% effort the whole 48 minutes if you want to win a basketball game.”

“A lot of missed opportunities at the rim obviously. I felt like at times the ball kind of got stagnant … and then [on the] defensive end guys were just scrambling around a lot and a couple of their guys hit threes. We really did not want to live with it. But the situation from scrambling left them open. So it’s just little things like that, that if we pick up on those and fix those, I feel like we’ll be good.”

No rest for the weary. The Grizzlies look to start a new winning streak tonight at FedExForum against the Sacramento Kings at 7 p.m. CT. 

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Louis Connelly’s Bar Opens February 3rd at Site of Old Printer’s Alley

Louis Connelly's Bar to open February 3rd at site of old Printer's Alley. (Credit: Aleks Haight)

Louis Connelly’s Bar will open February 3rd in the space formerly occupied by Printer’s Alley at 322 South Cleveland Street near Peabody Avenue.

They will have a full bar, says Mickey Blancq, manager of the bar owned by Louis Connelly. “We have a fantastic liquor selection,” Blancq says. “We have 20 taps. At least 15 of the taps are local.”

Food will be “straight-up bar food. Smash burgers, nachos, loaded fries. And just stuff like that. The Philly Cheese is phenomenal.”

As for the look of the establishment, Blancq says,  “We completely gutted the whole place. So, it’s totally different on the inside.”

Louis Connelly’s Bar (Credit: Aleks Haight)

There is now “a huge bar on the left side. We’ve built out the kitchen, so it’s a full kitchen.”

And, he says, their interior designer went to pawn shops and brought back “so much cool stuff. We were blown away.” That includes a 1932 neon bar sign that’s “old school and awesome.”

They’ve already held soft openings. “I’ve been so surprised how it’s just popping off already. We never expected it to be as successful as we’ve been so far.”

Louis Connelly’s Bar will be “open late night, 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday currently. But we’ll open that up further in the future.”

No live music right now, Blancq says. “We will have deejays, but that’s the only plan right now.”

And, he says, they plan to have “karaoke and trivia night.”

Printer’s Alley, which closed about a year and a half go, didn’t have the greatest reputation.  “Printer’s Alley was always the place to go after you’d made a lot of bad decisions already.”

But, Blancq says, “This is a different place. That’s why he (Connelly) did all the renovations. It’s still a 100 percent dive bar and that’s what we’re going for, but it’s clean and kitschy. Just a neighborhood bar like we’ve been missing here in town.”

Louis Connelly’s Bar (Credit: Aleks Haight)
Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies Win Third in a Row

Jaren Jackson Jr. #13 of the Memphis Grizzlies during the second half against Orlando Magic at FedEx Forum on January 26, 2024, in Memphis Tennessee. (Wes Hale Photo)

On the court at FedExForum, the Memphis Grizzlies haven’t had much luck this season, with a disappointing 4–15 home record going into Friday night. Nevertheless, they defeated the Orlando Magic in a nail-biter, 107-106, to win their second consecutive home game. It marked Memphis’ fifth straight win against the Magic.

Memphis has now won three games in a row and recorded at least 30 assists in each victory. 

“Moving forward, continue to make that a priority — it’s as simple as that,” said Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins on how the team’s assists correlate to a winning formula. “We know that’s got to be a big part of our identity. We’ve had to work all season to catch this wave of a couple of games in a row. Keep prioritizing the spacing.” 

Jenkins went on to say, “I talked about the willingness to see it on film, see it in the practices, see it within the game — that’s what our guys have to continue to focus on.”

“In terms of a correlation, we know what our identity is,” Jenkins explained. “It’s our defensive activity that generates that excitement and momentum. We know when we play like that, you’re getting the production as well. When you’re setting your teammates up, that’s the excitement that we’re used to playing with. Encouraged by the play the last couple of games, and these guys know I’m not going to stop hitting them over the head with it.”

Despite starting 11 different lineups in January, the Grizzlies managed an 8-5 record for the month.

Leading the way for the Grizzlies Friday night was Jaren Jackson Jr., who scored 30 points, snatched 8 boards, and dished out 2 assists. It was Jackson Jr.’s eighth 30-point performance this season.

Jackson Jr. bullied the Magic bigs under the hoop and scored around the rim with consistency. He tied a season-high with 24 points in the paint for the Grizzlies, who finished with 50 paint points.

Jackson Jr. is the lone regular part of the Grizzlies core who is not sidelined for Memphis. His improved play has been another bright spot of this tumultuous season. 

“Yeah, for sure — very well said,” was Jackson Jr.’s response to a question about whether playing without Ja Morant and Desmond Bane is helping him grow. “Try (to) go out there every day and work on my game. Work on what I work on, doubles, shifts, and more attention. It is all going to be good because you don’t always get opportunities like that. So, you got to make the most of it and really grow when your name is called in situations like that.”

For Jackson Jr., it’s a good feeling to win in front of the home crowd. “It’s always good to win here,” he said. “I know we’ve had a better record on the road. So, every time we come back here, and we can get it done, all these games are going to mean something at this point.”

“We’re trying to crawl back,” Jackson Jr. continued. “We’re trying to make this push right here, which we are going to get that done. But it’s going to take a lot of fights. So, every game is going to be played like a playoff game.”

Off the bench, Ziaire Williams added 17 points (7-10 FG, 3-6 3P), four rebounds, and five assists. Williams has been struggling mightily as of late and has received plenty of criticism about his performances. 

After the game, Williams responded to the criticism, “I’ve just been taking it one day at a time, taking the good with the bad and the bad with the good — staying true to myself and putting the work in. I’m glad it paid off today. I just have to keep it up and believe in my ability.”

Luke Kennard added 15 points (5-11 FG), connected on five 3-pointers, and dished out six assists. In his last four games, Kennard has made 19 3-pointers.

Up Next

The Grizzlies travel to Indiana to take on the Pacers, Sunday, January 28 at 2:30 p.m. CT.