It’s important to take steps to minimize your tax liabilities. Many taxpayers miss out on valuable tax breaks. Here are some that are often overlooked but that can potentially save you money.
1. Medical expenses
If you itemize deductions, you may be eligible to deduct medical expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income (AGI). For example, if your income is $100,000, you may be able to deduct expenses that exceed $7,500. Examples of eligible expenses include:
• Insurance deductibles, co-payments, and other out-of-pocket medical expenses • Medicare premiums • Travel expenses for medical procedures, i.e. housing and transportation • Crutches, walkers, and scooters • Long-term care insurance premiums • Contact lenses and related supplies • Breathing machines or other durable medical equipment
2. Charity-related expenses
Most people are aware that charitable donations are tax-deductible, but fewer realize that certain out-of-pocket expenses related to charity work can also qualify. Examples include:
• Up to 14 cents per mile if you use your car for charity-related purposes • Postage cost for charity-related mail • The ingredients used to prepare a meal for a charity event
3. Home office deduction
If you are self-employed and use a space in your home exclusively for business purposes, you may be eligible for a home office deduction. There are two approved methods for calculating your deduction:
• Actual expense — Allows you to calculate the percentage of your home that comprises your home office and add in other costs based on that percentage. For example, if your office takes up 5 percent of your home, you can deduct 5 percent of your mortgage interest, real estate taxes, and utilities. (This method requires keeping meticulous records of your expenses.) • Simplified — Allows you to claim $5 per square foot, up to 300 square feet (a maximum of $1,500).
It’s important to note that individuals working remotely for companies as W-2 employees aren’t eligible for the home office deduction.
4. Mortgage discount points deduction
If you paid for points to lower your mortgage interest rate, you may be eligible for a tax deduction. The cost of mortgage points can be deducted during the year in which you paid for them as long as the mortgage was used to purchase or build your primary residence.
Points related to a mortgage refinance may also be deductible but typically need to be spread out over the life of the loan.
5. Residential clean energy credit
This allows you to deduct up to 30 percent of the cost of new energy-saving systems that use solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, or fuel cell power to heat water, generate electricity, or heat your home. You can also claim a tax credit of up to $500 for installing energy-efficient doors, insulation, heating and air conditioning systems, and water heaters, and a tax credit of up to $200 for new energy-efficient windows.
Keep in mind these are lifetime credit limits, which means any credits taken in previous years count toward the maximum allowable credit.
6. Student loan interest deduction
For student loan debt, you may be eligible to deduct up to $2,500 of the interest you paid on qualified loans. This deduction is gradually phased out for single filers with a modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) greater than $85,000 and joint filers with a MAGI greater than $170,000.
7. Lifetime learning credit
The lifetime learning credit is available for those pursuing education at any stage — whether undergraduate or graduate studies, continuing education courses, or certificate programs at eligible educational institutions. The credit is worth up to 20 percent of $10,000 in qualified expenses, with a maximum of $2,000 per year. Qualified expenses include tuition and fees, course materials, books, software, and computers necessary for classes.
The credit is available to those with a MAGI of less than $90,000 for single filers or less than $180,000 for married couples filing jointly. There’s a gradual phaseout of the credit for those with a MAGI of $80,000 (individuals) or $160,000 (married filing jointly).
Katie Stephenson, JD, CFP, is a Private Wealth Manager and Partner with Creative Planning. Creative Planning is one of the nation’s largest registered investment advisory firms providing comprehensive wealth management services to ensure all elements of a client’s financial life are working together, including investments, taxes, estate planning, and risk management. For more information or to request a free, no-obligation consultation, visit CreativePlanning.com.
I’m sitting on the deck, sipping a fresh-brewed cup of early coffee. It’s Easter, and the air is clear and bright and alive, offering the promise of another glorious Memphis spring day. The earth has resurrected itself and donned its finest vestments: Azaleas, dogwoods, irises, shamrocks, lantana — all manner of flowers large and small are in full bloom, turning the city, and my own backyard, into a celebration of color.
There is a mixed chorus of birdsong coming from the trees above. I listen for awhile and recognize the chirpy stylings of our resident Carolina wrens, cardinals, and mockingbirds, but there’s one persistent call I should know and can’t place. After a check of my Merlin Bird ID app, the mystery is soon revealed. It’s the cheery morning song of a — wait for it — Turdus migratorius, probably the commonest bird of all in these parts, better known as the American robin. Merlin says it’s a “fairly large songbird with round body parts. … Gray above, with warm orange underparts.”
Turdus migratorius? Round body parts? Warm orange underparts? C’mon. How can it be that even Latin bird names are conspiring to divert my brain on this lovely morning and send my thoughts to the unlovely news all too easily located elsewhere on my phone?
There’s no escaping it. Every day brings a new horror as President Turdus deconstructs our government and tightens his control over We the People. He’s intentionally crippling the pillars of our republic, cutting funding for Social Security, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the IRS, the Department of Energy, our national parks, NPR, Voice of America, the NOAA, the FDIC, Veterans Affairs, the National Science Foundation, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just last week, he tossed FEMA onto the bonfire of his vanities. Federal disaster relief is now going to be defunded. Cool.
And it’s not just the government. Trump’s putting the squeeze on law firms, universities, the media, nonprofits, students, and immigrants of every color except white, should they dare to stand up to the mighty American Robbin’. And it gets worse.
As I write this, the president has ignored at least one Supreme Court ruling for more than a week, with more SCOTUS cases to come. A genuine constitutional crisis is brewing, one which stems from the fact that the chief executive of the United States has literally seized power from the other two branches of government before our very eyes — in less than 100 days.
To control the judiciary, Trump began by ignoring the long-standing tradition of appointing an independent attorney general in favor of his pal Pam Bondi, the same woman who engineered a sweetheart “home confinement” deal for known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein when she was Florida’s attorney general. She’s also the woman who declined to prosecute Trump for his Trump University scam after receiving a $25,000 campaign donation from Trump’s “foundation.”
Toss in six conservative Supreme Court justices, three of whom were appointed by Trump, and the odds of the Justice Department stopping Orange Underparts are slim. Plus, they have no enforcement powers except for the U.S. Marshals, which are controlled by Bondi.
And when it comes to the GOP-controlled Congress, it appears Trump has only to breathe the threat of primarying a Republican politician with Elon Musk’s billions and they line up like good little soldiers and head over to Fox News to spew the latest White House drivel.
And lest we forget, there are the incredibly foolish and soon-to-be-costly tariffs and the impetuous destruction of relationships with long-standing allies. Worst of all is the realization that we live in a time in the United States of America where masked, non-uniformed agents are literally abducting people — throwing them into vehicles, taking them from their families and friends, and sending them to prisons here and abroad. No attorneys, no judges, no juries, no court appearances, no sentences. Welcome to the new USA.
Back in Memphis, Turdus migratorius is still singing sweetly above me as I scroll my phone and see that on the Fox News app, the top story on this beautiful Easter Sunday is: “Trump shreds Biden, ‘Radical Left Lunatics’ in Easter message.” Just as Jesus would have done, no doubt. Lord, help us.
The Memphis Roller Derby had its first bout of the season last Saturday. (Photo: Chuck Ford)
Last Saturday afternoon, the sharp screech of whistles blown by officials huddled in skates marked the start of Memphis Roller Derby’s (MRD) new season. The Pipkin Building in Liberty Park was abuzz with fans gathering in droves. As team skaters with star-stamped helmets whipped around the track — with serious grit — it was clear this league ran on more than adrenaline. They ran on community.
Community for the league looks different, depending on where you observe them. During their bout, the crowd’s hype elevated players to rock-star status, every lap earning an encore, each breakthrough met with a roar. When a skater known as “Don’t Blink” successfully broke through her opponents, the audience went crazy. Memphis was behind her — and she knew it, throwing a two-handed wave and a smile to fans as she rounded the track.
Family members and friends donned merch — some with the league’s name — while others opted for custom-made gear featuring their favorite skater’s face. Only some people sat in graffiti-sprayed chairs, the Pipkin Building well past standing-room-only. Derby was a big deal that day, but its importance goes beyond the bouts.
On a Tuesday afternoon prior to the game, the Pipkin looked a bit different. Skaters piled in for practice, and the indoor track seemed almost too pristine, too quiet — begging for a bit of edge that only chaos and passion can bring.
The MRD league has evolved since its start in 2006, with the sport getting more serious. (Photo: Chuck Ford)
As I eased into my first interview, the skaters moved from their pre-practice huddles into synchronized stretches. Their uniform side-to-side warm-ups transitioned into a high-energy sequence set to music. The beat blended into the background, and each players’ infectious swagger reverberated through the building.
Jemma Clary (known as Jem in the derby) lovingly refers to it as “off-brand Zumba,” led by their teammate Chandler. “It’s huge,” she adds. “It’s so fun because when we do it at games, other teams will sometimes join in. It’s always fun — hypes us up, gets our heart rates moving.”
From the energized warm-ups to the pre-scrimmage laughter, the camaraderie and community in the space was palpable. While the players’ individuality was reflected in their gear with sticker-covered helmets, when the digital “countdown to bout” clock ticked closer to zero, they shifted from individuals to one unit, from playfulness to determination. When the mouthguards go in, it’s game on.
Photo: Chuck Ford
Eye on the Star
“Pay attention to the person with the star on their head,” Clary tells me before the scrimmage round. “They’re going to be the one to watch. They’re going to be the one that’s scoring all the points for the team.”
I learn that the league prides itself on being a part of a niche subculture, one that stays alive partially through exposure to newbies. I’d only seen the sport on shows like Bunheads and The Fosters — usually as a shortcut to a character’s “edgy phase.” But that Tuesday’s practice was my first glimpse into the world beyond my streaming queues.
Clary translates derby in a beginner-friendly way, likening it to a mix of rugby, speed skating, and even a little bit of chess. She breaks it down as a game of jammers and blockers (the latter is the position Clary plays). The aforementioned star denotes the team’s “jammer” — the lead scorer.
“When we get out on the track, my job is to stop the other team’s jammer,” Clary says. “I want to keep them behind me. I do that by getting in their way and knocking them with my big ole butt, really. There are four of us that’ll be on the track as blockers and one person as a jammer. That’s for each team, so it’ll be 10 people on the track.”
A jammer must first get through a group of blockers before they’re able to score points by passing them.
“For every person you pass, you get a point,” Clary says. “It’s really easy to count points because you’re like, ‘How many people did they pass?’ That’s the big thing.”
Each team also has a “pivot” who wears a stripe on their head. The jammer can take their star off and give it to the pivot if they’re struggling to break past the other team’s blockers.
While popular culture is often people’s first introduction to the sport, Kendall Olinger (aka Choke) notes that these representations tend to conflate the sport to being “gimmicky” and akin to phenomena like wrestling.
The MRD league started here in 2006. “It’s evolved over the past 20 years to really stand alone as a serious sport with serious athletes,” Olinger says. “A lot of the stuff you see in the movies — or a lot of people bring up from watching roller derby from the ’70s or ’80s — it’s really gotten a lot more serious and way more focused on the sport. Lots of rules have changed, and a lot of those gimmicks have disappeared.”
Dylan Miller, an MRD jammer, says she didn’t know much about the sport aside from the 2009 film Whip It starring Elliot Page. Her journey beyond seeing derby on screen started at the league’s skate school in March 2023.
“I skated when I was a kid and I do think there was some ‘getting back on the bike’ type of thing,” Miller says. Through skate school she was able to master skills that she was “okay” at as a kid, like turning around and stopping. While these things may sound simple, Miller says the ingenuity of skate school is that it teaches and reinforces the basics of the sport to older audiences in a supportive environment.
“You’re getting lessons on all the basics and there’s somebody presenting the lessons, but you’re also getting one-on-one help from skaters in the league,” Miller says. “And we try to make sure it’s as accessible as possible to everyone regardless of their income.”
The league has taken this a step further by introducing Derby School, a program designed to refine their technique for derby readiness.
It’s been gratifying for Miller to see her growth from someone getting back on her wheels to joining the league. She notes it’s a “hard shift,” yet the league’s welcoming environment propelled her confidence. As a self-described “classic overthinker,” derby has given her the opportunity to get outside of her head and “leave it at the door.”
(left to right) #5 Choke, #17 Don’t Blink, #72 Jem, and #30 Dyl Pickle (Photos: Michelle Evans Art)
Don’t Blink
This transformation occurs in real time as Miller goes into bout mode, a conspicuous contrast from our pre-practice conversation. Miller takes a back seat, and “Dyl Pickle” takes over — one of the stars Clary told me to watch for.
On the track, Dyl is joined by the “other” team’s jammer “Don’t Blink.”
Prior to this moment, multiple players told me that Don’t Blink is a force to be reckoned with. Her name is a nod to her affinity for Doctor Who, a canonical yet witty reference to her lightning speed and prowess.
“‘Don’t Blink’ is like a warning,” Stacy Bautista tells me. “In the show, there’s a Weeping Angel statue and when you blink it comes to life and it’ll send you back in time and you die in the past. So, ‘Don’t Blink’ was kind of like a warning, like if you blink I’m going to hit you or come right past you — something bad is going to happen to you.”
She laughs at the irony of how her teammates sometimes shorten the moniker, calling her “Blink.” In some ways, it’s an inviting dare for opponents to see who they’re up against.
Aside from MRD, Bautista also plays for a borderless team called Fuego Latino Roller Derby. The league features a number of Latino skaters from across the globe, who will be playing in the Roller Derby World Cup in Innsbruck, Austria, this summer.
Bautista likens it to an Olympic-level derby competition composed of teams from all over the world. She reflects on her half-white and half-Cuban background, initially thinking there weren’t enough Cuban players to make a team that could play at the “World Cup level.”
“I was like, ‘the World Cup is not for me,’ because I don’t have the right background to get on a team and get to play,” she says.
But about two years ago, the borderless team was created. The team is not defined by country of origin but by culture. She adds that the goal was not specifically to be World Cup-bound, but an extension of efforts for skaters to form a community with people with shared cultural backgrounds.
Bautista was encouraged by MRD league members to apply, and with “help from a lot of people [in the league],” she was chosen for the World Cup Team.
“I’m super excited,” Bautista says, speaking of the opportunity. “The team has been really welcoming. When you’re only half-something, sometimes you don’t fit into either group very well, so both groups can be ‘you’re not really this or you’re not really that either,’ but a lot of my [Fuego Latino] teammates have that same kind of experience.”
Derby exists as a special place that invites interracial and intergenerational bonding, allowing skaters to build something “really fucking solid. It’s always an active thing,” Bautista says. “We try to create a space that is welcoming for all different backgrounds, who are inclusive of people who are also from other backgrounds.”
Why Skate
Beyond the requisite moxie, inclusivity seems to be an appealing tenet of derby culture. League members share that the search for community in adulthood can be surprisingly complex. Many found that the sport satisfies a hunger for togetherness, while also satiating the desire to achieve something real.
Bautistsa, for example, says that life after college graduation leaves much to be desired. For her, derby revives the thrill that sports like rugby and softball impressed on her while growing up.
“I loved a full-contact sport,” she says. “When you get out of college it’s like, ‘What now? You’re going to work a job and that’s it?’”
Initially that’s what her post-grad life led to — all work with little opportunity to meet people. She tried joining a book club for a minute but admits, “That wasn’t it. It was fun, but it wasn’t giving me the same connections to people.”
Ironically, it was through working as a carhop at Sonic that Bautista says the “roller derby seed” was planted. Yet, while derby was appealing as a return to the full-contact nature she grew to love, she was hesitant to go for it. A friend helped her overcome those initial jitters, and she’s now been engaged in the sport for 13 years.
“You’re playing offense and defense at the same time,” she says. “There are always new plays, people figuring different things out, people doing different footwork. It’s like a puzzle, but at high speed. You just keep leveling up.”
People like Bautista and Olinger note that the sport is appealing because it features full-contact play, but it also invites people to find community.
Similar to Bautista, Clary found the routine of working after graduation to be less than satisfactory. For her, post-grad life meant adjusting to her friends leaving Memphis and losing the community that college facilitates.
Clary says skating had “been her thing” since college, so enrolling in skate school was “something to do” as opposed to an introduction to the skill. And while she was looking for a way to pass time, she found a refreshing way to make friends in this new stage in life.
“I didn’t even come in wanting friends,” Clary says. “I joined and everyone’s just so friendly and welcoming. Roller derby is [also] like a pretty big queer space. I never really had fellow queer people around me, and it’s a lot of people that are older than me. It’s a pretty heterogeneous mixture of people, and people who are truly Memphians.”
These intergenerational spaces have proven to be invaluable. Not only does it contribute to league culture, but it’s what keeps the community thriving. The shared passion of skating permeates participants — both newcomers and seasoned skaters alike.
“It’s an honor to be able to skate with all these people,” Clary says. “I feel like over the past season we’ve been creeping up in the ranks and getting better and better, and everyone here who shows up regularly is super dedicated, not only to the sport but to the league and the community we have formed.”
The league operates as a nonprofit driven and run by skaters and league members. Members like Bautista and Olinger are not only team members but work as the heads of training and marketing, respectively. Along with sponsors and community support, members and participants help keep the culture and sport alive.
“We all like [derby] but there’s more to it than that,” Olinger says. “We have a really supportive community. We all understand that we all have to work together, not just on the track, but off the track, too.”
Olinger recognizes this as a privilege, especially in “elective hobbies and activities.” And she says the league hopes to impress their emphasis on respect and togetherness not just on participants, but on the city.
Whether it’s through skate school or a bout, the skaters invite others to learn about derby. While each player may have a personal reason they keep returning to the track, they recognize their presence builds upon a legacy that lasts long after their wheels stop turning.
MRD’s next bout is the Home Double Header on June 14th at the Pipkin Building. Follow @MemphisRollerDerby on Instagram to find out about upcoming events.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries filmmaker Akira Kurosawa devoted meticulous attention to weather conditions. He would postpone shooting a particular scene for days, waiting for the influx of the exact right blend of wind, clouds, or precipitation to create the ideal ambiance. I recommend you adopt his patient sense of timing in the coming weeks, Aries. While you typically prefer direct action, now is a favorable phase to coordinate your desire to get what you need with life’s changing conditions. What advantages might you gain by waiting for the ripest moments to arrive?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You can’t see or hold the wind, though you can feel its force and observe its effects. It scatters some seeds far and wide, dispersing them to grow in unexpected places. When harnessed by turbines, the wind is a renewable energy source. It can be utilized to pump water and fuel telecommunications equipment. Winds influence daily weather by transporting water and heat. I have summarized wind’s qualities because I see this upcoming phase of your cycle as being wind-like, Taurus. You won’t necessarily have to be obvious to spread your influence. You will be able to work behind the scenes in potent ways. Who knows where your seeds will land and germinate? There will be surprises.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The Earth’s first big ecological crisis happened 2.5 billion years ago. Ancient bacteria became a successful life form. They proliferated. The only problem was, they produced an abundance of oxygen, which was toxic to all the other existing life forms at that time. And yet that bump in evolution was ultimately essential in the rise of complex organisms that thrive on oxygen, like us. We wouldn’t be here today without bacteria’s initially problematic intervention. Nothing as monumentally major or epic will occur for you in the coming weeks, Gemini. But I do suspect that what may initially seem disruptive could ultimately generate positive outcomes. I hope you prime yourself to transform challenging situations into opportunities for growth. For best results, set aside your fixed beliefs about what’s necessary for maximum progress.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): From the 17th through the 19th centuries, Paris was famous for its salons. There, artists, writers, and big thinkers assembled to exchange ideas and inspire each other. The salons were often orchestrated by illustrious, educated women in their private homes. They were hotbeds of networking and cultural innovation. Listening and learning were key elements. Now would be an excellent time for you to organize, host, or encourage similar gatherings, Cancerian. You have extra power to facilitate the stellar socializing that generates zesty connections and spreads invigorating influences.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Harriet Tubman (1822–1913) was one of the bravest Americans who ever lived. After escaping enslavement, she heroically returned to other Southern plantations many times to help free enslaved people. To accomplish her miraculous rescues, she relied in part on her dreams and visions — what she called divine guidance — to navigate through challenging situations. I suspect you will soon have access to similar assets: extraordinary courage and help from unusual or even supernatural sources. Use these gifts wisely, Leo!
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The nations of planet Earth launched 263 space flights in 2024 and are on track for over 300 in 2025. Most of the satellites and spacecraft are devoted to scientific research. A relatively small proportion is dedicated to communication, navigation, and military uses. I would love for you to have an equally high level of exploratory and experimental energy in the coming weeks, Virgo. You will align yourself with cosmic rhythms if you spend more time than usual investigating the frontiers. It’s time to expand and extend yourself!
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): What’s the oldest living organism on Earth? It’s a bristlecone pine tree nicknamed Methuselah. Almost 4,800 years old, it resides somewhere in California’s White Mountains, though its precise location is kept secret to protect it. In the spirit of shielding and nurturing valuable things, I urge you to consider maintaining similar safeguards in the coming weeks. Like Methuselah, your precious processes and creations might thrive best when allowed to grow free from undue attention. You may benefit from maintaining privacy and silence about certain matters as they develop.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I love to gaze out my office window at Gallinas Creek during high tide. At certain interludes, the water is perfectly still. It almost perfectly reflects the sky in every detail, with all its clouds, birds, and hues of blue. My conscious mind knows the difference between the real sky and reflected sky, but my eyes can’t discern. That’s a helpful metaphor for all of us all the time, and especially for you in the coming weeks. It will be crucial for you to maintain an acute awareness of what’s genuine and what’s illusory.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978) revolutionized her field. She didn’t study other cultures from a distance with a detached perspective. Instead, she learned their languages and immersed herself in their daily lives. So she earned the intimate understanding to conclude, “What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.” This is a crucial principle for you right now. You must directly observe people’s actions rather than simply believing what they say about themselves — or what others say about them. You must look beyond surface declarations to understand the deeper rhythms and patterns. For best results, be a devoted participant, not an uninvolved judge.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn mystic Alan Watts wrote The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. He proposed that each of us is far more glorious than our separate, isolated egos. It’s difficult to come to this understanding, however, since our culture conspires to hide it from us. That’s the bad news. The good news, Capricorn, is that you will have an unprecedented chance to partly shatter this taboo in the coming weeks. I have high hopes that you will discover deep truths about yourself that have previously been unavailable.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Beginning in 1946, Bedouins exploring caves near the Dead Sea discovered an immense trove of ancient documents written on parchment. These manuscripts provided many new revelations into early Christianity, biblical texts, and the history and culture of Judaism. I suspect that in the coming weeks, you may experience a metaphorical equivalent of this breakthrough and unveiling. To prepare, meditate on these questions: 1. What mysterious parts of your life story would you like to have illuminated? 2. About which aspects of your past would you like to receive new truths? 3. Is there anything missing in your understanding of who you really are?
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): White light enters a glass prism and is translated on the other side into a rainbow of colors. That’s because each color rides its own wavelength, even while seamlessly blended in the white light, and then gets bent differently by the prism. The magic of the prism is that it reveals the hidden spectrum within, the latent diversity contained within the apparently monolithic beam of white light. In the coming weeks, Pisces, I predict that you will be like a prism, bringing out vibrancy in situations or relationships that may seem nondescript or mundane at first glance. Your ability to discern and appreciate multiple perspectives will enable you to create an intriguing kind of harmony. You will have the power to notice and reveal beauty that has been veiled or unnoticed.
In the aftermath of the wildfires in California, at least two residents returned to their homes only to find new and unwelcome tenants, the Los Angeles Times reported. Homeowner Sean Lorenzini evacuated during the Eaton fire, and upon his return found a black bear sleeping in the crawl space under his home and lounging by the pool during the day. The large bear seemed to be foraging in neighbors’ trash bins and was probably behind an attack on a neighbor’s pet goat, Lorenzini said. “It’s definitely not moving,” he said. He’s hoping to get the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to help after they relocated a 525-pound bear at the end of January. In that case, the Altadena-area bear was lured into a trap with peanut butter and rotisserie chicken, then moved to Angeles National Forest. The wildlife agency told Lorenzini that after his bear is removed, he’ll need to seal up the crawl space, as it will probably try to return. “I know we’re encroaching on their territory,” Lorenzini said of the bear, “so I’m sympathetic to that. But at the same time … I’m exposed if anyone gets hurt. This is a wild animal.”
Least Competent Criminals
An observant deputy was credited with foiling the attempts of Jose Francisco Herrera Munoz, 18, and Angel Gonzales Gutierrez, 19, to launch illegal drugs into the U.S. Penitentiary Pollock in Grant Parish, Louisiana, Denver7-TV reported on Feb. 18. Both men are from Greeley, Colorado. Munoz and Gutierrez had planned to use a compressed air cannon, which has a range of 350 feet, to send $112,000 worth of tobacco and $89,500 worth of methamphetamine over the prison wall, but the deputy acted before they could make the delivery. “That much meth would have just been devastating in that population,” said Sheriff Steven McCain. They were charged with attempting to introduce contraband into a penal institution and attempting to distribute meth.
What’s in a Name?
• When Nontra Null, 41, of Burbank, California, tried to apply for a visa to attend a friend’s wedding in India, she kept getting the same response: The computer couldn’t process the application. Turns out “null” is a troublesome name when it comes to filling out online forms. Yahoo! News reported on Feb. 23 that when “null” is entered in a field, it essentially means, well, nothing. Jan Null, a 75-year-old meteorologist, learned to reserve hotel rooms adding his first initial to his last name, and security auditor Joseph Tartaro, whose vanity license plate reads NULL, keeps getting random traffic tickets from all over the United States. Modern software has addressed the problem, but not everyone has upgraded, one tech researcher noted.
• Jason Kilburn of Omaha, Nebraska, learned about his daughter Caroline only after she was born, he told NBC News on Feb. 24. At her birth in November 2022, her mother had her placed with a foster family, but before that could happen, the baby received a certificate of live birth with a bizarre name: Unakite Thirteen Hotel. Kilburn was told it was a “computer-generated name.” Now, as Kilburn raises Caroline and tries to get a birth certificate with her given name, he’s stuck in a “circuitous, bureaucratic loop.” Without the birth certificate and a Social Security number, he can’t secure health insurance or child care. Just to get a routine checkup, Kilburn has to pay about $700 out of pocket. “It’s not like I’m trying to pull something here,” he said. “This is stuff she’s entitled to as any American is.” The Social Security Administration has issued a Social Security number, albeit with the original unusual name, and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services is working with Kilburn to straighten out Caroline’s mess.
Phobia Report
Leigh Woodman, 32, of Bristol, England, suffers from a crippling fear of a common condiment: mortuusequusphobia, or fear of ketchup. The New York Post reported on Feb. 20 that Woodman likens seeing ketchup with “being held at gunpoint” on the trauma scale. “I can’t even look at a bottle or have it anywhere near me,” she said. “It makes me feel panicky.” While her mother claims Woodman liked ketchup as a child, she can’t remember a time when the popular condiment didn’t upset her.
Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
Lou Martin wants to serve you fried chicken dinner (Photo: Michael Donahue)
In addition to being in a new location, Uncle Lou’s Fried Chicken will be in a new episode of Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on the Food Network.
His restaurant is now at 1725 Winchester Road, which is “one-fourth of a mile” from his old restaurant at 3633 Millbranch Road, says owner/founder Lou Martin. “A six-minute walk or a two-minute drive.”
And the episode, titled “Sweet, Spicy and Savory,” will air at 7 p.m. on April 25th.
Martin’s new building was formerly a Wendy’s location. He wanted the building for years. “They came down to my asking price, which I thought was great.”
He didn’t have to do a lot to the building, but he did a lot anyway, Martin says. “My plan is to set it up as a model. Get more of them. Get people interested in opening Lou’s around the city, around the country. That’s the plan. That’s why we went so in depth. To make it a franchise-able model.”
Asked about the interior’s color scheme, Martin says, “My wife [Renee Martin] is in charge of colors. I’m in charge of the bills.”
One area of the restaurant, known as Daphne’s Area, is in pink because of his daughter Daphne Martin, who died in June 2024. “It’s an honor to her, her legacy. Everything is pink. That was her color.”
Martin has white table tops in honor of his mother Mary Martin, who died 10 years ago. “She had that dream a few times that I had a restaurant with white tablecloths. And I told her, ‘Mom,’ — we kind of joked about it — ‘I might have a white table top one day.’’’
The chair cushions are green. “My mom’s favorite color was green.”
The new restaurant is 2,700 square feet, as opposed to his old place, which was 1,800 square feet. Martin now has more space for shipping his Uncle Lou’s products, which include his sauces, seasonings, and chicken breading mix.
The new restaurant, of course, continues to offer Martin’s chicken breasts, thighs, legs, and his award-winning marinated chicken tenderloins slathered with his signature Sweet Spicy Love sauce, as well as hamburgers and other items.
Martin came up with the sauce, but the fried chicken recipe came from his great-grandmother Rosie Gillespie. In a MemphisMagazine story, Martin said he was about 15 when his mother told him the secret to Madear’s fried chicken. And she told him again when he decided to sell chicken at his new restaurant.
New Uncle Lou’s side items include homemade macaroni-and-cheese. “We start with elbow macaroni noodles. Cook those. After those are cooked, we add our cheddar cheese sauce. And after that we add some black pepper, some Corruption — my own personal seasoning — and a little bit of honey. Cup it up and sprinkle shredded cheese on it. A five-cheese blend.”
Corruption is “an all-purpose seasoning. Kind of like Lawry’s or Season-All, but much more flavor and less salt.”
The seasoning dates to Martin’s days when he owned Turkey Express, a turkey leg booth he set up at the Mid-South Fair and at Memphis in May events. Daphne, who was about 10 years old at the time, helped him make Corruption, he says. “Probably 30 plus years ago.”
Daphne continued to help him over the years. “She was my right hand, but she was left-handed.”
Martin talked about Corruption when he was on his first Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives show with Fieri in 2008. Asked on the show why he called it Corruption, Martin said, “Once you taste it, you’ve been corrupted.”
Corruption also is in Sweet Spicy Love Beans, another new side item.“It’s a Northern bean with a Southern kick.”
Martin says, “People swear up and down it has meat, but it doesn’t have meat. Just seasoning, seasoned green beans, and we add diced potatoes and Corruption.”
That’s another nod to his mother, who made green beans with diced potatoes for their Sunday dinners when Martin was growing up. She made Sunday dinner on Saturday. So, on Sunday she’d put the already-cooked beans and potatoes on the floor heater before the family went to church. The slow heat marinated the dish. All his mom had to do when they came home from church was “fry chicken or warm up the roast or whatever we were having that day.”
Martin recalls the aroma from those beans and potatoes after church. “Talking about smell — oh, my goodness.”
Born and raised in Memphis, Martin opened his first restaurant, Catfish Express, where he sold farm-raised catfish, in 1988.
He then went into the concession business with his Turkey Express booth. He also owned the short-lived Turkey Express restaurant in Downtown Memphis.
In 2001, Martin opened what later became Uncle Lou’s Fried Chicken. He originally sold hamburgers and sandwiches before he added the fried chicken made from his great-grandmother’s recipe.
Mary enhanced the fried chicken with his Sweet Spicy Love sauce, which is made with honey, red wine vinegar, Louisiana hot sauce, and Corruption. He originally called the sauce Honey Dip, but during a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives appearance, Fieri told him he should call it Sweet Spicy Love.
Martin has been on Fieri’s show four times, including the upcoming episode. As he said in the MemphisMagazine story, business picked up “immediately” after the first show in 2008. “It didn’t stop,” Martin said. “And it hasn’t stopped.”
Business is booming at his new location, Martin says. And, for the first time in his career, he owns a restaurant with a patio. “I’ve got a patio that’s out of this world. I want to say 35 by 40. It’s enough to have six six-foot tables.”
The patio is intended for families who want to let their kids move around and “stretch their legs.”
The centerpiece in the restaurant’s landscaping is a “long stem pink” rose bush, which belonged to his mother. “My niece was a baby when she planted that thing, so I know it’s 40-plus. I’m saying 43.”
Martin had the rosebush transplanted to the restaurant. “It’s flourishing down here.”
Hydrangea bushes and various flowers also are included in the restaurant’s landscaping. “I like color. I like low maintenance and something that comes back every year. Some yellows. Some oranges. Some purples. And the flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds.
“If you’re sitting out there on the patio and you’ve got butterflies, hummingbirds, good music, and a good day, what else could you need besides good-flavored chicken?”
Alex, Henry, Thomas, Jenay, Reagan Boggs (Photos: Michael Donahue)
Beautiful weather, the smell of hamburgers, the sound of music from performers that included Lucero and Sons of Mudboy, and a throng of people helped make Huey’s 55th Anniversary Block Party a success.
The party was held around the original Huey’s Midtown location at 1927 Madison Avenue. Huey’s now has eight locations in Tennessee and two in Mississippi, says Alex Boggs, Huey’s area director and marketing director.
James and Veronica McCraw Cindy Love, Kevin Kane, and Paula LaRue Drew Helland and Savannah Maxwell Cedric Keel with Groove Nation Chuck Albonetti and Cathryn FerloniAshley and Michael Robilio and Lauren Robinson Daniel Allen, Alecia Sharp, and Sean Langley
Madison Avenue from Barksdale Street to Rembert Street and 100 yards of Tucker Street were blocked off for the April 13th event, Boggs says. As for the crowd count, he says, “I think we had about 3,500 to 4,000.”
The block party wasn’t just to celebrate 55 years. “We wanted to thank Memphis for taking care of us. Thank our staff and customers for being so loyal and supporting Church Health, which has been a charitable partner with us for decades.”
David Leonard and Eva Guggenheim Zoe Casey and Kevin and Graham ChilesJames PottsJimmy Lee Sean ConnellyKiryn Brossard, Brandy Brossard, and Willie TerryVivian and Marcus Batchellor
He adds, “Our employees are the ones who make Huey’s what we are.”
Huey’s, which supports many charities, is “more than a restaurant,” Boggs says. It’s “part of the entire community for the greater Memphis area.”
Space, it seems, is there to be capitalized upon. (Photo: NASA | Unsplash)
On April 14, 2025, Jeff Bezos’ private space startup, Blue Origin, launched six non-astronaut, celebrity women into space. Apparently, the 10-minute flight promoted women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). If anything, though, the so-called “historic” voyage represented little more than that the excesses of capitalism are open to anyone with the cash to spend and celebrity status to launch them to the front of the line.
It should be noted that before Blue Origin’s recent female-crewed flight, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to travel to space on a solo mission. She’s not alone, and no thanks to Katy Perry, one of Blue Origin’s celebrity passengers — and passengers are what they were, since no scientific tests were performed during their few minutes of weightlessness. There have been multiple women astronauts from countries across the globe. It’s possible that this recent high-profile instance of space tourism encouraged some young girls to study science, but it seems a roundabout and expensive way of promoting that goal. This is spaceflight in the age of influencer culture, when celebrity status and the cult of personality matter more than education and study.
How else should we, the public, view that blatant PR stunt when on the same day of the so-called “mission,” Nature reported that “[p]reliminary copies of some of the U.S. government’s spending plans suggest that President Donald Trump’s administration intends to slash climate and space science across some U.S. agencies. At risk is research that would develop next-generation climate models, track the planet’s changing oceans, and explore the solar system. NASA’s science budget for the fiscal year 2026 would be cut nearly in half, to U.S. $3.9 billion.”
The priorities of the current administration — and the wealthy tech bros underwriting its rise to power — are on clear display. The future forecasted by such frivolous flights is a far cry from one in which scientific advancements are funded equitably and their rewards are shared with all. Instead, a coalition of the famous and filthy-rich will share a TikTok reel of their breathless awe as they experience weightlessness. The very idea of the Blue Origin flight is so out-of-touch that one is tempted to think its crew were already 66 miles above Earth’s surface.
In March, as part of Trump’s anti-DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) witch hunt, NASA removed two graphic novels featuring a female astronaut — First Woman: NASA’s Promise for Humanity and First Woman: Expanding Our Universe — from its website. So too was a sentence about the Artemis program’s goal heavily edited. The following sentence, rife with the demons of equity and inclusion, was scoured from the organization’s website: “NASA will land the first woman, first person of colour, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.”
Again, the priorities are plain as day; it’s as though they’ve been written in the sky. Space, like every other natural resource, is there to be capitalized upon to increase the wealth and power of a select few, not to be explored for the betterment of all. As with public education and the United States Postal Service, the plan seems to be to pave the way for private companies like Blue Origin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. Whether they’re angling for mining rights to the moon or nearby asteroids or hoping to project advertisements on the night sky via satellite, the future looks bleak. Though regular members of the Earth-bound rabble won’t be able to afford the $150,000 deposit on one of Blue Origin’s future flights, we will probably be able to rent an ad-free stargazing experience for a low monthly rate. Maybe during eclipses or meteor showers whole neighborhoods can pool their discretionary funds together for a light pollution-free weekend as a special treat. See? And they say there’s no way to build community these days!
Call me a starry-eyed idealist, but Amazon and Bezos should be taxed to fund NASA — and the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health and other institutions working to serve the whole population. If they really want to inspire women to work in STEM careers, they should speak out against funding cuts to organizations that provide those jobs. They could invest in STEM scholarships, fund research institutions — like the University of Memphis, which was last year named an R1 institution by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. They won’t, though because they want the glory and the financial gains.
These mega-rich social invalids can’t seem to connect, whether it’s to other humans or the simple awe of the universe around us. They read fictional tech-dystopias like Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and thought they were user’s guides. We’re a far cry from Gene Roddenberry’s futuristic and egalitarian tech-utopia of Star Trek. What would Captain Janeway think of our poor, backwards society, when breaking the bonds of gravity amounts to no more than a publicity stunt?
Jesse Davis is a former Flyer staffer; he writes a monthly Books feature for Memphis Magazine. His opinions, such as they are, can’t afford to reserve a ticket on a Blue Origin space tourism flight.
(left to right) Khari Wynn, Alex Greene, Steve Hirsh, Art Edmaiston, and Chad Fowler will get telepathic as Crosstown Arts’ Jazz Month continues. (Photo: Courtesy Crosstown Arts)
When Steve Hirsh and Friends take the stage at the Green Room at Crosstown Arts, they will have something in common with the audience. You won’t know what songs they’re going to play, and they won’t know either!
Hirsh will make the long drive from his home in Bemidji, Minnesota, to play with a group of Memphis’ finest “free” musicians, all of whom have embraced extemporaneous music-making for years.
Saxophonist Arthur Edmaiston says both he and saxophonist/flutist Chad Fowler were steeped in improv in the 1990s, with regular sessions at Young Avenue Deli that coalesced around saxophonist Frank Lowe. “He came back to Memphis in the ’90s after a 20-plus year career,” Edmaiston says. “It was a weekly gig, and that was a great way for us to all develop our own thing and develop as a band and improve as musicians. And we recorded those shows. See, we all lived in the neighborhood, so we’d go and we’d do the gig and record it, and then we’d come back home and drink on the porch, whoever’s porch, and listen to what we had done earlier and tear it apart and kind of learn from it.”
“Is this free jazz?” I ask Hirsh, referring to a genre tag that was often applied to Lowe.
“I’m going to ask you not use that term,” Hirsh replies.
As bassist Khari Wynn explains, many improvisational musicians consider the term a trap. “As soon as you drop the ‘J’ word, you get two avenues of thought. People are immediately like, ‘Oh, I don’t like that. It doesn’t have words. It’s too out there.’ Or you get the other side of it where people are like, ‘Oh yeah! I’m definitely a jazz fan!’ So then they expect to hear some of these certain figures repeated or played, and then if you don’t do that, then you’re not authentic.”
Hirsh was originally from New York City, the crucible of modern jazz, but left when he was still a teenager. “I wasn’t even aware of all that stuff,” he says. “I grew up on rock-and-roll. I didn’t start learning about jazz until I was in high school. I just kind of stumbled across some records. I went to the ‘University of Liner Notes,’” he says. “I moved out to the Bay Area, and I was playing in rock-and-roll bands and blues bands and really got into the [Grateful] Dead, which is really where I learned about improvising.”
Meanwhile, the group that became Deepstaria Enigmatica originally brought three of these players —Fowler, Wynn, and Alex Greene — together with David Collins and Jon Harrison in 2022, opening for Jack Wright’s improv trio Wrest. Something clicked. “That October, we went into Sam Phillips Recording and improvised for several hours,” says keyboardist Greene, who is the music editor for the Memphis Flyer. “A tiny fraction of that became our first album, but that day was explosive. It was like the big bang for our group.”
The Eternal Now Is the Heart of a New Tomorrow consists of two tracks, both more than 20 minutes in length. Unlike the stereotypical free jazz freak-outs of the ’70s, Deepstaria takes a whirlwind tour through 60 years of instrumental innovation. Soulful grooves dissipate into ambient atmospherics and sheer sonic textures.
That album, released on the celebrated ESP-Disk label, which also released Lowe’s 1973 debut, is getting some attention, as with DownBeat’s recent positive review of the disk.
Edmaiston, for his part, has also been a maverick of improvised music here, either with SpiralPhonics or with trailblazer Ra-Kalam Bob Moses, not to mention ad hoc groups and his early years with Lowe.
These Memphians’ slippery eclecticism is what attracted Hirsh to them. “There’s no genre about it. It’s a process. It’s a way to make music,” he says. “Our brains differentiate between noise and music, but we learn what music is. There are people who intentionally work with that boundary, and I think that’s perfectly valid. But I always want a narrative. I want a story arc in the music I play. Playing with these guys is hip because they all want the same thing, and we’re all kind of reaching for the same thing when we’re playing — at least when we’re playing together.”
“We just go in any direction the music wants to go,” says Greene. “We were just reviewing one of [Deepstaria’s] unreleased tracks from Phillips, and it was like, ‘Oh, wow! I forgot about that whole metal section!’ We embrace that. We know what to do when things start to careen off in that direction. It’s five composers, jointly contributing, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
That’s what makes the long drive from Minnesota worth it for Hirsh.“What I enjoy so much about playing with these guys, and why I keep coming down to Memphis, is that everybody’s ears are so wide open. It’s like you’re 10 years old, and you’re out in the woods running around playing, and somebody says, ‘Ooh! Look at this cool thing over there!’ And everybody runs off to see this cool thing over there.
“You hear people, particularly jazz musicians, talk about reflexes. But what we are talking about, I think, is a step beyond reflexes. Everybody is hearing something unfold, and it’s not that they’re reacting to something they’ve heard; it’s that they hear where it’s going. … I call it ‘real-time group composition.’ That’s my best description of it.”
Crosstown Arts presents Steve Hirsh and Friends in the Green Room on Thursday, April 24th, 7:30 p.m. Visit crosstownarts.org for details.
One to One depicts John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s life in New York City 1971 to ’73.
When John Lennon was shot in front of his apartment at New York City’s Dakota building in 1980, Time magazine called it an “assassination.” Noting that the term is usually reserved for the murder of a head of state, the Time editorial board called Lennon “the leader of a state of mind.” Before his murder by a deranged fan, Lennon was a musician — albeit one of the most famous in modern history. Afterwards, he became a martyr.
But martyrdom, it turns out, does not suit Lennon. Sure, they open every Summer Olympics with his secular hymn “Imagine,” but the Beatles Backlash is real, and Lennon’s legacy has gotten the worst of it. Sir Paul McCartney is still playing shows and wowing audiences at age 82. Ringo is still the floppy mascot guy he always has been (and, let’s be clear, one of the greatest drummers of all time). George Harrison’s solo work is now venerated as the best of the post-Beatles output. But spend a few minutes on any social media network these days and you can find people who say the Beatles were massively overrated, and, most cruelly of all, John Lennon would probably be MAGA if he were alive today.
Lennon the iconoclast would have understood. A couple of generations have had the Fab Four’s music shoved down their throats by the Beatles industrial complex. That the band “changed the world” is a Boomer catechism. So when young people hear the music made by a bunch of moldy old white guys, of course they’re predisposed to hate it.
In One to One: John & Yoko, director Kevin Macdonald aims to demystify Lennon and reveal the human being behind the mythical martyr. The meat of the film is performance footage from Lennon’s Madison Square Garden show on August 30, 1972. The concert was a benefit for the victims of the Willowbrook State School in New Jersey, which journalist Geraldo Rivera had exposed as a hellhole where developmentally disabled children were basically imprisoned and left to rot. It was the only full-length concert Lennon played after the Beatles’ Shea Stadium swan song in 1966.
The shocking footage from inside Willowbrook is a part of the hundreds of clips from TV and film that flesh out One to One. Macdonald begins the story in 1971. The Beatles have been broken up for more than a year, and John Lennon has been living with his new wife Yoko Ono in a posh English country estate outside London. As Lennon recounts in a taped interview with a print journalist, Ono was the one who hated living in a mansion and wanted to simplify their lives. On a short vacation to New York City, Lennon and Ono discovered that they loved the hustle and bustle, and the cultural scene. Lennon tells the interviewer that he felt at home because “no one bothered us.” So the couple sold their English estate and moved into a two-room flat in Greenwich Village. There, they mostly smoked weed and watched the TV they had propped up at the foot of their bed, which had been left by the apartment’s previous owner.
A couple’s therapist would have a field day with the picture of John and Yoko’s relationship Macdonald draws. The “Yoko is the villain who broke up the Beatles” narrative was exposed as misogynistic agitprop by Peter Jackson’s epic Get Back documentary series. Jackson found a sound clip where Sir Paul himself calls bullshit on the notion that the group was in trouble because “Yoko sat on an amp.” But Lennon and Ono were clearly codependent, years before the psychological term was coined. By the time they moved to New York, they had both gotten hooked on heroin and kicked the habit. Lennon was tired of being a prisoner of his own fame and fascinated by the avant-garde art world which had embraced Ono, whom he called a “creative genius.” (One of the film’s running gags involves taped conversations between Ono’s staff who are trying desperately to secure a thousand house flies for one of Ono’s art installations.) In a clip from one of the panel-type talk shows that was popular on TV at the time, Lennon opens up about being abandoned by his mother and reconnecting at age 16, only months before she was hit by a truck. For her part, Ono was the daughter of a rich Japanese family who had been made into destitute refugees by the American firebombing of Tokyo. It’s no wonder that two people with abandonment issues would cling so fiercely to each other.
The focus of their lives in 1971 to ’73 was radical leftist politics. Ono’s feminism was a revelation to Lennon, who had been abusive to his first wife Cynthia. Macdonald drives the point home by showing footage of Lennon getting kicked out of the First International Feminist Conference, where Ono was speaking, for being the only man there. Protests against the Vietnam War were raging in America, and the Ono-Lennons were in the thick of it. They were planning an American “peace tour,” where some of the proceeds would have gone to bail funds for imprisoned Black men. Lennon tried to recruit Bob Dylan as a co-headliner but never quite got it done. He wrote a song about the Attica prison revolt that his manager begged him not to perform in public. In the end, the tour plans fell apart. Three months after the Plastic Ono Band’s MSG show, Nixon was reelected in a landslide, and his State Department tried to deport Lennon. The restored concert footage shows what might have been. Lennon and the band (which includes a bass player dressed as Jesus and a Stevie Wonder guest vocal on “Give Peace a Chance”) are loose and playful. Lennon delivers a transcendent version of “Imagine” at a piano while casually chewing gum. One imagines a world where, with a little more practice, they coalesced into a touring powerhouse that freed prisoners across the country. But that is not the world we got.
One to One: John and Yoko Now playing Malco Ridgeway
