Mempho Music Festival brought an act for every taste to the Radians Amphitheater last weekend. But the MEMernet raved over Jack White’s performance. As our own Chris McCoy said, White was “simply operating on another level than everyone else.”
Bass fish
Posted to Nextdoor by Yimy Perez
The MEMernet can be every bit as tough and gritty as our city. But sometimes you slow your scroll for a bit of pure, simple delight. That’s the case for Parkway Village North neighbor Yimy Perez who posed with a great catch over the weekend and the title, simply “bass fish.”
Why Trump?
Posted to YouTube by World Overcomers Church
Alton R. Williams just came right out with it — and clearly broke federal law — last week in a sermon titled “Why Trump?” Again, the Johnson Amendment says churches could lose their tax-exempt status if they preach politics from the pulpit.
“The Democrat party, I’m gonna say it tonight so you won’t be confused, is the anti-Christ party,” Williams said. “It is anti-family. And I’m going to say this — and you ain’t gonna believe it — but it is anti-Black folk. You’re only needed for votes. You’re only loved when it comes time to vote.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the coming weeks, you may be tempted to spar and argue more than usual. You could get sucked into the fantasy that it would make sense to wrangle, feud, and bicker. But I hope you sublimate those tendencies. The same hot energy that might lead to excessive skirmishing could just as well become a driving force to create robust harmony and resilient unity. If you simply dig further into your psyche’s resourceful depths, you will discover the inspiration to bargain, mediate, and negotiate with élan. Here’s a bold prediction: Healing compromises hammered out now could last a long time.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Question #1: “What subjects do you talk about to enchant and uplift a person who’s important to you?” Answer #1: “You talk about the feelings and yearnings of the person you hope to enchant and uplift.” Question #2: “How do you express your love with maximum intelligence?” Answer #2: “Before you ask your allies to alter themselves to enhance your relationship, you ask yourself how you might alter yourself to enhance your relationship.” Question #3: “What skill are you destined to master, even though it’s challenging for you to learn?” Answer #3: “Understanding the difference between supple passion and manic obsession.”
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In 1819, Gemini entrepreneur François-Louis Cailler became the first chocolatier to manufacture chocolate bars. His innovation didn’t save any lives, cure any disease, or fix any injustice. But it was a wonderful addition to humanity’s supply of delights. It enhanced our collective joy and pleasure. In the coming months, dear Gemini, I invite you to seek a comparable addition to your own personal world. What novel blessing might you generate or discover? What splendid resource can you add to your repertoire?
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Ayurnamat is a word used by the Inuit people. It refers to when you long for the relaxed tranquility that comes from not worrying about what can’t be changed. You wish you could accept or even welcome the truth about provocative situations with equanimity. Now here’s some very good news, Cancerian. In the coming weeks, you will not just yearn for this state of calm, but will also have a heightened ability to achieve it. Congratulations! It’s a liberating, saint-like accomplishment.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Healing will be more available to you than usual. You’re extra likely to attract the help and insight you need to revive and restore your mind, soul, and body. To get started, identify two wounds or discomforts you would love to alleviate. Then consider the following actions: 1. Ruminate about what helpers and professionals might be best able to assist you. Make appointments with them. 2. Perform a ritual in which you seek blessings from your liveliest spirit guides and sympathetic ancestors. 3. Make a list of three actions you will take to make yourself feel better. 4. Treat this process not a somber struggle, but as a celebration of your mounting vitality.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The Beatles were the best-selling band of all time and among the most influential, too. Their fame and fortune were well-earned. Many of the 186 songs they composed and recorded were beautiful, interesting, and entertaining. Yet none of four members of the band could read music. Their brilliance was intuitive and instinctual. Is there a comparable situation in your life, Virgo? A task or skill that you do well despite not being formally trained? If so, the coming months will be a good time to get better grounded. I invite you to fill in the gaps in your education.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In 2010, Edurne Pasaban became the first woman to climb the world’s tallest 14 mountains, reaching the top of Shishapangma in China. In 2018, Taylor Demonbreun arrived in Toronto, Canada, completing a quest in which she visited every sovereign nation on the planet in 18 months. In 1924, explorer Alexandra David-Néel pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of visiting Lhasa, Tibet, when that place was still forbidden to foreigners. Be inspired by these heroes as you ruminate about what frontier adventures you will dare to enjoy during the next six months. Design a plan to get all the educational and experimental fun you need.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Alnwick Garden is an unusual network of formal gardens in northeast England. Among its many entertaining features is the Poison Garden, which hosts 100 species of toxic and harmful plants like hemlock, strychnine, and deadly nightshade. It’s the most popular feature by far. Visitors enjoy finding out and investigating what’s not good for them. In accordance with astrological omens, Scorpio, I invite you to use this as an inspirational metaphor as you take inventory of influences that are not good for you. Every now and then, it’s healthy to acknowledge what you don’t need and shouldn’t engage with.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian Tom Rath is an inspirational author who at age 49 has managed to stay alive even though he has wrangled with a rare disease since he was 16. He writes, “This is what I believe we should all aim for: to make contributions to others’ lives that will grow infinitely in our absence. A great commonality we all share is that we only have today to invest in what could outlive us.” That’s always good advice for everyone, but it’s especially rich counsel for you Sagittarians in the coming months. I believe you will have a special capacity to dispense your best gifts those who need and want them.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn writer Susan Sontag was a public intellectual. She was an academic with a scholarly focus and an entertaining commentator on the gritty hubbub of popular culture. One of my favorite quotes by her is this one: “I like to feel dumb. That’s how I know there’s more in the world than me.” In other words, she made sure her curiosity and open-mindedness flourished by always assuming she had much more to learn. I especially recommend this perspective to you in the coming weeks.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The Salem Witch Trials took place in Massachusetts from 1692 to 1693. They were ignorant, superstitious prosecutions of people accused of practicing witchcraft. The modern holiday known as Freethought Day happens every October 12, the anniversary of the last witch trial. The purpose of this jubilee is to encourage us to treasure objective facts, to love using logic and reason, and to honor the value of critical thinking. It’s only observed in America now, but I propose we make it a global festival. You Aquarians are my choice to host this year’s revelries in celebration of Freethought Day. You are at the peak of your ability to generate clear, astute, liberating thoughts. Show us what it looks like to be a lucid, unbiased observer of reality.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A YouTube presenter named Andy George decided to make a chicken sandwich. But he didn’t buy the ingredients in a store. He wanted to make the sandwich from scratch. Over the next six months, he grew wheat, ground it into flour, and used it to bake bread. He milked a cow to make cheese and butter. He got sea salt from ocean water and grew a garden of lettuce, cucumber, tomato, and dill for toppings. Finally, he went to a farm, bought a chicken, and did all that was necessary to turn the live bird into meat for the sandwich. In describing his process, I’m not suggesting you do something similar. Rather, I’m encouraging you to be thorough as you solidify your foundations in the coming months. Gather resources you will need for long-term projects. Be a connoisseur of the raw materials that will assure future success in whatever way you define success.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ dramatic entry into the presidential race in July — including selecting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate — put a new twist on the already gendered nature of the election. A woman was now at the top of the ticket.
Instead of Donald Trump’s and JD Vance’s misogynist manhood solely driving the media narrative, there was now a new storyline: Not only was a Black, South Asian woman the nominee; there also was a counternarrative — the egalitarian expression of manhood embodied by Walz and Doug Emhoff.
From the GOP convention theme song, “It’s a Man’s World,” to Hulk Hogan’s ridiculous tribute to old-school manhood, the Trump campaign gambled that their brand of “tough” masculinity would be a winning strategy against President Biden’s perceived “weak” portrayal of manhood. But Trump was caught up short when — just three days after his convention ended — he was facing a woman.
Into this fraught political moment comes a thought-provoking film exploring presidential masculinity. The Man Card: 50 Years of Gender, Power & the American Presidency is rich with content and context for voters to make sense of the gender politics playing out in the election. Created by educator-author Jackson Katz, The Man Card was originally released in 2020. The updated and expanded 2024 version crackles with urgency now that Kamala Harris is Trump’s opponent.
The Man Card demonstrates how presidents and the presidency have historically been linked in the American imagination with traditional ideas about men. The film exposes how the right uses one-dimensional ideas about manhood to portray Democrats as too weak to attract working-class white men. In less politically volatile times, a full-on review of the film would make sense. But writing about The Man Card weeks before the election invites viewers to assess the film through an activist, not an educational, lens. Viewers might ask themselves: What can I do to get the film into a local union hall, before groups of younger, working-class men, broadcast on community access television, streamed in battleground states?
The Young Men Research Initiative, which Katz cofounded earlier this year, is urging the media to cover the male side of the gender gap and the Democrats to reach out to young men, especially those who typically get their news from the online, misogynist manosphere rather than traditional media.
The film uses vivid archival and contemporary footage to illustrate the ways presidential masculinity is portrayed, ranging from a cowboy hat-wearing Ronald Reagan cutting brush on his Santa Barbara ranch to George W. Bush decked out in a fighter pilot’s uniform landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln to (wrongly) declare, “Mission accomplished,” in Iraq.
For the second time in eight years, a man whose political identity is rooted in both misogyny and reductive ideas about manhood is running against a woman. Instead of a white woman, now his opponent is Black and South Asian. Plus, she’s a prosecutor; he’s a felon. The Man Card asks white male voters, especially in battleground states, how they will judge the Harris-Walz ticket. Will they throw their support behind the MAGA movement that promises to restore men’s former glory? Or will they reject long-established voting patterns and help usher in a new era, redefining the highest office in the country, and with it our national identity?
Voters have a stark choice. Trump and Vance promote a rigid masculinity infused with both misogyny and Christian nationalism. They have used bigotry and fear of the other — including bald-faced lies about Haitian immigrants — to gin up their base. Meanwhile, Harris and Walz represent an evolving expression of leadership — championing women as leaders at the highest level — more suited to the 21st century.
Until now, the loudest voices in the struggle over which version of gender and power will prevail have been those promoting traditional masculinity as the key to solving society’s problems. Among them are some on the far right who, alarmingly, believe violence is both acceptable and necessary. Meanwhile, other voices are beginning to be recognized: those of antisexist men who have worked to transform conventional masculinity over the same half-century covered in The Man Card. They’ve been redefining manhood, fatherhood, and brotherhood. Now, it’s time to add white male presidents.
To better understand the deeply gendered social, cultural, and political forces that Kamala Harris is up against, here’s an idea: Set aside an hour and a quarter and watch The Man Card. Then, take to heart Michelle Obama’s challenge and “do something.” Maybe, begin by sharing what you learned with men you know — especially young men.
Rob Okun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is editor emeritus of Voice Male magazine, chronicling the antisexist men’s movement for more than 30 years and is editor of the anthology, Voice Male: The Untold Story of the Profeminist Men’s Movement.
That Rule Doesn’t Apply to Me: South Africa Edition
On July 7 in South Africa, a visitor to the Pilanesberg National Park lost his life after being trampled by an elephant, CTV News reported. The 43-year-old man was driving through the park when he left his car and approached a herd to take photographs, police said. Three other people in the car were unharmed. The elephant herd included young calves, which may have made the adults more aggressive. Piet Nel, chief conservation officer for the North West Parks and Tourism Board, said visitors are explicitly instructed not to leave their cars. “We must remember that you are entering a wild area,” he said. [CTV News, 7/9/2024]
Ignominious
The San Diego Humane Society has put the city on the map, but maybe not in a good way. CBS8-TV reported on July 8 that the SDHS claims the city has more fleas than any other city in the United States, making its pets miserable. “We have a perfect climate here, where it is warm year-round,” said Zarah Hedge, chief medical officer at the SDHS. “It’s just a perfect environment for them to live in.” Hedge recommended pet owners talk to their veterinarians about treatment. Or, you could move. [CBS8, 7/8/2024]
Oh, the Christianity!
Roger Allan Holmberg Sr., 75, pastor of Grace Baptist Temple in Anchorage, Alaska, was arrested on July 2 after assaulting his wife, who has epilepsy, on a flight from Seattle to Anchorage, ABC News reported. The conflict started when Holmberg’s wife got upgraded to first class, and he didn’t. Shortly after liftoff, Holmberg appeared in the first-class cabin and asked his wife, “How the hell did you get the upgrade?” She answered, “I’m a gold point member. Don’t speak to me like that.” Holmberg returned to his seat but then approached again, asking his wife to read what was on his phone, after which he gave her the finger. During the third confrontation, according to the complaint, Holmberg “attempted to swing his arm towards [the victim]” and struck “the top of the victim’s head with his hand.” An off-duty police officer on board told Holmberg if there were any more incidents during the flight, he would have to wear handcuffs. An FBI agent met the plane when it landed and arrested Holmberg on one count of simple assault. Alaska Airlines said it had banned him from its flights. [ABC News, 7/9/2024]
Alarming Headline
Four Sri Lankan fishermen are dead and two others are critically ill after they drank from bottles they found floating in the ocean, the BBC reported on June 29. The Sri Lankan Navy said the fishers thought the bottles contained alcohol, and they distributed some bottles to other crews fishing in the area. The navy said it treated the men aboard their craft, the Devon, and got them back to shore. Authorities planned to test the contents of the bottles to determine what the sailors drank. [BBC, 6/29/2024]
Bright Idea
After Daniel Jean, 39, and Esmy Valdez, 38, of Brooklyn, New York, exchanged wedding vows on June 27, they celebrated with friends at an unconventional venue: the New York subway L train, according to the New York Post. The couple hosted 20 invited guests — plus a bunch of strangers — on July 2 at a “dope reception,” Jean said. “We didn’t have the money to do the dream reception that I’d always envisioned,” he said. But for only $3,000, the couple had food catered by O’s Grill Spot, a cake, drinks and music. Valdez was charmed: “When I walked onto the train and saw everything, I thought, ‘Wow, I picked the right guy,’” she said. “Our reception was all about love.” [NY Post, 7/3/2024]
The Tech Revolution
Welcome to the 21st century, Japan! Reuters reported on July 3 that the government had eliminated all use of floppy disks in all its systems. “We have won the war on floppy disks on June 28!” announced Digital Minister Taro Kono. What a relief! [Reuters, 7/3/2024]
Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
Labels can give your witch bottle some pizzazz. (Photos: Emily Guenther)
October is here and that means we’re all on the hunt for everything witchy. A relatively easy thing you can do this season is create a witch bottle. Typically witch bottles are spells or tools used in manifestation work. But if you are looking for a cute, decorative item to add to your Halloween décor, you can make a witch bottle for decoration.
Making a decorative witch bottle can be a fun activity for the whole family and a great way to express your creativity. You’ll need jars. Any size will work so long as the mouth is big enough to add things into the bottle and it has a lid to seal it. You’ll also want glitter, mica powder, dyes, foil paper, or other pretty items to add to your jar. Once you have all your supplies, let your creativity flow. Add any glitter, mica powder, dye, or foil into your bottle. Fill with water and put the lid on the jar. If you’d like to make it extra witchy, you can melt wax over the top or add a label to the bottle. It can be easy to make your own labels to tie to the jar, but you can also purchase some witchy stickers while you’re collecting supplies to go in the bottle. I made a few of these up for a party I threw years ago and they stayed up in my house for years.
Making an intentional witchy bottle is not much different, but it will depend on what you want to manifest. In order for your bottle to be effective, you have to begin with a very clear goal. The ingredients and tools you should use change based on what type of love you’re looking to invite into your life. Do you want to find long-lasting, romantic love? Are you hoping to strengthen familial bonds and connections? Visualize a very clear image of what this spell jar’s success looks like to guide and inform the whole creation process.
Once your intent is set, it’s time to select a jar and begin deciding which ingredients, tools, and other implements you may want to include. I encourage you to put a good amount of thought into this and be thorough. Make sure you have everything you need when beginning, to avoid breaking your concentration to fetch something in the middle of it. This would be disruptive and could affect the spell’s viability. Spend some time researching herbs, oils, and symbols associated with your desires.
Most spell-crafters agree that it’s important to energetically and spiritually cleanse the immediate space where you’ll be working. This ensures that no unwanted energies will interfere with or muddle your spell. Try out different methods, or combinations of methods, to figure out which ones feel best to you. You don’t have to stick to any one method, either. Feel free to change it up depending on your mood or the intent of the witch bottle. Four different methods you can use to spiritually prepare your ritual space are sound cleansing, smoke cleansing, cleansing with visualization, and space cleansing with crystals.
Now it’s time to build your jar. I often start by adding written intentions to witch bottles because that helps to set the intention for the rest of the bottle’s creation. There are no hard-and-fast rules to the assembly, so please feel free to assemble yours in the ways that feel most appropriate to you.
There are a few different ways to seal your finished witch bottle. Wax sealing, sealing with tape, cloth sealing, and using sigils to seal the spell jar spiritually are the most commonly used methods. After your spell jar has been assembled, it’s time to give it a concentrated boost of magickal energy to activate it and set its power into action. There are several ways of doing this: through visualization; by using athames, wands, or clear quartz points; or by shaking the jar. Shaking the jar is one of my favorite ways to activate a witch bottle, especially those that are water-based.
Whatever you decide to do, enjoy the witchiness of October — and happy manifesting!
Emily Guenther is a co-owner of The Broom Closet metaphysical shop. She is a Memphis native, professional tarot reader, ordained Pagan clergy, and dog mom.
Tops’ sloppy chicken sandwich has pineapple and delicious slop sauce. (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Eating at Tops Bar-B-Q & Burgers was a once-or-twice-a-month visit for the Donahue family when I was growing up. We always got barbecue. And my dad always wanted to go to a particular Tops location on Jackson Avenue because he believed we got more barbecue on our sandwiches there.
Well, a lot has changed. I eat at Tops about twice a week on the average. I fell in love with the hamburgers a long time ago. They’re the benchmark when it comes to grilled hamburgers. And I loved the turkey burger when it was introduced. Then the chicken sandwich with white sauce and dill pickles.
I’m happy Tops keeps introducing new items. And now they’ve added even more.
I talked recently with Tops execs Randy Hough and Hunter Brown to discover what’s new at this iconic restaurant that began in Memphis in 1952.
“We are a barbecue company with world-famous cheeseburgers,” Brown says. “That is our core group of what got us to the dance and what will forever be in our blood. When we think of a lot of new items, we try to broaden the audience. But never take our mind off the main date that got us to the dance.”
Listening to their customers, Tops added chicken and turkey. “Some people don’t eat pork or beef, so there’s an option for someone now.”
Regarding the turkey burger, Brown says, “I would put this turkey burger up against any turkey burger in Memphis, hands down.”
Hough discovered that a customer added rib rub to their turkey burger. “What a great combination.”
After noticing customers making additions to their sandwiches, Tops execs thought, “Let’s give a couple of other options for our guests,” Hough said.
They now offer “Smoky,” “Spicy,” and “Sloppy” pulled chicken sandwiches.
“Smoky” is their original pulled chicken sandwich, which they called the “Fire Braised” chicken sandwich. This is the one with the white sauce and dill pickles. It’s permanently on the menu.
“Spicy” is similar to “Smoky” except they substituted thick, spicy hot pickles for the dill pickles. And, Hunter says, “We took our traditional white sauce used for the ‘Smoky’ and blended it with our original Tops hot barbecue sauce.”
Then there’s the “Sloppy,” now one of my all-time favorite sandwiches. The pulled chicken sandwich is paired with “Slop Sauce,” which Brown describes as “a little bit of a tropical barbecue sauce.” The “sweet, light” sauce is “more of a Hawaiian barbecue sauce.”
For the base, they added a grilled pineapple, which is perfect for me because I love sweet and savory.
“Sloppy” and “Spicy” aren’t permanent menu items. “This is a limited time offer,” Brown says. “Get it while it lasts.”
But they might stick around if there’s a high demand. That’s what happened with the “Smoky” when it was introduced two years ago. It was meant to be a three-month special, but, Hough says, “because of the amount of guests that purchased it and the comments we got, we said, ‘We just can’t pull it. We have to leave it here.’”
“What we like to do with some of these different options is to bring them back,” he continues. “Let guests have the opportunity to try new items and then we come back with them later, if they were well-received, and give them another chance to try them.”
That brings us to the newest item at Tops: a hot dog. “There are certain guests that told us they would love for us to have a good, all-beef hot dog,” Hough says.
And they already have flat-top grills at their restaurants.
The hot dog is now available only at the Frayser Tops locations at 2288 Frayser Boulevard and 3023 Thomas Street. Those “are two of our oldest locations and have the voice of the guests that have been customers for years,” Brown says, adding, “It has been received with open arms. It’s been great. It’s been received so well it’s actually opened up options for it to go to other restaurants.”
Tops offers three varieties of hot dogs. One, which comes with a drink and costs $4.99, is “a nice, all-beef grilled hot dog dressed with ketchup and mustard and a big bag of Brim’s chips.”
The “specialty hot dogs” are the “Memphis Slaw Dog,” with coleslaw and original Tops barbecue sauce, and the “BLT dog,” which is dressed with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, bacon, and melted cheese. Both come with Brim’s chips and a drink.
All the hot dogs are “grilled to order,” which means they aren’t putting the hot dogs on a roller and letting them sit gas station-style, Brown adds.
Finally, I heard a rumor that Tops is going to offer turkeys during the holidays.
“We are verifying the rumor,” Hough says. “It’s in the works.”
It will be a “pit-smoked turkey breast that will feed about 10 people,” he says. They will offer the turkeys from November 1st through the first week in January. It doesn’t come with sides because they feel most people serve their own signature sides. “We’ll smoke the turkey and they do the sides.”
And, Hough says, “This turkey promotion is the first time we’ve ever done anything like this.”
Tops isn’t stopping when it comes to new products. “We never stop working on new ideas,” Hough says. “This is it for right now — a lot going on. Certainly other things, for sure. But nothing we can talk about right now.”
But here’s a hint: One long-time Tops employee created “an amazing cheeseburger salad,” Brown says.
Elmwood’s residents will come alive to share their love. (Photo: Courtesy Elmwood Cemetery)
Love is a many splendored thing. Love is patient; love is kind. Love will set you free. Love conquers all. Blah, blah, blah, you’ve heard all the cliches about love, but for all the cliches out there, there are probably a million times more love stories.
And love stories don’t have to be romantic; they can be about friendship or community, and they don’t have to end in a happily ever after — ever heard of Romeo and Juliet? At least, that’s been the expansive definition for the folks at Elmwood Cemetery as they prepare for this year’s Soul of the City, where the theme of the year is Love Stories.
At the popular annual event, sponsored by Raymond James, guests will be taken on a tour of the cemetery as local actors share Elmwood’s love stories at the grave sites of the residents they’re playing. “You should be prepared to be really blown away by the types of stories that you’re going to hear,” says Kim Bearden, Elmwood’s executive director. “I don’t want to give away too much, but I can tell you that a couple of married couples are included in the tour this year, including the Reverend Dr. Benjamin Hooks and his wife Frances Hooks. They are being featured in the tour because they had a long marriage and love story, and they also gave deeply of themselves to their fellow man during throughout the Civil Rights Movement.”
On a less romantic note, Bearden adds, “There is also one love story that is included in which there is a murder because of a love triangle. … So we really have taken some of what we think are the most interesting love stories to be found here.
“In between the characters that you’ll meet, you’ll be greeted by tour guides who are going to share information about what you’re seeing as you walk through the cemetery. So not only are you going to get to meet the people who are buried here, but you’ll also get a little bit of background about Elmwood in general, too. It’s a great way to learn Memphis history, to be entertained, to get to know Elmwood a little bit better, and to experience the city in a way you probably haven’t before.”
Tours last approximately 75 minutes and are family-friendly and wheelchair accessible. Tickets are sold in time slots and are selling out fast, so be sure to get yours soon at elmwoodcemetery.org.
Memphis Dawgs food truck will be on site Friday night, and Chi Phi Food Truck on Saturday; the Tipsy Tumbler will have beverages for sale on both nights.
On February 16, 1975, a curious story by James Knightly appeared in TheCommercial Appeal: “Lynyrd Skynyrd Proteges to Record,” ran the headline. With a fine-grained attention to the minutiae of the city’s recording industry that is rare today, the story explains how a thus-far unknown band “will arrive at Sonic Recording Studios at 1692 Madison to record an album.” News flash! It’s hard to imagine such a story making headlines now, but, as Knightly notes, the unknown band’s singer-guitarist “is the 20-year-old brother of Ronnie Van Zant, lead singer and guitarist for the outstanding Southern rock group, Lynyrd Skynyrd.”
That alone made them notable. And it was true, Van Zant’s kid brother Donnie and the band he’d co-founded only months before with fellow singer-guitarist Don Barnes — 38 Special — had a date with destiny. Though that Memphis session wasn’t their big break, they did release an album two years later, and by 1981 they had perfected a custom blend of Southern rock and arena rock that would keep them high in the charts for years, epitomized by hits like “Hold on Loosely” and “Caught Up in You,” both co-written and sung by Barnes.
To this day, the band is going strong, with Barnes alone at the helm since Donnie Van Zant’s retirement over a decade ago. In fact, on Saturday, October 19th, 38 Special will return to Memphis, where they were once so presciently heralded nearly 50 years ago. The band, which still plays a hundred shows a year, will cap off the seventh annual Fall Fest Memphis, a two-day event benefitting Room in the Inn. In anticipation of their appearance, I reached Barnes by phone to hear his thoughts on Memphis, the early days of the band, and the longevity of Southern rock.
Don Barnes (Photo: Carl Dunn )
Memphis Flyer: This story from 1975 really celebrates 38 Special coming to Memphis. How long had you been together at that point?
Don Barnes: We actually put the band together at the end of ’74 and then we got rehearsals started in ’75 so, you know, we’re just going to call 2025 our 50th year. And we’ve got a legacy package coming out with a double CD. One disc has all the greatest hits, and the second disc will have new music. So it should be out about March — great songs!
Whatever happened with those 1975 recordings?
That was the very first recording we ever did. We did our first demo here in Memphis, and, of course, the song never saw the light of day. But you know, that was our very first foray. I remember, we went through the snow and cold of the winter, piled in the van. And we played in a club that had Jerry Lee Lewis’ PA system in there. We all were so honored, you know, to be using his PA system! You know those early days, when you travel around, banging around in a van with an old, dirty mattress in the back, switching drivers and all that, trying to sleep. You start questioning, what about your future? I remember waking up in the van in the middle of Kansas, in a cornfield, thinking, ‘What am I doing with my life?’ But, sticking together like that as a group, it’s like a family. You kind of prop each other up and give each other encouragement.
What were the early days of the band like?
I’ve known Donnie since we were 14! We were playing around Jacksonville in all these little teen club bands and dance bands — about eight other bands before 38 Special. Still working day jobs. And Donnie called me and said, ‘Let’s try it one more time. We’ll get the people, the right people, who will show up and have the conviction to go all the way.’ So I said, ‘Oh, really, try again?’ Anyway, it worked out, but of course, you make all your mistakes in public, and you suffer and starve for what you want. People think ‘Hold on Loosely’ was on our first album, but it was our fourth album. So you went through a lot of self-examination, like, ‘What am I doing?’ Then, people think you get a record deal and you’ve made it. But they’re just giving you a chance to play in the big leagues. If you can’t come across with something then they’re gonna send you back down to the farm league and the clubs. So we had some desperate times there, but it finally worked out.
When Donnie retired, I said, ‘Well, your brother Ronnie would be so proud that you made it 40 years!’ I still talk to him. He’s still my partner — we own the trademark.
Speaking of Ronnie Van Zant, what kind of impact did he have on you guys as a band, before he died in that tragic plane crash in 1977?
I remember the things that Ronnie told us about: Put your truth in your song; put your light in it. Don’t just say, ‘Ooh baby, I love you, I miss you.’ You’ve got to find real truths from stories in your life. So ‘Caught Up in You’ was about a woman that I was dating at the time, and I happened to say, ‘You know, I can’t seem to get any work done; I’m just so caught up in you all the time.’ And it was just like a light bulb turned on. ‘That’s a pretty good element for a song.’
38 Special will appear at 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 19th, at Fall Fest Memphis, held this year at St. Brigid Catholic Church, 7801 Lowrance Rd. For tickets and other details, visit fallfestmemphis.org.
Tyrone and Melissa Randall (Photos: Michael Donahue)
The Memphis Flyer’s Bacon & Bourbon event should be renamed “Bacon, Bourbon, & the Sunset” when it’s held at the FedEx Event Center at Shelby Farms Park.
“With the sunset over Hyde Lake,” says event producer Molly Willmott, “you do anything there at that time of day and the sun is like part of your event.”
Lee SmithWilliam Walsh and Tom FjordBrent Baggett and Annie Fogelman
The event, which was held September 20th at the FedEx Event Center, drew around 700 people. “We had 10 of Memphis’ best restaurants and caterers showcasing their great tastes. Then we had bourbon and whiskey partners sampling bourbon and whiskeys.”
Some people line danced, but most people appeared to line stand as they waited for their samples.
Alex GuerreroTrenika Matthews and Camille FultonLaura Pate and David Freeman
The fare might be bacon slices, as in the case of Buster’s Butcher, or it might include pork bellies, which was used in the Tekila Mexican Cuisine offering. But all the food “has to have some kind of pork element,” says Willmott.
If you missed Bacon & Bourbon or if you just can’t wait until another Memphis Flyer blowout, mark your calendars for the Flyer’s annual Memphis Tequila Fest, to be held October 25th at The Kent.
Dysfunction abounds in
The Franchise. (Photo: Courtesy HBO)
The big news in film this week is the dramatic box office underperformance of Joker: Folie à Deux. Todd Phillips’ sequel to his 2019 mega-hit “only” made $40 million over its first three days of release in North America. But since this courtroom drama musical cost about $200 million to make, that’s a problem.
Maybe it’s time to ask why anyone would think it’s worth paying $200 million for a courtroom drama musical starring one of our greatest living actors, Joaquin Phoenix, as an evil clown, and Lady Gaga, an innovative pop star, as the evil clown’s psychiatrist/girlfriend/also evil clown. Surely these extraordinary talents could be put to better use, not to mention the thousands of other artists and craftspeople whose hard work went into making yet another picture based on Batman. But that’s exactly why this misfire was green-lit by Warner Brothers, when so many better, cheaper ideas are left to rot in the field: because it’s based on a superhero comic book.
For most of this century, comic adaptations have been popular with mass audiences. Some of the films have been good. Most of them have not. Several of them are among the worst movies ever made. But they all cost a fortune to produce. The mainline studios have put all of their eggs in one basket because, as the old Hollywood saying goes, lots of people have gotten fired for saying yes to a new idea, but no one ever got fired for saying no. The studios’ extreme risk aversion has resulted in an avalanche of same-y products aimed at a deeply jaded audience.
Ironically, the new HBO Max series The Franchise was also green-lit because it’s about superheroes. But The Franchise comes not to praise flying men in tights, but to bury them. This is not the first time someone has trained a satirical lens on the superhero plague; The Boys has been going strong for four seasons over at Amazon. But Veep creator Jon Brown’s series is the first deep dive into the deeply dysfunctional environment at the studios where the product is extruded.
The Franchise’s first episode, “Scene 31 A: Tecto Meets Eye,” is the tightest comedy pilot I’ve seen in recent memory. There are some heavy hitters involved, like Sam Mendes, director of two James Bond films. Like his stunning 1917, Mendes leads off with a series of sweeping long takes. We follow Dag (Lolly Adefope) as she arrives for her first day on the set of Tecto, the latest big budget studio picture starring Adam (Billy Magnussen) as “The Earthquake Guy.” She reports to Daniel (Himesh Patel), the first assistant director. Putting an AD at the center of the story is a good move. Like the Army is run by sergeants, film sets are run by the ADs — even though no one involved would ever admit it. Daniel says his job is to “… keep the actors from killing each other, or themselves, and everything else.”
This means Daniel knows where all the bodies are buried. “You could run a children’s hospital on all the waste,” he muses. That’s why, when the studio head Pat “The Toy Man” Shannon (Darren Goldstein) pays an unexpected set visit, he corners Daniel in the bathroom to give him the skinny on how director Eric (Daniel Brühl) is doing. “I want to crack open your head and feed on the juice,” says Pat.
Eric is a familiar figure to anyone who reads Variety. His debut film The Unlikening is a low-budget masterpiece which won the Golden Leopard at Locarno. This is his opportunity to break into the world of eight-figure paydays. But to The Toy Man, Eric is a semi-disposable rage sink who is mostly there to be blamed in case of a $40 million opening weekend. With 83 days to go in the shoot, Eric is beginning to understand how screwed he is. Everyone around him is either a sycophant, like Steph (Jessica Hynes) the script supervisor, or a social climber like Anita (Aya Cash), the new producer Pat’s putting in charge of the flailing production.
The cast is already purring like a well-oiled machine, with Richard E. Grant a highlight as the aging Shakespearian actor whose transphobic jokes make him a ticking PR time bomb. The writing is sharp, with a keen eye toward the interpersonal power dynamics and an ear for sneaky one-liners, like when Eric tells Adam to walk “like a panther on its way to a job interview.” Sure, The Franchise is inside baseball, but it’s also a lot of fun.
New episodes of The Franchise stream Sundays on HBO Max.
