ARIES (March 21-April 19): The term “maze” has various meanings. Most commonly, it signifies a puzzling cluster of choices that lead nowhere and bode frustration. But there are more positive meanings of the word. In ancient myths, a maze was where heroes underwent ritual tests. There they might summon ingenuity to win access to a hidden treasure. In modern psychology labs, the maze is a structure used to stimulate learning in rats. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, the maze you are now in is metaphorically akin to the second two meanings, not the first.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): There is an abundance of good news, Taurus. In the coming weeks, your conversations could awaken realizations that will augment your wealth — both the financial and emotional kind. So be eager to commune with vigorous souls who inspire your power to attract resources and goodies. Furthermore, you could generate enriching benefits for yourself by engaging with unfamiliar influences that are outside your web of expectations. Don’t be too sure you already know everything you need. Helpful surprises could arrive if you’re extra open-minded.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Though 2024 isn’t even half over, you have already earned the title “Least Boring Zodiac Sign of the Year.” Or maybe a more positive way to frame it would be to award you the title “Most Scintillating, Interesting, and Stimulating Zodiac Sign of the Year.” Please keep doing what you have been doing, Gemini. Entertain us with your unruly escapades and gossip-worthy breakthroughs. Encourage us to question our dull certainties and dare us to be more fun. If we seem nervous to be in your stirring presence, disarm our worries with your humor.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Your subconscious mind is full of marvelous capacities and magic potencies. But it also contains old habits of feeling and thinking that influence you to respond to life in ways that are out of sync with what’s actually happening. These habits may sabotage or undermine your conscious intentions. Now here’s the good news: In the next nine months, there’s a lot you can do to dissolve the outmoded imprints. You will have more power than ever before to perform this wizardry. So get started! How? Ask your subconscious mind to send you intuitions about how to proceed.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk” will serve as a prime metaphor for you in the coming weeks. Ruminate on its themes as being applicable to your life. I’ll refresh you with the main points of the story. Young Jack and his mother need money, so she decides to take drastic measures. She bids him to sell the family cow at the marketplace a few miles away. But on the way into town, Jack meets a man who coaxes him to sell the cow in exchange for magic beans — not money. When Jack returns home, his mother is angry at his foolishness. In disgust, she flings the beans out the window into the dirt. Later, though, the beans live up to their promise. They grow into a giant beanstalk that Jack climbs to reach the lair of a giant who lives in the clouds. There Jack retrieves three of his family’s lost treasures, which had been stolen by the giant long ago.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Before the reign of Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the third century BCE, Chinese people had built many local walls designed to keep out invaders. Qin Shi Huang initiated a great public works project to connect all of these fragments into what’s now known as the Great Wall of China. He also erected a vast system of roads and a city-sized mausoleum filled with the Terracotta Army: sculptures of 8,000 soldiers with their chariots and horses. Qin Shi Huang was a big thinker who was also highly organized! In accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to glide into your very own Qin Shi Huang phase. What long-lasting structures do you want to build in the next 11 months?
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Psychologist Carl Jung believed we could accomplish profound self-transformation by working hard on our psyches’ unripe and wounded aspects. That might entail honest self-examination, objective observation of how we affect others, and a willingness to recognize and forgive our mistakes. Jung also recommended another way to heal our neuroses: through the power of numinous experiences. By “numinous,” he meant mystical, sublime, or awe-inspiring. Jung said that such visitations could radically diminish our painful habits of mind and feeling. They might arrive through grace, thanks to life’s surprising interventions. They may also be coaxed to appear through meditation, dreamwork, communing with myth and fairy tales, and spiritual practices. I foresee a wealth of numinous events in your life during the coming months, Libra. May they bring you a steady stream of healing.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In a moment, I will list events I foresee as being possible for you during the next 11 months. They are cosmic tendencies but not cosmic mandates. Whether or not they actually occur will depend on how you wield your willpower — which, by the way, could be freer and more muscular than it has been in a long time. Now here are the potential developments: 1. An offer to create one of the most symbiotic unions or robust collaborations ever. 2. Great chances for you to capitalize on the success of others. 3. Alterations in the family configuration. 4. Major shifts in loyalty and affinity. 5. A raise in rank. 6. Revelations of secrets you can use to your advantage.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Have you been metaphysically itchy and psychologically ticklish? Are you unsure whether those tingling sensations you’re feeling are worrisome symptoms or signs of healing and awakening? I believe they are signs of healing and awakening. They suggest you are doing the metaphorical equivalent of what a snake does when it sheds its skin. Expect imminent redemption, Sagittarius! Reframe the discomfort as a herald of relief and release.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): It’s time for Super Mom to make an appearance. Some circumstances in your life could benefit from healing tweaks best initiated by her. And when I say “Super Mom,” I’m not necessarily referring to your actual mother. I’m envisioning a wise older woman who sees you as you really are and who can assist you in living your destiny according to your own inner necessity, no one else’s. If you have no Super Mom in your world, see if you can locate one, even hire one. I also recommend creating an inner Super Mom in your imagination. You need and deserve sympathetic input from the archetype of the sage crone.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I suspect that later in 2024, I will authorize you to commune with boisterous adventures and tricky risks. But right now, I advise you to flirt with modest adventures and sensible risks. Can you contain your burning, churning yearnings for a while? Are you willing to coax your crazy wild heart into enjoying some mild pleasures? By early autumn, I’m guessing you will have done the necessary preparations to successfully roam through the experimental frontiers. Until then, you are most likely to corral X-factors on your behalf if you pace yourself and bide your time.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Oh God, if there is a God, save my soul, if I have a soul.” That prayer was the handiwork of Piscean philosopher Joseph Ernest Renan. If his ironic minimalism is the only spiritual aspiration you can manage right now, so be it. But I hope you will strive for a more intimate, expansive, and personal connection with the Divine Intelligence. The coming weeks will be an extra favorable time for you to speak and listen to mysterious powers beyond your rational comprehension. Please take advantage! Go in quest of the sweet, deep lowdown directly from the Sublime Source!
There are lessons to learn from Grandmother Opal Lee. With her silver crown of curls, she is a Black Texas Rose endowed with vision and courage at the age of 97. From 2016 to 2021, Grandmother Opal traveled countless times from her Fort Worth home to Washington, D.C. Her mission was to encourage politicians to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Grandmother Opal also led annual walks across America’s highways, collecting almost two million signatures for her Juneteenth petition. She waged a tireless pursuit in her ubiquitous canvas sneakers.
Dreams do come true. President Biden signed a law making June 19th a federal holiday in 2021. Juneteenth, as it is called, commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to the enslaved in Texas, two years and six months after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
The 13th Amendment abolished Black servitude. However, Juneteenth is the touchstone that represents the end of slavery in the collective American mind. People around the globe call Opal Lee the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.” On May 3rd of this year, President Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as she is a symbol of dignity, goodwill, and liberation. The medal is the nation’s highest civilian honor.
I went on a journey to write Opal Lee’s picture book biography for children during the summer of 2020 after the George Floyd murder. We had a lively conversation in December of that year. When our talk ended, I understood with clarity why Juneteenth is a celebration for every American. It is not a “Black holiday.” It is an American holiday. And to that point, here are five lessons that I learned from Opal Lee — the esteemed Grandmother of Juneteenth.
Grandmother Opal said, “Juneteenth is a time for reflection.” Just as for Black Texas families in 1866 at the first Juneteenth anniversary in Galveston, the day remains an occasion to remember our collective past and express gratitude for the tribulations survived. It is also a time to honor Black history-makers and freedom fighters, whose courage paved a road to this present day. When speaking of roots, Grandmother Opal said it was her maternal grandfather who gave her a love for history and the preservation of family ties. His name was Zack Broadous. Born in 1871, he was a Texarkana farmer, landowner, and preacher. Juneteenth is a time we can all reflect on our specific ancestors who believed in the liberation of the mind, body, and spirit.
Beyond ancestral meditations, Grandmother Opal acknowledged the loud rejoicing that surely rang across Texas in 1865 after Black generations had survived more than 200 years on the auction block. As the holiday inspires images of such overwhelming joy, Opal Lee taught me a second lesson. She said, “Juneteenth is a day of music and praise.” Since Glynn Johns Reed’s inaugural Memphis Juneteenth celebration in 1993, each year the Memphis Douglass Park is found teeming with African drumming, local bands, and gospel singers who make the Juneteenth holiday a jubilant Memphis affair. There is no Juneteenth celebration without music. And as I spoke with Opal Lee about Memphis music and our Juneteenth traditions, she quipped, “Twerking is for young people. I do the holy dance!”
During our talk, I asked about food traditions. Grandmother Opal replied, “Juneteenth is a jamboree of feasting and fellowship.” From the first Juneteenth celebration in Galveston until now, many Juneteenth hosts prepare vibrant red foods that Black Americans were denied during servitude. Juneteenth guests might feast on tangy ribs, strawberry pie, and Big Red Soda that is bottled in Waco, Texas. In this new age with various dietary options, Juneteenth tables are also decked in vegan and vegetarian victuals, fancy tarts, and craft mocktails.
When questioned about her ability to form coalitions toward making Juneteenth a national holiday, Grandmother Opal said a wise elder gave her an example in building friendships beyond her neighborhood. That mentor was the late Lenora Rolla, a historian who founded the Tarrant County Black Historical & Genealogical Society. As we spoke about the impact of mentorships, Opal Lee served me a fourth lesson. She said, “Juneteenth is a time for listening to the elders.” Wherever she travels, Grandmother Opal welcomes children. She speaks with them and reads to them in schools, at public libraries, and at Juneteenth celebrations. “If we want the world to survive, healthy and whole,” she said, “we must take time for children. Listen to them.”
I asked one last question. What do people misunderstand about the Juneteenth holiday? Opal Lee taught me a fifth lesson: “No matter who you are, Juneteenth is a unifier that represents freedom.”
These final words served as my guidepost. Immediately, I knew what I would write for children about Opal Lee and the Juneteenth holiday. Hear me with your heart: Juneteenth is bigger than Texas, singing, or dancing bands. Juneteenth is freedom rising, and freedom is for everyone. Juneteenth is for you and me!
Alice Faye Duncan is a Memphis teacher who writes for children. Her Juneteenth book, Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free, has sold 95,000 copies since 2022. Her new barnyard blues story, I Gotta Sing, is available now wherever books are sold. She can be reached at alicefayeduncan.com.
John Vergos with the Rendezvous ham-and-cheese sandwich (Photos: Michael Donahue)
If you’re like me, you usually order your favorites at your go-to restaurants.
You order the ribs and the cheese plate at the Rendezvous. Maybe lasagna or spaghetti at Pete & Sam’s.
Well, guess what? There are a lot more items on the menus at those restaurants as well as others that have been around a while. People just don’t realize they’re there.
The ham-and-cheese sandwich at the Rendezvous is something that gets overlooked, says owner John Vergos. His dad, the late Charlie Vergos, began his restaurant in 1948 with that sandwich. “Gosh, he’d sell 200 or 300 a day,” John says. “That’s what really started the restaurant going. That’s how he supported his family.”
Fineberg Packing Co. used to smoke his dad’s hams because he didn’t have the pits in those days, John says. Charlie would cut the slices of ham off the bone. Now, John says, “We don’t cut it off the bone. We haven’t been able to find a good ham to do that with. We buy boneless hams.”
The original sandwich was “ham-and-cheese on rye with either regular mustard.”
They used French’s mustard, but now customers can get French’s as well as a sweet glazed mustard that blends Tiger Tail mustard with Rendezvous seasoning.
The ham sandwich began to be overshadowed when his dad introduced ribs “sometime in the ’50s” at the Rendezvous. “We still served a lot, even up until the ’70s. Then we added a lot more different products and we just took our eye off the ball.”
They stopped making the sandwich the way Charlie made it. “We got away from it for years. We started grilling it. Not making it the way he did.”
The ham wasn’t “nice and thick in the middle.” Instead of rye bread, they served it with white bread or Texas toast and mayonnaise. “We let it slide. We didn’t take it seriously.”
About a month ago, they went back to the original way of making the sandwich. John announced, “I’m determined to serve the original ham-and-cheese sandwich the way my dad built it. Stacked the same on rye with mustard.”
Shoulder sandwich at Rendezvous
Surprisingly, another “little appreciated item” at the Rendezvous is the shoulder sandwich, John says. “I’ll match it with anyone.”
The barbecue is smoked for 12 hours, he says. “It’s all pulled by hand and minimally chopped — no fat, gristle — clean. I hate when I eat a shoulder sandwich and bite into a thumb-size piece of fat. It’s jumbo size with beans and our slaw on the side.”
Meanwhile, an item that isn’t a big seller at Mortimer’s is their “Pecan Ball,” says owner Sara Bell. It was a huge hit at the legendary Knickerbocker Restaurant, which her father, the late Vernon Bell, owned.
It’s vanilla ice cream rolled in chopped pecans with chocolate sauce. The Mortimer’s version includes whipped cream and sometimes a cherry on top.
They sell a ton of their banana pudding, but Bell doesn’t know why they don’t sell a lot of the pecan balls. “Once they try it, it’s addictive,” she says.
Another item along that same line is their Knickerbocker Shrimp Salad, Bell says. “That was huge at the Knickerbocker. It’s just shrimp with a little mayonnaise, celery, and a dash of Worcestershire. It’s like a chicken salad, but it’s made with shrimp.”
Even Pete & Sam’s includes items hidden in plain sight on the menu. Many people are surprised to discover the restaurant, which also opened in 1948, sells fried chicken, says Sammy Bomarito, one of the owners. Or steaks. “In general, people don’t necessarily think of us as a steak place,” he says. “And we’ve got some of the best steaks in the city.”
Other longtime items aren’t top sellers. “The bacon-wrapped chicken livers are one of the things we’ve had on the menu forever.”
A lot of people don’t try that, Bomarito says. “But that’s a little hidden gem, if you will.”
Stuffed celery at Pete & Sam’s
Another is the “stuffed celery,” which has been on the menu for decades. It’s celery stuffed with a bleu cheese, Gorgonzola, and mayonnaise mixture and green olives. The four celery sticks come with black olives, peppers, and lettuce with paprika sprinkled around.
Dino’s Grill is famous for its spaghetti, ravioli, and other Italian fare. But their muffuletta is another story. “People are sort of surprised we have it,” says owner Mario Grisanti.
They’ve had it on the menu for “as long as I can remember,” he says.
“We get our bread from Gambino’s [Bakery] in New Orleans, so it’s traditional muffuletta bread. And we do ours a little bit differently. We just do salami and ham and cheese. Most people do salami and mortadella with cheese. Then the olive dressing we put on top is the same dressing we put on our Italian salad. It’s green olives, black olives, banana peppers, celery, onions, oil, vinegar, and Italian seasonings.”
It’s a “New Orleans-style muffuletta. We just have our own little take on it. The way we’ve been doing it forever and ever.”
Finally, Coletta’s Italian Restaurant, which opened in 1923 at its 1063 South Parkway East location, has an extensive menu. Ravioli and its barbecue pizza are famous at Coletta’s Italian Restaurant, which opened in 1923 at 1063 South Parkway East. But not everybody is aware of other items on the menu.
“We have hamburger steaks, which are real good,” says owner Jerry Coletta. “Well, it’s basically about a half pound of ground beef we cook.”
It comes with “fries and a little slaw. And that’s a good meal. Not many people get it.”
Also, he says, “A lot of people don’t know we sell hot wings and honey wings. And they’re real good.”
In other words, in addition to your knife and fork, bring along a magnifying glass and dig into your menus when you go out to eat.
Ron Hall with his 1977 ticket stub. Elvis died before he could use it.(Photo: Shangri-La Projects)
There are record collectors, and then there are record collectors. Holding strong against the tides of time, which have rendered recorded music as weightless as a cloud, streaming past us like raindrops and just as ungraspable, Memphis is yet home to many mini-librarians. We curate our own collections of vinyl, tapes, and CDs, still attached to those miniature works of art and the ritual of listening that they require. Yet, among this haven of gatherers — raging, raging against the dying of the vinyl — there once walked among us the ur-collector, and the ultimate documentarian of the history behind his stacks of wax.
His name was Ron Hall. There was no one more committed to the history and lore of local music than he, and no bigger fan of Memphis wrestling.
When Hall passed away in March at the age of 73, after suffering a major stroke two months earlier, the city lost not only a gifted private archivist but a gifted author. Shangri-La Projects, who published his entire oeuvre, posted this on social media as a response to his death:
“Ron was a savant in shining a light on what it meant to grow up in the middle of the post-war pop culture explosion in one of the most influential pop culture, music, and professional wrestling cities in the world. Ron’s three books, two CD compilations, documentary film, and Memphis music calendar solidified him into being one of the craziest chroniclers/fellow fanatic travelers of all that is wacky in Memphis’ creative cauldron of the ’50s/’60s/’70s/’80s.”
Here, then, is a recap of Hall’s important body of work.
Playing for a Piece of the Door: A History of Garage and Frat Bands in Memphis, 1960-1975
This was the book that started it all, and it remains a constant reference source for this writer and many others in Memphis. Tellingly, the introduction begins with Hall’s memories of actually performing with a band, when “the 13th Muse took the stage at a home for unwed mothers in the Oakhaven area of Memphis, Tennessee,” in late 1969. Though they only played the one show, Hall recounts, “I was doing what hundreds of other kids in Memphis wished they could do.”
That everyman spirit informs this look into the stories of over 500 local bands that cropped up in the title’s 15 year span. Some went on to stardom, others were only locally celebrated, and some weren’t even that. Yet all are cataloged with an inclusive, democratic zeal by Hall, who not only collected the sometimes obscure 45s that made these bands immortal but saw many of them performing in their prime. This lends crucial historical context to the groups. Take The Embers, for instance, “one of the top bands in the Jackson/Humboldt, Tennessee, area in the mid-to-late ’60s.”
Starting in 1964, many (most?) of these groups were inspired by The Beatles. This is, after all, an undeniably partial collection of groups, centered on the largely white ensembles that sprung up in The Beatles’ wake. But Hall reaches back before the Fab Four’s heyday as well, as with his entry on The Monarchs, who, starting in 1959, were “one of the few surf bands in the area.” Hall fills out his archival research with interviews with some of the players, making this book a kind of oral history as well. “The Beatles killed us,” recalls Charles McAllister of the Monarchs.
And, as the book takes us into the ’70s, we see the post-Beatles groups flourish as well, with power pop and California rock-tinged groups like Big Star, Target, and Cargoe hitting their stride. In all, it’s one of the most important chronicles of how sounds morphed through a decade and a half of the city’s golden years at the top of the music industry.
The Memphis Garage Yearbook, 1960-1975
When Playing for a Piece of the Door came out in 2001, it sparked a new surge of demand for all that was obscure and garagey in Memphis music, and soon after Shangri-La Projects released two CDs compiling the best tracks from Hall’s and others’ vinyl collections. Concerts were held on the Shangri-La Records porch, featuring onetime ’60s artists like Jim Dickinson, B.B. Cunningham, and the Castels. Ultimately, a second book was released which covered much the same ground, but through a different lens. Put together like a high school yearbook, and relying more heavily on rare photographs and show bills collected by Hall, it’s a stunning visual accomplishment. The book being organized chronologically (rather than alphabetically, as the first book is) sheds a different light on the evolution of the groups and the various players who shuttled between them. And the live performance photos underscore that this book, as well as its predecessor, doubles as a chronicle of the era’s key venues as well as its bands.
Sputnik, Masked Men, and Midgets: The Early Days of Memphis Wrestling
Hall was not only fascinated with local music, as this 2009 volume made clear. If many, like me, first became aware of the connection between early pro wrestling in the city and rock-and-roll by reading Robert Gordon’s It Came from Memphis, Hall seems to have gotten it organically, from being a dedicated fan of the sport since his youth. Rare 45s by more sonically ambitious wrestlers like Jackie Fargo, Sputnik Monroe, and (of course) Jerry Lawler are featured in photographs and on the book’s accompanying CD. Moreover, Hall called on some key fellow collectors for the visuals here, namely Robert W. Dye Sr., a local amateur photographer; Jim Blake, owner of the record label that released Lawler’s musical ventures; and many others. The result is a galvanizing compendium of eye-gouging action shots, tough guy poses, screaming show bills, and detailed write-ups from Wrestling, King of Sports, a local wrestling rag from the era. Not long after this book appeared, Shangri-La Projects released the film Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin’, which relied heavily on this book by Hall, who also served as the film’s executive producer.
Memphis Rocks: A Concert History, 1955-1985
While retaining much of Hall’s fascination with all things Memphis, this book expands the scope of his research, documenting more than local bands. In a photo-heavy format closer to Hall’s wrestling book than Playing for a Piece of the Door, it collects concert photos, ticket stubs, show bills, and print media ads for practically any major concert in the city over a 30-year span. This includes both national and local groups, with a focus on the former: the big concerts that music fans flocked to, now cherished in the memories of those who attended. Yet smaller shows make the cut as well, and this, like Hall’s other works of music history, serves as an important chronicle of now-forgotten venues. Contrary to the subtitle, for example, the book actually begins in 1954, devoting a page to every local live performance by a certain Elvis Presley that year. Many of them were at Eagle’s Nest. Who knew?
It’s also a de facto celebration of the Mid-South Coliseum, charting the many stellar shows there over three decades, from James Brown in 1965 to The Beatles the next year to Iron Maiden in 1985. Resonating with any fan savoring the experience of such shows are the “Concert Memories” compiled by Hall, where local musicians and others recall the power of seeing pivotal performances in their lives. As such, this, like all of Hall’s painstaking works, is a compendium of not only Memphis music and Memphis memories, but key moments in the history of American culture as a whole.
The Memphis subreddit buzzed with the Elon news. Opinions were mixed.
User u/ThiccAssCrackHead said, “It means he will be using 1 million gallons of aquifer water per day while only employing 25-45 people that are brought in from out of state. Ask Atlanta how theirs is going.”
U/Delway said, “It’s a start. It will hopefully attract other tech companies with high paying jobs. … fiber optic network infrastructure will be sped up. High paying Jobs to retrofit the facility. Inspire our local youth.”
But one suggestion seems like something we can all agree on. Reddit user u/mylogicistoomuchforu said, “Elon Musk is building a supercomputer in Memphis. We got to call it the ManeFrame.”
Judge Carol Chumney, at the dais, was among the many members of the political community to pay homage to the late Dr. Joe Weinberg, civic activist supreme, at the Great Hall of Germantown Monday night. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
It may be only a semantic issue, but, then again, there could be legal ramifications from the matter of what title interim Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis goes by, should she be approved by the city council in its pending retry of her reappointment.
In January, Davis, originally an appointee of former Mayor Jim Strickland, was rejected by the council when then newly inaugurated Mayor Paul Young submitted her name for reappointment.
Young subsequently designated Davis as interim MPD head and indicated he would ask the council to reconsider. Reportedly he will resubmit her name when the city’s ongoing budget deliberations are concluded.
Meanwhile, Young has also announced that he intends to name a public safety director (or public safety advisor). The job’s exact nomenclature, like the timeline for that appointment and the outlines of the public safety official’s intended relationship to the MPD chief, remains somewhat uncertain.
The city charter mandates that the head of police services be referred to by the title “director,” and every supervisor of MPD operations — uniformed or otherwise — since E. Winslow “Buddy” Chapman during the mayoralty of Wyeth Chandler (1972-1982) has borne that title. Except for C.J. Davis, who allegedly indicated a preference for the title “chief’ when she was hired.
No one seems to remember what title was used in the Strickland-era council’s deliberations — nor, for that matter, in the deliberations of the current council earlier this year. But questions arise:
If and when Mayor Young’s appointment of the putative new public safety official comes to pass, will there be a power struggle with the police chief, as there was between Director Chapman and then-Chief Bill Crumby Jr. before Chapman won out?
Unless Davis is resubmitted as police director, does she even need to be approved by the council to continue serving as chief?
Legal briefs
• The ouster trial of Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert has been scheduled to begin on August 26th in the court of Circuit Court Judge Felicia Corbin-Johnson, who rejected a motion to dismiss the petition filed by special prosecutor Coty Wamp of Hamilton County. Meanwhile, a motion to suspend Halbert while the case is ongoing was set for June 25th.
• A resentencing hearing for former state Senator Katrina Robinson has been scheduled by Chief U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman for September 20th. Robinson had previously been convicted on two wire-fraud charges in connection with her nursing-school operation and sentenced to time served and a year’s probation.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals later restored an additional count she had been convicted of before it was thrown out. Robinson, a Democrat, was expelled from the Republican-dominated Senate after her original conviction on the wire-fraud charges. She is seeking a new trial on one remaining count.
A crowd at a previous Juneteenth Festival (Photo: CBJ VISION)
Tone’s been busy. The arts nonprofit organization is dedicated to “elevat[ing] Black artists as innovative thought leaders, courageous storytellers, and risk-taking problem solvers through intentional exhibitions, conversations, concerts, and artist development, “with the goal of “shift[ing] the culture of Memphis through groundbreaking art, media, and communication that centers Black experiences in our city’s past, present, and future.”
To accomplish that goal, Tone has to keep a lot of plates spinning. The latest exhibition at their Orange Mound gallery, which opened on June 8th, is called “Invisible Man.” The theme for the group show, featuring artists from inside and outside Memphis, is deconstructing concepts of masculinity. “We’ve chosen that name because the essence of the exhibition is inspired by Ralph Ellison’s book Invisible Man,” says curator Kylon Wagner.
Tone’s annual Juneteenth celebration has become wildly popular. This year, it will stretch into three days, from Friday, June 14th, to Sunday, June 16th. It will feature the biggest lineup of entertainment yet and give attendees a preview of the latest developments in the organization’s grand opus: The transformation of a derelict Purina animal feed factory into an innovative center for Black arts, wellness, and entrepreneurship called Orange Mound Tower.
Sitting in the freshly renovated offices of the Tone gallery in Orange Mound, Tone executive director Victoria Jones says sometimes her organization’s ambitious agenda of community transformation can feel overwhelming. “It’s been going, it feels like hyper speed some days. We at Tone internally have really had to focus on building capacity so we could take on the project — not just take on the development of the project, but once it exists in its full capacity, actually grow into that larger space. And so, we have been working on capacity building for our staff, which has led to some really great partnerships with the Mellon Foundation, where we’ve been able to get everybody an honorable salary, wages, and healthcare. Obviously, that’s gonna change the morale of a team! So that’s been really exciting. We have had an opportunity to work with folks like the Memphis Music Initiative, who led the [office] renovation back here for us. … It’s a strong, solid team right now. We’re really learning our systems differently. Because we’ve been such a young, kind of scrappy organization that we were just like, ‘Ooh, let’s try this. Ooh, let’s try that.’ But now we’re learning what it means to actually build out systems, plan for the future, and see those things through. We’re learning what accountability structures could look like, and that’s been giving us space for our imaginations. I think that was a fear for me — and that could be my own Aquarius nature — that systems would block some of that imagination work. But we’ve understood, with the systems we’re beginning to implement, it actually gives the imagination space to grow and see the visions through.”
Juneteenth
1862 was not a good year for the United States. The Civil War was raging, and things were not going to plan for President Abraham Lincoln. In the East, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s army was menacing Washington, D.C., and Lincoln was firing a succession of failed generals. Things were going better in the West, where General Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign to deny the Confederacy access to the Mississippi River had led to the capture of Memphis. But the cost was great, and Grant’s forces were getting bogged down laying siege to Vicksburg, Mississippi.
In early September, the two armies fought to a draw at Antietam, Maryland. It was the single bloodiest day in American history, with more than 27,000 dead, wounded, or missing. But it halted Lee’s invasion of the North, at least temporarily. On September 22nd, to capitalize on the victory, and give his abolitionist supporters the moral crusade against slavery they craved, President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation. Effective January 1, 1863, all slaves in the Confederate territories would be henceforth free. As the news of liberation spread, many enslaved Black people in the West ran away and flocked to newly liberated Memphis, altering the city’s demographics forever.
But many of the enslaved, who had been purposefully kept ignorant by their masters, didn’t know about the emancipation. Even after the Confederacy surrendered in April 1865, slavery continued in then-remote places like Texas. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger landed in Galveston, Texas, to begin the military occupation and Reconstruction, and informed the people of Texas that “In accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” In the years that followed, the more than 250,000 Black people liberated that day started calling the holiday Juneteenth. The National Museum of African American History and Culture calls it “our country’s second Independence Day.”
Since it was founded as The CLTV, Tone has made Juneteenth their day of celebration. “We don’t have that many holidays that center our experience in general,” says Jones. “We have had to create Juneteenth. I think it’s our first opportunity to begin to truly celebrate freedom, even before it’s been fully won — ’cause I feel like we still got a little ways to go. It’s an opportunity for us to take a pause and go all the way up for what our ancestors had to go through, what our elders have walked us through, and what we can do in the future. It feels a lot like a real opportunity to celebrate this baton that’s been passed generation to generation. … Slavery didn’t happen a super long time ago, as much as we want to feel like it was some distant experience. My grandmother was raised in a home with someone who was enslaved as a child. The way that affects my family, and the ways I understand generation to generation what had to be sacrificed for my bloodline to be where it is right now, I don’t know of another holiday that would give me room to reflect on that, celebrate that, lift that up, love on the ancestors that had to go through that, and imagine what we can still be working on and doing going forward.”
In 2021, the festival debuted at 2205 Lamar Avenue, a long-vacant, blighted post-industrial site that featured a tower visible from all over the historic Orange Mound neighborhood. “That was the first festival,” says Jones. “We’d done one Juneteenth celebration before that. It did not include a festival. We outfitted this space to do a big gala. Then, after Covid, we thought we needed to bring it outdoors. What could an outdoor celebration look like? Should we try a festival? Can we do a festival?”
The 2021 Juneteenth festival was an unlikely success. Jones recalls a bartender, hired that first year, in a panic wondering how they were going to accommodate thousands of people in a place with no power and no working bathrooms. Unapologetic, Tone’s partner in the Orange Mound Tower project, provided the entertainment. The gathering went a long way toward putting Tone on the map of Memphis arts orgs. “It’s grown substantially each year,” says Jones. “Even with the rain that hit last year, we saw a huge boost in attendance and participation from the artists and headliners we had selected. It’s been a fun growth to watch.”
One of Tone’s goals for the festival is to make it a sort of Black homecoming, attracting people who have left Memphis to come back. “We’re wanting to name Memphis as the cultural beacon of the South, but wanting to do that in connection with other cities,” says Jones. “If we’re thinking about the emancipation of Black folks and that entire experience, the thought that the country as a whole can reckon with any kind of post-racist experience and not have that reckoning happening here in the South is null and void.”
When designing the celebration, Jones says the organizers asked themselves, “How do we participate in and help launch some of those efforts to offer up space for Black folks to be healing, and inviting folks from the South to participate in that? And then essentially hoping that the festival and we can become so large that it’s a true beacon back home, an invitation to come back home, if it’s for the weekend or if it’s for longer. Come back home; help build this new future with us. Juneteenth really gives us that opportunity. We are watching folks pull up for that weekend and get a taste of Memphis. It’s folks who might not have been here for a long time and are like, ‘I didn’t know this was happening here. I didn’t know these folks were here. I didn’t know this community was here.’”
Appropriately, for a Black homecoming celebration, Juneteenth 2024 kicks off with a game of Spades. How did the card game get so popular in the Black community? “I don’t know,” says Jones. “I just know I ain’t never been to a function without it.”
“It’s a game about making do with what you have. You get that hand, and how can you make it jump?” says Willie McDonald, Tone’s development director. “The gala didn’t feel like the right first touch point for the weekend. So just trying to figure out, how do we welcome folk? What we have been seeing in attendance lately is, folks are coming from outside of the city to join us. … Our Juneteenth celebration happens under the banner of a family reunion, and Spades is an essential family reunion activity.”
The Friday night Spades tournament will be held in the Tone gallery, amid the artwork of the “Invisible Man” exhibit. More than 150 people have signed up so far. “We’ll have a whole new, larger crowd to experience that exhibition,” says Jones.
“It was live last year,” says McDonald. “There was some controversy in the room.”
On Saturday night, the celebration moves across the street to Orange Mound Tower for the gala. “It’s in one of the smaller warehouses,” says Jones. “This year, the is theme is revival. I’m imagining reviving the tower. And so the theme will be ‘Sunday best.’”
The seated banquet will include a keynote speaker and entertainment from Beale Street musicians and the Tennessee Mass Choir. “The way it’s sectioned off, it gives us three or four different room opportunities. We gonna have some unique experiences in each room,” says Jones.
On Sunday, the party kicks into high gear, with a vendor marketplace and Black-owned food trucks. One new addition this year will be a carousel with actual horses. Since the event commemorated by Juneteenth happened in Texas, many enslaved people found out about their emancipation from Black cowboys who spread the word on horseback. The Black rancher tradition has recently been in the spotlight, thanks to Jordan Peele’s film Nope, and Beyonce’s country-flavored Cowboy Carter album. (Peele is currently producing a documentary about Black cowboys.) “That’s a real part of Juneteenth tradition that I don’t think we get to elevate as often, that it was a Black cowboy letting a lot of the enslaved folks know,” says Jones. “We’ve been trying to find unique ways to tie Black folks on horses into the experience. It’s the symbolism of freedom and mobility.”
The star of the show on Sunday is the music. This year’s lineup is stacked with talent, both from Memphis and elsewhere in the South. McDonald says the nature of the event helped attract some big names. “The significance of us having this Juneteenth in Orange Mound, being the oldest neighborhood established by emancipated Black folks in the United States, and the funding from that going toward the larger capital campaign efforts for establishing a hub for Black innovation.”
The biggest name performer is neo-soul legend Erykah Badu, who will be doing a set under her DJ name Lo Down Loretta Brown. Memphis hip-hop legend, Three 6 Mafia founder, and secret engine of popular culture innovation Juicy J, whose accomplishments are too numerous to list here, will be on hand to deliver a highly anticipated performance. Also on the bill is New Orleans rapper and record label owner Curren$y, fresh off his 2024 collaboration with Trauma Tone on Highway 600.
Hitkidd (Photo: Kam Darko Visuals)
The official headliner is Memphis’ own Hitkidd. The producer of GloRilla’s song of the summer “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)” and Campsouth Records mastermind is no stranger to the OMT stage. “He was at last year’s Juneteenth, and probably my favorite performance of the night,” says Jones.
“It was epic!” says McDonald. “[Last year] the main stage rained out, so our entire crowd stormed the north warehouse, and it made the second stage turn into the main stage. We had to get barricades up in like 10 minutes. Then we got Hitkidd standing up on top of tables and Slimeroni and three other female artists going HAM. It was the moment.”
The Architects of the Future
One person who attended last year’s Juneteenth festival was Germane Barnes. He’s an associate professor and the director of the Community, Housing & Identity Lab at the University of Miami School of Architecture; a Rome Prize Fellow; and the winner of the 2021 Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize. He was at the festival at the suggestion of Chicago-based artist, professor, and entrepreneur Theaster Gates, a pedigree which impressed Jones and the Tone board of directors. “His practice is based around building out culturally informed spaces, spaces that have the cultural references that resonate for the people that they’re designed for,” says Jones.
Germane Barnes (Photo: Courtesy Studio Barnes)
The architect was intrigued the moment he saw the tower rising over Lamar. “He walked with me all the way to the top of the tower the first day that he came,” says McDonald. “He stopped and took detailed photographs on every floor. He attended the gala. He hung out with us the whole weekend. Then he leaves, and we don’t hear from him for a couple weeks.”
When Barnes recontacted Tone, he asked permission to use the Orange Mound Tower project in a class he was teaching at Ohio State University. “He’s got these grad students, and he had them do renderings of the tower. So we fly out to Ohio, and we’re looking at these CAD renderings. They’re splitting the tower open like an egg, showing us cross sections. They’re throwing all kinds of different facilities into it, just giving us perspective on what it could turn into. Some of these would be featured in the space where we’re hosting the gala. There’ll be an installation showing the progress of the tower that we’re sharing right now.”
Jones says, “The work we got to do with those students was so important. That’s our first time learning how to give feedback to architects. He’s pushing us, ‘Speak up, do you like this? How do you feel about this?’ … We got a lot of positive feedback from the students as well. Most of their coursework is for projects that don’t even exist in real life, so to know this could affect and touch an actual community was meaningful.”
Orange Mound Tower (Photo: Chris McCoy)
Barnes formally came on board as the architect of record for the Orange Mound Tower project in early 2024, thanks to a grant from the Memphis Music Initiative. “Germane got on that first call with us excited, and that felt good, really affirming that this is a dream project,” says Jones. “He’s never gotten to do a project of this scale, and so for him, this is an opportunity to touch a big project that, as he describes it, would usually be reserved for a 70-year-old white man. Him being able to come in as a young Black guy and flex what he can do, we know he knows that in a space this Black, it’s just gonna be incredible. He’s teamed up with local firms LRK [Looney Ricks Kiss] and APA [Aaron Patrick Architects], and they’re creating an architecture dream team for us.”
While Unapologetic remains an ownership partner, Tone has taken the front seat in development work. The Tower team also includes Brent Hooks, an accomplished project manager with more than a decade’s worth of experience in large-scale urban development and complex project coordination. “His extensive background in civil engineering and construction management ensures the successful delivery of high-quality projects, contributing significantly to the team’s success,” says Jones.
Veteran developers Bill Ganus and Darrell Cobbins serve as development consultants. “They’re just so deeply familiar with the landscape of Memphis, and they’ve really been helping us identify some moving parts. We want such a unique approach to tenancy, and how we’re imagining these kind of communities forming around the art and culture, food and agriculture, small business, and health and wellness. [Darrell] has been encouraging and inspiring as we’re imagining how we can truly build out communities around these concepts, not just getting folks to sign leases, so that they can also participate in imagining what the space could look like.”
With almost $4 million invested in the project’s design phase, and another $7 to $9 million on deck, Jones expects to be ready to move Tone onto the 10-acre site sometime in 2025, along with other tenants who will sign up for space in the massive warehouse that will be rejuvenated in the first phase of the project. “We’ve broken it into digestible chunks to make our fundraising job a bit easier,” says McDonald.
Jones says Tone is trying to build an infrastructure for Black freedom in Memphis, to retain talent, and to attract new people and new innovation to the city. “What does it mean if we’re able to actually build the infrastructure in our image in ways that are more thoughtful, more innovative than the structures that we’ve seen around New York, L.A., even Atlanta? You don’t have to force a fit here. You can actually build it to be what you want it to be. Once that infrastructure is developed, or at least in those beginning phases, we’re inviting folks in. Hey, this platform is here. You ain’t gotta go nowhere. Matter of fact, we need you not to go anywhere! Go see the world, but keep your home here, so we can build this city together.”
Visit tonememphis.org for a full schedule of Tone’s Juneteenth events and for more information.
The resurgence of vinyl records has not only brought a plethora of new material sporting colorful platters and beautiful cover art, it’s given a second life to albums that were originally released when CDs were king. The vagaries of time having winnowed the wheat from the chaff, albums from decades past that have only taken on more artistic value can now be elevated to a more perfect medium: vinyl.
None are more deserving than the Subteens’ 1999 CD-only debut, Burn Your Cardigan, freshly reissued on wax by Back to the Light Records last month. Recorded just after seminal punk/indie drummer John “Bubba” Bonds joined the group, it revealed what a perfect complement he was to the visions of co-founders Mark Akin (guitar and vocals) and Jay Hines (bass), and established the Subteens, with their mastery of adrenaline-charged pop-punk originals, as one of the best Memphis groups at the turn of the 21st century.
Yet, as Hines relates today, Bonds was nervous about the sessions. On the first day of recording, Hines says, “We had to go find him, and it was raining really hard. He was down at the South End or somewhere, and we had to go get him, get his drums, and then go by Buster’s to get him a fifth of Jack or something. Then we went back to the studio and got busy.”
Album Cover Artwork: Mike McCarthy
Not that any of them were plastered as they recorded. They took the album very seriously. “We were just trying to get him to relax a little bit,” says Hines. “He didn’t get sloppy or anything — he played to a click track on a lot of that. But that made him nervous. Also, he had just joined the group. We had had maybe one practice and maybe one show with him at that point. But he just nailed it. Most of those [songs] were done in one or two takes. So miraculous!”
Also seemingly miraculous at the time was the studio’s proximity to cheap eats. The sessions were booked at Robbie Pickens’ Nu-Star Studio, not a well-known recording destination even then. “It was over off Summer behind Sonic. You could literally walk out of the studio, climb over his back fence, and be at Sonic. So that was amazing,” Akin recalls today.
“Robbie was not a typical person that a Midtown fan would seek for help producing a record, you know?” notes Akin. “I can’t remember why we ended up with him. Maybe he was just cheap. But for whatever reason, the stars aligned. Robbie really understood the punk that we were coming from. But I think he also understood that we wanted a little bit of gloss on it, a little bit of pop sensibility. Robbie was able to have a foot in both of those worlds and bring it together. I just can’t overstate enough how helpful Robbie was.”
Surprisingly, for a band that seems to have had great guitar sounds dialed in from the start, the crunchy riffs of Burn Your Cardigan came down to Pickens’ production skills. “I could not get the guitar sound right,” says Akin. “And finally, Robbie was like, ‘Mark, leave. Go to Sonic! I’m going to get your guitar sound.’ Later, he calls me to come back in and listen to it, but he won’t let me see what he’s done. And it sounds fantastic. Then he said, ‘Okay, let me show you how I got it.’ He had put a really small amp, like a Pignose, in this tiny closet, and had somehow gotten this magical guitar tone out of it.”
The end result was indeed a perfect blend of noisy punk attitude and the band’s unmistakable pop instincts. “Even our favorite punk bands are really pop bands at heart, or at least my favorite punk bands,” says Akin. “The Sex Pistols, the Ramones … And Jay’s really into the Buzzcocks, Sham 69. I’m really an AC/DC [fan]. That’s all hooky pop, just with harder rock guitar tones and different tempos. And every single one of those songs are arranged with a purpose and they’re arranged in a sensible, linear way.”
The ultimate statement of this approach may be Side One’s closer, Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right,” thrashed out with complete sincerity as if it were the latest track by the Clash. There’s a defiance to the track that helps one understand the band’s historical context. The late ’90s were trending away from the punk/pop axis, toward more introspective, watery styles like “shoegaze.” Shoegaze bands, it must be said, often ditched the rock-and-roll threads of jeans and a T-shirt in favor of … sweaters.
“The title of the album was totally Mark,” says Hines. “This was back when he was working at the Memphis Pizza Café, and I came in and he had this funny look on his face. He said, ‘What would you think about …’ — and he sort of hesitated, I guess because he thought I would laugh at it — ‘Burn Your Cardigan?’ And once I realized where he was coming from, I thought it was perfect.”
No shoegazing was going on with these guys. As Akin remembers, “When we first came out, we weren’t super well received. I feel like people didn’t quite know what to make of us at first because we wrote songs with beginnings, middles, and ends. We tried to have a chorus that got in your head and we tried to make the songs short. We would just go to play 10 songs and get the hell offstage. But then when that record came out, I think it really represented what we were all about. ‘This is what we are!’ And we started getting more people at the shows, and that never stopped. It’s always fun to have people come and watch you play.”
Bad boys will be bad boys in a Bad Boys movie. (Photo: Frank Masi | Columbia Pictures)
For the past few years it’s seemed as if Hollywood had been infected by a plague, and legacy media were the most susceptible. Movie screens and streaming libraries have been filled with reboots and continuations to stories that were either major successes in their heyday, or built cult followings which capitalists sought to seize. Every so often a new trailer or press junket would drop, teasing a new installment of some saga that would leave the audience wondering, “They still make that?” or “Did we ask for that?”
This phenomenon becomes even more of an enigma when certain franchises return after hitting the screens decades ago, since it can potentially alienate audiences who don’t fully understand the lore. However, Bad Boys: Ride Or Die is an exception, leaving the viewer either satiated as a longtime fan or eager to start from the beginning.
The movie serves as the fourth installment of the series. Like the last film, the pandemic-era Bad Boys for Life, original director Michael Bay is replaced by Belgian directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, with a story by Chris Bremner, Aquaman scribe Will Beall, and George Gallo. Reprising roles they originated in 1995 are stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, along with supporting actors Paola Nüñez and Jacob Muntaz Scipio, with Eric Dane. New to the franchise are Better Call Saul standout Rhea Seehorn and Ioan Gruffudd.
The film opens with the titular pair Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) in another one of their iconic car chases. Both men appear dapper and on a time crunch as their latest mission —Mike’s wedding to his former physical therapist Christine (Melanie Liburd) — brings a new sense of urgency. But en route to the nuptials, Marcus asks to stop at the gas station for a ginger ale, much to Mike’s dismay. Marcus’ junk food addiction gets the best of him, and as he piles his order onto the counter, he finds himself at gunpoint in a gas station robbery.
Within seconds, the pair annihilate the assailant, and Mike makes it to the church on time. As the couple is pronounced husband and wife, we see the wedding party joined with a memorial photo of Captain Conrad Howard, who died in Bad Boys for Life while trying to take down a Miami drug cartel.
At the reception are Rita Secada (Núñez), as well as Howard’s daughter Judy (Seehorn) and granddaughter Callie (Quinn Hemphill). But the celebration is cut short as Marcus’ diet of sweet garbage finally catches up with him, and he suffers a heart attack. As he’s rushed to the ER, Marcus hallucinates Howard’s ghost, who informs him that it’s not his time to go. Marcus awakens with a new lease on life.
That ghost seems to be busy. As Marcus is recovering, city officials are notified that Howard is seemingly committing fraud from beyond the grave. Mike and Marcus, forever indebted to Howard, take on the mission to clear their late captain’s name.
Their first stop is the prison where Mike’s son Armando (Scipio) is being held, as he’s been convicted of Howard’s murder. Armando believes he can identify the real perpetrator, but as word spreads through the prison, he finds himself the target of a deadly attack in the yard. With his safety at risk, he’s moved to Miami. But his transfer helicopter becomes a target for the cartels, and our heroes miss death by an inch in the ensuing crash. Mike, Marcus, and Armando continue their mission as fugitives.
With the help of Advanced Miami Metro Operations agents Dorn (Alexander Ludwig) and Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens), they not only uncover the mastermind of the hoax, but follow the trail of deception and forbidden alliances.
While it may be a part of the series, and the conclusion of a story Adil and Bilall began in the last film, first-time viewers needn’t worry about being confused. Longtime fans will be reminded as to why this pair works so well together in the buddy-cop genre. Thousands of slap-happy think pieces and unsolicited marriage tidbits later, Smith is still refreshing, and we’re reminded of why the camera loves him. Lawrence’s comedic legacy precedes him, and his impeccable delivery doesn’t disappoint. Both actors manage to balance out the comedic and action elements without doing too much.
The film ends on an open note, with the plot wrapped up, but no major cliffhangers. If there’s going to be a reboot, why not give Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel creator Amy Sherman-Palladino a shot? Bad Girls, anyone?
Bad Boys: Ride or Die Now playing Multiple locations
Ben Bailey, former host of Cash Cab, will be in Memphis to perform stand-up at Black Lodge on Friday, June 14th, at 8 p.m.
And, yes, while you might know him best for asking trivia questions from the driver seat in a taxi on the streets of New York City, Bailey says stand-up is his true calling. “I’ve been a comedian for over 30 years,” he says. “Believe it or not, Cash Cab was for about half that time. We did it for 15 years, on and off. But stand-up comedy is what I really do, not the other way around.”
Still, Bailey is appreciative of his time on the show that earned him multiple Daytime Emmy Awards. He recognizes it’s why a bulk of his audiences comes to see his stand-up. “My goal when they come to see me is to make them forget that I’m the Cash Cab guy because they’re laughing so hard and they’re so caught up in what I’m doing on stage. … My job is to make you laugh hard enough that you forget about the things in your life that suck.”
Bailey describes his comedy as surreal and observational, silly even. “There’s a little twist of crazy,” he says. “Someone once called it, like, the Far Side of stand-up.”
Funnily enough, Bailey fell into comedy seemingly by a chance meeting. He had moved to L.A. with hopes of going into show business. “I was totally lost,” he says, but he got a job answering phones at The Comedy Store, where one night he found himself talking to a comedian.
“I was telling the story in the green room, which is where I sat to answer the phones,” Bailey says. “And the guy thought I was a comedian and asked me how long I had been doing it, and I said I just started. The guy offered me a spot on his show that Saturday, and I said no because I was terrified. But then luckily, he gave me a business card because the next day, I was like, ‘Maybe I should give this a try.’ … I did it the first time, and I got a laugh with the first thing I said. I knew right then that it was going to be what I was going to do for the rest of my life.”
Since then, in addition to hosting more than 550 episodes of Cash Cab, Bailey has starred in two specials for Comedy Central (“Road Rage and Accidental Ornithology” in 2011 and “Ben Bailey: Live and Uncensored” in 2016), and he has appeared in several TV shows and films.
Tickets for Bailey’s show at Black Lodge are $35 in advance and $38 day of show. VIP tickets, which include seats in the first four rows and a meet-and-greet, cost $60 in advance and $65 day of show. Purchase tickets in advance here.
