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Fun Stuff News of the Weird

News of the Weird: Week of 03/28/24

Expectations: Unmanaged

At an event billed as “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” on Feb. 24 in Glasgow, Scotland, children and parents were so underwhelmed that police were called, The New York Times reported. The event, which promised Willy Wonka-themed chocolate fountains, performances by Oompa Loompas and “optical marvels,” turned out to offer just a few jelly beans and a nearly empty warehouse. Stuart Sinclair, who paid about $44 per ticket to bring his kids to the show, said it amounted to “maybe 20 chairs, a couple of tables, and a half-inflated bouncy castle.” Jenny Fogarty, who was hired to play an Oompa Loompa, said she was given a 15-page script the night before and that “the wigs were very cheap.” The organizer canceled the event on Saturday afternoon; it was unclear who had called police. The event organizer, House of Illuminati, said ticket purchases would be refunded. [New York Times, 2/27/2024]

Bright Ideas

Details have recently emerged about an incident in Willow Springs, Missouri, in November, the Springfield News-Leader reported. The Howell County Sheriff’s Office had investigated after a man in his 60s, who was a paraplegic, lost his feet while brush-hogging. “It was a poorly executed plan,” said Lt. Torey Thompson. He said it was clear almost immediately that the accident had been staged: The cuts were very clean, the feet were nowhere to be found, and tourniquets had been applied to both legs. Allegedly, the victim had help from a man from Florida, who cut off the feet with a hatchet to help him commit insurance fraud. However, since the unnamed man never filed the claim and he was so severely injured, the sheriff’s office declined to charge him. And the missing feet? “A couple of days later, we got a call that a relative found them in a bucket obscured by tires, so we went and got them,” Thompson said. Mystery solved. [Springfield News-Leader, 2/15/2024]

The Golden Age of Air Travel

• On Feb. 13, as a Delta flight soared from Amsterdam to Detroit, maggots began falling from an overhead compartment onto passengers below, The Guardian reported. Philip Schotte, who was on the flight, said attendants traced the source to a bag stowed above and found a rotten fish wrapped in newspaper. They removed the offending item, and the pilot announced that the plane would be returning to Amsterdam. Apologizing, Delta said the passengers were placed on another flight and the plane was removed from service for cleaning. Passengers were also given 8,000 air miles, hotel room compensation, and a $30 meal ticket. But who’s hungry? [Guardian, 2/15/2024]

• Sri Lankan Airlines was forced to ground one of its Airbus A330 planes for three days after a rat was spotted on the aircraft, United Press International reported on Feb. 27. The rodent was seen during a flight from Lahore, Pakistan, to Colombo, Sri Lanka. Workers sprayed the plane with poison, and technicians checked wiring for damage done by chewing. [UPI, 2/27/2024]

Try the Decaf

Brandie Gotch, 30, of Peoria, Arizona, told police that her children were being bullied by other kids, and she had reported it to the school and law enforcement, but nothing happened. So on Feb. 27, she took matters into her own hands, CBS5-TV reported. With her four children in her Silverado, Gotch drove to a local park, where she allegedly approached a group of kids and started yelling at them. Police said Gotch grabbed a 14-year-old boy by the hair and yanked his head back and forth as she yelled at him, then grabbed a stick from her truck, and chased him, yelling, “I am going to kill you and run you over!” She then jumped back into her truck and drove it toward the group of kids, running over a girl’s ankle in the process, although she told police she didn’t think she hit the girl. “I hope I didn’t,” she said. Her own children told police they were bouncing all over the truck during her jaunt through the park. Gotch was charged with six counts of endangerment, four counts of aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of attempted first-degree murder. [CBS5, 2/29/2024]

NEWS OF THE WEIRD
© 2024 Andrews McMeel Syndication.
Reprinted with permission.
All rights reserved.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Kinfolk Is Now Open in Harbor Town

Cole Jeanes at Kinfolk (Photo: Michael Donahue)

Cole Jeanes named his restaurant “Kinfolk” for several reasons.

The restaurant, which opens Wednesday, March 27th, is “based on a country kitchen,” says Jeanes, 34, chef/owner of the restaurant at 113 Harbor Town Square. “So, it’s a bunch of different things. But it means family and your blood. And when I think of food, that’s what I think about.”

Menu items include “Biscuits and Buns,” “Bowls,” and “Sweets.” One of the “Sweets” is “Banana Pudding Tiramisu,” which is made with coffee caramel, banana, and Moon Pie.

“Kinfolk” is a “Southern saying,” says Jeanes, who heard the word a lot when he was growing up. His father was from a small Mississippi town. “Those folks literally sat on their porch and shot squirrels out of the tree. They’re country country.”

In addition to evoking memories of going hunting and eating with his dad, “kinfolk” also evokes memories of his mother’s biscuits. “She made them and they were great. But I also liked the frozen ones she made.”

But more than the actual biscuits was the “great memory” of “sitting around” in the dining room or living room “eating sausage and biscuits.”

Jeanes, who was 12 years old when he lost his dad, says his “core” are the people in his life. “What I enjoyed with them most of the time was eating food. Going to Thanksgiving and being with all my cousins and all my aunts and uncles. Those were some of the best memories.”

As for that food, Jeanes says, “I grew up in the era of the South when Crock-Pots were big.” But, he says, “I love American cheese. I love Velveeta. I love frozen biscuits. I’m not knocking any of that stuff. I’m just trying to really do something that has a positive effect on not just this community, but the Earth in general.”

Biscuits were a big thing for Jeanes when he was in culinary school at the old L’Ecole Culinaire in Memphis. “I made them and put a little bit of herbs de Provence in there. Then I started adjusting it. Every time I made them I’d write it down and see what I didn’t like and what I liked and I went from there.”

Jeanes came up with his square biscuits, which he made with the folding method of building layers of dough with butter in between.

He included his biscuits in his first “Kinfolk” food stall in the old Puck Food Hall at 409 South Main. “I was the first tenant there.”

Two years ago, he began doing Kinfolk pop-ups at Comeback Coffee. “It was great. I sold out almost every weekend. I saw that there was a desire for us.”

That was a chance to “test the waters, get some data, see if it’s plausible to open a full space.”

He met his current business partners at the pop-ups. A buddy then told him about the Harbor Town location, which already had a new kitchen in it.

Jeanes still makes his biscuits, but he also serves a wide range of items. “You could only do so much at the coffee shop,” he says, adding, “Now it’s growing to, essentially, a fancier Waffle House.”

“The menu is based off of breakfast sandwiches you can either get on our buttermilk biscuits or on a milk bun with benne seeds.”

The breakfast sandwiches are served on an “egg plate. It has a French omelet on it or, basically, any two eggs you want. With grits or fries. Whatever side you like.”

He also serves rice bowls, including one that “literally has Japanese pickles in it.” It also includes Delta jasmine rice, crispy chicken thigh, chili crisp, jammy egg, and toasted benne seed. “There’s a thread that kind of goes through that menu that has Japanese and Scandinavian influences.”

Jeanes also serves “flattop griddle cakes,” but he uses oat flour instead of white flour “to give a gluten-free option.”

For now, Kinfolk, which is open Wednesdays through Sundays, is open for grab-and-go from 6 to 7 a.m. The full-breakfast menu is from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. The full lunch menu begins at 10:30 a.m.

The Harbor Town restaurant location is great for Jeanes and his kinfolk. “I can ride my bike here from my home,” he says. “My wife can literally walk up here with our kids.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Kyle, Candy Champ, Glo and Joe

Posted to X by @Julio_Rosas11

Memphis on the internet.

Kyle, Kyle, Kyle

“Leftist agitators disrupted the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter event hosting Kyle Rittenhouse last night at the University of Memphis,” reads a story from Turning Points USA the day after Rittenhouse was booed from the stage and chased away from campus by protestors.

MEMernet celebrity Allan Creasy asked Memphians on X and Facebook for their most Memphis insult for Rittenhouse. They didn’t disappoint.

“Kyle says mane but spells it main,” wrote Forrest Quay Roberts.

“Kyle Rittenhouse walked into the Rendezvous and ordered the shrimp,” wrote Jonathan Green.

“Kyle thinks Chili’s has the best ribs,” wrote Danny Bader. “He also eats ribs with a fork.”

“I 100 percent know his favorite Grizzly was Chandler Parsons,” wrote Henry A Wallace.

Candy Champ

Posted to X by Jessica Benson

“This kid eating an insane amount of cotton candy has been the best performance we’ve seen in five games in Memphis this weekend,” tweeted Jessica Benson, a Grind City Media host on the March Madness games played at FedExForum last weekend.

Glo and Joe

Posted to Instagram by GloRilla

Memphis rapper GloRilla met President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House last week. In a brief Instagram selfie video with Biden, GloRilla says, “Yeah, Joe!” The president responded, “Not yeah, Joe. Yeah, you!”

Categories
At Large Opinion

The Banality of Evil

Kyle Rittenhouse (Photo: Kyle Rittenhouse via X)

He was small, scrawny, middle-aged, with a receding hairline and ill-fitting teeth. His name was Otto Adolf Eichmann and he was on trial for his life, charged with facilitating the murder of 5,000,000 Jews in extermination camps in the years preceding, and during, World War II.

Israeli Mossad special forces had tracked Eichmann down in Argentina in 1960, where he’d fled after the war, and brought him back to face charges in Jerusalem. Eichmann’s defense became known as “superior orders,” also known as the Nuremberg defense or “just following orders.” It is a court plea that a person should not be considered guilty of committing a crime that was ordered by a superior officer or official.

Eichmann’s defense team argued that under the Nazi legal system the deeds he was accused of were not crimes but “acts of state” that it had been his duty to obey. His conscience was clear because his conscience required him to follow orders.

Eichmann said that he would have had a bad conscience only if he had not done what he had been ordered to do — to ship millions of men, women, and children to their death with meticulous care and efficiency.

“I will jump into my grave laughing,” he said, “because the fact that I have the death of five million enemies of the Reich on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction.”

I have been reading lately the 1963 account of Eichmann’s trial in The New Yorker by Hannah Arendt, subtitled “A Report on the Banality of Evil.” I am struck again and again by the “ordinariness” of Eichmann, an aimless, unambitious young man who stumbled up the ladder in the Nazi hierarchy and found himself assigned to the most horrific task imaginable — ruthlessly exterminating millions of men, women, and children. It’s a textbook lesson in how human beings can rationalize pretty much anything.

In August 2020, 17-year-old Kyle Howard Rittenhouse traveled from his home in northern Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where there was unrest following the shooting by police there of a man named Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and joined a group of armed citizens in Kenosha who said they were there to protect local businesses.

During the unrest that night, Rittenhouse said a man chased him into a parking lot and grabbed the barrel of his rifle, whereupon he fatally shot him. Rittenhouse said he fled and was pursued by a crowd, and then fatally shot a second man after he struck him with a skateboard and tried to grab his rifle. Rittenhouse said a third person approached him with a pistol and he shot and wounded that individual.

In his subsequent trial, Rittenhouse was acquitted after tearfully testifying that his actions were in self-defense. After that, things went quite well for the young man. He went to meet former President Donald Trump, who said nice things about him; he was lovingly interviewed by Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, and soon became a cause célèbre for right-wing organizations, with his image being used to sell T-shirts, coffee mugs, and other products. He announced the creation of a video game, Kyle Rittenhouse’s Turkey Shoot, and became a speaker for Turning Point USA, an outfit that advocates for conservative policies and politics on college campuses.

Last week, Rittenhouse brought his “Rittenhouse Recap” speaking tour to the University of Memphis and it did not go well. Initially, there was a movement on social media to reserve tickets and then not show up, leaving Rittenhouse with an empty auditorium. Even after a last-minute reshuffling of the ticketing process, Rittenhouse still found himself speaking to a half-full room, most of whose inhabitants were there to run him out of town. After 27 minutes of tough questions, most of which he dodged, Rittenhouse had had enough and hurried off stage left, dragging his poor “support dog” behind him.

One gets the sense that Rittenhouse has no idea what to do with the remainder of a life that was indelibly defined by his actions on that August night four years ago. Now he’s a prop, famous only because he shot and killed people; a shill being used to raise funds; a washed-up, one-hit wonder at the age of 21; an aimless, unambitious young man who stumbled up the ladder in the right-wing hierarchy. Now he’s just following orders.

Categories
News News Feature

Bringing Black Kink to the Memphis Mainstream

King Khan (Photo: Courtesy King Khan)

Memphis has always been a kinky city full of kinky people. But it can be a challenge for adventurous Memphians to find safe spaces where they can express their sexual curiosities and fetishes without fear of judgment, exploitation, or worse.

This is especially true for members of our city’s marginalized populations: Black, Indigenous, and other people of color who are in search of sexual self-discovery in a state whose legislature recently tried to criminalize performing in drag. The stigma surrounding any sexual activity deemed abnormal or “prurient” leads to shame and exclusion.

But this weekend, Black kink is taking a big step into the Memphis mainstream, and you can be part of the conversation. Professional dominant and local fetish leader King Khan is hosting a panel discussion called BIPOC x BDSM: A KINKY CONVERSATION at the Medicine Factory in Downtown Memphis. He will be joined by guests with expertise in sexual freedom, healing, and therapy.

The stated goals of this panel are to demystify sexual fetishes such as bondage, dominance/discipline, submission/sadism, and masochism (BDSM) and to empower sexual subcultures in our city, especially for those of people of color.

For those who are unfamiliar with the idea of BDSM, think of it as erotic play that involves inequity of power. Some people play the role of doms while others are subs; some are tops while others are bottoms. Along the way, there’s plenty of voyeurism, taboo play, and, yes, whips and chains. But there’s much more than that.

“[At this panel], we can share our collective and individual lived experiences,” says Khan, who chooses to remain masked in public to keep his BDSM life separate from his everyday life. “We can learn from each other’s insights and journeys. We can support and lean on one another. We can occupy the locus of our own pleasure experiences, drive our sexual liberation, and be free to be ourselves. This panel is for us and is open to our community, co-conspirators, and allies.”

The panel on Saturday will be emceed by Phoenix, the Goddess, an educator and speaker specializing in creating a healing and sex-positive space for the curious.

It will also feature discussion from Phillis Lewis, CEO of the nonprofit organization Love Doesn’t Hurt, which aids members of the LGBTQ who are experiencing crisis.

Lewis, also known as Freak Nasty, has been hosting the quarterly Kink Night at Dru’s Place on Madison Avenue. She has been a familiar part of the Memphis kink community for over 20 years.

Black Magick (Photo: Courtesy Black Magick)

Also on the panel is Black Magick, an experienced tantric dominatrix priestess and healer. Black Magick specializes in a variety of safe sexual alternative practices and is also a burlesque dancer.

King Khan, the spokesperson for Saturday’s panel event, is also the owner and founder of MeetAtJewels, Memphis’ only Black-owned dungeon and play space.

MeetAtJewels hosts parties for those with an open mind about exploring their sexual lives in a judgment-free environment. They host all-night parties on a regular basis (you can find out when and where if you’re inclined at meetatjewels.com) where they also sell sex toys, give BDSM demonstrations, and host multi-room games. They recently celebrated their first anniversary with a rose ceremony play party.

BDSM demands informed consent from all partners, and the motto for the BDSM play at MeetAtJewels is “Keep it kinky, keep it classy, and keep it consensual.” Khan’s goal is to ensure a “safe, inclusive, and empowering space for Black, Indigenous, and people of color,” and he personally screens each member who wishes to join. He gets to know applicants and asks about each member’s boundaries before accepting them to the club. No member is required to participate in any activity unless they feel comfortable.

The panel discussion on Saturday is open to the “kinky BIPOC kinfolk” and their allies. Khan hopes it will be the first of a series of such discussions to bring kink to the mainstream and that this uncensored conversation will allow curious members of our majority-Black city to break down barriers around bondage play and other fetishes.

BIPOC x BDSM: A KINKY CONVERSATION will be held at the Medicine Factory on Saturday, March 30th, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Categories
Music Music Features

All the Young Dudes

(l-r) Liam O’Dell, DeAnte Payne, Martin Carodine, Charles Pender II, and Kurtis Gray (Photo: Steve Roberts)

Sometimes the best way to champion the music of today is by looking to some milestone from the past. Take the experience of David Less: Having worked in and around Memphis music for half a century, writing dozens of articles and the book Memphis Mayhem, promoting shows, producing records, he’d known about an especially rare Memphis jazz LP for some time. “Fred Ford had told me about it in 1975 or ’76,” he says, “and told me what a great record it was. I always wanted to hear it, but it was very hard to find.”

So potent was the album’s music that when Less finally got a copy, he was motivated to produce one of his own.

The legendary album in question? Young Men from Memphis: Down Home Reunion, released in 1959 on United Artists Records, for which the groundbreaking producer Tom Wilson assembled a band that reads like a Memphis jazz who’s who: on alto saxophone, Frank Strozier; on tenor, George Coleman; on piano, Phineas Newborn Jr.; on guitar, his brother Calvin; on bass, Jamil Nasser; on drums, Charles Crosby; and on trumpet, Louis Smith and Booker Little.

“It featured the great Memphis jazz players when they were young and just getting to New York,” says Less. “That group of people later became very well-known, but at the time they were not, so the record went into obscurity.”

Other Memphians also knew of the album. “Johnny Phillips, whose father owned [record distributor] Select-O-Hits and later bought my record company, Memphis International Records, had heard it,” recounts Less. “In fact, Johnny kind of grew up listening to it. So when I found a copy, Johnny and I and his son Jeff, who owns the label, started talking about doing an updated version of this.”

This April 2nd, at a Memphis Listening Lab event from 6-8 p.m., the world will first hear the full realization of that thought, Playing in the Yard by the Jazz Ensemble of Memphis (J.E.M.). (It will be officially released on CD and vinyl three days later.)

Just as Wilson had done, Less set out to recruit a band. “First of all, we approached the teachers, where it all comes from,” he says. “We called Sam Shoup, Gary Topper, Steve Lee, Michael Scott … you know, the guys! And we found these five players. Some of them knew each other. Most of them didn’t.”

As the sessions for the album unfolded, the players developed a powerful group chemistry. Tenor saxophonist and flautist Charles Pender II, a University of Memphis alum, was the senior member of the group, 26 at the time. His grandfather, E.L Pender, taught such greats as Maurice White, David Porter, and Booker T. Jones. Keyboardist and vibraphonist DeAnte Payne, 25, a standout member of James Sexton’s band, plays the vibes with a breathtaking, playful dexterity. Bassist Liam O’Dell, 21, is an Arkansas native and University of Memphis graduate who made a splash locally before pursuing a master’s of jazz performance degree at the University of Texas at Austin. Trumpeter Martin Carodine,19, came to the sessions from the University of Miami. And drummer Kurtis Gray, 17, is, in Less’ opinion, “an absolute savant.”

On the title track, there’s a notable cameo from the old guard. “Jim Spake is on the first song, playing soprano,” says Less. “I brought Jim in because I was afraid that they would not know where we set the bar for this record. I wanted them to understand that this is the best saxophone player in town. I wanted to put them with him, playing at that caliber, from the very first song. And so we cut ‘Playing in the Yard,’ which is by Sonny Rollins.”

The bar clearly set, the ad hoc quintet shines through the rest of the album. The Ellington staple “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” also featured on Down Home Reunion, is the clearest echo of that 20th-century predecessor, while other tunes, like Willie Mitchell’s “The Crawl” and Dan Penn’s “The Dark End of the Street,” situate the album squarely in Memphis. Payne’s vibraphone casts a spell on “When You Wish Upon a Star,” a tune that’s reprised at the end as a pensive arco solo by O’Dell. The album feels like an instant classic.

While clearly delighted, Less is not surprised by the results. “Memphis is a jazz city,” he says. “Jazz is just as good as it ever was in Memphis.”

Categories
Art Art Feature

‘People Are People’

The clothing on display showcases Siriano’s evolution in design. (Photo: Abigail Morici)

Taylor Swift, Celine Dion, Oprah, Michelle Obama, Janelle Monáe, Billy Porter, Leslie Jones — these are just a few of the well-known figures who have donned the clothing now housed temporarily in the Memphis Brooks Museum of Arts’ latest exhibition, “People Are People.” On display are dresses and suits worn to award shows, galas, and speeches, milestone moments in their wearers’ lives — moments when everyone wants to feel their best, their most confident, and, yes, their most beautiful. It’s a kind of transformation, says Christian Siriano, the designer of these 36 pieces.

“My sister and I, we were ballet dancers when I was little, and I really loved the idea of transformation,” he says. “Like when you see a ballet dancer in her warm-ups but then they transform into a Sugar Plum Fairy, I always thought that was really special.

“I guess that’s what drew me to [fashion]. I love seeing people transform when they put on a certain thing — heels or a dress or a jacket — you hold yourself a different way.”

When Siriano first broke into public consciousness at 21 after winning Project Runway in 2007, the fashion scene really only catered to one body: thin, very thin, and young. Even today, one could argue the same, but Siriano, from the get-go, embraced all bodies, genders, and ages. “It’s important to celebrate beauty and whatever that is for the person,” Siriano says.

If anything, “People Are People” demonstrates just that. Siriano says, “It’s really cool to see all these shapes and sizes of women or men or whoever they are on mannequins in clothes next to one another. It’s kind of never been done actually, probably ever, in a museum, because for so long fashion retrospectives didn’t have different-sized mannequins.”

Photo: Abigail Morici

“Just being able to see different body shapes, sizes, heights even, it’s really a different experience for people experiencing fashion,” says Patricia Daigle, the Brooks’ curator of modern and contemporary art. “… This message of inclusivity is something that really [will] resonate with our community here. This is something that we really also want to champion as an institution as well.”

“People Are People,” Siriano’s first-ever solo exhibit, debuted at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) Museum of Art in 2021, before its run at SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film shortly after. This is the first time the exhibit has traveled outside of SCAD, and it’s the first time the exhibit will be shown at an institution whose primary focus isn’t fashion but art in general, Daigle points out.

“I love that art museums are really starting to embrace fashion in this way and kind of pull down some of those barriers which are, at this point, quite antiquated of thinking about fashion as something else,” Daigle says. “I think we all love to see beautiful things; whether it’s a painting or a dress, these are all works of art.”

But a barrier Siriano and the Brooks are more concerned in breaking is that of access — and not just in the name of body inclusivity. “We want people that don’t always get to see things like this to get access to it,” Siriano says of the show’s choice to travel to Memphis. “That’s kind of the whole point. That’s why it’s kind of special and unique. There’s a million shows in New York every day. They don’t need another one.”

For the show’s stay in Memphis, Siriano insisted on adding one of his most recent pieces worn by Lily Gladstone at the Critics’ Choice Awards this year. (Gladstone received a slew of awards and nominations for her role in Killers of the Flower Moons, even becoming the first Native-American woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.)

“I took her dress back literally a week ago,” Siriano says. “I was like, ‘No, I need it back. I want to put it in this exhibition.’”

Ever involved in the making of the show, Siriano himself helped with the finishing touches before the Brooks’ opening, positioning mannequins’ precise poses, draping the fabrics exactly right, and wrapping the tulle that covers the models’ faces. The effect of that tulle, Siriano says, blurs their identities, distancing the dress from the celebrity wearer and creating an anonymity that any viewer can assume. “In a way they kind of actually feel more, I think, dreamlike,” Siriano says. “They all mean different things in a way. They all have different voices in a way, you know.”

“People Are People” is on display at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art through August 4th. Visit brooksmuseum.org for a schedule of complementary programming like workshops and gallery talks.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Gillespie-Huseth Race Looms

Jesse Huseth (Photo: Courtesy Jeff Ethridge)

It is a matter of record that Republican Governor Bill Lee easily won reelection in 2022, routing his Democratic opponent Jason Martin with 67 percent of the statewide point.

The under-financed, relatively unknown Martin, an emergency physician from Sumner County, was never really competitive, winning only two of Tennessee’s 95 counties — the state’s two remaining Democratic strongholds of Shelby (Memphis) and Davidson (Nashville).

But more to the point of this year’s state elections, Martin also came out ahead two years ago in state House District 97, site of a likely showdown this year between GOP incumbent John Gillespie and his probable Democratic challenger, businessman Jesse Huseth.

Gillespie was first elected in 2020, when he edged out Democrat Gabby Salinas at a time when District 97, which straddled the eastern boundary line of Memphis, was already evenly enough divided to make for a competitive race.

As Martin’s strong showing indicated, redistricting after the 2000 census shifted the district’s center of balance even more definitively into Memphis. But Gillespie was able to win reelection two years ago over unsung Democrat Toniko Harris.

During his first two terms, Gillespie maintained the kind of moderate political profile that was called for in a district that, in the current parlance, is neither red nor blue but purple. But, as was noted here two weeks ago, Gillespie has moved perceptibly to the right on party-line issues, those having to do with law enforcement, especially.

He has sponsored legislation that would nullify the Memphis City Council’s action, in the wake of the beating death of Tyre Nichols by an MPD unit, to prohibit police from making preemptive traffic stops for minor offenses. And Gillespie moved his bill to that effect onto the House floor (and to passage) after, his critics maintain (on the basis of conversation captured in a somewhat ambiguous cell phone video), he had assured Nichols’ parents he would hold it for later.

Democrat Huseth sees no ambiguity in the video, maintaining that Gillespie “lied to the family of Tyre Nichols after promising to postpone the vote one week to allow them to attend. This is life under the Republican Supermajority and it has to end.”

Gillespie can count on generous financing as an incumbent, but Huseth, who has a fundraiser scheduled for next week and more in mind, clearly intends to run tough, with assistance from campaign manager Jeff Ethridge, the able activist who is the newly elected president of the Germantown Democratic Club.

• As suspended Criminal Court Judge Melissa Boyd moves ever closer to being ejected from office altogether, Shelby County voters are looking forward to the prospect of two special judicial elections in the not too distant future.

A legislative panel voted unanimously last week to recommend the removal from office of Boyd, who has been charged with various irregularities, including use of cocaine on the bench.

A successor will also be needed for Circuit Court Judge Mary Wagner, who has been named to the state Supreme Court.

Both circumstances will require a judicial panel to recommend potential successors to Governor Bill Lee, who may, at his discretion, select from the list or ask for additional names.

In both cases, whoever gets the governor’s nod would ordinarily serve until a special election can be arranged on the next August ballot that is scheduled at least 30 days from the date that the vacancies become official.

But the pending vacancies might not be filled at all if a bill advancing in the Assembly this week is passed. The bill by Rep. Andrew Farmer (R-Sevierville) and Sen. Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) would realize what has been a long-discussed redistributionist goal in some quarters — by the expedient of transferring the two aforementioned judicial seats from Shelby County to districts elsewhere in the state.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Experiencing Totality

A view of the 2017 solar eclipse (Photo: Ziggy Mack)

Editor’s note: Other writers may occasionally share this space.
This piece was originally published in the Flyer in August 2017.

You can’t prepare for magnificence — not really. Months ago, I blocked off August 21st on my Outlook calendar — “TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE” — knowing that Something Was Going to Happen, and that I needed to put myself in its path.

I remember as a child spinning a globe, lightly tracing the sphere with a fingertip as it slowed, hoping to rest on a city with an entrancing name where I might one day travel. My strategy for picking an eclipse-viewing location was not terrifically more sophisticated. I looked at the path of totality on a map and picked the town within a day’s drive with the most entrancing name: Cadiz, near the southwest corner of Kentucky.

In search of a singular experience, I didn’t want to be in a crush of people, a crowd of awestruck gaspers all wearing our cardboard ISO-certified glasses. And the name — Cadiz, after the ancient Andalusian city in Spain — resonated in my mind, sufficient mysticism right there in Kentucky, 196 miles from my front door.

My eclipse companion and I never made it to Cadiz. We didn’t need to. Close to our planned destination, we crossed a long, gracefully arching bridge over the “lake” part of Land Between the Lakes, and we knew: this bridge, this height, this dark water beneath glinting silver and deep.

We parked in a parched, rutted field flanking the bridge, walked past the makeshift tent city occupied by hundreds of people and onto the bridge itself, which, to our surprise, wasn’t crowded — barely a couple of dozen people across the length of the span. Traffic thinned as the moments of totality approached. From our perch, we could see boats below drop anchor, waiting; the birds above, which I had read might fly into full-throated frenzy, were silent.

The light shifted, dimmed, slanted eerily sideways. And then: All light was evacuated. There was no noise from traffic, and little from other watchers. The temperature plummeted by what felt like 20 degrees — the difference between day and night. The wind died; the sky became ink-black. At the moment of totality, it’s safe to remove the special solar-eclipse glasses, so I did, and saw the entire bright body of the sun obscured by the interjecting moon. Solar flares escaped from the sides of the interlocking spheres, bursts of bright energy flashing in a wild halo.

It’s hard to know what to do in those two minutes: try to capture the event with a photo? A video? Leap up in sheer confused wonder? Laugh, overcome by the strangeness of it all, the overpowering perspective shift? Stare and stare and stare some more, trying to imprint the darkness, the coolness, the sun’s energy unfurling frilled fiery ribbons from behind the moon — as if there were any chance in the world you might forget this moment? I seem to recall doing all of these. A kind of eternity opened within those two minutes.

It’s hard to know what to do after those two minutes, too. The sun began to escape its temporary obscurity, and brightness returned to the early afternoon. Everyone looked a little dazed, like people staggering from the doors of a cosmic cinema back into summer afternoon.

There are certain things we think we know for certain, like: what is day, and what is night? Totality spun my certainty around like a globe, and when the sun returned, I found myself slightly but indelibly shifted.

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Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue

Photo: Courtesy Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue

Picture it: Miami. 2024. The Golden Girls are still up and at ’em. Sophia’s out on bail, naturally. The DEA busted her for running a drug ring for retirees. Meanwhile, Blanche and Rose have founded a dating app for seniors that’s doing quite well (of course); it’s even landed Dorothy her current beau, who just so happens to be Sophia’s prosecuting attorney. Sounds about right, doesn’t it? The cast of Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue seem to think so.

The parody show, done completely in drag, will take over the Orpheum’s stage on Thursday, March 28th. “I like to say it’s like meeting an old friend in a new place, with all the ingredients you know,” says Vince Kelley, who plays Blanche. “We got the taglines, we got the ‘picture its,’ but we’re talking about cell phones and apps and all this stuff from today.

“So it’s fun because the show was so in its time,” Kelley continues. “They were so quick on the references; something would happen in the news and they’d be talking about it on the show in the next two weeks. We like to embrace that as well. The show is never the same twice; if there’s something going on in the world, we’re going to find a way to bring it into the world of The Golden Girls for that night.”

Vince Kelley as Blanche (Photo: Courtesy Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue)

Kelley says The Golden Girls was a fixture in his household growing up. “I remember being like 5, 6, 7, and my grandma would watch it all the time and I used to call it the ‘old lady show.’ ‘Oh, are we gonna watch the old lady show?’ And then when Nick at Nite was big and they started putting them in syndication, I was just obsessed, watched every episode. … [But] you can only watch every episode so many times, so [this show] is like getting to experience something new.”

For Kelley, choosing to play Blanche was a no-brainer. “She doesn’t take herself too seriously at all. She doesn’t mind being a bit of a joke and she had the best clothes, so that was a big draw for me,” he says. “If I had to pick a second it would be Sophia just because she doesn’t filter. I’m not quite there yet. When I’m old enough to play Blanche, then I can finally play Sophia.”

Kelley goes on to say, “You find different times in your life that you’ll relate to different characters. It’s part of the reason that people in the LGBTQ community are so drawn to them. They’re just these four big over-the-top, powerhouse comedians.”

While this show might not be the cable-friendly Golden Girls (“It’s like The Golden Girls if they moved to HBO,” Kelley says), the cast have strived to stay true to their characters. “When we come on stage, we’re just here to have a good time,” Kelley says. “And I think the spirit of the Golden Girls helps us through that every night. … We know that they would be like 100 percent on board with what we’ve come up with.”

Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue, Orpheum Theatre, 203 S. Main, Thursday, March 28, 7:30 p.m., $44-$69, 18+.