Categories
At Large Opinion

A Bang-up Job

Wayne LaPierre (Photo: Gage Skidmore | Creative Commons | Wikimedia Commons)

Last Friday, a civil court jury in New York City found Wayne LaPierre, the now-former head of the National Rifle Association (NRA), liable for mishandling $5.4 million of the organization’s money.

Apparently unable to squeak by on his meager $2.2 million annual salary, LaPierre rolled up charges of more than $270,000 for clothes from a Zegna boutique in Beverly Hills, billed tens of thousands of dollars for private charter flights for himself and relatives, and took numerous extravagant NRA-paid vacations. In addition, LaPierre often billed the NRA for a stylist who charged $10,000 a session for hair and makeup for his wife, Susan LaPierre. Fancy!

The trial, prosecuted by New York Attorney General Letitia James, uncovered other fiduciary misdeeds, including that of LaPierre’s personal assistant, Millie Hallow, who he retained even after she was caught funneling $40,000 in NRA money to pay for her son’s wedding.

In leading the “nonprofit” organization that is arguably responsible for more civilian gun deaths than any in American history, Wayne LaPierre got rich and lived large. He famously said, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” It now appears that you can also stop a bad guy with a gun with a lawsuit. Or at least, make him resign.

The truth is the NRA has been in something of a decline. Membership has dropped by nearly a third — from 6 million members to around 4 million members — in little more than five years. And an internal audit cited by The New York Times found that the organization’s revenue is down 44 percent over the past eight years.

Despite these numbers, the NRA still has significant investments that pay consistent dividends year after year. These include, among many others, senators Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, and Tennessee’s own Marsha Blackburn, who the NRA has funded to the tune of more than $1.3 million. (No word on whether Marsha was ever in line for one of those sweet $10,000 hairstylin’s.)

These political stalwarts assist their blood-stained benefactor by opposing such scary bills as the Protect America’s Schools Act and the Keep Americans Safe Act — which proposed to limit the size of gun magazines. It’s the position of Marsha, Mitch, and their NRA buddies that we can’t be forcing mass shooters to reload too often because it infringes their Second Amendment rights.

Still, as I mentioned above, there is some hope that we may be witnessing the end of an era. According to the Open Secrets organization, the NRA recently reported its largest-ever year-to-year decline in federal lobbying spending — from $4.9 million in 2021 to $2.6 million in 2022. There was also a decline in NRA spending in federal elections from $54.5 million in 2016 to $29.1 million in 2020.

Even given those encouraging trends, however, there’s no denying that LaPierre and the NRA managed to thoroughly transform the American political landscape over the past 25 years. Few Republicans have the courage to support gun reform — because they fear the NRA. And thanks to the NRA, the Second Amendment has been twisted to mean that any kind of permit or gun training or limitation as to where guns can be carried is a violation of holy writ. “Democrats will take your guns” is an ever-recurring election year mantra for the GOP. More than half of the 50 states have essentially no gun regulations for permitting or carrying. Thoughts and prayers are allowed — for now — but don’t get too carried away with those thoughts.

There is a 2013 video obtained by The New Yorker of LaPierre shooting an elephant in Africa. It’s on YouTube, but I do not recommend that you watch it, unless you consider such hunting a “sport.” LaPierre is guided to an ambush position where he can shoot the great animal from close range. It falls to the ground, lying still, groaning in agony. LaPierre takes three more shots into the moaning beast from 20 feet away but is unable to hit the kill spot pointed out by the guide, who is finally forced to make the kill.

There is a metaphor there for Republicans. There is a lesson there for all of us. Who can name the great beast?

Categories
Music Music Features

‘Yeah, You’re a Folk Musician!’

Photo: Lucia Lombardo

This year’s Folk Alliance International (FAI) conference and awards show, which just happened in Kansas City last week, was especially meaningful for Rachel Maxann. It was on this, her third visit to the annual gathering of global folkies, that she was first featured as an artist in the conference’s Official Showcase. And that’s causing her to look back in wonder at the musical journey she’s been on since moving to Memphis.

“I think living in Memphis really helped me embrace the folksiness of my music in a way that I hadn’t before,” she reflects now. “Because, as a Black female, I’ve always written songs like this, but I hadn’t really thought of myself as a folk musician. I would just call it ‘indie singer songwriter’ because I hadn’t seen that representation before. Of course, I admired the greats like Tracy Chapman, who’s finally getting her flowers once again.” Indeed, Chapman just garnered a Lifetime Achievement Award at the FAI last week. Yet not long ago, learning of the many other uncategorizable artists beyond Chapman was an epiphany of sorts for Maxann.

“It wasn’t until I moved to Memphis that I heard people like Valerie June, or Amythyst Kiah, or Allison Russell, and all these other amazing like Black female folk artists,” she says. “I really started embracing that. And then of course, the community of Memphis and Music Export Memphis [MEM] were full of people that were like, ‘Yeah, you’re a folk musician!’ And I’m like, ‘You know, I am.’ It was Elizabeth [Cawein of MEM] who reached out to me about signing up for the FAI. Here we are a few years later.”

She’s been busy in that time, having followed up her 2019 debut, Fickle Hellcat, with last year’s Black Fae, and the sonic evolution between the two has been striking. Whereas her debut captured the sound of her band running through a set of her eclectic originals, Black Fae aims for more ambitious production and offers more surprises. It first reveals Maxann’s embrace of her inner folk artist, opening with only her voice and acoustic guitar on “Wait for Me.” But it ranges far and wide from there, often with her well-honed band, but sometimes beyond that. The sweeping synths of “Goddess,” for example, could be one of those ’90s tracks by Brian Eno and John Cale, if they’d had Annie Lennox singing. For Maxann, reaching in these ways is the point, and that’s especially true of her latest single, “The Tides,” slated to drop on March 4th.

“When I release the song, it will be a version with just me and my guitar, singing solo, but there’s also the band version. I’m going to be doing both the versions at Folk Alliance as well. And then there’s also a version with my trio [featuring Tamar Love on cello and Alice Hasen on violin]. There are so many versions of the song! I will also be releasing the trio version as a lyric video. So you know, whatever version of ‘The Tides’ you like the best, it’ll be out there. Choose your own adventure!” she laughs, then adds, “Those are my favorite types of books.”

In the meantime, not overly concerned with genre tags, Maxann will continue to go where her deepest feelings take her, always expressed through her powerful voice, steeped in soul but with the plainspokenness of folk. Some call it the latter, but don’t expect any political anthems: Maxann embraces more of the personal side of folk than the music’s more activist tradition.

“I just take whatever I’m feeling and transform it into a cathartic experience via music,” she explains. “I did an interview a while ago, and one of the questions was, ‘Do you feel the need to write about being Black, or being queer, or being a woman in folk?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, not necessarily. I feel that just by writing the songs that I do, singing my experience, that in itself is singing about being Black, female, queer, or whatever. I feel like I’d be forcing it if I tried to sit down and write a protest song. If it inspires me one day, if it comes to me like that, I totally will. I’m not against it. It just hasn’t ever really hit me like that.’”

Rachel Maxann will appear at Hernando’s Hide-a-way on Friday, March 8th, as part of a songwriters-in-the-round show, and on March 28th, opening for Dale Hollow.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Twist on American Gothic

Cousin Dax on horseback (Photo: Courtesy Stephanie Painter)

While my grandparents owned several pitchforks, they were light-years from the frowning pair depicted in Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic. Rather, my grandparents beamed while running their horse farm because they enjoyed the work. I’m certain that the artist’s gloomy couple would have considered their outsized interest in racehorses frivolous and impractical. Grandpa never bred a big winner but persisted because he admired racehorses’ power and found pleasure in the statistical challenges of improving breeding lines. At the farm, there was a pulse of manic energy, and jockeys and grooms lived outside the 9-to-5 world.

Yes, my grandparents were an unorthodox pair, and they swept us into their lifestyles. Provided few warnings about the effect of gravity, my cousins and I rode horses believing that none of us would ever take a terrible fall. “If worst comes to worst — and I don’t think it will — relax and float down like a butterfly,” my grandmother advised. A pleasant euphemism for a fall but much easier to actualize when one has a good pair of wings. Convinced of our spectacular bloodlines, she even cleared a spot in the driver’s seat for anyone willing to step up, first placing her bet on Dax and directing him to drive us to the local barbecue joint. Driving wasn’t so different from steering bumper cars at the county fair, she reasoned, confident that the 8-year-old was up to the task. “I’m hungry, and it’s time to get some ribs!” she cried, brandishing a 10-spot bill. “Now climb in,” she ordered, settling my sister Andrea and cousin Mary Liz in the backseat.

The game was on, and after a short tutorial, she dropped the keys to the Volkswagen in Dax’s pudgy fingers. When the car at last skidded into the parking lot, I stared in awe at the South’s youngest chauffeur. At 10, I had a few years over Dax, but recent setbacks had convinced me that I was not legend material, and the evidence was solid. When I fell from a horse, the crash hurt like hell. Plus, my piggy bank was in grave trouble because I picked the wrong horses on every $5 bet that the adults placed for me at Oaklawn Track.

During this season of bruises and squandered allowance, a beloved dog went missing, uniting the bold and the wannabes in a mission. After finding Pepper, we dangled sun-toasted legs over the porch and philosophized about finding a treasure we feared lost, pausing in our profundities to blow bubbles crafted of Bazooka gum. Real, significant loss came the next year when my uncle accepted a job in Baltimore, and my aunt packed up, leaving behind Dax and Mary Elizabeth’s kid-size riding boots. I sulked in the back stall, dreading the separation to come.

Later, my sister and I grew close to another pair of cousins (on my mother’s side of the family) residing three hours south on the Arkansas slice of Texarkana. There, Kevin and Matt showed off their new Boy Scout merit badges in camping and woodworking, and the reigning expletive was “Hell’s bells!” expressing my aunt’s failure to bake the perfect side dish for the holidays. Taking notes, I compared patterns of conformity and unconventionality and the many options for ways to live, and at home, I had only to look at my mother and father to see radically different positions.

My cousins eventually went off into the world, and my sister and I left home as well. Predictably, a physician and a corporate vice-president emerged from the conventional side of my family. A brave entrepreneur — that’s Dax — took risks that paid off, and Mary Liz has been a powerful force. Defying the strictures of her husband’s paraplegic condition, she asked doctors to help them have children. Mary Liz’s passion for life and will to bring children into existence would receive hearty approval from both of our grandparents. In truth, they weren’t promoting horses to us, but rather the value of picking up the damn barbecue and enjoying the feast.

Why Memphis? It’s a perfect place to plant my hybrid self where I can hang out with colorful folks while pursuing goals that will never yield the high of winning a race but that do keep the bills paid. No legend myself, I’m exposed to shining stars in this city — artists, musicians, quirky characters. Crossing the Hernando de Soto Bridge, a view of Arkansas opens to the west and the Downtown skyline stands in the east. Here, it’s possible to stay close both geographically and emotionally to childhood experiences. As the Peabody’s staff serves high tea, musicians in clubs are preparing for revelry. Since there is something for all of my cousins to savor here, I hope to entice them to visit for a long weekend soon.

Stephanie Painter is a local freelance writer. She has written for Memphis Magazine, Germantown Magazine, Memphis Parent, Chapter 16, Number: Inc., and Episcopal Café. She is the author of the children’s picture book Liz Tames A Dragon.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

‘One Memphis’ Redux

The original “One Memphis” logo on a vintage souvenir umbrella from an A C Wharton mayoral campaign. (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Talk about déjà vu!

When Memphis Mayor Paul Young — still, some 50-odd days into his new administration, working on organizational matters — brought forth his latest innovation, involving the slogan “One Memphis” to denote a series of community meetings to come, echoes were generated in the minds and memories of numerous Memphians.

After all, it was only 15 years ago that A C Wharton used the identical phrase “One Memphis” as a campaign slogan in the 2009 special election that first landed Wharton in the mayor’s office to succeed the retiring Willie Herenton.

“There is absolutely nothing we cannot overcome if we work toward that goal as One Memphis,” Wharton would intone in his speeches, reinforcing the idea in an ad campaign that would sign off with the initials “A C” (familiar to his audiences then and later as the preferred shorthand for his uniquely accessible persona), followed by the words “One Memphis.”

It was Wharton’s way of distinguishing himself from the more volatile and divisive 16-year tenure of his predecessor.

No doubt Paul Young means something similarly comforting, coupling the two-word slogan with the phrase “Empowering Voices/Building Bridges” in a published logo announcing his forthcoming “One Memphis Tour,” which was to have its inaugural session at Whitehaven High School this week.

Another new venture by Young was embodied in his recent announcement of his intent to appoint someone to a newly created office, that of public safety director, which would have hierarchical dibs over that of police chief.

Overall, the idea was greeted with a positive public reaction, particularly in those circles where there is a desire to locate the duties of law enforcement within a larger, more holistic context of social reform.

That would seem to be Young’s purpose, though this is one of those cases where the devil (the angel, rather?) will be in the details.

Young, who has experienced some difficulty in getting off the mark, might have fared even better, reception-wise, had he been able to make the announcement of the new office in January, when his cabinet was first being assembled, and better still if he could have had the appointment in hand of some credibly credentialed appointee.

That might well have obviated the awkwardness and still unresolved discord which arose from his reappointment of C.J. Davis as police chief (as of now an interim position). Her continuation in office as a clear subordinate would have raised fewer hackles, if any at all, with the city council and with the general public.

Better late than never, even if the sequence seems a bit backwards.

• Gale Jones Carson, a longtime presence in the community as spokesperson for MLGW, was named last week as interim CEO of the local chapter of Urban League.

Carson’s successor as MLGW’S vice president of corporate communications, Ursula Madden Lund, meanwhile is having to wait for a reluctant city council to approve her $200,000 salary. The matter is up for discussion again next week.

• A proposed measure to provide lifetime healthcare benefits to veterans of at least two city council terms took an abrupt nosedive last week, being rejected on third reading virtually unanimously by the new city council after the previous council had approved it without a dissenting vote.

Categories
Art Art Feature

Birdcap’s “Iliumpta” at Crosstown Arts

Michael “Birdcap” Roy, Dove Hunt: The First Shot, acrylic on panel (Photo: Abigail Morici)

Homer’s Iliad begins with a promise of anger, of Achilles’ wrath that would bring about the ruin of Troy. “Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades,” goes the epic. “Many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures.”

It’s a story driven by men’s pride, cloaked as heroism, yet leading only to bloodshed and tragedy. Or, as artist Michael “Birdcap” Roy puts it, “All these men were doing all these sort of idiotic things under the guise to be heroic.”

But Birdcap doesn’t say this to belittle these characters, but instead to remark on their humanity that might go unnoticed under the prestige of classical literature. “I just found something very like comforting or familiar in these men,” he says. “It reminded me of just growing up in the deep South and what it means to be a man in Mississippi and how sometimes cleverness and wit are almost looked down upon. Like, your ability to be stoic within pain is more exceptional than your ability to avoid pain. So you stay during a hurricane or you work a hard job. … Those characters reminded me of my family and me.”

Fame Over Everything: Bust of Achilles, mixed media

Birdcap’s current show at Crosstown Arts plays with this idea. Titled “Iliumpta,” the exhibition is a retelling of Homer’s poem, set in the southernmost bayous of Mississippi in the fictitious county of Iliumpta. “It’s based on the word Ilium, which is the Latinized version of Troy, and umpta is sort of like a false noise to make it sound like a Mississippi county,” Birdcap says. “I thought it was a good way to have an introspective show that talked about myself but using this sort of universal reference.”

He writes in his artist statement, “The men in these works shout from a nihilistic void, and in their attempts to be heroic, they, like the ancients before them, choose death over happiness, a closed ear before sound advice, and doom before an apology.”

This is Birdcap’s first solo show in Memphis. While he is known for his large-scale murals seen throughout the city and around the world, Birdcap says, “This is my first chance to have like a big sort of homecoming show.”

It’s also been an opportunity for the painter to experiment with different media like mosaic, sculpture, and silk screen. “I think you have to keep you have to keep the learning process in your routine or you get bored.”

Michael “Birdcap” Roy, Father’s Legacy (Relic), stone on panel

Last year, he attended a mural festival in Pompeii, where he was fascinated by the ancient city’s mosaics. “I was blown away by just how anti-ephemeral the work is, how long it lasts.” Plus, it doesn’t hurt that mosaics have a built-in aesthetic of antiquity to go along with the Greco-Roman mythology at the core of the show. Yet, in true Birdcap style, his mosaics are “ridiculously cartoony” — as are the other pieces in the show.

“I like cartoons because when I was young, I would try to make dramatic work about my feelings or politics or whatever, but I would visualize it in this dramatic way,” he says. “And I think it had the opposite effect where people didn’t really want to pay attention to it. But I think cartoons are very safe and we all have this child-like relationship with it, and so it allows you to put these complicated or harder messages in but still be listened to. Like, it’s not baroque. It really is subtle.”

Too Much to Bear: The Suicide of Ajax, mixed media

His piece, Too Much to Bear: The Suicide of Ajax, he points out, deals with male fragility quite darkly, yet because it is presented with saturated colors and is an inflatable, reminiscent of holiday decorations or childhood birthday parties, it takes on a sort of softness. But Birdcap says, “My character is Ajax, who basically got drunk with rage and really embarrassed himself, and the next day, unable to deal with this shame, he committed suicide. And so that piece could be a fairly heavy piece. Suicide, it’s not fun.”

On a similar note, Birdcap later adds, “I’ve been pretty transparent about my own mental health over the last few years, and this work is an extension of that. The paintings are about the South and the Southern man, but in no way am I trying to divide myself from the Southern man. I am imperatively a Southern man. So all the faults displayed in the paintings, I see in myself.”

But he says, “I think there’s magic here, and I think there’s like room for mythology and folktales in a way that maybe other regions don’t have. I think we have a unique relationship to the power of myth, and so it’s not a big jump for me to think these make sense together. … I’m 36 now; I’m old enough to know I can’t be from anywhere else. I think there was a time when I was young, where I was like, if I try, I can be from somewhere else. And it’s like, no, your memories are there and they’re a part of you, they’re a part of your myth.”

Birdcap’s “Iliumpta” is on display at Crosstown Arts through April 28th.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

The Zone of Interest

A prisoner of Auschwitz walks through Commandant Rudolph Höss’ garden in The Zone of Interest. (Photo: Courtesy A24)

While I was watching The Zone of Interest, my mind kept going back to “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” Ursula Le Guin’s Hugo Award-winning 1974 short story describes a utopian city where all of the civic functions seem to run pretty smoothly, and all of the citizens are cared for and happy. But this town has a secret. Once citizens are old enough, they are shown a prison cell where a child in chains is slowly being starved to death. The citizen is told Omelas’ happiness and prosperity depends on this child’s suffering.

Most people just shrug and move on with their otherwise fulfilling lives. There’s just one kid in the box, and so many who are doing great. It’s a fair trade-off, they think. But every now and then, someone who finds out about the child chained in the prison cell wanders into the wilderness and never comes back. Why anyone would do this is a mystery to those who stay behind.

In Jonathan Glazer’s new film, exactly one person walks away from a beautiful villa built next to a death camp. Because the moment comes so unexpectedly and is done so perfectly, I won’t spoil it in this review, except to say that the one who walks away is not Rudolph Höss (Christian Friedel), the owner of the home who, not coincidentally, is also the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

It’s 1943, and Rudolph is riding high. The Nazi project of conquering all of Europe to the Urals, exterminating the Jews and subjugating the Slavs so that the Aryans can have lebensraum (“living space”) to build beautiful farms where they raise beautiful, white families, is working. Rudolph and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) refer to themselves as “settlers.” As befitting an SS officer of his rank, the couple has a huge house with a sprawling garden and even a swimming pool with a slide. On one side, their property backs up to an idyllic country stream. The other side shares a wall with the Auschwitz death camp, whose foreboding stone buildings are just visible behind the razor wire. This is convenient for the commandant, who likes to work from home.

Rudolph Höss, not coincidentally, also starved random children to death. He did it as a method of collective punishment every time a prisoner escaped Auschwitz.

The real genius of The Zone of Interest is that Glazer never shows any of Rudolph’s work on screen, save for one moment when a line of prisoners is led into his fields by guards on horseback. But the signs of the atrocities happening just over the wall are inescapable. When the wind is right, ash from the crematoria floats over laundry drying on the clothesline. Hedwig gets periodic deliveries of fine clothes and household goods confiscated from prisoners as they were led to the gas chamber.

The family, which includes five children, carries on with an eerie normality, but the one thing they can’t filter out of their perfect little world is the noise. The Zone of Interest is up for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, where it faces stiff competition. The one award it deserves to win outright is Best Sound. Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn’s soundscapes faithfully recreate what it was like to live next to a murder factory. When Hedwig’s mother (Imogen Kogge) visits, their tour of the gardens is punctuated by screams and gunfire. One of the film’s most chilling moments comes when the couple’s toddler son overhears his father order the guards to drown a prisoner in the river where the family plays.

Glazer’s last film was the excellent 2014 sci-fi creeper Under the Skin, which starred Scarlett Johansson as an alien predator who develops empathy for her Earthling prey. Rudolph and Hedwig don’t act like monsters. Mostly, they just stick to their routine as busy executive and doting housewife, throwing kids’ birthday parties, tending the garden (or at least supervising the enslaved gardeners), and navigating office politics. Ninety percent of the time, Glazer stays in their perspective — this is a film about how monsters view themselves, after all. But even surrounded by all the creature comforts, the family can’t keep reality at bay forever. The question Glazer’s remarkable film raises in the viewer is, “What atrocities do our comfortable lives allow us to ignore?”

The Zone of Interest
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Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Fleeting Temples

A fleeting temple (Photo: Shara Clark)

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”
— Danusha Laméris, “Small Kindnesses”

“We have so little of each other, now,” Laméris writes in the book Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection. She’s right. Even those moments she conjures with her words are few and far between. Four years after the collective isolation felt worldwide during the lockdowns of the Covid era, isolation persists. Apathy grows.

Many business offices have closed, leaving 9-to-5ers working from home, bidding a bitter farewell to the camaraderie of office culture. Many “connections” are made via email or chat channels or social media, through the rectangular black mirrors we gaze into day in and day out, a screen rather than eye to eye; handshakes and hugs traded for thumbs-up and heart emojis. Much is lost in the digital world. And in the “real world,” much has changed. We shop online to avoid human interaction and long lines; grocery stores and retail outlets are understaffed, contributing to those longer lines; commuters angrily pass us only to rush to red lights, perhaps flipping the bird as they do; the patrons at the table next to us are impatient and rude to the server. Staying home is less stressful. So much for connectedness.

Friends and family (at least in my world) rarely have time to spend together; everyone’s too busy with kids, jobs, errands, chores. Such is adult life, it seems — chained to schedules, too tired when the day is done to connect with much more than our beds. Gone are the tribes in a time where we exchange most of our waking hours to pay the bills, to fund our creature comforts. That communal fire is out.

I do still seek the fleeting temples — chances to offer a smile to a stranger, give thank-yous to those who show small kindnesses. Although the world seems to have lost its softness, it can still be found through the rough patches if you’re open to it. My fleeting temples of late have mostly been in nature, admiring the new blossoms on my walks — signs that spring is coming; saying hello to my favorite neighborhood dog Lucy through her chain link fence; gazing at a full moon and the stars splashed across the dark canvas of sky; chasing a glorious fiery pink sunset.

In my continued quest for more sacred moments, if we cross paths, I’ll call back to tribe and fire, to remind you we don’t inherently want to cause harm to one another. I’ll help you pick up your spilled lemons, pull my legs in to let you by, allow you to pass in traffic without a middle finger. Bless you (heart emoji). Don’t die.

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies Humbled by Nets

Memphis Grizzlies forward GG Jackson (45) shoots the ball against Brooklyn Nets forward Cameron Johnson (2) during the first half at FedEx Forum on Feb. 26, 2024, in Memphis TN. (Wes Hale Photo)

The Memphis Grizzlies and the Brooklyn Nets are two teams that have been on a downward trajectory this season, and they faced off for the first of two meetings, Monday night. When the final buzzer sounded, the score was 111-86, and the Grizzlies had made yet another notch in the loss column.

The troubles that have plagued the Grizzlies all season long were on display again: poor shooting, poor ball handling, too many turnovers, and they were, as usual, handicapped by missing players due to injury.

Memphis was outscored in the first half 66-40 and had 16 fewer shot attempts than Brooklyn. The Nets outshot the Grizzlies from three-point range (52.6% to 36.4%) and in overall field goals (55.3% to 41.9%).

The Grizzlies gave up 18 points off 15 turnovers, with 14 of those points coming in the first half.

Memphis was unable to overcome the Nets’ first-half offensive onslaught in the second half, and while their defense fared better, it would not be enough. Brooklyn finished the night with seven players scoring in double figures, including their entire starting lineup.

Lamar Stevens led the Grizzlies in scoring, coming from the bench to notch 17 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 assists, while shooting 8 of 9 overall and 1 of 1 from beyond the arc.

Jaren Jackson Jr finished the night with 15 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals, and 1 block.

Luke Kennard put up 11 points, 2 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Jake LaRavia added 10 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 2 blocks.

Who Got Next?

The Grizzlies are hitting the road for one game, facing off Wednesday night against the Western Conference-leading Minnesota Timberwolves. Tip-off is at 7 PM CST.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Orpheum Theatre Announces 2024-2025 Broadway Season

Hamilton National Tour 2021 (Photo: Joan Marcus)

The Orpheum Theatre has announced its 2024-2025 Broadway Season of eight shows. On the docket are MJ (September 17-22, 2024), Girl from the North Country (October 8 – 13, 2024), Moulin Rouge! The Musical (October 29 – November 3, 2024), Peter Pan (November 26 – December 1, 2024), Hamilton (February 18 – March 2, 2025), Some Like It Hot (April 8 – 13, 2025), Kimberly Akimbo (June 24-29, 2025), and The Wiz (July 22 – 27, 2025).

“I’m all excited about all of them,” says Brett Batterson, Orpheum president and CEO. “I can give you a reason why I’m excited about each one. I use a formula to basically make sure that I’m covering all my bases when I pick a season. I want to make sure I have a family show — Peter Pan. I want to make sure I have a classic, which is The Wiz this year. I want to make sure I have the newest and the best from Broadway, which we have a lot of this coming year, and then I like to make sure I might bring some shows that the people in Memphis would like to see.”

The Orpheum’s 96th season kicks off with MJ, the new Tony Award-winning musical centered around the making of Michael Jackson’s 1992 Dangerous World Tour. Girl from the North Country, which follows in October, reimagines 20 legendary songs of Bob Dylan to tell the story of a boarding house in Duluth, Minnesota in 1934. Then Moulin Rouge! The Musical will bring the magic of Baz Luhrmann’s film to the stage in a musical mash-up extravaganza. Peter Pan will close out the fall, but with a spin to the well-known musical that has been thrilling audiences of all ages for close to 70 years.

“I’m Flying.” (from left) Micah Turner Lee as John, Reed Epley as Michael, Hawa Kamara as Wendy, Nolan Almeida as Peter Pan in Peter Pan (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

“I’ve always loved the musical Peter Pan, but the portrayal of the Indians was always problematic,” says Batterson. “This particular Peter Pan, they hired a native playwright Larissa FastHorse to rewrite the Indian sections to make it respectful, and so I’m really excited to bring that and to see how that plays out.”

In the spring, Hamilton returns for a third time, to be followed by Some Like It Hot, a Prohibition story of two musicians forced to flee the Windy City after witnessing a mob hit. The 2023 Tony Award Best Musical winner Kimberly Akimbo about growing up and growing old takes the stage in June. Closing out the season is The Wiz, the groundbreaking twist on The Wizard of Oz that changed the face of Broadway.

Kyle Ramar Freeman as Lion, Nichelle Lewis as Dorothy, Phillip Johnson Richardson as Tinman, Avery Wilson as Scarecrow in The Wiz, 2023 (Photo: Jeremy Daniel)

Season ticket packages include seven shows and one optional show (Hamilton) that can be added to any package. Current season ticket holders can renew now. Ticket packages for new season ticket holders will be available starting Thursday, April 18th. New this season, those interested in becoming a season ticket holder can join a special priority list starting now until April 12th to secure access to a 48-hour presale ahead of the public on-sale. For more information about season tickets, visit orpheum-memphis.com/season. The public on-sale for individual shows and group tickets will be announced later.   

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Cohen Seeks Release of All JFK Assassination Documents

Credit: Rep. Steve Cohen via Twitter

Turns out, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) and former President Donald Trump agree on something: they both want all records related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy released to the public. 

It’s surprising the two could agree on anything at all. Cohen has been one of Trump’s most vocal critics.

On Friday, Cohen sent a letter to President Joe Biden, asking him to release the few, remaining documents related to the Kennedy assassination. He said Americans are distrustful of the federal government. Some of that, he said, can be traced back to the perceived cover-up of JFK’s murder in Dallas. 

“The governmental secrecy and recent delay in the release of the documents only perpetuates this type of thinking,” Cohen wrote. “If the papers demonstrate different circumstances or additional actors were involved, so be it. If the documents support the Warren Commission’s findings or further support the work of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, so be it. 

If they implicate or embarrass the CIA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), or any other governmental agency, the public has a right to know.

Rep. Steve Cohen

“If they implicate or embarrass the CIA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), or any other governmental agency, the public has a right to know. After 60 years, it is time to quash the conspiracy theories and demonstrate the federal government’s accountability to the people.”

Trump agrees. 

“When I return to the White House, I will declassify and unseal all JFK assassination related documents,” he wrote on Truth Social in July last year. “It’s been 60 years, time for the American people to know the truth!” 

It’s been 60 years, time for the American people to know the truth!

Former President Donald Trump

But Trump is partly to blame for the delay in the documents’ release. In 2017, he released some of the papers, but not all of them. He said at the time that agencies told him that the papers “should continue to be redacted because of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns.” He had “no choice,” he said, as he didn’t want to “harm the nation’s security.”

In 1992, Congress mandated the documents to be released in 2021. But Biden delayed that release in October. He said the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) needed more time to examine the documents as the pandemic had slowed its work.

The 1992 law gives presidents power to delay the release, Biden said, if “postponement remains necessary to protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”

The Mary Ferrell Foundation, a group devoted to “unredacting history,” sued NARA last year over the delay. That lawsuit questions, in part, whether Biden even had authority to postpone release of Congressional records. Parts of the suit got the green light from a federal judge in January.