Tag: Memphis

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Invasion of the Asian Catfish

CREDIT: Ghubonamin | dreamstime.com

Paul Dees’ grandfather got into catfish farming in the 1960s during the industry’s infancy, realizing that his land’s heavy clay soil wouldn’t grow a stitch of cotton.

Dees took over the family business near Leland, Mississippi — about 200 miles south of Memphis — in 2000. His grandfather had grown the farm into one of the largest catfish producers in the state, which produces the most catfish in the country.

Today Dees’ livelihood hangs in the balance, as Mississippi aquaculture faces a foe mightier than drought or the boll weevil. “As an individual producer, there’s nothing more I can do,” he explains. “We can’t compete against the People’s Republic of China.”

But on May 3rd, state commissioner of agriculture and commerce Lester Spell ordered catfish imported from China off of the shelves of several grocery stores statewide after samples of the fish tested positive for ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin, broad-spectrum antibiotics that are banned by the FDA for use in human food.

Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana have since banned the sale of Chinese catfish statewide. Wal-Mart stores have pulled the Chinese fish nationwide. Tennessee has planned no such action, nor have any shipments of Chinese catfish to the state been inspected. Though the removal actions have been criticized as political, and the specific health risks these contaminated fish pose dismissed by some as inconsequential, the incident provokes questions about how globalization impacts everything in our lives, from regional industries to the food we put on our tables.

Catfish Fever

While catfish farming hasn’t taken in Tennessee, Memphis is a big consumer of the crop. Witness the packed parking lot during the lunch rush at the Cooper-Young restaurant Soul Fish.

The eatery opened last year, and its owner — Raymond Williams, who’s committed to Mississippi farm-raised catfish — sees plenty of his peers hooked by the lure of cheap Chinese product. As Chinese catfish take a larger share of the American market, prices of domestic filets increase to offset the losses. Domestic catfish jumped nearly 20 percent in price shortly after Soul Fish opened its doors.

Not all catfish restaurants in the city are as committed to buying local, however. That crispy-fried filet you enjoy at your favorite joint may not be catfish at all but Vietnamese tra or basa. “You’d be surprised at the number of places that claim to be a catfish restaurant that don’t even sell true catfish,” says Kenneth Mitchell of Sysco, a wholesale food distributor.

Farmers in the region are battling to force restaurants to include “country of origin” labeling on their menus. They won a modest victory when the FDA barred Vietnamese fish distributors from calling tra catfish in 2001. Vietnam accounted for 84 percent of “catfish” imports prior to that ruling, but now the amount of Vietnamese imported fish has fallen off considerably. The hope is that “country of origin” labeling will have the same effect on Chinese imports.

Mitchell says that he sells 900 cases of Chinese catfish to restaurants in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi every week.

Domestic fish costs about $55 per case, while Chinese fish runs $45 per case; cases average 45 pieces of fish. It’s the marginal buyers who keep the imports coming. “There’ll always be those people who try to find the cheapest price on anything they can call a catfish,” Mitchell notes.

“We’ve been trying to get a labeling law passed, ” Dees says. “As far as the catfish industry being able to go down to Jackson and shove that through, we can’t. In the scheme of things, we’re small potatoes.”

Farmers are urging the USDA to inspect and grade catfish as it does beef to establish industry-wide quality control. “We think it may help put the difference between us and the Chinese fish,” Dees says.

Big business

Aquaculture is a booming business in China. The government took an active role in rebuilding the industry after inland development, dam construction, and industrial pollution stunted China’s inland fisheries in the 1970s. It stocked rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. The annual output of China’s inland fisheries jumped from 300,000 tons in 1978 to 1.76 billion tons in 1996.

Chinese catfish exports scarcely existed 10 years ago, but their prominence in the American market is expanding rapidly. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. has imported 10 million pounds of Chinese catfish so far this year, against four million for this time last year. The situation does not bode well for producers in the region. Arkansas catfish farmer Carl Jeffers explains: “That volume translates into a reduced processing volume for the U.S. industry. It’s only a matter of time before the price declines because of the amount of imports.”

War Eagle

Though American farmers find themselves fighting Asian imports today, the U.S. has helped enable the growth of the Chinese catfish industry. Alabama is both the second leading producer of farm-raised catfish and also home to one of the world’s preeminent fishery-science departments at Auburn University.

The Auburn fishery department transfers scientific data and know-how to developing countries. It assists in installing fishery infrastructure and works on sustainability of aquaculture crops in a variety of settings. It also brings foreign agriculture officials to the South to show them how it’s done.

“Auburn hosted a Chinese delegation in 1996 that visited my farm,” Jeffers recalls. “They took notes and were very interested in what it took to raise catfish. You might say, in a roundabout way, I facilitated the Chinese invasion.”

Neither Auburn nor Jeffers is likely to have touted the use of antibiotics in fish. The Chinese have developed their own aquaculture methods. While American-farmed catfish swim in ponds, Chinese fish are grown in pens. Water quality may be an issue. “They’re growing their fish in polluted waters,” Dees says. “That’s part of why they have to give them antibiotics, to keep them alive.”

David Rouse, chair of the Auburn fishery department notes, “We have hosted some Chinese groups, but we’ve been very careful on that, particularly in the past 10 years.”

Rouse adds that anyone who wants to start a catfish farm in China can find the needed information from a variety of sources. There are no trade secrets, he says. “All of that information is on the Internet. Anybody who wants to farm or set up a processing plant, it’s out there.”

Banned by the FDA

The substances found in Chinese catfish samples in Mississippi and Alabama, ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin, are used to treat potentially life-threatening infections in humans. The problem is that by ingesting them in food we may promote the evolution of pathogens resistant to these medicines, rendering them useless as treatment — though one would have to eat an awful lot of catfish for a long time to develop antibiotic resistance.

According to FDA records, ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin have been found in shipments of catfish and basa bound for the U.S. from China and Vietnam. Shrimp from Vietnam, Venezuela, Thailand, and Malaysia have tested positive for the antibiotic chloramphenicol. Gentian violet and malachite green, anti-fungal or anti-bacterial agents applied to fish grown in tight quarters, have been found in shrimp from Mexico, eel from Taiwan, Vietnamese basa, and Chinese eel, tilapia, and catfish.

These substances pose a variety of health risks to humans. Chloramphenicol holds a slight risk for aplastic anemia, and gentian violet has been linked to mouth cancer. A Canadian study in 1992 determined that people who eat fish contaminated with malachite green are at risk for liver tumors.

“They aren’t approved for use in human food,” an FDA spokesperson told the Flyer. “They should not be present in food in any amount.”

Outlook: Murky

Scientists and farmers see the future of the Southern catfish industry differently. “I think China’s water quality is such that they won’t be able to produce catfish very long,” Rouse says. “They have to use antibiotics just to keep the fish healthy. It’s a fish that has expensive feed, so they’re going to tend to grow cheaper, easier fish. The [Chinese] catfish are probably going to go away in a year.”

Jeffers has seen the experts proven incorrect before. “We always felt that shipping expenses would be prohibitive for going outside the U.S. and assumed that other countries were the same,” Jeffers says. “Obviously we were wrong.”

“The catfish industry has already atrophied in the last five years — there’s not much fat left to trim,” Dees adds.

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Cover Feature News

Burning Green

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

It’s a sunny spring day in March, and biofuels activist Andrew Couch can’t stand the idea of staying indoors.

“Can we do this outside somewhere? I don’t care where, but it’s too pretty today to sit inside,” Couch tells me on the telephone as we make last-minute arrangements for an interview.

A couple of hours later, Couch pulls up to the Flyer‘s downtown office, the engine of his 2000 Volkswagen Jetta sounding loud, like a big rig. He powers it on biodiesel, a clean-burning fuel produced from renewable resources such as soybean oil, cottonseed oil, and even animal fat.

“My car gets close to 40 miles to the gallon,” Couch boasts.

I hop in and we head down to Tom Lee Park, where we spend the next hour on a park bench facing the Mississippi River, talking about Couch’s dream: a city running on alternative fuels.

Several years ago, when Couch was converting car engines to run on French-fry grease with his former company, Deep Fried Rides, it was a radical vision. These days, Couch’s idea of a bio-powered utopia is not too far from fruition.

Heading up the West Tennessee Clean Cities Coalition (WTCCC), one of three regional programs in the state devoted to taking the biofuel cause mainstream, Couch has helped connect numerous city agencies and municipalities with biodiesel producers and distributors.

Mainstream folks across the country are embracing the biofuels movement. Even President George W. Bush, in his 2007 State of the Union address, said “alternative fuels are essential to [his] goal of cutting U.S. gasoline usage by 20 percent in the next 10 years.” Bush called on the biofuels industry to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2017.

Here in Memphis, a couple of local biodiesel refineries are already hard at work. Memphis Biofuels in Orange Mound and Milagro Biofuels in North Memphis began production last fall.

And all across Shelby County, various municipalities and agencies, ranging from the city of Millington to Memphis Light, Gas and Water, are making the switch from straight petroleum diesel to a biodiesel blend (a mixture of pure biodiesel and petroleum).

“It’s taken a while for people to feel comfortable enough to invest [in biofuels] here, but we’re seeing the market grow around the country,” Couch says. “People are starting to feel more comfortable.”

It’s an environmentalist’s dream come true, and if the enthusiasm continues to grow, Couch says Memphis and the rest of the country can expect cleaner air down the road.

Farmed Fuel

Tucked away on a dead-end street in Orange Mound, Memphis Biofuels looks like a factory that would be more at home on Presidents Island than near a residential neighborhood. There are massive storage bins, gleaming silver tanks, pipes, vessels, boilers, and other industrial equipment.

Built in the 1920s, the facility once housed a Procter & Gamble fats-processing company. A rail line running through the plant delivered poultry fat, yellow grease, and soybean oil to be converted into poultry feed. Years later, current owner Ken Arnold took over the factory, changing the end product to cattle feed.

“In the middle part of 2005, our business at this facility was not doing very well,” Arnold says. “We were looking at better ways to utilize our facility. I have a chemical engineering background, but I was just like the general public: completely naive about biodiesel. I started looking into it and realized it was a simple process of converting soybean and methanol.”

After talking to Couch and Frazier Barnes and Associates, a local consulting firm, Arnold drew up a business plan to convert the aging facility into a state-of-the-art biodiesel plant. He hired about 40 employees, mostly from the Orange Mound area, and began production in December 2006.

Memphis Biofuels uses soybean, cottonseed, or canola oils and poultry fat or beef tallow to produce a raw biodiesel product that’s sold to oil distributors. The distributors mix the product with petroleum diesel — usually 10 or 20 percent biodiesel to 80 or 90 percent diesel — and sell it to fleets and retail service stations.

Though the finished product used in diesel engines contains some petro, the mixture results in a substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and particulate-matter emissions.

“Pure biodiesel is a nonhazardous, nontoxic biodegradable fuel,” Arnold says. “It’s very similar to vegetable oil. If you have a spill, it’s not like having a diesel spill that’s very hazardous and flammable. You can even pour biodiesel on your arm or drink it.”

A jar of the thick, yellowish fluid sits on Arnold’s desk. Its color is similar to canola or low-quality olive oil.

Justin Fox Burks

Dennis Gladney at a MATA refueling station

In 2000, biodiesel became the only alternative fuel to successfully complete Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tests for health effects under the Clean Air Act. According to a Department of Energy study, use of 100 percent biodiesel results in a 78.8 percent reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions.

And since it comes from renewable resources rather than being extracted from below the earth like petroleum, biodiesel is credited for having a positive energy balance. For every unit of energy needed to produce a gallon of biodiesel, 3.24 units of energy are gained.

“It’s important to understand that petroleum comes from an extractive technology where resources are being pulled from a store of ancient sunlight in the ground. Then we’re emitting carbon into the air as we burn the petroleum,” Couch says. “But if we take grass [or other plants] and use that to make a fuel, that grass or that plant will grow back next year and absorb as much carbon as was released when the fuel was burned. It’s kind of a closed-loop carbon-emissions system.”

Since the raw products (mostly soybeans) used to produce biodiesel come from America’s farmland, biodiesel production benefits farmers. And of course, using less petroleum means spending less U.S. dollars on foreign oil.

Memphis Biofuels aims to produce 36 million gallons of biodiesel by the end of 2007. In 2008, they hope to boost production to 50 million gallons. But they’re not the only ones manufacturing the fuel locally. Around the same time that Arnold was trying to figure out what to do with his aging facility, Nashville native and environmentalist Diane Mulloy was pondering how she could use her time to better help the earth.

“I have three young children, and I’d stayed at home raising them. I was ready to get back to work, so I started looking at all the different industries,” Mulloy says. “A friend told me about the biofuels industry, and I just knew that was what I wanted to do. I grew up in farm country, so I have a soft spot for farmers. The petroleum prices were skyrocketing, so it seemed like a good time to give that industry some competition.”

Mulloy’s husband owns a Nashville chemical company, so he had the background needed to start a biodiesel plant. A friend, Gary Meloni, owned an old warehouse in Memphis’ newly revived Uptown district, and the Mulloys found an investor in Lehman-Roberts, a Memphis-based road contracting company.

So Milagro Biofuels, located in a converted 19th-century cotton mill on Keel Avenue, was born. “Milagro” is Spanish for “miracle,” and farmers often refer to soybeans as the “miracle crop” for its multiple uses.

Unlike Memphis Biofuels, Milagro only uses soybean oil to produce its biodiesel product — no animal fats or other types of plant-based oils.

Justin Fox Burks

Andrew Couch

“Soybean oil makes really good biodiesel. It does well in cold weather. Animal fat gets very thick in the winter. Biodiesel is more expensive to produce with only soybean oil, but it makes for a premium product,” Mulloy says.

“Another problem with animal fats specific to our location is the odor involved,” Meloni says. “Being in a new residential neighborhood, that’s the last thing we want.”

Seventeen new houses are planned for the neighborhood surrounding Milagro, so the company does its best to blend in. Unlike Memphis Biofuels, Milagro doesn’t look like a factory from the outside. In fact, it looks more like an office building. That’s because all the tanks and vessels are concealed indoors. Meloni says the equipment is quiet, and the only thing neighbors might smell is the hunger-inducing aroma of fried chicken.

Milagro aims to produce 5 million gallons of pure biodiesel per year, which equates to over 83,000 acres of soybeans per year.

The Ethanol Option

Though biodiesel can only be used in vehicles with diesel engines, another alternative fuel is catching on for gasoline-powered cars. Corn-based ethanol is produced mainly in the Midwest, where most of the nation’s corn is grown. It’s essentially a grain alcohol that can be mixed with regular gas at blends as high as 85 percent ethanol to 15 percent gasoline.

There’s only one operating ethanol producer in Tennessee: Tate & Lyle in Loudon County. But production is under way for a new facility in Obion County in West Tennessee. Two other companies, Mean Green Biofuels and Cascade Grain Ethanol, have received tax easements to build facilities in Memphis.

“Memphis can’t be in a better spot. You’ve got all this agriculture, the river, the infrastructure for distribution,” Couch says. “It’s a huge economic opportunity for local farmers. This is the biggest thing to happen to Tennessee farmers since the New Deal.”

Justin Fox Burks

Memphis Biofuel’s Ken Arnold

As the owner of a farmer’s marketing service in Brinkley, Arkansas, Carl Frein helps farmers sell their crops to big food industries, like Cargill, Inc. Frein says farmers had a hard time getting a fair price for their crops several years ago, but thanks to the biofuels boom, crops are finally pulling decent prices.

“You can blame all the good prices on the corn market and the ethanol. Now we’re not only looking at a food. We’re trading an energy and a food product,” Frein says. “As long as these crude oil prices stay above $40 a barrel, ethanol is going to work for [the farmers]. These plants are going to make money, and they’re going to make more ethanol. And we’re going to need more corn to service it.”

It’s not just good for farmers. It’s also great for local air quality. Currently, Shelby County does not comply with EPA pollution standards for ozone. Much of the pollution is due to diesel emissions along Interstate 40.

Though Bob Rogers with the Shelby County Health Department says carbon emissions from diesel don’t affect the ozone layer, he admits that increased biodiesel use would definitely clear up the county’s air.

“Right now, there are no rules or regulations having to do with greenhouse gases and global warming,” Rogers says. “That may change one day. The EPA is currently studying diesel exhaust very strongly and considering calling it a hazardous pollutant.”

Biofueled Bandwagon

Justin Fox Burks

Biodiesel ready for testing

When Germantown environmental commissioner Joe Skelley revs up his 1985 Mercedes, an appetizing scent comes from the tailpipe. Some days it smells like onion rings or french fries; other days it’s grilled hamburgers or deep-fried turkey.

The commissioner, who, along with 11 others, advises the Germantown Board of Alderman on environmental issues, powers his car on straight vegetable oil that he retrieves from area restaurants. He’s been running on grease in the spring and summer months for the past two years. That’s because pure vegetable oil tends to clog up in cold weather. (Biodiesel does not.)

“Since March 1st, I haven’t been to a service station, and I’ve driven 700 miles,” says Skelley, who also works as a chemist at a local drug company called Natureplex.

Skelley gets his grease at no charge from restaurants that would otherwise have to pay to have it hauled off. He also gets donations from friends and co-workers who don’t know what to do with leftover cooking grease. (Skelley handled his own vegetable-oil conversion, but local company Deep Fried Rides can do the work for those not inclined to do it themselves.)

Though it’s not as high-quality as biodiesel, Skelley’s project got the commission members talking about how they could bring a similar technology to Germantown’s fleet vehicles. They discussed a switch to biodiesel several years ago, and in March, the municipality announced they would begin testing five fleet vehicles (fire trucks, parks vehicles, and utility service trucks) on biodiesel fuel.

A biodiesel pump, containing a B10 mix (10 percent biodiesel to 90 percent diesel) provided by Milagro, was erected at the Dogwood Fire Station at 8925 Dogwood Road. If successful, all of Germantown’s fleet will be switched over, and Mayor Sharon Goldsworthy would like to eventually move vehicles up to a B20 mix.

Shelby County is also working toward a switch to biodiesel. Last May, Rogers and county clean-air coordinator Ronné Adkins announced that the county would soon begin testing fleet vehicles on biodiesel. At the time, there were no local biodiesel producers. Now that’s covered, and Adkins says he’s shooting to begin testing by the end of May — Shelby County Clean Air Month.

The county will start with a diverse group of vehicles — some off-road construction equipment, heavy-duty dump trucks, and light-duty vehicles.

“I have a feeling we’ll gradually move toward using biodiesel throughout the entire fleet,” Adkins says. “We haven’t set a date. That will depend on our fleet-services manager. When he’s ready to move forward, we’ll do so.”

If tests prove that biodiesel works as well as regular diesel in county vehicles while emitting fewer pollutants, about 100 vehicles will begin using a B20 mix.

There’ll be no testing in Millington, where the government switched its entire fleet to B10 biodiesel last month. The north Shelby County town was in need of new diesel tanks at its government fueling station earlier this year, so officials thought it was a good time for the conversion.

Justin Fox Burks

Joe Skelley

Biodiesel can be stored in a regular diesel tank, but it must be cleaned out first. Biodiesel acts as a solvent, loosening up diesel sludge buildup. With brand-new tanks, no cleaning was necessary for Millington.

“There’s more and more information available that shows that other fleets that have switched are running well. And they’re also seeing increases in tenths of a gallon or even a whole gallon in gas mileage on biodiesel,” says Valerie Chapman, Millington’s director of economic development. “We’re really comfortable with the role this region can play in the economy of this product. We’d be silly not to support it.”

Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) is preparing to perform biodiesel tests on its light-duty trucks, which handle gas leaks and service-outage calls.

“If all goes well, as we think it will, we’ll expand biodiesel use into our other trucks and aspects of our operation,” says MLGW spokesperson Chris Stanley.

Memphis Biofuels will provide the fuel. The utility is also planning to purchase up to 10 flex-fuel cars that can run on either gasoline or an ethanol blend.

Last summer, Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) performed biodiesel tests in 20 of their buses used to provide door-to-door service for people with disabilities. The results showed that B20 biodiesel produced lower exhaust emissions and increased fuel efficiency by .02 miles per gallon.

However, MATA declined to switch to biodiesel at the time due to cost concerns. The cost of biodiesel was several cents higher than diesel due to rising soybean costs. But these days, biodiesel is selling several cents cheaper. Earlier this month, officials at MATA announced that they’d switched over all 229 of their buses. At the current prices, MATA is saving four cents per gallon using biodiesel as opposed to petroleum diesel.

As for the average consumer, Memphians driving diesel-powered cars and trucks like Couch’s Jetta will soon be able to fuel up at the Riverside, a BP station on Riverside Drive in the South End neighborhood. Owner John Gary began working on installing a biodiesel pump earlier this month. It will be the first retail station to sell biodiesel in Shelby County.

“It’s no fun to be the first one at the dance, but somebody’s got to do it,” Gary says on his decision to sell biodiesel. “I’m excited and concerned that I’ll soon have lots of local competition. Once it’s been proven to work here, it’ll move quickly to other stores with diesel infrastructure.”

Green Islands and Grant Funds

If Governor Phil Bredesen has his way, Gary’s prediction is right on. In February, Bredesen announced several initiatives aimed at increasing biodiesel use and production in Tennessee.

Justin Fox Burks

Milagro Biofuel’s Gary Meloni (left) and plant manager Paul Sammons

One of which is the Biofuel Green Island Corridor Grant Project, a $1.5 million grant program to assist retail fueling stations along I-40 in converting and installing fuel storage tanks for biodiesel and ethanol. The Governor’s Alternative Fuels Working Group stopped taking applications for the project in mid-April.

“We hope to have a string of ‘green islands’ across the interstate system. That way a person with an alt-fuels vehicle could go no more than 100 miles on the interstate and find a station with E85 or B20 for sale,” says task-force member Joe Gaines, who also serves as assistant commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.

Bredesen is awarding $4 million in grant funds to local farmers looking to get their products in the alt-fuels marketplace.

“Currently, much of the oil being used is coming from out-of-state sources,” says Gaines. “We’re offering funds to build a soybean-crushing facility that would buy soybeans directly from farmers, crush them in the state, and then sell the oil to a biodiesel-production facility.”

There’s also $1 million in state funds set aside for counties, municipalities, and public-education institutions looking to purchase alt-fuels for fleet vehicles. And the governor is launching an education campaign to help the average citizen better understand the benefits of using biodiesel and ethanol.

The 2007 Governors Conference on Biofuels, a convention for anyone interested in learning more about alt-fuels, is set for May 31st at Montgomery Bell State Park in Burns, Tennessee.

But the state isn’t just talking the talk. Tennessee operates 60,000 flex-fuel vehicles that can run on either ethanol or gasoline. The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) converted their East Tennessee fleet to biodiesel back in 2005. TDOT’s Middle Tennessee transition is under way now, and the West Tennessee switch is expected by the end of the year. By 2008, all of the yellow TDOT HELP trucks along I-40 will be biodiesel-powered.

The government has proposed $70 million for prototype research into the future fuels from other sources. Some in the alt-fuels community fear soybeans and corn will eventually run out.

“There are limitations on the amount of corn and soybeans that can be produced in the state and nation and still maintain food production and all the other requirements we have,” Gaines says. “We’re very rich in the Southeastern U.S. in grasses and trees and other lignin-type materials. That’s where the big growth is seen five to 10 years out.”

Justin Fox Burks

No matter what sources are used down the road, much work is being put into mapping out a future for fuel sources besides petroleum and gasoline. If the country hopes to meet Bush’s goal of 35 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2017, the industry has nowhere to go but up. And the environment can do nothing but benefit.

Back on the bench facing the Mississippi River, Couch ponders the future of biofuels. Where does he see the industry in 10 to 15 years?

“Big and consolidated. Efficient and cleaner. Accomplishing more than just fuels. The bio-refinery model will take biomass and turn it into all kinds of different products,” Couch says. “What we’re seeing now is a stepping stone. We’re working our way to a more efficient and sustainable future.”

But it’s going to take more than switching to biofuels or producing bio-based products.

“If we don’t start curbing our energy use,” Couch says, “it’s not going to matter what we do. It won’t be enough.”

He squints as he points toward the bright sun hovering over the Mississippi River. “Right there, that’s all the energy in the world. That’s all we have.”

For updates on which West Tennessee retail stations will be providing biodiesel or ethanol in the future, go to www.wtccc.com.

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Music Music Features

Louvin at Shangri-La

The Louvin Brothers were from Hanegar, Alabama, but, for a brief time in the 1940s, they called Memphis home. Brilliant harmonizers, the Louvins (Ira and Charlie) broadcast on WMPS and cut a record in Memphis before relocating to the other side of the state. They returned in ’52, holding down day jobs as post-office clerks while gigging on weekends and at night. (Their gospel sides for Capitol and MGM were favorites of Elvis Presley and his mother, Gladys.) But the Louvins uprooted again and again, moving to Knoxville and Nashville, where they found even greater success recording hillbilly laments such as “Knoxville Girl” and “When I Stop Dreaming.”

The Louvins have been long revered by the alternative set: Gram Parsons was just a teenager when Ira Louvin, the duo’s high tenor and mandolin player, died in a car accident, but soon after, Parsons began unearthing their classic country compositions “Cash on the Barrel Head” and “The Christian Life” for inclusion on albums such as The Byrds‘ Sweetheart of the Rodeo and his own Grevious Angel. By then, Charlie Louvin, who possesses a whisky-smooth voice and a mournful guitar style that mellows with age, was a well-established solo artist with a handful of top-selling country hits. His career has carried him into his 70s and through a resurgence of interest in Louvin Brothers material by such disparate artists as Emmylou Harris, Southern Culture on the Skids, Nick Cave, Uncle Tupelo, Johnny Cash, and The Raconteurs.

Charlie Louvin returns to Memphis this Friday, April 20th, for a free show at Shangri-La Records. He’s promoting his new eponymously titled album, an indie-rock-meets-country collision that includes contributions from Jeff Tweedy, Tom T. Hall, Will Oldham, and George Jones.

“I’m psyched,” says Shangri-La owner Jared McStay. “[Louvin’s] manager called and wanted to do it. They’re planning to film it for a documentary. It’s just another cool thing we can do here.” Showtime is at 6 p.m. For more information, visit Shangri.com, or call 274-1916.

Last fall, I was impressed when “Jump Back Jake” Rabinbach took over the microphone at Wild Bill’s, with a band that included local soul session legends Leroy “Flick” Hodges and Hubbie Mitchell. Now I can’t get Rabinbach’s self-released, five-song debut off my CD player. Recorded at Young Avenue Sound during the last two days of December, Already Sold harkens back to the blue-eyed country-soul sound perfected by Tony Joe White, Dan Penn, and George Soule. Rabinbach’s band, composed of musicians plucked from Third Man (formerly Augustine) and Snowglobe, hits an incredible groove, Greg Faison driving the group from a funky pocket and Paul Morelli and Nashon Benford holding down the horn section.

The self-produced CD epitomizes Rabinbach’s love affair with this town.

“I thought that between Big Star, Hi, Stax, Elvis, and Sun, there has to be something down here that’s fueling everybody,” says Rabinbach, a native New Yorker, who, with his girlfriend Eileen Meyer, moved to Memphis last year. He signed up for an internship at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music upon his arrival.

“I interviewed Jim Dickinson for the Stax archives, and those three hours changed my life,” he says. “I met Jack Yarber and Harlan T. Bobo, and I really identified with the way they jumped from style to style. I began to see myself continuing that tradition of weird Southern white boys — Doug Sahm, Tony Joe, Eddie Hinton — who play soul music.”

Rabinbach and Meyer formed Dirt Floor Films to shoot a documentary about their Memphis experience, which has the working title My Happiness: An Outsider’s Love Affair with Memphis Music.

“So far, we have 40 hours of footage. The most exciting thing we’ve done recently was a shoot with R.L. Boyce and Lightnin’ Malcolm. We’re doing fund-raising for live shoots, and we’re looking for some archival footage [of other musicians]. It’s weird making a film where I’m also the subject,” he muses, “but we wanted to capture the evolution of an outsider who immerses himself in this culture.”

Jump Back Jake and his band — which includes bassist Brandon Robertson and guitarist Jake Vest — will be playing at the Hi-Tone this Friday night, with Giant Bear opening the show. For more information, visit Rabinbach’s MySpace page, MySpace.com/JumpBackJake.

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Cover Feature News

Lords of the Ring

Jerry Lawler says he ain’t gonna wrestle with Hulk Hogan on April 27th at FedExForum. Does that necessarily mean the King ain’t gonna wrestle somebody on April 27th at FedExForum? Well, does it?

In the world of professional wrestling there’s something called “heat.” The expression is used to describe public animosity between wrestlers and the degree to which any given feud is whipping the fans into a frenzy. Heat is desirable. It’s the brutally elegant currency of professional wrestling, and, at 57, Jerry “The King” Lawler still has it.

On April 12th, only a month after his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame, Lawler walked into FedExForum, faced a bank of television cameras, and told a roomful of reporters that, in spite of recent announcements, he wouldn’t go toe-to-toe with 54-year-old Hulk Hogan or participate in Memphis Wrestling’s “Clash of the Legends,” an evening of fictional fighting that local promoter Corey Maclin has described as the largest independently produced wrestling event in the pseudo-sport’s history.

Lawler looked unusually trim as he swaggered up to the mic. His Pepsodent smile and baby blue eyes flashed against his dark Hollywood tan as he excused himself from the bout, citing a conflict between his employers at the Paramount/NBC-owned USA Network and Hogan’s contractual obligations to Viacom’s VH1. Then he left the building.

“I had to get out of there before Hulk came in and VH1 started shooting him for his reality show [Hogan Knows Best],” Lawler explains. But can you trust a wrestler? And more importantly, can you trust Lawler, the man who helped turn wrestling into performance art and blurred the line between entertainment and reality when he teamed up with Taxi star and late comedian Andy Kaufman to perpetrate the greatest entertainment hoax of the last century?

Moments after Lawler’s hasty exit, Hogan stalked up to the stage wearing a tight black T-shirt and his trademark bandanna. In typical wrestler fashion, he bad-mouthed Lawler for breaking his vow that their fight — a grudge match 20-odd years in the making — would go on, no matter what the WWE’s owner and chief ringmaster Vince McMahon had to say about it. Shortly thereafter, former WWE superstar Paul Wight, Lawler’s last-minute replacement, took his turn dissing the WWE.

And so the classic David and Goliath storyline was redrawn: Wight and Hogan would throw down under the banner of Memphis Wrestling as an act of defiance against the all-powerful networks, the WWE, and McMahon’s lapdog, the cowardly and duplicitous King Lawler.

“I wish it really was all just part of some big storyline,” Lawler says, fidgeting with his ever-present Superman ring and swearing that he won’t even be in Memphis on the night of the big fight.

“It’s all about the networks,” he says with a shrug, disappointed that the biggest hometown match of his career has been yanked out from under him. “This is reality and kind of a personal thing [between Hogan and the WWE],” he says. “And it’s a shame, because that kind of reality is what makes for the best storylines in wrestling. When you have something reality-based that has a personal side to it, you can get the fans’ interest much better than you can with ‘Hey, here’s two guys wrestling for a championship belt.'”

Still, sitting on a barstool in his comfortable East Memphis home, surrounded by his Coca-Cola memorabilia, his jukeboxes, and his Disney collectibles, Lawler radiates contentment. And why shouldn’t he? He’s the host of Raw, the longest-running weekly entertainment series in the history of television. “I suppose I could get all mad and quit,” he cracks, only half sarcastically. “But I’m on the top-rated show on USA. And I can have that job for the rest of my life if I want it.” At this point in his career, Lawler has nothing left to prove to anybody. Except maybe Hulk Hogan.

“I was really looking forward to [fighting Lawler],” says Hogan. “I was hoping we could work it out where, at some point, he’d throw a pot of coffee in my face” — a reference to the famous moment in 1982 on Late Night with David Letterman when Lawler appeared to smack the hell out of Andy “I’m from Hollywood” Kaufman, who was still wearing a neck brace from the pair’s clash at the Mid-South Coliseum. Kaufman responded to the attack by tossing a cup of coffee on Lawler and uttering a litany of bleeped profanities that left the famously unflappable Letterman … well, flapped.

That exchange, named by the Museum of Radio and Television as one of the top 100 moments in the history of television, marks the moment that professional wrestling made its jump from niche sport to lucrative mainstream entertainment. McMahon’s over-the-top empire was, to a large extent, erected on Lawler’s and Kaufman’s shtick.

As the WWE became an international phenomenon on cable television, smaller regional wrestling organizations fell by the wayside. Memphis Wrestling, buoyed by some diehard fans, is about all that’s left of the old school. Since Lawler first joined WWE in 1993, the organization has allowed Lawler to work with Memphis Wrestling and put on a show for the home crowd now and then. But when Hogan came into the picture everything changed.

“Sometimes in the wrestling business you cut off your nose to spite your face,” Lawler says. “Pairing me with Hulk Hogan would have generated a lot of interest locally, but now there’s much more national appeal with Hulk going against Paul Wight. After all, that’s the match [the WWE] wanted but couldn’t get for WrestleMania 23.”

Maclin, the Memphis wrestling promoter behind “Clash of the Legends,” agrees that McMahon may have made a mistake, but he also says he was surprised and let down when Lawler, who has worked so hard to keep independent wrestling alive in Memphis, caved to corporate pressure. Maclin, who had already made a $10,000 deposit on FedExForum and placed orders for T-shirts and other merchandise when he got the news that Lawler was out, promises that if this event is as successful as he thinks it will be, there will be more.

“When you can’t deliver the fans what you’ve promised them, you’ve got to bring something better,” Maclin says. “That’s what I think we’ve done. I understand that Vince McMahon has a job to do in New York, but we’ve got a job to do in Memphis too.”

“In a way, McMahon shot himself in the foot at the very beginning,” says Lance Russell, the iconic Mid-South wrestling announcer who began his career in the early 1950s. “All of his original talent came from these regional territories, and when the regional organizations went away, he lost this wonderful training ground. He lost his farm team — where the Hulk Hogans, the Randy Savages, and the Jerry Lawlers learned how to do what they do.”

Russell, who, at 80, is a walking encyclopedia of wrestling history, traces the origins of the modern entertainment back to Gorgeous George, a blond, boa-wearing grappler from Texas who made everyone else in the business seem boring by comparison. And he cites Memphis as the place where all the gaudy pieces came together: the wild characters; the treacherous alliances; the high-stakes storylines; cage and scaffold matches; and a business model built around television. In the 1970s and ’80s, Championship Wrestling was the top-rated Saturday-morning show in Memphis.

“Memphis was like the Wild West,” Hogan says. “Nowhere else have I dodged more razor blades thrown at my head.”

When Hogan was learning his moves in Memphis, Lawler was already the King. In 1975 — six years before Kaufman first visited Memphis, Hogan appeared in Rocky III, and McMahon purchased the Capital Wrestling Corporation (forerunner of the WWE) from his father — City of Memphis magazine reported that Lawler was the driving force behind unprecedented sellout crowds at the Mid-South Coliseum and personally raking in over $90,000 a year.

“He’s the smartest guy in the business,” says Jackie Fargo, Lawler’s trainer, friend, and mentor. “There’s a reason why he’s living in that big old house.” Fargo’s assessment is echoed by Russell, who points to Lawler’s involvement with Kaufman as proof of his business savvy.

“Andy tried to go other places first, but nobody wanted some comedian from a sitcom coming in to make fun of them,” Russell says. “But Jerry saw the potential. And Andy was perfect because he was so genuinely fascinated by wrestling and wanted to learn everything. Andy was particularly amazed at how a wrestler like Lawler could just raise his hand and whip the crowd into a frenzy or into rage.”

“At first, I had no plan to fight Andy,” Lawler still contends. “I was just trying to catch a little heat of the big star who was coming to town.” Before the release of the Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon in 1999, 17 years after the comic first came to Memphis to wrestle women, Lawler finally ‘fessed up, admitting that everything had been a hoax, saying that the two men were friends all along.

“If Andy was still alive, there would have been no question as to who would have inducted me into the Hall of Fame,” Lawler says. “Andy would have done it.” (In Kaufman’s absence, William Shatner performed the honors.)

Helen Stahl, Lawler’s high school art teacher, describes him as one of the five most gifted students she ever taught. “I would look at his drawings and tell him he should be working for MAD magazine,” Stahl says.

Lawler never went to work for MAD, but his photograph did appear in the humor magazine’s most recent issue. And one of Lawler’s lifelong fantasies was fulfilled only a few months ago, when DC Comics invited him to draw Superman for an upcoming comic book project. Lawler claims that art (and Helen Stahl) saved his life, when a commercial-art scholarship to the University of Memphis got him out of Vietnam.

His first big break as an artist was also his first break into the world of the ring. Russell started showing Lawler’s caricatures of local wrestlers on television, and that exposure led to a job painting signs for Fargo, who, along with country-music singer Eddie Bond, co-owned a nightclub and the adjoining Bond-Fargo Sign Painting Company on Madison Avenue. During the time he spent slinging paint for Fargo, Lawler also held down the 7 to midnight shift spinning country records for KWAM radio.

“I remember going into Eddie’s office when he was on the phone,” Lawler says. “He motioned for me to sit down and pick up the other receiver. And it was Jackie on the other end. He didn’t like that I was talking about these outlaw shows on the radio, just like the WWE doesn’t want me doing this outlaw show in Memphis. And he was saying, ‘The kid doesn’t need to be over there wrestling with those punks. Maybe we needed to get a bunch of the real wrestlers together and drive down to West Memphis on Saturday night and break some arms.'”

It was all a bluff, and Lawler called it. No arms were broken, and a week later Fargo invited him to fight on TV in Memphis. All Lawler had to do was talk about Memphis wrestling instead of West Memphis wrestling on the radio. And right up until the time he was fired for playing Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” on a country station, that’s exactly what he did.

In his early days, Lawler served as a whipping boy for regional stars like Fargo, Tojo Yamamoto, and Nick Gulas. He paid his dues by allowing himself to be beaten up repeatedly for $15 a week.

“I honestly thought wrestling was something I only wanted to try one time, like jumping out of an airplane or riding a bull,” Lawler says. “Now I’ve never tasted a sip of alcohol or done any drugs, but that’s what I compare that first time to: It was like somebody shot me with some kind of drug, and I was hooked right away.”

Chris Davis

Superman: Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler

Nearly 40 years and 111 title fights later, Lawler is still excited about wrestling. “I never get tired of it, but I do get tired of the travel,” he admits, flipping through his datebook. “This weekend I’m off to San Juan, Puerto Rico, then on to Milan, Italy, then back to San Juan, then to London. It sounds exotic, but it’s all one big security check or waiting in line at the rent-a-car place. It gets old fast.”

Jim Ross, Lawler’s Raw co-host, agrees that being on the road every week is the kind of life that only someone truly devoted to their career would ever want to live.

“It takes passion,” Ross says, “and Jerry’s full of it. And he knows more about wrestling than just about anybody.”

“There are a lot of reasons Lawler has had such a long, successful career,” Maclin says. “He’s helped a lot of people get their breaks. And because of Lawler some of those people are now millionaires.”

Hogan makes no bones about why he agreed to stage his comeback show in Memphis: He thought he was going to use and abuse Lawler the way Lawler used and abused him at the Mid-South Coliseum back when he was still an unknown learning his way around the ring.

“I don’t know why Lawler would break his word to me,” Hogan rails, maintaining the heat.

And just as steadfastly, Lawler maintains he ain’t gonna wrestle the Hulk on April 27th at FedExForum. But with this kind of storyline, how could Memphis’ greatest media prankster not show up, throwing fireballs, pile-driving the bad guys, and yanking the shoulder strap on his singlet down around his waist to show he means business. Memphis, after all, is his city — and he is still its King.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Blue Crush

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Thirty-four turned out to be Mario McNeil’s unlucky number. The 34-year-old African-American man and a friend headed to a favorite hangout, Divine Wings and Bar, the afternoon of March 16th. As the men entered the restaurant, an assailant opened fire on them. According to eyewitness accounts, the gunman jumped into the passenger seat of a Chevy Lumina and sped off. McNeil’s friend survived the attack. Paramedics rushed McNeil to the emergency room at the Med, but McNeil died as the result of gunshot wounds. He was the city’s 34th homicide victim of 2007.

Justin Fox Burks

Operation Blue Crush targets crime hot spots around the city and uses police resources to reduce illegal activity.

Police describe the suspect in the shooting as an “unknown black male.”

The vast majority of murders in Memphis are of the so-called black-on-black variety. The annual number of these crimes has grown from 83 in 2004, to 99 in 2005, to 106 in 2006. These totals account for 65 to 70 percent of all homicides in the city each year.

The Memphis Police Department (MPD) made a staggering 102,000 arrests last year. Yet the homicide statistics as a whole, and the black-on-black murders in particular, have swelled. MPD has instituted a new, technologically sophisticated strategic tool. Now Memphians will see if a new system of crime-fighting can suppress an old problem.

The city has battled its bloody image for over a century. An editorial in the October 10, 1870, edition of the New York Sunday Mercury included the line “to those desirous of shuffling off this mortal coil, to those weary of life, but who have not the courage to shoot or hang themselves, we recommend a trip to Memphis.”

In the early 1920s, a statistician for the Prudential Life Insurance Company named Frank Hoffman dubbed Memphis “murder-town.” Mayors Rowlett Paine andS. Watkins Overton financed research and publications debunking both the claim and Hoffman’s annual rankings of America’s bloodiest cities. While the mayors found plenty of caveats to attach to Hoffman’s numbers, neither could dispute the high total of homicide victims in the city.

Unable to solve the problem of violence, the city’s public-relations efforts turned to consolation. A headline in The Commercial Appeal in September 1928 spoke directly to the fears of a violent, racially split city: “Few Negroes Kill Whites.”

Justin Fox Burks

Richard Janikowski

That trend has held firmly. The stubbornness of residential segregation and the nature of crime in general, and of homicide specifically, have kept interracial murder rates relatively low in Memphis. MPD statistics list 15 homicides involving white victims and black suspects in the three years from 2004 to 2006.

Public attitudes on the issue of black violence in Memphis can be difficult to gather. Reporters asking questions tend to put folks on their best behavior. In the relative privacy of online communication, however, observers of black violence in Memphis speak openly.

An article on WREG.com entitled “Black on Black Crime Growing in Memphis,” which included homicide statistics for the first half of 2006, was posted on the American Renaissance Web site last year. American Renaissance is a self-described “publication of racial-realist thought.” Readers of the site are able to leave comments about articles posted. The responses to the black-violence article revealed a wide range of reactions to the problem.

One post reflects a misperception: “[B]lack on white crime is actually more common … nobody ever even mentions black-on-white crime.”

Another says, “It’s because of the stats like this that the locals near Memphis call the place ‘Memphrica.'”

Many commenters left messages similar to this one: “Well, white folks certainly DO have a stake in this, but how is it their responsibility? How is the weight on them? What are they supposed to do, walk around the city waving their fingers sayin’, ‘Now, now — don’t you go killin’ nobody.'”

Another sums up the frustration with standard — albeit disempowering — explanations: “It’s been said before but deserves to be said again. You can’t put all the blame on poverty, that’s way too simple.”

Richard Janikowski chairs the criminology and criminal justice department at the University of Memphis. As the architect of the much-ballyhooed operation Blue Crush, Janikowski hopes to bring Memphis policing strategy from behind the curve to the cutting edge.

Blue Crush is the local version of data-driven policing programs like CompStat in New York City and I-Clear in Chicago. MPD implemented Blue Crush operations beginning with a pilot program in August 2005, and the program went citywide last October. “The entire guiding principle behind Blue Crush is to get the right resources into the right place at the right day and right time,” Janikowski explains.

“There are criminologists around the country who say that the only way to cure crime is to cure all social problems,” Janikowski says. “This is the old ‘root causes’ thing. The lesson of the last two decades is that we can affect crime without affecting the root causes. Police make a difference. We can use innovative techniques to suppress crime.”

Blue Crush takes a geographic approach to fighting crime. It locates concentrations of offenses in a given area and charts the day, time, and nature of offense. “We track arrests … and look at Part I crimes [murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and arson], the most serious offenses, reported to the FBI,” explains Janikowski, though Blue Crush does not target homicide.

The program also does not track the race of an offender. “[Ethnicity] doesn’t directly figure in the data,” Janikowski says. “The reality is that [with] arrests in Memphis, just like nationwide, the overwhelming number identified in criminal activity are young African-American men.

“Geography trumps ethnicity,” he says.

Justin Fox Burks

Larry Godwin

The Blue Crush program generates weekly crime reports that identify hot spots — zones of heavy criminal activity within a precinct — to MPD, which then focuses resources on where police are most needed. Police inspectors — the rank of most precinct commanders — can decide the day, time, and tactics to launch a Blue Crush operation on a hot spot. Patrolmen credit Blue Crush with getting the proper number of officers on the street during operations.

Blue Crush also supplies MPD with the finances necessary to keep extra manpower in the hot spots. Officers work Blue Crush operations on their days off and earn overtime without costing the city. “Because we are the university, we have access to grants. Part of our job is to push the edges,” Janikowski explains.

The hot-spot approach feeds off of criminal psychology, which, as Janikowski explains, is not unlike regular human behavior.

“We tend to go to work the same way every day, go to the places we know and are comfortable in,” Janikowski says. “Offenders are the same way. They’ll offend in the neighborhood they’re used to.”

Janikowski has taken the geographic approach to reducing crime in Memphis due in part to some of the city’s unique historical and demographic features.

Urban renewal and the abandonment and reclamation of downtown in the past half-century have shaken up the city’s residential and criminal patterns. “As public housing closed down, we dispersed people,” Janikowski explains. “Offenders became more mobile than they used to be, and crime has expanded into areas that weren’t necessarily targeted before.”

While the idea that Memphis crime is expanding its horizons may not reassure residents, Janikowski insists that the situation aids crime-fighters. “The advantage to having offenders operating where they aren’t comfortable is that that’s when they make mistakes and get caught,” he says. “A group started doing robberies in Collierville. They robbed a woman in her driveway. Collierville PD got them because those fools got themselves lost in the subdivision.”

Susan Lowe

On the scene: an MPD officer at work fighting crime.

Every Thursday morning, high-ranking officers from each of the city’s police precincts gather at Airways Station to discuss the results of the previous week’s Blue Crush operations and announce plans for the next.

Director of Police Services Larry Godwin and 20 lieutenants, majors, and inspectors from across the city sit at a horseshoe-shaped table that faces a screen and podium. The scene recalls DC Comics’ Justice League of America, albeit with more guns and less colorful costumes. Another 50 police personnel sit at rows of tables to observe. One officer likens it to a scene from the TV series The District.

Janikowski welcomes a couple of guests to the meeting, pointing out that they can help themselves to a cup of coffee “and — of course — there are donuts.”

Godwin kicks off the meeting with a general address. He’s nothing if not concerned with the public perception of his officers. After receiving complaints about cops talking on cell phones while on duty, he urges greater discretion. “I could pull up beside an officer on the phone [in his car] and put a bullet in the back of his head, and he’d never know it,” he told those gathered at the meeting.

After Godwin’s address, those in the horseshoe take turns giving PowerPoint presentations from the podium detailing statistical breakdowns of particular crimes in their respective precincts. They flash graphs and tables on the screen. They compare the given week to the three leading up to it, as well as the same week in the previous year. If certain tactics fail to suppress a problem in a hot spot, they try something else. “Precinct commanders have to decide where police will operate in their precincts based on the [Blue Crush] data packages they receive. They know their area. They’ve got to decide how to best use their resources,” Janikowski says.

Crime does go down in the hot spots. The question remains whether or not Blue Crush reduces crime across the board.

Through these snapshots of weekly Part I crimes in the city, one learns that residential burglaries occur in nearly epidemic proportions. If “epidemic” seems too strong a word, ask yourself if 82 new cases of avian flu in a month in Hickory Hill would alarm you. Residential burglaries outnumber every other crime in virtually every precinct in the city.

Blue Crush in action deploys combinations of visible patrolmen to suppress criminal activity and plainclothes officers to gather intelligence on the street. Though officers are generally pleased with the extra manpower that Blue Crush operations mobilize, some wonder if full-time undercover officers could enhance results.

A white officer joked that he and his partner going plainclothes had little to no effect in their predominantly black precinct. He mocked the idea of two whites driving around asking groups of young blacks, “Got any dope?”

Street cops have other concerns. Some say that attrition in their numbers from retirement and relocation outpaces the number of new recruits. One officer said that he counted only 40 graduates from the MPD training academy since Mayor Willie Herenton’s call for an expanded force last fall. (The idea of a new publicly funded football stadium is unpopular among those who have not received a pay raise in two years.)

Janikowski explains that increased efficiency and proper usage of resources could address some of the force’s manpower issues. “Blue Crush is reengineering the entire police department and restructuring things,” he says.

“The TAC unit [the Memphis equivalent of a SWAT team] does barricade and hostage situations and dignitary protection. The rest of the time, they’re working out and shooting, and they look really tough while they’re waiting to get called out. They’re the best trained, in the best shape. Give them warrants each day to go and chase some folks. This has been happening over the last six months,” Janikowski explains.

While the issue behind much of the city’s crime is easily identifiable, it remains difficult to solve. “If I was going to pinpoint a particular problem, it would be gangs, because it relates guns, drugs, robberies, and burglaries,” Godwin says.

Janikowski adds that predominantly African-American gangs drive crime statistics disproportionately. “The gangs are making their money in the drug market, in guns, and in stolen goods,” he says.

Godwin notes some incremental progress: “About eight months ago, we locked up 55 known gang members. That doesn’t sound like a lot when you’ve got 5,000 gang members [in the city]. But when you’re hitting the upper echelon in those gangs, it puts them in turmoil.”

Janikowski, however, says that Memphis gangs are highly fluid institutions with high turnover rates and no hierarchy. “They’re not these solid, corporate structures like the Mafia. Even gang allegiance changes. Some guys have tattoos from the Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords,” he says, adding that they show resilience to arrests, deaths, and defections from within the organizations. “They’re like any other employer. When they lose an employee, they hire another one,” he says.

Gangs’ modi operandi feed the police strategy for fighting organized crime. “We embed undercover officers in the gangs,” Godwin says. “I’m a firm believer in the undercover program in the gangs. I don’t think going around in a car that has ‘gang unit’ written on it is going to get you into the gangs and get you those good arrests. You’ve got to be one of them. You have to buy the guns, buy the drugs, and watch them deal in prostitution. Then build cases that way and make them stick.”

“Good arrests” for the police are federal crimes, since state-level convictions seldom result in more than half of a sentence served.

“We get a lot of information from being embedded [in gangs]. We’re living with them. It’s like any other rumor mill. You hear things within the gangs. We start to try to verify those things and substantiate whether or not it’s a possibility that a hit is coming down here,” he says, adding: “I’m all for reaching out to gangs and saying, ‘One of your members was shot. Let the police handle this instead of retaliating.’ I wish we could reach out more and make that arrest before the other gang can retaliate.”

Which brings us back to unlucky 34. The proverbial word on the street says that an organized crime outfit wanted Mario McNeil dead. McNeil was, by various accounts, a devoted father, a small-business owner, and a singer in his church’s choir. Those mourning McNeil’s murder left 15 pages of remembrances on his online obituary guestbook.

Whether McNeil’s murder was the result of gang activity or a random act of violence against an innocent, his story is symptomatic of an old problem that could prove immune to new cures.

“There’s no magic bullet. I think that is something that the media tries to feed [people]. ‘If we had this, it would solve it,'” Janikowski says.

No one disputes the prevalence of black-on-black violence in Memphis. The numbers don’t lie. MPD strategy, however, is, technically speaking, color-blind.

“We don’t address [black violence] in any way different from any other crime. We look at areas. Some of those may be predominantly African-American [parts of the city], but we address them all the same. A crime is a crime to us,” Janikowski says.

The future of crime-fighting might also be impacted by this year’s Memphis mayoral election. Though Herenton stands firmly beside Godwin, mayoral candidate Carol Chumney promises to devote fresh energy to the issue of crime. Though Janikowksi favors the long view of crime statistics and advocates patience with the progress of any crime remedy, Chumney says that Blue Crush should be scrapped if it isn’t working.

“Nothing’s immune to politics,” Janikowski says. “As it becomes ingrained in the police department, as the public sees effects over time, it’s going to be the way we do business in the future. It may not be called Blue Crush, but this idea of data-driven policing is here to stay.”

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Reaching a Balance

Thanks to a spot that runs regularly on the local Air America radio affiliate, we learn that some or another major media source — we forget which, but we were impressed — declared Memphis “the greatest American place” back in 1998. If we are, it is because the conditions of our existence have historically compelled a mingling of cultures, resulting most noticeably in a series of glorious musical heritages. We use the plural on purpose, having heard music
historiographer David Evans of the University of Memphis discourse convincingly on the separate musical streams — ragtime, blues, jazz, R&B, rockabilly, rock-and-roll, and more — that have issued into the world from Memphis.

But our greatness in the future will depend on how well we achieve a synthesis of our populations in other ways, especially politically and socially. Like the rest of America, Memphis and Shelby County are now past that era in which the words “black” and “white” adequately describe ethnic variety. We are home now to Asians and Hispanics in truly significant numbers.

It is this last fact, along with the rough balance of Caucasians and African Americans in our mix, that made the honor conferred on us this past weekend by Major League Baseball so appropriate. In becoming the site of the first annual Civil Rights Game and, according to baseball commissioner Bud Selig, the likely permanent home of the game, Memphis achieved both a signal distinction and the opportunity to become an annual example to mankind.

That opportunity is a burden, too, of course. We may be currently notorious in the eyes of the state and nation for instances of public corruption, but few other American jurisdictions, we venture, have achieved an effective symmetry in government to the extent that we have.

Consider: The current congressman in Memphis’ 9th congressional district, Steve Cohen, is a white who won a hefty majority last year against a black opponent with a famous last name. The current mayor of Shelby County, where Caucasians still dominate on Election Day, is A C Wharton, an African American who won a lopsided majority in 2004 over a well-known white member of the County Commission.

A white candidate, City Council member Carol Chumney, has gained enough currency in Memphis’ black precincts to have finished ahead of Memphis’ incumbent black mayor, Willie Herenton, in the first major poll of city voters. Meanwhile, a significant number of influential whites are involved in the mayoral effort of another candidate, former MLGW head Herman Morris, who is African American.

Racial issues still flare up in local government. The current controversy over a proposed second Juvenile Court judge is a case in point, though even that issue has as much to do with reaching an effective balance between the county’s municipal and governmental jurisdictions as anything else.

We still argue at the table over who gets the best seat or the first cut of meat. But we sit down together, and we’re used to it. If we can take the next major step and stabilize population flow in an environment that is economically secure for all, we will, in fact, deserve to be called a great American place.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Embedded Diner

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

A few weeks ago, I was watching a local station’s 10 o’clock newscast when I saw a story that made me stand up and cheer with sheer joy. I was so loud in my state of ecstasy that I woke up my wife Holly, who was asleep on the sofa next to me. “What, did the Grizzlies finally win a game?” she asked. “No, something much bigger,” I replied. According to the report, a Memphis man named William Arnold was thrown out of a Waffle House restaurant in Southaven for talking too loudly on his cellphone.

Mr. Arnold, judging from your brief appearance and the few words you muttered on that night’s newscast, you seem like a decent man. Pleading your case to the camera, you said that you were only making a quick call to check on your mother. You seemed sincere. However, I have to admit that I do not feel sorry for you. In fact, I am glad they asked you to leave the Waffle House for your lack of civility. I know your type, Mr. Arnold. Do I ever.

Last year, my wife and I bought a great old house. We got a wonderful deal, but the kitchen had to be gutted and totally rebuilt. Instead of paying a contractor to do it in a couple of weeks, we decided to subcontract the job. While this approach has been cheaper, it’s also taken a lot longer than expected. What this means is that we’ve basically been without a kitchen for the past six months. What this means, too, is that we’ve eaten out almost every night for 180 days. That last sentence bears repeating: We’ve eaten out almost every night for 180 days.

In that time, I’ve come to see myself as an embedded diner of sorts. I can report that even the best meals, when eaten over and over again, can grow tiresome, and that the wait staff, no matter how friendly, gets sick of seeing you a couple times a week. But perhaps most significantly is how astoundingly rude some of the patrons can be. This is not the majority of patrons; it only seems that way given the general lack of manners and wealth of jackassery of those obnoxious few.

For instance, sitting in Huey’s Midtown I saw the strangest thing, and it left me with the impression that folks just don’t talk to each other like they used to. In a booth behind us, a man was with his girlfriend. They were a nice, clean-cut, respectable-looking young couple. Initially, he was on his cellphone having a conversation while she sat there looking bored and sad and ignored. As soon as he got off his phone, she picked hers up and started talking to someone. Now it was his turn to look sad, bored, and ignored. As soon as she ended her conversation, he picked up his phone and called someone. This went on and on and on. They took turns, volleying back and forth. I don’t think they actually spoke one word to each other the entire duration of their meal. It was surreal, almost like a Fellini film. In retrospect, I think one of them should have stayed at home, and the other should have gone to the restaurant. At least that way, they would have spoken to each other.

On another evening, I watched as a little boy took all of the sugar packets out of the ramekin on the table. He lined them up neatly, all nice and color-coded. Next, he commenced licking each and every one of them in an orderly, systematic way. Apparently, this kid has some method to his madness. He was concentrating on what he was doing, in “the zone,” if you will, so you can understand his frustration when his mother interrupted his focus and told him, in a very calm and friendly voice, to stop. He freaked out and pushed all the little packets off the table and down to the floor. Mommy picked them up and put them back in the ramekin like nothing happened. Needless to say, when dining out now, I take my coffee black.

During my experiment of culinary grandeur, I also witnessed a fair share of individuals having illicit affairs. Who needs Desperate Housewives when you can see the real thing? I saw a professor having a heated argument with his student. The student was appalled that he didn’t get a higher grade in his class since they were “sleeping together and everything.” Another of my favorites was the one I refer to as “the doctor and his lady.” She complained about being second fiddle to the surgeon’s wife. Anytime he tried to inject anything about himself into the conversation, she would erupt. For instance, he would say something about the stresses and daily grind of being a cardiovascular surgeon, and she would cut him off mid-sentence and retort with something like, “Do you think it is easy to have sex with you? Well, you are wrong.” It was beyond comical. The highlight of the conversation was when he tried to interrupt, saying, “That is irrelevant.” At that point, the gold-digging, silicone-filled, plastic-looking shallow mistress gave the heart-transplant surgeon a 15-minute education on how “irrelevant” is not a word, and he should learn to speak better to avoid sounding ignorant. It was priceless! One of the funniest things I have ever heard.

During our six-month, dining-out opus, Holly and I invented a coping mechanism to help us survive. We referred to it as the “Button and Dial.” If someone was annoying us and we wanted to put him or her out of their misery, we had an imaginary button on the table we would hit. We imagined that when the button was pressed, a laser beam would come out from the ceiling and zap this insufferable person. It would be instant annihilation, no suffering. If someone was REALLY annoying, we would slowly turn an imaginary dial. It would zap him or her in a long, slow, agonizing manner. Much suffering was involved. He or she would slowly turn red, and you could see their skeleton and eyes light up, like a cartoon. It lasted for about 30 seconds. It was brutal, but some people deserved this.

I have had the opportunity to travel quite a bit throughout this country. And at the risk of sounding like I am trying to suck up to the restaurant community to get a free meal or two, I must say that for a town its size, Memphis has some wonderful restaurants and a wide selection of choices for even the most discriminating of palates. The vast majority of our meals were great, and my family started some dining traditions I hope we will continue when our kitchen renovation is finished.

Despite my grumblings, much positive came from my social experiment. After being embedded frontline in these eateries for six months, I have a newfound respect for the wait staff of this city. I can’t tell you how many times I saw a patron ask a waiter, “Will I like this?” And I can’t tell you how many times I wished the waiter would have said, “How the hell should I know what you like, lady?” But I never did hear this reply. Nor did I ever see a waiter mistreat a customer. Most were happy, friendly, and personable folks. In fact, I highly recommend that you dine out frequently and enjoy our city’s high-quality eating establishments. My only advice to you is not to do it (or anything else) for six months straight.

Greg Graber, a native Memphian, is a freelance writer and educator. His “Greg Graber Growl” column appeared on the Grizzlies’ NBA Web site for three years, and he was named “Best Self-Promoter” by the Flyer staff in the 2001 Best of Memphis issue. You can contact him at ggraber.blogspot.com.

Categories
Music Music Features

Three’s Company

Jem Cohen, the ascot-sporting bassist for the Ettes, has got it made. He gets to play energetic ’60s beat rock, and, as the only male in the band, he gets to spend a lot of time with two beautiful ladies and travel around in a psychedelic van solving mysteries. Okay, I made up the last part. Nonetheless, the L.A.-based trio with a vintage look and sound seems to be having a blast and getting along as they head into the final weeks of a two-month tour through Canada and the U.S. Drummer Poni Silver quips, “Ask us how well we’re getting along in another three weeks.”

All three members, including guitarist and frontwoman Coco Hames, are from the East Coast but didn’t meet until they were in Los Angeles. They are finding that La-la Land isn’t the easiest place for a retro-rocking, non-trendy group to survive.

“It’s hard because you’re competing against the sons and daughters of famous people who have all of these connections in the music business,” Cohen says. “Though the place is big enough for different styles, the scene is so fragmented.” Hames half-jokingly adds, “We tour all the time because everyone in Los Angeles is so industry.”

In 2004, Hames and Silver decided to form a band. Where the girl group in Dreamgirls drops the “-ettes” from their name, Hames wanted to embrace the feminine aspect of the name and “be the suffix.” After trying out a couple of girlfriends on bass, the two decided on Cohen, sacrificing the gender purity of the group for band chemistry. Cohen says, “One of the reasons we do get along so well is that we love the same music — Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, the Beatles.”

After months of rehearsal and songwriting, the Ettes decided to cut their first proper record. They aimed high and far away. They contacted Liam Watson, who had produced Billy Childish, Holly Golightly, and the White Stripes, and arranged to record at his Toe Rag Studios in London. The Ettes financed the trip themselves.

“We wanted to do it and didn’t think about what would happen next,” Hames remembers. In London, the group got to meet their musical idols, Childish and Golightly.

Soon after, the Ettes were able to convince the Sympathy for the Record Industry label to release their debut, Shake the Dust. Though the label is based in SoCal, many of its acts hail from Detroit or, in the case of Jack Yarber’s multiple projects, Memphis. In fact, Falling James Moreland, Courtney Love’s first husband and noted transvestite punk rocker/critic, recently wrote, “Let’s hope we don’t lose this ever-touring group to Detroit or Memphis. The Ettes fit in better with rootsy revisionists like the Detroit Cobras and the Oblivians than they do with most L.A. bands.” He might have good reason to be fearful. The Ettes are indeed looking for a nice place to relocate. According to Hames, the phrase “shake the dust” is about moving on from the past.

One place the Ettes are considering is Asheville, North Carolina. Hames’ folks live there, and it’s also the home of former Memphian Greg Cartwright and his band the Reigning Sound. The Ettes aren’t ashamed to admit their admiration for Cartwright’s music, both the Oblivians (which Cartwright was a member of along with Yarber and Goner Records’ Eric Friedl) and the Reigning Sound. The Ettes have even recorded a cover of the Reigning Sound’s “We Repel Each Other.” Their streamlined, poppier version lacks the raw power and emotional urgency of the original, but it does have a charm of its own.

Hames’ voice, equal parts Ye-Ye girl sweetness and party-gal rasp, is much better suited to Shake the Dust‘s low-key, melancholy closer, “I Wanna Go Home.” It would also seem to be a perfect match for “My Baby Cried All Night Long,” a Nancy Sinatra cover that the Ettes have been working into their live repertoire. Hames, in a stylish baby-doll dress, could easily be Nancy Sinatra’s understudy. The band’s impeccably mod fashion sense is evident not only in their publicity shots but offstage as well. Hames says, “I dress the part every day. People need to understand that it comes from my history as a debutante.”

To give you an idea of how many shows they have played on the recent tour, the Ettes’ upcoming show will be their second in Memphis this year. Even with the relentless touring schedule, Cohen seems more than content in his role as the Jack Tripper of the garage-rock set.

“We are excited about coming back to play,” Cohen says. “Everyone was very energetic in the audience, and we even attended a late-night dance party after the show.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

The Recipe

From The Healthy Memphis Blog: “If Santa left a pet hamster under your Christmas tree, you might want to know … pet rodents, including hamsters, are an underappreciated source of salmonella infections in humans.” The HMB failed to report that hamsters should never be served raw or rare and should be cooked until the internal temperature is at least 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Serve with pesto or a nice chimichurri sauce.

Headline of the Week

After reading The Commercial Appeal article about Michael Frick, recently named market president for Bank of America in Memphis, it became clear that the 48-year-old banker was indeed a rising star in the industry. And yet, “Frick A Rising Star in Banking” reads a little too much like a euphemistic personal ad.

King’s Crown

According to WHBQ, the family of Henry Weiss, D.D.S., will auction off a model of Elvis Presley’s teeth and a crown made especially for Presley. Let’s all hope and pray the King didn’t have a proctologist.

Headline of the Week II

A clever headline can be a thing of beauty, but who at the Memphis Daily News thought it was a good idea to title a brief about the Memphis Area Limb Loss Support Group, “Out on a Limb”? At least there was no mention of a “hoppin’ good time.”


Innocent!

Your Pesky Fly would like to thank everyone for their concern and for all the offers of cake, cookies, and conjugal visits. But when the CA reported that “Authorities have identified Christopher Davis, 20, of Memphis, as the alleged robber who was shot while trying to rip off an armored car,” it wasn’t me. Still, if any of those offers still stand, I do hate to see a good cookie go to waste.

Categories
Opinion

Criminal Confusion

In addition to the crime problem, the police and sheriff’s department have a trust problem and a communication problem.

Victims can’t get their 911 calls answered or routed promptly. Community watchdogs can’t get officers to respond to known trouble spots. Prosecutors can’t lock up all the violent criminals they convict. City Council members don’t necessarily believe additional cops would be deployed wisely and well, and they’re reluctant to raise property taxes to pay for them. And the federal investigation of police corruption, Operation Tarnished Blue, has taken a toll on public confidence.

These are the messages that come out of community forums, press conferences, and interviews with elected officials and crime experts. To use a football analogy, Mayor Willie Herenton and Police Director Larry Godwin are backed up inside their 20-yard line as they push for 650 more officers over the next three years and a property tax increase of at least 50 cents to pay for them.

A community forum hosted by councilwoman Carol Chumney last week in East Memphis produced these comments:

From a neighborhood leader, speaking to a police captain: “What can we do if we know there’s a problem and we can’t get you?”

From Sheriff Mark Luttrell on the 911 problem: “Bartlett, Memphis, and Shelby County each have separate 911 systems. Consolidating it is expensive. It will be two years until it will happen.”

From Chumney: “At a Crime Commission meeting two months ago, Director Godwin told me point-blank they did not need more officers.”

From Shelby County prosecutor Tom Henderson: “We [Tennessee] have some of the weakest gun laws in the United States. Our laws suck.”

From former Police Director Buddy Chapman, now head of Crime Stoppers: “A community suffers only as much crime as it is willing to.”

A police captain and an inspector from Central Precinct listened and responded for nearly three hours, as did Chumney, Luttrell, Henderson, and Chapman. But there was no consensus on what works to reduce crime and what should be done.

Chumney, a likely candidate for mayor in 2007, couldn’t resist the temptation to lecture Herenton and Godwin, who, not surprisingly, had declined her invitation to attend the event. She thinks the police department’s problem is management more than manpower. It’s a fact that Godwin has done a complete turnabout on overtime and more cops this year, and Herenton’s plan looked slapdash. His cost numbers, for example, are based on 500 cops, but he asked for 650. But Chumney’s political digs aren’t helping. The issue isn’t who was first; it’s what to do now.

Chapman’s comment seemed to blame the victims. Was he suggesting Memphians are apathetic? That they should arm themselves? Move away? Spring for 650 more cops? Hire 650 more teachers instead? He didn’t say.

Henderson, when pressed, said Memphis needs a lot more cops. But the veteran prosecutor also noted that his office handled 100,000 cases last year. Even with tougher laws and stiffer sentences, locking up all the bad guys would require another jail.

The one we have processed 53,000 people last year. Luttrell said he would ask for 35 to 40 more deputies in his next budget because calls for service are up. But when he fielded a question about why crime is currently on the rise, he lapsed into banalities about social inequities. Everyone knows Memphis has poverty, gangs, and injustice. The question is why people in the same circumstances decide to start or stop committing crimes. The “broken windows” approach to crime epidemics says that context matters and that smart policing and swift prosecution can significantly influence behavior.

The Memphis Police Department answered 540,000 service calls during the first eight months of 2006. Godwin has said the manpower shortage is so severe that lieutenants are responding to calls because no officers are available.

Asked about the proposed 650 new cops, Michael Heidingsfield, president of the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission, said, “It certainly can’t hurt, as long as they’re deployed properly. But the number of police is never the long-term solution.” He favors getting rid of the residency requirement but opposes relaxing the education standard. Corruption is a confidence killer, he said, and without public confidence “the cause is lost.”