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THE MEMPHIS FLYER is published weekly by Contemporary Media, Inc., P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101 Phone: (901) 521-9000 Fax: (901) 521-0129 memphisflyer.com
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Bluff City Love Stories
ree
Maybe
PHOTO: JUSTIN FOX BURKS
fly-by
MEM ernet
Memphis on the internet.
DANG
“I took it upon myself to study the faces of Memphis fans a er this [Isaiah Hartenstein] dunk and it was pure gold,” tweeted OKC under Gal during the Grizzlies loss to under last Saturday.
{WEEK THAT WAS
By Flyer staff
Questions, Answers + Attitude
Edited by Toby Sells
Student Ban, Music Fest, & Cannabis
A bill to bar undocumented children, concert takes a pause, and lots of legal moves on Mary Jane.
EXPORTS
SUPER TIGERS
“[University of Memphis] is now 4th alltime with 75 points scored in Super Bowl history!” Memphis Football posted to X a er Super Bowl LIX last weekend. ree former Tigers — Kenneth Gainwell, Bryce Hu , and Jake Elliott — suited up for the Philadelphia Eagles in the game.
SHOWBOATIN’
If you’re sad to see football’s end, the Memphis Showboats got you. eir UFL season kicks o at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium on March 30th against the Michigan Panthers. Go Boats!
e Memphis area exported about $1.4 billion worth of goods to its top three international markets — Mexico, China, and Canada — in 2023, but e ects of tari s threatened by President Donald Trump aren’t yet known. e report from the U.S.-China Business Council (UCBC) also found that Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, which covers most of Memphis and parts of Tipton County, exported about $537 million worth of services to its top six international trading partners. ose include Canada at the top and China at sixth.
STUDENT BAN
Lawmakers hope to hold Elon Musk accountable in Tennessee; Memphis-area exports totaled $1.4 billion in goods to Mexico, Canada, and China last year.
Tennessee Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow school districts to deny undocumented students from enrolling. e bill, introduced last week by Tennessee House Majority Leader Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland) and state Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson), would directly challenge more than 40 years of precedent set by a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe.
MUSIC FEST PAUSE
e Beale Street Music Festival (BSMF) will not return this summer, but leaders said last week they are working to stage a festival in 2026. Leaders cited “major challenges since” Covid as one reason for the pause. All other Memphis in May International Festival events are a go this year.
DEMS AIM AT ELON
Last week state House Democratic Leader Rep. Karen Camper (D-Memphis) asked Tennessee General Attorney Jonathan Skrmetti and the District Attorneys General Conference to investigate Elon Musk’s “potential unauthorized access and misuse of sensitive federal data.”
Meanwhile, state Sen. Je Yarbro (D-Nashville) and state Rep. Jason Powell (D-Nashville) led a bill to “hold people accountable for unlawfully interfering with the distribution of government bene ts that Tennessee families rely on.”
SWATTING AT LAUSANNE
e police presence at Lausanne Collegiate School last week was believed to be the result of swatting, school o cials
said in an email obtained by the Flyer. Swatting is the act of making prank calls to emergency services to dispatch a large number of o cers to a speci c location.
e O ce of Veterans A airs received a call implying that a male was “contemplating committing an act of self-harm.” ey added that the school was pinged as the location of the call, even though the male said “they were ‘at home.’” Police were sent to the school and determined there was no threat on campus. Law enforcement then traced the call and number to a female at a school in South Memphis. A similar situation happened at White Station High School last ursday.
CANNABEAT MIXED BAGGIE
e sale of popular hemp products will remain legal in Tennessee until at least June, when a legal challenge to state rules that would outlaw many best-selling products goes to trial in Nashville.
• Cannabis would be legal for recreational and medical uses in Tennessee next year if the Tennessee General Assembly passes either of two similar bills led by Democrats last week. e bills really only di er on how the tax revenue would be spent.
• Two new bills led for the upcoming session of the Tennessee General Assembly would outright ban the sale of THCA products. However, another bill, also led by Republicans, would outright legalize all “smoking hemp.” Nashville Banner and Tennessee Lookout contributed to this report. Visit the News Blog at memphis yer.com for fuller versions of these stories and more local news.
PHOTO: (INSET) GREATER MEMPHIS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE; (ABOVE) JON SPARKS
Crosstown Situation {
CITY REPORTER
By Kailynn Johnson
An incident led to accusations of racism and escalated into injuries and arrests.
Questions remain a er an incident at Global Cafe in Crosstown Concourse last week sparked anger online over videos showing Memphis Police Department (MPD) o cers’ response to the situation.
It started when an employee at Global Cafe asked Rachael Spriggs to leave. When she refused, the employee called police and alerted Crosstown security.
e scene spilled out into the street in front of Crosstown where a crowd shouted at police and lmed them. e situation got physical, which resulted in reported injuries and arrests.
Neither Crosstown Concourse nor Global Cafe responded for comment.
e Equity Alliance, a Tennesseebased nonpro t organization, posted on Instagram they were aware of the situation involving Spriggs, the agency’s director of powerbuilding. “We are actively gathering details and will provide updates as we learn more. Stay tuned for more information,” the post said.
Spriggs went live on Facebook last Tuesday in a video captioned, “Global
Cafe in Crosstown is a good idea in theory but they are racist as sh*t!” Spriggs later said she had not patronized the business in months but “did not want to make a statement because of [her] support for their mission.”
In the video, Spriggs and an employee had a verbal altercation. As Spriggs spoke to the camera the employee told her she needed to leave or he would call the cops.
“Why would you jump on this disabled woman? Why would you do that?”
e employee said Spriggs was not welcome there. Spriggs said he had no power to claim that. Another person was heard to say that Spriggs was escalating the situation, to which she said she wanted him to call the police so she could “bring attention to his racist behavior.”
Spriggs told viewers that the police had been called. Minutes later Spriggs showed
the police showing up, who asked her to come outside.
A Crosstown o cer told her she was being barred for “being disruptive” a er “refusing to leave the establishment.”
As Spriggs continued to speak on her live feed, she said, “Aye, don’t touch me, mane,” as an MPD o cer pulled on her jacket. e phone was dropped, and picked up by a police o cer. Before the live feed ended, Spriggs asked why she couldn’t have her phone, to which an ofcer replied that she was being detained.
“Why would you jump on this disabled woman? Why would you do that?” she yelled. “What the hell?”
e situation escalated as a crowd gathered at Crosstown’s main entrance, where police cruisers were parked. Facebook user Brittney King posted a live video showing a crowd form around Spriggs, who was in MPD custody.
An o cer then touched a woman’s arm. e woman was identi ed as Shahidah Jones. Onlookers told the o cer to get their hands o Jones. A woman tried to intervene; an o cer shoved her, pushing both her and Jones to the ground. Another woman, recording the video, repeatedly yelled that Jones is disabled.
Amber Sherman, a local political strategist, posted a video and said police were trying to charge those involved with assaulting an o cer. e caption said four local organizers were arrested including General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer.
Sawyer released a statement through her Instagram in which she said she had no comment on the MPD situation.
“I am focused on healing from my injuries and have retained Attorney Ben Crump as legal counsel,” Sawyer said in a statement. “In the meantime, I remain committed to serving the people of Shelby County and will continue executing my duties as General Sessions Court Clerk with the same dedication I have shown since my rst day in o ce.”
PHOTO:
POLITICS By Jackson Baker
Political Dominoes
Trying to imagine the consequences if either or both of Tennessee’s U.S. senators run for governor.
To remind the faithful readers of this space: In our year-end issue, we o ered forecasts about the shape of things to come in the political arena.
PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE
FEBRUARY 23, 2:00PM
FEBRUARY 21 + 22, 7:30PM
Winter Mix showcases two new commissions and the reprise of an audience favorite — featuring rising Filipino-American choreographer Durante Verzola in his first commission for Ballet Memphis, the newest installment for our American Music Project choreographed by company artist Emilia Sandoval, and a revival of Trey McIntyre’s The Barramundi danced to versions of David Bowie songs.
One circumstance noted for the record was the fact that both of Tennessee’s incumbent U.S. senators — Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty — would strongly consider running for governor in 2026. at is what our pipeline said, and that is what we reported, even though it seemed passing strange, even to us. Why? Because the customary rites of passage ow in the opposite direction — with the gubernatorial o ce more o en serving as a springboard for Senate, than vice versa. at is de nitely the pattern in our neighboring state of Arkansas, where such eminent recent members of the Senate as Dale Bumpers and David Pryor (both now deceased) served what amounted to apprenticeships as governor before going on to become senators.
competitive race between the two, but, my, wouldn’t that be an attention-grabber!
More likely, forces in the Republican Establishment — most notably Donald Trump — would probably dictate the choice of one over the other. (Either could make a plausible claim of loyalty to the president and to the MAGA agenda.)
And, given the high probability of success for the ultimate GOP nominee, one can imagine a domino-like chain reaction of opportunities opening up for other upwardly mobile Tennessee Republicans.
If Hagerty makes a governor’s race, he could either run for both governor and reelection as senator simultaneously, or go ahead and shed his Senate seat (his term would expire in 2026, anyhow) while campaigning for governor. In that latter eventuality, a race for his departed seat would occur in 2026, with a high probability that 8th District Congressman David Kusto would be a candidate.
To be sure, ambitions may gure di erently in the Land of Opportunity than in the Volunteer State, but Lamar Alexander ran rst for governor and then for senator. And one recalls the unhappy, arguably tragic fate of Democrat Frank Clement, who served several terms as the state’s governor before meeting his Waterloo in two successive failed runs for the Senate.
(Interestingly, Clement’s second andnal failed try, in 1966, resulted in the election to the Senate of Republican Howard Baker — the forerunner of what, in the course of time, would become the wall-towall ubiquity of GOP state o cials.)
In any case, both of Tennessee’s current Republican senators have oated unmistakable trial balloons regarding gubernatorial races in 2026, and both seem dead serious. It may be far-fetched to imagine a
Kusto ’s seat, in turn, might then well be targeted by, say, the preternaturally ambitious state Senator Brent Taylor, in which case his seat would open as well, with possible aspirants for it including former city councilmen Kemp Conrad and Frank Colvett, and maybe even state Rep. Mark White. (A White race would create yet another vacancy and another domino.)
If Blackburn runs and wins, she would keep her Senate seat until being sworn in, in which case either she or a lame-duck Bill Lee would appoint a temporary Senate successor, with a special election for a permanent senator to be held in 2028. e same sort of sequence as mentioned above for a Hagerty win might then occur, involving the same or a similar cast of characters, though everything would happen at a later remove in time.
Got all that straight, gentle reader? Probably not, though it could be worse. ere are other permutations and possible complications we’re sparing you from. e bottom line is that some shock and awe seems certain for the state’s political calendar in 2026, along with a potentially dizzy round of dominoes.
And who knows? Maybe some as yet unknown Democrat comes out of nowhere to spoil the party at some point along the succession line.
PHOTOS: UNITED STATES SENATE, PUBLIC DOMAIN | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (le ) Marsha Blackburn; (right) Bill Hagerty
Safe Spending
How to engage in — and enjoy — good budgeting.
D
o you sometimes feel like your spending is out of control? Trust me when I say you’re not alone if you answered yes to that question. It can be overwhelming to try to gain more control over your spending, and it doesn’t help that in ation is making the cost of everything more expensive.
Fortunately, there are ways to manage your spending that are relatively painless (and perhaps even fun!). e key is to implement strategies rooted in behavioral research that trigger positive and repeatable budgeting habits. e following tips can help.
1. Set small goals you can achieve in the near term.
O entimes, people try to start by focusing on a few long-term goals, but this can sometimes lead to feeling overwhelmed and like you seemingly can’t make any tangible progress. One of the best ways to stay motivated is by setting small, achievable goals and knocking them out one a er another. For example, set a goal of adding $20 to $50 per week to your emergency savings account. Each week, congratulate yourself for making this contribution. is small goal can help you feel good about your e orts and motivate you to do more. Once this weekly savings goal has become a habit, add another small goal to the mix, such as increasing your 401(k) contribution by 1 to 2 percent. Over time, you’ll be excited to witness the impact these small e orts have on your overall savings and nancial outlook.
2. Don’t lose sight of the long term. While small, short-term goals are important, you don’t want to lose sight of your long-term goals. One of the best ways to avoid doing so is to establish a nancial plan. Having a nancial plan is essential to setting, understanding and achieving your long-term goals. A nancial plan can help increase your level of con dence and comfort, identify gaps in your current savings and investments, encourage more constructive nancial behavior, and protect your wealth and loved ones. Routinely revisiting your nancial plan at least once per year also provides an opportunity for you to take a step back, look at the big picture, and see the cumulative positive impact that all those small goals you’ve achieved have had. Ultimately, a good nancial plan puts you in control of your future.
3. Provide yourself with peace of mind. One of the best motivators to continue
PHOTO: SASUN BUGHDARYAN | UNSPLASH Make your budgeting habits fun.
your smart spending and saving habits is the peace of mind that comes with nancial stability. Perhaps that peace of mind is paying o your credit card debt. Maybe it’s successfully saving six months’ worth of expenses in an emergency fund or having a plan in place to pay for your child’s college education.
Whatever your goals may be, when you nally achieve them, relish the peace of mind that comes with that accomplishment and use it as motivation to continue pursuing your other nancial goals.
4. Stop obsessing.
As the old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” And unless you happen to win the lottery, it’s quite likely your nancial plan won’t be miraculously “built” in one day either. ere’s no reason to check in on your accounts every day (or even every week). Witnessing short-term uctuations in your account balance can be unsettling at best and downright anxiety-causing at worst. ese uneasy feelings may lead you to make a rash decision that could quickly derail your nancial plan, such as selling an investment at a loss or holding too much cash.
As long as you have a diversi ed investment portfolio that’s in line with your risk tolerance, time horizon, and future goals, you don’t have to obsess over every market dip. Plus, if you’re working with a quali ed wealth manager, he or she is keeping an eye on your investments and looking for strategic opportunities like these to help improve your long-term outlook. Try to relax and let your investments work for you, not against you.
Gene Gard, CFA, CFP, CFT-I, is a Partner and Private Wealth Manager with Creative Planning. Creative Planning is one of the nation’s largest Registered Investment Advisory rms providing comprehensive wealth management services to ensure all elements of a client’s nancial life are working together, including investments, taxes, estate planning, and risk management. For more information or to request a free, no-obligation consultation, visit CreativePlanning.com.
Whether you’re looking to update your current home or you’ve found your forever home, we can help. Contact us today or apply online for mortgages, home equity loans, and home equity lines of credit.
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Consolidate your balances, make one monthly payment, and take advantage of no balance transfer fees with our Visa® Platinum credit card. Apply online, by phone, or at your local Southeast Financial branch.
By Bruce VanWyngarden
Donald. Eric. Ivanka.
Seleccione el idioma que desea usar.
Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. ose three words are making a lot of people angry these days. And that’s part of the plan. anks to the new president and his minions, the shorthand version, “DEI,” has become one of the key weapons in the latest campaign to distract Americans from real issues by getting them angry at each other because of race and gender.
Trump was clear about it during his campaign: “I think there is a de nite antiwhite feeling in this country,” he said. “I think the laws are very unfair right now.” at message went straight to the heart of his core followers, those inclined to also believe that lazy, white-hating brown people were eating cats and dogs — the beloved pets of real Americans.
Hate and ignorance are a powerful combination, and those a icted with it are easily manipulated. “DEI” is now racist code for “smart white men are being replaced by incompetent Black, brown, female, and LGBTQ people.” DEI was blamed for the California wild res, the mid-air collision over the Potomac River, the ooding in North Carolina, you name it.
I was moved to ponder all this yesterday, as I pulled up to my bank’s drive-through ATM and read these words: “Please select the language you wish to use. Por favor, seleccione el idioma que desea usar.” e ATM screen has o ered that option for years, maybe even decades, but now I guess it’s become o ensive to some folks. A dang woke ATM.
But take a moment to think about why that option is there. It’s not because it was mandated by the government. It’s there because a bank — not exactly a woke institution — decided to put it there. And they did it because it was good for business to o er customers the opportunity to use a language that might make it easier for them to do their banking. It was a business decision.
ere have been many studies on DEI and its in uence on corporate and institutional America. Some ndings: Corporations identi ed as more diverse and inclusive are 35 percent more likely to outperform their competitors. Diverse companies are 70 percent more likely to capture new markets. Diverse teams are 87 percent better at making decisions. Diverse management teams lead to 19 percent higher revenue. Companies employing an equal number of men and women manage to produce up to 41 percent higher revenue. e GDP could increase 26 percent by equally diversifying
the workforce. Gender-diverse companies are 15 percent more likely to notice higher nancial returns. I could cite references for all of the above, but you know how to google. Bottom line: DEI is good for the bottom line.
Also consider: It was not until 1959 that the then-named Memphis State University allowed Black students to attend. It wasn’t until 1969 that the Ivy League schools began accepting women. (Harvard held o until 1975.) It wasn’t until the 1960s that many Black Americans were able to get into a voting booth in the South.
And it wasn’t until 1974, when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act came into e ect, that women in the U.S. could get a credit card or a bank account. e ECOA made it illegal for nancial institutions to discriminate based on sex, and later extended that right to anyone, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, age, or receipt of public assistance. In 2011, in the wake of the 2008 nancial crisis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was created to ensure banks and lending companies complied with the ECOA and didn’t defraud their customers.
On Sunday, Russell Vought, the newly installed director of the O ce of Management and Budget, directed the CFPB to stop any investigative work and not begin any new investigations. Consumer protection from business scams is now “woke,” apparently.
Legislative protections against discrimination toward minority groups have proven to be an essential tool for leveling the playing eld in business, education, and other elements of American life. Getting rid of DEI is just another variation of the GOP’s grievance-based politics, another sop for those who think white people are getting screwed. And they are, just not in the way they think they are. Maybe it would help if they took a second to think about those three words — diversity, equity, inclusion — and decide which ones they’re opposed to, and why.
PHOTO: BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN A dang woke ATM.
BLUFF CITY
THREE MEMPHIS COUPLES SHARE HOW THEIR ROMANCES STARTED AND ENDURE.
PHOTO: JUSTIN FOX BURKS Patrick + Deni
By Flyer staff
Love is in the air, so they say every time Valentine’s Day rolls around, but isn’t love always in the air? At least, we nd that to be the case a er delving into these three Memphis couples’ love stories. With class president battles, spilled spaghetti, and utes and pianos, these stories are, dare we say, better than any rom-com.
Deni + Patrick
Patrick and Deni Reilly are at work together every day. Patrick is the chef and they’re both owners of three restaurants: e Majestic Grille, Cocozza American Italian, and the upcoming Cocozza American Italian location in East Memphis.
ey remember when they met. Patrick, who is from Dublin, was general manager at the Gibson Lounge at the old Gibson Guitar Factory. Deni, who is from New Jersey, worked with DoubleTree hotels. Sean Costello introduced them at his concert in 2001 at the Gibson Lounge.
“I was pretty smitten,” Deni says. “I thought he was pretty cute.”
“I said we should go out to lunch sometime,” Patrick says. “And she leaned over and kissed me. And I said, ‘Or maybe dinner.’”
“I gave him my number,” Deni says. ey began dating. Deni remembers when her parents visited Memphis and met Patrick for the rst time. Her mother told Deni’s sister, “She’s in love.”
“I was headed in that direction,” Deni says.
“It’s one of those things,” Patrick says. “We were friends for a while. en we dated for awhile. We broke up for awhile. I was divorced and I was really gun-shy about another relationship, so it took a minute. I don’t know when I knew, but I knew when I made that commitment. And that was a couple of years later.”
Popping the question back red at rst, Patrick recalls. “I had a plan. I was going to propose at McEwen’s.”
He was all set to propose. “I had the ring, which my friend Suzanne Hamm helped me pick out, and I had it all arranged in my head.”
ey went to dinner. “But for some reason they kind of rushed us out. ey dropped the check on us really fast.”
So, Patrick didn’t have time to propose.
And, Deni says, “I also spilled spaghetti sauce all over my shirt.”
Patrick then came up with Plan B. e Christmas tree was still up at the Peabody Hotel, so he suggested they have a drink in the lobby. He thought that would be “a fun romantic spot” to ask for Deni’s hand.
PHOTO: COURTESY DAVID SHOTSBERGER
David + Holly
But, he says, “ ere was a re alarm or something and 200 people in their pajamas with blankets in the lobby. It was so strange. We ended up going home.”
“He lit the re and some candles, took the ring out of his pocket and said, ‘Here,’” Deni says.
Patrick told her, “I’ve been trying to give you this all night.”
“I think I laughed and kissed him and said, ‘Yes,’” Deni says.
— Michael Donahue
Holly + David
Music brought them together, and their music remains decades on.
“We met in piano class,” says David Shotsberger.
It was a mandatory class for serious music students on the campus of Penn State University, piano pro ciency. In it, students sat at their own keyboards, listening to themselves on headphones. e professor could select which student to hear and speak to with a special headphone setup. A few keyboards away from his own, Shotsberger saw another student named Holly.
“I noticed her, and the professor noticed me noticing her and told me — through the headphones — to pay attention to the lesson,” Shotsberger says, laughing. at was 1993.
Holly studied ute performance.
David studied music composition and theory. He was a hometown guy, from right there in State College. She was from Pittsburgh. ey became friends.
“I noticed her, and the professor noticed me noticing her and told me … to pay attention to the lesson.”
Memphis felt like an exciting adventure at the time.”
ey stuck together, relied on each other, established Memphis as home base, and made friends. Memphis was temporary, anyway. Who knew where they’d end up a er David nished his doctorate program?
Turned out, Memphis had plans for David and Holly. He earned a one-year appointment at the U of M and later became the director of operations for the Memphis Symphony Orchestra for a couple of years. Holly worked as a speech language pathologist in early intervention clinics in Marion, Arkansas. David is now the creative director for Advent Presbyterian Church and directs the jazz band and teaches music technology at Rhodes College. e couple raised two children together, and Holly now works as a speech language pathologist in the Memphis-Shelby County Schools.
Memphis and music have remained constants in David and Holly’s lives and relationship over two decades here.
“For sure it’s about the people that we’ve met here,” Holly says.
“Memphis has brought many dear friends that we’ve done life with for 25 years or so. ey’re family now. So, that makes Memphis home.”
About a year later, they ran into each other on campus and agreed on a date. Dinner was at the then-Penn-Statefamous Gingerbread Man (or G-Man). e restaurant closed in 2014 to make way for Primanti Brothers, an iconic Pittsburgh sandwich shop and bar. Whatever David and Holly talked about on that rst date stuck, and that conversation almost certainly included music. For years, the couple would talk about music, play music together, and go to shows together. Holly would travel with, occasionally sing with, and sell merch for David’s family’s traveling gospel and country group, New Life. e two stayed together and married in 1998 at the Eisenhower Chapel right on the campus of Penn State. at was May. By July, David had selected the University of Memphis for his doctoral work and the couple relocated to the Blu City. By then, Holly earned a master’s degree in speech language pathology and a job hunt in a new city loomed.
“ I think when you’re that young, you’re just a little bit more adventurous, maybe, willing to go do new things and go to new places when you know no one there,” she says. “So, moving to
ey still play music together and know each other in a special way that only musicians can. David says Holly is the person he’s played music with the longest, around 32 years or thereabouts.
“She’s one of the best musicians I’ve ever met in my life,” David says.
— Toby Sells
Patricia + Anthony
In high school, Anthony and Patricia Lockhart ran against each other for class president. Patricia won, but Anthony, to this day, claims it was rigged.
“Now that is slightly true,” admits Patricia. “I think the principal had something to do with it. I didn’t get the popular vote, but I got the teacher vote.”
Still, that didn’t stop Anthony from asking her out once they were at the University of Memphis. “ e light hit my skin just right one day,” she says. Anthony says they were distant friends and he wanted to see where things would go, so he looked up her email address in the campus directory.
“She sent her number back real quick,” he says.
For their rst date, they went to McAllister’s Deli and the movies at the Malco Paradiso. Neither of them can remember what movie they saw, but they know it was a good rst date and they know it was March 2005, an
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anniversary they still celebrate today.
“I’m forced to do that,” Anthony says, to which Patricia replies, “Oh my gosh, you are not forced; you are highly recommended to comply.”
By November, Patricia had moved into Anthony’s, and by April, Anthony proposed. A year later, they were married. “ is is not a story we recommend of our kids ’cause this is just the way the cookie crumbled for us,” Patricia says. “My aunties even were like, ‘Patricia, wait ve years.’ And I didn’t see the point in waiting because I knew that I was going to be with him.”
“We had fun. We wanted to do everything together,” Anthony says. “We had a great time growing and experiencing each other. It was like we were progressing together. We had a lot of rsts together.”
“If I were to give advice to people, I would say the person that you married is going to change,” Patricia says. “ e Anthony that’s sitting beside me is di erent from the Anthony — in some ways, not a whole lot of ways — that I married, that I started dating 20 years ago. His views have changed; taste buds have changed. And it’s all about loving a person through their changes, and Anthony has seriously loved me through all of my quirky changes and mood swings, especially with hormones and having kids —
all of the things.”
“Communication is de nitely necessary, either good or bad,” Anthony adds. “[You need to] have an open mind and communication.”
Today, Patricia, an assistant principal and writer (sometimes for the Flyer), and Anthony, a site inspector for the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development, are parents to four children: Eve (11), Elijah (13), Elliott (13), and Aiden (16). e kids say their favorite parts of their parents’ marriage are their humor, how well they get along, and “the way dad looks down at mom and [she] looks up at [him] when [they’re] in the kitchen standing close to each other.” And Eve, especially, likes that she can poke fun at them.
“We’re a big family, and we enjoy each other, like genuinely enjoy being around each other,” Patricia says. “And what I love about being a parent with Anthony is that I could walk in and be like, ‘I’m a 20 percent parent today. at’s it.’ And he’s just like, ‘Okay, I got 60, and 80 is enough for today.’”
“I think parenting de nitely helps you kind of grow a little bit,” Anthony adds. But in between parenting and working, the two also know to make time for each other, to date each other. “I’ll be at work, and sometimes being an assistant principal is extra, extra stressful,” Patricia says. “I’ll get this calendar alert and it’s him putting a date on my calendar.” — Abigail Morici
PHOTO: COURTESY PATRICIA LOCKHART Anthony + Patricia
steppin’ out
We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews
Trolling!
By Abigail Morici
As of February 1st, the trolls have arrived at Memphis Botanic Garden. How they got there, no one knows, but they’re here to save the humans as part of a secret pact. So the story goes — or at least omas Dambo’s story. He’s the artist behind the larger-than-life Ronja Redeye, Kamma Can, Rosa Sun nger, Sofus Lotus, Ibbi Pip, and Basse Buller, who have taken up residence at the garden as part of the “Trolls: Save the Humans” seasonal exhibition, on display through May 21st.
Made of reclaimed wood and natural found materials, Dambo’s trolls are scattered across the world, some in permanent installation. e one closest to Memphis is Leo the Enlightened at the Blackberry Mountain Resort in Walland, Tennessee.
Dambo has been making these trolls since 2014, and in 2023 he made his 100th. Growing up in Denmark, his parents, a bicycle smith and a teacher/seamstress, instilled in him a passion for recycling and upcycling, so he and his brother made their own toys, costumes, and tree houses out of the things they found. As he grew older, he turned his creativity to street art and gra ti, beatboxing, hip-hop, and eventually the large-scale installations that would catapult him into international fame and convey his love for sustainability, as he would only use recycled and found materials. e trolls especially fall into that mission, says Gina Harris, Memphis Botanic Garden’s director of education and events. “ ey are sharing information on how to live more lightly on our Earth, which is part of the botanic garden’s mission as well — being good stewards of our environment.”
Harris hopes Dambo’s trolls inspire a similar call to action. “It’s another opportunity for kids and adults to be able to look at things kind of in a di erent way,” she says. “We all see these things laying around, but to look at this and think, ‘Oh my gosh, that was built out of recycled pallets,’ I’m hoping that that gives people an opportunity to stop and think maybe there’s an opportunity to do something di erent and to be creative.”
“Any of the events that we’ll have going on are going to be connected somehow to the trolls exhibit,” Harris adds. at includes tram tours that’ll take guests to see the trolls throughout the gardens, Troll Stroll Saturdays, a Troll Garden Party for adults, art classes, and much more.
For more information, including program scheduling and troll pro les, visit membg.org/trolls.
“TROLLS: SAVE THE HUMANS,” MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN, 750
VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES February 13th - 19th
Reception for Tributaries: “Rachel David | Engorging Eden” Metal Museum, 374 Metal Museum, Sunday, February 16, 3-5 p.m.
is solo exhibition by Rachel David is a love letter to forms that function, suggesting that as we connect with objects, these relationships can evolve into love or dependency. Her work presents furniture as a fragmented expression of life’s chaos, horrors, and joys. By infusing these o en overlooked pieces with conceptual narratives, she transforms them into interactive, thought-provoking elements beyond their functional role.
Created in the wake of Hurricane Helene, much of this body of work re ects Asheville’s climate-changedriven devastation, with David sourcing 85 percent of the materials from a scrapyard in Asheville, NC.
“Engorging Eden” is on display through May 11th.
Love on the Rocks
Elmwood Cemetery, 824 South Dudley Street, Saturday, February 15, noon-1:30 p.m., $20 Bundle up with Elmwood Cemetery and take a wintertime walk through the grounds to hear tales of love (and love gone wrong) from days gone by. The residents have their own love stories to tell through the legacies they left behind, from the madams who sacrificed their lives for the greater good; to a pair of lovers infamously known as Alice and Freda; to a tempestuous murderess who married seven times, killing three husbands. Love takes different forms, and this tour explores many of those expressions.
Elmwood’s director of family services Bob Barnett will host this walking tour.
Hamilton
Orpheum eatre, 203 South Main, Wednesday, February 19-March 2, $56.50+
Hamilton is the epic saga that follows the rise of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton as he ghts for honor, love, and a legacy that would shape the course of a nation. Based on Ron Chernow’s acclaimed biography and set to a score that blends hip-hop, jazz, R&B, and Broadway, Hamilton has had a profound impact on culture, politics, and education.
Hamilton features book, music, and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, direction by omas Kail, choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler, and musical supervision and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire. In addition to its 11 Tony Awards, it has won a Grammy, Olivier Awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and an unprecedented special citation from the Kennedy Center Honors.
CHERRY ROAD, THROUGH MAY 21ST.
PHOTO: ABIGAIL MORICI Ronja Redeye
MUSIC By Alex Greene
The Drip Edges
Jeremy
Scott leads his merrymen through a punkish power pop utopia.
Many know Jeremy Scott through his work with the now-defunct Reigning Sound, but there’s a lot more to this rock-and-roll lifer’s music career than that. A er leaving that band for the rst time (before the original group re-formed and then split again in this decade), he went on to found e Wallendas (featuring guitar pyrotechnics from Jim Duckworth), followed by Toy Trucks, e Subtractions, and a million ad hoc projects like the all-star tribute to Doug Sahm that he organized last month. (Full disclosure, I played with him in some of these groups.) One common thread through all of these has been the presence of the gritty, indie rock energy he o en showcases on his weekly radio show on WEVL, Out On the Side, marked by a close attention to vocal harmonies.
at was also true for the rst album under his own name, 2022’s Bear Grease, which he pieced together with multi-instrumentalist/engineer Graham Burks Jr. through the magic of overdubs. As the Flyer observed at the time, “though he started with acoustic intentions, he couldn’t help but let his rock instincts take over.” And, as that unfolded, the album took on a hardrocking edge that required a full band.
And thus were the Drip Edges born, as Scott added Noel Clark on guitar and Mitchell Manley on bass to create a team that could present the album in a live setting. Now, with the release of their new EP, Kicking the Tires on the Clown Car, the quartet has come into its own. I spoke to Scott last week to see how this release compares to his solo debut.
Hüsker Dü was so formative for me. I can listen to them whenever. It all holds up.
Memphis Flyer: e song “Dirty Sound” on the new EP seems the most like Bear Grease, and it’s the only acoustic-driven song on the record. You’ve said this new release was recorded by the Drip Edges as a band, but is that true for “Dirty Sound”?
Jeremy Scott: at’s 97 percent me, and Graham helped with the percussion tracks.
PHOTO: GEORGE HANCOCK e Drip Edges; (inset) the new EP
So that’s the only track done in the manner of Bear Grease?
Yes, it is. I put all the harmonies on. And Graham’s got a Mellotron, and I was playing around with it. And I’m like, “Well, maybe you can put some of this on?” Because he put Mellotron on “Fred Neil Armstrong” on the rst record. And then he was like, “Well, why don’t you just do it?” I’m like, “Are you sure? People could get hurt!” But it wound up sounding not awful. en there are weird things in there that sound almost like a trombone in spots. at’s just me on the guitar, running it through this pedal called a Slow Engine. Sometimes it can make it sound a little bit like a backwards guitar. It’s a pretty cool device.
You’ve certainly leaned into the hard rock elements of Bear Grease on this new release, but they’re revved up more, played by a seasoned band. I hear a lot of Hüsker Dü’s influence on some of the tracks.
Yeah. Hüsker Dü was so formative for me. Okay, I heard the Replacements rst, and I dug them, but I got really burned out on the Replacements, and now I don’t really feel like I ever need to listen to them. Ever. at’s not their problem, that’s mine. Hüsker Dü, I can listen to whenever. It all holds up. And
the one that really bit me in the ass was [1985 album] New Day Rising at was a great combination of power and melody. at whole run from Metal Circus through Zen Arcade is so amazing. But New Day Rising is probably my personal favorite.
What exactly has stayed with you from those records, as you’ve written your own songs?
Just the songwriting combined with that guitar sound. And I picked up some things here and there from Bob Mould’s guitar style. Like, I was listening to the intro to the rst song of ours — “Everything’s Gonna Have to Be Alright” — and thinking it probably sounds a little bit more like Sugar [Mould’s post-Hüsker Dü band]. Even though I didn’t have that Rat [distortion] pedal and the other stu he used.
e intro to another song, “Nobody Wants to Drive,” almost sounds like Ratt, the band. e crunch and darker chord changes are a little more metal. at one actually is probably more in uenced by Sugar. And that one is funny because that started o when I was still doing the Toy Trucks band. We tried playing that song, but it was
more like a really energetic, forceful waltz. It was in 6/8, and the chorus was the same, but the verse was entirely di erent — di erent melody, di erent lyrics. And I came back to it with these guys, thought about a little bit, and I’m like, “What the hell am I doing here?” So I just decided to make it 4/4, to make it more of a straightforward thing.
e band seems to really relish playing an outright rocker.
It’s a testament to how these guys can put a song over, and it’s good playing with these younger guys that have that energy. I mean, nobody’s going to confuse me with a spring chicken at this point. I guess I’m a little bit more of a winter chicken.
e Drip Edges will play a record release show at the Lamplighter Lounge on Saturday, February 15th, at 3 p.m. Joecephus & e George Jonestown Massacre will open.
AFTER DARK: Live Music Schedule February 13 - 19
Van Duren
Baunie & Soul
Sunday, Feb. 16, 6:30 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
Flic’s Pics Band
Led by the legendary Leroy “Flic” Hodges of Hi Rhythm.
Sunday, Feb. 16, 2 p.m.
B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB
FreeWorld
Friday, Feb. 14, 7 p.m. |
Saturday, Feb. 15, 7 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
FreeWorld
Sunday, Feb. 16, 8 p.m.
BLUES CITY CAFE
Rockin’ 88’s
Monday, Feb. 17, 11:30 p.m.
BLUES CITY CAFE
Soul St. Mojo
Wednesday, Feb. 19, 7 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
The B.B. King’s Blues Club Allstar Band
Friday, Feb. 14, 8 p.m. |
Saturday, Feb. 15, 8 p.m.
B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB
Vince Johnson
Monday, Feb. 17, 6:30 p.m. |
Tuesday, Feb. 18, 6:30 p.m.
RUM BOOGIE CAFE
Club Haus
e ultimate house music event of 2025 — unmatched energy, incredible DJs, and mesmerizing visuals. $20/ general admission, $15/early bird. Saturday, Feb. 15, 7 p.m.-
2 a.m.
THE CADRE BUILDING
Last Chance Jug Band
Sunday, Feb. 16, 3 p.m.
HUEY’S DOWNTOWN
The Central BBQ Sessions
Great food and smokin’ tunes by Miz Stefani. Saturday, Feb. 15, 6-8:30 p.m. CENTRAL BBQ
John Williams & the A440 Band
ursday, Feb. 13, 8 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
The Deb Jam Band
Tuesday, Feb. 18, 6 p.m.
NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM
The Pretty Boys
Sunday, Feb. 16, 3 p.m.
HUEY’S POPLAR
Valentine’s Day with Kortland Whalum
Join the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, with special guest Kortland Whalum, for a night of music and romance. Tickets include a post-concert reception with champagne and desserts. $40-$100. Friday, Feb. 14, 8 p.m.
SCHEIDT FAMILY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
e singer-songwriter, a pioneer of indie pop in Memphis, performs solo. ursday, Feb. 13, 6:30-8:30 p.m. MORTIMER’S
Zazerac Soul Jazz Trio
Saturday, Feb. 15, 9 p.m. BOG & BARLEY
Alexis Grace Valentine’s Day Show
With special guests Raneem and MROSE. Friday, Feb. 14, 9 p.m. BAR DKDC
Amy Lavere & Will Sexton
Saturday, Feb. 15, 5-7 p.m.
BAR DKDC
A Romantic Jazz Night with Darryl Evan Jones’ Instrumental Soul
An unforgettable evening of romance and melody awaits as Darryl Evan Jones takes the stage to captivate hearts with his one-of-a-kind “instrumental soul” style. $15/ general admission. ursday, Feb. 13, 6-7:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Arts Fishing Club
With New Translations. ursday, Feb. 13, 8 p.m. GROWLERS
Candlelight: Coldplay & Imagine Dragons e Beale Street Quartet plays the music of Coldplay on strings under the gentle glow of candlelight. $29.63. Wednesday, Feb. 19, 6:30-7:45 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Chinese Connection Dub Embassy
“Forever Loving Marley.”
With I-Sypha, Kween Jasira, Tamesha, Moses Crouch, and special guest. Saturday, Feb. 15, 7 p.m.
B-SIDE
Culture Over Everything 901
With Marcel P. Black, K!llshot!, Iron Mic Coalition, e ought, Disfunktion DJZ [Small Room-Downstairs].
$10. Sunday, Feb. 16, 7 p.m.
HI TONE
Dark Below
With e Red Mountain, Killjay, San Pedro [Small Room-Downstairs]. Friday, Feb. 14, 9 p.m. HI TONE
Devil Train
Bluegrass, roots, country, Delta, and ski e. ursday, Feb. 13, 9 p.m.
B-SIDE
DJ Nico & Qemist: Lovers Night
Integrating nostalgic samples into her sets, DJ Nico cra s a sonic journey that will make you sweat. Michael “Qemist’’ Ivy is a multi-faceted electronic artist, musician, and producer. $20/day of show, $25/at the door. Friday, Feb. 14, 7:30 p.m.
THE GREEN ROOM AT CROSSTOWN ARTS
Elevation Memphis: Tina Turner Tribute Experience
Saturday, Feb. 15, 4 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Emo Nite (Valentine’s Edition)
With Brandon Saller of Atreyu. 18+. $15-$25. Saturday, Feb. 15, 9 p.m.
GROWLERS
Galentine’s Day
Featuring DJ A.D. Saturday, Feb. 15, 8 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Girly Pops’ Galentine’s DJ Nite
Saturday, Feb. 15, 9 p.m.
BAR DKDC
Gritty City Bang Bang Wednesday, Feb. 19, 9 p.m.
B-SIDE
Joe Restivo 4
Guitarist Restivo leads one of the city’s nest jazz quartets. Sunday, Feb. 16, noon.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
John Vincent III
e soulful Americana singer brings his “Roadtrip” tour to Memphis. $37.60/general admission. Wednesday, Feb. 19, 8-10 p.m.
Carencro, Lousiana’s nest brings his funky gumbo of styles to Memphis. $39.45/general admission. ursday, Feb. 13, 7:30-9:30 p.m.
MINGLEWOOD HALL
Pony Bradshaw
Georgian singer-songwriter
James “Pony” Bradshaw o ers his unique take on the Americana sound. $29.80/ general admission. Friday, Feb. 14, 8-10 p.m.
1884 LOUNGE AT MINGLEWOOD
HALL
Pure Guava Monday, Feb. 17, 8 p.m. B-SIDE
Redder Is Better Sunday, Feb. 16, 8 p.m.
HI TONE
Rock the Boat Friday, Feb. 14, 6 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Shovels & RopeSomething Is Working Up Above My Head Tour With James Felice. Friday, Feb. 14, 8 p.m.
GROWLERS
Strictly Jazz: The Music of Michael Brecker
Internationally recognized saxophonist Adam Larson pays homage to Brecker’s soulful playing and seamless blend of jazz and pop elements. $20/ advance, $25/at the door. Saturday, Feb. 15, 7:30 p.m.
THE GREEN ROOM AT CROSSTOWN ARTS
Elvis Love Songs
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a romantic evening of Elvis love songs performed by Terry Mike Je rey. $20/ reserved seating. Friday, Feb. 14, 8-10:30 p.m.
GUEST HOUSE AT GRACELAND
Five O’Clock Shadow Sunday, Feb. 16, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S SOUTHWIND
Lakeview
21+. Saturday, Feb. 15, 8 p.m.
HORSESHOE CASINO TUNICA
R&B Remix Tour
Featuring Jagged Edge, Dru Hill, Next, Silk, and Troop. Sunday, Feb. 16, 7 p.m.
LANDERS CENTER
The Local Honeys ursday, Feb. 13, 8 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY
An Evening with Keith Sykes and Special Guest Roger Cook
Here’s a rare opportunity to experience these songwriting masters. $20. ursday, Feb. 13, 7:30-8:45 p.m.
GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
The Fabulous DooVays
Sunday, Feb. 16, 3 p.m.
HUEY’S MIDTOWN
The New Pacemakers
Sunday, Feb. 16, 5 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
T.S.R. Swift
ursday, Feb. 13, 8 p.m.
HI TONE
Vinyl Happy Hour
With guest DJs every Friday. Friday, Feb. 14, 3-5 p.m.
MEMPHIS LISTENING LAB
Wyly Bigger & the Coyotes
ursday, Feb. 13, 7 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
Your Mom’s New Boyfriend
Friday, Feb. 14, 9:30 p.m.
LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM
CJ Starnes & Harrison
Boe
With Shafer Green. Saturday, Feb. 15, 6 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY
Dancin’ and Romancin’
With Sarah Spain, Alexis Jade, Arc of Quasar, Magik Hours.
Friday, Feb. 14, 7 p.m.
HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY
Duane Cleveland Band Sunday, Feb. 16, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S SOUTHAVEN
Evil Woman: The American E.L.O. With 12 musicians, including a string section, this multimedia concert faithfully performs the best of E.L.O. like “Mr. Blue Sky,” “Don’t Bring Me Down,” and (of course) “Evil Woman.” $40. Saturday, Feb. 15, 2 p.m. | Saturday, Feb. 15, 7:30 p.m.
BARTLETT PERFORMING ARTS AND CONFERENCE CENTER
Germantown Symphony Orchestra Concert
Featuring Evan Solomon on piano. Saturday, Feb. 15, 7 p.m. GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Iris Collective: “Love Notes”
In this romantic lunchbreak concert, Iris Collective’s musicians whisk GCT audience away to Paris with familiar melodies from classical to lm to pop with roots in French culture. $10/ general admission. Friday, Feb. 14, noon-1 p.m. GERMANTOWN COMMUNITY THEATRE
Jad Tariq Trio
Sunday, Feb. 16, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S GERMANTOWN
The Chaulkies Sunday, Feb. 16, 8 p.m.
HUEY’S CORDOVA
The Java Trio
Sunday, Feb. 16, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S COLLIERVILLE
Twin Soul Duo
Sunday, Feb. 16, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S OLIVE BRANCH
Will Sexton Band feat. Amy LaVere
Sunday, Feb. 16, 6 p.m.
HUEY’S MILLINGTON
PHOTO: COURTESY ALEXIS GRACE
Alexis Grace
CALENDAR of EVENTS: February 13 - 19
ART AND SPECIAL EXHIBITS
“2024 Accessions to the Permanent Collection” Honoring new additions to the collection. Tues.-Sun., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. rough Nov. 2.
METAL MUSEUM
“42nd Juried Student Exhibition” is year, Rose Smith, photography curator at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, chose the featured artworks by students from the U of M art and design department. rough March 7.
UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS
“All Rise: Memphis Bar Association at 150”
An exhibition showcasing the Memphis Bar Association’s historical signi cance and continuing relevance. rough March 29.
MEMPHIS MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY
“A Memphis of Hope” Featuring messages of what is “right” about where we live. rough Feb. 28. WKNO
Bob McCabe: “Discovering Painting: It’s Never Too Late!”
Join the artist’s journey exploring watercolor, then acrylic, and nally oil painting. rough March 8.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Carlyle Wolfe Lee: “Wonder” Wolfe’s practice is devoted to a deeper connection with her natural environment. rough March 22.
DAVID LUSK GALLERY
Chris Antemann: “An Occasional Craving” Porcelain gural groupings with colorful, imaginative, and cheeky ceramic sculptures. rough April 6.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
“Earth Matters: Rethink the Future”
Learn more about biodiversity and climate change. $18. rough May 18.
MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND HISTORY
AT THE PINK PALACE
“Fall 2024 BFA Exhibition”
With work by Ciridany Genchi Cortez and Piper Grokulsky, both graduating seniors at Christian Brothers University. rough Feb. 14. Free.
BEVERLY + SAM ROSS GALLERY
Floyd Newsum: “House of Grace”
Large paintings on paper and maquettes for public sculptures. rough April 6.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
“Jay Etkin Group Show”
Featuring Roy Tamboli, Juan Rojo, Annabelle Meechum, and Carol Buchman. rough Feb. 15.
JAY ETKIN GALLERY
Jennifer Watson: “Small Spaces”
e artist incorporates three-dimensional enameled copper sculpture into highly designed, jewel-like paintings. rough April 13.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Johnathan Payne: “Regenesis”
Works at the intersection of drawing, collage, embroidery, beadwork, and painting. rough March 22.
CLOUGH-HANSON GALLERY
Justin Bowles: “Green Fountain”
A pool surrounded by animals and plants and crystal rock formations depicted in three intricate collage works. rough Feb. 16.
TOPS GALLERY: MADISON AVENUE PARK
Kenneth Lawrence Beaudoin: “In the Hands of a Poet”
A writer’s collages, known as “Eye Poems.” rough Feb. 22.
TOPS GALLERY
“Let’s Eat!”: An Exhibition by Carolyn Moss and Georgia Smith
Paintings created collaboratively by the artists. rough March 8.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
“Pompeii: The Exhibition” Experience Pompeii before Mount Vesuvius erupted. rough April 13.
GRACELAND EXHIBITION CENTER
Sheryl Hibbs: “Two Sides of the Same Coin” Both representational and abstract artworks. rough Feb. 28.
CHURCH HEALTH
Sisters of the Brush and a Brother: “Paint Their Dreams” Exhibition
With works by Phyllis Boger, Patrick McGee, Barrie Foster, Ann Brown omason, and Jana Jones. rough March 31.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
“Southern Heritage Classic Exhibit”
Celebrating 35 years of an HBCU Memphis tradition. rough Feb. 28.
NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM
“Spirit of ’74, Fire and Water”
An exhibit uniting two St. Mary’s class of ’74 alums, Mary Hills Baker Powell and Katie Dann. rough Apr. 3.
BUCKMAN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Thomas Dambo’s “Trolls: Save the Humans”
A larger-than-life fairy tale, in which art and nature intertwine. rough May 21.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Send the date, time, place, cost, info, phone number, a brief description, and photos — two weeks in advance — to calendar@memphisflyer.com.
DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, ONGOING WEEKLY EVENTS WILL APPEAR IN THE FLYER’S ONLINE CALENDAR ONLY. FOR COMPREHENSIVE EVENT LISTINGS, SCAN THE QR CODE OR VISIT EVENTS.MEMPHISFLYER.COM/CAL.
David, the latest artist in the Metal Museum’s Tributary series, transforms everyday furniture into fragmented expressions of life’s chaos, joy, and loss.
Thomas Jackson:
“Chaotic Equilibrium”
Works that blur the boundaries between landscape photography, sculpture, and kinetic art. rough April 28.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Tributaries| Rachel David: “Engorging Eden”
Works that transform everyday furniture into fragmented expressions of life’s chaos, joy, and loss. rough May 11.
METAL MUSEUM
“Who is that Artist?”: Jorden Miernik-Walker Photography-based work that speaks to function, loss, identity, comfort, and femininity. rough April 6.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
“Wintertide” Art
Exhibit
New exhibit by local artists: Zoe Nadel, Nancy Jehl Boatwright, Anca Marr, JoRene Bargiacchi, and Pat Patterson. rough Feb. 28.
ST. GEORGE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
ART HAPPENINGS
Munch and Learn: A Self Portrait in Bushes and Clouds
Mary Jo Karimnia addresses identity-building experiences. Wednesday, Feb. 19, noon.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Reception for Tributaries | Rachel David: “Engorging Eden”
Celebrating the solo exhibition by Rachel David that transforms everyday furniture into fragmented expressions of life’s chaos, joy, and loss. Sunday, Feb. 16, 3-5 p.m.
METAL MUSEUM
Temple of Souls Art & Vintage Shoppe
Jana Wilson, the artist behind Vintagia Memphis presents this market. Friday, Feb. 14, noon-5 p.m.
VINTAGIA MEMPHIS
BOOK EVENTS
A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs
An online book talk. Visit civilrightsmuseum.org for link. ursday, Feb. 13, 6 p.m. VIRTUAL & ONLINE
A Novel Book Club e club will discuss Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. Wednesday, Feb. 19, 7 p.m. NOVEL
CLASS / WORKSHOP
Absolute Beginner Crochet Workshop
Make your own cute granny square mittens. Saturday, Feb. 15, 3-5 p.m.
OFF THE WALLS ARTS
Beginners Watercolor Painting Course and Critique
Award-winning artist Fred Rawlinson teaches technique, brushstrokes, color, and layering. Supplies not provided. $350/six-week course. Monday, Feb. 17, 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. | Tuesday, Feb. 18, 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Figure Drawing (Clothed Model)
Increase your skills drawing the human form. $18/general admission. Saturday, Feb. 15, 10 a.m.-noon.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Homeschool DayCelebrating Black History Month Through Printmaking
Ibbi Pip-Inspired Metal Clay Birdhouses with Brandy Boyd
Get creative with these small projects. Sunday, Feb. 16, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Printmaking with Maritza Davila
Explore the steps of relief printmaking from design to carving to printing. 65+. Tuesday, Feb. 18, 1 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Quick and Dirty Calligraphy Basics
A course in calligraphic concepts and creating letterforms. Sunday, Feb. 16, 2-4 p.m.
CASEY’S ARTBOX
Stage & Sketch
Figure drawing the fantastical, the dramatic, and the interesting. 18+. ursday, Feb. 13, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Stand-Up Comedy Class
- Level 1
Learn the art of stand-up comedy. Friday, Feb. 14
INDIE ACTING STUDIO
Super Saturday - Collage like Romare Bearden
Explore the evocative world of collage, inspired by the legendary Romare Bearden. Free. Saturday, Feb. 15, 10 a.m.-noon.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
The Great Backyard
Bird Count with Ibbi Pip Record and count birds, go on a bird scavenger hunt, and learn about migration from Fields Falcone. Saturday, Feb. 15, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Toastmasters International Open House
Discover the magic of public speaking and boost your leadership skills. Free. Saturday, Feb. 15, 11 a.m.
COSSITT LIBRARY
COMEDY
Comedy Night with Ben Pierce
An open mic experience. ursday, Feb. 13, 7 p.m. BAR DKDC
Crowd Craft Comedy With John Miller, Zach Williams, Katie Stewart, Tyler Calban [Small RoomDownstairs]. Saturday, Feb. 15, 7 p.m. HI TONE
Don’t Tell Comedy With Jamie Davis & Friends. Friday, Feb. 14, 7 p.m. B-SIDE
Open Mic Comedy Night
A hilarious Midtown tradition. Tuesday, Feb. 18, 8 p.m. HI TONE
Sam Morril: The Errors Tour
Morril was named one of Comedy Central’s Comics to Watch in 2011. $47.75. Sunday, Feb. 16, 7-8:30 p.m. MINGLEWOOD HALL
Load up on tons of tackle with discount pricing. Friday, Feb. 14-Feb. 16.
AGRICENTER INTERNATIONAL
FAMILY
Caterpillar Club
Guardians help their toddler or preschooler (ages 2 to 5) share stories, play games, create cra s, and explore the natural world. Tuesday, Feb. 18, 10 a.m. | Wednesday, Feb. 19, 10 a.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
PHOTO: COURTESY METAL MUSEUM
Rachel
LECTURE
Black History Symposium Series
Hattiloo dives deep into the complex and multifaceted journey of the Black community.
Saturday, Feb. 15, 9:30 a.m.-1 p.m.
HATTILOO THEATRE
It’s Getting Hot Out There: Risks and Solutions to Extreme Weather
A presentation that will deepen your understanding about what is happening around our planet. Wednesday, Feb. 19, 5:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
PERFORMING ARTS
Open Poetry Mic
Hosted by Keeping It P [Big Room-Upstairs].
Monday, Feb. 17, 7 p.m.
HI TONE
Shen Yun 2025
Experience the beauty of ancient China. Tuesday, Feb. 18, 7:30-10 p.m.
CANNON CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
Pre-School Story Time
Enjoy stories, songs, art activities, and creative play. Friday, Feb. 14, 10:30-11:30 a.m.
MORTON MUSEUM OF COLLIERVILLE HISTORY
Story Time at Novel
Recommended for children up to 5 years. Saturday, Feb. 15, 10:30 a.m. | Wednesday, Feb. 19, 10:30 a.m.
NOVEL
FILM
In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar-wai’s 2000 film, set in Hong Kong, 1962, where Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiuwai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Thursday, Feb. 13, 7 p.m.
CROSSTOWN THEATER
Roger Beebe’s Multi-Projector Films
New works and some of Beebe’s best-known projector performances, including the sevenprojector, show-stopping Last Light of a Dying Star (2008/2011). Friday, Feb. 14, 7-9:30 p.m. THE UGLY ART COMPANY
FOOD AND DRINK
12th Annual TN Equality Project
Gumbo Contest
Teams from near and far compete for the best gumbo in Memphis. $35/general admission, $60/VIP admission, $30/team registration, $400/VIP table. Sunday, Feb. 16, 4:30-7 p.m.
MEMPHIS SPORTS & EVENTS CENTER
All Hearts Club
Memphis Made and chef Kevin Sullivan of Kitchen Laurel have joined forces to bring you an all-inclusive dinner. $75. Saturday, Feb. 15, 6 p.m.
MEMPHIS MADE BREWING (DOWNTOWN THE RAVINE)
Cooking for a Cause: UBFM Chef Kunal is finally back. Enjoy his amazing Indian-inspired elevations of classics. All proceeds will go to Urban Bicycle Food Ministry. Free. Sunday, Feb. 16, 4-8 p.m.
THE COVE
Galentine’s Day Wine Tasting
Treat yourself and your favorite gal pals to an evening dedicated to laughter, love, and the joy of good company. $35. Thursday, Feb. 13, 5:307:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Valentine’s Day Dinner
A three-course, prix fixe menu. $75. Friday, Feb. 14, 5-10 p.m.
COMPLICATED PILGRIM
Valentine’s Dinner at Graceland’s Guest House Hotel
Pamper yourself and your sweetheart with a delicious four course dinner. Friday, Feb. 14, 4-11 p.m.
DELTA’S KITCHEN
The Soulful Express: A Locomotive Themed Murder Mystery
An immersive dinner theater experience. Dressing on theme is encouraged. $75. Sunday, Feb. 16, 3-5 p.m. and 5-7 p.m.
HALLORAN CENTRE FOR PERFORMING ARTS
SPORTS
PBR: Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour
A showcase for Professional Bull Riders Memphis. Saturday, Feb. 15, 7 p.m. | Saturday, Feb. 15, 7 p.m.
FEDEXFORUM
THEATER
Black Odyssey
A reimagining of the Odysseus saga is set in modern-day Harlem, telling the epic tale of Ulysses Lincoln, a soldier facing the most daunting of voyages to reunite with his family. Thursday, Feb. 13, 7:30 p.m. | Friday, Feb. 14, 7:30 p.m. | Saturday, Feb. 15, 7:30 p.m. | Sunday, Feb. 16, 2 p.m.
HATTILOO THEATRE
Hamilton
A saga that follows the rise of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. $49+. Tuesday, Feb. 18, 7:30 p.m. | Wednesday, Feb. 19, 7:30 p.m.
ORPHEUM THEATRE
Parade
In 1913 Georgia, Leo Frank, a Jewish man from Brooklyn, is caught in a grueling trial after the tragic murder of his factory worker. $25. Thursday, Feb. 13, 8-10 p.m. | Friday, Feb. 14, 8-10 p.m. | Saturday, Feb. 15, 8-10 p.m. | Sunday, Feb. 16, 2-5 p.m.
PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE
Skeleton Crew
Detroit auto stamping plant workers Shanita, Faye, and Dez confront tough choices. Friday, Feb. 14, 8 p.m. | Saturday, Feb. 15, 8 p.m. | Sunday, Feb. 16, 2 p.m.
CIRCUIT PLAYHOUSE
The Minutes
A scathing new comedy about small-town politics and real-world power. $25/adult tickets, $20/senior and student tickets. Friday, Feb. 14, 8 p.m. | Saturday, Feb. 15, 8 p.m. | Sunday, Feb. 16, 2 p.m.
THEATREWORKS @ THE SQUARE
When a Woman’s Fed Up
A compelling stage play focusing on the challenges women face and their empowering journey of self-discovery when they reach a point of no return. Saturday, Feb. 15, 2:30 p.m.
ORPHEUM THEATRE
TOURS
The Plot Thickens: Writers of Elmwood Cemetery
What they said and how they said it. $20/general admission. Saturday, Feb. 15, 3-4 p.m.
ELMWOOD CEMETERY
on “Dragnet”
Heterogeneous
Something a horse kicks with 59 Bitter beer
60 Marked, as a box 61 Big commotion 62 Rowboat propeller
63 Changing from time to time 65 “Mona Lisa” painter
67 Causing white knuckles, say 68 Leading 69 Medicinal amounts
70 Harass endlessly
1 Zig’s opposite 2 Critical hosp.
PHOTO: COURTESY MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Craft exquisite birdhouse pendants using fine silver metal clay.
PUZZLE BY TRACY GRAY AND JEFF CHEN
We Saw You.
with MICHAEL DONAHUE
Atotalof $231,000 was raised at this year’s Healthier Memphis Gala presented by Lifedoc Health.
And $48,000 of that was raised at the live auction.
e event, held January 31st at the old Summit Club space at the top of Clark Tower, provided a tasty way for guests to support Lifedoc Health’s work. Fi een Memphis chefs provided the fare for guests, many of whom wore Gatsby-like attire — apper dresses and tuxedos — from that other Twenties decade. “Our Roaring 20th: A Speakeasy Soirée” was the event theme.
According to its website, the mission of Lifedoc Health is “to build healthier communities by preventing diabetes through healthcare and research.”
As the invitation reads, “All proceeds will support Lifedoc’s investment in research and policy to transform healthcare for Memphis’s most underserved communities.”
PHOTOS: MICHAEL DONAHUE above: David Krog, Ben Vaughn, and Erling Jensen circle: Jimmy Gentry below: (le to right) Kelly English, Fatou and Bala Tounkara; R.J. Gillen and Chet Velasquez; Jose Gutierrez bottom row: (le to right) Dr. Pedro and Dr. Astrid Velasquez; Fanny and Andy Velasquez; Nancy Weathersby, Tyler Tollison, and Mackenzie Tollison; Tucker Hurdle and Chip Dunham
above: Gary and Barb Meloni, Kert and Abbey Kaiser circle: Josh Mutchnick below: (le to right) Lauren Lammey, Tyler Jividen, and Joyce Jividen; Monique Jones and Sonya Johnson; Susannah Herring and Al Gossett; Pedro Velasquez Jr. and Esther Calderon right row: (top and below) John Adamstown, Tom Hughes, and Jaksen Pounders; Pilar Barquin, Diana, Gabriel, and Chet Velasquez bottom le : Emily LaForce and Ben Smith
ARTS By Kailynn Johnson
Sunday Morning
Young Actors Guild and guests present a production of revival.
S
unday mornings have always held special meaning in the fabric of Black culture. ey’re lled with the hustle and bustle of getting ready — women waiting for curling irons to heat to the perfect temperature while men both young and old perfect the knots of their ties.
Congregations then begin to le into church pews as ushers greet them with white gloves. Church mothers ll the front rows dressed as elegantly as the grace they exude. e angelic choir voices sing songs of hope, faith, and praise before a sermon the pastor has mused to echo those sentiments.
“We all know Sunday morning,” Sabrina Norwood, executive director of the Young Actors Guild (YAG), says. “When you think about Sunday morning, that’s you getting up and getting dressed and coming to be rejuvenated. ere’s a lot of hand clapping, a lot of foot stomping, and beautiful music that will not only connect you but will reinvigorate you.”
sible for all.”
Norwood says through Chandler’s vision, more than 41,000 young people have come through their doors. YAG houses a performing arts academy that operates year-round with students ages 8 to 17. And Norwood says being in the Orange Mound community allows young people a platform they haven’t typically had. ey are able to showcase their talent and creativity while also giving a voice to their generation.
Norwood says this age group is known for an outspoken and unconventional approach to social justice, and these themes are interwoven through Sunday Morning intentionally.
“ is performance is all about a dance to freedom,” Norwood says. “About them nding ways to create their own avenues to bring justice, equality, accessibility to their community, and to create sustainability. is production will provide an opportunity to not only unify our young people but unify our community.”
As she re ects on YAG’s students, she
While images of these mornings may be di erent through the years, themes of hope mixed with the spirit of congregation remain. It’s an important scene to capture, one that YAG is working to encapsulate in their performance, aptly titled Sunday Morning: Dance to Freedom, on February 23rd at the Harriet Performing Arts Center (2788 Lamar Avenue).
e performance is timely — the organization celebrates Black History Month and its own 34th anniversary this February — but it also re ects the empowerment needed during this political climate.
“I think we’re all operating in uncertainty,” Norwood says. “One thing that stays true is the arts, and love for the arts, and everybody can relate to it. We hope it’s both healing and re ective to others.”
Community has been a mainstay for the organization since its inception. Founder and creative director Chrysti Chandler recalls coming back to Memphis in 1991 a er seeing there were many children who didn’t participate in a er-school activities. She was shocked to nd out it was because students couldn’t a ord it.
“Many of the young people we serve are from underrepresented populations,” Norwood says. “ ose students are able to attend our program for little to no cost because we believe arts should be acces-
says they’re a generation who will move mountains, and art gives them the opportunity to advocate on their behalf while celebrating how far their heritage has come. To amplify this, the production will include a performance from Orange Moundfounded band Black Cream. Gospel artist Deborah Manning omas — whom Norwood calls a “vocal powerhouse” — will also join. Rooted Souls, a group that developed from parents of YAG, will perform. And Sharonda Mc eld will come in from North Carolina to join the production, along with Kevin Davidson.
“Gospel music certainly is healing,” Norwood says. “We all know that. Just walking through that Sunday morning of getting there and sometimes feeling so burdened down, but leaving feeling like you can take over the world. at’s the experience we want to be able to create, and hopefully it’ll revive us with the climate we’re in. We really want this to be an amazing presentation of revival.”
PHOTO: JUAN SELF Young thespians conjure up that Sunday morning feeling.
The Errors Tour
Comedian and podcaster Sam Morril comes to Minglewood Hall.
Comedian Sam Morril just kicked o “ e Errors Tour” and is bringing his act to Memphis. A native New Yorker, Morril has been doing stand-up for 20 years. Last week, he talked with the Flyer about the tour, Bodega Cat Whiskey, and that one time he forgot his pants.
e slight wardrobe malfunction occurred last time Morril came to Memphis. “I forgot pants. I had to wear baggy Nikes.” He tried searching for alternatives, but only found cowboy jeans, which don’t exactly t his style: “I’m gonna look dumber in this than sweatpants,” he says. at was two years ago, and, luckily, it wasn’t bad enough to keep him from the Blu City. Since then, Memphians may have seen one of Morril’s six comedy specials, his recent Net ix performance, or his YouTube podcast.
Morril co-hosts the We Might Be Drunk podcast with comedian Mark Normand. Morril explains his role in the podcast as “the straight man,” meaning he maintains some composure while Normand can lean into his jokes: “Mark is literally farting on guests. … I kinda have to pull back a little bit.” e comedy duo started We Might Be Drunk roughly three years ago, and, with guests like Blake Gri n, David Spade, and Hasan Minhaj, have since amassed millions of views and nearly 200,000 subscribers.
Last December, Normand and Morril took part in Net ix’s Torching 2024: A Roast of the Year, sharing the stage with Je Ross, John Stamos, Tim Dil-
lon, and Ms. Pat. Morril and Normand cracked jokes about Luigi Mangione, Je rey Epstein’s pilot, and Ross’ unlikely resemblance to a fat Jewish dictator (Benjamin “NetanYoo-hoo”). Morril’s on-stage persona at this event seemed less of “the straight man,” but the duo’s banter was still on point. Evidently, Morril’s podcasting and stand-up roles are di erent. “On stage,” he says, “it’s my show and I can control the tempo.”
Morril’s most recent solo work, You’ve Changed, premiered on Amazon Prime last summer.
He’s been described as “reliably funny,” but what’s more distinctive is his genuine passion for the art: “I love stand-up. I love writing jokes. I love writing scripts,” he says. And he’s made this more than clear. Back in 2020, Morril released his second comedy special, Up on the Roof, which was shot during the beginnings of the pandemic. e special was quite simple, really. All Morril needed was a roof and some New Yorkers in need of sure re comedic relief. With just an amp and a mic, Morril is good to go. “ at’s the beauty of stand-up,” he says. “I can go on stage drunk and pretty much be the same. I really just need a mic and a crowd and I’ll be good.”
Despite his podcast name, Morril isn’t known for being a stage drunk (he prefers “stage-whore”), but he and Normand did recently launch their own brand of whiskey: Bodega Cat Whiskey, named a er the feline population of New York’s iconic bodega stores. It’s not yet available in Tennessee, but Morril says, “It’s coming.”
Clearly, Morril is a busy man. Specials, whiskey, podcasting, touring, writing, the list goes on. is level of work can come along with the big stage of comedy. But Morril still re ects on his early days as a comedian (before people hit him up to do podcasts): “I do miss how much I was able to give to stand-up. … ere’s something really cool about those low-stakes shows.”
Despite his packed schedule, Morril’s game has never been stronger. His relatability hasn’t dwindled with his rise to fame, and neither has his material. He talks about his motivation as a young comedian: “No one knowing who I was … was kinda cool. … Having a chip on your shoulder as an entertainer or a writer is a good thing. … It pushes you.”
Sam Morril’s e Errors Tour comes to Minglewood Hall, Sunday, February 16th. Hopefully he remembers pants.
PHOTO: MATT SALACUSE
Sam Morril
FOOD By Michael Donahue
Buzzing
Blue Honey Bistro gains attention a er chef Drew Bryan’s James Beard Award nomination.
B
lue Honey Bistro is its name, but chef Drew Bryan, who owns the Germantown restaurant with his wife Courtney, is de nitely not singing the blues these days. He was recently nominated for the prestigious James Beard Award as Best Chef: Southeast.
“We were not aware we were even in the running,” Bryan says. “We just got a text message: ‘Hey, congratulations for the nomination.’ We were like, ‘What?’”
Drew, who is from California, says cooking was not his passion growing up. He was even a picky eater as a child. He got a job as a dishwasher and moved up the line at the old Ciao Baby Cucina, but, he says, “I didn’t nd it as a passion.”
Cooking was “more of a necessity than anything else. It was how I paid my bills.”
ings began to change in 2006. “It started to dawn on me, ‘I need to get serious about it. Or not.’”
He enrolled in the French Culinary Institute in New York, where he graduated on his 30th birthday. He began working in New York restaurants, an eye-opening experience. “It was completely di erent from what I’d seen in Memphis. … It was far more advanced — hydrocolloids and all these scienti c things.”
Drew eventually moved back to Memphis, where he still owned a house. He worked under chef José Gutierrez at River Oaks Restaurant. at’s where he met Courtney, who was a bartender there. But there came a point when Drew was ready to make a change. “I wanted to take over a kitchen and do things my way. … I had to nd my own way and my own place.”
A er three years at River Oaks, Drew went to work at Spring Creek Ranch, where Courtney eventually joined him. ey opened Blue Honey Bistro in 2017. Courtney now runs the front of the
house at Blue Honey Bistro. “[Drew] and I are very balanced with each other,” she says. “Where I’m weaker, he is stronger and where he is weaker, I am stronger. As far as our personalities, I would say we’re both bold, up-front people.”
“We are very much against-the-grain people,” Drew says, “so we wanted to open something that Germantown didn’t have.”
ey wanted “an inviting environment that makes you feel okay to come in casual attire as well as your Sunday best,” Courtney says. “You’re going to feel comfortable either way.”
Blue Honey Bistro “has that Cheers atmosphere,” she says. “People come in and make friends with other regulars.”
e name “Blue Honey” refers to a rare phenomenon in North Carolina when bee honey turns from gold to blue. And it pertains to Drew and Courtney as well: “a rare couple enjoying working together and spending all their time together,” Courtney says.
As for the food, Drew says, “We started solely French because of my background in French cookery and technique.”
But they also do curries and di erent Asian-style dishes, among other cuisines. “I’ve tried to adopt certain cooking styles that are comfortable with the employees.”
Drew changes his menu every two to three weeks. “We try to change it as much as possible because I get bored really easily. For a while, just a er Covid, we changed it weekly.”
ey do have some staple items that don’t change, their most popular being “Mushrooms and Toast.” It’s ciabatta bread with sautéed mushrooms, Gruyere cheese, bacon, caramelized onion, beurre blanc, and a poached egg on top.
Drew wants his cooks to also make things they like to make. If not, they “aren’t building out to their abilities and complete potential that they have.”
January is typically a slow month for restaurants, but, Drew says, “Being nominated for James Beard has really kind of shaken the tree a lot.” Yet he didn’t “set out to try and garner a lot of notoriety or anything like that,” he says. “What we wanted was to open a restaurant because we really enjoy what we do.”
e James Beard Award nalists will be announced April 2nd, Drew says. “If you are a nalist, you are invited to the awards. And that is mid-June.”
Drew is pleased Acre Restaurant owner Wally Joe and Acre’s executive chef Andrew Adams are also nominated in his category. “I would love to win, but if there’s anybody I would not be disappointed in losing to, it is Wally and Andrew.”
PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE Drew and Courtney Bryan co-own Blue Honey Bistro.
INTO ROUTINES
New year, new possibilities! More than one-third of our community is at higher risk of life-threatening conditions due to obesity. Whether you want to lose some extra weight, try healthier recipes or live a more active lifestyle, Healthier 901 is here to help. Join us in the 1,000,000-pound challenge and help build a healthier Mid-South. Download our free wellness app to track your progress, find events, access discounts and more – all at no cost. Make 2025 your year and join the movement today.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Love requires stability and steadiness to thrive. But it also needs unpredictability and imaginativeness. The same with friendship. Without creative touches and departures from routine, even strong alliances can atrophy into mere sentiment and boring dutifulness. With this in mind, and in accordance with astrological omens, I offer quotes to inspire your quest to keep togetherness fertile and flourishing. 1. “Love has no rules except those we invent, moment by moment.” — Anaïs Nin 2. “The essence of love is invention. Lovers should always dream and create their own world.” — Jorge Luis Borges 3. “A successful relationship requires falling in love many times, always with the same person, but never in quite the same way.”
— Mignon McLaughlin
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In celebration of the Valentine season, I suggest you get blithely unshackled in your approach to love. Be loose, limber, and playful. To stimulate the romantic and intimate qualities I think you should emphasize, I offer you these quotes: 1. “Love is the endless apprenticeship of two souls daring to be both sanctuary and storm for one another.” — Rainer Maria Rilke 2. “Love is the revolution in which we dismantle the prisons of our fear, building a world where our truths can stand naked and unashamed.” — Audre Lorde 3. “Love is the rebellion that tears down walls within and between us, making room for the unruly beauty of our shared becoming.”
— Adrienne Rich
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): To honor the rowdy Valentine spirit, I invite you to either use the following passage or compose one like it, then offer it to a willing recipient who would love to go deeper with you: “Be my thunderclap, my cascade of shooting stars. Be my echo across the valley, my rebel hymn, my riddle with no answer. Be my just-before-you-wake-up-dream. Be my tectonic shift. Be my black pearl, my vacation from gloom and doom, my forbidden dance. Be my river-song in F major, my wild-eyed prophet, my moonlit debate, my infinite possibility. Be my trembling, blooming, spiraling, and soaring.”
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, “The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all.” One of those strange jewels in you is emerging from its hiding place. Any day now, it will reveal at least some of its spectacular beauty — to be followed by more in the subsequent weeks. Are you ready to be surprised by your secret self? Are your beloved allies ready? A bloom this magnificent could require adjustments. You and yours may have to expand your horizons together.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In 2025, the role
Rob Brezsny
that togetherness plays in your life will inspire you to achieve unexpected personal accomplishments. Companionship and alliances may even stir up destinychanging developments. To get you primed, I offer these quotes: 1. “Love is a trick that nature plays on us to achieve the impossible.” — William Somerset Maugham 2. “Love is the ultimate outlaw. It won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as its accomplice.”
— Tom Robbins 3. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. Yet each day reveals new constellations in our shared sky.” — Emily Brontë
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Psychotherapist Robin Norwood wrote that some people, mostly women, give too much love and kindness. They neglect their own self-care as they attend generously to the needs of others. They may even provide nurturing and support to those who don’t appreciate it or return the favor. Author Anne Morrow Lindbergh expressed a different perspective. She wrote, “No one has ever loved anyone too much. We just haven’t learned yet how to love enough.” What’s your position on this issue, Virgo? It’s time for you to come to a new understanding of exactly how much giving is correct for you.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Are you ready to express your affection with lush and lavish exuberance? I hope so. Now would be an excellent time, astrologically speaking. I dare you to give the following words, composed by poet Pablo Neruda, to a person who will be receptive to them. “You are the keeper of my wildest storms, the green shoot splitting the stone of my silence. Your love wraps me in galaxies, crowns me with the salt of the sea, and fills my lungs with the language of the Earth. You are the voice of the rivers, the crest of the waves, the pulse of the stars. With every word you speak, you unweave my solitude and knit me into eternity.”
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Among its potential gifts, astrology can raise our awareness of the cyclical nature of life. When used well, it helps us know when there are favorable times to enhance and upgrade specific areas of our lives. For example, in the coming weeks, you Scorpios could make progress on building a strong foundation for the future of love. You will rouse sweet fortune for yourself and those you care for if you infuse your best relationships with extra steadiness and stability.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I want you to be moved by intimacy and friendships that buoy your soul, inspire your expansive mind, and pique your sense of adventure. To boost the likelihood they will flow your way in abundance during the coming weeks, I offer you these quotes. 1. “Love is a madness so discreet
AQUARIUS
(Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Borrowing the words of Aquarian author Virginia Woolf, I’ve prepared a love note for you to use as your own. Feel free to give these words to the person whose destiny needs to be woven more closely together with yours. “You are the tide that sweeps through the corridors of my mind, a wild rhythm that fills my empty spaces with the echo of eternity. You are the unspoken sentence in my every thought, the shadow and the light interwoven in the fabric of my being. You are the pulse of the universe pressing against my skin, the quiet chaos of love that refuses to be named. You are my uncharted shore.”
that we carry its delicious wounds for a lifetime as if they were precious gems.”
— Federico García Lorca 2. “Love is not a vacation from life. It’s a parallel universe where everything ordinary becomes extraordinary.” — Anne Morrow Lindbergh 3. “Where there is love there is life. And where there is life, there is mischief in the making.” — my Sagittarius friend Artemisia
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Every intimate alliance is unique, has its own rules, and shouldn’t be compared to any standard. This is a key theme for you to embrace right now. Below are helpful quotes. 1. “Each couple’s love story is a language only they can speak, with words only they can define.” — Federico Fellini 2. “In every true marriage, each serves as guide and companion to the other toward a shared enlightenment that no one else could possibly share.” — Joseph Campbell 3. “The beauty of marriage is not in its uniformity but in how each couple writes their own story, following no map but the one they draw together.” — Isabel Allende 4. “Marriages are like fingerprints; each one is different, and each one is beautiful.”
— Maggie Reyes
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Love and intimacy and togetherness are fun, yes. But they’re also hard work — especially if you want to make the fun last. This will be your specialty in the coming months. I’ve assembled four quotes to inspire you. 1. “The essence of marriage is not that it provides a happy ending, but that it provides a promising beginning — and then you keep beginning again, day after day.” — Gabriel García Márquez 2. “The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret. But those who follow the art of creating it day after day come closest to discovering it.” — Pearl Buck 3. “Love is a continuous act of forgiveness.” — Maya Angelou 4. “In the best of relationships, daily rebuilding is a mutual process. Each partner helps the other grow.” — Virginia Satir
FILM By Chris McCoy
In the Days of My Youth
Like the band whose story it tells, Becoming Led Zeppelin is larger than life.
iven the oodles of gushing praise for the band written over the last half century, it’s kind of hard to believe that Rolling Stone’s music critics absolutely hated Led Zeppelin. “Dull and repetitious” is how the house organ of rock-and-roll described their 1968 debut album. It continued on like that for the better part of a decade, with reviewers going out of their way to trash records that are now unassailable castles in rock Valhalla.
ere’s a lot of critical stu you can say about Led Zeppelin. ey had some good songs, but their legions of mediocre imitators over the years have soured their reputation. e issue of cultural appropriation in the popular music of the 20th century is o en very fraught and complex, but in the case of Led Zeppelin, it’s pretty cut and dried. Jimmy Page heard Chicago electric blues and said, “Do that, but louder.”
As Page says in Becoming Led Zeppelin, the music he heard as a teenager in the quiet Midlands of England “sounded like it was coming from Mars, but really it was coming from Memphis.”
But I think what really bothered those Rolling Stone writers was that Zep was never considered “authentic.” Of the four members — guitarist Jimmy Page, drummer John Bonham, singer Robert Plant, and bassist John Paul Jones — only Plant was “from the street.” Plant says he was living out of a brown suitcase, dri ing from gig to gig when Jones invited him to his house for an audition.
Page and Jones had both been session musicians in London for years before the Zeppelin took ight. One of the things I learned from Becoming Led Zeppelin is that they met while on the session for the James Bond theme “Gold nger.” Yes, that’s half of Led Zeppelin playing smooth jazz behind Shirley Bassey. Later, Page backed Donovan, the psychedelic folkie who was Bob Dylan’s nemesis. For me, it’s revelations like that which make the rst hour of Becoming Led Zeppelin a fairly gripping watch. Director Bernard MacMahon made his name in the documentary world with the BBC miniseries American Epic. ose four lms traced the lasting in uence of recorded music on democracy. His assignment here is a little simpler: Tell everyone how awesome Led Zeppelin was, in their own words. And how awesome were they? Pretty damn awesome. MacMahon unearths some stunning footage from the band’s
early years. Some of it has been widely seen before, like the Yardbirds cameo in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up Page joined the Yardbirds as a side gig when Je Beck got sick, and then stayed with the band until they broke up in 1968.
MacMahon does a good job keeping the famously bombastic band sticking to the facts of the story. en Page describes the guitar that Je Beck gave him, which stayed with him throughout the band’s career, as “the great sword Excalibur.”
It’s also possible that Rolling Stone’s hatred of Zep stems from Page coming o as the bad guy who had hijacked the beloved Yardbirds, a narrative which is not even hinted at in Becoming Led Zeppelin And yet we know those early reviews still sting because the lm devotes quite a bit of screen time to detailing the pains. Time has clearly been on Jimmy Page’s side in this argument. To hear him tell it, he didn’t care about what the critics said because he didn’t have to. When the Yardbirds split up, he paid for Led Zeppelin’s debut record out of pocket. Jones shocked his friends and family by giving up a steady paycheck as an in-demand commercial music arranger and joining Page to make loud rock. Plant passed his audition by singing a folk song popularized by Joan Baez, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” and insisted they get Bonham to play drums. Bonham agreed, if they could match the 40 quid a week he was making with his current band. A er a short European tour as e New Yardbirds, that proved to be no problem. e
Who’s drummer Keith Moon suggested the name Led Zeppelin about the same
time Page took them into the studio. To anyone familiar with the horrors of the recording industry, the next part of the story is the most shocking. Page took the completed master tapes to New York City to pitch directly to Atlantic Records’ Grand Poobah Jerry Wexler and secured a contract giving him complete creative control. As I do in many of the documentaries about Boomerera musical legends, I found myself thinking, “Wow, the biggest difference between them and the also-rans is that they had really good lawyers.”
Page, the longtime studio rat, had plenty of time to absorb how the industry worked, and when his time came,“I knew what we had, and I wanted to knock everyone’s socks o with it,” he says.
e recordings speak for themselves, and for a big chunk of the lm’s second hour, MacMahon allows them to do just that. Seemingly every time the band was in front of a camera from 1968 to ’70 is in this lm. Veteran editor Daniel Gitlin makes the most out of the wildly variable
lm quality. Finally, in the climactic “Whole Lotta Love” sequence, he gives the lm over to the kind of psychedelia the band was so deeply associated with in the 1970s. ese “laser Zeppelin at the planetarium” bits hit pretty hard, while bearing the clear in uence of the incredible Bowie doc Moonage Daydream. But Becoming Led Zeppelin never climbs to that lm’s artistic heights. We get only the band’s perspective, which in this case means quite a bit of whitewashing. Even though their tours were notoriously decadent, Plant only mentions drugs once, in passing. So if you’re looking for dirt, it ain’t here. But if you’re looking for thunderous ri s delivered on a giant Dolby sound system, Becoming Led Zeppelin’s got ’em.
Becoming Led Zeppelin
Now playing Select Malco theaters
PHOTOS: COURTESY SONY PICTURES “I knew what we had, and I wanted to knock everyone’s socks o with it.” — Jimmy Page
Our critic picks the best films in theaters.
Captain America: Brave New World
Anthony Mackie’s first feature behind the shield, after taking over the role of Captain America from Chris Evans and starring in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier miniseries, sees him in a bind. Enemy of the Avengers Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford) has been elected president of the United States. He’s also a renegade Red Hulk, so that makes the political intrigue a little more spicy. Can more Marvel mayhem make mucho money? Maybe.
Paddington in Peru
Bear fans (not fans of the Chicago NFL team, real bears) rejoice! Paddington is back, eight years after his last
adventure. This time, The Mighty Boosh director Paul King, who did the first two films, hands over the reins to music video veteran Dougal Wilson. Our intrepid ursine returns to deepest Peru, where he was born, to find his aunt. But can the civilized bear from London still relate to his wild family?
Heart Eyes
Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding) are two co-office drones who unfortunately have to work late on Valentine’s Day. It’s unfortunate, because they’re mistaken for lovers by the infamous Heart Eyes serial killer. Can they stay alive long enough to fall in love? This unexpected hit is the perfect Valentine’s date for the unconventional couple.
September 21, 2024 1:00
3:00 pm
THE LAST WORD By
William Smythe
‘January Tests,’ February Revelations
Maybe it’s the habits we stick with until February that actually de ne who we will be each new year.
We start our resolutions in January, when the supposed start of the new year begins. It seems appropriate to do so: a new year, a new life.
Many folks opt for a “dry January” where they abstain from alcohol. It’s another one of those things that makes sense when you consider how the end of the year is all about feasts and festivals. We gather together on anksgiving to gorge ourselves. And then, a few weeks later, there’s Christmas with the owing eggnog. Somewhere between Christmas and New Year’s, many drink as much alcohol in the cabinets as they can. Some drink as if the world is about to end (and they’re not entirely wrong — end of one year, start of another). It’s no wonder folks want to take a break from the beverage.
Others resolve to work out more this year, and they swear they will, trust them. But, sure enough, by mid-January, those weights grow cobwebs. Personally, I gave up on resolutions in favor of what I call “January tests,” where I spend all of January doing one thing di erently. Usually, it’s something healthy. is year I gave up ca eine. It was the toughest month because of it. But I noticed that my anger levels lowered and my sleep schedule normalized. I may wake up early, but not quite refreshed. I spend the entire day in a haze and want to take so many naps. Maybe I’m too tired to be passionate and that’s why my anger levels are so low.
Inevitably, I look forward to February every year because it means that I can return to my natural self, my true primitive goblin form. But I have never looked up what February truly means. I always just saw it as the second month of the year, and the shortest.
Maybe the real time for resolutions is February.
In Roman times, neither January or February were observed. It was simply “those winter months” that folks bore through. But when they did observe these two months, they named them a er two major observances. January was for Janus, the god of passageways and doors, which is appropriate. February, on the other hand, was named a er the ritual of Februa, or puri cation. e festival of Februa occurred on February 15th, around what we now call Valentine’s Day, and consisted of various puri cation rituals and o erings. A man clad in goat skin would strike women who wished to conceive, a barbaric-sounding practice. It reminds me more of those “birthday punches” that friends would deliver in school (with one to grow on).
e Romans aren’t the only ones to see February as a welcoming of a new world. e ancient Irish celebrated (and today’s Irish still celebrate) the top of February as the festival of Imbolc. Catholics celebrate it as St. Brigid’s Day, Brigid being the old goddess of pagan Ireland. Brigid represented both spring and the arts, with many revivalists calling her the “patroness of poets.” e saint named a er her is seen as the “Mary of Ireland,” even more so as one of the three patron saints of Ireland (a er Patrick and Columba). Some debate her historicity, but all agree that both the saint and the deity represent the same thing: a new life and an awakening of the new world.
One important ritual attributed to St. Brigid’s Day (February 1st) is the hanging of Brigid’s crosses. ey symbolize the protection of the saint and welcome a new, clean year. A fresh start. ese reed-weaved crosses resemble Native American dream catchers, Latin American Ojos de Dios, and other Indigenous charms. Just like those charms, these crosses are meant to be hung over doorways or beds to work properly.
I know it seems like my ADHD is acting up, but these associations are going somewhere. I’m sure that the more research I do, the more cultures I examine, I’ll nd the same thesis: February represents new life, change. We always celebrate January as the start of a new year, but maybe it’s the habits we stick with until February that actually de ne who we will be each new year.
One of my previous “January tests” was giving up soda all of that month. And, sure enough, I cannot drink soda as much as I used to. I nd myself craving water much more. For some who celebrate a “dry January,” I’ll bet many end up drinking less or staying sober the rest of the year. I’ll bet that those who stick with their exercises, though they may lose that fervor, start going on more walks or doing more push-ups.
I’m not saying it’s useless to try to change. But maybe my conclusion is that real change takes time and growth — and, perhaps, the willpower to get slapped by a goat-man. Whatever you choose to do, spend February collecting yourself and nally getting rid of the previous year’s dribs and drabs.
You had a whole month to prepare.
William Smythe is a local writer and poet. He writes for Focus MidSouth, an LGBT+ magazine.
