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Another Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is behind us, a weekend in which his life and his dream of equality for all were celebrated with speeches, marches, and good works in the community. It’s easy to forget that this is a relatively recent development. It took 31 years — until 1999 — for the U.S. to officially designate an MLK holiday. Eighteen years later, there are still many in this country who can’t bring themselves to pay respects to the civil rights leader who came to Memphis in support of a sanitation workers strike, gave one of the great speeches in American history, and then was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. President-elect Trump’s tweet-trashing of civil rights icon, Congressman John Lewis, makes one wonder how King’s activism would be received in 2017. For one, I’ve no doubt that those iconic “I Am A Man” signs would have caused legions of angry white folks to create signs reading “I Am A Man, Too.” King, who was disparaged in his own lifetime as a rabble-rouser and communist, would certainly be labeled a “race hustler” by Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. And if King had dared criticize Trump, is there any question that he would have gotten the same childish response from him that Lewis got? Trump announced over the weekend that he would retain his personal Twitter account during his presidency, which means we will likely be treated to the continuing spectacle of the leader of the free world using social media to personally respond to every slight he receives. It’s unseemly and juvenile and potentially dangerous. It’s one thing to disparage Meryl Streep and Saturday Night Live, quite another to impulsively insult China or Angela Merkel or NATO. But there are only two questions that matter at this point: 1) Did the presidentelect and/or his campaign operatives know about Russian interference in our election? 2) Does Russia have compromising information on Trump? Trump has admitted that “Russia probably did it,” referring to hacking DNC emails and other cyber materials to influence the election. His new CIA chief-designate, Mike Pompeo, was less equivocal in his Senate confirmation hearing, calling the hacking “an aggressive action taken by senior leadership inside of Russia,” which is encouraging. But last week we learned that Trump’s security chief Mike Flynn called the Russian ambassador several times on the day President Obama announced sanctions on Russia for the hacking. Putin then declined to respond to the U.S. sanctions, causing Trump to tweet that he “always knew Putin was smart.” Trump has since said that he would reconsider the sanctions, once in office. Welcome to international diplomacy, Trump-style. Flynn has a cozy relationship to the Russian government, including with Vladimir Putin. Several other Trump campaign operatives have similar close connections with ranking Russian officials and oligarchs, as does secretary of state nominee, Rex Tillerman. If any of them were aware of the hacking operation during the election cycle, or, more troublingly, if they were somehow communicating about it, the country is facing a grave threat to our democracy: the corrupting of our national election by a hostile foreign power. Is it possible? Certainly. I, for one, find it difficult to believe that Flynn was never in touch with his pals in Russia during the election cycle. But nothing’s been proven. Outgoing CIA director William Brennan indicated last weekend that an investigation into Trump operatives’ possible involvement in the hacking operation was ongoing. But here’s the rub: If solid evidence of such election tampering (or personal Kompromat on Trump) is uncovered by the FBI after Trump is in office, to whom do they give N E WS & O P I N I O N the information? Trump and Flynn? That’s NY TIMES CROSSWORD - 4 not going to work. Vice President Mike THE FLY-BY - 5 Pence? Congressional leaders? POLITICS - 8 Trump has made it clear that he supEDITORIAL - 10 ports policies favored by Putin — the VIEWPOINT - 11 weakening of NATO and European alCOVER — “20<30” liances, Russia’s aggressive Syrian interBY RICHARD J. ALLEY - 12 vention, and removing the sanctions put STE P P I N’ O UT forth by Obama. Does Putin have some WE RECOMMEND - 18 secret leverage on the president-elect? No MUSIC - 20 one knows for sure, but it sure is a cozy AFTER DARK - 22 bromance. Trump has often expressed CALENDAR OF EVENTS - 24 his admiration of Putin, saying it’s “a great ART - 29 DANCE - 31 honor to be so nicely complimented by a SPIRITS - 33 man so highly respected within his own FILM - 34 country and beyond.” C L AS S I F I E D S - 36 Spoken like a true patriot. Nyet. LAST WORD - 39 Bruce VanWyngarden brucev@memphisflyer.com

*ALL TIMES LISTED ARE DOOR TIMES

CONTENTS

BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN Editor SUSAN ELLIS Managing Editor JACKSON BAKER, MICHAEL FINGER Senior Editors TOBY SELLS Associate Editor CHRIS MCCOY Film and TV Editor CHRIS SHAW Music Editor RICHARD J. ALLEY Book Editor CHRIS DAVIS, JOSHUA CANNON, MICAELA WATTS Staff Writers JESSE DAVIS, LESLEY YOUNG Copy Editors JULIE RAY Calendar Editor

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The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018 For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550 For Release Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Crossword

Edited by Will Shortz

No. 0309

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January 19-25, 2017

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PUZZLE BY JOHN GUZZETTA

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Edited by Toby Sells

f l y o n t h e w a l l #Babykillers, lottery, { THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT Breaking entertainment industry news: Memphis rapper Blac Youngsta made headlines this week when a couple of strippers at the L.A. club Ace of Diamonds got mad at him for leaving the club without tipping. So the ladies did what people do these days: They posted a video. “We thought at least he was going to throw some ones,” a disgruntled dancer said. Youngsta later copped to splitting without tipping, but blamed it on the women wearing “cheap-ass lingerie” and “not getting naked.” NEVERENDING ELVIS “Dean Martin’s is the longest, then Roy Horn’s. Next is Sammy Davis Jr.’s followed by Jimmy Durante’s and then Jerry Tarkanian’s. What about Elvis’? Well, his is not very long at all.” Don’t worry, it’s not what the writer wants you to think it is. Vegas just copycatted Memphis by naming its own Elvis Presley Blvd. It’s not a very lengthy boulevard, apparently. That’s what this opening passage from the Las Vegas Sun’s story alludes to. Not the other thing. Probably. COOL THINGS You know what’s awesome? Thumbing through Twitter, seeing a post from Avengers director Joss Whedon that reads, “this THIS this,” and realizing he’s linked to a story about Memphis. What’s even cooler is finding out he’s linked to a beautiful artist’s diary about an inspirational trip to Memphis’ National Civil Rights Museum. Artist Christopher Noxon wasn’t prepared for what he’d find on Mulberry Street. It moved him to create a visual essay with a URL that’s too long to share, but googling “Lessons from Memphis” will get you there. No punch line this time, just a tip.

By Chris Davis. Email him at davis@memphisflyer.com.

and buskers

Roland: Planned Parenthood “#babykillers” A Shelby County Commissioner said Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region (PPGMR) are “baby killers” and gave that as the reason he voted last week to delay its federal funding for a free condom program. County commissioners delayed approval last Monday for $407,000 in federal grants earmarked for local HIV prevention services for four local agencies, including $115,000 in funding for PPGMR’s condom program. Millington commissioner and Shelby County mayoral candidate Terry Roland tweeted that he did believe in birth control, but not in giving PPMGR any money and he hashtagged the tweet “#babykillers.” Roland has since deleted the tweet. “These commissioners don’t care about the epidemic of sexually transmitted infections in our community … they just want to use their positions and power to score cheap political points,” said PPGMR CEO Ashley Coffield. Neighbors oppose dairy plans The Memphis City Council was slated to vote Tuesday on a plan from Turner Holdings, the Midtown-based milk distributor, that would allow it to park more trucks on its lot. Neighbors and other interested parties

W E E K T H AT W A S By Flyer Staff

Planned Parenthood ripped, detox facility fails, lottery commercials “disgusting.”

met at Hattiloo Theatre last week to discuss the plan, a meeting filled with anger, doubt, and worry. The dairy bottling and distribution center wants to transform a nearly three-acre lot behind its facility into a development that would allow the lot to be used for “vehicle maintenance, repair, warehousing, and temporary parking of trucks and trailers.” The move would bring many more trucks to Turner. Several opposed the plan last week saying the trucks would bring more noise, traffic, and fumes to their neighborhood. Others, though, defended the dairy, saying it provides community support and jobs. Bob Loeb, president of Loeb Properties, said he opposed the dairy’s plan and would jump at the chance to buy the property “to see it redeveloped for a compatible use.” Detox facility fails A drug and alcohol treatment facility planned for Cooper-Young was voted down by a local board last week. The Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board voted against allowing the facility, which was to open in the old Sheet Metals Worker building at 673 S. Cooper, close to Peabody Park. JourneyPure, Inc. wanted to turn the building into a 32-bed facility for medical detoxification and outpatient treatment. Company officials said more than

80,000 people in Shelby County need this service. However, neighbors of the building barraged board members with opposition, saying property values would fall and safety in the area would be negatively affected. Holt rips commercials West Tennessee state Rep. Andy Holt ripped Tennessee Lottery commercials Wednesday, saying they target Tennessee’s poor and “are increasingly predatory, disgusting, and out of hand.” Holt threatened legislation to “put an end to” the commercials if lottery officials didn’t tone them down, “Mark my words.” “If you cannot sell a product without encouraging people to sin, go hungry, and skip Christmas, then you clearly have a bad product on your hands,” Holt said. The 110th Tennessee General Assembly convened last week. Buckle up. Bring on the buskers The Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) wants to bring more buskers downtown. The DMC won funds last week to launch the new Main Street Sounds project. The program will pay buskers, or street musicians, to perform in nearly 50 slots open throughout April and May on the Main Street Mall between Jefferson and Peabody Place.

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fly-by

NEWS & OPINION

THE

Questions, Answers + Attitude

Fresh Air

{

CITY REPORTER By Joshua Cannon

Allen Fossil Plant

County’s air quality is improving. Shelby County’s air quality has improved in the years since Memphis shuttered its vehicle emission testing facilities in 2013, but that’s not because the testing program ended, a county official said. The city long struggled to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) standards for ozone pollution. During that struggle, the Memphis City Council voted to stop funding vehicle emissions testing stations here, which cost $2.7 million to run annually. Despite that move, the city met the EPA’s air standards last year.

While vehicle emissions did increase air pollution in the years after the city ended the testing program, other factors, like some factory closings, helped improve the county’s overall air quality, said Elizabeth Hart, public information officer with the Shelby County Health Department (SCHD). “Ending tailpipe testing did not improve overall air quality,” Hart said. “Decreases due to industrial reductions and … removing many of the old, dirtiest vehicles from the

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street [had a] much greater [effect on air quality] than the small increase from ending the program.” Congressman Steve Cohen championed the closing of vehicle inspection programs at the time, saying “Memphians shouldn’t have to shoulder an additional burden because of a faulty testing system that discriminates against those who often don’t have the means to afford repairs that have little or no effect on their vehicle’s emissions.” Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell said back then that 2011’s closing of the Cleo manufacturing plant “reduced air pollution enough to prevent the need to continue tailpipe testing.” The Allen Fossil Plant continues to be Memphis’ greatest polluter. The plant, which burns coal to power the city, generated a total of about 8,978 tons of air pollutants in 2015, according to SCHD figures. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will soon replace it with a natural gas energy plant, making use of the latest technology to reduce pollutants. Not without criticism, though, as the TVA has garnered protest for its plans to suck up 3.5 million gallons of water per day from the Memphis Sand aquifer to cool the plant. Shelby County’s quality of air continues to improve. Figures from the Health Department show that the Mid-South’s air quality is below the EPA’s national ambient air quality standard. Ozone, a gas that can provoke health problems such as chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, and congestion when at ground level, has steadily decreased in our air over the past few years. Such has been the case with a substance health officials call PM2.5, fine particles less than the width of a human hair, that can get stuck in the lungs and cause more serious health issues. “Year to year, air quality can vary some — up or down, but the overall trend is in the right direction,” Hart said. One of the health department’s considerable struggles is raising individual awareness about how citizens can improve the air quality, Hart said. Dennis Lynch, a leader of the local Sierra Club, said there are numerous ways to do this: plant a tree, don’t top off your gas tank, and drive less. “Trees produce oxygen, as well as clean the existing air,” Lynch said. “A single tree can absorb 2,000 pounds of CO2 in its lifetime. Overfilling wastes gasoline and releases toxic benzene into our air. Every mile you don’t drive saves one pound of CO2, and reduces other pollutants as well.”

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NEWS & OPINION

Saturday, February 4, 2017 Mud Island River Park

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POLITICS By Jackson Baker

Key Moves Underway Gubernatorial candidates, medical marijuana, and Cohen’s big no to the inauguration.

January 19-25, 2017

EXHIBITION

Though most attention has so far been focused on the possible GOP candidates, there are no fewer than four Democrats who are considered possible entrants in the governor’s race, as well. One is wealthy real estate tycoon Bill Freeman of Nashville, who has served as the state Democratic Party’s treasurer and for years has been a major donor to numerous Democratic campaigns and causes. Freeman, who ran unsuccessfully for Nashville mayor in 2015, made a trip to Memphis last year on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign that doubled as a fund-raiser for state Senator Lee Harris (DMemphis) and functioned also as a scouting expedition for a governor’s race. Former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean has traveled widely in the state after leaving office and is thought to be serious about a governor’s race. Two other Democrats frequently mentioned as possibilities are state House Minority Mark Norris

Leader Craig Fitzhugh (D-Ripley), a highly regarded party figure who would also have to vacate his legislative seat to make the race, and Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, a former state senator who is now running for reelection. • Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, who has taken the lead in trying to create a seat for suburban Shelby County on the MLGW board, has switched tracks on that initiative. Confronted by city of Memphis resistance and stymied by a split between city and county members from including the matter in the county commission’s official legislative request package, Roland wants to put the matter before the Tennessee Regulatory Authority. Meanwhile, state senators Norris and Ron Lollar (RBartlett) are studying the option of taking the matter up legislatively. Commissioner Heidi Shafer, a supporter of Roland’s initiative, said the matter

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continues to innovate through its Latino Student Success Program and its many partnerships in the community, including Crosstown Concourse, Crosstown High School, Maxine Smith STEAM Academy, Middle College High School, Memphis Reads, and the STEMM CoLaB at CBHS.

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A statement made by state Senator Mark Norris (R-Collierville) in Nashville last week all but put the Senate Majority Leader in the running for the governorship in 2018. Norris, who for years has made no secret of his gubernatorial ambitions, told reporters that he was “more than mulling” about a race and was actively making plans, though he emphasized that he still had a job to attend to in the legislature. He later told the Flyer that he had discussed organizational plans with a local campaign consultant but had not yet finalized a deal. Norris, as a sitting state legislator, is prohibited from active fund-raising for the duration of the current session of the General Assembly, just convened. So are two potential rivals for the Republican nomination, state Senator Mark Green (R-Clarksville), who has declared his intentions of running, and Beth Harwell (R-Nashville), speaker of the state House of Representatives, who held a recent pre-session fund-raiser at $2,500 a head. Other Republicans known to be considering a race are Nashville industrialist Bill Lee and Randy Boyd, who just announced that on February 1st he would take leave of his current position as state commissioner of Community and Economic Development.

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wasn’t dead but was sure to surface again, “when the weather for it is right.” (See Editorial, p. 10.) Even if the issue of county participation on the MLGW board ended up not being a part of the official county wish list approved by the county commission for its legislative package, other once controversial matters have apparently made the package. Foremost among them is a call for a limited but profound change in the status of marijuana. In the language of the final commission resolution: “The Shelby County Board of Commissioners urges the Tennessee General Assembly, Governor Bill Haslam, and the federal government to authorize medical marijuana in Tennessee.” There are at least two bills to that effect already introduced in the General Assembly, both from mainstream members of the Republican super-majority. A concomitant resolution by the commission reads: “The Shelby County Board of Commissioners urges the Tennessee General Assembly and Governor Bill Haslam to implement or expand a secondchance program for individuals using less than half an ounce of marijuana.” These are first steps, to be sure, but meaningful ones that could not have been anticipated even a few short years ago. • Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen joined civil rights icon John Lewis (D-GA) and what may be a substantial number of other political figures in announcing Monday that he will not attend the Friday inauguration of Donald Trump as President. Cohen, who has represented the 9th District since 2006, made the announcement Monday morning at Mason Temple of God in Christ during a commemorative celebration on MLK Day. Telling the Flyer that a series of insulting tweets from Trump about Lewis became “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Cohen praised the Georgia congressman as someone who had “risked his life” for human rights, adding that Trump’s attacks on Lewis were particularly egregious coming on the eve of the Martin Luther King weekend. Cohen cited “an accumulation of distressing remarks, actions, and appointments” on Trump’s part, including “his questioning President Obama’s birth, the racist, misogynistic statements he made during the campaign, his inability to tell the truth, and his mocking of a disabled person,” as well as the President-elect’s attacks on Senator John McCain and actress Meryl Streep. “This is a president who does not act presidential.” Cohen said. Cohen said further he had attended confidential briefings about Trump’s compromised behavior and circumstances and said that “there’s more to it than Russia.”

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NEWS & OPINION

POLITICS

New Early Childhood Center Now Open

E D ITO R IAL

MLGW Groundhog The issue of county participation on the board of the cityowned Memphis Light, Gas & Water is, for the time being, moot. Or as Shelby County Commissioner Heidi Shafer, one of the supporters of the now lapsed proposal, puts it,

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Church like it oughta be.

www.firstcongo.com Phone: 901.278.6786 1000 South Cooper Memphis, TN 38104 Sunday Worship 10:30 am

it’s a Groundhog Day matter that will surface again when the political weather changes. The weather wasn’t right on the commission when Commissioner Terry Roland raised the issue of a county member on the MLGW board in an effort to include it on the commission’s official wish list to present to the Tennessee General Assembly, now in session. It became a city vs. county controversy, with commissioners representing inner-city districts, like Reginald Milton, defending the right of Memphis, which owns the giant utility, to operate it strictly according to the terms of its current charter, which limits direct participation in the administration of MLGW to a five-member board appointed by the mayor of Memphis. The board oversees a management corps that handles the utility’s various operations. Milton and other Memphis members of the commission objected to Roland’s proposal for county participation because they saw the idea, in Milton’s words, as “a slippery slope,” something which could lead to further demands for direct participation from each of the county’s six separate suburban municipalities — Germantown, Collierville, Millington, Arlington, Lakeland, and Bartlett. The Roland proposal met with resistance also from Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and with some concern from the county administration of Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell.

Given that MLGW is owned and operated by the city and is governed by a charter that specifically limits the manner of its administration, the kind of change sought by Roland and his allies would unquestionably transform the nature of MLGW governance. Roland invokes the vintage term “taxation without representation” to describe the voiceless nature of county representatives who pay the fees and submit to MLGW policies without having input into either. One matter that exacerbates the issue is city council member Patrice Robinson’s proposal that customers’ bills be rounded off to the nearest dollar, with the additional revenues, estimated at $2.5 million annually, going to help the city’s low-income residents weatherize their homes. Roland cites the proposal — which has been amended to allow county residents to decline the rounding-off on their bills — as the very kind of matter that county customers should have a direct voice in. There may be equivalent needs among disadvantaged county residents, he and others note. Though his effort to put the commission on record as lobbying for a change has failed, Roland says that state Senator Mark Norris and state Representative Ron Lollar (R-Bartlett) are even now looking into possible legislative remedies. And he himself intends to make an appeal for change to the Tennessee Regulatory Authority. One way or another, this groundhog is an issue that hasn’t gone away.

January 19-25, 2017

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Media consumers should be suspicious of everything, especially if it confirms your biases. As news organizations and the public struggle to come to grips with salacious information about Donald Trump contained in a 35-page dossier released last week by Buzzfeed, it’s a good time to think back to the 2004 campaign between John Kerry and George W. Bush. Early in that year, The Memphis Flyer’s Jackson Baker broke a story alleging that then-President George W. Bush had, back in the 1970s, taken unauthorized leave of an Alabama Air National Guard unit that he had sought a transfer to from his regular Texas Guard unit in order to spend time working on a political campaign. This information was an open secret among the former Alabama Air Guard members that Baker used as his sources. Indeed, several of them had heard of the forthcoming transfer to their unit of Bush, son of the prominent political figure and future President George H.W. Bush, and a Guard pilot whose well-deserved reputation as a hell-raiser had traveled far and wide in Guard circles. Three of them told Baker categorically, and for the record, Lieutenant George W. Bush had never turned up at any point for the entire year of his supposed assignment to their Guard base. Meanwhile, there was no dearth of Bush-sightings during the ongoing (and ultimately losing) U.S. Senate campaign, elsewhere in Alabama, of Bush family friend Winton “Red” Blount. Baker first put the story, and the concrete first-person evidence for it, firmly into the public record, and thus set the stage for the remarkable series of events that followed. As the 2004 campaign ground on, neither Bush nor Kerry was able to gain a clear advantage. Then, in September, Democrats got a gift: CBS TV’s 60 Minutes obtained letters from Texas Air Guard commander Colonel Jerry B. Killian that seemingly provided further documentary evidence of the allegations against Bush. Democrats trumpeted the new evidence, presented by Dan Rather himself, as proof that the commander-in-chief was unfit for office. Within days, the story began to unravel. Commenters on internet message boards attached to conservative blogs quickly produced convincing evidence that the Killian documents were forgeries. For weeks, the internet and news media were consumed with discussions of the minutiae of the command structure of 1970’s air units and the capabilities of vintage typewriters. Eventually, CBS acknowledged that the Killian documents were likely forged. Dan Rather lost his job, and George W. Bush was reelected.

After the election, not much thought was given to the provenance of the Killian documents or what effect they had on the course of history. The source of the apparent forgery was never uncovered. But who would produce a forgery like this, and why? And how did semi-anonymous internet commenters know exactly where to look for proof of a forgery when experts CBS hired thought they were authentic? What if the Killian documents were forged by someone in the Bush campaign — a couple of famous (or infamous) Dirty Tricksters come to mind — and selectively leaked to Rather’s producers at 60 Minutes? The reveal of the Killian documents shifted public debate away from Bush’s character — and the first evidence of his dereliction from Alabama Air Guard pilots — and onto the truth or untruth of the documents themselves.

This election cycle has exceeded the wildest dreams of even the most crazed. The publication by Buzzfeed of the new intelligence dossier filled with shocking accusations about Donald Trump has thrown the country into an uproar. But there are enough parallels to the Killian documents incident to raise red flags for the news consumers and publishers alike. The Killian documents and the Trump dossier both told Democrats and other critics what they wanted to hear at a time when they were most desperate to hear it. Claims that the dossier was forged popped up on the message board 4chan within hours of Buzzfeed’s publication. If the dossier is indeed a black propaganda operation designed to take the heat off Trump, it’s well designed: associating the really important information about Trump — that, inadvertently or otherwise, he’s a possible Russian intelligence asset about to assume the office of the presidency — with false information appealing to the preconceptions of his political opponents. This column may sound like a paranoid liberal conspiracy theory, but this election cycle has exceeded the wildest dreams of even the most crazed of the tinfoil-hat brigade. The Killian documents gambit is just one arrow in the quiver of the sophisticated and unscrupulous operators who seek to control the national conversation in these dangerous times. The lesson is, be suspicious of everything, especially if it confirms your biases. Chris McCoy is the Flyer’s Film and Television editor.

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COVER STORY BY RICHARD J. ALLEY / PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUSTIN FOX BURKS

The Class of 2017

Did you see that? That awful year that was 2016? The bad news, untimely deaths, and unexpected results left us sifting through the ashes of that dumpster fire for anything salvageable. What we found were these 20 young people who don’t have their eye on any calendar, but on their careers, communities, and challenges. They see only possibilities, and their optimism is infectious. Bring on the new year. They’re ready.

January 19-25, 2017

Mark Brimble A scientist, comedian, and Englishman walk into a bar. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. The punch line is that they’re all the same person: Mark Brimble. And the bar is the taproom at Memphis Made Brewing Company, where Mark and partners, the Comma Comedians, started Drafts and Laughs, a monthly comedy show. If the comedy doesn’t work out, he’s got this other thing to fall back on. As a PhD candidate at the University College London, he works with St. Jude researching gene therapy treatment for hemophilia. That’s something we know nothing about, but we do understand drinking beer and laughing. Mark first became interested in comedy watching shows similar to NPR’s Mark “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!” Brimble “It was almost ridiculously middleclass humor we grew up with,” he says. He decided to attempt stand-up to overcome his fear of speaking when presenting medical research. “The best thing I thought I could do was to throw myself into that environment.” Mark found more than applause and work in Memphis, though. He also found a fiancée, Laurin Riggins, a nurse at Methodist Healthcare. Where Mark’s work will take him is anyone’s guess, but we’re all pulling for a stay in Memphis. And that’s no joke.

Kayla Rodriguez Graff

Kayla Rodriguez Graff Kayla Rodriguez Graff is scared of two things: bees and dentists. Understandable, unless the company you’re building relies on bees and dentists. SweetBio developed a membrane made of medical-grade manuka honey and proteins used in oral surgery to fill in gaps after a tooth extraction, allowing the bones to regrow and gums to regenerate while preventing infection. Kayla is COO of the company, and her brother, Isaac Rodriguez, is CEO. “He’s two years older than me, and, from a pretty young age, he was interested in biology and I was always interested in business,” she says. She majored in business at the University of Minnesota but says she took as many engineering classes as possible. Her love of computer science was evident when she moved to San Francisco. “I

actually sold my car to learn how to code.” With a background in entrepreneurship and corporate retail, it was natural to partner with Isaac when he brought the idea for SweetBio to her. They brought it to Memphis in 2015 for the ZeroTo510 medical device accelerator at Memphis Bioworks 12 Foundation. Kayla has lived all over and says Memphis is a “hidden gem” in the medical device community.

Our annual look at 20 young Memphians who are making the city a better place.

Broderick Greer Broderick Greer has more than 25,000 followers on Twitter. Why? Because Broderick has something to say. The curate at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church first logged onto Twitter in 2009 to share with friends, but two years ago he visited Ferguson, Missouri, and his shift in focus changed to racial justice. “I’d always been passionate about LGBTQ advocacy and inclusion, being a gay person myself, so a lot of it is just personal interest,” he says. Broderick grew up in a devout Missionary Baptist family in Fort Worth, Texas. The grandson of the church pianist spent every Sunday in church and every Thursday night at choir practice. “My parents, by the time I was 14, knew I wanted Broderick to be a minister when I grew up.” Greer GSL is his first job out of seminary, and his duties include coordinating ministry to people in their 20s and 30s through the Theology Live podcast, bringing in a local theologian, pastor, or thinker to discuss theology. He also puts on a monthly young-adult brunch, oversees chapel for school, and coordinates City of Soul, an Episcopal Service Corps program.

Sheleah Harris When we called Sheleah Harris, she was on break. A teacher for Bartlett High, it was the week after Christmas, and she wanted to just put her feet up. “If you hear noise in the background, it’s just some kids,” she said. They are nieces and nephews she’s watching for a few days. A chore? Not for this protector and advocate of children. Sheleah comes from a family of educators and, though she resisted at first, entered the vocation with a passion, attending the University of Memphis to further her career. Once in the school system, she learned about homeless students while attending a training session, and went into action, founding the nonprofit Living Grace a year ago. She educated herself and learned what it was they needed most — school supplies, toiletries, monetary donations. They needed transportation, and Sheleah attended a MATA board meeting to plead her case. It did not fall on deaf ears. Now there are free passes for those students in need. “These are things that we take for granted, and people really don’t think about this population of children,” she says. “I want to be an advocate for our homeless children.” Sheleah Harris

Larissa Redmond Thompson Larissa Redmond Thompson has taken a tragedy in her life — the death of her fiancé caused by someone texting and driving — and woven it into a life-saving tale that she takes to teenage drivers through her own nonprofit, Collegiate Life Investment Foundation (CLIF). “I started it just to bring awareness of the dangers of distracted driving throughout the state,” she says. Since 2012, CLIF has partnered with the University of Tennessee and the Collierville court system to grow into several programs providing teen traffic safety to high school students.

Larissa Redmond Thompson

Mahal Burr Mahal Burr grew up with a sense of social justice imparted by her mother. She even has photos of herself as a baby at rallies and protests. She carried that sensibility with her through high school at Ridgeway and Lausanne and into the BRIDGES program, where middle and high school students are empowered to reach across racial and socio-economic divides. After graduating from Carleton College, she came back to Memphis and threw her passion into Stand for Children and Teach for America. Eventually, though, BRIDGES called her back, and today she is the community action coordinator. As such, she co-founded Incarcerated Youth Speaking Out for Change, runs the CHANGE program, and puts together community action for the 1,200 students who are part of the COLLABORATE program. “My job is to create opportunities for them to figure out how they want to be part of transforming their community,” she says. “It’s actually a lot of fun and allows a lot of creative energy.” Last year, her sense of fairness led her to Standing Rock to join the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.Working with today’s youth on issues such as mentoring and police violence may be more important than ever over the coming four years or so, so I ask if she’s up for the challenge. “Onehundred percent.” Mahal Burr

Whitney Hardy Whitney Hardy has been dubbed a “serial entrepreneur” by those who know her. This sobriquet couldn’t be more fitting. She remembers “always creating things” as a kid, and her first endeavor was a neighborhood soft drink stand. Not lemonade, on the advice of her mother, local entrepreneur Carolyn Hardy, who said lemonade wouldn’t sell. “I started learning about profit margins at 5 years old,” she laughs. Whitney went on to UT-Knoxville for undergraduate and graduate degrees in accounting. From there it was to Atlanta, but the Bluff City siren kept calling. “Memphis was blowing up. I just kept thinking, ‘There’s so much stuff happening in Memphis right now, this is the place.’” She came back in 2014 to work with her mother, but found she wasn’t seeing enough being done for the LGBTQ community, leading her to start the Outflix Film Festival and Out901.com. There were other issues as well. “I love opera, I love ballet, and going to those things, I realized there weren’t people under 40 there,” she says. This led to the founding of Young Arts Patrons, a membership-based nonprofit designed to create a network of arts philanthropists and patrons under 40 Whitney through programs and events that engage Hardy and educate.

Grace Weil As the development director for Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region, Grace Weil’s job overseeing all fundraising may be exponentially more hectic — and more necessary — following November’s election. Then again, it may be somewhat easier as well. “Our donations easily quadrupled if not more after the election,” she says. “I think it’s unfortunate circumstances, but I’m always glad to see the outpouring of support.” Not backing down goes back a long way with Grace. She was on her mother’s lap as a toddler at nonprofit board meetings in San Antonio, Texas, and got kicked out of calculus class her senior year of high school for arguing with her teacher about abortion. Grace When it came to college, she looked Weil for one in a city with a “strong nonprofit network.” She found that at Rhodes College for a double major in International Studies and Political Science. Her interests ran toward public health issues, and, after graduation in 2011, she went on to work with Americorps VISTA and Hope House. Planned Parenthood became home in 2015, and she and her boyfriend were some of the first tenants to move into an apartment at Crosstown Concourse. And what advice would she give those worried about what the next four years might bring? A play right out of her own book: “Be public. The best thing you can do for Planned Parenthood or any social justice cause right now is to not be silent.” Katie McWeeney Her art explores human connection and the conscious and subconscious ways that we communicate, and as the first executive director of the Broad Avenue Arts District, it’s that connection, and the stories that go with it, that interests Katie McWeeney. The 10-year-old arts district has existed solely as a volunteer endeavor until now, and Katie, hired last October, recently secured its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. She has her work cut out for her as she harnesses the energy of the street and its relationship with the rest of the city. “There’s going to be a social and visual alignment, there’s a lot of development coming up, a lot of movement happening,” she says. “The Hampline paving schedule is Katie starting in April, that will extend all the way McWeeney down Tillman to the Greenline, so we’ll get that connectivity.” She moved to Memphis from Louisiana for her MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies at Memphis College of Art after studying architecture and fine art at Louisiana Tech. She worked with Crosstown in its early stages of development, before moving on to consult Jimmy with for-profits and nonprofits, such as Sinh Indie Memphis. “Broad Avenue is kind of this weird, untouched area that’s got so many interesting people and interesting stories.” Jimmy Sinh Odds are you’ve had a meal or two at the Sushi Jimmi food truck. If not, you’re doing mealtime wrong, especially if you haven’t had the Red Dragon or 901 Sushi Burrito. In the coming weeks, though, the need to pinpoint where owner Jimmy Sinh has parked his truck will be less pressing. The old Wendy’s at Poplar near the Union overpass, just west of the Library, will be home to a brick-and-mortar version. continued on page 14

COVER STORY m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Her passion for involvement is seen in her day job as program associate with the Memphis Medical District Collaborative, which brings together the area’s institutions and stakeholders to make the district more livable, economically prosperous, clean, and safe. “It’s perfect for me,” she says. “I love Memphis. It’s my heart, so anything building the brand of Memphis, building specific areas up to their best potential was ideal.” Larissa gives this advice for all: “You have to care about getting home safe, and about the person in the other car who has a wife or a child, about them getting home safe. If you treat driving as a caring activity, we’ll all be safer on the highways.”

continued from page 13 It’s a dream come true for the chef, who moved with his parents to Memphis from Los Angeles in the third grade. While he can enumerate the positives of his adopted hometown over L.A., the West Coast is where his love of food was born. Specifically, the less expensive Hispanic and Vietnamese food bought from street vendors. His mother, too, was an inspiration. Jimmy is one of seven kids, so the woman was feeding a packed house of her own. For Jimmy, food equals art, and you see it in his dishes and hear the passion for it in his voice. He’s an artist. He’s also the father of four children (ages 5 months to 9), so please, visit his restaurant before it’s time to buy a food RV to accommodate so many mouths.

January 19-25, 2017

John Martin If John Martin could have written his own story, it’s just the sort of plot he may have imagined. In the beginning, he hoped to do just that, with dreams of being a novelist. “I just don’t have the attention span or the talent to write a 200-page book,” he admits. But he carried that love of the printed word through White Station High and into the journalism program at the University of Memphis. It was with him as sports editor for the U of M’s Daily Helmsman and as a freelancer covering recruiting for the sports department of The Commercial Appeal. Expertise on his subject matter saw him make appearances on Gary Parrish’s sports-talk show on the radio, and when CA columnist Geoff Calkins was offered a show John on ESPN 92.9, he accepted with the caveat Martin that Martin had to be his producer. “It jumpstarted my career in radio,” Martin says. Now, John can be heard on “The Jason and John Show” at 92.9 daily from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., partnering with former CA sports columnist, Jason Smith. “The most interesting parts of sports radio are not breaking down a game,” he says. “The thing I enjoy the most is applying something of my own experiences to something an athlete has done or said. It’s when sports intersects with society.” Spencer Blank It was just a few years ago that the Memphis Symphony Orchestra was in financial trouble, heading toward an overture of insolvency. Today, happily, the MSO is strong and flourishing. So says director of operations Spencer Blank, who joined the organization in 2015, after the troubling period. “It was a real hard moment when I came in, not knowing what the future was,” he says. “It was sort of like a team of social activists that just said, ‘Well, here we go, there’s only one choice but to bring it every day.’” Bring it, they have. Spencer is not just a fiscally minded general manager, but a pianist and opera singer who has toured the U.S. and Europe and performed offSpenser Broadway. “It always looked so much more Blank glamorous than it ever felt from the inside,” he says. He went back to school at the University of Texas-Austin for a master’s in arts administration and came to Memphis with a dedication and passion for both music and management. Spencer is formidable at his desk, on stage, and in a scrum — when not planning for his team to perform a Rachmaninoff concerto, he hits the field with a different sort of team as a member of the Memphis Blues rugby club. “I’m the gentle, artistic one contemplating the meaning of life in the corner, so it’s even more hilarious.”

Michalyn Easter As a community advocate, Michalyn Easter puts her money where her mouth is. She began the grassroots nonprofit Our Grass Our Roots in North Memphis three years ago as a way to bring together the community development corporations and neighborhood groups already in place to ensure they have the best resources, representation, and 14 advocacy. She also bought a home there when she returned from graduate school at Columbia.

Michalyn grew up in the area around Klondike, Chelsea, and North Watkins. As a child, she wanted to be a dentist, but her grandmother was a longtime teacher and her own passion for history led her on a route that went from North Memphis to Christian Brothers University and points north. She planned to stay in New York for five to eight years, but came back after three when her father passed away. Michalyn teaches AP World History at Overton High School and in “looking for an avenue to help while touching as many people as possible,” she founded her nonprofit. “We took a step back and said, ‘What’s something we can do without reinventing things that have already been attempted or things that are already in process?”

Michalyn Easter

Rochelle Brahalla In case you think to question Rochelle Brahalla’s devotion to agriculture, know that she has founded a “plant focus group” of like-minded friends to meet in her home and discuss popular landscape plants. “We’ll do a mini-research project on the plants and explore plant perceptions, because I’m really interested in seeing how people perceive plants and how they come across in that human social behavior experience.” While that’s in her off-time, her day job is as project manager for The Kitchen Community, the nationwide nonprofit founded by progressive entrepreneur Kimbal Musk to design, build, and sustain gardens in public schools. Rochelle grew up digging in the dirt in upstate New York. She studied landscape architecture at Cornell University and followed a friend and AmeriCorps to the fertile land of the Delta in 2014. Here, she’s worked to design and construct 75 gardens with various school districts and hopes to get another 10 completed this year. “It’s a dream job for me,” she says. “I work in school communities and design productive landscapes.” Rochelle She calls Memphis “a great place to come Brahalla of age. It just feels like a very personal place.” Ryan Carroll Many teachers work in classrooms strung with crepe paper and strewn with colored pencils. Ryan Carroll’s environment offers a far different perspective. As the lead instructor for HopeWorks, a nonprofit bringing personal career and development classes to underserved areas, Ryan’s classrooms are at 201 Poplar and the Penal Farm, where he prepares inmates for GED and High School Equivalency Tests. He also instructs incarcerated juveniles on the ACT test as a volunteer. He’d originally considered a different career, but the numbers just didn’t work out. “I went to graduate school at the University of California-Santa Cruz for mathematical physics, and I moved back to Memphis to be with my family,” he says. “I was tired of doing pure math all by myself in a cubicle. I wanted to do something in the community.” He started volunteering at 201 Poplar and was surprised to find there was no GED program, so he started one. His students really want to engage in learning, and, while the classes are a way to stay busy and maybe impress a judge, they also build confidence and give them momentum in the right direction. “It’s a point of pride that helps them get out of the Ryan negative environments a lot of them have to Carroll go home to.”

Tierinni Jackson If, while listening to Tierinni Jackson sing, you’re transported by thoughts of Aretha Franklin or Stevie Wonder, that’s no coincidence. She points to these icons as inspiration. Likewise, if you’re transported to a Sunday morning church service, that is also no coincidence. She was brought up in the church with musician parents and attended choir practice regularly. These days, she fronts the band Southern Avenue, recently signed to Concord Music, which owns the Stax record label. Yes, Stax. There may be no more sacred ground in Memphis than the corner of College and McLemore. Of being on the label, Tierinni says, “It seems like a responsibility and at the same time an Tierinni honor, because I grew up with [that music].” Jackson Southern Avenue’s new, self-titled album, recorded at Jim Dickinson’s Zebra Ranch and Music+Arts in Midtown, will drop on February 24th, and the band continues to tour at a hectic pace, no easy feat for this mother of two. Family is important, and she notes the help of her family with childcare, as well as with keeping the beat — sister, Tikyra, is the band’s drummer.

Brandon Marshall Brandon Marshall may be the only person on this list who’s been arrested twice and garnered a few citations for the very reason he’s on the list. Then again, graffiti has never been so accepted as it is now. City leaders have embraced the iconic murals sprouting up on barren walls all over the city. Likewise, the media looks at it with a different perspective, and Brandon cites a Memphis Flyer cover story, some years back, for helping to lead that charge. And he’ll take some of the recognition as well, thank you very much. “I like to think I had a part in bringing the murals to Memphis,” he says. “I’ve done about 30 commissioned works of all different continued on page 17

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Brian Thurmond Brian Thurmond’s life on the line began in his mother’s kitchen and in front of the television with the Food Network. He went to the grocery store with her, and she showed him the basics, but he never thought of cooking as a career at that point. His first job — as dishwasher for Restaurant Iris — opened a door. He worked his way up the line, then went to L’École Culinaire, and last fall opened his own restaurant — 148 North — in Collierville. “My wife was pregnant with our first child, and I decided it would be a good time to find out if I could do my own thing and find my own place and support my family by myself,” he says. Kelly English, owner of Restaurant Brian Iris, was supportive of Brian and helped Thurmond him find the location. “Opening a restaurant is such a different animal that you can’t really prepare anybody for it,” Brian says. “He just had my back.” Even with years of kitchen experience, training from a respected institution, and the blessing of one of the city’s most respected chefs, Brian still had the opening-day jitters. “It’s all on you. You can’t pass it off onto somebody else,” he says. “It’s your recipes, your train of thought, so it’s very stressful. At the end of the day, we’re trying to get to happy customers with full bellies.”

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styles in the last five or so years.” Brian’s also become an advocate for graffiti art and has curated several festivals surrounding the art form. Though he’s never taken an official painting class, his work can be seen all over town. Some of his favorites can be seen in the alley at the Rendezvous and on the walls of Halle Stadium. He’s responsible for a Marc Gasol portrait on Airways, MLK at Aspire Hanley Elementary School, and the iconic I (heart) Memphis mural in CooperYoung, among many others. Another passion for Brandon is music. He organized a hip-hop festival held at the Brooks Museum of Art last year and hopes to do the same in 2017.

Faith Evans Ruch

Faith Evans Ruch Her music was birthed from a longtime love of Broadway musicals and writing poetry. In 2011, Faith Evans Ruch began backing the words with her own guitar, and she had a career in the making. Well, a second career. When Faith isn’t crooning to a crowd, she’s a nurse in labor and delivery at Regional One Health, bringing new potential music lovers into the world. “Growing up, I knew that I loved taking care of people,” she says. “I’ve always been very invested in the care of others. I’m a nurturer by nature.” Music and nursing are both rewarding and stressful in their own ways, but Faith’s found a balance that caters to her emotional, caregiver, and personal needs. “I look at my nursing job as where I get to go take care of others, and when I come home and I play my guitar, that’s when I take care of myself.” And we’re lucky to be a part of at least one of those careers. Faith plays around town and recorded her first album, 1835 Madison, in 2013. Her second will be released this spring and is being recorded at famed Royal Studios, home of Al Green and Ann Peebles.

Madison Harrison If Madison Harrison had a car, her start-up company, MadAir Decks, probably wouldn’t exist. Before the skateboard was art, it was simple transportation. “For about a year, I didn’t have a car, so I started skating everywhere — to the grocery store, to Walgreen’s, to work,” she says. At the same time, she was coming into contact with more and more artists from Memphis College of Art at Babalu, where she works. Wanting to showcase their talent, and with the ember of entrepreneurism burning in her soul, she and partners Amber George, Jake Barrett, and Alya Bandealy founded MadAir. Each skate deck is hand-painted according to the artist’s style and protected with sealant. Are they meant to be ridden or hung on the wall? “Buyer’s choice,” Madison says. She tells the artists that the board has to be rideable, but MadAir also sells mounting fixtures to hang them like a Picasso. Distribution is done solely through madairdecks-memphis.com right now, but she has her sights set on a brick-and-mortar store in the next couple of years. In the meantime, Madison is marketing and showcasing the artwork through a series of events held at Memphis Slim House. The Memphis Flyer would like to thank Loflin Yard for the use of their lovely space for our 20<30 photo shoot.

Madison Harrison

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COVER STORY m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

continued from page 15

17 SOUTHL-55433 Memphis Flyer 1/5/17 $100K Giveaway.indd 1

12/27/16 10:56 AM

steppin’ out

We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews By Chris Davis

What’s the best thing about the Brooks Museum of Art installing Australian artist Amanda Parer’s acclaimed giant, illuminated rabbit sculptures, “Intrude,” in Overton Park apart from the sheer novelty of having five enormous, internally-lit bunnies in Overton Park? The Brooks is very good at supplemental programming, and sometimes a little cheeky. This week, Parer’s whimsical leporine creations create a perfect opportunity to screen the very best terrible horror movie about giant, bloodthirsty rabbits ever made — Night of the Lepus. Psycho’s Janet Leigh stars alongside DeForest Kelley of Star Trek fame, in a story of science run amok. Mutant, flesh-eating rabbits that breed like rabbits threaten humanity. Only a posse of drive-in-movie-loving citizens can stop them. Jimmie Haskell’s dreamy soundtrack sells some special slow-motion shots of real fluffy bunnies trampling over miniature landscapes, destroying everything in their path. Night of the Lepus is the second feature in the Brooks’ wonderfully weird Killer Rabbit series, which kicks off January 21st with the Jimmy Stewart classic, Harvey. The madness continues when The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Movie screens January 28th, and concludes with cinema’s most famous movie about deadly cottontails, Monty Python and the Holy Grail January 29th. Comedy landmark, Holy Grail, brought moviegoers face to face with the Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh, a terrifying creature named for the last sound uttered by anybody unfortunate enough to make its acquaintance. All films start at 2 p.m.

January 19-25, 2017

ANDREW J. BREIG

“NIGHT OF THE LEPUS” AT THE MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART, SUNDAY, JANUARY 22ND, 2 P.M. $9/$5 BROOKS MEMBERS.

RISE by Collage Dance Collective Feature, p. 31

Vitus Shell’s “Protect Her” is featured in The Moonpie Project. Art, p. 29

THURSDAY January 19

FRIDAY January 20

Minimalism Malco Paradiso, 7 p.m., $20 Got junk? This documentary from the Minimalists, who eschew stuff, follows others like them around the country.

Drafts and Laughs Memphis Made Brewing Co., 7:30-9 p.m. A few laughs over beers sounds good, doesn’t it? Hosted by the Comma Comedians.

“Mallory/Wurtzburger: A Retrospective” Dixon Gallery & Gardens, 6-8 p.m. Opening reception for this show celebrating artists from past exhibitions.

Lost in London Live Malco Paradiso, 8 p.m. Screening of live performance/film starring and directed by Woody Harrelson about one memorable night in London.

“The Belhaven Republic (A Delta Blues), 1793-1795” Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art, University of Memphis, 5-7 p.m. Opening reception for this work by Frohawk Two Feathers (Umar Rashid) “documenting” the attempted siege of Memphis by the Belhaven Republic. Includes flags, maps, and other artifacts. Rashid will give a talk about his work on Thursday, January 19th, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., at the gallery. 39 Steps Theatre Memphis, 8 p.m., $25 A parody of the Hitchcock film about the manhunt for a murderer.

“Beloved, Quirky, and Covered in Paint: Peter Bowman, 1942-2015” Memphis College of Art, 6-8 p.m. Reception for this exhibition of work by beloved instructor and artist Peter Bowman. Also opening is “Whole Being,” featuring small-scale sculptures by MCA alum Sheila Bailey. Blueprints to Freedom: An Ode Bayard Rustin Hattiloo Theatre, 7:30 p.m., $28 Play about 1960s openly gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who was later exiled from the movement.

AMANDA PARER STUDIOS

Rabbit Season

“Intrude”

Gilbert Gottfried

Forever Gilbert

By Chris Davis

Some things are always true. The sun comes up in the east, water flows downhill, and Gilbert Gottfried is funny. He’s also obnoxious. Grating. He can say some wildly inappropriate things, and it seems like he’s always in trouble. But like the old lounge comics he takes his cues from, he’ll get you with the zingers. Gottfried’s long and varied career in stand-up has taken him from the U.S.A. Up All Night to Disney Studios. But he still packs his bags and works comedy clubs all across America. This week he’s performing at Chuckles comedy club, so we asked some questions about life on the road and being fired by Donald Trump. Or something like that. Memphis Flyer: I saw this on social media and had to ask. What was it like when you were on Celebrity Apprentice and Donald Trump grabbed your lady parts? Gilbert Gottfried: I was both shocked and flattered. I thought it was a little forward of him, but I was very impressed by his success.

GREAT MUSIC & DELICIOUS CUISINE JANUARY 20

NICK BLACK

You have a real knack for saying things that get you into hot water. I thought I’d keep that out of the press. But most of the time you turn it around and it works for you. Gift or curse? Oh, God. Employment-wise, it’s a curse. Bad part is losing work. And the internet goes nutty on you. But the good part is, sometimes when something happens to me that’s some big controversy, it’s almost like slapping a “new-and-improved” label on an old product. If the top story of the night is your career is over, it means it definitely isn’t over.” GILBERT GOTTFRIED AT CHUCKLES COMEDY HOUSE FRI.-SUN., JANUARY 20TH-22ND, 7 P.M. $25. CHUCKLESCOMEDYHOUSE.COM

JAN 18

MIGHTY SOULS BRASS BAND 8PM JAN 19

MD'S 9PM JAN 20

NICK BLACK 10PM Liam Neeson in Martin Scorsese’s Silence Film, p. 34 TUESDAY January 24

WEDNESDAY January 25

Alonzo King LINES Ballet Germantown Performing Arts Center, 8 p.m. Performance by San Franciscobased contemporary dance troupe that approaches dance as a science. Thursday night’s ArtSavvy will be a Contemporary Dance 101. RSVP required: 751-7500.

The Bodyguard The Orpheum, 7:30 p.m.$25-$125 And I (i i i i i i) will always love you (oooooo): Musical based on the Whitney Houston film, featuring hit songs like “So Emotional,” “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” and, yes, “I Will Always Love You.”

Booksigning by Susan Rivers The Booksellers at Laurelwood, 6:30 p.m. Susan Rivers signs and discusses The Second Mrs. Hockaday about a teenager during the Civil War. Part of the Literary Tastemakers series.

“Extreme Deep: Mission into the Abyss” Pink Palace Museum, 9-5 p.m., $7.50-$12.75 Get down with your fish friends and other forms of life at this hands-on exhibition about the bottom of the sea.

Author Launch Party Bounty on Broad, 6 p.m. Party for Kevin Wilson (The Family Fang) and his latest novel, Perfect Little World, about a single mother and a scientist trying to create a utopia.

The Darts Bar DKDC, 9:15-11:45 p.m. A performance by this grrl garage band with the hit single “Take What I Need.”

BRENNAN VILLINES 10PM JAN 22

PEARL 4PM CHUCK MEAD 8PM JAN 24

JOHN KILZER 8PM 2 1 1 9 M A D I S O N AV E N U E MEMPHIS, TN 38104 (901) 207-5097 L A FAY E T T E S . C O M

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

SATURDAY January 21

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

JAN 21

MUSIC by Chris Shaw

New Stage

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GHOST TOWN BLUES BAND JANUARY 27

JAMIE BAKER & THE VIPS

January 19-25, 2017

JANUARY 28

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ou might remember Kedren Johnson as the Vanderbilt transfer who helped shape the final years of the Pastner era of the Memphis Tigers. As a shooting guard, Johnson quickly became a crowd favorite, known for his defensive tenacity and his impressive spin moves. But these days the former hooper is more concerned with studio time than SportsCenter plays. I caught up with Johnson to find out more about how the former Memphis Tiger deals with his new spotlight. — Chris Shaw How much basketball are you playing these days? These days, almost none. I love to watch it, and I play and I still shoot around, but that’s all. How do you use a Division 1 basketball

career to your advantage as a musician? Around seventh grade, I hit like a six-inch growth spurt, and that made basketball a lot easier. When I was 10, I started recording with my mom’s laptop, so I’ve been doing music longer than I’ve been playing basketball, but it was the tool to train me for a music career. It allowed me to study music. When I got to Memphis, I had to make sure that my coach understood that that’s where my heart was. They had to really understand that music is what I wanted to do. That was the first step.

ADRIAN BERRYHILL

LIVE ENTERTAINMENT 10PM –2AM

Kedren Johnson on his musical life after basketball.

Former Memphis Tiger Kedren Johnson When did you realize you wanted to pursue being a recording artist? Around 16, I got serious about it. I started getting equipment, and I pretty much knew that I was going to make music. All of the college decisions came

N E W S TA G E

“I can do so much more with music, and I can touch people in a deeper way through music as opposed to sports. There is not much you can convey through sports other than ‘go hard, go hard, go hard.’” Definitely. It’s not just the basketball part of it, that puts more stress on it, but just college trained me to rethink how I could be better at whatever it is I’m working on. Coming out of college, I’m always thinking about what I’m supposed to be doing — what’s next? Am I slacking or wasting time? How did your teammates react when

The city of Memphis already knows you as a basketball player. What do you want to convey as a musician? I can do so much more with music, and I can touch people in a deeper way through music as opposed to sports. There is not much you can convey through sports other than “go hard, go hard, go hard,” but with music, I can convey a lot of different feelings. What’s the biggest difference between music and basketball? The main difference is that people think I’m crazy. People think I’ve lost my mind. It’s been that way for a while. Now that basketball is over, people think I’m crazy for doing this. [People say] “Why would you not try to go overseas,” but that’s not what my calling is. I just don’t feel that way. Basketball was a tool that helped me unwrap my gift. Kedren Johnson’s debut single “Notification” will drop early this year.

recycle we do. this issue is printed on partially-recycled paper.

memphis flyer memphisflyer.com

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

So much time and energy goes into being a college athlete. Do you feel like the work ethic required to be a Memphis Tiger basketball player helped you as an artist?

they knew music was your main thing? They all respected it. They all liked to listen to music, but no one else was talking about quitting basketball. It was strange to them. They had aspirations to go to the NBA while I was thinking about my music career.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

after my decision to play basketball. Music was always in the back of my mind. I was just trying to get as close to that dream as I could.

BLIND MISSISSIPPI MORRIS SATURDAY, JANUARY 21ST BLUES CITY CAFE

PLAIN WHITE T’S SATURDAY, JANUARY 21ST GOLD STRIKE CASINO

LIL BOOSIE FRIDAY, JANUARY 20TH MINGLEWOOD HALL

After Dark: Live Music Schedule January 19 - 25 Tuesdays, 7 p.m.; Brandon Cunning Trio Sundays, 6 p.m., and Mondays, 7 p.m.; FreeWorld Sundays, 9:30 p.m.

Alfred’s 197 BEALE 525-3711

Gary Hardy & Memphis 2 Thursdays-Saturdays, 6-9 p.m.; Karaoke Thursdays, TuesdaysWednesdays, 9 p.m.-1 a.m., and Sundays-Mondays, 10 p.m.-2 a.m.; Mandi Thomas Fridays, Saturdays, 6-9 p.m.; The 901 Heavy Hitters Fridays, Saturdays, 10 p.m.-2 a.m.; Flyin’ Ryan Fridays, Saturdays, 2:30 a.m.; Memphis Jazz Orchestra Sundays, 6-9 p.m.

B.B. King’s Blues Club 143 BEALE 524-KING

The King Beez Thursdays, 5:30 p.m.; B.B. King’s All Stars Thursdays, Fridays, 8 p.m.; Will Tucker Band Fridays, Saturdays, 5 p.m.; Lisa G and Flic’s Pic’s Band Saturdays, Sundays, 12:30 p.m.; Blind Mississippi Morris Sundays, 5 p.m.; Memphis Jones Sundays, Wednesdays 5:30 p.m.; Doc Fangaz and the Remedy Tuesdays, 5:30 p.m.

Blue Note Bar & Grill 341-345 BEALE 577-1089

Queen Ann and the Memphis Blues Masters Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.-midnight.

Blues City Cafe 138 BEALE 526-3637

January 19-25, 2017

Blind Mississippi Morris Fridays, 5 p.m., and Saturdays, 5:30 p.m.; Brad Birkedahl Band Thursdays, Wednesdays, 8 p.m.; Earl “The Pearl” Banks Saturdays, 12:30 p.m., and

Club 152 152 BEALE 544-7011

Live Music WednesdaysSundays, 7-11 p.m.; Live DJ Wednesdays-Sundays, 11 p.m.

Handy Bar 200 BEALE 527-2687

Bad Boy Matt & the Amazing Rhythmatics Tuesdays, Thursdays-Sundays, 7 p.m.-1 a.m.

Hard Rock Cafe 126 BEALE 529-0007

Titanium Blue Thursday, Jan. 19, 7 p.m.; David Kurtz Saturday, Jan. 21, 7 p.m.; Memphis Blues Society Jam Night Sunday, Jan. 22, 7-11 p.m.

Itta Bena 145 BEALE 578-3031

Kayla Walker Thursdays, 67 p.m.; Susan Marshall Fridays, Saturdays, 7-10 p.m.; Nat “King” Kerr Fridays, Saturdays, 910 p.m.; Susan Marshall Wednesdays, 6-8 p.m.

Jerry Lee Lewis’ Cafe & Honky Tonk 310 BEALE 654-5171

The Johnny Go Band Thursdays, Sundays, 7-11 p.m.

King Jerry Lawler’s Hall of Fame Bar & Grille 159 BEALE

Chris Gales Solo Acoustic Show Mondays-Saturdays, 12-4 p.m.; Eric Hughes Thursdays, Fridays, 5-8 p.m.; Karaoke Mondays-Thursdays,

Sundays, 8 p.m.; Live Bands Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.

King’s Palace Cafe 162 BEALE 521-1851

David Bowen Thursdays, 5:30-9:30 p.m., Fridays, Saturdays, 6:30-10:30 p.m., and Sundays, 5:30-9:30 p.m.; Sensation Band Friday, Jan. 20, 9:30 p.m.-1 a.m.

King’s Palace Cafe Patio 162 BEALE 521-1851

Sonny Mack Mondays-Fridays, 2-6 p.m.; Cowboy Neil Mondays, Thursdays, 7-11 p.m., and Saturdays, Sundays, 2-6 p.m.; Sensation Band Tuesdays, Fridays, 7-11 p.m.; Fuzzy and the Kings of Memphis Saturdays, 7-11 p.m.; Chic Jones and the Blues Express Sundays, 711 p.m.; North and South Band Wednesdays, 7-11 p.m.

King’s Palace Cafe Tap Room 168 BEALE 576-2220

Big Don Valentine’s Three Piece Chicken and a Biscuit Blues Band Thursdays, Tuesdays, 8 p.m.-midnight; Cowboy Neil Friday, Jan. 20, 8 p.m.-midnight; North and South Band Saturday, Jan. 21, 8 p.m.-midnight.

New Daisy Theatre 330 BEALE 525-8981

The Cadillac Three Thursday, Jan. 19, 7 p.m.; Daisyland presents: Ookay Saturday, Jan. 21, 10 p.m.

11 a.m.-2 p.m., and MondaysWednesdays, 5:30-8 p.m.

Rum Boogie Cafe 182 BEALE 528-0150

Ghost Town Blues Band Thursday, Jan. 19, 7-11 p.m., Friday, Jan. 20, 8 p.m.-midnight, and Saturday, Jan. 21, 8 p.m.-midnight; Gracie Curran Sunday, Jan. 22, 7-11 p.m., and Monday, Jan. 23, 7-11 p.m.; Vince Johnson and the Plantation Allstars Tuesday, Jan. 24, 711 p.m.; Mississippi Bigfoot Wednesday, Jan. 25, 7-11 p.m.

Rum Boogie Cafe Blues Hall 182 BEALE 528-0150

Memphis Bluesmasters Thursdays, Sundays, 8 p.m.midnight; Vince Johnson and the Plantation Allstars Fridays, Saturdays, 4-8 p.m., and Sundays, 3-7 p.m.; Chris Pitts Friday, Jan. 20, 9 p.m., and Saturday, Jan. 21, 9 p.m.; Brian Hawkins Blues Party Mondays, 8 p.m.-midnight; McDaniel Band Tuesdays, Wednesdays, 8 p.m.-midnight.

Silky O’Sullivan’s 183 BEALE 522-9596

Dueling Pianos Thursdays, Wednesdays, 9 p.m.-1 a.m., Fridays, Saturdays, 9 p.m.3 a.m., and Sundays, Tuesdays, 8 p.m.-midnight.

Tin Roof 315 BEALE

Roxi Love Thursday, Jan. 19, 9 p.m., and Tuesday, Jan. 24, 8 p.m.

Purple Haze Nightclub Blind Bear Speakeasy 119 S. MAIN, PEMBROKE SQUARE 417-8435

Live Music ThursdaysSaturdays, 10 p.m.

Center for Southern Folklore 123 S. MAIN AT PEABODY TROLLEY STOP 525-3655

J. Train featuring Jimmy Segerson and Joe Gaston Saturday, Jan. 21, 8-11 p.m.

Dirty Crow Inn

140 LT. GEORGE W. LEE 577-1139

DJ Dance Music MondaysSundays, 10 p.m.

Rumba Room 303 S. MAIN 523-0020

Salsa Night Saturdays, 8:30 p.m.-3 a.m.

The Silly Goose 100 PEABODY PLACE 435-6915

DJ Cody Fridays, Saturdays, 10 p.m.

855 KENTUCKY

South Main

Earnestine & Hazel’s

7 W. CAROLINA

Bobbie & Tasha Wednesdays, 8-11 p.m. 531 S. MAIN 523-9754

Amber Rae Dunn Hosts: Earnestine & Hazel’s Open Mic Wednesdays, 8-11 p.m.

Flying Saucer Draught Emporium

Loﬂin Yard Motel Mirrors Friday, Jan. 20.

South Main Sounds 550 S. MAIN 494-6543

Songwriter Night #45 Friday, Jan. 20, 7-10 p.m.

130 PEABODY PLACE 523-8536

Songwritters with Roland and Friends Mondays, 7-10 p.m.

Huey’s Downtown 77 S. SECOND 527-2700

Anni Piper Sunday, Jan. 22, 8 p.m.-midnight.

Paulette’s RIVER INN, 50 HARBOR TOWN SQUARE 260-3300

Live Pianist Thursdays, 5:308:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays, 5:30-9 p.m., Sundays,

Bar DKDC 964 S. COOPER 272-0830

Mighty Souls Brass Band Friday, Jan. 20; Pig Star Saturday, Jan. 21; James Godwin Country Band Sunday, Jan. 22; Devil Train Monday, Jan. 23; Talking Dreads Tuesday, Jan. 24; Darts Wednesday, Jan. 25; Grrl Garage Group Invades Memphis Wednesday, Jan. 25, 9:15-11:45 p.m.

Hungry

Memphis: A Very Tasteful Food Blog by Susan Ellis

Dishing it out daily at

MemphisFlyer.com

After Dark: Live Music Schedule January 19 - 25

Celtic Crossing 903 S. COOPER 274-5151

Jeremy Stanfill and Joshua Cosby Sundays, 6-9 p.m.; Candy Company Mondays.

The Cove 2559 BROAD 730-0719

P&H Cafe 1532 MADISON 726-0906

Rock Starkaraoke Fridays; Open Mic Music with Tiffany Harmon Mondays, 9 p.m.-midnight; Minor Moon Wednesday, Jan. 25.

Ed Finney and the U of M Jazz Quartet Thursdays, 9 p.m.; The Gentlemen Combatants Friday, Jan. 20, 10 p.m.; The Bluff City Backsliders Saturday, Jan. 21, 10 p.m.; Justin White Mondays, 7 p.m.; Don and Wayde Tuesdays, 7-10 p.m.; Karaoke Wednesdays, 10 p.m.

Folk’s Folly Prime Steak House 551 S. MENDENHALL 762-8200

Intimate Piano Lounge featuring Charlotte Hurt Mondays-Thursdays, 5-9:30 p.m.; Larry Cunningham Fridays, Saturdays, 6-10 p.m.

Tuesdays, 6-10 p.m.; Elmo and the Shades Wednesdays, 8 p.m.-midnight.

Owen Brennan’s THE REGALIA, 6150 POPLAR 761-0990

Lannie McMillan Jazz Trio Sundays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Huey’s Poplar

RockHouse Live

Huey’s Cordova

5709 RALEIGH-LAGRANGE 386-7222

1771 N. GERMANTOWN PKWY. 754-3885

Live Bands Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Open Mic Mondays Mondays, 8 p.m.-midnight; Live Music Tuesdays, Wednesdays, 8 p.m.-midnight; One Mic Performance Series Every other Wednesday.

4872 POPLAR 682-7729

1801 EXETER 751-7500

Paul & Linnea Bert Classic Accents Two: Beethoven’s Second Sunday, Jan. 22, 2:304 p.m.

Huey’s Southwind 7825 WINCHESTER 624-8911

The King Beez Sunday, Jan. 22, 8:30 p.m.-midnight.

Huey’s Germantown

Andrew Cabigao Thursday, Jan. 19, 9 p.m.; Talking Heads Tribute: A Benefit for Nami Friday, Jan. 20, 8 p.m.; Terry Prince and the Principles, the Ellie Badge Friday, Jan. 20, 8 p.m.; Refreshingly Catchy Saturday, Jan. 21, 4 p.m.; Jareefe Green, One Word, Geist Sunday, Jan. 22, 9 p.m.; Genera Monday, Jan. 23, 7 p.m.; The Ellie Badge, Sidetalk, Ben Ricketts Tuesday, Jan. 24, 9 p.m.; Suavo J, 88 Bones Wednesday, Jan. 25, 9 p.m.

7677 FARMINGTON 318-3034

The Dantones Sunday, Jan. 22, 8-11:30 p.m.

North Mississippi/ Tunica Gold Strike Casino 1010 CASINO CENTER IN TUNICA, MS 1-888-24K-PLAY

Plain White T’s Saturday, Jan. 21, 8 p.m.

GRAMMY Museum Mississippi

Huey’s Midtown

Lafayette’s Music Room 2119 MADISON 207-5097

The MD’s Thursday, Jan. 19, 9 p.m.; Nick Black Band Friday, Jan. 20, 10 p.m.; Susan Marshall & Friends Saturdays, 11 a.m.; The River Bluff Clan Saturdays, 3 p.m.; Pam and Terry Saturday, Jan. 21, 3 p.m.; Heath N’ Justin Saturday, Jan. 21, 6:30 p.m.; Brennan Villines Saturday, Jan. 21, 10 p.m.; Joe Restivo 4 Sundays, 11 a.m.; Pearl Sunday, Jan. 22, 4 p.m.; Chuck Mead Sunday, Jan. 22, 8 p.m.; John Paul Keith and Co. Mondays, 6 p.m.; Paul “Snowflake” Taylor Tuesday, Jan. 24, 5:30 p.m.; John Kilzer Tuesday, Jan. 24, 8 p.m.; Breeze Cayolle and New Orleans Wednesdays, 5:30 p.m.; The Howlin Brothers Wednesday, Jan. 25, 8 p.m.

Midtown Crossing Grill

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The Phoenix 1015 S. COOPER 338-5223

Lil Boosie Friday, Jan. 20, 8 p.m.; Andrew Bird, Ryley Walker Sunday, Jan. 22, 7 p.m.

Murphy’s 1589 MADISON 726-4193

Terry Wall and the Wall Bangers Friday, Jan. 20, 6 p.m.; Accidental Field trip with Low Society Friday, Jan. 20,

590 N. PERKINS 761-9321

Van Duren Solo Thursdays, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Wild Bill’s

Poplar/I-240

1580 VOLLINTINE 207-3975

The Wild Bill’s Band Fridays, Saturdays, 11 p.m.-3 a.m.

East Tapas and Drinks

East Memphis Brookhaven Pub & Grill 695 BROOKHAVEN CIRCLE 680-8118

Dantones Band Friday, Jan. 20, 9:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m.

Summer/Berclair Cheffie’s Cafe 483 HIGH POINT TERRACE 202-4157

Leigh Ann Wilmot and Dave “The Rave” Laman Fridays, 6-9 p.m.

Neil’s Music Room 5727 QUINCE 682-2300

Jack Rowell’s Celebrity Jam Thursdays, 8 p.m.; Eddie Smith Fridays, 8 p.m.; Germantown School of Rock Saturday, Jan. 21, 2-7 p.m.; The Dantones Saturday, Jan. 21, 9 p.m.-1 a.m.; Sax on Sunday Sunday, Jan. 22, 6:30-9:30 p.m.; Debbie Jamison & Friends

Shelby Forest General Store 7729 BENJESTOWN 876-5770

Tony Butler Fridays, 6-8 p.m.

Collierville Huey’s Collierville 2130 W. POPLAR 854-4455

6069 PARK 767-6002

Eddie Harris Thursdays, Fridays, 6:30-9:30 p.m.; Elizabeth Wise Tuesdays, 7-9 p.m.; Van Duren Solo Tuesdays, 7-9 p.m.

Memphis Ukelele Meetup Tuesdays, 6-7:30 p.m.

1555 MADISON 866-609-1744

Mortimer’s

The Phoenix Blues Jam Tuesdays, 8-11 p.m.

394 N. WATKINS 443-0502

Minglewood Hall

8071 TRINITY 756-4480

The Southern Edition Band Tuesdays.

Germantown Performing Arts Center

412-414 N. CLEVELAND 278-TONE

1927 MADISON 726-4372

T.J. Mulligan’s Cordova

Germantown

Young Petty Thieves Sunday, Jan. 22, 8:30 p.m.-midnight.

Hi-Tone

Vintage Sunday, Jan. 22, 4-7 p.m.; Soul Shockers Sunday, Jan. 22, 8 p.m.-midnight.

Gary Escoe’s Atomic Dance Machine Sunday, Jan. 22, 8 p.m.-midnight.

The Heart Memphis Band Sunday, Jan. 22, 8-11:30 p.m.

Bartlett Hadley’s Pub 2779 WHITTEN 266-5006

Almost Famous Friday, Jan. 20, 9 p.m.; Thump Daddy Saturday, Jan. 21, 9 p.m.; Full Circle Sunday, Jan. 22, 5:30 p.m.

Cordova Highland Church of Christ 400 N. HOUSTON LEVEE 458-3335

The Beloved Tour Friday, Jan. 20, 7-10 p.m.

800 W. SUNFLOWER 662-441-0100

An Evening with Eddie Willis Monday, Jan. 23, 6-8:30 p.m.

Hollywood Casino 1150 CASINO STRIP RESORT, TUNICA, MS 662-357-7700

Live Entertainment Fridays, Saturdays, 9 p.m.-1 a.m.; The High Rollers Friday, Jan. 20, 9 p.m.-1 a.m., and Saturday, Jan. 21, 9 p.m.-1 a.m.

Huey’s Southaven 7090 MALCO, SOUTHAVEN, MS 662-349-7097

Pamela K. Ward Sunday, Jan. 22, 8-11:45 p.m.

Raleigh Stage Stop 2951 CELA 382-1576

Blues Jam Every Thursday Night hosted by Brad Webb Thursdays, 7-11 p.m.; Open Mic Night and Steak Night Tuesdays, 6 p.m.-midnight.

West Memphis/ Eastern Arkansas EACC Fine Arts Center Gallery EAST ARKANSAS COMMUNITY COLLEGE, 1700 NEWCASTLE, FORREST CITY, AR

Three Dog Night Saturday, Jan. 21, 7:30 p.m.

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Sunday Brunch with Joyce Cobb Sundays, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

10 p.m.; Every Mother’s Nightmare and the Fast Mothers Saturday, Jan. 21; Death Cums with BIP and the Midtown Scum Sunday, Jan. 22.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Boscos 2120 MADISON 432-2222

CALENDAR of EVENTS: JANUARY 19 - 25 T H EAT E R

The Evergreen Theatre Courtin’ Time. www.theatreworksmemphis.org. $20. Sundays, 3 p.m., and Fridays, Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Through Jan. 29. 1705 POPLAR (274-7139).

Hattiloo Theatre

Blueprints to Freedom: an Ode to Bayard Rustin. www. hattiloo.org. $22-$28. Sundays, 3 p.m., Saturdays, 2 p.m., and Thursdays-Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Through Feb. 12.

1290 PEABODY (208-6451).

Crosstown Arts

Hernando High School Performing Arts Center

The Dixon Gallery & Gardens

4339 PARK (761-5250).

The Orpheum

Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art, University of Memphis

The Bodyguard: The Musical. www.orpheum-memphis.com. $25-$125. Jan. 24-29. 203 S. MAIN (525-3000).

Playhouse on the Square

Rock of Ages. www.playhouseonthesquare.org. $25-$45. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., and Sundays, 2 p.m. Through Feb. 12. 66 S. COOPER (726-4656).

Theatre Memphis

The 39 Steps. www.theatrememphis.org. $25. Sundays, 2 p.m., and Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m. Through Feb. 5. 630 PERKINS EXT. (682-8323).

TheatreWorks

Other People’s Happiness. www.playhouseonthesquare. org. $25-$35. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m. Through Jan. 21. 2085 MONROE (274-7139).

ART I ST R EC E PTI O N S

The Annesdale Park Gallery

Opening reception for “Transitory Triad: Harmonic Alliance,” work by Olga King, Kristen Rambo, and Robert King. www.theannesdalepark-

Opening reception for “The Belhaven Republic (A Delta Blues), 1793-1795,” exhibition of portraits, flags, battle maps, and other artifacts detailing events leading to the Belhaven Republic’s attempted siege of Memphis. Collection by Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers). www.memphis.edu. Fri., Jan. 20, 5-7 p.m. 3715 CENTRAL.

Memphis College of Art

Artist reception for “Beloved, Quirky, and Covered in Paint: Peter Bowman, 1942-2015,” exhibition in memory of MCA alumnus Peter Bowman. Fri., Jan. 20. Opening reception for “Whole Being,” exhibition of smallscale bronze sculptures by alumna Sheila Bailey (BFA ’92). www.mca.edu. Fri., Jan. 20, 6-8 p.m. 1930 POPLAR (272-5100).

Playhouse on the Square Opening reception for “Forty Years of Printmaking,” exhibition of works by Judith Dierkes. www.playhouseonthesquare.org. Sat., Jan. 21, 2-3:30 p.m.

Alonzo King LINES Ballet

Booksigning by Al Paris

Contemporary dance with Memphis-based performer and choreographer, Wayne Smith, who will use video, discussion, and interactive movement to highlight the choreography and technique of Alonzo King LINES Ballet. Free. Thurs., Jan. 19, 7-7:45 p.m. 66 S. COOPER (726-4656).

OT H E R A R T HAPPE N I NGS

Art After Dark

Galleries and gardens will be open late. Featuring light refreshments, entertainment, and a cash bar. Free with admission. Every third Thursday, 6-8 p.m. THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS, 4339 PARK (761-5250), WWW.DIXON.ORG.

Artist Lecture: Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers)

Los Angeles-based artist, storyteller, history buff, musician, and poet Umar Rashid will speak about his work. Joined for a Q&A with art historian and writer Ellen C. Caldwell in Art & Comm. Bldg. Rm. 310. Free. Thurs., Jan. 19, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. FOGELMAN GALLERIES OF CONTEMPORARY ART, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS, 3715 CENTRAL, WWW.MEMPHIS.EDU.

Call to Artists

Seeking art and artifacts from people going through, or who have been through, a break-up of any kind. Through Jan. 27.

CROSSTOWN ARTS, 430 N. CLEVELAND (507-8030), WWW.CROSSTOWNARTS.ORG.

Call to Artists for Nasty Women Art Exhibition

Seeking artwork for February exhibition. For more information and submission, visit website. Through Jan. 27. WWW.NASTYWOMENMEMPHIS.COM.

Hoppy Hour

Enjoy hot chocolate, giveaways, and music as you interact with the #BrooksMuseumBunnies. Then join Overton Park Conservancy for a guided hike of the 126-acre Old Forest State Natural Area. Sat., Jan. 21, 3-7 p.m. MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART, 1934 POPLAR (544-6209), WWW.BROOKSMUSEUM.ORG.

Spark, Conversations with Ballet Memphis

Panel discussion series with performing artists. This month’s theme: Economic Development: Artfully Speaking. Thurs., Jan. 19, 6 p.m. CROSSTOWN ARTS, 430 N. CLEVELAND (507-8030), WWW.CROSSTOWNARTS.ORG.

GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, 1801 EXETER (751-7500), GPACWEB.COM.

C O M E DY

Cafe Eclectic

The Wiseguys Present: Storytellers Unplugged, combines fast-paced improv, guest storytellers, and scenic improv. $5. Third Saturday of every month, 9:30 p.m. 603 N. MCLEAN (725-1718).

Chuckles Comedy Club

Gilbert Gottfried, www.chucklescomedyhouse.com. $25. Fri.-Sun., Jan. 20-22, 7 p.m. 1700 DEXTER.

Memphis Made Brewing Company Drafts and Laughs IX, wellcrafted beer and well-crafted comedy by Comma Comedians. (917-912-0389). $2. Thurs., Jan. 19, 7:30-9 p.m. 768 S. COOPER (207-5343).

P&H Cafe

Open Mic Comedy, Thursdays, 9 p.m. 1532 MADISON (726-0906).

Author discusses and signs Life Wasn’t Always Kool. Thurs., Jan. 19, 6 p.m.

THE HALLORAN CENTRE, 225 S. MAIN (529-4299), WWW.ORPHEUM-MEMPHIS.COM.

Booksigning by Dr. C Denise Richardson

Author discusses and signs her books. Sat., Jan. 21, 2-5 p.m. ENTREMEMPHIS, 287 MADISON (410-1400), CDRUNLIMITED.COM.

Booksigning by Kate O’Hearn

Author discusses and signs the second book in Valkyrie series The Runaway. Tues., Jan. 24, 6:30-7:30 p.m. BARNES & NOBLE, 2774 N. GERMANTOWN (386-2468), STORES.BARNESANDNOBLE.COM.

Booksigning by Kevin Wilson

Author discusses and signs Perfect Little World. Tues., Jan. 24, 6 p.m. BOUNTY ON BROAD, 2519 BROAD (410-8131), THEBOOKSELLERSATLAURELWOOD.COM.

Booksigning by Susan Rivers

Author discusses and signs The Second Mrs. Hockaday, a Literary Tastemakers Series. Wed., Jan. 25, 6:30 p.m. THE BOOKSELLERS AT LAURELWOOD, 387 PERKINS EXT. (683-9801), THEBOOKSELLERSATLAURELWOOD. COM.

LECT U R E /S P EA K E R

“The LGBTQ Community’s Role in Social Justice”

Panel discussion about current play and social justice. Discounted tickets to play offered for participants of the discussion. Thurs., Jan. 19, 6 p.m. HATTILOO THEATRE, 37 S. COOPER (502-3486).

continued on page 27

Brunch, Lunch, and Dinner.

Now Open 24

B O O KS I G N I N G S

ArtSavvy: Contemporary Dance 101

Opening reception for “Mallory/Wurtzburger: A Retrospective.” www.dixon.org. Thurs., Jan. 19, 6-8 p.m.

805 DILWORTH LANE, HERNANDO, MS.

DAN C E

GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, 1801 EXETER (751-7500), GPACWEB.COM.

Artist reception for “Grid Gestures,” exhibition of new work by Julie Bennett Ashton. www. crosstownarts.org. Sat., Jan. 21, 6:30-8:30 p.m. 430 N. CLEVELAND (507-8030).

DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, ONGOING WEEKLY EVENTS WILL APPEAR IN THE FLYER’S ONLINE CALENDAR ONLY.

Connecting audiences to a profound sense of shared humanity, blending traditional ballet choreography with pioneering contemporary dance. $37. Sat., Jan. 21, 8-10 p.m.

gallery.net. Fri., Jan. 20, 6-8 p.m.

37 S. COOPER (502-3486).

Romeo and Juliet. www.kudzuplayers.com. $17. Sundays, 2 p.m., and Fridays, Saturdays, 7 p.m. Through Jan. 29.

January 19-25, 2017

Artist lecture by Umar Rashid at Fogelman Galleries, Thursday, January 19th

Send the date, time, place, cost, info, phone number, a brief description, and photos — two weeks in advance — to calendar@memphisflyer.com or P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101.

148 North brings fine dining to the Collierville Square. Chef Brian Thurmond brings his twist on French cuisine meets southern comfort to the historic district. Enjoy a meal or come relax at the bar.

148 N Main St., Collierville, TN 38017 / 901.610.3094 / 148north.com Open for Lunch 7 days a week: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. / Dinner: Wed-Sat 5-9 p.m. / Like us on Facebook

HEAR HERE! 2160 YOUNG AVE. | 901.207.6884 HALFORDLOUDSPEAKERS.COM

THE PINK PALACE IS OPEN!

-SUNDAY MIRROR

January 21 - May 7, 2017

Produced by Evergreen Exhibitions in collaboration with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

EXHIBIT

STARRING

JANUARY 24-29, 2017 ORPHEUM THEATRE

(901) 525-3000 • ORPHEUM-MEMPHIS.COM P!NK PALACE MUSEUM

ACA Enrollment Assistance

Church Health can help you determine if an ACA plan is best for you and your family. We can even help you enroll during open enrollment (Nov. 1 – January 31). For more information or to schedule your appointment, call 901-272-7526. You may also schedule your appointment at churchhealth.org/ACAappointments.

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901.272.5116

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Broadway Season sponsored by:

oPen lAte 11am - 3am

downtown delivery

11am - 2:15pm & 5pm - 2am January 19-25, 2017

346 N. MaiN Street • 901.543.3278 • westysmemphis.com

Mid South Home Expressions Show SEVERAL NEW EXHIBITORS JOIN THE TRADITIONAL VENDORS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION ON HOME BUYING, HOME REPAIR AND HOME RELATED PRODUCTS.

FEB. 3-5

at the

LANDERS CENTER

DOOR PRIZE DRAWS: - ONE PER DAY: $250 Tanger Outlets Shopping Spree - ONE PER DAY: Free room painting courtesy of Sherwin Williams and Eagle 3 Painting

- A private suite at the Feb. 25 Mississippi Riverkings Vs Roanoke Hockey game - Four tickets to the March 24 Thomas Rhett Concert

FEATURED CELEBRITY

PETE NELSON STAR OF ANIMAL PLANET'S TREE HOUSE MASTERS

C A L E N DA R: JA N UA RY 1 9 - 2 5 continued from page 24 Robbie Gringras: Israeli Artist in Residence

RSVP appreciated for performance art, storytelling, workshops and more. Jan. 20-29. MEMPHIS JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER, 6560 POPLAR (761-0810), WWW.JCCMEMPHIS.ORG.

Shared Society Between Arab & Jewish Citizens of Israel: Challenges & Opportunities A talk with Nobel prize nominee Amal Elsana Alh’jooj. Free. Wed., Jan. 25, 7-9 p.m. BETH SHOLOM SYNAGOGUE, 6675 HUMPHREYS (683-3591), WWW.BSHOLOM.ORG.

UrbanArt Commission 20th Anniversary

citizens must battle mutated carnivorous rabbits. $9. Sun., Jan. 22, 2 p.m.

FI LM

Featuring heavy hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, and wine. $75. Sat., Jan. 21, 6-9 p.m. MEDICINE FACTORY, 85 W. VIRGINIA (581-5815), WWW.URBANARTCOMMISSION.ORG.

Harvey

MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART, 1934 POPLAR (544-6209), WWW.BROOKSMUSEUM.ORG.

Sat., Jan. 21, 11:55 a.m., and Wed., Jan. 25, 6:30 p.m.

TEP Gumbo Contest

Annual Mardi Gras celebration brings together teams from the Western, Middle, and Eastern United States to compete for the best gumbo in Memphis. $25. Thurs., Jan. 19, 4:30-7 p.m. MEMPHIS HILTON, 939 RIDGE LAKE (684-6664), WWW.TNEP.NATIONBUILDER.COM.

MALCO PARADISO CINEMA, 584 S. MENDENHALL (682-1754), WWW.MALCO.COM.

Documentary about the importance of living with less. $20. Thurs., Jan. 19, 7 p.m. MALCO PARADISO CINEMA, 584 S. MENDENHALL (651-0432), WWW.NAPOMEMPHIS.COM.

This horror film depicts a small town whose

Vintage collectors offer the very best selection of vintage clothing, accessories, and home decor in Memphis. Jan. 23-31, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Museum will show a film that celebrates stories of individuals that have embraced challenges to create positive change in our world. Followed by discussion. Wednesdays, 7 p.m. Through Jan. 31. MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART, 1934 POPLAR (544-6209), BROOKSMUSEUM.ORG.

Minimalism

Night of the Lepus

Grand Opening for Tako’s Treasures

Upstanders Film Series

Metropolitan Opera 2017: Romeo et Juliette

F O O D & D R I N K E V E N TS

E X P OS/ SALES

MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART, 1934 POPLAR (544-6209), WWW.BROOKSMUSEUM.ORG.

$9. Sat., Jan. 21, 2 p.m.

Wild Africa 3D

Explore the most dramatic continent on earth. Through March 3. CTI 3D GIANT THEATER, IN THE MEMPHIS PINK PALACE MUSEUM, 3050 CENTRAL (636-2362), WWW.MEMPHISMUSEUMS.ORG.

MILITARY MONDAYS

101 S. MAIN, SOUTH MAIN ARTS DISTRICT.

Winter 2017 Mid-South Wedding Show $10-$15. Sun., Jan. 22, 1-5 p.m.

Fitz salutes and thanks all active military and veterans for serving and defending the USA.

WHISPERING WOODS HOTEL AND CONVENTION CENTER, 11200 GOODMAN, OLIVE BRANCH, MS (368-6782), WWW.MIDSOUTHWEDDINGSHOW.COM.

S P O R TS / F IT N ES S

Course in Shelby Farms Park open for its second season. Ongoing. SHELBY FARMS, 500 N. PINE LAKE (767-PARK), WWW.GOAPE.COM.

$15 HOTEL ROOM RATE ON SUNDAYS & MONDAYS Call 662-363-LUCK (5825), and reference “Military Mondays”

As a special THANK YOU, Mondays at the Fitz are now “Military Mondays.” Show your military ID to receive these great offers:

Go Ape Treetop Adventure

$10 PROMO CASH

Instantly receive at the Cashier • Players Club

50% BUFFET DISCOUNT

Instantly receive at the Riverview Buffet

15% GIFT SHOP DISCOUNT

Instantly receive at the Fitz Gift Shop

45,000

PROMO CASH SWEEPSTAKES FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS

JANUARY 20-21 & 27-28 • 6pm – 10pm Twenty winners of $250 in Promo Cash between 6pm - 9pm. Five winners of $500 in Promo Cash at 10pm.

TU E S DAYS I N JAN UARY ALL DAY. ALL NON-VIDEO POKER MACHINES

M E E TI N G S

Memphis Animal Services Volunteer Orientation

Volunteer opportunities including helping show dogs and cats to potential adopters, photographing dogs and cats for the website, data entry, and more. Sat., Jan. 21, 10 a.m. MEMPHIS ANIMAL SERVICES, 2350 APPLING CITY CV (636-1416), WWW.MEMPHISANIMALSERVICES.COM.

S P E C IAL EVE N TS

“Back to the Moon for Good” $7. Through June 2.

FitzgeraldsTunica.com • 1-662-363-LUCK (5825) • Must be 21 and a Key Rewards member. See Cashier • Players Club for rules. Management reserves the right to cancel, change and modify the event or promotion. Gaming restricted patrons prohibited. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-522-4700.

SHARPE PLANETARIUM, MEMPHIS PINK PALACE MUSEUM, 3050 CENTRAL (636-2362), MEMPHISMUSEUMS.ORG.

Fourth Bluff Ice Rink $10. Through Jan. 31.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER PARK (FORMERLY JEFFERSON-DAVIS PARK), OFF RIVERSIDE DRIVE, MEMPHISRIVERFRONT.COM.

Memphis Women’s March

In coordination with the National Women’s March on Washington, a Memphis March beginning at the Courthouse and continuing down Second Street ending with a rally at the National Civil Rights Museum. Free. Sat., Jan. 21, 10 a.m.noon. (492-1181).

SUNDAY – THURSDAY

50% OFF LUNCH OR DINNER BUFFET CANNOT BE COMBINED WITH ANY OTHER OFFER. To redeem, present to Buffet Cashier. Must be 21 and a Key Rewards member. Limit one offer per person. Valid only at Fitz Tunica. Management reserves the right to change or discontinue this voucher at any time. Not redeemable for cash. Gaming restricted patrons prohibited. EXPIRES FEBRUARY 2, 2017. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-522-4700.

CODE: MFBUF

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

Opening reception for “Transitory Triad: Harmonic Alliance” at Annesdale Park Gallery, Friday

January 19-25, 2017

A R T B y E l l e Pe r r y

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Vitus Shell and The Moonpie Project.

than I had, so he was a great person to get advice from. He died suddenly pretty shortly after [I got] to know him.” With the series, Roy says the main goal is to embody the community spirit that made him want to become a street artist. “I make art at the end of the day just to show my friends,” he says. “It felt natural to name the project after Brad, because he exemplified everything I love about this group of artists.” Roy also wants to showcase the city of Memphis through the series.

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Vitus Shell’s “Protect Her” will be featured in The Moonpie Project through January.

“If we get a good artist to come in from Chicago and he posts new work from Memphis, now Chicago knows Memphis is dealing in good work,” he says. “That’s how I found out about cities like Detroit and Denver. My favorite artists were painting there.” Roy says the series will have some changes this year to “up the ante,” but he still plans for five new muralists to come in and paint. For the selection process, Roy says he picks artists whose work he loves and that he feels carry the traits that make the graffiti/street art/mural community special. “It’s a mixture of portfolio review and how much I trust the person to come through and take care of business,” he says. “I’m a fan of every person who comes through, so I’m always a little blown away when they say yes.” Murals stay up for two months. Shell’s “Protect Her” will be up through January.

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1726 Poplar Avenue Memphis, TN 38104 901/274-3550 www.memphischoices.org

1636 Union Avenue

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

“

rotect Her” by Monroe, Louisiana, artist Vitus Shell is the latest to be featured in the Crosstown Arts’ ongoing mural series, The Moonpie Project, which launched last April. Shell’s work is a pop-art portrait of a black woman with the words “Protect Her” prominently displayed. “I feel that people of color have always been under attack — mentally, physically, and emotionally — since forever, but in this new political climate, it’s become okay to publicly attack people of color again, especially women,” Shell says. “That’s scary. So with this project, I wanted to create something that could begin the conversation.” Shell attended Memphis College of Art, where he met and was inspired by Memphis artists like Brenda Joysmith, George Hunt, and Alonzo Davis. He says he participated in the series because he thought it was cool and it would give a platform for an important message. Past Moonpie Project artists include its creator Michael Roy (also known as Birdcap) and Christopher Reyes (also known as Ninjacat), both from Memphis, and visiting artists Lauren Asta (from San Francisco), Jacob Berkowitz (from St. Louis), and Jason Spencer (also known as Killer Napkins, from St. Louis). Each mural stands for two months before being replaced. The murals are situated in an alley at Crosstown Arts, which sponsors the series. “Although we operate two art galleries along North Cleveland, the Moonpie Project mural series adds an element of neighborhood beautification, and it gives muralists a canvas to create work that’s best suited for an outdoor space,” says Crosstown Arts Communications Coordinator Bianca Phillips. The series is curated by Roy in memory of Nashville muralist Brad Wells. The name is inspired by Wells’ turn as a child model for MoonPie confectionary. Wells visited Memphis in 2015 to participate in Paint Memphis. He died in December of that year. “He was an artist that was genuinely enthusiastic to see other artists succeed,” Roy says. “He had a kind heart and had made a career out of murals for longer

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Mark Nizer in 4D Friday, February 3, 2017, 7 p.m., $25

Mark Nizer is one of the greatest entertainers performing today. His wild exploits have landed him on MTV, HBO and Arsenio Hall. Whether throwing laser beams at 1000 RPMs, tossing ping pong balls 20 feet in the air using only his mouth or cavalierly juggling a burning propane tank, a running electric carving knife and a 16-pound bowling ball, audiences quickly discover why Mark Nizer is truly “the juggler your mother warned you about.”

For tickets

visit buckmanartscenter.com or call (901) 537-1483 60 Perkins Extended Memphis, TN 38117

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2119 YOUNG AVENUE 901-278-0034 • 901-274-7080 youngavenuedeli.com Monday thru Saturday 11AM - 3AM Sunday 11AM - 3AM LATE NIGHT FOOD: Kitchen open til 2AM DELIVERY until midnight 7 nights a week

January 19-25, 2017

ROTATING

DRAFTS

HAPPY HOUR

Monday - Friday 4PM-7PM PM $2 dollar domestic bottled beer and $3 well liquor

$3 BLOODY MARY’S

AND MIMOSA’S Sundays 11:30AM-3PM

PINT NIGHT Wednesdays 7PM-Close 30

DAILY LUNCH SPECIALS Monday - Friday TRIVIA Thursday Nights 8pm-10pm with Memphis Trivia League

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125+ BEER OPTIONS w/ New beers every week

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FREE PARKING • ON THE TROLLEY LINE WALKING DISTANCE TO FEDEX FORUM & BEALE ST. PRIVATE PARTY SPECIALISTS

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Be Moved

The energetic work of Collage Dance Collective takes center stage at the Cannon Center January 22nd.

Harper grew up influenced by the rich arts scene of Washington, D.C. A double major at the University of Maryland in biology and theater, he eventually worked for Marriott in corporate marketing and event production before moving into nonprofit management. A position with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital brought the pair to Memphis in 2007. They believed their vision, to build a ballet corps of color and to make classical training available to AfricanAmerican children, particularly boys, could fill a void. “Today over 12 [black ballerinas] are living and working in Memphis,” notes Harper. “That progress is encouraging.” Collage started modestly, renting rehearsal space from churches in Midtown while Thomas worked as artistic coordinator at New Ballet Ensemble. In 2009, Collage moved into their studio in the Broad Avenue Arts District and began the dance academy. An anonymous donor enabled the company to fully employ its nine dancers in 2015. The company’s mission is to inspire the growth of ballet in Memphis’ African-American community and develop a knowledgable audience. Fifty percent of those who attend their performances say they’ve never been to the ballet, according to Harper. “We’re educating students and parents to see this art form and [promoting] understanding on how arts organizations are supported. We need community support beyond buying tickets,” he says. “We need people volunteering by serving on our board, by becoming donors who will support with financial resources to produce art of this caliber and grow it.” RISE will give viewers a feel for their emotive, powerful style as the troupe interprets works by nationally known choreographers Kevin Iega Jeff and Thomas. Come, be moved. RISE by Collage Dance Collective Cannon Center for the Performing Arts Sunday, January 22nd at 2:30 p.m. Tickets: $25-$40 • collagedance.org

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

RISE by Collage Dance Collective

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

JERMEL TUCKER

evin Thomas, artistic director of Collage Dance Collective, watches intently as four dancers sway and lunge across the studio floor. The angular movements are athletic yet lyrical as the dancers, Brandye Lee, Daphne Lee, Bernard DuBois II, and Daniel Cooke, respond to the music, a repetitive, staccato piano movement that is echoed in their jumpy style. The performance is riveting. January has shaped up to be an exciting month for the company. First the company traveled to Manhattan to participate in a conference produced by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. This international meet-up, which showcases live works by theater, music, comedy, and dance companies, puts Collage in front of important decision makers as they ponder their upcoming seasons. Collage then took RISE, a concert inspired by the legacy and contributions of civil rights giants, to Washington, D.C., for a performance during the Dr. Martin Luther King weekend. The choreography of one piece features text from King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address. A Memphis performance of RISE takes place at the Cannon Performing Arts Center Sunday, January 22nd, at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $25-$40. “When you come to see RISE, it’s a visual representation of our mission,” says executive director Marcellus Harper. “You get to see the trajectory of excellence and the themes that we’re addressing.” Thomas and Harper founded Collage Dance Collective in 2006 while living in NYC. Theirs is one of the few classical ballets companies of color nationally. Thomas, a native of Montreal, Canada, received his training with L’Ecole Supérieure de Ballet du Québec and went on to dance with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Cleveland San Jose Ballet, and the Dance Theatre of Harlem. “When I danced with Harlem, it was the first time I danced with other people of color. It was very empowering,” says Thomas. That experience fanned Thomas’ desire to launch his own company.

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Drinking “Well” Should you order the high-end stuff at a bar?

KEEP MORE OF YOUR MONEY m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

taste. The results are fascinating: Cheaper whiskies score consistently higher than name brands, although signature Cognacs and gins do tend to rate as high as the off-brands. Vodka has been under the microscope ever since Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev published his 1865 doctoral dissertation, which examined the hydrate clusters formed in solutions of 40 percent ethanol and 60 percent alcohol — the standard mix for any vodka recipe. A few decades after Linus Pauling, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in the chemistry lab in 1954 (and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962), furthered Mendeleev’s work on hydrate clusters, a group of scientists at the University of Cincinnati partnered with scientists at Moscow State University to identify the chemical basis for why people might choose one vodka brand over another. Their results were published by the American Chemical Society in 2010. As reported by Science Daily, “Drinkers actually may be perceiving this internal structure or structurability of vodka, rather than taste in a traditional sense.” That means that, yes, people might prefer Grey Goose because of the chemistry involved, not because of the exclusivity of the brand. Granted, a lot of things have changed in the beer world over the last 49 years. But at Stanford University in 1968, 60 regular beer drinkers were all served the same beer, albeit camouflaged in differently labeled bottles that indicated a variety of brands and price points. In the now-famous study published by J. Douglas McConnell in Applied Psychology, higher prices meant a perceived higher quality even though every bottle contained the same brew. When ordering a simple cocktail, like my go-to gin and tonic or a Scotch and soda, choosing well liquor can be a prudent and tasty decision. In most cases — particularly whiskey and beer — science says so. With vodka and some other liquor, perhaps not so much. After sorting through the research, my conclusion is this: When my bank account can handle it, I will choose Hendrick’s. I will also hold my head high when I don’t.

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fter work one day last week, a friend and I made an impromptu stop at the backroom bar at Cafe 1912. She ordered a glass of red wine, and I went for my standby, a gin and tonic. I saw my favorite gin, Hendrick’s, in its traditional dark glass jug, gleaming from the “top shelf” area behind the bartender’s station, but I hesitated, thinking about my bank account. I couldn’t justify springing for Hendrick’s when I had three-fourths of a perfectly good bottle of it waiting for me at home. I pointed to another bottle on a lower shelf, which saved me a few bucks. And later that night as I drifted off to sleep, I wondered about my drinking preferences, and whether I was getting a lesser experience by drinking “well” liquor, the less pricey brands so-named because they’re stored within the bartender’s easy reach. The medicinal, botanical flavors of gin complicate matters. If you enjoy Hendrick’s or Tanqueray or Uncle Val’s, you can certainly discern the nuances between the different notes — citrus, cucumber, or herbs added to the traditional juniper berry recipe — that differentiate one brand from the other. But opting for Gilbey’s or Seagram’s doesn’t mean that you won’t get a decent drink. A circa-1980s study published by the British Medical Journal revealed the results of a whiskey-tasting experiment. Eight very lucky members of an academic surgical unit (some were whiskey connoisseurs; others were inexperienced drinkers) were blindfolded and given a flight of six whiskies. Each whiskey was tasted six times. The four regular whiskey drinkers performed about as well as the amateurs in identifying the different malts and blends. The former scored at 58 percent; the latter, 50 percent. They might as well have tossed coins before deciding their answers. And only once did a surgeon correctly identify where a particularly whiskey was produced. Other booze-based academic tests have focused on “blind tastings” — asking drinkers to rate the quality of liquor solely based on

FILM REVIEW By Chris McCoy

The Problem of Suffering Cultures clash in Martin Scorsese’s epic, Silence.

something like Christian ninjas, so laying low in the neighborhood priest hole is no big deal for Rodrigues and Garupe. As word spreads through the Christian underground, Rodrigues, whose internal monologue provides the narration for the early part of Silence, finds himself amazed at the hardscrabble faith of the downtrodden fisher people who brave the shogun’s patrols to come to confession. When he sneaks off to a neighboring village, he converts hundreds of souls. Maybe the difficulties of Japan have been overstated, he thinks, and his simple faith will be enough to save a country. He is completely wrong. The Inquistor’s men catch wind of the presence of the priests and descend on the village, forcing Rodrigues and Garupe to

Liam Neeson (above) endures suffering as Cristóvão Ferreria in Martin Scorsese’s Silence. flee as the villagers sacrifice themselves on their behalf. Watching three villagers suffer for days as they are crucified in the ocean is just the first of the unimaginable spiritual and physical torments that await the priests, and the audience, as the 161-minute film rolls on. There is much to admire about Silence. In his skill as an image composer, Scorsese has few, if any, peers. Working again with The Wolf of Wall Street cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, he creates one stunning tableau after another, beginning with the opening sequence in a misty hot spring that recalls Kurosawa’s “Mt. Fuji in Red” segment from Dreams. Garfield, only two years removed from hanging up his Spider-Man tights, gives it all in the portrayal of a priest whose worldview slowly crumbles around him. Driver is, as usual, fantastically physical. In one breathtaking long shot on a beach, an emaciated and filthy Driver towers over his captors, communicating his fear and defiance with only his

January 19-25, 2017

f God is good, and everything he does is good, then why is man doomed to a lifetime of suffering? That’s a problem that has bedeviled every philosopher since Plato put stylus to goatskin. All religions must address it at some point, even if it is just to wave it away. It’s also the central question around which Martin Scorsese built his epic, Silence. It’s 1633, and the age of colonialism is in full swing. Jesuit missionaries, Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver), find out that their mentor, Cristóvão Ferreria (Liam Neeson), has gone missing in Nagasaki, Japan, amidst a crackdown by the shogunate on the country’s small but fervent Christian population. Worse still, the last word on Ferreria was that he had denounced Christianity before meeting his uncertain fate. Rodrigues and Garupe can’t believe that and ask permission to sneak into Japan and clear their teacher’s name. Reluctantly, their superiors agree, and they book passage with smugglers from Macau to Japan. Their guide, the only Japanese person they can find, is a drunken lout named Kichijiro (Yôsuke Kubozuka), who takes them to a tiny fishing village on the Japanese coast. There, they find a population terrified by the Inquisitor Inoue Masashige (Issei Ogata), a ruthless hunter of Christians. Jesuits have a reputation as

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FILM REVIEW By Chris McCoy gait. Ogata, a Japanese comedian, is a revelation as the surprisingly hospitable Inquisitor. And it’s good to see Neeson getting some meaty roles to chew on where he doesn’t have to rescue any kidnapped girls. Scorsese has been trying to get this film through development since 1990. In the ensuing decades, he seems to have identified a little too strongly with his protagonists. Silence doesn’t so much question suffering as wallow around in it. The priests’ mission is difficult, but frankly, they don’t seem to be very good at their jobs. Instead of bringing peace to their flock, they bring only misery, and their famed Jesuit spy craft leaves much to be desired, as they are are easily flushed out by the authorities’ superior knowledge of the land and culture. When Rodrigues is

−

MOVIES

being ferried in secret to a village by a grumpy boat captain, he has a moment of clarity: “I’m just a foreigner bringing trouble to these people.” Indeed, when he reaches his destination, it has already been destroyed by troops looking for him. Scorsese has been in these theological waters before, helming the vastly superior The Last Temptation of Christ. Garfield is good, but he’s no Willem Dafoe. The controversial 1988 film found transcendence in the material world, while the message of Silence seems to be “Suffering sucks. Get used to it.” Silence Now playing Multiple locations

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You are advised that after March 31, 2017, additional penalties and costs will be imposed in consequence of suits to be filed for enforcement of the lien for taxes against real property; until the filing of such suits, taxes may be paid at my office.

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POSITIONS AVAILABLE

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HELP WANTED • REAL ESTATE • SERVICES EAST MEMPHIS APT 1025 JUNE ROAD #4 Great E. Memphis 1 BR, 1 BTH, 2nd ﬂr. rental in gated Poplar East Apartments 1Min from Starbucks & I-240. Pool & Clubroom included. $781/mo. Call 508-0639.

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Martin Luther King Jr.

m e m p h i s f l y e r. c o m

By the time you read this, we will have celebrated a national holiday commemorating the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was a civil rights pioneer, a champion for nonviolent struggle toward equality and justice, and an outspoken critic of the United States of America. He was a visionary whose idea of the American future was radical during his time, and that vision remains radical today. Many of us, even people reared on Memphis’ soil, even people old enough to remember the thunderclap of his assassination and the void that followed, have softened our view of Dr. King and his ideologies. We see his legacy of civil rights activism as something of the past, and the injustice that he opposed as a historical blot on the American tapestry that we are quickly rubbing away. After all, because of the efforts of Dr. King and other activists, we now live in a post-racial country. Our collective work to end racism has borne fruit, and discrimination no longer exists within these borders. The American dream has been realized. Except it hasn’t. We owe both Dr. King and the day we observe in remembrance of him more respect than a blind sweep of his teachings and legacy beneath a sheet of self-congratulatory misinformation. This is just as true in Memphis as it is anywhere else. Legislation in favor of a national holiday recognizing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was first introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) in 1968, four days after he was assassinated. Originally envisioned as a call to continue Dr. King’s unfinished work, the fledgling national holiday faced constant congressional roadblocks, and legislation supporting it was routinely defeated by officials who cited King’s possible communist ties, his extramarital affairs, and — unofficially — good old American racism as reason enough against any formal recognition of his life. After Herculean efforts from those who supported the holiday, including a multi-million-signature petition from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, endorsement from Chicago mayor Harold Washington, several congressional testimonies from Coretta Scott King herself, and a Stevie Wonder protest song, the first national King Holiday was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 and finally observed in January 1986. Only 17 states celebrated the first national King Holiday, and it wouldn’t be recognized as a federal holiday in all 50 states until 1999. During the holiday, many citizens, including thousands in the Mid-South, participate in some form of volunteerism in the spirit of Dr. King’s statement that “everyone can be great because everybody can serve.” But Dr. King referred to a more lasting sort of service than we allow for in our decontextualized take on this quote. In “The Drum Major Instinct,” the sermon that this quote is lifted from, he discusses serving humanity as Jesus did, with love and with a heart turned toward complete justice for all humankind. “Say that I was a drum major for justice,” Dr. King said, referencing in this sermon his commitment to transformative economic justice, to ending American imperialism, and to grounding his activism in a true and total love of all oppressed people and a desire for their well-being that dove deeper than the political. Dr. King died fighting for economic and social justice for workers and ending wars as well as for racial justice. He fought for a lasting state change for America, not for his image and philosophy to be warped in order to serve the liberal-guilt industrial complex. It is easy for us, on the national holiday and throughout the year, to pretend to act in service to Dr. King’s life and teachings, but if we are not truly committed to transforming the lives of others, to, as Dr. King said in the closing of his sermon, making “this old world a new world,” then what are we doing? A commitment to transformative change in this city means a commitment far beyond a weekend volunteering spree. It means fighting day in and day out for those Memphians who find themselves economically and socially dispossessed. It means committing ourselves to an intentionality of vision that includes recognizing that our city faces a complex network of intersectional challenges. It means devoting ourselves to interracial and intercultural inclusivity in more than just our social network feeds. It means challenging ourselves on the very ideas that our country is built on, and determining for ourselves whether we are truly working toward the ideas and moral vision that Dr. King presented to us when we enable systemic ills like mass incarceration, economic injustice, and inequality in housing and transit access to disproportionately hinder certain members of our community. Four days after we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King, we are swearing into the office of the president a temperamental toddler of a man whose every action sends many Americans sliding into deep depression and anxiety. Most of us assume that if we were to resurrect Dr. King in a post-Trump inauguration America, he would find himself appalled to the point of returning to his eternal slumber. But would he be less appalled by the America he would have found himself in four years ago, during the presidency of a man touted as the literal representation of his teachings? We must ask ourselves: Have we really been working in service to Dr. King’s dream of visionary, transformative equality, or are we just pretending? Troy L. Wiggins is a Memphian and writer whose work has appeared in the Memphis Noir anthology, Make Memphis magazine, and The Memphis Flyer.

THE LAST WORD

PHIL STANZIOLA, NYWT&S STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Have we really been working in service to MLK’s dream, or are we just pretending?

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