Full ballot on p27!
LAST WEEK TO VOTE IN TOP KNOX 2015!
Voting ends 9/10!
KNOXVILLE’S WEEKLY DIP INTO THE DEEP END
SEPT. 3, 2015 KNOXMERCURY.COM
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V.
Knoxville’s creeks are a polluted mess, and have been for a century. Will they ever be clean enough to enjoy? by S. Heather Duncan
JACK NEELY
Meet Michael Kearney, the Child Actor of All the Way Home
THE VAULT
Jack Haynes Recalls Knoxville’s Mid-Century Jazz Scene
FOOD
Trust Fall Knox Unleashes Local Chefs to Pursue Their Passions
OUTDOORS
A Secret Fishing Spot With Lots of Bites— But Few From Fish
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
Your career path is here.
Sept. 3, 2015 Volume 01 / Issue 26 knoxmercury.com
CONTENTS
“If it weren’t for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song.” —Carl Perkins
18 Avoid Physical Contact COVER STORY
Most of Knoxville’s streams are choked with mud, contaminated with bacteria from human and animal waste, tainted with nutrients from fertilizers and soaps—or polluted by all of these at once. Until about 30 years ago, urban creeks were mostly a dumping ground that few people saw as an asset. And most people didn’t see them at all— streams were routed into pipes under neighborhoods and parks, in concrete canals behind factories and strip malls, and in straight ditches next to roads. But our new greenways have reminded us not only of the creeks’ presence, but also their potential to be something beautiful and natural. S. Heather Duncan wades in.
NEWS
50 The Long Haul Knoxville’s brand-new distillery, Knox Whiskey Works, has at last hired its head distiller: Ryan Catlett. Now begins the two-year wait for its first batch of proper Knoxville whiskey. Rose Kennedy watches the action.
Final Week for the Top Knox 2015 Ballot! Turn to page 27 to see all the categories in our readers’ survey. Then vote at knoxmercury.com.
DEPARTMENTS
OPINION
A&E
4 6
10
24
52
Letters Howdy Start Here: Photo by Bart Ross, Believe It or Knox!, Public Affairs, Quote Factory. ’Bye Finish There: Sacred & Profane by Donna Johnson, Crooked Street Crossword by Ian Blackburn and Jack Neely, Spirit of the Staircase by Matthew Foltz-Gray
14
16
The Scruffy Citizen Jack Neely talks with Michael Kearney, the child actor who played James Agee’s persona in All the Way Home. Architecture Matters George Dodds completes the third part of his survey of Modern architecture with a visit to Little Switzerland. Perspectives Joe Sullivan points out all the roadwork that still needs to be done—and a simple way to pay for it.
25 32 33 34
CALENDAR Program Notes: Pentagram’s Victor Griffin records a new album. Inside the Vault: Eric Dawson talks with Jack Haynes about Knoxville’s mid-century jazz scene. Music: Handsome and the Humbles get serious. Movies: April Snellings peers into Diary of a Teenage Girl. Video: Former Knoxvillian Joel Trussell debuts the most un-Disney-like Disney series ever, Pickle & Peanut.
35
Spotlights: Tal National, Knoxville: Summer of 1915
FOOD & DRINK
50 52
Sips & Shots Rose Kennedy gets a progress report from Knox Whiskey Works. Home Palate Dennis Perkins sneaks into the mysterious supper club, Trust Fail Knox.
September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 3
LETTERS Delivering Fine Journalism Since 2015
FEELING MELLOW
ANOTHER MISSED UT STRUCTURE
It was good to see George Dodds’ discussion of the architectural value of the old University Center’s parking garage. [“Hating Modern Architecture, and Loving It (Part 2),” Architecture Matters, Aug. 13, 2015] It was indeed a marvelous structure that transcended its purported function. Local artist Jan Lynch utilized the parking garage repeatedly for his photo shoots in the 1990s, and I’d be surprised if he’s the only artist to do so over the years. Not only did its monumental geometries inspire, it created a naturally shifting play of light and shadow that gave it a kinetic quality. Thanks for the remembrance and appreciation for this lost structure. Good to know there are others who miss it, too. Ed White Knoxville
SCRUFFY CITY TEARS
I have no idea who or how old Victoria Knight is, but, as a 31-year-old UT alum living downtown with many fond memories of the Fort, her “Knoxville: Summer 2015” [Open Book guest essay, Aug. 27, 2015] almost had me in tears on the Scruff y City Hall porch. What a beautiful, warm, and strange place the Fort is. Cody Farmer Knoxville
“I don’t drink wine and I don’t smoke shit.” [—George Hamilton, Love At First Bite] I get mellow on the words of April Snellings and Donna Johnson. I ruminate with Jack Neely dreamwalking the Fort Sanders streets, listening to the tunes of the times. I read this incarnate rag from cover to cover. Then I put on Hozier and put up my feet and soak up the Spirit of the Staircase. And, then, the puzzle. I don’t have a car. No computer. There are no sidewalks here. I get the Mercury every Thursday by hook or crook. And now you. You, Mercury, are the shining light in an old woman’s retirement. Thank you and all the Forces That Be. Joanne Kerwin Knoxville
ONLY MISSED IT BY A YEAR!
There’s an error in Believe It or Knox! for Aug. 13. The coldest day in Knoxville was in January 1985, not 1986. I remember it well. We had pulled a U-Haul up to Arlington, Va, that Friday loaded with furniture for our daughter’s apartment since she had just taken a job there. We started back on Sunday, stopped for lunch somewhere in Virginia, and it was zero at noon. When we reached the Tennessee border, we found that the roads were ice-covered. I had grown up in Iowa and was used to icy roads. It was so cold that the ice was not very slick. Plus, it was Super Bowl Sunday so not many people were on the roads. We managed to make it home to Oak Ridge where it was only 17 below that Monday morning. Richard Raridon Knoxville ED. NOTE: You are correct! Our contributing writer, Dr. Z. Heraclitus Knox, is suitably chagrined at his error.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
PRETENTIOUS VOCABULARY NOT OURS THIS TIME
I was reading Katie Walsh’s review of No Escape and I just had to write in and complain. The sentence in question: “Unfortunately. No Escape can’t stay 10 steps ahead of its misguided politics and overly dramatic storytelling, and crumbles under its own preposterous denouement.” What in hell is a denouement? So I have to drag out my unabridged dictionary, because the word is not in my abridged edition, only to fi nd out it just means ending or climax. This is not the fi rst time she has done this. Come on Katie, do you have to use words that 99.9 percent of the population has no idea what they mean? Next time just say “ending.” Capisce? Gerald Zajd Knoxville ED. NOTE: Do you have a letter to the editor regarding the syndicated content of Go Knoxville? Would you like to see it published? Send it to us!
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR GUIDELINES
• Letter submissions should include a verifiable name, address, and phone number. We do not print anonymous letters. • We much prefer letters that address issues that pertain specifically to Knoxville or to stories we’ve published. • We don’t publish letters about personal disputes or how you didn’t like your waiter at that restaurant. • Letters are usually published in the order that we receive them. Send your letters to: Our Dear Editor Knoxville Mercury 706 Walnut St., Suite 404 Knoxville, TN 37920 Send an email to: editor@knoxmercury.com Or message us at: facebook.com/knoxmercury
EDITORIAL EDITOR Coury Turczyn coury@knoxmercury.com SENIOR EDITOR Matthew Everett matthew@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Neely jack@knoxhistoryproject.org STAFF WRITERS S. Heather Duncan heather@knoxmercury.com Clay Duda clay@knoxmercury.com CONTRIBUTORS
Chris Barrett Ian Blackburn Bryan Charles Patrice Cole Eric Dawson George Dodds Lee Gardner Mike Gibson Carey Hodges Nick Huinker Donna Johnson
Rose Kennedy Dennis Perkins Stephanie Piper Ryan Reed Eleanor Scott Alan Sherrod April Snellings Joe Sullivan Kim Trevathan William Warren Chris Wohlwend
DESIGN ART DIRECTOR Tricia Bateman tricia@knoxmercury.com GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
Charlie Finch Corey McPherson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
David Luttrell Shawn Poynter Justin Fee Tyler Oxendine CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS
Ben Adams Matthew Foltz-Gray
ADVERTISING PUBLISHER & DIRECTOR OF SALES Charlie Vogel charlie@knoxmercury.com SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Scott Hamstead scott@knoxmercury.com Stacey Pastor stacey@knoxmercury.com SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE–DIGITAL CONTENT David Smith david.smith@knoxmercury.com
BUSINESS BUSINESS MANAGER Scott Dickey scott.dickey@knoxmercury.com
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 706 Walnut St., Suite 404, Knoxville, Tenn. 37902 knoxmercury.com • 865-313-2059 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR & PRESS RELEASES editor@knoxmercury.com CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS calendar@knoxmercury.com SALES QUERIES sales@knoxmercury.com DISTRIBUTION distribution@knoxmercury.com
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Terry Hummel Joe Sullivan Jack Neely Coury Turczyn Charlie Vogel The Knoxville Mercury is an independent weekly news magazine devoted to informing and connecting Knoxville’s many different communities. It is a taxable, not-for-profit company governed by the Knoxville History Project, a non-profit organization devoted to exploring, disseminating, and celebrating Knoxville’s unique cultural heritage. It publishes 25,000 copies per week, available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. © 2015 The Knoxville Mercury
The Birth of Tennessee Football Knoxville was not always crazy about football. The Knoxville team sometimes played against Takahashi’s Maryville College team. Harriman, a new industrial town largely founded by Northerners, fielded a football team, too.
Although college football is most popular in the Southeast, the new sport, which evolved in the Northeast in the 25 years after the Civil War, caught on in other parts of the nation before it was ever seen in East Tennessee. During that time, baseball and horseracing were Knoxville’s most popular sports. Still, one of the nation’s first major national football stars was a Knoxvillian. He did not play for UT. Lee McClung was a member of one of Knoxville’s most prominent families. His father, Frank, is the honoree of UT’s McClung Museum. His older brother Calvin was the merchant in charge of C.M. McClung & Co., whose warehouses stood prominently on West Jackson Avenue. Calvin’s archives became the basis for the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection.
UT finally fielded a team in late 1891, largely thanks to a young teacher named Henry Denlinger who had played for Princeton, and later for the Knoxville city team. UT played its first game, a loss to Sewanee, on November 21, 1891.
Lee “Bum” McClung, ca. 1890. PHOTO CORTESY OF WIKIPEDIA CREATIVE COMMONS wikpedia.org
Lee McClung, nicknamed “Bum,” played halfback for Yale from 1888 to 1891, and was captain of the team during Yale’s famous unscored-upon season in 1891. He has been called America’s first national football star. McClung’s success raised the profile of college football in Knoxville. However, the first to start a team in the Knoxville area was probably a Japanese student at Maryville College, Kin Takahashi, who had learned football in the San Francisco Bay area, where it was already a sensation. He began practicing with a Maryville College team in 1889. City boosters believed football would raise Knoxville’s status as a modern, sophisticated American city. The daily Knoxville Journal was a strong proponent. “Football is one of the most exciting games of the time,” went one editorial in 1891. “Knoxville people are not well acquainted with it, but it is high time they were swinging into line and giving it the same place in the winter that baseball holds with them in the summertime.” Football was sometimes called “the Society Game.” Several of UT’s early players were from affluent local families. A local club, an independent Knoxville team, got together in 1890, and the famous Lee McClung came home to help train them.
On October 15, 1892, UT played Takahashi’s Maryville College team, and won, 25-0. In the early years, not all of UT’s opponents were other colleges. UT played anyone who agreed to play, including the Knoxville Athletic Club, local prep schools, the YMCA, and the Tennessee School for the Deaf.
Not yet called the Volunteers, UT’s club was sometimes called “the Universities.” The colors came first. Although the university’s earlier baseball team had used the color red, by the 1890s, UT’s iconic Hill was planted with orange-yellow daisies, and the team chose that color. Early games were played at a baseball field on Dale Avenue, at Chilhowee or Fountain City Park, and eventually at Wait Field, on Cumberland Avenue on the northwest side of the Hill. It was a hard, rocky field, and part of its end zone sloped uphill. UT did not have a proper regulation field until the completion of Shields Watkins Field in 1921. It presaged an era when Volunteer football became much more popular among Tennesseans, even those not associated with the university. Lee McClung never heard that football had caught on in his hometown. He became U.S. Treasurer, and his name appears on currency printed from 1909 to 1912, during the William Howard Taft administration. A world traveler, McClung was in London when he died at age 44, reportedly of typhoid. McClung is buried in Knoxville, in the elaborate McClung plot at Broadway’s Old Gray Cemetery. He later became one of the early honorees of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Source: Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection
The Knoxville History Project, a new nonprofit organization devoted to the promotion of and education about the history of Knoxville, presents this page each week to raise awareness of the themes, personalities, and stories of our unique city. Learn more on www.facebook.com/knoxvillehistoryproject • email jack@knoxhistoryproject.org September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 5
Illustration by Ben Adams
HOWDY
Believe It or Knox! BY Z. HERACLITUS KNOX Knoxville’s first college-football star NEVER PLAYED FOR THE VOLS! Lee “Bum” McClung, a member of one of Knoxville’s most prominent families, played halfback for Yale in the 1880s and early ’90s. Captain of the unscored-upon team of 1891, McClung was one of America’s first national football heroes. Although he died young, he later served as U.S. Treasurer; his signature is on currency printed during the Taft administration. He is buried at Old Gray Cemetery. “The World Was Before You, Sylvia Jemmell Mason And William Jackson. Where Did You Go? Or Church At Knoxville College IV” by Bart Ross (bartross.com)
QUOTE FACTORY “ A lot of the churches here … most churches in Sevier County … they’ve got people that’s in there that’s armed.”
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
—Sevier County Sheriff Ron Seals, quoted in a Mountain Press story about a meeting of the Sevier County Tea Party last week at the Sevier County Courthouse. The principle topic of discussion was the fact that Muslims were seen shopping at the Tanger Outlet Center, which somehow presents a danger to local churches, according to Tea Party members. Seals went on to observe, “As you all know, our president is Muslim. I don’t care what he says. He belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood. I don’t care what he says. I’m a firm believer of that.”
9/3 LUNCH WITH KNOX COUNTY MAYOR TIM BURCHETT THURSDAY
11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., Sam & Andy’s Restaurant (2613 West Adair). Mayor Burchett is a man of the people, and you’re the people, so why not have lunch with him? Sam & Andy’s will be grilling up a special plate of pork tenderloin, with two sides, for $7.99.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
9/6 MCCLUNG MUSEUM BOOMSDAY PARTY 9/7 SCREENING: ‘WILD’ SUNDAY
7 p.m., McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture (1327 Circle Park Drive). $200. Yep, it’s the final Boomsday after nearly 30 years. While the fireworks launch at Volunteer Landing starting at 9:30 p.m., let’s party in a meaningful way at this fundraiser for the McClung Museum’s education outreach programs. You’ll get guaranteed on-site parking, farm-to-table dinner stations, cocktails, and live music. Info: mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/boom.
MONDAY
7 p.m., Regal Riviera Stadium 8 (510 S Gay St.). $25. As part of Legacy Parks Foundation’s 10th anniversary, Regal presents a fundraising screening of Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon as a newly divorced woman who decides to go on a 2,650-mile hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. Cheryl Strayed, the author of the memoir the movie is based upon, will be in attendance.
The two plaques on either side of the Indian mound on Cherokee Boulevard GIVE TWO DIFFERENT AND MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE STORIES ABOUT WHAT THE MOUND IS! One calls it a burial mound, one a platform mound, and each has a different estimate of how old it is. Facing in opposite directions, the two plaques have politely coexisted on the site for almost 20 years. During the days when it was a regionally famous resort, Fountain City was originally known as Fountainhead—until it was pointed out that there was already a town called Fountainhead, Tenn., a couple hundred miles to the west. However, Fountainhead, in Sumner County, is no longer commonly known by that name, so that original name may be available now.
9/8 CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE FORUM TUESDAY
7 p.m., Clinton Chapel, AME Zion Church (546 College St.). Free. Meet your City Council candidates at this forum moderated by WBIR’s John Becker and sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Knoxville/Knox County, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Knoxville Interdenominational Christian Ministerial Alliance, the News Sentinel, and WBIR-TV. Early voting for the primary starts Sept. 9.
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cn.edu September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 7
Now’s your chance to tell us what you really think–in person!
MEETUPS Join us at our Monthly Mercury Meetup.
Thursday, September 10, Parents: How do you make sure your child receives the best care? Look for the Gold Sneaker logo, which identifies licensed childcare facilities in Tennessee that go the extra mile to promote child health & wellness, including: - At least 60 minutes of physical activity per day - Less than 60 minutes of TV or videos per day
5 p.m. - 8 p.m. at
Sunspot 2200 Cumberland Ave, Knoxville, TN 37916
- A focus on building positive attitudes towards food and exercise - Smoke-free facilities that promote tobacco use prevention
This is a great opportunity for the business owners and residents of Knoxville to stop by and tell us
To learn more about the Gold Sneaker program, go to: http://tn.gov/health/topic/goldsneaker To become Gold Sneaker certified in Knox County, please contact Kerri Thompson:
kerri.thompson@knoxcounty.org 865-215-5445 8
KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 9
SCRUFFY CITIZEN
I, Rufus Michael Kearney, the child actor who played James Agee’s persona in All the Way Home in 1962, is back in town BY JACK NEELY
T
his Friday at 7 PM, at the East Tennessee History Center, the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound will be showing the 1963 film All the Way Home. It’s based on James Agee’s autobiographical story about his father’s death in an automobile accident in 1916. Introducing this movie, the only big-studio feature-length motion picture both set in Knoxville and filmed here, will be a celebrity visitor. The big, recognizable stars were Robert Preston and Jean Simmons, but the story was mostly centered on one little kid named Rufus, played by
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
a child actor named Michael Kearney. He’ll be doing the honors. Today he’s believed to be one of only two surviving cast members of that movie made here in Knoxville more than half a century ago. (The other is Knoxville native John Cullum, who played his uncle. Now 85, Cullum is still active as a Broadway actor in New York.) Born in Paterson, N.J., Kearney— it’s pronounced like “Carney”—enjoyed a career as a child actor for about 15 years in the 1960s and ’70s. Now the New Jersey native deals in real estate in Michigan, his late wife’s
home. About to turn 60 in a few weeks, he has few regrets. He got into the business early, first as a kids’ clothing model. His older cousin, John Spencer, was an actor first, and it seemed like fun. “I always wanted to do what Johnny did,” Kearney says. Spencer was enjoying a recurring role as an awkward teenager in The Patty Duke Show, but later became best known for playing White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry on The West Wing. “Mom said let’s try it, it’s probably a phase. We had no idea where it would go.” Directors went for his blond, innocent appeal. He made a TV commercial for Post Toasties (“Do they still make those?” he asks) and appeared in a Christmas episode of the police sitcom Car 54 Where Are You? He had a very small role in a movie called The Young Doctors, based on an Arthur Hailey novel, and surely the only movie that ever combined the talents of Golden Age legend Frederic March, comic foil Eddie Albert, and rock ’n’ roll impresario Dick Clark. (When he met Clark, Kearney recalls, “I recognized him from television, and I froze.”) In 1962 his family heard about another part, in a serious movie based on a Broadway play by Tad Mosel that was in turn based on the late James Agee’s Pulitzer-winning novel, A Death in the Family. Kearney auditioned for the part, somewhere in New York. On the callback he met director Alex Segal, who had done a great deal of work in serious TV dramas, and David Susskind, the TV and movie producer who was better known as a talk-show host. Kearney eventually got the job, which he remembers as the biggest break of his career. They flew down to Knoxville in September, 1962. “It was just a thrill,” he says. “I remember coming down the steps off the plane” at McGhee Tyson. “There was just people everywhere”— cameramen, reporters, politicians celebrating the first big motion picture ever to be filmed in Knoxville proper. “All these people wanted to see me!” And he was not quite 7 years old. “Mayor Duncan [John Sr., father of the current congressman] gave me the key to the city—which I still have. I asked my mom, ‘What does this do?’ ‘Nothing, I think,’ she responded. But it’s the only key to the city I’ve received anywhere.”
Today he can’t remember whether he had ever seen a Robert Preston movie, like The Music Man, but he knew that he and Jean Simmons were both big stars, and was duly awed. The British-born Jean Simmons mostly kept to herself. Her co-star was the opposite. “Robert Preston liked to be around the people,” Kearney recalls. “He was just a fun guy.” Charismatic, outgoing, and generous toward his junior co-star. Kearney liked the whole crew. “They were just such great people, so down to earth and real.” He compares it to the easy camaraderie of a family reunion. He didn’t get to know John Cullum well. One of the busiest actors at the Carousel Theatre in the early to mid-’50s, Island Home’s most promising actor had moved to New York a couple of years earlier, for Broadway roles like that of Sir Dinadan in the original cast of Camelot, with Richard Burton and Julie Andrews. But Kearney had one bit of experience that Cullum lacked: He’d been in a movie before. All the Way Home was Cullum’s motion-picture debut. Kearney had only a couple of scenes with Cullum and remembers him only as a nice guy, quieter than the others. His memories of Knoxville 53 years ago are vague, as you’d expect. He recalls they spent most of their time here in the Andrew Johnson Hotel on Gay Street, and sometimes ate in its locally well-known restaurant. He was missing most of the first half of second grade, and had a tutor he remembers fondly. “Carol Kress— she was a very, very nice young woman.” He was just learning to read. “Reading was a problem for me. I couldn’t read a script, so I learned all my lines by repetition.” “I was doing so many things I’d never done before, seeing so many things I’d never seen,” he says. “I loved the trains.” He remembers leaning over to see the trains at the L&N, as Agee describes in the book. It was a production seemingly designed to amuse a little boy, with lots of odd old cars, horse and buggies, and trains. And one coffin. “I remember the funeral scene in the film. I’d never seen a casket before. It was something new to me, kind of an experience for a kid. I remember walking up Continued on page 12.
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to it, and kind of looking into it. It was empty. I was just curious. I was insulated from death. I hadn’t lost any close relatives.” “I was a kid, and they let me be a kid, sometimes,” chasing him around the set. “I can’t say I have a single bad memory of the whole thing.” Well, maybe one. “Lots of my memories are surprisingly clear,” he says. He remembers going up to Cades Cove to film a scene, and riding around in an vintage Mercer automobile, towed behind a camera truck. That was fun. But in one scene straight from the book, the boy is presented with his great-great grandmother, an actress in makeup played by Lylah Tiffany, who had played the same role on Broadway. “I had never met her prior to that shoot,” he says. “The reason you see fear was kind of real. She was scary-looking!” He suspects that technique to get a natural reaction from a child actor was deliberate. “That’s okay, though,” he says. “It didn’t do any permanent damage. I didn’t make much of it. They were such great people, and we’d laugh about it. Later on, I met her. She was a very sweet woman.” Tiffany was an elderly former vaudeville performer who by the 1960s was playing accordion and telling fortunes for quarters in the streets of New York. Photographer Alfred Eisenstadt took an arresting photo of her begging outside Carnegie Hall, and it made the rounds. She was tagged for this one Broadway and movie credit. Kearney unexpectedly encountered her in the streets of New York years later. She didn’t recogized him at first, but when he said, “I’m Rufus,” she responded, “Oh, my god,” and gave him a hug. Kearney and his mother returned to Knoxville for the big “world premiere” at the Tennessee Theatre on Oct. 17, 1963. (“World Premiere” is a relative term. The movie had actually been shown, and positively reviewed, in New York a couple of weeks earlier.) He was barely 8 then, and had been involved with All the Way Home since he was 6—close to a quarter of his life. “I remember that night, and the parade of cars. “I was overwhelmed by all the attention. We went up on stage” before the standing-room-only crowd at the Tennessee Theatre. “Someone had to pick me up” to reach the microphone. “I froze. I didn’t know 12
KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
“I had never met her prior to that shoot. The reason you see fear was kind of real. She was scary-looking!” —MICHAEL KEARNEY
what to say. Someone whispered in my ear, telling me to say something, but I couldn’t hear them. People were laughing.” It was a black-and-white movie in a color era, and despite its star power, didn’t get a huge roll-out, and probably didn’t show in every market. It was the 196th top-grossing film of 1963. (Of 2,247 total, according to IMDB.) Kearney and his family stayed in touch with Robert Preston for a few years. When Kearney was 9, he and his mother went to visit Preston backstage during his run in the title role of the Broadway show Ben Franklin in Paris. He had shaved his head for the role. “I thought, ‘Wow, what happened?’” Kearney remembers All the Way Home as a positive turning point in his life. Compared to a lot of child actors, he had a fun ride of it. In 1967, he played Kurt Russell’s little brother
in the Disney Civil War drama, Willie and the Yank, also known as The Mosby Raiders. Most of his later work was on TV, but in 1968 he appeared in the Burt Lancaster film, The Swimmer, a serious film about mental illness. He later heard about serious tensions between Lancaster and others on the set, but he didn’t witness it. “Burt Lancaster was a very nice man,” he says. “I was never part of it.” He played in a TV remake of the film The Desperate Hours, and by a pretty weird coincidence, his father in the film was Arthur Hill—who played the father in the Broadway version of All the Way Home. But he thinks his best acting may have been in a 1967 TV film shot in Alabama called The Thanksgiving Visitor, playing author Truman Capote as a child. For what it’s worth, Kearney played Capote about 40 years before Philip Seymour Hoffman did.
“He was a character,” Kearney says of Capote, “but a nice one. He treated me very well.” Things started drying up for him in the 1970s. “When I was young, the blond-haired, blue-eyed kid was what everyone wanted. In the ’70s, it was kind of like I went out of style.” His last filmed acting role was in 1975, a fairly prominent role as a young man in trouble in a 1975 episode of The Streets of San Francisco called “Merchants of Death,” opposite Karl Malden and Michael Douglas. (IMDB has him playing some roles in the 1990s, but that’s in error, he says. He’s tried to correct it, so far without success.) He got married in 1981, moved to Michigan, his wife’s home, started a family, and after a last flurry of some summer-stock stage acting, put it all behind him. “I’m very happy the way it worked out,” he says. “It was just time to move on to something else.” He admits he’s never read A Death in the Family, the novel on which the movie is based. “You’ll find that’s not unusual, for actors,” he says, to avoid reading the source material of a character they’ve portrayed. But the story means a lot to him, anyway. “Unfortunately, it has become my life,” he says. “I lost my wife very suddenly. Not in a car wreck, like in the movie, but without any warning. It was something I was totally unprepared for.” Since then, he’s been thinking about All the Way Home. “It was very much like that.” Today he has two grown daughters and a grandson. He hasn’t played a role in 40 years. Would he ever consider an offer? “You never know,” he says. “I love it. Life happens, things went in a different direction. But I’ve never quite let go of it. It’s still in me, somewhere.” He’s proud to be part of this movie he worked on 53 years ago. Interest began stirring in it four or five years ago when a Nebraska film historian named Bruce Crawford tracked him down for an Omaha film event. Then Knoxville Agee historian Paul Brown contacted him. Then Bradley Reeves of the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound contacted him, wondering if he could come down for this week’s event. “I just feel great about it,” he says. “That something I did so many years ago is still around, and people want to see it.” ◆
RE-ELECT
Fiinbarr
Sforau aunders city council cit Primary Election September 29, 2015 Early Voting: September 9-24
Sunday, September 20, 2015
General Election November 3, 2015
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Early Voting: October 14-29
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 13
ARCHITECTURE MATTERS
Hating Modern Architecture, and Loving It (Part 3) An unquiet search
“[H]as there ever been another place…where so many people of wealth and power have paid for and put up with so much architecture they detested…?” —Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House
T
he disconnect between the public perception of Modern architecture and those who design it—between the Bauhaus and our house—is well documented in literature. Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House (1982), was among the first to offer this perspective to the general reader. Coming as it did at Post-modernism’s zenith and the very nadir of Modern architecture’s obloquy, it seemed to architectural types the literary equivalent of piling on, albeit with wit and insight. Frank Ghery’s public rant at an Oviedo, Spain news conference is a much more recent indicator that there remains a sizable gap between what architects think the public should love and what the public chooses to hate. Mr. Ghery, who has never been mistaken for a thoughtful or self-aware person, flipped the finger at journalists while carping: “98 percent of everything that is built and designed today is pure shit!” A century after Modern architecture emerged in Europe where it was often connected to social programs, the revival of craft traditions, and improvements to hygienic practices ranging from the scale of the human body to plans for entire cities, this gulf seems to have grown. Rank-and-file
14
KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
Americans have yet to accept Modern architecture, especially domestically. Here in Knoxville we have a fine collection of exceptions to the rule of normative residential construction. One can find “mid-mod” houses in the hills of Holston and Sequoyah, and peppered throughout the neighborhoods of Bearden, Westmorland, and South Knoxville. They were designed by a range of talents, some very skilled and locally well known, such as Ben McMurry and Bruce McCarty. The Little Switzerland enclave in South Knoxville, designed and developed by Alfred and Jane Clauss, the latter of whom was the first woman to work in the atelier of the Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier, is one of Knoxville’s less-heralded Modern architectures. Its covenant still requires that all structures built there be “of the so called ‘modern style’.” Their Hart House (1943) on Holston Hills Road, considered an important part of Le Corbusier’s American legacy, just recently sold with the assistance of Knox Heritage. None of these houses, however, altered the character of the housing market in the region; they remained exceptions to the rule rather than changing it. Moreover, when it comes to resale value, when mid-mod houses go on the market in this region, real estate agents and owners typically find it more difficult to attract (non-architect/artist) buyers than for a traditional house of comparable size
Photo by Denise Retallack
BY GEORGE DODDS
abandoned the house, never to return.
WHO BUYS THIS STUFF?
Photo by Billy M. Glenn
and location. In 1960, more than a generation after Le Corbusier built the Villa Stein – de Monzie (1928) and the Villa Savoye (1931), which together became icons of a movement that did not yet have a name, he published Creation Is a Patient Search, with an introduction by the great 20th-century art collector Maurice Jardot. Little more than an overview of his creative activities of the previous 40 years, it written in a disquieting third person, its author referring to himself as “L.C,” the initials of his nom de travail. Yet, for Le Corbusier and virtually all significant architects of that first generation, the search for a Modern architecture was anything but patient, marked by all of the anxieties wrought by an unsated hunger for what the critic Robert Hughes called in his BBC series and book of the same name, The Shock of the New (1980). The still-young L.C. was so desperate to realize his vision of a new architecture that he wrote a long letter to Monsieur Savoye begging him to choose the design with the flat roof he envisioned for the family’s vacation villa at Poissy, just outside Paris. Ultimately, the Savoyes relented. Le Corbusier got the architecture he needed. It is arguably his most famous house and it remains a paradigm of excellence for all young architecture students. As for the Savoyes, they were left with an entourage of unhappy contractors unpaid for additional work, and a roof that never stopped leaking, especially each autumn and spring. As the Nazis advanced on Paris, the Savoyes
There has always been a small cadre of aficionados of this thing called Modern. Before the Villa Savoye, in the mid-1920s, Gertrude Stein’s brother Michael and his art-collecting-wife Sarah (an early and important supporter of Henri Matisse), commissioned Le Corbusier to design a villa for them and their friend Gabrielle Colaco-Osorio de Monzie at Garches, just outside of Paris. They lived in the villa on and off, known colloquially as “Les Terrases,” owing to its many vegetated balconies, until around 1937 when the Steins (along with de Monzie and her daughter) returned to the United States. For the most part, the patrons of Modern architecture are the usual suspects: architects (but not all), and a subset of what Richard Florida calls the “creative class.” One would think it would be universally popular among Bohemians and liberal elites, such as the Steins and the Savoyes, but not necessarily. Hollywood set designers were and remain a mainstay of the modern architect’s client base. Although it is more correct to say that they are their own clients as most production designers are educated as architects. This helps explains why in many procedural television dramas one can find $4,000 Mies van der Rohe chairs or $2,000 George Nelson lighting fixtures in a New York City police captain’s office or FBI conference room. Films from the 1930s through the mid-century sport starkly modern A 1939 house designed by Alfred and Jane West Clauss, in South Knoxville’s Little Switzerland neighborhood. Its 2015 renovation, restoration, and preservation was conducted by John L. Sanders.
The institutional and commercial client base for Modern architecture in Knoxville was much broader than was the domestic side. Fine period pieces are hidden throughout the city in plain sight.
homes and interiors of all sorts. This generally holds true today for both films and television commercials and even print ads, especially for automobiles where one often finds iconic modern buildings as backdrops for the newest model vehicle. Frank Ghery’s Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles wallpapered several television car ads of the past decade alone. More recently, the home of the character played by Vince Vaughn in the HBO series True Detective is a starkly modern house sporting large open spaces, furniture with clean lines, floor-to-ceiling glass walls, and a flat roof. When the character falls on hard times, he and his wife must move back into his conventional early-20th-century bungalow: an architectural sign of failure. Keanu Reeves as the title character in the film John Wick is a fearsome hitman living in an isolated, glassified modern house furnished with Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs. For both characters, the lack of enclosure signifies they need no protection as they have nothing to fear. But of course, they do, and therein lies the drama. An excellent example in clear view on Cherokee Boulevard in Sequoyah Hills is the elegant-if-humorless steel and stone house designed by McMurry-the-Younger (BarberMcMurry Architects, 1955) for doctor Harry Jenkins and his wife (part of the 2015 Tennessee AIA annual convention’s tour of mid-century modern houses). Most of the mid-mod houses in Knoxville were for this sort of professional, particularly expatriates, as longtime Knoxvillians tended to favor far more traditional domestic fare. The institutional and commercial client base for Modern architecture in Knoxville was much broader than was the domestic side. Fine period pieces are hidden throughout the city in plain sight: West High School on
Sutherland Avenue and the Fort Sanders School. The Sequoyah Hills branch of the public library is a much later, but also fi ne, modest example. Bracketed between Scenic and Neyland Drives along Kingston Pike, one can enjoy an outstanding collection of variegated Modern architectures in service of a range of Judeo-Christian religions: Heska Amuna Synagogue, Laurel Church of Christ, First United Methodist Church, and Temple Beth El. Not long ago, Richard Neutra’s famous Kaufmann House (1946) in Palm Springs, Calif. was the setting for one of J. Crew’s seasonal catalogs. That same year the New York Times used Brazil’s space-ship-modern capital Brazilia as the backdrop for its Sunday Magazine’s annual men’s fashion issue. It’s curious how the same people who would never live in a Modern or mid-mod house willingly purchase merchandise identified with its iconic imagery. There are some who love to hate Modern architecture and then there are those who hate to love it, but they love it nonetheless. When the Jenkins House was still new, the Fort Sanders School was under construction, and the country was still emerging from its wartime chrysalis as the reinvented imago of post-war power, there was a brief moment during which a certain subspecies of Americans embraced a new modern paradigm, from how they dressed to how they dressed the buildings they inhabited. It’s invigorating to recall that Knoxville was squarely in the midst of this moment. Home to the TVA, only a few hours distance from the re-invented Bauhaus at Black Mountain College, and cheek to jowl with the Secret City at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, these were fertile fields for modernity in America. This seems worth remembering. ◆
S E A SO N
th ! 9 . T BEGINS SEP n,
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* The actors appear through the courtesy of Actor’s Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 15
PERSPECTIVES
Road to Ruin Gas taxes aren’t keeping up with highway funding needs BY JOE SULLIVAN
W
ith the price of gas heading below $2 a gallon, it’s hard to fathom why Congress and the state aren’t seizing the moment to tack a few pennies onto gasoline taxes to cover an ever-mounting shortfall in highway and other transportation funding. Both the federal and state gas tax have sat still for more than 20 years. And while there a lot more motorists on the road driving a lot more miles, revenues have barely increased because of increased fuel efficiency. Over that same span, highway construction and maintenance costs have doubled and then some, according to TDOT’s deputy commissioner and chief engineer, Paul Degges. “Where you used to be able to repave a two-lane road for about $35,000 a mile, it will probably cost about $100,000 now,” he says. While the state remains totally dependent on fuel-tax revenues for its roughly $800 million a year in highway outlays, Congress has at least attempted to address the inadequacy of the $35 billion a year going into the Highway Trust Fund. By hook and crook, it’s managed to come up with some $15 billion a year in supplemental funding from a motley array of unrelated sources, typically for the very short run. Indeed, the last thing Congress did before recessing for the month of August was to authorize a three-month extension to prevent all funding from coming to a halt.
16
KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
But with nothing approaching an agreement on any longer-term funding source anywhere in sight, uncertainties abound about whether and when the state will get any more money from Washington come fall. Tennessee’s annual allotment of about $900 million in federal money typically pays for 80 percent of construction costs on state as well as national highways (with a 20 percent state matching requirement). As Degges explains it, once work is underway on a project that could take three years to complete, TDOT gets its reimbursements from the Federal Highway Administration in arrears and thus runs the risk of stoppages. “Every month the contractor turns in an invoice to us, and we turn around and bill the FHWA,” he says. “So if the FHWA quits paying me, I
would have to tell my contractors to go home, and they will be able to sue me because I’ve delayed their work.” While TDOT has managed to build up cash reserves that minimize this risk on the 540 contracts totaling $2.7 billion that are presently underway, it’s meant delaying work on some $400 million in new projects that were due to start this year. Among them: $28 million for safer access and widening of Alcoa Highway between Woodson and Maloney and $9 million for improvements to the I-640/ Broadway interchange. Barring a debacle in Washington, Degges believes work on these two projects can begin next year. But projects on which construction had been due to start in 2016, such as the widening of a constricted section of Western Avenue between Major and Texas avenues, is due to get pushed back at least another year. So will other sections of Alcoa Highway work that’s due to extend from Cherokee Trail to the airport. Much-needed safety improvements to Chapman Highway don’t even have a timetable. To be sure, a number of construction projects in Knox County are moving ahead or nearing completion. These include work on Oak Ridge Highway, Emory Road, Maynardville Highway, Tazewell Pike, and the Halls Connector. And let me be clear that I’m not someone who favors building brand-new highways that cut a swath through the remaining countryside. I cheered when the billion-dollar I-275 bypass through Hardin Valley and the $100 million extension of James White Parkway through South Knox got nixed. A majority of the state’s roughly $800 million in highway funding goes
for maintenance, including a 40 percent share that’s distributed to cities and counties. The state is responsible for maintaining “any highway with a number on it” as Degges puts it; the localities are responsible for their local streets. Bridge replacements can get state and federal assists wherever they are situated. Speaking as someone who’s become acutely conscious of all the bump and grind on I-40 as well as local streets since last winter’s ice storm, an acceleration of repaving can’t come soon enough. “Bumpy roads are not only a nuisance, if not a hazard, they also increase the wear and tear on automobiles. So you have a diminished quality of life issue,” Degges says. Our Sen. Bob Corker and Gov. Bill Haslam have been out front in calling for gasoline tax increases that can rectify these shortcomings— though Haslam hasn’t quite said so yet. Unfortunately, they don’t yet appear to have much of a following either in Washington or Nashville. While there’s near-universal agreement that more highway funding is needed, state legislator calls for tapping this past fiscal year’s $386 million state surplus is just a shortterm fix, akin to the kick-the-can-downthe-road approach that Congress has taken for the past several years. What’s needed is a long-term solution. Raising the 18.4-cent federal and 21.4-cent state tax rates by 10 cents each would provide one. And it would cost motorists less than a fifth of what they are saving at the pump as the price of gas has dropped by more than a dollar a gallon over the past year. ◆
While there’s near-universal agreement that more highway funding is needed, state legislator calls for tapping this past fiscal year’s $386 million state surplus is just a short-term fix.
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䈀爀礀愀渀 䰀⸀ 䌀䄀倀倀匀
September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 17
Knoxville’s creeks are a polluted mess, and have been for a century. Will they ever be clean enough to enjoy? by S. Heather Duncan
18
KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
W
here Third Creek Greenway winds between the playground and the creek in Tyson Park, a picturesque
bridge spans the water. It arches over the grayish stream, swollen with rain, beckoning to the lush green meadow beyond. A little girl runs toward the bridge, arms outstretched, and peers down at the burbling water. Next to her is a sign that reads, “Notice: Avoid Physical Contact. Stream Fails State Bacteriological Standards. Possible Sources of Contamination: Sanitary Sewer Leaks/Overflows, Failing Septic Tanks, Animal Waste.” A moment later the girl’s family stops for a photo on the bridge, the 3-year-old perched on her father’s shoulders. “It’s her birthday,” says her mom, Kristin Hickman. The park is a family favorite, and her two daughters often want to play in the creek. “I usually don’t let them do it, but sometimes I really can’t fight them,” she says. She had never noticed the sign before. “It’s sad,” says Joe Walsh, Knoxville’s parks and recreation director, in a later conversation. “That sign’s been up since I’ve been here, for 23 years. I’m looking forward to the day we can take it down.” That day may be getting closer, as Knoxville’s urban creeks slowly begin reaping the benefits of new environmental rules. But in many respects the greenways receive more support than the creeks they’re often built around. Most of these streams are choked with mud, contaminated with bacteria from human and animal waste, tainted with nutrients from fertilizers and soaps— or polluted by all of these at once. Street signs direct us to the greenways that adorn the creeks—but then we are faced with the other signs. In some ways it’s a paradox. In others, it makes sense. Brian Hann, chairman of the Knoxville Greenways Commission, says, “It’s not really our charge to work on water quality.” But he thinks the commission is doing so indirectly: “You’ve got to get people to the water to get them to care about cleaning up the water.” Until about 30 years ago, urban creeks were mostly a dumping ground that few people saw as an asset. For much of the 19th century, the city was growing so much that nobody saw them at all. Streams were routed into pipes under neighborhoods and parks,
in concrete canals behind factories and strip malls, and in straight ditches next to roads. Greenways have reminded us not only of the creeks’ presence, but also their potential to be something beautiful and natural. “Our kids should be able to be at the park and play in the water,” acknowledges Mayor Madeline Rogero. While the city has a regulatory and legal responsibility for water quality under its state stormwater environmental permit, it also has a commitment to sustainable use of resources, Rogero says. “The whole purpose for the greenway is to enjoy the beauty of our place. And to do that, our place needs to actually be beautiful,” she says. And there can be a secondary advantage to clean water: “I think quality of life and economic development go hand in hand. Who’s going to want to build a house or a business next to a contaminated creek?” The city has budgeted $1 million for developing new greenways this fiscal year, as it did last year. It will spend about half as much on creek cleanup. But that investment has risen about 16 percent over the last five budget years. The city is also spending $3.3 million on its entire stormwater program, which is aimed at reducing runoff for both flood control and pollution prevention. That is up from $2.7 million in fiscal 2011/12, a 22 percent bump. Approaching a likely second term, Rogero says the city needs to keep doing more of the same. State environmental officials have praised city stormwater enforcement. But Rogero also faced criticism from Angela Howard, the former executive director of the defunct Fort Loudoun Lake Association, for the city’s role in sinking the non-profit river and creek cleanup group last October. The association lost a (publicly bid) city contract to clean up the river to Ijams
Nature Center, and shut its doors soon afterward. In its absence, the local chapter of the non-profit Tennessee Izaak Walton League may restart its program of keeping trash skimmers on First Creek, says its executive director Mark Campen. The league manages a constructed wetland surrounding the Turkey Creek Greenway. “These streams they say don’t touch and don’t swim in—it doesn’t mean you’re going to get sick or die if you jump in and look for some crayfish,” says Campen, who is also a city councilman. Campen and other league members waded into First Creek in June to remove trash. “Our feet didn’t fall off,” he says. “But you’ve got to be smart about it. You don’t want to have open sores or cuts in urban streams.” That doesn’t actually inspire great confidence, especially in a parent. (What kid under age 10 is ever without an open cut or sore?) And truthfully, Campen remembers his aunt jerking him back from the water in Tyson Park when he was a boy 30 years ago. Kids want to wade. They want to turn over stones looking for salamanders. As a parent, you want to encourage your child’s natural wonder. But you have to say no. Will Knoxville’s creeks ever be safe enough to touch?
A FLOOD OF POLLUTION
East Tennessee is known for its
beautiful lakes and pure mountain streams, and the region has pinned its hopes on ecotourists and their dollars. Yet the Fort Loudoun watershed is polluted. According to the watershed plan by the state Department of Environment and Conservation, just 39 percent of its evaluated streams and rivers can be used fully as intended. In most cases, intended uses include fishing, recreation, irrigation, and a source of water for animals. First, Second, and Third creeks have a specific “do not touch” water contact advisory because of bacteria like e. coli in the water. These pathogens are found in human and animal feces. Unsurprisingly, ingesting them can make you very sick. But other creeks on local greenways also have such heavy bacteria loads that they can’t support swimming, wading, or fishing, according to the state. Among them are Fourth, Williams, Beaver, Goose, Turkey and Ten Mile creeks. (See map to find which greenways follow these creeks.) TDEC spokesman Eric Ward says the state began requiring warning signs in 1985 for First, Second, and Third creeks, based on criteria that made them a greater threat to human health. “Pathogen levels were excessive” and included a “significant” component of human waste from sanitary sewers, he wrote in an email.
This sign warns visitors to Tyson Park and the Third Creek Greenway to look but not touch the creek. September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 19
Creek needs to reduce its silt load the most, by 75 percent. Beaver Creek needs the most modest reduction, at 48 percent. That means the creek requiring the least improvement still needs to cut its dirt load in half. How did it come to this?
HIGHWAYS WATERWAYS GREENWAYS PARKS
RIPPLES IN A STREAM
FIRST CREEK SECOND CREEK
WILLIAMS CREEK
THIRD CREEK FOURTH CREEK
GOOSE CREEK
TEN MILE CREEK
TURKEY CREEK
ALL EPA REQUIRED PROJECTS COMPLETE Phase I: Due June 2013 23
First Creek Second Creek
21 22
Third Creek 18
Fourth Creek South Knox
21
Williams Creek
9 10
Loves Creek 2
East Knox 0
5
10
15
20
Number of Required Projects TDEC also considered whether streams passed through publicly-accessible areas like schools and parks. Most urban creeks in Knox County have so much bacteria that the state has assigned them a “total maximum daily load” (TMDL). It’s basically a specific reduction goal, ranging from 86 percent less bacteria in Beaver Creek to 94 percent less in 20
KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
First and Goose creeks. Bacteria is just the most high-profile of the streams’ problems. Goose Creek is coated with polychlorinated biphenyls, cancer-causing chemicals that can travel up the food chain and remain stored in living tissue. PCBs settle in mud and are almost impossible to remove without dredging, which is discouraged because it destroys habitat.
Under pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, KUB agreed in 2005 to more than 100 projects in local watersheds to reduce the amount of sewage escaping into creeks. First, Second, Third, and Love creeks have enough nitrates or nitrites (found in fertilizers as well as some pesticides and soaps) that the federal government requires a TMDL, although state regulators have not yet written them. Ten urban creeks also carry too much dirt. In fact, it’s often their biggest source of pollution. Yes, dirt. A heavy load of dirt in a stream buries rocks that provide a place for fish and mussels to live and breed. It can alter the temperature and acidity of the water. This can reduce oxygen levels, killing fish. Dirt gets into local streams mostly from construction sites, where land clearing causes erosion, and from the banks of streams reshaped by people. Farm animals can also cause stream bank erosion in urban streams that start in the countryside. According to the TMDL documents written for local creeks, Second
State regulators didn’t start creating TMDLs for creeks until the turn of this century. By then, the federal Clean Water Act had forced factories and mines to clean up their worst offenses. Sewage treatment systems were next. Bacteria problems in creeks were closely tied to leaky sewer lines and inadequate sewage treatment plants. “Any time it rained, the city was awash with sewage,” says Renee Hoyos, executive director of the Tennessee Clean Water Network. Heavy rains caused so many sewage spills in 2002 and 2003 that some city greenways had to be closed, says Knoxville stormwater manager David Hagerman. TDEC held the city responsible through its permit to release storm water. The city joined the Clean Water Network in a lawsuit against KUB, which led to a 2005 consent order with the federal Environmental Protection Agency. KUB has since reduced sewer overflows, replaced leaky pipes and broken manholes, upgraded two treatment plants, and added additional storage for sewage when heavy rains penetrate pipes. Funded by steep rate increases, this effort became the $530 million Partners Acting for a Cleaner Environment (PACE 10) program. KUB has completed 134 required projects, 23 affecting First Creek alone, according to its 2015 annual progress update. Most significantly, KUB reports that sewage spills have dropped by 75 percent between 2003 and July 2014. “(KUB) really embraced the challenge… and the streams are a lot cleaner than they were when I got here,” Hoyos says. Other sewer systems, such as Hallsdale-Powell Utility District, are still working to correct similar problems. But with a few exceptions, the most obvious culprits have been handled. That leaves lots of smaller businesses and individuals: the dog owner who doesn’t pick up his pet’s poop, the car dealership that washes its cars near a ditch, the landscape company that fertilizes your yard right
before it rains. Each contributes a little, with their combined effects expanding like ripples in a stream. It’s not one fix that’s needed. It’s a thousand little fixes. In many ways, local governments are still the ones that must make those fixes happen because of their stormwater permits. As a larger city, Knoxville had to begin managing its stormwater by 1996; Knox County was part of a second wave of smaller governments to face the requirement, starting in 2003. These government stormwater programs touch industries from restaurants to car sales. Among their duties, stormwater divisions permit and inspect large construction sites, and search for “illicit” pollution released into ditches and stormwater drains.
MEASURING UP
State environmental officials say Knoxville and Knox County are doing an innovative stormwater management job. Robert Karesh, TDEC stormwater coordinator, praises Knoxville for putting many inspectors on the ground and for requiring “special improvement abatement permits” for businesses with the most potential to create polluted runoff. (An example is restaurants, which can no longer install dumpsters near a stormwater drain.) Hagerman says Knoxville was first in the state to institute a $5,000-a-day maximum penalty for stormwater violations. Similarly, some of Knox County’s most effective efforts were not required by its stormwater permit, says county stormwater management director Chris Granju. For example, the county conducted extensive stream sampling in Cox Creek to better pinpoint sources of its pollution. Using that information, the county focused public education on septic systems and helped farmers develop better methods for bringing their livestock to water. As a result, pathogen levels in Cox Creek dropped enough that stream was removed from the state’s list of polluted creeks. Because of their track records, Knoxville and Knox County are among just five local governments in Tennessee whose land disturbance permits act as a proxy for the state’s permit, cutting out a step for developers. “It’s a way to streamline the development process and recognize those that are doing a great job,” Karesh says. “It was clear to us that (Knoxville and Knox County)
have a program that was as protective or more protective than ours.” Neither local government has had any violations of their stormwater permit over the last five years, he says. Although city officials initially feared the stormwater rules would drive businesses to leave (and some made empty threats to do so), that hasn’t happened, Hagerman says. Rogero says she’s heard no complaints from businesses. On the contrary, she sees the stormwater program as part of the sustainability profile she hopes will help make Knoxville attractive to progressive companies like Green Mountain Coffee. “Those are the kinds of businesses we want,” she says. “If you just want to pollute and don’t care about the community, go somewhere else.” “I think Knoxville does very well” at enforcement, Hoyos says. But she sees the county handling violations inconsistently. “I think the county will always struggle,” she says. “I don’t think there’s the stomach to enforce against development.” But Granju says the county has a written penalty system to ensure fair enforcement. Penalties can range from $250 to $5,000 a day. They are based on the county’s cleanup cost, plus the profit made from breaking the rules. The goal is to make compliance cheaper than the alternative. But the county is still perfecting the process, such as how to handle repeat violators who own or operate multiple companies, Granju says.
(Above) Years ago, the Izaak Walton League used skimmers like this one on First Creek near Walker Boulevard to corral trash. (Below) Third Creek dumps tons of sediment into the Tennessee River after heavy rains. Photos provided by Tennesssee Izaak Walton League.
REVERSING THE FLOW?
Knox County was issued its current stormwater permit in 2010. Knoxville receive its last “five-year” permit in 2004. The city’s permit technically expired in 2008, but the state waited until it could model the update on a new version of the permit being issued to smaller governments, Karesh says. He calls the old permit requirements “fairly vague,” while the new one in the pipeline for later this year will include more measurable benchmarks. Hagerman says he’s impatient with the permit delay and concerned that its changes might be less protective than what Knoxville does now. “I think Knoxville has had a successful program the last two decades,” he says. “What I don’t want to see is: ‘Let’s start from scratch.’” Some changes are more restrictive. For the first time, the new permit won’t September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 21
What the heck is a TMDL, and why does it matter? TMDLs are meant to identify dirty creeks and create a road map for cleaning them up. But they are vague, never updated, and even state regulators don’t seem entirely sure they have a point. Forty years after the Clean Water Act that required TMDLs, the state still hasn’t written them for some creeks. Local officials say that’s a problem. “Do we ban yard companies from spraying in certain conditions?” says Knoxville stormwater management director David Hagerman. “Do we ban Lowe’s and Home Depot from selling certain amounts of fertilizer in specific months? It’s good to be able to point to something and say, ‘We’re not just making this up.’” @KNOXMERCURY.COM
Find out everything you ever wanted to know about TMDLs at knoxmercury.com.
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
allow any increase in polluted runoff from new development, even after construction is finished. This will require projects to be designed differently to pre-treat and store stormwater or let it seep directly into the ground. Knox County is implementing this already. Granju says the county is in the process of educating real estate and title companies about this because owners will have new long-term responsibilities. Stormwater holding structures will have to be inspected by a professional annually, and every five years a landscape architect or engineer will have to certify that they still work. “Owners are not being told,” Granju says. “That requires us to be inserted in a lot of parts of the real estate process that we have not been in the past.” Knoxville is “on board” with the new storm water design requirements and has been testing some out. Hager-
Parts of many Knoxville urban creeks have been put into pipes or canals, destroying their original banks. This portion of First Creek runs in a concrete canal behind the decaying Standard Knitting Mill.
man hopes to roll out these requirements next year along with a new mitigation program. A development on land with physical obstacles that make it tough to meet stormwater requirements could have an alternative: improving a stream elsewhere as a kind of swap. An example might be the University Commons shopping center, which replaced an industrial plant built directly on Third Creek where any buffer had been destroyed long ago. The shopping complex shrunk its footprint to leave more trees on the site to make up for this, Hagerman says. With a mitigation program, a developer would receive more credit for a mitigation project that improves the same stream or a stormwater “hot spot.” Hagerman says other government agencies are helping the city develop a system for identifying these places “where we could get the most bang from our buck with green infrastructure.” Chattanooga recently became the first Tennessee city to offer this kind of stormwater mitigation bank. But unlike Chattanooga, Knoxville would not allow “credit trading,” because that would relinquish the city’s control over the location of the projects, Hagerman says. What would mitigation projects look like? In most cases, Hagerman envisions that private companies would start restoring creeks, a recent focus for both the city and county. That’s because a lot of the mud choking Knoxville’s streams came from past decisions to straighten streams or put them in pipes. At the time, the goal was to ease development and reduce flooding by moving water to the river as quickly as possible. But heavier flow causes a creek to scour its own bed. The city and county have started restoring stream curves and slowing the water with eddies, pools and riffles. The most visible of these efforts in Knoxville was in Third Creek between Sutherland Avenue and Concord. Hagerman says the biological health of that section of the creek rebounded after the city threw in $100,000 to match a state contribution of $1 million for the stream restoration. More of these projects are in the works at a tributary to Goose Creek in South Knoxville, a tributary of Williams Creek near the city’s new urban forest, and a Second Creek tributary that had been piped underneath houses on Banks Avenue and West Glenwood. (Hagerman says the city bought a house there that was
collapsing into the stream beneath it, tore the house down, and plans to reopen the part of the stream where the pipes failed.) “We didn’t just protect something,” he says. “We are reversing it.” Hann, who works for downtown developer David Dewhirst, says he’d like the city to provide developers a toolkit of incentives for responsible development and stream restoration near creeks. (The mitigation program seems a step in that direction.) Pointing out an example, Hann scrambles over an inexplicable stack of white fabric bags at the edge of a field to reach a concrete platform behind the old Standard Knitting Mill. The mill hangs over First Creek, which is completely encased in a concrete aqueduct scrawled with graffiti. A ladder, a tire, and large plastic tubs are visible through water shaded by trees growing out of the looming mill, which is slated for redevelopment. Hann says he would prioritize First Creek and Williams Creek for restoration because of the neighborhoods and downtown areas they cross. Goose Creek also deserves extra attention, he says, because it passes through Fort Dickerson Park before emptying into the Tennessee River in the South Waterfront redevelopment area. “The stream bank is a crucial asset to inner-city development,” Hann says. “You need to see water quality also from a development standpoint, because people will inherently want to be near water.”
SCOURING YOUR OWN BED
The question is, will they want it badly enough to help keep the water clean? Campen and Hoyos point out that local governments can only do so much when people continue to toss their trash on the ground, rake their leaves in a ditch or over-fertilize their lawns. Campen has seen one improvement in citizen responsibility over the last decade: Dog owners are being more cooperative about picking up dog waste that otherwise washes straight from greenways into creeks. The Isaak Walton League has installed pet waste dispensers all over town and the city pays it $7,500 a year to educate residents and keep the dispensers clean and stocked with bags (about 60,000 annually, Campen says). If he wins a second term on City Council this fall, Campen plans to propose an updated litter ordinance,
with some combination of increased enforcement, education, and fines. “People say we’ve got better things to do than go after people throwing cigarette butts out, and I agree—but still you have to remember the significance of economic development from having a clean city,” Campen says. Little sins rack up. “If there are 20,000 people that smoke and every day they throw five butts in the street, think what that means annually.” Perhaps the ideal situation is for residents to take more ownership of the creeks they enjoy. At Mary Vestal Park, community volunteers recently yanked up kudzu, privet, and honeysuckle to uncover Goose Creek, then fished tires and debris from the stream. Gene Burr, whose architectural firm designed the park decades ago, applied for grants. A few months ago, the Vestal Community Association partnered with the city, the health department, and the South Knoxville Alliance to extend the greenway, drawing bikers and walkers who felt unsafe when the path was hidden in a corridor of vines. “The creek really makes it a delightful setting,” Burr says. “The more use it gets, the more it’s going to get cared for.” Hann would like to see something similar happen on the stretch of First Creek Greenway that runs by Caswell Park. There, too, the creek is mostly hidden. But Hann knows where to hunt along the vine-draped bank to find a shaded ledge overlooking the creek. A branch flows from a pipe underneath the park to join the stream in a little waterfall. An emerald damselfly with black wings buzzes by. “See, you can be walking right next to this and never know it’s there!” Hann says. Hann says he and a friend paddled a long stretch of First Creek on a raft after heavy rains in June, finding natural beauty, garbage, and few signs that people visit the stream. The Greenway Commission is in the process of evaluating potential new greenway corridors, and Hann says it would like to use the urban streams as much as possible, despite their poor condition. “Some of this is the price we pay for our standard of living,” Hoyos points out. “I can’t find fault with what the city is doing. Yet the stream remains polluted. How much are we willing to accept? Well, apparently we’re willing to accept quite a bit.”◆
State of the Creeks THIRD CREEK Knoxville stormwater management director David Hagerman says some of the most dramatic water quality improvements in recent years have happened in Third Creek. That’s partly because some major industrial sources of pollution, such as Rohm and Haas (now Dow Chemical) and Robertshaw have cleaned up or shut down. Robertshaw, which plated metal in a building that hung out over the creek for 70 years before the Clean Water Act, has been replaced by University Commons. In the process, pipes underneath the site were sealed off. The new development used many green design elements. The stream has benefited from a project in which the city paid $100,000 and the state contributed $1 million to restore Third Creek’s meanders and natural appearance between Sutherland Avenue and Concord, Hagerman says . The biological health of that section has since rebounded, he says. However, Third Creek has also suffered damage from fuel spills from tank farms along its shores, and several large plumes from mid-1990s spills remain. BEAVER CREEK The Knoxville/Knox County Water Quality Forum (a partnership of many local agencies) developed the Beaver Creek Restoration Plan in 2006, which has served as a guide to improving stream health. Knox County conducted detailed sampling to better identify pollution sources in different
segments, then worked with partner agencies to address them. For example, county stormwater officials worked with farmers at 30 sites to use best management practices (mostly related to keeping livestock from eroding banks and contributing to waste in the creek). Hallsdale-Powell Utility District restored stream banks in one section. County stormwater director Chris Granju says the middle section of the stream, which feeds the lower Clinch River, has improved as a result. Knox County has built new demonstration projects that allow more storm water to seep into the ground, such as a permeable parking lot at the Powell Public Library. It also reduced chronic flooding near the Painter Farms subdivision in Karns by creating a Stormwater Park with rain gardens and ponds on Harrell Road. No flooding has occurred there since the improvements, Granju says. Public education about septic systems and further work with farmers along a tributary Cox Creek led to its being removed from the state’s list of impaired waters in 2012. WILLIAMS CREEK Williams Creek has been receiving some long-needed TLC thanks to a partnership between the Tennessee Clean Water Network and the city. The network helped the city acquire land or easements along an undeveloped part of the creek that used to be a dumping ground, and the network has been importing goats every summer for the last
three years to eat kudzu. The area has become the city’s first urban forest. Knoxville is expanding that effort further by buying houses in the creek’s floodway; they will be torn down and connected with the urban forest. An unnamed tributary of the creek will be restored from a straight ditch to a meandering stream set back from the road. This stream branch crosses land the Knoxville Community Development Corporation is redeveloping on Cavalier Avenue, and KCDC designed its project to accommodate the city’s creek goals, Hagerman says. Old connections from private homes to the KUB sewer system are probably a significant source of pollution into Williams Creek, Hagerman says. (Among them are some pipes made of wood fibers bound together with adhesive and liquefied coal tar pitch.) Those lines are the responsibility of the homeowner, but KUB has been requiring that such connections be upgraded as they are improved or property is redeveloped. That could take a while to have an impact. STOCK CREEK Knox County teamed with the University of Tennessee’s biosystems engineering department to use DNA testing to identify the source of bacteria in Stock Creek, which feeds into the Little River. When livestock turned out to be a factor, the county worked with farmers to improve management of animals at creeks. Another effort, this time with the Knox County Soil and Water Conservation District, helped homeowners complete repairs on failing septic systems, Granju says. GOOSE CREEK Renee Hoyos, executive director of the Tennessee Clean Water Network, says the non-profit has assessed pollution impacts in Goose Creek, then coordinated with Knoxville to correct blockages such as a collapsed driveway and deteriorated docks. PLUS: FORT LOUDOUN LAKE FISHING ADVISORY Fort Loudoun Lake has a TMDL for polychlorinated byphenyls. The state has issued a warning that no one should eat any catfish from it, or largemouth bass weighing more than two pounds. In fact, we are warned not to sink our teeth into any largemouth bass from U.S. Highway 129 to the river’s confluence with the Holston and French Broad rivers. Those fish carry unsafe amounts of mercury, which can cause developmental problems. None of these types of pollution can be effectively removed without doing further environmental damage.
September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 23
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P rogram Notes
founder, Bobby Liebling, is legendary for his prodigious and decades-long intake of serious hardcore drugs. (See the 2011 award-winning documentary Last Days Here for graphic details.) Place of Skulls is Griffin’s Christian metal trio, reflecting the spiritual conversion he underwent in the late 1990s, after one of his many splits from Pentagram. Then, in 2010, Griffin, who still lives in Knoxville, put aside his reservations and rejoined forces with Liebling. The band played SXSW, toured the United States and Europe, and released Last Rites, produced by local hard-rock
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Photo by Keith Hyde
ictor Griffin’s 35-year relationship with Pentagram has been complicated. The Morristown native played guitar in the cult doom-metal band through the 1980s and most of the ’90s, contributing mammoth down-tuned riffs to heavy classics like “All Your Sins,” “Evil Seed,” and “Wolf’s Blood.” But Griffin spent most of the 2000s back in East Tennessee, clean and sober, singing and playing in Place of Skulls, a band that seemed to be the complete opposite of Pentagram. Pentagram pioneered the use of eerie, occult imagery and lyrics in heavy metal, and its frontman and
engineering wizard Travis Wyrick, in 2011. It was the first official collaboration between Liebling and Griffin since 1994’s Be Forewarned. And then Griffin quit again at the end of 2012 for his new Christian doom band, In-Graved, which released an album in 2013. And then, last year, he returned— once again—to the band he helped make infamous. “It keeps drawing me back in,” Griffin says. “Bobby and I have a lot of time invested in the band and in each other. Of course, the band’s doing better than ever these days. It’s what I’ve been working for my whole life, so it’s not like I can start something new now, I guess.” The result: the brand-new Curious Volume, released on Aug. 21 on the British boutique metal label Peaceville and also produced by Wyrick. Even if the news hasn’t broken through to mainstream entertainment outlets, the reviews from the underground have been overwhelmingly positive: “This is exactly the kind of ballsy, gritty doom rock I need when cleaning my guns” (Angry Metal Guy); “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and no one knows how to wrangle doom, despair, and tone like Bobby Liebling” (Noisey); “Pentagram riff hard on Curious and offer some surprises, too” (Metal Sucks). “It’s kind of a throwback a little bit,” Griffin says. “We consciously stepped back—we didn’t want to give it too much production. I think Last Rites was a great album. I like the material on that, and I like the dynamics of the album. But we also wanted to take a step back and do something a bit rawer and just a bit more straightforward—a straight-up heavy rock album. And I think that’s a pretty good description of the new album.” For years, Pentagram albums have depended on Liebling’s considerable archive of already-written songs. That continues with Curious Volume, which has four songs adapted from
Doom Pays Victor Griffin’s long and winding journey with Pentagram keeps on going
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Inside the Vault: Mid-Century Jazz
KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
Music: Handsome and the Humbles
Movie: Diary of a Teenage Girl
Liebling’s collection of aging demo tapes from the ’70s and ’80s. But the rest of it is all new, which indicates the 45-year-old band’s newly recovered vitality. “Bobby doesn’t write much material these days, other than some lyrics now and then,” Griffin says. “This probably has the most brandnew material on it of any Pentagram album in a really long time, especially within the last couple of decades, anyway, or since Be Forewarned.” Liebling, whose recovery has been the major storyline of Pentagram’s resurgence this decade, is still hanging on, Griffin says. “He’s doing pretty good,” he says. “You don’t really abuse your body to the extent he has for so long without consequences, so he has his health issues. But he’s hanging in there, man. He has lots of doctors’ appointments and has to be on certain prescription medications, but for somebody who’s been through what he’s been through, that he’s even still alive is a miracle itself. So he’s doing pretty good.” And, if it all works out, Liebling and Griffin will finally play together in Knoxville under the Pentagram name. (They played a show at Bundulee’s on Cumberland Avenue in 1982, when the band was known as Death Row.) A Southeastern tour in support of Curious Volume was tentatively scheduled for the fall, with a date in Knoxville, but fell through. “I was really excited about it, because I’ve never played in my home town with Pentagram,” Griffin says. “But the way the routing was going to work out with some other dates and some European stuff going on, it just wasn’t going to work out. What’s happened is our U.S. booking agent is going to probably just rearrange that whole segment and hopefully there will end up being a Knoxville date on the books, hopefully maybe sometime this year.” —Matthew Everett
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Videos: Pickle & Peanut
Inside the Vault
All That Jazz Jack Haynes recalls Knoxville’s booming mid-century jazz scene BY ERIC DAWSON
I
n the basement of Murlin’s Music World in downtown Maryville, Jack Haynes offers music lessons in a room packed with records, instruments, posters, and memorabilia from his long career in music. When Bradley Reeves and I went to pick up several crates of 78s Haynes donated to the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound, he was helping a young woman who recently moved from New York to polish a song she’d written. Haynes has played music, mostly jazz, in Knoxville and many far-flung cities since starting out as a teenager in the 1940s. Trumpet is his primary instrument, but he’s also proficient on drums and keyboard. He grew up on Euclid Avenue, the youngest of several musically inclined children, including his brother, Homer, of the revered country and jazz duo Homer and Jethro. Haynes gigged around Knoxville during the heyday of its jazz clubs in the 1940s through the 1970s, so we brought a hard drive full of photographs to see if he could help identify some mysterious figures and share a few anecdotes. An hour and a half later our heads were spinning from tales of arcane Knoxville music history.
The material we showed him came from several collections, most prominently those of P.C. Dixon and Tommy Ford. Dixon played tenor sax and ran the Knoxville Jazz Club on Parkview Avenue. Ford ran a couple of clubs on Alcoa Highway, including the Doggie Patch one of several clubs on Alcoa Highway. There were many more clubs along Clinton Highway, including the Carnival, the Embassy, the Irish Casino, the Melody, the Moonlight Diner, and the Ritz. There was also the Pom Pom Club, aka the Lighthouse, out on Rutledge Pike, which Haynes says was a pretty rough place. There were a few clubs around downtown, too, like the B & J Club at the corner of Gay and Commerce streets and the Gem Theatre and the Workers Club on Vine Street, now Summit Hill Drive. Haynes’ aunt owned the Jackson Hotel off Market Square, where burlesque dancers and swinging parties were mainstays. Haynes fondly remembers the Whittle Springs Pavilion and the elegant Brown Derby on Kingston Pike near the current site of West Town Mall, but his favorite places to play were Jack Comer’s 509 Club on Clinch Avenue and Deane
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Hill Country Club. Haynes says Comer loved musicians and took good care of them; he even set up a studio and ran Valley Records out of Deane Hill. Haynes had a steady gig there for over three years. Looking through the photos, Haynes rolled through a list of Knoxville’s hottest band leaders: Alan Atkin, Louis Chiles, Jerry Collins, Bill Dexter, Jack Flowers, Willie Gibbs, Tyler Greene, Dick James, Bob Rush, Coy Tucker, Dave Wright. He has fond recollections of musicians he played beside, such as pianist Charlie Boyd, the first African American to hold a musician’s union card in Knoxville; Doug Rupe, who would only play in the key of C; bassist Joe Kishiyama, who held a day job as a chicken sexer; clarinetist/saxophonist Bill Lawson, whom Haynes calls “the most underrated musician in the world”; and of course Lance Owens, Bill Scarlett, and Rocky Wynder. Haynes met “Queen of R&B” Ruth Brown in a beer joint off Central and told us about Baby Sister, an actress and singer who was shot and killed in a Market Square restaurant. He remembers tenor saxophonist Leonard Bailey as “a superior person, husky and well-mannered.” Bailey, an African American, dated a white woman, and the pair moved to New York City to avoid local problems. Finding even more difficulty there, they returned to Knoxville before soon departing again. Bands were somewhat integrated as early as the 1940s, and became even more so by the early 1960s, though Haynes remembers that pianist Willie Cook, of the Tyler Greene Band, couldn’t eat in some restaurants with the white members of the band. Haynes is fairly modest about his own music accomplishments, saving most of his praise for others. He was sure to tell us of his work with the Boys Club, coaching and mentoring young athletes, once he retired from the road. But he still plays in his studio, passing down his knowledge to generations of musicians for the past few decades. You have to wonder if they realize just how much music Haynes has played and how fortunate they are to have him as an instructor. ◆ September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 25
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SHOPPING DISTRICT TOP PET SUPPLY STORE P HOME IMPROVEMENT STORE TOP BLOG TOP BIKE SHOP TOP DOG PARK TOP COMEDIAN TOP NAIL SALON TOP PLUMBER TOP YOGA STUDIO TOP INTERIOR DESIG TOP SKIN CARE TOP OUTDOOR SPORTS STORE TOP SMALL COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY TOP FACEBOOK PAGE/GROUP TOP HAPPY HOUR TOP TATTOO STUDIO TOP APPETIZERS TOP FOOD TRUCK TOPThe FRAMERY TOP COVER TOP BEER SELECTION (RESTAURANT) TOP HISTORIC LANDMARK TOP PRIVATE SCHOOL ultimate survey ofBAND everything Knoxvillians love most about Knoxville TOP DESSERTS TOP COMFORT FOOD TOP NEW THING IN KNOXVILLE TOP MEN'S CLOTHING TOP PODCAST TOP RADIO STATION TOP BEER MARKET/TAPROOM TOP DANCE CLUB TOP MEXICAN/SOUTH AMERICAN TOP FITNESS CENTER TOP PARK FOR A PICNIC TOP TACO TOP PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER TOP MUSEUM Prepare vote! We aim to makeTOP Top Knox indispensable user’s guide to the VOTING IS ONLINE ONLY P ATTRACTION TOP LGBT CLUB to TOP JEWELRY STORE GIFT an SHOP TOP COSMETOLOGY SCHOOL TOP BBQ TOP WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER TOP MARTIAL ARTS G TOP MOONSHINE TOP COCKTAILS TOPand LANDSCAPING/TREE HIP-HOP/R&B GROUP SERVICE TOP ELECTRICIAN TOP FREE STUFF TO DO Knoxville area, we need your expert SERVICE help to doTOP it. You know this place insideTOP CATERING www.topknox.knoxmercury.com P OUTDOOR DINING TOP DANCE SCHOOL TOP HAMBURGER TOP SALADS TOP SEAFOOD TOP EYEWEAR SHOP TOP PIZZA TOP AUTO SERVICE TOP HANDYMAN SERV and out—and you’ve got great taste. So let’s make Top Knox the one “best of” list VOTING BEGINS: MUSIC SCHOOL TOP REALTOR TOP THRIFT/CONSIGNMENT STORE TOP ROCK BAND TOP SECRET ABOUT KNOXVILLE TOP FLORIST TOP TECHNICAL/BUSINESS SCH in town that truly matters. Here are this year’s categories—to vote, go to our website. TOP FURNITURE STORE TOP BREAKFAST TOP BOOKSTORE TOP WOMEN'S CLOTHING TOP ROCK CLUB TOP HAIR SALON Thursday, Aug.TOP 13 atASIAN 12:01TOP a.m.WINGS TOP KARAOKE OP TRADITIONAL BARBER SHOP TOP WATERWAY TO PADDLE TOP COFFEEHOUSE TOP RENOVATIONS/REMODELING COMPANY TOP NEW RETAIL BUSINESS TOP BAR And remember: no national chains allowed! VOTING ENDS:TRAIL TOP DELI/SANDWICH/SUB SHOP TOP EYE CARE TOP ICE CREAM/FROZEN TREATS TOP DENTAL CARE TOP LOCAL-FOODS GROCERY TOP BIKE OR WALKING NPROFIT COMMUNITY GROUP TOP BRUNCH TOP AGENT TOP INSTAGRAM FEED TOP 10 SUSHI TOP SPORTS BAR TOP TV PERSO ResultsTOP willBANK/CREDIT be published UNION in the Oct. 15 edition of INSURANCE the Knoxville Mercury. Thursday, Sept. at Midnight TTER FEED TOP DRY CLEANER TOP INDIAN TOP BAKERY TOP CLUB DJ TOP LIVE COMEDY VENUE TOP WALK-IN/URGENT CARE CLINIC TOP CHEF TOP PERFORMANC TOP MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS STORE TOP FRENCH TOP HOT DOG TOP JAZZ BAND TOP CHEAP MEAL TOP THEATER GROUP TOP LICENSED MASSAGE THERAPY TOP RESTORATION PROJECT TOP TV STATION TOP NEW RESTAURANT TOP LIQUOR STORE TOP DIVE BAR TOP BLUES BAND TOP VINE FEED TOP MEDI SPA TOP CRAFT BREWER TOP PLACE TO TAKE THE KIDS TOP STEAKS TOP WATERFRONT RESTAURANT TOP HOLISTIC HEALTH CENTER TOP MUSIC FESTIVAL TOP CLOTHING ALTERATIONS TOP PERSONAL TRAINER TOP MUSEUM TOP ARTISTS WORKSHOP/STUDIO TOP AUTO DEALER TOP FESTIVAL TOP RECORD STORE TOP FOREIGN FOODS GROCERY TOP TV PERSONALITY TOP GARDEN STORE/NURSERY TOP MIDDLE-EASTERN TOP WINE LIST (RESTAURANT) TOP COCKTAILS OP RADIO PERSONALITY TOP LAWYER TOP AMERICANA BANDTOP VEGETARIAN/VEGAN MENU TOP RIBS TOP ART GALLERY TOP ANTIQUES STORE TOP WINE STOR TOP UNDERRATED NEIGHBORHOOD TOP WINE BAR TOP DANCE COMPANY TOP BRIDAL SHOP TOP ITALIAN TOP SHOPPING DISTRICT TOP PET SUPPLY STORE P HOME IMPROVEMENT STORE TOP BLOG TOP BIKE SHOP TOP DOG PARK TOP COMEDIAN TOP NAIL SALON TOP PLUMBER TOP YOGA STUDIO TOP INTERIOR DESIG TOP SKIN CARE TOP OUTDOOR SPORTS STORE TOP SMALL COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY TOP FACEBOOK PAGE/GROUP TOP HAPPY HOUR TOP TATTOO STUDIO TOP APPETIZERS TOP FOOD TRUCK TOP FRAMERY TOP COVER BAND TOP BEER SELECTION (RESTAURANT) TOP HISTORIC LANDMARK TOP PRIVATE SCHOOL www.topknox.knoxmercury.com TOP DESSERTS TOP COMFORT FOOD TOP NEW THING IN KNOXVILLE TOP MEN'S CLOTHING TOP PODCAST TOP RADIO STATION TOP BEER MARKET/TAPROOM TOP DANCE CLUB TOP MEXICAN/SOUTH AMERICAN TOP FITNESS CENTER TOP PARK FOR A PICNIC TOP TACO TOP PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER TOP MUSEUM P ATTRACTION TOP LGBT CLUB TOP JEWELRY STORE TOP GIFT SHOP TOP COSMETOLOGY SCHOOL TOP BBQ TOP WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER TOP MARTIAL ARTS G TOP MOONSHINE TOP COCKTAILS TOP LANDSCAPING/TREE SERVICE TOP HIP-HOP/R&B GROUP TOP CATERING SERVICE TOP ELECTRICIAN TOP FREE STUFF TO DO P OUTDOOR DINING TOP DANCE SCHOOL TOP HAMBURGER TOP SALADS TOP SEAFOOD TOP EYEWEAR SHOP TOP PIZZA TOP AUTO SERVICE TOP HANDYMAN SERV MUSIC SCHOOL TOP REALTOR TOP THRIFT/CONSIGNMENT STORE TOP ROCK BAND TOP SECRET ABOUT KNOXVILLE TOP FLORIST TOP TECHNICAL/BUSINESS SCH TOP FURNITURE STORE TOP BREAKFAST TOP BOOKSTORE TOP WOMEN'S CLOTHING TOP ROCK CLUB TOP HAIR SALON TOP ASIAN TOP WINGS TOP KARAOKE September 3, 2015 KNOXVILLE MERCURY 27 OP TRADITIONAL BARBER SHOP TOP WATERWAY TO PADDLE TOP COFFEEHOUSE TOP RENOVATIONS/REMODELING COMPANY TOP NEW RETAIL BUSINESS TOP BAR TOP EYE CARE TOP ICE CREAM/FROZEN TREATS TOP DENTAL CARE TOP LOCAL-FOODS GROCERY TOP BIKE OR WALKING TRAIL TOP DELI/SANDWICH/SUB SHOP NPROFIT COMMUNITY GROUP TOP BANK/CREDIT UNION TOP BRUNCH TOP INSURANCE AGENT TOP INSTAGRAM FEED TOP SUSHI TOP SPORTS BAR TOP TV PERSO
2015 BALLOT
WELCOME TO THE KNOXVILLE MERCURY’S READERS’ POLL!
shop local.
vote local.
top knox 2015 ballot
the rules
FOOD
DRINK
Top Appetizers
Top Bar
Top Asian
Top Beer Market/Taproom
Top Bakery
Top Beer Selection (Restaurant)
Top BBQ
Top Cocktails
Top Breakfast
Top Craft Brewer
Top Brunch
Top Dive Bar
Top Cheap Meal
Top Happy Hour
YOU MUST FILL OUT AT LEAST 20 OF THE CATEGORIES.
Top Chef
Top Liquor Store
Top Coffeehouse
Top Moonshine
You can manage that, right? Otherwise, your ballot won’t be counted. Show us you’re serious about this!
Top Comfort Food
Top Sports Bar
Top Deli/Sandwich/Sub Shop
Top Wine Bar
Top Desserts
Top Wine List (Restaurant)
Top Hamburger
Top Wine Store
YOU CAN’T VOTE FOR NATIONAL CHAINS. Sorry. Top Knox is all about the things that make our area unique—so vote for local and regionally owned businesses only.
YOU CAN ONLY FILL OUT ONE BALLOT. Voting is online only. (The print ballot is just for your information.) You will need to create a login for the ballot with your email address. You are only allowed to send in one electronic ballot for tabulation. Which brings us to…
Top Hot Dog Top Ice Cream/Frozen Treats Top Italian
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Top Food Truck
Top Americana Band
Top French
Top Art Gallery
Top Indian
Top Artists Workshop/Studio
Top Mexican/South American
Top Blues Band
Top Middle-Eastern
Top Club DJ
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO STUFF THE BALLOT BOX.
Top New Restaurant
Top Comedian
Top Outdoor Dining
Top Cover Band
No! Don’t bother even trying to game the system—we’ll figure it out. We reserve the right to make final judgments in any categories where there appear to be voting irregularities. Any businesses involved in ballot stuffing risk being disqualified.
Top Pizza
Top Dance Club
Top Ribs
Top Dance Company
Top Salads
Top LGBT Club
Top Seafood
Top Hip-Hop/R&B Group
Top Steaks
Top Jazz Band
Top Sushi
Top Karaoke
Top Taco
Top Live Comedy Venue
ALSO: VOTE FOR BUSINESSES THAT ARE STILL IN BUSINESS.
Top Vegetarian/Vegan Menu
Top Music Festival
Top Waterfront Restaurant
Top Museum
Top Wings
Top Performance Venue
We may hold departed businesses dear in our hearts, but Top Knox is a celebration of the places we can enjoy now.
Top Rock Band Top Rock Club Top Theater Group
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
top knox 2015 ballot SHOPPING
HEALTH & BEAUTY
KNOX ONLINE
Top Antiques Store
Top Dental Care
Top Blog
Top Auto Dealer
Top Eye Care
Top Facebook Page/Group
Top Bike Shop
Top Hair Salon
Top Instagram Feed
Top Bookstore
Top Holistic Health Center
Top Podcast
Top Bridal Shop
Top Fitness Center
Top Twitter Feed
Top Dry Cleaner
Top Licensed Massage Therapy
Top Vine Feed
Top Eyewear Shop
Top Martial Arts Gym
Top Foreign Foods Grocery
Top Medi Spa
Top Furniture Store
Top Nail Salon
Top Gift Shop
Top Personal Trainer
Top Attraction
Top In-Store Pet
Top Skin Care
Top Bike or Walking Trail
Top Jewelry Store
Top Traditional Barber Shop
Top Dog Park
Top Local-Foods Grocery
Top Walk-In/Urgent Care Clinic
Top Festival
Top Men’s Clothing
Top Women’s Health Center
Top Free Stuff To Do
Top Musical Instruments Store
Top Yoga Studio
Top Historic Landmark Top New Thing In Knoxville
Top New Retail Business Top Outdoor Sports Store Top Pet Supply Store
KNOXVILLE LIFE
HOME & GARDEN
Top Nonprofit Community Group Top Park For a Picnic
Top Record Store
Top Electrician
Top Place To Take the Kids
Top Shopping District
Top Garden Store/Nursery
Top Restoration Project
Top Tattoo Studio
Top Handyman Service
Top Secret About Knoxville
Top Thrift/Consignment Store
Top Home Improvement Store
Top Underrated Neighborhood
Top Women’s Clothing
Top Interior Design
Top Waterway To Paddle
Top Landscaping/Tree Service SERVICES
Top Plumber Top Renovations/Remodeling Company
Top Auto Service Top Bank/Credit Union Top Catering Service
EDUCATION & MEDIA
Top Clothing Alterations
Top Cosmetology School
Top Florist
Top Dance School
Top Framery
Top Music School
Top Insurance Agent
Top Private School
Top Lawyer
Top Radio Personality
Top Pet Service
Top Radio Station
Top Professional Photographer
Top Small College or University
Top Realtor
Top Technical/Business School
SHOP LOCAL. VOTE LOCAL.
www.topknox.knoxmercury.com
Top TV Personality Top TV Station
September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 29
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
Serving a full line-up of pizzas, calzones, sandwiches, salads, and wings! Dine in, carryout and delivery (within 5 miles)
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WORLD’S FAIR SANDWICH
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*Any 14” pizza, dine in only! Carryout or delivery, buy one 14” pizza get a second 14" pizza half off.
$2 BEER SATURDAYS ALL DAY!
TWO CONVENIENT LOCATIONS:
Bearden: 4618 Kingston Pike (865) 247-0380 Cedar Bluff: 179 N. Seven Oaks* (865) 454-886 (*Next to the discount movie theater)
www.sergeantpepperonis.com
Ye Olde Steak House Since 1968
Food fit for a King.
Voted Knoxville’s Best Steak 20 years in a row RESERVATIONS:
865-577-9328 •
CARRY OUT:
865-250-3724
HOURS: Sun-Thurs 4-9, Fri-Sat 4-9:30
Please call for special hours for UT home games 6838 CHAPMAN HIGHWAY 5 miles south of the Henley Street bridge September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 31
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Music
Humble Beginnings Handsome and the Humbles keep their ambitions modest even as their local profile rises BY MATTHEW EVERETT
T
yler Huff and Jason Chambers didn’t have big plans when they started talking about putting a band together a couple of years ago— learn a few songs, play a few shows, and get a little bit of extra cash. Then Josh Smith came along and the whole project got serious. “Our initial plan was to play a few times a year as a cover band in local bars to make some money,” writes Huff, the band’s bassist, in an email interview. “A few days later, Josh sent a message on Facebook asking if I was playing with anyone and that he had some songs he wanted to work on. Jason and I quickly realized that the demos he sent us were too good not to use and we scrapped the cover-band plan.” A couple of years later and the trio is now a quintet (Huff, Smith on guitar and vocals, Chambers on guitar, Zack Miles on banjo and guitar, and Jerry Sharon filling in on drums) with a name—Handsome and the Humbles—and a solid professional recording behind them—Hallelujah Alright, an EP released in December. And the band’s local profile is steadily rising—last weekend they opened for Mic Harrison and the High Score in the Old City and North Carolina alt-country journeymen American Aquarium at the Shed in Maryville. Next week, they’re headlining WDVX’s live-broadcast Tennessee Shines series at Boyd’s Jig and Reel. Even though the band made a quick transition from covers to originals, it wasn’t until the Humbles entered the studio together last fall that Huff was fully confident that he’d made the right choice. When the five-song Hallelujah Alright hit the streets, the response was better than any of them expected. “Recording really solidified the feeling that I had that we could be
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
pretty good,” he says. “It’s easy to play in a room together and think you sound good, but when you put it on tape and listen back to it (and let others hear it), it can be scary. But the responses we received were very positive and then our schedules became really busy because we had show offers coming in all the time due to ReverbNation/social media and word of mouth.” Hallelujah Alright is an old-fashioned heartland country-rock record, inspired by Uncle Tupelo, the DriveBy Truckers, Ryan Adams, and the Hold Steady. As a songwriter, Smith specializes in a kind of three-chord wistfulness, exemplified by the yearning, nostalgic “Knoxville Lights,” the chorus of which provides the EP its title: “Hallelujah alright, when I rest my weary head tonight/I close my eyes and see those Knoxville
lights/Hallelujah alright.” “Josh is the main songwriter,” Huff says. “He’ll show up to practice and say, ‘I have a new song,’ and that’s how the majority of our catalog has come about. I have a ‘Josh’ email folder with 30-40 phone recordings that he’s sent over the last two years.” Some of that material will show up soon on Handsome and the Humbles’ first full-length album. The band is wrapping up recording at Brimstone Recordings in Scott County, the same studio they used for Hallelujah Alright. “We tracked everything live and went back to add vocals and some finishing touches afterwards,” Huff says. “I’m such a big fan of that method because you can really hear the energy, instead of each instrument layered on top of each other one by one. I want a recording that sounds
real—even with flaws and mistakes it’s better than being ‘perfect.’” Even though the band is now an entirely different kind of project than he anticipated two years ago, Huff says their ambitions remain modest. They’ll focus on the release of the new album later this year and maybe schedule a regional tour to support it. The only real goal right now is to keep playing and keep having fun. “As cliche as it sounds, we’re really taking it one show at a time,” Huff says. “We all have full-time jobs, mortgages, and some of us a wife and kids. We’re really enjoying our role in the scene, playing shows with great people and making new friends. … Whatever happens with us above and beyond that is just a bonus, since initially we didn’t plan on being more than a bar cover band.” ◆
WHAT
Handsome and the Humbles
WHERE
Boyd’s Jig and Reel (101 S. Central St.)
WHEN
Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 7 p.m.
HOW MUCH $10
INFO
wdvx.com
Movies
Raw But Classy Diary of a Teenage Girl tells a tumultuous, judgment-free coming-of-age story BY APRIL SNELLINGS
T
here’s no room for the hazy fictions of high-school movies in The Diary of a Teenage Girl, an honest and razor-sharp dissection of what it’s like to be a young woman on the cusp of her sexual awakening. Perhaps “precipice” is a better word, because the movie’s protagonist, 15-year-old Minnie Goetz (British actress Bel Powley, in a gutsy, breakout performance), is not one for tentative fi rst steps. When we fi rst meet her, she’s gliding through a sunny park in bohemian 1976 San Francisco, grinning and self-assured and more than a little incredulous because, as her voiceover tells us, she’s just had sex for the fi rst time. And she’s really, really happy about it. So effervescent is Minnie that it’s impossible not to be happy right along with her. After all, teenage boys have been humping their way through movies for several generations now. But then she gets home, busts out a tape recorder and microphone, and begins an audio diary that clues us in on the identity of her lover: her mom’s 35-year-
old boyfriend, Monroe (a slinky, ’stached-up Alexander Skarsgård). Thus begins a messy, tumultuous coming-of-age story that shines a high-powered spotlight onto the darkest stretches that lie between adolescence and adulthood. It’s a very grown-up movie about what it feels like to grow up. If Minnie’s earliest confession is upsetting—as it should be—you’re in for a bumpy ride. The fi lm follows Minnie through awakenings of several varieties. She doesn’t get much guidance from adults—her libertine mom, Charlotte (Kristen Wiig, who’s proven to be an exceptional dramatic actress), snorts coke in front of her, and the closest thing she has to a father lives in New York. She does get something of a fairy godmother, though, in the form of underground comix icon Aline Kominsky (contemporary and wife of R. Crumb), whose work has a huge influence on aspiring cartoonist Minnie. The film is often embellished with Minnie’s doodles, brought to life be animator Sara Gunnarsdóttir; Minnie
A&E
sprouts glowing wings during an acid trip, and imagines cartoon penises tumbling from flies with silly “sproing” sounds. Occasionally the animation takes center stage as Minnie grows more confident as an artist, rendering herself as a cross between King Kong and the 50-Foot Woman as she stomps through San Francisco. It makes for a film that’s as visually engaging as it is emotionally revealing and sometimes disturbing. Minnie’s unsavory, clandestine romance with Monroe, which continues throughout the movie, sets her on a winding path through San Francisco’s booming counterculture, with her best friend Kimmie (Madeleine Waters) at her side. Is there any doubt such a scene has a grimy underbelly, and that Minnie and Kimmie will find it? Based on Phoebe Gloeckner’s 2002 graphic novel The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures and adapted for the screen by first-time director Marielle Heller, Diary is enthusiastically R-rated and sometimes uncomfortably graphic, but it’s never exploitative. It’s a raw but classy film about raw but skeezy topics. It’s also worth noting that, though the subject matter is prickly even at its mildest, Diary never levels judgment toward any of its characters—not even Monroe (though it doesn’t whitewash his actions either). Nor does it paint Minnie as a victim, even when a lesser story would surely do so. So this is no morality tale, and Diary is all the better for it. It’s just a story about growing up, and it’s very much Minnie’s story. But like all good fl icks, it’s both intensely personal and profoundly universal. I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that Minnie does fi nd her way in the end, and that she turns out okay. Her closing dedication—“This is for all girls when they have grown”—might drive home the movie’s themes about owning one’s sexuality and taking charge of one’s one story, but the fi lm’s clarity of vision makes such a coda almost redundant. Still, it’s a great line, and it makes for a groovy rallying call.
Open Chord
SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Performance-based lessons for students of all ages and experience levels, in all musical styles.
INSTRUMENTS:
Guitar, Bass Guitar, Ukulele, Mandolin, Banjo & Drums
2015
VOTE FOR US AS TOP KNOX MUSIC SCHOOL!
“
I feel like at any point in time, I could get up on stage and play with anybody, in any style! -MATTHEW CARSON
”
8502 KINGSTON PIKE (865) 281-5874 openchordmusic.com
The Diary of a Teenage Girl is playing at Regal Downtown West Cinema 8. September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 33
A&E
Videos
In ’Toon Former Knoxvillian Joel Trussell debuts the most un-Disney cartoon series ever, Pickle & Peanut BY COURY TURCZYN
A
bout six years ago, Yo Gabba Gabba! cartoonist/music-video director Joel Trussell decided to stop working out of the bedroom of his West Knoxville house and join the animation industry at its crossroads: Hollywood, Calif. He and his family picked up stakes and moved to the San Fernando Valley, armed with what he thought was a short-term contract to work on a project for HBO. But that project blew up, along with the job. So he went back to freelancing—making low-budget music videos and “terrible commercial campaigns.” But he also hooked up with animation studio Six Point Harness, which led to his biggest gig yet: working with Tom Hanks in 2012 to produce Electric City, an animated post-apocalyptic science-fiction miniseries that debuted on Yahoo. That in turn led to consulting gigs with Walt Disney Animation Studios, and finally to something he never thought he’d be interested in: a full-time job. Along with Fish Hooks producer Noah Jones, Trussell is co-helming Pickle & Peanut, a
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
decidedly un-Disney-like, bro-friendly cartoon series premiering on Disney XD on Monday, Sept. 7, at 9 p.m.
When you left Knoxville, you didn’t have the goal of working for a big studio—yet here you are working for the biggest one. How did that happen?
I had been doing freelance for Disney all along—character design, development, just little stuff. They had this project come in called Pickle & Peanut, and they introduced me to this guy Noah Jones, who I knew had worked on Fish Hooks. I wasn’t really interested. “Eh, whatever.” But I met the guy and we hit it off, and it seemed like a fun little project. They brought me on as a consulting director; he already had the idea of, “I want to do a lo-fi show about two bonehead teenagers.” I thought that sounded interesting, and I for sure would love to come on and see what I could do to mess it up, just to have some fun, because I’m not part of the Disney machine—I don’t care about making this thing look anything like a Disney
thing. I’d rather just have some fun, really, and make something on Disney’s dime. And at the end of the day if it’s not a good fit for Disney, then I at least did a thing where I can show my sensibilities off. But then this Pickle & Peanut thing picked up traction, which was surprising to everybody. Everybody who was watching us do this was like, “This is off-brand. This is funny, but we’re pretty sure that this is fundamentally not good for Disney.” We’re like, good, good! That’s what I want to see! I wanted to do a thing that made people kind of raise an eyebrow. Things got more and more serious as we went along, and before you know it, we’re not only making a pilot, but we were greenlit for a series. So now I’m in, now I’m taking the full ride. I’ve got the golden handcuffs on now—I’ll take ’em, because it’s been a lot more fun than I would’ve imagined.
Most Disney watchers, or critics, will probably agree this is a quite different show for them—why do you think Disney was open to shifting its tone and style?
I think there are a lot of ingredients to that. First of all, when I went over there, I remember XD trying to do some real boy-centric, aggressive, kick-butt action kind of stuff. They had Tron at one point, which is amazing to look at, super high-end quality—but almost too serious for kids to latch onto. It was a lot to digest. So I don’t think the viewership was real high on that stuff. Just observing from the inside, I think they were like, “Maybe what we ought to do instead is just go for comedy.” It just so happened to be while I was there that that window of opportunity started to crack open.
Why did you go with a very un-slick look for Pickle & Peanut?
I’m intrigued if you make something decidedly lo-fi, I like to see that work. As long as it doesn’t look like a mistake, then I think it’s acceptable, and maybe even enhanced because of that. For instance, one of our big inspirations for this piece was Beavis & Butt-head—not a beautiful show, right? But it’s funny because it feels
like the voice of the characters comes through in the artwork—it looks like Beavis and Butt-head had a hand in making Beavis & Butt-head. So we wanted to bring that kind of aesthetic to our project because our characters also don’t have many resources, they don’t have a ton of talent, but they’ve got a lot of heart and they’re going to give it a go. So we’re trying to have that hand-crafted, homemade type of feel in the show, and I think it pays off because you do get laughs out of that.
And you never got any of those infamous studio-executive comments, like “These characters aren’t cute enough! How can we sell toys with this?” You know what? We didn’t! It was real weird, and I do think it had to do with timing because it was not a super-difficult process. They just kind of let us fool around and do our thing, and everybody was laughing. Whether it was for Disney or not, we were entertaining—all the executives were laughing. I think they would shoot each other glances, like, “Oooh, I don’t know.” A lot of wincing, a lot of cringing going on, but they were entertained. But it is Disney, so the one big commandment is story. We couldn’t be just completely random. And we’re better off for it. Every story we tell has to have the elements of good storytelling—there’s an emotional driver, and you’ve got your three-act structure. They are definitely demanding as far as that goes, and it’s been a good thing because we wanted all of our humor based off of an authentic, teenage-boy relationship. As long as that emotion was there, we could build all this other crazy stuff on top.
Pickle has a rather noticeable butt crack. Will this be the first Disney series to break that butt-crack barrier?
Boy, oh boy. I don’t track many Disney shows, and I don’t know if Phineas and Ferb has already broken that ground, but don’t think so. We might be. Now, the thing about his butt crack—we only bust that out here and there. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. If a scene necessitates a butt crack, we’ll put it in there—but we’re not crazy. ◆
Thursday, Sept. 3 - Sunday, Sept. 13
Thursday, Sept. 3 JENNI ALPERT WITH AUBRYN AND BYRON • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-a-week lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE DYNAMO • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM AN EVENING OF JAZZ WITH VANCE THOMPSON AND FRIENDS: ELLINGTON, MONK, AND BEYOND • Pellissippi State Community College • 7PM • The concert features Vance Thompson’s Five Plus Six group performing music by Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Billy Strayhorn, Louis Armstrong and even Dolly Parton. BRANDON FULSON AND THE REALBILLYS • Barley’s • 10PM HOT SUMMER NIGHTS CONCERT SERIES • Blount County Public Library • 7PM • A weekly series of summer concerts, featuring gospel and popular songs by Ebony and Ivory (Aug. 13); high-energy Americana by Pistol Creek Catch of the Day (Aug. 20); a program of Native American music (Aug. 27); and a preview of Knoxville Opera’s 2015-16 season (Sept. 3). DAVE KENNEDY • Clancy’s Tavern and Whisky House • 6PM THE KEVIN MCGUIRE TRIO • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM STEVE RUTLEDGE • Wild Wing Cafe • 8PM THE THIRST QUENCHERS • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM • The Ps and Qs house band. THE JON WHITLOCK TRIO • Holly’s Corner • 6:30PM WILLIE AND THE GIANT • Preservation Pub • 10PM Friday, Sept. 4 BACKUP PLANET WITH KOA • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM THE BURNIN’ HERMANS • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THE COVERALLS • Preservation Pub • 10PM • 21 and up. THE DAVIS TRIO • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM DIRTY POOL • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM FISH STYX • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM FREEQUENCY • Mulligan’s Restaurant • 8PM • Acoustic Americana trio. FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. HERE COME THE MUMMIES • The International • 8PM • HCTM’s mysterious personas, cunning song-craft, and unrelenting live show will bend your brain, and melt your face. Get ready, for Here Come The Mummies. • $20 TOM JOHNSON • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. • FREE DEVAN JONES AND THE UPTOWN STOMP • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE THE JONNY MONSTER BAND WITH DREW STERCHI’S BLUES TRIBE • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM KELSEY’S WOODS • Clancy’s Tavern • 9PM MARBLE CITY SHOOTERS • Casual Pint (Fountain City) • 7PM MIDNIGHT VOYAGE LIVE: EPROM • The Concourse • 9PM • $7 The Matt Nelson Trio • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM THE PLATE SCRAPERS WITH JOSH MORNINGSTAR • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE THE PLATE SCRAPERS • Preservation Pub • 8PM RUMOURS • Wild Wing Cafe • 10PM • A tribute to Fleetwood Mac. 21 and up. • FREE
DOC SEVERINSEN AND HIS BIG BAND • Clayton Center for the Arts • 7:30PM • Doc Severinsen’s musicianship keeps this iconic American music fresh to this day. The repertoire includes Ellington and Basie standards, pop, jazz, ballads, big band classics, and of course, The Tonight Show theme.. A Grammy Award winner, Doc has made over 30 albums from big band to jazz-fusion to classical. Today, Doc has not lost his flair for outrageous fashion or his trademark wit. His gregarious nature has
DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Instrumental and vocal jazz standards. Saturday, Sept. 5 APPALACHIAN FURY WITH MAPS NEED READING • Preservation Pub • 10PM THE BAD DUDES WITH MASS DRIVER AND REALM • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 7PM • $8 THE BAND TEMPER • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM WILL BOYD • The Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM • Live jazz. CYPHER: A HIP-HOP SHOW • The Birdhouse • 9PM • Open mic for the first half of the night, then two featured artists to close out the night. 18 and up. • $5 KATY FREE AND WENDEL WERNER • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM THE JUKE JOINT DRIFTERS • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM JACOB KENDRICK • Mind Yer Ps and Qs • 8PM THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS WITH OTIS • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson (Maryville) • 8PM • $20 LOS COLOGNES • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM MARBLE CITY SHOOTERS • Preservation Pub • 8PM PHOURIST AND THE PHOTONS WITH THE TILLERS • WDVX • 12PM • Part of WDVX’s Blue Plate Special, a six-days-aweek lunchtime concert series featuring local, regional, and national Americana, folk, pop, rock, and everything else. • FREE THE RERUNS • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Knoxville’s premier TV band plays your favorite television themes. BEN SHUSTER • Bearden Field House • 9PM SMOOTH SAILOR • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM THE TILLERS • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM Sunday, Sept. 6 LLOYD WITH PRINCE TELL • NV Nightclub • 9PM • 18 and up. • $15 SHIFFLETT AND HANNAH • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 1PM • Live jazz. WISEWATER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 8PM • Wisewater is a contemporary folk trio composed of Kate Lee, Forrest O’Connor, and Jim Shirey.
Wednesday, Sept. 9 FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose • 6:30PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early
TAL NATIONAL Pilot Light (106 E. Jackson Ave.) • Wednesday, Sept. 9 • 9 p.m. • $8 • 18 and up • thepilotlight.com
Monday, Sept. 7 BRAD AUSTIN • WDVX • 12PM • FREE KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD • Pilot Light • 9PM • Although they formed in 2011 in Melbourne, Australia, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s sense of unfettered sonic exploration makes them easy to mistake for a forgotten-about-relic of the psych explosion of the ‘60s. 18 and up. • $10-$12 MARBIN • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Marbin is a progressive jazz-rock band based in Chicago IL. MIGHTY MUSICAL MONDAY • Tennessee Theatre • 12PM • Wurlitzer meister Bill Snyder is joined by a special guest on the first Monday of each month for a music showcase inside Knoxville’s historic Tennessee Theatre. • FREE OAK RIDGE COMMUNITY BAND LABOR DAY CONCERT • Alvin K. Bissell Park • 7PM • End your Labor Day holiday weekend on a good “note” with the Dixieland Band, Gershwin favorites, Leroy Anderson, show tunes, marches, and more. This is a great way for family and friends to celebrate the “unofficial” end of summer with one last summertime event! For more information visit www.orcb.org or call 865-482-3568. • FREE Tuesday, Sept. 8 ORNETTE COLEMAN TRIBUTE • Pilot Light • 10PM • Featuring the Matt Nelson Sound, Cellular Wolves, and Wesley Wyrick. 18 and up. KUKULY AND THE GYPSY FUEGO • Barley’s • 10PM
never interfered with the fact that he is one of the greatest trumpeters and musicians, respected in the worlds of classical music, jazz, big band and even world music. • $26.50-$46.50 ZAK SHAFFER WITH KELLE JOLLY AND WILL BOYD • WDVX • 12PM • FREE
Photo by Jason Creps
MUSIC
CALENDAR
Tal National rose to prominence in its home town, Niamey, the capital of Niger, in West Africa, by simply overwhelming the local scene there—five-hour sets, five nights a week, as well as wedding parties and other private events during the off hours. Now band leader Hamadal Issoufou Moumine, who performs under the name Almeida, has turned his attention to the rest of the world. Tal National’s last two albums, Kaani (2013) and Zoy Zoy (2015), have been international hits, by world-music standards, with unambiguously positive reviews from NPR, The New York Times, and Pitchfork. The band’s music will be familiar to fans of West African music: ringing electric guitars, fleet, ever-changing rhythms, and chanted choruses. Niger is located between Nigeria—home of Fela Kuti and afrobeat and one of the centers, in the mid-20th century, for highlife music—and Mali, where Ali Farka Touré, Tinariwen, Amadou et Mariam, and Toumani Diabaté have translated traditional music into modern forms that resemble American rock and blues. Tal National, with membership from all of Niger’s several separate ethnic groups, has elements of all those styles, without sounding like any of them in particular. (There’s even some of the carnival, street-band atmosphere of the Congotronics series, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, just south of Niger.) (Matthew Everett)
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Spotlight: Knoxville: Summer of 1915 September 3, 2015
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CALENDAR jazz and more. • FREE HANDSOME AND THE HUMBLES • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7PM • One of Knoxville’s newest bands performs alt-country Americana inspired by the soul of East Tennessee. Their debut EP reveals the band’s solid songwriting skills and musical muses like Jason Isbell, Steve Earle and Drive-By Truckers. • $10 • See music story. THE MATT NELSON SOUND • Bistro at the Bijou • 7PM • FREE SARAH POTENZA • WDVX • 12PM • FREE HUNTER SMITH • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM TAL NATIONAL • Pilot Light • 9PM • $8 • See Spotlight. Thursday, Sept. 10 CALLAGHAN • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • A singer/songwriter whose music blurred the edges between pop, adult contemporary and Americana, Callaghan was drawn to Atlanta by one of her biggest influences - Shawn Mullins – who’d agreed to produce her first album. Callaghan’s debut album, Life In Full Colour (May2012), was the culmination of that journey. Its 12 songs introduced Callaghan’s eclectic and dynamic style, combining shades of folk, country, rock and pop into a seamless fusion of feeling and melody. • $12 STEVE EARLE AND THE DUKES WITH THE MASTERSONS • Bijou Theatre • 8PM • Steve Earle’s newest collection of songs, the sixteenth studio album of his singular career, is called Terraplane, and as those familiar with the Robert Johnson song should know, it is very much a blues album, a very good, typically heartfelt blues album. • $30
Thursday, Sept. 3 - Sunday, Sept. 13
SHOOTER JENNINGS AND WAYMORE’S OUTLAWS • Cotton Eyed Joe • 10PM • Shooter Jennings’ discography is an unprecedented catalog of weird music, with its creator’s emotional and intellectual obsessions laid bare. Jennings has turned away from an easy and predictable career path in favor of something altogether more personal— that it includes space rock, flying saucers, and the Illuminati as much as classic country may make it difficult to come to terms with but all the more remarkable. • $10 NOTS WITH BURNING ITCH AND PSYCHIC BAOS • Pilot Light • 10PM SARAH PEACOCK WITH RAE HERRING • WDVX • 12PM • FREE RAVENHILL • Preservation Pub • 10PM NORA JANE STRUTHERS AND THE PARTY LINE • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM THE THIRST QUENCHERS • Mind Yer Ps and Qs Craft Beer and Wine Lounge • 8PM • The Ps and Qs house band. WEISSHUND • Scruffy City Hall • 9PM WILL YAGER TRIO • Red Piano Lounge • 8PM Friday, Sept. 11 AXIS: SOVA • Pilot Light • 10PM • $5 MIKE BAGGETTA • Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM ADDEE BROWNLEE WITH THE HERMIT KINGS • WDVX • 12PM • FREE DIALECTS WITH FILTH, RELAPSE, INSIGHTS, AND THE GUILD • Open Chord • 7PM JASON ELLIS • Bearden Field House • 9PM • FREE FREEQUENCY • The Casual Pint (Farragut) • 7PM FROG AND TOAD’S DIXIE QUARTET • The Crown and Goose •
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8PM • Live jazz featuring a mix of original music, early jazz and more. • FREE GRAN TORINO WITH THE HERMIT KINGS • 90s Knoxville funk all-stars Gran Torino reunite to kickoff the 2015 UT Vols football season. • $30 J.J. GREY AND MOFRO • The Concourse • 8PM • $23-$28 THE JAYSTORM PROJECT • Brackins Blues Club • 9PM K TOWN MAFIA • Mind Yer Ps and Qs • 8PM KELSEY’S WOODS • Two Doors Down (Maryville) • 10PM LIL JON • Old City Courtyard • 7PM • Lets kickoff the Oklahoma vs Tennessee weekend in style with a Grammy award winner set to get this town ready for a great weekend. Tickets go on sale Friday 8/7 for a one day sale price of $15. Advance tickets start on 8/8 for $20. Day of show tickets will be $30 and VIP tickets will be $50. Vip Tickets will get you front row area viewing, VIP only access areas inside the courtyard, 2nd floor viewing of the courtyard from Southbound and free access to all Carleo Entertainment venues for that night. This show is 18 and up. • $15-$30 MIDNIGHT VOYAGE LIVE: RUSS LIQUID WITH THRIFTWORKS AND BLAP DELI • The Concourse • 9PM *REPEAT REPEAT • Preservation Pub • 10PM • Nashville up-and-comers *repeat repeat get garage-rock revivalism just right on their debut album, Bad Latitude, released in 2014. Borrowing from surf rock, ’60s girl groups, ’90s indie pop, and the Nuggets compilation, the band nails a balance of sweet hooks, dreamy harmonies, and bracing guitar riffs on Bad Latitude, and they do it with impressive pop economy. DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Instrumental
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and vocal jazz standards. JESSICA LEE WILKES • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE Saturday, Sept. 12 E.T. ANDERSON • Pilot Light • 10PM BENDER WITH FLORALORIX AND ROOTS OF A REBELLION • Preservation Pub • 10PM BOOHER • Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria • 10PM • Austin, Texas, rock ‘n’ roll. KEITH BROWN AND KB3 • Red Piano Lounge • 9PM BUCKCHERRY WITH SAVING ABEL AND SONS OF TEXAS • The International • 7PM • 18 and up. • $20-$30 GLADIATOR AND BARE WITH EDE GEE • The Concourse • 10PM THE HITMEN • Concord Park • 6PM • Knox County’s summer concert series, Second Saturday Concerts at The Cove, continues this year with live entertainment for the whole family. • FREE ADRIAN AND MEREDITH KRYGOWSKI • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 10PM • FREE HAROLD NAGGE AND ALAN WYATT • Bistro at the Bijou • 9PM NILES FOLEY WITH GURUFISH • Scruffy City Hall • 10PM THE RERUNS • Pero’s on the Hill • 7PM • Knoxville’s premier TV band plays your favorite television themes. THE ROMEO KINGS • Brackins Blues Club • 9PM THE ROYAL VAGABONDS • Clancy’s Tavern and Whiskey House • 8PM STEVE RUTLEDGE • Mind Yer Ps and Qs • 8PM SENRYU WITH 72ND AND CENTRAL AND THE BILLY WIDGETS • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM • All ages. • $5
VOTE FOR US!!
Our Blackhorse Brewers Working hard for Knoxville
2015 BEERS BY BLACKHORSE BREWERS Blackhorse Ale Vanilla Cream Ale Barnstormer Red Ale McGee's Pale Ale Mrs. Robinson's White IPA Coalminer's Nitro Stout Batch 160 Black IPA - High Gravity Bad Apple Cider - High Gravity Scottish Ale Hefewiezen Fresh Hop Ale
Orange Witbier 119 Oktoberfest Nut Brown Ale The Wicked Harvest - High Gravity Saint Nick's Dunkel - High Gravity Imperial Red Ale - High Gravity Barrel Aged Apple Cider - High Gravity Barrel Aged Double Red Barrel Aged Tennessee Sour Barrel Aged Warhorse Wee Heavy Scottish Barrel Aged Peach Saison
In development for 2016 -- Harmony Pilsner, Batch 101 Belgian Strong & ????????????
4429 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919 865.249.8511 • blackhorsepub.net 36
KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
CALENDAR BEN SHUSTER • Bearden Field House • 9PM • FREE STURGILL SIMPSON • The Shed at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson • 8PM • Every few years, a new “save country music” campaign gets kicked off. The most recent poster boy for the movement is Sturgill Simpson, a Kentucky native whose two solo albums, High Top Mountain and Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, have been acclaimed by country insiders, rock critics, and a small but devoted—and growing—fan base. • $25 SOUTHBOUND • Two Doors Down • 10PM Sunday, Sept. 13 LUCIDEA • Preservation Pub • 10PM SHIFFLETT AND HANNAH • The Bistro at the Bijou • 12PM • Live jazz. • FREE DAVE SLACK TRIO • Pero’s on the Hill • 1PM • Live jazz. THE JON WHITLOCK TRIO • Barley’s • 8PM
OPEN MIC AND SONGWRITER NIGHTS Thursday, Sept. 3 BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM
Sunday, Sept. 6 NATIVE AMERICAN FLUTE CIRCLE • Ijams Nature Center • 4PM • Meets the first Sunday of the month. All levels welcome. Call Ijams to register 865-577-4717 ext.110. Tuesday, Sept. 8 PRESERVATION PUB SINGER/SONGWRITER NIGHT • Preservation Pub • 7PM • A weekly open mic. OLD-TIME JAM SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 7:15PM • Hosted by Sarah Pickle. Wednesday, Sept. 9 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OLD-TIME JAM • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • Regular speed old-time/fiddle jam every Wednesday from 7-9 p.m. at the Time Warp Tea Room. All instruments and skill levels welcome. OPEN CHORD OPEN MIC • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM BRACKINS BLUES JAM • Brackins Blues Club (Maryville) • 9PM • A weekly open session hosted by Tommie John. Thursday, Sept. 10 BREWHOUSE BLUES JAM • Open Chord Brewhouse and Stage • 8PM Friday, Sept. 11 TIME WARP TEA ROOM OPEN SONGWRITER NIGHT • Time Warp Tea Room • 7PM • Songwriter Night at Time Warp Tea Room runs on the second and fourth Friday of every month. Show up around 7 p.m. with your instrument in tow and sign up to share a couple of original songs with a community of friends down in Happy Holler. • FREE JAM NIGHT • The Church at Bennington Place • 7PM • Jam Night is an event for local musicians of all genres. Come to play or just to listen. • FREE Saturday, Sept. 12 MUMBILLY OLD TIME SESSION • Boyd’s Jig and Reel • 4PM • Bring an instrument, but definitely watch out in case there’s some Mumbillies there. • FREE
DJ AND DANCE NIGHTS Friday, Sept. 4
RETRO DANCE NIGHT • Hanna’s Old City • 9PM • ‘80s and Top 40 hits with DJ Ray Funk. Saturday, Aug. 5 TEMPLE DANCE NIGHT: WHAT IS FETISH? • The International • 9PM • Knoxville’s long-running alternative dance night. • $10 RETRO DANCE NIGHT • Hanna’s Old City • 9PM • ‘80s and Top 40 hits with DJ Ray Funk. Sunday, Sept. 6 GLO PAINT PARTY • The International • 10PM LAYOVER SUNDAY BRUNCH • The Concourse • 12PM • Brunch with a side of chill ambient music. Friday, Sept. 11 RETRO DANCE NIGHT • Hanna’s Old City • 9PM • ‘80s and Top 40 hits with DJ Ray Funk. Saturday, Sept. 12 RETRO DANCE NIGHT • Hanna’s Old City • 9PM • ‘80s and Top 40 hits with DJ Ray Funk.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Monday, Sept. 7 MUSIC IN THE PARK: KNOXVILLE SUMMER OF 1915 • Ijams Nature Center • 6PM • An Evening of American Art Song at the Ijams Nature Center. Linda Barnett, Sarah Fitch, Kevin Richard Doherty, and Peter Johnson team up with pianist Eileen Downey to perform music by Stephen Foster, William Bolcom, Gene Scheer, along with Samuel Barber’s KNOXVILLE: SUMMER OF 1915. Join us at the Ijams Nature Center at 6 PM. The music is set to begin around 6:30 PM. The event will be outside on the beautiful natural amphitheater so remember to bring your lawn chairs and/or blankets. Tickets are $10 at the door. Food Trucks and refreshments will be available on premise as well. • See Spotlight.
COMEDY AND SPOKEN WORD
Saturday, Sept. 5 IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A weekly improv comedy class. Sunday, Sept. 6 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic. Monday, Sept. 7 QED COMEDY LABORATORY • Pilot Light • 7:30PM • QED ComedyLaboratory is a weekly show with different theme every week that combines stand-up, improv, sketch, music and other types of performance and features some of the funniest people in Knoxville and parts unknown. It’s weird and experimental. There is no comedy experience in town that is anything like this and it’s also a ton of fun. Pay what you want. Cost: Free - But Donations Gladly Accepted • FREE Tuesday, Sept. 8 EINSTEIN SIMPLIFIED • Scruffy City Hall • 8PM • Live comedy improv. • $0 OPEN MIC STAND-UP COMEDY • Longbranch Saloon • 8PM • Come laugh until you cry at the Longbranch every Tuesday night. Doors open at 8, first comic at 8:30. No cover charge, all are welcome. Aspiring or experienced September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 37
CALENDAR comics interested in joining in the fun email us at longbranch.info@gmail.com to learn more, or simply come to the show a few minutes early. Thursday, Sept. 10 JIM “GOOD OL’ J.R.” ROSS • The International • 8PM •.Jim Ross has been around the world to tell his tales of the wrestling industry. After a successful career with the WWE, he has become the national spokesman for the charity Headlock on Hunger and has created a line of BBQ sauces. • $20-$50 Saturday, Sept. 12 IMPROV COMEDY CLASS • The Birdhouse • 10AM • A weekly improv comedy class. Sunday, Sept. 13 UPSTAIRS UNDERGROUND COMEDY • Preservation Pub • 8PM • A weekly comedy open mic.
THEATER AND DANCE
Thursday, Sept. 3 OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS • Oak Ridge Playhouse • 8PM • Change is in the air for Francis Henshall, who was recently fired and looking to make his mark. Circumstances find him suddenly working for not one, but two bosses. Faced with the distractions of a buxom bookkeeper, a self-important actor, and select members of the local criminal community, all the while fighting mounting mistaken identities and confusion,
Thursday, Sept. 3 - Sunday, Sept. 13
Francis goes out of his way to serve both his “guvnors” while keeping his moonlighting a secret. But how long can he keep them apart? Fast-paced and infectious, the hilarity is as boundless as Francis’ massive appetite. Aug. 28-Sept. 6. Visit orplayhouse.com. Friday, Sept. 4 OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS • Oak Ridge Playhouse • 8PM • Aug. 28-Sept. 6. Visit orplayhouse.com. Saturday, Sept. 5 OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS • Oak Ridge Playhouse • 8PM • Aug. 28-Sept. 6. Visit orplayhouse.com. Sunday, Sept. 6 OAK RIDGE PLAYHOUSE: ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS • Oak Ridge Playhouse • 2PM • Aug. 28-Sept. 6. Visit orplayhouse.com. Wednesday, Sept. 9 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: THE 39 STEPS • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • A hilarious, high-speed spoof of Alfred Hitchcock’s silver-screen classic! Follow handsome hero Richard Hannay from London to the Scottish Highlands and back as he encounters dastardly murders, double-crossing secret agents, and, of course, devastatingly beautiful women. Sept. 9-27. Thursday, Sept. 10 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: THE 39 STEPS • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Sept. 9-27.
Friday, Sept. 11 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: THE 39 STEPS • Clarence Brown Theatre • 7:30PM • Sept. 9-27. THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: THE MURDER ROOM • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • A zany spoof of British mysteries. Sept. 11-27. Visit theatreknoxville.com. LYRIC THEATRE COMPANY: HEMINGWAY’S GHOST • Lyric Theatre Company (Loudon) • 8PM • Robert Cranny’s new one-man play is a conversation with the man behind the myth. Sept. 11-13.
FESTIVALS
Saturday, Sept. 12 CLARENCE BROWN THEATRE: THE 39 STEPS • Clarence Brown Theatre • 2PM and 7:30PM• Sept. 9-27. THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: THE MURDER ROOM • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 8PM • A zany spoof of British mysteries. Sept. 11-27. Visit theatreknoxville.com. LYRIC THEATRE COMPANY: HEMINGWAY’S GHOST • Lyric Theatre Company (Loudon) • 8PM • Robert Cranny’s new one-man play is a conversation with the man behind the myth. Sept. 11-13.
Saturday, Sept. 5 MORRISTOWN LATINO FOOD FESTIVAL • Rose Center • 11AM • The Hispanic Outreach Leadership Association of the Lakeway Area (H.O.L.A. Lakeway) invites everyone to its First Annual Morristown Latino Food Festival on September 5, 2015 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Rose Center. The Morristown Latino Food Festival will feature food from various Latin American countries as well as games, music, and other surprises. BRICK BY BRICK BLOCK PARTY • Cumberland Avenue • 2PM • If your orange blood is boiling and you just can’t wait for the Vols’ first home football game on Sept. 12, the Cumberland Avenue Merchants Association has a cure – a first-ever pre-game closed-street block party before the Saturday, Sept. 5 season opener in Nashville. Imagine 300 feet of booths, where the most diehard head-to-toe orange-and-white-clad UT fans can graze the food vendors, compete in games, get souvenir giveaways, purchase merchandise and take in the music provided by Merle 96.7 FM. For more information about the block party
Sunday, Sept. 13 LYRIC THEATRE COMPANY: HEMINGWAY’S GHOST • Lyric Theatre Company (Loudon) • 2PM • Robert Cranny’s new one-man play is a conversation with the man behind the myth. Sept. 11-13. THEATRE KNOXVILLE DOWNTOWN: THE MURDER ROOM • Theatre Knoxville Downtown • 3PM • A zany spoof of British mysteries. Sept. 11-27. Visit theatreknoxville.com.
Thursday, Sept. 3 TASTE OF BLOUNT • Maryville • 6PM • The 14th annual Taste of Blount hosted by the Blount Partnership and the City of Maryville will be held at the Theater in the Park in Maryville (across from the Blount County Courthouse) on Thursday, Sept. 3 from 6–8 p.m. Savory favorites from local restaurants, caterers, and gourmet grocers can be sampled by ticket holders.
filmknoxvilletn.com
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
CALENDAR or the Cumberland Avenue reconstruction project, or to check out this week’s special offers from merchants, visit www.cumberlandconnect.com. Sunday, Sept. 6 MCCLUNG BOOMSDAY PARTY • McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture • 7PM • “A Night at the Museum” is a fundraiser for the McClung Museum’s education outreach programs. Attendees will enjoy guaranteed on-site parking, farm-to-table dinner stations, cocktails and live music. This year’s event also will include expert handwriting analysis and a silent auction. Dinner and cocktail stations will be set up throughout the galleries. This exclusive event is limited to 200 guests. Tickets are $200 a person (a portion of which is tax-deductible) and can be purchased on the museum’s website at http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/boom or by calling 865-974-2143. • $200 BOOMSDAY • Volunteer Landing • 3PM • The final edition of Knoxville’s big Labor Day fireworks show, with food, live music, kids’ entertainment, and, yes, loads of fireworks. • FREE Monday, Sept. 7 LABOR DAY SUNFLOWER PROJECT INSTALLATION • Krutch Park • 9AM • Come join us in the heart of downtown Knoxville in order to celebrate another year of hard work. An annual celebration of work, LDSP is an art project that welcomes everyone to help weave harvested sunflowers onto a 15’x15, free-standing, chain-link substrate fence. Weave the sunflowers you’ve been growing, or sunflowers from one of the many community growers who are generously providing flowers for the project. Each sunflower represents individual efforts over the past year, while the finished product is symbolic of our collective work. Friday, Sept. 10 DAYS OF THE PIONEER ANTIQUE SHOW • Museum of Appalachia • 12AM • This show will feature over sixty of the finest selection of 18th & 19th century Antique Dealers. During the show traditional craftsmen will be on the grounds demonstrating their various and centuries-old talents. The venue will also provide mountain music in different locations on the grounds while other areas will highlight Civil War-era soldiers and civilians in their period dress. Tickets also include a tour of the Museum, a farm-village with some three dozen historic log structures, exhibit halls filled with authentic Appalachian artifacts, and gardens and farm animals in a picturesque setting surrounded by split-rail fences. For more information call the museum at 865-494-7680 or visit www.museumofappalachia.org. LEGACY LUNCHEON FOR THE PARKS • Holston River Farm • 11:30AM • Legacy Parks Foundation announced today that Cheryl Strayed, the New York Times bestselling author of WILD, about her 1,100 mile solo walk on the Pacific Crest Trail, is the scheduled speaker for the annual Legacy Luncheon for the Parks on Friday, the 11th of September, 2015 on the spectacular Holston River Farm at the head of the Tennessee River.Strayed’s memoir documenting her sometimes harrowing, other times hilarious trek at 26 years old, and the personal journey that led her there, has been translated into more than 30 languages around the world, and was the first selection for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. This year’s Legacy Luncheon for the Parks will celebrate Legacy Parks’ 10th Anniversary. Reservations may be made now online at legacyparks.org or by calling (865) 525-2585. VOL KICKOFF PARTY • 4PM • The Standard • The Vol
Kickoff Party, sponsored by Sweet P’s Barbecue and Extrovert Media, is supporting Green Magnet (STEAM) Academy and it’s mission: One Community. One Vision. Every Student. There are two sections of the event: The first section of the Vol Kickoff Party is a free event from 4-7pm and will be focused on celebrating the return of Volunteer Football which will include games, prizes, dj’s, sports personalities, soundcheck, and much much more. The second section of the Vol Kickoff Party is an 8:00pm-midnight concert featuring Gran Torino and opened by Asheville’s The Hermit Kings. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased at https://www.tickettailor.com/ checkout/view-event/id/32249/chk/f135. Saturday, Sept. 12 DAYS OF THE PIONEER ANTIQUE SHOW • Museum of Appalachia • 12AM • This show will feature over sixty of the finest selection of 18th & 19th century Antique Dealers. During the show traditional craftsmen will be on the grounds demonstrating their various and centuries-old talents. The venue will also provide mountain music in different locations on the grounds while other areas will highlight Civil War-era soldiers and civilians in their period dress. Tickets also include a tour of the Museum, a farm-village with some three dozen historic log structures, exhibit halls filled with authentic Appalachian artifacts, and gardens and farm animals in a picturesque setting surrounded by split-rail fences. For more information call the museum at 865-494-7680 or visit www.museumofappalachia.org. VILLMARIA DAY • Clayton Center for the Arts • 8:30AM • Maryville College will host “Villamaría Day,” a celebration of Hispanic heritage and higher education opportunities for Latino communities. Villamaría (which means “Maryville” in Spanish) at Maryville College is an initiative that seeks to build and strengthen relationships with the Latino community. The program also aims to improve and increase access to Maryville College for Latino students from surrounding East Tennessee counties. HOGSKIN HISTORY DAY • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • Hogskin History Day is a celebration of the history, music, and culture of the Hogskin Valley and surrounding Appalachian communities. This year’s celebration features the history of local churches and a chance to win up to $2000+. As always, our event will include local historians and historical displays, local musical entertainment, children’s activities, delicious food including pizza from our cob oven, old time and modern crafts/artisans, tours of “off the grid” environmentally friendly buildings and homes and of our Natural Burial Preserve, a silent auction, cake walks, and door prizes. Admission and parking are FREE. For more information visit our website at www.narrowridge.org or call Mitzi at 865-497-3603.
SPORTS AND RECREATION
Thursday, Sept. 3 WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Join us for everything from Candy Land to chess, and feel free to add a pint and a pizza. Saturday, Sept. 5 KTC HAL CANFIELD MEMORIAL MILEFEST • Sequoyah Park • 8AM • The fourth annual Hal Canfield Memorial Races will start at 8:00 am on Monday, September 5, 2015. The races will take place on Cherokee Boulevard in beautiful Sequoyah Hills. This promises to be the fastest one mile September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 39
CALENDAR course in the Knoxville area throughout the entire year. The start line will be close to the Indian Mound, near the parking lot close to the 1 mile greenway marker. The course will go out on Cherokee Blvd, make a wide turn around the fountain, and finish close to the start. SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: LEATHERWOOD FORD TO DEVIL’S DEN • 8AM • This hike is a good introduction to Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. Join us for a mostly-level 2.3 mile hike between two impressive bridges on a section of John Muir Trail beside the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. Enjoy frequent views of the river and bluffs as we approach and then walk across the old O&W bridge. We will climb about a half-mile to Devil’s Den, the most spectacular of numerous rock formations we will see during the hike, before returning by the same route. Total hiking distance 5.8 miles. Rated easy. Drive 140 miles RT. Meet at Outback Restaurant on Merchants Drive at 8:00. Leader: Steve Madden, smadden@aaasouth.com. Wednesday, Sept. 9 SMOKY MOUNTAIN HIKING CLUB: GOLDMINE/COOPER ROAD/ BEARD CANE • 8AM • We’ll hike out to Campsite 3 and return, a moderate hike of 13.2 miles. Meet at Alcoa Food City at 8:00. Leader Micheal Zielinski, kf4yws@comcast. net. Thursday, Sept. 10 WHOLE FOODS GAME NIGHT • Whole Foods • 6PM • Join us for everything from Candy Land to chess, and feel free to add a pint and a pizza.
Thursday, Sept. 3 - Sunday, Sept. 13
Saturday, Sept. 12 GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS HALF-MARATHON • Heritage High School • 7:30AM
FILM SCREENINGS
Friday, Sept. 4 CRESTHILL CINEMA CLUB: FOLLOW THE BOYS • Winder Apartments Clubhouse • 8PM • Get this, hep cats: our next program will be taking place on Friday, September 4 (see attached program). That night, at 8 PM, we’ll be concluding our Second World War tribute with the rarely-shown musical extravaganza, Follow the Boys (1944). During World War II, most of the major film studios produced all-star morale boosters, boasting a string of marvelous tunes, performed by top artists of the day – and held together by the slimmest of plots. Follow the Boys follows that blueprint, as it tells the story of Tony West, an ex-vaudevillian dancer who becomes a Hollywood star through his association with dancer Gloria Vance. Tony marries Gloria and goes on to help form the Hollywood Victory Committee, an organization that will bring entertainment to troops stationed all over the world.Our location: The spacious clubhouse of the Windover Apartments. The journey there will take you to Cheshire Drive (off Kingston Pike, near the Olive Garden); going down Cheshire, turn right at the Windover Apartments sign, then go to the third parking lot on your right, next to the pool. There, the building that houses the clubhouse and offices of the Windover will be just a few
ON SALE FRIDAY, 9/4 AT 10AM!
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
steps away. ALL THE WAY HOME • East Tennessee History Center • 7PM • A First Friday screening of the 1963 film adaptation of James Agee’s A Death in the Family. • FREE Monday, Sept. 7 THE BIRDHOUSE WALK-IN THEATER • The Birdhouse • 8:15PM • A weekly free movie screening. • FREE Wednesday, Sept. 9 SCRUFFY CITY CINE-PUB • Scruffy City Hall • 7PM • Free Wednesday movie screenings. Friday, Sept. 11 MOVIES ON MARKET SQUARE • Market Square • 7PM • Bring a blanket or a lawn chair and join hundreds of others under the stars for a night of family fun in front of the silver screen. Every Friday night from September 11 through October 16, Market Square transforms into an outdoor movie theater where folks bring their chairs, blankets and picnic baskets. And you get to Pick the Flicks! In mid-August, start looking for a public vote for the movies we will show this year. • FREE
ART
A1 LabArts 23 Emory Place SEPT. 4: Forgotten Memories 2, lost and found photos curated by Donna Moore and Sara Blair McNally. (6-10 p.m.)
American Museum of Science and Energy 300 S. Tulane Ave. (Oak Ridge) JUNE 12-SEPT. 13: Nikon Small World Photomicrography Exhibit. Antique Space 1324 Broadway SEPT. 4: Processed: Work by Arrowmont’s Artists-in-Residence (6-10 p.m.) Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts 556 Parkway (Gatlinburg) AUG. 29-OCT. 31: Materialities: Contemporary Textile Art Art Market Gallery 422 S. Gay St. AUG. 31-SEPT. 7: Artwork by Gary Dagnan and Larry Gabbard. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 4, from 5-9 p.m. The Birdhouse 800 N. Fourth Ave. SEPT. 1-30: Extraordinary Women, paintings by Asa McEwan. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 4, from 7-10 p.m. Bliss Home 29 Market Square AUG. 7-SEPT. 30: The Lake House, paintings by Kate Moore. A First Friday reception will be held on Friday,
CALENDAR Sept. 4, from 6-9 p.m.
317 N. Gay St. SEPT. 4-30: Country Club, new paintings by Eric Cagley. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 4, from 6-10 p.m. (The exhibit will remain on display by appointment.)
Broadway Studios and Gallery 1127 Broadway Sept. 4-30: Gaudy Gold Frame Show. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 4, from 5-9 p.m. (The exhibit will remain on display by appointment.)
Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church 2931 Kingston Pike SEPT. 11-DEC. 3: An exhibit of artwork by TVUUC members.
Clayton Center for the Arts 502 E. Lamar Alexander Parkway (Maryville) AUG. 26-SEPT. 25: Seeing in Black and White, photographs by Paula Campbell.
LECTURES, READINGS, AND BOOK SIGNINGS
Downtown Gallery 106 S. Gay St. SEPT. 4-26: Non-Exempt: A UT Staff Exhibition. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 4, from 5-9 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 3 DAVID PAYNE: ‘BAREFOOT TO AVALON’ • Laurel Theater • 7PM • New York Times Notable author David Payne will
East Tennessee History Center 601 S. Gay St. APRIL 27-OCT. 18: Memories of the Blue and Gray: The Civil War in East Tennessee at 150
read from his newly released memoir, which recounts the story of Payne’s relationship with his brother, who died unexpectedly 15 years ago. OAK RIDGE INSTITUTE FOR CONTINUED LEARNING: CHARLIE DANIEL • Roane State Community College (Oak Ridge) • 3PM • Charlie Daniel, editorial cartoonist at Knoxville newspapers for 57 years, started drawing cartoons for the Daily Tar Heel, the newspaper at the University of North Carolina, from which he earned a B.A. degree in political science in 1957. A year later, he joined the Knoxville Journal as editorial cartoonist. In 1992, when the Journal closed, Daniel moved to the News Sentinel, where he continues to be its editorial cartoonist. The public is invited to his free talk, which will open the second RSCC-Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning intergenerational lecture series and the ORICL fall kickoff. Catalogs on the upcoming ORICL fall term will be available. Refreshments will be offered after the lecture. Tuesday, Sept. 8
Envision Art Gallery 4050 Sutherland Ave. SEPT. 5-30: The Love of Art, featuring work by members of the Tennessee Artist Association. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, Sept. 5, from 5-8 p.m. Ewing Gallery 1715 Volunteer Blvd. AUG. 24-SEPT. 25: Selections from the Ewing Gallery Permanent Collection. An opening reception will be held on Monday, Aug. 24, from 4:30-7 p.m. Flow: A Brew Parlor 603 W. Main St. SEPT. 4: A First Friday reception featuring artwork by Jon Putril and music by Blond Bones. 5-9 p.m. Knoxville Museum of Art 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive AUG. 21-NOV. 8: The Paternal Suit, paintings, prints, and objects by conceptual artist F. Scott Hess. ONGOING: Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in Tennessee; Currents: Recent Art From East Tennessee and Beyond; and Facets of Modern and Contemporary Glass. Liz-Beth and Co. 7240 Kingston Pike SEPT. 1-26: Country Roads Take Me Home, featuring art by Jim Gray, Theresa Shelton, Eileen McConkey, Sandy Brown, and Ober Rae Starr Livingstone. McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture 1327 Circle Park Drive SEPT. 11-JAN. 3: Embodying Enlightenment: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas. Ongoing: The Flora and Fauna of Catesby, Mason, and Audubon and Life on the Roman Frontier. Zach Searcy Projects
Photo courtesy of Mark Heinz.
Emporium Center for Arts and Culture 100 S. Gay St. SEPT. 4-26: Artists of Fine Arts Blount; Terra Madre: Women in Clay; Drawn In, curated by Amy Hand; Conversations: Portraits and Other Work by Emily Taylor; and artwork by Jake Livesay. SEPT. 1-8: Frutos Latinos, featuring artwork by the winner of HoLa Hora Latina’s annual arts contest. An opening reception will be held on Friday, Sept. 4, from 5-9 p.m.
KNOXVILLE: SUMMER OF 1915 Ijams Nature Center (2915 Island Home Ave.) • Monday, Sept. 7 • 6:30 p.m. • $10 • ijams.org
“By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of night.” James Agee’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 still echoes through neighborhoods and city streets long since changed—and the ineluctable sensations of a summer evening among friends still find a way to punctuate moments in our lives. As summer of 2015 wanes and the familiar cicadas take up their finale, other sounds of the night drift across time to remind us of that past. An evening of American art song, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is the latest of the Music in the Park events at Ijams Nature Center. The event features local singers Linda Barnett, Sarah Fitch, Kevin Richard Doherty, and Peter Johnson and pianist Eileen Downey in music by Stephen Foster, William Bolcom, and Gene Scheer. Barnett will be performing Samuel Barber’s classic Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Opening the evening will be soprano Noelle Harb and pianist Brandon Coffer. This, of course, is an outdoor event, so bring your lawn chair. Or a quilt will do quite nicely. Food and beverages will be available. (Alan Sherrod)
September 3, 2015
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CALENDAR HARVEY BROOME GROUP OF THE SIERRA CLUB: SEVEN ISLANDS STATE BIRDING PARK • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7PM • How did Seven Islands State Birding Park come to be? What do they do out there? What the heck is a ‘state birding park’ anyhow?! Join Park Manager, Justine Cucchiara, as she answers these questions, and details the journey of this special property from its early days as dairy farm, to Tennessee’s first state park dedicated to the management and conservation of birds. Wednesday, Sept. 9 AUTHOR JARRETT J. KROSOCZKA: ‘LUNCH LADY’ SERIES • Union Ave Books • 5PM • A book signing and reading for children, with the author’s new book, it’s tough to lose your balloon. Saturday, Sept. 12 UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE PREGAME SHOWCASE LECTURE SERIES • McClung Museum • 4PM • It’s football time in Tennessee—which kicks off another game day tradition: the Pregame Showcase. Football fans are invited to hear from some of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s exceptional faculty during the 26th annual College of Arts and Sciences Pregame Showcase, which begins Saturday, Sept. 12. Topics include the last days of American space flight, discoveries in southeastern archeology and sleep health. For more about the Pregame Showcase, visit http://pregameshowcase.utk. edu.
Thursday, Sept. 3 - Sunday, Sept. 13
FAMILY AND KIDS’ EVENTS
Thursday, Sept. 3 TODDLER’S YOGI YOGA • Shanti Yoga Haven • 9AM BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • For infants to age 2, must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • Middle and high school students (or any age) are invited to play chess. Tom Jobe coaches most Saturdays in the Teen Central area of the library. On one Saturday of every month, there will be a rated tournament at the Blount County Public Library. KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 4:30PM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre, a non-profit theatre producing theatre for children by children, will hold week-long, intensive acting classes during August, September, and October. Most classes will culminate in a “showcase” presentation for family and friends at the end of the term. All classes include 2 free tickets to a KCT performance. To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $180 Friday, Sept. 4 SMART TOYS AND BOOKS ART CLASS • Smart Toys and
Books • 10AM • Mommy, Daddy & Me Art Classes are every Friday at 10:00am & 11:00am. Reservations and payment are required in advance. Class fees are non-refundable. Ages 2+. • $10 Saturday, Sept. 5 KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 9:30AM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre, a non-profit theatre producing theatre for children by children, will hold week-long, intensive acting classes during August, September, and October. Most classes will culminate in a “showcase” presentation for family and friends at the end of the term. All classes include 2 free tickets to a KCT performance. To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $150 CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 10AM • Middle and high school students (or any age) are invited to play chess. Tom Jobe coaches most Saturdays in the Teen Central area of the library. On one Saturday of every month, there will be a rated tournament at the Blount County Public Library. KNOXVILLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE SUMMER ACTING CLASSES • Knoxville Children’s Theatre • 10AM • Knoxville Children’s Theatre, a non-profit theatre producing theatre for children by children, will hold week-long, intensive acting classes during late June and July. Most classes will culminate in a “showcase” presentation for family and friends at the end of the term. All classes include 2 Hip & Cool Real Estate
free tickets to a KCT performance. To reserve a seat in any class, or for more information: e-mail Academy Director Dennis Perkins at dennis@childrenstheatreknoxville.com, or call (865) 208-3677. • $180 SATURDAY STORIES AND SONGS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • A weekly music and storytelling session for kids. Monday, Sept. 7 TODDLER’S YOGI YOGA • Shanti Yoga Haven • 9AM SMART TOYS AND BOOKS STORYTIME • Smart Toys and Books • 11AM • Storytime with Miss Helen is every Monday at 11:00am. No charge. No reservations required. • FREE Tuesday, Sept. 8 PRE-K READ AND PLAY • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • Pre-K Read and Play is a pilot program specifically designed to prepare children to enter kindergarten. While the format of the program will still feel like a traditional storytime with books, music, and other educational activities, each weekly session will focus on a different standard from the Tennessee Department of Education’s Early Childhood/Early Learning Developmental Standards. Library programs for preschoolers are typically designed to develop early literacy, or pre-reading, skills, and Pre-K Read and Play will still focus heavily on these skills, but will also feature other topics in the wide range of skills that children need to be developing before they enter school, including math, science, and motor development. • FREE Wednesday, Sept. 9
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
“We advertised our summer sale in the Bearden issue of the Mercury and got significant response. It was the perfect time and place for us to advertise, and we’re glad we did!” —SCOTT BISHOP, OWNER, Westwood Antique & Design Market
CALENDAR BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 10:20AM • For infants to age 2, must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. PRESCHOOL STORYTIME • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • For ages 3 to 5, must be accompanied by an adult. Thursday, Sept. 10 TODDLER’S YOGI YOGA • Shanti Yoga Haven • 9AM BABY BOOKWORMS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • For infants to age 2, must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 1PM • Middle and high school students (or any age) are invited to play chess. Tom Jobe coaches most Saturdays in the Teen Central area of the library. On one Saturday of every month, there will be a rated tournament at the Blount County Public Library. Friday, Sept. 11 SMART TOYS AND BOOKS ART CLASS • Smart Toys and Books • 10AM • Mommy, Daddy & Me Art Classes are every Friday at 10:00am & 11:00am. Reservations and payment are required in advance. Class fees are non-refundable. Ages 2+. • $10 Saturday, Sept. 12 CHESS AT THE LIBRARY • Blount County Public Library • 10AM • Middle and high school students (or any age) are invited to play chess. Tom Jobe coaches most Saturdays in the Teen Central area of the library. On one Saturday of every month, there will be a rated tournament at the Blount County Public Library. SATURDAY STORIES AND SONGS • Lawson McGee Public Library • 11AM • A weekly music and storytelling session for kids.
CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS
Thursday, Sept. 3 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 PORTRAIT AND LIFE DRAWING CLASS • Candoro Marble Company • 2PM • Life drawing practice session. Call Brad Selph for more information 865-573-0709. • $10 CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: KNIT YOUR WAY TO WELLNESS • Cancer Support Community • 1PM • Whether you are a novice knitter or an old pro, you are invited to bring your own project or join others in learning a new one. Supplies provided. 865-546-4661. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. Friday, Sept. 4 YOGA AND QI-GONG BASICS • Shanti Yoga Haven • 6PM Saturday, Sept. 5 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9AM • For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@ narrowridge.org. Monday, Sept. 7 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 5:30PM • Call 865-577-
2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. Tuesday, Sept. 8 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 5:30PM • Call 865-5772021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY: NUTRITION AMMUNITION • Cancer Support Community • 12PM • Improving your body’s immunity is key to fighting cancer and other chronic diseases. Beth Booker will provide a review of the immune system and suggest things you can do to enhance your immunity. A light lunch will be provided. RSVP. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. Thursday, Sept. 10 GENTLE YOGA AND MEDITATION • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 12PM • Call 865-577-2021 or email yogaway249@gmail.com. Donations accepted. BELLY DANCE LEVELS 1 AND 2 • Knox Dance Worx • 8PM • Call (865) 898-2126 or email alexia@alexia-dance.com. • $12 Friday, Sept. 11 YOGA AND QI-GONG BASICS • Shanti Yoga Haven • 6PM Saturday, Sept. 12 YOGA AT NARROW RIDGE • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 9AM • For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@ narrowridge.org. KNOX HERITAGE PRESERVATION NETWORK • Knox Heritage • 10AM • Preservation Network’s July session features owner and president of Engert Plumbing & Heating, Inc., Donna Johnston and operations manager of Engert Plumbing & Heating, Inc., Dean Thomas. Many plumbers say old house plumbing repairs and improvements often present challenges not found in newer homes. Preservation Network is a series of free workshops held once every month on the second Saturday. For more information, visit www.knoxheritage.org.
MEETINGS
Thursday, Sept. 3 OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Recovery at Cokesbury • 5:30PM • This is an OA Literature Meeting. CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY BREAST CANCER NETWORKER • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • This drop-in group is an opportunity for women who have or have had breast cancer to come together to exchange information, offer support, education and encouragement. Call 865-546- 4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY FAMILY BEREAVEMENT GROUP • Cancer Support Community • 6PM • CSC is committed to providing bereavement services to those who have lost a loved one to cancer. Please contact our clinical staff before attending. Call 865-546-4661 for more info. All Cancer Support Community programs are offered at no cost to individuals affected by cancer. Saturday, Sept. 5 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit our local website at farragutalanon.org or email us at FindHope@ Farragutalanon.org.
SEEKERS OF SILENCE • Church of the Savior United Church of Christ • 9AM • Father Terry Ryan, CSP, former pastor of Knoxville’s St. John XXIII Catholic University Parish and Center, will speak on “Reflections on the Unknowable.” Sunday, Sept. 6 SILENT MEDITATION SUNDAYS • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@narrowridge.org. Monday, Sept. 7 GAY MEN’S DISCUSSION GROUP • Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church • 7:30PM • We hold facilitated discussions on topics and issues relevant to local gay men in a safe and open environment. Visit gaygroupknoxville.org. Tuesday, Sept. 8 KNOXVILLE CIVIL WAR ROUNDTABLE • Bearden Banquet Hall • 7PM • Chief Historian at Harpers Ferry National Park, Dennis E. Frye, will lecture on Lincoln’s most tenuous time -almost losing the nation- “September Suspense” at 8 pm Tuesday, Sept. 8, Bearden Banquet Hall,5806 Kingston Pike. Lecture only cost $3, 8pm, students free. Dinner at 7pm, $17 including lecture. RSVP by noon Sept. 7 -865-671-9001. Wednesday, Sept. 9 COMITE POPULAR DE KNOXVILLE • The Birdhouse • 7PM • A weekly meeting of the local immigrant advocacy organization. Thursday, Sept. 10 OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS • Recovery at Cokesbury • 5:30PM Saturday, Sept. 12 AL-ANON • Faith Lutheran Church • 11AM • Visit our local website at farragutalanon.org or email us at FindHope@ Farragutalanon.org. THE CAVETT STATION CHAPTER NATIONAL SOCIETY DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION • Blount Mansion • 10AM • The Cavett Station Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution will meet at the Blount Mansion Visitors Center on Saturday, September 12. Refreshments and social time will begin at 10:00 a.m. with the meeting beginning at 10:30 a.m. The program will be given by Dave Hearnes, Assistant to the Director of Blount Mansion. A talk and a tour of Blount Mansion are planned. Women interested in proving lineal descent to a patriot of the American Revolution are welcome to visit. The DAR is a non-profit, non-political volunteer women’s service organization dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history, and securing America’s future through better education for children. For more information, please visit the chapter website at http://www.tndar.org/~cavettstation/. Sunday, Sept. 13 SILENT MEDITATION SUNDAYS • Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center • 11AM • For more information contact Mitzi Wood-Von Mizener at 865-497-3603 or community@narrowridge.org.
ETC.
Thursday, Sept. 3 NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest Park • 3PM • FREE BEARDSLEY COMMUNITY FARM RAISE THE ROOTS September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 43
CALENDAR FUNDRAISING DINNER • The Plaid Apron • 6PM • Our 5th Annual Raise the Roots dinner will be better then ever, and feature the rich bounties of Summer on the farm. Dinner will be prepared by the owner and chef of The Plaid Apron, Drew McDonald, and his team. Hor d’oeuvres will begin at 6 pm, and dinner will be served promptly at 6:30 PM. Guests will have an opportunity to learn about Beardsley Farm, meet farm volunteers, and share their experiences gardening and cooking in Knoxville and East Tennessee. All proceeds from the dinner will directly benefit Beardsley Farm. Pricing: Tickets are $50 per person or $180 for a table of four. Tickets are available for purchase at raisetheroots15.brownpapertickets.com About the dinner: The supper is vegetarian, and vegan options are available upon advance request. The supper will be locally sourced and most of the produce is grown at CAC Beardsley Community Farm. Special requests: Please email beardsleyfarm@gmail.com if you have any dietary restrictions or needs, to request a vegan option, and for any special seating requests (i.e., You would like to sit with friends who purchased separate tickets). About CAC Beardsley Farm: CAC Beardsley Community Farm has promoted food security and sustainable urban agriculture through practice, education, and community outreach since 1998. Beardsley Farm grows and donates over 10,000 pounds of produce annually to food pantries and kitchens in the Knoxville area. The farm additionally offers extensive child, youth, and adult education programming nutrition and sustainable gardening. • $50 GOODWILL VINTAGE FASHION SHOW AND SALE • Hilton Downtown Knoxville • 6PM • The 31st Annual Goodwill
BUY LOCAL OR
BYE, LOCAL
44
Thursday, Sept. 3 - Sunday, Sept. 13
Vintage Fashion Show & Sale is a night of fun and fashion, guaranteed to sparkle, shine, impress and entertain! The show will featured hundreds of vintage and vintage-inspired modern looks, all of which can be found at your local Goodwill. WHEN: Thursday, September 3 Doors open at 6pm; Vintage Boutique Presale opens at 5pm. WHERE: Hilton - Downtown Knoxville Tickets for this event are $40 each or $375 for a table of ten and include a full-course dinner, entry to the show, and entry to the post-show sale. Tickets are limited and must be ordered in advance online at goodwillknoxville.org/vintage or by calling the Marketing Department at 865.588.8567. Items featured on the runway will be available for sale in the Vintage Boutique immediately following the show. This sale will feature exclusive vintage merchandise including clothing, hats, shoes, coats, furs, formals and accessories, as well as many top name brands. If you can’t wait to get your hands on these great Vintage finds, Goodwill will host a pre-sale from 5:00 pm until 6:15 pm. Entry into the pre-sale is only $5 and early shopping guarantees the best selection of these hard-to-find men’s and women’s items. A special thank you to the sponsors of the 31st Annual Vintage Fashion Show and Sale: WBIR-Channel 10, B-97.5, the Knoxville News Sentinel, Designsensory, Regal Entertainment Group, Carlenea’s Hair Fashions, and The Trust Company. Proceeds from this event will fund Goodwill’s mission to provide vocational services and employment opportunities for people with barriers to employment. Learn more about Goodwill at goodwillknoxville.org. • $40 THE CHARLOTTE COUTURE RUNWAY SHOW • NV Nightclub •
When you want to reach the local market, advertise in Knoxville’s best local independent newspaper.
For more information call: 865-313-2048 or email: sales@knoxmercury.com
8:30PM • The Charlotte Couture Runway Show is an event that provides an intelligent, innovative platform for progressive, established, and emerging designer to showcase her Swimsuit collections. Charlotte Couture is a local clothing company specializing in custom one of a kind clothing ranging from swimsuits, jewelry accessories to gowns. Music will be provided by The Norm, Kenzie Lash and the Fisherman. Doors open at 8:30pm. This event is 18 and up. Tickets can be purchased in advance for $10. • $10 Friday, Sept. 4 LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS’ MARKET • Lakeshore Park • 3PM UNION COUNTY FARMERS MARKET • Maynardville • 4PM • FREE Saturday, Sept. 5 OAK RIDGE FARMERS’ MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM SEYMOUR FARMERS MARKET • Seymour First Baptist Church • 8AM NFFF KNOXVILLE MEMORIAL STAIRCLIMB • World’s Fair Park • 8AM • Once again,the City of Knoxville, SERVPRO of Rocky Hill/Sequoyah Hills/South Knoxville, and Visit Knoxville are proud to bring the NFFF Knoxville Memorial Stairclimb back to Knoxville’s iconic Sunsphere. Participants will climb the stairs of the Sunsphere and surrounding steps equivalent to the 110 stories of the World Trade Center honoring the 343 FDNY Firefighters who gave their lives on September 11th 2001, while saving the lives of hundreds of people. Please join us
“BLINDINGLY BEAUTIFUL AND METICULOUSLY ASSEMBLED.”
Saturday, September 5th 2015, at the Knoxville Sunsphere as we pay tribute. MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 9AM GENTLE BARN TOUR • The Gentle Barn • 11AM • Visit East Tennessee’s new sanctuary for rescued farm animals. • FREE Tuesday, Sept. 8 EBENEZER ROAD FARMERS’ MARKET • Ebenezer United Methodist Church • 3PM • FREE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTES CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE FORUM • Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church • 7PM • The League of Women Voters of Knoxville/Knox County (LWVKKC) in conjunction with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Knoxville Interdenominational Christian Ministerial Alliance (KICMA), The Knoxville News Sentinel and WBIR-TV, will hold a moderated forum to inform voters about candidates running in the upcoming primary election on September 29. The forum will be held on Tuesday, September 8, 2015, 7:00 p.m. at the Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church, 546 College Street, Knoxville, TN 37921. All candidates for City Council have been invited to participate. Early voting begins the next day, September 9. Wednesday, Sept. 9 MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 11AM • FREE Thursday, Sept. 10
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Thursday, Sept. 3 - Sunday, Sept. 13
CALENDAR
NEW HARVEST PARK FARMERS MARKET • New Harvest Park • 3PM • The New Harvest Park Farmers Market will be open every Thursday through November from 3 to 6 p.m. The market features locally-grown produce, meats, artisan food products, plants, herbs, flowers, crafts and much more. • FREE KNOXVILLE SQUARE DANCE • Laurel Theater • 8PM • Jubilee Community Arts presents Knoxville Square Dance with live old-time music by The Helgramites and calling by Stan Sharp, Ruth Simmons and Leo Collins. No experience or partner is necessary and the atmosphere is casual. (No taps, please.) • $7 Friday, Sept. 11 UNION COUNTY FARMERS MARKET • Maynardville • 4PM • FREE LAKESHORE PARK FARMERS’ MARKET • Lakeshore Park • 3PM 8 FREE
KING GIZZARD
Saturday, Sept. 12 OAK RIDGE FARMERS’ MARKET • Historic Jackson Square • 8AM • FREE SEYMOUR FARMERS MARKET • Seymour First Baptist Church • 8AM • FREE MARKET SQUARE FARMERS’ MARKET • Market Square • 9AM • FREE GENTLE BARN TOUR • The Gentle Barn • 11AM • Visit Knoxville’s new farm-animal sanctuary.
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STEVE EARLE AND THE DUKES
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY 45
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August 20, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 47
OUTDOORS
Voice in the Wilder ness
Photo by Drew Crain
Photo by Drew Crain
New Favorite Place A secret fishing spot yields lots of bites—not many from fish BY KIM TREVATHAN
W
e had failed in our first attempt to find the secret fishing spot in the gorge. We’d lost our way and we’d been attacked by an unseen enemy that would not reveal its damage for a full day: tiny bumps on our ankles and feet that itched us unto madness. Now, on the second try, we turned off the beaten trail into the unknown, a faint and narrow path beset by weeds, drops through narrow sandstone fissures, and boulders two stories high. Why go to so much trouble to find a fishing spot? Our unnamed source said there was a “beach” down there. He said he had caught smallmouth bass until he was “tired of fishing.”
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
This kind of talk and the titillation of an exclusive, hard-to-find and hard-toget-to spot had us tucking our pants into our socks, our shirts into our waistbands, and spraying noxious chemicals onto our clothing to ward off the first visit’s tiny pest: chiggers, the juvenile form of a mite, whose purpose in the animal kingdom I would be hard pressed to justify. So we were back, on a cooler day than the first, after rains that had the creeks running and the rock walls seeping moisture. The unnamed source told us that when we turned around on our first attempt, within hearing of the river’s voice, we were five minutes away from the beach.
This was hard news to take. We had given it our all, and in addition to sustaining more chigger bites than me (I had 25 on each ankle), Drew Crain, a biologist at Maryville College, had been bitten on the hand by a wasp. My clothes were wringing wet with sweat, and I’d drained my water bottle before we got back to the car. On this second day we pressed forward, rappelling down the soggy knotted rope, turning away from the sandstone wall down the jumbled decline to boulder and bushwhack through briars and mountain laurel, past a thorny devil’s walking stick, and over cracks and crannies ideal for slumbering copperhead and timber rattler. When we had descended far enough to see the river through the trees, we got glimpses of a turbid stream running swift through slots of gray, jagged stone and over underwater ledges that swirled its current like beef broth in a bowl. At the bottom, we stopped at a flat moss-cushioned rock to catch our breath, gulp water, and to ready our lures. I headed upstream with light tackle—a short rod and four-pound test line, a treble-hooked spoon called Little Cleo
knotted at the end of it. Slinging my camera over my shoulder, I prepared to photograph big numbers of harvested smallmouth. It took me a half hour of bouldering to get into position to fish the eddies below a rapid. In the hike to the spot, I’d lost a lens cap. Drew was behind me by half an hour. Before I could see him, I heard him yell something about a copperhead, his voice barely audible over the river’s roar. “Are you bit?” I said. “No!” I went back to fishing. When he emerged at the top of boulder above me, I said, “I lost my lens cap!” Drew did not seem surprised by this news. In fact, he told me, after he had startled a 3-foot long copperhead, not the friendliest of snakes, he found my lens cap where the snake had been lounging. Apparently, the cap had jostled free as I stumbled by in close proximity of this serpent, who chose not to strike a fool oblivious to his presence. Drew said the snake slithered a few feet and stared at him from under a rock ledge. After another half-hour, Drew
OUTDOORS I began to cast over and over in the same place and reel in with disinterest, more and more slowly. Sometimes I’d forget to reel. This strategy worked.
yelled from around a boulder and a few minutes later yelled again, having caught a couple of small fish with his Panther Martin lure. I hopped across a narrow channel to a rock with a narrow, ridged back and sat down to cast as far as I could toward the deep water on the far side. Drew was just downstream now on his own rock, casting a rooster tail and split-shot weight. I had all but given up on catching even a single smallmouth, but the place was so beautiful and untrammeled I didn’t care. We hadn’t found the beach, but we speculated that it was underwater. I began to cast over and over in the same place and reel in with disinterest, more and more slowly. Sometimes I’d forget to reel. This strategy worked. In the deep water where I let my lure descend, a smallmouth struck. He dived and jumped as my childsized rod bent, and I stood on the pointy rock for leverage. After he got tired, I tightened the drag as far as it would go and pulled him in. The fish was no trophy, but it fought like a champ. It was almost noon and we faced a long climb out of the gorge, not to mention a hike of a couple of miles once we found the trail again. I cast upstream and let the Cleo tumble and sparkle in the current. When I started to reel in, I cursed, having caught a rocky ledge on the bottom. I played it a little, without jerking, and it gave. Then the line stiffened and I felt something alive. Whatever it was didn’t act like the other smallmouth
I’ve caught, who at some point breach the surface. This thing was zigging and zagging and pulling toward the depths. I reeled a few turns and after a minute or so my line went slack. Fish gone, along with Little Cleo. Remember how I had tightened the drag and left it there? A mistake. “That was a big one,” Drew said. We had heard of muskellunge in this river that grew to monster size (typically over 3 feet long), and the way this one struck, and the way it unceremoniously broke my line, made me wonder if it were one of these razor-toothed predators. A few minutes later, Drew’s split-shot and rooster tail were jerked away from him. He stood on his rock stunned, slack line looped and tangled. It is a very painful thing to lose a big fish, to wonder what it was and what you might have done differently to bring him in. “Fishing is hard,” I said. “Maybe eight-pound test line would be better here,” he said. We had no lures with us. To get to them at the flat rock, we faced a 30-minute hike each way, past the exasperated copperhead. After a brief discussion of our good fortune so far, particularly mine, we decided to leave the gorge, having sacrificed a few shiny trinkets to the monster god of the depths. Did the place live up to its billing? Was it worth the rugged hike? Yes, and I will go back, but I hope the fish bite in fall, when the chiggers and snakes and wasps do not. It is a new favorite place. ◆ September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 49
FOOD
Sips & Shot s
The Long Haul Knox Whiskey Works wins the waiting game BY ROSE KENNEDY
I
t reminds me of a cartoon that won a New Yorker caption contest a few years back. Two anteaters at a picnic with a frosted layer cake between them. “Now,” one tells the other. “We wait.” Knox Whiskey Works, owned by Cindy Nichols, managed by Knoxville restaurant-scene homeguy Stanton Webster, and tucked into a light and airy spot (at 516 W. Jackson Ave.) about the size of a big garage, is also waiting for good things to come. That’s how it works in the small batch, craft distillery business—everything from the license for distillation to the aging of whiskeys and bourbons can take a good long while. But KWW, which started construction nine months ago, made one big stride this week with the hiring of Ryan Catlett as head distiller. And the new head distiller says it’s possible an “unaged whiskey offering” or two might be ready by early fall. No one is ready to circle a date on the calendar, not while the “front damn doors” still need inspection, according to Webster, and any other kind of small business headache could develop, but KWW is well on its way. Catlett—a burly, soft- and carefully-spoken redhead—will lead the process from grain sourcing to bottling, and seems happy to be on board. After some good-natured banter about the misguided folks who seem to think he looks like Joss Whedon, he gives me a sneak peak of the distillery-in-progress while filling me in about the checkerboard pattern that landed him here. High school in Oak Ridge was followed by serving two years in the Air Force in a post where “fluid dynamics” involved petroleum-based fuels and process engineering, though it too involved pumps and valves and holding tanks. He studied at University of
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
Tennessee. Engineering? Something with chemistry? “Ah, music,” he answers, and I notice the guitar tattooed prominently on his forearm. The degree was recording arts, but somehow he ties it all together. “It’s also fluid dynamics in its fashion,” he says. “You just can’t see the material going through the line in audio recording.” More recently, Catlett had a gig as production manager at Popcorn Sutton Distilling in Newport. In between that and school, he learned most about distilling as an avid home brewer and a force in the Tennessee Valley Homebrewers Association. But this won’t be beer, not in the vats, not in the little side room that will serve as tasting room in the future— which will require a whole ’nother set of those hard-to-come by licenses. Instead, once the doors are inspected and the contractors, country guys from Greenback, are done with the drilling—and Catlett’s lab scales and graduated cylinders come out of the bubble wrap—the process will run thus: A “substantial amount” of heirloom Hickory Cane corn from Riverplains Farm in Strawberry Plains, will be milled by Valentine Mills in Dandridge, taken in at 516 W. Jackson, and basically mixed into hot water in a giant vat—like grits. (This is also when they would mash in extras, like rye or malt, maybe some wheat that would make the final product, “a little more mellow, a little more sweet.”) Next, the concoction goes into one of three fermentation vessels lining one wall; the ethanol is produced at this stage, and it’s “essentially beer made from corn, meaning, you don’t want to drink it,” Catlett says. Then there’s the distilling, twice in this copper beauty with valves sticking out like IVs. And, finally, it’s bottled as corn
whiskey. This is the stuff we may get to sample in early fall, a moonshine of sorts, classified as “unaged whiskey.” But other mixes that come out of the still will be pumped up into barrels that will reside in KWW’s loft, though at the moment it is just a floor with a skylight. Those barrels, says Catlett, per our government, will be “new, never used, charred American white oak barrels.” The spirits will age “at least” two years, says Catlett. He’ll employ a “barrel thief,” which works along the same premise as sampling a beverage from a glass by holding your finger over one end of a straw and dipping— to test and take notes quarterly.
Catlett sees loads of possibilities: gin, vodka, cordials, liqueurs. Some seasonal, regional ingredients, maybe including other heirloom corns, or potatoes. “Maybe sweet potatoes.” But those are a ways off. “Think of them as products still in the lab,” he says. “None of this is going to happen right off the bat. In the future, yes. And meantime, we are going to have a good time experimenting with everything.” He’s 31 now; he’ll be at least 33 when those first whiskeys or bourbons are finished aging. But he plans to be downstairs, making more, when it happens. “I’ll be here,” he says. “I’ll be the one to say, ‘Now.’” ◆
September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 51
FOOD
Home Palate
Mystery Date Trust Fall Knox unleashes local chefs to pursue their passions BY DENNIS PERKINS
T
his story begins with an invitation to dinner. It sounds like a simple thing, but something’s afoot. I know this because when I ask where we’re dining, my date-to-be replies, “I don’t know, but I’ll send you the clue when I get it.” This isn’t a mystery game, it’s a serious invitation to a dinner that regularly goes for better than $100 a place. The clue won’t come until the day of our date and, even then, it will appear in verse and reveal only the time, location, and dress code of the dinner hosted by the curiously named Trust Fall Knox. Fortunately we’re not left wholly to our wits; when it comes, the verse is obscure and written in couplets of irregular meter but it’s accompanied by a map link that leads us to the former home of the First Christian Church on 5th Avenue—today it’s a Dewhirst and Heinz property and, also, our dining room. Once we arrive at the church, dressed, as requested, in “snappy casual” attire, we are greeted by a gentleman checking names against a register and are waved on to an entry at the rear of the church. We walk through a covered walkway alongside the garth and pass a hymn board that reads, “Cunningham and Mason, Trust and Obey.” This isn’t just the name of the chef and the wine steward and a random musical selection—this is the mantra, the rule, of the evening. By our very presence
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KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
we agree to eat whatever comes our way—no restrictions of any nature have been considered. Except, perhaps, for cannibalism, anything is fair game. And although I won’t know it until much later, we’ve tacitly agreed to hold Trust Fall faultless, now and forever, for whatever befalls us. The ritual begins outside in a pleasant, walled part of the grounds facing 5th Avenue. We are offered a preprandial cocktail and an appetizer of an oyster on the half shell topped with what appears to be a cucumber mignonette. There are a number of people gathering, two dozen or so, and many of them are Trust Fall alumni, including my date who greets several of the hosts with hugs. Between the two of us, we know a handful of people, but most of the folks here are strangers. Soon we’re asked to form a single-file line, ostensibly a procession for dinner as we move through a series of little rooms to the sanctuary of the church. It’s a large, impressive space with a balcony on three sides— it’s easy to imagine there were many impassioned sermons delivered here. One long table (or several placed end to end) is set between the pews and before the steps up to the pulpit. The room is dim, but the lights above are harsh and fully illuminate only the center of the table. Silently, I pray that this space has been deconsecrated. Aside from the trappings of
intrigue and the presence of the sacred table, the feel of the event isn’t much different from a really nice dinner party with folks you don’t know. You’re here with a common aim—to be enthralled by the whims of the chef. This is the ninth meeting of Trust Fall Knox. It’s a curious type of supper club or underground restaurant that’s fashionable around the country—it has a manifesto, meets in irregular places, and caters to adventurous eaters. A website and social media presence alerts potential diners to the next occurrence and when tickets for the event will go sale. The affair is limited, and tickets sell out within minutes. (The next dinner, by Holly Hambright, is Sept. 25. Info: trustfallknox.com.) The creation of this particular
culinary conclave came by way of both appetite and a sense of adventure. One of the hosts and founders, who asks that his name not be published, made it his habit when dining out to tell the server that he was interested in eating whatever the chef wanted to send to the table—a habit he called “trust fall.” One night, in the presence of whiskey and friends, he whispered his stories of personal attention from chefs and the many good meals that followed; the friends were hooked and became co-conspirators in this ongoing series of gastronomic capers that sometimes features actual capers. And what’s the identity of this masked man? Sadly, there is no mask, but there are several secret identities. The several folks behind Trust Fall Knox don’t aim to be the stars of the
Home Palate
FOOD
Allen Tate 865-300-2537 a.tate@comcast.net 2010 1 (One) -
The French Market
Authentic French Sweet & Savory Crêpes
The French Market
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The folks behind Trust Fall Knox don’t aim to be the stars of the show; they insist that the event is about the food and the chef. So, no photos, no names, shhhhh.
Lavazza Coffee & Espresso
2015
previous course of heirloom tomato and beet is served with burrata—and it’s light, refreshing, and beautiful. The beets add a bit of earthiness that complements the brightly flavored tomatoes while the burrata, doing what all fresh cheeses do, adds a creamy contrast. There are enough grace notes to keep the cuisine elevated, but they’re well-chosen additions that demonstrate an understanding of taste. Pickled sea beans bring a lovely texture and light briny element to a richly flavored dish of ivory salmon and porcini. A medallion of foie gras arrives with a sliver of pickled watermelon rind that adds a little crunch and a bright contrast to the fatty liver. Perfectly cooked and tender lamb saddle is flavorful and well complemented by a tiny application of anchovy butter from the overly large smear. (One of my neighbors at our table slathered it on—an unfortunate and very saline moment.) All in all, the event is nice. It’s full of good food and cheer, and the whole experience is light-hearted; at the end of the day, the mystery is less pretension than good fun. What’s most important about this dinner is that the chefs, who cook for Trust Fall unpaid, are allowed to pursue their passion without many worries about food cost or what will sell or the pedestrian appetite of the average American diner. The free rein to cook for people who love to eat must attract them in the same way that artists of all stripes are attracted to uncensored media. And for eaters, Trust Fall offers a taste of haute cuisine and invigorating cooking that’s still in short supply in these parts. ◆
$500
fu digita 1 Of
1
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French Pastries & Macarons --
show; they insist that the event is about the food and the chef, not about them. So, no photos, no names, shhhhh. They are content to host and also to serve the food, bus the tables and, one imagines, wash the dishes. This is what they call fun, and they clearly enjoy themselves. The food tonight is prepared by Joe Cunningham—no one minds telling you his name. He’s a part of the “formerly of Blackberry Farm” brigade. The menu is placed as a part of the table setting, and one returning guest tells me that this one isn’t as adventurous as many have been; still, the six-course menu looks appetizing. The fi rst course begins, as each course will, with an introduction of the food and the wine that will accompany it; Cunningham and Sean O’Donnell Mason, a local wine rep, make brief remarks after the plates are laid and the glasses fi lled. Cunningham’s cooking tonight isn’t daring, and the wine pairings are mostly safe and classic selections. Still, the food is generally excellent, and the only complaints that I have are minor; they include one slightly tortured presentation of foie gras with hard-to-spear, peasized pellets of melon, as well as an overly generous application of anchovy butter in a hefty plate smear with the lamb course. What Cunningham’s cooking does show is a mastery of technique and appreciation for classic flavors. Rare beef stands in for veal in an adaptation of a classic Piedmontese dish called vitello tonnato; the tuna sauce is strong, and the dish is no shrinking violet—there’s an onion salad on the plate, too. However, a
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Knoxville
September 3, 2015
KNOXVILLE MERCURY 53
’BYE
Sacred & P rofane
The Space Between Waiting for an absence to be filled again BY DONNA JOHNSON
M
agdalena sits alone on her porch looking melancholy. While she usually wears an outfit bordering on naked, tonight she is attired in a burgundy pleated skirt and a chaste white blouse buttoned at the collar. Her customary paisley scarf covers her dreadlocks. She crosses one knee over the other and waves as I come across the lawn to the porch. The night is damp, the grass high, and the sound of cicadas is deafening. “Do you have anything to drink?” she asks expectantly, hopefully. One of us usually does have a bottle of something or other, and tonight it’s me so I go to my apartment and fetch a chilled bottle of vodka that I had bought because of its label: a picture of a turkey. I often choose my liquor or wine that way—because of how it looks, not its quality or price. Cigarette butts litter the floor of the porch, for Magdalena is charming, charismatic, and kind, and everyone wants to be around her; she exudes a kind of mystery, along with the sense that one has known her forever and intimately. Inside her odd, poorly maintained apartment, the floor is unfinished.
There is mold in the corners and alongside the walls. Dishes are unwashed and a box of empty liquor bottles sits in the middle of the room. Christmas lights blink on and off inside a large, outdated microwave. Magdalena’s drawings are on the wall beside the stove, Magdalena, whose laughter usually rings throughout the neighborhood, looks increasingly sad tonight. It is some kind of anniversary with someone beloved and seemingly lost to her. The night marks a year since a great love ended and a joyless emptiness followed in its place. Going through a similar loss in my present life, I greatly identify with her melancholy and we sit smoking in silence, cigarette after cigarette, pouring drink after drink into our not entirely clean glasses. We toast one another, but our hearts are not in it. We are hardly in a celebratory mood tonight. A moth whirs around the yellow flame of the candle. Frat boys call out drunkenly to one another at Sassy Anne’s, a bar off 4th and Gill. Drinking has lost its thrill for me, and I am thinking about quitting for awhile so I
BY MATTHEW FOLTZ-GRAY
54
KNOXVILLE MERCURY September 3, 2015
can see life’s great beauty clearly, instead of poisoned by a substance that more and more often seems to have lost its point. I throw down another shot and Magdalena does the same. “I’m tired of being alone,” Magdalena says, and I know well how alone one can be in a crowd—the meaninglessness of the chatter, the emptiness behind the hilarity. Magdalena goes inside and puts on a song by Odesza, “It’s Only,” and continues with a string of sad songs. We both shed a tear, thinking about our own recent wounds of people removing themselves from our lives when we thought they would be there forever. The halls that echo, the phones that do not ring, the lack of someone to share the news of the day with are all reminders of one’s aloneness. Magdalena and I are both old enough to know that the space left by the departure of one person can soon be filled by the arrival of another person, but the wait can seem interminable. I look through the pink, gold, and lavender gauze we have strung in front of Magdalena’s porch, over the Christmas lights on her porch. She begins to speak, head down, voice soft, so that I must lean forward to hear her. “I’m so tired,” she says. “I want to go home.” She looks at me with a resigned expression. “But I can’t. I have to complete
the mission I came for,” she says. Magdalena often talks like this. She claims she is not from this planet, and I believe her. In her real home, she says, she has a husband—and that although she communicates with him every day, it is not enough. “It’s not the same,” she says regretfully. I have never asked her what her mission is, but I suspect it has to do with bringing together misfits like those of us who gather on her porch each night. She gives us sustenance, wisdom, and comfort with her bright gypsy smile and joyous laughter. She virtually lifts the consciousness of everyone who comes in contact with her. A song from a Disney movie begins to play and Magdalena brightens, singing along and even getting up to dance. Her voice is beautiful and clear, her dance playful. I get up and dance with her, under the porch with the Christmas lights shimmering through the rain. Finally, in exhaustion, I leave to make my way along the short path towards home. Across the street, in an abandoned lot where weeds grow tall, angry, and fierce, a bunch of tall, enormous sunflowers have taken root. They stand and sway back and forth, regal and not a little defiant, as if to say: “We belong here, we are magnificent, and we cannot be kept down.” I salute the sunflowers for their majesty and walk inside my door, smiling within and without. Tomorrow there will be a new sun again. ◆
’BYE
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