Memphis Flyer - 7.13.23

SHARA CLARK

Editor

SAMUEL X. CICCI

Managing Editor

JACKSON BAKER, BRUCE VANWYNGARDEN

Senior Editors

TOBY SELLS

Associate Editor

KAILYNN JOHNSON

News Reporter

CHRIS MCCOY

Film and TV Editor

ALEX GREENE

Music Editor

MICHAEL DONAHUE, JON W. SPARKS

Staff Writers

ABIGAIL MORICI

Arts and Culture Editor

GENE GARD, EMILY GUENTHER, COCO JUNE, FRANK MURTAUGH

Contributing Columnists

SHARON BROWN, AIMEE STIEGEMEYER

Grizzlies Reporters

ANDREA FENISE

Fashion Editor

KENNETH NEILL

Founding Publisher

CARRIE BEASLEY

Senior Art Director

CHRISTOPHER MYERS

Advertising Art Director

NEIL WILLIAMS

Graphic Designer

JERRY D. SWIFT

Advertising Director Emeritus

KELLI DEWITT, CHIP GOOGE

Senior Account Executives

KALON AMBROSE

Account Executive

CHET HASTINGS

Warehouse and Delivery Manager

JANICE GRISSOM ELLISON, KAREN MILAM, DON MYNATT, TAMMY NASH, RANDY ROTZ, LEWIS TAYLOR, WILLIAM WIDEMAN

Distribution

THE MEMPHIS FLYER is published weekly by Contemporary Media, Inc.,

P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101

Phone: (901) 521-9000

Fax: (901) 521-0129 memphisflyer.com

CONTEMPORARY MEDIA, INC.

ANNA TRAVERSE FOGLE

Chief Executive O cer

LYNN SPARAGOWSKI

Controller/Circulation Manager

JEFFREY GOLDBERG

Chief Revenue Officer

MARGIE NEAL

Chief Operating Officer

KRISTIN PAWLOWSKI

Digital Services Director

MARIAH MCCABE

Circulation and Accounting Assistant

LILY BEASLEY

Marketing and Social Media Intern

Editor’s note: Flyer writers will occasionally share this space.

Greetings from the shores of Naromiyocknowhusunkatankshunk Brook. Not the literal shores, to be honest. I just wanted to work the name of that stream into my column. I’m actually down the road a couple of miles, near the little town of Sherman, Connecticut, where my wife and I rented an Airbnb for 10 days and are being visited o and on by our children and grandchildren who live in and around New York City.

Sherman is a quaint village (pop. 3,527) named a er Roger Sherman, the only person who signed all four founding documents of the United States, but you knew that. (I think he was also one of the stars of Rocky and Bullwinkle, but don’t quote me.) Anyway, Sherman, the town, has one intersection, a nearby boutique IGA and liquor store, and not much else, except lots of swell-looking white clapboard houses and zillions of orange day lilies everywhere.

According to Wikipedia, Sherman is home to Daryl Hall, Je rey Toobin, Diane von Furstenberg, and Rob Zombie, though we have not run into any of them during our stay.

Our Airbnb is pseudo-rustic and has lots of beds and futon couches spread over three levels, plus a couple of big decks to sit out on and enjoy the surrounding forest, so it’s been nice. e temperatures have been wonderful — low- to mid-70s — and the rain sparse enough to allow plenty of beach and shing time in the crystal waters of nearby Candlewood Lake. I have also spent some time y- shing in the melodiously named Squantz Pond, which is either a damn lake or the largest pond in America. Anyway, we are having good times.

Except for the smoke, and honestly, it’s only been really bad for one day. It seems we scheduled our vacation to happen just as those annoying Canadians began waing wild re detritus into the colonies again. (We really need to secure that border!) But it didn’t last long, so we held our breath and persevered.

We also timed our vacation to coincide with the hottest day on Earth since record-keeping began more than 40 years ago, according to scientists at the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer project, but that was just luck. Over the July 4th holiday, the global average temperature reached an all-time high of 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit. is followed a June that was the warmest on record, worldwide. e heat index 70 miles south of us in New York City was 100 degrees on Independence Day, even though the actual temperatures in Sherman and New York were not that far apart. e di erence being that we were in the woods, near cool water, and under tall, shady trees while New York’s concrete-and-exhaustlled hellscape was exacerbating the sun’s heat to near-intolerable levels.

Try

And, meanwhile in Memphis …

I pull up some local news sources on my laptop and read that things are pretty much in line with the new normal for summer: 100-degree days, one a er another. Oh boy, I think, I cannot wait to get back.

I nd myself heat-scrolling on what’s le of Twitter and end up reading a vox.com story called “Bus stops and playgrounds are too damn hot.” It addresses a problem that cities will increasingly deal with as temperatures rise over the next couple of decades: a lack of shade. It sounds simplistic, but it’s true. e temperature di erence between the corner of Union and Cooper and the center of Overton Park’s Old Forest — four blocks away — can be more than 20 degrees, according to a study conducted a few years back.

NEWS & OPINION

THE FLY-BY - 4

FINANCE - 7

AT LARGE - 10

COVER STORY

“REMAKING THE CITY” BY JACKSON BAKER - 8

WE RECOMMEND - 11

MUSIC - 12

AFTER DARK - 13

CALENDAR - 14

NY TIMES CROSSWORD - 14

SPORTS - 15

NEWS OF THE WEIRD - 16

ASTROLOGY - 17

METAPHYSICAL CONNECTION - 18

FOOD - 19

FILM- 20

CLASSIFIEDS - 22

LAST WORD - 23

While it’s true that Memphis is blessed with a canopy of trees over much of its landscape, we still need to ensure that public spaces such as bus stops and the like are adequately shaded. at would also include our public parks — making sure canopies, picnic shelters, or other shade options are plentiful, as well as water features such as sprinklers and wading pools. e days of frolicking in a big, open, unshaded space during the dog days of summer are behind us, Memphis. And for what it’s worth, the new Tom Lee Park is looking increasingly like genius — a project that’s gotten here just in time. Take it from Sherman.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphis yer.com

THE fly-by

{WEEK THAT WAS

By Flyer staff

Memphis on the internet.

MASS BAND

Do not sleep on the Memphis Mass Band and its Memphis Blue Heat dancers. e band brings young people and professionals together to showcase their skills and develop their talents.

e group recently competed at the Mayhem in the MECCA event in New Orleans. Check out the video if you’re a bandhead or just want to see another way Memphis is represented out in the world.

TO THE DOGS

We can’t resist a cool dog photo, especially this one. e Harbor Town environs prompted one to comment, “We get it, you’re rich.”

To which the OP responded, “I’m a dog sitter. So no.”

POSTED TO REDDIT BY U/PROFESSIONAL-AD4061

THE SKULL

inking of the Pyramid seen above, another Reddit user asked the real question last week in a post titled “Monkey Skull in the Pyramid.”

“Alright, which one of y’all messed with the monkey skull?” asked u/ Brocboy. “I don’t care about names, just put it back. is weather is insane.”

Now is a good time to nd our May 2021 story (in “ e ?s Issue”) on the skull, which was real but crystal, not a monkey. Ours is the realest, weirdest, fullest version of the skull story ever done.

It’s also a good time to watch Alex Jones’ insane InfoWars video about the Pyramid. Go for the skull curse story. Stay for the demon monkeys.

Questions, Answers + Attitude

Edited by Toby Sells

Guns, Rape Kits, & Test Scores

New records set for deaths and the s, faster testing times, and TCAPs rise again.

GUN THEFTS FROM CARS

Thefts of guns from cars reached a record high last year, according to the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission.

New data from the organization shows 2,441 guns were stolen from cars in 2022. at’s up from 2,042 guns stolen from cars in 2021.

In 2011, 287 guns were stolen from cars. From January to March 2023, 617 guns were stolen from cars.

“In 2014, the Tennessee General Assembly enacted legislation eliminating the need for a permit in order to possess a handgun in a vehicle,” reads a statement from the commission. “Since then, the the of handguns from vehicles has skyrocketed in Memphis.”

TEST SCORES IMPROVE AGAIN

Tennessee’s third set of test scores from the pandemic era improved again across all core subjects and grades, even exceeding pre-pandemic pro ciency rates in English language arts and social studies.

State-level results released last week showed an overall increase in pro ciency since last year for public school students, and a surge since 2021, when the rst test scores from the pandemic period declined dramatically across the nation.

But the performance of historically underserved students — including children with disabilities, those from low-income families, and students of color — still lags.

ose groups of students, who already trailed their peers before disruptions to schooling began in 2020, also spent the longest time learning remotely during the public health emergency caused by Covid-19.

e academic snapshot suggests that Tennessee’s early investments in summer learning camps and intensive tutoring are paying o to counter three straight years of Covidrelated disruptions.

GUN DEATHS REACH NEW RECORD

A new study by the nonpartisan Sycamore Institute found gun-related deaths in Tennessee rose to a record high in 2021, and they grew faster for children and Black Tennesseans.

e Tennessee-based policy center said guns killed 1,569

people in Tennessee in 2021, according to the latest data available. Suicides counted for more than half (52 percent) of those. Of homicides, guns were the leading cause of death for those aged 1 to 18. e rate of gun-related deaths of Black Tennesseans was almost three times higher than that of whites.

TBI SPEEDS RAPE KIT TESTING

e time it takes to test sexual assault kits in Tennessee has been cut nearly in half from last year, according to new data from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).

A new report shows results from state crime labs are now returned in 22.7 weeks on average. at’s down from an average of 45.4 weeks from August 2022.

The fresh data comes from new quarterly reports now required by legislation originally proposed by state Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis). The law sought to reduce testing times in the wake of the abduction and kidnapping of Eliza Fletcher. Her alleged assailant was matched to a DNA test from a sexual assault a year prior to the Fletcher case, but the DNA had not been tested in time to make an arrest.

e report said 476 sexual assault kits are now waiting to be tested. at’s down from a 12-month high of 1,005.

Chalkbeat Tennessee contributed to this report.

POSTED TO YOUTUBE BY SMASH TIME PRODUCTIONS

POSTED TO YOUTUBE BY UNNAMEABLE MEDIA

PHOTOS: CDC; MAX KLEINEN | UNSPLASH

e time it takes to test sexual assault kits in Tennessee has been cut nearly in half from last year; gun-related deaths in Tennessee reached a record high in 2021.

{CITY REPORTER

By Toby Sells

New Life, Old Buildings

Projects take shape Downtown for Dream Hotel, DeSoto Lo s.

The latest designs for the proposed Dream Hotel on Main Street emerged last week, as did plans for a former Masonic lodge on South Main.

Plans for a Dream Hotel to be built at 122 Main, the site of the former Royal Furniture store, emerged in 2019. Developers projected the hotel would be open in 2022. Plans changed and the developer sought new public incentives for the project.

e details came in the company’s application to the Downtown Memphis Commission’s (DMC) Design Review Board. at board will review the building’s new look in a meeting this week.

DeSoto Lo s

Developers are also planning the DeSoto Lo s at 154 G.E. Patterson on South Main. e $4.6 million project will create 10 one-bedroom lo s in the old building.

It will also become the new headquarters for UrbanARCH, the architectural rm involved in the new Concourse B at Memphis International Airport, Hotel Napoleon, and Snowden Grove Amphitheater.

e rm has been located on South Main since 2002. Its leaders say they want to stay in the area “but with 12 full-time employees, they must relocate in order to have room for growth.”

The project adds a tower above the existing structure. The new, 10-story building will house seven floors of hotel rooms and three floors of luxury apartments.

“Dream Hotel is cultivating a Memphis-centric, mixed-use hotel development ful lling local and international interests in adventurous dining and cultural experiences,” reads the application for the project. “ e new hotel entrance on Gayoso Avenue draws upon the late art deco architecture style of the existing mid-century modern building and introduces a splash of color to a material palette derived from the building’s historic use — the 1947 Black and White Department Store.”

“Entrances to the signature brasserie restaurant and luxurious cocktail bar will be emphasized along Main Street’s pedestrian street by extending the existing vertical windows to the ground plane, where the building edge will be lined with outdoor restaurant seating covered by the existing marquee canopy.”

e abandoned building there was once the site of the DeSoto Hotel, built in 1913, and hosted hotel guests for about 50 years.

“ e structure once served underprivileged travelers and railroad personnel from the nearby Union and Central train stations,” reads the application from the company.

Since the early ’70s, the building has been known as the Prince Hall Fellowship Masonic Lodge, the company said.

UrbanARCH is seeking a 10-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deal from the DMC. e DMC sta supports the project as it preserves and reuses a historic building, strengthens the connection between South Main and South City, brings new residents to Downtown, and helps retain an established Downtown business.

e request was slated to be reviewed by a DMC board this week.

PHOTOS: DOWNTOWN MEMPHIS COMMISSION Dream Hotel/DeSoto Lo s

An Experience Service

If you work with a financial planner, here are three tips to help you feel confident and reassured.

In economics, goods and services can be divided into three different categories based on how they can be evaluated: search goods, experience goods, and credence goods.

Search goods have qualities you know before purchasing. For example, any brand of basic iodized table salt at the grocery store is likely to be similar with no surprises.

Experience goods can be judged only after purchase. You might love a particular restaurant, but until you order today’s special (and taste it!), you won’t know for sure if you’re going to like it.

Credence goods are goods you aren’t able to assess even after experiencing or consuming them. A good example of this is vitamin supplements — you have to trust your daily multivitamin brand will contain what it’s supposed to because you can’t easily verify it.

Financial services include aspects of all three concepts, but, ultimately, advisors largely provide a credence experience. This is true of most service professions, like your doctor, lawyer, accountant, or auto mechanic. You wouldn’t likely hire these experts if you were a world-class expert in each of these fields, so it’s difficult for you to assess the quality of services provided (especially when uncertainty is involved).

If you get audited by the IRS, are you unlucky or did your accountant push boundaries that got you flagged? If you lose a lawsuit, was your lawyer ineffective or was your case unwinnable? For services like these, you’ll probably never truly know the answer — you simply have to do your due diligence and make the best decision you can without knowing how things will turn out in the end.

If you work with a financial planner, here are three tips that might move you from wondering if you’re on the right track (the credence zone) to feeling confident and reassured (the experience zone).

• Understand what you’re going to receive. If your advisor suggests they can consistently beat the market by a large margin, you’re both likely to be in for disappointment. Ironically, the desire to achieve market-beating investment performance year after year is one of the worst reasons to hire a financial professional. In my opinion, the best financial advisors focus on all the things you can control, like tax planning, estate planning, asset location, tax-loss harvesting, and making sure your spending and saving is on

track for your future. Prudent, consistent participation in markets without drastic allocation swings or frequent moves to cash is enough to put most investors far ahead of the pack.

• Differentiate the signal from the noise. A 99 percent successful medical procedure performed on a million patients will produce around 10,000 disappointed people who wonder if they were unlucky or suffered some sort of malpractice. In the same way, signing up with a new financial advisor in 2001, 2008, or February 2020 would likely have been disappointing in the short term, but the right advisor would have helped you weather the storm and make the right choices in the inevitable, incredible recoveries that followed.

• Be all in. In my experience, the most satisfied clients of financial advisors are those who are open to new ideas and eager to help their advisor optimize all aspects of their financial lives. Some people feel they aren’t getting value from service providers unless they’re constantly critical and indignant, but a myopic focus on minutiae and minor deviations in short-term investment returns will shift important focus from larger opportunities. Time is not unlimited, and every moment spent agonizing over insignificant details is a moment that could be spent on something more constructive.

Like any service profession, the quality of financial advice is hard to assess — even after experiencing it. Along with the tips above, I believe the most satisfied clients are processoriented rather than outcome-oriented. If you have a solid financial plan and investment process with an attentive and adaptable advisor, you should be able to withstand a downturn in the markets, unexpected expenses, or even temporary unemployment. Working with your financial advisor to make the best possible choices now, regardless of future unknowns, will help you shift your relationship from the credence zone to the experience zone.

Gene Gard, CFA, CFP, CFT-I, is a Partner and Private Wealth Manager with Creative Planning. Creative Planning is one of the nation’s largest Registered Investment Advisory firms providing comprehensive wealth management services to ensure all elements of a client’s financial life are working together, including investments, taxes, estate planning, and risk management. For more information or to request a free, no-obligation consultation, visit CreativePlanning.com.

a Southeast Financial personal loan. It’s your loan, your way!

DREAMSTIME.COM

REMAKING THE CITY

Depending on how one looks at it, the 2023 Memphis city election, which concludes on October 5th, has been underway for at least a year, is gathering steam, or is just getting started.

ere are 14 positions at stake — 13 for the Memphis City Council, and one for the city mayor. What had seemed to be a 15th race — that for city court clerk — will apparently be resolved via council appointment instead on the advice of council attorney Allan Wade.

e most immediate deadline for candidates to keep in mind is July 20th at noon. at’s the ling deadline for the aforementioned 14 positions. e last day for withdrawing a ling will be one week later, on July 27th, also at noon.

ere’s a deadline for voter registration, too. at’ll be September 5th, and, as they say, it’ll get here before you know it. Close upon the heels — or cartwheels, if you’d rather — of that date will be the start of early voting on September 15th, and election day itself, again, will be October 5th.

ere had been serious e orts by both council members and members of the public to redraw the district lines on the election map, but in the end the council resolved to keep the old district map, circa 2022.

e Election Commission began issuing candidate petitions back on May 22nd, and a provisional eld of sorts can be divined from a scan of the list so far.

MAYOR’S RACE

As of July 4th, there were 16 wouldbe candidates for mayor, of whom a relative handful can be taken seriously — meaning that they possess a convincing mix of credentials, supporter network, nancial status, and campaign preparedness.

Such polls as have been circulated — all of them helpful, none of them de nitive — suggest that the leading contenders at this point are Sheri Floyd Bonner, Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, NAACP president and former County Commissioner Van Turner, and former Mayor Willie Herenton.

A little sugar and a few grains of salt regarding each:

• Floyd Bonner may have begun the race last year as something of a favorite, based on his having been the leading vote-getter in the last two county elections. He soaked up a lot of early fundraising cash to go with his holdover stash from those earlier elections. (Both he and rival Young have cash on hand at the moment in the half-million-dollar range.) And his standing as a law enforcement gure looms large in a voter environment anxious about crime.

But he has started the race cautiously, holding back both on public appearances and on his spending in anticipation of the stretch to come. And, though he is a teddy bear personally, he can anticipate some degree of ak from protesters on the le who would

PHOTO: JACKSON BAKER Van Turner

PHOTO: JACKSON BAKER Paul Young

PHOTO: JACKSON BAKER Willie Herenton

PHOTO: COURTESY FLOYD BONNER CAMPAIGN Floyd Bonner

The opportunity is ahead for Memphians to pick a new mayor and reshu e city council.

COVER STORY By Jackson Baker IRATCEVA |

challenge his jail policies and exploit the fallout of several incidents involving harm or death to suspects.

• Paul Young is leading all comers in fundraising and rarely if ever takes any time o from campaigning. He has abundant support from the city’s business elite and the managerial nexus of city government, having served astride the seam of development policy in both city and county jobs.

He has all kinds of momentum. He professes a disinterest in politics as such and a desire merely “to do the work.”

It is an open question, however, whether — as someone who, to the general public, had been largely an unknown — Young has yet reached the plateau of name recognition necessary to achieve his goal. He certainly has the funding on hand for a late-campaign blitz to get there.

• Van Turner has been regarded for years as a potential candidate for mayor, and, as a former Democratic chairman, has a standing among that party’s activists that is unequaled by any other candidates.

Moreover, his NAACP credentials and his highly visible involvement in the public response to the Tyre Nichols tragedy and other such incidents, as well as his still remembered role in the liquidation of the city’s Confederate memorials, helps to undergird his stature.

Turner has been polling well and hopes to garner a signi cant share of the city’s majority Black vote — which, however, will be targeted by (and split with) several other candidates.

His major concern has to be that reality, as well as the fact that his fundraising (in the general vicinity of $200,000, tops) has lagged relative to that of Bonner and Young.

• Willie Herenton is iconic in the true sense of that term. He embodies one of the signal African-American triumphs of modern times via his 1991 upset victory to become Memphis’ rst elected Black mayor. And his subsequent reelections — at four-year intervals, 1995 through 2007 — both enhanced and tarnished his aura.

Now 83, he is making a seventh race for mayor (he nished second to Jim Strickland in his sixth one, in 2019). No one expects him to win; toward the end of his long tenure, he had alienated too many voters through his arrogance and through increasingly indi erent administrative oversight. But he was never a patsy, and his hold on a large bloc of African-American voters remains impressive. Never mind that he eschews both forums and fundraising. He still polls well, and he’ll in uence this election one way or another, especially given his vow to apply “tough love” to youthful criminals.

at’s the list your winner is likely to come from, but others persist in longshot hopes.

Foremost among these is probably philanthropist/developer J.W. Gibson, who has made little headway so far, but has pockets deep enough to improve his scenario to some extent. Newly aboard to assist him is longtime consultant Susan Adler orp, whose rst task is surely to help Gibson nd a persuasive message.

Also still alive and kicking (if barely) is City Councilman Frank Colvett, a GOP moderate who began the race with support from a minority of the available Republican vote, and, despite a valiant e ort at scantily-attended local forums, hasn’t improved it enough to boost his chances, even as a spoiler.

School Board member Michelle McKissack was a theoretical dark-horse prospect back in the day and has had a couple of decent fundraising urries, but she, too, has not managed to escape the second tier.

Karen Camper, the Democrats’ minority leader in the state House, was doomed from the start. Her considerable abilities were obvious only to those few voters who pay itemized attention to legislative matters, and she was prohibited as a legislator from raising any money while the General Assembly was in session.

Another lost cause is James Harvey, an eccentric but an able one who, as a former Democrat pitching to hard-line Republicans on the crime issue, simply

doesn’t have a viable audience.

And there’s Joe Brown, the former judge and syndicated TV personality who lost his audience and whose unstable campaign is guaranteed to self-destruct at some point.

And what would appear to be the last mayoral petition pulled last week was by the wealthy radiologist/broadcaster George Shea Flinn, who has by now run for congressional, mayoral, and U.S. Senate seats. Could he have found the magic formula this time?

CITY COUNCIL

As we approach the aforementioned late-July ling/withdrawal deadlines, the lineups for council positions are still very much in ux.

Although several of the emerging lineups have been openly declared, several of them, too, are highly provisional, with

more than a few would-be candidates having drawn multiple petitions in several di erent races.

In council District 1, encompassing Raleigh and much of northeastern Memphis, incumbent Rhonda Logan has two apparent challengers at this point — Kymberly Kelley, about whom little is known, and Michael R. Williams, a longtime police union representative with good name recognition. A genuine race could develop here.

In council District 2, an open seat in a majority white East Memphis area held at present by mayoral candidate Colvett, who was term-limited, at least 10 candidates have pulled petitions so far. Of these, former Probate Clerk Paul Boyd and erstwhile district candidate Marvin White have name recognition. So do former Councilman Scott McCormick, aiming at a comeback, and Jerri Mauldin Green, policy advisor to County Mayor Lee Harris and a recent candidate for the legislature.

In council District 3 (Whitehaven, Hickory Hill), where incumbent Patrice Robinson is term-limited, there are seven entries so far, with most attention going to three candidates — Ricky Dixon, Rev. James Kirkwood (a former ranking MPD o cer), and environmentalist/activist Pearl Walker.

Council District 4 (Central Memphis, including Central Gardens and Orange Mound) pits the two most recent

holders of the seat against each

PHOTO: COURTESY PHILIP SPINOSA e Spinosas — l to r, son Bradford, wife Sarah, Philip, son Graham

PHOTO: COURTESY MEGGAN KIEL e Kiels — l to r, son Ben, Meggan, daughter Sadie, husband Daniel

PHOTO: COURTESY BERLIN BOYD Berlin Boyd

PHOTO: JACKSON BAKER Brian Harris

PHOTO: JACKSON BAKER Jerred Price continued on page 10

other — Teri Dockery, who was briefly an appointed council member following former incumbent Jamita Swearengen’s departure to become Circuit Court Clerk, and current incumbent Jana Swearengen-Washington, winner of a special election to succeed her sister. Dockery faced council discipline during her brief tenure.

Council District 5 (Midtown, East Memphis) presents what will by all odds be the most intensely contested and costly race on this year’s council ballot.

Although a novice candidate, Luke Hatler, has also picked up a petition, the race for this important swing district will be between two formidable candidates, former Councilman Philip Spinosa and much ballyhooed newcomer Meggan Wurzburg Kiel. Spinosa shades moderate Republican, and Kiel, a veteran of MICAH (Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope), represents a progressive constituency. Both are amply endowed with financial and network support.

District 6 (South Memphis westward) is a longtime Ford-family bailiwick, and current incumbent Edmund Ford Sr. should have an easy time of it. Once again, among those opposing him is LGBTQ figure Davin Clemons, an ex-MPD officer who enjoyed support

in 2019 from County Mayor Lee Harris and may again.

In District 7 (Downtown, Frayser, North Memphis) incumbent Michalyn Easter-Thomas finds her legal underpinning being questioned by those (reportedly including council attorney Allan Wade) who see a likely conflict of interest between her council position and her new position with the Memphis River Parks Partnership, a city affiliate.

Hoping something comes of this are several potential opponents already, and there may be more to come.

THE SUPER-DISTRICTS

The result of a judicial compromise decreed back in the early ’90s by the late Judge Jerome Turner, the two superdistricts, incorporating three seats apiece, each represent roughly half the city’s population — one, to the east, predominantly white in population, the other, on the west side, predominantly Black. That was the original idea, anyhow; the population ratio is persistently shifting in both districts, with African Americans gaining in both spheres, at least marginally.

As is the case with the mayoralty, winner-take-all is the rule with these seats, there being no runoff allowed.

District 8-1 is held by the ever-voluble, front-foot-forward JB Smiley Jr., and there are no takers against him so far.

There’s a different story in District 8-2,

where incumbent Cheyenne Johnson has drawn a petition for reelection but has given almost everyone the impression that she intends ultimately to withdraw.

Tentative petitions have been drawn by the likes of businessman and former Councilman Berlin Boyd, the aforesaid Davin Clemons, and entertainer/activist Jerred Price, but all these candidates are considered more likely to run in District 8-3, where they have also drawn petitions.

A strong rumor has it that former district attorney candidate Janika White is ready to run in 8-2 as soon as Johnson withdraws, if indeed that should occur.

In District 8-3, several people have drawn petitions — but the race is expected to come down to former Councilman Boyd, Price, and Brian Harris, an “omni channel director” with Best Buy.

In District 9-1, incumbent Chase Carlisle seems to have acquired an opponent in one Benjamin Smith, a dance-hall entrepreneur, but remains heavily favored.

At this point (though things could definitely change), both Ford Canale in District 9-2 and Dr. Jeff Warren in District 9-3 remain unopposed.

A CHANCE FOR CHANGE

There were will definitely be a new look to city government as of the election aftermath — beginning with the next executive and whomever he or she chooses to appoint to leadership roles. And there are

differences that the times have brought to the auditioning process. But there is no indication yet that the mainstream of city government will shift in some unimaginable new direction. There will still be an acceptably biracial dimension to the city council, for example, though arguments will continue as to what the right proportion should be.

But change is notoriously unpredictable (think only of the recent pandemic, of the havoc it wreaked and the unforeseen adaptations that ensued in its wake). The issues that candidates run on may not be the ones that confront us in the future.

In any case, the chance to remake will soon be upon us, and the opportunity to choose should not be passed up.

We Need Your Help!

As Memphis prepares to elect a new mayor Oct. 5th, public safety — defined not just as crime and police violence, but feeling secure in your home and the city — is on everyone’s mind. The Memphis Flyer and MLK50: Justice Through Journalism are partnering on a series of stories examining the state of public safety in our city, and we want to know what’s important to you. Go to memphisflyer.com or MLK50.com to fill out a short survey letting us know what questions you have for the candidates. We’ll get the answers you need to make an informed decision in this election.

steppin’ out

We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews

Gotta Catch ’Em All

By Abigail Morici

Some collect baseball cards; others collect Pokemon cards. For Alex Paulus, a kid in the ’90s, it was Marvel trading cards. “ at was my favorite thing when I was a kid,” he says. “ ey were like these fully rendered oil paintings of Marvel characters.” Little did he know that his childhood hobby would inspire him to start a new kind of trading card in Memphis, almost three decades later.

In 2020, when lockdown rolled around and boredom took over, the artist explains, he had an itch to return to those Marvel cards that had once excited him, so he purchased a box of them. “I found out that in one of the packs in the box, you could get an original hand-drawn piece of art on a trading card,” Paulus says. “And I got one of those cards. I was like, ‘Oh man, this is really cool.’ … So that kind of gave me the idea of what if I could buy a pack and it was just lled with all of these handmade cards and how cool that would be.”

Paulus, as it turns out, wasn’t the rst to think of creating trading cards with original art.

at honor belongs to a Swiss artist, M. Vänçi Stirnemann, who in 1996 initiated an ongoing and now worldwide performance whereby artists of all backgrounds create, collect, sell, and trade self-made unique works, 2.5-by-3.5 inches in size.

Inspired by this, Paulus became determined to bring the phenomenon to Memphis and started the Artist Trading Cards Memphis group, with local artists creating their own tiny art to sell and trade. In March, the group hosted their rst event and are now gearing up for their second, this time at Crosstown Art Bar. e goal, Paulus explains, is to “inspire others to make their own artist trading cards and become part of the performance, too.”

For the event, a few artists will sell their limited-edition 2.5-by-3.5-inch works at a ordable prices, some as low as $10. Some will sell them individually, and others will sell them in packs. Some cards you’ll be able to see before purchasing, and others will be a surprise. Some packs will even have golden tickets for full-sized artwork if you’re lucky. Of course, you’ll be able to trade cards with other collectors at the event, and you can even bring in your own 2.5-by-3.5-inch works to trade for the last hour from 8 to 9 p.m.

Participating artists, along with Paulus, include Mary Jo Karimnia, Sara Moseley, Nick Peña, Tad Lauritzen Wright, and Michelle Fair. “ ese are legit gallery-showing artists who are making these,” Paulus says of the artists. “It’s not just getting our friends who like to doodle on stu .”

Keep up with the group on Instagram (@artisttradingcardsmemphis).

ARTIST TRADING CARD EVENT, CROSSTOWN ART BAR, SUNDAY, JULY 16, 6-9 P.M.

VARIOUS DAYS & TIMES July 13th - 19th

Attic Sale! Kick-o

Day

Woodru -Fontaine House Museum, Saturday, July 15, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

e Woodru -Fontaine House Museum is cleaning out its attic, and it’s ready to part with antiques, project pieces, china, crystal, table linens, contemporary decor for parties/events, and so much more. Stop by the sale this Saturday to purchase your own piece of history.

e sale will continue weekends throughout the month of July or until everything has been sold.

Memphis Wing Chun Boxing SelfDefense Workshop

Overton Park, Saturday, July 15, 10 a.m.-1:15 p.m.

MWCBA is providing a free self-defense workshop. Weather permitting, the location is at Overton Park by the green picnic bench across from the old Memphis College of Art.

Hit Girls: Women’s of Punk in the USA with Jen B. Larson

Memphis Listening Lab, Saturday, July 15, 3 p.m.

Celebrate the history of punk rock and the women who helped shape it at this book event. Author Jen B. Larson will discuss her book Hit Girls, answer questions, and sign copies. Joining Larson is the legendary Memphis band, e Klitz, who will discuss their career and renewed interest in their music.

Andria Lisle will moderate the discussion. DJ Liz Lane will play women’s punk before and a er the event.

Library Love Is Permanent

Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, Monday, July 17, noon-8 p.m. Show your love for the library with some ink at this adult and kidfriendly event on National Tattoo Day. Local tattoo artists from Tril-

ogy and Blu City Tattoo are o ering their book-themed tattoos for $100, with all proceeds supporting MPL programming. Temporary tattoos and henna art will be available for those not looking for permanent ink. Plus, there’ll be an exhibit to learn the history of tattooing around the world.

Summer Art Garden: Kong Wee Pang Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Wednesday, July 19, 6-7:30 p.m., included with admission

For the Brooks’s inaugural Summer Art Garden, the museum presents the work of Kong Wee Pang, a multi-disciplinary artist from Malaysia who lives and works in Memphis. For the launch of the Art Garden, there will be live music by DJ AD, happy hour drink specials, games on the plaza, and more!

PHOTO: ARTIST TRADING CARDS MEMPHIS

A trading card by Alex Paulus

For a Reason

e duo, e Stupid Reasons, records a post-punk/’80s-inspired album.

You’ve got to love a band named “ e Stupid Reasons.”

at’s the duo that features Gus Carrington, 29, on guitar and Daniel Wasmund, 29, on drums. ey’re working on a new album, rough to You, at Easley McCain Recording.

The band name comes from one of Carrington’s old journal entries: “Well, you need to do whatever it is that makes you happy. Whether playing video games or watching stupid movies, you have to find stupid reasons to be happy.”

Carrington used the stage name e Stupid Reasons when he played solo gigs at singer-songwriter nights.

It’s always been music for Carrington. “My parents have footage of me standing at point-blank range staring at the TV screen at the Beatles movie, Yellow Submarine,” Carrington says. “I think I had hair in that footage, so maybe [I was] 4 or 5.”

“ri ng through ‘Stranglehold.’” ey began jamming together when Wasmund discovered Carrington played bass. “I honestly thought I wanted to play bass and scream in a thrash metal band at the time,” Carrington says. “ ey were very much more bluesy Hendrix licks. We tried to run through ‘Seek & Destroy’ by Metallica with no drums. at’s how that one went. And then Kyle started doing ‘Voodoo Child.’ And I hopped on the drums. And Wasmund started ri ng the solo.”

He and Carrington have been in numerous bands together, including a current one, Bigger Fish, Wasmund says. “It started with What’s in a Name, evolved into e Jetpack Crew a couple of years later, and then pretty much a er that started e Stupid Reasons.”

“I wrote all about feeling like a petunia in an onion patch. And then I modernized it: ‘I feel like a Ferrari in a used car lot.’”

Carrington describes (Petunias) as “a collection of songs written over di erent time periods in my life.”

“We were wrapping up (Petunias) when me and Daniel decided, ‘Hey, it kind of works for us to play as a two piece. Let’s just jam.’ All the songs on the second album are from us just jamming together.”

e new record will be a “full concept album,” Carrington says. “Inspired by post-punk and ’80s.”

Wasmund was about 10 when his parents got him his rst guitar. “And, as cheesy as it is, I think I heard Jimi Hendrix play once and I was like, ‘I want to be like that. I want to make those sounds,’” Wasmund says.

Carrington met Wasmund at an eighth grade dance. Wasmund and his friend, Kyle Owens, brought their guitars and amps to the dance, but they weren’t allowed to bring them inside. “ ey found two outlets in front of the school,” Carrington says. “Plugged it up. It sounded like there were some elephants here. Some loud animals running around White Station Middle School.”

Rather, it was Wasmund and Owens

(Petunias) was the title of e Stupid Reasons’ rst album, which they recorded with a slew of other musicians from 2019 to 2022. Carrington’s song, “Petunias ( e Break Room Song),” was inspired by the gira e keeper at Memphis Zoo, where he worked as a tram driver. He was talking to her about how he was frustrated because he was stuck at work and he couldn’t play bass for the recording of Blvck Hippie’s selftitled EP that day. “She hit me with this phrase I had never heard before. She said, ‘Well, you must feel like a petunia in an onion patch.’ I said, ‘You know, Shirley, that’s exactly how I feel.’ And I had that song drop out of me.

Songs include “Passing rough,” which is “about somebody passing through your life romantically. And being at peace with that for a change. Instead of holding onto it and being bitter, but appreciating that experience and that chapter in your life even though it’s done.”

Lyrics include, “Passing through my life like a harmony I can’t return to. at’s you.”

For the new album, he and Wasmund are eshing out some ideas on how to take the music to “new sonic places,” Carrington says.

e Stupid Reasons will perform July 26th at the Hi Tone Cafe at 282-284 North Cleveland Street; (901) 490-0335.

“ … you have to find stupid reasons to be happy.”

— Gus Carrington

PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE Gus Carrington and Daniel Wasmund

MUSIC By Michael Donahue

Aidan Canfield

Friday, July 14, 8 p.m.

TIN ROOF

Ashton Riker & the Memphis Royals

ursday, July 13, 8 p.m.

B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB

Baunie & Soul

Sunday, July 16, 7-11 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Brimstone Jones

Sunday, July 16, noon-3 p.m.

LOFLIN YARD

Charlotte Taylor

Saturday, July 15, 6-9 p.m.

CENTRAL BBQ

Chris Gales

Friday, July 14, 4-7 p.m.;

Saturday, July 15, 4-7 p.m.;

Sunday, July 16, 3:30-6:30 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

David Ingle

Sunday, July 16, 6-8 p.m.

SILKY O’SULLIVAN’S

Denver Massey

ursday, July 13, 8 p.m.

TIN ROOF

Divercity

ursday, July 13, 4:30 p.m.;

Sunday, July 16, 8 p.m.;

Wednesday, July 19, 8 p.m.

B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB

Dueling Pianos

ursday, July 13, 7-11 p.m.;

Friday, July 14, 7-11 p.m.;

Saturday, July 15, 7-11 p.m.;

Tuesday, July 18, 7-11 p.m.;

Wednesday, July 19, 7-11 p.m.

SILKY O’SULLIVAN’S

Eric Hughes

ursday, July 13, 7-11 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Flic’s Pic’s Band

Saturday, July 15, 4:30 p.m.

B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB

Free World

Friday, July 14, 8 p.m.midnight; Saturday, July 15, 8 p.m.-midnight.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Future and Friends

ursday, July 13, 7 p.m.

FEDEXFORUM

Gavin Sumrall

Friday, July 14, 6 p.m.; Saturday, July 15, 3:45 p.m.

TIN ROOF

Jarred Kingrey

Saturday, July 15, 7 p.m.

TIN ROOF

Jason Foree Band

Friday, July 14, 12:30 p.m.;

Monday, July 17, noon; Tues-

day, July 18, 4:30 p.m.

B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB

Lee Holiday and Shelley

Brown

Tuesday, July 18, 6-9 p.m.

CENTRAL BBQ

Matt Bennett

Friday, July 14, 10:30 p.m.

TIN ROOF

Memphis Jones

Friday, July 14, 5 p.m.;

Monday, July 17, 4:30 p.m.;

Wednesday, July 19, 2 p.m.

B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB

AFTER DARK: Live Music Schedule July 13 - 19

Mule Man

Friday, July 14, 12:30-3:30 p.m.; Saturday, July 15, 12:303:30 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Peabody Rooftop Party: Bluff City Bandits

$15. ursday, July 13, 6 p.m.

THE PEABODY HOTEL

Redd Thomas

Sunday, July 16, noon-3 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Rooster Revival

Saturday, July 15, 2-5 p.m.

OLD DOMINICK DISTILLERY

Soul St. Mojo

Wednesday, July 19, 7-11 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

The B.B. King’s Blues Club All-Star Band

Friday, July 14, 9 p.m.; Monday, July 17, 8 p.m.; Tuesday, July 18, 8 p.m.

B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB

The Blues Trio

Saturday, July 15, noon; Tuesday, July 18, noon; Wednesday, July 19, 4:30 p.m.

B.B. KING’S BLUES CLUB

The Stax Music Academy

Alumni Band, 926

Free. Tuesday, July 18, 2-4 p.m.

STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL

MUSIC

Vince Johnson

Monday, July 17, 7-11 p.m.;

Tuesday, July 18, 7-11 p.m.

RUM BOOGIE CAFE

Laser Live featuring Corey Lou & Da Village

Laser Live features Memphis musicians live in the full dome planetarium, accompanied by a full laser light show. $15/ members, $18/nonmembers.

Saturday, July 15, 7-9:30 p.m.

MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY

Live at the Garden: Brothers Osborne

Friday, July 14, 6 p.m.

RADIANS AMPHITHEATER AT MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN

Martin & Taylor

ursday, July 13, 6 p.m.

FOX RIDGE PIZZA

Medium Walter

Sunday, July 16, 3-9 p.m.

HUEY’S POPLAR

69 Elements Of Seduction Takeover With Alondus Anderson and Antonio Hobson. Wednesday, July 19, 7:30 p.m.

MEMPHIS MUSIC ROOM

Adrianne Black Song Bird & Diamonique

Jackson

Saturday, July 15, noon-4 p.m.

PERIGNONS RESTAURANT & EVENT

CENTER

Deb Jam Band & Erek

Stone

Tuesday, July 18, 6-10 p.m.

NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM

Elevation Memphis

Saturday, July 15, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

ELWOOD’S SHACK

Elmo & the Shades

Wednesday, July 19, 7-11 p.m.

NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM

Fleetwood Mac Tribute

Friday, July 14, 8 p.m.; Saturday, July 15, 8 p.m.

NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM

Guitar Heroes Summer Laser Shows - U2 and Metallica

Watch the guitar come to life like never before and try your hand at interactive instruments.

$13. Friday, July 14, 7-9:30 p.m.

MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY

High Point

Sunday, July 16, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S SOUTHWIND John Williams and the A440 Band

$10. ursday, July 13, 8 p.m.

NEIL’S MUSIC ROOM

156, Silence, L.M.I., Anemoia, Feral God

$14. Tuesday, July 18, 8 p.m.

HI TONE

Antisoma, Ben Ricketts, Mudshow

$5. Friday, July 14, 9 p.m.

HI TONE Basketcase

Friday, July 14, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Bleached Cross, Jadewick, Public Strain

$10. Sunday, July 16, 8 p.m.

HI TONE

Carlos Ecos Band

Saturday, July 15, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Devil Train

ursday, July 13, 9:30 p.m.

B-SIDE

Emo Memphis: Summer Bummer

$10. Saturday, July 15, 9 p.m.

HI TONE

Etran de L’Air

$17/advance, $20/DOS. Saturday, July 15, 7 p.m.

GROWLERS

Frankie Hollie

Saturday, July 15, 2 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Jazz in the Galleries: Saturday Series

In partnership with Memphis Jazz Workshop — enjoy good

jazz in the galleries. Saturday, July 15, noon-2 p.m.

MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART

JD Westmoreland Band

Monday, July 17, 10 p.m.

B-SIDE

Jed Harrelson, Wyly Bigger

$10. ursday, July 13, 9 p.m.

HI TONE

Joe Restivo

Saturday, July 15, 11 a.m.;

Sunday, July 16, 11 a.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Kafe Kirk: The Gospel

According to Jazz Edition

Join Grammy-winning saxophonist Kirk Whalum an ongoing jazz series featuring musical and spiritual collaborations with special guest artists.

$45. Sunday, July 16, 6 p.m.

CROSSTOWN THEATER

Kevin & Bethany Paige

Saturday, July 15, 10 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Kitty Dearing & The Dagnabbits

Friday, July 14, 6 p.m.

CROSSTOWN BREWING COMPANY

Live Summer Series with Justin Williams, Cheyenne Mars, and Jeff Pruitt

Presented by Memphis Local.

Friday, July 14, 9 p.m.

BAR DKDC

Louder Than Bombs

Louder an Bombs performs e Smiths and Morrissey.

Saturday, July 15, 8 p.m.

BLUE MONKEY

Negro Terror

Saturday, July 15, 9 p.m.

B-SIDE

Owlbear, Mike Hewlett & The Racket, Freeloader

Friday, July 14, 9 p.m.

B-SIDE

Pat Travers Band

Wednesday, July 19, 7 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Pinstock, Call a Lie!, The Heavy Pour

Wednesday, July 19, 8 p.m.

HI TONE

Play Some Skynyrd

ursday, July 13, 7 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Queen Ann Hines

Friday, July 14, 8-10 p.m.

RAILGARTEN

Reggaeton Party:

Gasolina

Gasolina is dedicated to creating a community within the reggaeton and Latin music scene. 18+. $15/advance, $20/ DOS. Friday, July 14, 9 p.m.

BLACK LODGE

Ryes: Bad Bunny + Peso Pluma Night

Friday, July 14, 9 p.m.

MINGLEWOOD HALL

Sanctuary of Shadows

Goth DJs

Saturday, July 15, 10 p.m.

BAR DKDC

Scott Sudbury

Monday, July 17, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Shara’s Songwriter Showcase

Tuesday, July 18, 6 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Slamhound, The Righteous Felons, Fading Memories

$10. Saturday, July 15, 9 p.m.

HI TONE

SooperFlat

Saturday, July 15, 8:30 p.m.

THE COVE

Souls of Mischief 30th

Anniversary Tour with Lukah

$25-$30. Sunday, July 16, 9 p.m.

HI TONE

Stabbing, Severe Headwound, A Dead Current

$12. Monday, July 17, 8 p.m.

HI TONE Starbenders & the Haunt

$18-$20. ursday, July 13, 6 p.m.

GROWLERS

Star & Micey

Celebrate the past 15 years of Star & Micey with performances by Star & Micey and Jesse Wilcox of Daykisser, featuring an exhibit by Karen Mulford.

$10. Saturday, July 15, 6 p.m.

MEMPHIS CURRENT

Stephen Marley, plus Subatomic Sound System

Tuesday, July 18, 8 p.m.

MINGLEWOOD HALL

Summer Cookout with Matt Woods and Alexis

Jade

Food is included with $15 donation for the musicians!

BYOB!

Saturday, July 15, 6 p.m.

THE GARDEN STAGE

The New Pacemakers

Sunday, July 16, 3:30 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

The Pinch

Sunday, July 16, 8 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Twin Soul

Friday, July 14, 10 p.m.

LAFAYETTE’S MUSIC ROOM

Vintage Blonde with No Debrief and Zach Farrow

$10. Monday, July 17, 6 p.m.

GROWLERS

VirgoTwins (Chicago) with LordByronSound and KLR

$10. Monday, July 17, 5-8 p.m.

LAMPLIGHTER LOUNGE

Wyly Bigger

Saturday, July 15, 8 p.m.

RAILGARTEN

Wyly Bigger & The Coyotes (Acoustic)

Friday, July 14, 6-9 p.m.

COOPER HOUSE PROJECT

20th Annual Tri-State Blues Festival

e lineup will feature Tucka, Calvin Richardson, King George, Chick Rodgers, Pokey Bear, J-Wonn, and Bobby Rush. Wednesday, July 19, 6:30 p.m.

LANDERS CENTER

Duane Cleveland Band

Sunday, July 16, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S OLIVE BRANCH

Screamer, Rachel Maxann, Deanna Dixon

Saturday, July 15, 8 p.m.

HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY

Susan Marshall, David Cousar, Art Edmaiston, Pee Wee Jackson

$10. Sunday, July 16, 3 p.m.

HERNANDO’S HIDE-A-WAY

The Waymores

$10/advance, $12/DOS. Friday, July 14, 8 p.m.

HERNANDO’S HIDEAWAY

Twin Soul Duo

Sunday, July 16, 6-9 p.m.

HUEY’S SOUTHAVEN

Bluegrass on the Collierville Square

Bring a chair and have a picnic. Free family fun open to all spectators. Musicians welcome. Acoustic only. Friday, July 14, 7-10 p.m.

COLLIERVILLE TOWN SQUARE

Happy Hour in the Grove

With live music by Josh relkeld. Friday, July 14, 5-8 p.m.

GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS

CENTER

PHOTO: NATALIE OSBORNE Brothers Osborne

CALENDAR of EVENTS: July 13 - 19

Send the date, time, place, cost, info, phone number, a brief description, and photos — two weeks in advance — to calendar@memphisflyer.com.

DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, ONGOING WEEKLY EVENTS WILL APPEAR

THE FLYER’S ONLINE CALENDAR ONLY. FOR COMPREHENSIVE EVENT LISTINGS, VISIT EVENTS. MEMPHISFLYER.COM/CAL.

ART HAPPENINGS

New Works by Becky McRae Opening Becky Ross McRae’s stunning photography will be on display. Friday, July 14, 5:30-7 p.m.

CHURCH HEALTH

COMEDY

Craig Conant with Joe Abousakher

All ages. $20. Friday, July 14, 6 p.m., 9 p.m.

GROWLERS

Next Top Comic

The ultimate showdown between Louisville, KY, and Memphis, TN. $15. Wednesday, July 19, 8 p.m.

B-SIDE

COMMUNITY

Gardening with Native Plants Panel

A panel of local experts and enthusiasts will share their knowledge of native plants. Saturday, July 15, 10-11 a.m.

URBAN EARTH GARDENS, NURSERY & MARKET

Pick Up for a Pint!

Volunteer to pick up trash and get a free beer. Saturday, July 15, 12:30-1:30 p.m.

MEMPHIS MADE BREWING COMPANY

Yappy Hour at Edge Triangle

Visit with neighbors in the dog park and enjoy ice cream, pup cups, adoptable dogs, and giveaways. Tuesday, July 18, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Becky McRae’s photographs will be on display at Church Health through August 31st.

FAMILY

Les Passees Kids on the Block Puppet Show

Through the art of puppetry, Les Passees Kids on the Block seeks to educate, celebrate individuality, and inspire young people within our community. Saturday, July 15, 1:30-2:15 p.m.

BENJAMIN L. HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY

Puppetry Extravaganza: The Epic Ramayana Comes Alive in Shadows

Experience the mesmerizing art of shadow puppetry. Saturday, July 15, 6-8 p.m.

INDIA CULTURAL CENTER AND TEMPLE

Things That Glow Bright in the Night

Discover the hidden secrets of animals that black lights can reveal. $12. Saturday, July 15, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

LICHTERMAN NATURE CENTER

FILM

MicroCinema: Selections from the Odu Film Festival

Experience a transformative selection of Black, Indigenous, and queer voices from Bahia, Brazil. Wednesday, July 19, 7 p.m.

CROSSTOWN THEATER

Rocky Horror Picture Show: feat. Absent Friends!

Absent Friends are returning to bring you the monthly 1975 cult classic. Costumes, props, callbacks, they got it all! $10. Friday, July 14, 11:30 p.m.

THEATREWORKS AT EVERGREEN

The Marriage of Maria Braun

A heartbreaking study of a woman picking herself up from the ruins of her own life. $5. Thursday, July 13, 7 p.m.

CROSSTOWN THEATER

The Princess Bride

Grab your chair and settle back for a familyfriendly movie! $12. Saturday, July 15, 7-9 p.m.

GERMANTOWN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018 For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550 For Release Monday, February 4, 2019

EDGE TRIANGLE

Crossword

64 Helper in an operating room

65 Another name for O3 (as appropriate to 17-, 25-, 44- and 58-Across?)

DOWN

1 Brand of swabs

2 Man’s name related to the name of Islam’s founder

3 Lead-in to glycerin

4 Prolonged dry spell

5 “Much ___ About Nothing”

6 Assert without proof

7 Cry of triumph

8 Spat

9 Last words before being pronounced husband and wife 10 Not drive by oneself to

11 Cheery greeting 12 Ares : Greek :: ___ : Norse

13 Loch ___ monster

16 Patron of sailors

Edited by Will Shortz No. 1231

FOOD AND DRINK

6 Years of Meddlesome Mayhem

To celebrate six years, Meddlesome had all six employees help design and brew a beer. That’s just the start — they’ll have special glassware, shirts, live music, and of course great grub.

Saturday, July 15, noon

MEDDLESOME BREWING COMPANY

Memphis Summer Cocktail Festival

2023

This July, Memphis will heat up on the dance floor and cool down with summer-inspired cocktail sips at the fourth annual Memphis Summer Cocktail Festival! Friday, July 14, 6:30-9:30 p.m.

FEDEX CENTER AT SHELBY FARMS

PERFORMING ARTS

Big Ole ’Merican Rainbow Rumble

Embrace the red, white, and blue as you celebrate the BIG Ole ’Merican Rainbow Rumble! 18+. $15. Saturday, July 15, 8 p.m.

BLACK LODGE

Flamenco Memphis: Noche Flamenca

Barcelona native dancer and choreographer Noelia Garcia Carmona, along with guitarist Roy Brewer, combine their years of experience and love of flamenco in a night of Spanish magic and “duende!” $20. Friday, July 14, 7:30 p.m.

CROSSTOWN THEATER

Newcomer Sunday with Moth!

Moth!! Moth!!!

This month Magical Miss Mothie takes over the main hosting duties along with guest host Rebekah Random! The stage will be set to showcase the newest in Mid-South entertainment of all types!! Sunday, July 16, 6 p.m.

DRU’S PLACE

WYRED: disrespectful af

An alternative variety show that celebrates the strange, silly, and odd sides of drag! Friday, July 14, 9:30 p.m.

HITONE

SPORTS

901 Wrestling

Saturday morning Memphis wrestling returns! Saturday, July 15, 11:30 a.m.

BLACK LODGE

Memphis Roller Derby DOUBLE

HEADER

Online

nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

Memphis Roller Derby’s first home bout since 2020 will be a double header at! For the first game MRD takes on Nashville Roller Derby, followed by a MRD mash-up Neon vs. Glitter. $15/ adults, $5/kids. Saturday, July 15, 4 p.m.

AGRICENTER INTERNATIONAL

SPORTS By Frank Murtaugh

Redbirds to the Rescue?

Dark days have fallen upon the St. Louis Cardinals. A team favored to win the National League’s Central Division in March is languishing in last place, staring at the franchise’s rst losing season since 2007, and only its second this century. e Cardinals’ pitching — both starting and relief — has been dreadful. Stars have come up short of past standards, and prospects (not long ago in uniform with the Memphis Redbirds at AutoZone Park) aren’t making the impact expected or forecast. e toughest part about three months of bad baseball is that three months of the 2023 season remain. Can the Cardinals rediscover their ying wings? And will the Redbirds play a part?

ere are four players who have spent most of the season with Memphis who could help ease the Cards’ pain, either short-term or long.

• Luken Baker (1B/DH) — Begging for the nickname “Kong,” Baker (6’4”, 285 lbs.) has dominated the International League, slamming 22 home runs in 64 games and posting a jawdropping slugging percentage of .664. In a late-May game at AutoZone Park, Baker clubbed a baseball over the le - eld wall despite shattering his bat. In an age where batting average isn’t supposed to matter, Baker was hitting .319 for the Redbirds when promoted by St. Louis on July 3rd. As large as he is, Baker is so with the glove at rst base, a better-thanadequate elder. But with Paul Goldschmidt (the 2022 NL MVP) entrenched at that position for St. Louis, Baker may become a premium trade chip. Power is the coin of the major-league realm these days, and Baker’s purse is bursting.

• Ivan Herrera (C) — Catchers who can hit have been a rare breed since the rst player donned “the tools of ignorance.” Herrera’s slash line for Memphis (.308/.432/.557) makes those of both Willson Contreras (.240/.334/.419) and Andrew Knizner (.227/.254/.418) look silly. And those are the Cardinal players from whom Herrera aims to shave some playing time. e 23-year-old native of Panama was promoted to St. Louis last week when Knizner went on the 10-day injured list. Similar to Baker, Herrera could be auditioning for 29 other franchises as the August 1st trade deadline approaches. Or he could convince the

Cardinals’ front o ce that their catcher of the future is much less expensive than the 31-year-old Contreras.

• Michael McGreevy (P) — e Cardinals will contend for a 12th World Series crown when their starting pitching again excels. A franchise icon (Adam Wainwright) has struggled mightily in his nal season. A once-and-future ace (Jack Flaherty) leads the National League in walks. A top prospect (Matthew Liberatore) posted a 6.75 ERA before returning to Memphis last week. Could McGreevy be among the rescue team? e 18th pick in the 2021 dra , McGreevy was solid at Double-A Spring eld last year (6-4) and leads Memphis this season in innings pitched while posting a 5-1 record. Noted for his control, McGreevy has posted an ERA of 3.73 for the Redbirds, a gure that would be the envy of most Cardinal pitchers these days.

• Dakota Hudson (P) — Hudson was the 2018 Paci c Coast League Pitcher of the Year with Memphis, then led St. Louis the next season with 16 wins. But injuries and control problems had him back at TripleA this season, where he went 5-4 with a 6.00 ERA before getting the call from St. Louis last week a er Wainwright went to the injured list. Hudson will be pitching with a chip on his shoulder, which may be precisely what the 2023 Cardinals need right now. Can he survive ve innings per start while keeping St. Louis in games? It’s not a high bar to leap these days.

More perspective on the Cardinals’ current mess? e franchise has had only two losing seasons (1999 and 2007) since its Triple-A a liate moved from Louisville to Memphis in 1998. e Cardinals are staring at their rst 90-loss season since 1990 and only the club’s fourth since 1917. Dark days indeed for a proud organization. Perhaps Memphis can provide some light.

PHOTO: COURTESY MEMPHIS REDBIRDS Luken Baker

With the Cardinals struggling, relief may be found in Memphis.

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

By the editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication

Some Things Beg Certainty

Relatives were mourning Bella Montoya, 76, at her wake in Ecuador on June 9 when they heard strange sounds coming from the coffin. “There were about 20 of us there,” the woman’s son Gilberto Barbera said. “After about five hours of the wake, the coffin started to make sounds.” The supposedly deceased had been declared dead in the Martin Icaza Hospital in Babahoyo earlier that day, but that evening, “my mom was wrapped in sheets and hitting the coffin, and when we approached we could see that she was breathing heavily,” Barbera said. Montoya was rushed back to the hospital, but the Associated Press reported that she was intubated and was not expected to recover. Ecuador’s Health Ministry launched an investigation into the incident. [AP, 6/12/2023]

A Bear’s Gotta Eat

Workers for American Plate Glass in Sunapee, New Hampshire, learned an important lesson about locking up their valuables on June 14, but it wasn’t at the hands of the typical thief, and the valuables weren’t the usual tools or construction materials. Curtis Fidler was working on-site when he noticed movement in his peripheral vision: “I turn and it was a bear nonchalantly just having lunch in the front seat of the truck.” The bear enjoyed all of the snacks it could find, left the truck, and disappeared into the woods. Fidler FaceTimed his mother-in-law Melinda Scott, who watched the encounter live and later told WHDH-7 News that “[t]here is not a single scratch on the box truck. He did no damage. He just had lunch and took a nap.” [WHDH-7, 6/15/2023]

The Agony of the Heat

The hopes of Hong Kong residents were slightly deflated on June 9, as a long-awaited art installation in Victoria Harbour lost steam. Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s giant rubber ducky installation, which tours cities around the world and captured the affections of Bangkok residents when it visited there back in 2013, returned to the city last month, this time with two giant rubber duckies, which the artist said would bring “double luck.” Unfortunately, Yahoo News reported that rising temperatures put one ducky — and residents — at risk. The “rubber duck skin had become strained because the hot weather has caused air pressure to rise,” organizers said in a statement. They

deflated the duck as a precaution. [Yahoo News, 6/3/2023]

Two Paws Up, Way Up

Theatergoers in Thailand have a new pet-friendly place to bring their furry friends. Yahoo News reported that the country’s largest movie theater chain, Major Cineplex Group, started offering weekend showtimes for patrons who want to bring Fluffy or Fido with them. Of course, there’s a catch: Pets must weigh under 11 pounds and either wear a diaper or be kept in a carrier. Visitors turned out in droves for a pets-welcome showing of The Little Mermaid, cosplaying their creature companions as Sebastian the crab and Ariel the mermaid. Not everyone’s a fan, however; as one former resident said, “It’s so ridiculous dogs are not allowed in [most Bangkok] parks but they can go to a movie or cafe. What comes next, you bring your dog or cat to a massage parlor?” [Yahoo News, 6/10/2023]

I Hope That Someone Gets My …

Almost exactly 34 years after it was thrown into the sea in Newfoundland, a message in a bottle was recovered in Quebec. “I was so excited. I mean, what I’m looking for all the time is a note in a bottle,” Trudy Shattler told SaltWire of her discovery. After some social media sleuthing, she learned that the bottle belonged to one Gilbert Hamlyn, who was known for writing messages on cigarette packs, stuffing them in bottles, and setting them to sea. Sadly, Hamlyn passed away two years ago, but his son Rick was all too happy to hear of the bottle’s recovery, and intends to place it at his father’s grave. [SaltWire, 6/13/2023]

Money Movers

Police in Clintonville, Ohio, are on the hunt after brazen thieves used a U-Haul truck to rip a safe out of a drive-thru ATM in the early hours of June 15. WCMH-TV reported that the suspects used a chain secured to the truck to pull the safe free of the machine, then absconded in a getaway vehicle, leaving the U-Haul behind. Authorities had no description of the other vehicle or how much money the thieves stole, but they believe at least two suspects were involved. [WCMH-TV, 6/15/2023]

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

© 2023 Andrews McMeel Syndication. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Many astrologers enjoy meditating on the heavenly body Chiron. With an orbit between Saturn and Uranus, it is an anomalous object that has qualities of both a comet and a minor planet. Its name is derived from a character in ancient Greek myth: the wisest teacher and healer of all the centaurs. Chiron is now in the sign of Aries and will be there for a while. Let’s invoke its symbolic power to inspire two quests in the coming months: 1. Seek a teacher who excites your love of life. 2. Seek a healer who alleviates any hurts that interfere with your love of life.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): It’s high time for some high culture! You are in a phase to get rich benefits from reading Shakespeare, listening to Beethoven, and enjoying paintings by Matisse and Picasso. You’d also benefit lavishly from communing with the work of virtuosos like Mozart, Michelangelo, and novelist Haruki Murakami. However, I think you would garner even greater emotional treasures from reading Virginia Woolf, listening to Janelle Monáe’s music, and enjoying Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. For extra credit, get cozy with the books of Simone Weil, listen to Patti Smith’s music, and see Frida Kahlo’s art. If you read between the lines here, you understand I’m telling you that the most excellent thing to do for your mental and spiritual health is to commune with brilliant women artists, writers, and musicians.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The French phrase j’ajoute (translated as “I adjust”) is a chess term used when a player is about to adjust their pieces but does not yet intend to make a move. J’ajoute might be an apt motto for you to invoke in the coming days. You are not ready to make major shifts in the way you play the games you’re involved in. But it’s an excellent time to meditate on that prospect. You will gain clarity and refine your perspective if you tinker with and rearrange the overall look and feel of things.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Early in her career, Leo actor Lisa Kudrow endured disappointments. She auditioned for the TV show Saturday Night Live but wasn’t chosen. She was cast as a main character in the TV show Frasier but was replaced during the filming of the pilot episode. A few months later, though, she landed a key role in the new TV show Friends In retrospect, she was glad she got fired from Frasier so she could be available for Friends Frasier was popular, but Friends was a super hit. Kudrow won numerous awards for her work on the show and rode her fame to a successful film career. Will there be a Frasier moment for you in the coming months, dear Leo? That’s what I suspect. So keep the faith.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The coming weeks will be a good time to seek helpful clues and guidance from your nightly dreams. Take steps to remember them — maybe keep a pen and notebook next to your bed. Here are a few possible dream scenes and their meanings. 1. A dream of planting a tree means you’re primed to begin a project that will grow for years. 2. A dream of riding in a spaceship suggests you yearn to make your future come more alive in your life. 3. A dream of taking a long trip or standing on a mountaintop may signify you’re ready to come to new conclusions about your life story. (PS: Even if you don’t have these specific dreams, the interpretations I offered are still apt.)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In reviewing the life work of neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, critic Patricia Holt said he marveled at how “average people not only adapt to injury and disease but also create something transcendent out of a condition others call disability.” Sacks specialized in collaborating with neurological patients who used their seeming debilitations “to uncover otherwise unknown resources and create lives of originality and innovation.” I bring this up, Libra, because I suspect that in the coming months, you will have extra power to turn your apparent weaknesses or liabilities into assets.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): It’s a mistake to believe we must ration our love as if we only have so much to offer. The fact is, the more love we give, the more we have available to give. As we tap into our deepest source of generosity, we discover we have greater reserves of it than we imagined. What I’ve just said is always true, but it’s especially apropos for you right now. You are in a phase when you can dramatically expand your understanding of how many blessings you have to dole out.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Home computers didn’t become common until the 1980s. During the previous decade, small start-up companies with adventurous experimenters did the grunt work that made the digital revolution possible. Many early adapters worked out of garages in the Silicon Valley area of Northern California. They preferred to devote their modest resources to the actual work rather than to fancy labs. I suspect the coming months will invite you to do something similar, Sagittarius: to be discerning about how you allocate your resources as you plan and implement your vigorous transformations.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I’m tempted to call this upcoming chapter of your life story “The Partial Conquest of Loneliness.” Other good titles might be “Restoration of Degraded Treasure” or

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

The Simpsons animated show has been on TV for 34 seasons.

Ten-year-old Bart Simpson is one of the stars. He is a mischievous rascal who’s ingenious in defying authority. Sometimes teachers catch him in his rebellious acts and punish him by making him write apologetic affirmations on the classroom blackboard. For example: “I will not strut around like I own the place. I will not obey the voices in my head. I will not express my feelings through chaos. I will not trade pants with others. I will not instigate revolution. I am not deliciously saucy. I cannot absolve sins. Hot dogs are not bookmarks.” In accordance with your unruly astrological omens, Cancerian, I authorize you to do things Bart said he wouldn’t do. You have a license to be deliciously saucy.

“Turning a Confusing Triumph into a Gratifying One” or “Replacing a Mediocre Kind of Strength with the Right Kind.” Can you guess that I foresee an exciting and productive time for you in the coming weeks? To best prepare, drop as many expectations and assumptions as you can so you will be fully available for the novel and sometimes surprising opportunities. Life will offer you fresh perspectives.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): By 1582, the inexact old Julian calendar used by the Western world for 13 centuries was out of whack because it had no leap years. The spring equinox was occurring too early, on March 10. Pope Gregory commissioned scientists who devised a more accurate way to account for the passage of time. The problem was that the new calendar needed a modification that required the day after October 4 to be October 15. Eleven days went missing — permanently. People were resentful and resistant, though eventually all of Europe made the conversion. In that spirit, Aquarius, I ask you to consider an adjustment that requires a shift in habits. It may be inconvenient at first, but will ultimately be good for you.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean novelist Peter De Vries wrote, “Sometimes I write drunk and revise sober, and sometimes I write sober and revise drunk. But you have to have both elements in creation — the Apollonian and the Dionysian, or spontaneity and restraint, emotion and discipline.” In the coming weeks, you Pisces folks will be skilled at weaving these modes as you practice what you love to do. You’ll be a master of cultivating dynamic balance, a wizard of blending creativity and organization, a productive change-maker who fosters both structure and morale.

Protection Work

There are three things in our lives that most people need to feel safe, secure, and happy: money, love, and protection. Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t need more, but these three things are generally important to our lives and our ability to feel content.

As a native Memphian, I cannot ignore the fact that Memphis is going through it right now. What “it” is, I’m not entirely sure of and is likely a combination of many things. We are also moving toward peak summer, which means it is going to be stupid hot for a while. Why do I say stupid hot? Well, one is that the numbers on the thermometer are going to be ridiculously high, and two is because when it gets this hot outside, some people act out in dangerous ways. is is a recipe that means one thing: We need to work on our protection.

Protection work is the bread and butter for most spiritual practitioners. It is something that can and should be done on a regular basis along with cleansing work. In fact, these two actions go hand in hand. When you do a cleanse, you are removing unwanted energies from your person or property.

is is the rst step of protection. I encourage you to cleanse yourself, your cars, and your home on a routine basis. Use your favorite cleansing method (smudging, Florida Water, salt, etc.) to purify your space and energy. ere are many ways to cleanse, and we cannot get into cleansing in depth here today, but you can nd information for cleansing online or stop by and visit with me at e Broom Closet and I can show you some options.

Once your space has been cleansed, you have an energetically blank area that needs to be protected, so that all the energy you just banished doesn’t come right back in. Just like with cleansing, you have a variety of actions and tools you can use for protection work.

Many practitioners have a tool or routine that they are drawn to or feel partial to. For me, I typically use gemstones and candles in my workings. I like to incorporate gemstones into my workings because they are easy to use and portable. For protection,

you can select your favorite protection gemstones and place them in the space you want protected. If you want to use gemstones to protect yourself, you can tuck them into a pocket or wear jewelry featuring protective gemstones. If you would like to add some protective stones to your practice, you’ll generally want stones that are dark or black in color such as black onyx, black obsidian, jet, hematite, or shungite. However there are many stones available that will lend you protection, and they will not all necessarily be black.

Perhaps one of the reasons so many protective gemstones are black is because black is a protective color. In spiritual color psychology, black is protective, but also carries the meaning of power, strength, mystery, and fear. By using the color black, we are cloaking ourselves or our sacred spaces and giving o an energy that repels unwanted attention. If you want to do a protection spell, you might want to use a black candle or dress in black while doing your working.

e spiritual groups I am a part of o en use herbal amulets for our workings. ese are easy to make and can be placed in your car or home or o ce to help protect you. Since black is such a great color for protection, use a black bag and place protective herbs and/ or stones in it. Salt is a great protective herb that you can combine with dragon’s blood resin, lavender, rosemary, cedar, myrrh, or other protective herbs in an herbal amulet.

ere are myriad ways to o er yourself more protection, and there is not enough space to get into them all here. Find what you feel comfortable with and be sure to add your intention and need to whatever method you choose. My best advice for staying safe this summer is to bless and protect your car!

PHOTO: MARA FRIBUS | DREAMSTIME.COM Black is a protective color.

FOOD By Michael Donahue

This Chicken Is Smokin’

Picosos means spicy in Spanish, says Francisco Rivera. But his restaurant, which goes by that name, could easily be called pollo al carbon because smoked grilled chicken is the signature item.

“ ey’re marinated whole chickens,” says Rivera, 24, who owns Picosos with his mother, Martha Resendiz. “We slice them down the middle and we marinate them in guajillo sauce. It’s a dry chili. And we rehydrate it in water and blend it and strain it. So, it gives it a really red, vibrant color. We marinate them a few hours before we cook them.

“We just salt them as they’re cooking. We have a big smoker. So, we probably do about 20 chickens at a time in the smoker. And they’re in there for about two hours.”

daily bu et bar in the next two to three months. “ e smoked chickens will be part of the bu et and probably will come with chorizo, rice, beans. And then an open salad bar.”

His dad, the late Oscar Rivera, began doing smoked chickens in his hometown of Querétaro, Mexico, Rivera says. “He’d probably been doing it for about 15 years before we got here.”

Oscar continued to do the chickens a er they moved to Memphis, and he opened his rst restaurant, Chilitos, in Mike’s Express, a gas station on Macon Road, in 2006. “We got to Memphis in 2005. And it was just my parents looking for us to have a better life.”

When he was about 7 years old, Francisco began helping a er his family opened its next restaurant, called Los Picosos, at another address on Summer Avenue. By the time he was 13, he was helping prep and manage the grill, which included smoking chickens. And when he was 17, Francisco was helping his dad run the kitchen in their current location at 3937 Summer.

“I love being in the kitchen. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been around it so long, but it’s something I really enjoy.”

Actually, charcoal-grilled chicken would be the exact translation of pollo al carbon, Rivera says. “We actually bring our charcoal from Mexico. at kind of changes things a little bit.”

ey get the charcoal, or carbón, from a small distributor in Monterrey. “ ey bring us whole charcoal — like lump charcoal — in big pieces. It’s very nice. It burns for a long time and gives the food a nice taste. I want to say they bring it to us every three weeks. And they bring us probably about 400 pounds.”

Grilled chickens are available on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. “ ey go from 10:30 until probably about 4. ey run out about 4 or 5. It’s actually better if you call [901-323-7003] and say you want one. And give us time for you to pick it up. We’ll set it aside for you. at’s what most people do.”

e good news for grilled chicken lovers is Rivera is planning to open a

Francisco never went to culinary school. “I just kind of learned while I worked. Since I really enjoyed it, I’d always be watching videos on cooking and things like that. Just kind of learning as I went.”

Picosos sells a lot more than grilled chicken. “We sell a lot of carnitas. at’s fried pork. Like pulled pork. And we make those every day.

“Another thing we sell are these big trays of meat. ey’re called parrilladas. ey’re enough to feed 10 people. is comes with all ve of the meats we sell: carnitas, barbacoa, chicken, steak, and marinated pork.”

e type of food they sell is not “from a certain region.” But, he says, “We’ve tried to keep it as authentic as possible. It’s more like what you would nd in small stands in Mexico. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s street food, but it’s closer to street food than what other places would be. We sell things called sopes, gorditas, tacos.”

Picosos also does a lot of catering, Francisco says. “Just last week we did a catering job for 600 people.”

PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE Francisco Rivera and Martha Resendiz

Picosos’ signature dish is a hit.

FILM By Chris McCoy

Road to Beijing

Four Asian Americans take on China in Joy Ride

The road trip comedy is an ancient and hallowed form of trash cinema, encompassing everything from It Happened One Night to Bob Hope’s career to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Adele Lim knows a good road trip story when she sees one. Crazy Rich Asians, the lm she wrote in 2018, was a light romp about AsianAmerican immigrants going back to discover their roots. at’s the same territory she explores with her directorial debut, Joy Ride — only this time, she explores it with exploding rectal cocaine balloons.

Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) have been best friends since they met as primary-schoolers in their suburb, White Hills. True to the name, Audrey and Lolo are the only Asian kids in their school. Audrey is the adopted daughter of white parents, while Lolo’s parents own the local Chinese restaurant. e friends, who never miss an opportunity to turn a photo op into a ippy, are a perfect match. Audrey’s the overachiever brought out of her shell by Lolo’s free spirit, and in turn she keeps Lolo from

diving o the deep end. Together, they terrorize White Hills until they leave for college and go their separate ways.

Lim and writers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao set the plate for the adult hijinks to ensue with such verve, I would have watched an entire lm of the adventures of Young Audrey and Lolo.

Flash forward to the present day, where Audrey is an overachieving associate at a white-shoe law rm who regularly bests her o ce of hard-charging white males on the squash court. Her boss Frank (Timothy Simons) taps her for a crucial trip to Beijing, where she will close big deal with Chao (Ronny Chieng), a Chinese tycoon. Lolo is living rent-free in Audrey’s garage while she pursues her art projects, which include an “adult playground” with vagina-shaped slides. Audrey takes Lolo along as her translator, warning that this is not a fun- lled girl’s trip, but a serious business venture. But Lolo has already invited her cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), a nonbinary Gen Z K-pop stan.

In Beijing, Audrey meets up with her

college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu), a successful actress on the set of her TV show e Emperor’s Daughter. Lolo, as Audrey’s childhood best friend, is instantly jealous of her college best friend. When the fast friends learn that Audrey is meeting Chao in a swanky nightclub, they tag along. Audrey rst struggles to keep Chao on task, and then struggles to not vomit from the ousand Year Old Egg shots. When she loses that struggle, the only way to salvage the deal is to accept Chao’s invitation to his mother’s birthday party. He insists she bring her birth mother, whom Audrey has never met. e gang sets out on a high-speed train trip through “real China” to nd Audrey’s parentage, which results in one raunchy comedic misunderstanding a er another.

Joy Ride is the kind of post-Animal House comedy Hollywood used to mass-

produce, with a di erence. Lim’s directorial style is an unapologetically female gaze — this lm is lled with goodlooking men with their shirts o . She’s at her best when playing in the Bridesmaids mode of women nding freedom through over-the-top raunch, such as when our heroes disable a basketball team with a night of cocaine-crazed sex, or the Cardi B-inspired musical number that results when the gang is forced to impersonate a K-pop band. e only reason it doesn’t fall into a pit of sentimentality when the search for Audrey’s mom gets serious is that the excellent ensemble cast steps up to sell it. It’s that camaraderie that makes Joy Ride worth it.

Joy Ride

Now playing

Multiple locations

(l to r) Sabrina Wu, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, and Ashley Park

Our critic picks the best films in theaters.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

Part One

After many pandemic-related delays and a storm of publicity, Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie are back with their latest stunt extravaganza. This time the Impossible Mission Force is sent to take down The Entity, an advanced AI that has gained sentience and is threatening humanity. How does that lead to Tom Cruise jumping a motorcycle off a frickin’ mountain? We’re about to find out.

They Cloned Tyrone

John Boyega stars with Jamie Foxx in this action comedy which pays homage to/sends up ’70s Blaxploitation films.

Teyonah Parris, David Alan Grier, and Kiefer Sutherland also star. No word on who Tyrone is or how many of him there are — but expect multiple Tyrones.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Hey, this movie’s still out, and it’s still good! Harrison Ford’s victory lap as the beloved archeologist/adventurer delivers the Spielbergian action beats you crave — even if James Mangold is at the helm this time.

Insidious: The Red Door

While the big studios pour six-digit budgets into tentpoles expecting to hit home runs, Blumhouse moneyballs the game with consistent base hits like this horror film, which made its $15 million budget back in two days.

NOW PLAYING By Chris McCoy

S VIN: 1N4AL3AP6DC155185

Interested parties call 901-437-9994 within 10 days of this notice.

DOWNTOWN

$899 per month w/ water included. Deposit Required $795. Proof of Income required (2.5x rent).

Background Check Required. Apply at www.prolific901properties.com.

The ‘Insect Apocalypse’

Cropland is approximately 50 times more toxic than it was a quarter of a century ago.

I was reading about bumble bees recently — speci cally, their looming demise, thanks to human greed and ignorance — and started thinking about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We should have eaten from it!

Well, we did, but then apparently upchucked everything we learned and, in the process, fooled ourselves into thinking that technology has allowed us to recreate the Garden of Eden from which we’d been banned. You might call it the Garden of Capitalism, in which humans can take what they want without consequences, forever and ever and ever. is seems to be the myth at the core of dominant global culture.

But of course there are consequences, which we o cially refuse to let ourselves see. For instance, Amy van Saun, an attorney for the nonpro t Center for Food Safety, writing about the shocking disappearance of bees and other pollinators of much of the food we eat (fruit, vegetables, nuts), notes that one of the primary causes is the ever-increasing use of pesticides, in particular, something called neonicotinoids (or “neonics”), which wreak their own special hell on the planet’s ecosystems.

Neonicotinoids “are the most widely used insecticides in the world,” she writes. “Unlike traditional pesticides, which are typically applied to plant surfaces, neonics … are absorbed and transported through all parts of the plant tissue.

“… Modeled a er nicotine, neonicotinoids interfere with insects’ nervous systems, causing tremors, paralysis, and eventually, death. Neonicotinoids are so toxic that one corn seed treated with them contains enough insecticide to kill over 80,000 honey bees.”

And, like cluster bombs, land mines, Agent Orange, depleted uranium, “they persist in the environment,” almost as though — forgive the analogy — commercial farming is like an ongoing war on nature.

If neonics are so dangerous, what is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doing about it? Not very much, as it turns out, despite scienti c evidence of its danger, which is why Center for Food Safety, along with the Pesticide Action Network North America, is suing the agency. As van Saun writes, “almost half of all U.S. farmland is planted with pesticide-coated seeds,” but the agency refuses to regulate them.

e result, according to a U.N. report, is that cropland is approximately 50 times more toxic than it was a quarter of a century ago, at the beginning of the 21st century, and the world is currently experiencing an “insect apocalypse.”

And indeed, it begins to appear that the EPA has a mission that transcends “environmental protection.” It may well be that this agency — part of a governmental culture that supports and bene ts from wealth and war — has a mission that is more about o cial denial of the dangers of planetary exploitation. e EPA’s refusal to acknowledge the damage caused by neonics is just a small part of it.

“Critics accuse the EPA of being inappropriately cozy with the pesticide industry, and biasing its decisions to favor companies selling pesticides,” e Guardian writes. “Several EPA scientists came forward last year, publicly alleging that EPA management routinely pressures EPA scientists to tamper with risk assessments of chemicals in ways that downplayed the harm the chemicals could pose.

“… e scientists complained, among other things, that key managers move back and forth between industry jobs and positions at the EPA.” is is when I started hearing an alarm go o in my head: Cultural malfunction alert! Cultural malfunction alert! is is what things look like when exploitation prevails: when grabbing all the goodies you can is at the cultural core, rather than something a bit more complex, such as understanding — and revering — the eco-reality (also known as nature) in which we live.

And beyond that, can we not create a culture that faces the paradoxes of life with a certain level of openness and a continued interest in learning? Life is not something to be reduced to simplistic opposites: win vs. lose, good vs. evil. ere is darkness within all of us, but we can’t let it determine our fate or shape our understanding of the world. Yet I fear this is the nature of “modern,” as opposed to Indigenous, culture.

Humanity, over the past few millennia, has moved its sense of reverence away from Mother Earth and essentially to Father Sky, rather than continuing to revere both. As a result, Mother Earth is ours to do with as we choose.

e opposite viewpoint — apparently the Indigenous viewpoint, which European land-grabbers called “savage” — isn’t quite so simple. e natural world, while rife with struggle, can’t be reduced to “survival of the ttest.” Rather, it exists in a state of complex cooperation among all concerned — plants, animals — and evolves via the interdependence of all life.

As Rupert Ross wrote in his remarkable book about Indigenous culture, Returning to the Teachings: “ e Lakotah had no language for insulting other orders of existence: pest … waste … weed.”

Back to pesticides then. Back to weed killers. Back to climate change and the apparent inability of the polluters who purport to be in charge of Planet Earth to address it adequately: Super cial change won’t do it. e change has to be cultural. It has to be spiritual.

Believe me, if we fail to change who we are and the bees — the pollinators — disappear, we’ll all feel the sting.

Robert Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. He is the author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound

PHOTO: DMITRY GRIGORIEV | UNSPLASH Commercial farming is like an ongoing war on nature.