After procrastinating repeatedly, I finally made it out (thanks to Mark & Katie) to the beautifully-renovated Levitt Shell on Sunday night for a terrific performance from Samarabalouf (pronounced sah-MAH-rah-bah-LOOF), a Gypsy swing trio from France who energized the crowd in attendance. Seeing this show made me enthusiastic about the future of the arts in Memphis. This isn’t the old Overton Park Shell — it is transformed, ultimately, into something much more grand and beautiful than I could have imagined. More info and a video after the jump.
Memphians have been speciously fearful after seeing a flurry of McCain/Palin stickers around East Memphis recently. It’s likely because people in Memphis see themselves as having made some kind of benefit from the last 8 years of failed policies by the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled congress. Memphians who support the Obama/Biden ticket shouldn’t be afraid; they should be enthused by what is going on.
The candidates themselves are making the case for an Obama/Biden win through their own actions.
I’m wondering if it could be that the generation of my parents see McCain as a celebratory representative of what people are capable of doing even at age 72. While I respect the desire to identify with a candidate based on a superficial notion, using this reasoning to support a candidate is pretty frightening; age, or lack of age, is not a reason to select someone to be a leader of a country.
Of course, it could be that people cling to the soundbites that speak to supporting their notions. So-called “media bias” has become a talking point of the McCain campaign, used to support the idea that favorable coverage is being doled out to Obama and Biden. I agree that the media is culpable in this situation; and, by the same token, so-called “right-wing” media frequently, as Big Brother is want to, distort the facts and only focus on the pieces of soundbites that make their candidate look good.
Why wouldn’t they? There is a tendency by the media to focus positively on the Obama/Biden ticket, and with good reason: they have made themselves available. Palin’s two horrific interviews and McCain’s continued need to quote half-truths and lambast us with his record as a war hero are really just the kind of fuel that highlights what make Obama and Biden the clear winners in the upcoming election. Continue Reading »
I am going to be liveblogging this debate, so stay with me to see how I score it. Please also tune into my friend Jen’s blog at http://jen-sized.net for complete liveblogging coverage from two Memphis bloggers very interested in the outcome.
8:02 that was a terse handshake
8:03 Obama talks about the economy. “The worst economic situation since the Great Depression”. He seems a bit stiff. God is he ever nervous.
— oversight
— taxpayers should be able to get money back
— none of that money should pad CEO bank accounts
— helping homeowners Continue Reading »
I just haven’t had the time this week to properly mention and promote this wonderful show. You need, and I do mean need to be at the Levitt Shell @ Overton Park tonight for COMO NOW. This press release is culled directly from a press release, but the music speaks quite for itself. Enjoy & I hope to see you tonight.
COMO NOW: The Voices of Panola Co., MS, the latest release from Daptone Records (and first that moves away from the Brooklyn funk and soul) continues to get rave reviews from critics all over. Says Grant Alden from No Depression:
“It is a relief once again to fall in love with an album — an entire album — to become enraptured by the music of artists who are unknown to me. To discover something of such great and glorious sounds that it is worth moving from the truck to the house stereo and back, to find music so rewarding to listen to that I have not opened the mail for a week, because this is enough. This is plenty…this is — by far — the best album I’ve heard this year.”
You can check the mini-documentary Daptone made about the album here, or, if you’re lucky enough to be in the Memphis area, the entire group of singers will be performing a very special show at the Levitt Shell next Friday, September 26 at 7pm.
You can also watch a special performance by the Como Mamas, one of the groups included on the compilation, on YouTube’s music homepage, or below.
I am always amazed when I read stories like this one from Idolator where a celebrity comes out and admits something so inherently, ridiculously obvious that its almost a non-story. Was I shocked when George Michael admitted to being gay? Okay, that one blew my mind. Neil Patrick Harris? I *really* wasn’t expecting that one.
Clay Aiken, though?
The cover story from people might as well have had a picture of Chris Rock holding a baby and said “YES, I’M BLACK.”
Doesn’t John McCain get it? When a woman says “no” she means “no”. She doesn’t mean “yes”. Ann & Nancy Wilson are STILL flipping angry over the McCain/Palin camp’s repeated use of the song “Barracuda”. In their defense, the campaign explained that they purchased a license to use the song before any controversy stirred. But don’t they get it? Maybe they’ll hear this “Dear John McCain” letter from the sisters Wilson. I don’t know what column this appears in, but props again to Jen for hipping me to this. (Note: It appears in this weeks issue of Seattle free weekly, The Stranger)
Here’s what I want to know: how long ago did they purchase the license to the song? How long did they know Sarah Palin was going to be the candidate? Surely Heart wouldn’t have agreed to license the song if they knew who was buying the license, would they? Might not be up to them but, regardless, they still use it to refer to “Sarah Barracuda”. I have another name for her that I won’t repeat.
Anyways, enjoy this column entitled “Cease and Desist, You Old Fart” by Ann & Nancy Wilson.
More than a third of all white Democrats and independents—voters Obama can't win the White House without—agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.
Such numbers are a harsh dose of reality in a campaign for the history books. Obama, the first black candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, accepted the Democratic nomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, a seminal moment for a nation that enshrined slavery in its Constitution.
"There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey
If you’re going to introduce race into the +/- for this Presidential race, please remember: we have, in elections around the country for many years, elected mayors, senators and governors who are of varying races, nationalities and skin tones all across this country.
If what’s keeping you from voting for the candidate that you want is the color of their skin and not the content of their character, regardless of what that skin tone is, your vote in this election is probably not required. If you can’t vote for the candidate you want because you’re that prejudiced, then stay home. No matter who is elected, you will always have no voice, because you can’t hear anyone else’s besides your own.
If you can see past whatever prejudice you have, please remember this: you not voting for your conscience means that someone else who is voting based primarily on their racial prejudice will control the future of your country.
And like it or not, the terrorists will have really won then.
Recently, my friends Chris Reyes, Sarah Fleming, Eric Swartz and Brad Phelan over at Live From Memphis put together a series of webisodes for ArtsMemphis to give people easy access to a visual that expresses the tremendous work going on in the collective arts in Memphis — everything from theater to metallurgy (at the Ornamental Metal Museum) to this week’s webisode, featuring the Stax Music Academy.
In case you’re not familiar with what they do, Stax Music Academy provides an outlet for musically-gifted inner city youth in Memphis to develop their musical talent with top regional industry professionals, artists and musicians. These webisodes will give you just the slightest glimpse into the wonderful work that has been going on, perhaps unbeknownst to you, for several years.
The efforts of Live From Memphis are being released on a weekly basis to this player, which appears on the ArtsMemphis homepage. Be sure to check back on a regular basis to have an opportunity to share in the joy and excitement that the Live From Memphis folks were able to capture. Memphis, this is something for us all to support and take pride in.
Memphians have been speciously fearful after seeing a flurry of McCain/Palin stickers around East Memphis recently. It’s likely because people in Memphis see themselves as having made some kind of benefit from the last 8 years of failed policies by the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled congress. Memphians who support the Obama/Biden ticket shouldn’t be afraid; they should be enthused by what is going on. 
I am always amazed when I read stories like this one from Idolator where a celebrity comes out and admits something so inherently, ridiculously obvious that its almost a non-story. Was I shocked when George Michael admitted to being gay? Okay, that one blew my mind. Neil Patrick Harris? I *really* wasn’t expecting that one.