Cheree Franco is a location scout with the Mississippi Film Office and a freelance writer. She writes about music, art and dilettante feminism, and is excited about the intensity of summer in her home-state of Mississippi.
Back from Utah (where Ballast cleaned up—it was the only movie to win TWO Sundance awards in the Dramatic Competition —Excellence in Cinematography and narrative Directing), I’m trying to heal (my sad knee and sore throat) and re-acclimate to waking at 8 a.m. and other mundane tasks, such as laundry, dishes and deadlines. And, as happens this time of year, I am turning my thoughts towards Crossroads.
I have spent the past two weeks immersed in the lounges, concerts, movies and waitlists of the biggest film festival in North America, and on a more do-it-yourself scale, Slamdance’s “by filmmakers, for filmmakers” offerings. All the while, I have been monitoring my experiences, creating secret checklists, inadvertently chalking everything up against Crossroads. Here’s what I think:
1) Quality of films: A film festival is all about showcasing film, right? And Crossroads may be small, but our screening committee is pick-Eeee. This is illustrated by the fact that I watched a very familiar short at Sundance. The reason for the familiarity? The short was screened and REJECTED by the Crossroads committee last year.
That’s because, though we like high production value and fun post-production tricks, Crossroads values story above all else…hence our motto, “Everybody has a story. What’s yours?” As far as I am concerned (in agreement with the Crossroads screening committee, obviously), this particular Sundance short was more like, “Everybody has a story. Where’s yours?”
Slamdance is a large festival and last year Crossroads solicited films from Slamdance, but we don’t solicit every film we see. We bring back the films we like, and even so, they still have to go before our screening committee (and did I mention? Our committee is pick-Eeeee…)
But all of this should come as no surprise to Mississippians. We are a state that inherently fosters artistic ambition and as such, we have high standards for art. Just because they loved you in Utah…
2) Quality of events: Sundance offered great music. It offered great movies. But in the midst of all of this greatness, there is one not-so-great component—it is next to IMPOSSIBLE to get into the headlining concerts, and I spent as much time procuring tickets to movies as I did watching them.
Meanwhile, Slamdance has accessible, friendly parties, but they only offer music twice—DJ’s at the opening reception and live music at the awards party. Whereas Crossroads offers live music every night, open to all passholders and anyone willing to pay cover—and usually, you don’t even have to wait in line.
And we may not have Patti Smith, but I really wanted to see Sea Wolf at Sundance, and of course, I fruitlessly stood in line three times. However, last year I DID get to see Snowden (just putting it in equivalent indie-rock terms, for the hipsters out there) at Crossroads, without standing in line, AND I got to schmooze with the band, post-show.
So yeah. Sorry Sun-and-Slamdance, you lose.
3) Filmmaker treatment: I’m making concessions here, since the sheer number of Sundance filmmakers is staggering, marking personal attention expensive and difficult. And while Sundance does have nice sponsor lounges (pomegranate martinis and bacon-wrapped asparagus, if you’re able to trudge up a snowy hill with a bum knee, in the two hour time-slot they’re offering), certain things seem a bit more difficult than they should be—namely basics such as procuring tickets, even with a coveted pass. (At Crossroads, a pass really does get you into everything and you really are special. A Sundance pass is a mere illusion of importance.)
Taking a film to Sundance is expensive, and the economic burden often falls on the director and/or cast and crew. And being a filmmaker doesn’t grant special concessions. Lest I harp—you still wait in ridiculous lines for concerts and movies. There are still no guarantees that you’ll get in.
One of the nice things about Slamdance—there is no such thing as a waitlist. But, as far as I can tell, neither Sundance nor Slamdance offer filmmakers overnight accommodations or airport transportation.
Because Crossroads is a smaller festival, we are able to house filmmakers for two out of three nights. Sometimes this is the sole reason filmmakers are able to attend. We provide transport to and from the airport and throughout the festival. But more importantly, we (festival committee members and volunteers) go out of our way to make the filmmakers comfortable, find out if they need something, and give them the opportunity to talk about their projects. The festival is intimate, so networking is easy. And because our filmmakers usually stay in the same hotel, there’s opportunity to extend new friendships into impromptu after-hours gatherings in the hotel lobby or around the pool.
So, yeah, Utah was fun, and when certain movies hit theaters this summer, I’ll be way cooler than you, because I saw them in January. But as far as quality and accessibility go, I’d say we’re doing pretty well for ourselves, here in Jackson, Mississippi. With Crossroads, we’ve got something bigger than most people realize. Spread the word.
Okay, so I’ve been hearing a lot about Ballast . Mostly what I’m hearing is along the lines of, “I LOVE that movie. That’s the best movie I’ve seen at Sundance this year,” or, “Oh my gosh, I’ve heard such great things about that movie!” These comments are streaming from the mouths of my fellow white Americans, which is no huge surprise, because white Americans are exceptionally well-represented in Park City this week.
But a handful of people seem less pleased with how Ballast represents black Mississippians and the way that it addresses, or fails to address, the race issue in general. In post-screening Q&A’s, this has been raised several times, generally by people anxious to press the issue—people unwilling to accept simple answers, pat or otherwise.
Ballast is the story of a black family in the Delta. The father is absent, the mother is a former drug addict and minimum-wage janitor, and the kid is literally fighting his way through adolescence, stealing money for drugs and intimidating relatives with fire-arms. This could all read stereotypically and one-dimensionally.
Except that, in my opinion, it doesn’t. The plot is sparse and the story is carried more on atmosphere than character development, but the characters DO develop. When Marlee realizes the immediate danger of her son’s situation, they geographically relocate to safer ground. The characters learn how to relate to each other. They make changes in their lives, collectively, as a family unit, and individually. There is no hard ending, no certainty, no long-term guarantees, but for the moment, life is more hopeful than it has been.
The film has one white character and no overt mention of race. Racial themes were present in the original script, but in the end, the filmmaker, Lance Hammer, deemed the story stronger without such complication. He was right.
The overall situation of this family could be related to race in a historical sense (this generality is, as far as I can tell, what one African-American woman from New Orleans took offense with, following a Salt Lake City screening), but the characters could have just as easily been cast as white people in any impoverished community.
But the characters aren’t white, and the story isn’t anywhere. The characters are black and the story is set in the Mississippi Delta. According to Lance, the Delta came first and the ethnicity of the characters is a sheer matter of demographics. So a white man from Los Angeles gives us his perception of black Mississippians. Or at least, his perception of one imaginary family of black Mississippians.
I don’t know. It’s murky. And while exposure in Park City is limited to a specific audience, people of various races have had both positive and negative reactions to the film.
It would be fascinating to screen the film in the Mississippi Delta, to gage the reactions on home turf. But what I think about it, for now at least, is that talented actors are gaining exposure beyond any of our expectations (and I say this from a position of privilege—you HOPE to make a movie and take it to Sundance—you hope and you try, but you never expect), and the sky’s the limit as to where this experience could lead them.
As for the Delta, it’s in the blood. People who grow up in the Delta and become successful later in life almost always return and invest in their hometowns. How can the potential success of these actors be anything but positive for the Delta?
Another quick, Mississippi-movie related thought: Yesterday, Oxford’s April Grayson screened her short, Another Word for Family, in Cinema Slam , a smaller festival here in Park City. (This will also be at Crossroads, folks!)
Shot in her hometown of Rolling Fork, Mississippi, April’s film explores the racial history of place, from the intensely personal perspective of older, white Mississippians—namely, relatives and family friends. She compares being obsessed with the Delta to loving a recovering addict. “You want to support them,” she says, “but sometimes you just want to run away.”
One of her characters, a former high school principal, tells how, once, in the 1960’s, he called an African-American student “boy,” a term he unthinkingly used with all male students. The student leaned forward, looked the principal dead in the eye, and said, “Don’t you EVER call me that again.”
To me, this story illustrates much about the nature of progressive thought in Mississippi. In many cases, lack of awareness is the true problem, more so than malicious intent, which is why films like Another Word for Family are so important.
One final point: one of the other Cine Slam shorts from yesterday, Ditto, a light-hearted comedy, set in a board meeting, had an African-American character springing to catch a beloved coffee-mug, that was accidentally flying through air. A white woman in the audience called into question the man’s ethnicity, saying, “why did you choose THAT character to catch the mug?,” clearly playing on the stereotype of black athleticism.
The question seemed a bit arcane to me, and obviously to the filmmaker, who said, “Honestly, it was logistics, and that bit of script was partially that man’s idea, so I let him catch the mug.” Insert eye-roll. BUT, what I did take from this, and what was reiterated by Francine Thomas-Reynolds this morning, when she, Anita and I were discussing reactions to Ballast, is that people really, really seem to want to talk about race.
Things are slowing down here in ye olde Jim Shea place. For a few days it’s just been the ladies—Nina, Anita and I. Anita and I share what we have fondly dubbed “the Neshoba County Fair Room.” It’s a hole-in-the-hall, chock with bunks. We’ve had revolving roommates, but the two of us are consistent (kinda like BFFs), and we think it’s cozy, the Clarion Ledger shackin’ up with the JFP, and all…
Yesterday, we spent the morning blogging (Anita for the CL, Nina for her Millsaps students), and talking about when we would leave the apartment, in a few minutes or hours…or days…We’ve all got our gripes. My knee is practically ticking. It swells bigger with each passing moment, and Anita detests the cold. Nina’s simply exhausted, her experience being a whirl of film commission receptions, Ballast events and screenings.
But, to quote a character from my favorite movie of yesterday, “Why not look at the dopeness of things? Why you gotta look at the wackness of it all?”
So the “dopeness” goes something like this: Jonathan Levine’s The Wackness is my favorite film thus far, this Sun/Slamdance rotation, and even though acquiring tickets was a movie-long process in itself, all I could think as the credits rolled was, “This is it. THIS is why you come to Sundance.” To be fair, my perspective may be a bit skewed, because I am the target demographic. The film is set in 1994 Manhattan, against a backdrop of all things freedom, in (my personal first taste of) late-90’s New York. There are gameboys and tag-markers, mixed tapes and Biggie Smalls, Giuliani bashing and bongos in the park, and solid advice from a weird old guy: “Never trust anyone who doesn’t smoke weed, listen to Bob Dylan, or like dogs.” Josh Peck and Olivia Thirlby (last encountered as Juno’s girl-pal) deliver breakthrough performances, while Mary-Kate offers a slightly-larger-than cameo appearance.
And now, on the “dopeness” of the audience…before the movie started, there was the Sundance promo spot and afterwards, a reminder to vote (audience choice award implied). At which point, the kid behind me shouted out “Obama,” to the amusement of the packed 600-person theater.
Post-Wackness, the dopeness got even better. Because then I took a bus up to the canyons, where my friend Anthony Agresti met me at his condo-complex, and we stripped down to our long johns and took a lovely swim in a 95-degree pool, with steam rising from the water and snow falling on our heads. It was ridiculous and amazing. We had an hour to take a 40-minute round bus-trip swim and scamper (or limp!) back, to catch a 6pm showing of Slamdance’s Glory-Boy Days (fantastic camera work, btw), in which Anthony plays Yardbirds.
Waiting for the bus afterwards, Anthony ran across the street for 7-Eleven hot chocolate, while my wet long-johns grew crunchy in a plastic sack, and I befriended Ben, a 24-year-old curly-haired housekeeper. When I asked why he came here from England, he grinned and said, “Because of England.”
Bussing to the canyons was interesting because it’s city transport rather than resort transport, and the other passengers actually live in Park City. There was more diversity—lots of Latinos and parents with kids, rather than twenty and thirty-somethings with $400 jeans and hipster haircuts.
Back at Slamdance, I watched, I Think We’re Alone Now , a well-made documentary on two obsessed Tiffany fans (we’re trying to bring this to Crossroads…stay tuned!) The doc follows Jeff, a 50-year old with Asperger’s Syndrome who believes he and Tiffany are spiritual lovers, and Kelly, a 35-year old intersexed woman, who believes she and Tiffany are fated to be together. First-time feature director Sean Donnelly stumbled across Jeff in the streets of his hometown, tracking Jeff for five years and discovering Kelly along the way. The subject matter is disturbing but never exploitive, and in some ways, it hits uncomfortably close to home. Maybe we’ve never been checked by restraining orders or made a shrine out of our apartment, but we have all experienced unrequited, and brooding, slightly obsessive “love.”
I leave you with a particularly endearing insight from Jeff: “It’s the cracked ones who let light into the world.”
Mos Def is here. He’s wandering the streets of Park City, promoting Be Kind Rewind , sitting on panels at Blackhouse Foundation, and being all-around AWESOME, because that’s just how he is. Yesterday I caught a quick glimpse of him, be still my heart...
At the AFCI-brunch, Ward took the stage, chatting up commissions as a resource for filmmakers, and I collected business cards and distributed incentive info. Then I settled into the gallery at Treasure Mountain Inn for a block of Slamdance shorts and a screening of View From the Bridge , the world’s longest documentary about Kosovo, and even after, I’m still unsure who was “cleansing” and why, and how they got away with it. Which is maybe the point, because I bet it seemed something like that to the people who lived it.
And during the doc, someone kept jostling the stands. Around the third hour, my knee was throbbing, and of course, I felt American white-girl guilt because, compared to what I witnessed on screen, this doesn’t even qualify as pain.
I’ve decided I love Slamdance. It’s centrally located, warm and fuzzy. They’re generous with sponsor tickets, low on pretension, and folks go out of their way to make the filmmakers feel essential (because hello? they are), whether they created a feature or a three-minute short.
As for Sundance, well…the “hosts” are kind to the filmmakers during the Q&A, but no one’s VIP unless you’ve been flashed across the big screen in half a dozen major theatrical releases, and even with credentialed passes (i.e. cast & crew of the astoundingly hyped Ballast), you’re still not getting into the free Patti Smith concert, even if you got there an hour early and waited in impossible cold. Which is understandable because Sundance has loads of corporate sponsors, and some of the world’s most respected (ahem, well-funded…oops, did I type that?) “indie” directors premier there, and everyone wants the action, and not everyone can get the action, because in life in general, there seems to be a fairly high premium on exclusion.
Don’t mind me. I may be a tad bitter over Patti. But truly, I am grateful to the Sundance Institute. For Mississippi film right now, Sundance is the vessel, spotlighting our state, our film commission, and our cast and crew, and encouraging some of the biggest players in the Industry to pay attention. Oh, and apparently during yesterday’s Ballast screening, Quentin Tarantino sat beside Jason, and stayed through the Q&A.
As seems to happen about once a year, at some film festival somewhere, I ran into my old Boston buddies, the Red Bucket Films guys (Ben Safdie screened The Story of Charles Riverbank in the Slamdance short block). Mad props to this crew for having mastered nuance and poker-faced absurdism at an exceptionally ambitious age.
Ward and Nina went to a hot-shit Variety party, and afterwards, we all convened at the condo to celebrate Ward’s birthday. We lit candles and sang, made snow ice-cream with condensed milk, ran out of paper towels, and had conversations about how Ani Difranco says you should never wear anything you can’t wipe your hands on, and then we all wiped our hands on our jeans, and Nina mentioned some high-school friend who once wiped greasy movie-popcorn hands on his socks, and I admitted my frequent adherence to this trick-of-the-trade (sorry Ani, but grease stains), and basically, we were all just there, Nina, Jerel, Ward, Jason, and later, Diego and Carolina Velasco and Anita, too. Pirates of the Caribbean III played in the background, prompting random wisecracks from the Jerel/Jason corner, while Ward and Jerel papa-smurfed about my knee, and really it was perfect, just to be warm and together and supported.
Around midnight, the Blackwell’s came to collect what’s theirs (namely, Jason), and then there were three Papa Smurfs (thanks Dean), and they raved about a panel that sported Robert Redford and Bono, and someone asked Bono when he would make a song that had as much impact as Yellow Submarine, and now my new favorite Jackson-family is at the airport, and our community is a wee bit smaller.
So yesterday I got to ride a ski mobile down a big hill. Well, technically, I rode a stretcher behind a ski mobile, but hey, semantics…
I guess what I’m trying to say is that West Coast “blues” are East Coast “blacks,” and I am a bad-ass with something to prove, and now I have proof, in the form of a purple, mushy knee, a hideous brace and an annoying dose of self-reproach.
Because while that lift was ever-so-slowly taking me higher and higher, over steeper and steeper slopes, I knew I should just stay on and ride back down, but instead I thought I could be all romantic and literary and go the man conquers nature/himself route. Now I’ve torn some ligament that I can’t even pronounce and life at slippery, icy, “walkable” Park City just got a whole lot more interesting.
In other news, Jacksonian-sightings are increasing exponentially. Ward Emling, Mississippi’s Film Commissioner, and Mississippi Development Authority’s Mary Beth Wilkerson and her husband Jimmy, have been here a few days, lending support to the Ballast cast and crew and doing the usual networking thing. Ann and Dean Blackwell and family, Jerel Levanway, Anita Modak-Truran and Jason Marlow have also made appearances, marking Park City an official metro-Jackson suburb.
Saturday night, Main Street was a hub of parties as the first Sundance films began to celebrate success. BET interviewed the main cast for Ballast, and the Mississippi Film Office sponsored a well-attended reception.
Now, we are just back from trying that whole (unsuccessful) “waitlist” process to see Michel Gondry’s newest flick, Be Kind Rewind…our condo’s cozy, coffee’s good and the snow drifts are piling almost to the roof eaves. There’s an Association of Film Commissioners brunch in a bit and probably another day of Slamdance movies, since, once I get somewhere, I’m fairly immobile. Sigh. We’ve missed the free Sea Wolf concerts too. Advice to future Sundance attendees—never go anywhere on time. (Roll eyes and insert lame early bird cliché, please…)
Yesterday’s premier generated Sundance buzz. Bloggers are comparing Ballast to the lyrical films of Terrence Malick and David Gordon Green, and the all-important Hollywood Reporter and Variety have given beaming reviews. Like Malick’s work, Ballast is deliberately and poignantly shot. Like Green’s work, the movie is carried by a leaden sense of place. But this time, we recognize the place—Canton Square in Christmas-glow, winter sky over barren fields, Delta rain collecting in corduroy rows...
Ballast was shot entirely in Mississippi in 2006, in the towns of Tchula, Camden, Yazoo City, Louise, Thornton, Greenwood, Silver City, Midnight and Jackson. It’s a project that rallied the efforts of a 35-member Mississippi cast and a mostly Mississippi crew, including the Mississippi Film Office’s Program Manager, Nina Parikh, who took a leave of absence to serve as the film’s producer.
Writer/director Lance Hammer is one of the few non-Mississippian’s involved in the film, but even as, or perhaps because he is an outsider, the unique intensity of the Delta profoundly moved him. “Once I was traveling through the Delta in winter, and I was intensely affected by this sense of sorrow. I carried that impression with me, and that’s where I was, writing the script.”
Ballast is the story of the evolving bonds between a single mom, her pre-teen son and his uncle, as they struggle to overcome poverty and loss. But according to Lance, “The narrative is just a device to carry the tonal sense. The Delta came first, the story came next.”
This sentiment is echoed in the final product, a melancholic unfolding of snow geese in fields and austere winter bush. Using mostly handheld shots and natural light, Director of Photography Lol Crawly captures the stark beauty of a conflicted place on 35mm, establishing both the natural and manmade qualities of the region.
The actors were completely green, pulled out of open calls, churches and, in the case of JimMyron Ross, the Canton Boys and Girls Club. At the Q&A following the screening, they were the film’s biggest sellers—guileless, genuine ambassadors of Mississippi.
JimMyron, 12 at the time of shooting, calls the film “one of my biggest dreams.” His character is a bit of a delinquent, getting into fights and dabbling in drugs. Flashing the audience a winning grin, he lets us know that he found the portrayal difficult because he “likes to stay out of trouble.”
Micheal J. Smith, Sr. of Yazoo City labels himself a “sports fan” who never watched much TV. But after turning out a stalwart performance as James’ Uncle Lawrence, he says, “I have more respect for the actors I see on TV.”
Oxford’s Johnny McPhail plays neighbor John. He jokes about how, at open call, he spotted Micheal sitting in the corner “looking like a big teddy bear. I knew that guy was bound to get cast, so I just went over to hang out with him.” Sure enough, both men were with us in Park City, celebrating the film’s success.
But perhaps the most ecstatic was Clinton’s Tarra Riggs. She plays Marlee, James’s mother, and since Ballast, has continued to act in feature films. Looking adorably “Hollywood” in a trendy hat and big sunglasses, she gushed, “I always knew if anyone ever came to me and gave me an opportunity to give them everything I had, I would.” In Ballast, her performance is nearly flawless. Her emotionally layered character, in large part, drives the narrative.
Other metro-area cast and crew include:
Ventress Bonner as Jarel
Jerel Levanway-Production Designer
Sam Watson-Sound Mixer
Francine Thomas Reynolds- Casting Director
Todd Stauffer- Production Manager
Mary Goodson-Art Director
Spencer Cryder—Additional Assistant Director
Len Stanga - Gaffer
Ray Green- Carpenter
Ronnie Elridge-Carpenter
Joy Parikh-Production Coordinator & Accountant
Jason Marlow-Video Assist, Pre-production Coordinator
Jerry Lousteau-Animal Wrangler, Dog Trainer, Music Supervisor, Talent Scout
Domini Bradford, Patty Kurts Magee, Hunter Magee – Caterers and craft service
Valerie Blakey, Thabi Moyo, Lorena Manriquez—Production Assistants
Anita Modak-Truran; Butler, Snow, O’Mara Stevens, and Cannada, PLLC—Legal Services
Sundance Day 2: Which is really all about Slamdance...
Posted on Jan 18, 08 | 10:12 pm
It’s 8pm and I am already exhausted. For one thing, it takes a ridiculous amount of energy just to stay warm. The high today hovered at 20 degrees, and the low landed somewhere around 1 degree. At any given time, I sport four layers.
Because I’m here on my own dime, I have a different agenda than my Film Office co-workers. Yes, I want to represent Mississippi and entice filmmakers (and more importantly, filmmaker dollars) to perceive our state as the marvelous commodity that it is, but mainly, I’m here to see movies. And since I have an all-access Slamdance pass and most Sundance films are wait-listed (which means you go to the venue three separate times—once to take a number, once to hopefully purchase a ticket, and if you’re lucky, once to actually see the movie), I spent much of the day parked in cozy theaters at Treasure Mountain Inn, gorging on Slamdance flicks, attending filmmaker Q&A’s and collecting submissions to Crossroads.
Park City is amazing right now. The entire town is obsessed with film and/or the perception of being obsessed with film. I’ve never experienced this to such a degree, and I spent a year bouncing around trendy L.A. neighborhoods, where conversations don’t exist without an “Industry” reference. Beyond the actual film venues, Main Street is lined with galleries, cafes and pubs, all of which have been rented as “lounges” by production houses, festival sponsors and film commissions. The streets swarm with cameras and booms, and informal interviews are conducted on every corner. But despite the hype and the cold, people seem grateful to be here.
Thus far, two standouts have been Sundance’s New Frontier Café, a showcase for experimental cinematic art (there’s a great video clip on the festival homepage) and the Blackhouse Foundation’s Open House—a low-lit mecca of wine-sipping and people-watching. Even ran into a girl I worked with, at the Black Programming Consortium’s New Media Institute, which was held in Jackson last November…funny, this movie-making business. It’s a small, chummy kinda place to be.
After a full day of airports (and a cozy airplane ride with a blanket named Bunky and the shrillest baby I’ve ever met—he’s lucky he can flash that cherubic four-toothed grin!), here I am in Park City, Utah, where even grocery stores look like ski lodges. It’s been snowing since we rolled into town around 8pm, just in time to layer up and stroll down twinkle-twinkle-little Main Street for the Slamdance Opening Reception at a local fave, the Star Bar.
Beginning with the Salt Lake City airport, where sunglasses indoors, shaggy haircuts, skin-tight jeans (are they wearing long-johns under those? really?), impossibly sleek parkas and phrases like ‘okay, where’s the driver?’ abound, I realize this week will be a full-fledged episode of Los Angeles on Parade. A man in a gray suit and a wool fedora, a man I don’t recognize but others apparently do, signs autographs beside me. I ignore him and turn to my Mississippi Film Office colleague, Nina Parikh. “I already feel unfashionable,” she laments. I nod, me too.
The Hollywood aurora is confirmed as we vie for entrance into the bar, where the line wraps, and we have to show a million forms of ID to prove that we are on the list, we’re the Mississippi Film Office, we’re festival sponsors. (And this isn’t even Sundance, folks!)
Once inside, I quickly gage the next eleven days. What begins as a friendly conversation with a filmmaker is transformed into a pitch—he knows Mississippi, he’s interested, he’s been there. So I hype the state, our tax incentive and our film festivals, trying to get him to send us his movie.
There are drink tickets, disco DJ’s, silica-infused Fiji water and raw bars for the taking, all of which make me happy. Then it’s 1am, and Nina and I head back to the condo, short-cutting across a large park. Perfect, billowy snow and open space make us giddy. Suddenly we’re running, flinging ourselves in powdery banks, doing all the things Mississippians should do when confronted with such fantastic substance.
Back at our condo, owned by none other than Jim Shea, 2002 Olympic Skeleton Gold Medalist (it’s kinda like body-sledding at 80 m/p/h), we dry off, put on pajamas, and curl up to—what else?—watch a movie…
Apr 13, 08 | 5:06 pm No 'Unnamed Sources,' Ledger? You sure? ladd: Interesting. Bill Skinner posted under Mitchell's story to give a fuller picture of the interview he gave Mitchell:
I was not attacking Judge Delaughter, Jerry Mitchell took a 45 minute interview about mortages, former law partners, and...
Apr 13, 08 | 2:16 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur ladd: Either we have to believe that black men are inherently criminal, or not educable, or someone has made a big mistake and something is very wrong with the system.
That statement is so, so important, will. People don't think through the...
Apr 13, 08 | 2:06 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur willdufauve: America is a racist country built on genocide and slavery. We're all imbued with racism. Even the kindest, most honorable and fair minded person is imbued with the racism that's pervasive in the culture. Nothing makes people act more crazy than...
Apr 13, 08 | 12:30 pm My Statement About Mike Lacey’s Use of Racial Slur ladd: More response yesterday by Mr. Lacey. I like this:
One week before the SPJ award, we were feted by the ACLU as civil libertarians of the year...
Apr 13, 08 | 12:28 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur ladd: More response by Mr. Lacey. I like this:
One week before the SPJ award, we were feted by the ACLU as civil libertarians of the year because of...
Apr 13, 08 | 12:14 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur Kacy: Agreed. The way he rambled, I sensed that he was searching for something to say, which is all the more reason he should have followed this age-old dictum regarding speakers affairs such as the banquet: 'be brief and be seated'. Had he done so, maybe...
Apr 13, 08 | 10:57 am No 'Unnamed Sources,' Ledger? You sure? ladd: Is this where Mitchell got the story tip about the house?
Hat tip to Folo folks for getting there first.
And...
Apr 13, 08 | 10:52 am No 'Unnamed Sources,' Ledger? You sure? ladd: Let's look at this paragraph in specific:
There has been no suggestion by any of those cooperating with federal authorities that DeLaughter accepted any money. Disbarred New Albany lawyer Tim Balducci testified in a recent hearing that...
Apr 13, 08 | 10:28 am Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur ladd: Also note that the offending slur was said in context of telling drinking stories. You can't argue educational value of any kind....
Apr 12, 08 | 9:57 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur Kacy: Donna, I watched and listened to the video and I honestly have to wonder if the man wasn't drunk. He referred to one journalist whose name he couldn't remember as "that godda*m guy" (or something very similar). His remarks were sprinkled with other...
Apr 11, 08 | 11:25 pm My Statement About Mike Lacey’s Use of Racial Slur ladd: I don't know who would sanction him, golden. AAN is a trade association, and policing is not our role. Nor should it be.
I truly think that more speech, and getting people to think about this and then put those lessons into play, is the best...
Apr 11, 08 | 7:04 pm My Statement About Mike Lacey’s Use of Racial Slur ladd: The letter from the local Arizona chapter president (PDF at the SPJ link) addressed the First Amendment issue very well:
In your apology, you make reference to the fact that our banquet was an event to honor journalists whose work furthers the...
Apr 11, 08 | 6:59 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur ladd: So, here is a statement I sent to AAN this afternoon reflecting my personal views, as well as my take on this as the AAN diversity chair. Due to various meetings and...
Apr 11, 08 | 6:29 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur ladd: I don't care if the target was his dog. He still shouldn't have said it.
Thank you, Latasha. I'm so tired of people missing the point. Or skipping over it.
He takes it well and immediately locates a wireless hub.)...
Apr 11, 08 | 5:28 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur Lori G: I'm noticing a new white male backlash that's more vehement than anyhting I've seen in 30 years. it's coming from people who feel entitle dto it beause maybe they we're for civil rights, in theory, but now gas is $3.40, jobs are down,...
Apr 11, 08 | 5:05 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur willdufauve: "But the fact that white guys are jumping on that bandwagon is really weird and disturbing." laddie
Race in America, slavery, the genocide of native peoples, is a stain that doesn't wash out, like the original sin. It's made everyone a little...
Apr 11, 08 | 4:48 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur L.W.: Here's the most recent response, by the way, on the AAN site. This one seems to argue that it makes a big difference that the target of Lacey's slur was his white friend.
I don't care if the target was his dog. He still shouldn't have...
Apr 11, 08 | 3:46 pm Village Voice Media Owner Offends with Racial Slur ladd: I feel you, will. I'm a bit uncomfortable myself in a world that pounces more strongly on someone calling for sensitivity, or using the world "bigot," than it does on someone who uses a racial slur.
I'm also really concerned about a perceived...
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