He's Got Songs That Jingle Jangle Jingle
Marketing professionals all over the city are probably scrambling to unlock
the secret formula behind Kevin Paige's jingle/single "Still The One."
After all, not even Nike has figured out a way to get people to demand their
commercials. Commissioned by WMC-FM100 as a sort of theme song for their
50th anniversary, "Still The One" is requested 10 to 15 times
a day, says the station's promotion director Cindy Horton. Not only that,
but demand has been so great that the single is now available at Blockbuster
Music, with proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Paige says he
occasionally gets requests for it but doesn't play it at his live gigs.
Hey. Isn't That ?
If you saw someone here who looked a lot like supermodel Kate Moss on or
about June 18th, we've got news for you: It really was her. Moss was in
town doing a photo shoot for Harper's Bazaar, which included a stop
at Java Cabana. The Memphis photos should be out in the September issue.
And if you saw someone who looked sort of like oddball pretty-boy Johnny
Depp -- or if you're just a big old gossip-monger -- word has it that Moss
had Depp himself in tow.
Every Word Means No
Mayor Herenton spokesperson Carey Hoffman has decided her job is really
not to speak. Because, she says, the Flyer has been "too negative"
in recent weeks, she won't answer any questions from this paper, and the
city's top officials are prohibited from giving comment on any issue of
substance.
Even good stuff.
When the Flyer called the mayor's office to ask if the 1,000 T-shirts
given to the people who walked along the riverfront with the mayor last
Saturday were being funded by the city or by corporate sponsors, "No
comment" was the initial response. And that despite the fact that the
shirts -- which bore Herenton's name -- were paid for privately, which is
as it should be. You know the end of the world is near when spokespersons
are reluctant to confess that no wrong has been committed.
Is That All There Is To a Fire?
With the Fourth of July weekend coming right up, we thought we'd share some
of the wisdom we gleaned from a pamphlet published by the National Council
on Fireworks Safety, which offers this tip on how to appreciate a fireworks
display: "Appreciate the art of packing an aerial shell. The `stars'
in an oriental shell, for example, must be carefully packed in symmetrical
layers -- sometimes one layer inside another for an even more dramatic effect
-- to make the beautiful flower patterns they are known for. Once the pyrotechnician
decides what he wants his fireworks to do, really an art in itself, he must
apply everything he knows about the compatibility of chemicals, the laws
of physics, and the aesthetics of color to make a truly spectacular firework."
And here we were about to say, "Well, it ain't rocket science."
The Riverfront Project: Designers Add New Costs
by Phil Campbell
he latest cost
estimates for the downtown riverfront project, which would create a recreational
lake out of part of the Mississippi, came in last week. The project that
started out as a $25 million to $30 million job is now up to $43 million.
Kah-ching!
Memphis Mayor W.W. Herenton, Public Works Director Benny Lendermon, and their consultants met with a city-council committee last Tuesday to present the plan. That's when the additional costs were mentioned.
Lendermon cited the federal and state governments as potential sources. The federal government is aggressively being lobbied for about $20 million for the plan, according to Lendermon, and the state has already earmarked $7 million for one part of the project, the renovation of the cobblestones along the river.
The city's bill, then, could be anywhere from $16 million to $36 million. Some city-council members (Jerome Rubin, Barbara Swearengen Holt, Rickey Peete) believe that the project is too important to not pursue.
"Memphis has a very unique window of opportunity," says Rubin, the council chairman. "You shouldn't find any opposition at all [to the plan]. The river is quite an asset that we as a community have never really sought to develop."
The plan calls for building a dam between the southern tip of Mud Island and the cobblestones along the river. A channel would be created at the northern tip of Mud Island. To maintain automobile access, a bridge would have to be built to the northeast side of the island. If all goes well, the project would form a 36-acre recreational lake between Mud Island and the riverfront, allow better docking facilities, and provide a better link between Beale Street and Mud Island.
Some council members (Brent Taylor, Pat Vanderschaaf, John Vergos), however, have questions about the amount of money being poured into the river.
"I'm very concerned about the escalating costs," says Pat Vanderschaaf. "There needs to be some more discussion, particularly about damming up the Mississippi. No project has come in the way it's supposed to come in. I just think [the council] is going to have to start really asking some tougher questions."
Vergos called it "cutesy" and "over-glitzy," wondering how the city would pay for it, given the other major publicly funded downtown projects presently under way.
"I'm not sure how we're going to afford all this stuff," he says, citing the competition for funds from the proposed Grammy Hall of Fame and the expansion of the Cook Convention Center. The city is also contributing money for a new downtown baseball stadium, as well as proposed improvements to The Pyramid. "I'm just scared that we're going to lose our focus," he says.
Taylor was equally cynical, calling the plan unnecessary. "I'm skeptical of the project right now, unless somebody can convince me that we need it. [The results of the project] should be more than just being able to go down and interact with the water. I'm not going to support it."
Part of the skepticism for the plan is that it is still in its infancy, so there are a lot of unknowns. The Herenton administration has chosen to try to get funding before any significant numbers on the project's potential economic benefits have been calculated. At one point during the council meeting, an estimated $3.5 million a year in revenue was predicted, but this was not backed with any supporting evidence.
The city has received some preliminary numbers from California consultant Richard Lyon on the plan's marketing potential, but the city won't release those numbers. Lyon's final figures are due out in four weeks.
Lyon says his job had more to do with figuring out how to raise money for the plan than studying the plan's long-range economic impact.
"Let's do an opinion reasonably fast so folks can go out and try to secure that money," Lyon says. "This is a long process, as you probably know."
Also, the Hnedak Bobo Group, which stands to make millions in city contracts off the project, has a role in promoting the plan. During the council committee meeting, designer Greg Hnedak predicted that a major riverboat company would probably come to Memphis if the plan succeeded, bringing with it an estimated 300,000 tourists annually. During a phone interview, he upped that number to as many as 400,000 tourists.
Vergos questioned this approach to studying a project's economic feasibility. "When the same people who are promoting the projects are also counting the costs, I just don't pay any attention to it," he says.