Hot on the heels of the set-but-not-shot-in-Memphis TV cop show "Memphis Beat" comes the set-but-not-shot-in-Memphis TV cheerleader drama "Hellcats," coming soon to the CW network. The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the pilot and concludes that "It's OK." And here's a synopsis, for those catching up:

"Hellcats" uses the backdrop of a football program at a Memphis university to tell the coming-of-age-story of two young women who are committed to the cheerleading squad to realize their dreams. Marti Perkins is a pre-law student with a soul-sucking mother who loses her scholarship and realizes her only chance of staying in school is to try out for the cheerleading squad to get another scholarship.  Her new roommate is Savannah Monroe, the peppy captain of the squad who is also using cheerleading as a steppingstone.

Much like "Memphis Beat," "Hellcats" certainly doesn't appear to be an immersion into the Memphis experience, the way "Treme" is to New Orleans or "The Wire" was to Baltimore. The trailer video (see below) says fictional Lancer University, with its classical buildings and lush green campus, is in "the heart of Downtown Memphis." John Beifuss had some fun with this a couple of months ago:

The CW press release describes Memphis as being in "the deep South," and reports that the fictional Lancer is home to "a powerhouse college football program," which suggests the series might appeal to Memphis sports fans on several levels of fantasy.

"Hellcats" appears to be typical guilty-pleasure CW trash, good for some catty dialogue and shots of scantily clad twentysomethings playing teenagers, but that's about all. The show premiers at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 8.

The New York Times is running on Monday's front page a long story focusing on the decline of African-American wealth in Memphis, a piece that dovetails well with Wendi C. Thomas' Sunday Viewpoint essay on the wealth gap afflicting black women.

Most of what the Times story covers will be familiar to Memphians; the story goes in depth into the lawsuit by Memphis and Shelby County against Wells Fargo, which they accuse of marketing toxic loans to black home buyers. And the Times story repeats one fact that Wendi mentioned in her Sunday piece: that for every dollar of wealth a white family has, a black family has only 16 cents. However, there was one particularly striking statistic that I had not seen reported around here:

The median income of black homeowners in Memphis rose steadily until five or six years ago. Now it has receded to a level below that of 1990 -- and roughly half that of white Memphis homeowners, according to an analysis conducted by Queens College Sociology Department for The New York Times.

The Village Voice has a double feature on two of Memphis' longest-running, most successful rap acts, Three 6 Mafia and 8ball & MJG. The two groups -- the former from North Memphis, the latter from Orange Mound -- emerged from the same nascent rap scene in the early '90s, and they have collaborated a few times over the years, but they have always seemed to be flip sides of the same coin: Three 6 with their ominous tracks and primal flows, 8ball & MJG with a smoother, funkier sound. In the past few years, their fortunes diverged somewhat: Three 6 won an Oscar for their work on the "Hustle & Flow" soundtrack and landed a couple of reality-TV gigs, while 8ball & MJG drifted a bit while signed to Sean Combs' Bad Boy label. Now both acts are poised to release new albums -- Three 6 even lined up a guest appearance by global rave DJ Tiesto, and 8ball & MJG are now signed to T.I.'s Grand Hustle imprint.

For the initiated, the most intriguing part of the article might be 8ball's implication (to put it lightly) that Three 6 has sold out.

"It's just my opinion, but after the Oscar, they weren't the same," he says. "Even their hood stuff don't sound like that Three 6 Mafia that took over Memphis, after we kicked the door open. I think people's music changes with their surroundings, sometimes."

Juicy J of Three 6, who counts 8ball & MJG as mentors, bristled at the suggestion.

"If someone said, 'If you do this song, you can make 10 to 15 to 20 million dollars,' would you be like, 'Nah, I'm gonna just chill with my hardcore fan base and nickel and dime here and there'?"

Time blogger Claire Suddath has some fun with angry old man Andy Rooney's scathing critique of public art from this Sunday's "60 Minutes." While decrying the multicolored livestock sculptures and bronze Mr. Potato Heads popping up on the streets of cities and towns across the country, Rooney takes a shot at an abstract sculpture in Downtown Memphis:

Rooney examines a modern art memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tenn. "I'm an admirer of everything Martin Luther King stood for," Rooney says, "but I don't think he would have stood for this." (Double zing!)

Smithsonian magazine's May issue has a long travelogue on Memphis with a healthy dose of history and context. Included in the article: a bawdy exchange with Downtown developer Henry Turley; barbecue at Payne's, Cozy Corner and the Rendezvous; an evening at the FedEx hub at the airport, and many other Memphis stops. It's worth a read ...

McClatchy Newspapers moved a story for Sunday release that calls Memphis "the hunger capital of the United States." That distinction was based on a survey co-sponsored that found that "26 percent of people in greater Memphis couldn't afford to buy the food their families needed at some point over the previous 12 months, the highest rate in the nation."

The story also points out an important change in the way that food banks operate. Now, instead of getting surplus food from manufacturers, they are increasingly having to purchase the food that they supply to the needy.

And here's a sobering prospect as the economy improves in some aspects:

"What we know from studying earlier recessions is that unemployment is a lagging indicator ... and poverty lags unemployment by one or two years at a minimum," said Elaine Waxman, the director of social policy research for Feeding America. "We're not likely to get back to the poverty rates we saw pre-recession for at least the next 10 years."

Last week's Lexington column on The Economist's Web site explores President Barack Obama's growing problems with white male voters. To find some white male voters to illustrate these problems, the columnist went to a shop in Millington and asked the "white gentleman behind the counter" for his opinion of the president.

"He's a f------ n-----," came the reply. The shopkeeper then helpfully explained that he was "not bashful" about expressing his opinions.*

Mediaverse points out a related Lexington blog post in which the writer actually identifies the man who used the epithet.

The original post has plenty of interest besides that one quote, including a mention of the 8th District congressional race, in which the seat looks ready to flip from Democratic to Republican control for the first time in a couple of centuries.

* Caution: Lexington actually spells out the F- and N-words.

The Huffington Post has an interview today with Memphis indie filmmaker/actor Kentucker Audley, whose latest film, "Open Five," is set to screen in April. Audley is a leading figure in the so-called mumblecore movement, which the article describes as a "nascent film genre made by, about, and for navel-gazing, semi-articulate urban twenty-somethings." Audley produces his films on a shoestring budget, with little in the way of an actual script. He discusses his process and the mumblecore movement with Teddy Wayne of HuffPo.

I think I'll get sick of focusing on my life and the life of my peers, but maybe not. If my films stay as personal, I think that'll be an incredible process to watch all of us get older and deal with other issues. Marriage, family, health; getting to the age of marriage and family and not having them; to put my 35-year-old self under the microscope, my 45-year-old self.

The Detroit News reports today that Ron Banks, a member of '70s Stax/Volt act The Dramatics, died today at age 58. Though they were from Detroit, home of Motown, The Dramatics signed with the Memphis-based Stax family and recorded a handful of unforgettable hits, most notably "What You See Is What You Get" and "In the Rain." The former tune played over the opening credits of the 1973 documentary film "Wattstax," in which the Stax roster invaded the Los Angeles Coliseum for a concert that became known as the black Woodstock.

The other Dramatics say they will carry on without Banks:

"It caught us by surprise," said fellow Dramatic, L.J. Reynolds of Detroit. He said the group has gigs to fulfill, and they will perform, including a concert Saturday at the Westbury Music Festival in New York.

"We still have to go to New York tomorrow night," Reynolds said. "We have to go. The show must go on. If it was me I'd want them to go ahead and I'm sure he'd feel the same way. It'll be a long, silent ride there. But we'll take Ron's mike and put it up onstage, and let it stand there."

Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Get Schooled blog:

The New York Times carried today a takeout on the Romeikes, the evangelical Christian family from Germany who sought and were granted* political asylum in the United States by a federal immigration judge in Memphis. The reason: They were homeschooling their children, and that's a no-no in Germany -- violators can face thousands of dollars in fines and even lose custody of their kids.

The Times reported on the contents of the decision by immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman of Memphis:

In a harshly worded decision, the judge, Lawrence O. Burman, denounced the German policy, calling it "utterly repellent to everything we believe as Americans," and expressed shock at the heavy fines and other penalties the government has levied on home-schooling parents, including taking custody of their children.

Describing home-schoolers as a distinct group of people who have a "principled opposition to government policy," he ruled that the Romeikes would face persecution both because of their religious beliefs and because they were "members of a particular social group," two standards for granting asylum.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has appealed the decision, according to The Times story.

Here's a story from the German news magazine Der Spiegel, though it appears most of the story was clipped from various wire services.


* Scroll way down to the last item.