Category Archives: Birmingham

Behind the 8 Ball

Larry Langford’s wit and wisdom.




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March 20, 2008

Visitors to the WERC 960 AM web site (www.960werc.com/pages/langford8Ball.html) will find a Magic 8 Ball flanked by two images of Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford. One is of Langford in his days as a WBRC Channel 6 reporter, complete with towering Afro. The other is the modern-day Langford, the savvy political animal we know, his hands folded as if in prayer.

Click on the ball to hear audio clips of various Langfordisms such as “Larry likes to move quickly without thinking,” “It’s gotta be something in hell we want, because we’re fightin’ so hard to get there,” “Mayberry R.F.D.—that’s all we are,” and “Do something, do anything.”

A Day at the Races

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A Day at the Races

The Birmingham International Raceway resumes its racing schedule on April 5.

By Ed Reynolds

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March 20, 2008

For a racetrack that launched several of the greatest names in stock car racing history, the Birmingham International Raceway (BIR) is sadly neglected by locals, many of whom don’t know the history behind the half-mile racing facility that surrounds a high school football field in Five Points West. Only the fabled Milwaukee Mile has been in existence longer on active U.S. racing circuits. BIR is older than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.Originally constructed as a one-mile dirt horsetrack, the Fairgrounds racing oval was hosting motorcycle races by 1906. The 10,000-seat grandstand was built in 1925, the same year that legendary automobile pioneers the Chevrolet brothers unveiled a prototype dirt-track car at BIR to 30,000 patrons. The track was reduced to half a mile in 1932. In those days, most races were held in conjunction with the state fair. It wasn’t until the 1940s, when J.P. Rotton began promoting featured races, that weekly racing became popular. A.J. Foyt brought Indianapolis 500-style open-wheel cars to BIR when they toured short tracks across the country in the 1950s. Stars Fireball Roberts and Richard Petty raced there when it was a regular stop on NASCAR’s former 60-race schedule. (NASCAR now runs 36 races a year.)




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In the early 1960s, BIR underwent a facelift. The speedway was paved, proper lighting was installed, and Sunday afternoon races were moved to Friday night. Red Farmer, Bobby Allison, and Donnie Allison were winning at BIR in those days, establishing the “Alabama Gang” legend after the trio relocated to Hueytown from Miami. (Track promoters reportedly made Farmer start races from the last position because he had become so dominant at the track.) Hueytown was considered the Mecca of stock car racing through the early 1990s until the deaths of late-addition Alabama Gang members Neil Bonnett and Davey Allison.

The most often repeated BIR legend concerns the night that Nero Steptoe, losing a wheel just laps before the end of a race that he was leading, won on three wheels. Trackside fights, some involving wrenches, were common until the mid-1980s. One crew chief summed up the prevailing attitude of the time when he said “we can swap paint on the track or swap skin in the pits.” Birmingham bar owner T.C. Cannon, who raced at BIR in the 1960s and 1970s said, “We’d race a while, then we’d fight a while.”

If you have a taste for loud, colorful fun, BIR is still a great place to take a date on a Friday night. Weekend racing resumes April 5 with the Steel City 100. Call 781-2471 or go to www.bir-raceway.com. &

Forging Ahead

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Forging Ahead

The Forge, Birmingham’s proposed downtown entertainment district, continues to seek financing.

By Ed Reynolds

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March 06, 2008

At the February 22 Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex board meeting, board members were informed by BJCC executive director Jack Fields that John Elkington, CEO of Performa Entertainment Real Estate, was ahead of schedule in meeting benchmarks to begin building the 176,000-square-foot downtown entertainment district recently named “The Forge.” (It was temporarily known as “The District.”) Dismissing reports that Elkington was lagging behind in fulfilling his commitments, Fields told the board of directors: “According to the agreement that was signed on the fifth of May [2007], if we take every one of those steps that is outlined in that agreement, then Mr. Elkington is not behind. He is ahead . . . I think Mr. Elkington, in his exuberance, has sometimes placed some timelines on himself that are far beyond what is in the agreement. For our purposes for right now, he is ahead of the timelines that are specified.” Elkington reportedly has met requirements that 50 percent of the square footage be pre-leased. Nevertheless, the process of securing financing for the development has been slower than predicted. Three months ago, Fields told Black & White, “It’s been a bummer, no question about that, but we don’t see that this is anything that would affect the continuation of the development. . . . According to Mr. Elkington, he feels that if he gets his lending package and the approval of it by the first week of February—that’s the goal—then we are still right on schedule to open in June or July of 2009, with a 14-month construction period.”

Even with a projected total cost for a new downtown entertainment district ballooning from $25 million to $50 million, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex board seems untroubled about the prospects of financing the project.

Fields told board members on February 22 that Elkington would instead have financing in place by the end of March. In a February 29 interview, Fields was confident that all is well. “I know that there is continued progress going on. Obviously, we have great concern about that, so we keep up, and we are very pleased with his progress,” he said. “Normally, the most difficulty that developers have is getting the equity. So if his equity is on the line and is ready to go, that really bodes well.” The Performa president has reportedly cleared that hurdle, according to Fields. “What Mr. Elkington has stated is that he [has] obtained $6 million equity—has arranged his equity with the lenders—and he would be entering into a loan that would be $24 or $25 million . . . that’s toward the entertainment center, not the hotels. If you put the hotels in it we’re talking about much, much more money than $31 million.” The BJCC and Performa signed a $25 million contract in May 2007, but cost estimates for the entertainment, dining, and retail area have increased to $40 to $50 million. The projected total cost, including two hotels, is now $80 million.

In November of 2007, it was widely reported that a 130,000-square-foot retail and entertainment complex that Performa planned for Trenton, New Jersey, had failed to obtain a $21.8 million loan. (Performa projects in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi, have also failed to come to fruition.) The Trenton development had been scheduled to open in late 2007. Elkington blamed unemployment and tighter bank lending requirements for that setback. Stricter lending standards have also been cited by Elkington for delays on gaining funds for the Birmingham entertainment district.

In mid-January, the BJCC board traveled to Memphis for a business retreat. The city is home to Performa’s flagship development, the revitalized Beale Street entertainment area. “What impresses me about Beale Street is the constant activity that takes place on it,” said Fields regarding the trip. “What I really am encouraged about as far as our development is that, with Beale Street, [Elkington] was basically confined to a definite layout and a definite framework to work with. Whereas here, he has a clean slate where he can optimize the design, traffic flow, and can create as much synergy as you possibly can in a development. . . . And of course Beale Street is what it is, and that is blues and rhythm and blues, and barbecue and things like that. Whereas here it’ll be a much, much broader offering of music and cuisine.”

• • •font size=”5″In other business at the BJCC board’s February 22 meeting, members approved the funding of a feasibility study to investigate the lowering of a brief stretch of Interstate 59/20 near the BJCC below ground level. (If approved, 80 percent of the needed funds would probably be provided by the federal government.) The current elevated portion of I-59/20 is deteriorating, according to Operation New Birmingham (ONB) Vice President of planning Chris Hatcher, who said that the highway is in the final third of its life and will have to undergo repair anyway.

The board voted 4-2 to invest $35,000 in the study, which would explore whether an entrenched I-59/20 is financially and physically possible. Those board members opposed to the study called it a waste of money, believing that the federal government will simply ignore any research results and reconstruct the highway as it pleases. ONB has been pushing for the interstate to be set in a mammoth gully no deeper than 40 feet, according to Hatcher. The plan would allow for the city’s street grid layout to be retained via bridges. Two decks above the highway are also proposed, one near the Birmingham Museum of Art and the other near the Alabama School of Fine Arts. Hatcher told the board that those two entities would be asked to contribute to the $100,000 feasibility study, as well.

BJCC executive director Jack Fields said burying the interstate will offer advantages for The Forge entertainment district. “[The interstate] is really not creating that much of a physical obstruction as far as traffic because you can move underneath it back and forth,” said Fields. “But it’s just the visual obstruction that seems to psychologically provide a separation between the rest of downtown and the BJCC. In other words, [the BJCC and The Forge] is on the other side of the tracks. . . . Where the entertainment center will get the most visibility is really in that 280 connection coming into I-59/I-20. That’s where it’s going to hit you like crazy.”

“Channel, ditch . . . trench” is how ONB president Mike Calvert described the proposed burial of the interstate, adding, “But it would be, for the most part, open above.” He echoed Fields’ affirmation of the project. “The big advantage is that the elevated highway is at least a psychological barrier to the connection between the BJCC complex and the rest of downtown,” said Calvert. “Now, you can walk underneath that, but it is very unpleasant as far as the trucks kind of thundering over your head. And visually it would disappear. And it’s our understanding that the sound would be directed, for the most part, upwards rather than emanating horizontally.” &

City Hall section — Langford’s Way

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Langford’s Way

Mayor Langford continues to express himself in a unique fashion.

By Ed Reynolds

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February 21, 2008

According to Mayor Larry Langford, repaved streets, additional streetlights, laptop computers, and school scholarships are going to stop residents from fleeing Birmingham’s dismal school system. At the January 29 City Council meeting, the mayor announced plans to start his economic revitalization agenda in the Collegeville community. “The reason we chose Collegeville is because—geographically—it’s small enough in size that whatever we do there will have such a major impact that you can actually get a benefit and see the impact of your dollars and use it as a model for other areas,” Langford assured the council. “You begin to re-house a community, street repaving and lighting, you bring people back into your city. You add to that component the laptop computers, and I can assure you . . . once that’s up and running by the end of this year, we are going to find a lot of people who will want to send their children to school who do not have the resources, moving back into our city to take advantage of the scholarships and that sort of thing.”Langford addressed the ever-present crime that has made Birmingham the nation’s sixth most dangerous city. “Our children are acting out on what they’re seeing us doing. We keep talking about these kids. We’ve got too many 50-year-old teenagers in this community. Big ol’ grown men walking around with their pants down, their butts showing, earrings in their ears! We need men to once again stand up and be men. Run your house . . . Ladies, don’t get offended, because some of the best men I know are women. My momma was a better man than any man I ever knew. And I got the scars on my butt to prove it. Now, every time you say ‘discipline your kids,’ I’ve got all of these groups popping up [saying], ‘It’s child abuse to talk about spanking.’ Child abuse is taking your child to the mall and paying $200 for a pair of sneakers for a kid. That’s what child abuse is. Taking your little boys to the mall, punching holes in their heads to put earrings in ’em and them hollering, ‘Black kings wore them!’ Name one!”

Langford went on to criticize parents for expecting teachers to instill discipline that should have been taught at home. “If you are a teacher, be glad I am not your superintendent, for I would make it mandatory that all teachers take a karate course,” Langford said. Recalling his days as a youth, the mayor reminisced, “[Teachers] would knock the paint off your body. And when your parents came, they would finish the job . . . And it’s not against the law—it may be against man’s law to go home and knock your kids out, but it ain’t against God’s law, and God’s law takes precedent over man’s law every day!”

• • •Two weeks later, at the February 12 council meeting, the mayor was again hyperventilating, but this time it was to complain about people calling City Hall to ask that their neighborhoods be cleaned up. “When we picked up almost 20,000 tons of garbage the first time around [during Langford’s initiative to clean up 23 communities in 23 days], and the second time around we’re picking up equally as much garbage and trash. There’s something wrong, something dreadfully wrong,” said Langford. “I hate chicken, I just absolutely don’t like chicken because of all the chicken boxes that’s thrown [out], they just drive past your house and [throw out] chicken bones . . . And this is adults doing this. We blame everything on these kids . . . They drive in front of your house, take the cigarette ashtray, open the door and pour all of the butts in the middle of the street. We need to put their little butts in jail for this nonsense. I mean, how long do we want to keep paying for the irresponsibility of people? And yet they call in here on a daily basis, ‘Will you come pick up this and pick up that.’ We just picked it up yesterday . . . You fine some of these people $2,000 to $3,000 for doing this . . . Forget the fine. It ought to be required by the courts that you ought to go out there and clean up a whole mile of where you dumped it for 30 days. That’ll stop it!”

Langford later admonished women who pursue relationships with men who mistreat them, in the process offering men a glimpse of what they’re missing because he wasn’t born a woman. “C’mon, get a life. If he mistreats you early on, don’t you kid yourself, it’s only going to continue,” Langford scolded. “Because if I was a woman—yeah, and be glad I wasn’t born one ’cause I would have been a fine little thing. Yeah, that’s right. I’d have been the kind when you’re walking down the street [that] looks like two little boys under a blanket fighting.”

• • •Also on February 12, the city council approved spending $3.5 million for 15,000 laptop computers for Birmingham students in grades one through eight. Only Councilor Valerie Abbott voted against the expenditure. Questions about the Birmingham Education Initiative, the non-profit foundation that would manage the program, forced that organization’s creation to be delayed for a week. “You’ve got to have a foundation in place to receive this money. These companies cannot and will not give you money unless there’s a tax-deductible foundation for it,” said Langford.

However, councilors were hesitant to approve the group to oversee the computer program, as the Birmingham Education Initiative has yet to be granted non-profit status. Councilor Roderick Royal, who requests that every dollar go toward the computers “and not be siphoned off by staff costs, etc.,” prefers that the school system oversee the computer program. “The school system has enough issues of its own to deal with,” responded the mayor. “We need a foundation that can go out and recruit funds for this program.”

The stand-off over the management group prompted an antagonistic exchange between Langford and Abbott, who wanted to know more about who would be in charge of the organization. Abbott said she recently discovered a July 2002 memo from then-City Finance Director Folasade Olanipekun regarding the city’s inability to audit the nonprofit Help E-Learn program that was affiliated with Computer Help for Kids, organized by former Healthsouth magnate Richard Scrushy, Langford, and former City Council and County Commission member John Katapodis. Some $200,000 was never accounted for.

Langford grew defensive. “As far as these computers are concerned, I’m the person directly responsible. If I wanted to hire this person you’re talking about, you can’t direct me who to hire and not to hire. Right now, we’re talking about computers coming in for a totally different issue. If you’ve got a problem with E-Learn, we’ve got lawyers here, let them sue them, if that’s the case.” Abbott replied, “If I’m going to be approving this, I am concerned about accountability and the veracity and honesty of people that you are hiring on behalf of the city.” Langford answered, “They may have the same concern about you, since we’re going to play this game!” Abbott maintained her composure as always, and simply replied, “Well, that’s fine and dandy.” &

Baker Knight

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Baker Knight

The late Birmingham songwriter wrote numerous hits as well as a brutally honest memoir.

By Ed Reynolds

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January 10, 2008

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Birmingham’s Baker Knight wrote more than a thousand songs. Ricky Nelson recorded 21 of them, placing three in the Top 10 pop charts before 1960. One of those hits, “Lonesome Town,” rode a second wave of popularity when it was included on the soundtrack of the film Pulp Fiction in 1994. Five years later, Paul McCartney recorded the song on his Run Devil Run album, and later sang it as a tribute at his late wife Linda’s memorial.

Knight’s fame and fortune, however, were forced to compete with the clutter of mental illness and alcoholism that dogged his life. Agoraphobia, addiction, and chronic fatigue syndrome were punctuated by panic attacks and drunken episodes.




	The late Birmingham songwriter wrote numerous hits such for the likes of Ricky Nelson, Elves Presley, and Dean Martin.

Knight died in Birmingham in 2005, having published his memoir, A Piece of the Big-Time, earlier that year. He was a better songwriter than storyteller, yet there are plenty of dramatic escapades and erratic behavior; he puts his life on exhibit as a spectacular highway crash, insisting that everyone stick around to view the charred remains.

Knight has had his songs covered by a diverse group of artists. Elvis Presley made “The Wonder of You” a number-one hit on the easy listening charts in 1970. Frank Sinatra took Knight’s “Any Time at All” to number two on the easy listening charts in 1965, the same year Dean Martin scored a number-two hit with the songwriter’s “Somewhere There’s a Someone.” (From 1966 to 1969 Dean Martin recorded 11 Knight tunes.) In 1976, Knight wrote “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time,” a country music chart-topper for Mickey Gilley. Perry Como, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Eddy Arnold also recorded his songs.

While living in Birmingham during the 1950s, after being discharged from the air force for emotional problems, Knight formed a band called the Knightmares that had a regional hit with “Bring My Cadillac Back.” The band signed with the Decca label after the song sold 40,000 copies in two weeks. However, radio was forced to pull the song after it was deemed a free advertisement for General Motors. The band broke up, and Knight moved to Los Angeles in 1958. He was soon hanging around with Ricky Nelson and Eddie Cochran, but his life remained in turmoil. One of his early suicide attempts involved leaping off a cliff behind the Hollywood Hills home of Ricky and his “Ozzie and Harriet” co-star brother David when he discovered the two were not home. He survived and continued to have great musical success despite his mental problems.

In and out of psychiatric hospitals, Knight finally returned to Birmingham in 1977. After various treatments in psychiatric wards, he went to Nashville in a failed attempt to resurrect his career. When he returned to Birmingham, he got a job rewiring lamps for Goodwill Industries. By 1981, his mental problems were so debilitating that he agreed to undergo a new procedure for agoraphobia. Electrodes were planted in both his chest and the back of his skull. The operation was to be shown on “That’s Incredible,” a popular TV show hosted by John Davidson (who once recorded Knight’s “The Wonder of You”). The operation was a failure, leaving Knight in line for shock treatment, which he received. He finally quit drinking in 1982, but his emotional problems continued to haunt him.

In his book, Knight hides none of the embarrassing, unpredictable behavior that shadowed his problems. He treats suicide attempts as self-deprecating episodes of madness. While in Nashville, after his romantic overtures to singer Naomi Judd were rejected, he grabbed his gun one night and went in search of Judd and her date. He once turned on the gas while talking on the phone to his estranged wife not long after she had given birth to their child. As he started to pass out, he decided he didn’t want to die and turned off the gas. However, he forgot the room was full of fumes and lit a cigarette. The explosion hospitalized him for weeks with severe burns, and his alcohol withdrawal resulted in his suffering the DTs while in the hospital, where he had to be tied to his bed.

Raised by alcoholic parents, one of Knight’s sad childhood memories involved a local landmark restaurant: “Sometimes at night, [my mother and stepfather] would take me with them to a Chinese restaurant called Joy Young’s on 21st street in downtown Birmingham. Now don’t let the ‘Joy’ confuse you . . . They would leave me alone in a booth while they moved a few booths away to talk and drink with their no doubt very together friends. They fed me, I’ll say that for ‘em, but sometimes they stayed until closing time while I sat there waiting alone. The booths were large and very much enclosed so I couldn’t see much of what was going on. I could hear them, though, and the drunker they got, the sicker and weaker I felt inside . . . Going to Joy Young’s was a fairly regular outing for a while; one that I most certainly did not look forward to . . . for I knew they’d be drinking until all hours and there was nothing I could do about it. I was in my own little prison for the evening, like it or not, and the only crime I had committed was that of being a child.” &

City Hall — The Honeymoon Phase

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The Honeymoon Phase

The Birmingham City Council and area residents appear willing to follow new Mayor Larry Langford anywhere.

By Ed Reynolds

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December 13, 2007

On December 4, the Birmingham City Council overwhelmingly approved Mayor Larry Langford’s plans to increase the city’s sales tax by 1 percent and double business license fees. Councilors voted 7 to 0 for the sales tax boost, with Councilor Valerie Abbott abstaining (Councilor William Bell was absent). The sales tax increase is projected to raise $36 million for police and fire departmental improvements, economic development, upgrade of streets and sidewalks, and scholarships for Birmingham high school graduates with at least a “C” average (residents will have to vote on the scholarship proposition). Though he approved of the sales tax increase, Councilor Joel Montgomery was the lone “no” vote on the issue of doubling business license fees, a proposal on which Abbott again abstained. The projected $28 million that will be raised by the fee increase is earmarked for a domed stadium and public transit. In the week prior to the vote it was learned that license fees paid by insurance companies have been capped according to state law, making $8 million of the original $36 million projection questionable. Proponents of the Langford plan point out that business license fees have not changed in 25 years and are among the lowest in the region. The average license fee is $983. Of the 28,000 businesses in the city, 80 percent pay $500 or less, according to Deborah Vance, Langford’s chief of staff. The sales tax and business license increases will take effect January 1, 2008.

• • •On November 27, the Birmingham City Council conducted a public hearing at Boutwell Auditorium on Mayor Langford’s tax and fee proposals. (The hearing had been scheduled only a week earlier.) All councilors were present except William Bell, who had been hospitalized. (No reason was given other than Bell’s administrative assistant oddly telling the audience, “Due to no circumstances of his, he’s in the hospital.”) Council President Carole Smitherman requested a moment of silent prayer. Mayor Langford’s chief of staff, Deborah Vance, apologized that the mayor could not be present due to his having to fly to Boston on city business.

Approximately 75 percent of residents who spoke were in favor of the tax increase. A minority, however, voiced loud dissent. Thomas neighborhood association president Alonzo Darrow questioned the wisdom of building an entertainment district in downtown Birmingham without legalized gambling. “If we had a lottery or legalized gaming, would we be sitting up in here tonight?” asked Darrow. About a dozen people in the audience shouted, “No!” He continued: “So your problem is not a one-cent sales tax. Your problem is not a business license. Yo’ problem is Montgomery!” Darrow opposed the tax increases and urged the council to “think about what you’re doing.”

Local schoolteacher Natasha Everett spoke in favor of Langford’s plans. “Not only am I a resident of the city of Birmingham but I’m also a small business owner, and I support the business license fee. I have no problem giving our children a penny. I have no problem hooking up with the vision,” said Everett. “I hear some of the senior citizens saying, ‘Well, we can’t afford it!’ But when you look over there in Five Points West at the casino buses on the weekend . . . Hey! We can afford it! We can quit talking about what we cannot afford!” Everett, a world history teacher at Carver High School, brought two dozen of her students and asked her class to stand as she pleaded, “They want the scholarship money! They need the scholarship money!” Smitherman then requested that the council allow one of Everett’s students to speak. The teen spoke in favor of Langford’s proposals and added that he will be voting for “Barack Obama because I believe he is another Martin Luther King, just like Mr. Langford.” The student elaborated, “I want to be the next Larry Langford, honestly. I want to be the next Barack Obama . . . Not as corny as it may sound, but I have a dream . . . I want to be as big as Bill Clinton, Martin Luther King, Larry Langford, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton . . .” Shouts of “amen!” reverberated through the audience of approximately 400. As the student finished, Smitherman suddenly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen of Birmingham, the honorable Larry Langford.”

The room broke into cheers as Mayor Langford strutted into the room. “Let me apologize. I’ve had so many things going on today,” Langford told the gathering. “And I’ve got to be on a plane at 6 o’clock in the morning to Boston to meet with MIT, uhh, Nicholas Negroponte, the creator and the builder of the laptop computer that we’re going to get for our kids . . . I am sick and tired of hearing people who live outside of the city tell us what we ought not to do inside the city!” The room again broke into applause amid more cries of “amen!” and “all right!” Langford was on a roll: “I have heard some of the most ridiculous things in my life since we proposed the one-cent sales tax: ‘I will go to Tuscaloosa [to buy automobiles at a cheaper tax rate].’ Well, 59 South goes that way!” Langford shouted as he gestured west, the audience laughing and clapping its approval. “We’re either all going to swim together or we’re going to sink together!”

Presumably speaking on the broader topic of personal responsibility, the mayor scolded, “It’s time for this mess to stop! The worst thing that ever happened to us is that some of us got a little house we can’t afford, got car notes we can’t pay, drinking liquor that we can’t spell, and we’ve lost our minds . . . Everybody’s on Ritalin! There ain’t nothin’ wrong with these kids that a good ol’ fashioned butt-whippin’ wouldn’t straighten right out! And if you did that, I wouldn’t have to hire 10,000 cops!” Langford wrapped up with this gem: “I drive through these parking lots and I could pick up a hundred pennies in any of these parking lots! If a penny’s going to break you, you’re already broke anyway, so don’t worry about it.”

• • •At the December 4 council meeting, Councilor Carol Duncan praised Langford’s tax initiative for providing more money for transit. “If you knew the number of calls received in my office on people losing their jobs because the buses don’t run at the time they need to be there, or the time they need to get off,” said Duncan. “If Mayor Langford wants rail, we’re going to give him rail.” Councilor Valerie Abbott said that she was not prepared to vote on the plan without more details. “We don’t really have much information or have even formulated plans how we’re going to spend the money except in broad categories,” said Abbott as she cited statistics indicating that Birmingham residents are becoming poorer yearly. The councilor quipped, “I do admire the mayor’s energy and enthusiasm. And I am well aware that he could sell ice to Eskimos. I’m sure of it. But I’m not an Eskimo.” Alluding to Langford’s “Let’s Do Something” campaign slogan, she added, “I truly want to do something right rather than just do something.”

Council President Carole Smitherman chose to remain true to Langford’s campaign slogan, however, acknowledging the four things that happen to an individual when taken hostage (as said by her pastor on the previous Sunday): Sit down, cry, remember, “and then the fourth thing you do [is] you get up and you try and do something. Birmingham has been held hostage by the suburbs because they say, ‘Birmingham, you can’t do this. You cannot do whatever it is that you want to do.’” Smitherman announced that she wants to form a review committee that would include the mayor’s and councilors’ input. “Every time one of these projects gets ready to come online, [the mayor] has to sit down with that review committee. And all the questions that weren’t answered now, if you will, we will answer them at that time.”

Langford shared his own observations regarding the suburbs. “The city of Birmingham is the reason you’ve got the surrounding suburban communities,” said the mayor. “So goes Birmingham, so goes this whole county. . . . If the heart dies, it’s just a matter of time before the limbs die.” He also praised councilors for standing up to automobile dealers that opposed his proposed tax increases.

Councilor Miriam Witherspoon said that auto dealers who are complaining about the boost in taxes have received plenty of financial incentives from the city. “They spoke about $80 million that they made in profits—that’s one dealer,” said Witherspoon. “Then they want to complain about us imposing a one-cent sales tax to help our communities.” The councilor said that at a meeting with car dealers the previous day, only one representative of the dealerships said he lived in the city. “So before you try to dictate what we do to help our people, you bring to us proof of what you’ve done to help our people,” said the councilor. “All you’ve done is make money off of selling your cars to our people. We’ve made you rich!”

After the meeting Langford said, “Dome done, scholarships done, transit done.” The mayor said he was surprised to learn that “things that I thought had been done years ago have not been done. We’ve got to get designs, we’ve got to get construction managers in place. . . . This is the fun part. We can do this standing on our heads.” &

Peace on Earth

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Peace on Earth

For nearly five decades, the Independent Presbyterian Church Choir has made its Christmas concert distinctive.

By Ed Reynolds

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The IPC choir at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, Italy, after singing a Mass at St. Peter’s. (click for larger version)

December 13, 2007

As with holiday seasons past, the Independent Presbyterian Church (IPC) choir will present its annual Christmas concert on Sunday, December 16. Few holiday rituals are more fulfilling than a late afternoon spent inside the church’s magnificent sanctuary listening to the choir and accompanying strings and brass instrumentation. This year’s presentation will include Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on Christmas Carols.”

I first discovered the IPC Christmas concerts a couple of decades ago when the choir was under the direction of Joseph Schreiber, in particular their presentation of “In the Bleak Mid-Winter.” (Schreiber once described the song to me as both “gorgeous and kind of haunting.” Haunting, indeed. The first few phrases paint a desolate picture that sends chills down the spine: “In the bleak mid-winter, frosty wind made moan. Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.”) A graduate of Northwestern University, Schreiber introduced Birmingham to world-class choral music upon his arrival at Independent Presbyterian in 1964 as church organist and music director. Jeff McLelland, current organist and music director at IPC, continues the Schreiber legacy. “Joseph Schreiber raised the level of excellence in chorale singing for church choirs [in the area],” says McLelland. “He established a wonderful tradition of music here, both with a professional-like choir plus offering quality concerts that are free to the public. It’s part of the church’s mission to continue the development of music and arts for public consumption.”

Louise Beard sang alto in Schreiber’s choir for 34 years. “Joe Schreiber sort of took church music out of just your—I hate to say ‘run of the mill’—but he put church chorale music on a professional level,” remembers Beard. “He was all about the music and anything that made the music right, which included a professional attitude, being on time, doing your part. He did not put up with lateness or absence without his knowledge. And he had the ability to make people want to do that. The music was an incredible experience.” Beard retired from the IPC choir after Schreiber stepped down in 1998. “After being there every Wednesday and Friday—and that was minimal—there were Tuesday night extra rehearsals, Saturday morning extra rehearsals—all kinds of stuff. But you wanted to do it, because the musical payback was so fabulous.”

Schreiber passed away on September 20, 2007. Independent Presbyterian has commissioned the building of a new organ to be named after the late director, with installation scheduled for 2012.

The IPC Choir Christmas Concert will be presented on December 16 at 4 p.m. The church is located at 3100 Highland Avenue across from Rushton Park. Call 933-1830 or visit www.ipc-usa.org for more information.

City Hall — Larry’s Kingdom Come

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Larry’s Kingdom Come

Mayor Langford starts his tenure with a bang.

By Ed Reynolds

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November 29, 2007

On inauguration day, it soon became clear that the new mayor wasn’t kidding when he repeatedly opined during his campaign that what Birmingham needs a “crazy man” to run the city. After Alabama Congressman Artur Davis saluted Birmingham because “a city that lives on a hill can never be hidden,” Larry Langford took the microphone to address several hundred people gathered at Boutwell Auditorium on November 13 for his mayoral swearing-in ceremony.

Langford’s theatrics were on display for the constituency that voted him into office without a runoff in a field of nine candidates. (During the inaugural speech he boasted that he could have beaten 40 because “If God be for you, who can be against you?”) As he addressed the crowd, a Hispanic interpreter desperately tried to decipher Langford’s every sentence; the new mayor’s Baptist preacher oratory and the interpreter’s frantic Spanish frequently collided.

“We pay $120 for a pair of sneakers for a 12-year-old. They can’t jump any higher with a $20 pair than with a $100 pair. . . . When was the last time Tommy Hilfiger was at your house?” —Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford

Langford choked down sobs as he told the crowd about a woman dying of cancer in Calera whose final requests included meeting the new mayor—a wish Langford was more than happy to oblige. He warned the crowd, “If in the next few minutes I say something you do not like, I want you to know that in my heart I do not care! . . . I’m not coming out to patch your streets. We are coming out to rebuild your community.” He acknowledged that Birmingham is currently losing 5.6 percent of its population yearly. “If we [the city] were a patient in the hospital, they would put us in intensive care,” he said. Regarding crime, Langford urged parents to raise their children with more discipline: “I cannot hire enough police to keep us from killing each other . . . It’s nothing that a good ol’ fashion butt-whipping [won't solve].” A man in the crowd yelled approval: “Larry ain’t playin’!”

Langford derided city residents, asking, “When did we lose our mind? We pay $120 for a pair of sneakers for a 12-year-old. They can’t jump any higher with a $20 pair than with a $100 pair. . . . When was the last time Tommy Hilfiger was at your house?” The crowd responded enthusiastically, shouting, “Amen!” Langford was on a roll: “Our children are direct carbon copies of us . . . I don’t want to deal with no 50-year-old teenagers!” He added that he would “not tell the city or council how to set the table without bringing something to the table.” Another supporter loudly sighed, “Larry’s crazy!”

• • •

On November 19, the Birmingham City Council met with the new mayor to dissect his big spending plans for improving the city. Langford has asked for a 100 percent increase in business license fees and another 1 percent boost in sales tax (increasing it to 10 percent) to raise a projected $72 million to finance a domed stadium, the transit system, economic improvement, street and sidewalk refurbishment, police and fire department upgrades, and a student scholarship program. A separately proposed $7 million expenditure would be used for the scholarship program as well as purchasing laptop computers for city schools. It’s the additional $7 million request on which the council was taking an “in-concept, in-theory” advisory vote (as described by Council President Carole Smitherman) on this particular afternoon. The vote was not binding. Councilors Carol Duncan, Steven Hoyt, Miriam Witherspoon, and Maxine Parker spoke enthusiastically in favor of moving ahead with Langford’s ideas.

Langford was more subdued at the November 19 meeting than he was at his inaugural, but not by much. He addressed councilors (all but Joel Montgomery were present): “Just once in this community I want to see somebody say something positive about Birmingham without the ‘buts,’ the ‘ands,’ and the ‘conjunctions’ [added] to it. We keep buying into people who are painting this city with a broad brush. . . . Yes, we have a crime problem in this community and we will address it. Let me just be straight up about it. Black-on-black crime in this community: we have to speak out on it as you have been doing, only with a louder voice. We’ve got to get into our churches and get the faith-based communities involved in this deal. Because if we don’t do this quickly, we are going to run the risk of being the only race of people in the history of civilization to kill itself off.”

Langford believes that scholarships are a first step to avoiding the picture of impending doom he had just painted. “When you put scholarships in these children’s hands, now they’ve got something to say ‘yes’ to. We keep telling them to just say ‘no.’ Give them something to say ‘yes’ to. Now those Mommas and Daddies are gonna have to read and [be] with their children because the light at the end of the tunnel won’t be a train coming to run over them!”

As a sign of support for fighting crime, Langford had already ordered that mayoral staff cars be turned over to the police department. “I have pulled in every car that’s on the mayor’s staff,” Langford said. “I’ve never used a city car, I will never use a city car. I want my own car. I want to be able to go and come as I please without somebody following me and saying, ‘Oh, you stopped off at T’s.’ If I wanna stop at T’s, I’ll stop at T’s.”

Langford was appalled that police officers are riding one per vehicle. “Tell me why you would send a single police officer into a crime hot spot by himself,” he demanded. “We have narrowed these little beats down so small that it requires taking the officers and splitting them apart and buying twice as many cars as you need rather than giving them a defined beat area and put two officers in the car, for the officers’ protection as well as for the protection of the crook.” Langford said that he personally would not drive into some of the crime areas if he were a lone policeman. “That’s why it’s taken 35 or over 40 minutes for them to answer some of these calls,” he observed. “They’re scared!”

Councilor Valerie Abbott said that she needs more information about Langford’s proposals, whereas Councilor Roderick Royal expressed concern that small businesses will not be able to afford the proposed doubling of the business license fee. Councilor Duncan said that she had been talking to residents and independent business owners in her district and has found few objections to Langford’s notions. Duncan added, “Education? The laptops and funding the schools? I’ve been in here six years, I think we’ve given them what, about $40 million trying to keep them from going belly-up! $7 million sounds like a bargain to me.”

“You can’t be against laptops and you can’t be against giving school scholarships,” Councilor Royal said outside the council chambers. “[But] I was in the army and you don’t make major moves in the army, as an army officer, without an op order. It’s a five-paragraph kind of thing. And that’s what’s happening today. You have a mission that you’re going on, but there is no op order. There is no command and control, in my opinion. There is no objective. . . . Yeah, okay, you want to build a dome, those kind of things, yes, you have goals but how do you get there?”

#147;I couldn’t be happier. It made this whole campaign worthwhile,” Langford said of the council’s reaction to his proposals during a press gathering after the meeting. When asked to comment on the morning headlines that Birmingham is now the sixth most dangerous city in America, the mayor replied, “To deny the numbers, you can’t do it. It is what it is. . . . That’s why I was pushing today for scholarships and for improved street lighting and improve the police department and in talking about economic development. You’ve got to give people hope right now. That’s what’s lacking in this community.” Langford elaborated on the computers for schoolchildren. “These are exceptional computers! For those who say, ‘Well, it’s a computer, but . . .’ Where’s your 15,000 computers? If you don’t like this 15,000, give us 15,000. Let’s see if you’ve got something to say other than just lip service.” Langford added that he is sick of critics who offer no help. “We’re gonna go ahead, we’re gonna move forward, we’re gonna help our children, we’re gonna do the things we have to do. And this council is on board and I love it! It is what it is!”

At the next day’s weekly City Council meeting—Langford’s first—he was anointed by the pastor from Council President Smitherman’s church, More Than Conquerors Faith Church. The ceremony took nearly 10 minutes. The council later set up public hearings for the following week to hear citizens’ feedback on the mayor’s proposals. &

Shops of Horror

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Shops of Horror

Where to find unique costumes for Halloween.

By Ed Reynolds

write the author

October 18, 2007

For those who indulge in Halloween, there is a grand spectrum of fantasy accessories available in the greater Birmingham area ranging from the terrifying to the hilarious in the form of imaginative costumes, gags and props, rubber masks, and other magnificent horrors.




	Some of the costumes available at Backstage Florist & Gifts

Backstage Florists & Gifts has a fascinating selection of costumes for rent (cost: $25 to $150). “We’ve got pretty much anything you want to be,” says Hank Ponder, the engaging owner of the 23-year-old shop. The store’s impressive selection includes Renaissance costumes represented by European royalty and Shakespeare-era garments; Old South apparel including Confederate uniforms and Southern belle hoop skirts; and various cartoon mascots who, for copyright reasons, must be referred to as Cat with the Hat, the “Purple Dinosaur,” etc.

Ponder explains that the costumes can’t be taken to a dry cleaner. “The sequins come back missing and the velvet can be eaten away by the chemicals they use. We have a woman who specializes in cleaning them.” Interestingly, Ponder says that after the September 11 attacks, a letter was sent from the federal authorities stating that civil service and other similar costumes could no longer be rented out. “That includes police, firemen, stewardesses and pilots,” says Ponder, adding, “We can’t even rent astronaut costumes!”

Backstage Florist and Gifts offers garb from the 1920s to the 1970s. The 1980s are represented only by mullet wigs. Ponder says that pirate and Batman costumes are currently the most popular. The Batman outfit is an impressive latex uniform that includes a cape with a ten-foot span and a retractable frame. “The flapper outfits, that’s a popular one. Women love the flapper. She’s a staple in the industry,” he says. “We also have Tippi Hedren in The Birds,” grins Ponder as he pulls from the rack a floral-print dress with several stuffed blackbirds attached to it.

Paper Works Outlet offers witches’ brooms ($2.95), human skull candles on sticks, plastic barbed wire garlands ($4.95), and a set of large paper replicas of two famous paintings with a sinister touch: “Mona Lisa” appears as a vampire with fangs and blood drooling from her mystical smile; “American Gothic” features a farmer as a rotting cadaver missing an eyeball and his wife a vampire with a bloody lip and fangs. A dozen squishy fake eyeballs are available for $1.99.

Hoover’s Party City has the creepiest and naughtiest collection of costumes and props. For 99 cents each, the store offers wall-clinging objects: Sticky Body Part 1 (a gelatinous-looking red glob); Sticky Body Part 2 (a six-fingered hand); Sticky Body Part 3 (it appears to be a splattered eyeball). Perhaps most disturbing are the authentic-looking rubber body parts on bloody paper towels in Styrofoam containers, wrapped in cellophane. They are sold for $9.95 as Cannibal Meat Market products. Body parts include a bloody severed hand and a bloody heart. Each is stamped “USDA Prime” and contains nutritional information. Cinema Secrets sells an adhesive rubber strip that looks just like a slit throat for $9.99. Its packaging touts “used by professionals.”

If you want your five-year-old to look like a pimp this Halloween, pick up the “Mac Daddy” costume ($29.95). The outfit includes a black coat with mock leopard-skin lapels and a huge, gold dollar sign medallion worn around the neck. There’s also a “rapsta” outfit, consisting of the requisite baggy pants, ridiculous hat, and the aforementioned gold dollar sign pendant.

Sexuality remains a popular Halloween theme. There’s the Big Daddy “self-adhesive hairy chest” ($6.95), which can be used interchangeably with the 1970s Disco Stud, Macho Man, and Caveman costumes. And, of course, the Hospital Honey nurse accessories that include fishnet stockings, garters (“with realistic-looking hypodermic” attached), and a plastic nurse’s bag that can carry all kinds of interesting things. &

Backstage Florist & Gifts

2233 6th Avenue South

324-2535

Paper Works Outlet

3700 1st Avenue North

324-2117

www.paperworksoutlet.com

Party City

1615 Montgomery Highway

824-0750

Open Season

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Open Season

Southside’s entertainment districts have become a hunting ground for muggers, car thieves, and murderers.

By Ed Reynolds

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October 04, 2007

Even as the mayor apparently refuses to recognize that Birmingham is becoming an increasingly dangerous place to live, crime continues to haunt the city’s merchants and residents. Mayor Bernard Kincaid speaks of a “perception of crime” as he seeks re-election on October 9. Candidates vying for Kincaid’s job and Birmingham residents, however, believe differently.




Über-bohemian: Per criminology’s “broken window” theory, some feel that Five Points South has become so riddled with “colorful” characters that a signal is being sent to potential criminals that their crimes will go largely unnoticed. (Photographs by Mark Gooch.) (click for larger version)

In Five Points South, recent robberies of patrons walking to their vehicles from various establishments have drawn attention to the area. But not many owners or employees at bars and restaurants are willing to share crime anecdotes. One exception is bartender Cat Hawkins at Dave’s Pub, who says that the area seems to be getting more dangerous. Hawkins says that female patrons at the bar are now escorted to their cars by a security guard after dark.

James Little is president of the Five Points South Merchants Association. Little constantly chases away vagrants from the sidewalk in front of the area coffee shop he manages. While talking about the problem in front of the business on a recent afternoon, he confronted street people, then returned to explain, “Certain people—transients, vagrants—know that [Five Points South] is an area where they can go and can hang out and drink, do drugs, panhandle, harass . . . Because nobody will say anything to them. Nobody will question them.” Little says that such behavior is not tolerated in Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Hoover, or Homewood. Panhandlers actually come into his business and ask customers for money. Little has urged police to tell vagrants that they must leave the area instead of simply sending them across the street, where they continue to loiter. “I know a lot of businesses in this area are hurting right now,” says Little. “This area could possibly be like Woodlawn in a couple of years.”

Frank Stitt, owner of Highlands Bar & Grill, says the city must address problems in the area. “City Hall needs to re-energize their emphasis on making Five Points a secure, a safe, an attractive, a clean area—whether it’s the street departments, whether it’s more policemen, whether it’s more lighting, whether it’s security cameras. We need all of that. We also need the police to actually be accountable for not allowing these street criminals, transients, vagrants, and drug dealers that hang out here. The church [Highlands United Methodist] invites them all for coffee and donuts and washing laundry every morning, and then they just pretty much use the Five Points South area as their home base. I think the church certainly has good intentions. . . . But to leave them here so half of them can deal drugs and just get into trouble all day long is a bad end result . . . City Hall and the police department have not followed through on helping make Five Points a secure and attractive area.” Stitt admits that the police have a difficult job, but notes that other municipalities in the county do not allow such activity.




“These aren’t narcotics, just muscle relaxers”: One homeless man shares meds with another in an alley near Five Points South. (click for larger version)

On August 19, after a man was found shot to death in the 1200 block of 20th Street South near Bell Bottoms nightclub on Highland Avenue, the department said that police presence would be beefed up in Five Points South. On September 22, a man stabbed his wife several times on a Saturday afternoon in front of the fountain across the street from The Grape restaurant.

• • •T.C. Cannon has owned the bar TC in the Lakeview entertainment district for the past two decades. Before that, he and his brother operated the Upside Down Plaza near Five Points South for 25 years. Cannon has decided that he’s had enough of the local criminal element. He has put TC up for sale and has given up plans to open a bar in a building he recently purchased, the former Battery Warehouse a block from TC. “It was going to be my last bar, a super-duper bar,” says Cannon. “But I’m heading north somewhere. . . . Crime is out of control.”




(click for larger version)

In the middle of the afternoon six months ago, Cannon drove to the Battery Warehouse building only to find two men dismantling one of his vehicles he had parked in front. He got out with his .38 pistol and confronted the thieves, who fled. According to Cannon, police were called but it took half an hour for a lone officer to arrive.

Cannon has watched the neighborhood deteriorate for some time. A little over a year ago, a dead body was found in a parking lot adjacent to TC in the early morning hours. “Here in Lakeview, it’s getting like Five Points South. If it wasn’t for valet parking, the nice restaurants would not exist at all,” said Cannon. “Now it’s personal. The thieves, when they see a golden opportunity walking down the street, they sit in the shadows and wait on some good victims. . . . Why break into the car when you’ve got them?”

Kelly Pierce has been a bartender at The Oasis in the Lakeview district for more than six years. In 2005, she and two employees were robbed at gunpoint while closing the nightclub. Pierce says that automobile break-ins have been the primary problem in the past year. She does not feel as secure as she once did. “I used to close that bar by myself and be fine with it. But I would not want to do that again,” says Pierce. “It’s been scarier the past two and a half years.”

Pierce had her 1984 Chevy truck stolen twice on Southside. The first time, Bessemer police recovered it in a Lowe’s parking lot with “a ball joint broken out,” said Pierce. When she went to pick up her truck, there was another license plate on it, presumably stolen. When she asked the Birmingham police officer present if he wanted the plate, Pierce said she was told to “just throw it away . . . don’t worry about it.”

The truck was stolen a second time in May of this year from in front of her apartment on Idlewild Circle, where she moved after the first truck theft occurred.

• • •South Avondale resident Brent Marshall told mayoral candidates at the Redmont Community mayoral forum on September 20 about crime in his neighborhood. Marshall and his family returned home from a vacation this past summer to find a bullet beneath the window of his three-year-old daughter’s bedroom. In an interview, he elaborated on crime in his neighborhood, especially the questionable activity at a nearby apartment complex on Fifth Avenue South.

“There’s lots of gang activity . . . I [often] hear gunfire,” he says. “There’s not enough of a police presence.” Marshall’s home has not been burglarized, but his neighbor’s house has been broken into twice, and several other houses on the block have been burglarized over the past two years. He says that residents willing to revive neighborhoods deserve better treatment. “People take an interest in Birmingham,” said Marshall. “People take a risk to move into an area like this and try to establish a community. People are on the verge of leaving—especially people with children and families.” &