Straight talk about environmentalism, spending, homelessness and race

Walking into Leamon Pierce’s bonding offices just off of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard is like walking into a hybrid of Chattanooga civil-rights museum and corner barbershop, minus the barber.  Covering the walls are photographs and faded newspaper clippings dating back to his youth at Howard High School, where he was “detained” by police for having the audacity to sit in a booth at the S&W lunch counter, combined with stacks of magazines and newspapers and a large-screen television tuned to Fox News.

To say that Pierce has been politically active for a while is a vast understatement.  From his days as a young civil-rights activist to his part in the lawsuit that created the current form of city government, he has been at the forefront of city politics.  What might surprise many who do not know the man personally is how much of a maverick politician he is, in many ways a throwback to the politicos of the ’50s and ’60s who shaped the course of the city.

Why your favorite band won’t be coming to town

Many a Chattanooga music lover over the years has lamented the fact that so many of their favorite bands and performers never come to town. Many believe the main reason the Scenic City gets bypassed is a perception amongst promoters and record labels that Chattanooga is too much of a backwater to support national acts. The real reason, at least according to music fan and well-known talk-radio host Jeff Styles, has nothing to do with any outside perception—but everything to do with alcohol. Or more specifically, the lack thereof.

“Local promoters make their money in three ways,” he explains. “Ticket sales, parking and concessions, especially the sale of adult beverages. Limited to no parking and a complete lack of adult beverages at both Memorial and McKenzie Arena, and only a beer or a glass of wine at the Tivoli that you can’t even take with you into the seating area, it means that promoters have to set ticket prices very high to even hope to make any money.”

Independent Film Festival leads the way for potential festival, theater

In the late 1950s, a group of Chattanooga film lovers started an “International Film Series,” showing a film, usually on Thursdays, at the downtown YMCA. Early founders included Tom Caldwell, George Connor, Dorothy Seessel, Norma Bradley, Jim Waterhouse, and former Chattanooga mayor Gene Roberts.

“This group of dedicated Arts & Education Council volunteers believed the community should have access to critically acclaimed art and foreign-language films,” says Susan Robinson, AEC Executive Director. 
The series moved to UTC in the late 1960s, Robinson says. Held in Grote Hall, the auditorium offered theater seating and a projector. “There was an intermission at these films—to allow the projectionist to change the film reel,” she notes.

Then in 1997, the AEC changed the series’ name from the “International” to the “Independent” Film Series and moved it to the Bijou Theatre in downtown Chattanooga.

And four years ago, it spun off the popular Back Row Film Series. Now, with movements afoot to found an independent film festival and an art-house movie theater in the city, the IFS remains the backbone of offerings for art-film aficionados and begins its new season with the documentary A Man Named Pearl on August 29.