It's 9AM

I Hope You are Ready

The King is dead.

Long live the King.

I meant to talk about how I caught my Mom crying the day that Elvis died.

But we missed the anniversary of his death on the 16^th.

I don’t mark the occasion each year, just catch it in passing.

The fact that I forgot to talk about it almost had me all shook up.

He came through Pine Bluff a couple of times when he was on the honky tonk highway, and once played the Convention Center to a sold out crowd.

Which isn’t saying much, but this was a year or so before he died.

A huge star sold out 5000 seats, plus a few thousand on the floor.

I remember seeing his picture in the Commercial because he was wearing the white jumpsuit and had the huge gold sunglasses.

It sort of blows my mind that such a big star would play a small venue, but he had some good memories of rolling through the city on his way up.

The Convention Center hosted KISS too, my cousin’s first concert.

The Detroit Rock City band was another big name to roll through town.

My first concert was Styx in Little Rock at another mid-size venue, Barton Coliseum.

Which is also where I saw No Doubt and Bush and the Goo Goo Dolls and too many country acts to count years later.

None of them went to Pine Bluff, but by the time they were up and coming, no one really was.

Even rappers avoided it.

There are parallels between Detroit and Pine Bluff that are almost spooky.

Both lost the big industries that kept them afloat.

Both lost population and prestige and reputation.

Landscapes that looked like war zones and the people who were left fought crime, corruption and all the other poverty problems.

But the guy who built Rocket Mortgage decided to rebuild Detroit.

And a guy from Boston decided to rebuild parts of Pine Bluff when it was declared an Economic Opportunity Zone.

Except Detroit got a new downtown sports center and a ton of good press.

Pine Bluff got to watch the hedge fund guy say bye when the EOZ rules changed.

In 2025, those rules will change again, and more money might pour in.

Although pour is a strong word.

Nibble at the edges might be a more accurate rendering.

And like a country song played backwards, maybe the jobs will come back, the people will come back and the Mall might come back.

Maybe whiskey rivers and one more bottle of wine.

I wrote the guy who says he’s going to buy the Mall and suggested putting in a new theater on the Southside.

It’s directly across from the Casino and the new hotel they’re building.

A new Branson, the start of an entertainment row, with roots in the blues and Honky Tonks.

We couldn’t get the King anymore, but there are enough impersonators to bring in a tribute.

But maybe.

Just maybe, on the edge of town, something could be started with a new kind of energy.

The kind that good music creates and spreads like gossip through a town.

An infection of hope.

Dare I say we could all use a little bit more of it.

What are you building if you could?

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