Happy Friday, Tiger Nation. It’s Nov. 8, and the football team plays Rice tonight at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium. If you’re going to the game, wear black. But if you’re more of an inside person, there’s a Memphis Grizzlies game against the Washington Wizards at FedExForum, too.

On Saturday, yours truly will be running the Mamba 50K (that’s about 31 miles) at Shelby Farms Park. But I’ll be wishing I was just down the road at Meddlesome Brewing running the annual 0.5K (that’s .31 miles) charity run for the Humane Society of Memphis and Shelby County. Also on Saturday, you can sample your way around India’s diverse food culture at IndiaFest. (Pro tip: Look for pani puri.) Or, you can meet Banjo Boy from “Deliverance” at the inaugural Memphis Monster Con at the Pipkin. 

Back to sports, the Memphis Tigers men’s basketball team will play their second game of the season on Saturday against UNLV in Las Vegas. And on Sunday, the women’s basketball team plays Samford at home. The Grizzlies will be in Portland on Sunday to play the Trail Blazers.

For more weekend ideas, our To-Do List has your back. 

THE NEED TO KNOW

Friends remember Blake Rhea: Local musician Blake Rhea, 48, was killed outside Louis Connelly’s Bar for Fun Times and Friendship in Midtown early Wednesday morning after an argument that started inside the bar. Edward Wurl, 51, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death. According to police, Wurl followed Rhea to his car and cut him with a knife before shooting him. Rhea played bass in the band Southern Avenue and many other local bands and had taught at the School of Rock. On Thursday, friends of Rhea recalled his “ sly grin” and “really fun approach to living.” “Blake really was a light in a dark room,” said one friend.

Really smoking: Tops Bar-B-Q may need to name another menu item after local firefighters. The home of the barbecue-topped Fireman burger just closed its second location in three weeks due to fire. The blaze began at the Tops on Thomas Street in Frayser Thursday morning, due to “mechanical issues,” and no one was injured. But the store will be closed as repairs are made. The location at 3353 Summer Ave. is also temporarily closed after a mid-October fire.

TVA says OK to xAI: The Tennessee Valley Authority board voted to allow Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer to fully connect to TVA’s grid — but not without some questions. XAI plans to use about 150 megawatts of electricity, which comes to about 8% of Memphis Light, Gas and Water’s electric load on a typical day and about 5% during peak times. Board members had questions about xAI’s existing natural-gas turbines and over the equitability of its own rate structure. 

Court weighs Pervis Payne’s sentence: Pervis Payne was sentenced to death in 1988 for killing 28-year-old Charisse Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter and wounding her 3-year-old child. But in 2022, Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan vacated that death sentence and replaced it with two life sentences to be served concurrently, making him eligible for parole in less than two years. On Wednesday, a prosecutor with the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office argued to the Tennessee Supreme Court that Skahan didn’t have the authority to change how Payne serves his sentences.

QUOTED

“I want you to appeal. You don’t have to take what we put out there. We can’t always get it right. ”

— Shelby County Assessor Melvin Burgess
The county reappraises homes every four years, and that process is scheduled to start again in January. At a public meeting this week, Burgess urged homeowners to fight the reappraisals if they don’t feel they’re accurate. He also said his office is pushing the state to pass laws around home value assessments for investors versus personal property owners.

THE NICE TO KNOW

Art and sole: If you’ve looked closely at a Memphis Grizzlies game, you might have noticed center Jay Huff’s colorful sneakers. The swoosh on his black Nike sneakers looks like a heat map in Vancouver throwback jersey colors, and they were handpainted — by Huff’s wife. Lindsay Huff has long been a talented artist (just check out these birds she drew in high school), but in recent years, she’s taken to painting sneakers for pro ballers. In other Huff news, our own Chris Herrington talked about the newly signed center’s menu of blocks, 3-pointers and reverse dunks served up in the Grizzlies' Wednesday night win over the Los Angeles Lakers. And Herrington offers three more takeaways from that game, including an observation that maybe Zach Edey > Dalton Knecht.

Soup’s not on: The Crazy Noodle is best-known for its noodle soups (shout-out to my true love, Mandu Ramen; that’s ramen with veggie dumplings). But don’t fall into a soup rut at this longtime Midtown Korean spot. In this week’s $10 Deal, food writer Joshua Carlucci explores the “Non-Soup Dishes” side of the menu and gives a big thumbs-up to the spicy, chewy tteokbokki (or stir-fried rice cakes) and a broth-free noodle dish that’s even spicer. In other food news, the old Mellow Mushroom in East Memphis will be demolished to make way for a fried-chicken chain. 

Pharma-see ya: Regel Pharmacy in Bartlett is closing today after almost 50 years. Dr. Bill Regel, who started the pharmacy in 1975, made the decision to shutter over issues around Medicare payments. The building has been purchased by the owners of Bartlett’s Side Porch Steak House, and they plan to renovate and bring something “new, unique and kind of fresh.”

Why we should worry about Canadian strikes: On Monday, Canadian west coast ports locked out hundreds of workers over a union rejection of an employer’s “final” contract offer. About 20% of U.S. trade arrives at those ports in Vancouver and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and Memphis customers include Drexel Chemical, Helen of Troy, Nike, Williams Sonoma and others. So, what does this mean for you? “Customers will not receive cargo that is stranded at these ports until it is diverted,” said Joel Henry, CEO of Memphis-based IMC. The Daily Memphian’s Jane Roberts details the reason for the strike and why the recent American East Coast dockworkers’ strike is complicating things.

How NIL works (and more Tigers news): Memphis Tigers forward Tyreek Smith left the team for the transfer portal just before the team’s season opener this week. His reason? Unhappiness with the structure of his name, image, likeness (NIL) deal with Bluff City Collective. The details around that deal aren’t public, but the NIL organization talked with our reporters to give a big-picture view of how NIL works. In more Tigers basketball news, the women’s team suffered a big loss on Thursday, 100-56, to Mississippi State. But the women’s soccer team is killing it. They beat Rice, 3-1, in Thursday’s semifinal match, and now they’re headed back to the American Athletic Conference tournament championship match for a fourth straight year. And speaking of AAC championships, athletic director Ed Scott wants to remind fans that, even though the Tigers football’s team’s chance at an AAC title is slim, its 7-2 record indicates “how good we really are.”

GOT GAME?

The New York Times tech workers are on strike, and they’re asking readers not to cross the “digital picket line” by playing their games. If you want to support the strike without giving up your playing time, we’ve got you, friend. The Daily Memphian has games, too. Take, for example, this week’s Dia de los Muertos-themed Jigsaw.

This week’s Word Search doubles as a planning guide for foodies. 

If you’re like me, you miss the NYT Mini the most. But we’ve got the next best (or dare I say better?) thing with our 5x5 Crossword.

Go Tigers and Grizzlies! See everyone back here on Monday.