So, earlier today I get a call from a well-known Midtown character (which, I know, narrows it down to about a zillion). He was telling me about his “guerrilla strike” against the Kroger on Union.
The sign reads “Come back, Mr. Seessel.”
And the goal?
Last Friday night was Trolley Tour on South Main, and despite the unseasonably tolerable weather, people shied away from the outdoor event. Such is the plight of the January Trolley Tour.
And yet! We ran into the lovely Linzy Witherspoon at the vintage and contemporary boutique Hoot and Louise. She was only popping over from her shift at American Apparel across the street, but we were happy to find her and snap her photo.
Both the royal blue sweater and khaki cigarette pants are from American Apparel, and the printed clutch and black pumps are from Urban Outfitters.
Meanwhile, in another part of town on an entirely different day, I spotted these earrings at Otherlands.
You can just barely make out her great bob haircut, but the earrings really stole the show. Their owner, Sharon, picked them up at the 2011 River Arts Fest.
Also at Otherlands, I stopped Chrissy to get a better look at her Aztec print sweater by Karlie.
She found it at Sachi and paired it with a mini skirt and knee-high boots — a solid uniform for 60 degree weather in January.
State Senator Stacey Campfield got a taste of his own medicine on Sunday night when the “Don’t Say Gay” bill author was denied service at Bistro at the Bijou in his hometown of Knoxville. Bianca Phillips has the story.
A federal appeals court in Knoxville has upheld an obstruction-of-justice verdict against David Kernell, the former University of Tennessee student who was convicted of two counts in connection with hacking then vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s personal email account in 2008.
Kernell, the son of longtime Tennessee state Representative Mike Kernell (D-Memphis), had appealed the obstruction-of-justice conviction, a felony, but not the other verdict, which pertained to his unauthorized access of electronic information belonging to Palin and had the status of a misdemeanor.
A Knoxville jury had convicted Kernell of the two charges in April. The jury deadlocked on a charge that Kernell had committed identity theft and acquitted him on a charge of wire fraud. Kernell was released from prison after serving less than all months for his two convictions.
The appeal of the obstruction-of-justice charge, which was heard by a three-judge panel, was based on Kernell’s claims that the portion of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act under which he was convicted was “unconstitutionally vague” and that there had been insufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. While granting Kernell standing to make the appeal, it rejected his claims.
The judges’ opinion sets forth in some details the means by which Kernell was able to hack Palin’s email account — essentially by guessing the answer to some identity questions and securing thereby the right to change her password so as to access it and later to publish some of the contents online.
The opinion also details the steps taken by Kernell to fend off possible investigation by the FBI, and it was these which resulted in his conviction of the obstruction-of-justice charge and in the rejection of his appeal.
State Senator Stacey Campfield got a taste of his own medicine on Sunday night when the “Don’t Say Gay” bill author was denied service at Bistro at the Bijou in his hometown of Knoxville.
Bistro at the Bijou owner Martha Boggs posted on Facebook about her decision to turn the senator away: “I hope that Stacey Campfield now knows what it feels like to be discriminated against.”
Boggs’ decision to turn Campfield away stemmed from some remarks he made during an interview on The Michelangelo Signorile Show on Sirius/XM’s OutQ gay talk radio station. In the interview last Thursday, which was supposed to be about his state bill that would ban discussion of homosexuality in grades K through 8, Campfield said the following:
“Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.”
“My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very rarely [transmitted].”
“What’s the average lifespan of a homosexual? It’s very short. Google it yourself.”
Boggs told the Knoxville News-Sentinel that denying Campfield service was her way of standing up to a bully: “He’s gone from being stupid to dangerous.”
Click here to listen to Campfield’s entire interview on OutQ.
And click here to hear another juicy interview (and read Truth Wins Out blogger Evan Hurst’s funny commentary) by David Pakman with Stacey Campfield. Among the many ditties in that interview, Campfield says not having sex with Africans helps one’s chances at avoiding AIDS.
This won’t go down well with football and basketball fans, but the best pro athletes in Memphis — counting coordination, stamina, nerves, and agility — may be the tennis players coming to the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships at the Racquet Club in February.
Blogs come and go, and come again.
A Fan’s Notes (the title of Frederick Exley’s memoir about fandom, Frank Gifford, and being a man) will be my take on sports, with an emphasis on racquet sports and occasional television spectacles that everyone is talking about like the Super Bowl.
Frank Murtaugh analyzes all the angles and says Eli Manning and Giants will win Sunday’s Super Bowl.
I love dissecting Super Bowl angles as the first Sunday in February approaches. Here are a few to enhance your viewing pleasure when the Patriots and Giants get it on.
(A note before we begin. I find it tiring when I read Super Bowl stories in which Roman numerals are in every third line. Quick: Who was the hero of Super Bowl XXIII? If I asked you who was the hero after the 1988 season, you’re much more likely to remember Joe Montana’s game-winning drive. When I make a reference to a specific Super Bowl, it will be the season for which that Super Bowl determined the champion. Green Bay beat Kansas City in the first Super Bowl after the 1966 season. Super Bowl XLVI will decide the champion for the 2011 season. And so on.)
• Not only will this Sunday’s game be a rematch of the epic Super Bowl four years ago (where are you, David Tyree?), but it will be only the third time franchises with at least five Super Bowl appearances have met. Dallas beat Pittsburgh in 1995 and Green Bay beat the Steelers last year. The Patriots’ seven Super Bowl appearances are now third among NFL teams, behind only the Cowboys and Steelers (eight each).
• Over the course of the first 13 Super Bowls, six of the games featured a pair of starting quarterbacks bound for the Hall of Fame (Dawson/Starr, Staubach/Griese, Griese/Tarkenton, Bradshaw/Tarkenton, and Bradshaw/Staubach twice). Over the last 32 Super Bowls, only four can claim such a match-up (Montana/Marino, Montana/Elway, and Aikman/Kelly twice). This will change, of course, as players not yet eligible for the Hall are enshrined (two examples: Elway/Favre in 1997 and Peyton Manning/Brees in 2009).
Tom Brady has been a first-ballot Hall of Famer for a few years now. And if Eli Manning wins a second Lombardi Trophy, he’ll have Canton in his sights. (The only quarterback to win two Super Bowls and not gain Hall induction when eligible is the Raiders’ Jim Plunkett.) Making things extra juicy, this is only the third quarterback rematch in Super Bowl history (Terry Bradshaw beat Roger Staubach twice and Troy Aikman did the same to Jim Kelly). But it’s the first rematch between quarterbacks who have each been named Super Bowl MVP. (Bradshaw earned the honor in 1978 when he beat Staubach — MVP in ’71 — in their rematch.)
• Brady will join John Elway as the only quarterbacks to start five Super Bowls. And should he win, he’ll be just the third to earn four rings (after Bradshaw and Montana). So he’s in the conversation about “greatest quarterback of all time.” For all his championships, Bradshaw doesn’t earn much love in this debate, having won his titles for teams remembered largely for the defense they played.
Thankfully, football historians don’t call upon career stats when debating the greatest signal-callers. (Vinny Testaverde passed for more yardage and touchdowns than did Montana.) Before we narrow the debate of greatest QB to Montana and Brady, though, I’d ask you to remember some great football was played before the first Super Bowl. And two legends deserve a mention here. Johnny Unitas won four championships for his Baltimore Colts and Otto Graham won an astounding seven titles for the Cleveland Browns in the Forties and Fifties (the first four in the All-America Football Conference, an early competitor to the NFL). If you asked me to rank these titans, I’d go with (1) Unitas, (2) Montana, (3) Brady, (4) Graham.
• The Giants are the third team to finish the regular season 9-7 and reach the Super Bowl (after the 1979 Rams and 2008 Cardinals). But they’re the first to do so having been 7-7 at one point. Which means New York has essentially won five straight elimination games on its way to Indianapolis.
• This factoid may interest only me, but worth sharing. The AFC is 4-10 in Super Bowls played under a roof. Two of those four wins, though, belong to New England (2001 and 2003).
• He’s as crusty as they come, and dresses like a 7th-grader, but Bill Belichick has established credentials almost beyond compare in the Super Bowl era. Should he win a fourth Lombardi Trophy, he’ll stand alongside Pittsburgh’s Chuck Noll as the only two coaches to do so. But Noll accumulated his rings over the course of merely six seasons, loaded with Hall of Famers — Bradshaw, Harris, Greene, Stallworth, Lambert, Ham, Blount, Swann, Webster — who played for all four teams. That dynasty essentially repeated three times, with a short interruption.
If Belichick wins Sunday, his four championships will have come over 11 seasons, with Brady the only linchpin throughout. An entire NFL roster will have been turned over (around a brilliant quarterback) under the same coach, with championship results. And were it not for that helmet-catch by Tyree four years ago, Belichick might have a fifth ring and an undefeated season on his resume. He stands to join a category of one.
• The pick: For me it comes down to the weapons at the disposal of the star quarterbacks. I’m convinced New England’s record-setting tight end, Rob Gronkowski, will be a shadow of himself as he nurses a severely damaged ankle. Wes Welker and Aaron Hernandez are valuable targets for Brady, but they’ll be easier marks for the Giant defense with Gronkowski diminished.
In addition to having the superior defense (end Jason Pierre-Paul is my dark horse for MVP), the Giants’ offensive weapons are healthy and peaking. Running backs Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs. Wideouts Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks, and Mario Manningham. Eli Manning likes this stage. With that many weapons, you can’t bet against him. GIANTS 34, PATRIOTS 20
Memphis Heritage has launched a website to show the Memphis photos of Don Newman. Louis Goggans has the story.
