Thursday, 30; Friday, 31st: I guess this is the last edition of the ol’ Memphis Flyer for the year 2004, and I would take a look back and reflect upon the highlights of the past year, but I’m afraid it might make me kill someone. Yep, rap someone on the head with a fireplace poker. Beat someone to death with a frozen ham and then cook it and feed it to friends to get rid of the murder weapon. Hold a photo of George W. Bush so close to a person’s face that he disintegrates from shock and horror. Uh, the person disintegrates, that is, not George W. Bush. Well, wait. Let’s rethink that one. What if George W. Bush disintegrated like the Wicked Witch of the West? What if you could just throw a bucket of water on him and make him melt into a puddle of goop and spoil his beautiful wickedness? Oh, never mind. I digress. I actually gave up a couple of seconds of my life thinking about him. I think I was writing about killing someone. And I was JUST KIDDING. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. But I do think that I have become the meanest, grumpiest person I know. I don’t know if it’s old age or brain damage or the perpetual sinus infection I have or the fact that if I hear one more Christmas carol I am going to drive my car through the front window of a department store, but I have become absolutely intolerable. I curse at the television every time I witness an advertisement that has a jingle. I loathe jingles. They are the work of Satan. People who write them should be forced to sleep with Pepino from The Real McCoys. I just saw a piece on the news about a woman who had a baby. That was the story. Just that she had a baby. She had it in the car on the way to the hospital, like that has never happened before, and it was a big story on the Today show, the most watched news show in the world. I gave up roughly two minutes of my life watching it. And cursing at the television about it. The father was cross-eyed and had less than a firm grip on the art of good grammar and had a really creepy laugh and I couldn’t hold back from screaming, “Why must people reproduce?!!!” Don’t even get me started on the news. My stomach gets tied up in knots feeling bad for Matt Lauer because he appears to be in a constant state of cringing for being forced by his producers to immediately follow a horrifying report about American soldiers being blown to bits with a perky piece about Paris Hilton because that’s what the viewing audience wants to hear. I can’t believe how mean I am. The only remotely interesting thing I came across in the news this morning was the piece about David Gest and the lawsuit in which he is involved regarding his alleged refusal to pay a contractor for renovations done on his $1.1 million South Bluffs home. The suit filed by the contractor claims that Gest “has unreasonably failed and refused” to pay for the work, which the contractor claims is just fine. According to the news account I read, Gest claimed that “a kindergarten child could have done better.” Meeee-ow! Whatever the case, my question is, who in the hell would pay $1.1 million for a home that needs work? Shouldn’t a $1.1 million home be okay as is? What could it possibly need? And to make it even better, the alleged work included renovations to the
Friday night, the 31st, is, of course, New Year’s Eve. Many of you will likely get potted and act like idiots. I wouldn’t know anything about that. If you prefer to be a bit more civilized, you can see two of Memphis’ most beautiful, precious singers perform. Opera star Kallen Esperian is performing a New Year’s Eve concert with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra at the Cannon Center. And the fabulous Wendy Moten returns to town to sing at Isaac Hayes Food * Music * Passion along with Voodoo Village. I’m sure there are many, many other wonderful things going on all over town, but I really don’t care. I love Kallen Esperian and Wendy Moten and that’s it. — Tim Sampson
