It’s been a great year for Fly on the Wall’s fake news team Davis Christopher and Peripheral Gibson. Together our parodists covered everything from Senator-elect Marsha Blackburn’s hair being identified as a brain-eating alien parasite, to riverfront development. Here are the top 5 Fly on the Wall parodies of 2018, in no particular order.
1.Tom Lee Park Redesign ‘Totally Unrelated To Atlantis’ New Riverfront Chief Says
POSTED BY PERIPHERAL GIBSON
At a press conference in their Front Street headquarters on Tuesday, Carol Coletta, head of the Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP), previously called the Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC), told reporters that her organization’s plans to dramatically alter the landscape of Tom Lee Park have nothing to do with her predecessor’s ambitious project to raise the lost, subaquatic city-state of Atlantis from the depths of the Mississippi River.“Our plan will activate the park space for all Memphians, and make it more attractive to Memphis In May festival goers,” said Coletta. “It’s totally unrelated to the RDC’s plans to raise Atlantis.”
Coletta joined the RDC in March, replacing Benny Lendermon, who had announced the public-private partnership’s multimillion dollar plan to spend millions of dollars on targeted nuclear explosives that would trigger powerful earthquakes bringing the long hidden city/state of Atlantis back to the Above World, presumably to rule over a golden age of peace and prosperity for Memphis and the Mid-South region. *CLICK TO CONTINUE READING*
2. Men at War
Old Friends Won’t Let Women Bring Them Down
POSTED BY DAVIS CHRISTOPHERGunner Armstrong shakes his head, and digs into his backpack to retrieve a freshly purchased bottle of pepper spray. “I don’t know how effective this stuff is,” he mumbles, pulling on his reading glasses and skimming the directions. “I had a friend in college who would get a couple of beers in him and squirt it in his mouth like it was breath freshener.”
Like many manly men today, Armstrong lives in abject terror. “You never can be too careful with women being what they are,” he says, expressing an increasingly common, and deeply masculine sentiment. At least twice a week Armstrong says he finds himself walking a block or more past his house, keys clenched firmly in his fist like claws, because he’s convinced a woman is following him home, possibly to accuse him of harassment. “At some point I’ll find a nice bright street light and stop there to pretend like I’m taking a phone call or something. I’ll just let them walk on past, you know?” Armstrong says. “It’s probably all in my imagination. But like dad always said: better safe than hungover and accused of some bullshit you totally don’t remember doing.” CLICK TO CONTINUE READING.
3. Great Works of Literature as Written by the Shelby Co. Election Commission
With Help from The Memphis City Council
POSTED BY DAVIS CHRISTOPHEREmboldened by national attention resulting from the careful and creative wording of current ballot amendments, the Shelby County Election Commission has committed considerable time and evident talent to improving the greatest works of world literature. While Fly on the Wall has yet to see a completed text, 5 first line samples were leaked this morning, revealing the epic scope of the Commission’s City Council-aided writing project.
Moby- Dick
Herman Melville with the Shelby Co. Election Commission“Shall Ishmael serve as a common spoken or chirographic signifier not expressly for greeting, but sometimes for gaining the narrator’s attention?” CLICK TO CONTINUE READING
4. Consultants Plan Monument To Consultants On Memphis Riverfront
POSTED BY PERIPHERAL GIBSONClaiming they have “bridged the gap between perception and reality,” a group of consultants has proposed Consultants’ Park, which will be dedicated to the many consultants hired to determine what Memphis should do with its riverfront.
“Since 1924, the city of Memphis has been trying to figure out what to do with this unique space, which overlooks one of the largest, brownest bodies of water in the world, and also Arkansas,” says the Preamble to the Executive Summary of the 2,667-page report issued by the Memphis Riverfront Consultants’ Coalition (MRCC). “Like the hundreds of consultants who came before us, we puzzled about how to polish Mud Island into a Mud Diamond. Then, three days into our recent ayahuasca trance charette, it suddenly hit us. What is more dependable and integral to the Memphis Riverfront experience than the Big Muddy? For the last century, the answer has been, consultants. That’s why we are executing Consultants’ Park, a reminder to all Memphis and the world that consultants matter, and that they must be paid.” CLICK TO CONTINUE READING
5. Citizens Organize to Protect Neighborhood Bar With Wall, Moat
POSTED BY DAVIS CHRISTOPHER
Community organizer Bing Hampton knows his audience. “Big Development’s not gonna get their grubby paws on Alex’s Tavern,” he shouts into his trusty bullhorn. There’s no reason to believe developers of any size are looking to acquire the Jackson Avenue institution, but that did not allay the concerns of roughly two-dozen Midtowners who waved signs with all-cap messages like “THE DIVE MUST SURVIVE,” and answered back, “Hell no.” CLICK TO CONTINUE READING
