Author: Peripheral Gibson

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Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Memphis In May Scientist Warns Against Dinosaurs In Tom Lee Park

‘Artistic’ rendering of proposed changes to Tom Lee Park.

Dr. Ian Malcolm, Senior Chaos Theorist for Memphis In May, warned of grave danger to the public if a plan devised by the Memphis Riverfront Public Partnership (MRPP), to exhibit genetically engineered dinosaurs in a newly revamped Tom Lee Park, is allowed to go forward.

“Life will find a way,” the dashingly handsome, black-clad scientist told an enraptured crowd at a recent public forum on the proposed revamp of the city’s premiere riverfront acreage.  [pullquote-1]
MRPP was represented by Dr. Perceval Petrodopolos, a paleo-genetic engineer who said new advances in CRISPR technology has enabled him to reconstruct the genomes of dinosaur species that have been extinct for millions of years. The dinosaur DNA material was recovered from blood found in the stomachs of mosquitoes trapped in amber and spliced with that of dinosaur descendants such as frogs and birds. Plans and renderings unveiled by MRPP showed brontosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, and velociraptors playing whimsically with school children among the rolling hills of Tom Lee Park.

“The lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here staggers me,” said Dr. Malcolm, pounding the table. “Don’t you see the danger in what you’re doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force mankind has ever seen, but you wield it like a kid who has found his dad’s gun!”

“I don’t think you’re giving us our due credit,” said Dr. Petrodopolos. “I have done something that has never been done before!”

“But you were so preoccupied with whether they could, you didn’t stop to think whether you should,” replied Malcolm. “Isn’t that right, Dr. P.P.?”

Dr. Malcolm described the prospect of revived, probably carnivorous thunder lizards  sharing a park with some of the top musical acts in the country and tens of thousands of revelers during the Beale Street Music Festival as “chilling. I simply cannot guarantee the safety of the food trucks and merchandise vendors in such a situation.”

Dr. P.P. was incredulous at what he called “Luddism from a scientist” and questioned why Memphis In May even needed a chaos theorist on staff.

Dr. Ian Malcolm

“Have you ever been to Music Fest?” replied Dr. Malcolm.

City officials are expected to rapidly approve the Jurassic improvements to Tom Lee Park, which will include pterodactyl roosts on the heavily populated bluff overlooking the riverfront.
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Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Consultants Plan Monument To Consultants On Memphis Riverfront

Sign greeting visitors to Consultants Park.

Claiming 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.”
[pullquote-1] “That’s ‘Consultants’, plural,” says the first of the document’s 1,300 footnotes. “Because consultants love company.”

According to the design documents, Consultants’ Park will stretch the entire 2,348 mile length of the eastern bank of the Mississippi. It will include a specially designed “Consultants’ Safe Space Play Area”, where businesses can bring their consultants to frolic in the fresh, humid river air and socialize with other consultants. There will also be a Consultant’s Corner, where citizens can interact with and ask questions of a real live consultant, and then pay them directly in cash for their advice. “We see this as a way to get people off the streets and into cushy consulting gigs,” says the MRCC.

The centerpiece of the park will be a 1,923-foot tall statue of a consultant riding triumphant on a rearing steed. “It’s 1,923 feet tall, because 1923 was the year our consultant forefathers first discovered the Mississippi riverfront,” says the MRCC.
As for the rest of the 2,000+ mile park, the MRCC says “We’ll get food trucks or something.” 

Signage directing visitors to Consultants Park

The project is estimated to cost $1.2 billion. The MRCC points out that only $1 billion of the budget is allotted to consultant’s fees. “It’s a bargain for the taxpayers!”
As of press time, no city officials were available for comment.
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Yes, this is a PARODY. Didn’t you see the black and yellow tab at the top.

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Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Tom Lee Park Redesign ‘Totally Unrelated To Atlantis’ New Riverfront Chief Says

Definitely not an irradiated Gill Man.

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.

“Now some people will say that the new undulating hills we’re building in the flood zone of one of the most powerful rivers in the solar system would be an ideal spot for burying the thousands of horribly burned gill-men cadavers that have been washing up on the banks of the Big Muddy, but you would be wrong,” said Coletta.
[pullquote-1] “We acknowledge mutation is an ongoing problem in this area of the river,” she added. “But we prefer to focus on making the riverfront great for everybody.”

Similarly, a rebranding effort that changed the name of a corporation devoted to riverfront development (RDC) to Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP), was in no way caused by news reports associating the RDC with the effort to raise Atlantis.

“Having a new name that doesn’t come up in Google searches next to the words ‘raise Atlantis’ and ‘nuclear weapons’ was in no way a factor in our decision to rebrand,” said Coletta. “Look, the truth is, there wasn’t much to the Atlantis thing. It was really overblown by the media, right from the beginning.

“When Benny’s crew of nuclear demolition engineers got to where they thought Atlantis was going to be, there wasn’t anything there. So, they left. That’s what happened.

“Those earthquakes you want to ask me about, we had nothing to do with those. Completely natural phenomenon.

“We’re just laser-focused on making the riverfront better by cleaning up all the radioactive material from the shoreline and disposing of it somewhere that’s not Tom Lee Park.”

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Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

RDC Announces Plan to Raise Atlantis

Original Graceland?

At a press conference in their Front Street headquarters on Tuesday, the Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC) told an assembly of reporters and city officials of plans to raise Atlantis from the bottom of the Mississippi River.

The “continent” of Atlantis, home to an advanced civilization of peaceful citizen-philosophers, was described by Plato in 360 BC as lying “beyond the pillars of Heracleas” and for centuries, that was interpreted to mean the missing landmass was located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. But RDC researchers discovered that Plato’s words were mistranslated. “He really said that Atlantis was just west of Mud Island,” RDC President Benny Lendermon explains. “We were as surprised as anyone.”

Dressed in what he called “full regalia of Atlantean royalty,” Lendermon said the RDC’s bold plan was developed after years of careful research by archeologists, engineers, and shamans. Using evidence from geological surveys, satellite imagery, crystal skull phrenology, and dusty tomes of uncertain origin found in the Memphis Room of the Public Library, Lendermon believes the RDC has finally pinpointed the legendary island’s exact location in the deepest channel of the Mississippi River.
[pullquote-1]After determining Atlantis’ location, RDC members made psychic contact with the Atlanteans while in an ayahuasca-induced trance state. “They want to bring peace and prosperity to the Above World,” Lendermon says. “We think this is a great opportunity to connect Memphians and tourists to the riverfront.”

The plans, unveiled today in a polished Keynote pitch deck, require the use of “probably no more than five” small nuclear explosives in and around the area of the river where this astonishing race of enlightened supermen have been living in secret tranquility for thousands of years.

“We ran our plan past the Atlantean Council of Wisdom, and they’re totally cool with it,” says Lindermon, who expects the disruption to be minimal

Once the glistening jade spires of legend and lore are restored to their rightful place high above the Chickasaw Bluff, the RDC plan calls for a boardwalk with interpretive signs to be built along the riverfront next to a submarine taxi-stand and a rock climbing wall. So far the RDC has offered no response to further requests for clarification regarding a pentagonal section of the architectural rendering marked “Sacrificial Altar Complex.”

Mayor Jim Strickland praised the plan, saying the city’s investment in the RDC was finally paying off. “You don’t really think we’ve shoveling money at these people for all these years just for a boat dock and a restaurant, do you?”

At press time, efforts to contact the Atlantean Council of Wisdom had not been successful.