Happy Old Year
Hey, Fly fans! It’s the holiday season, that very special time of year when your pesky host phones it in! And by “phones it in,” we mean that he looks back over everything he’s written in the past 51 weeks and cringes. Er, he lovingly and painstakingly compiles the best of Memphis’ worst and then writes about it in the third person. So take a shot and smoke ’em if you got ’em. This — cue cable-news-style theme music — is Your Year in FLY.
Random Silliness I
File under dirty homophones: While visiting one of Memphis’ many fine Family Dollar stores, your Pesky Fly was shocked to discover a shoplifter shoving a large, economy-size package of Butterfingers down the front of his pants. And this tag:
Just Sayin’
If you say endlessly entertaining things without making any sense at all … you might be a Mid-South opinion maker:
• “I like to look at the glass as being half full, and in this we got a glass that maybe wasn’t half full last year but at least we got a glass that had some content to it.”— police director Larry Godwin on the “Crooks With Guns Act”
• “The public, of course, often operates in a herd mentality, thundering to the worst-case scenario because everyone else is going there. Herd, hear this. There is a plausible alternative.”— Commercial Appeal editor Chris Peck on why the mortgage crisis was a golden opportunity for mavericks without liquidity issues
• “[We must] break our independence on foreign oil. … It’s time that America cuts up its credit cards — especially to foreign countries — and gain our dependence back.”— Southaven mayor Greg Davis at a political rally in Oxford, Mississippi
• “Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord, for making it so economical. … That’s all I can say.”— Tennessee senator Ophelia Ford after Nashville’s WSMV-TV asked why she spent $12,000 of taxpayer money on travel during a time of economic hardship
Happiness/Warm Gun
• In January, the Tennessee Senate supported a measure to allow anyone of legal drinking age who also holds a gun permit to bring firearms into bars. The Senate’s desire to put deadly force in the hands of drunks, a human subset known to brawl over incredibly important things like who’s lookin’ at who, was summarily hailed by NRA types as a victory for the “good guys.”
• In June, The DeSoto Times reported that a Byhalia man was seriously wounded after he attempted to use a muzzle-loading rifle as a hammer. The Times failed to point out that this is a perfect example of why all hammering should be done with screwdrivers.
Unrealest
Has there ever been a fake tabloid headline more shocking than this actual headline from the CA? “Girl: Dad made me dismember mom.”
According to police testimony, James Hawkins bought a circular saw from Kmart for the grisly chore. Once he and his 12-year-old daughter finished the job, Hawkins returned the saw to the store for a refund.
Our Gaydar
Christian-themed news outlet OneNewsNow uses a computer program that automatically replaces the word “gay” with the word “homosexual,” with hilarious results. To wit: “Memphis Grizzlies backers hit the hay hoping that Kevin Love would open things up for Rudy Homosexual in the frontcourt.” Amen, hallelujah, and boom-chicka-bow-wow!
Random Silliness II
In honor of Telly Savalis Johnson’s recent conviction on five counts of attempted first-degree murder, let’s all say it together: “Who loves ya, baby?”
