What was 2012 like from a Fly’s eye view? Weird, as usual. Here’s a sample:
True Crime
• Weed peddler Brian Harris called police claiming he’d been robbed of $500 at gunpoint and was in close pursuit of an armed thief, who was shooting at him. When the police caught the alleged robber, he had no gun and no money. Harris, it seems, had made that part up to get help catching a client who’d driven off without paying for his pot.
• Darius Williams was apprehended on I-240 after asking a Memphis police officer if he were Jesus. The officer was not the Messiah, so Williams broke a few commandments and stole his police car, driving the wrong way down the interstate until he crashed into a fence.
•News from Arkansas: Chelsea Harris, described by a variety of media sources as “a very large woman,” spent a night in jail after she allegedly sat on her landlord’s face, inspiring headlines like “Arkansas Woman Sits on Landlord’s Face.” The victim was quoted as saying, “Mmmmf, mmmf, mmmelp!”
Best Reality
Wouldn’t it be awesome if someone made a cheap-looking reality show about overweight Memphis housewives with positive self-images that border on exhibitionism? They could eat and go clubbing, and if things got boring, one of the women could just put her butt in the camera and shake it. Oh, wait a minute. Somebody has already tried to make that show.
Balance Vector Productions of Los Angeles produced a demo for Heavy Housewives of Memphis and circulated it online. Latisha, one of the heavy housewives, defines the word “thick-a-licious” as meaning, “You’re thick and delicious. … That’s what I am, thick and delicious. Let me show you my butt.”
Tweet of the Year
Some accidental gallows humor from WMC-TV newsman Jason Miles: “Man murdered in Marshall Co. was double amputee. Half brother in custody.” Was the half-brother armed?
Signs
Who can’t relate to this neatly printed sign posted at 1280 Hayne? You invite a few family members over for a nice evening, one thing leads to another, and next thing you know, you’re in the yard posting a sign apologizing for “the unwarranted & disgusting display.”
Bar-Bi-Curious
Hardee’s launched a product called the Memphis BBQ Burger, a “meat-on-meat” hamburger pairing Memphis-style pulled pork with a charbroiled beef patty and batter-fried onions. If that sounds like food porn, the commercial is even pornier. It opens in the fabled mountains of Memphis at a sexy barbecue cook-off. Two hot, sweaty girls in daisy dukes and bikini tops are forced to share the same grill, causing their butt cheeks to become exposed. Pork flops onto some beef, and the girls eat it in a homoerotic burger embrace.
Oh Gee
Memphis rapper Al Kapone got political when he dropped a YouTube video endorsing Dr. George Flinn, the Republican candidate who failed to unseat 9th District congressman Steve Cohen.
Since we can’t embed the video in a newspaper, here’s a quick summary of its visual content: The American flag flies proudly. Al Kapone has a necklace he wants you to see. A clock ticks. You can buy a ring on QVC for only $68, but you need to hurry because they’re only selling twleve of them. Blurry people with bad teeth deserve to get paid big stacks of hundred-dollar bills. People get buck when DJ Paul shows up and guests on a Flinn endorsement. And vote for Dr. George Flinn, because he’s a crazy harmonica-playing doctor who rides an elephant.
Media Moment
This year’s most awkward media moment occurred when WMC-TV’s Jamel Major reported that the 5,000-pound statue of Rameses the Great was being moved to its new home at the University of Memphis, and cameras cut away to a sign instructing visitors to turn left for advance ticket sales and arena tours or right if they’re looking for “Hot Black Cocks.”
