Tag: Chris Davis

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Aftershocks of the RNC

Photo: Iliya Mitskavets

Editor’s note: Our political columnist Jackson Baker and former Flyer writer Chris Davis traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, last week for the Republican National Convention on Monday, July 15th, to Thursday, July 18th. For this story, Baker and Davis reflect on their experiences, giving light to the ever-changing political landscape.

No sooner had we begun to digest the facts and fallout from the Republicans’ just-concluded convention in Milwaukee than the prolonged drama in Democratic ranks regarding the status of the ailing and beleaguered President Joe Biden abruptly resolved itself with Biden’s withdrawal from the election on Sunday.

However much that action had been anticipated, it still cast a shade on the events in Milwaukee, and attention, for better and for worse, will continue to gather and focus on the coming Democratic convention in Chicago in August. The immediate consensus among participants and observers alike was that there will be no open convention in Chicago — rather, a closing of ranks and a conferring of the nomination on Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris.

The Sunday following the RNC, Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy. (Photo: Tennesseewitney | Dreamstime.com)

It is even possible that the Democrats could nominate a second woman — someone like the much-respected governor of battle-state Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer — to fill out their ticket as Harris’ running mate.

Whatever the case, various expectations have been turned on their head, and the over-the-top machismo of the Republicans’ convention, culminating with the final-night showcase appearances of Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock, may look, in retrospect, like a misfire.

All the more reason to look back on the Milwaukee convention, which had been studiously stage-managed to present the aura of inevitable triumph.

Donald Trump sported an oversized bandage on his right ear, a reminder of his surviving an assassination attempt just the week before. (Photo: Chris Davis)

Against the memory of a doddering and fragile Joe Biden in the June 27th televised debate with former President Donald Trump, the Republicans could present the image of Trump as a hero-martyr, who, on the weekend before their convention, had risen after being felled by a would-be assassin’s bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania, to proclaim, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

The donning of a conspicuously oversized bandage on Trump’s nicked right ear during the candidate’s public appearances in Milwaukee emphasized the degree to which the Republicans, understandably, expected to reap large symbolic dividends from the event.

On the opening night of their convention, last Tuesday, as on evenings to come, the Republicans, perhaps forgivably, would exploit Trump’s near-miraculous survival as a quasi-resurrection that reinforced what was already, here and there in his followers’ ranks, a near-messianic sense of the candidate.

And, though there was boilerplate aplenty served from the dais — regarding inflation, Biden’s presumed insufficiency, and other alleged shortcomings on the Democrats’ part — there were also overtures to voters presumed to be in the Democrats’ sphere of influence.

There was, for example, Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, who delivered a paean to the working class and denounced, in vivid detail, “greedy employers” and the evils of unbridled capitalism. It may have escaped most people’s attention that O’Brien did not explicitly endorse Trump; he merely expressed gratitude for being invited by Trump to address the convention. In a sense, he was more troll than Trumpian, but his participation in the GOP’s opening-night ritual was, ipso facto, an opening-out and an appeal to working-class voters.

The question rose uneasily to the minds of Democrats: Was it possible that a forthcoming realignment might occur as a benefit to Republicans, not themselves, the time-honored “party of the people”? And this concern could only have been deepened after remarks from the dais by one Amber Rose, a “model and TV celebrity,” as she was billed, and an ex-squeeze of Kanye West, no less, who professed herself a former “leftist” who could simultaneously praise Donald J. Trump and proclaim that Trump and his supporters “don’t care about Black or white or gay or straight. It’s all love.”

There were intermittent calls for national “unity” from the Republican stage, although, as these would be elaborated by Trump himself, notably in his later acceptance address on Thursday night, there were actually calls for the Democrats to surrender active resistance and to back away even from their forlorn hopes of salvation through acts of jurisprudence against Trump, most of those already all but scuttled by the Supreme Court.

Nor was there any mercy shown to President Joe Biden, who was subjected to patronizing remarks and Weekend at Bernie’s comparisons, alternating with chants of “Joe must go!” and claims that “He can’t even walk up steps and put on his own coat.”

J.D. Vance was announced as Trump’s running mate on day one. (Photo: United States Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Not that there weren’t signs of disunity among the Republicans themselves. The new party line on foreign affairs — articulated by both Trump and his hand-picked vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance — was to jettison the nation’s present commitment to shore up Ukrainian resistance against Vladimir Putin’s invading Russian armies. But some of the speechmaking — notably from an old warhorse, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and from Trump’s own erstwhile Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — was still insisting on regarding Putin as an arch-villain and the Ukrainians as victims.

Trump was credited simultaneously with being the only hope of restraining Putin and the architect of peaceful coexistence with him!

Such contradictions may now be highlighted as the Republicans refocus to train their fire on Joe Biden’s putative successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is something of an unknown quantity to them — as she is, indeed, to most Americans.

She may become the target of Republican reproaches owing to her lackluster early efforts as Biden’s vicar for border issues, but her prominence as a spokesperson for women’s reproductive freedom will more than offset that perceived weakness and reactivate the militant reaction against the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.

Milwaukee was chosen as the site of this year’s Republican convention for the same reason that Democrats had wanted to convene there in 2020 before Covid-19 had nullified their gathering then. The city, a de facto distant suburb of Chicago, is a haven for the struggling middle class and is a key to the votes of Wisconsin, a rust-belt state that both parties consider a must-win in November.

Like Memphis, it is a bit ahead of itself, a place for logistical anomalies — like the hotel which housed the Tennessee delegation, containing a splendid water park but no gift shop. Forget your toothpaste and you’re looking at an Uber ride to make up the difference. But meanwhile you can dream.

For the space of a week, Republicans indulged in a dream of political supremacy over a disabled opposition. We — and they — are about to see whether that was fantasy or reality, as the Democrats, under new management, prepare to meet in Chicago next month. 

— Jackson Baker

……………

On day three of the RNC Chuck Fleischmann, Tennessee’s 3rd District representative, caught a tingle. “There is a certain sense of vibrancy in this convention that I haven’t seen since I was a young man in 1980 for Ronald Reagan,” he said to applause from the Tennessee delegation, who gathered for a breakfast meeting at The Ingleside Hotel and Water Park, a good half-hour bus ride from the main event at Downtown Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum. That’s one way of describing the weird feeling in Milwaukee, where a general avoidance of Downtown by locals made the high-energy convention seem like it was happening in a ghost town patrolled by squads of imported bicycle cops with little to do but ride around in big loopy circles. 

TV ratings were disappointing. The convention’s opening night was strong enough that pundits were talking about the possibilities of a new political realignment. In spite of featuring the party’s most diverse lineup ever, viewership was down 25 percent compared to a high-water mark in 2016. Even with 25 million people tuning in for Trump’s speech on the final night, the overall numbers fell just short of 2020’s Covid-impaired convention. Protests in Milwaukee were modest and almost nonexistent after the convention’s first day. A smattering of charismatic street preachers remained, leaping and shouting their fiery messages about God and Trump, while a few dedicated liberal activists walked lonely beats with their handmade signs resting on slumped shoulders. Overall, the energy was pretty low for this sort of event, but inside the Fiserv Forum, a hard-working five-piece cover band called Sixwire kept things humming along with hits by Steely Dan, Loverboy, The Rascals, and REO Speedwagon while delegates on the floor and guests throughout the forum danced and prayed and waved their cowboy hats from side to side for the cameras and all America to see.

RNC guests could buy all sorts of merch. (Photo: Chris Davis)

“We are the party of opportunity,” Fleischmann continued, back at the Ingleside, where there was no band and production values were less glamorous. “Race doesn’t matter. Gender doesn’t matter,” he said, naming two things that seemed to matter very much inside the Fiserv Forum, where delegates and guests can buy “Black Americans for Trump” stickers, and “Latino Americans for Trump” stickers, and “Women for Trump” stickers; and where, judging by reoccurring themes and enthusiastic crowd response, few things are worse than DEI, and nothing is more important than a willingness (the Republicans would say “ability”) to define what a man or woman is in the most simplistic terms. 

Race has certainly mattered in Milwaukee, the swing-state city where the RNC chose to stage its big event. The city’s joint designations as the most segregated city in America and also one of the poorest, can both be linked to a legacy of redlining, and other race-based restrictions. But here I go missing the point.

It’s difficult to talk about what happened at the RNC, especially on the night of former President Donald Trump’s incredibly long and occasionally weird acceptance address, without falling into the fatal snare of fact checking. Trump, who boldly led the world into the post-truth era we currently occupy, made so many untrue statements he overwhelmed cable news resources who struggled to keep up an admirable exercise in futility. In a post-truth environment, facts will always matter less than feels, and right now the Right’s right to terrify immigrants with threats of mass deportation, and rattle the vulnerable, electorally insignificant trans community by insisting they don’t exist, makes our current GOP feel good enough about themselves to ignore that, even according to the very libertarian Cato Institute, Trump’s tax cuts skewed toward the rich and did none of the great things they were supposed to do. 

No single idea presented onstage received more consistent applause than God, and outside of Trump, no single person received a bigger ovation than former Trump staffer and Project 2025 contributor, Peter Navarro, fresh from prison where he’d been cooling his heels following a contempt of Congress charge for refusing to provide documents and testimony relating to the January 6th insurrection. Tucker Carlson, the ex-darling of Fox News, might have gotten even more applause than Navarro had he not successfully petitioned the crowd to stop.  

“God is among us,” Carlson concluded, following a gushing endorsement of the man he once claimed to hate “passionately.”

There are many layers to the RNC onion beyond what’s broadcast to the world. The friendly state delegation breakfast meetings are more intimate, and are often a place for more frank and practical conversations about what’s ahead. Mark Green, the embattled representative from Tennessee’s 7th District, wanted to make sure delegates understood what they were watching when the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference doctrine. He describes the decision as a victory over bureaucracy.

For 40 years, Chevron deference gave government agencies broad latitude to interpret ambiguous legal statutes and its dissolution puts a raft of public safeguards and environmental protections at risk. Green rejoiced in the decision to kill Chevron deference, and announced his plans to start rolling back regulations as quickly as possible

“The day of the hearing I dropped the ‘Save Us From the Chevron Deference Act’ [or the Sunset Chevron Act],” Green boasted. “It will repeal, in a rolling 30-day fashion, every single regulation passed under the Chevron doctrine.”

Inside the Fiserv Forum, wrestling icon Hulk Hogan ripped his shirt off and forcefully announced the arrival of “Trumpamania!” Back at the Ingleside Hotel, things were rarely so over the top, although 2nd District Representative Tim Burchett did say he believed America came one centimeter away “from full-blown Civil War,” when a lone gunman’s bullet grazed former President Trump’s ear in Pennsylvania. Inside the Fiserv Forum, Trump’s unfortunate and very nearly tragic brush with American gun violence is described as a holy miracle: proof of God’s divine purpose for the once and future leader of the free world. Back at the Ingleside Hotel, Chad Connelly, founder of the Faith Wins organization, showed the Tennessee delegation another way God works in politics. 

“What if we go to churches in key precincts, get everybody to vote, and teach them to vote biblical values?” Connelly asked, recalling the questions he asked himself while figuring out how to “maximize” the Christian vote. 

“I wasn’t going to push Republicans. I wasn’t going to push a candidate. I was going to push Christian values,” Connelly told Tennessee Republicans. By recruiting pastors to register voters and teach them to vote “biblical values,” Connelly says he helped to flip nine U.S. Senate seats in 2014.

“I believe a man named Jesus hung on a tree for me and for you,” Connelly said before announcing that he’s currently recruiting poll watchers to monitor elections in swing states like Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan. It’s not a hard job, he says. You only need to watch for voters over 100, and houses “occupied by more than six people.”

Representative Chuck Fleischmann was right about one thing: The 2024 RNC was a vibe. Almost mellow and with an eye for wholesale political realignment, it platformed unions, and women, and all kinds of Americans we’re not used to seeing at the RNC. With Christian Nationalism coming hard off professional wrestling’s top rope, it was also a camp masterpiece: a populist extravaganza with all the classic rock and J.D. Vance’s Mamaw’s 19 loaded handguns. Sure, the Nielsen ratings were low, but with President Biden exiting the race only weeks before the DNC, a “certain sense of vibrancy” may be all it takes to win the White House. — Chris Davis 

Baker-Davis team: (top) 2004, RNC, New York; (bottom) 2024, RNC, The Ingleside Hotel and Water Park (Photo: Picjointer)
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VENT! Nine Memphians Let It All Hang Out

CREDIT: Joey Miller

Times are tough. We’re stuck inside a lot. And when we go out, we’re either walking the dog or making quick trips to stores while wearing masks. We can’t shake hands. We can’t hug. We can’t hang in bars like we used to. Restaurant servers and bartenders are wearing masks and gloves. There are no sports. The parks are controlled. Not to mention, the president seems to get loonier every day. Everything is just … screwed up.

Sooo … we asked nine Memphians to just let it out. Vent. Spill it. Doesn’t matter what you want to rant about, just do it — and send it to us. They did. And below are the results. Enjoy!

Kemba Ford
Politician/Consultant
For the last several years, I have had opportunities to work in Texas and California, often traveling for many months away from the city I call home. 

Kemba Ford

I tend to believe that I returned with fresh eyes and a bit more objectivity with which to view all things Memphis. After spending the first half of 2017 in Houston, I returned home to a small bit of fanfare: reuniting with family, a well-attended cocktail party at the Grawemeyer Estate in Midtown, and lunch and dinner invitations with friends — many of whom amazed I returned at all. 

So, I linked up with a friend for lunch Downtown on a beautiful weekday afternoon in late May of that year. I absolutely love Memphis during the month of May. The mild weather and only a 30 percent chance of mosquitoes create a great vibe along the riverfront, and after lunch I walked along Main Street to chill at my friend’s condo with a divine view of the river. 

A glass of wine later, we were watching some random golf tournament on TV, when suddenly: Breaking News! Apparently, several people tried to rob the front desk/check-in of the Sheraton Hotel Downtown and shots were fired in the lobby. The suspects fled the scene on foot; one guy was said to have on a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt and a female suspect was said to have on flip-flops. Downtown was on lockdown. Wow!

My immediate reaction: Who robs a hotel front desk that really doesn’t do cash business? At 2 p.m. in broad daylight, two blocks from 201 Poplar? In flip-flops and a Cowboys shirt? Were they just riding around, passing the Sheraton, and decided this would be a good come-up? My mind was melting, and the only conclusion I could come up with is they must not “GAF” (give a fuck).  And I needed more wine.

I have played around with this idea or mindset called “IDGAF” (I don’t give a fuck) or “I have Zero (fucks) to give” for a while now. I pitched the idea of a radio show called “GAF” to debate the notion, kind of like a TED Talk but not. My position being that — yeah — it may be cool being unconcerned or unbothered about many things, but there’s too much crazy, stupid mess that happens because errbody has an “IDGAF” attitude.

Let’s pretend we are privy to the conversation these folks had in the car five minutes before they pulled up to that hotel. Anybody GAF that the police headquarters and city jail is a literal stone’s throw away? Anybody GAF that they are not dressed for this? I mean flip-flops, REALLY? Clearly, no one GAF or a thought as to whether the front desk of a hotel would even have cash. Some straight-up tomfoolery here, I thought. If just one person in that car GAF, just one single solitary F, then maybe some unnecessary mess could be deterred. My opinion, just VENTing.

I’m in my mid-40s these days, and surprisingly it’s been a good time. When I tell people my age, they often don’t believe me and ask what I do to look “not old,” I guess. I say, GAF. You gotta GAF, approximately 2 Fs at this age: moving your body and the food you eat. Neither of these is easy when you begin integrating them into your lifestyle, but the reward is there. And it gets easier the more you do it. Finding an activity, you enjoy doing and some green vegetables you can learn to like has helped me tremendously. Thank you, kale, celery, and red bell peppers!

Main point: It is 2020. This is an election year like no other in my lifetime. While it most certainly is not my lane to tell anyone how to vote, I will tell you it is no time for the “IDGAF” attitude. The United States is in the throes of a global pandemic while record unemployment, economic uncertainty, and class and racial divisions openly scar our society. At this moment COVID-19 has taken 90,000 American lives in less than three months. Yeah, mane. … It is time to GAF!

I need you to do me a favor, though. Vote on November 3, 2020.

Joshua McLane
Drummer, HEELS
I’m in a band called HEELS. I miss my band. Before all this bullshit started, we were in a good place. We were on top of our finances and in the middle of writing our next record, and waiting to go on the three tours we had booked over the next two months.

Joshua McLane

Next thing you know, the two biggest things in my life happen: The pandemic was announced and then I found out I was going to be a father. Since I’m not a moron, I want to keep my wife and prodigy (progeny? who cares?) safe from all the dipshits I spent my teens with, the ones who think the virus is some phony libtard conspiracy.

I miss my best friend. HEELS hasn’t been able to practice since this started, and since [HEELS guitarist Brennan Whalen’s] bosses are making him go back to the office, we won’t be anytime soon either. He’s the only person I’ve ever met that instills legitimate hope in me, and I’m in need of some of that shit.

One of the best parts of being in HEELS is that there are only two of us. So, touring is a breeze. Mainly because we both love talking shit. I miss talking shit with the only person who keeps his mouth shut.

I miss listening to podcasts on the road. Now, all podcasts have to be called in and let’s be honest … they fucking suck like that (see also: most stand-up comedy now). I miss all the food. The best part of being on the road is meeting new people and eating their food. It’s cheesy (pun intended), but it’s what makes this country as awesome as it is. I MISS OTHER PLACES.
       
I love this town and I love this country, but I also like not being sick. So, I haven’t gone anywhere but to meet my weed dealer for the last three months. Even that is a cluster-fuck of baggies and gloves and not getting arrested because we live in a backward state. So, I don’t go anywhere.

I don’t need things to be open or for people to go back to work at the fucking mall, though. I have a soul and care for others and, since I’m going to be a father, I can’t chance it. I have to admit that it’s been great with my wife working from home. We’re extremely fortunate that way.

The only thing I truly can’t stand are all the goddamn, mother-fucking dog walkers that are just staring at their goddamn, mother-fucking phones as they drag their tiny, mother-fucking dogs down the goddamn street. Those poor dogs don’t want to be walked, you $80,000-a-year dickhead. What’s worse is when they have some loud-ass conversation on their phone and just yell into the wind. FUCK THAT AND FUCK YOU for doing it. Yeah, I’ve been known to “sing” along with my music when I walk, but at least I feel some shame about it.
     
I do miss hugs. Not as much as many, but more than I did. I enjoy not being touched, though, a lot. Also, I like being able to give someone the proper stink eye when they get too fucking close to me. I think I’m gonna take a nap. End of rant. Be good to each other.

Boo Mitchell
Music Producer
I try not to vent much, but something that really gets under my skin is the lack of courtesy people show each other. Although, I could talk about this in several aspects of our daily lives, today the topic is parking lots. 
Joey Miller

Boo Mitchell

Have you ever been trying to pull into a parking space only to find that someone has left their basket in the middle of the space? The one that really gets me is when someone has parked over the line and taken up two spaces. These actions cause negative effects. Besides being a huge inconvenience, the person gets called a few choice adjectives and nouns. And even though they are long gone and have no idea the tongue lashing they are getting, that negative energy and bad karma is going out into the world.

So, when I’m in a parking lot, I try to build up some blessings of good karma by returning my basket to the basket bin area. It only takes an extra minute or so. And I also make sure to park between the lines.

Small acts of anonymous kindness go a long way. It reminds me of a great philosophical mantra from the guru of comedy, George Carlin: “Don’t Be an Asshole.”

Meghan Stuthard
Writer
Facebook sucks and the Messenger app sucks even more, but it did yield a delightful message from the Flyer’s own Bruce VanWyngarden the other day, asking me if I’d like to bitch about something. How much time you got, Bruce?

If there’s anything to be gained from this quarantine besides retention of one’s health and proof of one’s intelligence, it’s the myriad ways I’ve found to be even more pissed off and tormented than usual.

Meghan Stuthard and friends

It was borne of “quarantini” jokes and escalated with each whiny post from a shitty parent that “we can’t do this sort of psychological damage to our kids! Let them attend a water park with 50 million other snot-nosed brats, because — sans nanny — I am woefully unprepared to raise my own children!” So thanks for the bullhorn, Flyer. It’s from these digital pages that “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” Like Whitman, I am unconstrained, into dudes, and like wine.

I think the obvious choice is to ridicule the dong-bags protesting stay-at-home orders, mock-coughing on grandmas at Kroger, and posting asinine bullshit all over their social media accounts, but they’re too easy of a target. They’re so ignorantly stupid they won’t be able to point their browser to this website anyway, and I figure that anyone reading this is squarely on my side even if their father-in-law isn’t.

But they’re not the only item on my list of things that I want to bitch about. Literally everything pisses me off, and everything that pisses me off is now served up to me in grand quantities while staying at home. TV volume over 16, TV volume on any odd number, washing and folding laundry, waiting on things to microwave or boil, and the fact that I’ve sat outside my house for 60 straight nights and my recently departed neighbor’s (RIP) cats, Pussyfoot and Pussy Willow, still won’t let me pet them. Like, I’m an actual living person who wants to pet them, which is a hell of a lot more than they’re working with currently, and they want no part of it.

Speaking of animals, here’s something. Midtown is full of owls, something that absolutely does not piss me off. I’m so enchanted by the owls that I googled which owls are native to our area and found the Barred Owl, whose hoot sounds like, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” That’s a real thing. It was on allaboutbirds.org. And that’s what my neighborhood owls’ hoots sound like.

My roommate, upon hearing this, says, “That’s not a thing, and it’s probably a barn owl.” It was on allaboutbirds.org, David. A fucking bird expert wrote that, I repeated it, and I’m such a dim-witted dolt that I can’t possibly discern a barn owl’s “hoot-hoot!” from “WHO COOKS FOR YOU? WHO COOKS FOR US ALL”?

And then this guy, again, bearing in mind that he corrected me, because, again, he thinks I’m the idiot, is outside a few nights later trying to attract an owl by — get this — wrapping a piece of deli turkey around an old cat toy shaped like a mouse.

The same species, sex, and race that brought you star-spangled pants, truck nutz, and white pride tiki torches now thinks that he is superior to the owl and can attract it with sandwich meat and cat toys, forgetting that the owl, a stone-cold killing machine, has been honing its ability to differentiate a live mouse from a fake mouse for eons. We caved and bought a remote-controlled mouse. Upping our game.

Outside of the purchases I’ve made online, shopping has been sullied for me by our friendly neighborhood Kroger. People are strolling along and pawing every box of Wheat Thins like they can tell from feeling the outside of the box if Nabisco made that batch extra-wheaty. Peep the bestial behavior that has ravaged the meat section. Note the fact that the frozen pizza aisle looks like the firebombing of Dresden, but the produce section, brimming with vitamins, is as untouched as a pack of masks in the White House. Kroger shoppers’ only redeeming quality is their love of boxed red wine. This I know because it’s never there and I have to buy Pinot Grigio and drink it over ice like some sort of Arkansan.

I’m excited to get through this and come out on the other side. I look forward to rolling my eyes in public at bars again, leaving mean-ass notes on the windshields of the small-wienered dipshits who double-park, and loudly defending Mötley Crüe to anyone with a pulse. Bitching into the void isn’t as fun and an audience whose reaction I can’t gauge makes me wonder if there’s even a point in bitching. HAH! Dumb-ass question. Bitching is always a pleasure. Yawp!

Leon Gray
Administrator, Juvenile Court
Now that I’m over 60, I sometimes long for the days of my youth, when everything was simpler — at least to me. Being a native Memphian, I have some fond — and some not so fond — memories of growing up in the Bluff City. Ironically, one of the biggest news events of the late 1960s, the sanitation strike which ultimately led to the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., taught us very little about the value of clean streets and neighborhoods in the 21st century.

Leon Gray

I am rarely angered by little things, but seeing a motorist toss a cup complete with lid and straw out their car window and onto our streets makes me want to scream out my car window at them. And that’s just the beginning. Whole bags of fast food remains get tossed or just laid down outside the vehicle in a retail store parking lot — with trash cans just feet away. What has happened to these people? And why is MY CITY their dumping ground??

Speaking of dumping, many of our neighbors have made the sides of lesser traveled roads and spaces behind closed commercial buildings dump-sites for everything from unwanted furniture and appliances to worn tires and automobile parts. This has got to STOP!!!

Where are the days of the Memphis City Beautiful Commission? When was the last time Memphis could claim the Cleanest City in America award? Where is our hometown pride — or at least decency? And why aren’t more citizens and elected officials angry about this trash on streets problem, like I am?

On its face, the solution seems simple: Get people to discard their trash in the appropriate places. So how do we get there, and where would getting there be prioritized in the midst of a pandemic? It should be right up there near the top. How about using a marketing campaign? Messaging is everything, and like Corey B. Trotz, when you start putting the message out there, you can’t stop.

People are generally followers, so our leaders must set the tone that promotes the steps for them to follow. “I’m Memphis Proud” would be a great theme! “Don’t Trash Our Streets” would be another. Solid messaging creates bonds to all kinds of products. Why wouldn’t we be able to create a positive bond between our city and its residents?

We live in an age where media platforms dominate the communication connections between most everyone. So let’s tell everybody that Memphis Pride is “a thing,” and it should be their thing. Let’s solicit help from all of our 700 thousand or so neighbors not to trash our city — and add teeth with citations and fines.

I’m sick of this filth, but I’m also just as sick of watching nobody do anything about it. So, if by chance you read this, join me in this crusade to try and clean up our city and restore the pride in our neighbors. Write your elected officials and tell them this is a priority. Finally, let’s teach our kids to always try and leave our shared spaces better than we found them.

Katrina Coleman
Comedian
Dear Reader,
Today I come to you full of righteous fury. I am not the type of fellow to feel righteousness at hatred of a kind or at differences from my own morals. I cannot come to you with some wide and deep mythos of which to beat you down with my fervor.

Katrina Coleman

No, dear reader, I have but one anger to speak of. Babies don’t need shoes.

Firstly, we have to define baby. In the Southern sense, babies are all humans younger or dumber than you perceive yourself to be. For this discourse, babies are the non-bipedal, pre-toddling, lumps-of-reflex-and-occasional-gassy-smiles.

Secondly, we must define shoes. House slippers are not shoes unless you are a patron of a “no shoes, no shirt, no service” establishment. Shoes are not socks with rubber bottoms. Shoes are not and will never be the end points of footie pajamas. Shoes are soled enclosures of a foot.

Now that that is established, we must get into the argument. Babies do not need shoes. Stop doing it.

Child abuse takes many forms, and on a scale of one to Mommie Dearest, shoes on babies is a three. At a five, Child Protective Services  is called to evaluate your home. That means if I see your baby in shoes and also being lightly pinched (two on the scale), I will absolutely be making that phone call.

Imagine if you will, being a small baby without the ability to walk. Imagine the proctors of your care strapping weights with adorable buckles to the feet that literally only exist to kick. Imaging for one moment being tickled pink over a ceiling fan and having your ability to enjoy it hampered by great, laced anchors. You are left to impotently twitch your lower extremities and hope upon hope that your upper extremities can flail in the appropriate joyfulness to express how much you love watching that magical, spinny wonder do its thing.

Add the prospect that no baby fully understands walking until it happens. Therefore, they are unable to consent to the indignity. If I had thought that walking would involve the tight and heavy nonsense of shoes, I would still be begging to be picked up to this day.

Shoes are a prison that modern humans have built to give themselves the illusion of security and status. I, myself, only bind myself with the strictures of those podal corsets when society demands. For what end does society demand? Basic etiquette or flat classism?

To subject an innocent child to such strictures would be to insist a babe in arms could utter ”please“ and ”thank you” before “Mama.” It is a show of means, not unlike a Romani coin belt. A baby shod is much like a prized horse sored, only to show the wealth and breeding of their steward. How dare we hobble our young like rebellious horses? How dare we dress them as small adults before they have even considered the mystery of the potty?

And, finally, if all these arguments fall short for you, dear reader, how dare you deprive me of the joy of seeing those scrumptious little toes? I think your baby is loud and weird and could easily be thrown in the river if it annoys me. You would block that perfect defense of tiny little feetsies? How dare you keep that from me, and how dare you leave your baby without the protection of cute widdle piggies that I’m going to nom nom nom and forget anything about rivers or baby throwing?

Don’t you love your child? Don’t make me throw your kid in the river. Babies don’t need shoes.

Sonya Mull
Activist
This ‘Rona has made many mundane areas of life more poignant, and, some, more grievous. Take, for example, spitting in public. When I was a wee child, Aunt Carrie told me to hold my breath and walk the other way when I saw sputum on the ground to avoid catching T.B. — or something. People used to think the story was hyperbole, but I’ve held to the practice and taught it to my kids. Now, COVID has made people a bit more appreciative of her public health announcements. (She was a nurse in a T.B. ward.)

Sonya Mull

Supposedly, this COVID-19 thingamajig has given all of us time to pause — to put the brakes on the speedy hustle and bustle. So, why wouldn’t I think Memphis drivers would emerge from this with a calmer approach? In the past few days, while I was driving around town searching for unusual trees, I discovered that Memphis drivers are shoddier than ever — too fast, too aggressive, and far less courteous.

A few years ago, I predicted that the conditions of transportation would become worse with the resurgence of muscle cars. Not to my surprise, I now hear drag racing just about every night in my neighborhood. Where are the police when you need them? (No, not all cops are bad cops, and I know a lot of great ones, but the bad ones can be horrendous and their bad deeds overshadow a lot of the good. I’ve had horrendous, Sandra Bland-type experiences with officers right here in Memphis. This is not that story, however.)

It’s kinda funny, but it seems that COVID has brought many of my pet peeves to a head all at once — things like people not washing their hands after using the restroom, and coughing and sneezing into the open air. These were always icky.

Many of those close to me have contracted the virus, and I have several family members in health professions, yet COVID has had its silver linings for me. It has afforded me time and space to BE. I wish that each of us on this planet would BE STILL and KNOW — learn to reconnect with the Divine — however we define it. By default, Mother Earth had begun to heal herself. Like the body, our kindred planet has the capacity of self-healing, if given time and space.

I am so frustrated that people are so anxious to rush back into the “rat race” — going nowhere. That sounds pretty disgusting to me. Haven’t you noticed the air is cleaner?

Meanwhile, some people want to spread their toxicity and pollute the town hall square while carrying guns. Here’s a thought: If you have to protest something, why not protest the government’s overreach in punishing black men, women, boys, and girls? In the protesters’ minds, it’s okay for the privacy and rights of black citizens to be obliterated and lives decimated by the police, but don’t dare stop these protesters from buying garden tools!

I’m not saying that people don’t have rights to protest, and honestly, I don’t really care that they want to protest about something so stupid. I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy of these people. Sure, the hypocrisy exists on both sides of the coin, but these neo-protesters’ anti-government sentiment only extends to the point where they are affected. Heck, I actually concur with them on some points. I am definitely opposed to big brother’s omnipresence and I don’t want to live some dystopian, Orwellian novel.

Chris Davis
Writer/Musician
I’ve got a big ol’ bone to pick with WREG, “News Channel 3,” their reporter Luke Jones, and his recent story about a massive uptick in opioid-related overdoses and deaths.

Chris Davis

“Almost 400 overdoses in 30 days,” Jones wrote in a tweet slugged NARCAN NEEDED, suggesting a shortage of Narcan/naloxone, a life-saving opioid antagonist with the ability to reverse respiratory depression. So far so good, right? Unfortunately the tweet wrapped with the most ignorant question possible: “Are stimulus checks at least partly to blame?”

Let me answer that question for you, Luke. No, the stimulus checks weren’t “partly to blame” for 400 overdoses and 56 resulting deaths. Also, hell no, and “Oh my God, I can’t believe you’d frame this kind of tragedy in such a harmful way when there’s so much good research delving into the root causes of abuse.”

In addition to obvious triggers like pain, depression, isolation, and the simple fact that both prescription and black market dope are often readily available, most studies also touch on the common theme of economic hardship, and the kind of hopelessness that goes hand-in-hand with poverty and unemployment.

For example, a 2017 paper published by The National Bureau of Economic Research indicated that for every one percentage point increase in a given county’s unemployment rate, “the opioid death rate per 100,000 rises by 3.6 percent.” This past January, a study published by JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, drew similar conclusions by looking at communities where automotive assembly plants were shut down. The study determined these communities had an 85 percent higher rate of death by overdose than similar communities with still-active automotive assembly plants.

Now, let’s see … Has anything happened recently that might have resulted in sudden, widespread job loss or increased anxiety and feelings of isolation and hopelessness? Could it possibly be COVID-19-related shutdown of the U.S. economy, and quarantine? Kinda sounds like a perfect match.

Now let me back up a bit. I should probably point out that while the tweet was unconscionable, and the write-up was nearly as bad, the full video package contained more detail and ultimately performed the public service of letting people know where to get help if they need it. Kudos. Also, the reporter in question didn’t just come up with the idea of blaming stimulus checks on his own. He was referring directly to a comment made by the Memphis Area Prevention Coalition’s overdose prevention specialist, Josh Well, whose organization is working hard to overcome the obstacle of “lockdown,” in order to get Narcan into the hands of people at risk. But, presuming Jones composes his own tweets, he’s the guy who made the relationship between stimulus checks and overdoses a troubling frame for a heartbreaking story that deserves considerably more context.

It’s conventional wisdom in some quarters that you can’t just give people money. Why? Because they’ll become dependent on handouts, obvs. They’ll spend every cent you give them on sex, booze, and drugs. Why did this become conventional wisdom? Because it makes such a fine, paternalistic excuse for paying poor people poverty wages. Because politicians representing moneyed interests that benefit directly from low-paying jobs tell us it’s the gospel truth every time somebody puts a mic in their hand. Because their words are so frequently repeated and amplified by concerned-looking members of the Fourth Estate, who nod right along.

This happens in spite of study after study showing that it’s all complete horse shit and the best way to help people in need is to provide cash with no strings attached. But we’ve all been conditioned to believe the opposite is true, and this false belief enabled the dismantling and disfigurement of our social safety nets. If anything, this backwards thinking is more to “blame” for the 400 overdoses and 56 deaths than one $1,200 stimulus check in the midst of international disaster.

On a related note, on May 8th — three days before WREG aired its story — a report offering guidance in the administration of life-saving Naloxone (Narcan) was generated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread throughout our country, SAMHSA has received reports that some first responders and law enforcement officers have been more reluctant to administer Naloxone due to fear of potentially contracting the coronavirus,” the report stated. “Further, SAMHSA has received reports that law enforcement and emergency services management has, in some cases, discontinued the carrying of Naloxone by responders.”

Did any of this figure into the 14 percent mortality rate? We don’t know because those questions either weren’t asked or weren’t reported. Instead we were treated to Mr. Well — who may very well have been quoted out of context — seeming to blame the responsible act of social distancing or “lockdown,” as he described Memphis’ “Safer At Home” order.

“We can’t train large groups of people anymore,” he said, “so less people are getting the Narcan (Naloxone).”

By the way, if the life-saving medication was “NEEDED,” as implied by the tweet that launched this rant, no part of the package touched on shortage. “You can get a free Narcan kit anytime by calling [The Memphis Area Prevention Coalition] at (901) 495-5103,” it concluded.

Look. Regardless of whether the daily infection numbers are down or even downward trending, a deadly and capricious virus continues to spread and a considerable number of U.S. citizens still seem to think it’s all a hoax. People are fighting about social distancing. Angry, sometimes-armed mobs are protesting because we’ve shut down all-you-can-eat buffets. Because they think the common courtesy of wearing protective masks limits their freedom somehow.

As easy as it might be to write these people off as idiots and dupes, I can’t blame them for being confused. Our 21st-century news thrives on conflict, and media consumers can get a different story every time they turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper, depending on the political orientation of whoever’s being interviewed at the moment, and whoever’s doing the editing.

That’s why every reporter needs to step up to make sure each piece of information they spread is the best and most accurate information possible, whether it’s directly related to COVID-19 or the result of our public response to the pandemic. If you’re not doing that, you’re contributing to the decades-long war on media credibility, and you’ve got blood on your ledger.

I’m looking at you WREG. You certainly aren’t the only news station allowing bad messages to slip through, intentionally or not. But you’re the one that pissed me off this week, and I really needed to vent.

Brennan Whalen
Guitarist, HEELS
I’m not a complicated man.

I derive joy from the usual things emotionally stunted drunks love: beer and playing music in an environment where I’m not going to catch a world-sieging virus. Sinking hours into video games made for children.

Brennan Whalen

During the day, however, I work in an office. I speak on the phone and email customers with technical support for the things they have or are going to purchase. It can be a slog, and many days the only thing that makes it all feel worth it is the hour I have for lunch.

I work in the Hickory Hill area, and around January, something I love deeply was taken from me. That thing was the last remaining Pizza Hut buffet on Winchester, across the street from the old Hickory Ridge Mall. With the decades-old framed posters on the walls, the plates that had to be shedding BPA into every slice, the parmesan containers that contained nothing resembling parmesan, it wasn’t somewhere you’d feel confident in your immune system. But God I loved it so much.

Every structure in this city is either shiny and new, a respected old building maintained beautifully, or a business crafted in the shell of an old one (my most-frequented pawn shop was obviously a Target from the ’90s). But dead center of all of this was that stupid, fucking roof that, for a fat Southern kid like me, was a shining beacon on a hill. And it’s gone. It will probably end up a cell phone store.
     
To this end, you may ask, “Come on, should a chain restaurant being frequented by one hungover asshole and a rotation of maybe 20 construction workers be kept open just to appease them, considering the costs of keeping such a business open?”

I answer this question with a resounding “Yes,”  because I fucking love that GD Pizza Hut and rational thought will not get in the way of that.

“You should frequent local businesses.” I absolutely do, but until you drop the quality of your food, it will not satisfy my lust for shit pizza that attacks me when my blood is half tequila at 11 a.m. I lived across the street from Dragon China Buffet on Belvedere, for Christ’s sake. I’ll put money into local businesses, but you gotta deliver low-quality fare for my big, stupid gullet.
       
I should be embarrassed that the closing of this establishment has hurt my heart the way it has, but I’m not. I’m a middle-brow neanderthal who yo-yo diets and has zero consistency in his health and well-being, and I want a pan pizza with a big, fucking hair right in the center. 

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Down on the River, Winter is Coming

Winter is coming, my friends. Dark clouds are building in the western sky. Alliances are being formed. Treachery and connivance are afoot. The battle — soon to come — could be epic and bloody, a mortal combat to see who will control the kingdom of Tom Lee, a vast and glorious prairie on the banks of the majestic Mississippi River near Castle Memphis.

On one side is the Memphis River Parks Partnership (aka Mr. PP), led by Lady Coletta and her powerful allies, including the Great Lord of the House of Hyde, the Downtown Memphis Commission of Great Visions, and the mercenary knights of Studio Gang — brought in from the northern kingdom to wreak havoc on their sworn enemies: the House of MIM.

Studio Gang visual of the proposed water feature in Tom Lee Park.

The House of MIM (aka Memphis in May), led by Lord James Holt, is enjoined in this coming battle by the Sacred Alliance of Motels and Hotels, the Viscounts of Beale Street, the Barons of Barbecue, the House of Rock, and probably the Duke of Earl.

In coming days, there will be negotiations held in the chambers of the great High Castle on the Bluff, seeking to avoid bloodshed and form a truce, however uneasy. Emotions are high. Anything could happen. The fate of Tom Lee hangs in the balance, my friends. Thoughts and prayers …

For the record, the preceeding verbiage was satire. You know, what Webster’s calls “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.” We do that a lot at the Flyer, because, well, if not us, who else in town is going to provide the snark essential to the civic process? I mean, someone has to point out when the emperor is going commando, right?

I mention this, because a cartoon by our illustrator and master of visual snark, Greg Cravens, poked fun at the House of MIM a couple weeks back, and a few of their friends got upset. Some said the Flyer was “attacking” Memphis in May.

No. Believe me, if we attack you, you’ll know it. It was satire, the same kind of stuff we’ve thrown at MRPP on several occasions. I mean, our Chris Davis was the guy who dubbed them “Mr. PP” in the first place. We’ve also taken shots at Studio Gang’s idyllic bird-infested visuals and the new park signage that’s already been installed. It’s what we do.

But that’s different from our news coverage, which has highlighted the details of the MRPP design and MIM’s concerns with it. We’ve reported extensively and objectively on the battle for public opinion that’s ongoing between the two organizations. See Toby Sells’ story in this issue for another example.

That said, I’m excited and optimistic about MRPP’s overall plan for the riverfront, which includes renovations of all the city’s public lands along the river, and the linking of Greenbelt Park, Mud Island, the Fourth Bluff, Tom Lee Park, and MLK Park. It’s a big and ambitious design, and because of that, it has drawn fire from several sides.

But the central sticking point is Tom Lee Park, the 30-acre, mile-long, flat, open space now occupied by a few jogging paths and not much else. MRPP’s plan, as most people know by now, involves adding various elevations, a sheltered facility, a water feature, a wildlife habitat, and lots of trees. Memphis in May, understandably, likes the park the way it is, because a big field is much more conducive to its month-long event, which includes a music festival and the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, both of which sprawl over most of the park. How’s that going to work with all those trees and other stuff, they ask. That’s the $70-million question, isn’t it?

We at the Flyer also support Memphis in May. It is a civic treasure that brings lots of people and money to town, and we believe all concerned should be able to figure out a way to keep the celebration Downtown and also reinvent the city’s riverfront. Tom Lee Park belongs to all of us, including those who use it the other 11 months of the year. Let’s get a deal done. May is coming.

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Shirtless Man Celebrates 20 Years of NGAF

Stay shirtless, my friends.

What are you looking at? Never mind, I know. You’re looking at me. And, with a lusciously lumpy dad-bod like this one, why wouldn’t you be? Besides, that was the whole point of this Shirtless Man fiasco, wasn’t it? To be seen? To make my pale flab stand out, establishing the lean, muscular soul beneath it all — the fearless manufacturer of creative nonfiction? Truth be told, I was scared to death. Twenty years later, photographic evidence of my skinful romp across the pages of the 1998 Memphis Flyer’s “summer issue” still fills this considerable gut with butterflies.

Angry vampire butterflies zooming on meth.

What were we thinking? There was no real precedent for stunts like this. There was no Sacha Baron Cohen out on the road, erasing the boundaries between reality and satire. The Daily Show wouldn’t launch for another year. But there I was, finally discovering an application for my weird Theatre & Media Arts degree, standing in the offices of The Commercial Appeal, applying for a writing job, as shirtless as the day I was born.

“Why?,” you might ask. I certainly have, many times. After all these years the best answer I’ve come up with is also a question: “Why do people jump out of airplanes?”

In 1998, I toiled most days in a windowless room in the Flyer‘s old offices on Tennessee St., cold-calling potential classified advertising customers. I’d only just begun to do a little freelance writing on the side and was certain that nobody would be interested in this cockamamie idea I’d cooked up with my friend and and fellow wannabe writer
Jim Hanas. I can still remember the confused look on Flyer editor Dennis Freeland’s face as he repeated the original pitch back to me.

“So you just take your shirt off and go out and do things?” he asked, blinking doubtfully. Like his eyes might be undressing me against their will. “What kinds of things?”

“Oh, you know,” I answered, making things up on the fly because I honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. “Test drive cars, apply for a loan, try to get a job, buy a shirt, go to a topless club.” Next thing I knew, I was on assignment and negotiating with a security guard at the Peabody Rooftop Party.

“You need to put a shirt on, sir,” [the guard] says, sidling up to me.

“But I thought this was a party.”

“It is a party, sir, but you need to put a shirt on.”

“What kind of party is that?”

“It’s a private party open to the public for a $5 cover charge.”

“And I have to wear a shirt?”

“We prefer it.”

“So I don’t have to wear a shirt if I don’t want to?”

“You need to put a shirt on, sir.”

“But look at this sunburn I have here. Terribly painful. OWWWWWWWW! Jesus that hurts to touch it.”

“I know how painful that can be, but you need to wear a shirt.”

“Do I have to button it?”

“No.”

“Can I just wear a vest?”

“You can just wear a vest.”

“Do I have to button that?”

“No.”

It was really just one shirtless fat guy. Mother was so proud.

The original shirtless package spawned two sequels. Because I don’t know how to relax I turned my honeymoon into a working getaway, and wrote about the big boy’s swinging European vacation for the Flyer. The whole original adventure was recreated in a multi-page spread for a popular women’s magazine for men. Rose McGowan was Maxim‘s cover girl for March 1999, but I was the hot topless attraction inside.

A paraphrased but very close to accurate note from my Maxim editor: “Can you give us the same story but take out the philosophy?”

Real v Fake

I couldn’t. Which is to say I didn’t really know what that meant. So wrote the thing and instructed them to cut anything deemed too philosophical, which they did. They also manufactured a fictional origin story — In the Maxim version I’d become shirtless because gas splashed on my shirt while filling up my car. Hated that part because this was always supposed to be a true story. Right down to the scotch and chocolate milk. But the check cashed.

I might describe “Shirtless Man” as my “Freebird,” but, as it happens, I’ve also written exactly one song that people ask me to play over and over again.

I’m a two-hit wonder!

But Shirtless Man’s sordid tale of insecurity and sideboob, wrapped up in tragically fake machismo, has taken on a life of his own. A few years back he was reborn on social media when Memphis artist/photographer Jonathan Postal took a photo originally snapped in front of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and photoshopped it Zelig-like into historical scenes, alongside Abraham Lincoln, Bob Dylan, and Martin Luther King. Twenty years after the eye-assaulting fact — after filling a wall with awards for investigative reporting, disaster coverage, consumer affairs reporting, beat reporting, feature writing, criticism, and blogging — it’s a little weird that somebody always hollers out “Shirtless Man!” whenever I appear in any official capacity. Not that I’d prefer things any other way.
Dan Ball

Traumatizing entire families since 1998.

I hadn’t realized it was my shirtless anniversary until primo photographer Dan Ball posted a previously unpublished photo from the original adventure to his Facebook page. It’s a great shot, considering the subject matter. And much to my surprise, seeing in a public space didn’t induce the usual wincing shudder. In fact, I wanted to share it right away.

Maybe, after 20 years, I’m actually a little bit proud of that guy. 
Dan Ball

Also pictured, Workingman’s Sideboob.

 

Categories
News News Blog

Flyer Wins Three National Awards at Newsweekly Convention

The Memphis Flyer won three writing awards at the national Association of Alternative NewsMedia convention in San Diego last week. The Flyer competes in the “large paper” category (circulation 40,000 and over) against major city newsweeklies from around the country.

Flyer winners were:
Bruce VanWyngarden, who won first place in the Column category for his weekly Letter From the Editor.
Chris McCoy, who won second place in Arts Criticism for his movie reviews.
Chris Davis, who won third place in Beat Reporting for his story, “The Art of the Deal: What Happened at MCA?”

Categories
Cover Feature News

Worst Gig Ever! Memphis musicians share the worst nights of their career.

Music is Memphis’ greatest export. But for the musicians, taking it on the road means long drives, long nights, and a lot of weirdness. It can be a hard life, full of ups and downs, but it sure makes for good stories. So we asked some of Memphis’ finest musicians to tell us about their Worst Gigs Ever.   

Amy LaVere

I think it was the Memphis Queen. It was this new concept for a river voyage: A group of cyclists boarded for what was supposed to be a three-day cycling/boating adventure down to New Orleans. They were to port in Memphis in the early mid-morning, then they would depart the boat to go on a 40-mile bike ride. Then they would get back on the boat and have dinner, and we would be the after-dinner entertainment for their cruise.

Then they were going to stop in Tunica, where we would disembark with our gear and get ourselves back to Memphis. So the gig required us driving our van to Tunica with someone following us to bring us back to Memphis.

We get on the boat and waited around for everyone to finish a Cajun buffet dinner that had beignets and etouffee and French bread and alcohol, after they’d finished a 40-mile bike ride. They’re pretty much done. So about two-thirds of the audience goes to bed.

So right before we play, the promoter wants to introduce the band. We’re all on stage, and he gets up there in front of us and proceeds to give a speech to the audience that takes 15 minutes. It included such things as how to operate the toilets in their cabins. And we’re just standing there, wondering what the hell is going on. And then we play, and we put everyone to sleep, and it’s so sad. There were literally people with their arms folded, dozing.

When we get to Tunica to disembark, they had not reserved a docking spot for the riverboat, and the dock was full. There’s no place to dock. There’s a rocky cliff that goes up to a sidewalk/boardwalk along the Mississippi. I’m in a dress and heels, mind you. So what they did was, they basically reversed the boat, trying to stay stationary. But it was still moving down the river! It was going, like, five MPH. They lowered a plank, and I get handed down to a deck hand onto a rocky cliff that I then have to climb up barefoot with my dress up to the top. They were helping us get our gear off, but they were still moving, so by the time they got it all off, we were like a quarter mile strung out down the sidewalk.

By this point, we have a more interested audience watching us disembark than were interested at all in hearing us play. Then we had to walk our gear, piece by piece, all the way back up to the parking place at the dock. I think we made $400 on that gig, in total. Certainly the most comical and worst gig of my life.

Eric Oblivian,
True Sons of Thunder

I’ve played in bands around the world. I’ve played in squats in Slovenia. I’ve played in Croatia where they had no money to give us. But the worst show I’ve ever done was right here in Memphis with True Sons of Thunder. At one point, we had a goal of playing every club in town, which included the Rally Point. We booked a show with some emo band from somewhere. We show up, and the place is dimly lit — no microphones. It was so dark, we couldn’t tell if the turd that was on stage was human or canine. The show went on, and we did the show without vocals. We just sang into the air. We did our set, got out of there, and to my knowledge, the turd was still there while the other band played.

Alicja Trout, Rich Crook, and
John Garland, the Lost Sounds/Sweet Knives

AT: There was one that was just an epic night of bad things happening. The Vibrators wanted to get on our show in Detroit at the Old Miami club. We were playing with the Piranhas and Guilty Pleasures. The Vibrators were playing down the street, and they had this promoter named Lacy, and he says, “We’re playing down the street, and there’s nobody at our show. Can we come down and play with you guys?” And we said, “No, we’ve already got three bands . . .”

RC: We eventually said yes, but we weren’t going to share any money. And the Vibrators were HORRIBLE that night.

AT: I had this Peavy amp that had a phaser built in. I asked the guy if he wanted me to show him how to use the amp, because he was borrowing my stuff, rudely enough.

RC: … and he was like, “I think I’ve played enough amps!”

AT: So the phaser was turned all the way up, because we had ended the set with this big noise thing. And he played the whole show going “wheew … wheew . . . wheew…” He never figured it out. Then, one of the funniest things Jay [Reatard] ever said in his life…

RC: Dude said a lot of funny things.

AT: He said the dude from the Vibrators looked like Jimmy Page’s nutsack. He was balding and like had really wiry, black hair.

RC: Phil Spector-ish.

AT: It ended with this giant bar fight. The promoter walks in with a giant block of concrete. The cops come, and I kept saying, “Yeah, the puff-mullet. You know those guys with the puff mullets?” And everyone was like, what is she talking about?

RC: Turned out the guy had a goiter on his neck with hair growing out of it.

AT: I thought it was a mullet.

RC: I was outside the whole time. I walked in, it was like a saloon piano was playing. John got slid across the bar.

JG: I saw Alicja get punched, so I went in.

AT: Oh yeah. I got punched right in the face. The bartender came up to me, and this dude’s fist was coming right at me. He grabbed me. ‘You gotta get out of here! You’re gonna get killed!” He was carrying me out, and I was like, “Where the hell am I going?” Jay comes out of the bathroom. He’s been doing coke with this guy from the other band. They looked around and realized, “Gahh! We’re enemies!” They started going at it.  

Chris Davis, Papa Top’s West Coast Turnaround

This would have been sometime in the late 1990s. We had just played a gig at Kudzu’s, and we had a little liquor in us. The only piece of parental advice (guitarist) John Stiver’s father ever gave him was, “Stay away from Harpo’s Lounge. You’ll get killed.” So we decided we would see if they would let us play for beer. This is a self-inflicted gig. It was our own fault.

Let me first say that Harpo’s has reopened, and it’s nice. They’ve gentrified it. Back then, they self-described it as the most redneck place on Earth. It was infamous for finding dead hookers out behind it.

The minute we walked in, we could see that there were more people than teeth here. It was all rebel flags and unfinished plywood. There was a lot of drug dealing, a lot of meth. So there were a lot of working ladies. They made it clear we were different and unwelcome.

I had on a sequined, knock-off Nudie suit jacket. There was a guy following me around saying, “I’m gonna go home with that jacket!” There was a working girl who looked like Grandma from the Addams Family. She was saying I looked like Elvis, and she was going home with me.

John Whittemore was playing pedal steel, and he had a woman who was reaching around him with one hand on the hand he was picking with, and the other hand he’s barring with. Grandma would walk around behind me, and when I would be singing, and my hands occupied with the guitar, she would reach up between my legs and start squeezing my business. It got a lot easier to hit those high notes.

Was this a bad gig? I guess it depends on how you define gig. We just sort of showed up. They didn’t want us. But by the time it was over, there were people calling out requests. We did our usual set, and played Elvis’ “Little Sister.” That was when the guy who was going to knock me in the head and steal my jacket decided we were okay. He wasn’t going to knock me in the head, but he was still probably going to take my jacket.

Marcella Simien,
Marcella and Her Lovers

We were playing this outdoor festival, and I was handed a note in the middle of a song asking me to announce that a 6-year-old boy was missing and had been for over an hour. They made it sound like this kid just took off — a little renegade. I smiled to myself at first, thinking “Okay, the kid is probably off doing things 6-year-olds do.” Then it started to sink in.

I’ve gotten notes on stage with song requests, marriage proposals, birthday requests. But a missing persons report? This was a first, real “Stop the presses!” kind of stuff. So I made the announcement, and the stage manager motioned for us to continue, to keep playing. So we did. But the whole time there was this feeling, this undertone of … missing kid … impossible to ignore. I mean, how can you not be concerned?   

Several songs later the kid still hadn’t shown up, and no one was any the wiser as to where he might have been. Someone from the sheriff’s department got onstage and made another announcement as the band and I helplessly looked at each other, eyes all big. This person makes the announcement sounding like the conductor of a train and then hands the mic back to me. Somehow we finished the set, packed up, and headed out. But not before leaving behind a suitcase full of our merchandise. Thankfully we got word on the drive home that the child had been found. He pedaled his Big Wheel back on up to the house like nothing had happened.

Steve Selvidge

Big Ass Truck was playing at a fraternity down in Oxford. They paid well. That show would finance a whole tour. And people usually had a good time. It was in our contract that you were hiring us to be us. We weren’t going to play Dave Matthews or Phish. We’re playing outside at this crawfish boil. It’s an all-day thing. People were getting drunk. Some kid thought it would be funny while we’re playing to flip the breakers. So we’re playing, and the power cuts. That happened all the time — it’s no big deal — you just have to sit there and wait for it to come back on. So we start playing again, and the kid flips the breakers again. Power goes off. It keeps happening!

Finally, the sound guy figures what’s going on. “There’s a kid flipping the breaker. We dealt with it.” But it messed up the P.A. The monitors went out, and we couldn’t play. With a DJ, we needed the monitors, because we’re playing to him.

People didn’t understand why we wouldn’t play, and they were getting restless. This entitled little fuck frat kid hops up on stage, grabs the mic, and says “Big Ass Truck sucks!” I was livid. I got up and I was just like, “Get the fuck off my stage you little shit.” Then the monitors come back on, and I’m like, “Hey, sorry about that! Let me tell you what was going on. We’re here to play and have fun. It’s gonna be a good time. But that little fuck who was flipping the breaker on and off, your mother [string of shocking expletives deleted].” Should have taken the high road. But I didn’t. Then we just light into the set. We were furious. It was fun. Next thing you know, there’s a bunch of people who want to kick my ass. I’m looking at guys in the crowd mouthing, “I’m going to kill you!”

Joseph Higgins, Chinese Connection Dub Embassy

The worst gig was one of the first gigs we played out of town. It was just a trip to Nashville. Everything was going great, then 30 minutes out of Nashville, our front tire pops off and drags the car a quarter mile down the expressway.
So we get the tow truck to come and get us, and then we find out we have to go to the nearest place to get it fixed before we can do anything. So our bass player, Omar, and Paul, our guitarist at the time, and my brother David head to the Walmart to change the tire out. This is in the middle of summer, and it’s got to be 105 degrees. Two of us are in the tow truck, and the other three are in the car.

We finally get to Walmart after driving around everywhere looking for it. We’re desperate to get to Nashville to play the gig. This was on a Saturday, and all of the places to get a tire fixed are closed. Then we find out we need over $800 worth of work on the car before we can do anything. We had to call some friends and family to see if we can find anyone to take us to the gig. The guitarist called his family to come and get us. He was so angry at the whole thing, he just wanted to go home. We were like, “No man, we should at least go to Nashville, play the gig, and make some money to pay for the car!” But he was all flustered. “We can’t do this. Let’s just go.”

After we come back to Memphis, we find out later that night that the venue we were playing — it was called Nash Bash — had over a thousand people at the show. We did know it at the time, but we were one of the headliners. We find out there was a big crowd waiting to see us, because there was no reggae on the bill. Then we find out the promoter for the show lives in Franklin. He could have picked us up and taken us to the show and brought us back. It literally could have all been fixed if we had had the promoter’s number on hand. Since then we have a backup plan for everything. 

Jonathan Kiersky, Club Owner
Without naming names, this was the worst: It was a Brooklyn four-piece — three synthesizers and a drummer. They had a bunch of press and a strong booking agent, so I booked them. Not sure how they had so much professional support, except it was the heyday of the indie pop scene in Brooklyn. One of them may have been a model.  

Early on, we realized this show would be a mess, since it was their first tour, and set up and soundcheck were a disaster. Show starts, and the vibe on stage is complete fear. Finally during the third song, the lead singer/synth player just yells “Stop, stop, stop!” and starts weeping on stage. We hoped she would pull it together and the show would go on but that was not the case. They just walked off stage, packed their shit up, and left. My jaw had never been closer to the floor.

Chris Milam
Friday night in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The bar was packed, the crowd homogenous: male, bearded, titanically drunk. Picture the cast of Perfect Storm meets the cast of Jersey Shore. And I was scheduled to play for two hours, solo acoustic.

Somehow, they liked me — too much. A mosh pit formed — onstage. One guy insisted on “freestyling to his lady.”  Another swiped at my guitar mid-song, “helping” me play. The night got later, the crowd drunker, would-be fights started popping up around me. It was a farce; a mostly-improvised, slightly-violent farce.  
When I finished, I hustled my gear out to my car. I came back to find a waitress literally stiff-arming a man away from my night’s pay. Come to think of it: I made it out in one piece, my guitar made it out in one piece, and I got paid in full. I’ve had worse gigs.

Brennan Villines
I was playing with my trio years ago at my uncle’s house for a pool party in Arlington, which is as amazing as it sounds. My music doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a backyard full of Gen X white people who have musical tastes spanning from George Strait to Kenny Chesney. We were asked — yelled at — to play a certain song, the name of which I cannot recall at the moment. I remember being disgusted at the request coming from the drunkest person at the party.

I said I didn’t know the song and continued with my set. He called me a queer and threw a wet towel at my face from about 25 feet away. The towel smacked me surprisingly hard … in mid song. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed with his throwing ability, given the distance factored with his blood alcohol content. But, this was definitely a low point in my career. Just as I was feeling defeated, my uncle pushed him in the pool, and we all had a good laugh.

Andria Lisle, Music Journalist
The worst gig I ever attended was one I knew would be awful going in. I expected, and got, the worst on November 16, 1991, when I walked through the doors of Antenna to see G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies.
It was the pre-internet age, so what I knew of G.G. Allin was gleaned from the pages of MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL and via first-hand stories from friends who had caught Allin on the road in other cities. Self-billed as “the last true rock and roller,” Allin would take Ex-Lax before his gig, then defecate on stage. When the Memphis stop on his fall 1991 tour was announced, I should’ve wondered “Who on Earth would want to attend something like this?” Instead, I thought, “Who would want to miss it?”

I paid my $5 and cautiously took a post in the back of the room, close enough to the door that I could escape if necessary. I can’t remember who opened or what songs were on the Murder Junkies’ setlist. Allin wore a black hoodie, his pale ass gleaming under the lights. He paced the stage, drinking beers and throwing the bottles into the audience. He had the frightening intensity of Charles Manson — I recall being too afraid to meet his gaze. At some point, the microphone he ranted into went up his ass. Later, Allin leapt off the stage and began antagonizing the audience at close range. Most of us ran out of the door of the club.

He’d chase us outside, then stop at the corner of Madison and Avalon while we raced to the relative safety of the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. For some reason, that happened more than once. I have no idea why I didn’t just leave at that point, but I kept going back in for more. Finally, Allin chased us out again, and one audience member ran to Murphy’s and came back with a knife. She began chasing G.G., and that was too much for me. I went home, took a long shower, and questioned every decision I’d made in life.

Chris Shaw, Ex-Cult, Goggs
Every time a band goes on tour there are shows that inevitably get highlighted for various reasons — you’re playing with friends, you like the venue, the gig pays well, or there’s promise that someone who “needs to see your band” will be there. Ex-Cult had just released a new record, and so we were working with a new publicist who had promised to gather all her industry friends for a show at Mercury Lounge, the Manhattan venue that is known for being a “music industry hotspot,” whatever that means.

This show was on my radar from the beginning of the tour. We performed in Baltimore the night before, but because of a sound ordinance, we had to soundcheck at some ridiculous time, like 2 p.m. the day of the Mercury Lounge show.

We left Baltimore on time, but to make sure all goes according to plan, I decided to drive into Manhattan. I was driving like a bat out of hell, impressed with my band mates that we are all up and moving, hangover-free and ready to hit New York City. Then my phone starts going off. Repeatedly. I’m driving so I can’t look at my texts. Then our booking agent called,  annoyed I haven’t been answering the phone.

What comes next is something I’ve never heard happen to any other band: A pipe burst in front of the venue, and a rather large sinkhole formed outside of Katz Deli, literally next door to the Mercury Lounge. The show was cancelled. Best of all, the publicist with all her industry contacts has gone AWOL. I don’t hear from her again for the duration of our time in New York City. Maybe she fell in the sinkhole?

Do you remember the scene in Ferris Buellers Day Off when Bueller’s buddy Cameron screams as the camera pulls out to show all of Chicago? That’s how I felt. The show eventually got removed to a lovely little club called Fontanas, but as you have probably guessed, no one came. What doesn’t break you makes you stronger, so when this exact same scenario happened to us a year later in San Diego, all we could do was laugh.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said (September 25, 2014) …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Randy Haspel’s “Rant” on ISIS and new military action in the Middle East …

It’s time to have a new war, because the old war is running out. We need this war, because we always have to have a handy war, so the war machine makers can test out their new war machines. Because we need the best war machines. And everyone who doesn’t love the new war? Well, they are just terrorists and anarchists, and maybe even communists. So they need to be watched by Homeland Security. They might even have beards and be Muslims. Look out!

OakTree

Or maybe ISIS needs to be watched because they cut off the heads of innocents, including children, execute all those who do not agree with their religious beliefs, force girls as young as 10 into “marriages” with their fighters, and their leader has threatened to come to the U.S. and do the same to us.

Personally, I am pretty happy we have all those new war machines at a time like this.

ArlingtonPop

About Chris Davis’ webpost, “Commercial Appeal Changes; 17 Laid Off” …

Not good. The lack of serious news coverage hurts everyone. I’m thinking of a PBS documentary on the decline of major newspapers. The title is frightening:

Black and White and Dead All Over.

Mayfield

The internet hasn’t killed print; bad decisions have. I once worked for a print entity that was purchased by AOL. It was supposed to be the dawning of the age of synergy. Guess how well that worked out. 

Really terrible decisions made by people far from the news-gathering and content-creation side of the business, as well as the local markets being served, sunk the company. Now, that big Wall Street-controlled, multi-national internet company for which I worked is unraveling and in a sort of assisted living center for once-thriving businesses. 

Print can still turn a buck and, more importantly, news-gathering companies can survive. They have to. Otherwise, if you think we’re in hot water now, just wait until we further weaken the Fourth Estate.

Rich Banks

The Flyer could take the high road or give the people what they want (like The New York Daily News): “INTRODUCING THE FLESH BURGER! British chef creates burgers that taste like human flesh” or “‘YOU’RE GOING TO KILL OUR BABY!’: NYPD cops toss pregnant woman to ground in Brooklyn and pummel good Samaritan who tried to help.”

crackoamerican

About Wendi C. Thomas’ column, “The Power of Poverty” …

I don’t know what all you people were complaining about. Wendi’s first column here is spot on. Welcome to the Flyer!

Jeff

About a Frank Murtaugh’s weekly website post, “Three Thoughts on Tiger Football” …

We are MEMPHIS! It is us against the world. Our fans and citizens do not jump on the bandwagon. I’d rather play all games against the five power conferences. The day is coming when the Tigers, Grizzlies, and Redbirds will rule. And that will not happen by playing Austin Peay.

The fans do not want the schedule filled with sorry games. We want Florida, Ole Miss, UCLA, etc. More important, so do the recruits. Remember, fans pay for the programs, and better recruits and players win the games.

Darrell

Actually, I think the Boise State model has proven to be pretty strong. Boise typically steps out of conference against one elite conference foe per year, and that’s it. The rest are small conference.

They made a name for themselves by dominating their conference, winning their other weak non-conference games, and then having that one game a year where they could play up to major competition, and occasionally pull off a win (Georgia, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl).

That sounds like the model Fuente wants to follow, and it’s probably best. That said, even as an Ole Miss fan, I think that Memphis would be better off varying which team they play in that game each year, similar to how Boise State has done it.

GroveReb84

Categories
Flyer Flashback News

Craig Brewer’s Big Break

“Hollywood is like a stick of chewing gum. The flavor is refreshing — for a minute — but once all the sweet has been sucked away, what remains is a gooey, spit­slick blob even the most befouled degenerate would be loath to touch. Nevertheless, if you are a dreamer who wants to make movies, you might as well plan on getting Hollywood stuck to your shoe for a while. There is just no avoiding it.”

That’s how Chris Davis began his September 7, 2000, cover story about Craig Brewer’s trip to Hollywood to premiere his first feature film, The Poor & Hungry, at the Hollywood Film Festival. Then 28, Brewer was hoping his little $20,000 movie, shot in black-and-white and in a then-­revolutionary digital format, might create some buzz and get him a movie deal.

The film was named for the P&H Cafe, then as now, a venerable Midtown beer joint. It told the story of a reluctant car thief who falls in love with one of his victims, a sensitive soul who happens to be a cellist. It was a blue­-collar Romeo and Juliet tale that starred Eric Tate and Lindsey Roberts and a host of other Memphians, many of whom had never acted before. Wanda Wilson, who at that time was the flamboyant owner of the P&H, also had a meaty role.

The Poor & Hungry had been nominated for Best Feature and Best Digital Feature at the fest, and Brewer was taking most of his cast and crew to Hollywood for the award ceremonies. Davis went along to chronicle the trip, and Flyer readers got to witness Brewer, a Memphian who has since become a bona­fide Hollywood film­maker with such films as Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan, and Footloose, making his first tentative foray into the shark­-infested waters of Los Angeles’ movie-­making machinery. Davis accompanied Brewer to a big­-time producer’s office, followed by a golf­cart tour of Paramount Studios; he hung out at the hotel as the Memphis cast and crew readied themselves for the big night.

“The hotel room seems to shrink amid the hair brushing, tooth brushing, lint brushing, shirt buttoning, drink pouring, and occasional raucous laughter. Various cast members wander in and out. John Still, the rough-talking actor who plays a rougher­talking car thief in the film, enters with a bang, eyes bugged out and talking a mile a minute.

“‘Guess who I saw today while I was driving? Heather Locklear! Boy, I thought really hard about just running into her car just so she would have to stop and exchange information with me.'”

In the end, The Poor & Hungry lost in the Best Feature category to a $35 million bio­pic about Marlene Dietrich, but Brewer’s film won Best Digital Feature. Brewer gave a touching speech about his father, who’d first suggested that he shoot in video and who’d passed away before the film had gotten made.

After the trip, Brewer, his cast and crew, and Davis returned to Memphis. But Brewer would never be Poor & Hungry again. His world had irrevocably changed.

Categories
Flyer Flashback News

Flyer Writer Reflects on His Days of Going Topless

CREDIT: Dan Ball

Finally it can be told: The sad, sordid back-story of how I found myself applying for a job as a reporter at the offices of The Commercial Appeal while shirtless.

I’d promised myself that I was through with the whole accidental exhibitionist thing, but every time I think I’m all buttoned up for good, somebody rips the shirt right off. Me, usually. And since the blustery, bosomy wonder known to the world — yes, the world — as Shirtless Man was created for the Flyer‘s 1998 Summer Issue, and I’m piloting this week’s Summer Issue “Flyer Flashback,” how could I resist?

In 1998, I toiled most days in a windowless room in the Flyer offices, cold-calling potential classified advertising customers. I’d only just begun to do a little freelance writing on the side, and I was thrilled when I was asked to submit ideas to the editor for the cover of the 1998 Summer Issue.

Honestly, I was certain that nobody in their right mind would be interested in the idea I’d cooked up with my friend Jim Hanas, who had recently graduated from classified sales to a full-time writing position. I can still remember then-Flyer editor Dennis Freeland repeating a truncated version of the original pitch back to me: “So you just take your shirt off and go out and do things?” he asked, looking at me like I’d just stepped out of a flying saucer. “What kind of things?”

Dan Ball

Chris Davis as “Shirtless Man” attempting to buy a shirt at Sears

“Oh, you know,” I answered. “Test drive cars, apply for a loan, try to get a job, buy a shirt, go to a topless club.” Next thing I knew, I was on assignment and negotiating with a security guard at the Peabody Rooftop Party.

“You need to put a shirt on, sir,” [the guard] says, sidling up to me.

“But I thought this was a party.”

“It is a party, sir, but you need to put a shirt on.”

“What kind of party is that?”

“It’s a private party open to the public for a $5 cover charge.”

“And I have to wear a shirt?”

“We prefer it.”

“So I don’t have to wear a shirt if I don’t want to?”

“You need to put a shirt on, sir.”

“But look at this sunburn I have here. Terribly painful. OWWWWWWWW! Jesus that hurts to touch it.”

“I know how painful that can be, but you need to wear a shirt.”

“Do I have to button it?”

“No.”

“Can I just wear a vest?”

“You can just wear a vest.”

“Do I have to button that?”

“No.”

Shirtless Man was a surprise hit. I went on to write about the big boy’s swinging European vacation for the Flyer, and to recreate the whole original adventure in a multi-page spread for a popular men’s magazine that usually featured scantily-clad starlets. Rose McGowan was Maxim‘s cover girl for March 1999, but I was the hot topless attraction.

Sixteen years later, people still ask why Shirtless Man didn’t have more Memphis adventures. First off, I’m genuinely uncomfortable being naked in public. Weird, right? But I also thought it was a one-time gag that wouldn’t work once the public was in on it. So I took the soundest advice ever offered in the entire history of showbiz: Leave ’em wanting more pictures of the shirtless fat guy.

In spite of my earnest desires to retire Shirtless Man, he now has a life of his own on the internet. Memphis-based artist/photographer Jonathan Postal took a photo of me that was originally snapped in front of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and photoshopped it Zelig-like into historical scenes, alongside Abraham Lincoln, Bob Dylan, and Martin Luther King. It’s a strange honor, but I’ll take it.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Your Fly Remains Open

Call me Pesky. I’ve probably said that before, but I’m an old Fly and sometimes I repeat myself. Myself. I’m the third generation in a noble lineage of “Fly on the Wall” columnists beginning with Jim Hanas, a former Flyer staff writer who moved to New York at the turn of the century and is now the director of audience development at HarperCollins Publishers. Hanas created the column in 1996 and nurtured it through its larval stage, before handing it off to former Flyer music editor Mark Jordan on his way out of town. I inherited the gig from Jordan, who still lives in Memphis, where he plays and writes about music.

Did I tell you what the Fly-Team has been doing with our little strip of newsprint for 18 of the Flyer‘s 25 years? Like all our brother flies who came before, we fix our eyes on the Mid-South, reading every paper, scanning every magazine, watching every news broadcast, running up and down the radio dial and to the most terrifying corners of the internet, looking for all the things that make Memphis weird and keep it wonderful. Here are some examples for the ages:

• In 2008, the Christian-themed news aggregator and wire service One-News tried out a computer program that automatically changes the word “gay” to “homosexual.” It worked too well, frequently collecting and altering the content of stories about one Memphis Grizzlies player. According to One-News: “Memphis backers hit the hay, hoping that Kevin Love would open things up for Rudy Homosexual in the frontcourt.” Ooh la la.

• In 2000, when Councilwoman Barbara Swearengen Ware wanted to install a phone in a bathroom stall at City Hall, Councilman Joe Brown had something to say about it: “This building is not totally safe. … Also, nobody is exempt from abnormalities of the human body. We need that phone in there. God bless everybody.”

Brown knows how to make a rousing speech. When hundreds of ironworkers interested in arena contracts showed up to a city council meeting in April 2002, he delivered an enthusiastic off-the-cuff speech about the importance of labor unions in America. When Brown concluded, a lone iron worker was heard saying, “My titties just stood up. I think my titties just stood up.”

• On a related note, the table decoration from Mayor A C Wharton’s 2009 victory party had inexplicable boobs:

• Sometimes the mistake is better than the actual headline:

• Walgreens gets creative in the toy department:

• November 15, 2003 — If you love something, stab it in the chest. If it comes back, it’s yours forever. Larry Henry of Memphis declined to press charges against fiancee Shirley Martin, even though she attacked him with an eight-inch butcher knife. Martin stabbed Henry in the chest because she thought he was sneaking a peek up another woman’s skirt. In retaliation Henry bit Martin’s pinky finger. But the two resolved their differences and married the following month.

• March 7, 2001 — And lo, he was ashamed: When asked why he fled when police attempted to pull him over, West Memphian Fate Patterson answered, “Because I was naked.” Of course, that’s not entirely true. When Patterson was extracted from his vehicle, he was wearing a jacket.

• June 26, 2003 — Does anyone remember Elite Memphis magazine? Elite’s special “30 Most Beautiful People of Memphis” edition listed “Dicks Unlimited” as a community service activity to which one of the featured beauties devoted her “time, finances, and talent.” The “What They Wore” section from the same issue found one woman sporting an “outtit from Lost in Paradise. As near as we could tell, no tit was actually out, though. And we looked pretty hard.

Elite‘s action-packed special issue also included a feature titled, “If you were a fruit or a vegetable, what would your friends say you were, and why?” Pam Montesi replied to the question saying she was “the corn. It’s a very popular vegetable and is sweet to the taste.”

• This isn’t legal in Mississippi:

• The state Senate passed a “bill endorsing animal training for police,” according to an AP headline from March 2003. Maybe they’d been peeing on the rug?

• Speaking of dogs and rugs, this 2003 ad is quite possibly the ickiest lost-dog listing ever to appear in The Commercial Appeal classifieds: “Sponge, you soak up spilled lovin.” Woof.

• In 1999, Fly on the Wall reported the strange case of Shawn Harper, a Memphis construction worker who shot and killed Shawn DeVaughan while hunting in Tipton County, telling authorities he’d mistaken his fellow hunter for a giant owl. DeVaughan, who weighed 250-lbs, was sitting in a deer-stand 20 feet in the air. At the time, mistaking a fully grown man for an owl seemed incredible, but in the fall of 2013, Fly on the Wall reported on a series of owl attacks in Memphis’ High Point neighborhood. No less credible a witness than Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich gave the following account: “And sure enough, this bird comes flying at the top of my head. It had the wing span of a Buick. It was the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

• Who among us hasn’t wished there were more hours in the day? In 2014, state Representative/Time Lord Curry Todd waved his sonic screwdriver creating widely mocked legislation to eliminate Daylight Saving Time and/or make it permanent, miraculously giving Tennesseans an extra hour to get ready for work in the morning and an extra hour to unwind in the evening.

• In 2004, Johnny Cash’s estate entered negotiations to prevent the song “Ring of Fire” from being used to advertise hemorrhoid cream.

• Wise words from Justin Timberlake, taken from a column the young boy-bander penned for Entertainment Teen magazine in 2000: “I used to have a lucky rock but I lost it. So I was like, you know what? I don’t need it.”

• “Acrobatic and mean-spirited”: an Associated Press article describing the raccoon that scaled a 30-foot fence and caused a massive power outage for 8,000 MLGW customers in 2010.

• In October 2002, after West Memphis police shut down a gambling house, neighbors complained to the press. They preferred it to the building’s previous tenant, a CB radio shop. The CBs interfered with their radio and television reception.

• State Senator Ophelia Ford, after being asked about her $12,000 taxpayer-funded travel bill in December 2008: “You mean to tell me that all I spent was $12,000? Oh, well, hallelujah. Thank you, Lord, for making it so economical.”

• Memphis medicine:

2014

• Supermodel Cindy Crawford speculating on the reaction of a patient she’d visited at St. Jude: “I’m standing over him … as he’s coming to. He’s probably thinking he had some good drugs.”

2006

• In 2006, Fly on the Wall presented Channel 5’s Jason Miles with the Howard Hughes “Cleanliness is Next to Craziness Award” after he took his “secret swab” into restrooms all over town and found — astonishingly enough — fecal matter. Speaking of Miles, here he is crawling under a car to get the big story.

And here’s that same picture on somebody’s birthday cake:

2014

• In 2009, a short, mean-spirited poem written by Elvis Presley sold at auction for $20,000 — 10 times its previously overestimated value. The rhyme, scrawled on Elvis’ personal stationery, reads, “As I awoke this morning when all sweet things are born, a robin perched on my window sill to greet the coming dawn. He sang his sweet song so sweetly and paused for a moment’s lull, I gently raised the window and crushed his [expletive] skull.”

2003

• Actress Margot Kidder told the Calgary Herald, “Satan doesn’t live in my vagina” after her production of The Vagina Monologues was picketed in Memphis. A protester had described Eve Ensler’s play as proof that Satan had arrived in Memphis. “Maybe God,” Kidder said, confirming the possibility of at least one occupant in her vagina. “But not Satan.”

• I originally said I couldn’t show you the entire photo that WREG reporter Melissa Moon tweeted from a charity 5K in 2014, because the shot of Moon with some superhero cosplayers was NSFW. So this is all you got:

2014

But this is an anniversary issue, so here’s the rest:

Insert your own Peter Parker joke here.

• Shortly after officials in casino-rich Tunica announced that the area’s property tax would be eliminated in the summer of 2000, Commercial Appeal correspondent Bartholomew Sullivan wrote, “Residents of Tunica will have only death to worry about.”

• We’re not sure what Fox13 News reporter Lauren Lee was doing at The Pony when Prince Harry was in town, but the photo she shared of “America’s Strip Joint” is the best souvenir of Prince Harry’s recent whirlwind visit:

• “It’s weirdly delightful and enchanting in its excess, but it has the feel of doom.” — Canadian journalist Bernard Perusse comparing Graceland to a barbecue, 2010.

• More accidental humor from WMC’s Jason Miles: “Man murdered in Marshall Co. was double amputee. Half brother in custody.” But, was the half-brother armed?

2013

• “It’s just amazing they would be that dumb.” — Guido Boggioni, who claims that he and his wife Bonnie Jonas-Boggioni of Plano, Texas, were stopped by police near Memphis because officers mistook an Ohio State University Buckeye logo on their car for a “marijuana sticker.”

• According to the Commercial Appeal, Collierville was looking to attract a very special kind of food tourism in 2013: “‘I think it’s going to be good for the whole town and especially Town Square. It’ll bring tourists to this area,’ said general manager Debi McCaffrey for Gus’s Fried Children at 215 S. Center.”

Also from the CA:

• The most awkward media moment of 2012 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.”

• As long as we’re going there, this Memphis fabric shop will laugh at your rooster:

• 2011 was a great year for headlines. When cops shut down a local B&B for travelers who like S&M, choice story toppers included “Collierville Cracks Whip in Sex Bondage House” and “Collierville’s Hands Tied in Bondage House Prostitution.” WREG led the news with, “Woman Behind Bars After Dog Found in Heat,” and who can forget the classic “40-year-old Mary Magdalene Caught Naked In Teen’s Closet,” about a 40-year-old named Mary Magdalene caught naked in a teen’s closet? And then there was this headline from The Daily Helmsman that requires no explanation:

• Have other wireless users ever noticed this network prompt at 201 Poplar?

• “It would be like somebody in 1910 saying, ‘We’re looking for somebody to speak minstrel.'” — University of Memphis professor Larry Moore on a leaked DEA memo seeking an Ebonics interpreter. (2010)

• “I don’t hate fat girls, but I make fun of them too.” — MMA fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson on why his description of acting “kinda gay” wasn’t homophobic (2010)

• Licensed to drive in Memphis:

• The biggest news from Arkansas in 2012: 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!”