Tag: Joe Birch

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet: An Unlikely Trio and Wet Heat

It’s electric

About 17,000 Memphis Light, Gas & Water customers were without power last week when a storm rolled in Tuesday night. Reddit user tacojohn48 captured a striking glimpse of it over the Harahan Bridge.

But it’s a wet heat

Reddit user iliveinmemphis posted what we all thought last week.

“Going outside in Memphis the past two days is like opening your dishwasher to get a cup right after it finishes.” The comments on the post nailed it, too.

BandidoCoyote: “Getting out of the morning shower and getting dressed without drying off.”

Tralfamadorian82: “Opening your dryer before the towels are dry.”

Benefit_of_mrkite: “People lived here before AC. Double apply your Gold Bond and keep on.”

A decade of love

Joe Birch, Frayser Boy, and Holly Whitfield walk into a bar …

The I Love Memphis blog celebrated 10 years Saturday with a packed-out birthday party at Railgarten. For the anniversary, Birch tweeted what scientists are calling one of the most Memphis photographs ever taken.

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Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

WMC’s “Demonic Weave” Story Believed to be Root of Ignorance in Memphis

A bad omen came on top of her head.

According to WMC Action News 5, thieves have murdered four people while attempting to steal hair weaves, “and now many Memphians say demonic spirits could be to blame.” That’s right folks, WMC has scooped the rest of Memphis media on this important story about vanity, greed, consumer hair products, and secret doorways to realms infernal, where ancient evil lurks, waiting to swoop down and snatch a wig right off your damn head.  

“Whose-ever hair I was wearing on my head, that heifer had a bad omen“

Even anchors Joe Birch and Kontji Anthony, who’ve introduced so many ridiculous segments by now you’d think they’d be used to it, looked to be passing kidney stones as they tossed the story to WMC’s Senior Satanic Hair Correspondent Jerica Phillips, who, in turn, implored viewers to perform a Google search for “cursed hair.”

“The prophesies are plenty,” she said before sharing a YouTube video of an unidentified woman claiming, “Whose-ever hair I was wearing on my head, that heifer had a bad omen and that bad omen followed her from India and came on top of my head, and I took on her spirit.” 

An image from WMC’s report shows the terrifying face of hair that’s cursed as hell.

One woman Phillips quoted asked, “Do you know the history of the hair’s original owner? What type of spirit did that person have? You may be buying a person’s hair and their demonic spirit.” Another suggested that people are doing “ungodly things” because, “many of the [hair] purchases are made in other countries that worship false gods.”

“It may sound bizarre,” Phillips said with the serious tone of a veteran broadcaster, “but some people believe virgin hair from India may be possessed during a ritual called tonsuring, the cutting of hair for religious reasons, or sacrifices to idol Gods.”

Memphians Phillips interviewed, like  Dr. Bill Adkins, the pastor at Greater Imani Cathedral of Faith, were skeptical, though the material was consistently framed as a subject for legitimate debate.

At least Phillips reached a conclusion upon which we can all agree: “Whatever the root cause of a beauty trend turned crime trend, we can all agree the war spawned by weave must stop.”

Truth.
Demonic weaves believed to be root of hair crimes

WMC’s ‘Demonic Weave’ Story Believed to be Root of Ignorance in Memphis

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News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1364

Verbatim

Memphis experienced a mass knicker twist last week when University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari used his Hall of Fame induction speech to take a shot at his former employer. Calipari compared previous coaching gigs, including his infamous stint in Memphis, to eating Thanksgiving dinner “at the little table,” adding a line about how, “You had plastic forks and plates.” But nobody’s knickers twisted harder than those belonging to Fox 13 weather guy Joey Sulipeck, who either called Coach Cal out to a rumble or a picnic. “Say you’re at the kid table with plastic utensils?” the meteorologist taunted, “Give me a plastic utensil and walk by me, Calipari. You don’t demean an entire program and say it’s the kid table and plastic utensils, got history like the Memphis program. Come on.”

Whoa Nelly!

Hip-hop artist Nelly was apparently “riding Hazard like a Duke boy” in Putnam County, Tennessee this week. The “Country Grammar” rapper was arrested on felony drug charges after a state trooper stopped his bus on I-40 and smelled marijuana.

Anchorman 3

One of this past week’s most dubious news reports found WMC anchorman Joe Birch reading lines like a comic-book Geraldo: “A fight! People run over! Crashes! A video so shocking WMC Action News 5’s Jerry Askin searched for some answers.” Askin asked random people what they thought about a YouTube video of something that might have happened in Memphis. The clip in question seemed to show a fight and people being intentionally hit by cars. And then, of course, there’s the headline.

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News The Fly-By

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Some Bulls&!t

Talk about taking the bull by the horns. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports that 20-year-old Ole Miss student Benjamin Milley was gored by a fighting bull during the Carnaval del Toro festival in Ciudad Rodrigo, Spain. Milley’s surgeon was quoted as saying that the injury wasn’t the worst he’d ever seen, but the largest he’d ever had to operate on. It took three hours to “repair damage to thighs, sphincter, and back muscles.” Ow.

WMC-Monkeys

Joe Birch’s lede would have sounded perfectly natural coming out of the mouth of Kent Brockman, who anchors the Springfield News on The Simpsons. “It started out as an investigation into a dangerous icy prank at Southaven High School,” Birch said in all seriousness. “But it ended with the pranksters tracking down WMC News 5 and taunting us all day on social media.” Birch then pitched to reporter Michael Clark, who reported that teenagers had dumped buckets of water in their school parking lot hoping that it might turn to ice resulting in another snow day for Southaven students. Clark also reported that the young aqua-vandals promised him an interview but didn’t show up. Instead, the teens rode around town behind the WMC van that was out looking for them, taking phone videos and uploading them to YouTube.


#hashtaghashtag

Fly on the Wall hates that we missed this February 9th event because nothing says “healthy lifestyle” like visiting a Subway — in a jail. But the best thing about this promotion is the improbably long hashtag: #ShelbyCountyGovernmentPromoting HealthyLifestyles.

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News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1327

Digital Appeal?

Your Pesky Fly has managed a few blogs in his time and is all too familiar with the phenomenon of uploading photos that look great in a preview but mysteriously post sideways or upside down. These things happen. But since receiving its new digital makeover there are some image-posting quirks at The Commercial Appeal that are so consistent they almost seem like a design choice. Take for example the “Kilroy was here”-style headshot.

So maybe the CA wants to show readers what these guys might look like peeking in a window?

In a few more extreme cases the images are cropped even higher. This is former CA managing editor Otis Sanford’s literal head shot as it appeared next to a story about his induction into the Tennessee Journalists Hall of Fame.

TV-5 anchor Joe Birch is also being inducted and was given the same hairy treatment. Of course Joe is immediately recognizable.

So Memphis

The corner of McLemore and Mississippi.

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Opinion The BruceV Blog

Joe Birch Goes to the BOM Party

Joe Birch was among the many happy revelers at Wednesday night’s Best of Memphis party. He shared this little video via Twitter, and we thought you might enjoy it.

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News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Weird Headline

Two questions: Who in the name of great Caesar’s ghost is writing headlines for The Daily News, and what can be done to stop them? On Tuesday, April 24th, the paper printed a news brief headlined to attract the attention of imaginary sports enthusiasts and fans of inexplicably popular bands. The article “Bowling for Soup” chronicled the various actions being taken to determine whether or not Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium should be replaced. The story had nothing to do with bowling, soup, or hangovers you don’t deserve.

Memphis Mammaries

This week marks the end of a brief, bizarre, and modestly troubling era. Strip-club owner Charles “Jerry” Westlund has finally agreed to take down a controversial billboard northbound on US 61 between Tunica and Memphis. Now bleary-eyed travelers returning to Memphis after a long night of drinking and dice will no longer be subjected to Westlund’s sign, which reads, “Got Boobs?” So much for roadside attractions.

Return to Sender

Elvis Presley Enterprises, hoping to make Graceland a tourist attraction comparable to America’s larger theme parks, recently announced a new advertising campaign. EPE’s CMO Paul Jankowski has been quoted as saying, “The Discover Your Inner Elvis campaign will be used … to support [Graceland’s] worldwide branding strategy.” So Graceland hopes a catchphrase will help it compete with Six Flags, eh? Didn’t the caretakers of Elvis’ estate just blow a golden opportunity to buy Elvis’ favorite roller coaster dirt-cheap?

Correction

After last week’s Fly mentioned a WMC news story, the station’s good-natured anchor Joe Birch wrote in to complain that the accompanying picture was not an accurate representation of his current hairstyle (see Letters to the Editor).

We regret the hairor.

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News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Taste the Rainbow

A recent AP article chronicling the difficulties faced by openly gay students on historically black college campuses quoted Rev. William Owens, a historically black college graduate and head of the Coalition of African-American Pastors in Memphis. According to Owens, school administrators can say “no” to gay students who ask for inclusion and acceptance.

“I don’t think they have to give a lot of reasons,” said Owens, who, like other black pastors, worries that homosexuality “is a threat to the black family.”

The article was inconclusive as to whether or not gays should use separate water fountains and toilets.

Urban Camping

From Action News 5: “Joe Birch went to check out a tent [that] sits on a hill near Preston and Waldorf in South Memphis. … A lifelong neighbor and concerned citizen says the tent is a hub of criminal activity where addicts trade stolen items for drugs. … In a one-mile radius of the intersection of Preston and Waldorf in the last 30 days, there were 27 narcotics arrests, 3 robberies, 17 aggravated assaults, 50 burglaries, 38 domestic-violence arrests, 30 thefts from homes and 11 from cars.”

The news report failed to mention whether or not the tent’s occupants were flying a red flag.