I began this letter fresh from our Best of Memphis party last week, with a belly full of beer and still buzzing. My spelling was nonexistent, details were fuzzy, but the gleam of the night’s glowing magic was bright. It still is.
I began my Flyer journey about 10 years ago. Unbelievable. But it started at a Best of Memphis party. Four years in The Commercial Appeal newsroom had worn me to a nub. Some Flyer folks were leaving at the time. So, with no job posted anywhere, I sent my resume over the transom to then-editor Bruce VanWyngarden.
We met and I left the Flyer office with two tickets to the Best of Memphis party that evening. I had no idea what to expect. I knew it was a hot-ticket party, invitation only, and everyone wanted to be invited. Drinks and food lavished forth from some exotic (usually forgotten) Memphis location, so I’d heard.
My then-girlfriend (now my wife) and I exchanged uncertain glances as we pulled into the then-closed, now-demolished Imperial Lanes bowling alley on Summer for the party that evening. Inside, burlesque dancers writhed lustily on a stage down the dusty lanes, a punk band blasted power chords in the corner, trays of amazing food covered the ball returns, hundreds of people — some in suits, some in scanty strips of shiny black leather — mingled joyfully with matching plastic cups of yellow beer. It was magic.
My only real mission that evening was to find and thank Bruce for the invitation and meet then-publisher Ken Neill. But I got lost in the party and the crowd. I struck up a conversation with a charming and witty Shelby County commissioner named Steve Mulroy. He gave me a beer.
I wandered wide-eyed through the party wondering how in the hell they pulled it off and just who were these people that could imagine such a delightfully sinful celebration. If that was how the Flyer partied, I wanted in. If this was the paper’s public face — unabashedly, unapologetically edgy and fun-loving — I wanted to be a part of it.
I never did find Bruce or Ken. Instead, we found the “secret bar” on the smokers’ patio outside. There, we made friends, joked about Memphis, and told our “how-I-got-to-Memphis” stories. The party was over, and I left with Memphis Flyer magic in my heart.
I dreaded my meeting with Bruce and Ken the next day. Did I piss them off by not saying hello? I hoped they understood. They did. Ours was a sort of headache-y, bleary-eyed kind of meeting that we all wished we had postponed for a day. We laughed and told our “Best Of” party stories from the night before. I left with handshakes and a new job that I could not have known I’d keep for the next decade.
I’m not nostalgic or sentimental, but the glow of that first Best Of party still burns bright. Under those unforgiving fluorescents, I was Flyer-baptized over a pony keg in a gallon of foamy draft beer. Other BOM parties aren’t so memorable, and some years I didn’t even go. But that old Flyer magic was rekindled at our Best Of party last week.
A trough of cool air settled pleasantly over The Ravine. That place — in true Best Of form — is not yet well-known but soon will be. Near the entrance I watched the eclectic panoply of party-goers look upon The Ravine for the first time, many in wonder. They met and mingled in its belly with friends and strangers and with, maybe, the only thing in common, a hot-ticket invitation to one of the city’s coolest parties and all under the Flyer flag.
City leaders, media personalities, fashionistas, mechanics, business innovators, artists, bartenders, dancers, servers, chefs, stylists, actors, writers, landscapers, influencers — if you’re good at a thing in Memphis, you are an equal somebody at the Best of Memphis party. Our contest is a true democracy and all winners are celebrated equally. That’s a key ingredient of the Best Of magic.
Reporters get used to everyone seeing their work, enough so that sometimes you forget it’s blasted out for all to see. The Best Of party last week was a great reminder of how and how much Memphians think of us, our paper, our voice, our brand. The Flyer does have powerful magic. But it’s drawn from you, its people, truly the best of Memphis.
Our Best of Memphis parties help fuel my patronus when times get tough here, outsiders bash us on social media, and folks back home wonder why we don’t move. It shines up the gleam of that old, glowing Memphis magic that has always burned bright. It still does.