These days, the Flyer staff mostly produces the paper and its web content from home. We communicate on an app called Slack, which is like a never-ending group text. We can upload copy, share photos, and discuss web posts as they’re being edited and loaded onto memphisflyer.com. We can also use Slack for snark, gossip, jokes, emojis, opinions — and did I mention snark?
Sure, we have weekly in-person meetings when possible, just to make sure we’re all still breathing, but Slack is where the daily action is. Last week, Michael Donahue wrote a story for the paper about the seminal Memphis band, Big Ass Truck, which is still performing around town when the mood hits them. The band became a subject of a long, rollicking discussion on Slack, as Donahue reminisced about the first time he wrote about Big Ass Truck — which was in the early 1990s for the Commercial Appeal.
“It was the first time the word ‘ass’ appeared in the CA,” said Donahue, proudly. “I had to get permission to use it. I even wrote about that in my lede for the story.”
So there you have it, folks. Some Big Ass history. (Also, here’s a free business idea for some enterprising Memphis culinarian: Big Ass Food Truck. You’re welcome.)
Speaking of history, some recent Memphis events have reminded me of the story of Hiroo Onoda. Onoda (as at least three of you may recall) was a Japanese soldier who famously refused to surrender at the end of World War II. Instead, he retreated into the Philippine jungles and fought on until 1974, when his aging former commanding officer managed to get orders delivered to him, and Onoda surrendered.
Similarly, some Memphians seem determined to keep on fighting long after a war is over — the war, in this case, being the one to preserve Tom Lee Park as a flat, barren field designed for partying, cooking pigs, and having a big-ass music fest two weekends a year for Memphis in May (MIM). In their eyes, that park has been maliciously redesigned by the Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) as a human-friendly area with trees, grass, wildflowers, playgrounds, basketball courts, walking and biking trails, picnic areas, water features, shaded seating with river views … and did I mention trees?
Some supporters of MIM have retreated into the jungles of the internet, where they lob insults and threats at MRPP and its leader, Carol Coletta, refusing to surrender, refusing to accept reality — or truce papers.
In response to its ongoing conflict with MRPP, Memphis in May announced that it is putting the Beale Street Music Festival “on pause” for 2024. The group had previously announced that it was moving the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest to Tiger Lane near the Liberty Bowl. And that was that. For a minute or so.
But there’s another group in town that makes Memphis in May seem, well, flexible. It’s called Friends for Our Riverfront (FfOR), and it claims to represent the wishes of the city’s founders as decreed in — get this — 1828. As “heirs” of those fine gentlemanly white landowners, the FfOR Ffolks have filed a legal motion to stop the ongoing construction of the new Memphis Art Museum on the bluff at Union Avenue and Front Street. They say the city’s founders wanted the bluff preserved for “public use,” which apparently doesn’t include a world-class art museum that will be free to the, er, public. For, you know, use.
It’s well past time to move on from this petty silliness. The museum is going to be built, and those opposed to it need to get over it. The park is already built, like, completed. Those opposed to it (the Tom Lee Flat Earth Society?) need to come down out of the jungle and move on.
Time waits for no man. In fact, within about 30 seconds of MIM announcing it wouldn’t hold a music fest next year, MRPP announced a deal with the Mempho Music Festival folks to put on a 2024 festival in, yes, the brand spanking new Tom Lee Park. Will it be just like the old music fest? Probably not. Can it be as good or better? We’ll find out, won’t we? At the least, it’s a better plan than everybody throwing a Big Ass hissy fit.