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‘Bluff City Law’ Will Shoot in Memphis with $4.25M Incentive Package

CREDIT: NBC

NBC

NBC will shoot “Bluff City Law” in Memphis and Shelby County, according to Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, after winning a multi-million-incentive package from local agencies.

After shooting a pilot here earlier this year, it wasn’t immediately clear whether or not the show would be filmed in Memphis. But NBC was given a $4.25-million incentive package to secure Memphis as its location. The network got $2.5 million from the state, $1.4 million from both the city of Memphis and Shelby County and $350,000 from Memphis Tourism.

Here’s what Strickland had to say about the news:

“Welcome home, ‘Bluff City Law!’ This is a tremendous opportunity to showcase our city every week on the national stage starting this fall. I’m very excited about having the show filmed here and am even more thrilled about the economic implications it will have. Many thanks to all those involved to make this happen.”

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris:

“More great news for Memphis and Shelby County with ‘Bluff City Law’ shooting right here in the Bluff City. This is a great opportunity to show off the talented men and women in the local film scene and our famous hospitality. I look forward to the partnership and shots of our one-of-a-kind skyline.”

Kevin Kane, president and CEO of Memphis Tourism:

“Memphis can’t be duplicated and authenticity is the heart of this city that moves to its own beat. Viewers will get to see that with ‘Bluff City Law’ shooting on location in our vibrant city, which was visited by nearly 12 million travelers last year. Memphis Tourism views this as an opportunity to leverage this visibility to grow new visitor demand and the visitor economy while creating unique awareness for our travel destination to millions of viewers on a weekly basis.”

Reid Dulberger, president and CEO, Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE):

“’Bluff City’ Law has found its rightful home in Memphis. The show will mean hundreds of jobs for Memphis film production crews and increased revenues for local business. It will also be a greater advertising tool for the community.”

Here’s a description of “Bluff City Law” from NBC:

Coming from a famous Memphis family known for taking on injustice, brilliant lawyer Sydney Strait used to work at her father Elijah’s celebrated law firm until their tumultuous relationship got in the way.

After barely speaking to him for years, Sydney is suddenly thrust back into the family fold when her philanthropist mother passes away unexpectedly. In the wake of her loss, hoping to reconnect with the daughter he loves, Elijah asks Sydney to rejoin his firm.

She agrees because despite her lingering resentment and distrust, she knows that working alongside her father is her best hope at changing the world … if they can ever get along.

The cast includes Jimmy Smits, Caitlin McGee, Scott Shepherd, Barry Sloane, Michael Luwoye, MaameYaa Boafo, Stony Blyden and Jayne Atkinson.

Categories
Film/TV TV Features

Memphis Filmmaker Jonathan Pekar Creating New Animated Series

Johnathan Pekar

Jonathan Pekar, Memphis-born filmmaker, comedian, and musician has announced a major new animation project, which will launch in 2019.

“PPPI Productions hired me to write, direct and create the music for their new 30-minute cartoon series Coalition Xing,” he says via IM from Los Angeles, where he is wrapping up work on the pilot episode of the series.

The character Hatemon in still from the Coalition Xing pilot

Pekar says PPPI is a Chinese company who “have expanded into America, uniting with several former Disney creatives to produce projects for both the Chinese and American markets.”

The new show is a bilingual production intended for both Chinese and Western audiences whose characters will figure into a new theme park PPPI is developing in China.

“Coalition Xing is a 30 minute animated series geared towards edu-taining 6-to-10-year-old kids in China and the United States by cleverly using subtitles, original music, and compelling storytelling.”

This is Pekar’s first entry into the realm of animation since he graduated from the University of Southern California film program. His resume includes producing Shark Week for the Discovery Channel. But “pouring cow blood in the ocean was never my idea of edutaining,” he says. “I made that word up on a Guadalajaran island while we were filming for Shark Week — well, on a boat next to the island. ”

Pekar got his start as a teenager in Memphis playing with hardcore punks Distemper at he Antenna Club. He currently performs in two bands, the Los Angeles outfit Are You A Cop? and the Memphis band Pig Star, with Distemper guitarist George Cole.

Pekar is composing music for the Coalition Xing score.

“Dr. Herman Green, Chuck Sullivan, Richard Cushing, Will Gilbert, and many other Memphians have collaborated with me on this project,” he says. “We recorded half of the soundtrack and audio design in Memphis.”

The pilot episode will also include music from Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and Mario Lalli of Fatso Jetson.

Pekar, who has a history as a standup comedian, says it’s been easy for him to refocus his writing on a much younger audience than the ones he performs for at L.A.’s Comedy Store.

“I spend time with people that are more immature than me, if that’s even conceivable,” he says.

Pekar’s crew consists of about 38 animators, including veterans of Nickelodeon’s Teen Titans. The pilot will air in China in September. The American release date for Coalition Xing is currently up in the air, but Pekar says the early reactions to the work have exceeded his expectations.

“It was sold before it was completed,” he said.

Categories
Film/TV TV Features

TV Watch: Doctor Who

CREDIT: BBC.co.uk/doctorwho

Doctor Who is now entering its 51st year. The BBC sci-fi TV show is older than Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Star Trek. Its first episode, which was delayed because of BBC’s coverage of the Kennedy asassination, debuted in England the same year that Astro Boy, the first ever anime, debuted in Japan. Can a show that is as old as an entire genre still have something to say?

The first actor to play the Doctor was William Hartnell, who was 55 years old at the time of the 1963 debut. After three years galavanting through time and space in the TARDIS, Hartnell’s deteriorating health forced him to retire. So the writers came up with a way to keep the popular show going without its star. When Time Lords like the Doctor are near death, their bodies regenerate, changing appearance and giving them new life. The number of total regenerations a single Time Lord could get was set at 12, which, in 1966 probably seemed like a large enough number that the writers would never have to deal with what happened when the Doctor ran out.

BBC.co.uk/doctorwho

Peter Capaldi as Doctor Who

After being cancelled in 1989, Doctor Who regenerated in 2005. For the first 26 years of the show’s run, it was a series of half-hour cliffhangers that bound five or six episodes together under one long story arc. When it returned, it was as series of one-hour, stand-alone episodes with only the loosest of a season-long arc. The new Who was instantly popular, thanks in large part to the onscreen chemistry between the ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose (Billie Piper), the Doctor’s human traveling companion. When Eccleston decided that one year as the most recognized man in nerddom was enough, he was replaced by the 10th Doctor (David Tennant), and Piper stuck around long enough to get the new guy established and set the new Who up for its best years. Long-form television was back in fashion, and Doctor Who‘s plot machinations became increasingly byzantine, as the Doctor’s troubled past in the Time War caught up with him. When Tennant left the TARDIS in 2010, he was replaced by the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith), who was initially well received but never achieved the same depth of fan love as Tennant. Smith stayed for three years until being killed off during the show’s emotional 50th anniversary special. And so, here we are, with Peter Capaldi premiering as the once-thought-impossible 12th Doctor.

Doctor Who fandom is the oldest and most fanatical of the nerd subtribes, and during the run up to the 50th anniversary, showrunner Steven Moffat seemed determined to serve up as much red meat to the fans as possible. The series immersed itself in its own mythology, becoming a show mostly about itself, a recursion that the character of the Doctor, who once famously described the universe as a “big ball of wibby wobbly timey-wimey stuff,” would appreciate.

Moffat surrounds the new Doctor with fan-favorite characters Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax, their Sontaran comic relief. But Moffat doesn’t give the new guy much to do. When Capaldi is finally unleashed late in the show to confront the cyborg villain, he hints at a new iron hand under the Doctor’s jolly velvet glove. But overall, Capaldi’s first episode seems flat and uninspired. If he is to be the actor to regenerate a franchise crushed under the weight of its own history, Moffat is going to have to find new places for the TARDIS to go.

Categories
News Television

Walking the Line

It’s a fight for the future, and it looks like the future will be where it is finally settled. Whether one’s source is insiders, bloggers, analysts, or tea leaves, most agree that the current strike against producers by members of the Writers Guild of America is likely to be a long one.

Reporting recently on the lack of progress in ending the strike, John Bowman, chairman of the WGA Negotiating Committee, said strikers will stage “a fairly large march in a couple of weeks.” If the march is a couple of weeks away, a settlement may be months away.

Most noticeable now in late night, where reruns have replaced new editions of the variety-talk shows, the strike’s effects will soon be felt by viewers in prime time, too, as backlogs of popular series become exhausted.

Whose side to take? That seems so obvious. Corporate giants are getting disproportionately wealthy off the underpaid labors of Writers Guild members. The fat cats aren’t just getting fatter; they’re morbidly obese.

As one of the picket-line chants in Hollywood goes: “Hey hey, ho ho, management can’t write the show.” It all starts with writers, and they have a right to share in added profits when new markets open up. There’s a feeling by many that in past negotiations over the sale of reruns to cable TV and home video, writers settled for too little added compensation. This history, they say, must not repeat itself as the Internet explodes and shows are distributed in a whole new way — downloading and streaming their way into millions of American homes or cell phones.

Picketing in solidarity with the writers, actress Valerie (“Rhoda”) Harper, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, said in an interview, “We missed the boat with cable, we missed the boat with home video. We will not miss this boat.” Actually, the current battle includes an aspect of home video: burgeoning sales of old movies and TV shows on DVD. Videocassettes were basically a rental business, but DVDs are so cheap to make and sell, many consumers are building home libraries of favorite movie and TV productions.

Writers wrote all of them. But under the current provisions, their share of the ancillary income is absolute zero.

The Internet is the battleground as well as the pot of gold. A pro-Guild group called unitedhollywood.com is producing powerful propaganda pieces that make the writers’ case on YouTube. One of the best of these minimovies — about two minutes long — attacks the corporate argument that the Internet is still in a state of confusion and that it’s thus not possible to reach agreement over compensation.

“These are the heartbreaking voices of uncertainty,” sneers a printed caption on the screen — followed by statements from captains of the industry about how rich they’re already getting from the digital revolution. Bob Iger, president and CEO of the Walt Disney Co. (which owns ABC), asked to estimate Disney’s annual revenue from the new media, replies, “It’s about a billion-five in digital.” That’s one billion, five hundred million dollars. Boasts Sumner Redstone, gung-ho chairman of Viacom (which owns Paramount): “Viacom will double its revenues this year from digital.” Rupert Murdoch, notorious chairman of News Corp. (including Fox TV networks), predicts “a golden era … full of golden opportunities” for empires such as his.

And Les Moonves, CEO of CBS Inc., talking about the proliferation of “screens” in other locations besides the home, says that CBS “will get paid” for such programming as the CSI shows regardless of which or how many screens they are shown on. “We’re going to get paid no matter where you get it from,” he crows.

What these blowhards said to impress their stockholders now comes back to haunt them. They can’t have it both ways — to claim that uncertainty about the Internet is inhibiting them and at the same time brag about huge new infusions of money.

Four months of negotiation produced a standoff. So far, the public has shown relatively little interest, but when the same episodes of Lost or Ugly Betty roll around for the fourth or fifth time in the chill of February, viewers are bound to start asking tough questions. Average Americans have much more in common with struggling writers than they do with avaricious executives who make millions even when fired for incompetence.

People will know where to point the finger of blame and who’s getting short-changed.

Tom Shales is a writer for the Washington Post Writers Group.

Categories
News

Tell Sweden About Your Odd Balls, er, Oddballs

Winters in Stockholm must be long and cold and boring, because the producers of a Swedish TV program called The Most Extraordinary Person Show have now turned to America to find the most offbeat person in our country.

Who is the most likeable, extraodinary, and offbeat person in your part of America?” they ask. “Your local odd character? There is probably one in every town.”

Just ONE? Hey, this is Memphis, remember.

According to a press release, “Filip Hamar and Fredrick Wikingsson are two of Sweden’s most beloved TV hosts. They will be in America from December 2007 to February 2008. Their assignment: Find America’s most extraordinary, likeable, and offbeat person (and 99 others who are pretty darn close).

Know anybody? Remember: They have to be “likeable.” Go to the show’s website to learn more. Watch the promo video to get an idea of what they’re after.

All we can say is, “oh geez, you betcha.”

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Unoriginal Gangster

David Simon, the creative force behind HBO’s The Wire, once wrote a memo to his boss that argued the merits of his show’s deep-focus approach to the problems of drug dealing and law enforcement, claiming that “no one who sees HBO’s take on the culture of crime and crime fighting can watch anything like CSI or NYPD Blue or Law & Order again without knowing that every punch was pulled on those shows.”

Since Simon wrote this, The Wire has rendered most television crime shows absurdly two-dimensional. But did he ever imagine that his show would cast long, imposing shadows onto the crime movie landscape?

For anyone familiar with The Wire, watching director Ridley Scott’s plodding, generic American Gangster is like perusing a child’s flip book after reading an epic novel. Seen through cinematographer Harris Savides’ grimy, de-saturated urban lens, the film’s simplistic police-procedural details, sophomoric political insights, and facile capitalist ironies are nothing more than a collection of garage-sale leftovers from some low-rent screenwriters swap meet.

American Gangster is based on the true story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), a Harlem thug who, inspired by the rise of the big-box retailers in the late 1960s, decides to cut out the middle man and import heroin from Thailand with a little help from his cousin (a spooky Roger Guenveur Smith). As Frank’s empire grows, he attracts the attention of Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), a New Jersey police investigator whose devotion to duty destroys his marriage and draws the concentrated ire of NYPD detective Trupo (Josh Brolin) and his leather gang of Prince of the City goons. These characters sidle around and among each other in a New York/New Jersey crowded with new and leftover consumer goods, garbage, and human casualties from the drug trade.

Aside from implicit storyline comparisons to The Wire, American Gangster has an explicit connection to the show: Former Wire star Idris Elba appears briefly as a rival to Lucas and his expanding empire. Together, Elba and Washington exude gunfighter bravado in a pair of tense street scenes. Yet such pimpalicious behavior is no longer fresh. And is it finally okay to say that Denzel Washington is a tiresome anti-hero? He’s been working his calm charm and devil’s-advocate verve for quite a while now, but he’s one “hooah!” and one more “intense,” nobody’s-home glower away from permanent membership in the Pacino-De Niro Ridiculous Actor Hall of Fame — where he can join Armand Assante, whose buffoonish performance in American Gangster as a skeet-shooting mafia don is what should (but, sadly, won’t) be the movie goombah’s death rattle.

Lucas’ cutthroat business policies are never questioned. His nascent drug empire is justified as vengeance capitalism; he came from hard times, so he’s out to get his, and who’s to blame if most of the damage his business does is equivalent to black-on-black crime? Is the unquestioned law of the expanding corporation so ingrained in our consciousness that even illegal enterprises are glorified if they are effective? Is there no courage left in movies for any critical look at the disastrous effects of free-market madness? Short answer: not during Oscar season, my man.

American Gangster

Now playing

Multiple locations

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Writers on Strike

Unless a settlement of the Hollywood writers’ strike emerges soon, you can expect to be watching reruns of many of your favorite television shows, starting this week.

The first casualties will be the late-night comedy shows, such as The Daily Show, Late Night With David Letterman, and The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. Those programs need fresh humorous takes on news events every day. Without writers coming up with new jokes, those shows are dead in the water.

At a time when writing is often considered by corporate media to be merely “content” to be monetized, it’s not surprising to see writers standing up and demanding their share of the pie. Without them, after all, there is no content. As funny as Jon Stewart might be, he’s nothing without a script, and those scripts come from a roomful of funny folks thinking up jokes and one-liners. As wonderful as that Macy’s sale may be, no one’s going to pick up the paper to read that full-page ad unless there’s something compelling to read.

It’s one of the ironies of this Internet and electronic age that writers — practitioners of one of mankind’s oldest forms of communication — have become more important than perhaps ever before.

Websites and television shows — and, yes, newspapers and magazines — have a never-ending need for material, content that provokes and amuses and challenges readers and viewers. No one goes to a website or a publication just to read the ads. The story is still everything. And the storytellers are beginning to realize it.

Football and ADA

From the Detroit News comes word that the University of Michigan has run afoul of the U.S. Department of Education for violating wheelchair access rules at its famous 109,000-seat football stadium.

The issue is compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — the same issue that confronts Memphis at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.

According to the newspaper, the “scathing report” came eight years after an investigation was launched by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The so-called Big House was built in 1927 and has been expanded and renovated several times.

Are there similarities between the Big House and Our House? Michigan’s stadium has 88 wheelchair seats, far fewer than the 1 percent, roughly 1,000, that ADA compliance requires. But the university says it has accommodated every ticket holder who has required an accessible seat. The other U of M up north stands to lose millions of dollars in financial aid to students, according to the newspaper report.

Let’s hope the federal government takes a reasonable view of the Liberty Bowl. Michigan’s stadium is almost always sold out. The Liberty Bowl is almost always about half full. There would appear to be enough accessible seats or places to add them if there are not.

But ADA compliance should not be an excuse for tearing down a pretty good stadium and building a new one at taxpayer expense. How many people in wheelchairs are being turned away because of lack of access or seating? When that question is answered and the University of Memphis starts filling the house and tickets become scarce, it will be easier to take the worst-case view of ADA compliance seriously.

Categories
Book Features Books

C-SPAN’s Book TV Bus Coming to Memphis

C-SPAN’s Book TV Bus, a 45-foot long mobile television production studio, will travel to three Memphis locations on its nationwide tour promoting Book TV’s non-fiction book programming.

The Book TV Bus is traveling the country, stopping at local libraries, bookstores, and book festivals along the way.

The Book TV Bus offers tours of its studio set, participation in an interactive demonstration about Book TV programming, the opportunity to learn how a television show is produced, and a chance to sign up for programming alerts.

Book TV will interview two local authors at Burke’s Books: Phyllis Tickle author of Prayer is a Place, and Molly Crosby, author of American Plague.

Here’s the Memphis schedule:

October 18, 2007 10 AM – 12:30 PM,
Burke’s Books, 936 Cooper Street; 1:30 PM – 3:30 PM, University of Memphis, South Side of Central
between Patterson and Zach Curlin

October 19, 2007, 10 AM – 12 PM,
Borders, 6685 Poplar Ave

Categories
News

E.W. Scripps to Split Company

The following is a press release from E.W. Scripps, the parent company of the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

The E. W. Scripps Company’s board of directors has unanimously authorized management to pursue a plan to separate Scripps into two publicly traded companies, one focused on creating national lifestyle media brands and the other on building market-leading local media franchises.

The two companies that would exist after the separation would be:

— Scripps Networks Interactive, which would consist of the national lifestyle media brands and associated enterprises that operate collectively as Scripps Networks, including television’s HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, the Fine Living Television Network and Great American Country and their category-leading Internet businesses. The new company also would include online comparison shopping services Shopzilla and uSwitch and their associated Web sites. These businesses have combined annual revenue of approximately $1.4 billion and 2,100 employees.

— The E. W. Scripps Company, which would include daily and community newspapers in 17 U.S. markets; 10 broadcast television stations clustered among the nation’s largest 50 markets, including six ABC affiliates, three NBC affiliates and one independent station; the character licensing and feature syndication businesses operated by United Media; and Scripps Media Center in Washington D.C, which includes the Scripps Howard News Service. These businesses have combined annual revenue of about $1.1 billion and employ about 7,100 people.

“This is an important and logical next step for our shareholders, employees and all other stakeholders who have a direct interest in the success of our media businesses,” said Kenneth W. Lowe, president and chief executive officer for Scripps. “It’s our intention to create two publicly traded companies, each with a sharpened strategic focus that would foster continued growth, solid operating performance and a clear vision on how best to build on the specific strengths of our national and local media franchises.”

Categories
Best of Memphis Special Sections

Media

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

A precedent was set this year, as one man topped three categories and placed in two others. There has never been a sweep like this in any section of the Best of poll since it started in 1994. That man is Chris Vernon, host of “The Chris Vernon Show” on AM 730 ESPN. (Full disclosure: Flyer music and film editor Chris Herrington has a regular slot on the show.) Last year, Vernon’s single appearance in the results was a tie for third place in “Best Sports Show.” So how did Vernon become the man of nearly all Memphis media in just one year? He did campaign hard, asking his listeners to include him while making their Best of picks. But, really, only the voters know for sure.

Best TV News Anchor

1. Joe Birch, WMC-TV, Channel 5

2. Claudia Barr, WREG-TV,
Channel 3

3. Donna Davis, WMC-TV,
Channel 5 — tie —

Dee Griffin, WPTY-TV, Channel 24

Joe Birch gives Action News 5 a TV-category sweep in Best of Memphis. Sage, with a magical voice, some might say Birch is the Väinämöinen of Memphis TV, but that would just be silly.

Best FM Station

1. WEVL-FM 89.9

2. WXMX-FM 98.1, The Max

3. WMC-FM 99.7, FM 100

When WEVL 89.9 calls itself “listener supported,” they aren’t kidding: They got enough support to take this year’s top prize. WEVL’s stable of excellent and diverse programs and volunteer hosts makes a great case, but Friday night’s Cap’n Pete’s Blues Cruise might have been enough to do the trick by itself.

Best AM Station

1. WREC-AM 600

2. AM 730 ESPN

3. WHBQ-AM 560 — tie —

WWTQ-AM 680

With its potent mix of national programming (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity) sandwiched between local drive-time shows (Memphis Morning News, Mike Fleming), WREC-AM 600 has daytime news and commentary covered. Add overnight spooks and conspiracy theories with George Noory and the rest of Paul Harvey’s story, and you’ve got an AM station lots of folks want to lend their ears to.

Best Drive-Time Show

1. Drake & Zeke, WXMX-FM 98.1, The Max

2. The Chris Vernon Show, AM 730 ESPN

3. Karson & Kennedy, WHBQ-FM 107.5

Since relocating to 98.1 from Rock 103, Drake and Zeke have taken over the morning FM airwaves. The comedy duo is ersatz coffee for Memphians in need of waking up before punching the clock. Sports reporter and sidekick Marky B spikes the concoction with salt.

Best Sports Show

1. The Chris Vernon Show, AM 730 ESPN

2. Sportstime with George Lapides & Geoff Calkins, WHBQ-AM 560

3. Morning Rush, WHBQ-AM 560

Vernon’s show is Memphis’ vote for best sports talk. But that’s not all …

Best Radio Talk Show

1. The Chris Vernon Show, AM 730 ESPN

2. Mike Fleming, WREC-AM 600

3. Drake & Zeke, WXMX-FM 98.1, The Max

Vernon’s show also has been named best talk in all of radio. But that’s not all …

Best Radio Personality

1. Chris Vernon, AM 730 ESPN

2. Drake and Zeke, WXMX-FM 98.1, The Max

3. Ron Olson, WMC-FM 99.7, FM 100

Winning the Triple Crown of Memphis radio, Chris Vernon has also nabbed the best personality prize. We’re pretty sure Vernon set up a booth in front of the Flyer offices asking people to vote for him on the way in, not unlike a high-schooler dreaming of being homecoming queen. We’re touched that you care, Verno! Also, at Vernon’s request, please make the following adjustments to your life: When playing 20 Questions, acceptable categories are now Vegetable, Mineral, or Chris Vernon. When talking about a dance club, you should now begin its name with the possessive phrase “Chris Vernon’s.” For example: “Chris Vernon’s Raiford’s Hollywood” and “Chris Vernon’s Backstreet.” Finally, in voting for next year’s Best of Memphis, Chris Vernon asks you to remember that he may be eligible for all kinds of nontraditional categories. To name but a few: Best Kid-Friendly Restaurant, Best Grizzlies Player, and Best Memphis Failure. Congrats, Chris!

Best Newspaper
Columnist

1. Geoff Calkins, The Commercial Appeal

2. Wendi C. Thomas, The Commercial Appeal

3. Tim Sampson, Memphis Flyer

What’s great about Geoff Calkins goes beyond his sports columns, which are often tinged with social commentary and give Memphians something to ponder while eating their Wheaties. It’s that readers can call him up on his radio show, Sportstime, on WHBQ-AM 560, and sing his praises or give him what-for. Now that’s service!

Best TV
Sportscaster

BOM 1. Jarvis Greer,
WMC-TV, Channel 5

2. Greg Gaston, formerly of
WPTY-TV, Channel 24

3. David Cera, WMC-TV, Channel 5

The sports director for WMC-TV Channel 5, Jarvis Greer has been a fixture on Memphis TV screens for decades. He looked great all those years on tube television. He looks even better on plasma and LCD.

Justin Fox Burks

Best Weatherperson

BOM 1. Dave Brown, WMC-TV, Channel 5

2. Ron Childers, WMC-TV, Channel 5

3. Jim Jaggers, WREG-TV, Channel 3 — tie —

Joey Sulipeck, WHBQ-TV, Fox 13

A paternal, benevolent force, with powers over the wind and rain and thunder: That’s right, Dave Brown is the Ukko of the Memphis TV broadcasting pantheon.

Justin Fox Burks

1st Place: Best Weatherperson

Best Memphis-Themed Web Site

1. MemphisFlyer.com

2. LiveFromMemphis.com

3. CommercialAppeal.com

You like us! You really like us! Actually, as far as we’re concerned, the best part of our site is the reader comments. It takes a village to kick so much ass.

Best Memphis Blog

1. Paul Ryburn’s Journal,

http://www.paulryburn.com/blog/

2. Verno’s Blog,

http://chrisvernon.blogspot.com/

3. Two Cents with Randy Malone,

http://memphissport.typepad.com/randy/ — tie —

Rachel & the City,

www.rachelandthecity.com/

Whenever we see Paul Ryburn out and about in downtown Memphis, sipping a brew at the Flying Saucer or strolling along South Main, why is it we feel we’ve spotted a famous person? Is it another product of the Internet age, where bloggers are celebrities? Or is it just the great neighborhood advocacy work Ryburn does on his Web site?