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The Memphis Flyer’s
Crash Landing Awards
Paying special tribute to the people and events that caught our
attention – and caused us headaches – in 1997.
compiled by the Flyer staff • edited by Michael Finger
Some stars twinkle brighter than others.
For the grand opening of Elvis Presley’s Memphis club on Beale
Street, crowds gather to catch a glimpse of all the celebrities
in attendance – who turn out to consist mainly of Juliette Lewis.
You see, we can relate, because her life exactly mirrored our
own. Except for that whole “royalty” part.
The local media makes pathetic attempts to link the death of Princess
Diana with Memphis, complete with interviews with people who had
met her briefly many, many years ago.
For God’s sake, Fredric, the stuff’s made from grapes.
In his adjective-choked wine columns in The Commercial Appeal,
Fredric Koeppel has compared wines to pencil shavings, buttered
toast, underbrush, cigar boxes, wet stones, damp ash (as opposed
to dry ash, we presume), plum dust, walnut meal, iron filings,
and even Old Ironsides. Yes, the ship, though we can only guess
what it tastes like.
Spanked by the monkey.
A nurse at Methodist Hospital is fired after treating a sick monkey
the distraught owner had brought to the emergency room. The animal
dies; the case, we understand, is on a-peel.
Look, we thought they settled this long ago.
James Earl Ray gets his day in court – again – when Judge Joe
B. Brown holds hearings into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. Ballistics tests on the rifle recovered after the assassination
prove nothing, but Dexter King, son of Martin, says he believes
Ray is innocent.
Why is it Memphis only makes the national news when people die
here?
Up-and-coming musician Jeff Buckley drowns while taking an evening
swim in the Memphis harbor. Rumors persist that he has staged
a dramatic disappearance, but his body is pulled from the river
a few days later.
No, we didn’t mind it at all. Next time, do you think you could
close down the airport, too?
Film crews shooting Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rainmaker shut
down the Hernando DeSoto Bridge for several hours. The resulting
scene doesn’t even make the final cut.
It’s a shopping mall, not the Taj Mahal.
The Commercial Appeal’s fawning “news” coverage of the February
opening of the Wolfchase Galleria includes 14 stories about the
convenient parking, food court, and “upscale shopping” to be found
there.
Pardon us while we stifle a yawn.
The Nashville Scene publishes a story alleging that state senator
Steve Cohen smoked pot at a party attended by Scene reporters.
Still, methinks thou dost protest too much.
Cohen denies the allegation, and further insists that the stack
of Playboys a reporter observed in his house is only for the “football
picks.” Yes, and we flip through the Victoria’s Secret catalog
to get the latest prices on socks.
Oh, we don’t know. A waterfront in flames seems like a pretty
good way to make the evening news.
In conjunction with the Titanic exhibit, the Wonders staff plans
to send 1,500 lighted candles drifting down the Mississippi to
commemorate all those who died aboard the luxury liner. The Coast
Guard allegedly nixes the stunt because it would be a fire hazard.
Maybe people are finally getting sick of this guy.
The Third Annual International Conference on Elvis Presley, held
this summer at Memphis College of Art, is a flop.
Well, maybe not everybody.
Elvis fans, dismayed by an art exhibition – displayed in conjunction
with the above conference – that they found offensive, force the
college to remove the artwork. One of the paintings portrayed
Elvis as Jesus; another showed him in his underwear fighting off
helicopters. Just like that scene in Viva Las Vegas.
Well, we decided not to go there. Too crowded.
Memphis mayor Willie Herenton, angered by questions from Flyer
reporters about the cushy city consulting job he gave his pal
Dr. Robert Green (who put his own sons on the payroll as “urban
experts”), tells the paper to “Go to hell!”
Oh, it really doesn’t take much to get those librarians in a tizzy.
According to local novelist John Fergus Ryan, the Friends of the
Library ask him to speak at the annual Book and Author Dinner
but then request that he stay home when they learn about the rather
salacious nature of his new book, Watching. The head of the Friends,
however, denies they had actually done that, and the whole “scandal”
reeks of a big, fat public-relations ploy.
Don’t tell us you’re coming and then change your mind. We hate
that.
The Gibson Guitar Corporation, amid much fanfare, unveils plans
to build a giant guitar factory and museum near Beale Street.
Buildings come down, and fences go up, and everyone gets excited.
In November, however, the company president announces the project
has been delayed.
It really wasn’t the use we intended for it.
In recent months, two motorists apparently commit suicide – in
two separate incidents – by using the newly expanded Tom Lee Park
as a launching ramp for driving their vehicles into the Mississippi
River.
Robert E. Lee would have been very, very ashamed of you.
Despite pleas from school officials, despite “stick bans,” despite
common sense, despite everything, Ole Miss students continue their
obsessive devotion to the Rebel flag.
We’ve heard that good fences make good neighbors. Well, maybe
not in this case.
Proponents of the riverwalk finally win a long, protracted court
battle to notch a walkway into the sides of the riverbluffs. It’ll
be a long and winding road, we fear, since they face a countersuit
from owners of blufftop property. One blufftop property owner
says he’ll take a water hose to anyone walking in front of his
home.
Our city’s continuing unemployment crisis.
The directors of three of the city’s top cultural attractions
– the Wonders series, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, and Memphis
Brooks Museum of Art – abruptly resign in 1997. Also, the director
of the Memphis Botanic Garden is mysteriously given the boot.
And you thought news about utilities and such was boring.
First, that wacky Senator John Ford threatens to shoot MLGW workers
for blocking his East Memphis driveway. Next, various Memphis
politicians say they’ll cut off services to the Toy Towns trying
to avoid annexation by the evil Big City. Finally, Mayor Herenton
says he just may sell the whole thing. What a gas.
Satan wasn’t available for an interview.
WREG-TV Channel 3 News airs “Keeping the Faith,” a series that
presents continuing coverage of God’s struggles against the forces
of evil – as told by local evangelists.
Goodbye and good riddance.
The Commercial Appeal’s Michael Ramirez – the heavy-handed cartoonist
who depicts gays as tutu-wearing transvestites and environmentalists
as Karl Marx – leaves Memphis to take a job with the Los Angeles
Times. Unfortunately, the CA seems to run more Ramirez cartoons
now than they did while he was here.
We’ll love you forever, Larry, or Gary, or whoever the heck you
are.
After basketball coach Larry Finch is fired by the University
of Memphis, Finch’s supporters call for the Mid-South Coliseum
to be renamed in his honor. Last time we checked, it hadn’t happened.
And as long as Tic Price keeps winning, it probably never will.
Stop me if you’ve already heard this.
Nonstop news coverage, bar discussions, debates, arguments, letters
to the editor, and brain cells are wasted in 1997 on (pick ’em):
1. That whole Toy Town / annexation mess.
2. The NFL / Tennessee Oilers’ / Bud Adams’ disdain for Memphis.
3. The riverwalk / bluffwalk / whatchamacallit.
Please remind us again why we elected you to office. Think hard
– something about leadership?
Don Sundquist, Memphian-turned-governor, attends photo opportunities
but seems to do very little else, and jumps in the spotlight mainly
because a dog he adopts has to be returned to its original owner.
He does take the time, though, to slash funding for public education
(especially at the University of Memphis) and mental-health programs
here. Then there’s Jim Rout, mayor of Shelby County, who keeps
strangely mum about the whole Toy Town controversy that threatens
to pit Memphians against Countians.
It’s called “television.”
Multiplex theatres open all over Shelby County, and developers
announce plans to open a 24-screen complex downtown sometime next
year. At this rate, the goal of one screen per person should be
reached in, oh, about eight months. n
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