by Tim Sampson Thursday, September 30 First of all, thanks very much for the votes in the best newspaper columnist category in last week's Best of Memphis issue. That was mighty nice and I am quite touched. Of course, you all need to get lives if you think this crap is even worth reading, but that's just my humble opinion. And, yes, Geoff Calkins is a very deserving winner. The man has a way with writing about sports that's equal only to this paper's editor, Dennis Freeland. Both of them have a wonderful talent for making sports seem more human and sensitive than they are perceived by many to be. I've tried to write about sports from time to time, but just can't get a good grip on the topic. Just the other day I was watching golf, the absolute most boring game on the face of the planet, if you ask me, which you didn't, but that doesn't matter. I was listening to the announcer talking about bogeys and birdies and sandtraps and such, and when he mentioned something about someone being under par, I was rendered incredulous at the fact that he had the restraint not to say that the golfer in question was under Jack Parr. I wouldn't have had a chance. And while, to me, watching golf is akin to watching cheese mold, I have found that I love watching baseball -- the gentleman's game. It's also, I have found, the butt game. Have you ever watched a baseball game and looked at the players' butts? They are huge. I have asked numerous people I know who have been avid baseball fans for a long time if the players wear some kind of padding in the butt region of their pants, and they have assured me that they do not, that indeed their butts are that big. It's really kind of fascinating. I can't figure it out, because they basically stand around until it's their time to bat or until they're in the outfield waiting to catch a ball, so it's not like they've bulked up from constant exercise. It's just a baseball butt thing, I guess. At any rate, I hope the Yankees win the World Series, and that Geoff and Dennis write something nice about them. I also like to watch tennis. I watched whatever that game was between Andre Agassi and Todd Martin not too long ago. I really wanted Todd Martin to win, just because Agassi has already won so many games. And he was married to Brooke Shields, who makes a lot of money from her television show even though she is nine kinds of tired on it. But Martin looks like a very nice guy. He also looks older than he is, which makes me like him even more, being a bald, fat old man, myself. I thought he was in his late forties when I first saw him, and thought, wow, dude, you can still jump around the court pretty well. Then someone told me was only in his late twenties. I guess he just has premature gray hair. Or maybe he looks older because the only time I really watched him was from a barstool. At any rate, he is a very handsome guy and a good tennis player and I hope he wins whatever cup that is they play for next year and that Geoff and Dennis write something nice about him. Now I have to take a pill and get on with the real point of this: what's going on around town this week. Tonight, Martina McBride is at the Horseshoe Casino. I have not one clue as to who she might be. At noon, as part of the 1999 Freedom Awards, this years honorees, Harry Belafonte and Lech Walesa, are speaking at the Temple of Deliverance COGIC, followed by an awards banquet tonight at The Peabody. If you want to see a very interesting talent show, go to Newby's tonight for the Gong Show Revisited: Round 2, sponsored by the club and this lovely paper, with proceeds benefiting the Ronald McDonald House. And Driveby Truckers with Easy Way are at Young Avenue Deli. Friday, October 1 There are several art openings tonight. They are: at Ledbetter Lusk Gallery, for a show by Michael Crespo and Jim Ramer; at Java Cabana, for "Drawn to the Rhythms," photographs of Memphis women by Morgan John Fox; and at Cooper Street Gallery, for recent paintings by Johnny Taylor, Annabelle Meacham, and Kurt Meer. Also opening tonight for a two-night run is the Opera Memphis performance of Barber of Seville (you don't know how badly I want to jump around singing, "Figaro, Figaro, Figaro!" in my fake opera voice; it's a good thing I'm half-asleep) at The Orpheum. At TheatreWorks, Our Own Voice Theatre Troupe is presenting a rock-and-roll show with musicians from various local bands. That's followed by The Freak Engine at midnight, a show of performance art, improv comedy, dance, and music. The Beach Boys are (still) playing tonight at the Mid-South Fair. Tonight's "They Don't Call It The Bluff City for Nothin'" at Memphis College of Art is a show that features puppeteer Jimmy Crosthwait, and music by Jim Dickinson and the North Mississippi All Stars, Sid and Steve Selvidge, and sax great Jim Spake. Down in Tunica, Three Dog Night is at the Horseshoe Casino. And here at home, there's a screening of the documentary The Last Living Bluesman by Shangri-La's Sherman Wilmott tonight at the Hi-Tone Cafe; it coincides with the release of a book about the same blues man, Will Roy Sanders, former lead singer of the Fieldstones, of Green's Lounge fame, as well as a CD that's the soundtrack to the documentary. Screenings are at 8 and 10 p.m.; the Fieldstones play at midnight. And for the big blues party, tonight kicks off this weekend's Bluestock, which features live music at Mud Island Amphitheatre and on Beale Street, and includes, among many others, such performers as the Hi Rhythm Section, Bobby Rush, Swamp Mama Johnson, Otis Clay, Billy Lee Riley, Othar Turner and the Mississippi All Stars, and Buddy Guy. Should be quite the event. Saturday, October 2 Tonight's big bash is the Mid-Town Rhythm & Blues Party at Askew Nixon Ferguson Architects, with live music by Southern Lights, Jo Jo Jeffries, and Masquerade. Or if you like, you could head across the bridge for the 1999 Main Street West Memphis Fall Festival and Chili Cookoff, with food, arts & crafts, live music by the Mikael Santana Band and Dreamer, and, I'm sure, plenty of other things that should be documented on film and placed in a time capsule for future generations to marvel at. Back at the Hi-Tone Cafe tonight, there's a show by Steve Earle. Other than that, it's Bluestock all night long. Sunday, October 3 Gerald and Sean Levert at the Mid-South Fair. Monday, October 4 Monday Night Jams, at In the Grove, a sort of open-mike jazz night featuring the Uptown Jazz Combo (the place to be on Monday night). Tuesday, October 5 Boxing on Beale at the New Daisy. If you haven't been to this, you must go. Wednesday, October 6 The Nancy Apple Band at the South End Saloon. Caliente at the Hi-Tone (sorry, they are not paying me, but they just have a really good lineup this week). And jazz man Kirk Whalum at Calvary Episcopal Church at noon, to kick off this year's Calvary & the Arts Concerts series. And that, as they say, whoever they are, is that. As always, I'm really not concerned with what you do this week, because I don't even know you, and unless your birthday is 9-11 and you have a video copy of Macon Road Baptist Church's brilliant Rev. Wayne Webb preaching about pornography in speech intonations that defy everything that makes the universe operate, then I'm sure I never want to meet you. Besides, it's time for me to blow this dump and go watch a game. How butch am I?