It’s been 11 years this month since I — Chris Davis, a
multi-award-winning staff writer for the Memphis Flyer —
did just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. You see, I’d always
been fascinated with the summertime phenomenon of shirtless men who go
about their oblivious business, even in places where shirtlessness was
inappropriate. As a struggling freelancer willing to do anything to get
the attention of the late Flyer editor Dennis Freeland, I
decided to strip to the waist and become that man — and to write
about the bare-chested life. Thus Shirtless Man — a fleshy and
bombastic alter ego that haunts me to this day — was born in the
pages of the Flyer. But the story was hardly original. Although
I’d been the Flyer‘s first topless cover boy, I was not its
first prominently placed shirtless man. That distinction goes to
barbecue guru and political gadfly John Willingham (pictured).
Political editor Jackson Baker captured Willingham’s partial
nakedness in words and pictures in the June 13th, 1996, edition —
almost two years to the issue before my own topless debut.
“The [congressional] candidate decided, midway through his remarks,
to change from the dark shirt he started with into one of his newly
minted white campaign T-shirts,” Baker wrote.
“Unaccustomed as he was to public speaking, or determined to press
the bare facts upon his audience, Willingham ended up dissertating for
some time while shirtless. In this age of fitness buffs and muscle
toning, he may have started a trend. But even Willingham would probably
concede that he is not the ideal exemplar of the style.”