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In This Issue

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Caulk Is Cheap If you’re building a new house, spend the money and get a good sheet-metal man

Public Art Hey look—a guitar.

Kiss and Make Up—Or End It

Shots

Here to Serve You, for Now Nashville fine-dining institution Arthur’s Restaurant has a rich past but faces uncertain future

The Predictability Factor At Arthur’s, the food is good and the service impeccable—but it’s not exactly thrilling

Our Critics Picks Peter Guralnick

 

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It’s a standard part of the Traditional Candidacy Dance: someone who’s been eyeing an office for years will begin telling every reporter who will listen that “friends” are urging them to run. This charade is supposed to make the candidate look less like a power-hungry dealmaker and more like an average citizen who has the support and admiration of others.

So, naturally, when former health care administrator Lucius Carroll II let it be known a few weeks ago that he was, in all modesty, considering a race for mayor, he laid the idea at the feet of unnamed friends, whom, he said, had been encouraging him to run.

“The city needs you, Lucius,” he quoted one of them as saying. This preternaturally quotable friend was also said to have added, “Your intellect, character and, frankly, good taste are exactly what will make Music City great.”

But an extensive investigation by the Fabricator Investigative Squad casts doubt on Carroll’s account of this alleged urging of unnamed friends.

“Did I suggest that Lucius run for mayor? God, no,” one of Carroll’s longtime friends says, before adding, “Are you nuts?”

“I have no idea who these friends are he’s talking about who are urging him to run,” says another frequent Carroll houseguest. “I’ve known Lucius for 30 years, and I know most of his friends, too, and can’t think of a single one of us who thinks this is anything but the actions of a self-deluded, bored egomaniac. But I love the guy, bless his heart.”

A third Carroll confidant was able to shed a little more light on how the alleged urging by friends might have taken place.

“I was over at his house one night and out of nowhere he handed me some index cards and asked me to read them aloud. They said things like, ‘You sure would be a good mayor, Lucius,’ and ‘I categorically urge you to consider making the sacrifice of entering public service.’ I read them to him and he just sat there and smiled. It was weird. Then I had another drink.”

(The Fabricator is satire. Don’t believe everything you read.)