Best of Nashville
Best New Local Blogger: Nemesisboy
Local flame-blogger Nemesisboy ( www.nemesisboy.com ) is as purposely irreverent as he is politically and grammatically incorrect. When he posted a rant declaring, “Lofts are gay,” we knew he really just meant they were impractical for Nashville. When he started selling T-shirts and coffee mugs that read, “Sky 5, Bitches!” we were certain WTVF-Channel 5 would take it as an enormous compliment, but instead they sent a cease-and-desist letter. This citizen blogger has given us more laughs, head-scratches and misinformation than any serious blogger would dare, most notably his new section “Ask Nashville Tony,” where local bands are given terrible advice from what we hope is a fake lawyer. And when Nemesisboy showed up at a local blogger meet-up in a Darth Vader mask, some bloggers were miffed—proof that intelligence has nothing to do with sense of humor. —TRACY MOORE
Best Proof That Young People Give a Damn: Coolpeoplecare.org
Think all twentysomethings wanna do is hook up on MySpace or in the clubs? Coolpeoplecare.com, a new website that not only inspires young Nashvillians to change the world but does one better by offering them concrete ways to do so, is flipping that script. Whether this means volunteering with local nonprofits like Oasis Center or Hands on Nashville or doing something with global impact like leaving the Camry under the carport and taking the bus to work, coolpeoplecare.com is all about young adults getting out and getting involved. For local teens, go to teenedge.com. —BILL FRISKICS-WARREN
Best Future Mayor (Circa 2019): Jeremy Kane
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Jeremy Kane is only 27 years old, but look at his résumé and you’d think he’d already turned 40 and long since recovered from the related hangover. The Stanford University graduate (and former Chelsea Clinton beau now married to a second-year Vandy law school student) is quietly trying to change a corner of the city in much the same way KIPP charter school principal Randy Dowell has for his students. Three weeks ago, he submitted an intricately detailed, painstakingly researched and compelling application for a charter school to begin next year: LEAD Academy, which eventually will serve the fifth through 12th grades. This ream-and-a-half tome is chock-full of optimism and creative ideas to teach students who, until now, have been tragically underserved by Metro public schools. The proposal also makes note of some of the woeful graduation rates at Nashville high schools—some even below 50 percent. “Over time, LEAD Academy’s students, staff and families will help transform the educational expectations of our community, creating a national model for excellence in urban education and neighborhood redevelopment and proving that all students can graduate from high school and be accepted to a four-year college/university if given the proper support, training and education,” part of the school’s vision statement reads. Still a ways from 30, Kane has put this dream on paper, directed the Tennessee Charter School Resource Center, consulted for the Tennessee Democratic Party, taught at Montgomery Bell Academy, been a speechwriter for Sen. John Kerry, received two master’s degrees (English and philosophy), interned at the White House and somehow found time to write a novel. We have little doubt LEAD will be approved and will transform lives. (To offer financial support—hey, changing the world ain’t free—email Kane at Jkane@leadacademy.org.) Meanwhile, if Kane can be an educational visionary, why not a civic one? —LIZ GARRIGAN
Best Political Rescue Operation of the Year: The August School Board Elections
September’s failed attempt to raise sales taxes for schools. October’s 5-4 school board vote not to renew Pedro Garcia’s contract. Flirtations with other municipalities that left the director alone on the dance floor. Last year was a tough one for the Metro school system. Not to worry, though. This August, the electorate rode to the schools’ rescue, with a little help from a Texas church (good luck, Rev. Lisa Hunt), a motivated business community (what happens when neighbors Kathleen Harkey and David Fox leave their homes at the same time?) and local Democrats (Mebenin Awipi, meet Karen Johnson). Now all three board members who voted against Garcia’s contract renewal and faced reelection are gone. The new board, led by Marsha Warden, is stressing unity and cooperation. Smart money says Garcia soon will either leave for a job in Los Angeles or have that elusive contract renewal in hand. Now if someone could just ride to the city’s rescue in time for next August’s mayoral race. —LISA ROBBINS
Best Suggested Tennessean Film Critic (When Hell Freezes Over): Chuck Stephens
About that youth demographic, Gannett: if you really wanna reach readers under 35, how about assuming they’re interested in more than the cultural offerings with the biggest advertising budgets? Nashville native Stephens, most recently headquartered in Bangkok, is not only the acknowledged expert on the burgeoning Thai cinema—watch for his appearance in Wisit Sasanatieng’s feature Citizen Dog—but has also written authoritatively for Film Comment, Cinema Scope, The Village Voice and other publications on everything from Sergio Leone Westerns to Japanese yakuza films. His byline alone would boost The Tennessean’s online presence—hell, worldwide—and make a destination out of a site that has mostly been a graveyard for wire copy, save for Jason Shawhan’s cool pieces. Be warned, though: if it’s a junket-whore Kenny G they’re wanting, Stephens is straight-up Ornette Coleman. —JIM RIDLEY
Best Cause for Optimism: The Tennessean’s Mark Silverman
New Tennessean editor Mark Silverman—drafted to replace the fallen E.J. Mitchell, who was recently shuttled off to a much smaller Gannett paper in New Jersey—had barely figured out where the cafeteria and pisser were when he demonstrated a commitment to common sense and decommissioned several ridiculous practices at the paper two weeks ago: an unnecessarily onerous and paper-heavy fact-checking system and the daily usage of exclamation points on the front of the Living section. He returns calls, seeks input, rejects corporate busy-work and has a sense of humor. Word is, Silverman has a solid understanding of just how precarious the relationship between his newspaper and its city really is. That’s a start. It’s still Gannett, but he’s got the chops to surprise. —LIZ GARRIGAN
Best Blogger Who Actually Functions In The Real World: Dork Nation
The easiest test to measure the sanity and influence of a blogger is to examine the tone with which they write. Histrionics, exaggerations and braying political proclamations are signs of overwhelming self-importance and an easy way to ruin a thirst for knowledge. Which is why Dork Nation is one of the best out there. I knew him as a father, a critic, a political operative and a fashion plate long before I’d even heard that he had a blog. Reading his blog is like having a pleasant conversation; wry and opinionated, but like talking at the same table, rather than being yelled at from across the room. Politics, music, film and sports all blend together in this nation, and the end result is entertaining and informative material from someone already contributing to society on multiple fronts in the real world. Online at dorknation.wordpress.com. —JASON SHAWHAN
Best TV Hire: Trent Seibert
If it seems like Seibert gets a lot of play in the Scene, it’s because he does. But, hell, he embodies that reportorial quality that we find all too lacking within Nashville media circles: an emphasis on source development to break important stories. After he spent a year-and-a-half at The Tennessean, WKRN-Channel 2 recently lured this Wile E. Coyote of local journalism away to become a video-journalist version of Phil Williams—on steroids. It’s early yet, and Seibert is still finding his way around that Dell computer and figuring out what the hell B-roll is, but we’re optimistic about what we’ll see out of him. And we find Channel 2’s continued commitment to unorthodox methods refreshing, even if station brass do have to keep well vodka on hand in the newsroom now. —LIZ GARRIGAN
Best Country DJ on a Non-country Station: Randy Fox, “Hipbilly Jamboree,” 91 Rock
If Randy Fox had done nothing more than introduce the Light Crust Doughboys’ flabbergasting 1938 “Pussy, Pussy, Pussy” to the public airwaves, he’d be a fine American. But Fox, a published mystery and horror author, keeps the rowdiness of country’s heritage alive at 6 p.m. every Wednesday on WRVU-FM 91.1 with his co-conspirators DJ Kels and DJ Pete (a.k.a. Pete Wilson, host of Friday morning’s excellent “Nashville Jumps”). When you’ve just gotta hear Johnny Paycheck’s “Pardon Me, I’ve Got Someone to Kill,” Eddie Noack’s blood-freezing “Psycho” or Merle Travis singing how he likes his chicken fryin’ size when he gets his skillet hot, Fox is the cat with the deep catalog. Our only complaint: why, oh why are this and another awesome country show, Kristi Rose’s “Pulp Country” on Radio Free Nashville, smack up against each other in the same time slot? Pardon me, I’ve got someone to kill. —JIM RIDLEY
Best Music Blog: Out the Other
Given the amount of club hopping she does, when does Nashvillian Janet Timmons ever find the time to write? More to the point, when did she find time to preview every freakin’ act appearing at the recent Austin City Limits Festival? That’s more than 120 artists, folks—a feat that brought Timmons national props in the blogosphere. In addition to tidbits of music news both local and national, Timmons posts the playlists from her accompanying radio show 9 p.m. Tuesdays on 91 Rock, where she translates her tastes into action by giving My Morning Jacket, M. Ward, Ben Kweller and local acts The Features and Bobby Bare Jr. airtime. She’s evidently not a Lambchop fan, but hell, nobody’s perfect. ( outtheother.typepad.com ) —JIM RIDLEY
Best Political Blogger: A.C. Kleinheider
Much of the time, blog aggregators do nothing more than produce daily content that differs from a single navel-gazing blog only by being exponentially more annoying. But A.C. Kleinheider, author of the Volunteer Voters (www.volunteervoters.com) site hosted by WKRN-Channel 2, is different. He demonstrates more than just a political ideology (socially conservative), a desire for someone—anyone—to listen and a willingness to float the work of those who might otherwise toil in absolute obscurity. He thinks and, not least, reports in addition to posting and commenting about what daily newspapers, wire services, websites and blogs are saying regarding the political issues of the day. The Vandy grad is not content merely to speculate about what motivates candidates, operatives or even journalists. He’ll actually do something few of his peers will: he’ll pick up the phone or send a query by email to ask questions. He’s tries to be a truth teller, and that’s an aim we can respect. —LIZ GARRIGAN
Best Local Website You Can’t Access: Buddytown.org
Rest assured, Nashvillians, we’ll never, ever be like New York or Los Angeles. Proof of that was the reaction a few months back to news of Buddytown.org, the invite-only social networking site that sent local bloggers cowering back to face their deepest, darkest high-school insecurities. “But, aren’t I cool?” they wondered. “Probably not,” Buddytown answered back. The Buddytown motto, “No douche bags,” and their monthly beautiful-people vibed parties at Ombi Bar, incited all manner of online riots about the elitism of the velvet rope. What no one realized: that you could get an invite by simply asking for one. What would have pissed them off more: learning that the City Council, the site’s ruling body, routinely purges users on the site they deem uncool. —TRACY MOORE
Best Thing to Happen to Local Arts Coverage: Jonathan Marx, The Tennessean
In Marx, the Scene’s former managing editor and back-of-the-book wrangler for 15 years, 1100 Broadway made a once-in-a-lifetime catch: a tenacious perfectionist with limitless street cred, connections at every high-low arts organization in town, and a sense of play that never conceals a keen and questing intellect. In short, the paper got a writer who can make fine arts matter to that almighty youth demo Gannett chases, while bringing hitherto underground artists to mainstream attention. (Any chance y’all could get him to review movies?) He’s also the only employee in the entire chain who’s ever appeared on a Yo La Tengo album, which has to count for something. We greatly miss his company, if not his collection of “fish snacks.” —JIM RIDLEY
Best Group Doing Something About Homelessness: The Nashville Homeless Power Project
A year ago, the Metro Council barely had homeless people on its radar. Now, thanks to the Nashville Homeless Power Project, most members of the council, all the way up the chain of command to the vice mayor, know a number of them by name. For a city that a prominent beltway watchdog group ranked as one of the meanest toward homeless people in the nation, that’s a huge step in the right direction. Speaking out against violence toward homeless people and against the criminalization of homelessness, the Power Project, a group led by homeless and formerly homeless people, is a prophetic voice for people too often presumed not to have one. A major reason that local authorities persisted in the case of Tara Cole, the homeless woman who was pushed into the Cumberland River? The Power Project held nightly vigils until her body was found and arrests were made. —BILL FRISKICS-WARREN
Best Yard Signs for a Candidate Who Doesn’t Need Them: Jim Cooper’s
If Congressman Jim Cooper had ordered his latest yard signs out of the J. Crew catalog, their shade would be called “heather lake” or some such cashmere-cardigan hue. Among a slate of candidates desperately vying for visibility in next month’s midterm elections—and using bold blues and reds to help get the job done—the safely entrenched Cooper seems content with a muted palette and a subtle font. —CARRINGTON FOX
Best Radio Road-Trip Buddy: Outlaw Country/the Roadhouse, Sirius
One has Mojo Nixon as on-air talent, the other has Charlie Monk—proof that nuts don’t roll far from the tree. Both stations feature deeper, livelier, screwier playlists than anything you’re used to hearing on the commercial airwaves, with the possible exception of WSM-AM. Outlaw Country is Little Steven Van Zandt’s hillbilly counterpart to his excellent “Underground Garage” show: DJs from Shooter Jennings to Cowboy Jack Clement define country pretty much as whatever they want to play at the moment, including “all three generations of Hank Williams.” The Roadhouse, featuring hosts ranging from Monk to Hairl Hensley and gospel great Bill Gaither, could serve as the jukebox in honky-tonk heaven: it was the first time in my life I’ve ever actually heard Loretta Lynn’s “Fist City” on the radio. So this is why people pay to get something that should be available for free. —JIM RIDLEY
Best Promoter Of Peace And Tolerance: Anytown Institute, NCCJ
Sixty teens, 15 cultures, 10 different faiths. Sound like a model U.N.? The Anytown Institute is more. The annual summit sponsored by the local chapter of the National Conference for Community Justice bypasses the bureaucracy and gets our future leaders to confront issues of power, class, fear and hate in a weeklong curriculum that promotes justice and understanding and changes lives. After an intensive week of self-examination each summer, the kids return to their high schools to change prejudices the way it tends to work best—one bias at a time. As one delegate put it, “If everyone had an open mind, people everywhere would get along a lot better.” —BILL FRISKICS-WARREN