Off Limits
A Meal Fit for a Prince('s Mistress' Son). Tom Parker Bowles, son of Prince Charles' mistress-turned-girlfriend Camilla, was in Nashville last week doing research for a book he's writing about eating his way around the world, or some such weighty topic that only an old-money British socialite could properly tackle. Well, it seems Tom wanted to get a taste of some local hot chicken, so he headed out to Prince's Hot Chicken Shack off Dickerson Road last Friday and shared a sweaty, silent meal with hot chicken aficionado Mayor Bill Purcell. We're told Tommy one-upped our local Dear Leader by ordering the extra hot stuff, while Hizzoner just went for the plain old hot. We're also told that one of the diners actually gave a history of Nashville over lunch, beginning somewhere in the 1700s, cementing his title as dorkiest public official in the United States. Parker Bowles, meanwhile, couldn't get enough of the fiery chicken: he sent a taxi across town Saturday night to procure another helping of the hottest stuff in the Dickerson Road area since the Congress Inn shut down. That's a Saturday night fever we could do without.
Stankonia, All Right. Where's John Stossel when you need him? MTSU's transparently desperate attempt to fill its stadium seats last weekend for the game against Idaho wasn't exactly off the chain. The school paid $82,000—taxpayer dollars, people—to bring in OutKast's Big Boi, but it was a hip-hop flop. The state school was trying to draw student fans to meet Division I attendance requirements, but even with the rapper booking school officials were disappointed. Papers across the country took note of the ploy. Said a pair of Washington Post columnists: "Maybe it's just us, but MTSU-Idaho has more of a Sleepy Brown ring to it."
Forget the Ryman. The place to see R.E.M. last week was the Mercy Lounge, which the Reagan-era college-rock darlings turned into their unofficial clubhouse. First they showed up last Thursday on the eve of their Ryman date to check out the Music Row Democrats' "Rally for Hope" benefit, with Brother Henry, The Early Evening and a "democratic supergroup" made up of Joe Pisapia, Mike "Grimey" Grimes, David Mead and more. Then they returned the next night after their own concert to sit in with members of Fairfax. The highlights: Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Ken Stringfellow and Scott McCaughey joining in a spirited "It's the End of the World as We Know It" (glad they didn't spring that on the Music Row Democrats) and McCaughey singing Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone." Almost as cool, a few weeks back at the Mercy Lounge: Johnny Knoxville showing up for (not with) The Cramps.
Stick It. Adam Dread loves to play the court jester, cracking jokes with reporters and pretending to be a cut above the rest of the Metro Council's dim bulbs. But is he really? Three environmentalists seem to doubt it, pointing to an incident last week when Dread told one of them to remove a Kerry/Edwards campaign button from her jacket. Leslie Allen attended the last Metro Council meeting to talk to members about solid waste and recycling issues. Out of the blue, she says, the at-large council member approached her. "Adam Dread came up to me and said, 'You know, it's illegal to wear that in here.' Some people I was with questioned that, and the more I thought about it, the more it didn't make sense to me." Dread, a self-described "alternative conservative," says that Allen was on the council floor—not in the public gallery—when he told her to remove her pin. He says that he was just trying to do her a favor and didn't want the sergeant of arms to escort her out of the room for having a campaign button on in the council floor. The rule on that kind of thing is this: in the public gallery, you can wear any kind of campaign merchandise, but once you step on the campaign floor, you'd better be fair and balanced. But Allen says that she was standing in the public gallery when Dread approached her. Local environmentalist John van der Harst confirms her story. Van der Harst is not your usual activist; he lives on a few thousand dollars a year in a tiny 230-square-foot apartment. When told that Van der Harst backed Allen, Dread says, "Well, whenever I see him, I tell him my doctor warned me not to talk to crazy people." Nice try, Dread, but comedy won't get you out of this one.
Media Manipulation. Just an observation, but Vanderbilt University sure is hosting a bunch of journalistic heavyweights lately: Time's Joe Klein, The New York Times' Frank Rich, USA Today's Ken Paulson and author Ron Suskind, for example. Lectures are the academic version of business lunching, and the cynics in us wonder if Vandy officials are trying to curry favor with the media big dogs. Not that we don't want to hear what Frank Rich has to say. Meanwhile, it must be keeping Chancellor Gee busy, what with all those thank-you notes to write.
