Every year, while the rest of you are drinking trees and decorating eggnog and what have you, a gang of surly elves sits sifting through the past 12 months of life in Nashville. They comb through newspapers. They scour the Internet. They look for the bizarre, the wicked, the unmentionable, and compile these items into a single issue—all in hope that we as a city will read these goofs and oddities, say “Never again!” and shudder, and move on with our lives. Every time they research this issue, they intend it to be the last. It hasn’t exactly worked out that way. The elves have been at work now for 17 years. And Nashville is still the same defiantly messed-up place we know and love. So now we must ask ourselves: do we really want the city to change? Do we really want our politicians not to berate, belittle and besmirch one another? Do we really want boring goody-two-shoes celebrities hogging all the limos? Do we really want our crooks to become more skillful and effective, when they could be (to cite one example) stuffing meat down their jeans and trying to waddle out of a supermarket? Maybe not—because then we wouldn’t have the Boner Awards, the Scene’s annual roundup of Music City’s weirdest, wildest moments. Yes, Virginia, there really is a Boner—as in former Mayor Bill Boner, whose public follies and personal exploits gave this contest its name and mission back in 1989. His legacy lives on today, in the compendium of craziness you’re about to read. So sit back, open wide and enjoy—and may the Boner you find not be your own. White hunter, black heart How tough is Troy Gentry, the half of country duo Montgomery Gentry with the just-so stubble? Well, he killed himself a b’ar a couple of years ago! Wow! Oh, except that Gentry bought the bear, named (we swear) “Cubby,” from his Minnesota hunting guide. The two then videotaped themselves hunting Cubby inside a three-acre enclosure surrounded by an electric fence, then tagged him as if he had been killed in the wild. Gentry allegedly brought the ex-bear home with him to Franklin, violating a federal ban on transporting illegally obtained wildlife—but escaped a possible prison term by pleading down to a misdemeanor charge of illegal tagging. He was forced to pay a $15,000 fine, surrender Cubby’s ill-gotten hide and stop hunting in Minnesota for five years. Sadly, he will be allowed to continue recording. Wait till you see him in the clogging contest at Uncle Dave Macon Days During a lopsided loss to the Dallas Cowboys, Titans defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth angrily stomped the helmetless head of downed Cowboys’ offensive lineman Andre Gurode, then shouted at the referee who ejected him from the game and at Titans coach Jeff Fisher. Gurode’s offense? Successfully blocking Haynesworth on a play in which Dallas scored a touchdown. Gurode, who required numerous stitches on his face, did not return to the contest. Haynesworth was suspended five games by the NFL. BONERS ON THE BALLOT The political year 2006 spawned the sort of issue-driven, level-headed discourse you associate with events outside the electoral theater—say, a cockfight. And we don’t mean the kind with chickens. Between a master class in mudslinging and the usual gang of nits—along with some odd bits of arcana from the scrapyard—the year gave every patriotic Nashvillian reason to flinch as he pulled the lever. Forker We love watching politicians whomp each other with rhetorical bicycle chain as much as the next alt-weekly, but this year’s blood-letting over Minority Leader Bill Frist’s Senate seat would’ve made the emperor Caligula avert his eyes. As all eyes focused on the state, Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Harold Ford Jr. did their damnedest to dissuade anyone who suspected them of substance—either by pandering to his party’s immigrant-bashing yahoo base, like Corker, or by parroting the guns-God-and-no-gay-marriage yap that gives centrism a bad name, like Ford. Both hawked their family-values cred ad nauseam in cheeseball commercials, but their scare ads told the real story. Ford’s team hammered the spotty record of Chattanooga’s 911 service during Corker’s term as mayor, as if he’d stood there personally blocking the door. But Team Corker struck gold with an ad that painted Ford as the pol of choice for sleazebags, flogging his so-what visit to the Playboy Mansion and ending with a blond poptart chirping, “Harold—call me!” The intended point—conjuring a mental image of Ford as Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles leering, “Where’s de white wimmin at?”—proved regrettably persuasive, making Corker’s victory an ugly win indeed. Ford Nitro It was perhaps the election season’s best illustration of why Harold Ford Jr. needs to quit taking his lobbyist father’s political advice. The Memphis congressman decided to crash a Corker press conference and stage a confrontation with his opponent, going so far as to arrive in his campaign bus. But the stunt, which the Corker team quickly dubbed “The Memphis Meltdown,” backfired badly, with Ford coming off as a petulant show-off trying to score some cheap PR. He was sentenced to 11 herbs and spices In a further example of the way Election ’06 raised the public discourse, a volunteer at a Corker event in Chattanooga accused a heckler working for Corker’s GOP primary rival Ed Bryant of running into him with his car. Did we mention that the Bryant operative was dressed in a chicken costume at the time? Don’t ask. Now he’s a little short. . .er Nine different political action committees that no one had ever heard of—all bearing the same hackneyed names (e.g. “Stay in School” PAC) and Nashville P.O. box address—gave a combined $40,100 to mayoral candidate Bob Clement’s campaign on the same day, June 29, just before the end of a crucial financial-disclosure reporting period. Turns out that Clement’s campaign right hand, attorney Larry Woods, was behind the spurious groups and contributions, which The City Paper reported were coaxed from donors to circumvent donation caps. Once it became obvious that the PACs were phonies created simply to boost Clement’s fund-raising number—and to produce a false sense of heir apparency—the campaign returned the money. Not a Lott He’s a lightning rod for controversy, he said the country would have been better off if segregationist Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948—and oh yeah, his hair doesn’t move. But even Trent Lott’s significant baggage wasn’t enough to give Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander the edge in the run for Senate minority whip, the GOP’s No. 2 position in the body. Alexander, whose remaining hair does move on occasion, lost by a single vote in a secret ballot session, despite a majority of his colleagues telling him he’d get their nod. Informed speculation says that Alexander suffered for the (uncountable) sins of outgoing Majority Leader Sen. Bill Frist. “I wrote 26 thank-you notes for 24 votes,” Alexander said weeks later, after the sting had worn off. Will & disgrace This Boner goes to all 1,407,717 Tennessee voters who decided to futz up the state constitution by electing to ban same-sex unions here once and for all. Oh, wait—gay marriage already was illegal here, making this constitutional amendment nothing more than a “hey, look over there!” tactic to rile up panicky rubes. Prominent Christian leaders flocked here to warn anyone who would listen about the “radical homosexual agenda” (like shared benefits), “culture terrorists” (like ooh-scary Ellen DeGeneres) and the need to protect the sanctity of marriage (like Ted Haggard’s). They suggested sex maniacs would be blowing goats in the middle of Church Street if gay marriage were somehow legalized—which, let us be clear, was not even at stake in this election. Nonetheless, the strategy managed to convince a shameful 81 percent of voters that big strapping queers had drawn bulls’-eyes on their backsides. Each deserves to get trapped in a closet for an hour with Rosie O’Donnell. All calls were referred to his press secretary, John Ford Chattanooga businessman Mark Albertini wisely decided to reconsider his bid for the Republican nomination for governor following his arrest for public drunkenness after a campaign rally in Knoxville. Albertini denied he was drunk at the event, though police said he was “unsteady on his feet” and found a bottle of wine and a 9 mm handgun in his car. After spending a night in the pokey, Albertini complained about the sudden burst of media attention his campaign was receiving. “If I had gotten this many calls from stations and media back in the third, fourth week into the race, things would be a lot different now,” he said. Celebrity poker shutdown Every year, the Boner Awards keeps a little card that reads “This Space Reserved” just for Ludye Wallace, and Ludye on Duty never disappoints. In June, police busted a North Nashville social club suspected of being a numbers joint. As the cops served a warrant for illegal gambling, who should step out of a back room but the 50 Cent of the Metro Council and five other men. Officers found evidence of a hot poker game, and Wallace was shocked, shocked, to discover there was gambling going on. “I just happened to stop by like I visit throughout my councilmanic district,” Wallace told the Tennessean with what-me-worry aplomb. “I routinely go in and out of my community. I guess it was just a bad time for me to drop in.” No kidding: according to police, the councilman initially told investigators he came in with $2,000, but at the time of the bust he had $22. Movie of the weak Wallace figured in another silly public flap with the council, this one over Carmike Cinemas’ offer of an unlimited movie pass for two to council members—a perk that seemingly violated their new ethics code barring gifts totaling more than $100 per year. Eleven council members returned their cards, but five initially accepted the passes, ready for their closeups: Rip Ryman, Ed Whitmore, Lynn Williams, Ronnie Greer and—guess who. “I have intentions to use it, but it’ll be only if there’s a movie that I want to see, only if time permits,” Wallace explained, as only he can. But at least Ludye didn’t cop an attitude like Greer—who shamelessly played the don’t-you-talk-about-my-mama card, calling any question of his conduct on the issue “an insult to even my deceased mother and father, grandmother and grandfather.” On the bright side, Wallace said he might use the pass for dates. Hey ladies. You could almost smell the legislature Taking a creative, market-driven approach to raising funds for restoring the governor’s residence, Tennessee First Lady Andrea Conte placed a number of old fixtures and furnishings from the mansion on Curtiswood Lane up for auction online. Among the items that went up for bidding: a black toilet from the master suite used by former Govs. Lamar Alexander and Ned Ray McWherter. The partial set must’ve been Sundquist’s Also included in the gubernatorial fire sale were a redwood sauna; a cracked, black marble hearth; a Lake Erie-sized whirlpool bathtub used by McWherter—and a pool table that Winfield Dunn sold to Ray Blanton when Dunn left office. Available separately, according to Tennessean columnist Gail Kerr, were pool table accoutrements labeled as “one full set of balls” and “a partial set of balls.” HALLOWED HALL OF BONERS Medical boards, oversight groups, educators, lawyers—these institutions are supposed to protect our interests. And so they do...if you’re interested in Boners. To wit: Bend over and say “Ahhh” A few years ago, the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners had the chance to throw the book at Dr. Richard Feldman—a man who (according to the board’s own investigation) had molested, abused, insulted, robbed and taken advantage of patients, had sex with a minor, frequented a brothel and treated his own employees poorly. Instead, they opted to give the good doctor an administrative slap on the fanny (which he probably enjoyed) and a vacation at a fancy clinic. This summer, after accusing Feldman of lying about the miraculous effects of his latest weight loss cure-all, the board had a chance to redeem itself. Did it? Yeah, sure—and that coloscopy won’t hurt a bit. Staying true to form, the craven board granted Feldman’s attorney a continuance, effectively pushing his administrative trial to November 2007. This allows Dr. Grabby to continue practicing medicine in Tennessee until at least that time—thanks to an agency that claims its mission is to “safeguard the health, safety and welfare of Tennesseans.” Here’s wishing each board member a close encounter with Feldman’s rubber-gloved finger. Well, I’ll be an SOB There isn’t a strip club in town that hasn’t felt the wrath of the Sexually Oriented Business Board—or, as club owners like to call it, the SOB. From the heavily penalized Club Platinum to the now padlocked Brass Stables, strippers jiggle and give lap-dances at their peril. While the Tennessee medical board allows doctors to grope and fondle unwilling patients (see above), this Tennessee erection commission is hard at work keeping strippers from performing the same service with mutual consent for paying guys and gals. Thanks to this Boner-worthy board and its team of (ahem) crack investigators, Nashville’s consenting adults aren’t getting, well, boners. Never kick a gift horse in the ass Look for the membership rolls of the Nashville teachers’ union to drop dramatically in the new year. Much to the chagrin of many Metro Nashville Education Association members, the union’s leadership team rejected $2 million in private money in October—bucks that would have been used in an incentive-pay pilot program at Alex Green and Inglewood elementary schools, where the plan was overwhelmingly supported. Teachers, support staff, cafeteria and custodial workers would have received $2,000 to $6,000 each as a reward for student improvement, a project the Wilson family in Nashville hoped would be seeded and propagated all over the city. But the union rejected the free money because—get this—it wasn’t enough, among other frustrating reasons. Here’s an after-school lesson in remedial math: $2 million > 0. Flush with justice The Boner in the field of Public Service Architecture belongs to the geniuses behind the brand new Justice A.A. Birch Courthouse. As soon as the courthouse opened, users quickly discovered it had all the design flaws $50 million could buy. Waiting for one of the building’s elevators to arrive will take you several lifetimes. When those shiny new doors do eventually part, good luck finding standing room in the ensuing rush of humanity. Then there are the booths where lawyers meet with incarcerated clients—of which only six were built initially, and those didn’t even have intercoms. Lawyers and their clients had to yell at each other to be heard through the thick glass partitions. Worst of all are the prisoner toilets, built immediately behind some courtrooms. Many a recent trial has been carried out to the dignified chorus of flushing commodes. It’s sort of like those first two beats of the Law & Order theme song. Sort of. Sleazy Gonzales Attorney Michael Sneed is to the legal profession what the Hindenburg is to air travel. Since 1993, Sneed has had his law license temporarily suspended and has received numerous disciplinary actions from the Tennessee legal regulatory board. Last year he was successfully sued for malpractice to the tune of $24,000 after he missed deadlines and scheduled depositions on a client’s behalf. Worse, Sneed has set up shop on Nolensville Road, catering to Hispanic immigrants who oftentimes don’t speak much English or understand the legal system. One woman who worked with Sneed says that when dealing with these clients, the Denny Crane of Woodbine will “take the money and not do the job.” Little things—like, f’rinstance, immigration filings that never get submitted. Sometimes Sneed’s clients don’t realize that they’re living outside the law until deportation proceedings have already started, at which point they’re caught in a double whammy: they can’t start the immigration process over, and Sneed already has their money. He speaks Boner fluently The idea behind the Metro Police Department’s El Protector program is simple: improve relations and build trust between police and the immigrant community in Davidson County. To that end, Juan Borges was appointed as one of the top El Protector cops, and at first he seemed a good match: he’s a former detective, bilingual and of Puerto Rican descent. Problem is, when Borges ran for the state legislature last month, one of the main planks of his platform was hardline anti-illegal rhetoric—the fastest way to burn the bridges he was supposedly building. To make matters worse, Borges infuriated Hispanic business owners at a community meeting when he refused to speak Spanish or translate for those among them whose English wasn’t very good. He did make one exception, however—when an attractive female television reporter at the meeting needed some phrases translated, he was glad to oblige. BONER AND CLYDE In a year when mastermind-in-his-own-mind Perry March finally gave Metro police the rope they needed to hang him—by attempting to arrange his former in-laws’ murder while he was behind bars, the yutz—most other criminal activity in Nashville looked like a lollipop snatched from a young’un’s crib. But for sheer imbecility, Music City’s criminally impaired proved they were more than a match for March. Take a stroll at your peril down darkened Boner Alley. That’s the last time I ask them to hold the sausage; or, if I’d wanted meat, I’d have ordered the Smokehouse Breakfast After a night on the town celebrating his birthday, a man got into a fender-bender with another driver and fled the scene on foot. Instead of heading home, though, the suspect did what any quick-thinking fugitive would do: he ran to a nearby Cracker Barrel. When police arrived at the restaurant, the man had just finished his meal and was walking from table to table with his penis exposed. So instead he’s running for Congress In May, Alejandro Borbonio-Fernandez, 41, told police he used a Social Security number he found in a garbage can in South Carolina to get a resident alien card in another man’s name. The scheme might have worked in helping him get a job—except the name happened to belong to a convicted sex offender. He’s now serving time on Nashville Star Police responded to a late-night call, only to find a man dancing in the middle of the street. Seemingly untroubled by the arrival of the law, the Alvin Ailey reject greeted officers with a spirited, “Hey, fellas, how you cocksuckers doing?” The police warned the suspect to stop, but he continued yelling profanities and shaking his ass in the middle of the road. Wings of desire A craving for Buffalo wings prompted an East Nashville man to place “a box of frozen chicken and a bottle of hot sauce in his pocket” and then attempt to exit the Cee Bee Food Store on Shelby Avenue without paying. When the cashier confronted the thief, he pulled out a knife and began waving it wildly in the air. The suspect was captured and jailed over what amounted to $9 worth of chicken and fixin’s. But it probably still beat Mrs. Winner’s. Ever have days when you don’t feel so fresh? Officers attempting to serve an arrest warrant found four people “piled into one bedroom” of an apartment. After marijuana and a pistol were discovered, a suspect blurted out that one of her co-defendants had “concealed drugs in her vagina to avoid detection.” The woman’s secret stash amounted to about two grams of cocaine. She should be glad they didn’t have a bong. Send this man to Metro Council After throwing back a few too many cocktails, a man took a taxi to the North Precinct police station and demanded that Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas call him an ambulance to take him home. Officers explained that wasn’t possible, but they did the next best thing: they made him Serpas’ guest in a nice cozy cell. According to arresting officers, the intoxicated suspect “smelled of liquor from five feet away, was unsteady on his feet and tore up money as officers spoke with him.” Too bad it wasn’t on Bob Corker’s watch Police, paramedics and firefighters rushed to the scene after receiving a 911 call from a man who claimed he was having suicidal thoughts. When they arrived, the man said he was just kidding, he didn’t really want to hurt himself—but since they were there, he was drunk and could use a ride. Red-and-blue-light special A Wal-Mart shopper who blatantly bypassed checkout with two computers in her cart had the nerve to ask a pair of police officers working security to help load the loot into her car. The ballsy move backfired when the officers asked to see a receipt. No word on whether she got a better sentencing deal than she would have at Target. It all begins with a thong Thong Girl 3: Revenge of the Dark Widow, one of the first movies with scenes filmed in Gallatin, also became one of the first movies officially banned in Gallatin. The Nashville-produced film, which continues the saga of a buxom superhero who shoots laser beams out of her panties, was denounced sight unseen as “very suggestive” despite the fact that it has no sex or nudity. National notoriety followed after Gallatin Mayor Don Wright allowed director Glen Weiss to shoot scenes in his city office—an innocent, even strategic move from a production-luring standpoint that political opponents nevertheless pounced on in an election year. In one pivotal sequence, Thong Girl rescues a fictional mayor of Nashville, who is being held hostage by villains bent on turning Music City’s country singers into rap artists. Director Weiss, who described Thong Girl 3 as “the culmination of my labor,” hopes to screen the movie locally in early 2007. But it seems unlikely to play in Gallatin—that is, unless Thong Girl can also shoot projector beams out her butt. SEX AND THE SINGLE BONER Any city with Nashville’s ratio of strip clubs to churches is bound to have some secrets hidden in its drawers, so to speak. Find out the real reason we call ’em Boners in these dispatches from the weird side of Music City’s libido. You’re hired! In one of the most bizarre incidents to hit the police blotter in 2006, a job inquiry at an East Nashville apartment complex took a strange detour when the applicant started asking increasingly lewd questions of the woman employee on duty. To her dismay, the applicant suddenly unzipped his pants, whipped out his penis and began jacking off in her office. Carried away by passion, he started humping all of her office furniture before having a brief tryst with a door, fleeing only when the woman called the cops. Police later found the 21-year-old suspect on Dickerson Road and charged him with indecent exposure, though he got off on contributing to the delinquency of a sofa. The suspect was caught red-handed A 33-year-old man was allegedly enjoying his constitutional right to peruse a skin mag in the privacy of his car. No problem there, right? (The same thing once happened to us with a copy of The Nation.) Unfortunately, the car was plowing through rush-hour traffic on State Route 840 near Smyrna at the time. A furious motorist called the cops, who wondered why the suspect was driving so erratically until they saw his tit-lit stash on the front seat. He was charged with felony reckless endangerment—but at least he got a Boner out of the experience. Be on the lookout for his accomplice, Rosie Palms A male motorist who had the sudden urge to pull over and pleasure himself ended up in an awkward position—i.e., sound asleep with his pants off in a parking lot, where police found him. A patrol officer approached the vehicle and found the napping man “naked from the waist down holding his penis.” The suspect said that he removed his pants because they were wet and that he must have dozed off as he waited for them to dry, but police took note of the open lotion bottle in the passenger seat. When you care enough to send the very best In March, Rutherford County sheriff’s officers busted a Murfreesboro woman and her Nashville accomplice for running an online escort service and prostitution setup out of her home, at rates of up to $250 an hour. The tip, oddly enough, came from the woman’s husband, who suspected there was something fishy about the business she told him she was running: an online greeting-card company. And how’d you get your nickname, Chompy? An undercover cop who picked up a suspected hooker along Dickerson Pike reported the following dialogue: “I picked up the suspect and asked her what her name was. The suspect stated, ‘Precious.’ I asked, ‘Why Precious?’ The suspect stated, ‘Cause I give good blowjobs.’ ” HIS EYE IS ON THE BONER Is nothing sacred? Not in this baptismal font of religious missteps, oddities and imbroglios from the past year. Below, a few burnt offerings.... Daniel in the lion’s den Under pressure by conservative groups and angry viewers, NBC affiliate WSMV-Channel 4 washed its hands of the controversial series The Book of Daniel, yanking the drama about a flocked-up Episcopal priest from its prime-time slot in January after airing only the two-hour premiere. Station officials said that viewers were incensed by almost every aspect of the show, from the priest’s salty dialogue to the use of Jesus as a sardonic recurring character (which didn’t seem to bug anyone when FX’s Rescue Me did it all season). “We chose not to air it because we did not think it was appropriate for broadcast television in Nashville and Middle Tennessee,” general manager Elden Hale Jr. told The Tennessean. Its righteousness proven, the station was once again free to show what is appropriate for broadcast television in Middle Tennessee—such as the rape-of-the-week on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Lettuce pray Nor did NBC win any converts when it tried to chop the Christian-themed series VeggieTales into secular salad, ordering Franklin’s Big Idea Productions to remove some references to God and the Bible “to reach as broad an audience as possible” when the show started airing on the network in September. The show, which enlists cartoon produce to deliver spiritual messages, had sold 50 million copies on DVD, which sounds pretty broad. But that didn’t stop The Peacock from suggesting numerous edits—among them changing Bob the Tomato’s sign-off “God made you special and he loves you very much” to “Thanks for coming over to my house, kids. See you next week.” By the time irate religious groups got through expressing their outrage, the network knew how it felt to pass through a salad shooter. At least they rejected “Three for the Price of One” In September, The Tennessean reported that many Presbyterians in the midstate area were unhappy with new language to describe the Holy Trinity, which had been suggested at the denomination’s national gathering over the summer. Intended not to replace the traditional “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” but to supplement it with something a bit broader and less gender-specific, the terms included such purple verbiage as “Rainbow of Promise, Ark of Salvation and Dove of Peace” and the downright Tolkienesque “Fire That Consumes, Sword That Divides and Storm That Melts Mountains”—which makes the spiritual fundament sound like something from a Dungeons & Dragons all-nighter. One local pastor said that some of the suggestions were good, but politely described terms such as “Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-Giving Womb” as “a stretch.” Stanks on a plane In a strong contender for one of the top five Boner entries of all time, the odor of burning sulfur forced an American Airlines flight bound for Dallas to make an emergency landing in Nashville earlier this month. Ninety-nine passengers and crew members were taken off the plane and screened for explosive devices. After a round of questioning, FBI agents determined who raised the big stink: a passenger with a gas attack, who lit matches in midflight to cover the smell of her farts. What was that thing about money changers? The Lord giveth, but if you’re not careful, He’ll taketh away. In a story that points out the contradictions inherent in the collision of religion, big money and higher learning, the Tennessee Baptist Convention demanded back the money it has given to Belmont University over the past half-century. At issue is control of Belmont’s board of trustees, which has been 100 percent Baptist: the university seeks to reduce the board’s Baptist presence, while the Baptists want all the power their charity can buy. We’re not talking chump change, either. In October, the convention filed a lawsuit asking for $57 million, citing a 1951 repayment agreement that apparently no one remembered until a couple of years ago. Now suing for slander: whores An unruly protestor posted up outside St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where he lined the sidewalk with cardboard signs denigrating Catholicism and berated worshipers as they entered the church. When police ordered the suspect to stop, he began screaming profanities about “the Catholic Church, whores, and Faith Hill being a witch of the Church and Pope.” BONERS OF MASS DISTRACTION From a superhero with a crime-fighting posterior to an editor who simply made an ass of himself, the media offered no shortage of Boners in 2006. Among the highlights: Mitchell, gone with the wind The abrupt reassignment of Tennessean Editor E.J. Mitchell in September to a much smaller Gannett newspaper in New Jersey was months in the making. Mitchell, a swaggering one-way conversationalist, rubbed both his newsroom and the community the wrong way during his brief year-and-a-half stint in Nashville, doing plenty of talking but little listening. He presided over the most prolific era of defection in the history of the newspaper, nearly drove away star writers Peter Cooper and Brad Schmitt, embarrassed staffers in front of others and generally got on publisher Ellen Leifeld’s bad side. (Misspelling her name probably wasn’t a smart move.) Ultimately, Mitchell’s weekend exit was a quiet one, and—in authentic Gannett style—new editor Mark Silverman was trotted around the newsroom the next Monday morning, having been given the following title: VP/Content and Audience Development (with caps, of course). We hear it has something to do with producing a newspaper. At least now we know why they wanted a conservatory Last fall, Vanderbilt whiffenpoofs nervously awaited a Wall Street Journal exposé on the exorbitant $6 million spent to renovate the residence of Chancellor Gordon Gee, who spends money as if he were chancellor of Germany. But when the article arrived, an unexpected bombshell caught everyone’s attention: his wife Constance had been regularly smoking marijuana at Braeburn, the university-owned mansion in Belle Meade. (How she got it—the most interesting part of the story, we’d say—went curiously uninvestigated.) The Journal reported that Constance Gee, an associate professor of public policy and education, used the marijuana medicinally to manage an inner-ear condition that can cause dizziness and hearing loss. Members of Vanderbilt’s board of trustees reportedly confronted the chancellor about his wife’s use of marijuana, which is prohibited on university property and is illegal for medicinal purposes in Tennessee. Said trustee emeritus John W. Rich of the article, in a quote that was unintentionally funny in context: “This was a situation where I think there probably was a lot of smoke, but there was just nothing there.” Except maybe a contact high. GALAXY OF BONERS When the shiniest stars in the firmament screw up, everyone from YouTube to yours truly will be there to catch the flaming debris. And chances are that the wreckage can be traced back to Nashville, as in the Boners below. George and Tammy who? The sordid tale of country star Sara Evans’ divorce actually features 100 Boners—that’s how many nude pictures of himself the singer claims that her husband, Craig Schelske, kept on his computer. That accusation was only one of the charges and denials that piled up in the weeks following Evans’ Oct. 12 divorce filing: she says he was fixated on porn, drank, stole money, was verbally abusive and had an affair with their nanny; he says she had a nervous breakdown and engaged in affairs of her own (dangling Kenny Chesney’s name—yeah, right). Have we mentioned these two are outspoken evangelical Christians who publicly opposed divorce until, oh, around Oct. 12? Or that Evans’ latest hit was called “Cheatin’ ”? Or that Schelske is a failed Republican congressional candidate? Or that Evans was smack in the middle of ABC’s top-rated Dancin’ with the Stars when the scandal broke, thus ensuring maximum notoriety? They finally agreed to stop talking to the press, just in time to keep our heads from exploding. How precious did that Faith appear? For several days afterward, Faith Hill’s reaction to the Best Female Artist award at last month’s Country Music Association Awards was the shot sent round the world. Those backstage say she jokingly shouted “WHAT?” and feigned a diva fit when winner Carrie Underwood’s name was announced instead of hers. But the fleeting glimpse televised live made it look hilariously real, and Hill spent the rest of the week trying to stop a steamrolling avalanche of embarrassing sour-grapes talk. Far funnier, to insiders, was the unfaked oh-shit look on Sony BMG honcho Joe Galante’s face after the announcement—perhaps imagining how to explain to fellow Female Artist nominee Martina McBride how her labelmate Underwood walked off with two major awards instead of splitting them evenly. Of course, everybody knows labels don’t control the voting. (pause) Hey, we were just joking! Something borrowed, something blew And they said it wouldn’t last. When conservative tubthumpers came to town blathering about the sanctity of marriage, no doubt they were talking about the modern-day American Gothic pairing of Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock, who made Nashville one of several stops on their August “Wedding Tour.” The two were hitched in Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, where the Kid sang that weepy old wedding-reception standby “Sweet Home Alabama.” “The bride wore Juicy—the groom wore Beam and coke,” gushed Anderson on her blog. Alas, the ink had scarcely dried on the wedding-gift receipts before the marriage was kaput—reportedly over Anderson’s appearance in Borat. But we’ll always have the memory of their fairy-tale vows. Asked the do-you-take-this-woman part, according to one published report, Kid Rock said, “Hell yes!” In turn, Anderson said, “Unfortunately, yes!” BONER ATHLETIC SUPPORT A few entries from the world of sports and a roller-coaster year at Adelp—say, what’s that place called now? Eli Manning isn’t his only bitch Renewing what has come to be an annual tradition, Titans’ cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones was arrested outside a Murfreesboro bar on Aug. 25—the day after the team broke training camp—and charged with disorderly conduct and public intoxication. Police said Jones was arguing with a woman whom he accused of stealing his wallet and refused to leave the premises, shouting profanities at the officers. Two months later, Jones received a citation for allegedly spitting in the face of another young woman outside a nightclub in downtown Nashville. Kerried away Just days before the season started, the Titans spent $2 million to lure Kerry Collins from retirement on his North Carolina farm, gave him the starting quarterback job and benched presumptive starter Billy Volek. Collins led the team to three straight losses (racking up a quarterback rating of less than two in one of those games) before being relegated to the bench himself. Volek, who in past seasons had filled in ably for Steve McNair, was shipped to San Diego for a low-round draft pick. Thanks for the memories, Steve—now get the hell out Steve McNair, who had come to symbolize the Titans with his determined play, was unceremoniously barred from the team’s Metro Center practice facility in the early spring while the team contemplated its options regarding his contract. The NFL players union filed a grievance on McNair’s behalf, and an arbitrator ruled that the Titans had to allow him to work out at the facility as long as he was officially part of the team. McNair was later traded to Baltimore, where he joined former Titans Derrick Mason and Samari Rolle.
