Boner Awards 2017

It has come to the committee’s attention that some in New Nashville might not know what a Boner actually is. 

This is the Scene’s 28th annual compilation of newsworthy bloopers, blowups and displays of abject stupidity. Named for our patron saint — former Nashville Mayor Bill Boner, who so thoroughly embarrassed the city during his tenure that he remains the only mayor of Metro Nashville not to be elected to a second term — the Boner Awards celebrate the ridiculous world we live in. And in 2017, there was a LOT of competition, from the scatological to the ideological. 

(It should be noted that Bill Boner was in the news this year, albeit for something un-Boner-worthy — giving teddy bears to needy kids. The committee notes this non-Boner for the record and wishes him well.)

Here are the 2017 Boner Awards, Nashville. You’ve earned them.

Can’t See the Forrest for the White Men

Every couple of years, like clockwork, it comes up again: Why is there still a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the state Capitol, especially since it wasn’t placed there until 1978? But this year, after the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., even Republican stalwarts started calling for removal of the statue of the slave-trader and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. But thanks to some lily-white “heritage not hate” legislators, the governor can’t just pull down the statue on his own. The State Capitol Commission has to approve the removal, and that overwhelmingly white group refused to do so. The General Assembly’s Black Caucus plans some kind of legislative action in 2018, but with as many openly racist legislators as Tennessee has, don’t get your hopes up — and don’t expect Gov. Bill Haslam to do something gutsy, like moving the statue himself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

T Bone(r), Where Art Thou?

In August, as a part of the pitch to let his group develop part of Fort Negley Park into an arty neighborhood, music impresario T Bone Burnett gave an impassioned but strange speech to the city council. Somehow, by Burnett’s logic, the people opposed to developing the land where black people might be buried are in the same league as the violent white nationalists who turned up in Charlottesville, Va., this year. Said Burnett: “Those who started this lie, who do not seek to unite us but rather seek to divide us — even in the face of the racial tension that has risen in our country as we saw two days ago in Charlottesville, Va. — those people should be ashamed of themselves.” Could there be anything more boneheaded than equating people who are passionately concerned about preserving Nashville’s black history with the Nazis who want the country to be whites-only?

Polk Her? I Hardly Know Her.

As stupid an idea as it was to move the graves of President and Mrs. James K. Polk from the state Capitol grounds to the garden at his mother’s home in Columbia, it was nothing compared to the way the Polk Association, which runs the home, torched its own credibility to try to make it happen. First they lied about the contents of Polk’s will, claiming he wanted to be buried at his mother’s, which he did not. Then they lied about whether they had legal standing to instigate the move; they did not. They lied about the current gravesite being abandoned and not handicap-accessible; it’s not abandoned and it is accessible. The only thing of value a presidential site has is its credibility. If you can’t trust the people there to tell you the truth, what good is it? And after all that, Polk’s remains remain in place at the Capitol.

Boners by the Busload

When roughly 1,000 protesters showed up at Gov. Bill Haslam’s State of the State Address in January, state Sen. Paul Bailey (R-Sparta) toed the party line. “Despite what the media may report several of the protesters admitted that they had been paid to be at the TN Capitol,” he tweeted after the event. As reporters pressed him to back up those claims in the days that followed, Bailey eventually shared a video of shuttle buses outside the Capitol, with narration implying the buses were paid for by George Soros and were bringing paid protestors to the site. Turns out, the buses were actually used to shuttle legislators to an event at the Ryman with lobbyists. Hope your Boner fits on the bus, Bailey.

Friends in Low Places

State Sen. Mark Green (R-Clarksville) has said some pretty inflammatory things about Muslims and the LGBT community. The comments caught up with Green earlier this year when he was forced to withdraw as Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of the Army, amid uproar from liberals and questions even from fellow Republican John McCain. Though his past statements may have dashed his hopes of a federal appointment, Green is back, running for the Congress seat being vacated by Marsha Blackburn, and he’s not done raking in the Boners. In September, Green tweeted enthusiastically about Roy Moore, saying he was “proud to call him a friend!” Green and his wife donated thousands of dollars to Moore’s Alabama Senate campaign. Moore and Green even posed for a chummy photo at one of the judge’s rallies. But when The Washington Post dropped its bombshell story about Moore’s relationships with teenage girls? Silence from Green. For a full week, Green refused to answer questions about his friend Moore. Eventually, he did say he was “shocked” by the allegations, but the Boner was already won.

Shake It Off, Taylor

When obscure music blog PopFront published a rambling, rhetorically questionable post arguing that Taylor Swift is an icon for neo-Nazis, the superstar was understandably upset. But all her attorney’s cease-and-desist letter to the blog’s author did was fan the flame. Swift’s attorney demanded a retraction and also demanded that the blog not publish his letter, which PopFront and the ACLU promptly did anyway, along with a thorough rebuke of his indefensible legal arguments. Though the blog probably won’t show up in an academic journal anytime soon, the Bonerific response from Swift’s legal team only made the singer look petulant beyond belief.

Blown Out of Proportion

Some guests at an East Nashville Airbnb were having a grand ol’ time this summer, complete with a partially nude blow-up doll propped in the window. Brett Withers, a Metro Council member whose district includes the property and who is a frequent critic of short-term rentals, saw the doll and was very unhappy. He said the doll was offensive and inappropriate in such close proximity to a local school. (He also posted the picture in a Facebook group with more than 40,000 members, so he couldn’t have found it too offensive.) We’re not exactly sure who deserves the Boner here, but it definitely doesn’t go to the doll, which was conservatively clad in red underpants. Though this whole affair was tedious, we did get to hear attorney/provocateur Jamie Hollin talk about blow-up dolls and nipples at the usually dull Board of Zoning Appeals.

Fully Loaded

Sometimes video games just aren’t realistic enough. That’s apparently why a 21-year-old Murfreesboro man was playing the popular combat video game Call of Duty with a loaded AR-15 sitting in his lap. According to police, the gamer got excited, and the rifle accidentally went off, sending a round through a neighbor’s wall and nearly striking her dog. The gamer was charged with misdemeanor reckless endangerment and awarded this Boner.

A Literal Shitstorm

Sometimes you look out the window at the airport and see your bag thrown around carelessly by baggage handlers, who are unaware of — or perhaps just don’t care about — your brand-new laptop or ancestral urn or whatever precious, breakable object you have inside. Stop your complaining. In August, the luggage of nearly 400 passengers was sprayed with sewage water at the Nashville International Airport. Someone had stuffed paper towels in a toilet, causing water to overflow and leak into a baggage-handling area, and the bags were sprayed as they passed by on a conveyor belt. The bags were sanitized and eventually returned to their owners. Disgustingly enough, a similar incident had happened just two months before. The airport says they’re considering changes to the drainage system. Thanks.

Boner-Roo

Arrests for selling drugs at Bonnaroo aren’t unheard of, but this one might take the cake. A 45-year-old man, who later told police he was “doing God’s work,” was caught with 37 pills made to look like molly, 22 bags of fake mushrooms, 1,000 hits of fake acid, 20 bags of fake cocaine and an incense stick that he was advertising as black-tar heroin. Even though the drugs were fake, the man did not get off scot-free. He pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to sell counterfeit drugs and served some jail time.

#DBAB: Don’t Be a Boner

It’s hard to pick a single tree out of the lush forest of Boner-worthy material that sports-radio dickhead Clay Travis provided this year. And in fact, we at the Scene have a general policy of not giving him the attention he craves. But this was special. The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates quoted a Kendrick Lamar line — “Fox News wanna use my name ...” — to imply (correctly) that Travis was picking a fight with the prominent black writer for his own gain. Travis didn’t get the reference and tweeted proudly that he didn’t work for Fox News, repeating his offer to debate Coates (who, unlike Travis, is actually thoughtful). The exchange perfectly illustrated why Travis is a Hall of Fame ignoramus.  

Boner Bob

Sen. Bob Corker’s Boner-worthy behavior lasted long enough this year to justify notifying a doctor. The fact that he now acknowledges President Donald Trump’s manifest unfitness for the most powerful job on the planet only underscores the legacy-defining and damaging foolishness of Corker’s support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election. In this instance, we have to note the whole body of work: spending the better part of a year pretending not to believe what he has admitted to believing about Trump, and golfing with him and deflecting questions about him until Corker was liberated by his decision to retire. Pop goes the Boner for achievements in cowardice.

Boners on Ice

Early in the second period of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals in Pittsburgh, a Predators fan named Jake Waddell removed a catfish from his pants and hurled it onto the ice. The tossing of catfish on the ice is a tradition of sorts for Preds fans, and it only took on more significance during the thrilling playoff run. It’s also a hockey thing — Detroit Red Wings fans have been known to throw octopi on the ice. Just go with it, right? Not in Pittsburgh, where the local authorities charged Waddell with disrupting a meeting and possessing instruments of a crime. The charges were eventually dropped, but these folks need to grab a Yuengling and chill out.

Standards Are for Other People

Like most news organizations, The Tennessean has certain standards for victims and generally declines to print the names of anyone who is allegedly the subject of sexual harassment or assault. But unfortunately in this digital age, like many other news organizations, Nashville’s daily newspaper is willing to throw those standards overboard if it means getting some clicks. To wit, after Huffington Post published the name of Scottie Nell Hughes as the woman accusing Fox Business anchor Charles Payne of rape, The Tennessean’s Brad Schmitt decided to go ahead and aggregate the online outlet’s story to generate a few page views for the hometown paper. (Hughes lives in Hendersonville and eventually went on the record months later with the Scene; see our Nov. 30 cover story, “Why Doesn’t Anyone Believe Scottie Nell Hughes?”) If all it takes is someone else publishing something to make it good enough to print, The Tennessean’s standards have fallen to Boner-tastic new lows.

Old Times There Are Not Forgotten

Lipscomb University is still a pretty white place. So when school president Randy Lowry decided to host a group of some of the university’s African-American students, you’d figure he and his staff would try to avoid something like, say, a visual allusion to the most slave-driven pre-Civil War crop, right? Nope. The centerpieces at Lowry’s home were made of cotton blooms. The cornbread and collard greens on the menu didn’t help matters (nor did the tacos, which were apparently served to Latino students the night before). When students posted the pictures on social media, Lowry issued a mea culpa and said he would “lean into” difficult conversations about race.

Home of the Lame

Look, no one likes to be bumped off the lineup for a bigger act, but Predators anthem singer Dennis K. Morgan sounded a bit flat, and secured a Boner, when he whined to The Tennessean about being replaced by singers like Carrie Underwood during the team’s Stanley Cup Playoff run. The worst verse of this sorry song was when he complained he’d been replaced by “the captain’s wife” — you know, the one who has sold millions of albums worldwide. He ought to know better, especially in Music City. Maybe next time he’ll think before he speaks.

Dreadful Behavior

Unhappy with a story by WSMV reporter Nancy Amons, former council member and judge-wannabe Adam Dread took to Facebook to publish some decades-old pictures of Amons in Playboy, with the line “people in glass houses …” When confronted with suggestions that this was unfair and offensive, Dread told the Scene that the comments were for a private audience. But when your very public Facebook page’s following includes several thousand people, those comments aren’t private. And if you attempt to slut-shame a reporter for something she did in college 30-plus years ago, don’t expect to get the story of your boorish actions removed from the Scene’s site (thanks for asking, Adam). But you will get a spot on this year’s Boner list.

There Goes the Judge

After the Scene and WSMV published allegations about Judge Casey Moreland’s affair with a woman who appeared on his DUI docket, Moreland allegedly did just about the most Boner-riffic thing possible: He tried to pay her off to change her story. According to a federal criminal complaint, Moreland gave an accomplice $5,100 and an affidavit for the woman to sign saying she lied about her relationship with the judge. The FBI, which was investigating Moreland at that point, swooped in and arrested the judge, who was forced from the bench. 

In the Ghetto

Congratulations, Ashlee K Thomas! You wrote this year’s worst song! We know some of the outrage in response to Thomas’ song “Ghetto” got a little mean — that’s how it goes in the East Nashville Facebook group, after all — but it’s hard to see how much of it wasn’t deserved, thanks to lines like, “She’s good, living down in the ghetto,” referring to East Nashville. Look, you definitely should never refer to predominantly black neighborhoods as “the ghetto” — it’s racist and offensive — but the fact is East Nashville is a large and diverse part of town, much of which has been gentrified and heavily developed in recent years. You also shouldn’t do shoeless yoga beneath an overpass in your video while singing your very bad and racist song. Stick to singing about hippie-dippie white girls next year, and maybe you’ll remain Boner-free in 2018.

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Safe

We get how stealing an entire safe instead of trying to crack the lock seems like maybe a good idea. You steal the safe, you get it into your truck, you take it to your buddy’s place and use a blowtorch or whatever until it’s open. But one would-be thief with a similar line of thinking didn’t account for how heavy safes actually are. After breaking into Power Rental and Sales in South Nashville, the thief was unable to carry the safe out of the building. Rolling it over didn’t work either. He tried to use an office chair as a dolly — no luck. Finally, he just left empty-handed and, we presume, utterly exhausted. 

Fantasy Island

After the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, country music singer Katie Armiger felt compelled to speak out about her own harassment by radio station employees — behavior she says her label, Cold River Records, told her was just part of the industry. Armiger left the label in 2015, but after she spoke out this fall, label head Pete O’Heeron said she was wrong, and that Nashville “seems to be an island of morality in the entertainment business.” However, emails from a now-settled lawsuit by Armiger against Cold River seem to show otherwise. And in any case, we all know there is nothing moral about the music business, whatever city you’re in. 

Even the Cats Are Losing Their Homes

Inglewood Hardware laid off its longtime shop cat, Panda, citing health department concerns as the store gentrified its business, adding coffee and snacks. The outcry from the neighborhood was immediate — Panda is a very cute cat, after all. Luckily, the Nashville Cat Welfare Coalition was able to prevent Panda from ending up an alley cat. After several months in a foster home, Panda found a forever home with a hardware store regular, and she’s now a regular viewer of The Price Is Right.

Pandering Speaker

House Speaker Beth Harwell’s gubernatorial campaign is off to a dismal start, so the formerly moderate Republican has started pandering to the far right. In one such pander, she and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally announced that people with concealed-carry permits will now be able to carry guns around the new legislative offices in the Cordell Hull building. Of course, Harwell has a private elevator exit; the rest of the staff is not so lucky. She did finally cave and require extensive, in-person sexual harassment training in the wake of recent scandals at the legislature — but only staff, not lawmakers, are required to attend, even though in recent years, it’s been the legislators doing the groping. 

Patiently Dating

Dating your subordinates is generally a bad idea. It’s an even worse idea if they’re married. An even more terrible idea? Doing so if you are related to them. But state Sen. Joey Hensley, a Republican physician in Hohenwald, took things a full step further when he started sleeping with his nurse, who was also his second cousin, who was also his longtime patient. The (very explicit) details came out during the nurse’s divorce trial. She had left her husband and said she had discussed marriage with Hensley, but it seems the senator was not ready to take a fifth wife — the relationship ended before the divorce was final.

Full Moon Fascism

A new gym opened in East Nashville this summer, promising a workout regimen that would make CrossFit look easy. But the workouts aren’t the only extreme thing about Vengeance Strength Kvlt. The gym’s owners are members of Operation Werewolf, a pagan motorcycle gang founded by the same dudes who founded the crypto-fascist Wolves of Vinland, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has deemed a hate group. Although the gym says it doesn’t discriminate, the alt-right, neo-fascist coding is hard to miss. We guess it’s better than a Klan gym, though — it’s hard to work out with robes on.

Historically Bad Policies

The Tennessee State Museum finally hired a new, ostensibly competent director this year, but that hasn’t stopped the board overseeing the state agency from committing repeated bumbles. Over the summer, the board adopted a policy that basically prohibits members from speaking to the press or otherwise publicly criticizing the agency, under the threat of expulsion — provisions clearly targeting outspoken former Knoxville mayor and commission member Victor Ashe. But the legislative outcry over the legality of the changes was swift and sharp, and the board quickly walked them back. Will this finally be the turning point for the board’s professionalism? We’ll find out soon.

Radio Retaliation

If you’re a state legislator, and a reporter at a public radio station affiliated with a state university records you saying something really dumb, do you: A) ignore the story; B) embrace the news cycle, because all publicity is good publicity; or C) threaten the university’s funding unless they fire the reporter? If you’re state Sen. Mike Bell (R-Riceville), you choose option C, and you get your pal Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) to do the dirty work for you. After a WUTC-FM news story portrayed Bell being a bully to a LGBT student group, Gardenhire met with UTC’s administration to ensure that the reporter, Jacqui Helbert, was fired. She has since filed a lawsuit against the school; we can’t wait to read Gardenhire’s deposition.

Who’s Afraid of Justin Jones?

Recent Fisk University graduate Justin Jones is a skinny kid who looks much younger than his 22 years. He’s passionate, especially when discussing social injustices, but he’s hardly intimidating. However, former state Sen. Mae Beavers was so terrified of Jones after he held a protest in her office that she fled the building and then hired private security to follow her around Legislative Plaza — which is already full of state troopers. Months later, Beavers posted a rant about Jones on her gubernatorial campaign’s Facebook page, demonstrating a level of knowledge about Jones’ activities that freaked him out so much that he wrote about it for the Huffington Post. If Beavers is this scared of one young black man who disagrees with her, can you imagine how a Gov. Beavers would handle it?

What If You Threw a Party and No One Came?

Gov. Bill Haslam has been trying to privatize any corner of state government he can, including state parks. But that effort failed miserably this year, when after an extensive months-long process, not a single company bid on a plan to tear down and rebuild the Inn at Fall Creek Falls and then run hospitality operations at the park. The state then wouldn’t release the documents related to the failed request for proposal, saying it might revive the bidding. The Scene sued and won. The state later announced it was dropping all plans to outsource parks — at least, under the current administration. Meanwhile, the Inn at Fall Creek Falls is still coming down, but state employees have been guaranteed their jobs during the months-long rebuild process, something that would not have happened with outsourcing.

Nobody Puts Scabies in a Corner

The scabies infestation at Nashville’s CoreCivic-run downtown jail was an apt example of how the for-profit prison giant operates — cutting corners, then covering up the corner-cutting, resulting in inhumane conditions for everyone involved. In this instance, the company allegedly took steps to prevent people outside the jail from knowing about the outbreak, resulting in poor treatment of inmates and a wider pool of infected people. At least 55 Metro employees ended up being treated for scabies as well, and the outbreak caused delays in court proceedings because of lawyers showing symptoms themselves. Just another year for a world leader in Boner production. 

A Town Hall Without Townspeople

One downside of proposing bad ideas, supporting other people’s bad ideas and pledging your loyalty to a bad person like Donald Trump is that people start to get kind of irritated with you. If U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn were confident in her convictions, she might just see this as the price one pays for having principles. But LOL. Instead, when Blackburn came to Fairview for a town hall, she and her people did everything in their power to minimize how many normal folks she’d have to deal with, from limiting attendance only to Fairview residents, to getting rid of public announcements about the event. You can’t hide from us, congresswoman. 

To Protect and Serve Whatever You Can Get Your Hands On

Some Boners explain themselves better than we ever could. Here is a direct quote from a Metro Nashville Police Department press release on Feb. 18: “West Precinct patrol officer Joshua Vaughn has been decommissioned and arrested on a charge of misdemeanor theft for allegedly stealing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey from the car of a DUI suspect who had been involved in a crash.” Wow! You read that right. You have the right to remain silent. This Boner left us speechless. 

Gun-shy

This fall, the country music community was thrown into turmoil when a gunman opened fire on attendees at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 and injuring hundreds more. The shooting raised many important questions about the role of country musicians in the debate over gun control. But the Country Music Association didn’t want journalists asking those questions at the CMA Awards just a few weeks later. In November, the Scene acquired the CMA Awards’ media guidelines, wherein members of the press were asked not to focus on “the Las Vegas tragedy, gun rights, political affiliations or topics of the like” in their coverage. Doing so, said the CMA folks, could lead to press credentials being “revoked via security escort.” Once news of the CMA’s bogus demands made national headlines — and after a tweet from CMA Awards co-host Brad Paisley called them “ridiculous and unfair” — the organization rolled back its guidelines, apologizing and assuring the press that “the sentiment was not to infringe.” Whatever you say, guys.

This Here’s Boner Country

Despite the fact that Nashvillian Sturgill Simpson has sold hundreds of thousands of records — or the fact that he won a Grammy for 2016’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, or the fact that his brand of outsider country is some of the most vital and refreshing stuff in the genre — he’s never been nominated for a CMA Award. No matter to Simpson, who brought his guitar down to Lower Broad during the CMA Awards ceremony taping at Bridgestone Arena, playing songs and shooting the shit with fans on the sidewalk while his work went unrecognized inside the building. The kicker? He brought his Grammy along with him, and he vowed to give any donations he received to the ACLU. Word to the wise, CMA folks? Next time Simpson puts out a record, give it a listen.

Head Games

To say things got intense during the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals is a vast understatement. Water bottles were being thrown on the ice by adult babies, Listerine coupons were raining down like confetti. The Penguins and the Predators made one thing very clear: They were not leaving this contest as friends. But the most troubling example of those high emotions was displayed in a very dangerous way — in Game 5, with the series tied 2-2, P.K. Subban went around the back of the Penguins’ net, where Pittsburgh golden boy Sidney Crosby knocked him into the boards and sat on top of him, repeatedly pushing his head into the ice. Both players got a minor penalty (absurd), and the move made waves after the game, as commentators discussed whether or not Crosby should’ve received a more severe penalty. The true Boner recipient in the post-game discussion was — no surprise here — NBC analyst Mike Milbury. Milbury, probably still sour that the Preds swept his beloved Blackhawks, watched the replay of the violent outburst and concluded, “P.K. had it coming.” This comment came just days after Milbury called Subban a “clown” and recommended coach Peter Laviolette “rap him on the head.” Milburrrrry! Miiiiilburrrrry! YOU SUCK!

Perfect Pussy

On Jan. 20, an estimated 15,000 people marched through downtown Nashville as part of the 2017 Women’s March, many of them wearing pink “pussy” hats, bright pink knit caps with two corners sticking up in the air like cat ears. The hats were so popular that prior to the march, yarn stores across the country, including here in Nashville, were reporting pink-yarn shortages. The owner of the Franklin-based yarn store The Joy of Knitting wasn’t so happy to have the new customers, though — a few days after the march Elizabeth Poe took to Facebook to ask that her product not be used for pussy hats, writing: “With the recent women’s march on Washington, I ask that if you want yarn for any project for the women’s movement that you please shop for yarn elsewhere. The vulgarity, vile and evilness of this movement is absolutely despicable. That kind of behavior is unacceptable and is not welcomed at The Joy of Knitting.” Of course the march had already come and gone, and it’s safe to assume, she already made money off the unexpected yarn sales. Still, folks let her know what they think: Her rating on Facebook plummeted to 1.2 out of 5, and her page was plagued by messages from shoppers assuring her they will never support her business again.

Accidental Sexist

This one hurts a little, because we like Keith Urban. We really do. He seems like a nice guy. And we know he meant well by releasing his song “Female,” a response to the storm of sexism and abuse that has been coming to light in the post-Harvey Weinstein days. But even best intentions can earn Boners. Take a look around — do you see who has caused all this bullshit to begin with? It’s men. So you know what men, including Keith Urban, should be doing right now? Shutting up and letting women talk. Now’s the time to pass the mic. Urban could’ve used his platform to share the stage with women who’ve been calling out misogyny for years — The Dixie Chicks, Margo Price, Kacey Musgraves or Maren Morris, for example. But nope, with “Female,” a male performer got a metric ton of press and a coveted live performance at the CMA Awards. Women aren’t being heard, and that’s how this toxicity has been able to thrive — having men speak up on their behalf isn’t the way to fix that.