Uh-oh, Nashville.
Here we come, once again, to pee in your eggnog, trample your fruitcake, and leave our lumps of coal (or something) in your stockings. It's the 21st annual running of the Boner Awards, our yearly time capsule of the events we'd most like to forget (if not always forgive) from the previous 12 months.
The bad news? It seemed like the forces of bigotry, intolerance and just plain incivility cut loose this year with spittle-flecked abandon. The good news, though, was that in this year of natural and unnatural disasters, the vast majority of Nashvillians responded with fellowship and fortitude — along with a healthy and growing inability to suffer fools gladly.
And on that note, Nashville, our Boners stand ready for inspection.
AND BONERS FOR ALL
Think racist stereotypes and resentment of gays are things of the past? Boners, put on your "I Heart Lady Gay-Gay" T-shirt, stand up and be counted.
There goes the "intelligent design" argument.
In one of the year's early scandals, Walt Baker, CEO of the Tennessee Hospitality Association, sent a "joke" email comparing first lady Michelle Obama to Tarzan's chimp Cheetah. Introducing the message by saying, "Quoting Larry the Cable Guy ... I don't care who you are, this is funny" — a statement that should make all of us think twice before citing the wisdom of Larry the Cable Guy — Baker forwarded the racist email to 12 prominent Nashvillians, including members of the media. It turned out to be no laughing matter for Baker, who was fired. He apologized but never seemed to get it, calling his email "political humor" and expressing confusion over why anyone would find it offensive.
What was that about monkeys and typewriters?
Mark Cook, columnist for various Gannett-owned newspapers in Williamson County, had a great story: Ward Baker — well-known Republican kingmaker, sought-after campaign consultant, adviser to Williamson County's own Rep. Marsha Blackburn — was caught sending an email to various movers-and-shakers depicting the first lady as an ape. It would have been a bombshell, but for one minor detail: The sender of the notorious email was actually Walt Baker — as had been established dozens of times over in the week before the column ran.
Is it too late to return the Uncle Ben costume?
We thought Smith County Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver had earned her Boner Lifetime Achievement when she voted the wrong way on a key procedural vote, setting off a chain of events that ended with Kent Williams' usurpation of the House Speaker's gavel. But in her push to become the Meryl Streep of the Boners, she gave her most valiant effort yet. After Halloween, she posted a photo on Facebook in which she posed with her preacher, who was in costume as Aunt Jemima — yes, blackface included. Just to be clear, the representative captioned the photo, "Aunt Jemima, you is so sweet." Once the picture started making the rounds, Weaver took it down, but she managed to issue this forehead-smacker of a defense on WSMV: "I'm the least racist of anyone. Some of my greatest friends are black." And some of her favorite preachers pretend to be.
Give these dopes some Soap on a Rope.
Congressional candidates Ron Kirkland and Randy Smith beat their chests like cavemen and engaged in a little gay-bashing in their debate in the 8th District primary race. Kirkland, a Vietnam veteran, said of his time in the military: "I can tell you if there were any homosexuals in that group, they were taken care of in ways I can't describe to you." Not to be outmanned in manly manliness, Smith, who served in the first Iraqi war, added: "I definitely wouldn't want to share a shower with a homosexual. We took care of that kind of stuff, just like [Kirkland] said." Their opponent, Stephen Fincher, took care of them both at the polls without needing any shower tribunals.
The words "No room at the inn" come to mind.
For summa cum laude honors in Boner cultivation, look no further than Belmont University's spectacular public humiliation over the apparent ouster of Lisa Howe — the women's soccer coach who either was forced out once university officials discovered her same-sex partner was pregnant (as her players told the media) or voluntarily resigned (as the university hastily claimed). Issuing contradictory media statements in a matter of hours, then mouthing empty platitudes about diversity and acceptance that didn't exactly square with booting an expecting family into the cold at Christmastime — an irony lost on no one — Belmont has given a master class in mishandling a PR disaster from the first whisper.
Plenty of Dickens, no great expectations.
That goes double for Marty Dickens, the chairman of Metro's Convention Center Authority as well as Belmont's board of trustees, who told The Tennessean that Belmont holds its faculty, board members and administrators to "high moral and ethical standards within a Christian context" — implying, without coming out and saying it, that gays and lesbians automatically fail to meet that standard. (Commenters on various online threads suggested that some members of Dickens' peer group wouldn't pass that sniff test either.) Dickens' remarks should be a big help as the city tries to lure conventioneers to pay for that $600 million big box downtown in coming years. (Everybody knows gay people don't travel.) Not only did his remarks infuriate Belmont students, faculty and alums, who were incensed to see the university destroying years of PR goodwill and advancement, they brought a resounding (and widely cheered) public counterpunch from one of Belmont's biggest benefactors, music-biz heavyweight Mike Curb, who asked whether the school wanted to be a progressive university or a church.
BONERS BE PRAISED
Whom should we fear more: Middle Tennessee Muslims worshipping peaceably among us, or the Lawrences of Hysteria trying to convince us they're honing their scimitars in deadly wait? Read on, O seeker of knowledge:
Boner threat: Elevated.
Forget Muslims' nefarious attempt this year to build a mosque on the still-warm ashes of Ground Zero. If that weren't evidence enough that the world's second-largest religion is taking over America, shrieking anti-Islam factions worked overtime this year to convince locals that Middle Tennessee is essentially the set of Red Dawn, only with blazing-eyed jihadists instead of those wily Commies. The tone for the year was set in February, when vandals defaced Nolensville Road's Al-Farooq Islamic Center shortly after WTVF aired a two-night "investigation" that screamed, "Is a local Muslim community tied to TERRORISM?" — before whispering on the second night, "No."
Come for the fitness training, stay for the blood of the infidel.
Much of the Muslim mania focused on Murfreesboro, where fear-mongering opportunists shrilled that a local mosque's community-center plans were actually positioning Islam's much-feared but little-understood Sharia law for takeover. No matter that the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro's congregation had worshipped without incident in the community for 30 years, or that the center's blueprints resembled a suburban YMCA more than a Trojan camel housing a lair for world domination. A court challenge failed in November after various extracurricular attempts at dissuasion — arson and two instances of vandalism at the construction site, various threats to worshippers — had already proved unpersuasive. But those were justified, see, because if Sharia law ever creeps into our discount tobacco stores and strip malls, next thing you know there'll be intolerance!
Putting the "ass" in grassroots.
One person to thank for the manufactured outrage against the Murfreesboro mosque: professional activist and American xenophobe Laurie Cardoza-Moore, a Nashville-based fundraiser who helped gin up a faux-grassroots movement against the New York mosque before attempting to open up a franchise at home. Cardoza-Moore allegedly tossed her money all around a Rutherford County courtroom, working with co-plaintiffs Kevin Fisher, James Estes, Lisa Moore and Henry Golczynski to pursue the cogent courtroom argument that zoning laws were somehow OK for churches but not for mosques. They lost, but not before earning Middle Tennessee countless jabs and jibes from the national media.
All heed the county court jester.
For dumbfounding attention-hoggery, though, Cardoza-Moore came off as the silent Hilton twin compared to the anti-mosque faction's attorney, Joe Brandon Jr., whose method could be described as showboating — if by "showboat" you mean the Lusitania. Rolling into Chancellor Robert Corlew's Rutherford County courtroom on Nov. 17, garbed in a brown-and-goldenrod pinstriped suit and paisley tie from the Ringling Bros. Collection, the over-caffeinated Brandon clearly intended to deliver a deathblow of a closing argument against the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. Instead, Allah bless him, Brandon put on the wackiest country-lawyer routine seen in these parts since the heyday of Hee Haw, visibly embarrassing even the judge with his 300-some "ain'ts" and his paranoid ravings about "smoking guns" and "fire" and "mutiny" and "deception" by Muslims, the U.S. government, the county commission — really, anybody not named Joe Brandon Jr.
Dumb and Plumber.
It was only a matter of time in this year's election campaigns before a vote-sniffing politician tried to gain a little mileage out of all the angry opposition to the Islamic community center in Murfreesboro. Candidate for Congress Lou Ann Zelenik proudly stepped into that role by issuing a statement that not only exploited but inflamed racial prejudice and religious intolerance — and enlisted about the last ally imaginable to do it. "As Martin Luther King said, 'In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends,' so let us not be silent," Zelenik said, invoking the father of the civil rights struggle with shameless gall. "Stand strong for our God, our families, and our country. God bless you all." God help us all: Her biggest endorsement of note came from Joe the Plumber — who had, in fact, already endorsed someone else in his 55 remaining seconds of fame, but didn't let that stop him from advising people at a Zelenik event to read only encyclopedias dating back to 1970.
At least Stephen Colbert took him seriously.
In Tennessee's quest to become America's poster state for knee-jerk anti-Muslim extremism, however, no one aided more than Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, who drew international ridicule for questioning whether Islam is a cult rather than an actual religion. Asked at a gubernatorial campaign event about the "threat invading our country from Muslims," Ramsey first said he's "all about freedom of religion," but couldn't resist adding that Muslims "cross the line" when they bring Sharia law into Tennessee. (When did this happen, you ask? Shut up.) "Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, a cult, whatever you want to call it," Ramsey said — but the GOP could breathe a little easier knowing that he doesn't support stoning adulterers.
HOW RED WAS MY BONER
It was the election year that some say may have ended two-party politics in Tennessee for generations to come. What was it like to live in a once-blue state as it turned near-solid crimson? Pull the lever, and see what Boners pop up.
No Tea Party is complete without mixed nuts.
As if to signal the red-state bloodbath to come, a phalanx of carefully screened media descended on Nashville's Opryland Hotel in February for the Tea Party's national convention — an expensive, exclusive affair that left no small amount of contention in its wake. And as usual, it was the kind of publicity money couldn't buy — for rival cities such as Atlanta and Charlotte. The first-night speaker, Colorado nutjob Tom Tancredo, called President Obama "a committed socialist ideologue" elected by "people who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English." Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore castigated the president for having the audacity to issue a proclamation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month. Joseph Farah, the birther who runs World Net Daily, spent his speech questioning whether Obama's election was legitimate. He vowed to make sure that "signs saying 'Where's the Birth Certificate' " appear at every Obama campaign stop in 2012.
We just needed one finger for our response.
The life of the convention, though, was Sarah Palin, one of many contenders for the Tea Party's Mad Hatter that weekend. Her speech went virtually unnoticed, but there was a burst of liberal snickering when she was caught glancing at crib notes she scribbled on the palm of her hand for her supposedly spontaneous Q&A session with her adoring fans. Yet Palin shrewdly turned the gaffe to her advantage. On Fox News, asked what would happen if Congress allowed former President George W. Bush's tax cuts to expire, she replied that her palm wasn't big enough to list all the damage that would cause to the economy.
Red State Upchuck.
By losing the governorship and both legislative branches to the GOP for the first time since Reconstruction, the Tennessee Democratic Party erected a Boner visible from Lookout Mountain. Whether igniting ugly scorched-earth campaigns that backfired on the seemingly safe incumbents running them, fielding lackluster candidates who all but parroted conservative talking points, or squabbling pseudonymously on local message boards, state Democrats showed they need new blood more desperately than the combined casts of Eclipse and Let Me In.
Mike's Last Stand.
Nothing symbolized the state party's anemia more sadly than the gubernatorial campaign of Mike McWherter — the friendly, well-meaning beer-distributor scion of a beloved former governor, who always seemed like a placeholder marking time until the real candidate showed up. Of all the foul-ups McWherter made in his race to the bottom — including a suggestion we ought to be teaching creationism in school — his goofiest move was to suggest that featherweight rival Bill Haslam was some sort of Manchurian Candidate acting on behalf of America's mortal enemy ... the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg! Yes, channeling a suppressed Glenn Beck instinct, McWherter called a press conference to explain how Haslam's Pilot Oil was tied to all those nefarious oligarchs from Luxembourg — and by some crazy leap of logic, thus to Iran. Not only didn't the salvo land, it boomeranged when Haslam's camp noted that McWherter distributes Budweiser — itself owned by a Belgian conglomerate that bends elbows with some sketchy business associates.
Run silent, sink quickly.
Late in his campaign — after failing to raise sufficient funds to fight Haslam and alienating every progressive in the state by running like a right-winger — McWherter tried to give his flatlining effort some Big Mo by suggesting he was luring his rival into a false sense of complacency. (Hey, it works for Vanderbilt football.) With a straight face, he claimed near the end that the motto for his virtually nonexistent campaign was "run silent, run deep" — a creed adopted from the title of a 1950s submarine movie, as if letting on that he was a killing machine awaiting the right moment to torpedo the enemy. Alas, in November it was McWherter who went down to Davy Jones' locker.
Wait, Dirty Sanchez is a Republican?
Yet if the Democrats were handed a historic ass-paddling, it couldn't be blamed on the opposing camp's superior intellectual firepower. In a hilarious display of indiscriminate gloating during the campaign season, the state GOP fired off an email blast across the state alerting voters to a Scene cover story by Jeff Woods detailing the dire state of Tennessee Democrats. The chuckling stopped once they read several hundred words down — where Woods commenced to lambast the vapid, substance-free Haslam campaign and the Republicans' far-right factions. The party quickly dispatched another email backpedaling from its endorsement of the article — by which point they'd no doubt learned that its title was a slang term for a particularly grotesque sexual practice.
The United State of Wamp.
Rep. Zach Wamp, Ron Ramsey's chief rival for the screwball vote in the Republican gubernatorial primary, said states might have to think about seceding from the union unless that socialist federal government backs off. As the remark drew coast-to-coast scorn, Wamp desperately tried to take it back. "When I'm governor of Tennessee, of course we will not secede from the union," he said — at which point his voter base let out a collective "Awww." The last straw came when Ron Ramsey accused him of "over-the-top temperament and overheated, sometimes crazy rhetoric." Translation: Ramsey didn't think of it first.
Leave the election-year comedy to Republicans.
Nothing could counteract the image of state Democrats as humorless prigs like a little election-year jollity. So Chris Atkins, campaign manager for Debbie Matthews, thought he'd send out a fundraising email for his boss from "billketron@gmail.com" — that being Matthews' opponent, State Sen. Bill Ketron. Unfortunately for Atkins, Ketron didn't get the joke — neither, really, did anyone else — and hauled Atkins and Matthews to court in a case that's still pending. In an early ruling, the judge pointed out that no reasonable person could have believed Ketron would endorse Matthews. Ketron got the last (and perhaps only) laugh — easily defeating Matthews and being elected as the Senate GOP Caucus Chair.
STATE OF THE BONERS
While electile disorder gripped Tennessee, your legislators were hard at work generating what comes naturally: chaos. A few lowlights:
Horse d'oeuvres, anyone?
Nothing could seem less controversial than Rep. Janis Sontany's bill to make cruelty to farm animals a felony instead of a misdemeanor, just like cruelty to pets like cats and dogs — right? Wrong. Sontany couldn't even coax a motion for passage out of the state House Agriculture Committee, much less a second. The reason: The powerful Farm Bureau hated the bill — and like any good pet, the committee dutifully goes where its master points. One member, Rep. Frank Niceley, helpfully suggested that to stop the suffering of horses, we should eat them.
Sorry, Charlie.
House Speaker Kent Williams almost torpedoed passage of this year's state budget all by himself by insisting on sticking his snout into the trough of federal stimulus cash to pay for a $17 million fish hatchery in his district. Happy to give Williams a swift kick in return for the nutshot that elected him speaker last year, fellow Republicans recognized a winning election-year issue when they saw one. They held up the budget while seizing upon the fish hatchery as a horrific example of wasteful government spending. Eventually Williams was forced to back down, much to the GOP's disappointment, but not before they were able to clip him with a zinger: "Fish — it's the new pork!"
Weapons of mass dysfunction.
State Rep. Donna Rowland brazenly hopped up on the House floor and tried to amend a bill to help her then-fiancé, political cash machine Ronnie Barrett. He was demanding that the state violate all kinds of federal regulations and surrender interstate right-of-way so he could gain better access to his ammo factory. All session, Rowland watched from the sidelines as Barrett's various buddies in the legislature pushed a special bill just for him. Their efforts failed when the media caught wind of their scheme and embarrassed them by doing stories about it. Undeterred, she finally abandoned all caution and started trying to do Barrett's bidding herself. She failed — which holds out hope that some standards are too low even for state legislators to limbo under.
Here's a Ford that needs a muffler.
Need a purgative? Tennessee Democrats didn't after reading Harold Ford Jr.'s memoir, More Davids than Goliaths, in which he tossed various former allies under the bus. Phil Bredesen and Steve Cohen were among the Democrats who drew Ford's darts in this book-length ego-stroke, which showed the dilettante heir to the declining Ford dynasty owning up to his faults: goshdarnit, he works too hard and cares too much. As he contemplated running for the Senate from New York this year, Ford became the butt of jokes for abandoning many of the positions he held in Tennessee to curry favor with liberals in his new state. Still, one thing bodes well for his future: Only Tennessee Democrats read his book.
BOOK 'EM, BONERS
Some oddities from the Twilight Zone of Tennessee law enforcement.
Strange brew.
Ordinarily, beer and Boners aren't thought to mix — but this year proved an exception. On April Fool's Day, police finally shut down the spree of Nashville's notorious "Beer Bandit," so nicknamed for his habit of fleeing convenience stores with two to four 18-packs for resale. Police said that Andrew G. Walker, 46, explained he stole the beer to pay for his crack habit. At least that made his actions somewhat understandable — unlike the dunce who dashed out of a convenience store in May with stolen brewskis, then was caught when he returned to swap them because they weren't cold.
A rogue by any other name.
In March, police responded to a suspicious-person call in Franklin, only to find a man named Berry Oden. According to police, Oden was worried that he was wanted on another charge, so he gave someone else's name as his own. Trouble was, Oden had no beefs outstanding on his record — but the name he gave to police did. Oden was arrested for criminal impersonation.
Reach out and cut someone.
Carlton Waller was sent to Skyline Hospital last March with a deep cut between his thumb and forefinger. When police responded to the 911 call in North Nashville, they discovered an unlikely suspect: his 81-year-old grandmother, who reportedly told officers she cut him with a knife when he refused to get off her phone.
Hey, we know a school that needs a soccer coach!
Convicted Ponzi schemer Gordon Grigg lost his bid for early release, but not for lack of trying. At his initial sentencing, Grigg drew a verbal lashing from Judge Aleta Trauger for using Bible verses and an overlay of well-rehearsed piety to sweet-talk his victims. In a letter to Judge Trauger, Grigg's wife argued that surely his good deeds should trump his 10-year sentence for wire and mail fraud. Yet somehow the judge was not moved by the examples — among them that he "coached [soccer] teams where his own children were not playing and never charged a penny."
Only in Tennessee can you get a hole in one playing baseball.
Opponents of allowing guns in parks seized upon the example of Nicolis Williams, a Memphis man who was attending his son's baseball game in Bartlett, Tenn., in June when he got upset that his son wasn't getting enough at-bats. Williams was asked to leave, a coach went to talk to him after the game, heated words were exchanged on both sides in the parking lot, and Williams evidently decided to settle the argument in the time-honored Cooperstown tradition — by pulling his licensed handgun on the coach. Williams was charged with aggravated assault, while livid arguments raged on comments threads across the state — thankfully, without weapons at hand.
THE SOUND OF BONERS
Consider this an EP of odds, sods and sour notes from the world of music.
John Mayer, your Boner is a wonderland.
Finally, a "boner" that's actually about someone's boner. A bigoted boner, as a matter of fact. At the beginning of the year, hitherto unconfirmed douchebag John Mayer gave an interview to Playboy in which he said (between bouts of verbal diarrhea) that his "dick is sort of like a white supremacist," and that he has a "Benetton heart and a fuckin' David Duke cock." Oh, and he also casually dropped the N-bomb, as only a white dude who's been on Chappelle's Show can. Shortly thereafter, Mayer played at Bridgestone Arena — then still the Sommet Center — where he delivered a tearful, rambling apology to a befuddled audience that mostly wasn't sure what he was talking about. At least he didn't take the easy way out: The Boner made me do it!
They've taken enough crap from Nashville Cream.
It was the scat-shot heard 'round the world. Any rock band that manages to top the charts and sell out stadiums is eventually bound to have a Spinal Tap moment. In July, for Nashville's Kings of Leon, such a milestone came in the form of a flock of pigeons that forced the band from the stage of St. Louis' Verizon Wireless Amphitheater the only way they know how: by pooping on them. While getting bird-bombed before tens of thousands is slightly more embarrassing than losing your way to the stage or getting stuck in a giant lemon, one can only think the band would've thought twice about jumping ship (or shit) had they anticipated the global blowback of angry fans and amused foes. Nevertheless, the band returned to The 'Lou for a make-up performance in September. The pigeons did not.
The static only increases off the air.
Whatever the real reasons the Vanderbilt Student Communications board has decided to explore selling WRVU's broadcast license — declining print ad revenues at the Hustler, maybe, or a drop in the numbers of college kids listening to radio — it caused nothing but trouble when the station's many supporters found out that VSC had pre-emptively purchased the domain names savewrvu.com and savewrvu.org more than a week before making their announcement. They eventually handed the domains over to a group that actually wants to save WRVU, but not before the whole thing blew up in their faces.
BONER ATHLETIC SUPPORT
A few missed goals and bungled plays from the sporting life.
Fair game.
Here's a lesson hard-learned this year: Don't fuck with racing fans. When the Dean administration hit the streets in September with a shocking proposal — sell the Tennessee State Fairgrounds to corporate developers, demolish the speedway and move the expo center to Hickory Hollow Mall — the chief proponents of our Little Daytona off Nolensville Pike went berserk, inspiring the mayor's office to respond in kind. With roughly one-quarter of the city dividing itself into distinct pro- and anti-fairgrounds-status-quo factions (leaving the remaining 75 percent of Nashvillians to continue not giving a shit), we were faced with a dilemma about our future: Which do we value more, the state fair, the racetrack or an office park? And can the community's actual wishes for the property (whatever they are) be heard above the din of competing interests?
Puny Lane.
Want to drive Big Orange fans into sputtering rage? Mention the name "Lane Kiffin," who's about as popular at UT these days as Benedict Arnold is at West Point. The full magnitude of Kiffin's Boners became known only after his sudden departure last winter to coach the USC Trojans — starting with his recruiting guru (and all-around wackadoodle) Ed Oregeron trying to convince UT recruits to go with Kiffin and the coaching staff to L.A. Then came news that Kiffin's staff hung pictures of USC greats around the UT locker room — y'know, since the Vols have never produced any great players. Perhaps worst of all to Big Orange apostles, Kiffin did not lead the team in the traditional pre-game recitation of the sanctified Seven Maxims of Football by Gen. Robert Neyland ... the football equivalent of going to Mass and skipping the Our Father. Kiffin's comeuppance came, though: He was sued by the Titans, UT went a surprising 6-6 under Derek Dooley while USC went a disappointing 8-5, and during a drubbing by Oregon, the Duck band flipped Kiffin a musical bird — a lusty rendition of "Rocky Top."
Hey, what's Woody Widenhofer doing these days?
Breaking up is hard to do, but Vandy's unceremonious ouster of football Coach Robbie Caldwell makes cab fare the morning after look like the height of chivalry. Just hours before kickoff of the Commodores' final game against Wake Forest, Caldwell issued a statement in classic hostage-video speak saying the game against the Demon Deacons would be his last for the Black and Gold. It was no great secret that Caldwell's stint on West End would be short: He's a great guy who provided plenty of laughs, did things the right way — and like so many Commodore coaches before him, was completely overwhelmed on the field. But forcing his resignation just before a game was yet another slip-up from Vanderbilt's athletic program, which posts Boners more easily than points. At least they've lined up Gus Malzahn to — oh, wait.
A Boner best served cold, with pigtails.
The Tennessean's Predators beatmen Joshua Cooper and Bryan Mullen earned some time in the penalty box from fans after their Oct. 22 snafu. Reporting on the Preds' home defeat to the Pittsburgh Penguins, the pair reported in the daily fishwrapper that soon after the home team took a 3-2 lead, fans in Bridgestone Arena chanted "We want Crosby," referring to the Pens' all-world centerman. In fact, the faithful were chanting, "We want Frostys!" — as they always do when the Preds net their third goal, in anticipation of the free frozen treat from Wendy's earned when the team gets four goals. Despite being told repeatedly what fans were really saying, Cooper and Mullen stuck to their story like a tongue on a subzero flagpole. In their honor, a sarcastic "We want Crosby" will occasionally echo through Bridgestone — presumably aimed at the press box — when the Preds get on the cusp of the magic number.
There Will Be Bud.
It's hard to determine who exactly is responsible for the massive Boner that has been the back half of the Titans 2010 season. But certainly a large chunk of the blame rests with the petulant Vince Young and his patron, increasingly senile team owner Bud Adams, whose man-crush on Young has him thinking the quarterback and Coach Jeff Fisher will get along just fine. Even though Young tossed his shoulder pads into the stands after being removed from the Redskins game. Even after he mockingly encouraged Titans fans — defenders as well as detractors — to boo him. Even after he reportedly lashed out at Fisher in the locker room post-game. Even after (in a particularly Boner-worthy fit) he tried to escape from teammates and media and sped off — into the crawling pace of post-game traffic. If Adams has his way, this Boner will keep raging into the offseason and beyond — and that beats anything Young did on his own.
TEST YOUR BONER ACUMEN
1. The J Street Market in North Nashville had a lucrative customer base, as evinced from all the cash found there in March. That success was the result of:
A. the ABC's of customer service: Always Be Convenience-Store-Managing.
B. Gwyneth Paltrow's rave about the pickled pigs' feet on GOOP.
C. Where the Locals Eat.
D. the cocaine, pot and ecstasy that undercover officers said they purchased there.
2. Shelbyville resident Torry Ann Hansen, 33, pretty much forfeited any claim to Mother of the Year honors when she:
A. showed up on Kid Rock's arm at Margaritaville.
B. gave all the kids "tart" at Sweet CeCe's and laughed when they made faces.
C. failed to DVR a Suite Life on Deck marathon.
D. packed her adopted 7-year-old off alone on a trans-Atlantic flight back to his Russian orphanage, claiming she'd been misled about the boy's behavioral problems.
3. In May, a Madison man sued the parent company of Mapco Express, claiming that a Madison Mapco's negligence caused him to:
A. ask for water, and they gave him gasoline.
B. accidentally eat one of those hot dogs that looks like a cigar smeared with Vaseline.
C. fill his tank with Faygo.
D. sit on a broken toilet seat's exposed bolt, injuring his prostate and poking him in the perineum.
4. Maury County teen Cortez Wyanna was initially charged with felony robbery and indicted by a grand jury on counts of theft under $500, assault, resisting arrest and more. What was his heinous crime?
A. He shot a man in Sewanee just to watch him die.
B. He converted a school metal shop into a chop shop for stolen auto parts.
C. He started cooking meth with the help of his cancer-ridden chemistry teacher.
D. He stole a cheese stick from a high school lunch line.
5. Movie lovers were surprised to pick up the Scene and find that:
A. Jim Ridley still hadn't been fired.
B. Nicole Kidman was voted Nashville's best actress by Scene readers — no, wait, that really happened.
C. Jack Silverman was the fifth Trash Humper.
D. Thanks to the bonehead editor, a photo suggested that the star of Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious was the late rapper The Notorious B.I.G.
Answers: 1 through 5, D
