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August 12, 2007
Robert's Almanac: A Downtown Corn Journal
When the moon lines up with Venus sometime mid-month, there's going to be hell to pay. Because Venus rules love, see, and it's going to bring love to the corn. All the work I've put in to the peppers, tomatoes, and especially the corn will finally pay off. All the blood, sweat, and tears, all the neighbors who said I was crazy for growing a garden on the roof, it'll be worth it. I hope they don't think they're getting any of it. Prime reaping this month and on into harvest time. I've dealt with crop circles and a shit storm that nearly destroyed it all, but my corn is thriving. Year of the Weasel be damned. It's up to here. I'll show you.
Sports Celebreality Awaits Troubled Athletes as Second Career
We're all familiar with the legal troubles of today's athletes and the referees who fix the games in which they are suspended from. But what happens to them after their careers and/or commuted sentences are over?
"It could be considered a kind of welcome back tour", said O.J. Simpson, the host of the proposed show on ESPN, "Sports Celebreality".
"Welcome back from what?" you might ask. Well, in some cases, the pokey, but more often than not, irrelevance. That's right, it's "Sports Celebreality" and it might just be the next addition to ESPN's popular-for-a-month-or-two genre.
"We're trying to give these guys a second, third, fourth or maybe even fifth chance to succeed in life. For some of them, exploiting their bad-boy image is the only way to do that", said the Juice. In other words, Michael Vick, Barry Bonds and NBA referee Tim Donaghy's new identity will have a future in the public eye. Other obvious choices to fill out the cast would be suspected cannibal Mike Tyson, gambling junkie Pete Rose, 'roider Jose Canseco, rainmaker Pacman Jones, world-class jerk Kobe Bryant and apologetic racist John Rocker.
Critics, quick to scoff at the idea, point out that the show is "an impossible idea with no real potential for any level of success whatsoever", says media critic Miles Fenster. First off, Tim Donaghy's placement in witness protection would exclude him automatically and his absence would make Pete Rose lose all interest in trying to rake in all that cash from the fixed fights between Mike Tyson and Michael Vick's dog. Bonds and Canseco's endless arm-wrestling matches and crying spells would become tiresome as would Kobe's incessant looks of frustration. Footage of Jones making it rain would almost surely be unusable and John Rocker is quite simply an asshole that nobody likes. But most importantly says Fenster, "everyone would be a little too freaked out to be around O.J. that much." (Touche Miles, Touche.)
To that, one anonymous ESPN exec responds, "We've put worse crap than that on and rode the wave of success for a year or two. Hell, we air bowling! Bowling! People will watch what we tell them to watch!" ESPN writes them off as "haters", claiming that the players' oversized egos, inflated sense of importance and spontaneous roid rages could make for great TV. That is, until somebody gets an ear bitten off.
by Harold Throckmorton
August 11, 2007
New Downtown School for Bums
Jenkins Alabaster Mayweather is bringing skills to the street.
A local citizen who is concerned about the pandhandling problem in Downtown Memphis is taking action. That citizen's name is Jenkins Mayweather, and he is the pioneer of an inspiring movement and the founder of a most unusual school.
"I look around," says Mayweather, "and I says to myself Jenkins, you got to do something about this."
Panhandling is what he's talking about, and apparently, he is the man for the job. "I've been there, know what I'm saying. I was hustling on the street, and I pulled myself up by my boot strings, and I think the Lord wants me to help others do the same."
Mayweather says he was moved to action when God spoke to him from a dumpster he was digging through. "Well, I was kind of high on Waltussins," says Mayweather, "but I know what I know. God don't speak to ya and ya don't know it. This voice echoed in the dumpster 'Get outta here. Get your own!' And that was it. It was like one of them epiphernies. The Lord wanted me to go get mine."
Sanctioned by the almighty or not, Mayweather has been getting his, and now he's helping others do the same. "The problem is," he explains, "these brothers ain't go no game. They just begging, and people don't want to pay for nothin. And that's where I come in."
Mayweather founded Jenkins Alabaster Mayweather's School for the Advancement of Bums last month, where panhandlers can learn valuable life skills. "We meet in an alley. I ain't saying where cause we got a lot of haters right now," he explains. "But we assemble for about an hour, and I speak on how to step up your game."
The haters Mayweather refers to are, among others, a group called Handling Panhandling, who mercilessly fight to stop panhandling altogether with photography, blogs, and actual interruptions of interactions with pedestrians.
"I agree there's a problem," Mayweather says. "The begging and the flowers are all played out. You got to have a viable product. So I teach the fellas how to better themselves. Expand their talents and what not."
One of his students named Curtis demonstrated. "I bet you five dollars I know where you got them shoes," he said to a man passing by. The gentleman took the bait at which point Curtis replied, "On your feet."
Mayweather even arranged a meeting with the Chief of Police recently to present his program and illustrate how his students are offering services and entertainment to tourists and pedestrians of Downtown Memphis.
"We're trying to keep an open mind," said Chief Higgins "to his ideas and his stick-figures-on-dirty-paper presentation, though it was difficult, given the distinct odor of alcohol about his person. We explained to Mr. Mayweather that his school will have to purchase permits and the legal parameters of such permits."
Mayweather is optimistic for his program and confident in his teachings. "I don't know about no parameters," he says, "but we are offering the citizens and especially the tourists a authentic Memphis experience. Soon all the panhandlers of the city will be shining shoes, bottle-top-tap dancing, and what we call humorous hustling. We're even working on stand-up comedy routines. However, I want to say that the Jenkins Alabaster Mayweather School for the Advancement of Bums does not accept crazies. There is a strict, what you call a application process."
While there is plenty of opposition to panhandling altogether, Mayweather guarantees a noticeable improvement in the quality of panhandling tactics in as little as two months. "If that don't happen," he says, "my name ain't Jenkins Alabaster Mayweather. All we need is donations, and you can make your check out to me, although my accountant is concerned about my being knocked into a higher tax bracket. So you can, but we prefer cash."
by Penny Lane
