More than three decades ago, staff of the then-fledgling alternative-weekly newspaper the Nashville Scene cooked up a bright idea: an annual issue designed to recap the year’s biggest goofs, gaffes, blunders and boneheadedness. These annual anti-awards would be named for scandal-plagued former Nashville Mayor Bill Boner, the one-term wonder known for — among other things — a peculiar 1990 appearance on The Phil Donahue Show.
In light of all that has transpired over the past 34 years, Mayor Boner’s transgressions seem downright quaint compared to what lands in the Boner Awards nowadays. But the name nevertheless stuck. This year’s issue has it all: state leaders infighting, acting weird on Instagram and harassing interns; country stars proudly defending racist music videos; Franklin’s mayoral and alderman candidates seemingly coming from some far-off, racist planet.
Read on for a list of this year’s biggest screw-ups, compiled by the Scene’s editorial staff. See also: our petty-crime roundup, in which we highlight some of the dopes and ding-a-lings arrested for Boner-worthy behavior in 2023.
The Gift of Gab
Former Franklin Alderman (and failed mayoral candidate) Gabrielle Hanson made national news following a slew of incidents throughout 2023. Those included defending her association with white supremacists (including Lewis Country Store owner and Proud Boy face-tattoo-haver Brad Lewis), who acted as a show of force at a candidate forum; appearing with a white supremacist as her campaign platformed white nationalist talking points; falsely claiming to have had advance knowledge of the Covenant School shooting; alleging “unfounded” threats against her surrounding her opposition to the 2023 Franklin Pride Festival; threatening to have a reporter arrested; evading questions about her criminal past; and attempting to pressure the Nashville International Airport to pull sponsorship support of a Juneteenth event, leading to a city ethics violation and her failed attempt at suing the Franklin Ethics Commission. And that was all before she claimed, without evidence, election fraud after being drubbed by incumbent Mayor Ken Moore in the municipal election. Hanson’s campaign was also under the microscope of NewsChannel 5’s investigative reporter Phil Williams, who published several stories about the embattled candidate’s deceptive campaign posts featuring relative strangers as well as questions about Hanson and her husband’s residency and her husband’s participation in a Chicago Pride parade. (Hanson has been a very vocal opponent of Pride celebrations.) Hanson evaded censure by resigning one day before her term expired.
Pride Before the Fall
The 2023 Franklin Pride Festival was narrowly approved and successfully took place in June — but not before several Franklin aldermen made fools of themselves on the national stage. Former Alderman (and failed mayoral candidate) Gabrielle Hanson and reelected Alderman Beverly Burger both expressed concern that “outside agitators” could “sabotage” Franklin Pride in an “inside job” operation from “national Pride organizations.” (This of course never happened.) Burger and Hanson also claimed to have received “threats” because of their stance on Franklin Pride, but only Hanson ever reported anything to police. Franklin Police later said Hanson’s reported threats were “unfounded.” That’s kind of a theme with her.
Bull Session
Second-term Gov. Bill Lee took about two weeks to grow a spine following the March 27 Covenant School shooting: On April 11 he called for action on guns from the legislature (while avoiding public memorials for slain children and educators — one of whom was his wife’s friend). In August, Lee called a special legislative session on “public safety,” but the Republican majority in the legislature failed to do much of anything. They actively opposed Lee’s call for red-flag laws — legislation designed to keep guns out of the hands of people deemed an immediate threat. The governor quickly gave up the fight, announcing last month that he’ll no longer support a push for red-flag laws going forward. Valiant effort, sir.
Son of a Gun
“If there is a firearm out there that you’re comfortable being shot with, please show me which one it is.” That was House Majority Leader William Lamberth’s response to a hallway full of students gathered at the Cordell Hull Building to demand gun reform after the Covenant School shooting. It’s hard to understand how Lamberth thought that would be a helpful statement to the young Tennesseans, but it illustrates just how hardheaded and resistant Tennessee Republicans are to any kind of meaningful gun reform. John Oliver highlighted the situation in an April episode of Last Week Tonight, and described Lamberth’s words as “a hall-of-fame shitty response.” We couldn’t agree more, John.
Egg on Your Face
There was plenty of tension at this year’s special legislative session called in response to the Covenant School shooting, and it wasn’t all between those supporting gun restrictions and the Republican lawmakers opposing them. With the House and Senate — both controlled by Republicans — disagreeing over how many bills to pass, House Republicans grew frustrated with their friends down the hall. House GOP Caucus Chair Jeremy Faison delivered an ostrich egg, symbolizing the Senate having their head in the sand, to the Senate floor. Senators were not amused, as fellow Republican Sen. Paul Bailey told Faison in response to an apology that he “should be apologizing to the moms that were unjustly removed” from House hearings.
Hot Water
In the tense days after the Covenant School shooting, moms and other concerned residents descended on the state Capitol to demand action. Adam Lowe, a freshman Republican senator from McMinn County, thought it was great. Caught on a hot mic during a dead period, Lowe quipped to Lt. Gov. Randy McNally that they got “all the attractive moms in Nashville” to come up to the Capitol. The moms were not amused, and in the days after, Lowe sort of apologized and sort of attacked the media for making it up. (We did not make it up.)
Unintended Consequences
Cameron Sexton’s shortsighted crew of vindictive Republicans handed their opposition a once-in-a-generation gift when they went after outspoken Democratic colleagues Justin Pearson, Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson. Expelled by their GOP colleagues and then promptly reinstated by their local governments, Jones and Pearson became martyrs for gun control and darlings of the national media while raking in precious fundraising dollars. Though she wasn’t formally expelled, Johnson’s role in the “Tennessee Three’’ helped her launch a U.S. Senate bid. The petty maneuver by conservatives backfired predictably, a reminder that state Republicans’ hubris and spite could threaten their own comfortable majority.
Loud and Clear
Inadvertently turning a trio of Democratic lawmakers into heroes wasn’t the only misstep made by Republican leaders during the expulsion hearings of state Reps. Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson. In April, an unknown source leaked an audio recording from a closed-door House Republican Caucus meeting to the Tennessee Holler, revealing infighting and pettiness among the state’s GOP supermajority. The recording is rife with defensiveness and accusations of “bull crap” from conservatives including Reps. Jody Barrett and Jason Zachary, proving that the Tennessee General Assembly is just as much of a shitshow behind closed doors as it is in the public eye.
Home Away From Home
Cameron Sexton, the Republican speaker of the House, is supposed to live in Crossville. In recent years, though, he bought a home in Nashville and sends his kid to school here. No one seems to care much, though, but we figured it was worth calling attention to once more.
Payback
A few short years ago, state health official Michelle Fiscus became Republicans’ punching bag in anti-vaccine propaganda. Now Fiscus is collecting $150,000 from fiscally responsible Tennessee for a defamation case she filed in response to an extended campaign from lawmakers to discredit her for doing her job. Fiscus left Tennessee after being fired from the state health department during the public onslaught of un-science from Republican armchair experts, but she vowed to clear her name. Sometimes the best revenge is a fat check.
Can’t Say That
Tennessee lawmakers routinely use their platforms and policy for the blatantly racist work of cutting government programs, defunding traditional public school systems, locking up immigrants and trying to gerrymander minority lawmakers out of their seats. Sparta Republican Paul Sherrell went even further in February when he suggested the state bring back "hanging by a tree." Even today, almost everybody agrees that lynching, the terrorism campaign that claimed 233 lives over 75 years in Tennessee, isn’t appropriate fodder for the Tennessee House. Black lawmakers immediately called for his resignation, and Sherrell later apologized for his “exaggerated” comments.
Struck Down
Making law is the most basic task of the hundred-odd elected officials who collect taxpayer-funded per diems in Nashville from January to May. This year, conservatives spent hours trying to dunk on Nashville with legislation to take over the airport, slash the Metro Council, criminalize trans people, force a city deal with NASCAR and control the Metro Sports Authority. After a flurry of challenges from city attorneys, the courts spent a few months blocking or undoing many of these constitutionally ignorant efforts. The more Gov. Bill Lee, Rep. Cameron Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally find themselves on the losing end of lawsuits, the more their esteemed chambers look like weak political theater.
Randy Indeed
In March, the Tennessee Holler uncovered several comments left by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally on Instagram posts from a young gay man and aspiring superstar named Franklin McClure. The posts — thirst traps featuring McClure showcasing his nearly nude physique — were peppered with, ahem, words of encouragement from the presiding officer of the Tennessee Senate. “You can turn a rainy day into rainbows and sunshine!” reads one. “Super look Finn,” says McNally in another. Other comments featured simply fire and heart emojis. McNally issued a statement admitting that he left the comments but denying any funny business, later giving an interview to NewsChannel 5’s Phil Williams. He apologized and admitted it was “probably not” a good idea to like one of McClure’s posts about, uh, performing sex acts for weed. But by that point it was too late. Randy’s randy deeds had already made it all the way to Studio 8H in Manhattan, where Saturday Night Live’s Molly Kearney appeared as McNally in a delightful “Weekend Update” segment. Whoops!
Scotty Can’t Take a No
Despite his title of caucus vice chair, Scotty Campbell, a Republican representative from Mountain City, was mostly a nobody at the state legislature. That didn’t stop him from making headlines. Earlier this year, a House ethics subcommittee determined that Campbell had sexually harassed at least one legislative intern, whose move out of a shared apartment building was then funded by Tennessee taxpayers. House leaders forgot to tell the public about it, though, and it wasn’t until Phil Williams went poking around that Scotty was forced out, in the meantime proactively admitting to harassing yet another intern.
Above the Law
You’d think Brian Kelsey, a constitutional lawyer by day and the onetime chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, would know his laws and court procedures and things of that nature. When he was first charged with federal campaign finance crimes, he claimed he was innocent. Then he pleaded guilty and admitted to the crimes. Then he tried to take the guilty plea back, claiming he hadn’t understood what he was agreeing to, which did not amuse the federal judge in charge of his case. Now Kelsey, the lawmaker-turned-lawbreaker, is appealing the 21-month prison sentence for the crimes to which he previously admitted guilt.
Education Consternation
Tennessee Republicans seem dead set on creating as many problems for Tennessee’s public school system as possible. One of the myriad ways they’ve done that is through a controversial law that retains certain third-graders who don’t score high enough on the reading section of a state test. Those who don’t pass that particular section must receive specified academic interventions and demonstrate adequate growth in order to advance to the next grade. Ultimately, the legislation didn’t hold back that many more third-graders than usual — just over 1 percent of Tennessee students (898 total), as reported by The Tennessean. But thousands of students might still be retained in fourth grade if they don’t show enough improvement after receiving tutoring. Students, parents and educators advocated against the law and asked legislators to roll it back, saying the test is more complex than necessary and isn’t a fair way to assess students’ reading abilities. Families and educators were left to contend with the new requirements and the complications they presented, describing the situation as “chaos,” “confusion,” “unfair,” “defeating” and “really bad.” Educators said it caused panic and anxiety among students. Was that the legislative intent?
Drag for Lee but Not for Thee
Tennessee once again made national headlines this year when the General Assembly passed legislation banning “adult cabaret performances” on public property outside of age-restricted venues. Multiple Tennessee judges have since deemed the so-called anti-drag legislation unconstitutional and blocked its enforcement, but shortly before Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill into law, a photo emerged of the governor during his years at Franklin High School. In the photo, Lee is dressed in women’s clothing — in drag, in other words, on public property, in front of minors. The photo went wildly viral. At a press scrum not long after, Lee called a question about the photograph “ridiculous,” saying, “Sexualized entertainment in front of children is a very serious subject.” Of course sexual entertainment in front of kids is very serious and very unacceptable — that’s why obscenity laws exist. And with obscenity laws already in place, critical thinkers might find themselves asking, “Why then do we need additional laws targeting drag performers specifically?”
Dumber Than Dirt
The business wing of Nashville’s Republican circles is not sending its best and brightest. During this year’s mayoral election, an attack ad aimed at candidate Freddie O’Connell and looking like it was crafted with a 2009 copy of Windows Movie Maker claimed to be funded by “Friends of Enoch Fuzz.” Fuzz, a prominent Black minister, said he had no idea what the group was. Sign magnate Bobby Joslin, one of the local conservative businessmen behind the ad, said he had never talked to Fuzz, but “it’s all good.” In the end, the ad (along with similar ones from fellow conservative businessman Steve Smith) might have done more to help O’Connell stand out from the general election pack than anything.
Big Tent
Is it too much to ask for a conservative campaign staff that doesn’t have ties to misogynist militias or neo-Nazi fascism? Mayoral runoff contender Alice Rolli told reporters that, yes, maybe she should have called more references after news broke that a consultant on her doomed campaign also suggested sending Proud Boys to rallies disputing the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. The unsavory ties helped sink Rolli’s longshot campaign midway through September.
Diminishing Returns
A few years after retiring at the top of financial powerhouse AllianceBernstein, Jim Gingrich made the short-lived and shortsighted decision to trade $2 million for a failed bid for the mayor’s office. Four years after John Cooper successfully self-loaned his way to a runoff victory, Gingrich proved that the seat can’t be bought outright — a somewhat comforting consolation for a city subjected to nonstop Gingrich ads in the spring and early summer. He dropped out after polling around 2 percent, demonstrating a financial idiom well known among traders in the money business: Buy high, sell low.
The Same Old Song
Remember Stephanie Johnson? The mayoral candidate’s campaign didn’t go anywhere, as it was basically a website and some forum appearances. But on that website was a series of tortured metaphors about Music City and how “Music City is out of tune.” Well, at least one person loved that idea — fellow candidate Heidi Campbell! The only ad to hit the airwaves from Campbell’s fifth-place effort was a 30-second spot about how — wait for it — Music City is “out of tune.” A Boner Award to the ad gurus who didn’t even look at the slogans of other candidates in the race before using them.
Not Ready for Primetime
Jonathan Williamson seemed like a promising candidate for an at-large seat on the Metro Council: young, engaged, with leadership stints at the local NAACP. But then you take a tour of his social media posts. He wrote that Black non-immigrants get “zero” benefit from supporting immigrants. He dished out antisemitic conspiracies like candy. When asked about the posts, he deflected or pretended they did not exist. And then he got second-to-last place out of 21 candidates.
Lost in the Mail
Nashville General Hospital administration seems to think of itself as a kid who wasn’t invited to the birthday party — but what they’re trying to do needs no invitation. The city’s safety-net hospital has long been preparing for a new location, and for at least a year-and-a-half has been publicly stating that it wants the city to donate land. In one meeting, Nashville General Hospital had its sights set on Metro Center, a site managed by the Metro Parks and Recreation Department. Parks confirmed twice, in March and November, that the hospital never reached out. The reason for lurking around without any action is unclear, especially as the hospital runs out the clock before its lease is set to end at the Meharry Medical College campus in 2027. Time to invite yourself, NGH.
Poor Planning
Throughout his four years atop Metro, former Mayor John Cooper barely hid his sympathies for real estate. Nashville’s lucrative market of buying, selling and developing property has helped his family hold onto generations of accumulated wealth in Middle Tennessee; it’s also helped create a city of single-family homes out of reach for most Nashvillians. In one of his final moves as mayor, Cooper proposed a few names to fill vacant seats across Metro’s vast landscape of boards and commissions — including local builder Matthew Smith, whose firm has helped turbocharge Green Hills with faux farmhouse McMansions. Cooper pulled Smith’s appointment to Metro’s powerful Planning Commission after a Scene article pointed out Smith’s conflict of interest. Correction: A few weeks after a testy initial hearing, an apologetic Smith returned to the council having resigned from the Homebuilders’ Association. He was appointed to the Planning Commission in late June after having pledged his loyalty to Metro.
Gay Friends on Boats
The race for Metro Council District 11 was one of this year’s most closely watched local elections. The runoff came down to conservative Jeff Eslick — an associate of loudmouthed Lower Broad bar owner Steve Smith — and Eric Patton, an openly gay progressive. A political action committee’s mailer in support of Eslick during the runoff was loaded with weird, aggressive, anti-LGBTQ messaging. Eslick distanced himself from the mailer, but when asked about it, the PAC’s treasurer Robert Farrar said: “Eric’s labeled me as a homophobic or whatever. I’ve got — it doesn’t matter — I’ve got several gay friends, and we go out on boats, well, I mean — but anyway.” Oh, well in that case, never mind. Totally normal!
Sitting Duck
In the less than two years he worked in Nashville, T.J. Ducklo — the now-former communications professional for then-Mayor John Cooper — earned a Boner Award twice. After stepping down from his position as White House deputy press secretary in 2021 for harassing a reporter, he began working for the Cooper administration in April 2022. Later that year, Ducklo ruffled feathers after a heated discussion related to public funding for a new Titans stadium, tweeting that it had been a “tough night for the loudest voices in the room.” (The tweet has since been deleted.) Mocking good-faith criticism of a $2.1 billion partially taxpayer-funded project was silly and dismissive. Even with his frequently atrocious vibes, Ducklo must be really good at job interviews. He recently moved away to take a job as senior adviser for communications at Biden for President.
Is Antifa in the Room With Us Now, Jeff?
During his campaign, failed Franklin alderman candidate Jeff Feldman said he is about “freedom and Jesus.” But as revealed by NewsChannel 5 investigative reporter Phil Williams, Feldman is also about lying and being weird. Williams’ reporting revealed that Feldman had not only padded his résumé, but also made dubious claims about being a “partner” in an “aerospace company” and a trained mental health professional. If that wasn’t bad enough, Feldman also defended social media posts in which he seemingly threatened to shoot teenagers, who he told Williams could be part of “Antifa.” Freedom and Jesus, you say?
Pod Help Us
Metro spent (wasted?) $1.2 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding on 108 Pallet Shelter-brand tiny homes — homes that never housed a single person. The Nashville Office of Emergency Management and the Metro Health Department announced in October 2021 that 25 pods were installed in the parking lot of Nashville Rescue Mission to serve as COVID isolation structures — a victory for COVID efforts to help a population hit badly, one might hope. Instead, they sat empty for seven months. Eighty-three more have been in storage from the get-go. Councilmember Erin Evans brought them up again, and it was revealed that they were at the center of a years-long debate between the Metro Department of Codes and Building Safety and the state Fire Marshal’s Office. Turns out Metro had a dumbass attack and bought the pods seemingly without consulting the fire marshal’s office, which handles Tennessee’s manufactured homes regulation. Negotiations remain at a stalemate, because apparently the pods are pretty flammable.
Boner Death Spiral
Historically speaking, most Boner Award recipients don’t acknowledge their awards. But not America’s Worst Gambling Expert Clay Travis, who also moonlights as a right-wing hot-take artist and professional sports bro. When we gave Travis a Boner last year (that phrase will haunt our dreams) for railing against a Little League umpire, the professional outrage machine at his Outkick media operation wrote a post about it, proving that even bad attention is good attention if you’re a media whore. We hesitated to even acknowledge this with a Boner Award of its own this year, for fear that Outkick will write about this year’s award and we’ll fall into some Boner death spiral. But that’s a risk we’re willing to take.
What About Bob?
We’re fans of longtime WKRN anchor Bob Mueller around these parts. Hell, we’ve even put him on our cover. But Nashville’s mustachioed newsman made a misstep in September, when — just days after the conclusion of a special legislative session on gun reform called in the wake of the Covenant School shooting — he tweeted a photo of himself and some pals with a high-power rifle, boasting that he’d just played some “assault weapon golf at Montgomery Bell State Park.” Mueller later deleted the tweet and apologized, noting that the activity (involving shooting a golf ball down a fairway, apparently) was part of a charity fundraiser. “All of it was a mistake,” he said. We love you Bob, but this Boner’s for you.
Slim Chance
Nearly every writer has thanked their lucky stars (and the editor who saved their ass) that a name they conflated with another got corrected before the story was published. In these times of slash-and-burn newsroom management from Gannett, Tennessean staffers aren’t so lucky. In the paper of record’s coverage of You Got Gold, a charitable event series honoring the life of beloved songsmith John Prine, there was a minor miracle. A photo identified someone onstage next to singer-keyboardist Gabe Lee as Fats Waller, a charismatic, virtuosic jazz legend — who died in 1943. The man at the pedal steel was actually phenomenal Nashville polymath (and onetime Prine bandmember) Fats Kaplin. Fans know that Kaplin’s many talents include magic, but it’d be a real surprise to learn he’s taken up necromancy.
Schmitt Happens
Kisser may be one of the Nashville food scene’s best and most celebrated new restaurants, but Tennessean columnist Brad Schmitt wanted readers to know it’s very Japanese — to the extent that it left him “mystified” and “intimidated.” An example of the menu’s obscure and arcane offerings included onigiri — a rice ball dish available at just about any other Japanese or Japanese-inspired restaurant in town. Schmitt’s odd reaction to the menu featuring non-English words was another frustrating entry in his underwhelming tenure as a food writer. We had choice words for Schmitt’s continued incompetence as a restaurant critic, especially this borderline-xenophobic entry, though we failed to note another blunder: Schmitt revealed that his dining companion Keith Sharon had somehow never eaten Japanese cuisine despite years working as a reporter in California. Talk about mystifying.
Boner Owners
Sure, we at the Scene love to dole out Boner Awards — but sometimes the Boner points right back at us. In October, veteran real estate official Bill Freeman announced that he was stepping down as president and CEO of Freeman Webb Co., the real estate firm Freeman founded decades ago with his late business partner Jimmy Webb. The Tennessean was the first to report the news. Sure, fine, no big deal, right? Well, Mr. Freeman also happens to own FW Publishing, of which the Nashville Scene is the flagship publication. The Scene reported the news a couple hours later. We probably should have had the drop on this one, huh? Boner where Boner is due.
Parlor Games
While organized labor may be having its moment across the country, it would seem one local coffee shop chain missed the memo. Nashvillians hoping to grab a coffee at Barista Parlor locations in Germantown, Hillsboro Village and Marathon Village in June might have been disappointed to find all three shops closed, with signs posted stating the closures were for “cafe maintenance.” Sure, maintenance could very well have been the reason for the closures — or it could have been the 24 employees who either quit or were fired in the span of a week alleging a “toxic” and “belittling” work environment. But who’s to say.
Vigilante Justice
Ronald Hobson found himself on the other end of an arrest for aggravated assault at a Nashville concert this summer. So moved by the music of Kid Rock, the 56-year-old police captain put a fellow concertgoer in the hospital after performing an alleged “choke slam,” resulting in a suspension from the Dickson Police Department and a pending felony. Hobson reminds us that cops are just like us — except they have specialized use-of-force training that might make them more inclined to use physical force to settle disagreements.
Crooked Smile
SmileDirectClub was once a darling of Nashville’s business world. A billion-dollar valuation, the governor showing up at your office to celebrate taxpayer-incentivized growth, and investor-fueled expansion around the world will do that to a company. Signs of trouble were always present, though, as the famously litigious business sued anyone who dared suggest their at-home teeth-straightening kits were anything but perfect. Then the company went public and quickly took a nosedive. After months of struggling to get its share price back over a buck to ensure it could continue trading on the Nasdaq, the once-high-flying SDC filed for bankruptcy in October.
Dead Wrong
What if there was a nonprofit institution in Nashville that was almost universally beloved? And what if that institution was one where people for almost 50 years had gotten some small measure of comfort as their loved ones died, often from agonizing illnesses? And what if your big idea as the CEO of that organization was to sell the whole thing off to a giant faceless health care company that would strip it for parts and sell off the valuable Midtown real estate? Congratulations, you’re Kimberly Goessele, the now-deposed leader of Alive Hospice! Goessele conspired with some board members to orchestrate a sale of Alive and likely would have gotten away with it had it not been for an impressive bit of public campaigning by a group called Keep Alive Alive, led by two of the hospice’s founders. A Boner to Goessele for trying to sell off the beds of dying people. May your name be a cautionary tale for anyone who tries to do something this cruel again.
Bad Fortune
Private prisons were pitched to then-Gov. Lamar Alexander as a fiscally prudent solution to the bloat and dysfunction of big government in the 1980s. Doc Crants, who steered Corrections Corporation of America (now CoreCivic) through its heyday, built Nashville’s billion-dollar juggernaut on the gospel of free market solutions as the company’s CEO. After his decades locking people up while amassing a fortune on stock options and executive pay, perhaps it’s fitting that Crants lost his big house in Belle Meade this year during a messy personal bankruptcy.
Speaker? I Hardly Know Her.
U.S. Rep. Mark Green has always thought highly of himself. So highly, in fact, that his Republican colleagues in the state Senate were thrilled when he got a promotion to Washington, D.C. — far away from them. In Washington, Green has sought to walk a tightrope, cozying up to power centers while maintaining friendly relations with his far-right origins. That led Green (along with fellow Tennessee Republican Rep. Chuck Fleischmann) to launch one of the shortest bids for speaker of the House in American history. In October, as Republicans desperately scrambled to find someone, anyone, who could secure a majority in the House, Green briefly thought he was the man for the job. Hours later, it turned out he was not.
Pinocchi-Ogles
Everyone embellishes a little bit when it’s time to apply for a new job. “Cashier” might become “revenue collection”; “mowing lawns” turns into “running a small landscaping business.” Andy Ogles, now one of Tennessee’s nine representatives in Congress, took things to a new level, according to a series of revelations from NewsChannel 5’s Phil Williams last winter. Not long after Ogles held up his own party’s speaker vote in D.C., news broke that the congressman was apparently stretching the truth about everything from his college transcript to previous work experience. One community college class in economics apparently qualified Ogles as an “economist.” A failed run as a volunteer reserve deputy in Williamson County became a background in “law enforcement,” and a brief stint with a short-lived nonprofit became a career battling “international sex crimes.” Don’t believe everything you hear from politicians or read on LinkedIn.
… And That’s Americana?
The Americana Music Association developed the genre to promote roots-leaning musicians who might get sidelined in the genres you’d typically associate them with because they don’t neatly fit into rigid marketing parameters. Americana’s track record on building equity and platforms for marginalized people is not perfect, but Black, brown and queer people have routinely received the association’s awards, been elected to its boards and performed on stages throughout AmericanaFest. That made a series of transphobic events during this year’s festival a bit of a shock — though not as much as the association’s middling response. In multiple cases, artists were left to advocate for themselves when faced with verbal assaults and microaggressions (and in one case, admonished for publicly drawing attention to the issues). Others told the Scene that the organization also seemed indifferent to queer people’s concerns in other interactions, prompting musician Mya Byrne to note: “I just want to feel at home in that community the same way that Brandi Carlile does when she gets onstage at the Ryman during the awards and talks about family.”
The Return of Jason
Jason Aldean lands himself yet another Boner Award, but this time it’s not just him, or his wife — his whole team is worthy. In July, Aldean dropped the video for his song “Try That in a Small Town,” which received widespread backlash for having at best racist undertones. The lyrics of the song at best glorify violence and suggest vigilante justice is the right way to deal with ill-behaved city slickers. Aside from the song’s lyrics, Aldean’s video proves he’s at best tone-deaf and clueless. There are a lot of small towns with beautiful, historic courthouses, but Aldean decided to go with Maury County’s — where a young Black man named Henry Choate was lynched in 1927, and where white Columbians attempted to kidnap Black civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall in 1946. In a statement, Aldean claimed protest clips in the video were “news footage” — though much of it was quickly proven to be stock footage, or footage that was filmed outside the United States. Perhaps Aldean and his team are not as dumb as they seem: The video’s views skyrocketed, and the song reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart. Even so, as Nashville musician and activist Adia Victoria pointed out in a tweet referring to Aldean as a “sentient can of Axe Body Spray,” the warranted backlash got the video banned from CMT.
Miranda Wrongs
It’s disappointing that the mainstream country universe has been obsessed with rehabilitating Morgan Wallen’s image after he was caught casually using the N-word in 2021. It’s worse that the effort to detoxify him without enacting any substantive change pretty much worked — ol’ Morg has yet to so much as gently discourage his fans from being openly racist, and he’s had another banner year of album sales and touring. And it’s exceedingly lame that some big names — who heretofore appeared able to dominate in the mainstream while being smart and creative and generally using their clout for good — helped Wallen get back on top. Eric Church is one such star who contributed to Wallen’s latest LP One Thing at a Time; another is Miranda Lambert. When Lambert proudly tweeted about her Wallen co-write, musician, poet, activist and champion poster Adia Victoria came back with a dry, scathing thread that belongs in a reboot of Blazing Saddles.
Deal or No Deal
The United Auto Workers’ nationwide Stand Up Strike hit the Spring Hill General Motors plant on a Saturday evening — a non-production day — so only about 80 employees actually physically walked out of work. Because the Spring Hill plant is the largest GM facility in North America, it was somewhat expected that the location would be one of the last to strike as a kind of knockout punch to GM — no Boner Award for that. Instead, the Boner is due for, presumably, a lack of communication. When news started circulating early Monday morning about a deal, workers waited to hear when they would be done. In the past, the UAW has continued to strike until ratification of a deal, but this time the other Big Three automaker strikes had their early deals, and UAW workers returned to their work. So why were the GM employees still outside the gates? Who knows why it took so long to officially announce, but by the end of the cold, rainy day, workers were back to their jobs at the plant with a new deal on the horizon.
From a Tupperware-related brawl to a toe-sucking hotel manager, here’s our roundup of 2023’s most Boner Award-worthy small-time crime
