It is hoary and boring to point out that on any given night, Lower Broadway’s neon canyon turns into the graveyard of personal responsibility, tears rolling down mascara-strewn cheeks, vomitus speckling the pleated fronts of overpriced khakis.
Many Minnesotans and Connecticuters and (we must be honest here) Nashvillians who are not imaginative enough to consider any other nightlife options beyond the most trite and garish one manufactured by the worst people at your aunt’s megachurch find themselves on the wrong end of the police blotter after a night of being “overserved.” (That’s the polite, blameless euphemism for “drinking too much.”) If Metro had a drunk-idiot fee, no one would have to ask local taxpayers to foot the bill for their football stadium or transit plan. Alas. Our annual petty crime roundup does its best to avoid heaping more shame on these people. Haven’t they suffered enough, drinking bad beer for the benefit of bad people?
That said, there have been some particularly eyebrow-raising pieces of small-time Broadway crime. Like the 45-year-old in July who was, given his level of intoxication, asked to leave Jason Aldean’s bar. The gentleman, presumably wanting to expense this particular binge, refused until he was given his receipt and told bar staff their choices were to deliver proof of purchase or send him to the pokey. Guess which they selected.
Really, it’s best not to test the mettle of the kind of people who work on Broadway. They’ve seen things, and they’ve little patience and dwindling senses of humor — as a 26-year-old learned when Metro police arrived to check on her as she screamed at the trees outside of the Schermerhorn (scaring the martins?). She insisted she was not going to be arrested. Well …
Jason Aldean and trees. Sure, they can inspire strong emotional reactions. But Ed Sheeran? A 40-something married couple began arguing at the ginger plucker’s Ryman show in July. Asked to cool it or leave by staff at the august venue, the husband didn’t, insisting — one supposes — that he must hear whatever Ed Sheeran’s big song is. Such stubbornness earned him a free trip to hoosegow.
Was his rage caught on camera? If so, he should have considered the foolproof solution a 62-year-old Nashville woman concocted. Trying to cover up evidence of God knows what, she stole the security camera at her niece’s home. Of course, all video is now in the cloud, whatever the hell that is, so she was caught anyway, and as ever, the cover-up is worse than blah blah blah.
Maybe her niece stole her Tupperware, which — if boomer moms are on her jury — is a fast track to an acquittal. A couple of brothers in West Nashville caught the attention of the local gendarmerie for a lengthy fight that began due to the fate of some Tupperware and the ground beef within. That fight expanded into a secondary dispute that’s the latter-day equivalent of purloined-Tupperware debate: the stealing of the phone charger. The elder brother ended up taking a ride with Nashville’s finest.
But the rowdiness inspired by Ed Sheeran or Tupperware or a phone charger is nothing compared to that brought on by middle school sports, as four Clarksville, uh, middle school administrators showed us. They all got booted from their positions for showing up drunk to a place where no one could possibly recognize them as the pillars of the community they purport to be: a basketball game at the middle school they (used to) administrate.
But this year’s crime cake is taken by the (former) manager of a downtown hotel who faces burglary and assault charges for the unusual (forgive me) feat of using a key card to enter a guest’s room to suck his toes. The guest, naturally, awoke and, naturally, was mortified and, naturally, also filed civil charges. We hope he got his receipt.
From widespread failure in the state legislature to Franklin’s unhinged mayoral race, here’s our 34th annual list of blunders and bloopers
