Wild Tangents
Marc talks about life in Nashville, life as a Catholic and life as a geek.

And hits pay dirt in my opinion. It’s actually a pretty cool article. I recommend reading it. I was especially impressed by what my old pal Drew Sill had to say:

“The Latin Mass is so pure, it’s so reverent, I just feel more spiritual when I worship this way,” said Drew Sill, 30. “And I like the fact that the Latin Mass is the same in every culture in the world. It brings us all together in community.”

Awesome Drew, just awesome!

Technorati Tags: Catholic, Latin, Memphis

Instead of “man bites dog”, it’s “dog shoot man”.

Police say King George, a 150-pound Great Dane, accidentally knocked a .22-caliber pistol off his owner’s end table around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. The gun went off, hitting his 21-year-old owner in the back, MyFOXMemphis.com reports.

OK…Reality just warped into something I can’t begin to describe.

Not only that, but Frayser has a Wikipedia entry.

Technorati Tags: Memphis, news, dog, redneck

Two big hangouts of mine when I was in high school were the Mall of Memphis and the Antenna Club. Neither one of them still exist. But memories can be had on the interwebs. Yes, it seems both of them have fans crazy enough to dedicate whole web pages to them.

The Antenna Club’s fan page can be found here.

To put the description in basic terms, the Antenna Club was a live alternative music venue. I know I saw many more infamous than this, but the shows for All (which was a band that picked up the pieces after Milo left The Decendents) and Pigface are the ones I remember most. I also remember an all local band show on Halloween of 1987. Sobering Consequences headlined.

To be honest, the place was a dump. The restroom, aside form being alive stunk up the whole place. But it was “our” dump. Plus we had the Piggly Wiggly parking lot next door that we could “hang out in” when there wasn’t a show. There was also a wall on one side of a parking lot down the street that would always get graffitied. It was a cool place. Of all the similar venue clubs I’d been to in my youth in other cities, “home” was the best. Nobody had anything as cool as the Antenna.

The Mall Of Memphis fan page can be found here

Really I started hanging out at the MOM (Mall of Memphis) well before I started high school classes. We moved into a house just around the corner when I was seven or eight. We moved away when I was fourteen. It was close enough to ride our bikes. I spent many weekends and summer times there.

I didn’t really spend much high school time there. I do remember this one time. A group of had ridden up there with my friend Mike Blumenthal in his car. Well, somehow someone lifted his keys from him and drove the car around to the other side of the mall without him noticing. It was so funny because at first he was freaked out, but then he got a little excited at the fact that he might be getting new car. His car was a piece of junk Chevy Caprice. It was in really bad shape. He was actually disappointed when they guided him around to where they had moved the car. I was of course not in on it. I was with Mike the whole time, so they didn’t have a chance to let me in on the joke. So in a way the joke was kind of on me as well. I seem to recall be a little put out by the experience. I had to get up early in the morning or something. Looking back on it though, it as pretty funny.

So if you have memories of the Antenna Club or the Mall of Memphis, leave them in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!

Technorati Tags: 80’s, eighties, malls, Memphis, punk, web

This is strange. Not only does my package from Amazon have to go through Memphis to get from Kentucky to here in the Nashville area. It seems it also had to go through 1969 in order to get from two days ago to now.

You can go to this Flickr page to see the whole thing. No photoshop type stuff is gong on here either. It is pure MAC OS X screen capture.

It also makes me wonder why since it is coming from Kentucky and is already in Memphis (not to mention the fact that it can time travel), why should I not expect it for five more days. HUMPH!

Technorati Tags: humor, amazon

WREG-TV is reporting that the break-in at the catholic center in Memphis has been solved.

Police say it was tip that led them to a car that may have been used in the burglary of the Catholic Center the weekend before last. Police charged Jacques Mosby, 30, and Theresa Simmons, 34, with nine counts of burglary and one count of theft over $10,000.

Good to see this kind of thing have closure. I sincerely hop the bet for the thieves. Remember that it was a thief who Christ said to, “Truly I say to you today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

Please pray for a softening of the heart of these three criminals. That they may accept Christ.

Technorati Tags: Catholic, christian, Memphis, news

I just got word that Monsignor Edward Heymer passed away. He was a wonderful man and holy priest. He will be missed. Monsignor Heymer was the chaplain for the Third Order of Carmel group in Memphis. He also led Holy Hour for Eucharistic adoration and benediction every Sunday. I will personally miss hearing him passionately leading the Holy Rosary during this hour. I can only imagine him in heaven leading such a Rosary for all of us still stuck down here. May he rest in peace.

Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord,
And let perpetual Light shine upon them.
May their souls
And the souls of all the faithful departed
Through the mercy of God
Rest in peace.
Amen.

Technorati Tags: catholic, memphis

The Memphis Commercial Appeal is reporting that the Catholic center in Memphis was broken into over the weekend. The robbers took some computers, cameras and cash. But worst of all, they desecrated the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the chapel on site.

In addition, the intruders desecrated the Blessed Sacrament, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Jesus. It is kept locked in a small chapel at the center and once profaned, according to church law, the chapel must be reconsecrated before being used again.

As the paper says, we believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. The Catechism of the Catholic Church put it beautifully int he following from paragraph 1375:

It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. The Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:

It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God’s. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered.

And St. Ambrose says about this conversion:

Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. The power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed. . . . Could not Christ’s word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.

I would ask everyone to pray for the perpetrators, that they have a conversion of heart and genuinely repent their actions.

Technorati Tags: Catholic, Memphis, news

I just read on my old Knights of Columbus council’s website, that nine-year old Morgan Corbitt passed away yesterday. Please keep her and her family in your prayers.

Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord,
And let perpetual Light shine upon them.
May their souls
And the souls of all the faithful departed
Through the mercy of God
Rest in peace.
Amen.

Technorati Tags: memphis, prayer request

I can’t really remember where i found this really cool site on the history of Memphis, but it is a must see. It’s very well done and full of content. I learn quite a few things I didn’t know just sitting here reading for a few a minutes.

Here the history of Memphis is presented. From the Chickasaw to the great New Madrid earthquake of 1811 on to the land’s purchase by John Overton and Andrew Jackson, followed by incorporation and Civil War occupation. Picking up with the yellow fever followed by the surrender of the city charter and the tenure of the former city as a taxing district of Shelby County and the state of Tennessee. We continue Memphis history into the days of Crump and the progressive era when the city would be made to conform to order. Memphis history is rich with time, music and commerce. From the blues of Beale Street to Elvis Presley and Sun Records the City of Memphis been enriched by transporation, cotton, mules and hardware; bridge openings to celebrate and the sorrows of the 1968 Sanitation Strike which culminated in the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memphis has persevered through pain and has been anything but dull. This is our story…

Technorati Tags: history, memphis, interesting, web

(more…)

In my highschool days and quite a few of the years that followed, I was a part of the “punk rock” scene back in Memphis. This mostly involved going to shows at the Antenna club and trying real hard to look just like everyone else who was trying real hard not to look like anyone else, or something like that.

Sometime in 1992 Channel 5 News in Memphis did a special on the youth sub culture in Memphis. Well, it looks like someone took that and put it on Google Video. Here it is. See Joe Birch do the intros and Greeley Kyle do the story. I actually knew a lot of the these people. I wonder what happened to some of them, others I have a pretty good idea.

Hat tip to Rachel And The City for first posting it.