Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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The Brewpub's Fate

Under one name or another, it's been a popular Gay Street institution since 1994, a place we can go to see people we know and nearly anybody else, from bluesman Robert Cray to Garrison Keillor. The birthplace of K2K and den of anti-justice center sentiment, it has in recent months even hosted a Mayor's Night Out. But this week, many of us couldn't help noticing, the Great Southern Brewing Company was closed. Owned by an out-of-state investor for almost four years, the brewpub has been rumored to be on the market for several months, with certain local restaurants interested in acquiring it. It doesn't sound like last call yet, though. What's described as a "strategic partnership" between New Knoxville Brewing Company and Regas Brothers is closing in on a deal which will reopen the brewpub as the brewpub, likely with a somewhat different menu and a broader selection of local brew. Due to the state's licensing bureaucracy, however, it may not reopen until August.

Boners

Atlantic Monthly has an entertaining article this month about George Dubya Bush's Grand Old Party days as a member of Yale's Skull and Bones, a secret society described as "an incubator and meeting point for rising generational elites" where non-members were called "barbarians" and members took nicknames like "Thor," "Baal" and "Odin." Bush is sworn to secrecy about things like secret rites of initiation said to include masturbating in a coffin, and the society's pet skull, claimed to be the stolen noggin of Apache chief Geronimo.

Members develop lifelong loyalties—Bush received Bones' money for his defunct oil company and his political campaigns. He has also helped other members:

"Not surprisingly, loyalty often flows in the other direction. In 1984, Bush flew to Tennessee to accompany the Republican Senate nominee and Bonesman ('67) Victor Ashe on a seven-city tour. Ashe lost to Al Gore."

Trailer Tracks

When Lynn Redmon takes a notion to burn a bridge, it's a genuine three-alarmer. After leading his flock in a mass walkout before City Council could vote down the last of three requests for protection against a mobile home park being injected into their neighborhood, the Norwood Homeowners czar (who'd just finished telling City Council members they were worthless), told a TV reporter "We'd be better off dealing with that cracker County Commission that offers no (zoning) protection at all, and pay half the taxes." The Norwood crew, wearing yellow tags saying "Stable Neighborhoods," faced off against the mobile home bunch (almost entirely employees of Jim Clayton), who sported green "Fair Housing for All" tags. Former schools superintendent Allen Morgan was the spokesperson for the green tag crows, which included PR potentates Cynthia Moxley and Allan Carmichael and Jimmy Clayton.

Full Disclosure

It was a beautiful day in Mike and Claudia Ragsdale's neighborhood, and GOP law director nominee Mike Moyers was on his way to a reception to collect a bunch of checks. But no sooner had he parked his car in the Ragsdalian driveway than he was accosted by a TV crew. It was Channel 6's Brennan Robison wanting to know why he hadn't responded to a demand by George Underwood (his Democratic opponent) to tell him how much money the county law department has spent for outside counsel over the past decade. Moyers, who wondered why Robison hadn't contacted him at his office in the City County building instead of staking out Ragsdale's house, explained that the numbers are kept by the county's office of finance. Robison later said he hadn't been able to reach Moyers at work but had been tipped off by Underwood as to the Ragsdale reception.

Underwood is a former employee of the city's Law Department, which is not unacquainted with the concept of hiring outside counsel like Robert Watson, who represented Mayor Victor Ashe in Federal District Court when five fire fighters sued him for civil rights violations. Total cost to city taxpayers of this trial has not been disclosed, but it will likely exceed $200,000. (Ashe, by the way, recently appointed Watson to the Public Building Authority board of directors, replacing Howard Blum.)