First of all, if you’ve already subscribed, you’re the best and I love you all. If you haven’t yet subscribed, I’ve attempted to compile a list of questions you might have about how this will work, why I think you should subscribe, and other logistical aspects. I’ve tried to be comprehensive (and funny), but I’m sure as soon as I send this email, I’ll remember something else I should have said. In any case, I am extremely easy to get in touch with — don’t hesitate to reach out for any reason.
Questions About the Project
I didn’t read that last email. What’s this whole thing about? For the next year, should you subscribe, I will send one recommendation for a book, podcast, product, etc. mid-month, and one lengthy essay at the end of the month. That’s it, two emails a month, for $5/month or $50/year.
What types of essays and recommendations? Essays like this one about partying and recommendations like these, except just one instead of many.
Why are you doing this? As I mentioned in my last post, being the same age as my father when he died is kinda hard and weird. Apparently, this is normal for people to experience this if a parent died young. (Or maybe everyone experiences this? But I would imagine it’s somewhat different to be facing 80 and contemplating mortality knowing your father also died at 80.) So I’m writing about it, along with many other things.
Why should I subscribe? You should subscribe if:
You like my writing and want to read more of it.
You believe in financially supporting writers for their work.
You like reading essays.
You like getting recommendations for interesting things.
So are you done with reporting? No more writing about politics ever? I am absolutely not done with reporting and continue researching some very long-term projects. I would love to have a full-time reporting job again, but such jobs barely exist these days (at least at a salary that pays a living wage for someone not in their 20s, without a trust fund, and without a second salary in the household). That said, I’m not sure if I can write about politics sober, but who knows.
Will this be just like your mid-aughts blog and/or Times Free Press dating column? No! These will actually be revised, edited essays, not diary-esque rambles about my day-to-day life.
Questions About Giving Me Money
You’ve said you were going to do regular posting before and you didn’t. Why should I believe you now and actually give you my money? It’s a fact: I was not very reliable when I was drinking. That’s also why I have never turned on paid subscriptions — because I knew I couldn’t give people what they were paying for. However, I’m no longer drinking and on the verge of becoming reliable. (Like, y’all, I am barely late for things anymore!) Several of these essays are also already half-written, so I’m not starting from scratch trying to come up with topics.
Why are you finally charging money now? Look, writing is hard work. If you value my writing, then pay for it.
I do value your writing, but I’m really broke right now. That’s ok! I’ve been there. We all have budgets. If you’re experiencing significant financial hardship and would otherwise subscribe, email me about it.
What happens if I pony up and no one else does? Will you keep writing? That’s a great question! If only a small handful of people are paying, I might decide to hit pause. Writing for an audience of 20 seems kinda self-indulgent and not cost-effective. However, if that happens and you’ve paid for the full year, you’ll get a prorated refund. And if you don’t want that to happen, please tell your friends about this and talk them into signing up!
Questions About Payment Options
Substack has a lot of Nazis and I don’t want to give them money. I feel you! I may try to migrate off this platform when I have more time and energy, but I don’t have that time or energy at this moment. However, you can Venmo (@cgervin) / CashApp ($cgervin) me $50 instead and I’ll sign you up. (I do not have the organizational skills to keep up with monthly Venmo subscriptions, sorry. And if you want to use PayPal/Apple Pay/another service, message me.)
Ven-what? Can’t I just send you a check? Absolutely! Just message me and I’ll share my mailing address.
I sent you some money on Venmo back when you were writing frequently — can I get a free subscription now? Possibly, depending on how much you gave me. Email me and let me know the details and we’ll talk.
$5 a month seems like a lot. It’s really not, especially given that 15% of that goes to Substack and Stripe for processing fees.
$5 a month seems way too cheap! I want to give you more money! Thank you! You’re the best! You should sign up as Founding Member for $150 (or just Venmo me extra money).
I also have a paid newsletter. Can we trade subscriptions? Possibly? Email me.
Can I trade another service or good for a subscription? Depends on what it is. Ask me, and I’ll let you know.
Questions About Everything Else
Will everything you write be paywalled? Honestly, I don’t know. As a writer, I want everyone to read everything I write. But as a person with a lot of medical debt, shitty insurance, and several very expensive medications, I have to encourage subscriptions on a practical level.
Medical debt? Are you dying? Insofar as all of us are constantly dying simply by existing each day, then yes. Am I sick? No. But catching up on several years of postponed medical care is expensive.
What if I subscribe and I don’t like your writing? Substack makes it pretty easy to unsubscribe.
I’m your BFF/family member. Do I really need to pay? If I love you and you know it, just text me.
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You didn’t answer my question, and I’m still on the fence. Please email me and I will try to answer.
Eh, I still don’t know. I need more time to think about this. That’s ok! The first recommendation essay will go out in a few days, and I will send it to all subscribers. Everyone will also get my essay on April 30, so you can see what you’ll be missing after the paywall is turned on.
Will there be dog pictures? Maybe! Here’s one to convince you it’s worth it.
Ok, that’s it. I will be back in a few days with a recommendation for one spectacular thing. Please subscribe if you can, and please message me if you still have questions.
I have decided to start a new project. Subscription-only. I sincerely hope you will decide to join me for the ride.
Here’s the backstory:
On March 30, I turned 47.
Thirty years ago last fall, my dad died at 47.
This is bringing up some shit.
There are a lot of things I want to write or finish writing that have been on hold for years.
Turning 47 seems like a good time to tackle all of this.
Over the next year, starting on April 30 of this year and ending on March 30 of next year, I am going to send out one essay per month. Topics may include, but are not limited to, aging, death, recovery, relationships, trauma, and food. Some of them will be funny, I hope. Some of them won’t be. Some of them will probably work better than others. It’s an experiment.
I am not quite sure at this point how many essays will be straight memoir versus reported essays, but I promise this won’t be entirely self-indulgent. That said, if you weren’t a fan of my last essay about parties or previous essays about Thanksgiving or getting cancer, this project is probably not for you. That’s ok! You signed up to read about Tennessee politics, and now I’m sober and really can’t stand to write about Tennessee politics without wanting a drink. Sorry not at all sorry about that.
However, one monthly essay won’t be all you get for your subscription price! I will also send one email with one recommendation for something — a book, podcast, movie, gender-neutral beauty product, recipe, etc. — in the middle of the month.
So that’s it — two emails per month, for just $5/month or $50/year. (Save $10 by paying up front!) For one year only.
I will send out another email in a few days in which I will explain a little bit more about why I am doing this and why I think it’s worth paying for. In short, time is money, and writing takes me a lot of time. I think I’m worth paying for. If you don’t agree, I promise we’ll still be friends. I can’t afford to pay for everyone I love’s writing either. In the meantime, if you’re intrigued and can afford it, go ahead and subscribe.
The Dog and Pony Show is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
In retrospect, it seems utterly wild that in all my years of drinking, in all the nights closing down bars, all the afterparties, all the nights out until 4 a.m., the nights where I saw the sun rise before heading home, not once did anyone offer me cocaine. Not one line, not one bump, not one crumb. All those nights, and I didn’t know that my crush in college was an addict until after he went to rehab. That one of my closest friends had a somewhat serious coke problem for a year or three. That my boyfriend who lived in another city was doing coke at parties on the weekends I wasn’t visiting (and maybe some weekends when I was).
And in retrospect, it made sense — how else did everyone stay up until 4 a.m. drinking without help from something else? But I never needed help — alcohol was a high enough. I naively assumed everyone else was like me.
We all drank this much. No one had a problem, it’s not like we were doing cocaine! These glittery nights of excess every weekend were normal — it’s what everyone did. There was always another party.
And for a time, there was. Until it all ended.
Now, looking back, it’s still hard to know when precisely the party died.
It was like one of those nights when you’re having so much fun that you don’t notice you’re one of the last people left in the house and the hosts are trying to kick you out so they can go to bed but even though the lights are bright and the music has been turned off, you keep talking and keep flirting and keep drinking because you’re young and everything is still new and fun and magical and full of possibility and it will never not be this way. Then at some point you look around and the hosts finally gave up and went to bed and the keg kicked long ago and there’s no more liquor floating around and your pack of Camel Lights is empty — you really smoked that much tonight? And the guy you like went home because you were making a drunken fool of yourself, and you look in the mirror and your mascara is smudged down your cheeks — not in a sexy way, but like you’ve been crying. And maybe you have been crying, because the guy left, and you thought this was the night he’d finally kiss you. And your friends are long gone and you finally stumble home in the predawn darkness wondering how it all went wrong. When you wake up the next day — well, the same day, just in the afternoon, so it might as well be the next day — your friends don’t want to meet for brunch to discuss the night before, because somehow they aren’t as hungover as you and don’t need a pitcher of mimosas to feel better. So you think, okay, next weekend will be different. You’ll leave the party early, you won’t drink as much, this time you’ll get the guy.
You never do.
In my late 20s, I left the swingin’ parties of Athens to work for my hometown paper. It was a shitty job but fun — writing a crazy number of stories each week for a weekly community news section that wasn’t part of the newsroom. We were technically under advertising, so the paper’s editor-in-chief never took me seriously, even though I kept writing stories that scooped the Metro desk. Despite my workload, I earned far less than the daily’s staff writers. But it was 2005 and the economy was great and I had credit cards with massive limits and very low interest, so I still went out like I had all the money in the world. Drinks were cheap then, and that was all that mattered.
There was one bar where we hung out the most. It was a pool hall, though I never played. (I preferred darts, although I was terrible at them.) I started going to the bar because my coworkers did — it wasn’t a place I had hung out before; my go-to bars in town were weirder. But somehow this became the place to go for the months I settled into town — months of trying to make friends with my colleagues, of rounds of shots with the sports desk, whom you could always count on to close down the bar since they never got off work before 11 or 12.
I wasn’t at the bar every night — I wasn’t even drinking every night then. But I was there enough that I’d walk in and Tommy — he was always the bartender any given night — would pour my drink before I even got up to the bar. Vodka soda lemon, because calories or fewer hangovers or something factually inaccurate like that. I hadn’t become a wine snob yet. Sometimes I’d alternate the vodka with plain soda and lemon, pretending not to drink so much, never imagining that would be my only drink order in later years.
I was so lonely then, though I never would have named that as my problem. I thought the problem was that my boyfriend — the man I thought for sure I would marry — had broken up with me a few months earlier. All I needed were new friends and a new guy and everything would finally work out before I turned 30. I’d find the right person, I’d get married, my finances would magically improve. I’d be an adult.
I thought my new coworkers would be an instant friend group. For a few weeks, they were, and then I realized the girls didn’t actually like me and the single boys only wanted to fuck me, not to be my friend. The cliquiness stung, but what else could I do?
But at the bar there were other people I knew. It was my hometown, after all. I wasn’t the only person who had moved back. One group in particular was there frequently — a group of guys slightly younger than me, most of whom had grown up in my neighborhood and gone to the same schools. They were my sister’s age, give or take a year or two — boys I never would have thought twice about when growing up, because I never had any interest in younger boys in high school. But now those gawky adolescents were in their mid-20s, and two or three of the guys seemed interesting, potential boyfriend material even.
Now I think part of the appeal — beyond the fact that I was incredibly lonely — was a perceived ability to rewrite the narrative about myself. I had never been popular growing up and never felt like I fit into my wealthy community. I didn’t have the ease in moving through the world that comes with generations of WASP privilege, and I was more comfortable with my head stuck in a book than on a tennis court. I had never dated a single person at my high school, much less anyone in my neighborhood. And this group — these were the cool kids, the rich kids, the handsome kids, not the smartass misfits I had been friends with in high school. (Friends whom I still loved dearly but who had not moved back, with one exception.) And so what if they weren’t the cool kids in my own grade? They would do.
There was one night I thought it might all work out. I was invited to an afterparty at the house of this guy notorious for throwing the wildest parties in high school. I had never been to one of his parties — never invited, never knew enough to crash, and my parents were too strict to let me go anyway. But this night, a decade after high school, I went. This night I was a part. There were people in a hot tub. It was light when I got home. A guy even asked me out.
That fling only lasted a few dates, though we stayed friends for longer. Still, I never became a part of the group as a whole. I was occasionally invited to things. I went to parties and stood around and felt uncomfortable and drank too much. The guy on whom I had the biggest crush paid me no attention.
I was the thinnest I’d been since 8th grade, taking hot yoga and pilates, wearing the same silk halter tops, strappy stilettos and bootcut James jeans as the rest of the women in their crowd. But I was still me. Still the same unpopular awkward weirdo at heart. Still a budding alcoholic. Still a vat of need that no amount of male attention could fill.
Eventually I started dating someone in Atlanta, and I spent half my weekends at bars down there. A new restaurant opened a block from the paper, and I started drinking mid-priced wine there instead of well vodka at the pool hall, because it seemed more grown-up. I slowly gave up once more on ever fitting in at home.
A week ago I went to the funeral of one of those guys from the pool hall. We were never truly friends; I was always closer to his sister. But he had been in my life since he was a toddler, a small child in preschool with my sister. I remember hijinks from elementary school, from church. He was a “handful” in the parlance of adults; more accurately someone with an irrepressible spirit. A person who could make the room laugh. Ultimately, during those years in the aughts, the life of the party.
He was a DJ then. A fun one, not a tedious techno bro. I remember dancing my ass off in a teal Rebecca Taylor dress and 5-inch silver Kate Spade platform heels at one Christmas party he DJ’d in 2006 and feeling like everything in the world was mine for the taking — the boys, the booze, the jobs, the pretty expensive clothes that would always look good on my perfect body that I still hated for not being thin enough. We ended the night at an afterparty down the street in someone’s loft/office, which for some reason had a giant swing inside. And we swung back and forth, these dramatic arcs up and down, laughing and laughing, and nothing could have felt better than the swoosh of my stomach, the champagne coursing through my bloodstream. Even tripping on those silver heels walking back to my boyfriend’s car, ripping my fishnets and bloodying my knee — even fighting with my boyfriend over staying out so late with people he didn’t know because he lived in Atlanta — nothing could have made that night more magical than it was.
At some point the bloody knees start catching up with you.
When I first got sober, I thought a lot about when the alcohol turned on me, when things stopped being fun, wondering why I didn’t quit drinking then. That next year was the start of the turn, as the wine slowly started to become a necessity instead of an instrument of fun. Not long after that party, I moved away to one of a series of five cities I’d live in over the next decade, and I lost touch with that whole crowd beyond the occasional social media posts. I stopped closing down bars and started drinking at home. I quit smoking, and when I came home to visit, hanging out in a smoky pool hall seemed unappealing. Besides, no one I knew was there anymore. Everyone had moved on.
I think that even for people who don’t spend their 20s in bars and clubs, your 30s are still a time of significant adjustments, of shifting priorities and friendships. People have kids. People focus more seriously on their careers. People buy homes and have responsibilities and ostensibly grow up. If you go out to meet friends, it’s for happy hour or dinner, not at 10 p.m. An afterparty? Ludicrous. Even most people who did party a little too much in their 20s can tone it back down. You might have a couple of beers on a Saturday watching football, a margarita out with your girlfriends. You’ll wake up with a hangover after splitting a bottle of wine, wondering how you ever used to drink like you did back then.
I am not most people. Neither was the DJ. Neither were so many others, with no rhyme or reason to those we’ve lost and those who are somehow still alive. None of it is fair. None of it makes any sense. The universe is a cold and unforgiving emptiness.
The last time I remember being at a party with him was in 2008 — a New Year’s party. I’m not sure that was actually the last time I saw him DJ, and it surely wasn’t the last time we were drinking in the same place. But that night was the first time I had felt a part of in months.
I was back in town for a few weeks before moving to Mississippi. That year had been rough — trying to get over the end of the relationship in Atlanta, losing friends who chose my ex over me, making new friends, trying on new careers, being laid off even from my waitressing job. Yet, at the end of the year, it felt like hope. Obama, of course. A new job in a new town. And one last party, just like all the old ones.
That was the last time, I think, that I danced like that. That everything was fun and light and joyful. That I felt pretty and young and not sad instead, sad for everything I’d lost, everything I’d continue to lose in the years to come. I was 31, and I still thought I could change my narrative. He DJed, and I danced and danced. I wrote after that night, “I drank exactly the perfect amount (so that I was drunk but not wasted and completely worthless the next day) and spent far too much money. I danced all night to a good mix of hip-hop and MIA, MGMT and other initialed bands until my shoe broke. … For the first time in a long time, I was completely fine about not getting a New Year’s kiss.”
I thought of that moment as I saw his family place his ashes in the ground last week, surrounded by so many of his friends, so many people I still picture as kids running around the playground with my sister. I saw the crushes from long ago who never liked me back — married now, and, I hope, happy. I saw the parents I grew up with who seemed so impossibly adult when I was a child and now, I realize, were so much younger than I am now. I saw the unfairness of being at the funeral of someone you babysat, someone you taught, someone who shouldn’t have died at 44. And I thought how stark the silence was as we stood outside — no song, no hymn, no instrument in sight. But what can you play to cover up the sound of so many hearts breaking?
I don’t miss much about drinking. Sometimes I feel the absence of pairing the perfect wine with a meal, sometimes I wish for just one glass of bourbon to sip slowly as I read. The cravings pass, and no momentary pleasure would be worth what would follow if I poured anything. I can live with that.
But sometimes I find myself yearning for those nights, those parties, more than anything. The slinky silk dresses, the extreme eyeliner with no wrinkles to mess it up, the sparkly clips in my hair, the high heels I can never wear again without serious injury. The dancing and the laughing and the flirting and the feeling so high, like nothing could ever bring you down, like you were flying. And those nights ended so long ago, so much sooner than my drinking did, but sometimes I still think there must be a way to get back there, to feel it all that way again.
What I’m missing, I must keep reminding myself, is not the cheap champagne, not the whiskey cold on ice. Not the sour PBR, not the watery gin and tonics, not the overly oaked boxed red wine that you finally pour at 1 a.m. because it’s the only thing left to drink. No, what I’m missing is my youth. What’s vanished isn’t the fun alcohol used to provide, it’s the brightness of life before the world beat us down. Before we started dying.
It’s funny how for years you drink because you’re so alive, and then, when the party ends, you keep drinking so you won’t have to think about death, even though it’s killing you, and you want to die every day.
And by you, I mean me.
I don’t know why one day I finally decided I didn’t want to die anymore. I don’t know how long this feeling will last, and I don’t take it for granted. If I make it another two weeks, 2023 will be the first calendar year I haven’t consumed alcohol since adolescence. January will be 18 months sober. I haven’t written about it because there’s not much to say — alcohol consumed my life until there wasn’t much life left, and now I have one again. It feels good, truly.
A few days ago, an old friend randomly messaged me with a picture from that era. He had no clue I had been remembering those years, but there I was — thin as a rail, wearing an orange silk camisole with beaded trim, those James jeans, an ivory bedazzled cardigan. I’m talking with my hands, half perched on a kitchen stool next to a friend. The picture is blurry, but I’m clearly drunk. Empty cans of Steel Reserve and Sparks line the counter, a few bottles of High Life and one champagne bottle beside them. A New Year’s party? Someone’s birthday? The details are lost to time.
And that’s all left now of those days, when we had fun like we never will, never can again. Blurry memories. A few photos. Scar tissue from all the bloody knees.
It’s better than nothing.
“Because if memory exists outside of the flesh it won't be memory because it won't know what it remembers so when she became not then half of memory became not and if I become not then all of remembering will cease to be. Yes, he thought, between grief and nothing I will take grief.”1
No news is good news? Ha, no, there’s so much news happening. But I’ve been busy not reporting on politics for the past few months. I’m honestly not sure if that will change next year or not, so until then, I’ll just be posting occasional musings. Since it’s the time of the year when most of us are buying gifts or looking forward to some time off, I thought I’d post some recommendations for things that might make you or someone you love happy this winter.
BOOKS
I haven’t read as much this year as I usually do, for varying reasons, and much of what I’ve read was meh or probably not of interest to most of my readers. But I did make it through The Brothers Karamazov this summer, and that was almost a month of reading, so! I’m still not a Russian literature person, but I can’t help but wish Dostoevsky had lived to write the planned-for sequel.
However, I’m guessing that curling up with an 800-page Russian discourse on theology, criminal justice and psychology is probably not what you have in mind for your holiday reading. So below is a list of some other books I have read this year and enjoyed. This list is not a “Best of 2023,” and it is in no way unbiased criticism, as I am casually friendly online with a few of the authors below. (But that doesn’t mean that their books aren’t actually good!)
If you’re ordering online, you still have time to support your favorite local bookstore, such as my personal favorites Parnassus Books and Square Books. (Bonus: They often have signed copies!) I highly recommend ordering from Bookshop.org over Amazon, because they actually support local bookstores, such as other favorites The Book and Cover in Chattanooga or The Bookshop in Nashville. (If you have a local bookstore that doesn’t do its own online orders, they are probably on Bookshop.) But if you have the time to go to a bookstore in person, it’s worth it. Even if they don’t have the exact book you want in stock, a) they can order it, and b) they can help you find a dozen other books that are just as good.
Here’s my list:
Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation, by Maud Newton. This book is a thoughtful exploration of what family means and how to grapple with the knowledge that your ancestors did some messed up or even truly horrific things. While Newton’s ancestors may have had a much more colorful history than your own, her thoughtful assessment will have you thinking about your own family in a new light. A perfect gift for: That family member obsessed with genealogy.
Corrections in Ink, by Keri Blakinger. Blakinger is an award-winning reporter for The Marshall Project who reports on how fucked up jails and prisons are. She also knows first-hand about this topic, having served a sentence for dealing heroin. This book chronicles her addiction and recovery, yes, but it’s also a searing indictment of the prison system — and of the media’s shoddy coverage of crime. A perfect gift for: That elected official, legislative staffer or lobbyist pushing for longer prison sentences. Don’t know anyone with such regressive views? Purchase a copy to send to an inmate currently in prison at this link.
The Hero of This Book, by Elizabeth McCracken. A novel that’s maybe partially a memoir — or maybe not? — McCracken’s book is about the life and death of a woman’s mother who happens to have a lot in common with McCracken’s own mother. It’s funny and sad and just so damn good, like everything else McCracken writes. A perfect gift for: Your mother, unless she’ll think it means you want her to die already.
Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free, by Sarah Weinman. Do you love true crime? What about William F. Buckley and mid-century conservatism? Or maybe you’re just really into old publishing gossip? This book has it all. The true story of how Buckley pushed to release a convicted murderer from prison with disastrous results, Weinman briskly pulls multiple narrative threads together for an engrossing read. A perfect gift for: Your friend who loves Dateline and/or The National Review.
Shrines of Gaiety, by Kate Atkinson. Loosely based on the life of a real person, this novel explores the seedy underbelly of post-World War I London and feminism and trauma and the Bright Young Things, and, oh, there’s a murderer after young girls. I think I’ve read every single book of Atkinson’s, some more than once, and there’s no one quite like her. A perfect gift for: Your cousin who wishes she could have been a flapper.
This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub. What if you could go back in time to your high school years? What if you could finally get together with your crush? What if it could stop your dad from dying? If the idea of a reverse 13 Going on 30 set in the mid-90s sounds like a good read — well, it is. But Straub doesn’t settle for simple wish fulfillment. She complicates the narrative, and then complicates again. A perfect gift for: Your high school BFF.
Umask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries, by Rick Emerson. If you’re like me, you read the “anonymous” “diary” Go Ask Alice in your tween years. Maybe it scared you off drugs for life, maybe you laughed your way through it, maybe you related to Alice and felt her pain. But as Emerson details, Alice was actually the creation of a Mormon housewife, whose next book helped create the Satanic Panic, too. And it gets weirder and sadder from there. I promise you will say, “Holy shit WHAT ON EARTH?!” out loud more than once while reading this. A perfect gift for: You, your teenager, and your local Moms for Liberty chapter.
MUSIC
You don’t need me to tell you to listen to Carly Rae Jepsen or Wet Leg (unless you do, in which case, please go listen to them). But passes or single-day tickets to Big Ears are a wonderful gift for the music lover in your life. It’s truly the perfect music festival for people who hate music festivals, like me. Everything is indoors, most venues have seats, the crowd is older and not doing drugs, the sound is usually great, and the music selection is completely eclectic. (It won’t be as delightfully campy as a Carly Rae concert, however.)
PODCASTS
You can’t give podcasts as gifts, but if you’ve got holiday travel looming — or if you get stuck in Green Hills traffic for two hours trying to finish your shopping — these series will keep you occupied.
Bone Valley. You might know Gilbert King from his excellent books Devil in the Grove, about the tragic Groveland Boys case, or Beneath a Ruthless Sun, about a different racist wrongful arrest in Florida. It turns out he’s an excellent podcaster too, telling the story of a man wrongfully convicted of the murder of his wife and a criminal justice system in Florida that does not care — even though the actual murderer has confessed. If you still need further confirmation that many prosectors are terrible at their jobs, this will convince you.
Normal Gossip. Do you like hearing funny stories about petty drama? If so, this is the show for you. All stories have been anonymized, so you can feel safe laughing at the bad behavior of neighbors, kickball teammates or members of the wedding party. Each episode features one saga involving a random piece of gossip. It’s not serialized, so you can listen in any order. “Grandma’s Best Friend Dot” is truly a classic.
Rachel Maddow Presents Ultra. You might see “Rachel Maddow” and run away from this podcast, but that’s a mistake. This series is a well-researched history of the time there were actual Nazis in Congress, a somewhat forgotten piece of history that I personally knew nothing about. Oh, and that time was during World War II. Are there parallels to some other things going on now? You bet. And it’s packed with lots of fun facts to pull out during Christmas dinners with relatives.
NEWSLETTERS
I know, more email is the last thing anyone wants for Christmas, but I promise these Substacks are worth your time (and/or your money).
Department of Salad. Twice a week, you will get a salad recipe from food writer Emily Nunn. Sometimes there is also life advice. The recipes are mostly seasonal, and they vary from vegetarian-friendly side dishes to meat-forward main courses to occasional dessert salads. Every time I post a picture on Instagram of a salad I’ve made, I get a DM from someone asking me for the recipe. Bonus advice: For more recipes, get Emily’s book, The Comfort Food Diaries: My Quest for the Perfect Dish to Mend a Broken Heart, which is about recovering from a lot of sadness with a lot of good food and friends.
Today in Tabs. If you’re trying to spend less time online, this semi-regular (some weeks it’s daily, some weeks it’s not) newsletter will catch you up on all the good Twitter/other online drama. You don’t have to be extremely online to enjoy it, but it probably helps. Also, it’s really funny.
Ok, that’s it. I’ll be back in a few weeks with some reporting or some recommendations or maybe both. If you want to send me tips, I’m on Signal, and still on Twitter, for now. You can also reply to this email. If you want to help fund my future reporting, I’m on Venmo @cgervin and CashApp at $cgervin. A free press isn’t cost-free.
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A Hamilton County School Board Candidate Flew* to D.C. for Jan. 6.
Early voting starts in Tennessee county general elections on Friday, July 15. The actual election is Aug. 4.
As I know as well as anyone, covering local elections with a tiny reporting team is hard. There’s never enough time, and there are always those candidates who won’t do an interview or even answer an email questionnaire — when all you’re trying to do is better help inform voters about how they would govern if elected.
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But here’s what I don’t understand: The Chattanooga Times Free Press has known that Virginia Anne Manson, a Republican candidate for Hamilton County School Board (HCSB), flew on a private jet to Washington, D.C., for the Jan. 6, 2021, so-called “Stop the Steal” “rally” that ended in the total insurrection at the Capitol. They have known this since the candidate announced her run for office this past January, and they have chosen not to report that. In fact, the TFP has known about this trip since January 2021, when I told them about it — and sent them photographic evidence. And I was not the only one to do so. Yet they still have chosen to not report on this, either in 2021 or in 2022. The only mention of that trip has been in two editorial pieces, one of which called it “rumors” and then stated:
We would defend Manson's right to attend such a nonviolent protest just as we would any protester who attended any nonviolent rally following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020. While we have said we don't believe there was enough fraud to have changed the results of the 2020 presidential election, there was enough election uncertainty to shake the faith of the American voter.
Of course, the right to protest is protected in the First Amendment, and so is a free press. But there was no election uncertainty, and electing a school board candidate (endorsed by “Moms for Liberty,” natch) who doesn’t believe in facts or in truly supporting public education is a recipe for disaster for Hamilton County Schools.
Virginia Anne Manson, nee Corey, is running for HCSB District 11 as a Republican. She was unopposed in the primary. Manson lives on Lookout Mountain, as do I, although on opposite sides of the state line, which means I cannot vote in this race. (Full disclosure here: I vaguely remember her from growing up, because we attended the same church at the time.) Her father was the former chief of staff of T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital, and her husband Tim was once sued by the U.S Department of Justice for failing to notice that the man he hired to oversee Standard Coosa Thatcher (SCT) Yarns’ retirement plan was skimming off the top to buy a Utah vacation home, among other allegations.
Manson is a graduate of the private all-girls school GPS. Her husband and three children are graduates of the private (now coed) Baylor School (also my alma mater). In fact, until her upcoming retirement, Manson has worked for Baylor since 2004 and is now the Director of Boarding Admission — which is to say, her full-time job for almost 20 years has been recruiting people to attend a private school whose boarding tuition for this year is $57,340, more than most colleges. (My non-boarding tuition in the 1990s was something like a tenth of that —still an incredible privilege, of which I am very aware.)
Manson’s children did attend a public elementary school in the aughts before starting Baylor in either 6th or 7th grade (current day tuition: $28,310, though employees do get a discounted rate). But that school, Lookout Mountain Elementary School, is likely the most well-funded in the county. The school’s website literally provides information on how to donate stocks to the school — not just money, but stocks, with broker info and all. (Please note: I did not go to LMES.)
All of this is to say, Manson is not someone with a lot of relevant public school experience to serve on a county school board. Especially not in District 11.
During redistricting this year, the Hamilton County Commission decided to increase the number of districts to 11 from the current nine. Some of the school board members fought to have a separate map, staying with nine districts, but that effort failed. So the new District 11 is, literally, entirely new.
The district encompasses the Tennessee side of Lookout Mountain — a solid wealthy, Republican voting block, though not quite as red as some suburban areas in the county. It also includes Lookout Valley (formerly Tiftonia), which is a mix of working-class, mostly white families, and a pricey, rapidly growing subdivision, Black Creek (formerly Cummings Cove). That area was even more solidly Republican in 2020 than Lookout.
But the rest of District 11 is St. Elmo (increasingly gentrified by white liberals); Alton Park (almost entirely Black and one of the most solidly Democratic blocks in the city); part of the Southside (mostly white and mostly liberal); East Lake (Black and increasingly Latino); and part of Missionary Ridge (mostly white, mostly Democratic voters).
In short, while District 11 includes the county’s wealthiest elementary school, it also includes some of the poorest schools in the county, which are almost entirely filled with minorities. Howard High School — the most well-known historically Black school in Chattanooga, whose students led sit-ins at lunch counters in 1960 — is now almost 50% Black, 50% Latino.
The neighborhoods in the new district are currently represented by two Democratic county commissioners, albeit before the redrawn lines. This will be the first partisan school board election since the legislature passed a law allowing them last year. The district leans slightly D, because even a Republican-controlled county commission still has to provide for minority representation. But in a year without a presidential race on the ballot and energized white GOP voters, it will likely be a very close race — unless a lot of Democratic voters stay home, in which case it could be a blowout. (It’s worth noting here that even in an uncontested primary, Manson walloped the uncontested Democratic candidate in vote totals. However, with very few contested Dem primaries, many voters skipped the primary or voted a Republican ballot to decide the likely next county mayor and district attorney.)
On January 6, 2021, Virginia Anne Manson was in Washington, D.C., at the now-infamous pro-Trump rally falsely promoting the lie that the election was stolen. Which it was not. Manson flew* to D.C. on a private plane with at least four other Lookout ladies, all from very old Lookout/Chattanooga money. In a submitted picture from a source, Manson is wearing a MAGA hat, standing with her four friends, with the Capitol in the background:
The other attendees included:
Beth “Boofie” Lupton* Crimmins. Her husband Ryan is the chairman and former president of Lawson Electric. (*Yes, she’s one of those Coca-Cola-money Luptons. Her father Tommy Lupton sold his business to Bob Corker, long before he became a mayor or senator. Fun fact: Tommy got so upset when the city decided to rename Ninth Street “Dr. M.L. King Jr. Blvd.” that he got the city to give his two buildings on a block on West Ninth their own address, Union Square. [Full disclosure: I was a runner for my dad’s law firm in one of those buildings in the 1990s and did not know that history at the time.]) Ryan is also a partner in a development group building a fancy gated golf resort on the back of Lookout on the Georgia side. Their daughter is now the resort’s director of marketing, after several years at Garden & Gun magazine. During that time, Boofie and Manson attended a magazine-sponsored skeet shoot. Oh, and Ryan’s currently the president of Baylor’s Board of Trustees.
Laura “Lolly” Jones. The descendent of a prominent textile and manufacturing family (Hedges/ Willingham/ Allison), she’s married to Tom Jones, the grandson of S.L. Probasco (and nephew of Alice Lupton, the wife of afore-linked Jack).
Susan Maclellan. Her husband Chris runs the Maclellan Foundation, a Christian non-profit supported by family wealth. The foundation has been long involved in funding a shelter for the unhoused in Chattanooga. But it’s worth noting the foundation’s two most recent 990s. In 2018, $57,826 went to the shelter, and $46,706 went to “national research to gauge the populace’s feelings toward religious liberty issues.” They also spent $45,837 on consultants and $35,640 on “convening leaders for learning the foundation hosted different trainings for grantees and the general public, including a training on intercultural intelligence and a training series on fatherhood among Latinos,” whatever that means. But in 2019, $60,471 went to the shelter, $124,244 went to “research to gauge the populace’s feelings toward religious liberty …and about the state of prayer in the U.S.” — and $553,164 was spent on consultants and conferences, and $135,238 on an “online Bible course.” Christian charity indeed.
Lindsey Moore. Married to investor Ricky Moore, Lindsey is the daughter of the Bickerstaffs and cousins of the Elders, who both developed the exclusive Elder Mountain community. An illuminating 2017 interview with her father posted on YouTube, seemingly as part of her son’s school assignment, has him admit his opposition to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and says that he does not believe discrimination currently exists against Black people trying to get jobs or even in everyday life. (Notably, he also says he doesn’t remember the Howard sit-ins either, just “riots.”)
Manson’s campaign claims she never entered the Capitol and was “in her hotel room in Virginia when she saw on television all that occurred,” according to a statement provided to the TFP’s rightwing opinion editor, Clint Cooper. But if that statement is even true, was she watching with horror and distress? Or was she popping champagne, hoping the election would somehow violently be overturned?
Shortly after the above Facebook picture went semi-viral in Lookout communities in January 2021, a prankster had signs printed and placed strategically around the mountain: “Golf Wives Matter.”
As of the last reporting period, all four women have donated to Manson’s campaign — $500 each, except for Boofie and her husband donating a total of $950. By the end of April, Manson had raised $40,550 in total, with $33,346 on hand. That’s more than double the money raised by Democratic opponent Jill Black, another Lookout resident.
Notable donors to Manson include $1,000 from BOW-PAC, the PAC of state Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson); $1,000 from NOOGA PAC, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleishman’s PAC; $1,500 from Virginia Caldwell; $500 from Thomas Decosimo (who lost his school board race last time); $1,600 from Manson’s brother Allen Corey; $1,600 from Manson’s husband Tim; $1,600 from their daughter-in-law Schuyler; and a lot of other large donations from other richie riches of Lookout and Chattanooga.
Prior to the May primary, Black had raised $20,346. Notable donors include Olan Mills II and Robert Mills, each donating $1,600; Anne Bright of the Proprioceptive Writing Center Southeast, $1,600; Marshall Bright, $1,600; P.K. Brock, $1,000; Paul Brock, $500; D.C. Montague, $1,000; Alice Smith, $1,000; and Bill Aiken, $250.
Steve McKinney, who originally pulled a petition as a Republican before filing to run as an Independent, reported raising $100 in the first quarter.
Second-quarter disclosures are due today, July 11.
It might be easy to say what does it matter if one white woman from Lookout wins versus another one — neither will be sending their kids to Howard, neither will ever understand what it’s like to grow up in Alton Park, neither is particularly well equipped to address the needs of the growing Latino population in the district, many of whom cannot even vote. But here’s Manson’s approach:
As a community, we have all had to navigate two major crises: The coronavirus pandemic and the over-politicization of every institution that we hold dear. I have a strong conviction that our leaders have failed us and have propagated a spirit of division so great that many believe that we can never be unified again. This is tragic. …
Our children … are now seeing the great political divisions among adults be pushed down to them through curriculum. This is unacceptable. No matter what political party we are affiliated with, we should all be able to come together to make decisions that help our children, not hurt them. …
I have been a part of making The Baylor School one of the top schools in our state and I look forward to using this experience to work with the students, teachers, and the administration to move our schools toward excellence. Our district has fallen behind academically for far too long and I am committed to serving the families of the 11 different schools in District 11 to get us back on track. My campaign focuses on a strategy that is clearly identified as Parents Know Best. [italics mine]
Meanwhile, here’s what Black, an actual social worker, has to say about her campaign:
Equity for Students: Meet our students where they are and give them the tools they need to be successful.
Support for Teachers: Provide competitive pay for educators and more support in the classroom through aides, coaches, and paraprofessionals.
Investment in Facilities: Address facility repair and construction needs so every student in Hamilton County is proud of the school they attend and our schools meet the needs of our growing community now and in the future.
As someone who attended Baylor — one of the wealthiest schools in the southeast, with a campus over 750 acres, an average class size of 15, and an exceedingly white population — it is ludicrous to think that experience luring rich kids to live on campus has any translatable experience to helping run public schools, especially some of the poorest and Blackest ones in the county. It’s also laughable that someone who falsely believes that Trump won the election to the extent that she would fly to D.C. for January 6 also thinks public schools are “over-politicized” and that “no matter what political party we are affiliated with,” we can all kum ba yah our massive problems in public schools away. (But, of course, she neither thinks nor wants that.)
And that, again, is why I remain flummoxed that neither the TFP nor local television outlets nor even Black’s campaign has made this a big deal. It should be a BIG DEAL that a school board candidate does not believe in facts or in actual democracy. It should be a HUGE DEAL that when I first told a TFP reporter about this back in 2021 (before Black was even running), they were first told by their editor that the story was not a story and then told it was going to be “reassigned as a fluffy feature about [the women’s] experience” to a reporter who didn’t cover politics. Of course, that story never ran. Even after Vanity Fair ran a lengthy feature on a group of rich Memphis bros who flew to D.C. for the same event, the TFP still declined to follow up with the Lookout ladies.
As the Congressional hearings have shown, the Jan. 6 “rally” was designed to be an insurrection. It was designed to kill people. It was designed to target the vice president. It was designed to overthrow the election. It was designed to overthrow the government. And anyone who supported that does not deserve to serve in office — especially the one in charge of educating our children.
In any case, a new prankster has been posting coordinating signs next to Manson’s around the district. They have an arrow pointing directly to the side and say, “Candidate that was at the January 6 insurrection.” Who knows, maybe the TFP will finally write about that.
*Although several people have told me about a private plane, one tipster says the ladies may have driven to D.C. If you want to track the flights, go for it. I’m going back on my internet sabbatical.
If you want to send me tips, I’m on Signal, Confide, Twitter and Facebook. [However, I’m taking a social media break for July, so be patient with my responses.] You can also reply to this email. If you want to help fund my reporting, I’m on Venmo @cgervin and CashApp at $cgervin. A free press isn’t cost-free.
Thanks for reading The Dog and Pony Show! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.