Tuesday, September 30, 2008

FANS CELEBRATE DOGS' 4-0 START

Matthew McConaughey (inset) joined East Nashville fans as they
took to the streets to celebrate the Black Dogs 4-0 September.


FANS CELEBRATE DOGS' 4-0 START

Team president Buddy Ryan arrested again for streaking

By R.E. Porter, Associated Web Press

Residents of East Nashville took to the streets late Monday night to celebrate a month of perfection — their Black Dogs finished September with an unblemished 4-0 mark after giving the Midtown Mojo and the Pompatus of Love a 28-point spanking in week-four action.

The Black Dogs franchise had never started a season 4-0, but the team has responded enthusiastically to the challenge issued by coach Jim McMahon to top their record-setting 12-2 regular-season mark from a year ago. McMahon has stated privately that he wants the NFFA's first perfect season.

The celebration got started on Commissioner William D. Money's block just off Eastland Avenue in East Nashville's Eastwood neighborhood. Money's neighbors began milling around in the street in front of the commissioner's two-story house following the end of Monday Night Football. People were handing out imported Mexican beers and passing around marijuana cigarettes made from what one resident of the block called "kind bud from the Cumberland Plateau."

Word spread via text messages that there was a block party (and free beer and smoke) off Eastland Avenue. In less than an hour, the night spots in the trendy Five Points area had emptied as their patrons headed to the party. Just before heading there herself, a waitress at the Alley Cat Lounge named Charity said she lost at least $100 in tips because of the "[expletive] Black Dogs."

Some observers estimated that within a half hour, more than a thousand people were milling around in the streets of the Eastwood neighborhood, drinking beer and smoking pot. Recording artist Todd Snider, the unofficial mayor of East Nashville, was chilling with Money and McMahon on the commissioner's front porch, doing shots of tequila.

You might ask how could there be beer and marijuana for more than a thousand people without any advance notice, was it some modern-day "feeding of the multitudes," but that would only demonstrate an unfamiliarity with East Nashville's boho community. In his song "From the Rooftop," Snider noted about his beloved East side: "A lot of us smoke more dope before 9 a.m. than most people do all day."

Snider was not the only celebrity the party attracted. Rock god Jack White and his Raconteurs bandmate Brendan Benson were sighted drinking beer and talking with the also-victorious 12th Avenue Bakers owner QCurl Sharif and his companion, singer Amy Winehouse. An obviously inebriated Matthew McConaughey showed up around 1 a.m., asking for his "old friend [Black Dogs president] Buddy Ryan," but it was unclear how he had heard about the party or how he got there on such short notice.

The party had been going on for about three hours when the Metro police arrived to shut it down, which had longtime East Nashville residents marveling at their quick response time. But the timing of their arrival could not have been worse for Ryan. Just as two patrol cars pulled up at the end of the commissioner's block, Ryan and McConaughey came running down the street naked. McConaughey outran the police, but Ryan slipped and fell, and was easily apprehended. He was taken to the Metro jail where he was booked on charges of public indecency and then released after attorney Wiley Peyote posted bail.

As he left the jail house, Ryan declined comment, but Peyote said, "Buddy told me some 'damn actor' gave him a drink called 'The Diviner,' which if I am not mistaken is slang for a drink whose main ingredient is Salvia, the most powerful hallucinogen known to man."

This was Ryan's second arrest for public indecency in recent years for streaking. He was arrested in 2005 following the Black Dogs victory in the NFFA championship game. Following that arrest, the team president also claimed to have been "dosed" — on that occasion with LSD.

One other point worth noting about Ryan's arrest: As he lay sprawled, spread-eagled in the front yard of one of Money's neighbors, several observers said they could clearly see that Ryan's "package" was intact.