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| One of the BLM's mobile road signs warning people of Sharif's grazing zombies. |
By Ariel Mutha-Tafoya
FSN Sports
Just when the 12th Avenue Bakers must have thought nothing else could further complicate their lives, the federal Bureau of Land Management is poised to seize all of the property, including hundreds of zombies, at the Hohenwald, Tennessee, complex of team owner QCurl Sharif.
FSN has learned that the agency plans to move against Sharif based on allegations that his organization allowed its zombies to graze for years on federal land near the Natchez Trace Parkway without paying any of the required fees. According to a BLM document obtained by FSN, the team owes more than $1.1 million dollars in unpaid fees, penalties and interest.
In 2004, the Bakers developed and patented a method of zombification by which zombies can survive on grass and alfalfa instead of the traditional diet of human flesh. “That was the breakthrough that changed everything,” said Dr. Royce Breedlove, Professor of Reanimation Studies at Nashville’s Belmont University.
According to the BLM’s allegations, the Bakers bussed zombies from their Hohenwald compound to federally owned pastureland near the Natchez Trace.
The agency’s planned action fueled new speculations about the absence of Bakers owner QCurl Sharif and the team’s general manager, Faith Popcorn, who reportedly left for Ukraine in early March. Though team attorney Mandrake Kirby issued a statement that Sharif is alive and well, he has not been seen in public in more than two months. BLM officials and IRS agents suggest that Sharif may have left the country to avoid arrest over the unpaid grazing fees.
If the BLM’s request is approved, federal agents could be in Hohenwald as early as next week to confiscate the zombies and seize Sharif’s Hohenwald property, which includes the Lombardi Memorial Reanimation Center, QCS Laboratories (popularly known as “the Zombie Corral”), and the Bobberhead Lodge Resort & Spa.
“Them and whose army, is what I want to know,” said Sod Bakers President Nate Newton, who, in Popcorn’s absence, told reporters that he is handling the team’s day-to-day operations.
Newton said that hundreds of Baker fans and “lovers of freedom” would go to Hohenwald over the weekend to “stand in solidarity with Mr. Sharif and our zombie brothers and sisters.”
FSN has learned that the agency plans to move against Sharif based on allegations that his organization allowed its zombies to graze for years on federal land near the Natchez Trace Parkway without paying any of the required fees. According to a BLM document obtained by FSN, the team owes more than $1.1 million dollars in unpaid fees, penalties and interest.
In 2004, the Bakers developed and patented a method of zombification by which zombies can survive on grass and alfalfa instead of the traditional diet of human flesh. “That was the breakthrough that changed everything,” said Dr. Royce Breedlove, Professor of Reanimation Studies at Nashville’s Belmont University.
According to the BLM’s allegations, the Bakers bussed zombies from their Hohenwald compound to federally owned pastureland near the Natchez Trace.
The agency’s planned action fueled new speculations about the absence of Bakers owner QCurl Sharif and the team’s general manager, Faith Popcorn, who reportedly left for Ukraine in early March. Though team attorney Mandrake Kirby issued a statement that Sharif is alive and well, he has not been seen in public in more than two months. BLM officials and IRS agents suggest that Sharif may have left the country to avoid arrest over the unpaid grazing fees.
If the BLM’s request is approved, federal agents could be in Hohenwald as early as next week to confiscate the zombies and seize Sharif’s Hohenwald property, which includes the Lombardi Memorial Reanimation Center, QCS Laboratories (popularly known as “the Zombie Corral”), and the Bobberhead Lodge Resort & Spa.
“Them and whose army, is what I want to know,” said Sod Bakers President Nate Newton, who, in Popcorn’s absence, told reporters that he is handling the team’s day-to-day operations.
Newton said that hundreds of Baker fans and “lovers of freedom” would go to Hohenwald over the weekend to “stand in solidarity with Mr. Sharif and our zombie brothers and sisters.”
As for the claim that Sharif had fled the country to avoid arrest, said Newton, “I can tell you that’s some damn bullshit. Mr. Sharif has never been one to back away from a crisis. He sneers in the face of doom. If he were here, he’d be there.”
Meanwhile, NFFA founder Jorgé Linardo issued a rare public statement on Friday calling for the BLM to proceed with caution. “They need to consider the impact this would have on the league,” Linardo wrote. “Take away the zombies and you have no Bacchanal, no more zombie nativity scenes in the park, no more tourist dollars flowing into Hohenwald. You threaten the very existence of the NFFA. I am confident that, once this matter comes to the attention of President Obama and Vice President Biden, wiser heads will prevail. This is not going to heat up. It’s going to cool down. Snow is in the forecast.”
Separately, in anticipation of a judge’s ruling that Sharif is legally dead, the Bakers’ front office reportedly has received at three different documents purporting to be the team owner’s last will and testament.
Sources who requested anonymity said that one of the rival wills originally stipulated that Sharif’s estate would be divided among his children, but was amended after the swallowing of the CurlBaby by Shiva, listing Cambridge owner Dave the Animal as beneficiary. After CurlBaby’s miraculous reappearance late last year, the source suggested, perhaps Sharif never got around to reinstating the baby as his heir.
Another purported will, which arrived in a brown paper envelope, listed New Mexico resident Melvin Dumar as the sole beneficiary of Sharif’s estate. According to a note attached to the will, Dumar, a driver for UPS, found Sharif wandering incoherently in the desert near Zuni Pueblo and gave him a ride to what the document described as a “safe house” northwest of Santa Fe.
Yet another will claims that Sharif, “in an act of repentance and devotion,” left all of his assets to Focus on the Family Ministries in Colorado Springs. “That one, the source said, began with the standard language about ‘being of sound mind and body,’ so we threw it out as an obvious fraud. We knew QCurl would never sign anything like that.”
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