Knoxville Voice's Web site seems to be getting spasmodic updates recently, so perhaps the edited version of this will end up at http://www.knoxvoice.com/ (Edit, 3/11/08: the column's now at http://www.knoxvoice.com/arts-amp-entertainment/funny-ha-ha/p-card-theater-31.html)
In the meantime, though, here's
P-Card Theater
Political performance art
by Scott McNutt
From APB wire reports. Knoxville, TENN. -- A theater critic for The New Yorker magazine is poised to reveal that the ongoing political strife in Knox County is a colossal hoax. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an intern for the theater critic explained how the sham was discovered.
"After the New York Times piece on Knox County government came out last month [www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/us/04land.html]," said the intern, "everybody in the Big Apple media started watching Large Orange [sic] politics, sort of as a joke. I mean, look what was happening: appointees, removees, removed appointees running for office, being defeated, humiliated commission chairman resigning, replacement appointees, new appointees holding the longest-running commission meeting ever -- it was like deranged reality television. We were all going, ‘Look at those dumb hicks -- they aren’t safe for democracy, ha, ha, ha.’
"But the latest hullabaloo made my boss suspicious. I mean, come on. On Monday, the county mayor announces this draft P-card audit won’t be publicly released until his office has vetted it. Three days later, his own law director says to the media, ‘Hey, nope, the mayor’s wrong; here, take a gander,’ before the mayor even sees the audit? No way. As government process, it’s idiotic. But, as theater, it’s brilliant.
"So once we started looking into Knox County government, it became obvious it was bogus. $29,000 in sorority sleepovers at county expense? Commissioners calling each other ‘peckerhead’ and ‘university twit’ and citing the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials to protest ethics policies? A commission chairman speaksEnglish like it’s a second language, spouting things like ‘This just buffoons me’? A mayoral staffer uses a county credit card at flashingblinkylights.com? And doesn’t get a receipt? Come on, no government is that dysfunctional. It’s beyond Theater of the Absurd, it’s Kafka channeling the Marx Brothers. It’s Theater of the Ridiculous. My boss said, ‘That’s not government. That’s entertainment!’"
That’s when the critic realized that "Knox County government is the longest-running piece of unannounced performance art ever executed." All the outrageous proceedings, the tantrums, the confrontations – all have been clues to the fakery of the performance.
The artist behind this fantastic humbug has yet to be identified. Initially, comedian Jeff Foxworthy was suspected of perpetrating a gargantuan "You might be a redneck…" routine on Knox County. This idea was dismissed as "too obvious." Suspects currently include Laurie Anderson, Yoko Ono and Beauvais Lyons, the University of Tennessee artist famous for fabricating artifacts from hoax civilizations and lecturing on "The Politics of Parody."
Knoxville Voice has learned that the charade extends beyond county government. When contacted by email for his reaction to the hoax, blogger Randy Neal of KnoxViews.com replied, "I'm surprised it took this long for everyone to figure it out. KnoxViews has been in on it from the beginning. Lumpy's line about the ‘McCartney hearings’? That was some of our best work. Too bad it's getting exposed right in the middle of act two, though. My P-card got cut off, and Scoobie's not returning my calls. (P.S. You're not going to tell anyone that ‘exposing’ it is act three, right?)"
Some locals, however, were surprised. "So that's why Paul Pinkston wasn't at the South Knox waterfront meetings -- it wasn't in the script," said Knoxvillian Rachel Craig, a veteran observer of local politics. "And they said you couldn't make up stuff like this!"
One local media personality, who refused to be identified for fear of disciplinary action by her employer, said, "We always knew Knox County government was a joke. We just didn’t know it was intentional."
Local arts and entertainment insiders are pondering the identities of these government performers. Local actor and writer Stephen Dupree observed, "I thought ‘Lumpy’ looked familiar. I think he portrayed an aristocratic doctor in an English soap opera that was popular during the time I spent in London. This role of a complete idiot with serious diction and vocabulary limitations must be an incredible stretch for him. I imagine he will be getting serious recognition from his peers for this role. (Assuming any of them actually make the connection.) Bravo, I say! Bravo!"
One local theater critic disputed Dupree’s surmise. He suggested that the part of "Commissioner Greg ‘Lumpy’ Lambert" was taken by former Saturday Night Live comedian Chris Farley, contending that Farley faked his own death to take the role. This critic also noted that some members of county government may have studied at the Harvey Korman School of Scene Mugging. According to this expert, the unchanging smirks on the faces of County Mayor Mike Ragsdale and former Knox County Commission Chairman Scott "Scoobie" Moore are trademarks of the Korman style of improv. Another authority opined that Ragsdale actually is Korman, since no one seems to know what’s happened to him.
Several other of the outré personalities in Knox County government have been identified as established character actors. The actor playing "Commissioner Mark Harmon," for instance, has often played university-twit types, including roles on such TV shows as St. Elsewhere and NCIS. "Commissioner Paul Pinkston" once played an alien on The X-files. The actress starring as "Former Knox County Director of Community Services Cynthia Finch" had a stint on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. "Former Special Assistant to the County Mayor Tyler Harber" was apparently discovered at the same time as Brad Renfro and has a string of art film roles to his credit, usually playing charming juvenile delinquents. Although it could not be confirmed at press time, purportedly, in real life "Commissioner R. Larry Smith" is a French mime. This may explain why he never seems to know what's going to come out of his mouth when it opens.
Observers also believe that the infamous exchange between Ragsdale and supposed citizen Lewis Cosby is another clue to the unreality of the proceedings. What appeared to be Ragsdale referring to Cosby as a "showboat" was actually one actor using a code word to inform another actor that the scene was running too long. Reportedly, such code words are commonly used in theater. Investigations are proceeding into whether "twit" and "peckerhead" are also codes.
In fact, the flamboyant incidents throughout the Ragsdale era -- the anti-wheel-tax petition derailment, Tyler Harber’s email theft, computer concealment and subsequent dismissal, the term-limits lawsuit, the Black Wednesday antics, Lumpy’s dramatic tossing of photographs at Cynthia Finch, right up to the wonky release of the P-card audit -- all appear to have been staged. Only the lobster lunches seem to have been real.
Some local observers gave the performance ecstatic reviews. “‘Etonnez-moi!’ Diaghilev famously told Cocteau was the prescription for great art,” said local performer, writer and critic Jack Rentfro. “It hardly begins to cover my astonished admiration for the splendid tableaux vivantes presented by the Knox County Commission Players in their climactic run over the past year. Imagine! Crime as government! It’s like Teapot Dome or the Grant or Bush administrations on a Podunk level. It’s breathtakingly bold! More screwball than Moon over Parador, more noir than The Last Hurrah, more kuntry-kuzzin’ kissin’ than a DVD of Hee-Haw highlights! And we wonder why we send utter raging doofuses like Stacy Campfield to the General Assembly in Nashville.”
Former News Sentinel reporter and Metro Pulse editor Jesse Fox Mayshark found the hoax unsurprising in his assessment of the performance. "I always saw Knox County Commission in the lineage of the Theater of the Absurd, not so much a postmodern critique of the relationship between the individual and the state as a metaphorical door-slamming farce in which the joke is always on the audience," said Mayshark. "I think it ranks with other conceptual achievements of recent years -- the Kansas Board of Education, say, or the 2003 California gubernatorial race -- as a realization of democracy-as-art. (What Baudoin called ‘the ecstasy of misappropriation.’)"
When asked about the truth of the allegations, the county government’s media relations officer would say only, "Mr. Andy Kaufman's gone wrestling."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment