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The Ridgedale Church of Christ in Chattanooga made national news this week after its leaders asked the relatives of openly gay detective Kat Cooper to either repent and seek forgiveness for accepting Cooper’s homosexuality or to leave the church.
Cooper’s family decided to leave the church, but the leadership and congregation of the Ridgedale Church of Christ has since recanted its ultimatum and accepted the family back into the church after a group screening of the erotic softcore direct-to-video 1992 movie The Sapphic Sorority Sisters of Lesbos.
“We had this whole lesbian thing all wrong,” said congregation member Otto Eisenbiel. “This movie opened our eyes to smokin’ hot girl-on-girl action and carpet munching. It’s only right and natural.”
Far-right religious conservatives have often been critical towards gays, with figures such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell even declaring in 1997 that “this homosexual steamroller will literally crush all decent men, women and children.”
“In the book of Matthew, Jesus says the two greatest commandments are ‘Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind,’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,'” Eisenbiel said. “We accept the Cooper family back into the fold, and we love all lesbians, from the most coy lipstick lesbian to the most militant, buzzcut-wearing bulldyke.”
Following the announcement of making Chatype the office typeface of Chattanooga, Mayor Berke issued a mandate that all visible text within the Chattanooga city limits must be converted to the new font.
“Today marks a historic day in the history of Chattanooga, and even the world,” exclaimed Berke. “We must go Chaballs out and do this thing right!”
Chatype, which began as a Kickstarter crowd-funded project early last year, gained support worldwide for its uniqueness, being the first project of its kind. Many Chattanooga neighboring cities, such as Rossville, have tried such projects, but failed when the finished products produced botched versions of Comic Sans.
“I have created a new Chatype task force to vigorously and aggressively work around the clock toward the completion of the conversion,” explained Berke. “They will not stop until every street sign, graffiti tag, National cemetery headstone and manhole cover has been outfitted with Chatype.”
“We expect for all citizens of our great city to comply with the new mandate,” said Chattanooga Police Chief Bobby Dodd. “Those naysayers who fail to follow orders could be met with hefty fines, jail time or even have their MacBooks taken away.”
At a press conference yesterday afternoon in New York City, magician David Blaine announced that for his next stunt, he would crucify himself on the tallest of the three newly built giant crosses in Chattanooga at The Crossing Church off Interstate 75.
Blaine rose to prominence early in his career as a street magician before performing extreme stunts and tests of endurance, including being frozen in a block of ice for 63 hours, being suspended over the River Thames in a Plexiglas case without food for 44 days and being electrified with one million volts continuously for 72 hours.
“Some people, when they see a magnificent, towering mountain, they say, ‘I want to climb that,'” said Blaine, while “The Final Countdown” by Europe played in the background. “When I heard about these giant crosses being built in Tennessee, I immediately said, ‘I want to crucify myself on that.'”
“For 40 days and 40 nights, you will see me on the tallest of the three crosses, without food or shade from the blistering sun,” said Blaine. “Jesus Christ was only on the cross for less than a day, and I plan on beating his record, many times over.”
In celebration of his first 100 days in office, Mayor Berke announced today that he would perform random acts of strength around the city of Chattanooga.
“While the first 100 days of assuming the role of Mayor have been productive and perplexing, I have found a bit of time to hit the gym and really bulk up,” proclaimed Berke, while removing his shirt and tie to expose a muscle shirt with “renew” printed across it.
“Everyday I am faced with many troubling questions surrounding the future of our great city, such as: ‘How does a such a great Mayor have such great abs?’ and ‘Do you even lift?’” said Berke.
Berke proceeded to challenge attendees of the press conference in arm wrestling matches, manhandling and defeating each with great ease.
“Ever since I have taken office some months, 917 chin-ups were conquered by utilizing these bad boys,” said Berke, while proceeding to kiss his left and right biceps.
“In my next 100 days as Mayor, I plan on shifting a great amount of focus on renewing our public transportation system,” said Berke. “What better way to kick this off than for all to witness as I pull this CARTA bus down Market Street using only my ripped, chiseled and muscular bod.”
Chattanooga residents were sorely disappointed when severe weather caused the annual Coolidge Park fireworks and outdoor concert to be cancelled, but the City of Chattanooga announced yesterday afternoon at a press conference a way to turn that disappointment into triumph, by combining a postponed fireworks display with the detonation of the controversial North Shore barge.
“This is a win-win situation,” said Mayor Berke to a crowd of reporters. “We will be able to celebrate Independence Day the way it was meant to be celebrated, plus, we will absolutely, completely obliterate that unsightly barge that has been an embarrassment to the North Shore.”
“We have the explosives,” said Berke. “A half-ton of dynamite, to be exact.”
The barge, moored across from the Tennessee Aquarium since 2009, was intended by Chattanooga businessman Allen Casey to be the location of a New Orleans-style steakhouse and bar, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has threatened to revoke Casey’s barge permit unless the barge is cleaned up and brought into compliance.
“Consider it revoked,” said City Manager Kris Viggs about the permit, to wild applause.
“This will be a wonderful, glorious display of colorful fireworks and shock-and-awe destruction,” said Viggs. “It will also be an opportunity to clean house. Anything you don’t want to see—urban chickens, Common Core standards protest signs, satirical news writers—anything that you want to go away, just put it on the barge.”
“Shit will get blowed up,” said Viggs. “I guarantee it.”
The press conference ended with the P.A. system playing a medley of Katy Perry’s “Firework” and Neil Diamond’s “America” while Berke twerked vigorously to the music.
In response to the city of Collegedale’s announcement to offer benefits for same sex couples two weeks ago, a spokesman from the Chattanooga Suburb of East Ridge Mayor Brent Lamberts’ office has stated plans for the city to mandate gay marriage for those who live within the city limits.
“We believe that allowing gay marriage isn’t enough to show just how progressive the fine city of East Ridge is”, said city spokesman Jeffrey Flacks. “We’re taking it to the next level and passing a mandate that all who shall come to and live in East Ridge, must engage into a hot and steamy homosexual holy union.”
With the new mandate comes the reversal of a decision that East Ridge officials made some months ago: the banning of any new extended stays hotels within city limits. Officials also hope the soon-to-be homeless Big Chill Bar and Grill from downtown Chattanooga will find a new place in East Ridge to call home.
“With the large upcoming demands for new saucy homosexual honeymooners to stay, we will need new places to house them,” exclaimed Flacks. “All new extended stay hotels are required to include spaces for full fledged drag queen shows and in room television viewing of the LOGO Channel in High Definition.
“We hope the upcoming law will bring new visitors and residents to scrumptious East Ridge,” said new city tourism and fashion specialist Francis McGinley.” We’ve made plans to include the Indigo Girls and American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken to next years annual J-Fest at Camp Jordan.”
At a press conference yesterday afternoon, Mayor Berke revealed a new 21st century initiative to reach young-adult constituents through homemade twerking videos posted to the Internet.
Berke unveiled his new Tumblr blog, entitled “Look At This Twerking Mayor,” which features a new, short video every weekday of Berke providing a positive message while twerking, which is the currently popular dance-based art form that involves the vigorous shaking of one’s buttocks.
“In this day and age, it is imperative that we explore new methods of communication while using the latest technology available to us,” said Berke. “Millions of people around the world watch twerking videos every single day, and we would be remiss to not take advantage of this popular medium for civic engagement.”
Berke played a few examples, including one video in which he says, “Transparency is essential in government for accountability and to build trust. My solemn vow is to have an administration that is as transparent as these clear plastic hot pants I’m wearing right now.”
In the video, Berke then turned away from the camera and proceeded to pop his booty for 15 seconds while looking over his shoulder directly at the camera with his lips pursed.
Another video featured Berke wearing Daisy Dukes with the letters “STEM” sewn to the rear. “Science, technology, engineering, math,” said Berke in the video. “They’re not just for nerds.”
Berke immediately began to gyrate rhythmically to the sounds of Tyga’s “Rack City.”
“I learned this move while at Stanford,” said Berke. “Would an ass like this lie to you?” he said, while gently spanking himself.
At a press conference Friday afternoon, a new community visioning initiative was unveiled with a distinctive, eye-catching yellow-and-black logo, called Chattanooga Stunt which seeks to help shape the future of the city by asking one million Chattanooga residents to complete a short survey about their concerns and ideas.
“You might be thinking, isn’t one million just some totally arbitrary large number?” said Chattanooga Stunt lead coordinator Robin Fredamont. “Doesn’t Chattanooga just have a population of 170,000, anyway? To those people, I say, ‘That’s inside-the-box thinking.'”
“I remember as a child watching Evel Knievel on TV make a record-breaking motorcycle jump over 18 cars,” said Fredamont. “Then how did he top that? The following year, he jumped over 19 cars.”
“More is always better,” explained Fredamont. “If 25,000 surveys is good, then 100,000 must be four times better. And 1,000,000 must be ten times better than that.”
“Chattanooga’s main concerns are education, crime, jobs and economic development, and we are proud of its natural beauty and downtown area,” said Fredamont. “This is stuff we already know. But we really really want to be sure, so that’s why we’re going to ask one million people.”
“Chattanooga is kind of like a wheel—sure, it works OK, but it’s been around for so long, just going around and around,” said Fredamont.
“Let’s reinvent Chattanooga. Let’s reinvent the wheel,” said Fredamont, who was met with thunderous applause.
“Chattanooga is currently experiencing a truly wondrous transformation from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan, and it’s due to the hard work, ingenuity and effort of many, many people over many, many years,” said Fredamont. “But, we at Chattanooga Stunt are happy to take the credit.”
“This visioning initiative will yield many benefits for our community, and when I say, ‘our community’ I really mean ‘my colleagues and myself,'” said Fredamont. “At the end of this campaign, we’ll have one million names and email addresses that we can spam for future enterprises, and this project will look great on our résumés.”
“The beauty of an effort like this is that if you’re not for us, then you’re against us and by extension, against Chattanooga, so I implore you and all Chattanooga organizations to join us,” said Fredamont. “History is written by the victors.”
At a press conference yesterday afternoon it was announced that Friends of the Festival, the organization that coordinates the annual Riverbend music festival, has outsourced next year’s event and all future events to the Michigan horrorcore hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse.
“We give up,” said head Riverbend organizer Ginger Dewarr. “We are sick of it, busting our butts all year long, volunteering our time and effort, to put on this huge festival that draws tens of thousands of attendees and is an incredible bargain, and people just whine like entitled, ungrateful little shits.”
“From this point forward, our board of directors has unanimously agreed to employ the services of Insane Clown Posse to organize and curate all future Riverbend Festivals,” said Dewarr. “This is a win-win situation, taking the responsibility and blame off our hands and saving us money, since we only have to pay them with a dozen cases of Faygo.”
Dewarr explained that Riverbend would now be a southern extension of the annual “Gathering of the Juggalos” outdoor festival presented by Insane Clown Posse since 2000.
Representatives DJ Clay and Sugar Slam then took the podium while shouting out “Whoop whoop!” and spraying the soft drink Faygo onto the first row in the audience.
“What up ninjas! We are bringing the Dark Carnival to this backwoods bitch-ass town,” said DJ Clay. “The whole Psychopathic Records family, yo, plus wrestling, the Neden Game, wet t-shirt Juggalette contests, and more.”
“We’ll have magicians, jugglers, dudes on stilts, a giant water slide, real Midway games, and other things you might expect to see at a five-year-old’s birthday party,” said Sugar Slam.
Insane Clown Posse member Violent J appeared via a remote video link on a giant screen and explained that while the original Midwest “Gathering of the Juggalos” event is like Mecca for Juggalos—the nickname for fans of the band—the new Chattanooga event will be like Medina.
Violent J announced that the 2014 Riverbend lineup will include Kanye West, Daft Punk, Jack White, Wu-Tang Clan, Radiohead, Katy Perry, Tom Waits, Dirty Projectors and Vanilla Ice.