Nothing Funny About This Monkey Mail

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/pitw/2010/03/nothing_funny_about_this_monke.php






Walt Baker, the prominent CEO of the powerful Tennessee Hospitality Association who was a key figure in gaining approval of the controversial $585 million convention center, sent the kind of "joke" email last night -- comparing First Lady Michelle Obama to Tarzan's Cheetah -- that might stop even Michael Richards in his tracks. (The entire email on the jump.)

Sent from what looks to be a personal address, Baker forwarded the racist missive -- introduced with this: "Quoting Larry the Cable Guy ... I don't care who you are, this is funny" -- to 12 prominent Nashvillians, including mayoral legislative aide Toby Compton, Nashville


Convention & Visitors' Bureau head Butch Spyridon, lobbyists Joe Hall and Peter Heidenreich, former Scene editor and publisher, respectively, Bruce Dobie and Albie Del Favero, and Nashville Post reporter Ken Whitehouse.

Coming from a hospitality czar, the post didn't strike recipients as particularly hospitable.

"I don't think it's funny -- period," Dobie says. "Anything else I have to say about it I've already let Walt know."
Whitehouse calls the email "disgusting."

Del Favero was on the way to his office when we reached him and says he hadn't yet opened the email. "It's probably in my inbox waiting on me. But I've never known Walt to send anything that is politically incorrect."

"Who all got it?" Del Favero asks. When told, he responds, "Oh, how stupid!"

UPDATE: Baker says he meant no offense and sent it to what he considered to be "a select group of friends." "If anybody wants to make a political agenda out of it, they're wasting they're time," he tells Pith.

"It's not a political statement," Baker continues. "It was done in the spirit of having some fun with some close friends. It was something that was forwarded to me, and I forwarded it to a couple of people that quite honestly I thought might find some humor in it like I did."

Apparently, they didn't.

"I've gotten some emails back from folks," he says, "and that's fine too."

[Faygo Kid]

1. This is up we are up against, with all their wealth.

Hatred. Pure nasty hatred. They think they have won, and can get away with this.

He probably will.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

2. No doubt. I do hope that people will flood his company with complaints. It may

not do anything in the end. But I for one want to at least try to make this filthy POS sweat.

[Hekate]

3. That literally makes me sick to my stomach. I hope he hangs on long enough to really feel the wrath

... of his peers in the business and of the public -- and then gets canned. Good luck finding a job in "hospitality" again.

Hekate

[boppers]

4. His public image will be in google forever.

Good luck with that.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. One of the things that bother me the most is his fucking reaction.

He's really got some serious balls. "Oh people are trying to make this about politics and I only sent it to some friends thinking it would stay private. ". First of all, you dick. Nobody gives shit about politics. In this case it's about your bigotry. Second of all. Who gives a shit who you sent it to and what the purpose was?
Now don't get me wrong. I think an apology would be totally meaningless and insincere. But to try to rationalize this and deflect in such a lame way is just as infuriating.