TJ FISHER
"WIKIPEDIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA"
(Edit wars prompted this site; parody approved by TJ Fisher!)
TJ Fisher is a Southern author, documentarist and social critic christened "Swamp Empress" for living certifiably boldfacey on Bourbon Street[1] in the Vieux Carré (old square) — the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. Anointed by The Advocate (Baton Rouge) as “suitably outrageous and eccentric to represent New Orleans,”[2] Fisher drove a 1959 pink Cadillac convertible named Lulabell.[3] Fisher's finned-tail Caddy appears in her works of fiction and non-fiction.[4]
Fisher owned Photo Doody, one of the three original 1940s Howdy Doody marionettes, a distinctive piece of Americana and pop-culture entertainment memorabilia.[5]
For nearly a decade, Fisher resided part-time in a historic and balconied Louisiana French Créole home built by a French Quarter businesswoman of the era, a gens de couleur.[6] Fisher's Vieux Carré home, a 150-year-old structure which sits on the same block as Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, features the brick-walled courtyards and secret gardens typical of the French Quarter.[7] Also a longtime colorful citizen of Palm Beach, Florida, Fisher has been profiled for taking puppet Photo Doody around town in a convertible and dining out with him in a high chair at local restaurants.[8]
Post-Katrina
Deeply affected and yet galvanized by Hurricane Katrina, the storm's cataclysmic aftermath and life in a disaster-zone city, in late 2005 Fisher broke through a longtime writer's block. Fisher's "breakout voice" gained recognition with the 2007 publication of Orléans Embrace, an emotional narrative about the heart and soul of New Orleans. The work of Roy F. Guste, Jr. and Louis Sahuc appear with Fisher's writings in the commemorative edition Orléans Embrace with The Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carré. The compendium is a narrative and pictorial tribute to the city's ability to triumph over sorrow.[9]
The San Francisco Chronicle, The Advocate (Baton Rouge), Booklist, Philadelphia Inquirer, Gambit Weekly, Daily Advertiser (Lafayette), Times-Picayune, Where Y'At Magazine (New Orleans) and other media quoted Fisher's "passionate" and "poetic" prose about saving, preserving and rebuilding her adopted hometown of New Orleans.[10] Although Fisher was born in Florida, she is considered by those who know her as a native New Orleanian.[11]
Book Awards
Orléans Embrace with The Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carré swept literary double gold at the prestigious PMA Publishers Marketing Association Benjamin Franklin Awards 2007 for “The Best New Voice Nonfiction” (TJ Fisher) and "The Bill Fisher Award for Best First Book Nonfiction." The book also garnered gold at the Independent Publisher Book Award IPPYs 2007, the National Best Books Awards 2007 and top honors for the Nautilus Book Awards 2007. Orléans Embrace was named an Eric Hoffer Book Awards notable title for 2008.[12]
The Bourbon Street resident calls New Orleans the "city of magical thinking" and says, "You can take the people out of the city — but you can't take the soul, that remains here."[13]
Fisher's work Hearsay from Heaven and Hades: New Orleans Secrets of Sinners and Saints carved a niche in Deep South Southern literature as a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance SIBA Book Award Nominee 2009 (Poetry). The work also won the National Best Books Awards 2009 (Poetry).
New Orleans
Fisher's works are called love letters to the French Quarter of New Orleans — a seductive place with its distinctive history, character and architectural style — sending the world a message that we should cherish and preserve what we have. "Within the fabled courtyards of the Vieux Carré, one is never lonely; the company of the past is always within reach ..." writes Fisher. "We love the French Quarter not only because of who she is and what she symbolizes, but because of who we are when we are with her."[14] When it comes to the long-term rebuilding and survival of the Great American City of New Orleans, Fisher declares, "We can decide to buck cruel contretemps or lie down and surrender."[15] Fisher calls her beloved city "a bewitching oasis of culture and civilization sculpted from a hostile swamp."[16]
In book signings and media appearances, the belle of Bourbon Street takes every opportunity to encourage people to come back to the Crescent City and help in its recovery. She asks her readers to help preserve New Orleans and to encourage the country to aid in its revival.[17] Regarding New Orleans' struggles and triumphs since the storm, "Come back and visit us," Fisher is known to implore in post-Katrina speeches, "Please come back. We need tourists."[18]
Nonfiction
Hearsay from Heaven and Hades: New Orleans Secrets of Sinners and Saints is Fisher's 512-page book of a Southern eccentric's provocative philosophies, French Quarterisms (aphorisms) based on the premise of "Beyond the Watermark — 40 Days, 40 Nights Down in New Orleans." Fisher's musings of life in New Orleans, from the juxtaposition of good and evil, decline and revival and the balance of catastrophe and beauty[19] — sum up all that is precious about New Orleans and her people, when they are being very, very good and when they are being very, very bad.[20]
Vieux Carré Chic: The Art of Overindulgent Home Décor is a coffee-table book of Fisher's design style. Skip Bolen is the book's photographer. Fisher is a member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and the Interior Design Society (IDS); she holds a general contractor's license.
Fiction
The Pearly Gates of Purgatory Series (Sam Schaffer Notebooks), Fisher's long-awaited novel series and screen adaptation project, is back on track and ongoing now that she has conquered her writing block. The "Flambeau" portion of the 5-7 book series received early recognition as a Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society 2011 Faulkner-Wisdom short-list finalist novel.
Writing style
A curious character in eccentric Louisiana, Fisher is a chameleon-like writer of dark humor and diverse works of nonfiction and fiction; her works center on New Orleans. Her advocates and critics say her heavier prose carries intonations of Sylvia Plath's confessional poetry, to which she replies: "So, what's the problem, what's wrong with that?"[21] Beyond personal experience, her first post-Katrina work imprinted a style reminiscent of Lafcadio Hearn;[22] she invokes Hearn's voice that declared of New Orleans: "There are none who can forget her strange charm."[23] Fisher's soulful narratives are said to celebrate and capture the elusive quality that is New Orleans.[24] Emotion and passion pour from the pages[25] of her books.
Personal style
Always one to make quite a fashion statement, Fisher's idiosyncratic and memorable way of dressing is often captured and profiled in the media.[26] She calls her irreverent and edgy "victorianurbanite" design label Vieux Carré 9th Ward Fashions.[27] Fisher, who is rarely seen or photographed without a trademark hat, favors the vintage styles of New Orleans milliner Nicole M. LeBlanc and Fleur de Paris.
Other
A redhead of Irish and mixed-heritage ancestry, Fisher is an Irish-American previous Rose of Tralee. She represented the United States at the pageant in Tralee, Ireland. Some years later, New Orleanian Celtic balladeer Danny O'Flaherty wrote and recorded the original song You Will Always Be My Rose of Tralee for Fisher in honor of Fisher's wedding anniversary celebration. O'Flaherty also dedicated three post-Katrina commemorative songs to Fisher's Orléans Embrace work. Historic Sanborn Maps show Fisher's French Quarter property once housed portions of Klotz Bakery associated with Irish-born Louisiana legend Margaret Haughery (1813 - 1882) the "Bread Woman of New Orleans" and "Mother of Orphans."
Fisher helped found the Rufus Fisher Dog Angel Program at Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine, a program established in memory of her late yellow Labrador retriever. Merial now sponsors the program.[28] Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach Daily News, the television series Hard Copy and other media have covered her rewards and campaigns to catch animal killers.
Flamboyant and fiery, Fisher admits to being a paradoxical woman of many colors and incarnations, with a penchant for high drama. Never one to shy away from providing plenty of fodder for gossip columnists and society page snippets,[29] her soap operaish life has included a variety of glitzy escapades, public feuds and scandals.[30] Fisher, a longtime Palm Beacher with a passion for towns and people with vivid stories to tell, has also lived in Haiti. A self-proclaimed warrior-poet with a Bohemian soul, Fisher says she has found her true spiritual home in New Orleans.[31]
Fisher, who remains a lightning rod for controversy and gossip, says, "Scandalous people are stirring." Another one of her personal aphorisms is, "Family skeletons that cannot be buried must be made to sing and dance."[32] Noted for her sharp sense of satire, during the BP oil crisis the media captured and aired Fisher's New Orleans-style "drill, baby, drill" Sarah Palin parody. [33]
Fisher has a "cinema vérité" technique (cinema of truth) reality show in development.
Early life and career
The only child of self-willed Southerners (of the American South), Fisher's early years were quixotic and marred by family eccentricities. First labeled as a genius in elementary school, Fisher was a gifted yet fickle student. With intellect and maturity beyond her years, she found solace in her pets more than her peers. A bookish and yet audacious student, she gained early recognition as a young model, actress and beauty queen. While still a teenage college student, she was propelled into the role of It girl and recalcitrant socialite. Exposed to the South Florida Gold Coast "go-go" era, Fisher was swept up into the whirlwind "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" world of international royalty, provocateurs, playboys, polo and jetsetters.[34]
By her mid 20s, Fisher's career had already included stints as a journalist, gossip columnist, documentary filmmaker and ad agency/PR executive. A scene-maker that slips in and out of the public eye, Fisher's creative endeavors and corporate successes have been punctuated by colorful detours, flameouts and long gap periods. She shuns the spotlight despite a high-profile lifestyle and flamboyant public persona. Fisher has been linked to several Forbes 400 moguls and celebrated "bad boy" titans;[35] however, she did not marry until the mid 1990s, when she met the man she calls her "soul-mate."[36]
Fisher appears to live life out of sequence, according to her own terms and schedule. She admits the chronological order of her episodic life story is zigzag and madcap, not a straight line. She calls herself an "early-night-and-late-bloomer" rolled into one. Those who know her call her unforgettable. A consummate storyteller with a mysterious backstory as intriguing as the characters she creates, Fisher once told the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, "We writers have a unique ability to rise up again, in a quasi sort of a reincarnation, from the soot of our own flames and ashes, like the Phoenix." A master at self-reinvention and avoiding the clutch of trends, Fisher often signs her books with the personal statement and salute, "Here's to we survivors."[37]
Fisher is a longtime champion of the underdog, those who exhibit an indomitable spirit that inspires others; she is a proponent of human rights and aiding the underprivileged.[38]
Guilds
Fisher is a member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), Directors Guild of America (DGA), Producers Guild of America (PGA), Dramatists Guild of America (DG), Authors Guild (AG), National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS), Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Actors' Equity Association (AEA), and other professional guilds and organizations.
Controversy
Fisher is no stranger to controversy. Fisher is known for her never back down/take no prisoners attitude of not turning the other cheek when confronting bullies; she has a history of splashy run-ins, lawsuits and catfights with neighbors and business associates.
In 2007 ex-NFL Raven football player Michael McCrary added Fisher to a lawsuit aimed at her husband and others for $60 million. The Circuit Court for Baltimore City civil litigation concerned a hurricane-derailed New Orleans real estate venture at the New Orleans landmark (Crescent City Towers) Plaza Tower site. McCrary's case targeted a tangle of Louisiana limited liability companies. The soured real estate and development investment deal netted McCrary and a web of partnerships millions of dollars in post-Katrina profits within a few months. McCrary reaped $2,384,639 in profits and the return of his $3,550,000 capital investment.[39]
McCrary's initial civil-action complaint spawned Fisher/McCrary court-case proceedings in 13 separate, federal and appellate courts in Maryland, Louisiana, Florida and Washington, DC. McCrary's suit was spearheaded by super-litigator William H. "Billy" Murphy, Jr., noted for multimillion- and multibillion-dollar lawsuits and high-stakes litigation. His flamboyant racial discrimination suits and eight-figure settlements garner high-profile publicity. He is a second-generation African-American Baltimore circuit court judge.[40] Murphy is notorious for regularly obtaining $30 million, $50 million and $272 million trial-court award verdicts and settlements in his home court, Baltimore City. Baltimore is known as one of America’s most corrupt cities and the site of huge lawsuit judicial jackpot wins.
Fisher dubbed McCrary's lawsuit a total fabrication by McCrary and his lawyers.[41]
During the protracted court battle, a year after Fisher's husband sued McCrary,[42] Fisher served a separate suit on McCrary and his attorney.[43] Afterwards McCrary's attorneys sued two of Fisher's husband's attorneys.[44] Those attorneys then in turn sued Fisher, McCrary and others.[45] In a related claim McCrary filed action against Bank of America.[46]
Post-NFL retirement, McCrary admitted to Percocet, Percodan, OxyContin, oxycodone, psychiatric medicine, methadone and fentanyl patch usage for chronic pain and depression; McCrary, who earned more than $16 million in signing bonuses alone, filed an NFL disability claim seeking $750 to $4000 per month in disability benefits.[47]
In June 2008, a Baltimore courtroom rendered a $33.3-million-dollar default judgment against Fisher and others, in favor of McCrary. Precedent to the award, all defendants and their attorneys were precluded from speaking or participating in the damages hearing inquisition. Legal analysts cited U.S. Constitution and Due Process violations. Fisher's counsel, Richard Winelander, also represents spoon-bending psychic mystifier Uri Geller.[48]
Fisher was unable to post a $33.3-million-dollar supersedeas bond to stay execution of McCrary's default judgment against her during the pendency of the appeal. Nearly a year after the trial court default, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals granted a stay against the judgment without a bond being posted.[49]
See Special Bourbon Street House Property Seizure Note and Photos
In June 2009 the Maryland intermediate appellate court tossed out McCrary's $33.3-million-dollar default judgment against Fisher and others.[50]
In further McCrary-related litigation proceedings, during his subsequent divorce drama in Baltimore County, Maryland, McCrary’s wife, Mary Haley, was granted a protective order against McCrary in March 2010. In domestic violence court pleadings sworn and entered before the judge, she called McCrary "increasingly violent, threatening and abusive" — punching holes in walls, brandishing a loaded pistol and throwing a 45-pound barstool at her. She testified that due to his nightly "cocktail" concoction of a plethora of prescription drugs washed down with alcohol, she lived in terror of McCrary either shooting her in the back, turning the gun on himself or overdosing, with their 6-year-old daughter sleeping nearby. She said her child’s nanny also fears McCrary, as he owns and carries three handguns. According to Haley and other media reports, McCrary suffers from depression, anxiety, mental issues, failed rehab, is addicted to painkilling drugs and "smokes marijuana on a regular basis." His multiple business disputes and lawsuits dovetailed in the foreclosure of their marital home, and by Spring 2010 McCrary had accumulated approximately $3 million in bank judgments levied against him, that plus a garnishment of his wages.[51] McCrary's Baltimore attorney "Judge" Murphy, a longtime lawyer of choice for accused drug dealers, previously faced his own domestic assault issues with respect to wife-beating charges,[52] when his wife was reportedly "badly beaten by (Mr. Murphy) and was bleeding."[53]
During extended 2010 Baltimore court proceedings against [defaulted defendants] Fisher and others, McCrary faced his first cross-examination questioning in four years of civil litigation. He failed to remember catastrophic Hurricane Katrina details or New Orleans post-storm devastation. The judge chided McCrary's attorney for repeated attempts to "testify" for him and his “spotty memory” (via leading questions). The ex-NFL player — with a chronic history of drug dependence on mind-altering narcotic compounds, psychiatrist pharmaceuticals and opiates — sat in the courtroom and thumbed through computer and gaming magazines.[54]
The Supreme Court of the United States first took notice of sole-practitioner Winelander's Writ of Certiorari Petition [for Petitioners Fisher, et al] on August 20 of 2010, when the High Court Office of the Clerk William K. Suter handed down a request that Murphy [for Respondees McCrary, et al] file a response in the case.[55]
Real Estate
Fisher is recognized for the restoration of historic properties. Post-Katrina, Fisher continues to divide her time between the Vieux Carré and South Florida; she remains immersed in the preservation, recovery and rebuilding of her adopted hometown, New Orleans.
Fisher's longtime partner in the redevelopment of New Orleans' waterfront, Michael Samuel,[56] notably founded Midtown Miami, a $2.3-billion-dollar self-contained urban community. Originally nicknamed "Buena Vista Yards," the formerly blighted property was purchased from the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC).[57] Fisher — long involved with visionary residential, retail, commercial, hotel and industrial development projects — helped spearhead acquisition of the 52-acre site, which Samuel and partners went on to develop into "Midtown Miami." A signature urban revitalization and redevelopment gem, Midtown is Miami's largest residential real estate development project, a "city within a city." Samuel partnered in the Midtown project with Joseph Cayre; Cayre and Larry Silverstein, who control a vast portfolio of Manhattan properties, obtained a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center complex shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attack.[58] In a bruising economy where business dealings can erupt into legal battles and expletive-filled shouting matches, outspoken Fisher is known to litigate against rivals in court proceedings via self-representation. The New Orleans Energy Power Plant riverfront Brownsfield site was purchased for redevelopment by Fisher and Samuel, through their respective Market Street Properties entities. The $14-million-dollar acquisition of the environmentally contaminated and blighted 20-acre property (and historically significant 1905 building) occurred in 2007 during New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin's second term in office.[59]
In 2010 Fisher and others hosted a guest contingency of representatives associated with the China Metallurgical Group Corp. (one of the world's biggest companies) and GMAC — to New Orleans for a cultural exchange to explore international business relations and global development markets within the private cross-sector economy. Fisher seeks the return of a World Exposition to New Orleans and the renaissance of Louisiana-based foreign embassy consulates.
In earlier Pre-Katrina litigation on eminent domain site expropriation by the New Orleans Morial Convention Center, Fisher retained legendary litigator Johnnie Cochran to represent herself and a partner.[60] On a separate but nearby parcel of property, Fisher turned over her winning-bid auction contract on a multimillion-dollar Mississippi River riverfront ex-casino property to Tulane University, at no profit, for future development of the Riversphere project.[61] The former River Gate Casino tract was previously associated with hotelier/developer/dreamer Christopher Hemmeter and Louisiana ex-governor Edwin Edwards.[62]
In the late 90s, Fisher was one of the original owner/developers of the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove, Miami, Florida;[63] she was also associated with the South Beach and Baltimore Ritz projects.
On several joint-venture projects Fisher aligned with Philip Pilevsky of Philips International,[64] the on-off financier/partner of hotelier Ian Schrager. The Schrager/Pilevsky pairing began with Studio 54. Later, in conjunction with designer Philippe Starck, they founded original boutique hotels, including NYC's Paramount Hotel and Royalton Hotel, Miami's Delano Hotel and Shore Club, and LA's Mondrian Hotel.[65]
Bank of America
In 2011 Fisher sued BofA with a stunning multi-million-dollar filing against the banking giant. In court papers filed in West Palm Beach, Florida, TJ Fisher alleged banking irregularities and improprieties caused a domino effect that ultimately led Baltimore Ravens' Michael McCrary to file the $60-million Baltimore lawsuit against her in 2007. "I've been silent for too long," swore Fisher, "no more. There's a story to tell that rocks 'conspiracy' theories, litigation and banking practices." She added, "I was never McCrary's partner or associate." Former police officer and Roy Black protégé, Florida attorney Timothy W. Schulz emerged as lead counsel of an international legal team, joined by Hollywood's "The Maharaja of Media", entertainment law guru Russell Smith and his global legal support firm. Fisher's longtime Baltimore attorney Richard Winelander, and New Orleans legal counsel, Al M. Thompson, Jr., joined Schulz's legal team. Publicist Glenn Selig, Rod R. Blagojevich's publicist, released news of Fisher's BofA action.[66] News headlines "Author and New Orleans Icon TJ Fisher Sues Bank of America" spread across internet media company, privacy assist log-in and social networking websites. Press coverage about Fisher's $70-million lawsuit against BofA dubbed the Southern writer a "Palm Beach socialite" and "New Orleans chronicler."[67]
Bibliography
