Learning Day: John Fenley's Mayoral Money Tower

We’ve written about John Fenley before. You can click this link to read it, but he’s just your basic CD storage grifter turned crimetown land baron/frustrated Go-kart track purveyor. Long story short, he’s a guy who moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas with a lot of seed money, and was astonished at how cheap everything was. He decided he wanted to own the whole town, and then the whole town spent every waking moment owning him. After getting comically dunked on by every tweaker in the zip code, John Fenley did the inevitable: He ran for mayor of Pine Bluff in 2024.

And because John Fenley is already a cartoon character (he’s kind of an incel Elmer Fudd, if Bugs Bunny were played by a rotating cast of crackheads) things got… weird.

The top hat is because mayors are fancy. The sash is because mayors need to be quickly identifiable in Go-kart emergencies. The question mark is because he wasn’t mayor yet, and he didn’t want to confuse the townsfolk in the event of a Go-kart emergency. John Fenley seriously thought he should be in charge. This is the guy who tried and failed to build an amateur nuclear reactor. The guy who tried and failed to run a streaming service where you paid him to store and stream your own CDs. Who tried and failed to run a go-kart track in a warehouse without electricity, plumbing, or road access. Based on this storied history of increasingly low-stakes failures, he figured he may as well run for office.

Right now you’re worried you know how this story ends. Some unpredictable decisions were made in the U.S. last November. The headlines come fast and stupid: It’s possible you just missed the news story where a part of Arkansas went Chernobyl. But no, don’t worry - Fenley lost. By a lot. And yet somehow not enough?

You kind of expect that number to be zero, because Fenley himself forgot to vote.

So what happened here?

Like unlivable hellholes Chicago and Portland, Pine Bluff votes blue. It votes so blue that the Republican party didn’t even bother nominating someone. Fenley thought that might be an opportunity, because he’s got the kind of decision dyslexia that confuses easily avoidable mistakes for opportunities. Or as he put it, several times: there were only two candidates, so he had a 50/50 chance of winning.

Worth mentioning: You don’t have to graduate high school to buy a top hat. They let anybody do it.

Fenley ran on a basic, relatable platform: He wanted to build that Go-kart track, the city council are a bunch of corrupt assholes, some people should be hunted by drones, and what if there was a tower that shoots money? More on that last one later.

His slogan was “Fenley for the Future,” because he figured childlike wonder and wrong science were the keys to turning the city’s reputation around. He even held public “science demonstrations” at the park, where anyone could swing by and see the science-adjacent things he bought at Spencer’s Gifts – all while he hovered around in the background, looking like Mr. Wizard’s loser roommate.

He would also go around picking up trash in some of his many vacant lots, as though that was a favor to the city (they’re your lots!). Then he complained to the townsfolk about the city mowing his overgrown grass, because now all the trash in his lots was visible and he had to come pick it up. Once again: They’re! Your! Lots! He really tried to make it a community event, like families would come on down to watch a man begrudgingly pick up his trash and complain about free yard work, all while blasting “Science Friday” from the radio of his shitty campaign box truck. Behold, the future!

The Garbage and Complaining Festival didn’t bring out the crowds he’d expected, so Fenley needed a new approach. With only months to go before the election and public interest ranging from “none” to “just kidding,” Fenley did the most dangerous thing he could. He talked to a reporter.

That’s Byron Tate, senior journalist, experienced interviewer, and the last person Fenley should’ve spoken to. Byron put on a friendly face for nearly an hour, calmly and kindly letting Fenley ramble. But Byron had done his research and knew where the real story was.

Byron: So you've got some other stuff.

Fenley: Yeah so I've got a little paper airplane here. This kind of symbolizes the idea that there's- the cost of a piece of paper is very very low, but the joy that you can get from a paper airplane.... does not match what you spent on it at all. It's a... very much an example of an efficient use of funds.

Fenley: These are some yo-yos, I just got them from China.

Fenley: They cost about 78 cents a piece. It's kind of a promotional thing. It says "paid for by the campaign to elect John Fenley".

Byron: [silence]

Fenley: It says 'remember to vote' on here. I haven't actually raised any money yet. There is a QR code on the back of these that people can scan to donate to the campaign.

Byron: [patient silence]

Fenley: I painted my big truck, I'll be driving the big truck around, handing out yo-yos.

And then, Byron got what he’d been after the whole interview.

Fenley: I think it would benefit the town and it would be an efficient use of funds I believe but this is to have a dollar dropping tower somewhere in town that would drop a $1 bill every minute 24 hours a day.

Byron: Why?

Fenley: uh multiple reasons I think it would be a huge tourist draw I think I think anybody that came through Pine Bluff would want to come see it and maybe try to catch a dollar um I think it would create-

Byron: 24 hours a day.

Fenley: 24 hours a day. I think.

Byron: So 3:00 a.m. you got people out there hanging out waiting for the dollar.

Fenley: but that's one of the benefits too because I think it might help eliminate some of the crime in the town

Byron: So that adds up.

Fenley: It's uh-

Byron: How much?

Fenley (trying not to sing): Uh 525,600.

Byron: Hm?

Fenley (singing): 525,600 minutes.

Fenley: But I think it would actually help people that are out at 3:00 a.m. trying to make a few bucks… if you're homeless at 3 a.m. and you need a couple bucks to go get cigarettes or get something to eat or something or you need to pay your rent in the morning uh, you know, you're a single mother and you need to pay rent in the morning and you're short 20 bucks where are you going to get 20 bucks? Where are you going to get 20 bucks? Where are you going to get a few bucks? If there's an easy way to get it I think people would congregate there to get it rather than going into buildings and stealing copper and pawning and selling copper, committing petty crimes for a few dollars and that inviting all that danger and the cost and uh...

Byron: It didn't sound like a serious piece of platform. Would that not invite fights over who gets the dollar?

Fenley: I don't think it would. I don't know how hard you'd fight over a dollar when another one's coming in 60 seconds.

Byron: Well, maybe you want both.

You can actually see the exact moment it first occurred to Fenley that he created a budget fight-tower. And if you keep watching, you can see that realization die behind his eyes as the ol’ idiot self-defense kicks in. Just vanishes right from his brain.

That brings us to election night which, remember, Fenley lost. By a lot.

So what’s a man to do when he sees his dreams dashed on the pavement like so much vacant lot trash? Quietly accept defeat with grace and dignity, maybe go clean up your metaphorical and literal trash lots? Or stand in the parking lot outside your opponents’ victory party clinging to a crude prototype money tower while screaming “THIS IS WHAT YOU COULD HAVE HAD” into the indifferent night?

He built the money tower! Sort of! Fuck grace, fuck dignity, neither of those things sporadically shoot single dollar bills into the sky like a rapper on a budget.

For the technically minded, I’ll explain the advanced machine you’re looking at here:

Part A is an unsecured pole that Fenley had to constantly wrestle with to keep it from falling and damaging the cars around him.

Part B, up at the very top, is a novelty money gun.

Part C is a rope, which is tied to Part B, so Fenley can pull the trigger to, ideally, release a single dollar.

Part D, which you can’t see in that image, is an alarm clock set to go off every minute.

Theoretically the alarm goes off, Fenley pulls the rope, the tower shoots out a dollar, and Fenley presses the button on the top of the alarm clock to reset it. That’s already hilarious. It’s like a failed tutorial in Kerbal Space Program. But of course there was a problem: the money gun at the top was not designed to shoot a single dollar and then stop. They don’t make semi-automatic novelty money guns for precision dollar sniping. The thing would shoot out all the cash inside when he pulled the rope, so Fenley decided to only load one dollar at a time. That meant every time it went off, Fenley had to lower the money tower and reload it.

A process that took pretty much the entire minute.

You see the problem. Fenley didn’t.

A mildly interested news crew helped for a little while, but Fenley was out there for almost two hours frantically, breathlessly money towering all by himself. Two hours of racing a bomb countdown timer of his own making. Two hours of preparing and throwing a tiny New Year’s Eve party every minute. Two hours that cost him $120, unless he was fast enough to get the dollar first.

A couple locals tried to wish him well and congratulate him on the campaign, but they weren’t the money tower so he had no time for them. When they finally got his attention, he said “What’s your opinion about money falling from the sky?” and shot a single dollar into the air, which he expected them to scramble off and catch. That seems like a real good way for a dipshit in a top hat to get punched in the face.

Here, just try not to punch this:

Sorry you broke your monitor, maybe finish the article on your phone.

Fenley spent his failed election night laser-focused on a gimmick no one asked for, weren’t interested in developing, or wanted any part of when they saw it. It’s kind of the story of his whole life, it’s definitely the reason he lost this campaign.

Well, that, and the time he said giving police a bunch of drones to hunt litterers would turn them into Batman, and everyone at the forum was too embarrassed to look at him.

But that’s a story for another time.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Velo, who sponsors their own articles. I can't say how it happened, but I can say it involved a tall building that dispenses currency.

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