Month: May 2006

– I took a walk through Peabody Place Mall around lunchtime, to see what’s new over there. At Hot Topic I saw a shirt that said, “You looked better on MySpace” and had a sign that read “I (heart) Tom.” For those of you who don’t know, “Tom” is this dork who is automatically added to your friends list when you sign up for a MySpace account.

… Hang on, let’s post a pic of Tom.

There ya go. That’s Tom. Anyway, Tom is supposedly the creator of MySpace (although I suspect that’s an urban legend), and he’s there to help if you have questions. Needless to say, one of the first things I did after joining MySpace was to remove Tom from my friends list. A lot of people haven’t though – according to his profile, he has 70 million friends. Tom must be a great guy! His profile says he’s from Santa Monica. To my Santa Monica readers (yes, there are some) – does this guy really exist?

I thought about buying the shirt, but it was pink and a female mini-tee, so I decided not to.

– I also saw a shirt at DAPY that I liked: A pic of former president George H. W. Bush with a sign reading: “I should have pulled out.” NO KIDDING! Think how much better the world would be today if H.W. had had a vasectomy at age 19, and Barb had her tubes tied.

– There’s a machine called Foto Morph inside of Jillian’s that’s kind of cool – a couple can go in and it takes their pics, and then spits out a pic of what their baby would look like. If everyone in the world used that machine, we could probably spare the world from a lot of ugly kids. If you don’t have a significant other, you can select a supermodel as your partner and see what the baby would look like.

– There are two women walking around the Main Street Mall trying to sell these combination money clip/wallet things. They’re pretty aggressive about approaching people, and if there were cameras around I’d think it was an audition for The Apprentice. But they clearly don’t understand downtown. After I told them no, they went over and approached a group of gentlemen sitting on a park bench – and I stopped and snickered. They had just approached THE BUMS!

“Is it free?”

“Huh. Well, can I get about sixty-four cent?”

“Hey baby, you look good. Want to go over to the alley and (lewd comment deleted, even I have standards for what I’ll write in my blog)?”

– Rio Loco has their Nachos Rio Loco on special tonight. It’s nachos topped with beef and chicken cooked with green onion, mushrooms, and bacon. Good stuff. Normal price is $9.89, on special for $7.50 tonight. And don’t forget about their $5.99 jumbo happy hour margaritas.

– The Majestic now has their website up and running. I ate lunch there and had their shrimp appetizer stuffed with andouille and crabmeat. Everything was quite good, as usual.

Time to get an early start on Pint Nite…

Music Fest weekend is done, and thank goodness. Yesterday I never even ventured as far as Beale Street – I simply did what I usually do on a Sunday. I went to Sleep Out’s about 11:30 and had a bottle of champagne and hung out with all the downtown regulars. About 3:00 I wandered down to Big Foot and had their Holy Smokes chicken tenders and a Big Foot Beer, then walked home for a nap which turned out to last 14 hours.

I think my mattress is wearing out though. May be time to buy a new one, and mattresses are one item where it definitely isn’t worth it to buy cheap. What I’d really like is one of those Tempur-Pedic mattresses from Brookstone, with the foam that fits the contours of the body. A full-size mattress is $1,299 but that’s really not much more than I’d spend elsewhere for a quality mattress. I’m assuming I could keep my existing box spring. Anyone own one?

Serrabee writes in her blog, “Doesn’t it suck that all the people blogging about [Music Fest] seem to be to cool to go?” I wonder if she’s referring to me, among others. But that’s okay. I never claimed this was a music blog. If you think this is a music blog, I hope you like The Dempseys because they’re just about the only band I ever mention. I write about the big things in life, like bums and pigeons. Oh, and international waitresses. If you want to read about music I suggest you check out Rachel and Rachel Two. Well, except Rachel Two is in Hawaii this month and blogging about that instead.

Check out Rachel One’s blog of the Beale Street Music Fest on the Commercial Appeal. It pretty much summarizes why I don’t go anymore. Mud, incredibly rude people (both the crowd and the people who work there), lousy bands who turn in half-assed performances.

Anyway, that mess is over for the year, and thank goodness for that. Now, we have a much better festival to look forward to, a mere 10 days away… BBQ Fest. I would like to once again announce that I am happily accepting any and all invitations to BBQ Fest tents. If you have a tent and would like to have one of Downtown’s celebrity bloggers stop by, drop me an e-mail.

I’m off work today, so I’m going to hit one of the downtown lunch spots, then stop by the Saucer for an early Pint Nite (Pint Afternoon? They’re $2.50 all day), and then later tonight, I’ll hit the Saucer again for a second helping. As I look back on the past week, I realize that I’ve only been to the Saucer ONCE in the past seven days, which for me is just astonishing. Gotta catch up… I’ll be there tomorrow for trivia night too.

It’s a beautiful day (isn’t it funny how the temperature warms up 15 degrees as soon as Music Fest is over?) and I’m going outside!

The Gene Simmons impersonator mentioned in the previous blog post is on the front page of the Commercial Appeal this morning. It says he was dressed up for a bachelor party and is retiring the costume. Can I have it?

… Actually, I’m not tall enough to be a believable Gene Simmons. Peter Criss maybe… but who wants to dress up as Peter Criss?

So I’m home from tonight’s festivities, feeding my latest addiction: Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. I’ll start reading one article and then follow links and more links and more links. I can stay on Wikipedia for hours.

When I run out of things to read, I hit Wikipedia’s random article selector. So a few minutes ago, I asked for a random article and this is what I got.

There’s a guy on Beale Street dressed as Gene Simmons. Girls will come up and ask him to take a picture with them, and he’ll do it – but they have to show him their boobs first.

There’s also a guy dressed up as Jesus walking around Beale Street. He will happily pose for a pic with you in front of the wacko religious guys (see the Jesus Freak post from earlier this weekend) and their big signs in the background. I didn’t get a pic taken with him because the line was too long.

I’m going to bed now, although I don’t know if sleep will be possible because there’s a very loud party at the Broadnax Building half a block away.

A good thing to have for Music Fest weekend:

I buy these at A. Schwab’s for $1.50 each in the weeks leading up to Music Fest and then stockpile them. I always keep one in my back pocket during Music Fest, and also during BBQ Fest later in the month.

One of the other drunks at Sleep Out’s has a condo overlooking the Main Street Mall. He told me he was out on his balcony last night and he heard about 100 arguments and it was always the same thing: The boyfriend was pissed off because the girlfriend had been dancing up on some guy. So this one couple starts yelling at each other and my friend, on his balcony says, “Hey, dude,”

And the dude goes, “WHAT?”

“You’re mad at her because she was dancing up on some guy, right?”

“YEAH! How’d you know that?”

“Dude, you think you’re one in a million, but you’re just like everyone else. Look, dude. It’s three in the morning and she’s not with him, she’s with you. Get over it and go home.”

“Well… all right.”

My friend also saw a girl have sex with her boyfriend’s brother in plain view from his balcony. Needless to say the BF was not happy.

And finally, if you’re a tourist in town and you want to commemorate your stay here in Memphis, you can get your picture taken by a “professional” photographer on Beale for five bucks in front of one of these lovely backdrops:

Or, you could create your own sign saying “I’M A STUPID ASS GHETTO MOTHERFUCKER” and just take your own picture in front of it. Because that’s basically what you’re saying about yourself if you think you look good posing in front of these backgrounds.

I’m SO glad I’m doing my Music Fest blogging here and not on the CA’s site.

Got a question for anyone who can answer it…

Those of you who own those PDA/Smartphones that have a full keyboard and unlimited web surfing ability – do they have the ability to fill out forms on the Web and submit them?

The reason I ask is, if I could find a phone that could do that, then I’d be able to blog on the road – I wouldn’t have to run home to my computer every time I wanted to post. That would be WAY cool.

I’m also thinking about upgrading to a phone with unlimited Internet access for another reason. I’m getting real tired of the Internet content filters at the city schools where I work. As I mentioned in a recent post, I re-stocked my bar this week, and I wanted to get on iDrink.com and see what kinds of drinks I could mix with the ingredients I had on hand. But no – the stupid filter blocks all sites related to the consumption of alcohol. It also blocks most common blogging sites, so I can’t read Kat’s blog, Charly’s blog, Serrabee’s blog, AngieDawn’s blog, etc. while I’m at work. By being able to surf on my phone I’d be able to circumvent their irritating network security and do what I want.

Have any of you actually done a blog post from a phone? If so e-mail me and let me know what kind of phone you have.

Superior Bar is now open in the spot where the Memphis Police Museum used to be on Beale. I don’t have the exact address but it’s between A. Schwab’s and the Black Diamond patio.

Actually, even though it calls itself a bar, it’s more a club. Except for the bar itself, the rest of the place is a large dance floor, with a DJ spinning music.

I’m glad to see a new place to dance open on Beale; it needed one. I’ve never liked Alfred’s – always thought it was an overpriced tourist trap – and Club 152 has been booking some acts recently that have drawn rough crowds, so rough that they’ve started wanding patrons with metal detectors before admitting them. The only other dance alternative nearby up until now was three blocks away at Raiford’s, but the lines there can get insanely long.

They were not charging a cover last night. I didn’t try any of their drinks so I’m not sure about drink prices.

Every year during Music Fest, Beale Street is invaded by wacko Jesus freaks who carry big signs and preach that we’re all going to hell for drinking, fornicating, dancing, listening to music, etc. Here’s a sampling of the signs. Click on a pic for a larger image.

The Domino’s Pizza tent in the Pepsi Pavilion, corner of Third and Beale: Slices of pepperoni, sausage, or cheese for two bucks each. When it’s midnight and you have the drunk munchies, it’s this or have a sit-down meal at one of the restaurants for ten times the price.

I doubt I’ll eat anything but Domino’s this weekend. It’s a Music Fest tradition.

So I was walking down Second tonight and I saw The Most Annoying Woman On The Planet at the bar at Big Foot, so I stopped in for a drink. They had a new free hand-out magazine at the bar, called Image Magazine. I flipped through it as I drank a Corona. I arrived at a horoscope page called Horrid Scopes, and I looked at my horoscope (Scorpio):

“Your latest tube-top ensemble will be the big hit in the Jerry Springer greenroom.”

My only complaint is that this issue of the magazine was dated May 2006. It would have worked better as the June horoscope, since I’ll be doing Tube Top Month in this blog in June.

Commercial Appeal people: Are you glad yet that I turned down your offer to blog MIM? Because this is going to be the quality of my posts all weekend.