I just added a new news article to the Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis website, summarizing the August 3 Safety & Traffic Task Force meeting that Mike King and I attended. In particular, a question was raised about the wording of the panhandling ordinance – if the wording is what people claim it is, it may be possible to chase the bums off almost all the streets downtown. It’s a good read – check it out by clicking here and then choosing “Latest News” from the menu.
By the way… RSDM finally has business cards. Getting them has been a comedy of errors. First we ordered them and there was a word misspelled. So we re-ordered and they shipped the cards to the wrong address. So we re-ordered again, and because it was taking so long we had no choice but to use the cards with the misspelled word. So for two weeks we’ve been running around town handing out cards saying, “Now, we know ‘positively’ is misspelled, but all the other information is correct.” Anyway, the new cards are in and they’re really nice – on the front they have the address of our website and our Safer Downtown e-mail address, and on the back they have all the Memphis Police contact numbers. Everyone who lives downtown should have one. Next time you see me around town, ask and I’ll give you one. Or ask Mike. If you own a business and would like a stack of RSDM cards to give to the public, let us know.
I’m posting from the Second Street branch office tonight. I decided to skip the Court Square concert because it’s just too damn hot outside. Glad I came here instead – it’s looking good in here tonight. It’s looking REAL good. If you know what I mean.
By the way… I am revoking branch office status from the Germantown Parkway branch office. That office’s management recently made some extremely bad decisions regarding employee retention. I was worried that those bad decisions might extend to the Second Street office as well (it would be awfully hard for me to revoke that location’s status for any reason), but from what I see tonight that does not appear to be the case.
I mentioned a new restaurant coming to downtown, The Flying Fish, in my last post. Thanks to Carmel who found the Flying Fish website. There you can check out the menus from the other locations to get an idea what they have. I see that they already have a Flying Fish in my hometown of Little Rock, located on one of my favorite streets, President Clinton Avenue. I wonder if our current president has avenues named after him. I wonder if our current president can even spell “avenue.”
There was an article in today’s Commercial Appeal about the former WDIA building on the northeast corner of Union and Main. A group of developers plans to turn it into 6,200 feet of retail on the ground floor and 10 loft apartments on the upper floors. It’s the same group who successfully developed the Cornerstone/Wang’s and the Main Street Flats on the New Main block, so they already have a track record of success. Good to see them taking on new projects, and it’s good to see new apartments (not condos, of which there are already too many) opening up downtown.
I’ve mentioned live music at Wang’s at Main and Gayoso several times in this blog. Up until recently it has been a hit-or-miss proposition – more miss than hit. However, it appears that they’ve finally got their act together. According to a poster I saw today, Jimi Jamison is doing 8 PM and 11 PM shows there Thursday through Saturday.
Memphis in May has picked Spain as their country to honor for 2007, ignoring my repeated pleas to choose the country that the hottest women in all of Europe: Romania. Maybe I’ll choose Romania as my own personal country to honor in this blog next May, and mention it in every post, kind of like I mentioned tube tops in every post during June and July.
Walking down here, I noticed an interesting sign outside Rio Loco on Union: “Happy hour daily 2-10.” That’s a nice sign. They have $5.99 jumbo margaritas (just one will knock you on your ass) and they also have specials on cervezas as well. Kinda like Chili’s having happy hour all day. Except that Rio Loco doesn’t suck like Chili’s does.
Speaking of Mexican places: Monday I came downtown for lunch, and I decided to hit Sgt. Jalapeno’s Tortilla Company on Adams. I walked up there and guess what – it’s gone. There’s no furniture left in that place. I feel sad for them – they were really good people. They just had a less-than-ideal location and happened to open within two months of two other Mexican restaurants downtown.
The Romanian waitress has a black Beer Goddess tank top on. She didn’t have a black tank top last year; she had the pink one and the lime green one. Ioana had a black tank top. I wonder if Ioana gave her the black tank top, since Ioana didn’t come back this year. I miss Ioana.
Now that I think about it, I have a black Beer Goddess tank top – it’s part of my Halloween costume. Hmm, I wonder if the Romanian went through my closet when she was over at my place? Better check when I get home and make sure it’s still there.
I’m sitting here with a couple of my guy friends, and we’re playing a game called “guess the waitresses’ bra sizes.” The one I’m looking at right now, I’m thinking, 32C. If I were sober I’d probably delete this paragraph from the post.
There are Blogger Bashes Thursday and Sunday at Young Avenue Deli. Not sure if I’ll make either or both. The Sunday one is a “probably not” since Emma is bartending at Sleep Out’s brunch – I’ll likely be too drunk to get out there. Any Memphian who writes a blog is invited. Check Serrabee’s blog for more details – she’s the queen bee who set all this up.
Battery’s almost dead so it’s time to get going. I’ll probably hit Blues City for The Dempseys’ first set, then come back to the Second Street branch office for round two.