Art On Tap review ‘n’ other stuff

Last night I went to Art On Tap, the Dixon’s annual beer tasting/fundraiser, for the first time, and WOW! What a great event. I took a cab down there and got there about 6:10, ten minutes after the start time, and the place was already packed. I walked around and sampled beers, the best of which were homemade brews by the Bluff City Brewers club. It was a FUN crowd too – I must have known 50 people there, maybe more. Only problem was, I stopped to talk to so many people that I didn’t drink as much beer as I would have liked. Really good food too – jambalaya by Bluff City Bayou, burritos by Blue Coast Burrito, and BBQ sandwiches by (forgot the place’s name). The tasting was in a beautiful outdoor garden, and of course the Dempseys were excellent as always. This event is definitely going to be on my calendar for next year.

Thanks to Chad and the Nuh-Uh Girl for the ride back downtown, and to Mike and Paola for offering a ride as well. Once back home I headed to (you guessed it) The Flying Saucer. Said a brief hello to the girl who had been the most beautiful woman at the beer tasting (she had on a silver dress that just about made my eyes pop out of my head), then rolled on to Earnestine & Hazel’s and then Raiford’s. First time I’ve seen Raiford’s since the renovation – it’s not much different, they got rid of that stupid drum set and I think they may have moved the bar back a foot or so, not sure. They’ve raised the cover to $12 after midnight. Yikes. When they raised it to 10 I really thought they were approaching the upper limit of what people are willing to pay. We’ll see if it lasts. Got about 2 hours of quality dancing in, then headed home.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Something’s been wrong with my cable modem at home – sometimes it finds the Internet, sometimes not. I took the laptop to the Union Avenue branch office yesterday at lunch to type a post, but one of the waitresses borrowed my laptop to look at MySpace pages. Oh, also, the fluffy-haired Romanian who works there is a brunette now.

Speaking of lack of posts: Can’t resist pointing out that Charly has not made a new post in 16 days, and hasn’t made a post about anything other than redneck NASCAR crap in 32 days.

The Commercial Appeal had a review of my favorite new restaurant, Dawgie Style, yesterday. Check it out.

Foot in Mouth Dept: Greg Hisky, from Greg Hisky and his Dixie Whisky Flyers who I saw at the Center for Southern Folklore Festival last weekend, e-mailed me to thank me for the endorsement. However, he said, his band members are not in their 60s as I estimated in my post – they have one member in his 40s, one in his 30s, and two in their 50s. Oops! Sorry about that.

He told me that they will be playing at the P&H Cafe on Saturday, September 16 at 9 pm, for their Hank Williams (1923-1953) birthday party. That’s the day of Cooper-Young Fest, so that’s an option for some post-CY entertainment.

Oh, by the way, Greg also told me that they jumped around on stage like The Dempseys when they were younger, and still can in short spurts.

No plans for today… nothing going on that I know of except the Germantown Festival, and I have no interest in making the drive out to East Bumblefuck to check it out. Tomorrow I’ll be at Sleep Out Louie’s, of course. Outta here… have a good weekend!