Month: September 2006

So I went to the Saucer tonight to hear The Dempseys. I stayed through all three of their sets and left about 1:30. About 11 my waitress (from Romania) got cut and asked if I’d tab out with her. I asked if she wanted her tip in money or kisses. She said money. Damn!

I am no longer dateless for Wednesday night’s party. While at the Saucer, about midnight during the Dempseys’ second set, I met a regular blog reader who works at a major corporation downtown and she indicated that she’d love to go. So I asked her.

She said to let everyone know that Precious Cargo, at 381 N. Main in the Pinch, has the most incredible vegan food in the city, and to try their vegan chocolate cake in particular. I’m not a vegan (I enjoy eating dead animals) but nevertheless, I’ll check it out sometime soon. I went there a few times in the late ’90s and enjoyed it very much.

“Thunder Road,” from which The Dempseys get their song “Ballad of Thunder Road,” will be on in an hour at 3 AM (it’s Thursday night/Friday morning as I type this) on Turner Classic.

Now I’m at home eating a microwaved can of Stagg Chili. It doesn’t come in airtight boxes anymore. It comes in cans like all the other brands of chili. The Dynamite Hot and White Chili (with chicken) varieties are da bomb.

Guess I’ll go to bed now.

The Nuh-Uh Girl sent me a link to this Memphis Business Journal article about Sauces, the new restaurant to open this fall on Main Street between Union and Gayoso. Their motto is “our plate, your canvas,” and is taken from a menu they have where you select a meat and then top it off with a signature sauce. (They also have a regular menu if that’s not your thing.) The article says they will have eight regular sauces, with featured sauces rotated weekly.

The article goes on to say that Sauces wants to focus on locals, Downtowners who will come back more than once a week. It says they will have a full bar with beer, wine, and liquor, as well as martini and mojito menus, so it sounds like Sauces has a good understanding of what Downtowners like in a restaurant.

The article lists sandwiches at $7-8 and entrees at $10-15, so it sounds like it will be affordable. And, “the interior of it is going to be the coolest thing on South Main,” said one of the owners.

I haven’t looked forward to a restaurant’s opening this much since rumors started flying about the Majestic Grille about this time last year. Should be a great addition to the Main Street Mall.

A fundraiser is being held for Congressional candidate Steve Cohen this Sunday, September 24 at 7 pm. It will be held on the top of the rooftop at Pembroke Square at the corner of Main and Gayoso. Suggested donation to attend is $25, or $5 for students. Of course, if you want to give more I’m sure they’ll take it!

Rooftop parties on downtown apartment buildings are always a blast. So come on down and support Steve! I plan on being there (hmmm… that means I’ll have to take it easy on the booze during the day at Sleep Out’s) and hope to see you there as well.

First of all, congrats to my friend and fellow blogger AngieDawn who returned to Memphis a few days ago. AngieDawn has landed a great job promoting the city (I’ll let her tell you about it in her own blog) and Memphis is lucky to have her. Welcome back!

Sitting here at High Point Coffee on Union. Memphis’ poet laureate IQ is here, and he reminded me that Hattiloo Theater opens for its first season this Friday, so I figured I’d pass the word along.

So, I think I mentioned that I have a really cool party to go to next Wednesday the 27th, thrown by a weekly arts & entertainment paper that releases a new issue every Wednesday. As of yesterday I am dateless to this party – I had someone I was going to go with but I revoked her invitation (won’t go into why – I try to refrain from airing personal dirty laundry on my blog). If I have any secret admirers who read this blog, now might be a good time to reveal yourself.

The annual Clanjamfry Festival is this weekend, at Evergreen Presbyterian Church on University across from Rhodes. It celebrates Scottish heritage. Never been, may stop by on Saturday.

Court Square Concert Series tonight from 6 to 8. This week it’s hip-hop week with P-Smoov, Tom Skeemask, Lex G and The Memphis Movement. Usually I refer to the Court Square series as “Bums, Bands, Beer, and Pigeons.” Regular reader ML writes, “This week it’s Bums, Bling, Blunts, and Pigeons.”

After the concert I’ll probably stop by the Saucer for one or more beers (length of stay depending on whether the girl who had her party invitation revoked is there), then head over to Blues City Cafe to catch The Dempseys. I believe the show starts at 9.

Tomorrow night I’ll be back at the Saucer for another dose of the Dempseys. They take the Saucer stage at 9:30.

The Mid-South Fair starts tomorrow. I’ve come up with a new slogan to describe my attitude toward the fair:

“Mid-South Fair? Don’t care.”

Haven’t been once in the 19 years I’ve lived in Memphis, and I have no intention of going this year.

You may have noticed that I’ve added a Cohen for Congress button to my blog. Click on it to learn all about Steve Cohen and why he is the most qualified candidate for the 9th Congressional district seat. I was very pleased to see that the Tri-State Defender is taking a pro-Cohen stance.

The Rapscallions took third place last night at trivia, bringing our gift certificate stash to $60 total. Remember, they’ve started expiring in three months rather than a year, so we gotta plan a party before too long… I don’t have them with me but I believe the first one will expire in mid-to-late November.

That’s all for now… lunch is over, back to work.

This weekend I was watching TV, and a Harold Ford Jr. campaign commercial came on. He said something that annoyed me a bit, but probably endeared him to quite a few Tennessee voters. He said something like, “My parents brought me up right… they forced me to go to church.”

Ya know… I’m probably in the minority of Southerners on this… but I am determined that if I ever have kids, I will not take them to church, at least until they reach an age when they are old enough to decide for themselves that they want to go, and ask me to take them. Then, I’ll be happy to, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions I have as objectively as I can, and if I don’t know the answers I’ll try to find someone who does.

I just have a serious problem expecting my kids to grow up believing exactly what I believe. Each person has a different path to God. All of them are correct. There are no wrong answers.

I want my kids to find their own path, and I’ll be there to offer support and help them get the resources they need to explore their beliefs.

In Memphis it’s going to be quite a challenge to find a woman who backs me up on this.

Heck, I probably won’t have kids anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

I’ve probably run off even more of my already-declining readership with this post.

So, I went to Cooper-Young Fest on Saturday. It’s the 14th time I’ve been to the annual festival, but this year I did something I’ve never done at a CY Fest before.

I didn’t drink.

Honestly, I got down there and didn’t want or need to. For one thing, I didn’t want to take any chances of getting a DUI – I knew the police would have roadblocks up due to the Southern Heritage Classic that was also going on that night. And besides, I didn’t even want to drink. It was really hot – official temperature in the low 90s, and with the sun reflecting off the asphalt it was probably more like the upper 90s on the street. So I drank lemonade, Gatorade, water, and Mountain Dew throughout the day.

Best T-shirt I saw at CY Fest: “Keep Mount Moriah beautiful.” Leaning against each letter of BEAUTIFUL was a shadow image of a girl doing a stripper pose. Oh, that’s just classic. I should have bought that shirt.

Saw Steve Cohen at the festival and he asked about the blog. Kinda cool to have a future congressman as a blog reader. I also got a “Vote No On 1” sticker and wore it all day. I’m gonna do an entire separate post/rant on that one. Man, how much better a world this would be if only people who attended Cooper-Young Fest were allowed to vote.

It was good seeing my friend Wendy and her new baby. I got some funny looks as I walked around with her and the stroller. It’s not mine. Seriously. I saw Serrabee and she commented, “Nearly everyone our age has strollers.” You know, she’s right. Most of my friends my age own houses, are married, have kids. I chase after 23 year old waitresses and write a blog.

It was good meeting dwayne butcher at CY Fest. I love his pre-CY blog entry.

I stayed 8 hours, on my feet the entire time and was absolutely exhausted when it was over. Drove home, hung out at my friend Chad’s for football and birthday cheesecake (from the Cheesecake Corner, topped with blueberries – so good), then called it a night.

Didn’t take any pics, so no photo album, sorry.

I’m sitting here at the Flying Saucer typing this, enjoying a FREE Kick-Ass Chicken sandwich because I filled up my frequent lunch card with 7 stamps. Speaking of the Saucer, I should mention that The Dempseys will be playing here Thursday night. Right now there’s only a 50% chance I’ll be able to go see them (may have conflicting plans). But that’s OK – if I miss them Thursday, they’ll be at Blues City Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights.

God this was a boring post. I need to start posting drunk again.

Today I’ve had a couple of songs stuck in my head. One is a TV commercial from about 1980 that has a catchy jingle:

The other song I’ve had in my head all day is “Polythene Pam,” from Abbey Road by the Beatles. In fact, as I’m reading this I’m playing tracks 10-16 of Abbey Road, a medley of song snippets which includes the 1 minute, 12 second “Polythene Pam” among others. Maybe it’s because I have a Chilean friend named Pam that this song came to mind. Here’s the first verse:

Just kidding, Pam. You don’t really look like a man. and you’re a great kisser

I had a great time at Cooper-Young Fest today. I’ll post a full report in the morning from the Union Avenue branch office. Speaking of which, JOSH wants me to let everyone know that he will be bartending and working a double, so he’ll be there all day for Sunday brunch. And I likely will too. Stop by.

Today’s lunchtime post comes to you not from one of my branch offices, but from the main office. My work. The city schools are having a cookout for us, so I’m typing this as I munch on a burger and beans and slaw at my desk.

It’s almost here… my favoritest day of the whole year… tomorrow… Cooper-Young Fest. I plan on getting there around 11, and staying until it ends at 7, and maybe staying later if I hear of any good post-CY parties. I love walking around all day (think I’ll take my pedometer and see how many steps I take – bet it’s 20,000 easily), seeing people I haven’t seen in years, visiting all the booths, eating gyros and turkey legs and thinking “man, pronto pups are disgusting, who would eat those?” and then wanting a pronto pup a few hours (and beers) later.

Trying to figure out what bands I want to see… the only one that jumps out at me is Esque, on the Corona Extra Main Stage at 2:15. Never heard them but all the Midtown hipster bloggers rave about them. Guess I’ll go see what the fuss is about. FreeWorld is playing the First Congo stage at 1:15, but heck, living downtown I can walk down the street and see FreeWorld any time I feel like it.

Cooper-Young Fest is SACRED to me. Nothing is allowed to interfere with my good time. NOTHING. Case in point: One of the Romanians wanted to go to dinner at one of my favorite downtown restaurants Saturday night, but I turned her down because it would have meant leaving CY early. There are very few opportunities in this world that outrank spending time with Romanians, but CYFest is one of them.

I’ll have on my brand-new lime green Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis T-shirt. If you see me out walking around, stop and say hello. I’ll bring the digital camera, so there may very well be a Cooper-Young photo album on my site next week.

You can find the band schedule for Cooper-Young Fest in this Commercial Appeal article, or you can get check this week’s issue of the Memphis Flyer for a complete program which lists all 400 vendors.

Back to work. Hope to see you at the festival tomorrow!

I don’t usually do inside comments as an entire post, but to a longtime faithful reader of my blog: Susie: I know what you don’t know (in parentheses), and it’s on Tuesday night at 7 if you want to add random knowledge. E-mail me

Thanks to PDS for forwarding me this link to an article on the WREG-TV website: Criminal concerns flowing like beer on Beale. The article quotes Beale Street authorities like Rickey Peete and John Elkington as saying that this is a much more aggressive group of people that are hanging out on Beale now, and there have been increases in aggravated assaults, robberies, drugs, and even a carjacking. My friend and EDU commander Maj. Johnny Currin comments, “When you interject drinking with weapons and drugs, that’s just a formula for some serious things that may happen.”

Question to my readers: Have safety concerns kept you off Beale Street? Has having to stand in long lines to get wanded by metal detectors on Friday and Saturday nights kept you away?

Even better, here’s what I really would like to know: What bars, clubs, restaurants, or shops would you have frequented this summer on Beale Street (let’s say, from Memorial Day on), and how much money would you have spent, that you didn’t spend because of safety concerns and/or security hassles? I would like to put a list together and post it either here or the Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis site, to show Beale business owners how much this is costing them.

For example: Last summer I hung out in the Tap Room just about every weekend. This summer I’ve been there maybe 3-4 times. I typically spend $10 a night at the Tap Room, so I’d say they’ve lost $200 in business from me since Memorial Day.

I tended to hang out in the Black Diamond (or buy at their outside bar) quite a bit too – have only been there a handful of times this summer as well. I’d estimate their lost revenue from me at about $75-100.

I probably would’ve dropped at least $30-50 at each of Coyote Ugly, Pat O’s, BB King’s, and Silky’s as well this summer. Except for my Monday night visit to Coyote Ugly, and one late-night run through Pat O’s, I haven’t been to any of those places.

I’m also going to estimate lost revenue of $40 from me for Blues City Cafe. Even though I do hang out there a fair amount, there probably would’ve been a few additional times when I would have seen that the Dempseys were playing and come in and spent money, had I already been on the street.

Which businesses have lost revenue from you, and how much? E-mail me and I’ll compile a list and make sure it gets seen. All e-mails will remain anonymous – I just want the place names and dollar amounts.