Month: November 2007

PROFANITY ALERT: If you have a problem with the f-word, skip this post. I rarely bust it out in my blog anymore, but this is a case where it’s absolutely unavoidable. There’s no other term to appropriately describe what I saw.

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So, last night, I left Earnestine & Hazel’s about 1:30 and started walking back toward the Downtown core. As I passed the intersection of Main and Talbot I heard moaning. I looked over to my right, and saw a vacant grassy field at the corner of Mulberry and Talbot. There was a dude who had a girl up against a fence and they were totally FUCKING, right there. I could hear her screaming and moaning half a block away as I walked by. He was spanking her, too. From the sound of things he was really giving it to her good.

I imagine the proximity of Raiford’s (one block to the north) had something to do with their choice of location.

Geez. It was 35 degrees and windy at that time. I’m not even sure my equipment would work under those conditions, no matter how hot the girl is. Maybe dude popped a Viagra or something.

You remember how I blogged that I had nothing to do today? Well, I lied. We actually had a surprise birthday party for our friend Yoko.

Here’s a pic (above) of Yoko unwrapping a present of cookies from Pete the Trivia Guy.

We had the party in the downstairs of Pearl’s Oyster House. I had the char-grilled oysters and they were phenomenal. After the party we moved to The Warehouse (opened by a friend of the owner, thanks). By that point everyone but me was too drunk to continue, because much like Shawn Michaels, I’m the icon that can still go. And I went, all right – I went to Nate’s Bar for a drink – E&H was DEAD – then on to Hoop’s Bar where one of my favorite off-duty bartenders bought me a shot.

Yoko, we love you. When you said it’s surreal, having your family and your new family all in one place, you were right. But get used to it. You ARE family.

Photo album as soon as I sober up enough to process the pics. Some of you have some embarrassing drunkass moments to relive.

Just cleaned out the pics on the camera and went through the past four months or so of pics on my hard drive. Found a few memorable ones that are worth posting. So let’s get this party started:

Wasted at Pearl’s Oyster House, June 2007.Only the Nuh-Uh Girl would wear a shirt that says “ME ME ME” on it.

Leo Lazarus, the Tuesday night guitar guy at the Saucer. *clap clap clap* “Thanks, Paul.”

John D’s special “pain in the ass” breakfast. He combines parts of five or six brunch menu items at the Majestic to make his own custom breakfast, because he’s special like that. When we did one of our brunch weeks at McGuinness, Patrick from the Majestic brought his Pain In The Ass Breakfast over to him. I’m sure there was a Bud Light somewhere nearby.

A teeny-tiny little car that I see Downtown from time to time.

Last week I was walking down South Main and I saw this poster:

It’s a link to a site called DEWmocracy where you can help design the next Mountain Dew. As a huge Dew fan, I wanted to pass this information on.

Going through all the pictures I’ve taken in the past four months, seeing what I shot and then forgot to post about. There may be some more posts today if I find more pics. Working from a location near where I live that has Wi-Fi. I’ll leave it as an exercise to you the reader to figure out where I am.

Shiner Bock is the fire sale today.

While typing the post about Frank’s Liquors reopening (scroll down and you’ll see it), I hit Wikipedia’s entry on low-end fortified wine to read about Thunderbird, Night Train and other wines that the panhandlers Downtown are known to prefer. One sentence struck me as particularly interesting:

“Cities like San Francisco and Seattle have banned the sale of various of these wine products in downtown and skid row areas.”

Why can’t Memphis do the same? And ban the sale of those one-shot “airplane bottles” as well. I guarantee you that’d put a major dent in the panhandling problem here, and maybe it would cause Memphis to lose the five-star ranking that bums around the country have given our city. I nearly fell down in the alley behind my building yesterday because I slipped on an airplane bottle of citrus flavored Smirnoff vodka.

Some good news in the fight against panhandling: The manager of the Downtown Walgreens joined our Handling-Panhandling forum. Glad to have her aboard, as that corner is one of the most popular for bums in all of Downtown. Maybe we can work together with Walgreens to get something done.

Ole Miss fired its head coach, Ed Orgeron, today, one day after he blew a 14-0 lead against Mississippi State to go on to lose 17-14. Check out this article on ESPN for more details.

According to the article, the dumbass went for it on 4th and 1 with a 14-0 lead in the fourth quarter, and that was the turning point of the game. The coach fully expected to return for ’08 but instead got his walking papers. With ten wins in three seasons, I can totally understand why he was let go.

I guess he’ll get hired as a head coach by a school that sucks even more than Ole Miss. Maybe he should give the folks in Jonesboro a call.

Frank’s Liquors at the corner of Main and Vance reopens this weekend. It’s been closed for the past year or so, and with the Corkscrew also gone South Main has been badly in need of a place to buy booze. Glad to see it back.

The e-mail I was sent about it says that the owner is still Jennifer, same girl who owned it before. She’s super sweet and was always really good about special-ordering items.

I’ve been told she’s also fully in support of not allowing panhandling to occur in the area outside her store. She’s determined not to let people harass her customers, which is a good thing. Wonder if that means the big cooler of Thunderbird and other bum wines won’t be back? I bought a bottle of the Bird there as a gag gift for a friend in 2005, and Jennifer packaged it up in a pretty silver wrapper.

The e-mail says she’ll be working on a new wine rack in the middle of the store, and will probably stock a wider variety of liquors than in the past.

Welcome back Frank’s… a much needed addition/return to South Main.

Thanks to my friends Chuck and Robin for a great Thanksgiving dinner Thursday afternoon. I went over to their Barton Flats condo and we had turkey, shrimp linguini, bacon-wrapped green beans, salad and other goodies. Robin had some of her U of M colleagues over, and since I used to teach I felt right at home talking with them.

After we ate, Chuck whipped out the most hilarious board game I have ever seen in my life:

It was called Chug-A-Lug and it was a drinking board game from 1969. Chuck told me his mom was about to throw it out and he saved it from the trash can. Why would someone throw out a classic like this? Not only was it a drinking game, but it was a HIPPIE drinking game. Let’s have a look at the board (click for larger image):

The rules of the game are that you can only take a drink when the board or a Chug-A-Lug card says so. Actually that’s not a problem at all, as you will be drinking PLENTY if you play this game. Also, you can only get up to go to the bathroom if you land on a “Jet to the John” square or get a “Jet to the John” card.

It’s a total hippie game. You can get sent to “The Happening” where you can land on squares like “caught in bedroom with best friend’s date. Both chug.” There’s a “free spirits” section with squares like “demonstrate your brotherly love with members of the opposite sex.” The “skid row” section has a square that reads, “Lost welfare check. Panhandle. Take 2 drinks.” (Wait, is that 1969, or 2007 Downtown Memphis?) There’s a square on the main path that reads, “Opium den. Light up.” Another reads, “Praise the Pill. Take 1 drink.”

The object of the game is to pass the Alcoholics Unanimous Association (equivalent to Go in Monopoly) and collect Alcoholics Unanimous cards. First person to collect 10 of them wins. However, it’s near impossible to make it all the way around the board without being detoured into The Happening, Skid Row, Street Prophets, or Free Spirits. If you play this game you better have a LOT of alcohol on hand, and either a designated driver or place to crash.

This is a bad pic but here are the game’s rules (click for larger image that’s at least somewhat readable):

We have got to play this game again… I suggest we recruit some girls to play it with us though. I bet this would sell for a lot of money on eBay.

Got to the Saucer at 5:20 on Thanksgiving Day. It opened at 5 and the manager looked at me like “you’re late” when I walked in. One of the waitresses offered to buy me a Fire Sale if I’d go home and change into the red disco outfit I wear to Raiford’s. I made her up the offer to a Dos Equis Special Lager, then agreed and went home and changed clothes. Hey, it doesn’t take much to get me to agree to make a fool of myself! Despite the free beer I managed to run up my highest tab ever at the Saucer – $99 including tip – after I started doing shots with a friend.

The same waitress informed me that every year there’s a big Thanksgiving party at E&H, so I headed up there about 11. It was pretty packed and even Nate’s bar was open. Sorry for not blogging in advance about the party but I just didn’t know – I’ve never been in Memphis for Thanksgiving before. It was a great time and the fact that I was already WASTED when I got there didn’t hurt. The waitress who told me about the party and her little zebra-haired sidekick showed up, and earlier in the evening they had the audacity to claim that I couldn’t keep up with them on a dance floor. I busted out moves previously only seen at Raiford’s, and proved that I was not only their equal, but their superior when it comes to dancing. Got home that night about 3.

Friday recap: This’ll be short and sweet. HOW ‘BOUT THEM HAWGS!!!!! All season long I’ve had to endure East Bumblefuck Kat trash-talking Arkansas on her blog. Well, Kat, we beat the #1 team in the country, so STFU and go back to planning your Ptolemy parties. Besides, it’s not like your teams (Arkansas State and Ole Miss) are anything to be proud of.

Watched the game in the comfort of the couches at (can you guess it?) the Saucer. Attn waitresses: Please do not bend over to pick up dishes when important plays are happening. I missed seeing two touchdowns yesterday because of that. I assumed Arkansas would get their ass kicked and so I didn’t show up in my Hog Hat. By halftime I was regretting not bringing it. Yesterday made me proud to be a Hog fan! The Razorbacks improved their record to 8-4 and now have a shot at being invited to a decent bowl game.

Ole Miss blew a 14-0 lead to lose yet again. God the Rebels suck.

And that brings us to today. I have absolutely no plans for today, so you know where I’ll probably end up. I’ll do some more work on the “trip down memory lane” post this morning too.

Brunch tomorrow is at the Majestic at 11, followed by a trip to you-know-where at 1.

Thanks to one of my readers for telling me about this. On the Main Street Mall, just north of Jefferson on an empty storefront next to the Subway, someone taped the note below. It looked like it had been typed up and laser printed. Names and other identifying info deleted for obvious reasons.

“(Man’s name) former (old job) now (current job) owe (woman’s name who typed the note) $1100.00!!! If u c this poor excuse of a man please tell him to pay her. I have (disease) and I am disable and I can’t work and he refuses to pay me back my money! He is a poor excuse of a man and ladies beware poor excuse of a man is approaching u! Hold on to your wallets! He is a liar a cheater and he will not keep his promise! His baby mother is (name deleted). She is a (job) at (job location). His brother is (name deleted). Tell him to pay her $!!!!!”

Too funny.

Thanksgiving recap to come as soon as I download a few pics from the camera.

Not much is open today. I knew that Jack’s would be open, so I just walked there for my morning Mountain Dew. The only real activity is the homeless walking toward the Convention Center where they get free Thanksgiving dinner at 10.

Other places that are open:

Wang’s will be open today. Because nothing says “Thanksgiving” like Kung Pao Chicken.

I’m assuming Westy’s will be open, because that place almost never closes.

The Saucer will be open at 5.

And that’s ALL I know of.

Plans for today: Thanksgiving dinner at friends’ house in the afternoon. I bought a 12-pack of Miller Chill with limes to bring over there, and I’m looking forward to that as much as the turkey. I’ll leave it as an exercise to you the reader to figure out where I’ll be after 5.

Not in the mood for the usual Thursday night at EP’s and will probably skip it this week. If it’s even open. If I get bored with the Saucer, McGuinness will probably serve as Plan B. If it’s open.

Tomorrow is my favorite blogger/MILF’s birthday… looks like she’ll be Downtown, so I’ll buy her a birthday drink if I see her out. I remember vividly the day my favorite blogger/MILF was born… on that day I got in the car and drove to high school. God. I’m turning into a dirty old man.

Just hit Astrology.com to figure out whether my favorite blogger/MILF is a Scorpio or Sagittarius (she’s a Sag – she missed the best sign of the zodiac by two days), and while I was there I saw a menu option that read, “Find your passion sign.” I’ve never heard of a passion sign before, so I entered my birthday and this came up:

Your passion sign: Aquarius

You are most likely a born rebel, with or without a cause! Are people surprised by your natural instinctive behavior? Mars in Aquarius renders you highly experimental, unorthodox, and independent. You express yourself in any way you see fit, and probably are unaware of how eccentric you actually are. You have a strong desire for independence and freedom. This planetary placing has been said to produce more originality and unconventional flair than any other. You are easily bored with routine and are a bit erratic when it comes to your personal life and how to live it. After all, there are so many options, and aren’t they all worth a try? In relationships, you enjoy experimentation, and lots of spontaneous activity! You offer excitement and variety to your relationships and are happiest when you and your partner are friends as well as lovers.

Normally I don’t put much stock in astrology, but I must admit that pretty much has me nailed.

And that’s all for now. Let’s go eat some turkey!