For those of you who know Sharp Dressed Bum, good news… he’s been picked up on outstanding warrants and is currently a guest of the city as he awaits trial. He’s been identified as a repeat offender, which is going to make it harder for him to operate on the streets of Downtown in the future.
SDB is a very aggressive panhandler who has been down here for as long as I’ve lived Downtown. He’s called “Sharp Dressed Bum” because he tends to dress in neat, clean business casual type attire when he panhandles. He often looks like he’s on his way to work, or to a nice club. It’s his way of getting passersby to drop their guard so he can ask for money. When told no, he’ll often follow people down the street, cussing them and threatening them, sometimes even with physical gestures. He has an apartment south of the FedExForum, so he’s not homeless, although he’ll claim to be if he thinks it will help generate panhandling revenue.
Kudos to the Center City Commission’s safety patrol, and to MPD, on a fine job. MPD has really been stepping it up in recent weeks. Lately I’ve seen a police car parked near the Elvis statue on Beale more often than not. That block has been prime ground for parking scams for as long as I can remember. Glad the cops are paying more attention to it.
Stay tuned for details on an Elvis-themed pub crawl Saturday, August 8, where people dress up as Elvis and move from bar to bar in a group. It will be kind of similar to the “Stumbling Santa” event that happens in December. More details to come. The list of participating bars is being worked out this week.
The Memphis Flyer’s Best of Memphis ballot is now online. You can vote for the best of everything in the city through August 10. Access the ballot through the Flyer’s home page.
There’s a powerboat regatta called the Memphis International Riverfront Regatta this weekend on the Mississippi River. Tens of thousands of people are expected to come Downtown and watch. Note that Riverside will be closed from Union to Carolina starting tomorrow.
Last night I played on PokerStars for about an hour before I headed to trivia… sat down with a stack of $100 and got up with a stack of $116.25. Sixteen bucks an hour is not bad. Every day I analyze the previous night’s poker game for things I could have done better. I see lots of ways to improve. Tonight I have no plans, so I think I’ll stay home and play a long session. If I do really well, I’ll celebrate by going out to the Rooster for their 25 cent beer night.
Congrats to the Rapscallions on a first-place trivia victory last night… we won a tiebreaker to earn a $50 gift certificate, bringing our stash for the next party to $160. Gotta e-mail the team about that today. More news to come – some things I can’t look up and link until I get home. I’ll try to take a break from poker at some point tonight to do a post.