Month: March 2010

http://www.bjcp.org/index.php

Comcast is still crawling along at a snail’s pace at home.  At the Saucer with my netbook so I can post.

I attended both sessions of the River City Brewers Festival yesterday.  Here are pics of the festival and other assorted activities yesterday.

Clay, Chad, Otto and Stevie G at the afternoon session.  Chad was all dressed up for the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Beale.

Twisted Tea, one of the  best beverages I tried at the beer fest.  I especially liked the half tea, half lemonade variety.

A shot of the crowd at the afternoon session in Handy Park

The girls rocking the Pabst headbands.

Okay, I have to take a break from pics for a minute to address a situation that happened yesterday.  The festival provided buckets at various locations around the park.  This was so people from Cordova, Collierville, and Germantown could pour their beer out after sampling it.  Downtowners, on the other hand, do not pour beer out: They pour beer in.  The only time it’s excusable for a Downtowner to pour out a beer is if they were sampling Abita Turbo Dog, not realizing it tastes like the sweat off an elephant’s ass on a 109 degree day in Kenya.

So I was walking around the festival yesterday afternoon and I caught Pam, the girl on the left in the photo above, pouring out a beer.  Pam lives Downtown.  POURING OUT PERFECTLY GOOD BEER.  I ought to revoke her Downtown residency for that… hmmm… no, she hasn’t lived here that long, and besides, she’s really cute.  So I’ll let it go with 60 days probation.  But that better not happen again.

Back to pics.  I’m going to have something to say to one of Pam’s neighbors later in this post.

Here I am with The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Skippy, Chris, Moody, the Nuh-Uh Girl, Buddha and Frank at the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Beale.

Between sessions at the beer fest, The Most Interesting Man in the World made a trip to the Flying Saucer.

Bagpipers came through the Saucer after the parade.

Brick and Terry.  Thank goodness Picasa has a “fill light” feature or else you wouldn’t even be able to see Terry in this pic.

Okay, I need to take a minute to address Terry.  Terry:  You are Pam’s neighbor.  Please do your best to exert a positive influence on her.  You are a role model for her (or anyone, really) to look up to when it comes to drinking.  She needs your guidance.

Back to the festival for the evening session.  PBR skateboard.  Sweet!

Thanks to Christina and Jim who organized the festival for a great time.  It was a lot of fun, and it benefited St. Jude.  Can’t beat that!  I hope the festival returns in 2011.

It got a little cold, so I left the evening session about 8:30.  Did I decide that 8 1/2 hours of drinking were enough?  No, of course not!  I went back to the Saucer and drank another 5 hours worth of beer.  I feel bad for missing a friend’s going-away party at Bardog, but I was too worried I’d either fall asleep or be the entertainment at the party.

It’s Sunday and I’m back at the Saucer.  When I came in the gang commented, “Paul, we’re surprised to see you here.  And by that we mean, we’re surprised you’re alive.”  Eh.  Just another day at the office for me.

Plans for the day:  Well, I’ve got to stay out until at least 7 to enjoy the first day of Daylight Saving Time.  Selection Sunday is later today… hmm Calhoun’s wouldn’t be a bad place to watch it, but I don’t know how I feel about taking the netbook through Bum Land to get there and back.  Maybe I’ll just stay here.

Hmmm the netbook still has 88% battery power left… I think I’ll hit Publish and play some Rush Poker on Full Tilt’s site.

Posting from my phone. My Comcast Internet access is down. Well, it’s not completely dead, but it took 4 minutes to load Gmail and 11 minutes to load Facebook, so you get the idea. So if there are no blog posts today, that’s why.

Heading to the River City Brewers Fest at Handy Park at noon. Gotta start calling around in a little bit, because I have an extra ticket.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately… bad migraine headache has sidelined me from posting.

The Peabody has confirmed that legendary trumpeter Wynton Marsalis will perform at the Corner Bar tonight after his show at GPAC. There will be no cover at the Corner Bar, and there will be drink specials.

MPACT Memphis has announced that tickets have sold out for their Soul of the City Gala at Central Station tonight. However, standing-room-only tickets will go on sale at the party venue at 6:50 tonight. You still get all the benefits of the regular tickets – all you can eat food, all you can drink beer and wine, old school promo photos, Voice of MPACT survey – so come on down.

Suhair Lauck, owner of The Little Tea Shop on Monroe, has announced “Tea Time” from 3-6 PM Monday-Friday beginning Monday March 15. Come down and enjoy coffee, latte, cappucinco, herbal teas, and other assorted goods. The Tea Shop now has free Wi-Fi. Great place for law school students to hang out in the mid-late afternoon!

The Orpheum has announced their 2010-11 Broadway season. Shows will include Wicked, 9 to 5, Dreamgirls, Shrek, Young Frankenstein, The Color Purple, Spamalot, and Beauty and the Beast. Info will be available at orpheum-memphis.com by mid-April, or at the theatre during performances of South Pacific later this month.

“Dish It Out” on April 8 and help the National Foundation for Transplants. When you eat at participating restaurants, a portion of the proceeds for that day will go to NFT. Downtown restaurants who are participating include Circa, Grill 83, Pa Pa Pia’s, and Spindini.

The CA had a feature on the best fried green beans in Memphis. They didn’t mention the tempura fried green beans on the Majestic Grille’s bar menu, but they should have.

That’s all for now.  Gotta go pick up a pasta bread bowl from Domino’s.

A great South Main Association meeting at Local Gastropub last night. Here are my notes:

Reginald Milton, a Democrat running for County Commission District 2, Position 3 spoke for a minute. He’s the founder and executive director of a different SMA, the South Main Alliance, which has been helping women and children for the past 10 years. He’s asking for your vote on May 4. You can read more about him on his website.

SMA is asking its members to take a survey on the South Main Website. It’ll take about 2 minutes, and will help the leadership determine the direction the SMA’s members would like to see the organization take in 2010.

Becky Beaton spoke about beautifcation projects in South Main.

Myra & Jonathan Stephens spoke about Theatre Lite at Cafe Beignet – “all the flavor, none of the filling,” theatre without costumes and sets, allowing you to use your imagination. Next show will be “2 Across,” about a couple who meets on the BART in San Francisco. Performances will be this weekend and next, then skip a weekend, then the weekend after that. “FREE to get in, pay what you will to get out. Tell your friends,” said Jonathan. Then he added, “tell your enemies,” so I made a note to tell Brittney about it when I went to the Saucer afterward, but she wasn’t working.

A woman named Lisa came up to talk about an Alzheimer’s fundraiser she wants to have on South Main between GE Patterson and St. Paul on May 22. She was asking business owners to sign the petition to permit the fundraiser to block off that block of Main.

Terry Lynch took the podium for an update on the proposed panhandling and single beer ordinances. The first reading for both was yesterday on the consent agenda, and both passed. There will be two more readings, and we should not assume both will pass without any hitches. There are major challenges due to lobbying groups and misinformation. Terry said he was proud of the SMA and DNA for the leadership roles they have taken with this legislation. He’s trying to expand corporate advocacy for these ordinances. He pointed out that 70,000 people work Downtown, so these ordinances are not just to serve the people who live here.

Audience member asked, “How can we help?” Lynch: If you know a Council member, see them eyeball to eyeball and express your support. If you can show up for the second and third readings, and especially the final vote on the ordinances, please do. If you can’t see a Council member face to face, call them or e-mail them. Remind them that you are taxpayers, and more importantly, voters.

MPD Director Larry Godwin took the stage.

He said that one of the first things he did when he took over was change the name of the precincts, e.g. “South Main Precinct,” because the precincts belong to YOU.

When he went to his first meeting with a Downtown organization after he took over in 2004, there were 6 people in the room. “And now look at this,” he said, looking around the room at Local which was packed to capacity. “THIS is community policing. This is community involvement. This is what I’ve been working to achieve since I got here.” He gave the crowd a round of applause.

In 2009, the South Main Precinct issued 348 citations for panhandling, 498 for open container, and 23 for indecent exposure (which would also include crimes like public urination). So far in 2010, 99 panhandling citations have been issued.

In the South Main Precinct, crime was down 23% last year. Godwin put it simply, “This is the safest place in the city.”

Godwin attributes the area’s safety to this: “Y’all have such an open door policy. You know every one of our officers on a first name basis. When we promote someone, you go, ‘No! Don’t take him/her away from us!'”

Overall in Memphis, crime is down 18%. There are over 12,000 fewer victims of crime in the city than there were in 2006. “If you turn on the news, it’s not all gloom and doom like it used to be.”

Godwin said he would not shy away from the fact that there are a few bad seeds on the force. “One-half of one percent chose to go the wrong way,” he said, “and we’ll get rid of those.” This drew applause from the audience.

He mentioned again how he can’t get over how involved everyone is Downtown.

He talked about the police cameras they deploy, and how he’s sometimes asked, “Why would you want to put blue lights on the cameras?” The answer is, citizens love them. They had the cameras in the Wolfchase parking lots during the Christmas season, and there were ZERO break-ins. During special events, one Skywatch camera can do what 20 OCU officers on rooftops can.

Question: What are the biggest problems in our precinct? Car break-ins are number one. Robberies of individuals, and of course, panhandling. “The more beers they buy, the braver they get, the more aggressive they get.”

Godwin says the proposed panhandling ordinance will make MPD’s job easier. If they see someone panhandling in a designated area, it’s a clear violation.

Audience member Air Traffic Mike asked, “What can we do to help?” Godwin responded, go to MemphisPoliceFoundation.org. He then said, when he visited New York, he was jealous of three things they had:

1) A real-time crime center. Of course, we now have one, and it’s superior to New York’s. It won the IACP first place award.

2) The New York Police Foundation, which has raised $88 million, all privat funds, donated to be used to help the NYPD. The Memphis Police Foundation was set up so citizens here can donate to police efforts. You can make donations online, and it’s a 501(c)(3) organization. You can even designate how you want your dollars to be used, e.g. to buy a new skycam, or to buy a new police scooter.

3) A police headquarters. We’re the 16th largest police department in the United States, and we do not have a police HQ that bears its name. Currently the MPD HQ is stuck in an office buiding Downtown. Officers only go there for HR stuff. Having a police HQ would raise morale, because officers would have more contact with the chief. “I won’t see it in my day, but I really wish for it one day.” Godwin would like the HQ to be Downtown.

Due to PDA technology, officers went from an hour and 15 minutes taking reports to 12-18 minutes. Reports now get to the bureau in 3 minutes rather than 3 days. “New York doesn’t have that,” said Godwin.

Joan Robinson commented that the South Main District is not in the panhandling and single beer prohibited zones, and asked if MPD has a plan to protect South Main. Godwin replied yes. Their tracking of crime data will allow them to pinpoint the spots that need to be watched, Then he continued, “This is not a homeless problem, in my experience. This is about money. This is how they make money. This is how they do it. IN MY OPINION, IT NEEDS TO STOP.” (Huge round of applause) “We’ve got to reach out to the real homeless. And we did this year. Social workers got involved, and we did not just lock people up. But the panhandlers are not all homeless.”

An audience member also responded to Joan’s question, quoting Dr. Janikowski who helped draft the panhandling ordinance: It’s not a matter of displacement. You take away their customer base, and they go away. “You look at the CCC, you look at Larry Bloom, they brought in Dr.J,” Godwin followed up. “This was well done.” Another heavy round of applause.

Audience member asked about people feeding the homeless in large central parks like Court Square, about MATA buses speeding at 45-50 MPH on Downtown streets, and about graffiti. Godwin said he’d call Will Hudson and get the speeding situation addressed.

As for graffiti, if it’s on public property, send to Community Enhancement and the city will clean it. If on private property, MPD will provide officers to block traffic for its removal if necessary.

“The key to gang graffiti is to get it down as quickly as possible,” and let gang members know it will not be tolerated in your area, said Godwin. If you are not sure graffiti is gang-related, e-mail photos to Godwin. Tennis shoes hung over phone lines are another way gang members mark their turf. If you see these, call MPD and they will be taken down.

(I noticed he never addressed the matter of groups feeding the homeless in Downtown parks. This may have been an oversight as he was being bombarded with questions from a very enthusiastic audience.)

Audience member asked about figures for successful prosecutions. Godwin admitted that for panhandlers, it’s not very good.

Quick story I want to add here – on Sunday, my friend Mike King had one of our local bums, Fake St. Jude Donation Guy, arrested because he had a warrant for criminal trespass. St. Jude Guy spent Sunday night in jail and went to court Monday morning, in District 9. The judge found him guilty of criminal trespass, and sentenced him to 18 days in jail, with credit for 18 days served. So St. Jude Guy was back on the streets panhandling by Monday afternoon. What good does it do to arrest them, if judges are going to give them credit for time served?

Back to Godwin – in more serious categories, Memphis exceeds the national average for successful prosecutions. The only category that is up is rape. He addressed the recent rape kit controversy. “We do take a report on ANY rape,” and they always send in a kit for unknowns. When the suspect admits sex took place but it wasn’t rape, there’s no point sending in a kit, because the suspect is already known.

Audience question: “It seems like the homeless disppeared in December. Now they’re all back.” Godwin admitted that was true. The push in December was due to the onset of inclement weather. “We can’t force them to go to a shelter,” Godwin said. If they’re on your property, Godwin said, you can call MPD and they will remove them, although you have to understand calls are prioritized.

In 2006, MPD handled 817,000 calls.
In 2007, 822,000 calls.
In 2008, 852,000 calls.
In 2009, 941,000 calls.
Usually, when calls are up, crime is up. But in Memphis, calls are up and crime is down.

In 2008, burglaries were way up. “I had a problem with it,” said Godwin. “They call it a property crime. It’s kind of personal if they kick in your door and rummage through your stuff. I have a problem with that.” So he got with AG Gibbons to get the burglary law changed. “Before, if an individual committed 10 burglaries on the same street in 24 hours, one report was taken. We got that changed.” Burglary is down 14% now.

There’s a tradeoff though. MPD is trying to get the violent felons of the street. Godwin wants a minimum of 6 1/2 years for using a firearm in the commission of a felony. He wants to put burglars in local facilities to free up beds in Nashville for the violent offenders.

A South Main resident offered compliments. “I’ve seen MPD more on South Main. Officers watching, arresting people.” Round of applause.

Audience question: Any chance of getting more walking officers on the beat? Godwin: As you know, the only place we currently have them is EDU. There are pros and cons to walking officers. New York literally has an officer on every street corner, but they have 37,200 officers. The problem here is when they’re walking and there’s an incident – they have to be able to get from Point A to Point B. That’s why Godwin wants to purchase more T3s (the Segway-like vehicles you may have seen Downtown). In the summer when foot traffic is heavy, Godwin wants more temporary assignments Downtown.

That was the end of the Q&A session, and Godwin received another round of applause. Meeting was then adjourned.

I have pages and pages of notes from the SMA meeting last night, but there’s no way I can get them typed in a 45 minute lunch break, especially since I want to go pick up lunch from the Italian Rebel. Meeting summary will be up tonight after work. Meanwhile, here are a couple of quick things:

The Majestic Grille’s Cha Cha Chips were profiled in the CA today.

St. Jude has been ranked as the nation’s most trusted charity.

I have a headache. Hopefully food will help. The St. Patrick’s Day glass on sale at the Saucer tonight is one of the best glasses they’ve had in a long time. If you want one, better be there right at 7 when they go on sale.

Mayor AC Wharton has posted a blog on how you can help Memphis’ application for Google Fiber. If selected, we could end up with reasonably-priced fiber-optic Internet access that is 300 times faster than typical cable/DSL connections. If selected, Google will take the connection to every home and every business partner of the community, regardless of commercial potential. Please take a couple of minutes to help. Mayor Wharton is right – this is a chance to truly transform the community.

I mentioned FourSquare, the location-based checkin app, in my last post. Well, this afternoon Brainwoo put up a post on how businesses can promote themselves using FourSquare.  If you want to learn how location-based social media can benefit your business, be sure to read this post.

For example, let’s take a hypothetical juice bar that has 70 different kinds of juice on tap, and another 125 kinds of juice in bottles, as well as “juice flights” and “juice mixers.” Now, let’s say they have a customer who really, really likes juice, and he checks in there 35, 36, 37 times a month, becoming the “mayor” of the juice bar. The bar could reward his loyalty with a free glass of juice every now and then.

Anyway, that’s just one hypothetical example. Check out the post for others.

In the last post, I talked about the Peabody’s rooftop season announcement. I’ve now learned one additional piece of info – this year, ladies will be admitted free before 7 PM (it was 8 PM last year). That gets you access to the rooftop, dancing, and the food buffet that the Peabody puts out for rooftop guests. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

On my way to the SMA meeting with MPD Director Godwin at Local… will take my notebook with me.  Probably a summary post of the meeting will be up tonight or tomorrow.

One of my favorite iPhone apps is FourSquare, which allows me to “check in” and tell my friends where I am. When you check in, you can leave a “tip” to improve others’ experience at those places. For example, I might leave a tip saying “try the West Coast Burger” when I check in at Downtown Huey’s (of which I am the mayor on Foursquare).

Well, this morning LifeHacker linked to a new web application called FourWhere, which lets you see all available tips in a given area. This seems like it would be a great “tips from the locals” idea when you travel to an unfamiliar neighborhood or city. Or a familiar one… I bet it helps me find some tips about Downtown I wasn’t aware of, and I’ve lived here 8 years.

The MPACT Memphis Soul of the City Gala is this Friday at Central Station. They’ll have the MPACT Maker Awards and the unveiling of the new Voice of MPACT Survey, but let’s talk about the things people who read this blog REALLY care about… all you can drink beer and wine, and all you can eat food. All you can eat? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up. Tickets are $50 and you can get them here.

The Peabody has announced its 2010 Thursday night rooftop party season.  They’ve extended the time to 10:30 PM this year, and cover charge has gone up to $10 but now includes one free drink.  Season runs April 15-August 5, and the April-May schedule can be viewed here.

Bad news this morning… due to an extremely unfair law passed by the Colorado legislature, Amazon has been forced to drop all its Colorado affiliates. The law states that if Amazon has any affiliate partnerships within the state of Colorado, then Amazon is presumed to have a physical location within the state, and purchases are therefore subject to Colorado sales tax.

As someone who has many websites which are Amazon affiliate stores (almost all the stores on the right sidebar are), it’s ludicrous to call those physical locations. I don’t keep any inventory. I don’t ship any items. I simply forward business to Amazon, which completes the transactions. Heck, my web server isn’t even located in the same state I am. Thankfully Tennessee hasn’t passed such a stupid law, but my sympathies go out to the thousands of mom-and-pop individual businesses in Colorado who will be hurt by this law. How much do I make from my sites? Not on the order of, say, five grand a month (if I did, it’d be time to re-evaluate this “having a day job” thingy). However, when I got laid off from VP in October 2008, affiliate income in addition to my severance pay allowed me to take a 5-month hiatus before returning to the world of work, and without drawing a cent in unemployment benefits. It’s nice to have that extra cushion to fall back on. It’s unsettling to think it could be taken away by stupid, unfair laws like the one passed in Colorado.

That’s all for now.  My plans for tonight are the SMA meeting with Director Godwin at Local, then over to the Saucer for trivia.  Possibly a trip to the Silly Goose to hear Stepbrothers after that.

Yummy, yummy, for the tummy:  The South Main Association meeting will be tonight at Local Gastropub, on Main Street in the old Sauces location.  Social at 6, meeting at 6:30.  Local will provide complimentary hors d’oeuvres for SMA members.  Free food?  Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.  There will also be a cash bar.

Downtown’s looking mighty bummy:  MPD Director Larry Godwin will speak about panhandling, crime and graffiti in Downtown and South Main.

Hope to see you there!  Trivia team:  I’ll be late tonight.  No way I’m missing this meeting.

I went to Pint Nite at the Saucer tonight.  They now have New Belgium Sunshine Wheat, a new beer, on tap as well as Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat, which they’ve had for years.

Oh poor Brick.  She’ll never be able to keep these beers straight.