Daily thoughts of a Downtown Memphis resident
I just found out that we’re going to have a camel in our booth, as part of the Tunisia-themed decoration.
Personally, I had hoped for a sheep, and a private space in the booth large enough for one team member and a sheep, but whatev, a camel will work, sure.
On Saturday, May 22 at 6:30 PM, Memphis Farmers Market and Grill 83 will be grilling out on the Madison Hotel rooftop. Awesome local food, Ghost River beer, and live music. Call 901-333-1224 for reservations.
In the news: Four police officers were hurt in a brawl involving more than 100 people outside the Plush Club. Seriously, when is the attorney general’s office going to get around to shutting that place down as a nuisance? It may not be part of the Beale entertainment district proper, but it’s right across the street. Tourists see it and it’s scary. It’s a detriment to the end of the Beale entertainment district between Rufus Thomas and Fourth, which is a shame because that area is getting a boost with three recent business openings. Click the link to read the CA article listing all the acts of violence that have occurred there. Personally, I’d like to see 380 Beale turned into a parking lot.
Just saw this on Twitter: George Clinton and P-Funk in Handy Park on June 18.
This week in Court Square for the Downtown Alive! series: Trump Tight on Tuesday; performances by Hattiloo Theatre on Thursday; Barbara Blue and Deering & Down on Friday.
It’s Monday and I’m off work, but I’ve got a busy day ahead of me taking care of BBQ team business. First of all, I have to represent the team at Pint Nite at the Saucer, which starts at 11 AM. Furthermore, I have to be the Ques Brothers representative at one of the poker games at the Silly Goose. I doubt I’ll be done with my Pint Nite duties by 7:30 PM, so it’ll probably have to be the later 11:30 game. I hope Brick is working tonight.
Lastly but not leastly, here are a few pics I snapped yesterday.
Breakfast at Cockadoos yesterday morning: Cat head biscuits and gravy and country ham
Yesterday at Calhoun’s, Joe managed to accomplish a feat I’ve never been able to: He finished 16 of their Habanero Wings.
Harmony had on a cool PBR shirt
Coming up on 10 AM, so I’ve got about an hour to get things done around the apartment before it’s time to head to the Saucer. Need to figure out where I’m going to eat lunch too – will probably wait until about 1 to do that to give the lunch hour rush time to disperse. I may blog from my iPhone this afternoon, so check back.
Last week I stopped in Second Street Shoppers, the convenience store on Second across from the Peabody, and I talked to the people who run the store for a while. They’ve had a deli for a while that serves wraps, salads, subs, pizza, wings, burritos, desserts, and breakfast items. However, now they’ve taken it a step farther. They’ve hired a chef who is going to prepare Italian food. He gave me samples of macaroni salad, spaghetti and meatballs, and Italian potato salad, all very good. If you need something to eat Downtown, and you don’t have time for a sit-down meal, Shoppers is an option to get some very good food in a hurry.
Of course, they also carry all the items you’d expect a convenience store to carry, including beer, snacks, basic toiletries, souvenir items, cell phone accessories, coffee and soft drinks. Hey, speaking of soft drinks, it’s time for my morning Mountain Dew run. I think I’ll stop by. And I’ll check in on Foursquare. Wonder who the mayor is there?
One of the managers at the Downtown Saucer asked me to help put the word out that he’s looking for a doorman for Thursday and Friday nights of this week. Hours are 8 to close, so you’d probably be out around 2:30 AM. It’s a pretty docile crowd and the position is more host than doorman. You’d be collecting money and would need to be somewhat outgoing and friendly. If you need to pick up some extra cash this week, here’s a chance to do it working a relatively easy job.
Normally I’d say to contact me via e-mail at paul@paulryburn.com, but since I’ll be out most of the day it might be faster just to call and ask for a manager. Number is 523-7468.
I walked down to Tom Lee Park yesterday afternoon and took some pics of the team building the Ques Brothers booth. Here are some highlights.
The scaffolding that will be the front of the booth. As always, we’re going double-decker.
Raise the roof, Ques Brothers!
Frank and Clay laying the upstairs flooring
Terry doing a dance after putting one of the posts in. He told me he’d been working in the front end of the tent. “I thought you liked it in the back end,” I told him. I nearly got bitch-slapped for that comment.
The Ques Brothers got some great news when we found out Jules is our Memphis in May ambassador. Here, Jules and team captain Chuck take a break to chat and drink a Diet Pepsi.
Steve directing the build
The Ques Brothers are going green this year! We separated cans and other recyclables from the trash.
More pics (37 total) here. Okay, caught up on blogging for the morning. Think it’s time for a little breakfast. Just looked up Cockadoos on Foursquare. Hmmm, they don’t have a mayor yet? Interesting.
Saturday morning was “load-in” for the teams participating in BBQ Fest. Teams drive materials into Tom Lee Park, unload them, and begin the process of building their tents and booths. My team the Ques Brothers was there at 9 AM.
I have somewhat of a unique role on the team. While all the other team members are frolicking and gallivanting in the park, I am the one who is asked to remain at the Flying Saucer and hold down the fort on load-in Saturday, taking care of anything that comes up. It’s a thankless job but one I feel I have to do. When you have a unique skill set, you must serve when called upon. For me to refuse this role would be like Michael Jordan refusing to represent the U.S. on the 1992 Olympic basketball team.
The idea for my role comes from the U.S. government itself. When the President delivers the State of the Union Address to Congress, all of his Cabinet members are there, except one. One member stays in a different location, so in the event of an attack on the Capitol building, there is still someone left who can run the government. By holding down the fort at the Saucer, I’m making sure the team can continue in the event something catastrophic happens to Tom Lee Park (it does seemed to be threatened by tornadoes a lot, you know). So here’s a recap of my long day yesterday.
The very first thing I did was sync my calendar between my MacBook and iPhone, so I’d make an appointment at the Saucer to meet with trusted advisor John D. John D is a veritable fountain of wisdom, and the opportunity to sit with him over a few beers and take in his pearls of knowledge is valuable beyond words. John D is so highly respected in Downtown Memphis that he even has a breakfast named after him at the Majestic. There’s no telling how much the BBQ team will benefit from that meeting over the next seven days.
Okay, here are a few pics that were taken of me while I worked.
In the pic above, I’m hard at work on the phone, overseeing and coordinating many BBQ functions. I appear to be looking up at a TV in this pic. Most likely I was watching coverage of Friday’s stock market crash and recovery on MSNBC, so I could figure out its implications for the BBQ team. It’s important to be proactive when these kinds of events occur.
Here’s another example of the kinds of things I had to do yesterday:
Here, I’m taking careful notes in a key meeting with a beverage consultant. I cannot stress enough how important meetings like this are. Based on the consultant’s carefully thought-out advice, I purchased 16 ounces of beer and 6 limes on behalf of the BBQ team. Apparently some of the team members were quite thirsty, as I had to schedule eight additional meetings for similar purchases of beer.
Then we have this pic. This was a case where I feel like I let the team down, but I’m posting it anyway to communicate what a tough role this is.
Can you just see the frustration in my face? I was on my iPhone’s Safari web browser, investigating the team’s options in case we need to set up a WebEx remote conference with a sponsor. However, the limitations of the small screen made it almost impossible to carry out this task. I should have brought the netbook, which has a larger screen and webcam. Finally I gave up and opened the iPhone’s “Heads-Up Hold’em” poker app, which I played for the next hour. I went 3-1 against computer opponents “Poker Pete” and “Luckbox Larry.” Three big wins early on for the BBQ team.
Around 3:00 things seemed to be running pretty smoothly at the Saucer, so I decided to make a quick trip to the Tom Lee Park site, to see how the build was going. I snapped about 35 pics, which will be in a future blog post. Team captain Steve said he could use some help raising the tent, but I told him I had to get back. “The place could be falling apart without me,” I explained.
So I hurried back to the Saucer, and found team member Danny there. That is what I love about this team. We totally have each other’s backs. Danny must have heard that I had to leave for a few minutes, and he stepped in to keep things under control. That is teamwork at its very finest. Thanks so much Danny.
I was also pleased to see that new Patio Porker team Squeal Street had two members covering the Saucer. Later I learned that they had people covering Calhoun’s as well. It’s a delight to see a new team keeping things under control so well in only their first year. I suspect Squeal Street is going to go far in the world of BBQ.
Next on the agenda was a meeting with Las Vegas-based consultant Matty O, who flew in especially for this event. We went over the week’s agenda over some friendly games of pocket billiards. We played five games and I won three. Again, three more big wins for the BBQ team on the first day of load-in. Yeah!!!
About 7 PM things started to taper off. “Maybe I can finally shut down here and enjoy the rest of my evening,” I thought. But then I saw a Hawaiian shirt coming through the door. It was Squeal Street team captain Bicycle Bobby, who’d come to get advice based on my years of experience as a BBQ team member. I shared all the pointers I could think of – for example, particular expletives our inspirational leader/father figure had used when our team didn’t make the top 10. It’s important to give back and foster the growth of new teams.
With that taken care of, I had yet one more thing to do before I left. I sought out bartender Brittney, to ask for an honest evaluation of my performance yesterday. Brittney is pretty much a role model for me when it comes to work ethic this week. She gave me an A for my efforts yesterday, which delighted me beyond belief.
Okay. I hate to say anything bad about the team, but I’m going to go ahead and post one pic from the park yesterday.
I gotta admit, this kind of burns my butt a little, to see team members sitting on their ass, eating snacks and drinking beer all day at the park, while I’m hard at work at the Saucer getting things done. Therefore, I’ve made a decision. I will hold down the Saucer for the team again today, but I’m not coming in until noon. You heard me. NOT UNTIL NOON. I’m putting my foot down. I worked my ass off yesterday and I deserve a little “me” time before I go in and do it all over again. Maybe I’ll eat breakfast at Cockadoos this morning, then buy a Mountain Dew from the convenience store and take a nice walk around Downtown to gather strength for the long day that is sure to come.
Pics of the build will go up in the next post. Check back.
Lauren and Shawn. Lauren, by the way, is the one who tore the strap off my camera while extremely drunk at Wine Race. I’ve replaced the strap. I’ll definitely be targeting Lauren for BBQ Fest pics this week, so she better watch out.
Moody telling someone to kiss her ass
The clock counted down to zero and Findlay made the announcement that the Saucer had turned 13.
The number one and number two picks in the 2010 Rapscallions waitress draft.
Whitney serving birthday cake
At least two more posts to come this morning, as I will do a two-part recap of what happened yesterday as BBQ Fest preparations began.
This is the cooler I won Wednesday night in the Flying Saucer drawing. Dos Equis and Tecate labels. Holds about a 12-pack.
Check the I Love Memphis blog for over 20 Foursquare specials around town this week, in celebration of National Tourism Week. Some Downtown specials I want to point out:
Almost time to head to the Saucer, which is not on the list, but really ought to think about offering free beer to its Foursquare mayor. Gotta pick up the cooler I won in Wednesday night’s drawing. Will post pics of it later.
This is an introductory post to the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, or “BBQ Fest” as the locals call it. I’ll explain what it is, and how I came to be on a team. If you’ve been reading my blog for more than a year, you probably already know a lot of this.
BBQ Fest is an annual event where over 200 teams compete for the World Championship in three main categories: Ribs, Shoulder, and Whole Hog. There is also a fourth category, Patio Porkers, for smaller teams with smaller grills. The week before BBQ Fest, teams load in and build their booths. Some of the booths can be quite elaborate: Ours have always been multiple stories tall, and last year and this year we’re working with a professional designer from Holliday Flowers.
Wednesday night is a special “friends & family only” night, and then Thursday-Saturday the event is open to the public. BBQ Fest does not run on Sunday, to give teams a day to tear down their booths and load out before the new work week begins.
The first couple of years I lived Downtown and attended BBQ Fest, I didn’t have much fun. Why? Because I didn’t know a lot of people on teams. You see, each of the 200+ booths is a private party – you have to be a team member, or be invited in by a team member, to sample their BBQ and beverages. Teams are not allowed to sell to the public. This is due to state health regulations. There are licensed vendors that sell BBQ, but it’s not a whole lot of fun to walk around and be an outsider looking in.
By 2005-06, I’d met enough of my neighbors that I knew people who knew people on teams. I got in four or five booths in ’05 and nearly a dozen in ’06. Had a lot more fun, but I still didn’t know what it was like to be on a team.
Then, in late 2006, I got an e-mail from my friend Chuck. “A few of us are thinking about starting a BBQ team next year,” the e-mail said. “Would you be interested?” He told me that he had a friend in Chicago who owns a BBQ restaurant who would bring his rig down and cook. It would be mainly Downtowners having a party at BBQ Fest, but at the same time we’d have enough cooking talent to do well in the contest. The team would be called The Ques Brothers, with the two main guys taking the aliases Elwood Que and Jake Que.
“What would my responsibilities as a team member be?” I asked. “You know I can’t cook. And to be honest, I don’t really want to work on the load-in, build, or tear-down of the booth.”
“You don’t have to,” he said. To this day I’ve held the team to that agreement, although I contribute in other ways. I’m one of two webmasters on the team, and last year I took 700 photos for the team website. I also get our sponsors a lot of coverage via my blog, and I contribute ideas as I think of them. I’ve offered to pay extra for my membership since I refuse to do physical labor, but they haven’t taken me up on it.
That first year, about 35 of us paid to be on the team. One of the team members worked for Terex and got them to sponsor us. We built a large double-decker booth with images of Terex earth-moving vehicles on the front. Our head cook, Willie from Honky Tonk Barbeque in Chicago, brought his rig down and set up a kitchen. Thursday night was “sponsor night” as Terex invited a lot of their clients into the booth. They didn’t kick us out or make us wait on them as some sponsors do, but still, there were a lot of people in the booth we didn’t know.
We were each given guest wristbands to hand out, to people who weren’t team members but were people we wanted to stop by and enjoy our hospitality. A couple of months before BBQ Fest ’07, I met a couple of regulars at the Flying Saucer, Mark and Steve, who had just moved here for their sales jobs with Yellow Book. They asked me about BBQ Fest. I told them about it, then said, “You know, the only way you can really experience it is to be invited into a team’s booth. I’m going to make sure you have guest wristbands. I don’t want you guys to feel like outsiders like I did the first few years.” They showed up, ate, drank, met a lot of other team members and had a great time. That made me really happy, to help people new to the city have an experience that is uniquely Memphis.
Two other guests I invited were my friends Shane and Leigh. When I moved Downtown and started going to Sleep Out Louie’s, they were two of the first people to befriend me and make me feel like part of the gang. Now I had a chance to show them some hospitality in return. The three of us hung out on the upstairs level of our booth Saturday night and watched the crowd on the sidewalk. They had such a good time that they joined the team a couple of years later.
Although we partied nonstop, Willie was serious about the food. He cooked delicious ribs, shoulder, chicken, sausage and other goodies for everyone to enjoy. Furthermore, he cooked up pork shoulders to enter into the judging, and we came in 12th in shoulder out of almost 80 teams – very impressive for a team in its first year. “We’re going to do even better next year,” the team said. “We want to make the top 10 and get a trophy.”
BBQ Fest ’08 was even more awesome – but it was nearly a disaster. Terex didn’t return as our sponsor, and we were lazy about getting people to pay membership dues. Only a couple of weeks out, we were several grand in the red. However, the last week of April and the first week of May saw us turn things around. We landed exactly the kind of sponsor we wanted – Circa by John Bragg. Although they weren’t as huge a sponsor as Terex, they were the kind we wanted – Downtown people who would party with us, and at the same time promote their business, realizing their target audience would be in our booth with them.
We also went on a late membership drive. Team members put the word out that we were looking to expand the team roster, and I put out the word on my blog. It was pretty much “We’ll take anybody, we need the money.” To some extent, I regret us doing that – I wish we’d been a little more selective – but, to be fair, some of the people we met that way were cool people who became long-term friends.
The booth was a lot more basic than ’07. We used scaffolding that wasn’t as good (sorry Danny but it’s true) but was free because a team member owned it. We decorated with whatever fabric and carpet samples we could get for cheap or free. Finally, we got the booth to a point where it didn’t look half bad – and then a thunderstorm blew through on Wednesday and destroyed all our hard work. We rebuilt and had a good time anyway. The booth next to us was the Valero booth and we heard it cost $30,000. Swanky booth indeed, but we had a better time than our corporate neighbors next door.
My favorite memory of BBQ Fest ’08 was Thursday night. About 9-10 PM, the food was out, the beer was flowing, the music was bumping, and we had a lot of our friends in the tent as invited guests. Everyone just got down and danced and had a great time.
Saturday was judging day. Since part of the judging is presentation, every year I make it a point not to get to the park until about 2 PM on Saturday, well after judging occurs. I don’t want to be in the way. So Saturday of BBQ Fest ’08, I showed up and was immediately kicked out of the booth. “The judges are on their way back for a second round,” I was told. “That means we’re in the top 10.” By 3 PM we were still standing outside (someone had the good sense to pull a keg out so we wouldn’t go thirsty) because the judges were back again, meaning we had made the top three.
We went to the awards ceremony at 6 PM, and took the stage when we were announced as the third-place winners in shoulder. A little disappointing that we didn’t win the world championship, but to hit the top three in only our second year… that’s almost unheard of. After the awards, a lot of the teams, who are professional BBQers who travel from one event to the next, started tearing down their booths. Not us! We had one more big party, and everyone got their picture taken with the trophy. On Sunday we took the trophy to Circa for photos. Our third-place prize money took the team into the black financially.
Willie took the trophy back to Chicago with him, to display in his restaurant. It was such a big deal up there that Mayor Daley came out to make on official proclamation recognizing Willie and Honky Tonk Barbeque.
The big win made us the team everyone wanted to be on for 2009, which was a mixed blessing. Our team ballooned to nearly 80 members, so we had lots of funds from membership fees. We also picked up a new sponsor, The Silly Goose. Circa returned as a sponsor as well. In addition, we picked up Holliday Flowers as a sponsor – they didn’t provide money, but boy did they make a difference anyway. Event planner and booth designer Brent turned our booth from a nasty mud pit into a structure that looked like a Miami nightclub in a matter of days. The good scaffolding returned. The featured country for Memphis in May was Chile, and Brent crafted two maois from Easter Island who looked out the booth’s front window. We got second in Best Booth. I can’t believe we didn’t win.
We also entered the Miss Piggie competition, which had been named Piggie Idol for 2009. James Hyter, who had sung “Ol’Man River” at Sunset Symphony for years, had just passed away, so we decided to rewrite the lyrics as “Ol’ Miss Piggie” in his honor. Our inspirational leader/father figure stood on stage and sang the song that team member Skippy had hastily put together. “Memphis in May… sure is sweet… covered in mud from our head to our feet. ROAST that pork! …TURN that spit! Haven’t been home, so I smell like……. bacon…….”
I noted earlier that the size of the team was a mixed blessing. With 80 team members, if each of them invited 5 guests and they were all in the booth at the same time… well, you do the math. At some points we were so crowded that we had to refuse entry to everyone but team members, until the booth cleared out. The fire marshal made us keep count of how many people were on the upstairs deck and cut it off at 40. I worked a security shift at the door, which was stressful… I had to explain to people who’d been invited in the booth at 3:30 PM, when hardly anyone was there, why they couldn’t come back in at 9:00 when were packed to capacity. I even had to refuse entry to a tube top hottie. After someone else had taken over, I had to walk with the park entrance to meet one of the Saucer girls and get her in. When hot girls are being denied/are almost being denied entry to the booth, you know we’ve got a crowd control problem.
The excess of people also made it hard for the cooks to do their job. The shoulder we entered was not our best, and when the top ten were called for shoulder, The Ques Brothers’ name was not among them. “BULLLLLLL… SHITTTTTTT….” yelled our inspriational leader/father figure, who was extremely drunk by that point in the day. We found out later that we’d slipped to 33rd.
Now we’re gearing up for 2010. Circa is back as a sponsor. Silly Goose dropped out, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, we scored a major coup when we landed blogging/content management platform WordPress as a sponsor. Holliday Flowers will once again be designing the booth. Can’t wait to see it.
We’ve also got the team down to a more manageable size. A few of our members decided they wanted to branch off on their own, and they formed a Patio Poker team called Squeal Street. About 20 of our members jumped to the new team. It was an amicable split, and very good because now we all have two booths to hang out in.
Last year I had just started a new job, and did not have any vacation time yet. When I got hired, I had to negotiate to have Thursday and Friday of BBQ Fest off. Now, I’ve been there for a year, and have vacation time. I have all of next week off.
One of the team members was discussing the load-in of materials, which will happen Saturday, and the build and decoration of the booth, which will happen Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. “You know I’m off all next week, right?” I commented. “So I guess I don’t need to tell you where I’ll be at 11 AM Monday morning.”
“Flying Saucer?” he replied.
“Yep,” I said, making sure team members are aware of my “no physical labor” agreement.
Stay tuned for BBQ Fest ’10 updates and pics throughout the week. It’s 9:14, so the team has been loading in for 14 minutes now. Think I’ll pop open a PBR and wait for the Saucer to open at 11.