Month: October 2010

The Beale Street Snuggie Pub Crawl will make its return next month, on Friday, November 19. Crawlers will don their Snuggies and drink at various bars on and near Beale Street. The schedule has expanded for this year – here’s the new lineup:

6 PM – Registration at Kooky Canuck
7 PM – BB King’s
8 PM – Club 152
9 PM – Silky O’Sullivan’s
10 PM – Rum Boogie Cafe
11 PM – Alfred’s for awards ceremony and prizes

There will be a Beale Street BINGO run at the crawl this year, with prizes for the first 5 completed bingo cards. There will also be prizes for Best Male, Best Female, Best Group, and Best in Show. You’re encouraged to decorate your Snuggie as you see fit.

Entry fee is $10, with proceeds going to Amelia’s Voice, a charity dedicated to the fight against RRP. Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis (RRP) is a disease in which tumors grow inside the larynx, vocal cords and trachea. It affects both children and adults. There is no known cure for RRP. If left untreated, these respiratory tumors will continue to grow, blocking the patientís airway with suffocation being the likely result.

Snuggies can be purchased at Wal-Mart, Walgreens, CVS, Target, and other retailers. You can also order them online, but beware – the Snuggie I ordered last year took 4 weeks to arrive.

I did this last year and it’s a fun way to meet new people and hit some of Downtown’s favorite bars. Come check it out! I’ll be rocking the Arkansas Razorback Snuggie this year.

Here’s a pic of the dish I mentioned in my last post… last night I went to the Silly Goose and tried their seafood macaroni, with shrimp, lobster and parmesan over macaroni in a cream sauce. It’s one of their three pasta bar dishes that has become popular enough to make it onto the all-day menu.

I stopped by the Silly Goose last night about 10. A new band started their first regular Tuesday night gig there last night, as Cameron moved away, and they asked me to come check them out. Once there, I started to get hungry, and asked for a menu. I noticed that it had changed quite a bit, and they told me the change happened about two weeks ago.

I got there too late to try their pasta bar, which I’ve heard is excellent and one of the best values Downtown. However, three of their most popular pasta dishes have made it onto the main menu. There’s a garden chicken alfredo, a pasta Tuscana with Italian sausage in a cream sauce, and seafood macaroni with lobster and shrimp. I decided to go with the seafood macaroni, which was really good.

They’ve also added some other items including a smoked gouda jalapeno burger, pork tenderloin rolls, parmesan chicken rolls, and an oven roasted ribeye. Old favorites like the flatbreads are still on the menu. Looks like a big step up, and I’m certainly going to be paying more attention to the Goose as an option for Paul’s Drunkass Food on the way home at night.

In other news: South of Beale is doing the same basketball promotion they did last year. Bring your Tigers or Grizzlies tickets in before or after the game, and receive 20% off food.

South of Beale has also announced that they’ll open early on Saturday, at noon, to accommodate RiverArtsFest attendees who want a bite to eat. The festival also runs Sunday, but SOB is always open early for brunch on Sundays.

The monthly Third Thursday party thrown by the block of businesses near Main and Peabody Place happens tomorrow from 5:30 to 7:30. Live music by Tonya Dyson and the Green Onions, The Sultana and Daddy Mack Blues Band. There will be food, drink, and retail specials at the shops. It’s free and parking will be validated for the 100 Peabody Place Garage. I want to send a special shout-out to one of the businesses on the block – Shelton Clothiers, who took good care of me recently when I went in to buy a pair of pants. I may go back and get one of their nice-looking club shirts to wear for my trip to Savannah.

Here’s something interesting I found… a new parade is coming to Beale Street. A Comic & Fantasy Parade will happen there Saturday, October 30, at 4 PM. It’s the kickoff event to the Memphis Comic and Fantasy Convention that will happen the following weekend.

There’s a Woot-off today on Woot.com.

Stuff going on tonight: Glass night (Woodchuck Cider) at the Saucer… Pint Nite at South of Beale… Rusty Lemon at the Silly Goose. I’ll probably have a few pints at the Saucer, then may wander over to the Goose for some more of their food.

Doing a quick check of Twitter as I begin this blog post. One of the people I follow tweeted “Photo: rockoutwithmycockout: ” and then a link to a photo. Yeah I don’t think I’ll be clicking that link.

Quick announcement before I get to today’s news and events. Per a conversation a bunch of us had on Facebook last night, we’ve decided to skip Saucer trivia this week and instead make Max’s Sports Bar (formerly Calhoun’s) our destination for this evening. Max’s has $2 pints of PBR, sports on 10 TVs, great wings, and Buzztime trivia and poker on the monitors. If the weather is good, maybe we’ll get a cornhole game going outside. You’re welcome to join us. We would love to see a big crowd tonight!

Attention foodies: Save the date of Wednesday, November 3. “A Taste of Hope” is coming to 515 S. Main Street. It will benefit the American Cancer Society Harrah’s Hope Lodge. Featured food will be from South of Beale and Napa Cafe, and there will be wine from Delta Wholesale Liquors. All attendees will have the chance to win gift certificates from local restaurants and hotels. Must be present to win. Tickets will be $25. Harrah’s Hope Lodge is scheduled to open in Memphis on November 18 and will provide free housing to adult cancer patients who have to travel to Memphis to seek treatment.

The RiverArtsFest folks sent me info about this weekend. I’m just going to copy and paste to save time:

Friday, October 22, 6p-9p: RiverArtsFest Preview Party at the Memphis College of Art Graduate School on South Main (477 South Main). Tickets are $30 and can be purchased at the door or by calling 901/278-6868. Event includes local restaurant food tasting, beverages and silent auction featuring works from South Main galleries and the RiverArtsFest Artist Market.

Saturday, October 23, 10a-6p and Sunday, October 24, 10a-5p: Fourth Annual RiverArtsFest in the historic South Main Arts District. Free. More than 190 juried fine artists in the Artist Market, more than 50 regional musical acts (coordinated by the Memphis Music Foundation as part of its Memphis Means Music initiative) on four stages, hands-on art projects, Artist in Motion artist demonstrations, food & beverages for sale, and much more. www.riverartsfestmemphis.org for performance schedule and more information. 901/278-6868.

Does RiverArtsFest have some kind of arrangement with the weather gods? For the third straight year, forecast is looking good for the event, with temperatures in the 80s which I’ll point out is tube top weather.

Lunch time. I see a Double from Wendy’s in my future. Hope to see you at Max’s tonight!

So, I found a hotel outside of “Bumland” for the conference in Savannah, thanks to the Internet. I got on Google Maps and made a note of every hotel within a 10-block radius of the conference. I looked up each hotel’s rates, and the Springhill Suites started to look like a good value. I then got on Google StreetView and took a virtual walk all around the Springhill Suites. I “walked” to the conference center; I “walked” to the venues where the after-hours parties will be. “This neighborhood looks totally safe,” I thought, and having lived in Memphis for 20+ years I’m pretty sure I’m a good judge of what’s a safe neighborhood and what’s not. I booked the room.

Then I got on Facebook and Flickr and found photos of last year’s conference. I was pleased to see that there was not even one pic of anyone wearing a tie. Makes me think the attire I plan on wearing to the conference (T-shirt, shorts, sandals) will be entirely appropriate. Actually, I didn’t see many people in shorts, but there may have been a cold snap in Savannah that weekend last year.  I also saw only a few people with laptops, so maybe I won’t bother carrying the MacBook or netbook with me.

Makes me wonder how we lived without the Internet. I’d totally be planning for this conference in the dark without it. Of course, it’s a conference about the Internet so I guess it wouldn’t be happening otherwise.

All right… I’ll try to do a “news update” post at lunch but I can’t promise it… I have to go buy something called “bronzer” which is makeup that will turn my skin a ghastly shade of orange so I’ll look like Bruce Pearl for Halloween. Time to get on Facebook and catch up (I seem to have a lot of new friend requests this morning for some reason) then head to work.

So, this weekend I’ve been getting everything together to go to Savannah November 4-7 to attend the GeekEnd social media conference. I booked my flight Friday afternoon, and I bought my ticket to the conference over the weekend. I still needed to find a hotel room though. I figured I’d do that first thing this morning at work. Actually, I had to put together an “urgent” HTML file and do an update on our home page, so it wasn’t first thing, but by mid-morning I got around to it. I found two hotels that seemed to be well-liked and were within the budget my company gave me.

Over the weekend I talked to my friend Otto who has spent a lot of time in Savannah. He gave me a lot of tips on where to stay, and what to do. “One street you want to avoid is MLK Boulevard,” he told me. “That is not a place you want to be after dark.”

Guess where the hotels are located? One is on MLK and the other is a block off it.

Guess where my conference is located? Two blocks from MLK.

I e-mailed Otto and asked for more advice. “Where they’re holding your conference is basically Bumland,” he told me.

Bumland. Great.

He told me I’d be better off staying near the river, and cabbing it to and from the conference. Well, that’s a great idea, except when I put in the request I didn’t budget any money for cabs.

No problem, I figured, I like to walk. I got on Google Maps and examined the area near the river. Every time I saw a hotel I pulled up its website.

Nothing within $50 of my nightly budget for hotels.

So I guess I’m staying in Bumland.

Actually, the hotels within my price range both received a lot of praise in their customer reviews, with the Springhill Suites having a near-perfect score. No one mentioned anything about either hotel being in a bad neighborhood.

I’ve lived in Downtown Memphis for eight years, and I’ve walked all over, sometimes with my laptop. From 2002 when I moved down here up until about 2008, Downtown Memphis was definitely Bumland. I didn’t have any problems.

When I go to Little Rock, I stay at a hotel at 6th and Broadway because it’s inexpensive for Downtown and it has free Wi-Fi. 6th and Broadway is definitely Bumland. Yet when I stay there I feel comfortable enough walking almost a mile to the Saucer. This year I may walk five blocks west to Vino’s at 7th and Chester. I’m definitely going to be alert and aware of my surroundings, but I won’t be afraid to make the walk.

So when I go to Savannah, I guess I’ll be staying in Bumland. I’ll probably take the netbook rather than the MacBook, so in the worst case scenario I’m only putting a $250 computer at risk rather than a $1500 computer.

Maybe I can meet some Savannah bums and compare notes with them, to see if they use the same scams as the Memphis bums. “Do you do the flower man gimmick?” I can ask them. “Where you pick flowers out of a public bed and then try to sell them to tourists? What about the tour guide gimmick? Have you ever pulled a bunch of free newspapers out of the box and tried to sell them?”

Whatever the situation, I’m going to make the best of it. There’s a lot to be learned and a lot of fun to be had after-hours… even in Bumland.

Since first posting about it on Friday, I’ve had time to visit the Downtown Dining Week website and look at all the menus. Based on what I saw, I’ve made a few picks. (If you visit their website, click any restaurant’s logo to view their menu.)

1) Felicia Suzanne’s: The oysters in BBQ sauce sound interesting as an appetizer, and I like the entree choices of shrimp and grits or organic chicken crepes. Good dessert options too. When else are you going to have a chance to dine at Felicia’s for a little more than 20 bucks? Plus, Felicia is a Razorback fan, so if you eat there on game day the Hogs are likely to be on the TVs at the bar.

2) Tug’s: I generally like to see something more interesting than a salad as a first course, but courses two and three sound so outstanding that I’ll overlook it. Crab and shrimp stuffed flounder, or a New York strip steak? Will be hard to decide. Dessert options of key lime pie or bread pudding sound good too.

3) Chez Phillippe: Mmmm, that homemade charcuterie platter sounds like a delicious app. Choices of shrimp and grits or ropa vieja as the main course. I had ropa vieja once for lunch at the Rumba Room and it was delicious… would like to taste what Chez does with it. Like Felicia’s, this is a restaurant where it’s rare to get an entire meal in the $20 range. Better take advantage of it while you can.

4) Kooky Canuck: I eat there so much that I might not make it a priority during Downtown Dining Week, the point of which is discovering new restaurants. However, if you haven’t tried Kooky they’ve a really good deal: Share an appetizer and enjoy two entrees for $20.10. Two of the entrees in particular, the Cornish game hen and the maple flank steak, are must-eats if you’ve never tried them.

5) South of Beale: That pumpkin ravioli sounds really interesting as an appetizer. If I go I’ll probably get the pan seared salmon as my entree, although I’m sure the pork loin is delicious too. Desserts sound yummy – creme brulee, or beer and pretzel cheesecake topped with Guinness sauce.

Those are my top five, based on my experience as a casual Downtown eater. I probably do as much prep for Downtown Dining Week as some people do – I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nuh-Uh Girl makes a spreadsheet to help her with her dining decisions for the week.

One other comment – if you like shrimp and grits, you’re going to love DDW. I saw it on the menu at five or six of the restaurants.

All right, I’m outta here… getting a late start to Sunday Fun Day. Was on the way out the door at noon when I realized I hadn’t charged my phone and it was at 20%. So, my phone went on the charger and I had time to do a post. Now it’s up to 100% and it’s time for beer.

Bardog Tavern is giving away a hearse this month. It’s an ’86 Cadillac hearse with only 69,500 “soft miles” on it (driven from the funeral home to the cemetery and back). You can buy tickets all month for chances to win – $1 for 1 ticket, $5 for 8 tickets, $10 for 20 tickets. Drawing will be held at their Halloween party, Sunday October 31 at 11 PM.

I like it. It’s a fun, unique promotion. In all the years down here, no one has ever given away a hearse.

Apparently not everyone feels the same way. Aldo, the owner, got a letter asking him to move the hearse, which has been parked outside Bardog for two weeks. The letter was signed “Your neighbor” and said the hearse is tasteless and diminishes the attractiveness of the block and of greater Downtown. The letter said it was sent as “a courtesy” before contacting the city of Memphis.

I have a few comments to make about this.

1) I too am Bardog’s neighbor. Okay, well actually I’m around the corner on Main, but I once timed my walk from Bardog to my front door at 47 seconds. So I consider myself a neighbor. And my opinion as a neighbor is that the hearse in no way diminishes the attractiveness of Downtown. It’s a sign that this is a fun, hip neighborhood where residents think outside the box and have a good time. And for heaven’s sakes, it’s Halloween month – think of the hearse as a very large decoration. I have no problem with its presence and am happy it’s here. I hope it remains in its spot until someone wins it on Halloween.

2) The title of this blog is “Paul Ryburn’s Journal.” Every word I type on this blog is backed up with my real name. This neighbor, on the other hand, did not have the BALLS to put his or her name behind what was typed. Anonymous letter? What a coward.

3) Why didn’t you just go over there and ask to speak to Aldo face to face? Don’t you think that would be a more constructive means of resolving this conflict than a letter?

4) There’s a place for tight-ass old poots who get their panties all in a wad every time a neighbor does the slightest little thing that might affect property values. It’s called “Germantown.” If you can’t keep from getting upset over a little thing like a hearse, I suggest you move out there and live with all the other fantastic plastic people.

Resisting the urge to add point number 5), which would be directed at the anonymous neighbor and which would consist of two words, the first beginning with “f” and the second beginning with “y.”

To steal a catchphrase from Austin, keep Downtown Memphis weird… and leave the hearse where it is!

I got texted today that the Union Street Bath House, which I posted about earlier this week, may not be real. It may be part of a viral marketing campaign. Pretty convincing though… they got me. I never questioned it because of the word “Street” rather than “Avenue” (Union is an avenue) and the fact that they have a sign hanging on the old Smooth Moves building.

More to come. I’ll get to the bottom of this. Or maybe I’ll just go back to the Saucer for a second shift of drinking.

If you’re looking to hear some good music this evening, it can be found in a most unexpected place – the parking lot behind Max’s Sports Bar (formerly Calhoun’s) on G.E. Patterson. Dynaflow will be playing as the closer to the “Downtown Olympics” event that’s going on right now. They take the stage at 7, then there will be an award ceremony at 7:30, and then Dynaflow will rock into the night.

Here’s a link to my review of a show they did at Earnestine & Hazel’s back in February. They do covers, but they do them on vintage equipment and make them sound great. They also tend to do a lot of songs that you don’t hear from other bands. Back in February I was extremely pleased when they did a song from Led Zep’s In Through the Out Door album.

Should be a good show! Come check them out.