Saturday update

Huge home game for the Memphis Tigers men’s basketball team today. They host #9 Cincinnati at FedExForum at 5 PM. It’s a chance for revenge for the 82-48 blowout on the road Memphis suffered in December. It’s also a chance to see how far Tubby’s team has come in the past month. I’m not silly enough to think the Tigers will win this, but can they keep it competitive, at least for a while?

The death of a homeless woman on a bench across from City Hall during the arctic blast earlier this month has led people to wonder whether vacant schools could help fight homelessness.

Food and Wine has a nice article: What’s an authentic Irish pub doing in Downtown Memphis? Just ask Seamus Loftus

Rizzo’s by Michael Patrick is hosting an Athens Wine Dinner Thursday. Select wines paired with four courses for $50.

Blind Bear holds its belated 6th birthday party Friday, February 2. The actual birthday is December 23, but they didn’t want to do the party then because many of their customers would not be able to make it. They need new photos on their dining room wall and will have their photographer there. $6 food and cocktail specials.

The Pocket plays Wiseacre tonight at 5:30.

JSTOR is a scholarly site I follow on Twitter and recently an article about Memphis ran across my feed. The People’s Grocery lynching happened in 1892. Thomas Moss operated The People’s Grocery, a successful business in The Curve, a mixed-race neighborhood just outside of Memphis. However, whites became concerned that Moss’ business was competing too well with their own groceries. They manufactured a reason to murder Moss and several others. The store was then looted by whites and creditors closed it several days later. It’s really sad that I’ve been a Memphian for 31 years and this is the first time I have read about this. Keep in mind that this was only a dozen years before the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue was erected in what is now Health Sciences Park.

I did a little research about The Curve and found there is a historical marker commemorating the lynching at the corner of Mississippi and Walker.

If you were wondering what the menu of the Slider Rider, the Slider Inn’s new food truck, looked like, here you go:

Nice to see Aldo’s pizza on the menu as well as the sliders. I love me some chili Frito pie!

Third morning in a row waking up feeling at peace and without worry. I still cannot believe it took four days for the effects of Fireball to get out of my system. Never again will I touch that stuff. I want to thank my regular bartenders who have gone out of their way to not offer me shots and to make sure I have plenty of water. I really appreciate it.

All right. Going to do an hour of job-hunting related stuff then a wet walk to Bardog. Back tomorrow with more news.