Month: October 2018

Yummm… Perjorie T. Roll and I are having a Mushroom Swiss Burger for lunch from Sam’s Hamburgers and More. The new location is open at 7 N. Main and it is already popular. By 11:10 there was a line four or five people deep.

117 Prime has a deal for Orpheum members. 5-7 PM through Sunday, October 14, enjoy a 3-course dinner for $35 when you show your member card. Not a member? You can get the dinner for $45.

Beatles tribute band The Mersey Beatles: Four Lads from Liverpool perform at the Halloran Center tonight.

Catherine & Mary’s has a featured drink this week:

This week’s featured drink is the “Spanish House,” a play off of a classic New Orleans cocktail, the Vieux Carré, and our beer pick is Yazoo Pale Ale- a traditional style pale ale that features malt and citrus. Come try our #CraftsOfTheWeek! Our bar opens at 4 p.m. 🍻🥂 pic.twitter.com/7Ja1RNUY4d

— Catherine & Mary’s (@catherine_marys) October 9, 2018

Video: D.J. Stephens on what he can bring to the Memphis Grizzlies and Hustle as a 2-way player

Bluesman Eric Hughes will play brunch at Sunrise Memphis this Sunday from 10 to 1.

Funeral arrangements have been set for legendary Rendezvous server Big Jack Dyson.

On Friday, October 19 at 409 S. Main there will be a City Block Salumeria Butcher’s Dinner featuring Spencer Coplan of Wok’n in Memphis and Nick Scott of Alchemy, Brad McCarley, and Lee Mitchell.

The CA has info on the Museum Lofts Apartments to be built by the Civil Rights Museum.

Fourth Bluff will present Outdoor Library at Greenlaw Park in Uptown, 190 Mill, Friday from 4 to 5. The Cossitt Library will bring books, and there will be pumpkin carving and lawn games. PRO TIP: The park is not far from Roxie’s Grocery, so go get you a Mr. Good Burger.

I hope my friends who live on the Florida Gulf Coast all evacuated safely. Hurricane Michael is expected to make landfall near Panama City Beach in the next few hours and it looks like a nasty one. Hurricane warnings through central Georgia, and tropical storm warnings all the way to the Carolina coast.

That’s it. Back tomorrow with more news.

The New Kids on the Block will headline a throwback tour coming to FedExForum Friday, May 10, 2019. The MixTape Tour will also include Salt-N-Pepa, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, and Naughty by Nature.

Former Memphis Tiger D.J. Stephens has signed a two-way contract with the Grizzlies. That will make him a member of G-League affiliate the Memphis Hustle, but he will be able to spend up to 45 days on the Grizzlies main roster. Great PR move with that signing. D.J. will put butts in seats at Hustle home games.

Check out this Curbed.com article on Memphis redevelopment.

KIX 106 will present two free shows in Handy Park on Beale in the upcoming weeks. The Thursday, October 25 show will be headlined by Walker Hayes with special guest Dylan Schneider. The following Thursday, November 1, Maddie & Tae will perform along with special guest Waterloo Revival.

The Breeders with special guest Flasher play the New Daisy tonight at 7.

Today is the last day to register to vote for the fall election. Your vote matters more than ever!

Random tip I received Sunday night: If you say “elephant” when you feel like you’re about to sneeze, you won’t. “Yeah, but why not just sneeze?” was my response.

Kentucky men’s basketball head coach John Calipari recently commented that Penny Hardaway’s desired Memphis-Kentucky home-and-home series Is unlikely to happen, but the two coaches have talked.

From the CA: RiverArtsFest moves from South Main to Riverside Drive. The annual arts festival happens October 27-28.

A new Thai and sushi restaurant called The Nine is going in the former Bangkok Alley location on Union.

And they’re hiring.

I walked past The Nine on my way to Kooky Canuck, where the Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October. They had a special Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings yesterday.

My troll especially liked the green bean casserole, commenting that it was the same color as her hair. I guess she only has 8 crayons in her Crayola box.

After lunch I saw this outside the Flying Saucer:

Are they trying to win my business back?

Clayborn Temple will have a Preservation Open House Sunday, October 21 from 2 to 5 PM.

The Grizzlies players and coaches volunteered at the Mid-South Food Bank yesterday.

Memphis Bigfoot Festival returns to Memphis Made Brewing Co. Saturday, November 17. It will feature The Year In Bigfoot report, trivia, a costume contest, videos, and your stories. T-shirts and posters will be on sale. This is a free event.

Memphis hosts #10 UCF at the Liberty Bowl at 2:30 Saturday. For my out-of-town readers who are Tigers fans, you’ll be able to catch this game either on ABC or ESPN2, depending on where you live.

The other day I saw an ESPN analyst propose an interesting scenario, one which I’m not totally crazy about because it involves the Tigers losing Saturday. Let’s say that UCF runs the table and goes undefeated for a second year in a row. Furthermore, let’s say that Clemson, good ole West Virginny, Washington, Penn State, and Texas suffer bad losses between now and the end of the season. That could leave us with the following CFP rankings:

1. Winner of Alabama-Georgia SEC title game
2. Notre Dame
3. Loser of SEC title game
4. UCF

That would leave the Big 10, the Big 12, the ACC, and the Pac-12 – four of the Power 5 conferences – on the outside looking in. Bet a bunch of ADs would be screaming to expand the playoff to 8 teams if this (unlikely) scenario plays out.

So, Friday I posted that both my laptop and my router were having issues, and the blog only stayed populated with new content over the weekend due to my iPhone’s WordPress app. Well, good news… after a day of troubleshooting menu options, I got the laptop to do a reset and it is working again – no more blue screen of death. I lost a lot of programs but that’s okay. I would rather spend a day re-installing programs than a day at Best Buy buying a new computer.

By the way… this past weekend reminded me a lesson that I would pass on to my Computer Literacy students if I were still teaching. Any important document, file or image – anything you can’t afford to lose – should be saved to the cloud, not to My Documents or some other place on a local hard drive. Hard drives fail. Computers in general fail unexpectedly. I save my documents to Dropbox, but iCloud and Microsoft OneDrive are also good. Just get some kind of service where your files are accessible from any device, via a web interface or an installed program or an app.

As for my wireless router, trying to work on it getting back up. The issue there is, it thinks the Wi-Fi password has changed, but I never changed it. This is an Arris router I own outright, not one I rent from Xfinity. I unplugged the Ethernet cable from the router and plugged it directly into my laptop, and voila – I had working Internet again, but I can’t carry my laptop around the apartment with me. I Googled the model number and found instructions to access the router’s control panel via an IP address. I got in, but when I tried to access the Advanced settings, it wanted a Password of the Day, which is different than the router’s Wi-Fi password. I found a couple of different Password of the Day generators. The promising news was, they all generated the same password for October 9, 2018. The bad news was, that password didn’t work. So I’m trying to figure out a new way to hack my router. If I can’t figure it out by the end of the week it’ll be time to visit Best Buy. At least I can make it a fun trip and get in a visit to PizzaRev while I’m out in that neighborhood.

That’s it for now. Kind of a long post today but it’ll make up for the short ones the past few days. Back tomorrow with more news.

With 3 football home games left in the regular season, the Tigers are selling 3 game packs for $75. That gets you tickets to see the Tigers play UCF, Tulsa, and Houston.

The musical School of Rock, featuring 14 new songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber, will be at the Orpheum Tuesday through Sunday.

There will be live wrestling at Meddlesome Brewing Co. in Cordova this coming Saturday, October 13 at 6 PM.

Mighty Lights, the lighting of the I-40 bridge, will happen Saturday night of RiverArtsFest, October 27. Admission to the festival will be free after 5 and the bridge will get lit at 6:30.

There will be a protest of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation tonight outside of Bob Corker’s office, 100 Peabody Place, at 7 PM.

The monthly South Main Association meeting will be this Tuesday at 2 Vance. Christin Yates, contributing columnist for the Daily Memphian and co-founder of BreakFest 901, will speak as will a representative of Mighty Lights. Light apps and beverages by SMA. 6:00 social, 6:30 meeting. Free for members, $10 guests.

That’s all for now. Back tomorrow.

There will be a benefit for Dr. Herman Green Saturday, November 10 at Rum Boogie Cafe and The Blues Hall. Dr. Green, saxophonist for FreeWorld and legendary Beale Street musician, is recovering from an illness and hospitalization earlier this year. Over 20 musicians and groups will perform and there will be a silent auction.

The Blind Bear has its annual poker tournament to fight breast cancer on the 18th.

The MBJ has The 20 top selling beer brands in the U.S. Give me number 18 all day long!

The Harahan Bridge goes purple Wednesday night in a show of support for survivors of domestic violence.

There will be a safety meeting this Thursday, October 11 from 6 to 9 PM at 409 S. Main. Representatives from the MPD’s North Main Precinct, DMC, and Blue Suede Brigade will be there. Obviously the main topic will be what can be done to keep Downtown safe in light of the recent murder of Phil Trenary.

Sad to hear of the passing of longtime Rendezvous server Jack Dyson.

Fall is on the way. A cold front moves through Wednesday, and following that, MemphisWeather.net is predicting highs in the low 70s and lows in the 50s. WeatherBug is predicting even cooler than that, with mid-upper 60s highs Thursday to Saturday.

I’m disappointed by the Kavanaugh confirmation, of course, but I am equally disappointed in some of my fellow liberals’ reaction to Phil Bredesen supporting the confirmation. Seeing a lot of “F you, Phil, I was going to vote for you but now I am not so sure.” While I understand the anger, withholding your vote will only make things worse.

Phil has unique advantages in that he is well known and popular, and he has accomplished things like balanced budgets and sensible health care plans that no one in Washington seems to be able to get done. The problem, as Memphis Flyer staff pointed out recently, is that Philly-B (nice nickname by the way) cannot win by appealing only to his base. There are not enough Democrats in Tennessee for that strategy to work.

Bredesen has one more asset; an opponent, Marsha Blackburn, who is completely unlikable. A lot of Republicans don’t want to vote for her. If Bredesen can show that he will not be s rubber stamp for the Democratic position as Marsha will be for Trump, he has a chance to siphon votes away – the votes he needs to win.

So please, don’t let Phil’s comments deter you from getting out to vote. It’s too important. Tennessee could be the state that determines if the Senate is red or blue next year.

Tuesday’s the deadline to register. Check to see if you’re registered here.

That’s it for now. Back tomorrow with more news.

Canadian Thanksgiving is back at Kooky Canuck this Monday, October 8. You don’t have to wait for November for turkey and dressing, eh? Traditional Thanksgiving dinners will be available.

Hattie B’s will make its Downtown debut Saturday, October 13 at the Ghost River taproom noon-7 PM. Three tenders plus chips $10. Six flavors: Southern, mild, medium, hot, damn hot, or shut the cluck up. The Flying V’s will perform at 4, and the Tigers vs. UCF will be on TV.

There will be a Disco Music Fitness Festival at Memphis Park today from 4 to 10.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in Concert, featuring the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, happens tonight and tomorrow at the Orpheum.

The Grizzlies host the Indiana Pacers in a preseason game tonight at FedExForum at 7.

I went back to Felicia Suzanne’s for 25 cent martini Friday lunch yesterday. I had the crab crepes.

My friend Stacey had the BBQ shrimp.

And my friend Nate had the chicken enchiladas.

There’s some good news this morning. Got my laptop up and running again. Router is still not acting right though. Thanks to my WordPress phone app I’ll probably be back tomorrow with more news.

Still having laptop and router problems so I’m doing this from my phone. The WordPress app has gotten really easy to use. This isn’t much harder than blogging from my laptop.

Some big names have been announced for the 2018 Memphis Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony. These include the late Aretha Franklin, the Box Tops, and 8Ball and MJG. The induction will take place at the Cannon Center on Thursday, November 1.

For those who are fans of “Everything” bagels, my personal favorite bagel flavor… last night I received a tip that the Starbucks at Main and Monroe has Everything bagel bites, round bites with cream cheese in the middle. Yum!

Historian Jimmy Ogle will give a free lunchtime tour of the Pinch District next Tuesday, October 9. Assemble at Westy’s, 346 N. Main, at 11:45.

Cooper-Young Beerfest, set for Saturday, October 20, has once again set a record for the number of breweries that are coming. This is my preferred beer festival in Memphis because there’s such a focus on education. The festival requires that each brewery send a representative who actually works at the brewery (whereas, at many festivals, the distributor sends a rep) so you can actually talk to the brewers about the beer. They also limit ticket sales so each attendee has plenty of opportunity to talk to brewers. In addition, they only invite breweries within a day’s drive of Memphis, so if you like what you’re tasting, it’s accessible.

If you need an additional reason to attend CY Beerfest, every cent goes to the Cooper Young Community Association. It’s one of the biggest fundraisers of the year for the CYCA.

From FiveThirtyEight: Tennessee really could flip that Senate seat blue. Please, everyone check and make sure you’re registered to vote!

NF is bringing The Perception Tour to Mud Island on October 28. Tickets are now on sale.

How do you like them apples? Is the theme at the Memphis Farmers Market this Saturday. Apples are available by the bushel at the Market this week. UT College of Pharmacy will be on hand with info on heart health, and there will be live local music all day. The Market happens every Saturday through October 27 at the pavilion at Front and G.E. Patterson, 8 AM to 1 PM.

Coyote Ugly on Beale Street is having open auditions for bartenders tonight 9-12.

Today our country has its collective eyes on Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. Their votes will likely determine whether Brett Kavanaugh sits on the Supreme Court for life. But just think, the needed 51 votes for Kav likely would have been a done deal had Alabamans not nominated a pedophile for the Senate.

That’s it for now. Apologies for any typos but a post with typos is better than no post at all. I can’t promise I will be back tomorrow but I will try.

Hey y’all, The blog will be offline for the weekend. Computer problems.

I won Best Team Name at Blind Bear trivia last night.

In case you can’t make that out, it says, “Tiffany Trump got her first ever text from her dad today.” I had posted that test emergency services messages would go out at 2:18 and 2:20, but I forgot to take into account that those were Eastern times. So yesterday a little after 1, I was in Kroger buying drink mix and hitting up the $5 Wednesday sushi when the alerts went off. I keep my phone’s ringer off because I get so many telemarketer and spam calls, but that thing was vibrating in my pockets for a good two minutes.

“Presidential Message.” If anyone else were president it would have said something like “Emergency Services Message.” Trump has to make it all about him though.

Phil Trenary will be laid to rest today. The Greater Memphis Chamber president was shot on South Front a week ago today, walking home from a Chamber event at Loflin Yard.

The sold-out Memphis Madness event is tonight at FedExForum. The Memphis Tigers men’s and women’s basketball teams will be introduced in this massive pep rally. We’ll get our first look at Penny Hardaway as Tigers men’s head coach. There will be live entertainment (exactly who shows up is a source of great speculation, with Justin Timberlake and Drake being two of the bigger names that have been put out there). There will be a 3-point contest and a dunk contest among the activities involving the players.

Here are the event maps for #MemphisMadness tonight at the @FedExForum! We can’t wait to see everyone there! 🐯#GoTigersGo #StripeUp pic.twitter.com/c4IYUyFJ7C

— Memphis Tigers (@TigersAthletics) October 4, 2018

An electrical fire has left McEwen’s and Curry N Jerk closed for longer than previously thought. The outside fire entered Curry N Jerk, causing water and smoke damage, closing the restaurant indefinitely. McEwen’s will be closed until electrical repairs are made.

Bluff City Coffee’s special of the month:

In lieu of our Sandwich of the Month, we are offering two Soups of the Month! Stop by and enjoy our house-made vegan lentil chili or white bean chicken chili today. Available in 8oz, 12oz, and 16oz servings. pic.twitter.com/l0UGAvuiix

— Bluff City Coffee (@BluffCityCoffee) October 4, 2018

There will be a Blessing of the Animals today at 5 at Church Park, Fourth Street at MLK Avenue. Bring your pet and have them blessed by Msgr. Val Handwerker and Deacon Eugene Champion from St. Patrick Catholic Church.

The CA reports that the Brooks Museum has taken a major step in its plan to move Downtown. They’ve issued a request for qualifications for design architects to create “Brooks on the Bluff.”

One more brewery Oktoberfest celebration: Crosstoberfest happens at Crosstown Brewing Co. this Saturday 2-7 PM.

A new pop-up shop, Wanderlvst, is coming to 100 Peabody Place starting tomorrow. This shop will bring global fashion to Downtown Memphis with a curated selection from Europe, Asia, and Africa.

That’ll do it for now. I’ll be under a time constraint tomorrow because I’m doing lunch at Felicia Suzanne’s again, but hopefully I’ll be able to get a post in before I go over there.

If you’ve walked or driven down Monroe Avenue the past couple of days, you may have noticed a new addition to the neighborhood.

Every year Aldo goes out and buys a hearse and parks it outside of Bardog Tavern for the month of October. All month long, you can buy raffle tickets at Bardog for a chance to win the hearse. The drawing is always held at 11:59 PM on Halloween night. This year’s hearse appears to be a Cadillac Fleetwood in the 1991-1996 model year range.

There will be a free spin class in Health Sciences Park next Friday from 12:15 to 12:45 PM. It will be led by instructors from Spincult, the new spin gym in The Edge.

Dancing with the Stars: Live! goes on tour once again this winter and will make a stop at the Orpheum February 9, 2019 at 8 PM. Dancers will be from Season 27 of the show and will include Witney Carson, Artem Chigvintsev, Gleb Savchenko, Emma Slater, Sasha Farber, Alan Bersten, Jenna Johnson, and Brandon Armstrong.

High Ground News has an article on Bird scooters and the shared mobility ordinance. Dead or poorly parked Bird scooters create accessibility problems for those with limited mobility. I personally witnessed an example of this and wish I had taken a picture. If you want to get to the front door of the 100 Peabody Place office building, you have to go up two steps. However, over on the left side of the building, the curvature of the Main Street Mall creates a natural ramp of sorts, directly to the top step. It’s perfect for people in wheelchairs, as well as those for whom hip or knee issues make stairs difficult to navigate. However, the other day, someone had left a Bird parked right in front of that natural ramp.

While we’re on the subject of the Birds, yesterday about 2 I was walking down the Main Street Mall, coming up on the intersection at Union. A northbound trolley was stopped at the trolley stop there, picking up passengers. Right as the trolley started to accelerate, a guy on a Bird – one of the visitors here for the AutoZone sales conference this week – was zooming down Main and at the last minute decided to make a hard left eastbound on Union. He went right in front of the trolley and missed it by maybe three or four feet. Yikes.

A reminder that when I consider upcoming events to include in this blog, I ask myself three questions:

• Will the event make Memphis a better, more interesting place?
• Are the organizers of the event good people?
• Do the organizers associate themselves with good people?

Had to disqualify an event I saw listed on Facebook this morning because of the third bullet point. Too bad because I could have done a lot to raise awareness and get people to go.

I didn’t get to see the Grizzlies’ first pre-season game last night, but this morning I did some reading on Grizzly Bear Blues to find out how it went. The most important piece of news was, Jaren Jackson Jr. looked like he belonged on an NBA floor, going 6-for-6 to put in 15 points. Yes, he got schooled by James Harden and Chris Paul at times, but ain’t no shame in that.

That’s it for now! Back tomorrow with more news.

 

The State of Downtown speech and Vision Awards, set to happen tomorrow late afternoon/early evening on the Civic Center Plaza, has been postponed. The press release said they were postponing “out of respect to the community.” That surely means they thought it inappropriate to have a celebration of Downtown just days after the shooting death of Phil Trenary. Definitely a good call on the DMC’s part.

A Phil Trenary Fund for the Advancement of Memphis has been started. Donate here.

Don’t be surprised when you get alerts on your phones at 2:18 and 2:20 tomorrow afternoon. FEMA, in coordination with the FCC, will be testing the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and will also test Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA).

Tennessee governor’s race: Candidates Karl Dean and Bill Lee debate at the University of Memphis tonight at 6. The debate will be broadcast on Action News 5.

Another of Memphis Made Brewing Co.’s year-round beers, Junt, an easy-drinking cream ale, is now being canned and distributed to locations around Shelby County. In addition, Memphis Made’s first canned offering, Fireside, has a new look to make it more visible on store shelves.

Leon Bridges has been booked for an April 24 date at the Orpheum. Bridges’ 2015 debut album Coming Home led to an invitation to the White House to play for President Obama, as well as a musical guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. Tickets will go on sale this Friday.

Jefferson’s Ocean Voyage 12 is the half-off whiskey special at Belle Tavern this week. This is kind of a cool whiskey because it is aged at sea, on the Ocearch shark tagging vessel. If that sounds like something you’d like to try, go see my friend Q at Belle tonight between 4 PM and 1 AM.

BurgerFest Memphis has its website up, where you can buy tickets and see what all you get for your money, as well as what kind of live entertainment they will have. The festival is at Tiger Lane Saturday, October 27.

Paulette’s monthly wine dinner is tonight. Here’s the menu.

That’s all for now. Back tomorrow with more news.