Author: paulryburn

First of all, a shout-out to my friend Shannon Parker who was a victim of a hit-and-run in Cooper-Young recently. She pushed a friend out of the way then was run over by a speeding SUV after leaving Celtic. She’s in the ICU as of the time I type this and will be in a wheelchair for at least three months. I know she’s a fan of this blog, and I am a fan of her too. Get well soon.

If you believe in saving the Chisca Hotel, go here and sign the petition. I’ve said plenty about the importance of this movement already. Just scroll down to past posts if you’re unfamiliar.

Kerry has a good post on beeTemps, a new home decor and gift shop that has popped up in South Main. But it has literally “popped up” – it will only be there for a few more weeks, so if you want anything they have, go now.

There will be a Beale Street funeral procession for Donald “Duck” Dunn tomorrow (meaning Wednesday. It’s late Tuesday as I type this). He was the bass player for Booker T & the MGs. Details here.

Spinal Tap plays the Orpheum Friday night as part of their summer movie series. Doors at 6, air guitar concert/competition at 6:30, movie at 7:15. A special drink called “amp up to 11” will be served.

Home from a disaster of a poker night at Blind Bear. We ended up nine-handed at our table (one of three) and I couldn’t catch cards to save my life. Best I got was two hands I’d have played strongly at a shorter table but had to fold against eight opponents. In the end, I went all-in with a speculative hand trying to triple or quadruple up if I got lucky. Wasn’t lucky.

Ideally the evening would have wrapped up with a poker win and a tube top on my bedroom floor, but Blind Bear veggies are not a bad way to finish the night. Off to bed.

There’s a new recycling drop-off location at Central Station. City Gardens conducted a survey to see if there would be support for recycling Downtown, and got an overwhelming response. The container will be serviced by IP’s Memphis Recycling Plant, and will be sorted into two; metal, plastic in paper products in one, glass only in the other.

The Downtown Neighborhood Association meeting is tonight at the Majestic Grille. Herman Strickland will speak on diversity in Downtown Memphis.

Memphis Heat, the movie about Memphis wrasslin’ from the 1950s to the 1970s, is now available for download on iTunes.

Good Flyer article about Memphis Dawgs. The hot dog cart started Downtown, but then moved out east and then to air-conditioned digs in Wolfchase Galleria. If you have to go to the mall, stop by and have a Big Nathan’s hot dog while you’re out there.

eighty3 in the Madison Hotel is having a Philippines dinner tomorrow night, prepared by two Filipino chefs. $50 plus tax and gratuity. Call 901-333-1224 for reservations.

appetizers
Gulf Shrimp Balls
With Fresh Coriander Sauce

Grilled Filipino Sausages “Longaniza”

“Ukoy” Mini Vegetable Pancakes
With Pork Belly Adobo

first course
Crispy Crab Pancit
Crab Meat, Eggs, Crispy Noodles, Julienne Vegetables, Sesame, Cream

Lumpiang Sotanghon
Filipino Egg Rolls, Mung Bean Noodles, Bean Sprouts, Carrots, Garlic

main course
Pork Bicol Express
Coconut Milk, Chilis

Grilled Chicken
Coconut Sauce

Crispy Local Catfish With Aligue
Breaded Filets, Crab Fat, Sofrito, Butter

Garlic Fried Rice

Tinapa Fried Rice

Eggplant And Green Beans
Garlic, Sweet Soy And Lemon

dessert
Sago Cake
Palm Sugar Sauce And Coconut Custard

If you can’t make the dinner, there will be Filipino small plates available Thursday night at the Madison Hotel’s rooftop party.

Construction on Downtown apartments at 436 S. Front is now underway. The Memphis Daily News has the story.

If you’re thinking about going to Sunset Symphony, the forecast is for sunny with highs in the mid 90s. If you don’t know what to wear to Sunset Symphony (or elsewhere this weekend), check my blog Friday evening for a suggestion.

I guess it will be the usual for me tonight: Happy hour at the Saucer about 6, then poker with Jamie at the Blind Bear at 8. I feel like my brain still hasn’t totally recovered from BBQ Fest, so it may not be my best night at the table.

Couple of news items that came in over the weekend:

The Flying Saucer will celebrate its 15th birthday on Saturday, June 2. For the 15 hours they are open (11 AM-2 AM) they will have 15 different rare craft beers tapped, one each hour. Here’s the list:

2011 Stone IRS

Sierra Life and Limb

Fritz and Ken

La Trappe Quad

Troubadour Stout

Tallgrass Buffalo Sweat Stout

Charlie, Fred and Ken Bock 2010

Stone Vertical Epic 11-11-11

Green Flash Palate Wrecker

Ovila Quad

Sierra Hoptimum

Green Flash Trippel

And special releases from Yazoo and Lazy Magnolia.

On Sunday, June 10 the Cotton Museum is having a Cotton Boll Brunch to celebrate the end of Carnival season. classic brunch fare, including an omelet station, French toast and shrimp and grits. The event also features a bottomless bloody mary and bubbly bar, live jazz music by Bob Sundra and Rene Koopman, a silent auction and a special exhibition highlighting the history of Carnival Memphis. All proceeds from the event will support the Cotton Museum’s Education Program. The funds raised will be used to create scholarships for free admission and guided tours for hundreds of local children. Event will be at the Cotton Museum at 65 Union from 11 to 3 PM. $40 adults, $75 couples, $12 for children under 12. Visit the museum’s website to make reservations.

My body is definitely feeling the effects of 9 days of partying. I’m going out tonight but not for much longer than it takes to retain my Saucer and Blind Bear mayorships on Foursquare. I want a good night of quality sleep.

Yeah no updates for a couple of days… I’ve been absolutely worn out from BBQ Fest and haven’t had the energy to post. Hopefully this blog will be back to normal tomorrow.

If you sent me stuff to post late last week and I didn’t get to it, I apologize for that. I didn’t have a chance to check email and I built up a total of 160 in my Inbox. I also apologize if you added me on social media and I haven’t responded yet. Behind on that too.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to full strength within a day or two.

I didn’t realize I had a following in Little Rock until recently. For those of you in my hometown, I have a recommendation for Riverfest weekend. The Dirty White Boys play Dugan’s Pub at 8:30 PM Saturday, May 26. I knew these guys back when they were relative unknowns performing in a high school auditorium. It will be a good show. The pub is at 401 East 3rd Street.

Pro tip: After the show, walk up to the Flying Saucer at 323 President Clinton Avenue, get u a beer, and say hi to Matt for me.

Yesterday I heard the perfect description of BBQ Fest: “Spring break for grown-ups.” I couldn’t put it any better than that.

The first open-to-the-public day of BBQ Fest was awesome. I pre-gamed at the Saucer and the Bear, stealing our sponsor the Blind Bear’s mayorship on Foursquare. Then I headed down to the park.

Judging for Best Booth happened not long after we got there. I was sure we were a lock for it but we did one thing wrong: We had the Philippines flag UPSIDE DOWN. There are Filipino judges and we more or less insulted their country. Just terrible. We got third and I was surprised they gave us that.

Anyway, here are some pics. Other than the flag yesterday just may have been the best day I have ever spent at BBQ Fest.

Horror movie starring Uncle Ray

Beer can chicken

As much as I like to brag that the Moody Ques have the best booth in the park, I have to admit our friends at Squeal Street had us beat in at least two ways: 1) Saucer girls behind the bar and 2) THIS. Misting cooling fan. It felt SOOOOOO good in the 90 degree heat. Team: We need one of these next year.

Mary Pat

Moe, Larry and Curly assembling a garden cart. No kidding, this comedy of errors lasted more than an hour. They put the entire thing together backwards and had to re-do it.

BBQ chicken

Mustard sauce

Nice use of pins from our sponsor WordPress, which happens to be the content management system that powers this blog and 15 million other websites.

Beer can chicken in the smoker

Tube top dresses. THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE, PEOPLE.

Chelsea knows what’s up, rocking the green tube top.

She’s bringing me the new flavor of Doritos and she has a tube top dress on. WINNING.

Misty

Michael Bean explains to the bartender how to be incredibly annoying at a poker table

Signature cocktail by the Blind Bear

Marcus Hunter and Ruchee. Catch Marcus on MemphiSport Live on Sports 56 from 11 AM-1 PM Saturdays.

Hannah, Kyla, and Maddison on our rooftop deck

We’re not on the riverside, but our booth is tall enough that we have a river view anyway.

Ciara and Mark

Two of my favorite Downtowners, Karen and Dennis.

Like me, Uncle Ray appreciates tube tops and tube top dresses.

Quick night-time visit to Squeal Street. Murphy’s Law of BBQ Fest: As soon as I got to Squeal Street, several people I invited to my own booth showed up, and I had to run back over there and let them in.

Rebekah knows what’s up.

Morgan doing a fine job representing our sponsor the Blind Bear in a tube top dress.

Okay, time for a mini-rant: People get mad at me for taking candid photos rather than posed ones, for the most part. This photo is an example why candid photos are better. You don’t get stuff like this when you allow people time to pose. This is awesome.

BBQ FEST DONE RIGHT.

Full album (184 photos) can be found here.

I was hitting the beer hard early in the day, from 11 on. By 5 or 6 I was nearly worn out and falling asleep on my feet. But I remembered the advice of our inspirational leader/father figure: “IT’S A MARATHON, PAULANATOR, NOT A SPRINT.” From that point on I made a recovery. By midnight I was dancing with some friends in The Hogfather’s tent, and amazingly I was the most sober one of the group. Not sure how that was possible.

And now it’s time to do it all again. Saucer at 11, park at 12.

One of my readers continues to be completely lame. Yesterday I texted her, saying that I’d shown her picture to some of my teammates and we all agree that she needs to wear a tube top to BBQ Fest every day. She replied back that she only has one tube top. I know for a fact this is not true, because she emailed me a photo of her in a yellow tube top with black trim a while back, as proof that she does indeed own one. Then she texted me a pic of her in a red tube top. So, she could at least get through Thursday and Friday. Plus she has a “bestie” who has many tube tops she could borrow. She’s simply offering more of the same – excuses. It’s getting old.

So last night she texted me, “I went to Gordman’s and Kohl’s tonight in hopes of a new tube top. Tried on 3. Didn’t like.” I appreciate the effort but she’s doing it wrong. She needs to drive across the bridge to West Memphis Wal-Mart and find a $4 white tube top in the clearance bin. That is all the effort that needs to be expended on appropriate BBQ Fest attire. Sadly I don’t think she will ever get it.

Okay, let’s get on to the news. If you want BBQ, you don’t even have to go to Tom Lee Park to get it. There will be free samples of BBQ outside Shelton Clothiers, with Garland Jack’s Secret Six sauces. They have original recipe, sweet brown sugar, hickory spice, and smoky molasses sauces. Samplings will be 12-5 today and tomorrow and 10-2 Saturday. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

The Nuh-Uh Girl, by the way, told me last night that I’ve been “obnoxious” about tube tops lately on the blog. Yeah and she’s not obnoxious about eating or anything. I heard she went over to Squeal Street and ate pretty much everything but the tent last night. Of course, she had a huge meal in our booth too.

If you’re not going to BBQ Fest tonight, there are several good outdoor parties happening Downtown. Lord T and Eloise play the Peabody rooftop tonight. 6-11 PM, $10 cover that includes your first drink, ladies free until 7.

On the Madison Hotel’s rooftop, there will be the soulful sounds of Brian “Breeze” Cayole rooted in jazz, R&B, and rock. $7 cover, 7-11 PM, cash bar, small plates, sunset views.

The “Retro on the Patio” series continues at Bleu tonight at 6 PM. They will celebrate the blues (bleus) with the sounds of Daddy Mack on the patio.

There’s free admission to BBQ Fest from 11 to 1 today if you don’t feel like paying. It’s not crowded at lunchtime and you have a much better chance of being invited into booths and getting something to eat than if you go at 9 PM tonight. Take an extra long lunch, you deserve it!

We had a fun Friends & Family night in the booth last night. Double J did a fish fry for us, with grouper bites, jambalaya, and fries. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for us today. I have a little bit of legit team business to take care of this morning, and of course I have to have one or two pre-festival beers at the Saucer. Should be in the booth around 12:30.

The always-entertaining Tony Allen will be on the Chris Vernon Show at 3 PM today. If the Grizzlies guard is half as entertaining on radio as he is on Twitter, it will be a fun time indeed. Listen at AM 730 in Memphis or online.