Author: paulryburn

Last year I reported that a new neighborhood bar would open on Monroe, in the old Mike’s location across from the Shrine. It was to be called Bar Dogs, I was told, and would cater to locals and stay open late for service industry people who get off work.

Work stopped in the spring and I heard no more about the place for months. Well, this weekend I heard that construction has resumed, and someone who knows the people doing it estimated it at about four months away. Anyone got more details about this place? This is all second-hand information so take it with a grain of salt, but I sure want to believe it.

Sure would be happy to see a Sleep Out’s-type bar open up a block from where I live. Although, it could have a side effect of splitting our Downtown gang in two, as the Monkey is opening soon as well, and half the gang lives a short walk to the Monkey and the other half a short walk to Bar Dogs. In that case I guess the Saucer and Hoop’s Bar would serve as common meeting places when we want to get everyone together.

Wonder if they’ll do a Sunday brunch? Currently the plan is to move to the Monkey for brunch when it opens, but if Bar Dogs does a good one (and especially if they get NTN Trivia so I can kick Skippy’s ass) I may lobby the group for a two-and-two arrangement like we currently do at Majestic and McGuinness.

It’s all just speculation for now though… again, if anyone has the inside scoop on Bar Dogs shoot me an e-mail at paul@paulryburn.com.

Just found an interesting page on Wikipedia, almost by accident.

Last night I heard that a Downtown restaurant – I won’t name it but valet parking is a prominent feature – has a reputation as “The Cougar Lounge.” Meaning, cougars from Germantown sit at the bar and try to pick up younger men.

So I looked up “cougar” on Wikipedia, figuring I’d link to it for those who don’t know what a cougar is, and it led me to this page on age disparity in sexual relationships. Not only is there a section defining “cougar,” but other similar terms as well, such as chicken hawk, sugar daddy, MILF, jailbait, and so on.

It also has a formula (which I’ve heard of before) to compute the minimum socially acceptable age of people you can hook up with – half your age plus seven. According to that formula I shouldn’t be trying to hook up with anyone under 26. I don’t think I like that formula.

I can’t believe the quote “If there’s grass on the field, play ball” didn’t get explained somewhere on the page though.

Just got e-mail from chef John Bragg of Circa, letting me know about various things going on there. I was particularly impressed with what they’re doing for happy hour, and wanted to pass on the information.

Circa Happy Hour Promotions:Mondays: $5 Martinis

Tuesdays: All Beers including Microbrews and Imports* $2.50

Wednesdays: Wine Flights – $8

Thursdays: Scotch Night – All Single Malts $2.00 off

Fridays & Saturdays: Complimentary Hors d’ Ouvres in the Bar

Sundays: Tasting Menu with Wine Parings – $45 per person

snaCks

all $3

Crawfish Beignets with Red Pepper Remoulade

Crab Cake with Mustard Aioli

Fried Oysters with Red Chili Glaze

Fresh Oysters on the Half Shell

Smoked Salmon and Potato Galette

Grilled Beef Brochette

Seared Hawaiian Big Eye Tuna with Sesame-Chile Sauce

I’m especially impressed with the “snaCks” section, which is similar to what the Daily Grill does. Circa can definitely expect to see me sometime this week to check the happy hour out, although it won’t be tonight because I have to reserve our spot for trivia night down the street.Only made it through 6 beers at Pint Nite last night. Maybe having a job really is slowing me down.

Free food and mingling for Downtowners at the Westin Hotel, one block south of Beale Street, tonight from 5:30 to 7:00. The lovely Di Anne Price will be on the piano.

Also, if you haven’t yet done so, run by the Daily Grill and check out their $2.95 happy hour appetizer menu. That’s always a great option the other 29 days of the month when there’s not free food. Di Anne plays every Monday, so I imagine you could take your apps into the lobby and eat and listen to her play.

Recap of yesterday: Brunch at the Majestic. Most everyone showed up late after a long Saturday night of drinking. Patrick and Deni gave me a Majestic shirt as a late birthday present – thanks, I’ll probably wear it tonight. Now everyone will think I work at the Majestic, I guess.

We moved to the Saucer about 1:30 and played pool with the Ono family. John D had some classic lines that had us busted up laughing – he’s a funny guy when he gets a few Bud Lights in him. Drank 3 Roaring Lions to wake up. Roaring Lion is imitation Red Bull that bars are starting to keep on tap. It’s the same price as a soft drink, so it’s cheaper than going with the real deal. The gang left at 5, and I had my tab transferred to the bar (I’ve decided I’m going to start keeping my tabs at the bar more often) and kept going. Watched football. Watched people play pool. Next thing I knew it was 11:45 and the lights came on for last call. Yay. Another expensive and completely unproductive day.

And now I get to go to work. Yay.

Pics of last night’s party. I realize 90% of you don’t know these people, but I’m posting this photo album anyway to show how much fun we have Downtown. It’s not just about being able to walk home from the bars… it’s about great friends and great memories.

The gang awaits Yoko’s arrival for her surprise party.Yoko and her dad. She didn’t realize her family was in town.

Lauren: “You’re not going to take a bad picture of me and put it on your blog, are you?” No, I’d never do that!

This duo nicknamed themselves “Skip and Chip.” Here Pete the Trivia Guy is telling Skippy, “Yes, I WOULD agree that the Rapscallions are the most intelligent trivia team I’ve ever met.”

A rare good photo of me, with my buddy Lee.

Otto was really excited to be at the party.

The char-grilled oysters I had last night at Pearl’s, with garlic butter and Parmesan cheese.

Yoko opening her presents.

Here’s something you hardly ever see – the Nuh-Uh Girl EATING. She put cold marinara sauce on her salad. Gross.

After we got done at Pearl’s we went down to The Warehouse on G.E. Patterson, where we had free run of the place thanks to a friend of the owner. Here’s a pic of Spuds Mackenzie who was stolen by an unnamed drunk girl earlier in the year (wait, I actually DID just name her) and recovered by the Sunday brunch crew.

You know what the song says… don’t ride the white horse.

Mikey on a stripper pole… now that’s an image I think we’d all like to erase permanently from our minds.

Now that’s much better!

The worst band ever to play The Warehouse.

Here’s a link to the entire album (142 pictures). My only regret last night is that I didn’t bring the spare battery for the camera. Gang: I’ll take the laptop to the Saucer later today and get ’em uploaded to our shared file folder, but right now I’m late for brunch at the Majestic!

PROFANITY ALERT: If you have a problem with the f-word, skip this post. I rarely bust it out in my blog anymore, but this is a case where it’s absolutely unavoidable. There’s no other term to appropriately describe what I saw.

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So, last night, I left Earnestine & Hazel’s about 1:30 and started walking back toward the Downtown core. As I passed the intersection of Main and Talbot I heard moaning. I looked over to my right, and saw a vacant grassy field at the corner of Mulberry and Talbot. There was a dude who had a girl up against a fence and they were totally FUCKING, right there. I could hear her screaming and moaning half a block away as I walked by. He was spanking her, too. From the sound of things he was really giving it to her good.

I imagine the proximity of Raiford’s (one block to the north) had something to do with their choice of location.

Geez. It was 35 degrees and windy at that time. I’m not even sure my equipment would work under those conditions, no matter how hot the girl is. Maybe dude popped a Viagra or something.

You remember how I blogged that I had nothing to do today? Well, I lied. We actually had a surprise birthday party for our friend Yoko.

Here’s a pic (above) of Yoko unwrapping a present of cookies from Pete the Trivia Guy.

We had the party in the downstairs of Pearl’s Oyster House. I had the char-grilled oysters and they were phenomenal. After the party we moved to The Warehouse (opened by a friend of the owner, thanks). By that point everyone but me was too drunk to continue, because much like Shawn Michaels, I’m the icon that can still go. And I went, all right – I went to Nate’s Bar for a drink – E&H was DEAD – then on to Hoop’s Bar where one of my favorite off-duty bartenders bought me a shot.

Yoko, we love you. When you said it’s surreal, having your family and your new family all in one place, you were right. But get used to it. You ARE family.

Photo album as soon as I sober up enough to process the pics. Some of you have some embarrassing drunkass moments to relive.

Just cleaned out the pics on the camera and went through the past four months or so of pics on my hard drive. Found a few memorable ones that are worth posting. So let’s get this party started:

Wasted at Pearl’s Oyster House, June 2007.Only the Nuh-Uh Girl would wear a shirt that says “ME ME ME” on it.

Leo Lazarus, the Tuesday night guitar guy at the Saucer. *clap clap clap* “Thanks, Paul.”

John D’s special “pain in the ass” breakfast. He combines parts of five or six brunch menu items at the Majestic to make his own custom breakfast, because he’s special like that. When we did one of our brunch weeks at McGuinness, Patrick from the Majestic brought his Pain In The Ass Breakfast over to him. I’m sure there was a Bud Light somewhere nearby.

A teeny-tiny little car that I see Downtown from time to time.

Last week I was walking down South Main and I saw this poster:

It’s a link to a site called DEWmocracy where you can help design the next Mountain Dew. As a huge Dew fan, I wanted to pass this information on.

Going through all the pictures I’ve taken in the past four months, seeing what I shot and then forgot to post about. There may be some more posts today if I find more pics. Working from a location near where I live that has Wi-Fi. I’ll leave it as an exercise to you the reader to figure out where I am.

Shiner Bock is the fire sale today.

While typing the post about Frank’s Liquors reopening (scroll down and you’ll see it), I hit Wikipedia’s entry on low-end fortified wine to read about Thunderbird, Night Train and other wines that the panhandlers Downtown are known to prefer. One sentence struck me as particularly interesting:

“Cities like San Francisco and Seattle have banned the sale of various of these wine products in downtown and skid row areas.”

Why can’t Memphis do the same? And ban the sale of those one-shot “airplane bottles” as well. I guarantee you that’d put a major dent in the panhandling problem here, and maybe it would cause Memphis to lose the five-star ranking that bums around the country have given our city. I nearly fell down in the alley behind my building yesterday because I slipped on an airplane bottle of citrus flavored Smirnoff vodka.

Some good news in the fight against panhandling: The manager of the Downtown Walgreens joined our Handling-Panhandling forum. Glad to have her aboard, as that corner is one of the most popular for bums in all of Downtown. Maybe we can work together with Walgreens to get something done.