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It’s raining, so I can’t take my usual 11:00 walk by the Saucer to see what the Fire Sale is.  If anyone gets by there and happens to see it, shoot me an e-mail or text it to my phone, and I’ll use Twitter to update it on my blog.  Otherwise the Fire Sale will have to remain a mystery until my afternoon break/walk, or until tonight if it’s still raining this afternoon.

I took a walk around Beale Street last night around the time the sun set, and noticed that I’ve been failing to mention another place where you can get Pabst Blue Ribbon draft at a bargain price:  The Tap Room.  On Mondays they have PBR draft for $1 a pint.  I used to go there all the time in ’04-’05, but kind of gradually drifted away over the years and forgot about this special, thanks to the Saucer’s $2.75 Monday Pint Nite.  Not the same quality of beer that you’ll find on most of the taps at the Saucer, but if you want to drink a lot of beer for cheap, you can’t beat the Tap Room on Mondays.

It’s almost too cheap… I remember when I used to hang out there, the bums on Beale Street would beg for change to collect enough for a dollar PBR.  My all-time favorite was when one of them had 98 cents collected, and slid in the door when the bartender wasn’t looking and asked me, “hey, bro, let me get two cent from ya.”  When I said no, he came back with, “one cent?”

After leaving Beale, I walked up to Big Foot Lodge.  I didn’t see Meghan behind the bar, then I turned to my right and saw this:

“OH, NO!” I thought.  “THEY KILLED MEGHAN AND MOUNTED HER HEAD ON THE WALL!!!”  I was shocked.  “Shawn’s finally gone too far with gimmicks to get people in this place,” I thought.  “It’s one thing to serve 34-ounce beers and 18-scoop ice cream sundaes, but to kill your bartender and put her head on the wall?  That’s just crazy.”  Over the next couple of minutes, I started to adjust to a post-Meghan world at Big Foot.  “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” I thought to myself.  “Even though she’s dead and mounted on the wall, she’ll still offer about the same level of friendliness, courtesy, and customer service that she did when she was alive.”

I was thinking, I’ll have to add her to my new site RecentlyDeadPeople.com, then I turned around and Meghan – the real Meghan – appeared behind the bar.  I realized she wasn’t dead and on the wall after all.  I ordered a 34 oz. Molson and all was well.

I hadn’t eaten all day… normally I’d get one of Big Foot’s excellent burgers, but last night I was hungry for a Texas Toast burger from Huey’s (buttered Texas toast, Jack cheese, jalapenos), so I made that my stop for Paul’s Drunkass Burger on the way home.

Don’t forget, the South Main Association meeting is tonight.  It’s an especially good one, at the Boscos brewery at Main and Crump.  This is where they make the new Ghost River beers that have shown up at the Saucer and other beer joints around town.  There will be a tour and tasting.  Free for members, $5 non-members, starts at 6 PM.

Today I broke my all-time record putting a new website together.  After hearing of the death of Isaac Hayes this Sunday, and the death of Bernie Mac the day before that, I figured, there needs to be a site where people can go to buy merchandise related to people who have recently died.  Therefore, RecentlyDeadPeople.com was born.

You can go there to buy all kinds of stuff related to people who have died in the past two months, including Isaac Hayes, Bernie Mac, Skip Caray, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Estelle Getty, Tony Snow, Jesse Helms, Larry Harmon (Bozo the Clown), Don S. Davis, Ira Tucker (lead singer of the Dixie Hummingbirds), Wilbur Hardee (founder of Hardee’s), Cyd Charise, and Bo Diddley.  The site will be updated on a regular basis as more people die.

As I said, I set a new record, having built this thing in only 3 hours.  Sitting here enjoying a Pint Nite beer at the Second Street branch office as I finish it.  Gonna get it linked from my other sites, then enjoy the rest of the evening.

According to Google’s “Today’s Reason to Drink” widget, today’s reason to drink is that it’s National Underwear Day.

Saturday night, WMC-TV reported that the recently-closed Pat O’Brien’s location on Beale Street might come back to live as a hotel/restaurant owned by Joe Cooper and Jerry “The King” Lawler.  Well, today the Memphis Business Journal reports that the hotel is a “pipe dream,” according to John Elkington of Performa, the company that manages Beale Street.

According to Elkington, there are many reasons why the hotel will never happen.  For one, the business is in bankruptcy, and anyone wanting to work on the property would therefore have to deal with Pat O’s creditors.  Also, Cooper and Lawler would need to control the parking lot behind the building in order to create enough space, and Performa does not plan to give up control of that lot.  Finally, the state’s historic preservation department would have to approve changes to the building, and there would be a fight against a building taller than the current height (Cooper and Lawler want a 5-story hotel).

So, it looks like the future of the old Pat O’s building is still up in the air.

This is one of those days when I’m having a creative block as far as blogging goes, so here, read this instead.  Time Magazine’s article on the late, great Isaac Hayes:  Isaac Hayes: From Shaft to Chef

The only news I have to report concerns a Downtown restaurant, and I’ve been asked not to report it yet.  As soon as I get permission to let the cat out of the bag, I will.

I wish there was a way to get on the Olympics’ official site and enter my phone number, then have them text me “HOT ROMANIAN GYMNASTS ARE ON TV NOW” when that is indeed the case.  That’s a service I’d be willing to pay a buck a text message for.

Last night was the last night for Pat O’Brien’s on Beale Street… they’ve closed down and served their last Hurricane.  This WMC-TV article hints at the future of the building.  Local businessman/politician Joe Cooper (you remember him from the Main Street Sweeper scandal that sent Rickey Peete back to prison) wants to turn the place into a hotel and restaurant.  The hotel would be five stories, all suites, some with balconies overlooking Beale, similar to hotel balconies that overlook Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  Cooper’s partner in the venture is none other than professional wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler.

Speaking of wrestling, this morning I’ve been reading an article on Sputnik Monroe, a wrestler who in the ’50s was even more popular in Memphis than Jerry Lawler is today.  Monroe played a key role in race relations in the city.  Once he became the town’s biggest draw and was selling out the Ellis Auditorium on a weekly basis, he went to the promoters with a demand:  Get rid of the “colored section.”  In those says seating at sports events was segregated, and African-Americans were restricted to the nosebleed balcony seats.  Monroe demanded that blacks be allowed to sit anywhere they wanted in the auditorium, or he wouldn’t perform.  This paved the way for integration at other sporting events and nightclubs.

Whew!  Rough start to the day, after my trivia team cashed in its $460 worth of gift certificates last night.  We’ll start over at zero on Tuesday.  I missed brunch again.  Will head to the Saucer about 2.  Going to take the laptop with me so I can work on my latest website once I get done beating Pete at pool.

When you get up at 10:30 AM, breakfast and lunch get combined into one meal.

All of the items above were bought at the Downtown Walgreens.

The buffalo chicken nuggets are in the beef jerky section and they are bad to the bone.  Well, actually there are no bones.  But they are without a doubt the best jerky-type item I have ever eaten.

The Caramel Overload ice cream is possibly the best ice cream I’ve ever had.  I contemplated not blogging it because I was worried other Downtowners would buy it all up, and they’d be out next time I wanted a pint.  But, what the heck.

And, of, course, no meal would be complete without Mountain Dew.

I wonder what my health guru AL thinks of my lunch.  I have a feeling she’d probably approve, except that she’d recommend replacing the Mountain Dew with some kind of disgusting tofu milkshake.

Gonna spend a few hours building websites – the next two websites I put up will be somewhat controversial, which makes building them even more fun.  After that it’ll be time for a long day of plans involving alcohol.

Today’s issue of the Memphis Business Journal has an article about Frank’s Grocery, a new grocery store to go in at the corner of Main and Vance, in the old Frank’s Liquors location. It will be owned by Bud Chittom who is a principal in several of the businesses on Beale Street (Blues City Cafe, Club 152). He says that although it will not be the size of a big-box Kroger, care will be taken to address the needs of Downtowners. “It won’t just be a place for cigarettes and potato chips,” said Chittom. The store will also have a deli and bicycle delivery. That will be a great addition to Downtown, and right on the trolley line. Very nice.

Tomorrow there will be a chitlin’ cooking contest at Handy Park from 9 AM to 3 PM. Also, Dr. BBQ, whoever he is, will hand out free samples of pig tails. Why would you miss an event like that? Local luminaries such as John D have already hinted they will be there. No doubt John D will wash down his chitlins with a 32 oz. Bud Light.

MATA will offer free trolley rides next week during lunchtime. For more details see this Memphis Business Journal article. For those who work in the core, it’ll be a good chance to ride down to Earnestine & Hazel’s and try a soul burger or their new slaw dog for lunch.

The Memphis Flyer notes that AutoZone Park has been named one of the most vegetarian-friendly ballparks in the nation. Patrons can order grilled vegetable paninis, veggie dogs, crudites, hummus, and bruschetta at ballgames, and PETA likes that and ranks the Memphis park highly. What the hell is a “crudite?” I’ll stick to good old BBQ nachos. I’m sure my health guru AL will be happy though.

David Byrne from the Talking Heads will appear at the Orpheum with Brian Eno on September 23. They’ve been writing together since 1981, and are touring in the fall in support of their new album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Tickets are $52.50/$42.50 plus all of Ticketmaster’s usual bullshit fees, and you can get tickets at ticketmaster.com. You can download “Strange Overtones,” a song from the new album, at everythingthathappens.com.

Not sure what I’ll be getting into tonight.  I’ll probably go out in a little while.  The Dead Elvis Week people are starting to arrive in town, wonder if they’ll be on Beale.  They can be fun to talk to.