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The Memphis Business Journal reports that a new lounge called The Silly Goose will open in the space formerly occupied by Swig by December.  It will be operated by several partners who know the area well, including Daniel Masters who used to bartend at Dan McGuinness.  It will be a laid-back lounge, the article states, a place for locals to go, with over 400 different types of liquor.  They’ll have plenty of wine and beer on hand too.  They’ll serve lunch and dinner, and will have a happy hour from 3 to 8 PM and a second happy hour from 11 PM to 3 AM.  I can’t wait for this place to open.

Fun times at Big Foot’s party last night.  I got there at 8 before the place got crowded and drank a Super Cold Coors Light.  Several times I’ve noticed the Super Cold machine and thought, wow, they made it look like it’s covered in ice.  Well, last night I found out how they did it… it really is ice all over the machine.  So you truly are getting beer at below-freezing temperatures.

They had Meghan out from behind the bar, hostessing in a low-cut blouse and one of her old Flying Saucer miniskirts and not serving any customers.  Truly Big Foot has discovered how to best utilize Meghan’s talents.  My compliments to whomever placed a fan near the kitchen entrance, which blew her skirt up every time she walked by.

Plans for tonight:  None whatsoever.  I need a good night’s rest to be ready to go for the Cooper-Young Festival tomorrow.  I’ve decided I’m going to ride my bike down there… I plan on getting there around 10:30, and will be at the festival until it ends at 7.  Mmmm… looking forward to a day of festival food.  Gyros and pizza and stuff.  I hope those nachos from Germantown Commissary are back this year.  I also hope that the convenience store at Cooper and Evelyn has stocked up on PBR tall-boys.

More news later… check back.

This is going to be the condensed version because it’s 1 AM.

I had an interview with Channel 3 at 7 PM about the benefits of the Downtown safety patrol.  At 6:45 I got a call from Mike King, the co-moderator of the Handling-Panhandling group.  He told me St. Jude Bum, the guy who panhandles and tells people that the money they give him is a St. Jude donation, was at the Elvis statue.  Did I mention that St. Jude bum had an oustanding warrant?  Interestingly enough, my 7 PM interview was to take place at the Elvis statue.

Mike called the Downtown safety patrol.  They called the cops.  The cops showed up at precisely 7:01 PM.  I pointed him out and the cameras got a shot of St. Jude Bum being cuffed and put in a car.

I don’t remember what I said but it could not have possibly compared to that image.  Kudos to Mike on a job well done.

More to come tomorrow or this weekend.

Tonight I’m meeting Channel 3 for an interview.  They saw my post on the Downtown safety patrol, and how we may not be able to keep them around if it’s not fully funded by local businesses and stakeholders.  (No tax money goes toward funding the patrol.)  They’re meeting me at one of Downtown’s panhandling hotspots at 7 tonight to talk about it.  Not sure when the story will air, could be as early as 10 tonight.  Turn on the news and look for me if you’re in front of a TV at that hour.

Had a very important demo at 12:30 today, so no time to do a lunchtime post, sorry.  Real quick update… don’t forget Big Foot Lodge’s back to school party tonight.  $2 Super Cold 34 oz. Coors Light, $4 Red Bull and vodka, $4 Blue Anchor and Flying Moose.  There will be a DJ and the party kicks off at 8 PM.  Also, the Dempseys play the Saucer tonight, starting at 9:30 with a $3 cover.  So I guess I’ll hit the Big Foot party for the first hour or so, then head to the Saucer.  Should be a fun night.

The Downtown safety patrol has had some big successes in the past 5 months.  Most recently they found out the name of the panhandler who has been asking for money claiming it’s a donation for St. Jude.  During their first 12 weeks on the job, they responded to 476 requests from Downtown residents and visitors, mostly panhandling requests.

Downtown is statistically the safest neighborhood in Memphis, but like many urban areas, it sees its share of quality of life crimes like panhandling, public intoxication, and disorderly conduct.  This can cause visitors to conclude that Downtown is not safe, and keep them from wanting to come back and spend money at Downtown businesses.

The Downtown safety patrol runs from 8 AM-9 PM Sunday-Wednesday and 8 AM-11 PM Thursday-Saturday.  There are two officers on bike on duty during these hours.  They have received 36 hours of training from private security firm CDA, Inc., and 28 additional hours of training by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department.  (One of those hours of training was provided by myself and Handling-Panhandling co-founder Mike King.  We educated them on common panhandling gimmicks and gave them color printouts with photos and MO’s of some of Downtown’s most active aggressive panhandlers.)  They stay in regular communication with the Memphis Police and can call them in if a situation warrants it.  Also, by being on the streets 13-15 hours a day, they have learned where the true hotspots are for panhandling and other crimes, and they have passed this data onto MPD so officers can be utilized more effectively.

The program costs $200,000 to operate, and will not be able to continue if funding is not provided by stakeholders and business owners.  Suggested donations for businesses include

• $250/year for businesses with less than 5 employees
• $500/year for 6-25 employees
• $1000/year for 25-50 employees
• $2500/year for 50-100 employees
• $5000/year for more than 1000 employees

Contributions are tax deductible.  You can contact Larry Bloom at bloom@downtownmemphis.com or at 901-575-0562 if you would like to contribute.

Please forward this post to Downtown business owners.  If you remember how things were before April 1 – when the panhandlers and thugs had free run of the streets – then you understand how vital it is to keep the Downtown safety patrol in place.

Major success in the fight against the panhandlers… this morning, I learned the identity of the guy who has been going around selling the Downtown Merchant Guide and other free magazines, claiming the money is for donations for St. Jude.  The information came from the CCC so it appears that the Downtown Safety Patrol were the ones responsible for uncovering his identity.  Great work!

I’m not going to post his name here, but his name, picture, date of birth, and a summary of his extensive criminal record (including felonies such as assault, drug charges, aggravated robbery, and grand larceny) are on the Handling-Panhandling online forum.  If you’re fed up with criminal panhandlers like this guy, click the link to join the forum and help us clean up the streets of Downtown Memphis.

By the way, for his last two arrests (the most recent being August 8) he had a listed address in the Highland-Park area.  So much for the mistaken belief that homeless and panhandlers are one and the same.

Working together as a community, we’re making life tough for the criminal panhandlers down here.  We’ve all but run Jumper Cable Guy out of Downtown.  Hopefully we can do the same for St. Jude Guy.  As I’ve said before, only the absolute scum of the earth would lie about representing a children’s charity to get money.

The team of St. Jude scientists (two of whom are pictured above), after a lot of trash talking, again lost to the Rapscallions at trivia last night.  That makes three weeks in a row they’ve lost to us, and three weeks in a row they’ve finished out of the prize money.  Their team name is “Finding Cures and Drinking Beers.”  Maybe it should be “Finding Cures, Drinking Beers, and Sucking at Trivia.”

The bad news is, two teams beat us, so we finished third with a $10 prize.  Still, not bad – in three weeks we’ve earned $110 in prize money.  The St. Jude scientists earned $0 over the same period, but I felt bad and gave them a quarter so they could say their time spent at trivia wasn’t a total waste.

There’s a bum on the streets who claims to be taking donations for St. Jude…  maybe the St. Jude team should invite him to join.  I’m sure he’d raise the collective IQ of the group, and I bet he’d be willing to do it if the team bought him beer for the duration of the trivia match.  They would probably want to hide their purses, cell phones, and other valuables while he’s around though.

Or, perhaps the St. Jude team should think about re-locating to the East Bumblefuck Saucer for Tuesday trivia… I’ve heard they have to dumb down the questions out there because it’s Cordova.  Or they could go to Tug’s on the Island for Tuesday trivia – no idea about the difficulty of that one, but the fact that the Rapscallions aren’t there would greatly their chances of winning a prize.

Time to head to work… apologies to all my readers who pulled up the blog this morning looking for useful information, and found this instead.

According to this website, the inventory of Platinum Plus is to be auctioned off “Saturday, September 11” (don’t ask me if they mean Thursday the 11th or Saturday the 13th, I don’t know).  Platinum Plus aka the Mt. Moriah Center for the Performing Arts was shut down by the feds a couple of years ago, and the government, who now owns the inventory, is now auctioning it off.  Items you can bid on include

• Cash registers that once held money from (allegedly) illegal transactions
• 3-year old bottles of Corona
• Outfits once worn by some of the nastiest whores in town
• Furniture that said whores have rubbed their private parts all over

Sounds like a winner, huh?  Check the site for more details.

My happy hour search engine got a mention on the AltSearchEngines blog yesterday.  Great site… that one’s going on my bookmarks list, so I can learn about new specialized search engines that come online.

Several times in the past month, I’ve received e-mails asking if I’m interested in contract web design work.  Right now I can’t do it… between a 40-hour-a-week job and my own websites I’m building on the side, I’m just too busy to take outside work right now.  I don’t want to put my own sites (like the happy hour search) on hold right now, because I see those as assets I’m building that will pay off in the long run.  The good news, however, is that I now have someone I can refer web projects to, a friend of mine I ran into last night at the Saucer who has a very good freelance web design business going.  If you have a project you need done, shoot me an e-mail (paul@paulryburn.com) and I’ll put you in touch with him.

It’s official, Dunkin’ Donuts has signed the lease for their store at Main and Union.  Details here.

Also, another new business… took a walk this morning to get my eyes off the computer for a few minutes, and noticed there’s a new sign in 51 S. Main (formerly Renee’s Sandwich Shop).  It reads, “ON THE RIVER Seafood & More.”  I look forward to seeing the menu… wonder if it will continue to be a lunch-only place… that would be most unusual for a seafood restaurant.

Tonight is our weekly trivia night, where once again the mighty Rapscallions will hand a beating to the team full of St. Jude people.  One of them was up at the Saucer last night doing some trash-talking every time I passed by.  Except, it’s hard to talk trash when you’ve lost every time.  “Weeeellll…. yeah maybe you beat us last week and the week before, but THIS WEEK is gonna be different.  And last week we only lost by TWO POINTS.”  Hmmm yeah whatever. 

All right.  Time to grab a sandwich from Court House Deli and head back to work.

I had a reader respond to my post announcing my new Rat Race store with an article about a new concept about co-working.  Co-working is for people who have already escaped the corporate world, work for themselves, and then realize they are lonely because they don’t have any coworkers to talk to all day.  So entrepreneurs are starting to set up co-working arrangements, where you can share space with other self-employed people, to have someone to socialize with as you get your work done.  Here’s a Chicago Tribune article with more info on co-working.

For me personally, in the past when I’ve been self-employed I never had any trouble working from home… when I got lonely I’d just toss my laptop in the car and head to a coffee shop.  Or the Saucer, if it was work I could do while drinking beer.  However, I’ve talked to other self-employed people and they’ve said exactly the things in the article above, that it’s lonely working alone at times.  Maybe Memphis should set up a co-working community… according to wiki.coworking.info, Little Rock and Nashville have co-working communities, but not yet Memphis.

Whew… looks like a busy week shaping up.  Tonight I plan to work on yet another website, then hit either Pint Nite or some of the NFL specials around Downtown later in the evening.  Tomorrow is trivia night.  Wenesday my health guru AL and I are having our latest food adventure – Pa Pa Pia’s this time.  Thursday Big Foot Lodge has its Back to School party, and The Dempseys play the Saucer at 9:30.  Friday I’m taking the night off to rest up for Saturday, because I’ll be on my feet all day long at the Cooper-Young Fest.  Looks like if we get rain from Hurricane Ike, it won’t be here until a couple days after Cooper-Young.

Time to get back to a fun afternoon of Cascading Style Sheets.