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I’m hung over. This post is probably going to suck.

As usual, I’m sitting in Otherlands using their Wi-Fi to make my usual lunchtime post. Kinda hungry for a burger. Let’s see what they have on their menu… “Veggie burger (choose a Garden or Boca burger).” Hmmm. Yeah. I think I’ll be hitting Burger King’s drive-thru on the way back to work.

The new Memphis Flyer is out… let’s see what we’ve got this week. Leon Gray’s show on Progressive Talk 680 AM got cancelled! Wow. When I worked in East Memphis I used to listen to his show every afternoon on the drive home. Now that I work in Midtown the drive is too short to even bother turning on the radio, so I wasn’t aware he was gone. Apparently mum’s the word from the station manager. Anyone got the 411 on why Leon left? E-mail me if you do. I won’t mention it on the blog if you don’t want, just curious as a Leon fan and progressive radio listener.

There’s a musical at Playhouse on the Square called “Urinetown.” This is probably a musical about the Main Street Mall, which reeks of urine because the bums use vacant storefronts as their own personal bathrooms. The horses that pull the carriages urinate on the mall too, but the carriage drivers carry buckets of soapy water to clean up after the horses. Nobody cleans up after the bums.

Mpact Memphis is having its After Hours on the rooftop of The Lofts, Tennessee at GE Patterson, next Wednesday at 6 PM, with music by The Glass. I haven’t done anything with Mpact in a while but this event sounds pretty cool. I guess I’ll check it out. I wonder if I’ll be the only one who shows up in shorts. I can’t help but think back to the event Mpact did at AutoZone Park last June, where I wore a T-shirt and shorts and everyone else was wearing “business casual” attire or suits despite the fact that the event was outdoors and it was, like, 99 degrees. Being comfortable is more important to me than projecting the image of a “young professional.” I’m a young un-professional. They better have alcohol at this event.

I really like my horoscope for this week in the Flyer. I’d post it but it would take too long to type and besides, posting and commenting on horoscopes is Kat’s thing. Kat is a fellow Scorpio. Liana the blond Romanian who was here last summer is a fellow Scorpio (we actually share the same birthday). The Most Annoying Woman On The Planet is a fellow Scorpio, and I’m tempted to type a few comments on her Scorpio traits, but again, it would take too long.

Quick recap of events at the Saucer last night: My Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis co-founder Mike King presented me with a framed copy of last week’s Flyer article about our organization and my blog. His dad had it framed for me. Thanks Mike, and Mike’s dad.

Let’s see… what else happened… I ran into Mendi, who put “I made Downtown Paul’s blog!” on her MySpace page last week. She was there to pick up her debit card, which she apparently loses all the time. I just took another look at her MySpace page… under “Heroes,” she lists Raiford. This girl is cool. We gotta hang out sometime.

Our trivia team turned in a poor performance last night, but then, a lot of the questions just plain sucked. There were almost no pop-culture questions, nullifying the Nuh-Uh Girl’s contribution to the team. Trivia Guy did a “here’s a world map, identify the marked country” question and it was Iraq. I was shocked how many people didn’t know it was Iraq. Hasn’t anyone watched the news in the past three years?

One of the bartenders recommended a good beer mixer – a chocolate cherry. Half Young’s Double Chocolate, half Sam Adams Cherry Wheat. Haven’t tried one yet but it sounds pretty good.

And lunch hour is over. My plan was to start work on a redesign of Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis’ website with links to our objectives, accomplishments and all that stuff, but what did I do instead? Spent an hour typing this crap-fest of a post. Oh well. Pam e-mailed and requested that I post some new reading material on my blog, and since Pam’s profile pic on her MySpace page is a pic of her in a tube top, how could I say no. Back to the cubicle for an exciting afternoon of figuring out why my Page_Load event and my Button_Click event are conflicting. There’s an ad on the back of the Flyer that says, “Make your computer problem, our problem.” My computer problem is that I have to sit in a damn cubicle all afternoon when I’d rather be at a bar. Perhaps I should call this guy and see if he’ll come sit in the cubicle for me. Anyway, I’m outta here. Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday…

Two weeks ago, when I was trying desperately to get the word out about crime downtown, my friend and fellow blogger AngieDawn sent out an e-mail, containing the crime posts and a link to my blog, to 70 Memphians. That e-mail led to interest from Channel 5 and other organizations, and led to us getting the attention and exposure we needed to get Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis off the ground.

Angie now lives in California, but when she lived here she did a lot of good work to promote Memphis and make it a better place to live. She and I worked together on several projects in Mpact Memphis. Since moving to Cali, Angie has obtained her MBA and is now a successful, profitable online entrepreneur. As thanks for all her help, I would like to list some of the shopping sites she runs, and I’d like to ask my readers to consider purchasing from her sites, as thanks for her help for spreading the word about our fight against crime. Purchases from all of these sites are 100% secure.

Fashion sites:

• Pink-Couture.com is a great place to buy designer handbags by Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, and more! All orders receive free shipping and returns, and come with a 110% price guarantee and a 365 day return policy.
• ShoeSaurus.com offers shoes for the entire family. ShoeSaurus carries all sizes and brands that you’ve seen at other stores, but it also offers free shipping, free returns, no sales tax, and a 110% price guarantee.
• LacosteShoes.Pink-Couture.com is your one stop shop for Lacoste Women’s Shoes. You’ll get a great selection, free shipping, free returns, and a 110% price guarantee!
• If you’re looking for reviews on the latest summer wedges and espadrilles, you should check out WedgeShoes.Blogspot.com. Shoes features include Michael Kors, Anne Klein, Kenneth Cole, and more!

Technology site:

• WebHosting.ShopSaurus.com helps users to find and purchase the web hosting plan that best fits their needs. It’s especially good for bloggers or those who would like to create their own homepage. Plans start at less than $5 a month.

Those are only about 5 of the 15 shopping sites that Angie has created. You can see them all at www.angiedawn.net/blog, and you can also go there to keep up with her latest adventures in L.A., Memphis, Italy, or wherever she happens to be.

Hey Angie, how about a tube top e-store for my readers?

(Note: I made a slight correction to the info about the Goodwyn party, see below.)

– First and foremost: Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis now has their core objectives posted online. Mike King and I worked for hours on these objectives yesterday. Check them out – go to the Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis website and click on the link that says “news section.” If you have any questions or comments about the objectives, shoot us an e-mail at saferdowntownmemphis@gmail.com.

– Next up: Got a one-question quiz for you. Someone forwarded this to me in an e-mail this morning.

There’s a well-known company that has slightly over 500 employees. It has the following statistics:

• 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
• 7 have been arrested for fraud
• 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
• 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
• 3 have done time for assault
• 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
• 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
• 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
• 21 are current defendants in lawsuits
• 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the past year

Can you guess the identity of this company? Answer at the end of this post.

– I wouldn’t be a good downtown blogger if I didn’t post a pigeon pic every now and then. Today I was walking to Jack’s Food Store and I saw this unusually-marked pigeon in Court Square:

Definitely different-looking from the usual gray-and-black (-and-purple-and-green) pigeons that we see every day. There must be some white doves or other white birds in his ancestry. Despite the different look, he was still as annoying as all the other pigeons in the park.

Attn The Most Annoying Woman On The Planet: The pigeons request that you come stand in the middle of Court Square, so that they’ll look good by comparison.

Saturday night I went to Raiford’s. I didn’t want to deal with the crowd downtown that had come to see the boxing match, so I got to Raiford’s at 10:30 and parked myself there for the night. What I discovered: Raiford’s isn’t so much fun when you go by yourself. About 2 in the morning my buddies showed up and from then on I had a great time. I danced with a girl in a white tube top. I had my usual outfit (maroon sequined shirt with matching pimp hat, sunglasses, and platform shoes) on. I need to get a pic of that to post on the blog. Maybe I’ll make that my new profile pic.

When I got home, I checked the archives of the OttoCam to see what the cruisers had been up to. It wasn’t as busy as I expected, but the streets did get congested for a while. Here are some pics:

12:23 AM Saturday morning. Intersection of Front and Peabody Place is in the foreground, with Front and Beale farther back. Note the white Monte Carlo turning left from Front onto Peabody Place.

12:24 AM: The white Monte Carlo has made about one car length of progress.

12:25 AM: Again, the Monte Carlo has moved forward by less than a car length. This is how bad the streets get clogged up on Saturday nights. If it were all people trying to get somewhere it would be one thing, but that’s not the case – at least half these people are cruisers, just driving around for the fun of it.

1:05 AM: The streets are still jammed.

1:07 AM: The cops finally shut down the intersection and…

1:09 AM: …things are back to normal.

A friend of mine who lives in Gayoso House, who was returning from an event in Midtown Saturday night, told me that it took her 30 minutes to get into her parking garage once she got downtown because of all the cruiser-related congestion. Once inside, she was treated to the thundering sounds of car stereos for hours and hours, making it impossible to sleep.

One thing I’d like to do is go over there some Saturday night with my digital camera, which is also a voice recorder. I’d like to record how loud the stereos are, from inside an apartment, and post the recording on the Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis website. I’d also like to start a campaign within the Gayoso where all of the residents of that building who are disturbed by car stereos on Saturday night call the downtown precinct (525-9800) and report violations of the noise ordinance. Inundate the police with calls so they understand how fed up that building’s residents are with the cruising. And if the police can’t clean it up, then have all of the residents call their City Council representative (I won’t post his phone number here, but I have it and will give it to people individually) and complain until something is done.

A few events coming up this week:

Wednesday: I’ve been forgetting to remind people that LoLo’s Table on Monroe does Wine Wednesday every week. They select a different red and white wine each week, and sell them for $12 a bottle or $4 a glass. They also select appetizers that complement the wines and put those on special too. This is a good choice for a mid-week date. Don’t know if I’ll be there, but nonetheless I recommend it.

Thursday: Reception where you can get info about the condos in the Goodwyn Building, at the corner of Madison and Second. The condos are currently under development, but they’ll have plenty of information and presentations so you can get a feel for what the interior will look like. Reception will be held in my building (10 S. Main) from 5 to 8 PM. (Correction: I had initially said this would be on the rooftop, but it looks like a different party – a private party – will be on the roof, so I’m guessing this will be in the lobby. Just want to make sure no one shows up at the wrong party) The developers restoring these condos are the same ones who restored No. 10 Main, so I have no doubt they’ll do an excellent job. They’ll have free appetizers and booze, so it goes without saying that I’ll be there for this one.

Thursday: The Dempseys, at the downtown Flying Saucer. Show starts at 9:30.

Between the Goodwyn party and the Dempseys, I probably won’t make it to the Peabody rooftop at all this week. What’s the point in going up there for an hour and then leaving? Although, people do it. Every week, I see people lined up to pay cover at 9:15, when the event ends at 10. What’s the point? By the time you stand in the line for an entry ticket, stand in line for a drink ticket, and stand in line to get the drink, it’ll be over.

All right, let’s wrap this up. The well-known company I described at the beginning of this post, with 535 employees, is the United States Congress. 100 Senators and 435 Representatives. That’s their track record. Is it any wonder that Congressional job approval (according to RealClearPolitics) is at 25.8%?

Click here to view the rest of the pictures

The Memphis Farmers Market is held at the Central Station Pavilion at the corner of Front and G.E. Patterson every Saturday from 7 AM to 1 PM through the end of October. For once on a Saturday I woke up early, so I rode my bike down there.

I didn’t snap a pic of every booth, but I tried to get pics of enough booths to show the variety that you will find at the market. One exception: there were some arts and crafts vendors there as well, but they had “no photos” signs in their booths, so I respected their wishes. I resized most of the photos to 800×600, except where there was fine detail I wanted to leave in: those I kept at 5-megapixel resolution.

Quote of the morning comes from Julie from Cafe Francisco, who has been reading my recent blog entries about crime and tube tops. “If there were more tube tops,” offered Julie, “perhaps there would be less crime.” I think she’s right. Smart lady.

Looks like not much exciting happened on the OttoCam at Front and Peabody Place last night, after reviewing his webcam archives for the past 24 hours. I guarantee you it’ll be busy tonight though, with a big boxing match downtown in addition to the usual Saturday night cruising. Once again, I would expect the busiest time to be 11 PM – 3 AM.

And that’s it for now. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

I’m sitting here at the Saucer on my laptop. Didn’t intend to be working on the computer on a Friday night, but it was important to me to get the news section of the Residents of a Safer Downtown Memphis site up as soon as possible – and it just came up. Check it out. Besides, the Saucer is not a bad place to sit and work. A girl in a tube top keeps walking by, and of course the waitresses are here. Mikey is sitting here with me working on the site (now that this is back to being my personal blog, he’s “Mikey” again, not “Mike King”). We’re jokingly referring to the Saucer as “our office.” I think our office needs to hire a few Romanian employees.

One thing I mentioned in a post last week is that we have bought a video camera and plan to start using it to record crimes committed downtown. We plan to focus on two problems in particular which we see as gateways into other types of crime, areas which we feel are not currently being adequately addressed: panhandling and cruising.

To re-state a point I made in an earlier post, we’re going to record some of the shit that goes down in this area on the weekends. (Now that this is back to being my personal blog, I’m not inserting an asterisk in place of the “i”, and I’m not apologizing for foul language.) We’re going to record aggressive panhandlers cursing people out and following them down the street after they’ve said no. We’re going to record prostitution. We’re going to record violations of the noise ordinance. We’re going to record flagrant violations of traffic laws committed by cruisers. Then we’re going to make DVDs and send them to city leaders to convince them how out of control these situations are. We may put the videos on the web as well.

Well, since that idea came into being, we’ve received e-mails from people wanting to help. One of them has set up a webcam that overlooks the intersection of Front and Peabody Place: you can see the current image here, and the image is updated every two minutes. (You’ll have to hit F5 in your browser to refresh the image; it doesn’t automatically reload the page when a new image is captured.) You can also view all images taken over the last 24 hours by selecting from this index.

The intersection of Front and Peabody Place is in the foreground of the image, and farther back you can see the intersection of Front and Beale. This is prime cruising territory on the weekends, and it will be very interesting to see what the camera picks up. Unfortunately the webcam doesn’t have sound, so we won’t catch any noise violations. But I think it will give everyone downtown an idea how badly the cruisers snarl up traffic between about 11 PM and 3 AM, on Friday-Sunday nights and especially on Saturday.

We’ll see what happens. Happy weekend everybody…

– This morning as I was walking the halls at my consulting job at the school board, I noticed a new poster on the wall. It advertised what looked like a really great opportunity and I thought I’d pass on the info to anyone who might be interested:

The University of Memphis will pay full tuition and fees for anyone wishing to get a Master of Arts in Teaching, provided that they agree to teach math or science in the Memphis City Schools after graduation. That’s basically a free ride worth about 25 grand… everything is covered except examinations and books. You’ll also be placed in a student teaching program at a middle school in the Memphis City Schools system, earning $19,000 a year as a part-time teacher. To be eligible, you need to have a Bachelor’s degree with a 2.5 GPA or above, and you have to pass their entrance exams.

Sounds like a really good deal. Visit their website for more info. If you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you know I haven’t always been the biggest fan of the city schools, but since I started working there I have been very, very impressed by their commitment to excellence and the passion for education that exists within the system. I predict we’re going to hear a lot of good things about MCS over the next few years.

– FUN TUBE TOP FACT: When Americans hear the term “boob tube,” we think of television. But when the British talk about “boob tubes,” they are referring to what we here in the States call tube tops. Boob tubes… I kinda like that.

– Last night I discovered that one of my favorite beers of all time, Sam Adams Cherry Wheat, is now on tap at the Flying Saucer. It’s the seasonal Sam Adams beer for summer. I haven’t had Cherry Wheat in years. I used to buy it at 616’s import bar back in the ’90s. (Although, it technically isn’t an import, since it’s made in the USA.) If you like flavored beers you gotta try one – tastes like you’re drinking a bowl of cherries. It’s $4 a glass, or you can catch it on Mondays for $2.50 at Pint Nite.

– Plans for this weekend: Undecided at this point. I heard a rumor that the elusive Master Polo (who is something of a Memphis legend on MySpace) may make an appearance at Raiford’s this weekend, and if that’s the case I may have to show up and meet this guy in person. Besides, I had a blast at Raiford’s last Saturday night and am ready to go again. Looks like I’ll be missing my usual Sunday bottle of champagne to meet with Mike King about next steps for Residents for a Safer Downtown – you know I’m serious about an issue when I alter my drinking plans.

– Check back later today… I have a webcam link for you. But right now, my lunch hour is over, and it’s back to an exciting afternoon of sitting in a cubicle and building an asset inventory web application. Fun fun fun…

The Big Foot regular I mentioned in the previous post – the one who came up and said “I hear it’s Tube Top Month” – has updated her MySpace page. Her headline now reads “I made Downtown Paul’s Blog!” and under “Who I’d Like to Meet,” she wrote, “I met Downtown Paul last night, so I’m golden in this department.”

Wow. I didn’t realize knowing me was a big deal, but thank you.

Also on MySpace… I got a message saying, “Club 616 wants to be your friend!” That’s the club where I hung out for the majority of the 1990s… it hasn’t existed in physical form in seven years… and now it’s popped up on MySpace. Guess it’s a good way to reconnect with all the club’s old regulars, most of whom are in their thirties by now. I wonder how often they change the music on their page. If I visit 616’s MySpace page on Sunday, I better hear some disco.

Plans for tonight: I’m about to head up to the Saucer to drink a beer or two, then I’ll hit the Peabody rooftop by 7:30. After the rooftop, I’ll probably head back to the Saucer. Or, perhaps I’ll stop by Big Foot… as generous as they were last night, they deserve all the business I can give them. Besides, Thursday along with Monday and Tuesday are good nights to go to Big Foot, because on those nights there is the least chance of The Most Annoying Woman On The Planet showing up.

Got some information on the Friday night Gibson rooftop parties, which are being called Finally Fridays. They ran an ad in the Flyer this week reading, “the ‘largest’ roof party in the Memphis.” That’s their typo, not mine. Here’s a link to their website. Cover is $15, or VIP access for $50. Has anyone been to one of these yet? I gotta tell you, after seeing their ad copy, their website design, and their cover charge, I’m not particularly inclined to go.

Downtown is beginning to see the annual influx of Eastern Europeans who come here for their summer break. No Romanians yet, though, at least none that I’m aware of.

Ahhh… it feels good to have my blog back. Time for a beer! I hope they’ve got something good on Fire Sale tonight.

If you’re looking for info on Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis, we now have a website and an e-mail address. The website is currently just a splash page but I’ll have some kind of newsletter mechanism in place by this weekend. From this point forward all business related to downtown crime will be conducted there. If you want to see my crime posts that kicked this whole thing off, check the archives on or about Monday, June 5 and read forward from that date. And now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging.

– Last night was the 1-year birthday party for Big Foot Lodge, and as usual Sean put on one hell of a bash. The party featured $2 you-call-it drinks, but I went for quantity over quality and went with $2 34 oz. cups of Bud Select. I sipped my beer and watched the angry lobsters in Big Foot’s tank fight it out as best they could, given that their claws were taped shut. They all seemed to be ganging up on one lobster in the corner, and by the end of the evening, he was lying on his side, dead. Lobsters are some mean critters. I don’t feel so bad about eating them after seeing that.

– One of the other Big Foot regulars who I had not met before came up to me and said, “So, I hear it’s Tube Top Month!” And she was reprazentin’ in a white tube top. Glad to see my blog is making a difference. I had actually seen her before, surfing MySpace pages. I went back to her page just now and discovered a comment one of her girlfriends left on Monday: “I may have to hit up the pint nite tonight… you going? I really hope this gal will be working… she’s my favorite!” and there was a picture of me in my Halloween costume, when I dressed up as one of the Flying Saucer waitresses. Too funny.

– Met a lot of other cool people too… Hugh Jass, nice to finally meet you after seeing you out at clubs for more than a decade. Let me know if the anniversary party happens… I’ll give it some publicity on the blog.

– Dammit… lunch hour’s over already. Time to shut down the laptop and head back to work, so it’s going to be a short post today. I will mention one event coming up this weekend… the Orpheum will be showing This is Spinal Tap on the big screen Saturday night as part of their classic movie series (and they’re really stretching the definition of “classic” this time). I’ll leave you with some lyrics from the Spinal Tap soundtrack:

Big bottom
Big bottom
Talk about mud flaps,
My girl’s got ’em

Big bottom
Drive me out of my mind
How can I leave this
Behind…

Hey! Spinal Tap wrote a song about the girl I danced with at Raiford’s last weekend. How cool is that?

I’ll be on the Peabody rooftop tonight for their weekly party. If you see me up there, say hello!

If I find out about more stuff to do this weekend, I’ll make another post later today.

I just set up the new Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis website at http://www.saferdowntownmemphis.com. Right now it’s just a front page with a link to our e-mail address (and not the most attractive page at that – I had a lunch hour in which to create it), but we plan on adding news and updates no later than this weekend.

Okay… now that the site is up, from now on that will be the place to go for information on crime in downtown Memphis and opportunities to do something positive in response. And starting tomorrow, my blog will go back to being my PERSONAL blog. Meaning, I’ll be going back to talking about pigeons and what the bums are drinking this week and tube tops and Romanians and who won trivia this week at the Saucer (the Rapscallions came in fourth last night in my absence, in case anyone cares). I may do a “welcome to my blog” orientation type of post since I’ll be picking up a lot of new readers from the Flyer article. And I may continue to comment about crime, but will be doing it as Paul Ryburn, downtown resident, not as Paul Ryburn, co-founder of Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis (that takes a long time to type… we should have come up with a shorter name).

But right now, I’m heading out to celebrate – eventually I will end up at Big Foot Lodge for their 1st birthday party. See you tomorrow!

This blog, and our new organization to fight back against crime, are mentioned in Bruce VanWyngarden’s editorial on page 3.

He even mentioned that it’s Tube Top Month.