Paul Ryburn's Journal

I was an hour late getting to the Saucer for Sunday Fun Day yesterday, but when I walked in I noticed something new.

They’ve added a make-your-own Bloody Mary bar. You pay for a glass with ice and vodka, and then you spice and garnish it as you like. They had a variety of Bloody Mary ingredients (click on the photo to see the ingredients in a larger size), allowing you to customize your beverage as you see fit.

I uploaded a pic of the Bloody Mary bar to Facebook and joked around that they copied the idea from the Silly Goose, but Saucer GM Kirk had the last laugh on that one. He replied that he started doing the Bloody Mary bar at the Cordova Saucer five years ago – it just hadn’t made its way Downtown until this week. So the Saucer is actually the originator of the Bloody Mary bar in Memphis. Good for them for trying something new – it will probably draw more women to the Saucer for Sunday Fun Day.

In other news: My friend Kevin Cerrito, who is the host of Ferraro’s Tuesday night trivia, is trying to win Doritos Locos tacos for the entire city. To help him win, retweet this tweet.

The usual drill for me tonight. Pint Nite at the Saucer at 6, poker at the Goose at 7:30.

Last night I found myself sitting next to one of the BBQ team’s board members at the Blind Bear last night. He was discussing team shirts, and I impressed upon him that there must be a tube top option for team uniform this year. This is something the old team talked about almost from the first year, but never managed to get done. This year we’re going to try our best to make it happen. See, this is the kind of positive influence I have on the Moody Ques.

Speaking of the BBQ team, I uploaded a photo gallery of team members and our friends having fun at past BBQ Fests.

Allow extra time if you come Downtown today. It’s Soup Sunday at the FedExForum and Million Dollar Quartet‘s last day at the Orpheum. Favor to ask: If someone can get a photo of the Nuh-Uh Girl eating at Soup Sunday and send it to me for inclusion in the blog, I’d appreciate it.

I’m skipping Soup Sunday. Too crowded for me. I’ll be at the Majestic at 11 for brunch.

Last night, one of the new BBQ team’s board members texted me and gave me permission to share details of this year’s team. So here you go… the new team will be called the Moody Ques. It will be comprised mostly of people who were on other teams 2007-11, some even longer than that.

I mentioned yesterday that we had scored a major catch as our pitmaster, “a name you should know.” Now I can reveal that name – none other than Demitrie Phillips, formerly the chef at Stella and Bardog. He’s going to be the chef at Double J Saloon which will open soon in the South Main District. Owners Jeff Stamm and John Harris have brought Double J on board as a sponsor, and we are thrilled to have them. Demitrie has previous pitmaster experience, and will handle the championship meat. Lauren from my team’s cookteam last year will be back to handle the daily cooking.

WordPress is back as our sponsor. If you aren’t familiar with what WordPress does, you’re looking at it right now. WordPress is the content management system that powers this blog and tens of millions of other websites. Corporate users include the New York Times, GM, SONY, CNN, Forbes, and millions more. Company head honcho Matt Mullenweg is a huge BBQ fan, and he and his staff will be joining us in the booth. We are fortunate to have them and couldn’t ask for a better corporate sponsor.

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you may remember our 2009 and 2010 booths. They placed in the Best Booth competition both years, with an elaborately decorated exterior featuring the Memphis in May honored country. Inside, they looked more like a South Beach nightclub than a BBQ tent. They were designed by Brent Long of Holliday Flowers here in Memphis. Brent is back with us this year as Chief Design Officer. He has extensive design and event planning experience, and from what I hear he really plans to blow it all out and make our booth the one that everybody at BBQ Fest is talking about. This year he has 100% creative control – no micromanagement by the Board.

If you’ve been on a BBQ team, you know that Thursday and Friday nights are stressful. The park is flooded with people who don’t know anyone on teams, but try to get in booths anyway to mooch food, beer, and liquor. As a result, in past years we had members volunteer for security detail at the door those nights. I avoided security as much as I could, but there were a couple of shifts when no one else could do it. Here’s a typical scenario:

A guy who I’ve never seen before walks up to the front door. “Hey, Bob said I could come in.”

“Bob? You mean Bob Siler, the architect?”

“Yeah! That’s him! Bob!”

“I just made that name up. Get out.”

We often got cussed out, and in a couple of cases, fights almost broke out. That won’t happen this year. We’re getting off-duty MPD officers to work the door Thursday and Friday night. Someone wants to get out of line at the door this year? Go ahead, you might get a ride to 201.

Another stressful situation was the bar. We learned the first year we couldn’t just put the beer and liquor out on a help-yourself basis. So team members had to volunteer for bar shifts, sometimes missing the best hours of the festival. That won’t be a problem this year either. We’re getting professional bartenders to work the busy times, so all team members will be able to enjoy themselves.

In a couple of previous years, our old team’s membership numbers got inflated into the 70s. That caused there to be so many people in the booth (members and guests) that people had trouble having a good time. We also had people join each year (especially last year) who hardly anyone on the team knew. The new team will operate on an invite-only policy. As I said yesterday, I saw the list and thought, “these are exactly the people I want to be on a BBQ team with.” No hangers-on, no people who bring nothing to the table other than taking up space.

Another issue BBQ teams have is managing money. You need ice, the cart comes by, and whoever has money pulls it out and pays. It’s very easy to get member money co-mingled with team money, and as a result it can be very hard to track where team money is going. We have a Chief Financial Officer this year, one of the sharpest corporate accountants I know. He will keep the books balanced down to the penny. Team members and sponsors will be able to see the books at any time, and get a detailed spreadsheet that completely spells out where their money is being spent.

If you got an invite yesterday and are deciding whether to join, know this: We are not half-assing it this year. We are in it to win: We want a championship trophy for our pork. And we want to win in people’s minds as the best team with the best booth in the entire festival.

Massive kudos and respect to the five members of our board for the job they have done planning. This year is going to be incredible.

View a photo gallery of our team’s members and friends at previous BBQ Fests here.

I’m at Bardog with the netbook, uploading a photo gallery to the new BBQ team’s website. While files are moving around, you get a post, because I just learned some very important news.

If you’ve celebrated St. Patrick’s Day at Bardog in years past, you probably remember the super-short green Bardog shorts that Panda Manda had on. She is bartending today and just informed me that the shorts will be back for St. Pat’s. It’s on a Saturday this year, so it should be quite a day. St. Pat’s nearly rivals New Year’s Eve as Amateur Night, but Panda Manda in short shorts will make it all worthwhile,

Here’s a question to start off today’s blog post. Why did stripes on zebras evolve? Answer at the end of this post.

Meet Pong Beer, a new lager created for use in beer pong games.

Saw this on Twitter: Urban Dictionary, circa 1811.

The Grizzlies play the Denver Nuggets at FedExForum tonight. Game time is 7 PM.

The Tigers take on UTEP at the Forum tomorrow about noon. Apparently there was some confusion whether it starts at noon or 1; it’s noon. Game is on SportSouth, which means I’m going to need to redirect my day drinking activities to a bar that has Comcast.

WOOHOO! Just got my official invitation to be on the new BBQ team! Not that I didn’t already know I’d be invited, since I’ve been discussing the website with them for a couple of weeks now. The invite list reads like a who’s who of people I’d love to be on a BBQ team with, minus friends of ours who have already committed to already-existing team Squeal Street. I need to check with the team’s board members and see if I’m allowed to blog details yet. We’ve got a new pitmaster, and he’s as big a catch as getting WordPress as our main sponsor – as Don Cornelius would say, “a name you should know.”

Answer to the zebra question: Zebra stripes evolved to keep flies away.

Time for beer.

I didn’t have the time to do a lunchtime post today, because I had to go out to the Comcast office on Players Club Parkway and get a new DVR and an adapter box for my older TV. I headed that way early – about 10:15, because someone needed to use my computer at work – and was shocked to find NO LINE! After all the horror stories I’d heard about long lines, I was dreading it, but I was in and out in 10 minutes and they were very nice.

Speaking of DVRs – if you missed Memphis the musical when it was here, or if you enjoyed it and want to see it again, set your DVR. It will be on Great Performances on WKNO/Channel 10 on Sunday, February 26 at 8 PM. HOCKADOO!

The Memphis Flyer had an article on Grawemeyer’s, which will be a bakery/restaurant/wine bar open approximately 7 AM-midnight every day. The Grawemeyers are already partners with Chef Michael Patrick in Rizzo’s Diner. He’ll be the chef for the new place too, bringing on Jason Doty to handle the bakery. They’re shooting for the first week in March as the opening date.

Good WikiHow article: How to Tell if You Talk Too Much (with steps to take to fix it). WikiHow articles are not always of the best quality, but this one is spot on. I wish I could print out copies of it and place in “Please Take One” stands at the entrances to local bars. Quote from the article: “The effect that fast- and long-winded talkers tend to have is one of draining the other party, overwhelming and exhausting them until they can find a polite-enough exit strategy.” Exactly!

Bar and club fans: An interesting new app is being tested in the NY/NJ area. Have you ever wondered whether you’re wasting your cover when at the door at a bar or club? What if you pay, and then the crowd you’re hoping to see is not there? Entrepreneur Ben Silbert has a solution. He rents ID scanners to bars and clubs at below-market rates. The scanners, as they check for valid ID, transmit 4 pieces of information to the app’s database: Age, gender, zip code, and time of entry. The info is then pushed to the app, whose users can then tell, “oh, this club is full of 20-somethings, mostly male, from Long Island,” and decide whether it’s worth it to go in. The information is useful to club owners and managers too, who as a result know better how to target their marketing to their audience. Wonder if this will one day make it to Memphis?

Beer time. Will be at the Saucer in a few minutes.

Lifehacker reported on an iPhone/iPad app that many of you will find useful: Caffeine Zone. It tracks your caffeine intake and tells you if another cup will do any good. It’s a free download in the App Store.

The Memphis Zoo will start offering $5 camel rides this spring. Makes me think back to my last year teaching at the University of Memphis… the Jewish Student Union had an outdoor festival one day in the spring. My Computer Literacy class talked me into letting them go 30 minutes early so they wouldn’t miss out on the camel rides.

Eddie Vedder has been announced for May 1 at the Orpheum. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 on Ticketmaster and at the Orpheum box office.

Chef Michael Patrick of Rizzo’s Diner shared his cheeseburger soup recipe on Kerry’s I Love Memphis Blog today. Wow, didn’t realize there was lettuce in there. It really does have all the ingredients of a cheeseburger. Sounds like more work than I’m willing to do in the kitchen (i.e. it’s more work than pressing the “Start” button on the microwave), so I guess I’ll go visit the Chef at Rizzo’s when I’m in the mood for that delicious soup.

Don’t forget that there’s half-off candy most everywhere that sells candy today. They’ve got to clear out the stock so Easter displays can go up.

There’s no TV for tonight’s Tigers game at Tulane, so don’t waste time with the remote control trying to find it. The Grizzlies are on SportSouth at 6:30. I got this info from the @MemphisOnTV Twitter account, which is not only worth following, but bookmarking in your smartphone’s browser for easy reference.

Wine dinner at the Majestic Grille next Wednesday: “A Tale of Two Pinots,” hosted by Rod Lachini of Lachini Vineyards and Todd Stewart of Elk Cove Vineyards. 8 wines and four courses, paired by Chef Patrick Reilly of the Majestic. Start time is 6:30 PM. $75 plus tax and grat, reservations required. 901-522-8555 to make reservations.

Plans for tonight: Going to go through 5 years of BBQ Fest photos and pick ones for a gallery for the new team’s website. Of course, there’s no reason why I can’t drink a beer while I’m doing that. Probably I’ll stuff the Kindle Fire in my jacket pocket and do my photo browsing at either the Flying Saucer or Blind Bear. Going to take a night off from poker tonight, but it’s at Bardog at 7:30 for those who wish to play. There’s also trivia at the Blind Bear at 8.

I went to the Blind Bear tonight, dressed as a 1920s gangster. I went to their poker night, then their “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” party. Unfortunately I did not win at poker. Shallow-stacked, I went all-in with 9-9, to get called by Brian with J-J. Great call and good game.

Afterward I went back to the Saucer where I did this Z-bo impression. The cheap nylon sport jacket will be replaced by something better by the next party. Thanks to Stacey for the bottle of bubbles which served as my mouthpiece.

Doing a little Z-boING could win you a pair of half-court plaza-level Grizzlies tickets. Take a pic of yourself Z-boING and submit it to the Z-boING site and you could win tickets to the February 29 game vs. Dallas. Alternately, you can enter to win the tickets by buying one or more Z-boING or Rudy Gay “Make Your Own Luck” T-shirts from the site.

Speaking of the Grizzlies, two very generous team members spent their own money to throw a party Monday night for kids who normally wouldn’t get to see the team. Tony Allen and Zach Randolph had a party at The Westin Hotel on Beale, across from the FedExForum, for the mothers and children of the Memphis Family Shelter. The moms got manicures and pedicures while TA and Z-Bo helped the kids make Valentine’s Day cards for their mothers. More on the party here. Doesn’t this kind of story make you proud to be a Grizzlies fan?

It’s still a week away, but this is a date worth saving: Next Wednesday, February 22, is the one day of the Folk Alliance Conference that will be open to the public. Pay $10 and get to pick and choose from a musical buffet of over 30 artists. Folk musicians from around the world attend this conference. I went to public night last year and most definitely recommend it. It will be at the Downtown Marriott and the line-up for the evening can be found here.

Residents of the Vance Avenue area south of the FedExForum are planning improvements to their neighborhood. This Memphis Flyer article has details. Apartments worth saving will see improvements; those that are too far deteriorated will be demolished. I see a signpost from the intersection of Vance and Allen accompanying the article. There are many “need to be demolished” apartments and houses among Allen and its parallel street Abel. Downtown panhandlers go to these streets to buy drugs after they collect enough money. Getting rid of their havens would make all of Downtown considerably safer.

The Redbirds have announced a social media night for April 26. The ‘birds will follow the first 500 guests who write down their Twitter handle. Fans will be encouraged to take photos from their seat and post to Facebook during the game; adding their seat location will make them eligible to win a social media-themed prize during the game. One fan will also receive a prize pack that includes a bird watching book, a team-signed hashtag and a box of figurines containing 140 characters.

That’s the news. Time to put on my 1920s gangster attire, and after a quick one at the Saucer, hit the Blind Bear for poker and St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.