Paul Ryburn's Journal

“It’s Saturday!”

Current time is 5:29 PM Friday, September 3.

Woohoo! The Memphis Music & Heritage Festival is only one day away! The Center for Southern Folklore app is now in the iPhone app store. I downloaded this morning, although I had to get through a couple of “unable to purchase” errors (it’s a free app) before the Store finally let me download it. Really nicely done app.

The app reminded me that there’s more than just music throughout the day. There are also food demos where chefs from the region prepare their favorite dishes. At the end of the demo, the chefs hand out samples. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up. Chef Michael Patrick of Mesquite Chop House has a demo at 1 PM Saturday – I’ll have to stop by for that one.

There will also be workshops. At 1:30 tomorrow at the Tennessee Arts Stage at Main and Gayoso, David Evans will host a jug band workshop. William Lee Ellis and Jimmy Crosthwait will host a songwriting workshop at the Folklore Store at 3:15 tomorrow.

If you tweet from the festival, use the #mmhf hashtag to join the conversation.

The Memphis Daily News reports that the expansion of the Peabody into the Peabody Place mall has been delayed for at least a year. The article cites the economy and difficulty getting financing as the reason.

I got more info on that October 16 beer festival I had mentioned earlier… unfortunately, it’s nowhere near Downtown. It will be “The Square on Tap” in Hernando, Mississippi. Distance makes this one a no-go for me, but for North Mississippians it should be a good time. You can “like” the festival on Facebook to keep informed of news about the event.

What’s up with all the SEC teams showing their first game of the season on PPV? I’m being inundated with people asking if I know of any place Downtown showing their favorite team on PPV, and I don’t have any answers. Maybe you can call Calhoun’s (they don’t open until 4:30) and see if Max will be carrying any of the games. The only game of interest to me is Arkansas vs. Tennessee Tech, and even that one is not going to be enough to get me to leave the music festival.

Outta here for now… gonna go eat some Mexican food and count down the minutes until the long weekend starts.

In case you’ve missed the numerous news announcements, the Memphis Zoo will have an outdoor skating rink from November 19 to January 31. Fees will be $6, or $5 if you bring your own skates. Zoo admission fees will also apply. It will be the first time Memphis has had an outdoor rink since 1976.

Groupon’s deal today is an appropriate one, with the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival coming up this weekend. Today’s Groupon deal is $20 worth of Memphis Music & Heritage Festival posters for $10.

Speaking of the festival: Have you seen the weather forecast? Little chance of rain, highs in the low-to-mid 80s, lows in the upper 50s and lower 60s. Perfect! I will be at the festival most of the time Saturday and Sunday, although this is one case where I wave my “no side trips” festival rule since the Flying Saucer is nearby. If you have not been to the Memphis Music & Heritage Fest, you really need to check it out – it features excellent regional music that spans all genres. Schedule here.

Sole Restaurant will have a brunch this Sunday benefitting Memphis Farmers Market. Food will include Neola Farms prime rib, Lauren Farm prawns, Delta Grind buckwheat biscuits, and jams from the Farmers Market. There will be music by Michelle Bush. Two seatings, 11:00 and 1:30. $35 per person. Call 901-334-5950 for reservations. Sole is only a 5-minute walk from the festival if you want to do both on Sunday.

It’s Thursday night, and that would normally mean defending my poker championship at Calhoun’s. However, plans have changed since I have learned that Dos Equis Lager is the Fire Sale at the Saucer!!!!! Therefore, that is where I will be this evening, squeezing limes into my beer, watching football, and listening to the Shugga Shane Band when they take the stage at 9:30.

Bardog’s party raised TWENTY GRAND for St. Jude!!! That is incredible. And I cannot tell you how much respect I have for Brittany B. who raised $4500 of it solo by shaving her head.

$30K for next year? Very feasible.

I made a mistake last week when I announced that there would be a new beer festival October 16, and it would be put on by the people who threw the April beer fest in AutoZone Park. I got my beer festivals mixed up. It will actually be done by the people who did the March beer fest in Handy Park, which was a great time except for the one factor they couldn’t control – the weather. As soon as I get more details about this festival I’ll pass it along.

The South Main Association’s September meeting will be Tuesday, September 14 in the Corner Bar of the Peabody Hotel. The featured speakers will be Doug Browne and Jason Sensat, the hotel’s GM and Duckmaster, who will share “Tales and Tails of the South’s Grand Hotel.” Social at 6, meeting at 6:30, cash bar, complimentary hors d’oeuvres provided by the Peabody. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

Today is the Peabody’s 141st birthday. At 4:45 the Memphis Symphony Orchestra will perform, the ducks will march, and Mayor Wharton will be inducted into the Duck Walk Hall of Fame.

South of Beale will be celebrating 9/01 today with $5 shots of 901 tequila while it lasts. It’s also their pint night, with all drafts $3.

Other weekly Wednesday stuff going on: Bikes on Beale, and Rusty Lemon at the Silly Goose 9-11. Bardog will have poker downstairs, but this week is the “final table” where the top performers of the past 9 weeks compete for a big prize. Good luck to Carl, Zane and anyone else I know who is competing this evening. Over at the Saucer, it’s Glass Night and they tweeted that they will have a 23 oz. Sam Adams Octoberfest stein this week.

Ole Miss’ football program is now officially down the crapper this season. With Masoli ineligible, the idiots in the red and blue argyle pants and the skanks in sundresses will have very little to cheer for. I like it. Anyone doing specials for the first College Football Saturday of the year? I’ll be at the Memphis Music & Heritage Fest all day that day, but I’ll post the specials for those who want to know.

We got killed tonight at trivia.  It was so bad I didn’t even add up our final score.  Congrats to the teams that beat us, and there were a lot of them.

However, I do want to say something to the top three winning teams.  The servers work just as hard whether you are paying with cash, or cashing in gift certificate winnings, or a combination of both.  If you are not tipping 15% minimum on the total before gift certificates are deducted, to put it bluntly, you’re a bunch of cheap-asses.

Different teams have different strategies for cashing in.  My team pools its gift certificates and cashes them in once every three months.  When we cash in, we collect tips for whomever is serving us.  If she doesn’t get at least 20% I raise holy hell.

Suggestion:  Appoint one person on your team to collect tips, to make sure that your server is taken care of.  They’ll appreciate it, and so will you.

I finally got ’em uploaded… so without further ado… pics from Bardog’s second birthday alley party.

Full photo album here (200 pics). Massive respect for Brittany for putting her hair on the line for the kids.  Between the 5K, food sales, dunk tank and head shaving, I’m told they raised $4500 for St. Jude.

If you’ve thought about joining Bravo, the arts group for 21-40 year olds, today would be a good day to do it. They have a deal on Groupon today only that makes the memberships quite affordable. Bravo members meet at an arts event – theater, ballet, opera, gallery shows, etc. – once a month, with a social/networking hour built in. Great group. I was a member for 5 years and enjoyed it.

Time for some beer news. The River City Brewers, who put on the Brewfest in Handy Park in March, have announced that they are planning a fall beer fest on October 16. Location and details will be coming soon, but save the date. Hmmm… back to back beer festivals, with Cooper-Young’s fest on October 9… looks like a good month is shaping up. I much prefer these kinds of beer fests, which are casual, laid-back and all about the beer, to events like ZooBrew and Art on Tap that bring the wannabe socialites out of the woodwork.

More brew news… I didn’t know there was a local beer blog, until Memphis Connect tweeted about it this morning – Fuzzybrew.com.

For those who will be attending the Center for Southern Folklore’s Memphis Music & Heritage Festival this weekend, Downtown on the Main Street Mall, bring your smartphones. The Center has set up Foursquare venues for the stages and for the festival itself. Time to grab some more mayorships!

Plans for tonight: Pint Nite, of course. I’ve been getting lazy getting beers done for my plate lately. Time to get back on it!

Just wanted to congratulate Bardog Tavern on their second birthday, and thank them for a great alley party yesterday… pics are coming sometime this week.  Downloading them from the camera now… looks like I got about 200.  I got photos of several people in the dunking booth, and the meatball eating contest (and the Nuh-Uh Girl grabbing leftover meatballs not 10 seconds after the contest was over).  The grand finale was bartender Brittany getting her head shaved to raise money for St. Jude.

Pics coming soon… it’s just gonna take some time to go through them all.

Saturday in the early afternoon, my day was just starting.  I’d started the transition of my hair from Elvis black back toward its usual color, having dyed it dark brown.  My plan was to clean the apartment as I played single-table Sit’n’Go tournaments on PokerStars.  Having heard that a crap-ass cider was the Fire Sale, I saw no need to go out before about 7 PM.

Then the phone rang.  It was my friend Clay.  “You should come over in about an hour,” he told me.  “Air Traffic Mike is bringing steaks over.  We’re going to grill out.”

Steaks?  So much for cleaning and playing poker.  I got dressed and headed down there, stopping to buy a six-pack of Sierra Nevada Tumbler at Frank’s Deli.  (It was really good, by the way.  It’s their seasonal fall ale.)

After eating, we hung out and watched TV for a while.  It was the first time I’ve watched “House, M.D.” and I have to admit it was a pretty good show.  Meanwhile, I was keeping up with the Ptolemy Poker Run on Twitter, and they had reached their third stop of the day, the Flying Saucer.  One of them shouted “Is Paul Ryburn alive?” on Foursquare when they didn’t find me there.

After I saw them checking in at their fourth stop, I walked up to the Saucer, and had a good evening hanging out with friends.  Just a nice, chilled-out Saturday night.  I hung on long enough to catch FreeWorld’s first set, then went home to get a full night’s sleep, which will be much needed because…

Today is the alley party at Bardog Tavern!!!

Should be a fun time.  I’m getting a full charge on the camera battery as I type this.  Will probably wear the battery all the way down and have to resort to my iPhone as a backup camera.  I’ll probably start the day with brunch at the Majestic, then do an hour or so at the Saucer, then head over to Bardog around 1.  Hope to see you there – this is a can’t miss party.