Paul Ryburn's Journal

Lots of news today. Let’s get to it…

The Rum Boogie Cafe’s 25th anniversary party is this Saturday, June 5. Music by John Lee Hooker Jr., Don McMinn with James Govan and the Boogie Blues Band, Billy Gibson with the Memphis Blues Society, and other Memphis musicians. General admission tickets available here. All musicians get in free.

Memphis again ranked low on another national survey… what to do? Ignore it and focus on the many organizations working to make Memphis even better. There’s the Shelby Park Farms Conservancy. The Memphis Healthy Common Table. Common Ground. This blog makes Memphis a more beautiful place by promoting Tube Top Month. And then there’s Leadership Memphis, who is looking for the next class of future city leaders.

Leadership Memphis is launching recruitment for its upcoming FastTrack Fall 2010 leadership program. The FastTrack program is for young professional and high-potential leaders who want to be fast-tracked as part of the next generation of community leaders. Participants gain a stronger understanding about how to take Memphis to the next level through experiential learning processes and exposure to high-profile community leaders. For more information about this program or to apply, visit www.leadershipmemphis.org or contact the Leadership Memphis office at 901-278-0016. To nominate someone (including yourself), send name and contact information to: admissions@leadershipmemphis.org. Application deadline for the Fall 2010 FastTrack session is Wednesday, June 30, 2010.

A personal note here: A lot of my friends have been through the Leadership Memphis program and have had wonderful things to say about it. Highly recommended if you can devote the time.

Automatic Slim’s is having a vodka dinner tomorrow night. Thanks to Libby for forwarding me the menu:

1st course: Breakfast
Hangtown Fry
Soft scrambled egg, oyster, bacon, shiitake mushroom
* Sobieski Vodka~ Bloody Mary’s and Mimosas

2nd course: Lunch
Gravlox
Vodka cured salmon, cucumber-herb salad, vodka vinaigrette
* Rain Organic Cucumber Lime Vodka

3rd course: Supper
Roast Chicken
Vodka Briend chicken, Thai green curry
* Hanger 1 Kaffir Lime Vodka

4th course: Late Night Snack
Root Beer Float
* Svedka Vanilla Vodka, Abita Root Beer, vanilla ice cream

Call 901-525-7948 for reservations or additional info.

Here’s a link to a Memphis Flyer story on the new Trolley Stop Market. The market is at 704 Madison, will soon be open for breakfast and lunch, and will feature products by local farmers and food makers such as Neola Farms beef, Peace Bee honey, and more.

Facebook continues to get worse and worse, with hackers finding new ways to use the social media platform as a delivery tool for malware. Here’s an article on a clickjack worm that installs malware via the ‘Like’ button. Here’s another article about malware that gets installed when you watch a “hilarious video.” I still find Facebook extremely valuable for keeping up with what’s going on around town – it’s probably my number one resource, as a matter of fact – but they better get a handle on this crap soon.

Tonight’s trivia night at the Flying Saucer, 7 PM.  Ladies on other teams:  Want to distract our team?  Wear tube tops.  And tell the Nuh-Uh Girl there’s free food down the street.

Sorry, no tube top hotties in this video.

ChaaaaAAAAAAaaaaAAAAaaaaddddd!!!!!!

Just found a few pics I took yesterday.  Let’s see what we’ve got on the ol’ camera.

Technically, I satisfied the tube top requirement in this post, because the Nuh-Uh Girl has a tube top on in the pics, although it’s kind of a tube top fail because it’s being used as a cover-up for a bathing suit.  One or the other, not both!

Just hit Preview… nice to have a WordPress template that does captions properly!

About to head out and the camera will be with me.  Possibly more pics to come.

I found out what caused those two explosions/fireballs at the end of Sunset Symphony fireworks Saturday night.  I was told that they were caused by two 55-gallon drums of unleaded gasoline, and it was not an accident.  Someone thought it would be a good idea to do that on purpose?  Geez.  I guess they wanted something different than the usual ending of a fireworks display.

Good article in the CA about how more businesses are making the move to South Main.  Affordable rents, charming neighborhood, friendly locals.

Just read my early-morning post… man I must have been drunk last night.  I’m still damn proud to get the mayorship of Bardog last night.  It was totally unexpected – I wasn’t really even trying for that one.

And finally, we’ll close this post with a little tube top education.  Tube top dresses, such as the ones pictured below, are acceptable attire for Tube Top Month.

Traditionalists would argue that these don’t really count as tube tops.  I disagree.  Tube dresses weigh more than tube tops, and therefore, there is a stronger pull against gravity and a higher probability that they won’t stay up.  So in a way, tube dresses are better than tube tops.

No big plans for the day… going to set up a new test site so I can play with the WordPress 3.0 release candidate.  After that, probably beer somewhere.

New mayor of Bardog Tavern on Foursquare.

Not so many tube top hotties tonight but I know a commando tube top hottie makes it her regular place. Let’s see that hot pink tube top.

If you’re off tomorrow and are looking to stay out late and have a true Downtown locals’ experience, I recommend FreeWorld at Blues City Cafe at Second and Beale.  Every Sunday they play at 10:30 PM, kinda late when you have work the next day, but totally do-able when Memorial Day is tomorrow.  Blues City is their home base, and Sunday night is the beginning of their weekend, so they really cut loose and jammonit.  Plus, being a holiday weekend, there will probably be more tube top hotties in the audience than normal.  They’re one of the best bands in the city, and Blues City is the best place to check them out.

Yesterday’s plans got messed up somewhat, but it still ended up a fine day.  I spent the afternoon at the Saucer chatting with my friends Dennis and Mary Pat from Huntsville, then stopped by Rio Loco for a quick bite to eat.  Next stop was to be Tom Lee Park, where I had tube tops waiting on me.  However, I pulled up WeatherBug and it showed that rain was about to come through.  I wasn’t real interested in another rainy day in the park, so I went home to wait it out.  I ended up not getting to the park until 8 PM.

However, even though I wasn’t there, people were still snapping pics on my behalf.  Here are a couple of pics someone e-mailed me of the Nuh-Uh Girl.

The Nuh-Uh Girl deciding what to eat next

… and, after the decision has been made.

So anyway, I got to the park at 8 and started texting people trying to find anyone I knew.  Trouble is, most of the friends I was trying to meet got there at 4 and were near the stage, and I had to wade through a sea of people to find them.  In Tom Lee Park there are these poles with numbers on them.  I think maybe the barges and riverboats use them to identify their position.  And during May, so do festival-goers.  “I’m at Pole 9, on the riverside,” texted Bicycle Bobby, who was an important person to find because he had PBR.  (You can bring your own beer and booze to Sunset Symphony, as long as it’s not in glass.)

I went to pole 9.  Bicycle Bobby was nowhere in sight, but I saw my group of friends.  I stopped long enough to mooch a beer and take this pic of Sarah and friend:

Normally I would have stayed and hung with them the rest of the evening, but my friend Suzy was texting me to come find her near the left end of the stage, and rumor had it that Suzy had on a pink tube top, commando.  So I bid my friends adieu after mooching a beer, and told them I’d come back shortly.  I made a stupid mistake here:  I failed to snap a pic of Lauren from Calhoun’s, who had on a purple tube top.

I waded through the crowd to get from the riverside to the sidewalk side.  It took me a good 10 minutes because I had to dodge blankets, lawn chairs, kids, food, coolers, you name it.  Tried to find the tube tops I was looking for, then realized that even if I found them, I was going to have to turn right around and walk to the porta-potties to trade in the last two beers I’d consumed.  By the time I got that done, I’d had enough of the crowd and was ready to say “screw it” and leave.

Fortunately I had a good Plan B.  My friends Lee and Lauren had called earlier in the day.  They were having people over at their condo at the Lofts on Tennessee Street.  So I walked over there to watch the fireworks.  Here are a few pics.

Lauren and Morgan dancing

The Nuh-Uh Girl wasn’t on the rooftop, so there was plenty of food for everyone.

Shawn, Morgan and Joe watching the fireworks

Toward the end of the show, I set the camera to video mode and started filming.  I got more than I bargained for.  About a minute after I rolled the camera, there was an explosion and two fireballs and the show was abruptly over.  I never found out what happened, but that did not seem to be the intended grand finale.  See video below, where you can see the first fireball and explosion at the end.  Everyone ran to the edge of the roof to see what happened, so I turned my camera off and missed the second fireball.

After it was over, we went downstairs and played Rock Band for a while.  No bars for me afterward… I decided to call it a night.

And now it’s an extra-long Sunday Fun Day, with no work tomorrow.  Time to recharge the camera battery, drink some caffeine and get out there.

Don’t forget that Kooky Canuck is celebrating Memorial Day Eve by offering 99 cent Super Cold Bud Light from open to close Sunday, May 30.  Good chance to drink a lot of beer for cheap.  If it’s the usual schedule, it should be Magan behind the bar for the day shift.  Magan sometimes wears tube tops when she bartends.

Unusual event tonight:  I cut myself off from beer about 9 PM, and it looks like I’m going to get my first night of sleep without any alcohol in my system since before BBQ Fest.  Finally, I’m going to catch up on that precious REM sleep.  I have a recap of Saturday’s events, with a few pics and even a video, but it’ll have to wait until morning.  Time for bed.

’70s disco band KC and the Sunshine Band plays Sunset Symphony tonight.  They had many famous dance hits including “Shake Your Booty,” “I’m Your Boogie Man,” “That’s the Way (I Like it),” “Get Down Tonight,” and “Give it Up.”

Ladies, are you trying to figure out what to wear to Sunset Symphony?  Why not boogie down in ’70s style with a tube top?  Throw yourself back to the days when KC first performed these songs on stage.

Still working on the new theme for the blog, so it will be kind of messy for the next few hours, if not longer.

I’m playing around with new WordPress themes today, in order to enhance your tube top viewing pleasure.  This blog may appear somewhat discombobulated this weekend as I experiment with theme options.  Hopefully, I’ll have the blog back and looking better than ever before you know it.  Stay tuned.