Paul Ryburn's Journal

Rehab Disco, the new bar/club opening in 94 S. Front in the old Orleans on Front/Voodoo Room location, had a free food buffet and $1 longnecks today for their fans on Facebook. (Search for “Rehab Disco” in Memphis.)  Got my first look at the place.  The upstairs looks like a disco (think Paula & Raiford’s kind of, but very very orange and no handprints).  The downstairs, the former Voodoo Room, I’m told will be open too, and will be more of a locals bar with a draft wall with 20 taps.

Good news is, this place will open at a reasonable hour, 4 or 5 PM they tell me, so they can get the locals’ happy hour crowd.  That was a complaint I had about Voodoo, that it didn’t open until 8.  Also, where a lot of businesses didn’t make it in that location, the owners of Rehab know a ton of people and should draw people from night one, which I’m told will be the day after Christmas.

I didn’t take pics because the interior isn’t finished yet, but I liked what I saw.  This is a place with a lot of potential.  Can’t wait to see it open to the public.

I didn’t take a zillion pics of Stumbling Santa last night as I had planned… it was so crowded that I just decided to stake a spot where there was breathing room wherever I could find it.  I did get some pics though.  Here are a few of the best ones.

First stop was the Saucer, which quickly filled up with Santas. The Saucer was also the drop-off point for toy donations for Ronald McDonald House. I saw bags and bags of toys being loaded into a van about 8 PM – great job everyone. People found out that the Saucer was matching donations toy for toy, and many people brought more than one.

The Garden/patio area of the Saucer, where a silent auction took place.

BB King’s.  BB’s was WAY crowded full of tourists even before we got there.  Shawn, Joe, Zane, Steve G and I found a spot on the stage and hardly moved for the next 45 minutes.  This pic was taken about 20 minutes after I got there.  Note that there are still a long line of Santas outside waiting to get in.

By 9:15 BB’s was so crowded that we couldn’t take it anymore, and went outside.  Stevie G and Joe helped keep BB’s outdoor bartender warm.

Next up was Alfred’s, where I forgot altogether to take pics.  That was probably because the Texas vs. Nebraska game was on.  Everyone except Chad HATED Texas and were cheering for the Huskers.  At the end of the day though Chad was the one who went home happy.

Alfred’s went all out for the Santas, opening the outdoor bar to ensure quick service.  Great job.

Next up was the FedExForum.  Here’s a pic of me with all the other Santas in the background.  Unlike the other stops, there was plenty of breathing room.  I complained about the beer prices at first ($8.25 for a 24 ounce domestic), but my friend Mikey pointed out, “Look, they opened their doors just for us, because they wanted to support the Ronald McDonald house. How cool is that? They deserve our support in return.” I decided he was right and bought a beer.

Going…

going…

… gone.

The final stop was Club 152, but there were at least 70 people in line by the time we got there, so we decided to end the night back where we started, at the Saucer, which by that point was packed even without the Santas.

My huge compliments to the organizers and to the participating bars on a fantastic event.  It’s near impossible to herd that many people from place to place, but they did it very well.  They announced that the pics they took will be up soon.  I’ll link to the site once the pics are posted.

Christmas party season kicks into high gear today.  At 3 I’m heading to the Saucer for a friend’s plate party, then about 4 I’ll wander down to South Main to stake my spot for the holiday parade.  They’ll announce the winner of the Downtown storefront decorating contest at 4:45 at 387 S. Main (next to Spindini), so I’ll try to be there for that.  I’ll watch the parade, then head north to put on my Santa suit for the Stumbling Santa pub crawl, which kicks off at the Flying Saucer at 7.

Don’t forget, if you’re attending the pub crawl, you MUST wear a Santa suit and you MUST bring a toy for Ronald McDonald House (no stuffed animals) in order to receive a lanyard that gets you in the clubs with no cover and drink specials.

Charging up all 3 batteries for the camera… I have a feeling a LOT of pictures will be taken.

One football note:  I don’t have a favorite in the SEC championship game, but GO NEBRASKA in the Big 12 game.  I’d love to see Texas knocked out of the BCS championship.

He didn’t say anything, but I’m sure my buddy Clay was fuming when I posted that Mrs. Pat’s birthday was December 4.  “Really?” I’m sure he was thinking, “You post about Mrs. Pat, but you forget to post about one of your good friends’ birthdays, who you hang out with several times a week?  ‘ppreciate it dude.”

Of course, my “happy birthdays” tend to be a day late, so I can publish them with pictures.  Messages were sent out on Facebook to gather at the Saucer at 6 PM.  All our friends were there and it was a great time.  Here are some pics.

The birthday boy

The Nuh-Uh Girl being force fed a Rice Krispie treat

The Nuh-Uh Sister, Joe, and Katie

The return of Air Traffic Mike

Christy chowing down on cheese fries

What was the deal with all the sideways turned head poses last night?

Hell if I know what was going on here.

After the Saucer, we had dinner at Blues City Cafe.  Mmmm ribs.

Here’s a pic of the Nuh-Uh Girl eating.

More pics here.  Fun times and good to have all our friends together.  Happy birthday Clay.

No responses to my query about whether bars will be open early for the marathon, but at least a clothing store will be open. Lansky 126 will open early tomorrow, and they invite spectators to come in and take a break from the cold.

Speaking of the marathon, tonight is “carb-up” night, when many restaurants Downtown and in other parts of the city offer discounts on pasta and other high-carb dishes. Here’s a list of restaurants. Most of them require you to show your official marathon number to get the discount, but I know of at least one (Bardog) that is offering the deal to everyone. Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl is trying to print a fake marathon number on her office printer this afternoon.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s a link to more information about the St. Jude marathon, half-marathon, and 5K. Good luck to my friends Mary Pat, Gina, Glo, Lee’s mom, and anyone else I know who is running tomorrow. If you plan on driving anywhere Downtown tomorrow morning, expect delays as the streets are clogged with runners.

In other news: Rehab Disco will open in the old Orleans on Front space after Christmas. So far I don’t have a whole lot of details about the place. I need to get by and take a look… Carlos who used to manage Circa is one of the people opening the new disco. Three discos in one neighborhood… no wonder Downtown is the best part of Memphis.

I saw on Facebook last night that the Memphis Grizzlies Grandmas and Grandpas dance team will be part of the holiday parade tomorrow at 5 PM on South Main. They are a lot of fun and I look forward to seeing them. Don’t forget to become a fan of theirs if you’re on Facebook.

Not Downtown news, but an item of interest to my fellow poker fans: Christy Moneymaker will open a high-end store for babies, children and tweens in Sanderlin Place. The store will sell clothes, custom bedding, furniture, toys and gifts. Christy is the wife of poker pro Chris Moneymaker, and his poker sponsor is supporting the opening of the store financially. Chris Moneymaker won the World Series main event in 2003, coming out of nowhere and gaining entry into the tournament through a PokerStars satellite. His victory marked the beginning of the Internet poker craze.

I’ve heard a lot of complaints that there’s “too much going on” tomorrow. Kinda true… the marathon, the parade, Stumbling Santa, the Blues Ball, a Tiger home game, the SEC championship game on TV. I’ve heard numerous people wish out loud that some of that stuff would be moved back to the second week in December next year, although I guess that’s hard to do too because then you’re into office and private Christmas party season.

No big plans for me tonight… I’ll probably hit happy hour at the Saucer, and after that, who knows… maybe I’ll chat with some of the 15,000 people in town for the marathon.

Still working on my rant in support of the new panhandling ordinance… it’ll have to wait until tomorrow or Monday.

One of the RSS feeds I have on my Google homepage is LifeHacker, and there were a couple of posts I saw on that site today that seemed very useful.

First of all, they posted about a program named WinFontsView that displays all the fonts on your Windows system. This is incredibly helpful when I’m trying to design a website or flyer, and I’m looking for the perfect font to use for a heading. Until now I’ve had to fire up OpenOffice Writer or Microsoft Word and look at all the fonts on the dropdown menu, but that’s a rather inconvenient way to view all my fonts. This should be very handy.

Here’s one for Comcast customers: Have you ever experienced periods where there’s nothing wrong with your cable modem’s signal, and yet when you try to pull up websites it says, “Looking up www.website.com…” for an eternity before informing you that it could not locate the site. This is usually a sign that Comcast’s DNS server is screwed up. DNS is the service that looks up a website’s name (like paulryburn.com) and connects it to an IP address (like 63.36.122.205 – not my real IP address by the way, I just made that up). As an alternative to your Internet provider’s DNS, you can point to Google’s new Public DNS instead. More info here. If you’re a complete novice you should probably leave this one alone, but if you’re somewhat familiar with network settings this is worth a try.

Main Street Hound Dogs, the hot dog vendor at the corner of Main and Union at lunchtime on good weather weekdays, has come up with a couple of new innovations recently. Last week they started serving “U Dirty Dog,” which is their take on a chili dog. Well, today, they realized that they already have chili, and they already have Fritos, so why not add chili Fritos to the menu. Fritos with a scoop of chili for $2.50. Follow them on Twitter at @mainsthounddogs to keep up with their latest menu items.

The South Main Association is looking for members and friends to march in the holiday parade this Saturday. If interested meet them at Main and Georgia between 3:30 and 4. The parade starts at 5. The SMA is one of the first to march down the street, so you can be a part of it and still be done in time to see the rest of the parade.

And finally, this Monday, December 7 is the Beale Street Merchants Association fundraiser, a Casino Night benefiting the Church Health Center and Variety, the Children’s Charity. See flyer below for details (click to view in a larger size).

That’ll do it for this evening.  I have a couple of rants saved to Drafts that I’ll probably publish morning and noontime tomorrow, plus whatever news comes along.

Question asked by one of my blog’s readers:  Are any bars or restaurants going to open early for the St. Jude Marathon/Half-Marathon Saturday morning?  The person who asked wants to come out and watch, but she and her friends don’t really want to stand outside in 40-degree weather the entire 2-3 hours.  Will anyplace on the route be open early where they can take refuge?  E-mail me at paul@paulryburn.com if you know of a place and I’ll pass on the information.

Just made a lunchtime run to Walgreens to pick up a toy for this Saturday’s Stumbling Santa Pub Crawl… and instead, I came back with 3 toys.  What can I say, I’m an overachiever.  Since the Saucer is matching toy for toy, that means Ronald McDonald House will end up with 6 new toys.  If you plan on doing the pub crawl, remember that Ronald McDonald House cannot accept stuffed animals.  I imagine that’s because many kids will be playing with these toys, and stuffed animals are germ magnets.  Most other types of toys are okay.

For those of you who go to the Saucer for lunch, be sure to say happy birthday to Mrs. Pat in the kitchen… tomorrow is her 50th birthday.

More Saucer news:  They’re doing a Beerknurd Appreciation Party, a private party for members of their UFO Club, on Saturday, December 12 from 5 to 7 PM.  There will be a free buffet, you’ll get a pint of Stone beer, and you’ll be entered into a raffle for prizes.  If you’re not a UFO member, you still have a week to join.  You can get there anytime between 5 and 7, but I recommend showing up right at 5, before the Nuh-Uh Girl gets there and eats all the food.  The Facebook event listing says this is Thursday the 10th, but I’ve confirmed that Saturday the 12th, as posted in the Saucer, is actually the correct day.

Finally the rain has moved out of here… think I’ll take the netbook out tonight and play a little poker while I drink beer.  Been trying to get good at 7-card stud… I played it in college but am having to re-learn it because it’s a limit bet game and therefore very different from no-limit hold’em.  I played for an hour yesterday and played way too many hands… lost a few dollars but it was an education.  I’ll try to use better starting hand selection tonight.

I’m mentally preparing a post on the proposed panhandling ordinance with tougher restrictions… I know what I want to say, but lunch break is almost over, so it will be tonight or tomorrow morning before work before I get it typed.  Happy Thursday and maybe I’ll see you out tonight.

Lots of assorted stuff today… first of all, congrats to the trivia team on a first-place victory last night! We were sure we were in trouble after we got only 1 out of 7 right on the third-round bonus question, but everyone else missed it too.

The Memphis Flyer is having their monthly “Work It Wednesday” happy hour tonight, and this time they’re taking the show on the road to Midtown. It will be at the Beauty Shop from 5 to 7 PM tonight, with 10% off menu items, $5 house wines, and $2.50 domestics. Good excuse to do a little Hump Day drinking and mingling with the staff of the Flyer.

I saw on Twitter today that Skatelife Memphis has received a $2500 grant from Nike. They will use the money to build a mini-halfpipe at the Greenlaw Community Center. Congratulations to them, and yay for more family-friendly amenities in Uptown.

The DNA and SMA are combining to have a holiday party at the Metro 67 apartments on Sunday, December 20, from 6 to 9 PM. Free to all members of either organization, cash bar, door prizes, and various restaurants providing the food. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up. Nice to see the two organizations working together, so members of one group can get more familiar with the other.

Wow that means I’ll have four days of parties in a row… got my building’s party on the 17th… a party at a South Main condo on the 18th… my plate party on the 19th… and the DNA/SMA party on the 20th. The weekend before Christmas is gonna be a busy one.

Guys, if you’re thinking about buying some new clothes, I have a suggestion for you… do it on Sunday. If you bring a Sunday brunch receipt from any Downtown restaurant to Shelton Clothiers in December, they will give you $20 off a purchase of $150 or more. So you’re basically getting free brunch. Trying to decide where to eat? My suggestion would be right next door, at the Majestic Grille. Try the smoked salmon hash browns, or one of the fritattas, or the breakfast named after Downtown legend John D.

Ladies, if you want to shop at Shelton for the man in your life, might want to do it this Thursday, December 3, or on Thursday, December 17. You’ll receive a bonus of a gift card good for 15% of the amount of your purchase. You can pass along the card as a gift, or use it yourself the next time you shop Shelton. Also, wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served on those nights. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

More shopping savings down the street at Lansky at the Peabody… they sent out an e-mail yesterday containing a 25% off coupon, and they gave me permission to post the link for my readers… get the coupon here.

Heavy rain headed this way… hope it’s gone by the end of the workday.  Sunset Wheat is the fire sale so it’s a pretty safe bet I’ll be out after work, even if I have to walk in the rain.

If you own a Blackberry and want to try the Foursquare app, there’s now a beta version available for your phone. Get it here.

Don’t forget that tomorrow, Wednesday, December 2, is the Majestic Grille’s 50% off gift card sale. Doors open at 9 AM and you must buy them in person.

I pick on the Saucer from time to time on my blog, but I have to give them major kudos for something they’re doing this weekend. They’re the first stop on Saturday’s Stumbling Santa Pub Crawl (7 PM) and they’re asking everyone who participates to bring a toy for the Ronald McDonald House from this list. Here’s the cool thing: The Saucer is going to match donations toy for toy. So, if you bring a toy, TWO kids will get a Christmas present. Very, very nice. I guess it’s time to pull my Santa suit from 2007 out of the storage room and see if it’s in good enough shape to use again.

By the way: The collection box for the toys is already set up. It’s next to the UFO computer, near the bathrooms. So if you can’t make it Saturday, you can still drop off a toy. If you can make it Saturday, why not drop off a toy now and then another one Saturday? Then you’ll make Christmas better for four kids.

I finished second at the 7:30 poker tournament at the Silly Goose last night. They had two tables going, and Josh took out the entire other table with an all-in. Thus he arrived at my table with a huge stack. I was just too far behind when it got down to him and me heads-up. Congrats to Josh on a fine victory. At least I earned points toward the final table, which I think will be played in two weeks.

Trivia night at 7 PM… I should have time to get in one $13 turbo 6-max Sit’n’Go on PokerStars before I head up there.

It’s official:  Judd is gone from Spindini.  This Daily News article has the details.  It certainly is a pro-Judd piece, but why should I be surprised, seeing Fredric Koeppel’s name in the byline.

Bernard J. Lansky, owner of Lansky Bros. and “Clothier to the King,” has had a street named after him.  The block of Beale between Main and Second has been named “Bernard J. Lansky Street” in his honor.  That’s appropriate, I suppose, since that block contains a statue of his customer Elvis Presley.  That’s also the block where you can usually find 2 or 3 panhandlers at any time, trying to charge tourists to park in metered spaces and run various other scams on them.  Nonetheless, congratulations to Mr. Lansky on a well-earned accomplishment.

I had people e-mail and ask where I got my info that tonight’s Tiger game will be tape delayed on WKNO tonight at 9 rather than live… I got it here.

Time for some Pint Nite beer… kinda tempted to stay home and play PokerStars, but I kinda want to catch up with everyone who was out of town for Thanksgiving more.