Paul Ryburn's Journal

Jack’s Food Store, the little grocery on the Main Street Mall, has extended its nighttime hours.  It now stays open until 11 PM Monday through Saturday, and 10 PM on Sunday.

Kudos to Jack’s for making this move.  It’s nice to know there’s a place you can run to if you need a Coke or a roll of toilet paper or some detergent late at night.  Stores staying open later will mean more foot traffic on the street, which is good for the entire neighborhood.

In the news this morning:  Judd Grisanti, who has been associated with Downtown restaurant Spindini most recently, has announced a deal to open a restaurant in Chickasaw Gardens in the old Ronnie Grisanti & Sons location.  I’ve been hearing rumors about this for the past few months and now it’s official.  I wonder if Judd will try to re-capture the ambiance of Spindini, which won “Best Cougar Bar” in 2008 and 2009, in the new location.  More details here.

Sitting at the Saucer watching the Tennessee-Ole Miss game. In case you’re wondering, I’m rooting for Tennessee. Ole Miss represents everything I hate about college football. I’d probably even root for Texas against Ole Miss.

If it were basketball, however, I’d be for Ole Miss. No way I could ever support a team coached by Bruce “Douchebag” Pearl.

Anyway, I just had a look at the Saucer’s menu, and there are a few new items.

There’s a “River Rocket” sandwich with Alaskan smoked salmon, jalapeño pesto cream cheese, red onion, lettuce, tomatoes, capers and Swiss on toasted marble rye. It’s $8.99.

Vegetarians now have a new pizza option – a margherita pizza slice with spicy tomato sauce, garlic, sliced tomatoes, Italian cheese blend and fresh basil for $5.99.

There’s also a new cheese on their build your own snack plate option. It’s a whiskey cheddar, a semi-soft tangy cheddar with a hint of Irish whiskey.

Those are the new food choices… Guess I’ll get back to watching the game. Wonder where the gang is today? Calhoun’s probably. Given the good Fire Sale, though, I’m definitely staying put.

After a long battle, Downtown is finally winning the war against the bums who come down here every day and scam/intimidate tourists out of their money.  Since I haven’t written about this subject in a while, let me stress that I am not talking about the homeless who camp out Downtown and occasionally legitimately need a helping hand.  I’m talking about the scammers  are not homeless and who have turned panhandling into a career, who take money away from the homeless by appearing to be homeless themselves as part of their scams.

Willie who used to hang out around Main and Madison, aggressively panhandling people and making extremely lewd comments to women, hasn’t been seen in months.  After the CCC hired the Downtown Safety Patrol, it didn’t take them long to figure out he was the #1 cause of problems in the core.  He got arrested again and again, and his appearances Downtown (when he wasn’t locked up) became less frequent.  I last saw him in March, sitting on a park bench commenting to another bum, “That’s the dude who doesn’t like panhandlers. Bitch.”  He’s been scared to come Downtown and panhandle for months now, for fear of another trip back to jail.  Who’s the bitch now?

Our least favorite parking scammer, who used to pretend to be a parking attendant at the Tri-State Bank lot at Main and Beale, had paperwork filed against him (authorization of agency) banning him from all Central Parking and Premier Parking lots Downtown.  Guess what?  This week he got hit with a criminal trespass charge, so he must have been caught on one of those lots.  The Downtown safety patrol and police know who he is and are constantly on the lookout for him.  Since June he’s spent as much time in jail as out, and when he is out we see him tiptoeing around, living in constant fear of being watched.  It’s just about game over as far as his panhandling career is concerned.

Sharp Dressed Bum, who has been known to follow people down the street and cuss and threaten them after being told no, is in jail.  It’s one thing to get hit with a panhandling charge, but it’s another thing to miss your court date for that charge.  Now he’s in contempt of court and we won’t see him until at least the end of November.

Fake St. Jude Donation Guy is out, but he spent most of the past two months locked up for the same reasons as SDB.

You remember the bum who got a female bum pregnant a couple of years ago, then they panhandled with the baby?  Well, he got arrested last month for disorderly conduct and obstructing a passageway.  Not real serious charges, but once in jail, the idiot got nailed with a new charge for trying to sneak contraband in.  That’s a felony.  If convicted for that one, he goes bye-bye for at least a year.

Another big-time panhandler – he doesn’t really have or do anything that distinguishes him, but we’ll just call him “Henry,” because that’s his name – got stopped by the police several months ago.  They searched him, and found a weapon.  Guess what?  Henry’s a convicted felon, so possession of a weapon is an automatic felony.  Another bum we won’t see for a year.

We’ve cleaned up a lot of the regulars, but some are still out.  Folks, if you want to help the homeless, give money to good organizations like the Memphis Union Mission, the Calvary Outreach Program, or volunteer for Door of Hope.  Give to these organization and you will have a 100% chance of helping people in need, whereas if you give money to a panhandler on the street, you stand a high chance of enabling a bum’s alcohol and drug addictions.

Just got a text that Dos Equis Lager is the Fire Sale.  I guess I’ll be spending a lot of time at the Saucer today.  Soon as the netbook’s battery charges up, I’m heading down there.

The Onion did a story about the Memphis Grizzlies.

Memphis Grizzlies Continue to Insist They Have 5 Players Better than Allen Iverson

Today is the last day of Downtown Dining Week for 2009, where you can enjoy delicious 3-course meals at some of Downtown’s best restaurants for only $20.09.  Click here to view a list of participating restaurants, then click on a restaurant’s logo to view its DDW menu.

A word of advice:  If there’s a particular restaurant you want to try tonight, call them NOW and get reservations.  Don’t wait until the last minute, because DDW has proved extremely popular and a lot of these places are getting booked up.

…Oh yes they did.  Kooky Canuck is having a Turkey Day Tip-Off party the night before Thanksgiving, with 99 cent Super Cold Bud Light Draft.  Note that the poster doesn’t say “34 ounce” so I assume they are regular size, but still, 99 cents for a regular sized Bud Light should still get a lot of takers.

Hey, I just realized… I’ll be in town that night!  And I won’t have to go to work the next day!  I have to remain in town for Thanksgiving to be “on call” for a major tournament running at work, but that won’t prevent me from going out down the street to enjoy some Kooky beers.

I’ve also read that the usual Thanksgiving night party at Earnestine & Hazel’s will happen again this year… details to come on that… and according to the Saucer’s calendar, they’ll open at 5 that night.  Looks like my Wednesday and Thursday plans for Thanksgiving week are set.

Going to play a quick PokerStars tournament, then go out.

I got more information about Auction Avenue’s old name and its new one since my last post. I got an e-mail from a blog reader disputing that Auction was so named because slave auctions took place at a rock at the foot of the street. Rather, said the reader, it was named because of the mule auctions that took place there in the early 20th century. Memphis was once the center of the horse and mule trade in the entire eastern US, and there were stables everywhere in that area. Cool, so Memphis was a transportation hub even before the Memphis Airport (which is a great airport by the way, just ask R.C. Johnson) was built.

The only reason I have to dispute this claim is that there’s a map of Memphis from around 1870 in the lobby of my building, and if I remember correctly, the street was called “Auction Avenue” even then.

As for the new name, it’s actually A. W. Willis Avenue, not Willis Avenue as I reported yesterday. Click here to read about A. W. Willis.

The Majestic Grille has re-done their website. Check it out here.

The Meet the Chef feature in the Commercial Appeal this week interviews Gary Williams, owner and chef of De Ja Vu New Orleans Creole Seafood and Vegetarian Restaurant, at 936 Florida. I still need to check this place out. It sounds delicious. Hmmm maybe I’ll put air in the bike’s tires and ride down there for lunch tomorrow.

Concert announcement: John Mayer returns to the FedExForum March 19, with guest Michael Franti and Spearhead. Tickets go on sale November 21.

I wasn’t at Calhoun’s last night for their weekly poker tournament, but I’ve heard that something has happened that has never happened before… at the end of the 2-hour game, there were still two people left. With high blinds the last 15 minutes (I think they’re 3000/6000 with 100,000 total chips on the table), that isn’t supposed to happen, but I suppose if the lead is traded back and forth, it can. The two players assumed the person with the higher chip count would be declared the winner, but instead, it gave them a 3-minute break and then went to overtime.

Plans for tonight: No idea. I think I’ll play a small tournament on PokerStars, maybe a 180-person Sit’n’Go, and then go out after that. I’ve got a couple photo-based posts to make once I get home and download pics from the camera.

Yeah, I know this is late notice, but Silly Goose is doing a trivia night tonight from 7 to 10.  I saw mention of a trivia happy hour as well.  They’re also doing spaghetti and meatballs with a side salad as a special tonight for $7.

I received an e-mail from one of the Memphis Grizzlies Grannies and Grandpas Dance Team, who dance during breaks at Grizzlies home games. She informed me that it’s actually a 50 and over dance group. Their next appearance is at the November 18 home game, so come check them out. Don’t forget to become a fan of theirs on Facebook.

Speaking of which, be REAL careful on Facebook. A variant of the KoobFace worm is back, and it’s hijacking Facebook groups and posting stuff to people’s Walls. Click on the wrong link and you could get malware installed on your computer. Even be careful clicking on links posted by friends, or links to photos where friends are tagged, because their account or a group they belong to may have been hijacked. For more info see this PCWorld article.

I’ve learned of a new restaurant Downtown (haven’t been there myself yet though). It’s called Salad Expressions and is located at 120 W. Willis (formerly Auction) Avenue. I didn’t know that Auction Avenue had been renamed, but I’m pleased to see that they went with Todd Bridges’ character on Diff’rent Strokes as the choice for the new name. Auction needed to be renamed anyway, because of what it represented (slaves were once auctioned at the foot of the avenue). WEST Willis Avenue? Would that be on Mud Island then? If anyone tries this new salad place out, shoot me an e-mail at paul@paulryburn.com and let me know what you think.

Downtown Dining Week continues. The Nuh-Uh Girl had TWO dinners last night, one at Sole and one at Felicia Suzanne’s. Last time I checked her Twitter account, her last 14 tweets were about eating.

A few Downtown-related articles in the CA this morning. First of all, an article on how Midtown Yoga was convinced to come Downtown because of a unique profit-sharing arrangement.

More condos will be up for auction soon. This time there will be 15 units in the River Tower (655 Riverside) going on the block. Right across from Riverside BP… that’s a winner, the BP has an awesome deli.

News on a proposed shuttle that would connect Midtown and Downtown, and would be available late into the night on Thursday and weekend nights. Please make this happen! I would love to make occasional appearances in Midtown on the weekends, but it ain’t gonna happen until I have an option that does not involve driving (and MATA’s Madison Avenue line is an absolute joke and not an option).

Last night I took my new netbook to the Saucer, and fired up PokerStars while I drank beer. One thing I discovered – the 6-max poker tables are much looser than the 9-max poker tables I usually frequent, at least at the level I play (10c SB/25c BB). There was a horrible, horrible player on the first table I joined, who was raising with any two cards. However, for a while he was winning big, because he had most of the table intimidated. At one point he had a stack of $81, at a table with a $25 maximum buy-in. I just sat back and waited. Once good cards came, I started to punish him. Within an hour I was up $26. Other players were beating him up too, and when his $81 stack had been reduced to $7.60, he left the table. I made a note of his username, so I can search for him in the future.

However, I also learned another lesson, or rather, remembered one I already knew, and remembered it the hard way – don’t play poker drunk. After about 4 beers at the Saucer I decided it was too crowded, so I tabbed out and moved to the Silly Goose. I should have left the netbook turned off once I got there. I got involved in a scary hand with a good player. I was dealt something like J-10 and the flop came 7-8-9, giving me a straight. I decided to slowplay it and another player bet aggressively, and I called. Turn was an 8, and I failed to realize what a bad card that was for me – the board had paired, and he had a set of three nines, giving him a full house which beat my straight. I ended up losing big on that hand, and after being up $26 at one point, I finished the evening down about $10. If I hadn’t been drinking beer I would have folded that hand as soon as the board paired. Nevertheless, I can’t wait to play 6-max again – I think there’s a lot more potential profit there than 9-max, because 6-max tables attract more inexperienced players. Also, with fewer people in the hand, it’s possible to play more of a “small ball” style like Daniel Negreanu does. You have to be real careful post-flop though.

While at the Silly Goose, the bartender ordered one of the new entrees for his dinner – beef brisket with mashed potatoes, and they had the brisket wrapped around the potatoes volcano-style. Looked fantastic. I’m definitely going to give that a try next time I’m in the Goose.

That’s it for today’s lunchtime post. No plans for after work, except getting my hair cut at Rachel’s Salon at 5. Maybe I’ll take the netbook out again, but I’ll be much more careful mixing poker and beer.