Daily thoughts of a Downtown Memphis resident
My friend Otto posted to Facebook and Twitter yesterday about FriendFeed, a service that aggregates all your friend’s social media posts into one feed – Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr, etc. I signed up a few hours ago and am very glad I did. Everyone on those services would benefit from FriendFeed.
If you follow me on Twitter or are my friend on Facebook, please consider signing up on FriendFeed and friending me there.
If you’re looking for something fun to do Downtown this weekend and want to hear some live music, check out Dash Rip Rock at Automatic Slim’s this weekend. They’re a Louisiana swamp band that has been tearing it up at college bars in the South for 25 years. For more info on them check out their website and Wikipedia page.
If you’ve never been to Slim’s before, or if you haven’t been since last fall when the restaurant changed ownership, be sure to try some of Chef Michael Patrick’s outstanding food. One of the best chefs in town, for sure.
Bardog Tavern is starting a “Bikes, Brunch, and Beer” event every Sunday from noon to 3. You’re encouraged to ride your bike to Bardog – motorized or not, but they prefer motorized because they like the rumble of the engine. There will be steak and eggs, French toast, omelettes, and more. Complimentary Bloody Mary, Screwdriver, or Mimosa with brunch purchase, and they will have $2 Schlitz cans and $1.50 PBR.
They are also still holding their Texas Hold’em tournament on Wednesday nights in the Underdog Room. Win prizes, and build points toward the grand prize of a cruise… from the e-mail Aldo sent out, it looks like it’s still anybody’s game, and a new contestant could still come along and win enough points to get the cruise 9 weeks from now.
The Peabody rooftop party this Thursday, July 2, will feature music by the artists on MTV’s series $5 Cover – Valerie June, Muck Sticky, and Al Kapone. Appropriately enough, there’s a $5 cover to get in. Ladies free before 8.
The Peabody will through a bonus rooftop party Saturday, July 4 for the viewing of the Downtown fireworks. Party buffet of summertime picnic favorites and drinks from MillerCoors. Ingram Hill will perform, and Maney and Riley from Q107.5 will host the event. 6 to 11 PM, $20 cover, ladies free until 7 PM.
That’s it for now. Gotta get back to work.
There’s an event at Stop 345 this weekend that sounds pretty interesting… it’s a soul music revue called Soul of America ’09, to be held Saturday, July 4 from 10 PM to 2 AM. It features local talent including Don Valentine and the Hollywood Allstars, Willie Covington, Tonya Dyson, Nate Dogg, and Joyce Henderson, with DJ The Hookup spinning classic and rare 45s. Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door. Advance tickets available at Shangri-La on Madison in Midtown, or online at boomhaus.com.
Shelton Clothiers just announced their summer sale, with all suits 30-50% off (alterations extra). Also, all remaining sportswear is now 50% off. Shelton may be putting their summer merchandise on sale, but it’s warm enough to wear summer items here through at least the first half of October, so you have plenty of time left to show off your new purchases.
The Hard Rock Cafe on Beale Street will have post-Country on Beale entertainment on Thursday nights this summer. This week they’ll kick it off with Frankie Hollie & the Noise at 9:15. Friday night they’ll have The Rickets & Butcher Jones, and Saturday the lineup is Blackberry Wednesday and Stiff Kitty.
In other news: Two people frequently mentioned on this blog, the Nuh-Uh Girl and Meghan, have become friends. Apparently they hang out at the same pool on the weekends. I can imagine how that conversation must have gone:
Meghan: (Huge sigh) Four more hours until I have to go to work. Maybe no one will come in, and I’ll be able to sit on my ass and do nothing the entire night.
Nuh-Uh Girl: Hey, when are you guys going to have another party with a free buffet? And what kind of food do you think you’ll have? Can you ask them to get bigger plates? When I come back to the table with 7 of those little plates full of food, it looks kind of bad.
Meghan: I don’t know when we’re having another party, but when we do, I hope I have the night off. It’s hard to stand there behind the bar and carry on a text message conversation with my mini-me when I have 30 people screaming drink orders.
Nuh-Uh Girl: Has Shawn said anything about adding any new dishes to the menu anytime soon? If he needs a taste tester, I’d be happy to volunteer!
Oh well. At least they wear tube tops. Off to trivia… our team spent our stash of winnings recently, so it’s time to rebuild.
Congratulations to my friends Chris and Katie, who got married yesterday at the Cadre Building. Since it was June, Katie went with a tube top wedding dress. Good choice!
The Cadre was a beautiful venue, perfect for a combination wedding and reception. Here are a few pics of the facility:
Guests wait to go through the receiving line
We enjoyed booze and finger food on the mezzanine while the wedding party took photos.
The reception area, as viewed from the mezzanine.
And now, the usual pics of us eating and drinking:
I guess just this once I’ll be nice and post a pic of the Nuh-Uh Girl NOT eating.
Chris and Katie had their guests seated at tables named after significant experiences they’ve had together with their friends. Stephanie holds up the “Rapscallions” sign.
Best man Imran toasts the happy couple.
The flower vase at our table provided lots of entertainment.
Me with the bride
Absolutely a fantastic wedding. They had a cute “wedding gazette” that told the guests about experiences Chris and Katie had together. Food was great. Toasts and tributes by the wedding party were excellent. Full photo album here.
Woke up with 101.8 fever this morning, called in, chugged NyQuil, fell back asleep. I feel better now.
Walked by Bangkok Alley in the old Sawaddii location today and noticed they were open. So I went in and ordered the red curry. I like spicy, so I asked them to kick it up a notch.
“We can do anything from 1 to 10,” replied Raj the manager, who used to work at the Saucer. I ordered a 9.
I’ll never do that again. It took 7 glasses of water, a beer, and an extra bowl of rice to get through that curry. They don’t mess around.
Even though there’s a beer permit application in the window, they’re already serving, thanks to a temp permit. Liquor possibly as soon as next week.
Blogging from my phone at the Goose. There are several tube top hotties up here.
I scored a free book last night at Trolley Tour. A guy came up an identified himself as an author and said, “What’s your mailing address? I want to send you a copy of my new book when it comes out in September.” He handed me a card. The book is titled Sputnik, Masked Men, & Midgets: The Early Days of Memphis Wrestling. Cool! It covers the era from Sputnik Monroe to Jackie Fargo to the early days of Jerry Lawler, and contains a bonus CD with music by Fargo, Monroe, Len Rossi, and “The Boogie Woogie Man” Handsome Jimmy Valiant. Can’t wait to read it. Says it will have over 400 images of the golden years of Memphis wrestling.
It’s too bad it was so incredibly hot last night, because the trolley tour otherwise would’ve been one of the best of the year. The Music Foundation had bands and free burgers, and the SMA had burgers and hot dogs and Boscos beer. There were a number of smaller bands playing out on the street, and the preview for Daylight Fades was playing at 506 S. Main. The heat got to me though… by 8:15 I couldn’t take it any more and headed north. Later in the evening I headed to Paula & Raiford’s, where Raiford pulled out some Michael Jackson tunes I haven’t heard him play in years. All the staff had “Michael Jackson Lives On 1958-2009” shirts on which was a nice touch.
Attn frat guys: The combination of button-down shirts, long khaki pants, and flip-flops looks really, really stupid.
As I was walking down the Main Street Mall yesterday I saw this sign:
New fitness club on the top floor of the Cadre Building at Second and Monroe. Go to envisionmemphis.com and click “Enter Site” at the bottom of the page to see what they’ve got. Good to have a fitness club so close to home… I’ll enjoy walking by it on the way to the Saucer every day.
Trying to get a game plan together for tomorrow… I think I may actually slot Kooky Canuck in the lead-off 11 AM position, because it’s their Canada Day celebration and a 34 oz. Molson for $3 ($3.01, including tip for Meghan) sounds like a great way to start the day. I’m also real curious about this “Montreal Steamie” they’re offering as a special, topped with mustard, onion, cabbage, and cayenne with a side of fries for $4.99.
Then at 4 I have a wedding to go to at the Cadre Building… Been thinking, this is a great weekend to be single. If I had a wife or girlfriend, we’d argue all weekend about whether I’m wearing a tie to the wedding (I most definitely am not) and whether I’m going out drinking beer at the Saucer in the early afternoon before the wedding (I most definitely am). I guess I’ll hang at the Saucer until about 3:15-3:20ish then go put the stupid monkey suit on, minus the tie.
I unlinked my Twitter account from my Facebook account last night. From now on I’ll do personal status updates primarily on Facebook. Having used Twitter for a month I have yet to see the point… mostly it’s Stephanie, Susie, and the Nuh-Uh Girl chattering back and forth, and the Nuh-Uh Girl panhandling Downtown restaurants for free food. I’ll still maintain my @firesale Twitter account which posts the Fire Sale on my blog as well as Twitter.
Today is not going to be a fun day. Amazon announced a change in the way they do web services, and I have to get all my Amazon storefronts in compliance by August 15 or they’ll stop working. Groan… I have about 110 stores to update. That’s going to suck.
By the way… I’ve rolled out 5 new stores in the past week… sister sites to Tube Top Boutique… been too busy to blog about them. They are
I have two more stores under development that I’ll add soon. You know the story on these by now… Amazon handles checkout and shipping, I never see your name or credit card number, just a notification that items were bought and how much commission I made.
And finally, I’ll wrap up this long Saturday morning post with a pic of Ruchee in a tube top dress.
For once I actually got a good night’s sleep on a Thursday night, so tonight is definitely a going-out night. And a good going-out night it is, with the Trolley Tour happening in South Main. The SMA will grill free burgers and Boscos beer for members – if you want to become a member and get into fun events like this one, just bring $25 to join as an individual. Down the street the Power House will have the opening of “Girls, Grillz, and Dolls,” a photography exhibit by Sheila Pree Bright. More details on that here.
In the CA today: Onix, the chicken and waffles restaurant at South Main and Huling, got reviewed. Also, one of the true icons of Downtown, the Little Tea Shop’s Suhair Lauck, was featured in “Meet the Chef.”
Watched the draft last night at the Saucer and at Bardog. Welcome to Memphis Hasheem, and congrats to Tyreke Evans on being picked 4th by Sacramento. It sounds like that’s where he wants to be. Congratulations also to Robert Dozier on getting picked #60 by the Miami Heat. Antonio Anderson didn’t get picked. If any colleges out there have an assistant basketball coaching position open, they would do well to give Anderson a serious look.
I know some of you got on here this morning hoping to see pictures… sorry. It’s hard to find time to do all the things I need to do and still conform to an 8-to-5 schedule. Hopefully I’ll download them this weekend. However, I have to do mandatory software upgrades to my Amazon stores, and I have about 115 of them… ouch. Gonna be in front of the computer a lot this weekend.
On July 4, 1826, John Adams, the 2nd president of the United States, lay dying. He commented to one of the people in the room that Jefferson still lives. He didn’t know that Thomas Jefferson, his friend and political rival and the 3rd president, had just died.
Yesterday was the July 4, 1826 of modern pop culture for people who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died on the same day.
MJ, I will think of you this weekend when Raiford plays “I Want You Back” and “ABC” and “Billie Jean” and “Pretty Young Thing,” hopefully as I dance with a tube top hottie.
Back at lunchtime with the news.
The Memphis Flyer interviewed me about the foods I eat yesterday, and today the article appeared on their “Hungry Memphis” blog – you can read it here. I’m pretty proud of the article, and I’m especially happy that they mentioned my Buy-Paul-a-Beer.net site.
Last night I bought the Amstel Light glass at the Saucer’s “Buy the Beer, Keep the Glass” night. Usually I don’t care about the glasses but the Amstel Light one was pretty cool, comparable in quality to Stella Artois glasses. As usual, Brittney was standing around running her mouth while all the other bartenders worked hard pouring beer. I overheard her telling people that she spends a lot of money on her hair. Attn Brittney, here’s a beauty tip for you: Get a brown paper bag and a pair of scissors and cut out two eye holes. Also, a bonus tip: Shut up.
All right, let’s get on to today’s news. If you’re a fan of Robert Graham and Nat Nast shirts, Lansky at the Peabody is running a 30-40% off sale on select ones of those brands. That brings them down from the “ridiculously expensive” category to just “expensive,” but hey, they are nice shirts.
Capriccio Grill at the Peabody is offering a WICKED pre-theater dinner that is described as “gravity-defying” by their PR people. 3 courses with a glass of wine and complimentary valet parking for $45.
Old School Pictures will premiere the trailer for their full-length film, Daylight Fades, Friday night at South Main Trolley Tour. You’ll also be able to meet cast and crew and learn more about the film. Much of it was shot at Downtown locations including Earnestine & Hazel’s, Bluff City Coffee, houses on the bluffs, and the riverside.
Even though the Peabody rooftop party offers prime tube top watching, I think I’m going to take a week off to watch the NBA Draft. The possibilities are intriguing. Will we take Thabeet or Rubio? Will we trade down and take Tyreke? What will we do with our 27th and 36th picks? Will Robert Dozier get drafted? What about Antonio Anderson? Taggart? I’m gonna have to watch the entire thing.
There’s a Grizz Draft Party at the FedExForum at 5 PM today. Free admission. Draft coverage begins at 6. The Grizz Girls and Grizz mascot will be on hand for chances to shoot free throws on the floor, play on Grizzlies inflatables, participate in text messaging games, and more. Hmmm… they didn’t mention the magic word – “beer” – so I’ll probably skip this one… will probably watch at either the Saucer or the Goose, depending on what I think of today’s Fire Sale (don’t know what it is yet).
As for today’s “big news”… I’m keeping my mouth shut on the matter until July 10. I will mention that Circa is serving their “haterade” cocktails that they first concoted in the aborted resignation attempt of 2008.