Paul Ryburn's Journal

See this story on the CA’s website.

Mayor Herenton, who has been mayor for 17 years and whose accomplishments over the past three years include

, will step down in a little over three months.  Wonder if My Harrison’s investigations with the FBI finally turned up some dirt on Willie.  Why did he run for a fourth term if he only planned to serve 7 months of it?

The Southern Hot Wing Festival will take place in the South Main Arts District from 10:30 AM to 6:00 PM Saturday, April 26.  It will be on the block between G.E. Patterson and St. Paul, which is the block where the Arcade is.

Looking at their website, it looks like it’s not too late to enter if you’re a hot wing cooking expert.

Event will benefit the Ronald McDonald House.  Admission to the festival is $1, or free with donation of a canned food item for the House’s pantry.

EP Delta Kitchen is having their first Thursday night patio party of the year tonight.  There will be free beer on the patio until it runs out, and $5 Roaring Lion/vodkas all night.  Roaring Lion is imitation Red Bull, for those who have never heard of it.

This afternoon at 3:30, Mike King and I get to train the new Downtown security patrol personnel, who will be targeting panhandling, for an hour and a half.  We have color handouts for them, including a condensed version of my panhandling gimmicks page and a color map showing the locations that attract the most panhandlers.  We also have a handout for them called “Our Favorite Bums,” where we list our picks for the 10 biggest hustlers/scammers in the Downtown area, describing their modes of operation.  We have color photos of 8 of them.  Jumper Cable Guy, Sharp Dressed Bum, the parking lot scammers, the guy who stands outside Walgreens and makes lewd comments to women… we want to make sure the security patrol gets to know all these fine citizens of Downtown Memphis.

We’re also going to take a minute to describe one of the homeless guys who walks around down here but doesn’t bother anyone, and discuss how his mannerisms differ from those of the aggressive professional panhandlers.  We want the security patrol to be able to recognize the harmless homeless and leave them alone.

Beer report:  The Saucer managed to lose ALL THREE of my receipts for beers I consumed Tuesday night.  Great job, guys!  A couple of other UFO members told me their receipts hadn’t been scanned either, so I’m figuring maybe they’re a day behind on all of them.  I’ll give them a day to catch up.  But my patience with the Saucer is running REAL thin right now.  It’s a good thing my BFF works there or otherwise I might be tempted to take away the Saucer’s status as my #1 bar.

I did talk to the mini-me who waited on me Tuesday, and she remembered the $11 Holy Grail Ale that I drank and paid for.  She said she’d vouch for the purchase of those beers.  If they’re not caught up tonight I’m going to go to management and complain.  I had said I wasn’t going to do that, in order to get the true cost of a plate, but 1) this is ridiculous and 2) if too many beers get lost, it will endanger the date it looks like we’ve picked for my plate party and Rapscallion Party VII.

Previous total:  $723.00

Beers 130, 131, and 132 by my count (and who the hell knows what the Saucer’s count is anymore):
Coors Light draft YUKKKKKKK $3.25
Asahi (at least it was better than Coors Light) $4.25
Hornsby’s Hard Cider (not a bad value at 6% ABV) $4.00
Tip:  $11.50 x ~30% = $3.00
Total:  $14.50

Grand total:  $737.50

Back later today with info on a new festival coming to Downtown Memphis next month.

I’m starting off today’s post with a request for a little help from my readers. Please watch the YouTube movie below,

(Edit:  Crap, it’s not loading.  Go here to watch the video.)

then go to ArtsMemphis.com and vote for it.  My friend Harmony Stewart is a semifinalist in their film competition, and she needs your votes for her film “Blues” (which is the YouTube video shown here).

In other news… my friend AngieDawn sent out an e-mail that went something like “OMG OMG OMG Eddie Izzard is coming to Memphis.”  Eddie Izzard is a comedian.  I’ve never heard of him but according to Angie he’s awesome.  You can read more about him and why you should go see his show on Angie’s blog.

Now that I’ve recommended a comedian I’ve never heard of, let me follow it up by recommending a band I’ve never heard of.  My friend/trivia teammate Eric writes that a band called 500 Miles to Memphis will be playing at the Buccaneer this Sunday the 23rd.  Eric says they’re a punk/rockabilly band that he digs with 2.5 shovels.  You can read more about them on their website.  Hmmm.  The pic on the front page of their site shows the lead singer holding a tallboy can of PBR.  That’s a good sign.  Eric guesses they’re named 500 Miles to Memphis because that’s the approximate distance from their home town of Cincinnati.

Sunday the 23rd is also Easter Sunday, so I’m sure you know where I’ll be that morning… in a bar, drinking mimosas and bloody marys.  It will be week 2 of our brunch rotation at the Majestic.  However, this week plans are screwed up afterward, as the Saucer will not open until 5 that day.  Hell if I know why, from what I remember last year Easter was as busy as any other Sunday.  But, when they do open at 5, they’ll have an Easter egg hunt.  Find an egg, get a free beer.

Not sure what I’ll do between 1 and 5 that day.  Maybe go outside and sit on the blocks on Beale and drink a Call-a-Cab if the weather is nice.  But the current prediction is high 51, low 35 and rain, so that plan is not very likely.  March Madness will be on and the Tigers will likely be playing a second-round game on Sunday, so that will figure into things.  Hmmm.  Maybe McGuinness for a bonus Sunday with Amy… hmmm… Big Foot has $5 34 oz. Blue Moons, that’s an option as well… absolutely not walking farther south than Linden to watch the game when there are good places to watch it in the Downtown core.

Back to the Easter egg hunt… dammit, every year we say we’re going to do this and then forget!  There’s been a long-standing plan to buy a bunch of large-sized plastic eggs, hide those little 50 ml “airplane bottles” of cheap booze in them, and then hide the eggs in Court Square for the bums to find.  Hey, bums deserve to have a little Easter fun too.  Hmmm maybe Saturday.

In the CA this morning:  The Downtown branch of the public library, the Cossitt branch at Front and Monroe, will close July 1.  King Willie says the closing, along with four others around the city, is part of a move to “reposition assets.”

Random commercial jingle from the past before I head to work:

“The Defender sees lots of alien ships
The Defender sees lots of radar blips
Every blip is a ship
On a body-snatching trip

Now it’s up to Defender to save them
Defender, a great Atari game!”
– Atari commercial advertising Defender video game cartridge, June 1983

Congrats to the Rapscallions, who pulled out the comeback of a year for second place.  After two rounds, we had 39 out of a possible 93, and were losing to the Saucer Girls team among many others.  But we came back with an almost-perfect round three to move into second place and pick up $25.  That brings our total to $300, assuming I finish my plate in time.  Which reminds me – it’s time to start planning a date for Rapscallion Party VII, will e-mail the team tomorrow.

Couple of things I heard tonight:

First of all, I heard that the Blue Monkey is at least 3 weeks away from opening, as they have a little more construction to be done.  They definitely plan on opening the doors before Memphis In May, but would like to open a few weeks prior so they have time to do a dry run.

Also heard that Hoop’s Bar now has a sake (Japanese rice wine) machine.

The mini-me waited on us tonight.  Her personality is actually tolerable when her big buddy isn’t around.  Beer report:

Previous total:  $697.25

Beers 127, 128, and 129 (but 122, 123, and 124 according to the Saucer):
Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat draft $4.25
RedHook Blonde draft $4.00
Monty Python’s Holy Grail Ale bottle $11.00
Tip:  $19.25 x ~ 30% = $6.00
Total:  $25.25

Grand total:  $723.00

I had free Gus’s Chicken for lunch!  And beans and potato salad on the side.  We all sat around and talked and discussed current plans for the company and talked about current projects.  There was no stress or ass-kissing or any of the other BS you typically see in most corporate lunches.  What a great place to work.

The Westin lobby bar continues its weekly wine tastings tomorrow with the wines of Moss Back from the Russian River Valley tomorrow (Wed 3/19) from 5:30-7:30 PM.

My friends at Mpact Memphis asked me to post information about their upcoming “Party of the Year,” Saturday, April 5 at the Pink Palace Museum.  Details below:

Hmmm the Red Rooster is a sponsor, that’s interesting.

Just got an e-mail from one of my media contacts saying that Benihana is getting so much negative feedback about their decision to close their Memphis restaurant, that they are now saying they plan to rebuild the burnt-down restaurant in East Memphis.  They just don’t have a timeline yet.  This may be the truth or it may be corporate BS.

Here’s a link to a McDonald’s “talk smack about your basketball opponent generator.  Thanks Adam for sending that to me.

Don’t know if I have any readers from the Jackson, MS area, but if I do, there are several VB.NET/ASP.NET/SQL Server development positions open down there.  Salary is negotiable but generally in the $60-90K range.  If you are interested and think you’re qualified, e-mail me (paul@paulryburn.com) and I’ll put you in touch with the recruiter.

Sunday when I showed my BFF my new BFF-T, she said, “I want one, but I want it in small.  Make it happen.”  So today I went by and talked to my friends who run the screen-printing business in the basement of Winfield’s (Madison and Main).  They still had the image on file, and an hour later they had a shirt for me.  I’ll give it to her the next time I see her (don’t think she works tonight though).  I am the best BFF ever.  I hope my BFF realizes how lucky she is.

I’ve been texted that the Fire Sale tonight is Turbo Dog.  Is the Saucer trying to do everything they can to run me out of there?  If not for trivia I might be tempted to extend the protest to a second consecutive night.

I just realized, I screwed up really bad in the last blog post. You see, when I got hired my company made me sign a secrecy statement, where I promised that I would not reveal important company secrets such as what goes on in departmental meetings. Then yesterday I broke that agreement when I posted that in our Friday departmental meeting, we decided to order Gus’s Chicken for lunch today. Can you imagine what our competitors could do with that information if they get a hold of it? Oh… the implications are scary… now they know about Gus’s… I could have started a scandal that could rock the IT world as we know it. I hope I still have a job when I get to the office today.

EP’s has started having movie nights on Tuesday. Tonight they are showing Go, then Can’t Hardly Wait. First movie starts at 7. Of course, I won’t be there because I have trivia night. I’m washing my Pete the Trivia Guy T-shirt for tomorrow so I can wear it.

Of course, I won’t be at movie night because 1) I hardly ever watch movies; and 2) it’s trivia night at the Saucer.  I ran my Pete the Trivia Guy T-shirt through the laundry yesterday, so if you missed it last week I’ll be sporting it again tonight.

You know, after going out for St. Patrick’s night last night, I’m not so mad anymore at the Saucer for taking away Pint Nite except for two Irish beers.  As I walked around, I noticed how St. Pat’s tends to turn into amateur night for partiers, much like New Year’s, with a bunch of drunk, stupid people out who normally we don’t see in large numbers the other days of the year, except for NYE and Music Fest.  Can kind of understand why the Saucer wouldn’t want to fan the flames with $2.75 beer.  McGuinness raised their prices a buck too.  Still not sorry I took a night off, but I no longer harbor ill feelings about it.

Just found this story from the CA which illustrates that St. Pat’s is amateur drinking night.

Also in the CA, it’s been announced that Benihana is closing its East Memphis restaurant that burned down in February, rather than trying to rebuild.

Amy from McGuinness gave me a cool toy – a ball you wear around your neck that spins around and spells “Kiss me, I’m Irish” with LED lights.

The Memphis Flyer reports that Jake Ford, brother of Harold Ford Jr., will enter the 9th Congressional District Democratic primary against Rep. Steve Cohen and attorney Nikki Tinker.

That’s all I’ve got for now – off to work.

Just got a text from fellow Saucer regular John D… only Guinness and Killian’s Red are on $2.75 Pint Nite tonight.  All other draft beers that are normally $2.75 on Mondays are FULL PRICE tonight, in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day.  I will NOT be at the Saucer tonight in protest.  What a dumb thing to do, with the Blue Monkey opening in just a few weeks.  Way to piss off all your regulars and send them straight to the Monkey when it opens.  About half the Saucer’s regulars were Downtown Blue Monkey regulars before the place burned down.

I will likely use McGuinness as my home base tonight.  Will be there between 6:00 and 6:30.

In other news:  Thanks to everyone who e-mailed to tell me that the old Zoe’s Kitchen location at Main and Monroe will be the new Suntrust branch, once they move out of the big building with their name on it.

I have a green Hawaiian shirt and Mardi Gras beads on at work, in celebration of St. Pat’s.  Nice to work for a place where I can dress that way.  We had a department meeting Friday and one of the major items on the agenda was, “Hey, do you guys want to order Gus’s Chicken for lunch on Tuesday?”

All right, got a lot to do this afternoon, time to get back to it.  Here’s a fun game for my readers who work at the Memphis Flyer:  Play “count the Mikeyisms.”  Thought of that as I was walking back for lunch, and a squirrel (Mikeyism:  “tree rat”) scampered up the Main Street Mall.

So today I unveiled my new T-shirt. My friends Pete and Josh have a clothing printing business in the basement of Winfield’s at Madison and Main. “Any picture you want on a T-shirt, we can do it,” they told me. So I decided to take them up on it. If you were at the Saucer on Tuesday, you saw the Pete the Trivia Guy T-shirt. Today I unveiled the second shirt in the Paul Ryburn spring line, the BFF-T. It was based on this image:

Now, before I get to the details of what happened today, I want to point out that several people commented that the image above is a highly Photoshoppable image. So we’re going to have the first ever Photoshop contest in this blog, based on the image above. Winner will receive a 34 oz. beverage of their choice at Big Foot Lodge courtesy of yours truly, maximum $9.99 value. Winning image may or may not be published here (I do have some standards of decency) but I’ll make sure my BFF sees all entries. I and I alone will judge which is the winning entry.

So anyway, we did brunch at Majestic as planned, then pool at the Saucer, then the Sham-ROCK St. Pat’s bash at Big Foot. Here’s a pic of me in my new BFF shirt with my BFF at Big Foot:

They accidentally printed an extra of the BFF-T, which I gave to my BFF as a present. Unfortunately it was an extra large. “You need to get a small made for me,” said my BFF. “Make it happen.” As you can see, my BFF is taller than I am. I’d estimate her at 5′  8 1/2″ and a very full C. Small? Really?

Later on, my BFF’s name came up in conversation after she left. My friends Tom, Meredith, Mendi, and Calvit showed up. Hang on, here’s pics:

Tom, Meredith, Calvit, and Mendi were playing the FMK (fuck, marry, kill) game.  Someone names three members of the opposite sex, and you have to pick one that you’d fuck, one that you’d marry, and one that you’d kill.  I don’t hang out with them a whole lot, so I listened to them play several rounds without being included.

Finally Tom said, “Paul.  Your turn.  The Nuh-Uh Girl.  The Nuh-Uh Sister.  Your BFF.  Fuck, marry, kill.”

“Well, first of all, kill the Nuh-Uh Girl, no doubt about that,” I said.  “But let me get a clarification on which version of the rules we’re following for the other two.”  Tom and Mendi had two slightly different sets of rules for the game.

“We’re under my rules,” said Tom.  “You have normal sexual relations with the girl you marry, but you also have to go to Home Depot and do stuff like that with her.  Whereas, the girl you fuck is just a one-night stand and there’s no hope of anything more than that.”

“Well, in that case, I’d marry my BFF and fuck the Nuh-Uh Sister,” I replied.  Under Mendi’s rules (marriage is purely platonic and for appearances’ sake) I’d be tempted to reverse the two.

A few more rounds went by and my turn came up again.  This time it was my BFF and her mini-me, as well as former Saucer waitress Zebra Hair (who Tom called Skunk Hair by mistake… hahaha).  Once again, my “kill” answer was immediate – kill the mini-me.  The “fuck” answer was clear too – Zebra Hair.  If you’ve seen her, you understand.  That left my BFF as “marry” for the second time in a row.  That’s really disturbing but I had no choice in either case.

Rewind to earlier in the day:  While having brunch at Majestic I read the latest issue of RSVP Magazine.  On page 44 they have an interview with Nate who runs Nate’s bar upstairs at Earnestine & Hazel’s.  Check it out.  Worth a read.  The rest of the issue was fit to line a bird cage as usual.  I was surprised that RSVP released an entire issue without even one picture of Kevin Kane.  Was he out of the country last month?

Then I went on to the Saucer for my 3 beers.  Beer report:

Previous total:  $683.00

Beers 124, 125 and 126 (but 119, 120, and 121 according to the Saucer):
Bud Light Draft $3.25
Molson Golden $3.75
K Cider $4.25
Tip:  $11.25 x ~30% = $3.00
Total:  $14.25

Grand total:  $697.25

More pictures.  Here’s a pic of panhandlers Estes and Sherry working Main Street near Beale using their baby as a gimmick:

Sorry, but I don’t have any more images of bums to share with you.  So instead I’m going to have to substitute images of off-duty Saucer girls at the party at Big Foot.  Hope that’s all right.

Here’s “Paul, go get me candy” girl:

Here she is with me and another girl:

And here’s a shot of the bar featuring my BFF and her roommate.

Big Foot was having trouble dyeing the beer green in the kegs.  Someone asked me if they really drink green beer in Ireland.  Hell if I know, if I ever travel to Europe I plan on bypassing Ireland and traveling straight to Romania.

Later in the evening, I made a second appearance at the Saucer with Tom, Meredith, Mendi, Calvit, and regular blog reader Groobie Baby.  Hang on, we haven’t posted a pic of Groobie yet:

Is that a TUBE TOP Groobie has on?  I think it is.  She needs to lose the outer top though.

So we were sitting around a table at the Saucer, discussing “Rock Out With Your Cock Out” night at the Red Rooster, and how it may be a little bit too masculine of a name.  The girls suggested some feminine alternatives:

“Jam Out With Your Clam Out”
“Get Out With Your Clit Out”

And now I’m home and it’s time for bed.  For those of you who were getting tired of the this-is-what’s-going-on-Downtown informational posts and missed the old drunk posting style, this one is for you.  Have a good night everyone.  Don’t forget to wear green.