Paul Ryburn's Journal

More Downtown events to mention, after looking at the CCC’s weekly Livin’ It Up newsletter:

Lots going on Friday night… I’ve already mentioned my plans, which involve heading to the Saucer for happy hour and rounding up a posse to take to Bardog Tavern’s opening at 7.  However, there are other options too.  Pam & Terry play their last date at the Russwood Park Grill, on the ground floor of the Holiday Inn at Second and Union, from 7 to 11 PM.

Also, tomorrow is the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Orpheum.  8 PM, $5 admission fee, costumes encouraged.

This Sunday is the Diversity Memphis 5K Walk, starting and ending at AutoZone Park.  Registration at 12:30, walk at 1:30.  After the walk there will be a rock climbing wall and boardwalk games at AutoZone Park, as well as multicultural music and dance.  It’s an event to bring Memphians of different races and cultures together for the afternoon, and to raise funds for the FreeLand summer youth camp.

Sunday evening, the City Champs play Huey’s at 8:30 PM.  I caught a little of their set at the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival, after being encouraged to see them by our VP of Marketing at work, who is married to one of the band members.  They were pretty good, so I’ll try to swing by for some of their show Sunday, if the South Main Association Oktoberfest hasn’t put me down for the count.

Two dinners next week:  There will be a wine dinner at Encore Monday night at 6:30 PM with a four course meal and wine presented by Chef Jose Gutierrez and BR Cohn; $65; 527-3621 for reservations.  Wednesday night will be the latest installment of the Memphis Farmers Market monthly dinner tour, featuring fresh produce from MFM.  6 PM, 523-0877 to make reservations.

I finally had another crepe from Crepe Maker at Third and Peabody Place.  Had one at lunch today, and I once again went for the chicken Philly, which I think has become my favorite of the entree crepes.  They’re open ’til 9 Sunday-Thursday and midnight Friday-Saturday, so you have plenty of time to get one after you get home from work.

All right, need to get some work done on my websites… time to grab the laptop and head somewhere where there’s beer, waitresses in miniskirts, and Wi-Fi.

I got an e-mail a couple of days ago from the chairman of the groundbreaking committee for First Church. He thanked me for mentioning the groundbreaking on October 5, but he wanted to clear up a misconception a lot of people seem to have. There’s a belief that the project is already fully funded, when it’s actually not. The actual costs, the chairman tells me, add up to about $8.3 million, and so far $6 million has been raised. They still need additional donations or lines of credit. The misconception is due to the media erroneously reporting the cost as $5 million.

Old School Pictures, a Memphis-based movie production company, will be filming a movie called Daylight Fades in Downtown, Midtown, and other Memphis locations in early 2009. A press release from the company described the film as “a drama with a horrific twist, a character-driven story that explores love, redemption, sacrifice, and immortality.” Look for them filming around town in the months to come. For more info on the film, you can visit their website or their MySpace page.

I caught very little of the Downtown Alive! Gayoso Alley party last night… I was just dead tired and not up to mingling. I hate it that I missed out on crepes from Crepe Maker, although the restaurant is only about a 4 block walk from my front door so I can actually have one anytime I want. A private party is going to keep me away from next Wednesday’s Downtown Alive! concert, but I’ll still post details about it here as the date gets closer, and I’ll be at the one following that on October 1st.

I did notice one big difference from last year’s concert series – no bums.  So instead of “Bands, Beer, and Bums,” this year it’s “Bands, Beer and Bum Patrol.”  The Downtown Safety patrol officers passed through while I was there.  Good to see them monitoring the action.

Change Memphis will hold its first session to educate the public on proposed changes to the city and county charters from 6-8 PM next Wednesday, September 24, at the Orange Mound Community Center (2572 Park Ave.) Representatives from the Charter Commission and Change Memphis will be on hand to answer questions and concerns, and to explain each amendment in detail.

Let’s see what’s in the Memphis Flyer this week… on page 3 there’s an announcement that Beignets, a wine and dessert lounge at 124 GE Patterson, will open soon.  The ad says will have salads, sandwiches, soups and more.  It’s being opened by my neighbor Aaron who used to manage Itta Bena – just a super nice guy, am looking forward to giving this place a try.

Get ready for another Warehouse party!  Feed the Soul, celebrating MIFA’s 40th birthday, will be a celebration at Kris Kourdouvelis’ Warehouse on Thursday, October 2, from 6 to 10 PM.  There will be entertainment by the one and only Raiford.  $40 general admission.  Visit mifa.org for more information.

Great article on p. 17 by McCain supporter Ken Hall and Obama supporter Darrell Cobbins, saying that it’s time for America to return to being civil in its political debates.  I agree 100%.  You know, I just can’t jump on the McCain-hating bandwagon.  Friends of mine say “he scares me,” and they’re entitled to their opinion, but he doesn’t scare me.  He clearly has dedicated his life to public service, and I think he’d make a very competent President.  It’s just that I disagree with too many of his positions, especially on social issues, to vote for him.  But I don’t have bad things to say about the man.  He doesn’t scare me.  George Bush scares me because he’s just too stupid to be dogcatcher, much less President.  Dick Cheney scares me.  If Cheney had 8 years to start World War III and couldn’t get it done, I doubt McCain would be able to either, if so inclined, which I don’t think he is.  No matter who wins, I think the country will head in a much better direction after January 20, 2009, but I’ll be pulling the lever for Obama.

p.20:  A reminder from Bardog Tavern that the doors will open 7 PM Friday night, September 19.  They’ll stay open ’til 3, and will be open 7-3 Saturday night as well, with a full bar, 10 beers on tap, and free food being passed out throughout the night.  (John D: “Paul, will they have Bud Light bottles?”  I’m sure they will, John.)

p.50:  Brother and sister Pomeranians named Buffy and Precious are up for adoption.  I don’t know which one is the male, but if I were a male dog and someone named me either Buffy or Precious, I’d bite them really hard.  What horrible names.  Walter… now that’s a good dog name.  Where have I seen that recently?

Back page:  Looks like the Cajun restaurant formerly known as Cayenne Moon is now calling itself Orleans on Front.

And that’s the lunchtime update.  Time to go to a meeting.  Yay meetings.

 

It’s time to unveil my newest website. Sometimes I carefully plan these things, revising them over and over again before launch. And then other times I just throw some crap on the Web and see if anyone notices.

This site is the latter. Literally, it is.

As I contemplated my next site, I thought, “What’s a unique niche… what’s a topic for a web-based storefront that no one else would dare touch?”

After a little brainstorming, I had my answer. I decided to do a store about poop. Doo. Feces. BMs. Dung. Scat. Various four-letter words which I won’t mention here, although I’ve probably used every one of them in other blog posts.

Announcing The Doo Doo Store. Products you’ll find there include books about poop, books about farts, books to read in the bathroom, designer toilet seats, poop- and fart-related clothing, doggie pooper scoopers, kitty litter and litter boxes, systems to toilet-train cats, manure, toilet paper, laxatives, enemas, Depends, fake dog doo and various other poop- and fart-related novelties, and feces-related Halloween costumes. There’s also a children’s books section, as this is a topic that is tremendously popular among kids.

Yes, I really went there.

As with my other stores, it’s an Amazon.com storefront, so when you check out you’re doing business with the Internet’s leading retailer, with their state-of-the-art secure ordering system. I never even see your credit card number – all I get is a notification that an order was placed.

I’m quite proud of this new store, but I’ll be the first to admit, it’s without a doubt the shittiest website I’ve ever created.

As I said yesterday, I had an e-mail conversation with Larry Bloom who is the security director of the CCC, and I now understand the verdict of “nolle prosequi” (“prosecutor decided not to pursue”) on St. Jude Bum’s recent “throw missile/begging/gaming prohibited” charge and his contempt of court charge.

The main thing was, the maximum punishment for the charge St. Jude Bum faced was 5 days in jail, and he was already on his 4th day by the time he got to court.  He would have to be credited with “time served,” which meant at most he would have served one additional day.  For the additional trouble it would have caused (keeping officers in court all morning to wait to testify and stuff like that), it wasn’t worth pursuing.

The actual charge, by the way, was sleeping on a park bench.  How that translates to “throw missile/begging/gaming prohibited” is as much a mystery to Larry as it is to me.

So, as they say in the police business, St. Jude Guy beat the rap, but he didn’t beat the ride.  He still spent 4 days in jail waiting for his court appearance.  I was happy enough with that explanation.

Then, later in the day, something occurred to me.  Another of our career panhandlers, who routinely charges people to park at meters near Beale Street, has had 6 of his last 10 panhandling cases thrown out as “nolle prosequi.”  I questioned Larry Bloom about that one.  “The maximum penalty for panhandling is a $50 fine, with no jail time at all,” I pointed out.  “So there is no ‘ride,’ no ‘time served’ in jail waiting for a court appearance.  So if the verdict is ‘nolle prosequi,’ how is our panhandler being punished at all?”

Larry went back to St. Jude Bum’s case for a minute, telling me that there was more to it than just those 4 days in jail.  He had to sign a court order stating that he would not engage in that type of offense again.  If caught, he has now violated a court order, and will go to jail for that reason (which is more serious an offense) than merely the charge itself.

Larry is working with Judge Potter and prosecutor Don Siemer (who was the prosecutor in St. Jude Bum’s case Monday) to set up a similar system for panhandlers.  The first time they’re caught, they may get off, but they’ll have to sign that court order saying they won’t panhandle again.  Then if they do get caught panhandling – and most of our regulars have been caught dozens of times – instead of looking at a $50 fine that will probably get thrown out, they’ll find themselves headed to jail for violating a court order.

So things are in progress to attack the panhandling problem from a legal perspective.  They’re doing what they can to work their way around Tennessee’s antiquated legal system, which states that offenses like panhandling are civil, rather than criminal, and carry a $50 fine that is not a deterrent to anyone (talented panhandlers can earn that much in a few hours).

I owe Don an apology for calling him a “lazy prosecutor” in yesterday’s post – I wasn’t aware of all that was going on behind the scenes.  However, I’m not sorry I made the post, because the panhandling/court order thing has been on their to-do list for a long time, and now they’ve remembered that it’s time to get serious about implementing it.

As for St. Jude Bum, he’s back on the streets for now, but not for long hopefully.  Mike King and I have started checking the “regulars” daily for outstanding warrants, and when we find them we post to the Handling-Panhandling forum to tell everyone to be on the lookout.  We have another one with an active warrant right now, and Mike has printed out copies of the warrant and handed them to Downtown safety patrol officers.

It’s frustrating at times but we gotta keep fighting the good fight.

I’ve been asked a couple of times the past week, “Will Bardog Tavern [which opens Friday at 7 PM] allow smoking?”

My answer is, “1) If you’d quit your filthy, nasty, disgusting habit, it wouldn’t matter; and 2) yes, they will, upstairs.  Downstairs will be table seating and will be nonsmoking.”

Sitting at Hoop’s Bar typing this (drunk post).  Flying Saucer bartender Lazy Do-Nothing Sit-On-Her-Ass-All-Day Brittney is sitting a couple of seats down from me acting like the queen bee with the three dudes who are hanging out with her tonight.  People are playing Wii Bowling.  I’m drinking a can of PBR.

Coming up this week:  First Church still needs your help to rebuild; an explantion of why I’m okay with St. Jude Bum’s “nolle prosequi” verdict (but I still have questions for the DA); a review of the first Downtown Alive! after-work concert; and I have yet ANOTHER website to roll out.

Lots to talk about this afternoon.  But first, it’s time to roll out my newest website creation:

Energy Drinks, Mints and Gum is a storefront that places the energy products that Amazon.com sells together in one convenient location.  You can get many of these products, when you buy them in bulk in packs of 12 or 24, for less than half what you would pay if you walked down to the convenience store and bought them.  The store carries caffeinated mints and gum, energy drinks like Red Bull, Rockstar, and pretty much every other brand out there, and the little energy shots like 5 Hour Power.

If you use these products to stay awake, check out the store, save some money.  I guess the cat’s out of the bag now, how I can stay out at bars ’til 1 or sometimes even 2 AM and still be productive at 8:30 at work.  Well, Mountain Dew plays a role as well.  My health guru AL will be happy to see that the store carries an acai-based energy product.

There’s a new promotion for those discount restaurant gift certificates I talk about from time to time.  From now through September 21, you can enter coupon code FESTIVE at checkout and get 60% off the normal price.  That means their $25 face-value gift certificates, which normally sell for $10, are now $4.  Many restaurants Downtown are part of this program; scroll to the bottom of this blog’s right sidebar and enter 38103 in the zip code search to see which ones participate.  Some restrictions apply – be sure to read each restaurant’s restrictions before you put its certificate in your shopping cart.

The Center City Commission won an international award this week for its Downtown Alive! lunch program.  The program offered concerts, performances, and walking tours of Downtown at lunchtime in the spring.  Downtown Alive! starts up again tomorrow with an after-work concert in Gayoso Alley.

South Main Oktoberfest, sponsored by BankTennessee, will take place this Sunday, September 21 from 3 to 7 on the courtyard of Harry’s Detour at 106 GE Patterson.  Bratwurst, beverages, music and more; beer provided by Boscos Brewery.  Free to South Main Association members; $10 cover for non-members, or you can join the SMA at the event and have membership privileges through the end of 2009.

Shelton Clothiers will have their Fall Trunk Show this Saturday at their store on the Main Street Mall.  Come enjoy jazz on Main Street and Bloody Marys from 11 AM to 3 PM.  Made-to-measure suits from $550; two for $995.

I’m now hearing that the Silly Goose will open in the former Swig space sooner than I previously reported.  They’re now shooting for November, assuming inspections, licenses, etc. don’t cause delays.

Time to go play trivia – my two St. Jude scientist friends e-mailed to let me know that they won’t be there this week, but it’s not because the Rapscallions have run them away.  We haven’t run them away YET. 

(Edit 1:39 PM:  Larry Bloom the security director for the CCC e-mailed me and provided a valid explanation of why the charge was handled this way.  I’ll post more about it later but it’s lengthy and I have work I have to do right now.  Suffice to say, there is a good explanation for what happened with St. Jude Guy, and the prosecutor in that court division is on our side.)

Update on St. Jude Bum’s trip to jail:  He went to court yesterday on both his original charge of “throw missile/begging/gaming prohib” and the contempt of court charge he faced for not showing up to court to answer the first charge.

The outcome?  Both charges were labeled “nolle prosequi.”  That’s legal-talk for “the prosecutor decided not to pursue charges.”  So after all the work Handling-Panhandling, the Downtown Safety Patrol, and the Memphis Police Department did to get this guy off the streets, he was let off scot-free because a prosecutor was too lazy to do his damn job.

It was General Sessions Court, Division 14 where St. Jude Bum had to appear.  That’s Judge Larry Potter’s court, but I tend to believe the fault lies with the prosecutor, not the judge, as Judge Potter has worked with the CCC on initiatives to curb panhandling in the past.

Keep in mind that St. Jude Bum is not a poor, innocent homeless man, but rather a criminal who has felonies on his record including thefts, assaults, and drug charges, in addition to numerous panhandling and disorderly conduct charges.  And now he’s back on the streets of Downtown Memphis to cause more trouble.  Just great.

For those who haven’t been following along, he’s nicknamed “St. Jude Bum” because he tells people he’s collecting donations for St. Jude when he panhandles them.  Believe me, the money he gets does NOT go to St. Jude, unless St. Jude operates a liquor store I don’t know about.

If anyone knows the phone number of the appropriate person in the District Attorney’s office to call and complain, please send it to me (paul@paulryburn.com) and I’ll post it.  E-mail contact would be nice too.  I would love for the DA to get about 100 complaints about this.

This one will have to be quick, because I gotta get to work…

Important article to read in today’s CA… MPD is asking private individuals and firms with video cameras to register their cameras with CyberWatch.  That way, MPD knows those cameras are there and can ask for their video when investigating incidents.  There are a lot of cameras pointing at alleyways in the Downtown area, and it is very important that the owners of these cameras let MPD know about them.  I’ve heard of several incidents over the years where criminals hide out in alleys and wait for passersby to rob as they take a shortcut to their car, home or hotel.  Video from private cameras would help MPD identify these crooks, and over time the bad guys would become afraid to hang out in alleys for fear they are being watched.

One other item… I heard this weekend that the BP on Riverside has really tasty, big, meaty frog legs for lunch on Fridays.  Yeah I know that doesn’t do anyone much good on a Tuesday, but if I wait until Friday I’ll forget.  Make a note on your calendar.

Okay, off to work, more at lunchtime.  Got another website ready to roll out.

Planning out what looks to be a full week… let’s see what’s going on…

Tonight there are NFL-watching parties at Big Foot Lodge and the Red Rooster with beer and drink specials.  In addition to those parties, there’s always $1.50 PBR at Calhoun’s, and 5 LCD TVs on which to watch the game.  At the Flying Saucer, it’s $2.75 Pint Nite, with 2 huge projection TVs, 3 LCDs, and 2 CRTs for the game.  The Tap Room has $1 PBR pints and 4 flat-panel TVs (can’t remember if they’re LCD or plasma).

If football is not your thing, there’s $10 all-you-can-bowl at Jillian’s, and team trivia night at Huey’s at 9 PM.

Tuesday night is trivia night at the Saucer, of course, 7 PM.  If the St. Jude team is too embarrassed to return after getting clobbered by us 3 weeks in a row, there’s also trivia at Tug’s on Mud Island (8:30 PM) and the East Bumblefuck Saucer (7 PM).

Wednesday is the first of five weekly concerts in the Downtown Alive! concert series.  This one will be “Neosoulville,” in Gayoso Alley at Peabody Place, with Will Graves, Kelly Hurt, Tonya Dyson, Lila, and Tim Terry.  The alley is off Peabody Place between Front and Main.  Vending starts at 4:30 PM, music at 5, and will continue until 8:30 PM.  Because of the nature of the venue, blankets and chairs are not recommended, but it will be a great place to mingle with people who work and/or live Downtown.  Lots of great restaurants on that block too – Bluefin, Circa, the Majestic Grille – if you’re hungry after the show.  More info here.  I think they’re still looking for a bartender to work that evening.  If you have a current ABC license shoot me an e-mail (paul@paulryburn.com) and I’ll get you in touch with the person in charge.

Not sure what’s going on Thursday.  Friday is the opening of Bardog Tavern on Monroe.  It’ll be open into the AM, so I probably won’t start out there right after work… maybe I’ll go to the Saucer and round up a posse to take over to Bardog.

In other news… First United Methodist Church will begin rebuilding October 5.  That’s two years minus one day after it burned to the ground in the early morning.

The “On the River Seafood and More” place at 51 S. Main now has a scrolling sign in its window saying it will be open Monday, Sept. 22.  That’s next Monday.

Dr. Booze had a post on his blog this morning about a book called The Newly Non-Drinking Girl’s Guide to Pregnancy which helps women get through 40 weeks of pregnancy without alcohol. Would make a good gift if you know someone who got knocked up recently.

That’s it for now, picking up a burger, heading back to work.

364 days until the next Cooper-Young Festival… I’ll have a recap of yesterday in a moment, but first it’s time to roll out my latest website:

The Action Figure Collector Shop sells hard-to-find action figures, and ones that you never knew existed.  I got the idea for this store when I was building Rat Race Resources and found a series of cubicle action figures.  I decided to see what else was available on Amazon, and there were quite a few wild and weird ones, including the Crazy Cat Lady action figure, Mr. Bacon vs. Monsieur Tofu, Jon Bon Jovi, memorable past presidents, Barack Obama, John McCain, religious figures, The Fonz jumping the shark, and dozens more.  Check it out – even if you don’t buy any of the action figures, you’ll get a good laugh out of the site.

Cooper-Young was fun as always, although I wish the cooler weather expected for this week had arrived yesterday.  It was in the upper 80s and the bike ride out there nearly killed me.  Once I got to the festival, though, it was a great time.  Highlights included the delicious chicken philly crepe I had from Crepe Maker, and hanging out at Dr. Bob’s booth for a significant part of the day.

Here’s a pic of the Nuh-Uh Girl, in a tube top, eating a pretzel:

Hmmm… let me check my wallet… I had $126 after stopping at the ATM on the way to Cooper-Young… now how much do I have left… $54.  So I spent $72 on food, beer, and Gatorade on the bike ride there and back.  Yeah that sounds like a typical C-Y Fest.  In addition to the crepe, I had a slice of pizza from Garibaldi’s, a beef and lamb gyro, and numerous cans of PBR.

I stayed past the end of the festival, catching the Kings of the Delta on Celtic Crossing’s patio.  Darbi and Kristin were there.  “Did you ever appoint a BFF for September?” they asked.  No, because quite honestly, I forgot.  “So I guess we’re still your BFFs then,” they said.  “Well, look,” and they showed me the “Paul is my BFF” panties they had on.  No kidding, they really did create them on CafePress and order them.

Fun day.  Today is recovery day… there’s no way I’ll make it to brunch (it’s week 1 Blue Monkey, for those who check the blog to keep up with such things).  I’ll probably hit the Saucer about 2 with the backpack, beat Pete at pool a few times, then pull out the laptop and work on more websites.