Paul Ryburn's Journal

Last Thursday, I was checking all the websites to compile my “Thursday night, what’s going on” post.  While at the Red Rooster’s site, I noticed something verrrrrrrry interesting… on Wednesdays they have 50 cent PBR draft.  I’m a big fan of PBR, especially at that kind of price.

However, there’s a catch.  It’s country music night.  So now I have a decision to make.  Can I tolerate country music for the sake of 50 cent PBR?  If I drink enough PBR, will country music actually start to sound good?

Actually, while watching the Dempseys, who have some classic country in their set, friends and I were discussing the question:  Exactly when did country music start to suck?  The classic Johnny Cash/George Jones/Merle Haggard stuff from the ’60s is fine.  Then in the ’70s you had Willie and Waylon and Jerry Reed… that was okay too.  I pegged 1979 as the year country started to suck, but then I remembered that Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” came out in 1980.  So it was after that.  And Dolly Parton sang that “9 to 5” song in 1981, that was okay too.  So it was after 1981.

When did that song “All my exes live in Texas/And Texas is the place I really love to be/But all my exes live in Texas/That’s why I hang my hat in Tennessee” come out?  That wasn’t bad.

On the other hand, Garth Brooks became a big star in the late 1980s, so the official date when country music started to suck has to be before then.

Anyway, I’m going to have to think about whether I can handle country music for the sake of 50 cent PBR.  Maybe I can bring my iPod to the Rooster and turn my headphones up all the way while I drink.

I was still recovering from being sick, so I got on Papa John’s website to order pizza.  The spinach alfredo pizza sounded like exactly like what I wanted, but then, right below it, I saw the spinach alfredo deluxe pizza, with mushrooms, onions, and bacon.  I’ve found that “everything’s better with bacon” is a good motto to live by, so I ordered the deluxe.  It was GOOOOD.  I haven’t had Papa John’s in a while, and had forgotten they give you a tub of garlic butter to dip the crusts in.  Mmmmm garlic butter.  Health guru AL is probably letting out a loud sigh as she reads this.

The good news is, I feel significantly better, so I probably will go out tonight.  I kind of have to start at the usual place, because Ghost River Hefe is the Fire Sale, and the distributor left some money in my Buy Paul a Beer account to try a beer on them.  At some point after that I’ll probably wander somewhere else.  Not sure where.  BFF Kristin is at the Dave show and I may meet up with her after that.

If I have my calendar right, tomorrow’s brunch crew gathering is at the Majestic, for those who check my blog to find that kind of stuff out.

Yesterday, after a run home to do some stuff on my laptop, I decided to walk up to Roma at Third and Court to get their lasagna to take back to work.  As I walked up Third, I saw this at the entrance of the parking garage next door to Roma:

Looks like a new club is about to open up… the sign to the right of the entrance says, “Coming soon – Memphis Sounds – Hot Blues, Cool Jazz.”  Always good to see new music venues in the area.  The location is going to be something of a disadvantage – it’s on Third between Court and Madison, not near any other clubs, and the fact that it’s inside the entrance to a parking garage won’t help either.  However, if they bring quality entertainment, people will hear about it and come.  We’ll see.  I’m hoping for the best.

If you read the Memphis Business Journal print edition and website, you already know the rest of the news.  Dunkin’ Donuts is moving into Memphis, and according to this week’s print MBJ, they’re looking at 66 S. Main (corner of Main and Union, the Radio Flats) as a location, possibly a joint Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins location.  Dunkin’ Donuts is looking at itself as direct competition to Starbucks in the Memphis neighborhoods it’s invading.  The Downtown store is said to be the flagship store for the city (2800 SF) and could open as early as January 2009.

Earlier in the week, I walked down to McAlister’s in the SunTrust building to pick up lunch… but there was a sign that said, “Closed for remodeling.”  However, according to the MBJ it’s not just for remodeling – they’re closed permanently.  That’s a loss for people who work in the area.  They had good food there, and they were so professional, too.  I always enjoyed lunches at McAlister’s.

Another big loss is a store we never even knew – Ceriello, the New York-based Italian deli that was scheduled to go into the first floor of the Lincoln-American Tower, has decided to pull out.  The MBJ could not reach their corporate management for further comment.

Facebook users, were you in the middle of a Scrabulous game when it was shut down? Want to finish it, and start new games? The LifeHacker blog (which is quickly moving to the top of my list of blogs to read every morning) has posted a way to do that. You install Firefox and its FoxyProxy extension, then use the extension to convince Facebook that you’re not in the US or Canada (the only countries in which it’s been removed).

Then I surfed over to the blog of author Tim Ferriss, who wrote The Four Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. He had a fascinating 2-part interview with a woman who graduated from Columbia University at age 27, after growing up Amish and escaping at age 15.  The interview provides an interesting look at who the Amish are, and what it takes to “escape.”  Part 1 Part 2

That should give you something to get you started… I’ll be back later today with news about business openings and closings Downtown.  Came down with a fever of 101 last night and had to get in bed and skip both birthday parties I planned on attending last night.  Guess I pushed myself too hard during the week.  I really hated to miss the later one, which was for new co-BFF Darbi at Quetzal.  I just knew, though, that staying out ’til 3 and drinking beer the entire time, was not what I needed – it’s what got me sick in the first place, as a matter of fact.  I got some sleep and feel a little better this morning.

My newest online store, Skank-o-ween.com, is now open for business. This is a store that sells slutty, sexy costumes for Halloween, as well as for costume parties year ’round. The store carries slutty costumes in over 200 different categories.

As with most of my stores, this is an Amazon.com storefront, meaning Amazon handles the payment with their state-of-the-art secure payment processing system (I never even see your credit card number), and they also handle the shipping. This seemed like a perfect niche store to create – there’s so much on Amazon that you’d probably never see three-fourths of these if you browsed their site on your own. This way, all the slutty costumes are right there for you, in one convenient location.

Why only slutty costumes and not all costumes? All Halloween costumes is too big a niche – I never would have got it done, and I couldn’t target keywords as well. If you’re a guy, or if you’re a female who doesn’t want to dress up in a slutty costume, you can find what you need at Amazon’s costume store.

The name for the store was one my former BFF Suzy (it makes me sad to call her that) came up with last year when we were brainstorming Halloween costume ideas for her.  I think it makes a great name for a slutty costume store.

Back this weekend with plenty of news.  Gotta update a few sites with links to Skank-o-ween, then it’ll be time to go drink some Fire Sales.  Happy birthday to one of my new BFFs Darbi.  I’ll be going to her birthday party later tonight.

Okay, time to get back to that cliffhanger from this morning… where I left everyone hanging about the BFF of the Month announcement.

But wait, it wouldn’t be a cliffhanger without a commercial in the middle, right?  SO… check back after work today for another announcement… the launch of my latest online store.  The target audience for this new site is very similar to the target audience for Tube Top Boutique.  It’ll be announced sometime between 5 and 6 PM.

All right, let’s get back to it.  We had three finalists:  Stephanie, Kristin and Darbi, and Jenny and Michelle.

Okay, I have a confession to make.

I’ve been stringing everyone along.

I’ve known for over two weeks now who my pick for the August BFF of the Month will be.  I was still open to suggestions through the end of July, but I had a pretty good idea who I was going to pick all along.

I just figured I’d create a little tension and competition with my July 30 “BFF candidates have one last chance to state their case” comment.

It worked too.  Several BFF candidates lobbied for themselves.

However…

only one BFF candidate sent me this…

“If you make us your August BFF, Darbi and I promise to wear these!”

How can I argue with logic like that?  Especially when I had already picked them as the winner in my mind anyway.

Meet the August BFFs of the Month, Kristin and Darbi.

The Flying Saucer removed Avery IPA from its draft list a couple of months ago, to the protests of some of its loyal fans.  For those of you who have missed it, you’ll be happy to hear that it’s back on tap as of about 7 PM last night.

BFF of the Month announcement still to come.

It’s time to announce the August BFF (Best Friend Forever) of the Month. Let’s take a look at the contenders:

Meghan

Meghan, of course, was the original BFF, and has been trying to regain BFF status. During the month of July she was nicer to me than she’s ever been in her life, offering me two of her Oreo cookies. And, they weren’t just any Oreos, but the new white Oreos.

So, what’s the argument against her being my new BFF? Well, I’ll put it this way… one time I was watching a Discovery Channel special about a drought in Africa. The summer sun’s hot rays were baking everything in sight. The area had completely dried up, except for one rapidly evaporating watering hole filled with extremely pissed-off hippos and crocodiles. The collective mood of that watering hole was similar to the mood Meghan is in most of the time.

So it’s not Meghan.

Stephanie

Stephanie has been a strong contender for BFF of the Month the past two months, but has lost both times to June-July BFF Suzy, who set an incredibly high standard for BFFs. Once again, Stephanie is in the running for August.

Stephanie’s strongest selling point is that she owns more tube tops than anyone I know. (Edit: I had it wrong about her being in the South Main Dirty Dozen, sorry.) And, she works for the Center City Commission, an organization I’m fond of because they hired the patrols that have run off many of the bums in Downtown Memphis.

However, the bums may prove to be her undoing. She named her cat after a bum named June Bug. I don’t know if I can handle having a BFF with a cat named after a bum.

We’ll leave her in the running as a finalist for now.

Kristin and Darbi

Kristin (left) and Darbi approached me mid-month with a very interesting proposal. “Why limit yourself to one BFF?” they asked. “You can make both of us your BFF of the Month for August, and have a BFF threesome.” I liked their idea. Indeed, who says I can have only one BFF? Since then I’ve hung out with them several times at the Saucer and the Red Rooster.

So, what’s the argument against making them my BFF of the Month? Well, I checked out their MySpace pages and saw photos of them at one of the worst clubs on the planet, Club Lame, er, I mean Club Atlas. And now that I think about it, they tried to get me to go to Atlas with them one night. I don’t know if I can deal with BFFs who hang out at Atlas.

I’ll leave them as finalists for now.

Jenny and Michelle

Jenny and Michelle, late entries into the BFF of the Month contest, are the two scientists I met at the Saucer about two weeks ago. Since then I have hung out with them on the Peabody rooftop, and also at Blues City to catch The Dempseys. Their strongest selling point is good taste: They go to see The Dempseys more than I do, and they spend almost as much time at the Flying Saucer as I do. They read in my blog that Kristin and Darbi had proposed a BFF threesome, and they wanted to be in the running as well.

Argument against them: They like to do karaoke at EP’s, but that by itself I don’t mind. They’ve invited me to come with them, which again is fine because I like EP’s. However, they’ve repeatedly said, “and you have to SING” at karaoke which in my mind is crossing the line.

Still, we’ll leave them as finalists. So, we’ve got Stephanie, Kristin and Darbi, and Jenny and Michelle.

So, who’s the winner?

… Check back later today to find out.  Don’tcha hate cliffhangers?

Here’s what’s going on tonight.  I don’t have a Memphis Flyer handy (the bums sold them all before I could get to the box) so this may be a little less complete than usual:

• Dr. Zarr’s Amazing Funk Monster on the Peabody rooftop, 6-10 PM, $5 cover, ladies free until 8 PM.  Final rooftop party of the season for the Peabody.  Winners of their rooftop photo contest will be announced.
• Charlie Wood Trio on the Madison rooftop, 5:30-10:30 PM, $7 cover.
• Jazz & blues on the rooftop of the River Inn of Harbor Town, 6:30 PM.  Also Ladies’ Night in Tug’s with half-off drinks for ladies.
• Patio party with the Mississippi Mudslingers and Q107.5 at EP Delta Kitchen
• KIX 106 Country on Beale with Jake Owen and Ashton Shepherd, 7 PM, Pepsi Pavilion at Third and Beale.
• Afterglow at the Flying Saucer, 9:30 PM, $3 cover.
• Yes No Maybe at the Red Rooster
• Eric Hughes Blues Band at Ground Zero, 8 PM.
• ’80s for the Ladies Night at Hollywood Disco, formerly Raiford’s.  Mixed drinks and quarts of Bud Light and DJ spinning ’80s tunes.
• People who suck night at Club Lame… I mean, Club Atlas
• Trivia night at TJ Mulligan’s, 8 PM

I hate to not turn Charlie Wood green to indicate him as the recommendation for the evening, but he’s up against the last Peabody party of the year and I’ve just got to go with that one.  I’ll be at a private party from 5 to 7 (should get lots of pics of the Nuh-Uh Girl eating) and will then head to the Peabody.

Met a couple of regular blog readers at the Saucer last night, and had a great conversation with them.  One of the questions they asked was, “There are certain restaurants and bars Downtown you never mention.  Does that mean you don’t like them, or don’t recommend them, or have had bad experiences there?”

Maybe, maybe not.

There are some places that just aren’t on my radar.  I don’t have anything against them, I just never think to walk in.  As a matter of fact, most of what I’ve heard about these restaurants has been positive, I just mentally pass them by for some reason.  Three on this list would be Felicia Suzanne’s, Encore, and Automatic Slim’s.  I’ve been to Slim’s before, but not in a few years.  I’ve never been to the other two.  When Felicia’s first opened, I was a little put off by the “jackets preferred for gentlemen in the dining room” blurb in their initial ads, and didn’t go… but since then, almost all of what I’ve been told about the place has been positive.  Never heard a bad word about Encore.  So, I’m turning to my readers for recommendations… what would you recommend I try on my first visit to Encore and Felicia’s, and my first visit in a long time to Slim’s?

I was also asked why I never mention $2.50 Tuesday Pint Nite at the Tap Room.  I never mention it because I’m always at the Saucer playing trivia that night, so it’s off my radar.  Great deal though.  More than 10 beers on tap, including some like Stella that the Saucer doesn’t run on its Pint Nite.  If you have a Tap Room mug, you get Pint Nite in your mug and get an extra 6 ounces for the same price.

Then there are a few places I don’t mention because more than 50% of what I hear about them has been extremely negative… after careful consideration, I just deleted two paragraphs I typed about one of them as a favor to a friend who is trying to help the owner turn the place around.  Let’s just say there’s a lot of work that remains to be done, from what I’ve been told over the past month by blog readers who have been there.

The couple also asked, “Do some of these places pay you to mention them?”  The answer for that is absolutely NO.  If I mention a bar, restaurant, or club Downtown, it’s because I want to.  Even the new “what’s the fire sale?” feature is not being funded by the Saucer in any way.  It’s something my friends and I have been doing for a while anyway… first one to walk by the Saucer and see the Fire Sale texts it to everyone else.  I figured, I may as well use Twitter to take it to the next level.  It worked too… the couple was there last night because I listed Flying Dog Old Scratch as the Fire Sale, and the guy is a fan of that beer.

That said, I’ll admit there are some places that let me in without cover or occasionally send a free beer my way because of the blog.  I don’t turn those down when that happens, but on the other hand I don’t go around expecting freebies.  I will admit that a beer distributor whose beers will be carried at the Saucer starting August 1 stuck $10 in my Buy-Paul-a-Beer.net account this morning so I could try their products.  No problem with that.

The way I monetize my blog is mainly through my online stores… Tube Top Boutique, Mid-South Alcoholic Supply and the others (and a new one which will be launched tomorrow).  It’s not so much that my readers buy from them (although they sometimes do), it’s that by linking to them, Google sees links coming to those stores from a blog with a PageRank of 5, which bumps the stores in search engine results.  Also, if I mention a book I read recently, I figure the link to the book may as well be an Amazon affiliate link, so I make a little commission if anyone buys it.

So there you have it… financial disclosure of sorts.  I’ll be back later today with my “it’s Thursday, what’s going on” post.