Paul Ryburn's Journal

Here is a public display of flowers, located at the trolley stop near Main and Peabody Place:

… and here’s a bum who has picked one of those flowers and is trying to sell it on the street for money. We watched him do this all day yesterday. He’d pick a couple of flowers from public planters, sell them, and then come back to pick more.

And here’s another bum who has also been to the same flower planter:

I bet I saw the “flower man” gimmick being applied at least 30 times last weekend. It’s a wonder there are any flowers left Downtown.

There are flower vendors on Beale who have permits to be there, but they don’t acquire their flowers by picking them from public displays. They also have vendor permits – a standard panhandling permit does not entitle the bearer to sell stuff on public streets.

The Westin is doing its usual post-Orpheum movie party Thursday night August 9 (NOTE: This one’s on a Thursday not a Friday as usual), and this looks like an especially good one.

The Orpheum will show Caddyshack at 7:15. Following the movie there will be a theme party at the Westin’s lobby bar, and they’re encouraging people to dress up. Best dressed golfer wins a $50 bar tab.

This may be of particular interest to fellow bloggers Philip and East Bumblefuck Kat. Their Ptolemy organization did a “golf pros and tennis hoes” party about a year ago (one of the “pay-to-play” parties that Kat yaps about in her blog) with attire pretty much exactly the same as the upcoming Westin event. Some of the people who attended the Ptolemy party may already have the clothes needed to win that bar tab.

There’s also the chance to win a stay in an NBA suite at the Westin, with extra-high doors and extra-long beds, or dinner at the Daily Grill.

Interview with FOX 13 went well. We met them at the Elvis statue at Main and Beale, and wouldn’t you know it, we picked the one day when there weren’t any bums out. I think they found some Downtown before they interviewed us though. Looking forward to seeing it on TV tonight.

FOX 13 is meeting Mike King and me today at noon. They will interview us about Downtown’s panhandling problem and what the Handling-Panhandling online forum is doing about it. We’ve arranged to meet them at a place Downtown where there are just about always people panhandling.

If you’re home tonight, be sure to check out the story. If they put it online, I’ll post a link to it.

Thanks to my friends at Circa for providing the info below on their first wine and food tasting. This sounds like a heck of a deal for $25. If you haven’t been to Circa yet, this might be the perfect excuse to try it out.

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Wine & Food Tasting Circa Style – On Wednesday, August 8, at 7:00 p.m. we will hold our first Circa-style wine event, led by general manager Randy Caparoso. Randy has more than 25 years of experience in the intense art of wine and food matching (check out his best stories www.wineloverspage.com/randysworld).

Please RSVP by calling (901) 522-1488. For only $25 you will be able to try each of these wines paired with our featured dishes:

Dan McGuinness Pub in Downtown Memphis is making a serious play for the football-watching crowd this fall – and I’m talking American football, not soccer. They are getting the NFL Sunday Ticket package, they’ve bought 6 new HDTVs and I’ve been told they’re buying one more.

Pretty cool… with Sleep Out Louie’s no longer an option for football, McGuinness stands to pick up a fair amount of business from Downtowners. They’ve also added a new bartender on Sundays, a familiar face who may cause the brunch crew to fit an extra bar into Sunday plans.

Speaking of football – this Thursday I’m going to have to do something I thought I’d never do – root for the Dallas Cowboys. They play the Colts this Thursday at 7 (on FOX) and at this point I’ll cheer for anyone who plays the Colts. Maybe Peyton will get taken out with a season-ending injury in the first preseason game. One can only hope.

Happy first day of work to my favorite blogger/MILF. Her daughter starts soccer this month, so my favorite blogger/MILF is now a soccer mom. She already lives in the ‘burbs of East Bumblefuck… she should just go ahead and buy a minivan and go all the way with it. Although, if she took the back seats out of the van and put a mattress back there, that could be kind of cool. Don’t come a-knockin’ if the Dodge Caravan be rockin’!

Also congrats to my friends Otto and Ken on finishing their 200th beers at the Saucer. They’ll be joining me in the Ring of Honor.

All right, time to get some work done… gotta type up an estimate for a new project, spend some time on a WordPress site I’m working on, and upload a bunch of new pictures of bums to the Handling-Panhandling group. I’d wish everyone a happy Monday, but who in their right mind would be happy about it being Monday?

Just wanted to give an update of some of the accomplishments of the Handling-Panhandling online forum over the past week. If you are fed up with panhandling in Memphis, you need to be on this forum.

• We learned the identity of one of Memphis’ most aggressive panhandlers, the woman pictured below. Having a name for her will make it easier to file criminal complaints and authorizations of agency against her. We also learned a little bit about why she behaves the way she does. Hopefully, the next time she’s picked up on criminal charges, she can be funneled to Environmental Court which will get her the help she needs.

• We sent out letters to six business in front of which Sharp Dressed Bum commonly panhandles – McEwen’s, LoLo’s Table, the Rendezvous, the Holiday Inn Select, the Peabody Hotel, and Peabody Place. We have his name as well, and we know that he has an outstanding warrant (mug shots from that arrest below). Again, we’re hoping that sharing information will lead to more criminal complaints and authorizations of agency against him, disrupting his “business” on the streets of Downtown.

• We printed business cards, featuring the URL of the Handling-Panhandling forum, to hand out to interested parties. If you want some of these cards to hand out, let me know. (Pic is a little bit fuzzy – the print on the cards is not)

• We sent invitations to three of the top police officers in the city, including the head of the Downtown Precinct and the head of the Entertainment District Unit, to join the group. We hope to get the police involved to make this a true police-community partnership.

Group currently stands at 126 members and we’re just getting started… we plan on having a presence at National Night Out at Court Square Tuesday afternoon 4 to 7, so come on out and join us.

WMC-TV channel 5 ran a story this afternoon about the Memphis Police Quality of Life Task Force taking action to clean up Downtown.

One of the things we’ve learned on the Handling-Panhandling list in the past two weeks is that the river bank near the Downtown Visitor’s Center is a popular place for vagrants to camp out. As a result, the first thing that happens when tourists arrive in Memphis is that they get panhandled outside the Visitor’s Center. MPD says that the people who camp there are also known to commit crimes, breaking into cars and trading whatever they can find for drugs.

An MPD officer was interviewed, and he commented that there are places in town for the homeless to stay that are not out in the open on the river banks. Most likely he meant the Union Mission. Vagrants choose to camp out rather than stay in the Mission for a variety of reasons – they don’t want to hand over $6 of their “hard-earned” money; they don’t like having to be in the Mission by 6 PM, causing them to miss evening hours outdoors which are prime-time for panhandling; they don’t like having to sit through the Mission’s chapel service; they can’t use alcohol and drugs at the Mission.

I applaud the police on recognizing there’s a problem with panhandling Downtown and doing something about it (heck, I didn’t even know we had a Quality of Life Task Force). I question, though, whether what they did today will really help. The vagrants will return to their camp to find their toothpaste, spare clothes, bedding, and other necessities of life are not there. Are they really going to go, “Well, I guess I better go to the Mission, can’t stay here anymore”? I doubt it. Now they’re going to have to panhandle more aggressively than ever, to get new necessities to survive as well as money for alcohol and drugs. They’ll likely set up camp right back in the same spot. And if they decide the area is no longer hospitable, they’re not going to go to the Mission to get help – they’ll relocate to another area. Hey Midtown, want some more bums?

If the police really want to put a dent in panhandling and car break-ins Downtown, I have three words for them: walking police patrols. That’s what we need. The panhandlers and criminals will be a lot more skittish about doing “business” Downtown if they see a cop every time they turn around.

I thank them for what they did today, but it’s a Band-Aid and it strikes me as more of a publicity move to show that they’re doing something (maybe in response to the media coverage Handling-Panhandling has gotten in the past week) rather than working to come up with a long-term solution to the problem. Nevertheless, I hope to learn more about the Quality of Life Task Force and get them active on the Handling-Panhandling forum.

If any of the cops that participated today are reading this, I invite you to e-mail me and start a dialogue. Not trying to attack what you did today; I just think you might be able to come up with some more constructive solutions if you partner with the Downtown community.

There will be a National Night Out party in Court Square this coming Tuesday, August 7, from 4 to 7 PM. MPD Director Larry Godwin will hold a press conference at 4, and then at 5 there will be live music. There will be food and family-friendly games as well. This is a yearly event, held all over the country to promote neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships.

All the top brass of the Memphis Police Department will likely be there. This is an incredible opportunity for Downtowners to talk to the top cops and let them know how panhandling is ruining our neighborhood. So come on out and let’s express our frustrations. Be respectful, but at the same time let them know you’re fed up.

The stories that are most likely to get attention are those where the panhandling is clearly aggressive – where you felt threatened or intimidated to give money. Instances where panhandlers commit other crimes, such as the bums on Beale Street charging for cars to park in lots and metered spaces, would be good to talk about too.

One note: There will be several of these National Night Out events around town, and Directory Godwin will probably travel around the city to attend all of them. So if you want to talk to the Director, you may want to take off work an hour early and get down to Court Square by 4:00.

I’m going to try to get Downtown’s highest-ranking officers on the Handling-Panhandling online forum (which added its 122nd member today), so they can see for themselves how sick people are of the constant aggressive begging. I’ll be at the National Night Out event Tuesday, and so will the forum’s co-moderator Mike King. Hope to see you there.

I love Gmail. Particularly, its labeling feature. People send me stuff to blog about all the time, so I created a label called “2blog” and label messages as such as they come in. When I get around to posting about them (or when I forget to post until after the event takes place), I remove the label.

The Orpheum will show the classic movie The Wizard of Oz tonight at 7:15. Following the movie there will be a Wizard-themed party at the Westin. Details below. Click the image for a larger size.

The Memphis Grizzlies are hosting a TEAM UP lunch next Tuesday at the FedExForum, where you can learn about mentoring opportunities within the community, and have the chance to meet new head coach Marc Iavaroni and new GM Chris Wallace. Details below.

On Tuesday, August 7, the Grizzlies Foundation is hosting the TEAM UP Mentoring Lunch, an open-house style fair/ expo where we’ll serve lunch, introduce our new Head Coach and General Manager and most importantly, connect interested adults with various youth mentoring opportunities in our community.

Eleven different youth mentoring programs will have staff, current mentors and kids on hand to discuss their respective mentoring opportunities and enlist new volunteers. This is a critical time for mentoring organizations to recruit, because many begin their next “season” with the onset of the new school year.

Opportunities to help kids abound in Memphis, and mentoring is one of the most effective ways to make a lasting difference. The Grizzlies Foundation is dedicated to increasing the number of caring adults serving as mentors to youth, and the TEAM UP Lunch aims to do this as well as spotlight the high-quality mentoring programs in our community.

Memphis Grizzlies Charitable Foundation News

Team Up Mentoring Lunch
Tuesday, August 7
11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Make plans to attend a special free lunch at FedExForum while the Grizzlies Foundation and partners answer your questions about how mentoring can fit any schedule.

Plus, you’ll have the chance to meet new Grizzlies personnel like GM & Vice President of Basketball Operations Chris Wallace and Head Coach Marc Iavaroni. You may enter to win great Grizzlies prizes including an autographed Mike Conley, Jr. authentic jersey.

RSVP is required for this event. RSVP via e-mail or call 901.888.HOOP.

RSVP via email:

» mailto:rsvp@grizzlies.com?subject=team_up_lunch

Read more about the Team Up Mentoring Lunch:

» http://www.nba.com/grizzlies/community/team_up_mentoring_lunch-070720.html