Paul Ryburn's Journal

Free food and mingling for Downtowners at the Westin Hotel, one block south of Beale Street, tonight from 5:30 to 7:00. The lovely Di Anne Price will be on the piano.

Also, if you haven’t yet done so, run by the Daily Grill and check out their $2.95 happy hour appetizer menu. That’s always a great option the other 29 days of the month when there’s not free food. Di Anne plays every Monday, so I imagine you could take your apps into the lobby and eat and listen to her play.

Recap of yesterday: Brunch at the Majestic. Most everyone showed up late after a long Saturday night of drinking. Patrick and Deni gave me a Majestic shirt as a late birthday present – thanks, I’ll probably wear it tonight. Now everyone will think I work at the Majestic, I guess.

We moved to the Saucer about 1:30 and played pool with the Ono family. John D had some classic lines that had us busted up laughing – he’s a funny guy when he gets a few Bud Lights in him. Drank 3 Roaring Lions to wake up. Roaring Lion is imitation Red Bull that bars are starting to keep on tap. It’s the same price as a soft drink, so it’s cheaper than going with the real deal. The gang left at 5, and I had my tab transferred to the bar (I’ve decided I’m going to start keeping my tabs at the bar more often) and kept going. Watched football. Watched people play pool. Next thing I knew it was 11:45 and the lights came on for last call. Yay. Another expensive and completely unproductive day.

And now I get to go to work. Yay.

Pics of last night’s party. I realize 90% of you don’t know these people, but I’m posting this photo album anyway to show how much fun we have Downtown. It’s not just about being able to walk home from the bars… it’s about great friends and great memories.

The gang awaits Yoko’s arrival for her surprise party.Yoko and her dad. She didn’t realize her family was in town.

Lauren: “You’re not going to take a bad picture of me and put it on your blog, are you?” No, I’d never do that!

This duo nicknamed themselves “Skip and Chip.” Here Pete the Trivia Guy is telling Skippy, “Yes, I WOULD agree that the Rapscallions are the most intelligent trivia team I’ve ever met.”

A rare good photo of me, with my buddy Lee.

Otto was really excited to be at the party.

The char-grilled oysters I had last night at Pearl’s, with garlic butter and Parmesan cheese.

Yoko opening her presents.

Here’s something you hardly ever see – the Nuh-Uh Girl EATING. She put cold marinara sauce on her salad. Gross.

After we got done at Pearl’s we went down to The Warehouse on G.E. Patterson, where we had free run of the place thanks to a friend of the owner. Here’s a pic of Spuds Mackenzie who was stolen by an unnamed drunk girl earlier in the year (wait, I actually DID just name her) and recovered by the Sunday brunch crew.

You know what the song says… don’t ride the white horse.

Mikey on a stripper pole… now that’s an image I think we’d all like to erase permanently from our minds.

Now that’s much better!

The worst band ever to play The Warehouse.

Here’s a link to the entire album (142 pictures). My only regret last night is that I didn’t bring the spare battery for the camera. Gang: I’ll take the laptop to the Saucer later today and get ’em uploaded to our shared file folder, but right now I’m late for brunch at the Majestic!

PROFANITY ALERT: If you have a problem with the f-word, skip this post. I rarely bust it out in my blog anymore, but this is a case where it’s absolutely unavoidable. There’s no other term to appropriately describe what I saw.

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So, last night, I left Earnestine & Hazel’s about 1:30 and started walking back toward the Downtown core. As I passed the intersection of Main and Talbot I heard moaning. I looked over to my right, and saw a vacant grassy field at the corner of Mulberry and Talbot. There was a dude who had a girl up against a fence and they were totally FUCKING, right there. I could hear her screaming and moaning half a block away as I walked by. He was spanking her, too. From the sound of things he was really giving it to her good.

I imagine the proximity of Raiford’s (one block to the north) had something to do with their choice of location.

Geez. It was 35 degrees and windy at that time. I’m not even sure my equipment would work under those conditions, no matter how hot the girl is. Maybe dude popped a Viagra or something.

You remember how I blogged that I had nothing to do today? Well, I lied. We actually had a surprise birthday party for our friend Yoko.

Here’s a pic (above) of Yoko unwrapping a present of cookies from Pete the Trivia Guy.

We had the party in the downstairs of Pearl’s Oyster House. I had the char-grilled oysters and they were phenomenal. After the party we moved to The Warehouse (opened by a friend of the owner, thanks). By that point everyone but me was too drunk to continue, because much like Shawn Michaels, I’m the icon that can still go. And I went, all right – I went to Nate’s Bar for a drink – E&H was DEAD – then on to Hoop’s Bar where one of my favorite off-duty bartenders bought me a shot.

Yoko, we love you. When you said it’s surreal, having your family and your new family all in one place, you were right. But get used to it. You ARE family.

Photo album as soon as I sober up enough to process the pics. Some of you have some embarrassing drunkass moments to relive.

Just cleaned out the pics on the camera and went through the past four months or so of pics on my hard drive. Found a few memorable ones that are worth posting. So let’s get this party started:

Wasted at Pearl’s Oyster House, June 2007.Only the Nuh-Uh Girl would wear a shirt that says “ME ME ME” on it.

Leo Lazarus, the Tuesday night guitar guy at the Saucer. *clap clap clap* “Thanks, Paul.”

John D’s special “pain in the ass” breakfast. He combines parts of five or six brunch menu items at the Majestic to make his own custom breakfast, because he’s special like that. When we did one of our brunch weeks at McGuinness, Patrick from the Majestic brought his Pain In The Ass Breakfast over to him. I’m sure there was a Bud Light somewhere nearby.

A teeny-tiny little car that I see Downtown from time to time.

Last week I was walking down South Main and I saw this poster:

It’s a link to a site called DEWmocracy where you can help design the next Mountain Dew. As a huge Dew fan, I wanted to pass this information on.

Going through all the pictures I’ve taken in the past four months, seeing what I shot and then forgot to post about. There may be some more posts today if I find more pics. Working from a location near where I live that has Wi-Fi. I’ll leave it as an exercise to you the reader to figure out where I am.

Shiner Bock is the fire sale today.

While typing the post about Frank’s Liquors reopening (scroll down and you’ll see it), I hit Wikipedia’s entry on low-end fortified wine to read about Thunderbird, Night Train and other wines that the panhandlers Downtown are known to prefer. One sentence struck me as particularly interesting:

“Cities like San Francisco and Seattle have banned the sale of various of these wine products in downtown and skid row areas.”

Why can’t Memphis do the same? And ban the sale of those one-shot “airplane bottles” as well. I guarantee you that’d put a major dent in the panhandling problem here, and maybe it would cause Memphis to lose the five-star ranking that bums around the country have given our city. I nearly fell down in the alley behind my building yesterday because I slipped on an airplane bottle of citrus flavored Smirnoff vodka.

Some good news in the fight against panhandling: The manager of the Downtown Walgreens joined our Handling-Panhandling forum. Glad to have her aboard, as that corner is one of the most popular for bums in all of Downtown. Maybe we can work together with Walgreens to get something done.

Ole Miss fired its head coach, Ed Orgeron, today, one day after he blew a 14-0 lead against Mississippi State to go on to lose 17-14. Check out this article on ESPN for more details.

According to the article, the dumbass went for it on 4th and 1 with a 14-0 lead in the fourth quarter, and that was the turning point of the game. The coach fully expected to return for ’08 but instead got his walking papers. With ten wins in three seasons, I can totally understand why he was let go.

I guess he’ll get hired as a head coach by a school that sucks even more than Ole Miss. Maybe he should give the folks in Jonesboro a call.

Frank’s Liquors at the corner of Main and Vance reopens this weekend. It’s been closed for the past year or so, and with the Corkscrew also gone South Main has been badly in need of a place to buy booze. Glad to see it back.

The e-mail I was sent about it says that the owner is still Jennifer, same girl who owned it before. She’s super sweet and was always really good about special-ordering items.

I’ve been told she’s also fully in support of not allowing panhandling to occur in the area outside her store. She’s determined not to let people harass her customers, which is a good thing. Wonder if that means the big cooler of Thunderbird and other bum wines won’t be back? I bought a bottle of the Bird there as a gag gift for a friend in 2005, and Jennifer packaged it up in a pretty silver wrapper.

The e-mail says she’ll be working on a new wine rack in the middle of the store, and will probably stock a wider variety of liquors than in the past.

Welcome back Frank’s… a much needed addition/return to South Main.

Thanks to my friends Chuck and Robin for a great Thanksgiving dinner Thursday afternoon. I went over to their Barton Flats condo and we had turkey, shrimp linguini, bacon-wrapped green beans, salad and other goodies. Robin had some of her U of M colleagues over, and since I used to teach I felt right at home talking with them.

After we ate, Chuck whipped out the most hilarious board game I have ever seen in my life:

It was called Chug-A-Lug and it was a drinking board game from 1969. Chuck told me his mom was about to throw it out and he saved it from the trash can. Why would someone throw out a classic like this? Not only was it a drinking game, but it was a HIPPIE drinking game. Let’s have a look at the board (click for larger image):

The rules of the game are that you can only take a drink when the board or a Chug-A-Lug card says so. Actually that’s not a problem at all, as you will be drinking PLENTY if you play this game. Also, you can only get up to go to the bathroom if you land on a “Jet to the John” square or get a “Jet to the John” card.

It’s a total hippie game. You can get sent to “The Happening” where you can land on squares like “caught in bedroom with best friend’s date. Both chug.” There’s a “free spirits” section with squares like “demonstrate your brotherly love with members of the opposite sex.” The “skid row” section has a square that reads, “Lost welfare check. Panhandle. Take 2 drinks.” (Wait, is that 1969, or 2007 Downtown Memphis?) There’s a square on the main path that reads, “Opium den. Light up.” Another reads, “Praise the Pill. Take 1 drink.”

The object of the game is to pass the Alcoholics Unanimous Association (equivalent to Go in Monopoly) and collect Alcoholics Unanimous cards. First person to collect 10 of them wins. However, it’s near impossible to make it all the way around the board without being detoured into The Happening, Skid Row, Street Prophets, or Free Spirits. If you play this game you better have a LOT of alcohol on hand, and either a designated driver or place to crash.

This is a bad pic but here are the game’s rules (click for larger image that’s at least somewhat readable):

We have got to play this game again… I suggest we recruit some girls to play it with us though. I bet this would sell for a lot of money on eBay.

Got to the Saucer at 5:20 on Thanksgiving Day. It opened at 5 and the manager looked at me like “you’re late” when I walked in. One of the waitresses offered to buy me a Fire Sale if I’d go home and change into the red disco outfit I wear to Raiford’s. I made her up the offer to a Dos Equis Special Lager, then agreed and went home and changed clothes. Hey, it doesn’t take much to get me to agree to make a fool of myself! Despite the free beer I managed to run up my highest tab ever at the Saucer – $99 including tip – after I started doing shots with a friend.

The same waitress informed me that every year there’s a big Thanksgiving party at E&H, so I headed up there about 11. It was pretty packed and even Nate’s bar was open. Sorry for not blogging in advance about the party but I just didn’t know – I’ve never been in Memphis for Thanksgiving before. It was a great time and the fact that I was already WASTED when I got there didn’t hurt. The waitress who told me about the party and her little zebra-haired sidekick showed up, and earlier in the evening they had the audacity to claim that I couldn’t keep up with them on a dance floor. I busted out moves previously only seen at Raiford’s, and proved that I was not only their equal, but their superior when it comes to dancing. Got home that night about 3.

Friday recap: This’ll be short and sweet. HOW ‘BOUT THEM HAWGS!!!!! All season long I’ve had to endure East Bumblefuck Kat trash-talking Arkansas on her blog. Well, Kat, we beat the #1 team in the country, so STFU and go back to planning your Ptolemy parties. Besides, it’s not like your teams (Arkansas State and Ole Miss) are anything to be proud of.

Watched the game in the comfort of the couches at (can you guess it?) the Saucer. Attn waitresses: Please do not bend over to pick up dishes when important plays are happening. I missed seeing two touchdowns yesterday because of that. I assumed Arkansas would get their ass kicked and so I didn’t show up in my Hog Hat. By halftime I was regretting not bringing it. Yesterday made me proud to be a Hog fan! The Razorbacks improved their record to 8-4 and now have a shot at being invited to a decent bowl game.

Ole Miss blew a 14-0 lead to lose yet again. God the Rebels suck.

And that brings us to today. I have absolutely no plans for today, so you know where I’ll probably end up. I’ll do some more work on the “trip down memory lane” post this morning too.

Brunch tomorrow is at the Majestic at 11, followed by a trip to you-know-where at 1.