Paul Ryburn's Journal

An anonymous source sent me some info and pics about Raiford’s, which will have its public grand re-opening Friday night. Raiford, Paula and the entire staff will be back. They will be driving the Caddies around Downtown Friday and making a grand entrance. (By the way – the usual rule, which is to get to Raiford’s late, around 1 or even 2, does not apply Friday night – be there at 10 or you’ll likely be standing in a long, long line.) They are working on getting Vance closed between Main and Mulberry Friday and Saturday nights, because it will be such a huge celebration. I was sent some pics of the remodeling, much of which is being done by the man himself, as you can see below. I’ve been told the inside looks quite authentic, but they have also made improvements over the old setup where needed (bathrooms).

Good thing I didn’t throw away my disco party clothes when Raiford’s closed back in May. Looks like my Disco Paul persona will make a return this weekend. I’ll probably make a stop by the Saucer on the way there and freak out all the frat boys and meatheads who take that place over on Friday nights. Guess it’s time to break out the platform shoes and make sure they’re in good working order.

If you like trivia and don’t have plans for tonight, why not put a team together and come up to the Downtown Flying Saucer tonight at 7. Better yet, come a little bit early and get in on the 2-for-1 German appetizers and 7 extra ounces of beer for the money during Happy Hour. But, don’t expect to win any first-place prize money, because my team The Rapscallions will dominate once again.

The reason I’m so confident this week is that our team has a new secret weapon to unveil, a veritable fountain of useless information. All we had to do was point out that the Saucer sells bottles of Bud Light, and he said, “I’LL BE THERE!!!” I think that the fact that the waitresses at the Saucer wear miniskirts may have also been a factor in his decision to attend.

Lots of posts still on deck:
– Burgers for bums in Court Square
– Pics of the interior of the new Raiford’s
– A big announcement coming tomorrow
– The 47 and change incident

And as always, who knows what else I’ll find to post about.

October 2 seems to be a popular birthday for comedians. Groucho Marx, Bud Abbott (from Abbott & Costello), and George “Spanky” McFarland were all born on this day.

This is gonna be a great week. I now have invites to kick-ass VIP parties both Wednesday and Thursday nights. And in both cases, they’re FUN parties, not stuffed-shirt parties where you go to be seen. And then Friday I get to watch one of my friends dress as a monk and bless kegs, and then go to the grand re-opening of Raiford’s. I’m gonna be partying like a rock star – every week should be like this!

About 8:00 last night a few friends and I walked down to EP Delta Kitchen for Monday Night Football. As promised, they had a buffet of chili dogs, meatballs, and hot wings. Here’s a pic of the plate I made for myself last night:

Cost of the food: $0. I stayed there until halftime, drinking bottles of Bud. My total tab: $4. Had a great time watching Monday Night Football on their 15-foot by 9-foot HDTV, featuring Some Team I Don’t Care About In Red Jerseys vs. Some Team I Don’t Care About In White Jerseys.

It wasn’t that crowded, maybe 10 people at the bar and 10 more at tables. They told me that they expect it to get busier once they start promoting it more. The free food was really, really good, with the chili dogs being the standout. The only suggestion I’d make is that they not put the buns in the warmer with the rest of the food – the bottoms of the buns were getting hard by the time I went back for seconds. Overall the food was very, very good though, especially for free. And its taste wasn’t ruined by the smell of cigarette smoke, thanks to Tennessee’s new law.

I’ll definitely be back on future Monday nights. Looks like they put out the food about the time the game starts, so that’s when I’ll be tabbing out at the Saucer and making the walk to EP’s.

(NOTE: Been a busy day – this is my SIXTH post today, so if you’re checking the blog for the first time scroll down and make sure you see everything. You’ll probably hate me if you’re a smoker)

The Flying Saucer will be running a lot of specials for the month of October, to celebrate Oktoberfest. See flyer below (click it for larger image):

I want to draw special attention to The Blessing of the Kegs, to happen each Friday during Happy Hour. The Saucer will have a monk (well, actually someone dressed as a monk) bless the kegs and then they will be tapped, just like they do it over in Bavaria. So, who have they asked to dress up as the monk? None other than Sunday brunch crew member/Handling-Panhandling discussion forum co-founder MIKEY. For those of you who don’t know who Mikey is, there’s a picture of him to the right. He’s Mikey… and he’ll be a Monk… maybe we could abbreviate and just call him Monkey for short.

In addition to the Blessing of the Kegs, German appetizers will be buy one, get one free for the entire month from 4 to 7 PM Monday through Friday. Looking at the menu, it looks like that would include anything involving bratwurst (bratwurst plates, brats on a bun, beer brat nachos, brat con queso, and the Saucer bratzel). Not sure about the beer cheese soup, the regular pretzels, and the sausage and cheese platters – those are kind of marginally German.

There will also be beer specials on Oktoberfest beers every day – that’s a good thing because it means I’ll always have an alternative if they put something nasty on Fire Sale.

There will also be a brat eating contest at some point in the month. (I had typed a crass comment here but thought better of it and deleted it – you never know who reads this blog)

The Saucer is now 21+, so you can still enjoy your disgusting, stinky cancer-causing sticks of death in the Garden, even with the new smoking ban in effect. I’ve been told that the indoor room will now be nonsmoking ’round the clock, where before it was only ’til 8 PM.

Who knows… there may be a seventh post before the afternoon is out… I’m not even close to being out of topics… so check back.

I didn’t attend Saturday night’s Blues Ball at the Gibson Lounge, but one of the other local bloggers did. She reports that at one point, about 200 people were all crowded on one side of the Gibson’s roof, staring at the Westin. Why, you ask? Well, because there was a couple having sex in one of the rooms, curtains open, lights on. She writes, “It went on for like 10-15 minutes, EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the roof watching. Then the dude looks up (with chick’s ankles around his neck at this point), and his face was PRICELESS. Everybody on the roof started cheering & he dropped down to the floor & you saw blankets flying. Few minutes later the chick peeked her head up & then the lights went out.”

Blues Ball tickets are massively expensive, but it sounds like attendees got a little something extra for their money.

Come one, SOMEONE on that rooftop had to have a camera that can record video. Someone needs to do an upload to YouTube and send their good friend Paul a link. Unless the chick was ugly, in which case, don’t.

Go to a Chinese restaurant and order Egg Foo Young.

A lot of Sunday nights I tend to hang out at the Flying Saucer until about 9:15 in the evening. Then I tab out and hurry to Wang’s so I can order drunk to-go food before Wang’s closes at 9:30.

Well, last night I decided I was in the mood for egg foo young. Which is odd because I HATED eggs growing up – I absolutely refused to eat them. But recently, I’ve developed a taste for them when in omelets, frittatas and similar dishes. So I went to Wang’s and ordered shrimp egg foo young.

And immediately, all the servers and the bartender cracked up laughing.

Apparently egg foo young isn’t a REAL Chinese dish. I kind of knew this already… the “fake” Chinese dishes, including egg foo young, chow mein, and chop suey, are relegated to a tiny corner of the menu. It appears that it’s a sign that when someone orders one of these, that they don’t appreciate “real” Chinese food.

So I let the staff have a laugh at my expense. Really, I didn’t mind. Usually I order from the regular part of the menu, with the Garlic Chicken/Shrimp and the Sha Cha Chicken/Shrimp among my favorites. (My favorite blogger/MILF likes the Sha Cha Chicken too. If we ever meet in person I have no doubt we’ll get along very well, as long as we don’t discuss pro football.) It just so happened that last night, I was hungry for Egg Foo Young.

The great thing about Wang’s is that you always get enough food for two meals, so I have leftovers in the fridge. Not sure how good leftover Egg Foo Young is going to be, though.

More posts still to come.

Earlier this morning I posted about the State of Tennessee’s new smoking ban, which covers most restaurants and bars. I believe that making smoking indoors illegal will cause an increase in another type of crime: littering.

I’m typing this post from the Second Street branch office, aka The Flying Saucer. I live approximately a quarter mile away from the Saucer. On the way down here, I counted the number of cigarette butts that people had carelessly tossed on the sidewalks.

Any guesses as to how many I counted, on my approximately four-block walk?

By the way, I counted only the cig butts within approximately the six feet of my line of sight, not all of the butts on the sidewalks of both sides of the streets. So, really, the number I came up with only reflects a portion of the true number of cigarette butts along my route.

Any guesses?

My route, if it matters, was down Main Street from my apartment building near Madison, south to Union, left on Union, down Union to Second, right on Second, south on Second to the Saucer.

Any final guesses?

OK, I’ll tell you.

445.

FOUR HUNDRED FORTY FIVE. There were so many of them I lost count several times and had to double back and check my count. I looked like legendary Downtown homeless person Scratchy, staring down at the sidewalk and mumbling to myself.

It made me realize something. The main reason I hate smoking is not that it’s a nasty habit. It’s not that it’s an unhealthy habit.

It’s that it’s an OBNOXIOUS habit.

Smokers – not all, but many, probably it would be safe to say, most – treat the world as their ashtray. They’ll finish a cigarette in their car and toss it out the window. They’ll take a smoke break at work and toss the butt on the sidewalk. They’ll have a smoke on their balcony and then toss it over the side.

And that’s just one of the ways in which smoking is obnoxious. Another, obviously, is that smokers expect the rest of the world to be okay with the cancer-causing chemicals they release as they indulge their habit. They expect the people behind them at Walgreens or Circle K to wait and wait and wait as the cashier looks for the EXACT kind of cigs they want – menthol, lights, 100s, soft pack. No, wait, I mean, hard pack. No, the extra talls. Do you have any lighters with that? Oh, you don’t? Do you sell matches? Nonsmoker who hangs out with a group of smokers? Congratulations, you’ll get to play the role of the asshole holding an entire row of empty seats for seemingly nobody, because all your friends have gone outside to smoke (unless you’re like me and have publicly stated that you won’t do it).

You know, thinking about it, farting in public makes more sense as a socially acceptable behavior than smoking in public does. But there isn’t a billion-dollar industry buying every conceivable type of ad to convince you how cool farting is.

Anyway, getting back to the issue of all the cigarette butts on the streets: I’d like to see the nonsmoking law supplemented with a new, tougher littering law: $1,000 for first offense of failure to dispose of cigarette butts in a proper receptacle, jail time for second and subsequent offenses. I’d also like to suggest a $250 “Crime Stoppers” reward for anyone who captures a smoker littering via video camera or cell phone video, where the video leads to a successful conviction.

I’m making a lot of friends today huh?

If you don’t believe me about the number of cigarette butts I counted: Take a walk this evening and see for yourself. ESPECIALLY Downtown. I’m serious, I did NOT make that number up, although I admit it may be off by a dozen or so, high or low, because I kept losing count.

More posts to come this afternoon.

I mentioned that I heard a rumor this weekend that Cafe Francisco in the Pinch District had closed its doors for good. My contact at the Memphis Daily News was kind enough to send my a link to a story his paper did on Francisco’s closing last Wednesday. Owner Julie Ray notes that the neighborhood has been in a holding pattern for years – it’s impossible to get anything moving until the city figures out what to do with the Pyramid. This, of course, can be blamed on King Willie, who has been in negotiations with Bass Pro Shops for three years, and who has refused to hear proposals on alternative uses for the arena. One more reason why this city would be better off without Willie as mayor.

Got lots more to blog about today – or tomorrow, if I don’t have time to get to it all. Topics include

• Cheap beer, 2-for-1 appetizers, and Mikey the Monk
• How to make Chinese people laugh at you
• Burgers for bums
• Why the new anti-smoking law will cause another type of crime to rise

Most likely I’ll be working from the Second Street branch office this afternoon, and hope to have time to get some or all of these posts in.

Don’t forget about Monday Night Football at EP Delta Kitchen tonight – free chili dogs, free hot wings, free fried mushrooms, beer specials, biggest HDTV in Memphis.

Welcome to the first day of October, which for Tennesseans is the first day of the smoking ban in almost all public businesses. This includes all restaurants and bars, except for those which have decided to exclude everyone under 21 (this means employees as well as patrons).

When the bill was in the legislature, I wasn’t sure I was totally in favor of it, since 80% of my friends smoke. But, as a nonsmoker, now that I’ve hung out in a few places that have broken the new law in over the past few months, I’m completely, totally in support of it. Being able to breathe clean, fresh air without having to cough every 15 seconds or so has been WONDERFUL. Nonsmokers like me have been forced to accommodate people’s nicotine addictions for years and years; now smokers get to go out of their way to accommodate us.

Of course, this law will have negative implications for nonsmokers as well: If you’re a nonsmoker at a bar, you’re the one who will be asked to hold everyone’s seats while the 15 people seated around you go outside to smoke.

To this end, I want to inform everyone that I am adopting the following rules, starting today, when I’m out at a bar or restaurant and smokers ask me to hold their seats:

1) I will only hold the seats to my immediately left and right. Seats farther away than that are fair game.

2) If hot babes come up and ask if the seats to my immediate left and right are taken, those seats are fair game too.

3) I will hold the seats to my left and right for a maximum of five minutes.

Smokers, welcome to your new smoking section: Outside. Normally I’m not a fan of cold weather, but I’m hoping for the coldest winter on record this year, so that smokers can chill out while they indulge in their filthy, nasty, disgusting habit.

– Well, I never made it to the Ptolemy party at Earnestine & Hazel’s last night. I ran into the gang at the Saucer about 5 and we shot pool for a few hours and I drank 3 beers. My tab (counting tip) there was $12.25, and I thought to myself, “Do I really want to spend another $35?” I had only heard from one Downtowner who was considering going, and I texted him. He replied that he wasn’t going. I was undecided… it felt to me like there was a 50% chance the party would be a lot of fun, and a 50% chance that it would suck. I went home and changed into some clean clothes, then walked down Main Street. As I reached Pearl’s Oyster House – where the gang had relocated by that time – I decided it wasn’t worth it to spend $35 on a 50% chance of a good time, when I could go in Pearl’s, spend a few dollars, hang out with my friends and have a 100% chance of a good time. I ended up in a condo in the South Main area, watching most of the college football Top 10 get decimated.

– I’ve heard a couple of rumors this weekend that Cafe Francisco is closing. Sad to see that place go… it was a good place to take the laptop and work, and they had some good sandwiches and platters on their menu.

– New poll in the CA today: King Willie 24%, Carol Chumney 19%, Herman Morris 19%. Because of the poll’s margin of error, the race is considered too close to call. Note that 38% of those polled were undecided, refused to divulge who they were voting for, or were voting for a fringe candidate. I really have no idea who’s going to win this one.

– Lots of stuff to write about this week. Tomorrow I’ll post about the new smoking ban. Wednesday I have a big announcement. Thursday is election day. Friday is the one-year anniversary of the infamous “47 and change” incident, and is also the grand re-opening of Raiford’s. Plus, who knows what else I’ll find to write about? Check back often.