Paul Ryburn's Journal

I’ve been watching the news this week, keeping up with the Draft A.C. movement. Concerned Memphians are trying to draft Shelby County mayor A.C. Wharton into the Memphis mayor’s race, believing he’s the only potential candidate who can beat current Memphis mayor Willie Herenton.

If he runs, things could get real interesting… the vote would be split four ways between Wharton, Herenton, former MLGW head Herman Morris, and City Councilwoman Carol Chumney. Given that there are other, minor candidates in the race, someone could win the election with only 25% of the vote. There are no runoffs.

So, who am I supporting for mayor?

Anybody but Willie.

Last election, I voted for Herenton, believing he had done a good job for Downtown Memphis. But since then, he has become arrogant and corrupt. He hasn’t done anything substantial to reduce crime, the #1 issue in most Memphians’ minds. Sure he proposed adding more police, but the move comes with such a big price tag that it will almost certainly never fly. He hasn’t been a LEADER – he hasn’t led the citizens of Memphis to become actively involved on a personal basis in the fight against crime. His most notable accomplishment of 2006 was beating a 63-year-old man in a boxing match.

It’s time for “King Willie” to go. I could live with any of Wharton, Morris, or Chumney as mayor. My first choice would be Wharton, but any of the three would be fine with me.

So, here’s what I’m going to do. As election day approaches, I’m going to watch the polls closely. If it appears that one of Wharton, Morris or Chumney is pulling away from the back, I’m throwing my support behind that candidate. I want to vote for a winner – as long as the winner isn’t Willie.

You know, last year I had a Steve Cohen banner at the top of my blog… maybe I need to make an “Anybody But Willie” banner.

There’s a new flavor of Doritos – Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ. The convenience store at Second and Madison has them.

– Tonight I received a tip on where to find the best ribs Downtown. You can only find them two nights a week, according to my source. Here’s what you do. Go to Handy Park at Third and Beale. Enter the park as everyone else does, off Beale. Turn left.

You’ll see men’s and women’s restrooms. Ignore those. Keep going left.

You’ll see a door. It will appear to be closed. Knock on it. When it opens, order ribs.

Disclaimer: This info may or may not be accurate. But this is what I’ve been told.

– New shopping service downtown. See flyer:

That link is memphisshoppingbag.com. As always, click for a larger image. I saw this poster on the Main Street Mall and photographed it.

– Went to the Saucer and then Blues City tonight. Saw the Dempseys at Blues City. They played “Thunder Road/Summertime Blues” on the first set. I was happy.

Tonight I was asked if I have ever eaten chitlins. I can’t say I have. “That’s the large intestine of a pig,” the barback informed me, “That’s what shapes a turd,” he said. Sounds delicious.

And that’ll do it. Aren’t you glad you stayed up late to read this?

The Downtowner magazine is holding its annual photo contest. Entries are due by July 27 and will be on display in Peabody Place from August to October for judging. Details below – click the image to see it in a larger, more readable size.

Just cleaned out the old photos on my camera… found some taken while I was on the rooftop of Barton Flats on June 30 for the big fireworks celebration. I realized my camera had a fireworks mode and decided to see what it could do. Here are some of the highlights (click the images to see them full size).

I posted about this earlier in the week. Dogfish Head beer tasting at 8 PM Wednesday, July 18 – 5 beers paired with 5 food courses for $25. Although, we’re not sure about the pork tenderloin course – sounds like it will be marinated in Raison d’Etre, but we’re not sure if Raison will also be served with the course. We asked management and they weren’t sure either. Anyway, here’s the info – tickets on sale at the Saucer, and are limited, so buy them in advance before the tasting sells out.

There were two versions of the menu going around – the managers told me that this is the correct version.

The Memphis Business Journal reports that Chick-Fil-A will be giving away free breakfast, lunch and dinner combos at all its restaurants, including the 12 in the Memphis area, on Friday. However, there’s a catch… in order to get the free food, you have to show up at the restaurant fully dressed as a cow. So if you have a spare cow suit lying around, put it on and get some free food this Friday.

And that’s the ONLY thing I have to report today. Geez. What’s happening to this blog?

Thanks to the many people who sent responses to my question yesterday about posting to a wiki (or wiki-like interface on a website) via text message. Sifting through them now.

I have a question, if anyone can help…

A friend of mine came up with a great idea a couple of weeks ago. He wants to take a piece of information that is useful to Downtown Memphians (at least the ones I hang out with), which changes on a daily basis, and allow people to post that piece of information on a website. His idea is that the first person who finds out what this information is for the day would get on the site and post it… so, it would be like a wiki, in that anyone would be able to update the site.

However, I pointed out that most people don’t have computers in front of them when they gain access to this particular piece of information (although a few do). For it to really work, I told him, people would need to be able to send this piece of information as a text message from their cell phones, with some process in place on the back end to update the site to display the most recent message to arrive. I doubt the message would ever be more than 50 characters in length.

So, my question is, is there something out there I can use to set this up? I checked out Twitter, which can display info on the Web via text-message, but you have to register for an account and associate one phone number with it. That won’t work – the message needs to be able to be posted from ANY phone, not just a particular one.

So, anyone know of a service that combines text messaging with the capabilities of a wiki?

A few quick items this morning:

– Yesterday I was walking past Circa and noticed that the sign on their window says that Wi-Fi is available. Cool! As a professional laptopper, I appreciate it when restaurants offer free Wi-Fi – means I can work while I eat lunch. Circa, by the way, is now open for lunch as well as dinner. I hope to get by there this week and give it a try.

– Last night I ran into one of the bartenders from EP Delta Kitchen, and he tells me that they’re doing an ’80s night on Tuesday. Fun!

– The Flying Saucer is holding a Dogfish Head beer tasting Wednesday the 18th. They’ll have a guy in from the brewery, pairing different beers with a 5-course meal. One of the beers is Midas Touch, which has an interesting story behind it… archaeologists excavated an ancient tomb, believed to be of King Midas, and found remnants of a fermented beer-like beverage. They went to the lab and figured out the ingredients and how it must have been made… and they used that process to develop a new beer. So, you can drink the way they drank 2700 years ago.

Tickets are $25 and can be purchased in advance, or you can buy a Dinstuhl’s candy bar at the Saucer for $10, and if it contains a golden ticket you get to attend the tasting for free… all proceeds from the event go to charity, the Madonna Learning Center I think. This really doesn’t sound like a bad deal, $25 for a five-course meal and tastings of five beers. My initial reaction to this event was “hell no” but now I’m actually thinking I might attend.

– This just in from the STAX Museum: Bid on the car Shane Battier drove while he was in Memphis on eBay – a custom 1981 Lincoln Mark VI with a $5,000 Pioneer sound system, 10″ Kenwood Exelon sub-woofers, leopard-print interior and Shane’s autograph and number stitched into the headrests. Auction ends July 14 at 06:00:00 PDT, which would be 8 AM Saturday Central time. There’s a 12-picture slideshow of the car on the eBay auction. All proceeds from the sale of the car benefit after-school music programs and performance opportunities offered at the STAX Academy.

A word about eBay auctions… if you really want this car, go ahead and bid now, BUT… also set your alarm clock for Saturday morning. If you get outbid, you can submit a higher bid at 7:59 AM, one minute before the auction ends. An e-mail will notify the former high bidder that they’ve been outbid… but, by the time they’re able to respond, the auction will be over. This is likely a case where the early bird will get the worm… or in this case, the car, Saturday morning.

– Outta here for now… tonight promises to be an interesting evening, for reasons I won’t go into just yet, and there may be pictures.