Paul Ryburn's Journal

– Last night I was walking down Monroe and I saw Sharp Dressed Bum riding toward me on his bike. So I decided to duck in LoLo’s Table for a drink, and I found some friends of mine sitting at the bar. They had been hit up by Sharp Dressed Bum already. One of them said, “He’ll tell you, ‘Oh yeah, Elvis gave me this bike.'”

Now, Sharp Dressed Bum is about the same age as I am, I would estimate. And I was a little kid when Elvis died. So my friend asked him, “What year did Elvis die?”

Sharp Dressed Bum: “I dunno. But he gave me this bike!”

The bike has whitewall tires (no I’m not kidding; he’ll brag about those tires too) and handles that stick up in the air, if that will help you know who to avoid.

– My friends at LoLo’s also told me about another bum who hangs out in front of Huey’s. Now, most bums will eventually recognize downtowners and leave them alone, but this one had bad short-term memory.

So the bum approached my friend one day and commented, “You look like you’re from Australia.” The bum thought he was an out-of-town tourist and wanted to do the “tour guide” thing. In reality, my friend was from a few blocks down the road.

A few days later, he approached my friend again, having totally forgotten that they had already spoken. “You look like you’re from Italy.”

A few days later, he approached my friend again. “You look like you’re from Ireland.”

A few days after that, he again saw my friend. This time, “Hey man, you look like you’re from Germania, or one of them countries.”

Germania?

– Speaking of bums: My least favorite bum of all time, Crazy Insane Bitch, is back on the street. Long curly blond hair, 4’11”-5’0″, plump, about 40, looks like she hasn’t bathed or showered in a month. If you see this woman coming I suggest you cross the street immediately to get away from her. Trouble is, she’ll see you and cross the street too.

– Inside Joke Dept:

From Philip’s blog: “Oh yeah, I saw my friend Alisha there. She was with a bday party for ‘the most annoying man on the earth.'” Hey PC, if you’re reading this: What do you think about fixing him up with The Most Annoying Woman On The Planet from my blog? They sound PERFECT for each other.

Philip writes that “the most annoying man on the earth” is the king of cockblocks, and can even cockblock himself. So can she… if the two of them go out, she’ll probably call him and tell him she’ll be late, because she has to stop by a (male) friend’s house. Then she’ll bring the friend along on the date, explaining that he’s a “DW” (drink watcher), “to make sure I don’t drink too much, because I don’t trust my own decisions.”

Let me know if he’s interested… I can send you a link to her MySpace account, where she has pics of herself.

– That’s all for now… didn’t do much last night, just hung out at Nate’s upstairs bar at Earnestine & Hazel’s for a while. Didn’t see the E&H ghost that was reported on the news a day or two before.

Back later with more posts, and don’t forget to check the Commercial Appeal’s site for my Deal of the Week blog tomorrow.

This is Part I of the “What Am I Doing With My Life?” rant, in which I’ll discuss my attempts to find a balance between being happy and dealing with society’s career-related expectations.

It was June 1988, and I was in Little Rock, home from my freshman year at college. With tuition plus related expenses at Rhodes running close to 20 grand a year, it was decided I should get a summer job to “help out.”

Since I already had an aptitude for computers, I went to a temporary agency and applied for work doing data entry and other computer-related office stuff. I was assigned to work for a week at a chiropractor’s office near where I lived – his staff had gotten behind and he needed some help catching up. It was the first time I had ever held a real office job. They offered me an hourly rate of $4.50, which at the time was $1.15 above minimum wage and was not bad for an 18-year-old with no work experience.

So I showed up at the chiropractor’s and did the work I was asked. I entered data in the the computer. I organized files. But more than anything, I watched the clock and waited for it to be 5:00 and thought about how much I hated being there.

I really, really, really hated it. I hated having to get up at 6:30 in order to be at work on time at 8. I hated the fact that by the time I got home at 5:05, I was too tired to enjoy what was left of my day. I hated the clothes that I had to wear. I hated the fact that I couldn’t drive over to Reservoir Park and hang out with my friends until 1, 2 in the morning because I had to get a good night’s sleep to be ready for work the next day. To me it just didn’t seem worth the $36 a day I was making, before taxes.

Oh, but wait. I wasn’t really making $36 a day. You see, the college financial aid rules stated that for every dollar a college student made during the summer, his financial aid would be reduced by 70 cents. So, even though I was earning $4.50 an hour, I only had a real net gain of $1.35 an hour. And taxes came out of that $1.35. It struck me as a completely idiotic government rule, a disincentive for college students to work.

So, I was miserable and felt like I had sold my soul. But to the adults in my life, I was “respectable.” I was a “working man.” I was doing what was expected of me. I was doing something that made me unhappy for 40 hours a week, which apparently made the adults around me happy that I was turning into such a good citizen.

Finally, the week ended, and the temp agency didn’t have an assignment for the following week, so I got to enjoy a taste of freedom. I could hang out with my friends, sleep until 10, play video games, once again feel a zest for life. But I knew the agency would soon be calling, and all that would be taken away, and I didn’t see a way out.

Fate intervened, although not in a way that I would have ever wanted. That week, my grandmother (who lived with us) fell in the kitchen and broke her hip. She would have to spend two weeks in the hospital, and then for the rest of the summer she would need me to stay home with her and be her caretaker. I was done with the rat race for the year.

The adults in my life once again expressed their approval – I was dutifully giving up a summer’s income to stay home and take care of my grandmother. And besides, they pointed out, she’d be in the hospital for two weeks, and maybe the temp agency could give me an assignment for part of that time and at least I could make some money.

A few days later the dreaded phone call came, at 6:30 in the morning. In a half-asleep daze, I listened as the woman at the agency explained the situation: They had an emergency assignment. One of their other temps couldn’t make the job, and they knew I couldn’t stay long term because of my grandmother, but if I could just work for a few days – until she got out of the hospital – it would help them out a great deal. They offered me the same pay rate as before, $4.50 an hour.

I thought it over for a moment… then refused the assignment despite the agency woman’s pleas. Then I went back to bed. I just couldn’t stand the thought of selling my happiness and well-being for an effective rate of $1.35 an hour, just to gain the approval of the adults around me. Not even for a few days.

So I took care of my grandmother and August came and I went back to Rhodes for my sophomore year. But I still had a dilemma to face – what would I do the following summer? My grandmother’s hip would be healed by then, and I’d be expected to go back to work. (I hate the word “expected.”) And what would I do after graduation? It was apparently a normal thing for adults to go sit in an office and be miserable 40 or more hours a week, 50 or 51 weeks a year from the time they get out of college until they’re old and gray.

Well, sometime during the school year, I came up with a brilliant solution which allowed me to hold on to my freedom during the summer of 1989: I decided to become a math tutor. By then I was a computer science and math major at Rhodes and had the experience and math skills to allow me to do tutoring. I put a classified ad in the Arkansas Gazette advertising my services. The self-employed tutoring job offered a number of advantages over traditional bullshit office work:

1) Most importantly, I had control over my own schedule. I wasn’t a morning person, so I simply wouldn’t schedule sessions earlier than 10 AM. On the other hand, if students wanted evening sessions I’d gladly do them if I was available. If there was a particular day I wanted to spend with friends, I wouldn’t schedule any sessions for that day. My schedule was now controlled by me, and not by some societally-accepted belief that people are “supposed” to work from 8 to 5, every day, Monday-Friday, day in and day out.

2) As an independent contractor, I could charge a significantly higher rate than the $4.50 an hour the temp agency had paid me. I started at $7 per hour, and as I gained experience eventually bumped the rate to $10 and then $15.

3) Because I was getting paid in cash, the federal financial aid people didn’t know about the money I was making, and didn’t reduce my grants for the following year. So instead of making $4.50 and getting to keep $1.35 minus taxes, I made $7 and got to keep $7.

4) Since I was self-employed, there was no one to tell me how I should dress when I went out on tutoring jobs. And really, no one had much of a dress expectation for a college student doing private tutoring in people’s homes. I wore a T-shirt and shorts to most of my jobs, which was exactly what I preferred.

5) Because I was still doing something to go out in the world and earn money during the summer, I continued to receive the approval of the adults in my life.

So the summer of 1989 was a good one. “VICTORY!!!” I thought. I had taken the system on and beaten it. I had found a way to keep The Man and people’s expectations of what I “should” do from robbing me of my happiness and freedom.

I continued to tutor all the way through college and then graduate school, until finally I won a teaching assistantship in the fall of 1992. After I completed my graduate coursework, I went through a series of non-traditional jobs, and ended up spending only six months of the 1990s working in an 8-to-5 office culture – first I landed a gig writing medical software which I did from home; then I spent 5 years teaching college at the University of Memphis; then I traveled the country for a while as a corporate trainer. I was very, very lucky to avoid the office for as long as I did.

In Part II I’ll discuss the things I’ve been doing in recent years to make a living, the things that would really make me happy, and attempts to balance them… and I’ll ask my readers for advice. It will be a lot longer than Part I and a lot less organized. It will probably take me a week or two to type it up. Have a good weekend everybody…

So tonight I walked to the Saucer for Happy Hour… two of my favorite Beer Goddesses, Angie and Leah, who had worked the lunch shift and just got off, were sitting in the window and said, “Paul! Come have a beer with us!” Okay. So I went inside and they said, “Have you heard about the 93X Sexiest Server contest?” Apparently a local radio station was holding a contest among the Saucer employees to determine who was the sexiest. Sounded like an interesting contest, so I ordered a beer and grabbed a seat.

There were five contestants… Nicole, Christi (not actually a server but a bartender), Ashley, Alli (or Allie? she’s never waited on me, don’t know the spelling), and Amy. They each had to answer a question and walk around the patio area with a full tray of drinks. Audience applause determined the winner, and after the initial round it was narrowed down to Nicole and Alli (Allie?). After a second audience survey, Nicole was declared the winner. Congratulations Nicole!

I’m just now realizing I had my camera in my pocket the entire time and could have photo-blogged this event. How stupid am I?

Later I went with a friend to the Peabody rooftop, which sucked. It was cold and windy and people stayed away. We went back to the Saucer after about an hour. My friend went home, and I proceeded to lose a game of darts.

Downtowners who go to bars: Opinion question: Who’s hotter, Nicole from the Saucer or Nicole from Big Foot? That’s a tough call.

– A couple of cultural festivals are happening this weekend. I’ve already mentioned Our Big Fat Greek Festival, to be held Friday-Saturday, May 12-13 at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church at 573 N. Highland from 11 am to 8 pm. Admission is $2. Greek food (gyros!) and dancing. Here’s a link to the Greek Festival website for more info.

– Further out east will be Discover India, presented by the India Culture Center and Temple in Eads. Hours ar 10-5 Saturday the 13th and 11-5 Sunday the 14th. Sample foods from different parts of India, check out Indian crafts, jewelry, and Mehendi (hand painting), enjoy Indian food and dance. More info about Discover India here.

– The Memphis Farmers’ Market opens Saturday at the corner of Front and GE Patterson, and will be open every Saturday from 7 am to 1 pm through October 28. Here’s a link for more info. 7 am… I think it’s safe to say I won’t be there for the opening. Then again, I don’t cook at all beyond heating stuff up in a microwave, so I’m not sure what good a farmers’ market would do me at any hour.

– Word is that the Grisanti family is going to be taking over the back part of Glasshouse 383 (383 S. Main) to turn it into a restaurant. From what I’ve read on the Center City Commission’s site, it will feature pizzas and casserole dishes from a wood-burning oven. It will be open late night, and there may also be a wine bar. Hope this happens – would be a nice addition to downtown.

– Also according to the CCC, there’s now a Ben & Jerry’s location open at 175 S. Third. I don’t know exactly where that is, but it sounds like the place that used to be Sal’s Hot Dogs & Beef, in the hotel across the street from the Peabody Place Mall.

– There’s also a restaurant opening up downtown that features an all-Romanian waitstaff who prefer to receive tips in kisses rather than money… oops, sorry, I’m mixing fantasy with reality again. Only in my dreams does such a place exist. Too bad… I could really add to my reputation as a good tipper.

– Off to Happy Hour at the Saucer, then the rooftop party at the Peabody. Back tomorrow or next time I think of something to type…

– Allen, a bartender from East Bumblefuck, e-mailed a reply in response to my post that I need to buy a new mattress. He said I should call Michael Zellner who places classified ads in the Memphis Flyer, selling good quality mattresses at extremely reasonable prices. He told me that many people are getting good quality sleep on Zellner’s mattresses. Now, normally I would be quite skeptical about buying a new mattress out of the classifieds, but I actually know this guy, sort of. My roommate in college worked with him, selling Cutco knives. If he’s been around that long (15 years), he’s likely not a fly-by-night or he would have been run out of business. Plus, his ads say he is a member of the BBB and sells quality products like Sealy Posturpedic and Simmons Beautyrest.

Still, I’d like to hear one or two more testimonials before I give him a call. Has anyone else bought a mattress from Michael Zellner, and were you happy with your purchase?

– Speaking of East Bumblefuck… I’ve been reading about the recent crime wave in the Winchester/Hacks Cross area. Five years ago people moved to that area because it was so safe and suburban, and they wanted to get away from the crime in Hickory Hill. And ten years before that people moved to Hickory Hill to get away from crime inside the 240 loop. Collierville and Cordova… you’re next. Don’t think you’re immune. It’s coming.

Winchester and Hacks Cross… isn’t that the Southwind area? Supposedly one of the finest neighborhoods in the city?

– So Sunday night I was DONE with Music Fest weekend. I came home and was in bed by 7:00. And the phone rang at 7:15… and 7:30… and 7:45… and 8:00… and 8:30. I was too lazy to answer it. Well, now I’ve found out it was fellow blogger Kat, who was calling because she had met some ROMANIANS on Beale Street and thought I’d be interested. DAMMIT! I missed a chance to meet Romanians! I’m never going to bed early again!

– The Rapscallions trivia team lost last night for the third week in a row. Japan was the answer to two of the questions, and I suspect we would have at least made it to third place if our team member who majored in Asian studies had been there. Sample question: What two countries have been honored twice as the featured country in the 27-year history of Memphis in May? Answers: Japan and the Netherlands.

– Too tired to type any more. Still looking for a duck whistle. If it doesn’t rain tomorrow night, I’ll probably be on the Peabody rooftop.

From the New York Times:

Poll Gives Bush His Worst Marks Yet

– I took a walk through Peabody Place Mall around lunchtime, to see what’s new over there. At Hot Topic I saw a shirt that said, “You looked better on MySpace” and had a sign that read “I (heart) Tom.” For those of you who don’t know, “Tom” is this dork who is automatically added to your friends list when you sign up for a MySpace account.

… Hang on, let’s post a pic of Tom.

There ya go. That’s Tom. Anyway, Tom is supposedly the creator of MySpace (although I suspect that’s an urban legend), and he’s there to help if you have questions. Needless to say, one of the first things I did after joining MySpace was to remove Tom from my friends list. A lot of people haven’t though – according to his profile, he has 70 million friends. Tom must be a great guy! His profile says he’s from Santa Monica. To my Santa Monica readers (yes, there are some) – does this guy really exist?

I thought about buying the shirt, but it was pink and a female mini-tee, so I decided not to.

– I also saw a shirt at DAPY that I liked: A pic of former president George H. W. Bush with a sign reading: “I should have pulled out.” NO KIDDING! Think how much better the world would be today if H.W. had had a vasectomy at age 19, and Barb had her tubes tied.

– There’s a machine called Foto Morph inside of Jillian’s that’s kind of cool – a couple can go in and it takes their pics, and then spits out a pic of what their baby would look like. If everyone in the world used that machine, we could probably spare the world from a lot of ugly kids. If you don’t have a significant other, you can select a supermodel as your partner and see what the baby would look like.

– There are two women walking around the Main Street Mall trying to sell these combination money clip/wallet things. They’re pretty aggressive about approaching people, and if there were cameras around I’d think it was an audition for The Apprentice. But they clearly don’t understand downtown. After I told them no, they went over and approached a group of gentlemen sitting on a park bench – and I stopped and snickered. They had just approached THE BUMS!

“Is it free?”

“Huh. Well, can I get about sixty-four cent?”

“Hey baby, you look good. Want to go over to the alley and (lewd comment deleted, even I have standards for what I’ll write in my blog)?”

– Rio Loco has their Nachos Rio Loco on special tonight. It’s nachos topped with beef and chicken cooked with green onion, mushrooms, and bacon. Good stuff. Normal price is $9.89, on special for $7.50 tonight. And don’t forget about their $5.99 jumbo happy hour margaritas.

– The Majestic now has their website up and running. I ate lunch there and had their shrimp appetizer stuffed with andouille and crabmeat. Everything was quite good, as usual.

Time to get an early start on Pint Nite…

Music Fest weekend is done, and thank goodness. Yesterday I never even ventured as far as Beale Street – I simply did what I usually do on a Sunday. I went to Sleep Out’s about 11:30 and had a bottle of champagne and hung out with all the downtown regulars. About 3:00 I wandered down to Big Foot and had their Holy Smokes chicken tenders and a Big Foot Beer, then walked home for a nap which turned out to last 14 hours.

I think my mattress is wearing out though. May be time to buy a new one, and mattresses are one item where it definitely isn’t worth it to buy cheap. What I’d really like is one of those Tempur-Pedic mattresses from Brookstone, with the foam that fits the contours of the body. A full-size mattress is $1,299 but that’s really not much more than I’d spend elsewhere for a quality mattress. I’m assuming I could keep my existing box spring. Anyone own one?

Serrabee writes in her blog, “Doesn’t it suck that all the people blogging about [Music Fest] seem to be to cool to go?” I wonder if she’s referring to me, among others. But that’s okay. I never claimed this was a music blog. If you think this is a music blog, I hope you like The Dempseys because they’re just about the only band I ever mention. I write about the big things in life, like bums and pigeons. Oh, and international waitresses. If you want to read about music I suggest you check out Rachel and Rachel Two. Well, except Rachel Two is in Hawaii this month and blogging about that instead.

Check out Rachel One’s blog of the Beale Street Music Fest on the Commercial Appeal. It pretty much summarizes why I don’t go anymore. Mud, incredibly rude people (both the crowd and the people who work there), lousy bands who turn in half-assed performances.

Anyway, that mess is over for the year, and thank goodness for that. Now, we have a much better festival to look forward to, a mere 10 days away… BBQ Fest. I would like to once again announce that I am happily accepting any and all invitations to BBQ Fest tents. If you have a tent and would like to have one of Downtown’s celebrity bloggers stop by, drop me an e-mail.

I’m off work today, so I’m going to hit one of the downtown lunch spots, then stop by the Saucer for an early Pint Nite (Pint Afternoon? They’re $2.50 all day), and then later tonight, I’ll hit the Saucer again for a second helping. As I look back on the past week, I realize that I’ve only been to the Saucer ONCE in the past seven days, which for me is just astonishing. Gotta catch up… I’ll be there tomorrow for trivia night too.

It’s a beautiful day (isn’t it funny how the temperature warms up 15 degrees as soon as Music Fest is over?) and I’m going outside!

The Gene Simmons impersonator mentioned in the previous blog post is on the front page of the Commercial Appeal this morning. It says he was dressed up for a bachelor party and is retiring the costume. Can I have it?

… Actually, I’m not tall enough to be a believable Gene Simmons. Peter Criss maybe… but who wants to dress up as Peter Criss?

So I’m home from tonight’s festivities, feeding my latest addiction: Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. I’ll start reading one article and then follow links and more links and more links. I can stay on Wikipedia for hours.

When I run out of things to read, I hit Wikipedia’s random article selector. So a few minutes ago, I asked for a random article and this is what I got.

There’s a guy on Beale Street dressed as Gene Simmons. Girls will come up and ask him to take a picture with them, and he’ll do it – but they have to show him their boobs first.

There’s also a guy dressed up as Jesus walking around Beale Street. He will happily pose for a pic with you in front of the wacko religious guys (see the Jesus Freak post from earlier this weekend) and their big signs in the background. I didn’t get a pic taken with him because the line was too long.

I’m going to bed now, although I don’t know if sleep will be possible because there’s a very loud party at the Broadnax Building half a block away.