Paul Ryburn's Journal

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.

A good thing to have for Music Fest weekend:

I buy these at A. Schwab’s for $1.50 each in the weeks leading up to Music Fest and then stockpile them. I always keep one in my back pocket during Music Fest, and also during BBQ Fest later in the month.

One of the other drunks at Sleep Out’s has a condo overlooking the Main Street Mall. He told me he was out on his balcony last night and he heard about 100 arguments and it was always the same thing: The boyfriend was pissed off because the girlfriend had been dancing up on some guy. So this one couple starts yelling at each other and my friend, on his balcony says, “Hey, dude,”

And the dude goes, “WHAT?”

“You’re mad at her because she was dancing up on some guy, right?”

“YEAH! How’d you know that?”

“Dude, you think you’re one in a million, but you’re just like everyone else. Look, dude. It’s three in the morning and she’s not with him, she’s with you. Get over it and go home.”

“Well… all right.”

My friend also saw a girl have sex with her boyfriend’s brother in plain view from his balcony. Needless to say the BF was not happy.

And finally, if you’re a tourist in town and you want to commemorate your stay here in Memphis, you can get your picture taken by a “professional” photographer on Beale for five bucks in front of one of these lovely backdrops:

Or, you could create your own sign saying “I’M A STUPID ASS GHETTO MOTHERFUCKER” and just take your own picture in front of it. Because that’s basically what you’re saying about yourself if you think you look good posing in front of these backgrounds.

I’m SO glad I’m doing my Music Fest blogging here and not on the CA’s site.

Got a question for anyone who can answer it…

Those of you who own those PDA/Smartphones that have a full keyboard and unlimited web surfing ability – do they have the ability to fill out forms on the Web and submit them?

The reason I ask is, if I could find a phone that could do that, then I’d be able to blog on the road – I wouldn’t have to run home to my computer every time I wanted to post. That would be WAY cool.

I’m also thinking about upgrading to a phone with unlimited Internet access for another reason. I’m getting real tired of the Internet content filters at the city schools where I work. As I mentioned in a recent post, I re-stocked my bar this week, and I wanted to get on iDrink.com and see what kinds of drinks I could mix with the ingredients I had on hand. But no – the stupid filter blocks all sites related to the consumption of alcohol. It also blocks most common blogging sites, so I can’t read Kat’s blog, Charly’s blog, Serrabee’s blog, AngieDawn’s blog, etc. while I’m at work. By being able to surf on my phone I’d be able to circumvent their irritating network security and do what I want.

Have any of you actually done a blog post from a phone? If so e-mail me and let me know what kind of phone you have.