Paul Ryburn's Journal

Got an e-mail from the treasurer of the Memphis Blues Society a few days ago. One of the goals they’re working toward is the establishment of a true blues festival here in Memphis. The closest we come now is the International Blues Challenge on Beale and the Blues Tent at Music Fest, but the city does not have a true blues festival.

One of the first steps the Memphis Blues Society is taking toward that goal, along with the Sonny Boy Blues Society, is to hold a fundraiser concert at Neil’s Friday, May 18. It will run from 7 to 2 and will feature Jim Dickinson, Jim Crosthwait, Sid Selvidge, William Lee Ellis, Jason Freeman, Phil Durham, Eric Hughes, Jimbo and Olga Mathus, Don McGregor and Live Wire Blues Band. $10 cover gets you in and there will also be a silent auction. For more info check out the Memphis Blues Society’s website.

Other news:

– Another location to show the UFC PPV: Quetzal on Union Avenue, just west of Marshall. So there is a Downtown option for watching the fights.

– Regarding last night’s “name Clay’s trivia team” post: Clay responded via e-mail, saying “good idea” and offering to buy a beer for the person who submits the winning name. So far one reader has submitted

Odds and Ends for 200, Alex
Baghdad Homeowner’s Association
Suicidal Tupperware
Sanjaya 2008
2 Dumb 2 Win, 2 Drunk 2 Care
Indigestible Pigeons
MLGW and the Resignations
Pregnant Pandas
Free Paris Now
Egghead Blondes
Vegetarians for Lawn Ornaments
George and the Pet Goats
Doogie Howser and the Prostate Exams

I’ll throw in a few of my own:

Phone Sex for the Hearing Impaired
Cliff and the Clavins
The Pete Fan Club

More to come, I just started thinking about names.

– One other request for my readers – a vegetarian friend of mine is looking for an invite to a BBQ Fest booth that will be cooking tofu or other veggie products. He’s a guy who gives a lot back to the community, a poet who volunteers a lot of his time working with the kids at the City Schools. If anyone has an invite to offer, e-mail me (paul.ryburn@gmail.com) and I’ll pass it on.

– The new Memphis Flyer is out. There’s an article about the Commercial Appeal’s circulation being way down… again. Maybe I should add “The five people who still subscribe to the CA” to the list of possible trivia team names.

– I have a project to do after work, so no happy hour for me today. If it gets done early it’s possible I may make a McGuinness or Saucer appearance around 10.

Back to the cubicle, where an afternoon of configuring ADAM (Active Directory Application Mode) to work with an ASP.NET asset tracking application awaits me. It’s entirely possible that I may die from too much excitement, so this may be my last post.

I very nearly posted a pic of one of the teams that competed against us in trivia at the Saucer tonight.

Three different teams noticed this team cheating, blatantly consulting their PDA under the table. After the other teams got wise, the cheaters got more sneaky. The male team member (who apparently owned the PDA) got up to use the restroom as soon as a question was asked. I tailed him in there, and he knew I was onto him and didn’t cheat. But the VERY NEXT QUESTION he had to go again. Bladder control problem dude? I sent a team member after him and guess what? Mr. Cheater was consulting his PDA and using the “facilities” at the same time. Now that’s talent.

Unfortunately Pete the Trivia Guy was not among the 15,764 people who saw them cheat, and he awarded them second place. I took a pic of them after the match. They, trying to be cute, took a pic of me in return. But, I have a blog that gets hundreds of hits a day and they don’t.

So, I’m going to be nice. I’m not going to post a pic of them this week. But, I’ll describe them. It was a guy with long curly dark hair (who did most of the cheating), a blond girl with glasses, a big girl with curly dark hair, and I can’t remember what the other girl looked like. I already have a pic of you; if you come back to the Saucer on a future Tuesday and ANYONE sees you cheating again I’m going to post it and make celebrities out of you.

In other news, Mendi made an appearance at the Saucer tonight and she had a tube top on. She had a sweater over it – “it’s bad to be cold in a tube top, especially the way you prefer tube tops to be worn,” she told me.

Clay’s team came up with the most generic, boring team name I’ve ever heard – “Jews for Atheism.” They’re truly running out of ideas. In the past they’ve had some good names – Imus and the Nappy Headed Hos, John Ford’s Jury, Mormons for Gay Polygamy. So, I’d like to institute the “Name Clay’s Team” contest – e-mail me your best team names and I’ll relay them next Tuesday night. If his team uses any of the names, then I’ll buy a beer for the person who suggested it. It’s the minimum I can do to make their team a little less of an embarrassment to the Saucer.

That’ll do it for tonight’s drunk post. Those of you who tune into this blog for actual information, sorry, not much this time. Well, I did tell you that Mendi had a tube top on.

I got a response from a reader this afternoon, saying that the Brookhaven Pub gets all the UFC pay-per-views and will surely get the one coming up at the end of this month. Thanks for the info, I’ll pass it along.

Does anyplace Downtown get them? Doesn’t Hooters get the wrestling PPVs? Do they get UFC as well?

One of my readers asked me to post this question: Does anyone know of a sports bar, casino, or anyplace that will be showing the Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view the weekend of May 25-27? He’s traveling to Memphis the first time and wants to see it. There’s a Memphian on the show (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson) so someplace should be broadcasting it.

If you know of anyplace e-mail me at paul.ryburn@gmail.com… my domain e-mail account has been bouncing messages, so please use my Gmail address for now.

Sometime in the next few weeks, I’ll be posting complete pictures of the Hoopty Parade, images of the jacked-up cars with 22-24 inch rims that cruise Second Street on Sunday nights. I like to sit inside the Flying Saucer and snap pics of the hoopties. I just didn’t get quite enough pics to warrant a photo album this past Sunday, but hopefully one or two more Sundays and it’ll be time.

While I was down on Beale over the weekend, I noticed that Miss Polly’s Soul City Cafe had their menu posted, and I snapped a pic. Click the image to see it full-sized, which should be large enough for the menu to be readable.

Miss Polly’s is at 154 Beale and is owned by the same people who own Blues City Cafe, Blues City General Store, and Club 152. They’ve been opening only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday but I know they have plans to expand to 7 days a week in the very near future.

Miss Polly’s logo is an image of a chicken wearing glasses, an apron, and a spoon. In my experience, when a restaurant has a chicken dressed up as a cook as its logo, it’s usually a sign that the food is good. Also, in my experience, anytime a restaurant is named “Miss ______’s (home cooking/soul food/etc.)” it’s usually a sign that the food is good. (Although, “Mrs. ______’s” is an even better sign.)

Haven’t eaten there yet, but I’ve been told than chicken & waffles are their specialty. They also have some yummy sounding sides (hoppin’ john and white beans with ham sound like two of the standouts). I’ll have to eat there soon and turn in a dining review.

According to the WeatherBug on my computer, which takes the temperature reading at AutoZone Park, it’s 89.1 degrees as of 10:28 AM this morning. So I think it’s pretty likely the temperature will make it to the low 90s this afternoon. If you’re heading out to Music Fest be sure to dress comfortably (ladies: I suggest a tube top), and don’t forget to put on sunscreen.

I’m skipping brunch at the Majestic this morning – wandering the streets is more fun during Music Fest. I’ll be back at brunch next Sunday.

As I was wandering Beale yesterday afternoon, I took a look down Third Street and noticed that a new Starbucks is going into the ground floor of the Westin Hotel. It’s not open yet, but it looks like it’s not that far away.

If anyone has info on the opening date, let me know. I hope this store keeps regular Starbucks hours (staying open until 10 or 11 at night) and not “downtown” hours (closing at 2 or 3 in the afternoon). It’ll be nice to have a Starbucks in Downtown Memphis that isn’t in the middle of a mall.

It happens every year on Music Fest weekend: Evangelical Jesus-freaks from all over the country descend on Beale Street carrying enormous signs, handing out pamphlets and telling the crowd they’re all going to hell. One particularly spirited man got on a megaphone and explained that you know the world’s coming to an end when you start seeing men wearing necklaces, and that good fathers and mothers would never let liquor or wine touch their lips. I saw one sign that read, “Ask me why you deserve Hell.” I didn’t ask.

I’ve posted pics of their signs from previous Music Fest weekends, and they generally don’t change year to year, so just refer to last year’s archives if you want to see them. I did see this one new sign though:

I think the sign shown above is a pretty accurate illustration of the amount of sense these people make.

Wish there was a way to embed polls within a blog. My question would be, who is the most annoying group during Music Fest?
a) the Jesus freaks who take over Beale
b) our local bums/panhandlers/vagrants
c) the “Need tickets! Sir, you got tickets to buy or sell?” guys
d) drunk frat boys who scream “woooooooooooo!”

It’s hard to pick an answer other than “all of the above.”

LoLo’s Table, the friendly neighborhood restaurant/bar right around the corner from my apartment building (it’s on Monroe between Main and Second) is serving a special Mother’s Day brunch next Sunday, May 13 from 11 AM to 8 PM. The menu is shown above (click the image to see it in a larger size). The brunch is $45 per person and the best time to get there is between 11 and 1, when they’ll also be serving eggs benedict, strata, and lobster hash in addition to the rest of the menu. It’s going to be busy, so you better make reservations soon.

Or you could spend the $45 to buy your girlfriend a tube top and just send mom a card instead. She’ll understand.

Just walked down the street past LoLo’s entrance and I stopped to look at their regular menu posted on the door… they have a $10 filet on the lunch menu! Nice!

I’m typing this from Bon Ton Cafe, a block farther down Monroe. Love their free wireless… think I may have to upgrade Bon Ton to branch office status. The Monroe Avenue branch office.

Great morning so far… got up early, got some work done on my next online store. When I got the idea for this particular store, it started out as a joke, but after I did a little research I began to realize that it could actually generate a LOT of sales if I do it right. I’ll roll it out toward the end of this month… as I said before, the theme for this store is a particular place. A wonderful, wonderful place. Longtime readers of my blog should be able to figure this one out pretty quickly.

Later in the morning I rode down to the Memphis Farmers Market on my bike, and snapped a few pics. I haven’t pulled them off the camera yet, so they’ll have to wait for the next post.

After I get done here, I’ll probably go have a beer with my waitresses, then spend the rest of the day wandering the streets. I don’t go in Music Fest – I actually got offered free tickets to blog the event and turned them down – because I have a lot more fun outside the festival.

Tomorrow I’ll probably skip brunch and sleep in a little later than usual, then wander the streets some more. Music Fest weekend: you never know what’s going to happen.

I’ll be around, and so will my camera. If I see anything interesting I’ll snap it and post it.