So, last night I watched the Olympics opening ceremonies. My opinion was, “You know, I’d probably really enjoy this if I were gay. But I’m not, and this is stupid.” First of all, you had those people dancing around in stovepipe hats in a performance that seemed to go on forever and ever. I thought about asking the Saucer to turn the sound on, but I thought to myself, this is bad enough with the sound off, why make it worse?<\/p>\n
Then there was that James Bond sequence in which I guess we were supposed to believe that the Queenster was parachuting into the stadium from a helicopter. The only reason this was at all interesting was because I was hoping for an Owen Hart moment. Does that make me evil? Ugh. I realize they have to have the royal family on since the Olympics are in London, but what a waste. The only member of the royal family I really like is Prince Harry, who uses his royal status to get laid like a rock star.<\/p>\n
What really made me think the ceremony was designed for gay men, though, was the introduction of the countries. I sat there and patiently waited for the country with the hottest women on the planet – Romania. They finally get to the R’s and what happens? The camera focuses on this dude in a yellow jacket, who is supposedly a tennis star, almost the entire time. We don’t want to see him!!! We want to see the female gymnasts. I’m going to find out this guy’s name and boo him viciously every time he appears on TV.<\/p>\n
The only saving grace was Sir Paul McCartney singing “Hey Jude.” Can’t argue with that. Would have been nice to see another British music legend, Sir Mick, who turned 69 day before yesterday. If I had designed the ceremony, the Sex Pistols would’ve performed “God Save the Queen.”<\/p>\n
Check out this interview with The Iron Sheik<\/a> about the Olympics. It’s much more interesting than the opening ceremonies were.<\/p>\n Okay, on to the news. This first event isn’t Downtown, but it’s not far away, and a Downtowner asked me to mention it. There will be a blood drive Monday morning from 8:30-11:30 at Harcros Chemicals, at 1585 Harbor Avenue on Presidents Island. If you have questions call 901-674-3611. Insider scoop: Stop for lunch at The Port<\/a> at 1039 Harbor Avenue after you donate your blood.<\/p>\n Double J Smokehouse and Saloon is starting a karaoke night on Sundays from 7 to 11 PM. First karaoke night will be tomorrow. Now, long-time readers will remember how much I made fun of the Blue Monkey’s Saturday karaoke nights last year. However, I support what Double J is doing for the following reasons:<\/p>\n 1) Sunday is a much better day to do it than Saturday. Saturday night is the main event of the week. You want your best stuff there. Saturday night is a good night to have a live band, a DJ, TV sound on during football season, no entertainment at all and just let people talk, or really, ANYTHING but karaoke. Karaoke is like lima beans: There’s a place for it on the plate, but no one is going to get super excited about it unless they’re a weirdo.<\/p>\n 2) The fact that Sunday night is followed by Monday morning. Alcohol and a live mic are a dangerous mix. I’m not going to name names, but there were a few people at the Monkey who tended to get drunk and turn into complete and total shitshows on karaoke night. Those people have 8-to-5 jobs, so they’ll have to curb their drinking a good bit for Sunday at the Double J.<\/p>\n 3) There most likely won’t be a regular texting everyone in his contacts, saying, “What are you doing right now? We’re all down here at the Double J. You should join us. Pretty much everybody we know is going to the Double J tonight. Double J, Double J, Double J.” (Don’t be surprised if you get a text when Dusty opens the Silly Goose early today though)<\/p>\n 4) The fact that it’s a saloon may mean that the music selection is better than the average karaoke night. Maybe patrons won’t have to have their ears bleed as they suffer through performances of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” and pretty much everything in Neil Diamond’s song book. Then again, I could be wrong; it has the potential to be worse too.<\/p>\n At any rate, it’s one more thing to do on a Sunday night Downtown. Maybe I’ll pop in one of these weekends and find out if Robo is really as awful a singer as I’ve heard. At least I can always count on getting some good grub and a cold PBR at the Double J.<\/p>\n It’s fireworks night at AutoZone Park tonight. The Redbirds play the Round Rock Express at 6:05, with fireworks to follow afterward. Tonight’s game is also a salute to first responders. If you’re a first responder, call 901-722-0270 for discounted tickets.<\/p>\n I have an idea for a TV commercial for Aldo’s Pizza Pies. Aldo could get The Rock to appear in the commercial with him. It could go something like this:<\/p>\n The Rock: “How many draft beer taps do you have on the wall?”<\/p>\n Aldo: “We have thir…”<\/p>\n The Rock: “IT DOESN’T MATTER how many taps you have on the wall!!! You have PBR in 16-ounce cans!”<\/p>\n Three pro wrestling references in one post. I’m on a roll today.<\/p>\n My plan for today is hopefully to get to Aldo’s right at 5 when it opens, so I can get a seat at the bar. Of course, I plan on starting the day at Panda Manda’s bar at Bardog at noon. Probably the Saucer at some point. Maybe Blind Bear later. In other words, Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, last night I watched the Olympics opening ceremonies. My opinion was, “You know, I’d probably really enjoy this if I were gay. But I’m not, and this is stupid.” First of all, you had those people dancing around in stovepipe hats in a performance that seemed to go on forever and ever. I thought … Continue reading “Sat update: Opening ceremonies were STUPID, blood drive Monday, Double J starts Sunday karaoke night, fireworks @ Redbirds tonight”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12548"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12548"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12551,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12548\/revisions\/12551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}