Month: March 2011

This article preaches the Gospel.

It’s Saturday morning and I just made my Mountain Dew run to Walgreens. As I walked out, I noticed an issue of the Tri-State Defender, with the headline story about a new club to open in the old Red Rooster space at 340 Beale. It will be a blues and jazz club, more designed to appeal to grownups than other clubs on the street, and Vernon Johnson and Preston Shannon are among the names to be associated with it. More details here.

Walked home, watched Downtown homeless legend Scratchy have a discussion with the staircase next to Winfield’s. Attn Downtown smartphone developers: There needs to be a “Where’s Scratchy” app. Can someone get on that?

Memphis nightclub legend DJ David the Worm has announced that he will open at Rehab Disco tonight, playing from about 10 to midnight, filling in for resident DJ J2 who will be running late.

Yesterday I read the Wikipedia bio of Butler coach Brad Stevens. After doing so, I’ve decided I’m pulling for Butler to win the tournament. He even out-Pastners Pastner. He’s 34 and has been living and breathing basketball since he was a kid. He prefers to recruit players with a team ethic than players who are likely future NBA stars. I’d love to see a Memphis-Butler NCAA championship game in a future year. Could happen.

Max’s Sports Bar will open at 2:30 for basketball today.

Kooky Canuck has upped the ante on their Foursquare mayor special. Not only does the mayor get half off one meal a day, but now they get one free 34 oz. Labatt Blue a day as well. All you have to do is check in more times than anyone else in the past two months (only one checkin a day counts) and you become the mayor. Wish other businesses on Second would follow Kooky’s example with the mayor specials.

Looking at Twitter and Facebook to see what everyone did last night… yep, there’s the 2 AM Nuh-Uh Girl checkin at Club Shadows. I wonder if they have senior citizens’ discounts on drinks for customers over 30? After I’d walked back to the core from South Main Trolley Night, I saw a number of my friends check in at the Monkey. Almost went down there, but I wasn’t wearing a jacket and it was cold… wanted to go though, to show that I’m perfectly pleased to hang out at the Monkey as long as it isn’t crappyoke night.

Speaking of which… I’ll be on South Main next Friday for a birthday party. I really will have to make an effort to stop by the Monkey afterward.

At Trolley Night, I wrote a check and renewed my South Main Association membership. Toward the end, they were breaking down, and SMA vice-president Mikey had to run up the street and close a vendor booth. “Pauly, I need your help,” he said. “I need you to guard that keg,” pointing at the still half-full keg that had been at the SMA booth. Can you say, fox guarding the henhouse? I discharged my duties faithfully, testing the tap handle several times to make sure it was dispensing beer properly.

Getting ready for River City Brewers Festival today. Going to wear my PBR hoodie AND my PBR headband. Gotta be appropriately attired, you know. I have tickets for both sessions. Hope to see you there!

TV that makes you “Kooky”

Sorry, that may have been the stupidest introductory slogan ever, or close to it, but this is a drunk post. I went down to Kooky Canuck tonight after getting bored at the Saucer. A number of my friends had checked in at Kooky on Foursquare, so I decided to join the party. I got there and this is what I saw:

The TVs at the bar have been replaced. Previously there had been old-style CRT TVs, but they have been replaced with five flat-screen HDTVs, four of which are visible in the pic above.

Good to see Kooky doing the upgrade. It needed to happen. One fewer TV but much higher resolution. It’s a long time away (maybe even longer than usual), but next season’s NFL games are going to look sweet on those TVs.

All right, home now, more time to post the rest of the news.

City Auto is starting its annual drawing for free crawfish buckets at Rajun Cajun Crawfish Fest. Enter on their site before April 3 and get in the drawing to win one of 50 tokens for a free bucket of crawfish. They’re also giving away a Creole cooking basket. Free crawfish? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will enter the drawing.

Automatic Slim’s has announced that they will begin $8 lunches beginning the first of next month. “Everything on the menu is $8, and that’s no joke,” they tweeted.

There’s a new iPhone/Droid app that I’m beginning to think may become the next big thing, like Foursquare was a year ago. Color offers location-based sharing of photos you snap with your phone. Photos are shared with everyone within 150 feet of you. There are no usernames, no friending, or following; everyone within that distance sees the photo. However, it does give you an opportunity to get to know the people in your immediate vicinity. I downloaded it today. Will try it tonight when I go out.

Funeral details for blues legend Pinetop Perkins can be found on this page. He’ll have two funerals, one in Austin and one in Clarksdale. On the page you can donate to the Pinetop Perkins Foundation, which provides encouragement for youth at the beginning of their musical careers, and care and support for elderly musicians at the end of their careers. Pinetop Perkins passed away earlier this week at age 97.

There’s a blacksmithing conference at the Metal Museum this weekend, and they’ll have public events Saturday afternoon/evening:

• 4-6 pm free museum admission, hands-on activities and blacksmithing demonstrations
• 6-8 pm live auction

Grill 83 has announced their April wine dinner, scheduled for 6:30 PM Tuesday, April 12 and featuring the wines of Anne Amie Vineyards in Carlton, Oregon. Here’s the menu:

Amuse-bouche: prosciutto crostini with fig spread, accompanied by a 2009 Anne Amie CuvÈe A Amrita
Appetizer: shrimp ravioli with minted broad beans and spinach veloutÈ, served with a 2009 Anne Amie Pinot Gris
Main course: cedar planked salmon on roasted yellow beats, haricot verts, cherry tomatoes and fingerling potatoes, served with a 2008 Anne Amie Pinot Noir
Dessert: pear upside-down cake, accompanied by a 2009 Anne Amie Estate Riesling

$59 per person, 333-1224 for reservations.

All right, trying out this Color app now, and we’re not off to a good start. It wants me to snap a photo of myself before continuing. There’s no way I can hold the phone in my hand and snap a decent pic of myself and get my I LOVE ROMANIAN GIRLS shirt and the PBR I’m drinking in the pic. Guess I’ll head out to the Saucer and see if I can find someone there to get a pic of me.

Tons of news coming in today, but not enough time to post… I’m going to just put up the time-sensitive ones right now and hopefully get the rest up tonight.

Pro wrestling manager “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart will be a special guest on the first hour of The Chris Vernon Show, at 3 PM on AM 730. I’m sure Hart will be talking about the upcoming Wrestlemania as well as other topics.

There’s a Memphis Redbirds Groupon today. $20 gets you a family pack of four field box tickets, up to a $52 value.

Tonight is half-price South American wine Thursday at Texas de Brazil. On Thursdays, purchase one bottle of South American wine, get the second for half off.

Pat Kerr Designs has a pop-up shop at 400 S. Main that will be open and selling gowns today and tomorrow. The people behind the @DowntownMemphis Twitter account went down there and said it almost looks like a museum inside. I’m assuming she picked this weekend so she could be open for Trolley Night tomorrow.

Sorry for the brevity of this post… will try to get the rest of the news up after I get home from work.

This Friday will be the first warm-weather South Main Trolley Night of the season, with many galleries and restaurants open from 6 to 9.

This month they have something special: A Taste of South Main! Buy a $10 wristband from any Trolley Tour beverage tent, and you’ll get to sample food at participating restaurants. Restaurants include Harry’s Detour, the Blue Monkey, Max’s Sports Bar, Pearl’s Oyster House, Silly Goose, South of Beale, and more restaurants to come.

There will also be a Taster’s Choice award as two South Main cooks face off against one another for the title of master chef. Trolley Night attendees will be able to sample and vote for the winner. Food samplings? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

Also, the South Main Association will be grilling out for the first time of the year, with free burgers and Ghost River beer for SMA members. $5 for non-members. Reminds me, I’ve got to renew my membership dues! SMA membership is too valuable to let lapse.

In the news: It looks like Mike Anderson will be the new head basketball coach of Arkansas! Pleased to hear it, after hearing Tubby Smith’s name being tossed around earlier. Nothing against Tubby personally, but I think Forty Minutes of Hell better suits the Hogs than Tubbyball.

Home from work. Time for beer.

My day started with a duck fight. We have two mallards, a drake and a hen, who live in our pond at work. Today a second drake tried to make himself at home, and our resident drake was not happy about it at all. I guess that’s why the Peabody only has one male and four females. The visitor finally got the hint and flew away.

LivingSocial has a Downtown deal today: $10 for $20 worth of food at Lunchbox Eats. There’s never been a better reason to try this place. Entire menu is good, but I especially recommend the Third Period Smoking Birds sandwich.

Good baseball at AutoZone Park today. The Memphis Tigers take on the #12 Arkansas Razorbacks. Really not sure to root for here, as I’m a fan of both teams. Gates open at 5:30, game at 6:30.

If you’re planning on coming Downtown Monday during the day, expect traffic jams, trouble finding parking, and delays getting lunch. 15 to 16 thousand people will be at the FedExForum for the Get Motivated seminar, with an overflow of another 2,000 at the Convention Center. Doors open at 6:45 AM, event begins at 8 and ends around 4:45. They expect to break for lunch from 12:30 to 1:45, so you might want to schedule your lunch break early if you work Downtown to avoid them.

I should probably write a blog post about the Get Motivated seminar, but I just don’t feel up to doing it.

Entertainment has been announced for the River City Brewers Fest. Session A (12 to 4) will feature the Mulch Brothers, while it will be The Ghost River Blues Band for Session B (6 to 10). They’ll have a gourmet food court with food from several of River City Management’s restaurants, as well as crawfish. Online ticket sales end at 5 PM Friday, and prices will rise to $40 at the gate, if the festival doesn’t sell out in advance which it possibly will. (Again, disclosure: They gave me tickets as a thank-you for mentioning them.)

Proof of the intellectual level of UT fans: These fans attended a “Save Bruce Pearl” rally. Their sign reads, “Don’t get rid of a Pearl and expect a dimond!” Geez.

Speaking of the Bruchebag, I had a great time last night at the “Bruce Pearl FIRED!” party at the Silly Goose. It’s nice to support a bar that realizes which side of the state its customers live on; certain other “local” bars don’t seem to get it. Apologies to my trivia teammates for arriving to trivia under the effects of Fireball and being generally useless. After trivia I went to pint night at Bardog. I could have had any of their draft beers for $3, but I selected the best beer they have on tap, PBR. You just can’t beat the classics.

Time to grab a quick bite, then back for an afternoon of building pages with WordPress, with occasional trips outside to see how the ducks are doing. I still need to post about Trolley Night, so check back.

Want to meet the cast of Jersey Shore?

Um, yeah, me neither. But if you know anyone who does, tell them they should travel to Starkville Saturday. A local bar is having a grand re-opening celebration. They’re going to have a party with a Jersey Shore theme, and they’ve invited the cast of the TV show.

Actually, only Vinny has confirmed, but they’re working on the others. If you dream of fist pumping with Vinny, of doing a shot with The Situation, of staring at JWoww’s foobs, this may be your big chance. After all, this will likely be as close as the cast ever comes to Memphis.

At least, I hope it is.

More details on the party here.

Lots of restaurant news today. Let’s get to it…

Felicia Suzanne’s turns 9 years old this week, and they’re having a week-long celebration. Complete details can be found on the restaurant’s new website, which launched today. There will be a wine tasting, birthday cake, a cookbook signing, live music on the patio, a prix fixe birthday menu determined by your votes, and more.

In other restaurant news, the results are in for the vote for favorite specialty entree at the Majestic Grille. Winner is the Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Caramelized Carrots and Maple Cream. It will be $5 off all week.

Spindini will open their patio this Sunday, and local favorites Pam and Terry will play there from 6 to 9 PM.

Good article in the Commercial Appeal about Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin’. The film premieres Thursday and plays all next week, documenting Memphis wrestling from the early days through the 1970s.

Firefox 4 has been released. Get it here. If you’re still using Internet Explorer, there’s no better time to dump it and get a better browser!

I turned on sports radio as I drove to work this morning, knowing the topic would be the firing of Bruce Pearl. One caller suggested that they get rid of AD Mike Hamilton as well and promote women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt to AD. That would be the smartest move they’ve made in years. Summitt is a legend, she’s perhaps the only person at UT with any integrity, and she wouldn’t permit Pearl/Cal/douche type coaches to run amok. Let her coach women’s ball and be AD at the same time… there’s a precedent for it. Frank Broyles did it at Arkansas (men’s football coach/AD). With Summitt in charge I might even consider rooting for Tennessee football and basketball.

More to come later today. I have details of the upcoming South Main Trolley Night, which is going to be a good one (hint: come hungry), and another announcement too.

March has flown by, it seems, and we’re now only 5 days away from the first Spring beer festival Downtown! The 2nd Annual River City Brewers Festival will happen in Handy Park at Third and Beale this Saturday, March 26.

There are two sessions, so you can pick which you want to go to: afternoon (12-4) or evening (6-10). Tickets are $30 per session, and include sampling of all beers served in the park. Proceeds will benefit the Autism Society of the Mid-South.

I went to this last year and it was a lot of fun despite being unseasonably cold for March. This year the weather looks much better – high is predicted to be around 70. As we learned from Winter Warmer in January, beer festivals sell out. There is enough interest in craft beer in Memphis for a sellout to occur in the next few days, so if you want to go, don’t count on being able to walk up and purchase a ticket at the door.

See you Saturday! I’ll bring the camera.

(Disclosure: They gave me tickets to both sessions as a thank-you for previous mentions I’d given them. I think long-time readers of this blog realize that I would be whole-heartedly recommending this beer fest, tickets or not.)