930 Forums
=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: HoyaSaxa03 on April 18, 2006, 04:32:00 pm
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heading to Memphis for a wedding this weekend, staying at the downtown marriott (a couple blocks from the pyramid and the mississipi river) ... any ideas for stuff to do/see other than beale street, civil rights museum, etc? good off-beat music stuff?
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baseball game friday night http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/index.jsp?sid=t235 (http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/index.jsp?sid=t235)
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Graceland.
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Originally posted by Bombay Chutney:
Graceland.
agreed.
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I worked as a consultant in Memphis the summer of 2002.....quite a bit to do downtown,just be careful where you roam.....some areas of downtown are QUITE dicy!....the food is fantastic if you like bar-b-q and southern cuisine like yours truly.....Memphis Redbirds baseball is very cool...Albert Pujols played there during his minor league stint......The park is beautiful...it's like a mini Camden Yards basically.....I had season tickets and spent many nights under the lights.....go check a game if you can!.....a good number of small clubs for music including the Hi Tone....always something happening on Beale....once again,watch it at night.......Graceland,sure ya gotta do it if you can.....Elvis Presley Boulevard,where Graceland is,is really bad on both sides of the facility....you'll see what I mean.....but the place is great.....just the neighborhood has run down......I stayed on Mud Island when I was there......I'm sure you'll be thru there on your travels.....right on the river.....have fun!
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Originally posted by Dr. Jonas Sulk:
Albert Pujols played there during his minor league stint
sorry to hijack the thread for such a minor thing, but are you sure? i thought he came straight from a-ball. cards fans, where are you?
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The lobby of the Peabody Hotel at happy hour...and a big surprise that will make you laugh.
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Originally posted by BookerT:
Originally posted by Dr. Jonas Sulk:
Albert Pujols played there during his minor league stint
sorry to hijack the thread for such a minor thing, but are you sure? i thought he came straight from a-ball. cards fans, where are you? [/b]
this is from minorleagueball.com (http://www.minorleagueball.com/story/2005/9/27/115211/342):
Pujols made his pro debut in 2000, hitting .324/.389/.565 in 109 games for Class A Peoria, with 38 walks and just 37 strikeouts in 395 at-bats. He also got into 14 games at Class A Potomac, hitting .284/.341/.481, and went 3-for-14 in three games at Triple-A Memphis. I was extremely impressed with his bat, and gave him a Grade A- in the 2001 Minor League Scouting Notebook, rating him as the Number 18 prospect in baseball. I was a bit ahead of the curve on this. Baseball America put three different Top 50 lists in their '01 prospect book, written up separately by Jim Callis, Allan Simpson, and Will Lingo. The highest ranking for Pujols was #39.
and this page (http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/P/albert-pujols.shtml) shows stats for peoria, potomac and memphis.
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Originally posted by BookerT:
sorry to hijack the thread for such a minor thing, but are you sure? i thought he came straight from a-ball. cards fans, where are you?
as Bede pointed out, he came up to the AAA team at the end of 2000, and in fact was the MVP of the PCL playoffs that year
Finally, in the bottom of the 13th, Pujols engraved his name on the tableau of Memphis baseball lore. Having spent the entire summer at Class-A Peoria before a late-season promotion to fill Youngâ??s spot on the roster, Pujols hooked a ball just inside the rightfield foul pole for a championship-clinching home run. Triple-A it may have been, but Pujols bouncing around the bases under fireworks and confetti looked eerily similar to Mazeroski in â??60, Carter in â??93.
He then unexpectedly won a spot on the major league team in 2001 spring training.
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You should probably go to the Arcade, a vintage diner where some scenes from "Mystery Train" were shot. i.e. "This...is Elvis' comb!" It's been redecorated since then, but still has the old-school diner ambiance and I had a great diner breakfast there. A block or so down there was a vacant lot where the motel used to be that a lot of the scenes were filmed in and Screamin' Jay Hawkins was the desk clerk. It's also fairly close to the Civil Rights Museum. It has a nice old neon sign too.
"The Arcade Restaurant is a landmark treasure lying in downtown Memphis, across from Central Station. The food is wonderful with great breakfast and hand-tossed pizza. The ambiance is familiar as the restaurant has a "diner" feel to it. If in downtown, make sure you stop by the Arcade for either breakfast, lunch, dinner, or all three. 540 S. Main"
My friend and I enjoyed an excellent dinner at the Beauty Shop, followed by a set by a band I don't remember at the Hi-Hat.
"Beauty Shop, The 966 South Cooper, Memphis, TN 38104, 901-272-7111, Set inside an old 1940s-style beauty shop, patrons of this restaurant can dine in refurbished hair-dryer chairs. An eclectic array of chairs and tables from antique stores keeps up the beauty shop theme and the menu, which is globally inspired, provides a wonderful range of culinary influences sure to please all customers. They are open Monday through Saturday for lunch and dinner and open on Sunday for brunch."
Rendezvous downtown is upscale BBQ, been there for decades, they specialize in ribs. It's close to the Peabody so you can go there for dinner after the happy hour "show" in the hotel lobby.
I'd like to go back to the Rock & Soul Museum. We spent a good 3 hours in there, looking at cool memorabilia and listening to great rock & soul tunes on headsets. Also Gibson has a factory museum there, we didn't make it but have heard it's interesting.
Sun Studio is another place I might go back to, not for the tour necessarily, which is kind of cheesy, but just to stand in the room again where all that great music was recorded. I don't think anything has changed, same linoleum same ceiling tiles. Looks that way in all the photos anyway. And I got some CDs in the gift shop.
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Originally posted by twangirl:
You should probably go to...
awesome, thanks for the tips ...
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If you have the time, drive 2 hours west to Little Rock and check out the Prez Clinton museum. I really love that part of the country. Memphis is great!
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stax museum + sun studios. duck marching at peabody hotel.
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the fine folks from Scenestars (http://www.scenestars.net/) blog from memphis....
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Memphis is dirty, but fun. The Hi-Tone has some good musical acts pass through, I'd compare it to the Ottobar in size and stature. As previously mentioned, Beale Street is pretty fun, just watch your back and don't wander too far out...kinda like the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. The downtown park in front of the Mississippi River is kinda pretty.
Graceland and the surrounding area is incredibly dirty, tacky and overrated. It was a huge letdown to walk by and go "wow...that's it?"
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Originally posted by Alex:
Graceland and the surrounding area is incredibly dirty, tacky and overrated. It was a huge letdown to walk by and go "wow...that's it?"
did you take the tour?!?
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nah, didn't really feel like going in after seeing the surrounding area. is it any good inside?
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Originally posted by Alex:
nah, didn't really feel like going in after seeing the surrounding area. is it any good inside?
dude, if you have to ask. . .
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Originally posted by Alex:
nah, didn't really feel like going in after seeing the surrounding area. is it any good inside?
You should really take the tour, the Jungle Room alone is worth the price of admission IMO. Also the museum across the street that has a bunch of Elvis' cars in there is cool, if you like vintage cars. And you can go inside his private plane there too. Personally, I appreciated seeing how un-opulent everything was. He could have afforded to live in the utmost luxury but clearly was just a downhome guy at heart, gold lamé Nudie suit notwithstanding. I probably won't take the tour again, but am defintiely glad I did it once.
The surrounding area [Elvis Presley Blvd] is very rundown, but if you like thrift shopping, the AmVet right down the street from Graceland is large and I've had some good scores there.
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I'll give another "show of support" for the Graceland tour. I took it about 10 years ago.
I believe you can get a bundled package which includes Graceland/private aircraft/auto musuem. I'd just go for the Graceland tour myself, unless planes and cars are your bag.
The Graceland tour was self guided by way of a bulky personal walkman. The technolgy is probably better now. The best part is seeing the graves at the end.
Sun Studio was probably my favorite stop, lots of photos and interesting facts are presented. I think you just walk into the room and someone mumbles at you for 10 minutes about its history, so nothing theatrical but still awesome.
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thanks for all the tips, i didn't have as much time to get out and see the sights because of the heavy drinking involved with the wedding schedule, but i made it to the civil rights museum and the arcade, and walked all over downtown
i can't believe how completely empty and deserted downtown memphis was ... that place is due for some dc-style gentrification!
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Originally posted by Hoya Saxa 03, 08:
but i made it to the civil rights museum
Did you see any white power neo-nazis? I hear tell they're everywhere. They multiply like roaches...for every one you see there are ten thousand hidden inside the walls.
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Originally posted by renton007:
The Graceland tour was self guided by way of a bulky personal walkman. The technolgy is probably better now.
ha... it was still the same bulky personal walkmans when i was there in 2004.
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claim your gay, real loud and flamboyant like, in one of them there manly man comboy bars . . . and watch the fun erupt.
'cuz memphis has friends in low places, where the boys are girls with bruised faces.
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Originally posted by walkonby:
claim your gay, real loud and flamboyant like, in one of them there manly man comboy bars . . . and watch the fun erupt.
'cuz memphis has friends in low places, where the boys are girls with bruised faces.
"comboy?" oops, slip of my tongue.