Peg Leg Porker for Life

Here I am taking a cheap shot at one of my favorite guys.....Carey Bringle of the Peg Leg Porkers. Carey lost part of his leg when he was young but he has an amazing attitude that is truly infectious. We are charter members of the BBQ cooking team The Peg Leg Porkers. I do the heavy lifting & run the Ice Luge during our annual Memphis in May World BBQ cooking competition. We were 17th in the WORLD last year! If you have never been then you are missing one of the great spectacles of our time. It is nothing but the B's for mez.Beer,BBQ,baseball & babes(disclaimer-I'm engaged now) No one wants to know how many calories of Que or how many cold beers are consumed. Every year i walk down to the banks of the Mississippi River & proclaim "I'm going to swim across this river". Every year Warren Sanger proclaims "You will drown you dumbass". So I walk away until next year. Every year is a different chapter with new stories of fun, horror & embarrassment. We compete in shoulders mainly but we have some real serious sponsors including Lobel's of New York. They provide steak "that would make a rabbit smack a hound dog" it is that good. Check out our sight & read more about Carey Bringle The Pitmaster.www.peglegporker.com Cheers, Ripper

Football Time in Tennessee-SEC Championship

Since I was a small child I have told people that I bleed Orange for the Tennessee Vols! There are few things that inspire me to the passion level that UT football does. Some of the best days & worst days have been the result of these football games. Our team is 9-3 0verall & 6-2 in the SEC East, tied with Georgia but since we thumped their ass early in the year; we are going to Atlanta to take on the LSU Tigers!
The picture is of Neyland Stadium which holds in excess of 107,000 screaming brain dead rednecks all hopped up on bourbon. What a sight i can tell you. Our stadium is a vertical stadium meaning it goes up instead of out; this makes it amazingly loud. I have been coming to games in this shrine since I was 9.(32 yrs) I have traveled around throughout the SEC & no one has a stadium as impressive. Yeah Florida, Alabama & LSU are loud but their stadiums don't intimidate opposing teams the way Neyland does. There is NO place I would rather be on a Saturday in the fall than Neyland Stadium....home of the University of Tennessee Volunteers. GO BIG ORANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dare you to come in here....

Back to Australia. Growing up in the South, you see all kinds of crazy looking animals. You also see some pretty crazy ones on Saturday morning cartoons as well. This little fellow is the Tasmanian Devil & he is ferocious. You won't find many tourists getting close ups or cuddling with this carnivore. He is nocturnal as most Australian creatures seem to be & when he feeds he lets out a piercing scream that is disturbing to say the least. This one was taking at a wildlife park on Phillip Island about an 1 1/2 hours southeast of Melbourne. Phillip Island is also home to a fairy penguin rookery that is a must if you make it to Melbourne. Every night at dusk thousands of tiny penguins come ashore from a day of feeding at sea & waddle back to the same nest. The park ranger advised us not to take pictures as it frightens the birds....so....i took a picture & it was the only one on the roll(old days) that didn't turn out. As Earl would say...."Karma is a bitch" The opportunity to see such incredible animals changes my itinerary every trip. I love saying I saw a Tasmanian Devil or fairy penguin, not many people ever will. There were Tasmanian Tigers(yes it's true) until around the 1940's but they were killed off by hunters but some people in Tasmania believe they still exist in the mountains of "Tassie" I hope so, maybe I'll be lucky enough to see one of those one day.

Cheers,

Rip

Happy Thanksgiving to all & especially our troops!

My name in neon...looks real GOOD!

I grew up the son of Leo, he was a pharmacist by day & night club owner by night. He had Leo's & it was the place to be in Nashville back in the 70's & NO it wasn't a honky tonk. Through the years I've run across 10-12 places called Rip's but never a straight up pub, that is the kind of bar i would like to own. Serve Schlitz regular as the main draft selection, which incidently you can't get in the Southeast U.S. anymore. Have all the crap I've collected over the years hung up everywhere. Have really good food & make the prices reasonable as well. Every 1000th customer gets his tab paid for & on your 21st bday...we buy you a shot & throw you out cuz you are gonna get out of hand anyway. No coffee, no clove cigarettes & i have the right to refuse service to anyone. I would have hottie bartendresses & 1 day a week i would get behind the bar & serve the masses. I bar tended a couple time back in the day & really like it for the most part. Add Rip's to the list of shit i will do before I die.
Cheers,
Rip

Australian beer is good!

I got off track a bit with the 2 articles...i apologize & let us talk about Aussie beer. I'm a big fan of almost all of it except Foster's, the Australia beer brewed in Canada for us. I did see a guy drink one in Adelaide i think. Well when in Sydney I always wander into the Fortune of War....it has been around forever. It has that old time feel & when you walk in everyone turns & stares at you or maybe it was because i'm BIG! Australians are very loyal to their state's beer with every single pub has it displayed. New South Wales is Toohey's, Victoria loves VB(Victoria Bitter),Queensland is XXXX, South Australia has Carlton & Tasmania has 2 Cascade & James Boag. This last adventure i stuck with Carlton Lager, it is crisp but fairly light & went down real nice. Met the bartender Greg who was a fairly stout fella as well. He played rugby & actually toured thru the states last year with Savannah, GA for St. Patrick's day being his highlight. Like the fine southern women as well. I live in Nashville & haven't been to Savannah....soon. I had a Memphis rugby team shirt back at the hostel that i promised him. I bought one of their shirts in XXL....more like a L to me after it was washed. Spent the afternoon drinking with a son & dad coal miners. They were alot of fun & bought me numerous rounds. Dad had actually been in Nashville back when Hank Sr was alive. I limped out of there around 5 & hit the subway for a return to the Bondi Beach Hostel. When in Sydney....go to the Fortune of War & tell Greg I said hello!
Cheers,
Rip

i've been published!

I retired from the mortgage business & decided to decompress for 40 days in faraway Australia. I arrived in Sydney & proceeded to Bondi Beach to be with all the pretty people. As this was my third time in OZ, i vowed to see harder to reach places which translates into using ferries & more air travel. It is worth it ! The mistake we make when it comes to visiting Australia is we don't take enough time to see this amazing country. I recommend no less than 3 weeks & plan on flying from city to city as Australia is approximately the same size as the U.S.
I took day trips to Magnetic Island from Sydney, Kuranda from Cairns & a 2 day overnight trip to Kangaroo Island from Adelaide where this picture of The Remarkables (a cluster of gigantic granite boulders) was taken. I boarded a tri-engine speedboat to jet around Bruny island in Southern Tasmania....what a thrill ride! I get a kick out of being sooooo far off the beaten path & that noone knows where i am. Another added feature is the abundant amount of creatures you get to view truly in the wild. You will see kangaroos, wallabies, koala & yes even Tasmanian Devils. 40 days & i'm decompressed.
Cheers.
Rip Pewett,Nashville
as seen in the travel section of the Sunday Tennessean...pretty cool stuff