re: Y'all fill me in on Little Rock

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The Root Cafe on South Main street (easy drive from the RM) has the best breakfasts in town.

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true, but you have to put up with the pretentious staff.

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I feel like their breakfast is really overrated. That may be because I am intimidated that a majority of the women there have longer armpit hair than I do.

US Pizza brunch is my go-to. Cheap mimosas and badass breakfast pizza. Killing a couple of bottles of champagne and destroying a Sleepy Dragon are surefire hangover cures.

I'll just piggyback on everything else said: stay in the Rivermarket/Downtown area. There are hotels being built there right now. You can stay other places, but they're islands. You'll have to drive everywhere and have no fun between point A -> point B. Downtown you'll have a time from point A to point whatever. Go eat at the Capital Bar and Grill. It's a good time. It'll probably be busy. Order a drink and go upstairs and hang out on the balcony, get a nice view of the area. Maybe you'll even get a view of the living embodiment of Little Rock, Dirty Keith. If you're lucky he'll take off his headphones and share with you one of his celebrated half-smoke cocktails.

DOWNTOWN HOTELS TO AVOID: The La Quinta on Broadway (shady) and the Legacy (fantastic history, but an island to itself).

SAFETY: Here's a quick guide on how to be safe in any city:
1.) Don't be involved in the drug trade.
2.) Don't look like a bitch.
3.) Don't antagonize a cop.
4.) Don't walk into traffic.

Congratulations. If you follow these rules you can now go into any part of the city with confidence. But you won't do that, because you're only here for the weekend and you're Downtown and there's no reason to leave it except to go to the game or check out the amazing parts of Arkansas. And you can probably take a shuttle over there if you get a nice enough hotel.

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the living embodiment of Little Rock, Dirty Keith.

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I'm astounded at how many names are out there for this guy.

We always used Sony, for obvious reasons. I've also heard many call him Carl, or just simply, yet with a twinge of mysticism, Walking Man.

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Visitors welcome

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If with me, yes. It'll only cost you about $10/person which covers food & drinks. Hope you like John Daly's.

Am I a visitor SLC? BC I'm inviting myself to your tailgate.

Certainly, you can come.

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I'm astounded at how many names are out there for this guy.

We always used Sony, for obvious reasons. I've also heard many call him Carl, or just simply, yet with a twinge of mysticism, Walking Man.

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He's like a folk legend - many people see his visage and their own values are reflected back. I've had friends say they used to call him "Hippie Keith" when they'd pass him on the school bus. I've also heard that his name is Keith Gibbs and he lives under the bridge on Cantrell. One time I was at the Kroger Self-Checkout and there he was opposite me, buying something. I hear that someone gives him small bills on a regular basis, a family member. I've seen him walking all over Little Rock, as far West as Bowman.

It hurts my feelings when people say they've seen him smoke crack, because no, you haven't seen him smoke crack. Smoking crack requires some amount of money and personal interaction, two things that Keith doesn't have in spades. Also, you don't find crack lying on top of trash cans.

What people have seen is something else entirely, a real example of American ingenuity and Arkansas know-how: Keith takes a 20-oz soda bottle and fills it with all the half smokes he finds littering our grand, capitol city. He then lights them up, and inhales the smoke.

If you work/live Downtown you just start accumulating intel on everything you see often enough. I really think that Sony, Walking Man, Carl, DirtMan, Hippie Keith, Dirty Man -- whatever you call him -- is an avatar for the entire city of Little Rock. The better he does, the better the city does. It pains me to see people try to avoid him downtown. He just walks and smiles. One time, while walking he looked me in the eye and said "more smokes."

"More smokes" indeed.

Merry Christmas everyone.

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Holy shitballs. I didn't even know things like this existed. I want to mount wheels to it and use the cork as a cannon.

If you do stay downtown you should stay away from these places.

Big Whiskey's: The food is terrible and the service is worse. It's like an Applebee's without all the shite on the wall. You can tell everything has been flash frozen.

Flying Fish: Associated with the Flying Saucer; frozen fish and overpriced. The locals swear by it and have no idea it's a chain because they're too broke/stupid to travel. Nothing you can't get at home.

La Quinta Downtown: Shuttle service will take you all over damnation but nothing will work in your room. Tons of bums.

Ernie Big's/Willie D's: Fratstar types in their mid thirties/forties that have never been in a frat (would never have got in one) and most have never even been to college.

Stay in West Little Rock unless you want to tour some shite. You probably won't though. Nobody cares about Little Rock history, not even those that live there.

Little Rock 9?