The end of the Bruchebag at UT

I couldn't find a photo of Bruce Pearl, so I'll use this image instead. Close enough.

It’s now being widely reported that UT men’s head basketball coach Bruce Pearl has been fired.

Pearl is facing allegations by the NCAA including unethical conduct, recruiting infractions and just generally being a huge douchebag. UT did the right thing by kicking him to the curb. Actually, no they didn’t; the right thing would have been firing him in September when the infractions were made public.

It’s a testament to the smarminess of college athletics that it is said Pearl will be a hot commodity once he serves his NCAA-imposed sentence. Any athletic department that talks to him before the sentence comes down is a bunch of idiots, as he likely won’t be able to coach anywhere next year, and maybe the year after that.

From the first time I saw him on TV, years before the allegations hit, I knew the man was a douche, and he has proved me right.

Best quote on Pearl was something I saw on Facebook: “Pearl is applying at Syracuse… to be the mascot.”

UT statement about Pearl rumored to be released later today

The MrSEC.com site reports that UT is expected to issue a statement about men’s head basketball coach Bruce Pearl later this afternoon. It is believed that the university will offer Pearl and his assistants a nice little cash payday, in exchange for a promise that they will not appeal any of the NCAA charges against them. That will allow UT to move for a quick summary judgment and put this matter behind them.

Another source reports that UT e-mail addresses for Pearl and his assistants have stopped working. That suggests that the deal has already been done, and all that remains is to announce it.

Must be nice to get paid a couple of mil for being a lying douchebag. I guess Brucey won’t have to live in poverty during his time away from college basketball.

What am I going to write about, with the Bruchebag out of the picture? Oh wait, Cal is still around…

Random Sunday news

Something very important was pointed out yesterday on Twitter: Josh Pastner and the Tigers may be done for the season, but Memphis still has a team poised to make a run in basketball playoffs: The Grizzlies. For folks who haven’t followed the detailed playoff math, here’s what you need to know. Bookmark this page and check it frequently. You can ignore everything on the page except the lower right column that is headed, “Western Conference.” Top 8 teams go to the playoffs; bottom 7 enter the NBA draft lottery. The Grizzlies are currently 8th, so if the season ended today, we’d be in.

However, the season doesn’t end today, so we have time to try and move up. In the playoffs, #8 plays #1. Playing the best team in the conference is not ideal, so we want to move up to #7 (and play #2), or even better #6 (and play #3). When you see an x- appear next to Memphis, that means the Grizzlies have made it in for sure, and if you’re growing a playoff beard, at that point you can shave it.

Flying Saucer management needs to learn to count to 3. Former employee Brick can help with that. Um... well, maybe.

In other news… the Flying Saucer is once again hiding an Easter keg somewhere around town. They will post clues on the chalkboard above the bar every week (total of 6 clues). The person or people who find the keg receive a $100 bar tab. There are flyers posted around the bar reading “2nd Annual Easter Keg Hunt” with more details.

Wait a minute.

I know for a fact this isn’t the second annual Easter Keg hunt, because my group of friends and I have found the keg twice, in 2009 and 2010.

So it’s the third annual keg hunt. Anyway, clues will be posted at the bar, and no I’m not going to list them on the blog for two reasons: 1) It would kind of defeat the purpose of getting people to come in and order beer while they figure out the clues, and 2) I want to find the keg again!

In case you haven’t checked the news this weekend, the United States has joined an international coalition that is bombing Libya, to keep Gaddafi from killing his own people. Hmmm. Not sure what to think of this. I guess my question is, would we still be part of the coalition if we had no oil or business interests in the country? Not so sure the answer is yes.

Meanwhile, on social media last night, people went nuts over the fact that the moon was a couple of percent closer to Earth and slightly brighter than usual. There were checkins to “Supermoonamageddon” on Foursquare last night. Really, people? I wish there were a “don’t waste my time displaying checkins that aren’t real venues” option in Foursquare’s settings. “Watching NCAA tourney” was another checkin I saw yesterday. Does stupid shit like this happen on Gowalla? May have to switch. Wait a minute, I don’t want to lose my Saucer mayorship.

Actually, the “watching NCAA tournament” checkin would be perfectly valid on GetGlue, where you check in to let people know you’re watching your favorite entertainment.

Reminds me… if you live in Memphis and you’re a U2 fan, you absolutely need to be following @MemphisMullen on Twitter. She’s gone on the road following past U2 tours from city to city, and I think she’ll be doing so again this summer. She tweets about concert memories, U2 videos she’s watching, and more. She loves U2 as much as I love tube tops. She’s also a good person to follow if you’re an animal lover.

Our trivia team had a party last night. Every 3 months we cash in the gift certificates we’ve won. We faced an unusual problem last night – we almost didn’t finish the tab! It took us more than 4 hours to drink $405 worth of beer. That has never happened before – usually we blow through tabs that are larger in considerably less time.

Now I’m seeing on Twitter that there will be a “Keep Pearl” rally in Knoxville today. Wow, it’s really impossible to overestimate the stupidity of Tennessee fans. It really is possible to have a winning program without having a lying, cheating douchebag at the helm, as Memphis has learned the past two years.

Memphisport.com has audio of Memphis coach Josh Pastner’s first post-tournament interview. Listen here.

Waiting for 11:00 to get here. I’m hungry for a cheeseburger from the Majestic Grille. Think I’ll have them slap some bacon on it. That’s the end of this long, rambling post for now… happy Sunday Fun Day everyone, and remember, it’s perfect weather for patios and tube tops!

Classic pro wrestling “shoot”: Brody vs. Luger

If you’re not a pro wrestling fan, you can skip this post. If you are a fan, read on, you’re in for a treat. I found a video on a website I check frequently, and wanted to share.

As most everyone knows, pro wrestling is scripted, with the wrestlers trained to perform moves that look impressive but don’t really injure their opponents. However, once in a great while, things go wrong. A “shoot” is the term in pro wrestling for when two opponents drop the script and start legitimately fighting.

Below is the video for one of the most widely-discussed shoots of the modern era. In January 1987, Lex Luger was to face Bruiser Brody in a cage match in Florida. Luger had been the top good guy (“babyface”) there for most of the past year, but he’d just turned in his two weeks notice and signed a contract with WCW. As was common in those days, Florida wrestling management asked Luger to do a “job,” and lose to monster bad guy Bruiser Brody on the way out.

Luger refused to do the job. After all, he was about to go to WCW and campaign to become a member of the Four Horsemen. He was afraid he’d look less like “The Total Package” if the most recent match on his record was a loss.

Luger’s refusal didn’t go over well with Bruiser Brody, who decided to take matters into his own hands. For about the first four minutes of the match, everything seemed to be fine. But then Brody stopped selling Luger’s offense. Punches seemed to not affect him at all, and even when Luger slammed his head into the cage, Brody bounced right back and attacked. Brody put Luger in several legit holds, and even tried to piledrive him.

Luger and the referee quickly figured out that Brody was out to legitimately, seriously hurt Luger, and the match ending was changed on the fly. Luger got the hell out of Dodge, climbing over the top of the cage, and Brody’s hand was raised in victory.

Heirloom shamrock pin lost at Bardog Thursday night (CASH REWARD, no questions asked)

My friend Mary Pat lost a shamrock pin at Bardog Tavern while celebrating St. Patrick’s Day Thursday night. She went back the next day to ask if it had been turned in, but it hadn’t. Someone probably found it and kept it, thinking it was just a random piece of St. Pat’s schwag, but it was given to Mary Pat by her grandmother when she was 12, and she’s quite upset over losing it.

She’s offering a cash reward for it. If you have it you can e-mail (OMG, I’m not in compliance with the AP Stylebook!) me at paul@paulryburn.com. Mary Pat won’t ask any questions, and neither will I. I just want her to have her grandmother’s pin back.

New, expanded bar opens at Blue Fin

Last night as I was walking down the Main Street Mall, I noticed that the new bar at Blue Fin is now open. It has its own separate entrance, through a wood door to the right of the patio, and is much larger than the old bar.

They were still putting the finishing touches on the place when I walked in about 6 PM. Also, they’re getting two 55-inch TVs hooked up today.

The folks at Blue Fin commented that the new bar is part of the restaurant, yet separate from it, and they expect it to develop a vibe of its own. It will be open until 3 AM Thursday-Saturday. Sunday-Wednesday, the hours are still being determined, but it will stay open later than the old bar did.

The bar has its own lounge area upstairs, complete with DJ booth. I came back later in the evening, and while it appears that the bar has yet to really be discovered, quite a few people were in there enjoying it. I never went to the old bar much, except when I was meeting someone for sushi or when it was a stop on a pub crawl, but this is a place I can definitely see myself hanging out from time to time.

In other news… we didn’t win, but what a great finish to the season for the Memphis Tigers. We were in the game until the very last seconds. My congratulations to Coach Pastner and the team. My goodness, what a force we will be next year! We totally proved that we belonged in the NCAA tournament. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Vols proved that they should have been in the NIT, losing to 8-see Michigan by 30 points. Any predictions for when Bruce Pearl will be fired? My guess is Tuesday. If the school’s top officials have any sense at all, they’ll send AD Mike Hamilton out the door right behind the Bruchebag.

I was amazed at all the celebrating I saw on Facebook and Twitter yesterday over the AP Stylebook changing “e-mail” to “email” as the official spelling. Really, who f-ing cares? Quite honestly, people who get all up in arms about things like spellings of “email” and one space vs. two after a period annoy the living piss out of me. This blog does not use the AP stylebook, so I’ll spell words however I feel like, although at some point laziness will finally win the day and I’ll realize it’s less work to type “email” instead of “e-mail.”

Plans for today include watching basketball and drinking beer. I have more posts to come, so check back.

Benefit to raise funds for indoor bike park at Rehab Disco tonight

A few weeks ago I linked to a Commercial Appeal article about River City Indoor Bike Park, the idea of a Memphis police officer. Aaron Feathers wants to turn an old warehouse, at 587 Hernando in the South of Forum area, into a family-friendly indoor park for BMX and mountain bike enthusiasts. So far, however, he has not been able to secure funding to make his dream happen.

If you like to dance and want to chip in, proceeds from the door at Rehab Disco tonight will be donated to the park. Mary Jane, MarkMad, Eno aka ?CONFUSION?, IKIS, and Extremely Terrific will be spinning. $5 cover.

If you can’t make it out but want help, there’s a Donate button on the bike park’s web site.

Urgent call for help from MIFA

MIFA needs help tearing the roof off a house tomorrow (Friday, March 18) so that a new roof can be installed on Saturday. If you can help, show up anytime between 10 AM and 5 PM at 3397 Dobbin Ferry. No skills required. Wear clothes and tennis shoes that you don’t mind getting dirty. If you have the time, I know they would really appreciate it.