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.
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.
Meghan has trouble deciding what to wear to Jersey Shore parties, because nearly everything in her closet is appropriate attire.
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.
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.)
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.”
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…
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!
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.
