Happy St. Patrick’s Day and Day 2 of March Madness! (or Day 4 if you count that First Four crap) Yesterday I went down to my “home away from home on the south side,” Max’s Sports Bar, to watch some games. The Wi-Fi was strong so I could keep up with my bracket on my phone, the PBR was flowing, and there was plenty of Madness to watch. Like car bombs? You need to come to Max’s for happy hour tonight. They will have $3 car bombs 4:30-7:00 to celebrate St. Pat’s, and of course it’s Fireball Friday with $3 shots of Fireball. They will also have $1 Jello shots all day.
Random thing I learned today: Memphis has not only Max’s Sports Bar, but also Maxcine’s Sports Bar. It’s on Castalia Street in South Memphis.
Bardog is doing a 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 special for St. Patrick’s Day. $1 potato soup, $2 corned beef sliders, $3 green PBR, $4 Guinness, $5 Jameson, $6 ICBs, $7 shepherd’s pie.
The Blind Bear is celebrating St. Patrick’s as well today. $5 Irish whiskey, $5 car bombs, $4 Guinness drafts, $2 PBR (not green PBR). Terry Greene & the Gang start belting out the fun tunes everyone wants to dance to at 10 PM.
Reverend Horton Heat plays the New Daisy tonight.
Quench will have a free tasting tonight from 5 to 7. There will be tastings of wines, liquors, and two special Irish whiskeys in celebration of the holiday.
There’s a new app called Find My Food Truck that helps you locate food trucks in Memphis. Read about the app in this CA article.
The Grizzlies are hosting a record number of summer basketball camps for kids ages 7-16. Kids get skills and drills instruction, guest appearances at select sessions, two tickets to a 2017-18 Grizzlies home game, a reversible jersey, a full-sized basketball, and more. Cost is $295 but you can save $45 by registering before April 1 with code EARLYBIRD.
There will be Memphis Riverfront Soccer Cup matches at Tom Lee Park both Saturday and Sunday.
President Trump wants to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, shaving $148 million/year off the federal budget. The cost of security for Trump Tower, because First Lady Melania Trump continues to live there rather than move to the White House, is $183 million/year.
I’m sure I have readers who skip to the next paragraph as soon as I start talking about pro wrestling. Don’t do it this time, because this is an important part of Memphis history. Next Friday, March 24 will be Sputnik Monroe Day. Monroe was a top wrestler in the Memphis territory from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. He was a heel (bad guy) in the ring, but in real life he was one of the good guys. He forced Ellis Auditorium to adopt racially integrated seating, refusing to wrestle until his black fans were allowed to sit in any seat they wanted. In 1960, he was arrested for hanging out in an black-only cafe on Beale. In possibly the first time a white man was represented by a black attorney in Memphis, future judge Russell Sugarmon argued on Monroe’s behalf. In 1971 Monroe and Norvell Austin (who would later go to be one half of the Pretty Young Things with Koko B. Ware) formed one of the first racially integrated tag teams in wrestling, Monroe shouting “Black is beautiful!” and Austin shouting “White is beautiful!” post-matches.
CA basketball podcast: If you’re a Tigers fan, you don’t want Arkansas surviving into the Sweet 16, because it would be a recruiting opportunity for Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson. Arkansas has been known to recruit pretty heavily in Memphis. Three players from the 1994 national champion Arkansas team were from Memphis: Corey Beck, Dwight Stewart, and Elmer Martin.
Joel and Victoria Osteen come to FedExForum tonight. The theme is “A Night of Hope” and it’s church stuff apparently.
The official announcement has now been made: The Flying Saucer will be “on spring break” from March 20 through late April(ish) for some big renovations. If you want to get your beer on at the Saucer, better do it no later than Sunday.
That’s the news for now. My plan for the evening is more March Madness at Max’s Sports Bar! St. Pat’s tends to be the second biggest Amateur Night of the year (after New Year’s Eve), so hanging out at a bar that draws mostly Downtown locals rather than East Memphis yahoos sounds like a good idea. I don’t have a lot of green clothes, so I’ll make sure to put on green beads so I don’t get pinched. Not promising I won’t be the one doing the pinching, though! 
Back tomorrow with more news.