Tennessee’s top Pornhub search was “interracial” last year according to the porn site in its annual report.
Pornhub’s 2021 Year In Review offers insights into trends around the world that may be offering glimpses into cultures and people, especially when they think no one is looking. The report also shows how global events can affect its traffic. It was up when Facebook was out and it was down during Super Bowl 55, for example.
No information is available as to why Tennessee’s porn preference is “interracial.” No other state’s highest search term was “interracial.” In fact, no two states shared the same, highest-ranked search term.
Tennessee borders eight other states. So, let’s have a look at what our neighbors are searching for:
Missouri: hand job
Kentucky: threesome
Virginia: dirty talk
North Carolina: penis pump
Georgia: big ass
Alabama: ebony
Mississippi: furry
Arkansas: divorce
Arkansas has one of the highest divorce rates in the United States, and ‘divorce’ is their most common relative search.”
Pornhub Year In Review
Regional differences in porn are a thing, according to Pornhub.
“Our statisticians found that visitors from Alaska were more likely to search for ‘morning sex’, while those in Virgina like a bit of ‘dirty talk’,” reads the report. “Visitors from North Dakota are more likely to search for a ‘quickie,’ which may be why their state has one of the shortest visit durations. Arkansas has one of the highest divorce rates in the United States, and ‘divorce’ is their most common relative search.”
Last year, visits to the site were down by an average of 29 seconds. Colorado saw the biggest drop of 39 seconds for an average visit of eight minutes and 51 seconds. But this doesn’t mean “everyone got 29 seconds more efficient at masturbating” last year, Pornhub explained. The decrease could be explained by internet speed or the efficiency of the site’s search algorithm.
(Credit: Pornhub)
However, Tennessee ranked high on Pornhub’s list of longest visits. That is, Tennesseans stayed on the site longer than most. Tennessee ranked eighth for longest visits with an average time of 10 minutes and 34 seconds. Wyoming (where the most-searched term was “hardcore”) was tops here with an average time of 11 minutes and 33 seconds. Southeastern states dominated the top 10 here with only Wyoming and Missouri out of the area.
Remember the October 4th outage of Facebook and Instagram? Pornhub does. The site saw a 10.5 percent spike in traffic while the social media sites were down.
Remember Eurovision’s 2021 finale? Pornhub does. Traffic slumped all over the Eastern Hemisphere, especially in Malta where traffic was down 34 percent.
Remember Super Bowl 55? Pornhub does. U.S. traffic dropped by about 21 percent on that Sunday last February, especially in Florida and Missouri as people there tuned in to watch their home teams play.
As for the U.S., “hentai” took over as the top most-search-for Pornhub term, eclipsing the term “lesbian.” Here’s how Pornhub describes “hentai.”
“In Japanese culture, hentai can refer to any sort of sexual fetish,” reads the report. “But around the world it most often describes the pornographic form of anime, a style of Japanese film and television animation.
“Hundreds of thousands of hentai videos can be found on Pornhub, including professional productions, homemade animations made by fans and 3D generated scenes.”
The term also became the most-searched in the world, Pornhub said, and it appeared in every country’s top 10 list. To explain the appeal, Dr. Laurie Betito, clinical psychologist, sex therapist and director of the Pornhub Sexual Wellness Center, said “cartoons are more fantastical than regular porn.”
“They may offer more visual stimulation in terms of movements, angles, colors, and facial expressions,” she said. “Because it’s not real, it can go further, with less constraints that reality offers. Hentai porn also tends to have more of a storyline and people seem to be more and more drawn to context.”
(Credit: Pornhub)
“Harley Quinn” was the most searched movie series or character in 2021, followed by “Wonder Woman,” “Harry Potter,” “Star Wars,” and “Black Widow.” The top most-searched TV shows were “The Simpsons,” “Teen Titans,” and “Scooby Doo.” The most-searched video game titles were “Fortnite,” “Minecraft,” and “Overwatch.”
Pornhub visitors watched mainly on phones, mostly on Android devices, and mostly using the Chrome internet browser. Most desktop views were done on devices using Windows. PlayStation beat Xbox as the most-used gaming console for Pornhub views.
As for generations, Generation Z searched most for “lesbian.” Generation Y searched for “Asian.” Gen X likes the “cartoon” category (might explain the Scooby Doo searches). Boomers searched most for “handjobs,” ”mature,” and “vintage” in that order.
Nothing Ever Goes Unseen, oil on panel, 2022 (Photo: Courtesy John Roberts/David Lusk Gallery)
“I’m sitting here in the yard right now, and I feel like someone’s watching me from the window upstairs,” John Roberts tells me over the phone. He’s at his family farm in Weakley County, Tennessee, where his distant grandmother purchased the land in 1838 and where in 1921 his great-grandfather built the house he now lives in. “There’s just so much history here,” Roberts says.
This history and the legends that linger in the fabric of his environment have, in turn, laid the backdrop for Roberts’ first solo show: “Nothing Ever Goes Unseen.” In this series of paintings, various figures from the generations before him stare directly at the viewer without shame or menace, surrounded by a “warm and inviting” color palette. “It’s not supposed to be creepy,” he says. “I like to think about what comes next after this life. I like to think we’ll be reunited. I guess, my faith has a lot to do with it, too; I’m Catholic. And I think these people are just waiting around for me. … I’ll be out mowing the yard and I’ll think about things like ‘Is there somebody in the window?’ or I think I see somebody peering around the corner of the house. … It’s a comfort for me to see these people, to paint them. And it’s kind of like an act of prayer for me because Catholics pray for the dead.”
“Thinking about them gets me a little choked up,” he adds. “My great-great-grandma looking out for me — those things are outside of time now, and I’ll be there, too, some time.”
Indeed, the artist spends a lot of time contemplating mortality, having been a tombstone etcher for more than 20 years, a job he got right out of grad school and still works to this day. Soon after starting this job, though, Roberts, a father of eight, became consumed by his responsibilities in work and in his family and couldn’t make time to paint until a year and a half ago. Though he admits that his work as an etcher has helped improve his skills as an artist, Roberts says, “It’s been frustrating because I felt like I haven’t been able to express myself. … The whole time I really longed to be making art, but I had so many things going on.”
Yet, he adds, those “things going on” have empowered him with the lived experiences to express the generational memories and warmth that his paintings aim to convey. As such, to Roberts, those 20 or so years of not painting were not a loss but a time of artistic enrichment. And now at 48, having the time to paint has been “revolutionary,” he says. “I can’t imagine not having that outlet now. I’ve taken a few days off since my show, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t wait to get back in the studio.”
“Nothing Ever Goes Unseen,” David Lusk Gallery, on view through July 31.
Jimbo Mathus, the solo artist, Squirrel Nut Zipper, and one-time Memphian, had fun at Memphis International Airport last week. He posted a short video of himself passing by the fun-house mirrors at the airport’s children’s area with the caption, “Wow, airline travel has gotten really weird these days.”
Melting Mt. Moriah
Posted to Facebook by Vance Lauderdale
Memphis magazine historian Vance Lauderdale reported on Facebook last week, “It’s been so miserably hot this week that — for the first time in Memphis history — the snow has completely melted from the majestic peaks of Mt. Moriah.”
War of the Roses
Posted to YouTube by War of the Roses @ Atomic Rose
If you can’t make it to the War of the Roses, Atomic Rose’s drag competition, you can watch it all on YouTube. The show is in its fourth season in which “nine new roses enter the garden” for performance and runway competitions. The winner walks away with $3,000 in cash and prizes.
I have taught high school Spanish for 20 years. At the beginning of each school year during in-service, I endure active shooter training, which in and of itself is traumatic.
My colleagues and I “joke” that we need counseling after the training. What else do you do when you are horrified but have to act like it’s completely normal to practice this? Despite laughing it off, it is not funny in any way and we are all keenly aware of that. We are just trying to cope with the reality that this could happen on any day at any given moment.
At the high school where I teach, police officers train us on how to best prepare for an active shooter in our school. They go through multiple scenarios. They teach us to purposefully arrange the desks and furniture in our classrooms in order to have minimum deaths if the shooter were to begin shooting through the window of the door.
The police officers remind us how quickly someone can bleed out. We learn how to apply a tourniquet, even if we don’t have a proper one. I can use a belt, a shoelace, and even the cord to the electric pencil sharpener. Sucking chest wound? No problem. I have been trained to apply a chest seal.
I know to keep a pair of scissors near the door so that if a shooter is able to enter the classroom, the person closest (which hopefully is me and not a student) can attempt to stab the shooter. This will hopefully stop him, but it will at least stall him before he starts mowing us down.
The most upsetting but also the most helpful part of this training is when the officers simulate an attack with a rapid-fire Nerf gun. We see how quickly, once we hear commotion and shooting, that we can lock and barricade the door and turn out lights and hide. We pray our classroom is not the first in a surprise attack. Unless the door is already locked, there is little you can do to stop the attack.
It is sad that instead of spending more time preparing meaningful lesson plans, decorating our classrooms, and preparing for the upcoming school year teachers have to spend this time learning and practicing how to best keep our students and ourselves alive if we were to be attacked. It is necessary, and as a mother of children in both elementary and high school, I am grateful that their teachers are trained.
However, it blows my mind that mass shooting after mass shooting, there is no change. Jonesboro and Columbine should have been enough. I was in college when both the Jonesboro and Columbine shootings occurred. I remember them both vividly. I was horrified. It was awful, sickening, and unfathomable. Yet, over the next two decades we have seen more and more school and mass shootings take place.
I remember the biggest shift in our teacher preparation and training for such an event was after Sandy Hook. It was almost as if school administration realized this was much more serious than we thought. I thought surely something would change. We can come together from both sides of the political arena to reach a consensus for the safety and well-being of our country’s children, right? No.
Since first writing this a few weeks ago, we have had another mass shooting. A joyful Independence Day parade turned into a violent ambush leaving a 2-year-old orphaned, beloved grandfathers gone, friends, husbands, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters never to see their loved ones again, all while enjoying a celebratory, community event.
When will it be enough for you to push for positive change in gun laws? When it is your loved one that is killed? But it will be too late at that point.
We all should be as distraught and outraged as the friends and family members of those who have lost their lives. Until we are, this will continue to happen. You have to care enough to push for change. Yes, you can pray about it, but do something! Remember, faith without works is dead.
So, as teachers get ready to go back to school in August and start preparing to have your children in class each day, to provide an education, to nurture their naturally inquisitive minds, to offer a safe space to express themselves and ask questions, think about what you can do to make a difference and give your child the best chance of survival if — God forbid — this were to happen at their school. I guarantee you we are not in it for the money.
Melanie W. Morton is a high school Spanish teacher originally from Memphis.
Martinez, 39, owner of Las Delicias, is the guy who came up with the restaurant’s famous tortilla chips, which are now in 60 Mid-South locations.
Las Delicias recently expanded its chips-and-dips footprint at Cordelia’s Market. Beginning this week, they will be cooking in the store’s kitchen and adding items to its grab-and-go cooler.
Las Delicias chips are already in 17 Kroger stores in the Memphis area and three in Mississippi. In 2013, a local Kroger store manager approached Martinez at the Memphis Farmers Market, he says. The manager said, “Hey, you think you have enough to sell to Kroger?” The chips at that first Kroger “did great.”
Martinez was a prep cook at Las Delicias before he came up with the chips in 2009. “We used to buy tortillas from a local place that made tortillas for us. We’d go pick them up hot and ready for us to use at the restaurant. Then one day the guy decided he didn’t want to make the particular size we needed anymore.”
That was 30 minutes before the restaurant opened, so Martinez’s dad had to buy tortillas at the grocery store. Then he said, “You know what? We’re going to make our own tortillas.” Martinez says, “He bought a little machine and we started making our own tortillas.”
They hired a customer who knew how to run a tortilla machine. His dad guaranteed the woman 40 hours’ work, but, Martinez, who learned how to use the machine, says, “She’d sit there for seven hours because we were done in an hour.”
So, they began selling hot tortillas to different restaurants. “I would take back whatever they didn’t sell and give it to the landlord for their horses to eat. We had so much, we were just throwing it away.”
Then Martinez thought, “You know what? I’m going to start cutting them up, frying them, and see how these chips compare to other tortilla chips.
“We started with a small batch and [kept] burning them. We kept on and on until we got them right and started making a few bags here and there. I started taking them to a place where I delivered tortillas.”
They were a hit. “I started having so many customers and so many orders, we had to run the machine all day long.”
Martinez’s focus is now the chips and dips. “Guacamole and pico de gallo dips. We started with those right around the time I started with the chips. I was like, ‘I need something to sell with the chips at the farmers market.’”
Moisture is the main difference between their tortilla chips and other corn chips. “Tortilla chips have a lot of humidity. When you are making the tortillas, you put in a certain amount of water. One part water, one part masa or flour. Other chips taste different from ours. They make them very dry. My tortillas take four minutes to fry. The other ones take 20 to 30 seconds.”
That changes the taste, he says. “When you put the chips in the frying pan, it kind of makes them blister. When they do that, they look very thick.”
As a result, Las Delicias tortilla chips “kind of melt in your mouth like a corn-flake. Another difference is you can actually see the salt grains on our chips as opposed to the competition. We just sprinkle a little salt on top of them.”
The only salt on Las Delicias chips is “whatever sticks to them after they’ve been fried and dried. We try to get as much of our oil off them.”
Other chip makers sometimes “use super finely powdered salt. And they spray it along with oil so it sticks with the chips. So, they are a lot saltier than ours.”
Las Delicias no longer makes hot tortillas for other restaurants. Martinez needed the machines to make the chips. “We sell between 10,000 and 13,000 bags in a month.”
Las Delicias is at 4002 Park Avenue and at 5689 Quince Road. Cordelia’s Market is at 737 Harbor Bend Road in Harbor Town.
I had Mrs. Bailey for two years in high school: freshman English (Beowulf, the Iliad andthe Odyssey, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, etc.) and honors English in my senior year, where she introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger, Joseph Heller, Flannery O’Connor, and other more contemporary writers. She had a tiny sneeze that she would stifle with a small hankie and that would invariably cause the class to giggle. She was well-known for these tiny sneezes and her love of bad puns.
But I remember Mrs. Bailey for another reason: She saw me for who I was — an awkward kid with a speech impediment and a good brain — and for who I could become. Mrs. Bailey probably decided that I wasn’t going to make my way in this world by being a smooth talker, so she encouraged me to write. She praised, criticized, and edited my essays. She took me aside and encouraged me to read real writers, not just the required classroom stuff. She helped forge my life’s path, and I didn’t even figure out what she’d done until years later.
I think, if we were lucky, most of us have a Mrs. Bailey in our past — a teacher who took the time to connect, who saw our potential or our pain, who saw a way forward for us or a way out. And it’s still happening, every day, all over the world: Teachers make a difference; teachers shape lives; teachers are among the most important people in our society.
Which is why every human being in Tennessee should be absolutely outraged at Governor Bill Lee, who is relentlessly fostering the destruction of our public schools via a voucher system in which parents play the middleman between our state treasury and private schools to the tune of $7,000 per family. It’s flat-out wrong, and it’s using money that rightfully should be going to public schools. If people want to send their children to private schools, let them have at it, just don’t ask the taxpayers to cover the note.
But that’s not the only reason to be outraged at Lee. He’s been pushing to bring the Michigan-based Hillsdale Academy into the state, openly stating that he wants to let them establish 100 schools with our money. Hillsdale Academy is a Christian-based private school that promotes conservative values in its “1776 Curriculum,” which appears to mean the Civil War was just a misunderstanding and slaves were just inconvenienced and everything is fine now — among other interesting theories.
At a private event in late June, Governor Lee sat on stage with Hillsdale Academy president Larry Arnn and listened, smiling, as Arnn said the following: “Teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country. … We are going to try to demonstrate that you don’t have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it.” This ramble went on for nearly two hours, with Arnn repeatedly disparaging teachers and public school systems. (Hillsdale practices what Arnn preaches. None of its eight education faculty members are certified to teach in public schools.)
So what did Bill Lee say or do as Arnn attacked and discredited all teachers, including, presumably, the thousands of public school teachers in Tennessee? Zip. Nada. He sat there and grinned like a chimp, or a chump. Your call.
Unfortunately for ol’ Bill, Nashville’s Channel 5 got a copy of the tape and all hell broke loose. All around this deep-red state, school boards, administrators, and teachers erupted in protest, demanding the governor repudiate Arnn’s remarks. Lee had his spokesperson send a boilerplate statement that mentioned nothing about Arnn’s comments. He then slipped off for a bit to Florida to hang with Ron DeSantis, who’s pushing for Hillsdale to take over public schools there. When he got back, he dodged reporters, evaded teachers’ groups, and made no public appearances for a week — a real profile in courage, this guy.
The only good that may have come out of all this is that Hillsdale is now very unlikely to get any state dollars, according to several Republican state legislators. Turns out that lots of communities around Tennessee are quite happy with their public schools and rather fond of their teachers. Mrs. Bailey would find that gratifying, I suspect. She didn’t suffer fools.
Let no one accuse Karen Carrier of thinking small. When she opened The Beauty Shop Restaurant in 2002, she brought the legendary Wild Magnolias from New Orleans to celebrate. Five years ago, they were back for the 15th anniversary. For her brainchild’s 20th anniversary on Saturday, August 6th, she’s still thinking big and keeping that NOLA flavor with a second line and the Lucky 7 Brass Band, followed by Jack Oblivian. But Carrier really moved heaven and earth to get the night’s closing act, Harlan T. Bobo.
Some of us feared we’d never see the ragged-but-right troubadour play again. “When that last record came out [2018’s A History of Violence], we did a little tour, and that’s when I got sick,” Bobo recalls. Indeed, the singer and guitarist found he was losing the use of his left hand. Since then, he’s been riding it out in his adopted home of Perpignan, France.
“I had a lot of nerve damage in my hand from lupus,” says Bobo. “I pretty much thought I was done. I can’t do construction anymore, and I just assumed that I was done playing music. Even my physical therapist thought I was done.” And yet, it was through that very practice that Bobo kept the guitar in his life.
“A year ago, I was figuring out how to cut meat, how to use a knife and fork,” he recalls. “Then I started playing guitar as physical therapy. Just to see what I could do with my fingers. And it’s still a little weird, but I’ve got two fingers that work. By doing a lot of weird tunings I can get a pretty full sound.”
That in turn led him back to the craft of songwriting. “And through that two-fingered approach, I wrote new songs, with which I just finished a bunch of demos, and I’ll probably come back in the spring to record,” he says, sounding amazed that he can play again at all. “And then when Karen offered me that show, I said okay. But when I sat down to play the old songs, I realized, ‘Fuck, I’m only using two fingers!,’ so I had to completely change things and [learn] how to manage those songs.”
Reinventing his approach to his own music, Bobo did a trial run in France. “I just did a show in Perpignan as preparation for The Beauty Shop’s anniversary. God, it felt good to do that! I hadn’t done it in so long, but surprisingly enough, it worked. I think I played a kooky Halloween show three years ago, and I almost died doing that.”
He emphasizes that he’ll be playing his older material at Bar DKDC, complete with some familiar faces in his band. “I’ve got Bunny on guitar, Tim Prudhomme on drums, and possibly Jonathan Kirkscey on cello. I can’t resist getting together with all of my buddies. I’m just trying to do songs people will know. The new stuff is weirdly moody and super quiet and acoustic, and I don’t think it’ll be good for that night. It’s gonna be a party there. And we’ll still be super mellow for a party, but the new stuff would just be painful.”
Yet we can still hear his weirdly moody, super quiet side, thanks to a new album, Porch Songs, arriving on August 5th via Goner Records. Bobo will be celebrating that release at an in-store show that evening at 6 p.m. Though recorded before Bobo’s battle with lupus, the songs offer a stripped-down version of his songcraft. “Around 2016, I went to see this guy in Perpignan who’s got an old 8-track set up,” he says. “It sounds very Sun Studio-y. I just sat down for a day and recorded, like, 20 songs I had around, but never knew what to do with. I think there’s 13 on the new record. It’s mostly just guitar and voice, and drums on a couple of takes.”
Now, on the verge of a homecoming, Bobo reflects on his recent show in Perpignan. “Before that, I hadn’t played any Harlan music in ages. It just felt good to know that I could stand up and entertain a crowd. It was something I had kind of forgotten. It was like, ‘Oh, I can do that!’ And I can still handle drunks from the stage.”
The Beauty Shop 20th anniversary show featuring the Lucky 7 Brass Band, the Jack Oblivian band, and Harlan T. Bobo will be at Bar DKDC August 6th, beginning at 8 p.m.
Ryan Gosling plays Sierra Six, a semi-reformed criminal.
What would you do if you had essentially unlimited funds?
If you answered “make a spy movie,” then you have something in common with Anthony and Joe Russo. The brothers who first attracted attention directing episodes of Arrested Development struck it as big as you can possibly strike it with the two-part climax to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. The bladder-busting, superhero punch-a-thons grossed a collective $4.8 billion, with Endgame delivering the most profitable weekend in the 120-year history of the industry.
With no more worlds to conquer, the Russos can write their own ticket. Who wouldn’t say yes to history’s most successful film team? And so, we have The Gray Man, at $200 million, the most expensive film Netflix has ever produced.
It is my duty to be skeptical about mega-budget projects as awash in hubris as The Gray Man, but I must point out that it is an adaptation of a book by Memphian Mark Greaney, who spent a decade struggling in the service industry while he worked on his novels. His 2009 book The Gray Man was a sleeper hit with the techno-thriller crowd, and when Tom Clancy passed away, Greaney took over the Jack Ryan franchise, while also producing a hit spy series of his own.
Greaney’s titular hero is Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling), one of a team of semi-reformed criminals recruited by CIA honcho Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) to do stuff that requires both extreme moral flexibility and plausible deniability. But, as scheming CIA analyst Suzanne Brewer (Jessica Henwick) sarcastically points out, you take a group of hardened criminals, give them state-of-the-art weapons and the best training in the world, and something’s bound to go wrong.
The thing that goes wrong arrives in the person of director Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page), who takes over when Fitzroy retires and decides to tie up his predecessor’s loose ends. Six is assigned to do a quiet assassination with a sniper rifle, but when a little girl gets in the way of his target, he can’t take the shot.
Yes, this is the type of movie where square-jawed men unironically bark, “Take the shot!”
Instead, he engages the target hand-to-hand in the middle of a giant fireworks display that cost more than Best Picture-winner Nomadland. And that’s pretty much all you need to know about The Gray Man. It’s a spy story grounded in the real world, so there are no spaceships or interdimensional portals or guys in flying armored suits. Instead, Netflix’s scratch pile funds international travel, sweeping outdoor set-pieces, and meticulously dressed interiors, many of which explode for poorly explained reasons. Psycho superspy antagonist Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) swigs Glenlivet while he directs mercenary fireteams from his French chateau HQ. When he gets mad, he doesn’t just flip a desk — he sweeps the best-stocked minibar you’ve ever seen onto the floor and grabs the complimentary bottle of Vicodin on his way out.
Sierra Six is basically 007 without the Cold War baggage. James Bond was an ideological warrior for queen and capital; Six is a gig-economy contractor caught in the breakdown of the nation state’s monopoly on violence. He has as much loyalty to the United States as a DoorDasher has to Applebee’s. He only cares about his partner Dani (Ana de Armas), who’s perpetually saving his life, and Fitzroy’s niece Claire (Julia Butters), whose life he’s perpetually saving.
Evans is delicious playing against type as the heavy. The key to his success is that he’s always having fun doing whatever goofy thing the Russos throw at him. When he drags a distressed damsel into a full-on Shining hedge maze while practically twirling his mustache, vaudeville villain-style, you can’t help but “Hell yeah!” The Gray Man breaks no new ground, but it’s so much fun to watch the Russos burn Netflix’s money, you won’t care. And if the next Ian Fleming is a bartender from Memphis, that’s all the better.
The Gray Man is now playing at multiple locations and streaming on Netflix beginning July 22nd.
An image from the Webb Space Telescope. (Photo: NASA)
This space — the Letter From the Editor column — has for decades been the home of opinions and stories from (you guessed it) the editor of the Memphis Flyer. We’re in between editors at the moment and Flyer staffers have divvied up the responsibilities of that task, including the writing of this column.
My work has appeared in almost every section of this fine paper over the years, but never here. I don’t have an opinion when I’m on the clock. No reporter should. This works out because sometimes I have dumb opinions. Sometimes things don’t make sense to me and when I say what I think out loud (usually only to my wife), it sounds Jurassic.
I listen better than I speak. I try to empathize better than I criticize. But I know for sure that I learn better than I opine. Learning is usually the cure for whatever dumb opinion I have. So, when this space is mine, I’m going to learn, seeking counsel from some of Memphis’ brightest minds. I hope you’ll learn along with me.
My first dumb opinion here: The $10-billion James Webb Space Telescope is a waste of money. (Can’t you just hear how dumb that sounds?) The price tag only bothers me when I think about how else that money could have been spent. This attitude to space stuff was most certainly inspired by this verse from Bob Marley’s “So Much Trouble in the World.”
“You see men sailing on their ego trip,
Blast off on their spaceship,
Million miles from reality
No care for you, no care for me.”
I bet teachers across America could think of way better ways to spend $10 billion than pointing a camera into space for a look back billions of years. When you’re driving on some of Memphis’ potholed streets, do you ever think, “Man, I wish we had a closer look at the galactic cluster SMACS 0723?”
Again, this is (probably) a dumb opinion. So, I turned to Jeremy Veldman, president of the Memphis Astronomical Society.
Memphis Flyer: What is the Webb Space Telescope going to do for us, as a planet, I guess?
Jeremy Veldman: [It will answer questions] not only about the origins and evolutions of the first galaxies and stars in our universe, as well as the composition of atmospheres around distant exoplanets to see if they could possibly be habitable, but I think what’s more exciting is it could possibly answer questions that we haven’t even thought of yet.
I’ll give you one example. Thirty years ago, when [the Hubble Space Telescope] was launched, we knew that the universe was expanding, going all the way back to the late 1920s and Edwin Hubble. But we didn’t know if the universe was going to expand forever or maybe slow down and contract back on itself.
What came out of the Hubble Space Telescope is that we discovered that the universe is not only expanding but it’s accelerating in its rate of expansion. Completely counterintuitive. We live in an expanding, accelerating universe. That was something that scientists did not even expect and it came out of research from Hubble.
So, what I think is exciting to me is that in the next 25 to 30 years, [the Webb telescope] could possibly answer questions that we haven’t even thought of yet.
What would you say to people who say that $10 billion is a lot of money to spend on something like this, something that might not have everyday, applicable uses?
It’s a legitimate question. I would say that what’s going come out of that $10 billion is years and possibly decades of research that will not only help answer questions about the cosmos and our place within the universe and our significance in it, but also stimulate a lot of curiosity and, ultimately, wonder. As the great Greek philosopher Socrates said in antiquity, “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
So, when you have young people seeing this and getting exposed to it, that could be something similar to the way I was when I was a young person, seeing these discoveries, wondering, having curiosity come out of it and then putting them on a linear path to do work, to do research, to pursue a career path, and to avoid anything toxic.
They can work hard, get educated, become a functional member of society, and possibly pursue a career in the sciences and maybe be instrumental in working on the next generation of technology, whether it’s another James Webb that comes up later down the road or some other field of science.
Toby Sells
The Memphis Flyer is now seeking candidates for its editor position. Send your resume to hr@contemporary-media.com.
Loflin Yard, Old Bridge Burger (Photo: Chris McCoy)
Welcome to Memphis Flyer Burger Week!
Your burger tree is up and decorated, hamburger carols have taken over the airwaves, and the children can’t wait to find those condiment packets hidden by the Burger Bunny.
Maybe not, but Burger Week is here and the Flyer staff did some recon to get you ready. We ate burgers from the 10 restaurants offering specials — and some special burgers they’ve cooked up for this most wonderful time of the year. We tried to eat the burger each restaurant will offer. If they didn’t have their special Burger Week burger, we ate something else to at least give you a flavor (if not a taste) of what you can expect.
Merry Burger Week to all!
Loflin Yard
Old Bridge Burger
I’m not usually a fan of the multiple-meat burger. It’s a gambit that seems like gilding the lily. It’s not that I’m a beef purist — far from it! You can make a good burger with anything from bison to ground turkey, and veggie burgers are in their own diverse category. But generally, I think a burger should have a single protein patty which all other ingredients complement.
The Old Bridge Burger made me rethink my priors. It’s a fat Angus beef patty topped with a thin layer of saucy pulled pork, slaw, and a couple of lightly breaded onion rings. You’re not going to be hungry after taking this mouth-stretching monster’s full girth. Instead of effectively adding a second pork patty, the barbecue acts like a condiment — and every right-thinking Memphian knows that barbecue sauce is superior to ketchup. The pickles on the ground floor play well with the vinegar note from the ’cue, while the o-rings up top add a pleasing crunch without overpowering the rest of the stack. As with everything, balance is key. — Chris McCoy
Belly Acres, Hot Pow (Photo: Toby Sells)
Belly Acres
Hot Pow
Belly Acres is a Memphis burger institution. The OG Overton Square location opened back in 2014, if you can believe it. Since then, Belly Acres has become a reliable burger bastion. It lures taste buds back with fresh ingredients and a dazzling array of 15 burgers that feature everything from squash to waffles.
Belly Acres’ Burger Week burger was not ready to launch on a visit last week. So, I hunted for something exotic. I read the word “chorizo,” my mouth literally watered, and my mind was made up.
Belly Acres describes the Hot Pow as a “chorizo and grass-fed beef blended patty topped with pepper jack cheese, fresh spinach, and caramelized onions on a lightly toasted sourdough bun.” Those words on a page, however, do not do the Hot Pow justice.
Mine was melty on the inside with a great crunch from the spinach. The bun cushioned in all the right places. The chorizo is the Hot Pow’s main character, though, and it delivers the spicy, porky, sausage-y goods in a riveting think-outside-the-bun performance. — Toby Sells
Flying Saucer, Royale with Cheese (Photo: Fying Saucer Draught Emporium)
Flying Saucer Draught Emporium
Royale with Cheese
You can go Vincent Vega (the Travolta character of Pulp Fiction) one better — and much closer to home than Paris — by getting your Royale with Cheese at the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium (Peabody Place location only). I had mine at the Cordova location, while sitting bar-side and staring at an impressively complete-looking wall of beers on tap.
The burger with fries is every bit of a meal. On the plate, it looks like what it is — handsomely fat, round, and custom-made — enticing to eye and palate alike and a test case of the old adage of something so fine you want to eat it and have it, too.
The more-than-ample beef patty is cooked to one’s preference, and it shares space with chopped onion, American cheese, jalapeño bacon, mustard, and spiked ketchup. The bun itself, as with any good burger, is a tasty part of the meld. The whole package is bursting with flavor.
The burgers on the menu are in the $12 to $14 range, and, with names like Jeff Buckley, Doc Holliday, and Sputnik Monroe, suggest a wide range of provenances.
And that “Draught Emporium” part of the established’s name is no joke. The variety of libations available is enough to fill a tabloid-sized sheet, front and back, and with fine print. — Jackson Baker
Grill Grabz, Smokehouse Burger (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)
Grill Grabz
Smokehouse Burger
Grill Grabz is a food truck operated by LaKendrick and Danielle Chavers that serves the holy pantheon of Memphis food — ribs, catfish, chicken wings — and it all looks amazing on their Facebook page. But my assignment was to try their Smokehouse Burger, and … well, let me see if I can just put this in layman’s terms: DAMN, Y’ALL.
This thing is the Great Pyramid of burgers: two smoky beef patties, crisp white onion slices, a tomato slice, lettuce, two slices of melty cheese, bacon, and your condiments of choice stacked between two halves of a soft sesame seed bun. It will fill both of your hands (and your lap, if you aren’t careful). But don’t spill any or you’ll regret it.
The thing that sets the Grill Grabz burger apart is the smoky flavor that LaKendrick gets from cooking the meat on an actual grill in the truck. It’s gotta be hot work, but creating art is never easy, right? This is a burger that tastes like something your Pop might come up with on his backyard grill — smoky, fresh, outdoorsy, and cooked with love.
The Grill Grabz truck is most often stationed in front of a now-defunct Steak & Shake on Hack’s Cross Road, a block south of Bill Morris Parkway. The truck also makes forays out into the city, so keep an eye on their Facebook page for location updates. Danielle advises customers to call ahead with their orders in order to avoid the line. And that’s good advice, given that Smokehouse Burgers are prepared from scratch. Now, go get you one. — Bruce VanWyngarden
Plant Based Heat, Memphis Bella (Photo: Abigail Morici)
Plant Based Heat
Memphis Bella
I’m a vegetarian. So, luckily, Plant Based Heat has my back with its meatless options.
The other day, I got their Memphis Bella, a portobello mushroom Philly. When I picked up my to-go order from the counter, the server jokingly asked if he could have some since it looked so good. No, sirree. With mushrooms, mild banana peppers, tomato, vegan mozzarella and mayo, and sauteed bell peppers and onions on a hoagie roll, this sandwich was too good to share. Each bite had a pop of flavor that even I could appreciate. I normally don’t like mayo, but the vegan mayo had me second-guessing my aversion. As for my dog Blobby who dutifully sat by my side drooling the whole meal, well, he’s not too happy with me right now, seeing that I didn’t spare him a bite. But, hey, it’s Burger Week, and I’m sure I’ll be back to try their Plant Based Heat Sliders, made specially for the week with two sliders topped with spinach, vegan mayo, pickles, tomato, and grilled onions. And maybe I’ll spare a bite this time, though if it’s anything like the Memphis Bella, I doubt I will. Sorry, Blobby. — Abigail Morici
Pimentos, Dirty Mean & Nasty (Photo: Jon W. Sparks)
Pimentos Burgers, Bar & Grill
Dirty Mean & Nasty
There’s a nice array of burgers on the menu at Pimentos, and one in particular caught the eye (and made the mouth water): the Dirty Mean & Nasty.
We weren’t able to sample the burger the bar and grill will offer for the Flyer’s Burger Week, but this intriguingly named dish promised to offer a foretaste of the delights to come.
The menu says it’s an Angus burger with cheddar cheese, honey pepper bacon, fried jalapeños, and sriracha aioli. The server confided that it was her favorite, so I made the commitment. When it was served, with a no-nonsense steak knife thrust through its heart, I was flummoxed. How do you even approach it to get a bite?
It was big and round and mocking, daring you to try to chomp down. That knife was necessary to gain access, so I sawed at it and released the jalapeños, fun bits with crunch, and it was not too overheated. The burger itself was flavorful, doing exactly what it meant to do in partnership with the cheddar and bacon.
Pimentos offers several other burgers and sliders on the menu with a variety of touches. There’s pimento (natch), avocado, scallions, fried egg, and fried onions.
My only issue with my order was that it was a total lie. There was nothing dirty about it, it presented no meanness, and was entirely un-nasty. Which is what we learned from that famous Aesop’s fable moral that says you can’t tell a burger by its moniker. But you sure can stuff yourself on it. — Jon W. Sparks
Tops Bar-B-Q, Hamburger (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Tops Bar-B-Q
Hamburger
The slogan for Tops is “Memphis’ Best Bar-B-Q Since 1952.” I think another slogan should be, “Memphis’ Best Hamburger Since 1952 — or whenever it was introduced.”
I love the burgers at Tops Bar-B-Q. I always say they taste like the 1950s (when I grew up). There’s something nostalgic about it. But I really had no idea when Tops began selling hamburgers, so I gave Tops vice president, Hunter Brown, a call.
He says, “My dad graduated from Kingsbury High School in 1965. And every day after high school they’d ride their bikes over to Summer and National and get a cheeseburger combo: cheeseburger, a bag of chips, and a Coke for 55 cents.”
I love the diced onion Tops uses instead of a big slab of hard-to-eat onion, and I ask for everything on the sandwich. They get their beef from Charlie’s Meat Market, but Brown says he’s “sworn to secrecy” on the recipe. And it’s fresh — “literally, that cow was alive five days ago,” he says.
As for the dressing, Brown says, “We call it ‘Tops’ way’: mayonnaise, shredded lettuce, a tomato slice, pickle, and diced onions.” — Michael Donahue
Huey’s, World Famous Huey Burger (Photo: Shara Clark)
Huey’s
World Famous Huey Burger
It might be a stretch to say the signature burger served at Huey’s is known and loved across the globe — it’s meat and bread, not Beyoncé — but there’s a reason why it’s been voted “Best Burger” by Flyer readers in our Best of Memphis poll since, like, ever.
Despite their many accolades, I’ve heard people throw shade at Huey’s burgers — because they’re “not the same as they used to be,” or something. I’d like to address this by asking, “When’s the last time you had one?” Admittedly, for me, it had been a while. But the World Famous Huey Burger did not disappoint. It’s exactly what you look for in a tried-and-true burger: a hefty hunk of beef, your choice of cheddar or Swiss cheese, and as many of the fixings as you’d like — mayo, lettuce, tomato, mustard, pickle, onion — on a buttered, toasted sesame seed bun.
Upon first sight, the question “How wide can I open my mouth?” arises. The whole shebang requires some positioning to bite into. The fatty juice and gooey cheese drip into a pool in the paper-lined basket below as you work your way through, at the same time turning the bun into a slip and slide for its contents. But you gotta get messy for a good burger. This is America, and we’re eating a world-famous burger here, guys. Seriously, it was really good. The meat was well-seasoned, those big-ass steak fries killed it, per usual, and it paired well with a pint of Memphis Made Summer Frills (a limited-edition golden ale only available on draft at Huey’s locations). Get you some! — Shara Clark
Farm Burger, The Peach Burger (Photo: Alex Greene)
Farm Burger
The Peach Burger
The Peach Burger, the special concoction from Farm Burger for Burger Week, appeals to your eyes as well as your taste buds. The glistening fruit, the roasted red serrano peppers, and the luscious spicy pimento cheese draws you in, and the first bite confirms that its blend of savory, spicy, and sweet is a classic combination. Farm Burger manager Dan Tain says, “We used to do a peach burger with Jones Orchard peaches, as well as local feta cheese and some arugula on it, so we were considering going back to that, but then we put a different spin on it.” Keeping the Jones Orchard peaches front and center, they then proceeded to spice things up. And the toasted potato bun lends the flavor that much more complex.
“We have a new culinary director at Farm Burger,” says Tain. “Drew Van Leuvan just came to us three months ago. And chef Drew came up with the idea of using local peaches with spicy pimento cheese and roasted serrano peppers. It’s nice and bright and colorful. I think it’s a great deal with the grass-fed beef. People are excited to try it. It’s seasonal, and that’s what Farm Burger’s about.” — Alex Greene
Tenero Cafe, the Butcher’s Burger (Photo: Samuel X. Cicci)
Tenero Cafe & Butcher
The Butcher’s Burger
It caught me a bit by surprise when I first checked out Tenero Cafe & Butcher on Mendenhall. The new cafe/restaurant/bar/butcher shop was a chic-looking upgrade on the spot’s former iteration, Southall Café. And watching employees roll out some fine-looking ground beef in the butcher section had me salivating at the prospect of their burger.
Tenero’s featured item for Burger Week is the Butcher’s Burger. And sure enough, diners get freshly ground beef straight from the butcher shop. But we’re not just talking about a small bit of beef. This baby boasts some double-patty action. So, don’t walk in if you’re just a little hungry. The generous patties are sandwiched between a soft brioche bun (shout-out to the bottom bun for not getting soggy) and dressed with American cheese, arugula, caramelized onions, and pickles. The menu also made mention of a chef’s secret sauce, but I’ll admit I was unable to detect what kind of flavors that was putting down.
What sets the Butcher’s Burger apart is the quality of the beef, prepped fresh in-house. There’s no toughness to the patties, no chewy exterior to power through. Overall, it’s simply an approachable, traditional American burger that forgoes any zany bells and whistles in favor of simplicity. — Samuel X. Cicci
