10 Fun Facts About Memphis

I spent the last weekend in Memphis, Tennessee for a bachelor party for a good friend of mine. I learned a lot about Memphis during my time there, so I thought I’d share some fun facts about the city. I hope I can think of ten of them.

1. The food is delicious but quite unhealthy. I don’t know how those southern girls keep their figures. Everything I encountered was either barbecued or deep fried, and sometimes things were barbecued and then deep fried. Sweet tea will wash anything down smooth, though.
2. Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis, and there’s a great museum that preserves the hotel where this audacious act happened.
3. Beale Street is the place to be at night in Memphis, especially on the weekends. There were so many people out on the street, which is closed to cars and open to alcohol sales. Everyone was scanned with metal detectors before you enter the street–while this was a sign of past violence on this street, I witnessed nothing but happy people.
4. Go to Silky O’Sullivan’s pub on Beale Street. It’s awesome, and if you’re lucky, you’ll catch a glimpse of the live goat who lives there.
5. Off Beale Street, even just a few blocks away, there are significant parts of the city that are in shambles. As a whole, the city doesn’t seem to be in good shape. My perspective was limited, but I’ve talked with some natives who confirmed this.
6. The accents in Memphis are awesome. Clarification: the Southern accents are cute, endearing, and even sexy on women, but they give men an oafish tone (I’m sorry! It’s true).
7. Memphis has one of the nicest Triple A baseball stadiums in the country. It’s beautiful. And the people who work at the stadium are also the nicest. They upgraded our bachelor party to a $3,000 suite for no extra charge. I essentially spent the evening dipping my stomach in nacho cheese and beer. Reports vary, but we may or may not have run the bases at the stadium not once, but twice.
8. There are some amazing street performers on Beale Street during the day. Apparently they’re famous for being on America’s Got Talent. Their talent? The ability to do full-speed flips for about 40 yards. The athleticism was incredible. I think one of the guy’s abs had abs of its own.
9. At the Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis, there is a parade of ducks into the central fountain of the hotel every day.
10. If you go to Graceland, you will see that they’ve saved everything that Elvis ever came in contact with. I mean anything. You want to see a bubble gum wrapper that Elvis once looked at? It’s there. And there are people crooning over it.

What am I missing?