The King

March 29, 2023 – Day 42

It is here, the moment I’ve been waiting for all my life. No, not really, but I’ve wanted to visit Graceland for a long time. I’m not sure why, I’m not a huge Elvis fan, I’m more a fan of the fandom, the phenomena, the Elvis God.

I used to have a fairly substantial, but eclectic, collection Elvis memorabilia. It just sort of happened, I’m not sure how. But it may have been when my friend Russell house sat for me and I found a velvet Elvis hanging in my living room when I got home!

And when Articulate Systems downsized, we converted my office to an Elvis shrine, with an Elvis CD playing softly, the aforementioned velvet hanging, and my first day hand cancelled Elvis stamp on an Elvis/Nixon postcard! I think I still have that somewhere.

So a couple of days ago I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, perhaps the idea of visiting Graceland was better than the reality of visiting Graceland.

But I became jazzed about going and so did Susan, so off we went.

But first, thanks Brenda for the lunch recommendation!

The food was really good. The fried pickles were amazing (susan here: meh. breaded, deep fried salt). Both of us had dried, almost overdone, pieces as our first pieces but the rest was perfect. (susan here: the hype is pretty intense, and it WAS good fried chicken but it wasn’t a “come to Elvis” moment.)

Oh, and get there early. We were first there 15 minutes before opening. Soon another pair was there, then more. The doors opened a little past 11 and the place was full by 11:15.

We got to Graceland early, paid $10 to park,

Grrr… did I mention the tickets were expensive, like more than John Space Center expensive, and headed over to the mansion.

The mansion was a lot smaller than I expected, but, it actuality, it was 10k sq ft when it was first built in 1939. It just looks smaller, like a much bigger version of our house actually. But inside, oh, it wasn’t our house.

Then we headed downstairs to the basement, which was full of man-caves, it was awesome.

You don’t get to see the “famous” Jungle Room because the lighting was so bad it was impossible to shoot. We headed out side to tour the grounds, which included the racquetball room off the racquetball court.

That piano is where he played his last two songs before he died, more an that later.

We never get to go upstairs, I felt a bit disappointed in that. Supposedly it was personal space. Really? The room where he played his last songs, his mother’s clothes closet, weren’t personal space? I think something was going on but Graceland Corporate wasn’t selling that.

After the mansion tour we went back across the street to the various museums. We both really loved the car museum, lots of cool stuff there. Here’s one shot.

Then we had a lot of small museums with all sorts of excruciating detail, Elvis in the Army, Elvis the actor, Elvis as a musical icon (susan here: for the real serious fan that would have been a life experience. Not for us though it was a LOT of a LOT with no description or context. Except for the TV with the bullet hole. I’m only a casual Elvis fan and I know he shot TVs. Ironically, guns are excluded from Graceland.) We sat a lot to watch the short movies only to rest our feet. It was starting to get tedious. Then we went into the Gold section, I just named it that because we first saw some gold records and a gold lame jump suit. This was a lot of fun, we got to see Elvis as the bigger than life god he had become.

Then it was time to head to Beale Street for some blues and more fried food (susan here: they’d fry air if they could!) We had “ok” food at the Blue City Cafe. I had good fried catfish but was better elsewhere. Susan’s ribs were, well, she expected better (susan here: I should know to not expect better in a tourist trap.). The place was hopping though since the Grizzlies were playing. I had to look it up, our server knew it was “sports ball”. (It was baseball.)

Then across the street for some blues at B. B. King’s place. Uhhhh… $10 cover at 5pm? We don’t think so. There was a band playing Journey covers outside, too loudly to talk and their amps were clipping. Journey, really? I want blues. (susan here: or even decent Elvis covers.) We settled in at the Rum Boogie Cafe. We could hear the non-blues music from their juke joint next door, still not blues. But hey, they hung Steve Tyler’s guitar from the rafters.

Then it was time for the ol’ folks to head over the ol’ Mississippi and watch the ol’ tug boats go by and the ol’ sun go down.

The Preachy Part

So, what’s missing? Back when the stamp came out there was debate if it should be “thin” Elvis or “fat” Elvis, or as I termed it, Elvis the Rock and Roller or Elvis the god.

Elvis wasn’t perfect; relationship issues, drug issues, health issues. Every single one of those was glossed over at Graceland. No, not glossed over, completely ignored. For example, remember the Jungle Room? We were told that he recorded many songs there because of the acoustics. That green shag carpet is on the ceiling also. But let’s go to Wikipedia.

In 1976, RCA sent a mobile recording unit to Graceland that made possible two full-scale recording sessions at Presley’s home. However, the recording process had become a struggle for him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley

Those jumpsuits on the white wall seen above? They were all carefully hung and tucked to display a slimmer Elvis and not the one late in his Las Vegas career even though those are the same suits he wore.

But hey, it was a good time and we’re glad we went. Graceland isn’t a documentary. It’s a shrine. (And a nice shrine at that!)

(susan here: it was more than I expected and more commercialized than I expected. I have never seen so many gift shops. There were shops at every exhibit. It became quite annoying to walk through them to enter the actual exhibits or exit to leave the exhibits. The ONLY place there wasn’t a shop was the mansion. Hmm.)

Life Birds: 0