I bought the Platinum ticket - $31 with my $5 senior discount. I was hoping Graceland would be worth the entrance fee, especially being the most expensive attraction I’ve been to yet. I have to say . . .
The mile of strip mall on Elvis Presley Blvd approaching Graceland is full of run-down buildings, old malls half deserted and architecture thats fallen farther and farther into disrepair since the 1950’s. There’s a few new structures, but more than not, empty signs or ones that are weathered and faded, in front of long deserted or sad looking businesses, line the road. Standing right in the middle of the intersection of Shelby and Elvis Presley Blvd, men sell the Sunday paper, emphasizing the fact that Graceland is now located in the poor Black section of southern Memphis. As you approach Graceland, and right next door, stands a fairly big red-bricked Baptist Church with a once upon a time white steeple. It’s boarded up and weeds chock the yard. The neighborhood has a third world feeling, a run down environment that carries over into Graceland itself.
I joined the tour and entered the Graceland “Mansion.” I put that in quotes, since I think it is far from being a mansion. I’d say more like a large mausoleum. There’s a sad ambiance that fills the house - not because it belonged to a beloved star who died there - because it was all put together in such bad taste. If anything, Graceland is a museum of 70’s tackiness. The house really isn’t that big. Downstairs when you walk in there’s a medium size living room on the right, a medium sized dining room on the left, a kitchen that is smaller than the one in the last house I lived in, and a medium sized bedroom for Elvis’s parents. Behind the Kitchen is a shag-rug family room, which was so ugly that it was hard to believe it was the choice of a multi-millionaire.
Don’t get me wrong. I have always been a fan of most of Elvis’s music. But his taste? Or lack of. I think there are only two types of people in the whole world who could pull off wearing the clothing Elvis wore. Elvis (a type all to himself), and high rolling Chicago pimps - circa 1970.
Anyway, down in the basement there are two entertainment rooms and a large room with gold albums. I felt totally ripped that they wouldn’t let us see the upstairs - Elvis’s bedroom. There's this big mystery about the upstairs - nobody is allowed up there - not even people who have worked there forever. It's supposedly exactly like it was the day he died. I imagine Tacky Heaven. The upstairs to me was the highlight of the Edsel Ford Estate, seeing the modest bedroom where he and Eleanor slept, with its solid gold bathroom faucets; which by the way was a tour I enjoyed much more than Graceland.
Yes, no doubt Elvis was a humble man, but with all the money in the world, why would he choose to stay in that dump? There are at least 1000 bigger and more stunning mansions with beautiful gardens bordering rivers and lakes in Detroit alone. He could have bought a 100 acre estate anywhere in Memphis and built a real mansion.
I absolutely didn’t get it. At the end of the tour we went by a very small kidney shaped swimming pool and the graveyard of Elvis, his mother, father and grandmother. It just added to the feeling of it all being one big cemetery.
Graceland wore me out and after checking out his airplane and deciding I didn’t want to buy anything from the ten Elvis kitsch stores across the street, I headed south to Jackson, Mississippi.
Once here I realized that I didn’t get to see what would have really held my attention in Memphis - like the Memphis Pyramid, pictured below.
There is a bit of controversy surrounding the Pyramid, which is a sports center. When it was being built a man named Isaac Tigrett place a crystal skull in the apex of the Pyramid. Tigrett is a devotee of the living India saint Sathya Sai Baba – who Tigrett worships as God Incarnate. According to him the skull just appeared in Sai Baba’s hands. Tigrett believes in the supernatural power of this skull and that cosmic balance depends on it (somehow) and that it carries a cosmic curse which can destroy the earth. Wow! Apparently after Memphis officials removed the skull from the Pyramid, they had all sorts of technical problems, which some believe had to do with the skulls curse. Whatever is going on in the Memphis Pyramid, it sure stimulates my imagination much more than a bunch of shag carpet and leather couches.
I guess its more fun dreaming about Elvis, then walking around amidst his tasteless clutter.
And what do I know - I ain't nothing by a hound dog. Blessings, David Dakan Allison
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