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Published: June 19th 2007
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the blues brothers Early again! I have to say when we first thought of stopping by Graceland, we thought it would be a cheesy tour but felt that since it was on our way, we might as well visit. This year is actually the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. Even in the Philippines, Elvis was huge and his death was widely covered by the Philippine media.
Graceland was actually smaller than I thought it would be. When we got there, we realized we didn't really know much about Elvis except for some of his songs and a few of his movies. And that, he has many, many impersonators (the movie Leaving Las Vegas comes to mind), which I think, in some way, has made a caricature of who he was as a person.
Here's some things we learned on our audio tour.
Elvis loved his parents. In fact, the songs that got him discovered were songs he had recorded especially for his mother, one of them being "My Happiness."
Elvis was extremely generous and altruistic. He gave, gave, gave. During his lifetime, he supported Memphis in many ways. He didn't turn many away.
Elvis was funny. He
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graceland has a great sense of humor and had no bones about making fun of himself. I think it would have been amazing to see him live in concert.
Elvis was a spiritual seeker. Lisa Marie remembers her father always reading books which were usually piled up high near his bed, mostly of spiritual nature. It was a lifelong quest for him and the meditation garden he had commissioned to be designed became his favorite spot.
So we left Graceland feeling that Elvis had been made human for us and having a newfound appreciation for his artistry.
After the tour, we stopped for rootbeer floats and accidently walked into a door that had EXIT on it thinking it was another way out. As it turned out, it was his costumes museum. He wore some heavy costumes, amazing outfits heavily studded in gemstones or embroidery. At the end of the museum, we were asked for our tickets. Ooops.
Next stop for us was Beale Street. We've heard it's like the French Quarter in New Orleans. But we also found out that it was the setting for many Civil Right marches in the sixties. We were there at around
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graceland. one of elvis' many, many, gold hits. 5 or so on a Tuesday so it was relatively quiet. Walking in front of the FedEx Forum, we met a man dressed in matching camouflage shirt and long shorts asking for a few dollars so he can get some food.
I just got out of prison Friday and I haven't eaten in days, he told us.
He'd been looking for a shelter since he got to Memphis but since he's a Mississippi resident, the Tennessee shelters have been turning him away. We offer to buy him food and take him to Dyer's Burgers. I asked him what he wanted to eat and he picks the biggest burger they had, the triple burger. I turned around to ask him if he wanted his burgers medium rare before realizing it probably didn't matter to him.
While he ate, he told us his story (and showed us his inmate ID). P.H. (not Paris Hilton) was born June 1, 1981 and had been imprisoned for embezzlement. He said he had enough money set aside to hire a good lawyer so his sentence was only about 5-6 years. He also made enough money to buy his mother a house and
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vince johnson and band get his family out of the "ghetto." Even in prison, he was able to manage a business -- I didn't ask what he did -- and send money home to his mother! FYI, in NM, inmates get 10 cents an hour with the highest paid getting 40 cents an hour -- $1.25 is the highest in CT. He said he wanted to become a massage therapist but I had a feeling his enterprising -- and sweet-talking -- skills might lead him to other things. P.H. also mentioned that his feet were killing him, that they were sore and blistered and in pain. I happened to have Advil softgels with me so I passed him two green softgels, feeling somewhat like a drug dealer. He downed it with his sweet tea and we said good-bye to him and walked out into Beale Street to listen to Vince Johnson and his band playing blues outside.
We thought we'd listen to more blues at BB King's Blues Club. Unfortunately, the singer had just finished her set. So we hung out at the bar for a while before our stomachs reminded us to head over to the highly recommended Rendezvous Ribs. One of
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beale street the guys at the bar told us to be careful as it was behind an alley. The alley was short and well-lit with lots of people coming and going -- not at all the scary place he had made it out to be.
Rendezvous Ribs was a huge, cavernous place. People waited in the mezzanine before being called to eat downstairs. The bartender was able to greet everyone who came in in their native language. Ni hao ma! Kumusta! Annyeonghaseyo!
There was actually quite a long wait (not good for us since it was almost nine and we still had to head to Little Rock). We were seated right next to nude painting of a woman in repose and an old man (circa Civil War?) was our waiter. Okay, maybe not that old, but definitely ancient. He was businesslike and wasn't much more chit chat. He expected you to know what you want and order it without hesitation. We went for the ribs and beef brisket and weren't disappointed although truth be told, I prefer marinated ribs to dry-rubbed ribs.
P.S. on Tennessee. We kept seeing State Troopers off the highway. At first, we thought they were
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mississippi river just especially good at catching speeders. But, no. One State Trooper was helping to change a guy's tires. Another State Trooper was jump starting another car. We figured that if you ever broke down in Tennessee, instead of calling AAA, it's probably a good bet to call the State Trooper instead.
P.P.S. We also kept seeing Super-XXX stores up and down Interstate 40. It finally dawned on us that there were many lonely truck drivers on the road needing a release.
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