Meghan:
Graceland! I love Graceland and, yes, I insisted that we visit, and, yes, I have been quite a few times and know exactly what to expect. I am excited Stephie and Michael haven’t been because it is fun to see the King’s house through new eyes.
“I’m really not much of an Elvis fan,” Michael snips as we pass Elvis’s plane
Lisa Marie
on our way to the entrance.
“Really, Michael?” I shoot back. “Really? I guess you’re not really much of a fan of apple pie, hot dogs, or freedom either.” Seriously, who isn’t an Elvis fan?!? We buy our tickets, sign in, get on the Graceland bus, and make the drive across the street to Graceland.
As we get out and make our way through the front door of Graceland, I get a little butterfly in my stomach. There is just something about visiting such an American legend’s house. The man has had just as much impact on American culture as our founding fathers—and, yes, you can quote me on that. Graceland has a very Tara-esque feeling from
Gone with the Wind
, but more retro and’70s. If you haven’t been, schedule your trip as soon as possible.
We make our way through and I notice Michael is smiling. I point out my favorite chair in the jungle room, the tear on the pool table from where one of his friends missed a pool ball. I tell Michael
my favorite Elvis songs. We walk past Priscilla’s wedding dress and the photos of her on her wedding day to Elvis. I swear to God if I ever get married, I will do my hair
exactly
like Priscilla did on her wedding day; that woman is nothing if not stylish. Also if I ever have a daughter, I’m naming her Priscilla. If I have a son, I’m naming him Waylon. Swear to God. I’m in hog heaven. I like seeing all of Elvis’s costumes. I like seeing the leather jumpsuit he wore on his “comeback” concert from Hawaii.
I don’t know exactly what it is about Elvis, other than he was the first of his kind and changed music and American culture forever, but there’s something about him that appeals to every generation. I think the latter part of his life, when he went through hardships with prescription drugs and weight gain, is obviously sad but it doesn’t make him any less of a legend or an icon; it just makes the lengths that support people go to enable celebrities egregiously tragic. And why do they do it? I guess to be around famous people and steal some of their wealth. As I stand in the middle of gold-leaf heaven, I find it ironic that the people on tour are here in their T-shirts and flip-flops, as much to worship the excesses of a very wealthy man as they are his talents. Given a choice, they’d probably take the money over the music.
This hypocrisy hits hard the day after my dinner-conversation defense last night. The anti-wealth trend is on the uptick, evident everywhere you turn. Look at Occupy Wall Street. Look at the way Mitt Romney has been treated during this election cycle, with his wealth perceived by many on the Left as a liability. Being wealthy, or coming from substantial means, is not lauded in America today like it was in Elvis’s day.
There is obviously a wealth disconnect in this country, and, yes, Wall Street has screwed a lot of people in Middle America, but what concerns me is the new edict that you should be embarrassed by personal wealth and success. That is what continues to worry me about the Obama administration. The “spread the wealth around” feeling will always be one of the biggest alerts about what kind of political ideology our president adheres to. We should encourage hard work
and success and not publicly scorn people once they get there. Even some of those who grew up without wealth can too easily forget where they came from. I do not flaunt my family’s money because, well, only a spoiled asshole would do that, but I also don’t like feeling like it’s something I need to hide or be embarrassed about.
I do agree that the tax code is out of control, but I also believe in a free market system where checks and balances come into play. I apparently was one of the few people
not
offended by Mitt Romney’s comments that he enjoyed firing people who didn’t do a good job working for him. I do not understand why that was perceived as such a shocking thing to say. America is a capitalistic society; if you do a bad job, you should not be able to keep it. Alternatively, if you do a good job, you should be promoted. None of this seems particularly controversial to me, but to a lot of people it is.
Michael:
There are four different gift shops on the premises: Good Rockin’ Tonight, Elvis Threads, Elvis Kids, and Gallery Elvis, which sells “upscale art pieces and collectibles.” If you are purchasing your artworks at Graceland, I would be surprised if “upscale” was a priority, but that might just be my innate, elitist liberal snobbery talking.
We queue up for the shuttle bus line with our tickets in hand, then take the short ride across the street to Graceland. As previously described, it looks like a house. The grounds are thirteen acres, and there is a surprising dearth of Christmas lights. I just sort of assumed that, even in July, Graceland would be festooned with Christmas lights and cars jacked up on cement blocks. But no.
Our tour guide is almost comically bad. She speaks in the sing-songy cadence of a community theater performer. Also, her name is Crystal, which seems like the perfect name for a Graceland shuttle bus tour guide. What I learn from Crystal is that Elvis purchased the home when he was “ONLY twenty-TWO and ALREADY an international STAR.” If you’re wondering if there is any eating, drinking, smoking, video, or flash photography allowed within Graceland, Crystal also provides the answer to that question. No.
The shuttle bus releases us at the front door to begin our self-guided tour. From the outside, Graceland has a low-rent
Gone with the Wind
kind of vibe. The house is brick clad, and there’s a large portico supporting four large white pillars. It’s not quite elegant, but if somebody you knew owned it, you’d think it was a pretty sweet place.
Inside is a whole other story. It looks like 1977 threw up all over everything. Every room is different. It’s a crazy quilt of draperies, leather, stained glass, mirrored ceilings, wood paneling, and ceramic monkeys. The whole, dizzying effect is enough to induce epileptic seizure. I love it. I really do. As off kilter as it is, it feels like an honest expression of the man who lived here. Unlike so many other homes of dead Americans now serving as museums, Graceland feels like a place where an actual human being lived, a human being with terrible, terrible taste.
We visit the old smokehouse he used for shooting, the racquetball court he built in 1975. (Judging by his later physique, I’m not sure how often he played.) We see the long gallery of gold and platinum records, which used to hold a slot-car track. There’s the pool area, the playground, and, at the end of the tour, Elvis’s grave. I visited George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon a year before with Martha and the kids. It was a similar experience, actually: long lines of people waiting to pay tribute to an American icon, a tour of the impressive, but not incredible, house featuring all the amenities of the day, and concluding with a stop by the great man’s grave. I bet Elvis would be tickled by the comparison. I bet George Washington would not.
Meghan:
When we get to Elvis’s grave, I point out that his middle name is spelled wrong. Michael seems surprised.
“Yeah, a lot of people have conspiracy theories about that,” I say. “As if it’s proof that he’s still alive, but I think that he passed on a long time ago.”
At the end of our tour I drag Michael to take a picture outside of Graceland. In the picture we are sitting in front of the steps, both
of us leaning back on our elbows. Michael has a snarky, confused look on his face. I am beaming with a grin from ear to ear across my face. I tweet the picture with the caption MICHAEL AND I HAVE RELOCATED TO GRACELAND, although, let’s face it, Graceland is much more a house that I would live in than he would.
As we are leaving, I am carrying two giant bags from the Elvis gift shops, and I’m glad to hear that Michael has enjoyed Graceland.
“See, I told you!” I chide him. “He was the King! Every American should pay homage and a little respect.”
Michael:
When we’re done looking at Elvis’s famous misspelled grave, we take the shuttle back across the street. Meghan asks me what I thought about Graceland. I tell her I loved it. Which is true.
I love it for the way it reduces an icon to human size. I love it for what it represents, the perpetual American mythology of the self-made man, and the reminder of how easy it is to fall from great heights. I am not an Elvis fan and probably never will be, but I love his story. And, like Elvis, I also love peanut butter, banana, and bacon sandwiches.
Cousin John picks us up in front of the Heartbreak Hotel. We’re off to Nashville, the white half of our black and white tour of Tennessee. As we roll out of town, past old brick warehouses and empty storefronts, I keep flashing back to the band from the night before, the singer howling the blues on a sweaty night in Memphis. It’s true that the crowd self-segregated, but it’s also true that everybody was clapping along, dancing, and having a good time. All of us out there, together, swaying and bopping along to the same great American music.
Nashville, Tennessee
Honky-tonkin’
Michael:
Meghan is making a shit-ton of promises about Nashville: we’re going honky-tonkin’, we’re hanging out with her famous country music star buddy, we’re gonna eat crazy southern food, blah blah blah. She’s so excited you’d think we were going shoe shopping. I don’t get it. I’ve been to Nashville before and I don’t know why she’s freaking out so much. So they make country music there, so what? Country music sucks.
It’s a misnomer to think that all elitist liberal jerk-offs like me
only
listen to Brooklyn-based indie bands with names like Thun-dernuts. Meghan buys into the stereotype too. Whenever we talk about music, Meghan says things like, “I’m
sorry
I don’t find Radiohead as
incredible
as you do.” Just snarky little comments to get under my skin. But, I have to say, I think I am far more tolerant of different music than she is, with taste that ranges from “Sweet Home Alabama” to Kid Rock’s cover of “Sweet Home Alabama.”
So, yes, I am open-minded and tolerant. That said, country music really does kind of suck. At least the glop they’re pumping out of Music Row in Nashville these days. Not because it’s country, but because it’s not country
enough.
Modern country is what used to be called “pop rock,” an uninspired mélange of broken hearts, bad puns, and inoffensive guitar solos. It is the low-sodium chicken noodle soup of musical genres.
My guess is this happened after hip-hop and R&B began dominating the charts, leaving a certain segment of the population (conservative white people) feeling alienated. Unable to find anything
else to listen to, they just kept hitting the “scan” button on their radios before stumbling onto country music. Once Nashville discovered that they were gaining new audiences from disillusioned pop listeners, they moved further and further in that direction. The end result: Rascal Flatts.
Traditionalists like me miss country outlaws like Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings. When Loretta Lynn came out with a new album produced by Jack White a couple years ago, I bought (illegally downloaded) it, because I love the old-school stuff. But the bland crap that people call country today mostly just leaves me wishing Johnny Cash would come by and punch whoever is making that shit in the face.
Meghan:
Nashville, the southern city of which all other southern cities are envious. It’s not just the country music capital of the world, but also a place that combines the nostalgia of all things classically southern with the contemporary edge of a modern city where dreams get made. I love Nashville. The food, the people, Broadway—the street that is a country music lover’s mecca—my friends who live there, the experiences I’ve had, the food, the energy; there are too many things to list. I have always had a good time visiting here.
I love most American cities, but Nashville really is one of the greats. Michael, on the other hand, well, Michael doesn’t really like country music, and seems to have pretty lukewarm feelings about going to Nashville; he keeps calling it the white Tennessee. The only country music he likes is Johnny Cash. Saying you’re a fan of Johnny Cash is kind of like saying you’re a fan of peanut butter; everyone in their right mind likes peanut butter
and
Johnny Cash. It would raise an alarm to me if Michael didn’t like Johnny Cash, although he didn’t like Elvis, so I guess it wouldn’t have been such a huge surprise if he didn’t like the Man in Black.
Michael, however, doesn’t like any modern country whatsoever. He hates it to the point that it caused a long argument in the RV on
our drive to Nashville, which ended with me forcing him to listen to Jason Aldean on blast. I attempted to show him recent music videos of my favorite country artists to emerge in the last five years. The only sign of life I got from Michael was from Kellie Pickler’s music video
Best Days of Your Life
.
“I think that girl is hot, does that count?” he asked. No, Michael, it doesn’t.
We have extremely different tastes in music. He likes Radiohead, and the kind of whiney hipster music that I don’t think Republicans are even allowed to listen to. And if we dare like it even a little, the band will be really insulted that any Republican is a fan and issue a statement that said Republican needs to stop listening and or using their music immediately. Michael also likes songs that were really big in the mid- to late nineties, which makes me laugh, because that was probably the last time he was out and about listening to music in bars.
I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to music, and I am not a music snob. I like a little bit of everything. I am aware of the fact that artists like Taylor Swift may not be considered classic stone-cold country, but I do like her. I like it all. I like Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Miranda Lambert, Jason Aldean, Willie Nelson, and pretty much everything in between. There’s just something about country music that speaks to me.