Where Elvis Shopped

Lansky's is an expensive men's clothing store located in Memphis' Peabody Hotel. According to the store's web site the Lansky brothers 

switched to high-fashion clothing in a store on Beale Street, which caught the eye of a young and penniless Presley. Elvis worked as an usher at nearby Loew's State Theater.

When Bernard spotted the starry-eyed teen window-shopping, he recalls, "I said, "Come on in, young man.' I showed him the merchandise, and it blew his mind. We used to have Life Savers colors--reds, pinks, blues, yellows, purples. He said, "Boy, I like this. I don't have any money now, but when I get rich, I'll buy you out." I said, "Do me a favor. Don't buy me out, just buy from me.' "

A loyal Elvis did just that, from his first tux--a pink-and-black combo he wore to his junior/senior prom--to a black mohair suit after his Army discharge. "Man, they tore it off him," laughs Bernard. "They sure did."

But may we all have the style of Elvis? Thanks, but we don't don't allow people to look like that on the street in St. Louis.

Palindrome

Members of the Iowa Cubs at Autozone Park in Memphis. You couldn't lose them in a fog.

It is far enough into the spring that we will be having lots of weekend events. Results soon.                         

Minor League Baseball

North American readers will understand this, except perhaps for our colleague Virginia in Birmingham, whose attitude toward baseball is the same as Rhett Butler's toward Scarlett O'Hara. International readers can contact me for details.

The Memphis Redbirds are the St. Louis Cardinals' AAA level minor league team. They have a beautiful, new little stadium that holds 10,000 fans. (The Cards can pack in something in the mid 40s.) There are no bad seats. (Um, not so here.) It is an intimate setting for baseball lovers.

I completely blew it out and bought the most expensive seat in the place for $21. The high end here is about six time that. The Redbirds got trampled 12 - 0 by the Cubs affiliate in Des Moines. Still, it had a baseball charm you can never get in the big leagues.                                      

Memphis Scenes

A cafe near the civil rights museum. The sky over the baseball stadium at dusk.

Tuesday was a long day at work. But then I've been hanging out with someone for 41 years as of yesterday, so it wasn't all bad.                                 

National Civil Rights Museum

Images from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. It is a powerful experience. Many of the displays are made of sculpture of the people who lived the struggle, set in photographs of the actual events.

I was a teenager during most of the events depicted here. My memories are hazy.                          

Where Dr. King Died

The Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, where Martin Luther King was assassinated 47 years ago on the balcony of Room 306. It is now the home the National Civil Rights museum, more about which tomorrow.                              

Canard

Mrs. C's conference is at the grand old Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis. The public areas have an antique opulence. It has had a wacky tradition for 80 years - a group of ducks spends the day splashing in the ornate marble fountain in the lobby. They come down the elevator from their rooftop home at 11, parade across a red carpet to some small steps and hop into the pool. The ducks go back up the same way at 5. 

A duckmaster (how'd you like to be a duckmaster?) presides with great ceremony. There is always a big crowd. I couldn't get a line of sight anywhere on the lobby floor and had to take up a position on the mezzanine.              

Beale Street

You might say that Beale Street in Memphis is a tiny, slightly run down version of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It's lined with blues clubs and barbecue restaurants, plus a couple of bars that sell right out onto the sidewalk. The main part of it is about a block and a half long. It claims ties to the origin of the blues - it did move upstream from the Mississippi delta - and rock and roll, I guess because of Elvis. Rock had roots in many places, including St. Louis, in the person of Mr. Chuck Berry.

It's late Friday night as I write this. Back out on the streets of The Lou today.                              

Air Elvis

The Graceland complex contains Elvis' two airplanes, a big Convair 880 (Anyone remember that? I never flew in one.) and a smaller corporate plane, a Lockheed Jet Star. The larger one was named the Lisa Marie, after his daughter. It was used mainly on performance tours. The Lockheed is called the Hound Dog.

You can see some detail below. I doubt that lavatory on the Lisa Marie was genuine gold, but interpret the meaning if it is not. Even the sofas on the Lisa Marie have seat belts - federal regulation, of course. In the last picture, a security camera catches an intruder on the Hound Dog.

I want to do a bit about the city of Memphis itself before I return home. It was surprisingly pleasant. One on my favorite STL annual events is tomorrow and we'll get to that soon.                                        

Elvis' Cars

From top to bottom:

1956 Caddilac Eldorado

1966 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud

1970 Ferrari Dino

Lincoln Continental - didn't get the year

The pink Caddilac

Elvis came from a poor family in the poor town of Tupelo, Mississippi, not far south of Memphis (part of Tupelo was flattened by a tornado a few days ago). I can understand why someone from that background would crave the material marks of success, but then I think about what the money spent on those cars could have done for his home town. Elvis could have used more Buddha nature.              

Recreation

Next stops on the tour of Graceland: places where Elvis could let his hair down. He had a lot of it.

For want of a better term, I guess you would call the space in the top picture a media room. It's visually unbearable. Yes, the ceiling is mirrored. It had three televisions because then-President Lyndon Johnson was said to have watched all three network evening news shows at the same time. Elvis' stereo and some of his LPs are on the left.

It that's too intense for your eyeballs, you could go to the adjacent billiard room. I don't know how many yards of fabric were used for this effect but It made the room awfully claustrophobic.

Last, we have two views of the notorious Jungle Room, an add-on at the back of the house. What's the deal here, Elvis as Tarzan?

We'll do at least two more days here, one on the car collection and one on the airplanes.          

Chow Down With The Hound Dog

The tour of Graceland continues.

Elvis' dining room isn't particularly large for an upper middle class American home. The furnishings and decor are, well, not in my budget and probably didn't make the food taste better. I wonder how often the family actually used it. Don't drop any pizza on that carpet.

The kitchen is remarkable for being so ordinary. It's spacious but not exceptional for a suburban home of a prosperous family. The color scheme would cause people to swoon today but it was common in the 60s.

One of the takeaways from visiting Graceland is that the scale of the house is nothing unusual. Some decorator got to spend a ton of money but the results - so far - are not surprising. But wait until tomorrow when we get to the casual rooms.                               

Welcome To Graceland

Let's begin the tour.

People line up at this sign to take one another's pictures as they leave the parking lot to reach the ticket building. The home itself is across the street and you have to take a shuttle bus through the gates decorated with musical notes. The entrance to the house has a classical portico in front of what might otherwise be a biggish suburban home.

The first room on your right as you enter is the formal living room. This is an architectural feature common in larger American houses of the last few decades. No one ever uses the space unless, maybe, the vicar stops by for tea. Elvis' wife and mother probably didn't want him smoking cigars and sipping Jack Daniels on all that white. You can't see in in the picture I selected but the sofa on the right is 15 feet long. What could you use this room for?

An unusual feature is the pair of peacock windows at the end of the room, dividing it from a music alcove. I'm not sure if Elvis played the piano (a comment on the Web says he did). I find it interesting that there is a television next to the piano. There are TVs everywhere around Graceland.

There are also portraits, busts and icons of him around every turn. Note the little bust on the left in the music alcove shot. I wonder if the household cult of personality was as strong during his lifetime, before they started selling tickets to tourists.