Taste

Considering the size of the Graceland museum complex across the street, I was struck by the modest size of the mansion itself.

Per usual, America has it’s priorities straight.Each visitor is loaned a heavily-rubberized iPad with a neck strap which has a virtual tour (narrated by John Stamos, naturally) as you physically tour the mansion.Elvis had all the money in the world.  But you can’t buy taste.The den immediately made me think of Pin’s Mom’s house in Brick……whereas the three televisions in the basement cocktail lounge made me think of Ozymandias‘s bank of monitors in Watchmen.The cringing continued.Wood paneling?Green carpet on the hallway walls and ceiling?  This dude has been held up as a style icon for more than half a century!In the backyard, in the office where Elvis’s father Vernon conducted business, we transition from kitsch to banality.I found his horse enclosure unexpectedly endearing.  He was just a country boy, at a fundamental level.The mansion as seen from the backyard.Only with these invoices did it come into focus just how much money he had spent on all his gaudy furnishings.I fully expected Elvis to have a wallet that said “Bad Motherfucker” on it.Elvis was obsessed with law enforcement.They had on display Elvis’s infamous Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge that he finagled from President Nixon!Finally in the backyard, we transition from the banal to the outlandish.The dude built a gym with a racquetball court.The Graceland pool was no bigger than any of thousands of others in backyards throughout Camelot Era suburbia.Finally, at the end of the tour, is the “Mediation Garden”……which is the gravesite.I stood before Elvis’s grave and paid homage, just like U2 and Spın̈al Tap before me.

“Too much fucking perspective.”