All Shook Up like a Hound Dog. Uh Huh Huh.

I'd been looking forward to this day for months. No, years. Actually, since my inception, so approximately nine months before the 12th of December.
Finally, after all the waiting, debating and angst about quitting my job and shlepping around the US, intense internal struggles over which shoes I could be arsed to lug around for three months, getting here and traipsing across the north east of the country, finally >>>

WE WERE AT THE GATES OF GRACELAND

Elvis Aaron Presley's actual living, breathing pile on the edge of Memphis. There were probably a few of his cell particles still knocking about. I was so excited I broke out into star jumps by the ticket desk. Just writing about it now makes me feel a bit weird. So, in order to keep the hysteria at bay, I've decided to portray the wonder, garishness and downright opulence of the King of Rock and Roll in this here pictorial.

Feed your eyeballs.

Platinum ticket purchased sending happiness levels buzzing at full volume. If you go onto the Elvis website, you can get a coupon for $4 off the entry price. More money for souvenirs, such as Mr Potato Head Elvis's:

HOUND DOG ONE

Elvis accumulated such a vast amount of wealth that by the mid 70's, he was able to buy a Convair 880 aircraft, gut it, restyle it and name it after his only child, Lisa Marie. Who's the daddy? The plane has a conference table, bar and king size bed with a gold plated seat belt over the entire thing. No cattle class on this vessel.

THE ORIGINAL PINK LADY
Sitting in the huge chamber that is Elvis's Car Museum is the magnificent piece of poetry that is this pink Cadillac. When I was little, my dad bought a miniature version of this for my grandma, and it now sits on my shelf at home, next to a set of Russian nesting dolls and an alligator head. Elvis bought this for his own mum, Gladys.
Seeing it in real life is something else. It's dainty and feminine, like a sugared almond, but also a beast of machinery that could smack you up if you got on the wrong side of it. I like that Elvis embraced pink - he also had a pink striped golf buggy that he used for tooling around the Hawaiian islands and later, the grounds of Graceland.

GRACELAND MANSION
Across the street from the restaurants and exhibitions on the man and his life sits the Graceland Mansion itself. From the armies of shuttle buses we thought the house would be an arduous trek away, the sketchy path prone to bear attacks and prowling packs of Elvis fanatics. It was in fact, just across the four lane road which go-getting pedestrians could easily walk across thanks to a efficient zebra crossing. Still, keen to fit in and intergrate, we hopped aboard the shuttle and slid the cheap headphones attached to the personal audio guide onto our ears. Through the front door on the right was the Presley living room, decked out with festive decorations so we could imagine the yuletide extravaganza that would have taken place here every December before 16th July 1977.
Out of respect to Elvis and the Presley family, visitors are denied access to the upper rooms of the mansion, where Elvis's private quarters would have been. That's a shame - I'd have liked to see his bedroom for interior design tips to deck out my own house, when I get it together enough to get one.

This was my favourite room in the house. It's Elvis's billiards room and the walls and ceiling are completely covered  in what looked like antique oriental fabrics, pleated towards the centre of the ceiling.


LEAVING THE BUILDING
It was the weirdest thing, but throughout the tour, Leah and I had been gawping at pictures of the young Elvis, slowly crushing hard on this dead guy who was gone long before either of us were a gleam in our respective fathers' eyes. Yet when we found ourselves in front of Elvis Presley's grave, we both clung to each other looking folorn and sniffling slightly, feeling this loss for a talent we never knew for ourselves firsthand.

 What a wardrobe. What a legend. What a man.

(what a cheeseball I am)

Rubbery Chicken and Musical Madness at Sun Studios

Memphis. Three-nights of insane good time fun.
Let me break it down for ya now: 

 

Beale St and Wednesday night's Earnest Warblers.
After a light afternoon snooze and a trip to the airport to confirm we'd be able to hire a set of wheels on the 17th, we headed to the bright lights and hot blues clubs of Beale Street. It's three blocks crammed full of clubs, tat shops, general oddities and bars such as B.B King's, Hard Rock, a voodoo alley and Superior Karaoke. On the hunt for happy hour deals, we meandered along looking into shadowy windows and laughing at the absurdity of one menu selling deep fried strawberries.
Yeah. I know.
I convinced Leah to have a drink at Superior Karaoke. It was loaded with X Factor wannabes yowling their best country n western, heavily obese black women their voices smoother than a tumbler of bourbon and a Lady Thang (imagine an obese Kate Hudson blended with a generous heap of Miss Piggy) who I couldn't work out if Leah loved or loathed. She watched Thang with this intense fire, mesmerised by the furious whipping of her curly blonde hair, laughing at an unimaginably hilarious anecdote. Her false lashes dipped into her pint glass, tinging the amber liquid with streaks of black mascara as she looked seductively across the bar at the MTV camera that surely must've been concealed somewhere in the venue. Why else this show, Lady Thang? She was ridiculous, a star spangled cartoon who clearly thought she was all that and a bag of chips and I loved her.
Between her, the grinding of Leah's teeth, the blinding display of musical talent and $6 glasses of Big Ass Beer, it was the best Wednesday night I've had this side of August.

 

 

 

The next morning, on the advice of the biggest Yankophile I know, we headed towards the waterside to find the hallowed ground that is Gus's World Famous Chicken restaurant. Tucked between industrial looking shop fronts, it doesn't look like much. But the reviews on Yell told a different story. 'I WANNA MARRY GUS'S CHICKEN AND HAVE IT'S NUGGETS!!', one hysterical customer had declared. Another proclaimed it was the best chicken he'd ever had, but please, no one tell his mama, it'd break her heart. GQ Magazine had selected it as one of the top three restaurants to fly across the country for. It had a lot to live up to. We pushed through the glass door and stood in line, gawking at the fried turkey promotions for Thanksgiving, special prices for Ugly Pecan Pie and talking to Kook, a friendly bottle blonde who promised me that we were on the way to Fried Chicken Heaven. She wasn't wrong.


DANG BOY.

I ordered a plate of dark chicken which came towards my salivating face with chips, coleslaw and the best barbeque baked beans I've ever had. I'm not really into BBQ. I find the sauce can be sickly and sweet just does not go with meat in my cookbook. But these beans. Yes.
They came second to the chicken. Arriving searingly hot from the frier, the chicken landed on the plastic red-checked table, the excess grease dripping on a slice of inexplicably placed white bread.
The succulent flesh, encased in tracing-paper-thin batter hinted at a twist of pepper and peeled easily from the main piece, gently releasing ribbons of steam and fragrant poulty aromas towards my twitching nostrils.
It was deliriously good, certainly some of the best chicken I've eaten. No meat sweats, a huge calorie debt but absolutely no regrets.

 

We also did a tour to Sun Studios. Obviously. I'd have to slap myself with a rubber chicken if I'd gone all the way to Memphis and failed to visit this womb of legendary talent.
A heavily sideburned man theatrically led us through the studio's history, playing scratchy original versions of Elvis's first song and Johnny Cash's recordings.
Then - and this was by far the best part - we entered the recording room where all these makers of history sang, sweated and breathed. It was AMAZING. The ceiling was rippled like a giant McCoy's crisp to help with acoustics and there were three spots marked on the ground with black crosses that showed where the King of Rock and Roll once really, truly, madly stood belting out the kind of hits that made millions of people mess their pants with excitement. Leah and I stared transfixed at the ground then shuffled towards the spot in silence.
I felt a tiny pea of jubilation seeping into my own gusset.

Super cool.