Memphis

Last August, I hit the open road and headed to the Mississippi Delta on a research trip. On the way, I stopped in Memphis, TN. Here's a reprise of my reflections from that visit:

Yesterday, my travels took me to Memphis, TN. I drove four hours across western Tennessee. For anyone planning to make the same trip, there's lots of kudzu and not much else. I’ve rented the world’s cheapest rental car – a Kia Rio. Since getting the car, I’ve been singing my own version of the Duran Duran song: “Her name is Rio, and her engine is from a lawn mower.” It's the kind of car where you hit the accelerator and you can almost hear the engine respond, "Oh, you gotta be kidding me!"

Anyway, today, I went to Graceland and the National Civil Rights Museum. It was Memphis in August. It was hot as hell. I was really looking forward to Graceland, expecting lots of colorful Elvis fans. Elvis Week starts in two days after all. That’s the time of year when Elvis fans gather to mark the King’s death. Today, there were precious few crazies. The only near-crazy was this British woman who warbled "All Shook Up" in the Trophy Room. There we were, serious tourists, crammed into this small dimly lit space with all the gold records and Grammys, quiet as church mice, listening intently to our audio tours, and all the sudden, without warning: “I’m in love, I’m all shook up…” at full volume. I just about jumped out of my skin. Talk about all shook up.

Besides that, it was just me and the Harley dudes and dudettes reminiscing in front of the Vegas jumpsuits. “Remember when he wore that outfit in Vegas…” For my taste, there was too much Elvis worship and not enough Elvis realism. I realize the family has an image to protect, even if it’s totally fabricated, but to display his badge from the federal narcotics enforcement branch (a gift from Nixon) and not to mention Elvis’s drug use is just sad. As we went into Graceland, a little girl in front of me asked her dad how Elvis died. He diplomatically responded, “He had a heart attack.” I decided not to add, “Yeah, kid, after years of stress and strain, his heart finally said, 'Check, please.'”

Graceland is first and foremost a shrine to bad 1970s home furnishing. We can all be thankful because anyone else who had this stuff in their homes has long since traded it in for Ikea. You can’t go upstairs at Graceland because that was Elvis’s private space when he was alive so out of respect, the family maintains it that way. It just seems silly to say, “Here’s his parents’ bedroom on the first floor, and their bathroom. Go ahead, look around, invade their privacy. You can’t see Elvis’s room – but here’s the bed and dresser, complete with oversized ceramic tiger statue on top.”

After picking up some more tacky souvenirs (pose-able Elvis doll), I headed to the Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights Museum. On the way, I got lost and ended up crossing the Mississippi River into Arkansas. I quickly turned around, afraid I'd get stuck in Arkansas, which has always been my worst nightmare.

I have to say that I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing King’s (the real King) last hotel room, but I did want to see the motel in its surroundings – since you only ever see the picture after he’s been shot. Once I got there, I decided to go inside, I'd come all that way after all. The non-profit that runs the museum has done a nice job of telling the movement story, but it all felt unsettlingly voyeuristic to me. You can look into the hotel room, carefully preserved to show what it looked like right before King went outside to the balcony. There are ghosts there, I don’t care what you say. I wanted to yell, “Stop! Don’t go outside!” But, of course, he did go outside.

The non-profit has also purchased the boarding house where James Earl Ray stood in the bathroom with a high-powered rifle. I didn’t spend much time there. They have all of his personal effects, including the rifle. I didn’t need to see that. To stand where he stood, looking at the motel balcony, and thinking about that rifle and the hate that went along with it was just too much. Then, I saw the actual bullet pulled out of King's body. I left, and was glad to put the place behind me.

As I drove on to Greenwood, Mississippi, I thought about King and Elvis – and Memphis’s tourism industry built on lost promise. I think the key to Graceland and the Lorraine Motel is that you have to be able to block out the end of the story. To see Elvis go from a reasonably sensible, healthy person to a bloated paranoid shell was just depressing. And the Lorraine Motel was beyond depressing – it was sickening and unsettling.

Am I sorry I went? No, but I’m not in a hurry to go back.