Memphis

Three hours drive down the highway to Memphis from Nashville. In Memphis you can feel that you are in a poorer environment, more run down housing everywhere. Seems to be some kind of transport hub – transportation and logistics centres and trucks everywhere. We’ve only got time for quick stops everywhere now which is not the best way to experience new places but beggars can’t be choosers. An essential trip into the city to see the incredible Peabody hotel and watch the march of the ducks – there is a group of ducks who live in the penthouse and spend their day swimming in the amazing fountain carved from a single piece of marble with a most spectacular floral display on top. Movement to and from the penthouse to the fountain involves a ride in the elevator and a trip on the red carpet twice a day. It is a ritual that brings hordes of people everyday to watch the strange phenomenon which has been taking place for decades.
Then a walk down to Beale St which was reasonably quiet for a Monday night – neon lights and blues music blasting from the doorways – touts trying to tempt you inside. Dinner at BB Kings Blues Club and a great soul band – a refresing change from frantic bluegrass. A ride round the city on the tram and that is enough… still tired from the mad week in Nashville.
Next day off to Graceland. We bought a VIP ticket ($70) because we had been advised to do so – but one of the lesser tickets would have suited us better. It is 35 years since his death and they have new exhibits which virtually mimic everything else you’ve already seen – more and more copies of clothing that he wore and video excerpts of his tv specials and video documentary. By the time you get to those you can’t help but be extremely cynical about the whole money making industry exploiting his fame in death as in life. There is a souvenir shop connected to every exhibit – must be about 7 different souvenir shops in the complex – all across the road from Graceland where the tour buses take hundreds of people a day up to the ‘mansion’…. which surprisingly is not so big… but I suppose it would have been enormous in 1957 or so when he bought it at age 21…. amazing to think how big he got in just a couple of years…. he was about 18 when he cut his first records at Sun Studios. His life just seems so sad and tragic in many ways…. dead at 42….too much fame, too many drugs (and probably an increasingly unhealthy diet)…common story.
I’ve been looking at diet pretty seriously the last few years (the effects of excess sugar and added chemicals and preservatives in everything we buy)…. and I can’t help but feel a bit despairing for the American diet which is so obviously killing them… the obesity here is overwhelming and they are coming to see this as normal…we heard on the radio that every 39 seconds in America someone has a heart attack…. the ambulance roared into Bean Blossom festival 3 times over the weekend we were there…..