Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. Here's Chuck Bryant. I'm here. Okay, Chuck,
Speaker 1: do your best Elvis and President Marin I don't do
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. That was actually pretty good, Chuck.
Speaker 1: That's the last time I'm gonna do that during this podcast. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's fine. That's fine. This podcast, by the way, is
Speaker 1: how Grace Lam works, which makes sense right right. Can
Speaker 1: you do Elvis? No, not at all. I'm not even
Speaker 1: gonna try. And I'll tell you somebody else who can't
Speaker 1: do Elvis is a guy named Matt Hale. Have you
Speaker 1: heard of this guy? Uh? It rings a bell. He's
Speaker 1: a British radio producer, um who just happens to really
Speaker 1: like Elvis and uh one day he was going through
Speaker 1: some second hand store, I guess in London and found
Speaker 1: a white jumpsuit and his next thought was, well, gee,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll go spend the next year touring the
Speaker 1: world dress as Elvis. And he did. Um the problem
Speaker 1: and he's been everywhere he's been to, like Brazil he
Speaker 1: was there for a carnival. He. Um, he's been to Ireland,
Speaker 1: Hall in the US. I'm not entirely certain what cities
Speaker 1: he visited in the US as an impersonator. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and not necessarily as an impersonator dressed as Elvis. It's
Speaker 1: a tribute to the king. So he just travels as Elvis. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And so I guess the reason I hesitate to call
Speaker 1: him in impersonators because he visited Australia, and I guess
Speaker 1: that's where they have like the biggest Elvis festival, Elvis
Speaker 1: fan fest in the world. Um, and he plays dead
Speaker 1: last out of god knows how many Elvis impersonators for
Speaker 1: look like and sounded like contests. So I think you
Speaker 1: may you may have beaten Matt Hale had you had
Speaker 1: you been there, right, And I don't even have a jumpsuit,
Speaker 1: but you know you no, no, no, okay, So you know, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't know that much about Elvis. So
Speaker 1: I've never been that big of a fan. I know
Speaker 1: it's kind of sacrilege to say that in certain quarters,
Speaker 1: but you know, hey, this is me. Take me as
Speaker 1: I am, right, so you know much more about grace Land,
Speaker 1: Elvis than I do. Well, I wrote the article and
Speaker 1: I've been there. Did were you did? Were you able
Speaker 1: to finagle a free trip to Graceland for you know,
Speaker 1: research the article? Now I've been there before though, so
Speaker 1: that helped a lot. My family, actually my mom's family
Speaker 1: is from Memphis, So yeah, I'm when to come there.
Speaker 1: Probably can't. There is a boy scout in the front lawn,
Speaker 1: right No, no, so alright, so Chuck, tell me tell
Speaker 1: the readers who haven't been to grace Land, like me,
Speaker 1: what is it like when you walk in that front door?
Speaker 1: Is the is the is the spirit? Is the stink
Speaker 1: still there? Well, the stank is still there. Yeah, it's um.
Speaker 1: You know, it's unlike any other house that you've ever
Speaker 1: been to. Probably like it might it might smack you know,
Speaker 1: those of us that are probably in our thirties or older,
Speaker 1: you know, have fond memories of their houses in the
Speaker 1: seventies and the shag carbon stuff like that, So it
Speaker 1: kind of smacks of that. But two degrees that you
Speaker 1: can't even imagine, because of course it's Elvis and he
Speaker 1: was loaded, you know, for the time you a lot
Speaker 1: of money he could have or you know, gold plated everything,
Speaker 1: and you know, shag carpet on the ceiling and on
Speaker 1: the walls, and it's just his taste is well documented,
Speaker 1: right well, I mean the jumpsuits alone kind of do it.
Speaker 1: I mean, how much money did that men spend on sequence?
Speaker 1: I don't have that. I've got a lot of statistics,
Speaker 1: but I don't have that one throwing out at me.
Speaker 1: What's the best when you've got well, if we're talking
Speaker 1: grace Land. Uh, he bought the house for a total
Speaker 1: of a hundred and two thousand, five dollars and uh
Speaker 1: n seven and uh Originally it was already purchased by
Speaker 1: the y m c A. And he dribbled that number
Speaker 1: just to get the house. He edged him out, didn't
Speaker 1: he big time? I wonder what the y m c
Speaker 1: A thinks of Elvis, at least the Memphis chapter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, because I mean he just
Speaker 1: kind of stepped in and said, no, I'm taking it right.
Speaker 1: He's their favorite son, though, so I imagine they were
Speaker 1: pretty cool with it. They're cool with it. What the
Speaker 1: house was already named grace Land when he bought it,
Speaker 1: wasn't it? Yeah? It was. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people probably think he named it Graceland, like after his
Speaker 1: mother Grace. That's what Yeah, that's not even his pomp's
Speaker 1: name as well, it's Glad right. Uh yeah, it was
Speaker 1: the original owners, doctor and Mrs Thomas Moore. Um, I
Speaker 1: think it was the great aunt Grace two t O O.
Speaker 1: F is who it was named after. On the fourteen acres.
Speaker 1: They're just south of downtown Memphis. So so take us
Speaker 1: on a little mini tour. I knew, um just from
Speaker 1: pictures I've seen. Really the only extravagance that that I
Speaker 1: note from the out from an outdoor view are the gates.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the house, it looks like,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd expect to see an old, retired farming
Speaker 1: couple living inside there. Yeah, it's a classic revival as
Speaker 1: the official like the architectural styles what they call it.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, from the outside it doesn't look like much.
Speaker 1: But at the time, you know, it's this is late fifties,
Speaker 1: it was. It was the nicest house in Memphis at
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, I mean that there may be some
Speaker 1: debate there, but he always told his parents he would
Speaker 1: buy them the nicest house in Memphis. Once he made
Speaker 1: it big and he was saying this as a little kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he he knew he was due for stardom. I did
Speaker 1: not realize that. I always had the impression that he
Speaker 1: kind of stumbled uh uh bottom backwards. No, No, he
Speaker 1: knew he was he was destined for stardom. And he
Speaker 1: actually bought the house when he was twenty two, which
Speaker 1: is just crazy when you think about he was just
Speaker 1: a kid. Yeah, yeah, about the best house in memphisis
Speaker 1: very impressive. So so you walk in, there's a foyer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you walk into the foyer, and when you're in the fourier,
Speaker 1: you're actually directly beneath the bathroom where he where he
Speaker 1: passed away. And they don't tell you that on the tour,
Speaker 1: you know, because kind of a macab way to begin
Speaker 1: the tour exact right. And so you walk in and
Speaker 1: right in front of you are the steps that lead upstairs,
Speaker 1: and that's blocked off and was has always been blocked off.
Speaker 1: Why I mean, is there like some sort of you know,
Speaker 1: secret love child that's chained a radiator upstairs? Why would
Speaker 1: they keep it locked off? Well, when Elvis lived there,
Speaker 1: it was pretty much private area too. He always had
Speaker 1: Grayson was always really busy and always had tons of
Speaker 1: guests and his Memphis Mafia was what his entourage was called.
Speaker 1: Those guys, don't you Yeah, man, they're awesome. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say something else. They're very cool, and uh
Speaker 1: they there was always just a lot of activity, people
Speaker 1: coming and going, guests in and out, people working there,
Speaker 1: obviously his staff, and so his upstairs was his retreat,
Speaker 1: you know, that's where he went to chill out and
Speaker 1: do his private elvis things. And uh so he didn't
Speaker 1: let people up there back then. There was just kind
Speaker 1: of understood no wing one up there. So yeah, keeping
Speaker 1: with those wishes. It's still closed off today. And apparently
Speaker 1: this is really creepy. I didn't know this till I
Speaker 1: studied this untouched since he passed away. Apparently in his
Speaker 1: bathroom there's like his toothbrush and the squeezed toothpaste and
Speaker 1: stick a deodorant that he was using that day and
Speaker 1: they didn't touch anything. Do you know what he was
Speaker 1: reading when he died? Even sorry, including sweat stains on
Speaker 1: his pillow? What he was reading when he died. There's
Speaker 1: actually a little speculation I can't remember, but there are
Speaker 1: two different books in the bathroom, and they don't know
Speaker 1: which one he was reading, but you can find out
Speaker 1: on the internet. I just didn't have that it included
Speaker 1: that matter. I'm going to guess a thousand and one
Speaker 1: Arabian Nights. That's a that's a real good guests, thank you, bet.
Speaker 1: I think one of them was actually a book on
Speaker 1: religion and spirituality, if that matters. Uh. So you go
Speaker 1: into the foyer. The fourier to your right is uh
Speaker 1: the one of the living rooms, the famous one with
Speaker 1: the fourteen foot couch. Yeah, the tin foot coft coffee table.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of coffee. It's a lot of coffee.
Speaker 1: And then beyond that is the the upstairs music room
Speaker 1: with like his piano and stuff, which we can you
Speaker 1: know would entertain people, right And you you had also
Speaker 1: said that, uh that you made a point that he
Speaker 1: may have inadvertently created the man cave. And he had
Speaker 1: like a couple of them, And these are the ones
Speaker 1: that I was familiar with, like the jungle room, the
Speaker 1: TV room. Um, and I think these are just totally
Speaker 1: beyond cool. Like to like start with the jungle room,
Speaker 1: this sounds just super awesome, Well, yeah, super awesome or
Speaker 1: super tacky, defending on which way you want to look
Speaker 1: at to find Uh. Yeah, I think it was the
Speaker 1: original man room. He Um. It was originally a screened
Speaker 1: in porch and he had it converted when he and
Speaker 1: Priscilla got divorced, So she wasn't a part of this.
Speaker 1: She always makes a note to say she was no
Speaker 1: part of the jungle room. And uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: got it like an African motif. It's got shag carpet
Speaker 1: on the walls and ceilings and floors. He had a
Speaker 1: working water fountain that leaked everywhere all the time that
Speaker 1: he had disconnected because of the leaks, and uh, it
Speaker 1: was actually provided soundproofing. So he ended up recording some
Speaker 1: music there in the jungle room. Yeah, you said he
Speaker 1: recorded one album and half of another one there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: half of Moody Blues and I think Live from Elvis
Speaker 1: Pressy Boulevard and mitis Tennessee. Yeah, that's pretty cool. What
Speaker 1: about the TV room, Chuck, three TVs at once. Where
Speaker 1: do you get that idea? Yeah, that's downstairs. He got
Speaker 1: that idea from President Lyndon Johnson. He heard that he Uh,
Speaker 1: he used to watch three newscasts at the same time
Speaker 1: to keep up with things. So Elvis got you know,
Speaker 1: he had to have the best. So he had three
Speaker 1: TVs built into the wall and watch football apparently not newscasts.
Speaker 1: I got you, I Got you. And he had some
Speaker 1: like pretty cool toys, like I understand. He had two jets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had two jets. He had one smaller private, and
Speaker 1: then he had a big honking seven seven I think
Speaker 1: called the Lisa Marina. I actually know a story about
Speaker 1: that involves the Lisa Marie. Yeah, so basically, um, I
Speaker 1: think it was. It was seventy six. Elvis is sitting
Speaker 1: around with a couple of his buddies in the Memphis Mafia, right,
Speaker 1: and uh, like a couple of years earlier, they've been
Speaker 1: playing a show in Denver and they went to eat
Speaker 1: at this, uh this restaurant called the Colorado gold Mine Company,
Speaker 1: and they had the sandwich called the Fool's gold Sandwich.
Speaker 1: Have you ever had one of these? One of my
Speaker 1: friends through a birthday party for her husband, and she
Speaker 1: called it a very partially hydrogenated birthday. And there was
Speaker 1: all this wonderful food like ham dogs, um, that that
Speaker 1: kind of burger that you serve on a crispy cream
Speaker 1: donut as a bun. And she also made the Fool's
Speaker 1: Gold sandwich. So it's like heavily buttered bread, uh, peanut butter,
Speaker 1: jelly and bacon and then you like kind of grill it.
Speaker 1: It's the greatest thing you'll ever have in your So
Speaker 1: Elvis got his hands on one of these things. And
Speaker 1: the reason they were called Fool's Gold sandwiches was because
Speaker 1: they were they run an entire loaf of Italian bread,
Speaker 1: and they were meant for like twenty people like Elvis
Speaker 1: ate them right exactly, Elvis ate them apparently by himself, right,
Speaker 1: So there's there's no telling how many pounds of bacon
Speaker 1: or I think like a duck. Yeah, he just swallowed,
Speaker 1: no biting whatsoever. But they call it full's gold because
Speaker 1: only a full would would would would pay for they
Speaker 1: were like fifty dollar sandwiches. And this is in the
Speaker 1: mid seventies. So anyway, they're sitting around one night in
Speaker 1: February seventy six, and um, they're one one of the
Speaker 1: one of the guys in his entourage says, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: I wish I had one of those sandwich is right now.
Speaker 1: So Elvis calls up, the calls up the restaurant in Denver,
Speaker 1: tells him that he wants um, I think like thirty
Speaker 1: of them, and uh, he says that they'll be there
Speaker 1: in a couple of hours. Swich. Yeah. They well, they
Speaker 1: fire up the Leisa Marine, get in the jet, go
Speaker 1: to the restaurant. Actually, I don't even think they made
Speaker 1: to the restaurant for this special order. The restaurant tour
Speaker 1: and his wife showed up with the sandwiches, um, a
Speaker 1: case of champagne and some other stuff, and they think
Speaker 1: they ate him in the hangar and just for the
Speaker 1: just for the tab for the food was like three grand.
Speaker 1: But when you factor in all of the added expense,
Speaker 1: there's one late night trip. This is that like one
Speaker 1: in the morning for these sandwiches came to like sixteen
Speaker 1: grand or something like that. And that today and today,
Speaker 1: so that's that's probably like eighteen grand at least at
Speaker 1: least well, you know, if he hadn't done things like that,
Speaker 1: he may have ended up living instead of dying in
Speaker 1: his bathroom. Yeah, but what he have lived as interesting
Speaker 1: a life as he did, Well, maybe not. But one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that you know, it was well documented
Speaker 1: that he was on all these pills to keep them
Speaker 1: going all the time. And uh, one of the reasons
Speaker 1: was he said he couldn't slow down because he had
Speaker 1: so many people he had to pay for. He had
Speaker 1: a huge staff and he felt very beholden to them,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to let them down, and he
Speaker 1: didn't want to lay people off. So he just had
Speaker 1: this killer, brutal schedule, you know, later in life when
Speaker 1: he was really badly out of shape and uh and
Speaker 1: on uppers on downers to do whatever he needed. And uh,
Speaker 1: maybe if he had been a little more wise with
Speaker 1: his money early on, he wouldn't have felt that he
Speaker 1: need to tour incessantly like that. But he he was
Speaker 1: never at any point poor once he made it. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: he wasn't poor, but he uh, he definitely had a
Speaker 1: decline later in his career on the Vegas circuit. He
Speaker 1: wasn't His album sales dropped and basically the only way
Speaker 1: to make money was by playing just show after show
Speaker 1: after show. Gotcha? Gotcha? So you well, you know, speaking
Speaker 1: of pills, since you brought it up, I wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: bring it up, but yeah, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: tough to talk about older Elvis without the pills. Right.
Speaker 1: Did you know that he uh, he had that famous
Speaker 1: meeting with Richard Nixon. Yeah, I've seen the picture. Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: I got a hold of some letters right that he
Speaker 1: wrote to Nixon basically saying, you know, I've gotten in
Speaker 1: with the I think the hippie is in the the
Speaker 1: weather Underground and the Black Panthers. They trust me, so
Speaker 1: why don't you make me an undercover Federal Bureau of
Speaker 1: Narcotics agent and I can start busting you know, some
Speaker 1: hippie heads. Um. And apparently Nixon was like, that's okay,
Speaker 1: you know, thanks, I appreciate the gesture. And finally, um,
Speaker 1: Elvis starts just hounding him until Nixon finally agrees to
Speaker 1: meet with him, like a hound dog exactly. I was
Speaker 1: kind of hoping you'd get that one trapes by um.
Speaker 1: And so they meet and Elvis uh apparently gets very
Speaker 1: very emotional, starts blaming the Beatles for you know, an
Speaker 1: anti American sentiment. He's just not very happy with the
Speaker 1: state of affairs in America, breaks down, weeps a little bit,
Speaker 1: hugs Nixon, and Nixon gives him an honorary badge, and
Speaker 1: Elvis gives Nixon a commemorative cult forty five pistol and
Speaker 1: that was the famous photos that when that was taken. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that famous me. He was wearing a cake too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he wore those cakes. A lot didn't. Well, he's sort
Speaker 1: of a crime finer, I guess, I guess. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it worked well. Yeah, a lot of people might think
Speaker 1: there's some irony there and that he was on massive
Speaker 1: amounts of prescription drugs. He actually looks like he was
Speaker 1: on on something while he was meeting Nixon to become
Speaker 1: an undercover. Absolutely was, I think, but he the Memphis
Speaker 1: Mafia guys in some you know, candid interviews years later,
Speaker 1: said that Elvis very much drew a line between the
Speaker 1: illegal drugs and prescription drugs and thought, I'm getting them
Speaker 1: from my doctor, so that makes it okay, right right?
Speaker 1: And he hated um drug pushers, didn't he Yeah, like
Speaker 1: he was a man doctor though, he all bet'll bet
Speaker 1: who who wouldn't? So chuck, you got anything else on
Speaker 1: Graceful And now, you know, I just encourage people to
Speaker 1: go visit. You know, it's it's a site to be seen.
Speaker 1: It's um, the tour is well worth it. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun and Elvis is buried in the back
Speaker 1: in the meditation garden, right yeah, right in the in
Speaker 1: the side yard there, he and his mother and father
Speaker 1: and grandmother are all buried there. They weren't. He and
Speaker 1: his mother were originally buried somewhere else, but there was
Speaker 1: a lot of security issues, so his father, before he
Speaker 1: passed away, had to moved over. Well, I would strongly
Speaker 1: recommend first reading Mr Chuck Bryant's How grace Land Works
Speaker 1: on how stuff Works dot com for making the pilgrimage,
Speaker 1: and stick around to find out which article reminds Chuck
Speaker 1: of his college years right after this, So thanks for
Speaker 1: sticking around, Chuck, which which article reminds you of your
Speaker 1: college years? While Josh article is called are there really
Speaker 1: Hallucinogenic Frogs? By Christen Konger staff writer? So you were
Speaker 1: doing what exactly in college? Well? I had a frog collection.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that is not what I was expecting you
Speaker 1: to say, Chuck. Well, I don't know what you're thinking of, buddy,
Speaker 1: but at an extensive frog collection, and so this article
Speaker 1: is that just takes me back to the old days
Speaker 1: at you g a Well, I can I think I
Speaker 1: can hardly be blamed you got the goatee. It makes
Speaker 1: you look kind of shifty, like you might be Agian
Speaker 1: criminal acts here and brother. Yeah. Well, you can check
Speaker 1: that article out and plenty of other odd frog and
Speaker 1: hallicinogen related articles on how stuff works dot com. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Speaker 1: Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve camre
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you