“This is the story
of how we begin to remember.
This is the powerful pulsing
of love in the vein.”
When the album Graceland came out, I was 16 and working at a record store in Houston called Sound Warehouse. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’d go straight to the store from football practice and change in the backroom.
When it wasn’t football season, I’d work Friday nights and then a couple of shifts on the weekend. It was good gas money, and the employee discount was substantial. I put together the roots of my record collection working at that store.
Employees got a 30% discount on every purchase, but more importantly you had a punch card that got punched every time you bought something. Once the card was full, you got a free CD.
All my friends would tell me what they wanted, and I’d buy all their music for them using my discount. I’d ring up each item as a separate transaction, fill up my punch card and walk out of there with a free album pretty much every night.
It was a sweet gig.
The assistant manager was a guy named Brett. He was pretty much the coolest guy I knew at the time. He was a high school graduate, lived in an apartment and had a 1969 Malibu that he parked across three spots in the very back of the lot.
Brett took me under his wing musically. He introduced me to the Clash and the Sex Pistols. He made sure that I owned every Led Zeppelin record and after sufficient tutelage in the classics he introduced me to Metallica, Nine Inch Nails and an early-release version of Guns n Roses’ Appetite for Destruction.
Sometimes after work he’d invite me to hang out with him and his roommates at their apartment. He had a Kiss pinball machine in his living room which I played constantly.
They taught me how to clean a bag of weed and how to load a proper bowl. I didn’t smoke at the time, but they told me someday I would need these skills.
They were right.
There’s a girl in New York City,
who calls herself a human trampoline.”
The wildest kids in Texas come from El Paso.
In Texas, when you get to college and you start meeting kids from Dallas, San Antonio, Plano, Fort Worth and everywhere in between you quickly learn that the champions of crazy all hail from down in the west Texas town of El Paso. There’s no argument or debate to be made about this. It’s a fact.
They grow up quick on the border.
Of course, this was years before the drug cartels would turn Juarez into one of the most dangerous cities on the planet.
Back then, Juarez and El Paso were sister cities. People walked back and forth across that border all day long every day. Every kid in El Paso grew up with a Mexican nanny and a lot of families had relatives on both sides of the border.
At night, Juarez was the place you went to party. And if you were able to reach the bar you were good to go. Those El Paso kids start young. By the time they got to college they were all seasoned veterans and thoroughly well-versed in the practice of letting the good times roll.
I latched onto them immediately.
Jimmy and I were inseparable. The best way to describe Jimmy was that he was the most fun a person could have and still be a somewhat normal person. He made it to classes enough to pass and he made it to his job at the BBQ restaurant often enough not to get fired, but everything else in between was pure fun. That was Jimmy.
When the winter break came around Jimmy asked if I wanted to drive back to El Paso with him. He had agreed to drive a friend’s SUV back along with his dog, Caesar. I agreed to come along for the ride because I was dying to see the place where all these nut-head kids had grown up.
It’s 576 miles from Austin to El Paso. It’s a straight shot west on I-10. After Fort Stockton, it’s all desert and oil wells and tiny little towns.
Caesar was an enormous pit-bull. You had to walk him two people at a time because one person could only hold on to the leash for so long.
The drive takes about 9 hours—a bit longer if you have a pit bull who needs to be walked two people at a time.
El Paso is a beautiful city. As you arrive, the desert fades into the mountains and the city emerges nestled in a valley of green lawns and adobe style houses with Mexican tile roofs.
We get the machaca plate at Lucy’s and at night we go to Juarez. Jimmy knows as many people on the Mexican side of the border as he does on the American one. We meet up with his friend Caesar who I call Caesar the man to distinguish him from Caesar the dog. Caesar the man is the Mexican Jimmy. He’s as much fun as a person can have. He hugs me a lot.
We drink at the Kentucky Club which has a trough in front of the bar that you can pee into while you drink. It’s startling at first, but makes perfect sense after several rounds of Dos Equis and tequilas.
I eat street tacos for the first time and they’re wonderful. Jimmy and Caesar call them gatos tacos and the man cooking them smiles and shouts, “Meow! Meow!”, which I think is hysterical.
We hang out with Caesar and his friends all week. I decide that Christmas in Mexico is more beautiful than Christmas in America, but I’m Jewish so what do I know? Caesar introduces us to a friend and Jimmy buys a quarter pound of weed from him for $75.
In Austin he can turn that into $250-$500 easily, but if he can get it up to New York it’s worth $2500. A girl he grew up with in El Paso who is now a student at NYU has agreed to meet him in Memphis after he drops me off in Austin.
We just had to get it out of El Paso.
Along with Caesar the dog.
“These are the day of lasers in the jungle.
Lasers in the jungle somewhere.
A staccato signal of constant information.
A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires”
Elvis didn’t name Graceland, Graceland. Graceland was named after Grace Tooth, the daughter of Stephen C. Tooth who was the man who owned the land before Elvis eventually bought it.
Also, Paul Simon didn’t want to name the album Graceland, Graceland. Graceland was just a rough lyric that fit rhythmically, but meaninglessly into the song he was working on at the time. Simon said he intended to replace it “once something better came along”.
But the lyric stuck in his head.
“I’m going to Graceland. Graceland.
Memphis, Tennessee.
I’m going to Graceland.”
Eventually, Simon started to believe that the lyric was actually calling out to him—like a voice—urging him to go to the real Graceland. And so, he did.
"For reasons I cannot explain
There's some part of me that wants to see Graceland"
He didn’t tell anyone at Graceland that he was coming. He just wanted to arrive like everyone else, stand in line and take the tour.
It’s written that “he compared going to Graceland and waiting with the crowds to a religious experience, a pilgrimage of people from all walks of life, gathering together in remembrance of their common god, Elvis.”
“I’ve reason to believe we all will be received In Graceland.”
When I think of the word Graceland and I don’t allow myself to think of Graceland as the place Elvis lived or as the album Paul Simon made, but only Graceland the word; under these constraints I think of Graceland differently.
With those filters the word Graceland begins to feel like a place of refuge.
The word begins to conjure images in my mind of holy ground.
A sacred space.
A peaceful harbor for battered souls in need of healing. I see a lot of people on their knees, drenched in light with their arms stretched outward
I see a place where all are welcome. It's a place I want to be, but don't know how to get to other than by stumbling upon it in my memories.
In my mind, you never know you’re in Graceland when you’re in Graceland. You can only identify it by looking back and hoping there’s more Graceland to come.
It's a pleasant thought. It’s gentle and forgiving. It's innocent.
Graceland is like Caesar the man. It wants to hug you a lot. And it’s okay because it feels so good.
“The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry.”
Thanks for reading. I'll see you again real soon.