America, You Sexy Bitch

by Meghan McCain, Michael Black

  So while we’re watching the band, I am getting overheated and standing alone to the side, and I tell Stephie I’m going to go find us dinner. I wander back up the Memphis strip—neon signs for different blues bars, different restaurants, some of them looking extremely cheesy in a Señor Frog’s sort of way.

  We end up at a restaurant next to BB King’s bar. I am happy to be inside, out of the humidity. I am happy that a beefsteak tomato salad is on the menu, and I am happy that I’m in Memphis with Stephie and Michael, right at this moment. As much as Michael drives me crazy at times, wandering off, saying things that I sometimes perceive to be insensitive, we have all definitely reached a genuine comfort level with each other. Stephie never bugs me. She is an anomaly among human beings: sweet, understanding, open, and with a dark, dirty sense of humor underneath that innocent layer. Stephie is salt of the earth, and she is invited to anything I ever do or anywhere I ever go for the rest of my life.

  I order an extremely dirty martini with blue-cheese-stuffed olives, the tomato salad, and a big, fat New York strip steak. Michael finally asks a question that I can tell he has been curious about for a while.

  “What exactly does your family do?” he asks. “I mean, like, how do you guys make the bulk of your income?” Translation: Meghan, I’ve been to your house, your family has a lot of dough. Where does it come from? I almost spit out my Grey Goose on him, look up, and sort of half sing, “Lord have mercy, ahhh! Okay. Okay.”

  Whatever else is going on in America, one cannot deny that the demagoguing of success and wealth has been a somewhat more recent trend. I am not embarrassed by the success my family, and my grandfather in particular, built. I think it’s incredible and I am very proud of all the accomplishments in my family. I think my late grandfather Jim Hensley is exactly what the American Dream is all about. He started out as a bellman in Phoenix, Arizona, and went on to build an incredibly successful and lucrative beer distributorship. I am proud of all of that and painfully, painfully aware of all the opportunities I have been handed because of his hard work, and the hard work and success of my mother and father. I only have to wake up and read my Twitter feed every morning if I want to be told that I’m a spoiled rich bitch who has been handed everything. My hope is that as Americans we stop judging and ridiculing those who have achieved great success, especially through hard work and perseverance.

  After I explain my grandfather’s business to Michael, he moves along quite quickly, wanting me to tell him a bad relationship or dating story. That has become a weird game with the three of us, me sharing my rocky and colorful past relationship stories, which always make everyone laugh, and then Stephie and I make fun of Michael for getting married as a teenager.

  Michael: Our stay at the Heartbreak Hotel that night is uneventful. Thank goodness they do not pipe Elvis music into the rooms. Mine is bland and featureless, except for the black-and-white photo of midcareer King wailing into a microphone. Something about the photo is itching at me. The way his face is scrunched up, the flamboyant way he splays his hand, the intensity with which he’s singing—all of it reminds me of somebody, but it takes me a minute to figure out who. Then it hits me: the singer from the band we saw on the street. Elvis looks just like that guy, plus a rhinestone-studded jumpsuit.

  Whether it was cultural pilferage or just the natural and inevitable next step in America’s evolution, Elvis was the first white guy to transport black music fully into the mainstream. He was James Dean and Little Richard and Eminem all rolled into one, the first true white rock ‘n’ roll rebel. I bet white America would have eventually embraced rock ‘n’ roll even without him, but Elvis introduced black and white America to each other in a new way, embodying all of America’s cross currents of race and sex, piousness and excess. He was a contrarian even to himself, a drug addict who volunteered to become an “Agent at Large” for Nixon’s war on drugs. He was, in the end, the perfect expression of the American Dream, self-made, brilliant but flawed. All the similarities between Elvis and Bill Clinton I thought about back in Little Rock come bubbling back at me, but I also think you could draw a (less obvious) line from Elvis to Obama.

  Just as Elvis was probably inevitable, so was Obama. Eventually somebody other than a white guy was going to be elected president. It might have happened earlier if Colin Powell had decided to run in 2000, but he didn’t, so the job fell to Obama. Both Elvis and Obama represent the collision of cultures, which is how America has always marked its own progress, from 1492 on. In Elvis’s case, the collision was musical, in Obama’s case biological. Both men were charismatic, inspirational figures who energized America and, then, the world. Both won Nobel Peace Prizes (except Elvis). Both were scorned and both did a lot to earn that scorn; hopefully Obama never makes any movies like Blue Hawaii.

  It scares me that there aren’t more Obamas in Congress. Why doesn’t our legislative branch represent more of who we are as a nation? Congress is something like 85 percent white. As I write this, there are only two African American Republican congressmen. Before that, an entire decade went by when there were none. If the stereotypical image of Republicans is as smug, old white guys it’s because, for the most part, they are. Democrats are better on this front. They’ve got their fair share of smug old white guys too, but they’ve also got some smug black guys, ladies, and Latinos. They’ve got an entire smug rainbow.

  A fair question would be to ask if it matters. Should congressmen physically resemble their constituents? What about financially? Does that affect their ability to govern fairly? Although I have no empirical data to support my conclusion, the answer is yes. I take that back. The actual answer is, fuck yes. If we really have government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” then that’s what it should be. Not “of the people, by some of the people, for the people.” Our government should be as diverse as its citizenry. Which is why I would like to be the first to nominate my North Little Rock transsexual friend, Ursula, to run for Congress.

  I turn off the light and think that our trip to Graceland in the morning is bound to disappoint. People expect the King to live in a castle, but by all accounts Graceland is architecturally unexceptional, a grand but normal house built on a human scale. Personally, I’m kind of excited to tour the grounds and house, to see the actual toilet where Elvis took his final, drugged-out dump.

  Meghan: Graceland! I love Graceland and, yes, I insisted that we visit, and, yes, I have been quite a few times and know exactly what to expect. I am excited Stephie and Michael haven’t been because it is fun to see the King’s house through new eyes.

  “I’m really not much of an Elvis fan,” Michael snips as we pass Elvis’s plane Lisa Marie on our way to the entrance.

  “Really, Michael?” I shoot back. “Really? I guess you’re not really much of a fan of apple pie, hot dogs, or freedom either.” Seriously, who isn’t an Elvis fan?!? We buy our tickets, sign in, get on the Graceland bus, and make the drive across the street to Graceland.

  As we get out and make our way through the front door of Graceland, I get a little butterfly in my stomach. There is just something about visiting such an American legend’s house. The man has had just as much impact on American culture as our founding fathers—and, yes, you can quote me on that. Graceland has a very Tara-esque feeling from Gone with the Wind, but more retro and’70s. If you haven’t been, schedule your trip as soon as possible.

  We make our way through and I notice Michael is smiling. I point out my favorite chair in the jungle room, the tear on the pool table from where one of his friends missed a pool ball. I tell Michael my favorite Elvis songs. We walk past Priscilla’s wedding dress and the photos of her on her wedding day to Elvis. I swear to God if I ever get married, I will do my hair exactly like Priscilla did on her wedding day; that woman is nothing if not stylish. Also if I ever have a daughter, I’m naming her Priscilla. If I have a son, I’m naming him Waylon. Swear to God. I’m in hog heaven. I like seeing all of Elvis’s costumes. I like seeing the leather
jumpsuit he wore on his “comeback” concert from Hawaii.

  I don’t know exactly what it is about Elvis, other than he was the first of his kind and changed music and American culture forever, but there’s something about him that appeals to every generation. I think the latter part of his life, when he went through hardships with prescription drugs and weight gain, is obviously sad but it doesn’t make him any less of a legend or an icon; it just makes the lengths that support people go to enable celebrities egregiously tragic. And why do they do it? I guess to be around famous people and steal some of their wealth. As I stand in the middle of gold-leaf heaven, I find it ironic that the people on tour are here in their T-shirts and flip-flops, as much to worship the excesses of a very wealthy man as they are his talents. Given a choice, they’d probably take the money over the music.

  This hypocrisy hits hard the day after my dinner-conversation defense last night. The anti-wealth trend is on the uptick, evident everywhere you turn. Look at Occupy Wall Street. Look at the way Mitt Romney has been treated during this election cycle, with his wealth perceived by many on the Left as a liability. Being wealthy, or coming from substantial means, is not lauded in America today like it was in Elvis’s day.

  There is obviously a wealth disconnect in this country, and, yes, Wall Street has screwed a lot of people in Middle America, but what concerns me is the new edict that you should be embarrassed by personal wealth and success. That is what continues to worry me about the Obama administration. The “spread the wealth around” feeling will always be one of the biggest alerts about what kind of political ideology our president adheres to. We should encourage hard work and success and not publicly scorn people once they get there. Even some of those who grew up without wealth can too easily forget where they came from. I do not flaunt my family’s money because, well, only a spoiled asshole would do that, but I also don’t like feeling like it’s something I need to hide or be embarrassed about.

  I do agree that the tax code is out of control, but I also believe in a free market system where checks and balances come into play. I apparently was one of the few people not offended by Mitt Romney’s comments that he enjoyed firing people who didn’t do a good job working for him. I do not understand why that was perceived as such a shocking thing to say. America is a capitalistic society; if you do a bad job, you should not be able to keep it. Alternatively, if you do a good job, you should be promoted. None of this seems particularly controversial to me, but to a lot of people it is.

  Michael: There are four different gift shops on the premises: Good Rockin’ Tonight, Elvis Threads, Elvis Kids, and Gallery Elvis, which sells “upscale art pieces and collectibles.” If you are purchasing your artworks at Graceland, I would be surprised if “upscale” was a priority, but that might just be my innate, elitist liberal snobbery talking.

  We queue up for the shuttle bus line with our tickets in hand, then take the short ride across the street to Graceland. As previously described, it looks like a house. The grounds are thirteen acres, and there is a surprising dearth of Christmas lights. I just sort of assumed that, even in July, Graceland would be festooned with Christmas lights and cars jacked up on cement blocks. But no.

  Our tour guide is almost comically bad. She speaks in the sing-songy cadence of a community theater performer. Also, her name is Crystal, which seems like the perfect name for a Graceland shuttle bus tour guide. What I learn from Crystal is that Elvis purchased the home when he was “ONLY twenty-TWO and ALREADY an international STAR.” If you’re wondering if there is any eating, drinking, smoking, video, or flash photography allowed within Graceland, Crystal also provides the answer to that question. No.

  The shuttle bus releases us at the front door to begin our self-guided tour. From the outside, Graceland has a low-rent Gone with the Wind kind of vibe. The house is brick clad, and there’s a large portico supporting four large white pillars. It’s not quite elegant, but if somebody you knew owned it, you’d think it was a pretty sweet place.

  Inside is a whole other story. It looks like 1977 threw up all over everything. Every room is different. It’s a crazy quilt of draperies, leather, stained glass, mirrored ceilings, wood paneling, and ceramic monkeys. The whole, dizzying effect is enough to induce epileptic seizure. I love it. I really do. As off kilter as it is, it feels like an honest expression of the man who lived here. Unlike so many other homes of dead Americans now serving as museums, Graceland feels like a place where an actual human being lived, a human being with terrible, terrible taste.

  We visit the old smokehouse he used for shooting, the racquetball court he built in 1975. (Judging by his later physique, I’m not sure how often he played.) We see the long gallery of gold and platinum records, which used to hold a slot-car track. There’s the pool area, the playground, and, at the end of the tour, Elvis’s grave. I visited George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon a year before with Martha and the kids. It was a similar experience, actually: long lines of people waiting to pay tribute to an American icon, a tour of the impressive, but not incredible, house featuring all the amenities of the day, and concluding with a stop by the great man’s grave. I bet Elvis would be tickled by the comparison. I bet George Washington would not.

  Meghan: When we get to Elvis’s grave, I point out that his middle name is spelled wrong. Michael seems surprised.

  “Yeah, a lot of people have conspiracy theories about that,” I say. “As if it’s proof that he’s still alive, but I think that he passed on a long time ago.”

  At the end of our tour I drag Michael to take a picture outside of Graceland. In the picture we are sitting in front of the steps, both of us leaning back on our elbows. Michael has a snarky, confused look on his face. I am beaming with a grin from ear to ear across my face. I tweet the picture with the caption MICHAEL AND I HAVE RELOCATED TO GRACELAND, although, let’s face it, Graceland is much more a house that I would live in than he would.

  As we are leaving, I am carrying two giant bags from the Elvis gift shops, and I’m glad to hear that Michael has enjoyed Graceland.

  “See, I told you!” I chide him. “He was the King! Every American should pay homage and a little respect.”

  Michael: When we’re done looking at Elvis’s famous misspelled grave, we take the shuttle back across the street. Meghan asks me what I thought about Graceland. I tell her I loved it. Which is true.

  I love it for the way it reduces an icon to human size. I love it for what it represents, the perpetual American mythology of the self-made man, and the reminder of how easy it is to fall from great heights. I am not an Elvis fan and probably never will be, but I love his story. And, like Elvis, I also love peanut butter, banana, and bacon sandwiches.

  Cousin John picks us up in front of the Heartbreak Hotel. We’re off to Nashville, the white half of our black and white tour of Tennessee. As we roll out of town, past old brick warehouses and empty storefronts, I keep flashing back to the band from the night before, the singer howling the blues on a sweaty night in Memphis. It’s true that the crowd self-segregated, but it’s also true that everybody was clapping along, dancing, and having a good time. All of us out there, together, swaying and bopping along to the same great American music.

  Nashville, Tennessee

  Honky-tonkin’

  Michael: Meghan is making a shit-ton of promises about Nashville: we’re going honky-tonkin’, we’re hanging out with her famous country music star buddy, we’re gonna eat crazy southern food, blah blah blah. She’s so excited you’d think we were going shoe shopping. I don’t get it. I’ve been to Nashville before and I don’t know why she’s freaking out so much. So they make country music there, so what? Country music sucks.

  It’s a misnomer to think that all elitist liberal jerk-offs like me only listen to Brooklyn-based indie bands with names like Thun-dernuts. Meghan buys into the stereotype too. Whenever we talk about music, Meghan says things like, “I’m sorry I don’t find Radiohead as incredible as you do.” Just snarky little comm
ents to get under my skin. But, I have to say, I think I am far more tolerant of different music than she is, with taste that ranges from “Sweet Home Alabama” to Kid Rock’s cover of “Sweet Home Alabama.”

  So, yes, I am open-minded and tolerant. That said, country music really does kind of suck. At least the glop they’re pumping out of Music Row in Nashville these days. Not because it’s country, but because it’s not country enough. Modern country is what used to be called “pop rock,” an uninspired mélange of broken hearts, bad puns, and inoffensive guitar solos. It is the low-sodium chicken noodle soup of musical genres.