September 25, 2008 • 16 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. Here's Chuck Bryant. I'm here. Okay, Chuck,
do your best Elvis and President Marin I don't do
that kind of thing. That was actually pretty good, Chuck.
(00:21):
That's the last time I'm gonna do that during this podcast. Okay,
that's fine. That's fine. This podcast, by the way, is
how Grace Lam works, which makes sense right right. Can
you do Elvis? No, not at all. I'm not even
gonna try. And I'll tell you somebody else who can't
do Elvis is a guy named Matt Hale. Have you
heard of this guy? Uh? It rings a bell. He's
a British radio producer, um who just happens to really
(00:44):
like Elvis and uh one day he was going through
some second hand store, I guess in London and found
a white jumpsuit and his next thought was, well, gee,
I guess I'll go spend the next year touring the
world dress as Elvis. And he did. Um the problem
and he's been everywhere he's been to, like Brazil he
was there for a carnival. He. Um, he's been to Ireland,
(01:05):
Hall in the US. I'm not entirely certain what cities
he visited in the US as an impersonator. Yeah, and
and not necessarily as an impersonator dressed as Elvis. It's
a tribute to the king. So he just travels as Elvis. Yeah. Um.
And so I guess the reason I hesitate to call
him in impersonators because he visited Australia, and I guess
(01:25):
that's where they have like the biggest Elvis festival, Elvis
fan fest in the world. Um, and he plays dead
last out of god knows how many Elvis impersonators for
look like and sounded like contests. So I think you
may you may have beaten Matt Hale had you had
you been there, right, And I don't even have a jumpsuit,
but you know you no, no, no, okay, So you know, Um,
(01:47):
I'm not. I don't know that much about Elvis. So
I've never been that big of a fan. I know
it's kind of sacrilege to say that in certain quarters,
but you know, hey, this is me. Take me as
I am, right, so you know much more about grace Land,
Elvis than I do. Well, I wrote the article and
I've been there. Did were you did? Were you able
to finagle a free trip to Graceland for you know,
(02:09):
research the article? Now I've been there before though, so
that helped a lot. My family, actually my mom's family
is from Memphis, So yeah, I'm when to come there.
Probably can't. There is a boy scout in the front lawn,
right No, no, so alright, so Chuck, tell me tell
the readers who haven't been to grace Land, like me,
what is it like when you walk in that front door?
(02:30):
Is the is the is the spirit? Is the stink
still there? Well, the stank is still there. Yeah, it's um.
You know, it's unlike any other house that you've ever
been to. Probably like it might it might smack you know,
those of us that are probably in our thirties or older,
you know, have fond memories of their houses in the
seventies and the shag carbon stuff like that, So it
kind of smacks of that. But two degrees that you
(02:53):
can't even imagine, because of course it's Elvis and he
was loaded, you know, for the time you a lot
of money he could have or you know, gold plated everything,
and you know, shag carpet on the ceiling and on
the walls, and it's just his taste is well documented,
right well, I mean the jumpsuits alone kind of do it.
I mean, how much money did that men spend on sequence?
(03:13):
I don't have that. I've got a lot of statistics,
but I don't have that one throwing out at me.
What's the best when you've got well, if we're talking
grace Land. Uh, he bought the house for a total
of a hundred and two thousand, five dollars and uh
n seven and uh Originally it was already purchased by
the y m c A. And he dribbled that number
(03:35):
just to get the house. He edged him out, didn't
he big time? I wonder what the y m c
A thinks of Elvis, at least the Memphis chapter. Yeah,
I don't know, you know, because I mean he just
kind of stepped in and said, no, I'm taking it right.
He's their favorite son, though, so I imagine they were
pretty cool with it. They're cool with it. What the
house was already named grace Land when he bought it,
wasn't it? Yeah? It was. I think a lot of
people probably think he named it Graceland, like after his
(03:56):
mother Grace. That's what Yeah, that's not even his pomp's
name as well, it's Glad right. Uh yeah, it was
the original owners, doctor and Mrs Thomas Moore. Um, I
think it was the great aunt Grace two t O O.
F is who it was named after. On the fourteen acres.
They're just south of downtown Memphis. So so take us
(04:17):
on a little mini tour. I knew, um just from
pictures I've seen. Really the only extravagance that that I
note from the out from an outdoor view are the gates.
But if you look at the house, it looks like,
you know, you'd expect to see an old, retired farming
couple living inside there. Yeah, it's a classic revival as
the official like the architectural styles what they call it.
(04:38):
And uh yeah, from the outside it doesn't look like much.
But at the time, you know, it's this is late fifties,
it was. It was the nicest house in Memphis at
the time. Yeah, I mean that there may be some
debate there, but he always told his parents he would
buy them the nicest house in Memphis. Once he made
it big and he was saying this as a little kid. Yeah,
he he knew he was due for stardom. I did
not realize that. I always had the impression that he
(04:58):
kind of stumbled uh uh bottom backwards. No, No, he
knew he was he was destined for stardom. And he
actually bought the house when he was twenty two, which
is just crazy when you think about he was just
a kid. Yeah, yeah, about the best house in memphisis
very impressive. So so you walk in, there's a foyer. Yeah,
you walk into the foyer, and when you're in the fourier,
(05:19):
you're actually directly beneath the bathroom where he where he
passed away. And they don't tell you that on the tour,
you know, because kind of a macab way to begin
the tour exact right. And so you walk in and
right in front of you are the steps that lead upstairs,
and that's blocked off and was has always been blocked off.
Why I mean, is there like some sort of you know,
(05:39):
secret love child that's chained a radiator upstairs? Why would
they keep it locked off? Well, when Elvis lived there,
it was pretty much private area too. He always had
Grayson was always really busy and always had tons of
guests and his Memphis Mafia was what his entourage was called.
Those guys, don't you Yeah, man, they're awesome. Yeah, I
was gonna say something else. They're very cool, and uh
(06:00):
they there was always just a lot of activity, people
coming and going, guests in and out, people working there,
obviously his staff, and so his upstairs was his retreat,
you know, that's where he went to chill out and
do his private elvis things. And uh so he didn't
let people up there back then. There was just kind
of understood no wing one up there. So yeah, keeping
(06:23):
with those wishes. It's still closed off today. And apparently
this is really creepy. I didn't know this till I
studied this untouched since he passed away. Apparently in his
bathroom there's like his toothbrush and the squeezed toothpaste and
stick a deodorant that he was using that day and
they didn't touch anything. Do you know what he was
reading when he died? Even sorry, including sweat stains on
(06:45):
his pillow? What he was reading when he died. There's
actually a little speculation I can't remember, but there are
two different books in the bathroom, and they don't know
which one he was reading, but you can find out
on the internet. I just didn't have that it included
that matter. I'm going to guess a thousand and one
Arabian Nights. That's a that's a real good guests, thank you, bet.
I think one of them was actually a book on
religion and spirituality, if that matters. Uh. So you go
(07:06):
into the foyer. The fourier to your right is uh
the one of the living rooms, the famous one with
the fourteen foot couch. Yeah, the tin foot coft coffee table.
That's a lot of coffee. It's a lot of coffee.
And then beyond that is the the upstairs music room
with like his piano and stuff, which we can you
know would entertain people, right And you you had also
(07:28):
said that, uh that you made a point that he
may have inadvertently created the man cave. And he had
like a couple of them, And these are the ones
that I was familiar with, like the jungle room, the
TV room. Um, and I think these are just totally
beyond cool. Like to like start with the jungle room,
this sounds just super awesome, Well, yeah, super awesome or
(07:50):
super tacky, defending on which way you want to look
at to find Uh. Yeah, I think it was the
original man room. He Um. It was originally a screened
in porch and he had it converted when he and
Priscilla got divorced, So she wasn't a part of this.
She always makes a note to say she was no
part of the jungle room. And uh, you know, it's
got it like an African motif. It's got shag carpet
on the walls and ceilings and floors. He had a
(08:12):
working water fountain that leaked everywhere all the time that
he had disconnected because of the leaks, and uh, it
was actually provided soundproofing. So he ended up recording some
music there in the jungle room. Yeah, you said he
recorded one album and half of another one there. Yeah,
half of Moody Blues and I think Live from Elvis
Pressy Boulevard and mitis Tennessee. Yeah, that's pretty cool. What
(08:33):
about the TV room, Chuck, three TVs at once. Where
do you get that idea? Yeah, that's downstairs. He got
that idea from President Lyndon Johnson. He heard that he Uh,
he used to watch three newscasts at the same time
to keep up with things. So Elvis got you know,
he had to have the best. So he had three
TVs built into the wall and watch football apparently not newscasts.
I got you, I Got you. And he had some
(08:54):
like pretty cool toys, like I understand. He had two jets. Yeah,
he had two jets. He had one smaller private, and
then he had a big honking seven seven I think
called the Lisa Marina. I actually know a story about
that involves the Lisa Marie. Yeah, so basically, um, I
think it was. It was seventy six. Elvis is sitting
(09:15):
around with a couple of his buddies in the Memphis Mafia, right,
and uh, like a couple of years earlier, they've been
playing a show in Denver and they went to eat
at this, uh this restaurant called the Colorado gold Mine Company,
and they had the sandwich called the Fool's gold Sandwich.
Have you ever had one of these? One of my
friends through a birthday party for her husband, and she
(09:36):
called it a very partially hydrogenated birthday. And there was
all this wonderful food like ham dogs, um, that that
kind of burger that you serve on a crispy cream
donut as a bun. And she also made the Fool's
Gold sandwich. So it's like heavily buttered bread, uh, peanut butter,
jelly and bacon and then you like kind of grill it.
(09:58):
It's the greatest thing you'll ever have in your So
Elvis got his hands on one of these things. And
the reason they were called Fool's Gold sandwiches was because
they were they run an entire loaf of Italian bread,
and they were meant for like twenty people like Elvis
ate them right exactly, Elvis ate them apparently by himself, right,
(10:18):
So there's there's no telling how many pounds of bacon
or I think like a duck. Yeah, he just swallowed,
no biting whatsoever. But they call it full's gold because
only a full would would would would pay for they
were like fifty dollar sandwiches. And this is in the
mid seventies. So anyway, they're sitting around one night in
February seventy six, and um, they're one one of the
(10:39):
one of the guys in his entourage says, you know, hey,
I wish I had one of those sandwich is right now.
So Elvis calls up, the calls up the restaurant in Denver,
tells him that he wants um, I think like thirty
of them, and uh, he says that they'll be there
in a couple of hours. Swich. Yeah. They well, they
fire up the Leisa Marine, get in the jet, go
(11:02):
to the restaurant. Actually, I don't even think they made
to the restaurant for this special order. The restaurant tour
and his wife showed up with the sandwiches, um, a
case of champagne and some other stuff, and they think
they ate him in the hangar and just for the
just for the tab for the food was like three grand.
But when you factor in all of the added expense,
(11:22):
there's one late night trip. This is that like one
in the morning for these sandwiches came to like sixteen
grand or something like that. And that today and today,
so that's that's probably like eighteen grand at least at
least well, you know, if he hadn't done things like that,
he may have ended up living instead of dying in
his bathroom. Yeah, but what he have lived as interesting
(11:42):
a life as he did, Well, maybe not. But one
of the reasons that you know, it was well documented
that he was on all these pills to keep them
going all the time. And uh, one of the reasons
was he said he couldn't slow down because he had
so many people he had to pay for. He had
a huge staff and he felt very beholden to them,
and I didn't want to let them down, and he
didn't want to lay people off. So he just had
(12:04):
this killer, brutal schedule, you know, later in life when
he was really badly out of shape and uh and
on uppers on downers to do whatever he needed. And uh,
maybe if he had been a little more wise with
his money early on, he wouldn't have felt that he
need to tour incessantly like that. But he he was
never at any point poor once he made it. No, no, no,
he wasn't poor, but he uh, he definitely had a
(12:26):
decline later in his career on the Vegas circuit. He
wasn't His album sales dropped and basically the only way
to make money was by playing just show after show
after show. Gotcha? Gotcha? So you well, you know, speaking
of pills, since you brought it up, I wasn't gonna
bring it up, but yeah, you know, it's kind of
tough to talk about older Elvis without the pills. Right.
(12:46):
Did you know that he uh, he had that famous
meeting with Richard Nixon. Yeah, I've seen the picture. Yeah. Oh,
I got a hold of some letters right that he
wrote to Nixon basically saying, you know, I've gotten in
with the I think the hippie is in the the
weather Underground and the Black Panthers. They trust me, so
why don't you make me an undercover Federal Bureau of
(13:08):
Narcotics agent and I can start busting you know, some
hippie heads. Um. And apparently Nixon was like, that's okay,
you know, thanks, I appreciate the gesture. And finally, um,
Elvis starts just hounding him until Nixon finally agrees to
meet with him, like a hound dog exactly. I was
kind of hoping you'd get that one trapes by um.
(13:29):
And so they meet and Elvis uh apparently gets very
very emotional, starts blaming the Beatles for you know, an
anti American sentiment. He's just not very happy with the
state of affairs in America, breaks down, weeps a little bit,
hugs Nixon, and Nixon gives him an honorary badge, and
Elvis gives Nixon a commemorative cult forty five pistol and
(13:49):
that was the famous photos that when that was taken. Yeah, yeah,
that that famous me. He was wearing a cake too, Yeah,
he wore those cakes. A lot didn't. Well, he's sort
of a crime finer, I guess, I guess. So yeah,
it worked well. Yeah, a lot of people might think
there's some irony there and that he was on massive
amounts of prescription drugs. He actually looks like he was
on on something while he was meeting Nixon to become
(14:09):
an undercover. Absolutely was, I think, but he the Memphis
Mafia guys in some you know, candid interviews years later,
said that Elvis very much drew a line between the
illegal drugs and prescription drugs and thought, I'm getting them
from my doctor, so that makes it okay, right right?
And he hated um drug pushers, didn't he Yeah, like
(14:30):
he was a man doctor though, he all bet'll bet
who who wouldn't? So chuck, you got anything else on
Graceful And now, you know, I just encourage people to
go visit. You know, it's it's a site to be seen.
It's um, the tour is well worth it. It's a
lot of fun and Elvis is buried in the back
in the meditation garden, right yeah, right in the in
the side yard there, he and his mother and father
(14:53):
and grandmother are all buried there. They weren't. He and
his mother were originally buried somewhere else, but there was
a lot of security issues, so his father, before he
passed away, had to moved over. Well, I would strongly
recommend first reading Mr Chuck Bryant's How grace Land Works
on how stuff Works dot com for making the pilgrimage,
and stick around to find out which article reminds Chuck
(15:14):
of his college years right after this, So thanks for
sticking around, Chuck, which which article reminds you of your
college years? While Josh article is called are there really
Hallucinogenic Frogs? By Christen Konger staff writer? So you were
doing what exactly in college? Well? I had a frog collection.
(15:34):
Oh yeah, that is not what I was expecting you
to say, Chuck. Well, I don't know what you're thinking of, buddy,
but at an extensive frog collection, and so this article
is that just takes me back to the old days
at you g a Well, I can I think I
can hardly be blamed you got the goatee. It makes
you look kind of shifty, like you might be Agian
criminal acts here and brother. Yeah. Well, you can check
that article out and plenty of other odd frog and
(15:57):
hallicinogen related articles on how stuff works dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve camre
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. Here's Chuck Bryant. I'm here. Okay, Chuck,
do your best Elvis and President Marin I don't do
that kind of thing. That was actually pretty good, Chuck.
(00:21):
That's the last time I'm gonna do that during this podcast. Okay,
that's fine. That's fine. This podcast, by the way, is
how Grace Lam works, which makes sense right right. Can
you do Elvis? No, not at all. I'm not even
gonna try. And I'll tell you somebody else who can't
do Elvis is a guy named Matt Hale. Have you
heard of this guy? Uh? It rings a bell. He's
a British radio producer, um who just happens to really
(00:44):
like Elvis and uh one day he was going through
some second hand store, I guess in London and found
a white jumpsuit and his next thought was, well, gee,
I guess I'll go spend the next year touring the
world dress as Elvis. And he did. Um the problem
and he's been everywhere he's been to, like Brazil he
was there for a carnival. He. Um, he's been to Ireland,
(01:05):
Hall in the US. I'm not entirely certain what cities
he visited in the US as an impersonator. Yeah, and
and not necessarily as an impersonator dressed as Elvis. It's
a tribute to the king. So he just travels as Elvis. Yeah. Um.
And so I guess the reason I hesitate to call
him in impersonators because he visited Australia, and I guess
(01:25):
that's where they have like the biggest Elvis festival, Elvis
fan fest in the world. Um, and he plays dead
last out of god knows how many Elvis impersonators for
look like and sounded like contests. So I think you
may you may have beaten Matt Hale had you had
you been there, right, And I don't even have a jumpsuit,
but you know you no, no, no, okay, So you know, Um,
(01:47):
I'm not. I don't know that much about Elvis. So
I've never been that big of a fan. I know
it's kind of sacrilege to say that in certain quarters,
but you know, hey, this is me. Take me as
I am, right, so you know much more about grace Land,
Elvis than I do. Well, I wrote the article and
I've been there. Did were you did? Were you able
to finagle a free trip to Graceland for you know,
(02:09):
research the article? Now I've been there before though, so
that helped a lot. My family, actually my mom's family
is from Memphis, So yeah, I'm when to come there.
Probably can't. There is a boy scout in the front lawn,
right No, no, so alright, so Chuck, tell me tell
the readers who haven't been to grace Land, like me,
what is it like when you walk in that front door?
(02:30):
Is the is the is the spirit? Is the stink
still there? Well, the stank is still there. Yeah, it's um.
You know, it's unlike any other house that you've ever
been to. Probably like it might it might smack you know,
those of us that are probably in our thirties or older,
you know, have fond memories of their houses in the
seventies and the shag carbon stuff like that, So it
kind of smacks of that. But two degrees that you
(02:53):
can't even imagine, because of course it's Elvis and he
was loaded, you know, for the time you a lot
of money he could have or you know, gold plated everything,
and you know, shag carpet on the ceiling and on
the walls, and it's just his taste is well documented,
right well, I mean the jumpsuits alone kind of do it.
I mean, how much money did that men spend on sequence?
(03:13):
I don't have that. I've got a lot of statistics,
but I don't have that one throwing out at me.
What's the best when you've got well, if we're talking
grace Land. Uh, he bought the house for a total
of a hundred and two thousand, five dollars and uh
n seven and uh Originally it was already purchased by
the y m c A. And he dribbled that number
(03:35):
just to get the house. He edged him out, didn't
he big time? I wonder what the y m c
A thinks of Elvis, at least the Memphis chapter. Yeah,
I don't know, you know, because I mean he just
kind of stepped in and said, no, I'm taking it right.
He's their favorite son, though, so I imagine they were
pretty cool with it. They're cool with it. What the
house was already named grace Land when he bought it,
wasn't it? Yeah? It was. I think a lot of
people probably think he named it Graceland, like after his
(03:56):
mother Grace. That's what Yeah, that's not even his pomp's
name as well, it's Glad right. Uh yeah, it was
the original owners, doctor and Mrs Thomas Moore. Um, I
think it was the great aunt Grace two t O O.
F is who it was named after. On the fourteen acres.
They're just south of downtown Memphis. So so take us
(04:17):
on a little mini tour. I knew, um just from
pictures I've seen. Really the only extravagance that that I
note from the out from an outdoor view are the gates.
But if you look at the house, it looks like,
you know, you'd expect to see an old, retired farming
couple living inside there. Yeah, it's a classic revival as
the official like the architectural styles what they call it.
(04:38):
And uh yeah, from the outside it doesn't look like much.
But at the time, you know, it's this is late fifties,
it was. It was the nicest house in Memphis at
the time. Yeah, I mean that there may be some
debate there, but he always told his parents he would
buy them the nicest house in Memphis. Once he made
it big and he was saying this as a little kid. Yeah,
he he knew he was due for stardom. I did
not realize that. I always had the impression that he
(04:58):
kind of stumbled uh uh bottom backwards. No, No, he
knew he was he was destined for stardom. And he
actually bought the house when he was twenty two, which
is just crazy when you think about he was just
a kid. Yeah, yeah, about the best house in memphisis
very impressive. So so you walk in, there's a foyer. Yeah,
you walk into the foyer, and when you're in the fourier,
(05:19):
you're actually directly beneath the bathroom where he where he
passed away. And they don't tell you that on the tour,
you know, because kind of a macab way to begin
the tour exact right. And so you walk in and
right in front of you are the steps that lead upstairs,
and that's blocked off and was has always been blocked off.
Why I mean, is there like some sort of you know,
(05:39):
secret love child that's chained a radiator upstairs? Why would
they keep it locked off? Well, when Elvis lived there,
it was pretty much private area too. He always had
Grayson was always really busy and always had tons of
guests and his Memphis Mafia was what his entourage was called.
Those guys, don't you Yeah, man, they're awesome. Yeah, I
was gonna say something else. They're very cool, and uh
(06:00):
they there was always just a lot of activity, people
coming and going, guests in and out, people working there,
obviously his staff, and so his upstairs was his retreat,
you know, that's where he went to chill out and
do his private elvis things. And uh so he didn't
let people up there back then. There was just kind
of understood no wing one up there. So yeah, keeping
(06:23):
with those wishes. It's still closed off today. And apparently
this is really creepy. I didn't know this till I
studied this untouched since he passed away. Apparently in his
bathroom there's like his toothbrush and the squeezed toothpaste and
stick a deodorant that he was using that day and
they didn't touch anything. Do you know what he was
reading when he died? Even sorry, including sweat stains on
(06:45):
his pillow? What he was reading when he died. There's
actually a little speculation I can't remember, but there are
two different books in the bathroom, and they don't know
which one he was reading, but you can find out
on the internet. I just didn't have that it included
that matter. I'm going to guess a thousand and one
Arabian Nights. That's a that's a real good guests, thank you, bet.
I think one of them was actually a book on
religion and spirituality, if that matters. Uh. So you go
(07:06):
into the foyer. The fourier to your right is uh
the one of the living rooms, the famous one with
the fourteen foot couch. Yeah, the tin foot coft coffee table.
That's a lot of coffee. It's a lot of coffee.
And then beyond that is the the upstairs music room
with like his piano and stuff, which we can you
know would entertain people, right And you you had also
(07:28):
said that, uh that you made a point that he
may have inadvertently created the man cave. And he had
like a couple of them, And these are the ones
that I was familiar with, like the jungle room, the
TV room. Um, and I think these are just totally
beyond cool. Like to like start with the jungle room,
this sounds just super awesome, Well, yeah, super awesome or
(07:50):
super tacky, defending on which way you want to look
at to find Uh. Yeah, I think it was the
original man room. He Um. It was originally a screened
in porch and he had it converted when he and
Priscilla got divorced, So she wasn't a part of this.
She always makes a note to say she was no
part of the jungle room. And uh, you know, it's
got it like an African motif. It's got shag carpet
on the walls and ceilings and floors. He had a
(08:12):
working water fountain that leaked everywhere all the time that
he had disconnected because of the leaks, and uh, it
was actually provided soundproofing. So he ended up recording some
music there in the jungle room. Yeah, you said he
recorded one album and half of another one there. Yeah,
half of Moody Blues and I think Live from Elvis
Pressy Boulevard and mitis Tennessee. Yeah, that's pretty cool. What
(08:33):
about the TV room, Chuck, three TVs at once. Where
do you get that idea? Yeah, that's downstairs. He got
that idea from President Lyndon Johnson. He heard that he Uh,
he used to watch three newscasts at the same time
to keep up with things. So Elvis got you know,
he had to have the best. So he had three
TVs built into the wall and watch football apparently not newscasts.
I got you, I Got you. And he had some
(08:54):
like pretty cool toys, like I understand. He had two jets. Yeah,
he had two jets. He had one smaller private, and
then he had a big honking seven seven I think
called the Lisa Marina. I actually know a story about
that involves the Lisa Marie. Yeah, so basically, um, I
think it was. It was seventy six. Elvis is sitting
(09:15):
around with a couple of his buddies in the Memphis Mafia, right,
and uh, like a couple of years earlier, they've been
playing a show in Denver and they went to eat
at this, uh this restaurant called the Colorado gold Mine Company,
and they had the sandwich called the Fool's gold Sandwich.
Have you ever had one of these? One of my
friends through a birthday party for her husband, and she
(09:36):
called it a very partially hydrogenated birthday. And there was
all this wonderful food like ham dogs, um, that that
kind of burger that you serve on a crispy cream
donut as a bun. And she also made the Fool's
Gold sandwich. So it's like heavily buttered bread, uh, peanut butter,
jelly and bacon and then you like kind of grill it.
(09:58):
It's the greatest thing you'll ever have in your So
Elvis got his hands on one of these things. And
the reason they were called Fool's Gold sandwiches was because
they were they run an entire loaf of Italian bread,
and they were meant for like twenty people like Elvis
ate them right exactly, Elvis ate them apparently by himself, right,
(10:18):
So there's there's no telling how many pounds of bacon
or I think like a duck. Yeah, he just swallowed,
no biting whatsoever. But they call it full's gold because
only a full would would would would pay for they
were like fifty dollar sandwiches. And this is in the
mid seventies. So anyway, they're sitting around one night in
February seventy six, and um, they're one one of the
(10:39):
one of the guys in his entourage says, you know, hey,
I wish I had one of those sandwich is right now.
So Elvis calls up, the calls up the restaurant in Denver,
tells him that he wants um, I think like thirty
of them, and uh, he says that they'll be there
in a couple of hours. Swich. Yeah. They well, they
fire up the Leisa Marine, get in the jet, go
(11:02):
to the restaurant. Actually, I don't even think they made
to the restaurant for this special order. The restaurant tour
and his wife showed up with the sandwiches, um, a
case of champagne and some other stuff, and they think
they ate him in the hangar and just for the
just for the tab for the food was like three grand.
But when you factor in all of the added expense,
(11:22):
there's one late night trip. This is that like one
in the morning for these sandwiches came to like sixteen
grand or something like that. And that today and today,
so that's that's probably like eighteen grand at least at
least well, you know, if he hadn't done things like that,
he may have ended up living instead of dying in
his bathroom. Yeah, but what he have lived as interesting
(11:42):
a life as he did, Well, maybe not. But one
of the reasons that you know, it was well documented
that he was on all these pills to keep them
going all the time. And uh, one of the reasons
was he said he couldn't slow down because he had
so many people he had to pay for. He had
a huge staff and he felt very beholden to them,
and I didn't want to let them down, and he
didn't want to lay people off. So he just had
(12:04):
this killer, brutal schedule, you know, later in life when
he was really badly out of shape and uh and
on uppers on downers to do whatever he needed. And uh,
maybe if he had been a little more wise with
his money early on, he wouldn't have felt that he
need to tour incessantly like that. But he he was
never at any point poor once he made it. No, no, no,
he wasn't poor, but he uh, he definitely had a
(12:26):
decline later in his career on the Vegas circuit. He
wasn't His album sales dropped and basically the only way
to make money was by playing just show after show
after show. Gotcha? Gotcha? So you well, you know, speaking
of pills, since you brought it up, I wasn't gonna
bring it up, but yeah, you know, it's kind of
tough to talk about older Elvis without the pills. Right.
(12:46):
Did you know that he uh, he had that famous
meeting with Richard Nixon. Yeah, I've seen the picture. Yeah. Oh,
I got a hold of some letters right that he
wrote to Nixon basically saying, you know, I've gotten in
with the I think the hippie is in the the
weather Underground and the Black Panthers. They trust me, so
why don't you make me an undercover Federal Bureau of
(13:08):
Narcotics agent and I can start busting you know, some
hippie heads. Um. And apparently Nixon was like, that's okay,
you know, thanks, I appreciate the gesture. And finally, um,
Elvis starts just hounding him until Nixon finally agrees to
meet with him, like a hound dog exactly. I was
kind of hoping you'd get that one trapes by um.
(13:29):
And so they meet and Elvis uh apparently gets very
very emotional, starts blaming the Beatles for you know, an
anti American sentiment. He's just not very happy with the
state of affairs in America, breaks down, weeps a little bit,
hugs Nixon, and Nixon gives him an honorary badge, and
Elvis gives Nixon a commemorative cult forty five pistol and
(13:49):
that was the famous photos that when that was taken. Yeah, yeah,
that that famous me. He was wearing a cake too, Yeah,
he wore those cakes. A lot didn't. Well, he's sort
of a crime finer, I guess, I guess. So yeah,
it worked well. Yeah, a lot of people might think
there's some irony there and that he was on massive
amounts of prescription drugs. He actually looks like he was
on on something while he was meeting Nixon to become
(14:09):
an undercover. Absolutely was, I think, but he the Memphis
Mafia guys in some you know, candid interviews years later,
said that Elvis very much drew a line between the
illegal drugs and prescription drugs and thought, I'm getting them
from my doctor, so that makes it okay, right right?
And he hated um drug pushers, didn't he Yeah, like
(14:30):
he was a man doctor though, he all bet'll bet
who who wouldn't? So chuck, you got anything else on
Graceful And now, you know, I just encourage people to
go visit. You know, it's it's a site to be seen.
It's um, the tour is well worth it. It's a
lot of fun and Elvis is buried in the back
in the meditation garden, right yeah, right in the in
the side yard there, he and his mother and father
(14:53):
and grandmother are all buried there. They weren't. He and
his mother were originally buried somewhere else, but there was
a lot of security issues, so his father, before he
passed away, had to moved over. Well, I would strongly
recommend first reading Mr Chuck Bryant's How grace Land Works
on how stuff Works dot com for making the pilgrimage,
and stick around to find out which article reminds Chuck
(15:14):
of his college years right after this, So thanks for
sticking around, Chuck, which which article reminds you of your
college years? While Josh article is called are there really
Hallucinogenic Frogs? By Christen Konger staff writer? So you were
doing what exactly in college? Well? I had a frog collection.
(15:34):
Oh yeah, that is not what I was expecting you
to say, Chuck. Well, I don't know what you're thinking of, buddy,
but at an extensive frog collection, and so this article
is that just takes me back to the old days
at you g a Well, I can I think I
can hardly be blamed you got the goatee. It makes
you look kind of shifty, like you might be Agian
criminal acts here and brother. Yeah. Well, you can check
that article out and plenty of other odd frog and
(15:57):
hallicinogen related articles on how stuff works dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
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