Graceland

I've been trying to scam my way into this Paul Simon retrospective at BAM, and the program that I really want to see sold out almost immediately...which is terrible, because it's the Under African Skies program and they are going to do all the songs from Graceland, which is the undisputed best album ever...so yeah, I'm working the system and trying to get tickets. For some reason just thinking about the song "Graceland" makes me want to go to Graceland and visit Elvis. It's a song about salvation and redemption and it's so good and I love it! Its a great album for someone who recently moved to NY. So many great references to NY on that album and a few songs that perfectly capture that feeling of how you can be surrounded and still be lonely sometimes.
So I have loved the album Graceland since my dad made me listen to it in the car as a kid, but my love, and I wouldn't even call it love, more like my strange interest in Elvis (and not even the man himself, mostly just the memorabilia of the man) started much later in my life.
One day in a second-hand store in Hollywood I saw an Elvis bust with a chipped nose and a bad paint job. It was $1. It was just so funny that I wanted it, and even though I was at pretty much the poorest time of my life, I forked over that $1. I was living with someone at the time, and when I decided to move out that bust and the air hockey table were the only two things we fought over. In the end I traded that $1 Elvis bust for the full-sized championship air hockey table. For me, at that point in my life, it was the right decision. Elvis was small, he was portable, and now he was mine. I moved 9 times in the next four years. Elvis went with me everywhere. Now he's a symbol, a mascot if you will...I perservered, I overcame, me and Elvis...all the way.

Since the bust has gone with me everywhere people have come to think that I really love Elvis and have given me tons of Elvis-related gifts. I have Christmas ornaments, a wine bottle holder, greeting cards, a belt buckle, a necklace, and tons of other stuff. The only Elvis thing I ever bought was that one bust.

Now I really want to go to Graceland.