Talk:Graceland

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Where is graceland at ?? And what does it represent?

Its a US National Landmark somewhere near Dollywood. 72.131.106.215 03:24, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Graceland is nowhere near Dollywood. They are at opposite ends of a very long state. Graceland is in Whitehaven, a very poor African-American neighborhood in Memphis. The area was a predominantly white suburban community in the 1950s, but it has been "economically depressed" to quote the article, for about thirty years now. Please do not form your opinions about Memphis based upon the blighted condition of Whitehaven. All cities have such blighted areas.

...and please do not form your opinions on Whitehaven based on your implication that the area became "economically depressed" only after black people moved in, changing it from a "predominantly white suburban community". -- Jalabi99 16:29, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I visited Graceland with my Father several months ago which got me interested in Presley. The area didn't seem that bad at all. I spoke to one of the tour operators and she mentioned that most of the staff at Graceland are made up of people from the Whitehaven area. Graceland is an important employer in the area and they seem very protective of it. Lochdale 02:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Elvis's death

Here is what reputed Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick says about Elvis's death at Graceland:

The only thing that appeared to have been missed, aside from the empty syringes, was the book that Elvis had in the bathroom with him when he died, a study of sex and psychic energy that correlated sexual positions with astrological signs. Warlick found a stain on the bathroom carpeting, too, that seemed to indicate where Elvis had thrown up after being stricken, apparently while seated on the toilet. It looked to the medical investigator as if he had "stumbled or crawled several feet before he died." ... nine pathologists from Baptist cond acted the examination in full knowledge that the world was watching but that the results would be released to Elvis' father alone. ... Francisco announced the results of the autopsy, even as the autopsy was still going on. Death, he said, was "due to cardiac arrhythmia due to undetermined heartbeat." ... But there were in fact at that time no results to report. The autopsy proper went on for another couple of hours. Specimens were collected and carefully preserved, the internal organs were examined and the heart found to be enlarged, a significant amount of coronary atherosclerosis was observed, the liver showed considerable damage, and the large intestine was clogged with fecal matter, indicating a painful and longstanding bowel condition. The bowel condition alone would have strongly suggested to the doctors what by now they had every reason to suspect from Elvis' hospital history, the observed liver damage, and abundant anecdotal evidence: that drug use was heavily implicated in this unanticipated death of a middle-aged man with no known history of heart disease who had been "mobile and functional within eight hours of his death." It was certainly possible that he had been taken while "straining at stool," and no one ruled out the possibility of anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills he had gotten from his dentist, to which he was known to have had a mild allergy of long standing. The pathologists, however, were satisfied to wait for the lab results, which they were confident would overrule Dr. Francisco's precipitate, and somewhat meaningless, announcement, as indeed they eventually did. There was little disagreement in fact between the two principal laboratory reports and analyses filed two months later, with each stating a strong belief that the primary cause of death was polypharmacy, and the BioScience Laboratories report, initially filed under the patient name of "Ethel Moore," indicating the detection of fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity. Codeine appeared at ten times the therapeutic level, methaqualone (Quaalude) in an arguably toxic amount, three other drugs appeared to be on the borderline of toxicity taken in and of themselves, and "the combined effect of the central nervous system depressants and the codeine" had to be given heavy consideration. See Peter Guralnick, Careless Love:The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (1999), pp.651-652. Onefortyone 19:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Visitors

The trivia section states that it's the 2nd most visited residence. However, earlier in the article it lists 600,000 annual visitors. The article on the Biltmore Estate gives a figure of a million for that house. Does anyone have a citation for the "second most visited" claim? 72.196.104.129 01:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)