I hoped that Memphis will be a southern-style Detroit. The two cities have a lot in common, I think: a poor yet politicised and powerful black population, a fabulous musical history, a strong counter-culture, black street-culture, a run-down appeal, a former heyday, a coolness about it. Memphis is also the location of one of my favourite films, Mystery Train by Jim Jarmusch. Memphis did not disappoint.

Graceland
I can't deny that I got a thrill when I saw the tail fin of his jet, the Lisa Marie, poking up into the air when we first drove down Elvis Presley Boulevard, but Graceland is really cheap and nasty, even by my standards. The mansion is small, a strange relic of an earlier age of celebrity, before John Lennon got popped and everyone retreated behind armed response signs. Only the downstairs is open, presumably because they don't want people gawking at the toilet where he died. The rooms that look so amazing in photographs look bodged together and crummy in real life. The only exception is the Jungle Room, which is a vision of interior design insanity.


Of course every move has been made by someone before you, every step you take has been planned beforehand, your visit is an exercise in thought control, but there are moments that make you gasp: Elvis' guns, engraved with that stupid Taking Care of Business in a Flash emblem; the fan art; the winged outfits and the sheer scale of the business that's been built around his death. I snigger at the books laid out on his desk, presumably to show that Elv could read, passages underlined and notes written in the margins of Does God Come from Outer Space? and The Age of Aquarius. It's stonerville, baby.

The film footage is my favourite part of Graceland and it reminds me that despite the iconography, it's his charismatic performances that are the real deal. We watch a clipped-together film of him in a smelly theatre called Walk a Mile in My Shoes, on the gift shop side of the street, and I'm entranced. It makes me love Elvis, and it makes me hate him too. A plaque tells us that Elvis was a friend to people of all races, but that's not true. He appropriated black music for a white audience that couldn't cope with the idea of black music. Also, Memphis was at the frontline of the civil rights struggle, but where was Elvis' voice in all of that? Imagine the influence he could have had if he'd spoken out. Here he is, the most famous Memphian of all, and where was he when Martin Luther King died?



Peabody
We splurge for a night at the Peabody Hotel. It's an Old South institution, so we are told. Built in the mid-1800s it became the meeting spot for cotton kings and southern gentry. It's still posh, but it's weird. As well as the ducks, which I'll come to in a moment, the lobby has a piano that plays itself, a creepy old grandfather clock, a flouncy and fancy French restaurant and a bar that serves mint juleps. It's hard to convey the atmosphere of this place, it's part luxury bland hotel, but there's something very The Shining about it too, even though it's right in the middle of town.



The rooftop is my favourite spot at the Peabody, especially at night. The giant Peabody Hotel neon sign hangs above you and the city hums below. You can see the Mississippi River, Arkansas and downtown from the roof. As you look up into the endless night sky you an hear the sounds of insects, the honk of a train arriving, blues music thumping up from Beale Street.

The ducks
A while ago my friend Alan told me about the Peabody Ducks and I thought he was lying. He told me: "There's this hotel and it's quite fancy. In the lobby of the hotel they have a fountain with ducks in it, real ducks. There's a guy called the Duckmaster who looks after the ducks. Every day at five o'clock the Duckmaster rolls out a red carpet, plays John Philip Sousa's King Cotton March, and walks the trained ducks along the carpet to one of the lifts. The ducks go up in the lift and are taken to their Duck Palace on the roof. At eleven o'clock the next day, the ritual is reversed and the ducks return to their fountain again." It turns out that Alan is not a liar, and that the Peabody Ducks are very real. Al, I'm sorry I doubted you.

The Civil Rights Museum
The museum is set in and around the former Lorraine Motel, the place where Martin Luther King was assassinated. It feels strange to be in this building, the struggles that the museum documents don't seem abstract, being here makes them real. I choke on tears throughout the exhibition which, unfortunately, is presented on text-heavy panels with nowhere to sit and digest the information. There's also an overlong and jarring display documenting the aftermath of MLK's death and speculating upon who could have killed him which reeks of conspiracy theory. Oh well.

I'm ashamed to say that I'd always been quite dismissive of the civil rights movement. The museum focuses on the committees and groups and actions that I'd always thought were a bit boring. The Panthers I get, even the Nation of Islam, but those early civil rights groups seemed too tame, too apologetic in comparison. I was wrong. The museum documents the many varied strands of the civil rights movement and shows the many ways in which black people and their allies stood up and demanded rights.

The exhibits about the students at Little Rock, and about James Meredith are particularly moving. It's hard to think about the bravery and vision of these kids without bawling. They are heroes. Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the Little Rock students, wrote something about survival that touched me in my heart:
After a while I started saying to myself, Am I less than human? Why did they do this to me? And so you go through these stages...First, you're in pain, then you're angry, then you try to fight back and then you just don't care. You hope that there's an end. And then you just mellow out and you just realise that survival is day to day and you start to grasp your own spirit...and you start to understand your won ability to cope no matter what. That is the greatest lesson I have learned.



In many ways the museum tells a depressing story; the struggles and victories of 50 years ago have not eradicated racism today (creepy random fact: Memphis didn't even get its first black mayor until the 90s). But being there after being at Nolose adds a layer of thoughtfulness to my visit. Although I have more privilege than the civil rights activists of the 50s and 60s could have dreamed of, they set the blueprint for the work that I do and the way that I think about fat. I came away from the museum thinking about civil rights being more than a political stance, that it's an ideology, a way of being. It means wanting a world where equality is the bottom line, where we stand together whilst acknowledging differences, where people look out for each other. It's about the fundamental right of citizenship, about taking your place in the world.



The Pink Palace Museum
The craziest museum in the world has exhibits ranging from a rock shaped like a child's foot, to a vast miniature circus, a shrunken head, photographs from various segregated cotton balls and jamborees, stuffed animals, a replica of the first Piggly Wiggly supermarket, and more, so much more! It's the most random museum I've ever been to, just a load of old and weird stuff that's fun to look at and think about.

More museums!
This time it's Sun Studio. Single, not plural. The place where black music was appropriated for the whiteys, probably, but a place that's still so charming and interesting that you can't help but be sucked into its mythology. It's tiny. We sign up for a tour, the only way that they'll let you look around, and we're glad we did because within the first five minutes of it Kay and I realise that we are in love with our guide, a man called David Brookings. He is cute! He is dishy! He tells jokes! He knows so much about music! He says: "Folks, don't be alarmed but The King is entering the studio." We look and there's an Elvis-a-like stepping through the door. Brookings says: "We get an Elvis every now and again, it's nothing to be afraid of." We also swoon when he shows us how Johnny Cash got around the racist no drums at the Opry rule (hint: he used a dollar bill around the neck of his guitar). We guffaw a little too loudly whenever he says something interesting or amusing, which is often. Afterwards we stare a little too intrusively as he eats a piece of chicken for his lunch at the counter. We are too dweeby to make real friends with him, but we sit and hope that maybe he has space in his heart for two fat dykes from the UK.

More David
Kay gets tired on the road to Nashville so I suggest a game of 20 Questions in order to pep her up a bit. I am a fiendish player and am good at thinking up random people to be. Kay is also a fiendish guesser and rumbles me by asking: "Is this person our friend?" Me: "Yes." Kay: "He's our friend?" Me: "No, actually, I mean, no." Kay: "I know who you are! I know who you are! You're David Brookings! You're the Sun Studio man!"