Homewood Suites By Hilton Memphis-Hacks Cross

... told me to be careful and now I felt a little safer with this in my hand.

Back at the hotel entrance I was waiting for the parking lot gate to open when I noticed a furball on the grass. It was a little doggie curled up in a ball. I called to it, but it ignored me. The gate started to close again so I reluctantly pulled forward so my car wouldn’t be crushed. I felt sick. It was so cold out. While I had no inclination to help this downtown man ...

... the driver so that it films while we drive through various sections of the globe and landscapes. I'm pretty stoked to see how his pictures and videos turn out at the end. He's good and angles and really likes the B&W that comes from so many pictures like I do. He got some sick ones from when I was dancing with Felix with the sun in the background through some trees. Ryan, stealing allll of those when I get back to Delaware.

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...Richard Powney has left the country.

I dropped him off at Dulles airport yesterday and did my usual thing of legging it as quick as I could. I don't like airports. You always have to say goodbye to people that you don't want to have to say goodbye to.

Anyway, his stay has been brilliant and it's flown by. I think that's a good thing. We've had lots of beers, booze and brewskies and the odd bit of food here and there too ...

... br> We put on our Blue Suede shoes and headed off to tour Sun Studios, the Studio that gave Elvis his recording break and has recorded hundreds of great artists including U2, Matchbox 20 and some old favorites such as Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Johnny Cash and Carl Lee Perkins. The studio is pretty amazing they have an old museum that contains original recordings and records ...

... Memphis. For most part the street is just like any other inner city street except for two blocks. These two blocks are, as experienced in New Orleans and Austin and Nashville, full of bars. The difference is each one of these bars has a band playing proper Mississippi Delta blues....and playing it well. There are harmonica led bands, guitar led and the odd saxophone led.....but they’re all good and can all evoke a sense of what Beale Street used to be when it was giving birth ...

... I worked in the music business for a few years as a live sound guy and tour manager, so of course I'd been there. But having never gotten out and seen the sights, to tell you the truth, Memphis seemed to me like just another city in the American south. So when a friend and co-worker suggested that we take a weekend drive down to Memphis and Nashville, I was definitely interested, but wasn't really expecting anything incredible. We drove down after work on a cold Friday night in ...

... well as some displays about his film carreer, his wedding and his charity work; a (again modest) swimming pool; and a building with a racquetball court in it. The audio tour tells us that he loved racquetball and it was in the adjoining lounge to the court that he spent much of the last evening of his life, spending time with friends and singing songs on the piano. The racquetball court itself is now kitted out as another trophy room and it is full to ...

... About 1:30 pm, starving but turned off by the Graceland food options (fried), we limped back to the car and drove back to downtown Memphis (my God, how I wish we'd invested in the $10/day for a GPS gizmo for our rental car; we've gotten lost umpteen times), bought sandwiches, and ate in our hotel room. Then we set out for the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, way across town, the museum to which all the rich people on our flight from SFO are ...

... as we saw our driver return to the bus. We paid for the food we hadn't eaten, and to add insult to injury, we could see it being plated up as we left! After a much later lunch in the van, we decided to take the Sun studio tour," the birth place of Rock n Roll." This is where Elvis was discovered and where he made his early recordings along with others such as Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis and many more. On the bus back, there was ...

... a standing ovation at the end of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” The second half of the concert was as good as it had been anywhere on the tour, and the strong religious and patriotic sensitivities of the local audience led to additional standing ovations after “God Bless America,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the encore “Amazing Grace.” This last number, which the Choir also sang in Nashville, provided an electric ...