New York, New York (with a little bit of Memphis, Tennessee)

Well, I'm off to the Big Apple tomorrow morning, and man am I excited. I'm in a New York state of mind. I'm finally going to see what all the fuss is all about. And funnily enough, I'm already "heart"-ing NY. Just researching websites about things to do there is getting me high like m---j----. Queensboro Bridge, the Met, Central Perk (and no, that's not a typo).

So my buddy, against his most strident protests, is a total yuppie and lives on the Upper East Side, a block from Central Park and a mile from the Met. Sounds like the perfect place for the crazy hermit to start his assault on the city.

And he's got everything all worked out too. Head south on 5th Avenue and you hit Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Terminal (not Station - tons of websites have corrected me on that), and the Empire State Building. Downtown there's Wall Street, WTC, Battery Park and the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Whole day at the Met, free tickets to the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall (you heard me), Madame Tussaud's, Madison Square Garden, the Intrepid Museum, Times Square, the United Nations, Bronx Zoo. It's going to be a packed six days :)

And this after a road trip last weekend to Memphis to see the B.B. King Blues Club and Graceland. Graceland was cool but BBK was quite a letdown. Any blues club that plays Britney Spears between sets is bad enough. It's infinitely worse if it's BBK and worse still if it's in Memphis, purported to be the birthplace of the blues.

Gracelend, Elvis' estate and home in his adopted city, must have been incredibly lavish by 1960s standards. His ground and first floors remind you of any conventional posh home, but the real treat is in the basement where he has all sorts of bizarre themes and decorations. It's here that his outrageous sense of style got full rein, and some of the results are quite breathtaking.

Descending a staircase down into the basement the first thing that hits you is that the walls on both sides as well as the sloping ceiling are glass-plated. Feeling like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey you go into Elvis' TV room. This has three TVs, a radio, a record player and other amenities, including a bar off to the right, but the showstopper is another full glass ceiling.

Exiting through another door, you enter Elvis' pool room. Dimly lit, as befits a pool hall, the ceiling is covered in cloth with intricate print patterns and designs radiating out from a central disc, and the walls have more of the same.

Through another door you come out into a large room that is quite extraordinary. Heavy, rough-carved vaguely African-looking furniture with green upholstery, bizarre statues, a huge circular chair and green shag carpeting on the floor and the ceiling give the room a distinct jungle atmosphere. One can only wonder what Elvis was smoking when he decorated this room.

In the grounds of his estate, you enter what used to be his racquetball court but now houses his famously flamboyant costumes and most of his silver, gold and platinum and multi-platinum commemorative records. The sheer number is mindboggling and gives you an idea of the magnitude of his achievements. I wonder if anyone before or since, with the exception of The Beatles, has exuded the kind of worldwide charisma that Elvis the Pelvis, The King, was able to generate.

But I digress. New York Minute. New York, New York. New York State of Mind. New York City. Strawberry Fields. The sheer amount of pop culture that's based in that big bad city is mind-boggling.

And the city that never sleeps won't know what hit it.