If you live within a day's drive of Holly Springs, Mississippi, there's a good chance you've seen the name Paul McLeod pop up in your news feed over the past 48 hours. Odds are somewhat slimmer, however, that you recognize the name.
Let's not bury the lede here. The aforementioned resident of the aforementioned Mississippi town — a population of fewer than 10,000 that resides 50 miles southeast of Memphis — was found dead on his front porch Thursday morning. McLeod was 70 years old, and according to Marshall County Coroner James Richard Anderson, he appears to have died of natural causes. Just 36 hours before, he had shot and killed a man by the name of Dwight David Taylor Jr., who was apparently attempting to enter McLeod's home.
The timing of McLeod's death indeed seems suspicious. But McLeod's attorney has been quoted as saying "his ill health, combined with the stress from ... tragedy, lead me to believe it was a very unfortunate natural occurrence."
The name of McLeod's home was and is Graceland Too, and for a quarter century the Holly Springs native opened the house to the public as the world's foremost bastion of Elvis memorabilia. It was open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and if you had $5, you could come on in for a tour.
"Even on Christmas?"
Even on Christmas.
Graceland Too, a two-story antebellum home that McLeod alternately painted and re-painted pink or blue or white over the years, was packed to the ceiling with a staggering amount of memorabilia, collectables, homemade crafts, and to be perfectly frank, total junk — from Elvis albums, artwork, plates and posters (some of which likely did indeed hold some real value, though a lot of it probably didn't) to projects that held only a tenuous connection to The King's legacy. For years, McLeod worked on a sort of part haunted house, part art installation backyard tribute to "Jailhouse Rock" made from chicken wire and Christmas lights; McLeod's "electric chair" (pictured here) featured a colander and an old car battery, though it was just for show and was never hooked up to any sort of current.
And while Elvis Presley was indeed the sun that the planetary system of McLeod's mind orbited around, much more than that found its way into the man's universe. He would talk at great length about Bruce Lee and Eastern culture, about women, about his son — his son whom, honest to God, he named Elvis Aaron Presley McLeod. While the impressive and occasionally befuddling array of stuff that filled Graceland Too was of course, on paper, the attraction, it was far from the star of the show. Drunk college students, fans of roadside tourist attractions, stoned goobers and fellow weirdos came to the house so that they could experience McLeod as their tour guide.
For a $5 bill, you could hear all of the man's diatribes, listen to him sing Elvis songs into a child's toy microphone, see him pointing to pictures of guns and rakes next to piles of money — Graceland Too was literally raking in money, geddit? — and at tour's end, coax him into telling his dirty stories. His filthy, dirty stories. He'd often name-drop the many celebrities who'd visited Graceland Too over the years, from Matthew Broderick and one of George W. Bush's daughters to Chris O'Donnell. It was the sort of thing that would make you roll your eyes and give a "Yeah, right" elbow to the ribs of your pal. Until, that is, McLeod would pull out his photo book and, lo and behold, show you a picture of one of the minor celebrities he'd mentioned.
After three visits to Graceland Too, McLeod would name you a lifetime member, take your picture for his photo wall and issue you a membership card that would get you free re-entry for life. I've carried my card — which is decorated with two TCB lightning bolts, a couple dozen little stars and a music staff — in my wallet for years.
Thus the fair and inevitable question: Was it right to visit Graceland Too to gawk at a man who, as a Holly Springs pharmacist told The New York Times in their piece on McLeod, wasn't "all there"? An easy answer to that question would be, "Hey, I paid the guy. He opened his home to the public. It's not like any of us were exploiting a dude who didn't want the attention."
But I don't think that's the right answer. Truth be told, I'm not sure if road-tripping down to Holly Springs with my pals to partake of McLeod's hourlong spiels was exploitative. I'd like to think not, but I certainly wasn't going there just to ooh and ahh over the man's collectables. He was eccentric, strange and unlike any other person I've met in my life. He was a sponge. If you'd been to Graceland Too one time, he'd remember your face for years.
In a sadly sweet moment of the video you can see above, McLeod points out to his tour group that he'd just missed his own birthday. "You guys just made my birthday for me," he tells the group. While the afore-linked New York Times piece details McLeod's relationship with Taylor, who was reportedly deeply troubled as well, I'm not sure what sense is to be made of the ugly, tragic business of McLeod's final days. But I can tell you that a lot of people found meaning in the memories they made traveling down to and touring Graceland Too, and that it's very sad to know that no new, happy memories will be formed there again as far as we know.
