The Undisputed Material Witness to the Death of Elvis

Whistle
1

Your Undisputed Host went to graduate school in Memphis, Tennessee and moved there, to begin attending, on August 16, 1977. A couple of friends from college helped me move in. I had not been in Memphis before, so we take a little sight-seeing tour and, of course, visit Elvis Presley Blvd and eat in a restaurant across from Graceland. Midway through lunch an ambulance pulls out of Graceland. We don’t think much of it. A few hours later we learned it was the very newly deceased Elvis in that wagon. The next week or so in Memphis was surreal. You’d see people walking down the sidewalk weeping. Helicopters were circling the city. It was fully weird. But, as we came to say in Memphis, ‘He may be dead, but he’s still Elvis.’

Dale

2

Extraordinary talent, sometimes dreadful
taste, a nice person (by everything
I’ve read)–who would have been
better off personally if he’d
been a truck driver.

I think that
when working class Southern people become
super famous, but still seem working
class to working class people,
and are destroyed by fame, they
become mythic.

3

I was in the Navy stationed in Memphis from 1976 to 1978. Just for the halibut every once in a while a carload or two of us bored corpsmen would go down to Graceland and run around on top of the walls that encircled his mansion. We had been told that occasionally Elvis himself would come out with a shotgun to chase people away. I was never so lucky!

Later I broke down and decided to buy a ticket to his last concert just to say that I had been to one. Several weeks later he died so, thinking nothing of it, I took my ticket back and got a refund. I never once thought the thing would be of any value!

For weeks after his death every local TV station played everything he had ever been in non-stop. Same with the radio stations and his tunes.

4

This wouldn’t endear me to the true believers, but consider what Elvis would be like now, had he not died young.

Picture Marlon Brando in sequins…

Maybe it was for the best.

5

Good point, Chuck. A frightening
thought. However I’m old,
I’m fat, I wear sequins…

I’m about to get something off my chest.
I’ve been dealing unsuccessfully
for the last couple
of months with an effort by a family
member to speed my youngish,
happy, disabled sister’s
way to the next world.

A play… Dr. Stone has finished
examining Joe, a 22 year old student,
at the Bayou University Health Center.
Joe is looking peaked, he’s clutching
a skateboard.

Dr. Stone:

Joe, there’s bad and good news. The bad
news is that you have the beginning of
spinal meningitis. It’s very, very
dangerous. The good news is that I
can stop it in its tracks with a shot
of penicillin. Then we’ll start you
on oral antibiotics, check you
into the hospital, watch you
for a couple of days. You’ll
be out in two or three days. Please
drop your shorts.

Joe:

I don’t know. I don’t like needles.

DS:

Joe, dying of meningitis hurts more than
a shot of penicillin. Also you’ll be dead.

Joe:

I’ll think about it. Maybe tomorrow.
It’s my body.

DS:

You’ll be dead tomorrow. If you leave here
without a shot you’ll be dead tomorrow.

Joe:

Well, I don’t want it.

DS:

Joe, have you been feeling depressed lately?
Is something the matter? Are you having
much fun?

Joe:

Oh yeah, I love skateboarding.

DS:

Excuse me a minute. (goes out to hall)
Nurse, will you get the janitor and wait
outside the door in case I call?

Nurse:

Doctor, it’s battery to touch a patient
without his consent. He has
the legal right to refuse life sustaining
medical care. You can lose your license.

Dr. Stone:

Thanks, Nurse. I’ll keep it in mind.
(goes back in room)

Joe, I’ve heard it said that no one
can bend over and touch his toes
on a skateboard that isnt’ moving.

Joe:

No way, I can do that easy.

DS: I don’t believe you. Go ahead and show
me.

Joe:

This isn’t a trick, is it?

DS:

Of course not Joe, I wouldn’t do anything
unethical. It’s your life, after all.

Joe:

Well, OK… See, it isn’t… YOW!

Curtain

Thanks for your indulgence, gang; as said I needed to
get that off my chest. Best





[ This Message was edited by: jim stone on 2002-08-17 13:51 ]

6

So the undisputed king of internet tinwhistle journalism saw the undisputed king of music hauled off in an ambulance.

The secret is out, Elvis actually tripped over a tinwhistle laying on his bathroom floor.

You don’t supposed these Elvis sighting had something to do with the Crystal people wou%$^% ^C ### TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED ### AUTHORIZATION GENERAL CELEBREX - ELVIS AFFAIRS MONITORING STATION ### DATASTREAM TERMINATED