and tupelo 1
Stoopid Elvis, Why couldn't he have died during a more favourable season? Instead he had to go and drop dead in the middle of summer, when being in Memphis is tantamount to a small approximation to hell.
I'm in Memphis because of a giant guitar. A giant Elvis guitar to be precise. My friend and travelling companion, Rosalinda McGovern, has created this huge work of art called Tupelo 1, which is basically a giant flying coffin for the King, and now the conveners of the Third International Conference on Elvis Presley, want it for their art show. First it had to be packed in huge crates and then shipped by air to San Francisco via Chicago and then on to Memphis by truck, but that's another story altogether.
Moments after we arrive we are told that the Art Show has been closed down by a small group of Elvis fans who object to some of the works. There is an Elvis on a cross a la Jesus in his underpants, an Elvis Madonna and Child and an Elvis with ants crawling all over his face, controversial, it aint. It turns out that these people, one of whom is the president of the local Elvis fan club, came to the gallery a week before we had arrived and said they would, quote, "get every Elvis fan in town to picket and they'd take down the building brick by brick and kick in every painting" unquote.
Free Speech being what it is, and Memphis being what it is, the Elvis fans won the day, and the show was closed, meaning that now, very few people would get to see Tupelo 1, somewhat of a drag when you've come halfway across the planet for that purpose.
Nevertheless, we were there, and there seemed to be some interesting speakers on the program in the next ten days, so what the hell, perhaps the controversy might spark some interest in the conference?
At times the conference seemed to take on an almost evangelical air and no more so than when Howard Finster spoke about painting and how Elvis had inspired him to paint Elvis pictures.
Howard graciously
agreed to bless Tupelo 1 with some badly needed Scripture, and after painstakingly
writing it on the neck with his own hand, the guitar now carries a passage
from the Bible, Romans 10.9. Look it up.
We had to go to Graceland, it was inevitable, and so with 50,000 other fans we got on board those funny little coaches that take you across the road and up the drive to Els house. These days you can't take any kind of a tour of anything without having to wear those dangblasted headphones attached to a dodgy walkman which you have to keep on whilst a disembodied voice tells you what you're looking at. It's annoying because you can't share the experience with anyone else, and everyone comes out with exactly the same experience. Me being the rebel I am, took them off, much to the suspicion and alarm of the security people.
Ah, Graceland, Grace-lessland, once you catch sight of those packs of morbidly obese people wearing summer fashions from hell. Still the wreathes were excellent. "Elvis, we love you tender, from your devoted fans in East Mongolia." Nice to see the Elvis Teddy Bear getting a good look in these days as the international symbol of disaster and grief.
There were camera
crews and journalists by the thousand camped out on the lawns and all getting
the same stories. Interviews with the aforementioned fans conducted one
syllable at a time. Heady stuff. I had enough time to write a song, while
Rosalinda took pictures of the floral tributes, (there were a lot of em),
until finally I had to drag her ass outta there.
We had spent
three hours, which I thought was about two hours too many, besides we had
to get to the Elvis Mass at a Catholic church not far from Graceland. When
we arrived there were some nice ladies with placards outside the building
saying that it was a sacrilege to be having an Elvis Mass particularly
on the Day Of Assumption and most particularly because Elvis wasn't a Catholic.
The priest giving the sermon was an Elvis fan however, so that made it alright I guess.
"If Elvis were alive today he would say, Love Me Tender and I'll always be, Loving You." When was the last time you heard that in church? Groovy.
The feeling throughout
this whole week was that Elvis was beginning to take on Saint-like qualities,
if not God-like. It was an unsettling kind of a creepy feeling and I like
Elvis. It's beginning to look like Elvis is taking the place of less happenin'
deities in the hearts and minds of some of our brethren. I know that Johnny
Topper and I started a 'Church of the Latter Day Elvis Presley' way back
in the early eighties, but it was a JOKE for goodness sake! I give up.
Hopefully we won't also have a 'Church of the Latter Day Princess Di',
but in England it's probably well under way. 
EP is looking very healthy thank you very much, just ask Priscilla. It will be interesting to see if all the attention that Diana, Princess of Whales (my spelling), manages to inveigle itself into the multi-million dollar cult of worship and long term financial sustainability that very clearly puts Elvis ahead of the pack in the hardest- working -dead -person - in -show -biz, stakes.
Frankly I don't think she has a hope. No records, no films, no free cars, nothin'.
If anything the attendant hysteria surrounding her death marks the end of final chapter in the story of the British Empire, and good luck!
Tupelo 1 now rests in a climate controlled warehouse just south of Graceland, awaiting further instructions and is, in the words of Larry Geller, " Worth money, A LOT of money" If you find yourself with a spare $250,000, it can be yours, but you'll have to go to Memphis to get it.
I haven't wanted to listen to Elvis much lately, I still prefer Southern Gospel anyway, and my enjoyment of the Elvis phenomenon took a disturbing turn when a couple of boneheads managed to shut down a fairly innocuous art show, because in their words "It's about a sick mind."
I have no doubt E would be the first one to say "There's only one Jesus, and He aint me."
One of the speakers at the conference, a burly ex cop from New York named Jack Cataneo, was our resident conspiracy theorist, with the real truth behind everything from Watergate to the Oaklahoma bombing. (did you know that Deep Throat was actually Pat Buchanan?)
Jack's theory is that Elvis Presley was murdered by Richard Nixon via his personal physician Dr Nichopolous because he was perceived as a threat to Nixon's presidency and to national security. It was also revealed during the conference that Elvis had called Jimmy Carter several times at the White House to ask for clemency for a policeman friend, (whom it turned out had not even been charged with anything), in a drugged and excitable state.
All of Jack's papers are heavily underlined and embedded with notes and highlights, just in case you miss the relevant, secret clues that are crying out from the page.
There was one that took my fancy and I think Jack's probably working on this one even as we speak. At the bottom of a particularly long winded article about the end of Nixons Presidency, Jack has scrawled in a big black pen," The Chronology of recorded events of the Nixon White House from Nov. 68 to RMN resignation Aug. 74, proves that Elvis Presley naively walked into the middle of a monumental political criminal conspiracy. IF MOTHER TERESA HAD RUNG THE WHITE HOUSE DOOR BELL ON 12 DEC 1971, SHE WOULD NOT BE HERE IN 1997.
Hmmm........
