Elvis Fans Gather at the Wall for "Elvis Week"

Elvis Fans Gather at the Wall
A Personal Story by Ben Harrison

Memphis, Tennessee, USA. August 16--Perhaps the corporate profit cocoon now forming around the late Michael Jackson could learn how its done over in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. There Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. keeps the adulation of "The King" stirred up among thousands of visitors every summer to culminate in a candle light vigil at Graceland Mansion.

And when they're stirred, they buy. They buy music and souvenirs and those that are marketers buy licenses. Michael, can you see this from the other side? Go to Memphis and hire these guys. They know how its done. Just like The King, you'll be the biggest dead polypharm superstar ever.

Today, EPE, Inc. makes Memphis the mecca of Elvis worship in an annual one week long pilgrimage of Elvis fans from all over. Every August 16, the anniversary of his death 32 years ago, thousands of fans holding candles patiently line up in front of the mansion wall. They are then cued onto the Graceland grounds in a ritualistic procession that I'm told sometimes lasts till almost dawn. This year though, the crowd seemed noticeably thinner, according to workers.

While waiting on the public sidewalk, fans write messages, some irreverent and funny and some genuinely touching, with Magic Markers on the wall in front of the mansion. Groups of others sit on the street with makeshift shrines of candles, photos and art.

EPE, Inc and the Fans

But EPE, Inc didn't create Elvis. He created himself. All EPE does is tap into the adoration and psyche of his mostly working class fans. Some of them show up year after year in a lifelong commitment to attend what has now become a Memphis tradition. Why the ongoing devotion? I think its because Elvis came from them and he never left them.

And perhaps that's the best explanation of the connection of the dead Elvis to his current fans-those getting long toothed, growing big bellies, bringing their kids to introduce a whole new generation to the event. Yes, some come to gape at the tacky tourist tastelessness of it all, of the creepy knowledge His corpse reclines right up on the hill beside the house, of the gaucheness of the jungle room that Elvis created because...because, well, he could and did, by God.

Elvis Sitings

On a sweaty night not unlike this one in 1959, while I swept the parking lot of my dad's busy little grocery store, I had my one and only siting of Elvis. He was clad in black leather like a rock and roll Templar, astride his Harley as he roared up Summer Avenue. It was the kind of Elvis siting Memphians loved to talk about. "I saw Elvis riding his motorcycle last night." Back then he was a rebellious son of the South the adults loved to disapprove of, but love, if not admire, irresistibly. And back then a live siting was way more thrilling than a dead one today.

But after his death, one similar in many ways to that of Jackson, including self loathing, body changes and a pipeline of drugs supplied by mysterious medicals, EPE Inc., evolved from a family trust administered by Lisa Marie, according to elvis.com, to bottle and distribute the Elvis elixir to which these aging pilgrim fans stay lovingly addicted. And who wouldn't be? His is the story of a clean, revolutionary, but shy and polite, randy artist with the quintessential American archetype story of starting with nothing but Mississippi delta poverty to become "The King." Got it? the Elvis Web site seems to hammer on as it milks its commodity.

Making Mecca

When I made my pilgrimage to Graceland over twenty years ago I already had moved away to LA and thought, while I was back in my home town, I should make my own mecca and tour Graceland. Back then, as people do today, we congregate in the visitors center across the street facing the mansion. Almost under the wing of the 727 Elvis named the Lisa Marie, we board a van that quietly took us half dozen fellow travelers past the big music note gates that opened welcomingly to the regularly delivered procession of commoners. We proceed smoothly up the winding drive in air conditioned protection from the suffocating Southern humidity.

While waiting to embark, I'll never forget the conversation a Romanian mechanic from New Jersey struck up with me. His wife had just walked out on him he said in his best English. So he threw a few things in his truck and headed South to Graceland. For some reason, he confided, Graceland would be the one thing that he knew would make him feel better. He was a walking Elvis song. I hope it has all worked out for him.

Once inside, we were guided through the mansion except personal living quarters of relatives who still lived there. In fact, while standing in a somewhat claustrophobic clump in a hall, the tour guide pointed to a door I was standing in front of and announced, as I remember it, "Elvis' aunt still lives in this room." I was creeped out but suppressed an urge to smile broadly, if not laugh out loud, as the group turned to face me. Later on the tour, I saw an older lady walking over the back yard like a ghost.

Blasting Away the Messages...

And that to me is what the Elvis fans are most like: ghosts. They'll be fading away, I keep assuming, and extravaganzas like these someday have to stop with the distance of generations. But ghosts and memories have a way of coming back. Even Elvis himself might be coasting his Harley among the crowd, enjoying them as one of his own. And should he materialize, I could see him being suddenly swept away by the highly trained and efficient EPE staff, cloaked way in hiding to repackage before he could open his mouth and commit one impolitic faux pas after another.

Every few months a guy comes out and blasts the messages written in red and black ink off the wall. But sometimes a faded outline remains like, I like to think, an old memory that makes you pause.

And then you can hear Him singing, singing about...memories.