My Only Elvis Story:
If you’ve been living in an igloo with poor tv reception for the past several days, you may have missed out on the fact that it’s Elvis Week, the annual Memphis celebration of the Death of the King. I guess this year it’s a slightly larger hoopla than usual because today is the 25th anniversary of his kickin’ the bucket, and we silly people have affinity for anniversaries that are multiples of the number of fingers on our left hands.
I was heading to Memphis on business. Unfortunately, it was only a one-day meeting, the client’s offices are only a mile from the airport, and I was staying at the Holiday Inn Select directly across the street from the client’s offices. So I fly in at 8pm, shuttle one mile to the hotel, sleep, work with the client the next day, and fly out in the early evening. Twenty-four hours in Memphis and I wasn’t going to get more than a mile from the airport.
Kind of disappointing….but never fear. It’s Memphis after all, and the King is always around the corner.
After checking in at the hotel, I stand waiting for the elevator. The doors open, I start to board . . . and run into Elvis. And Elvis. And Elvis.
Three — count ‘em, three — Elvis impersonators (two Young Elvises, one Old Elvis, all in full Elvis regalia) are getting off the elevator. I’m suddenly surrounded by Elvises. Young Elvis #1 brushes past me. Old Elvis bumps into me. “‘Scuse me,” he says. He sounds like Elvis! Young Elvis 2 steps around me.
I’ve just passed through a mob of Elvises.
Unbeknownst to me it was Elvis Week 2001. Apparently there were several hundred Elvis impersonators in Memphis this week, many of them staying at this airport Holiday Inn. Had I known it was Elvis week, I could have made plans to go downtown and attend “Elvis: The Concert” which “reunites Elvis, via state-of-the-art video, with his original bandmates live on stage” — basically the band plays while a video of Elvis sings. Creepy! And I just missed the candlelight vigil at Graceland.
But as I checked out the following afternoon, the hotel was having an Elvis Sing-off — about a half-dozen dueling Elvis impersonators vying for the best rendition of various Elvis standards.
It’s not the best Elvis story ever. But, hey — it’s mine.