So, I don't know how many people are familiar with the King on this board, but Memphis is starting to get crazy right about now (or crunk, if you prefer.) A week from tomorrow is the whatevereth anniversary of Mr. Presley keeling over at the crapper with his goodtime-pills, and with that anniversary comes the candlelight vigil. If you haven't attended before, put it on your "before I die" list. Thousands and thousands of people parade past his grave wearing their crazy costumes, or clutching their first-pressing 45s, or cradling the ball of hair they collected off his hotel pillows; you get the idea, definitely worth the trip once.
Anyway, the point of this post is that as a resident of Memphis since 1991, I'm sick of it. Today was the absolute last straw, and I finally snapped at one of the weepy little bastards. Here we are, a week before the "festivities", and I've already encountered a crazy fan. It's a normal Monday morning, 10am buying a couple six packs of Red Stripe at the BP across from Sun Studios (I don't work on Mondays.) There's a normal amount of tourists across the street taking pictures, and a couple of them in the BP parking lot too (it's hard to get a picture of the place without crossing a street.) So as I unlock my car door a cute girl about my age (early 20s) runs up, and in her most bubbly OMG-I'm-finally-here voice asks if I can take a pic of her and her friend standing in front of the Studio. Of course I oblige and she hands me a disposable camera (ugh.)
So she scampers across the street and cuddles up with her friend in front of the Sun Studio Cafe (not the studio itself, which is directly next door.) I try to take a picture in between her and her friend screaming all the way across Union Ave., "Are we in focus? Make sure we're in focus!!" Oh yeah, you're real in-focus, ya jerk. I snap the pic and girl 1 turns to girl 2 and starts talking excitedly (so I think) as I head across the street. I tap girl 1 on the shoulder and hold out my hand with the camera, only to be tightly embraced by two bawling fanatics.
"I can't believe he's gone!! Boohoo!" I seriously cannot breathe too well as one's got her arms around my chest, and the other girl is squeezing the shit out of my neck (all the while me thinking about my beer sitting on my trunk amidst downtown Memphis' most populous alcoholic bum area.) They must have held on two or three minutes before I snapped (imagine how long that would feel like with two crazy strangers hanging on you.) I finally pushed them away and barked, "What do you mean you can't believe it? You're my age! He was dead before you we were even freaking alive, you crazy freaks! And not only that, but you can't even take a picture in front of the actual fucking studio!" Then I promptly stomped back across the street and back into the BP since, you guessed it, my beer was gone. The clerk that sold me the beer had apparently gone on break, and the new one was carding, so beerless I go out and get back in my car and drive off, right past the two girls who are hugging each other and still crying.
So the moral of the story: I don't know, but damn am I glad that I'm moving to Nashville next week.
_________________ "Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?" - Ti Jean
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