Dave Barry - Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up

We learned two maneuvers: Walking the Dog, which is when you hold your broom up while turning your lawn mower in a circle; and Cross and Toss, which is when you cross paths with another Ranger, then each of you tosses his broom to the other. These maneuvers require great precision, and we rookies were forced to train in the grueling sun for nearly two full minutes before we could perform them to the Rangers’ exacting standards.

Finally it was time to march. We formed two columns, each of us wearing a cowboy hat and a Lone Ranger-style mask. We were pushing a wide variety of customized lawn mowers, one of which had a toilet mounted on it. As we neared the main parade street, we stopped, gathered together, and put our hands into a huddle, where Monahan delivered an inspirational speech that beautifully summed up the meaning of Rangerhood:

“Remember,” he said, “you guys are NOT SHRINERS.”

Thus inspired, we turned down the parade route, went to the brooms-up position, and executed the Cross and Toss with total 100 percent flawless perfection except for a couple of guys dropping their brooms. Some onlookers were so awed by this electrifying spectacle that they almost fell down.

When it was over I stood with my fellow Rangers, engaging in further mental preparation and accepting the compliments of the public (“Do you guys have jobs?”). At that moment I knew that I was part of something special, something important, something that someday, I hope, can be controlled by medication. But until then, Amazing Arcola, Illinois, will serve as a shining example of why America is what it is. Whatever that may be.

This section is about music. It starts with a semiserious piece about Elvis and the mystery of why his fans feel as deeply about him as they do. It then moves to my experience in the Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of authors who discovered that, even though they had very little musical training, they were nevertheless able, with a little practice and a lot of heart, to turn themselves into a profoundly mediocre band.

Speaking of bad music: This section also presents the results of my Bad Song Survey, which attracted more mail than anything else I’ve ever written. People are still writing to tell me how much they hate, for example, “Running Bear.” As you read this section, please bear in mind that the survey is over, OK We already have our winners, so there is no need to write to me. Just read the results and get the bad songs stuck inside your brain so you can quietly hum them over and over until you go insane. Thank you.

When he was alive, they lived at the gates of Graceland. It didn’t matter whether he was there or not. They’d go, anyway, to be with each other, to talk about him, to be close to the place he loved. If he was there, they’d synchronize their lives with his: sleeping by day, when he slept, so they could be at the gates at night, in case he came out.

Sometimes he’d just drive by, on a motorcycle or in one of his spectacular cars, waving, and they’d try to follow him, and it might turn into an elaborate motorized game of hide-and-seek on the roads around Memphis. Sometimes he and his entourage, his guys, would be having one of their fireworks fights, and they’d roar down and attack the gate regulars, scaring them, thrilling them. And sometimes he’d come down to the gate and talk, sign autographs, get his picture taken, just be with them. Those were the best times, although they didn’t happen much near the end.

Some of the gate people had jobs, but only so they could afford food and a place to sleep. Their real job, their purpose, was to be at the gates. They helped the guards—who knew them well—keep an eye on the wild fans, the nonregulars, who sometimes tried to get up to the front door.

“We were really his best security,” says Linda Cullum, “because we would have killed anybody who we thought would have done anything to him.”

Cullum arrived in 1964. She was in the Navy, and she had asked to be stationed in Memphis. “I didn’t even know if they had a base here,” she says. “I just knew he was here.” She’s 44 now, and she still lives nearby, as do others who were drawn to the gates in the good times. But they rarely go there anymore. These days the gates are for tourists: standing out front, getting their pictures taken, smiling the same way they’d smile in front of any other tourist attraction. You don’t see it in their eyes, the thing that haunts the eyes of the gate people, the shining sweet sadness, the burning need that still consumes 10 years after they lost him.

“I still feel like I need to protect him,” says Cullum. “Because, you know, there’s so much you hear, so much that people say.”

Elvis fans. A species unto themselves. A large species. The ones like Linda Cullum, the gate people, are among the most dedicated, but there are a lot more, counting the ones—and, believe me, they are all around you—who don’t talk about it. Because you might laugh. Because you don’t understand.

These are not people who merely liked Elvis. A lot of us liked Elvis, especially when he was lean and sexy and strange and really bothered people. But then we moved on to the Beatles and the Stones and a lot of other (to us) hipper people, and Elvis, getting less scary and less lean all the time, faded into a ‘50s memory, and eventually he became, to many, a sad joke. But don’t laugh too soon, hip people. Think about this: Over a billion Elvis records have been sold. Nobody is in second place. And think about this: Today—10

years after he died, more than 20 years after he dominated rock—there are tens of thousands of people, from all over the world, gathered in Memphis to pay tribute to him, to visit Graceland, to walk the halls of his old high school, to take bus trips down to his Mississippi birthplace, to relive and explore and discuss and celebrate every tiny detail of his life. It isn’t a one-time thing: The fans were there last year, and they’ll be there next year. This doesn’t happen for the Beatles; it doesn’t happen for Frank Sinatra; it doesn’t happen for Franklin D. Roosevelt. It doesn’t happen for anybody, that I can think of, who is not the focal point of a major religion. Just Elvis. Bruce Springsteen comes and Michael Jackson goes, but Elvis endures. His fans, his vast, quiet flock, make damn sure of that. They have heard all the stories about him, all the exposes and the Shocking Revelations about his appetites, his kinkiness, his temper, his pills. They know all about his problems. They know more about them than you do. And it makes no difference, except maybe to make them love him more, the way you draw closer, in time of trouble, to a brother or a lover. Which is what Elvis was to them. Which he still is.

And the hell with what people say.

The fans know what their public image is, too: fat, weeping, heavily hair-sprayed, middle-aged housewives wearing polyester pantsuits festooned with “I Love Elvis” buttons. That’s all that gets on TV, the fans say. That’s all the press sees.

“Ah, the press,” sighs Karen Loper, 42, president of the Houston-based fan club. She was watching the Iran-contra hearings when I called her a couple of weeks ago. Like the other fan club presidents I talked to, she was very articulate. She does not wear polyester pantsuits.

“The media—especially the TV people—always do the obligatory story,” she says. “They pick the most unflattering person, the one with a black bouffant hairdo, and they show her at the graveside crying. It’s so superficial, and nobody ever looks beyond it. But hey, I’m used to it. I’ve been putting up with this crap since I was 12 years old. First my father, always telling me Elvis wasn’t gonna last, Elvis can’t sing. Now the media. It used to bother me. I used to try to defend him. But now I realize: He doesn’t need defending.”