Graceland Impersonator

The Honky Tonk Man suggest, I went to Memphis, and met Elvis!

Graceland Impersonator

 

Once upon a summer’s past, I headed several miles from my apartment to the armory in town to see some wrestling greats due battle.  Granted they were past their prime and all but this may be the only chance I can see guys like the “Road Dogg” Jesse James and the Honky Tonk Man.

 

Both guys became famous in the wrestling business working in the World Wrestling Federation, now known as the WWE.  Road Dogg’s best known for being one-half of a tag team called the New Age Outlaws with Billy Gunn and the Honky Tonk Man’s best known for being the longest reigning WWE Intercontinental Champion (the WWE’s second-tier singles title).

 

Back to the story.  One Saturday afternoon, a few friends and I decided to buy tickets to go to this wrestling show.  They all know I love going back and watching old clips of the Honky Tonk Man.  I enjoyed the Elvis impersonation he does, as well as his in-ring skills.  Even though his wrestling ability wasn’t the greatest, it’s his Elvis-ish moves that kept me tied to his character.

 

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a giant Elvis Presley fan.  His voice and his melodies, teamed with the poetry he sung, captured my heart into becoming a life-long fan.  If I’m going through a rough few hours, I lean towards listening to Elvis because his music tends to brighten my mood.  I have to admit, even if I feel like I’m falling for a lucky lady, I love listening to Elvis’ love songs, he tends to capture how I often feel.  With being a huge wrestling fan, Honky Tonk Man “captured” those feelings Elvis’ music brought.

To no one’s surprise, the Honky Tonk Man wrestled in the main event of the card, which caused me to smile even bigger than what I even expected to smile.  The Honky Tonk did his normal routine, sung his song, wrestled his match, do an encore of his song, and leave.  Every word he sung, I sung with him, that’s how much I love the Greatest Intercontinental Champion in WWE history!

 

After the show, I went to the bathroom to let go of the Mello Yello I drank at the show, my friends ran off, screwing with me.  When I came out of the bathroom from peeing, I was confused; I didn’t know where my group walked off to.  I grabbed my phone and seen that Beverly Hills texted me, saying “Dirty Dawg, we’ll be back. We lost something by our seats in the arena.”  I thought, “Okay, hopefully they’ll find what they lost, whatever it is.”

 

Within a few minutes later, I hear “Who wants to meet the Greatest Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion?”  I turned my head and see the Honky Tonk Man walking up to me, with Beverly Hills and the rest of my friends who came with to the event, smiling.

 

“I do!” I proclaimed, excited to meet one of my favorite wrestlers.

 

Honky Tonk, my friends, and I talked old school wrestling and shared in some laughs.  Before we went our separate ways, I had to ask the Honky Tonk Man, “I want to be an Elvis impersonator, do you have any suggestions that I could take?”

 

Angrily he responded, “Go to the source in Memphis.”  Once he did, he stormed off, I looked over to my friends and they responded with a confused look on their face, we were puzzled on why HTM was mad.  We shrugged it off and left.

 

I went to work two days later and talked to my supervisor, asking if there’s any week open that I could take off for a vacation.  To my surprise, the next week was wide open, so I jumped at the chance to take off, wanting to head down to Memphis as soon as I could.   “You have any plans for the week off,” my supervisor asked.

 

“I want to head down to Memphis to tour Graceland,” I responded.   “It’s a place I always wanted to visit and wanted to take a whole week to see it.”

 

“A big Elvis fan, I take it?” he asked.

 

“Yup, my mom and my aunts got me hooked as a fan when I was growing up,” I answered when the buzzer went off.  Thankfully I clocked in before requesting time off.  I went off to where I was scheduled for the night and worked throughout the week, excited to head down to Graceland.

 

I jumped in my car Saturday morning when I clocked out at 2am; I drove towards the Twin Cities, on my way to Graceland.  I selected my Elvis playlist that I put together during the week.  I wanted to get myself mentally ready over the week while listening to a lot of Elvis and similar artist.

 

After a long drive down to Memphis, I made the turn my GPS told me to take, followed it with every command, and pulled up in front of the world renowned Graceland!  I felt like how kids feel when they go to Disneyland and see their favorite cartoon character!

 

Found a parking spot and went on a tour at Graceland.  It was a fun tour, not gonna lie.  From reviews what I read online beforehand, sounds like my tour was the same as every other tour.  I was wondering what the Honky Tonk Man was talking about when he referred me to the source.

 

Not wanting to think about it more, I wondered off to the bathroom due to drinking too much Mello Yello, due to drinking a lot to stay awake while driving from St. Cloud, Minnesota, to Memphis, Tennessee.  I washed my hands after visiting the bathroom, not knowing whose hand had touched the flusher of the urinal; I was grabbed from some older, overweight gentlemen into a dark hallway and into a small room.

 

“Hey, you’re fine, don’t fight!” This guy told me.  His voice sounded very familiar, like a voice I knew from the past.

 

Trying to get a glimpse of this guy, he covered my eyes until he pulled me into the room he must have been hiding in.  He pushed me down into a chair and I was stunned, I couldn’t believe who kidnapped me.  IT WAS ELVIS PRESLEY!  Yes, it was the King of Rock and Roll!

 

“Honky Tonk called me and said you wanted to be one of my impersonators and directed you down here,” the King told me.  “Not many people know I’m still alive, don’t tell anyone, you hear me!”

 

I stuttered out, “Yes sir.”

 

“Listen close if you want to be legit,” Elvis explained, telling me the ways to be successful if I want to make a career of impersonating him.  I wish I could give even the slightest bit of what he told me but I already know I told too much with writing this, but Elvis is dead, right?

 

Anyway, I had a lot to think about the rest of the week I was down in Memphis.  I visited a lot of different landmarks, the bars, the mall, the university they have there, all the major sites, thinking about what I was told, trying to “forget” that I just seen the King.

 

The following Thursday I decided to drive home, wanting to get home before traffic got bad heading back to Minnesota.  I got back Friday morning, around the time I would have gotten off of work.  I texted a few co-workers, asking if we could meet up after work the next night, wanting to share my stories from Memphis. 

 

When we met up around 3am Saturday morning at Perkins, they all were happy to see me and I was happy to see them too.  I told them about my tour at Graceland and my encounter in the back room, they highly urged me to come out with the story, saying that the people should know that one of the greatest musicians is alive! 

 

So, I wrote out my story, they edited it up, and I threw out all my Elvis CDs.

 

The “Dirty Dawg” Darsie