Elvis Has Left the Building

Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977, over thirty-five years ago, in the bathroom of his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 42 at the time of his death. He had been on the toilet, but fallen off onto the floor, where he lay in a pool of his own vomit. Panicked, his staff contracted an ambulance, which rushed him to nearby Baptist Memorial Hospital, where, after several attempts to revive him, he died at 3:30 pm CST.

   I was reminded of that today by my wife when she told me it was on Catalan Radio.  I remember Elvis only in the confines of my own living experience.  I wasn't a fan, I didn't dislike him. I was, for all intent and purposes, ambivalent.  So many might be able to tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.  Much like the loss of other personalities that were bigger than life; JFK, or Walt Disney, or Michael Jackson. I am not one of those people.

  What I remember most about Elvis was not his pioneering Rock and Roll music into the American thirst for self expression, but for an obscure incident that occurred at Harvey's Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

  I was working at Harrah's across the boulevard from Harvey's and I couldn't get out of the parking lot after my shift because of the traffic jam by the crazies coming in to see Elvis perform. It was 1973. What made the experience stand out for me wasn't the delay, but hearing for the first time of the house moderator saying over the PA system, "Elvis has left the building."

  At the time they resorted to that in order to calm and disperse the crowd that was lingering in the ball room where Elvis had finished performing.  He was renowned for delivering a number of encores if the crowd was lathered up and applauding wildly. It created quite a situation for those wishing to clean up after the show; there were schedules to keep.

  Today we use the Elvis phrase to emphasize whatever was going on, it is now officially finished.

  I don't wish to get into the drugs, or conjecture on his emotional or mental disposition at the time of his death; it's been beaten to death. As with the loss of any icon, the stories just continue to become more fantastic and outrageous as the years go on. Even more fantastic than the human being they're supposed to be about.

  I wanted to pause and consider how time changes every opinion.  Whether someone was 'The Greatest' or 'The King' or metamorphosed Norma Jean. They all had history; unfortunately the most common denominator is that it was tragic history.  That seems to go unheralded when lauding how much they meant to us, the entertained, now that they're gone. So to the kid who was Elvis, as well as to all those other heroes and villains who left their fingerprints on our recollections, may you all rest well beyond our impulsive and ill-informed judgments.