“Hi! This is Art Wheeler. I will be out of the office on August 15th and 16th in observance of the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. Thank you very much.”
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2007 Elvis Week Essay
Author: elvisgumby
As I prepare for my annual trip to Graceland, I looked through some old stuff. Here are some notes on my annual Graceland trip I forwarded to friends back in 2006.
- You no longer have to pay to park in the official Graceland parking lot.
- The Graceland Crossing souvenir mall is now called “Elvis After Dark”. It is an official Elvis property now and has an arcade.
- George Klein (member of the Memphis Mafia) actually looks younger now than when he hosted “Dance Party” on WHBQ-TV in the early 70’s.
- You can argue as loud as you want to in a souvenir store if you are German, shave all your hair off except for a very short oblong circle on the crown of your head that you dye orange, wear dark sunglasses, army boots and a kilt. This is especially true if you are female and are arguing with your sister who is dressed the same way.
- Blue Hawaii costs $29.99 on DVD in the shops at Graceland. The same DVD costs $5.50 at Wal-Mart.
- A paper Japanese lantern does an effective job of protecting a candle from the wind at the candlelight vigil and looks neat in pictures.
- Not all Japanese know how to correctly unfold a paper Japanese lantern before lighting the candle, thus endangering the lives of many Elvis fans at once.
- The only store where you can buy magic markers to write your name on the wall at Graceland is Boulevard Souvenirs. This is also the only Elvis souvenir store that sells t-shirts with pictures of girls in rebel flag bikinis that say “tequila makes my clothes fall off”.
- Anyone that needed a bra when Elvis was alive should not go out in public without one now. Tube tops are especially unflattering.
- If you consider the stroll to the Chinese buffet to get food while at Graceland, it is probably still worth the extra few steps to go on down to KFC. You would only be disappointed with the crab legs.
- The French are confused with the pricing policies of KFC and a table full of them can obsess over a receipt throughout an entire meal.
- KFC foods may contain ingredients that cause 6-7 year old girls to dance around and chant, “Go Elvis! Go Elvis!”
- The winner of the UK version of “American Idol” from 4 seasons ago makes a great Elvis impersonator even if he has only been singing for 4 years.
- Elvis impersonators from Tuscaloosa, Alabama look more like professional wrestler Bill “Superstar” Dundee than Elvis.
- The Elvis folding chair comes in the “Vegas”, “GI Blues” and “Blue Hawaii” designs.
- Some Elvis fans from St. Louis impersonate Elvis fans from Sweden. The only weight available for the Elvis bowling ball is 16 lbs.
When I was a kid, my family would take vacations to Panama City Beach. I think it was right before the second trip that our family bought a new station wagon. This vehicle featured an 8-track tape player, something that our family never had before in the house or in a car. For what I would imagine was at least a ten hour trip, our family had 3 tapes. Each tape lasted about 45 minutes at best. One was from a local gospel group called The Jones Family that we knew personally. There was also a recent hits compilation like the K-Tel releases. This particular tape was a K-Tel type knock-off, poorly put together and probably no royalties going to the artists or original record companies. It included two songs I specifically remember that were big hits at the time, Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight at the Oasis” and Ray Stevens’ “The Streak”. This 8-track was a loaner from some of our neighbors. The third tape that we had was another loaner called “Jerry Lee Lewis Sings Country Music Hall of Fame Hits Volume 2”.
In the liner notes for my new CD, I make the following statement about the title track: “Six Minutes After Seven draws from the apocalyptic images in the Book of Revelation.” I think the idea for the song is best illustrated in the lyrics of the fourth verse:
“The scroll will lose the seventh seal The seventh horn will blow The seventh woe will pour Out from the seventh bowl A seven headed dragon Wearing seven crowns Will intimidate a pregnant woman And smash up the town Angels will defend her honor A war will start in heaven And troubles spread upon the earth At six minutes after seven”
In an earlier post, I talked about writing and recording both versions of The Promised Land. I wanted to do a black gospel choir arrangement for the background vocals. Most people who know me know that I play music primarily by ear. I can read music, but I’m not very good at it. Practically all of the other songs that I have recorded are arrangements that existed only in my head prior to the sessions or were developed during the recording process. For this recording, I felt the a little more planning was in order.
I was on my first trip to Peoria. I woke up and was getting ready to leave to come back home. I was in the process of getting cleaned up and ready to leave the hotel. At one point, I have used the toilet and it overflowed. Not a big mess, but there was lots of water in the floor. I used towels to contain the water to the bathroom and mop up the water. I thought I did a pretty good job of cleaning the place up and continued to get ready. While I was shaving, the phone rang. I answered and it was the front desk. The lady said, “Mr. Wheeler, are you having problems with water in your room?” I said yes but I thought that I had contained it. She said, “Well, the water is leaking through to the room below and the electrical room is right below yours.” I assured her that I had gotten the water up and that it wasn’t still running. This seemed to be enough to ease her concerns and she let me go. I went back to finish shaving and getting ready. A couple of minutes later, the phone rang again. It was the front desk again. The lady said, “Mr. Wheeler, I’m going to come up there and check on the room.” I said, “Look, I am naked. Give me 5 minutes and I’ll be dressed and out of here.” They let me clear out of the room before they came in. I never heard anymore from the hotel. And I never stayed there again.
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Music and Miracles
What was it like for the people who saw Jesus do miracles? What would their reaction be? What would it be like to be in one of the people in the crowd of 5,000 that Jesus fed with five loaves of bread? Would you have even known what was going on with the food? What would it be like to see him heal a blind man or drive a demon out of someone? What would be your response?
In July of 2005, I spent a week in Lovere, Italy. We flew into Milan and although I had been told to sleep on the plane, I had very little success. When we arrived, I was very sleepy and we immediately had a meeting to attend. I felt bad but was able to function well enough. After that meeting we had to travel about an hour and a half to get to the city where we were staying. This area of Italy has very many hills and the roads were loaded with curves. Our driver was a man named Armando. Armando was an aggressive driver and spoke practically no English. When someone cut him off at a toll booth, I swear I thought he was going to jump out of the car and beat the other driver up. As we weaved through the mountain roads, I was tossed left and right in the van. The aggressive driving and my lack of sleep started to make me feel terrible. I never get car sick but I started to get sick from this ride. It took me a couple of days to recover from this ride.
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The Teddy Bear Dance and eBay
When I was little, I listened to a lot of music. At a very early age, I was able to change records on the small record player that my parents had on a shelf in our dining room. My parents bought me several children’s records. My favorite was a 45 on the Peter Pan Records label called The Teddy Bear Dance. The flip side of this record was a song called Teddy Bears on Parade. I listened to this record almost all of the time. It would still get played when I got older and we purchased more advanced stereo equipment. I even took this disc to college with me and entertained my friends lip syncing to the songs.
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Plumber’s Convention
In my life outside of music, I work as a Quality Engineer for a major faucet manufacturer. In April of 2009, I was invited to go to a plumbers convention. I sent 3 emails to a few good friends before and after the convention. With a little editing, here are the emails describing the event.
4/16/09 – I thought you would get a kick out of this: Late last year, someone at work asked me to give a tour to a group of plumbers. This is not an unusual request. There are always groups of plumbers that want tours of our plant and we never turn them down. This was the first time I had been asked to give one of these tours. This particular group was from some statewide plumbers’ organization and they were getting some sort of credit with their group for my tour. I spent half of the day on a tour and we fed them lunch. I gave everyone a business card. The only contact I’ve had with them since was a few emails helping them get their credit for the tour and one call with a question about our product. Until this week…
On Tuesday, I received a call from one of the guys from Memphis. He works for either the city or county government as a plumbing inspector. We played phone tag for about a day and a half. I wasn’t looking forward to talking to him because I thought he would have a complaint or ask some question about code requirements that I don’t usually deal with. When I finally talked to him, he invited me to a banquet in Memphis next week. Not only that, they want to give me a plaque for something like the supplier/partner of the year! I don’t know if this award is for me or for my company. Either way, I can’t really turn it down. I figure an opportunity to go to a plumbers banquet and receive an award may be even better than going to Elvis Death week.
I do have one reservation: I’m afraid I might be asked to say something. Since I’m not familiar with the group or their banquet, I really don’t know what is expected. Add to that the fact that I don’t know if I’m receiving this award for myself or the company. It makes it hard to plan. I’m not really nervous about it but I have been known to screw up when asked to speak at the last minute at a banquet.
So, I thought about having something worked up just in case I have to say anything. My first thought was to this routine by Steve Martin from his first album:
Ok, I don’t like to gear my material to the audience but I’d like to make an exception because I was told that there is a convention of plumbers in San Francisco this week – I understand about 30 of them came down to the show tonight – so before I came out I worked-up a joke especially for the plumbers. Those of you who aren’t plumbers probably won’t get this and won’t think it’s funny, but I think those of you who are plumbers will really enjoy this…
This lawn supervisor was out on a sprinkler maintenance job and he started working on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom 7″ gangly wrench. Just then, this little apprentice leaned over and said, “You can’t work on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom 7″ wrench.” Well this infuriated the supervisor, so he went and got Volume 14 of the Kinsley manual, and he reads to him and says, “The Langstrom 7″ wrench can be used with the Findlay sprocket.” Just then, the little apprentice leaned over and said, “It says sprocket not socket!”
Where those plumbers supposed to be at this show???
Art
4/22/09 – Last night, I arrived at the Memphis Hilton just after 6. The lobby of the hotel was unusually busy for that time of day. It appeared that large numbers of people were either checking in or checking out. I wasn’t sure of the name of the organization or the event I was attending until I found a list of events taking place at the hotel. It listed a full day’s worth of events for a group called the Tennessee Building Officials Association (TBOA) including the President’s Reception at 6 and the banquet at 7. I made my way to the area for the reception but I didn’t see an area to check in or anyone that I recognized. Finally, a guy from Tullahoma named “Boomer” that had been on the tour came up and took me to the reception room for the smaller group, the Tennessee Plumbing and Mechanical Inspectors Association (TPMIA). On the way to this room, Boomer tells me that the hotel had an electrical fire earlier in the day and they had shut down the tower of the hotel. This meant that no one from the group was able to go to their room and change for the banquet. It also meant that since my award was up in the room, I would not be receiving it tonight. In the reception room, I ran into Tom, the guy from Shelby County that had contacted me last week about the banquet. Tom is the secretary of the TPMIA and Boomer is the Treasurer. I hung out with them for the rest of the night. The reception room had no air conditioning but it did have a cooler of beer and a huge barrel shaped container of cheese balls.
The meal at the banquet was OK but it included sweet potatoes. This might have been alright if my wife hadn’t had a few too many failed sweet potato experiments in the past couple of weeks. During the banquet, I found myself giving standing ovations to people I knew absolutely nothing about. The keynote speaker had played golf that afternoon so he was dressed in a golf shirt and was wearing a visor. I felt at least a little over dressed in my coat and tie. I learned more than I ever cared to know about a group called the International Codes Council (ICC). I learned about the intrigue of the Minneapolis meeting last year where there was a big uproar concerning changes to codes concerning one and two family residential sprinkler systems. The keynote speaker, also the secretary of the ICC said, “the people who were at the meeting know what the HELL happened and know that meeting didn’t go until 2 in the morning!” I began to have flashbacks to a Michael Franks concert I went to years ago. I went to see the opening act, Stanley Jordan, and I had no idea who Michael Franks was. The place was packed but we managed to get great seats the day of the show. We were surrounded by people who knew this music and were shouting out requests and we didn’t know anything about this music. We really felt out of place. The big difference between that show and this banquet was that the people at the banquet didn’t seem to get as excited. But how excited can you really get about building codes. Unless of course, you are talking about one and two family sprinkler systems.
There were continuous updates about the status of the rooms and plans for the evening. Much of the business of the banquet was postponed or eliminated. This was done because they were going to allow people to go into the tower in groups of 40 with flashlights to get enough things for the evening. When they came back down, they would be taken by bus to a Marriott for the evening. Only two awards were given at the banquet. Both of those were from the TBOA. My award was Associate of the Year from the TPMIA. Shelby County Tom will be delivering it to me in the next couple of weeks when he going to the Jackson area for turkey hunting.
Art
5/11/09 – I received the plaque today.
Art