The King is Dead
By Marissa Walsh

Elly pointed out the window of the Graceland shuttle bus and shouted, “That’s Joey Ramone!” We were done with our tour and were about to disembark back at the souvenir shop/parking area when she came through with the Beach MTV Call of the Day. That was how we spoke back then, in college, when we did things like go to Graceland. But how much of a call was it? I mean, you can’t be wrong about Joey Ramone. No one else looked like him. He was sauntering around with a big bag of souvenirs. He was wearing a Ramones T-shirt. He was visiting the King. I took his picture. And then we followed him around a bit and giggled and whispered, “Beat on the brat. Beat on the brat. Beat on the brat with a baseball bat. Oh yeah.” It became our trip soundtrack. We didn’t speak to him. He was too scary. Dee Dee and the others were there, too.

No one else seemed to know who they were.

Joey>>Flickr>>Creative Commons>>Bog King