In July of 1999
came across the above web site for Elvis Presley Enterprises (EPE),
the corporation that owns all the rights to Elvis's work. It seemed
incredibly lame to me that it was still under construction. I
was sure I'd be able to do some serious online Elvis purchasing.
In fact, at the time I was trying
to find an online catalogue for the Elvis gift shop at Graceland
in Memphis, TN. I wanted to buy my friend a birthday present
in the form of the Elvis hat he had bought when we visited Graceland
in 1994, but subsequently lost.
I didn't necessarily expect
to find the particular merchandise, or even the Graceland store
itself, but never would I have imagined that looking for the Official
Elvis site would be such a daunting task.
First I tried my luck with
'graceland.com', whereupon I was greeted with the words "Welcome
To The Home Of The King Of Kings!"
"Great!" I thought to myself.
"That was easy." However, it took only a little further inspection
to realize..."My god, by King they mean...Jesus Christ!" Shocked
and appalled, I then tried 'elvis.com.' Hmm, no DNS entry, and some
random person just snatched up this domain years ago and is now
just sitting on it. Okay, how about 'presley.com'? No dice
— That belongs to a company called "Presley computing."
Alright, let's try 'elvispresley.com'. Shit, another cybersquatter
just waiting to cash in on the name. Okay, how about 'theking.com'.
Nope, another URL that's being warehoused and is for sale.
I began doing searches
for "Elvis Presley Enterprises." It really freaked me out
that I couldn't find much. The organization that owns
the rights to all things 'Elvis' was not yet online? AND they have
permitted cybersquatters to take all the Elvis URLs? Surely Colonel
Tom Parker was rolling over in his grave — this was the missed
merchandising opportunity of the century!
Oh well, let's try one
more -- 'elvistheking.com'... Finally! Here is the official EPE
site. Jesus fuck, it's 'under construction.' What in
hell is going on?
I spied the notice that
reads "If you would like to be notified when we are online, please
drop us a line..." and concluded it was time to tell these
bozos to get it together. I mean we're talking about Elvis
Presley here. So I dropped them the following note:
If 'Elvis', 'Elvis Presley', and 'Graceland'
are registered marks of EPE, why are all of those domain names taken
by other parties? I don't get it. In the meantime, please
advise when you finally get your site up. I suggest hiring
some consultants immediately. I was ready to spend money like
I haven't spent money since I was at Graceland in 1994...
I want my Elvis Presley hat again.
They did not write me back, and as of this update
(July 2001) The official Elvis Presley site still looks exactly
as it does above. Appalling. . .
