Twenty-five years ago today was, in my memory, a day not unlike the one at hand. Perhaps it wasn't as hot or humid, but I remember it as being kind of gray. I was home, doing whatever eight year olds do when they're stuck at home, when the news came down.

Elvis was dead.

I remember yelling the news up to whoever was home, probably one of my sisters. I had enough understanding to know who Elvis was, but not so much to think of it as the epochal passing that it's become.

Today, with the deeper understanding of who Elvis was and his place in American culture, I have to say this on the silver anniversary of his demise.

Woo hoo.

Sudden, unexpected deaths can have this sort of effect. Think about the responses to the deaths of John Lennon or Princess Di. In Elvis's case, I can see how his surprise death would result in a massive, loyal following, given that at the time of his death he was such a vital cog in the music industry and a devotee of healthy eating and a substance free lifestyle.

For all of the rock n roll classics that Elvis gave the world, in his last years (comeback or no comeback) he was an increasingly sad and mockable figure. Fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches? An almost equal appetite for a variety of pharmaceutical substances? That white jumpsuit?

Have you noticed that Elvis impersonators, almost universally, style themselves after the gaudier, tubbier Presley than the slim, raw performer of the 1950s? Doing so allows them to meld the music with the kitsch, walking a line between entertainment and parody. Get some oversized shades, an ugly one piece garment, a wig with muttonchops and a half-gallon of Brylcreem and you're in business.

During part of the Today show coverage of this, one of the people who works for Elvis's foundation noted that before Graceland was opened to the public it had to be renovated to its 1960s style because, in his dissipated years, the house was an odd combination of shabby and tacky. Appaprently, a man's home truly is his castle.

I suppose my problem with this whole thing is that the worship of Elvis so far outstrips his persona. A great musician? Yes; but so were many of his contemporaries, including the minority acts whose music Elvis took into the mainstream. But worthy of such adulation? Not unless he becomes the first saint of the Church of the Subgenius.