by PL

“Kirk’s Log” is the timeline record kept by National Enquirer guy Jim Kirk, and is featured in Dick Grob’s magnum dopus, “The Elvis Conspiracy?” In Kirk’s Log, we find an hour-by-hour account that Kirk supposedly kept as the events in Memphis unfolded over the days from August 16 to August 20, 1977, though it is my position that this record was constructed after-the-fact and was not a contemporaneous account of Kirk’s actions. That aside, let’s look at another question: Whose names do we find in this log?

As many Grob supporters are so gleefully happy to point out, Kirk includes entries in his log that reference Ginger Alden by name, even though he doesn’t seem too sure the caller was her. (He also refers to this female caller as “girl at Graceland,” but that’s another story.) It is interesting, though, that these other entries are seemingly ignored:

TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1977

10:00am Call to D. Stanley at mansion. Not in.

11:30am Call to mansion. Stanley still not in.

2:15pm Call to mansion. D. Stanley “not available”, and why am I calling?

5:35pm Call to David Stanley. I advise him of my status as a reporter, and offer to act as mediator should he wish to give an interview.

Here we have this evil** National Enquirer reporter specifically naming David Stanley as someone he is calling at Graceland, which means someone had to have given him the phone number there, and there was a reason for providing that phone number. Later in the afternoon of 8/16/77, Kirk calls Stanley and reaches him, and for this call Stanley had to have been at his residence and not at Graceland. Who gives a home phone number to a tabloid reporter unless there is something happening between the two parties? Does anyone ever ask David Stanley about this, or are any Elvis fans at all interested in this Kirk/Enquirer/Stanley connection?

[** When Ginger talks to a tabloid = evil; when anyone else in Elvis’s circle talks to a tabloid = no big deal.]

A critical point needs to be made here: If Kirk was simply calling someone associated with Elvis with the expectation or hope that this person (David Stanley) might want to do an interview, then why didn’t he call anyone else? More importantly, though, look at the timing and sequence of these calls: Kirk called David Stanley at Graceland twice that morning before he had any word about something going on at Graceland. So, when Kirk called David Stanley at 10:00am and again at 11:30am, why was he calling? At 5:35pm, Kirk says he called Stanley to offer his help in facilitating an interview, but when he called Stanley twice that morning he had no reason to talk to Stanley about setting up an interview. So, again, why was Kirk trying repeatedly to reach David Stanley on the morning Elvis died?

The name “Ricky Ayers” is also referenced in Jim Kirk’s log of phone calls and events that day, and we know that Ayers was a not-around-too-much cousin of Elvis’s. So Kirk was in touch with at least two other people connected to Elvis that day, besides “girl at Graceland.” Keeping this in mind, let’s go back and look at the late Bill Burk’s “Elvis World #85” and see what he had to say about the call to the National Enquirer:

Let’s also keep this in mind:  there was only one reason to contact the National Enquirer that day.  That one reason? Money.  The Enquirer was not a daily publication, so the “news” value could not have been the motivation to call them.  Local Memphis newspapers would have gotten the word out in their next editions, and national news wires would have had the news out that afternoon.  So the only reason to call the National Enquirer would have been to set up an interview of some sort for payment, or to sell a story or a service of some kind (taking the casket photo, for example).  And lo and behold, what was Kirk doing within 24 hours?  Coordinating the purchase and delivery of Minox cameras for Ayers and Mann Jr. (by 11:30am Wednesday, he was meeting with Mann Sr. and Mann Jr., with Ayers on the phone). So we have this small group of guys apparently willing to do just about anything for money, and they were conspiring with the National Enquirer by late Wednesday morning, and yet all eyes have been on Ginger Alden for all these years? No matter the identity of the male caller that day, “Ginger called Kirk!” is a red herring.