My Memories of Elvis, Who Would Be 10,000 Years Old Today If He'd Lived

You know, 10,000 years old, playing Ring Around the Roses with Peter, Paul and Moses or whatever.

Dad was definitely an Elvis guy. He had most of the LPs, which are now in my possession, and they still sound great. Every Sunday, he’s play them on the enormous record player (same size as the couch almost) in the living room.

I don’t specifically remember what the favorites were, but he did love ALOHA FROM HAWAII, which I’m a little cool on. I’ll never forget when I grabbed his copy of NBC-TV SPECIAL and listened to it upstairs. It blew my mind, and I didn’t think it could get any better than that. At least, until I watched the video.

Today I put on ELVIS’ GOLDEN RECORDS and 50,000,000 ELVIS FANS CAN’T BE WRONG (so far). The Sun recordings are a titch overrated, I think, but still pack a wallop. I really love the late-‘60s stuff. I don’t think the man ever sung better.

I’m old enough to remember the day Elvis died. I was in downtown Florence, Alabama, in front of Anderson’s Bookland on Court Street waiting to be picked up — by whom, I can’t recall, I don’t think my mother was driving in 1977. I was reading the STAR WARS issue of CRACKED Mazagine, which not only satirized George Lucas’ Immortal Classic brilliantly, but also included some socko (or was it boffo?) jokes about The Fonz and President Carter.

I didn’t become an Elvis fan til much later on, though on this night I felt bad for the old man. He’d made the pilgrimage to the International Hotel in Las Vegas during (I think) the first Elvis residence there. And dragged two-year-old me to the show, and being a two-year-old, I cried and screamed the whole time. My sister still gives me shit for this.

But at least I can tell everyone I saw The King live in concert! And before the scarves and fat took over.

My favorite Elvis records (today, anyway) are “Jailhouse Rock” (the ’68 SPECIAL version is even better than the original), “Follow That Dream,” “Bosom of Abraham,” “Hurt,” and, lately, the aforementioned tune about being born about 10,000 years ago. Wonder why Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks didn’t sue?

Also, the weirdo budget compilation LP C’MON EVERYBODY, which is finally on streaming but with some of the tracks out of order.

The best Elvis movies are FLAMING STAR (a real director, for starters), KING CREOLE (mainly for that “You go to school!” scene), the reimagined version of THAT’S THE WAY IT IS, the extended version of the THIS IS ELVIS documentary (great soundtrack, too), FOLLOW THAT DREAM (amusing), KID GALAHAD (because Charles Bronson’s in it), and CHANGE OF HABIT ‘cos it’s so fucking insane.

Also, TRUE ROMANCE (1993) should count as an Elvis movie.

My favorite Elvis book is the one by Dave Marsh titled, simply, ELVIS. The appendix lists alone put it on top. There was a time not too long ago that I’d devour any and every book about Elvis Presley, including the one by the cousin that nobody had ever heard of.

Aside from the ’68 special, my favorite Elvis TV appearance was when he hosted NBC’S SATURDAY NIGHT during the first season, with musical guests Paul McCartney and John Lennon, who showed up at the studio unannounced a week after Lorne Michaels’ Beatles reunion offer. Classic episode, and I wonder why you can’t find it on DVD, Hulu, Peacock, etc.

One of the coolest things about Elvis was that he could apparently quote the movie ACROSS 110TH STREET in its entirety. If only he’d covered the Bobby Womack title song. Wonder if he sang it around Graceland?

Maine Couple Not Sure Why They Keep Coming Here Every Winter - RATED R ***NSFW***

From the January issue of the local SNOWBIRDS magazine…

By Frank Bauggs, Editor and Publisher of SNOWBIRDS, because there’s no money in the budget to hire writers.

Ed and Gail Hickman began their latest adventure — retirement, coupled with some of those kinky sex things they’d always wanted to try when they were younger — in 2017.

Ed, aged 70, grew up in rural Massachusetts, and Gail, aged 67, in what she calls “deep in the darkest asshole of Maine.” They tied the knot back in 1991, but engaged in a lot of premarital hanky panky years before that.

The couple combined Ed’s two daughters from a previous marriage (“I don’t wanna talk about that cunt,” Ed tells me when I ask about his first wife) and some other assorted kids, pets and hangers-on into their family. The spend three or four months a year on the Emerald Coast, but they’re not sure why.

The Hickmans first visited Northwest Florida in 2010 to visit one of their daughters (“Can’t remember her name, sorry,” says Ed) who had relocated here with five of the couple’s 47 grandchildren. Ed and Gail attend and are active members at Destin’s Church of the Poisoned Mind.

They spend the rest of the year visiting their other children, who, Ed says, are “scattered all over the fucking country. What, do they think we’re made of gas money? We have a place on the beach. Why don’t they drive down here, for Christ’s sake?”

What did you do before retirement?

ED: You’re gonna need to speak up, the missus and I are a little hard of hearing.

WHAT. DID. YOU. DO. BEFORE. RETIREMENT?

ED: Jeeps, you don’t have to shout, fella. Honey, what did we do before we retired?

GAIL: What didn’t we do? (winks and laughs maniacally)

ED: He’s not talking about what we did in the boo-dwah, Gail. I can see you’ve been hitting that bottle pretty heavily, and it’s not even lunchtime yet.

GAIL: You damn skippy. Fuck it, I’m retired.

Has the Novel Coronavirus changed your habits while you’re here on the Redneck Riviera? If so, how?

ED: The Novel WOT?!

I’m sorry, the COVID-19. The Pandemic. The goddamn plague.

GAIL: Oh, yeah, they’re really off their nuts up there in Maine, enforcing mask wearing and social distancing, telling people they should hold off on exchanging bodily fluids. But we love that here in Florida, you guys just don’t give a fuck and act like everything’s normal.

ED: We like to go see that fella that plays for the Snowbirds at AJ’s. Wally, I think his name is, he’s from Ohio. And I swear to Christ, there’s more motherfuckers there than last winter. I kind of feel like they all just wanna die. But Gail and I have each other, and we don’t really care about any of those people anyway.

What activities do you enjoy?

GAIL: As you might have guessed, I like to get a little wobbly. I keep a bottle of vodka next to the bed, so I can have a big ol’ swig as soon as I wake up. And if I happen to get up in the middle of the night, all the better.

Ed and I like to go for a walk on the beach around eight o’clock in the morning. In my case, it’s a stumble on the beach.

ED: I pretty much like to nap and watch the Weather Channel. And I like some of those cute videos everybody shares on the Internet. We just watched one called CUM GUZZLING WHORES, and it was a doozy. We went to see the Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas last fall, and believe you me, they have nothing on the gals in that video.

Gail does a lot of cooking, and I have to — er, I mean LOVE — to eat anything she dishes out. We enjoy watching CELEBRITY BOWLING episodes on Amazon Prime. I feel bad that the kids don’t know what a badass Arte Johnson was, and how good that goddamn Creamettes macaroni tasted back in the day.

GAIL: Also, we love to go to the supermarket right when they open in the morning and buy up all the good stuff at the bakery. And if any of those Instacart weirdos are shopping we make sure we take up the whole aisle and walk really slow. Those losers don’t get paid by the hour, and they’re always in a hurry. But Ed and I, we’re not. Fuck ‘em, we’re retired.