Elvis is dead and I don't feel so good myself

I'm in the Elvis hometown 5 days a week. Was never that big a fan, but I wound up with that No. 1 hits CD and he did have a hell of a range. The early stuff is scary, I can only imagine how it must have hit in person.

 

I couldn't resist the easy punchline. But Elvis was pretty badass.

 

No prob. All I can say is they tore out my heart and stomped that sucker flat. Though I'm not sure what Kathy Sue Loudermilk would have to say about that.

 

She'll say shoot low, they're riding Shetland ponies.

 

You know how you remember Elvis. He was found in the toilet with his pants around his ankles and his big fat hairy sweaty king of rock and roll ass exposed to the world and his final piece of kingly evidence floating in the toilet behind him.

 

Blue Moon of Kentucky is a great example of his range. So is That's All Right.

My favorite Elvis movie moment: from Honeymoon in Vegas, when Nicolas Cage gets on a small plane with the Flying Elvises.

"Look, if you could just DROP me!"

 

I'm not an Elvis fan by any means, but I've always liked the story that was told in David Halberstam's book on the 1950s about the night his music first played on the radio in Memphis.

Supposedly, he was so nervous that he went to the movies. The DJ played his record, and the calls to keep playing it were so much that the DJ decided to interview Elvis on the air, so he tried to call the Presley home. Only, they were so poor, they didn't own a phone, so after finally getting their neighbors, who got his parents, Elvis' mom went down to the theater and got him.

Elvis asked his mom what was wrong, and his mom said nothing was wrong, but plenty was right. She got ahold of him, they went to the station, and Elvis was scared to be interviewed. The DJ told him just not to say anything dirty on the air, then asked him some questions. At the end, Elvis asked, "Aren't you going to interview me, and the DJ replied he already had.

I've always liked how he essentially went into the theater as an ordinary man and essentially walked out of it a star that night.

 

Motherfuck him and John Wayne.

 

Always loved this alleged Elvis quote,m which comes from the foreword to Stephen King's Bachman Books:

Cub Koda, possibly America's greatest houserocker, once told me this story
about Elvis Presley, and like the man said, if it ain't true, it oughtta be. Cub said
Elvis told an interviewer something that went like this: I was like a cow in a pen
with a whole bunch of other cows, only I got out somehow. Well, they came and
got me and put me in another pen, only this one was bigger and I had it all to
myself. I looked around and seen the fences was so high I'd never get out. So I
said, "All right, I'll graze. "

 

His range was incredible. It always amazes me that the same guy could record Hound Dog and Love Me Tender and pull off both of them (or That's All Right and Now or Never, if you prefer).

 

I would guess Elvis, easily. Besides his incredible range and the breadth of both his popular music and specialty efforts like his gospel and traditional Christmas stuff, he benefited from his movies, which weren't always great but were popular and easy to look at just because of him.

He also had a longer active run, especially if you include his comeback run when he was past his prime that occurred in the 1970s. The madness and fandom surrounding Elvis during his time can probably only be compared to The Beatles. And rightfully so.

There's a story in our family about my now 80-year-old mom, who has been a forever fan of Elvis. At some point in her 40s, she, my dad and another couple with whom they were friends went to Las Vegas to see one of Elvis' comeback tour shows.

Well, Mom, apparently, went absolutely Tiger-beat crazy, and, as the story goes, crawled across a long table at which she had been sitting, watching the show, the better to get closer to Elvis.

To this day, she boasts, "I touched Elvis. I grabbed his arm and got ahold of the tassels on his sleeve. He looked down and saw me, and he smiled at me."

My mortified dad? Oh, he could only swipe his hand across his face in embarrassed disbelief. "Oh my god," he said. "There goes my 45-year-old wife, and the mother of my six kids. What the hell is she doing?!"

She was having a good time, apparently. And I know my mom wasn't the only one who loved him. Elvis was truly a phenomenon.

 

I don't know how many Babe Ruth impersonators there are out there, or how many people travel to his home annually, but I would bet Elvis has him beat by a country mile in terms of popularity.