Today would have been Elvis "The King of Rock'n'roll " Presley's 80th birthday. It is generally believed by most that Elvis is no longer with us as in gone to that great jam session in the sky. However - love those howevers of life - there are those who believe he arranged for his disappearance and is out there somewhere, doing gigs. What if they're right? You just never know.
Elvis – The Real Story
CAST OF CHARACTERS
TAMMY 40-something avid Elvis fan and wife of Len
LEN 40-something husband of Tammy"THE" ELVIS, former big star/singer/performer
THE TIME
The present
THE PLACE
Jackson’s 7-11 GAS BAR AND DINER
Photos of Elvis cover a large portion of one wall; Elvis songs play non-stop. There is a table with two chairs on one side of the room, while the other side of the room has the usual gas station displays of motor oil, etc.
AT RISE:TAMMY and LEN, two customers, are seated at a table looking around the room
LEN
(Scrutinizing the surroundings)
Um…who recommended this place?
TAMMY
(reading book)
The restaurant guide write-up says it’s fine dining with a differenceLEN
Fine dining if you’re a rat! Did you happen to notice that a cockroach just crawled out of our bread basket? Must be one that escaped the Chef’s special catch-of-the-dayTAMMY
Stop being so negative and take in the atmosphereLEN
You mean the aromatic scent of “eau du trash” coming from the back? Phee-ew!TAMMY
You’re so…so…provincial in your thinking, sweetheart. It's about this authentic ‘60’s décor that gives the place its special caché!LEN
More like early condemned. Every square inch of wall space is covered with faded Elvis photos and the man’s been dead for how many years?TAMMY
That's the beauty of this place! It’s like a shrine devoted to “The King.” It's all too…wonderful
LEN
Are you saying that this…this gas station and one-table-diner was the King of Rock and Roll’s eatery of choice? Not!TAMMY
For your information they say he used to eat fried chicken here and sometimes he even entertained dinersLEN
Was that before or after he turned into the Goodyear blimp? If I had known we were coming here to eat, I’d have checked to make sure my insurance policy was paid up TAMMY
You know how long I hadda wait to get reservations for this restaurant…LEN
…obviously not long enough…TAMMY
…seven months! If you think I’m going to give up the chance to dine here…LEN
…and a fine dining establishment it is – if you’re into salmonella poisoningTAMMY
Get a grip! The waiter is coming to try to act normal, if that’s possible
the waiter dressed in an Elvis jumpsuit struts over, swinging his hips in a
typical Elvis-like walk. He smoothes the sides of his hair with his hands, frequentlyWAITER
(swinging his hips between every word)
Evening folks’. Need a menu? Uh-huh – oh yeah…LEN
No. We prefer to use ESP to order. Of course we need a menu!TAMMY
Don’t mind my husband – I don’t. Leave the menu here and we’ll chooseLEN
So tacky. All the dishes are Elvis songs. 'Be-bop-a-lu-la' chicken wings…' The 'Love Me Tender' T-bone looks questionable and it comes with fries that are probably a couple months old and a 'I Did It My Way' salad. Look at this: says here on the menu that all their steaks are aged to perfection. Yesterday's road-kill most likelyTAMMY
Have you considered that your cranial spark plugs have stopped kicking in? I can’t make up my mind – so many choices… the waiter comes over to take the order
LEN
Are all those dishes served a la carte?WAITER
(swinging hips)
No – on a plate. Uh-huh…TAMMY
Just choose something already, will you?WAITER
Want me to come back, folks? Uh-huh… SFX: LIGHTS DIM
TAMMY
Ssshhh! Quiet! The shows is gonna begin
SOUND: GUITAR TWANG
LEN
I don’t see why we hav’ta be quiet. Cheez – I can hear the sound of someone pumping gas outside, not to mention the smell. Mind you, it's hard to tell the difference between the food and the gas
(The song from “2001: A Space Odyssey” is heard and the waiter now dressed
in a mechanic’s uniform on the other side of the room walks in front of the
counter holding a hand mic)
VOICE OVER
“For you entertainment and pllllea-sure, the King has entered the building!”
An over-weight bordering-on-obese man dressed in a white jump suit enters, stopping to pose while leaning on a cane. A wide belt hangs well below a sagging stomach; black aviator glasses cover his eyes and a badly-fitting black wig sits lob-sided towards the front of his head
(VOICE OVER)
“Direct from his engagement at the luxurious Pink Flamingo Laundromat and Bank Drive Thru in Tijuana, Mex-i-co, the management of Jackson’s 7/11 and Diner is proud to present, “the” King of Rock’n’Roll himself, the one – the only – El-vis!”A bent over Elvis slowly makes his way to the other side of the room. He bends over to kiss Len, who pushes him way
ELVIS
“Whoops – sorry. Gotta get my eyes checked
He whips out a dirty handkerchief, spits on it and cleans his eyes and replaces it in a back pocketELVIS
(in weak squeaky voice)
Thank y’all very much! It’s the first time I been back this way goin’ on twenty years…or maybe it’s thirty…could be forty… Anyway… Good t'see y’all ain’t fergetten the King
whips out his handkerchief again and blows his nose
ELVIS
Guess I ain’t the same Elvis you remember a ways back, huh? But then who is?
Starts coughing and choking. Scantily dresses nurses rush over to pat him on
the back ELVIS
See? I still got it but now I don’t know what to do with it! Thank y’all very much… Listen ladies – go see if you can find my extra set of dentures that I left in a steak yesterday.
He chokes again and a well-endowed female doctor wearing tight fitting clothing enters, with a stethoscope draped around her neckDOCTOR
Now Mr. Elvis – honey – you know you gotta take it easy. Your ticker ain’t what it used to be ELVIS
(laughing and staring at her breasts)
Yeah but ask me if I care. Thank you all very much. And now before the spaceship comes to take me away, I’m gonna sing you a personal favourite of mine… ELVIS sings the first few lines of “My Way” completely off-key
LEN
(starting to get up)
Oh fer… We’re not gonna stay and listen to this… The man is obviously senile Sound of tires squeaking to a stop and the slam of car doors
ELVIS
Uh-oh…they’re coming back…I knew they’d find me… Damn aliens!Two males wearing white outfits move on either side of Elvis and take his arms
MALE 1
C’mon pops. You got another gig at the Sunnyvale Nursing HomeELVIS
ut…but…I ain’t finished my set, yet! MALE 1
Shaking his head and winking at Len and Tammy
You don’t wanna be late for your big entrance.ELVIS
Where’s my peanut butter and banana sandwich. I caint sing without it the two men start to lead Elvis off the stage but Elvis stops and addresses the
couple
ELVIS
Thank you all very much!
Elvis walks over, signs a piece of paper and hands it to Len and then exits with the men
LEN
(addressing waiter)
That was not “the” Elvis Presley now, was it? You got us here under false pretences. And that’s against the law, y’know!
WAITER
The guy is 80 years old. Whad’ya expect? He’s got two hip replacements, a bad knee and now all that shaking he does is the real thing, poor bastard. By the way, know that piece of paper he handed you?
LEN
I really couldn’t care less about the man’s autograph… In fact this is what I think of you AND your Elvis
LEN rips up the piece of paper into small pieces
WAITER
You shouldn’t have done that. Uh-uh…
LEN
Elvis my a-s-s!
WAITER
That piece of paper would’a given you a tank of gas with your meal. Oh well…uh-huh…
Len throws himself down on the floor picking up the pieces of paper trying to put them together
LEN
Don't just stand there, Tammy. A tank of gas is a tank of gas is…
VOICE OVER
“The King has left the building
LEN
(on his knees scooping up pieces of paper frantically)
Hang on a minute. I can put these pieces together… gimme some of that leftover barbeque sauce...
In a random g-cat with my friend Scott (who also happens to be a hot,gay,Jewish librarian), the topic of my celebrity came up. While he usually fosters my delusions of grandeur, today he took a swift kick at my ego blog:
ITW:You're not a celebrity.
WDL: SHUT UP...I am too
ITW: There are no cameras.
You probably just have a cornea disorder and see flashes.
Moral of this blog: I need to see
LadyStar is the story of a group of girls who each have a powerful weapon they wear disguised as a priceless jeweled treasure. With their magical weapons, Jessica Hoshi and her friends can transform into the Ajan Warriors, champion defenders of the enchanted realm of Aventar!
“Hi! I’m Jessica Hoshi! If you like stories about action and adventure and discovering magical treasures and fighting evil monsters, you’ll like our books a lot! Me and my friends have lots of fun adventures together! You can read LadyStar: The Palace in the Sky for free! The whole book! Right in your browser! So tell all your friends and come visit us as much as you want! There’s always something fun happening on our site!”
“Acey! It’s me Cici! Can you hear me?”
“Priority com signal detected. Activating secure channel.“
“There’s so many buttons on this thing. I should ask Talitha how it works.”
“Acknowledging priority communications. Stand by landing party.”
“Z-bot is that you?”
“Affirmative.”
“Yay! Is Acey home?”
“Negative. Commander Acey is currently piloting the Hana in a low orbit bearing 210 mark 76 at a range of 181 nautical miles.”
“Umm.. okay. Can I talk to her?”
“Affirmative. Stand by landing party.”
“Okay Z-bot! Over and out!”
“Z-bot to Hana.”
“Hana, Acey here.”
“Landing party is standing by on secure com channel, Commander. Patching.”
“Cici! Is everything okay?”
“Yeah! Teko left us a clue and now we’re looking for more pink flowers!”
“That’s good, Cici. Those flowers could be anywhere on the site. Teko moves very fast and he’s very smart.”
“Okay Acey! Can Talitha use my radio thingy too?”
“Sure. I’ll tell Z-bot to relay all signals from your com unit.”
“Yay! Thanks Acey! You’re the best!”
“Go get ‘em landing party. Hana out.”
“Shannon-sama! Looky! We gots another question from my Jessie’s Letters page!”
“It’s hard work to keep up with all the e-mail.”
“It sure is! This one’s about your book Call of the Huntress. It’s from ‘Sirea’ and they said ‘are we gonna put the whole story of Call of the Huntress online cause they really wanna know what happens next!’”
“We sure are! Call of the Huntress is the third book in the Ajan Warriors Series and it’s the sequel to Palace in the Sky, so we sorta have to continue the story, right?”
“Yeah, ’cause I wanna meet your big magical kitty-kat, cause I’ve never seen a midnight cougar with blue eyes before!”
“Well, I just might be able to arrange that after I get my treasure back and learn my powers as an Ajan Warrior.”
“Arigato Shannon-sama! If you gots a question or a comment or just wanna say “Hi Jessie and Shannon-sama!’ you can send an e-mail to meeeeeeee on my super-neat super-sugoi best on the whoooooole site Jessie’s Letters page. Ja ne minna-san!”
“Talitha-chan helped me fix my e-mail page so we got Jessie’s Letters working again. If you have questions or comments or just wanna say ‘Hi Jessie!’ you can go to my super-neat Jessie’s Letters page to send us e-mail!”
“We love to answer questions about our stories or the site or our events.”
“Don’t forget to vote! We want to hear what you think. Left side, red box. We out.”
“Ja!”
Good Morning:
I've been tagged by the lovely and always sincere Katey of Quacks of Life. I love to give the 7 random facts about myself, but...I won't tag anyone else because I think I've tagged just about everyone I know already. So, here it goes:
1. Like Katey, I knew that my kids would learn at home before they were born.
2. I no longer count my steps.
3. I can't breath in complete darkness.
4. I have a passion for Fried Green Tomatoes.
5. I will be celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary on June 13th.
6. I hate showers, as I can't breath when water gets on my face, so I take baths.
7. I have no sense of logic, therefore, everything I own is out of order.
and...there you have it. 7 random facts about me.
*************************************************
I have a few errands to run today, and then I'm off to the studio to paint some backgrounds for my next round of collage ACEOs.
I've listed another set of 3 ACEO collage prints in My Etsy Shop. This particular set includes 3 prints from my "Best Friends Forever" series.
"Best Friends Forever #3 : Circus Men"
Check out the guy in the pink pants. His fly is open!! I have a series of vintage photos with these two guys hamming it up for the camera. They were circus performers from the 20's. I think they were a couple.
"Best Friends Forever #4"
"Best Friends Forever #1"
I'm offering free shipping on all of my "sets of 3" ACEO collage prints today, Saturday and Sunday. As always, if anyone is interested in my collage, it can be purchased directly through my blog. Just go to my profile and send me an email.
As always, thank you so much for continuing to stop by my blog to read my daily entries and take peeks at my art.
Until Tomorrow:
Kim
Garden Painter Art
gnarly-dolls
All so, so, very lovely ( as always!) And I, too, adore fried green tomatoes! Yummm! I'm hungry now! : )
7. I have no sense of logic, therefore, everything I own is out of order.
That totally surpises me - when I look at your amazing collage pieces everything is EXACTLY as it should be...
Loved your seven facts! Can you believe I have never tried fried green tomatoes, but I have always wanted to. They always sound and ook delicious! I Love the first best friends print!
I interpreted it as Fried Green Tomatoes the movie, lol. Which I LOVE! I've never tried the real thing, thime to add it to my list.
another logic-less person here!
Long may we rule:))
i love your best friends series - looking forward to my purchase arriving too!
x
I love the ACEO's...I have no idea what an ACEO is though...I keep hearing the term but cannot find the meaning...regardless, they are wonderful...I love hands...blessings, rebecca
Very lovely best friends! The open fly really made me laugh!
Hope your weekend was wonderful! I passed through your part of the world on my way home from OC. It was hot!