8/17/16: The King

I can’t believe I missed August 16th. Elvis Presley’s death day.

We’ve always had some kind of ironic celebration to the great man. There’s a bar in Manhattan that did an Elvis death day celebration every year – there would be Elvis food (gummy bears, peanut butter and banana sandwiches), Elvis movies on TV, an Elvis impersonator. One year an Ann Margret impersonator stopped by.

At the very least there would be a toast to Elvis on the day in question.

My generation (X) is probably the last one that will have any kind of first-hand knowledge of him. From childhood, I mostly remember the existence of Elvis in that both he and Pope Paul VI died in August 1977.

This is, in fact, not true, something I’ve only learned just now when I went to check my facts. The Pope died in 1978, to be shortly followed by his successor, John Paul II, who died in September of that year. But I do remember when Elvis died.

Getting back to non-papal Elvis memories, there was, sadly, so much joke material about his life: the silly movies, the karate stuff, the bedazzled jumpsuits. Graceland. Unfortunately, all of this masked a man who made remarkable music, and whose life was also out of control.

Here are just a few of my Elvis favorites, with no silliness included.