All Shook Up

It was a nice domestic scene; Riley was in his chair, chowing down on Cheerios and little Satsuma orange slices. I was going all Brando on him, putting the Satsuma peels in my mouth and grunting like a gorilla. It took it as far as to get up from the chair and stumble into the tomato patch we keep in the kitchen, falling down dead. Riley then charged me with a pump spray can of DDT that I was unaware we even had, or that he could lift and operate.

While I lay there being coated in harmful pesticides, I overheard on the TV some Elvis facts. I was told that about the Christmas trees in Graceland and from what I could hear they were showing us pictures of them, including one where the star on top touched the ceiling. “Holy sweet freakin’ Jeebus,” I said to myself. “All the way to the ceiling?”

I was having a difficult time trying to figure out what Elvis product they were attempting to tie this into. Is there a newly packaged version of Elvis songs coming out conveniently at this Christmas season?

And then I learned that Elvis loved Christmas soooooooo much, that he would put up his decorations right after Thanksgiving and leave them up until his birthday in January. It’s funny how history gets rewritten when it comes to the much loved and famous. The folks at entertainment news may see a love for Christmas, I see lazy and whacked out on Percocet.

I mean they never talk about how Graceland used to be decked out as an all terrain hunting ground, a safari in the south, where Elvis would set legions of people to run free just to hunt them down with all manner of rifles and blow darts. They never talk about how he made clothing and furnishings out of his victims’ skin and bones. It’s never mentioned how he bred rats in his Graceland laboratory and tried to nail down a bigger, better Black Plague.

No, it’s always this hip swinging, Cadillac buying, velvet painting model version of Elvis that we’re told about.

Damn revisionists.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: “Paint A Vulgar Picture” by The Smiths.