ELVISBLOG :: COOL STUFF OUT THERE IN ELVISWORLD (18)

Recently, I have accumulated additional information or photos related to past articles on ElvisBlog. Here are some updates you may find interesting:

Benjamin Keough Photos: This is the title of a blog I posted on December 23, 2007. It contained three photos of Elvis’ grandson Benjamin Keough, and it has been a consistent source of traffic to ElvisBlog ever since. Whenever his mother Lisa Marie is in the news, there is always a big spike in hits. News accounts that she married Michael Lockwood, that she was pregnant, and that she would be having twins, all mentioned she had a daughter Riley and son Benjamin from her first marriage to Danny Keough. And when people started Googling Benjamin Keough, the search results brought many of them to ElvisBlog. Well, Lisa Marie gave birth to twin girls by Caesarian section yesterday, and it happened again. So far, 1115 visitors have linked to this site to learn more about Elvis’ grandson. He turns 16 this month, and his sister Danielle started her modeling career at that age. Do you think we might see Benjamin doing anything in the music business soon? I sure hope so.

Elvis’ Frantic Sex Show: Back in May, I wrote a blog to debunk the assertion printed in the LA Mirror-News that Elvis was a sexibitionist at his October 28, 1957 concert in Los Angeles. I quoted two lines from competing columnist Wally George in the LA Times as verification. Recently, I discovered another quote from Mr. George’s column when he discussed Elvis’ pre-concert interview:

“All in all, he was a pleasant, mild-mannered person who might have been any other 22-year-old young man, were it not for the high gleaming pompadour, the rhinestone belt, and the gold jacket.”

Yeah, that might give you a clue. Hedda Hopper also had a favorable report on the concert, and I love her assessment of Elvis’ psyche as he performed.

“He knew what he was doing… You felt he was mentally saying to himself: ’Do you know an easier way of making a million a year.’”

Elvis & Johnny Cash Concert Poster: Back in an August ElvisBlog column, we discussed the unique concert on December 12, 1955, that featured Elvis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins. One illustration was a photo of a poster supposedly advertising the event, but the wrong date on it proved it to be a fake. Alert reader Paul MacPhail sent a Comment concerning where the photograph on the poster came from. I’m not sure where he gets his information, but he states: “The photo was taken backstage at the Grand Ole Opry December 13, 1957. Elvis was visiting the Opry and Cash was appearing on it at the time.”

A little research in the great book “Elvis: Day By Day” shows that Elvis did in fact visit the Grand Ole Opry eight days later, and he bought a tux for his brief appearance on stage to wave at the audience. Note that the bogus concert photo shows Elvis wearing a tux. So, Mr. MacPhail certainly has the loctation and circumstances right, but he might want to change that date to December 21, 1957. Either way, the photo was taken two years after the concert supposedly promoted in the poster.

Rock Around The Dock: This June blog covered Elvis’ 1956 concert aboard the SS Mount Vernon, docked on the Potomac River in Washington, CD. I mentioned the promoter of the concert was Connie B. Gay, and I referred to her. Well, it turns out that Connie is a he. Hopefully, I can be excused for the error, because there aren’t many male Connie’s around (I do remember famous baseball manager Connie Mack). Anyway, I received a nice e-mail from Jack Burnish setting me straight. He knows what he’s saying; Connie B. Gay is his wife’s uncle. Jack also said I do a great column, so I thank you, sir.

A Look at Elvis Websites, Circa 1997: Last month, we took a look at a list of Elvis websites in existence back in 1997 and noted which ones thrived until 2008 and which ones went away. Of course, www.elvis.com, the official site of Elvis Presley Enterprises, still continues to this day. In the column, I said, “I wish I could go back and see what the site was like in 1997.” Thanks to my buddy Ty, head blogger honcho at www.thefilmfrontier.com, I learned this is possible. In fact, we can go back to December 21, 1996, by clicking here. It appears that it was called Elvis Presley’s Graceland back then and had a slightly different URL, but this is the official EPE site that evolved into today’s Elvis.com. The Homepage sure isn’t much, and when you click to enter, you are taken to a page of links. “Elvisology” is the best one, particularly the “Trivia” and “Elvis on The Screen” features. I also liked “News from Graceland,” because it gives you a historical perspective of the state of Elvisworld in 1956. It announced a substantial volume of Elvis movie, concerts, and specials coming up on VH1. I gave up on that channel a long time ago, but I’ll bet you won’t see much Elvis on VH1 now.

Anyone who would like to check out archived versions of your favorite websites through the years, go to http://www.archive.org/web/web.php and kill a few hours. As my friend Ty said, “Have a ball surfing in the past.”

Pappy and Elvis (Elvis Commentary Mini-Nuggets -11): This Mini-Nugget covered a 1966 Foghorn Leghorn cartoon with two chicken hawk characters named Pappy and Elvis. I was not too pleased to report that both were depicted as ignorant rednecks, and Elvis was a total air-head. Well, it turns out that the cartoon’s producer smeared The King the same way years earlier. In “Backwoods Bunny,” his 1959 Bugs Bunny cartoon, two hungry vultures chase after Bugs while he tries to vacation in the Ozarks. The buzzards where just as stupid as the chicken hawks, and their names were Pappy and Elvis. I hope I don’t discover any more offensive portrayals like these two.

Fun With Gold Lame: If you surf the internet as much as I do looking for interesting Elvis stuff, you will constantly run into variations on famous photo of Elvis in the gold lamé suit. I showed eight of them in a column a month ago. Now, I have found one more that must be shown. The British music magazine Mojo included a free bonus CD with their May 2006 issue. It is titled Hail To The King, and it contains 15 versions of Elvis songs done by other rockers.

The artists in gold lamé above are, from left to right, Roy Orbison, Link Wray, Jeff Beck, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

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Sunday, August 17

ELVIS SHRUGGED

by Phil Arnold on Sun 17 Aug 2008 09:52 AM EDT

I have several writer friends who create interesting science-fiction novels and short stories. They know I have never attempted any science-fiction writing, but I think I can pull off a trick on them. After our meetings, we go out to eat, and drink, and talk. I’m going to tell them I’m mulling over a sci-fi Elvis idea and would like to hear what they think about it.

The story would take place in the future. Sony/Time/Warner would be the only surviving record company---because they bought all the competition or forced them out of business. But, greed for more profit causes Sony/Time/Warner to drastically cut assets. They eradicate all music except rock. Then slowly, top rock musicians start to disappear.

At this point, I hope my sci-fi writer friends will be hooked.

The story continues. Meanwhile, Frank Sinatra has just finished taking Austrian youthfulness treatments and bionic arm replacements. He is now a big, strong, mean guy that looks like he is part of a heavy metal band. Frank and Madonna are just getting ready to record some revolutionary new music, free from the shackles of Sony/Time/Warner. Unfortunately, the corporate giant quashes their effort.

OK, so now we have two other famous names in the story, and Frank Sinatra has become ‘Young Blue Eyes -- on Steroids.’ We have a nasty money-grubbing conglomerate as our antagonist. I hope this is plenty to get my sci-fi friends caught up in the story.

Madonna undertakes a trek to trace the missing musicians. She stumbles upon Elvis in Tibet, where he is searching for his soul. Madonna and Elvis get it on and soon fall in love. They travel to a secret island paradise called Blue Hawaii. The location of Elvis’ whereabouts slowly filters to select musicians. Soon, John Lennon fakes his death and joins Elvis on the island hideaway. So do Roy Orbison, Frank Zappa, and Sammy Davis Jr.

Col. Parker is also a bad guy in this story, collaborating with Sony/Time/Warner. He is producing a new TV musical spectacular starring Michael Jackson called “Madame Superfly.” Elvis and friends jam the telecast feed and replace it with a new form of music he has created called Elvisia. But, Col. Parker’s henchmen are able to get a fix on Elvis’ signal and use a hypno-beam to lure him off the island. Parker tries to use Elvis’ DNA to make a clone, but something goes wrong and all he can produce is a bunch of midget Elvises.

My writer buddies will probably be laughing at this point, but I’ll bet they want to hear the finish.

Frank Sinatra, Madonna, and the other rockers from Blue Hawaii pull off a daring rescue of Elvis, but Col. Parker takes Madonna and escapes to a floating spacepod, held aloft by one gigantic balloon. Elvis and the gang pull off some Die Hard-like stunts to rescue her and force Col. Parker’s spacecraft to crash into the Statue of Liberty and explode.

All the musicians return to Blue Hawaii, where they are finally free to create music without profit pressure from the big, evil music company.

I hope my sci-fi writer buddies will tell me they love my story, but I have to be honest with them and reveal my trick. The story they heard wasn’t my original creation. It was actually a thumbnail of the plot of a 3-volume Elvis comic book series titled Elvis Shrugged. It was published in 1991 by Revolutionary Comics (Unauthorized And Proud Of It), and had modest success. The three volumes total 108 pages, basically a small book.

About ten or twelve years ago, I discovered a copy of Volume lll at a record show and bought it. Without knowledge of the two proceeding volumes, I had trouble making sense of the story. It was also pretty weird. So, I read it once and packed it away with my Elvis goodies. It stayed there until I surfed into the website www.comicsutra.com the other day. It had a reprint of an August 1997 column by Beth Hannan Rimmels in the Long Island Voice.

Ms Rimmels’ review of Elvis Shrugged filled in all the early plot blanks for me. Now, I could go back to my comic book and really enjoy it. Blog research has never been more fun. Here are some pictures from it.

This is Madonna, Elvis and Frank Sinatra. Check out the bionic arms. Elvis and Frank are about to rumble over Madonna, but Sammy Davis comes along and cools things off.

Here is the loving couple. Elvis gives her a pretty nice present for Christmas. Notice the matching jumpsuits.

Elvis’ daring rescue scene where he must battle the midget Elvis clones. The quality of the artwork on this frame dropped off.

Here is the cover of Volume l. Do you see the little floating bell-jar with a cowboy hat in the top right? That’s Col. Parker’s scientifically preserved head, still capable of being a mean sum-bitch. Do you see some other faces you recognize in the drawing?

Here is Volume ll. I think sales of this series were hurt by the lack of a vivid picture of Elvis on the cover of the first volume. Elvis is shown here in a jumpsuit, which he also wears it in the first part of Volume lll.

However, the story wraps up with Elvis bare-chested, like this cover of Volume lll, the copy I own. This picture should have been on the first volume. Note that Elvis is wearing his sun-glasses in all these pictures.

I would like to finish with two quotes from Ms. Rimmel’s review:

“It parodies Atlas Shrugged very well. In Atlas Shrugged, when something goes wrong, people ask “Who is John Galt?” In Elvis Shrugged, the phrase is “Is Elvis alive?”

“I love it because while the title sounds like a jab, it’s really a compliment, because the story says Elvis would have never become a shadow of his former self.”

She had some pretty serious reasons for liking Elvis Shrugged. I liked it because it was cool.

Weird, but cool.

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Sunday, August 10

FUN WITH GOLD LAMÉ

by Phil Arnold on Sun 10 Aug 2008 08:45 AM EDT

You have to admit, Elvis inspires some interesting responses from his fans. People like to have fun with Elvis. Today, we do that with an Elvis icon -- his famous gold lamé suit. Here are some of the clever ways it has been used.

Elvis Bobble-Head: I love this because they have done a pretty good job capturing Elvis’ likeness. Maybe that’s just because the head is bigger than on other dolls or action figures. Elvis Bobblehead is eight inches tall, and they had about a third of that for the head. The suit looks dead-on, too. If the gold pants had looked that good on Elvis, he might have worn them longer.

Barbie and Elvis: Barbie must not have liked the gold pants any more than Elvis did. Here’s a doll with Elvis in just the gold jacket. I wish the picture was clearer so we could see how good the head design is. It looks like it might be pretty good. Sorry, but Barbie looks like a dip.

Action Figure, Baby, Action: This is what I call an action figure. The complete suit except for the tie. See the poster behind Elvis? The date is September 10, 1956. You know this is wrong, because Elvis first wore the gold lamé suit on April 28, 1957. I have a poster like that hanging near my computer, a gift from my sister-in-law. She thought she found such a steal at a sleepy antique store out in the country. The supposed appearance of Elvis in the gold suit was in Jacksonville on August 11, 1956. I never let her know she bought a phony.

Own Your Own: Here you go. For just $99 you can own your own gold lamé suit. No shirt, tie, or shoes, however. Elvis shades sold separately.

It’s Silver, Not Gold, and It’s a Jumpsuit: Maybe this shouldn’t be here, but I just couldn’t resist Rock Star Lamé. The designer combined two things Elvis is famous for---jumpsuits and shiny lamé---along with a Dracula cape and collar. Now there’s a hybrid he won’t have to pay royalties to Graceland for.

Wow, This is Some Book Cover: Obviously a story about Cleopatra, complete with an Elizabeth Taylor image. The cover mentions narcisic materilism, and unfortunately it seems they depict that with Elvis’ gold suit. I’m not sure what Van Gogh’s head has to do it. Pretty strange. Watch out with that knee, Cleopatra.

Elvis Plankwalker Replaces Luke Skywalker: This is the screwiest image. You have space creatures on a pirate ship making Elvis walk the plank. And he looks happy about it. This came from Star Wars: Episode Vl –Return of The Jedi. Of course, Star Wars superfans know that the space creatures are henchmen of Jabba The Hut, who has sentenced Luke to die. The gang plank is on a desert skiff, not an ocean ship, and they are pushing Luke into the Sarlaac Pit, where he will be breakfast for a sand-dwelling monster.

The Gold Suit Has A Double: Here’s a shot from the TV miniseries Elvis that ran on CBS back in May 2005. EPE backed this production, and they own the original suit, so you know they made an superb duplication of the famous gold lamé suit for the film. Take a close look at this incredible suit. How about those cuffs and lapels? Look at that skinny tie. If you have the DVD of Elvis, go to scene 10 and you can watch the Gold Lamé Suit performance over and over. Try lots of freeze, slo-mo and single frame advance. Somebody told me about that. I would never do such a silly thing myself.

And My Favorite: This picture has appeared in ElvisBlog before, and it is at the top of my favorites. The photo was taken on December 15, 2005 in Memphis after a Rolling Stones concert. The Elvis cardboard stand-up was backstage, and the fellows to posed for some shots. Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood are super fans of Scotty Moore. I have a large reprint of this picture that Scotty autographed for me last year at Elvis Week. The next time I’m hanging out with Keith and Ronnie, I’ll get them to sign it, too.

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Sunday, June 29

ANOTHER CHANCE TO VOTE ON ELVIS IMAGES

by Phil Arnold on Sun 29 Jun 2008 05:40 AM EDT

It was fun to write recently about the 1992 voting for the favorite Elvis stamp picture. There are probably many younger ElvisBlog readers who didn't have the chance to participate, and maybe there are some older ones who never made it down to the local post office to vote. Well, here's a chance for everyone to decide which Elvis image they prefer in a dozen different categories.

There is no ballot to mark, and votes won't be tabulated, but you still can have some fun making your picks.

Elvis Silhouettes: This choice follows the pattern of the stamp voting, because there is a young Elvis in white-on-black and there is a 70s Elvis in traditional black silhouette. (Ed. note: A number of easily recognizable Elvis silhouettes have shown up in fabric designs, bonus Elvis CDs on TV Guide covers, and Elvis Week advertising. Some day we need to do a story on them.)

Elvis Caricatures: We continue with the young Elvis vs. Older Elvis theme. If the smitten fan had been in the younger picture, I doubt that there would be much of a contest here. However, Elvis’ attraction to the ladies adds extra appeal to the not-so-complimentary depiction of jump suit Elvis.

Triple Elvis: It's certainly hard for me to pick a favorite here. I have always thought Elvis looked sooo baaad in that black leather suit, and the first choice has three different poses of him in it. There’s also one black leather picture in the other composite, and I really love the progression from 50s to 60s to 70s. Tough choice.

Jukebox Elvis: Both of these pictures contain familiar shots of younger Elvis. I’d like to call my vote a tie, but that’s pretty lame. OK, I’ll pick the Elvis from the Milton Berle Show. Do you know which that is and where the other one came from?

Star Trek Elvis: You have seen Spock Elvis before in Fun With Elvis In Photoshop – 2, posted last April. Since then, I discovered Kirk Elvis while surfing deep in the net. Check out the belly roll on Kirk. Your choice here will probably depend more on your preference for Star Trek characters than the Elvis faces morphed onto the bodies.

Silver Lamé Suit / Green Lamé Suit: Well, you’ve seen pictures of the gold lamé suit a million times, but here are two variations (although neither silver nor green is a cool as gold).

Really Old Elvis: These two photoshop workovers are pretty interesting. Lets face it, everybody gets old and loses their looks. How do you like the one that makes Elvis look like some sort of mad scientist? The other has a hint of Arnold Palmer, doesn’t it?

Foreign Elvis Stamps: Dozens of countries have issued Elvis stamps, or more accurately stamp sets showing six or eight different Elvis images. Here are sets form Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Although I couldn't locate either one on a world map, their stamps are just more proof of the adage presented here frequently – Elvis is everywhere.

Cartoon Elvis: Fred Flintstone and Homer Simpson as Elvis. It’s so hard to choose. (Ed. note: The Flintstone Elvis picture is a photo of a T-shirt I own. If The Simpson picture ever shows up on a T-shirt, I’m buying it.)

The Elvis Lip Snarl: I’m not crazy about either of these two images, but the different depictions of Elvis’ famous lip curl intrigues me. So, forget about the young versus old thing and just pick your favorite lip.

Elvis Statues: The first statue is in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas. I found the second picture on both French and German web sites, so I assume the statue is somewhere in Europe. However, I don’t know either language, so I couldn’t read the text that told where it is located.

Elvis Sweeties: These are two shots you haven’t seen much, if at all. For my money, these are the two sexiest shots ever of Priscilla and Linda Thompson. All I can say is “Elvis, you lucky dog.”

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Sunday, June 1

Never Before Told ELVIS SECRETS

by Phil Arnold on Sun 01 Jun 2008 07:54 PM EDT

How do you like that for a news headline? Or, perhaps you would prefer: “Elvis Revealed: Secrets of the King.” You get both in the October 3, 1978 edition of MIDNIGHT GLOBE, a classic example of supermarket tabloid journalism.

The issue followed in the grand tradition of the blockbuster National Examiner story “EXCLUSIVE… Elvis – The Untold Story,” that came out on September 7, 1977, just a few weeks after Elvis’ passing. It can be said that National Enquire started a brand new tabloid genre with that issue. Many headlines promising revelations of new Elvis secrets would grace the supermarket checkout lanes in years to come.

So, do you want to learn some juicy Elvis secrets? Here’s a selection from MIDNIGHT GLOBE ‘s nearly 100 ‘never-revealed-before’ facts about Elvis. They are presented in the sequence in which they appeared.

Press Clippings: “Elvis’ secretaries kept every word printed about Elvis, according to his secretary Becky Yancy. From time to time Elvis would drop by the office and leaf through the scrapbooks.”

So, the ace MIDNIGHT GLOBE writer contacted Elvis’ secretary to try and dig up a scoop on Elvis. It doesn’t look like he found very much. I guess the juicy secrets will come later.

I Don’t Do Diapers: “When his daughter Lisa Marie was small, there was one fatherly job Elvis absolutely refused to do. ‘Elvis never changed a diaper in his life,’ his stepbrother Rick Stanley told MIDNIGHT GLOBE.’”

The reporter contacted a man who would become a major source for Elvis insider stuff in later years, but in 1978, this is the best they could come up with. Pretty weak.

Pimples: “Until he was well into his 20s, Elvis had terrible skin problem – just like a lot of young people. Pimples are his curse. He even had them on his back.”

Wow! I guess that is revealing, but it’s also disappointing. We were hoping for juicier secrets than that.

Pajamas: “Elvis slept in fancy pajamas; some with rhinestones on them.”

Why does that not surprise us?

Leave My Mom Alone: “At the first house Elvis bought at 1034 Audubon Dr. in Memphis, his mother used to hang out the wash. Some snotty neighbors were outraged. Elvis told them: ‘This is my house and my folks can do anything they want.’”

Give ‘em hell, Elvis. I liked this fun episode so much I wrote a blog about it two years ago. But, we’re still not into the juicy secrets yet.

Throw A Punch, Get A Pink Slip: “While in high school, Elvis worked from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. each night as an usher in a Memphis movie theater. This is generally known. However, few people know that Elvis was fired because he punched another usher.”

Well, the reporter tried to dig up something steamy about Elvis’ high school years. This wasn’t much, but it was better than their ‘revelation’ that Elvis once tried to grow a mustache – without success. At least, there was this next funny one.

Chicken Neck: You would never think that would be a nickname Elvis had for his girl friend, beautiful Ginger Alden.

“When riding on Elvis’ motorcycle, Ginger could never keep her head up under the weight of the helmet and the jerking of the bike. Her head would flop into Elvis’ back – thus the name ‘Chicken Neck.’”

Good, we’re at least up to Ginger Alden. Surely the juicy stuff starts here.

Brigitte Bardot. NOT: “In his younger days Elvis had a secret crush on Brigitte Bardot. When the army shipped Elvis to Europe, he told a friend, ‘The first place I want to go when I get there is Paris and look up Brigitte Bardot.’”

Unfortunately, that’s all they said. Nothing about whether he ever pulled it off. We know Elvis went to Paris and had a real good time. But Bardot??? MIDNIGHT GLOBE had a superb opportunity to give us some really juicy Elvis and Brigitte Bardot secrets, and they blew it entirely. I’m starting to get suspicious.

Elvis the Pelvis: Question: What do you think? Elvis loved it – or Elvis hated it? Answer: He hated it.

”I don’t like being called ‘Elvis the Pelvis. It’s one of the most childish expressions I ever heard.”

Good answer, but it didn’t stop people from calling him The Pelvis. And it looks like the chances of anything really juicy are waning fast.

Did He Like These Nicknames Any Better: “… In the early days he was also called ‘Mr. Wiggle and Shake,’ ‘The Hillbilly Cat,’ and ‘Mama Presley’s Son.’”

This is inexcusable. They left out ‘The Atomic Powered Singer,’ which appeared on many Elvis concert posters, but they did include ‘Mama Presley’s Son. Yuk, who thought up that one? I’m starting to lose confidence in this Midnight Globe article.

The Colonel Didn’t Care: “In 1969, he made an astonishing admission – the Colonel had not seen Elvis’ last three films, nor listened to his last four albums.”

I’ve given up. There will never be any juicy stuff. But, some of the tidbits have been interesting, so I read on.

Proper Apparel for Football Viewing on TV: ‘While watching football games on TV, Elvis liked to wear his pajamas, a robe… and his football helmet.”

What, no rhinestones on the helmet?

The supermarket tabloids have been accused of making up much of what they print, but the big offenses must have come in later years. This Elvis stuff from 1978 is not clever enough to be fiction. If I were going to fabricate Elvis stories, they would have titles like, “What Elvis and Brigitte Bardot Did On Top of the Eiffel Tower.” And they would be juicy.

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Sunday, April 6

FUN WITH ELVIS ON PHOTOSHOP -- 2

by Phil Arnold on Sun 06 Apr 2008 06:17 AM EDT

Last week, we got serious and did a historical piece on Elvis’ most significant ancestor. According to my wife, it was too serious -- and boring. She likes all the fun stuff I put in ElvisBlog. So, this week, we are going back to fun – fun with Elvis on Photoshop.. It’s too late to give proper credit to all the clever people who created these things and put them on the web for me to borrow. When I added them to My Pictures, I failed to note where they came from -- but thank you all, anyway.

Let’s start with a nifty image of what Elvis would look like if he had lived to be an old man. He still looks very handsome, doesn’t he? Vernon kept his full head of hair into old age, so Elvis may well have turned out like this. Looks like he could still beat the crap out of the bad guys in a movie, doesn't he?

Here’s a type of composite picture that wasn’t featured the first time we looked at Elvis treatments in Photoshop. There is a large photo of young Elvis, plus a smaller shot of older Elvis in his jumpsuit standing on top of the marquee of the International Hotel in Las Vegas.

One of the most common themes last time was Elvis' head on other peoples' bodies. Here's one I like: Indiana Presley.

Well, if we can have Elvis as a movie character, why not Elvis as a TV character?

He's got the pointy ears, so this must be Elvis as Mr. Spock. I would rather see him as Captain Kirk. Then DJ Fontana could be Spock, Scotty Moore could be Dr. McCoy, and Col. Parker could be some mutant space alien.

The reverse treatment is fun, too. Last time, we saw a number of politicians' heads replacing Elvis in jumpsuit shots. Here's what Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger looks like. "Thank you. Thank you, very much. I'll be back."

Who do you think looks better in a jumpsuit -- Arnold or Vladimir Putin?

A theme we looked at last time was Elvis' image altered in some manner. We had a melting Elvis picture then, and here is another one now. I think this is so clever.

Here's another Elvis image with a different twist. I call it Swirling Elvis.

And finally, here is my favorite altered Elvis. Just immagine if Elvis was a 20-year-old today and performed the popular music of the times. We might have Rapper Elvis.

Elvis In the hood! How do they think up this stuff?

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Sunday, February 3

FUN WITH ELVIS ON PHOTOSHOP

by Phil Arnold on Sun 03 Feb 2008 05:20 AM EST

Now that I’m retired, I spend even more time on the Internet searching for Elvis stuff. Not just the big Elvis sites that come up on the first two Google search pages. What I really like to find are sites where Elvis isn’t the whole deal – other kinds of sites that happen to contain some obscure Elvis content. You find strange and wonderful stuff that way.

Like altered photos of Elvis. I guess these are done on Photoshop or something similar, and some of them are so clever. Like this one where Elvis looks like an Arab. It’s pretty dark, but you can see that somebody did a great job of putting Elvis’ face inside that headdress.

For the past two years, every time I find a really good one of these altered Elvis photos, I copy it to a file. There’s enough in there now to do a couple of blog articles. Here’s another picture with a different twist. In my photo file, I label it Melting Elvis, and you can see why.

Another way of doing this is to put someone else’s face on Elvis body. Bill Clinton is a natural for this, because his election staff in 1992 called him Elvis. Here’s what he looks like in a jumpsuit.

While we are on Presidents, here are Bush’s that served before and after Clinton.

Of the three presidents, I think Clinton looks the best, probably because he’s wearing a jumpsuit. However, there is one other president who gets my prize for the best President in a jumpsuit. Does Ronald Reagan look cool, or what?

Here’s one more of Reagan, but on this one he’s doing the Richard Nixon thing, and George W gets to be Elvis. How do people come up with these ideas?.

I wish the quality on this next one were a little better, because the concept is great: Elvis in a gift box. I sent e-mail birthday greetings to two female friends and asked them how they would like to open up that present.

Did you ever wonder what Elvis might have looked like if he had been born twenty or thirty years later and sang heavy metal Rock & Roll? Here’s your answer.

I labeled the next one “Shiny Elvis” for obvious reasons. If I knew anything about Photoshop, I put some clever phrase in that bottom right turned-up corner and