Nostalgia inside out

This came up on Facebook recently:  “People born in the 50’s have lived in seven decades, two centuries and two millenniums (sic).  We had the best music, fastest cars, drive-in theaters, soda fountains, and happy days.  And we are not even that old yet.  We’re just that cool.”

Sounds a little desperate, doesn’t it?  A little grasping. 

I mean really.  “We’re just that cool”?!  Sounds like something Eric Cartman would say.

If you have to announce it, you’ve already diminished your claim.  When did you ever hear any truly cool person claiming to be cool?  News flash – if they did, they were automatically disqualified from the category.

John Wayne?  Katharine Hepburn?  James Dean? Grace Kelly?  We knew they were cool.  They were not concerned with it.  That’s bad form.  Mick Jagger? John Lennon?  Forgetaboutit!

Also, if you break down that Facebook proclamation, what’s really there?  Having lived through decades and across centuries in and of itself is not sufficient to bestow coolness.  Although tortoises are cool.  And the Parthenon. 

You cannot diminish the music, that’s true. Elvis.  The Beatles.  Lynyrd Skynyrd. Jimi Hendrix.  Janice Joplin.  Aretha Franklin.  Come on!

But also, the Black Keys.  JohnLegend.  Nora Jones.  Uh, Maroon 5?  OK.  I’m in foreign territory here, but I’m making a point! 

We did have some cool cars back in the day.  Matter of fact, Mr. Plath and I still have my dad’s ’63 Corvette.  Hard to argue with a Split Window Coupe.  Do you think I’m cooler now that I’ve mentioned it?  Maybe I should have told you sooner. 

The past tense though – “we had the fastest cars.”  Even the goober who penned the post gave himself away with that.  Maybe we were bringers of cool, but we don’t have exclusive rights to it.

Drive-in theaters?  That’s it?  That’s what we’re gonna wave in people’s faces and say, “Neener Neener!”? 

I just think this guy was having a lonely night with Andy and Opie and his high school year book.  And all he could come up with was soda fountains!  “Happy Days”…was he referring to the Good Ole Boy heydays of men dominating everything or the Viet Nam war?  He surely lost his train of thought.

Dude!  If you want to put a generation on a pedestal, you might mention the first artificial heart, unveiling the structure of DNA, eradicating smallpox or pioneering organ transplants? 

Space exploration!  Duh!

Boomers can point with a sense of pride to the Civil Rights movement, inception of the environmental movement or the women’s liberation movement – even though, yes, all of those are still works in progress – we tipped the dominoes.

It just makes us older folks – “we’re not even that old yet” – (he didn’t realize what including those telltale qualifiers does to his credibility) seem stuck.  Too much looking back and saying, “Me, me, me!”

Funny thing is, I agree with the guy.  We are pretty cool.  But it’s completely uncool to demand the acknowledgement when there is so much cool stuff going on around us.  So much talent.  So much creativity.  And energy! 

Start with the internet and your Smart Phone.  A library in your pocket!  Wireless everything.  GPS. 
Jump from there to all manner of technology.  If you can live without it…well face it – You cannot.  I don’t want to go without the backup camera in my car.  Or Netflix!  Pandora!  Very cool.

I have a golf app that tells me I’m farthest from the hole.  Again.  And what would life be without Words with Friends?

I don’t think I’m the only Boomer who orders her meds online.  They bring them to the house for me!  Vegetables at a keystroke.  And shoes!!  Car parts.  Puppy food.  J

We had our glory days, to be sure.  But the beat goes on and thank God for that!  We are in the capable hands of some extremely cool younger people. 

They’re making some cool cars – especially those retro Mustangs – and face it, IMAX tops the drive in.  A Frappuccino beats a root beer freeze, sometimes.

Their enlightened attitudes toward the treasure of their parents and grandparents speaks well of them.


I’ll bet they’d even like Neil Young – “Old man, look at my life.  I’m a lot like you were.”

Star struck blues

In my imaginary life when I encounter Jon Hamm in a crowd outside say, the Ahmanson Theatre in LA, I just smile and give him a coy little wave.  You know, the kind where you duck your head and waggle your fingers.

               
He waves back.  Smiling of course.  Glad that at least some of the public are composed and know how to act around celebrities.

When I’m flying First Class, which is never - except in my fantasy life, I wind up seated next to Oprah, the powerhouse, enormously influential mogul of an all-around high profile person.  But I’m cool.

When I’m seated next to her?  I do not ask for her autograph.  No.  Instead, I ask just the right question in precisely the right way.  Something like, “No really, how ARE you?” 

See?  See how that works?

She is drawn in, is Oprah.  She cannot resist my direct yet unassuming eye contact.  She’s relieved, actually, to not have to be ‘on.’  Here is someone, at last, she must be saying to herself, who is not so dumb struck as to be groveling. 

In our cross-country flight, somewhere over Oklahoma (poetic isn’t it?) she leans toward me and begins a sentence with, “I’ve never told anyone this, but…”

Oh yes.

I hold my own with the celebs.  A day’s work.  No.  Big.  Deal.

I saw Elvis once. 

I was nineteen, hanging around the gate to his mansion in Beverly Hills with a rumpled and torn “Map to the Stars’ Homes” in my hand.  (When I balked at the map’s $5.00 price tag, the sketchy character who sold it to me said he had a torn one he would let me have for $2.50.  Then he turned his back and ripped the corner.  It was a good deal.)

We did not have curvy roads like that in Tulsa, so it took my girlfriend and me a lot longer than we thought it would to weave our way up the hillside, gawking at Lucille Ball’s house and George Burns’ house – and the houses of other big name stars our parents knew and we cared about on their behalf.

We barely arrived when the gate began to swing open.  A black Cadillac El Dorado rushed forward and paused until the opening was just wide enough; then it swooshed in. 

We saw him behind the wheel.  He looked good.  Like Elvis.

I’m not sure how poised I would have been if he’d looked my way.  I hadn’t worked out a cool fantasy conversation in advance so on that inevitable occasion Elvis would see I was different from all the others.  Poor planning.

Not like with Jon Hamm or Oprah in my dreams.  Now I’m ready.


Ted Turner shook my hand once.  I was in a reception line at the Grand Ole Opry hotel in Nashville.  He was the keynote speaker at an event I attended with students I coached in debate.  It was a national tournament and they qualified, so we got to meet TT.

I was tired and hungry and my shiny new ‘attend-a-keynote-dinner-with-Ted Turner’ shoes had rubbed a flaming blister.  So, bedraggled and limping, I offered my hand with an apologetic smile, my moment less than I had hoped. 

I think I said, “I admire your work.”

Oh brother.
                                                              
He gave me a quizzical look and said thanks.  Doubtful he’s retelling the story. 

 I didn’t practice for Robin Williams either; even though it seemed possible I might run into him sometime.  After all, he lived close by.  Once, he even shopped for a vacation home up on the remote north coast right where my family hangs out.  So we had some anticipation.

From what I hear he was pretty easy to talk to.  No pretenses.  Gentle.  Normal-seeming in the moment.  

But not normal.

He was not a regular guy on this planet.  Maybe it was lonely for him in the face of all this ordinary life.

I wonder if he rehearsed his conversations, hoping to seem natural with his paper boy or the guy at the bicycle shop…the retired high school principal.

Too late now, of course, but I wish I could tell him he didn’t have to try so hard.  We really did love him anyway.

Who's counting anyway? The Mayans?

By the time you read this, we may all be flying through space wondering why we didn’t go ahead and invest in that “survival pod” touted by doomsday preppers.  It would have been $48K well spent, given the circumstances of unprotected space travel. 

Of course, if we were hurtling toward oblivion you wouldn’t be reading this - so, thanks for your loyalty.   

You have to hand it to the Mayans, don’t you, even though they can be a downer.  I mean, way to go with the foreshadowing and suspense.  They’ve had the whole country leaning forward, tense, anticipating nothing.  Kind of like those “fiscal cliff” negotiators in Washington D.C.   

Thanks for keeping things in perspective too.  It’s never been clearer to me why it’s unimportant to run that dust mop down the hall again. 

But what better time than now (my deadline precedes the catastrophic demise of the planet), two days before the Grand Finale, to have one’s life glide past her field of vision?  

Let’s start with recent history and have a look at those 2012 resolutions.  Play along with a review of your own New Year’s promises, if you dare.  

First, I resolved to make a pie.  How did that go?  

Here we need a flourish - Ta dah!   

I made two pies!  That’s right, TWO pies!  I exceeded my resolution to make a pie by 100%!  (We’re going to gloss right over the fact that it took two years to complete this resolution.) 

The first pie was pretty darn good if I do say so myself.  Crust flakiness.  Fresh fruit.  Nummy num num num.  

And it wasn’t that hard to do…Hmmm!  I immediately told myself this could be my signature piece!  What I become known for!  Everyone will talk about my flaky-crusted fresh fruit pies!  When I’m invited to a potluck brunch they’ll say, “Oh Carolyn!  Please bring one of your beautiful and delicious pies!” 

So I made another one.  But the second pie exposed an internal flaw - my already waning commitment to the pie-making proposition (begging the question of why I set the goal to begin with).  It felt like doing a remake of “Casablanca.”  You cannot top the original.  

So, instead of measuring, sifting, blending and kneading, I bought a Pillsbury ready-made piecrust.  So ashamed. 

But the bigger mistake was telling my husband about the store-bought crust.  He said it wasn’t as good as my made-from-scratch crust.  That’s supposed to be a compliment, but it just adds pressure leading to a mathematically proportional decrease in the likelihood that I’ll make another pie.   

Oh all right!  I’ll make another beautiful and delicious flaky-crusted fresh fruit pie!  Sheesh!  But I will not reveal the origin of the crust. 

Second, I resolved to have an Elvis party. 

And oh yes, we partied with the King!  That party lives on.  Even now, weeks after he left the building, our guests continue to reminisce about the jumpsuits and capes, the wigs and sunglasses, the peanut butter and bananas and the Kentucky Fried Chicken.  We partied like it was the end of the 13^th cycle of the 400 year revolution of the Mayan calendar.   

(You may refer to your “Think Dream Play” archives to relive the details – October 19, 2012.  What?!  You don’t save my columns?!  Well trust me, it was a lot of fun to dress up and sing.  You should come next time – if there’s a world, that is.)
 
So, two for two on the resolutionizing.  Extremely effective I must say.  How about you?  Are you keeping score? 

Now might be a good time to jump in since I have to fess up to a resolution that has eluded me through various permutations, compromises, rewrites and gnashing of teeth.  It’s in the category of hair shirts and self-flagellation – you know, “personal fitness.”  

My incremental progress in this arena led me to the wimpiest of all my 2012 resolutions – to keep better records of my radius and circumference in the faint hope that the other part of the resolution, to stick with my trainer, would produce measurable muscles and reduction in flab.  Oh well!  

I guess I’ll just have to adopt the Mayan attitude, “It’s not the end of the world.”

Elvis has not left the building

Like William Shatner, Chris Christie and Hillary Clinton, I too live with a disorder.  I know how it feels to struggle with reality.   

Happily, while our disorder can create an incongruous circumstance on occasion, day-to-day it protects us from unpleasant truths. 

Let’s call it reverse anorexia.  With this condition, in spite of our mirror’s testimony, we persist in thinking we look good. 

That’s what tripped me up for my Elvis party - I thought sure I would be the young, sexy Elvis.  You know, the one in black leather.  Or Jailhouse Rock Elvis in cuffed jeans and a striped T-shirt.  Man! 

That’s how I’d always pictured myself in spite of the obvious dissimilarities:  His black hair, my blonde.  His sneer, my lack of lip control.  His maleness, my femaleness. 

Does this sound weird?   

But I thought, what’s the fun of being Priscilla?  OK the big hair.  That could be fun.  So I bought a Snooky wig from the party store conceding Priscilla might be my fallback position.   

Her Cleopatra eyeliner could be cool.  But past that, what would I wear?  Priscilla’s only known wardrobe is a wedding dress!  I’d have to get a ‘new’ one at Goodwill because despite how my mirror assures me, my 1990 Battenberg lace is a little snug. 

No!  I wanted to be Elvis!  

And why not?!!  I know the lyrics to all his songs.  I practiced his moves - the twitching shoulder, the single knee dip and the tippy-toe walk.  I wind milled my arm all around the house in anticipation of this shindig.  I deserved to be Elvis! 

So you can imagine the disappointment, even disbelief.  What a slap in the face when I first caught sight of myself in my size large gold lame` suit and jet black wig. 

I never dreamed I’d look so pasty.  Or boxy.  Or genderless. 

I so believed I’d look cool.  Thank God I could hide behind those giant gold aviator sunglasses. 

Why didn’t I try everything on together BEFORE the party?   

Why?  Reverse Anorexia!  I was certain my imaginary self was my real self.   

I love my fantasy self even though she’s a deceiver.  Her clothes always fit and flatter.  She doesn’t need make-up what with her natural beauty.  Reverse anorexia may be the best defense mechanism ever clung to by a partygoer or party-thrower like me.   

I guess I can take some solace in the fact that pretty much everyone at the party looked ridiculous.  But they gave the impression it didn’t bother them.  They rather expected it.  Evidently, they’d been living in the real world from the start.  So when they donned their blue suede shoes, it was all good. 

Even my husband, normally reserved and circumspect, joined a cadre of Elvises in white jumpsuits with rhinestones strewn across their shoulders and down their chests - the chests exposed by the jumpsuits’ deep ‘v’ front.  They tucked their thumbs into their be-jeweled WWE-style belts, twirled their red scarves while prancing about in white boots.  Multiple pseudo-Elvises strode around our living room swinging their capes and saying, “Thankyaverimuch.” 

But their wigs didn’t fit either!  How were they OK with that? 

I had searched the internet in vain for an Elvis impersonator within my price range.  Then, when it seemed impossible, I got a referral!  

I approached this professional entertainer shyly, saying I was embarrassed to be asking on such short notice.  But he won me over with his willingness to appear for a pittance, and his response to my inquiry: “No need to be embarrassed, Miss CaroLynn,” he wrote, keeping in character start to finish, “there’ll be enough time for that during my performance.” 

So I was a dubious, but he was amazing!  His unabashed channeling of Mrs. Presley’s only son made our party a smash.  He took the mic in breakaway costumes and layer after layer he went through a sort of backwards evolution - from a chunky hunka burnin’ love, all the way down to King Creole!  

He might not actually be Elvis, but his imaginary self worked it.  No apologies.  No regrets.   

Now that’s my new coping mechanism:  How to deal with reverse anorexia and the clash between my mirror and my dreams?  Shake it, baby!  Shake it!

The vicissitudes of humility

I suffer from anticipatory funk.
 

It’s a disorder whereby I accept an invitation to an event – nothing threatening or weird.  Maybe even something I’ve always wanted to do. 

I mark my calendar and begin to make preparations.  I tell my friends and family who coo over me and tell me how they want to be just like me someday.  My self-esteem puffs up and my posture gets better. 

Then, behind the scenes, in a wadded up cranny of my perverse little brain, like the spore of a shitake mushroom, a contrary idea finds footing.  Really?  It says.  Really…you’re planning to do that?  Oh.  Well.  Good luck with that.  No, really.  Good luck. 

Oh sinister little fungi!  How you wheedle and wend you way into a person’s consciousness!  

It’s not long at all before my personal portabella field has proliferated.  It has grown from a niggling sense of nostalgia into full-blown trepidation.  From oh!  I’ll miss my husband and my kitties to I just don’t want to go!  I wish I didn’t have to go!  Why oh why did I ever say I’d go!? 

I can’t say where this affliction originated.  Maybe it’s an offshoot of what I call the “Avatar” syndrome.  (I used to call it the “Sound of Music” syndrome, but I’ve lived long enough now that I’ve had to update the reference.  The dynamics are the same.) 

A new movie is released with enormous fanfare.  It’s the best movie ever!  Oh, the drama!  Oh, the laughter!  Oh, the special effects!  Movie making will never be the same!  OMG you MUST see “Avatar.”  

“Avatar” was good.  I’m not saying it wasn’t good.  But honestly, admit it; it wasn’t THAT good.  Was it? 

Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t listened to the hoopla.  No movie could measure up to the level of mental hype I generated.  Man I wanted to see that show! 

But I came out of the theatre humming that old Peggy Lee song, “Is that all there is?”  (Please let me know right away if you know of a cooler, more current musical expression of disappointment.) 

I know it’s on me now.  I have to gear down and adjust my expectations.  I don’t like cultivating cynicism, but a tiny thread of doubt makes for pleasant surprises instead of colossal letdowns. 

On occasion I’ve let the funk take charge.  When an event swells in my field of vision I’ll make an excuse and duck out.  It’s almost physical, my reaction.  Fight or flight.  Something seizes me and I just turn and run!  It feels so good to escape.  Freedom!  No pressure.  No expectations.  Only a little guilt and that can be managed.  

Once I signed up for one of those “ropes” courses.  You know, the ones where you’re strapped into a harness and walk the high wire with your friends “on bole,” protecting you from falling and building a bond that surpasses all human bonds.  I freaked out.  Feigned a cold sore or something.  Didn’t go. 

And then, just like John Lennon warned, instant karma.  I regretted my cowardice.  I saw that that opportunity would not present itself again.  I had a chance to revel in a unique experience, but I stayed home in my pj’s.  What a wimp!  

No matter how good your excuse is, everybody knows you flaked out.  They’re nice to your face, but they know.  And of course, now they have the bond. 

So OK.  By the time you read this, I will have powered through my disability.  Like an agoraphobic in behavioral therapy I’ll have sucked it up and stepped into the open.  I can only hope I don’t look like Elvis squinting into the sun he seemed not to recognize after so much time in the basement of Graceland. 

I’ll be midway through the trip I’d begun to dread.  I’ll be having a great time, smiling, making new friends, learning things a person simply cannot learn by staying home, safe, at her keyboard.   

Of course the downside of success is the disorder that accompanies an adventurous spirit who sallies forth conquering the petty fears of the weaklings around her:  Insufferable competence.  Its symptoms – infuriating graciousness, knowing looks and strutting.   

I certainly hope I don’t succumb.   

Party like it's 2012

Some of us seem to have let it slip from waking consciousness that we are all on a cosmic surfboard, sliding down the face of a big wave into oblivion. 

Not to be a downer. 

But admit it - you forgot about the End of Days.  Did you even mark your calendar?  December 21^st?  Hello!  

That’s why these mid-year reviews are crucial.  If we don’t look back and gain our bearings, it’s easy to veer off course. 

OK.  I forgot as well.  I’ve been cruising along, or some might say lurching.  And I’ve made some questionable choices given the countdown. 

Shopping at Costco for one thing.  That’s stupid.  We have enough Q-tips and dental floss to carry us into a new millennium, if only there were one on the horizon.  As it is, even MacGyver would be hard pressed to make good use of such a cache of hygienic staples. 

On some kick or another I bought oatmeal!  At Costco!  OMG!  The Quaker’s face is so big on the box it scares the cats out of the pantry!   

So, there’s that. 

I see now that this case of Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn will not reach its expiration date before we fly off into the ether.  I can’t watch enough movies between now and then to come out ahead on the cost-benefit analysis. 

One can only hope that at the key moment, each 100-calorie pack will burst, adding fun to our finale, and perhaps marking the one and only occasion when all kernels pop.  

All this inventory assessment began when, in the interest of course correction, and as it turns out, doomsday preparation, I checked my New Year’s Resolutions for 2012.   

Tell the truth:  Can you remember the promises you made to yourself?  Why do we treat ourselves so shabbily?  Lie, lie, lie!  

And how can we persist in being so gullible?  Oh!  She really means it this time.  She’s going to meditate every morning before a healthy breakfast.  It is the most important meal of the day!   

Right. 

But in spite of the ocean of evidence to the contrary, I cannot accept that resolutions constitute a charade.   

Case in point:  Despite what felt like a firm and sincere resolution, I never made a pie in 2011.  However, resolving to learn to make a flaky-crusted pie brought me closer to…people who make flaky-crusted pies!  I got a lot of good slices of pie out of that rez.  On hearing my resolution, which I trotted out routinely in kitchens around town, unsuspecting non-resolvers couldn’t wait to let me judge their prowess.  And I must say they were all good. 

So in the final accounting, which is near, all was not lost even though the letter of the resolution was not met.  The spirit of it swam a la mode. 

On review of my 2012 pledges of improved living, I’m stunned to discover that in spite of the shrinking timeline, of which I was well aware, I resolved to “keep up my fitness goals”!   

Puh-lease!  Whatever was I thinking?  That’s like finding yourself floating toward the brink of Niagara Falls on a chocolate raft and saying, “Oh, better not nibble!” 

So all this time I’ve been walking and walking!  For what?  On the appointed day, even we fatties will fly. 

Perhaps the key contract with myself for this, our last year on the planet, was to have an Elvis party.  It’s demoralizing to admit that to date, I have acquired no yellow-lensed aviator glasses with muttonchops attached.  I don’t have his and hers white sequined jumpsuits, nor red scarves.  I haven’t sneered into the mirror since I don’t know when.  

But wait!  What’s this?  A life-sized cardboard cutout of young Elvis?  Gold lame’ suit…  Twig of hair falling just so over the forehead…  Curled lip…  King Creole!?! 

I did do something!  I made progress on my resolution!  Good golly Miss Molly, I said I’m having a party, and I’m having a party!  I’m having an Elvis party!   

Oh yeah.  I can pull this together and create an exit befitting the End of Days.  I’m getting a karaoke machine and some blue suede shoes.  It’s not too late!  An Elvis party! 

Thank you.  Thank you very much.

Resolutions for the End of Days

Given the official countdown of the Mayan calendar to the End of Time, I’m thinking New Year’s Resolutions for 2012 rise to a level of urgency heretofore unseen.  We have fewer than 365 days now to make our resolutions and get ‘em done. 

We’ve had plenty of warnings and false starts.  We’ve enjoyed reprieve after reprieve what with a new, New Year coming after every old New Year in which we promised but did not deliver.  I confess, I’ve grown complacent.  But no more.  I really mean it this time. 

Commitment-phobes, put your heads down.  No teasing.  Don’t string yourself along.  Don’t say it unless you mean it.  This year’s resolutions may be your last!  You don’t want to wake up careening into deep space on a chunk of newly exploded earth singing, “Is that all there is?” now do you? 

Case in point:  This time last year I resolved to make a pie.  More than that, I resolved to make a pie with flaky crust.  Now I still have a few days to make good on my professed goal, but I find it sad to acknowledge in the last week of December that my convictions were so weak as to rate no effort.  No attempt.  No crust.  No pie. 

Which begs the question as to why I didn’t achieve my, er, fitness goal.  I didn’t make or eat a single pie, and yet I remain hovering near the same pull of gravity as I was this time last year.  What’s up with that? 

OK, yes, I did enjoy assorted portions of pies over the months, but so few, so few!  How could such a dearth of indulgence result in such a flop of resolution?  Of course, I didn’t make a firm note of my actual radius and circumference in January of 2011, so who can say with certainty?  Perhaps I have made progress and can’t take credit.   

I hereby resolve to keep better records as I hurtle toward my demise in 2012. 

And yes.  Yes.  I continue to resolve to improve my degree of fitness.  (I do love the euphemism.  And degrees of euphemisms.)  I’m working with a trainer now and she concurs that I am totally buff under this protective layer of … Tempurpedic foam?   

Therefore, I resolve to stick with my training in 2012 in hopes of seeing some sinew burst through when I clutch a flagpole in my frantic effort to stay on the planet a few moments longer as time runs out and the snooze alarm quits working. 

But this last call for resolutions begs for something striking, something bold.  No ordinary promise will be sufficient for taking into the ever after.  We must do something BIG.  Like mountain climbing.  Or spelunking.  Maybe speed dating!  (I’ll have to check with my husband.  Not sure he’ll buy into the end-of-the-world rationale on that last one.) 

Maybe I’ll resolve to fly in a glider.  It’s not the skydiving I’ve toyed with over the years, but I’d consider it a respectable step in that direction.  I can probably talk my sister-in-law into going with me.  We’ll plan it for mid-December, close to the end, so if it doesn’t go well, we won’t have lost too many of the end days.  

And I’m going to have that Elvis party I’ve chattered idly about over the years.  Count on it.  I went on line today and found blue suede shoes, aviator sunglasses with sideburns attached, even gold-studded white jumpsuits complete with flared legs, stand-up collars and red scarves.  That’s right.  I’ll be Elvis, not Priscilla.  Though there are some pretty cool Priscilla wigs online too.   

Elvis’s birthday is January 8^th, as I’m sure you know.  I don’t think I can pull together a soirée befitting the occasion that fast.  So my attitude is that we can celebrate the King’s birthday any time we want.  Given that it might be the last birthday party on the planet serving peanut butter and bananas, I could schedule it for December 22^nd, 2012, the actual last day, according to the Mayas.  

My husband will also be Elvis.  He’ll look good.  I’m hoping for a houseful of Elvises, some Priscillas and Colonels…I’m getting a karaoke machine and singing the whole playlist.  I already know the words. 

Lawdy, Miss Clawdy!  What a way to go!