I have never seen Die Hard.  But I have an opinion about its status as a Christmas movie. I was recently asked my opinion as many of us are asked around Christmas.  I thought you might be interested in my reply.

The first thing I considered is what makes a movie a Christmas movie. I put together the following short list. Any one of these traits can make a movie a Christmas movie:

• The whole movie takes place on or around Christmas
• The whole movie involves Christmas celebrations
• The story involves Santa or the birth of Jesus
• Part of the movie involves Christmas celebrations
• The movie includes scenes that take place on or around Christmas
• There is a tradition of watching the movie on Christmas

Any of the first three items on this list make it an obvious Christmas movie. The next two are the ones where there can be some argument.  I think the main thing that Die Hard has going for it is that it takes place on Christmas Eve.  I think this is enough to make it a Christmas movie.  This also makes Lethal Weapon a Christmas movie too.

I understand that this might not be good enough for some people.  It might be too much of an action film to allow it to be a Christmas movie. Then I compared it to some other films that I consider to be some of my favorite Christmas movies to decide if Die Hard wasn’t Christmasy enough.  The movie that immediately came to mind is The Bells of St. Mary’s.  I first saw this movie when I was growing up.  The local movie channel showed it around Christmas time which made me decide it was a Christmas movie. But only 8 minutes of the 126-minute run time takes place around Christmas. It is a very funny scene with kids telling the story of the birth of Jesus. But that scene seems to be an aside from the main stories of the film.  Part of the reason that it might be considered a Christmas film is that it was released in early December of 1945.  There is also a scene in It’s a Wonderful Life that shows The Bells of St. Mary’s on the marquee of the theater in Bedford Falls.  This association with another Christmas movie might give it more clout as a Christmas movie. Ultimately, I think an argument could be made that Die Hard is more of a Christmas movie than my beloved The Bells of St. Mary’s since more of it takes place around Christmas.  You can make a similar argument against Holiday Inn since only a few scenes of it take place around Christmas, although the song White Christmas gives it a closer association to the holiday.

So, with the little that I know about Die Hard, I think there is a strong argument to say that it is definitely a Christmas movie.  Now, you might we wondering why I’ve never seen it. I like to watch movies, and a lot of people assume that I’ve seen every big or important movie ever made.  This is not the case. There are many movies that I have intentionally avoided over the years for a variety of reasons. Die Hard is one of these.  It was in 1988 at a time when action movies with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris were all the rage.  I watched a lot of movie review shows at the time and they rarely gave these films good reviews. Even when they gave some good reviews, I could tell that they were not the kind of films I would enjoy.  I like action films, but I like them to have some substance and a lot of these seemed to have none.  They seemed like stupid formula movies just as much as the Halmark movies that I detest.  I still realized that some of these were good movies that I was missing because of my aversion to this type of film.  So now, it has become a thing for me to avoid watching Die Hard just like it is a thing for my friends to champion it as a Christmas movie.

I recently mentioned on Facebook that I have an eclectic holiday playlist on my iPod that I play every year around Christmas.  In response, I received requests to share a list. Below, I not only share my list but some commentary about the evolution of the list and how it came to be what it is.

In the mid 1980’s just after I got married, we started buying a few Christmas CDs.  While this collection contained some mainstream music, we focused on music that you didn’t usually hear in stores or on the radio.  Here is a list of the CDs we accumulated:

Bing Crosby – Holiday Inn Soundtrack

Bob Dylan – Christmas in the Heart

Cast of Bonanza – Christmas on the Ponderosa

Booker T and the MGs – In the Christmas Spirit

Burl Ives – Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Elvis Presley – If Every Day Was Like Christmas

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass – Christmas Album

William Hung – Hung for the Holidays

James Brown – Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag

Kacey Musgraves – Very Kacey Christmas

Mannheim Steamroller – Christmas

Mannheim Steamroller – Christmas In the Aire

Mannheim Steamroller – Fresh Aire Christmas

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir -It’s Christmas!

Phil Spector – A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector

The Ray Conniff Singers – Christmas with Conniff

Spike Jones – It’s a Spike Jones Christmas

Take 6 – He is Christmas

Take 6 – We Wish You a Merry Christmas

The Brady Bunch – Christmas with the Brady Bunch

The Chipmunks – Christmas with the Chipmunks

The Partridge Family – A Partridge Family Christmas Card

Various Artists – Handel’s Messiah – A Soulful Celebration

Various Artists – Nick at Nite – A Cartoon Christmas

Various Artists – Nick at Nite – A Cartoon Christmas, Too

Various Artists – Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits – 1935-1954

Various Artists – Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits – 1955-Present

Vince Guaraldi – A Charlie Brown Christmas

We had a CD player that used cartridges that would hold 6 CDs at a time. We would have multiple cartridges that we would rotate through the player every year.  When we made the transition to mp3s, we converted all these albums listed above and put them on my iPod. There were a few Christmas CDs that we have that didn’t get converted for various reasons. Here is that list:

Mojo Nixon & the Toadliquors – Horny Holidays

Jimi Hendrix – Merry Christmas & Hapy New Year

Soundtrack Album – It’s a Wonderful Life The Record

Soundtrack Album – How The Grinch Stole Christmas

I was able to find additional albums in the mp3 format that I added to my playlist.  Here is a list of the albums that were added to my primary holiday list:

Buck Owens and His Buckaroos – Christmas with Buck Owens

Ferlin Husky – Christmas All Year Long

Take 6   The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Mannheim Steamroller – Christmas Song

Mannheim Steamroller – Christmas Live

The Beach Boys – Christmas Album

Various Artists – Columbia Records – Season’s Greetings

Andre Kostelanetz – Wonderland of Christmas

The last two on this list are albums that had been in my parent’s Christmas album collection that I searched long and hard for to include in my iPod playlist.

Next, there were several Christmas singles that I considered must haves. Here is a list of those singles that are part of my playlist:

Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas

Paul McCartney – Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time

Jose Feliciano – Fexiz Navidad

Bruce Springsteen – Santa Claus is Coming to Town

David Bowie and Bing Crosby – Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy

The Eagles – Please Come Home for Christmas

John Lennon – Happy Xmas (War is Over)

The Roches – The Hallelujah Chorus

The Three Stooges – I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

The Barking Dogs – Jingle Bells

The Little Stinkers – I Farted on Santa’s Lap (Now Christmas is Gonna Stink for Me)

At one point, I greatly expanded my collection of Christmas album mp3s to include this next list.  There are more mainstream albums in this list. It also includes some albums that I detest but still play every year. Here is that list:

The Carpenters – Christmas Portrait

Chicago – Chicago XXV – The Christmas Album

Lawrence Welk – Christmas with Lawrence Welk

Dean Martin – A Winter Romance

John Denver – Rocky Mountain Christmas

John Denver and The Muppets – A Christmas Together

John Prine – A John Prine Christmas

Johnny Cash – Personal Christmas Collection

Johnny Mathis – Merry Christmas

James Taylor -James Taylor at Christmas

Kenny G -Miracles

Kirk Franklin & the Family – Kirk Franklin & the Family Christmas

Nat King Cole – The Christmas Song

The Ray Charles Singers – Winter Wonderland

THe Ray Conniff Singers – We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Stevie Wonder – Someday at Christmas

The Jackson 5 – Christmas Album

The Manhattan Transfer – The Christmas Album

Barbra Stresand – A Christmas Album

Andy Williams – Christmas Album

Chet Atkins – Christmas with Chet Atkins

Chet Atkins – East Tennessee Christmas

In the 1960’s and 70’s, Goodyear and Firestone tire stores sold Christmas albums that were compilations of various artists. I was able to find mp3 versions of 9 Goodyear albums and 7 Firestone albums that I added to my playlist.  Then I decided that was more traditional Christmas music than what I cared to have playing. Now I have a Holiday playlist that has all of the music listed above and a separate Holiday Favorites list that just includes the first list of CDs, the first list of mp3s and the singles.

There are a few Christmas albums that I have found that I chose not to include on my iPod for various reasons.  Here is that list:

The Monkees – The Christmas Album

Joan Baez – Noel

The Golddiggers – We Need a Little Christmas

Twisted Sister – A Twisted Christmas

Various Artists -A John Waters Christmas

Brian Setzer Orchestra – Boogie Woogie Christmas

El Vez – Merry Mex-Mas

Do you have anything that you would suggest that I consider adding?

We watch a lot of Christmas movies and television specials every year, usually starting on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  I frequently make posts to Facebook when we watch some of these.  Some of my friends asked me to post a list of our Christmas movies and this is a response to that request.  This is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of Christmas movies. There are many other Christmas movies and shows worth watching but are not on our radar. 

We have some of these on Blu-Ray, DVD or digital copies. Others we regularly seek out on TCM or streaming services.  Some of these get watched multiple times each year, others will only get watched once, while others may not get watched every year.  Some of these shows are viewed at specific times of the season.  I’ve taken all these categories into consideration in the groupings that are listed below.

We have copies of the following movies, and we watch them multiple times every year:

• Christmas in Connecticut
• Holiday Inn
• A Christmas Carol (1938 version)

We have copies of these movies but usually only watch once each season:

• The Bells of St. Mary’s
• A Christmas Story
• National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
• It’s A Wonderful Life
• Female Trouble (because it’s not a traditional Christmas movie, it gets watched at other times of the year)

We have copies of these but don’t consider them “have-to-see” movies:

• White Christmas (We received this one as a gift)
• Elf
• How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
• The Nightmare Before Christmas (Sometimes this one gets watched around Halloween, other years it gets overlooked during both holidays)

Our copies of these TV Specials get watched while the house gets decorated. They get additional viewings throughout the season:

• Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer
• Frosty the Snowman
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town
• How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
• The Year Without a Santa Claus
• Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July
• Rudolph’s Shiny New Year

We also have copies of these Christmas Specials but they aren’t watched as often:

• The Little Drummer Boy
• Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol
• Cricket on the Hearth
• Frosty Returns

These two are played while decorating and later in the season:

• Peewee’s Playhouse Christmas Special
• The Muppet Christmas Carol

We catch these films on streaming services and TCM each year at least once:

• The Bishop’s Wife
• The Shop Around the Corner
• Holiday Affair
• It Happened on 5th Avenue
• The Man Who Came to Dinner
• Remember the Night

These movies that are also watched on TCM or streaming but are not must-see every year:

• Meet John Doe
• Room for One More
• Meet Me in St. Louis
• In the Good Old Summertime

We watch our copy of the MST3K version of this movie every year on Christmas Eve:

• Stanta Claus Conquers the Martians

Here are 0ther MST3K Christmas episodes we have that are sometimes watched during the holiday season:

• Santa Claus (1959)
• The Christmas that Almost Wasn’t
• The Christmas Dragon

I grew up watching movies on TV on weekday afternoons.  One of the stations in our area had a good catalog of films to draw from and showed classics in their time slot from 3 until 5.  Another channel in our area tried various afternoon movie strategies to varying degrees of success.  The worst of these times is the focus of this story.

My earliest memories of their weekday afternoon programming included the Sherriff Big Jim Show.  Groups of kids like Scout Troops would appear on the Sherriff Big Jim Show where they would drink Big Red Soda, eat McDonalds hamburgers, and watch Roy Rogers and Gene Autry westerns.  After a while, they dropped Sherriff Big Jim and the kids and just showed the westerns.  This was always fun to watch.

A few years later they decided to upgrade the movies for the afternoon time slot. They got the rights to a group of films from Universal Pictures from the 1960’s. This was in the 1970’s so the films were relatively new.  There are 4 films that I remember seeing that were part of this package. They were not memorable because of the quality of the films, good or bad.  They were memorable because they showed them all the time.  I get the impression that the film package they bought didn’t include enough titles to show something every day.  Their film package would have probably worked better if they were showing them once a week.  The films I remember them showing from this time would sometimes air 2 or 3 times in one week.  Even if you really liked a movie, this was overkill.  Here are some of the titles and my memories of each one.

The Birds – This film is probably the best known from this group.  I like this movie but seeing it every day can weigh on you. The image of the guy with his eyes poked out isn’t something you would expect them to show every afternoon when the kids have just gotten home from school. And the kids singing “Risselty Rosselty, now now now” can get on your nerves the first time you see this one.  Imagine hearing every other day for a week. 

Munster Go Home – I’m probably more familiar with the Munsters from this movie than the television show. This is a color film, so you get to see Herman Munster in green makeup.  The story involves the Munsters taking a ship to England to visit a manor they have inherited.  They also take a custom-built dragster called Drag-u-la which Herman uses to win a race.  Not only did I see this more often, I saw it before I watched the TV series so I liked it better.  It took some getting used to for me to watch the series with a laugh track.

Tammy and the Doctor – This film is the third in a series of four films about a girl from the Mississippi swamps falling in love with men from more sophisticated areas of the country.  Debbie Reynolds was the star of the first film, with Sandra Dee taking over for the 2^nd and 3^rd installments of the series.  I think I’ve seen most of this series although I don’t remember Debbie Watson, the star of the last of these films.  Tammy and the Doctor also features Peter Fonda as the love interest.  I don’t remember much about this film other than the circumstances around one of the times I saw it.  It appeared to be a reel change in the film where Sandra Dee and Peter Fonda were talking in the hall of the hospital where the film takes place. Suddenly the screen went blank.  After a short wait, a message came on the screen that said, “Technical Difficulties – Please Stand By”. Because of this message, we started paying more attention to what was happening on the screen than before.  My sister and our friend Nan started taking turns “Standing By” then television set.  This message stayed on the screen for at least 30 minutes.  We had gone back to playing, barely paying any attention to the television when we suddenly heard the theme song from Car 54 Where Are You. They showed an entire episode of this series without commercial interruption. It’s worth noting that this is a series that was not being regularly aired on this channel at that time.  When that episode was done, they went back to Tammy and the Doctor for less than 5 seconds.  After another small break they came back with a black and white episode of a series called Danger Is My Business.  It turns out that there are only 5 episodes of this series with the first 2 airing in 1958 and the rest in 1962. This show didn’t look like anything we wanted to see and we gave up on Tammy so we changed channels and watched Gilligan’s Island.

Out of Sight – This film was made in 1966 during the popularity explosion of the James Bond and Beach Party movies.  This film tries to cash in on both of these fads with a secret agent’s butler, named Homer, covering for his injured boss to save a rock and roll show from a criminal organization called F.L.U.S.H. Homer is portrayed by Johnathan Daly, an actor that has a Don Knotts vibe.  There are a lot of women in bikinis in this film as is usual in beach themed movies. But there are three female agents for F.L.U.S.H. that the butler must contend with who go by the names of Scuba, Tuff Bod and Wipe Out.  One of the more memorable scenes features an encounter between Homer and Tuff Bod where he is placed in a box and speakers come in from each side next to his ears blaring annoying non-rock music. Later, Homer manages to swap places with Tuff Bod.  It also features a character named Huh! because that’s all his character ever says.  I think the best music in the film is performed by The Turtles but the most memorable performances are by Freddie and the Dreamers.  They are treated like they were The Beatles. The shots of the crowd reacting to them is actually footage of girls reacting to The Beatles from a documentary called What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. Their song Funny Over You is a highlight. We also get to see lead singer Freddie Garrity do his trademark dance The Freddie and do zany leaps at the end of his songs. I never thought this was a good movie, but I saw it so many times that it stuck with me.  It’s odd that today it is so hard to find.   As far as I know, it’s never been given a home video release, and rarely plays on any channels.  It’s not on any streaming services but below standard versions can be found on YouTube.

Back in 1991, I heard about a movie called The Dark Backward.  In this movie, Judd Nelson plays a garbage man that moonlights as an unfunny stand-up comic.   His act career as a comic picks up a little when he grows a third arm out of his back.  How would I not be interested in this movie?  Is it a surprise that this film didn’t see a wide release? It went to video soon after it was released and developed a cult following.

This movie was hard to find anywhere around 1991.  None of the local video stores had it for rent.  Stores that sold video tapes didn’t carry it. It was a few years before I found it on the shelf of a store selling used video tapes. In the years since then, I have been able to find a good copy on DVD.  There are several reasons to that we like this movie.

First, teen idol Judd Nelson looks like a greasy dweeb in the main role of Marty Malt.  After he grows the third arm out the middle of his back, he tries to spice up his act by adopting the stage name Desi the Three-Armed Wonder Comic.  His fellow garbage man, Gus is played by the wonderful Bill Paxton.  To try and add to the charm of Marty’s comedy act, overly optimistic Gus joins the act, playing the accordion between jokes as Marty holds out his arms while slowing spinning on stage. Another highlight of the casting of this film is Wayne Newton as their agent, Jackie Chrome.

This film does a great job of creating a sleazy, dirty world where the terrible comedy of Marty Malt is the most realistic thing you see.  One of the most disturbing things you see in the film is when Gus takes Marty to party with 3 extremely large women in various states of undress. 

This film is considered a dark comedy, but I think the atmosphere it creates has a horror film feel.  It’s the reason that Judd Nelson scares me.

I was at work when I received a call from home.  I talked to my wife for a little while and then my oldest daughter wanted to talk to me.  She was about 4 years old at the time.  We didn’t talk very long. As we wrapped up our conversation, she said, “Daddy, do you know what I want to watch when you get home?”  I said “What” and she replied, “The Hideous Sun Demon.”

We had watched this goofy little movie before and had fun watching it. The kids watched Disney films when they were at home with their mom but when dad came home, we watched silly horror films.

They use clips of this movie in the bad movie compilation film It Came from Hollywood. The main clip they show take place in a nightclub where an actress is sitting at a piano singing a song Strange Pursuit.  She is supposed to be playing the piano too, but it is obvious that the music that you hear is not being played by her. Most of the time, only one of her arms is moving. Later in the song, she crosses her hand over to play some notes. It’s probably one of the worst jobs of pretending to play a musical instrument ever filmed. 

The plot of the film involves a scientist who gets exposed to radiation. Later in the film, he turns into a monster whenever he goes into sunlight.  The rest of the plot is standard 1950’s man in a rubber mask monster stuff. The other interesting thing about this movie is that some of the soundtrack music was used about 10 years later in Night of the Living Dead during the chase scene in the cemetery. 

The movie Frogs was released on my birthday in 1972 when I was turning 10 years old.  I didn’t see it during its original release.  But I remember seeing commercials for it on TV and ads in the newspaper.  All the ads for the movie featured a frog with a human hand hanging out of the mouth.  This ad campaign has to be one of the all-time best for a movie.  The movie isn’t as good as the advertising, but it is a fun nature-gone-wild movie.  I probably saw it for the first time on TV on a channel that had a creature feature time slot.  I liked it from the very first time I saw it, but I have come to love it over the years.

The movie was filmed in Florida and appears to be set around a mansion on the coast of a southern state. Sam Elliot is a wildlife photographer who encounters Ray Milland’s family, who lives in the mansion.  Everyone has noticed more frogs than usual, and Ray Milland wants to get rid of them.  Family members and employees of the family start getting killed, usually without anyone knowing that it has happened, at least with the first few deaths.  One of the things that makes this movie fun is that most of the deaths are not caused by frogs even those the movie is called Frogs.  Other reptiles and amphibians are the killers.  Even birds and spiders get in on the action.  There are always frogs around when the murders occur and there is constant croaking on the soundtrack.

Ray Milland’s character is a grumpy old man that you wish would die early on.  He doesn’t get his just desserts until the end of the film, and it appears that his death might be the only one directly caused by frogs.  Sam Elliot’s character escapes the mansion with his love interest, played by Joan Van Ark and a couple of kids. But the movie ends with the suggestion that frogs are taking over everywhere.

Some people criticize the ads for this film because if the human hand sticking out of the mouth of the frog suggesting the movie might have had giant frogs eating people.  All the frogs in the film are normal sized and there is no suggestion that they are even biting humans.  But after the closing credits, there is an animated frog that hops across the screen with a human hand in its mouth.

I loved watching television game shows in the early 1970’s.  In 1972, CBS started showing The Price is Right, starring Bob Barker.  This was an updated version of a successful show from nearly a decade earlier.  Contestants guessed the prices of various products and some of the prizes they could win. I enjoyed seeing the attractive models who posed with the products being promoted. My favorite model was Anitra Ford. I found out a few years after this series started that Anitra Ford also appeared in several movies around the same time she was on The Price is Right.   I would not see most of these until many years later. My favorite that had her in a primary role is Invasion of the Bee Girls.

Anitra plays a scientist doing research on bees and their culture.  In the community around her research center, young men start dying of exhaustion during sex so naturally the federal government sends investigators to find out why.  It turns out that Anitra’s all female group of researchers have become bee girls. Along the way, the viewer is treated to a scene of where a woman is transformed into a bee girl by stripping her nude, pouring something like honey over her body, then allowing bees to cover her while she is exposed to radiation.  After this Peter Parker-type process, the bee girls have the ability to sap the life right out of their sex partners.  The good girl co-star of the film is rescued by the male government agent at the start of her transformation process. The agent is able to shoot the equipment with his pistol which releases a gas that kills all of the bee girls.

This film has nudity but no graphic sex. It is a typical 1973 R rated movie. The goofy title and plot line are the main things that drew me to this film, but the added bonus was to get to see more of Anitra Ford than I ever did on The Price is Right. It would be re-released in 1981 with the title Graveyard Tramps. I don’t understand why anyone thought this was a better title.

It’s now or never
Come hold me tight
Kiss me my darling
Be mine tonight”

These were the words I heard being sung while I was standing at a urinal in the men’s room in the visitors center soon after I arrived at Graceland.  But it wasn’t just Elvis singing.  A guy standing at another urinal just down from me was singing along with Elvis. If I wasn’t at Graceland during Elvis Week, I would have thought this was unusual.  But I see people singing along everywhere at Graceland.  When I exited the restroom, I stuck up a conversation with the singer.  Lou is from New York.  This is his 6^th time visiting Graceland and his 3^rd Elvis Week.  He has a TCB tattoo on the palm side of his left forearm.  He’s there with his girlfriend Jen.  He asks me for advice on good places to get ribs in Memphis.

My trips to the Candlelight Vigil have always been about more than people watching.  Meeting people has always been more interesting than just watching them.  I’ve always been willing to talk to people and ask them about their Elvis connections.  Interesting people sometime have the most interesting stories.

I saw a Japanese couple at a photo kiosk in one of the exhibit halls.  This kiosk allows you to take your picture and manipulate it, so it looks like you are wearing an Elvis jumpsuit.  The woman had posed for the picture, and they were trying to get a picture of the screen with their phone instead of paying to have the kiosk print it out. Their English was limited, and I don’t speak Japanese, but I was about to find out that they were from Tokyo.  This was their first trip to Graceland.  They were not staying for the vigil.

I was trying take a picture of myself in front of part of the jumpsuit exhibit when I met a couple from Wyoming.  They didn’t realize I was taking a selfie, so they thought they were in my way because they were standing in front of me.  They were in Memphis for the FedEx St. Jude Golf Championship being played that weekend.  They decided to make Graceland a part of their visit.  They had several questions about Graceland and Elvis.  The most interesting question was if Elvis had ever won a Grammy.  I walked around the corner with him to show him both Grammys. 

I naturally drawn to talk to anyone with Elvis hair, in a jumpsuit or any kind of Elvis style clothes. While shopping in one of the gift shops, I met Dave Stovall from the Peoria area. I was able to find a picture of us together from 2015 when he was wearing a jumpsuit. He was thinner and I was fatter.  He told me that he had been to Graceland 89 times and usually comes 3 to 4 times a year.  I told him that my first vigil was in 2002.  He was at that vigil with his girlfriend. He told me she was so attractive that she was next in line to be a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.  He said she got mad at him when he accidentally burned her hair with his candle at the vigil. He complained about the rising prices at Graceland.  He said people aren’t coming anymore because it costs too much.  I didn’t tell him, but I think the main reason the crowds are smaller is because the Elvis fans are dying off.  And the number of new fans isn’t enough to replace them.  I hoped to see Dave later at the vigil. He told me he was going back to the Holiday Inn Express later to change into his jumpsuit. I never saw him at the vigil.

Dave wasn’t the only one that I had met before.  While I was going through an exhibit on the Baz Luhrmann Elvis movie, I saw a lady wearing a shirt that said she suffered from O.C.E.D., Obsessive Compulsive Elvis Disorder.  I asked if I could get a picture of her shirt, and she insisted I get pictures of her custom Elvis pants and shoes too. I met Donna from Branson, MO back in 2022. I got more interesting stories from her then and I suggest going back and reading them. This year she told me she had seen Elvis perform live 8 times.  In 2022, it was 7 times. Either her count was wrong this year or she’s seen him in the last 2 years.  This was her 4th trip to Elvis week. She was looking for an Elvis Shower curtain. Her daughter came on the trip this year just to take pictures of her. The daughter said in their house Elvis was like toilet paper. It’s always in the house. She told her mother has Elvis in every room except bathroom and she wanted to fix that. Her current shower curtain says get naked.

 At 1:30 it was 93 degrees. Heat bouncing off concrete. No air stirring not much of crowd. I started to consider going home early.

 When I was going to take this year’s souvenirs back to my car, a woman from St. Louis named Lynetta told me she liked my shirt.  I was wearing an official Graceland shirt made in the style of a shirt that Elvis wears in Blue Hawaii. It gets a lot of attention, but they are all over the place during Elvis Week.  In the gift shops and on the fans. This is the second shirt that I’ve had, the first one was before I lost weight. Lynetta was there with her friend Stephanie from Kansas City.  Lynetta was the real Elvis fan of the pair. She had been to Graceland about 20 times, but this was her 2nd Elvis week. She asked for tips on navigating the Candlelight Vigil and when to get it line.  Lynetta had bought some material like my shirt to make her own custom top, and I told her about the Elvis shirts that my wife had made for me years ago. They were hip enough to the Elvis scene to refer to the tribute artists as ETAs (Elvis Tribute Artists).  I told them they could see plenty of ETAs at the Elvis Tent.

The Elvis Tent was my next stop. It is no longer in an actual tent but has been moved one of four large exhibit halls in the Pavilion building. The air-conditioning in this venue is more pleasant the old tent area. But a wristband is required to access this area, unlike the past when it was a free attraction.  It is another thing that makes it less of the fan driven experience the started the Candlelight vigil tradition and more of a transaction to keep Graceland in business. With more paid events during Elvis Week, the expectations of the returning fans grow.  Graceland struggles to find a good experience for the regulars in the crowd. The Elvis Tent is a place where these fans try their best to recreate the experience they had in earlier years.  Watching ETAs is part of that experience. I would make several trips back and forth to the Elvis Tent that afternoon.

The first performer I saw was singing I Just Can’t Help Belivin’ but didn’t know his music track well enough and started singing in the wrong place.  Other than that, he was pretty good. He had the sideburns and could affect a decent Elvis accent. His outfit looked like an Elvis themed bowling shirt.

A 17-year-old performer from Myrtle Beach didn’t do much to look like Elvis. I guess his pink polo shirt was supposed to suggest Elvis, but it didn’t work.  The black and white two-toned shoes make him the most Elvis-like, other than a good voice. When I asked him what he planned to do when he graduates high school, he said he might pursue more Elvis music or some other kind of music. I think only suggested still doing Elvis music because that’s what the fans at Elvis Week expect.  His dad was wearing a shirt with his picture on it doing Elvis moves.

Later I saw an ETA using a prop guitar.  I don’t remember seeing anyone do this before.  The way he used it, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know how to play it.  There was no attempt to really play guitar.  But he was a good singer. He did some work in the crowd and the group of women sitting immediately in front of me called him over so they could flirt with him.   

One of the ETAs wearing a black vest made a callback to the Elvis movie by declaring that Elvis is the hero in our comic book.

One of my breaks from the Elvis Tent, I was walking between buildings when I met a small utility vehicle on the sidewalk. I stepped out into the grass and stirred up a nest of fire ants that attacked my right ankle.  It took a while, but I was successful and getting them off me.

I got a notice at 2:30 that the heat advisory was extended to 9 pm.  I am still considering going home early.

When I went to one of the on-site restaurants, I met a lady from Jonesboro, Arkansas with Elvis glasses and fake sideburns hanging off the earpieces.  This was her second Elvis Week with her first one being last year.

Late afternoon, a line was forming in the area to go through security for the vigil.  It was hot and I was still considering leaving early. At an Igloo Beverage Cooler that was set up for people in line, there were 3 people in front of me getting water, 2 women and a man. One woman had sunglasses that I complimented. Told me she was from France. She didn’t understand English well enough to understand anything I said when I tried to tell her where I’m from. When they got their water, they started pouring on their foreheads and rubbing it in their hair. It reminded me of a Methodist baptism.

I ended up going to the vigil ceremony but not going up to the gravesite. It was too hot to stand in the line early enough to get done early.  I met a lady named Sabrina last year and I hung out with her and her family.  She lives in the Nashville area but comes to Memphis regularly for Elvis related events.  She also goes to other Elvis events around the country.  While I’ve met dedicated Elvis fans over the years, I’ve gotten to know Sabrina better.  I’ve gotten insight into the world of a dedicated Elvis fan.  While I hung out with her, she would meet ETAs that she knew well.  There were other Elvis fans that she talked to that were other regulars at the events she attends.  The way the network of people interacted made this event feel a little less like a fan convention and more like a family reunion. 

Before the ceremony started, I spotted a guy that I wish I had gotten in a picture. He had a tee shirt that said “I grew upon Elvis”.   His disheveled look made him look like a cross between a drunk Harry Dean Stanton character and drunk Mr. Gower, the pharmacist that George Bailey worked for in It’s A Wonderful Life.

The executives from Graceland spoke before the vigil ceremony started.  They apologized for the waits in the heat.  It sounded like they didn’t know what the typical Candlelight Vigil experience was like.  When they were considering steps to improve the experience, they said they would ask themselves one question: What would Elvis do? This brought back memories of my first Candlelight Vigil experience in 2002 when I ran into a couple of young women wearing and selling shirts similar to the popular at that time “What Would Jesus Do?” shirts and paraphernalia.  Their shirts had “WWED” letters wrapped in a Christian fish symbol. We have come full circle from a parody of a Christian movement to a legitimate initiative from Elvis Presley Enterprises.

They were also looking forward to an effort they called their “Road to 50” with the 50^th anniversary of Elvis’ death coming in 3 years.  I feel that part of that has to do with their desire for bigger crowds, which always happen on any anniversary year that ends in 5 or 0.  They want a return to the carnival atmosphere instead of the ghost town that the visitor center seems to be during most of the time.

There is no signature story from this year’s trip. As I have told people about my trip over the past few weeks, the fire ants have been my go-to story.  And that’s not a good Elvis Week story. I was more interested in a stop at Waffle House on the way home than I was interested in visiting the gravesite at Graceland.  I’m sure I’m on the road to 50 with the rest of the Elvis fans but I hope the coming years provide a more fulfilling experience.

Several years ago, I was in the locker room of a gym where I had been working out.  A friend that I had not seen for several months came in and said hi when he saw me.  His name is not Bill but that’s what I’ll call him.  While Bill was changing into his workout clothes, put bandages over his nipples.  I had heard of people doing this to protect their nipples from getting irritated by rubbing against their shirt, but I had never seen anyone do it.  I didn’t think that much about it and sort of filed this away in my memory bank. 

A few days later, I was back in the locker room of the same gym.  While I was changing, I noticed a used bandage on the floor.  I wondered if this was one of Bill’s bandages…