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40 years of the Elvis ’68 Television special

Posted in pop culture, TV shows with tags Elvis Presley, pop culture, TV shows on December 3, 2008 by Paxton

Forty years ago today, Dec 3, 1968, NBC aired the Elvis Presley Special sponsored by the Singer Sewing Company. It has since become known as the ’68 Comeback Special, or just the ’68 Special. It has stood the test of time as one of the most iconic performances of Elvis Presley’s career. It re-ignited his singing career and also started him touring and performing live concerts for the first time in seven years. This is how the televised special became known as the Comeback Special, Elvis was returning to touring and making rock-and-roll records.

As I said, the ’68 Special has become iconic, not just for Elvis fans, but for the man himself. One of the more famous images of him is decked out in his all-leather suit strumming his guitar.

This special marked the first time Elvis had “gone electric” during a musical performance. In all previous performances he only played acoustic guitar.

Another iconic image of Elvis is in his all-white suit, standing in front of the immortal red ELVIS letters singing “If I Can Dream”

Although it aired on Dec 3 1968, the special was actually filmed in July 1968. Elvis had just returned from his honeymoon with Priscilla. While the Special was wildly successful, many people don’t realize that the original concept of the show was completely different.

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Happy Birthday, Elvis!

Posted in Elvis, holiday with tags Elvis Presley on January 8, 2008 by Paxton

It’s January 8, Elvis Presley’s birthday. He would have been 73 today.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2007: Halloween retail goodies

Posted in candy, Elvis, Halloween with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2007, candy, Elvis Presley, Halloween, holiday, pop culture on October 31, 2007 by Paxton

I love looking around stores during Halloween. The aisles are decorated with cardboard haunted houses, pumpkins and pics of gouls, ghosts and monsters. It’s so much fun to walk around the Halloween sections of retail stores like Target, Wal-Mart and your local grocery store to see the scary versions of some regular favorites that come out every Halloween. Companies also seem to release new Halloween themed items every year. Here’s some of the coolest stuff I noticed while shopping around this Halloween season.

You can click the individual pictures for a bigger size.

I love Reese’s Cups. LOVE them. They are top of my list of snacks including Cheetos and peanut M&Ms. During Halloween Reese’s will release different shaped cups (bats, pumpkins, skulls, etc). The package says DOUBLE sized and, man, they aren’t kidding. This is one giant brick of peanut butter in a thin layer of chocolate. It’s like carrying around a small child. It easily weighed as much as my head. I had trouble finishing it. If you decide to get some of these, make sure you bring along a car trailer or a pack mule. You aren’t going to get a box of these home on your own.

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Ahhh, another seasonal favorite for me, Pumpkin Mix M&Ms. Yes, this is just regular M&Ms dressed up as black and orange pumpkins, but I LOVE M&Ms and the packaging is always too cool to pass up (check out Yellow carving a pumpkin that looks like Red). I buy them every year (peanut are my favorite followed closely by peanut butter).

Gummy candy in the shape of human limbs seems to be pretty popular this year. The one on the left even comes in its own coffin. Nothing quite like candy that makes you feel like a cannibal. They make these things extremely realistic. Just sitting there looking at them I got a little queasy. Great, great idea, I’m glad companies are embracing the macabre during the Halloween season, but I’d be lying if I said these things don’t creep me out. Like chopped up midgets in a bag. Yikes.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2007: Some of my awesome, awesome Halloween costumes

Posted in Elvis, Halloween, personal with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2007, costumes, Elvis Presley, Halloween, holiday, pop culture on October 30, 2007 by Paxton

I have always loved Halloween. I dressed up every year until I was in 8th or 9th grade. It was so much fun wearing costumes and hanging out with my friends going from house to house getting candy. Things have certainly changed. Today, the costumes are infinitely better but you can’t go out in your neighborhood to trick-or-treat anymore because of various nefarious individuals that may (or may not) live in your area. These individuals would love nothing more than to fool you into eating an apple with a razor blade stashed inside. What sick individual gives out apples for Halloween anyway? If that happened when I was a kid that guy would have gotten his own version of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that involved nothing but toilet paper and raw eggs. Giving apples for Halloween is just WRONG, people. Write that down.

Anyway, my family was pretty good at documenting our holidays. I was going through some old photos and found some of my all-time favorite Halloween costumes. I have more pictures than this, but I may save those for another time. So, without further ado, here are some of my favorite costumes that I’ve worn throughout the years. Enjoy!

You can click each of the pictures for a bigger version.

Year Unknown – Spiderman. Yes, this is it! The Ben Cooper Spider-man costume. It doesn’t get much more vintage than this. Obviously I’m “shooting my webs” at a villain off camera. Classic, classic costume. You can find these on eBay now for anywhere between 20 and 100 bucks. Check out the boxed version of this costume here.

Year Unknown – Peter Criss (drummer for KISS). How about them jeans and JC Penney’s belt? That’s so rock-n-roll, man. I never really listened to their music, but I LOVED the whole KISS makeup gimmick. I loved they dressed up and spit fire and had these gaudy knee boots. It was awesome. And for some reason, my favorite was always Peter Criss, the drummer. I was walking home from school and found a large drink cup with a picture of Peter Criss on it and told Mom that’s who I wanted to be for Halloween. My mom was great, she used the cup as a guide for all the makeup. She did a great job, didn’t she? Years later she would do the same thing for me when I was a werewolf. She painted on wolf-like features. It was awesome, I wish I had a picture of it.

Year Unknown – Random Pirate. The costume turned out great didn’t it? My mom was great at making costumes out of crap we had around the house. Dig those funky yellow running shoes! So pirate-y. That ginormous sword was borrowed and I only held it for the picture. There was no way I was carrying that monstrosity through the neighborhood trying to collect candy. Check out my younger brother as Big Bird. Yes, yes that is embarrassing. He’s gonna love that. You can see another pic of this costume here.

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Remembering Elvis and Elvis Week

Posted in Elvis, personal, pop culture with tags Elvis Presley on August 16, 2007 by Paxton

Today marks the 30th Anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. He died, in his home, on August 16, 1977.

My wife and I are big fans of Elvis. We even named our kitty Presley after him. For our second anniversary we traveled to Memphis, TN and toured Graceland (which I had never done). On the way back we stopped in Tupelo, MS and visited “The Birthplace”, Elvis’ boyhood home. I have read Volume 1 of Pete Guralnick’s two volume biography of Elvis. Amazing. It’s amazing to see the history Elvis created and lived through. Elvis lived an amazing life, yet he died so tragically.

Let’s celebrate the man and his iconic image, not linger on the circumstances of his death. Let me see what pictures I can dig up here of my wife and I and our dealings with all things Elvis related.

You’ve seen my Elvis Avatar from an earlier article.

Elvis M&M I also created this M&M avatar of Elvis. Somewhat goofy, but I like it.

Elvis Hawaii Here’s a picture of a commemorative Elvis statue outside the Neal Blaisdell Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. This is the venue that Elvis filmed his famous “Aloha from Hawaii” concert in.

Dale Earnhart Jr. is going to drive a commemorative Elvis car for the singer’s 30th Death Day anniversary. I like the color scheme.

I mentioned earlier about trying the Elvis Reese’s Cups with Banana Cream. Well, there’s a whole website devoted to it.

Here is the two volume Elvis biography I mentioned earlier by Pete Guralnick. I’ve read Volume 1 which covers his birth through him leaving for the Army in ’56-’57. Volume 2 picks up after the Army until his death.

Last but not least, below are some pics of me in my Elvis Halloween costume. Steph actually made this Elvis jumpsuit with her own two hands (and some help from her mother). It’s AWESOME.

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Pretty BAD-ASS, isn’t it? I love it. It’s always a hit whenever I bust it out.

As I said, the wife and I are big fans of The King and love to listen to his music and read about him. Visiting Memphis and seeing Graceland and going to “The Birthplace” were a lot of fun. If you ever get the chance, do it. I actually want to go again.

So, in honor of the 30th Anniversary, Memphis is holding it’s annual Elvis Week with activities, concerts and games. It’s also Elvis Month on TV Land, so if you get that channel on your cable system tune in to check out Elvis movies, concerts and specials.

Long Live the King, baby.

Viva Las Vegas