Saturday 16 June 2012

Anything That's Part of You

For sale: one crypt (hardly used); one lock of hair (one not-so careful owner).

Hair today, gone tomorrow
People often say to me, Pen, Pen they say, being born in 1977 don't mean that the King's soul just passed into you, hell you wasn't even born on the right day. Well, I say to them, on October 2nd 1977, just before I was born, Elvis and Gladys were moved from their crypt at Forest Hill cemetery in Memphis prior to interment in Graceland. Yeah.

We can't all have a piece of the King's soul it's true, but we can damn well try. On June 23rd for example, bidding opens at $100,000 for the very crypt Elvis spent a month and a half in thanks to Julien's Auctions and the good news is you can bid online for this delicious bit of marble. Yes, be interred where Elvis was. Surround your dead self with a lot of neo-classical white stone. Not quite got the money? $2000 - $4000 might net you an x-ray of Elvis' forearm and hand, and the injury therein sustained during a karate session. Penny pinching? Go for hair! You can't go wrong with hair. 

Hair: snip at the price
In November 2002 a strand of El's hair went for £70,000, but Julien's are only plumping for $1000 - $2000. Perhaps because the hair in question (cut by 'Gil', Elvis's traveling barber) hasn't been DNA tested, merely authenticated by John Reznikoff of Westport, Connecticut. But then John collects celebrity hair, and might be considered quite the expert. So let's go with that certificate and jar of hair. A snip at the price if the mere £1055 strand auctioned at Devizes in November 2009 was anything to go by. That's it Elvis collectors, the smart money's in hair. Anything that's part of Elvis.



Hair it is: authenticator
Hair: authentic



Friday 8 June 2012

Elvis & Marilyn II

X-Men: Bullingdon Club
Sometimes I spend my time flaneuring about Oxford. No city has a right to be so pretty, but pretty it is and with pretty comes a bit of attention. Oh look, there's James McAvoy sauntering 19 times from Hertford to the Bodleian under an enormous silver umbrella that's making it sun. That'll be Xavier in X-Men: First Class. There's a story going round that when the blockbusters are in town, the ITV crew filming Lewis stick a notice on their vans saying: this is not X-men, or whatever big name is in town that day.  Ha. Ridiculous, surely everyone would rather have a nice cuppa with Lewis and Hathaway, Ma'am and Hobson than hang about with Young David Cameron and Magneto? 

Curling up with Lewis, king of kindness, in the episode entitled Generation of Vipers (which could in all fairness be the series name), I noted that his angry astonishment at the level of depravity on the internet, specifically an imaginary believable awful site called 'Barker', was further kindled by a particular article...
Elvis & Marilyn, pretend, on a pretend internet site in a pretend police station
Needless to say, Lewis and Hathaway put an end to the nasties running that particular show.