https://americansongwriter.com/behind-the-song-you-can-call-me-al/


The songwriter explains the new methods used to write this and the others songs on “Graceland.”

If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty, when you call me,
You can call me Al
Call me Al

From Paul Simon’s landmark Graceland, “You Can Call Me Al” is quintessential Simon. It’s whimsical, rhythmically infectious, poetic and conversational, all before it expands into a whole other realm.

The famously funny yet enigmatic chorus, Simon said, came from a funny memory of going to a party at the New York apartment of Pierre Boulez, the conductor-composer. Simon and his first wife Peggy arrived, meeting their host at the door, who evidently had no clue who they were. Boulez introduced them to his guests as “Al and Betty.”

It was the first single from Graceland, and became a hit, launched by the famous music video with Chevy Chase.


“I need a photo-opportunity, I want a shot at redemption, don’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard”
All the songs for Graceland, unlike his previous work written with voice and guitar, were written to tracks he and his friend, the producer-engineer Roy Halee, recorded in Africa. Simon brought those recordings back to his New York City home, where he allowed the energy of the music to inspire the lyrics and melodies.

It was completed at the Hit Factory in New York with Roy Halee in April of 1986. Rob Mounsey, who played synth, also arranged and conducted the nine-piece horn section (five trumpets, two trombones, baritone and bass saxophones).


There’s a delightful bass break by Bakithi Kumalo, which was not part of the original arrangement, but suggested by Paul when learning that it was the bassist’s birthday. Bakithi improvised the fast fretless break, which Roy sonically doctored in New York; he used the first half of the phrase, then reversed it for the second half, creating a musical palindrome.

Jazz musician Morris Goldberg played the other solo on the song on a penny whistle.

Simon wrote the song using a new approach to lyrics, which combined colloquial speech with abstract, “enriched” language.

The lyrics shift from the ordinary language of the first verse to a third verse imbued with enriched imagery, the “angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity…” That progression is not random. Nothing Simon does is random. Which is not to say he calculates his lyrics; he doesn’t. As he said during our first of many conversations back in 1988, “I’m more interested in what I discover than what I invent.”


“He looks around, around, he sees angels in the architecture spinning in infinity, he says, 'Amen and Hallelujah!’”
Asked what the distinction was between discovery and invention, he said, “You just have no idea that that’s a thought that you had;  it surprises you; it can make me laugh or make me emotional. When it happens and I’m the audience and I react, I have faith in that because I’m already reacting. I don’t have to question it. I’ve already been the audience.”


“But if I make it up,” he continued, “knowing where it’s going, it’s not as much fun. It may be just as good, but it’s more fun to discover it.”

To get to the right place to allow that discovery to occur, he’d listen to the music while tossing a baseball against the wall, and catching it. Asked what effect that had on this song, he gave the following answer, which leads into his explanation of discovering what became “You Can Call Me Al.”  


“You Can Call Me Al,” the video with Chevy Chase.
PAUL SIMON: The act of throwing a ball and catching a ball is so natural and calming. It’s like a Zen exercise, really. It’s a very pleasant feeling if you like playing ball, and while you do it, your mind kind of wanders, and that’s really what you want to happen. You want your mind to wander and to pick up words and phrases, and fool around with them and drop them.

Because as soon as your mind knows that it’s on, and it’s supposed to produce some lines, either it doesn’t or it produces things that are very predictable.

And that’s why I say I’m not interested in writing something that I thought about; I’m interested in discovering where my mind wants to go or what object it wants to pick up.

[The mind] always picks up on something true. You’ll find out much more about what you’re thinking that way than you will if you’re determined to say something. What you’re determined to say is filled with all your rationalizations and your defenses, and all of that what you want to say to the world. As opposed to what you’re thinking.


And as a lyricist, my job is to find out what it is that I’m thinking. Even if it’s something that I don’t want to be thinking.

I was trying to learn how to be able to write vernacular speech and then intersperse it with enriched language, and then go back to vernacular. So the thing would go along smoothly, then some image would come out that was interesting, then it would go back to this very smooth conversational thing. That was a technique that I was learning.

It didn’t have anything to do with logic or anything; I don’t know where it came from. But on Hearts and Bones,  there’s more of that. “[“Rene & Georgette] Magritte” has more of that. “Hearts and Bones” is more of that.


“A Train in the Distance” is in itself that kind of speech: “Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance; everybody thinks it’s true.” That is imagery, and that’s the title.

So by the time I got to Graceland,  I was trying to let that kind of enriched language flow naturally in the course of it, so that you wouldn’t really notice it as much.

I think in Hearts and Bones, you could feel it was coming. Whereas in Graceland,  I tried to do it where you wouldn’t notice it, where you sort of passed the line and then it was over. To let the words tumble this way and that way, and sometimes I’d increase the rhythm of the words so that they would come by you and then when a phrase was sort of different and came by you so quickly that all you could get was the feeling.

So I started to try and work with more feelings around with words because the sound of the record was so good, you could move feelings.

“You Can Call Me Al” starts very ordinary, almost like a joke; like the structure of a joke cliche; “There’s a rabbi, a minister and a priest….” “Two Jews walk into a bar…” “A man walks down the street…”  That’s what I was doing there.

Because how you begin a song is one of the hardest things. The first line of a song is very hard. I always have this image in my mind of a road that goes like this: [motions with hands to signify a road that starts narrow and gets wider as it opens out], so that the implication is that the directions are pointing outward.]

It’s like a baseball diamond; there’s more and more space out here as opposed to like [motions an inverted road growing more narrow], because if it’s like this at this point in the song, you’re out of options.

So you want to have that first line that has a lot of options to get you going. And the other thing that I try to remember, especially if a song is long, is: You have plenty of time. You don’t have to **** them; you don’t have to grab them by the throat with the first line

In fact, you have to wait for the audience. They’re going to sit down, get settled in their seat. Their concentration is not even there. You have to be a good host to people’s attention span. You’re not going to come in there and work real hard right away. Too many things are coming; the music is coming, the rhythm is coming; all kinds of information that the brain is sorting out



“You Can Call Me Al,” Live in Central Park with Chevy Chase.
So give them easy words and easy thoughts and let it move along, and let the mind get into the groove of it. Especially if it’s a rhythm tune.

And at a certain point, when the brain is loping along easily, then you come up with the first kind of thought or image that’s different. Because it’s entertaining at that point. Otherwise people haven’t settled in yet.

So “You Can Call Me Al” is an example of that kind of writing. It starts off very easily with sort of a joke: “Why am I soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?” It’s a joke, with very easy words.

Then it has a chorus that you can’t understand what is he talking about –  “You can call me Betty, and Betty, you can call Me Al.”  You don’t know what I’m talking about, but I don’t think it’s bothersome. You don’t know what I’m talking about, but neither do I, at that point.

The second verse is really a recapitulation of the first: A man walks down the street he says… another thing. And by the time you get to the third verse, and people have been into the song long enough, now you can start to throw abstract images. Because there’s been a structure, and those abstract images, they will just come down and fall into one of the slots that the mind has already made up about the structure of the song.

The guy in the third verse thinks, “Maybe it’s the third world, maybe it’s his first time around…” I thought it was interesting to combine what was on my mind with that music. I thought it would be interesting to an African audience, if they could get to the point of hearing it. And they did, once the album became a big hit.

So now you have this guy who’s no longer thinking about the mundane thoughts, about whether he’s getting too fat, whether he needs a photo opportunity or whether he’s afraid of the dogs in the moonlight and the graveyard,  and he’s off in: “Listen to the sound, look what’s going on… there’s cattle and scatterlings…

And these sounds are very fantastic. And look at the buildings – there’s angels in the architecture.

And that’s the end of the song. It goes “phooomp,” and that’s the end.

Hare Krishna's
In their Pickups
Depressed Comics
Down on their Luck
Teenage Girls
Screaming Meme's
****** *****'s
Leftward Leaning
Vincent Price
Flo and Eddie
Rodger Rabbit
Priscilla Presley
Nuns in Habits
Dwarf's in Ponchos
Deadbeat Dads
Munching Nachos
Right-Wing Nut Jobs
Trading Slogans
A few Hero's
Including Hogan

Are just a few of the sights you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee

Buddhist Monks
With Electric Banjos
Holding Signs Up
Of Marlon Brando
Taxi Cabs
Blaring Show Tunes
Pregnant Women
Down-loading Soon
Derby Jockeys
Flying Monkeys
Kool-Aidholics
Skittle Junkies
Bozo The Clown
Bumper Stickers
Psychedelic
Crazed Toad Lickers
Rhinestone Cowboys
In their Skivvies
Gothic Girls
Heebie Jeebies

Are just a few of the sights you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee

Blue Haired Granny's
In pink Moo Moos
Ballerina's In
Tattered Tutus
Mathematician's
Number Crunchers
Even have Some
Out to Lunchers
Model 50's
Do *** Daddies
One More Round Of
Flo and Eddie
People Sneaking
Across the Border
Lonely Fry Cooks
Taking Orders
A Few Wannabes
Not Saying Much
Will The Real Elvis
Please Stand Up

Are just a few of the sights that you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee

Thank you...Thank you very Much

Ladies and Gentlemen
Elvis...Has Left The Building

Tomb of a millionaire,
     A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen,
     Place of the dead where they spend every year
     The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars
     For upkeep and flowers
     To keep fresh the memory of the dead.
     The merchant prince gone to dust
     Commanded in his written will
     Over the signed name of his last testament
     Twenty-five thousand dollars be set aside
     For roses, lilacs, hydrangeas, tulips,
     For perfume and color, sweetness of remembrance
     Around his last long home.

(A hundred cash girls want nickels to go to the movies to-night.
In the back stalls of a hundred saloons, women are at tables
Drinking with men or waiting for men jingling loose
     silver dollars in their pockets.
In a hundred furnished rooms is a girl who sells silk or
     dress goods or leather stuff for six dollars a week wages
And when she pulls on her stockings in the morning she
     is reckless about God and the newspapers and the
     police, the talk of her home town or the name
     people call her.)

Dreaming Graceland or Zombie Land: Double Tap


When you think Elvis was a fraud,
a rip off the black man’s voice;

when you finally meet someone
who smells like candles
instead of gunpowder and whiskey;

who is comfortable with you
driving that pink Cadillac
all the way to Memphis;

who won’t
throw your pink stuff
to the side of the road;

who will kiss you
and hold your hand

until you arrive at Graceland
and try on those blue suede shoes
that actually fit;

let you gyrate your hips,
and for one moment,
feel like the King;

until you open your eyes
and really, really see
that you’re  in Zombieland.

"That's a thing that I do in the back of my head"

Ilove you, baby.
So very much.
I'm tempted to write this in tongues.
I wanna kiss you so much.
So very much.
This is my love poem, baby.
I guess I never wrote one before.
Feels kinda good.
Ok it feels great.
I love you, darling.
Say when I can use your name.
I hope you make friends.
Jk.
I know you are philosopher Queen.
Don't need friends.
It's okay.
I'll never be your friend.
I'm your man.
Time to listen to more Graceland on a walk to the school and its overgrown baseball field.
Mom's up.

You’re like the sweetest heart
You’re like my miracle
You’re the only one I want
You’re like the World Series
You’re like the saints ,won
You’re like the eagles versus
You’re like frog legs in Paris
You’re like my always pads
You’re like every ticket I’ve ever had
You’re like my air bag I never want to use you
You’re like my little angel’s eyes
You are second hand smoke
You are on my way to my God
you are my music high way
And every Mexican blanket
You are a field of hay and a single strike of lightning
You are every unfinished piece
I know I’m saving for our children
I have seen them in make shifts so we can definitely make time for everyone
Keep me on your next list
You are all the self help books that I read for my own mend
You are prevention magazine
And you’re mom is all the wax I accidentally spill out of candles
I think you’re my insecure side that’s scared to love you in front of the neighbors
You’re all the days I showed up late to school for Chuck Norris jokes in detention
You’re all the lonely drives I take and really enjoy the scenery
You are Oreos and Sonic Ice
You are better than any view
You are every sing
le time someone
  took me to the zoo
You are the pink palace
You are mismatched socks
You are solid rock
You are for twenty in the morning on the dot
You are every time that I cannot forget dingus
Or every time we drive I sing to you
Or when we got locked inside of the parking lot on signal mountain and the park ranger came to help us so soon
You are my best friend coming to see me when I got to college
You are the patience I gain when I
Stop wondering who the one is
Maybe you are every time I run away
You are all the times I cry so hard that it starts to rain
You are the doe that always comes near and is never afraid of what will happen next
You are the day you told me I was the girl you dreamed about
You are the day we sat in the back of my car
You are there for me when I have gone too far
You meet me further than any arrest or charger cord
And Graceland too
You’re my wonderful morning
You’re my answered prayers for sunshine
You’re every single word I type in black and white
Messy cars aren’t so bad too meme my love for this love is the only art form I choose

Loves eliminating my clouded culture
I’m ready for the day when eagles fly over
Thank you god for everything

Remember darling,
Walking hand in hand.
Through the gates of Graceland.
Remember when we sat in Elvis' pink jeep.
Your hug felt so sweet.

Remember how sad you felt.
When you saw Elvis' grave.
You seemed to feel his spirit.
A heartfelt moment to keep and save.

There was magic and Blue Hawaii.
All that day for us.
Elvis Presley Blvd and Graceland.
Ultimate bliss for his greatest fans.

It ain’t too bad to be from there
Just ask my family and friends
But it’s too flat, ain’t no way out
The roads are all dead ends.
Sometime soon I’ll find a place
Where the music I’ll enjoy
But for now I keep on tryin’
To escape from Illinois!

There’s a river on the border west
That moves a lot of dirt
Mighty Muddy Mississipp
Drowns the pain and covers hurt
Yeah, I’m movin’ south to New Orleans
Maybe I can find employ
In a blues bar down on Bourbon Street
Escape from Illinois!

Well I stopped a week along the way
When I saw the Gateway Arch.
But the folks out by the airport
Were stagin’ up a march.
Seems a white cop fired a shot that killed
An unarmed teenage boy
Oh yeah, the teenage boy was black,
Escape from Illinois.

Kept walkin’ to the Landing
(Named for Pierre Laclede)
It has most every thing you want
But nothing that you need
Some travelin’ folk told me some news
That made me jump for joy
Memphis maybe had some work
Escape from Illinois!

Found the haunted house called Graceland
And the grave where Elvis lay
Where half a million go each year
(Fifteen thousand every day)
They all want to pay respects
To the rockin’ – rollin’ boy
Put their finger in the bullet holes
Escape from Illinois.

Went downtown, knocked on some doors
Once or twice I went inside
But Beale Street was broken
The travelin’ folks had lied.
‘Cuz there ain’t no jobs in Memphis,
Or maybe I’m too coy
So I hitched a ride to Nashville
Escape from Illinois.

Nashville’s a big old meltin’ ***
Lots of great ones started here
But most end up as tourists
Getting’ ****** and drinkin’ beer
So money’s at a premium
And fame’s a fake decoy
End up workin’ in a record store
Escape from Illinois?

From Asheville to Atlanta
From Austin to LA
From Biloxi back to Baton Rouge
Need a place where I can play
I’ll follow all the buskers,
Form a musical convoy
Livin’ day by day and town by town
Escape from Illinois!

I’m a minstrel, like a rubber band
I keep on snappin’ back
I’m gonna make it somewhere
Singing somewhere, that’s a fact
Got my guitar and my music
Gotta do what I enjoy
Find a place to sing my songs for you,
Hell, it may be Illinois!
Phil Lindsey  6/4/15

the sad thing is
when I've written this poem
there is a chance
it will become a eulogy:

the passing
of sliding doors
from which
there is no return

only tinted windows
reflecting memories

and My Love

left wandering
somewhere in the gloom
waiting
to be found again

"These are the days of miracles and wonders and don't cry, baby, don't cry..."

I wanna tell you that you're looking like a movie star,
But somehow I know that wouldn't get me too far.
I'm wishing on a burning hot star and don't mind don't mind, no.

You've got an action that makes me wanna split,
I don't really care too much how you get it.
I'm an eagle with white hair and whatever eyes so baby I'm flying, flying for all the wise.

I miss you but I can't stop complaining,
The overt arrangement is lightening my usual basement.
It's okay I'm sure somehow just sometimes I meet French girls and kinda stare and mutter in amazement.

These are the days of cold slick thunders and big fancy boats that don't have a gun.

These are the days of punch bowl amazements and I know you're having fun!

Oh my word, I remember
every little part of that weekend,
right down to the three-piece outfit
I had purchased at Bloomingdale's
the evening previous.

You know, ya hear stories
left and right about people
winning tickets to this n' that,
but ya never imagine actually
being the nineteenth caller!

When I revealed the occasion
this baby blue ensemble would
be worn in, the cute little saleslady
paused, looked up, and said,
"Why bother seeing him anymore?"

And I tell ya, there's plenty
other, less Christian yearly
Graceland attendants who woulda
flipped their lids had they heard
such malarkey!

Still, I just couldn't deny it.
She had a bit of a point.
This was mid-70s Elvis,
mid-50s Elvis' drunk uncle.
He had gone from Rolling Stone
to National Enquirer in nothing
flat, it seemed.

So all I could muster was
an understanding smile, because
she couldn't help but join the
bandwagon, especially when his
gut got larger and the rumors
became more outrageous.

Still, their loss!
I say that to this day,
because what Little Miss Shopgirl
and the legions of non-believers
did not think to consider
was the charm in "has been" Elvis.

A week before this legendary
concert experience, I had been
forced by circumstance to purchase
my very first pair of bifocals!
It was also around the time,
I'm sure, Harry left me.

So, the main event, I'm there,
third row from the main stage,
seeing Elvis for the first time
since our crazed youthful years-
a bedazzled jumpsuit walks on stage,
and I'm on my feet before I know it!

There was a little less swivel in his
hips. He looked a little tired, too,
all those years of singing do that.
How did it feel, then, to see the King
make his way across a cheap fog
machine, mutton chops and
love handles galore?

It felt like two lifelong friends
growing old, losing all those
frivolous people together-
"Are You Lonesome Tonight"
was still asked with the same
dreamy passion in 1973.

I've still got the handkerchief
he threw to me that night,
**** near lost it when I
caught the thing.

It's blue with polka dots,
ya wanna take a gander?

Beulah went to Memphis, just to see where the king was laid.
Bought herself a ticket, first time she’d ever been on a plane.
She sashayed down to Graceland, closest she’d ever been to the king.
Every gaudy jumpsuit, jet planes, and all those diamond rings.
What you gonna do, now that you’re king is dead?
You better get on back to Kentucky, lick your wounds and feed your head.

Beulah went to Memphis, feelin’ just like ol’ Tom and Huck.
All 5 foot and sassy, struttin’ like a Peabody duck.
She’ll be in "Blue Hawaii", long before the crack of noon.

Right where he shot his TV, in that jungle room.
What you gonna do, now that you’re king is dead?
You better get on back to Kentucky, feed your mind and lose your head.

Beulah went to Memphis, didn’t see where the King was slain.
All caught up in Vegas, she didn’t hear His sad refrain.
She was takin’ care of business, while the Angels sang, “We Shall Overcome.”
Didn’t hear the message, dazzled by the pandemonium.
What you gonna do, now that their King is dead?
You better get on back to Kentucky, rest your mind and feed your head.

Beulah went to Memphis, just to see where the king was laid.
Poor ol’ girl, he rocked her world, and then he went away.

The carousing carnival can never sleep
It bares and bewilders in the brain
Sunrise and sunset, season of sorcery,
Hell or heaven, havoc never happens.
The carousing Carnival cages ponderers
Under Ornate oaks too old
Dressing, dancing, dwelling in Graceland
Hula Hoops hover on hips
Fire fetched by fingers flared.
Lookers: love and lose the lot.
The crafty carnival's cunning tricks
Never need a nest to rest.

It has been brought to my attention by Elvis fans,
not to mention a slew of phone calls from irate Elvis impersonators
that my last poem was very insensitive.

For that I would like to apologize.

I would also like to set your minds at ease and inform you
that in no way were any corpses harmed in the writing of...

"Are You Lonesome Tonight" (AKA Digging On Elvis)

Although Elvis didn't hold up so well
on the trip back to Graceland...

As luck would have it though Walmart
was having a special on large trash bags.
Two for one! And the environmentally friendly ones too!
We all know how hard it is to find those on sale!

Now where was I...
Oh Yea!
    
So we were able to get every last piece of Elvis
safely back to his final resting place.
Once again let me apologize for any harm I've caused
the hundreds, no let's make that thousands...millions
of Elvis fans and Elvis wannabes.

                                     Sincerely yours and a fan myself,
                                                                                  Mike

P.S. I'm also somewhat of an Elvis impersonator:

Pass me one of them there jelly doughnuts will ya...
Pretty good uh?
Maybe you have to be there...

Not long ago, if you could call a few years ‘not long’,
when I was still gloomily drawn to that mysterious magnet
known as the mighty Mississippi, I uncovered a nautilus fossil
not far from the Tennessee-Arkansas border, where the land
churns like red butter into the infinity of the Mississippi.
A nautilus hundreds of miles from the closest deep water.
(And only fifteen minutes from Graceland!)
They say most of the Deep South used to belong to the floor
Of some vast Jurassic swamp or sea or river—I forget which…
In the grooves of this shell-rock nature keeps its own history.
No stranger to change as the dust and mud reveal me.

Think how much change
you’ve witnessed in your life already.
Today, tomorrow and yesterday change is a hot-traded commodity, up in the Dow,
down in the Nasdaq, two day super-shipping in the fast lane.
Change customizable, ordered up and hot and ready-to-go,
the hobo on the street asking me for some change;
I told him to change his ways, get a better rate,
exchange those rags for a business suit and some britches.
He just laughed and said: “Huh, are you kiddin me?
In this day and age a man can have twenty lives in a lifetime.
I’m just asking you for a little change…”

It’s been done to death and back a million times this age.
My friends are always telling me I need to change my ways.
That I need to roam and range, that all wise wordsters roam and range.
“Change you can believe in!” But let’s just change the channel.
Onto something else, something new! Everything built for the times,
none of it made to last. See how we age and distance so fast!
Two million years in the making, we’re living proof of the past.
Don’t be a stranger to change; sit back and enjoy it while it lasts.

The boy in the park with pigeon eyes
“What is the rake of human history?” he asks me.
Cruelty and pathetic little bird-like people,
all their seed spent carrying half-ton rocks up
to the tippy-top of the Tower of Babble.
If you possessed a machine of infinite light and speed
would you go back to before change existed?
Could you resist it? Or would the blackness then lead you back to now?
Wondering how—how it all got started.
Change is strange, only the rabbit knows
how deep the rabbit hole will go.

All our lying lives spent flying,
and when we finish no one starts and no one goes.
all of us pondering the unshareable experience.
The world keeps winding on an invisible string
but the weight of the wait in line is unbearable.
A raindrop falls from the sky and hits the shell-rock in my hand
And looking down at the nautilus fossil
I get a chill, for it tells me there are creatures
without words, without hearts, dreams or ears
that have slithered through the dark untouched by change
      for millions and millions of years…

Listened to Graceland
and wondered where it went,
time spent hearing what I did not see
and time spent seeing what could not be heard
the heart is one absurd *****
breaking open only to mend
and break again.

In time with sad music we
lick our wounds
wild dogs tamed
and tame dogs gone wild,
it's all the same when you're a child
nothing pops the balloons
only pins.

and the all knowing Cohen,
gravel and sand where a voice
ought to be
but sheer beauty for all that.

Would you have called me Al?
been a pal of mine?

listened to Graceland
then put my hand in my pocket
looking for the car keys
she's there before me
whispering things

everyone sings to a tune
takes wings and flies too soon

life really is a box with dials
twisting to a station
miles between each one
going on in the hope
something will sound
Graceland all around me
in the vibrancy

she vibrates with me
making our own music.

If I could I would
If I could I would
says the most
sedimentary broken record
and my record player is
broken

someone tore the
chord out in the back
like someone tore the
piece out of your heart
and took too much Hope
from this little light of mine.
Hope is what is left
when he tells you he doesn't
love you anymore.
Hope is the smell of a campfire
on the coat you let me
borrow.
Hope kept me warm and
it will keep you warm
when you least expect it.

it's a namesake, not a joke
don't forget it

Hope doesn't live in Graceland
or in Ianville or in Joetown
but in your precious, little broken heart.

bird's wings will heal and so will you, Hope.

Snow is in the forecast this weekend, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying events in and around Middle Tennessee.

The Best Buddies Club at Columbia Central High School is sponsoring a Prom Peek-a-Boo Fashion Show on Sunday at Westbury House in downtown Columbia.

Volunteers from schools throughout Maury County plan to model dresses in style for this year’s prom season. Tickets for the event are $10 each and can be purchased at the door. Proceeds benefit Best Buddies, a student organization that pairs students with others who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Club vice president Lilli Beck said most IDD students usually consider a parent or teacher as friends and usually do not have friends their own age. Peer buddies spend time with their buddy, calling them on the phone or helping them when needed, Beck said.

“We use fundraising to buy Christmas gifts and sponsor parties or helping our kids if they need something,” she said. “Some of our kids come from low-income families.”

Buddies also are expected to participate in Sunday’s events, serving as greeters and hosts.

“I hope I can convince one of them to say a little something at the end of the show,” Beck said.

2. You can’t live in Tennessee without remembering the king of rock-n-roll Elvis Presley, who would have turned 81 on his birthday Friday. There is a long list of activities scheduled at his Graceland home in Memphis, beginning with fans singing Happy Birthday at midnight. Go to www.graceland.com for event schedule and details.

3. Love is in the air in Nashville with the Enchanted Bridal Show on Sunday at the Hutton Hotel. Wedding and event vendors offer a variety of ideas and new styles for spring brides.

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/red-formal-dresses

www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses

Hound-dog swallowing poly-coated pills, filling up, bloated, falling off stage, and into a more permanent and lasting Graceland, to be surrounded by another’s verse.

I only enjoy what comes from my own head, a modern Samuel Johnson, no matter what happenstance brought about to be said, a cage free Bronson. Hearing false verse through a syllable count, hoisted onto adverbs easy to mount. Congratulate a lesser mind, reaching commonalities most could find. Ease in creation, opens floodgate doors, distributing specs of grace through misworded spores. Life, love, and the pursuit of vanity, leaves simplified lumps of prosperous thought riddled with anonymity. The invention of despair overwhelms those ungifted, and leaves them erecting stale forgeries they grifted.

In the wee small hours of escaping light, a crooner steadies his hands as he falsifies his originality, reading off the music from another’s sheet.

A change in topic is something to hold as worthy, though in a modern context of prosaic prose, such good fortune can be exceptionally elusive. Broken hearted symptoms shared through a hash-tag, rerouted and worded, to fit an illiterate youth’s lesser diction, reposted to approach validity, only to be called forth as an original soul, one to revere, and hold as an entitled fraction of logic.

The piano man knocks out a tune, hit in stride with vocal conduct, inspired and laid in pen by a lesser man propelled by better wording, given up for another’s career.

Market’s over-saturated with teenage sonnets, weeping over cut wrists, ended (Victorian inspired) trysts, refreshed and brought back around until sentimentality vomits. Themes used to run rampant with fresh ingenuity, made extinct, occurred in a blink; now every poem has some congruency.

The grapevine got entangled, getting involved with a troublemaker, providing the soundtrack, using another’s words.

They opened up my heart to see
the self and fallibility
and
in the time of waking,I saw
continents for taking,saw the minerals
that broke the souls,
the souls that slaved for yellow gold, and
holding on to minds, were free men breaking
open liberty or was that in a dream I had when
morphine took the best of me,the green light of
my destiny marched off and set the dogs to bark and
I would be a danger if I had the sense to know it
but when danger shows its face to me,
the self and fallibility comes in
and laughs out loud.
I see the ending of an era and  fear a sharp reminder that
the Devil sits in memory of dreams that he once sold to me,
upon the bed I tremble as the angels all assemble
and they're shaking out their wings while in the background
I hear Elvis sing and
Graceland is my home.

Elvis loved his peanut butter.

Gladys, who loved him the most,
as all good mothers love their children,
would feed him grilled Hawaiian bread
sandwich after sandwich of peanut butter
with chopped caramelized bananas,
or gently mashed fork bananas,
sometimes with bacon, sometimes without.

He dreamed of peanut butter and
Gladys would feed those dreams
with Fool’s Gold loaves made each of
one pound peanut butter, jelly and bacon
lovingly folded, like Graceland,
into  two foot slices of Italian bread,
cut by Gladys into pyramids
so the crusty part would never
hurt her Little King’s mouth.

He would go to bed with peanut butter
on his breath, on the roof of his mouth,
his tongue pressed to his palate so
that the peanut butter would never dissolve.
He would greet the dawn with
peanut butter morning breath,
peanut butter on his lips and  
peanut butter cloud swirls on his cheeks,
peanut butter like ant trails on
his satin pillow cases and King size sheets.

Gladys would be in the kitchen
plopping a tablespoon of buttery
peanut butter into  a skillet  
before adding two eggs and Canadian bacon.

The peanut butter shaving cream Elvis used
would still be on his neck and Gladys
would kiss it off in vampire pecks
that still made him squirm.
She would curl his cow lick  
in place, as she kissed his forehead  
smelling the scent of the peanut butter
pomade that gelled his beautiful pompadour.
.
And when she died, and he died,
it was those peanut butter kisses
he missed the most in his world.

On a hot August night in Memphis
At the tinder age of forty two
Behind the gates of Graceland
America lost its tune

Gather round the throne room
The king is sadly dead
On the cold linoleum floor
Is where he last laid his weary head

Fought so many battles
In the star filled lonely life he lived
If you're keeping score this is one war
That he lost the battle in

His scepter it was golden
His voice it was the same
He just lost his soul is all
Somewhere along the way

With papers read the words they bled
Out on the written page
Tears that poured as the world all mourned
And still  do to this day

So bow your heads the king is dead
Elvis has left the building after all
Although long gone there is still the song
And he still is the king of rock and roll

Hotdogs, Mustard and Omelettes please
Yellow cabs, jay walking down Florida Quays
Four lanes, Juggernauts and Chevrolet cars
Lights,cameras and Hollywood stars
Palm trees, beaches and Hawaiian shirts
Gucci, Versace and loathsome old flirts
Fields, harvesters and barns full of hay
Buildings, boxes in lifeless decay
Piers, amusements and huge crashing waves
Soup kitchens, The Mission and a life it could save
Islands, storms and the hot lazy sun
Big Apple, Windy City, Graceland’s is fun
Sirens, Hydrants and never ending noise
Planes, Aliens and conspiracy driven ploys
History, Presidents wrapped up in Sams hat
Shrine, Humility where two towers once sat
Arizona, the desert, dry and ongoing
Vultures, Eagles and freeways never slowing

I found a pair of Blue Suede Shoes
Behind the main gate
No need to say I just knew
I had landed in a state of Grace

I turned around and headed out
To where only the king knows
With every step up and down
Elvis tickling all ten toes

I walked around all over town
Stirring up the dust
Visiting all of the old haunts
Elvis must have loved

Even sat in the back of a pink Cadillac
Took the shoes off for the ride
Next to me is where they sat
Smiling the whole time

Saw a lot of Memphis that day
In those Blue Suede Shoes
I now see they were wanting me
To help set them loose

That's when the shoes turned and move
Taking me back to the place
Where I now stand where this all began
In the land of Grace

Took off the shoes just as soon
As I entered past the gates
Placed them there exactly where they could choose
Who next would take them for the day

between graceland and never
is a small door
growing up faster than you want,
dead,
into something better.
psychology-
keeping someone too close.
playing with guitar strings, without a loose chord.
love, to question the dream
and never find another
somewhere in destiny, or between eventual and alternate realities.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen your smile.
I can feel us change over time
But there is something more than time between us.
More than distance.
Back then, we danced between sparklers and slides and sunny afternoons
Only the sun above us and our future ahead.
On that big hill, we huddled our knees together like little kids
Hiding from the rain and the resonance of Graceland Too,
but you’re the only one hiding now.
I can’t rescue you and I can’t find you.
Back then, I would have cried till I went blind.
Now I just cry.

Tryin' to keep one step ahead
Of the persecutor within
But at times he pins me down

Blues Boy King in Memphis
When Love Comes To Town

Graceland in Memphis
Pink Cadillac

Walkin' in Memphis
All the way to Iraq

Long distance information
Get me Memphis, Tennessee

I have reason to believe
We all will be received

            In Graceland

you remind me of

a shadow eternity. remember how we
sat in emergency. glass linoleum and plastic and surgery
rat in a cage escaping wordlessly. see: cat in a burglary
house of mirror manifold she matches me perfectly
satin curtain collective passé theatrical major
playing savior, overacting both as master and maker
your odds are infinitesimal die cast into favor
Snake eyes roll like my saliva gave the apple its flavor
our catch-you-later never manifested, painfully true
Graceland cemetery afternoon parading our youth
Zombie on repeat red cups of ***** and juice
stepping stones like dead roses on anonymous tombs
stop me if i'm stopping too soon. lost in your music
strumming loosely on guitar strings to soften the grooves
mountainside Montana rainstorm, clover and wheat
frozen peaks, molten beneath. we die so vultures can eat
open deeply, soul discrete. woven woefully neatly
we're strangers with our lovers from the moment we meet
throat bleeding, choke/breath please queen cobra release
taste that venom sink slowly float to total reprieve
under the knife, over the needle. call me Mopey Knievel
stunts include both waking up and going to sleep
eau de repeat. doomed to resurface, funeral dirt
rebelling intently against immediate purpose
albatross across me like a soldier of fortune
amassing omens hoping for the locusts to swarm
smoking by porchlight oil-painting a portrait
reminisce compulsively until we're reborn
manifold origami we are egoic reform
i'm sorry nobody warned you
but here we are

there shall be moments when happiness
is not your state,

however in ever that happens,

it is, virtually, bound to happen,

but
in a literal existence of mere words, happiness

occurs ever after. You may be a

babbler wisher-for-happenstance to pirrouette on a pen
and whisper deep insights locked in hap

pens powered by magi-tech i-magined manufactured in mortal minds,

as it hapt.

---
the grip slips, words cease clinging to meanings and mean

- as in evil, mean people, mean words, mean spirited
things

arize to ****** the tiny hap...

which happens not to wish
to vanish
like a thought from a dream, but but

but re
mains, takes priority, exalts itself above the heard news,

you/me/we are irrelevant to, non-integrail to maintaining the flow of

peace that happiness always leaves in it's wake,

ah, always, we re
call the dry place, where we made no wake, no waves
to propagate

ripples, in time, near the nearest shore,

then, in time, near the farthest shore; nay,

in those dry places,

no such woken waves foam, dust rises as one step,

is taken by faith, no reason, save war is wrong so find some peace,

take a step, you might have to live like a refugee,

that's the story of confusion being unsnarled to reuse the meaning
in messengers going up and down,

and to and fro -- all balanced in the mix, a step taken to see from far away,

what if, another,

then one more, re becomes the rythm mmm re mmm re

call the idea, hap. Many haps must be that plenty state, happy,

plenely, right, plenty clear see happy is sufficiency of hap.

That is so simple, a child could be saved, if

it be possible, to live at peace, among all men. If ye say?

If? What, when ever what ever crisis of existance takes peace from the

dust,
breathe,  we left pure whist in the wind as we passed Kansas, in the spring

back when there was no morning dew,
any more...

and the farm blew into the Bermuda Triangle, by all accounts extant.

Considerated galactic storms were aitia-tic tic tict off, like war in

the heavens,

{ sloow read, while breathing aware, software in the air, just there}

the whole, integral system of life on an orbit around Sirius,

undeniable by flat earth witnesses all over the globe,
they admit. Sol is ellipticating pro

cessionally toward Sirius, the freakin' dog star. So,

we could make up a reason for war, with this much knowledge.

... but we can't tell the worker ants, those used to believe the six o'clock news.
For their own good,

suffice it to say, war makes money. Loving money, what makes that?

Lack of haps.

So simple, a five year old child can comprehend,
nothing beats money in the bank,

for giving a whole family that feeling of safety and security,
so much so
amen
that now the usage fee to the usery class, the tax-collectors and money-lenders, lets them lend to themselves at no interest.

No, child, not tree climbing tax collector
Zachias,
but he was a fanatic,
so don't take him for a role model... there were Mithraic bankers under the sign
of the Red Shield, in the Ghetto, about which Elvis sang,

Amazing-ly, from Graceland, in 1968, as an old idle word winks in passing,

I'm okeh, howeryew?

who converted then reverted, then, with riches in faith past Midas, one man, changed
ever after that,
says the story, Walt Disney

erected an image of a national pride,

The happiest place on earth, there where oranges grew, in Anaheim.

Golden apples, is what oranges were called, where oranges never grew, long ago,
in the realm of Asgard, where ever held cold hope, for mortals and gods,

Did you know?

Selah. I read the news today,  oh boy...

now, the peace I made is splashing as my cup runs over with love, as sung

by the guy who played the Tonto role to the official American hero history
Dan'l Boone or Davy Crockett,
Fess Parker - the official Disney-ify version,

American frontiersman model for boys, {a message from the sponsor}

with telescopic sight... see threads of star stuff swooshed before fore words in books

we read, we learn, we live and all we leave behind is the meaning intended unattended,

-so say the happy Sisyphus culties,

once a word loses meaning, each time you utter nonsense saying it, just take note,
give account.

What does that happen to do? How do you do? What's up?

Well, as it hapt,
I was odd. When asked, I answered true to how did I do, well,

i said, my side is winning. How are you? How do you exist at all, if

you choose to oppose me in this, your side lost when the referee

declared at all the crossings where choices are made  for patterns
in happenstances,
bliebe doch-- said Faustus now
now, ever never allows meaningless beyond

{slow- breathe}

good and evil, belief and dignity, dasein design,

oh-- a gleam, see, in the smile, tooth paste ads say that's *** appeal.

That's how boomer kids got *** ed... freeze, mind of a child, or you can't see

heaven is Disneyland. -- hush grandpa, don't spoil the fun...

Closed? There's no closing in Happiest Places on Earth, said Forrest Gump...

no
frozen statues query sphinxy riddles - with only old boomer stories left to hold

an eye for the needle all camels pass through,

if you get the tip of this thread,
wet,
and aim, steady, straight, miss, try again, we got all the monosylables in time

to find and redeem worthy of rereading for the possible metaphor left sealed.

And then you get a Corona, on the beach, it's a lifestyle.

The wolf watches and asks me questions:
can I watch you eat,
watch myself absorb into you,
play with the cancer.

She questions everything:
even if I want to live,
die now or die later,
although that is
unanswerable or unquestionable.

That is the statement
life wants, love needs
in its haste to sweep up the ashes.
It wishes to be recognized.

I don’t know, I think,
knowing the wolf can hear me—
life, love, everything, everyone too.  

The answer is somewhere
on the drive to Graceland
as I stop to watch
the wolf suckle its cubs.

Maybe I just want a good death
that makes it hard to grieve
among the ashes of Nagasaki.

Life always wants the tableau,
the memento mori to remember
the repetitions.

Inside the wolf I can hear
my mother, grandmother, ex,
soon my father screaming,
moving, just going down, down, down….
into the silent cry of memory.

The wolf looks comfortable and wordless
as she listens to worlds turned to juice inside.
“It was good to know you,” she said,
as if she had known me my entire life.

from his childhood dreams
out sitting on his swing
from his mommas tender means
he shed them in his youth while letting loose
as the king would grow he had moments to show
going off in the army being late for curfew
parting is such sweet sorrow my friend
married Lisa Marie in pleasant history
a blend of make believe as he put together Graceland
let the reader understand he had an infinite plan
yet deep inside he hid his feelings until he broke in two
having bitten off far more then he could ever chew
made movies with Ann Margaret was on target
the flings of Jail House rock he was on top
but to his surprise he was in a mix of lies
Elvis had tears throughout the years
at his mommas funeral he couldn't compose himself
then many years had passed having every reason to grasp
the tender message of his voice with a precious choice
Nixon gave him a medal of bearing arms & tabacco
through all his endeavors let us deeply remember
his whispering voice with a choice
1977 was the last time we saw him
he shed a tear to numb his pain
his deep emotions were driving him insane
yet for Elvis sake he soared through the flames
to the king rest nice sweet Mr. Presley we shall see you one day in heaven

Pre administered microphoned speak
Speaking to the gambler and his misgivings
Chips placed in precarious
.... stacks
A pro placed bet
............shoved red ridged
..................circles shifting to the edge
..............................Comes the blue round O’r

worth less shrieks the minister
fat cheeks filled
free guacamole and taco chips
spittled to green felt table

In the gamblers hands
Red eyed queen and a wink
One weekend free cable
One lovely ****** ironically called Babe

Dip in the pool later
To calm the quivering
A fat man
Blue suited blubbering
Creates BIG splash
With the turquoise laidies
And their baubled tans

plastic palm tree reef
fiberglass coral majesty
a porpoise in life
decorated pink walls

Flying Elvi graceland the sky
The sky is falling heartbreak hotel
Thrusting crotches and dazzling sequins
In sequence
A paramount event
A paramount event
A paramount event
Parrots the crowd

A drive towards the desert
Flagged down by neon cowboy
Waving cactus
Like spikey *****
Two doors down
Brothel boasting
The red lid of Venus
Gamblers ***** might never be the same

Two slicks of the drip
Cry hell to the strip
That ***** was not Venus
But a villain
Fast to Walgreens for a lil white pill
Called penicillin

jet fueled finished
narrow yellow arrowed
lane of no return the same
feels 747 roar of lift
and grand departure of
pre vaca postcard capture
a life called normalcy’s
purgatoried
fate