Polyester, big hair, rock and roll and 40 degrees

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I have to confess that I have been a little bit excited about my odyssey to Parkes. It has always been a mythological place so distant and shrouded in mystery that I have been afraid to pierce the veil in January to find it is just a small country town that eavesdropped on Apollo 11 and gets rather hot in January and is possibly full of well, bogans. For me, it is a pilgrimage, not unlike the muslim's going to mecca, the jews to the wailing wall and for people too tight to go to Graceland due to the GFC and the damn dollar, the Parkes Elvis Festival.

I like the idea of the festival as it has its roots in Australian ingenuity. January is hot in Parkes. Nothing happens. If you have money, you go on holidays to a Caravan Park near the sea and if you are broke you go to work and you hope the air conditioning works. You have to give it to the owners of the Gracelands Motel who came up with the idea. They were simply trying to pick up a tough month to get through and found that Elvis Aaron Presley's birthday falls in the second week in January. Once again, evidence of the thoughtfulness of the King.

This year is forecast to be the biggest year for the festival. Oddly, the GFC has led to a a reinvigoration of the great mainstay of an older Australian's childhood. The caravan holiday. The return to the old seems to have extended into the shops where I saw a Morphy Richards toaster. What next a Tek tooth brush?

In any event, today I prepare. What to take? Do I take my jumpsuit or simply investigate the festival as a closet jumpsuit wearer this year? It is all very hard. I am still waiting nervously for a call from the Parkes RSL to see whether Chad and I have tickets to the crowning of Ms Priscilla. Damn my foolishness in waiting for tickets to this top shelf and top class event. You have to feel that the chances are not good at this late stage.

Despite the stress of determining what to take (and learning that caravan park does not have a pool), there is a buzz at the Kermitage. An excitement of leaving the normal and straying into a strange an unusual place. A place populated by a level of mutual enthusiasm that I doubt that I have experienced since I slept overnight to obtain front row tickets to Paul McCartney in 1989. There is something so engaging about being a fan. It all seems a bit philosophical but in a time where we all seem a bit distant from each other and we travel from one box (home) to another (work), I am really looking forward to getting on the turps with my bogan brethern.

Searching for you, in the cold Kentucky Rain......well, tomorrow is forecast to be 40 in Parkes. Rain unlikely.

Stay tuned, the adventure will continue......but now where the heck is my damn wig!

This blog will also be educational and I will reveal one interesting Elvis fact each day. Today's fact is:

Elvis ate nothing but meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and tomatoes for a period of two years.

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Photos

Mr Jones
I found Mr Jones dressed like this when I woke up. I suspect he knows he is going to Aunty Veronica's concentration camp.