Tales of the Rockabilly Rambler

In the history of pop culture, the United States has there ever been a more influential or important figure than The King himself Elvis Presley. Even 41 years after his “death” Elvis is still a pop culture icon.

While the world was obsessed with music, curled lip, and swinging hips, Elvis was obsessed with law enforcement. He had asked then President Nixon to deputize him as a federal drug enforcement agent (Nixon gave him a specially made Bureau of Narcotics badge), he was also an honorary captain in the Denver police department, and among his most prized possessions was a collection of police badges from departments all across the nation.

During a trip to Graceland, artist and publisher Aaron Allen found himself looking at a turquoise handled colt 45 pistol, in a display about Elvis and law enforcement and he was “All shook up”* and it came to him.

“What if Elvis had pursued that life? Why not create short fictional stories of his time as a police officer?”
Allen recruited 9 writers and 9 artists to create an anthology of stories about Elvis in law enforcement. The nine stories which make up the Tales of the Rockabilly Rambler take the tale of the king in all sorts of directions. We see the king, reimagined as a ninja bashing badass, a gun-slinging sheriff, a femme fatale, a supernatural demon hunter, and more. The book is a really fun read, some of the artwork is really stunning and if I'm being honest some is not my cup of tea. Then again some people like quaaludes and fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and others don’t. To each his own.

The publishers are currently running a Kickstarter to bring Tales of the Rockabilly Rambler to comic book stores everywhere in a beautiful hardcover edition. So far so good on their campaign, but they are looking to get over the finish line and bring this great book out to the masses. 

NOTE: While I was given a copy of the book to review, I was not compensated for this review. All opinions are my own.

* How can you do a review of something Elvis related without at least one reference to a song lyric. 
As an aside to this aside, If you don’t like a sprinkling of song lyrics this might not be the comic anthology for you. 

Sometimes you want to listen to some death metal

The other day I was at one of the last FYE stores in New York. One of my buddies was browsing, he ended up with a few Jackie Chan movies for his kids. So I had time to look around I grabbed some new headphones and checked out some of the latest metal albums. the first one that caught my eye was Dear Desolation by Australia's number one deathcore band Thy Art is Murder. Admittedly you need to be in a certain kind of mood to listen to death metal, but there is only so much of the SING soundtrack a man can listen to. I found the album on Amazon Music and as I ran some errands the sound of TAM blasted in my ears. Their music is loud and aggressive, but also oddly melodic. I'm pretty sure I was the only person listening to Slaves Beyond Death as he put a 20 pound container of kitty litter in his shopping cart. That is one of the things that I really like about Amazon Music, you can listen to full albums and individual songs. And unlike old school streaming/download sites its totally legal and the artists get their fair share as well. Its great to listen on the go or at home with my Amazon Echo.   Try Amazon Music Unlimited 30-Day Free Trial you will not regret it.

It takes some people hours if not days to buy shoes or a car or a house. It took me over an hour today at lunch to buy a pair of head phones. My Sony head phones are good, but they are so bulky to carry around with me, so I needed something small after I broke my small blue pair.

I flirted with some bud head phones, but they didn't seem like I'd ultimately like them. The one pair I liked the "gummy" ones from JVC were cool but the wires were pink, what the fuck?

So I went with this pair of Coby's.



I think they'll work out just fine.