The King playing a carrot is inspiration for a new pastime
Little gets me excited as I have reached 'an' age where nothing seems new. That perception was shattered recently however by, of all people, our sausage-fingered monarch in chief.
As another week of cutting ribbons and feigning interest at the latest royal appointment drew to a close, he looked genuinely excited at meeting the London Vegetable Orchestra. Beaming with joy, he picked up a carrot recorder and played, badly, a tune, as those around him fawned as if it were the second coming of Elvis.
I was enthralled as to how, as a fan of the eccentric, this genius idea for a 'pastime' had passed me by and I am now planning a visit to my local Sainsbury's produce aisle to get in on the act.
The orchestra proudly, and quite rightly, describes itself as the UK's 'only' ensemble dedicated to 'homegrown' entertainment. Sadly, as one with no musical talent whatsoever, membership is not open to the general public with all members being past or present professional musicians with links to the Royal Academy of Music.
A decade on from their inception, they number courgettes, peppers, butternut squashes and potatoes among their alma mater and they have appeared regularly on the box on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Room 101, and 'Let's do Lunch' with Gino and Mel, before Gino was put on toast.
I can't wait to see them live and I am rooting (sorry) for them as they continue to be fully booked as punters enjoy Elvis Parsley's 'Blue Swede Shoes' and 'Billie Aubergine'. The orchestra numbers a 'chef' among their ensemble as they continue to take bookings for festivals, concerts and private parties. Lord knows they can even afford a Who-style instrument trash at the end of each gig, before hollowing out another root vegetable in lieu of a bongo drum.
Now excuse me if, by this point, I am raving a little too much about what is, in effect, a cultural throwaway, but to me, it is a new version of the cheese rolling in Gloucestershire or La Tomatina in Spain, and adds yet another eccentric string to our bow. I am left hoping that, if aliens ever do land on planet earth, they happen upon a vegetable orchestra gig and turn straight back to whence they came.
Sadly, my research however has led to me being a tad let down as the original vegetable orchestra was formed in that hotbed of musical excellence, Austria, some years ago. The songs they play may well have some Austrian-based punnery but it's hard to tell as I don't speak any other tongue besides English and I still haven't mastered that if truth beknown.
But as we bid farewell for another seven days my dear readership, I am left in the kitchen formulating a band courtesy of a potato peeler, a sharp paring knife and an apple corer, as I aim to go big and send a demo in to Simon 'Trowel' who may be able to water my musical seed.
My plan is to introduce a marrow trumpet, a pumpkin snare drum and put a complex series of holes into a yam to construct a yamonica (sorry) in which to while away the hours until the next eccentric madness darkens my door…
Brett Ellis is a teacher
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Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
The King playing a carrot is inspiration for a new pastime
Little gets me excited as I have reached 'an' age where nothing seems new. That perception was shattered recently however by, of all people, our sausage-fingered monarch in chief. As another week of cutting ribbons and feigning interest at the latest royal appointment drew to a close, he looked genuinely excited at meeting the London Vegetable Orchestra. Beaming with joy, he picked up a carrot recorder and played, badly, a tune, as those around him fawned as if it were the second coming of Elvis. I was enthralled as to how, as a fan of the eccentric, this genius idea for a 'pastime' had passed me by and I am now planning a visit to my local Sainsbury's produce aisle to get in on the act. The orchestra proudly, and quite rightly, describes itself as the UK's 'only' ensemble dedicated to 'homegrown' entertainment. Sadly, as one with no musical talent whatsoever, membership is not open to the general public with all members being past or present professional musicians with links to the Royal Academy of Music. A decade on from their inception, they number courgettes, peppers, butternut squashes and potatoes among their alma mater and they have appeared regularly on the box on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Room 101, and 'Let's do Lunch' with Gino and Mel, before Gino was put on toast. I can't wait to see them live and I am rooting (sorry) for them as they continue to be fully booked as punters enjoy Elvis Parsley's 'Blue Swede Shoes' and 'Billie Aubergine'. The orchestra numbers a 'chef' among their ensemble as they continue to take bookings for festivals, concerts and private parties. Lord knows they can even afford a Who-style instrument trash at the end of each gig, before hollowing out another root vegetable in lieu of a bongo drum. Now excuse me if, by this point, I am raving a little too much about what is, in effect, a cultural throwaway, but to me, it is a new version of the cheese rolling in Gloucestershire or La Tomatina in Spain, and adds yet another eccentric string to our bow. I am left hoping that, if aliens ever do land on planet earth, they happen upon a vegetable orchestra gig and turn straight back to whence they came. Sadly, my research however has led to me being a tad let down as the original vegetable orchestra was formed in that hotbed of musical excellence, Austria, some years ago. The songs they play may well have some Austrian-based punnery but it's hard to tell as I don't speak any other tongue besides English and I still haven't mastered that if truth beknown. But as we bid farewell for another seven days my dear readership, I am left in the kitchen formulating a band courtesy of a potato peeler, a sharp paring knife and an apple corer, as I aim to go big and send a demo in to Simon 'Trowel' who may be able to water my musical seed. My plan is to introduce a marrow trumpet, a pumpkin snare drum and put a complex series of holes into a yam to construct a yamonica (sorry) in which to while away the hours until the next eccentric madness darkens my door… Brett Ellis is a teacher
Motor Trend
2 days ago
- Motor Trend
Reliving "Googie" Nights In a 1958 Edsel Ranger
[This story first appeared in the premier issue of MotorTrend Classic in 2005] Elvis still weighted under 200 pounds. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was on its way to becoming the year's top-grossing film, without a single Major Warden or Colonel Nicholson Happy Meal action figurine having been sold. Running around naked in the backyard carried a new risk-Sputnik might be peeking. And the Ford Motor Company, apparently jealous of all the press the Hindenburg had received, was finally selling its all-new Edsel, a car that for two years it had hyped so breathlessly ('More YOU Ideas!'), the public no doubt expected a flying carpet that ran on plutonium. No American city in 1958 was a more fitting backdrop for a gleaming new example of four-wheeled, Fabulous-O-Rama technology than Los Angeles. The goofy, Tomorrowland optimism of Walt Disney's nearby theme park had spilled right over the monorail and onto the sprawling, auto-worshipping streets of L.A. itself. Want a quick breakfast? Just drive to the store shaped like a giant donut Hoping to start your singing career? Head to the office building resembling a stack of records. Wife needs a new bra? Better find something that looks like a big Bloomingdale's. The rocket-age City of Angels was having a blast, and no savvy business owner could resist taking a big, living-color bite of kitsch. Drive-through carwashes looked like flying saucers, gas stations became space stations, the average roadside motel blazed with more tiki torches than the entire island of Tahiti-even coffee shops caught the fever. Soon after pioneering architect John Lautner designed a flamboyant, glass-walled, neon-splashed diner called Googies, its roof angling toward the stars from the pop-culture epicenter of L.A. on the Sunset Strip, seemingly every budget eatery in town and across America-was launching meteors from its signs and slapping rocket fins onto its deep fryers. 'Googie' architecture was born. Very soon, of course, the whiz-bang Edsel went the way of, well, the Edsel. Gushed an ad in 1958: "The Edsel look is here to stay!" -which was true only if you counted very, very slowly. Just one year after the car's debut, Ford revised the dramatic "horse collar" grille, largely because most people thought it looked if you want us to say what it resembles out loud you'll have to pick up a copy of Motor Trend Hefner. By 1960, Ford had shrunk the pseudo-collar thing into oblivion. Then, just three years after its Geraldo Rivera-grade entrance, the Edsel itself disappeared. Within the next decade, Googie followed. The Kennedy assassinations, Vietnam, Susan Sontag novels-America wasn't in such a good mood any more. Across the country, the meteors cratered, the tiki torches flamed out. Undoubtedly due to its iconic status, the original Googies coffee shop managed to survive until 1989, when it was finally bulldozed to make room for a very important Virgin Megastore. By then, though, the Googie life was long dead. Of course, nobody loves a great second act more than Hollywood. For the fan of Fifties culture, Los Angeles is one of the country's prime public time machines. Thanks to the work of vocal preservationists-and the fact that L.A. remains a leading purveyor of quirkiness-devotees can still find plenty of midcentury lore here: famous 1950s landmarks, period houses, kitsch classics, globules of Googie. We dusted off a 1958 two-door Ford Edsel Ranger from the Motor Trend vehicle humidor (okay, we rented it from a company that supplies cars to movie studios) and hit the streets in search of that heady, spacey land that restraint forgot. Kids didn't walk to school in the 1950s because America was a safer place. They walked because damned if Mom was going to wrestle with two tons of Atomic Age steel lacking both power brakes and power steering any more than was absolutely necessary. Our Edsel has neither (they were options on the entry-level Ranger), so performing three-point turns amid the palm trees of Beverly Hills is like trying to drag a five-year-old out of a showing of 'Madagascar.' After a workout like this, you need a hot dog. That's right: Just look for the gigantic tube steak. Tail O' the Pup is to L.A. what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, and not just because both are full of weenies. Built just after World War II, the Pup is quintessential kitsch and a true Los Angeles landmark-which accounts for its presence in countless movies (among them, "L.A. Story" and "Body Double"). Orson Welles loved to fill up on the Pup's dogs, yet that hasn't scared the customers away. Order a Baseball Special (mustard, relish, onions), then get back in line and order another. In our first Edsel Ranger road test in October 1957, we measured a 0-to-60-mph time of 10.2 seconds. That feels about right-a modern V-6 Camry would blow the 361-cubic-inch V-8 Edsel into the weeds. The old girl bolts smartly away from stoplights, though, thanks in part to 400 pound-feet of torque. Our Ranger also has the optional Tele-touch automatic transmission, which allows the selection of drive, reverse, etc., via pushbuttons on the steering-wheel hub. Very George Jetson especially considering that it was nearly half a century before Michael Schumacher finally got rid of his shift lever. Another Edsel innovation is its horizontal, "rolling dome" speedometer, which looks like a giant compass ("Come right to a heading of 45 miles per hour, Arthur"). Believe it or not, there's actually some debate as to whether the Capitol Records building was intentionally designed to look like a stack of records. Why sure, and it's pure coincidence that a guy looking very much like Abraham Lincoln ended up inside the Lincoln Memorial. Anyway, Capitol's 13-story headquarters, built in 1954 and just north of the famed intersection of Hollywood and Vine, lays claim to being the world's first circular office building. Don't be surprised if the company's next HQ accidentally gets shaped like an iPod. "She looks just like Lana Turner." "She is Lana Turner." "What?" "She is Lana Turner."" In 1997, director Curtis Hanson shot one of the most memorable scenes of his brilliant 1950s film-noir homage "L.A. Confidential" in the Formosa Café. Built in 1925, by the 1950s the Formosa had become an A List celebrity hangout-as the countless star headshots on the walls attest. The real Lana Turner and her gangster boyfriend Johnny Stompanato were indeed Formosa regulars-at least until the star's teenage daughter had a hissy fit and stabbed Stompanato to death at their home in 1958. Drop into the Formosa for a drink today, and there's a good chance you'll spot a modern-day celeb-no surprise, given that right across the street is the former Goldwyn Studio (now known as The Lot), filming site for such 1950s classics as "Some Like It Hot" and "West Side Story." You're hungry again. Barney's Beanery, a funky, memorabilia-filled bar and billiard parlor with a menu as thick as a newspaper, has been in its current location since 1927Ðwhen John "Barney" Anthony served beans to drivers passing via old Route 66 (many of them, arriving in California to start new lives, nailed their old license plates to the wall, where they remain today). By the Fifties, Barney's had become a beatnik hangout. Among them were James Dean and a still unknown Janis Joplin. Some of the patrons at the bar look like they've been there since then, too. Though it wasn't built until 1965, Jack Colker's Union 76 station in Beverly Hills is one of SoCal's finest existing examples of 1950s-style space-age architecture. The Edsel seems to belong under the station's sweeping canopy roof-at least until that price sign comes into view: $3.11 for a gallon of premium? Surely an extra digit got tacked on there by mistake. What, no free road map? Don't you know what time-space continuum we're from? It's been a long day of sightseeing and dodging annoying sightseers. The old Edsel has been a peach, though, always starting right up, complex electro-shift transmission working fine, never overheating when idling in the sun. It seems unfair that a car this basically solid and likable has become a synonym for ' But, hey, the Edsel sure does look swell pulling up under the winking neon of Norm's Coffee Shop on La Cienega. Designed in 1957 by John Lautner contemporaries Louis Armet and Eldon Davis, Norm's is a bona-fide Googie masterpiece: soaring, jet-wing roof; aquarium-like walls of glass; enough combined candlepower to illuminate the Super Bowl. The hipsters come here now for late-night coffee and pancakes. 'After-bar food' they call it. In the 1950s, it would've been 'Hangover-O-Matic.' What Really Killed Edsel? Forget the styling, the Eisenhower recession, the poor initial quality, and the untried dealer network: Edsel was dead before the first car was even sold. Edsel was key to an ambitious Ford plan to tackle GM's Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac. The idea was to build three basic bodies small, medium, and large and spread the costs across five divisions: Ford, Edsel, Mercury, Lincoln, and Continental. The Fords and entry-level Edsels would share the small body; the upscale Edsels and standard Mercurys would share the medium body; and a new "super" Mercury would be built off the next-generation Lincoln body. The wheels began to fall off in 1956 when chief engineer Earle MacPherson ordered the 1958 Lincoln be switched to a unibody design to boost volume at the Wixom plant built to manufacture the unibody 1958 Thunderbird, effectively killing the "super" Mercury. Then, the day after the Edsel went on sale in 1957, Ford division chief Robert McNamara, who resented the power of the product planners responsible for the Edsel, was made a group vice-president. Sources insist that McNamara had let slip that the Edsel would be discontinued, and sure enough he began hacking away at the slow-selling Edsel's budget. Within months, he had reduced its future product plans to a different grille for 1960 Fords. In his book, °Disaster in Dearborn,° Thomas E. Bonsall blames the Edsel's demise on the byzantine politics played by warring management factions: "If Ford Motor Company management wasn't willing to invest several years of effort in the Edsel, they didn't deserve to "succeed."
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Elvis & Lilo & Stitch: 'Everyone's Favorite Elvis-Loving Alien' pulls up to Graceland
Elvis and Ann-Margret. Elvis and Nancy Sinatra. Those teams were popular with audiences. But not as popular as Elvis & Lilo & Stitch. Released in 2002, the Disney animated feature film "Lilo & Stitch" introduced audiences to a lonely young Hawaiian girl and Elvis fan, named Lilo, and her new "pet," Stitch, a somewhat dog-esque genetically engineered extraterrestrial who liked to rampage but really yearned for a hug. Together, the duo pursued 'ohana (a Hawaiian term for "family") while playing "Suspicious Minds" on a portable record player and battling space aliens. Like Stitch's stolen spaceship when it crash-landed on the island of Kauaʻi, the movie made an impact. It earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature (it lost to Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," as any movie would), and collected $273 million at the international box office. (In comparison, 1964's "Viva Las Vegas," with Elvis and Ann-Margret, earned the equivalent of $94 million, in 2025 dollars.) On May 23, Disney released a new "Lilo & Stitch," the latest in its series of more-or-less live-action remakes of beloved animated features (other examples — all with digitally animated characters — include "Beauty and the Beast," "Mulan" and "Snow White," to name a few). Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp (who charmed audiences with the low-budget "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On"), the movie preserves but de-emphasizes its predecessor's Elvis connection. Even so, in the actual live-action world — the world of Disney and Graceland, of marketing and merchandise, of fans of music and movies — Elvis & Lilo & Stitch remain inseparable. "The amazing thing is that each generation gets introduced to Elvis in a different way, and for a certain generation, 'Lilo & Stitch' was how they were introduced to Elvis," said Angie Marchese, vice president of archives and exhibits at Graceland. "Now in their mid-20s, these people became fans because of the Disney movie," she said. "And now there's a whole new generation of kids who will be introduced to Elvis and his music through this new live-action version." How many kids? A lot of 'em: The new "Lilo" immediately established itself as a blockbuster. According to Variety, the entertainment industry newspaper, the movie set a Memorial Day weekend record by collecting an estimated $183 million at the U.S. box office. With the addition of its overseas revenues, Variety added, "Lilo & Stich" is off to "a staggering $341.7 million global start." On May 22, the evening before the movie's official release date, Disney hosted an invitation-only screening of the new movie in the 464-seat theater at The Guest House at Graceland, the hotel on Elvis Presley Boulevard that is located just north of the Elvis mansion. Attendees — mostly Elvis fans already connected to Graceland via various mailing lists — packed the house. They snagged free "Lilo & Stitch" posters and leis, and posed for selfies against Hawaiian backdrops and alongside larger-than-life Stitch figures, dressed in Elvis garb (there was a "Blue Hawaii Stitch," a "Jailhouse Rock Stitch," and a "50000000 Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong Gold Lamé Suit" Stitch). Earlier in the day, an animatronic Stitch in a rhinestone-studded jumpsuit toured Graceland in a miniature motorized vehicle, to the surprise and likely delight of fans. "The lovable renegade alien, who happens to love the music of Elvis Presley, arrived at the gates to Graceland Mansion in a pink convertible before going across the street to view the King of Rock 'n' Roll's jumpsuits and pink Cadillac at Elvis Presley's Memphis entertainment complex," stated a Disney press release about the publicity event. The headline described Stitch as "Everyone's Favorite Elvis-Loving Alien." ELVIS AT 90: Decade-by-decade milestones in the life — and afterlife — of the King The ballyhoo echoed similar fanfare that heralded the release of the first "Lilo & Stitch" 23 years earlier. In 2002, the movie's arrival coincided with Graceland's yearlong commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death; Jack Soden, CEO of Elvis Presley Enterprises, told The Commercial Appeal that the release of an Elvis-connected "classic G-rated Disney flick" would open "a powerful market" for Graceland. In 2002 as in 2025, Disney and Graceland hosted an invitation-only local premiere for "Lilo & Stitch," but the earlier event was more elaborate. The screening of the film at Downtown's now-vanished multiplex, the Muvico Peabody Place 22, was followed by what The Commercial Appeal called a "lavish luau" in front of the ticket pavilion at Graceland, complete with fire dancers, leis made from actual orchids, bamboo huts and costumed movie characters. Testifying to the event's importance, the guest of honor was the nephew of Walt Disney, longtime Disney executive Roy E. Disney, who at the time was vice chairman of the Disney company and chair of Disney Feature Animation. (Roy Disney died in 2009, at 79.) The Los Angeles premiere of the 2002 movie had occurred about a week earlier. Priscilla Presley attended, and told reporters that "Lilo & Stitch" offered "a great message to bring family back together again because really, that's what it's all about. Elvis was very much a family man, regardless of what you hear. He loved family and he always came home." In 2025 as in 2002, Disney and Elvis Presley Enterprises are banking on the appeal of "Lilo & Stitch." The gift shops at Graceland now are stuffed with items from the grandiloquently labeled "Disney Stitch Inspired by Elvis Collection," created by NECA, a pop culture collectibles company. Ranging from $12.99 to $34.99, these include plush and plastic figures of all sizes, showcasing Stitch in Elvis garb. Stitch-as-Elvis pins and other items also are available. The new merchandise augments a still thriving line of "Lilo & Stitch" merchandise, tied to the original film. Stitch "has become a crucial character in the Walt Disney Company's modern empire, mainly in the form of a dizzying array of licensed merchandise," The New York Times reported this week, in a story that called Stitch "a cash cow for the company." Reported the newspaper: "The company's annual financial reports for 2023 and 2024 included 'Lilo & Stitch' on a short list of nine examples of its 'major' licensed properties, putting it on par with classics titans like Winnie the Pooh and Mickey and Friends, and conglomerates like Star Wars and the collective Disney princesses." Meanwhile, vintage 2002 "Lilo & Stitch" collectibles continue to be popular on eBay and elsewhere; these include eight McDonald's Happy Meal toys, one of which presents Stitch in an Elvis jumpsuit, strumming a guitar atop a surfboard. ELVIS WEEK 2025: Graceland to celebrate the King with concerts, panels, vigil and more The new "Lilo & Stitch," for the most part, is remarkably faithful to its inspiration, even to the inclusion of a clip from the same B-movie, 1958's "Earth vs. The Spider." But — somewhat surprisingly, in the wake of the hit Baz Luhrmann biopic — the new movie has less Elvis than the old. Yes, the soundtrack showcases the same songs ("Heartbreak Hotel," "Devil in Disguise," "Hound Dog"), in basically the same situations (although the remake totally bungles the Stitch-as-record-player "Suspicious Minds" scene); but the live-action Lilo (played by Maia Kealoha) is less the Elvis evangelist than was her cartoon counterpart. In the first film, Lilo pays Stitch the ultimate compliment: "You look like an Elvis fan." She pulls out an 8-by-10 "Blue Hawaii" portrait of Elvis and declares: "Elvis was a model citizen." She tells Stitch: "I have compiled a list of his traits for you to practice." This leads to comic scenes of Stitch strumming a guitar while wearing an Elvis-style jumpsuit and pompadour. The film ends with a happily-ever-after vacation "photo" of Stitch and his new human family posing in front of the gates of Graceland. None of these Elvis moments are recreated in the new movie — although Stitch does appear, briefly, in his Elvis jumpsuit during the end credits. Maybe we'll get more Elvis — for better or worse? — in the sequel, if there is one. The 2002 "Lilo & Stitch" was followed by a TV series and three direct-to-video feature films. The first of these features was "Stitch! The Movie," which — perhaps due to budgetary constraints — licensed only one Elvis song, the thematically appropriate but hardly epochal "Slicin' Sand," from 1963's "Blue Hawaii." The lyrics likely did not give Leiber & Stoller sleepless nights. Encourages Elvis, while serenading a bevy of beauties: "Dance, dance, dance/ 'til your toes get tan/ We're gonna have us a ball on the beach/ Slicin' sand..." This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Lilo & Stitch: Elvis references, Stitch merch and a visit to Graceland
