The King and us

One of the most bizarre entries in the fairly weird collection of yarns I penned for the South China Morning Post's Postmagazine was joining the Hong Kong Elvis Presley Fan Club on its trip of a lifetime, a pilgrimage to Graceland for the Candlelight vigil and stations of the cross observed each year in Memphis, Tennessee by the true believers.

FOR three nights running now, the King has come to me in my dreams. Conjured by a combination of greasy junk food, Deep South humidity and serious sensory overload, he wafts into my subconscious as a giant, disembodied head. Not beefy, bloated Las Vegas Elvis, but the preternaturally beautiful young Hillbilly Cat. His airbrushed skin kissing the inky lustre of his soaring pompadour like a peach on black velvet; the perfect pink cupid's bow mouth curling up at one corner. And as I'm transfixed by those sad soft glazed eyes, an unshakeable conviction takes hold. Elvis is about to eat me. His lips part to reveal a graveyard of rotting teeth and a grotesquely swollen tongue, drooling hungrily. As the King moves in to chow down, I awake with a jolt and a stifled shriek, a sweaty wreck in a sodden bed.

In his pomp(adour): The Hillbilly Cat

Strange? Sure. But it would be stranger not to have such visions after a few days immersed in the madness that is Memphis in August. For when the going gets weird, it seems the seriously weird go to Graceland. The ante-bellum mansion has become Mecca, Calvary and Varanasi for the ever-swelling ranks of true believers coming to commemorate the death - and lucrative resurrection - of Elvis Aaron Presley.

In these sacred surrounds, the quirky quickly becomes the quotidian; the bizarre, banal. Where within a week, you can attend the Elvis for Everyone Convention, rival Elvis impersonator contests, the Heart of Elvis show, the Elvis Fan Club Festival, the Elvis: Legacy in Light Laser Show, Elvis Video Nights, the Elvis Reunion Concert, the University of Oxford International Conference on Elvis Presley (topics to include The Elvis Connection to Feminine Spirituality and Understanding Your Inner Elvis, along with a guest performance by San Francisco Lesbian impersonator Elvis Herselvis) and, bafflingly, even the Elvis Presley International five-kilometre Run. Where you can stuff yourself with fried peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwiches and empty your wallet on all manner of Kingly kitsch.

But that is to jump ahead of the story. We are here in the eye of Typhoon Elvis with six members of the International Elvis Presley Fan Club's Hong Kong chapter, who have travelled halfway around the world on a solemn pilgrimage to worship at the altar of the King. Meet club founder Regina Cheung, vice-president Katima Khan, and paid-up, card-carrying members Mabel Lee, Elsa Yuen, Tina Lam and, yes, Elvisina Tang.

Despite what might seem the excessive devotion denoted by the latter's choice of moniker, these ladies actually tend towards the saner end of the Elvis fandom spectrum, in that they boast not a single Elvis tattoo or white jumpsuit between them, nor do any profess to have fathered the King's love child or spotted him serving up slurpees in a 7-Eleven. What unites them - and tens of thousands of other pilgrims - is a forgiving and unquestioning love of their idol; a love that transcends the cheeseburgers and amphetamines, that rises above the weird obsessions and the snivelling sycophants. A love that draws them inexorably to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee ...

Tom-Tom where you go last night? Thai Noon for cowboy junkies

ON A PLAIN: THE MAN WITH NO NAME
MEETS THE HORSE WITH NO NAME

From the Vaults: A little yarn I knocked out for Time a few years back. The Cowboy Way, Thailand's way - same same but different

They descend in droves in buses from Bangkok, in their freshly-pressed checked shirts, shiny boots and Stetson knock-offs. Rawhide chokers abound, as do gleaming belt buckles bigger than fists, emblazoned with screaming eagles, US flags and broncs rampant. Some affect spurs and fringed, flapping chaps.

Legs bowed in homage to John Wayne, or perhaps from three hours stuffed in a bus, they clink and swagger their way to concrete teepees and log cabins, past paddocks full of  horseflesh and a main street straight out of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. Strategically-placed speakers echo with Ennio Morricone’s haunting twangs and whistles.

Welcome to Pensuk Great Western resort, the closest thing to the Wild West in the Far East and paradise found for city slickers with a hankering to play cowboys and indians.

"I love this place,'' says Somsak Sukphisit, 38, an accountant from Bangkok with gold-rimmed spectacles, a sheriff’s star and a white 10 gallon hat. “You can forget about your problems here and make believe you’re a real cowboy. This has always been a dream of mine.’’

Sprawled over 40 acres in Nakhon Ratchasima province, about 250km north-east of Bangkok, Pensuk Great Western is the brainchild of Yuttana Pensuk, a cowboy junkie who made his fortune peddling karaoke to rich Japanese tourists in Bangkok.

SCALP MASSAGE? SQUAWS SPEAK
WITH HEAP BIG FORKED TONGUE

 "I've always been crazy about the Wild West,'' says Yuttana, who as a boy would gorge on the celluloid exploits of John Wayne and Gary Cooper, as well as Thailand’s homegrown cowboy heroes in the so-called “pad thai Westerns’’. His dream began to take shape eight years ago, when he bought a cornfield within driving distance of Bangkok.

"Originally it was just for friends - a couple of houses and some horses to ride,'' he says, squinting proudly over his spread from under a voluminous black hat. "Then I took a trip to California to look at some old ghost towns and get some ideas.'' Now, 200 million baht later, he presides over a full-fledged Westworld. You almost expect Yul Brynner, as the gun-slinging robot-run-amok, to loom around a corner and call you out.

Naked Smoking Guns: Inside Big Tobacco's 'Operation Whitecoat'

From the Vaults: this was the biggest investigative story I worked on in Hong Kong, and full credit goes to my former colleague and good friend Hedley Thomas for spotting the huge yarn lurking in the briefs column. It's this ability to sense a story that has made Hedley Australia's most awarded, respected and feared investigative ace. When a massive tranche of court documents were made public via the internet following a class action suit against 'Big Tobacco' in the US in the late 90s, we began sifting through the mountain of virtual papers looking for anything that might pertain to Hong Kong. Did we ever hit paydirt. This was the first piece in a series that dominated the front page and features section of the South China Morning Post for three days in a row.

NO BUTTS: SMOKING KILLS

"We are here to do something radical. To look at a problem. To achieve a solution. Nothing should be withheld." Thus begins a sprawling account of a high-powered brainstorming session organised by cigarette colossus Philip Morris and dubbed Project Down Under, for the June 1987 think-tank's antipodean provenance.

Details of the meeting are revealed in a once-confidential Philip Morris document, a minuted note of a top-level strategy, and among more than 30 million pages - some of which reveal the tobacco industry's darkest secrets - prised from the companies' own files and posted on the Internet as a result of litigation in the United States during the past 12 months.

The memo points to the genesis of an international scheme that has now blown up in the face of the tobacco industry like an exploding cigar. A scheme that involved the channelling of millions of dollars from the industry's war chest through a range of innocuous-sounding organisations in an attempt to procure helpful science, then merchandise the findings to ease fears over the effects of second-hand smoke and win major concessions from the public and private sector over bans.

The stakes were huge: this was the 1980s, when objections by non-smokers to other people's smoke were becoming increasingly strident. By drawing pie-charts showing when and where the average smoker lit up, the tobacco industry calculated bans in work places, aircraft, restaurants and other venues would result in a dramatic plunge in the number of cigarettes smoked. People would have less time to puff. And that would lead to billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Several key documents tell the story of how a coterie of tobacco big-wigs and American lawyers drew up a pan-industry plan to target scientists throughout Asia, the US and Europe in an effort to wrest back control of an issue on which they had decided to make a last-ditch stand. That issue was passive smoking, or, to use the industry-preferred euphemism, Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS).

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ETS is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It cites the possible health effects as eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, lung cancer, and heart disease. It says children exposed to ETS face increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections, such as bronchitis and pneumonia, ear infections, build-up of fluid in the middle ear, increased severity and frequency of asthma episodes, and decreased lung function.

MY LOVELY LITTLE LUMPS:
MORE SMOKERS HAVE CANCER
THAN ANY OTHER HUMANS

In January 1993, the EPA published a controversial report designating ETS as a human carcinogen more dangerous than asbestos, benzene or radon, and estimated passive smoking was responsible for about 3,000 American lung cancer deaths each year. The tobacco industry hit back hard, accusing the EPA of putting its own spin on statistics to justify a political vendetta against tobacco.

However, the battle lines in this international slugging match were drawn much earlier. In the early 80s, the big tobacco companies could see which way the winds of scientific and public opinion on ETS were blowing. By the mid-80s, they believed their position was becoming critical. By 1987's Project Down Under meeting, they had girded their loins for a multi-million dollar battle.

Drugs, thugs and bugs: Stranded on the Proud Highway with Dr Gonzo

From the Vaults: It is a surreal moment in any scribe's life when you are asked to review the work of one of your heroes. It was with trepidation, awe, fear and, yes, a modicum of loathing, that I prised open the weighty tome comprising Hunter S Thompson's first volume of collected letters, and it was with shaking hands and abject humility that I pecked out my unworthy review for the books section of South China Morning Post. Here's my road trip up The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, but I suggest you take the journey for yourself. Buy the ticket and take the ride. RIP Hunter S. 

COOL HUNTER 

The very name Hunter S. Thompson conjures up a bizarre mixture of images: a drug-fuelled booze-monster sitting naked on an Aspen porch, firing at small animals with an unfeasibly large firearm; a rangy frame and a shiny cranium, bashing away at a typewriter, making a strange kind of sense from crazed sojourns on the wilder shores of politics; a redneck tempting fate on a massive hog, howling like a werewolf through the twists and turns of California's switchback coast roads; an iconoclast; a sage; an irascible court jester; purveyor of bitingly eloquent hyperbole; and undeniably, inescapably, the eye of Typhoon Cool.

Anyone who has hung on for the crazy ride that has been Thompson's literary life - from his Hell's Angels stomping, to being out near Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs kicked in, to his fear and loathing-laden forays into the dark heart of the American dream - is in for a treat with the publication of this work.

FAME HUNTER 

It is the first volume (two more are promised) of his collected correspondence. These twisted epistles span his formative years as a writer: from a talented if wayward student in Louisville, Kentucky, to his 1967 breakthrough publication, Hell's Angels.

Perhaps the most striking thing that emerges from this collection, compiled by Douglas Brinkley, director of the University of New Orleans' Eisenhower Centre for American Studies, is Thompson's unswerving sense of destiny. Even as an 18-year-old, he was keeping carbons of his prolific correspondence, confident of his emergence as the next F Scott Fitzgerald.

Not the Messiah: the careless unmaking of Elvis the man

From the Vaults: This is a book review I did for the South China Morning Post of Peter Guralnick's Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Aaron Presley. Along with Greil Marcus, Guralnick is one of the more thoughtful and prescient writers among the pack of hacks contributing to the ever-swelling annals of Elvis literature. Watch this space for my own excellent Elvis adventure, when I followed the Hong Kong Elvis Presley Fan Club to Graceland and beyond for the candlelight vigil and assorted other bizarre rituals and commemorations of the King's death.

KING CRIMSON: CARELESS LOVE
AND BLEEDING HEARTS 

Much has been made of the elevation of Elvis Aaron Presley from mortal to royalty and, eventually, deity. Many a writer has found a rich furrow to plough, comparing the King and his sad fall from grace (and from Graceland's toilet) to a Christ-like sacrifice; describing the antebellum mansion and its surreal surrounds as the Stations of the Cross for the ever-swelling army of acolytes. The Candlelight Vigil as Midnight Mass. The jump-suited, fuzzy-chopped impersonators as a weird, wobbly bottomed priesthood.

How refreshing, then, to witness this rare and tender resurrection performed over more than 700 pages by Peter Guralnick - the resurrection of Elvis the man. No easy task, this, reclaiming Presley's life from under the crushing weight of supermarket tabloid history. Guralnick acknowledges the challenge in an author's note: 'Elvis Presley may well be the most written-about figure of our time. He is also in many ways the most misunderstood, both because of our ever-increasing rush to judgment and, perhaps more to the point, simply because he appears to be so well-known. It has become almost impossible to imagine Elvis amid all our assumptions, amid all the false intimacy that attaches to a tabloid personality . . .' Impossible for a lesser writer, perhaps, but in Guralnick's patient and capable hands Elvis lives and dies anew. This is the second part of his painstaking project, the first being Last Train To Memphis: The Rise Of Elvis Presley.

One rock under a groove ... Hong Kong Handover hijinks

From the Vaults: my wrap up of The Big Hong Kong Story, the reason many of us upped stumps and decamped for Hong Kong, the big 'H' ... the Handover. Upon rereading this, I see right at the end the scatological infatuation that gave this blog its name was already rearing its head. 

PRETTY VACANT: THOUSAND YARD STARES 
FROM FAT PANDA AND THE CLOWN PRINCE

THIS WAS supposed to be a story about how they botched the handover. A searing, fang-bared expose of greed, disaster and incompetence on a truly grand scale; a harsh spotlight trained upon Hong Kong's pratfall on the world stage. Oh, the scope for disaster was enormous. Looming typhoons. Feuding sovereigns. Last-minute decisions. Missed deadlines. Recalcitrant tradesmen. Profiteering fly-by-nighters. Goose-stepping soldiers swarming over the border. Hot-headed demonstrators itching to be the martyr du jour. Very Important Egos to be stroked and coddled. A diplomatic chamber of horrors and a terrorist's fun-fair, jam-packed into the big top of a genuine three-ring media circus.

The only problem is, it was all right on the night. Against incalculable odds, Britain managed to hand back the last glittering jewel in its tarnished colonial crown with nary a major mishap. Somehow - and who knows how? - Hong Kong pulled it off. Thousands of blood-hungry, battle-hardened scribes were left scratching their heads and wandering the cavernous press centre, glassy-eyed with boredom and bemusement. It all seemed to go so smoothly that it's hard to believe it happened at all.

But under the bonnet of the shiny, purring handover machine, there was no little grinding of gears. Somewhere beneath the seamless facade of pomp and circumstance, of stirring speeches, coruscating pyrotechnics and perfectly timed telegenic tears lurks a litany of glitches, hitches, bloopers and blunders. More 'Hong Kong's Funniest Handover Videos' than sombre Dan Rather fodder; not so much a dignified dissembling of the three-legged stool as the stuff of the Three Stooges. So let us take a trawl through the lighter side of the handover - the scenes you didn't see on CNN.

THE ONE factor out of anyone's control during Hong Kong's big week was the weather and, as the territory's sodden populace knows, there was the odd spot of precipitation during the handover period. The heavens opened to dump half the average yearly rainfall in just over a week - and most of that seemed to be during the British farewell ceremony at East Tamar.

FLAG FALL: OLD CHINA HANDOVER

It might have been a sign that even God is sick of the British Royal Family. The best thing about the rain was that no one could hear a word of what Prince Charles had to say. Between the pounding of the deluge on the canopy of umbrellas and the fact that water had shorted out the Prince's microphone, he might as well have been mute, or could have been holding forth on Camilla and his tampon fantasies for all the audience knew. Of course, no one at home watching on television would have noticed, because they probably would have killed the volume the minute His Royal Dampness stood up to speak. The other advantage of the downpour was that you couldn't tell if Chris Patten was still crying. After trotting around from one goodbye to the next, his tear-ducts were working overtime and he was beginning to look like a graduate from the Bob Hawke Academy of Public Weeping.

Divine secrets of the Bootylicious Sisterz

Greatest hits from the vault dept: Some years back, I dashed down to Phuket to interview Destiny's Child - well, let's be honest, to interview Beyonce. Imagine my surprise at finding her incapacitated by a respiratory bug ... 

SINGLE LADIES, TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT

She's a survivor, sure. A diva, definitely. But Beyonce Knowles is also a super-trouper. While the merest tickle in the back of the throat is enough to send most pop stars swooning off in search of a health farm, leaving a trail of cancelled gigs and shattered fans, the brains behind this year's biggest female act on the planet, Destiny's Child, has proved she's made of sterner stuff.

Despite a severe upper respiratory tract infection which had literally left her speechless, Knowles refused to stay home in Houston and flew instead to Thailand with bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.

The trio had been set to wow Asia's media and record company bigwigs with a showcase of their bootylicious ditties and hip-hop confections after a sell-out concert in Japan. Then the bug bit Beyonce (pronounced Beyon-say) and their gigs bit the dust.

Defying doctor's orders and unable to sing a note, Knowles hopped on the plane for the southern Thailand resort island of Phuket anyway. She's been told she can't say a word for three weeks, Rowland explains, as Knowles - usually the undisputed Child-in-charge - can only waggle her eyebrows, nod, frown, toss her hair and hold her thumbs aloft in agreement.

'It's been very hard for her. She did not want to miss the Asian trip, she was so excited about it. We were all ready to go, our crew was on the plane, we were about to get on board, but we had to get her to a doctor fast, because she couldn't say a word. It was right after we'd finished a very important concert and the doctor just said be quiet if you still want your voice.'

Arctic Anna: In the ice queen's court

IF SHE PLAYS WITH HER HAIR
IT MEANS SHE'S KEEN

Here's one from the vaults, dating back to 1998 or thereabouts. My 15 minutes with Anna Kournikova's fame. Originally ran in the South China Morning Post.

ANNA KOURNIKOVA IS SASHAYING down the hallway to a Harbour Plaza Hotel suite, tight black pants arc-welded to those million-dollar legs, blonde tresses bouncing back and forth in perfect shampoo-commercial slow-motion, a crescent of tanned brown skin peeking cheekily from under her cropped black top. And for reasons best left unexplained, Sisqo's chart-topping Thong Song is looping about in my head.

The minders are polite but firm as we enter the room. 'You have 15 minutes.' It seems apposite, almost Warholian. Fame is a commodity parcelled out in slick little packets these days, and they don't come much more famous than Anna Kournikova: 19-year-old calendar queen, Internet goddess, sports bra endorser, and, oh yes, tennis player.

Her face registers instant disapproval as a blast of arctic air greets us and there is a stampede to render the temperature acceptable. Thunderheads bearing portents of chills and strained muscles roll ominously across her brow. 'Turn it to warm air,' she orders. 'Turn it to high,' agrees her father, a short and taciturn former Russian wrestler named Sergei. As a warm sigh flutters from the vents, the storm clouds recede and she settles with a coiled grace by the window.

There are probably several million males who would give their right arm to be sitting where I am now, close enough to smell her garden-fresh scent, watching the afternoon sun slanting off the harbour and turning her big blue eyes opalescent. She is truly as beautiful in the flesh as she is in the countless photographs on some 5,000 Web sites by her army of devotees; as luminous as the ubiquitous images used to boost circulation by publications as diverse as The Sun and Forbes.

ANNA OF GREENBACKS 

Anna mania is as inescapable as it is rampant. Pity the seven other contestants in this week's Watson's Water Challenge tennis tournament at Victoria Park from tomorrow to Saturday. They were presumably cooling their heels in their rooms while, at a special 'Meet Anna Kournikova' press conference, hacks drooled obsequious inanities and panted panegyrics that would make a North Korean leader writer blush. Neither was I immune. Indeed, I had spent the best part of a week boasting to anyone who would listen that I was the chosen one, the anointed, the blessed recipient of an exclusive, one-on-one audience with Anna Kournikova.