Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been off mourning today. Yes… The black jumpsuit was out of the closet and worn in honor of the passing of The King.

On this day, in 1977, Elvis Aron Presley, The King of Rock and Roll, departed this world. He was the victim of his own excesses. Many think that with a “mafia” of adherents and hangers-on, someone should have tried to save Elvis. But really, how do you save a 42 year old man from himself?

Your Maximum Leader loves Elvis for so many different reasons. The cultural change that his popularity in the 1950’s ushered in has been both a boon and a bane for our nation (and one could argue - by extension - the West). Your Maximum Leader loves the groundbreaking music he recorded. (Music which, by the way, your Maximum Leader can listen to with his children without worrying about bad language.) Your Maximum Leader, in a way filled with pathos, even likes the overindulgent 70’s Elvis. Once could try and find analogies between Elvis and our national self image. But your Maximum Leader will lay off that for today.

Today, your Maximum Leader will lift a glass in memory of The King. And, he suspects, somewhere in Toronto, Skippy will celebrate in his own way…

Carry on.