Gennifer Flowers and the Nixon tapes.

It's kind of like being at a casting for the Franklin Mint?except this inaugural plaque goes straight to Graceland instead of your dotty old aunt's living room. The event has brought out the usual collection of morons, retards?and Barry Z. They're a cooperative bunch, all desperately angling for footage of Bongiovi holding up an empty tape reel. He politely explains that he's not really holding up anything of importance, but nobody cares.

Flowers, who's more carefully preserved than any Presley memorabilia, is presumably here because the former Clinton mistress understands the importance of holding on to audio tapes. She's also busy plugging her opening night in the off-Broadway show Boobs! The Musical. Joe Franklin's also present to ramble once again to the press about how Presley was on his show before Ed Sullivan's.

Actually, it's kind of neat that Joe admits how he thought Jimmie Rodgers was more likely to be a star.

And this ceremony certainly has deep personal meaning for me. I've just picked up a bunch of Elvis Presley movies on all-region discs imported from Singapore. I'm feeling a lot better about my chances of unloading them. If people are paying good money for a preserved snippet of recording tape, then they'll really shell out cash for the pleasure of seeing Elvis with Chinese subtitles.

They're also trying to move discs over at the Cutting Room's party for the DVD release of Only The Strong Survive. They've got legends who are still alive, too. There's an impressive line-up of soul icons attending to celebrate Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker's documentary about the classic artists of the Stax label. The party's even hosted by soul legends Rosie O' Donnell and Cyndi Lauper?which reminds me to ask Pennebaker how he managed to skirt the issue of the Stax label stealing its sound from the white man.

"Well," he muses, "maybe if you go back to Hannibal?"

For a moment, I think that D.A.'s talking about Hannibal, the legendary turbaned soul singer, and our conversation is about to go into taboo territory. Instead, Pennebaker goes on to make a joke about going back to Hannibal, the Carthaginian explorer with all those elephants during the days of the Roman Empire. It's that dry documentarian humor. He's probably kidding about how he hates documentaries, too.

Meanwhile, Mary Wilson is being interviewed by the humorless Russian Television Network of America. Sam Moore is busy explaining to some old ditz that he once recorded a popular song called "Wrap it Up." All I can do is observe these things, since I'm too drunk to really be useful. Blame that on the determined waiters who don't want to hand out canapés to those of us in the press section?even though I only have to take three steps to be in the area where normal people are being served.

Of course, I don't figure this out until it's too late. By then, I almost end up eating Mary Wilson's fried chicken. At least hovering in the vicinity of Mary's meal allows me to witness the historic meeting of the former Supreme and Melvin Van Peebles. Well, maybe that's not particularly historic, but it's certainly interesting.

Personally, I'm proud to be in the history books as the guy who gets to explain the meaning of "MILF" to lovely Bebe Buell. "Yes," she nods, "all the boys want to shtup me. My daughter sings that 'Stacy's Mom' song to me all the time. 'Livi's mom?'"

Sadly, Buell?who can claim to have once made "The Little Black Egg" sound soulful?has to leave early to see Vacationland play at Don Hill's. Before she leaves, though, Bebe makes a point to tell me something fairly apropos of nothing: "I could play Jeopardy with Courtney Love and kick her ass." Also not historical, I suppose, but certainly quotable.

[jrt@nypress.com](mailto:jrt@nypress.com)