The four sit down to watch TV with Elvis and are taken with his early-model remote control, still a novelty. The group is also thrilled by the King's pool table, and plays a few games with the Mafia, while Presley's jukebox plays Charlie Rich's "Mohair Sam" over and over. Priscilla is presented to the group and then quickly whisked away, dressed, according to Paul, "in a purple gingham dress, with a gingham bow in her very beehive hair, with lots of makeup."
Awed somewhat by each other's presence, conversation does not come easily, but John thinks to ask if Elvis is working on a new movie. "I sure am," he replies. "I play a country boy with a guitar who meets a few gals along the way, and I sing a few songs." "We all looked at one another," remembers John. "Finally Presley and Colonel Parker laughed and explained that the only time they departed from that formula - for Wild in the Country - they lost money."
Paul offers to give Elvis some lessons on the bass; the group eventually falls into a very informal, brief, and anticlimactic jam session. Everyone seems pleased with the experience, however: John Lennon, upon leaving, tells Jerry Schilling to make sure Elvis knows that "if it hadn’t been for him, the Beatles would be nothing."
September 11: The Colonel tells a Memphis newspaper that "sooner or later, someone is going to have to take over the reins" regarding his client's recent unprofessional behavior.
October 1: Having completed filming on Paradise, Hawaiian Style the previous day, Elvis and his entourage head back to Memphis.
October 7: Construction is completed on Graceland's Meditation Garden, inspired by the Self-Realization group's own park in Pacific Palisades. Cost: $21,000.
October 21: Bill Black, the bass player on Elvis' legendary Sun Records sides, dies of a brain tumor at Memphis' Baptist Hospital. The local newspaper The Memphis Commercial Appeal quotes the King as saying, "He was a great man and and a person everyone loved. This comes as such a shock to me that I can hardly explain how much I loved Bill." Elvis, fearing a scene, does not attend the funeral, but sends Vernon and his second wife, Dee, in his place.
October 22: The Colonel manages to get Elvis' RCA contract extended to 1972, despite a serious recent slump in record sales.
December 7: As he does every holiday season, Elvis donates $50,000 to local charities.
December 14: Elvis buys a number of jewelry items for Christmas presents, including personalized gold watches, diamond rings, and bracelets.
December 25: Knowing how much he loves the hobby since being introduced to it in L.A., Priscilla's Christmas gift to Elvis is a slot-car racetrack; mindful of his recent experience, the Memphis Mafia's 1965 gift is a statue of Jesus that Elvis immediately has placed in the Meditation Garden. It remains there to this day.
December 28: Elvis, surrounded by friends including Larry Geller, "drops" LSD for the first time, joined by Priscilla. After staring at each other's distorted faces, the tropical fish in his aquarium, and, the next day, at dew drops on the breathing grass, both decide that they'd be risking their sanity to try the drug again.
December 31: Elvis rings in 1966 at Memphis' Manhattan Club in a semi-private affair.
Next... Elvis 1965 recording sessions
