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Having Fun

With Mojo

A submarine made for under water!

Hey kids! Mojo here! Like, you would have loved riding in a submarine! It's so stealthy! Like, REAL stealthy! It was so stealthy, like, I didn't even know where it was! And I was on it! And in it! It was totally awesome! Like I told the Daily Mail, it was "made to be under water!" Can you imagine that? A submarine made to be under water! What will they think of next?

In a scathing attack on West Virginians who believe their faith leads them to oppose the table games issue, an official with a Las Vegas-based gambling site blasts Charleston council member John Miller for expressing his personal beliefs on God and gambling.

According to the article, the Casino Gambling Web's Gordon Price says, "The government is not supposed to be run the way some believe their God thinks it should be run."

Price adds, "There are many reasons why anti-gambling lobbyists are wrong in their ideas about gambling," but adds that what "everyone in the United States must remember is that laws based on religious morals are unconstitutional."

YESTERDAY'S TRIVIA WINNERS -- Above is the cover from a single recorded by Elvis in 1974, pairing "Promised Land" with "It's Midnight," which was written by West Virginia native Big Ed Wheeler (with co-writer Jerry Chesnut). The first two correct answers came from Tommy Phillips, chairman of the Harrison County Republican Club, and an emailer who has yet to give me his or her real name.

More than anything, Elvis Presley wanted to be an actor. As a teenager, he loved nothing more than sitting through double features at the local theater, dreaming of being the next Clark Gable or Marlon Brando or James Dean.

In fact, he saw music as little more than a way to open the door to a movie career, and when he got his chance, he stated his preference not to even sing at all in his movies.

That was how his first film, Love Me Tender,

was originally scripted -- a straight dramatic western with no songs. It was originally called The Reno Brothers, but the producers, and manager Col. Tom Parker, soon decided to insert a few songs to fully capitalize on the Presley craze of 1956.

The title was changed to the name of Elvis' first big hit ballad after a series of successful rock and roll numbers, and three more rock and roll numbers were added, resulting in the incongruity of Elvis' character performing rock and roll circa the Civil War.

Nevertheless, Love Me Tender remains one of Elvis' best films, with his own performance exhibiting all the eagerness and excitement of a poor boy from Mississippi getting his chance to fulfill a lifelong dream.

Despite the rap on Elvis' movie career, he did make at least five films that should pass anyone's test of good movie making, Presley fan or not, Elvis' best film, Jailhouse Rock, features a good script, a great supporting cast, and some of the best rock and roll ever put on film, from the title track to "Baby I Don't Care" to "Treat Me Nice." Elvis' choreographed dance number during the "Jailhouse Rock" sequence has become a classic.

The other contender for best Elvis film is King Creole, and with supporting players like Walter Matthau, Carolyn Jones, Vic Morrow and Dean Jagger, it's not hard to understand why.

Elvis acquits himself well, and it's probably no accident that his two best acting performances both permitted him to play the sullen, anti-social outcast, rather than the nice guy, boy next door he ended up playing time after time.

But the bottom line was money. After Elvis emerged from the army, he was cast in two musicals -- G.I. Blues and Blue Hawaii -- featuring negligible scripts but lots of scenery and pretty

Today's Elvis-WV trivia quiz

Today, the Charleston Civic Center seats about 13,000 for most events, but that's only after a major construction project in 1980. When Elvis played there twice in 1975 and once in 1976, the concert hall held fewer patrons. All three of Elvis' Civic Center shows were sold out, but how many seats per show did that mean in 1975 and '76? Email answers here.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to hear a speech by Chuck Kinder of the State's Auditor's Office. During his speech he spoke about the “Gate test.” Basically the test is, if you want to see how your government and economy is doing, you open the gate and see which way the people go.

As a nation, the US is doing quite well on the gate test. In fact they don’t even bother to use the gate on the southern border to get into the nation, any hole in the fence will do. This is a direct reflection on the economic opportunity available in the US. It is people’s nature to want to go where they have greater opportunity to make a better life for themselves and for a large portion of the world that place is the US. The grade for the gate test can be found in the census data. In 1950 the US population was 150 million persons and last year the US population passed the 300 million mark. In a little less than 60 years the nation has doubled. The US has earned stellar grade in the gate test.

West Virginia on the other hand has failed the gate test. In 1950 the population of West Virginia was 2 million. In 1950 we made up 1.3% of the US population. Today there are about 1.8 million West Virginians, 200,000 less than there were in 1950. That number is deceiving. On the surface it appears to be a loss of only 200,000, but today West Virginia only makes up 0.6% of the US population. If West Virginia maintained 1.3% of the US population as we did in 1950, then today there would be around 3.9 million of us. That means in less than 60 years 2.1 million “would be” West Virginian’s went missing. West Virginia’s gates are open and over half left for

better economic opportunity elsewhere. That goes far beyond a failing grade.

The loss of population is more than just numbers. We all have family and friends that have had to leave to find opportunity for a better life elsewhere, breaking up the extended family structure that is a corner stone of Appalachian life. The states power in Washington has been cut in half as we only send 3 people to the US House of Representatives every two years, where in 1950 we sent 6. The burden of taxes has increased on all of us and the load is spread over fewer and fewer people. We are all feeling the effects.

We have two options as I see it. The first is to expand the West Virginia government to build a wall like the former East Germany and close the gate to prevent the people from leaving for better economic opportunity. History tells us how that will turn out. The East German government collapsed and Germany reunified. Now with Virginia being ranked at the top in economic opportunity, some may consider reunification a good thing for West Virginia.

I prefer the second option; let’s make the changes necessary to bring economic opportunity back to West Virginia. We need to make our side of the gate more attractive than the other side of the gate. Russell Sobel and his group have developed a blueprint to make that happen if we choose to make the changes. It is human nature to resist change, because change is uncomfortable and there is a fear of the unknown. I once heard insanity defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. We must overcome that fear and make the changes or we will continue to get the same result.

girls, and packed with about 20 songs each. Both films made a fortune. The film he made in between -- a serious western, Flaming Star, with only one song at the beginning and Elvis delivering a great performance in a role written for Brando -- performed poorly, relatively speaking.

And so, Elvis was cast in one almost identical role after the other. Toward the end of his movie making career, Elvis was asked by an interviewer what kind of role he would be playing in his next film. He replied, "Well, I'm kind of a singing playboy lifeguard race car driver -- a role I've played about a million times."

The one film that followed that tired formula but still turned out great was Viva Las Vegas. The chemistry between Elvis and Ann-Margret is obvious, no doubt assisted by the fact that they were embarking on a lengthy real life affair. The songs are good, especially a rousing "C'mon Everybody" and "What I'd Say" by Elvis, and a playful duet between the two stars, "The Lady Loves Me." The film's title song has become iconic, practically required theme music for any Las Vegas TV show or movie.

When Elvis finally accepted -- after a jam-packed 31 films in 13 years -- the fact he was not going to get the chance to be the kind of actor he wanted to be, he refocused on music and concerts, demonstrating that despite his own personal wishes, singing and performing on stage in front of a live audience was where he really was king.