WHERE'S CHARLIE HODGE?: WE DO NOT ACCEPT UNSOLICITED MATERIAL

Hello, again. I know my first column rambled a bit, but I am going to try to concentrate this time and stay with one basic theme.

Although, I must admit that my attention span is only seven minutes long due to the excessive amount of commercial TV I watched as a youngster. Maybe, that attention span would be longer if I had one of those movie channels? It deserves some thought.

Commercial TV requires you to watch at intervals, usually no longer than seven minutes.

And if you were watching a Kevin Costner flick or one of them Pacino mobster flicks, you'd be obligated to three hours or more of attention to the screen.

Anyway, that wasn't what I was going to write about. Of course, now I have only got five and a half minutes to tell you of my attempt to become a star.

It all started in August of 1977. The King of Rock was dead.

(And of course, to all of the people that cling to the belief that the King lives I have conveniently given you the option to forget that first sentence and replace it with this one)

It all started in August 1977, when I was on a special mission with the FBI in conjunction with the DEA and CIA in Memphis. We had to fake the death of Elvis Erin Presley (I misspelled the middle name on purpose because 'E' is still a little superstitious).

You know I was going to tell you the story of how I was turned down by David Letterman, "Saturday Night Live", and the Home Shopping Network, but my attention span really is short today.

Anyway, after the Elvis Situation (let's just call it that, shall we) I had this thing come over me, for some reason I wanted thousands of people to scream and shout as I came out to perform.

Oh well, the first realization of that was in 1980, I think I was in the third grade. It was the year, I faked a lot of illnesses to get out of school. It was the year the song "Funkytown" battled Paul McCartney's "Coming Up" for the top spot.

The biggest movie, for my money, that year was "The Blues Brothers" and I was Elwood and my friend Chris was Jake and we got the silly notion that a couple of third graders could be the Blues Brothers.

There we were in front of the music class. My first big gig. The set was simple "Gimme Some Lovin'", "Soulman", "Rawhide", and then I forget. We probably had to sing "She'll be coming around the Mountain" or something to get a good grade.

Anyway we totally screwed up "Gimme Some Lovin'" and we murdered "Soulman", but I nailed "Rawhide" and Jake (Chris) came through with a wonderful rendition of "B Movie Boxcar Blues." We lucked out with the Boxcar song and our encore performance of "She'll be Coming Around the Mountain" was put on hold.

Yeah, we were stars. We were the toast of the third grade. I am pretty sure I got beat up on the playground that day, and it had something to do with singing in front of the class.

Anyway, my attention span is getting very short now, and I am afraid the story of how I was turned down by every Entertainment business in the free world will just have to wait.

I'll give you a hint though, I didn't have an agent, or at least that is what the rejection letter from "Saturday Night Live" said.

And that is my lesson for the day, if you want to be in show business, you will need an agent. The good ones only take 10 percent from you after they land you a job.

The big wigs in show Bitness, as they say where I'm from, do not accept unsolicited material (i.e. get an agent). Of course, I never did receive any word back from David Letterman, oh well, maybe someday. I'll ramble some more next week.

By the way, anybody out there know where Charlie Hodge might be?

Michael Wells is the editor of the Jackson USA Signal.