In a world exclusive, The Bug has finally tracked down The King two decades after his faked death at Gracelands. Music writer MORRIS JAMESON spoke down the wire to Elvis Presley, celebrating with his mates in the Tennant Creek Hotel after a hard day's roustabouting. A cooperative Presley told our reporter that he was enjoying his work as a jackaroo on Colonel Tom Porker's 500ha feral pig station 200km out of town. In our worldwide scoop, we trace the King's life since his "death" and uncover the real Elvis.

Elvis Presley still gets a laugh from rumours, fanned by the mainstream media, that he is dead.

"I don't know where those rumours come from," Presley chuckled.
He reminded me that similar rumours circulated in 1959 when the king of rock 'n' roll was stationed with the US Army in Germany.
"McCartney and Dylan were both supposed to have died in the late 60s. It's really silly, but I suppose it sells papers," the still familiar southern drawl explained over a patchy, static filled radio telephone line.
Presley and I were yelling to each other, like two first time telephone users.
The King never got shot during army service, but his hearing did.
"I loved shooting them guns, but them suckers made more noise than Jimi Hendrix."
By the 70s, the King was almost totally deaf. "You think we played loud because the gals loved it? Man, I couldn't hear no foldback at all till we had them lights flashing at 120 decibels."
Presley was somehow reluctant to talk about his "death". He said he had put that all put behind him and he was more concerned about how we tracked him down.
We cut that question short with one of our own. "Why Tennant Creek?"
"No-one's ever heard of me out here," Elvis drawled. "Come to think of it, no-one's heard of anyone out here."
A voice behind the King called out: "Hey, Aaron, it's your buy!" I held on while the King shouted a round of bennies and Cokes for his mates.
When Presley returned on the line, the end-of-day drinks appeared to have loosened his tongue a bit and he was more at ease.
He said that after his "death", he travelled to the Middle East and set up an import/export business in Saudi Arabia under the false name El Fatta 'n Fatta.
Just when he was becoming one of the country's biggest sheikers and movers, his cover was blown. He came "Down Under" in the early 80s and for some years worked as a Kids Krazy Kastle on the country show circuit.
He moved to Tennant Creek after another scare in late 1984 when a boatload of Japanese tourists took photographs of him while he was enjoying a leisurely swim at Hervey Bay just before the Maryborough Show.
"Tennant Creek's been real great," Presley confided. "With all this sunshine and exercise, I'm already down to 24 stone and the ranch foreman's gonna let me ride a horse if I shed just a bit more."
I asked Presley about Colonel Tom Parker, a longtime friend and manager before the "death".
"Great guy. Like a daddy to me," Elvis commented.
I reminded Presley that Parker robbed him blind, doing deals with the RCA recording company behind his back, selling Elvis T shirts, wine, lipstick, offering to roll dice with promoters to determine Elvis's touring price, even stealing from the King's estate.
Down the line, Elvis roared with laughter.
"Yeah, what a great kidder that man was, God bless him".
Bless him indeed. Presley, the country boy brought up by his mammy to fear God and country, loved football and booted rock 'n' roll to the moon.
"All I did was put together all them things I heard on the radio – country, folk, blues. Heck, I didn't even know my ass was wiggling, my knees were wobbling and my toes were shaking until they told me. It was just all clean fun to me."
It was good clean fun, for a while. The pre-Army Presley did not drink, smoke or even fuck around much in his search for the southern virgin to replace his mama.
The former truck driver spent a few bennies, but then he was on the road again.
After the army stint, during which his mama died, the nightmares and the insomnia grew worse.
Despite the pub drinks now starting to flow freely, Presley refused to talk to me about his mother's death, but he was reported to have said at the time: "My baby's gone".
The nightmares had Elvis all alone, being chased by a pack of menacing men. Typical paranoid dreaming.
In reality, Elvis had a legion of toadies, leeches and hustlers looking after his interests.
"I had them dreams for 30 years, and all them downers I was taking weren't helping much at all."
A voice in the background at the Tennant Creek Hotel yelled: "What will it be this time?"
I guess my attempts to get Elvis to open up about his mother's death must have been a bit too much.
"Triple valium and coke, mate," I heard Presley reply.
"Sorry about that" signalled his return to our conversation.
"Actually, it was to get rid of those dreams that I agreed to Parker's plan to kill me off."
Parker apparently had felt a severe paid in his cash register at the time the press were making fun of fat El in the mid 70s. He reasoned that the best career move for Elvis was death.
So who was that dead man at Gracelands?
"You heard of Orson Welles?" Elvis said. "If that cat wasn't the meanest actor ever, I don't know who was.
"For the money we were paying him, Welles even wanted us to let 'em do the autopsy. Said he's improvise, but we didn't want to take the risk."
A a result, no autopsy was ever performed on Presley/Welles in 1977. Welles died for what most people believe was the last time in 1985.
As you could expect, I'm left speechless. I'm reeling from the international scoop I'm getting down the line.
Presley took the silence as an opportunity to take a tension-breaking seconal-dexedrine cocktail from a workmate. The trace of valium slur creeping into the King's voice on his return made me realise that I'd better continue the interview immediately.

NEXT ISSUE: The colonel cleans up; bedroom journalism; white panties; Dr Flash; Pritikin diets and general pandemonium in Tennant Creek.