We all do it. Whether it's our dead parents or grandparents or dead religious figures - or Elvis for that matter.
Talking to dead people is fun. For one thing, they don't dominate the conversation. And second, they pretty much say whatever you want them to.
If you are going to talk to a dead person, it's better to know something about that person. That way the conversation will make sense. You don't want to go about making a bunch of ham sandwich jokes, for instance, if you are talking with Mama Cass.
I don't think most dead people like to be talked to. Most people who talk to the dead are feeling sorry for themselves. Like when Richard Nixon moped around the White House talking to Abraham Lincoln. Abe told me later that Nixon was whining about how unfair life was because he had been caught being a crook.
Abe said he told Nixon, "You think you got problems, Bub, I was shot in the back of the freaking head! That'll ruin your day."
Hillary was feeling sorry for herself and whining to Eleanor about having to carry the weight of several hundred years of women's suffering on her little Arkansas shoulders.
"And then that little rat ghostwriter who penned 'It Takes A Village' for me stabbed me in the back and demanded to be paid or else she'd spill the beans to Bob Woodward," Hillary boo-hooed to Eleanor. "Does the persecution ever end?"
Eleanor told me she was patient, because she understands the stress of being a first lady.
"I told her, 'Now, Hillary, you just buck up, old girl. Everything hasn't been that bad for you. Why, there's that hundred thousand smackers you made in the cattle futures market,'" Eleanor said.
Eleanor said she was a little miffed because when Hillary was trying to soften her image she said the first lady she admired most was Dolley Madison.
"I could mop the West Wing with that frilly-skirted floozy Madison," Eleanor fumed. "She made Betty Ford look like a teetotaler. And men! My god! She had more Senate pages than the Congressional Record!"
I later told Elvis that it seems to me that Hillary's problem is that she talks to the dead in front of other people. Generally speaking, you should talk to the dead when no one else is around.
"Tell me about it," Elvis said. "Why, ah used to talk to mah mama all the time and the boys would say, 'Elvis? Who the hell you talkin' to, son?' And ah'd say, 'Oh, just mah ol' hound dog over there.' But they still thought ah was peculiar, if you know what ah mean."
You get a lot of calls? I asked.
"You can't even imagine, son," the King said. "Ah just wish Bubba would leave me be."
Bill Clinton? He talks to you?
"Man, ah can't get the guy to shut up," Elvis said. "That raspy voice makes me, well, turn over, if you know what ah mean. He says, 'Elvis, who do you think is cuter, Paula Jones or Gennifer Flowers?' And ah said, 'Bubba, those bimbos can't hold a candle to the chicks ah'm hangin' with these days.' "
Oh, yeah? I said. You got some babes over there in the netherworld, Elvis?
"You betcha, son," Elvis said. "Why, that Dolley Madison is a party animal. And Eleanor! Well, bless-a-mah-soul! Hold a minute son, got another call comin' through."
I chatted with Mahatma Gandhi until Elvis was free. Frankly, Gandhi's not much fun to talk to. It's all, "me, me, me" with that guy. ("I was a skinny, bald little man. When I was alive, I lived on one dirt clod and a cup of urine a day, blah, blah, blah.")
"Hey, son," Elvis said, "Ah gotta run. Hillary's on the line. Ah'm her investment adviser and the copper market is looking good."
