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It bothers me that with all the talk of sex this and sex that.
What straight men like and who straight women like and often even in mainstream productions – we talk about who gay men like.
Not just as celebrity hotties but role models.
Something we don’t talk at lot about it seems, maybe because there’s just so few good ones.
I mean – even science people like Pascal had a bad self parody ending to his life – not that different from Elvis’ own self parody end. But what did Elvis care at the end, really- he knew there was nothing left for him to do.
Because Elvis stopped caring about his career and his image – everyone else had already quit on him.
So Elvis quit too. Only, it’s anyone’s guess as to when. I suspect that it was around the time of the Aloha special in 1973.
Aloha meaning both hello and goodbye. Both at the same time.
Because when I bought the deluxe DVD box sets of the
- 1968 NBC Special – that was a comeback then and it stands as a comeback now.
- 1973 World Satellite Broadcast – it was a television technological and viewer event that would make alll the LiveAid or AIdAid multi continent multi artist things possible – because that concert was to raise funds for cancer – it was a benefit concert and the whole world benefited for being for the first time – to sit down and all watch Elvis Presley – the first and last entertainer that the whole world could agree on – all the same time – well, later in America for some reason – but the rest of the world – got to watch Elvis live and he dazzled. But, watching that show now, in 2012, it’s clear that Elvis was nervous and phoning it in.
- The Final Curtain – the deluxe unofficial box set that brought together a visual legacy of Elvis’ final tours and final shows and everyone thought he looked so bad then – but watching in 2012 – Elvis is not as physically bad then as the Average American and Many Canadians for that matter – to be honest, including me – in fact, he looks pretty damn good, all things considered.
So it’s funny to know that the Estate won’t show Elvis looking fat because they don’t want Elvis to be made a mockery of – well, maybe what the Western World needs most is a reminder that Elvis got fat and Elvis even fat – was more fuckworthy than most people who are alive today.
Fat just means there’s a smooth ride waiting for you – if you ask politely and respectfully and not like you’re doing any fat person a favour by asking.
Because I really don’t know who anyone is to think that any fat person is interested in being poked at by some stick insect person or whoever they think they are doing us a favour.
You know I really don’t think when people hear voices in their heads that it means anything than they are just riffing off of tv shows and characters.
I mean, I don’t know how anyone reading this could know that when I wrote:
Fat just means there’s a smooth ride waiting for you – if you ask politely and respectfully and not like you’re doing any fat person a favour by asking.
Because I really don’t know who anyone is to think that any fat person is interested in being poked at by some stick insect person or whoever they think they are doing us a favour.
I was not hearing that in my head as a Canadian Accent. We get a lot of American Television in Canada – so we watch your shows and we ignore our own shows – and you ignore our shows – but America imports shows from the UK and Australia.
And it’s hard when you engage an international audience a universal audience when you are also talking to particular groups and even sometimes, particular people. You know – all at the same time.
I mean, it’s hard for any to keep track of so many things.
You see, Elvis’ dreams were not to be the King of anything – he was the first to tell anyone – I am not the king, I am a man and then he sang, take my hand.
A Canadian song by our beloved Buffy Saint Marie
Elvis’ dreams were to achieve the middle class dream.
He got bigger than he dreamed and his management held him to his original contract – you work hard, you get a middle class dream life.
But that dream ended in 1958, when Gladys died.
Elvis went in the army, found a way to soldier through and soldier on and he returned a remade hero – for a grown up mainstream audience.
Hmmm. Elvis was not a lesbian – but he played one very well.
You see – Elvis really loved woman – and like any straight man – he went to strip clubs and dance clubs – he enjoyed Vegas and Paris for the show girls.
He was a red blooded boy who couldn’t stop thinking about girls girls girls.
And – hey, I am a lesbian and I am down with being about girls.
But guys didn’t like how Elvis got the girls – because Elvis got the girls by being one of the girls.
His original stage act was not all that remarkable from the other country circuit performers – and in the early days – Bill Black on bass was just as critical to the courageousness of the stage performance – he’d ride the bass, slap it, jump on and it play it every where like a good pony.
Because country performers had to compete with the kinds of preachers that Elvis watched as a child. Country audiences were an audience to be moved – emotionally and physically.
So Elvis voice played on all the heart-strings.
From laments to the bittersweet tears to the stop dont stop toucheme there don’t stop dont stop touch touch don’t stop touching me there of almost a little bit more
And Elvis eventually balanced his performance in three ways – the country hillbilly bop, the RnB stylings and women who did burlesque.
Elvis watched women singers and dancers and strippers and he knew how watching them made him feel in his body and his emotions and in his mind – so when Elvis stepped out on the stage – he just did everything in reverse and without the heels.
Elvis had chased girls his whole life – he was desperate for a girl to love him and adore him and before he was famous, they all said no.
In Tupelo, girls could be driven to tears by playmates chanting “Elvis likes you Elvis likes You.”
Oh, the sweetest revenge is living so well that the taunts of childhood haunt those who said them and in Elvis’ case, the girls who heard them.
Because after 1956 – any girl would have fainted if that had been chanted at her.
