Still Dead After All These Years...Elvis Has Pelvised To Heaven
Thirty years ago today, I, my cousin Nedda and her Mom Ron were driving across country to deliver me to my Mom who had moved us out to L.A. And this evening, August 16th, 1977, we stoppped at a motel in Memphis.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't expect this to give you a patented Joe Postove tip top orgasm. But it was also the day that Elvis Presley died, in Memphis. And we were there.
We were a few miles out of town in my Mom's new Old's 98 when an announcer from the old Mutual Radio Network broke in with the news that Elvis had died. Nedda was driving, but she managed to keep control of the vehicle as we each grieved in our own tradition. Aunt Ron was sixty, and Eddie Cantor's death had a more profound effect on her than Elvis'. Nedda was twenty two, and she said it was too bad he was dead, especially at forty two, but he (not her words) didn't really make her cream.
I took the long, rock and roll historical view. I told my carmates, that even though Elvis was not a Godfather of rock, he was perhaps the most important person in rock history. He took black R&B, mixed it with some country, which Chuck Berry and a host of Negroes had been doing for years, put a pretty white face on it, and made it more palatable to caucasion kids and their parents. Look...Little Richard and Hank Ballard, and the other rockers of color, were for the most part, too greasy for Ma and Pa Whitie.
Other than that, I told Nedda and Ron, that I didn't love Elvis either (the great romantic man love that some men had for King), but had a great respect for him, even in his fatness and the years of his shitty movies (not love Elvis, says the crowd? You might as well not love Jesus). The fact that I didn't love Jesus either, made at least a more consistent argument for not drooling over Elvis with all my heart.
I realized most peoples disagree with the above, and the mourning that soaked the now middle aged Elvis shriekers was understandable and expected.
I wanted to go over to Graceland that night to see the grief stricken at the Wailing Gate. But Aunt Ron thought perhaps not, as there would probably be a big crowd, and we could watch the festivities on tv.
But there we three were. In the same town as the newly dead "King". And for years we would brag about it. Lately, however, it ain't impressed too many people. But, today, on the thirtieth anniversary of his death, I wanted to share my close-up view of Elvis leaving the planet.
If he had died just a day later, I think we would have been in Texas. And it would have ruined it for everyone.
Joe Postove
Ordinarily, I wouldn't expect this to give you a patented Joe Postove tip top orgasm. But it was also the day that Elvis Presley died, in Memphis. And we were there.
We were a few miles out of town in my Mom's new Old's 98 when an announcer from the old Mutual Radio Network broke in with the news that Elvis had died. Nedda was driving, but she managed to keep control of the vehicle as we each grieved in our own tradition. Aunt Ron was sixty, and Eddie Cantor's death had a more profound effect on her than Elvis'. Nedda was twenty two, and she said it was too bad he was dead, especially at forty two, but he (not her words) didn't really make her cream.
I took the long, rock and roll historical view. I told my carmates, that even though Elvis was not a Godfather of rock, he was perhaps the most important person in rock history. He took black R&B, mixed it with some country, which Chuck Berry and a host of Negroes had been doing for years, put a pretty white face on it, and made it more palatable to caucasion kids and their parents. Look...Little Richard and Hank Ballard, and the other rockers of color, were for the most part, too greasy for Ma and Pa Whitie.
Other than that, I told Nedda and Ron, that I didn't love Elvis either (the great romantic man love that some men had for King), but had a great respect for him, even in his fatness and the years of his shitty movies (not love Elvis, says the crowd? You might as well not love Jesus). The fact that I didn't love Jesus either, made at least a more consistent argument for not drooling over Elvis with all my heart.
I realized most peoples disagree with the above, and the mourning that soaked the now middle aged Elvis shriekers was understandable and expected.
I wanted to go over to Graceland that night to see the grief stricken at the Wailing Gate. But Aunt Ron thought perhaps not, as there would probably be a big crowd, and we could watch the festivities on tv.
But there we three were. In the same town as the newly dead "King". And for years we would brag about it. Lately, however, it ain't impressed too many people. But, today, on the thirtieth anniversary of his death, I wanted to share my close-up view of Elvis leaving the planet.
If he had died just a day later, I think we would have been in Texas. And it would have ruined it for everyone.
Joe Postove
posted by Mr. Liberty at 2:51 PM
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