Stay Away, Joe

Continuing my endeavor to finish viewing all of Elvis's films, I watched Stay Away, Joe last night. On the positive side, Elvis looked fit and healthy and this film wasn't just a showcase of songs with scenes in between. The Arizona backdrop was quite beautiful. The few songs in the movie actually made sense within the plot. The one song I thought had potential was "All I Needed Was the Rain," which was written by Fred Wise and Ben Weisman, who wrote many of my other favorite Elvis movie songs, such as "Follow That Dream" from Follow That Dream and "Riding the Rainbow" from Kid Galahad.

Aside from these points, the film lacked a strong plot, projected racist stereotypes of Native Americans, and was a generally goofy movie. Burgess Meredith plays Elvis's dumb father who can't seem to do anything right, except maybe drink beer. The grandpa character sits around wearing a blanket all the time and speaks broken English. The overall message seems to be that Native Americans are dysfunctional, lazy drunks. The film begins with a couple of ridiculous scenes: first, Joe Lightcloud (Elvis) returns home and starts wrestling with all of his buddies who showed up to greet him. While they're rolling around in the dirt, there is audible dialogue that sounds like it was recorded separately from the filming, because there's no way they could all make that much sense and not be huffing and puffing. After that there's a beach party at the Lightclouds' shack (in the Arizona desert, mind you) during which everyone gets plastered. One of the partygoers roasts a bull, which is the only bull available to fertilize all of the cows purchased from the government to begin a cattle business. (Yes, you should be rolling your eyes right about now.)

There were a few comedic moments: a 19-year-old dim bulb fawns over Joe and he tries to explain to her that they have to get to know each other before jumping into marriage, but she just doesn't seem to get it. Clearly not too much was going on between the ears. Toward the end of the movie there is a lot of physical comedy, as various characters fall through the hole in the living room floor, put their arms through paper walls, and then finally the whole house caves in. More than many of Elvis's other films, this was an ensemble effort, even though that effort ultimately failed.

I would not recommend this film to anyone other than a devoted Elvis fan who's interested in seeing all of his movies, the good, the bad, and the incomprehensible. This one falls somewhere between the latter two categories.

On the bright side, here's a fun fact: Elvis co-starred with three of the four major stars in Grumpy Old Men (1993): Walter Matthau (King Creole), Ann-Margret (Viva Las Vegas), and Burgess Meredith (Stay Away, Joe). Jack Lemmon clearly missed out!

Here I am, come meet a lonely, lonely man

Peter Guralnick's Careless Love, the second volume in his two-volume biography of Elvis, weaves together many stories and themes in an effort to both chronicle Elvis's career from his army service to his death and to explain what led to his death at such a young age. It is impossible to touch on every facet of the 661-page book without just summarizing the story, so I'm choosing to use the song "Lonely Man," which was part of the soundtrack to the 1961 movie, Wild in the Country, to highlight some of the main themes Guralnick emphasized in his chronicle of the second half of Elvis's life.

It's a lonely man who wanders all around...

Elvis returned home from Germany a changed man, still suffering the grief of his mother's death two years before, already addicted to amphetamines acquired in the army, and with almost unending energy to party and play all night. The group of guys took shape at this time, becoming a constant presence, including at his 1960 recording sessions shortly after his return home. As soon as he got home, Elvis resumed his role as the breadwinner and leader of the pack, both of the guys and his family.

He felt sometimes as if there were a weight pressing down on him that he could no longer bear. He was surrounded by friends and relatives, all dependent on him, all looking to him for help, for guidance, for handouts - for something. He could give them jobs, he could dispense money and favors, on the surface they all deferred to him, and he was clearly the one in charge - but in his darkest moments he suspected that it was all a masquerade, they were like bluebottle flies buzzing around a dung heap, with no more loyalty to him than a fly would feel. (78)

Elvis was not really "one of the guys." Because of his fame and money, he was isolated from his family and friends. He also never quite shook the shyness and awkwardness of his pre-fame days. In spite of the fact that he had a safety net of guys around, and a revolving door of women with whom he sometimes just talked, sometimes did more than talk, Elvis seemed to be always set apart from everyone else in his life. Some of his relationships with women - with Priscilla, Linda, perhaps with Ann-Margret - gave him the outlet he needed to be himself. But even then, he could be only himself in fleeting moments, like while watching TV in his bedroom, with the curtains closed to shut out the rest of the world.

Searchin', always searchin', for something he can't find...
 
Elvis's dissatisfaction with his career led him to try to find meaning through other avenues, namely spiritual ones. With the help of his hairdresser, Larry Geller, Elvis explored various philosophies in his attempt to define a purpose for his life, in order to find something worthwhile amidst the mundane reality of his career. During one of the cross-country trips aboard his bus, Elvis believed that he saw the face of God in the clouds. He was about to give up on his spiritual quest, believing that God wasn't listening to him, when he had this vision that brought him to tears. He so wanted to feel something real, to experience something emotionally significant. Everything else in his life seemed superficial and out of his control; through his spiritual explorations, Elvis was taking charge of at least one part of his life and finding satisfaction in it.

While Elvis's interest in spirituality was sincere, and his spiritual quest was an ongoing part of his life, he was also known for being obsessed with something until he tired of it and then moved onto the next obsession. Larry eventually fell out of favor and Elvis became obsessed with karate. He talked about producing a documentary about the martial arts and even funded a karate school. He also bought the Circle G ranch and played the rancher until it became financially unfeasible. All of these hobbies and obsessions were just ways for Elvis to escape from his life and implicitly give the Colonel permission to run his career while he ran his personal life.

Always so unhappy, taking shelter where he can. Here I am, come meet a lonely, lonely man.

During the movie years, Elvis felt that he had become the laughing-stock of Hollywood. His dreams of being a serious actor never materialized and the movies he was contracted to make just served to embarrass and frustrate him. In 1964, an article appeared in the Las Vegas Desert News and Telegram, which, according to Guralnick, confirmed all of Elvis's worst fears.  

Would you believe that Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole owe part of their current success to Elvis Presley? These two brilliant actors...might not have had the opportunity to star in [Becket] were it not for Sir Swivel Hips. ...Elvis helped finance Becket indirectly. Producer Hal Wallis, who has made Presley's biggest hits, also produced Becket. And were it not for the revenue from Elvis' movies, there might not have been the wherewithal to film Becket. Says Wallis, "In order to do the artistic pictures, it is necessary to make the commercially successful Presley pictures. But that doesn't mean a Presley picture can't have quality, too." ...At the moment Wallis is shooting Roustabout, starring Elvis. This story may not be the greatest, but then O'Toole and Burton can't sing like Elvis either. (171)

The Colonel was a blessing and a curse. He certainly catapulted Elvis from the southern tour circuit to a nationwide audience. He succeeded in making Elvis a household name and making Elvis a very rich man. The Colonel also succeeded in making himself a very rich man, often at the expense of Elvis's artistry. The Colonel made the Hollywood deals, allowing Elvis to be pigeon-holed into formulaic movies with increasingly bad soundtracks. He kept Elvis on tour in the '70s, even when it was clear that Elvis was unwell and the combination of the exhausting tour schedule and his drug use was leading him to an early grave. For Elvis's part, he didn't do nearly enough to stand up for himself and fight for more creative control. He did manage to record a few gospel albums, and he went along with NBC's plan for the comeback show instead of doing the Christmas special that the Colonel originally championed, but he never made any global changes to his career. He never seemed to fight for control over his professional life.

Part of the issue was that it wasn't really within Elvis to be confrontational. He might blow up at people from time to time, but he always apologized and tried to make things right with them. On the one hand, Elvis remained naive and immature in many ways, and that probably made him more comfortable with just going along with what the Colonel wanted to do. On the other hand, he became increasingly apathetic, too, and sometimes just didn't really care.

Of course, the drugs also played a large role in Elvis's unhappiness and in the stunting of his professional growth. The pills made Elvis moody, made him lose focus, and caused numerous other health problems. It's amazing how many times Elvis was hospitalized after his body had an extreme reaction to the cocktail of drugs he was taking, especially when you think about the fact that he was only in his late 30s and early 40s when this was going on. The drug issue gets back to the original problem of loneliness and isolation, too: with no one able to confront Elvis without fearing for his livelihood, including his doctors, Elvis was allowed to deny the existence of a drug problem and keep on going as if nothing was the matter.

In the end, Careless Love is about Elvis's wanderings and wonderings through the second half of his life. It is a sad, frustrating story, but one that also shows glimmers of hope, deep emotion, great talent, and beautiful artistry. It's very easy to focus on the sadder, more negative parts of Elvis's life because of the circumstances under which he died and his very public decline. I, however, want to close with some of my favorite quotes from the book that demonstrate Elvis's beauty and musicality that I think deserve our respect and remembrance.

The former lead singer of the Statesmen, Jake Hess, talking about Elvis's 1966 gospel recording session:

Elvis was one of those individuals, when he sang a song, he just seemed to live every word of it. There's other people that have a voice that's maybe as great or greater than Presley's, I don't know, but he had that certain something that everyone searches for all during their lifetime. You know, he sang a lot with his eyes closed, and I think the reason for that was because he [wanted] to have a picture in his mind at all times; if something was distracting him to where he couldn't put his heart into what he was doing, he would close his eyes, so he could get that picture of what he was talking about. That's the reason he communicated with the audience so well. (232)

About the finale of the '68 comeback special, "If I Can Dream":

Although he is singing to a full orchestral backing, it is the voice that predominates, as much as it would if he were singing unaccompanied.... The song is a well-intentioned liberal statement about peace and brotherhood and universal understanding, but it is not the lyrics that command our attention over the gulf of years. It is, rather, the pain and conviction and raw emotion in Elvis' voice as he sings of a world "where all my brothers walk hand in hand" and almost screams out the last line: "Please/let my dream/come true/Right now." (310)

From Norbert Putnam, bass player during the Nashville recording session in 1970:

...I came to understand, he expressed so many things with his voice - the lyrical content had nothing to do with what was happening [for] him. He was the only artist I ever worked with that could zing you - with the 'Elvis thing' - whenever he wanted. He was the greatest communicator of emotion that I ever knew, from beginning to end. (382)

Elvis, speaking to Kathy Westmoreland in May 1977: "His mission in life, he said, was 'to make people happy with music. And I'll never stop until the day I die'" (635).

Peter Guralnick at the end of the book, reflecting upon Elvis's lasting legacy (emphasis is mine):

Long before he was laid in the grave, the legend of Elvis' success, the one trademark it was impossible for even the Colonel to register, had been retailed over and over again, but now it was overwhelmed in a flood of reminiscences that a first strove to deny the "frail humanity" that bound him to the rest of the human race, then rushed to condemn him for it. The cacophony of voices that have joined together to create a chorus of informed opinion, uninformed speculation, hagiography, symbolism, and blame, can be difficult at times to drown out, but in the end there is only one voice that counts. It is the voice that the world first heard on those bright yellow Sun 78s, whose original insignia, a crowing rooster surrounded by boldly stylized sunbeams and a border of musical notes, sought to proclaim the dawning of a new day. It is impossible to silence that voice; you cannot miss it when you listen to "That's All Right" or "Mystery Train" or "Blue Moon of Kentucky" or any of the songs with which Elvis continued to convey his sense of unlimited possibilities almost to the end of his life. It is that sense of aspiration as much as any historical signposts or goals that continues to communicate directly with a public that recognized in Elvis a kindred spirit from the first. That is what we have to remember. In the face of facts, for all that we have come to know, it is necessary to listen unprejudiced and unencumbered if we are to hear Elvis' message: the proclamation of emotions long suppressed, the embrace of a vulnerability culturally denied, the unabashed striving for freedom. Elvis Presley may have lost his way, but even in his darkest moments, he still retained some of the same innocent transparency that first defined the difference in the music and the man. More than most, he had an awareness of his own limitations; his very faith was tested by his recognition of how far he had fallen from what he had set out to achieve - but for all of his doubt, for all of his disappointment, for all of the self-loathing that he frequently felt, and all of the disillusionment and fear, he continued to believe in a democratic ideal of redemptive transformation, he continued to seek out a connection with a public that embraced him not for what he was but for what he sought to be. (661)

Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite Deluxe DVD, Disc 2

I finally watched the second DVD in the 2-DVD Aloha set I bought at Graceland during Elvis Week. Because the main concert material is the same as the raw footage on disc 1, I'll just concentrate on the parts that are unique to disc 2 and the U.S. broadcast version.

Post-Concert "Insert" Songs Session
January 14, 1973
Elvis looks like he's singing with his eyes closed the whole time until you see that he's reading cue cards that people are holding below the stage, so he's just looking down. I don't know why they didn't have the guy with the cue cards stand on a ladder or something that would have brought him up to the level of the stage. It just seems like not a lot of thought or effort went into these recordings, particularly because Elvis was shown singing them during the broadcast. If we had just heard him, it wouldn't have been as bad.
All of the songs from Blue Hawaii were in the wrong key and the instrumentation was corny and nothing like the arrangement for the original soundtrack. I know Elvis's voice got lower as he got older, but they could have picked a better key.

Elvis, Aloha from Hawaii NBC TV Special
April 4, 1973 Broadcast Version
I have to take a crack at the inserts in the broadcast version because they were so weird/corny.
1) Early Morning Rain
Scene: Random Hawaiian dude walking along the beach with his shirt open, clearly conscious that he's being filmed walking along the beach. It is not the early morning, nor is it raining. Eventually, he takes a yellow Jeep into a field or pineapple plantation and drives around/walks around without his shirt on. He gets his shirt back just in time to go to the airport, stand on the tarmac, and look at an airplane. Eventually he gets back in his yellow Jeep and moves on.
2) Blue Hawaii
Scene: On one part of the screen, a hula dancer dances along to Elvis's singing while on another screen, a blonde woman wearing a blue loose dress that makes her look pregnant kneels on the beach looking into a birdcage.
3) Hawaiian Wedding Song
Scene: We see two hands rubbing each other in what I can only describe as hand sex. Eventually we see the people to whom those hands belong and they're looking at each other lovingly under a palm tree.
4) Ku-U-I-Po
Scene: A young couple is on the beach, and suddenly, the girl decides to run away. The guy then chases her and catches her in something like a cliche film scene.

In one of these montages, a guy slides down a waterfall. I think this show should have been called, "Elvis, Aloha from Hawaii, and the State of Hawaii's Travel Video."

Let me reiterate for the umpteenth time: Aloha is no '68 Comeback, That's the Way It Is, or even Elvis on Tour. I'm still glad to have it as part of my collection, though, since we have relatively few films of Elvis concerts (at least of decent viewing quality).

I HATE YOU BECAUSE

Its not like we could have expected her to become a doctor or a lawyer or a scientist, right?

It is a credit to Lisa Marie Presley's lack of imagination that she has chosen to spend her flush life pursuing the one thing she is unequivocably unsuited for: she wants to be a singer.

I'm sorry, I cant help but be suspicious of this whim of hers to try her hand at being a singer, I cant help feeling this is a calculated gambit in the continuing fleecing of that special contingent of Elvis fans who are simple rubes, who toss away their money while clinging to some blind devotion to their hero (and that means tossing money to their hero's daughter).

I mean, really - a duet with her dad? Her dead dad, as if you needed reminding. How much can you duet with a dead man, anyway? This is electronic engineering, nothing else. And this is the second (!) such duet with her dead dad - was the first one (a team up on "In The Ghetto") such a success that fans were screaming for another one? So, it is not just a shameless enterprise to go back to this particular well again, but then to do "I Love You Because" and make a music video comprised of clips of Lisa Marie's home movies featuring Elvis to tug on the heart strings and purse strings of Elvis fans is simply unconscionable.

Lisa Marie's albums (sorry, CDs) are full of songs that she herself wrote so I do give her props for that. It doesn't matter that these songs fail to rise above the level of girls-college-dormitory-angst, they are original and she is trying to express herself. But, I guess these albums (sorry, CDs) werent selling so Lisa Marie found she must resort to tapping this Elvis well again.

Is Lisa Marie a born singer, a burning talent that will, nay, MUST, out? I have read many Elvis books, and Lisa Marie was always a tangential presence at best (the young moppet both neglected and spoiled by her absentee daddy). Still, does anyone recall any mention of Lisa Marie ever expressing any desire to be a singer when she grew up? Were there stories somewhere of Lisa Marie sitting with her dad and the two of them harmonizing together? Maile, please let me know if any stories of this sort made its way into CARELESS LOVE.

It seems strange that Lisa Marie wants to pursue something that was the very reason her dad was an absentee dad much of the time while she was growing up, and when he was around, she was witness to the fact that her dad's chosen occupation was destroying him.  You can't claim that, oh, the poor dear, she was so young so she wouldn't know what was happening: my kids who are 4+ years old and 1+ years old notice and specifically point out things like when I get a haircut or when a new bag appears under my tired eyes; how can we think Lisa Marie did not notice that her dad was getting fatter and fatter and behaving more and more strangely.

But, ok, for the time being, lets not question her motives, lets just agree she wants to be a singer.

What exactly is it that she wants to sing? Pop music? Pop music is disposable so that seems fitting for her. Rock 'n Roll, like her daddy? I know rock 'n roll music and what comes out of her mouth is not rock 'n roll.  Blues? Please - she doesnt have the passion to be a blues singer and outside of being witness to her unconscious dad being worked on by paramedics who are trying to revive him, I don't think she has experienced any kind of heartbreak trauma to come out and sing the blues (busted relationships / marriages to certifiable freaks like Michael Jackson and Nicholas Cage (one or more of which was probably some kind of publicity stunt), hardly give you the right much less the material to sing the blues). Country? Well, country music and it's fans tend to embrace even the most untalented of individuals.

But, ok, for the time being, lets not question her motives, lets just agree she wants to be a singer and, yes, pop music is her thang. 

Does she have the instrument, a voice? Having listened to some tracks from her albums, I find her voice to be toneless, without any range of expression, it's too low, too husky, lacking in any musicality (Maile, being a singer herself, can help me out with using more technical jargon to describe the mechanics of Lisa Marie's voice). 

But, ok, for the time being, lets not question her motives, lets just agree she wants to be a singer and, yes, pop music is her thang but she has no voice - the history of pop music is filled with arena-filling no-talents with no voice who still manage to release hit singles (a good producer can hide anything with enough mixing and over-production). 

Does she have a "look" to fall back on? Remember Madonna in her early years? It can be argued that Madonna wasnt much of a singer in the beginning, and she specialized in pop confections like "Borderline" but, man, did she have a look. Well, Lisa Marie looks like Elvis, which would be great except she is a woman, and the result is that she looks like a drag queen (the aforesaid low voice adds to the illusion of a drag queen).  I like to think that I have learned to appreciate Woman (with a capital "W") in all sizes and shapes (I love Chagall's ugly women, Rubens' fat women, Botticelli's beautiful women and Degas' shapely women) but I have to say Lisa Marie just...doesn't do it for me. I myself do not find her attractive and an offer from her to come to her hotel room for bountiful sex would raise nary an eyebrow on me. We all know of Elvis' ability to dress with style (not only were those Vegas jumpsuits awesome looking, but check out what Elvis wore, say, to the JayCees Ten Outstanding Men 1970 ceremony and elsewhere in his private life). Lisa Marie, by contrast, has no discernible style in clothing or appearance. She has no presence or personality at all, she is just there although you would be forgiven for not noticing her.

But, ok, for the time being, lets not question her motives, lets just agree she wants to be a singer and, yes, pop music is her thang but she has no voice and she has no style and the issue of her looks, while not appealing to me, is a purely subjective assessment on my part.

Does she have talent of any kind? One need only look at this clip of Lisa Marie's recent appearance at the Grand Ole Opry to provide an answer to that:question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NcHogHRE7Y

What stage presence! Look how she works that stage! Look how she works the crowd! 

In the end, I know Lisa Marie will never amount to even a blip in the world of music (pop music, country music, whatever) but, perhaps because I am an Elvis fan, I find that her cash-in attempts (these duets in particular) promote values that deaden the sensibilities of a great democracy.  



   

Mourning the loss, yet again

I just finished Careless Love and have posted a brief review on Goodreads, which I'll also repost below. I will follow up with a more lengthy review soon.


An unapologetic look at Elvis for the second half of his life, written seemingly without an agenda. You see the weaknesses and the strengths of the man; Guralnick doesn't paint a rosy picture, but he doesn't go out of his way to kick Elvis when he's down. Probably the most balanced version of Elvis's life story that I've read. The end will always be so tragically sad, no matter who the author is, and that's why the book gets 4 stars instead of 5. Guralnick ended the book with respect and with a tribute to Elvis's spirit and his music, and with a great quote from a 1962 interview:

Well, I've tried to be the same all through this thing, you know, he declared early on. Naturally, you learn a lot about people, and you get involved in a lot of different situations, but I've tried to be the same. I mean, the way I was brought up, I've always considered other people's feelings; I've never - in other words, I didn't kick anybody on my way. I don't just sign the autographs and the pictures and so forth to help my popularity or make them like me. I do it because I know that they're sincere, and they see you and they want an autograph to take home, and they've got an autograph book, or they've got their little camera. They don't know the kind of life you lead, they don't know what kind of person you are. And so - I try to remember that. That's all. It's simple. It's just the way I was brought up [by] my mother and father to believe and have respect for other people. We were always considerate of other people's feelings.

WHO MURDERED ELVIS

I was not going to even mention this title, it is really not worth mentioning, but, hey, its been a slow month for Elvis-related news and, frankly, this book cover had me laughing my ass off.  I thought these kinds of ridiculously tawdry titles (Elvis! The Mob!! MURDER!!!!), full of outlandish, unverifiable claims, weren't even published in this day and age. 

The lack of a publisher's name on the book spine leads me to believe this is self-published.

I just found it amusing. 

WHAT NOW MAILE DUVAL

Performance anxiety. Creative block. Call it what you will. I'm stuck.

This used to come so easily.

It's Maile's fault. I think I am moving too fast for her.

Look, it has been a long time since I had an Elvis buddy, a special someone with whom you share a love of all things Elvis, that you can unabashedly obsess over the merits of take 1 of 'Frankie & Johnny" vs the master take used for the soundtrack, that you can analyze and pontificate at length over every single live performance given by Elvis in search of, well, a good performance of a song, yes, maybe some rarity that Elvis performed on stage only a few times, but also clues to Elvis' frame of mind, a glimpse into the metaphysical darkness of existential events (what? Even I don't know where that last bit came from but I am leaving it in).

A long time. 

So it is a bit understandable that I would be overly excited at meeting someone who is not afraid to admit to being an Elvis fan, who listens to Elvis' music on long car trips, who traveled to Graceland of his/her own accord ferchrissakes. And I am positively hyper at the prospect of being able to bequeath onto this new Elvis buddy x-years worth of bootleg collecting.  

My last Elvis buddy (lets call him "G") was the brother of an early ex-Mrs Blofeld's Cat. 

(Actually, there was an Elvis buddy after G, a woman, but, although she was very nice, she was one of those certifiably loony Elvis fans, like she was married to a guy (also a crazy Elvis fan) who modeled his appearance on Elvis, from the pompadour to the 1970s sunglasses and paunch but he was too short to accurately complete the illusion).

In the years I knew G, he was in his most formative, impressionable years (late high school to early college years), somewhat directionless, fatherless. Through a shared a love of movies, an ongoing intense debate as to who was better: Pacino (me) or DeNiro (he), and a taste for the ganja (he was my supplier so he earned a few bucks off of me that way), I was able to introduce him to some culture in my own ways: books to read (I worked in publishing back then, a house with a line of very fine editions of the classics of literature: smoking weed is great but reading Dostoyevsky after smoking some weed is better); jazz music (which, given that G was a confirmed grunge fan, I consider this a personal triumph; I was no expert in jazz, I was learning myself at that time via some jazz encyclopedias from my publishing house and this coincided with cassette tapes being phased off the shelves of the franchise record stores when CDs started to come into vogue so you could always get cassette tapes of jazz really, really cheap); and yes, Elvis and his music (it started with the more outrageous Elvis material, like Elvis' monologues on stage when he was out of his mind but I was able to paint this within the framework of a larger Shakespearean tragedy which made it more interesting to him). 

In order to introduce G to Elvis and jazz and literature, I would make radio shows (actually, these were mix tapes but I'll be damned if I call them that) comprised of carefully programmed music.  Please understand that these shows were thought out, planned, scripted, everything had to flow, be thematically coherent. 

Sadly, any copies I may have had at one time of these radio shows have long since been lost.  All that remains are my notebooks with some draft tracklistings which provide a glimpse of how much I toiled on getting the theme and the flow right (lots of cross outs and lines with arrows indicating move this track up here, that track down there, drop take 7 of "You Don't Know Me" off completely).  

Some greatest hits: one show featured carefully chosen Elvis movie songs bookended by excerpts of Quentin Crisp reading from THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT - these excerpts served to introduce the Elvis song and would comically comment on, say, take 1 of "Frankie & Johnny" or take 9 of "How Would You Like To Be".

Another show was an all poetry special, which featured Elvis songs bookended by the likes of Kerouac and other beats reciting their poetry, Charles Bukowski reading his poetry or William Shatner reading his poetry (!) and yes, Elvis also reciting some poetry ("As I awoke one morning...")!!  Another radio show featured one of Elvis' complete performances, one chock full of his monologues, say the College Park, Maryland show from 1974, chopped up and wrapped with classic jazz music tracks. 

In a way, it was a glorious creative time, in retrospect. 

But I think I am moving too fast with Maile.  

My god, what did I do, I mentioned to Maile that we should each make for the other a mix tape (yes, I used that very phrase, "mix tape"; I am a dork) of our respective favorite Elvis tracks. 

Of course, my mind is on another radio show. My older self is wanting to recapture some part of my younger self that may be long gone. 

I've already made the mistake of just blindly, hurriedly, excitedly ("Wait till Maile hears this, she will love it") making CDs for Maile already, straight copies, and so I have exhausted a good supply of outtakes and live performance tracks. 

Adding to my creative impotence at the moment is a sense I have that Maile is hesitant. Maile is an Elvis fan, one of those true bloods who loves his music, who remembers fondly watching Elvis' movies when just a child. But Maile is not interested in a trip to the dark side. Maile is not interested (yet?) in listening to, say, a tape recording circa 1976 of the last phone conversation between Elvis and Red West, after Elvis had fired Red, or, rather, had his dad fire Red, and Red is trying to to get a woozy, drugged Elvis to admit that what Elvis did was really shitty. Or listening to a phone conversation between Arlene (obviously a former one night stand) and an Elvis who is clearly not interested in talking to her. And forget about College Park, MD 1974 and most of 1977. Believe me, I can understand that only the truly demented Elvis obsessive would have any interest in hearing Jackie Kahane's act or hear the Sweet Inspirations opening set.

So I am working to put together a CD of some Elvis tunes that are on constant play on my Ipod, cherry-picking from the bootlegs so hopefully this will be material Maile hasnt heard before (although with my Elvis collection in such disarray, some on CD, some of which is just digital files on who knows which one of dozens of different portable hard drives) this is taking too long a time

And still I think about introducing Maile to the dark side.

One show I have been listening to of late would be a perfect start. The September 3, 1973 closing show in Vegas. Elvis has not yet descended to the deranged (as he did in September 1974) but he is becoming unhinged.

How else to explain Elvis coming out on stage in this fashion:

Now, look closely. See anything, uh, strange? Yes, I know the sight of Elvis riding on the back of a fat man is strange, but is there anything else peculiar?

Look closer. What is that on...

Yes, there is a monkey on Elvis' back. He is giving a performance with a monkey on his back. Would Maile be curious to know why? How can Maile not be curious to know whether Elvis is even aware that there is a monkey on his back?

And that is just the start of the show. 

I dont want to give away the high points of the show, but one visual bit of business (of which no photos can be found) that wont be appreciated by listening to the recording is that when Elvis starts singing "What Now My Love", a bed (!) is rolled out on stage and Elvis lies down on the bed and sings the song from there.

Believe it or not, there is a good set list for this particular evening but that is actually secondary to what happens on stage.

Would Maile want to know who this "Mario" person is that Elvis mentions during the show? and why exactly does Elvis decide (in mid-song!) to throw down a challenge to Conrad Hilton (the owner of the Hilton Hotel where Elvis happens to be performing) as well as all of the staff? 

How can Maile not be intrigued enough to take a trip to the dark side?