July 2001
- T. Van Brocklin, 53, led full life despite lifelong ailment
By DALE RODEBAUGH
(San Jose Mercury News, July 14, 2001)
More than 120 people, including former co-workers at Hope Rehabilitation Center, bowling buddies and intensive-care unit nurses attended a recent memorial service for Thomas Lee Van Brocklin. Mr. Van Brocklin was born with Down's syndrome, but he enjoyed a full life, dying June 29 at 53. Mr. Van Brocklin was born in Marshalltown, Iowa. His family moved to Creighton, Neb., for a short time and in1955 came to San Jose. In addition to his work and other activities, Mr. Van Brocklin was an Elvis Presley fan, and collected photos of "the king'' and knew all the related trivia, Blazek said. He even taught himself a few chords on the guitar to emulate his idol.
- LIVING: Helping the homeless (3rd item)
By Don O'Briant
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 14, 2001)
Lisa Marie Presley cut the ribbon this week on the wrought-iron gates leading to Presley Place, a 12-unit, rent-free apartment building for the homeless in Memphis. Presley, the daughter of rock 'n' roll king Elvis Presley, donated $1.3 million to the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association to build the apartments near Elvis' mansion, Graceland. Presley Place is part of a collection of buildings where 65 homeless families can live up to one year rent-free while getting career, financial and parenting counseling. ''It isn't just putting a roof over their heads for a while,'' Presley said. ''These people actually want to change their lives.''
- Lollapalooza gone country
By GENE STOUT
(Kansas City Star / Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 13, 2001)
Like the circus-style, alternative-rock tour that made its debut in 1991, inspiring a decade of multiact rock festivals, Brooks & Dunn's Neon Circus & Wild West Show features a passel of performers. Besides an army of musicians, the tour includes a troupe of fire breathers, knife jugglers, trick ropers, stilt walkers, rodeo clowns and a gunslinger (earlier in the tour, there was even a goat that could blow up balloons). The midway features a display of custom Gibson guitars, including one that belonged to Roy Orbison, and a "honky-tonk museum" in a big-top tent. Accompanying the mobile museum is a historian dressed like Elvis Presley.
- Nothing Personal: JUICY BITS (4th item)
By Amy Reiter
(Salon, July 13, 2001)
Lisa Marie Presley's taste in men seems to be improving. Elvis' little girl, the ex-Mrs. Michael Jackson, is in the throes of a romance with Nicolas Cage. The duo made their public debut as a couple this week, arriving hand in hand at the dedication of Presley Place, in Memphis, Tenn., a temporary housing facility for homeless families. Just be glad they didn't call it Heartbreak Hotel.
- Review: 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'
By BRIAN McTAVISH
(Kansas City Star, July 11, 2001)
Vintage Hollywood vixen Ann-Margret has been getting some unkind reviews for her performance as Miss Mona, the head prostitute in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." ... Compared with her crack supporting cast, mostly Broadway vets who know to get a laugh, the star's acting seems a bit wooden. And her singing, while more expressive than her acting, is on the thin side. What dancing she does is kept to a minimum, although she hasn't lost the ability to say a great deal with a simple swivel of her hips. Still, it's a far cry from "Viva Las Vegas," in which the young Ann-Margret actually out-wiggled Elvis Presley. Or that wild scene in "Tommy" in which she submerged herself in a flood of baked beans.
- Donny Osmond Credits Las Vegas
(Washington Post / Associated Press, July 11, 2001)
Donny Osmond credits Las Vegas as the foundation of his 38-year career and hopes it will play a role in his future. "I started my whole career in Vegas," Osmond said. "I've played every single hotel, even those that aren't around anymore." Osmond's first headline gig was at Caesars Palace in the '70s. Frank Sinatra was in the audience opening night. The Osmond Brothers were a Las Vegas sensation. They were invited back to play at the Las Vegas Hilton, where they stayed in Elvis Presley's suite at the King's invitation.
- TV writer A Peyser dies at 80
By MYRNA OLIVER
(San Jose Mercury News, July 08, 2001)
AWARD-WINNING CONTRIBUTOR PENNED COMEDY SHOW CLASSICS
Arnold Peyser, who with his late wife Lois scripted such indelible series as "The Brady Bunch,'' "The Dick Van Dyke Show'' and "My Three Sons,'' died last Sunday of cancer at his home in Brentwood on the west side of Los Angeles. He was 80. ... The Peysers ventured into feature films in 1969 to write the screenplay for Elvis Presley's "The Trouble With Girls.'' Considered one of the better Presley films, the movie whimsically depicted the singer as manager of a 1920s Chautauqua show.
- Elvis' Last Arena Demolished
(Washington Post / Associated Press, July 08, 2001) Widely reported, eg, in Seattle Times, Evansville Courier Press, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and on Australian television.
The arena where Elvis Presley staged his last public performance was demolished on Sunday in a series of explosions. "Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building," a member of the demolition team said seconds before the charges ignited at Market Square Arena. Market Square Arena is where Elvis performed to a near-sold out audience of 16,000 on June 26, 1977; he died less than two months later. The 15,000-ton building collapsed inward in less than 15 seconds, with clouds of dust and smoke covering a portion of downtown. The blast was heard up to 25 miles away.
- Buckley, Chambers -- and Elvis?
By Lloyd Grove
(Washington Post, July 06, 2001)
William F. Buckley Jr. will be celebrating the 1950s big time when he visits Washington next week. First Buckley will tout his latest novel, "Elvis in the Morning, a nostalgic look at the American Left that begins as Army Pvt. Elvis Presley strikes up a fictional friendship with a teenage
boy living on a U.S. base in West Germany. Then, on Monday afternoon, Buckley will join fellow writers Robert Novak, Ralph de Toledano and Sam Tanenhaus in speaking at a private White House commemoration of anti-communist icon Whittaker Chambers. There are Chambers fans all over the world," Buckley told us yesterday. Also Elvis fans -- including Buckley now, though he was hardly one when the hip-swiveling Elvis was huge and Buckley was starting his conservative
magazine, National Review. "We denounced him, of course," the 75-year-old Buckley recalled. "Our culture editor wrote that Elvis looked like he was fighting an octopus, and we hoped that the octopus would prevail."
- Elvis Kin Dies in Shootout: Sheriff Cousin of 'The King' Killed Saving Deputy
By Jason Straziuso
(ABC News / Associated Press, July 06, 2001) Also reported in CNN.com, the Canberra Times and other sources.
Lee County Sheriff Harold Ray Presley, 52, who was a cousin of Elvis Presley, was killed in a shootout early today that also left a suspect dead. The gun battle began after a man fled from a police roadblock and pushed a woman, nude and bound with tape, from his car, authorities said. The man wrecked his car, and was later cornered in a shed at a home. Presley shoved a deputy out of the way and was apparently shot several times but returned fire, killing Billy Ray Stone, 53. The sheriff "almost certainly saved the deputy from injury or death," said Highway Patrol spokesman Warren Strain. The woman pushed from the car was in satisfactory condition with a cut on her arm and a broken ankle. Harold Presley's father was the brother of Elvis Presley's grandfather, making them first cousins once removed.
- Las Vegas celebrates 3 millionth nuptials: Hawaii ranks third in the domestic wedding business
By Lisa Snedeker
(Honolulu Star-Bulletin / Associated Press, July 05, 2001)
The self-proclaimed "Wedding Capital of the World" celebrated its 3 millionth wedding this week with showgirls serving as attendants and Elvis giving away the bride. The nuptials were performed in the "We've Only Just Begun" wedding chapel in the Imperial Palace hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip with Elvis impersonator Graham Patrick crooning "Fools Rush In." In the pink neon chapel three couples exchanged vows -- for the second time. Their original ceremonies took place Feb. 9. It wasn't until March that the Clark County Recorder's office discovered the 3 million mark had been passed. The city's two closest wedding competitors are Reno and Hawaii. In 1999, Reno recorded nearly 25,000 marriage certificates and about 10,000 couples tied the knot in Hawaii compared with 114,000 in Clark County, Edwards said.
- CHUCK BERRY
By Jim Washburn
(OCWeekly, July 05, 2001)
"If you tried to give rock & roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry," John Lennon once said, and why not? Elvis Presley may have made a bigger splash, but it was Berry who set the standard to which rockers from Buddy Holly to Dylan, the Beatles and the Stones - and onward - aspired. Unlike Elvis, Berry was self-contained, developing a cocky signature guitar style that, while perfectly suiting his lyrics, also became the basic architecture of rock; those lyrics were sly, lean poetry that slipped unfettered sex and social commentary into his idealized candy-apple images of American life.
- JAILHOUSE SHOCK!
By Jim Fitzgerald
(dotmusic.com, July 04, 2001)
The medical equipment unsuccessfully used to try to resuscitate Elvis Presley is being put on show at an international music collection in America. The somewhat unpleasant exhibit is part of the International Rockabilly Hall of Fame, in Jackson, Tennessee, as part of Rockabilly Fest 2001. (Go to dotmusic for the full story).
- Clinton Story Contest Inspires Many
By Jim Fitzgerald
(Washington Post Online / Associated Press, July 04, 2001)
Imagine this: Bill Clinton is frightened out of Chappaqua by the Headless Horsewoman, then returns years later to find his wife is president and has married Elvis Presley. This and other sceanarios are plot twists among the entries in a short story contest sponsored by local magazine the Westchester Wag. The contest, "Bill and Hillary: The New York Years," invited readers to imagine the former first family's future.
- Elvis Fans Brace for Arena's End
By Rick Callahan
(Washington Post Online / Associated Press, July 04, 2001)
Many Elvis fans are now bracing for the demolition of Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, scheduled to be brought down by explosives Sunday morning. A city board voted in 1999 to demolish Market Square after deeming it not economical to operate. Built in 1974, the arena was home to the Indiana Pacers until 1999, when the Conseco Fieldhouse opened.
"It will be a very sad day for Elvis fans," said Todd Slaughter, president of the 20,000-member Elvis Presley Fan Club of Great Britain, the world's largest group of Elvis admirers. The night of Presley's final show, a nearly sold-out audience of about 16,000 streamed into Market Square to see the King, glistening in a white-sequined jumpsuit with an Aztec sundial motif. Weeks later, he was found dead at Graceland, his Memphis mansion. At 42, he died from heart disease worsened by prescription drug abuse.
Slaughter got a glimpse of Presley's condition on the night of the concert, when the singer presented him with a trophy for his 10 years as the fan club's president. Slaughter said Presley was ashen-skinned, shaking and off-balance. Still, he said, Presley delivered a remarkably emotional performance that night. "It was like he was singing for the last time, which of course he was," he said. But Zach Dunkin, then a rock critic for The Indianapolis News, panned the concert, calling Presley's performance sluggish and rambling. "For months after my review I was getting hate mail," said Dunkin, now arts and entertainment editor for The Indianapolis Star. "You don't mess with the King; I learned that. Even my own dad gave me a hard time about it."
Presley's estate has given the city permission to erect a marker with Elvis' likeness at the site of the arena. And an arena display case of items from the last concert has joined the Presley estate's vast collection of Elvis memorabilia. Still, many fans of the King are alarmed by the plan to demolish the arena, says Todd Morgan, a spokesman for Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. "The fans are concerned," he said, "but Elvis' greatest legacy is what he left behind - the music, the films - and that's going to live forever."
- Blue suede sandals: Finn sings Elvis
(azcentral.com / Reuters, July 02, 2001)
A Finnish academic whose quirky recordings of Elvis Presley songs in Latin have gained cult status has now put the King of Rock 'n' Roll back a few thousand more years -- with a record in the ancient Sumerian language. Jukka Ammondt will on Thursday release his record featuring the rock classic ''Blue Suede Shoes'' in Sumerian, one of the world's oldest languages spoken in 4000-1800 BC in southern Mesopotamia, an area that now lies in southern Iraq.
''I'll be wearing a loin cloth and blue sandals,'' Ammondt told Reuters, describing his attire for the launch to be held at an international conference of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology in the Finnish capital Helsinki this week. Professor Simo Parpola, who translated the lyrics, settled for sandals in the song's famous refrain ''Do anything that you wanna do, but uh, uh honey, lay off of my shoes.''
In his version it comes out ''but my sandals of sky-blue leather do not touch'' or in the world's oldest written language: nig-na-me si-ib-ak-ke-en, e-sir kus-za-gin-gu ba-ra-tag-ge-en. ''I believe this record will give people an understanding of their roots and that we here in Finland respect those roots,'' said Ammondt. Ammondt's Elvis songs recorded in Latin won him a following around the world and an honorary medal from the Pope.
- Censor caught in rap trap: Rapper Eminem has highlighted anomalies in our censorship laws
By STAVRO SOFIOS
(NEW YORK POST, July 02, 2001)
IF HE wrote movie scripts instead of music, Marshall Mathers III would be a censor's worst nightmare. His lyrics, attacked for being racist, homophobic and misogynistic, would guarantee him an MA rating - more likely an R - restricting his work for the consumption only of adults. On the stage, however, Mathers - better known as controversial US rapper Eminem - largely escapes the censor's reach. His phenomenally successful CDs, with singles like Kill You, Murder, Murder and Just Don't Give a F . . ., come with parental warning stickers advising "explicit content". Mathers, whose social impact has been compared with Elvis Presley swinging his hips on TV in the 1950s, has received backing from his contemporaries, including superstars Elton John and Paul McCartney.
- MR GUITAR CHET DIES
(Online mirror, July 01, 2001)
GUITAR legend Chet Atkins, pioneer of the Nashville Sound, died at his home in the city, aged 77. Dubbed Mr Guitar Man, he made more than 100 albums and discovered top names in country music. He also played on dozens of singers' records, including Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel, Everly Brothers' Wake Up Little Susie and Bye Bye Love and Hank Williams's Your Cheatin' Heart.
- Macomb Briefs: Tiny Elvis contest at Peach Festival (3rd item)
(Detroit News, July 01, 2001)
The Romeo Peach Festival in September has added a Tiny Elvis Contest for children age 2 to 12 in addition to the open group for other contestants. Contestants will be judged on costume, moves and singing.
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