Late September 2004
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Jackson Jive: Scholars get Jacko-demic at Yale
By Alex French
(St Petersburg Times, September 30, 2004)
In 1984 a breakaway sect of the Jehovah's Witnesses proclaimed that 26-year-old Michael Jackson was the Archangel Michael -- who, as described in the Book of Daniel, will deliver his people: "And at the time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people." Twenty years later, the thrill is gone. "Jacko" has endured multiple child-molestation charges, an ill-fated marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, a disastrous Pepsi commercial, declining album sales, and a face that just won't quit weirding us out. He had a child, and proceeded to dangle it from a balcony, much to the shock and horror of just about everyone. To say the least, the media has had quite a field day with Michael Jackson. And now, he is at long last getting his due in academia. The "Thriller" video is so evocative of elements of Jackson's life -- the repeated alteration of his appearance, his perceived transformation into a raceless zombie -- that it was one of the primary "texts" discussed last week at Yale University during "Regarding Michael Jackson: Performing Racial, Gender, and Sexual Difference Center Stage," a two-day conference hosted by Yale's African American studies department and the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies.
... Uri McMillan's presentation, "White Ambition: Michael Jackson, Racial Erasure, and Aesthetic Surgery," provided an alternative interpretation to Jackson's facial transformation: He framed plastic surgery as a method of racial passing, as a move toward a facial ideal -- created largely by plastic surgeons -- that used whiteness as a frame of reference. McMillan's idea simultaneously seemed to illuminate and challenge Todd Gray's earlier contention that "Michael's transformation represents a commodification of the self. He was angry that artists like Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones copied the work of black musicians and had gotten rich and famous while the creators remained poor and unknown. Michael wanted to be bigger than Elvis and the Beatles and the Stones, and he took on the trappings of the white artist because he thought the American public wouldn't buy anything else." Gray's assertion caused a bit of a stir in the room. ...
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The art of rock: Like many a rocker before him, local drummer Hugh T. Williams is finding success through another pursuit: painting
By GINA VIVINETTO
(St Petersburg Times, September 30, 2004)
Hugh T. Williams has been one of the best drummers in the Tampa Bay area music scene for 25 years. He was part of the legendary punk band Voodoo Idols in the late 1970s and, in the mid 1980s, the Barons of Love. Now he sits behind the kit for the bands Sparky's Nightmare and Mariola, a side project for which Williams also sings. But these days Williams, 48, is getting more recognition for a new passion: painting. ... The St. Petersburg resident started to paint more than six years ago after a car accident immobilized him for six months. He couldn't play the drums, so Williams began to toy with a few paints and some thrift-store canvases. ... His portraits include Bo Diddley, Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls. ...
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The reporter who really did change the world
By Melissa Hoyer
(Falkirk Today, September 30, 2004)
ANYONE who believes journalism CAN'T change the world should have a chat with Iain Calder. The Slamannan reporter rose from humble beginnings at the old 'Falkirk Sentinel' to become America's King of Sleaze as editor of the mighty 'National Enquirer' tabloid.
His influence across the pond is so vast he holds himself personally responsible for setting into motion a chain of events which would lead to war being declared on Iraq last year.
American presidential hopeful Gary Hart famously challenged the Press in 1987 to find a photo of him with a mistress. Iain did so and summarily destroyed the charismatic Democrat's political career.
During his long reign as editor of America's top tacky tabloid, he presided over many tantalising tales. ... When Elvis Presley died, the Enquirer bribed 'The King's' cousin $18, 000 to photograph the singer in his open coffin. The weekly magazine had its exclusive 'The Last Picture' and its highest-ever sale of 6.7 million copies. When Lisa Marie Presley gave birth to Elvis' grand-daughter 12 years later, the tabloid successfully planted a reporter as a hospital security guard to secure the exclusive. ...
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Burberry ditches tartan in Milan
By Melissa Hoyer
(news.com.au, September 30, 2004)
BURBERRY was the hip fashion label when the likes of Kate Moss and Elle Macpherson were spotted wearing the signature brown and caramel tartan from the classic trench coat and scarf house. Now the Brit brand has gone beyond check and for summer 2005, as with most other designer labels at the Milan fashion shows this week, has gone hot on colour. Hot red PVC cropped trench coats, traffic stopping yellow knits, white and pastel "meadow" flowers on fragile chiffon, pale linen and leather coats and even vivid lame used on tiered party frocks. ... Also showing was Pucci, that showed a hippie rundown, and Dolce & Gabbana's label that gave an Elvis-inspired show. D&G used Elvis Presley's granddaughter as a model last season and the King was spotted this year on some very cute looking cropped grey Tees. With a Blue Hawaii vibe, there were vivid prints, tropical flowers and birds printed onto their trademark denim.
Highlights included a small orange and hot pink grass skirt and bright pink briefs with diamante studs.
Pucci offered more of the hippie side of the '60s as designer Christian Lacroix raided the archives of the house of swirls. ...
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Elvis and the South: Love me tender - The King was our prophet; our states are Graceland on a grand scale
BY JOHN F. SUGG
(Creative Loafing Atlanta, September 23. found September 30, 2004)
We're running from [hurricane] Ivan, chased by bruised skies and the staccato thud of fat raindrops. Memphis looks awfully damn good as a refuge. Divinity or chance (or, more likely, bad map-reading) lands us on Elvis Presley Boulevard. Photographer Jim Stawniak says, "Graceland." Graceland. Elvis. Sounds good. This is a road trip about the South, after all. People, their thoughts, icons, passions. What they revere, despise. Their trajectory through the centuries and decades to circa now.
Elvis is as good a place to start as any. And who knows? He may be the guiding muse on this trip. "Lead me, Mr. Presley," I think. "Oh, he's around here all right," says a perfectly serious Regina Dorsey, late of Atlanta. She's been pushed around the South by the economic winds, finally landing "I'm not getting rich but it's interesting" work at the cash register of the Chrome Grille at Graceland. "No one is in the kitchen, and all of sudden, the water tap turns on. Or the stove. Things aren't where we leave them. It happens all the time. He's here." For all of the glamour that was Elvis, the Memphis street that totes his name is hardly a fitting tribute. Empty used car dealerships with crooked signs, a string of seedy hotels all trying to leech a bit of Elvis into their names. Storefront after storefront with broken windows like skulls' vacant eye sockets.
Graceland. This is America's shrine to the common people. Folks cry at the graves of Elvis and his kin; they reverently touch his images. Some write their names on the bricks that anchor Graceland's iron gates, hoping the Saint in Gold Lame will notice.
We scurry southeast to Tupelo, Miss. The shotgun shack where Elvis Aaron Presley entered this astral plane is nicely preserved, a Medina to the Mecca in Memphis. Recalling a model I'd spied at Graceland, I notice there's one thing missing -- the outhouse. That's the South. We brag about our heritage but don't want people to see the crap. For a minute, I'm so focused on trying to absorb Elvis' starting point, I miss what surrounds the holy ground. They've Disney-ized his birthplace. No tasteful sanctuary where pilgrims can light rock 'n' roll votive candles. The outdoor commode has transformed into a grandly tacky souvenir shop. Seven bucks to look at trinkets from Elvis' early years. Thirty more for a life-size cardboard cutout of the King.
Don't be cynical. Maybe all this is fitting.
I think about Graceland again as I hang out in Tupelo, sizing up the hurricane's latest frenzied wobble to the east, no west, no east again. Ivan must have watched old Elvis flicks. Elvis is the South's story. Humble origins, truck driving aspirations. Hugging that old-time religion so hard his arms must have ached. "He loved his origins, was always loyal," smiles Scarlett Sullivan, who, with husband Mike, have fled their Mobile, Ala., home. Like scores of others, they measure their retreat from Ivan by stops at, as she says, "the places I've always wanted to visit most."
Like the South, Elvis needed cultivation to blossom. Enter a consummate hustler, ex-Tampa dog catcher Col. Tom Parker, who channeled Elvis' explosive, unsophisticated energy -- much as like beloved demagogues, from Huey Long to George Wallace to Strom Thurmond. The wealth rolled in. Elvis shot up as more than a star -- the first salvo in the youth revolution. The New South's cheap land and cheap labor created an energy burst with shock waves as seismic, if not as melodic, as Elvis'. Graceland was Elvis' statement to the world on his roots. The mansion's decor is crass. Puke green shag carpets, a "Jungle Room" and a "TV Room" that assault the senses. It's a lot like our gleaming cities. A lot of money went into fixing things up, but the impact is nauseating. There's another part of Graceland, a small meadow where he kept horses. It's less pretentious, it has charm. That, too, is what the South is about. Small towns, loyalty, tightly woven lives, people with deep roots in the land.
"Elvis was America's dream," beams a pouffy-hairdooed Judy Schumpert, who runs the gift shop at Elvis' Tupelo birthplace. "He was all about poverty to riches and fame. He stayed the same person, he really did, and he never forgot where he came from."
Comments to: john.sugg@creativeloafing.com.
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Phil Spector pleaded innocent
(newsfromrussia.com, September 29, 2004)
Pop music producer Phil Spector slammed prosecutors as "Hitler-like" yesterday after he was indicted for the murder of a B-movie star. Spector - the genius behind such groups as The Ronettes and famed for his work with Elvis Presley, Ike and Tina Turner, and the Beatles on their Let It Be album -- remains free on bail of $US1million ($1.4 million). ...
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Milan Fancies Some Fun in the 1960s Sun
By Jane Barrett
(Yahoo! News /
Reuters, September 28, 2004)
It was back to the 1960s at Milan fashion week on Tuesday as Pucci returned to its hippie roots and Dolce & Gabbana got the catwalk all shook up with an Elvis-inspired show. D&G used Elvis Presley's granddaughter as one of their models last season and while she was absent from the spring/summer 2005 show, the King himself stared out from cropped gray T-shirts. The design duo joined Elvis on the set of his 1961 film "Blue Hawaii," wrapping models in bright red Hawaiian prints and stamping tropical flowers and birds on their trademark denim. Rather than blue suede shoes, the D&G girls marched around the catwalk in pink slouch boots or flat pumps with bright sequined flowers on them. For a night on the town, D&G dreamed up a tiny pink and orange grass skirt or Hawaiian print micro-dresses with side slits so high and front plunges so low that they will pose some serious underwear questions. ...
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Legal battle could put Beatles catalog online
By Jefferson Graham / USA TODAY
(Detroit News, September 28, 2004)
Search any fee-based digital music service for the best-loved musical artists of the 20th century and most of the expected names show up. Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Sinatra are all accounted for, with their complete catalogs available. There are holdouts, but none bigger than the best-selling recording group of all time: the Beatles. That could change before yearıs end if thereıs a settlement in a long-standing trademark lawsuit between the Beatlesı Apple Corps and Apple Computer. ...
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Elvis cited as nude grinds upheld
(Tucson Citizen / Associated Press, September 28, 2004)
A local law on adult-entertainment businesses went too far when it effectively banned nude dancing by prohibiting simulated sex that could extend to Elvis Presley's "gyrating hips," a court ruled yesterday.
Upholding most of a 1997 Maricopa County ordinance, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the county can restrict businesses' hours and require licenses and permits. However, a regulation that bans "sex acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated," amounts to a ban on nude dancing, a constitutionally protected activity, the court said in a ruling issued in San Francisco. "If Elvis' gyrating hips can fairly be understood to constitute a simulated sex act, one can fully appreciate the potential scope of the restrictions placed on erotic dancers in Maricopa County," Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain wrote for a three-judge panel. "One is left to speculate as to what movements, precisely, a dancer may incorporate in a performance without running afoul of section 13(e), and yet still effectively convey an essentially adult, erotic message to the audience." ...
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He can't deny the King, Doris Day or Marvin Gaye
By Sylvester Brown Jr.
(STL Today / Post-Dispatch, September 26, 2004)
"I yam what I yam." I quote Popeye the Sailor Man when responding to people who accuse me of being either too black or too white (whatever that means). I am the result of 47 years of interesting living and valuable experiences. Simply stated, I am what I am. ... The Post-Dispatch kicked off its annual employee United Way pledge drive with contests, raffles, drawings and other fun events this week. One was "Karaoke Kafe," where employees give a small donation to either watch co-workers belt out a tune or sing one themselves. It sounded like fun. I did an OK job in a karaoke performance nine years ago. But that was in front of strangers, and there was alcohol involved. What the heck, I thought. It's for a good cause, why not give it a shot? Then I thought about the actual song I sang years ago. It was an Elvis Presley tune. Do blacks impersonate the King? What would my co-workers, especially the black ones, think if I sang an Elvis song?
A black co-worker came by my desk and asked if I was going to the karaoke fund-raiser. "Yeah, I think I will," I answered. "You know, I do a pretty good Elvis impersonation." "Oh, puhleeese," she shot back as we walked toward the elevators. That was it. Elvis (and my nerves) had left the building. I'd go to the event, but only to listen. My colleagues were having a blast singing along with the karaoke machine. I envied the courage of those who sang ballads, country, rock and roll, rhythm and blues and contemporary songs. As my black co-workers sang songs by Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross and Roberta Flack, I sat there scanning the list of Elvis songs available.
Titles like "All Shook Up," "Jailhouse Rock," "Viva Las Vegas" and "Return to Sender" brought back fond memories. I remembered childhood days when the family gathered around the TV, watching old movies. The smell of the shopping bag full of greasy popcorn that we passed around came back to me. So did the memory of all those goofy Elvis movies we watched. They all seemed to have the same script: Elvis sang a song, met a girl, sang more songs, fought somebody, won the girl's heart and sang again as the credits rolled. After the movie, we repeated the songs and re-enacted the scenes.
Other childhood memories also rushed back. I thought about Adam West and the "Biff, Bam" cartoonish "Batman" series we watched with passion. There were those soapy Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Tony Randall movies I made fun of but secretly adored. Good times were soaked with memories of Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, the Green Hornet, "Mission: Impossible," "The Fugitive," "Julia" and, of course, old Elvis movies.
What was I thinking? To deny the King is to deny myself, my memories, my childhood. Besides, maybe music shouldn't be categorized by race. A good song crosses all boundaries. I decided to sing. Standing before the karaoke screen, I nervously warbled Elvis' "In the Ghetto:" "On a cold and gray Chicago morn, another little baby child is born in the ghetto. And his mama cries ..." My co-workers clapped, somebody shouted "The King lives!" The guy who sang the Luther Vandross song gave me a high-five. So that's it, I guess. I'm soul, reggae and country, too. I'm Marvin Gaye, Doris Day and even Scooby Doo. I'm rock and roll and Elvis, too. Simply put, I am what I am - 47 years in the making. ...
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Life after boot camp: Nancy Sinatra makes a comeback with
the help of some very cool friends
By JIM FARBER
(New York Daily News, September 26, 2004)
'I didn't know anything about being sexy.' That Was Then: Nancy Sinatra in her boots in '66
Two years ago, when Nancy Sinatra's older daughter told her she should start recording material by writers who really respect her art, Sinatra shot back, "Who the hell might that be?"
"It's certainly not my peers, not people of my age," the 64-year-old singer says. "They felt my music was trivial." Younger musicians disagree, and Sinatra's latest album proves it. Simply titled "Nancy Sinatra," the disk, which is released Tuesday, features songs written to suit the singer's character by such artists as Bono and the Edge of U2, Steven Van Zandt, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, Pete Yorn and Sinatra's No. 1 fan, Morrissey. ... With an eye toward musical history, each of the writers aimed to re-create the type of hits Sinatra sang in her prime during the '60s. During that period, she stormed the charts more than 20 times, most famously with her deathless salute to footwear, "These Boots Are Made for Walking." ...
FAIRY TALES: To Sinatra herself, the attention seems ironic. In her heyday, she was hardly seen as a serious rocker, but as a bubblegum creation propped up by the same producer who oversaw the hits of Annette Funicello. She also suffered from being the daughter of one of the world's best-loved artists. "If people think that the only thing you did right was to be born to somebody, that's not good," Sinatra says.
It didn't help her self-image that she never internalized her erotic persona.
"I didn't know anything about being sexy," she insists. "I thought life was about fairy tales."
Sinatra had equally little faith in her acting career, which blossomed for a time.
"I was lousy," she says, adding that the only reason she ended up as the top female box-office draw for two years was because she starred opposite Elvis Presley in "Speedway" and Peter Fonda in "The Wild Angels."
...
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Howlin' at the moon: A complex portrait of one of American blues' greatest legends
By Michael Cote
(Daily Camera, September 26, 2004)
Sun Records founder Sam Phillips always will be remembered for being the man who discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. But the late music maverick considered blues legend Howlin' Wolf his greatest find. The Rolling Stones, who demanded "the Wolf" be allowed to appear with them during their first TV appearance in the'60s, would agree. ...
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Review: Weird Al's bits 'priceless,' but sound mix was off: King of song parodies targets Eminem, Avril Lavigne
By Forrest Hartman
(RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL, September 25, 2004)
Judging by the screams echoing from the Pioneer Center Friday night, you might have guessed that "Weird Al" Yankovic was Bruce Springsteen. If there's one thing the king of song parodies knows how to do, it's whip his fans into a frenzy. Whether doling out scarves, a la Elvis Presley, or prancing about the stage like Eminem, Al has a way of stirring things up. And why not? For years, he's been the funniest man in rock 'n' roll. His comedy is silly, often smacking of a 12-year-old's wit, but that's part of the charm. Rather than push the limits of good taste, Yankovic puts on a show the whole family can enjoy. ...
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GM Paterson: country singer fueled by his life on the road
By Dorothy Cox
(The Truckers, September 23, 2004)
Like many post baby boomers, GM Paterson grew up with Elvis Presley music "seven- twenty-four" courtesy of his mother, a dyed-in-the-wool Elvis fan. So it was natural for this steel-hauling truck driver to pick up a guitar and start writing songs. Now, Paterson's time is divided between making dedicated runs with his six-axle, "heavy-hauler" during the week and playing music on the weekends. This native Canadian has appeared on the same bill with Shania Twain, Michelle Wright, and Brooks and Dunn and others, and currently records at Grand Avenue Studios, a Canadian facility where he said the likes of U2 and Gordon Lightfoot have made music. ...
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How Would Elvis Vote? Polls indicate Bush ain't nothin' but a hound dog
By Alan Bisbort
(National Catholic Reporter, September 23, 2004)
Elvis Presley did not have a political bone in his body. During the turbulent 1960s, he was, not unlike George W. Bush, completely detached from reality. He hung out on Hollywood film sets and in Las Vegas, was protected by an inner circle of incurious goons, and dabbled in astrology, painkillers, speed, fast cars, Lear jets and expensive peanut butter sandwiches. Elvis was the redneck in the bubble -- hippies, race riots, LSD, pop festivals may as well have been happening on Mars.
The most overt political act Elvis ever made was to show up at the White House, stoned out of his gourd on a cocktail of prescriptions drugs. He was there to get an honorary drug marshal's certificate from Pres. Nixon, who cluelessly felt that being seen with the King would somehow endear him to "the young people." The ensuing grip-and-grimace photograph is now the most popular object in the entire National Archives, more often requested (and put on display) than the Louisiana Purchase, the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers, the Bill of Rights. That, somehow, tells us something about America, though I'm not sure what. One question it does raise, and it's not an unimportant one, is How Would Elvis Vote? In short, how would a barely literate white Mississippi truck driver vote in this election? ...
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