late March, 2006
- Not believe Elvis? What a travesty
By Diane Bell
(San Diego Union-Tribune, March 23 2006)
Katherine Kennedy was waiting for her husband in a Gaslamp restaurant with a guest from Texas when in through the front door walked Elvis Presley in full Vegas regalia - white suit, cape, sunglasses, black pompadour, the works. As Elvis sauntered over to offer his autograph, the visiting Texan, Jeannette Spinelli, said: "Katherine, I thought you said San Diego was a conservative city." To everyone's surprise, Elvis turned out to be Kennedy's husband, San Diego National Bank President Robert Horsman, still in costume from a bank staff skit, "Viva Las Vegas."
The next stop for the group, which included Cloud 9 Shuttle owner John Hawkins, was the Hard Rock Cafe. It had started to rain, so they hailed a pedicab. It wasn't long before the pedicab was pulled over by the police. Apparently, there were two too many passengers. As Horsman tried to explain, Hawkins reminded him: "They aren't going to believe you. Remember, you're dressed like Elvis. Just give them your autograph ... We'll walk." So much for the conservative banker and the "walking" shuttle owner.
- But Can Gael Greene Be Trusted?
By James Brady
(Forbes, March 23 2006)
Talk about hostile takeovers. When in January 1977 the brilliant Clay Felker's own board of directors at New York magazine sold it right out from under him to Rupert Murdoch, I was named to succeed Clay. You never heard such language. Dick Reeves' lawyer phoned to threaten legal action if we ran his cover story as scheduled in the next issue. Rolodexes vanished. Staffers queued at my desk to resign. ... Amid all this glorious chaos, enter Gael Greene, the formidable restaurant critic and foodie, just returned from a tour of the European pleasure domes, coolly ignoring the insurrection raging all about, to hand me her expense account. As I went to Murdoch for his OK (the amount being roughly that of Australia's gross national product), I wondered just what I'd gotten into.
Now Warner Books, which knows that cookbooks and sex books both sell, is publishing a long-anticipated (or is "dreaded" a better term?) memoir by Gael, titled Insatiable. It's all about food and...other appetites. I got an early copy, and it is, well, quite candid. In the first chapter, as a college age Detroit stringer for the UPI, our blushing young heroine attends an Elvis concert, then talks her way into his hotel room. There, after what used to be called "a quickie," Presley asks Gael to call room service for "a fried-egg sandwich." ...
- Pop producer Phil Spector's murder trial delayed again
(Yahoo! News, March 23 2006)
Legendary pop music producer Phil Spector's trial for the murder of a B-movie star three years ago is to be delayed for another six months, a judge decided. The long-awaited trial of the 66-year-old recording guru, who is accused of shooting actress Lana Clarkson to death in his hilltop mansion in February 2003, had been due to begin on April 24. But at a court hearing at which the colourful Spector made a surprise appearance under the escort of two body guards, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler agreed to postpone the proceedings until September 11. The delay was granted because both Spector's lawyer and prosecutors involved in the high-profile case are all locked in other cases that are expected to last beyond April 24. But Fidler warned that while there are currently "conflicts on both sides of the table," he wanted the case -- which has been repeatedly delayed amid changes in Spector's legal team and a slow police investigation -- to go to trial within 15 days of September 11.
Spector, who revolutionised pop music in the 1960s and worked with the Beatles and Elvis Presley, is accused of killing 41-year-old Clarkson after meeting her at a blues club where she worked as a hostess. ... He is best known for developing his "Wall of Sound" recording technique and has also worked with artists such as the Ramones, the Righteous Brothers and "The Boss," Bruce Springsteen.
- Message to White House co-pilot: Eject now
By Garrison Keillor
(Chicago Tribune, March 22 2006)
A peacock walked past the window as I ate breakfast last Saturday at an old country inn in Albuquerque, his great fan of bejeweled feathers open wide, following a peahen that was pecking around the gravel as if he didn't exist. The peacock appeared to be infatuated, shuffling around, waggling his rump, craning his bright-blue neck, the little doodads on his head bouncing around rather fetchingly, and the peahen kept scratching in the dirt, looking for grubs.
Think of Elvis in a silver jumpsuit doing "One Night" at the Sands and the audience studying the dinner menu and trying to decide between the salmon and the baby ribs. Finally he got her cornered up against the window and then he stretched the great fan open to the max and he strutted and stuck out his chest and waved the tail feathers. The lady appeared interested for a while, and then she slipped past him and he deflated in about three seconds.
It was painful for a man to watch this. The peacock's great fan of iridescent blue-green beauty, when it deflates, becomes a feather duster, a street sweeper. You go from Waldemar the Magnificent to Bobo the Groundskeeper. He reminded you of the president trying to win hearts and minds in Ohio this week, except Mr. Bush's tail feathers have been pecked practically clean by events. It was likewise painful for anyone to watch. As painful as seeing Henry Kissinger at a recent conference on Vietnam say he had no regrets. No president in your lifetime or mine has seen his fundamental competence--his ability to think clearly and manage the government--so doubted by the voting public as Mr. Bush has. This is humiliation of a rare sort. ...
- Alone Together: Rock reflects the singular in the collective
By Karl Byrn
(Metroactive Music, March 22 2006)
ELVIS PRESLEY once reflected, "Sometimes I get lonesome, right in the middle of a crowd." That sensation has defined a duality in rock ever since: in the rock experience, a powerful desire for community expands the music but clashes with a creeping sense of isolation. Expressions of community and isolation have been opposing but parallel threads since rock's early years. Sam Cooke's lively, extroverted "Havin' a Party" sounds like a rebound off Ben E. King's stark, self-absorbed "I (Who Have Nothing)." The Youngbloods' warm-fuzzy sing-along "Get Together" and the Who's rally call "Join Together" are foils to the recalcitrant alienation of Simon and Garfunkel's "I Am a Rock" and the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black."
... Broken Social Scene is a rag-tag Canadian collective that sometimes features up to 21 revolving members. ... The booklet in Broken Social Scene has a combined sense of separation and sharing. Rather than lyrics, each song has a strange character drawing and lists sets of instructions about relating to bits of the music, other band members and random emotions. One instruction tells whomever to "try to make it sound like Bob Seger on acid." That connection is tough, since Seger's music is a hugely generic group hug, while psychedelics are intensely micropersonal. But this combination just brings rock back to the problem that faced Mr. Presley: the rock experience might make you feel alone in a crowd.
- Branded: Can these guys beat their labels? As NFL scouts prepare final draft reports, some players are striving to lift their stock by shedding labels
By Dennis Dillon
(Yahoo! News, March 22 2006)
Whenever Louisville's Elvis Dumervil recorded a sack during a home game last season, the sounds of "All Shook Up" reverberated through the PA system at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium. Mm mm, oh, oh, yeah, yeah. It was an appropriate ditty, given Dumervil's first name -- his mother chose it because Elvis Presley was one of the hottest entertainers in the United States when she emigrated from Haiti -- and his M.O. ...
- Fundamental things in life get all fuzzy
By Kerry Cue
(Canberra Times, March 22 2006, Times2 section, p. 2)
The trouble with the information revolution is that information is now delivered in much the same way a cyclone delivers groceries: in bits and pieces and all over the place. ... There are fundamentalist fashionistas. New is good. Old is so five minutes ago. ... There are fundamentalist music fans. Music died in 1977 with Elvis. Elvis mightn't have a wooden heart, but some of his fans have wooden heads. .. And now, sadly fundamentalism has edged its way into politics. Too often people latch on to simple ideas and cling to them. But these ideas don't emerge from a grand political vision, nor are they subject to considered thought. They just pop out of the culture. Policies are based on popularity polls, not ideology. This is democracy's Achilles heel. We are all in danger of being governed by ignorance.
Comments to kerrycue@yahoo.com.au
- Elvis loved to be all shot up
(Daily Mail, March 22 2006)
As the world's No.1 celebrity, Elvis Presley had to let off steam sometimes. But The King didn't pop down the gym or play a round of golf - he would shoot up TV sets and stay up all night. A new exhibition gives a peek into his nocturnal activities.
There is the redandgreen neon jukebox that provided him with a supply of pop tunes. There are film clips of friends discussing late-night excursions to amusement parks or his favourite cinema, which he would rent for the night.
And then there's the TV with a bullet hole in the screen. "This is the only surviving television or appliance that Elvis shot out that was kept," said Kevin Kern, a spokesman for Graceland, Presley's Memphis home. The singer had a habit of occasionally breaking out a firearm from his gun collection and opening fire at TVs and other items. As the story goes, entertainer Robert Goulet was performing on TV when Elvis blasted the 25in RCA that's part of the exhibit called Elvis After Dark. "There was nothing Elvis had against Robert Goulet. They were friends. He just shot things at random " said Mr Kern. The singer died in 1977 aged 42.
- TV set with bullet hole part of Elvis exhibit: Graceland shows items from singer's nightlife
(tennessean.com / Associated Press, March 21 2006)
Elvis Presley had a reputation as a night owl, and a new exhibit that opened yesterday at Graceland gives a peek into his nocturnal activities. There's the jukebox wrapped in yellow and green neon that provided him with a steady supply of popular music. There are film clips that show family and friends discussing late-night excursions to an amusement park or his favorite movie theater, which he would rent for the night.
And then there's the television with a bullet hole in the screen. "This is the only surviving television or appliance that Elvis shot out that was kept," said Kevin Kern, a spokesman for Graceland, Presley's longtime Memphis residence. Presley, it seems, had a habit of occasionally breaking out a firearm from his gun collection and opening fire at TVs and other items. As the story goes, entertainer Robert Goulet was performing on TV when Presley blasted the 25-inch RCA that's part of the exhibit called "Elvis After Dark." "There was nothing Elvis had against Robert Goulet. They were friends," Kern said. "But Elvis just shot out things on a random basis." There were no reports that Presley had hurt anybody with his gunslinging, but he was known to have a fascination with firearms. He converted part of a rear building at the estate into a firing range.
Another display also opened yesterday at Graceland's Sincerely Elvis Museum, which changes its exhibits annually to show off thousands of artifacts that are not part of regular displays at the mansion. The new show is focused on the explosion of Presley's career in 1956, when he got his first gold record and his first big-time TV exposure. ...
- Two new Elvis exhibits open at Graceland today: One looks back on '56; another peeks at his nocturnal habits
By Michael Lollar
(Commercial Appeal, March 20 2006)
As part of the 50th anniversary celebration of some of Elvis Presley's biggest career milestones, two new exhibits open at Graceland today. "Elvis '56" is a temporary exhibit in the Sincerely Elvis Museum in Graceland Plaza that celebrates the release of his first No. 1 record in 1956. And "Elvis After Dark" is a permanent exhibit in the Graceland Crossing shopping complex. "Elvis After Dark" focuses on the nocturnal pastimes that drew the entertainer's attention from private movie screenings to unlimited rides on the Zippin Pippin roller coaster at after-hours Libertyland. "The world is more alive at night. It's like God ain't lookin'," Presley once said.
The exhibit includes one of the most famous moments of Elvis excess -- when he shot out a TV set during a Robert Goulet song. The RCA TV is one of several shot by Elvis through the years, says Angie Marchese, Graceland archives manager. During a Memphis visit in 2004, Goulet said he felt unfairly singled out by the legendary Elvis story, since he heard Elvis had also blasted Mel Torme and Frank Sinatra. On top of the exhibit's bullet-ridden TV sits a vintage fiber optic lamp with a built-in wheel that changes the lamp's colors. In the background, a tape of Elvis family members plays, recounting the singer's insomnia and penchant for late-night fun. The exhibit includes flashing lights Elvis used to stop speeders and give them warning citations for unsafe driving and badges that made him a deputy law enforcement officer in Memphis and California.
The exhibit includes major pieces of memorabilia from Graceland's archives. The exhibit's entry is a gift shop that features the ornate pool table from Elvis' Bel Air home. Elvis once played billiards on that table with The Beatles, and for $250, two visitors can now try their own skill. Two European visitors were the first to try it last week, said Graceland media coordinator Kevin Kern.
The "Elvis '56" exhibit celebrates a year almost unparalleled in the history of entertainment. Elvis turned 21 on Jan. 8, 1956, and, two days later, recorded "Heartbreak Hotel." It sold more than 300,000 copies in its first three weeks and would become his first gold record. The exhibit moves month-by-month with gold records, costumes, Elvis' most famous guitar (a Gibson J200) and other memorabilia. ...
- YOU DON'T SAY: Elvis wasn't Charlie's only good friend
By Steve Stewart
(Decatur Daily, March 19 2006)
Charlie Hodge fans have a message for Charlie's Decatur family. They want them to know how much they admired Charlie, who performed with and was a friend to Elvis Presley. Since THE DAILY's story on Charlie's death ran, fans from places such as Indiana, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Malaysia and England have written to Holly Hollman to share their thoughts of Charlie.
One wrote, "I pray he is having a great reunion with Elvis." Another wrote that Charlie "was a legend also in his time and always will be remembered as the man beside the king of music." A woman from Pennsylvania wrote that while driving through Knoxville in May 2005, she passed a Cadillac with the license plate ELVIS-10. "I'm sure it was Charlie Hodge," she wrote.
- 99 Bottles' trivia king ends long run
By SHANNA McCORD
(Santa Cruz Sentinel, March 19 2006)
Which major river flows through Brazil? How many people attended the Last Supper? Who directed the 1997 release of the movie "Titanic?" After gulping a couple beers, it might be hard to pull out of your head the correct answers: Amazon, 13 and James Cameron. While most people use their beer-sipping time to unwind, 99 Bottles on Walnut Avenue has found a way to tap brain power and turn the slowest night of the week into a standing-room only crowd that keeps the beer flowing. Trivia night, drawing an estimated 100-150 people to the restaurant-pub every Wednesday, is the - pardon the pun - brainchild of Mark Harrison, a gregarious native of England who was working as a bartender at 99 Bottles 12 years ago when launching what he dubs the "entertainment quiz show." He uses photographs and recorded sounds, including famous voices and television tunes, as well as puzzles and questions asked aloud to stump patrons on everything from state capitals to figuring out what President Clinton, Elvis Presley and a pair of dice have in common. The number 42. ...
- Exhibit showcases Andy Warhol's fixation with celebrities, violence and fame
By NARA SCHOENBERG
(Brandon Sun / AP, March 19 2006)
Andy Warhol's famous Turquoise Marilyn was created after the bombshell actress's apparent suicide. His Sixteen Jackies - featuring images Jacqueline Kennedy shortly before and after president John F. Kennedy's assassination - was created in the same period he was incorporating photos of violent car crashes and electric chairs into his work. Warhol's pivotal shift away from hand-painted images to the use of silk-screening in the early 1960s intersected with his fixation with celebrities, violence and fame. The result were some of Warhol's most groundbreaking, iconic images - full of his trademark use of repetition and shocks of colour.
Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters, opened Saturday at the Museum of Contemporary Art and is scheduled to travel to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto in July. The exhibit examines this period between 1962 and 1964.
... Still, the highlight for most visitors will be the works featuring Monroe, Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor that they've seen reproduced on posters, T-shirts and coffee mugs. ...
- Two to a womb
By NARA SCHOENBERG
(CHICAGO TRIBUNE/ North Jersey Media Group, March 19 2006)
Two years ago, I entered Twins Nation. I don't just mean I gave birth to twins. I mean my obstetrician had twins, I attended a childbirth class exclusively for parents of twins, and not long after I came home to my Chicago three-flat, a family with twins three months younger than mine moved in downstairs. A co-worker bought a condo a few doors down; now his wife is pregnant with twins. This past fall I attended one birthday party with three sets of twins and another party with two sets and a woman with twins on the way. Had I somehow slipped into a Twins Time Warp, a "Twilight Zone" episode populated solely by chubby-cheeked duos with a taste for mischief and macaroni and cheese?
As it turns out, the truth is almost as strange. The twin birth rate, which stood at about 1 in 60 in 1971, has risen rapidly because of fertility treatments and an increase in the number of older moms, with almost 1 in 30 American babies now being born as part of a pair. That's a figure that is unprecedented anywhere in the world, according to Dr. Louis Keith, an emeritus professor at Northwestern University's medical school.
... Twins tend not to be top achievers, many observers have informally noted, although no one has actually studied this. We have had no twin presidents, for example. Bill Gates isn't a twin; Picasso wasn't a twin, nor was Bach or Marie Curie.
... As for the low-achievement issue, it's important to note that Elvis Presley was a twin -- his brother Jessie died at birth -- as was "Our Town" author Thornton Wilder. Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala is a twin, as was Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas. Rita Levi-Montalcini, winner of a shared 1986 Nobel Prize for medicine, is a twin. An identical twin named Charlie Duke walked on the moon. Still, the very fact that Elvis Presley and Donna Shalala represent the pinnacle of accomplishment in Twins Nation reinforces the sense, in some quarters, that while twins scale the high peaks in politics, the sciences and the arts, they're less likely than singletons to reach the top. ...
- We don't know about Elvis, but Mark Twain lives on in words
By Don Freeman
(San Diego UNION-TRIBUNE, March 18 2006)
Mark Twain is the subject of yet one more biography. This one is titled ³Mark Twain: A Life,² and the author is Ron Powers. I knew Ron, a Pulitzer Prize winner, some time ago when he was TV columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, and I recall that he not only wrote splendidly but he could do a terrific impression of Howard Cosell. ... Now for a touch of statistics: After being given the following information by our public library, I can tell you that Mark Twain, the most illustrious of American writers, still lags behind Elvis Presley in one department. Elvis has been the subject of 556 biographies. Mark Twain has been written about in 526 biographies.
If you find this figure surprising, you may, as the saying goes, join the club. Do you know what would have delighted me? Think about this what if Mark Twain had written a biography of Elvis? I figure they would have gotten along swimmingly. Both were Southerners Mark served briefly with the Confederates and both, in their time, achieved worldwide fame. Furthermore, both knew their way around a stage.
I did interview Elvis once, long ago, when he was just coming up. And I would have given much to have interviewed Mark Twain. ...
- Petty finishing solo album; plots tour, film
By Melinda Newman and Ray Waddell
(Reuters / Billboard, March 18 2006)
Tom Petty is putting the finishing touches on a new solo album, "Highway Companion," expected to be released in June. Also in the works is a documentary about Petty and his longtime bandmates the Heartbreakers, with director Peter Bogdonavich chronicling their career for a film due later this year, their 30th together. ... "Tom is really a child of the rock 'n' roll age in the sense that when he was 11, he was introduced fleetingly to Elvis Presley and it changed his life," Bogdanovich says. "You can't listen to Tom's music without knowing that he's heard a lot of other music like the Beatles, Elvis, the Byrds and Bob Dylan. ...
- Elvis Presley International Airport, Memphis 2006
By MauriceinIreland
(XTVWorld.Com, March 17 2006)
The "Elvis Presley International Airport, Memphis" campaign, first publicised by shrewd journalist, Scott Shepard, in the "Memphis Business Journal" 2001, and subsequently in newspapers around the globe, including "The Times" Online and the British "News of the World", raised a few eyebrows in the rest of the Memphis media.
Considering there is already a John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Louis Armstrong and John Lennon Airport, the reasons for the authorities in Shelby County Memphis to deny Elvis such an honour is quite a mystery.
Last year, on the Discovery Channel, two famous Memphians made the top ten in the list of the, "100 Greatest Americans", Martin Luther King, and Elvis Presley.
Dr King was recently honoured in Washington DC.
Considering astute business man Sillerman''s massive plans for Graceland, it is high time Elvis Presley was honoured by Memphis, the city he made so famous worldwide. Even here in Ireland too.
Contact: Maurice_Colgan @ yahoo.com
2 Mooretown Road, Swords, Ireland.
Tel 01 8403685.
http://irelandtoo.blogspot.com MauriceinIreland
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