early June, 2006
- Andrae Crouch, A Founding Father Of Gospel Music, To Receive Prestigious Worship Honor
(Yahoo! News / PRWEB June 9 2006)
Andrae Crouch, whose gospel songs have been sung by Elvis Presley and Paul Simon, will receive the distinguished Cherub Award from the International Worship Institute during its 20th anniversary celebration in Grapevine, Texas, July 7, 2006. LaMar Boschman, founder and dean of the International Worship Institute, will present the honor to Crouch, 66, for his outstanding contribution to the worship movement during the event¹s climactic grand finale. Crouch's most popular songs with his gospel group The Disciples - "The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power," "Jesus is the Answer," and "My Tribute (To God Be the Glory)" - have transcended gospel music's traditional African American base to unify cultures. His music has been performed at the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall and on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In 2004, Crouch, who has produced and arranged for Quincy Jones, Elton John and Madonna, became only one of three gospel musicians to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
"Andrae Crouch is a founding father of worship music," said Boschman about the next Cherub Award recipient. "When he plays a conference or concert he has an unusual ability to lead people somewhere spiritually. He was one of the first musicians who used his music to lead people in vertical worship. What a gift and example he is to us all!" ...
- Elvis Makes the Top Ten
(Memphis Flyer June 9 2006)
According to The Hollywood News Web site - which sounds very official and professional but is, in fact, just something compiled by two young writers - Elvis Presley is one of our country's top-10 "celebrity ghosts." "Not only is this legendary singer believed to haunt his beloved home in Memphis, but also stagehands working at the Las Vegas Hilton (where he often performed in the early 1970's) have reported regularly seeing him dressed in his famous white-sequined suit." He ranks above other Hollywood legends such as James Dean, but below - oh, read the whole list for yourself at thehollywoodnews.com
- GELLER: 'I'LL TAKE MY ELVIS CASE TO THE POPE'
(contactmusic.com June 9 2006)
Celebrity psychic URI GELLER has vowed to appeal to the Pope if he fails in his court case to win back ELVIS PRESLEY's former home. Last month (MAY06) Geller made a successful $905,100 (GBP481,000) bid on internet auction site eBay for the Tennessee property Presley lived in before moving to Graceland. But the owners snubbed the deal and sold the four-bedroom house to a foundation formed by music producer MIKE CURB instead. And now Geller, who planned to turn the house into an Elvis museum, reveals he'll stop at nothing to claim what is rightfully his. He says, "There's no doubt in my mind the house is mine. I absolutely believe that. "I've sought legal advice on both sides of the Atlantic and if that fails I'll take it to the Supreme Court. Even the Pope! "I have a very strong case. Even a child would understand that my eBay bid was a legally binding contract." But eBay warns its rules will make it difficult for him to sue. Spokeswoman CATHERINE ENGLAND says, "The platform we provide in real estate really serves to generate interest. "It isn't a legally binding contract."
- Pretension Headache
By David Dunlap Jr.
(Washington City Paper June 9 2006)
Is it too early for a song about 9/11? Well, OK, there've been a lot of those, but it might still be too early for one that uses Elvis' stillborn twin, Jesse Garon Presley, as a metaphor for the destruction of the World Trade Center. Or is it just too late for Scott Walker to connect with anyone who expects to enjoy listening to music? That's probably the most salient question raised by The Drift, Walker's seven-years-in-the-making new record (his third in 22 years), and for a lot of people, forever wouldn't be long enough to wait for "Jesse," a dissonant, abstract response to the tragedy on which he often sounds like Tim Curry fronting Suicide. Walker evokes Jesse over Spartan strings. "Jesse are you listening?" he wails. 'Six feet of foetus/Flung at sparrows in the sky." The song climaxes with Walker bellowing, "I'm the only one left alive." Toby Keith this is not. ...
- Vogue to the music
By Alex Y. Vergara
(inq7.net / Inquirer June 8 2006)
SINCE the dawn of the rock era in the early 1950s, music has produced more than its fair share of style icons whose fashion savvy generations of star-struck fans have strived to emulate, and astute fashion designers and retail giants have attempted to milk. But unlike their counterparts on TV and the big screen, musicians as style icons are considered an edgier and more eccentric bunch, thus luring a younger, more intrepid following. And because of the medium's more fleeting nature, the looks these artists engender are arguably more ephemeral compared to those identified with larger-than-life movie stars like Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly.
But there's no denying the fact that musicians - from Elvis Presley to Madonna - have left and will continue to leave an indelible mark on their fans' fashion sense even if only for a few seasons. In fact, with MTV's debut in 1981, music's influence increased by leaps and bounds worldwide. Now, you need not be a die-hard fan to be swayed by how pop and rock stars dress themselves. ... Why do fans and ordinary people emulate performers and the way they style themselves? "They feel that these artists are talking to them through their music (and videos)," says Arzaga. "It's an attempt to belong, to be part of an informal group that achieves near-cult status. The look they imitate becomes sort of a dress code."
...
- Famous Names Among Files Seized In Wecht Investigation
By Emily Nunn
(Yahoo! News June 8 2006)
The charges against former Allegheny County coroner Cyril Wecht include theft of services, mail fraud and wire fraud. He's accused of using his former office of coroner for his private benefit. But during testimony about evidence seized in this case, many famous names came up: Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Mary Jo Kopechne, Jonny Gammage. What do those five names have to do with the ongoing federal criminal investigation of Wecht? That's what Wecht's attorneys want to know. They're citing the seizing of Wecht's private files on all of those cases to argue Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were out of the bounds of their warrant when they searched Wecht's private office last year. Wecht has been a private consultant and lecturer on many high-profile national cases. FBI agents acknowledged on cross-examination that a folder on the death of Elvis Presley was taken during their search of Wecht's private office. ...
- Food, sex & Elvis (not necessarily in that order): Longest-running weekly restaurant critic Gael Greene tells all
By Emily Nunn
(Chicago Tribune June 8 2006)
Gael Greene said she wasn't starving. But anyone who has read her new book, "Insatiable: Tales From a Life of Delicious Excess," knows that she was probably a little hungry. "I was born hungry," she writes. "I could never get enough attention, enough love, or enough peanut butter." ... Her book has the kind of boffo beginning that shouldn't surprise her fans (she's a young UPI reporter in 1956 Detroit, who beds Elvis Presley after covering his concert, then orders him a fried egg sandwich from room service on her way out the door). Sauciness has always been one of her defining characteristics as a writer. And Elvis' "totemic" sandwich is just the beginning of a "compulsively readable" (as one critic put it), one-woman mini-history of the sexual and culinary revolutions in late-20th Century America -- both of which she participated in rather than observed and which she believes were inextricably intertwined. ...
- Detroit hotel to get makeover
(Post-Gazette / AP June 8 2006)
Past guests include Elvis Presley, Henry Kissinger and Bob Hope. Danny DeVito and Jack Nicholson also stayed there while shooting the 1992 movie, "Hoffa." But the heyday of the 41-year-old Hotel Pontchartrain has long since passed. Decreased bookings, lack of a tie-in with a major hotel chain and neglect have hurt the property in recent years. Now, officials are hoping a $12 million overhaul will help restore the hotel's luster. ...
- Elvis house causes conflict
(UPI June 8 2006)
What started out as a simple eBay bid for a Memphis house once owned by Elvis Presley has turned into a fight for possession of the King's former home. The Nashville Tennessean reports that after psychic Uri Geller and his partners placed the winning bid of $905,100 for the home on eBay, they found it had been sold to another buyer for $1 million.
Claiming the rejection of their bid was unfair, one of Geller's partners, Peter Gleason, responded by initiating an inquest into a recent bankruptcy case of the home's owners, Cindy Hazen and Mike Freeman. The recently divorced couple had cleared up $43,000 in debt through the case, in which they claimed the value of the home to be only $236,000, the Tennessean reports. A bankruptcy trustee then opened the case to determine whether profits from the sale of the home should be seized to pay the couple's creditors. "I think it says a lot about Uri Geller and Peter Gleason that they want to dwell on the pain we've been through in the past year," Hazen told the Tennessean.
- 'The King': Elvis In Hell
By Kurt Loder
(MTV Movies June 9 2006)
Fans of Gael Garcia Bernal should think twice - or possibly not at all - about catching him in this one.
This singularly creepy movie starts out knee-deep in implausibility and by its conclusion is awash in preposterousness. But the creepiness lingers - the picture makes you feel as if you've caught a low-grade dose of some particularly icky disease. This is an accomplishment, of a sort, but, like scurvy or chlamydia, not one you'd normally applaud, let alone seek out.
Gael García Bernal ("The Motorcycle Diaries") plays a quiet, 20-something character named Elvis Valderez. As the movie begins, he's mustering out of the U.S. Navy, and we see him walking off a battleship with his duffle bag and an M-1 rifle. (Since soldiers aren't allowed to take their weapons with them when they leave the service, this is the first of the film's many inanities.) Elvis hops on a bus and makes his way to Corpus Christi (note the name), Texas, where he was told by his late mother that his father ‹ or the man who fathered him ‹ now lives. Dad turns out to be David Sandow (William Hurt), and in the 20-some years since his romp with a Mexican prostitute, he's found Jesus and become a minister, with a wife and two teenage kids and a large church, of the sort where sermons are interlarded with songs played by a Christian-rock band, in this case led by Sandow's prissy son, Paul (Paul Dano).
Arriving at the church, Elvis first encounters Sandow's daughter, a pretty, blank-faced 16-year-old named Malerie (Pell James). When he subsequently approaches Sandow, the older man realizes right away who Elvis is, but he asks that they talk later. Elvis never calls Sandow, but he surreptitiously takes up with the virginal Malerie, who appears to have the metabolism and the pliability of a worm. When brother Paul discovers they're having a relationship of a biblical nature, he becomes furious. Confronting Elvis in the cheap motel room where he's living, Paul threatens to tell his father what's going on. (Someone should have told the director about the boom mike that keeps dipping down into the film frame in this scene.) Elvis stabs Paul with a bread knife, loads the dead body into Paul's car, drives it out to the river and dumps it. Afterward, walking back across a bridge, he passes a sour-looking man in a clown costume ‹ a character who gets a fond close-up, but is never seen again.
When the police learn that Sandow and his son had an argument the day before, they assume the boy has simply left home, and, as is no doubt standard police procedure in south Texas, they don't even bother starting a search for him. Meanwhile, Malerie has learned she's pregnant. No problem, Elvis tells the girl he knows to be his half-sister: "We can have it." Then he admits to her that he killed Paul. "Do you love me?" she asks. "That's why I did it," he says. No problem: Malerie decides not to tell her parents that her brother has been murdered.
After a not-very-long while, with Paul still missing, Sandow seeks Elvis out. He invites him to dinner, and then invites him to move into the family home - into Paul's room, in fact. Then he takes Elvis to a service at the church, where the minister confesses to the congregation his long-ago fling with the prostitute. Then, apparently having reached an accelerated closure in the matter of his son's disappearance, he says, "I'm not gonna ask God to bring Paul back home. I'm gonna ask God to take care of him." Then he introduces Elvis as his newly found son. Then ...
Well, then some extremely grotesque things happen - things that are both chillingly repellent and completely ridiculous at the same time. The last line in the movie, murmured by Elvis, is so honkingly absurd you want to rip your head off in order to quickly console your brain for the affront.
It would seem that the director, James Marsh, and his co-scriptwriter, Milo Addica (who also had a hand in the surpassingly creepy Nicole Kidman movie, "Birth"), intended to say something about Christianity, or the sins of the past, or maybe the insurmountable difficulty of making a movie that makes any sense. Their intentions remain known only to them. True, Elvis Presley was "the king." And Jesus was/is the King. And at one point the Elvis in the film fashions a kingly crown for himself out of a burger-joint placemat. But - you almost want to shout it at the screen - so what? Why does nobody in the movie care what happened to Paul - even his sister, who knows? Why does Elvis lug his rifle around with him when he never uses it? And speaking of Sweet Jesus, what about that clown?
The actors do all that they can with these characters, which is practically nothing. Elvis and Malerie are barely written, near-comatose ciphers. We never have any idea what they're thinking, or why they do what they do, or why the filmmakers think that anyone would want to watch them do it. The story's acrid conception really gets to you - you walk away feeling like you're coming down with the flu. But as a box-office proposition, I'd wager it won't prove contagious.
- Royal Flush: The King serves up a clumsy portrait of James Marsh's America
(East Bay Express June 7 2006)
It's clear by now that British director James Marsh regards America as a vaguely amusing madhouse - a reliably primitive, thoroughly benighted backwater infested with dangerous grotesques. He is, after all, the fellow who gave us the supercilious TV documentary The Burger & The King: The Life & Cuisine of Elvis Presley and a morbid piece of business called Wisconsin Death Trip, which sought to show us how - if not why - the twisted citizens of a quiet Midwestern town went on a binge of suicide, arson, and murder back in the 1890s. For smug condescension, this wallow in obscure social history was hard to beat.
In his first fiction film, The King (co-written with Monster's Ball author Milo Addica), Marsh goes slumming in the bland suburbs of Corpus Christi, Texas. There, without even trying, he discovers a stern cowboy preacher named David Sandow (an almost unrecognizable William Hurt), who has a handlebar mustache sprouting from his face and a nasty streak of fascism deep inside him; and a drifty young punk named, well, Elvis (Mexican star Gael García Bernal, spouting accent-perfect American English), who pops into town after a three-year hitch in the Navy to announce that he's the good reverend's illegitimate son. Dear old Dad, if that's what he really is, wants nothing to do with this unexpected news (bad for business), and, once thwarted, Elvis undertakes his own reign of terror - seducing his clueless, 16-year-old half-sister, Malerie (Pell James); stabbing his guitar-strumming, sweetly sanctimonious half-brother, Paul (Paul Dano); and otherwise playing the snake set loose in the garden. The film seems to take as much amoral pleasure in its protagonist's gory misdeeds as he does. Evidently, the self-righteous Sandows all have it coming.
By all accounts, Marsh has absorbed classic crazy-killer thrillers like Psycho, The Night of the Hunter, and Badlands, but The King isn't likely to join such esteemed company. The movie's atmospheric surfaces are just right, even hypnotic - the sun-scorched strip malls of a South Texas port town, stunned rapture on the faces of Reverend Sandow's congregation, the sickening slap of a severed deer's head dumped into a plastic bucket when the Sandow men return from a bow hunt. But Marsh and Addica make too easy a target of Texas-style Christian fundamentalism, and in their zeal to combine incest, religious hypocrisy, and bloody murder in a purse of melodrama, they forget all about motive. The assorted outbursts of the troubled Elvis, whom we early on behold with a rose clenched in his teeth, may be triggered by the competing urges to torture and win over his putative father. But there's no workable way to fill out this blank slate. Is Elvis an inverted idealist? A dead soul? An outright lunatic? Is he actually capable of love? Forget about the attractions of dramatic ambiguity or the movie's insistent Cain-and-Abel echoes: Marsh simply doesn't give us enough to go on, emotionally or psychologically, to get a fix on Elvis. By the time the credits roll, we understand no more about him than we did in the beginning, except that he represents some sort of amorphous evil, full of con and bereft of conscience. So what, The King carelessly asserts. Shit happens.
Given that failing, the blustering evangelist is the more compelling character, if only marginally. The harsh patriarch of a rigid Christian household (son Paul dutifully campaigns for the addition of "Intelligent Design" to his school's curriculum), Reverend Sandow struts around in camouflage fatigues and a dirty straw cowboy hat in his off time, but beneath his chicken-fried machismo, Hurt convinces us that he's genuinely tormented by his sinful past and genuinely anguished about man's capacity for forgiveness. If, in the wake of young Paul's mysterious disappearance, the Rev effects an uneasy alliance with Elvis, we also grasp that he's trying to make peace with his own demons. Bernal, star of The Motorcycle Diaries and Amores Perros, enjoys no such advantage. The magnetic young actor gives it his all, but Elvis remains an unfinished picture, a kind of nihilist caricature. If James Marsh sees this repugnant creature as the embodiment of irrational American violence - and it's hard to avoid that inference - the filmmaker at least has a responsibility to get some of the guy's ethical, moral, and mental details right. After all, even bastards deserve a square deal in the end.
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