Elvis! That's The Way It Is!
[To start, a little something that's been sitting on my hard-drive for a few years...]
I’ve just been to see Elvis at Vegas. Yes, he’s still there - he’s been there all the time. You looked? Well, perhaps the skyscraper collar is to blame, or all that kaleidoscopic confusion of card machines and carpet, because he never left the building. You can’t afford to go? Well, just take the 380 bus like I did, give the good man in the bow-tie a tenner, and sit back and enjoy the show.
But before that, a sneaky-peak at the rehearsals. Yes, even Elvis has to have them. Not that that means he actually needs to be there. Can there be a better demonstration of divine celebrity than having your musicians rehearsing to your rehearsal tape?
Watching Elvis on stage is in every way as innocuously but deliciously promiscuous as an Edinburgh New Year’s. The King kisses rather than croons his way through ‘Love Me Tender.’ And who can blame him, really - he’s so obviously past the pearly pleasantries of the love lullaby. Caught in the cusp between rockabilly and cheeseburger, this is an Elvis buffed but not yet blistered by drugs and debauchery, somewhere between man and icon.
Watching these women unhitch themselves, trance-like, from husbands and boyfriends, wend forward, kiss the King, and fall back obeisantly into line and their old selves got me thinking about desire and lust and the body and the role fame plays among these giant emotions of the everyday. The more I think about it, fidelity is what we do when no-one’s knocking on the back door. Yes, I’ve felt the baseball bat of humiliation swung by another’s overactive imagination but now - happy, laughing, glowing, in love - if a bookish boy with pornos in his bottom drawer looked at me the right way and made movie-dialogue conversation, I’d have a lot of trouble saying no. The fact is we all want to kiss Elvis. It’d be special, amazing, different, intense, realer than real life - yes, even for a second, because that second would feel like eternity.
That’s the thing about icons and other objects of desire from the vault of the personal or collective imaginary - they live in the eternal present. But the truth is, Elvis doesn’t give a shit about you. You’re one in a million - in a bad way. Kisses are fuel and, besides, he wants a break from the gyrating. You can see it in his snicker. He doesn’t believe a word he’s singing. Sometimes he can hardly keep it together, it’s all so god-damned hilarious. But it’s a private joke and you get the feeling that no-one but the great man in white is in on it. He seems to like it that way, though you know he’s got no real choice: the time’s past for meeting on anything like equal terms. You’ve got to feel that when you’re capable of ruffling even Cary Grant’s feathers - after all, Hitchcock - despite the cropdusters and scolding mothers - couldn’t even do that. But who says sincerity and intimacy make great performance? Don’t go telling that to the wannabes. Yes, my man, that’s the wonder, the wonder of you.
I’ve just been to see Elvis at Vegas. Yes, he’s still there - he’s been there all the time. You looked? Well, perhaps the skyscraper collar is to blame, or all that kaleidoscopic confusion of card machines and carpet, because he never left the building. You can’t afford to go? Well, just take the 380 bus like I did, give the good man in the bow-tie a tenner, and sit back and enjoy the show.
But before that, a sneaky-peak at the rehearsals. Yes, even Elvis has to have them. Not that that means he actually needs to be there. Can there be a better demonstration of divine celebrity than having your musicians rehearsing to your rehearsal tape?
Watching Elvis on stage is in every way as innocuously but deliciously promiscuous as an Edinburgh New Year’s. The King kisses rather than croons his way through ‘Love Me Tender.’ And who can blame him, really - he’s so obviously past the pearly pleasantries of the love lullaby. Caught in the cusp between rockabilly and cheeseburger, this is an Elvis buffed but not yet blistered by drugs and debauchery, somewhere between man and icon.
Watching these women unhitch themselves, trance-like, from husbands and boyfriends, wend forward, kiss the King, and fall back obeisantly into line and their old selves got me thinking about desire and lust and the body and the role fame plays among these giant emotions of the everyday. The more I think about it, fidelity is what we do when no-one’s knocking on the back door. Yes, I’ve felt the baseball bat of humiliation swung by another’s overactive imagination but now - happy, laughing, glowing, in love - if a bookish boy with pornos in his bottom drawer looked at me the right way and made movie-dialogue conversation, I’d have a lot of trouble saying no. The fact is we all want to kiss Elvis. It’d be special, amazing, different, intense, realer than real life - yes, even for a second, because that second would feel like eternity.
That’s the thing about icons and other objects of desire from the vault of the personal or collective imaginary - they live in the eternal present. But the truth is, Elvis doesn’t give a shit about you. You’re one in a million - in a bad way. Kisses are fuel and, besides, he wants a break from the gyrating. You can see it in his snicker. He doesn’t believe a word he’s singing. Sometimes he can hardly keep it together, it’s all so god-damned hilarious. But it’s a private joke and you get the feeling that no-one but the great man in white is in on it. He seems to like it that way, though you know he’s got no real choice: the time’s past for meeting on anything like equal terms. You’ve got to feel that when you’re capable of ruffling even Cary Grant’s feathers - after all, Hitchcock - despite the cropdusters and scolding mothers - couldn’t even do that. But who says sincerity and intimacy make great performance? Don’t go telling that to the wannabes. Yes, my man, that’s the wonder, the wonder of you.
posted by Susan and David at 12:37 PM
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