Elvis -- Obsession or Nostalgia?

At the risk of sounding terribly dated and completely out of touch with modern life in general, I have to have a little (less) conversation with you about Elvis Presley. I know, I know, Lord Have Mercy...the guy has been dead over 30 years now. There is some argument that he was a has been even before his gargantuan colon and massive drug use combined to finish him off in his shag carpeted bathroom in Memphis in 1977.

I have some theories as to why I still think he's cool after all these years. For one thing, talent has always enthralled me. I can sit and watch an opera singer on the culture channel for a long time. I hate opera. I never understood the theater of it, or the never ending open vowels that drag on forever, or the frigging viking horns. Yet if I am mindlessly flipping channels and nobody else is around, I can stop on some opera singer. It's strange and probably a little psycho. Why torture myself like that? The fact is, I spend a lot of time watching it and wondering just what the attraction is. What draws people to this? How can a person get so emotionally involved in something like this? After 20 minutes or so, I begin to appreciate the sheer virtuosity of the artist. I could never tell you who the hell it is I am watching, but my God, how many beautiful notes can flow out of a single human throat? I begin to see what might draw somebody to this particular genre. As soon as that light begins to dawn, I quickly flip the channel to something a little more blue-collar, like Dirty Jobs or Cops. One must not stray too far from ones roots.

There is another theory I have been entertaining lately. It's been tugging at me ever since I hit 40 or so. I should stop right here and admit that it is probably a little frightening that a middle aged man such as myself should invest so much of my inner monologue hatching theories regarding the origin of my almost life-long obsession with a dead drug addicted singer. Perhaps obsession is too strong a word. I don't know. Anyway. My current theory has to do with the chaos that surrounded me and my family back in 1977. It seemed my world was falling apart. Things were happening that I felt I should be able to stop. I should have been able to protect certain members of my family. I began to see what true mental and physical abuse looked like. I was 13 years old and I had been walking on eggshells for years. Fear had been a been a part of my everyday life for a long time. During that hot summer in Sacramento in 1977, any youthful innocence I might have had left disappeared as I watched my mother, full of booze and pills that my step-father had fed to her, get pulled out of the ditch she had driven into. My step-father, the absolute idiot savant of the art of the mind fuck, had worked her into such a state that she just drove into a ditch. That wasn't the worst thing that happened that summer, not by half.

So anyway, here I was, a 13 year old kid with issues. I had no idea what was going on. Everything was shit. Things had been that way for awhile. I immersed myself in Tarzan books, Star Trek and comics. The stories were chock full of strong people who dealt with adversity by kicking the crap out of everything. And then there was Elvis Presley. I mention him in the same breath with comic books and fantasy because that's kind of where I placed him. I had grown up on his movies. They were breezy affairs, by and large, with no real danger and quick solutions...like extended versions of your average 60's sitcom. I had grown up on his music, too. I had no idea what an octave was back then, or a falsetto or a baritone for that matter. I just knew that when I listened to his singing, especially the gospel tunes, I was taken away to a comforting place where nobody could hurt me. He was larger than life: he was rich, famous beyond anything you can imagine, talented, and cool. He lived in a mansion, gave away cars to strangers, and he loved his mama. He had it good, man, he was on top of the world. And then he died on his goddamn toilet.

I cried, man. I cried like a baby. Was I crying because Elvis Presley died? Back then, I thought I was. But now, with the passing of years, I realize his death was the catalyst that released all the pent up frustrations and fears that I had bottled up over that long summer. I was crying, not for Elvis Presley, but for me. I was crying for my brothers and sisters. I was crying for my mother.

I am and always will be in awe of Elvis Presley's talent. We all know now that his life was tragic, largely because of his own crappy decisions. When times are less than perfect, we all tend to latch on to things that make us feel good. Not much made me feel good at that particular time in my life. Tarzan, Captain Kirk and Elvis Presley were guaranteed to take me away from the realities of an alcoholic and abusive step-father.

Obsession? Nostalgia? Call it what you will. I prefer to think of it as a fond remembrance of an old friend.