Elvis

I know you guys, the few readers I have on this thing, are saying it ... you're saying "That guy's finally bitten off a topic that's too large n' difficult for him to do." You're saying things like "Ya, his Liberace article was okay, I guess, but Elvis? No way, he can't do it. He's not good enough a writer to write about Elvis."

.... and you know something? You're probably right. I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can write about Elvis. There's some topics that are reserved for good writers, you know? Not two-bit bums like me. Topics like this are for good writers.

I can't do it. I can't write about Elvis .... and now you're all like ... "I told you so!"

Ya well, go ahead kick me while I'm down, reader! Kick me while I'm down, I don't care reader! You can knock me down! You can step on my face! You can slander my name all over the place! You can do just about ANYTHING to me, reader! But don't you .... tell me I can't Write about Elvis!

I feel it, like a hunka hunka burning soul-fire almost about to erupt in my soul! I know I can do it even if you tell me I can't! Oooooooh let's go cat! Walk the dog!

Oh you can burn my house even! I won't care! Not a bit! You can steal or even eat my car! You can drink all of my liquor from an old fruit jar! You can do anything that you wanna do ... but please ... do not tell me that I cannot Write about Elvis!

Because I .... CAN WRITE ABOUT ELVIS!

Okie dokie, so, now for your reading enjoyment I now present to you Elvis in Four Persons: An Essay about Elvis.




Elvis in Four Persons: An Essay about Elvis - Index of Contents


We shall be summarizing previous Elvis research from prominent musicians in the first Three Persons of Elvis ... and in the Final Person I shall relay to you my own personal opinion of Elvis and tell you once and for always what he was Truly the King of.

Part 1: Elvis as Philosophy

Within Part 1, the first Person of Elvis, we shall look into the Residents philosophical view of Elvis by examining their popular album, The King and Eye. A look at the King in a deeply philosophical and inward manner.

Part 2: Elvis as Entity

Within Part 2 of Elvis in Four Persons, we shall examine the Second Person of Elvis one in which Elvis is regarded as Entity, a force larger than any of us could comprehend. This section shall be highlighted by looking deeper into famed Elvis enthusiast Mojo Nixon's seminal Elvis as Entity piece entitled "Elvis is Everywhere!"

Part 3: Elvis as Friend

Within the third part we shall deconstruct Wesley Willis's famous Elvis song entitled "Elvis Presley" and witness the Third Person of Elvis ... Elvis as your Friend.

Part 4: Elvis as..... ???

Within the Final Person of Elvis, I shall summarize everything we learned about Elvis on our long-winding Elvis Journey in Essay Form and relate to you Elvis's Final Person. The Fourth Elvis.





Elvis as Philosophy


Elvis, was definitely The King... but the King of what? Some folks say he was King of Rock and Roll but then there's other Elvis Aficionados who say he was The King of Truth while others think he was the King of Happiness. I recently transcribed all the spoken word portions of The Residents' highly interesting lectures on what thy ruminate he was the King of ... and here is that transcription....

This is the Life of Elvis as presented as a children's fairy story. I find it to be not only a very nice story but also a very truthful summation of Elvis in a philosophical sense.

This Story is From the King and Eye. I'm transcribing this by ear so there may be some audible misunderstanding possibly...

"Once, there was a baby and the baby wanted to be King because kings were good and kings were strong and kings were the best of everything. Wouldya like to be a King? You would huh? Well, he worked and he worked and worked so hard to be a King and never let go of it in his mind all the time... he kept thinkin' 'I'm gunna be King, I'm gunna be King I'm gunna be King' ... and he was still a baby because really only babies can turn into Kings ...  because Kings are good and Kings are strong and Kings ae the best of Everything. So, a Stranger came and the Stranger said "follow me.... and I'll make you a King..." ... and He did, and the Baby became a King.... and for one bright shiny moment... He was Happy.

Do you know who the King is? Do you? Okay we're gonna talk about the King, but y'know, I got a question first, and maybe you guys can help me with this question, He's the King of What? The King of What? I don't know either, but, if he was the King he must have been King of something important, huh? He must've been King of Something Important.... but the King of What? "The King of Caring" ... you think so? Well caring is pretty important, hmmm, you think he could've been the King of Caring? You think so? I don't know. He didn't care very much about anything except being King, so, he must not have been King of That. You think maybe he was King of Happiness? Well, I dunno, maybe so ... but you know he really wasn't very happy so he must not have been King of That. So, I don't know, he was King of Something but King of What, I dunno. 

Everybody's got a Mommy, y'know? Everybody loves their Mommy. Do you love your Mommy? Do you? Good. Well, he loved his Mama sooo much ... he loved his Mama a lot more than anybody else. He loved his Mama so much that he turned her into a Madonna and in his mind she was Mama-Madonna. Mama-Madonna... but you know sometime sooner or later your Mama's not gonna be there and someday you're gonna have to take care of things yourself. Someday, it's a long time, but Someday. So, that's what happened to Him and he didn't know what to do ... so he went and he got a Girl ... and he Worked and he Built and he worked sooo hard to make her into a Mama-Madonna, but you know what happened? She turned into a Woman. She turned into a Woman and that's not what he wanted. That wasn't a Mama-Madonna. So .... she left.... and then He was all Alone.

We're talking about The King, and we're trying to figure out, the King of What? Well, maybe he was King of Truth. You don't think so? Yeah, you're probably right. He hid away from the Truth, y'know. He hid in the dark from the Truth so he must not have been King of That. Maybe he was King of Love. That's pretty important. Well, he was King of Something ... and I think maybe ... it was Something like Love that felt like Love.. a lot of people get confused with Love ... but what it is ... is Need. Need, yeah Need. I think that's What He Was, I think, he was the King of Need ... and I think he Needed So Much, he Needed more than anybody else. He Needed so much that he made himself a King... and I think that people Needed Him... and that's why they made him a King and that's why he made Himself a King... and I think everybody that's out there listening Needs him a lot too. They've already made him a King... and they Love him and he'll always be a King... and he'll Love Them. 

...and for one little Bright Shining Moment.....he was Happy.... because Kings were Good and Kings were Strong ... and he was The King. But, then the Stranger's Path got darker and darker... and the Baby lost his way... and the Baby got Old, and the Baby got Fat, and the Baby didn't like himself too much anymore... and he Died. Yeah, but we have to never forget that he was a Baby....

...and Babies are Good, and Babies are Strong, and Babies are the Best of Everything."  

-The King and Eye, The Residents

Long time Elvis fans know the characters in the story but if you're new to Elvis the "Stranger" is the Colonel Tom Parker, and his wife who turned out to be a woman instead of a "Momma-Madonna" was his wife Priscilla.

I think I'm still somewhat-stuck in George Ade style capitalization from that George Ade article from a few months ago. I capitalized words that I found to be importanter than others whilst transcribing this fable.

Happiness, Truth, Need ....

Elvis once said this,

“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away."
-Elvis

He understood Truth, he knew you couldn't run from it forever. No one can run from the Truth. It's true, he wasn't The King of Truth. He did indeed hide from it at times for better or for worse.

Elvis also once said,

“I wish, I just wish, that everybody could know the same kind of happiness I’ve known from all this. I wish that, more than anything, with all my heart.”
-Elvis

 
He was definitely,  at some point, or points, of being Elvis ... he was indeed Happy... and he wanted everyone else to be Happy. He loved his fans, and his fans loved him.... which makes the Residents' conclusion on what he was the King Of interesting. They think he was the King of Need ... but not only on a one-ended sense. He needed to be loved by his fans in order to be Happy ... but his fans also needed to be loved by him to be Happy. The Residents conclude that this two-sided give-and-take style of Need is what made him a King. They needed someone to make them Happy and he needed... he needed more than anyone ... he needed endless adulation .... endless super stardom to be Happy ... and in turn this symbiotic relationship made him a King. He was 100% the King of Rock and Roll, no one doubts that, but I also tend to agree with the Residents that he was 100% also the King of Need.

A person can live a life of total solitude and of non-action. Never doin' wrong and never doin' right ... and to some that's what life is about. Just a humble, quiet, stess-free, existence of total non-action. It's when NEED is entered into the equation that the Human Life starts to deviate away from non-action. Once the Human starts Needing to be Loved by other Humans in order to be Happy ... Life starts to become a whole lot more complicated. Security starts to be less about eating and sleeping ... and starts to be more about being accepted and liked by other Humans.

Who Needed who more? Did his fans Need him more than he Needed his fans? It's probably similar. It's probably pretty equal in terms of the tug-and-war of Who Needed Who More in that regard. That's how Kings are born.. Mutual Need. Mutual Human Need.

They're right about his End too. He did get old, he did get over weight, and he probably wasn't as Happy in those days as he used to be. We are all gonna get old, we are all gonna stop liking ourselves, and we are all gonna one day have to take a long break from being alive and accept the undeniable Truth that we're all gonna take a long vacation to that Graceland in the Sky....

...but we can't forget that Elvis was a Baby. He was Young, Hip, Elvis at one point. That happened, it's not washed away just because he got Old, or because he got less Elvitical in Nature as time marched on and he was no longer his Young Elvis Self. He was Alive, and he was the King. We can't forget that. Elvis was a Baby ... and Babies are Good, and Babies are Strong, Babies are the Best of Everything ... but most importantly ... Babies are the Future.

Every child born has the potential to be a King.... even your kid. You look at 'em and think "What are they gonna grow up to Be?" ... will they be rich? Will they be handsome? Will they stay in their rooms all day and play video games ... and never bother nobody... and live a nice quiet life of non-action? Or will they Need to Need ... will they Need to be Happy? Will they Need to be a King? Who knows ... que sera sera, bubba .... que sera sera, bubba. Maybe your Baby'll break free for a while, maybe your Baby'll travel down the wrong path for a while. Maybe your Baby will Need some Fame and a little bit of adulation .... and maybe they'll get it ... and then maybe your Baby'll get old, n' fat, and ruminate over the past. Who knows.

But just like Elvis, you shouldn't forget that all Humans were Babies ... beautiful beautiful babies. When I see an old person ... I think to myself ... that old person used to be a baby.

Baby.

Truth ...
Need .........
Happiness ......................
KING .......................................
Oooooooooooold ..........................................................................

Baby.

That's the Cycle of Elvis in a philosophical sense. Truth be told that's the Human Cycle in an Everyone's Sense to most degrees of the average human life. We can't vilify any of these terms. Without Need he had no Happiness. Without Running from Truth he might have had no Need. Without that Happiness he could never ever ever have become King.... and without being a Baby he would never have ever been a Baby, baby.

He returned to Sender, his address was unkooooooown but he found how to get it Back. From Baby to Baby, baby.... he got it back. We remember all of Elvis not just the Old Elvis. We remember Young Elvis too, Baby.

That's even all I really try to do in life. To me, Return to Sender isn't a song about a Letter ... it's a song about Rememberin' and a song about trying to Find Yourself. Sometimes I feel all Old, and all Fat, just like Old Elvis and I don't always really like myself that much either just like Old Elvis didn't like himself all that much. I just wanna Return to Sender ... to Center ... I wanna find myself just like Elvis. If I gave a letter to the Postman, and he put in it in his sack, could he bring me back? Could that letter Return me to "Center"? Or will he just bring that letter right on back? Even if I sent it Special D ... could I re-find the old Me? I dunno.

This introspective Personage of Elvis is getting a little sappy ... come on Baby ... let's move on to Part Two right about now ... Elvis as.....Entity.




Elvis as Entity

"Elvis is Everywhere.
Elvis is Everything.
Elvis is Everybody.
Elvis is still the King.
 
Man-oh-Man
 
What I want you to see
Is that the Big E is
Inside of You and Me!"

YeeeeeeeeeeeeeOOOOOOOOOW!

Now we're talking, Baby. We don't gotta get all mired down and bogged down in Introspection, Baby.  Elvis? Man, Elvis is More Bigger than those thoughts that mortals weigh themselves down with! Things such as Need, n' thangs like Happiness, n' blah blah blah and whatnot and what-have-ya and psycho-babble n' foo-foo doodily doodle!

Elvis was ABOVE all of that!

Elvis was BIG, Baby! Elvis according to Elvis researcher Mojo Nixon phd. was a Perfect Being! A Being who we are all attempting to Emulate to the point that One Day ALL WILL BE ELVIS! EVERYTHING SHALL UNIFY INTO ELVISNESS! All of Humans will probably MELT and we'll become this Goo ... this BLUE SUEDE GOOOOO .... a Hunka Hunka meltin' Burnin' Human Goo ... We'll ALL MELT BABY .... and when all of humanity boils itself down to this Blue Suede Goo and becomes a Gigantic Blob ... we'll all join together as One ... as One .... as One Gigantic ELVIIIIIIIS!

Elvis is not Mortal, okay? He doesn't suffer the same trivial sufferings that we do. He doesn't get all worked up and hung up about the silly trivial things we do! He's not worrying about Need and Happiness ... and if Happiness can exist without Need ... or if Need can exist without Truth.... Elvis is a Complete Larger Entity at this point moreso than a Mortal guy like you n' me.

As Mojo says, it 'aint even Evolution. Baby ..... it is ELVIS-LUUUUUUUUUTION, BAAAAAAAAABY!

As we all melt down into transcendent energy, a slop of Human Blue Suede Goo will from one leg, and then another batch of human melty blob will form his other leg, and then a hunka hunka burnin' slop will make his body, oooh and then a sloppa sloppa slimey blop will form his arms.... and then his HEAD and his HAIR and then his SIDE-BUUUUUUURNS!

....Oooooooh you know you left me! You know you left me! You never even, ever even, said even a word, baby! Never even said a word!

But wutcha gonna do when a Seven Thousand Foot Elvis shows up at your door, baby? Wutcha gonna do when a Seven Thousand Foot Elvis of Melted Humans runs wild on your house, baby?  Seven Thousand Foot Elvis don't play by normal rules anymore, baby! He 'aint going to no Heartbreak Hotel! He's a Kanpek Chojin now! He's a melty melty hunka hunka burning robot Voltron Elvis. He don't get lonely! He 'aint going to no Motel! He is Bigger than This! He is above these common place emotions that bungle our minds down!

Perfect god-like Entities don't feel the pain of the common man. They do not feel the stress of the everyday walking individual person. Elvis is not a King! Elvis is a Larger-Than-Life BEING! He's a Perfect Super Guy!

Why do we waste so much time on deep introspection on Life and its minuscule problems when we can entrust all of our problems to a Bigger Entity that we Trust and that we know will take care of us? Help us, Elvis. Save us, Elvis .... let us all be born again in the perfectest of Elvishood and of Total Elvis Light. When I go to the Casino, Elvis, please bring me luck. Don't let me lose all my money n' my chips My Elvis. My own personal Elvis, heal me n' save me, baby. Let me get a Royal Flush on the computer poker, baby. Please?

Bring me down to a Bright Light City, Elvis. Bring me down to the Promised Land. Set my human soul on Total Fire, baby. I hope in this Promised Land up there, Elvis, that there's about a THOUSAND pretty women just waiting UP THERE! Let me play a little blackajacka poker and a bit of roulette wheel, Elvis. Give me nerves of Steel. baby. It's okay Elvis, even if I just wind up broke I will remember 'til the day I die that I had the most swingingest time! Just once, just once my Elvis..... please just lemme shout out a Seven on every single shot, baby!

Not just making money though, Elvis. Not just luck on some roulette wheel. I Need you in a bigger way than that. I need someone to talk to, someone who I can just close my eyes and say "Hey, lemme talk to you, Elvis ... I know I can trust you, baby... you're maybe the only One I can."

All those people praying? Like Mojo theorizes, they are just talking to Elvis. He's that Big, baby. Soon they'll be these old blue-haired ladies going to door-to-door with Elvis pamphlets asking you to repent your sins to the Glory and Light of All that Is. To repent your Darkness to All that Is..... Elvis.

.......... but was Elvis a ...... hmmmmmm. No he wasn't. He was just Elvis. If you're that popular and cool does your Life Cycle somehow alter to something more like:

Baby.

Truth ...
Need .........
Happiness ......................
KING .......................................
Oooooooooooold.....................................................................
Baby..............................................................................................................

Entity?

I guess.... but even this new Fire-Brand Elvitical Preacher that I have become over the last little while .... part of me harkens back to a simpler time when Elvis was just Elvis.

Yeah, yeah. I know the Adrenaline and Hope that is associated with Fire-Brand Elvangelicalism is fun and intense.... but part of me can't forget the deep burning introspective questions. Yes, Adrenaline and Hope can over-run and bulldoze over mortal qualms and deep feelings of the mortal Human Guy..... but do they really go away? Do they really melt away?

I don't know.....

Needs, Truths, Hopes, Dreams, Happiness, Getting Old, Dying........

Does it is really cover that all up, all those philosophical meanderings, through its sheer fiery intensity? For a time, I guess.

Elvis as Entity in itself does become "Bigger" than the "Questions" .... but do the Questions stop existing just because something is more Bigger than them? Well, I dunno. I dunno. What do you think? You think so? Yeah, maybe. You could be right. Maybe.

Man, Elvis's Second Personage worked for me for a while.... I was bogged down in Philosophical mud by the end of the first section of this essay and Mojo's assertion that Elvis is not in the mortal world really helped me climb above that mud..... hmmmm.... but those questions are still in the back of my mind .... like an anchor.... anchoring me down. I know Elvis is Big but is he really an Entity of that beyond-mortal nature?

Sometimes questions just lead to more questions. Sometimes, I guess, I just have this suspicious mind, baby.

It's like, it's like I just get caught in this Trap ... a trap I just cannot walk out of, baby. Why? Why can't you see what you are even doing to me when you do not believe these words that I say. This 'aint a joke, baby, I mean these words. How can we go on in this essay with such suspicious minds? How can we build our common human dreams if we are bogged down with suspicious minds?

I know you don't know me in real life.... but if you did ... and I was this Old Friend who just stopped by to say "Hello" .... Would I still see the suspicions in your eyes?

Man, all these question just make more questions. We're caught in a TRAP! A trap that I cannot even walk out! Because I........... I dunno. I dunno why, Elvis.

How do We get outta It, Elvis????

Ooooooh Elvis, we tried to burn over the questions by making you Bigger than you Were, baby. We tried to make you Larger than Ever, more Bigger than Anything .... but the questions still burned inside, my friend. They still burn inside. The loneliness, the emotions.... the reality, baby. The reality of it all is hard for us sometimes, My Elvis. Are you really an Entity, baby? I can look up to the sky, wonder why, and ask you to let me win at computer poker in Vegas, baby. I can ask you to help me outta this mental philosophical trap, baby.... but in the End, baby .... can you, even?

Oh Elvis, I'm sorry Elvis... I didn't mean to place my hopes and dreams upon your already over-burdened shoulders, baby. I didn't mean it. I'm so sorry, My Elvis. 

Forgive me, Elvis. I didn't mean it, Elvis. I know you were just trying your best, baby. I know you never wanted all these people to Need you, Elvis. I guess we are all just caught in this same never-ending loop of a trap, baby. I'm just cursed with this suspicious mind, Elvis. I can't break out. I just want Happiness, Elvis. But when I try, and I try, and I work, and I work, and I try ... I just make things worse, Elvis. Sometimes I curse this never-ending Journey, baby. I do. I really truly do.

But you know something? I understand that YOU did too, Elvis. You cursed this never-ending journey probably more than I did, my friend.

You didn't wanna be a Deity, my friend. You never wanted to be an Entity, brother. You didn't. You couldn't walk out, brother, you couldn't, daddy. Oh, baby, you Loved them too much, baby. It was a Trap. The Need, The Happiness, The Truth.... it was ... it was a TRAP.

A Trap!

Oh Elvis, forgive me, I shouldn't have placed you on such a pedestal, man. You didn't want this, man. You didn't at all, Elvis, you just wanted to be Happy. You just wanted to be our Friend......

To be Our Friend......

Elvis as Friend

We are over-thinkings things, gang. We need to De-Elvis loose a bit and see the man in a more purer window. Let's look now at Wesley Willis and his assertion on the Personage of Elvis as we begin our third portion of this Essay, here-so entitled, "Elvis as Friend."

According to Mr. Willis, W.......

"Elvis Presley was a rock star

He was the greatest
He can sing his ass off
Right on brother

ELVIS PRES-LEEEEEEEEEEEE! (x4)

He is my greatest singer
He was my kind of guy
He can really rock
He can rock this place apart

 ELVIS PRES-LEEEEEEEEEEEE! (x4)

That man can sing great
That was the tone of his voice
He can really get down
He can really get in the groove

ELVIS PRES-LEEEEEEEEEEEE! (x4)

Rock over London,

Rock on Chicago....."
-Willis, W.

Unlike our two previous Elvis Aficionados this one keeps it quite simple. Elvis, in Willisian terms, was a Rock Star, his kind of guy, and due to his tone of voice he could sing great.

He's not a philosophical fable to Wesley Willis nor a larger-than-life fantastical entity.... he's just Elvis, a cool guy who could knock it out and really tear the place apart. I tend to agree with this assertion ... though not more or less than the previous two assertions of the personage of Elvis.

Elvis in the Third Person is a simple man. He liked to sing, to rock, and from personal accounts of his friends and family ... he liked to go fishing and do common stuff any other fun-loving human of the grounded world engages in.

He was really a Real Guy. Many people met him, even. Just think of some of the people who met Elvis...

Liberace met Elvis...President Nixon met Elvis....Johnny Cash met Elvis..... James Brown met Elvis.... maybe even the person reading this even met Elvis when they were young!

He was just like a guy, you know? You could like talk to Elvis and stuff. He was just a guy who was good at singing and rocking and rolling. That's all.

He could really knock it out! He could Rock it and Roll it like a Rock and Roller! He was my man in the mix! He was my greatest singer! He was my favorite person! Rock over London and Rock on Chicago! Wheaties! BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS!

Elvis was our friend! He was just a guy like you and me! 

That is the reason why so many people say he's still Alive, they don't want to believe he's a larger than life entity or a fable... they consider him, even if they haven't ever met him, as their friend, who can't possibly ever not be with them. You know, maybe Elvis IS still alive somewhere.... just being all Old and Over-Weight and just drinking coffee and eating bacon-jam sandwiches. No one could ever actually prove he's not doing that right now. 

He might be playing cards with Bigfoot for all anyone really even actually knows for sure. People say they see Elvis to this very day ... 100% alive just Elvising around some town. Sure, maybe it was one of the ten million Elvis Impersonators that endlessly roam earth, but maybe it wasn't, maybe Elvis really is still Alive!

People want to think he was Elvis-this and Elvis-that... but we can't forget, ever, that this Elvis was just an Elvis!

We get bogged-down and muddied-out mentally by so many things now-a-times. We get philosophically hung-up on why he became who he was. Whether it by Need or Truth or attempt for Happiness. It is under this mental confabulation that we become placed under the grandest of collisions.... we try to climb out of these mental traps we create for ourselves.... and for the briefest of moments we find happiness through the Adrenaline and Hope we create through fire-brand soul-intensive assertions.... but, through it all, we just forget how Simple it all is.

There is a simpleness to Life to many extents. To Wesley Wills, unlike the Residents or Mojo Nixon, Elvis is a simpler man.... just a guy who could Rock and Sing. Is W. Willis and his interpretation of Elvis in a simpler sense any less interesting than the previous two assertions? No.

Elvis only becomes Elvis and the Elvinessness of Elvis only becomes supremely clear and apparent when all three of these Elvis researchers assertions are synthesized together to form a well-reasoned picture. 

The third personage of Elvis... Elvis as My Friend ... a super cool guy you can hang out with.... is as important to the full synthesis of Elvis as the previous two entries. Elvis as Friend, Elvis as Entity, Elvis as Philosophy ..... 

.... it is only with these three components tethered down can I tell you my own personal opinion of Elvis as Elvis in Part Four....

Elvis in the Fourth Person: Elvis as Elvis

Elvis was Elvis. He got up in the morning and went to bed at night. He was born in Tulepo, Mississippi in the year of 1935.

He joined the army in 1958 and for two years had no fun. While he was in the Army his momma passed away.... he became bored and sad .... and when he got home from the army he decided to really have some fun with the remainder of his Life....

He made some cool music, filmed some cool movies, made some more albums..... got some gum stuck to his shoes while walking down the street after missing the train.....  he slept, and ate, and stuff and lost some pocket change under couch cushions.

Elvis was a person. He was a Human Being. Yes, we need him to help us understand life, yes we even want him to be larger than it, and even with all that we just want him to be our friend... but in the end Elvis is just a Simple Human Being.

A human being who over his short time on earth sparked philosophical, meta-physical , and mundane notions about him for millions and millions of other humans right up to this very second.

He Needed Them.... and they Needed Him..... and even on a human-based Level...

...Elvis was a King.

The Fourth Elvis is The King.

Conclusion

I know they are making an Elvis bio-pic with Tom Hanks as "The Stranger", the nogoodnick Norwegian bloodsucker Colonel Tom Parker, and I have my doubts it'll be that good.

Tom Hanks has NEVER played a bad guy in a film. He's always a Good Guy. He's a mean-streaked guy at times like the coach from League of their Own where he yells at the pretty baseball ladies that there is no crying in baseball ... but he's a likeable character in the that film too.... by no means a villain.

To do Colonel Tom Parker .... Tom Hanks needs to really Heel it Loose, baby. He needs to actually want to be mean and bad... and at no point try to make the audience feel compassion for him. That Tom Parker is a bad man. He is. I know Tom Hanks is not used to audiences viewing his character-creations as Bad Guys and not liking the character. He's doing a Mr. Rogers bio-pic too now, and I know everyone will love Tom Hanks in that Mr. Rogers movie.... but....

Tom Parker is a bad bad man.... and if T. Hanks wants to play him he HAS TO BE A VILLAIN ... which is something he's never done before. We're used to liking Tom Hanks in film and it'll be hard for him to make an audience not like him on film..... it's going to be interesting to see the upcoming Elvis bio-pic.

I know no one wants to by personal choice, dislike a Tom Hanks character in a film. "Big" and "Forrest Gump" are such great movies.... but Tom Hanks, you have to mean to that Elvis in the Elvis movie.. You could even be looking at your next Oscar if you do, Mr. Hanks.

You gotta be mean to that Elvis, Tom.

Anyways, even if Tom Parker/Tom Hanks are bad n' mean in the movie we have to remember that both Tom Parker and Tom Hanks were once babies....

....and Babies are Good, and Babies are Strong, and Babies are the Best of Everything........

Yes. 


And thus Concludes Elvis in Four Persons: An Essay About Elvis 

Is AEW gonna be Big?

Okay, I'm still on a nostalgia bend to be honest with you readers. My favorite things from my halcyon youth-related days of yore were basically Sports (with a heavy tilt towards Baseball), Video Games, and Wrestling. I don't lump Wrestling in the Sports world category, I consider Wrestling, even though it is a highly athletic display of skill, out of the Sports genre and more in the performance art entertainment genre.

I'm getting back into Wrestling lately which is something I liked as a kid that I never really kept up with as time marched on. A lot of Industry Insiders and Wrestling Speculators are on the edges of their seats of late ruminating about a development in the Wrestling world... namely they are openly pondering whether the AEW (All Elite Wrestling) is going to make a splash.

They have a lot of good wrestlers, they have good methods of presenting their art to audiences, and apparently have some deep pocket funds to build a budget around. You can't really say this about any Wrestling promotion in recent memory who's not the behemoth industy-leading promotion we all know of.

Everyone is watching AEW, waiting to see if it's just another flash-in-the-pan or if it is on to something....



A Rhodes Legacy of Immense Proportions

I didn't know it was gaining the steam it was until only very recently. If I saw people talking it about on trends on social media ...I just thought it was another independent wrestling thing like the half dozen other ones out there. Then I saw something that blew me away .... big time.


Before I talk about this match, I want it to be known that I'm not a very big fan of extremely pointlessly violent wrestling. I don't understand why an entertainer needs to incur ludicrous amounts of personal human damage and suffering just to make a crowd go "Wowie!" for like 3 seconds. I really don't.

Historically it is the wrestlers who can't make fans go "Oh Wow!" in any other way who turn to needlessly hurting or bleeding all over themselves. A good example would be Captain Lou Albano who I think is a very entertaining man (both as Super Mario and as a Manager) but if you watch old clips of the Captain wrestling in the seventies ... you very quickly realize he was not really a terrific stuntman by any definition. So what did he do? He cut big huge holes in his face and bled all over the ring to make the crowd go "Wow!" which worked too but not in the same way a Bruno Sammartino could do it (by making you root for him to win) or an Andre the Giant could (by being a Human Wonder) or a Tiger Mask could (by being an acrobatic stuntman) ...  bleeding all over yourself is a pretty gruesome and exaggerated substitute when you think about it.

Hurting yourself excessively is not interesting to me either. I like guys like Mankind but I think it was guys like him that took hurting yourself to get applause by a crowd a bit too far. You really don't need to jam all your teeth into your nose just to make a crowd happy for a few minutes. You really don't have to go that far, guys. I feel extremely uneasy clapping or cheering people on who are doing this to themselves.

That being said, despite the excessive blood involved, I still will say with 100% honesty that Cody Rhodes vs. Dustin Rhodes at "Double or Nothing" was probably the most emotional match I've ever seen in Wrestling.

They had a few vignettes leading up to it, clips put on their youtube site, of the rift that had arisen between these two... and then the rift culminated in violence at Double or Nothing....  

Yes, the blood is pretty uhhhh.... bloody here. But this blood, it's telling you a story. It's the combined blood, sweat, and tears of two once-seperate but now-once-again-whole Brothers, both sons of the American Dream Dusty Rhodes ... their blood and sweat and tears of the once common bond of their Ancestor Dusty ... flowing .... and then Cody tells Dustin that he can't retire yet ... that he can't rest yet ... and with the spirit of the Dream in the AIR ... the common bond of Brotherhood is renewed! Ooooooooh.... it's too much. It's just too much for old me. I need a second, I just need a second to recoup after watching this again.

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Hard times. Hard times. There's always gonna be hard times. I know both of these men have seen Hard Times ... but with enough Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Trust ... they will always dig out of that hole, they will always swim back to the surface and learn to breathe again. There's still going to be Hard Times down the road for not only them but for all of us ... but I know in my heart that we will always find a way ... we will find a way to dig out, n' climb up, n' with nothing more than a deep love and trust in our hearts we can all walk past these Hard Times after Hard Times after HARD TIMES after HARD TIMES!

Now that they are a tag team, a united force, and with the triangulation of The Dream peering down from above ... can this triangulative force... this Tri-Force of a tag team possibly be bested in the squared circle? I'm not sure it can be.

Their next opponents are the Young Bucks, a brash youthful duo who are not to be taken lightly... who's high flyin' acrobatics, dynamic team work, cool outfits, and wicked tag finishers make for one of the most electric combinations in Sport.


Even if the Young Bucks wear the coolest of suits to the ring (which have included Street Fighter regalia and Elvis inspired regalia of late), even if their acrobatic tag maneuvers are both aesthetically awe-inspiring and equally physically devastating ... can they overcome a Tri-Forced Unity of Brotherhood and Ancestry bonded by the blood of previous struggles? I don't know...

.... I guess we'll have to wait for Fight for the Fallen to find out.



Kenny Omega

After being admiringly blown-actually-away by that match above... I started to look into the other athletes on the AEW roster and one that really really stands out is Kenny Omega.

I'm sure this name is severely familiar to wrestling afficiandos and the like ... but I haven't been following the wrestling world for over a good decade and he's not even on in America he's famous from Japan Proresu circles. There's a lot of good things in the Wrestling World in the last decade that are totally foreign and unbeknownst to me, it would seem.

Watching Kenny Omega matches from Japan over the last few weeks, I have to say that this guy is the complete package in Wrestling terms. He's a great stuntman, he has the look for the Wrestling World (that look that makes all the ladies go crazy!), he can be Good or Bad depending on what the situation calls for, he is incredible and synchronized with his cohort in tag team competition, and best of all ... he can do all this without really taking it super seriously ... which is a very unique ability that is usually only reserved to total stalwarts (such as Adam West).

I think along the way a lot of the actors in Wrestling start to forget that there is an inherent silliness to the art of Pro Wrestling and start to take it way too seriously. I think the most fascinating thing to me about Kenny is even though he is really a Complete Package in Wrestling proficiency all-across-the-board he is able to completely just break character and remind the audience that this is entertainment and you don't have to be taking it life-and-deathingly serious.

There's some very silly Kenny Omega matches in Japan. Very silly ones. There's one where he fights a puppet...


Personal Aside

I want to briefly interupt this section and relay to you a personal anecdote that is not related in large to the current section.


I used to make youtube videos with my friends in the day, zombie stuff, and we'd just go to a field and fool around. You start to notice when you make low budget entertainment that you need to be pretty inventive at times. If you're gonna make a short film on $0 dollars of budget ... you start to think of what you can get out of anything around you. You start squeezin' juice from turnips, bruddah.

One of the ideas I had for me and my friends to make fun but incredibly cheap youtube web-a-sodes was an idea called "Fruit Wrestling."

In my exceptional idea, the FWC (Fruit Wrestling Challenge), all we needed was some old matresses, a field, and some fruit from the grocery store. It's not hard to procure wares of this nature, you know? Now get this ... the FRUIT (actual fruits) are the Good Guys and us human actors would play the Bad Guys. We'd make some vignettes with Johnny Banana (an actual inanimate banana) where the banana would be all surrounded by ladies and being all cool ... and then we could film a short promo where one of the human actors would threaten to smash n' peel Johnny B. in the center of the ring! For the match you could have tied the banana to a string and like whipped it around and then it was incumbent upon the human actor to "Sell"* for the banana and LOSE to it.


This idea never came around to fruition, so to speak, but I think, as stupid as it sounds, it would have been funny.


(Note: "Sell" in wrestling means making an opponent's maneuver seem wicked and damaging when they preform it on you.)



Back to Kenny Omega

I was watching a Kenny Omega match in Japan the other day where he "Sold" for a puppet and it's basically what my idea of fruit wrestling was supposed to look like.

Man, Kenny can make a puppet look good in the ring, which is a skill, a skill that should actually be a prerequisite to be a Pro Wrestler. You should learn in wrestling training how to lose to a puppet.... you really should.

Those guys in those wrestling schools, who teach wrestling, should ask their flock of rookies the first day of class, "Yo, when you were a kid and wrestled your pillows in the basement ... were you ever able to LOSE to the pillow or did you just beat it up all the time?"... and any rookie who tells you that they were able to lose to the pillow should be shortlisted as having above-average Wrestling IQ.

You know who I would have LOVED to see wrestle a puppet? Mr. Perfect (Rest in Peace, My Perfect Friend)... Curt Hennig is maybe the best "Seller" of moves I ever saw. Ric Flair and Rick Rude (specifically selling the Atomic Drop in Rude's case) come to mind as well .... but man Mr. Perfect could sell those moves, man.

If you punched Mr. Perfect he was liable to do triple figure-skatin' lutzes all over the place, flop over the top turn buckle, looked dazed and disoriented for the briefest of moments, and then do it all over again. Mr. Perfect vs. A Puppet (or a banana even) could have been a "five star" match as they always say these days. I truly believe Mr. Perfect could have earned five stars losing to a puppet, 100%.

On the contrary, wrestlers who can't "Sell" are missing a valuable skill and have a huge flaw in their act. There's room on a roster for a few "impervious to pain" people ... you have a tag team like Road Warriors, a nut case like Ultimate Warrior, and a literal dead person a la Undertaker ... and that's enough impervious to pain people on a roster at any given time ... like three or four. I get it that if you punch Hawk, Animal, the literally titled ULTIMATE Warrior, and a Dead Person that they won't feel it... but once everyone starts being this character wrestling gets boring pretty fast.

The other thing in Wrestling I don't get in terms of "No Selling" is regional-specific No-Selling ... where people are like ... "Oh I won't lose a wrestling performance in Albuquerque." I see online there is a VAST tonnage of "Screwjob" videos and intense-takes and "shoots" on it ... I, to this day, have no idea why "the Screwjob" thing is a big deal. I don't.

Can you imagine a traveling theater group is going around North America doing "Hamlet" and the guy playing Hamlet's Father's Ghost one day wakes up and says ... "Hey, we're in Tucson! I don't want to die in Tucson! I have uncles here!" ... and he breaks script and doesn't die ... and then none of the other actors know what the heck to do because the play makes no sense now. The other actors are thinking ... "well now what do we do for all those ghost scenes?" ... and the guy's all "I don't care, all I know is I will not die in Tucson! I'll die and be a ghost again next week in Denver!"

Losing is surprisingly one of the biggest skills to accept and learn in wrestling. It's a performance, it's the emotion, the story, the acrobatic wicked moves, the colorful managers at ring side that make it what it is ... not if you win or lose... really. It's very different from say football or baseball where winning is everything. The storytelling in wrestling is more important than who actually wins or loses.

Kenny Omega can do it all ... and on top of all his talent he is still able to let a puppet beat him up. Someone get this man some kind of award. I was reading this guy plays Earthbound (History's greatest-most video game) once a year. That's cool. A lot of his moves are video gamed themed too. I dunno, man, this guy gets it. He really does. He gets it.

Kenny Omega is cooooooool. He's a very valuable asset on a Wrestlin' Wroster.


Conclusion

I'm weighing in with the opinion that the AEW is onto something and a lot of old fans are gonna get behind it and new fans too.

I don't think it is a gonna flash up for a few months and fizzle out. I think due to some of the financial security of the investors, the interesting personalities on the roster, and the brief glimpses of what it is going to be... that it is probably gonna have some lasting potential. When they start airing their TV show on old-school broadcasting I think it will tame down and add more reality-show elements but will still be good.

One thing I wanted to mention but forgot to is that the Updated 2019 version of Dusty Rhodes and Sweet Sapphire is about I'd say 10 million more times sexier than the 80s version. Brandi Rhodes and Cody Rhodes are going to produce some incredibly good-looking offspring if they mate, my word, and by gawd, are they ever. They're a real life couple, right? I don't think they are like a kayfabe-couple ... I think they are a real-life couple. 

I also think the competition is going to be a GOOD thing for the wrestling industry. I think we'll see some interesting developments in the wrestling world in general due to the initial hype of AEW.

I still want to make Fruit Wrestling Challenge which despite how dumb it sounds on paper it is actually very smart and good. How it plays out in my head is pretty cool. The things the human heels do to poor poor "Precise" Paul Pumpkin is virtually in the realm of the atrocious ... seeds and guts EVERYWHERE ... wait a pumpkin isn't even a fruit ... nevermind.



This article was pretty short ... I might do two this month.