My Elvis Presley Blog

Born about 75 years ago

It seems bizarre to say “happy birthday” to a man who is 33 years dead so I won’t.  But I will say Happy Anniversary to me as today marks 3 years since I fell head over heels in love with you.  Not one day goes by when I don’t think of you several times during the day, listen to your voice and feel those old butterflies in my stomach. 

When I first fell in love with you, it was with the Elvis on stage.  The one whose voice was sexier then warmed up massage oil.  The man whose moves on stage still make me laugh at the sheer audacity and sexual charge they contained.  The man whose smile always seem to indicate that you had a secret that no one else knew.  Then I started devouring every book I could find on you and now, 3 years later, more then 2 dozen books read and with a ton of research about the man that was Elvis, I love you more today then I did even then when your voice first thrilled me back in 2007. 

I know your warts, I know your lunacy. I know your vulnerabilities and I know your occasional bouts of meanness and paranoia.  I also know of your love for all women and your adoration for your fans. I know your generous heart and your deep seeded insecurities. I know all about your huge ego, your vanity and your desperate need to be loved.  Your fear of obscurity and public shaming. I know all this by reading between the lines of what other people say and write, by listening to you singing as well as recordings of you speaking.  Your sense of humor was phenomenal and if my impossible dream could be realized, I know that you and I would split a gut laughing together.  Women who loved you refuse to speak of it.  A precious gem that cannot be shared without soiling so it is kept locked away in a very special place in their hearts under lock and key.  That tells me volumes more then any books could about what kind of man you really were.   

Elvis, I know now that you were never meant to reach your 75th birthday or your 50th.  You couldn’t have dealt with the pitfalls that come with aging and you lived life more fully in your 42 years then most of us will have in 82 years.  You were here as a bright and shining star that was tragically destined to burn itself out.  But while you were here, you shone your light on each of us and our lives were changed forever.

And you changed our lives so much.  You brought us rock and roll music that finally allowed white and black people to find a common path that they could share.  You liberated women to allow themselves to show sexual desires and needs.  You gave us permission to dance like no one was watching. To sing like no one was listening.  To pray, like somebody was.  You gave us everything you had and left nothing on the table.

I love you and miss you so much Elvis. Each birthday we mark, I cry for missing you. Each anniversary of your passing, I cry for missing you.  But thank God you left so much of yourself here with us. Sometimes, like last week when you changed my mp3 player to that particular song that I had been just speaking of the day before, I feel you close by. Once in awhile, I close my eyes and you’re standing right in front of me. I can feel your presence, I smell your essence. I know that my thinking of you so deeply attracts your spirit to me and so I will go on dwelling on your face, your song and your spirit.

With deep abiding love…

Today I changed the theme for the Elvis Presley Blog and I hope you all will like it.  The previous theme felt a little too busy for me and I wanted to find something more simple and straight forward. Something that focussed on content more then the theme.  I hope I’ve found it with this simple but elegant theme I’m using now.  As always, your comments and thoughts are welcomed.

I have been a bit of a slacker on this blog for a couple of weeks now but certainly not because I’ve lost interest.  I just got involved in some things on my other blog, Taking on Animal Cruelty and have been pressed for time to spare for Elvis.  (Don’t tell him I said that!).

Hopefully I’ll be able to devote more time to this blog now though and thank you for your patience and understanding.

Until next time

Cher

I’ve noticed recently that several people have registered as users on this blog.  Since I am pretty new to all the blogging in’s and out’s I didn’t pay too much attention to it. Tonight after some mysterious activity on my blog and some research on Google about allowing users to register, I have been advised that it is safer and more secure to not allow registration by users. 

So I am turning off that option on this blog and deleting those folks who have registered to date. Please do not take offense, I just want to keep my data and this blog secure and without interference from morons with nothing better to do but to destroy hard work.  I expect that if you truly wish to read my Elvis Presley blog, you will have already signed up using the RSS button at the top right hand side.  This will notify you right away when new posts appear. And the comments section, as always, is open to anyone who would be kind enough to offer up their thoughts. 

Thank you. Thank you very much.

This is probably the saddest time of the year for me ever since I fell in love with Elvis back in January of 2007.  Tomorrow marks the 32nd anniversary of his death and every year at this time, this anniversary weighs heavy on my heart.

I can’t help but wonder how the world would have been different had he not left us when he did.  Would we have had a lot more great music of his to listen to or was he at the end of his musical life anyway?  Would Lisa Marie have married Michael Jackson?  Would Elvis be a recluse at the age of 74?  Would Elvis have been more inclined to share with us some of the the mysteries that we contemplate about him and his life?  Would he be doing shows like Oprah, The View and Late Night?  Would he accept the internet technology and be a presence here? Besides her brief moment of fame while appearing on Dallas, would we have to put up with so much of Priscilla or would she have faded into obscurity where she belongs by now?  How may girlfriends would I have had to write blogs about in my Elvis’s Women Series or is it possible that Elvis and Priscilla may have reunited?

Pointless contemplations agreed.  He’s dead and gone and none of the above questions even matter.  But I wonder about them nevertheless.

It’s funny, while he was alive I never paid any attention to him.  Even for 30 years after he passed, I never gave him any thought.  But for one fateful moment back in 2007, he probably wouldn’t be on my mind constantly this week like he has been. I more then likely wouldn’t be breaking out into tears spontaneously when no one is looking.  Early this morning I dreamt about him.  That hasn’t happened in a long time but the dream this morning was extremely vivid.  He was with me, I felt and heard his heartbeat, I leaned into him and he was real. I was thrilled.  It’s a dream I will treasure.

Graceland is raking in millions of dollars this week while loyal fans spend money they probably don’t have to visit Elvis’s home and gravesite.  All sorts of events are planned and tons of souvenirs are sold.  I wonder that the organizers even give Elvis a second thought though or are the only motivated by this being their best time of the year for sales.

I know in my heart that the fans feel his loss deeply as I do and if I could, I too would be in Memphis this week spending money I don’t have and paying tribute to Elvis (and his mom whose passed away 51 years ago yesterday). Elvis believed that Gladys was 42 when she died.  We later found out this wasn’t true and that his mom had lied about her age but the point is Elvis believed she was 42.  He died 2 days after the anniversary of her death also at the age of 42.  Significant?

We know that Elvis never stopped missing his mother or mourning her loss.  We also know that Elvis changed drastically after Gladys passed. No longer worried about what she would say about his behavior, he let loose in ways he probably wouldn’t even had considered had his mom still been there to disapprove.  Or so we’re told.  I’m never really sure who to believe anymore although I tend to trust those with no axe to grind more then I do the so-called “insiders”.  Debauchery, wild orgies, drug abuse and the list goes on of the things Elvis indulged in after his mom died.  Was he on a self-directed path to his own death? 

These things and more I will explore when Gladys is featured in my Elvis’s Women Series. That one may be a series in itself considering what I know about all the layers of their relationship and the tons of layers I don’t know.

Elvis is one big beautiful onion that reveals new surprises and nuances with every layer you peel.  He is a study in contradictions.  The shy southern boy that never used first names for people who were older then him versus the raunchy egotistical emperor who demanded all near him to bow and pay homage whenever he was present.  Who was the real Elvis?  My study to answer this continues.

I love you and miss you, Elvis, and I know in my heart that you know that I love and miss you. Just like you know that millions of us miss you desperately every day.  Tomorrow we formally celebrate your life. on Monday and for the following 364 days until next year, I will continue to celebrate your life every day.  I hope and pray that you are at peace.

Anita Wood announced in the paper that she and Elvis had broken up. She moved out of Graceland and returned home to Jackson, Tennessee, because, she said: ” It is evident that Elvis is not yet ready to settle down.”

Elvis interviewed for a job at Sears Roebuck but was not hired.

Update: July 24th, 2009

Great News! They Reconsidered Baby!

“Resurrection”

So Elvisnews.com is back and life can return to normal.  The reactions of the members of Elvisnews.com are predictably elated as it appears lots of people tried to find a replacement and found, as I already knew, there is not a better a Elvis site on the internet.
Read comments at: Resurrection

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Original post:

It’s a sad day for us Elvis fans who count on one website for our Elvis news and all things Elvis. This has been my Elvis-a-pedia since I first fell in with Elvis fandom and I can’t tell you how many times while researching Elvis I’ve used this site for background and information, pictures and even song lyrics.

Elvisnews.com has announced today that they are shutting down their operation just a few  weeks short of the their 10th anniversary. I won’t recount here all the reasons that they made this decision and there is a link at the bottom of this article if you want to read more, but Michael Jackson’s passing seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s already straining back.

Elvisnews.com provides it’s members an area to post reactions and comments to the stories they publish.  Of course, the world is full of a–holes who will try to make our world a stink hole to live in and these same morons felt it was their God-given right to write extremely negative and even inflammatory comments about MJ’s passing.   But I’ve seen these ignorant comments everywhere not just at elvisnews.com.  CBC’s website as an example has hundreds of comments on MJ stories that are insulting to Michael’s fans, completely disrespectful to Michael’s family, and could permanently stain the memory of Michael for the rest of us if we’re not careful.  These comments are counted in the thousands and are all over the internet.

Unfortunately it appears that the comments on Elvisnews.com produced conflict within the elvisnews.com partnership and added fuel to an already existing fire of what used to be a pleasure for the partners but has now become a chore.  Regretfully, they decided to shut it all down.

For the record, I have read a dozen or more books about Elvis and feel like I have a pretty fair cross section of who the man was.  I am certain that if he knew that so-called Elvis fans were making these nasty and defamatory remarks about Michael posthumously, he would be revolted and saddened and he certainly would not approve.  A true Elvis fan only has to remember what it was like when we were all mourning Elvis’ death and being subjected to listening to all the disgusting and horrible things being said about Elvis while we did so.

Elvis sang a wonderful song called “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” and I would suggest those that want to bash Michael Jackson with unproven and disgusting remarks should re-listen to the words of that song.  There’s also “Clean Up Your Own Backyard” if the first one doesn’t get the point across.

In the meantime, we’re are losing the best Elvis site on the internet and I shall be in mourning for that loss for sometime to come.  I understand all the work that goes into that site and if your passion has been dampened for one reason or another, I completely understand how it becomes a chore rather then a pleasure.  Still, it saddens me that Elvisnews.com won’t be around anymore and the shoes required to fill this gap will be huge.

When I told my husband the news this morning, he said “So pick up the slack”.  I responded with “Not in a million years could I ever hope to provide all the Elvis related news and information that Elvisnews.com provides!”

I am sorry to see you go guys but I thank you for the dedication and passion you’ve given in the past 10 years to make Elvisnews.com the premier site for all things Elvis.

Read Final Curtain on elvisnews.com

Like millions of people around the world, I am deeply shocked and saddened by the passing of Michael Jackson yesterday. Over the next few weeks, as with every iconic passing, all the skeletons and dirty little secrets will be exposed and every news agency in the world will have the latest dirt or suspicious item.  We will all shake our heads and judge the decadence, the waste, the narcissistic need to be idolized and that same self-destruct button every celebrity seems to possess after they’ve made too much money. Self righteously we will reaffirm to ourselves that all that money sure can’t buy you happiness and Michael’s untimely death is more proof positive of that. We sleep well knowing that our commonality will protect us from ever having to walk in those shoes.

Invariably as you read the articles surrounding Michael’s passing you will encounter a strange need to compare this death with Elvis’.  Every blog worth it’s salt is asking the questions:

Did the King of Pop’s death have more of an impact on the world then the King of Rock & Roll? Who was the bigger star, who had the most impact on the world, the music and the culture. Who sold more albums, had more platinum’s, bill board top 10’s? Was there prescription drugs involved and if so, where’s the damned doctor responsible for providing those drugs? Why wasn’t there an intervention? Couldn’t somebody have saved our precious star? How come we didn’t know he was addicted to prescription drugs? I’ve even read some moron comparing Michael’s child molestation issues with Elvis’ raping young girls. What?

The issue of the crowns they wore are being parallelled with Elvis fans reminding everyone that Jackson’s crown was self anointed while Elvis’ crown was bestowed on him by the fans, the critics, his peers and others. Remember also that Elvis disliked being referred to as a king of anything stating that there was only one king and he had died on the cross. He was just a singer, he said.  Ah but what a singer he was. 

The need to parallel is further driven by the fact that the King of Pop was actually the King of Rock & Roll’s son-in-law for a couple of years. Many Elvis fans have stated, as if knowing this to be fact, that Elvis would flip in his grave if he knew that Lisa Marie had married Michael Jackson. I can’t say myself but I would hope not. But unless Elvis comes back to tell us how he felt about it, everyone else is just guessing and adding their own racial prejudice to the mix.

Frankly I’m not seeing the parallels at all.  Elvis was and is still the biggest thing to ever have hit the music world in modern history.  His death rocked the world on it’s axis and to this day, people still cry in grief for his passing.  Yes, me too.  His fan base is loyal to a degree unheard of by any other artist with new fans, including young ones, signing up everyday.  Elvis brought the black man out of the closet musically and allowed the white people to let their hair down and “dig” the beat.  It’s my contention that Elvis also helped the woman’s movement significantly by giving women permission to publicly express their sexual response to his eroticism.  This was something they had never been permitted to do before.  No, not even Frank Sinatra was able to bring that gift to women.  Suddenly after Elvis showed up, women were wearing pants a lot more and bikinis.  Think about it.

Elvis impact on the culture of North America is unparalleled and even though I will concede that Michael Jackson’s contribution to the music world was huge, that he was brilliant, that he had huge talent and that he was a great creative force, he was not up to the level of Elvis. Frankly, I don’t think anyone could ever achieve that level ever again and the loss of Elvis back in 1977 is still going to remembered long after the loss of Michael Jackson yesterday has been all but forgotten.  

And yet the whole world monumentally changed yesterday because Michael Jackson is no longer in it. Rest in peace, Michael. Free at last, free at last, Thank God you are free at last.

I was born in August of 1957 when Elvis’s career was just a little over a year in the making. So growing up, Elvis was not a big part of my music scene although I remember loving Return to Sender, In the Ghetto and Suspicious Minds anytime I heard it on the radio. Being of the age, I was into David Cassidy, The Monkees, Bobby Sherman etc.

Like everybody else, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the news came on TV exactly 20 years later in August of 1977 that Elvis had died. Despite never having been a big fan, I sat down on my couch and cried. The world had lost an icon, that much I knew for sure.

So 30 years later, in January of 2007, when I heard that Elvis would have turned 72 years old that month had he lived, it was startling to me when something clicked somewhere in my brain and I felt my world shift. It was a whisper that simply said “Elvis”. I can’t explain it and I’ve now given up trying but ever since that day, Elvis has never been out of my thoughts. And so my quest began.

I had the 30 Greatest Hits CD only because I got it erroneously from a music club and had never broke the seal or played it but had never returned it either. I also had the 2 CD set Christmas Peace that I only ever played during the holiday season once in awhile. I quickly broke open the 30 Greatest Hits CD and ripped it to my computer and sync’d it to my mp3 player. Since that day, I have listened to nothing but Elvis. I simply can’t listen to anything else because nothing else compares.  Listening to him sing gospel almost makes me believe again but listening to him sing anything brings me great peace of mind.  

Elvis recorded over 900 songs in his brief 24 year career and I now have more then half of those. Approximately 200 of these are on my favorites playlist which I listen to daily commuting back and forth to work and even work sometimes when I need to really buckle down and work. I stick an earphone in my left ear and I’m more productive then I am not listening to him. 

I’ve read over a dozen books about his life and music and will be featuring my reviews, my book reports in essence, here on this blog.  I have others on the nightstand waiting to be read and there’s a stack at amazon that are just waiting to be ordered.  I never do anything half heartedly and I’ll probably die before I have every book written about him, every movie he ever did and every song Elvis ever recorded.   

My affair with Elvis began full of lust, grief, bitterness and butterflies. For the first few months I almost couldn’t read the end of any of the books because they all ended the same.  Tragically.  I would put myself to sleep at night wondering what it would have been like to have known him, loved him, been loved by him, held by him.  It was lust and grief, then grief and lust.

After 2 years, my relationship with him is somewhat calmer although I still get butterflies in my stomach whenever I hear his voice, or look at a picture of him or even just think about him, and I think about him a lot.

And whenever he says “Yeah baby” during a song, my head bows, my heart flips and my knees get weak. But I don’t cry so much anymore that he’s gone and I don’t despise the people  who were around him so much anymore who did nothing to try to save him.  Oh there are a couple of people I resent deeply for their part in his downfall and you’ll read more about these as I discuss the books but essentially the downfall was Elvis’s doing.

I have finally come to terms “somewhat” with the fact that Elvis’s life was exactly as it was meant to be and nothing anybody did was going to change the outcome.  Bigger then life he was but inside, a shy naive southern boy with a huge heart who just wanted to be loved.  He is the undisputed King of Rock and Roll and his musical influence changed the world as we knew it.  

Elvis, we will meet again someday on that beautiful shore by the river of  life. Meanwhile, I will love you forever and this site is dedicated to your legacy.
My very first video made for E – Just Pretend_Elvis Lives