Life Imitating Myths

Musicians, comics, entertainers, celebrities of any caliber often die early. It's a fact of life we've skittishly come to face. One might say it's been done to death. It becomes a self propelling, compelling prophesy. There's accidental overdoses. There's just fast hedonistic living. Some had doctors who I suggest got so caught up in their patient's fame, living vicariously through them, that they ignored with them the defining caveats of their Hippocratic Oath. And then some, like Jim Morrison, played with death until it became a reality.

Lindberg begins his book with the similar circumstances surrounding the deaths of Prince and Elvis. In 1958, when Presley was recording with Sun Records, it was said that he “sounded black.” Prince was black, although I never thought he sounded like he was. He could have been white for all I knew, but then I was hardly a fan on either count. I did happen to accept an invitation to go with some friends to see Prince's Purple Rain Tour. Lindberg mentions how Elvis was once censored in his theatrics, being filmed from the waist up. Thirty years can do a lot. An artist, who still was up and coming, can do a lot. Those censors would have been appalled at the Prince show. His theatrics included simulated stimulation with a guitar. I was kind of shocked, embarrassed for him. The kid was exploding with talent. The sexual similes are kind of the easy way out, pandering to the basest human denominator. To me it was just gratuitous. Presley only made it 42 years, dying of what was ruled a heart attack in 1977. Prince Roger Nelson, the artist once disappearing into the visual impression left by a symbol, collapsed in an elevator in 2016 from a drug called fentanyl. He died at age 57 in his home in Chanhassen, Minnesota. He broke down riding in the elevator. In the opening song from 1984's Purple Rain he asks rhetorically “are we gonna let the elevator bring us down” after having begun the song questioning, asserting, the after-world. Nelson chooses to go crazy, and implores listeners to do the same. Interesting.

An Elvis tale I once caught claim that, in an effort to kick his addiction to the drugs he was taking, the king's plane touched down here in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The plan was to go to the famed Hazelten drug rehab center. The story went that our winter was so cold, Elvis turned around and went back into the plane. So much for candid tales. At least it went into the legend that we intended to try to get sober. Whatever facts remain get mired in legend. My guess is that even when Elvis was alive the facts were subjective. They may not have even been facts. Years reveal that he may have lived this entirely clandestine life, rubbing elbows with a Memphis mafia hat even eclipsed him. He may have been a pawn, an innocent truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi that became an untouchable, larger than life rock star. The perfect foil, kingpin, mule train. Kind of like Trump, a guilty real estate mogul from Manhattan, New York who found celebrity.

Lindberg is not a biographer. He is simply relating his own dubious experience in coming into possession of letters from Elvis to other legendary celebrities. Each battled their own addictions, superstitions or premonitions of a life too big to handle. I surmise that writing about Elvis, in any context, is hard to do believably. All we know, all anyone really trusts, is that he was born January 8,1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi. It was reported (I heard it on the radio) that his life ended in Memphis, Tennessee August 16, 1977. The rest is subject to historical embellishment. Even his brother Jesse dying is part of the lore. There is visual evidence of him performing “unchained melody” looking like a pale bloated rat whose next fall will likely be off a toilette, but what's to keep some biographer with postmortem issues and a weak grasp of reality from saying that was an impostor. Is it just me or is Elvis shrouded in myth, with a less credible life, more than people like Robin Williams of even Michael Jackson. Presley was putty in the hands of the media. His life is conducive to conspiracy, from his status as a black belt to his meeting and subsequent mutual relationship with Richard Nixon. Not to judge or stereotype, but Republicans seem to love a good conspiracy, often because they can not handle the truth. Yes, often the truth, just the facts, are boring; mundane, lacking of any further depth or propensity for myth. If Elvis were around today I could easily see him cozying up to Trump. He'd sell out his Christian values and cozy up like an English muffin fits in a toaster. Stories of mafia, of murders and unintended killings, drug deals, assassinations, fit in that mold; the one of the GOP. Much less often are Democrats attached.

I feel warranted in saying Presley had his connection, his coveted paper trails. He did have a trusting relationship with Welsh singer Tom Jones that dated back to the mid 60s. The two played together on bills in Las Vegas, in 1968 when Presley stood up to the Colonel (Tom Parker) and demanded that he was no longer going to make “indifferent” movies. He began a string of shows in Vegas where the addiction to drugs began. When the Beatles met Elvis in August 1965, there were things not expressed. Presley was Lennon's main impetus to be a rock 'n roller. He was also a pacifist and anti-Vietnam War which did not set well with Presley who had proudly served his country in the years Vietnam was beginning to involve America. He, J. Edgar Hoover, and then Nixon, wanted Lennon out of the country. Presley and Hoover thought the Beatles, influence by Lennon, were bad for America. Late in August 1971 Lennon arrived in Manhattan to permanently reside. The following year, due to Lennon's anti-war activism with Yoko, the Nixon Administration to a “strategic counter-measure to have him deported.

On April 29, 1976, at 3 a.m., a young scruffy pre-fame Bruce Springsteen and “Miami” Steve Van Zandt jumped the fence at Graceland. Springsteen hoped to exchange unrehearsed words with the man who, as well as for others, made rock 'n roll look like an essential pursuit. The two made it as far as the door before they were stopped by security. They truthfully reported that Elvis was in Lake Tahoe.“I have my picture on the covers of Time and Newsweek,” Springsteen offered, also adding that he had just written a song called “Fire” he planned to give to the king. Unimpressed, the guards escorted the two out into the Memphis night beyond Graceland. Springsteen never met his idol, but is known to have told this tale in concert. However the part about “Fire,” which went on to be recorded by Robert Gordon and the Pointer Sisters (the latter bringing it to number 2), has been mired in myth and no one can be certain of anything. All anyone can take to Elvis's grave is that Springsteen did attempt to meet him in '76 and his picture was on Time and Newsweek.

Larger-than-old-Elvis

Rabid fans, 60-ish women who have been to Graceland 100 time,the cougar crowd who aches to throw their under things at the feet of Tom Jones, Neil Diamond or a faux Elvis stand a good chance of believing stories spun, livened, from the fact. Elvis was a legend before he was laid to rest. People, because he led such a secure, covert, possibly coveted life, will believe anything. He is similar to Trump in that way. According Fire and Fury, he is known to enjoy cheeseburgers in bed, a simple, credible eccentricity such as Elvis shooting a TV or eating fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. A mythical world grew around the king, the man who was king and the boy who wanted to be.

For Presley, life is exhausted. He was exhausted in living and will be in death. Myths even evolve that he staged his death, a brilliant career move. For a time, since Forbes began tracking the somewhat maudlin data in 2001, Presley was the highest earning dead celebrity. He profits, provides for his heirs, as he gathers moss somewhere—perhaps around a grave. Some people do better in death than others. For example, I don't think many of the “27 club”—Morrison, Jones, Hendrix, Joplin—are highly lucrative in dearth. I think it all has to do with how large the person loomed in in the highly suggestible minds' of their fans, how much they wanted to keep them alive. Presley comes in at #2 among dead celebs still coughing up green. Between Michael Jackson and golf legend Arnold Palmer, the king pulled in 40 million in 2018. He still turns, and moves his records, but the bulk of his posthumous earnings are from tickets to Graceland and a new entertainment complex called Elvis Presley's Memphis. (Prince is only ninth on the list.) Consider this though, while many of the artists on he list have a shelf life of the next palm full of generations, Graceland and the new attraction will always remain. People will want to see it, if only one day for its value as a museum or a centuries old church. People eventually will not buy Dr. Seuss's (#6) books when he's past old. Parents will flash i phones when books and hand get to arthritic to hold. They will fade away when child-rearing trends no longer fit his mold.

The myths gather moss as old bones decay. Sixtyish women in curlers perpetuate them, keep the source, their fountain of youth, alive. It is a symbiotic relationship. The women keep Elvis alive. His physical persona is mythologized through vast takes on impersonating him. Letters from Elvis (Calumet Publishing, 2018) attempts to show a life inside of Elvis, a life outside the kingdom and the trappings of it. But many of the letters are to people who are susceptible to mythology of their own, and the subjective conspiratorial aspects of the two worlds kind of cancel each other out. What the reader is left with are stories that, if they care, if they have not been mired in myth and alternative reality (Trump supporters) they will seek verification