Elvis Presley

[pathtaken]

Yall quit beesmirching da KING!!11!! or I'm gonna TCB on yer heads!

[petals]

sugaree said:

Well, if Tarentino is right and people can be divided into Beatles fans and Elvis fans,

What if you don't like either of them and you think they're both overrated?

Does this mean . . . I'm not human?

[sugaree]

We've long since suspected. You're a black-clad throatkicking machine. You're better than human.

[missjennifer]

Ten years ago, on the twentieth anniversary, I was working in a Hallmark store while going to grad school. I got to talking to a co-worker about Denis Leary's routine on Elvis...how he should have been shot in 1957 so we could all remember him as the young handsome Elvis and not the bloated joke he became.

A few minutes later, a customer came to the register to be rung up. She told me, "I couldn't help but overhear what you were saying earlier about Elvis. A friend of mine was a devout Elvis fan and we went to see one of his last concerts at the Meadowlands. She was going absolutely crazy and all I could see was this blob in a spangled jumpsuit!"

Me? I fall more into the Beatles-fan category. Enthusiastic Beatles fan, for that matter...although I can appreciate certain Elvis songs. Like fans of nearly anything, there's a contingent of Elvis fans who take it just too far.

Dave Barry did a semi-serious piece on Elvis fans...it's in his book "Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up." He seems to sympathize with the fans, but they do seem to take it all...rather personally. DB himself says something along the lines of "many fans, especially female fans, often speak of the fact that when they saw Elvis live, he seemed to be looking at her, singing to her. They seem to think that, in a way, he died for his fans...that he worked so hard for his fans' sake that he turned to drugs. Some even think that 'if only he hadn't kept his pain so private, I could have helped...'"

These fans almost seem to be turning Elvis into a parody of Christ...he died for us, and according to some, he is resurrected. He didn't turn to drugs from deep-seated psychological problems...he did it because of US.

I must say, though, that psychologically, Elvis holds a sort of strange fascination...the whole mother-fixation, the Pygmalion syndrome with Priscilla, the inability to be attracted to any woman who'd had a child. You could probably do a psych thesis on Elvis.

[Deleted]

The man certainly had his faults (the bit with Priscilla was just ewwwww), but I must give him props for dissing Scientology. He must be rolling in his grave all year long, now that his ex-wife and daughter are so deeply into it and spending the estate for auditing lessons.

[aims]

missjennifer said:

I must say, though, that psychologically, Elvis holds a sort of strange fascination...the whole mother-fixation, the Pygmalion syndrome with Priscilla, the inability to be attracted to any woman who'd had a child. You could probably do a psych thesis on Elvis.

What is the story behind the Pygmalion syndrome with Priscilla thing? Sorry I haven't really read up on Elvis' life. Just curious.

[carrier76]

I don't know what it is, I have never liked him or his music. I hear his voice and I kind of cringe. My brother is somewhat of an Elvis fan (he and his wife had "Can't Help Falling in Love" as their first dance song at their wedding), and I have never "gotten it." He was handsome when he was young/before the drugs and bloat, but I guess his singing style just doesn't appeal to me.

Thank you. I agree.

And I find it interesting that people who don't like Elvis say that they like "Suspicious Minds" and "In the Ghetto." I have a friend who said that exact same thing. As for me, it's "Suspicious Minds" and "Burnin' Love." Huh.

Well, if Tarentino is right and people can be divided into Beatles fans and Elvis fans

See, I've always thought the world was divided into Beatles fans and Rolling Stones fans. I'm a Beatles fan. Sometimes you run across a person who likes both equally, but those are few and far between.

[Sunnyhorse]

My boyfriend in high school and college divided the world into Who fans and Stones fans. (He was -- probably still is -- a huge Who fan and saw himself as a persecuted minority.)

[carrier76]

Interesting...I'm on the Who side of that argument too.

And then there's my ex, who told me that you can't like either or, as he liked both Stones and Beatles...and the Who for that matter. See? Few and far between, they are.

[dragonfly80]

petals said:

sugaree said:

Well, if Tarentino is right and people can be divided into Beatles fans and Elvis fans,

What if you don't like either of them and you think they're both overrated?

Does this mean . . . I'm not human?

I'm not a fan of the Beatles of Elvis either. They both get on my nerves. My Aunt was an Elvis nut, her home was decorated in the finest velour Elvis art offerings & she routinely pilgrammaged to Graceland. I just can't figure out if he'd be as Christ-like if he had lived and continued in a downward spiral of deep fried sandwiches and drugs. Some people clearly worship the early Elvis and I guess their opinion wouldn't be swayed by anything he did.

ETA: I also thought for years that In the Ghetto was a song South Park made up to represent how poor Kenny's family was.