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Written by Elton Pruitt
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Wednesday, 28 February 2007 |
Oh my, this has got to be a sign from above.
The only question is, Good Sign or Bad Sign?
I cranked up my MusicMatch Radio Late 70s station just now,
and whammo! It's the King's last-ever single, "Way Down."
And whammo! I'm right back in Quattlebaum's Music store in
downtown Searcy, Arkansas,
1977. I was a wee sprout - 11, I rectum1 - and I guess Elvis had
already died in a most ignominous fashion, and "Way Down" was released
posthumously.
(and here's where I'm hoping one of my buddies - Caleb? -
will actually do the research I'm too harried to do, and give me the real truth
behind this veil of lies, half-truths, and outright fabrications)
So the first time I heard the King's last single, I was in
Quattlebaum's Music, which is like caddycorner from the courthouse square in
downtown Searcy, flanked by (I'm guessing here, through that haze of
half-remembered childhood perception) Cothern's Men's Store and - oh crap, I've
got them reversed in my mind - Quattlebaum's was actually on the courthouse
square, and it was Stott's Drug Store (where I bought that infamous issue of
Spider-Man where they debuted the black costume, and on the cover it had black
Spidey swinging through the skies, with the cover blurb "The Rumors Are True",
and I was like, "what rumors?" Followed immediately by, "what a cool costume!")
that was caddycorner the courthouse square, flanked by Cothern's and whatever.
So, where were we?
Ah, yes, the bittersweet innocence of youth, and Fat Elvis's
last single. In retrospect, it wasn't really that good of a song. But, I really
wanted to like it, and so my 11-year-old self pretty much liked it. Not by any
stretch in the same way I liked "Too Much Heaven" or "Turn the Beat Around" or
"Dancing Queen" - and now you have a glimpse into a peculiarly formative gestaltinator
of my early life (that being Cheesy Disco, for those of you without a
scorecard).
But still, I dug it. "Way down where the music plays / Way
down like a tidal wave." And I could just picture Fat Elvis singing that, his
robust belly bulging against that kickass white karate jumpsuit, hairy chest
and gaudy chains and sequins, sideburns and sweat and scrunched up nose and
that voice, always so pure and effortless, like he was put on this earth to do
one thing, and one thing only: sing songs so softly sweet and seductive, so
raucous and rowdy and rambunctious, that we had no defense against them.
Songs that spiraled straight into our souls.
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| I R Published! |
So yeah, I guess this is a column about Elvis. Dammit. (I
was planning to plug Sequential Suicide and share my impossibly, incredibly
enlightened and wise plan to save Major League Baseball.)
* * *
Elvis was like a god in our house. Now, I wouldn't want to have
my parents catch me saying that, and yeah, it's hyperbolic, but only a little
bit.
I can't even imagine my childhood without Elvis. He was
everywhere. My Dad had tons of albums of his, everything from movie soundtracks
like Blue Hawaii to Christmas albums to Elvis's Favorite Gospel Hymns (yes, I
made that title up, but that doesn't preclude its possibly being accurate). We
watched his movies any time they came on TV. And this one summer, at the Rialto
Theater in Searcy - where every Wednesday afternoon they had 50 cent matinees -
they played Elvis movies all summer long.
Change of Habit (one of his later films, I believe, with
little music perhaps?). The race car movie (maybe there was more than one?).
The one where he's a rabble-rousing scoundrel with a heart of gold and a voice
of pure silk, and does manly and macho things and gets the girl in the end.
(Oh, wait - that was every one of his movies.)
* * *
There were Elvis stories in our house. Anecdotal stories of
the woman in Hot Springs who was in
a car wreck and Elvis sent her a check for $5,000 to cover her medical bills.
Elvis renting LibertyLand in Memphis
so he could have some fun with his pals out of the public eye.
And best of all, there was the story of my mom and Elvis.
Yes, my mom actually went out on a double date with Elvis.
She wasn't his date - her friend was - but still, being a kid growing up in Podunk
Searcy, Arkansas, knowing that your mother even met Elvis in real life, let
alone spent the better part of an evening actually talking to him and having
burgers and fries and whatever the heck people did back then on double dates -
that was some seriously cool stuff.
* * *
Okay, we're bringing this baby home, so hold on tight. Or,
if you're into .38 Special (a Southern rock band I scorned with a passion in
high school, and now, merely scorn dispassionately), "hold on loosely."
I was a bit of a mama's boy growing up. The two key impacts
of this that persist to this day are my affinity for:
- Unsweetened
iced tea.
- General
Hospital
Because when I was a truly wee sprout (like, not in school
yet wee), I'd hang with my mom in the afternoon while she sat in that crazy
green upholstered cushy rocking chair and drink her unsweetened iced tea and
watch General Hospital.
(and while it's true that she also watched One Life to Live,
and I remember like it was yesterday the whole saga of Marco Dane, pimpmeister
extraordinaire, and Karen, the pathetic prostitute he victimized - played by
Judith Light before she hit the bigtime with that show with Tony Danza -
somehow that soap never stuck)
So, throughout my childhood, watching General
Hospital with my mom on summer and
Christmas vacation afternoons was a special time. It was just really frickin'
cool, actually.
And then this one day - let's say August 16, 1977, although it could be the 13th instead
– we were watching General Hospital, and all of a sudden there’s this breaking news
bulletin interrupting the show.
And as I live and breathe and try my best to write comic
books for a living, I can remember like it was five seconds ago the news
announcer coming on the screen, and with no prelude or preamble or warning,
just laying out there the news that would shatter lives and break hearts around
the world:
"The man known as Elvis Presley died today in a Memphis
hospital."
Okay, maybe it didn't shatter lives, but it surely broke
some hearts. My family's among them.
Looking back on that time, you'd think a close relative, a
favored uncle or cousin, had died. It felt like a real and personal loss, Elvis
up and dying like that. Within hours, it seems, every other commercial break
featured an Elvis commemorative book or record or statue or something. We
actually ordered a couple of those books, and I remember spending hours looking
through them, cover to cover, soaking in the otherworldly life of this larger
than life (and I don't just mean in the weight department!) man.
* * *
Some time after his death, we were spending the day at my grandparents' house2 in Searcy. I believe we’d recently seen the TV special that came out not long after his death. It was his last recorded concert, taped a few months earlier, and Wow! did he look bad.
I mean, he still had great hair and bitchin' sideburns, but
he had a double or possibly triple chin, and his belly trying to bust out of
that kickass karate jumpsuit just seemed wrong, somehow.
He looked like a man destined for an early death.
The weird thing about that is, I was more drawn to that
version of the King - the warped, distorted, Fat Elvis - than I ever was to the
young, hip Elvis.
I don't know what it was, exactly. An early-blooming morbid
fascination with the suffering of others? The natural human impulse to slow
down as we drive by an accident? Or just the sheer alien-ness of seeing
something that was etched into your mind as being one way - a known quantity, a
touchstone in your early life - suddenly and without warning being transformed
into a sick, warped version of itself.
And knowing that the sick, warped version died on his
bathroom floor of a massive heart attack, in all likelihood hopped up (or
dropped down, or both) on drugs.
* * *
So that day at my grandparents' house, my sisters and I
decided we'd put on an impromptu concert in honor of Elvis.
Fascinated as I was with Fat, Decadent, Drug-Addled Elvis, I
of course had to do my 11-year-old best to emulate him and the lifestyle of
excess that led to his early demise. So, as my sisters and I rehearsed our
upcoming smash-hit concert, I took off my shirt, leaving only my white
undershirt on, and tucked it in, and thrust my skinny little belly out in my
best imitation of Fat Elvis.
And guzzled Welch's Sparkling Grape Soda like it was a drug
that I couldn't get enough of.
Finally, we all gathered in the finished basement/rec room
of my Nana and Pop's house, and we began our performance. I may have been a
skinny 11-year-old kid, but in my mind, I was 42-year-old Fat Elvis, come back
to life in the bustling metropolis of Searcy, Arkansas
(population 10,867), giving it my all in one grand hurrah to my adoring fans
around the world.
Oh, yeah, there was a scarf, too. That I wore around my
neck, and then threw out into the audience of, let's see, Mom, Dad, Nana, and
Pop. I'm not sure who wound up with it, but I'm sure they treasure it to this
day!
* * *
I know this is ostensibly a column about writing comic
books.
But what my original column was going to be about - before I
got sideswiped, bushwhacked, and keelhauled by MusicMatch Radio's selection of
"Way Down" as the first song I would hear as I began writing tonight - was the
fact that sometimes, you've just got to get away from comics for a bit, and do
something else. Think about something else. Live something else.
When I sat down to write this, I thought that something else
was going to be baseball, and my so freakin' brilliant I could kiss myself plan
to save Major League Baseball from itself.
But now, I've gone and spent the entire column talking about
the lowercase king of kings.
And what's been in the back of my mind the whole time, that
I just don't have the MindSpace to process tonight, is my sister Tammy, whose
husband of 19+ years (I just found out tonight) is leaving her.
This has been one of the best weeks of my entire life,
because this is the week where I crossed the rubicon from "aspiring comic book
writer" to "comic book writer," now that I have my first published work in
print.
But, you know, it's a little bittersweet, to contrast my
week with what is no doubt one of the worst weeks of my sister's life.
* * *
So, there you have it. I never know how to end these
columns, so tonight, I'll just wrap it up as simply as I can.
Hail to the king. And God bless you, sis.
1Shout-out to my childhood friend David Perry's
mom, Judy, who always cracked me up when we'd wander into the kitchen of
David's house and ask if it was almost time for dinner, and she'd reply with a
gleeful smirk, "I rectum!"
2There's a little tribute to my grandpa, who died
last fall, on my website. Even if you're not into tributes to dead grandpas, you
might get a kick out of the photo of me receiving my first haircut - from my
grandpa, who was a barber!
Elton Pruitt used to smoke, but now he
doesn't. He likes moonlit walks on the beach, General Hospital,
and "Heard It In A Love Song" by the Marshall Tucker Band. When
he grows up, he wants to write comic books for a living.
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