Category: Elvis

Since I started my last entry with the mileage I had just traveled, I figured I would do the same. This last weekend involved a trek to Michigan – Belleville, Michigan, to be exact. This was an outdoor Elvis fest that got rained out for part of Friday, but was able to recover and keep going that night and into Saturday. The last time I attended this fest, it was nearly 100 degrees and high humidity that was just plain miserable. This year, the rain provided a much-needed gift in the form of mild temps and moderate humidity.

All in all, it was a fun weekend, but a long freaking drive. Construction was everywhere – especially when we were on I-94 in Michigan. It seemed to be pretty much constant. And while we are on the subject of road construction, can someone please help the crews in Joliet, IL, fix I-80 so it’s not just a constant landmine of potholes and bumps? Unreal. A few months ago, I had to have a cracked wheel replaced, and I am fully placing the blame for that on that stretch of road. I hate driving on it at night because you can’t see the potholes until it’s too late; then you go over them and pray that nothing is broken on your vehicle.

It’s an expensive summer to travel. Usually I do not bat an eye when it comes to filling up on gas, but this summer I feel like I’m in a horror movie every time I see the prices outside of Iowa. I’m not saying Iowa prices are stellar, but they are better than the ones in Illinois by far. Here E-85 is at least a dollar+ below what regular unleaded prices are. In Illinois, it might be a few cents cheaper, but it’s no bargain. Call it simple denial, but I cannot bring myself to fill up my tank completely when I am in Illinois. I will put a few dollars’ worth in and then repeat the routine until I am back in Iowa.

OK . . . can we talk about the Elvis movie? Spoiler alerts abound here, so if you haven’t seen it yet, stop reading. I’m going to see it for the 3rd time tonight, and so far I’ve been blown away by Baz Luhrmann’s creativity. I know the critics have complained that it’s not a true biopic and that Baz stretches the truth on some parts, but that does not bother me in the least. What he captured on screen was a beautiful life being squandered by drugs, abused by narcissists, and unappreciated by the throngs of people around him. Did Elvis really fire the Colonel from stage at the Hilton? No, but he did go on plenty of other rants on stage, and he did try to fire the Colonel at various times of his life – just not on stage. Baz just combined the rants + the firing, showing how volatile Elvis’ moods were at times, especially toward the end. Was Priscilla the only woman in his life? Obviously, no, but since Priscilla was one of the people who met with Baz and shared her knowledge of Elvis, it was not likely that she would have given the green light for other women to share her spotlight in his life. After all, if you start including all the girlfriends, where do you stop? Elvis was notorious for needing someone by his side 24/7 and a woman in his bed every night. Even the so-called “girlfriends” who like to keep their mediocre fame going by attending Elvis fests and billing themselves as “Elvis’ girlfriend” were not the only ones sharing Elvis’ bed. The movie, already 2.5 hours, would be even longer if Baz decided to start including Linda Thompson and Ginger Alden in it, so he chose not to. I think it was a smart move because the movie isn’t about them anyway. It’s about Elvis’ relationship with the Colonel. I love attending the Elvis fests, but sometimes it makes me sad to see all the people who still try to use Elvis to keep their own relevancy alive. He had plenty of that when he was alive, and 40 years later, it is still happening. Everyone wants to take credit for the part they played in Elvis’ life. I laugh when I hear someone say, “I told Elvis . . . ” as they recount their part in some monumental moment. Everyone wants to have a piece of him to wave around like a trophy.

Really, that idea is what makes the poignancy of the movie even more powerful. The Colonel used Elvis to finance his gambling habits. His doctor used his notoriety for failed business dealings. Everyone wants to take credit for things they told Elvis or did for Elvis, and that is why the end of the movie is just plain sad. When he gets into the song and says, “I’m with it!” to someone to his side, we are struck by the dramatic irony of it all. No, Elvis, you’re not with it. Your life is falling apart. Baz’s choice to use Elvis’ actual performance at the end seals the deal. I never cry at movies, but that got to me.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it should probably be in theaters for this week as well. I know some people do not care for Baz’s style of moviemaking, but I love it. It’s a fast-paced saga that is also a party for the eyes and ears. Seriously – go see it!

As I wrote about in my last post, my hubs and I had to go to St. Louis this past weekend so that his band could play a gig behind the famous Bill Cherry. The drive took 7.5 hours to get down there, which is quickly becoming ho-hum to us the more that we drive around the country together. Each drive nets us more laughter and more memories, so I try to keep that in my head as the ultimate payoff for the seemingly endless miles of highway driving. It’s not so bad once we get past the flatness of Iowa, but the flatness of Iowa is immense, and it can be relentless. I kind of dread the last 2 hours getting home because the drive is so. freaking. boring.

The gig was held at the Casa Loma Ballroom in St. Louis – a charming little place built in 1927. We were told several times that famous icons such as Frank Sinatra had sung there, and it did indeed have that “look” that suggested that many decades of dancing and music had taken place there. I am very much a total nerd when it comes to old buildings; I spend a lot of time skulking around, geeking out at architectural elements and imagining the history that had taken place there. However, there is one not-so-good element about playing in old buildings: THE STAIRS. My husband is a drummer, and the pieces to his drum kit are immense (they fill up the entire back of my Dodge Durango – with all of the seats folded down!), and the box with all the chrome stands in it (we call it “the coffin”) is ungodly heavy. So when we arrived at the Casa Loma and realized that the historic building had no elevator and we had to go up two flights of stairs to get the equipment in, it was a little disheartening. It was hot down there in St. Louis, and hauling all those pieces of equipment up stairs just to set up was not our idea of fun. However, with several other people helping to carry things, it went fairly quickly. The building also wasn’t air conditioned, so it was a warm night. I stood most of the night and took pictures and was dripping sweat just doing that; I can’t imagine how hot it was on stage with the lights.

The show, however, was fantastic. If you are an Elvis fan, then seeing Bill Cherry is a must. You will forget it’s not Elvis up there on the stage, and I do not say that lightly. He looks like him, he sings like him, he talks like him, and his jumpsuits are spot-on. He is one of my favorite people to photograph simply because the illusion is so striking. Here are a few of the pics I snapped from the show:

The pics probably do not do the performance justice, but let me tell you – a Bill Cherry show is great entertainment.

On our way out of St. Louis, we stopped by a record store called The Record Exchange that my husband had been wanting to go to for years. The store is owned by Bill’s manager and her husband, and my husband is always loving all the posts she makes on Facebook about her business. Since we were FINALLY in St. Louis, we decided to go there on our way home.

O . . . M . . . G.

This store is IMMENSE! The building used to be a city library, so there’s lots of floor space to work with.

The place is almost overwhelming once you step into it because every inch of the store is crammed with goodies – records, CDs, DVDs, tapes, stereo equipment, and lots of posters and historic material. The records are organized meticulously – which is not the norm in vinyl stores, we have found – and it is easy to find what you want. We had a long drive ahead of us, so we were only able to spend 1.5 hours there, but it was so much fun to peruse the store, and we would definitely love to come back and spend more time browsing.

I have been on an Otis Redding kick lately, and I was able to score one of his records here. That isn’t an easy feat, I have discovered, for Otis Redding vinyl is hard to find. But the owner of the store knew he had some Otis in stock and found it for me.

If you’re in the St. Louis area, be sure to visit The Record Exchange. It is a great store with something for everyone.

That’s all the news from my little corner of Iowa. This weekend we head to the Diamond Jo Casino in Dubuque!

I’ve been writing on this blog since 2008. I think there are probably a handful of posts where I talk about how much I loathe this month, so I debated whether I wanted to rehash that terribly ancient subject yet again. However, today’s weather just underscores one of the many reason why I dislike this month. Today was 70. Tomorrow will be 44 and rainy. Today we got a brief, beautiful taste of spring, and then my mood goes sour when I see what lay ahead. There isn’t another 70-degree day in the extended forecast. This was it.

Adding to my pessimism is the fact that it seems to be Murphy’s Law that the most beautiful weather we’ve had yet will coincide with the end of the quarter. It never fails! This means I can be found sitting inside, staring at a computer, while the forest animals dance underneath the brilliant sun, teasing me. I did manage to get out a bit this weekend, but I dislike having that “dark cloud” always on my mind, poking my brain, whispering, “Ya gotta get your grades done!” My grades are due by midnight tonight and I just finished them. Of course, there isn’t an actual “being done” with grades anymore. Current education trends demand that students get until infinity to turn stuff in, so I will have to redo these grades again and again until all who want to pass do so.

I wish I were joking. That’s another loooooooong post for another time.

I’ve been trying to get back into a reading routine. I’ve always been a reader, but sometimes I do not prioritize it during school because, well, I get tired of reading stuff all day long. My husband and I love to visit Half Price Books when we are in the Chicago area, and I usually add 10 more books to be TBR pile each time we go. My tastes have evolved in the last twenty years from romance novels (yes, I knooooooow) to biographies and history-based books. For Christmas, my husband bought me two books about two of my favorite movies: The Godfather and The Shawshank Redemption. I finished those not too long ago, and both were quite fascinating. I never realized how absolutely fraught with chaos and conflict the making of The Godfather entailed. I see there’s a new show coming out about this called The Offer, and I am stoked to see it. Poor Coppola – he had such a great vision, yet he had to claw his way through all the corporate bullcrap and naysayers in order to bring his vision to light. I mean, Jack Nicholson was considered for the role at one time, and Robert Redford was a favorite among the corporate bigwigs to play Michael.

No. Just no.

Luckily, Coppola got his way in the end and the cast was mostly of his choosing.

Sometimes it’s scary to think about what might have happened had the people with a vision not been able to carry out that vision.

The Shawshank Redemption has always fascinated me because A) Stephen King is a genius and B) Frank Darabont was the perfect person to channel King’s novella into a superb film and C) This film had the unfortunate timing to be pretty much overlooked at the Academy Awards, due to the existence of a few other blockbusters coming out at the same time: Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, Legends of the Fall, and Interview with the Vampire. I teach a cinema class, and Shawshank is one of the last movies that we get to by the end of the semester. It never fails that a good portion of the class not only has never seen the movie before but they unfailingly point to Shawshank as one of their favorite movies in their final reflections.

This book provided some interesting insight into the making of the movie, including how the interior prison block shown in the movie is actually a set built inside an old warehouse. As much of a fan of that movie as I am, I did not realize that they did not actually film inside the massive, gothic reformatory that the movie made famous and saved from demolition. It is also interesting to see the impact that one movie can have on a small town. I learned that there’s a “Shawshank Trail” where tourists can visit some of the filming locations, and I’m putting that trip on my bucket list.

Everything in that movie is perfect to me: the cinematography is beautiful, the music is perfect, and who can ever complain about Morgan Freeman’s silky voice narrating? The underlying message is endearing, and the actors are top-notch. What’s not to love?

The last book I finished recently was, well, kind of a let-down. I am a huge Elvis fan, and anyone who has followed the blog lately knows that my life has started to revolve around the “Elvis world” in a big way since meeting my husband. I devour Elvis books. In particular, I am intrigued by Elvis’ comeback with his ’68 special, then taking over the Vegas scene like a boss. For a few years, he was at the top of his game. Those were great years and fun to read about and watch. If you have ever seen the documentary That’s the Way It Is, you see that tanned, golden specimen of a man who laughs and jokes with the guys one minute but is serious as a monk the next moment when it comes to perfecting his music. It’s mesmerizing to watch.

When I saw this book, I had to have it.

If you read it, be prepared to read very little about Elvis at all until about page 171. I wish I were kidding. I got in depth information about Sinatra, Dean Martin, and every other Vegas staple – a portion of the book meant to provide background about why Elvis succeeded in Vegas, except that it doesn’t provide any of that background. Sinatra has little to do with Elvis. Elvis came along at the right time bringing entertainment that people wanted and needed at the time. Sure, one could argue that there’s an old guard/new guard component to all of it, but the connection between the two seemed weak. I couldn’t believe that it took 2/3 of the book to even get to Elvis’ stint at the International. I mean, if you’re going to name the book “Elvis in Vegas,” one expects the book to be mostly about Elvis in Vegas. The book was well-researched; it was just misnamed.

Well, that’s all the news from Iowa, land of corn and critters. If you made it this far reading this drivel, then you are the real MVP. Thanks for stopping by.