Always Elvis

When he died 42 years ago this month, Elvis Presley was hardly himself.  He wasn't even beside himself.  It was more like he became a parody of himself.  That he was only 42, seems to escape us now.  Especially as we watch 75-year-olds like Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan muster the strength and endurance to keep going and doing so as good as ever.
Elvis was plagued by everything from bad diet to high blood pressure, liver disease and lots of gastro-intestinal issues.  No wonder he was found dead ingloriously on the toilet.  But for many of his legion of fans, there is no young or old Elvis, no fat or thin Elvis, there is only one Elvis, the undisputed King of Rock and Roll.
Elvis, you might remember was the kid from Tupelo, Mississippi who could "move like a black man," in the words of Sam Phillips, ergo "a million dollars."  In reality, many millions of dollars.
I saw Elvis in concert once, under interesting circumstances, and it proved to be more complicated and memorable than I could have imagined.  It was 1971 and I was working at a group home for emotionally disturbed kids in the Bay Area.  One of the kids placed there had been particularly good at improving his behavior as was thus rewarded with any concert he wanted.  Not the Grateful Dead or the Jefferson Airplane, it was Elvis he wanted. As a counselor at the home, I was asked to accompany the lucky kid.  The show was at the Oakland, Coliseum arena and just walking from the parking lot to our seats, the people watching was outstanding. I remember all ages, lots of cowboy hats, and a wondrous pair of alligator skin boots worn by a rather stout fan.
Flash bulbs clicked and fired continuously.  Elvis would have scarfs placed around his neck by assistants throughout the evening because at a whim, he'd pull them off and fling them at fans constantly trying to get near the stage.
The audience that night in Oakland was definitely multi-cultural.  Elvis had many African-American fans.  He always had the requisite black back-up singers and, of course his background was steeped in the blues.  Elvis liked Cadillacs too.  He gave them as presents.
I saw Elvis about 6 years before his death, so he was in the throes of his elder statesman stage.  There were times during the concert when he played that parody role.  Missing song lyrics, laughing sheepishly at his mistakes, and of course, sweating profusely.  But his voice was strong and he definitely delivered the goods.

I was sitting in a small East Bay cafe when I heard the news of his death.  Nobody seemed surprised, just disappointed.  A few days later, while grocery shopping, I happened upon a commemorative bottle of "Always Elvis" wine.  What intrigued me was the poem on the back label, a mawkish piece by none other than the Colonel himself.  The wine remained corked in the bottle for over 20 years when finally it had to be removed as the cork seal deteriorated.  I put the bottle online for sale a few times, but no takers.  Somewhere out there is someone who might want this artifact for their collection.  As the name of the wine suggests, Always Elvis.

The Best Part

     Guess I'm bound to have this condition for the duration. It never seems to go away. The strength never dissipates either.  I shouldn't be surprised.  It is part of my identity I can't seem to shake.
     So what is this cosmic force? The pull to go back to school which is always preceded by going to a stationery store for new supplies.  It's been 13 years this September since I opened a school year and readied a classroom, yet the pull remains.  I think it has something to do with the emotions connected to one of the best parts of a teaching career.  The phenomena of beginning again is at play here.  It's all the "this year I'm going to..." stuff, .and the realization that last year's classes do not exist as entities in the universe any longer. It really is a fascinating condition and so short-lived that it's best to be experienced in full.
True career professionals in education find pure joy in opening a school year.  It's filled with promise and the pristine. Take the time to experiment with new seating configurations. View your classroom from various sides and angles. In the day before everything was computerized I used to show a new class my blank grade book.  Separate from my roll book, the grade book was only for assignments and completely blank it drove home the idea that nobody has any grades, any missing assignments, anything to be concerned about---yet.

In recent years, teacher work days give the opportunity to get the first couple of weeks planned in full complete with copies run off and an adequate number of seats for those classes that will surly average more than 32.  But dangers lurk.  Dangers that can be avoided with experience.  Next week, all over the country beginning teachers will make the mistake of thinking they can go to a copy room and find paper and a workable machine.  Nothing can be taken for granted.  Lesson plans should include emergency or contingency plans as well.  Assume nothing.
If, by chance you are an educator, and you find yourself happily anticipating meeting your new students on the first day of the semester, I have one more piece of advice.  Avoid meetings.  They are buzz-kills.  Oh I know you can't miss that group morale builder,  and perhaps a department meeting, but if you are lucky most everything else can be postponed until after Labor Day.  Speaking of that first school holiday, here's another thing to be aware of if you teach Seniors, and your school year begins before Labor Day  Most Seniors won't put in an appearance until after Labor Day.  It's just what they do.  So save that motivational speech and the class norms and everything you need them to hear until they are all there.

Stay

Life in a divided country today is remarkably different than it was during the last era of division.  Computers, and specifically social media, account for that. Fifty years ago, as this nation fought an unpopular war, it wasn’t as easy as it is today to determine the politics of your friends, family, and neighbors. People didn’t post daily. They didn’t discuss their political leanings as readily, and they certainly didn’t articulate their differences the way they do today.
They did show up (or not) to political demonstrations during a time that the role of the media was quite different. Historians and social scientists of all stripes agree that the images broadcast during some of those demonstrations had a powerful impact on helping to bridge the divide(s) that encompassed the anti-war movement as well as the civil rights movement. Who could easily forget fire hoses turned on people who wanted nothing more than the right to vote and the guarantees of liberty and justice for all.  The same things exists today, but in my view, with far less impact.  After all, we have our hands full with the emotions and politics necessary for dealing with mass shootings.
The Vietnam war drove a wedge into families, friendships and political parties. Day by day the nation seemed to heal itself. The current use of the phrase “love it or leave it,” only serves to show how old attitudes can survive and that it is as difficult as ever to disagree with your beloved country’s foreign policy without having your patriotism questioned.  It's almost amusing how the "red scare" "Commie-pinko" language seems to have endured as well.  One need only look at the critics of FDR to hear what's being hurled at Bernie Sanders today.

One thing those of us who questioned our government's integrity and resultant duplicity learned from those divided times is that we don’t have to give up the flag or patriotic music, or even our expression of love of country.
This country has always demanded tough love.  It is still trying to come to grips with it’s original sin.
I’m hopeful that this period of division we are grappling with right now will shift and ultimately change with the possibility of new, strong, intelligent, and mentally healthy leadership. I trust my country to recognize it when the time comes to mark a ballot. Then we can all love and forget about the leaving.

Dealing a Hit Song

"Old Town Road," the popular country/rap crossover is a
fascinating phenomena.  Guess it was bound to happen that a gay Black man sitting on a horse rappin" about riding that horse down the old town road would hit the pop charts.  Music in America has always been a place of cultural blending and, as such, it is something this culture can be righteously proud of.  Like food, dance, and a few other select things, music has been the vehicle to showcase our best multi-cultural efforts.
Still, the genres, despite their bleeding and bending have remained fairly stable.  Blues is blues, rock is rock, and country is country.

Each style has its own characteristics.  The roots remain intact even though the base has often provided the foundation for all sorts of collaborations.
Speaking of country music, the great U Utah Phillips (the golden voice of the great southwest) used to say that there was a way that anyone could write a country song.  Phillips was for many years a performer in the folk tradition, as well as a damn good labor historian.  He wrote songs throughout his lifetime about the people who rode the rails, the broken people scattered across American skid rows from coast to coast.  He was also very funny too.  Just listen to his recording of "Moose Turd Pie" to see what I mean.
In the late 70s and throughout the 1980s I often saw him perform.  I was privileged to interview him on various occasions for projects I was doing.  One of his routines was a monologue about writing a successful country song.  "All you need is a deck of cards." he'd say.  He went on to say that one need only write one word on each of the 52 cards in the deck.  You need words that often appear in country songs.  What comes to your mind first?  Most folks would say things like honky tonk, pick-up truck, boots, guitar and, of course Mama.  I set out to do this little task the other day and composed a list with words like darlin,' train,Texas, juke box and of course  (insert adjective) truck.
Once the cards have received their word(s) your simply shuffle them and in Utah Phillips words, "deal yourself out a few country songs.

Of course it requires a little more work to combine the words into sentences that make sense and drive some sort of narrative.  But that's where the rules of successful songs and their writers comes in.  Country songs love adjectives, lots of them.  They survive on vivid imagery and well chosen adjectives can paint simple but vivid pictures.  The songs tell stories about the things that happen to all of us.  But a warning...before you start dealing out all sorts of new material, I would remind you what some recent research shows about country music.  The most important thing is the melody.  You have to have a melody or you have nothing.  Maybe that's why many successful songs were written by teams of two.