This
Mario guy hits a valid point when he says “A lot of these people on the Right
are major “word smiths’ in the way they spin Martin Luther King’s speech”. This is correct. And apparently George Will accused King of “appropriating
American rhetoric”, and I don’t know what the hell that means. The last thing King did was use other people’s
words. He was good enough as using his
own words. And I’ve heard that speech
and Mario is absolutely right. He said
in that speech “America wrote us a check (after the Civil War) and we are here
to Collect because the bill has become due”.
Martin Luther King’s words were always strident. The whole idea of “moderation” was an idea
that Dr King and Whitney Young did not feel comfortable with it somehow it
meant that the cause of the Black man was not worth pursuing to the max right
now, and not waiting any longer. Indeed
King often spoke of “Those who would insist that the Black man wants too much
too soon”. King and Young- - and I didn’t
say this in the last file, but they were asked if they would “be happy with any
bill the democrats would pass” and then “ease off on their demands for a while”. I guess that’s the whole thing like Pat
Buchannon saying we have to ease off on Immigration to allow “racial cultural
assimilation” or whatever. At any rate-
- the notion was refuted. In fact King
said “We will not have even begun along the path for racial equality till we
have indegration - - but also that discrimination is ended in other ways such
as in hiring practices for jobs and discrimination in housing- - and the sort
of de-facto segregation they have in the North with the school systems there”. That line “Not yet even begun along the path”
reminds me of that Tai Quan Do parody that Dr Demento used to play and in fact
I have that track on CD. This is in
refutation of Mr Grubberman’s demand that he learn everything there is to know
about Thai Quan Do in one hour. Because
people on the right like to tone King down - - and say that “Dr. King is really
one of us”. I’ve told you about people
on the right who play the “If only” game.
So Christians will say “If only we had lived in the time of Joan of Arc
or in the time of the Spanish Inquisition - - WE would not have treated those
people so badly- - as those people did.
We would be different”. But all
the while TODAY (when it counts) they are acting like total jerks. So let’s just summarize - - Dr. King stated
that the Black people- - culture- whatever- - would not be able to be truly equal
in all aspects- - including overall social acceptance- - until after ALL of
these other venues of discrimination and not just the proposed Civil Rights
bill- - were enacted. Of course Larry
Elder is fond of saying that the best thing about JFK was the passage of the
tax cut bill on higher incomes in October 1964, which of course was nearly a
year after Kennedy was slain. Other
preachers spoke on Saturday including John Lewis- - who also as a young man
spoke in Washington in 1963. The Rev Al
Sharpton spoke - - and Jesse Jackson spoke about the state of the Voting Rights
law now.
This
is Monday August 26, 2013 and as we told you it’s the 45th
anniversary of the day Apple’s first single, “Hey Jude’ and “Revolution” was
released. We are in lavender and I’m
keeping the “Oak Trees” shot on wallpaper a few more days. And there is no truth to the roomer that the
body of Ronnie Van Zant is buried beneath those oak trees. Today I thought we’d start off with a stale
story. (Maybe we’ll just pop it in the
microwave and see if it comes back to life)
I was going to do another one of those ‘I, Elvis” little bits. Me giving an Elvis “first hand look” at his
life is a hell of a lot more accurate than Neil of KFI pretending to be the
person of Jesus Christ, let me tell you.
Since football season is starting- let’s begin there. It was in Elvis’ junior year in high school
that Elvis wanted to try his hand at football so he went out for the team and
was expected. I believe Elvis was a
right end or something. His job was to
hit the guy once and then go out for a pass.
Elvis quit not because he didn’t enjoy it, but because his mother
thought it might be too dangerous. Then
Elvis got a job working for one of these tool companies doing the night shift
or at least the swing shift when it was dark out. I remember the florescent lights and I think
they buzzed- - and the walls were sort of a pea green. But once again some teacher told his mother
that Elvis was falling asleep in class, so Elvis mother made him quit that too. Then Elvis got a job as an usher in a
theater. That ended with conflict with a
fellow usher. Because the snack girl- -
I think her name was Gloria, liked Elvis and would give him free candy, and the
other usher was jealous. This ticked
Elvis off so he took a swing at him and they got into a fight and the manager
found out about it and fired both of them.
At least Elvis had some satisfaction of “Well, at least the other guy
was fired, too”. In those days Elvis had
his own bedroom and could listen to the radio late at night in peace. But this would change when the housing
department now said the Presley family was earning too much income for housing
and so they pretty much had to move, and I believe the announcement came right
around Christmas. So according to the
official stuff first they moved to a place on Cypress but didn’t like it there
so moved to 462 Alabama Street.
Apparently Anita Wood was in Elvis’ English class but at the time Elvis
wasn’t famous- - and I think he liked her more than she liked him. There is one photo of Elvis’ science class- -
where Elvis is the hoodlum in the back row.
The
first time Elvis went to the Memphis recording service was around April 20th
of there abouts. Apparently he already
knew Sam Philips and on Saturday mornings sometimes Elvis would buy donuts for
him and other engineers or whatever.
This one Saturday morning (and I as I recall it was one of those really
warm and bright sunny mornings) Elvis was in there and decided to make a record
for his mother. So he recorded “Up a
Lazy River” and has his own idea what he wanted it to sound like. But Sam Philips noticed he was really nervous
and Elvis apparently was waffling on whether he wanted to record the other side
of the vinyl, and Sam says “Are you going to record the other side or not” and
Elvis said “No” and left with the record.
And this whole incident is almost a “Me” exclusive. As Elvis (meaning ME) remembers it the talent
show at the school came AFTER this event- pretty close to the last day of
school. At this concert Elvis sang “Old
Shep” and also the song he would have sung that morning had he been up to it “Cold,
Icy Fingers”. And Elvis was really
impressed with the applause. It is noted
that there is not a single student signature in Elvis senior year book,
bolstering the notion that Elvis was kind of a loner. Elvis and Gene Smith had jobs arranged for
them by some relative that summer- - working for another of those tool
companies. And according to Cousin Earl,
Elvis also sang nights at this place called “Hernandos” but apparently there
were a lot of hecklers in the crowd and Elvis didn’t feel comfortable working
there. At this time Elvis didn’t have a
girlfriend and not to put too fine of a point on it, he was a virgin. We told you about August 20th
being the probably date as predicted by the Pyramid at Giza when Elvis made the
two sided single at Sun records. Side
one was “My Happiness’ and the flip side was “That’s when the Heartaches Begin”. This particular platter “surfaced’ at his
grandmothers in 1990.
Anita
Wood says in one report “I was definitely Elvis’ girl in those days” but it’s
hard to say just when their romance began.
Cousin Earl says that a little before Christmas of 1953 Elvis made out a
list of things he wanted to accomplish and marriage and children were high on
that list, so perhaps at that time he had a potential wife in mind. The next platter Elvis did at Sun studios is
a complete mystery even to me. I have no
idea when it was- - and no human alive
appears to have ever heard these two songs- - and neither has ever been played
on the radio, not even the “ultra exclusive’ radio program. It is my belief that it was early February
(with unseasonably warm weather as I recall) approaching Valentines day and Elvis and Anita were sitting at a coffee shop
and Elvis in a move to impress Anita, whose affections he still wasn’t sure about-
- gave her this two-sided record as a gift.
Now it would seem that in April of 1954 and not before that Elvis got
the job driving a transport for the local utility company. It was a job that paid less but that he
enjoyed a lot more. According to one
source- - Elvis met Dixie Locke at a skating rink- - and from that moment their
romance really took off. I have a vague
memory of sitting in the sand with her along the banks of the Mississippi
looking out at some island in the river (and fantacizing that I was really at
Frontierland in Disneyland. From this
point on we’ll be in somewhat of an overlap to material we covered a couple of
years ago. The Cotton Festival was in
June. The weather was hot- - and
apparently Elvis developed an interest in flying around this time and would
hang out at the local air strip a lot- - and would be up on some high platform
looking down - - and from there he’d catch a cool breeze. It is my belief that Elvis was at this time
endeavoring to learn to fly at this time.
As to that plane crash of June 30th of 1954 I have made a lot
of this karmicly as a past life ot the one passenger who died who was NOT in
the Blackwood Brothers group. Elvis
talked about this event one evening- - with Anita- - and not Dixie- - who wasn’t
around. It’s like she just vanished or
something. (?) But it was still in late June when Sam
Philips called up the house one - - late afternoon (perhaps after just getting
off work) and Gladys handed the phone Elvis and Sam Philips says, “Hey Elvis,
do you wanna make some blues?” Elvis was
so exited that he just dropped the phone and literally sprinted on foot all the
way down to the Sun records Studio, which probably wasn’t all that far away,
and apparently Sam was talking to Gladys still on the phone and Sam was
surprised that Elvis had made it all the way down to the studio so
quickly. (Where was his truck?) I think it’s a possibility that “Tomorrow
Night’ was recorded at this time because Scotty does not seem to be on this
recording but just Elvis and his voice.
We’re
going to skip over some stuff previously covered and move on to September first
where according to Scotty Moore- - the Blue Moon Boys - - as they were called
(I think “I” may have come up with that name myself because I thought our group
oughta have a name, but it never really caught on) and they played at the Katz
drug store grand opening at the corner of Lamar and Airways- - and Lamar was a
diagonal street- - and they played in the parking lot on a flat bed truck- -
and the weather was kind of hazy with the sun trying to come out. Now it is alsy my assertion that “Harbor
Lights” was not recorded until September and not done in the July session. This day was drizzly - - and one of the songs
Elvis and Marion re-wrote the lyrics to go “I don’t care if there is sleet and
snow - - the movie’s cozy with the
lights down low” or something. This
recording begins with someone banging on a shoe box lid- - it isn’t a bongo- -
and it was given the re-verb treatment.
This recording has a lot of false starts but none of these was Elvis’
fault. As to the song “Just Because” - -
my guess is that this reflected some friction between Elvis and Dixie- -
because Elvis felt he was giving more than he was getting - - out of this
relationship so he says “You cause me to lose all of my women - - “.
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