Feliz Navidad

I wrote this post in September for Christmas. Because my own Elvis died in November, I have been a little out of the spirit. But I post for a traditional 40 days of Christmas. 

I have a favourite Elvis song. From From Elvis in Memphis it is the widely ignored Wearin' That Loved On Look. Back in undergrad days it was a favourite pastime in the Pen digs to dress up as Elvis and sing this loudly. I like to think my flatmates enjoyed the experience. I never thought it was Christmassy until I discovered that the Colombian Elvis is a rockabilly star called Marco T and he recorded a slightly adapted version for his Christmas album. The original song was written by Dallas and Owens, Nashville songwriters, and was track 1 on the Memphis album, which rescued Elvis from awful-movie obscurity. Recorded at American Sound Studios by Chips Moman in 1969 (in the same year the studio put out possibly the best and certainly the sexiest album ever, Dusty in Memphis), it was the first time Elvis had recorded in Memphis since he left Sun. (Dusty hated it and did most of the recording to massive backing tracks in New York.)

In Elvis's version,

I had to leave town for a little while, 
You said you'd be good while I'm gone,
But that look in your eye done told me you told a lie.
I know there's been some carrying on....

while in Marco T's,

Ya se con la Navidad
Y tu no estas aqui
Es como un rana que me que falla (?)

Porque falta tu corazon

Baby otra navidad sin tu amor 
(shoop shoop)
Baby otra navidad sin tu amor.

Elvis screams above the overdubbed backing singers. Marco T is altogether less dirty. The pics in the vid show Marco T, suitably toned down but effortlessly Elvisy, chatting to a beautiful woman with, oh my, is that Marilyn coming between them?

Anyhow people,

Feliz navidad to you all, the El Vez way. There is only a thin line between an Elvis jumpsuit and a Mexican wrestling onesie.

Thanks: Ana Di Rana for translation.

Elvis & Marilyn II

X-Men: Bullingdon Club

Sometimes I spend my time flaneuring about Oxford. No city has a right to be so pretty, but pretty it is and with pretty comes a bit of attention. Oh look, there's James McAvoy sauntering 19 times from Hertford to the Bodleian under an enormous silver umbrella that's making it sun. That'll be Xavier in X-Men: First Class. There's a story going round that when the blockbusters are in town, the ITV crew filming Lewis stick a notice on their vans saying: this is not X-men, or whatever big name is in town that day.  Ha. Ridiculous, surely everyone would rather have a nice cuppa with Lewis and Hathaway, Ma'am and Hobson than hang about with Young David Cameron and Magneto? 

Curling up with Lewis, king of kindness, in the episode entitled Generation of Vipers (which could in all fairness be the series name), I noted that his angry astonishment at the level of depravity on the internet, specifically an imaginary believable awful site called 'Barker', was further kindled by a particular article...

Elvis & Marilyn, pretend, on a pretend internet site in a pretend police station

Needless to say, Lewis and Hathaway put an end to the nasties running that particular show.

Elvis & Marilyn?

This scoop from Ed Demetry, on Driggs Avenue, in South Brooklyn, along the Williamsburg Bridge. On leaving a bar and his basketball team, Ed spies the news, which somehow seems better with Marilyn on top.

Sticky

So I looked into it. Did Marilyn even meet Elvis? I looked Marilyn up in the works of Peter Guralnick among others, but no: Bill Monroe, entries many; Marilyn Monroe, entries none. I looked it up in Greil Marcus's great Dead Elvis. "1987 [...] Elvis will become a movie poster, unanimated, still, like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe..." (p134). And indeed, in Chris Consani's various works, like Four of a Kind, you find those three hanging out with Bogey, still and unanimated. 

Stick

But I gotta tell you, in 1987, there was no internet.

I asked Google. According to Wikianswers, they dated once in the 1950s but Elvis thought Marilyn too short. And also Marilyn boasted that she'd slept with E. But Red West, one of the Memphis Mafia, says that Elvis never met Marilyn since she was too busy. But according to the Daily Mail online, Elvis's former agent Byron Raphael told the New York Daily Post that Elvis got him to pick Marilyn up one time and bring him to the Beverly Wilshire hotel, 1956. 

"When he saw her, they came together and, without a word, started kissing."

"I was in shock and didn't know what to do."

...

"The next thing I knew I was startled awake by the door opening and I dove behind the bar."

"And they both walked out stark naked. I didn't say a word, I just stayed quietly."

(According to Google, Elvis was 6'0", Marilyn was 5'5" and Arthur Miller was 6'1").  

Elsewhere, here, for example on Napa Valley TV, is Diana Dawn as Marilyn and "Lloyd" as Elvis. And here, Banbury Cross and Pete Storm do the honours. I could go on.

And I will.

This wonderful image. I got it here, I don't know where it came from originally. You'll see those pringle socks in the Elvis at 21 exhibition if you can catch it.

Edgy

And then there's the sticker itself. It's not just Ed who's been snapping away. Maltagracia's even found the same one.

We could go on. Elvis and Marilyn, together, forever, online and on the Williamsburg Bridge.

Thanks: Ed Demetry

Pics: Ed, Chris Consani; Internet