Elvis Presley Challenge No. 18 – Flashman and the Colonel
Something like five years ago I sat with my elder daughter in the Oxford Union Bar at Oxford University. I drank decent beer and relaxed on comfortable and tasteful chairs. The place was only half full and the atmosphere evoked purpose and calm curiosity. I
The Oxford Skyline
was seduced. I finished my pint and my daughter asked me if I would like another. I looked around the comfortable elegant bar and remembered how I had wasted my own days at University.
‘No,’ I said. ‘These places are lethal for me.’
If I ever met David Cameron I would probably find him just as seductive. His charm, attention and easy confidence would tempt me in the same way that the bar did five years ago. This is why it is difficult to compare Cameron to Thomas Parker. We should never underestimate how an English public school education benefits the rich. They may be callous and have offensive views but the seductive elegance has a winning appeal.
Stanley Baldwin
The more obvious comparison with Cameron is, of course, Stanley Baldwin. Both advertised themselves as one nation Tories but both have led governments that inflicted huge damage on the British working class. Now the reputation of Baldwin is low. He is considered to have been too tolerant of high unemployment and is condemned for beginning the tradition of appeasing Hitler. Baldwin was undone by economics and Europe and more than one political commentator has predicted a similar fate for Cameron.
Much has happened in British politics since Baldwin but a key development of the last twenty years has been the emphasis on youth. The leaders of the political parties have become attractive actors who are obliged to convince the electorate that they are ordinary just like them, the kind of men and women you would like to meet in your favourite bar. Inevitably, this has weakened representative democracy. The actor soon becomes a puppet and the establishment obtains a firmer grip of the strings it always pulls. Representative democracy is now in crisis as it was 80 years ago. Stanley Baldwin was not its saviour and it is unlikely the charm of David Cameron will rescue us this time either although like Baldwin he may prevail for longer than we would wish.
Philip Roth in ‘American Pastoral’ wrote that only two qualities were needed for success in the American corporate world. These were a perpetual smile and relentless energy. He was half right and it also applies to bureaucracies but Roth should have added an ability to operate under pressure and to survive close scrutiny. Cameron has these abilities but, like his New Labour predecessor, 
they do not make him a leader, merely a highly talented lackey. Those who find it difficult to imagine a Prime Minister as such should picture him as he was the night before the wedding of Charles and Diana. He spent it camped on the pavement outside Buckingham Palace, loyal and faithful. Believers in parallel universes can console themselves with the thought that somewhere Cameron will be obliged to exist as a working class female. I picture him in a Northern working man’s club, impersonating Tammy Wynette and singing ‘Stand By Your Man’.
My views regarding Thomas Parker are also uncomplicated. He was incompetent, misguided and to quote Dr Beecher Smith, a Presley Estate Memphis attorney, ‘There were villainous elements.’ The evidence against Parker is contained in the books of Alanna Nash and there is no need to repeat it here. There is, though, a possibility that Parker was more of a lackey than his bravado and bullying manner indicated. I suspect Parker had the same relationship with Hollywood that Cameron has with the establishment whose bidding he served in Brussels.
Parker and Elvis in Hollywood
Hollywood had massive economic power and was the priority for Parker. The absence of Elvis from the stage between 1961 and 1969 and the sweetening of his music both in the movies and the recording studio reflected the wishes of powerful film studios. They had a celluloid product that needed selling and wanted no competition from an alternative Elvis. Parker picked sides and he was in favour of those whose ambition was only to make money.
The culture of ordinary people and their worth as human beings was not important. For Parker and Cameron, ordinary people exist to help the rich become richer. This was why Parker promoted junk at the expense of quality and why the government of Cameron was so intent on destroying the BBC. Fortunately, the phone hacking scandal messed up the plans of the puppet masters for a private sector monopoly of broadcasting. Of course, what undid Parker was a lack of a plan. He was a promoter and a deal maker and more suited to being the number two in a management team. Indeed, this was the original contract with Elvis. Like Stalin, he leapt above others and, once in charge, he did his damage, signing Elvis to contracts that ensured development was virtually impossible. Cameron also lacks a plan. He is the corporate bureaucrat who when asked for a strategy merely dashes to others and asks them to tick boxes. The responsibility of navigating the economy through a difficult recession he gave to his friend, George Osborne, whose main skill is as a political strategist and whose knowledge of economics is limited. When asked to come up with something visionary David Cameron invented ‘The Big Society’. This concept is so vacuous one wonders about the possible influence of hallucinogenic drugs. The descriptions by Cameron of his ‘Big Society’ resemble a Tim Burton film without the horror although if his plans came to fruition the horror would be real enough – no guaranteed health care, no welfare safety net and employers able to drive down wages to below subsistence level.
Few of us anticipate a glorious future for Britain and many think Cameron is qualified to represent a nation that will become increasingly mediocre. His survival skills are impressive and Cameron has vanquished his British opponents. Despite the money and the glory nobody ever appeared to challenge Parker for the job of managing Elvis. 
There is also a bully in Cameron which has been revealed on more than one occasion in Parliament. This has done him no harm and neither did the same trait in Parker. A bully is not the same as a warrior but the two are easily confused by the British Press.
I visited Oxford University nine times in all. Once a term I would spend the weekend with my daughter. The charm of the University wore thin remarkably quickly. Long before my final visit I noticed not just the elegance of remote privilege but its small minded smugness, the bubbles that insulate our myopic elite. I said nothing to my daughter during my visits. I was keen that she stayed motivated and obtained the glittering prize. I revealed my misgivings to her much later, long after the prize was safely stored in her CV. Even then, I was wary that my thoughts would be interpreted as inadequate parental pride.
‘I’m really proud of what you did,’ I said. ‘I just went right off the place.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I really hated it in the end as well.’
Elvis Presley Challenge No. 17 – Fats Domino
I last saw The Fat Man at Preston Guild Hall in 1973. Later, I purchased a Hi Fi and a double album collection of his hits and discovered that his appeal for me had waned more than I 
had realised. By then, I was listening more to people like Amos Milburn and Willie Mabon whom I thought were grittier. Perhaps I had become a snob. His show in 1973 was not a success. The mikes were wired up to loudspeakers that would have been fine with my new Hi Fi but as part of a PA system they were inadequate. The audience soon became restless.
‘We can’t hear Fats,’ someone yelled.
‘I bet you get bloody better PA systems than this in New Orleans, Fats,’ shouted another.
One woman asserted herself forcefully. She actually resembled Joanne Dru in the Western, ‘Red River’. In one scene, Dru has to have an arrow removed from her shoulder. Dru refused to cry and I doubt if she even gritted her teeth. Those who watch the movie may find the scene fanciful but after witnessing the encounter with the woman who took on Fats and his band I am not so sure. She walked up to Walter Lastie who was on drums and said, ‘You’re too damned loud.’
Walter looked at the lady and offered her the drumsticks. I envied him his naivety, his belief that his sarcasm would have the last word with a woman from Lancashire. The encounter did not last long. The set continued and Walter played quietly as he was told. After the show I had the opportunity to talk to Fats. He was as benign and as likeable as his records. We laughed about the irony, a man, who was famous for adding the back beat to rock and roll and the percussive impact of his piano, being obliged to play quietly and with drums you could hardly hear.
This particular evening is mentioned for two reasons. What the experts think of as the technical breakthroughs often mean little to the people who are gripped by the music. This half relates to Elvis hating stereo. He did not want his audience sitting between speakers listening for instruments to appear out of a speaker. He wanted it to land in one piece in the middle of the chest. Hemingway said of his short stories, ‘I want them to feel more than they understand’ and I believe Elvis felt the same. The technical stuff was his responsibility.
But we cannot ignore the backbeat easily and this leads to the second reason the evening now dominates my memory. The Rick Coleman biography of Fats Domino* claims that it was the
introduction of the backbeat on his great single ‘The Fat Man’ that entitles Domino to be given the credit of creating rock and roll. Coleman regards Fats Domino as the most important figure in rock and roll. He was certainly successful and Elvis was a keen admirer. In a gesture that never earned him any credit, and which I could have mentioned last week, Elvis appeared at his 1969 Vegas press conference with Domino at his side. The Press were there to welcome Elvis back to the stage and to praise. Elvis deflected some of that adoration and introduced Domino as the true King Of Rock And Roll.
I do not think Elvis is right but what do I know. I lost Fats on the way as I did Little Richard, both of whom were childhood heroes of mine. I found that their music became formulaic and what makes me an Elvis fan I suppose is my admiration of his diversity. I will, though, concede that Fats was playing rock and roll before Elvis and if we are tempted to build a bridge between rockabilly and rhythm and blues then the bridge would have to begin in New Orleans. I also found that if I listened to Domino while I read Coleman it was much easier to experience the pleasure that had once led me up the M6 motorway to listen to Fats struggle with an inadequate PA system.
My Spanish teacher was talking to me about England the other day. ‘What is this desire to know the first of everything? You see it everywhere, labels on buildings, everywhere.’
‘It must be in our culture,’ I said.
I did not mention Elvis to her and the obsession writers have with the beginning of rock and roll. The CD collection ‘The First Rock And Roll Record’ on the Famous Flames label is a marvellous collection of music that goes as far back as 1916 but the determination to define the key moment of epiphany is misguided. It is as if we believe that its location will give us the ultimate mythic clarity that we must possess. I had the good fortune to listen to rock and roll when it arrived or when it arrived in the charts at least. I do not remember thinking Elvis invented rock and roll but I did think he was different and that he had more appeal than the rest. I was a child living in England and my ignorance meant that for a while I mistakenly 
believed Bill Haley was the creator of rock and roll. Elvis, though, always had his own mythic clarity and it gripped me as it did so many. But so did African American rock and roll and rhythm and blues. The myths, though, were different. Rhythm and blues reminded us of the talent of an oppressed race and it exposed the limitations of its oppressors. Elvis was about the dreams of an individual although it was an individual who could connect to everything – class, race, gender, bohemia, hierarchy and all the rest. Racial discrimination did hold back black talent and people like Fats Domino were not given credit for their innovations although in the case of Domino he sold a lot of records to white kids. The tilted values of the time must have also affected me in how I assessed individuals. There were so many talented African American talents I saw them as comparable. But there was no white man who sang rock and roll like Elvis. He was on his own amongst white people and he had crossed racial barriers. He had the key ingredient of mythic clarity. He appeared to be a hero.
So, he benefitted but the musical talent was considerable, as were his achievements. Rockabilly was a distinct genre within rock and roll and he played a key part in its creation. There were other examples, too. He had his own epiphanies. He was also a person who could sing it all well. For some reason, this does not always impress others but I was easily convinced by Greil Marcus. Only Elvis, he said, had a talent that could embrace the contradictions of American society. That talent also meant he could express the complex yearnings within human nature.
Some years ago I climbed Baugh Fell in the Howgills, a range of uplands not that far north of where Fats struggled with an 
inadequate PA system. The walk allows you to trace the River Rawthay to its source on top of the fells. The first half of the walk accompanies the river. When it is in full flow, at the foot of the hills, the Rawthay dramatically forces a wide fast running sluice through a harsh landscape. After a demanding climb I expected something unusual, a spout or a large pond. Instead, the beginning was no more than damp grass and familiar English mud. I stood on top of the fell and remembered the power of the river I had accompanied earlier. I suspect that if we ever do find the first rock and roll record or the point where it actually began we may discover something a lot more modest and a lot further away than we imagine.
*Blue Monday Fats Domino And The Lost Dawn Of Rock and Roll, Rick Coleman Published by Da Capo Press.
Elvis Presley Challenge 16 – Luis Suarez, Race and Elvis
Last week began with the murder of an Asian student by a white racist who preferred to be known as ‘Psycho’. The only uplifting moment occurred on Tuesday with the conviction of two of the racist murderers of Stephen Lawrence. The same day, Liverpool Football Club announced that they would not appeal the decision by the FA to suspend their footballer Luis Suarez for 
eight games. Wednesday, the Daily Mail congratulated itself on its campaign to have the murderers of Stephen Lawrence convicted. Twenty four hours later, the same Mail and other English papers were outraged because black politician, Dianne Abbott, had stated that white people had a history that implied poor behaviour. Then came Friday, which was the first day Liverpool played at home after the decision not to contest the eight game ban, and a black player in the visiting team complained he was racially abused by a Liverpool fan. Before the weekend was finished a white twenty year old man was charged with the offence. This Monday the team manager atLiverpoolmade a long statement reiterating the commitment of Liverpool Football Club to fight racism.
The spat between Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra was not edifying. Two overpaid 
and over-indulged young men swapping childish insults. People outside Liverpool Football Club have asked how a club can stand opposed to racism, which I can verify it does, and support Luis Suarez. There are three possible answers. One, Liverpool Football Club believes Suarez is innocent and Evra did not tell the truth; this is what a lot of Liverpool fans think. Two, the club simply fought to protect a valuable commodity; this is what other football fans think. Three, the response was a combination of both; this is thought by those who usually wait until the end of the argument to say something.
I have been a Liverpool fan since – no I am not going to say, imagine me as youthful and ignore the photograph. Like other Liverpool fans, I have no confidence in the decision making process of the FA. But, whether Suarez used the word ‘negro’ once, as he claims, or seven times, as Evra claims, Suarez crossed a line. The word ‘negro’ does mean ‘black’ in Spanish but the words 
‘black’ and ‘white’ can be racially offensive if used in a certain context. Suarez was not being complimentary. He was, at the very least, being patronising. Admittedly, in the context of the slayings of black youths, this is trivial but it will do no harm to build a Chinese wall where Suarez crossed the line. Undoubtedly, Liverpool fans feel an eight game ban is harsh but it is not likely it will have a significant outcome on the fortunes of the team. Suarez has already missed three games. In one of those games, away to Manchester City, Liverpool would have probably been beaten with Suarez in the team and in the other two games Liverpool have managed their highest scores of this season. If the ban costs Liverpool as many as three lost points I will be surprised. This saga needs to be forgotten.
When I was in Brazil I sat at a bar and, shocked by what I had seen in certain parts of Brazil, tried to calculate how many black slaves had been created by white colonialism. I knew from my knowledge of Brazil that four million had been imported into that country alone. I remember staring at the bay in Salvadorand calculating crudely that the total figure across continents must
Slave trade routes
have reached ten millions or what could reasonably be described as a holocaust. If this figure has been accurately determined it has never been shared with the British by their newspaper editors. The figure is ignored as if it is history without relevance. Nor have our Western societies been zealous in repairing the damage. In Britain, black teenagers have appalling prospects – inferior education, shorter lives, more mental illness, higher unemployment and repeated harassment from the police. Present day statistics do not compare to the previous holocaust but they damn us and I think they justify Dianne Abbott losing her cool on Twitter. In view of what has happened to black people she should be given some slack. I know. I have double standards. But this inconsistency does not make me a racist. I am merely ashamed.
As always the rich and powerful dominate the argument. Serious studies of the 
consequences on the dispossessed exist but they are not given serious attention by our media. We would rather make ourselves indignant about what one overpaid footballer says to another or scream at Dianne Abbott for not being politically correct about white people. My God, the woman spoke as if she had a racial grievance, screamed the Mail. Hardly surprising, one is tempted to say.
In these circumstances it is predictable that Elvis and race have been debated in a less than thoughtful way. People who have no real knowledge of Elvis will assert with real conviction that the man was a racist. Elvis was born in a society that practised apartheid. Inevitably, somebody started the rumour that Elvis said black people were only fit to shine his shoes. This was denied by friends and relatives but the rumour has persisted. Peter Guralnick and Alanna Nash have researched the life of Elvis more than anyone. Neither has found any evidence of racist attitudes. Guralnick has asserted that the opposite applied, that Elvis had huge respect for black people and their culture and that he was a
Elvis with BB King, taken by Ernest C. Withers, photographer of civil rights movement
keen supporter of Civil Rights. His heroes included Martin Luther King and Mohammed Ali. This blog will in future weeks examine a biography of Fats Domino. The author of the biography argues the importance of New Orleans to rock and roll and believes that Fats Domino recorded the first rock and roll record, The Fat Man in 1950. The book is a polemic and partial but throughout the book the author uses the statements of Elvis to support his argument. He does this because Elvis acknowledged the contribution of rhythm and blues musicians and the importance of black musicians as much as anyone. In 1970, two Liverpool sisters attended several of Elvis’ Las Vegas concerts. Afterwards, they produced a first hand account of their experience. They remembered Diana Ross at one of the shows. She went to the front of the stage and Elvis kissed her and hugged her enthusiastically. ‘This girl is fabulous,’ he said as he kissed her. ‘I love this girl.’ This was not the action of a racist. It happened despite Elvis spending a large part of his life in a racist society. His behaviour to Diana Ross, his relations with the Sweet Inspirations and his visits to the WDIA concert in 1956 indicate that he rejected the racial values of his society. I have said elsewhere that it can be easy to confuse the charisma of Elvis with heroism. Elvis was not a hero. But, how odd that he stands condemned in the one aspect of his life where he was prepared to demonstrate his principles.
When the BBC presented a programme on the Memphis Mafia it included an interview with Sonny West. ‘Elvis loved black people,’ said Sonny. He said this without prompting or without any need to defend Elvis. It slipped out. The statement by Sonny West could imply that Elvis perhaps had double standards. Maybe he thought black people were ‘more cool’, they had superior musical talent (Albert Goldman quotes him as saying this) and that they had a likeable way. Or maybe he felt like I have done for most of the last week, just a little ashamed, embarrassed by our capacity to be self-righteous and simultaneously ignore the experience of the unfortunate and dispossessed.
The Good Things in Life
These are some of the good things that were said about the first edition of Treat Me Nice. The first edition is sold out but the second edition will be released very early in 2012.
The experts
‘Highly enjoyable and a stimulating read.’ Paul Simpson, author ‘The Rough Guide To Elvis’.
‘A formidable treatise. This book deserves to be noticed. Cogently written and totally absorbing and recommended reading.’ Nigel Patterson, Elvis Information Network.
‘Students should find room for Treat Me Nice. If only to understand what makes an academic study stand out from the crowd.’ Chris High. The Writers News.
‘Howard Jackson can write. The reader is in safe hands.’ Clive Bradley, TV and film scriptwriter.
Amazon readers
‘If you read one Elvis book, make this the one. An essential read for Elvis fans.’ Soul Sister 69
‘This is my Elvis bible, my ultimate reference book. Howard Jackson gets inside Elvis’ head, explains why Elvis is so talented and important, but also why many people cannot see it. Make sure you also visit the highly original and provocative blog.’ You’ll Never Walk Alone
‘If you’re serious about Elvis then this is a must read.’ Alfaman
‘Very well written and thoroughly researched.’ Mike F Belfast
‘A thoughtful dissection of the King.’ Queen Creole.
‘The Frankenstein metaphor works surprsingly well.’ 4Harrisons.
‘Love the review of Long Black Limousine and how it is combined with It Hurts Me.’ Bob 78s.
‘A worthwhile book that is probably essential.’ How Great Thou Art.
‘A pleasure to read, lots of little gems of knowledge and very original.’ Bossa Nova
‘What I like about the book is that it is not just for Elvis fans. The comparison between Elvis and the monster is a fascinating read.’ Even better than the real thing.
Other readers
‘Treat Me Nice is very, very clever.’ City Fan, Stockport.
‘Unputdownable. Immediately after reading it I downloaded every Elvis gospel track I could find.’ Wirral baptist.
‘I have read the book twice and I am not even a big Elvis fan. Second time is better again.’ Duggie Greenall.
‘I was awed by the information contained within the book. Made me realise why Elvis is so important to his fans.’ Exiled inGreece.
‘I read a lot of this book aloud to my boyfriend and parts of it made us laugh out loud. There is a lot of sly humour in the book which you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a book about music.’ Unity Banana.
Elvis Presley Challenge 14 – ‘The Killing’ or ‘Forbrydelsen’
[for those who have not seen Series 1 & 2 of The Killing, spoiler alert]
So far I have not met anyone who has watched all the episodes of the American version of ‘The Killing’. Most people abandon it after the first episode. The Danish actors underact brilliantly and the American actors altered their style to emulate the Danish performances but what had been a subtle approach in
Denmark became vacant in the American show. Even more offensive was the actor who played the American alternative to the detective Meyer. This character was pushy and unpleasant and, whilst alternative interpretations can be honourable, we are talking about Meyer who was shot just after we began to like him. Most of us are still in grief.
The BBC has had hard times lately, its funds have been cut and for a while the Murdoch Empire was able to take pot shots at the Corporation at will. Not that long ago James Murdoch would stand behind a podium and claim that only the financial greed of people like him could guarantee media impartiality. 
Nothing lasts forever and soon afterwards the hacking scandal had Murdoch looking for somewhere to hide, podiums he now sidesteps. Around the same time, the BBC found in their basement an unused Danish TV series called ‘Forbrydelsen’. Bought dirt cheap, the show had originally been deemed unfit for British audiences and had gathered dust but after the success of ‘Wallander’, a Swedish detective series, something Scandinavian was needed and ‘Forbrydelsen’ sounded just that. The show became a massive hit, so successful that it persuaded Channel 4 to buy the American remake.
The original series was not perfect because it was obliged to mix a serious study of the impact of a murder on the family of the victim with red herrings and suspense. Neither was the idea of using just one case as a basis for twenty episodes as original as the partisan but charming Radio Times claimed. This had been done earlier in the American series, ‘Murder One’. The programme, though, was irresistible. When Sarah Lund was betrayed or compromised she did not scream, shout or cry. She merely looked at the camera or looked away and I used to wait for these glorious moments with the belief I had an 
entitlement and it consisted of a quota. The actress Sofie Grabol had a thousand different ways of staring into space and I like everyone else in the audience would just sit there and watch her staring. She is now a superstar in Britain. The sweater she wore in the show is considered a fashion accessory and sales of this not inexpensive £250 item have increased to the extent that the factory in The Faroe Islands which makes these sweaters can no longer cope. The show insists on a certain authenticity and I assume that Danish policewomen can afford them because the sweaters are cheaper over there. The Danes need to be careful. The British have form when it comes to invading sparsely populated remote islands. Cheaper Sarah Lund sweaters could fall within British military parameters.
Because this is an Elvis blog I am obliged to note that her sweater has become 
an icon equivalent to his white suit. Both garments hinted at determination. Sarah wore the same sweater in every episode because she was too involved in her work to worry about a varied wardrobe. Elvis stayed with his white suit because he wanted to communicate an identity beyond music. They initially suggested remoteness although this has since been lost. The first series became a hit DVD box set and the second series used another sweater from the same factory. Not only did Elvis persist with his jump suit for too long he posthumously acquired 250,000 imitators.
Prior to the second series appearing on the BBC one of the producers talked about how they had wanted to do something different. To ensure that they avoided repeating themselves, they decided to try and create more dangerous 
situations for Sarah Lund. Again, I have yet to meet anyone who believes that the second series was the equal of the first. The extra suspense and violence meant more mechanical plotting. The visit by Sarah to Afghanistan may have been plausible but it felt like added exotica. Sarah had a new detective as a partner but he lacked the hidden charm of Meyer and nobody criticised Sarah when she emptied her gun into his body. He had killed six people merely to protect himself and Sarah felt quite correctly that this counted against him.
I am, though, still loyal and am awaiting the third series. I tell myself that perhaps they will have learnt from the last series and avoid the melodrama and realise that ‘Forbrydelsen’ does not need a panoramic sweep to be interesting. Again I have not met anyone who has watched both series and is not committed to watching the third. I understand my own loyalty. I do not believe that my entitlement to the stares of Sarah is exhausted and I remember 
those scenes in the kitchen of the Larsens when the family would both console and doubt one another. ‘Forbrydelsen’ was made in Denmark where the Dogme films where launched. These austere films both gripped and tested audiences. ‘Forbrydelsen’ is not Dogme film making but it is no coincidence that it came from the same country. The actress, Ann Eleonora Jorgensen, who played the mother of the victim, has appeared in a Dogme film and her honest performance as the mother was a key reason why we took the first series so seriously and will return to series three even though its impact will inevitably diminish. As ‘Forbrydelsen’ continues to increase in popularity the memory of Dogme will become increasingly irrelevant.
Not everybody who was thrilled by the arrival of Elvis stayed loyal but I did and so did many others. This was not because we did not recognise the decline. As with the stares of Sarah there are moments that once experienced give you a sense of entitlement and you want them repeated. This is usually accompanied by a belief that there is something or someone worthwhile at the core and that it or them are beyond others and that they or it led the way. In ‘Forbrydelsen’ the core consists of an honest look at human nature and a 
capability within its performers to represent that perfectly. Elvis may not have always been honest but he had an openness that was unusually revealing and his talent expressed an identity as complex as any that have existed in American popular music. For me, there is a parallel with his Sun hits and the Dogme movies. Both leave their memories. His Sun records affect how I listen to all his music and the echoes of Dogme in the Larsen kitchen mean I watch the subsequent melodrama of ‘Forbrydelsen’ differently to how I watch other thrillers. The great strength of Sarah is that she identifies with her victim. She does her best because anything else would be disloyal. Elvis has often been described as a sell out but I think he was far more loyal to his working class roots than people realise. I will not convince everyone but I know why I stayed loyal and why his best moments like the stares of Sarah still put a smile on my face.
Elvis Presley Challenge No. 13 – Christopher Hitchens
This is number 13 and I am wary. It is unforgiveable but I have an irrational trait. I am superstitious. I avoid walking under ladders and believe that the rituals I observe on certain days have an important impact on the fortunes of Liverpool Football Club. I am also aware that Hitchens has died recently and has powerful friends who will not appreciate a serious man of such intellectual consequence being discussed in this context. But a challenge is a challenge and I have my responsibilities. Why the comparison makes me so nervous is odd because I had no such inhibitions about comparing Elvis to Isaac Newton in Treat Me Nice. A book, though, allows for the use of plenty of caveats and Newton has been dead for nearly 400 years. It makes a difference.
Not everybody needs a hero but plenty of us do have that requirement and I have belonged with them since I heard my first rock and 
roll record and watched ‘Stagecoach’ every Christmas on TV. For a long while Christopher Hitchens was a hero of mine and he may still be although he has disappointed me and others. Originally, I admired him because he had the ability, if I can quote Mark Cousins in his recent documentary series ‘The Story Of Film’, to ‘talk to power’. He understood that the modulated langauge of the well-dressed powerful often concealed callous utilitarianism and that the motives they gave themselves usually denied ambition much more cynical. Like Elvis at his best, Hitchens was not intimidated by the establishment and neither should he have been. He understood them because he was created by the best of their institutions. This permitted a withering tone that lacerated opponents. He was also self-destructive or, this time to quote footballer Alan Shearer about the citizens of his native city, he enjoyed life. So the similarities with Elvis do exist. These are supreme talent, recklessness and a determination to prove that no one is better than him. Oddly, when they are listed that way these traits do not appear contradictory. So maybe neither man is the paradox that sympathetic observers have assumed.
Indeed, although some may baulk at comparing Elvis and Hitchens, if we add Orson Welles to the group we have three individuals who had similar capabilities. All established themselves as unique contributors, they became as famous as anyone else in their field and each had that overpowering desire to put their hand too close to the fire. They also had style and none were boring. Many of his columns were written after heavy drinking sessions or while he was enduring hangovers so Hitchens like Elvis and Welles could be casual about the impact of compromises on his work. These three are considered by many to have made serious mistakes and their biggest critics were often those who had been their champions at the beginning. Orson Welles lost fans when they realised he could be wayward, Elvis alienated those who he had originally persuaded that rock and roll was so powerful it had to be supreme and Hitchens angered the left with his support for liberal military interventions.
The argument surrounding the latter has been bitter as any dispute in any rock and roll club over which aesthetic should remain supreme. If this example is interpreted as trivial they obviously missed Rumfords in Liverpool in the early eighties. Rumfords used to have a rock and roll night every Sunday. The crowd was split between those who supported rockabilly, often members of the National Front, and those who believed in rhythm and blues, these usually belonged to the Militant Tendency in the Labour party. Elvis, as always, straddled both. The atmosphere, although rarely violent, was not pleasant.
Hitchens, like Elvis, remained unswayed by his critics and has always been consistent with his contempt. He attacked not only those who insisted upon a world order to support their powerful nations but the tinpot dictators who bullied and tortured their people. I am not a liberal interventionist, assuming one can be one without having an army with which you can intervene. I understand the principles that support intervention in certain circumstances. I have no choice because my daughter is an expert in this field so what always annoyed me about the tirades from Hitchens was how he assumed the principles were beyond those on the left who disagreed with him. I wanted somone to say to him, ‘yes, intervention is a good idea but the main problem is finding the liberals to make the intervention. The dictators are bad guys but the only ones able to intervene are those who maintain a world order arranged to suit the powerful; the order that often facilitates the rise to power of these appalling dicatators. The same people you used to condemn.’
But he was a lot cleverer than the rest of us and I gave him the benefit of the doubt as I did Elvis when I first heard his live albums in the seventies. I assumed that his weak vocals at Madison Square Garden were a consequence of him being recorded in large hall. Later, I realised I was wrong. Similarly, I assumed that Christopher Hitchens was nothing if not intellectually consistent. But then he praised George Bush as a talented President and spoke of his admiration for the man. This was the same President who at the time was happily diverting money from the poor to rich. When the failure and horror of Iraq became all too obvious and two thirds of that group of mindless, trendy lefties known as the American people stated they were against the invasion he still argued he was right. I became less charitable to him. At the beginning, reading him, I felt he was on 
the side of the powerless and against the powerful. Now, I am not so sure and I have my suspicion that his main concern he shares with his right wing brother, Peter. What annoys them both is not the fate of the powerless but the standards and manners of the powerful. This is not as awful as it sounds because it is still easy to admire the singularity of both men. My sensibility just happens to be different to them. And I think that is where the difference exists between Elvis, Orson Welles, Chritopher Hitchens and their fiercest detractors. They appear to be on the same side as their critics but they do not share their sensibilities. Perhaps it is no more than they were just poor at belonging to wider movements. This is not intended to waive away their mistakes. I have never forgiven Welles for the movie ‘Confidential Report’, was depressed by the visit of Elvis to Richard Nixon and believe that Hitchens was nowhere near squeamish enough about war and its consequences. He argued for morality but my weak stomach tells me that moral war results in just as many burnt babies as the cynical ventures.
So, do these three men qualify as heroes? In ‘Treat Me Nice’ I quoted what the film critic, David Thomson, said about Orson Welles. ‘He inhaled legend and changed the way we breathed.’ I argued this applied to Elvis and I think Hitchens, for all my misgivings, belongs in this category. All men had an irresponsibility that disappointed me but all embraced myth. I envy them and, if I am honest, I probably still need them.
Elvis and Us, Liverpool exhibition – Bonus Review
If you approach Liverpool City Centre from the north along Vauxhall Road you will eventually come to a cross roads. The turn to 
the right leads to the River Mersey and the Dock Road. The large green billboard on the left says, ‘Welcome to Liverpool.’ At this crossroads, though, the road signs that exist only show you how to vacate the city. I drove past it today thinking how well this irony summed up Liverpool, the always present lack of confidence and insularity that exists despite the assured wit and extrovert bravado. But the bravado is never vanquished and some was on display outside the Echo Arena. Last year I saw Elvis the Concert there with a crowd of passionate Scousers who could not believe that Elvis was finally visiting their home town. Admittedly, it was only the virtual Elvis but for the sake of history and parochial pride the audience was willing to suspend disbelief.
These things pass and today when I arrived at the Arena Car Park there was instead a huge sign advertising the return of one of the favourite sons. Paul McCartney had come home and would be on stage that night, hence the bravado. This probably explained why there was a queue outside the box office on what was a cold December day. The wind that came off the Mersey had a familiar bite and opposite the Arena a big wheel turned carrying mainly empty cabins. The sky had that colour peculiar to Britain, triumphant grey.
In 2011 Lautrec, Picasso and Magritte have all been honoured in Liverpool with events and I have attended them all so it is fitting that the year is ending with me looking at an Elvis exhibition in the British town twinned with Memphis and on the day McCartney was back in town. Nobody has mentioned it so far in the publicity but this is not the first Elvis exhibition in Liverpool. The last which may have been 10 years ago was initially billed as permanent. This was not the case and interest waned quickly and it closed.
I know someone who has contacts with the Liverpool media and she told me that the exhibiton is intended to attract American visitors. The long standing Beatles Museum does attract Americans but only a small proportion of the Americans who visit the city. My suspicion is that the Americans who come to Liverpool because they like The Beatles will go to the Museum. Presumably, this exhibition is meant to entice the more impartial American businessman or woman.
It has a chance of succeeding. The exhibition is not perfect and I spent less time in wandering amongst its stands than I did at the exhibitons for Lautrec, Picasso and Magritte but it has its moments. The admission fee is £6 and this includes a free audio commentary which is essential but there is no programme. Every museum needs a sense of history and this exhibition has it but that sense is intermittent. The two most interesting sections are those that allow original members of The Quarrymen to talk about how the band was formed and what they thought of Elvis and how he and other rock and rollers defined the world of aspiring British musicians. Of those who remember, Pete Best was the closest to the Beatles and he talks the most. 
This was a personal revelation for me. Back in the 70s I was a Civil Servant and, one day when we were on strike over pay, a friend of a friend brought Pete Best to the pub. The world was different in those days and we did what men did back then. We got drunk and talked politics. Pete Best was a good listener and probably said no more than half a dozen words. Although mainly silent he was extremely polite and indulged verbose young men whose lives were nothing compared to what he had experienced. In the Elvis and US exhibition, Best appears on several TV screens and he talks at length about Elvis and The Beatles and how rock and roll changed Britain. As well as anyone he captures what for all of us was a significant moment in history. It is no coincidence that Best and the other Quarrymen members all at some point refer to the Second World War.
The exhibition begins correctly by setting this historical context but if Exhibit 1 is intended to convince us that in 1951 the world lacked excitement and purpose it fails badly. The photographs of an exceptionally handsome Cary Grant and a beautiful Marilyn Monroe remind us that glamour has preoccupied the human race long before Elvis. There are also references to Sergeant Bilko and the fabulous Hitchock movie, ‘Rear Window’. This is smart knowing popular culture and it existed before Elvis. But despite that the sections that deal with the arrival of Elvis are fabulous and Exhibit 4 which features clips 
of Elvis on stage revitalised my memories. He really was a phenomenon. The exhibition attempts to maximise appeal by combining the stories of Elvis and The Beatles but the exhibition without really trying proves that Elvis was the explosion. We may have changed more after The Beatles but that crack in the fifties is still breathtaking when seen again. Anybody who is curious about the willingness of Elvis to create himself as an American monarch only needs to watch these clips. The female adoration is still difficult to comprehend as is the humour of Elvis as he accepts this adoration as if it is inconsequential. His remarks imply the opposite but the revelation here is that he is completely unphased by the attention of his fans. In the book, Treat Me Nice, I argue that we have to accept that although Elvis was a victim he was a flawed being. There are, though, moments that remind us he could be very likeable. In one scene, he is surrounded by girl fans. One girl who is plain becomes preoccupied with an artifact, it may be a photograph. Elvis watches this girl with modest potential and ambitions. She fails to realise the miraculous has happened. For a few seconds she has the undivided attention of Elvis. He says nothing because he has to dash but he realises he can do something for the girl that is beyond her guile and confidence. He leans forward and quickly gives her a farewell kiss on the cheek that he knows will not be acknowledged. There is such affection and respect in that gesture that it is difficult not to warm to the man. The unpleasant aspects of the Memphis Mafia have been well documented. Less has been said about how Elvis welcomed severely disabled Gary Pepper into the group and nourished the dreams of someone else with modest expectations.
The weaker moments of the exhibition lose that sense of history and its glimpses into random events of significance. Before the end it settles into routine hagiography. The least consequential exhibit is the largest and, inevitably, recalls the meeting between Elvis and The Beatles. Priscilla is on video and says nothing significant but it is not easy when you have a mouth surrounded by unyielding plastic. There are also long interviews with Tony Barrow and Chris Hutchins, ex-press officers they have little regard for the truth and their memories are inaccurate and a stain on the exhibition. I had hoped that someone would remember what happened before the famous meeting. This was a telephone call between McCartney and Elvis and at the time it was reported by the New Musical Express in detail. Elvis was much more communicative on that occasion and its omission from an exhibition that links the Beatles and Elvis is a serious oversight.
The artifacts are the mix of the familiar and the rewarding. I was pleased to see some original vinyl pressings. Imagining Elvis 
handling and listening to those recordings gave me a thrill similar to when I stood in American Sound Studios and the Vice President pointed to the spot where Elvis sang ‘Suspicious Minds’ and all his other Memphis sixties hits. The best of the artifacts are the Gibson he played when he recorded ‘Elvis Is Back’ and a blue chair that was used in the sit down sessions in the ’68 Comeback Special. I am prepared to accept that the chair could have been sat on by anyone and knowing my luck it was probably used by almost non-participant Alan Fortas. That guitar, though, is different. Elvis may have played more than one accoustic Gibson in those sessions but I have done a deal with my conscience. I will ignore the blue chair providing I can tell myself I saw the guitar that Elvis strummed on his classic blues recording, ‘Reconsider Baby.’ That is worth £6 of the money of anyone and, although I spent longer with Picasso and the others, it gives this exhibition the edge.
The Elvis Presley Challenge no. 12 – The X Factor
A while ago Simon Cowell appeared on the Radio 4 programme, ‘Desert Island 
Discs.’ The format of the programme is simple. The guest has to imagine being stranded on a desert island with only basic provisions. These are eight discs, a bible, a favourite book and one luxury item. Cowell must have struggled associating a desert island with a meagre existence. He has enough money to own a couple of islands already and have them support habitations furnished to the highest standards. But Cowell ignored the rewards of the materialism without limits that drives him and played along with the show. Cowell picked the one object that he believed would provide comfort against the hardship of privation and loneliness. He chose a mirror.
The presenter was shocked and asked, ‘Are you serious?’
Cowell insisted upon his choice.
He can claim fame and personal wealth probably worth billions and for all I know he may have taken a personal hand in refurbishing the occasional abandoned island. This, though, was his finest moment. An instant when a man, who has made a fortune calculating accurately the taste of millions, revealed how he not only understood the potency of trivia in the lives of others but why it defined him as well. We either have purpose or narcissism and Cowell trenchantly chose the latter.
The three great British TV phenomena in the last twenty years have been The X Factor, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Big Brother. All three have been quite resistible. Big Brother thrives on a need for gossip, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire reduces glory to the acquisition of money and the X Factor has ventilated a sense of exceptional and individual entitlement that damns the rest. Of course, their defenders argue that they are ‘only a bit of fun’ but it is fun that eludes me. Big Brother is about as exciting as a cricket Test Match after rain has stopped play, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire salivates over the unedifying spectacle of greed made hysterical and the X Factor traps its audience inside a ritual designed to repeat failure. There must be talented people who decide the X Factor is an alternative route to success but spotting them is usually more difficult than locating the recently discovered Higgs bosun. The rock singer and guitarist, K T Tunstall, recently made an appearance at a club or party.
Afterwards one of the spectators approached Tunstall and said, ‘You’re very good. Why don’t you go on the X Factor.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Tunstall. ‘I’m a musician.’
Well, as H L Menken once famously said, ‘Nobody ever lost a buck underestimating public taste.’
But the successes of these three shows have significance beyond the acerbic wit of Menken. All three involve, like the lottery, people admitting honestly and unashamedly that they need an alternative to normal existence. You do not have to be a classical pessimist to conclude that many people today find their own lives and privations unbearable. All shows offer a promised land but one that is remote from others and consequently empty. We are supposed to be social but our modern fantasies are rooted in isolation. These contestants, especially those in the X Factor, want to be in a place denied to virtually everyone else. Admittedly, these ambitions are fuelled by emotion so they may actually have a purpose that many contestants would be reluctant to articulate – existential consequence or a bulwark against immortality. But even if these reasons do exist there appears to be little regard for the consequences.
The mirror has significance for Cowell because he realises better than anyone, and realised before anyone else, what he was offering. A lonely existence denied everyone else but compensated by the narcissistic realisation that the glory is exclusive. Without anybody else to look at the mirror is not just the luxury the radio programme permitted. The mirror is an essential. It begins and ends the process. It inspires our dreams for selfish exclusivity and compensates us if those dreams come true. 
When people mention the X Factor in the context of Elvis it usually consists of familiar questions such as would he have participated and would he have won. I am not sure on either count. All that competition may have dissuaded him. I do not think he would have won, either. Elvis always had to endure ridicule and hostility that X Factor winners can and do avoid. When Elvis was asked one evening after a concert in Las Vegas if he ever thought he would be that ‘big’ Elvis replied, ‘I only ever wanted to be as big as Big Boy Crudup.’ The gentleman he referred to was an obscure blues singer. In the beginning the worldwide acclaim was beyond his imagination and so it should have been. As his music proved throughout his life Elvis was too human for that. What is disturbing about Cowell and the X Factor contestants is that despite the oohs and aahs the ambition is anti-human. It never imagines a Big Boy Crudup alternative and instead accepts continual audition for the ultimate prize, remote exclusivity. The notion of audition is interesting because the role it 
now plays in our lives has changed dramatically. The instant society and slavvering over change has required all of us to audition continually. This was not the case for our parents. They left school and college and acquired skills and these usually equipped them for life. Not any more. Repeated appraisal and evaluation is demanded in jobs that are not even well remunerated. Elvis whose ambitions initially were modest was exposed to this constant process of audition before most. Perhaps it is no surprise he resisted. Most fans are aware of his weaknesses and he was no stranger to the mirror but when I compare him to the ambitions that are insisted upon today I am convinced of his innocence. I believe the story about Crudup and I understand why he was obliged to be a victim.
The mirror is like all drugs. It is useful in the beginning but it destroys in the end. Not everyone, of course. This is why the least sensitive like Cowell can be glib about its presence and why X Factor contestants can be so determined. Cowell, though, is astute and not just financially. He knows the price and is willing to pay it, as long as the scars do not disfigure his reflection. Today, The Guardian printed a photograph of the winners, Little Mix. Photographs can 
deceive so we should not make easy conclusions about vacant expressions caught in the heat of excitement. But those expressions and the dodgy wigs were disturbing.
Cowell is tough enough to survive isolation and the consequences of his self-centred ambitions. The X Factor winners, though, should worry us.
Elvis Presley Challenge No. 11 – Michael Jackson and Dr Conrad Murray
The symmetry is irresistible and consequential. Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson were two major rock and roll figures and both were allowed to exceed 
their drug usage by indulgent doctors. To others, the medical men appeared to be motivated only by greed, two undistinguished men who thought that emotionally confused millionaires represented the gravy train. Dr Conrad Murray appeared a bankrupt figure in court. This was a man who rather than heal had only a gift for compounding wreckage. Murray has now been sentenced to prison for four years although the informed believe this term will never be served. His white doppleganger, and in these two tales there is more than one doppleganger, was someone called Dr George Nichopoulos. This doctor avoided prison but was reduced to going on tour showing the bag he 
used when he over-prescribed drugs for Elvis. Both men are now famous and deserve to be because they proved the incompatibility of greed and competence in medicine.
For me, the significance of these sordid tales begins and ends in Liverpool. After Elvis died but before the end of that decade, Liverpool playwright, Neville Smith, wrote for BBC television a play called ‘Long Distance Information.’ Smith was gifted and he is famous for his screenplay for the more than decent movie, ‘Gumshoe’. He had enough status and talent to persuade the BBC to screen a sympathetic account of an alienated Elvis fan. The fan is called Christian and the symbolism in the play is obvious. The play begins with the fan searching Liverpool for a jacket that Elvis wore in one of his early movies.
The play resonated particularly in the final scene. Elvis has just died and Christian, unable to sleep, wanders the city. He meets a man who has been a soldier. The music of Elvis does not have the same appeal for the soldier as it does for Christian but he has been affected by the death. He regrets the passing of Elvis in the same way his father, a communist, regretted the death of Winston Churchill. The soldier knows this is an important day. We will now become something different to what we could have been, he thinks.
The scene has also stayed in my mind because of a detail in the dialogue. Less affected by grief than Christian, the soldier understands the tragedy of death more clearly. I do not remember the dialogue exactly but the soldier says something like. ‘I know one thing. I know that if he had lived here we would have taken better care of him. We wouldn’t have let Elvis die like they did over there.’
The hard times in Britain today have been compared more than once recently to the years 1973-1983 and this play was written well before that supposedly grim decade had expired. Remember also, that this was from a playwright who was in awe of American culture and what was best about the country. This admiration is part of our diet in Liverpool. And thirty years ago Britain was a wounded imperial beast whose people were beginning to suspect the wounds were fatal. With so little economic power on hand and so much envy it is odd that the play was able to summon a patriotic pride, to still believe in what the 
country had achieved and could still offer. But whatever our faults there was always The National Health Service. Even in those dire economic circumstances nobody argued that the damn thing was not affordable. This slight of hand only occurred later when economic thinking had been deliberately clouded by neo-conservatism, the arguments of the rich and powerful and their lackeys.
This Monday, two days ago, Laurie Penny, in The Guardian wrote about her experience in America after she had picked up a serious infection. She came to the conclusion that the absence of public healthcare means more than a lack of free health treatment. It enables the poor and the ordinary to be subjugated more easily. And, maybe, that was what the final dialogue with the soldier in the play also implied. Not only would Elvis have had a properly regulated health service he would have been surrounded by people too proud to let his premature death happen. I did say the play was patriotic.
But all that was back then. Last Friday, two days before the article by Laurie Penny appeared in The Guardian, I was drinking in a pub in Liverpool. The 
White Star is a traditional haunt with good beer and if Neville Smith ever returns to his home town there will be more than one customer in there who will treat him to a pint. The pub was packed with the early Christmas crowd. There were groups from work having a drink before their premature celebrations. I was squeezed against four workers from the NHS. Two were actually employed by a care trust and involved in commissioning health treatment. We talked about the one day public sector national strike that had happened two days earlier.
The woman next to me said, ‘They think it’s about pensions but it’s more than that. We can see what they are doing. They are carving up the NHS for the big companies. The fight is that important I can’t explain why. Do you understand?’
‘It’s about what we were and what we will become.’
She nodded. ‘That’s right. What’s going to happen to us?’
I shrugged my shoulders. The NHS workers only stayed for one drink. Elsewhere, food beckoned them away.
As they organised themselves to leave the woman who had spoken to me stood opposite and waited. She looked at me without the usual farewell smile. Her face was anxious as if she realised that, without wishing to be, she was now involved in a struggle that carried the profound burden of likely defeat. I wanted to offer consolation, to tell her to be philosophical and understand that in most of the struggles between the powerless and the powerful it is the latter that usually prevail. I could have said that even in defeat there is exaltation in endurance although such triumph invariably has a bitter taste. These days, though, the alcohol affects me more quickly than it once did. Instead, I was inarticulate.
‘The NHS may be flawed,’ I said, ‘But it’s still worth fighting for.’
The woman nodded grimly. Her friends took her away.
Thanks to the determination of Aneurin Bevan, Britain has avoided Doctors Conrad Murray and George Nichopoulos. Greed exists in Britain like
"The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it" Nye Bevan
everywhere else but since I was a child the Conrads and Georges have been regulated. Bevan was aware of the appetites and choked their greed with consultancy fees. But that was well before disenchanted left wing playwrights were able to conclude Britain had at least something to recommend to others. Since the conversation in the pub I have brooded about health care and our responsibility to the damaged and vulnerable. I have thought about ‘Long Distance Information’ and Elvis and Michael Jackson. I am not the only one these days but I have remembered what we were and I have worried about what we might become.
