eternal optimism

Hung out on Friday with Sal, an old friend from the elementary school days whom I've kept in touch with over the years.

He and I went our separate ways for a spell in high school. My world view at that point in time was transforming rapidly, and it didn't have too much to do with how Sal perceived things. To break it down into simple terms: Sal was (and still is) an eternal optimist, while I was (and sometimes still am) an aspiring pessimist.

It's been in the years following high school that he and I have reconnected. Time has a way of putting the past into perspective, and I look back on the times we had together and think to myself, "Hey-- we had a lot of fun as kids!"

Of course, I don't know if he ever knew the real reasons behind my adolescent angst, but now that we're both adults, it doesn't matter. The fact is, we are both grown-up now, and those days are long gone. And in a way, it's a good thing that he and many of our friends at the time never knew the real deal about me, because it might have dimmed their budding optimism at a crucial moment in their lives.

Plus, it would've turned me into a "victim", someone who warranted pity and attention... two things that I didn't need.

Anyway, we checked out "Thai Elvis" at the Palms in Hollywood, and went to the Dresden Room afterwards for some drinks. We mostly reminisced about our youthful escapades while Sal's attorney friend from up north listened in. The combination of '50's music, coupled with good Thai dishes and nostalgic stories, had me feeling good.

The biggest difference between Sal and I is that he has always embraced sentimentality while I have avoided it. The reason is that I have always felt that I have nothing to be sentimental about, but apparently not only do I have a lot to get misty-eyed over but people like Sal are content to carry these memories for two.

In other words, I'm glad somebody was busy remembering all of that stuff, because I would've forgotten about them. Just as I consented to let Sal keep many of my old poetry notebooks back in the day rather than burn or trash them, so he also kept those memories alive.

In my drive to move forward and obliterate my past, I am finding that it is impossible to do so. And lucky for me, I have not been successful in my attempts to raze the monuments to my childhood to the ground.

Thinking back to those days, I wanted to do nothing more than die. Thus, it is fitting that I am still alive and grateful that, even in the most nihilistic period of my life, I wasn't able to go through with my plans for self-destruction.

I mean, think of all the things I'd be missing if I'd turned my own lights out.

Like Elvis Presley... I'd be missing out on Elvis...


*/*


I am an Elvis fan. No, I don't wear sideburns, and no I don't think the King is still alive...

...but I do think he's The King.

They say that you are either a Beatles fan or an Elvis fan, with no in-between. I disagree. I like both of them equally, and I see no contradiction there.

People ridicule Elvis because he died a lonely death, on the commode as his heart gave out. But his voice never gave out, like so many other rock gods who are still among us. Look at (or listen, rather) to Robert Plant, for example-- his voice is toast!

By the way: Robert Plant is a huge Elvis fan.

Elvis, despite the Jim Jones-style haircut during his Vegas years and that god-awful white rhinestone-studded jumpsuit, was a bad motherfucker until the very end. That voice... everyone can imitate it, but no one gets it right.

The original Elvis possessed a distinctive high baritone with a range from the lower E to the H over two octaves higher. He had an excellent vibrato in his voice.

Thai Elvis has performed, in the handful of times I have seen him sing, most of my favorite Elvis tunes: "Can't Help Falling In Love", "In The Ghetto", "My Way", "It's Now Or Never", "Love Me Tender", "Jailhouse Rock", "Little Sister" and a plethora of other hits.

There are also many songs that Thai Elvis sings that I was never fond of: "Return To Sender", "Teddy Bear" and "Bossa Nova" are a few.

Thai Elvis has even done songs that Elvis did by other artists, such as "Something" by... The Beatles!

But so far, he hasn't performed my all-time favorite Elvis song: "Marie's The Name (His Latest Flame)"...


A very old friend came by today
'cause he was telling everyone in town
about the love that he just found
and Marie's the name of his latest flame...


Written by the immortal songwriting duo of Doc Pomus and Mort Schumann, "Marie's The Name" has been covered by the likes of The Misfits, The Scorpions, and The Smiths, whose song "Rusholme Ruffians" is such a bite of the Elvis tune that they would cover a bit of the original in concert as an intro to their take.

I like songs that have stories, but not necesarily ballad or epic stories. A simple boy-meets-girl scenario will suffice for most pop music. But what's great about "Marie's The Name" is that the story is boy-meets-girl-who-belongs-to-another-boy-and-he-doesn't-even-know-it!


Would you believe that yesterday
This girl was in my arms and swore to me
she'd be mine eternally
and Marie's the name of his latest flame...


Elvis' voice on this song is in fine form: delicate, vulnerable, cloying... the backing instrumentation is like a hybrid mix of Bo Diddley rhythmic bounce and folksy skiffle-style acoustic guitar strumming. The melody line almost seems designed or tailored to The King's voice.

But it is the bridge (or middle-eight section) that soars, that elevates this underrated pop gem from novel footnote to a masterpiece of early rock 'n' roll artistry. A chattering piano stutter heightens the tension, the music gets a bit more upbeat, but the lyrics (along with Elvis' pristine delivery) are devastating:


Though I smiled the tears inside were a-burning
I wished him luck and then he said 'goodbye'
He was gone but still his words kept returning
What else was there for me to do but cry?


A moment of perfect heartbreak is captured and expressed, as surely as if it were photographed and printed on the front page of the biggest newspaper in the world; haven't we all been there, in that formless twilight area of the soul where our disappointment buries its face in shame as we smile and make nice on the surface?

Haven't we all wanted to crumble up in a ball as we hear the bad news, only to mask our hurt with best wishes and congratulations for those who are more fortunate than us?

Yes, we all have. I know that I have, at least.


*/*


Nowadays, a song like that would be rewritten so that the singer could get revenge on his cheatin' lover. Someone would write an extra verse, about how the guy tells his friend that his new girl was with him just yesterday, and then the two friends would conspire to humiliate the girl to teach her a lesson or something like that...

But if someone did that, then the song wouldn't mean anything. It's the pain, the sweet sweet pain, that makes the song irresistable to me. It's that aspiring pessimism that I've been hooked on since I was 14 that makes "Marie's The Name" the masterpiece that it is.

What makes the song even more haunting to me is the sunniness of the music. Like most of The Smiths' catalog, it's a happy little ditty with moribund lyrics on the top. You can dance and shimmy to it, but if your baby just dumped you then all you'll want to do is hold your head in your hands and weep. No wonder Morrissey and Johnny Marr felt the need to rip it off!

I wish Thai Elvis had played it on Friday, because for some reason it reminds me of Sal. Not that he and I ever shared girlfriends-- we did once, but it was a girl that I was already over by the time he dated her, and she treated the both of us like dirt anyway so it never came between us.

No, the song reminds me of him because of his constantly infectious attitude. Sal always acted like a man in love for the first time, and I was always feeling like a man who has been rejected for the umpteenth time. Thus, Marie could be a metaphor for our respective lives, and the song could suddenly be about young Sal telling me about his life and his happiness while I think about how my teenage years suck.


He talked and talked and I heard him say
that she had the longest blakcest hair
the prettiest green eyes anywhere
and Marie's the name of his latest flame...


Yet another reason why I'm glad to be older and wiser... now I think I get it, now I can understand certain things. Sal and I had to go different routes to end up in the same place, when you think about it.

I wouldn't say that I'm as optimistic as Sal is, but I've made progress over the past few years. I am still a danger-lover, content to lead a dissolute, unstable lifestyle for as long as I can, but the notion of growing older and settling down is friendlier to me now.

I am no longer the aspiring pessimist. Rather, I'd say that I'm an established realist. That seems to fit me now more than anything.

And that's the name of MY latest flame...