Sunday, January 31, 2010

objects we live with can excite us .. the ones we we leave behind will eulogize us ...

... elvis was adopting certain images of himself, using objects as hidden references of who he was, or longed to be ...

... his hand on the grip, this thumb firmly on the trigger, elvis held his gun, but pointed it where exactly, at whom was the business end of his pistol directed, what was he trying to communicate?

blam! bang! boom! ... it's almost humorous to observe his shot out television sets .. .45 slugs blasted through the screen, images destroyed, anger released ... tension and frustration expelled, a beautiful visual of a beautiful man firing his very beautiful gun .. but what did this aggressive, private and revealing gesture say underneath it's surface of visual and emotional composition .. what was elvis really going through?

elvis was made a memphis police officer, an object of authority, an object of admiration to some, and a threat to others, of security, and insecurity ... elvis had the right to carry his pistols with him, he fired them, he connected with the power of the gun, what was elvis's real connection to authority?

elvis's tennessee operators license .. reminds us that he was " just " one of us ... a mortal man, a man struggling to discover his own sense of identity, although so many around him were trying to project their own hidden identities onto him, trying to make him who " they " wanted or wished themselves to be .. they really did want a piece of him, they wanted him to complete them somehow, this mortal, sexy, exciting, but ultimately very human and humble man ...

... a humble man from humble beginnings, whose life would be changed forever, and whose search for his own identity would always be a driving element of his life, both in public, and in private ...

elvis's federal narcotics badge ... his pistol, his federal credentials, his meeting in the oval office with president nixon, the famous photograph of the president and elvis together ... what was elvis trying to say to us, what was elvis really trying to find out himself, what was he missing inside that he didn't have, what was hiding deep inside his heart, his soul ... what did elvis need that he would spend his whole life trying to find out, what do any of us really need?

they were each going through their own private demons every day, each with the weight of the world on their shoulders, and each still trying to figure out how they both fit in ...

stripped of all else, elvis was a complicated man, trying to balance what the public expected of him with what he himself really needed, to find out who he was underneath all the massive hype, fame and unrelenting public attention ... elvis was always on a search back to himself, to an earlier time in his life ... in the end, I think he was really striving so hard to get back to the innocence of earlier times ... to be comfortable just being elvis.

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