The Dawn Of Vigor Vivus

That's a really fantastic graphic, isn't it? I told the guy I wanted explosions, planets, beams of ethereal light, shafts of light, or shards, streaking across the newborn virgin sky. Which is a lot to expect for 20 bucks. You might get a small planet and a couple shards for that, but he really went all out. He blew my mind with this one!

So, instead of getting right into it today, I want to offer big praise, sincere plaudits, and enthusiastic kudos, and plenty of them, to my friend Jake across town, who tinkers with computer effects, etc. He said it'd be 20 bucks an hour, which seemed a little high, but then he said it'd only take an hour, so I got off easy. Especially when I think, something like that had to take more than an hour!

But, and this is understandable, he said he also wanted to get his name out there, and have something for his portfolio. I told him I represented one of the larger, more popular blogs on the internet, which I believe is true, so please, if you're visiting today, back me up on this. Jake's a good guy and needs to be encouraged any way we can. If you can throw a few bucks his way, whether on one of your own projects or as a tip for the pleasure of seeing this particular graphic, please feel free.

Jake, you did good, buddy. So, get ready, I'm coming over for more. I'd love it, just as an example, if you could work me up a killer "Devil" graphic -- think you got it in you? Something that really conveys the real evil of Satan, yet belittles him... I've got a project in mind having to do with Satan (the personification of what I'm talking about) communicating the anti-spirit of Rigor Mortis, the opposite of Vigor Vivus. If you need any guidance on the particulars, get with me. Basically it needs to be 425 pixels wide like this one, and you've got carte blanche, if you can keep it around 20 bucks again.

OK, without any further ado, and no further kissing up to sensitive artist types, let's get right to it ...

THE DAWN OF VIGOR VIVUS

(You can read my other great posts on "Vigor Vivus versus Rigor Mortis" at the link just given.)

Let me take you back to the olden days -- the really, really olden days -- back before there was anything except however you might conceptualize Pure Spirit/Mind and potentiality without limits. Are you game?

Like in the Tao Te Ching, there was really nothing, nothing differentiated, but all was one. Somewhere in that miniscule, yet infinite vastness, lay the spores of everything we now know and beyond. Picasso was in there, as well as Jesus Christ, Einstein, the Grandma Slump blog, Leonardo da Vinci, Buddha, Lao Te Tsu, Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King, Jr., love, and the 7th Billion Baby, just born the other day. Tao was unruffled.

In there as well, on the negative side, was the Republican party, Satan, all the jinns, the Oakland Police Department, Pol Pot, Milli Vanilli, scurvy, rickets, fundamentalism, jaundice, the Black Plague, increases in the price of stamps, spam, Walmart, and chick flicks. And once again, Tao was unruffled.

Then, according to Jake's great vision above, fulfilling my own brief instructions for him, everything erupted. You might call it a cataclysm, but I like to think it looked more like a gentle scene from a really cool ballet, a pastoral ballet if there is such a thing. The planets seethed and tugged at each other, but it was all good, like it says in the Bible. Shafts of light zoomed around, bowing to one another. God was pleased, being that Spirit of life-fulfillment at the heart of it, the play (lila) of the Hindus. And whatever James Joyce meant by "the excelsissimost empyrean (bolt, in sum) earthspake," that occurred. It was a stunner. And there was a half hour's silence in heaven, for the Divine to catch its breath (Spirit).

Here, then, my friends, is what the spirit of life had, has, and offers today: VIGOR VIVUS, life vigorously present and lived, the true life, what each of us needs for our own perfect fulfillment. All the possibilities are present for you. Yes, Tao was unruffled, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a positive, purposeful side, and a negative, destructive side. The negative is RIGOR MORTIS, death present as well, taking the fullness away and leaving you destitute and empty.

So, you see, it goes back to the very beginning, the life you and I are meant to live, the life of VIGOR VIVUS, then and now. But RIGOR MORTIS is always here as well, not to be denied, but not to submit to either. What was true in the beginning is now and ever shall be. The good and the bad. Which will you choose? I hope you fulfill all your personal potential by embracing the life-affirming values inherent in eternal VIGOR VIVUS. Please, get up off your ass and do it! Don't let another day go by! Let the words of Frank N. Furter be your guide, "Don't dream it, be it!"

OK, Jake, yes, go for it! Get me the "Devil" graphic ASAP. I'll raise the 20 bucks somehow. The cornier the better, horns, weird tail, and pitchfork. I wanted the Vigor Vivus graphic classy, but I want the Rigor Mortis one ridiculous. Stereotypical and hackneyed is OK, thanks. 425 pixels.

Please Don't Drag That String Around

I've got the great Elvis Presley song "Please Don't Drag That String Around" in mind. I'm pretty good at singing it, at least according to the way I hear things. Probably if I heard it played back with no accompaniment and my bare, crummy singing voice, it'd sound like crap. But thanks to the inner voice and the great acoustics in the shower, it's all good.

It's a great song, though, and I'd love to line up a dozen different versions on Spotify and listen to them. Except the only artist who does the song besides Elvis is someone called The Tuesday Blue Express. What is it about that song that no one does it? It's on Elvis' Gold Records Vol. 4 and the '60s Masters box set, two places. It's on a 45 I have at home. And of course The Tuesday Blue Express, whom I hadn't heard of before, but if they do this song despite the rest of the world, they have to be great.

OK, I just listened to their version. It's just a straightforward version, not at any different than Elvis,' with kind of a rockabilly jump sound. I don't know that it has any real reason to exist, which may be is why no one else does the song. What's the use, if you're not going to do anything with it? You can't outplead the King, baby.

"Please don't drag that string around." In the song, Elvis is a "puppet on a string" to his baby, recalling another of his great songs. His baby must realize his heart is tied to the other end, but maybe she just doesn't care. So he needs to plead, she's oblivious to what she has in this devoted man. Personally, I'd rather have a more equal relationship than that, not having to "jump to your command" like a puppet. That's probably why no one else does the song; it has kind of a pathetic theme.

Still, I love the song. And big plaudits go out to The Tuesday Blue Express for at least taking it on. To the rest of the assembled artists of the world, those who have turned your back on this song, shame on you. Beatles, Stones, Matt Monro, Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner, Tex Beneke, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Dick Barnett (a kid I knew in school), and Paul Peterson, I'm looking right at you!

The Women Who Loved Them

Looking back over my life, I guess I was a complete innocent. I didn't know the first thing about anything. I was in a kind of cocoon without even knowing it. Apparently nothing would ever wake me.

Then 75-year-old Tony Randall married a 25-year-old woman and my eyes were suddenly opened.

I suddenly realized that old stars and rich guys could get women, not because they were so great -- in fact they were dried up prunes like everyone else their age -- but because they were well known and rich.

Remember that starlet who died a couple years back? I'm drawing a blank on her name. Big boobs. She married an old guy, 90-something, who made a prune look like a peach. Of course he died soon after with a smile on his face, a big bright smile, nothing but wrinkles and gums.

So it started with Tony Randall. And maybe their respective ages had something to do with it, why it woke me, 75 and 25, because you don't have to know much about arithmetic to see he was three times her age. He was virtually over the hill when her dad was first winking at her mom.

Since then I've heard many other tales, including a star just recently, someone I frankly hadn't heard of before -- and I'm not proud of my ignorance, that's just the way it is -- like in his 50s, who married a 16-year-old girl. Say what?! Don't guys like that have to live at least 2000 feet from a school? But he got an exemption because he's a TV or movie star.

When you're well known like that, everything's possible, including really stupid stuff. Like the way it was with Elvis, girls scraping the dust from his license plates. I'll say that again slowly: dust from his license plates. LOL. I don't know precisely what you'd do with it. Keep it with the toenails you found in the trash, maybe. Although a toenail might be useful, like if you wanted to clone Elvis. But you can't clone a car from dust. Heh, what if you had a toenail from Elvis' trash and tried to clone Elvis and ended up with one of his hangers-on? He'd be like, "You brought me into this world, now buy me a car!"

As far as the actual Elvis, it's hard to believe he had any trouble finding women. He just flew auto pilot and they were all over him. It was a combination of his good looks and his incredible popularity and wealth. Then he died, and it makes me wonder what all the ex-girlfriends were saying, "I knew him when..." Knew him for a single night in Vegas! "Tell us the story again about you and Elvis, Grandma..."

I was at a concert by Wanda Jackson and she told us all she had a romance with Elvis, that she was one of his first girlfriends. She mentioned them kissing but didn't say anything beyond that. And coincidentally her actual daughter and granddaughter were in the audience. She gave them a shout-out. They didn't look anything like Elvis, in case you're wondering. As for me, she dated Elvis? I immediately went outside to scrape dust off her tour bus.

Elvis Presley -- The Crown Of Creation

From where I sit, all the key trajectories -- known and unknown, past and present -- point directly to Elvis Presley as the crown of creation.

Isn't that something? We've got the crown of creation narrowed down just like that. From here on out, except in us keeping Elvis' memory alive, it's all downhill. Mankind will struggle, global warming will eradicate the icebergs, robots will enslave us, winning lottery numbers will forever elude us, and finally the sun will become a red giant and wipe out everything we know. Our only hope today is Elvis, and, face it, eventually even that's not going to be enough.

But for our purposes, let's keep it on the bright side. The robots and the sun problems are still some years in the distant future. We have a full, bright future just out in front of us and for the foreseeable future, especially if we keep Elvis Presley at the center of it. I personally love Elvis -- this is true -- and what happiness I have, it's mostly Elvis.

We've already glimpsed the end of the world, above. But the world had a beginning as well. And that's where we'll start.

Formation of the Earth -- I've been seeing more and more TV shows that show the Earth being formed in a series of cataclysms lasting millions of years. Like a dust bunny, it started as one isolated piece of stone floating in space. Then thanks to gravity, many rocks came together. With gravity and heat, all of it fused together, then it was a seething, inhospitable ball of hell. The proto-moon slammed into it, then the forming moon and the forming Earth went into a tug of war/dance that helped us more than the moon. What was it all about? Whatever cosmic entity or intelligence there is at the heart of all things was preparing the way for Elvis.

Adam -- Adam came into existence. One day an unusually intelligent ape used blood and charred wood fragments to make paint, and started painting his hopes and dreams on the walls of his cave. (Train cars were not yet invented.) This mixture of thought and culture helped him bridge the gap between beast and man, and he called himself Adam. Adam's genius is not generally well-appreciated, but you try it: Go from the species you are to something a transcendental step up. It's tough to do. But he somehow knew, he glimpsed it from afar, the coming of his greatest son, Elvis, and that put a spring in his step. And one other thing, both Adam and Elvis are recognizable from their first names alone.

Buddha and Christ -- I'm lumping them together and letting them also represent other smart guys from the same general time frame, like Socrates and Plato. Buddha glimpsed that all of life was suffering, and ever would be until Elvis came. Jesus Christ took on Himself the sins of the world, freeing up man's path and clearing the way sufficiently for the coming of Elvis. The other smart guys also had their role in Elvis' arrival, Plato even glimpsing Elvis' fairly platonic relationship with Annette Day in "Double Trouble," thanks to her being an underage character most of the film.

Leonardo da Vinci -- I'm including Leonardo basically because any list of the world's great men is incomplete without him. His artwork of the naked man with the outstretched arms is the first full frontal nudity I ever saw, except for my baby brother, almost two years younger than me, having his diaper changed. Leonardo's connection with Elvis is unknown, except his notebooks have some obscure mentions, depending on how you read them, a letter on this page, a word on that page, of a "King" "of" "rocks" "and" "roll[ing wheel]."

Albert Einstein -- I have mixed feelings about Einstein. He's was a brainiac and is credited with being the Father of the Father of the Atomic Bomb, something like that. So he was very smart, but he also gets the blame, and rightly so, for a lot of destruction, and doubtless more to come. But to the extent that Einstein had anything to do with Elvis, he's OK in my book. It's interesting that he didn't die until April 1955, meaning he probably listened to and owned some of Elvis' Sun recordings. Anyone as smart as Einstein would have to see Elvis' genius.

Elvis Himself -- I was born about the time of Elvis' first recording, so what do you know about that? Then from an early age I had a deep appreciation of him, having his "Loving You" LP as my first record. Even as a five-year-old, I knew Elvis was the crown of creation. He had the greatest voice, the greatest musical instincts, and was drop-dead gorgeous. Put it all together, and with him being him, you've got something!

But think, if there wasn't a great element of destiny at work here, Elvis Presley might have remained a truck driver. We need truck drivers, of course, and I honor that. But this was Elvis, he needed to get out of that line of work and get on with his great destiny, which he did, much to my relief.

It sounds like everything is "happily ever after," but there were still flies in the ointment. For one example, we have mixed feelings about Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis' manager. In my opinion, he gets high marks for putting Elvis out there and keeping the demand high. But he gets low marks for keeping Elvis in the movies too long and not letting him record higher quality stuff in the '60s. Yes, I treasure my Elvis soundtracks, but they're clearly inferior to his '50s and first post-Army stuff or the later '60s American Recordings tracks. One last thing, to me he also took too big a cut of Elvis' money.

OK, Elvis Presley was the crown of creation. But what about his death and the years since? It's a drag that he died. And you may have noticed, everything has gone downhill since Elvis' death in 1977. The incidence of everything bad is up starkly since, drug use, teen pregnancy, suicide, bank frauds, political corruption, sports strikes, essay questions on college exams, internet spam, terrorism, inflation, and the price of stamps. The only reason we're not all dead and gone is the continued devotion of Elvis' fans for his music and memory. And thankfully the company controlling Elvis' output keeps reissuing everything; it's like every week we get another reissue of his top 10 hits.

Do you want to be happy? I believe you do. Listen to more Elvis music! I'm happy! Already today I've listened to "Big Boss Man," "Ask Me," "It Hurts Me," "Little Sister," and "Never Ending." Pretty cool, huh?

Hey, Aren't You Bela Lugosi?

I'm watching a movie starring Bela Lugosi, called "Bowery at Midnight." I'm roughly a third of the way, midway somewhere.

Like it says on the graphic, he's in a dual role. He plays Professor Frederick Brenner, a professor of psychology. There's a good scene where a student stands and gives a few answers on paranoia that, unbeknownst to him, stands as a description of his professor's other life. By night he portrays a kindly soup kitchen boss, generous to a fault. But it's a front for a criminal operation in which he uses some poor slob's criminal talents to help him along, then kills him.

When it comes to Bela Lugosi, I'm a big fan. So I'm always rooting for him to win -- whether it's taking over the world or whatever -- all the while knowing the conventions of film-making dictate that he has to lose and good prevail. Very disappointing.

But my beef tonight isn't that evil never gets a fair shake, but that the actual Bela Lugosi makes an appearance in this film, by way of movie poster. The cops are walking by a theater, which just happens to be showing Bela Lugosi's "The Corpse Vanishes"! Meaning Bela exists as the actual Bela, then this other guy, who just happens to look and sound precisely like Bela Lugosi.

In my opinion, such things should not be. Bela shouldn't be existing in a world where his characters are running around. What would happen were they to meet? Would they fuse and become a super villain, who couldn't be stopped despite film conventions? In that case, it'd be all right. But I imagine a bad scenario, like the actual Bela vanishing and therefore all his despicable characters too.

Look at the problem this would be for Brenner/Wagner. Not only does he always have to be on the lookout for the cops, but Lugosi fans as well. Because in fact he's going to get it everyday, "Aren't you Bela Lugosi? You look exactly like him. Your accent is precisely the same!" In short, the poster should not have been in the movie!

One other case of this happening that I can think of is in Elvis Presley's "G.I. Blues," where Tulsa McLean (Elvis' character) plays a song on the jukebox ("Blue Suede Shoes") by "Elvis Presley." How can this be? What does that make Tulsa, an Elvis impersonator? The actual Elvis impersonating a guy impersonating Elvis? If Elvis actually exists in Tulsa's world, isn't it strange that people aren't coming around saying "Aren't you Elvis Presley? You look like him right down to the DNA!" But that doesn't happen in the movie, for some strange reason.

You can't exist as two separate entities in the movies or TV. It doesn't work. You never watch "All My Children" and see them watching "All My Children".

Just Another Manic Everyday

Morning:

Thank God for mornings, when everything is uppermost and intense. I'd like to can it and have it on the shelf. That's where the real gold is, mornings. The sky's in reach.

My coffee pot was provoking me. It changes from benevolent to menacing just like that. When it's benevolent, it's hot, as I take the first sip in the morning. Then I realize I forgot to savor it, so I have to take a second sip, which is a second and not the first, therefore not as propitious and so menacing. I can't believe a coffee pot -- a French press thing -- can go from hot to cold so fast. If you were trying to set out a warm cup for baby that started out hot, you'd be waiting till he cried himself to sleep.

The first sip out of the way, I surveyed the wondrous cross, since it's Good Friday.


Afternoon:

Actually, that's not true, because I forgot it was Good Friday. So now I'm going to have to backtrack, with that experience somewhere down my list, a couple rungs down after eating a Russell Stover peanut butter/chocolate rabbit. The surveying should've been done when it was morning. Now that it's afternoon, I'm looking at the afternoon doldrums, but I'll overcome them in order to study and localize the Good Friday truths.

I want to avoid my usual analytical pose, and dig it out of the dirt, applicable for baseball and thinking.

I was checking out my fingerprints, I don't know, the holiest part of the finger? I traced to the middle whorl and touched one of them with a toothpick. That tickled maybe a million chakras nodding in agreement. Smiling with gratitude. Everyone wants to be recognized.

Have you noticed, speaking of fingerprints, at banks you're always a criminal? I have a self image as the most honest guy I know -- when I die the world's going to lose me. But at every bank they know you're a criminal. Your fingerprint always means something else to the suspicious.

With this fingerprint/toothpick thing, don't press too hard; you're not trying to injure yourself. A touch can be a ton. You're there to transcend the touch itself, which your finger is happy to accomplish with you. That place becomes heavy. And there's some sense of mild pain, because your finger thinks it's going to go through, pierce it. But is that reasonable without greater pressure? No.

Inside the head, looking for complementary points, sympathetic points, just the right corresponding places. This is free, like a mental candystick.

Mark 15:37 -- "And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost." Sit and see if you can hear your loud voice. Probably would sound very rude to the dainty ear. Not to trouble us -- those who mustn't be disturbed. A cry like taking a header against a cement wall. Melonable. Listening, listening -- too loud to hear? Pardon me, I'm putting this on pause.

Elvis played 29 shows like that, baby. Could move just his little finger. "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog!"

Elvis Presley -- A Squirrely Looking Guy

On the Elvis Presley album, "Elvis In Person," now part of the "Legacy Edition" CD set fronted with the "On Stage" album, between tracks, Elvis has a few things to say.

It's right at the end of "Hound Dog," just before he goes into "I Can't Stop Loving You," that he's taking a drink of water, and he mimics someone who might be talking about him, "It that him? Thought he was bigger than that. Squirrely looking guy, ain't he?"

Isn't that something? That Elvis would suggest he was a squirrely looking guy? To me that's really something, because I can't think of anyone who looks better. Maybe I'm just jaded from looking at Elvis most of my life -- my first album at 5 was an Elvis record. When I look at Elvis I must be looking with completely different eyes, although I know there's a lot of people who are the same.

But when you are Elvis, which only he could be, he must've had some of the same complexes that a lot of us have, who don't happen to be famous, and who aren't looked at a lot by people. Like in my case, if I keep my head down no one sees me. If I keep my head up, only ticket takers, security guards, and beggars notice me.

I might be something of a "squirrely looking guy," not as squirrely as a lot of people I see on a daily basis, although I tend to see a lot of beauty in the average squirrely looking person. Some of them I have to turn away from, of course, but that should go without saying.

But Elvis squirrely looking? Never!

UPDATE: Maybe I don't know the official definition of squirrely. But I think it has to do with appearance as well as eccentricity.

Polk Salad Hiatus

Some of you all never been down south, boy, I'm gonna tell you all about it, so if you go on down there you can pick me up some and bring me back a mean mess of polk salad. Chomp, chomp.

I'm on this hiatus here, this hiatus, and somethin' they all been sayin' here about this boy, they say I'm lazy and no count. He claims to have a game toe. You know that's what they're talkin' about ... but then again I'm doin' all right.

Now every day about supper time, Granny goes down by the truck patch. I'm sending her there to carry it back, to carry it back in a tote sack. It's a green thing she gets and it grows down there, and this thing, it grows out there in the woods and it grows down there in the fields, I swear to the world.

And this thing I'm talkin' about, it kind of looks like, just like a turnip, a lot like a turnip with somethin' that looks just like a mess of green salad stickin' up. Chomp, chomp. And every evening about supper time, she goes on down there and picks us up a mean mess of it and she comes on home then so that she can fix it and we can eat it. Cause that's about all we have. But then again we do all right.

Everybody says it's such a shame about Granny, that she's so mean and vicious, a 'gator tamin' woman, Granny. She's wretched and spiteful and totin' a straight razor, but she does all right. You know what I mean. Workin' on a chain gang somewhere down there some place you all ain't never been in Louisiana. Lawd have mussy.

The Hiatus Comeback

The last couple days I've been moody, blue -- sometimes up, sometimes down, mostly up but frequently down -- about my hiatus. At times it's been a mess of blues. But there's enough of a variance day to day that's really there's been something for everybody.

I'm reminded of a guy who climbs mountains. What he must feel like when it comes time to climb the next one! He must think, c'mon everybody, one of these days it's going to be the end. And, I'll just hope my time hasn't come yet, but I'm afraid this is a mountain I just can't climb, and if I fall I'll be saying this is my heaven and I'm goin' home.

But it's a wonderful world, so I went with it -- the hiatus. A few days ago -- I can't believe I didn't say it before -- I thumbed myself all the way down to Memphis and was staying at the YMCA. I went to one of the dives down there and dove right in and played my guitar down at the end of Lonely St., and sang about my hiatus. It was my hope that everyone would treat me nice about this thing, but many of my "friends" and "followers" decided instead we're gonna move. But that's all right. I said I'll just sing for myself tomorrow night.

Ever since I've been ragging philosophic about my loss, essentially it's been easy come, easy go. When I have my druthers, of course I'll take love. But first you gotta stop what you're doing and let me be. If you won't do that, there's the door, let yourself go.

I was in Memphis just a while, then called and told Grandma I'm comin' home. She gently responded I want you with me, to which I responded with several echoes of love, even telling her that the thrill of her love was at times a dirty, dirty feeling. Fortunately she didn't tell me to stay away. I got lucky.

But now that I've said that I feel so bad and I need to make her know it. She'll ask me whether it hurts me or not. (At least we'll be together.) I'll say there's too much monkey business going on, you're wearin' that loved on look, my suspicion's never ending, and, it's such an easy question, but is your real name Judy or could it be she's not you?