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At least Axl Rose can throw a punch, even if he has been ducking Greg Baker for months now.

Young Elvis sang and danced pretty good for a white boy, but his guitar was little more than a prop, nobody confused him with the great thinkers of his day, and as best we can tell, he never beat anyone up, not even a wimpy music critic. Valentino was not interested in women, John Wayne never took a bullet, and David Copperfield cannot fly. Michael Jackson dons a studded leather jacket and we're supposed to believe he's gonna kick some ass. Off-camera Bogart was about as tough as quiche. If Da Vinci had been black, would we be issuing a stamp to commemorate the first white guy to make a credible sketch of the Mona Lisa? Maybe, if he was a baby boomer with bedroom eyes. And in retrospect, Elvis was not only one of the first, but also one of the best Caucasians to get the hang of devil music. It didn't hurt any that he had dreamy eyes and a pretty good voice to boot. Black people were still too dangerous to get close to, but a white southern kid who could produce a reasonable facsimile of black music's innate sexuality was just the tonic a nation of restless, horny adolescents was looking for. He came along at a time when white middle-class Americans were sexually repressed to the boiling point and facing the prospect of nuclear annihilation. He could sing, he could pout, he could shake his hips. The sad fact is that Elvis was (and still is) as overrated as he is dead. George Armstrong Custer) the status of hero and myth, a nation that elevates a second-rate actor incapable of independent thought to the highest political office in the land, would choose to honor the first white guy to competently plunder black music while ignoring the black men and women who invented the music in the first place? Where is the Chuck Berry stamp?įire up your poison pens, ladies and mentalgems, you're not gonna want to miss this opportunity to send a letter to the editor. Is it any surprise that a nation that confers upon the slaughterers of its indigenous population (i.e., Gen. But of course the latter two were not white men and therefore are not worthy of consideration, despite the fact that their music, along with that of fellow bluesmen like Muddy Waters, Leadbelly, and Buddy Guy, was the real deal, the foundation upon which Elvis and tens of thousands of other paleface rockers squatted. If there were any justice in this world, the debate would not be between Fat Elvis and Skinny Elvis, but between, say, Robert Johnson and Willie Dixon. The concept of honoring Presley with a stamp is pandering to begin with, but the post office needs to do something to divert our attention from rate hikes. Is it any wonder we're confused as to who was the real King, the sleek, sexy, singing stud who represents us as we like to think we once were, or the corpulent, complacent, self-indulgent, pharmaceutical vacuum that is probably a lot closer to our true national character? The Japanese devoured our motion picture and popular music industries, and British humor (an oxymoron if ever there was one) dominates late-night public TV. George Foreman terrorized barbecues and fast-food venues for a decade and emerged as a contender for the heavyweight boxing crown. One night the new Newhart awoke to find that he was still the old Newhart, that Larry, Darryl, and Darryl were just a dream.

Then there was the original Star Trek vs. First there was the heated new Coke/old Coke debate. The Eighties were a tough decade for popular American culture. In short order this has become the defining issue of the waning years of the millenium, a debate that has been raging for months and will in all probability continue long after the Postmaster General has adjudicated the matter. Postal Service, in their infinite wisdom, have seen fit to present us with only two options: Thin Elvis and Fat Elvis. Costello was even under consideration for such an award. The remainder were surprised to hear that Mr. citizens we somehow failed to contact, the burning issue was this: Which version of Elvis should the post office put on the stamp? The landslide winner, with 57 percent of the vote, was "Little Elvis," followed by "Dead Elvis" at 42 percent. In case you were among the quarter of a billion or so U.S. The results of the latest incredibly scientific New Times poll are in.