Black Elvis

I'm mad at myself because I can't find my copy of "The Best American Stories of 2000", which contains a story by Geoffrey Becker called, "Black Elvis". I'm mad because I wanted to find a quote in the story that goes something like this. "We're apes who know we're going to die."

If you Google, "We're apes who know we're going to die." it references an article by Sam Harris called, "Faith Won't Heal a Divided World." - which I read. It's an interesting article, I recommend you read it too. Mr. Harris argues that faith generates irrationality while science generates rationality.

"In science, it is a cardinal sin to pretend to know something that you do not know. Such pretense is the very essence of religious faith."

Where the rational consider abortion as a privacy issue between a woman and her doctor or the removal of religious symbols from a public park as separation of church and state, the Christian sees a big sign that says, "HC SVNT DRACONES" or Beware Here Be Dragons.

Back to Black Elvis.

I live in Las Vegas and we worship Elvis just about as much as Memphis does. If you go to the Las Vegas Hilton you can see one of Elvis' glittery white costumes - cape and all. And like the story, "Black Elvis", we have all kinds of Elvi - skinny, fat, tall, midgets, Asian, Hispanic and yes - African American. They're all impersonators, which is accepted. Imitation is a form of worship. But none try to usurp the King. There's no replacement. Elvis is and shall always be white.

This started me thinking. Barack Obama is Black Elvis. He's not an impersonator but a black reincarnation of the King himself. To a true Elvis fan this would be the greatest of all sins. It would be like replacing the rosy Anglo-white Jesus with someone who look like Samuel L. Jackson. It just cannot be ...

And so it is with our beloved white Tea Baggers. A president cannot be black. Let me repeat this. A president cannot ... never can be black - not even brown. It is an enigma. Obama is a unresolvable contradiction. And so a portion of our population has lost their frickin' mind. I mean this literally.

To a Tea Bagger, Obama is not the President of the United States. He's Hitler. He's a communist and a socialist. He's a racist. He's an anarchist. He's the Antichrist.

He is Black Elvis.

Staying in Vegas

I found sometimes you have to jump in with both feet and that's what I'm doing with this this new blog. Please, forgive me if it's a little rough around the edges for a bit. It takes a while to find your voice in any new endeavor.

I live in Las Vegas - actually grew up in Las Vegas. Which is a crazy thing if you think about it. In high school (many years ago) I had summer jobs at the casinos. I was a cabana boy for the Riviera Hotel & Casino. I met Steve Perry of Journey, Pavarotti (good tipper) and the late Andy Gibb (stiffed me out of tip every time). I've played video poker since I was fifteen - usually on dates at Macayo's or at the Hush Puppy.

I was always sorrta into politics. I worked in Harry Reid's campaign office when I was twenty. But it wasn't until we elected that misfit George W. Bush that I really got involved. I was always against the Iraq war. I was even against the first Iraq war (Desert Storm). I'm not much of a philospher but I just don't think we should be killing people. Killing=Bad.

Also, I can't understand why it's such a big deal to make sure everyone has a place to stay, something to eat and can see a doctor when they need to? How hard can that be? It's quite pragmatic to me. Ya give a person a boost up ... maybe they can get high enough to reach a slot machine.