In Praise of Fat Elvis

Bejumpsuited, Chestal hairs breathing free!

What fool would choose your earlier, easier, milquetoastier incarnation. That Elvis is the Elvis of the nostalgic; of the weak.

No, give me the operatic, the melodramatic, the bombastic Elvis. The Elvis of "Suspicious Minds" and "In the Ghetto" and "Burning Love." Give me the avatar of rock n' roll pathos and excess. Give me the hunka hunka himself, apotheosis of the American id.

That svelte proto-Elvis was consumed, like the newborn Olympians, sacrificed to that final, monolithic Elvis and his sequined destiny and his windmilling arms and his rhinestone encrusted belt.

Crouch down and be counted as one of the mighty.

Here are your flared pants and your floral leis. Here are the scarves, drenched in your salty, buttery sweat. Here are the heaviest sideburns. Here is the fried peanut butter ball you asked for.

Sic transit gloria mundi? Not if you die on the toilet LIKE A ROCK STAR.

Never for me that narrow hip shaking army joiner. No, for me the splayed legs and billowing cape, spread like a thunderbird in laboring flight, one arm raised above your head like Michelangelo's Christ the Redeemer.

All hail Fat Elvis. He was more MORE.

If this suit wasn't too tight, indeed . . .