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| "In CA Conrad's advanced ELVIS course, a set of deadpan, dreamy prose poems work like odd footnotes and musing afterthoughts to a trip to Memphis's Graceland...Conrad diva-fies by proxy the cultural effluvia collecting at the feet of the man-god.” —Barbara O'Dair, Editor of Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock |
| "This is delicious stuff. Conrad is so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. His words are impeccably poised and razor-sharp. They come from that oldtime place called the Heart. Better Conrad's heart than Elvis's (rumored to be half bacon grease and half out-of-date narcotics). Mojo Nixon hath told us that Elvis is Everybody and Elvis is Everywhere. Now we learn so much more about that." —Jonathan Williams, Jubilant Thicket: Collected Poems
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| "Until I read this book I too was afraid of the vibration of Elvis, but CA Conrad is such a good Virgil he makes one feel safe, adored and capable of feats of great spiritual power...Conrad has an open, Whitmanic optimism and sunniness and he's a sucker for kitsch, again like Whitman, but he's got a sense of humor about it, and all those who cross his path will find themselves laughing their way right through the lower chakras and beyond." —Kevin Killian, Argento Series | |
Advanced Elvis Course
CAConrad
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| Paper | 5 1/2" x 7" | 112 pgs. | ISBN: 978-1-59376-243-8 | List: $12.95 | 06/1/2009 |
Available on Powells.com, Amazon.com, from your local BookSense store, and bookstores everywhere!
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About the book: CAConrad’s unabating love for the King has put him on a pilgrimage to Memphis on an advanced ELVIS course. These bizarre, multi-faceted vignettes, conversations, and poems are an homage bursting with love, oddball white trash, and twisted sincerity. While he eats fried peanut butter banana sandwiches and chats up the locals, Conrad also imagines diverse and surreal scenarios about Elvis as the holy rock trinity: god, legend, and meat-loving Southerner with a drug problem.
These vignettes blur the distinction between real and fictional experience and become a transcendental portrait of the legendary Elvis: the man who changed music and America forever, perhaps with some illegitimate children along the way. Through sources as disparate as graffiti, talk-show interviews, phone messages, and poetry, Conrad (whose unfettered energy doesn’t always feel that tied to reality) constructs a semi-mystical collage bursting with joy.
By talking the advanced ELVIS course, you will:
LEARN the not-so-subtle similarities between rock-and-roll and democracy.
HEAR Elvis talk dirty through the television.
MEET colorful Graceland locals.
LOVE Elvis even if you’ve never heard a single song.
What do you mean you’ve never heard an Elvis song. No matter, Conrad will show you the way. Sign up for CAConrad’s advanced ELVIS course and learn how you too can bring a little more Elvis into your life.
About the author: CAConrad is the son of white trash asphyxiation whose childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. He is the author of Deviant Propulsion (Soft Skull Press, 2006) and (Soma)tic Midge (FAUX Press, 2008). The Book of Frank (Chax Press) will be published in fall 2008 and a collaboration with poet Frank Sherlock titled THE CITY REAL & IMAGINED: Philadelphia Poems (Factory School Press) will be published in 2009. He invites you to visit him online at www.CAConrad.blogspot.com.
From the book:
I took a speeding taxi, not meaning to take a speeding taxi. “Elvis died in 1977, there’s really no rush,” I wanted to say, but didn’t. The maniac driver turned the wheel with his body, screaming at other cars. I just let it happen, zooming along. Stopped at a traffic light, there were rabbits in someone’s garden, stalking cabbage. Then zooming again, Memphis a blur. To counter his urgency I slowly unbent my fingers, then slowly bent my fingers, inches from my face, creak in the body, over, and slowly over again. My entire being fixed on the slowness I am capable of, bending, unbending. So. Slow. Then we lurched to a halt, he spun around, smiling, “Six dollars please thank you!”
Elvis and his parents are buried in Graceland’s Meditation Garden. I met Maisy from Mobile, Alabama, kneeling in prayer. She’s a lot of fun. I guess she’s in her 50s, bright red hair, Elvis jewelry, Elvis T-shirt. We had lunch near the Elvis Automobile Museum.
MAISY: (looking at my cafeteria tray) Conrad Darlin’, all I see on that tray is vegetables. Don’t you want meatloaf? Elvis loved meatloaf. Priscilla once said He ate meatloaf everyday for six months.
ME: I’m a vegetarian.
MAISY: Vegetarian!? My stars, what kind of Elvis fan are you!?
ME: I’m on the Advanced Elvis Course.
MAISY: Advanced Elvis Course!? Oh, good one. So, ah, where’s your wife anyway?
ME: I’m gay.
MAISY: OOOOOOOOOOH! So, you like Elvis tooooooo. You’re just full of surprises. Well, that’s all right, everyone thought I was a lesbian in high school. I was just in love with Elvis and saving myself for His lovin’ touch, you know.
ME: Are you still a virgin?
MAISY: (screams) OH! My goodness no! You sure are nosey, I like that. I’m not a virgin, but I’ll tell you, the first time I got balled I pretended he was Elvis. Mmm. Uh, well, he was too clumsy and selfish for the fantasy to really work though. The only other man I loved more than Elvis was Lester Parker. And he was gay, like you. Elvis is dead now, Lester is still gay, and my ex-husband Ricky works the casinos in Vegas.
ME: So you’re divorced?
MAISY: YES thank God! Divorced six years this Halloween! Now I’ve got a vibrator named Elvis. And a dog named Hound Dog. Only, he ain’t a hound dog, he’s a poodle. |
