European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 19, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse A guarantee that if its broke you can to fix it Andy Rooney or of s a lot of my things Are broken. The Light in the upstairs Hall in t working. The bulb blew three weeks ago. When i started to take it out and replace it i twisted the Glass part of the bulb out of its socket. Now the socket is stuck in the fixture. It seems like too Small a Job to be Worth calling an electrician at $45 an hour but if i try to fix it myself in a never sure which switch in the fuse Box in the basement controls which part of the House. I hate to throw the main switch because that Means i have to go around the whole House resetting everything when i put the Power Back on. We bought something called a Defiance icing orator because they made one that exactly lit the space we had available. The refrigerator runs almost constantly. When we asked about it. The dealer said a yeah they do the automatic ice maker stopped working Sci eral months ago. The repairman came twice but it still does t work. There s a limit to How much time you can spend waiting for a repairman to come. I guess Well go Back to ice trays. Someone backed into the Side of my car in a parking lot. There s a Dent and scratches on the panel under the window on the Driver s Side. It Isnit very noticeable to anyone but me. I notice it every time i get in the car and it bothers me but not enough to pay a couple of Hundred dollars to get it fixed. You can t do anything but change the Oil in a car now without having it Cost a couple of Hundred dollars. If car dealers wanted to double their business they a arrange to have cars dented in parking lots. There a nothing that gets you thinking about a new car More than a Dent on your old one. The backspace key on the old Underwood that i keep next to my computer Isnit working. People who know How to fix old typewriters arc dying out fast. I paid $220 to have a Telephone connect on known in the business As a Modem put in the computer i use at Home. When i brought it Back from the repair shop it did no to work. I called them and they told me it was a problem with the software i was using not with the Modem they installed. I called the fellow who set up my software program and he said it was their problem not his. That a another $220 Down the Drain. Speaking of drains the toilet downstairs keeps running alter Vou hush it. You have to jiggle the handle. 1 took the top off the tank but i never know How that stuff works in their. The Belt on tin big Sattler keeps running off the wheels no matter How Many times 1 adjust it. It s a pain in the neck to take anything Back to the hardware store and have them Send it to the Manula Turer. Almost no one lives and thing like that. What usually happens is the piece of equipment sits around Lor a year or so. Ami finally 1 give up and buy a new one. That s what 1 finally did with the cordless phone i bought a year ago. We had one just like it up in the country that Woi cd great so 1 bought another for Home. It was never any Good. There was always Static on the line and the volume was so weak that you could t hear what anyone was saving. I lost or misplaced the guarantee which is usual for me. After almost a year of feeling terrible every time 1 looked at the cordless phone i threw it away and bought a new one. The Only satisfaction i got was revenge. I bought another Brand. Then there Are dozens of minor possessions that Aren t right. The flashlight i keep in the big drawer in the Kitchen has a Loose connect on. It goes on sometimes but it does t go on others and sometimes when it does go on it goes off again. I be always had a lot of trouble with flashlights. It has been Clear to me for Many years that what the world needs is fewer salespeople and More repairmen. I have never met a a chairwoman. Maybe that a the solution to the shortage. Tribuno mix Lin Soryu i its Andy Rooney is a former Stais and stripes reporter Elvis weird legacy of Long live the kingly Irene Lacher los Angeles times the desert ruts have developed their own jargon As they develop their credible Force posture. If a Soldier is not prepared in the Case of a Gas attack he is at risk of becoming Elvis for Elvis Presley As the saying goes a is history. A Manchester guardian feb. 3,1991 when . Troops hit the Sands for desert storm you probably thought Elvis was too Busy being dead to attend. But far from being history Elvis sightings were reported throughout the persian Gulf War according to pop culture critic grail Marcus. That a not to say that Battle weary soldiers imagined they were taking on the King posthumously. Indeed its probably reasonable to assume that when Elvis died in 1977, he Well died. Still there have been All those people who refuse to let him go to these Many years later who keep resurrecting him in All sorts of cultural artefacts a Art music the vernacular and even Elvis Wear. A one of my favorite Elvis sightings came a couple of months ago a a says Marcus who examines Presley a second cultural coming in his new Book dead Elvis. A it was an and in the Village voice for a costume store. It said a this halloween Why not go As Elvis As he was a and there a a picture of Elvis looking handsome a or As he is today a a As a Skull. A and it was shocking to see someone come out with something like that. Imagine if somebody did that with John f. Kennedy even Marilyn Monroe. People would be offended. Here there was something so refreshing about it All All the piety and All of the is he still alive a crap blown it is Elvis Odd a and pervasive a legacy to be enjoying a second wind As perhaps the most Irreg Elvis Presley in 1976, the year before he died. Crent Symbol of american culture. As Marcus 46, shows in his pastiche of essays and illustrations Presley keeps returning for encores in everything from cartoon characters musings to the tabloids insistence on an eternally alive Elvis from Magazine covers to the personals. In explaining such abiding cultural quirks Marcus writes Quot i understood Elvis not As a human being. But As a Force. The necessity existing in every culture that leads it to produce a perfect All inclusive metaphor for itself. what Herman Melville attempted to do with his White whale but this is what Elvis Presley turned out to it May be hard to think of the american identity As something discrete something that could be summed up in one Handy Symbol but Elvis Many sides made him the perfect front Man for the country in Marcus View. A the was the poor country boy who loses his soul in the City. He was the White trash multimillionaire. He was a male sex Symbol who to Many people was utterly feminine and passive and set shh and vulnerable. He was some kind of revolutionary. A and when he died he blew apart All these pieces of Elvis and hundreds More. Thev blew apart separately As if they were All separate atoms and then they began to recombine in new some of those new ways have been incongruous even disturbing. Presley metamorphosed into an incarnation of Jesus or der fihrer. In 19n7, a band dubbed itself Elvis Hitler and issued an album called disgrace land. Marcus says it was Elvis death that breathed new life into his Persona. He attributes Peoples dark visions of Elvis to the Singer s own strange Story. Punk bands gleefully made lyrics out of his tawdry lifestyle and of his death at age 42 from a heart ailment after years of abusing prescription drugs. What Marcus Calls a bizarre manifestations of fandom Quot began popping up not the least of which was an Elvis restaurant in Israel guarded by a giant aluminium statue of the King. A very spooky a Marcus says. A this figure who to so Many people was so handsome and so powerful became a prisoner in his own movie factory. And he went on these lifeless Tours All around the country singing the same songs getting fatter and fatter obviously living a life of pain and misery. And then he died a disgraceful ignominious death and that a a strange Story and it s got the wrong Why does Elvis maintain his singular stranglehold on the Public fancy in part Marcus says its because of the emotional Power of his music. In part its because of the perpetual Money machine he left behind his estate the tabloids and Bootleg manufacturers All of whom have an interest in stoking the Elvis Llama. L Ong live products like always Elvis wine touted As the wine Elvis would have drunk if he drank wine. Quot my favorite spinoff for that was that years later Graceland licensed Eov me tender chunks dog food which they did not advertise As the dog food Elvis would have eaten if head been a dog a Marcus says. Marcus dates his own fascination to Presley s a h television comeback special when Marcus says simply a the played some of the most exciting Rock no Roll guitar id Ever heard in my life. He was better than the beatles. He was better than Bob Dylan. He was better than Meek Jagger. Quot and that a when i began to think a my god who is this Guy a that a one of the events that turned me into a january 19. 1992 9unuay a Page 1
