Me And Elvis-In That Order

When I was sixteen I bought a pair of blue leather shoes that had yellow soles and laces. Good God I loved those shoes! I would wear them everywhere. They complimented the rest of my clothes. You see it was in 1968 which was when our world was changing thanks to the British invasion and to some degree the war in Vietnam. We were all experimenting with our individuality and striving to be unique by listening to rock music and refusing to wear our parents clothing. We had no desire to be corporate puppets so we expressed ourselves through our clothing and appearance.

I wore my blue and yellow shoes, blue jeans, a tie-dyed t-shirt, a hand made tooled leather belt and pouch with matching leather visor which pushed the hair around the ears straight out and an enamel peace sign with yin-yang background hanging on a chain. Yep, I was a pretty cool individual. I would only be seen with others that would dress in a like manner. Now I realize that what we wore was just as much of a uniform as the society that we were protesting.

I went to demonstrations in order to “Save The Island Homes”, signed petitions and participated in sit ins trying to stop the war, as if the powers that be gave a rats ass about our silly little petition. I went to concerts to show how individual my musical taste was and suffered with 500,000 other individuals that were just as unique and wearing blue jeans and tie-dyed T-shirts. But not blue leather shoes! I’m thinking that the only other person that wore blue shoes was Elvis and his were suede not leather. Pretty heady company I was keeping.

Our parties didn’t involve drunken debauchery and fighting, but tea, good music, long conversations with good friends, hours spent trying to discover the hidden meaning in album covers and of course smoking marijuana. Lots and lots of marijuana. It is only in the past few years that I have started to read biographical histories of our Rock Gods that I begin to see that they were businessmen and women that caught the golden goose and held on for dear life. Just people after all, and in a lot of cases selfish, greedy people that now tour and charge $250 for the “good” seats. I guess “good” seats mean seats that are close enough for their aging fans to be able to hear them.

Oh, there were many musicians that believed in our movement to change the world, but they had a job to do and their own families to feed, clothe and fly to Europe, India and the Virgin Islands. I don’t blame them; in fact most of my best memories had their music as a soundtrack. Some are still playing small clubs and trying to save our planet. In many ways things were changed for the good, the war ended, Nixon was turfed out and we are more aware of what we are doing to the planet. Baby steps.

So, anyway, tonight coming out of the library I saw a group of kids dressed in loud shorts, sandals t-shirts and a hat worn sideways or backwards and I think all had a cell phone in their hands. They looked ridiculous! How are they going to change the world looking like that? Stupid kids! They could learn a lot from the way that we were…

I walked away shaking my head at how nothing really has changed for thousands of years and thinking that we will be the same in a thousand years from now. I noticed a poster for the Calgary Stampede that had a clown on it. It was a pretty silly looking clown, he had blue and yellow shoes, blue jeans, a tie-dyed t-shirt, a hand made tooled leather belt and pouch with matching leather visor which pushed the hair around the ears straight out and an enamel  peace sign with yin-yang background hanging on a chain…