I'm grateful for all the heartfelt comments and memories this article inspired folks to share in the posts below. If I haven't responded to you, it's just because I'm worn out, not because I'm not interested. I'm glad I can leave my articles and comments section open to all so that such an interesting group of people can share their thoughts and recollections. Everyone has been cool and respectful, which is a remarkable thing in this day and age. Means a lot. Thank you, or shall I say Elvis-style -- "Thankyouverymuch"!
I just went to pre order your book on Audible (I'm dyslexic) and it appears I already did =] I hope pre ordering helps you out a little bit and I usually end up buying a copy for a friend or two as well. Thanks for all your insights and hard work. FYI i was falling into the "I wish California would succeed, already" trap but luckily I found you on Gaslit Nation and you helped me understand how I was being manipulated, gaslit! So I just wanted to let you know that your efforts are getting results. JL
Gosh. This is brilliant and remarkable, ma'am. And I'm more spent/awake/sobered than I thought - I ought to have - I can sense, a pouring of quiet tears from the well of grief you've opened here; but,
I can see that Money is going to run all the tables; Money is having its day, Money is going to more and more strive to possess our being, and there's pretty much nothing I can do about it; Except,
to stop participating in the worship of it. I have firewood to split. There'll be warmth twice from that. Winter is here.
You're most welcome. It does. And at this point in my long and full life: clarity, acceptance and being actually present all rests far more easily with me than going around in willful denial. I'm daily reminded of the midnight hedgerow 'homily' a Lt Speirs delivered to an honestly frightened Private Blythe. ".. we're all dead men.. and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can do your job." Our job, a job you do well, I think, is to bring, recognize and nourish the humanity in each other, and not turn THAT into just another fungible commodity.
I spit out my coffee when I read "the hamburger joint that has been recycling the same grease for a century and had it transported in an armored vehicle when it switched locations". I think we have a couple of those where I live. Thanks for another great newsletter.
“the hamburger joint that has been recycling the same grease for a century” - as a lover of hamburgers and as a risk-averse chemist and microbiologist this will have me waking up with a shriek in the middle of the night, sweating pearls of lard and tar. But great article, in which the grease from hell was not even the biggest nightmare
Yep… capitalism taken to its grotesque limits. “A bloated addict dying on the toilet”. A golden toilet no less, mined from the souls of humanity. Even Elvis the artist and entertainer convinced himself he wanted to be a “Federal Agent at Large”, meeting up with the “I am not a crook”. And of course a Colt 45 was involved…
The timing of this essay was auspicious almost to the point of irony for me. Last Thursday I read in a local paper the Don McLean was doing a show at a local venue here in South Jersey on Saturday. Now I'm not much of a concert-goer, but I told my wife that I really wanted to go. I wasn't expecting a great show or anything (and it wasn't all that great), but McLean is just unique. I was 17 when American Pie hit the charts, and it expressed something that young people were vaguely aware of then but weren't quite sure what exactly it was. We only knew that something was changing, shifting, being lost for our generation.
We ended up getting 2 seats in the middle of the front row, and I sat about 15 feet from Don and mouthed every word of his most popular songs- Castles in the Air, And I Love You So, and of course American Pie. The audience was always polite, and often enthusiastic as I was, mostly for his validation, because I knew he could see me clearly. I wanted my face to say thank you.
53 years ago American Pie was a new lament. It didn't call for action, just reflection with a touch of sadness. As I sang it again with the guy who wrote it I got all of that back. It's funny / ironic that troubadours are able to tell us what we already know but can't quite express.
This hits close to home on so many levels for me. My parents went with our neighbors to see Johnny Cash in 1962. The wife was a relative of Johnny and they went backstage yo meet him after a shortened set in which he was obviously struggling and visibly sweating. June Carter came out if the dressing room yo apologize to the fans waiting to see him saying he wasn't feeling well and also apologized for the performance being cut short. Of course Johnny was still in his drug addiction phase and not simply feeling poorly.
As for the duck parade, my Uncle Don owned a duck hunting club near Mounds, Illinois in the late 1950s thru the 60s. Ducklings were raised in a pen and walked down a trail through the woods to a pond in the morning and back inn the evening. There was a short chicken wire fence to keep them from wandering to far afield. This conditioned tgem as grown up ducks in the fall to go up a platform and fly down the same path to where paying hunters waited. As a grade school kid I spent a couple of summers helping herd them back and forth not truly understanding the consequences until years later. I kind of feel like America has been conditioned to fly to the pond where the oligarchs and authoritarian "hunters" wait to harvest them.
Anywsy, another insightful essay and excellent as always Sarah! Good night and Good Luck.
Thank you Sarah Kendzior for another fine essay. It took you and Trump to fully reveal how rotted our America really is and I find myself comparing the events of today with when I grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s. Back then there were many injustices, but you had the feeling that the country could repair itself. We really aspired to the words in the Declaration of Independence and in the constitution. The last election taught me again that those are only words on a pieces of paper and the voters rejected those words, ( for the first time according to historian Heather Cox Richardson) either by voting MAGA or by staying home. This is not my father’s USA , it is broken and so far we ain’t fixing it, are we? I still don’t want to believe it, but it’s true.
Recycling grease feels a lot like how the last few years have felt politically.
Also, “I wish my children could have voted in the Elvis Election, to see what it’s like to cast a ballot without fearing a coup.” I wish I could’ve voted on this too!
Beautiful piece, Sarah. Had to restrain myself from quoting and restacking the whole thing.
This Boomer remembers the promise of the Internet, how it would democratize everything, but I never expected this:
"That’s the worst part, Elvis knew: to become a brand and lose being a person.... In his day, that was the model for pop stars. In the digital era, it is the model for everyone."
While traveling in Scandinavia in September we met our first Instagram and TikTok influencer TCB, working hard to become a brand. We had a nice conversation on the train, and when we departed, we were glad he understood that "likes" wasn't love—it was revenue and was chasing the moola. But as a retired high school English/Humanities teacher who made productive use of the Internet (and other technology) to expand and extend conversations held in class, I am disappointed in how it has devolved.
Predatory and rapacious capitalism strikes again! Oh wait, there's more! AI hasn't been mined yet.
•. •. •
Again, I love how you employ memory with reflection and how the details of this essay gather momentum to your powerful conclusion that begins with "Americans live in fear: even the ones at the top, even Elvis."
•. •. •
And I loved the 1973 Elvis concert "Aloha from Hawaii". What's especially fun about the concert is his impish grin that says, "Ya, I'm the king, and I'm in on the joke". (Four years he was bloated and dead.)
Even though I grew up with the Beatles and had moved on the CSNY by 1973, I watched this concert when it aired. You know, back in the day when there was three networks and PBS?
Oh, and what Boomer can forget when "In the Ghetto" hit the airwaves! Such a timely 1969 anthem! [Sarah, you have stirred up so many memories!]
•. •. •
I'm so looking forward to April when _The Last American Road Trip_ arrives!
Thanks for exposing us to the wonders of Memphis and all its paradoxes. And having never stopped in Tupelo, just passing by on the way to Cedar Bluff to work on OTR or logging trucks, now sorry I didn't make the time to venture around it. Went to Graceland and while different, sadly?, never got into the man nor his music while in school in Sacramento. Nor did anyone else I knew. His death shook the nation not unlike that of JFK. Did we have a day of mourning? Don't recall, but don't think so. But there was a lot of gnashing of teeth and weeping all over the land. So maybe we should have.
Recently, your Mafia reference to a party came to mind...Sen. Ernst of Iowa is now being attacked for not being a clear cut rubber stamp for whoever he wants heading administrations, just as one in the Mafia or some gang would say do this or sleep with the fishes. Only instead of fishes, we will primary you! Just like they did others before her. All I could think of was just like Sarah stated, these guys and gals are of a criminal gang. They just appear respectable. Like Iowa AG Bird. Not too unlike Hillary Clinton and her friends at AIPAC, either, who go after progressive Dems who don't kiss the blarney stone of Israel.
I would cry for America, but I have no more tears.
I'm grateful for all the heartfelt comments and memories this article inspired folks to share in the posts below. If I haven't responded to you, it's just because I'm worn out, not because I'm not interested. I'm glad I can leave my articles and comments section open to all so that such an interesting group of people can share their thoughts and recollections. Everyone has been cool and respectful, which is a remarkable thing in this day and age. Means a lot. Thank you, or shall I say Elvis-style -- "Thankyouverymuch"!
Wow. Your writing is stunning! I want to read every essay twice. I want to see what you see and understand what you understand. Thank you.
Thank you very much! If you like this particular essay, my new book THE LAST AMERICAN ROAD TRIP is very much in this vein (travelogue/memoir/political history): https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250879882/thelastamericanroadtrip/
I just went to pre order your book on Audible (I'm dyslexic) and it appears I already did =] I hope pre ordering helps you out a little bit and I usually end up buying a copy for a friend or two as well. Thanks for all your insights and hard work. FYI i was falling into the "I wish California would succeed, already" trap but luckily I found you on Gaslit Nation and you helped me understand how I was being manipulated, gaslit! So I just wanted to let you know that your efforts are getting results. JL
Thank you very much!
Gosh. This is brilliant and remarkable, ma'am. And I'm more spent/awake/sobered than I thought - I ought to have - I can sense, a pouring of quiet tears from the well of grief you've opened here; but,
I can see that Money is going to run all the tables; Money is having its day, Money is going to more and more strive to possess our being, and there's pretty much nothing I can do about it; Except,
to stop participating in the worship of it. I have firewood to split. There'll be warmth twice from that. Winter is here.
Thank you. I'm spent, too. If this article helps, I'm glad!
You're most welcome. It does. And at this point in my long and full life: clarity, acceptance and being actually present all rests far more easily with me than going around in willful denial. I'm daily reminded of the midnight hedgerow 'homily' a Lt Speirs delivered to an honestly frightened Private Blythe. ".. we're all dead men.. and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can do your job." Our job, a job you do well, I think, is to bring, recognize and nourish the humanity in each other, and not turn THAT into just another fungible commodity.
Very much agree!
I spit out my coffee when I read "the hamburger joint that has been recycling the same grease for a century and had it transported in an armored vehicle when it switched locations". I think we have a couple of those where I live. Thanks for another great newsletter.
That hamburger was one of the best burgers I've ever had! So juicy! Totally merited armed guards.
100% https://youtu.be/puJePACBoIo
“the hamburger joint that has been recycling the same grease for a century” - as a lover of hamburgers and as a risk-averse chemist and microbiologist this will have me waking up with a shriek in the middle of the night, sweating pearls of lard and tar. But great article, in which the grease from hell was not even the biggest nightmare
Lol — but it was so tasty though! (I am the reason this country is doomed…)
Yep… capitalism taken to its grotesque limits. “A bloated addict dying on the toilet”. A golden toilet no less, mined from the souls of humanity. Even Elvis the artist and entertainer convinced himself he wanted to be a “Federal Agent at Large”, meeting up with the “I am not a crook”. And of course a Colt 45 was involved…
They say Elvis was all high at that meeting.
You got me this morning. Ouch. The glorious grief of America. We're in it. It lives. And Elvis does, too.
Thankyouverymuch! Wish I'd thought of the line "the glorious grief of America"...
The timing of this essay was auspicious almost to the point of irony for me. Last Thursday I read in a local paper the Don McLean was doing a show at a local venue here in South Jersey on Saturday. Now I'm not much of a concert-goer, but I told my wife that I really wanted to go. I wasn't expecting a great show or anything (and it wasn't all that great), but McLean is just unique. I was 17 when American Pie hit the charts, and it expressed something that young people were vaguely aware of then but weren't quite sure what exactly it was. We only knew that something was changing, shifting, being lost for our generation.
We ended up getting 2 seats in the middle of the front row, and I sat about 15 feet from Don and mouthed every word of his most popular songs- Castles in the Air, And I Love You So, and of course American Pie. The audience was always polite, and often enthusiastic as I was, mostly for his validation, because I knew he could see me clearly. I wanted my face to say thank you.
53 years ago American Pie was a new lament. It didn't call for action, just reflection with a touch of sadness. As I sang it again with the guy who wrote it I got all of that back. It's funny / ironic that troubadours are able to tell us what we already know but can't quite express.
Good luck to us all.
This hits close to home on so many levels for me. My parents went with our neighbors to see Johnny Cash in 1962. The wife was a relative of Johnny and they went backstage yo meet him after a shortened set in which he was obviously struggling and visibly sweating. June Carter came out if the dressing room yo apologize to the fans waiting to see him saying he wasn't feeling well and also apologized for the performance being cut short. Of course Johnny was still in his drug addiction phase and not simply feeling poorly.
As for the duck parade, my Uncle Don owned a duck hunting club near Mounds, Illinois in the late 1950s thru the 60s. Ducklings were raised in a pen and walked down a trail through the woods to a pond in the morning and back inn the evening. There was a short chicken wire fence to keep them from wandering to far afield. This conditioned tgem as grown up ducks in the fall to go up a platform and fly down the same path to where paying hunters waited. As a grade school kid I spent a couple of summers helping herd them back and forth not truly understanding the consequences until years later. I kind of feel like America has been conditioned to fly to the pond where the oligarchs and authoritarian "hunters" wait to harvest them.
Anywsy, another insightful essay and excellent as always Sarah! Good night and Good Luck.
what a good metaphor! So sad for the poor ducks. So cruel!
Thank you Sarah Kendzior for another fine essay. It took you and Trump to fully reveal how rotted our America really is and I find myself comparing the events of today with when I grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s. Back then there were many injustices, but you had the feeling that the country could repair itself. We really aspired to the words in the Declaration of Independence and in the constitution. The last election taught me again that those are only words on a pieces of paper and the voters rejected those words, ( for the first time according to historian Heather Cox Richardson) either by voting MAGA or by staying home. This is not my father’s USA , it is broken and so far we ain’t fixing it, are we? I still don’t want to believe it, but it’s true.
Recycling grease feels a lot like how the last few years have felt politically.
Also, “I wish my children could have voted in the Elvis Election, to see what it’s like to cast a ballot without fearing a coup.” I wish I could’ve voted on this too!
Beautiful piece, Sarah. Had to restrain myself from quoting and restacking the whole thing.
Thank you very much!
I loved this line, too!
"Whether you loved him or loved to mock him, Elvis was the star around which American pop culture orbited.
You never thought he’d just die on the toilet.
This is what it feels like to watch America in 2024."
Spot on.
I do not agree with the comments about Biden but..otherwise..OMG…talk about heavy and true.
Thank you for reading!
Loved the piece and totally agree with you about Biden.
I totally agree with you. Biden did the right and humane thing.
Because I disagree, I unliked this particular post from Sarah K. .
Then I put it back, because the rest is heartfelt, entertaining, and informative. Thank you, Sarah.
This Boomer remembers the promise of the Internet, how it would democratize everything, but I never expected this:
"That’s the worst part, Elvis knew: to become a brand and lose being a person.... In his day, that was the model for pop stars. In the digital era, it is the model for everyone."
While traveling in Scandinavia in September we met our first Instagram and TikTok influencer TCB, working hard to become a brand. We had a nice conversation on the train, and when we departed, we were glad he understood that "likes" wasn't love—it was revenue and was chasing the moola. But as a retired high school English/Humanities teacher who made productive use of the Internet (and other technology) to expand and extend conversations held in class, I am disappointed in how it has devolved.
Predatory and rapacious capitalism strikes again! Oh wait, there's more! AI hasn't been mined yet.
•. •. •
Again, I love how you employ memory with reflection and how the details of this essay gather momentum to your powerful conclusion that begins with "Americans live in fear: even the ones at the top, even Elvis."
•. •. •
And I loved the 1973 Elvis concert "Aloha from Hawaii". What's especially fun about the concert is his impish grin that says, "Ya, I'm the king, and I'm in on the joke". (Four years he was bloated and dead.)
Even though I grew up with the Beatles and had moved on the CSNY by 1973, I watched this concert when it aired. You know, back in the day when there was three networks and PBS?
Oh, and what Boomer can forget when "In the Ghetto" hit the airwaves! Such a timely 1969 anthem! [Sarah, you have stirred up so many memories!]
•. •. •
I'm so looking forward to April when _The Last American Road Trip_ arrives!
Thank you for sharing these memories, and for reading!
Thanks for exposing us to the wonders of Memphis and all its paradoxes. And having never stopped in Tupelo, just passing by on the way to Cedar Bluff to work on OTR or logging trucks, now sorry I didn't make the time to venture around it. Went to Graceland and while different, sadly?, never got into the man nor his music while in school in Sacramento. Nor did anyone else I knew. His death shook the nation not unlike that of JFK. Did we have a day of mourning? Don't recall, but don't think so. But there was a lot of gnashing of teeth and weeping all over the land. So maybe we should have.
Recently, your Mafia reference to a party came to mind...Sen. Ernst of Iowa is now being attacked for not being a clear cut rubber stamp for whoever he wants heading administrations, just as one in the Mafia or some gang would say do this or sleep with the fishes. Only instead of fishes, we will primary you! Just like they did others before her. All I could think of was just like Sarah stated, these guys and gals are of a criminal gang. They just appear respectable. Like Iowa AG Bird. Not too unlike Hillary Clinton and her friends at AIPAC, either, who go after progressive Dems who don't kiss the blarney stone of Israel.
I would cry for America, but I have no more tears.
I count on your knowledge and wisdom. Thanks again for another thoughtful piece.
Thanks for reading!