When I was 12 Elvis joined the Army. He was taken to boot camp where they cut off all his hair. It was awful to see him lose his hair. But it never occurred to me that Elvis wouldn’t go into the army. Why would it have?
(“Elvis died in the army,” John Lennon later said. “The difference between Elvis and us is Elvis died and his manager lived. Our manager died, and we lived.”)*
Shortly after Elvis was drafted, I was sent to boarding school outside Santa Barbara. As soon as I was able I grew my hair back, smothered it with grease, and combed it into as close a version of a duck tail as a prep school would allow. I donned Roy Orbison glasses. With Elvis out of circulation, I was now listening to Bobby Vee who looked like a cross between Fabian and Sandra Dee. On his album cover he was wearing a powder-blue cashmere sweater with puffy balls on it, like a girl.
(From ETHAN RUSSELL: AN AMERICAN STORY available here.)
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