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Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in a Land of No Alternatives. By Greil Marcus. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000. 248 pages. $25.
Greil Marcus' collection of articles written between 1992 and 2000 purports to "explore the remarkable and illuminating kinship between Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley." It falls short of that goal.
The evidence presented here is a series of coincidences. For example, in election year 1992, the U.S. Post Office asked people to vote on which version of Elvis should be issued on a stamp: young and hot or old and paunchy. Clinton was subsequently inaugurated three days after the stamp bearing the likeness of a youthful Elvis Presley was officially issued. Paula Jones' husband actually played the role of the ghost of Elvis in Jim Jarmusch's 1989 film Mystery Train. Clinton's personal steward, who observed him alone with Monica Lewinsky and later found lipstick-stained tissues in a wastebasket, was named Bayani Nelvis. His name contains the name "Elvis"! And just like Elvis in Suspicious Minds, Clinton was "caught in a trap" and had to declare, "I never lied. Not much!" (Actually, I added that last one and it was kind of fun.)
One could list obvious, but superficial, similarities between the two men: both Southerners, attached to their mothers, both musicians, Elvis had one daughter and so does Clinton. Both came from troubled family backgrounds, Clinton being raised by an abusive stepfather and Elvis' father being incarcerated for a time. They have weight problems in common and odd sexual quirks, Elvis for girls in white panties wrestling and Clinton for cigars.
A more pertinent observation is that both embody the American dream that anyone can rise from humble beginnings to great success.
But it's still a pretty thin thread on which to hang a thesis. It reminds me of those startling similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy they used to bring up. Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln! Lincoln's wife was crazy and Kennedy's wife wore tiny pillbox hats and, later, huge bug-eye sunglasses! Many articles in the book have nothing to do with either Elvis or Bill Clinton, including several on Kurt Cobain and Nirvana in which Marcus' hero-worship is rather disconcerting coming from a man whose first book, Mystery Train, was published in 1975.
There's a reason yesterday's papers usually end up in the garbage. Events that apparently merited extensive comment at the time are barely remembered now. Perusing this book is like playing that timeline quiz on Dateline. Remember when Sinead O'Connor tore up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live? What year did it happen?
Elvis fans, Clinton supporters or detractors, or simply readers seeking some insight into current politics and popular culture probably won't find much satisfaction in this volume. Popular culture already is a completely different landscape than the one explored in this book and sightings of Elvis at Burger King have become cliches. After the year-long impeachment circus, everyone has made up his or her own mind whether Clinton is a hound dog or a teddy bear.
While there isn't really a book's worth of material here, there are some interesting articles, particularly "The Man From Nowhere," originally published in the San Francisco Examiner. It explores the hostility with which the Washington press corps greeted the Clinton presidency and their eagerness to pile on when the Lewinsky scandal broke. The pundits wrung their hands over the moral inadequacy of a nation that failed to condemn the president as harshly as they did. Whether that means that Clinton's presidency changed American society as profoundly as Elvis did, as Marcus claims, remains to be seen.
How will history remember President Clinton? Nixon, who certainly would have been impeached and deposed had he not resigned, seems to be viewed now in the public imagination as a MacBeth-like figure, a tragically flawed man, ruthlessly amoral in his drive to get and maintain power. (Apparently, he was fond of his dog, though). It is doubtful that Clinton's personal flaws will lend themselves to such grandiose interpretation.
Greil Marcus has written about popular music for 30 years, for Rolling Stone, the Village Voice and other publications.
His books include Mystery Train (1975), about the evolution of rock and roll, notable particularly for its excellent chapter on Elvis Presley; Lipstick Traces (1990), about the Dadaists' influence on 20th century culture; Invisible Republic (1997), about Bob Dylan and The Band; and In the Fascist Bathroom (1999), about punk rock.