Minneapolis - Fat Elvis

Blogs

RSS Feeds

National Features >

Village Voice
The Great Walls of Chinatown
With the exception of the electric rice cookers, this Bowery tenement could have come straight from the Nineteenth Century.
By Elizabeth Dwoskin
Houston Press
Getting Off
DUI attorney Tyler Flood wins 80 percent of his trials--even if his clients were 100 percent drunk.
By Mike Giglio
Miami New Times
Park or Die Tryin'
From the homeless parking mafia to the meter fairy, finding a spot in Miami has taken a turn toward the surreal.
By Gus Garcia-Roberts

Fat Elvis

I am totally going through a "Fat Elvis" phase. Not so much physically as idelogically. It's kind of unfortunate. I'm watching Graceland decay through cheeseburger-colored lenses.

You know how sometimes you feel very crisp and alert and disciplined? It's like the opposite of that. I'm just fuckin' bloodshot.

I was digging in memorabilia at my parents' house this weekend and I found a handwritten letter I wrote to my "unborn children" when I was 17. (Lest you think Teen Diablo was an utter cheeseball, I'm pretty certain this letter was a mandatory high school writing assignment, probably for some ghastly religion course.) I devoured the missive eagerly, expecting it to be really immature and overwrought and clueless in that awesome teenage way. To my shock, it was chillingly prescient. I mean, I obviously haven't borne any children yet, but I do fuck someone's dad, so I dabble in parenting by default. And my parenting style is exactly what I predicted it would be back when I was a tender sapling myself.

Here's just one of the heartwarming sentiments I expressed to my hypothetical progeny: "I hope you like frozen pizza because you're going to be eating a lot of it." Oh snap! Take that, unborn hellions! The only thing colder than your supper is Mommy's frigid bosom!

I wish I had brought the whole letter home, because it was classic. Actually, I should have brought all my teenage journals. Flipping through them, I can't believe how snarky and kinky I was. There's a really disturbing account of some guy making me wear his belt around my neck during sex. And I was writing about it in this totally fake-nonchalant way way, like "We did the choking thing again. Afterward I had some nasty red welts, but whatever. The Real World: Boston was so good tonight! Jason + Timber 4-evah!"

The funny thing is, I've never been genuinely nonchalant about anything in my life. I'm sure that when I journaled the belt incident, my heart was just slamming against my ribs.