Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in the Land of No Alternatives [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Granted, the connection between Elvis and BC is no stronger than the connection between, well, me and Mahatma Gandhi, but if you hold a magnifiying glass up close enough to a watermelon and squint your eyes, you can see an image of the Virgin Mary. And a number of pieces collected under this misleading title are not concerned, even in a Marcusian "world in a leaf of grass" way, with either Elvis or Clinton.

Having said this, no one understands the relationship between rock and American culture, past and present, better than Marcus. He is always wise, trenchant, and--though sometimes overly mystifying--strongly moral. As I read Marcus I always think, "This guy's on my side; he's saying what I would like to say if I could think of the right words." This applies to a lesser Marcus work (like this one) as well as the major ones (and he's about due for one sometime soon).

Still, he's well versed in politics and pop culture, and able to draw thought-provoking connections between seemingly disparate topics. Marcus is master of the insightful bizarre trivia detail - like the fact that Clinton-accuser Paula Jones' husband played the ghost of Elvis in the 1989 movie "Mystery Train". Like music, sometimes it feels forced, and sometimes it all comes together.

As someone who remembers Cobain much more clearly than Elvis, I found the book was a great crash course in some of the themes that influenced both today's rock stars and politicians.

As rock/pop culture criticism, it actually makes an interesting companion piece for the Lester Bangs anthology I just finished reading ("Psychotic Reactions & Carburator Dung" - interestingly enough, it was edited by Marcus, Bangs' former Creem cohort). Except that Bangs puts a lot more passion into his rants, while Marcus seems determined to stand back and make observations. Ultimately, that tone left me standing on the sidelines as well.

The quality of Marcus' writing isn't an issue here: stylistically, I'd put him up against anyone working today, and his erudition remains astonishing (reading him, I frequently find myself asking: "Is there a book this guy HASN'T read? A piece of music he HASN'T heard?"). Nor is it the individual chapters: many of them are great - opening up vistas in music, films, and politics you hadn't imagined were there.

No, the difficulty lies in Marcus' conclusion: simply put, I find the notion that Clinton approached Elvis Presley as a force for cultural liberation absurd. Clinton is obviously a very intelligent man and was an extraordinarily charismatic leader, but at the end of the day, he was just another politican. Elvis Presley broke - exploded - American culture in half. I don't think Clinton, as either president or cultural leader, can make a claim half so big.