Yes, 53 years ago today, civilization as we knew it embarked on an immutable downward slide. What, you may ask, could it have been? Did it rain frogs? Did cats lie down with dogs? Did some girl from a "good family" in Westchester abort a fetus that would have grown up to cure cancer?
No, it wasn't that. On this day in 1956, Elvis Presley sang "Hound Dog" and (gasp), SHOOK HIS HIPS ON A NATIONALLY BROADCAST TELEVISION PROGRAM!
Please, if you have a weak constitution, navigate away from this diary IMMEDIATELY!
Contrary to what many people may believe, Elvis' controversial television performance was NOT on the Ed Sullivan show; rather, it was Milton Berle who gave the innocent-looking young man the opportunity to titillate America's young womanhood into a orgiastic frenzy, with the gyrations that would soon result in his being nicknamed "Elvis the Pelvis" and get him banned from many radio stations. In fact, legend has it that Uncle Milty actually suggested to Elvis that he go onstage that night in Hollywood without his guitar. What happened next, and why it happened was a mystery even to Elvis himself, who remarked:
"Rock and roll music, if you like it, and you feel it, you can't help but move to it. That's what happens to me. I have to move around. I can't stand still. I've tried it, and I can't do it."
The sheer depravity caused a sensation around the country, and the nation's press described the performance as "vulgar" and "obscene." Unfortunately, while such a licentious display would have in an earlier, more civilized day, been properly and firmly stamped out, this time it merely whetted the public's appetite for more. Elvis soon appeared on the Steve Allen show, which for the first time ever beat Ed Sullivan in the ratings.
The die was cast; even conservative and safe Ed Sullivan caved to the momentum, and booked Elvis on his September 9 program. Ed, however, took no chances, and made sure that his studio would not become a re-creation of the last days of Gomorrah. Elvis was shown only from the waist up.
But, no matter what he tried, Ed couldn't stop what Elvis had started. The social norms and barriers that protected our youth from idle, dissolute lives had fallen away forever, and in only two short years, we had come to this:
It's funny. Today, I went down to view the site where my employer, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is building a new campus, a monument to the rule of law and the ideal of justice. You can see it too, on this live webcam. This is the same spot where workers recently dug up the skull of a Columian Mammoth and an almost complete "prehistoric" whale skeleton (although the paleontologists claim the bones are half a million years old, we all know they're only 6,000).
It's only a couple of blocks from the spot where Elvis did his next concert on June 6, a hockey rink called Glacier Gardens, which has long since been torn down. But, as Living Colour said in its song "Open Letter to a Landlord"
You can tear a building down, but you can't erase the memories
Those memories do live on, and in spite of our best efforts, sin, lawlessness, and eventual ruin will eventually destroy us all. Real Americans, like Pat Buchanan and Michelle Bachman can reminisce for the "good old days" when things were simpler, women stayed at home, and black people knew their place, but those days are gone forever. Later, even Elvis understood what he had wrought, and he tried, with the help of Richard Nixon, to stop it, to no avail.
I bid you farewell for now, and may God have mercy on all of our souls.