Elvis & Me

We never met.  But our paths crossed many times, including once in a fairly spectacular way.  This is the story of my cosmic connection with The King.

I’ve come to believe that just about everyone who grew up or lived in Memphis around the time I did has an Elvis story to tell.  I have several--one of which is quite remarkable, and perhaps a tad magical, or at least it seems that way to me.

Elvis has always been a part of my life.  Back in 1959 or 1960, shortly after my parents moved to the house I grew up in, they bought a Motorola stereo hi-fi, and one of the very first albums they brought home was Elvis’s 1956 debut LP on the black RCA label, cleverly titled, “Elvis Presley.”  I was about two and a half years old.  Thus the first music I ever recall hearing in life was that Elvis record, about half of which was recorded in Memphis.  (It is, by the way, a vastly underappreciated album).  This record started me on a lifelong love of music, and remains one of my favorites to this day.

And the elections night radio coverage nod goes to....

Okay, this is strictly personal, but I have to do it.  The relatively new radio station I work for has just won some impressive applause, and it feels great.

On Election Night, I got to sit in the PowerTalk 1210 studio with three other fabulously talented and experienced journalists, giving returns and providing analysis.  Morning drive host and station manager Jim Parisi, like me, is a former TV news director with loads of experience; we don’t think there’s another radio station anywhere that has two of those in the lineup.  John C. Scott is a former TV news anchor, a former state legislator, and a radio icon in Tucson who towers above the news landscape here with his unparalleled knowledge, experience, and intuitive grasp of the southern Arizona political scene.  Mark Ulm, our producer, absolutely has the best Rolodex in town; he knows everyone, it seems.  On Election Night we aired special coverage counting down the local and national election returns.

Excellent Kirkus Review for "A Journal of the Crazy Year"

"Carr employs jet-black humor reminiscent of Vonnegut... The flight from civilization is handled well, and a truly unconventional ending makes for a worthy trip.  A great case made for the idea that the end isn’t nigh—it’s already here."
--Kirkus Reviews

Earlier this year I submitted the upcoming print edition of  A Journal of the Crazy Year to Kirkus Reviews.  The verdict is now in, and it's great.  Their review adds to previous excellent comments from Fantascize.com (which praised the novel for its "thrilling narrative" and its "impressive scientific and historical details") and also to comments from many of the book's readers (my favorite:   "This will stay with me.")

The print edition is due out in January.  I'll make an announcement at that time and also reveal the new cover then.  Meanwhile, A Journal of the Crazy Year is available for the Kindle at this link.  It's a cheap read--and as critics agree, a good one.

The full text of the Kirkus Review is below.

Video: The Sexual Harassment of "Pretty Woman" deconstructed and fixed

Video version:  Now that we know, thanks to ihollaback.org, that simply saying "Hello" to a woman on the street is an act of sexual harassment, where do we go from here?  It might be useful to see what put us on our current path ruin.  This video deconstructs and repairs the sexual harassment in Roy Orbison's smash 1964 hit, "Pretty Woman."  This is offered as satire, but make no mistake:  this IS the direction in which the forces of political correctness are pushing us, and right now they have the upper hand.

A text version of this blog entry is available here:
Yesterday's smash hit is today's sexual harassment.

“Pretty Woman”: Yesterday’s classic hit is today’s sexual harassment

Thanks to a shocking new video exposé, we all are going to have to adjust our thinking—and our culture.

Okay, now we know:  Saying “hello” on the street to a stranger is an act of sexual harassment, if the speaker is a man and victim identifies as female, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or gender questioning.  If the victim is a member of an ethnic minority, the harasser may be a racist as well.

We owe the activist website ihollaback.org a great debt of gratitude for bringing this matter to the public’s attention.  A volunteer actress, working with an undercover photographer, spent ten hours on the streets of New York documenting unsolicited, inappropriate comments.  The results were stunning.  And it has the entire world talking.  At last count, its You Tube video had racked up 23 million clicks.  Even in a world where the words “gone viral” have become shopworn, this is something else.  Call it strato-viral.

"We love our country"

It was a "flash mob" with a different kind of purpose.  A couple of hundred people came together at the Tucson Mall for a really simple reason:  To express their love of their country.  This cell phone video clip contains some of the highlights, a quick interview with a couple of fans who explain why they came, and some shots of PowerTalk 1210 host and station manager Jim Parisi greeting participants.  Many thanks to everyone who attended for making this event a huge success.

©2014 by Forrest Carr.  All rights reserved.