The Warrior Speaks

Glen Campbell Discusses New Album

Bruce Lee (27 November 1940 – 20 July 1973)

On this day 20th July 1973 Bruce Lee died. R.I.P. Bruce Lee

Elvis and the Memphis Mafia

I have always liked Elvis and I think even to this day when you hear some of his tunes on the radio or on CD they still make you feel good and have a certain feel of time recorded on record. I particular like Hound dog and his cover version of Always on my mind, there is no doubt he was a talented performer a good singer and could even do a little dancing. But I always wondered what made this man so popular, sure he is talented but he can’t have been the first good looking guy to release a song. I guess my liking for Elvis came from hearing his music around my house while I was growing up and I guess I just developed a soft spot for him and his music so I wanted to find out a bit more about the King of Rock, like what was he like as a person an artist and a father. After reading a lot of reviews of the many different Elvis books around (and there is a lot) I made a choice to go for this book from 2005“Elvis and the Memphis Mafia” it was a big book with some 792 pages and was a fair weight to carry in my bag each day but I have to say it was well worth it. This was one of the best books I have ever read if not the best.

At first I was a little disappointed with the layout of the book as it was really just written with quotes from Billy Smith, Lamar Fike & Marty Lacker three members of the Memphis Mafia. I didn’t like this layout in the beginning but then I realised that actually it was a lot better as rather than just getting one person’s view on things I was getting 3 different people’s views on things and sometimes they even disagree with each other in the book. As these guys really spent almost every day with Elvis who better to tell his story from start to finish, which is one of the things I liked best about this book it starts right at the beginning and covers his whole life and not just a certain period of time in his life. This is an unusually honest biography which treats his memory fondly and also sympathetically however they are certainly not afraid of going into the dark side of his character and the character of others in and around his life. The book also tells a lot of little funny stories and has a certain amount of humour about it and you really are taking on a trip through Elvis’s life from is happiest days to his saddest days, you really feel you get to know him and you feel almost sad towards the end of the book as you know what is coming. However I cannot recommend this book enough and if you ever get the chance to read it or want to find out a bit more about the King of Rock n Roll this is a great addition and a great insight into the man.

After reading the book I really don’t know what my feelings towards Elvis are I am not sure if I like him more or less than I did before I read the book. It seems he could change from being the most loving, given caring person in the world to one of the most cold and hurtful people in the world all in the space of the same day depending on how his mood took him. After now knowing some of his darker side secrets and his real drug addiction problem I certainly don’t think he is this true great American that some people made him out to be but at the same time you just can’t help but like the man, so I think my feelings are pretty much as they where and you also get some great quotes from this book. So as Elvis would say after he has just fired a bullet through another television screen because some advert came on he didn’t like “That’s enough of that shit”

Elivs and the Memphis Mafia - 9 out of 10.

Barenaked Ladies - One Week

Monday Night @ The Clyde Auditorium

Recently I have started going out to mid-week events more often, this is something I have always kind of done but recently it’s all most every week now, I find it helps one get through the working week. So this week’s mid –week entertainment, well Monday night, was a trip to the Clyde Auditorium to see Tim Minchin with my friend Alan. I got a txt the night before asking if I wanted to go, and to be honest I did not know much at all about Tim Minchin or even who he was until Monday, but with the chance to go to the Clyde Auditorium I was in. Tim Minchin is a kind of comedy act who performs funny type of comedy songs. He clearly has some talent in both performing and writing songs as some of the ideas for the songs and the lyrics themselves are very creative, he is also a very talented musician. However it helped that he had a 15 strong orchestra behind him who really were fantastic, I would happily pay money to sit and listen to them perform all night, the music was so powerful and they even fitted in a few movie scores clips. Tim Minchin himself was very good and put in a good set and I laughed at one or two lyrics in his songs. However I found his continuing talk about religion, or rather his atheist views a bit boring and started to wear thin very quickly. For me he just went on about it a bit too much, there is a time and place for such talks but we went to be entertained with his musical talent not go to listen to his views on religion. I could not give a monkeys crap about his views on religion, I did not even know who he was until Monday Night… get on with the songs!. I never understand why people who are in the public eye and are atheists must tell everyone they are atheists and the reason why. Surely if they have no faith and have no belief in God then they should simple just say “I don’t believe in God man” and that’s the end of it. Why should they feel the need to push their views onto everyone else, if they have no faith then why should they care. Anyway apart from all the religion talk it was a good show and I think he would be better attempting more serious songs rather than comedy songs as the few he did turned out good. The orchestra and lighting effects made the show, I am not sure I would go see him perform again if it was just him and the piano certainly not at £35 per ticket (thankfully I got mine free). However with the orchestra it was a good night. I will rate the show 6 out of 10

WWE Wrestling

This week I went to my first ever wrestling event at braehead Glasgow. I had only been to braehead once so getting there was the first problem but thankfully it was pretty easy. Then I noticed the queue to get in which nearly made my jaw hit the floor as it must have been a sell-out crowd the whole top floor was taken up with just wrestling fans. But the queue was moving so it did not take that long to get in and then the fun began. I have been watching wrestling ever since I can remember really well the late 80’s early 90’s anyway but this was a new generation of wrestlers the guys I used to cheer Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Bret Hart, Jake The Snake to name a few have all aged now and stopped wrestling. This new generation is also good but I did not really know a lot of them from the little bits I see of wrestling these days, never the less it was a fun night full of cheering the good guys and giving abuse to the bad guys. The best match was a match involving a new wrestler Sin Cara (below), what a talent this guy is, it was very impressive watching him do all his high flying moves. The main man in wrestling these days is John Cena (above) and he too was wrestling which was a good match however I like the bad guy The Miz a bit better I think. Anyway it was a fun Wednesday night out and something I would do again. The night bus journey home was also interesting for different reasons and had a mixture of wrestling fans and drunk girls but overall it was a good Wednesday.