Speaking of Elvis aka Jesse…
At the height of the Elvis is Still Alive saga in 2002, former longtime Channel 9 news anchor Maria Antonia got caught up in the excitement.
Way caught up.
In a Christmas Day column in 2002, headlined ” Sealed with a kiss?” I wrote that while “many Cowtowners have been busy posting missives to Santa, now comes word that KMBC-TV, Channel 9, anchor Maria Antonia penned one to Elvis. Or his alter ego, Jesse, if you buy into the school of thought that the King is in hiding and using the name of his twin brother, who died at birth.”
That according to Linda Johson, the assistant to Jesse’s Parkville doc Donald Hinton.
“She had sent Jesse a photograph and a beautiful little message,” Johnson told me. “It was a nice photo of herself, autographed, and she kissed it. And a nice little letter. I don’t know if she’ll get a response or not but … she was almost teary-eyed. She was happy. She was excited about it.”
Needless to say, Antonia’s was far less excited when she found out I was onto her little love note after I called her for a comment.
“I may have written a note,” she backpeddled. “I recall saying if you’re around, give us an interview.”
And the lips imprint, I pressed?“You know, it was a very quick thing, but I don’t believe I would do that,” Antonia tap danced. “Besides, during the day I only wear lip gloss.”
Who said anything about the time of day? I wondered.
Antonia’s bottom line on her communication sent in August the anniversary month of the King’s death:
“I am not corresponding with Jesse. I just don’t want people to think, ‘She’s writing letters to Jesse. She’s in on this thing.’ ”
Whoever would think something like that?
Would that be the same lip gloss she shared with Max Floyd?
Chuck was right, that looks more like Dick Van Dike than Elvis.
Sorry, Dyke
You talking to me?
I will kick your azz Travis Bickel.
Maria Antonia!!! Or, as I’ve referred to her very repeatedly and brazenly in front of even significant others since I first graced Cowtown w/ my presence in 1997 — THE LATIN FIREBRAND! Oh Heaven, 7 Eleven, That Broad’s HOT!
I bet she “rolls” her r’s for an hour when she says “Pressley”.
When she first appeared on TV, I don’t remember that much of an accent, now, the chick sounds like she just showed up from Oaxaca to clean Hearne’s bathroom.
What happened?
She is what you call rolling with the changes.
That picture, which we’ve seen 3 times now, is not Elvis/Jesse. It is Bigfoot after a makeover at the beauty salon.
Maria Antonia can’t remember kissing the note she sent to Elvis, and if she did it was only with gloss not real lipstick. There are an estimated 55 thousand Elvis impersonators. Who in history has ever had 55 thousand people prancing around dressed like them? Three hundred thousand people have visited Linda Hood Sigmon’s Jesse/Elvis is alive website. The King rocks hard, 36 years after his death, Maria Antonia is till pressing her lips to her (love) note.
Why? Why 36 years after, are we still so Elvis-y? He was a saucy rouge. A bad boy. At the end a drugged out chubster. And, yet… We can’t let him go. He fascinates us and draws us in. Even the great KC Confidential is in the Elvis mix.
Such a strange brew of drugs, sex (or at the very least, girls), guns, Jesus, woo woo-ism, fame, desolation, betrayal… And yet, always the King, always drawing us in. Whether we were buying the plastic Elvis with the bobble head, or pressing our lip gloss to a note, or typing an entry on the KC blog, he was with us 36 years later.
The archetypical Jungian King. The dichotomy of the divine and the profane lived out before us. The King, the divine god among us who could not reach the stars, and instead devolved because you cannot be a god in human form. And, we watched this God die, and we could not take leave of him.
Gods do not come along very often. And, there is no way to explain why this man was a God and John Lennon was not. All we can know is that there are 55 thousand side burned men, dressed in capes and rhinestones paying tribute. Hundreds of thousands wanting to know if he might be alive. KC blogging about the doctor who can’t prescribe medicine and is working in a state hospital because he thinks he might have talked to him.
And, me writing this comment to you, because….well, just because.