MORNING STORIES TRANSCRIPT. A State of Elvis: Jim "E" Curtin did it all for love, but was left with only Elvis.

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1 MORNING STORIES TRANSCRIPT A State of Elvis: Jim "E" Curtin did it all for love, but was left with only Elvis. TONY KAHN: Hi everybody! This is Tony Kahn, the producer and director of Morning Stories from WGBH in Boston. Take my friend Bill Henderson. He s a wonderful author and musician. Quite while ago he wrote his first novel called Stark Raving Elvis which was about an Elvis impersonator. A few books later he was asked to write another book about the lives of Elvis impersonators, just to take advantage of the success of his first book. So, to do it right he went on the road with Elvis impersonators around the country. The next thing I knew, Bill had become an Elvis impersonator for research he said. You know, for fun. For a well, for years, even after the book came out, Bill was still impersonating Elvis, but then he finally managed to come back home and return to the path that most of us walk. But there are some others for whom walking with Elvis may never end. One of them is our storyteller today. His name is Jim E. Curtain and we call his Morning Story, A State of Elvis. [High-energy music begins to play] JIM E. CURTAIN: I was backstage in his dressing room in Vegas and I asked for a souvenir. [Elvis begins to sing in the background.] He went into his dressing room and he brought out a jumpsuit cradled in his arms and he handed it to me. I grabbed my face, I went, Oh my God, Elvis, it s beautiful, and I hugged him, I told him I loved him. He says, I love you, too, Jimmy. The guy was just so sweet, so nice, so mannerly. He was just a down-to-earth human being that was just nice to everybody. I seen him perform fifty-one times. I went to twenty-nine concerts in Vegas. I was in his company over a dozen times. When they released Elvis movies in the theater, I went out to watch em six times, ten times, even as many as twenty times. Everything that was ever released from Elvis and eventually, of course, I achieved over 50,000 pieces in the collection. [A more somber Elvis song begins, You give your hand to me, and then you say hello, and I can hardly speak, my heart is beating so continues under narrative] I was obsessed. Obsessed. The enjoyment that I had and the pleasure that I had with this collection was the greatest joy that ever occurred in my life with the exception... Renata. Renata. We dated and I truly loved her with all my heart and soul, but I had a lot of problems. Within a two-year span I had five people die on me my mother, my father, my brother, my fan club president, my uncle and my mother left me a lot of debt.

2 My goal was to achieve a big business deal in the publishing industry, wipe the slate clean, marry Renata. After twelve years and a lot of heartache, I never got around to marrying her. I took her for granted. And one day she left. To prove my love to her I decided to sell the entire collection. I thought that selling the collection was going to be the answer. I felt it was very romantic, but... was too late. She already found somebody else. [Elvis sings Home is where the heart is, and my heart ] I ve contacted Renata at least fifteen or twenty times in the last three years through, through poetry, photographs with our memories, Christmas presents, birthday presents, love letters, but I guess she had to move on. I guess I got to survive and the only way I m going to survive and overcome the heartache, because I ve probably cried about three thousand times since she s left, is to continue on, the music. Every human being is involved in evolution. You go from the little boy, to the collector, to the follower, and then I achieved the goal beyond the obsession into becoming Elvis [A fast-paced Elvis song begins. When your heart gets restless, time to move along ] which is a whole different plateau. [ But when a dream is calling you, there s just one thing that you can do. ] [With this, it becomes clear the voice of Elvis we have been hearing in the background has really been that of Jimmy E. Curtain] The last final stage, in the life of Jim E. Curtain anyway, is love. [Jimmy as Elvis, singing, I Watch You Walk Away, Beside the Lucky Guy... ] Elvis, he just he was just a down-to-earth human being that was just nice to everybody. Keep singing. Keep singing Elvis songs. Make the public happy. While I m dyin, inside. [Music fades.] That was Jim E. Curtain in A State of Elvis, today s Morning Story. I m here in the studio with the real Gary Mott. [in an Elvis voice] Thank you, thank you very much, Gary. [In an Elvis voice] Thank you, Tony. [in his normal voice.] A heartbreaking story. I mean, this guy is having a hard time dealing with life.

3 Hmmmnnn and an unfinished story it seems to me still. This is a story about how people are going to let you down, but there s always the music. There s always Elvis. I wonder does Elvis really have what it takes? I used to have this argument with my wife all the time. She thought that Princess Di, for instance, was for the ages and I said, Well, you know what, I m not so sure, because you know what Di doesn t have that Elvis does have that s a body of work. The music. You know, something -- the art is longer than the life and, without that, what are people going to connect to? I m not so sure. Forty years from now. Morning Stories podcasts who are these guys? [laughs] Speaking in fact about podcasting [laughs] and this is kind of the big news of the week. We made it a lot easier for people who are new to podcasting to download. Right, Gar? Now when you go to <wgbh.org/morningstories> you will find a list of our recent podcasts for manual download. Right. Just click on them and you ll be able to start hearing them or download them right away. A link that invites you to comment on each of the, the podcasts. What we re really saying with that link is, Morning Stories isn t just the stories that we re telling you, but the stories that, that you re telling us. And we really designed this website for the unconverted. So if you ve got friends who don t know about podcasting yet, tell em to go to our, our webpage.

4 And if you don t have friends, this may be kind of a good way to get them. They ll be instantly rewarded. Think of it as like, for those who haven t heard podcasts, this will be their first date with podcasting. Yup. And if they like it, they ll come back for more. We can only hope. We have faith. One of the reasons we have faith also is that we have Ipswitch, a leader in file transfer software, our sponsor. Check their website out, too, if you d like, that s <ipswitch.com>. And our address -- Right! <morningstories@wgbh.org>, but go to the website. You can get there from there from here! And bring a friend. [Laughing] And bring a friend! Make a friend! We ll be your friend! No matter what. In fact we ll be back next Friday with another Morning Story so we ll see you then. [Upbeat Jimmy as Elvis sings, Po man wants an oyster, a rich man wants a pearl, but the man who can sing when he hasn t got a thing is the king of the whole wide world! Come on, let s sing, sing, brothers, sing! and then fades out.]

5 [End of Recording] Transcribed by Carrie McBride. Note from Liz: How s Jim E. Curtin, now? I ll bet a good number of women would be glad to be loved the way he would now be mature enough to handle a romantic relationship. Also, I was a little girl during the Elvis craze, and it s been fun listening to the various samples Morning Stories has provided with some of the related podcasts. I d never ever even heard of the final one in this podcast ( Po man wants an oyster... ) but I love it! I ll have to overcome my disinclination to take part in any fad, old or new, and give him a better listening to!

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