Did you watch that Conway Twitty video yet? If you didn't, go watch it now and bask in his amazing muttonchops. Some of my readers will think that my infatuation is getting out of hand, and if so, then they obviously haven't watched the YouTube video of him doing "Slow Hand." Because if they had, they would understand how easily it can go this far. That video alone is enough to win the iciest of hearts. If not for the pure karaoke feel of it, then for the way he caresses the lyrics of the song even while balancing precariously on a six foot circular platform in the middle of an unresponsive audience.
The thing I'm so grateful for right now, is the opportunity I have to watch footage of Conway singing before I was even alive. Stuff they wouldn't air on television again except for late at night during Time Life Country Classics Collection infomercials. So thank you YouTube, thank you.
I pinned up a Conway Twitty LP in my cubicle. I've been decorating with LPs for years now (yes, I was the first, actually), but this one is special because it's in my cubicle and it's like airing your alcohol addiction for everyone in your office to see. I don't know where I'm going with that metaphor, but the only thing I could do that would be worse would be to put up an NRA sticker. I have one, yes, it's true, but I put it in my car to really make a statement. The truth is, I find it humorous to really be into sappy crap. And I love the contradictions in all humans, but in myself most of all. I think it says something about life, that life is chaotic but full of beauty. I guess beauty is impossible without an element of the hideous somewhere.
You know what I'm talking about. Like when you're out on a hike, enjoying breathtaking vistas and an endless sky and then you stumble across the fresh carcass of a deer or something. How it hurts, the violent beauty of earth. That's what I mean, and we all have microcosms of that inside us. We have beautiful desires, like the desire to sing a Barbara Streisand song as you walk down the street, serenading the homeless. But everything gets in the way, fear of rejection or even indifference, and so the beautiful desires get suppressed; instead you simply pin up an LP of Conway Twitty in your cubicle--a tiny suggestion of the passion within. And then you drive home from work, cursing your lungs out at the bastard drivers in your way.
Update: The original link to "Slow Hand" was to a higher quality video, which has been removed by the author. The new link is of questionable quality, but these versions are also good:
