Elvis Presley's hair is punk rock

Punk rockers will tell you that without Elvis Presley, there is no punk rock. He took the rock and blues of African American Memphis, added his own twist, and brought it to white culture with style. Rockabilly, baby.
But there are more ways than sound to call up punk's rich history. Like any musical genre, its tuneful stylings are one element of its identity. There are the clothes. There is the choice of instrument. And there is the hair. Elvis's slickened masculine-yet-sensitive tsunami wave of a strutting peacock's darkened headfeathers, the pompadour, summons the spirit of punk as much as a black leather jacket and scuffed combat boots. So says a punk rocker.
What does a pompadour say about overthrowing the system? Not much, directly. But it lets us know: there is another way. For hair, that is. And that's all it takes: one little indication that things can be different, starting with how we present our own physical selves to society. Now add in waggling hips and sounds that broke racial barriers, and freedom has a face and body. The King of Rock n' Roll. And his scions today.

Artwork of Elvis Presley selling for $37 million is a warning about social imbalances

I understand that art is always worth as much as it will sell for. But when I heard $37 million was paid for an Andy Warhol painting of the King, and that "The Scream" fetched $120 million, I felt something was deeply wrong with our world.

Life is unfair. It's often unfair to the individual advantage of a citizen of a developed nation. But witnessing massive fortunes being spent on single piece of artwork – while unrest, unemployment and poverty claim huge portions of the global population – causes me to think that this order of things truly cannot last. Some people can't buy food, yet others can drop tens of millions on an object? I realize this class of rich citizens is purchasing the cultural significance of the object, not the object itself, but that kind of imbalance cannot hold. Food is a necessity. And as important and fascinating as Warhol's artwork is, I will survive, perhaps less richly, without it.