The hundred names of Elvisby Pat Padua
something I wrote a long time ago ( 10>n>5) that is still pertinent today.
Gone, if not real real gone. A few wrong turns along the Yankee-baffling suburban roadways that named 355 alternately Rockville Pike and Hungerford Drive finally arrived at a barnlike structure - a banner hung in front marking it "The Junction" - that housed the Night of One Hundred Elvises.
The first Elvis, hovering by the entrance, looked a lot like George Jones. We exchanged a friendly nod. Over his shoulder were the sad remains of the Elvis ice sculpture that had been proudly advertised in event circulars. The broad, melting shoulders of young Postage Stamp Elvis floated in an aluminum tub. The venue was laid out like an old legion hall. A main stage was fenced in a wide circle on the main floor; three or four cash bars were at surrounding intervals, the sight lines forming something of a mandala; in back was the Elvis casino, where patrons could buy raffle tickets for an Epiphone guitar, or try roulette for lesser prizes; a backstage was set up for B-Elvii and cool-down for main stage acts. This was where hearts first led us, the main stage seeming a forbidden pit to anyone not directly inside the fence. We could also sit down with our BBQ dinner here.
A black-leather comeback Elvis sang from a cheap lattice-marked stage, but was foiled by sound problems - his backing tape went dead, and main stage Elvii drowned out little E, exacerbating his pain - he sang to mostly empty tables as it was. In a group of middle-aged fans I thought I spotted an old English professor, but he turned out to be another Elvis, waiting for his costume and turn. Patrons wandered by the doorway and stood looking from the edge; a few straggled in, like the tall nerdy girls in dark thrift-store dresses ("right up your alley," my friend Midge nudged me in the direction of the mousy brunette with G.I. glasses) who sat at the table in front of us.
All night, a bubble machine blew into the audience from the mainstage right, and a smoke generator blew aft. A gold-lame jacketed pretty-boy with too much gel and cologne approached the dais. Midge wondered if he answered a question I had earlier: are there gay and lesbian Elvii? We'd often see Elvii or other in the audience who'd turn up on stage later, and gold lame turned out to be Chris Presley. He transfixed the women in the audience but was an absolutely terrible Elvis, with no sense of time or rhythm, completely losing his band and wandering into windmills and gyrations at random - almost anyone in that room could have made a better Elvis - but he got by on looks. Which made me hate him at first - until I started laughing. Since he had no sense of following traditional boundaries of music or dance, you had no idea when or how he'd go into his schtick, so our corner of the second row was in stitches during the rest of his set. Even his spare stage banter became surreal: "I notice there are a lot of pretty women in the audience," he suggested mid-set, but it was as if he were talking to himself - he seemed that removed from everything. "Thanks for not throwing tomatoes," he said as he left the stage, and I never figured out if he knew what he was (not) doing or if, like the bald ectomorph in Midnight Oil (the second worse dancer I've seen) was oblivious and lacked a true friend to take him aside and tell him what was what.
Greg Cooper, a little bald guy whose dancing reminded me of Cuba Gooding Jr.'s exuberant Oscar acceptance speech, was up next. His angle was an excellent cross-impression: Elvis singing James Brown's "I feel good" - the velvet vibrato just a little overdone.
Coming back from a bathroom break, I told Midge what I saw. "You know," she responded, "I thought you were going to say 'there was this old guy next to me with blue suede shoes and a really big *belt buckle*'." Several Elvii had appeared in the men's room, including Chris Presley, who spent his time in front of the mirror.
Rockabilly and other cover acts like Cooper's were paced between impersonators. Vernon Taylor, a Sun recording artist from back in the day, sang a brief tribute set; two members of local doo-wop legends The Orioles performed; cute, matronly redhead Janine Wilson belted out a bluesy homage; pianist Daryl Davis, fresh from a stint with Chuck Berry, played a barrelhouse boogie-woogie set. But not all these acts were successful: "Blelvis," the black Elvis, sounded promising, but all we got was a little guy with sideburns who didn't put over the material very well - there was no convincing identity, Elvis or not. Daryl Davis' band backed him up, and considerably toned down their intensity for him. Blelvis did make a stir when he joked about his first aspiration: Bliberace.
I wasn't an Elvis guy, so I assumed I'd feel mostly embarrassment for all these people hiding themselves behind this kitschy identity. Oddly enough, the sight of this multitude of Elvises not only made me appreciate the real Elvis more - a mere velvet voice and a few hipshakes doesn't capture the experience, even for an Elvis-illiterate like me; but it brought home that all these people still had a clear identity. You could see behind the mask. Everyone had developed their particular niche, and I wondered how difficult this seemingly trivial choice must be: how does one find their Elvis? How does one light on a certain obscure tribute song, or a signature outfit - there were a lot of white pant-suits, but they also came in black and red and purple, some caped, some rhinestoned. In a weird way these people were more themselves being Elvis than being not-Elvis. The King gave them something to aspire to - a struggle to be better than they were.
The crowd was made up of the cool and the hip; bikers and go-go girls, including one in silver lame boots and a tight black skirt who seemed to taunt the family of overweight women she danced in front of. Go-go waved a long red scarf as she danced. "Do you know how Isadora Duncan died?" Midge asked me.
There were good ole boys and big-haired women too, but it was the misfits I remembered: the misshapen, mismatched wounded, the chubby girl in glasses, bobby-sox and saddle shoes quiety swaying in a pink skirt, so excited to get close to the nth degree of Elvis, Go-go girl or not. Midge, a veteran of two pilgrimages to Graceland, pointed out that the most requested song from Elvis impersonators is "Hurt."
The biggest fakers of the night weren't impersonators at all: a hipster trio who normally called themselves the Hidden Persuaders dubbed themselves Clambake for the occasion, and played a tight medley of songs from Elvis movies. They seemed above it all, contemptuous, and revealed less of themselves than any of the costumed Elvii did. It was creepy.
We'd seen a tall, scary Elvis making the rounds earlier, and his turned out to be one of the best straight Elvis shows. Lionel and the New World Band put on what I guess was an accurate late 60's early 70's show; he used his own velvet voice but captured the spirit of an Elvis I'd never considered - the Elvis of "Kentucky Rain," who stood caped onstage in some kind of Eastern-influenced slow-motion crouch, reaching for the music with empty hands. An assistant handed him a succession of multi-colored scarves to drape his neck; Lionel Elvis would walk into the crowd and find a young attractive lass to pass on the torch.
The evening peaked with the Graceliners: a troupe of female Elvii from Ontario, whose various ages and shapes shimmied and strutted in karaoke synchronization. Their main stage set was as Fat White Elvis, though Midge caught part of their Blue Sequinned Elvis encore backstage. Out of costume, at least one of them looked like a nun.
By one in the morning, most of the crowd had left the building. House lights went on, stage lights went down, but Martha Hull still sang a few songs in the dark - and we figured that was it. But the red sequined Elvis approached us - he looked like the tearful Indian in those anti-litter commercials; I wondered if he was the Filipino Elvis advertised - and asked us to stick around for one more set. "Elvis asked us - we have to stay," Midge implored, and we watched him sing from beyond the bubbling darkness.
He was the Elvis of the meek. The misfit family whose sightlines were torn all night by the cool go-go girl pulled up their chairs right in front of red Elvis. He saved a scarf for each of them. He gently wrapped a scarf around each neck and gave each hurting soul a warm, reassuring kiss.
