Folsom Street Fair & eXtreme Elvis

He was playing at 6 p.m. -- the man, the myth, the legend: eXtreme Elvis. It was at the Paradise Lounge, and to get there I'd have to walk through the Folsom Street Fair, which was going on that day.

The Folsom Street Fair for those of you who don't know, is an annual celebration of leather and bondage that takes place in San Francisco. It's not, as some people think, a gay pride parade, though it did seem to have a high concentration of homosexuals. And not your garden variety homosexuals either. Not your Fargo, North Dakota homosexual or your Pella, Iowa homosexual, who may look just like you or me. No, these are San Francisco homosexuals, who dress like bikers minus the flab and beards, and may or may not have the asses cut out of their pants. There were, of course, women there too, but they were by far outnumbered by the stereotypically comical homosexuals, many of whom were actually wearing nothing at all. I believe I saw only one naked female. I saw spanking booths, bondage gear expos, and an unusually large amount of polish sausage vendors, but what I really learned from Folsom Street Fair was that men are a lot more eager to get naked than women.

The Paradise Lounge is located on 11th and Folsom. I got there at six, just as most of the fair booths were closing up, and walked in the door, where they normally ask for ID and a cover charge. This time I was just waved in with a shrug. It was a free show, and apparently they weren't carding anyone. Not everyone there looked 21. The main door was wide open. The side door was wide open. A door behind the stage that I'd never noticed before was open, and people were coming and going as they pleased.

I went up the the bar and stood in line behind the 15-year-olds to get a beer. While waiting, a man came from the direction of the bathroom and shouted to the bartender, "Hey, the toilet's clogged and the bathroom's flooding. Can someone fix it?" The bartender was unable to hear anything the man said over all the noise, and let him know by shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head. The man repeated his request, and the bartender shouted back something about finding the maintenance man. I decided not to get a beer.

I got to the bar and asked for a water. The bartender filled a plastic cup from the tap and I tipped him a dollar, 'cause I'm classy. I asked him when eXtreme Elvis was going on, to which he replied "Any minute now...that's why all these people are crowding in."

It was true. There was an impressive crowd in front of the stage already. Already it was ten million degrees in there. I picked up my water and pushed my way up to the front, right by the stage. Last time I was at one of his shows, eXtreme Elvis had been obscured from my vision by the crowd and the poorly designed stage area at Kimo's. I was not about to let that happen again.

I'll pretend the horrible unfunny opening act never happened, and say that eXtreme Elvis's band took the stage right away. As they picked up their instruments and got ready, the vibrato Elvis-like voice could be heard over the PA system saying "Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? Is this thing on here? Hello?"

Everyone looked around, but nobody could see him or where the voice was coming from. The band started playing and suddenly there he was, a large man in a white and blue suite with muttonchops and large Elvis shades, pushing his way through the crowd from the back of the room to take the stage.

eXtreme Elvis has an entire band -- drummer, guitarist, bass player, horn section -- and they're actually good. It takes a talented horn player, I imagine, to be able to operate a trombone in the nude without getting his genitals caught in the sliding mechanism. Yet such proficiency is just what eXtreme Elvis's horn players demonstrated when they were instructed to "get naked" after the second song.

After another song, EE asked the crowd who wanted a free shirt. Hands went up all around, and then dropped when he said "Well ya gotta get naked." One brave person, though, was still willing, and took the stage. He took off his jacket to reveal that he was, for some reason, wearing some sort of hunter-orange construction vest. "I'm sorry, sir," the EE said, "I didn't realize you were from Beyond the Thunder Dome." eXtreme Elvis then picked up an American flag that had been taped to the edge of the stage, whapped it menacingly across one hand, and instructed the volunteer to drop his pants and bend over. The pants were dropped, the position was assumed, and eXtreme Elvis counted down to zero with the crowd before the volunteer's ass was whipped with patriotism.

The volunteer wasn't done being patriotic, though. Turning around and letting his pants drop all the way to his ankles, he began improvising a playful dance before eXtreme Elvis called him an idiot and told him to get the fuck off his stage. The guy waddled back into the crowd where he gave his girlfriend a big ol' drunken pantsless hug, leading me to wonder if maybe I'm a womanless loser because I'm too often sober and too often wearing pants.

Another few songs, and eXtreme Elvis's pants came off, really hammering home that too-often-wearing-pants theory of mine, judging by how the crowd -- girls included -- reacted. Contrary to what Hollywood and People Magazine may have us believe, the ladies love a naked fat man. Apparently. And they love his pants, too. Acting like he was about to throw his pants into the crowd, eXtreme Elvis yanked them back suddenly and said that last time he did that, his pants ended up on eBay. It wasn't the last we'd see of the pants, though. Alternating between pantsed trips into the crowd and pantsless trips into the crowd, he kept taking them on and off. And, finally, they stayed off.

At one point, a man near the stage was talking on his cell phone. "Put that fuckin' cell phone away," eXtreme Elvis shouted. Then came down off the stage all naked and sweaty, grabbed the man, and pulled him near. "Tell Mom you're with eXtreme Elvis" he said, his face an inch away from the man's and, consequently, the mouthpiece of his cell phone. "Tell Mom you're dancin' with eXtreme Elvis" he said, and started swaying his hips back and forth while holding him tight. "Tell Mom you're dancin' with eXtreme Elvis..."

By this point, the two backup singers -- a man and a woman -- were also naked. "Who here," eXtreme Elvis asked, back on the stage, "was at the fair today?" The entire crowd, about a third of whom I then realized were still wearing bondage gear, clapped and cheered. "And how many of you didn't get clothespins yanked off your nipples?" he asked. After a few minutes, he'd found four volunteers to come up for the nipple clamping they'd sadly missed out on earlier during the day. eXtreme Elvis's lovely (and naked) assistant (and backup singer) brought out a white rope with clothespins tied to it at regular intervals. The four men lined up, with eXtreme Elvis in the middle, and all five of them had a clothespin clipped to each nipple, every clothespin connected via the white rope. A long, slow countdown was begun. eXtreme Elvis improvised a playful can-can dance. The other guys joined him. Anne continued to count as the five men with their nipples clamped and tied together knee-kick-knee-kicked in unison until finally, she reached zero. With a mighty yank, the rope was pulled and the clothespins flew off each nipple one by one in a zipper-like effect, each pair followed by a "Yow!" from the guy to which they were attached.

It was then that I decided to go up to the balcony to try and snap some bird's-eye pictures of the eXtreme King at work. The balcony was packed, though, and the only way I could see over the heads of the people crowding the rail was to stand up on a chair and lean precariously over them, hanging onto the ceiling pipes for support. But I only managed to get a few good ones before the chair slipped out from under me. The floor was slick with spilled beer, and I came close to going over. Lucky for you all, I didn't, and I lived to tell the tale.

From the balcony I watched the show end, and then I went downstairs to meet him. He was sitting on the edge of the stage, tied to the leash of a girl who was now sitting on his lap. I put my hand out, and said "Hey, eXtreme Elvis, I'm Sean."

"Sean," he said. "Things-I-Hate-Dot-Org."

"That's me," I said. "I liked your show."

"Thanks," he said. "Were you surprised to find out that I was the easter bunny?"

"I had a feeling," I said.

"So how long do you want for an interview?" he asked me.

"A half hour or so," I said.

"Let's do it some other time," he said. "I'm in the east bay too."

"OK," I said. "How about I'll email you and we can work out a time?"

"Sounds good."