eXtreme Elvis

I first heard about him a few months ago. It was outside the Covered Wagon, between bands at a Zen Guerilla show, where I stepped outside to get some air and get out of the sweltering concert heat. There was a tall girl in black standing out there, leaning against the brick wall and smoking. She seemed to be by herself. Taking advantage of the fact that the only time I can strike up conversations with female strangers is when I've been drinking, I struck up a conversation.

Turned out she was new in town, too. She'd moved there just for the music scene. We discussed the local venues, I told her about the frightening concert I'd just seen, and then she told me about... eXtreme Elvis.

"It was great," she said, magically stating everything in the exact same way I would paraphrase it when I wrote about it months later. "He's an enormous Elvis impersonator who strips naked during his act."

"Wow," I said, impressed.

"At one point he pissed in his shoe," she said, and then, laughing, "and drank it!"

I suddenly wasn't so sure that I'd just seen the scariest show ever after all. eXtreme Elvis sounded to me like the kind of thing that a person should see. It sounded like the kind of thing that could only make you stronger.

Flash forward a few months. I'd pretty much forgotten all about eXtreme Elvis, when one day I was forwarded a list of amusing URLs. I hate forwarded crap, and usually don't bother to read it, but on this day, as though ordained by fate, I did, and one of the URLs on that list was for eXtreme Elvis's home page. A few nights later, I mentioned him to my friend A., who promptly said "I want to see eXtreme Elvis."

I read a few more snippets about him here and there after that -- accounts of him taking the stage at karaoke bars, "wearing nothing but vomit smeared down the front of his giant pot belly" and singing until being ejected from the establishment. I checked his home page frequently, but I didn't find out about the next show until it was too late. It was at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's dada festival, and by the time I found out about it, he was the target of every person for the ethical treatment of animals in the city.

Apparently eXtreme Elvis upset quite a few people with his performance at Dadafest. His act, as I read it to have happened, started out with him sitting in a recliner and having girls pour birdseed all over him. Six chickens were then brought and set on top of him, and while the chickens ate the bird seed from his body he sang "Love Me Tender."

The trouble began when eXtreme Elvis got up and began throwing the chickens into the audience. And this is where reports of what happened vary. Letters have been written by people who were in the crowd that day, saying they say the chickens kicked. Some of the letters say the chickens were killed. One of the letters said a chicken had its wing broken. There are varying accounts of what happened -- accounts that reek of the hysteria of idiots, and let's face it, the first ones to rally 'round a cause are usually not the shiniest coins in the fountain -- but apparently something happened that night that upset the crowd quite a bit.

eXtreme Elvis claimed in the Guardian that the chickens were alive and well, and are now living out the rest of their days as free-range chickens on a farm outside the city. He said he got the chickens from a restaurant in Chinatown. He says he did the chickens a favor.

Whose side of the story is correct? I don't know. It seems like a lot of people are upset over the chicken incident. But it also seems like claiming six chickens are alive and well when they were actually killed in front of a crowd would be a pretty stupid lie to try and carry off, and eXtreme Elvis seems smarter than that. In fact, he seems smarter than the majority of people I've ever known who were too eager to protest or speak out against something.

Keeping an open mind, I went to Kimo's last night accompanied by A. to take in eXtreme Elvis's first show since the chicken incident. At the door we walked past a woman handing out flyers reading "Boycott eXtreme Elvis." She asked us if we'd come that night to see him.

We hung out downstairs in the bar while the first band played. eXtreme Elvis was listed as being next. Walking through the bar, A. whispered to me, "There he is."

I turned and looked, and there, sitting at the bar, was eXtreme Elvis. Never mind how I could have missed an enormous man dressed as Elvis sitting at the bar drinking a Bud Lite with his pants unbuttoned (I'm not very attentive, I guess). He had a KFC chicken bucket on the bar in front of him. He was beautiful.

We sat a few seats away from him, and I could overhear him having an argument with someone who worked at the venue. Apparently they wanted to move eXtreme Elvis's act to the last spot, instead of second as he was billed. This displeased eXtreme Elvis.

"Fine," I heard him say, using the deep Elvis vibrato even then. "Then maybe I won't get naked tonight. Maybe I won't show everone my tiny thing. Maybe I won't piss all over."

Serious threats, for sure. eXtreme Elvis was playing hardball. And he got his way, because he went on next. After a few more minutes of flirting with the girls in the bar (who were, as I only now realize, scarce) with a smoove "Hey there sweet thang, I'm eXtreme Elvis," he headed upstairs to take the stage, and me and A. were not long after.

His band had already started when we got up there. I'd expected he'd be singing to pre-recorded music, but he actually had a band, and they were damn good. Horn section and all -- everything one would need to accurately perform Elvis songs.

He did say "fuck" a lot more than the real Elvis did, though. At least, I think he did, I can't say for sure as I never saw the real Elvis in person, but I can't imagine him saying, "When I want you to take your fucking clothes off, I'll take them off" to a girl in the crowd, like eXtreme Elvis did.

After the first song, he announced to the crowd, still using the Elvis voice, "Before I continue, I want my fuckin' drummer to get naked." I couldn't see the drummer from our disadvantage point near the back of the room (neither of us wanted to get too close to eXtreme Elvis), but I can only assume that he complied, because the crowd seemed appeased.

A few more Elvis songs, and then eXtreme Elvis stopped to talk to the crowd again. "Did you know," he said, "that one serving of fried chicken has 45% of the recommended daily allowance of sodium?" The crowd, as crowds will do in response to any statement from a performer, cheered. "Yeah," he continued. "That's right. Today I've had about 400% of my daily allowance of sodium." The clever crowd, putting two and two together, cheered once again.

The show continued, until eXtreme Elvis announced that he was getting hot, and that perhaps taking off his top would be a good idea. From then on, it was shirtless eXtreme Elvis. Or so we thought. From where we stood, we could only see eXtreme Elvis from the waist up due to the crowd being in the way. But within a few minutes he brought his cordless mic to tbe back of the room where we saw that he was, in fact, completely nude. Well, he still had his Elvis shades on, but other than that he was completely nude.

He only stayed in the back long enough to rub against some girl, then returned to the stage where, during a soft interlude in one song, he produced some notes he'd made earlier, and began reading to the crowd. The notes were about bestiality, putting special focus on sex with chickens. He was holding a stuffed hen while this was going on, and though I couldn't see what was going on below waist level, I like to think he was demonstrating.

But unfortunately, the evening was to take a turn for the worse. Not more than a few songs later, the band, crowd and eXtreme Elvis went quiet, and then he said "Which one of you fuckers did that?" Nobody said a word. In fact, I don't recall anyone moving.

"That's it," eXtreme Elvis said. "Fuckin' show's over." And he walked, still naked, to the fire escape on the other side of the room. Someone had thrown fake blood all over him. They hit him in the back, which was covered in red, and it was trickling down in a little river between his eXtreme buttocks.

After standing nude on the fire escape for a few minutes, which I'm sure anyone would find relaxing, eXtreme Elvis returned to the stage, suggested everyone stick around for the next band, and then packed up and left without even having urinated all over the stage.

A. and I stood there, feeling empty and dissatisfied. Our eyes burned with anguish and anger.