Growing Up with an Elvis Impersonator

I came home one day when I was eight years old from school,

and he was

bedazzling a white jumpsuit in the living room.

He was putting, um, an eagle on the back of it.

And I said, "What are you doing?" And he said,

"I'm gonna be Elvis for a little

while."

Okay.

And I said, "Oh, okay."

Yeah.

And then he was, um, doing what the, uh, the equivalent I've now

learned is method acting. He lived as Elvis in our house.

He was doing martial arts in the backyard-

Oh

... talking like Elvis.

So, I mean, he was full-timey-

He, he went full Elvis

... Elvis all the time.

He was not kidding when he said, "I'm going to be Elvis for a little

while."

So you basically lived with Elvis

for a bit.

And I learned how to, I think, uh, everything.

So tell me, love...

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

You ain't nothing but a hound dog, crying all the time. Crying all the time.

You ain't

nothing but a hound dog.

I learned every-everything. He sort of set the table for

how to do it. The magic of what he did was he-- You know, we just, he just

performed at malls, but it was like a, a cold paper mill

town that I grew up in.

Yeah.

And he brought Elvis to the mall, and people were losing their minds, like,

screaming, diving on the stage. He-- El-Elvis was in the

building. And then w- he also created a

talent show around it so that people would come to the gigs.

And so then everyone from our town started--

you started to see what their secret

talents were.

This is amazing.

It's like the guy that works at the Piggly Wiggly-

Yeah

... is also, like, does a version of "Black Velvet" that'll

knock your socks off.

So-

And you're like, "Oh, so the guy that you really are is on

stage, and the character you're playing is at the Piggly Wiggly?"

Whoa.

Whoa, what's going on?

Your uncle basically in-invented America's Got Talent.

Kind of. And it just, like, melted.

The whole town was really-

Was it big news? Yeah

... a huge impact on... No, I mean, you know, big news to us.

Yeah, in the town.

Yes.

Mm.

And then

he stopped, and everything went back to normal,

and I think I was like,

"Um,

can we do that again?"

Yeah, of course. Well, you did pick up so much-

It was such a-- He showed me this kind of,

you know, sequined, glittery door-

Yeah

... that you could go through.

Yeah.

And there was a whole other

life there.