Extreme Elvis

Still haven't started work on The Man Show and with the wife out in Colorado to see her folks, I had no choice but go to Vegas to see Extreme Elvis at The Beach. I never need an excuse to go to Vegas but I've been to The Beach and I couldn't imagine any place I'd rather see get pissed on by a fat naked man.

The Beach is like any shithole, ant trap nightclub full of dense, spring-break, Girls-Gone-Wild, tanning bed Hitler-Youth that you can find in any city in our proud country. They have hot chicks in string bikinis standing over huge aluminum tubs of beer and mondo thick-neck bouncers that surely could have gone pro if they hadn't blown out their knee in their senior year. Add an over-powering run-un dance song and an exorbanent cover charge and mules will stand in line for hours to get in.

The only band I'd rather see playing there would be Great White.

Elvis was scheduled to be there with The Extra Action Marching Band, a 30-some piece band of musicians and exotic dancers but their bus had broken down in Flagstaff and it looked doubtful they'd make the gig. The promoter who'd booked the show had been fired - big surprise - and the management just wanted to get the show over with. They told Elvis that there was to be no nudity, although that hadn't been the original agreement. Then they made the mistake of paying him up front.

Live and learn.

Having stalled for the Marching Band as long as he could and no longer being able to tolerate the bad dance music, Elvis started the show a little after 11pm. Penn and Teller were there for the show and Penn introduced the band. The Beach is a barn of a place, full of the usual flashing lights and smoke machines and feels as much like a beach as an airplane hanger with a cardboard plam tree slapped on the wall. To look at the dance floor you'd think that every episode of Elimidate was being filmed at once. The dancefloor cleared and fled to the corners when Elvis came on stage while the Elvis fans in the corners ran to the front.

Now the only question was how long he'd last before they pulled the plug. Uber-security stood at either side of the stage with ear-pieces hanging from their shave-shined heads, waiting for orders to kill.

They looked at each other like down-syndrome children while Elvis emptied beer bottles on the crowd. They shrugged when he stripped down to a tiger-print unitard and then down to a g-string. By the time he was naked and pissing into a fake potted palm tree beside the stage, I didn't see them anywhere.

Amazingly, the show went on, at least for another two songs. In the middle of the finale, as EE lumbered across the length of the dance floor, the meat-staff finally got the order to put the hammer down. Elvis tried to give em the slip but was grabbed and told "Show's Over".

We all went back to the dressing room under heavy guard and were told to get the fuck out as soon as possible. I tried to drink as much of the free beer backstage as I could while Elvis attmepted to quell the roid-rage of the Beach boys. Then the angriest and evidently lowest on the totem pole of the doormen flew into the room in a fury and started screaming at EE. He had just been taken off hand-stamp and jeering duty and been given the task of removing EE's palm tree urinal and he was very angry with no one to hit.

Just go clean up the piss pot, Sharon, and pine for the day you were first string.

The show moved on to the Double Down Saloon, the only bar I know of in Vegas that is EE-friendly, where the people have piercings and tattoos, not because they are trendy, but because they hurt. Elvis did a free show there and blew the place up with a black-caped, screaming rendition of some Black Sabbath song that I was too drunk to remember.

I tried to hang out for the Extra Action Marching Band who had finally made it to town, but now it was almost 3 am and right when I decided I couldn't last another minute I saw a panic in the middle of the bar with a guy down on the floor. It was the marching band's drummer, or one of them, having an epileptic seizure. That was show enough for me. As good as I've heard they are, you'll never see people run away from a good seizure to go watch a band.

If you haven't seen EE yet, it's the best show you'll see if you love chaos. Check his schedule or better yet, find a bar with balls in your town and book him ~ www.extremeelvis.com