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Boston Globe
29 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Never get into a car with an Elvis impersonator — and other things I learned in Vegas
That afternoon, Elvis, né Jesse Grice, had obligingly received us at home, wearing only mesh shorts, so that we — Globe photographer Erin Clark and I — could witness his transformation into the King. I apologized for being late. 'It's OK,' he said. 'I keep Elvis hours.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Inside his apartment, gilt mirrors shone from almost every surface, so the many pieces of Elvis paraphernalia refracted and seemed to multiply. Above the sofa was a huge shirtless portrait of either Grice or Elvis — at points, the distinction blurs. Advertisement That evening, Grice — who took the stage name Jesse Garon, after Elvis's stillborn twin brother — was scheduled to chauffeur Las Vegas Councilwoman Olivia Diaz through the parade. So he did a speedy version of his normal routine: heavy foundation (Dermablend, the stuff they use to cover tattoos), hair spray, and waterproof mascara on his sideburns. 'I learned from the best,' he explained, 'drag queens.' Advertisement By the time the Elvis transformation was complete, Grice was beginning to sweat. He rushed me into the Cadillac (license plate: VGSELVS) which, it transpired, was missing not only seat belts but also mirrors. And turn signals. The ride was tense. A woman from the parade kept calling — 'Elvis, where are you?' — and the Cadillac was starting to overheat. Steering with one hand and holding his phone in the other, Elvis pulled abruptly into a 7-Eleven, ran in for a Big Gulp cup of ice, and dumped it under the hood, murmuring to the car as if it were a spooked horse. Jesse Grice, an Elvis impersonator of over 30 years, zipped up his suit. Erin Clark/Globe Staff By the time we got there, the floats were already in motion — we stalled briefly behind a mariachi band — and the councilwoman was nowhere to be seen. On the back of the Cadillac, there was a special parade seat, a raised white platform, for her. But now, catastrophically, the seat was empty. 'I'll just get up there,' Elvis shouted to Richard, his protégé-slash-assistant-slash-body man, who I kept forgetting about because he had spent the ride curled over and silent in the back seat. 'You drive.' Richard looked uneasy but got into the driver's seat. You've heard the saying, 'Only fools rush in'? The accident happened almost before I realized it. Suddenly the car was turning, and Richard was hitting the brakes but nothing was happening, and we hit a trash can and then a floodlight and then people were running and a child was running the wrong way, into the path of the car. Before I could scream, Richard pulled something and the Cadillac rolled to a stop. Advertisement Jesse Grice left the 7-Eleven with a Big Gulp cup of ice to pour underneath the hood of his car. It was hot outside and he was worried about his pink Cadillac convertible overheating. Erin Clark/Globe Staff I should note that 'impersonator' is no longer the preferred nomenclature for someone who makes their living pretending to be Elvis Presley, who last played Vegas in 1976. The politically correct term is now 'Elvis tribute artist,' or ETA. Grice was actually our second ETA of the day. The reason we were late — setting the whole spangled domino chain in motion — is that we had come from seeing Pete Vallee, stage name Big Elvis, at his regular gig at Harrah's Las Vegas. The two Elvises — Elvii? — could not have been more different. Where Grice was scattered and nervy, Vallee was deliberate and philosophical. He wasn't wearing makeup, and he arrived in a normal car, the kind with seat belts. His mobility is limited, so pelvic exertions were out of the question. But what Vallee did have was the voice — something startling and soulful. Big Elvis, a.k.a. Pete Vallee, displays his rings at Harrah's Casino and Resort. One diamond studded ring reads TCB, Taking Care of Business, which is what Presley called his band when he returned to the concert circuit in 1969. Erin Clark/Globe Staff Vallee has been playing Elvis since 1980, when he arrived in Vegas at the age of 15. As he gets older, he is increasingly preoccupied with the shimmering boundary between himself and Elvis. He's seen other ETAs 'get lost,' as he put it. People who come to believe they are Elvis, who dress and talk like Elvis, who never step out of character. 'Nobody can be Elvis,' Vallee said, 'or anybody else for that matter.' Instead, he hopes to achieve a subtler alchemy — not pretending to be Elvis, but channeling him. In his car before the show, Vallee told me that certain types of women love — love — an Elvis. In the industry, he said, they are known as 'sideburn chasers.' Advertisement I laughed, but didn't really believe him. Then at his 2 p.m. show, one after another, women in their 50s and 60s pressed up to me boozily to say how much they loved Vallee. Some of them cried. 'I close my eyes, and he's there, ' said one woman. 'He's sensitive,' said another who had seen Big Elvis three times this year. A third was there to celebrate her honeymoon, and her new husband watched unfazed as she draped herself over Big Elvis like a tipsy rug. It was, her husband explained to me later, just part of the deal. Privately, Vallee said, the attention can wear on him. 'I've been married a couple times,' he said. 'It takes a certain woman, first of all, that's going to be attracted to you.' And if they do like him, he wonders, do they like him or Elvis? 'She's thinking in her mind: That's my Elvis. I'm Priscilla,' he fretted. And then, 'You just have to decipher, hey, do they really love you as a person? Or is it just a facade that they love?' Nancy Weyer leaned over Big Elvis, a.k.a. Pete Vallee, while her new husband looked on, at Harrah's in September. Erin Clark/Globe Staff The real Elvis used to wonder the same thing, once telling an interviewer, 'Well, the image is one thing and the human being another. . . . It's very hard to live up to an image.' That's one of the contradictions of Elvis impersonation: It's simultaneously unachievable — no one can be Elvis — and undesirable — the loneliness, the addiction, the ugly death, the fact that, at the end, Elvis himself felt like an Elvis impersonator. And yet. There have to be more Elvises per capita in Las Vegas than anywhere else on earth: Elvis singers, Elvis parade leaders, Elvis human selfie props, but most especially, Elvis wedding officiants. My third Elvis, Brendan Paul of Graceland Wedding Chapel, performed 33 ceremonies on a recent Saturday. They run about 10 minutes each and start at $249. Advertisement In a typical ceremony, Elvis takes the bride on a speedy walk down the aisle, has the couple recite Elvis-inspired vows ('I promise to always love you tender and never leave you at heartbreak hotel'), and then performs some songs (two in the basic package) before ushering one couple out and the next one in. It's Elvising as an endurance sport. Brendan Paul, an Elvis impersonator at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, sang for newlyweds Sarah and Stephanie Logia. Erin Clark/Globe Staff Of the wedding Elvises I witness, Paul is the best: campy and sincere in turns, and most importantly, unflagging. Once, the last couple of a long day marveled at his stamina. 'You paid the same amount of money as the people at 10 this morning,' he told them. 'So you don't deserve to get an Elvis that's worn out.' And when he does it right, a kind of illusion takes hold, especially for the older people who grew up with the real Elvis, he explained. 'They don't see me. They see through me and they see Elvis somehow.' B ack out on the highway, I've accepted my imminent death. Elvis and Richard are bickering, and we're speeding in the direction of a Los Tacos drive-through for burritos. The Cadillac was mostly undamaged by the accident, and Grice had got the brakes working again, but he was still not risking stopping at red lights or stop signs. He had a wedding to perform that evening, and if the brakes died again, picking the couple up in an Uber was not going to cut it. Advertisement The wedding would be held at the 'Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas' sign marking the start of the Strip. To me, the sign evoked all that was most artificial about Vegas: the drunk tourists pulling up in hired party cars, the people you can pay to help you take a flattering selfie, the Astroturf under our feet. Add a volatile Elvis impersonator and a failing Cadillac to that mix, and the whole thing seemed inauspicious. But one of the odd things I noticed over the course of the few days I spent among the Elvii, is that the line between artifice and real feeling was often thinner than I had imagined. Jesse Grice, an Elvis impersonator for more than 30 years, officiated a ceremony for Susan and Dean Norsworthy underneath the famous 'Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign' that marks the beginning of the Strip. Erin Clark/Globe Staff Brendan Paul explained this to me in Graceland Wedding Chapel. People come in expecting the ceremony to be a joke, he said. 'It is campy. I mean, look at me. I've made a living for 27 years in a onesie, sharing another man's hairdo.' But at some point in every ceremony, something shifts — when the bride walks down the aisle, or when the vows begin, or when the rings are exchanged. And it isn't a joke any more. At the Vegas sign, Elvis led the wedding party to one side, away from a rowdy group taking an apparently infinite combination of photos. Elvis's mic wasn't loud enough, and the photographer wasn't showing up. I could see unease sketched on the bride's face. But then Elvis pressed play on his speaker, and the notes I had heard, conservatively, a dozen times over the course of a few days rolled out and over us. Elvis's voice was weak, but it didn't matter — goose bumps rose on my arms as he began to sing the first words of 'Can't Help Falling in Love.' And just like that, the bride began to cry. Newlyweds Dean and Susan Norsworthy sat in the back of Elvis' pink Cadillac with their friend Joy Cross after getting married beneath the famous 'Welcome to Las Vegas' sign. Erin Clark/Globe Staff Annalisa Quinn can be reached at
Time Out
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
This neon LIC cocktail speakeasy is an ode to Asian pop culture
Where one speakeasy quietly closes, another loudly opens—the Long Island City space formerly occupied by Chinese cocktail bar 929 (and hidden inside Taiwanese restaurant Gulp) has been reborn as a similarly numerically-titled sister spot: 56709. No, it's not named after a zip code, though the retro-futuristic, neon-laced barroom certainly transports you to a place that's decidedly not Queens. Rather, the drinks den takes its title from Japanese singer Junko Ohashi's 1984 hit "Telephone Number," and it echoes those eighties-pop nostalgia by reimagining "the sounds, sights, and textures of Japan's Showa and Heisei eras—when neon lights, telephones, and upbeat City Pop melodies defined a generation," per the bar team. Continuing 929's mission of "celebrating music, cocktails and Asian pop culture," the new concept is tricked out with vintage Japanese posters, collectible records, and a curated display of retro telephones from the owners' personal collections. Neon lighting and chrome details nod to futuristic Tokyo skylines, while warm wood accents and soft seating beckon you to linger. Cocktails, too, take influence from Japanese musical legends: There's the Junko's Old Fashioned (flavored with persimmon and chestnut), Ryuichi's Negroni (a yuzu-and-sencha sipper named for Luna Sea frontman Ryuichi Kawamura), Mariya's Whisky Sour (a savory tribute to the Queen of City Pop, made with barley tea and kombu) and a genmaicha-honeydew daiquiri in honor of the "Eternal Idol," Seiko Matsuda. Several drinks will also pay tribute to beloved Japanese anime characters, including the Pokémon-inspired "Pika Pika," the "Arale" cocktail named after the main character in the 1980 classic Dr. Slump, and the "Ranma" cocktail paying homage to Ranma 1⁄2. 'When we create a cocktail, we don't just think about flavor—we dive deep into the story behind the inspiration,' said beverage director Chaoyi Chen. For the "Pika Pika," which is made with rum, tomato, mango, sunflower seeds, cheese, and topped with soda, " the sunflower seeds and cheese nod to Pikachu's Rodent-Pokémon classification, while the tomato references his well-known love of ketchup from the anime," Chen explained. "Mango brings in Pikachu's iconic yellow hue, and the soda's fizz evokes his electric energy.' The folks over at Gulp will continue to take care of the food, with new menu items like a baked sweet potato with miso butter and meat floss (a reimagining of the Taiwanese street snack), fried oysters with yuzu tartare sauce (a night-market favorite with a Japanese twist) and ochazuke, a traditional Japanese rice-and-broth dish, here topped with salted and dried mullet roe. Set to open its doors on Friday, June 12, 56709 is located at 4245 27th Street and will be open Tuesday to Thursday from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m., Friday and Saturday from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. and Sunday from 5 p.m. to midnight.
USA Today
2 days ago
- Automotive
- USA Today
How Nissan's cupholder guru is changing the way you drink in your car
How Nissan's cupholder guru is changing the way you drink in your car Show Caption Hide Caption Car maintenance tips you need to know These basic car maintenance tips are vital to your car's longevity. ProblemSolved, Reviewed New drink containers keep changing the shape of cupholders. Door-pocket bottle holders must be easy and safe for the driver to use. The next time you don't spill hot coffee in your lap driving to work, spare a moment to thank Chris Fischer. The vehicle development engineer at Nissan's North American tech center in Farmington Hills, Michigan is one of the engineers and designers automakers charge with staying a step ahead of the world's cup, coffee and container manufacturers. He has been Nissan's go-to guy for cupholders since 2015, when complaints about cupholders weighed down the automaker's customer satisfaction scores ― a key benchmark. It's full-time work. 'Refillable bottles were becoming a big deal, and they were a different size' from the 12-ounce cans and Big Gulp cups automakers had focused on, Fischer told me recently while holding up a large CamelBak bottle. He brought a bottle just like it with him to Japan. To this day, it remains in Nissan's box of samples, all painted a neutral color like modeler's clay for easy digital scanning. Struggling automakers: Can troubled automaker Nissan survive the next 5 years? Why the experts say yes 'Americans put a high value on drinking in our vehicles, and we use a wide variety of sizes,' Fischer said. That behavior was behind cupholder mania, which began in the United States with Chrysler minivans in the 1980s. Cupholders became so popular that automakers promoted the number they offered in a vehicle alongside fuel economy and airbags. But the right design is a moving target. Keeping up with consumer behavior 'How do you fit a CamelBak and a 6-ounce aluminum can in the same holder?' Fischer asked. One answer, spring-loaded plastic fingers that adjust to different sizes of bottles, raised a new question: What shape and strength "finger" will hold a 20-ounce insulated Yeti, but not crush an 8-ounce "short" paper cup? 'You also have to be aware of the holder's depth,' he said. It must be high enough to hold tall bottles, and short enough that it doesn't knock the top off a small paper coffee cup. 'Too big or too small is a problem.' Another challenge: Some people bring their ceramic coffee mugs from home into the vehicle. That led to the development Nissan calls a 'dog bone,' an open space connecting two round holders. A mug handle fits there, though I've discovered it's also a great place for loose coins to take up residence. The design evolved from round holders with a connecting channel to the current Pathfinder's hourglass shape with rounded plastic fingers to keep small containers in place. Design continues to adapt As soon as one question is answered, a new type of container poses another: What to do with juice boxes? Minivans and family SUVs now have square receptacles for them for their kid-dominated rear seats. Extra-large water bottles also pose a challenge. The answer: modified door pockets with holders that are easy to reach without distracting the driver from traffic. 'We're always looking at data,' Fischer said. 'We're the voice of the customer.' The 2022 Pathfinder's cupholders had the highest satisfaction scores in its segment, he said. 'We did our job. It seems like a small thing, but we want to sweat the details. The way cupholders work is important to customer satisfaction. It's a reason to buy a car.' Contact Mark Phelan: mmphelan@ Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan. Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.
South China Morning Post
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
New York bar mixes cocktails and Chinese pop to give the music life beyond karaoke lounges
In New York's Long Island City neighbourhood there is a nondescript, white-tiled Taiwanese restaurant named Gulp. Advertisement Those not in the know might assume that the five counter seats are all there is to this little joint, but open the grey door at the rear, pull back the curtain behind it and you will find yourself in a softly lit cocktail bar imbued with warm, red tones reminiscent of Wong Kar-wai films. This is 929, a bar that pays tribute to 1980s and 1990s Cantonese and Mandarin pop culture and music, so named for its phonetic similarity to 'night to night' and because the numbers represent a New York telephone area code. Here the walls are covered in posters of Hong Kong singers – there is one of Faye Wong , another of Sammi Cheng Sau-man – and towards the back is a DJ set-up with dozens of Cantopop and Mandopop vinyl records and CDs. New York cocktail bar 929's walls are decorated with posters of various Cantopop singers, and the soft, red lighting is reminiscent of scenes in Wong Kar-wai films. Photo: 929 They are all from the personal collection of Chen Haoran, who founded 929 with architect Sean Yang and restaurateur Jeff Liu. Advertisement Chen Haoran, who is originally from Jiangmen in China's Guangdong province, recalls listening to his mother's favourite records as a child, which led him to amass his own collection of Cantopop and Mandopop albums, especially after moving to New York when he was 11.
