“Bigger Than Elvis, man… A livin’ legend.”By: Daniele Prati
October 13, 1986, Greenwich Village, NY
“I coulda been the biggest star of all!”
The swarthy man with the approximated beard was half in his cups. Or is the glass half full? Maybe he was half out of his cups… Anyway, it’s safe to say he’d reached the midpoint in his journey under the table.
“I coulda been Bigger Than Elvis!” He downed half his drink in one slurp. “Yeah… Bigger Than Elvis, man… Are you gettin’ this down?”
All I’d written down was his name. I’d tell it to you, but I’ve mislaid it. I’m not sure if it was on the back of the business card that I accidently dropped onto the subway tracks or on the cocktail napkin that I inadvertently laundered. I am certain that I neither have it nor remember it. No matter; there are three sots like Bigger Than Elvis in every watering-hole in Manhattan.
I met him in one of those exposed-brick fern-bars on Macdougal Street. He was cadging drinks by pounding away on a beat-up Martin guitar, wailing off-key through his nose about a ‘Tambourine Man’. He serenaded me for an extra-special long time; dancing beneath diamond skies waving his hand, or something like that. I figured if I bought him a drink he’d go away. I was wrong.
Instead, he sat down, moaning through his nose about the injustice of booking agents and record buyers. I won’t try to reproduce his speech, which was very oddly inflected; almost as unintelligible as his singing, though not quite as loud. His spiel was Sob Story #37, with variations: nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll eat some wheat germ.
“Bigger Than Elvis, man… A livin’ legend.” He sighed. “And, like, it’s just not fair!” He punctuated himself with a dissonant chord.
“Isn’t it…?” I admit it: I ask for these things.
“No, man. Hell no!” He pulled at one of the black ringlets of his receding hairline. “Like, one minute you’re bein’ chased by reporters from Frisco to University Place… You’re on the cover of Time… A garbagoligist is publishin’ scientific studies of your trash… Man, you’re makin’ four thousand dollars a week! …and the next thing you know… The next thing you know, you can’t even get a table in a greasy spoon!”
“Gosh,” I said. “That’s really too bad…”
He looked pained by the interruption. “You can’t get booked… Your records bomb… Your best licks get ripped-off by teeny-bopper bands from Sidney…”
I said: “Tsk, tsk…”
“Your manager runs off with your money… Your guru runs off with your wife…” Tears were starting to dribble down along his expansive nose. “Your kids won’t even take off their headphones long enough to listen to their old man sing about Hattie Carroll…” He snuffled.
“Gee…,” I said. I’ve been through all this before. My job is to act sympathetic and sign the Mastercard slip.
He banged away at the guitar. “‘…bury the rag deep in your face, for now is the time for your tears’.” He wiped at the tears. “It’s just not fair!”
I asked, “What’s this about Elvis?”
“Yeah, man… Bigger Than Elvis! That’s what I wanted to be! I was hot, man. I mean, my records sold! Time said I was gonna be Bigger Than Elvis… Grossman said I was gonna to be Bigger Than Elvis… I said I was gonna to be Bigger Than Elvis…” He swiped at more tears. “…and look at me… They don’t even know me on Macdougal Street, man. On Macdougal Street!” He slammed away at the guitar: “‘…somebody better explain…’.”
I waved at the waiter to bring two more drinks. Bigger Than Elvis gave me a grateful wink.
He fingered daintily along the frets, picking out the first truly tuneful melody he’d played: “‘…where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes…’.” He sighed. “The hardest part was why they dropped me… I mean, fans are fickle; that’s part of the job, man. ‘…and you know I wasn’t very cute to them, was I?’”
I shrugged.
He went on, “I mean, I did it all… Philosophy… Mysticism… Judaism… Double-talk… They always stuck with me. I mean, I was hip! The hippest! And my records sold, man…”
“And then…?”
“…and then I was Born Again…” He strummed at a minor chord.
“…and?”
“And they dropped me like I was nuclear waste or somethin’, man! I mean, not even so much as a ‘Goodbye, Mr. Tambourine Man’!”
“Gee…,” I mused. “That’s rough…”
“You said it, man! I mean, really rough. Like, a huge mortgage and no way to pay it… Kids in braces… Then, my wife left me, and there was alimony to pay…” The tears had resumed.
“Rough,” I said.
“Record contracts broken,” he whimpered. “Concert dates cancelled. I was dropped from every pop playlist and picked-up by all the gospel stations. Gospel, man! I mean, me, crammed in between Mahailia Jackson and the Sunshine Brothers! It’s just not fair!”
“…I guess not…”
There were a couple of Madonna-types over by the bar; they were acting frenzied. One of them waved ecstatically. Bigger Than Elvis smiled, revealing a mouth full of what buys BMW’s and second homes for dentists. He waved the girls over.
One ‘oohed’; the other giggled: “Weren’t you in the ‘We are the world’ video?”
“Yeah,” Bigger Than Elvis rasped. “That was me.” He smiled proudly.
The Ooher gushed, “Gosh! Could we have your autograph, Mr. Buffet?”
Bigger Than Elvis growled. “Get out of here!” The girls ran. He sighed. “See what I mean…? The first time in weeks that anybody recognized me, and they got it wrong…”
I don’t like to encourage self-pity, but what do you do in a situation like that?
“Well,” he sighed, strumming at the catgut strings, “‘…my road it may be rocky, and the stones might cut my face, but some folks ain’t got no road at all, they got to stand in the same old place…’”
I said, “I think that’s the right attitude to take…”
“You bet it is,” he asserted, downing the last of his drink. “You know… some ways, I am Bigger Than Elvis.”
“Are you…?”
“Sure,” he said. “Listen to ‘The Cars’, to ‘Dire Straits’, to Graham Parker. Listen to ‘Squeeze’, man. Where do you think they’re gettin’ that stuff?”
“From you?”
“Man, you can tell they listen to my records. I mean, I’ve had a lot more influence than Elvis!”
“How does that feel…?”
He banged hard at the guitar: “‘…how does it feeull? To have to be out on your own? With no direction home? Like a complete unknown? Just like a rollin’ stone!’”
A frumpy yuppie was waddling by. He tossed a dollar bill on the table.
Bigger Than Elvis gave me a wry grin. He said: “Thankyew! G’night!”
