Part 24 (1/2)

ELVIS PRESLEY INTERPRETER.

Trent Carlini.

I've always been into music. I was playing the guitar and singing professionally when I was ten years old. But it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I really got into performing the Elvis music. And the way that happened was I got introduced to rockabilly when I moved back to the States from Europe where I was raised. This was in maybe 1987. And just like out of nowhere, I really dug the whole rockabilly sound and look, and I really related to the Elvis part of it in particular. So that's how it all began.

I was born in Chicago, but I grew up in Italy-where all the wild women are! [Laughs] When I came back to the States, I moved to Florida, began performing in local clubs, doing the Elvis stuff more and more, until things just took off. I started playing all over-doing outdoor festivals. I won some contests, some talent searches. And then this producer of the show Legends saw me, flew me out to Las Vegas, and he hired me to headline for him. Legends is a show they do at one of the hotels here that's a collection of impersonators. There's a Tina Turner, a Madonna, an Elvis, et cetera. It's a big deal, but it's just straight impersonation and that bugged me. It's very constrictive-the same six songs, night after night. I did it for four years and I got really tired of the monotony of it.

But during the months that Legends was down I went on tour doing my own shows. And that was great, and out of those shows, I started this show that I do now-The Dream King. I've been doing it for the last two years here at the Holiday Inn Boardwalk Casino. It's my creation-a representation of the King's musical career, image, and style without characterizing him, impersonating him, trying to be him during the show. Never.

I call myself a Presleyan artist, or an interpreter-not an impersonator. If you see the show, you'll notice that at certain times I kind of act like him and then I don't. That's planned. I will do an impersonation just for, like say, a refrain or even a beat, just to show you the difference being a Presleyan artist and being an impersonator. People appreciate that. They automatically see the beauty of it. That's why they keep coming back. Because it's different. It's fresh. I do the songs in their original key and tempo, but I do them my way. So everyone's happy.

I always describe myself as ”graced with a curse.” And I truly am, because it kind of put the ropes around my career, but it's allowed me to do this. It's like almost saying, ”Well, you can be an entertainer, but you have to be this.” Sometimes I get upset about it. I mean, it's a little unjust, you know? I feel the music industry gives this type of entertainment a very hard time. They don't respect it, they look at it as an impersonation. They don't see the great quality to it, and I think a lot of the industry needs to really pull their head out of their b.u.t.t, you know? Get real and not be so blind to what's beautiful out there.

When I first started this show, no one opened the doors to me. They would say, ”Sorry, we don't have room. Sorry we don't have this, sorry we don't have that.” I had to struggle like you wouldn't believe to get Dream King going, especially after I left Legends. It was fierce. But there was a handful of people that really believed in it-and now I have a marquee, I'm established. People know about me and demand me. I'm making noise.

And I love it, I really do love it, because the Elvis music is just so immortal, it's so legendary. Tonight I had people from the Netherlands, people who are Hispanic, Americans-people from everywhere. They come together to take a break, to just watch and enjoy this. And it's amazing how it affects all audiences, it's awesome.

I do the show once a night, five nights a week. n.o.body plays with me. I sing to a tape of music of my band and the Jordanaires, who sang with Elvis. The room is small, it's intimate, about two hundred people. Tickets are thirty dollars. It's really wonderful. And I'm constantly changing things, developing the act. About every six months I change the songs and the staging. I've added new segments to the show-the sit-down segment, a gospel segment. I'm going to add a country-western segment. It's a huge variety because that's what you can do with the Elvis music. The man had thirty years of great songs. It's just amazing.

When I'm performing, it's crazy. Sometimes I get educated crowds that appreciate me musically. Sometimes it's just crazy people jumping all over, trying to grab you, waiting for you outside after the show. It's crazy craziness. When I go out, I try to play it down, but the look is there, I can't do anything about that. I guess some people have that kind of face, it just grabs the attention. Like I said, I'm ”graced with a curse.” I've learned to live with it.

I have created a mini-empire and it's growing very rapidly, to the point where I kind of miss how it was in the beginning. Because now it's so demanding. Promoting companies are trying to book me all the time. It's amazing. I really have two shows now-the intimate show here in the casino and then my touring show, which is worldwide. In the summertime and in January, I go on the road. I do a big production show-an entire orchestra along with people like Joe Esposito, Charlie Hodge, the Jordanaires, D. J. Fontana-almost all the people that worked with Elvis who still work pretty much work with me. In five years I will have the biggest show in Las Vegas because I'm constantly being pressured to bring the production show here and everyone is going in that direction. I'm not one to fight it, you know? I'll probably miss the intimate show a lot, but it's inevitable. I'm growing bigger all the time. I've been on television-Nightline, Letterman, on Oprah, Leno, Entertainment Tonight-it's out of control.

But I keep a cool head. I separate my life from Elvis completely. I have a very strong personality all my own. I don't wander around my house thinking I'm Elvis. If at times certain things happen that are similar to what happened with Elvis-it's all subconsciously. I'm not aware of it if it does happen. Like the fact that I have a Cadillac-well, I like Cadillacs! Lots of people do, not just Elvis. Or like I eat peanut b.u.t.ter, but I don't eat it with bananas. I eat bananas, but I don't eat them with peanut b.u.t.ter. I like peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly with rye toast and I like bananas with lemon juice, but I've never had them together, especially fried. I think that's more of a country thing. See, I'm Italian, and I'm very picky for Italian cuisine and good cooking and stuff like that. Elvis was country. I'm Italian. People say my house looks a little like Graceland. I just think it looks like Las Vegas. Okay? It's not intentional.

I do do many of the same things that Elvis probably did as far as makeup goes. A little bit of touch-up, dye your hair, sideburns, that kind of stuff. But I dress differently. For instance, this suit is a suit that Elvis never had. I designed it. I call it ”Chinatown.” Or when we go on tour, I've got this suit that's called the ”World Tour Suit,” which is a suit that Elvis never had. Of course, it's in the jumpsuit style, the Elvis style, but it's my design. That's the advantage of being a Presleyan artist as opposed to an impersonator, people that just completely emulate what Elvis did and said. I have the freedom to be my own entertainer and perform his music in the style of Elvis Presley. The fact that I resemble him physically and vocally is the ”plus” that takes it to the next level. It's what makes me so successful.

And, you know, I've talked with Joe Esposito and other people who were close friends with him. I never really ask them much about Elvis personally, but every now and then, they themselves let out a comment, bringing my resemblance to Elvis out-the height, mannerisms, and that kind of stuff. Of course, we're different in a lot of ways, but there are a lot of small similarities that put me in that category and allow me to do this successfully.

I don't know what's gonna happen in the future. According to my financial records, things look great. [Laughs] I'm sure, like everything, it's going to die out. But, I mean, look at Jesus Christ-he's still going strong after two thousand years. Who's to say that Elvis won't last two thousand years? Because a lot of people think he was the son of G.o.d that came to Earth to deliver people through his music. I think there's even a cult out like that. [Laughs]

Personally, though, for me in ten years, I don't know. You know? I kind of live in the moment. I have two corporations and I'll probably get into a lot of producing and maybe filmmaking. We're scripting a film right now that portrays Elvis's illegitimate son in a situation. I'd just love to do that, and then do a whole bunch of films with the Elvis persona. Like remake certain movies and have a character in the Elvis persona. I'm not talking about remaking G.I. Blues, or anything-I mean something new-doing original stuff in the Elvis style. Like as if Elvis were alive and doing more stuff. That's what's important to me.

Like, I'm going to record ”Sweet Home Alabama” with the Elvis persona because I think Elvis would have sang that song. ”Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” ”Purple Rain”-I'm going to do an alb.u.m like that. I think that the Elvis persona would just kill with it. I'm very excited.

The priests come to the games. Everybody.

They all f.u.c.kin' like winning.

HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL COACH.

James R.

I teach history and I'm the head varsity basketball coach at a Catholic high school in Pennsylvania. Teaching goes with coaching-the hours coincide. When the school day is done, that's when you practice. I'm not certified to teach or anything like that, but anybody can teach. You've got the book there-you just read it the day before and you memorize it and you-teach it, you know? I mean I graduated from college and stuff, so it's not hard. It's fun actually, I like it a lot. But what I'm here for is the coaching. The basketball.

I'm twenty-five. I went to high school in this area. Just a couple of towns away. Played four years of basketball and finished as my school's all-time leading scorer. I was all-county and then I got a full scholars.h.i.+p to a Division II school, which is a step down from Division I, but still it was a pretty good program. I did real well my freshman year-I was the first guy off the bench-backup point guard. I averaged about eleven points, four a.s.sists. Then my soph.o.m.ore year, I became ineligible because of grades so I had to sit out a season. I ended up with like nine hundred and sixty career points, so I would've broke a thousand if I'd played all four years. And my senior year, I finished top five in the country in a.s.sists.

I thought about playing pro ball. [Laughs] Sort of. I mean, my coach talked to me about trying to go play in Europe and stuff, but I really didn't want to go over there. And I didn't want to play semipro. It's funny, but what I wanted to do-I just always wanted to coach. I think it was because, growing up, the people that I was always around and close with were coaches and I looked at what they did and thought, you know, I just want to be like that.

So after I graduated college, I moved back home to my parents' house and I got a job as the JV basketball coach at a public school near here. I was there one year and we did pretty well. Then I got lucky. 'Cause the next fall, the head coach of the varsity at this school I'm at now quit in September, which is two months before the basketball season starts. He was sick and had to retire. So I applied for the job. And I got it. I was only twenty-three at the time, but it's all about, you know, this is a pretty serious basketball school. They knew me from playing around here and I guess they liked me. [Laughs]

I think the kids were very happy to get a younger coach. I can talk to them about stuff. Like I know what's going on, I listen to all the same music they do, you know? At the same time, when we're on the court, everything I tell them to do they listen, because a lot of them, when they were younger, they saw me play. So they respect me basketball-wise, so it works out pretty good. I mean, who would you rather play for-some sixtyor seventy-year-old guy who's got his own philosophies built in from the 1940s, or a young guy who's got some new approaches, some sharp drills, and is into the same stuff you are and knows exactly what you're going through with all your high school problems, you know what I mean? Like, I'll know when a kid comes in and is having a bad practice because he just got in a fight with his girlfriend in the hallway. So I won't go nuts on him that he's playing bad. I'll just say to him, ”Hey look, I know you got problems with your girl or whatever, but you gotta put that aside for this time.” Stuff like that. And kids respond.

My first year we finished fifteen and six. And we had some good players-I started some soph.o.m.ores over some seniors, actually, which didn't make the seniors happy at first, but we won with those soph.o.m.ores. We had the school's best record in four years. And it was fun because it was my first year, and I was kind of like just learning new stuff, but we didn't win the league, and I was thinking to myself, we were fifteen and six, which to me is average. We came in second in the league. We didn't make the Jamboree, which is the county tournament, we didn't make that. And I was like, you know, f.u.c.k this. We're a Catholic school-we can go and get whoever we want.

Because we can recruit, sort of. I mean, as a Catholic school, a kid can come here from anywhere. So I said to myself, there's no reason we should ever be bad. And I didn't think these soph.o.m.ores were that good. So this year, I was like, f.u.c.k this-I went out and got a foreign kid from Finland, who is friggin' real good. Six-foot-two guard. A junior. And he really made an impact. We were twenty and five. We won the league-and we won a county tournament game for the first time in the history of the school. And I won coach of the year for the league, and area coach of the year from the local sportswriters a.s.sociation. Youngest guy ever to do both. Twenty-four years old.

The kid from Finland, he wants to play college ball in America. I knew him from a camp that he was at. I work at basketball camps in the summers, and I met him two summers ago. The first time I saw him play, he caught a pa.s.s on the wing-and he's only like sixtwo-and he drove past two guys and dunked on them. I was like, ”Jesus Christ!” because he's just like this skinny white kid. He shoots threes from like thirty feet. I struck up a friends.h.i.+p with him. And we kept in contact. I'd call him at home in Finland. And I'd say, ”You should really come over here if you want to play college basketball.” So he was like, ”Okay, I'm gonna do it.” Because, you know, he's good, he's incredible, but [laughs] he knows that no college recruiter is, like, going to be in Finland one weekend to see him play-he has to be here.

So I talked him into coming here. And then, you know, I had to find someplace for him to live. So I went to one of my a.s.sistant coaches and said, ”You gotta f.u.c.kin' just take this kid and tell your wife to just be quiet and don't worry about it-he's moving in with you.” So he moved in with him. But then the guy's wife got sick of him-they had a teenage daughter and she thought it was weird-so we had to find a new place for him to live. So he moved in with my JV coach. He doesn't have any kids. He and his wife are in their, like, mid-forties, no kids, so they love him.

We wrote a letter to the state saying that the kid's over here staying with a family friend for academics, and he's gonna play all these other sports and this and that. We went through all this bulls.h.i.+t. And the state called and they asked one question-they asked, ”Who pays for him to go to school?” And we said the parents pay. And then they wanted to see proof of payment. But we have an alumni guy that's paying for him, so the alumni guy just pays with money orders, and we signed the parents' names on the bottom of the money order. Because that's how the state checks on it. And it worked.

The one thing is-and this is a pain in the a.s.s-because it's such a different culture, he's always homesick, and I gotta like-all the time, when he's homesick, anything, I'm the first person he goes to. It's like sometimes I'll be getting ready to go somewhere, and he'll call: [Finnish accent] ”Oh coach-I am missing home.” And I'm like, ah s.h.i.+t. Half-hour conversation, and I'm gonna be late where I'm going. And I gotta convince him-I always tell him that he's gotta remember why he's here-if he goes to a good Division I school and goes back home, he'll play professionally. So he looks at it as a bigger picture-he comes here and plays college basketball and then he goes home as a top-paid European player. So I always bring that up. And, you know, he's staying here.

Most of the time, he's so psyched about it because he really does want to play college basketball-it's his dream. And he'll do it. He's a Division I player. He could play at just about anywhere except your very top, top schools. He's hands down the best player in the county next year.

I brought this other kid on too last year, another junior, this kid from Philly, he's like six foot three, a black kid-so we brought him over, too. And he started and he played great. He's a real good student, so he wasn't fitting in too well over where he came from, 'cause that's just a wacked-out inner-city school. So I talked to him a little bit about coming. And he was easy. I said, ”Hey, you'll get an opportunity to play, you'll end up going to college to play basketball, we got contacts.” And he was just like, ”All right, I'm definitely coming.” But he had no money either, because his family was dirt poor, and he lives with just his mother. So we got him two in-school scholars.h.i.+ps, and that pays for half, and then this other alumni guy pays the other half of his tuition. The two scholars.h.i.+ps are straight-up-he applied for them, and he's a good student, so he got them. But the alumni guy, that's, you know-I don't even know if that's illegal or not. I don't think it would be-why would that be illegal? It's just helping a kid out by paying for his school.

So, you know, I brought in these two guys, these ringers, and we won like crazy. The other players were fine with it because they just want to be awesome. They all work their a.s.s off, so they didn't have any problem with that. I don't know how the parents reacted because I don't talk to any of them. Parents are f.u.c.ked up. They are. Because, like, everyone thinks their son is an All-American, right? So they all just scream at me during the game. They all think their son should be playing all the time. So they're yelling at me, ”Why you taking him out now?!” They're yelling at me all the time. They never look at it fairly. It's always their son, their son, their son. But think about it- my team was twenty and five-we won the league! Obviously the people that are playing are getting the job done.

Actually, one set of parents did complain about the ringers specifically-the mother said to me-'cause her son was one of the soph.o.m.ores that started my first year and got benched this past year-she said, ”They had a perfectly good team and now you came and you gotta bring these two new players,” and this and that. I was just like, ”Well, things happen.” But I should've told her, ”Yeah, well it's because your son can't get it done at the level that I want him to.” That's what I felt like saying. [Laughs] ”Tell your son to make a jump shot and I wouldn't have to bring in these kids from Finland.”

The school, the administration, they know about these ringers. They know how I got them. Everybody knows. I mean, because the people in the office, when I was coming in before school started last year-they were joking, saying like, ”When are the ringers starting?” So everyone knows, but what are you going to do? It's what you've got to do to win. And everybody comes to the games. The priests come to the games. Everybody. They all f.u.c.kin' like winning.

The public school coaches, they all hate us. Catholic schools playing against public schools. ”It's no fair-you guys can recruit kids-” This and that. But I say, you know what? Give me your job, then. Because I think public schools should have the advantage- because they already have all the kids in their town, and if they would just take over their recreation programs and start the kids out when they're young, then they could have kick-a.s.s teams every year. Just start making those kids good from the time they're in third grade. And then your teams will be good, they'll have played together for years, they won't ever want to leave your town, and you won't have to worry about it.

But that's not the way it goes. So they hate us. I mean, there's a coach in this town who was my Catholic Youth Organization coach when I was little. The guy was like a brother to me. He's now coaching near here at a public school. And one of his kids comes up to me and asks me about my school. Asks if he could play. He approached me. And my friend, his coach, goes nuts, telling me I'm trying to steal his kids and ruin his program-that I could get kids from thirty towns, that I've got no loyalty to him, that I'm a douche bag, this and that. We haven't spoken to each other since. And we were tight since I was like nine years old. And now we don't even speak a word to each other. I saw him two weeks ago at a weekend tournament, and we walked by each other and b.u.mped shoulders.

So, I don't know. But I really do think they should have the advantage. Think about it-if all public schools had good programs, then any kid I went to in another town, he wouldn't even want to go. I could talk to him until I was blue in the face, but he'd be so psyched to go play for his town's high school that it wouldn't be a problem.

With Catholic schools, you're never gonna have that hometown loyalty, you know? You gotta recruit. So I'm recruiting all the time. I'll probably go every Sunday night during the season to the local rec league games to see the seventhand eighth-graders play. Then I'll probably go to three or four other games on Sat.u.r.days, over in Philly. It's nice-you just sit there and watch the games. The one kid that I wanted from Philly this summer, we got. He'll be a freshman this year. For him, I'd go to his games, and then I invited him to our open gyms and he came, so that's how we got him. This kid Josh-he's gonna be f.u.c.kin' good. This tough, five-ten Spanish kid, guard.

If I see a kid I like, first thing I do is try to find out who the parent is, and talk to them first. I'll say, ”Hey, I coach at so-and-so high school. Your son's a very good player.” And they'll say thank you. And then you've got to be careful, you don't want to screw yourself. So you've gotta say like, ”Are you considering sending him to a Catholic school?” And if they say no, then you've just got to be like, all right. But most of them say yeah, because-to be honest-they kind of like it that somebody's coddling them a little bit. That's what I find. And the kids love it. They act like you're a college recruiter.