2004-06-21 - 11:47 p.m.

c picked me up in her shiny toyota suv in the rain on thursday night. i coaxed her into accepting my travel guitar as ballast in exchange for 32oz strong homemade iced coffee. the plan was to drive straight through to eastern tennessee from brooklyn. she agreed to the exchange as long as i would ride in the front seat with the dog for a while. we picked up b in brooklyn, then m in new jersey, and hit the road.

i can't sleep in the car anyway, so i was happy to accept the task of keeping the driver awake. b is allergic to dogs and wasn't too happy about our canine copilot. m and c took turns driving through the night. once we got to delaware at about 10p, the traffic and the rain had thinned out. once conversation was exhausted, i dj'd classic rock and cheesy hiphop from my ipod in the front seat and forcefed coffee and diet coke to c until sunup, as m and b dozed in the back. the sunrise over virginia was especially beautiful, and i was so happy to see trees and grass and cows i almost didn't care about not sleeping.

we pulled into c's parents' home at about 11a on friday and chatted in the sun with them while they fed us low-carb beers and snacks. c's parents live on a 70 acre spread in powder mill, TN, in the foothills of the smoky mountains. as we sat on their lovely porch i could see rabbits jumping in the brush and hear songbirds courting each other. after lengthy naps and a ridiculously decadent meal of barbequed ribs, we were ready for the show.

c and her parents are devoted to a particular elvis impersonator, the inimitable lou vuto. lou recently broke away from the overproduced dinner theater package deal that made him famous, and has opened his very own theater in downtown gatlinburg. we took extra care to arrive on time at the converted movie theater that now houses his revue.

maybe reflections theater was having an off night, but i can honestly say that i've been to high school talent shows that were more professional. the opening band played some of the worst surf guitar i've ever heard (and i am from orange county). the lead guitar really shined through on the more countrified numbers, though, and i imagined he'd much rather be playing bluegrass. fortunately, c's parents got us in on the 'locals discount' so we didn't pay full price for our seats. once lou himself actually took the stage, the backup singers began to bicker with him. one of the microphones was feeding back into the stage monitor, nearly deafening most of the performers. lou confessed between 'america the beautiful' and 'are you lonely tonight' that they'd had the same problems in rehearsal, but hadn't been able to isolate the feedback. they stopped to test various mic setups but to no avail.

lou vuto's rendition of 'suspicious minds' would have brought down the house, except for the feedback and the lengthy stage patter that pertained largely to future events at reflections theater. adding a postmodern element to the proceedings, two large television monitors on either side of the stage broadcast a recording of elvis himself performing 'suspicious minds'. lou vuto had obviously memorised the video, and went to great lengths to perform the same movements as the elvis in the video. even his tailored outfit was the same as the elvis in the video, and he'd undone the same two fasteners on his jumpsuit as the video elvis. but since the reflections theater band was not on the exact same timing as the band elvis was performing with, lou's gestures were oddly out of sync with video elvis. in the end, the presentation made me painfully aware that i was watching a chubby, short, middle-aged man pretending to be elvis. we left the theater en masse at the earliest polite opportunity.

even c and c's parents were sorely disappointed, so i didn't feel like such a big-city snob. we discussed the shortcomings of the show over a couple of pitchers of margaritas at a place called 'no way jose's'. after the naps, we were still loaded for bear and walked the tourist strip of downtown gatlinburg. we ended up playing 18 holes of indoor minigolf. again, the locals discount was applied and much money was saved. i suck ass at any golf, indoor or out, but it was great fun hitting golf balls at animatronic dinosaurs and mummified mannequins. around midnight, m urged us to get some sleep, since tomorrow we were scheduled to hit Dollywood. we piled in the minivan and got back to gracious quarters in powder mill.

tomorrow: Dollywood!