Burning Love

To celebrate our four-year anniversary, Nicole and I managed to finally return to the site of our honeymoon. I don’t know when Las Vegas installed the monorail, but it is very, very helpful. As soon as we dropped our bags at the hotel we took the monorail to what used to be The Barbary Coast and what is now Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon (the old cigarette smell isn’t half as bad as it was in 2006).

Big Elvis (Pete Vallee) has been performing at this venue for eight years (through three different casino ownerships). He does three shows a day Monday through Friday.

We got to sit through two shows and Pete Vallee exceeded my high expectations. Phenomenal voice. Maybe I don’t get out to see lounge acts much, but I honestly felt welcomed and believed that he was proud to be with us. High energy, everyone was glad to be there. He’s such an endearing personality that I’m reluctant to refer to his weight, but it’s good news – he used to weigh nine hundred pounds and now he only weighs four hundred pounds. You can read his story at Guideposts “Viva! Big Elvis: The King was his hero—and his inspiration for change”…

http://www.guideposts.com/story/big-elvis-impersonator?page=0%2C0

Pete went out of his way to give signed Big Elvis certificates to all of the couples celebrating anniversaries (30 years, 40 years, 50 years…). Nicole and I were too shy to ask for a certificate, but Nicole put in a request for Elvis’ gospel song “Crying in the Chapel” and Pete sang it.

Between shows I asked Pete to sign one of my favorite books, “Biggest Elvis” by P.F. Kluge. I asked him if he had read it and he said no. I was so star struck that I tried to give him my copy. “I don’t want to take your book,” he said, “I’ll look it up.” I asked him to sign it “Burning Love – Pete Vallee”. I’m going to order him a copy of the book.