Feliz Navidaddy-O

>> El Vez is dreaming of a brown Christmas

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Christmas is celebrated throughout the Christian world, sure, but I suspect I'm not alone among my northern brethren in finding the notion of the holiday sans snow a little confusing. How do Mexicans, or Mexican-Americans from California, do Christmas without the essential white stuff?

"It does seem foreign and exotic," muses El Vez, the premier Mexican-American Elvis impersonator. "We do the lights and decorations and all that, but snow is an exotic thing to us, with a nice romance to it. But I like to say, we've done just fine without it, so don't get into white envy."

White envy and its corollary, brown pride, are themes found not only in his current Mex-mas 2001 show but throughout his concerts and records over the years. See, under the superficial budget glitz and komedy kitsch of an Elvis en Español lies a carefully constructed, subversive message of Latino pride and social consciousness--Elvis meets Che Guevara, as folk icon Phil Ochs once suggested.

The Christmas shows he's been doing since '94, rotating each year from East Coast to West Coast to Europe. The wacky activism remains intact. "I'm trying to show that it's not just a white Christmas. I've got a song called 'I'm Dreaming of a Brown Christmas.' I'm trying to say, it's not just for people who can afford the snowy cabin in Vermont."

Polytheistic party time

Two previous tours that El Vez conducted, the Gospel Tour and the more recent Boxing With God show, saw him addressing the polydenominational spirituality that Elvis adhered to, and how that open-ended acknowledgement of God in all his/her/its forms was something we might all learn from.

"Elvis was always into the multitheological ideas, through his hairdresser Larry Geller, who introduced him to transcendental meditation, the Kabbalah, Krishna consciousness, all these different ideas. Also, the only Grammies Elvis won, three of them, were for his gospel albums. So it's about touching all his touchstones. It's about showing a more open-ended idea of what spirituality is, not the hateful, Moral-Majority finger-pointing, using God as a weapon."

That message is particularly relevant in these post-9-11 days. "We were in New York four days after it happened, and we had good crowds, people were glad we came. We felt like we were the USO. The Boxing With God show was spiritual, it was supposed to be uplifting, but people read more into it--especially the patriotic stuff, where they maybe read more in than was intended. Everywhere we go, we hear, 'God Bless America.' But I'm saying that God blesses everyone, not just Americans. This is not a time to use religion that way.

"Not too many people are put off by the whole thing, but I like the idea that some might be, because that goes back to my punk rock roots. This is stuff that is serious to me, but I can still have fun with it and present it in an entertaining way. I still want people to think of walking a mile in another's shoes, as Elvis sang, think of this and then apply it."

Madonna marrón

That inclusive idea carries through to the holiday season. Keep an ear peeled for "Chicanukkah," and watch for the Guadalupana pageant. "We do a little pantomime, a school pageant of the discovery of the Virgin of Guadalupe, whose day is December 12--this year, it falls right after Hanukkah.

"There's all the different madonnas of the world--Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima--and she's Our Lady of Guadalupe. In December, 1546, she appeared to Juan Diego in the middle of the Mexican desert. She gave him roses and said to take them to the bishops as proof that she was there, and to build her a church there. He went back with the roses wrapped in a serape, and when he placed it before the bishops, the roses were there and the image of the Guadalupana was on his serape. The nice thing about it is that she was brown in skin colour, as opposed to the light skin of the Spaniards. So she was immediately identified with the Indians, who were being converted to Christianity. It was a nice ploy to win them over--'she loves us too'--but she's always been a great symbol of the indigenous people of Mexico. It's also a good symbol of the motherly, rather than the patriarchal, side of religion."

Don't worry, though, readers. The show isn't just Sunday school for grown-ups who drink. "There's a lot of sexy Christmas stuff, too," chuckles El Vez. "I just had a new jumpsuit made with a zipper that goes all the way from the back to the front. I'm trying to put the X back in X-mas, make it sexy and political and spiritual--like all El Vez shows."

With Bloodshot Bill & the Guiloteens at Café Campus on Monday, Dec. 10, 8:30pm, $12