King Blelvis

"That's from the movie 'Girls! Girls! Girls!,' starring Elvis Presley and Stella Stevens."

This is the magic of Blelvis. It is what prompts frat boys to buy him beers, what causes tourists to invite him up to hotel rooms for nightcaps. His love for the King is so pure, his obsession so harmless, his insta-buddy voice so genuine.

He is, in other words, exactly what his audience needs him to be. He is novelty, yes, but he is safe novelty. A harmless indigent. A winsome bum. Street life with manners and clean clothes and a soapy smell. You don't just toss a coin in Blelvis's cup. You hang with Blelvis. You tell your friends you hang with Blelvis. Your association with Blelvis makes you comfortable with your discomfort around the scruffier panhandlers. He is smooth-baritoned balm to middle-class guilt.

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In the cast of characters that inhabits the streets of Washington, Blelvis has achieved fame. He was the subject of two City Paper features, in 1987 and 1998 -- the press always comes around near the anniversaries of Presley's 1977 death -- and he appeared in one of cult director Jeff Krulik's films. In the late 1980s, he sold out shows at d.c. space, crooning with a mike and a band. There was talk of a performance on Letterman. When that didn't materialize, Blelvis took his shtick to the streets.

Today, d.c. space is a Starbucks. The City Paper journalists have moved on. Krulik's film has been relegated to a shelf in Video Americain. But Blelvis still prowls Adams Morgan and Mount Pleasant with his Presleypedic knowledge, his delicious obsession with dates, his bendy legs and swiveling hips. "I don't want to sound braggadocious or anything," he says, "but I'm sort of a D.C. institution."

Rondy Andrew Wooten was born at Georgetown University Hospital in 1966, the son of a National Institutes of Health employee and his homemaker wife. The four Wooten children were discouraged from listening to Elvis; he was racist, parents Johnnie and Helen said.

But on the night that Presley died, every radio station played the King. After 15 minutes of flipping, Andrew landed on "Treat Me Nice," the flip side of "Jailhouse Rock." He liked it. He also liked "Baby, I Don't Care," the song that came on afterward. The next day, Andrew purchased his first Elvis album, then another a week after that. His parents thought it was a phase. His siblings thought it was crazy. Why couldn't he do James Brown? they asked. A black man imitating a white man who used black men's moves? What exactly was he trying to pull?

His obsession grew.

He eschewed the barber shop his brother and dad visited in favor of a bona fide salon that could tame his hair into a pompadour. He married Cathy Grooms just out of high school and she became pregnant almost immediately. He named his first child Andrew Elvison and his second Elvisa.

His obsession grew.

He realized, somewhere along the way, that he'd absorbed Elvis into his blood -- that he knew not only every lyric but also every trill, monologue and movie title. He can't say why. It's just in him.