Here's a question I bet you've never been asked before: what do YOU expect from an Elvis Presley impersonator?

Oh, I'm sorry. Perhaps I should say "Elvis stylist." Elvis impersonators rarely enjoy being known as "impersonators" anymore; they prefer more elevated terms, like "stylist" or "Elvis-American." I know exactly how they feel; I prefer the term "prose essayist" to the term "hack writer" when describing my chosen occupation.

So what DO you expect from an Elvis stylist? C'mon, it's a no-brainer. You get out there on stage in your tight white jumpsuit, with the rhinestones and the greasy hair and the scarves and the bleahhh, and you do some Elvis schtick. You don't have to descend to the cliched "Thank you, thank you very much," but you do have to sound pretty similar to the man, and you should have the dance moves down too.

It's an easy job if you have the knack. Hit the stage, be Elvis for screaming middle-aged women, go home and scarf down some peanut butter and banana sandwiches to stay in the mood. Plus, you're recognized by all those ladies as the reborn incarnation of one of the sexiest men ever to exist, so imagine all the female flesh that's yours to command.

As simple and fun as that sounds, you'll be stunned to find out that there's one man who can't even grasp the blatant intricacies of the Elvis stylist gig. He has to drag his own worthless art into the thick of things, when only Elvis stylings are expected. He can't lose himself in the character and recognize his job for what it is: to remind others of some guy who had more talent than he will ever have.

I'm talking, of course, about Trent Carlini.

What? You've never heard of Trent Carlini? The Dream King? Winner of the 1997 Tribute Competition to the King of Rock 'N' Roll? Literally, the BEST DAMN ELVIS PRESLEY "STYLIST" IN THE WORLD?!?!

Of course you've never heard of him. The man's an Elvis impersonator. He may be the best there is at what he does (and what he does ain't pretty, bub) but he's not exactly poised to overtake the mainstream. He's a fringe lurker, forever attached to the fading mystique of a long-dead pop icon.

That don't mean he ain't got ambition, though. He wants what we all want: worldwide fame on his own terms. Sadly, I was present as he began his uphill claw toward the top of the pop music slag heap, and lemme tell you, it was NOT a pretty sight. It may amount to the most fascinatingly uncomfortable audience experience I've ever had.

My younger sister Emily fancies herself an Elvis fan, so as a fun night out for us, I decided to get us tickets to see Trent Carlini in his yearly Elvis Presley birthday tribute show at the Rosemont Theater here in beautiful Rosemont, IL. I'd never seen an Elvis stylist do a full show before, so I thought it might be fun, both as a way of enjoying the music of the King and for a certain kitsch value which I'm sure everyone can understand.

So we show up, along with my wacky dad Tim Springer, and Trent comes out in the '68 comeback special outfit: tight black leather jumpsuit, greasy coiff of hair, scowl like a shady ex-con. He rides out on a Harley--nice touch--and proceeds to crank through about a half-hour of "comeback special" material, lifted from the King's 1968 NBC TV special. It was pretty cool--the guy looks and sounds like Elvis a lot, and the band really cooked, especially the piano player. As hokey as it sounds, I just sorta let my mind go and enjoyed the music at face value: a fairly accurate reproduction of a legendary rock star.

After that brief set, Trent introduces a "special guest" from Italy, his sister, Laura Carlini. She's a singer too, and she proceeds to come out and do a wretched Europop number to a prerecorded backing track that she must have swiped from Paula Abdul. Then she does a serviceable version of the Beatles' "Yesterday," which wasn't awful but certainly wasn't great.

At this point, the crowd's a bit dicey, but hey, it's his sister, so we applaud politely and prepare for more Elvis fun. Just a little break, we figure, and then back to the Presley, right?

Oh, how wrong we were. His sister finishes up and starts rambling on about how people always wonder when Trent is going to do his own thing. Well, she says, tonight he's going to debut his new material--and she introduces a guy named Rodolfo.

"Rodolfo" is Trent minus the King gear, and Rodolfo proceeds to take us on a vicious tour through twenty-five minutes of the worst music I've ever heard--and this is coming from someone who owns William Shatner's The Transformed Man album. They're all Elvis songs, but they're all in their new "current" incarnations--no live music, just prerecorded backing tapes that sounded like really bad eighties' synth pop, even though I'm sure they were supposed to sound "hip." The set list consisted of: "In the Ghetto," "Bossa Nova Baby" (!!!!), Peggy Lee's "Fever" (which lasted about twenty minutes by itself, or so it seemed) and the closer, "Hound Dog," complete with faux-rap vocals.

As he's performing these tunes--and at the same time, essentially pissing on the King's grave--the crowd is growing increasingly upset. As I heard one concertgoer comment, "We didn't come to hear no Puff Daddy. We came to hear Elvis!" (And comparing Rodolfo to Puffy might be the cruelest thing I've ever heard anyone say about Puff.)

But that concertgoer was at least partially correct. Instead of the King, we got Rodolfo, one of the most sadly pathetic performers I've ever seen. Take it from me, folks; it's hard to describe, but it was REALLY REALLY REALLY bad. For part of the set, he was even joined by four attractive young ladies clad in black bras and short-shorts, perhaps in homage to the dancers in Lou Bega's smash-hit "Mambo #5" music video, as if the presence of some female flesh would distract the crowd enough to listen to his music.

Alas, it failed. By the end of this "set," as he had the audacity to encourage the crowd to clap along and sing with him to "Hound Dog," half of the audience was loudly booing and hissing his performance. It was very tense, almost akin to what I expect some of Andy Kaufman's more outrageous shows were like. Half the crowd simply hated this guy. HATED him. The other half appeared to be Trent Carlini fans, and were interested in the music. Those are some sad, sad people right there.

After the debacle was over, I went into the lobby to try and gauge crowd reaction. It's not every day you get to witness a disintegration of this magnitude. I saw around fifty audience members crowding around the box office window, chanting "Refund! Refund! Refund!" They were vocal enough to earn the ire of the theater manager, who came out and defiantly declared, "I been to plenty of concerts where I didn't like some of the songs, and I didn't get no refund. The box office is closed." To which the crowd responded with chants of "Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!"

Then Trent came out as 70s Elvis, did an hour from the Madison Square Garden concerts in '72, and won the crowd back. It was stunning to observe; he summoned energy from God knows where to hit the stage again after his humiliating first act. Even more amazing, he hit all his 70s Elvis marks--handed out tons of scarves, sashayed and karate chopped his way around the theater stage--and guided the crowd straight back into the palm of his hand.

That second half was lots of fun, and provided exactly the vicarious Presley thrills that we'd all paid our good money to observe. But for a half-hour there, Trent Carlini--I'm sorry, Rodolfo--must have been the most hated man in the Chicagoland area, and for damn good reason. Nobody fucks with the King.