Jim Norris
Audio By Carbonatix
As the late, great Mojo Nixon once sang, Elvis is everywhere. Your jeans, your Nutty Buddies, even your mom (but apparently not Michael J. Fox). And Elvis may be in one more surprising spot: Biblical prophecy.
Okay, not really. Or at least not specifically. Because a new book and podcast just being released by one of this year’s Best of Denver winners, Mutiny Comics and Coffee owner Jim Norris and Jonny Barber, formerly known as the Velvet Elvis, is all about the incredible synchronicities between legendary and beloved figures Elvis A. Presley and Jesus H. Christ. We’re not sure that H. is officially Jesus’s middle initial, but hell, there’s precedent. And utilizing is about as tongue-in-cheek as the rest of the case being made — that Elvis is, in point of fact, the second coming of Jesus.
“It’s all meant in good fun,” says Barber. “All for entertainment purposes only. But you have to admit, after reading all the connections, all the ‘coincidences,’ all the arguments and comparisons and the like, you have to wonder. You have to wonder.”
Barber, who’s wearing a TCB (Takin’ Care of Business) T-shirt, knows his chapter and verse when it comes to the parables of the King. (Elvis. We’re talking about Elvis.) For years, he performed as the Velvet Elvis, an Elvis tribute performer who was so dubbed because a friend told him he didn’t so much resemble Elvis himself as he did a velvet painting of Elvis. What’s lesser known is that Barber is an ordained minister.
As for longtime friend Norris, his Mutiny Comics is now the “official” Elvis shrine in Denver, now that Nick’s Cafe is gone. The Mutiny restroom alone boasts more Elvis memorabilia than Priscilla probably still owns.
All of which may be the reason that a gentleman by the name of Elmor Prosloe dropped off a tattered manuscript at Mutiny, a book called The Jesus-Elvis Connection. “I was wanting to write a book about it myself, but then this comes out of nowhere. So we’re typing it in and cleaning it up [copies are available for purchase at Mutiny this week, just in time for Easter], and we’re printing the very first copy — the ink is still wet — and I look over and Jim’s on the phone scowling. He says Trump just went to Graceland.” Cosmic connection number one. “And there’s a scripture — Second Thessalonians 2:4 that talks about the “man of lawlessness” entering and sitting down in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. And then you see Trump sitting in the Jungle Room, comparing himself to Elvis and autographing one of Elvis’s guitars.”
“Sacrilege!” calls out Norris.
“Triple blasphemy,” agrees Barber. “So to have all that happen on the day this book drops? To see that scripture fulfilled in real time? Incredible.”
And that’s only the most recent synchronicity that Barber and Norris have up their puffy 70s-Vegas sleeves. Prosloe’s book details much more, and Norris and Barber have a great time discussing it all in their podcast episodes — they have five out now, and Barber says they plan to do many more to showcase guests and stories related to anything fringe or extraordinary in the Elvis world. Whether it’s an intellectual exercise, or a dearly-held faith, or something in-between, Norris says that he’s “learned more about the Bible in the last month than I’ve ever learned in my life.”
“We’re by no means the first to notice this phenomenon,” claims Barber, and Norris mentions The Elvis-Jesus Mystery by Cinda Godfrey and Elvis: The Messiah? by Jack D. Mallay. “So I went into this with this attitude of let’s disprove this, expecting to read scripture and eventually find something that made me quit the whole idea. That never happened. Couldn’t do it. We even put out an offer in our podcast that we’d give someone a thousand bucks if you can provide a scripture that disproves it. So far, nobody has.”
But that’s faith. What about science? Barber has an answer there, too. “The Wow signal,” he offers. “The most significant communication from deep space ever received on planet earth — that happened the night Elvis died. It didn’t happen before, and hasn’t happened since.”
“That’s no accident,” says Norris.
“They were calling Elvis home,” concludes Barber. “I mean, Elvis never called himself the King. He actually denied being the King — that was a name just given to him. This stuff just naturally gravitated to him in a way that hasn’t happened for a long time — maybe going all the way back to Jesus.”
“I mean, miracles didn’t just happen through Elvis. They happen when someone comes in his name.” Barber says he experienced this directly in his work as an Elvis impersonator. “I used to sing at hospitals and rest homes, and I would see miracles. I literally sang to a woman who’d been in a coma for four months — I start crooning ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You’ in her ear, and she comes out of it. She wakes up. That’s not me — that’s Elvis. You don’t get that singing Nirvana songs. You don’t get that singing Britany Spears songs. There’s something to Elvis’s music. Something way deeper is going on.”
One of the most influential figures in The Elvis-Jesus Connection is Larry Geller, Elvis’s spiritual advisor and personal hairstylist. “I got to talk Elvis spirituality with him,” says Barber. “I asked Larry about the comparisons between Elvis and Jesus, and his reply was ‘Elvis wasn’t the Christ, Elvis was a Christ. I hope you see the difference.’ That’s something we get into too, whether there’s one Christ or many. Whether we’re on the sidelines watching this one guy do his thing, or are we supposed to, you know, ‘pick up your cross and follow me,’ this is like the ‘kingdom of God is within you’ idea, right?”
“As an atheist,” Norris adds, “I believe that extraordinary people are born into every generation. Most of them die in poverty because they weren’t given the opportunities. But the supernatural aside, there probably was a Jesus, a Mohammed, a Buddha. These extraordinary people changed the world. And for our own time, this epoch, that figure would be Elvis. And that’s where all these tie-ins appeal to me.”
“And theosophist Madame Blavatsky predicted that the Messiah would appear in 1935,” adds Barber. “And Elvis was born in 1935. Edgar Cayce said it would be 1936, so he was just a little off.” (Missed it by that much.) Even Joseph Smith of Mormonism said that the Second Coming would appear in America. He said Missouri, but Mississippi is pretty close.”
“He just misread the tablets,” laughs Norris. They both do.
Jonny Barber
“We’re not making any claims here,” assures Barber. “We’re just saying, look at this information. Look at anyone in the last 2000 years who literally fits the pattern this closely. I don’t think anyone else does. No one even comes close.”
Another possibility that Barber and Norris — by way of Prosloe — entertain is that Elvis may not be the Second Coming, but rather the herald of it. There’s a Biblical figure in Revelation Chapter 11, Elias, who is one of a pair prophesied to bring the hearts of people back to God. “One of those prophets was named Elias,” says Barber. “And you turn that A in Elias upside down and move it one letter to the left…”
And all this discussion suggests the tone of how Barber and Norris are sharing this information with their podcast audience and readers of Prosloe’s book (as well as a book of his own, In His Shoes, which Barber plans to release this summer, all about his personal journey with Elvis and how it transformed his life). It’s pure underground intellectual chaos: that tongue-in-cheek can also be sharp and insightful, and genuinely curious at the same time. To that end, they plan to host an Elvis Divinity Conference at Mutiny Comics and Coffee on August 16, with guests and details TBA. (But don’t worry — these guys know how to TCB, remember?)
Prosloe ends his book with “all I know now is that God loved us enough to send us both Jesus and Elvis.” Barber’s sign-off prayer is a little more humble: “God give me the strength to endure bad Elvis impersonations.”
And to keep asking questions. Amen.
For more information on Jonny Barber and Jim Norris’ Elvis podcast work, check out Barber’s YouTube page. For details about copies of Prosloe’s book The Elvis-Jesus Connection, the best Elvis restroom shrine in America and possibly the world, and the August Elvis Divinity Conference, keep an eye on the Mutiny Comics and Coffee website.
