"This is not Halloween!" she says, so angrily and with so much scorn that she's now completely out of her Joan Rivers character. An irate Cher impersonator joins in. Several other celebrity impersonators encircle me, all mad, all screaming. It's starting to get ugly; very, very ugly.
"We take this very seriously and don't want people to make fun of us!" hollers a Carmen Miranda impersonator who says the blond wig I'm wearing discredits not only Austin Powers but also celebrity impersonators in general.
"A real Austin Powers impersonator would never wear a wig like that! I don't think the real Mike Myers would appreciate what you're doing!" the convention's director barks.
Pointing to the faux Joan Rivers and speaking through clenched teeth, the director says, "She spends a lot of money on her outfit." And then she adds the coup de grâce: "As the director of this convention, I'm telling you to take off that wig! I want you to go into the bathroom and take off that wig right now!"
Dropping my half-Chinese Austin Powers accent, I futilely try to defend myself. But what choice do I have? These guys are pros. I'm the idiot for making a poor wig choice, and it certainly doesn't lend credibility that my dreadlocks are stuffed underneath the rug, making Austin Powers look like he has a medium-size brain tumor. My ploy of going undercover at the fourth annual Vegas Celebrity Impersonators Convention has gone wrong, horribly wrong. I've been outed, if you will, as an imposter impersonator!
And it hurts; it really, really hurts!
Let's backtrack to a happier time: I'm at a ranch near Las Vegas for the big, convention-opening barbecue for those who resemble the famous. If this were a party attended by the real celebrities being portrayed, it would be the best ever. Heaping food onto paper plates are the likes of Kenny Rogers, Ozzy Osbourne, Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, Prince, and three Shania Twains, as a Britney Spears doppelgänger and Madonna re-create their famous MTV kiss. Seinfeld's Kramer mingles amongst several Marilyn Monroes, a paunchy Ponch from CHiPS, and me, posing undercover as a third-rate Austin Powers. Everyone schmoozes in character.
"SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE!" screams fake Chris Farley, who looks like he's about to pop a facial blood vessel. The Farley impersonator, who works in the mortgage industry, is dead-on. Farley is Farley. He's only been Farley-impersonating for a few months, giving in after years of being told he looks just like the late funnyman.
"I just memorized the few key lines," he confesses, adding in a touching moment of complete fan appreciation, "I'd just like to meet some of his family and tell them I thought he was really funny and a great guy."
Controversy has greatly decreased the number of Michael Jacksons and Martha Stewarts in attendance; strife in a real celebrity's life directly affects the careers of those who impersonate.
"Who's the most famous celebrity impersonator here?" I ask an Elvis impersonator.
"I am!" interrupts Clonan the overactive Conan O'Brien impersonator, shaking his red-haired head. "I got the most TV credits."
He hands me a copy of his résumé, and I question him on his role in the Howard Stern movie Private Parts.
"You know the part where AC/DC is in concert?" he asks, nodding enthusiastically. "I was in the crowd scene!"
He then adds, "I'm going to be on The Tonight Show next Monday!"
I ask Clonan, whose day job is in hotel/restaurant management, if he's nervous. "Not at this point in the game," he replies confidently, and with good reason. Rather than being "officially" booked on the program, Clonan plans to get on by sitting in the Tonight Show audience.
"Have you ever met the real Conan O'Brien?"
"He knows who I am," Clonan assures me with the intensity of Rupert Pupkin from The King of Comedy.
Making my way toward the alcohol, I move further into my Austin Powers character (the alcohol helps) and hang with Snoop Dogg, who's been on MTV, being, well, Snoop Dogg. Snoop's cousin/ manager is funny as hell.
"Is that Cher?" he asks, pointing to a 6-foot-3 transvestite Cher.
"That's a man, baby!" I reply in my third-rate Austin Powers accent as a Liz Taylor impersonator points to the back of my head.
"That's Austin Powers with a big brain tumor," she says. "Have you got a big brain tumor, darling?"
"Shag-a-delic, baby, it's malignant!" I slur.
"Hey Tiger," a fake Rodney Dangerfield says to Snoop's cousin, who cracks up at being mistaken as a Tiger Woods impersonator: "He called me Tiger! That's the second time he's done that."
"I'm about ready, man, for a martini," cries a faux Sean Connery, taking me off guard with a thick, East Coast accent. He says he travels the world working at big James Bond events.
"The first job I ever did, I beat up some guy and threw him into Donald Trump's pool," Connery states. "I grew up and became James Bond." He smiles and with a boyish twinkle in his eye adds, "And then, there's the Bond girls!"
The Country Music Channel is working the party, coaxing impersonators in front of its cameras. I decide to use the podium of mock-celebrity to spout my political views, à la Susan Sarandon.
"Who do we have here?" asks the CMC cameraman. "Why, it's Austin Powers!"
"Yeeeeeah baby! It would be really shag-a-delic if we brought our troops home from Iraq! George Bush out of the White House would be simply groooooovy!" I say and, turning the volume up to level 11, proclaim, "Free Mumia, baby!"
Amid stunned silence, the crew immediately turns off the camera lights.
It doesn't go any better with a camera crew that's following around a Madonna impersonator for the real Madonna's Truth or Dare documentary sequel. Jumping in front of the cameras, I act like an Austin Powers impersonator who just can't get his catchphrases right.
"Let's misbehave!" I spout in sort of a Chinese accent, placing my bottom on fake Madonna. "It's time to get horny! It's horny time, baby!"
"Austin and I once starred in a movie together," fake Madonna tells the Truth or Dare cameras.
"Yeah baby, it was the movie The Spy Who Shanked Me!" I say, adding gyrating dance moves. "I've lost my moped, baby! Oooooooh, groupies!!"
As the night wears on and the alcohol pours, my thoughts turn to hitting on either the Cyndi Lauper impersonator or one of the numerous Chers (but definitely not the man-Cher). Just as I'm making some valuable fake-Cher time, a Jack Nicholson walks by and whispers some important celebrity-impersonating career advice:
"If you want to make some money, lose the wig!"
"Hi George Washington," the men's room attendant says to me, totally misreading my disheveled Austin Powers costume on day two of the convention. Making my way toward a hotel conference room for an afternoon of celebrity impersonator workshops, my hung-over and unshaven version of Austin Powers with bits of hair sticking out of his wig spots another Austin Powers -- a rival! The other Austin Powers, a chubbier one, eyes me with contempt.
I sit down at a table with an older, gray-haired man with a large nose and a pudgy woman in a sparkly dress. I have no idea in hell what celebrities they are trying to impersonate. It can be embarrassing when you guess wrong. Earlier, I said to a guy, "Hey! It's Chris Rock!" "Actually, I'm Marvin Gaye," he responded.
"There's some people here who you just don't know who they are," the gray-haired man with the big nose says, interrupting my contemplation.
The pudgy woman with the sparkly dress (Selena? Charo?!) leans in close. "Who is he?" she (Cher? Liza Minnelli?!) asks, indicating a man in a blue suit.
"That's Rodney Dangerfield," I say; I know, because we'd ridden the elevator together. The questionable Dangerfield truly doesn't get any respect. He's being well upstaged by another, more animated Rodney Dangerfield, who dishes out zingy one-liners as the nonrespected Rodney sadly leans over and listens with envy.
"I assume you're an Austin Powers," asks a man who's wearing a suit and has a posh English accent. Somehow, his question implies that I'm an inferior piece of impersonating shit. He then tries to sell me on acrylic veneer dental prosthetic teeth ($800), having already secured teeth orders from the impersonating likes of Roseanne, Kenny Rogers, and Sammy Davis Jr. "I don't fix teeth," he snootily stresses. "I make teeth."
Taking to the front of the room, the English-accented teeth-maker fields questions from celebrity impersonators who suddenly speak in concerned tones that are completely out of character.
"Is there a device you can put in that can change the facial structure?" Sammy Davis Jr. asks.
"Absolutely. What you're looking for is called a facial plumping appliance."
"How about a big English nose?" pipes in the Rod Stewart from Canada.
"No, we don't do noses. We don't do eyes. Just teeth."
The local Fox News people arrive.
"It's time to be horny!" I cry, jumping behind the three Shania Twains singing for the camera. I start madly dancing, figuring it's a big boost for an up-and-coming Austin Powers impersonator to get more TV screen time. This goes on until Joan Rivers pushes me out of camera range.
"That's too much!" the Carmen Miranda impersonator reprimands, quickly teaching me a valuable lesson in celebrity impersonator etiquette: Never madly dance behind three Shania Twains singing for the local news. "That's really not cool. That's their moment!"
Others think differently. "You got good energy!" remarks the Joan Rivers impersonator, even though she just pushed me off camera. "First, we have to do something about that wig!" exclaims the 15-year impersonating veteran, offering to take me under her wing.
"I accidentally grabbed my Eminem wig instead of my Austin Powers," I explain, noting that I go, professionally, by the stage name Awesome Powers.
"I think you got it," states Joan Rivers' husband/manager with dead seriousness.
I nod my head vigorously and say, "I lost my moped, baby!"
"You got good energy," he expounds, suggesting that I could make as much as a few thousand dollars at a time, just for greeting people at trade shows.
"Oh, groupies, baby!" I note.
This is all starting to sound pretty darn good. I just might actually get a real Austin Powers gig from being undercover at this convention.
"Just learn a few of the key catchphrases," the fake Joan Rivers' husband/manager advises. "I think you got it!"
Of course, he's wrong. After the scene with Fox News, the three Shania Twains, and Carmen Miranda, someone leaks that I'm actually not a real Austin Powers impersonator, but an imposter Austin Powers impersonator. Yes, I'm outed (perhaps by the Rod Stewart from Canada?) as an undercover reporter.
I spend the remainder of the convention trying to avoid Joan Rivers and those who are in charge of the event, lurking in shadows, hiding behind Kenny Rogers and Jay Leno. With extreme envy, I look on as chubby Austin Powers has tourists clamoring for group photos.
"Say 'shag-a-delic'!" he quips (that's my line!) as cameras click.
"Austin, where's your outfit?" a lovable, Osbourne-dad Ozzy asks me.
"I've gone civilian," I say, making a sad face.
Little kids rush to lovable Ozzy for autographs (do they know he's not the real thing?!) while a much taller Ozzy -- more the biting-the-heads-off-bats Ozzy -- stands nearby.
"Vegas is the worst. It's a very competitive town," complains the taller, unauthorized Ozzy with the intensity of a man who has been awake for days. "If you're really good, people will turn against you."
"Do you feel competition with the other Ozzy impersonators?" I ask.
"No," snaps unauthorized Ozzy. "Only with the real Ozzy, because we're searching for the same band members!" He then adds: "You got to support the other Ozzy impersonators. I've driven two out of town so far. One guy came to see my show, and he left on the Greyhound the very next day. I was so real he couldn't even deal with it."
The convention comes to a head with the wedding of an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator to a Shania Twain impersonator. The two, who met at last year's convention, decided to tie the knot with an extravaganza that attracts almost as many paparazzi as would the real stars.
"Have you had any celebrity weddings here?" I ask the woman at the wedding chapel.
"No," she answers. "But VH1 had a ceremony here where two dogs married each other. The two owners exchanged collars."
The wedding begins. A George Bush impersonator comes in with Laura. (She entertained us earlier with a confusing, pro-war rap called "Thank God George Is the President!") He looks so much like Bush it makes me laugh. (He says he actually met the real George W., who supposedly asked an aide afterward, "Did you all get a look at that guy?!")
Then enters Arrrrrrrrnold, now clad in a tux, followed by the lovely Shania Twain. Numerous photographers dance around as flashes flash and shutters click.
"This is truly a time you both will never forget," intones the man conducting the ceremony. "You'll look back and say, 'Do you remember our wedding day in Las Vegas?'"
After an exchange of wedding rings come the tears. Laura Bush is crying. So is Whoopi Goldberg. They are not impersonating their emotions; these are real, actual tears.
"What a special day," quips a cynical Discovery Channel cameraman.
As far as I'm concerned, though, it was by far the nicest celebrity impersonator wedding I've ever been to.
