Long live old Portland.
It was announced yesterday that John Elvis Schroder, Portland's favorite cardboard guitar-wheedling street performer—will be the Grand Marshal of the 2017 Rose Festival Starlight Parade!
Elvis has been a fixture of downtown and Ankeny Alley, performing outside Voodoo Doughnut and the now defunct 24 Hour Church of Elvis, for years. According to Rose Festival officials, they informed Elvis and his fans at a special karaoke performance at Dantes on Monday night. The Starlight Parade will take place on June 3.
From the Rose Parade's website:
"The Starlight Parade — which forms and starts in Elvis’s ‘hood’ in the lower Burnside Old Town area — will feature for the first time a crowd pleasing member of the community that represents the fabric of the city’s unique and weird celebration of life."
If it sounds strange that a local street celebrity is going to marshal a Portland parade, rest assured that it is not as weird as the time they rolled up a piece of PDX Carpet, put fake eyeballs on it, and made it Grand Marshal of the Starlight Parade.
Congratulations, Elvis!
