Bill O Writes

Originally published July 5, 2001, in the Cape Cod Times

Elvis, America and me

On the Fourth of July, reporter gets to be King for a day

By BILL O’NEILL

It’s all about the suit, darlin’.

I didn’t stop to ask what Elvis Presley has to do with the birth of a nation when a PR person for the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater asked if I’d be willing to impersonate Elvis for WHAT’s Independence Day parade float. I just said I was born willing.

But that was weeks ago.

Tuesday night I settled in to do my homework. I studied the lyrics for the songs I was going to lip-synch: “All Shook Up,” “Hound Dog,” “Love Me Tender” and “Blue Suede Shoes.”

I watched “Jailhouse Rock” to study the King’s moves. I fast-forwarded through most of “Honeymoon in Vegas” to study the moves of Elvis impersonators. I tried to master Elvis’ patented twisted-lip facial expression, but when I posed in front of a mirror, I looked only a little like a sneering Elvis and quite a bit like a scowling Cabbage Patch doll.

I’d done all the prep-work I could, but I was still nervous. Did I have what it takes to be the King? I tossed and turned as I tried to fall asleep. Guess you could say I was all shook up.

I needn’t have worried. When I arrived at the theater yesterday morning and saw my costume, I knew I could become the King. If you dress like Elvis, you are Elvis.

Alan Petrucelli, WHAT’s director of communications, handed me the get-up: a white, polyester jumpsuit adorned with gold spangles; a wide, white belt dripping with chains; an Elvis wig, complete with sideburns; and big ol’ sunglasses.

I took off the Weekly World News T-shirt I’d worn to get into the right mood (“Alien backs Clinton,” the 1992 headline blares; “Space visitor tells Democrats how to rebuild U.S. economy”) and climbed into the costume.

The jumpsuit was a little snug on the hips and thighs, and extremely low-cut down the chest. On Elvis, it might cause public hysteria. On me, I worried, it might cause personal humiliation.

At first, I had the wig on backwards, but once we got the details taken care of, I felt transformed. I felt like a million bucks – a million 1968 Las Vegas bucks.

The parade began at the Wellfleet pier. As “my” greatest hits poured from the stereo, I began to dance in the back of the Chevrolet pickup truck (and what could be more all-American than a Chevy truck?).

I’d rehearsed the King’s moves, and, let me tell you, that spaghetti-legged dance he perfected is a lot harder than it looks. While the right leg is doing a slow one-two sway, the left leg is fluttering one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. Doing the asymmetrical movement was tough enough; doing it in the back of a moving pickup truck proved impossible.

I can ham it up as well as anybody, and I got into the Elvis spirit: lip-synching the songs, showing off my limited dance maneuvers, blowing kisses to the gals. I followed the advice Elvis got from his girlfriend in “Jailhouse Rock”: “Put your own emotions into the song. Make it fit you.”

There were those who loved Elvis (“Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail,” said Bob Dylan) and those who hated him (“His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac,” said Frank Sinatra). I agree with the rap group Public Enemy: Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant much to me. I was always more interested in the myth of Elvis than the music of Elvis. I seldom listen to rock music that precedes “Beatles ’65.”

But yesterday, it seemed, just about everyone loved Elvis. As the parade slithered its way around Wellfleet harbor and through downtown, the people lining the streets cheered for Elvis. “You’re still alive,” one woman yelled. “It’s great to see you again.”

What could I say, except, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Petrucelli, along with WHAT’s producing artistic director, Jeff Zinn, and co-artistic director, Gip Hoppe, had invited me to ride on the float to promote “Cooking With Elvis,” which will run July 27-Sept. 2 at the theater. The play was written by Lee Hall, who wrote the screenplay for “Billy Elliot.”

What’s any of that have to with Independence Day?

In the play, Elvis calls himself “America’s number-one American.” He just might be on to something.

There are similarities between Elvis’ story and the history of America. These are tales of humble beginnings and the accumulation of conspicuous wealth. You can ponder parallel themes of rebellion, reinvention and potential not always fulfilled.

But I wasn’t thinking about history while I was gyrating to Top 40 hits in the back of the pickup truck yesterday. I reflected on what I saw: happy faces, faces of all ages and colors, as Wellfleet’s residents and visitors gathered to celebrate the 225th birthday of the nation we share, the nation we continue to build. They looked like good people, those Elvis fans. They looked like the kind of people you’d want as neighbors, the kind of people you can count on when you or your family or your nation is in a jam.

I’m proud to have been Elvis for an hour, prouder still to be an American for a lifetime.