|
As an incremate sun bludgeoned swells of gibbous rock
forms, gals who bake pie with real lard — and
the men in shorts who love them — wept in packs.
They adjusted their Dacron waistbands above or below
God-fearing guts to bend forward and lay floral tributes
in red, white and blue, Big Gulps all but forgotten.
Little Jessicas and Joe Don Jr.’s, completely
bewildered, added homemade signs like: ‘We Love
You Ronnie’ and ‘Christ Loves You, Love,
The Millers.’
Yea, for I, a weary pilgrim, had at last reached
the gate to Mount Olympus — or at least America’s
Technicolor edition — the Ronald Reagan Presidential
Library. It had reopened a scant hour before, after
a week’s closure, to mourn and plant the Gipper
after his final D.C. party with the world’s
noblesse.
The parking lots were already jammed. I had to wedge
my car, the lone Japanese-made, between flag-smothered
Fords at the base of ‘Presidential Drive.’
I angled it to hide my bumper stickers — ‘Eviscerate
Authority ’ and ‘How am I driving? Call
1-800-EAT SHIT’ — lest it meet the same
fate as its country’s quaint port, Nagasaki.
The Library was a mile away. It crests a dry mountain,
out of view.
“Wait for the shuttle,” a guard barked.
No shuttle ever came. Maybe the absent bus was, like,
an Art Thing – to honor Reagan’s commitment
to ‘less government’ and ‘more personal
responsibility.’ Perhaps Nancy thought it up.
She loves art.
I joined dozens of other lauded Americans, some aged
and unwell, on the scorching, vertical trek. Our ‘pioneer
spirit’ brought us, half-dead, to a splendiferous
spread in the middle of ugly, freakin’ nowhere.
We shelled out two bucks for each small bottle of
water and seven more for the honor of glimpsing detritus
from the Reagans’ lavish life.
One might find, in this, a metaphor.
“If someone comes up to you on the street and
says, ‘Hey, want to do some drugs?’ what
do you say?” trilled the rectangular docent.
“Just… Say… NO!” shrieked
Mrs. Polkanbroomer’s third grade class. A brilliant
response: If strangers offer you free drugs on the
street, they’re probably Feds.
Actually, the little no-necks were parroting the
logic-free slogan of Nancy Reagan’s famous anti-drug
campaign, clumped around its exhibit’s hangdog
diorama. This campaign, fueled by our taxes, reached
at least thirteen people, more if you count the severely
retarded and kids under five.
In the ‘Better Late Than Never’ category,
former groupie/drug ho daughter Patti [Reagan] Davis finally
embodies the ‘Just Say No’ philosophy.
While Mom is eighty-one and poised to check out, she’s
still sharp enough to change her will.
To my left, fans jostled to snap photos of each other
with a large, bronze statue of Cowboy Ron. His face,
as in life, sported the same slaphappy grin as my
demented mutt, Roscoe.
Reagan wore that grin while he trashed the environment.
Roscoe wore that grin while he trashed my lawn. Reagan
thought that ketchup was a vegetable. Roscoe thinks
that ketchup is dog food. Coincidence? The mind reels.
Physicists theorize that time is simultaneous, not
linear. This was, astoundingly, all but proven as
I strolled towards the Reagan Theatre.
The Gipper’s portentous movie posters mirrored
his political life: ‘Going Places,’‘The
Winning Team,’‘Dark Victory,’‘The
Bad Man,’‘International Squadron,’‘Murder
in the Air,’‘Smashing the Money Ring’
(then taking it), ‘Brother Rat’ and ‘Desperate
Journey.’ Uncanny.
The olde-fashioned Reagan Theatre presents an endless
loop of Ron’s movie highlights, which, if played
long enough, would make even Osama spill the beans.
Something about Ronnie’s onscreen behavior
was disconcertingly odd, until what it was hit me.
Spontaneity! Scripted, directed, multiple-take spontaneity!
Reagan was clearly underrated as an interpretive artist.
He could certainly portray the frightening and unknown.
After Showtime, I explored a brand-new room containing
only a phony Declaration of Independence and brass
repros of our presidents’ autographs. A room
of fakes; how Hollywood. How Washington. The tourists
were fascinated. “Look, Dear,” said a
sixty-ish man to his bulbous Better Half, “they
wrote back then like we do today.”
Duh.
I meandered from there through a gallery of presidential
portraits, noting the recent Democrats. Jimmy Carter
looked like an affable hayseed (which ain’t
off mark) Kennedy stared down — ostensibly at
his dick — and Clinton appeared as he would
in a police-booking photo.
I couldn’t shake Bill from my mind as I toured
Reagan’s reconstructed Oval Office. Which door
led to the Monica vestibule? And was that fabled cigar,
dammit, in or out of a metal case? (I wrote Matt Drudge
and asked, but he didn’t reply.)
Our bald eagle insignia anchored the Oval Office
carpet. The eagle’s head is turned away from
its talon of war arrows, to its talon with the olive
branch of peace. Maybe that’s not hypocrisy.
Since the Nicaraguan War Ron hatched was illegal,
perhaps it doesn’t count.
I felt sufficiently braced at this point to step
outside and go toe to tomb with The Great Communicator.
And communicate he did, even in death, through his
surroundings:
The Reagan Library has no visible books. It’s
big and flashy, but not well built. One of its largest
rooms is the understaffed gift shop with static Twilight
Zone lines. Its location, the Simi (pronounced: ‘seamy’)
Valley, looks like a dehydrated potato dotted with
mold-like sprawl.
Except, bizarrely, from the garden where Ron is interred.
That view is a Grant Wood landscape. Therein must
lie some key to his magic.
Reagan’s tomb resembles a handball court, flat
cement with a wall. The cement appears to be poured,
but it really consists of removable blocks; another
sleight-of-hand.
In the hour I’d been inside, Gipp-o-mania had
swagged to Madonna-like proportions. News crews had
arrived, stoking the crowd to amp up their grief.
Some black and Hispanic teens hopped from a school
bus and loped, delighted, towards the cameras.
I stopped one girl and said, “Do you know that
Reagan didn’t give a rat’s ass about minority
concerns, trashed social programs, and ignored AIDS?”
Her response echoed the true Reagan legacy.
“Leave me alone,” she scoffed. “I
want to be on TV.”
You
can view an archive of Xanadu's columns by clicking
here.
|
