Remembering Ronald Reagan isn't easy, especially for him, since he's dead now. Alzheimer's disease, which might be caused by deodorant or karma, depending on your views, has claimed the life of the really old ex-president, apparently in an attempt to impress Academy Award winner Jodi Foster. And the reddest tie-wearer in American presidential history communicates greatly no more.
As the really, really most junior member of the White House press corps during Reagan's eight-year tenure in or around the White House, it is personally challenging and poignant for me to recall, even sans Alzheimer's, which I'm not currently suffering from at the moment per se, what this man and his jellybeans meant to a nation, a world, and a generation that so seldom remembers, and will, over time, perhaps come to re-forget--all the little thises and thats that we, as a global people, have also forgotten, and probably will again when everyone forgets to remember once more. Such is the Legacy of Ronald W. Reagan. The poetic irony is, of course, very.
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A thick and rolling fog hung low as balls over the Santa Ynez Valley on the morning of August 13, 1981. A snotty, fidgety herd of tense, big-shot â80s journalists with remarkable hair and I--myself, mysteriously young and plucked from the cedar-chip playground of some obscure Montessori preschool in Montana to attend this, my first presidential press conference, as the youngest ever member of the elite White House press corps for reasons we canât possibly explore here--all jockeyed for key positioning in the press pit, eager to face the newish president. Reagan, gimpy from an assassinâs underachieving bullet and as wrinkly pink as a stinking rosebud, emerged, grinning and ghost-like, through the mists, wearing blue work jeans and old cowboy boots. It was my first meeting with Ronald Woodrow or what-the-fuck-ever Reagan, at the beginning of a presidency that no one but he would ever be able to forget.
The press was gathered in front of a 100-year-old adobe house located on one of Reaganâs favorite outdoorsy spots, the famous and, as previously mentioned, misty Rancho del Cielo (âThe Sky Ranchâ or some uncharacteristically Hispano shit like that). It was a mere six months into Reaganâs extended and wall-smashing presidency--a presidency so extended and wall-smashing that some would say it went on way too long and smashed a hell of a lot of walls. (Berlin, church and state, etc.) And then it built lots of smaller, nastier ones. But this was to be a historic announcement, for Reagan would declare a record tax cut or voodoo economics or something, and he had dressed in denim ânâ boots for that common-man appeal--eschewing, at least for the moment, that indisputable banner of those years that have been come to be known by people who obviously missed entire oeuvres of Molly Ringwald and Duran fucking Duran as âThe Reagan Yearsâ: the red power tie.
Such an icon became Ronald Reaganâs red power tie, such a definitive symbol of corporate, Republican, 1980s voraciousness, and so far-reaching was its cultural impact, that it would soon become the very foundation upon which the spunky young hottie that used to be Michael J. Fox would build his classic character, Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties. Upon. Whatever. (Yes, "ties".) Today, the poor son of a bitch quivers uncontrollably. And Barbara Walters is a total cunt. Did I mention that? Back in the early â80s. Iâm telling you. C-u-n-t.
Ronald Reagan, named after both a Washington, D.C., airport and some libraries, will be perhaps remembered for red things other than his ties (I once tiptoed upstairs at the White Houseâthese were the more informal, pre-Islamo-fascist-fuckers daysâand riffled through his closetâhe had two of them), such as his wifeâs dress-and-cap ensemble (by wife I mean Nancy, not Jayne, who ruled Falcon Crest and dressed better), his leathery-yet-somehow-ever-blushing cheeks, and his Communist obsession. His ballet-dancing son, Ronald Reagan Jr., who was also rather eccentrically named for the exact same D.C. airport and libraries, was rumored to be the gay at the time. (But, really, who wasnât?) Airport Jr. sat next to me one time on a San Francisco to Seattle United flight. He did not touch my knee and was not remarkably red. The Red Shoes is, of course, a really gay movie about ballet shoes. The connection, like Rancho del Cielo, is misty.
Pee-wee Herman, who blossomed with a divine and unmatched comedic brilliance during Reaganâs reign of relative terror, also wore a red tie. But Pee-weeâs tie, unlike Reaganâs, was a bow one: spunky and pert and ostensibly far less likely to intimidate rival CEOs into grabbing their ankles during hostile takeover bids. And although both Pee-weeâs and Reaganâs ties brought out the blooms in both of their respective cheeks nicely, Pee-weeâs tie was the anti-power tie; the-little-red-tie-of-joyous-hilarity. Later, he was caught jerking off somewhere dirty. I love that man. Heâd touch my knee.
Ronald Reagan Sr., however, was never caught jacking off anywhere by anyone who was ever allowed to live to tell the tale. Henry Kissinger is another story, but weâre talking about Reagan, who, by generally ignoring bazillions of the AIDSy and being curmudgeony in general, grew to be seen as a puritanical monster in the toxoplasmosis-crusty eyes of many, and would probably also not have touched my knee. Itâs pointless to speculate. As I was a member of the White House press corps throughout his first term, he had the opportunity, God knows. But he preferred Mommyâs knees to mine.
And that Bill Clinton? He would definitely touch my knee. And Iâm not saying he didnât.
But back to Reagan.
As an ostensible actor about a 150 years before anyone knew that the fucking world was round, Ronald Reagan made 53 films--most memorable among them, none. âWin one for the Gipper!â is an often-quoted phrase that contains some esoteric significance for some, but not others. Mostly, Ronald Reagan paved the way for future presidents Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger. There was also something about a monkey.
Considering Reaganâs incredible popularity, it is possible to assume that Drew Barrymore, who almost broke up with the Strokesâ star Fabrizio Moretti after he showed all of his friends naked photos of her last week, would have voted for Reagan, had she not remained passed out on various VIP-room floors and far below legal voting age throughout the entire 1980s. Again, pointless to speculate.
Reagan once said, âThe Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and weâll follow them.â It was 1986, not long after everybody on the beach got a piece of Christa McAuliffe. At last, he finally has. Followed them or whatever.
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My years spent covering the Reagan White House--1981 through 1989--will perhaps be numbered among the most Reagan-reporting-on time of my life. I was nominated twice for the prestigious 13 Under 13 Journalistic Achievement Award for excellence in prepubescent political reporting (most notably for my seminal national exposĂ©:, The Whole Enchilada, Favorite Lo-Cal Latin American Recipes of Linda Chavez, a series of articles which became the best-selling politically themed cookbook of 1984), and for the Wulitzer Prize in 1986 for my instructional illustrated childrenâs book, The Adventures of Commie Fluoride and Your Drinking Water. And although possibly conflicted on far too many levels to explore or ignore, it will remain forever true that from the first misty moment I saw Ronald Reagan at Rancho del Cielo, I understood, above all else, that he would go down in history as a president that definitely was.
Now that heâs gone, the Reaganomically correct will no doubt mourn Reagan as the alleged master of ostensibly limited government, ketchup as a vegetable, âWe start bombing in five minutes,â âJust say no,â fun Star Wars defense systems, free enterprise or whatever, and so-called traditional values; others may rejoice at the passing of a man who, like a chunk of rosy-cheeked rawhide with a happy song in his greedy heart, brought us to DEFCON 2 and invented acid rain. Still others remain ambivalent or unaware. Immigrants and Drew Barrymore mostly. Both of whom, Iâm sure Reagan would agree, in his more reflective moments, are just here to steal our fucking jobs and women. Perhaps my hairdresser put it best when he said, âRonald Reagan gave true meaning to punk rock. Thatâs all the public needs to know.â
