Gipper License Plates; Bowie's Shareholders
My dear Mim,
I'm afraid that, out here, the Brooklyn Museum story is
a trifle parish pump; although, as an ex-Manhattanite, I realize the five
boroughs are one hell of a parish. I fear, though, I don't even know what
institution Phillip de Montebello represents, although I could hazard a guess.
I also have to confess that I don't much like whatshisname's dissected sheep in
formaldehyde. In California, my local news informs me, we have our own small
piece of unacceptable art being trust upon us. The DMV is issuing license
plates with a color picture of Ronald Reagan in a cowboy hat, and while this
may be a covert Random House promo for Dutch , I
fear the LAPD may well start treating the new plates as a mobile loyalty oath.
I once had an L.A. cop boast to me how he had apprehended a car thief by simply
pulling over a black man driving a Toyota with a Grateful Dead bumper sticker.
In L.A. you have to take care what you affix to your automobile. I often wonder
how the Goths fare who have a parody of the Christian fish on their cars with
horns and the name Satan.
Whenever David Bowie releases product, I always have to
admire his media campaigning, and current politicians could learn a lot from
his methods. Over the weekend we've seen him on both Saturday Night Live and the Late Show With
David Letterman . He stood up Howard Stern last night, which probably
garnered him more mileage that actually being on the show when Howard waxed
repeatedly wrathful, as, although David pleaded flu, callers reported him
carousing in the Mercer Kitchen until 4 a.m. A feature of any Bowie hype has
always been a lot of small planted gossip stories. One of these turns up in the
very handy Brit news digest The Week , which claims
David likes to travel on London tube trains, but has to disguise himself by
wearing a hat and glasses and carrying a Greek newspaper. I guess that now
David Bowie is a public company, quoted on the stock exchange, he has to really
try. He not only has his own ego willing him to succeed, but also
shareholders.
Although you may not be aware of it, the standard line
of the average conspiracy debunker is that the conspirators are not smart or
organized enough to hold the plot together. I think it's one of the tacks
Gerald Posner took in his book JFK book, Case
Closed . My only answer is "No, they're not that smart. I'm onto them
already, aren't I?" I must admit, however, that I may have been wrong about
George W. being a "self-admitted cokehead." I suspect I have misread Maureen
Dowd. Would a self-admitted drunk and alleged cokehead be better?
The Donald is well known in SoCal, but in the
convolutions of the Reform Party, my money is still on Jesse Ventura. CNN is
promising to air an interview with Annette Bening this afternoon, but I may be
asleep. The teaser was "whose husband may run for president." The tease started
me thinking about Bening as first lady. Didn't we see her naked in either
Bugsy or The Grifters ?
That would be a decided first for a first lady.
Love,
Mick
