MADER'S 'BRANTS Regan's Funeral June 16, 2004 - Some house cleaning issues first. A quick “boy howdy” to some folks. To Dan S., a guy I used to do stand up with long ago. I ran into him this week. He is doing great on the circuit and is a regular reader of my drivel. No hacking, D. ;-) Also congrats goes out to Johnny in L.A. For those of you that have watched “Orange Barrel” on our site, Johnny was our newscaster. Apparently, J has landed a print ad for Toyota that’s running in some mags at the moment (like Rolling Stone) and just wraped a film that is getting some buzz in LA LA land. Can ya believe he was complaining because he has three girlfriends? It’s tough when you’re good looking. ;-) Great to hear from both of ya guys. It warms my black, cholesterol-filled, vodka-drenched, nicotine-stimulated, cynical ole heart to hear you are doing so well. I am really proud of you! And last but not least a “Thank You” to all our viewers for being patient while we where moving servers last week, and big wave to our new friends over in Deutschland that had a box big enough to handle our expanding bandwidth. It’s been a busy world recently. Ronald Reagan died. Ray Charles passed away. Smarty Jones choked like a cheap whore at the Belmont and now has a future in a Purina bag. And J-Lo got married yet again. I will let conservative and liberal pundits hash out Reagan’s legacy. While I am a registered Republican, I am ambivalent about him at best. My father fell victim to corporate raiding and plundering when I was a child, yet another hallmark of the Reagan era. As a result, my pop was unemployed for seven years. We lived at or just above poverty level. My mother worked two jobs to keep us afloat, and I have been working at some kind of income earning job since I was 13. Not some wussy paper route, but farm labor like welding, hauling firewood, sand blasting, rebuilding tractors and bailing hay for 18 hours a day for less than minimum wage. So I could buy clothes for school or put gas in my car. No value judgment on Mr. R, just a statement of fact. What I find bizarre is how people reacted to his death both individually and as a nation. Have you never wondered what kind of mental disorder afflicts those people that cry every time a famous person dies? Are they so devoid of personal connections that they have to somehow validate their life by mourning someone they have never met. Or more importantly, if they did meet them, that famous person probably wouldn’t give them the time of day. John, there ya go being cynical again as usual. Well, no. Millions of people die every day and yet we don’t stop our lives for an entire week to then plunk the corpse in the ground. Men and woman die all the time for a cause they believe in, like their country or their faith, and yet they go unnoticed. No fanfare, no pageantry, just the “Big Sleep.” Sure, Regan did some great things, but it never really cost him anything, either. He had nothing at stake. Even the Berlin wall falling had more to do with Gorbichev being a rational human being. Sure, Reagan made a speech. But you wanna talk about bravery, be the guy that actually brings the end to entire system of government because he is logical enough to realize that in the end it just doesn’t work. At any point old Gorby and his whole family could have died in a coup for what he was doing. He actually had something at stake. Yet he did it anyway. Don’t get me wrong. It’s great that we paid our respects, but somehow it seemed like bad theater. It was too well choreographed to feel sincere to me. It was as if a lot of the faces we saw paying their respects did it out of obligation then true feelings of loss. Ya can’t tell me Teddy Kennedy is gonna miss Ronald Reagan. Come on! If ya didn’t like him, don’t go to his funeral. At least have some integrity, ya drunken womanizing hump. Then you have the expense for a man that really died long ago. I have worked with Alzheimer’s patients. The Reagan we all knew died some time in the late 90’s. This person was a pooping, peeing, drooling shadow of the man he once was. It was like a state funeral for a blow up doll. Sure, we may need some pomp and circumstance as a society. It helps bring us together. It creates some commonality. A point of reference we can all relate to but what could we have accomplished with the millions of tax dollars spent on his funeral? Two last thoughts: Undoubtedly, this will have some impact on the election this year. Some people will be swayed to vote for Bush because of a sense of nostalgia. Is there any chance we can get Bill Clinton to take one for the team to help out Kerry? All for the good of the party? Willy, ya understand, dontcha? And lastly, after all the guests left and the cameras where turned off, how much did the five Mexican immigrants in coveralls get paid to lug that 700-pound foot locker to the hole and chuck it in? Later, Mader