aged beef

when ronald reagan passed away a few months ago I didn’t watch the state funeral on tv. with all due respect to the former president, i was puzzled by what to me was a weird exercise in collective amnesia, abetted by a swooning media.

as an editorial cartoonist at the daily cal when reagan was president, it wasn’t unusual for me to take shots at his domestic and foreign policies on a weekly basis. i pretty much disagreed with him on everything: the cocksure, top gun-ish bluster, the myopic worldview, and the willful disregard for social welfare and the environment. sure, reality was probably more nuanced than i remembered, but i know i wasn't alone in my disapproval, even in music.

admittedly, back then we didn't have anything as deliciously ironic as the dixie chicks, but there were still plenty of musicians pissed at reagan. in addition to perennial rebels like willie nelson and jello biafra, we also had “rap master ronnie” by reathel bean and the doonesbury break crew (silverscreen) and “see the light/feel the heat” by air force 1 (streetwise).

let's just say “rap master ronnie" is no grand master flash. written by doonesbury creator gary trudeau and obie-winning composer/poet elizabeth sawdos for an off-broadway production timed for the 1984 election, it is your typical novelty record with a “hip hop” twist, if you can call it that. but once you get pass the vaguely minstrel tone, you can almost kinda enjoy the humor and what feels like genuine indignation.

"see the light/feel the heat,” on the other hand, is very much a product of '80s nyc underground club culture. "planet rock" producer arthur baker fed a hard eletronic beat through latin rascal's editing block and laced the raw, mangled groove with stuttering snippets of an off-air regean joke about "begin bombing russia in 5 minutes." there was another track out around that time, called "5 minutes" (sleeping bag) by bonzo goes to washington (aka jerry harrison and bootsy collins), that lifted the same sample. but it's "see the light" that mines the same vein as keith leblanc’s seminal “malcolm x” and succeeds as a visceral and effective piece of musical protest.

in the end, all the high-concept and policy wonk jokes of "rap master ronnie" seemed less unnerving than the accidental revelation gleaned from an off-handed quip. as anyone familiar with michael moore's "fahrenheit 9/11" can attest, in politics, fact is stranger and often more compelling than fiction.

Posted by cellpharmer at August 7, 2004 09:32 PM

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