Drew’s Corner
Facing a presidency with few restraints on it and openly hostile to the press, Drew ponders an Alaskan gulag and the power of Pooh's Corner and Kate Bush.
By Drew Gallagher
HUMORIST
After my personal disappointment with the recent presidential election, I took a moment to reflect upon the world and my place in it and found myself thinking of lyrics from a 1983 song by the band Marillion (yep, named for a Tolkien book). I recognize that thinking of an obscure song from 41-years ago by a progressive rock band that most people have never heard of was probably not a very popular response among those worried that the cracks in our democracy were about to become gaping chasms above an abyss of utter despair after Tuesday.
The Marillion lyrics I was thinking about on Wednesday morning come from a song titled “Script for a Jesters Tear”:
The fool escaped from paradise
Will look over his shoulder and cry
Sit and chew on daffodils and struggle to answer why?
As you grow up and leave the playground
Where you kissed your prince and found your frog
Remember the jester that showed you tears
The script for tears
As a jester/humorist/fool, I wondered if I was supposed to show my tears because I certainly had a script for tears. Was I supposed to bemoan the tens of thousands of lives that will likely be lost in Ukraine once President Trump discontinues all aid to our European ally? Should I fret over the promised deportation of millions of immigrants and the concentration camps that will likely be necessary to make that right wing dream a reality? Should I lose sleep over the fact that my teenage daughter will have fewer rights as a woman than her grandmothers did? Should I worry about the hatred and bile that will be unleashed on members of the LGBTQ community because our newly elected Fuhrer says that’s okay? Or should I think about interior decorating?
For purely selfish reasons, I’m going with interior decorating.
Trump and his supporters have long talked about journalists as the enemy, and while I don’t purport to be a journalist like Adele or Marty, I do write for the FXBG Advance which some local critics have dubbed as the “liberal” free press in Fredericksburg.
And look, if I’m given a polygraph by the new administration and one of the questions is: “Would you hug a tree?” I will answer “yes.” If another question is do you ever cry while listening to “Return to Pooh Corner” by Kenny Loggins? My answer will be “yes” because I have a son, dammit, and a soul. (I’ve repeatedly pestered Chancellor Hall of Fame field hockey coach Jim Larkin to name one of their plays “Pooh Corner” in honor of this Loggins bit of a magic, but he has ignored those requests and not because he has no soul but more probably because he is the winningest coach in Virginia field hockey history and does not need advice from a humorist who has exactly zero field hockey wins in his coaching career.)
In my capacity as a liberal humorist, I recognize that my future could be spent in a cell or hovel in an Alaskan gulag, and I have to think of how to tastefully decorate my future home. (And don’t tell anyone, but with climate change and increased greenhouse emissions the Alaskan weather might be just like San Diego a few years into my exile!) I’ve already picked out my “Shawshank Redemption” escape poster too.
Once upon a time in a place called Happy Valley, my cousin Shawn played me the song “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush who, like my neighbor Tyrone and Coach Larkin, is now a Hall of Famer. I recall the moment and its poignancy. I was sitting on the floor of his college apartment, and when I heard the first words from her glorious voice, I knew that angels did indeed walk amongst us. So, when I found a poster of her dressed in a leotard at a record convention (this was pre-Amazon), I immediately bought it and that poster was dutifully placed above my bed in every dorm and apartment I would ever inhabit. When I became a man though, I had to put away childish things. (Well, less biblically, my wife said there is no way in hell that Kate Bush poster is going up in our bedroom.)
I have missed that poster, but I assume that I’ll be allowed some sort of wall décor in Alaska, and Kate in a leotard will be the chosen one. After all, there should be some privilege available to me as a white man that is not available to Al Roker over in the next cell. And true to the Stephen King short story, I’m sure I’ll be able to slowly scrape away at the Chinese drywall behind the poster to carve a path to freedom. (Or I can simply wait a few years for the Chinese drywall to fail.)
Having read the King story and seen the movie, I know that I will also need a bible to conceal the tool by which I scratch my tunnel to raw sewage and then freedom. (I assume the novelist will also be placed in the gulag with me and Al Roker, so if I’m a little unclear on the details of the escape plan I can consult with the Master of Horror and fellow Red Sox fan.) Fortunately, I can still buy a Trump Bible for $59.99, and I’m certain anytime they come to flip my room the Bible sold by their boss will be beyond the scope of the search. The Bible was made in China, so, like the drywall, the pages will probably disintegrate in a few months which will allow me to conceal my digging implement in the hollowed-out shell of the holy book.
The Bible and poster of Kate Bush may be all I am allowed in the Gallagher Gulag, and truthfully that might be enough to sustain me through my punishment for being a free-thinking American who openly opposes banning books, supports the rights of women and people who identify as LGBTQ, as well as public education. But if I am allowed a third item, I’m taking along my Eeyore stuffed animal which I’ve had for nearly 50 years. At night I’ll lay on the snow-packed floor under a thin blanket with my pal Eeyore, chew on daffodils, and dream of getting back to the house on Pooh Corner and a world that once held such promise.
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Wonderfully done, Drew. We "Enemy of the People" need humorists too.
I was compelled to read your article before I got to the serious stuff that would probably make me mad since I'm already feeling such conflicting emotions and raging or reeling, still.
So thank you for the eloquent levity. Now I'm pondering what I would have in my cell - really if anything, because as a Black woman I'll be afforded even less than Al Roker. I'll have to conjure up something spiritually like Harriet Tubman, and use that to free you, Roker, and King. Cause that's what Black women step up to do 😉.