My version of the real Reagan is, of course, alarmingly close to Phil Hartman’s classic SNL skit, in which the Gipper puts on a doddering-old-fool act and then switches into Russian the minute the door is closed. Here’s an audio link, sent by a reader. Enjoy.
MORE ON GIMME CAPS: An emailer adds some detail to fashion anthropology:
Certainly many people wore the foam and the mesh, but people seem to be confusing how it made its way into popular culture (MTV and MTV2 especially). The foam and mesh cap entered popular culture via San Francisco indie rock bands with origins in the central valley. Many of the people in the Central Valley are the descendants of the “Okies” and “Arkies” who fled to California during the depression, and they dominate cultural life in the Central Valley (certainly among the White population). The band Joaquina (name of a small town in the central valley) even had a 1998 album called “the Foam and the Mesh.” The most popular of these bands is named “Grandaddy” and they are from Modesto, CA. Most of the bands moved from the central valley into the Bay area in the mid 1990s in the wake of Pavement’s (from Stockton) fame. They dominate the Bay area music scene now, and Grandaddy is very popular in England. The hipsters picked up on it. Check out SF’s Future Farmer Records. Note the rocket tractor at http://www.futurefarmer.com. There is even a minor trend to name one’s band after small towns in the Central Valley (see Earlimart).
Do my readers know everything? Except what Valerie Plame’s actual job was/is.
The Dish 