the gipper vs. pet shop boys

I refuse to watch the news these days. I can't stand to be bombarded with the orgasmic eulogies that are going on. Yes, Reagan did some great things. I agree with that. His administration did some good things.

But I swear, people are acting like he freaking invented individually sliced cheese.

Well you know what? He didn't.

He was a capable leader and a great -- THE great -- communicator. But so much of what I've heard is just making him out to be a saint when, frankly, he was not.

Like one piece I heard on NPR said that Reagan brought an end to the cold war with his "Tear down this wall" speech. Well, I'm sure the speech didn't hurt matters. But what you might want to consider is what was going on in the Kremlin during that time. What was being said and what was being heard.

One of the things that Gorby heard a lot of was his daughter's music, apparently, according to this article in the Telegraph (registration required).

In it, Neil Tennant explains about what he learned upon accepting the Russian World Arts Award last year:

[Mikhail Gorbachev's] daughter told us, 'When I was a teenager I used to listen to your records all the time.' And we had this great image of It's a Sin playing in the Kremlin, during glasnost.

If Gorby's daughter is anything like I was at that age (by that, I mean a little czarina), then I suspect she played her psb so much that the tape wore thin! It is a pretty safe bet to say that her Dad's world view was subtly but irrevocably altered by Behaviour and probably Actually. He probably got a little Introspection, as well.

And I posit that our boys' fine music helped bring about an end to Communism. It's just a theory. I'd have to talk with Gorby to hash it all out. (He did give Neil and Chris that award last year, after all.)

So... maybe it was a little less Gipper and a little more Pet that thawed out relations. Yes, a smiling cowboy can do a lot for world peace. But don't ever forget what two boys from suburbia can do.

I'll leave you with a few words from thier October symphony:

Shall I rewrite or revise
my October symphony?
Or as an indication
change the dedication
from revolution to revelation?
So we're all drinking
as leaves fall to the ground
because we've been thinking
how October's let us down
then and now...