WAGNER MEETS MR. POTATOE HEAD

the "should've-had-a-roll-of-mentos-to-flash" encounter with former vice president j. danforth quayle

by godfrey daniels

Copyright 1996 by godfrey daniels. All rights reserved. Permission is granted for electronic replication of this article only if you include the copyright notice.

Godfrey Daniels owns a beat-up bust of Richard Wagner that leads a more active life than a lot of flesh-and-blood folks we know. Its peregrinations have inspired booklets, newspaper articles, zine photo spreads and a handful of videos, most of which were shot on a discontinued Fisher-Price toy camera. At first, people got out of the way unquestioningly when Godfrey framed Herrn W. in a lens. Increasingly, they have been cooperating when he rears his battered little head. (Why, the “Tank Girl” herself even slipped him more than a little tongue.) In June, Godfrey got wind that Dan Quayle would be signing his new book at a Phoenix-area Border’s. Herewith his report of what ensued.

Co-head-tripper Barbara and I arrived at Border’s armed with only the head of Wagner (which recently came off—again—when Barbara was demonstrating her idea of a drug “drop,” using as her prop Wagner’s traveling bag. with Wagner inside), only to find crowds of people standing outside the building. Apparently someone had found an old bag sitting inside, which was taken for a bomb (turned out to be a bunch of old clothes). Once again, Wagner was clearing his path: usually at a book signing you have to buy a book to get in the autograph line. I was prepared to make this sacrifice. Instead, because of the bomb scare, chaos abounded. And chaos to Wagner is like chum to a shark.

Barbara approached the ex-vp, who was at first pretty darn good-natured.

Barbara: Can I take a picture of you and me with the head of Wagner?
Quayle: I've been waiting all day for someone to ask me that!

I snap the picture, after which Barbara gets the unsuspecting Quayle to sign a copy of a book called What a Waste, which contains Quayle’s greatest verbalgaffes. (I had thought that accomplishing that feat would require the dropping of the name of an old acquaintance of mine who used to work as one of Quayle’s speech- writers. Not with Barbara around.) About 10 minutes later, Barbara decides she wants to do it again. She approaches Quayle, who gives her a puzzled and/or worried look.

Barbara: The picture didn’t come out.
Quayle: how can you know that?!?
Barbara: Umm...the flash didn’t work.
Quayle: Well—okay.

An Arizona Republic photographer snapped the Quayle/ Barbara/Wagner tableau and asked Barbara for her name and the name of her porcelain companion. While Barbara, who gave her name as “Babs,” tried to explain the spelling of her last name, I was correcting the photographer's spelling of Wagner (“Vaugner”). It would have been great if the paper had run the photo — it was founded by Quayle’s family. (Sadly, two unworthy photos were printed instead.)

We adjourned about 30 minutes for coffee. Barbara noted with regret that she had failed to do something she wanted to do: get Dan to touch Wagner. Back we went. Quayle was becoming a little edgy.

Quayle: What now?
Barbara: I want you to hold Wagner's head.
Quayle: I'm not gonna hold him! You hold him!

Barbara manages to get Quayle to hold Wagner’s head at arm’s length. I told her that if she approached him again, she’d be tackled by Secret Service men. (Turns out she actually was body-slammed by a Secret Service man in Houston, when she ran towards George Bush, whom she spotted fishing from his docked boat. She spent the next hour or so drinking beer with Bush, who thought she was “spunky” and said how much his Babs would like her. “Oh, you’re a CARD, you are” he kept saying.) So Barbara doesn’t fear Secret Service men. Unfortunately, as she followed Quayle out to the parking lot, she lost him in the crowd, and he got away. As we walked to my car, Barbara said, “This is fun! Can we do this every day?”

Excerpted from Ladies' Fetish & Taboo Society Compendium of Urban Anthropology
Death Valley Daze '96, Vol. IX, No. 2 & 3 (Double issue!)
Want more info? Write fortuna@pipeline.com. More Wagner?
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