Bruce Wagner - Memorial

“I know,” said Joan, simpatico. “Paul Murdoch. He’s here in LA. Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. A 93-foot-tower with 40 wind chimes inside. One for each passenger and crew member. 40 groves of mixed maple trees the closer you get to the site. Then, 40 rows of—”

“The 1,776-foot tower. Make me wanna holler!” (The last, he shouted like Eddie Cantor.) “And that’s not even going to remotely happen. That’s why I like Andy — Goldsworthy. Cause he’ll do something outside the box. Something natural. I’d like to do Goldsworthy and someone…something else, more permanent, or permanent- looking. Andy can do his cairns or his water and stones and snakes — I think he’s going to use water, which I don’t object to. We’ve got 400 acres and the actual Mem is gonna be a pretty small ‘footprint,’ as they like to say. But I want it churchy. Like stumbling across the ruins of a church. Now, whether that’s at the end of a grove, or an allée, or up on a hill — fuck, I don’t know, Joan. I just don’t want to wind up with something honoring a quarter of a million dead people! You can’t do that shit with any kind of literality. Is that a word? I mean, how? Did you know that a hundred thousand people died in Sumatra in 15 minutes? One of my guys said the quake was so strong, it actually affected the earth’s rotation. How do you memorialize that? You know what I’m saying, honey? What happened to my brother and his wife, and their kids, and to me and my family —is personal. And for that very reason, the scale should be intimate. For any fuckin reason. A prayer. Let the world fucking carp. The world is always going to carp and piss and moan. The world wants Trump and Disney — America wants to sell tram-tickets to cemeteries with bling. Hallowed ground don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing! Do you know how many calls we still get about Katrina? To help with that shit? Where is George fucking Bush? My brother didn’t die in St Bernard Parish, he died on the coast of India. I mean, is that OK? Does that not meet with everyone’s approval? It’s obscene. Do I know what it means to miss New Orleans? Maybe. But sorry! Samuel’s in Elysian Fields — and his Fields ain’t got a Looziana zip. Wanna hear a Katrina joke? My pilot told it to me — man, he’s dark! A drowned horse walks into a Texas bar. Bartender says, ‘Why the long, bloated, maggoty face?’ Oh, you don’t get it! Hey Joan, know how many people died over there? 230,000. There’s another 50,000 missing. And those are only guesstimates. Know how many died in Pakistan? 80 thou. Know how many people swallowed water in Louisiana? What was it, 900? Losing the city itself was the fundamental… that’s what’s tragic. And everybody knows it. That makes sense. The money poured into the tsunami? They don’t even know how to disperse it! There’s such a surplus, they’ve been asking people to divert to other causes. That’s how fucked up and confused everyone is. The relief agencies and the schmucks who run em are bankrupt, spiritually, morally, and every other kinda which way. A guy lost his entire family of 37 in Ban Bang Sak — send computers, Bono! You know, I have zero interest in donating PCs to all the little Sambos before they rape and burn each other. They will be raped and burned. I don’t want to save rifle-toting black children! Let Bono knock himself out! Does that make me a bad guy? I employ people. Right? Thousands of fucking people. Families. I don’t renege on healthcare or pension promises. Right? And I want to honor my brother and his wife and in so doing, honor those who died. You know what, Joan? I don’t believe ‘We All Have AIDS.’ I don’t — not so far as my doctor’s told me. Sharon Stone can suck my 5,000,000,000 dollar cock and write a song from the coal mines of menopause and go talk about it on GMA. I do have a foundation, but it’s not about relief, it’s about cancer research. My mother, Mamie, had leukemia. When she died, that was worse than 200,000 people getting swept away, OK? Can you understand? I mean, how do you… represent that? This isn’t ‘We Are the World,’ this is she was my world. And now it’s about He Was My Brother. Samuel Freiberg, RIP. Someone said I should put a plaque up for whatever we wind up doing. Joan, do we need a fucking plaque?”

“No, Lew. You don’t need a plaque.”

“FEMA can’t even figure out what to do with the money Congress gave them. It’s so radically fucked up that Congress is now asking for money back. Anyway, I got an email from one of my Inner Circle people at Guerdon — a sweet guy.” He riffled some papers on the table, then quoted. “ ‘I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary of my crying…rescue me from the mire, and do not let me sink.’ I mean, sentimental bibleshit, right? So, I’m just gonna do my thing — with a little help from my friends. I think any other way would be arrogant. My thing. People will have their ‘fuck that rich asshole’ moment — they’ve been having it! ‘He’s only honoring 2 people!’ The public won’t be allowed to stroll around and drop their trash… poor babies. No iPod commentaries! No gift shop! They’ll just have to sweat it out. Jerk off to the Iraqi civil war or the latest Amber Alert. Or see a Korean horror film instead. Cause all anyone wants is a gore fix. I sound like Howard Beale, huh? Great movie, Network. So get your tragedy fix, but not from me. I ain’t no dealer! I’m not a healer either. But why isn’t Lew Freiberg helping to build new levees? Because Ted Turner will take care of it. Leave it to the Three Stooges: Carter, Clinton, and funk-breathed HW! Leave it to Halliburton! You know what? My foundation sends money, but I funnel it to Humane Society International. They’re the folks — a lot are Buddhists, by the way, like Esther was — who deal with animals. You know, animals saved a mess of people in the tsunami and wound up shit’s creek, literally. People can help each other but animals can’t. Animals are ‘sentient beings’ too, right? That’s the big Buddhist phrase. My sister-in-law was a pretty serious practitioner of Zen-whatever. We had our moments, but Esther was all right. Helped stabilize my brother. So that’s where I choose to send my money. To HSI! And if folks’re gonna cry, fuck em. People will cry, that’s what they do. That’s what they’re good at. But at the end of the day we got 400 acres. You’ve seen it, Joan. At the end of the day, long after we’re dead and gone, there’ll still be 400 acres and ‘the ruined church.’ What I’m calling the Ruined Church. And it’s going to be a sacred space. Esther loved that phrase. ‘Sacred space.’ And that sacred space will speak volumes for all the suffering of people and animals. You know what else disgusts me?”

“Tell me, Lew.”

“Newsvultures standing on some tsunami beach — those Big Wave anniversary reports are just nice excuses get some Phuket R & R — saying— intoning —‘No one can explain why some areas have received bounty and others have slipped through the net.’ Right. Right. Well, that’s just the way it is. Same as it ever was. Always was, always will be. That’s ‘duality.’ Buddhism 101. No one can fucking explain. Or splain, as Ricky Ricardo used to say. And guess what? No one should even try.”