Plan for Ramone statue inspired by Reagan

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1387594,00.html

The unlikely connection between a Republican president and a punk icon was highlighted yesterday when it was revealed that a statue of Johnny Ramone inspired by the lavish funeral of Ronald Reagan will be unveiled this week.

Ramone, who died in September last year, was the guitarist with the Ramones and unofficial leader of the group. But, unlike his colleagues - and in contrast to his rebellious image - he was a committed Republican.

"We were watching the funeral from Cedars-Sinai , and Johnny had always loved Reagan - he was his favourite president and his favourite actor," Arturo Vega, the band's artistic director, told the Los Angeles Times. The grandeur of the Reagan funeral led Ramone to consider the memorial to his own mortality.

"And we were admiring how well it was going and how everything was done. I suggested some kind of monument ... He agreed right away. The monument was my idea; the statue was his idea."