http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/01/velvet-underground-tea-party-us
The Tea Party movement has already astonished observers with its meteoric rise across the US. But yesterday Twitter was buzzing with speculation about whether it had acquired an icon of cool as one of its supporters a member of the legendary sixties band Velvet Underground.
A three-minute news clip from a local TV station in Georgia went viral on Friday, evoking alarmed responses from Velvet Underground fans that the band's drummer, Maureen 'Moe' Tucker, may have joined the ranks of Tea Party followers.
The clip showed a Tea Party rally in Tiftin, Georgia, and included a 20-second interview with a woman going by the same name, who says: "I'm furious about the way we're being led towards socialism. I'm furious about the incredible waste of money when things that we really need and are important get dropped because there's no money left."
Twitter was filled with speculation about whether the woman in the clip was the Maureen Tucker who sat behind Lou Reed and John Cale, thrashing at her set of drums on songs such as I'm Waiting for the Man and Sunday Morning.
Could it possibly be the same person managed by Andy Warhol?
There are clues that the link was more than just conjecture. Tiftin, in whose memorial park the Tea Party rally was held, is about 20 miles away from Douglas, Georgia, the town where Tucker the drummer moved in 1984 to bring up her family. How the great have fallen: she ended up working for a Wal-Mart there.
The Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest umbrella groups of Tea Party activists, has on its website a page for one Maureen Tucker. She lists herself as female, from Douglas, Georgia.
On it, the Maureen Tucker in question exhorts fellow activists to write to Barack Obama to tell him how angry they are: "DONT WAIT FOR A TEA PARTY – SEND HIM A LETTER/POSTCARD! YOU'LL FEEL BETTER!! KING OBAMA THE WHITE HOUSE WASH; DC 20500".
She says she has been protesting to the Senate about cap and trade, the system to reduce global warming pollution proposed by the Democrats.
She calls on people to send teabags in protest to the White House, and gives her reason for doing so: "This 'administration' HAS TO GO! I have come to believe (not just wonder) that Obama's plan is to destroy America from within. It is the only reasonable explanation for his actions/inactions!"
There is as yet no final confirmation of the identity of the mysterious Tea Party Tucker, but the affinities are certainly striking. It raises the intriguing possibility that a key member of the band that many ascribe to being the coolest ever is now convinced that Obama is the Manchurian candidate.
Watch this space.