President Trump arrived in San Francisco in a box — his head severed from his body — and he’ll be here for three weeks if you want to tell him what you think of his job performance.
Of course, it’s not really Trump, but a wax sculpture of Trump. He will be on display through November at Madame Tussauds wax museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. For many of the people who got a glimpse of him the other day, that’s three weeks too long.
“I’d like to flip him the finger,” said Joanie Hoglund, a museum visitor from Port Townsend, Wash. “I wish he would just take a hike.”
That was unlikely, she acknowledged, since Trump’s head, which in shipping was separated from his body before being expertly re-attached, is made of wax, his body of fiberglass and his yellow hair from the hide of a yak.
Every other wax figure at Madame Tussauds has human hair, but Trump’s orange mane could not be realistically duplicated with anything human. The sculptor settled on yak hair, said museum marketing director Matthew Clarkson.
“Poor yak,” said Anissa Mendoza-Green, a museum visitor from Denver.
Trump has been installed in the museum’s Oval Office set. He’s frowning, his thumbs tucked into his belt, and nearby a megaphone invites people to “sing your praises or shout your grievances.”
Admission costs $25, but for that fee visitors also get a glimpse of Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, the late S.F. Mayor Ed Lee, Grateful Dead legend Jerry Garcia and others whose hair is human.
For the past two years, the visiting Trump statue has been on display at another Madame Tussauds, in Orlando. That museum agreed to lend him to San Francisco in exchange for Lady Gaga’s statue.
During his San Francisco visit, Trump will be under constant video surveillance. Paying customers are allowed to touch Trump, as they may with other waxworks. They may even caress, pet and pat the back of Trump. But they cannot deface Trump, spit on Trump or scratch Trump with their nails, Clarkson said.
“Even if they want to,” he added. “We’re a family attraction.”
Wax Trumps can be found at other Madame Tussauds museums in Washington, D.C. and New York, but San Francisco is the only museum to install a megaphone next to Trump.
Adding the megaphone, Clarkson said, seemed sensible.
“We appreciate that this is San Francisco,” he said. “We’re not stupid.”
Most waxwork swaps last longer than three weeks, Clarkson said, but that was about as long as the museum felt it could get away with having Trump in town. When he leaves, the entire Oval Office set will be replaced with a tribute to tech icons Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who do not come with megaphones.
On Dec. 1, Trump will be unbolted from the floor and placed once more in a shipping box. For the return trip to Florida, his head will again be severed from his body. He will either go FedEx or UPS — Clarkson isn’t sure. But go he will.
“That’s fine with me,” said Mendoza-Green.