Monday, October 20, 2008

Uggh! Sarah Palin did SNL and to make matters worse she didn't suck; but how does that give us new perspective on her?

If you know me, then you know that I don't exactly "love" Sarah Palin. I'm less than impressed with her educational background. I despise religious fundamentalism. I have a hard time understanding why she would use Alaskan State money to pay a bounty on an endangered species. I think "drill baby, drill" is shrill baby, shrill. My hatred of her has even alienated me from people who I really liked but couldn't deal with my total disdain for her.

Now I'm not going to pretend that Saturday Night Live is the sacred improv comedy entity it was in the late 70's, so I'm not surprised or offended that they would put Palin on the show (even though they really have had a brilliant run of palin-parody [parolin, if you will] and getting her on the show is just good for business) but I do have to wonder how uncomfortable it is for the cast members to then have to be in the same room as much less be introduced to Palin after possibly putting one of the last few nails in her political coffin.

It's like when I worked at G4 and I was called in to the HR department for an interview regarding some claims that were made against my superiors. I sat there for 2 hours explaining all of their horrible shortcomings to an HR representative who greased the wheels by telling me about their "open door policy." She explained that the HR department was there to hear any of our concerns about the workplace and that we should always feel comfortable coming in to blow the whistle on our coworkers because they'll never let anyone know who came in and who said what. I figured if I had total annonimity I could just open the flood gates and discuss the apparent (though not proven) kickbacks, the mismanagement, the sexism, the racism, the anti-semitism, the elitism and the overall gross imcompetence of the management of my department. So I'm sitting there spilling the beans on my prick supervisors thinking,"Wow, this is awesome. This will never get back to me!" Well, the next day I came into work to a very cold reception from my supervisors. I worked there another 10 months, always knowing that they knew exactly what I said about them, which I will not go into detail about, but trust me, you would feel very uncomfortable if you were me or my supervisors. Anyway, it's that kind of uncomfortable situation that would make this set visit difficult for the cast and the writers and an opportunity for Palin to feel super close to her pal Jesus when she's taking the moral high road (I think it cuts through Jesus' backyard). Anyway, here's the clip:





So here are my thoughts:
1)Alec Baldwin is awesome. He had no problems laying it on about Palin while she stood right there. Even though its a bit, its not easy to do when you everyone knows that you hate her even more than you're joking that you do.

2)I got confused when they wheeled out that mannequin that looked like Marky Mark. It was all, "Oil can, oil can" or some shit, but whatever, it was made of wood and looked like Marky Mark.

3)Palin did alright- though I think she turned back into the Palitron-3000 random-word-generating-fembot when she got in front of the podium.

There is something you have to bear in mind though, Palin has a degree in Journalism. A degree that she went to like 5 schools in 5 years to get*, so don't think she didn't take it seriously. She also has a pageant background and I believe (though I have no source of confirmation) that she at one point was a TV news reporter of some sort. The point is, she is kind of built for these kind of appearances (and for weekday work at Jumbo's Clown Room). Here's why it's scary: She looked more at ease doing SNL than she does selling herself as VP and selling her ticket as worthy of votes. It should be the opposite, don't you think? I'd feel much more comfortable about a candidate that was at ease on the dais and "a little shaky" on a nationally televised live comedy program. The worst part is, even if (and by if, I hope I mean 'when') McCain/Palin/Christ loses the election, you know she's gonna get a talk show. We're pretty much screwed either way.



*this is from Wikipedia:

She received her bachelor's degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho and attended the following schools

  • Hawaii Pacific University (Fall 1982),
  • North Idaho College (Spring 1983 & Fall 1983),
  • University of Idaho (Fall 1984 - Spring 1985),
  • Matanuska-Susitna College (Fall 1985) and
  • University of Idaho (Spring 1986, Fall 1986 and Spring 1987 ).
Before this she graduated from Wasilla High School in Wasilla, Alaska.

3 comments:

Sarah T. said...

Yep. Alec Baldwin has balls.

KNEE JERK NBA said...

Palin on SNL- the idiot at the party who everyone makes fun of but won't get the hint and leave.

Ben Le Vine said...

Well put, I wish you had said that before I posted this so I could have stolen it as the post title.

My dog likes to blog, but he has a short attention span: