Sarah Palin's Sarah Palin Impersonation Dead-On

On a totally unrelated note, yesterday I realized Claire Zulkey, A.V. Club writer, commented on my 90210 post back in September. I emailed her and she confirmed it! Too bad my post was less than flattering. If you've once again googled yourself and are reading this, Claire (can I call you Claire?), any malice directed towards you in that post was purely the result of envy. Hugs, girl!

Now on to the present.


I and the people with whom I watched last night's vice presidential debate tried our best to ridicule the event from the territory of citizenry obligation into that of mild entertainment, but even Palin Bingo can't make an hour-and-a-half windbag session very fun to watch.

Some things that helped:

--I know I'm stating the obvious here, but Sarah Palin is truly an absurd human being.
--Her bangs, however, looked really good.
--a phone call that kept me occupied for the last 25 minutes
--the way Joe Biden says "Bush's." Over and over again. There's a pitch that creeps in there that only dogs can hear.
--beer
--Halloween-colored M&Ms (did you know purple was a Halloween color? "Because purple is the color of witches," someone pointed out) that were used as Bingo counters but more often eaten
--the almost self-satirizing "spin" that immediately followed the debate

Not having cable (LOL I am SUCH an intellectual!!!!11 (read: "d-bag")) means that on the rare occasion that I catch a few minutes of television at the gym or the nail salon (never anything of my choice... usually ABC news or Rachel Ray) my defamiliarity is enough to render the experience totally absurd. I often feel like a pilgrim who's been transported to The Future and is all, "Why are there so many quickly-moving images of people acting silly on that box? And how come everyone's staring at them?"

For example, have you SEEN what newscasters look like? Have you heard how they talk? Shouldn't the studio audience be LOLing in the background? Not to mention the so-called "content" of local, and even national, news.

In the seconds following the debate last night, the ABC anchors tried desperately to hold onto viewers' attention by providing gripping "commentary." First they announced how many times Palin had uttered the words "Barack Obama" and how many times Biden had said "John McCain." (It was something like 18 and 48, respectively.) Then they told us, in minutes AND seconds, exactly how long each candidate spoke. Surprise! The times were nearly equal. Um, isn't that kind of the job of the moderator? (As you can see, the attention-grabbing worked -- not something I am proud of.)

Is this really what our nation's reporters do during a debate? Keep tallies? I mean, in high school my friends and I liked to count how many times my Calculus teacher said "oddball function" in a given period, but that was because we were BORED. And not adults.

Admittedly, I'm hyped up on coffee and this whole thing has turned into little more than a rant. But I promise there is something important I'm trying to get at. For starters, I'm reminded of one morning in 2004 when I glanced at a photo of George Bush on the cover of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and, for a second or two, assumed it was a joke. Even at the time that seemed like a historic moment.

And on October 3rd, 2008, if you didn't already know the faces of all the SNL actors you might think this NY Times photo of U.S. Congressmen was part of a comedy skit:


Look at that guy holding his chin! I didn't have to go past my web browser's home page to find something that looked like a joke but wasn't.

In the past few years, what was once a clear line between reality and the surreal -- between sincerity and satire -- has now grown nearly indistinct: a realization that fills me simultaneously with glee and terror.

So, Hollywood, I suggest you cancel the global warming storyboards; there's a new disaster in town, and I challenge you to show me how Will Smith can save the earth from this collision OF EPIC PROPORTIONS!