Or: Damn, Her Bristols Are Huge!
Now that she is a grandmother, let us look back at Sarah Palin's turn as Vice Presidential nominee. On Friday, 29 August, at noon (ish) Senator John McCain announced his Presidential running mate; a person of whom no one (even those who follow politics) had heard. And then she was allowed to speak. And we learned about her personal life, family and her views on national policy. We then knew all we could know about her; she was clearly ripe for parody. Not just for her resemblance to Tina Fey (it was my reaction, too, but really she more closely resembles Megan Mullally, specifically her character Karen Walker) but the fact that she is a walking, talking caricature.
This fact I can imagine made turning her into a character exceedingly difficult (but I can also imagine that it was very easy). She managed to lay bare the substancelessness of neo-conservative (Republican) "values" through her Faux-Legalese of the Un-Educated (also to). She had a knocked-up daughter, her husband (and indeed, herself) were/are involved with a Party of traitors (the Alaskan Independence Party) while all but accusing her opponent of being a very traitor. And, being the depraved depth—the definition—of Disaster Capitalism, we discovered the practice of charging rape victims for their rape exams.
Seth Meyers, Tina Fey and the Saturday Night Live writers crafted a character who was basically a heightened reality version of Governor Palin. In the case of her interview with Katie Couric, she was quoted verbatim where there could be no other joke than her grammatical incoherance.
On YouTube was a glut of un- and semi-professional Sarah Palin impersonators and the best (only good) one had to be Sara Benincasa's (/sarabeninca and later /twentythreesix) where Sarah Palin, the character took some joyfully bizarre turns while remaining unmistakeably Sarah Palin. Joining her was her assistant "Dina" (Diana Saez).
The turning point came when Sarah Palin (the Tina Fey character) crossed paths with Sarah Palin the person ("the real one").
Anyone familiar with burlesque knows it functions nearly exclusively on caricature turning baseness into intellectualism and classiness (somehow). I believe those of us who attended Super Happy Funtime Burlesque's Hallowe'en Show (the same night as Sarah Palin's appearance on SNL) saw the "real" Sarah Palin. A full display of spectacular mock patriotism that got skimpier and skimpier finishing with a sprint around the auditorium with the American Flag everywhere, her glasses on the entire time. Evidence:
http://flickr.com/photos/powerbooktrance/2980412863/in/set-72157604879146137/
This is inspired by my inability to find a chewing gum that does not have either of the gutter sweeteners: aspartame (NutraSweet) or High Fructose Corn Syrup. Aspartame metabolizes into formaldehyde and HFCS simply, clearly is flying against nature. There is no healthy way to placate your oral fixation (none that can be misconstrued as pervy, anyway).
Let us now reminisce and dwell on the strange coincidence of the emergence of candy in stick form (or ring form or baby bottle form) and National (US) events in the late nineties.
Hershey's Special Dark should be the minimum standard of what chocolate can be.
"Even before he had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped in silver paper. Chocolate normally was dullbrown crumbly stuff that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it, like the smoke of a rubbish fire. But at some time or another he had tasted chocolate like the piece she had given him. The first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was powerful and troubling." (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part II, Chapter 2)
Also inspired by this journal: http://liquidsilk.deviantart.com/journal/19574918/
The counter-intuitive drop in the price of petrol after the United States election worries me.
1. Arcade Fire - Intervention
2. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run
3. Hank Williams - I Just Don't Like this Kind of Living
4. Aimee Mann - Momentum
5. ABBA - One of Us
6. Asylum Street Spankers - Take the Heat
7. Janis Joplin - Me and Bobby McGee
8. The Jam - Town Called Malice
9. ABBA - Knowing Me, Knowing You
10. Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues
11. Arcade Fire - Broken Window
12. David Bowie - 1984
13. Prince - Ronnie, Talk to Russia
14. Asylum Street Spankers - Sad Bomber
15. Hank Williams - I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive
16. Velvet Underground - One of These Days
17. Cheater - The Long Grift
18. Roberta Flack - Compared to What
19. Arcade Fire - (Antichrist Television Blues)
20. The Fantasticks - I Can See It
21. Björk - Declare Independence
1. Sly & the Family Stone - Everyday People
2. Lou Reed - Real Good Time Together
3. Arcade Fire - The Woodland National Anthem
4. Hedwig and the Angry Inch - Wig in a Box
5. Helen Reddy - I Am Woman
6. David Bowie - Lady Stardust (demo)
7. Asylum Street Spankers - It's a Sin to Tell a Lie
8. The Youngbloods - Get Together
9. Keith Moon - The Kids Are Alright
10. Hank Williams - I Saw the Light
11. ABBA - Chiquitita
12. Dexy's Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen
13. Jeannie C. Reilley - Harper Valley PTA
14. The B-52's - Rock Lobster
15. Johnny Cash - Daddy Sang Bass
16. Johnny Cash - Personal Jesus
17. Velvet Underground - I'll Be Your Mirror
18. INXS - Never Tear Us Apart
19. Shirley Henderson - The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze
20. David Bowie - Fill Your Heart
21. Hank Williams - I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)
1. ABBA - Mamma Mia
2. Dolly Parton - 9 to 5
3. New Christy Minstrels - Green, Green
4. Hank Williams - You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave)
5. Norah Jones - Cold, Cold Heart
6. Cat Stevens - The Wind
7. David Bowie - Changes
8. Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone
9. Arcade Fire - Haïti
10. Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)
11. Rolling Stones - She Smiled Sweetly
12. David Bowie - Fantastic Voyage
13. ABBA - Take a Chance on Me
14. Leonard Nimoy - Both Sides Now
15. Bob Dylan - The Times They Are a Changin'
16. Lesley Gore - Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows
17. Elton John - Crocodile Rock
18. Mamas and the Papas - Make Your Own Kind of Music
19. Cake - I Will Survive
20. Cat Stevens - Peace Train
21. David Bowie - Young Americans
22. Arcade Fire - Wake Up
I think to maintain his Maverick Image, John McCain will have to become a secret Muslim.
The Circle Theatre's production of The Who's Tommy is the worst thing that's happened to The Who's music, the worst thing that's happened to theatre and one of the worst things that's happened to humanity; truly it has to be seen to be believed.
Lay your fist upon me! O, Michelle
Obama! Be Shiva and make waste these last eight years,
these swindlings at the free market, the dis-
tractions, the failure, betrayal and disaster.
Verdantly, tell us how the American Dream sprouts, entrenches it roots
and nearly, neatly nourishes itself and thrives.
Take me on a twenty-minute journey over the majesties and waves.
I wish you were a Black Militant.
Revere-on!
If you're a fan of anime, you know a scene
from Miyazaki's Spirited Away:
Chihiro having lost her parents—
well, they've been turned into pigs—
is thusly forced into slavery,
basically the worst night ever.
The following morning she is taken to a pen, a cell,
by her (maybe) new friend Haku
who shows her her pig-parents
and she does see a difference from the others.
Afterwards she is taken to a pastel-colored garden
and given a couple of rice cakes,
breaking a probably sixteen-hour fast.
And tears well, the way they do in anime,
and torrent and it is heartbreaking.
Truly, her fate is Dickensian: orphaned (kind of)
and extorted into slave labor;
but this is not why she cries.
She cries because this is the first time she's ever had to be grateful
because before she was a spoiled Japanese girl
(but not in any kind of mean or nasty way
just a bourgeois and middle-class childish way).
So they are actually tears of joy, if a very downtrodden joy.
It is not a scene of desperation,
it is about introspection
and, yes, Hope.
Like many in that Denver audience,
I became misty-eyed; I had to wipe twice.
I had never been really proud of Michelle until now.
I wanted Elizabeth Edwards to be my First Lady
(let's not go there)
But I see you are just as talented, capable and admirable.
You show, you know: we all have inside of us a piece of good news.
That we don't know how great we can be!
What we can accomplish!
How much we can love!
What our potential is!
I want you to be a Black Militant.
You are a graft where I once was flayed:
a thread that connects us all.
I watch the ripples change their size
but never leave the stream of warm impermanence
and so the days float through my eyes
but still the days they seem the same.
And these children that you spit on
as they try of change their worlds
are immune to your consultation
they're quite aware of what they're going through.
[enter and sing, concurrently]
Gospel Chorus: We the People
In order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure Domestic tranquility,
Provide for the Common Defense
promote the General Welfare
and secure the Blessings of Liberty
to ourselves and our posterity
do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.
You will always be beautiful
in every conceivable way, even in caricature.
I thought we needed anger after they left us up to our necks in it
I thought we needed to go to Florida and Michigan
with passions screaming.
We just need to take back the White House,
we just need Truth: there is nothing more awesome
or powerful.
Truth needs no passion behind it
while it can make us rile and pass our bile.
Explain! Ex-Spleen!
I take a journey, you take a journey, we take a journey together.
Until I no longer have to afford gas,
until we aren't just surviving.
We will always be building a world
until we stop doubting and fearing.
Until Elijah takes his seat again:
I need your dap,
I need you to be a Black Militant.
[does this] I extend a hand and furl my fingers.
Rent is bourgeois because it exploits White Guilt which turns ordinarily rational, emotionally stable people (of any gender, racial or ideological idiom) into hysterical teenage girls (as not to insult any teenage girl, I mean specifically this:).
Actually I think "White Guilt" is too narrow a concept to describe what is occurring and a more appropriate term would be Privileged Guilt. And what a plethora of minorities to project that guilt onto (everyone across the gender, racial and ideological spectra)!
GVSU brings a hypnotist to the Fieldhouse every year; he puts a group of college students under and a show basically manifests itself. One year, one trick (best word I think to use) was to have the participants believe they were listening to their favorite music. One young lady was "listening" to the Rent (movie) soundtrack. To give you an idea of her let me just say that this is in Dutch Calvinist country so everyone is blond and Conservative, so (not to assume but) she was probably not the person to have feelings (please watch the embedded video) about things until she saw Rent. I have to add, her singing was unprompted.
(Anyone who cites Billy Joel as an influence has bad taste in music (dot com).)
In addition to these offenses, it has become a touchstone for plenty of bad theatre. Speaking of: when did fanfiction become legitimate theatre?
The thing about what John Edwards did is it's less tawdry than most politicians do just being politicians.
I am seriously considering doing a Paypal currency scam.
Dear Young Men at the Cherry Festival,
The Primary Reason to wear fitting pants is so you don't look like a D-Bag hitching them up behind Diana Fairbanks on 7&4.
Dear American Civil Liberties Union,
The Ass-crack is not covered under the First Amendment.
It already sounds infantile and cartoonish. Bling are basically accessories—which are bourgeois enough—with a 21st century twist. Where many accessories now must have a purpose: the iPod plays media, a mobile phone takes pictures; bling's purpose is to flaunt its uselessness.
That is, a person with bling is showing that they have money and therefore can choose to look cartoonish and infantile. So now, I believe we can all say without irony: Flava Flav is the bourgiest mothafucka on the planet. (Venus and Serena are allowed (but would I be saying anything different if they weren't so talented?) their very tasteful earrings.)
And it isn't a Black thing. Anyone willing to flaunt their uselessness on Vh1, Mtv (and BET) can wear bling. (Remember when New Money used to be an insult? You don't but just go with it.) But I would like to point out that 50 Cent and Li'l Kim can jive up their grills but Paris Hilton only has to do her Blackberry to bling herself. What would bell hooks say?
This is a Web 2.0 project; I want it to be an interactive, multimedia experience. For this, I will require a population of many talents and vocations. Therefore, I will use the social networking tools LiveJournal and FaceBook and perhaps expand afterward.
The American narrative has become self-centered and fetishized, flat like Melville prose. We are cynical and jaded or, we are just plain vacuous. We have become disinterested in progress (sorry, Obama supporters, Change is not necessarily progress; please refer to WALL·E's Axiom for an example).
Lethargy only breeds lethargy—it's still the same, just like a cancer. Lethargy keeps Joe Francis in business, is responsible for Shreks 2 and the 3rd, allows Mormonism to exist and makes methamphetamine production seem like a viable source of income. It also allows a fireworks shop, a gas station and a hotel to be within the same one one mile radius (I saw this somewhere in the South ten years ago) which can only be described as New Sincerity gone wrong.
Roland Barthes could have never imagined Girls Gone Wild (thank God!) and it is only Gordon Ramsay (on a FOX reality show!) who gives me hope for Good Taste. (I'm also enjoying Swingtown, so I probably can't be trusted to give an opinion on Taste.) If all else fails, just read some Nabokov.
Mercy of Quality will be a collection of fifty (initially) essays of cultural criticism describing things that are bourgeois. These are things that are unnecessary, culturally stagnant, intellectually destructive and promote laziness. These are things that exist only to be self-perpetuating.
In the interest of full disclosure I must admit I have yet to read The Communist Manifesto so I may not be using 'bourgeois' entirely accurately (then again, 'awesome' and 'irony' are never used properly). My use of the word (and the entire project) is inspired by Roland Barthes' collection Mythologies.
Other inspirations include:
Comedy Central spleenfests Lewis Black's Root of All Evil and its quite probable spun-off Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn.
Public Radio International star Jesse Thorn's concept "Post-Irony/New Sincerity."
Stephen Fry Podgram #3 "Wallpaper."
And my own "Is He One of the Marx Brothers?" from Information Subterfuge, specifically the third stanza.
This is bourgeois.
This must be eradicated.
It is possible to be a Socialist and have stuff you know, darling!
Information Subterfuge has ended.
Mercy of Quality will begin shortly.
Grass Below You, Sky Above
Open up my bulbed flowers, Apollo!
Under a green table, hear a whoosh: ducks.
This April cried and stepped aside with flow.
Dirt, (cheap, uptown) eighty dollars will buy
Only round figures. The saplings busting
Out with sap! I see despair when he shucks
Rice from our diets. May is adjusting,
Full of promises. Jerry Wright, fill my
Understanding of this country’s strife, we
Celebrate Spring (Why do I keep countin’?)
Kindly do unbind and let my life be.
If you love me (we’d swim in the fountain).
Nightly, it’s progressively worse, you say?
Guess, guess (Will you? Will you?) what starts today.
Yesterday (1564-1616)
So trivial and dim be the stage whence
spectacle trumps narrative and on speed:
we build good neighbors and a fence?
Iger’s Broadway grows cleanly like a weed.
O, what excuse will my poor Beast then find,
you say some Mary needs a line of blow?
Niel LaBute shows me the life of a mind;
That was a joke in case you did not know:
Ken Marino sprays Tom Lennon with mace;
his tears well, visage turned a darker shade,
Weigel, my Brecht roots do show just a trace;
a Tarzan play would make anyone jade;
while you try to extort my heart aglow,
Paul Thomas Anderson says: go, go, go.
Sed Qui Veritas Est?
Sen shoves the River Spirit’s little ball
down Kohaku’s throat. Wretch, purge: it’s bitter!
Crush, curse while blood is spattered on the wall.
Put index fingers and thumbs together.
I slice. Papa Benedictus dicit:
Pax Vobiscum. Sayeth Martin Luther:
Ich kann nicht anders. Religion, no cheat-
er of the Will, but in complacency,
it is fear, slander. It is a titter.
Ashitaka shoves his bowl in water,
breathes in, breathes out. Amas magna mater
ecclesiæ. (Ain’t tasseomancy.)
Mis’ess Gibbs says: O, full Earth, you’re a (too)
wonder for anyone to realize you!
I don’t believe you. Continue.
Sam Seder says, “This is a great day, folks!”
Hearts are near, but your lips are far away.
O, doors of breadth, seal with a righteous kiss!
We are the lanterns, and you were the light.
Red swirls on a flaming pole yield a plight;
Actions domestic, who are we to say?
Neatly beat my meringue away from yolks.
Don’t want to work in a building downtown.
Ipril day passes by to nary stop.
Flames always slash until in bile we drown.
And do your homework. Hand me. [cherry pop!]
I love country music, I’m selfish. Bliss!
These are the days that never rain, they pour.
Hillary is a total fucking whore.
TS, Eliot
O, take my art and fill me with cruelty!
Never be a command, always in threats.
Winters says, “Everybody pays taxes!”
At the violet hour, the human engine
Returns to sate its own selfish duty.
Dittoed. I’ve had ’em. Damn. Yada. Waxes
Lethargic che gli affina and whets
Your passions.—I have none. Know some evil
Mothers tell you everything is just dirt.
Oily, oily, oily, LORD, is my gin.
Rinse the ice, never shake: bruises. We fill
Our days with halo trouble. With a shirt
Stiff, do seppuku on adding machine,
Eat me in Saint Louis. Padding no sheen.
Mr. 4000
I say it baits if you’ve met it Morte a
su à remembre-ce. First many, then few.
I’ll never get out of this world alive,
never pay everyone’s vice again (snag).
Mesopotamian small-pox-bomb Rag—
everything that’s blunderful is when you
make a graft of our bodies and jump on
on, anon—la Via Dolorosa;
rise, the beat don’t stop my struggle and strive
yet we...I wasn’t born, I was only
Hatched. Five, six...open up the gates (pearly)!
Ogilvy, Patriot! For you I fawn!
Look into it and see nothing. Well, try.
Each remark from endship above will lie.
Five Years In (Had it Last Night)
The MythBusters know there’s no proof it should
work any better today despite your
derision. (I’m just moaning about it.)
Kari Byron, I need a fix for my
Three thousand dollar per second habit.
Put some gelignite under a car hood.
(I’ll tell ye, there’ll be NO BUTTER IN HELL!)
Night vision balls of green light. Stock me! Oar
me! Savage says, “I reject your real-
ity and substitute my own!” Bore, lie
the curvature on the table. We al-
ter, crack (And a whole lot of love!) and swell.
Double You balances un œuf Faber-
gé for the purpose to our fears defer.
Alexander II: Explosive Boogaloo
(It’s also L. Ron Hubbard’s birthday but
discussing Scientology is so
passé, it would give it more attention.)
Bombs are a crude, ineffective manner
of killing a person. (it’s worth mention
that if you do, always have a backup
or two). Are you a guest worker planner?
My Emancipation Manifesto,
My selfish progressive motility
are less than sincere—white packages cut
apart my legs—drink from a ruddied cup,
it grants not freedom but ability.
Darling Nicky, dissent still has ammo;
you cannot hide—O zhalkiy zhrebiy moy!
A Cheap Suit: Roy Cohn Died in It
With the consistency of santorum
your trial began by a forced destiny.
Your soul can leech with eelings full of spite.
(Kiss His hand.) I want to open myself!
I see your destruction and your labor.
Joined: for the right to be free, just to fight.
(Present and accounted for) In the sand
he drew a line with his army sabre.
“Play deguello,” I tell my marine band.
He’s not Grendel or Dobby the House Elf,
Our American Negation forum,
quell my rational Reason mutiny.
Dick Cheney’s acute, terror’s acuter.
Everything that I despise (Lies!), Scooter.
Friday (Doesn't Exist)
Randi Rhodes this week on holiday cruise.
Unfortunately, this means probably
no “Bounce Your Boobies”. (Is that shamefully
so, to be deprived raunch? By Sam, her shoes
are filled: scathe Hannity (Ayatollah)!
To defend McCain’s actions, call; Hola!
(Our Founding Fathers probably had a
few broads on the side, too.) So, just admit
it gals, it sure feels great to feel the swing
of where the grapes of wrath are stored (not a
terrible swift sword). Be certain to tit-
illate! All the blue spied by the waxwing.
Left over, how many ten thousandths I’ve?
two thousand four hundred and twenty-five.
Is He One of the Marx Brothers?
Edwina says, “It is possible to
be a socialist and have stuff, you know,
Darling!” I remember the red frosted
sugar cookie at Life Night. The thought delves
into that American thing we call
wealth. (Theft be not inclusive, Hot Topic.)
Lucy says, “Mountain climbers chain themselves
together so if one falls, they all fall.”
Bling definition: Shit you buy to show
how fucking bourgeois and retarded you
are. But Christian LaCroix transcends cost, Ed-
dy. Poems are best when anti-septic.
Being not narcic-is-istic, any
god should be blessed to be on our money.
My Last Crush
Layer the stones profusely upon me;
Organs fail and yet I say to, “Bring more.”
Vicerit me sed ubi amor est?
Ego sum. Took the rings off my fingers
and there’s nothing left to say. But for jest,
I know it’s something humorous, lingers.
Mark my admiration: this or this or
this...(O ni bikkuri shakkuri to!)
The clotting on my bloody cornea
unwashed by your holy rain. I’m crazy!
All this would I be—I have no “Mea
culpa.”—if I’d marry you. I see, show
the bursting from uranium fissures,
I cut out my heart with safety scissors.
And Not Fatty Duck, Either
I say: Hey dude, you got some shit up here.
Answer: That’s my face, sir! Away the blue
people herd the cattle. Did Ghandi get
this crazy? The distance now known, I’m near
those who wait in darkness. Pray for those who
chose and oppose. Your T-zone won't forget.
We’ve seen the beads in gold, green and purple.
How sincere can be a self-imposed ban?
And only a saint could last forty days.
Close is time to make maple syrple.
They’ve got a message for the Action Man:
Quia pulvis es—how our pride allays.
Those non-glut-and-fast rotators ask: what
is a pączki? It’s a fucking doughnaught!
Ben, No lie b
The act of living is not natural,
it is a craft. Green, green: I’m going
away to where the grass is greener still.
Intertextuality is not a
dirty word. Those faces on the mural
stare into your borrowed light. Hippety
hop, hippety hop! I talk in a daze,
(one hundred and eight) I walk in a maze.
Edwards’ loss is the American Will.
I linger on those pale blue eyes showing
patricide in a youthful piety.
Flip a strife unsweetly. Snuff it with a
tug. Reasoning gives you no time to frown—
a Friendly halo—up for you is down.
The Age of Mirth
Then Zenobia’s red pickle dish dropped.
The image and style you’re used to: stopped.
We find all our joy in causing rainstorms.
I will get what I want against all odds.
The east side of this state is fully nuts.
I pass the world like all the good working
people. I am not sorry for my crime.
Appoint them a horse. Your office is prime
for raunchy orgies. I’ve seen the warning
in amber and maize. A fine dagger juts
out from your chest. A million little gods
have gone before and after you. The forms
on the ionosphere hold us in scorn.
Mattie Silver rues the day she was born.
(A Little Bit Late on that One, Charlie)
―What am I doing here? Myself in blue
and from Michigan, in the Stigmata—
Jenny straddles, does gymnastic tricks on
the plank—Mitt, your fathers thought my fathers
killed [tuent tout] white Hebrews (oxymoron)
in America. I don’t wanna go!
A television movie, the torture
was related to me by my mother’s
skilled judgment, Comanche Moon (adventure!)
“She weren’t born to be a whore!” (Away, Ho!)
Even this subjunctive onomata-
poeia blends meaning with aesthetics. (Sioux!)
The effect, try it out loud for yourself,
is to knock something off the bottom shelf.
Changes or Hillary
Or get off the pot. My name is Ivor.
I’m an engine driver. We’ve always had
reason to make our choices. I’m a rad-
ical socialist. Since the mass of the
people had not sense enough to grant the
power freely, the mass of the people
had to be bamboozled. (’Til you make it.)
Only greased hands should ever taffy pull.
But never leave the stream and the favor
of warm impermanence. (WELL, JUST FAKE IT!)
Status veriabilis. Thoroughly
do we ponder and often wearily.
I’m in a State, improvident, a clod,
so I just threw away my vote for Dodd.
Say a Prayer for Cactus Chef
We’ll get by, I suppose. Miracle: shit
eating duck. Pretending to be random
saves us from a perpetual edge. Hath
time, wallet at its back, wherein he puts
alms for oblivion—great-sized monster
(ravenous) of ingratitudes. A pit
to send Omarosa therein. She soots
everyone between the eyebrows. Tandem
do the bearded march. Make a path (a path!)
Froid est mon cœur ce mois. Un hiver dans
infer. For writing, true, does solely stir
retroactively, wears with delight on
each mind. Mister O’Brien, a brighter
sunshine of your love: you need no writer.
