I found this in a used book this week. For some reason it tickles me. He looks pretty crapped out. Is it the bags under the eyes?
I Googled him. Holy shit, he's still alive and a lawyer in Oxon Hill, Maryland. He hasn't served in office since 1970. Can we write him in? Is it too late? Maybe you have a personal injury claim you'd like to take up?
"A nod's as good as a wink...to a blind bat. Nudge. Nudge."
I was scanning gossip blogs and stumbled on a piece that said Sarah Palin wished to appear on Saturday Night Live, mimicking Tina Fey who was mimicking her. I find Palin an odd creature of ambition and desire veneered with poutine. There are so many reasons why I would not vote for this woman, even down to the fact that she drops her "g's." I shudder thinking of her on the world stage saying "Prime Minister Poutine (Putin) ....Ay kin see yer house."
I have a very sophisticated friend in San Francisco, and the night of the Vice-Presidential debate, I asked her if she was watching, and she replied, "You betcha," which has become a catch phrase in describing Palin. Palin seems insistent on playing to the average American Joe Six -Pack, but my friend said, "Wouldn't you be insulted if that was you she was talking about-- as your furniture is being carried out by the Sheriff's office?" I told her I was driving in a Maryland suburb on Saturday and saw a white haired grandmother sitting by the curb with her furniture. It was heartbreaking.
"I think we need a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street"
There is the weird dichotomy about Palin. She presents herself as one of the "people," but she doesn't see herself (in her designer glasses) as one of the people, and yet she is one of the people. My San Francisco friend said to me that night, "Do you know one person with a knocked up teenager?" "Do you have one friend who hangs around his wife's office and gives orders?" (since Palin repeatedly says she's one of us.) I think I'd be happier with her if she had sharpened fangs, exposed like an Alaskan carnivore, ripping at flesh and enjoying the kill, staring over a rib cage with threatening eyes if you dare approach the prize.
Another friend and I were talking about all of this today, including the proposed SNL skit, and how this would be one more layer of unreality on top of an already bizzare campaign, and for some reason an old George Jones and Tammy Wynette song popped into my head, and I started singing,
"No we're not the jet set We're the old Chevrolet set There's no Riviera In Festus, Missouri
And you won't find Onnasis In Mullinville, Kansas No, we're not the jet set We're the old Chevrolet set But ain't we got love?
No we're not the jet set We're the old Chevrolet set Our steak and martinis Is draft beer and weinies
Our Bach and Tschaikowsky Is Haggard and Husky No we're not the jet set We're the old Chevrolet set But ain't we got love? "
Back in the day, country singer Conway Twitty turned himself into a theme park and built "Twitty City" at his home. I had this vision of tourists going through his house, and Conway saying, "Well y'all can buy that and that there, but not that. I wanna keep that." I suppose if Palin is elected, she could open up Number One Observatory Circle, so we could all go in and hold her babies while she's off to Paris, France (not Tennessee) and admire the moose heads and seal skins and buy You Betcha Beer Huggies.
Joe Six-Pack Makes Himself At Home at Number One Observatory Circle
-- thinking Washington is purdy darn fancy and maybe he should be Jacques Pacque Sixe
