The Palin Parody Paradox

Well, it seems the uber-meta phenomenon of Sarah Palin showing up on Saturday Night Live just won’t go away…and this time it has taken an even more peculiar turn.

This weekend, Sarah Palin herself (her actual, non-ironic, non-Tina Fey-ized self) showed up on the sketch comedy program, once as the show’s opener and again for a particularly bizarre spot on “Weekend Update.” In the first, we find Palin actually witnessing Fey mid-impression, watching a fake press conference with Lorne Michaels backstage. In and of itself, the moment gets a chuckle, but what brings it home is the sudden appearance of Alec Bladwin, who mistakes the actual Palin for Fey’s fake Palin. Baldwin then proceeds to tell Michaels that he finds it unconscionable that he would allow Fey to continue impersonating a woman who “is against everything we stand for.” Michaels allows Baldwin to continue his tirade against Palin before finally setting the actor straight, at which point Baldwin faux-stumbles over himself before adding, “You know, I must say…you are much hotter in person. I can’t believe they would let her [Fey] play you.” He then takes her arm and leads her on a tour of the studio, eventually ending up at the set for the fake press conference. Check it out here:

more about “The Palin Paradox“, posted with vodpod

 

The second skit is where things get surreal. As the last sketch for “Weekend Update,” Amy Poehler launches into a Sarah Palin rap, the details of which I will not spoil for you in type. You must simply watch it. But when you do, ask yourself the question I am asking myself right now: Is this a moment where we are laughing with Palin or at her? And, more importantly, does Palin even know the answer to this question?

more about “The Palin Paradox”, posted with vodpod

“It’s Always Sunny”, I Love You More Than Words

Just a little tidbit of something pretty awesome from the “Sunny” gang to start your day…

XPN’S Most Essential Mistake (A Repost)

88.5 XPN began it’s annual countdown this week, so I think it’s an apt time to repost one of my earliest entries from this summer. Why? Because it outlines precisely why this countdown is, well, kind of a dumb idea. Let me know what you think…

ORIGINALLY POSTED JULY 29, 2008:

For those of you not keeping score at home, it’s been a few days since Post Number One. Days pregnant with the pressure and tedium of deciding what Post Number Two was going to concern. Throughout that time, I kept making subtle promises to myself that it would not be wasted on the banal or superficial. That the post would center on a “big idea”, like the recently dreadful irresponsibility of the media as it pertains to the status of America’s economy; or that maybe it would elucidate the virtues I have recently discovered are inherent in the act of walking; or perhaps it would poetically eulogize Tony Snow, or maybe showcase an exciting and exclusive interview I had with Beck, wherein we discuss everything from Scientology to his new album “Modern Guilt”. But after all the internal haranguing and wringing of hands, I have finally settled on a topic—and, ironically, it concerns perhaps one of the most superficial creations of modern times: The countdown list.

To put a finer point on it, the particular list I’m thinking about right now is 88.5 WXPN’s forthcoming countdown of the “885 Essential XPN Songs.” No, this is not a matter that will make or break the evolution of mankind for centuries to come, or one that will most likely even register on your radar of importance so much as five minutes after you’ve finish this reading this. But when I heard this countdown theme mentioned on the radio yesterday morning while I was enjoying a delicious bowl of Craklin’ Oat Bran, my body responded as I would imagine it would were I having a stroke. And this was when I knew the issue could not be avoided.

To be sure, the fact that I would even express of modicum of concern over this matter—let alone care enough to make it a post on my blog—says more about me than it does about the countdown itself. But life is full of moments when one is forced to decide whether or not he will be the bigger person and ignore an evil obviously lesser than the strength of his own character, or give into the temptation and wage a losing battle against a pettiness sure to make him seem smaller than he was at the start. In this case, I have sadly succumbed to the temptation. I have chosen to wage a very silly war.

Without equivocation, I adore XPN. If the radio station were a woman (and personally, I think she would look something like Natalie Portman), the two of us would have been married for almost ten blissful years by now, with a beautiful brood of talented, ambitious children to boot. To extoll its innumerable virtues here as one of the greatest radio station in the tri-state region would be a waste of both our times. But if thiswere a marriage, the countdown about to occur would most certainly send us both into counseling (or force me to cheat).

The extreme guilty pleasure I derive from countdown lists is no secret to those who know me. I can recall numerous evenings as a child when, during dinner or after brushing my teeth, I would casually posit questions to my mother or father such as, “What are your top ten favorite scary movies of all time?” Or, “Who are the five worst worst quarterbacks in the NFL?” I didn’t know it at the time, but thinking back on those moments now, I realize forcing my parents to categorize their preferences so succinctly was just another way for me to make sense of an increasingly chaotic world. In other words, it was impossible for me to conceive of a universe wherein Bob Dylan was no different than Jimmy Buffet, or Joe Montana was no different than Randall Cunnigham. Such a world would be unjust and insane, and I needed my parents to assure me this was not the case.

At the age of 27, the situation is no different today. I still engage in endless debates with family and friends over the qualification of artistic brilliance; and while in a few rare cases these melees of personal opinion have almost ended friendships (“Rush vs. Zeppelin 2003” comes to mind), most are superficial, forgettable, and, in the eternal scheme of things, a waste of time. But they are one my dearest addictions, and I cannot give up the habit. For this reason, I was quite excited when XPN announced its “885 All Time Greatest Songs” countdown in 2004 (in my opinion, “God Only Knows”). I was doubly excited in 2005 when they launched the “885 All Time Greatest Albums” marathon (in my opinion, Houses of the Holy). And I was giggly as a schoolgirl for the “885 All Time Greatest Artists” countdown in 2006 (in my opinion, Bob Dylan). But then, in 2007, desperate to keep the trend going, the station took a turn for the worse and started tallying the ridiculous list of the “885 All Time Greatest Musical Moments.” What the hell does that even mean? Music is not defined by it’s “moments.” It’s defined by its music! (And even if it were, why wasn’t “The birth of Mozart” number one on the list?). Now, in 2008, XPN goes and dives right into its own nascent pool of pretension and lays this egg on us. It’s a crime against the righteousness of the countdown art form—and I cannot abide.

As I said at the outset, it’s a silly war to wage; and to be sure, XPN is so transparently reaching in this case that its absurdity needs little exaltation. But I could not let the moment pass without crying out with my displeasure. On it’s Web site, XPN claims this countdown is supposed to highlight “the tracks that are at the heart of the XPN listening experience.” But since XPN prides itself on being relatively genre-less (which is kind of a lie anyway, since I can’t recall the last time I heard them play something from Mos Def or Rage Against The Machine) doesn’t it seem absurd to ask people what songs are “at the heart of the XPN listening experience”? Not only is it self-absorbed and severely affected, but it’s also no flippin’ fun. Arguing about albums or musicians or songs gives a person the thrill of taking ownership over the art in his or her life. This does not. Imagine the conversation:

“Yeah man. I think the most quintessential XPN song is ‘A Case of You.’”

“Hell no! How can you say that? There’s no way ‘A Case of You’ is more XPN essential than ‘Into the Mystic!’”

Bullocks.

The XPN “experience” is about the sum of its parts, not the parts themselves. I listen to the station because that experience includes everything from The Hold Steady to Bjork to Jackson Brown to James Brown to Sigur Ros. I can’t reduce it, nor would I ever want to. Debating the “885 All Time Greatest Songs” over a few beers is thrilling and reckless. Debating the “885 Essential XPN Songs” sounds about as exciting as arguing over the best way to cook asparagus, or why she really still is just “Jenny from the block.”

Just How Stupid Do They Think We Are? (or, Why I Love Fake News)

There are so many reasons I am thankful to be alive in the year 2008. Vaccines. Automobiles. The Macbook. “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” But perhaps one of the most encouraging benchmarks of our time is the advent of “fake news.” Programs like “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”, as well as publications like The Onion, are brilliant indicators of not only the human race’s gift for (and faith in) the power of humor, but also it’s burgeoning sense of rage against the pathetic, transparent illusion of the media.

I am convinced these contemporary satirical outlets are crucial to almost any socio-political discourse in America today because with each and every episode or edition, they seem to cry out, “Stop insulting us! We’re not as dumb as you think!” Sure, they can be a tad solipsistic at times, and yes, there is a risk that some will turn to these outlets in lieu of “actual” journalism and news gathering; but at their best they throw some pretty righteous pies in the faces of those who believe they can distill the events and consequences of the world’s stage into simplistic sound bites and banal platitudes. And I say, “Bra-fuckin’-vo!”

Consider Exhibit A: The following clip from a recent “Daily Show” episode brilliantly chides both the media and its consumers for allowing the powers-that-be to perpetuate the idea that the current economic downturn in America is just too complex for us fat, dumb, and happy cattle to ever understand. The clip, I believe, speaks for itself, so watch and get a little angry, because John Stewart and Co. are unveiling a very important secret here, namely that you are being talked down to. Every day. All the time. And this is very dangerous, folks. The longer we comply with this assumption, the more we are being taken advantage of. The longer we allow ourselves to be reduced to one pathetic common denominator, the more power we surrender as active and concerned citizens. And the longer all of this goes on unchecked, the more we will begin to believe it.

We are not so idiotic.We are not so ignorant. And we will not be so silent.

Oh yeah, and it’s pretty damn funny.

more about “Just How Stupid Do They Think We Are?…“, posted with vodpod

Sarah Fey…For Vice President?

Trolling the Web on Sunday afternoon, I came across a peculiar headline in Yahoo’s news box. It read: “It’s starting to feel like Tina Fey is running for vice President.” Even though I had missed the previous Thursday night debate between John McCain’s running mate from Alaska and Senator Joe Biden, and even though I had likewise missed the Saturday Night Live sketch two nights later that parodied the debate, I knew precisely what the headline was getting at—and I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole ordeal. So I went to Hulu and watched half of the equation (the funny half)—and I still feel kind of peculiar.

When Palin was tapped for the veep spot in early September, Lorne Michaels must have wet himself. The Alaskan governor’s resemblance to Fey—or at least her resemblance to a caricature of Fey doing a caricature of a politician—was almost too good to be true. It was comedy gold, a fusion of entertainment and reality that seemed divinely preordained, as though the gods of comedy took pity on us all and said, “Here you go America. You’re in for forty miles of bad road, but we’re gonna let you have some fun along the way.” I can even imagine legions of conspiracy theorists having a field day with this one, concocting theses that McCain chose Palin for little else besides her resemblance to Fey, knowing how much play his campaign would get on the parody circuit if he gave her the nod. That’s how eerily obvious the Palin-Fey connection is.

To be sure, Fey’s Palin is dead on. Not only does she have the looks to play the part (and the trendy glasses), but she also has a brilliant gift for imitation that takes the gag out of the kitsch gutter and into the realm of historically significant satire. It’s a blast to watch. It really is. But after sitting through all eleven minutes of the SNL vice presidential debate sendup, I felt a strange sense of discomfort, which I am only now realizing stems from the fact that Fey’s Palin is actually too good.

For my money, no Presidential parody is as enjoyable to watch as Will Ferrell’s George W. Bush. Not Dan Aykroyd doing Nixon. Not Darrel Hammond doing Clinton. Not even Dana Carvey doing Bush Senior. It’s probably become a cliche, but Ferrell is a master at portraying the arrested development man-child, a hapless chap with good intentions gone awry by way of his (endearing?) buffoonery. It was this precise talent that made his Dubya so watchable. He wasn’t trying to portray Bush as he actually is, but instead as so many of us saw him during our most critical moments of his presidency.

But this is where I fear the Fey impression misses the mark. Her Palin has too much Palin and not enough Fey. She is so good at mimicking the governor’s every mannerism, her every quirk and wink, that we might as well just be watching the “real thing.” In other words, what’s the point of Fey pointing out the already obvious? This became most apparent to me while watching the satirical SNL debate. Whenever the audience applauded a particularly absurd moment in Fey’s performance, I found it odd that the audience was cheering on Tina Fey but in doing so was simultaneously deriding Sarah Palin, for her impression was so spot on that it was hard to believe the people watching from the stands weren’t actually, in some way, cheering for Palin herself.

What hyper-meta machines we have become…

The Endorsement: WXPN’s Jim McGuinn and Traffic.com’s Lauren Valley—The Thinking Man’s Traffic Report

 

Here’s the situation: Most radio drive-time traffic reports are about as interesting to listen to as bedroom-

Jim McGuinn

set assembly instructions are interesting to read. And here’s the question: Why aren’t more of them as good as the ones done by Lauren Valley on 88.5 WXPN between the hours of five and seven o’clock? I think the answer has something to do with Jim McGuinn.

 

With some exceptions, I usually leave my office at South Jersey Magazine in Marlton sometime around 5:30 in the evening. When I do, the first place I turn on the radio dial is XPN; not only because I love the music the station plays, but because (believe it or not) I look forward to hearing the drive-time traffic updates given by Traffic.com’s Lauren Valley. On her own, XPN’s resident guide to all things highway and byway is a pleasure to hear. The soft, alto timbre of Valley’s intonations fits perfectly with the station’s hushed, high-brow aesthetic, and her reports always walk that sublime line of authority and sympathy to which all traffic reporters should aspire. She never seems to take the task too seriously (I mean come on, it is only traffic after all) but at the same time she also knows when to lend her narratives a touch of the dramatic, a dash of the commiserative; for there is nothing worse than sitting in slit-your-wrists, shotgun-to-the-mouth bumper-to-bumper congestion and hearing a traffic reporter relay the situation as though he or she could care less. When the roads are that bad, the only person from whom you can usually gain both sympathy and comfort is the traffic reporter, and you want this person to at least pretend to share in your misery. You want her, in other words, to give a shit, and Valley is a master in this department (if a word such as master can realistically be applied to someone delivering the hour’s commuter breakdown).

But Valley’s persona and delivery are only half of what makes the early evening’s commute such a breeze to handle. The other half of the equation is Jim McGuinn.

When it’s time to break for traffic, McGuinn—a first-rate record spinner in his own right—doesn’t just hand over the mic to Valley and forget about it. No. He introduces her like another song, setting the stage for her reports while freeing the on-air vibe for the infusion of her animated personality. I am continually amazed by how seamlessly entertaining I find the interaction between them to be. Usually, McGuinn will invite Valley to comment on the previous thirty minutes’ playlist or top news story, and whether he’s curious to know what she thought about a rare Monkeys vinyl he just spun or an assessment he made as to why the White Stripes can be considered the premier rock outfit of the last five years, Valley always takes the bait and runs with it. Earlier this summer (and I can’t remember why), McGuinn was talking about the art of haiku, and when Valley came on she said, “Well, Jim, I actually prepared a little haiku for you this afternoon,” the recitation of which will go down as one of the most endearing radio memories I have. Or consider that just last week I heard the two of them riff for several minutes on a bomb scare in South Philly that turned out to be nothing more than unopened boxes of hotdogs. Valley could barely contain her laughter through the broadcast, and thus I was smiling all the way home.

I was recently riding with my friend Brian as he drove north up Route 73, swerving and dodging and bobbing and weaving his blue PT Cruiser through the tight pack of crowded cars all hurrying in the same heedless direction. At one point he turned to me and said, “Ya know, I think driving is when people’s true personalities really come out. I mean, think about it. What other activity is both so purely social and yet so purely anonymous?” He was right. In driving, we are all free to interact with one another as we have always wanted to deep within the recesses of our inhibited, socialized souls. Since this is the case, shouldn’t we expect the myth makers responsible for reporting the workings of our crazy dance of tires to at least resemble actual human beings? Shouldn’t we demand at least this much?

So the next time you find yourself on the road between five and seven o’clock in the evening, tune in to XPN. Sure, the tunes will help pass the time; but the traffic reports just may save your soul.