"SNL" Hits Home Run with Sarah and Hil

I admit I have not watched "Saturday Night Live" consistently in years. In contrast, as a child, I would secretly hide myself away to a closet TV to watch the 'glory days' of the show...the genius that was John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, "Mr. Bill", my beloved favourite Gilda Radner, et al...but after awhile the newer incarnations just could never hold a candle to the former standard-bearers. (Clips above from the NBC Video Library site.) Somewhere in there I even drifted over to the short-lived but equally good (when the cast was relatively sober, anyway) ABC competitor, "Fridays". (I loved Melanie Chartoff). In my slightly-older years, my new comic love was the daring "In Living Color"...a show and collection of skits that I still can watch and belly laugh at as well as the classic "SNL". (Because of his "Fire Marshall Bill" character, I will always give Jim Carrey's projects a better-than-fair opportunity to be seen...sometimes I've been disappointed, sometimes I've been wowed, but the guy always gets a 'get out of acting jail for free' card I don't extend to most others. Clip links to YouTube, by the way.) Unfortunately, though, after the implosion of "ILC" back ages ago, I have had little in the way of comedy skit shows to get excited about. (And American sitcoms are absolutely dreadful...I guess there's a stupid union rule about having a laugh-track for everything that might have a glimmer of potential...so I haven't watched them really in years, either. American drama, yes; American comedy as it were, no. If I want comedy, I'll switch on BBC-America and see the original shows we're going to rip off in five years' time.) In a country full of promise to take so many jokes on ourselves, it's a resource we've only developed in very awkward, and haphazard, spurts...at least on major network television.

However, in the first time in God knows how long, I made an exception to my 'no-"SNL" rule last night, and I am thankful that I did. Amy Poehler's dead-on impersonation of Hillary Clinton has been a highlight of recent months that I've snuck views of from other blogs, YouTube, and the like. The beauty of the internet now is that you can find just those bits you want and spare yourself the agony of having to watch a potentially horrible show (anybody else who watched Eddie Murphy in his prime wish we'd had that option in the 1980s?) But last night I plopped myself down in front of the telly and eagerly awaited to be surprised...like times of old, but this time I was holding a bottle of beer instead of a class of milk. The verdict? Not too bad all told...they've definitely improved since I last attempted this...but nothing could touch the opening skit. And that opening was the best I've seen or heard about from them in years.

Last night, former regular Tina Fey came back for a cameo appearance to team with Poehler in a soon-to-be-classic: Fey as Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Poehler again as Hillary Clinton, in a speech about sexism in media coverage. This is the kind of stuff that channels the very best of Radner and Company, written and performed by true pros.


Clip embed ©NBC, 2008. Tina Fey as Governor Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Senator Hillary Clinton. Taken from this site of videos.

There just may be hope for televised comedy in these final Presidential election days, especially if Fey and Poehler can keep contributing. Makes one sad, though, that in some weird world that these two women...Palin and Clinton , or better yet Fey and Poehler performing as Pallin and Clinton...can't be joined at the hip for some sort of future political project (er, comedic roast). Thank of the 'cultural' memories that could so easily come from that union. Until then, I think I shall have to give "SNL" another try...and I genuinely hope it's not a short-lived run again. In a Presidential campaign that is so surreal and chock full of 'what the fuck' moments as this one is and has been so far, it truly is too bad that Senators Obama and McCain are so very, very dull in comparison.

Quote of the Day Re: Scarlett O'Hillary

Good morning, ladies and gents. We have both good news and bad news to report this fine morn. The good news: we finally have presumptive nominees for President from both major parties (Barack Obama for the Democrats and John McCain for the Republicans) and perhaps now we can focus on the issues of November's general election. The bad news: Hillary Clinton is in severe denial she's not one of those candidates, and seems very unwilling to give up her ego-driven dreams of yielding power at any cost.

In other words...Senator Clinton seems quite determined to stay on the campaign road and may (stress the word may) drag this electoral nonsense out even further. There was no concession speech last night from her, nor was there even an acknowledgement that Senator Obama had finally garnered enough delegates to win the nomination. Instead, what came about was a calculated piece of political machinery: she stole the attention from Obama and now has everyone wondering what exactly are her terms of surrender? Finally, I suppose, now everyone can understand why the Hillary Clinton Nutcrackers are such an apropos novelty item: it fits the candidate's strong-arm (er, leg) behaviours. LBJ would be proud.

In the South, we have a generations-old saying that goes something like this: "A lady always knows when to leave." Clearly, all of the years and miles Senator Clinton has traveled across the South, either on her own or on behalf of her husband's pursuits, have done little to pick up and apply that wise advice.

The wonderful Maureen Dowd from "The New York Times" has the best quote of the morning about Ms. Clinton's unchecked political strategies:

He thought a little thing like winning would stop her?

Oh, Bambi.

Whoever said that after denial comes acceptance hadn’t met the Clintons.

If Hillary could not have an acceptance speech, she wasn’t going to have acceptance.

“It’s never going to end,” sighed one Democrat who has been advising Hillary. “We’re just moving to a new phase.”

Somewhere, I can hear the final scene of Margaret Mitchell's great novel, "Gone With the Wind", being used as a battle-cry within the Clinton camp: "After all, tomorrow is another day!” And, unfortunately for the rest of us who would desperately like the electoral process to move forward for a change, it is.

So the war apparently rages on...

By All Means, Please, Let the Machinations Begin...

As the winding, roller coaster Presidential campaign swerves headlong again this week, we are now entering a "Twilight Zone" kind of quasi-drama that even my most ardent of political science professors would have found perverse. The once-mighty Hillary Clinton camp is infected and watched like a contagion with a death wish...a wish that wants at all costs, mind you, to right a wrong done against it...and, as a result, there exists a new groundswell of those critics already finding ways to dissect the same candidate and her campaign. The Hillary politic, if you will, has not been even declared officially dead, yet the vultures not only have arrived, but are already picking away at some of the more tender parts on the failing frame. One week on, and I'm already sick of hearing and watching about it.

Politics has always been a ruthless and bloody sport, for certain. However, even though I did not vote for Senator Clinton and strongly disapprove of some of her campaign tactics, I've never been a proponent of being a 'standover man (woman)' of fresh roadkill. Perhaps I'm far too naive for this political world, or perhaps I've greatly underestimated the absolute hate some people harbour toward Senator Clinton (and her husband, too). Either way, beating someone's reputation down as some sort of sport is beyond nauseating to me. I know, I know...the old adage about words never cutting as brutally as a blade...but, really now, is drawing blood the only sign of a 'victor' these days? Perhaps I at least should learn to shield my eyes, if I cannot be shielded by someone else's sense of decency. Lost should not mean the same thing as beaten, even today.

Some writers, like the wonderful John Heilemann in "New York" magazine, do a nice work-up of the 'whys' of the Clinton campaign implosion and even offers up some answers to the numerous 'what ifs' that now dog the it's-all-over-now-Baby-Blue analysis. And...shock...he doesn't resort to an attack on either candidate in his final summation. I'm all for decency and equal treatment in this campaign, but Lord I just wish there was more of it to be found. Mr. Heilemann's article seems to be the exception, unfortunately, and not the rule. I especially have noticed this contrast in popular analysis since last week's primaries.

Clearly, it is open season now and the media smells blood. Even "Saturday Night Live", which just recently got rolled over the coals for a not-so-subtle apparent endorsement of Senator Clinton, did an about-face this weekend and turned in this stinging parody of why Hill's still in (which would have been far funnier, frankly, if so much of it were not so true). Ouch.

"Saturday Night Live" from May 10, 2008. "Message from Hillary Clinton" ®NBC Universal/GE 2008.

Friends, this is ugly stage. And unfortunately for those of us who want practically anyone other than Senator John McCain as the next leader of this land, I fear it will become uglier. After all, we've developed quite the appetite for this kind of 'succeed or you will be crushed' kind of spectacle from our politicians, from our sports heroes, from our celebrities, even from our competitors at work. Turning on Senator Clinton now...despite her numerous and high-profile flaws and successes...says so much more about us as a questionable society than any of her hateful attacks will be remembered for. (Editor's note, May 24: Well, maybe not...after these mind-boggling comments made by Senator Clinton about the late Robert F. Kennedy yesterday. Honestly, these are the type of comments that makes some of Hillary's 'non-believers' question her mental and emotional competence.)

There is an almost breathless and galloping desire, and perhaps an intentionally painful one, to take aim and (hopefully) slay all in the Clinton camp and its campaign She-Beast once and for all...or at least for this Presidential bid. Like an angry and rabid animal tainted with a poison it cannot expel, the media coverage of this candidacy's last gasps is one of sadness, awe, and prolonged anxiety. Something akin to the conjoined Siamese twins taken around tent shows at the beginning of the last century, heralded 'as being human but also not'... simultaneously. When will it end?, they ask. How will she go?, others counter. And, perhaps the question most likely to remain unspoken...how much damage has her campaign done or...(with a raised eyebrow worthy of the best second-rate off-Broadway hack)...how much does it still have left to do?? No withdrawal will be quick enough, no criticism strong enough, no departure graceful enough for our 'press'. At a moment when the media could attempt to stand above the fray and focus on the campaign and issues to come, instead they salivate at the potential threat (hope?) of a Democratic political knife attack. Again, I have no particular love for Senator Clinton, but this media mess harks back a little too close to the contests of the Roman Games for my liking. The more we make it into a cage match, the less it ends up being democracy. Or even anything close.

Media perversity aside, the pressing issue now is not if or when Senator Obama will become the Democratic nominee for President, but rather how (and how badly) the Clinton campaign goes down with the ship...and if she takes Obama and the Party down with her. If she does hang on for dear life, though, blame not Hillary for all of this drama...we Democratic voters, the primary state and national officials, the press, and those affiliated within the Party up and down the line, have created, allowed, and cheered on this all-out pandering circus. Delegate loopholes, legal challenges, racial and sexual and financial baiting, 'bitter' rurals, 'hard-working whites', ad nauseum...you name it, it will be exploited because it's the American way to challenge and bend the rules as we see fit, and especially so during an election year. 'Winner takes all' and all that bullshit. The fact that we look like materialistic, egotistical, trigger-happy, and holier-than-thou buffoons to the rest of the world be damned. This behaviour is what we will be remembered for, no matter who eventually occupies The White House.

And it is also precisely this same behaviour for which we should be, and will be, ashamed.