Friday Folly: Disney on Ice vs. the Sarah Palin Drinking Game
James Hanley on Oct 3rd 2008
Once again I caught the last 20 minutes of the debate, this time in the car driving home from Disney on Ice at the Palace of Auburn Hills (the Auburn Hill, apparently, is the giant landfill looming over the arena). Here are some random thoughts, appropriate only to a casual Friday.
Disney on Ice is tolerable, just barely so, if you do the following: (1) Commit to the 8 bucks for a beer, and (2) watch the looks on your kids’ faces instead of what’s happening on the ice.
Despite the show being an intolerably long commercial for Disneyland–”the happiest place on earth,” my ass–and the outrageous price of $10 for a snowcone, or a bag of cotton candy, or a box of popcorn (which we self-righteously refused to pay, as popcorn should never cost more than beer), I still couldn’t help being impressed by the production value of the show. Disney clearly spent a fortune on props and costumes, and visually the show was absolutely stunning.
To my utter shock, Disney animatronic dolls singing “It’s a small world after all,” are less annoying than Sarah Palin’s voice! Until now, the “It’s a small world ride” was my standard for most annoying sounds in the universe. While Britney Spears rates only an 8.5 out of 10 on the Small World Scale, and Celine Dion achieves a 9.5, Palin smashes the scale and sets a new standard with an 11. Yes, like my poor wife once was, I’d rather be stuck in the “It’s a Small World Ride” for half an hour than spend that much time listening to Palin’s reedy timbre and bizarre accent–to me she sound like she’s doing a purposefully offensive imitation of an Ely, Minnesota accent.
Next time she talks I’m playing the Sarah Palin Drinking Game. I know all politicians like platitudes, but her abysmal lack of knowledge forces her to rely almost wholly on repeated stock phrases: Maverick, We’re So Blessed, Grow the Economy, It’s about Jobs, etc. If my wife and I had been playing in the car we would’ve been DUI after the first “answer” we heard.
And finally, Sarah, this one is directed to you. Alaska is not the heartland! It’s the last frontier, and a wildly cool place, but it is not the heartland. Listen to me, I grew up in Indiana–Indiana is heartland. John Mellencamp said so Alaska is way too far off the beaten, and way too likely to attract loners and cause cabin fever, to ever be heartland.
But while you’re playing your little game of “I’m more authentic because I’m from Wasilla,” just ponder this: I’m from a town that’s dwarfed by Wasilla–my hometown had less than 1,500 people–but then I moved to San Francisco and L.A., and what I found there was authentic people, people just trying to live their lives, getting up for work in the morning, struggling to pay the rent or the mortgage, helping out their friends, and enjoying a summer cookout. So please stop playing the “We’re America, they’re not” game. Because this small town boy is tired of you insulting my friends.
The winner is…the Sarah Palin drinking game: Because the beer costs $8 at the Palace, and they don’t have scotch; watching Palin from my couch I can afford to get liquored up with my favorite drinks.
Filed in The Basement
To my utter shock, Disney animatronic dolls singing “It’s a small world after all,” are less annoying than Sarah Palin’s voice!
You know, I think you nailed it for me here. As a likely (gulp) McCain voter who watched the first 15 minutes of the debate last night, I think I can say, with pride, that I have listened to ‘Small World’ more this year than I have Sarah Palin. And I intend to keep it that way.
I used to work real close to the Palace, from ‘93 to ‘97, had a few too many at the Acadia (sp?) across the street on M-24 during beer-thirty. I remember the “hill” fondly, I drove by it every workday.
I assume you saw my comment post at Brayton’s blog where I scored the debate. While I counted 42 false assertions by Palin, there are actually a couple I missed, the biggest whopper I missed is that she claimed to have led the effort to disinvest Alaskan holdings with Sudan when in fact she was the primary opposition. Her only interview since then, with Fixed News Infotainment host Carl Cameron neglected to bring that whopper up.