I admit it. I love to read about Sarah Palin. I don’t want to, but I do. It violates my most basic sense of self-worth. I hate that I spend time reading about her that could be spent so much more constructively, doing things like putting lit cigarettes in my nose or making little hats for my cats. I hate that I have this disorder that makes me want to hang on the most insipid things she says. Yes, it is out of morbid curiosity and a fascination with how someone like her can appeal to so many people. Yes, they are tea-bagging lemmings, but really: Would you ever in your wildest dreams imagine the wolf-killing, anti-environment, semi-literate soccer mom who sees Russia from Alaska would ever command as much attention — and money — that she does?
And now she’s going to have her own television show, the much anticipated (by some) eight-part series Sarah Palin’s Alaska, on the Learning Channel, which is owned by the Discovery Channel. She is going to make a hefty fortune for it and will probably shoot some wolves or polar bears in the process, although that probably won’t make the final cut. So my dilemma is whether to call DIRECTV and have TLC and Discovery removed from my service and boycott all businesses that advertise on the show — or do I allow myself the cheap and tawdry thrill of watching to see how bad it is and then boycott all of the businesses that advertise on the show?
See, reading about her and actually watching her are two entirely different things. I like reading murder mysteries, but I’ve never wanted to see anyone killed. I like reading about natural disasters, but I don’t wish them to happen. I can find humor in reading the things Palin says (her recent comments about whether anyone could possibly not want America to be a militarily dominant world superpower and the fact that she dislikes universities like Harvard were priceless). But seeing her in all her huntin’ and fishin’ glory might prove to be just too much.
She always looks to me like she isn’t clean. Yes, the makeup is done well, but she looks to me like she doesn’t shower before they fancy her up. I’m not sure why that is; it’s just a gut feeling. I bet her feet smell. The very idea that I think about Sarah Palin’s feet is more unsettling to me than I could ever explain to anyone in this lifetime, no matter how long or short it turns out to be. I get it in my mind when I see her, and I have to immediately start singing the same thing over and over with my hands covering my eyes to distract myself from thinking about it. I don’t know what this says about me as a person. It can’t be good. It’s probably terrible.
It’s like every time I see Courtney Love. She looks filthy. But I do worship her in some ways, especially for that Dave Letterman show on which she appeared and was messed up out of her mind and flashed her breasts at him repeatedly and got arrested at a club the following night for allegedly hitting a guy with a microphone stand, which she denied. She also joked on the show about getting busted for having one expired Percocet. See, you can be kind of dirty and get away with things like that, but not if you are running for the office of vice president of the United States.
So what should I do? I’m asking this in a public forum because I have a feeling someone might let me know in the comments area on the online version of this column. I was killing some time the other day and glanced through some of the comments and there were some from someone from Palin’s Wasilla Assembly of God (WAG), or someone at least pretending to be. I so hope they are for real. That would be fantastic for my resume someday. I already had the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center contact me directly after I made one comment about that organization in general, not the Nashville branch, and they were very nice. The guy from WAG (you don’t know how much I wish the church’s name was the Jamboree Wasilla Assembly of God so the acronym could be JWAG!) was pretty nice too. He just told me that they don’t have an underground bunker for the End Times but that they should have a better plan in place.
Maybe when Palin makes her next few million dollars for speaking at tea-bagging conventions, she can help them build a bunker. I know she doesn’t attend church there like she used to, but building a bunker for the Rapture could make for some great television
