After Sarah Palin’s stunning resignation, many commentators on the political scene were unsure of her real motives. Even mastermind Karl Rove was “a little perplexed.” On her Facebook Page, Palin offers a myriad of reasons for the move, eventually stating that it will be in Alaska’s and her family’s best interests if she calls it quits as Governor. However, one can rarely take what a politician says at face value. While the debate rages, The Hangover has determined it has been done for one simple and logical reason: Sarah Palin wants to go Hollywood.
There are any number of studios who would throw millions at Palin to make the following movies:
Fargo II: Bismarck
During the campaign (especially in the debates) Palin’s appropriating of Frances McDormand’s “You betcha’s” and homey up-north speech patterns made her an even better Marge Gunderson than Oscar-winner McDormand. In this sequel, Marge (as played by Sarah), guns blazing, would would take down the tall, thin, eloquent, but immoral and corrupt African-American Governor of North Dakota.
Twins (The remake)
In this remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger–Danny Devito vehicle, Palin would team with Tina Fey. Although the comedy of the original was centered around the implausibility of physical opposites Arnold and Devito actually being twins, the fact that Fey and Palin look incredibly alike would make it easier for Republicans and other religious zealots to follow the movie.
Dumb and Dumber: The Girls
This would be another Palin-Fey vehicle, with Fey acting and Palin practically being able to be herself. Here, the trip starts in Wasilla, careens through Anchorage and Dutch Harbor, and then just as it appears that the film will wind up on the Bridge to Nowhere, the pair make it to Siberia. Production costs would be low because the former Soviet Union is so close to Alaska that you can see it from there.
Semi-Pro: The Real Thing
In a cross between a reality show and a bad Will Ferrell comedy, Palin would be given ownership of a WNBA franchise. Known in her younger days as Sarah “Barracuda,” Palin would also play point guard for the team. The camera would follow her on and off the court. Let’s face it, this is about the only way the WNBA could be made even the least bit interesting.
The best Fourth of July rock music will provide audio fireworks for your Independence Day celebration, the most American of holidays. After all, rock and roll is American music. While celebrating the birth of our nation, the 4th also honors all things American: our freedoms, life in the USA, and even summer itself. The songs can be serious, fun, thoughtful, thoughtless, or any combination thereof. While there are plenty that pay homage to American values and virtues, these are the best:
The Hardest Working Man in Show Business sings, hoots, and howls this paean of American life. It was recorded for Rocky IV, in which the cold-war-fighting Rocky ultimately triumphs over the Russian Drago, symbolizing America’s greatest post WWII victory. The American Way prevails. Bonus feature: the film clip is also a great example of bloated American excess.
When one is young, summer is everything. And that time is never more vital than when experienced on the edge between youth and adulthood. This song captures that place and those moments. So much of the American summer is the shore and the boardwalk (or Main Street), and Springsteen draws of a vivid portrait of the yearning that rises there. If you’ve grown up in the US, this song will lead you back to place you know.
This medley of Neil Young songs will hit the highs and lows of the American experience. Rocking in the Free World (from “Freedom’) is a full throttle celebration of freedom in general, and freedom of expression in particular. Yes, we are grateful. But This Note’s for You, on the other hand, skewers the never-ending marketing deluge that Americans face on a daily basis. Everything is for sale here, including integrity. Hopefully, our freedom will prove to be an exception.
For the heartbroken, lonely character of this song, the only thing that “keeps him hanging on” are ”guitars, Cadillacs, and hillbilly music.” This roots rock/country rave recognizes the basis of identitiy for many Americans: Cars and Music.
Once again, The Ramones nail it in the simplest way possible–both lyrically and musically. It’s summer, it’s hot, and they want to escape the city go to the beach. They’ll hitch a ride to get there, too.
The Hangover was tempted to place the entirety of Endless Summer
on this list. The Beach Boys were at one time not just the original California band, but the American Band. They honor the USA with their classic sound here, extolling the virtues of California women and surf culture. No arguments accepted.
The other seminal California band gives us a snapshot of reality–relationship discord and disappointment on the day itself. The singer hopes that the holiday can allow the couple to step outside into the fireworks and regain what they have lost. It’s a heartfelt, urgent slice of American life.
The Declaration of Independence tells Americans they are entitled to certain unalienable rights, one of which is ”The Pursuit of Happiness.” Nothing will stop the Beastie’s from this exercising this right: Not hypocritical parents or a dictatorial educational system. Americans have had to fight to protect the freedoms that we have been given, and the Beastie Boys take this seriously.
On this holiday, one cannot ignore middle-American suburbia, the soil that Cheap Trick tills here. Post-Vietnam America spun off its axis, and Cheap Trick’s portrayal of that era reveals a fissure that while disconcerting is far from fatal. Weirdness is okay. “We’re all alright.”
Chuck Berry’s 1961 cover of Route 66 brought the roadtrip into the rock and roll world. There aren’t many things more American than hopping into a car and just taking off. The virtues of this particularly American escape are echoed by John Hiatt in Drive South, recorded nearly 30 years later.
In this most egalitarian of nations, it’s fitting that even a mediocre rock star can write a great song about his country. It’s a “plastic land” that’s not quite so easy to live in as it appears to be, but it’s even harder to leave. This nuanced, insightful look at the USA delivers much more than what can normally be expected from Miller.
In the 1600’s, the American continent was settled (invaded?) by hardcore religious fanatics kicked out of England. The musket ultimately made that habitation “successful,” and then the Winchester rifle sealed the empire by winning the West. The very foundation of America, therefore, is based on gun and church. The Beat Farmers skewer the irony of this philosophical dichotomy as it exists in modern America.
The Fleshtones pay tribute to the American Rock and Roll sound, so much a part of freedom of speech and our post-1950 cultural heritage. Their homage acknowledges the American sounds of: Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Berry Gordy, Del Shannon, the Del Fuegos, Buddy Holly, the Lyres, the Real Kids, The Modern Lovers, MC5, the Kingsmen, the Plimsouls, LosLobos, Richie Valens, Martha Reaves, and on and on….
Phil Lynott shows depth as a songwriter, philosopher, and poet with a thoughtful ode to American liberty and the need for it to exist throughout the world. It is a poem set to dreamy, textured rock that buoys the hope and need invoked in the lyrics. This is a song that should be heard, especially on the July 4th.
The cover of Esquire’s July 2009 issue is striking: Bar Refaeli wearing nothing but lines from Stephen King’s short story, “Morality.” Yes, it’s taken a naked supermodel and one of America’s literary giants to bring The Hangover out of its spring hibernation.
Read Me, Baby (Esquire, July 2009)
In the past, this space has admonished Esquire for its seemingly fading commitment to the short fiction it once championed. But the editors have just taken a master stroke. A painted, unclothed super model will catch the eye of most men. Then, hopefully, the twisting language of King’s sentences will spur those potential readers to search out the story (page 57) in the magazine. If this kind of heat can sell beer on television, why can’t it work for fiction in a glossy?
The pairing of King and Refaeli is genius. The accompanying photos of the word-paint-splattered supermodel, July’s Esquire “Woman We Love,” speak for themselves. And if there were a statistic that somehow averaged ”book sales” and “literary quality of writing,” it’s likely that Stephen King would sit atop those standings. Make no mistake, his story here is a contemporary, relevant monster.
Now if we could only get some aspiring model to volunteer to be painted in the words of a Hangover Post, cultural satire would reach heights previously considered unattainable. Applications for the position will be gladly accepted.
There’s nothing more off-putting than the shameless self-promotion that permeates American society like a besotted rug three days after a keg party. That being said, the Hangover would like to announce that its editor, Albert Waitt, has a short story in the Spring 2009 (current) issue of Third Coast, an award-winning journal published by Western Michigan University.
Mr. Waitt’s story, “You Open Your Door,” is set in the fictional Laurel, Maine, which does bear some likeness to the town of Kennebunkport. However, any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.
For $9, less than the cost of a martini at a decent bar, you can enjoy some of today’s best literature. Third Coast should be available nationally at your finer book stores (especially those that sell organic coffee and 1000 calorie lattes). It can also be ordered directly from the Third Coast editorial offices:
Third Coast
Western Michigan University
English Department
1903 W Michigan Ave.
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
The right music can help one survive this current recession. No, these songs will not pay the bills or put cash in your pocket, but they can help a person deal with dwindling 401k’s and evaporating bank accounts. Just because you can’t pay your mortgage doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time. Just crank the stereo up to eleven. To that end, the Hangover offers:
The Soundtrack to the Recession:
Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out
by Eric Clapton
This is a blues classic written by Jimmy Cox in 1923 and revived by Eric Clapton on his 1992 MTV Unplugged appearance. Spanning a time prior to the Great Depression through today, the song rings true.
Pertinent lyrics: It’s mighty strange, without any doubt/ Nobody knows you when you’re down and out.
I Hate Banks
by Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper
Yep, let’s face it. There aren’t many institutions more responsible for the bog we’re in than those greedy, unregulated banks. The incomparable Mojo was on to them way back in the ’80’s. We should have listened.
Pertinent lyrics: Republicans, one and all/their tallywackers are mighty small.
Shattered
by The Rolling Stones
Of course, the center of the financial world is New York, New York. And that is where the rot of our economy emanates from. The Stones 1978 paean to the city presciently details the gangrene at its core.
Pertinent lyrics: Uh huh, this town’s full of money grabbers/go ahead, bite the big apple, don’t mind the maggots, uh huh.
Detroit Breakdown
by The J Geils Band
The American auto industry is in critical condition. They can’t build good cars. Design and production have slipped behind the rest of the world. Then their corporate honchos take private jets to Washington to get reamed by Congress when begging for a bailout. And yet, the J Geils band still wants to blow your face out. Unlike the automakers, they’re still relevant.
Pertinent lyrics: Detroit breakdown/yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah/Motor City shakeown/yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Been Caught Stealing
by Jane’s Addiction
This one’s dedicated to Bernie Madhoff, kingpin of the largest Ponzi scheme in history. One can only hope that his backside brings a fair price in Marlboros when introduced to the barter-and-trade prison economy.
Pertinent lyrics: We sat around the pile, sat and laughed/We sat and laughed and waved it into the air
Dazed And Confused
by Led Zeppelin
Nobody has any idea of what’s going on with our economy. Not Jim Cramer, Barack Obama, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bemanke, Warren Buffet, or any other expert one can name. Don’t believe the bellowing; they don’t have any more of a clue than you do. While Led Zep is actually singing about a woman, one needs to look for only the slimmest connection to see that it’s symbolically relevant here.
Pertinent lyrics: You hurt and abused tellin’ all of your lies/Run around sweet baby, lord how they hypnotize
I Hate the Rich
by The Dils
On sheer volume, no one is losing more money than the rich these days. That’s one of the beautiful things about the recession: It hurts us all. Having to sell off a second vacation home can’t wound any less than getting kicked out of your house because you can’t pay the mortgage. And it just has to kill to trade in a BMW for a Toyota. The Dils reflect this attitude quickly and brilliantly.
Pertinent lyrics: I hate the rich/I hate the poor
Takin’ Care Of Business
by Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Unemployment is rising rapidly. Factories are closing. Businesses of all types, from the Washington Redskins to CITI, are laying off and cutting back. Soon enough, people won’t even have enough money to eat at fast food restaurants, and then the only growing sector of our economy–the service industry–will stagnate, too. BTO offers a positive life plan for those without employment: Doing nothing.
Pertinent lyrics: Look at me I’m self-employed/I love to work at nothing all day/And I’ll be…/Taking care of business every day/Taking care of business every way.
Can’t Buy Me Love
by The Beatles
So, you don’t have any money. Neither does anyone else. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have what’s important in life: Sex. Put away those miserable banks statements, go out, and hook up. Why not?
Pertinent Lyrics: I don’t care too much for money/Money can’t buy me love
Chocolate Cake
by Crowded House
It’s possible that one might feel bad about having to cut back on personal spending, unneeded opulence, and gluttony. Stop the self pity. This Crowded House song, a biting satire on the fat-and-happy American way of life, will make you glad you gave it all up–even if it wasn’t by choice.
Pertinent lyrics: Now the excess of fat on your American bones/Will cushion the impact as you sink like a stone
Bank Robber
by The Clash
The singer’s father is a bankrobber who “never hurt nobody.” That can’t be said for those running the banking industry today–or for the numbskulls who took on mortgages that a molecule of common sense would have told them were criminally unrealistic. But as the Clash point out, we’re facing worse challenges.
Pertinent lyrics: The old man spoke up in a bar/Said I never been in prison/A lifetime serving one machine/Is ten times worse than prison
Low Budget
by The Kinks
Ray Davies was one of rock’s first socially conscious songwriters. He remains one of the best. Back in the ’70’s Davies rocked the cycle of economic calamity. His advice: Cut back and draw a pint. We’ll get over it.
Pertinent Lyrics: Money’s rare, there’s none to be found/So don’t think I’m tight if I don’t buy a round.
Catholic Stonehill College recently prohibited students from distributing free condoms in student dormitories, as reported in the Boston Globe. A group of students had collected the condoms from family planning agencies and placed boxes of them in residences on campus. However, when the “higher-ups” at the Catholic college found out about the birth control and sexually-transmitted-disease preventatives, they were confiscated. Hopefully, no students were burned at the stake for the transgression.
So, is it Stonehill or Catholics in general who don’t believe in birth control or disease prevention? But that is a negative positing of the issue. Perhaps Catholics are simply in favor of spreading life-threatening disease and unwanted pregnancies.
Unprotected sex can result in unwanted pregnancies.
Unprotected sex can spread STD’s, of which AIDS can be fatal.
Condoms can help prevent the transimission of said diseases and unwanted pregnancies.
Apparently, Stonehill finds it more important (and morally ethical) to operate under an antiquated, lets-produce-more-Catholics policy than to allow students to look out for the welfare of their peers. The Hangover is no Biblical scholar, but caring for your fellow man was one of Jesus’s messages. In unison, the Catholic church and the educators at Stonehill have goose-stepped away from that tenet. It is the height of hypocrisy.
Examine the following scenario: There’s a fellow who studies hard, carefully examining his favorite subject, religion, on every level. However, he’s a social type and a binge drinker of wine. All his cavorting leads him into a relationship with a young woman of loose morals; some might call her a whore. At this point, nothing can stop them from having sexual relations. One would think that even the Pope would want young Jesus to wrap his rascal when getting down with Mary Magdalene–if only to preclude the work of Dan Brown. It would seem that the Catholic church has enough problems without crusading against the students at its universities.
As the Hangover careened down the frozen food aisle with a full cart, little did he expect to find a cardboard display selling Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. How does a writer this good wind up just past sub-zero waffles, pancakes, and breakfast sandwiches?
It’s obvious as to why a supermarket would be an effective spot for selling the biggest and best piece of chick lit written this century. The Hangover bought the book for the missus two Christmases ago. She loved it. And it has to have been read by every women’s book group in the country by now. But to reach the five or six females in every town who may have somehow missed it, the grocery store seems a dream venue.
Gilbert is no Michael Crichton or Nora Roberts, whose trashy paperbacks formerly comprised the top echelon of supermarket literature. Gilbert can write–extremely well. That she has to be placed in the vicinity of TGI Friday’s jalapeno poppers and Jackie Collins’ Fabio-covered drivel is unfortunate. On the other hand. while the rest of the economy is tanking, Gilbert’s personal GNP continues to rise.
Although The Hangover has not read Eat, Pray, Love (yet), I have read and enjoyed her fiction. Stern Men, set in Maine, is a rollicking, funny novel with depth. It’s John Irving-lite, and that is meant with no disrespect. Pilgrims,Gilbert’s short story collection from 1997, is brilliant. Gilbert’s a sharp, incisive writer and her stories are tough, humorous, and engaging.
While eschewing Oprah-ness, Pilgrims should still appeal to the same women who enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love. Here’s the opening from the story, Landing:
“I lived in San Francisco for three months and only slept with one person, a redneck from Tennessee. I could have done that back home and saved myself a lot of rent money. A city full of educated, successful men and I went after the first guy I saw wearing a John Deere hat.”
Or how about this one from, Come and Fetch These Stupid Kids
”Margie and Peg were arrested after they got drunk on the chef’s cooking wine and went into the parking lot and rubbed butter on the windshield of every car parked there. It was late at night. It was also late in September, and long past the end of tourist season.”
The Hangover can live with the shock of seeing Gilbert placed in the neighborhood of French toast, onion rings, and Danielle Steele. Now if the powers that be could only see fit to add Pilgrims and Stern Men to the kiosk, they’d be doing their customers a real service.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has come out with this definitive statement on the Alex Rodriguez steroid scandal: A-Rod has “shamed the game.” The reverberations of Bud’s comments will shake the foundation of the sport to its performance-enhanced roots. What shortstop pocketing millions of dollars could live with himself knowing that if he shoots himself in the ass with HGH he’ll cast a shadow over the game?
ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt was recently suspended for saying that Selig was “someone who looks like a computer programmer, substitute teacher or government worker” and that Selig’s 18.5 million dollar salary caused Van Pelt to choke on his own vomit. Van Pelt continued by stating that Selig was a “pimp for real. He probably has a chalice with ‘B-U-D’ spelled out in jewels and diamonds. You drink from a chalice if you’re a pimp.” Van Pelt couldn’t have been more wrong. Pimps have girls and hookers and whores. Bud only supervised drug users. He just didn’t realize it. And no one can blame him for that: He was a car dealer, not McNulty from The Wire.
There was no way Bud could have known that drugs had infiltrated his sport. He was not yet commissioner and wasn’t in Fenway when 30,000 Sox fans chanted “STER-OIDS” at Jose Canseco in the 1990 playoffs. Apparently, the average drunken Bostonain realized something that neither baseball executives nor sportswriters could figure out. But the well-above-average intelligence of Northeasterners should not reflect poorly on Bud.
Of course, there were the proportionally increasing size of players and home run totals. Starting in 1999, the record for number of homers passed 61 (established in 1961) with Mark Mcgwire’s 65, eventually landing on Barry Bond’s 73 in 2001. During that time McGwire went from ” big guy” to ”muscle bound freak,” and a once-normal Bonds turned into the Incredible Hulk with a Volkswagen Bug for a head. One can surmise that Bud was busy investigating if baseballs had become too tightly wound and why there were so many bad pitchers, the most likely explanations for all the long balls.
Ultimately, however, Bud can take credit for exposing the performance enhancing drug problem in the sport. If not for Selig’s complete ignorance of the issue, Jose Canseco’s memoir, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big, would have never had the impact it did. Upon the book’s release, Congress felt compelled to step in and address the problem, with Bud doing his best impression of Captain Binghamtom in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. No, Bud didn’t come off as knowing anything or having a clue, but by the nature of his exemplary ineptness, he brought about the machinations that have begun to clean up the sport.
Now when Bud talks, baseball listens. Right after it stops laughing.
Two American Heroes: Capt. Wallace B. Binghamton and Bud Selig
After the NFC Championship game, Kurt Warner thanked Jesus for his performance and the Arizona Cardinals’ win. In yesterday’s Super Bowl, Warner was nearly great, throwing for 377 yards and three touchdowns. But he also gakked up a game-changing interception for a Steeler TD at the end of the first half and then fumbled in the closing seconds when heaving a Hail Mary to god-like wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald could have provided victory. In post-game remarks, Kurt did not thank Jesus for this lesson in humility.
The question remains, why would Jesus abandon one of his biggest supporters in his time of need? Perhaps Jesus was worn out from nefariously influencing NBC executives into banning PETA’s harmless “Vegetarians Have Better Sex” commercial. While NBC’s shows are populated with hot actresses (the awesome Friday Night Lights anyone?), apparently they are not allowed on-screen with broccoli, asparagus, and pumpkins. Irregardless, the Hangover hopes that the meat-eating, having-lousy-sex citizens of Pittsburgh are enjoying themselves.
As for the rest of us, time to start ordering salads:
Abercrombie & Fitch’s new advertisement (available here), filmed in Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, is a tour de force of sociological documentary filmmaking. While some critics may see the spot as just another attempt to sell shirts by exploiting sexy models and the retro rhythm and blues of Duffy’s “Mercy,” in reality the piece underscores the dire economic conditions and resulting anomie facing the region.
The opening shot of stately coastal homes and sailboats establishes a seemingly exclusive and monied setting. However, this feint is followed by a reel of hard-hitting economic reality. The black and white format adds the existential gravity of film noir.
The lack of a shirt on the male character immediately symbolizes a grave issue facing young people in Maine today. There is an undeniable lack of well-paying jobs for those in the “recently graduated” demographic. Many of our educated youth are forced to leave the state in search of employment in Boston, New York, or even the West Coast. Those who stay often can’t afford clothes. It may come to down to a choice of wearing a shirt or pants.
There are shots of the young man hauling a row boat to the shore, an indictment of the dying fishing industry. Subsequent scenes of him running with his dog show how Maine men have been reduced to their most primitive state: That of the pre-historic hunter-gatherer who domesticated wolves to aid his survival.
The young woman in the piece also reinforces the theme. Her first extended scene shows her driving. She is coming from somewhere else, both in place and in opportunity. Her face is serious and determined. She knows the hardship her man is facing. The film ends with the couple embracing in a field, though it is clearly established that he will be leaving with her. Oppurtunity and hope exist where she lives. There he will be able to afford pants and a shirt.
& 
, 
al offices:
Gilbert’s short story collection from 1997, is brilliant. Gilbert’s a sharp, incisive writer and her stories are tough, humorous, and engaging.
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