Chuck Heath

No, we’re not invited…

Even so, we can all wish Sarah’s parents, Chuck and Sally Heath, a Happy 50th Anniversary on July 30.

Sarah sinks ever lower: will sign “books” with Bristol at Minnesota mall

So desperate is Sarah for cheap and easy publicity–and a few extra bucks–that, as Associated Press reports, on Wednesday, she’ll be horning in on her daughter’s first “book” tour appearance at the Barnes & Noble in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Pure coincidence, of course, that Michelle Bachmann (aka “The Sarah Palin of 2011/2012”) is from Minnesota.

Someone less cynical about the Palins than I am might look at this as a manifestation of motherly love and show of support for a daughter whose “screw & tell” memoir hasn’t even cracked the amazon.com top 500 list despite Bristol’s appearance on Good Morning America today.

As I’ve made clear in earlier posts, I simply do not care about Bristol. Nor about any of Sarah’s other children, except for continuing to wonder who really gave birth to Trig.

I care about the phenomenon of Sarah only because–by many light years–she was the least qualified and most deranged person ever nominated for the presidency or vice presidency of the United States, and because she continues to successfully seduce the Beltway chattering class.

“To be or not to be,” is no longer the question. Now it’s, “Will she or won’t she?”

Like water, however, trash seeks its own level. Sarah’s appearance alongside her no-talent daughter at a Minnesota shopping mall is the clearest indicator yet that the 2008 Republican candidate for vice president of the United States is finally becoming not the national leader she never could have been, but part of our national landfill.

And in case you were wondering, no, I won’t be bringing Levi along on my own tour for THE ROGUE in September and October. (Media appearances already arranged in New York, Washington, Toronto, Alaska, Seattle and Los Angeles.)

Honestly, I’m not desperate enough to sit behind a table in a Minnesota shopping mall.

Although I willingly appeared on Fox & Friends with my son, Joe McGinniss Jr., when his novel, THE DELIVERY MAN (soon to be a major motion picture) was published in 2008.

Here’s a difference between McGinniss books and Palin “books.” Joe Jr. and I write our own: Sarah and Bristol aren’t able to do that.

And here’s another difference: neither my son Joe nor I would ever use/abuse a child the way Sarah did Trig at her Going Rogue signing at The Villages, Florida, in November, 2009.

I was there, in the company of my great friend Ray Hudson, of Newcastle, England, who after a brilliant career as a soccer player has become the world’s best soccer announcer for whom English is a first language. In his recent extraordinary profile of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, Jere Longman of the NYTimes made clear how Ray and only Ray can transliterate Messi’s genius into English. If anyone thinks world-class soccer is boring (I readily concede that the sub-standard version played in the U.S. is yawn-inducing), please check out this one clip among dozens on YouTube wherein Ray Hudson demonstrates that it’s not. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyEls-EqdOY

Ray flew up from Fort Lauderdale so I wouldn’t have to endure the Palin appearance at The Villages, an hour north of Orlando, on my own.

And thank God he did. Even in his great company, it was an ordeal.

But I snapped out of my torpor and into parent/grandparent mode when I saw how Sarah mistreated Trig.

As I write in THE ROGUE:

She emerges [from her bus], holding Trig. Once the TV cameras and still photographers have had their fill, she hands him off to an assistant, who soon puts him down on the asphalt parking lot and lets him crawl. The lot is covered with broken glass, cigarette butts, and old chewing gum, and Trig is barefoot. Eventually, Piper comes along and puts him in a stroller.

This is almost the full monty, family-wise. Chuck and Sally and old Aunt so-and-so, plus Piper and Trig. Chuck and Sally work the crowd. Leaving Trig in the stroller, so does Piper. She’s eight years old and has the fake smile of a ten-term congressman. For some reason this sticks with me as the saddest sight I see all day.

And now, on Wednesday, in a Minnesota shopping mall, patrons will get a twofer: Sarah and Bristol showing off their fake, smarmy smiles side by side as they peddle their fake books.

Sarah: where’s Trig?

Bristol: where’s Tripp?

Can either of you care about anybody but yourselves?

p.s. I’ve said I don’t care about Bristol or Levi and I don’t. But when they start poaching on my turf–taking up space in book stores with their whiny, self-aggrandizing, adolescent tripe–I’d be remiss not to point out the difference between thoroughbred race horses (i.e. Geoffrey Dunn and myself) and the steaming piles of shit said horses leave on the ground behind them (i.e. Sarah, Bristol, etc.)

Tornadoes Kill, Wreak Havoc in Massachusetts, State of Emergency Declared: Will Sarah Palin Care?//UPDATE: Oslo’s Okay!



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tornadoes ripped through central/western Massachusetts just south of where I live today.

I was out and about and came home to find my wife prudently taking cover in our basement.

Our twelve-year old Norwegian elkhund, Oslo, was out when the storms hit and we still can’t find him.

Yet we were spared. Look at what happened in Springfield and surrounding towns.

As The New York Times reports, at least four were killed and damage was horrendous.

The Sarahbus en route from New York to Boston made it through unscathed, as did the media scrum following in its wake.

The question now is whether Sarah will change her itinerary in order to “comfort” victims here, as she did in Alabama last month.

Two reasons why I doubt it:

1) Sarah could never win our state’s electoral votes.

2) Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Pursestrings’ film crews are not on hand to record her offering a helping hand, as they were a month ago in Alabama.

No doubt, she’ll continue on to New Hampshire tomorrow, for her seashore clambake with Republican leaders there.

That’s okay. We don’t need her or Graham’s religious-right wing “charity,” whose purse strings go both ways (mostly emptying directly into his pocket.)

Maybe Sarah’s dad, Chuck Heath, could use his tracking skills to help us find Oslo, who ran into the woods behind our house at the first sound of thunder, but that’s okay, too.

I have no doubt the old boy will make it back home on his own, once he knows the storms have passed.

But we get hit with tornadoes for the first time in decades, just when Sarah’s bus is passing through?

Please, Sarah:  stay away from my back yard and I promise I’ll never move in next door to you again.

Also, take mercy on poor little Piper and don’t drag her along on the next leg of your “family vacation” from hell.

UPDATE:

OSLO turned up this morning, wondering where his breakfast was.  Seems none the worse for wear.  Had no comment on where he’d spent the night.  Thanks from Nancy and me to all of you who so graciously expressed such concern.

Actually, this is getting old fast…//UPDATE: Piper hits the wall, Sarah runs straight through it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was thinking of writing a piece for The Daily Beast about a Palin appearance in New England this week.

But I’m not going to play hide-and-seek.  So, Sarah, you can relax–at least until Sept. 20 when THE ROGUE will be published.

Seriously, how far does she think this “Close your eyes and count to twenty, then catch-me-if-you-can” approach will take her?

Actually, knowing her, and knowing MSM, I’m sure she thinks–with some justification–that it can take her all the way to the White House.

Even still, I feel sorry for the reporters assigned to the bus tour beat.

And I have an idea for MSM editors: un-assign them.

There’s a lot of talent out there chasing after ephemera.

And, as with the dog chasing the school bus, it’s only worse if you catch it.

Here’s something else, and uglier:  Sarah used Trig as her photo-op prop on her Going Rogue tour in the fall of 2009.

Now, almost two years later, that poor Down Syndrome child is neither so photogenic nor so manageable, so he’s off (or under) the bus.

So it’s Piper who has to fill in.  Do you think that poor girl had a choice?

Last summer, Sarah complained long and loud that I’d moved in next door because I wanted to peer at Piper through her bedroom window.

Her hot-to-trot flunkies like Beck and Van Susteren made that slanderous accusation into a right-wing meme.

But the notion was so silly and sick that I couldn’t even get mad about it.

I do, however, have granddaughters who are just about Piper’s age.

Their mothers and fathers have nurtured them since birth, and continue to do so.  I can’t wait to see them again in July.

But what about poor Piper, reduced to a photo-op, and with no chance to opt off the bus?

The only time I saw Piper—I never laid eyes on her last summer—was at a Sarah book-signing at The Villages, Florida, just before Thanksgiving, 2009, when I reported on the event as part of my research for THE ROGUE.

I was appalled to see the poor girl ushered up to a FOX News platform for makeup before Sarah brought her on camera during an interview with one of the Fox blondes about what a swell Thanksgiving they were all going to have.

Trig, at least, was too young and too Down to know how he was being used.

Piper was being taught to love it.

And it’s only going to get worse.

In the end, there are three things to remember about Sarah:

1)  Everything she says and does is fraudulent.

2)  She cares about no one but herself.

3)  She believes that God has told her that 1) and 2) are okay and that any harm she does to her children is merely collateral damage.

 

UPDATE:

Here’s one of the great things about kids: they can upstage even the Ultimate Upstager.

End of her first day on the bus, and poor little Piper is pissed.  As Michael D. Shear reports for The New York Times:

The youngest Palin daughter looked none to happy to be delayed by the press corps, and repeatedly tugged at her mother’s arm during the questions. At one point, she said, “Mom, let’s go.”



After all this, I wouldn’t be surprised if in ten years Piper Palin joins Al Qaeda.

Sarah’s Magical Mystery Tour

 

 

I wonder if this time she’ll really ride the bus.

Doesn’t look like there’s much space on the side for an ad for THE ROGUE, but I’ll ask Crown to inquire anyway.

At least this will give us all a chance to get out and say hi to Sarah in person–maybe our last chance.

And it will get Chuck and Sally and Piper out of  Alazona for a while, and it also gets Trig out of mothballs.

More seriously, it will be a genuine test of how far Sarah’s star has fallen since the Going Rogue days in the fall of 2009.

And, of course, it may be the quasi-official start of her 2012 presidential campaign.

I’m sure she’s anticipating huge cheering throngs at every stop.  Do you think she’ll get them?

Any thoughts as to which of Sarah’s band of Merry Pranksters will be on board?  Meg Stapleton?  Rebecca Mansour?  Franklin Graham?  Greta Van Susteren?  Mary Glazier?  Andrew Breitbart?  William Kristol?  Shailey Tripp?

Whoever Sarah chooses for the cast, I’m sure they’ll have a rollicking good time on the road.

Although I doubt the new tour will dethrone Ken Kesey and the original Merry Pranksters from number one on the “Best Bus Tours of All Time” list.

 

Dateline, Wasilla: HS Principal Bans Song Because Gay Man Wrote It//UPDATE: Will they ban the movie in Wasilla, too?///UPDATE 1.1: Which One Is Gay?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WASILLA HS  STUDENTS REHEARSING “BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY”


The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reports today that the principal of Wasilla High School told members of the school’s symphonic jazz choir that they would not be allowed to perform the 1975 Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody” because Freddy Mercury, who wrote it, was gay.

In the face of student protests, and fearing ACLU involvement, the principal backed down–to a point.

The choir will be allowed to perform the song, but only in a censored version, without lyrics the principal deems objectionable.

Three points about this:

1) Bravo to Wasilla High seniors for fighting back.

2) Wasilla High has a symphonic jazz choir? Humph. They never had that sort of thing in Sarah Palin’s day.

3) In Wasilla, in the Year of Our Lord 2011, there can be controversy about a song simply because the songwriter was gay.   Sarah Palin is, in every way, a daughter of Wasilla.  If this is what it’s like in 2011, imagine the ethos in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, when she grew up there.

Actually, you won’t have to imagine, because I describe the atmosphere in detail in THE ROGUE.

UPDATE:

Sacha Baron Cohen (“Borat”) will portray Freddy Mercury in a new movie being written by Peter Morgan, who wrote “The Queen” and “The Last King of Scotland.”   Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Productions is producing it.

I’m sure my friend Verne Rupright, current mayor of Wasilla, will take no action to prevent its showing in Wasilla theaters, but it might have been a different story back in the days of Sarah Palin’s mayoral regime.

Even so, the question remains:  will Wasilla High students be permitted to attend?

Two further notes about Mercury:  he was actually bisexual, not homosexual, and (here’s where it gets truly sinister) his real name was Farrokh Bulsara, and he was a Parsi Zoroastrian born in Zanzibar.  That alone should be enough to ban his music from Wasilla High playlists forevermore.  Can’t those kids sing songs written by Americans?  I wonder if Chuck Heath will weigh in on this.

UPDATE 1.1

The estimable Alaskan blogger, composer, musician and music teacher, Phil Munger, posts this photo of Wasilla High School principal Dwight Probasco, who banned Freddie Mercury’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and another non-hetero British singer and songwriter, Elton John, and poses the question: Separated at Birth?

Phil also writes:

“My feathers are ruffled. If Wasillians are going to be consistent, they’ll need to ban the following composers and their work:

Samuel Barber – No more Adagio for Strings, Dwight
Leonard Bernstein – Don’t you dare play anything from West Side Story, my friend
Aaron Copland – Watch out for those hidden messages in Fanfare for the Common Man
Noël Coward – no more Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Charles Tomlinson Griffes – careful, Dwight, a piece for flute or piano might sneak into a solo and ensemble contest
Elton John – empty the sky, Dwight. Right now!
Dave Koz – he was a hit in Anchorage, but don’t play his version ofWhite Christmas at WHS
k.d. lang – put her in Shadowland forever, Dwight
Gian Carlo Menotti – those little operas have been done at thousands of high schools, but keep away from Dwight
Cole Porter – there go about 500 really good songs, Dwight
Stephen Sondheim – Gypsy, West Side Story, A Little Night Music orCompany. Oh – wait! West Side Story’s already banned because of Lenny
Billy Strayhorn – Can’t Take the A Train if you’re a WHS Warrior
Peter Tchaikovsky – What was the secret message in The Nutcracker, Dwight?”

Oh, and by the way, Principal Probasco, Phil Munger isn’t gay, so maybe you’ll let him attend the graduation performance of the censored version of “Bohemian Rhapsody?”

Sarah Palin’s Fantasy Life: UPDATE

When nothing else seems to be working, Sarah can be relied upon to conjure fantasies of older men coveting her daughters.

Palingates asks, “Why are sexual and other threats against her daughters such a recurring theme in Sarah Palin’s life? Why does she repeatedly paint an image where her daughters are the objects of men’s fantasies?…Who is sexualizing Sarah Palin’s underage daughters? Who’s conjuring up images involving sexual violence against her daughters again and again and again?”

Well, we all know that answer to that one: Chuck Heath’s middle daughter, that’s who.

And Papa Chuck makes sure to say, “we armed ourselves.” Just as they did against Trooper Mike Wooten.

As the father of two daughters, I can’t help but feel sorry for Sarah’s. What an atmosphere in which to grow up.

UPDATE: Jesse Griffin at Immoral Minority has spoken to Shawn Christy, the young man against whom Sarah obtained the restraining order.