Oh, Silverman, My Silverman.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Well, Sarah, I was going to visit my relatives in Nebraska, but it looks like they don't need me. And my family left Michigan and Virginia a long time ago.

Personally, I'm going to Nevada, since I can afford it if I drive, and stay at cheap hotels. I wish they would tell me what city/county I'll be assigned to, since I need to start looking for cheap rooms.

I usually eschew Motel 6, because of the paper-thin walls and the lack of Wi-Fi; my favorite cheap digs tend to be Holiday Inns (especially Holiday Inn Expresses). But I'm doing this if I have to sleep in a tent for the ten days before the election. (How I'll get internet access in a tent is not clear: maybe I'll do the overpriced Starbucks/T-Mobile hot spot thing until after the election. Or maybe I'll find a local Denny's, where the internet connection is free!)

Keep in mind that any Western state (other than California) is more vulnerable than it looks, because of the libertarian philosophy in the West.

(No; McCain is not a good libertarian, but Palin is, and she's clearly going to be an active VP—an uber-chief-of-staff, a la Cheney—rather than the kind who just "sits around and waits for the President to die, as the job was characterized a couple of decades ago. And even if age ere not a factor, I do not believe John McCain is shooting for a second term: he has his protegé ready, and four years will do it to train her.)

So it isn't just a question of us being able to take New Mexico, which we will. I also believe we could pick up Washington state (maybe even Oregon, but I don't trust the polls that place that state in the pale blue column).

Thanks to David Linden.

P.S. Sarah, my stepfather—a Jewish genetics prof at UCLA, drove a VW bug. Professor Purkinje—a Jewish biology prof—drives a Passat. But my stepmother—a Jewish artist—drives a Lexus SUV.

So are my step-parents cool? Do academicians get an exemption? Or are they naughty, naughty, bad Jews? Please let me know.

I used to have a bug—a blue 1969 that I adored. But it's okay because I'm a shiksa, right? According to Sandra Bernhard, that makes all the difference, and will get me lots of niggah dick. So I got that going for me.

So it's politically correct for me to read the New Testament, as I understand it, but not the Old—even if I skip the first five books. I'm trying so hard.

I'm still worried about that 1969 Volksie bug, though, from when I was 22 years old. It finally got stolen; does that mean I'm in the clear? Let's say my stepmom succeeds in teaching me how to make her exquisite, delicate matzo-ball soup—with very little salt, no chicken chunks in it at all, and more dill than I usually get. (Basically, it's the polar opposite of the deli-style matzo-ball soup I tend to go for when I'm sick.) I think I nearly had an orgasm last night as I was eating it.

Will that do it, Sandra? Mastering that recipe? I so want to be acceptable to you, and I'm on pins and needles right now . . .

UPDATE: You guys got that, right? One of the points I'm making here is that there is a different between between edgy/provocative and just being an offensive asshole.

Lots of people are angry. Anger can help a person be funny—if she/he has the right personality quirk—but it is not a substitute therefor. Learn it, Sarah: live it. You're a great actress, but you know what?—you've never made me laugh. Never.

Silverman could shit on a CD , and when I stuck it in the Cruiser's stereo, it would make me laugh, whether I agreed with its underlying point of view or not.

That's something, BTW, that neither Lisa Nova nor Tina Fey's writers at Saturday Night Live seem to get about Sarah Palin impressions. Nova's first skit about Palin played off of the idea that a war hero might need help, and that a woman with a strong personality might be more than he bargained for ("um, I thought you'd help with the annual White House Easter Egg Hunt . . . "). Classic sitcom-ish dynamic in which a man's man has to deal with an equally assertive woman, and figure out how to deal with it. There wasn't any underlying truth about the McCain figure being "weak," but we put up with it because it was funny to see Sarah's strong personality blown out to an extreme.

That first skit was fine. Now we're being treated to "Sarah is an idiot, and there's not a thing wrong with the way the Charlie Gibson interview was set up, planned, or edited." So, goodbye Lisa Nova.

The first Tina Fey portrayal of Sarah Palin was as much about the "Hillary" character (Amy Poehler) coming to terms with the Palin candidacy as it was about Palin herself—possibly more so. Again, as with the "man coping with a strong woman" archetype Lisa Nova played with in her first crack at Palin, it was funny because it caught a underlying truth about female relationships: we really, really, really want other women to be successful. Unless there is any hint that another woman's success might cut into the tiniest sliver of our own. At that point, many of us—even the staunchest feminists—turn on a dime and see if we can get these other fucking bitches out of our own fucking sandbox, as quickly as possible.

But Saturday Night Live has also abandoned any attempts at humor with respect to Sarah Palin, and now we're back to "Sarah's really an idiot." Goodbye, SNL.