Cardinal Sins

I feel like by this point in my life I should know this, but if you told me to turn east (or west or north or south), I’d pretty much have a 25 percent chance of turning the right way. And I know I am not alone in this. Sarah Palin doesn’t know her north from south either. She once told Glenn Beck that we must “stand with our North Korean allies.” She also struggles with east and west because in a campaign speech she said that New Hampshire was in the “Great Northwest.”

Speaking of the Great Northwest, I recently moved to Washington, so I know from experience that New Hampshire is not located here. Neither is Brooklyn. I mention Brooklyn because apparently my publishers struggle with geography too: the bio on my book cover says I live in Brooklyn, New York. I don’t know why. I’ve never even lived there. Maybe I lied and told them I did because it sounded cool.

Well, that’s it. I just wanted to set the record straight. I don’t live in Brooklyn. I live in Washington. I  can see Canada from my house. Well, almost. 

Photo by Shyamal - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21968912

Today Is the Greatest

Monopoly was invented on March 7. The telephone was patented on March 7. Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame was born on March 7. So was Wanda Sykes. And, most notably, on March 7, 2017, my book Sarah Palin’s Expert Guide to Good Grammar: What You Can Learn from Someone Who Doesn’t Know Write from Right was published.

It’s imperative that this book finds its way into the hands of as many people as possible in order to make “American” great again (and because I’m totally ready for an early retirement).

Therefore, it’s your patriotic duty to do any or all of the following:

1.     Turn to the person next to you and tell him or her about the book.

2.     If you know Oprah, ask her to include it in her Book Club.

3.     If you own a plane, skywrite the title in the sky. It’s a long title, so I owe you big time. 

4.     If you own one of those cars with a loudspeaker, promote the book while driving through a busy street.

5.     Tweet about it.

6.     Maybe mention it in a Facebook post.

7.     Maybe even mention it in a blog post.

8.     Add it to your shelf on Goodreads.

9.     Tell your boss to buy it for his or her employees. (There’s a great chapter on email.) If you’re the boss, buy it for all your employees.

10. If you work in a bookstore, accidentally order a ton of copies.

If you did any of these things (or even if you didn’t but just want a free copy of the book), let me know in the comments and I will enter you into a raffle to win a copy.

The Golden Rogue Awards

Not so fast awards season! You’re not over yet! There’s one more important award to give out: the illustrious Golden Rogue Award. It’s the award for our favorite excerpt from Sarah Palin’s autobiography, Going Rogue.

The first nominee:

Ahead on the right, I saw the Alaska Right to Life (RTL) booth, where a poster caught my eye, taking my breath away. It featured the sweetest baby girl swathed in pink, pretend angel wings fastened to her soft shoulders. “That’s you, baby,” I whispered to Piper, as I have every year since she smiled for the picture as an infant.

This excerpt was nominated because it’s pretty awesome that Sarah Palin felt that she had to explain that the angel wings her daughter was wearing in the photo were only “pretend.”

The second nominee:

And I remember arguing with a nun who taught catechism and tried to teach me to write the letter E.  It seemed a naked letter to me, so I was determined to reinvent it. I insisted she let me improve it with at least a few more horizontal lines.

I nominated this because it has a strong emotional impact on me. It makes me feel like I am going crazy. Am I missing something? Is there something interesting about this story? And if she thinks the E looks naked, I don’t even want to know what she thinks about the L, or god forbid, the I.

The third nominee: 

I thought, Nah, C’mon, New York Talent, we can do better than that. What about a skit where I pretended to be a journalist and asked Tina condescending questions: “What do you use for newspapers up in Alaska—tree bark? “What happens if the moose were given guns? It wouldn’t be so easy then, eh?” “Is ‘you betcha’ your state motto?”

I nominated this because it shows some real chutzpah! In this excerpt, Sarah Palin is basically claiming that her jokes were funnier than those of the SNL writers. Well, if the ambassador to Canada gig doesn’t work out, maybe Lorne’s hiring.

And the last nominee:

He put his hands on his hips and, staring grimly at some point behind me, began to bend at the waist, bouncing first to the right, then to the left. Then the neck rolls started, presumably to get rid of all that nasty tension from being the front-runner. After that the senator from Delaware began stretching his quads, grabbing his dress shoe and pulling it up behind his designer-suited rear end. Right leg, then left.

I just love that this is how Biden prepared for the debate!

Please cast your vote in the comments!

Photo by Wikirishiaacharya - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22307461

The End of a Sarah?

Last night, I finished the last of the brownies that my mother-in-law made while she was visiting. On the one hand, I was relieved. Their absence will shed a good 3,000 calories from my daily intake. But, on the other hand, I know I’m really, really going to miss them. It was definitely bittersweet to say goodbye.

Similarly, I felt torn when I read this recent Washington Post article about Sarah Palin called “The End of Sarah Palin Is Here." 

On the one hand, good riddance to the war she has been waging on grammar and coherent sentences since she was catapulted into the national spotlight over eight years ago. But, on the other hand, dude, Sarah, it’s been over eight years. I have a book coming out in a couple of weeks that bears your name in the title. You couldn’t have waited like another six months.

But, wait, there’s another way to think about this. When Kobe Bryant announced his retirement, the value of his trading cards shot up to $100,000. When Derek Jeter announced his retirement, ticket prices skyrocketed from $15 to $300. Sure, the article didn't claim that Sarah was actually retiring, just that she had shut down her Sarah PAC, but, still, better safe than sorry.

In other words, guys, you should all buy my book before it becomes way too expensive. It comes out March 7, but you can totally pre-order it. Here’s the link! Hurry! 

Photo by T toes from Decatur, USA - palinwave, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4722408