Happy Valley News Hour

Mike Huckabee has taken Mitt Romney to task for removing the skin from his fried chicken before eating it during a recent visit to KFC.

“Going thru the weight loss program I try to eat it more broiled and baked but I can tell you this: any Southerner knows that if you’re not gonna eat the skin, don’t bother with calling it fried chicken,” Huckabee said through a smile. “And that’s good, I’m glad to hear that he did that because that means I’m going to win Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma — all these great Southern states that understand that the best part of fried chicken is the skin.”

Happy Valley News wondered what other dietary faux pas Mitt Romney has committed while campaigning in the South.

Here’s the list:

• Removed stick from Hot-Dog-on-a-Stick
• Ate Twinkie without first deep-frying
• Ate mashed potatoes with fork instead of fingers
• Used Nutrasweet for his Sweet Tea
• Ate corn, refused to eat cob
• Drank Chardonnay when there was beer right there on the menu
• Ordered 32 ounce Slushie instead of more economical 64 ounce Slushie
• Asked whether the pork rinds were organic

Now this is the Kamper’s kind of DJ.

A volunteer at a community radio station set fire to the station because he was upset that his song selections for an overnight Internet broadcast were changed, police said.

Before you typecast this die-hard music fan as some sort of leather-vested, Slayer-spinning metalhead, check out this tidbit:

Feinstein was a jazz fan and his Internet program was called “Mellow Down Easy,” Dickens said.

Dude, there are many musical genres worth going to jail for, but soft jazz just aint one of ‘em. Now synthpop, that’s another story. The Kamper would do hard time for Erasure or Sigue Sigue Sputnick anytime.

NOTE: This post contains SPOILERS, so if you haven’t seen Cloverfield and you plan to do so, you should probably skip it, though your life will be the poorer for it.

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After months of fervid speculation in some of the shadier corners of the Intertubes, the Cloverfield monster was finally revealed in all of its 20-story-tall, dragged-its-ass-from-the-sea glory when the movie opened nationwide last Friday. Now it’s not like the Kamper to pile on, but there are a few questions I’m just dying to ask of screenwriter Drew Goddard and producer J.J. Abrams. Here goes.

These are the characters? Really? Come on, really? You’ve got all of Manhattan to choose from, and these are the six you went with — Rob, Jason, Hud, Lily, Marlena, and Beth, a bunch of 20-something yuppies? And are you sure you want to have the plot revolve around Rob’s attempt to rescue his skinny, beautiful, staggeringly wealthy girlfriend from her apartment overlooking Central Park? Because I think we’re supposed to feel something approximating sadness as your characters are crushed, chewed, rent, flayed, infected, and exploded. I’m pretty sure that relief bordering on sadistic glee wasn’t what you were going for.

To call these characters narcissistic is an insult to Narcissus. To call them vapid is an insult to Vapidus. How monumental is their self regard? Allow me to elaborate.

Against absurd odds (and by literally walking directly beneath said Cloverfield monster), our intrepid, upwardly-mobile, impeccably outfitted urban adventurers actually make it to the girlfriend’s apartment building, which has collapsed against the building beside it, like a domino that just didn’t quite make it all the way over. So they climb to the top of the intact building, then jump onto the roof of the collapsed building, then climb down into the collapsed building, then find Beth’s apartment, then find Beth, then pull a piece of rebar out of Beth’s chest (who does not immediately bleed to death), then kill a Cloverfield Junior in the hallway, and then go back out the way they came in. None of which is the strange part. No, the strange part is that it never enters any of their heads to search around a little bit in the collapsed 40 story building to, oh, I don’t know, determine if there are any more survivors in the vicinity who might need rescuing or perhaps would appreciate having a piece of rebar pulled from their chests. Nope, these youngsters went into the building for Beth, they found her, and they left. Heckuva job, guys.

Then, after they survive the helicopter crash (what? You got a problem with them just walking away from a helicopter crash?), Hud drags Rob and Beth from the wreckage (continuing to film the entire time, by the way), but once they’re free not one of them goes back for or indeed ever mentions the pilot or the other soldier who were in the helicopter with them. The three of them just go on their merry way. All I’ve got to say is that they’d better not have one of those yellow ribbons on their car, because that’s not what the Kamper would call supporting the troops.

And just when you think their self-regard could not possibly deepen, in the film’s final moments the characters display a level of egocentricity that is astounding in its purity. Crouched under a bridge, waiting for their ultimate fate, Rob grabs the camera and speaks directly into it, giving his final testimony, his great Oh, the Humanity moment. And what he says is, “My name is Robert Hawkins. Seven hours ago, some ‘thing’ attacked the city. Whatever it was, it killed my brother, Jason Hawkins, it killed my best friend, Hudson Platt, and it killed my other friend, Marlena. Plus many others.” Plus many others?! Plus many others?! Cloverfield just flattened half of Manhattan! It was 9/11 times 100, and that’s what you’ve got to say? Dude, that is so uncool.

Look, what Cloverfield did was wrong, there’s no doubt about that, but all I’m saying is that I understand.

Photo: Several hours ago, this horrible thing came out of the sea and killed many, many innocent people — plus six who clearly deserved it.

Photo Credit: fan art from /film.com

From Funny or Die.

The Kamper’s money is on Jesus.

Happy Valley News has learned that Vice President Dick Cheney has sent a Terminator back in time to kill the mother of administration critic Joe Wilson before he is ever born. Joe Wilson wrote a July 6, 2003 editorial in the New York Times that questioned key components of the Bush Administration’s rationale for the Iraq war. In attempting to debunk the editorial, administration sources revealed that Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was an undercover CIA agent, a crime that eventually led to Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

The Vice President agreed to discuss the Terminator mission on the assumption that, when it succeeds, the conversation will never have happened, since the subject under discussion will never have existed. Vice President Cheney revealed that he had chosen a classic T-101 model (from the first movie) for the mission rather than the more advanced T-1000 model (from Terminator 2: Judgement Day) or the T-X model (from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) out of nostalgia and the assumption that Joe Wilson’s mother would not put up much of a fight. “Also,” the Vice President said, “Arnold is a good Republican.”

Vice President Cheney further revealed that once the Terminator was successful in eliminating Joe Wilson’s mother, additional names would be added to his list, including Patrick Fitzgerald’s mother, the mothers of the all CIA analysts who contributed to the most recent NIE on Iran, and Keith Olbermann’s entire family tree.

When asked why he didn’t send the Terminator back in time to kill the mothers of, say, Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein, the Vice President asked the reporter for the correct spelling of his mother’s maiden name.

From Michael Drucker over at McScweeney’s.

A Robot Performs Standup Comedy to a Lackluster Response.

Hello, world!

What level is everyone’s excitement currently at?

I’m sorry. I cannot hear you. Would you please repeat your excitement, preferably at a louder volume? Thank you. I am also excited.

Have you ever noticed the difference between white robots and black robots? White robots are all 1001001, but black robots are all 0110110. Do you agree?

You have said that you do not agree.

Read the rest.

On a related note, Keanu Reeves is slated to star in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still but strangely enough will not be playing Gort.

At a hastily arranged press conference on Monday, Mike Huckabee announced a radical new strategy for his presidential campaign going into the Super Tuesday primaries to be held on February 5. The new campaign is dubbed “Screw Ronald Reagan,” and it couldn’t be simpler. “Whatever Reagan did,” Huckabee explained to the gathered reporters, “I’m going to do the opposite. So I’ll begin my term with a big tax hike on the fat cats and the rich folks and the corporate bigwigs, next I’ll take an axe to our bloated military budget, and then I’ll generously expand the welfare program to make sure that each and every American who doesn’t feel like working is fully taken care of.”

When asked by reporters why he was adopting what was sure to be a controversial platform, Huckabee said, “Look, I’m no Ronald Reagan.” He paused as he began to tear up. “There, I said it. I don’t know why that’s so hard to admit, since it’s completely obvious, but it is. Before he was president, Reagan was a matinee star and the governor of California, whereas I look like Gomer Pyle and ran Arkansas for a few years. I mean, come on, Arkansas?!”

The candidate went on, “But more importantly, I don’t want to be Ronald Reagan, and I’m tired of pretending. I never liked the guy — in my book he was just an empty suit with a dye job, plus his smile always creeped me out.” Huckabee then unveiled a banner with his new campaign slogan: “If you’re looking for Reagan then keep looking — Huckabee ‘08.”

Steve Wynn fronted the Dream Syndicate, one of my fave bands back from when I was a too-cool-for-school college radio geek in the early eighties. After Dream Syndicate broke up, I lost touch with Steve’s music, and it wasn’t until I saw an article about him a few years ago in, of all places, the Wall Street Journal (shows you how square the Kamper really is, getting music tips from the WSJ), that I decided to check out what Steve’s been doing lately.

Turns out he’s been delivering some fantastic albums, both solo and with his new band, Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3. In 2001, Steven Wynn put out Here Come the Miracles, a dark, sprawling double album that ranks right up there with anything he did with Dream Syndicate. The crime writer George Pelecanos wrote, “Here Come the Miracles is Steve Wynn’s Exile on Main Street, his Zen Arcade, and yeah, his Physical Graffiti. Which is to say that this could be Wynn’s most resonant recording, the one the heads’ll still be listening to ten years from now.” Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Steve followed that one up just two years later with another double album, Static Transmission, and you know what? It was even better than Here Come the Miracles. Two double albums of new material in two years and both of them fantastic? Who else has done that lately? As one reviewer pointed out, if Here Come the Miracles was Steve’s Exile on Main Street, then Static Transmission was his Sticky Fingers, a tighter, more focussed effort, but no less intense or unsettling. In 2005, Steve put out …tick…tick…tick, which is another keeper (though I haven’t delved into it yet like the other two).

So here are a few from Steve Wynn. First up is “What Comes After,” which opens Static Transmission.

Next up is “Amphetamine,” also from Static Transmission. Let me tell you a little story about this song. In January 2005, I caught Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 along with the Silos (candidates for their own Happy Valley Hoedown down the road) at T.T. the Bear’s in Cambridge, MA. Late in the show, Steve & the band delivered an absolutely blistering version of this tune. The club was pretty empty by this point, but they just cranked up and tore into this thing with everything they had, and I’ve got to say that that it was one of the most furious live performances I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even know the song at the time — I stumbled over to the merchandise table afterwards and told ‘em to give me whatever disc had that song on it. So here it is — surely one of the greatest driving songs of all time.

The moral to the story? Pick up these discs and put some cash in Steve’s pocket, and for heaven’s sake, see him live if you get the chance. So sayeth the Kamper.

The latest episode of Wainy Days — funny, funny stuff from David Wain. He’s the fella behind Stella (also funny, funny, now sadly canceled, canceled). Wain more accurately should be described as a fella behind Stella, since the other two fellas behind Stella (Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter) are no slouches themselves in the doing-and-saying-funny-things department. You can watch all 18 episodes of Wainy Days (straight through, one sitting, no bathroom break) just by clicking this . . . little . . . link . . . right . . . over . . . here.

Baghdad, Iraq — On Monday, at 2:52 p.m. local time, the clouds above Baghdad parted, the skies opened, and, to the angelic sounds of a heavenly choir, Lt. General David H. Petraeus was assumed bodily into heaven. The clearly startled Petraeus had only a few moments to make some final remarks as he ascended into the ether on a gleaming shaft of pure white light.

“While acknowledging that projecting into the future in a complex and intensely dynamic situation such as currently exists in the Iraq theater of operations can be difficult if not perilous, it is my professional opinion that I, General David Petraeus, Commanding General of coalition forces in Iraq, am now in the process of being raptured into heaven, where presumably I will reside for all eternity within the benevolent grace of our most Heavenly Father,” he said as he rose. “Therefore, it would appear to be the case that my work here is done.”

At that point, the slowly ascending General Petraeus had risen to about 25 feet. “Since it looks like I’ve still got a few minutes here,” he went on, “I would like to implore whomever succeeds me in this mission to remember that this strategy rests on three fundamentals: population security, counter-terrorism, and transition to local forces.” After a moment of silence in which he rose a few more feet, he added, “I’d like to add that it has been my distinct honor to soldier with the brave men and women of the United States armed forces.”

Having risen now to roughly 50 feet, General Petraeus said, “Boy, this is slower going than I would have expected. I guess we could call this particular strategy the New Way Upward. Get it? Anyhoo, um, one thing to keep in mind with regard to the current situation on the ground here in Iraq is that this will be a very long engagement — not unlike this ascension.” After another moment of silence, he tapped his lip. “Let’s see, what else? What else? Um, there’s the whole Clear-Hold-Build thing, that’s pretty important, and then there’s the whole hearts and minds thing, but you already know all that. Listen to me rambling.” Finally, when he’d reached a height of several hundred feet, he cupped his hands around his mouth and called down, “Can’t believe I forgot this. Tell my wife Holly that I love her!” A while later the General’s voice was lost as he was enveloped by the clouds.

In Washington DC, an inconsolable Senator Joseph Lieberman rent his garments and sobbed, “So young, so young — the Surge was so young. Why? Why?” Senator John McCain, crying on Lieberman’s shoulder, added, “Who’s going to save me now?”