Sen. John McCain / The White Stripes

By Nick Mayhew

I never used to get a pink slip when I got fired. Some guy just came in and said, "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

Sports report-

Even though last night was a great game and won by San Fran, I really think the Angles can pull this off; in 6 games. I mean, if they pitch to Barry, just keep it out of his zone and they have a decent chance. Even though they beat my team, I'm pulling for them.

Lindros is godlike. Though they tied the Predators, they're doing awesome this year.

Testaverde is a whimp.

Due to a lack of sleep, and an overall bad week, the NFL predictions are not included, but will be back for the next live show.

I saw Blue Oyster Cult last Friday night, and these guys still know how to rock. They opened with "I'm Burnin' for You" and closed with the famous "Don't fear the Reaper" and in between, a 15 minute "Godzilla." A really good concert, though not as good as Rush.

Mailbag- queue Paul Shaffer and the "Know your Cuts of Meat" players

"jy921", jy921@msn.com writes-

Hey Nick, I look foward to a great season of Snl. Did you know that this website is on www.nbc.com? I saw it there. I can't believe my yankees lost. But there is always next year. Just hope the Angels lose. I think Lorne Michaels should take a break on the newbies or get rid of a few. For example, Maya Rudolph, Chris Kattan, and Dean Edwards. They're time is up. Glad Nelly is not gonna perforn on SNL. I hope they will put groups like the Barenaked Ladies, Simple Plan, Blink-182, New Found Glory, Our Lady Peace, and Hoobastank. I hope no more sports hosts (don't get me wrong, Derek Jeter did good, but he should have had more feeling and tried to look like he was not reading cue cards) Nick, I think the best performance came from Shakira. I know you don't like her, but Dang it she is a good singer and dancer. Shakira rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You hurt my feelings w/the comments you said about her. So good luck to you.

Stephanie.

P.S. u can't spell Rap w/out spelling Crap

Thanks, Stephanie. Yes, the Yankees did lose, and yes, it just goes to show that Jeff Zucker is a convicted bastard. Err, something like that. I actually hope Anaheim wins, I don't think the Giants deserve it. Lorne made a good choice in keeping Dean, I think. He's a quality player and can do a lot of good to the show. Maya is stupid. I hate her. Kattan I really didn't mind him staying, cause he can be funny sometimes, but so far he hasn't, so I hope he's done after this year. Those are all good bands that could perform on SNL, but I'm hoping we could get a few more rock bands on the show. Shakira is hot. I'll give you that, but that's about it. And of course, as you said, rap does suck. It sucks more than a Liza Minelli party with people.

Sara Goldenberg, sgoldenberg@uneq.net writes,

I was exhausted before I even got to the review! You give us our 
money's
worth!

Thanks Sara. Always nice to get letters like this. I always try to spice up the review a bit- so it's not too bland.

Wanna do what everyone and their mother is doing? Then write to the mailbag at pinballwizard46@yahoo.com.

Let's see what's new in the world this week. The Iraqi government announced an amnesty Sunday for all Iraqi prisoners in an apparent attempt to rally domestic and international support in the face of U.S. determination to topple it. From now on, they don't have to eat dirt.

To the relief of Europe's leaders, Irish voters dropped their objection to European Union expansion and gave a resounding "yes" to a plan for nearly doubling EU membership and extending the Union to the borders of Russia. This is all part of Ireland's plan to get the world drunk.

A fan stabbed at a concert featuring rap artist Nelly has died, while another remained hospitalized - the second musical event where violence has erupted in recent months. Now why do you think SNL didn't get him as their musical guest?

Five years after her landmark ABC comedy left the air, Roseanne is returning to the network -- but not the way you'd expect; she is the next contestant on "The Bachelor."

Russia has decided to delay a mission to the International Space Station until it learns what caused a fatal rocket crash earlier this week. And in a related story, Lance Bass has agreed to travel with the Russians on their next mission.

You know, they say since the millionaire show was put on television, there's a renewed thirst for knowledge in this country. It's kind of unfortunate though, that Regis Philbin turns out to be the one who leads us to drink from the fountain of wisdom rather than some of the incredibly dedicated teachers in this country.

Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but I think we have a problem when the people we hire to be guards at the schools are making more money than the teachers we pay to educate our kids. I think it speaks volumes about how little we value basic education in America that only one of the "three Rs" actually begins with the letter "R."

Hey, you know who I think deserve more respect? The gym teachers of the world. Sure, English teachers have to grade 50 essay papers over a weekend, but putting the volleyballs into that big mesh bag and stacking the traffic cones used in relay races? Not as easy as it looks. The gym teachers make it look easy, but that's just because they're good.

Now I liked my teachers, but sometimes, parent/teacher conferences can have a nuclear-weapons-summit level of intensity, because every problem Junior has can be blamed on someone in that room. That's why my parents always go to my conferences wearing army fatigues that they soaked in gin the night before. That way, the teacher thinks my parents are doing pretty damn good, considering.

Teachers are said to have a high rate of stress and often burn out. If you are a teacher, there are signs that you may be at risk. For example, if rather than trying remember the names of your individual students, you refer to them all as, "Fucko." More than once a week you find yourself saying, "Try me, dipshit." Or you've invented a new game for your class called, "Throw the scissors hard."

Of course, not all teachers are burnouts, but many are predictable. In fact, nearly every high-school teacher falls into one of a handful of basic categories.
There's Tough But Fair, who is universally feared and respected by the freaks and the straights alike. Tough But Fair doesn't give much homework because he can't be bothered grading it, but at the start of each term assigns a reading list that would make Susan Sontag cry. Every few years, a student inevitably asks him why he's never written a book, whereupon the classroom grows uncomfortably silent while Tough But Fair clenches his jaw muscles and stares out the window for a long time, then mutters, "Guess I just never got around to it", and gives a surprise quiz on the complete works of Thomas Pynchon. Nobody ever asks him a personal question again.

The next teacher type is Best Friend. Best Friend insists that you call her by her first name, and addresses the class as "People". She's everyone's favorite teacher, for the obvious reason that her total lack of authority makes her an easy mark, and also because her insistence that everyone move their chairs into a circle at the start of class is good for wasting at least half a period. If Best Friend knew what her students said about her behind her back, she would never stop crying.

My favorite teacher by far, though, was Tenure Jockey. Old, cranky and shuffling, Tenure Jockey is permanently stooped, ground down by serving under decades of monolithic academic bureaucracy. He wears the same tweed jacket with suede patches at the elbows every single day and smells like cherry pipe tobacco and defeat. His Xeroxed handouts are always missing the top or bottom third of the page, and he hasn't altered his lesson plan since Huey Long was shot. And you know what the really frightening part is? When I was in Tenure Jockey's class and he seemed so ancient and decrepit, he was probably younger than I am right now.

But whatever type of teacher we're talking about, they all have one thing in common: they are grossly underpaid. Somehow, we must convince all Americans that paying teachers what they deserve is as good an investment in our future as, say, building more prisons. OK, maybe right now, compensating teachers fairly is out of the question, because society realizes that we've got them by the short hairs. They need to be teachers, and as is often the case in this country, when we know somebody loves to do something, we fuck them over on their paycheck, because we figure they're going to do it anyway. But at least let them keep what little we're giving them. I believe that a teacher's income should not be taxed. I know I wouldn't be where I am if it weren't for dedicated teachers honing my mind to a keen edge, and I say they should pay no taxes. Because if you're a math teacher grossing $28,000 a year, and you have to pay 0 percent in taxes, that means, your take home pay is...is...uhhh...well, whatever it is, it's good, and so are teachers.

Bottom line: being a teacher today is more challenging than doing bikini waxes on Russian women. Think about it. You enter your place of employment by passing through a metal detector that's beeping like the Road Runner with Tourette's Syndrome, and then spend six hours a day trying to drill even a subatomic-sized kernel of knowledge into the Dawson's Creek- and Sega-Playstation-addled noggins of two dozen eye-rolling, world-weary, body-pierced felons-in-training who regard you with all the respect that they would a stewardess on a spring break charter flight to Cancun. And you know something? When you're not teaching kindergarten, it's even worse.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

I wanna know what you think America. Give me a ring at pinballwizard46@yahoo.com

Tonight's guest is a powerhouse figure in the Senate, and in my opinion, should've beat that arrogant little prick from Texas two years ago, please welcome Arizona Senator John McCain.

[COLD OPENING] Saddam 2002

So Darrell plays it last week, and Horatio this week. I found this pretty funny and different, and everyone was funny except Maya, who as previously mentioned, sucks. Horatio's acceptance speech was cool, and this skit gets my approval.

RATING: 7.5/10

[MONOLOGUE] Senator John McCain

Lorne REALLY is trying to milk this new character. All of his jokes were pretty funny, but some of SNL's younger audience might not have gotten it, but I thought it rocked the house. Even thought Ferricito dominated the monologue, it was pretty funny, and for some reason, McCain saying, "I'm just kidding!" was funny. Best one of the young season so far.

RATING: 8.5/10

[SKETCH] Hardball

Sweet, Hammond is back. This is totally cool. No Begala though. That's ok. This skit still kicked ass in a lot of ways. McCain playing Ashcroft was all too funny and each dialogue in this skit was funny. See, after he monologue, Lorne needs to put a skit in right away to keep the viewers, but it has to be a good skit. This is hands down the best skit of the season so far. Rachel was funny in this too. I saw Tracy's character the other night on Donahue, coincidentally the same night Parnell and Hammond were on. This guy is a nut and Tracy did a good job too. Some of the best lines were, well all of Tracy's, but the best being, "Osama bin Laden is an Uncle Tom" to which Hammond replies, "I don't know anyone who that's offensive to." And Darrell's little song about Tracy being a mofo. Good stuff.

RATING: 10/10

[SKETCH] Lifetime Real Movies

This has to be a spinoff of the one last year about the mom and the stepson, or something like that. This went on a bit too long and dry, but McCain was such a horny bastard, and rightfully so. The intro to it was pretty funny though, but say if for some reason the cable company wanted to be pricks and take away cable except for Lifetime, I'd pick The Golden Girls over this.

RATING: 6.5/10

[SKETCH] Wake Up Wakefield

Yea, so I don't really like these because of the fact Maya is in them. But, Rachel was cool as Charlie Rose, and McCain as the hippie really did well (probably brought back some good memories for him. Say what?!) Skit gets almost nothing because it didn't make me laugh a whole lot.

RATING: 5/10

[TV FUNHOUSE] A Cartoon by Robert Smigel

YEA! AGD is back!! I really miss these. I wouldn't be surprised if Lorne made Smigel write one to help the show a bit, cause he knows these rock the house. The entire cartoon was hilarious and the Jack Welch thing "as part of his retirement plan" was great too!

RATING: 9/10

[SKETCH] Meet the Press

Hammond should do this skit more often. It's pretty funny. McCain plays himself in the skit, first of the night. The best parts of this skit were "what if he forgets to run?" and the Carter-zombie joke. I laughed my ass off the whole way through. Yea, Tim. The Bills will win when I hook up with Britney Spears, ok? Skit did good, and delivered.

RATING: 9.5/10

[MUSIC] The White Stripes

I'd take this any day over Nelly. I actually watched it, and it wasn't too bad.

RATING: 7/10

[WEEKEND UPDATE] With Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey

ALL of the jokes were good this week. They both have their stuff, and maybe the first two weeks was just an Emmy haze in both of their brains. Tina had a rockin' rant, and Will had an excellent commentary. Long, but good. The Pammy/Kid Rock joke and the Train joke were my faves. Someone did a good job this week.

RATING: 9.5/10

[SKETCH] McCain sings Streisand

Wow. McCain had some guts for doing this stuff. He told her to basically back off and stop pretending you run Washington. Except for MJF, who I like, and he's in Washington for a good reason. This was packed with good stuff and really caught me off guard- something I didn't expect. Sounds to me like Trent Lott gave him some ideas last week. Celebs need to stay the hell out of Washington- why do you think no one liked Sonny Bono?

RATING: 9.5/10

[COMMERCIAL] My Big Thick Novel by Jack Handey

Oh jeez, this was ok I guess.

RATING: 6/10

[SKETCH] Irish Bar

Wow. I thought last skits are supposed to suck? This is not the case, my beer loving friends. McCain and Seth are the ultimate combo. Good work fellas.

RATING: 8/10

[MUSIC] The White Stripes

Good again.



SKETCH OF THE NIGHT: Hardball

PLAYER OF THE NIGHT: Darrell Hammond

QUOTE OF THE NIGHT: Senator John McCain as Attorney General John Ashcroft, "We've got some great stuff in the works. One plan that we have would make the Arab language, or anything that sounds like it, illegal."


OVERALL EPISODE RATING: 78/100

Wow. This show reached levels of Jon Stewart last year. This was REALLY good and reeked of hilarity. Of a political figure, he had to be the most deserving, even though he's a republican. Best of the season so far. And, most of all the cast showed tonight, which made the night even better. And, I actually was looking forward to reviewing this week too. Next time we chat, its McCormack/Jay "Shit" Z.

Guess what folks? That's the news and I am outta here…