| |
|
|
Clark larks on MTV
BY ADAM REILLY
|
|
|
|
|
Wesley Clark on MTV’s Total Request Live? That’s got to be good, you think. Better even than Al Sharpton’s stint hosting Saturday Night Live — not that any of us got to watch it. Of course, you’re a little confused about the logistics. How can Clark film TRL in New York at 5 p.m. and get to Durham, New Hampshire, two hours later for the presidential debate? Still, you tune in anyway. Boy, do you regret it. First you watch the intolerable Nick Cannon plug his new album and upcoming movie. Then you see the charisma-deprived Ruben Studdard — he of American Idol fame, also hawking a new record — struggle through an interview by Cannon. The two promise to buy each other’s albums. Studdard talks about how much he loves Taco Bell. The hosts give away small MTV bags filled with complimentary gifts to the studio audience. More than halfway through the show, there’s been no mention of Clark. You wonder if the general’s appearance is still on. If it is, why hasn’t anyone mentioned it? Then, just when you’ve almost given up hope, MTV news guy Gideon Yago appears. Noting that several Democratic candidates have plans to make it easier to go to college, he says he’s going to examine Clark’s plan in particular. Cue the stock footage of Clark — in battle fatigues, surrounded by joyous Kosovar Albanians; hoisting a beer with fellow vets at a VFW post; yelling, "Go, Hogs!" to an appreciative Arkansas crowd; opining (in a stagy campaign-commercial shot for the methodically insubstantial "Rock the Vote" debate at Faneuil Hall) that OutKast aren’t breaking up. It’s all perfectly fine. But there’s nothing new. Finally, though, there’s some actual live footage of Clark. Well, sort of. Yago rolls an "exclusive interview" — filmed over coffee at what looks like a deserted Denny’s — in which Clark unveils his big college plan: every kid in families earning $100,000 or less annually gets a total of $12,000 to go to college, receiving $6000 as a first-year student and $6000 as a sophomore — an amount Clark says will cover costs for the average student. Cut to a sleepy-looking Yago struggling to look attentive and nodding slightly. As Yago explains that Clark would finance the plan by rolling back Bush’s tax cuts for the richest Americans, images that explain exactly what that means flash by: money being printed, a Rolls-Royce in front of a mansion, snooty-looking people exchanging cheek kisses, Bush waving to the camera. Asked by Yago why this matters so much to him, Clark, at his most earnest and sincere, says we’re reaching a point where you need a college degree to be able to earn enough to support a family. The segment ends. Cut to Yago in the TRL studios. With the lights of Times Square gleaming in the background, the crowd — most of whom are too young to vote — applauds enthusiastically. Then comes the kicker. After getting a quick, canned segment when you hoped for some live theater — after enduring so much to see so little — you watch Yago question the viability of Clark’s plan. "Twelve grand is not chump change, but it does come with a bit of a catch," he tells the audience. He points out that Clark’s plan would be extremely expensive, and that promising to implement costly new programs while campaigning and actually doing it once elected are two very different things. Ouch. Then the TRL countdown marches on. You reflect that appearing after Ruben Studdard’s discussion of his Taco Bell obsession is even worse than getting second billing to Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, as John Kerry did on The Tonight Show. And you wonder why politician after politician genuflects at the altar of pop culture when, for every Clinton-on-Arsenio home run, there’s a debacle like this.
|
