If you missed Bristol Palin‘s baby daddy Levi Johnston at the Russian Tea Room last night promoting his new book, then you probably didn’t have the chance to ask him what the deal was with pistachios. Or moose meat. Or all the bear metaphors.
Then again, Mr. Johnston probably wouldn’t have been able to answer you. His ghostwriters live on a boat named the Coconut. Soif you did go out today to buy a copy of Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs, be warned: it’s totally coconuts. Levi (or technically, Mr. and Mrs. Cowan) alternate tales of hunting expeditions with thinly-veiled smears against the Palin family: Bristol had plastic surgery, she had Tripp by tricking him to have sex with her after she stopped taking birth control, Sarah Palin was always hitting on him when she wasn’t trying to ruin his life, Todd was never there, and Willow was just plain sexy. (Even Piper gets in at one point.) The whole book reads sort of like a Penthouse letter, except a terrible one that quotes a lot from poorly-written text messages.
Even the animal metaphors don’t make sense. Is Levi a bear or a deer? Is Bristol a goat or a salmon? Is Sarah a bear or a hunter? It’s enough to make us wish someone involved in this book had gotten their high school diploma. Just so you don’t have to go through it yourself, here are some of the best moments in Mr. Johnston’s new memoir.
1.” I’d spent hours there holding her in my arms, running my fingers through her hair. I loved her hair. I loved every inch of her. I was about to make this statement with my hands when Bristol laid her hand over mine. It felt like a cold salmon. … My parents, she told me, are having another baby. She said the word parents with air quotes.”
(Scandal: Bristol Palin is adopted?)
2. (On Sarah Palin’s Alaska) “That voice of Willow’s dripping with sarcasm. Swearing like Todd. She will turn out to be the family beauty – but that mouth of hers is something.”
(Stop.)
3. “Wasilla is SpongeBob’s bellybutton.”
(This is not taken out of context.)
4. “They’ve put me in a pistachio-green T-shirt, with a map of Alaska on the front. Wonderful nuts. That’s the brand and they are good.
(Don’t hug the bunnies too hard there, Lenny.)
5. “Are you pregnant? I asked her over the phone.
No.
Are you lying?
No, she shot back. I’m not fucking lying.
Fine, I told her. But I knew.”
6. (In describing the unexpected pregnancy): “Oh, God, I remember thinking. I’m gonna be gored by a fucking goat.”
7. “The bear didn’t give a shit that I was there. I was insignificant. Bristol acted the same way.”
8. “Little did Sarah know that night that Bristol had something other than moose meat in her tummy.”
(This was after Tripp’s birth, so we actually have no idea what was in there other than moose meat.)
9. (On rumors knocking up Lanesia Garcia) “A second reason why this baby could not be mine, as if another reason were needed, was that I’d used protection. Thank you, Wonderful Pistachios.”
(What? What is the deal with all the pistachio references?)
10. “If John Wayne hadn’t agreed to play Sam McCord, where the hell would I be today?”
We have no idea, Levi. We have no idea.
