
One thing I bet the book won't say is, "I was wrong. I'm sorry." For eight years, he felt everything... except for guilt. But why should he? In our therapeutic society, "guilt" has become a dirty word.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but guilt is simply God's way of letting you know that you're having too good a time.
In the elaborate wardrobe of human emotions, guilt is the itchy wool turtleneck that's three sizes too small. Guilt may be difficult to articulate, but when it surfaces, it's as unwelcome and distinct as Jethro Bodine in the lobby of an Ian Shraeger hotel.
What is guilt? Guilt is the pledge drive constantly hammering in our heads that keeps us from fully enjoying the show. Guilt is the reason they put the articles in Playboy.
Some experience guilt as the voice of their better natures, while for others, it's the voice of an authority figure like a parent or a teacher. For me, the voice of guilt, interestingly enough, is Jimmie Walker with a slight head cold.
Contributing our recurrent feelings of guilt is the fact that, in our day-to-day lives, we consistently overcommit ourselves, so there is always something we're failing to do. The average American's dayplanner has fewer holes in it than Ray Charles's dartboard. It's gotten to the point where I don't even have time to feel guilty, unless I multi-task by also using that time to feel vaguely lackadaisical and kind of twitchy.
It's harder to hide guilt than it is to hide an order of bananas flambee from Al Roker when he's wearing infrared goggles. And I think the reason is, people secretly want to be caught, chastised and punished, in order to subconsciously prove to themselves that there is indeed an order to the universe that transcends their flawed, limited selves -- or at least, so you can pull down a cool million spouting that line of bullshit in the book you're plugging on "Oprah."
There are many different types of guilt: healthy guilt, unhealthy guilt, Catholic guilt, and, of course, the newest entry, Condit guilt... Representative Gary Condit is a good example of a person who should be racked with guilt about impeding the investigation of a missing woman. But he is somehow able to speed by the photographers with a smile so big, you would think he was attending his movie premiere at Mann's Chinese Theater. Hey, Gary, make sure to keep that smile on down there when Mephistopheles is rammin' that pitchfork handle up your ass for the rest of eternity.
Ironically, guilt is most likely to visit the people who deserve it the least. Trust me, the only thing that keeps Slobodan Milosevic awake at night is puzzlement over why nobody's nominating him for sainthood, but I can't look at my dog Mr. Tingles without cringing at the time two years ago, when I accidentally stepped on his tail just as he was leaping at a Frisbee, and he screamed like a Backstreet Boy taking a polo mallet to the nuts.
There are some people so predisposed to guilt, when they're born, the first thing that comes out of their mouth after being slapped by the doctor is "Harder! Harder!"
I still feel pangs of remorse over an insidious habit I've had since I was a teenager. About three times a week, I attend estate auctions and make insulting, lowball bids for prized heirlooms until I'm asked to leave. Point me to the shower, I'm a baaaaaad man.
Many people feel guilty about masturbating. I celebrate it. I say, "Harder! Harder!" What's there to feel guilty about? It's a natural way to relieve stress. Okay, maybe not when someone cuts in front of you in line at the supermarket, but certainly when you get back out to your car.
I've actually written a book about guilt, entitled "Fuck You, I'm Sorry."
Hey, for a long time, I felt tremendously guilty about things that were not in any way my fault, but with the help of an excellent therapist, I have finally accepted that there are things beyond my control. Now I simply breathe deep, release them into the cosmos, and move on. Poverty in distant lands, injustices that were committed long before I was born, that brand new Mercedes that I rammed repeatedly while trying to wedge my massive, gas-guzzling SUV into a handicapped parking space - Dennis just can't be held responsible for the entire world.
Invented by religion, enforced by the state, and cashed in on by the psychiatric community, guilt is what keeps society from completely unraveling. Yet our culture is rife with politically correct apologists telling us to let go of the shame that binds us, and to treat our mistakes as learning experiences that we have to "heal" from and "put behind us" as quickly as we can. Well, that's just bullshit. If you do something wrong, you should feel guilty about it. Guilt is the pruning shears that society developed to prevent you from growing into an even bigger asshole than you already are. Sorry, I feel bad that I said that.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but if they didn't want Washington to be a hotbed of sexual activity, they shouldn't have named it after the guy who fathered the entire country. I mean, what else can you expect from a town that's famed for its cherry blossoms?
Sex has served as the you-don't-want-to-know-where-it's-been coin of the realm in American politics, long before the Clintons and Condits came along. Thomas Jefferson is said to have sired a child by one of his slaves, and, like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if the original George W. left a set of those wooden teeth on the wrong nightstand now and then.
Let's face it: there's constant groping going on in our nation's capital even when George Bush isn't trying to find the right word.
Do I think power corrupted Gary Condit? No. You can't blame Congress for turning him into something he already was. Gary Condit is simply a skeevy hound using the illusion of power to get laid. An everyman, as it were. If Condit wasn't a congressman, he'd be working as a car salesman who appears in his own TV commercials somewhere in central California, trying to nail female customers with the same mix of low-rent celebrity and bullshit power by telling them he's John Davidson's half-brother and he can "do something" for them on the undercoating.
Hey, at least if Condit had spent more time in California, he could've gotten some decent plastic surgery. Oedipus Rex had a better eye job. Looks like this guy had his crow's feet dermabraded out by some piercing pagoda flunky in Silver Spring, Maryland, who gave him a great rate but unfortunately ensured that good old Gary would spend the rest of his life looking like Lee Harvey Oswald in the nanosecond he spotted Jack Ruby lurching towards him.
Oh, by the way. I don't think Condit had anything to do with Chandra Levy's disappearance. Because I believe he was too busy at the time arranging for the death of Robert BlakeÕs wife.
You know, it's guys like Condit who make me usually side with the women in these libidinal conflagrations. Everyone criticized Monica Lewinsky for being so indiscreet about blowing the President, but come on: What's the point of blowing the President if you can't tell everyone about it? I mean, there've only been 42 of those cocks and you had one lodged in your noggin. Why not take out an ad in the trades?
Now, I don't believe there's any danger of a sex scandal with our current administration. President Bush not only appears to be deeply in love with his wife, he thinks "fetish" is something you crumble on top of a Greek salad. And as for Dick Cheney, well, his team of doctors has cautioned him to not even look at a Sears bra ad, much less fuck.
More disturbing than the sex scandals that emanate from Washington, DC, is the realization that they are merely the tip of the vice-berg. The elective process in our nation is like a recipe for kink: Take some jagoff in a clip-on tie who, under any other circumstances, couldn't get laid if his penis had its own vagina; send him far away from his bowling-trophy wife for months at a time; stir in a little power and influence, and fold it all into a town that has more over-used escorts than a Budget rent-a-car lot. Add to that thousands of wide-eyed young acolytes flooding into the Below-the-Beltway each year, giving off a heady fer-a-moan brew of ambition and naivete that an aging political billy goat can smell a mile away. Christ, Washington is like Club Med for doughy, old, unattractive white guys. The crew from "Cocoon" would be considered the Rat Pack in DC. You think I'm exaggerating the way it works down there, folks? I don't think so. Let's put it this way: Newt Gingrich was getting laid. OK? Nuff said.
Henry Kissinger once said, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." He was right because no one got more primo skirt than Hank Kissinger in the 70's, and this guy looked like a troll doll hanging from the rearview mirror of a Volkswagen Beetle.
What trips up politicians is never the actual sex itself. We know they have sex. We expect them to have sex. What we hate is the arrogance that accompanies the inevitable exposure of the sex as unfailingly as seagulls trailing chum. Somehow, Mr. Smith-Comes-On-Washington starts to assume that the American public is just as gullible as the 20-year-old kid that he's been bending over his desk on alternate Wednesday evenings for the last two years. Full of pry-appic swagger, when the rumors of hanky-panky start percolating, he runs his hand through his blow-dried Bobby Goldsboro helmet-cut coif, then maybe he sprays a shot of Binaca in his mouth, shoots his cuffs, and goes in front of the news cameras and denies everything. Practically insists that Wolf Blitzer hook his nuts up to a polygraph. And he just keeps on smiling that "Fuck you, you can't touch me, I'm bulletproof cause I got my constituents a plow museum built last year" grin. Come on, give us more credit than that. We know you're fucking around. Just cop to it. We read you like the top line of an eye chart. We know why Strom Thurmond keeps going to work everyday. Because of the very good possibility that one day soon, he's gonna get lucky with some hot, young 80-year-old.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
The White House is looking into a plan that would allow illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. The plan calls for a million Mexicans to marry a million of our ugliest citizens.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but no matter how much it has changed, marriage is a vital cog in our societal machine. Dating's fine, living together is great, but anyone who's truly in love eventually looks at their partner and thinks, "I want to cut down on having sex with this person and get on their insurance plan."
Are marriages failing, or are people simply living longer and finding that they can't stay with the same person for that long? The answer is, marriages are failing. You know your marriage is in trouble when your wife starts wearing the wedding ring on her middle finger. Here in Hollywood you can actually get a marriage license printed on an etch-a-sketch.
Until recently, television was notorious for romanticizing bachelor-hood, while making vague insinuations about the sexuality of the "unattached woman." Magnum, P.I., got more different ass than a rental car, while Laverne actually had an 'L' sewn onto her sweater.
Seems like every wedding nowadays has to be a "themed" wedding. There's period-costume weddings. Elvis weddings. Fairy Tale weddings. Weddings so unbelievably complicated and elaborate, the only way you can tell who's actually getting married is to find the couple that's fucking in the coatroomÉ and ask them who they're the Best Man and Maid of Honor for.
If you want to truly understand how complex marriage has become, simply ask the people on the front lines: the ones who make up the wedding invitations. They are constantly trying to skirt around the gender, age and parental issues and still get paid: "Mona Johnson and her life partner Brianne invite you to the wedding of their son Lars and his lover Oswaldo, with the blessing of their surrogate daughter Quan, where they will be married by their Shaman, Ali Ben Shapiro, in Carlsbad Caverns on the eve of the Summer Solstice, to be followed by an all-Vegan Luau, featuring the music of two members of Kansas. Dress: Casual Friday meets 80's disco. No furs. The couple is registered at Nordstrom and ZachÕs House of Knobby Dildoes."
While straight couples have been breaking their vows for years, gay couples are still fighting to gain that right. Gay unions are now legal in a state like Vermont, but they are not having much luck in the South, where there are strict rules, which forbid getting married unless you are heterosexual, fourteen or "kin". Hey, folks, truth be told, gays have been getting married for a long, long time... Just not to each other.
I once went to a lesbian wedding ceremony between my wife's former hair stylist, a lovely thirty-year-old woman, and her partner, a very hot dental hygienist in her mid-twenties. The wedding itself was small and simple. The reception was warm and friendly. And from what I could see from my surveillance hammock in the branches of a tree high outside the third floor of the Laguna Beach Hilton, the wedding night was not nearly kinky enough.
Never ever discount the idea of marriage. Sure, someone might tell you that marriage is just a piece of paper. Well, so is money, and what's more life-affirming than cold, hard cash?
The difficult thing about marriage for men is that they know they shouldn't get married unless they're mature, but they feel they can't become mature unless they get married. I'm not sure I know what the answer is, other than, I would caution you to not fuck the stripper at your bachelor party.
But guys should never whine about marriage, because guys are no prize, especially when we get older. I was at the post office last week, and standing in front of me was some guy in his mid-seventies. He was wearing a powder blue polyester shirt more pilled than a nightstand at Graceland, and dusted with so much dandruff, I was torn between gagging and placing "Christmas Village" figurines on his shoulders. He was also wearing a nylon mesh ball cap with the phrase "Ask Me About My Prostate" on it and off-white slacks with a white belt and a large pee spot somehow near the knee. And you wanna know the most shocking part of his ensemble? He was wearing a wedding ring. The one that I placed on his finger a scant two years ago. I love you, pappy!
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but bureaucracy is out of control. Bureaucracy is out of control. Bureaucracy is out of control. They told me I had to give you that in triplicate. We live in a society where it's easier to climb back into the birth canal than it is to get a copy of a certificate to prove you were actually born.
Bureaucracy. Just take a look at the word itself. How come there's no "O"? It sounds like there should be an "O", but instead thereÕs an "E", an "A" and a "U". Of course, the sensible thing to do would be to eliminate those unnecessary letters and just replace them with the "O", but it can't be done because "E" has tenure, "A" is the union shop steward and "U" is married to the boss' accountant's son.
Truthfully, I'd be perfectly fine with all the rules and red tape if we didn't have to wait in line for so long that the people in the line eventually develop their own distinctive regional dialect. Hey, is it any coincidence that government offices have the birth and death registries in the same room?
I can't even clean up after my dog now without first getting an environmental impact statement from the Army Corps of Engineers. It's gotten so bad, I demand to see three different forms of ID before I'll let me pleasure myself in the shower.
And is there any welter of perdition more soul-destroying than the Department of Motor Vehicles? People go in whistling like Andy Griffith skipping rocks and leave more pissed off than Gary Condit's wife. In exchange for the privilege of operating an automobile, you have to embark on a Hieronymus-Bosch-like odyssey through the dingy, institutional-green, cinderblock-lined bowels of the System at its most wearisome. First you find the line for the people who have appointments, then you wait for them to call your name, then you get in another line for people with your blood type and birth date, then the clerk who's been taking people in your line goes to lunch, so you have to line up at another window, then after several evolutionary epochs, during which innumerable species have arisen, roamed the earth and then succumbed to eventual extinction, you finally reach the front of the line where the whole process culminates in you challenging Death to a chess match.
I discovered one of the more frustrating strains of bureaucracy recently when I applied for a mortgage. Hey, all I want is to borrow some money and pay you back five times the amount over the next 30 years. If I don't pay it back you keep the house and my money. And let me get this straight-- you're trying to stop me?
What is particularly exasperating about bureaucracy is you can never put a face or a name to the logjam. That's because the genius of bureaucracy is it's never one person's fault -- it's everyone's. It's ineptitude in its most socialistic form. Whenever you walk into a store that proudly stresses teamwork, save yourself some time and money and just back your naked ass up to the ream-a-tron.
The reason bureaucracies metastasize the way they do nowadays is that when you go to fire someone, they automatically sue you. So it is now easier to just give them a desk, and say, "Don't touch anything," and then tell everyone what a great job they're doing, in the hopes that your competitor will eventually steal them away from you.
Ah, the bureaucrat. A murky figure, smelling slightly of fax toner, for whom you must constantly tack back and forth between sympathy and white-hot antipathy. Sure, there are plenty of them out there who are hard-working and conscientious and friendly. But there are just as many who have used their Vanilla extract-sized drop of power to build a tiny administrative empire out of policies and waiting lists and access to files, so that -- for the 2-4 hours a day they're actually working -- they may bestride the rest of us like some kind of Cubicle Colossus, bellowing, "I am Ozymandias, Clerk of Clerks! Look on my files, ye mighty, and despair!"
Let's face it: We might complain bitterly about bureaucracy and red tape, but at least they give us something to blame when our lives don't go exactly the way we want them to. There is something admittedly soothing about the abdication of responsibility, the Zen-like moment when you give up and see the poetry in the ticket agent telling you not only does your flight reservation not exist, you're going to be charged for the ticket anyway; the college admissions board notifying you that your grade-point average is too high to qualify for a scholarship; or the VA official who tells you to your face that you died in combat over 30 years ago. Lose yourself in the arcane maze of nonsensical rules, delight in the Lewis Carroll anarchy of the organizational world. In other words, relax and take it easy, because if you do flip out and have to be committed to the nuthouse, you would not believe the fuckin' paperwork involved.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Interestingly enough, "anxiety" comes from an old Greek word that means "Dennis Miller."
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but to me, anxiety makes sense. I see it as a reasonable response to the frightening clusterfuck that is our increasingly stressful world. The people who creep me out are the ones who don't seem to be bothered by anything. My theory is that anybody who has it completely together in times like these is either stupid, crazy or evil. I'm on to you, Dr. Phil.
Mental health professionals believe that anxiety stems from not facing your true emotional needs. That's why psychiatrists advise you to uncover those hidden fears you dare not name-because then, and only then, can you can stop being anxious and start being completely fucking insane, and that's where you make the real money.
Over the last decade, pagers, cellphones and personal data assistants have marionetted us into a Sysyphean existence where we are perpetually ten minutes late for our next appointment. The only reason we're living longer is because we can't fit death into our schedules anymore. Anybody remember a simpler time when "Palm Pilot" was just a nickname your friends gave you when you hit puberty?
Youth-obsessed, money-hungry power-grabbing Los Angeles is Ground Xanax for anxiety. You see it right there in the clenched jaw of the high-strung B-movie producer who's wrestling his Humvee into the handicapped parking spot so he can get to his meditation class on time.
Anxiety can lead to certain phobias such as fear of strangers, fear of elevators, fear of airplanes, fear of heights, fear of speaking in public, and fear of parties. Got it, got it, need it, got it, need it, got it.
Some guys suffer from urination anxiety: the presence of other men acts like a psychological truck parking on top of their personal garden hose. Now, I have the reverse: I can only pee when somebody else is watching. So if you ever run into me in a rest room and I've got a sock puppet over my free hand saying, (SQUEAKY VOICE) "I can see your wee wee, Dennis!" I'm not a freak or anything. That is a prescription sock puppet.
Then there is sexual performance anxiety. Always having the fear that your cock is too big, or you'll last too long or after a night in bed with you, the woman won't find any other man satisfying and she'll fall into a deep depression. Of course, that was never my problem. NEVER. NEVER ONCE.
I suppose I have one of the odder anxiety triggers, I plunge into panic when Stone Philips wears earth tones.
Many people find the most disturbing thing about panic attacks is you never know when they're going to strike, which in itself becomes a source of anxiety. But I'm lucky. I'm in a constant state, so there's really never any surprises. Guess I'm just blessed. (DARTING LOOK OVER SHOULDER)
People deal with anxiety in many different ways: some take yoga, some take tai chi, others work it off in the gym. Me? Well, once a month or so, I take off all my clothes, get on my candy-apple-red moped, and drive really fast into a field of corn. As the stalks and ears of caressing maize batter my exposed flesh, I suddenly feel my other problems melting away. Sure, it means coming home in the back of a police car with a blanket around my head and shoulders, but sorry kids. Daddy needs his "Me Time."
Hey, if you suffer from chronic anxiety, repeated panic attacks, obsessions, compulsions or social phobias, take my advice, forget therapy and don't even think about drugs. I know it sounds crazy, but my sanctuary has always been... well... the Laundromat. Think about it. You can immerse yourself in the calming hum of the washing machines, the familiar warmth emanating from the dryers, the comforting smell of soap and the soothing snap and pleasant pop of loving mothers folding clean sheets. Relax in the uncompetitive, undemanding realm of vending machines that feature off-brand sodas and Circus Peanuts. Self-conscious about your appearance? Just take a look around. By comparison, you are a prince. Socially awkward? Well, anything short of flinging fecal matter at the change lady, and you're a charmer in this quirky little kingdom. Obsessive compulsive? Hey, go ahead. Count quarters until your fingers bleed. Sexually frustrated? Well, just collect the thick wads of lint from all the dryers and fashion them into a large lifelike doll, lean it up against a washing machine during the spin cycle and start grinding your pelvis against her-but be gentle. You don't want to cause Dusty Lady any anxiety.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
You know, we have windmills here in California, but we use them for miniature golf. Europeans seem to have little sympathy for our current energy woes. Hey, who needs Europe, anyway. I always find it a little grating when Germany refers to us as "power-hungry."
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but the debate between environmentalists and energy advocates in this country shows no sign of abating, and as a matter of fact, is only getting more confusing. I mean, you've got to love the philosophical clusterfuck that is a bicycle rack on a Lincoln Navigator.
And this battle will no doubt be waged for years and years to come, largely because it's fuelled by America's most plentiful natural resource: narrow-minded self-righteous indignation.
The state of California is currently bearing the brunt of the energy crisis, with rolling blackouts across the state affecting vital services like hospitals, resulting in countless lopsided boob jobs. For the love of God, will the horror never end???????
Our problem is, we don't have enough power plants in our state because with every site allotted for one, someone finds a reason to stop it. Hey, you want to block a power plant because it might interfere with a migratory path for albino duck gerbils? I simply can't go along with that. We have to prioritize and decide what's really important here, people. You want to see animals thrive in their natural habitat? Go to the San Diego Zoo. I'm trying to microwave some popcorn over here.
I mean, maybe I'm in the minority with this, but my ideal vision of the world is where the only remaining species are somewhat literate human beings and small, well-mannered Beagles wearing little top hats and bow ties.
Let's cut to the chase. The oil companies want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But the environmentalists say it places in jeopardy a prime breeding ground for Alaskan Caribou. Great, so now I have to pay four dollars a gallon just so Donner and Blitzen can get their rocks off. I say we don't touch the oil reserves and just invent a car that runs on endangered species. Yeah, put a tiger in your tank. Literally.
If we are to maintain our position as a world power, we must dedicate ourselves to finding acceptable alternatives to fossil fuels. Wind power and solar power are clean, cheap, safe, renewable sources of energy, which, I believe, will be widely utilized as soon as someone figures out how to establish a price-gouging monopoly on them.
All kidding aside, I'm actually a big proponent of using alternative energy. As a matter of fact, at this very moment, every single watt of electricity in my home is being provided by an alternative energy source: a low-cost, underground shunt-wire that my brother-in-law David has tapped into my next door neighbor's fuse-box.
Now we're supposed to buy disposable diapers that are environmentally friendly, diapers that break down more readily when placed in landfills. Hey, should there ever come a time when I'm wearing a disposable diaper, fuck you, fuck the planet, fuck everything.
As I've said, at my house, everyone is aware of the energy crisis, and we all pitch in to do our part. For example, I never use the twin Boeing 747 engines I bought to run my Dancing Waters Lagoon while running my Bumper Boats at the same time. That just wouldn't be fair to others.
Another way I do my part is going down to the ride-share station in my neighborhood and inviting a complete stranger to get inside my car, so we can qualify for the carpool lane. It shaves about forty-five minutes off my commute, and sometimes, if I'm lucky, the stranger will hold a gun to my head and force me to blow him. You see? Saving the planet doesn't have to be all drudgery!
You know, I may pretend not to care about what happens thousands of miles away in a place I'll probably never see. But I know that all of life is deeply interconnected and interdependent in a symbiotic, primal dance. That a butterfly beating its wings in the African bush can dislodge a particle of dust that makes a monkey sneeze, which startles a herd of gazelle into stampeding, causing a rockslide down a hill which dams up a stream and floods it, creating moisture which evaporates and cools the air, which rushes into the hot air above it, becoming a cyclone, which whirls out to sea and joins up with other storm clouds, forming an enormous raging squall that travels thousands of miles across the ocean, disrupting electromagnetic fields and making my cell phone cut out. Fuckin' butterflies.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. Civil Disobedience (06/22/01)
See? That's why we don't summer in Algeria any more: no right to protest.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but, unlike in Algeria, the act of civil disobedience is deeply woven into the fibers of our nation. From the Boston Tea Party to the Beastie Boys' fight for your right to party, our country has a proud history of civil disobedience.
It has been a part of American history ever since the aforementioned plucky band of American colonists refused to pay a tax on tea, thereby paving the way for a free, democratic nation that does not tax tea... except, of course, for a local sales tax paid by the purchaser, an income tax paid by the seller, and corporate taxes paid by the manufacturer... Civil disobedience is the greatest engine for change the world has ever known.
However, all that today's so-called civil disobedient seems to be protesting is boredom and guilt over having well-off parents, while killing time between Dave Matthews concerts.
Throwing a chair through the window of Starbucks because you disapprove of their treatment of coffee pickers in South America is juvenile. Throwing a chair through the window of Starbucks because you asked for a grande latte percent and they gave you a venti half-caf caramel macchiato, well, thatÕs just basic common sense.
Do you know there are people who refuse to pay their federal income taxes because they don't want their money going towards building weapons of mass destruction? Now, while I applaud these citizens for their dedication to their ideals and for having the courage to act on their personal conscience, I also offer them one word of advice: move. It's a big world out there, Rainbow McDolphin. If you don't feel like paying the cover charge at Club America, pack up your Birkenstocks and find yourself another place to groove.
Many participate in acts of civil disobedience because it gives them an instant community of like-minded brethren who keep them from having to spend their evenings alone, perusing a three-year-old issue of "Mother Jones" magazine under the flickering half-light of that cat-shit-powered lamp in their hydroponic marijuana nursery, before crawling under their unbleached burlap sheets for the unsatisfying solace of a non-gendered dildo carved out of a cruelty-free handmade beeswax candle.
Give them this, though. Today's protesters are a lot more media-savvy than their predecessors, striving to spend more time in front of the camera than a lens cover. Sure, without a doubt, there are many people out there truly sacrificing for a worthy cause. However, I opine that for every one of them, there are many more who are in it for the publicity, the pussy or the buzz.
Come on: Al Sharpton on a hunger strike? Please. All he's doing is going on all the diets he should have been on for the past 20 years, all at once.
I mean, look who's doing the protesting: garage band dropouts, the chronically unemployed, limelight-whore politicians and B-list entertainers. People for whom living up in the top of a tree for 3 years could only be considered a lifestyle improvement.
Remember that girl in the redwood tree, huh? I think her name was Butterfly, and she was living there to keep a timber company from cutting it down. She stayed up in that tree for over a year through lightning storms and rain and fires. And I have to say... I was inspired. So inspired, in fact, that about a week after hearing about Butterfly, when the owner of a local shoe store refused to give me a refund for what was obviously a defective pair of Ugg Boots, well, I got a sleeping bag and some basic supplies and climbed up in the green-striped canvas awning over the shoestore's front door. And I read a book, took a nap, ate an olive-loaf sandwich, talked to some friends on my cell phone... then an hour and a half later, climbed down and went home. I don't think the shoe store owner ever even knew I was up there. But I knew it... and a few people walking by knew it... and I... I just think sometimes you have to take a nap in other people's awnings, that's all.
And a personal note to all the eco-zealots out there, inexplicably blocking the roads to protest global warming: nobody loves this planet more than I do. I live here, most of the time. But don't make me sit in traffic for six hours because the only way Mother Earth will let you fuck her is if I stop using hairspray, OK, Stinkbean?
You know, in 30 years, this country has gone from Vietnam protestors placing rose petals down the barrels of National Guardsmen's rifles to tossing over garbage cans and setting fire to police cars because weÕre glad the Lakers won the championship. I can't tell if we've grown soft or just lost our fucking minds.
Ironically, nonviolent protest is at its most effective when it sparks the authorities into violence, shaming them in the eyes of the world. So what I'm saying is, if you're a cop, and some irate malcontent who's dressed up like a sea-turtle is screaming in your face about globalization or multinational corporations or whatever the latest codeword is for "my parents say I have to be out of the house for at least four hours a day," well, pull out your billy club and give him a good whack on that so-many-piercings-you'd-think-it-was-a-fucking-tacklebox head of his. He'll be getting exactly what he wants. And if not, well, at least I will.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Good to see you can actually laugh at death. Usually, talking about death and dying makes people feel about as comfortable as Shaquille O'Neal flying coach.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but death is the price we pay for life. Oh, by the way, I did see it much cheaper at Costco last weekend, so you might want to shop around.
We have a lot of cute euphemisms for death: "croaked," "kicked the bucket," "bought the farm," "took a dirt nap," "met your maker," "cashed in your chips," "ordered-in from the dollar-an-item Mongolian Barbeque in the alley behind the Gold-Chains-By-The-Inch stand downtown."
There is a school of thought, usually promulgated by the topaz-jewelry-wearing, multiple-cat owning, ancient-Volvo-with-"Practice Random Kindness And Senseless Acts Of Beauty"-bumpersticker-driving segment of our population, that says we as a society need to remove the stigma from death and regard it as just another part of life. These rainbow-and-unicorn simpletons ask, "Why do we insist on portraying death as cruel?" Well, it's difficult to answer that question, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say, because it fucking kills us.
Other cultures, perhaps those with less material wealth but a far richer spiritual heritage, embrace and celebrate death. But then, what do they have to live for in the first place? Of course you're gonna have a big bash for Grandpa Bo-ba-la, Bo-ba-la, Bo-ba-la[CLICK CLICK CLICK] when he goes, he doesn't have to eat dingo shit off a flat rock anymore.
Another thing I don't get is when a society decides they need to keep the remains of a beloved leader on display. That's great as long as they still admire you, but look what happened to Vladimir Lenin. Now they've got him standing up outside a Moscow restaurant, where parking valets pin car keys to his face.
It's ironic that in our culture, everyone's biggest complaint is never having enough time, yet nothing terrifies us more than the idea of eternity. In America, we want to live forever, and a wide array of advanced cosmetic surgeries now guarantees that at least certain parts of us will. In fact, an increasing number of deceased bodies are now neither buried nor cremated, but returned for a deposit. Experts say that over the past 20 years, there's been a 72-percent increase in the number of eulogies that end in the phrase "Nice Rack."
Everyone who survives a near-death experience reports the same phenomenon, that being a bright light. You know what that light is? It's the doctor, trying to detect any brain function by shining a flashlight into your pupils, you almost-dead clueless jagoff.
Now, the second worst way to die has to be in an airplane crash. The worst way, of course, is choking to death on an apricot pit after waving off the only guy offering you the Heimlich because he was too good-looking, and you were afraid he'd stir something in you that's best left dormant.
Some people feel the need to have very bizarre funerals, trying to be the life of the party even when they're dead by insisting that everyone wear a Hawaiian shirt. These are the same assholes who get married on roller coasters. You know, it's only a matter of time before some octogenarian prankster rigs his body to pop up out of the casket like Big Mouth Billy Bass and sing, "Don't Worry -- Be Happy".
And the cost of dying is unbelievable. Because just like in life, in death we can't resist having the latest and best of everything. I mean, a casket with Internet hook-up? Give me a break. When I go, stuff my ass full of candy and toys and let some little Mexican kid whack me with a bat. I don't give a shit; I'm dead.
At my funeral, I want to have a TV screen showing the end of "The Beverly Hillbillies," where they're all waving goodbye, but they have my face digitally superimposed over Granny's.
Einstein said energy can't be created or destroyed. I agree with that. I believe there is a spark inside each and every one of us that lives forever. When we die, I believe that energy leaves the body and floats towards some new vessel. Now if we can just find a way to capture that spark before it finds its new repository, we could keep California's power grid up and running for most of the upcoming summer.
I urge you to view your inevitable demise not with grief or fear but with acceptance and perhaps even hope. Your death is an end to sadness and pain. Your death is a passage to a better world. Your death is a moment of unification with the sacredness of eternity. My death, on the other hand? Greatest fuckin' tragedy in the history of mankind.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Can you believe that there are actually people out there who want to portray him as a victim? It's about time we put things right for the real victims of crime.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but given our scant attention to victims' rights, sometimes they're better off if the criminal is never caught in the first place. At least that way they only get fucked around once.
Maybe the problem is, we're a culture already saturated with victimization. We're all so loud, shrill, and adept at playing the victim in inconsequential situations that an actual bonafide victim stands about as much a chance of being noticed as an unemployed guy with a laptop and a goatee at a Starbucks.
The sheer volume of cases presently deluging the courts pretty much guarantees that no matter how heinous the crime, its victims are faceless entities, mere numbers on a court docket who are accorded all the dignity of a ring girl at a cockfight.
The entire legal system is bent on ensuring the rights of the accused. Victims couldn't wield any less power if they were the California electrical grid.
The disparity between the victim's and the criminal's rights is most obvious when it comes to representation. Criminals who can't afford a lawyer get one appointed to them by the court, while victims who cant afford one are relegated to hiring the cycloptic paralegal who advertises during "Mama's Family."
In order to avoid creating vigilantes, society takes the right of retribution for a crime away from the victim and makes it a matter for "the people." Of course, in America this means the solemn burden of justice is in the hands of the same "people" who created the Chia Pet, order the "Backyard Wrestling" tapes, and have demanded 7 distinct flavors of Corn-Nuts.
Come on, there's gotta be a way to protect the rights of victims as well as the accused. For example, victims should have a right to know when the animal who attacked them is going to get out of jail. They shouldn't have to read about it in the papers, or find out their assailant took tax-payer-financed computer courses in prison and has just been hired as their boss.
And how about white collar criminals who bilk people out of their life savings and are then given a slap on the wrist-sentenced to house arrest? The solution is simple: Sentence them to house arrest in their victim's house. Trust me, they'll be beggin' for prison.
As for paying restitution... Well, many criminals don't have any money. What they do have is unlimited time and limited space. I think they should have to spend their entire sentence pedaling a stationary bike in their cell that generates electricity and sends it to the homes of their victims. Take a big chunk out of those monthly utility bills.
And I can't believe that there is any argument against rules requiring convicted child molesters to announce their presence in neighborhoods. Hey, fuck that. I think they should have to wear bells on their shoes and a bright yellow windbreaker that says, "I am a convicted child molester" on the back. But I do have a solution that should make everybody happy: Let's force paroled child molesters to live in the same neighborhoods where all the ACLU attorneys live.
In the case of physical assault, the victim should have the right to choose his assailant's cellmate. If done properly, this one easy step could serve the dual purpose of making the victim feel empowered, and the criminal feel victimized. Or, at the very least, sore.
In our increasingly vengeful society, guaranteeing crime victims their rights is not just desirable. It's essential. It channels that need for vengeance away from chaos and into socially acceptable expression. But if we continue to push victims around, they may one day feel as if they have no choice but to take back their rights in the only way they've seen work: by becoming defendants themselves.
Yes, we are all innocent until proven guilty, but when a self-confessed monster like Timothy McVeigh can stall his execution because of a few misplaced boxes of documents that only show how much more guilty he is, we need to hustle his ass up onto that gurney faster than the time it will take for his scumbag lawyers to sign their upcoming book deal.
I endorse the execution of McVeigh. But every now and then I feel a pang of guilt, thinking, "Could he suffer more?" In my fantasy, we get a Port-A-John that's brimming with shit, lock him in it, and put the whole thing on a pickup truck driving slowly cross-country on badly paved roads.
Some anti-death penalty advocates say that McVeigh's execution won't bring closure to the survivors of the bombing. Maybe not, but it will bring closure to McVeigh's eyes, and frankly, that's all I need right now.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Timbo [BLOW KISS]
You remember Saturday morning cartoons? They're the two minutes of filler between commercials for supersoakers and 16,000 forms of sugar. Including salted sugar.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but while I sometimes find advertising misleading, I do think it is necessary, as it often imparts vital information to the consumer. For example, paper towels with two plies are more absorbent. Wider gaps in tire treads help prevent hydroplaning. Fluoride fights tooth decay, and visiting foreign countries makes you shit yourself. And then you're back to the two-ply thing.
Advertising is not merely a human phenomenon, but a biological impulse found throughout the natural world. Peacocks attract the attention of a mate through a multicolored feather display. Baboons signal their sexual readiness with a pair of red, swollen buttock. And both the duck and gecko offer a broad range of attractively priced supplemental car insurance packages.
TV commercials nowadays are unrecognizable from what they were 20 years ago. Now you get these out-of-focus MTV jump cuts with a throbbing techno soundtrack and writhing supermodels in tankinis having simulated lesbian sex in the rain and a nun riding a yellow bike and a little barefoot kid in a Guatemalan village, and it's an ad for fucking pretzels.
I just wish people who wrote catchy commercial jingles in the 70's had taught at my high school -- I think I would've retained a lot more important, useful knowledge. I don't remember anything about geometry, history or science, but I do remember that when it says Libbie's Libbie's Libbie's on the label label label, you will like it like it like it on your table table table. And I swear, if I find myself alone in my car car car one more time singing, "Plop plop fizz fizz/oh what a relief it is", I'm going to hunt down the mind-control fuckwad who wrote that piece-of-shit Pavlovian haiku, and demand that he give me that part of my brain back.
You know, I'm seeing a lot more ads for medicines now. They're pushing pills for allergies that are followed by a list of side effects that read like a book of witchs spells. Nosebleeds, dry mouth, insomnia, shortness of breath, liver damage. You know what? Keep your allergy medicine. I'd rather reach for a Kleenex than have a blue arc of electricity connecting my nipples. At the top of my list of commercials I do like are the ones for the local stereo store starring either the stereo store owner, or the heavily made-up stereo store receptionist the stereo store owner is trying to bang.
You know which television commercial makes me laugh? The one with the kid sitting in his car in the parking lot, dancing like a robot to "Mr. Roboto." Genius. Absolutely no idea what it's selling.
Now, I'm all for sex in advertising, but I think it's gone too far. Steamy, provocative magazine ads are fine, but I was at the beach recently, and there was a prop plane going back and forth along the shoreline trailing a banner that said: "ADD INCHES TO YOUR TINY COCKDENNIS" And then there's no phone number.
Recent advances in digital technology now allow dead celebrities to endorse products that weren't even around when they were living. Just in case the heirs to my estate are getting any funny ideas, I want to get it out of the way right now: No matter what kind of cure for diarrhea they may discover in the year 2525, leave me out of it.
Now I might not be most objective guy to lecture you on the dangers of pervasive consumerism, given my own occasional forays into the world of advertising. But please believe me: I am just as concerned as any of you about the omnipresence of advertising, and try and take my warnings tonight as a desperately needed wake-up call... of up to 20 minutes for only 99 cents.
As a public person, I'm very picky about what I choose to endorse. A few years back I got a call from some arms dealers. They wanted me to be the spokesman for a Kalashnikov machine gun that they wanted to market to child soldiers in Southeast Asia. I said, "What kind of sick fuck animal do you take me for? You want Jon Lovitz."
You know, folks, it's inescapable. From the designer label on the protruding elastic band of the immense size-52 underpants of the man in front of you in the line at Dunkin' Donuts straining to point out the maple cruller on the bottom rack of the display case - no, no, not that one, that one with the extra frosting and the jimmies - to the drive to work where you are subjected to a flashcard-like strobing of billboards that leaves your brain stamped with subliminal impulses to fly United to Florida's Gulf Coast to take a Princess Cruise to a Radisson Hotel in the Friendly Bahamas, where you'll drink Ronrico White Rum and wear an oversized Tommy Hilfiger shirt, and Merrill hiking shoes, while getting Lasik eye surgery, having your teeth whitened, getting approved for a home loan over the phone and winning a large cash settlement for your personal injury claim. And then the light changes, and you drive a second block.
As a matter of fact, life for me is just the downtime between Chevy "Like a Rock" ads, which have now officially lasted longer than Bob Seeger's actual career. Attention, Madison Avenue: I give up. You've won. Here's my wallet, just get it over with and paint a milk mustache on the Statue of Liberty, OK?
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but tobacco is so entwined with the history of this country, the only reason the Statue of Liberty is not holding up a lit cigarette is that her torch provides a better backdrop for final showdowns in shitty action movies.
Now, if you ask most smokers whether or not they want to smoke they'd probably tell you "no," they hate it. But nicotine couldn't be tougher to kick if Lucy Van Pelt from "Peanuts" was holding it with her fingertip.
Los Angelenos have been some of the most outspoken advocates against smokers exposing us to their second-hand smoke. Which is ironic, considering that compared to L.A. air, second-hand smoke is like aromatherapy. I'm so paranoid about getting sick I'm even worried about third-hand smoke -- the smoke coming off a second-hand smoker. Where's the research on that?
Now, as everyone who saw "The Insider" will remember, Russell Crowe's character, in trying to testify against the tobacco industry, was up against an adversary that would do anything to stop him, from e-mailing him threats to targeting his wife and child to forcing him to fight off man-eating lions on the blood-drenched floor of the Coliseum.
Because, by definition, their best customers are the ones most likely to up and die on them, tobacco companies must constantly look for fresh meat. As a result, they must aim their laser sites on the only group of people who are easy prey because they are so naive, so easily swayed by peer pressure, and so unready to make their own decisions as mature adults: Southerners. Also, teenagers.
And they start 'em off young. Remember candy cigarettes? I used to love those. At first, I only enjoyed one with an occasional glass of Kool-Aid or, say, after a wild and crazy Slip-and-Slide party at Ray Luigi's place, but pretty soon I was up to three packs a day. I never went in for bubblegum cigars; they always seemed a tad, I dunno, pretentious.
Our war on tobacco is a microcosm for a fundamental contradiction in the American psyche. We see ourselves as independent, livin'-my-life-without-the-government-on-my-back Marlboro men until something goes wrong, whereupon we turn into whiny, litigious crybabies looking for someone to foot the bill for our fuckups.
Currently there's a raft of ex-smokers suing tobacco companies because they got sick, and I just don't think that's right. Sure, I hate tobacco companies and think they sell a quintessentially evil product, and then lie insidiously through their yellowed teeth, all the while trading in their venal, profiteering souls for a lucrative paycheck in this life, knowing full well they'll spend all of time having their flesh raked by the fiery claws of Hell, while the cries of all their victims resonate in their ears for all eternity. That being said, I hate lawyers even more.
Yes, I feel sorry for the people suffering the effects of years of smoking. Yes, I think the tobacco companies should be punished for their deceptions and subterfuge. But suing a tobacco company because youve developed a health problem from smoking cigarettes is like suing McDonalds because they failed to inform you that the hot coffee you ordered will scald your lap if you spill it on yourself. Hmm, bad example.
OK, let's try this one. Suing a tobacco company because you've developed a health problem from smoking cigarettes is like demanding an apology from the "Members Only" jacket people for your not-getting-laid in the 80's.
It's pretty clear that President Bush isn't going to lead a fight against the cigarette companies, as he has stated several times that he believes the answer to the problem lies in opening up the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve for growing more tobacco.
I believe that right now the tobacco companies are missing a perfect PR opportunity to turn the tide of public opinion in their favor. I'm speaking, of course, about the energy crisis and the surrounding environmental concerns. For example, if the lights go out during an unexpected rolling blackout, who's going to have a lighter to provide emergency illumination? The smoker. If we experience increased pollution from unregulated power plants, who's going to require less oxygen because of diminished lung capacity? The smoker. And if ecosystems fall like dominoes, rendering the human race a mere band of cannibalistic scavengers wandering through a barren wasteland, whose flesh will possess the pleasant smoky taste of barbecue? Thank you, smokers.
Hey, America grows most of the world's tobacco. If I were president, I'd go on national television and tell those jagoffs from OPEC, "Hey, you know what's tougher to kick than cheap oil? Those Yankee Devil Marlboro 100's that you're always lightin' off a burning American flag. Yeah, that's right, Sheik Octane, you heard me. I don't see any tobacco plants sprouting up from that desert shitbox of yours. Now I want to see premium gasoline going for fifty cents a gallon again, or you guys are going to be up all night chain-sucking on goat-flavored Jolly Ranchers." [ULULATE]
Of course that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
And earlier today, Timothy McVeigh's execution was moved back to June 11th. Ahhhhh. You know, I love a June execution.
Or better yet, let's forget June. Let's put it in sweeps week. Just imagine what an ad would go for. You think I'm kidding? Trust me, if General Motors thought it would move vehicles off its dealers' lots, they would sponsor a live TV broadcast of Timothy McVeigh's execution. No doubt with some sort of tasteful product tie-in: "Folks, if you thought that injection was lethal, check-out the fuel injection in the all new 300-horsepower Cadillac Escalade"
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but what does it say about our culture when the most escapist form of entertainment is currently called "reality" television?
In the past, most networks tended to dabble delicately in the arena of reality tv, but lately, theyve been going for it like a hungry mutt on an ass-flavored Milkbone.
One of the longest-running reality shows is "Cops," every episode of which poses the burning question: "Why is that morbidly obese man not wearing a shirt?" At least digitally scramble his mantits, OK?
Then theres "The Real World." Based on the premise that living rent-free in a fabulous house on the beach with a bunch of attractive young people all the while being videotaped by an ever-present camera crew is in any way, shape or form "real." However, "The Real World" does provide us with the valuable insight that, like, when you buy, like, orange juice, you know, and somebody else, like drinks it without, you know, like, asking, that's, like, a personal violation? You know?
And I couldn't watch "Temptation Island" because from what I gather, it would have reminded me of one of my vacations when I was single. Remember when you planned to hit the island and fuck anything that movedand nothing moved?
"Survivor" is the gold standard of reality programming, and when this craze is over, appropriately, it will probably be the last one standing. I caught the season finale of "Survivor." Watching this poly-merized tribal ritual through the smoky tiki-torch kerosene-scented haze, just one thought crossed my mind: How come that Keith guy is 40 but looks like he's 90?
Now I realize that if I were to be a contestant on "Survivor," I would probably be one of the first to be voted off -- if not for my tendency to openly hate other people, then for the visual and emotional assault that is me in bicycle pants crying all the time. But my plan would be simple. As soon as the votes were tallied, and Jeff Probst gave me the bad news, saying, "The tribe has spoken," I'd say, "Oh yeah? Well fuck the tribe. I'm a 'Survivor!'" and I'd bolt into the jungle, only to emerge every night to pick the other contestants off one by one with poison darts. Then I'd start in on the crew.
The truth is that, although people see reality shows as their doorway to instant television celebrity, it's probably much harder to beat out the 35,000 other applicants vying for a spot on "Survivor" than it was for me to beat out the one other applicant trying to be the host of Dennis Miller Live. Though believe me, Lynn Redgrave did not go down without a fight. That is one scrappy lady.
Now they've started double-layering the reality shows. They've had everything from "Dateline" stories on "Big Brother" to the "Survivor" cast on "The Weakest Link." But you know something? I'm not sure they've taken it far enough. I wouldn't mind seeing that frigid dwarf chick from "Weakest Link", caught in nothing but her chainmail corset and size 2 jackboots, running down an alley from an immigration officer on a Fox special called "When Untalented Foreigners Get Hired."
But while I've got my bones to pick with it, I do think reality television has a deserved place in the roster of our nightly entertainment. In fact, I myself have several ideas for new shows in the genre. The first is called "You Gotta Be Shittin' Me," and it involves simply mounting video cameras atop gasoline pumps at stations throughout Southern California.
I'm also pitching an alternative to "When Good Pets Go Bad." It's called "Put the Goddamn Video Camera Down, Edna, and Yank This Mongoose off my Nutsack."
To make a long story short, the key thing to remember about this evolutionary stage in the television medium is that TV tends to eat its own. And in a classic example of plagiaristic television logic, the geniuses at NBC noticed that every successful reality show sparked its own catchphrase "Voted off the island," "Is that your final answer?" and so they decided that all they needed to make a hit out of "The Weakest Link" was to plaster the phrase "You are the weakest link" over so many billboards and bus-stops that it is now permanently burnt into my brain like that time I walked in on Star Jones at the Universal Amphitheater VIP bathroom. But you know what? You cannot build an entire show around a single, easily-remembered catch phrase, and assume that just because you repeat it week after week, people will ultimately attach some sort of profundity or wit to it, and clap like trained seals whenever they hear it. People are not that stupid. They're not going to fall for it, and it's simply not going to work.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
God, Madonna is shameless about publicity, isn't she? Somehow, I find it hard to sympathize too much with her when she calls a live, televised, webcast, stereo-simulcast, distributed-by-satellite, available-on-properly-equipped cellphones press conference to complain that the media doesn't respect her privacy. You know, it seems to me that the only time Madonna doesn't draw a crowd is the opening weekend of one of her films.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but why is it that the only people who are quiet and mind their own business nowadays are the serial killers?
Nobody minds their own business anymore. Americans stick their nose where it doesn't belong more than Cyrano de Bergerac giving head.
We live in a nauseatingly confessional society. But it wasn't always that way. There was a time when you wouldn't dream of telling a guy you just met that you were an alcoholic. Unless, of course, you met the guy because you had driven your car into his swimming pool.
True, thanks to our tight-lipped Puritan ancestors with their scarlet letters and witch hunts, we've always been a nation obsessed with the doings of others. In the past, however, we justified our pejorative meddling with some lame, moralistic claptrap about "upholding community standards." Well, the fact is, folks, community standards have now deteriorated like the relationship between Brett Michaels and C.C. Deville on VH1's "Poison: Behind The Music." By the way, I hear Poison is touring again. It's always nice to go see a retro-tour of a hair band where the only drug they're now shooting up is Rogaine.
Hey, in our media-saturated culture, the border between news and entertainment is crossed more often than a line in one of George W. Bushs coloring books.
The thing about the entertainment media's particular brand of voyeurism is, we're so easily bored that, if somebody wants to keep our attention, they must continually supersize the freak value. I was watching "Springer" the other day and actually saw a couple get their marriage back on track by beating the shit out of each other. I think Jerry's final thought was entitled, "I'm OK, You're OK, Bitch."
Then there are the hapless casualties of voyeurism like Monica, Darva, and Kato, forced to watch defenselessly as every nook and cranny of their personal lives gets slurped into America's bottomless maw for other people's humiliation -- all under the false rubric that a free and open society has the right to know. At first fidgety, these quasi-luminaries ease into their new roles quickly, seduced by the yodeling highs of celebrity that smudge the line between the famous and the infamous, until there's no real point in their ever saying goodbye. They turn into Abe Vigoda - you always think they're dead, and yet, they're always RSVP'ing in the affirmative. It's sort of like Karmic extortion. We wouldn't leave them alone, so now it's their turn. And in the end, their fifteen minutes last longer than a cross-country airplane conversation with a Jehovah's Witness who sells life insurance.
What I can't fathom are the people who auction off their privacy on the open market. You can go online now and actually watch mutants and cybergeeks who record every nanosecond of their lives - every snore, every burp, every restraining order filed against them by William Shatner - and beam it out over the Internet. It all raises the interesting philosophical question: How can you broadcast your life when you don't have a life to begin with?
Do the media and the Internet feed this tendency, or merely reflect it? It's hard to say. We're living in a time when personal boundaries are more blurred than the camera lens in a Joan Collins photo shoot. You would think that this would help to generate more openness between people, but all it seems to have done is increase our mistrust. We feel perfectly comfortable spending hours online, sharing our innermost thoughts and yearnings with complete strangers, but we don't even meet the people living next door until there's a huge earthquake and everyone's out on their lawns at one in the morning. As a matter of fact, that's the scariest part of an earthquake - hearing your 58 year-old neighbors Myrna and Leo explain how they had just strapped her into the Vietnamese fuck basket, when all of a sudden, she started swinging back and forth, like King Kong's balls on a hot day. "Well, thanks for the visual, Myrna, I think I'm gonna go pick up a downed power line now, OK?"
One of the most disturbing trends in the demise of personal privacy is the proliferation of hidden cameras. They're everywhere now. [POINTING AT CAMERA] As a matter of fact, what's this? I just don't think that's right. When I'm by myself, just like everyone else in this room, I do things that I would never do if I knew I was being videotaped. I pick my nose. I scratch my nuts. I squeeze blemishes. I work at my stubborn dandruff patch. I kick off my shoes and bite my toenails. I use whatever's lying around to scrape my tongue. I pull nostril hairs out and measure them with a small silver ruler I carry on a chain around my neck and record their length in millimeters in an embossed spiral notebook. I pinch my nipples until my eyes tear up, and I straddle things and yell "giddy-up," while slapping myself on the ass with a Victorian carpet beater. The point is, I should be able to pass my time waiting in line at the Post Office any way I want to.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but tonight I'd like to take a step back and evaluate the former oilman who just 83 days ago took on the awesome responsibility of running our huge, complicated nation. And, if we have time, I'd also like to talk about President Bush.
Now, the rap on George W. Bush is that he's lazy, takes naps in the middle of the day, and would rather be watching television than focusing on what average Americans want for their lives. Hey, that is exactly what average Americans want for their lives.
President Bush took office promising to change the tone of the White House. Where Clinton looked presidential and acted like a kid, Bush looks like a kid and so far -- acts presidential. And while he has turned off the wocka-wocka 70's porno guitar of the Clinton years, so far he has yet to replace it with much more than the fuzzy hissing of a patriotic late-night sign-off on a local television station.
You can't talk about George W. without addressing the strange Bilbo-Baginnian language that spurts out from between his lips like melted marshmallows coming out of a squirt gun.
As a matter of fact, when the words in Bush's throat see their colleagues heading up to his lips, they react with all the giddy panic of teenagers watching a horror movie: "Don't go out there, man! He'll butcher you!"
Bush may not be smart, but at least he's smart enough to know he's not smart. The wisest thing he did in the China spy plane standoff was let someone else handle it. By contrast, a hands-on, eager-to-look-tough, micro-manager like Al Gore would have reacted with all the composure of a drag queen getting his wig yanked off.
Bush had the foresight to surround himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a doughnut. W.'s team of handlers has him so well trained, they're thinking of entering him in the Westminster Kennel Club show as a short-attention-spaniel.
Bush ran on a pledge to improve education, and I believe he's going to pull it off. By the year 2012, the average high school senior should be able to name the capitals of all 45 states that haven't yet been flooded by the melted polar ice caps.
Now, arguably the only thing this president has in common with our last president is the completely unabashed, unapologetic affinity for drilling the shit out of everything on the planet.
It's not that I don't agree with the bottom line on many of Dubyas stands, because I often do. Do I care about the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge? Sure, I guess so. But the mere mention of drilling for oil in it doesn't cause me to foam at the mouth like a rabid fruit bat blowing Mr. Bubble. Give me a fucking break. Every other vehicle in this country is a Lincoln Navigator with an "Earth First" bumper sticker on it. You simply cannot blame George W. Bush for not being able to let you have it both ways. Besides, do you know how many caribou it takes to pull the average four-door sedan at a steady 65 miles per hour? Believe me, the 405 would be fucked.
Hey, let's face it. He got into college by the skin of his teeth and into the Air National Guard the same way. He won the presidential election by a margin narrower than John Ashcroft's mind. Really, Bush's greatest achievement in his life up to this point has been to lower our expectations of him so that practically anything he accomplishes in the Oval Office is bound to impress us. So much so that, if he can just finish out his term without stickin' a Roman candle up his ass on a dare from brother Jeb, he's probably gonna end up on Mount Rushmore.
Truth be told, I like the fact that President Bush is not slick, that he mangles the English language. I prefer a guy in there who knows what he wants to say but can't quite say it, instead of someone who is very eloquent about promises he has no intention of keeping. So far, Bush has kept his pledge to the American people. He's surrounded himself with the best minds in Washington, restored civility to the Oval Office, and made it clear that this is an administration that believes in big business and a strong military, while working like a motherfucker on that 1.6-trillion-dollar tax cut he guaranteed us last year. Now you may not like these promises he's keeping, but maybe, in the end, what this country needs, above all else, is someone who just keeps his word, even if that word is "Ca-rum-u-bob-ulate-tion-ism."
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
This weekend, ESPN is holding its first Extreme Sports awards. "Extreme sports"? Hey, folks, let's call this what it is: weird shit invented by guys who are willing to die to get laid.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but our obsession with extreme sports has people all over the country jumping off bridges, skyscrapers and mountain cliffs, and some of them aren't even invested in the stock market.
The concept of extreme sports is yet another component in the vast conspiracy contrived to make me feel like I'm aging faster than a tuna sandwich in the glove compartment of a black car parked in Phoenix, Arizona.
Extreme sports are usually played by middle-class white kids, because the equipment involved is expensive, the activities often require costly trips to exotic locations and, let's face it, unfortunately, if you're growing up in an inner-city housing project, the mere act of walking to school is no doubt extreme enough.
Gen-X sports have been so successful for advertisers, they're now afraid to market anything without them. I saw Charles Schwab on TV the other day, trying to yell something about moderate-growth mutual funds while wakeboarding off the North Shore of Oahu, with his knee joints poppin' like two M-80s goin' off in an underground parking garage.
Hey, you only have to watch a minute of extreme sports to distill what is really going on here: psychopaths enriching osteopaths.
Now, when it was first introduced, bungee jumping was seen as the peak of extreme, a wild, daring pasttime only the boldest madmen would undertake. It has today become so mainstream that all bungee jumping platforms are required by law to be fully wheelchair-accessible.
Then there's BASE jumping, a high fatality activity which involves leaping off buildings and bridges with a parachute. You know, when I was ten years old, I climbed up on the roof of our neighbors garage and jumped off while holding an open umbrella. Only it wasn't called BASE jumping back then, let's see, what was it called ... oh yeah, "Being a Fucking Moron."
If you really want to screw with a BASE jumper's head, wait at the edge of the cliff, and just before he's about to go, ask for his girlfriends phone number.
You know, when I watch one of these Eco Challenge events, I always wonder what the local natives think when they see the civilized folk "roughing it" with all the state-of-the-art clothing and equipment money can buy. Meanwhile, the Sherpas are climbing Everest with nothing on their feet but Wonder Bread bags, and their gods forbid the use of twist ties. And how about when these hikers pull out their calorically calibrated protein bars, while the guide from the tribe, who is naked except for the animal horn on his penis just digs into a pile of elephant dung and pulls out an undigested peanut, and calls it macaroni. [SING] Yankee Doody went to town
Extreme sports are fascinating to someone like me, who screams like Maria Callas in late-stage labor if I merely drive over a pothole with an open coffee container between my legs. In my defense, I may not be as adventurous as I used to be, but given the right set of circumstances, I am as extreme as they come. Like the other day, I'm making my famous cinnamon baked apples. But just for the sheer adrenaline rush, I stick the cloves in with their spikey ends pointing out. Balls to the wall, dude!
I think I speak for many of my fellow Los Angelenos when I say that I find extreme sports rather redundant when I spend a good deal of my day just trying to stay alive in traffic, while pinned between 4 stegasaurus-sized S.U.V.s, each being driven by a psychotically aggressive, Palm-Pilot-wielding, 98-pound woman with the blood sugar level of Lot's wife.
I view professional extreme athletes with, at worst, mild puzzlement and, at best, genuine respect. But what pisses me off are the amateur extreme athletes, who don't just risk their own lives -- they make some park ranger, fireman, or cop risk his life to save them. Every time I see a soldier who enlisted so he could defend his country, end up having to put his neck on the line, rappelling off a helicopter to save some middle-aged hero-wannabe jagoff who skied 20 miles off the clearly marked trail just so he can have a better pickup line than, "Hey, baby, your place or my moms?", I can't help but hope that just this one time, the kid from the National Guard is going to change his mind and chopper away to get a well-deserved beer, but not before getting just close enough to shout, "Hey, asshole, Charles Darwin says hi."
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
You know why Jack Kerouac was cool? Because he had no idea he was.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but cool is a gift. It's having eight pounds of hip in a five-pound bucket. It's not bought, bred or bequeathed. Clinton lost it, Gore can't buy it and Bush thinks it's spelled with a "k."
America's drive to be cool is like an endless game of "Follow the Leader," with all of us in a dog-sled-train, struggling to keep up with the alpha male trendsetter, when all we can make out are the hazy, glistening outlines of his ice-flecked, rhythmically pumping butt cheeks. Sorry, I got a little carried away, there. I'm still recovering from Gay Week on Animal Planet.
The United States is the birthplace of cool. If the world was a high school, America would be making out in study hall with Sweden, picking on India, and smoking in the U.N. restroom with France and Colombia.
Coolness appeals to us because it represents being free from the constraints of society while still living within it, dropping in to give Richie and Chachi a dose of hard-earned street wisdom, and then headin' off to Arnold's to grab a shake and pound a free song out of the jukebox when the Cunningham scene gets a little too "square." By the way, almost triggering a petite mal seizure by doing the finger quotes thing - uncool.
Now, there are many types of cool. There's the classic, iconic, Bogart approach: cryptic and unflappable, squinting through the smoke from the cigarette dangling between your lips, never letting a trace of emotion show except for an occasional sardonic half-smile at the foolish world around you that you couldn't give a rat's ass about.
As a matter of fact, some celebrities reach a cool of such mythic proportions, it transcends their physical being. Frank Sinatra is so cool, he hasn't bothered to take a breath for years, and he could still kick the shit out of you.
Then there's the demographically researched, pop-media faux-cool, the type of insouciance that bears the corporate patina of mass-marketed nonconformity. This is shopping mall cool, easily attainable: You don't have to Harley to Sturges; or Master the Guitar; or Trek through Nepal-- just plunk down your Discover card and buy some threads at Urban Outfitters or a barbed-wire bicep-tattoo at the Henna Hut, and not only will you enter the kingdom of cool, you'll also get a valuable cash-back bonus that can be applied to cruise travel or a Reader's Digest subscription.
I think some manufacturers may be trying a little too hard to envelop everything with a hip aura. I was at a drug store and watched an old man spend 15 minutes trying to decide if he wanted his Ex-Lax in Extreme Orange or Totally Wacked Wintermint.
There are certain places and situations where it's virtually impossible to put up a cool front. For example, when your doctor gives you a prostate exam, or when the supermarket cashier calls for a price check on super-small-size condoms, or when the door man at the Vanity Fair Oscar party bitch-slaps you for bursting into tears when he tells you he can't find your name on the guest list, even though it should have been there it SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!! J-Lo, I love you!
I guess the coolest I ever felt was when Carveys Church Lady was really taking off on Saturday Night Live, and yet the entire nation was doing my George Bush impersonation. Oh wait, that was Dana, too. Come to think of it, I've never felt cool.
One of my favorite pastimes is to look around and try to determine who the coolest person in the room is. For example the other day at Starbucks, as I observed the 20-something counter jockey with the pierced prefrontal cortex and the dust bunny on his chin, and the as-yet un-produced screenwriter sitting in the corner staring at a four-year-old script-in-progress that still has fewer words in it than his latte order, or the heavily perfumed walking designer rack talking into her cell phone like she was trying to be heard over a fucking chainsaw, I realized with some pride that I could honestly say I was the coolest person in the immediate proximity, until I looked out the window and caught the eye of the Guatemalan landscaper trimming the hedges outside, obviously wondering what kind of schmuck I was to pay three dollars and seventy five cents for a cup of coffee.
Let's bottom line this. For me, the only real cool people left are those who don't buy into the coolness mystique. People who dont take themselves too seriously and don't screw over other people and understand that life goes on, the earth abideth forever, and what is cool today may not be cool tomorrow. That's why it's best just to be yourself. You know, unless, of course, you're an asshole.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but why are Americans so in love with credit? Simple: WE'RE AMERICANS. We want everything, we want it bigger, louder, shinier, faster, and we want it NOW. Instant gratification is as American as drive-through microwave apple pie. Of course Tantric sex was invented in India. Here, we want to fuck just to get it over with, so we can go out and buy more stuff.
This country was founded on debt. Hey, right off the bat, we got ourselves into hock to pay for the Revolutionary War. And then, in 1803, we purchased the Louisiana Territory, and they only sent us the clear title for that three weeks ago.
Historians often contrast our love of credit with the frugality and practicality of our Puritan ancestors. But come on: How frugal is it to buy a separate belt buckle just for your hat?
You can't begin to understand credit until you understand its boozy counterpart, interest. Credit is like a friendly bartender, wrapping his arm around your shoulder and telling you it's okay, just put this round on your credit card and take care of it with your next paycheck. Interest is the surly bouncer who hustles you head-first out of the warm tavern and face-first into the urine-stained snow bank, all the while mercilessly punching you in the ribs as he methodically goes through your pockets, until he gets back every last penny that you owe him.
Even the most thrifty among us need credit at some point or another. When you mortgage a house. When you buy a car. When you're on e-Bay and you see a mint-condition ice-packed human kidney that's still throbbing and would go perfectly in your collection ... But who would have a collection like that Clarice?
The irony is that responsible people who pay as they go never build up a good credit rating. And without one, you're considered a bad lending risk. Just try applying for a car loan or a mortgage. Trust me, you'll be ignored like the busboy at Hooters.
There is a whole generation out there who, between ATM cards and credit cards, don't even know what cash looks like. You take out a wad of bills these days, and you might as well be pulling out beaver pelts to pay for that pizza. I have had cashiers take the twenty-dollar bill I've given them and write my drivers license number on it. Of course, we'll always need cash for strip clubs. Nobody wants to see a naked chick swipe a card.
Now, I myself know what it's like to have bad credit. When I was 19, credit card companies would send me letters telling me I had been pre-approved for rejection.
Giving a teenager a credit card to teach them about money is like getting them drunk and putting them behind the wheel of a car to teach them responsibility. The interest rates on these cards make Tony Soprano look like George Bailey.
Bottom line: this country is more dependent on plastic than the casting director for Pamela Anderson's "V.I.P." And true, while I appreciate the convenience credit cards provide, what I really like are the cards themselves. I like their size and weight and as a matter of fact, I have customized mine with razor-sharp tungsten edges and balanced them for throwing with deadly accuracy. I also took the liberty of having a graphic artist rework the little holograms for me. My MasterCard shows a squirrel water-skiing, and my Visa shows an old, fat couple fucking. My point is, credit can be fun if you just let it.
If I have one bone to pick with the credit card companies, it's that they make the place where you're supposed to put your signature on the back of the card too small. And nobody ever checks the signature on the card anyway. When they do, it's just for show; they're not really checking it. I know because, as an experiment, on my most recent card, instead of signing it, I wrote, "Just ring it up, shithead." So far, not a peep.
Now, one of the ways we judge which rung of the ladder you are perched on in this society is by what color credit card you carry. For American Express, the once-prestigious Green card can be replaced by the Gold card. Keep charging, and you are eligible for the Platinum card, which can now be trumped by the upper-echelon Black card. Soon you will be able to just have a bar code sewn onto your ass, so that there's absolutely no way you can leave home without it.
In closing, let me say that today, I am fortunate, because I have the money to pay off my credit cards at the end of each month -- but I choose not to. Why? Well, my logic is that if a killer asteroid obliterates the earth, causing tidal waves and cosmic fires that destroy every submicroscopic trace of life on this planet as we know it, and I still owe three grand on my Visa, I win. [FINGER]
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
And an article in USA Today this week reported an increase in the number of pet owners taking their dogs to see psychiatrists. Hey, whatever happened to yelling at your dog to get off the couch? You know, if I could lick my own balls, I sure as hell wouldn't need a shrink. Ah, who am I kidding? I can lick my own balls. That's why I go to a shrink. I can't stop. Because I'm a human being, with a bafflingly complex mind and a very stiff neck.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but even the best psychiatrist is like a blindfolded auto mechanic poking around under your hood with a giant foam "We're #1" finger.
Though definitely a Western phenomenon, psychiatry hearkens back to traditional, tribal forms of healing, in which the right combination of words and potions would ease your tortured spirit. I can just picture an African Bushman, lying on a dirt floor, anxiously telling his medicine man this nightmare he keeps having about showing up at work fully clothed.
Even though it was invented in Europe, psychiatry could only become the multi-million-dollar business it is today here in the United States. We're the only people in the world who are stupid enough to actually want to know what's going on inside our minds. Americans couldn't be more self-absorbed if they were made of equal parts water and paper towel.
Another reason psychiatry has flourished in the US is that, in the 1970's, Woody Allen helped popularize the idea that going to a shrink is normal and healthy. And just look what its done for him and his family. He and his daughter-slash-wife have never been happier.
Now, ever since the days of Freud, psychiatry has been strictly limited to the realm of the middle-and- upper classes. Psychoanalysis is expensive, which isn't too surprising when you consider it was invented by a major cokehead.
For me, the difference between psychiatry and psychology is just one of those little nagging things I can never remember. Like stalactite or stalagmite. Alligator or crocodile. Nipple clamp or nipple restraint.
But I do know that psychosis falls into two major categories, manic-depression, and schizophrenia. Being diagnosed as one or the other has two immediate benefits. First, it automatically defines a set of effective treatments and second, it tells you which side you'll play on in the annual Crazy Fucks Softball Tournament.
Nowadays, rather than dwelling on childhood traumas and repressed sexuality, modern psychiatry deals more with correcting chemical imbalances in the brain. Kind of like what some people did back in college, except then it wasn't called psychiatry, it was called "bong hits."
Therapists face the daunting task of taking chaotic, violent and unstable people and molding them into well-rounded, secure and productive members of a chaotic, violent and unstable society.
Now, I'm not saying we should return to the days of lobotomies and electroshock, but I do feel the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Today, everything is a disorder or a disease that deserves our understanding. Nobody is held personally responsible for their actions. And that's gotta go. I think a good first step would be to change "not guilty by reason of insanity" to "guilty by reason of insanity."
Basically I'm a pretty normal guy when it comes to my mental health. I guess if I have one little problem that makes me consider seeing a shrink, it's a white-hot hatred for all humanity that burns so intensely it literally sears my insides. Other than that, I'm feelin' pretty mellow these days.
All kidding aside, I know what my problem is. I'm what you call a self-loathing paranoid. I don't think I'm worth the time and effort it would take for someone to hunt me down.
I view my head in much the same way I view my TV set. When something isn't working right, I can either bang it with my hand, or call a professional to fix the damn thing. In fact, I even have my shrink wear a tool belt and a name tag, and rip a big one at the start of every session.
The key is to find a therapist that you click with, someone that you trust implicitly with the deep, dark secrets you wouldn't even tell your accountant.
Now, I've had some great therapists in my life, and I've also had some who left me questioning their credentials. No doubt the worst was Doctor Cletus, a Jungian in bib overalls who, while I poured out the most intimate details of my very existence, would thumb through back-issues of "Guns & Ammo" magazine, occasionally glancing over at me, giggling and muttering, "Man, that is some weird-ass shit."
And the best input I ever got from a shrink? Well, when I was younger, I was plagued by feelings of inadequacy. So I went to see a psychologist. And he told me the reason I felt inadequate was because I was inadequate. Now that guy was a fucking genius.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Boy, the Clintons' left Washington about as quietly as Kid Rock leaves a Holiday Inn.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here but like an infestation of cockroaches, a drunken party guest or a super-virulent strain of antibiotic-resistant clap, the Clintons are proving almost impossible to get rid of. Hey, is there any way for an entire nation to file a restraining order?
Since we first met them, Bill and Hillary's political relationship has been defined by a series of scandals, providing their marriage a much-needed distraction from ever having to actually stop and figure out how to extricate themselves from their biggest predicament: each other. Let's face it. If the Clintons' marriage were any more about convenience, they'd have to install a Slurpee machine and a Slim-Jim rack.
We've all been watching in astonishment these last few weeks, as the Clintons merrily parade their greed and corruption past us like a garish Mardi Gras float powered by the drivetrain of Bill Clinton's gargantuan sense of entitlement. Hillary steers, while Bill sits on the top tossing pardons out to the crowd like a drunken Bacchus with a perpetual hard-on for a scepter.
And it turns out the Low Priest who shepherded many of the pardon petitioners to the quid-pro-quo altar is none other than Hillary's currently eight-and-a-half-months pregnant brother, Hugh Rodham. Hey, who could blame Jabba the Hick for acting as a supersized go-between? How would you like it if your sister was in the White House for eight years and you couldn't even cash in on it because of stupid laws and shit?
And the Hugh-Rodham-sponsored pardons were small, and quickly eaten, potatoes compared to the Marc Rich debacle. President Clinton has repeatedly insisted his pardon of Marc Rich was the right thing to do. Which should probably tip you off to just how wrong it undoubtedly was.
You almost have to admire the sheer audacity of granting pardons to two tax-scamming billionaire fugitives named Rich and Green. If the symbolism were any more obvious, Andrew Lloyd Weber would be writing music for it.
And speaking of vacuous songwriters, the Marc Rich pardon was facilitated by his former wife, Denise Rich. Now why would a former wife go to the wall for her ex-husband? Well, in this case, I can think of a couple of billion reasons. You know, she couldn't be any more in her former husbands hip pocket if she were a piece of lint. Think about it. Denise Rich is the perfect unwitting foil to do the bidding of low-rent Machiavellis like her ex and Bill Clinton. Every time I see that footage of her standing there on stage next to Clinton in her strapless, fur-trimmed, hey-baby-give-it-up-you're-in-your-mid-fifties Escada frock, smiling that lobotomized, open-mouth smile, all the while clapping her mitts together like she's a trained seal cleaning erasers, just so thrilled to be part of the action that all the naysayers once told her was way out of her league, well, all I can think is, "Wow, she's not even aware of what an incredible dupe she's being played for." You know, there's nothing sadder than a star-fucker who thinks she's a patriot. And I like her.
To be fair, it's not like other outgoing presidents and first ladies haven't been involved in sketchy pardons, taken gifts they weren't supposed to, or profited from their positions. It's just that no one has ever done it in such bulk, in so short a time, eliminating the mid-level operative and passing the scandal right on to you, the consumer. Let's face it: the Clintons are the Costco of Sleaze.
And all of the lying, cheating and stealing can't be good for either of the Clintons' karma. At this point Hillary's coming back as a dung beetle with an overdeveloped sense of smell, and Bill will come back as... uh... well, Bill. Face it, this guy's smarter than God.
But you must never count Bill Clinton out. He is completely alone right now, but this is when he's at his absolute best. When the whole world has turned their back on him, when the baying hounds are confusing the scent of his blood with someone else's who's about to take the fall for him... That is the precise moment he has you exactly where he wants you.
Perhaps Bill Clinton didn't so much betray his allies as seduce them into betraying themselves. From the women's rights groups who took Clinton's side against all the women he victimized to all the liberal compadres he discarded when it was politically expedient to do so, Clintons proffered deal has always been the same: I will help you achieve your goals if you simply abandon the ideals that made them worthwhile in the first place.
I guess what I'm saying, Bill, is, we're on to you, and it's over, understand? We've awakened from our long nightmare of codependence and addiction and we've found someone new. Maybe he's not as smart or as exciting as you, but he treats us nice and makes us feel pretty. We don't need you anymore, Bill, okay? So stop calling and stop driving past our house at night and stop looking at us like that. Now get off the porch and get out of here before we change our minds.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Did you guys see the Grammys the other night? Christ, there are more subcategories than Larry Flynt's home video library. I think somebody actually won for "Best Silence."
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but the music industry is in more trouble than a late-shift radar operator in Baghdad.
Hey, lets put our cards on the obsolete turntable. The Music Industry has nothing to do with music. What you hear on the radio today is one-half marketing, one-half public relations and two-thirds timing. And if that math makes sense to you, you probably work in the Royalties Department at any one of the major labels.
Now, I watched the Grammy Awards on Wednesday, and all I kept thinking was, "Hey, where's a rolling blackout when you really need one?" I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that, while our founding fathers guaranteed us all the right to freedom of speech, they never said anything about singing, OK? A lot of this stuff is just shit, and unwrapping the CD is often more complex than the thought that went into the music.
I love music. It gives you something to listen to while you're watching videos. And make no mistake, the music industry has turned itself into a visual medium and, that being the case, I feel I'm within my rights to respectfully request that the members of Steely Dan never be allowed to appear on a prime-time telecast ever again. For Christ's sake, for a second there, I thought I was watching "The X-Files." Is it just me, or do the two guys in Steely Dan look like Ben & Jerry coming out of rehab? The only reason Steely Dans latest album is selling so well is that 50-year-olds don't know how to download it for free.
You know why Eminem showed up at the Grammy's? Because it sells. Eminem isn't about freedom of speech as much as he is about the freedom to make a buck. He isn't peddling his songs underground to get his point across; he needs controversy to keep him famous because of his unfortunate dearth of talent. He stops selling records, and no one gives a fuck about his freedom of speech anymore. You think Gino Vanelli stopped making records because he gave up the right to his freedom of speech?
You know what? I like Eminem. Not because he's funny, or because I like his music. I just like what he has to say about women and gays ... Wait, I don't mean that. That's just an ironic character I'm playing, casting light on our society's new wave of political correctness.
Before you focus too much of your time and energy on loathing Eminem for his music, let me spin this little scenario for you. Marilyn Manson spent Wednesday night watching the Grammys on a 13-inch black-and-white television set with a coat hanger for an antenna, at a Grange Hall in Bismark, North Dakota, after unveiling his apocalyptic vision for the future to fifty or so pasty-faced Goth losers who left during the encore so they could get home and watch "Temptation Island." And trust me, Manson was so depressed that he is no longer in the crosshairs of the hate-rock controversy, he could barely wriggle out of his fake vagina suit.
People like Eminem get all the attention, but the music industry is still very much alive, pulsating with vibrant, unique, and indeed weltanschauung-shaping musicians. Beck's "Midnite Vultures" offers a fiery, eclectic mingling of genres that we've not witnessed since "Exile On Mainstreet." Radiohead's "Kid A" has picked up Pink Floyd's torch to help illuminate the cringing fears of a lurching generation unable to shake their parents post-Kerouacian haze.
'N Sync's silvery, almost symphonic harmonies pick up where early Hanson left off, suggesting optimistic redemption with dulcet choruses that say you may not love me now, but I can try, try, try.
Pop music has a rich legacy of ripping people off. First, the white musicians stole from the blacks. Then, the producers stole from the performers. Then, the performers and the producers formed an alliance to steal from us by charging 19 dollars for a CD with only one halfway decent song on it. So I for one salute Napster, because it's high time the public finally had an opportunity to horn in on a piece of the action. Considering how badly you get fucked every time you go into a record store, I have to assume Richard Branson was trying to be ironic when he named the place Virgin.
Now, industry people will tell you that Napster is unfair, and denies musicians of their rightful, hard-earned cash. But musicians are going to waste their hard-earned cash anyway, OK? They're musicians. Napster will only be a serious problem for the industry when it starts cutting into a musicians anonymous backstage blowjob residuals.
Hey, the bottom line on Napster is, it means no more paying for overpriced CD's and putting money into the pockets of the bloated, corrupt media conglomerates. All you need is a computer with a high-speed modem, extra memory, a CD-ROM attachment, an extra phone line, Internet access, a CD burner, blank CD's, a how-to manual, and NO FUCKING LIFE.
You know what-- the music industry has always been about the coin. If they'd been invented at the time, Mozart would've sold t-shirts in the back of the hall. And Ticketmaestro would've skimmed their 20% off the top.
While the sounds of U2 might be music to our ears, all the music industry hears is the soothing chime of the cash register. But the one thing you have to say about the music business is, for the artists, if the product is great, it'll also be timeless. All you have to do is look at the Billboard charts to see that The Beatles are just as popular today as they were when Yoko broke them up. Not that I dwell on that. And Yoko, by the way, if you're out there listening tonight, why dont you level your karma and start dating one of the Baha Men, OK?
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but this country's so intolerant right now, they might as well change the plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty to read, "Go the fuck back to Fuckatania."
Listen, I will accept anyone's lifestyle, appearance, belief or idiosyncrasy just as long as they don't ask me to pay for it or wanna sit next to me on a plane and talk about it.
What I do object to are fringe groups who go beyond the notion of tolerance and demand our approval. Sorry, but if you move in next door to me, and one day I look out my window and see your wife cutting the lawn with her teeth because she's a sheep, don't expect me to bring a covered dish over when you two reaffirm your vows, okay?
Intolerance leads people to do strange things: go to war, burn books, riot at soccer games, and eschew lactose, and there's never any logical reason. Most arguments made by intolerant people have all the consistency of space shuttle Thanksgiving gravy.
Why can't anyone just shut up and listen anymore? Whatever happened to the genteel art of sitting back and letting someone go on and on thinking he's right while you bask securely in the power of the knowledge that he or she is completely full of shit?
Now, as mentioned earlier, today's poster boy for intolerance is Eminem. I don't think there's really anything that damaging in Eminem's lyrics. He's no more dangerous than a bleached-blond Chihuahua chewin' on an old dishrag. Eminem doesn't upset me. You know why? Because he wants to upset me. Does his rap instill hate and inspire intolerance? All I can say is, not in me. As a matter of fact, it does the opposite. The more he talks about hating homosexuals, the more I urge gay inclusion in all aspects of society. The more crudely he rages against women, the more I crave their company and counsel. The more he casts blame on corporate responsibility for global warming resulting in the dangerous shrinking of the polar ice cap, the more I realize that you now know that I'm totally full of shit and have never even listened to his music.
You see, the danger inherent in fighting intolerance is that often those attempting to eradicate it end up practicing it, only in a mutated, once-removed form. Liberals in particular are guilty of this supposedly well-meaning recidivism. Honestly, it baffles me that the same people who blast away at President Bush's selection of a religious conservative for Attorney General won't give George W. any kudos for other cabinet choices which include blacks, Jews, Asians, Hispanics and women. Does a fundamentalist Christian not also represent a valued strand in our collective fabric? Who's really being intolerant of other peoples differences here? And by the way, who cares if Ashcroft's religion prohibits him from dancing? Who wants to see John Ashcroft dancing anyway? After all, I hear he was born with two right feet.
And as far as Senator Teddy Kennedy's quavering voice of righteous indignation constantly howling like a beagle at a Rick Wakeman concert at the prospect of a right wing conservative holding sway over the countrys law enforcement priorities... Give it a rest, Spam head. Let's not get into your view on womens rights and the sanctity of human life, okay, because where those issues are concerned, Teddy, you may not be, uh, shall we say, in control of your own vehicle. Capice, Tay-o?
And let's not let conservatives off the hook, either. Especially the religious right. Quick show of hands: if he came down and applied, how many here think Jesus would actually be accepted into Bob Jones University? C'mon, they'd beat the shit out of a long haired, peace-and-love hippy before he could turn the first cheek.
I think the truth is that you can never make everyone happy. The same people who scream about the freedom of choice for a woman to do what she wants with her body are forcing people who want their body to have a cigarette out into the streets to smoke. Some people who are against the death penalty are so adamant that they would electrocute those who are for it, and some of those who pray for the lives of the unborn also recite an extra "Our Father" when a clinic is bombed.
Look, tolerance does not mean you agree with everything that other people say, or that you subordinate your own best instincts to the tyranny of mass opinion. It simply means you pretend not to know that everyone on the planet but you is a total fucking moron.
The most unforgivable thing about intolerance is, by its inherent assumption that one group, belief or lifestyle is superior to another, it fails to take into account the ultimate truth which binds us all, black and white, gay and straight, Republican and Democrat, Arab and Israeli, Hindu and Muslim, Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Croat, Hutu and Tutsi: the fact that, at the end of the day, we are all equal pains-in-the-ass, in the eyes of the Lord.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Hey, is there anybody nowadays who doesnt want to be on TV? Sometimes even on two different shows in completely unrelated fields where his option has just been picked up for two years in one unrelated field and hes shamelessly using the other field to suck applause marrow out of the helpless behavior-mod rats stuck in his studio audience only because they unluckily stumbled into a Partridge Family bus outside Manns Chinese Theater?
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but while show business from the outside may seem like a nonstop whirlwind of gorgeous people, fabulous clothes, sparkling parties and spectacular homes, the reality is exactly that. Sorry, folks. I wish I had some balm to soothe you, but I don't. It's fucking awesome.
From Balinese shadow plays to bullfighters in Madrid to the porn studios of the San Fernando Valley to The Craig Kilborn Show, the only human desire more universal than the urge to put on a show is the urge to get paid for it.
Show business is rife with paradox. It's brutally competitive and yet attracts people with egos as fragile as Strom Thurmonds hip. There's no doubt about it, show business lures the people who didn't get enough love, attention, or approval early in life and have grown up to become bottomless, gaping vessels of terrifying, abject need... Please laugh.
What draws the average person into a career in Show Business? Simple--they want to get laid. Take any one of the Backstreet Boys or the kids from N Sync and put them behind a deli counter with a paper hat and day old meat stains on their apron, and the only spears they'd have their hands on would be Vlasic Kosher Dills.
Sometimes I'll be flipping through the channels on my dish and I'll happen upon this television show from Iraq called "The Chabab Abeeely Program." And this guy Chabab Abeeely looks really self-satisfied, singing, dancing, giving away the Chabab Abeeely home game to the Chabab Abeeely studio audience, and I always wonder: Does Chabab Abeeely really think he, Chabab Abeeely, is in show business? Do you, Chabab Abeeely?
Why did I want to get into show business? For the same reason Chabab Abeeely did. In hopes of being immortalized by the no-frills Raymond-Chandler-if-he-had-no-talent narrative of the E Channels smoke-enshrouded A.J. Benza. Hey, A.J. Violation of the Peter Principle. Ain't it a bitch?
In the early eighties, I worked comedy clubs across the country nearly every week of the year. Many times I drove fifteen hundred miles at a time in a rusted out AMC Pacer with tires balder than William Shatner fleeing his house during a 3 AM earthquake, and a blinking dashboard warning-light that said "Hey Asshole, Somethings On Fire And It's Not Your Career" All this just for the privilege of sharing a skanky one-bedroom apartment-slash-gulag with two other jerkoffs in skinny, crinkle ties, one of whom invariably had a cough so bad that a Welsh coal miner would tell him to get it checked out, and the other of whom was constantly bragging about getting laid by two different chicks every week for the past six years and screamed like Lawrence of Arabia galloping into Aqaba every time he tried to urinate.
And yet, being in show business has its drawbacks... The other day I was at one of my favorite eateries, and I got interrupted in mid-bite by someone asking me, "Are you" And I said, "Yes, I'm Dennis Miller. Can we do this later?" And he said, "Do what later? I wanted to know: Are you finished with that ketchup?" The point I'm making is, if you're in show business, the only thing worse than getting interrupted for an autograph during a meal is not getting interrupted for an autograph during a meal. And when you begin to have more uninterrupted meals than Rudolf Hess in Spandau, it's time to consider another line of work.
Trust me, you don't want to overstay your welcome in this town. Because you start to panic and everyone begins to see those rivulets of sweat running down your forehead, dripping off your chin, and it unnerves them, because they are then reminded of their own tenuous little toehold on the steep, shale cliffs of success, so they'll take any opportunity to loosen your pitons, causing you to plummet backwards onto the jagged rocks at the base of the Piedmont and impale yourself on a stalagmite where the others still in the game can then watch the carrion birds feast on your exposed, still-warm entrails. [SING] "Theres no business like showbusiness!"
And in show business, it can take decades to become an overnight success, and only moments to be considered a lifetime failure. Ask Vanilla Ice. If he'll come out from under your car at Meineke.
And don't think you can sleep your way to the top, because I guarantee you, somebodys going to try to fuck you while youre sleeping. And the casting couch? A total myth! There is no couch. Trust me, it's never anything more comfortable than a rented card table covered in head shots ... Or so I've heard.
Listen, I would recommend this business only if you absolutely must receive constant attention to be happy and fulfilled and you have already proven yourself unqualified for a more pleasant profession like being a medical test subject. Yes, the highs can be dazzling, but the views they provide are often straight to the bottom of the chasm ahead of you. I am sorry, young dreamer, but I cannot encourage you to join me in this difficult, wearying life, because I fear for your financial well-being, I am concerned about your mental health, I tremble at the pain you might cause yourself and your family, and most importantly, I sure as shit don't need any more competition.
Look, bottom line, no matter how glamorous it appears to be, show business will always be a grueling and frequently humiliating industry. And you know what? I don't care who you know, you never start out at the top, no matter what business you're in. First you're given oil wells, then you're given a baseball team, and then, and only then, are you given the White House.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Hello and welcome to today's chat with the smartest, most silver-tongued comic in America. He's caustic, he's irreverent, he's sassy yet never precocious...
He's Dennis Miller and he's chatting live today with you!
Feel free to ask him a question about his show,
Dennis Miller Live, about the state of American Sports, the state of American Politics, your favorite rant, or anything else!
You'll feel like a hamster if you don't.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Please welcome Dennis Miller!
Sarah: Can you share with us your recollection of your first stand-up performance?
Dennis Miller: It was in Pittsburgh at a bar. And I had loaded it with friends of mine. And I killed. And the second time I went in front of people I didn't know and I did horribly.
Dennis Miller Is God: Who is your favorite guest of all the years on "Dennis Miller Live"?
Dennis Miller: I like Norm McDonald. He was literally the most unpredictable person I've ever been on television with.
Neal: Dennis, if you could be any politician in history, who would you be, and why?
Dennis Miller: George W. Bush, because he has a big plane for the next 4 years.
Dave: Who were you're greatest influences, comedicly and personally?
Dennis Miller: Richard Belzer, Roberto Clemente, Connie Hawkins, and Jonathan Winters.
Mystique: How do you develop your comedy routines and where do you get your material from?
Dennis Miller: The focus of the rants is things that bother me in my day-to-day life and, you know, you just write down an idea and sit down in front of a legal pad and let it go from there. Things that irk me.
PPC: Do you ever feel like you have to dumb down your color commentary?
Dennis Miller: No.
Delite: What types of jobs did you have before you made it in comedy?
Dennis Miller: I drove a florist truck. I worked in a delicatessen. I was a janitor. And a billing clerk.
Dan West: How do you stay informed on a daily basis?
Dennis Miller: MSNBC and USA Today.
Nestle: How do you recover when the audience doesn't get it, besides getting a new audience?
Dennis Miller: They don't mind you dying on a joke as long as you don't try to pretend that the joke worked. Just let them know that you know it sucked and they're happy.
Hiver: Hi, Dennis. Is there anyone you would love to have on your show that you haven't already had?
Dennis Miller: Al Michaels.
Does This Hurt: We definitely need humor in politics. You bring a witty humor that has been lacking. Ever thought of dropping the mic and taking on Washington (or running against Hillary next term)?
Dennis Miller: You know, I find politics infuriating. It is just not anything that would interest me as an actual job. It seems like nothing ever gets done and I like to get things done.
McD: What was the worst experience you've had as a comedian?
Dennis Miller: I had a man throw a beer bottle at me one night in a nightclub and nicked my head.
Pattygirl: You get to meet a lot of people on "DML." Was there ever a guest that you dreaded having on, who actually surprised you by being really cool after all?
Dennis Miller: I like most people. If I really had a completely negative feeling about somebody, I wouldn't put them on so I wouldn't get into a public confrontation with them. It's a comedy show, not a jury box.
Dennis Fan: So Dennis, did you ever invite George Dubya on the show? Any predictions for the next four years?
Dennis Miller: All I can go on is his first 8 or 9 days and I think he is doing a nice job. If he keeps this up, it might not be so easy to do stupid jokes about him.
Lisa Dee: How involved are you with the writing on "DML"? Do you have a team of writers you work with? What about the rants? Do you still pen those solo?
Dennis Miller: I work with 6 writers. And most of my focus is on the rants. But we all pitch in and write on everything.
American Bonehead: Who picked the swell music before each rant on your audio books?
Dennis Miller: Well, the quotes tell me they didn't like the music, so I'll say somebody else other than me. My editor.
Lisa: What did you think of the Super Bowl?
Dennis Miller: I like to watch great defensive teams and I think the Ravens are one of the greatest defensive teams I've ever seen.
Kevin Miller: Who do you think is the funniest politician to date, and why?
Dennis Miller: The funniest one I've met personally is Bob Dole. He is very quick - wicked sense of humor. Sort of mutes it down for public consumption.
Cueball: Would you ever go on "Politically Incorrect"? A lot of the guests are inarticulate Luddites. Maher needs someone qualified to debate with.
Dennis Miller: Not only have I considered it, I've done it around 8 or 10 times. Yeah, I enjoy going on.
Leroy: Do you consider yourself cynical or skeptical?
Dennis Miller: Skeptical.
RealDeal: Hey Dennis, are you going to be at the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen? Have you ever been? How's the stand-up?
Dennis Miller: I've been there around 3 or 4 times and had a wonderful time. The stand-up was incredible. I will not be there this year, unfortunately.
Recon: Do you still do stand-up? When can we see you on the road?
Dennis Miller: Yes, I perform in Las Vegas around four weeks out of the year and I do maybe around 10 or 15 one-nighters throughout the year. There is really no way to predict where they will be.
GQMan: Who's your all-time favorite quarterback?
Dennis Miller: Joe Montana.
Jason: My wife and I have tickets to see you this Friday (Big trip, since we're from Fargo) and we were wondering if you ever meet the audience before or after the show to autograph your books?
Dennis Miller: Yeah, sure, I always bump into people after the show and if you see me, yeah, I'd be glad to.
LuVya: Overall, how has the whole NFL experience been for you?
Dennis Miller: Ten out of ten. Most fun I've had in years!
Lina: Have you gotten ideas from your fans?
Dennis Miller: I think comedy is kind of a solitary pursuit. It's all based on your perspective and it's kinda tough to elicit your perspective from strangers even if they are your fans, so...no.
DML FAQ Tom: Who does a better Dennis Miller impression, Dana Carvey or the new kid on the block at "Saturday Night Live," Jimmy Fallon?
Dennis Miller: Dana Carvey, by far.
Aquarelle: What do you do in your spare time?
Dennis Miller: Play with my children. Watch old horrible science fiction movies, and golf.
Club Merc: Which was easier, sports announcing or acting?
Dennis Miller: Acting. It's less fulfilling, though.
Archie: Dennis, what did you find easy and hard on your first year of "Monday Night Football"?
Dennis Miller: Easy was working with my boothmates, Al and Dan. Hard was knowing how much comedy to do versus how much football to do.
Bette-3: I've seen you at tennis tournaments. Do you play? If so, how do you rate your game?
Dennis Miller: I would call myself a D minus, and I enjoy watching people who are great at it. Over the years my favorites have been Agassi, McEnroe and Sampras.
Delite: Where is your favorite vacation spot?
Dennis Miller: I would say I like London.
Ted Johnson: Have you ever thought about doing a collection of rants that were only in book form and not performed on "DML"?
Dennis Miller: Yes. My fourth rant book will be out later in the year, so there are three previous ones already.
Roy012574-2: Who do you think is the most underrated comedian on television today?
Dennis Miller: There's a young man named Brian Regan who I think is brilliant.
Ted Johnson: Has there ever been a topic for "Dennis Miller Live" that you weren't able to do for whatever reason or another (not counting when Stossel chilled you and Lovitz came in as replacement)?
Dennis Miller: It's hard to say. I mean, obviously you flee away from human tragedy. There is enough sort of quasi-significant topics in the universe to pick from without going near actual human suffering, you know?
Osuzib: What percentage of the schtick do you actually write?
Dennis Miller: On an HBO special, I write on 100 percent. On my show, as I said, most of my focus is on the rant.
Frankie: Will you ever extend your program to an hour format?
Dennis Miller: No. I'd rather have them, at the end of a half hour, hope for more, than do an hour and have them wish for less.
DML FAQ Tom: Dennis, does your upcoming role as a shock jock in David Spade's "The Adventures of Joe Dirt" continue your tradition of on-screen movie deaths?
Dennis Miller: I did it as a favor to Spade. It only took me one day. I wish him well with it. I don't know much about the movie.
Ted Johnson: What exactly is it that makes you think you're not a good actor? I thought you were one of the best things about "Bordello of Blood" and "The Net," and you were good in "Murder at 1600."
Dennis Miller: It's my reticence to do it that makes me think I'm not good at it. I don't really enjoy it. I don't find it all that rewarding. I think part of being a good actor is wanting to act. And I don't.
Sarah MT: Dennis, I think your syndicated show could have made America a lot smarter. Which novelists, musicians and philosophers would you want to beam into America's living rooms tonight?
Dennis Miller: Authors - I just read a good book by William Goldman, called "Which Lie Did I Tell." Unrecognized musicians - there is a guy who does a Sinatra impression in Vegas named Bobby or something. He's great. And philosophers? They are just BSers with Ph.D.'s.
Acehole11: Dennis, what is the dumbest thing one of your guests has ever said?
Dennis Miller: I had a man on one night who was an artist and told me that his art was to not do his own art, but to pay someone else to do his art, which is about as preposterous as it gets.
Laura: If you could choose anyone in the world to be president, who would it be?
Dennis Miller: I think I'll give Bush a shot. Why not? I don't know who would want the job anymore. At least he has volunteered to do it, so I'll give him a few years. Then again, I'd probably say the same about Gore if he won. Whoever is willing to take it.
Maggie: Will you ever have Howard Stern as a guest?
Dennis Miller: I'm reasonably sure that Howard is not a fan of mine, so that's a reasonably moot point because I don't think he'd ever do it.
Wampheri10: If you could pick one person to debate an issue, who would it be and what would the issue be?
Dennis Miller: I would pick Mary Matalin. She seems about the smartest debater I've seen. And I think the issue would be more government versus less government.
Delite: What three words describe Dennis Miller, the comedian, the best?
Dennis Miller: Dennis Miller, Comedian
Carly Loves Denny: I'm 16 years old and a huge fan. What do you think about your younger fans?
Dennis Miller: Well, I'm flattered! Anybody of 16 would not find my perspective antiquated. So I would say that I am enamored of the approval of young people because I can kid myself that I'm not as ancient as I think I am.
HBO: Dennis, this has been a blast! Sadly, we have just about run out of time. Do you have any parting thoughts for us?
Dennis Miller: I thank you all for your time and have a nice evening.
HBO: Thank you, Dennis!
And thanks to all the chatters for coming out to chat with Dennis Miller today. You can catch Dennis Miller LIVE on HBO or catch him on the web at www.hbo.com/dml.
Midge. Moose. Moose. Midge. You know, alliteration is just one of the quirky little twists that one can use to augment the English language. English, for my jingoistic dollar: still the creme de la creme of all languages.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but to listen to all the alarmist intellectual Henny-Penny doom-mongers going on and on these days about the imminent death of the English language, you'd think the English language was, like, ya know, totally dying, or something. Whatever.
George Orwell warned that banalities in the English language reflect a corrupted culture. "Banalities" without the "B" is analities. That's funny.
English is not just the language of Britain, Australia, Canada, and certain parts of Kentucky. It's also the language of business, diplomacy, and technology.
Now, when I say English, I'm talking about what we speak here in the States, without the funny accent. Because I don't know what language working-class Brits are speaking over there in England, but it isn't like anything I've ever heard. I saw the movie "Snatch" over the weekend and I felt more out of it than Liz Taylor at the Golden Globes.
I have always had a deep and abiding love for the English language, from early on in life. I've always loved the flirtatious tango of consonants and vowels, the sturdy dependability of nouns and the capricious whimsy of verbs, the strutting pageantry of the adjective, and the flitting evanescence of the adverb, all kept safe and orderly by those reliable little policemen, punctuation marks. Wow. You think I got my ass kicked much in high school?
You can gauge the esteem in which we hold the English language simply by telling someone you majored in it. Now, the first thing they do is mentally subtract twenty grand off what they think you make. The second thing they do is ask you to bring them a menu and tell them the soup of the day. And why not? In school, English was the easiest subject to bullshit your way through. There are no Cliff Notes for Physics. You can't bluff your way through a Calculus discussion just by watching "Calculus: The Movie." But when it comes to essay questions, well, you can fake it like a hooker being paid by the moan.
I understand that English is a protean, evolving language that must constantly change in order to remain relevant. But let's not go out of our way to appropriate words from other cultures simply to justify making something more expensive. Hey, you can add all the Italian suffixes you want, you're not fooling anybody over there at Starbucks. It's still just coffee. Now ring me the fuck up, you frappaloser.
And Starbuccos is not the only cultural borrower. Doctors tend to lift most of their phrases from Greek, which is only fitting since every time I go to see one, he somehow feels the need to spend the afternoon spelunking around in my ass. All I know is if Hippocrates had been born someplace other than Athens, they would have come up with an easier way to check my prostate than drilling me like theyre George Bush and my ass is Alaska.
I wouldn't be so worried about the fate of the English language if more of us could speak it properly. Forget Stone Cold Steve Austin or the Rock, if you want to see real wrestling, watch our newly elected president pronounce the word "unilateral."
Love the guy or hate him, you have to admit that when Bush is speaking unscripted, the English language disintegrates like cotton candy in a monsoon. Even he looks like hes surprised at whats coming out of his mouth, kind of like Malkovich when he had that puppeteer inside his head.
Folks, the English language is very much alive. From where I'm standing, our mother tongue is kicking ass and taking names. It's large and in charge, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, full of piss and vinegar and ready to open up a big ol can of whup-ass. It's calling the shots, it's bouncing and behaving, it's all up in it, and it's all that and a bag of chips. For the love of God, somebody please tell me what in the hell I'm talking about.
Now, while I have upon occasion been labeled the E.B. White of the word "fuck," you do have to admit that I went an entire football season without saying it. Take it from a connoisseur, it should be used sparingly, like saffron in a fucking paella.
See--the word "fuck" is a beauty, isn't it? From its fricative genesis, blossoming into its ripe, rich middle until its cruelly truncated in its prime by a merciless, glottal stop... In all of its earthy, salty, illicit Anglo-Saxon glory, "fuck" is almost as satisfying to say as it is to do.
Now, some would say I contribute to the coarsening of the English language through my casual use of profanity. To those critics, I would respond that my discourse merely exemplifies the vaunted precedent of valorizing the oral vernacular. I would further add that language is a living tissue, which must occasionally suffer the rupture of subversion in order to convalesce with more structural stability. So to those guardians of the linguistic gates who charge that I shoehorn the F-word in wherever I can, merely to further a rather tenuous career built entirely on a profane house of cards, well, why dont you just go fuckerize yourselves.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Well, tomorrow George W. Bush moves into the Oval Office and Bill and Hillary tell the White House staff, "See you in four years." But what about Al?
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but Al Gore is about to leave not only the White House but the flimsy IKEA lean-to that is the American consciousness. He's about to sling his wobbly, too-tight high heels over his shoulder and take the morning-after Walk of Shame out of the beer-and sweat-stained frat house of Washington, D.C. Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.
Tonight, I hope to answer the question, "Who is Al Gore and what are his core beliefs?" So, Al, if you're watching out there, stick around, cause this'll all be new to you.
Poor Gore. Desperate for approval, he violated the Number One rule in showbiz: Work the shaft. Oh, I'm sorry, that's the number two rule. The number one rule is: people hate flop sweat. It doesn't matter what color shirt your handlers tell you to wear, Al. If the pits are darker than Ann Rice's dream journal, you're in trouble.
Even the biggest Democratic apologist has to admit that Gore lacked something. You'd think the guy who won the popular vote would be well, more popular. Hey, everybody knows that winning the popular vote is sort of like winning a People's Choice Award. Sure it feels good for a while knowing you've carried the three - hundred - pounds - and - up turqoise-collector demographic, but it doesn't mean shit if you don't back it up with the Oscar.
And let's all stop blaming the electoral college system. It's an essential part of the democratic process specially designed to make sure that each candidate is responsible for making false promises to every American, not just the ones in highly populated urban areas.
So, how did Al Gore come to lose the presidential race? Simple. He ran. The ability to come across as warm and genuine to the American public is simply not in Al's Westworld wiring. "Al, you lost me at Hello."
And anybody who watched the debates knew this. It was like watching a pit bull try to go duck hunting. He kept trotting back from the pond with nothing but a mouth full of bloody feathers thinking he did a great job and not understanding why everybody kept on petting the dumbass Texas Labrador with the bandanna tied around his neck.
Al Gore is a supreme intellectual, there's probably nothing he doesn't know, except perhaps who he truly is. The problem with Al Gore's intellectualism is, he never lets us forget it. And though we value intelligence, nobody likes a know-it-all. Sure, I enjoyed reading Proust in high school too, but at least I was smart enough to lock myself in the bathroom and tell my parents I was masturbating.
It was painful to watch Al try to emulate Bill Clinton's charming, personable style while campaigning on the road. He gave it his best shot, but people got the impression he wasn't really paying attention to them. Every time he'd try to connect with some guy working in a factory or a waitress in a diner, he'd end up nodding his head faster and faster and slowly inching away. His body language always reminded me of somebody who's asked directions to the nearest gas station, but can't actually listen to them because he's gotta whizz so badly.
Try all he wants, Al Gore will never be Bill Clinton. A leader like Clinton only comes calling once a generation. When Bill Clinton spoke to us, he looked like he really cared what we were thinking, made us feel smart, made us feel good about ourselves and made us think that he would always remember us. That's a style that can only be honed by decades of trying to score strange tail in cheap, roadside cocktail lounges.
When it comes to assigning blame for their recent loss of the White House, the Democrats are going to be pointing more fingers than the Hindu god Vishnu at a Dunkin' Donuts. But ultimately, the problem was simply this: Al Gore came across as a phony, and George W. Bush came across as genuine. And after eight years of being lied to by one of the smartest men on the planet, a lot of people had decided they wanted a president with neither the inclination nor the brains to mislead them.
I'll be honest, I like my presidents to be a little dim. The clever ones get bored and try to tamper with my life. Give me a mildly clueless figurehead who will meet with the Girl Scout who sold the most Thin Mints, telephone the winning Super Bowl team in their lockerroom, fly abroad now and then to watch funny foreigners dance funny dances, and most important of all, leave me the fuck alone.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
The Russian Prime Minister has declared Space Station Mir too old and decrepit to be useful anymore. Naturally, the space station will now begin confirmation hearings to serve on Geroge W. Bush's cabinet sometime next week.
Bush leaned on Donald Rumsfeld to take time off from writing his memoirs of the Battle of Hastings to serve as Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld keeps pushing for that Star Wars Catapult Defense System, because he's afraid the North Koreans might have the crossbow.
And on Monday, movers went to the Governor's Mansion in Austin, Texas to transfer Bush's belongings to Washington. The move itself took very little time once workers discovered that Bush had nothing upstairs.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but as a comedian, with George W. Bush coming into office, I feel like the owner of a hardware store before a hurricane. I hate to see it coming but I have to admit it's good for business.
I'll take my shots at Dubya, but I actually have high hopes for the next four years. I see George W. Bush working hard to keep the ambitions of big business and the military in check, and ensure that even the lowest job pays a dignified wage. I believe he'll erase the animus that has divided Washington, and bring both sides of the aisle together. I also happen to believe dogs can talk if you touch them in the right spot, and everyone watching me is happy with their body.
As much as I'm willing to give Bush a chance, I'm a little nervous about his intellectual capacity. I mean, at least Clinton had his dick to think with.
And Clinton did a lot of thinking. If I were Bush, the first day I took over, I'd have a convoy of six Rug Doctor trucks come chugging through the main entrance of the White House, park right in front of the TV cameras, and start dragging their steam-cleaning hoses through the Oval Office door. Well, come on. It's got to be like buying Bob Guccione's mattress at a yard sale.
You can say what you want about Bush, but he's going to surround himself with people who are so experienced that they aren't gonna let him eat at the grown-up table for a long time.
And you can't understand the great and powerful Bush without peeking behind the curtain at the clever bald man pulling all the levers: Vice President Dick "It's Probably Just Gas" Cheney. Now, Cheney's heartbeat skips more than Richard Simmons on his way to a Ricky Martin concert. You know, the job of V.P. doesn't give you that much to do, so it would be a shame if the very first state funeral he attended was his own. But Cheney is also smart, crafty and persuasive, so give George credit for putting him on the team. Most presidential candidates try to pick a running mate who won't outshine them, but who would that be for Bush? Maybe Wilson the volleyball from the movie "Cast Away."
Let's put Bush's cabinet under the microscope, or, as he calls it, "the little-stuff-to-big-stuff thingy."
Now, we do need to cut Bush some slack on Linda Chavez. How could he possibly know the woman had a Guatemalan slave? Chavez got out quickly. I guess she felt that if people had a hard time with the illegal alien maid, they might respond even more negatively to the 30 Haitians assembling "Salad Shooters" in her basement.
Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft will not be able to fill Janet Reno's shoes, but then again neither could Shaquille ONeill. But what I don't understand is how Ashcroft can be so pro-Death Penalty when he lost his last election bid to Mel Carnahan, a dead guy. What's really scary is that most people thought Carnahan won the debates, too.
National Security Advisor nominee Condoleezza Rice has often been described as W.'s "foreign policy tutor". Oh, yeah, I love the sound of that. It's nice to know we're signing our nuclear arsenal over to a man who needs after-school help. Don't you think the fact that he needs a tutor ought to be raising more eyebrows than Eminem teaching kindergarten on the planet Vulcan?
Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Tommy Thompson says his top priorities include overhauling social security and Medicare as well as fixing his stupid name. Hey, what kinda guy makes it past forty with a "y" on the end of his first name? Hey, Tommy Thompson, nice to meet you, you loser fuck, I'm Denny Dennerson.
For Secretary of State, Bush chose Colin Powell. Okay, no complaints there. Nice to see that Bush picked a minority. After all, a minority picked him.
All in all, George W. Bush has to have had the same reaction that I did after I got the job on Monday Night Football. Hey, what in the hell happened here? I only applied for the job because I never thought they would actually give it to me. So my advice, George, is take your lumps and jump in there. For me it was the best thing I ever did, next to this show on HBO of course. Man, it's hard kissing two asses at once.
You know, in the end, it's hard to know what history will make of the second Bush presidency. Will it be regarded as an aberration in the electoral process? A surprisingly capable underdog effort? Maybe just a placeholder in the strange but easy-to-remember Presidential sequence "Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton." Whatever is to be, there's one thing we know: It's time for Daddy's little boy to grow up. George W. Bush's seemingly endless supply of free passes is now officially drier than any of the oilwells he once managed. Well, I, for one, wish him the best.
Now, I don't pretend to know anything about the Machiavellian intricacies of politics, the " one - hand - washes - the - other - that - scratches - the - back - that - spanks - the - monkey - that - gives - the - reacharound - " to whomever. All I know is, with the Nasdaq numbers acting like they're in a fight scene from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the once-madly-thriving economy now teetering like Forrest Whitaker in a pair of Jimmy Choo stilettos, if I were Dubya, the first thing I'd do when I set foot in the White House, before I unpacked the video golf game, before I started crank-calling my old frat brothers, before I snuck up behind Dick Cheney and popped an inflated paper bag, the first thing I'd do is get my ass on the phone and send Alan Greenspan a four-year supply of Omaha fucking steaks.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

