by Bill Maher
New Rule: Celebrity chefs have to get over themselves. At Mario Bata-li’s new $12 million New York City eatery, he’s serving a pasta dish with black truffles, cockscombs, and duck testicles. Okay, I’m trying to eat dinner, not pledge a fraternity. Though I must admit: The spit-roasted Latvian mongoose wrapped in the saffron-encrusted gingerweed served in a fifteenth-century Aztec war mask was to die for.
CORK BLOCKER
New Rule: Don’t bring wine to my dinner party. Because then if you drink it, it’s not really a gift, is it? But if I choose a different wine, you’re thinking, “What the hell’s wrong with the bottle I brought?” And when you bring wine and then say, “I don’t drink,” what kind of condescending crap is that? Your cute little gift is such a minefield of potential awkwardness; thank God I’m already high.
CORN ON MACABRE
New Rule: Don’t try and make the boring parts of a horror movie scary by having someone—who’s not the killer—jump out and scare someone “just for fun.” It’s like making a porn movie where a hot-looking maid enters the scene and you think she’s going to blow you, but it turns out she’s just there to dust.
COURSE LOAD
New Rule: College students are allowed to masturbate. Towson University forced the editor of the student paper to resign after he ran a column about masturbation. I don’t know what’s sadder: that colleges can still be this squeamish or that college kids need to be taught how to rub one out. Besides, when it comes to jerk-off columnists, you just can’t beat George Will.
COUTURE CLASH
New Rule: You can’t wear a Che Guevara T-shirt with your designer jeans, unless you’re trying to be ironic. One is a symbol for impoverished workers, the other was sewn by them. You want to support the poor people in Latin America? Buy more coke.
PRIDE OF THE YANKEES
New Rule: America must stop bragging it’s the greatest country on earth, and start acting like it. I know this is uncomfortable for the “faith over facts” crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured. Here are some numbers. Infant mortality rate: America ranks forty-eighth in the world. Overall health: seventy-second. Freedom of the press: forty-fourth. Literacy: fifty-fifth. Do you realize there are twelve-year-old kids in this country who can’t spell the name of the teacher they’re having sex with?
America has done many great things. Making the New World democratic. The Marshall Plan. Curing polio. Beating Hitler. The deep-fried Twinkie. But what have we done for us lately? We’re not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson’s nipple is on their flag.
And sadly, we’re no longer a country that can get things done. Not big things. Like building a tunnel under Boston, or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines; couldn’t get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail.
Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on oil by using alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, “If Brazil can do it, America can, too!” Since when did America have to buck itself up by saying we could catch up to Brazil? We invented the airplane and the lightbulb, they invented the bikini wax, and now they’re ahead?
In most of the industrialized world, nearly everyone has health care and hardly anyone doubts evolution—and yes, having to live amid so many superstitious dimwits is also something that affects quality of life. It’s why America isn’t gonna be the country that gets the inevitable patents in stem cell cures, because Jesus thinks it’s too close to cloning.
Oh, and did I mention we owe China a trillion dollars? We owe everybody money. America is a debtor nation to Mexico. We’re not on a bridge to the twenty-first century, we’re on a bus to Atlantic City with a roll of quarters. And this is why it bugs me that so many people talk like it’s 1955 and we’re still number one in everything.
We’re not, and I take no glee in saying that, because I love my country, and I wish we were, but when you’re number fifty-five in this category, and ninety-two in that one, you look a little silly waving the big foam “number one” finger. As long as we believe being “the greatest country in the world” is a birthright, we’ll keep coasting on the achievements of earlier generations, and we’ll keep losing the moral high ground.
Because we may not be the biggest, or the healthiest, or the best educated, but we always did have one thing no other place did: We knew soccer was bullshit. And also we had the Bill of Rights. A great nation doesn’t torture people or make them disappear without a trial. Bush keeps saying the terrorists “hate us for our freedom,” and he’s working damn hard to see that pretty soon that won’t be a problem.
—October 27, 2006
CRACKER SHOT
New Rule: Hillbillies can’t have computers. In Florida, a man named Joseph Langenderfer was so annoyed at his son for spending all his time playing computer games that he fired a gun at the computer. And if that’s not stupid enough, he missed. And you call yourself a Langenderfer? Come on, Joe, even Dick Cheney could hit a Dell Dimension from a distance of zero feet. When your patron saint Elvis shot at Robert Goulet on the TV, he hit Robert Goulet, he didn’t miss and wing a velvet painting. There’s nothing I hate more than a redneck that won’t make the effort to be the best redneck he can be.
CRASS REGISTER
New Rule: No more gift registries. It used to be just for weddings. Now it’s for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab. Picking out the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you isn’t gift giving. It’s the white-people version of looting.
CREDIT CANARD
New Rule: Stop saying “we” got Osama. “We” didn’t do anything. “We” were watching The Celebrity Apprentice and eating Funyuns in our sweatpants. SEAL Team 6 did the killing, with money we borrowed from Beijing, which our grandchildren will have to pay back. So it was a joint Navy SEALs/People’s Bank of China/grandchildren operation.
CROCKTAIL
New Rule: An appletini is not a martini. A martini is gin, vermouth, and an olive. An appletini is just something a sex predator invented to hide the taste of the roofie.
CRULLER INTENTIONS
New Rule: I don’t know how to fix the “donut hole” in Medicare, but the first step to better health might be: Stop seeing everything as a donut.
CUERVO GOLD
New Rule: You can’t get mad about Applebee’s serving a toddler a margarita unless you’ve ever tried to eat at Applebee’s sober. That’s right, some kid was served what can only be called a “Very Happy Meal,” and nobody noticed until he started yelling, “Wait, hold up, this is my jam!” Here’s how you can tell you’re in a bad restaurant: When you call an ambulance and ask it to pick you up around the corner, at Chili’s.
D
DAFFY FUCK
New Rule: Guys have to stop saying that crazy women are the best in bed. I’m sorry, but half an hour of great sex does not make up for twenty-three and a half hours of weeping, setting the pillows on fire, and coming at you with a butcher knife. And conversely, women have to stop saying the best sex is with “bad boys.” If that’s true, then why aren’t you fantasizing about Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein?
DAIRY ERR
New Rule: Americans have to come up with a better cheese to represent the nation than American cheese. I’m not even sure American cheese is cheese. I think it’s aged Jell-O. And it doesn’t need to be individually wrapped in plastic, either. You’re thinking of condoms.
DAS BOOTY
New Rule: She gained weight; she lost weight. She’s playing an illiterate with an accent in a Holocaust movie. She’s taking her clothes off in harsh light, crying, wearing old-lady makeup. For the love of God, can we give Kate Winslet her Oscar so we can all get on with our lives?
DATE CRIME
New Rule: If you dragged your man to Eat, Pray, Love this summer, he gets to take you to a movie called Football, Jerk Off, Nap.
DEAR ABBY
&nbs
p; New Rule: You can’t publish a book if the only people interested in reading it don’t know how to read. Jersey Shore’s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino has a new book out, which raises the question, can you get herpes from a book?
THE DEAR HUNTER
New Rule: If you give a nine-year-old a hunting rifle, expect to have a hole in your head next to the one you already have. That’s right, fathers are signing up their kids to win free hunting trips. Great time to find out she’s pissed about not getting that doll. I’m sorry, but the first time your daughter should see a shotgun is at her wedding when she’s fourteen.
DEATH TO POOCHY
New Rule: Don’t feel bad that the Taco Bell Chihuahua died. Yes, the Taco Bell Chihuahua has gone to his great reward in the ground. Oddly enough, the cause of death? Taco Bell. But don’t worry, fans. If you would like to visit the dog’s remains, just order a Burrito Grande.
DELAY OF GAME
New Rule: No offense, honey, but just shut up and open the case. Look, you’re eye candy with an opposable thumb. So drop the dramatic pause and the chitchat. If I wanted to be frustrated by a half-dressed chick while a fortune slips away, I’d go to the Spearmint Rhino.
ORWELL THAT ENDS WELL
New Rule: Liberals must stop saying President Bush hasn’t asked Americans to sacrifice for the war on terror. On the contrary, he’s asked us to sacrifice something enormous: our civil rights. When I heard George Bush was reading my e-mails, I probably had the same reaction you did: “George Bush can read?” Yes, he can, and this administration has read your phone records, credit-card statements, mail, Internet logs—I can’t tell if they’re fighting a war on terror or producing the next season of Cheaters. I mail myself a copy of the Constitution every morning just on the hope they’ll open it and see what it says.
So when it comes to sacrifice, don’t kid yourself: You have given up a lot. You’ve given up faith in your government’s honesty, the goodwill of people overseas, and six-tenths of the Bill of Rights. Here’s what you’ve sacrificed: search and seizure, warrants, self-incrimination, trial by jury, cruel and unusual punishment; here’s what you have left: handguns, religion, and they can’t make you quarter a British soldier. If Prince Harry invades the Inland Empire, he has to bring a tent.
In previous wars, Americans on the home front made a very different kind of sacrifice. During World War II, we endured rationing, paid higher taxes, bought war bonds. In the interest of national unity, people even pretended Bob Hope was funny. Women donated their silk undergarments so they could be sewn into parachutes—can you imagine nowadays a Britney Spears or a Lindsay Lohan going without underwear? Okay, bad example.
George Bush has never been too bright about furreners, but he does know Americans. He asked this generation to sacrifice the things he knew we wouldn’t miss: our privacy and our morality. He let us keep the money. But he made a cynical bet that we wouldn’t much care if we became a “big brother” country that has now tortured a lot of random people. And yet no one asks the tough questions, like: “Is torture necessary?” “Who will watch the watchers?” and “When does Jack Bauer go to the bathroom?” It’s been five years; is he wearing one of those astronaut diapers?
After 9/11, President Bush told us Osama bin Laden could run but he couldn’t hide. But then he ran, and hid, so Bush went to plan B: pissing on the Constitution.
Conservatives always say the great thing Reagan did was make us feel good about America again. Do you feel good about America now? I’ll give you my answer, and to get it out of me, you don’t even have to hold my head under water and have a snarling guard dog rip my nuts off. No, I don’t feel very good about that. They say that evil happens when good men do nothing. And the Democrats prove it also happens when mediocre people do nothing.
—March 16, 2007
DELLBERT
New Rule: You’re never going to pick up women at a coffee shop pretending to be working on your laptop. You don’t look like you’re sensitive; you look like you’re homeless. The last guy to pick up a chick with an Apple was Adam. And when you sit across from another dateless loser with a laptop, it still doesn’t look like you’re working—it looks like you’re playing Battleship.
DESPICABLE HE
New Rule: After Sean Hannity brings on Dick Morris, he has to give us time to go wash. It’s like someone took everything that’s wrong with politics, partisanship, cable news, personal hygiene, masculinity, humanity, and reality, and squeezed it into one man. I know he once kept a paid mistress so he could suck on her toes, but trust me, that’s the least scummy thing this guy has ever done. Dick is the type of guy who’s somehow always in the bathroom when the check arrives. But not just because he’s a cheap liar. It’s also because there’s free gum in the urinals.
DESSERT CARP
New Rule: If I can’t suck your milkshake through a straw, it’s not a milkshake—it’s a glass of ice cream. Now blend it again, Welcome-to-Baskin-Robbins-My-Name-Is-Kevin. And this time, give it a minute. You’re in a pink-and-brown smock—it’s not like you have a date later.
DIAL TOME
New Rule: Stop bringing me the phone book. The last time anyone even needed a phone book was 1988. And that was a cop using it to beat a suspect.
DICK CAVEAT
New Rule: If somebody asks if you tweeted your penis and your answer is anything other than “No,” you tweeted your penis. Congressman Weiner, you’re one of the only Democrats in Congress with balls. We knew that. You didn’t have to e-mail proof.
DINGO STAR
New Rule: For at least the next generation, the Crocodile Hunter clan has to leave nature alone. This week, the late Steve Irwin’s youngest son was bitten by a boa constrictor. Authorities don’t know exactly what went wrong, but they think the accident might have happened when a bunch of idiots let a four-year-old fuck around with a giant snake. This isn’t zoology, it’s a family feud with fauna. I’m not saying Britney Spears was Mother of the Year—but she never let anyone get bitten by a snake, and she used to wear one around her neck.
DIXIE CHIC
New Rule: This year, the South gets to have all the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War celebrations they want, but after that they have to let it go. The rest of us have moved on. Ken Burns has moved on. I know your great-grandpappy fought in the War of Northern Aggression and it had absolutely nothing to do with slavery, but (a) you’re wrong, and (b) I didn’t come to this bathhouse for conversation.
DL, HUGELY
New Rule: Never let your children take an overnight trip with a holy man who wears more than two pieces of jewelry. Atlanta’s Bishop Eddie Long has been accused of buying cars for teenage boys, then inviting them to New Zealand and molesting them, in what authorities are calling “the worst Oprah surprise of all time.” Which leads me to: New Rule: If your minister says being gay is bad, or a sin, or an evil temptation, or has any opinion on it stronger than “Who gives a shit?” then your minister is gay.
DOC JOHNSON
New Rule: If your doctor pulls on rubber gloves and then a condom, there’s something wrong. An Oregon woman is suing her doctor, claiming he had intercourse with her as “treatment” for her lower-back pain. Call me a traditionalist, but I prefer when doctors screw their patients the old-fashioned way—by giving them the bill.
DOGGIE STYLE
New Rule: If your dog has to dress up like a human on Halloween, then you have to sleep on the floor naked and drink out of the toilet. Or, as Andy Dick calls it, “Saturday.”
DOGS PLAYING POKE ’ER
New Rule: Tiger Woods, Jesse James, and Charlie Sheen must have a whore-off. It’s like Hungry Hungry Hippos—you know, if eating all those marbles gave the hippos hepatitis C. Winner gets $100,000, a Cadillac Escalade, and a new beautiful, trusting bride, who is convinced you’ve changed, you’re finally ready to settle down, and dammit, you mean it this time! . . . Even though you just won the whore-off.
D’OHPEC
New Rule: Ameri
ca has every right to bitch about gas prices suddenly shooting up. How could we have known? Oh, wait, there was that teensy, tiny thing about being warned constantly over the last forty years but still creating more urban sprawl, failing to build public transport, buying gas-guzzlers, and voting for oil company shills. So, New Rule: Shut the fuck up about gas prices.
DON’T TREAD ON WEE-MAN
