And I have a little problem with the idea of spending nearly a trillion dollars to solve this thing. How's about just taking your computer back to the kid at Circuit City who sold it to you and saying, "Hey, you stuck me with a machine with a broken clock. Now fix it, asshole."
So why is it, with all the computer geniuses out there, solutions to the Y2K problem are scarcer than J. D. Salinger appearances on "Hollywood Squares"?
You mean to tell me in the entire computer industry, there was not one nearsighted geek farsighted enough to take a few minutes away from designing the blood spatter pattern on Duke Nukem to teach their machine how to fucking count? Come on, guys, get on the joystick. It's not like you have lives to go home to, all right? I guess we shouldn't be surprised that these cybereunuchs don't know how to handle a date.
Look, while catastrophe is unlikely, there's gonna be some glitches. If there's a widespread breakdown of computer networks, you won't have access to your ATM, you won't be able to talk on a cell phone or program your VCR, and you won't be able to buy gas for your car. My God, Mr. Peabody ... in the blink of an eye, we'll be catapulted all the way back to 1977! Damn you, Y2K bug! Damn you to hell!
Folks, let's bottom-line this. The Millennial Gloomy Guses are telling us that the collapse of Western Civilization is going to be brought about by two missing digits, and I just can't buy that. It's like saying basketball's going to lose its fan base 'cause one guy retires. Okay, bad example. It's like saying the presidency is going to be brought down by a simple blow... Okay, worse example. It's like saying—oh hell. You know what? We're all gonna fucking die.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Faith
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but what is faith? Well, essentially, faith is the voice in the back of your head that tells you to listen to the voice in the back of your head.
People are looking toward the heavens for answers these days because quite frankly, down here on Planet Bottom Line, the only answer you'll get to your spiritual questions is "Do that on your own time, freak." Okay?
We are desperate to find something to believe in. That's why Bill Clinton is doing so well; we don't give a damn if we can believe him, as long as we can believe in him ... Do me a favor and don't think about that too much or it's going to seem a lot less clever.
Now, as for me, I've chosen bits and pieces of the standard religious fare served up during my formative years and tailored it to meet my own needs. For example, when I was thirteen years old, I really did believe that idle hands were the Devil's workshop, so I was constantly jerking off.
Listen, I'm the first one to admit that I'm somewhat cynical when it comes to faith. I envy people who can just let go and totally commit. I, on the other hand, can't even hear the title of the show "Touched by an Angel" without thinking that a professional baseball player is being sued for sexual harassment.
But the thing that bothers me most is fake faith. Some performers say a prayer before they step onstage and I can't think of anything more narcissistic. Does Madonna really think that with all the hunger and strife in this world, God can spare a nanosecond worrying whether or not her dancers Javier and Lance mistimed their jetes during "Papa Don't Preach"?
I guess if I ever do get to meet my maker, the first question I'd have to ask Him is what's up with the hair in the armpits? And why does it feel so good when I rub my eyes real hard? And why did you give us animals that we have to pet but no animals that pet us? And I'm not talking about the dog licking the apple sauce off my thingy because the only reason he does that is because he wants the apple sauce. I'm talking about an animal who pets us for the sole reason of seeing us smile.
Hey, it's great to have faith, but come on, temper it with a little good old-fashioned earthbound smarts. I mean if you're a Christian Scientist hemophiliac, don't even think about getting a job as an assistant to a walleyed knife thrower. Saw that on a card at Spencers Gifts.
Now, once you get a few folks to share in your faith, you got yourself a religion. As the Bible says: "Where two or more are gathered, you can take up a collection."
I guess the thing I find strange about most religions and going to church is the church itself. I don't get it. Doesn't the existence of an opulent building go against the very foundation it is supposed to be built on? I mean, meet under a tarp and give the money you save on stained glass to build houses for poor people, feed the homeless, or raise the spending cap for the NBA teams.
Look, I think faith is a wonderful thing. If your faith enables you somehow to survive life's shitstorms with a modicum of grace and humor, you are truly blessed. However, if having faith means that you give your kids' college money to some cosmic shyster who wants to borrow your balls so he can go on a comet ride with the Silver Surfer, well, you're just being phenomenally stupid. Okay? And trust me, the real God thinks so too.
Hey, maybe there's a reason we're not handed all the answers in an easy-to-open, Oscar-style envelope. Maybe faith isn't about what's up on top of the mountain; maybe it's about how far we're willing to climb to get there. Maybe we don't know the answers because not knowing makes us better people, forcing us to huddle together for warmth in existential darkness and, in the process, bringing all of us closer together. Or maybe we're just all a bunch of fucking morons.
Now, of course, I don't mean that... I'm not a moron ... and I do have faith. I see the Lord's work every day. A majestic sunrise, the dew on the lawn, my loving wife, my beautiful children, and, of course, witnessing the miracle of the asswipe in the Range Rover that just cut me off being pulled over and cavity searched by the highway patrol.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Super Consumers
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but our nation's shopping obsession is rapidly filling our homes with a random array of useless shit that makes Charles Foster Kane's basement look like the inside of Dan Quayle's head. Spendthrift, credit-happy America has a worse case of consumption than any character Charles Dickens ever created.
You know how to tell when you've got a shopping problem? When the lights in the department store momentarily dim after they slide your credit card through the thing.
America's current fiscal strategy is often more out of balance than a drunk guy logrolling with an inner ear infection during Mardis Gras. In the face of supposed political turmoil and worldwide market upheavals, what do an increasing number of us do to assuage our fiscal anxiety? We, of course, go out and spend more money. These days Americans will buy anything they can lay their Oliver Peoples-shaded eyes on, whether it's Foamy, the Rabid Badger Beanie Baby, or $1,200 Rolling Stones tickets, or the entire International Olympic Committee for that matter.
Basically, my feelings on shallow consumerism can be summed up thusly. I don't think masturbating to the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog is wrong, but the Hickory Farms catalog, that is sick.
Although that Gouda wheel is lookin' mighty purrty.
Personally, I hate shopping. I never know where to begin. Am I an "active gent"? Or "youthfully elegant"? Neither, but I've never seen a men's department section called: LATE, DOUBLE-PARKED, AND PISSED OFF.
I hate the salesperson who thinks you're more likely to buy something from them if they learn your first name and then start beatin' it like a coked-up monkey on a snare drum. Hey, back off with the name, Sam Drucker. You're selling me a shirt, not talking me off a fucking ledge, okay?
People deal with money in different ways. Some people hide their finances from their spouse. I guess that's me because my wife doesn't know I'm doing this show for a living. She thinks I'm the assistant manager at a Sizzler in Ventura and have to work late on Fridays to close out the cash drawer. When she asks me how we can afford such a nice house on my salary, I tell her I sell some of the borderline meat out of the trunk of my car to junkies who don't know any better ... It's just business.
What drives the American obsession for more? What drives
it? More is better than less. Okay? Like if I had seventeen foot massagers from Brookstone, well, if I had eighteen, that would be better. You with me? Eighteen better than seventeen. Critics like to attack the blindly acquisitive nature of the American consumer, but the desire to collect the most nuts is hard-wired into our inner squirrel.
Okay, so we're living for the fleeting pleasures of today and not giving a thought to the bitter realities of the future. So we're all being grasshoppers and not ants. Worst-case scenario? You wind up digging through other people's trash to survive. The way things are going, at least it'll be really nice trash, in matching Louis Vuitton twist-top bags.
I mean, what fun is having money anyway unless you can use it? You know what happens to money you don't spend? It sits in bank accounts and it grows, slowly becoming more money and more money until one day you just die and your next of kin, Cousin Tommy with the plate in his head, converts your 401 (k) into singles and starts feeding G-strings at the titty bar next door to the cemetery.
Americans have a guaranteed right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and if that means the whole country becomes one big giant coast-to-coast shopping mall where the Grand Canyon is the Gap, then I say, "Hey, put me on a burro, point it toward the relaxed-flt khakis, and slap it on the ass."
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Death of Eccentricity
Come on, haven't we evolved to the point in this culture where carrying a purse doesn't necessarily mean you're gay? Can't it mean you're just eccentric? Well, I guess it could, if eccentricity weren't so prevalent nowadays. I'm beginning to think the norm is now Norm Bates. The real freak is the guy who puts on a tie, goes off to work, does his job, comes home, eats dinner, turns on the TV, and falls asleep in the same bed as his wife ... Now, that's fuckin' weird!
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but eccentricity is dead. At least that's what I told my friend Mr. Winkles, the chimp that I dress in a tuxedo, who follows me around in a little miniature Porsche squirting people with a seltzer bottle full of his own urine.
At one time in this country's cozy, homogenous, Richie Cunningham past, eccentricity was the exclusive domain of the outcast, the disaffected, and the disenfranchised. Back then, breaking free of the tight behavioral constraints imposed by society was a significantly brave, if not desperate, act.
The problem now is that the bar of abnormality is constantly being ratcheted higher and higher. Oddness has become the coin of the realm. Now everybody wants to be the weird kid, in a calculated attempt to appear talented, deep, different, or, at the very least, fuckable.
Carnival freak shows are going out of business because they can't top the demented pageantry at the local Greyhound bus terminal. I mean, why part with your hard-earned cash to see a hermaphroditic dwarf pound tenpenny nails through his skull when you can just watch a guy in a Hefty bag and hip waders purchase a ticket to Parma, Ohio, with a tube sock full of pennies and a half-eaten braunschweiger sandwich?
Let's face it, computer technology now gives us unlimited access to the bizarre. Ten-year-olds can type "elephantitis" into their Internet search engine and download medical pictures of men with enormous scrotal sacks and turn them into greeting cards that read: YOU'VE GOT A LOT OF
BALLS HAVING ANOTHER BIRTHDAY.
It seems that being inundated with the Kaczynskis and the Kato Kalins and Tysons and Tonyas and the Flynts and the Fleisses has opened up a broad spectrum of accepted behavior that ranges from Marilyn Manson to Marilyn Quayle. And the general consensus seems to be it's all good. We have become so blase we make Robert Wagner look like Beetlejuice.
Now, one of the eccentrics I do respect is Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Lives alone, likes to paint, plays the flute, keeps to himself, and occasionally ventures out of the house to whack a patient. Sure, he's weird. But he's not hurting anybody.
And for the most part, I like rock & roll eccentrics. Ever since the sixties, rock music has been fueled by a potent dose of antiestablishment energy. Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Bob Dylan built a nonconformist stage upon which they gave birth to the eccentricity-as-art movement that Marilyn Manson makes a mint pilfering today.
And don't get me wrong, I like Marilyn Manson. Hell, I liked him way back when he was Alice Cooper. But Marilyn Manson is not a true eccentric because, you just know, the second his concert is over, he neatly drapes his genetically neutered unitard on a hanger for pressing and talks to his broker while he rubs Jergens lotion into the spots where the straps have chafed his heels. Hey, a true eccentric can't turn it off. To own the world's largest collection of buffalo head nickels and then glue every one of them onto your '73 AMC Pacer requires true purity of vision, not to mention the plate in your head.
In the past, people were so much easier to shock. I mean, in the fifties when Milton Berle dressed up on TV in drag, folks watching him would laugh themselves sick. Nowadays, we've become much more open-minded. A television comedian no longer needs to publicly degrade and ridicule his feminine side, but can now lead a fulfilling life as the sardonic host of his very own live Friday night cable show and then go home to a loving family who wholeheartedly supports his other persona—a saucy, miniskirted ingenue named Crissy-Anne. Oh, how I love my Bonnie Bell Strawberry Lip-Smacker!
Seriously, we've all got our eccentricities, and if parading around my bedroom wearing nothing but a bowler hat, an ascot, and a dead fox tied to my fully erect penis while referring to my wife as "the Lady Miller" is wrong, well, I don't want to be right.
Folks, I say we're doing ourselves a great disservice. I think we need the ability to be shocked back in our lives. Not so much, of course, that I'll no longer be allowed to say the word "fuck" more frequently than Joe Pesci when his hand caught in a car door, but enough so that the truly bizarre can once again get their due. Let eccentricity have its day in the sun, and trust me, it'll show up wearing an umbrella hat, carrying a valise full of cat shit, an unstrung tennis racket, and every Reader's Digest "Humor in Uniform" ever published stuffed into a Quick Draw McGraw lunch box. And I do mean Quick Draw, and not his evil doppelganger, El Kabong.
Listen, the main reason for the death of eccentricity is that we have identified and therefore demystified many behaviors that were heretofore huddled under the awning of charming idiosyncrasy. Turns out, the reclusive hermit is an agoraphobic; the screaming misanthrope has Tourette's syndrome; and the jovial hayseed who jacks off on his porch all the time ... uh ... well, he's just the President of the United States.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
The End of Accountability
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but when it comes to accountability, this country is in more denial than a sixteen-year-old getting caught by his mother in the bathroom with the swimsuit issue in one hand and himself in the other.
From the child who blames a broken lamp on his imaginary friend Larry Lampbreaker to the adult who sues for wrongful termination because the employee manual didn't say that Xeroxing your bunghole was verboten, to the injured hang glider seeking compensation from the descendants of Sir Isaac Newton, the list of ways we weasel out of accepting blame for stuff is longer than the beep on Leonardo DiCaprio's answering machine.
We've become uncannily adept at not taking responsibility for decisions and actions which may be, to put it kindly, less than wise. Like silicone breast implants. I mean, I understand that it's important to have humongous breasts in case you're ever at the same club as David Lee Roth and you don't want him to ignore you, but how could you actually think that somebody could put sandwich bags full of bathroom grout into your body without side effects?
And whatever happened to corporate accountability? Just once, just once, when I call a company and tell them their product broke down on me, I'd love to hear the drone at the other end of the line say, "Mr. Miller, I'm sorry that happened. It's our fault, and we will immediately ship you out another AssBlaster 2000." Or, you know, wha
tever the product might be.
And how 'bout the guy who sued Courtney Love a couple of years ago because he got roughed up a little in the mosh pit thing during a concert. Hey, dickwad! You're in the mosh pit at a Hole concert. What the fuck do you think is gonna happen, a decoupage class with Doug Henning?
Our justice system has bigger holes in it than Linda Tripp's fishnets. What's with violent criminals who blame their behavior on the fact that they ate something with sugar in it, and it caused a psychotic episode? Sorry, guys, the coo-coo thing only works for the bird in the Cocoa Puffs commercial, all right? Now strip down and enjoy your cavity search. There's a prize in every box.
We don't do ourselves any favors by being too lenient with criminals. A society thrives on a clear demarcation between right and wrong. What would happen if one day we all decided not to act responsibly and refused to accept the consequences of our actions? I mean, come on ... We can't all be President.
Bill Clinton is the poster boy for lack of accountability. The only time the buck stops in the Clinton administration is when it's rolled up and jammed into the stripper's G-string.
I'm sure Bill Clinton falls asleep every night absolutely convinced that it was the vast right wing conspiracy dogging him for six long years that drove him into the loving embrace of a young intern. And that's crazy, since we all know that oxygen is the real culprit here, because breathing makes Bill Clinton horny
This shift into the crybaby mode has to be traced to our generation. In our parents' generation, you sucked it up and walked it off. Nobody gave a rat's ass about being chronically depressed or having low self-esteem or not feeling empowered. You fought the bull and sometimes the bull won and sometimes you won. And it was good and there was wine and people danced and laughed. Sorry, thought I was Hemingway there for a second.
I Rant Therefore I Am Page 6
