Sure, Americans are riding a wave of optimism. And I think that's all well and good. But I can't help but believe that all this good cheer stems primarily from an everincreasing tendency to lower our standards. I mean, look at our choices for President. Gore vs. Bush? Hey, whoopee, let's all hop on the bland wagon there. Christ, I'd rather give Clinton a third term. At least it's fun to watch him wriggle out of the straitjacket after he gets caught putting the little head of state into some strange oval office.
Folks, here's the bottom line. It's naive to think that some things aren't getting worse. Americans are hoarding guns while hiding behind bolted doors, feeling more suspicious of one another than ever before, as our nation's youth is contaminated by movies, games, and television that trivialize both sex and violence. So then, why is everyone feeling so damn good about everything? That's very easy. Cash, Prozac, and all the diamond-hard boners you can shake a prescription at.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Blatant SelfPromotion
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but when it comes to blatant self-promotion these days, there is more desperate chest pounding going on than a twenty-four-hour "ER" marathon.
Today everyone is a celebrity: Cajun chefs, CEOs, transvestite hookers. Hey, we live in a world where even Mother Teresa had people.
I know in every business you have to sell yourself. I don't have a problem with that. But you have to know when to stop. There are people out there who are more overexposed than Edgar Winter slathered in baby oil lying on a bed of aluminum foil under a magnifying glass at high noon in Palm Springs.
Nowadays, even the average American has mastered the art of spin. I got a press release from my mailman today that included his head shot, outlined his views on stamp placement, and announced that his next project is delivering tomorrow's mail.
Donald Trump is the Donald Trump of self-promotion. What's with affixing his surname to anything he touches in life? The only thing the word "Trump" should be synonymous with is a really bad comb-over and eyebrows that are denser than the women he dates.
And then there's Dennis Rodman. Now, I have to say I used to be a fan of his, because when he hit the floor, he was the complete warrior and he left all of his freak-show bullshit in the pants pocket of his warm-up suit. But last season, that all changed. Dennis, if you happen to be watching tonight on a television set in the waiting room of whatever tattoo parlor you're in, I think one of your skull-piercings might've accidentally nicked the part of the brain that keeps you from buying into your own hype. So let's pull out all those hoops and loops and rings and car keys, bass lures, cotter pins, and paper clips, and let the holes heal back up so you can start doing some rebounding this season. 'Cause right now, you're on the verge of becoming the world's most passe wind chime.
Oh, and by the way, if there's anybody out there tonight who has not yet bought a tae-bo tape, please, I'm begging you, bite the bullet and send in your goddamn money. Because until you do, Billy Blanks is not going to leave any of us alone for a single fucking minute.
Hey, and look at Madonna. No, I mean, really, look at her ... or she'll die.
Do you realize we actually have celebrities in this culture who are celebrities merely because they are celebrities? Melissa Rivers, Downtown Julie Brown, Mr. Blackwell. What exactly do these people do? Other than bemoan the travails of living in the fishbowl? You know something, you gotta hand it to Mary Jo Buttafuoco. At least she took a bullet in the face.
A word of warning, however, my nontalented friends: If you want to last beyond Flavor of the Month, you'd better make sure you can live up to your self-generated buzz, because it can get mighty lonely sitting there, thirty-five rows back next to Brigitte Nielsen at the Calvin Klein spring show, as she tries to pitch you Red Sonja II.
And don't ever take yourself so seriously that you refer to yourself in the third person. You know, the day I say, "Dennis Miller has to look out for Dennis Miller," I want you all to crown Dennis Miller the King of Assholia.
Truth be told, there are so many me-monkeys out there, they've actually cheapened our appreciation of true accomplishment. Cynics even grumbled that World Cup soccer player Brandi Chastain was guilty of blatant self-promotion when she dramatically ripped off her jersey after scoring the winning kick last year.
Well, I disagree. I say that what she did was well within the acceptable parameters of genuine emotional release. Let me tell you something, if that had been me out there, I would've de-pantsed myself and shouted "Take that, you spying Commie bastards!" while bending over to flash my naked, hairy, pivotal-goal-of-the-game-scorin' ass at their bench, and then everyone in that stadium would've gotten a long, lingering face-ful of my sweaty championshipwinning balls as I took a prancing victory lap around the field screaming, "Bring on the cash, motherfuckers! Bring it on!"
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Sex & Viagra
You know, love might make the world go round, folks, but sex certainly greases the poles.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but there's no greater pleasure known to man than sex. Right and true, sex can be a wonderful expression of love. Wrong and false, well, it's even better then, isn't it?
Which is not to say sex doesn't come with more strings attached than Geppetto's mistress. It is a slippery slope from "Trust me, baby, it won't get weird" to "It got weird, didn't it?"
The only other animals besides humans who have sex for fun as well as reproduction are dolphins and chimpanzees. And why not? They're great fucks ... Or so I've heard.
Now, of course, the difference between us and the animals is, we have to explain sex to our kids, and everyone does it differently. A farmer explains it by comparing it to the way the crops are planted, a mechanic may use the example of nuts and bolts. Now, I'm a comedian, so I plan on hiring funnyman Buddy Hackett to explain it to my kids.
And believe me, kids need to know. I don't care what your hobby is before puberty hits, because as soon as it does, nature assigns you a new hobby. Let's just say when I was fourteen, I was treated for tennis elbow and I didn't even own a fucking racquet. Let he who has a free hand cast the first stone. I wasn't exactly subtle about my self-discovery, either. I put tiki torches all around my bed, a poster of Farrah Fawcett on my ceiling, and a spring-loaded tissue dispenser on my nightstand, and then I proceeded to work my own crank like it was the gearshift on a Volkswagen bus that I was trying to rock out of a fucking mud hole. Ah, the good old days ... Last Thursday.
Yes, birds do it, bees do it, even married presidents in the Oval Office do it. You know what? We don't like people who don't look like they have sex. Kenneth Starr and Linda Tripp both had approval ratings lower than a fat dachshund's balls. But Bill Clinton ... through the roof. .. Literally. And the reason Bill Clinton skated is because, underneath it all, we like the idea that he was getting some strange. I don't know what his presidential library will look like in Arkansas, but I bet out front, there's gonna be a big shooting fountain going off every twenty minutes or so.
We're fortunate to be living in a time when it's easier than ever before to explore your sexuality and enhance your lovemaking. But when it comes to sexual aids, be careful to follow the directions on the package. I used too much of that delay cream once and I'm still waiting for an orgasm from a drive-in movie handjob in August of '72.
And colored condoms don't do a thing for me. You see, I'm a winter and all those bright tones make me look washed out.
You know, there was a time when men dreaded getting old because they knew it would rob them of their sexual power. But thanks to modern medicine, couples are having sex well into their seventies and eighties, to the point where you can now buy edible panties fortified with calcium.
And now with the addition of the miracle drug Viagra, millions of men who were no longer able to have sex are banging away like monkeys with wooden spoons on lobster pots.
How does Viagra work? I
t's simple. Inside every one of those little blue pills is a miniaturized photo of a dripping wet Sophia Loren getting back on board the sponge boat in Boy on a Dolphin. Works every time.
I guess like all things in this era of unfettered capitalism, science and technology have turned human sexuality into yet another profit center. Between penile lengthening, Viagra, and boob jobs, doctors are nailing up shingles to get in on all the nailing going on. You got guys who haven't even been to medical school setting up shop in a kiosk on a traffic island on Sunset Boulevard who'll inject chicken fat into your dick for twenty bucks at a red light. Or ten bucks, if you've got the Entertainment 2000 coupon book.
Hey, civilizations come and go, but the one constant throughout the ages has been and always will be the orgasm. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief... I don't care what your social stratum is. When that climax lightning bolt comes roaring down your loins, there's only one thing on your mind: Why in the hell is everybody else on this bus starin' at me?
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
America's Fascination with Rebels
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but I happen to find it a source of endless amusement that in 2000 America, the most effective way to insinuate oneself into the gooey embrace of the mainstream is by becoming a rebel.
Now, what exactly is a rebel? Sid Vicious was a rebel, but so was Rosa Parks when she sat in the front of the bus— probably because she saw Sid Vicious sitting in the back.
And while rebels come in all shapes and sizes, rebellion is still essentially a function of youth. If you're still rebelling in your late thirties, well, trust me, someone's paying you a big fat shitload of money to do it.
Now, I know there are a couple of teenagers who watch my TV show, who see my goatee, who hear me utter the occasional f-word and assume that I am a fucking rebel. Let me clue you in on a little secret, kids. I get paid to do this.
I'm about as rebellious as the triangle player in KC and the Sunshine Band during contract negotiations. You know, if I really were a rebel, I'd be on a live public access call-in show right now with Dr. Guine, a vegan chiropractor from Costa Mesa. As a matter of fact, I am so not a rebel, if HBO wanted me to start every show by singing "It's Raining Men," well, then you better break out the hip waders.
You know, for all of our corn-fed, button-down, shoppingmall conformity, we Americans owe our very identity to a proud tradition of rebellion. I mean, look at the Pilgrims. Dressed all in black, facial hair on the men, no makeup on the women.
Give 'em shades and a clove cigarette and they're every spoken-word coffeehouse performer you've ever walked out on. The Pilgrims were rebelling against what they felt were oppressive figures of religious authority. So they got on a boat, established a colony in the New World, and became ... oppressive figures of religious authority.
Our contemporary rebels take their cue from rock & roll, and whether it was Jerry Lee Lewis humping his piano or Elvis Presley humping absolutely everything else, that Devil music turned out to be the bent paperclip that unlocked America's chastity belt.
There was no greater slap to my wide-eyed adolescent face than learning Mick Jagger had attended the London
School of Economics. Although I'm sure the theories of supply and demand came in handy after he hooked up with Keith.
You see, what makes our culture simultaneously infuriating and gratifying is its uncanny ability to muzzle the rebel by gradually absorbing him into the system with an intoxicating web of money, fame, and chicks that ultimately dulls his senses to the point where he can no longer even remember what it was he was fucking rebelling against in the first place. Never forget: The ultimate rebel, the homosexual beat junkie writer William Burroughs, who penned some of the most corrosive literature of the twentieth century, ended up doin' Nike commercials to pay for his naked lunch. I think the shoe was the Heroin Jordan model, if I'm not mistaken?
Or take a look at the phenomena of tattooing and body piercing. At the very beginning of the nineties, these were two can't-miss methods of ensuring you instant cool as well as the wrath of your family and employers. Now, I believe genital piercing is covered by Blue Cross/Blue Sack and the main drag of Anytown, U.S.A., boasts a tattoo parlor between Starbucks and ... the other Starbucks.
You know, we're guilty of romanticizing rebels in film. But unlike in the movies, in real life, most of them aren't working because they've pissed off every boss they ever had, because they can only get rebellious in the workplace, seeing as they live in a converted laundry room in their parents' basement. The only machine these losers rage against has WHIRLPOOL printed on the front of it.
You know, you'd probably have to go back to the era of the Vietnam war to find a place where true rebellion lived in the soul of a generation. But I'm sure that by now even the most ardent protesters of the war don't consider themselves American rebels as much as just plain old everyday Canadian citizens.
I used to have a theory that every generation rebelled against the generation before it. But then I found out every generation, like the one before it, just likes to get wasted and fuck and the older generation gets pissed off because they have to work and they can't get wasted and fuck anymore.
In the end, that's the problem with a lot of rebels. They believe that with freedom comes a lack of responsibility. Well, you know, it's fine to be the lone wolf who breaks away from the pack, but you gotta walk a fine line between being an individualist and just being really, really annoying. Okay?
Come on, people, fight the power! Be different, 'cause, you know, don't you want to fit in?
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Taxes
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but the American tax system is more complicated than a prenup between Bill Gates and Maria Maples. The current tax code is harder to understand than Bob Dylan reading Finnegans Wake in a wind tunnel.
I find it awfully ironic that just a short couple of centuries after our plucky forebears heaved the Tetley's into Boston Harbor in outrage over the few cents' worth of taxes they had to kick back to Crumpetland, every April we Americans now meekly fork over a king's ransom to keep our huge, lumbering, Tarkus-like democracy creaking along.
Now personally, my taxes are a fucking nightmare. I require more extensions than Yanni. And what puzzles and frustrates me so much is how inconsistent the tax code is. For instance, why does the IRS let one person check the "clergy" box and not get in trouble, and then come down hard on someone else who might technically not be a minister, but through his weekly live talk show on HBO brings just as much comfort to the masses? It's unfair, brothers and sisters. It's the Devil's work.
Throughout history, we have all felt put upon by the tax man. But even Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Render unto God what is God's." It's easy for Jesus to say. He never paid a dime in taxes because his accountant, Morty Glick, was a fucking genius.
Of course, if you don't want to pay for a real accountant, you can always go to one of those tax prep places where you'll be entrusting your fiscal future to some part-time H&R Blockhead who's on sabbatical from his regular gig teaching a Shetland pony grooming for singles class at the Learning Annex. Quite frankly, I've seen more financial acumen watching my dog swallow a nickel.
And of course, no discussion of taxes would be complete without invoking the IRS. You know the IRS, those sons of... liberty and fairness. I can't say enough about the brave men and women who maintain and replenish the coffers of the Republic with unswerving dedication. I have nothing but praise for these secular saints who have gone unheralded far too long. Others may criticize the IRS, but not I. Not Dennis Miller of Los Angeles, California. Social Security number 873-82-2889.
Maybe instead of taxes, the government should simply charge us for their services item by item. I propose that each year you get a checklist from the Feds, then you mark off what you used and pay accordingly. You know, like the minibar in your
hotel room. Only far less expensive. For Christ's sake, even the Pentagon wouldn't have the audacity to charge twelve bucks for a bag of pistachios. And while we're on the subject, Mr. Marriott, can you make that metal clasp on top of the jelly bean jar just a little more difficult to operate? All right? This thing's harder to get off than Martha Stewart on a set of dirty sheets.
Anyway, maybe the reason government is so expensive is the capital is in Washington, where a cup of coffee costs three bucks. The overhead is killing us. We should run our government more like a contemporary American corporation. Move the capital to Jakarta and have our laws made by eightyear-old kids earning six cents a day. C'mon, just do it!
For too long, our elected officials have treated our tax money like a bowl of M&Ms on a receptionist's desk that they can keep grabbing handfuls from any time they want. It has to stop. They need to be accountable. So from now on, any time they spend something, I want to see a fucking receipt.
Hey, I would gladly pay more taxes if I could be guaranteed that my money is going toward the greater public good. The thing that sticks in my craw about giving my tax money to the government is: I know that some slimy jag-off in Congress is gonna wind up on a junket to Bora Bora sunning his fat ass on my dime.
Look, the tax code is an atonal collection of discordant notes tapped out by the eighteen-carat-gold-ring-wearing fingers of five thousand special interest weasels in a grabby cluster-fuck that would give nightmares to even Clive Barker. Every bizarre exemption, every deduction that wouldn't apply to you in ten million years is there for one reason—and one reason alone: to save money for some pig lobbyist who then kicks back a portion of it to some scumbag politician's campaign war chest. I say we eliminate the middleman and lend some dignity to the process. Every April 16, strip each congressman buck naked, dip them in honey, then give them sixty seconds to roll around in the tax revenues, and let them keep whatever sticks to their bloated, liver-spotted carcasses, and then guess what? We get to keep the rest.
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