Ranting Again Read online

  Dennis Miller – Ranting Again

  PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036

  DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  Book design by Terry Karydes

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Miller, Dennis, comedian. Ranting again / Dennis Miller, p. cm. Continues: Rants. 1996. I. Miller, Dennis, comedian. Rants. II. Title, PN6162.M488 1998 792.7'028'092—dc21 97-44475 CIP

  ISBN 0-385-48852-1 Copyright © 1998 by Dennis Miller All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America June 1998 FIRST EDITION 13579 10 8642

  For Carolyn (Ali), Holden and Marlon-Oliver

  You are the loves of my life.

  Table of Contents

  Preface. 4

  The Single Life. 5

  Generation X. 7

  Animal Rights. 10

  Family. 12

  Ethnicity. 14

  Are Movies Getting Worse?. 17

  The Armed Forces. 19

  Smoking. 21

  Acting. 23

  Sobriety. 25

  Violence in Media. 27

  Hype. 29

  The American Education System.. 31

  Bad Drivers. 33

  Computers. 35

  Mothers. 37

  Immigration. 39

  Bad Habits. 41

  Lawyers. 43

  Fashion. 46

  Bad TV.. 48

  Feminism.. 51

  Washington, D.C. 53

  The Royal Family. 55

  Abortion. 57

  Bill Clinton, Second Term.. 59

  America's Obsession with Beauty. 61

  Parenthood. 63

  Modern Psychology. 66

  Elections 2/16/96. 69

  Sportsmanship 3/15/96. 72

  The Prison System.. 74

  The Death of Common Sense. 76

  L'Affaire 0.J. 5/10/96. 78

  The Pursuit of Happiness. 80

  Spouses. 82

  Lying. 84

  Art. 86

  Child Rearing. 88

  White People. 90

  UFOs. 92

  The Afterlife. 94

  Gun Control 96

  The Fall of the Middle Class. 98

  Friends. 100

  Cops. 102

  About the Author. 104

  Preface

  The Rants originally appeared on my HBO show Dennis Miller Live. I'd like to thank David Feldman, Eddie Feldman, Mike Gandolfi, Jim Hanna, Tom Hertz, Leah Krinsky, Rick Overton, Jacob Weinstein, and David Weiss for their assistance. I'd also like to thank Bruce Tracy and Eliza Truitt at Doubleday, Kevin Slattery, and Marc Gurvitz. Also Jeff Bewkes, Chris Albrecht, and Carolyn Strauss at HBO. And, most important, I'd like to thank Michael Fuchs for his unwavering belief in me. Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but…

  The Single Life

  Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but I'm glad my single days are over.

  Sure I hear guys talking about personal freedom. How they don't have to answer to anybody and how they're meeting all sorts of new people. But the grim reality is that scientists estimate that the average American male spends a full four days of his single life hearing the phrase "Pull the car over, asshole, I'm walking."

  There's so much paranoia and mistrust between the sexes, it makes the war room in Dr. Strangelove look like the Jacuzzi at Plato's Retreat.

  Sure, everybody loves the show Friends, but, come on, that's not singles reality. In the real singles world you live in an apartment the size of Billy Barty's walk-in closet with three roommates who are flakier than a Greek pastry placed on Wally George's shoulder. Roommates who two weeks into the relationship tell you they spent their rent money on a QVC alabaster statuette of Hermann Goring that they are hollowing into a bong. While striving for independence, you begin to realize that you've become a day care center for a bunch of lazy sleep farmers.

  So let's just say that Friends, while it's a great show, is not exactly a reconnaissance photo of the day-to-day machinations of the solo life. That being said, it's a lot better than the single people I saw on TV growing up. Eb, Jethro, Tony Nelson, and Major Healy. No wonder my single life seemed to go on forever. I was walking around in an Elmer Fudd hat and a rope belt looking for a genie to blow me.

  For me, dating was like a casting call for America's Most Wanted. I once dated a girl who was so twisted, her personalities formed their own softball league.

  My life was emptier than Richard Harris's minibar at the Chateau Marmont.

  I was so desperate when I told my friends: "Hey, there are other fish in the sea," I meant other fish. Folks, what I'm saying is, I fucked saltwater seafood. Wasn't proud of it then. Not proud of it now. As a matter of fact, I probably wouldn't have brought it up if this rant wasn't running a little short.

  Not that the women who dated me had it easy either. When I eventually did get a date, I got so excited, I looked like Martini when he finally got the boat ride in Cuckoo's Nest.

  Toward the end of my single life I was frozen with fear about how to even go about meeting my soul mate. I mean, c'mon, singles bars? Do you know how hard it was for me to keep a straight face while some stoner broad told me what she thought Pink Floyd meant on The Dark Side of the Moon?

  Personal ads? I just don't know if I'd be comfortable trying to communicate with my future spouse the same way the cops contacted the Zodiac Killer in Dirty Harry.

  And, of course, the newest way for singles to meet each other is through their home computers, on-line. And I don't want to burst your bubble, Spanky-dot-com, but, uh, y'know all those succulent Hawaiian Tropic chicks you think you're trading fantasies with are actually fifty- year-old fat guys who make Abe Vigoda look like Marcus Schenkenberg. Forget computers. Humans need physical contact. I'll take the clap over carpal tunnel syndrome any day.

  And, single people, if you still don't get it, I'll translate it for the commitment-impaired. Marriage is a never-ending series of one-night stands.

  And I'm on the biggest hot streak of my life. So forget single, wake up and smell the stranger next to you.

  Marriage is the last step of personal evolution. It is the opposable thumb of human intimacy. So come out of the ape cage and give Darwin your phone number, dammit!

  Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

  Generation X

  Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but isn't it about time we got off generation X's tattooed back? It's no wonder Xers are angst-ridden and rudderless. They feel America's greatness has passed. They got to the cocktail party twenty minutes too late and all that's left are those little wieners and a half-empty bottle of Zima.

  So that's why they're threatened. But why do we find them so threatening? I thought we were a little hipper than that. Or at least we were when we were their age.

  You must remember that then, as now, it remains the single most important function of a generation to irk the living shit out of the generation immediately preceding it.

  Screw the old squares, listen to a faster beat, wear a wider cuff, get a Beavis and Gingrich tattoo, change. Life is about change. More than that, life is like riding the bus, it requires change.

  The so-called generation X has gotten a bad rap for being whiners. But people in their twenties have always been whiners. People in their twenties should be whiners. They are to whining what Pavarotti is to ... uh ... uh ... Tommy. Okay, I don't know opera.

  The reason you whine is that you've just popped out of the cozy, beer-filled amniotic sac of academia.

  You haven't developed the prerequisite thick hide of the cynical,
callused bastard yet, and your future seems bleaker than Ingmar Bergman listening to an acoustic set performed by Leonard Cohen.

  Add to the angst bouillabaisse the current prospects of a flatlining economy, an environment that's choking to death on its own shit, and a sexual atmosphere that's about as warm, safe, and inviting as a Zagreb bunker. Christ, if I were in my twenties now, I'd be bitching so hard, I'd make Beck sound like Tony Newley.

  Additionally, this generation of young adults is being forced to experience every coltish fumble of their coming of age with the media doing a hushed, reverentially breathless play-by-play. It's kinda like if Dr. Frankenstein gave a running commentary of what the monster was doing all day.

  What's the result of all that scrutiny'? It would appear, mass-marketed nonconformity. The Real World holding auditions. Auditions. For the fucking "real world." Everyone's so busy playing to the cameras that nobody's creating anything. That's why they use all of our stuff. The Brady Bunch, platform shoes, Tony Bennett.

  They suffer from generational performance anxiety because we baby boomers are constantly pounding our chests about our salad days. To hear us tell it, the late sixties and early seventies were a time where between orgies everybody got together and put on Woodstock. Then, between band breaks, we put a stop to an unjust war and brought a rogue chief executive officer to his knees, all the while smoking the most incredible cheap herb in the history of the dilated planet.

  You know, they heard all about the free love of the sixties and seventies. But now it's the nineties, the balloon payment is due, and their generation has to pay the mortgage. Instead of casual sex, they have precautionary sex. Nothing ruins the mood during foreplay more than the recurring image of your sixty-five-year-old homeroom teacher trying to stretch a condom over a cucumber.

  So believe me, I understand the origins of their discontent. And I empathize. Having said that, I'll be damned if I know what makes these kids tick.

  It appears their personal philosophy places a great deal of value on getting so many body piercings that you begin to look like you fell down a flight of stairs carrying a tackle box.

  Body-piercing. A powerful, compelling visual statement that says "Gee ... in today's competitive job market, what can I do to make myself even more unemployable?"

  Fashion is an interesting sword when wielded by disaffected youth. Any guy that remembers being a teenager knows that many youthful uprisings take place in pants, so the practicality of wearing them so big you could smuggle a hard-on the size of a beagle is not lost on me.

  Well, what else is important to them? As far as stimulants go, both of our generations know the feeling of jonesing for product from Colombia; it's just that their product is coffee.

  And by the way, is it asking too much to be able to drink a cup of joe in public without having to listen to some malcontent working out their issues, next to me? It's bad enough that these coffeehouses all seem to have purchased their furniture at the same Dresden fire sale, and when the guy who's been occupying a table for the entire time he's been growing his goatee finally gets up and clears away his journal and his clove cigarettes and his Tibetan worry beads and you can finally sit down, you realize that the table is wobbling because one leg is so much shorter than all the others that the only thing that would balance it is a hardcover copy of Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, and you're finally enjoying your cafe whatever and your triple-berry chocolate-chip six-grain scone when some chick with a buzz cut wearing cat's-eye sunglasses, an orange-and-avocado-green feathered JoAnne Worley "sock-it-to-me" dress, and combat boots stands up front and starts reading a poem she wrote about the first guy who ever felt her up.

  All right, so I just tipped my hand. Maybe I'm not as comfy with these kids as I let on. Maybe it's true. Maybe there is a gap between the baby boomers and the generation Xers that makes the Khyber Pass look like the eye of a needle. How did that happen?

  Well, I'll tell you how it happened. It happened because we have become our parents, the caretakers of the status quo, set in our ways, afraid of change, prattling on and on about our Ford Windstars while tapping our feet to Wang Chung in our dentist's waiting room.

  Look, sure Xers are pissed, and they're just beginning to understand that it's because we owe them and we haven't said a damn word about it. It's like that friend who owes you money but makes you feel like an asshole for bringing it up.

  Well, trust me, fellow elders, it's time to brace up and get ready because natural progression dictates that they'll get over their shyness soon and start banging on our doors like a shortchanged Chinese takeout guy. They are our ghosts of Christmas past, and if you listen closely you can hear them rattling their nose chains.

  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, except for the Doc Martens and the purple hair.

  Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

  Animal Rights

  Can I be so bold as to advance the radical notion that humans earn rights by living by a commonly accepted set of rules, and all you have to do is go to the zoo and watch the monkeys spend their day whacking off right in front of you to know they just don't play by our rules. All you can do is just stand there, saying, come on, give it a rest, Zippy, no wonder it's red.

  Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but I was viewing a nature documentary on PBS with my son the other night. I wanted to impart into young Simba a sense of awe for the harmony of the cosmos. But as we watched the lion gnawing on a still-breathing gazelle while vultures lingered stoically for their shot at the fly- riddled carrion, it occurred to me that it might be better to install the V chip after all.

  Because upon witnessing footage so savage that it would have ended up on Sam Peckinpah's cutting room floor, I recognized that on our worst day humans are eminently more good-natured than animals. Ever see a cat with a mouse? It makes Charlie Manson look like Mike Farrell.

  And yet there are people out there, sane, rational beings who insist that humans should render unto animals all the basic rights. Rights, it would appear, ninety-nine percent of humanity doesn't even luxuriate in.

  So to be evenhanded, what are some of the specifics of the animal rights argument?

  Some claim that animals should not be exploited for entertainment purposes. Activists maintain that show business is demeaning to animals. Hey, it's show business, it's supposed to be demeaning. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not exactly doing Ibsen here, all right.

  And come to think of it, I'm an animal. Where were the animal rights people when I signed my contract to be in that fucking Rebecca De Mornay film a while back?

  You know the animal activists are antifur, and this has caused many fashion designers to now claim that they also are against fur because they care about the plight of animals, especially the ones that have been preapproved for the Platinum Card. Hey, if you designers are so altruistic, why don't you stop having your jeans sewn in Guatemalan sweat shops by fourteen-year-old girls who make twenty dinari for a sixteen-hour day and get to pee less frequently than the guy in the middle seat on a wide-body L-1011 that's heading to sumo camp?

  And while we're at it, what makes the fashion industry think that the opinions of these supermodels has more weight or importance simply because they happened to hit the pick six in the genetic lottery?

  And by the way, when did supermodels start talking?

  And the animal rights lobby also preaches vegetarianism to varying degrees. Look, the philosophy behind shunning meat for moral reasons has more loopholes than Steve Forbes's long form, all right. Animal rights activists believe that as the most evolved carbon-based entity on the planet, we have a responsibility to coexist in harmony with our feathered, finned, and furred pals rather than forcing them to serve our needs.

  Yeah, and I'm sure that if I were wandering naked across the Serengeti Plain and happened to come across a pride of lions who were feeling peckish, they'd show me the same fucking courtesy. Come on, in less time than it takes to say "two al
l-Miller patties" I'd be chili con carnage.

  Now, of course there are some commonsense things that we can do right away to improve our relationship with the animal kingdom.

  1. Don't feed your dog peanut butter. Unless, of course, the cable goes out for a few seconds.

  2. After blowing marijuana smoke into your cat's mouth, make sure there is plenty of accessible string nearby.

  3. Cockfights are bad. I don't think that there is an American out there who doesn't strongly believe that we need stricter cockfight regulation. I know all of us have taken our kids to the local cockfight and thought, "Man, these basement arenas are just not being kept up." Remember how great cockfights used to be when we were kids? Now they don't even get the names of the cocks right in the program. Cockfighting has just gotten way too commercial.