I RANT THEREFORE I AM – DENNIS MILLER PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY a division of Random House, 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 Random House, Inc. BOOK DESIGN BY LISA SLOANE Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Miller, Dennis, 1953I rant, therefore I am / Dennis Miller— 1st ed. p. cm. 1. American wit and humor. I. Title: I rant, therefore I am. II. Title. PN6162 .M4893 2000 814'.54—dc21 99-055833 ISBN 0-385-49535-8 Copyright © 2000 by Dennis Miller All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America July 2000 FIRST EDITION 13579 10 8642 For Carolyn (Ali), Holden and Marlon-Oliver You are the loves of my life. Table of Contents Preface. 4 Talk Shows 5 The Social Responsibility of the President 6 Work-Obsessed People. 8 The End of Privacy. 9 Style vs. Substance. 10 Money & Greed. 12 The Oscars 14 Going Bald. 16 Fear of Flying. 18 Capital Punishment 20 Neighbors 22 Country Music. 24 One Hundred Shows 26 The Republican Party. 28 The Extinction of Customer Service. 29 Apathy & Cynicism.. 31 The War on Drugs 33 Survival of the Fittest 35 Aging Gracefully. 37 Our Overdependence on Technology/Y2K Bug. 39 Faith. 41 Super Consumers 43 Death of Eccentricity. 44 The End of Accountability. 46 Rock & Roll 48 The Need For Reason. 50 The Oscars 52 Skepticism.. 54 Bad Taste. 56 U.S. as Global Police. 58 Charity & Philanthropy. 60 College Life. 62 Doctors 64 Popularity & Charisma. 66 Pets 68 Buying a House. 70 Models 72 Wrestling. 74 Special Interest Groups 76 Is Everything Getting Worse? 78 Blatant SelfPromotion. 79 America's Fascination with Rebels 83 Taxes 85 Paranoia. 87 Network News 89 Talk Radio. 91 The Space Program.. 93 The Backlash Against the Wealthy. 95 Affirmative Action. 97 Hypochondria. 99 Where Is the Presidency Headed? 100 Preface I Rant, Therefore I Am originally appeared on my HBO show "Dennis Miller Live." I'd like to thank Jose Arroyo, David Feldman, Eddie Feldman, Jim Hanna, Leah Krinsky, Jacob Weinstein, and David Weiss for their assistance. I'd also like to thank Amy Scheibe and Chris Min at Doubleday, Michele DeVoe, Colleen Grillo, Marc Gurvitz, Kirsten McFarland, Debbie Palacio, Kevin Slattery, and, I'd especially like to thank all my friends at HBO, with a special thanks to Jeff Bewkes, Chris Albrecht, Carolyn Strauss, and Sarah Condon, who make it all possible. Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but . . . Talk Shows Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but daytime TV talk shows have become a vast, fetid, sump-sucking wasteland, populated by a parade of circus geeks and sideshow oddities that would have given even Federico Fellini a case of grade-A, toss-in-your-sleep, ate-a-garlic-cheese-and-sushicalzone-right- before-bedtime nightmares. And that's just the hosts. With everything that's on daytime television today, one thought continues to haunt me: How in the hell did Richard Bey get canceled? Lest anyone think I'm biting the hand that feeds me, let me clarify: When I speak of talk shows, I mean the antiDarwinian, Lord of the Flies cluster-fucks that pass for daytime programming. The shows where the basic rules of human discourse are paid about as much attention as Linda Hunt on the set of "Baywatch." Now, I'm not saying they all suck like airplane toilets, but you could safely conclude that the good ones can be counted on the one hand of a bad wood shop teacher. It's not hard to figure out why these shows are popular. They answer the burning question: "What do the people we see being arrested on 'Cops' do during the day?" Why have these daytime chatfests flourished? Well, the answer is that all the smart people are working when this shit is on. The submorons who watch this dreck are the people nobody wants to hire. That's the only way I can explain the sheer number of gene pool skimmings that make it on the air. I swear, you can still see the jelly on their foreheads where the electroshock terminals were attached. And what I find so scary is that some of these shows have been on for years but they still manage to find this Fantasia broom army of social misfits to appear on them. They all look like they've just stepped out of a William Faulkner rough draft, mouth-breathing freaks who make Jethro Bodine look like David Niven. But these shows do provide a service. They weave together some of the shabbier threads in the fabric of our society and give them a voice ... even if that voice is frequently only heard in their own heads. Hey, how many times have I seen chunky tattooed women slap-fighting in the Laundromat parking lot and wished I knew the back story? And the Yoda of Daytime, the Professor Emeritus of emotional chum, is one Jerry Springer, Esquire. Now, here's a man who has become a household name ... make that a trailer-hold name, by offering daily spectacles that make Brazilian snuff films seem uplifting by comparison. Each day Springer ladles through the primordial ooze like some psychotic cafeteria lady and dishes up the mystery meat of the human condition. My favorite part of the Jerry Springer show is Jerry's "Final Thought." Yeah, like all of a sudden Jerry is going to add some perspective and sanity to tie it all together. I got news for you. Jerry has only one final thought. And you know what that is? "Are the Siamese-Twin Hasidic Skinheads confirmed for tomorrow?" We are the rubberneckers and Springer and his ilk orchestrate the train wrecks we all slow down to ogle. And the freak stakes have to be jacked up higher with each passing day because, let's face it, folks, we are less shockable than David Lynch in a pair of platform galoshes. Well, that just about wraps this rant up, but here's my final thought. What kind of world would it be if we weren't all inexorably drawn to watching trashy chicks scream at each other right before they get a makeover that looks like it was done by a guy who paints murals on the sides of vans, only to find out that no amount of makeover will be enough to assuage their pain at losing their man to another ho's hoochie? Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. The Social Responsibility of the President As originally aired on 1/30/98 Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but our current Commander in Chief seems to have yet again raised the bar for questionable behavior. As a matter of fact, Hillary Clinton hears the words "I'm sorry" more frequently than Pauly Shore on "Celebrity Jeopardy." You know, I feel a bit of sympathy for Hillary. But she's obviously known about this kind of stuff for years and made some peace with it. And I even feel a little sorry for Clinton himself because truth be told, none of our lives would stand up to this high-powered X-ray scrutiny. But the fact is, he chose the fishbowl, undoubtedly so he could grope the plastic mermaid seated on the little treasure chest. Clinton's recent scandal is reminiscent of Nixon's Watergate, if for no other reason than each President's main mistake was the firing of Cox. You see, until the other "tricky dick" was asked to leave the table, no President had ever quit and we weren't sure our system could survive it. Well, now we know it can. But it's not as if getting caught really matters, does it? Clinton's most recent approval rating is 73 percent. Can you grasp that figure, 73 percent? You cannot get 73 out of 100 people to agree on whether or not they like themselves. Now these figures, of course, could spiral downward if more women step forward or obstruction of justice is proven or, even more importantly, if the stock market suddenly does a Lewinsky. But the President's amazing approval rating would seem to indicate that we are now prepared to accept the sexual foibles of those who seek public office. Why not go all the way? Instead of names on the ballots, why don't we just make our decisions based on Polaroids of all the candidates' genitalia? It wouldn't be that different, really. Some are to the left, some to the right. Some represent bigger government and some, unfortunately, smaller government. You know, maybe the reason we're more forgiving nowadays is because it's finally sunk in these are just guys. Guys who at some point are presumptuous enough to lift their head off the pillow in outback towns like Little Rock, Arkansas, lean over, and tell their wife that they've decided it's their turn to become the most powerful man in the world. And the only difference between you and them is that their wife doesn't say "Ah shut up, you asshole. How's about gettin' the day shift at Meineke first, okay?" But even if we all are in a more forgiving mood, I think we have to draw the