Dennis Miller - Ranting Again

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 792.7'028'092dc21 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

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.