The Rants, page 12
And then, as so frequently happens in human endeavors, one or the other sexual partners inadvertently hurts the other person by accidentally elbowing them, or leaning on their hair. The pain breaks the sexual frame of reference. We begin to decompress and intellectualize again. And when you consider sex from that narrow perspective—you see it's really such an odd, quirky little exercise. And the woman's just about to kiss her own tit, she sees you looking at her with that tilt-head look like your dog at his bowl when you change his food on him. She realizes you're no longer in the throes of it. She tries to smooth her way out, but she knows you've caught her. And she looks at you and says, "If you ever mention it, I'll kill you in your sleep, you treacherous cocksucker." And that is sex, so leave it at that and don't even try to figure it out.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
schadenfreude
THE SUPREME COURT EDITED A FEDERAL LAW against child pornography, saying there must be proof a defendant knew the nature of the material. Clarence Thomas did not write an opinion but did shout out, "Will everybody stop looking at me whenever they mention porno!"
Boy, don't you just love watching a guy like that squirm. Isn't it funny how sometimes you hear a story like that and it just warms your innards like a deliciously evil hot toddy? You know what they call that? Well, the Germans have a word for it . . . "Beck's!" Actually it's called schadenfreude. And while there's no literal translation in our language, loosely stated, it means, "The malicious enjoyment of another's misfortune." Leave it to our Teutonic friends the Germans to concoct an intricate glossary of pain terminology.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but what is it in people that makes them happy, somewhere under the upbringing—happy in a secret place to see hard times descend on others? And not just their enemies, but strangers, acquaintances, and even friends.
Well, truth be told, I believe we are all, oft-times, megalo- maniacal green-eyed monsters who think that there is a finite amount of success floating around the universe, and who, like Miss Hathaway at the garter toss, believe that if we don't fight for position, we will perpetually be left longing for our big piece of the score pie.
Where would People magazine, The Star, and The National Enquirer be without schadenfreude? Don't we read these rags so we can think to ourselves, "I can't believe he got caught!" or, "Wow, my life could be a lot worse," or, "Thank you, thank you, dear God, for not making me Mickey Rourke!"
And you know it's just not common folk who dwell in it. You know who's knee-deep in schadenfreude right now?
George Bush with Clinton. You know Bush was sitting down in Houston in a condo in his undies with a big joint, watching C-SPAN. "Barbara ... is this the North Slope, or did he just hire Gergen?! Put that purple teddy on, baby, bring ma a Corona."
Schadenfreude is as old as the Scriptures. Believe me, when the girls in the Red Sea bowling league heard that Lot's wife had morphed into a pillar of salt, the deer-lick jokes flew.
And the hottest new showplace for schadenfreude is the tabloid television shows—projectile gossiping disguised as journalism. You know, folks, "Hard Copy" is to journalism what Lieutenant William Calley was to thatched huts. Let's be honest with each other—we don't frequent these shows because we think some information exchange of consequence will occur; we watch them to reassure ourselves that there are freaks out there who are forced to eat way more shit than we do.
And when rumored troubles of the tabloid shows aren't enough, we dive into the verite human pain shows like "Cops" and "Rescue 911" because it allows us to sit at home in a warm bed and revel in the fact that our face isn't being jammed into that wet pavement by officer Wedge Figgus of the Pensacola Police department. We will take anybody's pain. Anybody whose life's unraveling like a cheap Jamaican espadrille—just get the lens cap, baby. We need another hit.
If that seems harsh to you, one way to keep your sanity the next time you're feeling shitty about not feeling shitty about someone else feeling shitty is to remember that schadenfreude cancels itself out because others feel it just as strongly about you. There is a massive common pool of ill will out there, and we all siphon off a bit of it and smuggle it out into the common yard like dirt in the prisoner's pant legs in The Great Escape.
We might as well face the fact that we sometimes revel in the setbacks in other people's lives. We need to admit that that feeling has been built into the lining of the human heart from the clay model on, so that when we experience this imperfectly human joy at another's tale of woe, we won't feel freakish and broken.
It might be nasty, unkind, brutish, but schadenfreude is on the DNA map, folks, a familiar haunt on the double helix. It dwells there, because in the grand scheme, you want to know that there's a buffer between you and the tater cellar. Hey, you might not be in a first-class cabin, but let's face it, it's a good feeling to know that everyone in steerage is gonna have to wait until you get your ass in a lifeboat before they're even allowed up on deck.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
parenting
I TELL YOU THERE IS NO LOVE SWEETER THAN THE love between a mother and a child. Now I know my wife loves me but I am reasonably sure that she doesn't look at me the same way she looks at them. You know it's kind of humbling because you realize at some point you're just a date that worked out.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but parenting is the most important job on the planet next to keeping Gary Busey off the nation's highways.
And the reason parenting is becoming increasingly crucial is that we now live in a world that is more fucked up than Peter O'Toole on his birthday.
You know I used to scoff at the art of parenting. When I was single I was walking down the street one day in New York City and I spotted a guy with one baby in a carriage wailing like a siren, and another one master-blastered on his back in a holster; he was feeding both of them a combination of Cheerios, Zwieback crackers, and Juicy Juice from a Baggie he had Scotch-taped to his chest hair. All the while he was pullin' baby wipes out of a belly pack like a coked-up baccarat dealer going through a four- deck shoe. And I swore I would never end up like that. Well, you know something?
A couple of years later I did become a parent and guess what? I'm still not like that loser. And for that matter, I still don't have any chest hair.
But I do have a firm grasp of the fact that the most important job I'll ever do is that of parenting. It's that simple, folks. Kids are the sponge, you are the Super- soaker. You know it seems that teachers, friends, and neighbors alike know where a child's behavior is coming from. But often the parents themselves are in denial. I remember once my kid got in trouble for saying to his teacher. "What time is fucking recess?" and I remember thinking' "Now where would he fucking pick up something like that?" But so be it ... you never did that. You're a good boy, Holden, it was a joke. Be it swearing or loving or hating, we undeniably impact our children. So I propose the following: Make parenting illegal without a
license.
It would go something like this. A man who wanted to have a child would have to prove he was responsible, earned enough money for food and clothes for the kid, and would commit enough of his time and wisdom to assure the rest of us that the kid wouldn't end up in a Texas bell tower with a high-powered rifle and a grudge my time soon. As for the woman, same deal—but she has to also promise not to make him wear her dresses while she hems them, the pins sticking his tender calves, the humiliation slowly destroying his young will to be the world's funniest comedian ... um, sorry.
And then there's the main reason, the definitive reason, the sadly serious reason that you should have to be licensed to have a child. There seems to be a shocking rise in the incidence of child abuse on this planet and I think it augers for the end of the world. I understand a man's inhumanity to man. Adults are violent amorphous blobs that careen around the planet. Occasionally they brush up against another individual and hey, their life must end. All right, I think we all dig that transaction. We are big boys and girls and we dig our own graves. But when did we start bleeding it into the innocent?
You've got to promise me if you're watching me tonight and you ever get to the point in your life where you are so puzzled, confused, and frightened that you feel the only way out is to abuse or molest a little kid, well then, you have got to kill yourself. You have got to lean into the strike zone and take one for the team.
Listen, in an age where a child can be left unsupervised in a trailer with "Beavis and Butt-head" on the TV and a book of matches within easy reach, a license to procreate starts to make some sense. If you're still unconvinced, let me put it to you another way: Kato Kaelin is a father.
All right? Our society is increasingly made up of people whose parents bailed out on them. You want to do something about it?
Don't bail out on your kids. How's that for a simple can- do? Rise up out of the mire of your own narcissism and get selfless, for chrissake. You want a better world?
The seeds for it are right there in your own house. Be good to those tiny humans lying there on the living room floor watching cartoons, and be good to your kids too, give them a future and they'll return the favor by giving you one in spades, my friend.
If you can stare between the stars into the blackness at heaven and say with a smile on your face, "I'll do anything and everything to be a good parent," then you're ready. Almost. Get yourself a copy of The Lion King. Now you're ready.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
tabloids
WOW, THE TABLOIDS ARE HAVING A FIELD DAY with O.J., aren't they? It's like manna from Brentwood.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but we've all been trapped fifty people deep in the "nine items or less" line at the Alpha Beta and just when you think you've spotted the Northwest Passage, i.e., the cash register, the troglodyte ahead of you begins rifling through a grease-stained doughnut bag and produces a curled-up, coffee-soiled check from the Bank of Communicable Diseases.
The woman behind the cash register initiates an ID check that would make the Rio Grande border patrol seem like greeters at Caesars Palace.
You're now stuck in a quagmire that even Robert McNamara could have spotted, and you hate yourself for getting tangled in this gill net of inefficiency.
Just then, when all appears to be lost, it catches your eye, grail-like in its majesty, the journalistic golden fleece, the tabloid rack. Your eyes pass over the appetizing array of completely unbelievable headlines. JIMMY CAAN SHAVES BACK WITH GARDEN WEASEL, CLAUDIA SCHIFFER TO MARRY CARROT TOP, SONNY BONO ELECTED TO CONGRESS.
As you begin to leaf through this collection of unholy writ you think to yourself, "God, who reads this shit?" Then the bolt of realization strikes you like a Joan Crawford coat hanger—You read this shit! There's just something about the tabloids that appeals to your Mr. Hyde, your flip side, your lower cortex monkey brain. Now, granted, we all have a fantasy that we're too busy catching up on our back issues of Deconstructionist Philosophy Monthly to get down and dish the demented dirt, but we all read the tabloids. It's a guilty pleasure that's right up there with digging the hooks in Abba songs.
Where else but in the tabloids would you find such sage advice as the horoscope that reads "Leo—stay indoors, don't breathe." Or such wonderful diets as the "Eat Shit and Live System!" Where else would you see a full-page photo of Danielle Brisebois' head on William Devane's body. You know, being a tabloid photographer has got to be the lowest possible rung on the photojournalistic ladder. I mean think about it. On the one hand there are Stieglitzian masters out there doing brilliant photo essays on the insurgency in Chad, the plight of the migrant worker, the tragedy that is Rwanda.
You're sitting there at your dining room table doing still lifes of a yam shaped like Hitler. What concentric circle of Scavullo hell does that get you into?
Do you know the Enquirer actually has subscribers?
Clue me in on what sort of specific genetic anomaly it is who feels the need to subscribe to the fucking Enquirer. These are the same people who tape QVC.
And then there are the really mega-freaky publications like Weekly World News that are so deranged parakeets will actually hold their shit in until something else is placed in the bottom of their cage.
You know, these tabloids even have classified ads. I saw one once that actually said, "Learn how to avoid rip- offs ... send five dollars." Now you gotta be a real piece of Samsonite to answer this ad. "Hey, honey. I'll send ten, we'll be doubly protected." Look, I'll be the first one to tell you that the tabloids are to journalism what the Clapper is to electronics. But when was the last time you saw your precious little New York Times run a front page photo of a vampire? Huh? Never.
From every scope of the intellectual spectrum, from nuclear physicists all the way down to stupid nuclear physicists, everyone cherishes the tabloids. So don't try to get me into some pipe-smoking, Jeff Greenfield-mediated panel discussion on "the tabloids erosion of our sacred journalistic traditions." Tabloids aren't journalism. And if journalism schools keep kicking out reporters who've substituted attitude and ego in place of a reporter's notebook, newspapers aren't gonna be journalism real soon either.
The tabloids are pure marzipan; they're entertaining, but only if you remember to follow just one shampoo—simple instruction—don't believe a fucking word you read in them. Any of 'em. If you react to the tabloids with anything but peals of laughter, if you actually take these oil-pan blotters seriously, you need to reattach yourself to the planet, my friend, because you are two months out from your pledge week with the Michigan Militia, okay? Oh, and by the way, if you ever come across the story about Dennis Miller's sexual obsession with Doberman pinschers, just remember, all I said was, "I like dogs."
Of course that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Table of Contents
preface. 4
liberals— a dying breed? 5
the religious right 7
our legal system.. 9
is intelligence a liability? 14
inefficiency. 16
victimless crime. 18
activism.. 20
funding for the arts 22
violence. 24
political correctness 26
race. 28
power 31
contemporary sports 33
homeless 36
women in Hollywood. 38
civility. 40
criticism.. 42
infomercials 44
what women want from men. 46
freedom of speech. 48
dysfunction. 50
fame. 52
where is america headed? 54
anger 56
the environment 58
the o.j. trial 6/30/95. 61
what's right with america. 64
teen pregnancy. 66
the presidency. 68
what men want from women. 70
exercise. 72
marriage. 74
equality of the sexes 76
air travel 77
america the touchy. 79
james stockdale 3/17/93. 80
the gop first hundred days 4/7/95. 81
pro sports strikes 12/23/94. 83
homosexuality. 85
schadenfreude. 87
parenting. 89
tabloids 91
Dennis Miller, The Rants
