by Bill Maher
ACID REFLUX
New Rule: Somebody who went to Woodstock has to admit that it sucked. Wow, you got to see Country Joe and the Fish, Sha Na Na, and Arlo Guthrie in one weekend? Plus you caught E. coli from having sex in the mud? I am soooo jealous! Let’s look at the legacy of Woodstock. Tim Hardin? Heroin overdose. Janis Joplin? Heroin overdose. Jimi Hendrix? Choked on his own vomit. I can think of only one place I’d rather be, less than Woodstock: Woodstock ’99.
ACTING BUG
New Rule: We don’t need a Broadway musical about Spider-Man. He lives with his aunt, wears a body stocking, and leads a secret double life. He’s gay enough already.
AFTER-DINNER HINT
New Rule: Waiters must stop saying, “Did you save room for dessert?” This is America. We don’t save room for dessert, we make room for dessert. Dessert isn’t a delightful way to cap off a meal, it’s a challenge. In Russia they swim in subzero temperatures, in Spain they run with the bulls, and here we eat forty pounds of goo from a place called The Cheesecake Factory.
AIR BRAG
New Rule: If I can kick the back of the seat in front of me with my cock, I’m too close. Introducing the SkyRider, an airline seat that works like a saddle, so they can cram in more passengers. I don’t mind shoving my bag under the seat, except when it contains my testicles.
AISLE BE BACK
New Rules: Don’t grab a checkout-counter microphone, as someone recently did, and tell all the black people to get out of Whole Foods. One: It’s racist. Two: It’s not funny. Three: There are no black people in Whole Foods.
ALL SHALLOWS EVE
New Rule: Halloween must replace July Fourth as our National Holiday. Forget fireworks. Any day that combines spoiling children, corrosive food, and superstition says everything about this country anyone needs to know.
ALTITUDE ADJUSTMENT
New Rule: The kid behind me on the plane who’s kicking my seat must put that energy to good use and beat the shit out of the kid in front of me on the plane who’s playing peekaboo.
ANG LEE DIATRIBE
New Rule: Stop saying Brokeback Mountain lost Best Picture because of a homosexual backlash. The only homosexual backlash in Hollywood involves an actual homosexual literally hitting you on the back with a lash. Besides, if Brokeback Mountain taught us anything, it’s that there’s nothing wrong with coming in number two.
ANGEL DUST
New Rule: Your drug dealer and your priest should be two different dudes. An Illinois priest has been charged with operating a cocaine business out of his rectory. And you know how painful that can be. You think being hit on by your priest is unbearable, try having to talk to him for five hours because he can’t get it up.
ANTI-HERO
New Rule: Now that Subway has passed McDonald’s as the biggest franchise on earth, they need to change their name to something that doesn’t make me think of a homeless guy pissing himself on the A train. Also, if you order your lunch by the foot, you should reexamine your relationship with food.
APP SMEAR
New Rule: Don’t do that. Introducing Phone Fingers, a tiny rubber sheath that fits snugly over a finger—or, as they’re called in Asia, condoms. Look, if either your phone or your finger has been somewhere so filthy you have to wear protection, nobody wants a call from you, anyway.
AQUA VULVA
New Rule: This saltwater blobfish must be renamed the World’s Saddest Vagina.
ARCH ENEMY
New Rule: You have to wear socks to the airport so the rest of us don’t have to look at your stanky-ass feet in the security line. Seriously, between your stinky piggies and the obese lady in the stretch pants, how am I supposed to stay erect during my security pat-down?
ATTACK OF THE COLOGNES
New Rule: Old Spice will never be hip. Old Spice has introduced OS Signature for men. Yes, that same great scent from 1938 now in a spray bottle. Yeah, because that’s what chicks dig—guys who smell like the uncle who molested them. “OS . . . like the men who wear it—a little too familiar.”
AUTO NEUROTIC
New Rule: Valet parkers have to stop parking the swanky cars right in front of the restaurant while all the Toyotas and Fords get taken to a vacant lot six blocks away. We all know that America is a land of vast inequality; we don’t need to be reminded of it by a Guatemalan immigrant in a red vest. Besides, the Maserati in front of the Olive Garden doesn’t say, “This is a classy restaurant,” it says, “Some coke dealer wants spaghetti.”
AUTO NIX
New Rule: Since nobody reacts to car alarms anymore, stop putting alarms in cars. Face it. At this point, car alarms are like Glenn Beck: annoying, pointless, and everyone’s finally learned to ignore them. When I hear one, my first thought is: “Please, God, I hope someone is stealing that car so they’ll drive it away from my window.”
SURREAL ESTATE
New Rule: Not to burst your bubble, but all bubbles burst.
I don’t want to say real estate is overpriced these days, but I had a refrigerator delivered this morning and a homeless guy offered me three million for the box.
What’s so distressing about this is that we just went through a bubble-bursting trauma with the dot-com crash, and here we are just five years later with real estate prices that could aptly be compared to Courtney Love: irrationally high and about to collapse.
Americans can no longer remember even recent history. Detroit has completely forgotten the lesson of the ’70s, which was: When an oil crisis looms, stop making Godzillamobiles. In Iraq, George Bush totally forgot the lesson of Vietnam: Call Dad.
And yet, to be fair, it’s not in the red states where this market insanity is most acute—it’s among the supposedly savvy coastal elites, where buyers are dumping trillions into mortgages they can’t afford, proving again just how much people will pay to not live in Kansas.
California is out of control: One property in San Diego sold five times in one day, with the price going up and up and up until it was just a picture of Donald Trump laughing.
But it won’t be funny when the bubble bursts and people start going bankrupt, taking banks down with them, and then the markets and then the dollar, causing mass rebellion against the government—at which point the Republicans will run an election based on renaming Amtrak the Jesus Choo Choo—and win.
Because if there’s one thing that Republicans schooled in the ways of Wall Street have taught us, it’s this: Don’t spend money you don’t have.
Spend money other people don’t have.
—August 26, 2005
B
BABY GAP SMEAR
New Rule: It’s inhumane to put someone with special needs in front of a huge crowd. And it’s also bad for the baby.
BABY POUTER
New Rule: The apparel industry must design some sort of “face bra” to lift and pull in John Boehner’s lower lip.
BACHELOR PAD THAI
New Rule: Screenwriters have to think up a new cliché for single people other than the old carton of Chinese food in the refrigerator. According to every movie and TV show ever made, all single people have that one carton of Chinese food in their fridge, and then they smell it and recoil from the stench. And that’s how we know they’re single. How about this instead? Just show the character having sex. And that’s how we know they’re not married.
BAD FORM
New Rule: Online retailers must stop pestering me for “feedback.” I’m a customer, not some chick you just boned. “How was it? Are you satisfied?” Shhh. Let’s just lie here and not talk. Look, let me define our entire relationship: I type in my credit card number, you send me a big jug of Canadian Vicodin.
BAG MAN
New Rule: Science must get off its ass and invent a way for men to carry things without looking like morons. Why is it that I still have to choose between being the hippie with the backpack, the tool with the briefcase, or the doofus with the fanny pack? Besides, we already have a ridiculous-looking bag in which we carry our most prized po
ssessions. It’s called a scrotum.
BAIT EXPECTATIONS
New Rule: Getting up close and personal with sharks doesn’t make you a wildlife enthusiast—it makes you dinner. An Austrian tourist wanted to get “face-to-face” with sharks, so he went diving in waters baited with bloody fish parts. And he got ate. A friend was asked to describe the man. He needed only two words: “Good chum.”
BALLET FLOP
New Rule: Someone has to explain to me the difference between announcing the lineup for Dancing with the Stars and Where Are They Now? Just admit it, folks: You wanted to be relevant again, and it was between this and making a sex tape.
BARACK LIKE ME
New Rule: Stop saying Barack Obama isn’t black enough. First you weren’t sure America was ready for a black president. And now he’s not black enough? “Hmm, I like his stand on the issues, but can he dunk?” Why are we even talking about him this way? Mitt Romney—
Now, there’s someone who’s not black enough to be president.
BAT OUT OF MATTEL
New Rule: The media must stop trying to excite me over Barbie’s turning fifty. No offense to Cougar Barbie, but a disclaimer on the box says, “Ken comes separately.”
BEARDED SHAM
New Rule: If you married a manic-depressive, three of your children died, and while you were president civil war broke out and someone shot you in the head, your coin really shouldn’t say “In God We Trust.”
TOWN HAUL
New Rule: Just because we have an obligation to rebuild New Orleans doesn’t mean we have to put it back in the same place. Why don’t we put it someplace where it can stay out of harm and do some good. After all, New Orleans is the Big Easy, and a lot of America is uptight. Which is why I say we put New Orleans in Kansas.
What do you say, Kansas—put down your hoes and come meet some. Welcome New Orleans to the land that fun forgot—an infusion of color and gayness in the dry Kansas plain. Why, it’ll be as if they shot The Wizard of Oz on location.
You’re gonna like it. New Orleans is one of the great towns. It’s my kind of town—an outpost of free living and sophistication in a sea of . . . well, now, sea.
You can’t tell me that the giant swath of Red America that Kansas sits in the middle of wouldn’t benefit from thousands of insane Creoles who understand that hangovers happen only to people foolish enough to stop drinking. I read this week that the strippers have gone back to work in New Orleans. They don’t even have clothes, and already they’re taking them off. Kansas could use some of that spirit.
It could use some jazz, some blues . . . some blacks.
Don’t think of it as a half-million black people moving in next door. Think of it as the March of the Penguins. Only, you know, with a half-million black people.
So what do you say, Kansas? They need a home. You need to get the stick out of your ass. It’s a win-win. Come on, Kansas, show some curiosity. Show some compassion. But most of all, show us your tits!
—September 23, 2005
BED HEAD
New Rule: Sealy Posturepedic must rewrite this ad to say what they really mean: “A mattress so comfortable, you’ll doze off during 69.”
BEDTIME FOR BRONZO
New Rule: If you’re standing in front of a bronze statue, and you’re bronzer, you’re using too much bronzer.
BEER AS FOLK
New Rule: Next time, instead of taking a sip, chug. Chug the whole thing. You want to connect to white voters in middle America, Mr. President, knock that whole thing back, turn to that guy next to you, ask him what the fuck he’s looking at, punch him in the face, call him a fag, then order a shot and do a karaoke version of “Don’t Stop Believing” while riding the mechanical bull.
BET MEDDLER
New Rule: Just because you’re the mayor and your team is in the World Series doesn’t mean you have to make some horseshit bet with the other city’s mayor, where you make him breakfast or eat a thousand chicken wings or let him watch your wife in the shower. You’re the mayor. Not Mancow. And your team doesn’t give a crap about Texas chili, or San Francisco crab cakes, or Cleveland steamers. Because they’re all Dominican.
BETA BLOCKER
New Rule: Blockbuster can’t announce it’s closing 960 stores. Where will I go to rent a movie in 1988? And how do they still have 960 stores? Blockbuster, if you’re still open next fall, you owe me a late fee.
BETTER FREIGHT THAN NEVER
New Rule: Airlines should just get it over with and start putting passengers in the cargo hold. Let’s face it: You’ve already taken the legroom, the food, the pillows. The only thing left is to tag us, load us on that conveyor belt, and let us fight over who gets to sleep on the bag of mail.
BIEBER SHOT
New Rule: If you’re an adult and you go to the Justin Bieber movie by yourself and you’re not a film critic, you have to register as a sex offender.
BINGE AND MERGE
New Rule: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas must be combined into one single super-holiday called Thanks-hallow-istmas. That way, you have to get together with your batshit family only once. In costume. For candy, presents, and a big turkey dinner. Then it’s everybody into the den to watch football until your drunken uncle calls your cousin a whore.
THE BITCH SET ME UP
New Rule: Stop hitting on women at the dog park. Yes, we’re talking to you, divorced guy with a ponytail. That better be a Milk-Bone in your pocket, because we’re not glad to see you. Women come to the park to exercise their dogs, not to socialize with hounds. They wouldn’t pick you up if they had a plastic bag on their hand. Although if you’re determined to meet a woman at the dog park, here’s a tip: Get a dog.
BITCHY & SCRATCHY
New Rule: Movie trailers have to stop indicating a comic reversal of fortune with the sound of a record scratch, because no one has scratched a record since 1985. For twenty-six years now, “vreeeeeeep” has been the sound of Owen Wilson losing his girlfriend, his job, and getting his dick caught in a car door. The record scratch is so obsolete, the thing that made it obsolete—the CD—is obsolete. But you can still keep using James Brown’s “I Feel Good” for the part where Owen Wilson inherits a pet store and sings into a hairbrush. Because that never gets old.
BLOW ’N’ TELL
New Rule: And this one is for the kids: Kids, if you’re going to bring cocaine to class, make sure you bring enough for everyone. A second-grader in Philadelphia brought eighteen bags of cocaine to school and passed it around. Boy, there’s a switch—going in the sandbox and getting crack in your sand. Then at recess one kid tried to fly a kite, but he’d done so much blow he couldn’t get it up.
BODY SHOTS
New Rule: No more pictures of dead people in their coffins. It’s a funeral, not a “Kodak moment.” I don’t want to remember Boris Yeltsin on his back, eyes closed and lifeless. I want to remember Boris Yeltsin how he lived: on his back, eyes closed and lifeless.
BONING IT IN
New Rule: There are double entendres, there are single entendres, and then there’s Britney Spears’s single “Hold It Against Me.” What’s her next song, “Put Your Penis in My Mouth”? She’s a regular Cole Porter . . . and by that I mean, a long time ago, gay men liked her.
BOO, CAKEY
New Rule: Don’t pretend Twinkies are healthy now, just because you can get the 100-calorie size. Here’s the miracle: It’s smaller. Here’s how to make your own at home: Cut an old Twinkie in half. Here’s how to make it healthy: Throw both halves in the toilet and eat a carrot.
BOWL MOVEMENT
New Rule: Froot Loops are not a health food. Some of the big food companies have started giving their products “Smart Choices” check marks so shoppers will know they’re “healthful.” You know, like a creep at the park will carry a puppy, so kids will know he’s “friendly.” Healthful? Froot Loops? When I saw this, I threw a tantrum in the cereal aisle.