New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer - Hardcover

Maher, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1594862958 ISBN 13: 9781594862953

Publisher: Rodale Books, 2005

Synopsis

Bill Maher is on the forefront of the new wave of comedians who have begun to influence and shape political debate through their comedy. He is best known not just for being funny, but for advocating truth over sensitivity and taking on the political establishment.

Maher first came to national attention as the host of the hit ABC-TV program Politically Incorrect, where he offered a combustible mixture of irreverence and acerbic humor that helped him to garner a loyal following, as well as a reputation for being a controversial bad boy.

Bill Maher's popular new HBO television show, Real Time, has put Maher more front and center than ever before. Partic-ularly one regular segment on the show, entitled "New Rules," has been a hit with his ever-growing legion of fans. It is the part of the show during which Maher takes serious aim, bringing all of his intelligence, incisiveness, wit, and his signature exasperation to bear on topics ranging from cell phones ("I don't need my cell phone to take pictures or access the Internet. I just need it to make a phone call. From everywhere! Not just the places it likes!") to fast food ("No McDonald's in hospitals. I'm not kidding!) to the conservative agenda ("Stop claiming it's an agenda. It's not an agenda. It's a random collection of laws that your corporate donors paid you to pass.")

His new book, the first since his bestselling When You Ride ALONE You Ride with bin Laden, brings these brilliantly conceived riffs and rants to the written page. Appropriately titled New Rules, the book will collect some of the best of the rules derived from previously written material and will also contain substantial new material, including some longer form "editorials"--of course with a twist and bite that only Bill Maher can deliver.

About this title

About the Author

BILL MAHER is one of the most politically astute humorists in America today. His unflinching honesty has garnered him 18 Emmy nominations--and the respect and admiration of millions of fans. His previous books include Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? and When You Ride ALONE You Ride with bin Laden, which was a New York Times bestseller.

Reviews

The new rules TV host Maher establishes for "a self-obsessed, success-by-any-means, get-mine culture" make a convincing case for Maher's claim that everyone but him is crazy. Zingers about fads like low-carb dieting and flat-screen televisions ("Congratulations-you just paid $10,000 to watch Hogan's Heroes") poke fun at appearance-obsessed, megalomaniacal American consumers, and his takes on current news stories such as Jennifer Wilbanks, the runaway bride from Georgia, and the popular television shows Desperate Housewives and Growing Up Gotti ("You don't get a TV show because Grandpa killed people") are clever jabs at the media and the entertainment industry. But Maher is at his best when he addresses controversial political issues by making a serious point without sacrificing the wisecracks. He slips a cheeky remark about George Bush's past into his discussion of brutal conditions in prisons, and points out that the No Child Left Behind law has created "pushouts": poor-performing students who Maher says schools put in "phony categories like 'transferred' or 'enrolled in GED' or 'dating Demi Moore'" in order to meet requirements to receive federal funding. Though Maher's rules are sometimes just whiny (he complains about room service personnel not knowing what kind of soup is available) and he repeats a few tired jokes (variations of "you want to spend your millions on a worthless cause, try donating it to the Democrats" appear several times), his views on the state of contemporary political and social culture are bound to cause a few laugh-out-loud moments.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Fans of Maher's HBO show, Real Time, are familiar with the hysterically funny segment New Rules, in which the host suggests caustic corrective measures for some of the most egregious stupidities to emerge from popular and political culture. Maher's new rule on Bob Dylan? "Bob Dylan must stop denying he was the voice of a generation. Bob, that's not something you get to decide. It's fate and you were it. If your generation could actually choose a voice, don't you think they'd have picked one better than yours?" On Queen Elizabeth and William Rehnquist: "Just because you have a job for life doesn't mean you have to do it for life. For everything there is a season . . . a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to pack it in." Inevitably, since this is a compilation of bits used on the show, some items seem a little stale (the 2004 election), and all suffer from the fact that they were meant to be heard with Maher's distinctive, dismissive inflections ringing in one's ears. Yet, despite the limitations, this is still funnier than most humor books out there. Even the subject headings add additional yuks. A New Rule on thieving monkeys, for example, lands in a category called "Felonious Monks." Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

BILL MAHER

A

NEW RULES

A Perfect Cliche

NEW RULE

Stop calling it a "perfect storm" when two bad things happen at the same time. Sometimes it's just some crap happening at the same time as some other crap. Let's go back to what we used to call it before that movie about George Clooney and his epic struggle to kill more tuna: Shit happens.

AND NEW RULE

I don't care that your phone takes pictures. It's a phone, not a Swiss Army knife. Great, now the annoying camera buff and the annoying cell phone prick can merge as one guy. Hey, if you can figure out how to make that "camera phone" play country-western music real loud, we could call it "a perfect storm of assholes."

A Suit and Battery

NEW RULE

Now that you've won and you're safe, you have to tell us: What the hell was that thing on your back during the debate?

AARP Yours

NEW RULE

Stop fucking with old people. Target is introducing a redesigned pill bottle--it's square, with a bigger label, and the top is now the bottom. And by the time Grandpa figures out how to open it, his ass will be in the morgue. Congratulations, Target, you've just solved the Social Security crisis.

Abigail Van Buried

NEW RULE

Dead people can't write advice columns. Dear Abby has been dead for years, yet she continues her daily syndicated column. If I want to hear what a corpse thinks, I'll read Robert Novak.

Abu Grab-Ass

NEW RULE

Lynndie England and Charles Graner should not be sentenced to jail. They should be photographed performing sex acts, stacked in a pile of naked people, and stripped of their dignity. Or as it's better known here, The Real World.

Accessories after the Fact

NEW RULE

Martha Stewart does not need an electronic ankle bracelet. There's a caravan of news vans on her driveway, choppers overhead, and paparazzi with telephoto lenses in the trees--where the hell is she gonna go? Plus, what sense does it make to remand a "home diva" to her home? That's like sentencing Kirstie Alley to check in nightly at IHOP.

Ad-Nauseum

NEW RULE

Stop running TV ads I don't understand. I'm not sure if IBM's latest is advertising weapons of mass destruction or stool softener. Then there's the one with clouds moving in fast motion, some Buddhist monks on a cell phone, and James Earl Jones saying, "We're the world leader in virtual network upstream data retrieval." What?! Hey, fuck you. I watch TV to see bimbos marry strangers for money. If I want to be confused, I'll take mushrooms.

Alter, Boys

NEW RULE

The Catholic Church needs to change its name to Tollhouse Cookies. A new study reveals the tally of Catholic priests who've been accused of molestation in the United States is approaching 5,000, which means it's time to change the name and start over. That's what Phillip Morris did when their name became synonymous with lung cancer--they became the good people at the Altria company. Kentucky Fried Chicken wanted you to forget the "fried" part and became KFC. So how 'bout it, Roman Catholic Church--or should I say "RCC"?

Anchors Away

NEW RULE

Stop calling the media "elite" and "liberal" and start calling it what it really is--lazy. It came out recently that the Bush administration has been producing its own "news" segments, complete with their own "correspondents," and sending them off to local news outlets who aired them untouched. No wonder Hunter Thompson blew his brains out. I'm sorry, but the local news is not the place for government propaganda; it's the place for car chases, kittens caught in trees, and a "meteorologist" whose previous job was at Hooters.

Aromatic Transmission

NEW RULE

No, we don't need a Hummer cologne. Yes, Hummer is now also a men's fragrance. They say the scent is a masculine combination of leather, sandalwood, and a bald man's tiny cock. It's also great cologne for gay guys: You put it on and, before you know it, you're rolling over.

Ash Hole

NEW RULE

Mount St. Helens has to either blow up or shut up. We get it--you're America's celebrity volcano. I say we kill two divas with one stone, and the next time Mount St. Helens starts to blow, we throw Paris Hilton in it.

To Surrogate with Love

NEW RULE

To all the conservative women out there: If you're so sure the embryos needed for stem cell research are precious human life that can't be destroyed, then implant one in your uterus and bring it to term. That's right, put your cervix where your mouth is.

Right now in America, there are thousands of stem cells sitting in fertility clinics that are not allowed to be used for research, will be destroyed after a year or two, and could be right now implanted in a lady's hoo-hoo to make a screaming, mewling infant that would ironically make you sorry you were ever born.

Here's how far back along the chain of life stem cells are: They're called stem cells because they haven't even decided what kind of cells they're going to be, so it's very close to declaring that life begins when you're just thinking about fucking somebody. Which is just about how most right- wing prudes like George Bush would like it. This is, after all, an administration that absolutely hates Planned Parenthood--but then again, judging by Iraq, they hate planned anything.

Did you know that our president spent the entire month before 9/11 on his ranch, working on the stem cell issue, trying, as he said, to bridge the worlds of ethics and science? Seriously, could there be anything George Bush knows less about than ethics and science?

Here's something that may be life: a tiny speck of subatomic goo. Here's something that is life: Michael J. Fox. One is invisible to the naked eye, the other was in Back to the Future.

With stem cell research properly funded, scientists believe we could do everything from curing Parkinson's to regenerating spinal cord tissue in Democrats.

So, ladies of the right, what do you say? There are thousands of extra embryos sitting around in fertility clinic freezers all over America right now, just waiting for a good home. So if you're not gonna finish those eggs, come on, go ahead, knock yourself up.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rodale Books
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1594862958
• ISBN 13: 9781594862953
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 230