Dennis Miller: Shit-Tossing Monkey of Cultural Detritus
(By pinch blogger John King)
Listening to Dennis Miller is a lot like [unfunny reference four people get, perhaps mentioning Spiro Agnew, John Sununu, or Keith Richards] at a [moderately related and/or comical scenario, possibly mentioning a pie-eating contest with Carol Channing, Bob Barker, or Telly Savalas]. I'm telling you, he's like [unfunny reference four people get, possibly mentioning Joan Crawford, Kate Chopin, or Henry Kissinger] at a [moderately related and/or comical scenario, possibly mentioning a Klan rally, Star Wars convention, or Wally Lamb booksigning].

You get the idea.

People on the left sometimes bemoan the loss of Dennis Miller, remembering some bygone version of him that was once rebellious and funny, questioning authority -- a precursor to your modern day Jon Stewart, if you will, skewering Reagan and Bush on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update," blah blah fuckin' blah. Yes, they mourn quietly -- there's not much left to say once someone is lost -- as this modern version of Dennis Miller goes on, a pale shadow, a right-wing bootlick, a parrot of neocon talking points, all couched in his mamby-pamby, oh-shit-the-brown-people-gonna-get-me, post-9/11 admission of fear, and talking right-wing smack for Bill O'Reilly, who (yep, stealing the joke) really should be sodomized with a microphone. Fucking jackass.

But y'know, kudos to the guy for finding a job post-SNL, because there's a lot of former SNL castmembers who ain't doing shit these days. Even A. Whitney Brown has trouble finding and keeping work. So where can a guy make a buck when his biggest career move since SNL was Bordello of Blood? Hey, there are plenty of rebels on the left...but there's a dearth of creativity and hilarity in neocon political punditry, post-9/11. Enter Dennis Miller.

Is this not transparent? Should we be at all surprised? Did you not see this coming? He was bright, he was insightful, he was ascerbic, but he wasn't alone or even a standout on the left. He was just Dennis Miller, another rebel in the rabble.

But on the right...this dumbass is an erudite motherfucker, heads above any other entertainers the right can claim. So Bill O'Reilly co-opted him.

Here's Miller, bag of douche that he is, on "The O'Reilly Factor," June 6, 2007:

"To me the left is like Margaret Dumond, the old Groucho Marx films used to be, vis-à-vis terrorism? It's like, 'Oh, I never!' You know, and at some point we got to go out and we've just got to engage these people. And we have to — it's like 'Cool Hand Luke.' Somebody's got to force their will on the other person. They've got to get their mind through it."

Mind you, if the left is Margaret Dumond, is Miller implying the right is like the Marx Brothers? Taking that a bit further, didn't Duck Soup satirize fascism, and didn't Dumond play a character who was seduced by Rufus T. Firefly, who later declared war for comical reasons? Ah, the parallels, the easy parallels, and the mayhem, the hijinks, the mirror scene, wakawakawaka. Whither thee, Zeppo?

Ah, but sensing the clunkitude of the Marx Brothers comparison, Miller switches gears before anyone calls him on his shit (not that anyone would on Fox "News"), and jumps to a Cool Hand Luke reference -- you know, the Paul Newman film in which George Kennedy nearly ejaculates in his pants while watching a woman wash her car. Take it off, boss?

And fuck, even that reference contradicts Miller's point, because Cool Hand Luke ends not with Newman's character succumbing to the will of his oppressors, but smiling as they drove him away, all bloody and fucked up, but smiling. Motherfucker never caved to fear and control. Unlike, y'know, Dennis Miller.

Then, dumbshit goes on:

"To me, Gitmo is like Vegas. What happens in Gitmo should stay in Gitmo. You know? I mean, there are simple things that we should know in this war."

WTF? Doesn't this guy pretty much defy scrutiny because his ignorance is self-evident? Can I do something else with my day now besides listen to this fucker? No, wait:

"Here's my feeling on these interrogation techniques. If you know that somebody knows something about something — and they always tell you it never happens. But I saw Tenet on your show, said it happens. Said they give information.

"If you don't waterboard him, to me that's evil. If you know this guy knows something about innocents being killed within the next couple of days and you don't do that, that seems evil to me."

So if you torture them, it's evil, but if you don't torture them, it's...evil-er? What fucking Orwellian shit is this?

Miller's clunky quips of faux intelligence barely made me chuckle when I was 14, and they sure as shit don't now, especially because they're formulaic, panicked, and barely stand up under the slightest scrutiny. Shit, anybody can fake cultural literacy with a few minutes spent on the Internet or reading tabloids or watching old movies, and anyone can draw nonsensical, unfunny comparisons using names and titles conjured at random.

Hell, put a monkey in a room with the walls covered in photos of famous people, and the monkey's bound to throw his shit and hit two faces -- say, Walter Mondale and Cheech Marin. It doesn't make the fuckin' monkey some kind of genius laugh riot. A lot like the aforementioned monkey of yore, he's just throwing shit.