New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer (23 page)

BOOK: New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer

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And he makes a good point: American presidents are like American beer—bland, watered down, and advertised to us like we’re morons. They come from boring places like Hope, Arkansas; Yorba Linda, California; and that ranch town where President Bush was born, New Haven, Connecticut.

Just once, I’d like America’s president to be like one of those presidents Italy always has, the ones with the expensive suits and the permanent tans and the Versace mistresses, and there are photos of them making it on a boat but nobody cares because hey,
that’s amore!
Quite frankly, I think of foreigners as more educated and more socially progressive, not to mention less likely to wear spurs and a giant Styrofoam cowboy hat at an international poverty conference while calling everybody they meet there “Shooter!”

Before John Kennedy, no one thought you could put a Catholic behind the desk of the Oval Office. And before Clinton, no one knew you could get a Jew under it.

Face it, the presidency is a crappy job. And who fills crappy jobs we don’t want anymore better than foreigners? The average Frenchman knows more geography than we do. The average Japanese knows more math. And the average Guatemalan is already here, taking care of your kids.

The job of president is just too damn important to be left to an American. Don’t we deserve a presidency infused with savoir faire and worldly sophistication? And who better to deliver that than the grab-ass action hero from
Jingle All the Way?

BILL MAHER
W

NEW RULES

Wait for the Tome

NEW RULE

No answering machine recordings over 5 seconds long. Just say “Leave your name and number,”
and that’s it.
Here’s the deal: You spare me the endless list of “more options,” the insulting instructions to “wait for the beep,” and the insufferable 45-second recital from your 4-year-old, and I won’t leave on your machine that I’m calling to buy more pot.

Wanna-Be Jones

NEW RULE

Spread it out a little at award shows. Norah Jones is great—we’re all in “agreeance”—and she recorded a perfectly nice record for middle-aged people to screw to. But after the third award, it’s just more for her maid to dust. And Sinéad O’Connor has enough chores already.

Waxing Philosophic

NEW RULE

Stop waxing your pussy. Now, I’m not talking about “regularly scheduled maintenance.” I’m talking about the women who make the thing as bald as Bruce Willis’s head. It’s supposed to have
some
hair on it. It’s a pussy, not Dr. Evil’s cat.

Weakly Reader

NEW RULE

Now that the United States is 100 percent safe from terrorism, President Bush must finish reading
My Pet Goat.
Mr. President, I know you’re not a big “reader,” but finishing it would set a good example for the kids. It would give them a lesson in following through. Since you can’t find Bin Laden, at least you’d be finishing something that was started that day.

Web Cans

NEW RULE

Don’t buy other people’s breast implants on the Internet. Recently, a stripper named Tawny Peaks sold her recently removed 69-HH breast implants on eBay. The secretive winning bidder was identified only as “Charlie Sheen.” Suddenly, downloading songs doesn’t seem so bad.

Wet Nap

NEW RULE

Sleeping with a pillow shaped like a man’s arm around you, as many women in Japan are doing, is just plain creepy. If you really want to simulate the experience of sleeping with a man, press a flashlight against your ass crack.

Where Was the Honeymoon?

NEW RULE

There’s no such thing as “the sanctity of marriage.” The only blessed thing about this union is that VD isn’t airborne. Where’s the honeymoon? On a pool table? You know the marriage is a sham when the vows read, “Till Wednesday do us part.”

Whore More Years

NEW RULE

Stop claiming you have an “agenda.” It’s not an agenda; it’s a random collection of laws that your corporate donors paid you to pass. The American people aren’t clamoring for a cap on medical malpractice awards. If a surgeon leaves an Altoids box in my chest cavity, I want to see him in debtor’s prison.

Strip Mall

NEW RULE

Y
our daughter’s a whore. According to the FBI, there’s a new development in the prostitution game: Suburban teenage girls are now selling their white asses at the mall to make money to spend at the mall! Wow, I can’t even find an
escalator
that goes down.
Oh sure, I know what you’re saying: upper-middle-class Caucasian teen whoring? That’s something that happens to other people’s kids. But our little Ashley trading her coochie for Gucci? No way! Maybe you’re right. But if your daughter comes home with scraped knees, it might not be from jumping rope. And come on, nobody buys a BMW with “babysitting money.” If your kid’s name is on the mall directory under “services”...
The joke here, of course, is on white America, which always feels superior to blacks and often shows it with their feet, moving out of more problematic urban areas. “White flight,” it’s been called. Whites feared blacks—they feared if they raised their kids around blacks, the blacks would turn their daughters into dope fiends and prostitutes. Now, through the miracle of MTV, damned if it didn’t work out that way!
You see, MTV is where Snoop and Jay-Z and 50 Cent tell their stories, the stories of their youth and being poor blacks. Pimps and drug dealers were the only role models they had. And now that whole world view is all up in your kid’s brain!
These days, little white boys want chocolate mamas with huge asses, and suburban girls apparently have accepted being a ho as just another hip lifestyle choice. If you take your kid to the mall this Christmas and she climbs into Santa’s lap face-first, you might want to look into it. And remind your little princess, if a young woman must exchange sex for material goods, she should do it the accepted way: through the sanctity of marriage.

BILL MAHER
X

NEW RULES

XXX-Pression

NEW RULE

Stop interfering with the artistic expression of exotic dancers. Arizona has filed suit trying to bar strippers from simulating sex acts onstage. What else are they supposed to do up there, the Sunday
Times
crossword puzzle? They’re not licking that pole because it tastes good. They’re licking it because they’re artists, and the pole is their canvas. Besides, once you tell strippers they can’t simulate sex, it’s a slippery slope to telling housewives they can’t fake orgasms. And then the terrorists
have
won.

Xana-Don’t

NEW RULE

Don’t name your house. You’re not Elvis or Charles Foster Kane or Scarlett O’Hara—you’re a network exec whose crap reality show got picked up for a second season. You can name your car or your boat—call your penis “Kobe” for all I care—but when you presume that your house transcends a mere number and must have a name, it doesn’t matter what you call it because people on their way over will just say, “I’m going to Asshole’s.”

Pique Performance