[.ca] Rants (ISBN 038547802X)

Searching for the soul of Dennis Miller:
Since I've been alternately lambasting and lauding Dennis Miller on my new website, "An Open Letter to Dennis Miller", and since I've written a few poems about him, it's only fair I backtrack and learn more about the guy I used to admire, but hadn't fully appreciated. So I bought a couple of books, borrowed others from the library, and listened to "The Off-White Album". I'll limit this review to "The Rants", which I have both on audiocassette and hardcover. Dennis, please, please, find that person you once were! In the first rant, "Liberalism", he recognizes that liberalism is probably dead as a political party, but needs to stay alive as a spiritual force. In other rants, I find genuine chunks of wisdom mixed in with snide or too-clever comments. Sometimes I giggle or smile, and sometimes I'm out-loud guffawing. And the F-word and other obscenities aren't as frequent as I expected (though certainly frequent enough!). I find the Dennis Miller of old clever, cocky, a little annoying, sometimes embarrassing, and overall enjoyable. I find the Dennis Miller of early 2003 hateful, intellectually lazy, pandering, sucking up to the hilt--and only occasionally funny. Will the real Dennis Miller please come back?

Rants in the pants!:
I used to enjoy Dennis Miller books. I found him better in print form since I always found his TV delivery awkward and his demeanor pretentious. Now, after seeing and hearing his bigotted views on France and Iraq as well as his warped view of America the Great, I doubt I can enjoy the writings anymore. The kind of humour Mr Miller aspires to requires some depth of thought and a grasp of issues. To say that the French smell bad doesn't do it for me. It would be so much more funny if he cleverly ridiculed the French government's ( French government not French people) contradictions and idiosyncrasies than to just deliver a poop joke. I doubt he can deliver the goods. Mr Miller is really showing that he ain't all that smart after all. I also worry about his blind support for president Bush. Most everyone who backed Bush in this last Iraq war gave his White House the benefit of the doubt as to the idea that Sadam had WMDs. We must make a distinction between blind support and benefit of doubt. Other democracies were fully justified to either join or not join the coalition. They have a different perspective on the issues. It was their call. America was just more keen against Sadam than many others. Mr Miller couldn't see that and used France's unpopular (in America) stance to let his long standing bigotry out of the bag. The joke is truly on him.

Rant On, Dennis!:
This collection of rants from Dennis Miller is generally excellent and topical social commentary. Written long before 9/11 and his coming of age as a more conservative voice, this is a fairly libertarian, rational, and practical look at life in the United States. There are a few areas that I disagree with him on, but I am not recommending that anyone think a certain way, just that people hear different concepts with an open mind and make their own decisions. In this book you can see the seeds of Miller's conservatism, although it is clear that he has been awakened and revitalized by the events of 9/11 and is thus more conservative now than when this book was written. Overall, this is a neat summary of Miller's world view as it existed in 1996. His gift of satire is preeminent in the world today, and while probably everyone will find something in this book to provoke or annoy them, at least it insists on the reader thinking for themselves. I would have given this book five stars except for the fairly frequent profanity. I know this is adapted from some of his HBO material, but the book could be used for a much younger audience to excellent effect if not for the language. Excellent job overall: highly recommended for people of any political leaning.

Pure Genius, Smartest man alive, simply hilarious, a god:
Obviously, 9/11 has had a deep impact on Miller and his comedy. The conservative pundits had already established a successful cottage industry on cable during the profitable Clinton-Lewinsky period. But after 9/11, the conservative talking head business went thru the roof, and Miller was smart enough to latch on to that rocket. When he compares the French people's smell to an "overflow dumpster at an El Segundo Jack In The Box after Menudo just visited with the entire cast of Hong Kong Phooey", you really have to wonder if he may be God. With his spastic headbobbing and non-sensical comparisons of the Clinton White House to the Banana Splits riding the bumper cars at Knotts Berry farm, or to Carrottop leading the Bolshoi ballet in a production of Josey and the Pussycats, or to Captain and Tenille running the BBQ pit at a Flatts and Scruggs concert, etc., Miller has carved himself a unique niche in the overcrowded field of right-leaning cable yakkety-yakkers. His new CNBC talk show should provide some added balance to the other 30 or 40 other right-leaning talk-shows on cable.

Hilarious:
Dennis Miller is an excellent comedian, but he has a knack of delivering political satire in a very humorous manner. He knows his politics and social commentary and w/ several strokes of pure genius he adds humor that makes me laugh until I cry. I also appreciate that he admits that these are his own opinions ("Though that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.") and he is not opinionated or arrogant about his views (like Michael Moore). Excellent book for laughs and social commentary. Imagine Bob Dylan meets Jay Leno.