The New New Rules
Bill Maher
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He has an ego the size of the Goodyear blimp, and you'll find his politics sitting in the last chair on the left.
Notwithstanding, Bill Maher is a funny guy. Here the controversial host of HBO's
Real Time follows up his 2005 bestseller (New Rules) with The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.
This is Maher's literary skewerings of everything from politics and cinema to drugs and germs. The pages are filled with alphabetically-organized snippets--New Rules--with which Maher takes aim at anything and everything. A few brief examples:
- Under For Beat's Sake New Rule: "You can't call it house music if no one has ever played it in their house. Call it what it really is, 'so shitty you have to take a drug called Ecstasy just to make it bearable' music. We had this when I was a kid--it was called 'the record is skipping.'"
- Under The Dear Hunter New Rule: "If you give a nine-year-old a hunting rifle, expect to have a hole in your head next to the one you already have."
"That's right, fathers are signing up their kids to win free hunting trips... Great time to find out she's pissed about not getting that doll. I'm sorry, but the first time your daughter should see a shotgun is at her wedding when she's fourteen."
- Under Acapulco Scold New Rule: "This one is for Mexican drug lords: If you don't knock off this violence right now, I'm going to stop smoking pot entirely. Just kidding. I'll get it from Thailand."
Many of the New Rules you'll read here come from Maher's material on his television show, but much of it is has never appeared before. Some of it is not-so-funny, but a lot of it really is--and clever and timely--and can provide you with hours of entertainment.
Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Steven Rosen, 2012
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