Come On Bill

I've watched Bill Maher, off and on, for about 24 years.

I used to watch his first show, "Politically Incorrect" when it was on Comedy Central.  Comedy Central was so awesome back then. "Mystery Science Theatre 3000"  was on three times a week and there was a great Dana Carvey stand up special they used to air a lot.

Maher is a practitioner of political humor, which is a little dicey comedy-wise. For one thing, it becomes almost immediately dated as soon as the joke leaves the comedian's mouth. Hey, what would happen if Eisenhower died and Nixon became President? What about that Midnight Basketball?  Newt Gingrich?  What type of name is that for a Speaker of The House?

It has to be delivered evenly also.  Bob Hope used to joke about Democrats and Republicans alike. Unfortunately, "Saturday Night Live" seems to have forgotten this. Granted, President Orange gives them a HUGE target, but there's absolutely no joy in SNL's political work in the past few years.

Maher's "Politically Incorrect" has morphed into "Real Time With Bill Maher" on HBO which means Maher can use dirty words in his monologues and interviews.

The few times I've seen "Real Time", I've noticed it kind of mimics the host. Sometimes it is funny and clever. Sometimes it is mean and nasty. Sometimes it is right and sometimes it is wrong.

A few weeks ago, Maher had a segment on his show in which he was discussing Amazon HQ2 and its tabling of the moving half of HQ2 to Long Island City in Queens.  If you followed the story, the idea of bringing a lot of jobs to this part of Gotham somehow did not agree with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, even though it was not a part of her district.  This caused Amazon to split from New York and now they are looking for another place to put HQ2.

Maher said Amazon shouldn't have tried to go to New York in the first place, but instead, should have tried to "turn Nebraska into the next Silicon Valley.”  Maher went on to say, “We have a problem in America called spacial-geographic inequality, which means that the most affluent and educated people are clustered in just a few cities."  My inference is that "few cities" are New York, LA, Chicago, and San Francisco. My guess is the "few cities" do not include Huntsville, Alabama which has the second largest research and technology park in the country. It is also ranked in the Top 25 of the most educated cities in the country. It probably doesn't rank with Mr. Maher 'cause they talk real funny down there.

Amazon's founder and chairman, Jeff Bezos is "worth $130 billion" so he should "take one for the team", and put the HQ2 in someplace that has been left behind.  If Amazon doesn't, the "red" states are "going to keep getting angrier and crazier”, says Maher.

Maher says  “There are two Americas. We have chef Wolfgang Puck, they have Chef Boyardee,” he continued. “Our roofs have solar panels, theirs have last year’s Christmas lights. We’ve got legal bud, they’ve got Bud. The flyover states have become the passed-over states. That’s why red state voters are so pissed off. They don’t hate us, they want to be us. They want to go to the party.”
  
This explains everything. We want to be like Bill Maher.


He said this would happen if West Virginia got HQ2: "People get better jobs that don’t give them black lung,”  From there on, the hillbillies meet people of different races, backgrounds, and sexual orientations. Soon, the wacky tobaccky is legal and they are teaching science again.  West Virginia turns in to California.

If only HQ2 had come to Georgia. We could have gotten those new-fangled things I've seen on the internets called shoes.  Maybe they would help my feet not to stink so much.

Let's be clear exactly who Maher is talking about: Trump voters. Everybody in a state that went for Trump is a mouth-breathing redneck that needs some infusion of that good ole Gospel liberalism.

Maher is the worst evangelist ever.

His basic point about HQ2 is correct.  Instead of trying to please the myriad of interest groups you have to please in New York, Amazon could have gone to Youngstown, Ohio and found a very hospitable welcome

But come on, Bill. The answer is not blowing in the wind because it is very simple. People in "the red states" are mad because people like Maher think they are "better" simply because they live in a different Zip Code
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So, you can have Wolfgang Puck. We have Chick-fil-A.  There are three in a three-mile radius of my house.