Laughing . . . until it hurts

By Michael Tracey,

Published November 23, 2007 at 12:05 a.m.

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There comes a point in life, usually accompanied by gray hairs, a paunch at the waist and a desire to take afternoon naps when you feel that there is little left to experience, little that will shock, little that will leave you in a bewildered, troubled, furious state. It's the calm of the jaded mind.

But somewhere deep within, in the nether regions of the heart and mind the residue of idealism, the spirit of youthful hope, the yearning for a just and decent world linger, if in a somewhat diminished form. It's a certain naivete that seems to have the unfortunate problem of running aground on the rocks of reality.

I must admit to a residual naivete.

When I was a young boy in England - I'd be about 13 - I had a weekly ritual. I would go to local bookstore and spend two or three hours browsing the shelves. One day I stood there in the store (I have always loved the smell of books), opened Theodore White's, The Making of the President 1960 and read its famous first words, "It was invisible, as always . . . " The "it" was the unfolding majesty of the electoral process, as the first votes are counted in the far eastern corner of America and then slowly, surely moves like the sun from east to west as the leader of the free world is chosen by the ordinary but decent folks of this most free of lands.

If I might engage in a cliche, I couldn't put it down. Here was the proffering of a dream to a young boy so desperately in need of a dream. I fell in love with the idea of America, with its politics, its institutions, its peoples and most of all its glorious possibility. I drank in White's wonderfully mad idealized narrative of the process, and in particular I fell in love with the iconic figure of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

I've never quite lost that feeling, that childhood belief in this country's values and condition. But then reality intervenes and disappoints, the ship hits the rocks.

Which brings me to Bill Maher, the comedian and social commentator who famously was fired from ABC for saying that the 9/11 hijackers were not cowards but who went on to great success with his show Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO, and as a comic on the circuit.

I've always enjoyed Maher, found his political satire and observation a breath of fresh air, often perceptive and always very, very funny. But then Maher lost the plot, or revealed a side to him which he might have been wise to keep hidden.

I was reading his book New Rules, which contains the monologues with which he ends his show. I had got as far as Page 176, laughing out loud. Then there was the monologue, "Skeletal Refrains." I didn't see the original broadcast version, but the commentary is here in the book. I was reading it late at night and when I read this particular monologue, I thought - hoped - I was imagining something that wasn't there.

The piece carries two photos. At the top is a photo of a woman in a bikini, and the commentary reads: "In fat-ass, stomach-stapling America, stop focusing on the three people in the country who don't eat enough! There's a term for Lara Flynn Boyle's condition: It's called being a skinny chick. It's just her body type . . . as seen in this childhood photo."

I Googled Boyle; she's an actress, apparently. The second photo that accompanies this is not of Boyle as a child. The photo they use is that famous if heartbreaking one of the young girl in Vietnam who got hit by napalm, her clothes burnt off, her flesh scorched, her arms outstretched, her skin peeling off, and clearly in agony and full of terror. That Maher would choose to use this child as a prop for a gag is disgusting, coarse, crude, disturbingly revealing, and deeply disappointing.

Message to Maher: It's not funny and you and HBO and your publisher Rodale (whoever they are) should be ashamed of yourselves.

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