Fair Enough
Recently found the transcript for one of Bill Maher's New Rules:
"New Rule: California Hatin'", by Bill Maher
Lay off California. The rest of America loves to laugh at crazy California, but let's remember this: California has a lot of people. And the reason it does is that lots of people from other states end up saing, "Fuck this, I'm outta here," and then they come here, where people ask them, "Don't you miss the winters?" No, strangely enough, I don't, just like I don't miss a car door slamming on my hand.
Make fun of California, but if it weren't for California, East Coast Rappers would have to shoot musicians from Branson. If it weren't for California, there'd be almost no TV, and you'd have to go home at night and actually talk to your family.
The rest of America feels about California the way the rest of the world feels about America. They hate us because we do what we want to do. Just the way people think Americans are too blessed and too free, and it makes them nuts in the dreary hovels of Kabul and Tikrit and Lubbock, Texas. They pray to their threadbare gods that we'll get what we deserve, but it won't happen because we'll always keep you guessing.
We elected Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown. We're home to Disney and also Hustler. The Partridge Family and the Manson Family. We can drink a Mudslide and a Sex on the Beach during an actual mudslide while having sex on the beach. Our farms feed the world and Calista Flockhart lives here.
We have bears and great white sharks and even our washed-up actors are allowed to kill one blonde chick. We invented surfing and cyberporn and LSD and the boob job. And if we didn't, we would have.
We have oranges. Free oranges. Everywhere. What grows on the trees in Scranton?
We have a real hockey team named after a hockey team in a movie. We give our illegal aliens driver's licenses. We have a governor who digs group sex.
Would anywhere else in America trade places with L.A. or San Franciso in a piss-soaked New York minute? You bet they would, because I don't recall anyone writing a song called "I Wish They All Could Be Rhode Island Girls."
Know what? I've been guilty of hating on California myself, and usually for exactly the same reasons as everyone else hates California - it's the coast Americans go to when they're trying to escape America without actually leaving. It's also a geographical pin-up model; we fantasize about her while trying to convince ourselves she's got AIDS and a bad personality. It's a heady mix of sour grapes and punch-drunk love. I'm probably going to end up in California some day, with Topher, and we're probably going to do all right there, because (believe it or not) we work well together, and we have just that right mixture of pretensions and ambition, escapism and self-interest.
Besides, where the hell else do you go after living in the Nation's Capital? New York City? Too bitchy, too self-destructive and too much the all-consuming monster. Southern California may euthanize people, but New York swallows them whole. The South is a big old "no" for me, Texas is laughable, New England might be nice - when I'm ready to retire. The Midwest is a bit too flat, a bit too red, and a bit too full of nothing I could ever want. The North Pacific coast is a bit gray. What's left?
Anyway, there it is. I'm sorry, California; and, though I know we'll probably have our disagreements over the specifics in the future, I have made my peace with you.
Now, quit fucking around and legalize gay marriage already!
"New Rule: California Hatin'", by Bill Maher
Lay off California. The rest of America loves to laugh at crazy California, but let's remember this: California has a lot of people. And the reason it does is that lots of people from other states end up saing, "Fuck this, I'm outta here," and then they come here, where people ask them, "Don't you miss the winters?" No, strangely enough, I don't, just like I don't miss a car door slamming on my hand.
Make fun of California, but if it weren't for California, East Coast Rappers would have to shoot musicians from Branson. If it weren't for California, there'd be almost no TV, and you'd have to go home at night and actually talk to your family.
The rest of America feels about California the way the rest of the world feels about America. They hate us because we do what we want to do. Just the way people think Americans are too blessed and too free, and it makes them nuts in the dreary hovels of Kabul and Tikrit and Lubbock, Texas. They pray to their threadbare gods that we'll get what we deserve, but it won't happen because we'll always keep you guessing.
We elected Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown. We're home to Disney and also Hustler. The Partridge Family and the Manson Family. We can drink a Mudslide and a Sex on the Beach during an actual mudslide while having sex on the beach. Our farms feed the world and Calista Flockhart lives here.
We have bears and great white sharks and even our washed-up actors are allowed to kill one blonde chick. We invented surfing and cyberporn and LSD and the boob job. And if we didn't, we would have.
We have oranges. Free oranges. Everywhere. What grows on the trees in Scranton?
We have a real hockey team named after a hockey team in a movie. We give our illegal aliens driver's licenses. We have a governor who digs group sex.
Would anywhere else in America trade places with L.A. or San Franciso in a piss-soaked New York minute? You bet they would, because I don't recall anyone writing a song called "I Wish They All Could Be Rhode Island Girls."
Know what? I've been guilty of hating on California myself, and usually for exactly the same reasons as everyone else hates California - it's the coast Americans go to when they're trying to escape America without actually leaving. It's also a geographical pin-up model; we fantasize about her while trying to convince ourselves she's got AIDS and a bad personality. It's a heady mix of sour grapes and punch-drunk love. I'm probably going to end up in California some day, with Topher, and we're probably going to do all right there, because (believe it or not) we work well together, and we have just that right mixture of pretensions and ambition, escapism and self-interest.
Besides, where the hell else do you go after living in the Nation's Capital? New York City? Too bitchy, too self-destructive and too much the all-consuming monster. Southern California may euthanize people, but New York swallows them whole. The South is a big old "no" for me, Texas is laughable, New England might be nice - when I'm ready to retire. The Midwest is a bit too flat, a bit too red, and a bit too full of nothing I could ever want. The North Pacific coast is a bit gray. What's left?
Anyway, there it is. I'm sorry, California; and, though I know we'll probably have our disagreements over the specifics in the future, I have made my peace with you.
Now, quit fucking around and legalize gay marriage already!