The Smiley Smile Message Board

He just said on Leno something to the effect that we have it going for us in that Republicans are dying off faster than Beach Boy fans. I was shocked and will drop HBO, at least consider it, from my home. This was very bad Bill. Have another vaporizer hit. Goodbye Bill. You ain't no George Carlin.

Bill Maher is a conceited narcissistic douche bag. He can be funny to though.

I don't like Bill Maher. But if you think about it, he might be right. Republicans aren't dying off any more then democrats. It goes back and forth. He probably didn't realise how well TWGMTR did, and how well BB greatest hits continue to sell. So if anything, the stock of the Beach Boys has gone up, while more and more people have become unhappy with both major US parties.

 ???

A little over the top, aren't we?

I like Maher but why does he have to tie the beach boys in with politics? It doesn't really mix.

What do you mean?  Nothing?

Eh, it's just a joke.

Let's just leave it at that and call it a day, eh?



I'd rather watch Piers Morgan on CNN resisting the NRA idiots trying to deport him.

And I thought I couldn't hate that guy anymore

Just a general observation - I very much doubt he knew about Les or Derek. Unfortunate timing, is all.

Who Bill Maher? He's so well known here in the motherland and his opinions so eagerly sought… could he and Piers Morgan be cut from the same cloth? Could we also send you Andrew Neil, Jeremy Kyle and Jeremy Clarkson?

If Jeremy Kyle goes where will all those douchbags with the tattoos on the side of their necks go to take lie detector tests?

He's dropped a few Beach Boys jokes this year, including one mentioning bringing Chris Rock to a concert. I wouldn't take it too seriously.

He's definitely a bit of a dick, but is in no way Piers Morgany. Blegh!

I love when fans get overly upset over jokes. Seriously, this upset you that much?

Well....if you watch Leno...it's no wonder a little crack like that would offend you :lol

I hope Bill Maher makes fun of this thread on an episode of his show.

Maybe relax.

At least he acknowledges our continued existence!  ;D

All he said is that The Beach Boys have a lot of older fans. Which is true. So I don't see the problem.

He's actually rather different from that lot -- politically he's (mostly) liberal in the UK rather than US sense of the word, and he's fairly respected as a stand-up comedian. You may remember his film Religulous, which had a brief cinema release over here a few years ago (it was a not-very-good documentary in the Michael Moore style, saying "aren't religious people incredibly stupid?").

As for the comments here -- they're just a joke. Not a particularly funny one, but far more offensive, I would have thought, to Republicans than to Beach Boys fans. And even I, living in the UK and not owning a TV, know enough about Maher to know that he doesn't like Republicans, so I would have thought very few of them would be watching him anyway.

He's always been a jerk in my eyes.

While Maher does tend to reek of vinegar and water of late, it's still not as bad a comment as when D-lister Kathy Griffin slagged off Brian with a one-off about being a total drug casualty.

Her mean-spiritedness in making that crack did make me realize: she stopped being funny around that point anyway.

Bill Maher tries to make a living by being an angry cynic, and that anger is what his body of work will be remembered by more than his comedy. He vilifies and tears down those people or institutions which he disagrees with, and does it in a way that feels more personal and more deep-rooted in legitimate anger than similar commentators and media gadflies who play it up for entertainment's sake. That's the life and reputation Maher himself has chosen by seeming to be angry or negative about something whenever he's on television. And he doesn't hesitate to find people to attack or to make a part of his vitriol.

I don't find him entertaining at all, and I really do not care to see someone who more often is angry and critical of something or someone than he/she is being positive or at least somewhat happy about something...and misery loves company, so I choose not to wallow in someone else's public anger, especially when they make a career out of doing so.

On the other hand, for a majority of people who are not as studied on the band's history and backstory as those on this board, what is the legacy of the Beach Boys and their work? I'd say they ultimately make people happy with their music, whatever incarnation of the band you may be hearing or seeing and no matter what kind of backstory went into making that music.

People get enjoyment from the Beach Boys and their music, and they get a chance to have fun and smile for a bit when hearing these songs.

That to me is priceless, and a much better legacy to leave with a body of work than to be remembered as an ersatz social commentator and stand-up comedian who was angry and bitter more often than he was happy about something.

Make the choice. I've been preferring "happy" and "smiling" recently, myself. Plenty of that to be found in the music.  :-D

Clarkson might be a good fit.

I think Maher must suffer from a Beach Boys ignorance all too common among Americans, where the early surfing stuff is the only thing they know about.  Pet Sounds was marketed poorly in the States, and not much attention was paid to them again until they had remade themselves as the Reagan-era nostalgia act.  So to your average American, there's only the stuff like "Surfin' USA," "Barbara Ann," and "Fun, Fun, Fun."

Or how about this? He is making a joke and he wants people to laugh so he makes a reference that an audience can understand. So, as a poster in this thread already noted, he made a joke a while back where it was necessary for him to be a Beach Boys fan:"I haven’t seen a black man look that disinterested and annoyed since I dragged Chris Rock to that beach boys concert."

Look at the construction of the joke (and remember that it is a joke): He's NOT making fun of the Beach Boys or their fans - though he is somewhat in the Chris Rock joke though he includes himself as part of the crowd he's making fun of. It's pretty boring to have to explain a joke but it's also really strange to see people not getting one.

I love Bill Maher. And it's just a joke. And face it there's a lot to make fun of with the Beach Boys. It doesn't diminish their amazing contributions to music guys....

The joke had nothing to do with the scope of the Beach Boys' recorded output, only with the longevity of the band. Replace "The Beach Boys" with the name of any other recording artist celebrating a 50th anniversary and the joke would be the same.

As to Maher, I find his show to be very funny and, while I dislike his blanket dismissal of religion (especially in regards to Muslims), REAL TIME is one of the few places where American politics is discussed in any kind of intelligent manner. This, of course, is more of a condemnation of the media in the U.S. in that the "comedy" shows are better at discussing serious issues than the news programs are.

Let's take a look at this Bill Maher topic from another angle.

I just happened to be reading a news article in the Las Vegas Review Journal, when I saw a piece about Maher. So I clicked on it, and here was the main point of it, copied directly from the article:

By Doug Elfman
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Posted: Jan. 8, 2013 | 2:03 a.m.

The Palms has stolen HBO star Bill Maher away from The Orleans, giving him more performances in a bigger theater for 2013.

"I always loved The Orleans," Maher tells me. "My only complaint is that it was three weekends a year. I think we got a little more now," with four weekends a year in the Palms' Pearl.

The star of "Real Time with Bill Maher" regularly sold out tickets in the Orleans Showroom, which holds 850 seats. The Pearl can do seating configurations of 1,100 or 2,500, and it offers two huge video screens.

When I ask Maher how this move came about, he says, "I don't know. I mean, that's for agents to think about."


So Bill Maher regularly "sold out" a room that holds 850 seats, and is now getting bumped up to a larger room.

Fan-fucking-tastic, good for him!

The object of his derision, the Beach Boys, had a Vegas show in 2012 at the Red Rock Casino Amphitheatre, where their fans which Maher made it a point to use as the punchline for one of his snide comments masked as a joke, filled up pretty well.

Without having the exact numbers, I think the seats filled for those old Beach Boys far exceeded Maher's 850 seat "sell out" crowds that bought tickets to his show. In fact I'd like to also see a tally of how many of Maher's seats were empty at those sellouts as a result of hotels buying up blocks of "comp" tickets for their guests and not having any takers to see the gig.

So I'd suggest Maher back off a bit on the Beach Boys and their fans, at least until he pays some more dues, gets some more fans, attains more popularity through his work, and becomes worthy of being booked in the kinds of Vegas rooms that The Beach Boys in their several incarnations can be booked and sell solid numbers of tickets on a regular basis.

I think the root of guys like Maher's anger is jealousy, as much as a lack of things to be happy about. In this case, his 850-seat capacity sell-outs which warranted newer bookings in lower-to-mid-size Vegas rooms *still* pales in comparison to the popularity and solid ticket sales for The Beach Boys which warrant rooms with five times the capacity of Maher's bookings.

Maher should reserve the snide remarks for that time when he can command the bigger rooms in Vegas...at least those which seat more than his current gigs, and those which the Beach Boys play when in Vegas...and I doubt that time will come anytime soon.  :)

So good luck, Mr. Maher, and be sure to tell your Vegas audience to tip the bartenders, be nice to the dealers at the tables, and enjoy the hotel's buffet. $5.99, all you can eat.

So no comedian should make a joke which touches, even tangentially, on anyone, even in a totally different field, who can by some metrics be seen to be more popular than that comedian?
Sounds like all comedy ever should cease to exist, then...

Comedy is great! Is that what Bill Maher does, or is he a social commentator and critic?

The original post:

He just said on Leno something to the effect that we have it going for us in that Republicans are dying off faster than Beach Boy fans.

Maher can tell any joke he wants, but in reference to groups of people dying off and him suggesting that is in some way a positive thing "for us", whoever "us" might be, he can go sh*t in his hat as far as I'm concerned.

I'm just suggesting he should first attain the kind of popularity and clout that the Beach Boys have attained and fill the kinds of rooms the Beach Boys regularly play in Vegas before using them as the punchline of a joke centered around fans dying of old age. Until then, let him pop the cork and celebrate his selling out of 850-seat venues with all the young hip folks who pack his Vegas shows, just don't be that ignorant and insulting. And if Maher thinks it's a positive that people are dying, he has some serious issues beyond being a jackass.

Bill Maher just doesn't realize who he's messin' with here.

I usually like your posts guitarfool, but I'm bewildered by your position here.  I'm surprised you are taking what Maher said seriously.  But more so, Im surprised you would compare the attendance figures of a single comedian versus a rock and roll band.  Two completely different audiences and the two groups perform in different venues.  How many comedians actually perform in arenas or stadiums?  Bill Maher is plenty big enough to make cracks about the Beach Boys--that's not even an issue.  George Carlin was a certified legend in comedy yet he never worked anything bigger than a 1200 seat theater.  Would he have not been eligible to make any jokes about The Beach Boys and any other band?  Jerry Seinfeld is another huge comedian of our generation, and also doesn't work anything larger than a theater. 

I get that we're all a bit miffed about the comment but it's just a joke.  The Beach Boys are an old band.  They have a lot of old fans.  Old people tend to die.  Not rocket science here, is it?  Is the joke in good taste?  Not really...but I doubt any of us would be this steamed if the joke was about the Rolling Stones or anybody else.  So we should probably not be so uppity about it.

Maybe Maher got the idea for his Beach Boys' line from attending a BB concert and heard Mike Love doing his "schtick" about 409 being the year the song was written and taking a break after the first three songs and on and on.

Nothing to be bewildered about, I'm basically saying I have no time for Bill Maher or the way he vilifies entire groups of people. This is just one example of the way his "jokes" can strike a raw nerve with people, and if that's the kind of persona he wants to project and the kind of humor he practices, he will continue to reside on the "D-List" of celebrities and he will *never* know the kind of power to make someone's day a little brighter the way the music of the Beach Boys has done for 50 years.

Perhaps if he looked out into the audience of a BB's show and saw people of all ages either openly weeping or choking back tears as a certain song played and as certain emotions were stirred *by the power of a single SONG*, he might craft his jokes and pick his target groups a bit more carefully.

I'd pretty much bet the farm on my assumption that something Bill Maher has created or starred in has *never* touched people as deeply as the music of The Beach Boys, and I think that makes him bitter.

Well, let me clarify - I'm sure some people had tears in their eyes after realizing they had wasted their money and two hours of their lives which they can never get back to watch him act in either of his films "Cannibal Women In The Avocado Jungle Of Death" or "Pizza Man".  :-D

Honestly, did anyone here laugh at this so-called "joke"?

The over-reactions in this thread are way funnier than Bill's harmless joke.

 ;D

Maher has used this line at least once before (in November).

http://www.politicususa.com/bill-maher-republicans-problem-beach-boys-fans-dying.html

If that's the case, I'll get my agent on the phone and book that 850-seat room that Maher will be vacating in Vegas. I do this great routine where I overreact live on stage while playing guitar, harmonica, and kicking a bass drum with oversized clown shoes. Oh, and there are dancing poodles, too.  ;D

Make sure to tip the bartenders...

Yeah, threads like this is hilarious!  :lol

This thread is embarrassing. As someone else said, i hope he makes fun of this thread in an episode of his show.

I can't stand the guy as he makes a living spewing hateful insults at people and 'groups' of people. That being said, in this case he just made a joke. If your letting a clown like that offend you, then you have bigger problems.

I agree with this 100%. And important to note that there is a difference between taking offense and having fun throwing a few hooks and jabs right back at the guy who makes a living doing that.

I agree, he should read this board, maybe go to a few more shows, and get to know more Beach Boys fans, then he might realize his stereotype of them is wrong. I'd expect a veteran comedian who would use a stereotype as the basis of a joke to at least make sure the stereotype is somewhat accurate before using the joke.  :)

I do not know who Bill Maher is. From reading this thread I am led to believe that he is a comedian. Comedians make jokes. Sometimes people find them funny, sometimes they don't. It's incredible to me that there is a 2 page thread about this.

He's a comedian and he's much better at comedy than he is at being "a social commentator and critic."

*WHAT* stereotype?!!!
Dear God in heaven...
The only thing -- the *only* thing -- he's said, even jokingly, about Beach Boys fans there is that they/we are dying off quite quickly. The vast majority of Beach Boys fans are boomers. A lot of that generation *are* dying. We've had two threads in the last month alone on this board about well-known fans dying. It's awful, but it's happening.
He's chosen the Beach Boys, not out of some malice against the band or their fans, or because he has some hateful stereotype in mind, but because they're a band who are well-known enough that anyone (except, apparently, the people on this board) will get the joke, and who have an ageing fanbase. That's all.

You could even take the joke as a compliment to Beach Boys fans, in a twisted sort of way. If it's good that Republicans are 'dying faster than Beach Boys fans', then surely that means that it's good that Beach Boys fans aren't dying as fast as Republicans? (No comfort if you're a Republican as well as a Beach Boys fan, of course).

Now you can argue if the joke is funny (I don't think it is from what's written here, but that kind of thing can be contextual), you can argue about whether it's tasteless to make that sort of joke (and I'd agree -- although jokes from all sides about the death of one's political enemies are fairly common). But he didn't say *anything* bad about the Beach Boys, their music, their fans, or anything else to do with the band.

And even if he had... really, so what? Are we, as a group, so oversensitive now that we can't take a joke?

Well, according to another joke by Maher (that I posted in this thread), he does go to see Beach Boys shows. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he is a fan of the band since he is a fan of 60s music in general. The fact is that the joke (again, not a joke about the Beach Boys) depends on the stereotype in order for it to be funny.

Doubt it. He called Bruce a 'has-been' after Bruce's remarks about Obama.

As someone heavily opposed to his politics, let me say this to you all...TAKE A f***ING JOKE FOR ONCE.

That's true - though at least he acknowledges that they had been.

And it's not even like we can try to pretend that there weren't any boomers at any of the shows we saw last year.  Sweet Moses, have you seen the In Concert DVD that was just released??  Nearly every audience shot had a bunch of baby boomers doing the twist to every song.  Let's not pretend that they're not there.  The Beach Boys obviously have fans of all ages but they are not really represented that fairly at shows.  Maher obviously has had some first-hand knowledge of this and probably saw for himself just who exactly attends BB shows--otherwise he wouldn't have made the comment. 


Here, here!  Unfortunately, there's always this kind of oversensitivity among hardcore fans of any artist/group.  The original poster obviously has some inadequacies about the BBs in the public eye because his other thread was about a joke Kathy Griffin made on NYE about the song "Kokomo."   Chill, people. 

Bill has a misanthropic streak, and is the reason why I never cared for him. I suspect he laughs at the people who laugh at him, just like he jokes at the expense of Beach Boys' fans. I have to admit enjoying hearing what Wayne Brady had to say about Bill, after Wayne found out that Bill was accusing Obama of acting "too white" by comparing him to Wayne Brady.  Wayne's anti-Maher rant is on YouTube and not safe for work, but it's hilarious.

Is the author of that piece a member of this board  :lol

I agree with this.

People make these same kinds of jokes about the Stones all the time, and unlike the BB, they have always been "hip", whatever the hell that is.

As do I.  I'm a fan of his as well, but even putting that aside, neither this nor the Chris Rock joke are actually putting down the Boys.  Let's face it, the guys are old, and their fan base tends to skew older given that they've been around so damn long.  At the end of the day it's just a harmless little joke, meant to get a laugh, not maliciously attack musical legends.

Keep in mind, you're talking about a fan base that at least 90% of which I'm quite sure is comprised of people who listen to nothing BUT the Beach Boys.

Wut u talkin'?? I listen to The Flame at least once a year!

Thank god I just bought the awesome moodies remasters.

The newspaper piece in question is in bold print - I don't know if that writer for the Review Journal is a member of this board.

The author of the words not in bold is indeed a member of this board.  :-D

I doubt that just from the conversations I've had. And most of the "what are you listening to now" thread is non-Beach Boys music.

Maybe 5%? I don't know. 90% is too high.

Funnily exaggerated - but in reality, a more telling description of the fanbase is that we tend to have periods where we get hooked on only The Beach Boys (and related artists), and tend to analyse and theorize on their recorded output and history. Not very different of other fanbases, though...

I enjoy a good joke, I really do. I like taking and giving jokes.  Just understand that making a joke about the benefits of a group of people dying off - no matter who they are - isn't particularly funny nor very welcome for some folks. And to drag the Beach Boys into it just seemed weird, and it seems Maher said a similar thing and used the Beach Boys name several months ago to state the same "joke".

Instead of Beach Boys he could have said Beatles or McCartney, Stones, Who, Springsteen, Jimmy Buffet, etc. and I'd still respond by saying the same thing: It's not funny. The fact that I don't care for Maher's schtick colors my reaction too, and I watched him pretty regularly when he hosted "Politically Incorrect" on ABC late night. I enjoyed that show until Maher's bitterness and anger started to overtake the panel discussion itself, at least in my opinion.

beach boys fans have more sand in their vaginas than republicans.

Nah, I'd say Jimmy Buffet's fans would win that contest hands down.

Alrighty... ::)

  :lol :lol :lol

This thread has underlying political bias

No bias here. We're right, they're wrong and THEY CAN'T MAKE A JOKE!

Get it? :)

Come on, Everyone!

Let's Be Friends
Let's Be Friends
Let's Be Friends

If calling Bruce a has been means you're not a fan a lot of fans are in trouble!!
 ;D
A few touchy Republicans ( or people with comprehension difficulties) here, I think!
Great read, though.  :lol

Bill Maher starring as Pizza Man in the film "Pizza Man":

(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3285/3121239052_478cc99a30_z.jpg?zz=1)

Bill Maher being cooked by cannibal women in a giant cauldron in the film "Cannibal Women In The Avocado Jungle Of Death":

(http://www.kekkai.org/google/cs/img/cannibal-women-4.png)


Get the popcorn ready, it's a double feature.  :)

Oh man!  Where do I get a copy of the Cannibal Women?

I listen to other artists, but admittedly the Beach Boys and related artists probably comprise 75% of my listening.

The best one though is the episode of Win, Lose or Draw where he accidentally gets his nose broken by an overly excited Erik Estrada, particularly when they immediately cut to a "Please Stand By" sign, in the style that The Simpsons were parodying around the same time. See for yourself - you would almost assume it to be a comedy bit, it's so perfectly timed:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufGml7lRoMc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufGml7lRoMc)

We must be harder up for boxset news than I thought.

Little does Mr. Maher know, we fans haven't a suicide emoticon to our name. Don't count your chickens before they hatch Mr. Maher.

Wow, I can't believe that! I've never seen that clip until now. Judging from the year, I'd say there were either too many bottles of Zima or Bartles and Jaymes being consumed backstage by those celebrities.

The hilarious part is seeing that other guy try to pull Maher up off the floor, yelling "Get up, c'mon!" as he's writhing in pain with an actual injury. I guess he thought Maher was doing a comedy bit or something.  ;D

I assume a double feature of The Girls On The Beach and The Monkey's Uncle will follow?

Personally speaking, I very, very rarely listen to The Beach Boys unless:

1 - it's a new release...
2 - I'm researching something...
3 - I'm paid to...
4 - they're on the radio.

Not true.   The "Very bad comment by guitarfool2002 about Jimmy Buffet/us" thread over at margaritaville.com is only up to 2 pages so far.

Well, you know, there really aren't that many Beach Boys fans in the general US population. We are of a rare breed.

Only 2 pages? That's still pretty cool considering I don't even have a cable television program, a book deal with a major publisher, or films like "Pizza Man" on my resume.  ;D

Going to check this pizza man movie out now... :hat

I can actually tell how much I listen to the Beach Boys as compared to other artists with a fair degree of accuracy, since I've used last.fm since late 2006. In that time I've listened to 149657 tracks while last.fm was enabled, of which 19,129 were the Beach Boys. So allowing for mislabelled MP3s, solo tracks, that kind of thing, they make up around 15% of the music I listen to.

(Incidentally my 'least-listened' of the 5092 different artists I've apparently listened to is "Nancy Sinatra & Brian Wilson" -- I've apparently listened to that version of California Girls precisely once in the last six and a half years.)

Maher indeed has re-used this joke several times. It clearly has nothing to do specifically with the Beach Boys; it's about using any aging band with a very recognizable name to make the joke work.

Not that much of anyone cares, but Maher is supposedly a huge Beatles fan (he has made many Beatles references in the past), to the point of even having attended "Beatlefests" in past years. While that certainly doesn't prove that he knows anything about the Beach Boys, I would imagine he probably knows that the Beach Boys are more than just the surf and car stuff. The joke about the Beach Boys works because of the age of the group anyway; it has nothing to do with Maher's perception of the quality of their music.

One could argue Maher is misjudging the fact that the group has younger fans, but analyzing all of that misses the point of this joke/reference. I can also attest to the fact that about 99% of the audience at the reunion show I went to this past summer was older than I am, and I'm not in the youngest demographic anymore these days. The fans of 60's bands are dying at an acclerated rate; that's just statistics. I know many people that literally died waiting for the Beatles to put freaking "Let It Be" out on DVD or for the Beach Boys to release the "Smile Sessions" or waiting for Dennis' POB to be reissued, etc., so I don't point out the increased mortality rate of baby boomer era music fans with anything but a huge sadness.

And yeah, as Stebbins said, some of the comments here are immensely funnier than Maher's joke.  :lol

Good for you on dropping HBO.  They're a bunch of tossers.  You can always buy the shows you like on Blu-ray/DVD.

As for Maher, I love it.  He's the physical embodiment of today's Hollywood, junk-food, pop-culture thug-politics:  blaming others for the things they do.  I can't speak for his audience... but I assume they like it: Yay! Republicans and Christians and Beach Boy fans dying.  Woohoo!, they applaud.   "Down with happy!"  That's the sweet spot.  A bitter cocktail of drive-thru militant elitism with a healthy portion of angry white male-ism... mix in some half-a55ed socialism and some shallow sh*t-smearing cynicism... and finish it off with a heaping drizzle of hypocrisy and self-loathing fecalphilia. 

BAM! Bon appetite!  :lol

Thanks for clearing that up, Jude.

Justin sticks out like a sore thumb.

Who the hell is Justin? And why has this thread managed to reach 4 pages?

 :wave

There he is! Dave In KFC's comment didn't make sense to me as your last post in this thread was way back on page 3.

 :shrug

If he'd used the quote function we wouldn't have become bogged down in this smiley quagmire :tiptoe

Paulos, you mean..........like this? Thanks so very much for the tip and sorry you feel so bogged down.
 Dave in KFC. Now THAT is the funniest post in this thread. To me at least.
And I started the damn thread because I really like Bill Maher and felt very let down. As for someone's comment in the thread about me watching Leno? I was watching BECAUSE I knew Bill Maher was going to be on. So it really felt personal to me and I just reported on SS what I saw. Kinda surprised no one else on here saw it too.

Dave in KFC? Now I'm hungry for hot wings with a side of mashed potatoes and mac'n'cheese.

I found what appeared to be a toenail in my KFC the other day. KFC rules.

I'm just surprised you let it get to you so much, it was clearly a joke and jokes aren't meant to be taken seriously.

Yes and no.  I don't think this applies to Maher.

I think many people "in his field" want to be taken seriously.  Political comedians, social commentators, ex-sportscasters.  Directors.  Movies with political/social statements weaved into them -- some subtle, others not so subtle.  It's everywhere.  Modern "entertainment" (I use that word lightly) is CONSTANTLY pushing an agenda.  Trying to influence opinion.  Religion, politics.  Sex, abortion.  It's all day.

This "culture war" is readily apparent to many Americans.  Entertainment is marinated in seriousness.  And it's pushy.

I think that's why Seinfeld was so loved by many.  He didn't push agendas.  The Beach Boys, too.  I'm not being preached to when I listen to Brian Wilson.  The little dance that twerps like Maher do is this:  "I'm just joking.  So you can't criticize me.  But I'm not joking.  So 'ha!'"  It's a defense mechanism.  A passive-aggressive bullying tactic used to generate a group-think wall of protection, from where he can "strike" his "oppressors."  Maher was probably bullied a lot as a kid.  So this is his "revenge."  He's a bully now.


Really, Maher?  Beach Boy fans dying?  Did your childhood bully look like Brian Wilson and Mike Love?  Did they drive cool cars and score chicks?  Yeah they did.  Get over it.  You're still a loser and you always will be.  ;D

There.  That ought to hold him for awhile.

Or........ Maher is a comedian telling a joke..... because he's a comedian. Maher may have been bullied in his youth, maybe not. If he did, that experience may or may not inform his comedy and commentary now. But the fact that he made a joke that referenced the BB's in an unflattering light (actually their fans more than the band I suppose!) doesn't tell me anything about his past. It's a joke. I don't care about his past, and I may or may even care about the joke.

I would also argue against the idea that the Beach Boys have never pushed agendas. They rarely have in their music, but statements over the years and appearances with various politicians, partisan talk-show hosts, etc., are certainly not free of any "agenda pushing." The fact that Mike Love is buddies with Bill O'Reilly, etc. or appears with Republican politicians is not always a hugely overt pushing of an agenda, but it is also not a non-partisan action either. It's not as apolitical as an episode of "Seinfeld."

Maher's stuff is a hybrid of comedy/entertainment and politics/social commentary, etc. There shouldn't be any delusion about what you're getting into when you see or hear him. The BB joke/comment is a good example of this. The "joke" part of it was the reference to the BB's. I don't think Maher cares whether his real or joke opinion of the BB's or their fans are taken serious. The rest of the the statement was indeed the part that was meant to be taken seriously.

Maher is weird because he's not really liberal or conservative on every issue. He seemed to be supporting Obama the last election, but I used to be under the impression he was a right wing libertarian type. He's super-sexist in some of the stuff he says about women. Like saying they're into diamond rings instead of reading books. That might reflect the type of women he dates, though. He's a weird guy in general. I guess that's why he has a show on cable and didn't make it on mainstream network TV. He's a taste that only people some people have, similar to the way Howard Stern is either loved or loathed.

George Carlin was the same way.  There's a reason for that.  His aim was not to educate people, or get any specific point across.  His goal was to make people laugh.  That's what comedians do.  Carlin contradicted himself all the time, but he was funny as hell.

I'm going to say, at the risk of sounding ironic, people take these guys way too seriously!

by taking a dig at the Beach Boys fans he means to point out conservative aging white americans. I love the Beach Boys, but so does for instance Bill O'Reilly, who I think is a clown and all other people like him. The way I justify my overlapping musical taste with his is that the version of the band he enjoys is different from the one I listen to (which is 1966 and after) I still like alot of the earlier material but only because it connects with the latter material as preceeding material and therfore crucial to their story. As a fan one has to love it all right?  ;D

That's so strange. You only like the early stuff because of its relationship to the later stuff? Because, I think you're saying, you can see in that early music where Brian was going to take it later? You can't appreciate the early music for what it is on its own? And you justify this because Bill O'Reilly likes that era? Why do you even feel the need to justify liking things that Bill O'Reilly also likes? Do you think that every vegetarian needs to justify why they are vegetarians specifically because Hitler was also a vegetarian?

WE HAVE A WINNER.

I love Bill Maher.  Who cares about a joke he made?  I'd say he's more of a political activist than he is a comedian.  At least he's got the balls to speak his mind...and think about what he says before he says it. 

In the US, we're constantly bombarded with religious nonsense.  It's fantastic to see a comedian/activist stand up for science and rationality.  True, his "Religulous" documentary wasn't a work of art but boy was it ever entertaining!  Poking fun at ridiculous beliefs generally is but he avoided tangling with the mainstream, half-hearted religious folks.  Carlin was self described atheist.  Maher claims to be agnostic though he sounds like an atheist to me.  No apologies from me for being a thinking liberal.

The Boys are old and they did put out an awful lot of questionable material since the mid 70's.  Fortunately, they took a turn for the better with TWGMTR. 

I don't know what part of the US you reside in, but here in the Pacific Northwest (aka "Hippyville") it's just the opposite.  The extreme left wants everyone to have the exact beliefs they do, and they want to shut up anyone who believes differently.  So much for tolerance! 

Maher, O'Really, and other tv clowns are just there to entertain.  And yeah, some of their stuff is funny, but they also don't seem to mind offending people.  That's show biz, I suppose.

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I agree about the left, but religious fanatics are no different here.

Maher is politically incorrect.  That is his  gig.   Maher not saying something offensive about obvious things that others are reluctant to mention would be antimaher.  grok?

But he can be one smarmy sob.