Bill Maher On Houston's Contributions To Society: A Gay Mayor, Strip Clubs & Ecstasy

Tomorrow night comedian and political pundit Bill Maher descends on the Cullen Performance Hall for a night of stand-up. The Real Time With Bill Maher host and former star of the influential late-night roundtable show Politically Incorrect is currently on tour in between tapings of new episodes of Real Time.

There is no dearth of material for Maher and his brand of staunchly libertarian point of view. When you are an outspoken libertarian standing outside the death match going on between Republicans and Democrats, the world is your oyster if you are in the position that Maher finds himself in with his following and his television show. Every week on HBO’s Real Time you can expect to hear wildly varying viewpoints from a panel of celebrities, authors and politicians. It’s good stuff when a member of the Wu-Tang Clan is sitting next to a senator from the Midwest duking it over health care reform or legalization of marijuana.

We talked to Maher about Houston, our vast world of strip clubs and pioneering ecstasy habits, our new mayor Annise Parker and the coming Tea Bagger Apocalypse of 2010 that is sure to put a dent in Obama Nation.

Hair Balls: What does the rest of the world think about Houston’s new mayor, Annise Parker?

Bill Maher: It’s about time we had a gay mayor in Houston! I think it’s great and wonderful that the country is becoming more diverse. I think Houston has always been one of the more liberal places in Texas, certainly. I always had a great time in Houston. I mean I don’t party the way I used to, which is a shame. Didn’t Houston not only give the country strip clubs but also the idea of the high-end strip club, like Rick’s? That and ecstasy came out of Houston. Houston has done a lot of the heavy lifting in keeping American hard and happy.

HB: For this tour, what are you rapping about? There has to be an
almost magical trough of material this past year for comedians.

Maher: I have
had so much fun this past year. It’s funny because when Bush left
office the media was “Oh my God! Can comedy continue?” Yes, I think it
can. In fact it’s more fun than ever now. After eight years we got
tired of having President Larry The Cable Guy, but now there is so much
else to talk about. There’s the economy, stopping terrorism in America,
the airline attacks, Michael Jackson, the drug war, and trying to get
out of Afghanistan. Why are we there? Why is President Peace Prize
still in that one?

HB: What do you think about Twitter? Is it
enlivening the national dialog or just dumbing it down?

Maher: I don’t think
Twitter is bad, as long as people understand that it is just a taste of
something. I hope they don’t think 140 characters can educate someone
on a subject. Like when we were in school, you were supposed to read
the book and the Cliff’s Notes. Not just the Cliff’s Notes. As far as a
method of whetting people’s appetitive for a subject, that’s how I use
it. Most people use it to talk about the inane trivialities of their
life. I will never be the guy who says “Well, I just ate a banana and
took a dump.” I mean, who gives a fuck. I do like it as a sort of
little thing to get stuff off my chest. Like the other night I did one
about Haiti. If I hear one more person talk about how great God is. It
amazes me at what an easy job God has. When something goes right he
gets all the credit and when something goes wrong he gets all the
blame. It’s his mysterious ways!

HB: How do you see this new right-wing
conservative movement, the Glenn Beck folks, panning out for Barack
Obama for the next three and a half years or so?

Maher: The smart money is on
these tea baggers becoming the future of the movement. This is the
future of the party. The tea baggers are really taking over the
Republican Party. I don’t think it’s a movement that has legs in the
long run, but I think for a couple of election cycles they have a lot
of energy. It’s just that demographically they are on the wrong side of
the war here. It’s a movement of older white people who can’t
articulate why they feel like they are losing their country. Call me
crazy, but I think it has something to do with a black president. What
freedoms has he taken away? You’re losing your country? I mean to what?
Houston having a gay mayor and the Supreme Court having Puerto Rican
woman, those are things that never happened when they were growing up.
The key to the tea baggers is this nostalgia for the 1950’s America.
That was a great time for being a white man. It wasn’t such a great
time if you were black, Hispanic, gay, disabled or a woman. So it’s a
little insulting to those people to be nostalgic for that era.

HB: What
do you think about the next four years with President Obama and the
Democratic Party? Even the elections this fall look hairy. Do you think
that the Dems will take a hit?

Maher: I think they will and they will do
terribly. They have not fulfilled the promises to their people. All
those extra votes who came out for Obama, believe me they will be
sitting on the couch. It’s all about exciting your base. The
Republicans always understood that. They have almost always been the
minority party, but they win a lot of elections because they understood
to be loyal to who got you there. Cater to the people who really like
you and believe in what you are doing. That’s the mistake the Democrats
always fuck up on.

The mid-term elections are traditionally the early
bird specials of elections. They cater to older white people and that’s
who votes in mid-term elections and that’s who hates Obama the most.
He’s going to get his ass handed to him in 2010. This was the time.
They missed a giant golden opportunity in my view to effect change in
this country. They should have done it before the Republicans knew what
hit them. They could have used that energy from November 2008 and right
when they got into office they could have passed health care in the
first month.