Dennis Miller's Got a Brand New Bag

Unless you’re a connoisseur of the high art form known as “AM talk”, you might not be aware that smarmy, smirky, obscure-reference-loving comedian/commentator Dennis Miller has recently RADICALLY REINVENTED himself as a smarmy, smirky, obscure-reference-loving right wing radio host.

I’ve always found Miller impressive if not particularly FUNNY. When I was a lad of just twenty or so years, my rock band was working with a producer a couple of decades our senior who was a HUGE Miller fan.

One night after a recording “sesh” (that’s “session” for all you Squaresville residents), he fired up the VHS with a Miller HBO special, and proceeded to pause the tape after every “joke” to explain in detail the multi-layered cultural references contained within each smugly-delivered observo-nugget. The sixty-minute program took about 3 ½ hours to get through. I was definitely amazed at the breadth of knowledge both men exhibited, but I certainly wasn’t laughing.

Anyway, the fact that Miller unquestionably possesses a functioning brain makes his radio program a worthwhile alternative to 95% of what the AM talk universe has to offer. His reasoned, libertarian brand of conservatism is clearly superior to the repressed-homosexual-cowboy-Bush-love-hero-worship of many of his right-leaning radio peers.

My biggest objection to the show is Miller’s overuse of the phrase, “I like the cut of your jib.” At first, it’s like, “Ah, that’s kind of cool, like something James Cagney might’ve said.” But after he’s used the line on Ann Coulter, the junior Republican senator from Wyoming, Jim Breuer, the chief political correspondent at Politico.com, Gary Sinise, Rudy Giulliani’s campaign manager, Dick Cavett, and an ESPN baseball analyst (all within a single twenty-minute segment, mind you), it becomes a bit tiresome.

And I have to admit, as well read and “in touch” as I believe I am, I still find myself thoroughly confused and befuddled by much of Miller’s incessant obscure referencing. So in closing, I’d like to officially review Dennis Miller’s radio show in the style of the man himself: Listening to “The Dennis Miller Show” is like watching Germaine Greer edit Wikipedia entries with the homeless on an Apple IIe during the Spanish Inquisition while Jeremy Piven and Xerxes the Great team up to lobby Congress to force the reintroduction of New Coke. (No, I have no idea what it means either)