Bill Maher is not the smartest guy around, but I am not criticizing him for that. Neither am I of notable intelligence. At age 75 going on 76, every evening as the sun sets I am visited with memories of dumb things, goofs and arrogance-related mistakes I have made. Those who have experienced NDEs, or near-death experiences speak of a life review that goes on before being sent back here to Plato’s Caveville. In my case, there is no need for that. I’ve already done it.
Do you see what I see?
I do criticize Maher for his duplicity. Any one with a set of eyes can easily see that he once went by the name Pete Ham, and was part of an assembled rock group called “Badfinger”. If you remember that group, they come from a more tuneful era and did some pretty nice songs, but those songs were quite different when listened to played on a CD player or radio versus played live. They were surely overdubbed for the album, many suggesting McCartney’s presence, indeed a good singer. In my piece exposing Maher as being Ham, I show a live video of a Badfinger performance, with Ham/Maher singing. It’s painful.
Ham was retired by a fake death, and reemerged as Maher some years later, and has been on TV ever since. What he does takes some talent, but note, he does not write his own material. He merely reads it. So it is one of his writers guilty of this goof. But hey, it’s the American public, so who’s gonna know?
I recently listened to an hilarious exchange between Conan O’Brien and Amy Sedaris where Conan jokingly reminded her that Maher cannot even read, and Sedaris agreed, saying he buys a can of Crisco thinking that there’s a cherry pie inside.
Enough of that. He’s high profile, and reads jokes written by others, and often does not understand what he is reading. It’s hard to keep up. In this case, he commits two errors: One, he refers to CO2, carbon dioxide, as “carbon, or “C”, and two, does not know that CO, carbon monoxide, is a different and dangerous gas.
I forgive all except the singing. That was really distressing.
Piece of Mindful 