The Joy of Hate (21 page)

Later, still enthralling Hollywood types, she showed up on that outdated tripe called
Entourage
, playing herself (why not?—she’s so cool!), and the object of the star’s affections. Her ability to use her sexual confidence to control men was seen as heroic.

The fact is, Grey is famous not because she does porn, she’s famous because she’s cute, and makes it acceptable to do porn. Trafficking in nonporn arenas makes her other stuff seem cool. It’s like, “I’m not just an actress, I also do anal, and vice versa.”
Actually, she’s likely famous because she screws powerful Hollywood men, but whatever. More important, she’s still young and hot—not worn-out, drug-addicted, and suicidal like most porno queens. Give her five years and she’ll be more weathered than Ed Schultz.

Yes, this isn’t gramps’s porn star. Which is why the whole controversy over her reading to kids in Compton seems totally calculated. It’s all part of the “Sasha Grey as performance art” piece that has now become her “edgy” life. And all of this is predicated, remember, on the idea that she can actually read. Most of her films don’t involve a lot of complex dialogue.

Now, I suppose this is all about second chances, and just because Sasha Grey did porn (extensively), why shouldn’t she read to kids? I’ll tell you why. As far I as can tell, Grey has never disowned her porn history—and believe me, I did the research to back up that fact. Weeks of it, in fact. I’m still doing it now.

She parlayed her porno past and present into getting work outside porn. It’s a neat little trick. Do the obscene first, in order to go mainstream—knowing that obscenity is the novelty. Who knew going hardcore meant you could work with the guy who directs
Oceans Eleven
? And that’s how she ended up on
Entourage
, a show so dumb it’s closed-captioned for rocks.

So to me, Sasha’s is a really positive message to today’s young lasses: You can do porn and maybe live past thirty. Which as you know (or I know), is the God’s honest truth! Unless you’ve got a laptop, and can Google “dead porn stars,” where in an instant you’ll find a ream of websites listing the lurid manner in which these sex workers end up. Ironically, there are no happy endings. Usually, it’s suicide, overdoses, and accidents. I couldn’t find many “natural causes” in the mix, mainly because you have to live long
enough to qualify. I’ve said it before, in the adult film industry, forty is the new dead.

But that doesn’t matter. Because in the world of tolerance, pointing out this sober fact makes you seem narrow-minded and hurtful. You are intolerant if you don’t let a girl who just had a thirty-six-member gang bang read “Jack and Jill” to your little runt.

And so this stupid porn star story was precisely manufactured crud designed to make you feel stodgy and mean if you think some lifestyles should prevent you from commingling with impressionable youth.

See, as an “enlightened” individual, you’re supposed to nod along with these exercises in repressive tolerance. And really, that’s all the exercise is designed for—for others who abide by this PC nonsense, while also tweaking your moral sensibilities and calling you out for your outdated intolerance. It’s an exercise in superiority by witless cranks who would rather deny real truth about life. Better to appear cool and wrong than right and intolerant. Sasha Grey can do all the porn she wants. Just don’t involve kids in your PR stunts.

Never mind that if you asked a porn star if she’d want her own child to be in porn, she’d say hell no. If she lives to have kids, that is. In fact, I doubt this statement has ever been uttered in the history of humankind: “This is my mom; she’s a porn star. I’m so glad she came to my graduation today.” And Mom, please don’t gang-bang the faculty.

So what message does this send to girls at that school? Now, for boys the usual “role model” you’d find in a classroom on career day might be a fireman, a cop, or a well-known late-night commentator who can squat twice his own weight. But all the “outside
talent coordinator” could get to represent inspiring women … is a porn star? And yes, the school district apparently had an “outside talent coordinator.” Only in California could such an alternate universe exist. Who the hell is paying for that? (If you live in California, take a wild guess.) Bottom line: Forget fields like medicine or law. You should really be looking to the porn dens of the San Fernando Valley for your career inspiration.

And you wonder why kids are screwed these days—that’s what their role models do for a living.

The tale of Sasha Grey speaks to a larger debate about porn. What used to be a shameful career, and a hobby kept hidden, is now part of our everyday life. Porn stars show up on reality and talk shows. They make cameo appearances in movies and show up at comedy roasts. If you voice any concern about this, you’re the crank. And I am a crank. On my show, I make no bones about my dislike for porn, only because I’ve seen enough of it to choke a chicken. (Yeah, I’m a hypocrite, but admitting it is the first step to enlightenment.) But we live in a time when the person extolling personal virtue is seen as an idiot, and the star of a gang bang an inspirational trailblazer. This is not progress. It’s just another step in the direction of a shame-free society, where every behavior is excused because we’re just too cowardly to do anything else but pass the lube. Which is a long way of saying: California.

IT WAS A FIRST OF ITS KIND:
an “ambush by house band.” Back in November 2011, congresswoman Michele Bachmann, then a presidential candidate, appeared on the Jimmy Fallon show. Someone must have told her that this adventure would help her faltering presidential run. That someone was probably high.

When she walked out onto the set, the house band, called The Roots, accompanied her entrance with a song whose title rhymes with “Lyin’ Ass Bitch.” Because it was “Lyin’ Ass Bitch.”

This little prank created an uproar on the right, and also on the left (for once), prompting some feminists (usually quiet about this crap happening to conservative women) to say that the band’s choice of music was wrong—even if you find Bachmann’s stances on various issues objectionable.

Fallon did apologize later, after the brouhaha. He did so profusely, even if it was on Twitter—that new wussy path of phony penance. (How did people apologize before social networks? Send smoke signals?)

Questlove, the Roots joint front man and drummer, defended himself, saying it was all in good fun. He wanted everyone to see how clever he was—tickled pink about his little plan to put one over on the hapless congresswoman. Which makes him a
coward. It also makes him a political idiot. Even if you don’t like Bachmann’s positions, no one’s accused her of being a liar before.

I can’t say I’m outraged over this prank—because then I’m a hypocrite. After all, my thesis is that most outrage is manufactured for emotional release and attention gratification, so I can’t start screaming about this. And I’ll admit, choosing covert songs is clever. (What goes with Ambassador Bolton? “I Am the Walrus”?) But if you’re going to attack someone, do it to their face, not with a song.

I work in TV. And I know the green room where the guests wait is always close to the studio. Questlove could have easily stopped by and said, “Hey, Congresswoman Bachmann, I want to tell you that I find your political stance on gay marriage disgusting, and I’m going to register my disgust on the show in a manner that will not affect your interview. I’m just doing this so my friends will think I’m clever!”

If he had said that, then he wouldn’t be a coward. But he didn’t do that, so he’s a coward. Even more, the choice of song was a bad one, for another reason: When someone disagrees with your beliefs but can’t explain why, their fallback position is always, “He lies.” That somehow exempts them from formulating a counterargument or anything remotely close to an intellectual response. Questlove calling Bachmann a “lyin’ ass bitch” makes him both crude and stupid. I bet if you asked Questlove what Bachmann “lies” about, he wouldn’t have an answer. Which is why he was probably too scared to approach her in the green room. And this makes him the little “bitch” of the story.

What’s truly amazing is how the left seems baffled by the revulsion it causes. Think about Bill Maher’s disbelief whenever
something he says about women is seen as misogynistic. Or that weird “slut” attack on Laura Ingraham by Ed Schultz.

To them it’s daring comedy. Why is that? It’s because liberals are surrounded by liberals all day, and so they develop a massive blind spot concerning what’s acceptable to everyone else. I call it Bad Taste Blind Spot Disorder, or BTBSD. (It’s not just an acronym, it’s also the sound I make when I’m eating borscht.)

When you suffer from BTBSD, you essentially spend all your time around people who share your assumptions, which makes it exceedingly easy for you to say what’s on your mind. You sit around all day and tell rape jokes about conservatives. And then, whoops—one day you make the mistake of telling that joke outside your bubble, unaware of its effect. And it pisses people off. The joke falls flat, and you’re miffed. And if you have a smidgen of self-awareness, you’re embarrassed, too.

This is Bill Maher’s life.

That’s why, on
The View
, when Elisabeth Hasselbeck confronted Maher about a rape joke he told about her, he felt like he was the victim. “It was just a joke,” his pained face kept reminding us, deeply disappointed that his segment was now being wasted having to answer for his lax attitudes about rape jokes—and defending how funny his rape humor is.

True, Maher didn’t really want Hasselbeck raped. But that’s not the point. The point is, Maher’s persona and his brownnosing audience make him susceptible to saying crap—crap that he wouldn’t say about Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, or any other liberal woman. It’s only right-wing females he targets.

But worse than Maher, on
The View
, were Hasselbeck’s co-hosts. While she took the comic to task for his joke, none of her female pals chimed in to agree. They, like Maher, simply squirmed.
And Hasselbeck was doing what they would never do at one of their all-lib cocktail parties: calling someone out for being an ass.

When it comes down to it, the real babies, the real whiners, the real “bitches” are lefty celebrities. And the media and the feminist movement give them all a pass. The result? Frothy, infantile, embarrassing man-babies, like the charming comedic actor Alec Baldwin.

I mean, if I ask you what kind of a celebrity male—in his mid-fifties—would throw a tantrum on a plane because he couldn’t play his computer game, the answer will always be Alec Baldwin. Now, if you remember, Baldwin was one of those mega-celebs who aligned themselves with the Occupy protesters, effectively giving his own repulsive behavior a pass by the tolerati.

So this guy—a self-proclaimed champion of the working class—feels totally entitled to ridicule the working class (i.e., a flight attendant), slamming a plane restroom door so loud it alerts the pilot. (That’s just what we need in the post-9/11 world—adult celebrities throwing tantrums in planes.) If this were anyone else who did not possess Alec’s liberal bona fides, he would have been roundly humiliated by the late-night comics. Instead, however, he gets a spot on
Saturday Night Live
to poke fun at his own tantrums. He took his boorish behavior and made it instantly adorable! Because, being a lefty, he could.

But if you think about it, maybe Baldwin is the real hero in all this. Someone has to stand up for self-absorbed petulant stars who can’t go a single minute without instant mindless gratification. Sure, his behavior delayed the departure for all other passengers, but he’s allowed that luxury. Because he is both a feminist and a greenie (despite flying coast to coast frequently), the rules of hypocrisy are suspended. Crusading as a phony bleeding heart allows
you to be a real-life asshole. And so Baldwin can ridicule the working class and use up all the airline fuel he wants—because, above all else,
he cares
. Repressive tolerance gives him a pass. Yep, if you care about the things Alec cares about, then all of his behavior is tolerated, permitted, and inevitably encouraged. Like he wasn’t an asshole enough—we gotta encourage him now? You just know no one has told Alec no. And if they did, he’d just find someone else who’d say yes. There are pages and pages in the back of the
Village Voice
that cater to it. (But those people never look as good in real life as they do in their ad. Trust me.)

I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM
. And I’m not talking about my house-boys (sarongs hardly qualify as a uniform). But for the left, tolerance is rarely afforded to the military. Because, you know, they kill people. And they kill people better than anyone. To the left, that’s bad. In their world, an American military would not exist. Instead, we’d send “peace armies” to foreign nations to teach them how to weave hemp skirts and condemn patriarchy.

But the rest of us know that there’s no point having a military if they aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do. It’s like buying a Maserati and keeping it in the garage. Getting rid of the bad guys is their vocation—which they do, awesomely. If there are any competent Americans left in America—or the world, for that matter—it’s our military. God bless them. If only the rest of government worked half as well. But the fact is, the bad guys our military are fighting seem to be getting more love these days, especially on college campuses. And the better they are at their job, the more crap the military gets.

Back in January 2012, a video surfaced featuring a group of American soldiers pissing on some Taliban corpses. When I first saw the video, it made me uneasy.

Which totally makes sense. As a human being, when you see
something out of the ordinary—a thing that doesn’t occur in your normal life—it’s bound to shock and confuse you. So I get the revulsion. The video features two things few people find pleasure in looking at: men urinating publicly and dead bodies. Both gross, to say the least. Both things cause psychological discomfort when seen. Put them together, they cause an immediate, visceral reaction.