Rob Maher

Originally published May 16, 2006.

I flushed my cell phone down the toilet. I’m not speaking metaphorically here; I actually flushed my cell phone down the toilet. Allow me to explain. I’m teaching my driver improvement class this past Saturday. I am a horrible teacher and spend most of my time playing a video and then leaving the room. I do, however, attempt to get back to class before the video is over with. I am a bad teacher but I’m not a total fuck up. So I have about 6 minutes to go until the videos over and I need to get back to class when I start to feel some rumblings in the stomach. I’m by no means a fan of using public bathrooms to do that deed, but I am less a fan of shitting my pants. I would have preferred to wait until after the video was up and just given the class a break but my stomach was not in the mood to wait. So I venture into the bathroom to take care of business, all the while checking my cell phone to see how much time I have left; I don’t wear a watch. Since I kept checking my phone this meant it wasn’t securely in my jeans pocket but on the edge, not completely buried in the pocket. You probably see where this is going. I finish doing what I have to do with about a minute to spare. Mission accomplished. I dismount and turn to flush the toilet. I guess I don’t stick the landing for as I turn towards the toilet my cell phone flies out of my pocket and into the toilet/its vile grave. He shoots he scores! Goal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am in a state of shock at first. I stare at my phone just inches away from me but miles to go before sleep. I have to get back to class in a matter of seconds so I have to act quickly. If I was at home I could have maybe found something to pull it out of the water and then taken my time washing it off and cleaning it with the hopes of salvaging it. But I’m not at home and have no home toilet advantage. My cell might as well have been wearing a Redskins jersey floating in Cowboys toilet. I was shit out of luck. Pun intended. I decide the only option is to end it. Dead cell phone floating! With much dismay I flush the toilet and with it I flush my cell phone, all the numbers inside it and all numbers I could have acquired with that phone down the drain.

Some might say it’s a metaphor for me moving on with my life and meeting new people or maybe the lesson here is, I should just wear a watch. I prefer to blame everything on the handicapped stall. The only stall in the bathroom was a handicapped stall so don’t hate on me for using a handicapped stall when I’m not handicapped. Me not being handicapped is debatable by the way, but that’s a subject for another post. The point is I was only in the handicapped stall because that was the only stall available. And the extra room in the handicapped stall allowed me to turn towards the toilet with enough momentum thus flinging my cell phone out of my pocket and into the Sea of Stankquility. In a regular stall I would not had enough room to turn with such force. My cell phone would have lived to have roaming charges another day.

Unfortunately for me, that’s not the case. I guess it was karma in the end. For years I’ve made fun of the handicapped and called my cell phone a piece of shit. Payback’s a bitch.

Originally published May 10, 2006.

Is there a double standard when it comes to nudity in the movies? Is it unfair that women routinely get completely naked in movies while men rarely bare more than their ass? Every women I’ve ever known would most definitely tell you there is a double standard and that it’s completely unfair. They’re wrong.

The only reason that women show it all in the movies and the men don’t is because men are smarter consumers when it comes to nudity in the movies. Women support shitty movies just because a hot guy is in the movie. You ladies don’t give a Brad Pitt any reason to take it all off where as guys demand nudity. No man has ever gone out and seen a movie just because there’s an attractive woman in the movie unless of course that attractive woman gets at least topless. After ‘Basic Instinct’, Sharon Stone was the biggest actress in the world so why was she not able to capitalize on that fame and star in a string of hits? Because we, as in men, had already seen the no panties uncrossing the legs shot. How was she going to top that? She wasn’t. Sharon Stone was just as hot and just as naked in ‘Sliver’, the movie she made right after ‘Basic Instinct’, as she was in ‘Basic Instinct’ but no guy went out and saw that movie because it was a piece of crap. The only way men are ever going to support another Sharon Stone movie is if it’s a good movie like ‘Casino’ or if she stars in a porno. But at least Sharon Stone kept getting naked in movies unlike Halle Berry. Halle Berry was just another actress until she bared all and fucked Billy Bob for ten minutes in ‘Monster’s Ball’. Every guy has seen that scene and how was Halle Berry rewarded for taking it all off? By being the first African-American actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. Pussy power at its finest. And since Halle Berry won the Oscar, how many movies has she been nude in? Zero. And since Halle Berry won the Oscar, how many movies has she been in that tanked at the box office? All of them. Penis power at its finest. Every man in the world thinks Halle Berry is super hot and we all think seeing her in a skintight cat suit is sexy as hell. Every man in the world still finds Sharon Stone attractive and every man in the world loves movies about superheroes. Yet, none of us went and saw ‘Catwoman’ starring Halle Berry and Sharon Stone because the movie sucked ass yet didn’t show any.

Ladies, if you want to see the Brad Pitts and George Clooneys of the world show it all then stop supporting the bad movies they make. You think Brad and George are above dropping trow? Hell no! It’s all about the money. If every woman had boycotted ‘Ocean’s 12’, ‘Ocean’s 13’ would be called ‘Ocean’s 13 Inches’. If you stop going to see movies like ‘Meet Joe Black’, you’ll meet Brad’s cock. It’s simple supply and demand. Demand to see every hot guy in Hollywood whip it out and ladies, he’ll whip it out. Skipping a few bad romantic comedies is a small price to pay for a lifetime of dick and balls on the big screen, isn’t it girls?

Originally published April 26, 2006.

This past Friday night I performed at a 16-year-old girl’s birthday party.  Fuck Letterman when you can perform in front of the girlfriend of a letterman.  Her Mom had rented out this comedy club for the night.  There was to be comedy, karaoke and a DJ.  However, there apparently wasn’t supposed to be any laughter.  16-year-old girls didn’t like me when I was in high school and they don’t like me today.

The booker told me that a friend of mine had recommended me for this gig, saying I’d be perfect for it.  I’m not sure what that says about me but I am sure if this “friend” of mine ever tries to tell me some girl he knows is perfect for me, I will make sure to never meet her.  I was perfect for this gig in that OJ is the perfect husband kind of way.  To be fair, if I was allowed to be me, to do my act and do what I do, I would have had a field day with this bunch.  But that was not the case.  Mom talked a big game about how any and all material was game.  She even signed something that said we could say whatever and she wouldn’t object.  A comedy pre-nup if you will.

We met the birthday girl and she promptly showed us her piercings, belly button included, and her tattoos, the one right at her panty line included.  I promptly felt an R Kelly moment.  Maybe I’m getting old but do all 15-year-old girls have tattoos and multiple piercings and do all 15-year-old girls have no qualms about showing those piercings and tattoos to complete strangers?  I just used the word qualms.  I am getting old.  Me getting old aside, I felt the birthday girl showing up wearing the Fisher-Price How-To-Be-Whore starter kit coupled with Mom signing the anything goes “pre-nup” boded well for the evening.  Wrong answer!

The show begins with the booker/MC Kevin.  He didn’t bother updating his references for the crowd as he called a table full of black kids the Huxtables.  The Huxtables!?  These kids don’t know who Bill Cosby is much less the Cosby Show.  To them the Cosby Show is the show Raven Simone used to be on.  You might has well of called a kid Eddie Haskell or yelled, “To the moon Alice, to the moon!”

My boy Seaton then goes up.  Seaton is very funny and decides immediately he’s going to test out Mom’s anything goes promise.  One minute into his act and he’s screaming at the birthday girl’s 10-year-old brother, “So you ever fuck a bitch right and….”  Classic.  Between that and the anal sex references Mom had had enough.  She runs up to me saying she doesn’t like Seaton and that he’s gone too far and for me to get him off stage.  She tells me some of the other parents have complained and one mother took her daughter home.  I have no sympathy for her for it was her idea to have a comedy show for a bunch of 16-year-old girls who couldn’t care less about comedy and a bunch of 16-year-old boys who think they are too cool to laugh.

By the time I get on stage, the birthday girl is all about talking to her friends, the boyfriend, who I was going to fuck with, is in the back doing who knows what so essentially I’m performing for the 4 or 5 parents in the crowd.  At one point I do my joke about beer goggles.  The joke is about how since guys get drunk and go home with unattractive women, what do blind guys do when they get drunk?  Do they go home with girls with real shitty voices?  I then act this out and hilarity ensues.  Except in this case, Britney, the retarded white girl says to me, “But he’s blind not deaf so that doesn’t make sense.”  Clueless.  I end my set by stealing birthday girl’s cell phone and reading her text messages.  Not groundbreaking comedy by any means but I got a kick out of it.  Soon after, I end my set and me and the other comics get out of Dodge.

The next night I’m back at the club to perform in front of a normal crowd.  The owner tells me some of the kids had smuggled some alcohol into the club and drank up.  Mom then let everyone go back to her place while she and step dad got a hotel room.  Can we say teenage pregnancy?  Being a good Mom is much better for the world than trying to be the cool Mom.  And being a good comic is much better for the word than trying to be the comic that appeals to 16 year olds.  I hope I end up being the former.