Bill Burr Hammering Bill Maher for Talking Like He Has the Solution to the World's Problems is the Content We Need
If your X/Twitter feed is at all like mine, there are certain names that commonly appear under "Trending" when you first log on in the morning. And Bill Burr is right up there among the most frequent. With good reason, given that few people in public life give fewer shits or are as good at talking about the shits that they do give as Burr. And name popped on that list today due to this visit he made on Bill Maher's Club Random podcast.
And in no way did he disappoint. This was peak Bill Burr. Coming on another comic's show and vivisecting him. For being a member of the Slacks Generation who dresses like he's a defendant trying to beat drunk driving rap. Slamming him for attacking Nepo Babies and using words like "pronounced" and "gauche" and using Latin to describe the Beatles in order to sound like the smartest guy in the room. Maher has made a career off this schtick. And watching Burr put him on the defensive and make him have to defend himself on his own podcast was a stroke of genius.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I've come to like Maher over the last four years or so. When everyone was losing their shit over Covid, he was one of the few voices of reason in all of show business. Yes, he's smarmy and self-satisfied. While his monologues on Real Time are 100% geared toward getting clapter from the audience, they're typically filled with sane, valid points. And Kyle Dunnigan is spot-on when he does his Maher impression (with face-swapping tech that is positively eerie) and points out how everything with him is about being condescending:
And yet for all that, I like Maher. But I live Bill Burr bruising his ego even more. Especially this part, where he obliterates his host for acting like he's got all the solutions to world problems that go back millennia:
Maher: "There's a very simple solution to all this problem in the Middle East: Stop attacking Israel."
Burr: "Hey, you just solved it. There you go. That's fantastic. Alright, let's go to Russia and the Ukraine. How do you solve that, Bill? Let me hear your hard-nosed decision about that. … They can't sit down and talk it out? Why can't Putin do a podcast with the head guy? You just solved the Middle East on a podcast. Why can't they solve what they're doing on a podcast?"
Maher: "See? This is why this is not your thing. This is my thing."
Burr: “This isn't your thing! Stop talking like you’re a General. You’re like that guy that has a fantasy football team and thinks he’s a fucking GM. That’s exactly what it is. Why am I fucking listening to you? Like you’ve done something?”
Maher's reaction says it all. You know he's a self-possessed narcissist who would love nothing more than to have his guest agree with every word, congratulate him on his brilliance and thank him for sharing his deep insight with the world. But what he gets instead is a Masshole blowing smoke in his face and deflating his ego. And all he can do is laugh because he knows Burr is right. We've built a world where comics can sit down in front of a camera and talk like they''ve cracked the code of intractable problems that have plagued the world for centuries. And can offer the solution in a 20 second sound bite over whiskey and cigars. And it takes another, better comic to burst his bubble and bring him back to reality. Brilliant.
There's really no better way to end this than with 15 minutes of Bill Burr standup. And offer a prayer for the next guy who invites him on his show and pretends he's got all the troubles of the world figured out.
