He may not qualify as a “local,” but comedian Bill Maher qualifies as a “regular” out here in Hawaii, now that he’s come here 10 out of the last 11 years during New Year’s to enjoy the sun and surf. He’s paid his dues too, having had one costly wipeout bodysurfing that left him battered and bruised.
“I think I did a show with a concussion,” he said in a phone call from Los Angeles. “I don’t think that was my best show, because I was a little bit woozy. … I was supposed to appear on Jimmy Kimmel right after I got back in January, but I had to cancel because my face was a bit messed up. I’m going to be a bit more careful this year.”
That experience notwithstanding, Maher, 66, looking forward to his New Year’s Eve performance, which this year will be at the Tom Moffatt Waikiki Shell. The recent midterm election, with its much-better-than expected results for Democrats, has him feeling upbeat and ready for fun. Like many people, he was expecting a Republican sweep bringing into office “lots of people whose basic position was f— elections and who would not really abide by the vote of the people, which is pretty much the bedrock of how we live in this country.”
But he’ll be targeting liberals and Democrats too. “I got plenty of stuff to make fun over,” he said. “Both sides give me lots of material.
“Whatever doesn’t make sense, whatever seems crazy, that gets made fun of. A lot of people say to me, ‘You make a lot more fun of the Left than you used to.’ Well, yes I do, because the Left does a lot more crazy things than they used to. I still make fun of the Right probably more than I do the Left, because they always do crazy things, but there’s no lack of crazy in this country on both sides, and if it doesn’t pass the smell taste, yes, it’s going to get made fun of. And I think that’s where a lot of people are in this country.”
Maher has been targeting the crazy for decades, first coming to prominence with his 1990s show “Politically Incorrect,” which started on Comedy Central but was then picked up by ABC. Since 2003, he’s been host of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” a weekly commentary show on HBO. It’s made him both a target and a tool for the Left and Right, both using his words to attack one another. It’s a position he grudgingly accepts.
“It’s par for the course,” he said. “It’s the country we live in and the way people communicate now.”
As for his analysis of the political divide? It’s genetic.
“I think it’s a personality type that you’re born with,” he said. “If people have any politics at all, it’s mostly an extension of their personality. You’re just sort of born with that kind of conservative personality, and I think the politics comes out of it. You’re not going to change anybody, you’re not going to talk them out of it, any more than you’re going to talk Tom Cruise out of Scientology.”
Maher himself was born for comedy. A native New Yorker, his father was a radio newsman, “a really funny guy” who loved having dinnertime conversations on the topics of the day. With entertainment opportunities much more limited back then — “there were only like six television channels in those days” — it gave him the opportunity share and sharpen his wit.
“We would watch TV together, and we would laugh together,” he said, comparing it to families today where parents and children have their own source of information and entertainment.
Unlike many standups who got into comedy on a dare, or perhaps because they got some encouragement from a drama teacher, Maher always wanted to be a comedian. His early inspirations were stalwarts like Alan King and Don Rickles, and later Robert Kline and George Carlin. “Carlin, especially for me, as someone who dared to question all conventional wisdoms that were in society,” he said, “I totally looked up to him and wanted to be him.”
He’s amazed now at the transformation of Carlin’s “seven dirty words that you can’t say on the public airwaves.” “If you watch a Comedy Central roast … you can say pretty much everything,” he said, listing off some of the words. “But what we have now, which is much worse than what Carlin was talking about, is that you have the seven IDEAS that you can’t talk about.”
For his appearance at the Shell, Maher will be bringing fellow comedians Jeff Ross and Wendy Liebman. Ross is known for his biting celebrity roasts. Maher invited him because Ross reminds him of the late Gilbert Gottfried, a close friend whom he had planned to bring here. Ross spoke at Gottfried’s memorial and “reminds me of Gilbert in a lot ways,” Maher said. “He can create right onstage, which Gilbert also used to do.”
Liebman, whom Maher called “hysterical,” is making a long-awaited visit after a serious car accident forced a cancellation of a previously planned trip. She was also expected to come during the pandemic year, but that got canceled as well. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed,” Maher said.
Maher brings old friends along for the trip, some in the entertainment industry and some not, making it a reunion of sorts. “I want people who I want to spend four days with,” Maher said. “We’re on the beach together, we’re at dinner together every night. It’s an opportunity to spend time with people who I normally wouldn’t get to spend time with.”
So he should be in fine joke-telling form by New Year’s Eve. “Unless I get thrashed by a wave again,” he said with a laugh.
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BILL MAHER NEW YEAR’S EVE 11TH ANNIVERSARY
With special guests Jeff Ross and Wendy Liebman
>> Where: Tom Moffatt Waikiki Shell
>> When: 8 p.m. Saturday
>> Cost: $50.50-$200.50
>> Info: ticketmaster.com or Blaisdell Box Office at 808-768-5252
