Bill Maher's Milwaukee Appearance

On July 24, 2008, Bill Maher will be performing at Milwaukee's Riverside Theatre.

Tickets are $49 and $39 at face value.

Ticket brokers hope to get a lot more.



Wow! I wouldn't pay $39 to see Maher.

This is from the Riverside's page promoting Bill Maher's appearance.

Bill Maher is one of the most politically astute humorists in America today. His unflinching honesty and commitment to never pulling a punch have garnered him the respect and admiration of millions of fans. In 2003, Maher launched a new show, "Real Time with Bill Maher," on HBO, a network that's a perfect fit for his irreverent style. The hour-long show airs live at 11:00PM on Friday nights.

"Real Time with Bill Maher" has received multiple Emmy nominations as well as nominations from the Writer's Guild of America. Some of the outstanding guests who have appeared on the show include Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Robin Williams, Drew Barrymore, Bradley Whitford, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Gen. Wesley Clark, Susan Sarandon, Kevin Costner, Gary Hart, Pat Buchanan and George Carlin. Each week, Bill's hilarious opening monologue, incisive interviews and stimulating panel discussion, as well as his extremely popular "New Rules" segment, serve to wrap up the week's most important events in a way that makes you think, as well as laugh.

That's not my take on Maher, not even close.

I don't consider what Maher spews to be "politically astute" and I certainly don't think of him as a "humorist." He's a vulgar hatemonger, plain and simple.

From the Riverside's page:



Charming!

The sponsors for Maher's Milwaukee appearance are WKLH and the Shepherd Express. American was a sponsor, but no longer.

One wonders why American would have ever allowed its name to be attached to someone like Maher.

John McAdams and Charlie Sykes and others have been following this story.

After being a topic of discussion on blogs and talk radio, American decided to pull its sponsorship.

A statement from American's Wyn Becker, public relations:

We regret if our advertising co-sponsorship participation of the upcoming Bill Maher concert has offended anyone. That was obviously not our intent.

Let me clarify American's involvement. We did not directly or individually select Mr. Maher's concert to sponsor in this or any other market. And we have no immediate connection with the promotion or production of this show.

American does have partnerships with several concert venues and radio stations in town which would tie us to a number of local events. I believe that supporting the renovated Pabst and Riverside Theatres to be a well intentioned endeavor. Our marketing partnership with these two historic landmark entertainment venues involves a year long series of comedy performances, with many of these shows co-sponsored in conjunction with some radio station advertising partnerships.

It is obvious, now, to us that Mr. Maher is a very opinionated political and social humorist who can easily ruffle the feathers of certain groups much more so than we expected.

We do not agree with or condone the content of his material or the opinions disseminated from his routines.

Our intent was simply to develop a solid marketing partnership with two well respected concert/show venues which are bringing a wide variety of comedy performances to Milwaukee throughout the year from Frank Caliendo to Jim Gaffigan, Second City Improv to Dennis Miller.

However, because this particular show has become much more controversial to a certain religious factor than ever anticipated, we have chosen to drop our sponsorship of this particular event, if it is indeed offending some of our customers. We do plan to continue our support of the Pabst and Riverside Theatres, their radio station partners and the fine entertainment that they bring to the Milwaukee market. Thank you.

Wyn Becker
Vice President-Advertising
American Furniture, Electronics & Appliances

I think this was a smart move by American.

It was a move made in the self-interest of the business.

It reminds me of Barack Obama cutting ties with Jeremiah Wright. The damage Wright was doing to Obama was too great for him to remain loyal. So, it was goodbye.

Similarly, it wouldn't be wise for American to sponsor Maher's show. Why alienate the many, many, many people offended by Maher's so-called humor? Since it became an issue, it made sense to sever the sponsorship ties.

Here are a few examples of Maher's shtick:

---"I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder."

---"But [Mel Gibson will] never win as long as he's so religious, because, I hate to tell you, the disease isn't alcholism, the disease is religion."

---"I think the science is in on this question. I mean, I think he is.. the people who were defending him were saying, 'Well, he's just inarticulate.' But inarticulate doesn't explain foreign policy. I mean, it's not that complicated.

"The man is a rube. He is a dolt. He is a yokel on the world stage. He is a Gilligan who cannot find his ass with two hands. He is a vain half-wit who interrupts one incoherent sentence with another incoherent sentence. And I hope I'm not piling on."

---"The Republican Party, besides Rudy Giuliani, Bush likes to dress up. He likes to be a cowboy, or Iceman from Top Gun. And they have something very gay, excuse me, going on with Ronald Reagan. I mean, they love Ronald Reagan in a way that's just gay. I'm sorry. But, I think they want to put him on a stamp so that they can lick his backside. Well, seriously, I mean – am I right?"

---"I would just like gun owners to admit they're selfish, and that it's a vice, like booze or drugs or cigarettes. Stop the nonsense about 'it's my right.' You just like it because you have a small penis."

---"George Bush is the only person who thinks that going more is better… He thinks if we can surge now, then we can pull out. But as anyone who's ever done porn will tell you, that's backwards. You pull out, then you surge. I think we all know that."

---"It's interesting that the only two people who couldn't' run together would be Hillary and Obama because America would go that's too much non-male whiteness at one time. We're progressive but not that much."

---"I think if I have any credibility with the gay community it's because over the years I've defended one simple principle which is that there should not be two sets of civil rights for people in this country, one for people who put penises in vaginas, and one for people who don't.

"And the people who don't are told by the Right wing that they need a cure."

---"America was invented by liberal men in Boston and Philadelphia. Not that I don't love all of America, but rednecks who think they're the real America should read a history book once in a while. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin, Madison -- the whole lot of them were well read, erudite, European thinking children of the enlightenment, and they would have had absolutely nothing in common and less to say to a cowboy simpleton like George Bush."

---"[Republicans] have to concentrate on what all Republicans have in common -- They're gay. Aren't they?

"Not just garden-variety gay, but Mark Foley text messaging little boys gay; Ted Haggard having sex with prostitutes on meth gay; Larry Craig bathroom gay.

"I haven't seen this many self-loathing homosexuals since I left the Catholic Church."

---"We're not winning in Iraq. We lost that war when we invaded Iraq because it was a bad idea to begin with....

"Instead of invading Iran, why don't we just show [Bush] footage of one of his other disasters, Katrina or Iraq, and just tell him, 'There you go Godzilla, you did it again.' "

---"Why couldn't, uh, why couldn't have [Rush Limbaugh] croaked from [OxyContin] instead of Heath Ledger?"

---"I'd like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult. Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That's right, the Pope is coming to America this week and, ladies, he's single."

---"If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you 'Pope.' It's like, if you can't pay your mortgage, you're a deadbeat. But if you can't pay a million mortgages, you're Bear Stearns and we bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia -- too big, too fat."

---"When the current Pope was in his previous Vatican job as John Paul's Dick Cheney, he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the Statute of Limitations ran out. And that's the Church's attitude: 'We're here, we're queer, get used to it,' which is fine, far be it from me to criticize religion. But just remember one thing: If the Pope was -- instead of a religious figure -- merely the CEO of a nationwide chain of day care centers, where thousands of employees had been caught molesting kids and then covering it up, he'd be arrested faster than you can say 'who wants to touch Mr. Wiggle?' "

Read Maher's disgusting anal rape rant.

So many of Maher's remarks are vile. His April 2008 comments about Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church are beyond vile.

Yes, American made the right call by pulling its sponsorship.