20 Questions: Dennis Miller

After a six-year sit as the sardonic saboteur of current events and of all things political on "Saturday Night Live's" Weekend Update, Dennis Miller has settled into a hotter seat on the front lines of the late-night talk-show wars. And so far, "The Dennis Miller Show," which airs on 134 stations, has claimed a healthy slice of the insomniac set. If Arsenio is "fun, folks and treacle," Miller offers a late-night hour of cultural wisecracking and lethal wit.

Miller, who grew up in Pittsburgh as a self-described nerd in a city famous for burly steelworkers and football players, remembers the incident that forever leveled the playing field with his cooler, tougher peers. "I was sitting next to this star football player in tenth grade. I made some funny comment, and he just became a puddle of laughter. It was great. I was hooked on the power of the humor thing."

When writer Wayne Kalyn met up with Miller in his Sunset Boulevard office, which looked like a page ripped out of an IKEA catalog, Miller was suffering from PMS--pre-monolog syndrome: checking his watch, fiddling with his car keys, glancing at the laminated baseball card of Roberto Clemente that sits on his desk. "Once the questions started, he was charming, self-effacing and, yes, happy." Chalk it up to the mysteries of Pittsburgh. "You don't buy your own bullshit when you come from that city," says Miller. "It keeps you grounded."

1.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have any idea how big your Q rating is right now?

[A] Miller: Early on in television, you are as fascinated by your Q factor as you are by your IQ. So I leave the Q factor in the IQ realm. You'd love to find out what it is, but everybody says that you shouldn't know your IQ: It kind of fucks you up. Ditto with your Q factor. If it's very high, you probably start to let down a little, assuming that your mere presence will appease the crowds. And if it's too low, you think, Oh, shit, I'm not connecting.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Give us the Dennis Miller regimen for beautiful hair.

[A] Miller: Rotate those mid-priced shampoos every five or six weeks. It's like crop rotation: Every six weeks, go from Vidal Sassoon to that Infusium because you have to keep tricking your hair. If it gets too used to something, it's like a dosage: Eventually, it doesn't work on it anymore. It wants more.

3.

[Q] Playboy: Have you seen a political cause about which you couldn't get cynical?

[A] Miller: I wouldn't say much of my cynicism is contrived, but it is amplified for my act. Being a news guy is a bigger-than-life thing: You have to be a pisser. But I'm not that misanthropic in my day-to-day life. I tend to want to believe politicians. The system is so big it's out of hand. Politicians believe they're going to accomplish some good, but once they get in the job, they find the system is nuts.

Bush seems like a nice guy to me, and people want to crucify him for that. I saw him speak one night, and we chatted briefly afterward. He told me a story about his son's baseball team having a handicapped person throw out the first ball. It was one of those stories that the cynics and jaded people in this culture will jump on you for and say, "Oh, what hokum bullshit." But this guy almost cried relating this story about how proud he was of his son and the team and the handicapped person.

I view the government the way I view New York City. It's a great town. I don't know if they can fix it, though. It just moves of its own accord. We kind of go along for the ride. Now the pipes are all starting to break. You fix the pipes and do the best you can. But we're never going to make it Oz again. That's the way I view the government: You hang on. It's going where it wants.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Who's most intriguing of the current politicians?

[A] Miller: I'm fascinated by Dan Quayle. I find it interesting that there's a backlash against humorists who poke fun at Quayle. He's probably a great father. He probably hasn't cheated on his wife. Maybe he flirts a little--he is a good-looking man. And he's probably a nice guy. I'm just shocked that he's second in command of our country. He shouldn't have been second in command of the Hekawi tribe on F Troop, much less the most powerful nation on earth. Quayle kinda got lucky. He's like Dan Tanna's assistant, Binzer, on the old Vegas TV show: You let him answer the phone, but he shouldn't drive the T-bird. The thought that he might have the keys scares the shit out of everyone.

5.

[Q] Playboy: The fate of many journalism majors is public relations. Why did you decide to give up the newsroom for the footlights?

[A] Miller: I majored in journalism because I had seen All the President's Men and liked the way they dressed. I got into it for the wrong reasons: I loved the plaid shirt with the crinkled tie and the Harris tweed jacket. I thought, That's the look for me, and jumped in. But I wanted out after the first day. I went in for a stringer job at a small weekly in Pittsburgh, and the editor told me that I would be paid by the line. The payment scale was in angstroms.

6.

[Q] Playboy: A lot of comedians have alter egos. Is there a Wayne or a Garth or a Church Lady rattling around in you somewhere?

[A] Miller: I lack the chromosome to do impressions. I've never been attracted to theme characters. At SNL, when they used to put me in sketches once every two years, I'd be standing there in a medieval sketch with Jon Lovitz and Phil Hartman and everybody would be thinking, Oh, look. Jon does a very good King Arthur and Phil is an excellent Gawain. But what the fuck's the news guy doing there?

One time I actually contrived a character for SNL and answered all the people who wanted me to do a skit. It was a little French clown named Coco. Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon were my partners. We had divining rods and we searched for water in the French countryside. We had beautiful pastel outfits, and all we did was prance. We each had our own walk. It was ethereal, completely counter to what I was known for. I used to do it as a cathartic thing. People, to this day, actually come up to me and say, "Well, how's Coco?" What sticks in people's minds is so weird.

7.

[Q] Playboy: Could there be a movie in your future?

[A] Miller: I did a small part in a John Larroquette--Kirstie Alley film called Madhouse. I played the wacky office crony. I trailed Larroquette around saying, "If you don't get your ass into the office, they're going to can it." Acting isn't my cup of tea. I don't even think of myself as a talk-show host. I'm a stand-up comedian. This late-night stuff is a stretch for me.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Sartorially speaking, what is the essential Dennis Miller?

[A] Miller: I'm getting Richard Lewis--like in my later life. I find myself wearing a lot of black. Richard got it passed on to him from June Carter Cash, and he's passed it on to me. We're the men in black. TV is predicated on your clothes. At SNL, you could write what you thought was the best joke in the world and you'd never hear from anybody about it. But if you picked a weird tie, Christ, you'd get a deluge of mail.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Have you worked on your smirk in the mirror?

[A] Miller: My smirk has carried me through my career. People either like it or hate it. But they notice it. I don't read an article about me that doesn't describe me as smug. I actually looked up the definition of smug. I didn't even know what it meant. The job at SNL required me to be a pisser. I've seen guys sit in that chair and try to be meek and apologetic, and they got carried out in a body bag. I made a conscious decision when I sat there to have a discernible point of view. At least I looked like I deserved to be there. You owe that to the people. When an entertainer in a club asks me to sing along, or asks me where I'm from, or what I do for a living, I always think he doesn't have his shit together. It's like in The Dating Game, when a guy would give a bad answer. I had to leave the room. Hey, I have a penis, too. I feel connected to him in some way. I'm cringing for him.

10.

[Q] Playboy: You don't do many marriage jokes. Is marriage funny?

[A] Miller: I don't do any jokes about my life. I don't want to sound too artsy-fartsy here, but you have to serve your talent master. I'm not an expansive talent who can write jokes about anything. I've never written jokes about changing my kid's diapers. George Carlin is brilliant at that. That's how he thinks. My sense of humor doesn't lead me to that. It's not like I have a shitload of those jokes I'm sitting on. I can't write that. I like to read the paper. I like to write about what's happening in the world--the inequities of this life, stuff that gets me angry. You're lucky you can write a joke about anything.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Can you give us five synonyms for cynical?

[A] Miller: I bristle at the cynicism thing because I'm a positivist about my life. It's just my act. I know there's probably a hard-core group of Weather Underground fans out there who want you to be Rasputin in your day-to-day life. But I'm not. One word for cynicism would be unhappy. I'm not that unhappy. I might have been earlier in my life. When you're finding your way, everybody's a little confused and pissed off, but I'm thirty-eight and I have a kid and a wife I love, and I don't feel that cynical any longer.

12.

[Q] Playboy: What is the surefire antidote to cynicism?

[A] Miller: A kid. A child is an answer to everything. My kid, Holden, has taught me why we're here.

13.

[Q] Playboy: People trashed you when you first filled the SNL anchor chair. Now Kevin Nealon has run into some heavy flack. Give us a review of Nealon.

[A] Miller: I've seen Kevin only three times this year. Two of them were good and one wasn't, which is about the batting average for Weekend Update.

Lorne Michaels had a theory about Weekend Update: It's a fight and if you're still standing after taking a vicious body barrage in the first eight rounds, the audience looks up and says, "Maybe we should give him a chance." By round twelve you're their hero. By round fifteen you leave, and the whole process begins again.

14.

[Q] Playboy: As you survey your compatriots on SNL, and some of the actors' careers that were snuffed out after they left the show, have you ever said, "There but for the grace of God go I"?

[A] Miller: I never view show biz like that. Anybody who enters through these gates, be forewarned: It is brutal. It is also fun and exhilarating--in some ways more noble than other jobs I've had in my life. But the Peter Principle does apply: If you choose to venture past the place that you are capable of handling adroitly, I don't feel much compassion. I know my place. I'm not a huge star. I'm a pretty good comedian. I'm pretty good with words--and I don't flinch. I try to play to those strengths. Then there are the talents who want to be the Renaissance men of show biz. Good, fine. Let's figure out ten more ways to get your ass kicked by this business.

15.

[Q] Playboy: What was the booking agent thinking when he scheduled Sinéad O'Connor and Andrew Dice Clay on the same show? Were you tempted to join Nora Dunn and say I'm outta here?

[A] Miller: Not at all. I'm a worker in the hive. I never thought for a second about walking out on the show--and nobody else did, either. Nobody begrudges Nora for what she did. She didn't want to work with the Diceman, and she didn't.

I know some people are deeply offended by his work. If you don't like him, you don't go to see him. It seems simple to me. It seems mad to try to stop him from performing. I remember when I first moved to L.A., I used to hang out at the Comedy Store. It's a very competitive place. It's like gladiators' school. When I would sit out on the front porch, Clay always, always, without fail, would come up to me and say, "How are you? I saw you a couple of nights ago. You're fine." So what do I judge a man on: How he is or what his act is? Whenever I hear an act, I never assume it's a person's deepest beliefs.

Who knows where Sinéad's head is? Does she not go from defending Public Enemy's right to say anything it wants to not appearing with this man because of what he says from day to day? She's a nice-hearted kid, a woman with real sensitivity. But she gets confused.

16.

[Q] Playboy: You were a nerd as a teenager. What do you understand about hipness now that might have changed everything if you knew it back then?

[A] Miller: I learned that it's so unhip to think you're hip. It's about having a perspective and adhering to it. And adhering to it in an unflappable way. Don't you love people who have formed personal codes and adhere to them? It's the most intoxicating thing in life. We then consider that person to be figured out. Is there anything hipper than a figured-out person? I don't think so. So I would say to all those kids who are strange: The exit polls don't tell the whole tale; wait till the vote's in.

17.

[Q] Playboy: During the early part of your career, who did you see when you looked into the mirror?

[A] Miller: Three people influenced me at the beginning of my career. I saw Robin Williams' first HBO special, which I found incredible. He was so unbridled on stage; he was speaking in tongues. Although I never took the path Robin did, I have a chance to think on my feet more on the show and have him in mind when I cut up.

Jay Leno taught me that you don't have to be an asshole to be in show biz. I met him in Pittsburgh, and his work ethic impressed me immensely, his normal approach to it. He is the nicest, straightest guy in the world. So that freed me up in a way.

The third person was Richard Belzer. He was performing at Caroline's oldest club, on Eighth Avenue in New York in the early Eighties. He was brutal with audiences. It was a tour de force. One woman said, "Do a Jagger imitation!" And Belzer said, "What am I, your fuckin' comedy pet? Why don't I go down there and fuck you in front of your husband?" I had been a comic who sucked up to the crowds. Belzer taught me one thing that night: The audience doesn't necessarily want to like you. They want you to make them laugh. It was like, bam, the sword from the stone.

18.

[Q] Playboy: According to you, America is a cultural wasteland. What part of the wasteland do you embrace?

[A] Miller: I embrace all of it. I'm just a regular guy, living in the Valley. I have a wife, a kid and a car. I get paid to be a smart shit. It amazes me that that has happened in my life.

19.

[Q] Playboy: Now that you've done several months of the dreaded monolog, what have you learned?

[A] Miller: That Johnny Carson's a genius. That ability to extricate himself, to slip the bonds when a joke goes south. I got a real jolt out of watching that. There usually was a joke that I liked in every monolog, but I knew it could be trouble. If it is trouble, you cannot stop and look clumsy. If the audience senses fear from you, or sees blood in the water, it's curtains. They want you to get to the worst moment of it and look almost unscathed. People like their matadors the same way.

20.

[Q] Playboy: The talk-show business is fickle. What will you do if the Grim Reaper makes a guest appearance on your show?

[A] Miller: That's the beautiful thing about show business: It's a chemical reaction with the people. I might make it for a while and, at some point, the American people will dictate whether or not they want to see me. And if it's not, I go and the next guy comes in. I'm OK with that. I still like them. I like show business for that reason. I'm not going to be crushed. I'll be hurt like anybody else. You lick your wounds a little and you get on with it. You realize what a lucky bastard you are. That's it. Case dosed.