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March 4, 2000
Green, Miller work great as team
By DENIS ARMSTRONG
In what has to be one of the more combustible pairings of intellectual matter and anti-matter, there's Miller, the volatile and perhaps, smartest comic in the States today, with Green, who, I guess, would stick his fingers in an electric socket if he thought it would make for a good laugh. Miller makes sense about the world. He's smart, he's funny and kind of arrogant -- a mix between Bill Maher, David Letterman and Hannibal Lector. Green, I think, has cultivated a profoundly dim view of the world. He's the genius playing the idiot to show how stupid the world is. He's like a safety device on death row or a really dumb computer. He's human nitroglycerine, ready to explode. Green's dangerous. He's the reason we have laws. Miller's son Holden (named after Salinger's famous anti-hero from The Catcher In The Rye, perhaps?) calls Green a "way cool guy." Dad calls him a "post-modern hero." Green refers to his MTV show as a road show like "Charles Karalt on crack." Tonight's appearance at 10 on the Comedy Network is classic Green. The Ottawa comic hyperventilates, eye's bulging out of their sockets as he recalls the first time he met Miller. Apparently he mistook Miller's luggage for his at LAX. Miller then called Green after finding a number in his suitcase. Even if it absolutely sounds improbable, it is Green, who's quickly establishing a reputation for being as bizarre and mysterious as the late Andy Kaufman. People watch him more because they don't know what he's going to do next. Ask Mike Bullard. For his appearance on Open Mike, Green brought a dead raccoon. Bullard lost his cookies after one whiff of the deceased rodent. It was, as they say, a moment. On the show, Green also discusses his recent four-day foray up this way with Monica Lewinsky. The bit is light on content and heavy on schtick, but the pairing of Miller and Green brings out the best in each comedian. Miller calls Green "spooky" after aborting all attempts at an interview. Green, lost in an impenetrable joke, doesn't even notice him. Finally, Miller confesses: "I can usually look into someone's eyes and tell if it's contrived or the real thing. I've seen people over the years doing the 'I'm so wild' thing to establish their career. But I look in your eyes and all I'm seeing are two Ban Roll-on applicators." Adding to the insanity, Green plays with props, including a cell phone that doesn't stop ringing, a sleeping bag with an unknown purpose, and a photo of some guy named Chris Brown in Wisconsin, who Green urges viewers to beat up on sight. It is, after all, Revenge Week on Dennis Miller Live. |
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