Say what you will about Bill Maher — dude ain’t shy. He came to Bibleburg and did a show tonight, and if he was wearing a bulletproof vest, I couldn’t make it out from the cheap seats.

He got a late start but went long, so it evened out. Call it two hours of material, which is impressive. I couldn’t keep my little act running for two minutes even if I doubled up on the fucks.

Now, I won’t pretend that Bill Maher is my favorite standup. Most of my top-10 list is at Open Mic Night in the Great Beyond. And left to my own devices, I would have spent tonight lounging around the estate, irrigating my tonsils with Colorado ale and wondering idly why lawns rarely if ever mow themselves.

But Herself and a couple of pals dragged me away out of my comfort zone, made me eat ribs, potato salad, chips and salsa, and sorbet, and then sat me down in the balcony at the Pikes Peak Center to listen to someone else talking shit for a change.

And finely honed shit it was for the most part. I particularly appreciated Maher’s perplexity at the average American’s eagerness to support plutocrats who would, in a hot New York minute, grind him or her into Soylent Green to be fed to their guard dogs.

The line that stuck with me involved health care. More than a few of our dimwitted countrypersons think theirs is the best in the world (until they actually need some) and bristle at the notion of the feddle gummint getting its boogery comm’nist fingers all up in their doctorin’.

Quoth Maher: “That’s not blood you’re coughing up, Billy. That’s freedom.”