Brain Droppings (16 page)

b T a i n droppings
A meltdown sounds like fun. like some kind of cheese sandwich.
ex always has consequences. When Hitler’s mother spread her legs that night, she effectively canceled out the spreading of fifteen to twenty million other pairs of legs.
A parawhore is a woman who keeps you aroused until they can get you to a
real whore.
Ho one can ever know for sure what a deserted area looks like.
Why don’t they put child molesters in a fondling home?
The difference between show business and a gang bang is that in show business everybody wants to go on last.
Don Ho can sign autographs 3.4 times faster than Efrem Zimbolist Jr.
Ihe truth is, Pavlov’s dog trained Pavlov to ring his bell just before the dog salivated.
A scary dream makes your heart beat faster. Why doesn’t the part of your brain that controls your heartbeat realize that another part of your brain is making the whole thing up? Don’t these people communicate?
I neuer watch “Sesame Street”; I know most of that stuff.
‘ read that somewhere out west recently a National Wilderness Area was closed for two days because it was too windy.

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GEORGE

C A R L I N

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e are conditioned to notice and emphasize the differences among ourselves, instead of the similarities. The corporate-style partitioning begins early in life: fetus, newborn infant, toddler, preschool, lower school, middle school junior high, senior high, pre-teen, teen. Get in your box and stay there!
THE STATUS a ALWAYS SUCKS
Is the kidney a bean-shaped organ, or is the bean a kidney-shaped legume?
I like Florida; everything is in the eighties. The temperatures, the ages, and the IQs.
When you cut the legs off jeans to make cutoffs, don’t you feel foolish for just a moment as you stand there holding two useless denim legs?
Why does filipinostart with on /and fliilippiiiu start with F/il
I think in retaliation the Jews should be allowed to kill six million Germans. It’s only fair. With fifty years of compound interest. That would come to about no million Germans. That oughta put a nice dent in bratwurst consumption.
m^m
heard about some guy called the Marrying Rapist. He operates with a minister-partner who performs a wedding ceremony just before the rape. Police are looking for two men in tuxedos and sneakers. Possibly carrying rice.
r
?88

think tobacco and alcohol warnings are too general. They should be more to the point: “People who smoke will eventually cough up small brown pieces of lung.” And “Warning! Alcohol will turn you into the same asshole your father was.”
A fast car that passes you at night is going somewhere.
I recently had a ringing in my ear. The doctors looked inside and found a small bell.
IF IT AIH’T BROKE. BREAK IT
If Frank Sinatra owed you a favor, it would be fun to ask him to have one of his buddies kill Andy Williams.
I get a nice safe feeling when I see a police car, and I realize I’m not driving around with a trunkful of cocaine.
I’m offering a special prize for first Buick on the moon. ‘
Why do shoelaces only come in certain sizes?
|^H| he public will never become concerned about global warming or the I greenhouse effect. These words just aren’t scary enough. Global I means all-encompassing, warming connotes comfort, green equals I growth, and house equals shelter. Growth, shelter, and all-encom-
^Bi passing comfort. Doesn’t sound like much of a threat. Relax.
u
flow can a color be artificial? I look at red Jell-O, and it’s just as red as it can be.
Why is it the other side of the street always crosses the street when I do?

GEORGE C A R L I N
In Rome, the emperor sat in a special part of the Coliseum known as th Caesarian section.
S
ometimes, when I’m told to use my own discretion, if no one is lookino I’ll use someone else’s. But I always put it back.
BOTHER THE WEAK
I don’t SEE the problem with deuil worship.
Tou know what type of cosmetic surgery you never hear about? Nose enlargement.
Hy phone number is seventeen. We got one of the early ones.
What goes through a bird’s mind when he finds himself flying through a
fireworks display?
If you naii a tool shed closed, how do you put the hammer qway?
Why are there no recreational drugs taken in suppository form?
Ill hen I’m working, and the television is on, I always tu.ne in a program
111 I like. If I’m going to ignore something, I want it to, be something I
\U enjoy.
llo one is ever completely alone; when all is said and done, you always have
yourself.
I

admire an intelligent man with really unattractive, baldly stained and crooked teeth who makes a lot of money and still doesn’t get his teeth fixed. It’s an interesting choice.
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I
Imagine meeting your maker and finding out it’s Frito-lay.
ave you ever groped blindly through the middle of a packed suitcase trying to find something and then suddenly realized with horror that the razor blades had come unwrapped?
I was taken to the hospital for observation. I stayed several days, didn’t observe anything, and left.
A tree: first you chop it down, then you chop it up.
I’d hate to be an alcoholic with Alzheimer’s. Imagine needing a drink and forgetting where you put it.
Whenever I see a huge crowd, I always wonder how many of the people have hazelnuts in their intestines.
Sometimes I can’t recall my mental blocks, so I try not to think about it.
id you ever notice how important the last bite of a candy bar is? All the while you’re eating it, you’re aware that you have less and less remaining. Then, as you get to the end, if something happens to that last piece, you feel really cheated.
WOOD KHIS
If a cigarette smoker wakes, up from a seven-year coma, does he want a cigarette?
‘here is a small town out west where the entire population is made up of the full-grown imaginary childhood friends of present-day adults.

GEORGE CARLIN

brain d

top pi n g s

If a painting can be forged well enough to fool experts, why is the oriqin I so valuable?
Valentine’s Day is devoted to love. Why don’t we have a day devoted to hatred? The raw, visceral hatred that is felt every hour of the day by ordinary people, but is repressed for reasons of social order. I think it would be very cathartic, and it would certainly make for an exciting six o’clock news
I’m very lucky. The only time I was ever up shit creek, I just happened to have a paddle with me.
I he Japanese culture is very big on martial arts and spiritual disciplines. So when a guy tells me he is studying something that has a Japanese name, I know he has either embarked on a mystical journey or is learn-
I ing how to break someone’s neck with two fingers.
Baseball is the only major sport that appears backwards in a mirror.
WHO STOIE THE BAItAllA OUACAHOLE?
irginia has passed a law limiting people to the purchase of one gun per person per month. But if you can show the need for more than one gun a month, you can apply to the police for an exemption. “Listen, officer, we’ve got a really dysfunctional family here, and .. .”
Why does it always take longer to go somewhere than it does to come back?
People tell you to have a safe trip, as if you have some control
over it. : ?” ?? ? ???;?..

fonservatives say if you don’t give the rich more money, they will lose their entive ^0 invest. As for the poor, they tell us they’ve lost all incentive because we’ve given them too much money.
Why is the hot water on the left? I think it’s so you can use your right hand to test how hot it is.
P
eople love to admit they have bad handwriting or that they can’t do
math. And they will readily admit to being awkward: “I’m such a
klutz!” But they will never admit to having a poor sense of humor or
being a bad driver. . , -….. ..-..-… ? ;.
Have you ever noticed that the lawyer smiles more than the client? l-l-E-l-0 is actually a gross misspelling of the word farm.
i If you can’t beat them, arrange to haue them beaten.
A recent story in the media said that some firemen in Chicago had refused to enter a burning building because it was too hot.
Kill YOUR
PET
Ho one ever mentions when the swallows leave Capistrano. Do they die there?
The lazy composer still had seueral scores to settle.
*»t what point in his journey does an emigrant become an immigrant?

192

GEORGE CARLIN
In a factory that makes bathroom disinfectant, the whole factory smells like
the bathroom.
WE haue mileage, yardage, and footage, why don’t me houe inchage?
Iravel tip: Economy-section farts on an inbound flight from the Third World are the deadliest a traveler will ever encounter.
Euery time you use the phrase all my lift it has a different meaning.
ureat scientific discoveries: jiggling the toilet handle.
When mill the rhetorical questions all end?
Why do they call it a garbage disposal? The stuff isn’t garbage until after you dispose of it.
d
A cemetery is o place uihere dead people liue.
o the people who hate blacks but think they’re really good dancers ever stop to think how much better blacks would dance if fewer people hated them?
I do something about the uieather. I stay home.
let’s stop underage drinking before it starts.” Please explain this to me. It sounds tricky.
When I’m really bored, I sit home and translate the writing on foreign biscuits.
P
olitical discourse has been reduced to “Where’s the beef?” “Read my lips,” and “Make my day.” Where are the assassins when we really need them?

brain droppings
OAfiDHI ATE niLK DUDS
Hard work is for pEoplE short on talent.
Idter and change are supposed to be synonyms, but altering your trousers and changing your trousers are quite different things.
fly back hurts; I think I ouer-schlepped.
The news story said someone had overcome a fatal disease. Wow!
A Bible makes a delicious meal. Simply rub with olive oil and minced garlic, and bake one hour in a 375-degree oven. Serve with oven-roasted potatoes and a small tossed salad. Serves two. Dee-leesh!
r
ecently, in a public bathroom, I used the handicapped stall. As I emerged, a man in a wheelchair asked me indignantly, “Are you handicapped?” Gathering all my aplomb, I looked him in the eye and said, “Not now. But I was before I went in there.”
Ihreatening postcard: “Wish you were here, but if you come here I will kill you!”
I wanted to be a Boy Scout, but I had all the wrong traits. They were looking for kids who were trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Whereas I tended to be devious, fickle, obstructive, hostile, impolite, mean, defiant, glum, extravagant, cowardly, dirty, and sacrilegious.
flow is it possible to be seated on a standing committee?

194

GEORGE CARLIN

brain dropping

I have come up with a single sentence that includes all of the seven deadlv sins: greed, anger, pride, lust, gluttony, sloth, and envy. Here it is “it enrages me that I, a clearly superior person, should have less money than my neighbor, whose wife I would love to fuck if I weren’t so busy eating pork chops and sleeping all day.”
Recent polls reueal that some people haue neuer been polled. Until recently.
d
id you ever run over somebody with your car? And then you panic? So you back up and run over them again? Did you notice the second crunch was not quite as loud?
If I had just one uiish it mould be to write the letter /better in longhand.
ave you noticed, whenever there’s a problem in this country they get a bunch of celebrities or children together to sing a song about it? Drought, famine, drugs; they sing a song about it. This is an idea that grew out of the ’60s peace movement. The idea then was that if enough “good” people sang, chanted, and held hands, all the “evil” people would give up their money, weapons, and power. Worked great, didn’t it?

WE ARE AIL rRKAIKEROUS
I read about a woman who had sixty-three distinct personalities. Jesus! It would take long enough just finding out how everyone was feeling in the morning, can you imagine trying to plan a vacation?

I put 0 dollar in one of those change machines, nothing changed.

r the year 2000, I hope the crime of the century happens real soon, so I get to read about it.
They say if you outlaw guns, only outlaws and criminals will have guns. Well, shit, those are precisely the people who need them.
I once found a throiu rug in a catch basin.
One time, a few years ago, Oprah had a show about women who fake orgasms. Not to be outdone, Geraldo came right back with a show about men who fake bowel movements.
It is now possible for a child to have five parents: sperm donor, egg donor, the surrogate mother who carries the fetus, and two adoptive parents. It renders the statement “He has his mother’s eyes” rather meaningless.
I he new, modern Swiss Army knife has an ear-piercing tool and a roach clip.
O
ne of the best expressions in the English language is, “Who says so?” I guarantee, if you keep saying, “Who says so?” long enough, sooner or later someone will take you into custody.
It’s hard for me to believe that the small amount of water I take from the water cooler can produce such a large bubble.
Infant crib death is caused by grandparents’ breath.

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CEO RCE CARLIN
?
‘ve always wanted to place a personal ad no one would answer- “FIH depressed, accident-prone junkie, likes Canadian food and Welsh m ‘ seeking rich, well-built, oversexed, female deaf mute in her late t Must be nonsmoker.”
I went to the Missing Persons’ Bureau, fio one LUGS there.
Ueethoven was so hard of hearing he thought he was a painter.
I choose toilet paper through a process of elimination.
Ueow means “woof” in cat.
Un Thanksgiving, you realize you’re living in a modern world. Millions of turkeys baste themselves in millions of ovens that clean themselves.
A day off is always more uielcome uihen it is unexpected.
Uome people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that shit.
RIDE THf WHO PARAnEClUn
H
(low can everyone’s money be “hard-earned,” and everyone’s vacation be
“well-deserved”? Sounds like bullshit to me.
What exactly is “diddley squat”?

brain droppings
u/ buy watches primarily for their looks, price, or additional functions, he fact that they tell time seems lost.
I think you ought to be able to lease a dog.
I don’t understand the particular importance of remembering where you ere when JFK was assassinated. I remember where I was a lot of times.
What year did Jesus think it uias?
There’s a new lottery game called Blotto. You get drunk and pick the numbers.
Ill ith all this natural selection going on, why doesn’t the human race 111 get any smarter? Is this it? Why are there still so many stupid peo-\U pie? Apparently, being a real dumb jackoff has some survival value.
Why is there aliuays a small hole near the tip of a pen?
I enjoy going to a party at one of the Kennedys’ homes, dropping to the floor, and yelling, “Hit the deck, he’s got a gun!”
You know what disease you ncuer hear about? [oncer of the heart.
LIFE IS A HEAR-DEATH EXrEHEHCE
Amy Vanderbilt, the foremost authority on etiquette, commited suicide and apparently didn’t have the courtesy to leave a note.
If the bouncer gets drunk, mho throuis him out?
I he world began going downhill when ticket-takers in movie theaters stopped wearing uniforms.

GEORGE CARL

brain droppings

III t
hen primitive people practice the rain dance, does it rain at the end of practice? And if it doesn’t, how do they know they did the dance correctly?
he original Shick Smoking Centers were very primitive. They gave you one lecture and then you came back a week later. If they smelled tobacco on your breath, they beat the shit out of you.
If you HUE to be o hundred, your lucky number goes up by one.
rDCK THE
HIDDIE CLASS
m
edical Progress: The medical profession is only now beginning to concede that maybe, just maybe, nutrition has something to do with good health. And that maybe, just maybe, the mind is somehow mysteriously linked to the body. Of course, there’s not much money in such thinking.
If you mail a letter to your mailman, will he get it before he’s supposed to?
I
enjoy watching a woman with really bad teeth and a good sense of humor struggling to use her lips and tongue to hide her teeth when she’s laughing. I just stand there and tell her joke after joke after joke.
neuer tell a Spanish maid you want euerything to be spic-and-span.
[resident Bush declared a National Day of Prayer for Peace. This was some time after he had carefully arranged and started the war.

Jhey keep saying you can’t compare apples and oranges. I can. An apple is red and distinctly non-spherical; an orange is orange and nearly spherical. So, what’s the big problem?
After 0 big flood, where do oil those rouiboots go?
Ihe Chinese have a saying: On a journey of a thousand miles, 512 is a little more than half.
licDonald’s “breakfast for under a dollar” actually costs much more than that. You have to factor in the cost of coronary bypass surgery.
I don’t like to lose my bearings, so I keep them in the cabinet near my bed.
When Popeye blows through his pipe, why doesn’t he get sprayed with burning ash?
George Washington’s brother was the Uncle of Our Country.
If you fall asleep on the couch in a house where a woman is present, there will be a blanket or a coat covering you when you awaken.
Politics is so corrupt euen the dishonest people get fucked.
When blowing out your birthday candles, suppose you wish for one candle to stay lit? Is it possible for your wish to come true?
nr FIRST nifiE DOGS
ARE DEAD
got a chest X-ray last month, and they found a spot on my lung.
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Fortunately it was barbecue sauce.

; E 0 R C E

CARL1N

brain droppings

IU
hen a masochist brings someone home from the bar, does he say “Excuse me a moment, I’m going to slip into something uncomfortable?”
This year is the two-millionth anniuersary of sperm.
? ? ? hen you pick something up with your toes and transfer it to your
III hand, don’t you feel, just briefly, like a superior creature? Like
III you could probably survive alone in a forest for a long time? Just
%?? briefly.
If all our national holidays were observed on Wednesdays, we might conceivably wind up with nine-day weekends.
The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.
Why must hailstones always be the size of something else? And if it must be that way, why don’t they have hailstones the size of testicles?
lloud nine gets all the publicity, but cloud eight actually is cheaper, less crowded, and has a better view.
d
lt is bad luck to kill a dog with a cooking spoon. on’t you love these people who end their sentences with a rising inflection? And they do it all the time? As though it were an intelligent way to talk? And everything they say sounds like a question? Even the answers? “How are you today?” “I’m fine?” I he swallows know that on the nineteenth of March the tourists come back to Capistrano.

hat’s all this stuff about retirement I keep hearing on TV commercials? People planning, saving; they can’t wait to retire. One woman on TV says to her husband, “At this rate, Jeff, we’ll never be able to retire!” What is this all about? Why would someone spend his whole life doing something he can’t wait to get away from?
One of my f ouorite things in the mouies is seeing a person hanged.
DOH’T GET YOUR CORTEX CAUGHT in A VORTEX
I often think how different the world would be if Hitler had not been turned down when he applied to art school.
Uon’t you get tired of these cereal commercials where they show the milk being poured in slow motion, and it splashes off a raspberry?
enjoy watching people in rush-hour traffic. Thousands of them, stressed, frustrated, hurrying to and from their chosen places of enslavement. It’s especially enjoyable from an airplane, because you can see their houses as well. The houses, like the people, all the same. Towns and subdivisions all the same. Cul de sacs. Like their lives, going nowhere. “Not a through street.”
I think they should lower the drinking age. I just want to see a sign in a bar
that says, You Must Be n and Prove It.
p
I ositive thinking doesn’t sound like a very good idea to me. I’m sure it
doesn’t work. And if it does, it’s probably real hard to do. !

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1
Jometimes when I watch a parade, I wonder how many of the marchers are n desperate need of a good long piss.
So for, the Ku Klux Klon has not produced ony really great composers
TmnK ciown voniT
Tomorrow is uerg much like today, except It’s not here yet.
I

admire a man who drives clear across town to a distant shopping center where no one knows him, and rides all afternoon on the children’s coin-operated “horsie.”
[Dy fondest wish is that I learn to write a capital “X” in longhand without lifting the pen from the paper.
Always be careful what you say. Nathan Hale said,”I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” They killed him.
[he difference between the blues and the blahs is that you can’t sing the blahs.
?
find the high five repulsive. It’s typical lame, suburban white-boy bullshit. Any “five” that takes place above the waist is lame white-boy bullshit. I sincerely hope these high fives are causing long-term arm and shoulder injuries.
DOES ODD REALLY HAVE TO WATCH ALL THIS SHIT?
Bus lag: a low-level disorientation caused by riding on a bus. Almost
impossible to detect. ? ?;*. ; ‘