Brain Droppings (19 page)

I used to play Cop. And instead of Hide and Seek, I would play a pathetic little game called Hide. One time I remained hidden for over a month before I realized that no one was looking for me. It was sad, really. But there are compensations. To this day, I remain unchallenged at Musical Chair.
” My mother would say, “Why are you always playing
alone?” And I would say, “I’m not playin’, Ma. I’m fuckin’ serious!” They first noticed I was strange when I insisted on listening to the circus on the radio. I guess I was a bad boy. Besides
\ shitting in my pants, I would also shit in other people’s pants. Eventually, she sent me to a child psychologist. It was all the vogue at the time. So I went, and I honestly believe he was crazier than I was. I should’ve stabbed him many times in the eyes with a railroad spike when I still had the chance. I consider it a lost opportunity.

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One problem was that my mother was very strict, and on 5 top of that she was a physically imposing woman. Thinking back, the person she most reminds me of is Charles Kurault I didn’t really like her. I can remember staring at the orphanage and feeling envy.
, fo Of course, it wasn’t all bad; there are pleasant memories,
?-?-,.;; too. Every Sunday after church, my mother and I would buy
fc
the Sunday papers and walk home together. Then she’d get
drunk and try to make pancakes.
In a way, I take all the blame. I was hard to handle, and
it wasn’t easy on her. As I said, I’m sixty now, and she still
isn’t over her postpartum depression. And yet, she’s a typical
mom; she still tells me I’m going to be tall. And, you know
it something? Her wish is coming true. She’s getting smaller.
, Soon I will be, too.

I guess the thing I miss most about childhood is riding piggyback, and here’s something I don’t tell too many people: I still like to ride piggyback occasionally. I really do. And I don’t mean across the room. I’m talking about long if trips. I went to Florida last winter. Piggyback. Fortunately, I have very indulgent friends. And I pay top dollar.

As far as school was concerned, I did pretty well, if you don’t count learning. My problem was, during the summer I would forget everything they had taught the year before. So, basically, when September rolled around, I was back to square one. The teachers told me, “You have an excellent mind. It just isn’t readily apparent to an outside observer.”

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One of my problems was lying. I always got caught, because I told big lies. One morning, late for school, I told the teacher I’d had to iron my own shirt, because my parents had been strangled by a telephone lineman.

Actually, I was much too logical for school. For instance, after about a month in first grade, the teacher asked me something, and I said, “Why are you asking me these questions? I came here to learn from you.”

They would try to keep me after school, but I knew my rights. Once again, logic: I told them, “When school is out, and the students have all gone home, this building is technically no longer a school. It becomes just another building, and you have no right to keep me in it.” Staying after school wasn’t actually all that bad. At least there wasn’t any learning going on.

But it wasn’t easy to learn in my school even during normal hours. Because we were a poor area, the school had a small budget and was unable to teach the second half of the alphabet. And so, to me, anything past the letter m is still pretty much a mystery. The Renaissance, the Reformation, Reconstruction. When these topics come up, I have no idea what people are talking about.

And so, I volunteered for being silly. I did so as soon as I discovered it was an option. One day, the teacher interrupted something I was doing and said, “Mister Carlin, you can either take responsibility and learn this material, or you can continue to act silly.” Well, that was all I needed to hear.

It turned out I was pretty good in science. But again, because of
the small budget, in science class we couldn’t afford to do experi
ments in order to prove theories. We just believed everything.
Actually, I think that class was called Religion. Religion was always
an easy class. All you had to do was suspend the logic and reasoning
you were being taught in all the other classes. >

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GEORGE CARLIN
l

I did better in sports, and was successful even before I entered school: As an infant, a particularly brutal uncle taught me full-contact pat-a-cake. I found it painful, but quite exhilarating. Later, in grammar school, I played intramural Simon Says and took several bronze medals in high-speed competition skipping.

I played basketball for three years, and when I left school, they retired my jersey. Primarily for reasons of hygiene. I wasn’t a real standout at basketball, but I’m convinced that if I had been a lot taller, a lot faster, and had really good aim, I would have been a better player.

I wasn’t much of a fighter, either. If a tough kid challenged me to a fight, I would make an excuse: “I’m not allowed to fight in this suit.” Most of the time they would simply steal the suit. Which was fine with me, as I found I could run much faster in my underwear. I didn’t have much of a “rep.” They would say of me, “He can’t dish it out, and he can’t take it either.”

The one time I did box, at camp, I fought as a walterweight: It turned out I was the exact same weight as my friend Walter. I lost my only bout. But I realize now it’s probably just as well God didn’t make me a good fighter, or else there’d have been a long trail of dead men across America.

Don’t forget, I came from a pretty tough neighborhood. Not the toughest, maybe, but still fairly tough. You’ve heard of Hell’s Kitchen? This was Hell’s Dining Room. And we didn’t live far from something really unusual, a tough rich neighborhood: Hell’s Servants’ Quarters.

We had some pretty tough characters. In fact, if Charles Bronson had lived in my neighborhood, he would’ve been a Playboy bunny. On Halloween, we would dress up funny and kill a person. And we always did things differently: Once a week, a bunch of us liked to get drunk

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and beat up heterosexuals. And although I broke a lot of laws as a teenager, I straightened out immediately upon turning eighteen, when I realized the state had a legal right to execute me.

It may surprise you that I wasn’t very good with girls. Too smart. When I would play doctor, and “examine” a girl, I would often find an aneurysm. One time, in the midst of a particularly erotic physical exam, I discovered advanced hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I continued to feel the girl up, of course, and only later, after reaching a private climax in my pants, did I inform her of my diagnosis. First things first. I can’t tell you how many women over the years have written to thank me for finding a lump in their breasts.

My first girlfriend, however, was afraid of sex. Apparently, one night before falling asleep, she had been fondled by the sandman. As a result, she suffered recurring wet nightmares. I could sympathize with her, of course, as for years I had been the victim of wet daydreams. I realize now it was probably just as well God didn’t make me a great lover, or else there’d have been a long trail of pregnant women all across America.

It was my uncle who taught me about the birds and the bees. He sat me down one day and said, “Remember this, George, the birds fuck the bees.” Then he told me he once banged a girl so hard her freckles came off.
DR. BEII DOVER

Sooner or later, the young medical student has to tell his blue-collar father that he wants to be a proctologist:

“Wait a minute, Vinny, lemme get this straight. I busted my nuts for twenty years tryin’ to save enough money to put you through college and now you tell me you want to stick your finger up a guy’s ass?”
“Not finger, Dad. Hand!”
“Jesus!”

GEORGE CARLIN

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run BUSTER

Microwave radiation leaking from radar guns has caused at least eighty cases of testicular cancer in policemen. I’m glad. That’s what they get for being sneaky. Cancer and radar both victimize silently] they sneak up on you. You think everything’s OK, but unknown tc you, something bad is happening. Then suddenly you’re a victimj Also, it’s quite appropriate that it’s testicular cancer. These cops al| think they have big balls. Now they do. Good.

LIOHTEH UP A1ITTLE

Riot police sometimes use rubber bullets. Imagine! Someone, somewhere, had a lucid thought. And I think they might have provided a small opening here. This idea could be extended to larger weapons. Rubber bullets, naugahyde hand grenades, crushed velvet land mines, silk torpedoes, Nerf tanks, whiffle missiles. How about a neutron bomb made of fake fur?

They also have water cannons. Why not go further? How about cannons that shoot ginger ale? Skim milk? Orange juice from concentrate? And what unruly mob could possibly defy a police force armed with a vegetable soup cannon? Chunky style, of course.

And it’s always struck me that our two most-used gasses produce only tears and laughter. How about a gas that creates crippling self-doubt? Or a gas that conjures up terrifying childhood memories? Okay, last one: How about a gas that fills you with an unquenchable desire for vanilla pudding?

BAO A BOOHER

I only hope that when the Generation Xers are finally running things, they’ll have the courage to kill all these baby boomers, one by one, in their hospital beds and their nursing homes. Kill them and loot their pensions and estates, and throw them out into the streets with nothing. If they don’t, the boomers will take everything they can and keep it for themselves. They’re trying now to arrange for the next two generations to pay their debts, having already put young people deeply in hock. Boomers are living off their grandchildren’s money and will try to steal everything else before they’re gone.

If you young people want to know who to kill, I’ll tell you. There are two schools of thought on this: Some say the baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. Others will tell you 1942 through 1960. Just to be on the safe side, I’d say kill everyone between the ages of thirty and fifty-five. The boomers used to say, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” Well, the stakes are a little higher now. So ask to see a driver’s license and then strangle a boomer. That’s my advice. I always like to have something uplifting to offer along with all the gloomy shit.
YOU GET no CREDIT HERE

People should not get credit for having qualities they’re supposed to have. Like honesty. What’s the big deal anyway? You’re supposed to be honest. It’s not a skill.

Besides, people shouldn’t get credit for skills in the first place. Do you think you should be praised for something you had no control

GEORGE CARLIN
over? I mean, if you were born with certain abilities and characteris tics—things that are an essential part of your makeup—I don’t see that you should be taking bows, do you? You couldn’t help it; it was genetically encoded. No one deserves credit for being tall.

People say, “Well, talent can only get you so far. It still takes a lot of hard work.” Yeah? Well, hard work is genetically encoded, too Some people can’t help working hard; it’s enjoyable to them. They can no more remain idle than change the color of their eyes. People who work hard and display great talent do not deserve special praise. Quite often the credit should go to their grandparents. Or perhaps their grandparents’ milkman.

Also, I don’t understand why people who recover from illness or injury are considered courageous. Getting well should not be cause for praise. Just because someone is no longer sick doesn’t mean they did something special. Getting well is a combination of seeking help, following advice, having a good attitude, and being the possessor of an effective immune system. All of these qualities stem from inborn genetic traits and characteristics. No one makes a conscious choice to be courageous. It’s genetically encoded.

Believe me, when the only alternative is lying in a puddle of your own shit, it doesn’t take much courage to get up and go to physical therapy. Courage comes into play when people have options, not when they’re backed against a wall. It didn’t take courage for Magic Johnson to announce he was HIV positive. He had no choice. Sooner or later people were going to find out. It was a matter of public relations, not courage.

And another type of courage, “bravery in battle,” is to me even more suspect. Not only are there inherited genetic traits at work, there are also heavy doses of adrenaline and testosterone contributing to the

b r a
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situation, and those two hormones are affected and controlled by genes too. There are not really any heroes—there are only genetic freaks.

So relax, folks. The pressure’s off. Everything’s encoded. You
heard it here. ……..

Remember the guy who paid one hundred dollars at a Michigan fair to try the bungee jump? And the cord broke, and he fell? The guy wanted his hundred dollars back. Is he kidding? I’d say, “Fuck you! You owe an extra hundred!” A hundred for goin’ down, and a hundred for goin’ down the rest of the way. Shit, he got twice the excitement, he oughta pay twice the price.

And they said he glanced off the side of the “air mattress.” Air mattress? What kinda fuckin’ bungee jump is that? Jagged rocks! That’s what they oughta have at the bottom. If there’s no risk, why bother? Fuckin’ air mattress. My pulse wouldn’t even change. If these guys are thrill seekers, let ‘em seek a real thrill: I think every third bungee cord should be defective.
enow TinE on DEATH ROW

Suppose you’re on death row, and they tell you you can have one last meal. And it’s an honorable thing, they take pride in it and they really try to live up to it. But you can’t make up your mind. You have most of the meal figured out except you can’t decide between steak

GEORGE

C A R L I N

b r a

d 1 o p p ings

and lobster. You honestly can’t decide. Can they kill you? If you real ly can’t decide? Truth serum, lie detector, psychologists; it becomes a big media thing: “MAN TELLING THE TRUTH, CAN’T REALLY DECIDE.” Can thev kill you? Can they honestly drag you down the last mile screaming “Turf, surf, who knows?” But then, finally. Finally, after eighteen months of indecision, you say, “OK! I got it! Gimme the steak!” And everybody goes, “Ohh, cool, wow, he wants the steak.” Then the warden says to you. “How would you like that steak done?” And you say, “Oh, Jeez … I have no idea. Can I get back to you on that?”

If a picture is worth ten thousand words,* then one twenty-five-hundredth of a picture should be worth four words.

And if Helen of Troy had the face that launced a thousand ships, I and a picture is worth ten thousand words, doesn’t that mean one pic- [ ture of Helen’s face should be worth ten million ships?

And, if the night has a thousand eyes, and getting there is half the I fun, that means to have fun getting there at night would require five j hundred eyes.

And, if getting there is half the fun, and half a loaf is better than I none, would getting halfway there with a whole loaf be more or less fun? I

And if half a loaf is better than none, the night has a thousand! eyes, a picture is worth ten thousand words, getting there is half the| fun, and Helen of Troy had the face that launched a thousand ships,
, *The actual proverb is “One picture is worth ten thousand words.” —Confucius8

then in a picture taken at night from a ship that is halfway there, how much fun would Helen be having if she were holding a full loaf? And could you see it in her eyes?
OK, now suppose Helen of Troy lived in a halfway house. . . .

Why are there no B batteries? There aren’t even any A batteries. In fact, it’s almost as if they went out of their way to avoid A. They went straight to AA and AAA. Also, I never see any grade B milk, or type III audio cassettes. And there are no vitamins F, G, H, I, and J. Why? Why are certain airline seat numbers missing, and what ever became of the Boeing 717? And Chanel #4? Also, all I ever hear about are the Sixth and Seventh Fleets. Where are the other five? And why are there hardly any brown running shoes? Or green flowers? I dare not even mention blue food.
SCIEnCE FRICTIOn

I’m gettin’ sick of “scientific progress.” Scientists are easily the least responsible class in society. If you’re one of those “green” assholes who run around worrying about the condition of the planet all the time, you might as well just go ahead and blame it all on the scientists. They’re the ones who fouled the nest. Without them, none of the bad shit gets done. Self-important, asshole scientists, most of them working for the Pentagon or big business, creating harmful products

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GEORGE
we don’t need. They don’t care what they produce as long as they get to publish their fuckin’ papers.

And the idealistic ones? The ones who won’t have anything to do with the weapons makers and greed-heads? The ones involved in “pure research”? They lay the groundwork for the truly dangerous scientists who move in later and apply the knowledge commercially. Scientists have consistently assaulted and violated your planet. That’s why you have AIDS, that’s why you have a hole in your ozone layer, that’s why your atmosphere is overheating, that’s why you have toxic and nuclear waste, and that’s why everything has a thin coating of oil on it. And next, they’re going to turn these irresponsible motherfuckers loose on human genetic engineering. That ought to be a real treat. Scientists. The only ones worth a fuck are theoretical physicists. At least they’re nuts.

At the start, let me say I am not an animal rights activist. I’m not comfortable with absolutes.

And I know that every time something eats, something else dies. I recognize the Earth is little more than a revolving buffet with weather. So, the idea of eating animals is fine with me, but is it really necessary to make things out of the parts we don’t eat? We’re the only species that does this. You never see a mongoose with snakeskin shoes. Or a lion walkin’ around in a wildebeest hat. And how often do you run into plankton that have phytoplankton luggage?

And I think people have a lot of nerve locking up a tiger and charging four dollars to let a few thousand worthless humans shuffle past him every day. What a shitty thing to

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do. Humans must easily be the meanest species on Earth. 6 Probably the only reason there are any tigers left is because they don’t taste good.
I respect animals. I have more sympathy for an injured
or dead animal than I have for an injured or dead human
^ being, because human beings participate and cooperate in
their own undoing. Animals are completely innocent. There
i are no innocent human beings.

Here is an anecdote from the writer Patricia Highsmith: “Not so long ago I said to a friend of mine: ‘If I saw a kitten and a little human baby sitting on the curb starving, I would feed the kitten first if nobody was looking.’ My friend said: ‘I would feed the kitten first if somebody was looking.’” I would

Some people seem shocked and say, “You care more about animals than you do about humans!” Fuckin’-A well told!

I do not torture animals, and I do not support the torture of animals, such as that which goes on at rodeos: cowardly ^ men in big hats abusing simple beasts in a fruitless search for manhood. In fact, I regularly pray for serious, life-threatening rodeo injuries. I wish for a cowboy to walk crooked, and with great pain, for the rest of his life.
\ I cheer when a bull at Pamplona sinks one of his horns
deep into the lower intestines of some drunken European
macho swine. And my cheers grow louder when the victim
is a young American macho-jock tourist asshole. Especially
; if the bull is able to swing that second horn around and
‘; catch the guy right in the nuts.

GEORGE CARLIN

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But although I don’t go out of my way to bother Irvine-
O
things, I am not without personal standards. A mosquito on my arm, an ant or a cockroach in my kitchen, a moth approaching my lapel; these animals will die. Other insects in my home, however, the ones who merely wish to rest awhile, will be left alone. Or, if noisy and rowdy, lifted gently and returned to the great outdoors.

I am also perfectly willing to share the room with a fly, as long as he is patrolling that portion of the room that I don’t occupy. But if he starts that smart-ass fly shit, buzzing my head and repeatedly landing on my arm, he is engaging in high-risk behavior. That’s when I roll up the sports section and become Bwana, the great white fly hunter!

Sometimes there’s an older fly in the room, one who flies slowly and can’t travel too far in one hop-or it might be a female, heavy with eggs. In this case, even if the fly is bothering me, I don’t kill it; instead, I adopt it as a short-term pet. I might even give it a name. Probably something based on mythology.

Generally, I like flies, but they’d be far more welcome if they would make a choice—and stick to it—between my bean burrito and that nice, hot, steaming dog turd out in the front yard.

Also, in keeping with my insect death policy based on the intentions of the insect, any bacterium or virus entering my body that does not wish me well will be slain. Normally, my immune system would accomplish this without notifying me, but if the old T-cells aren’t up to the task, I am prepared to ingest huge amounts of antibiotics, even if they are bad for me.
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And yet, in spite of all these examples of creature mayhem, I will not strike a dog, I will not chase and taunt a bull around a ring, and I will not squeeze an animal’s testicles just to give the yokels a better show.

I’m also uneasy about the sheer number of scientific experiments performed on animals. First of all, animals are not always good models for medical experimentation: penicillin kills guinea pigs; an owl is not bothered by cyanide; monkeys can survive strychnine, etc., etc. Couldn’t these scientific tests just as easily be performed on humans? Condemned prisoners, old people, the feeble, the terminally ill? I’m sure there are plenty of ignorant, desperate Americans who would be willing to volunteer in exchange for some small electrical appliance.