Seven Dirty Words (31 page)

NOTES

All direct quotes attributed in the present tense have been drawn from author interviews. Quotes from television appearances are identified in the text, except where noted.

Warm-up

1 “a lawless element”: Constance Rourke,
American Humor: A Study of the National Character
(Harcourt, Brace, 1931), 9.

1-2 “a scofflaw . . . who could be charged with breaking and entering”: Barry Sanders,
Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History
(Beacon Press, 1995), 252-53.

2 “If you’re clothed, you have clothes”: George Carlin,
Brain Droppings
, (Hyperion, 1997), 13.

2 “Every comedian does a little George”: Jerry Seinfeld, “Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder,”
New York Times
, June 24, 2008.

2 “kids, pets, driving, the stores”: Charles Taylor, “Dirty Old Man: George Carlin on Obscenity in the Age of Ashcroft,”
Salon
, April 3, 2004.

3 “The comic comes into being”: Quoted in Rourke,
American Humor,
22.

4 “I found out that it was an honest craft”: Appearance at the National Press Club (C-SPAN), 1999.

4 “I prefer seeing things the way they are”: National Press Club, 1999.

5 “No matter how you care to define it”: Carlin,
Brain Droppings
, xii.

5 “How he stood above and apart”: Terry Teachout,
The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken
(Perennial/HarperCollins, 2002), 35.

5 “the privilege of the dead”: Mark Twain, quoted in “The Privilege of the Grave,”
The New Yorker
, December 22, 2008.

1. Heavy Mysteries

8 He “hid behind the government”: Taylor, “Dirty Old Man: George Carlin on Obscenity in the Age of Ashcroft.”

9 “He had a real line of shit, boy”: Interview, Archive of American Television December 17, 2007.

10 “Let’s get out of here, Pat”: Interview, Archive of American Television

10 “The Irish call it the curse”: Interview, Archive of American Television

10 “We ran for four years”: Interview, Archive of American Television

11 “all these
A
s that I never got in school”:
Carlin on Comedy
(audio recording),
Laugh.com
, 2002.

11 “The thing is, I never really had issues”: T. J. English, “George Carlin Is Still Tossing Out the Good Stuff,”
Irish America
(June/July 2006).

11 “I had to fight her off ”: Interview, Archive of American Television

12 “a man’s salary”: “What I’ve Learned: George Carlin,”
Esquire
(January 2002).

12 “wonderfully alive and vibrant”: Interview, Archive of American Television

12 “Home alone after school”: “Proust Questionnaire: George Carlin,”
Vanity Fair
(May 2001).

13 “a man bored with sinning”: Evan Esar,
Esar’s Comic Dictionary
(Harvest House, 1943), 69, 100, 113.

13
Mad
“was magical, objective proof to kids”: Tony Hiss and Jeff Lewis, “The ‘Mad’ Generation,”
New York Times Magazine
, July 31, 1977.

13 “a way of thinking about a world”: Robert Boyd, “Born Under a
Mad
Sign,”
Los Angeles Times
, March 24, 2007.

14 “That was my family”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

14 “There aren’t any Huck Finns in radio”: Gerald Nachman,
Raised on Radio
(University of California Press, 2000), 212.

15 “You can count on the thumb of one hand”: Nachman,
Raised on Radio,
98.

15 “Fifty percent of what I write”: Nachman,
Raised on Radio,
105.

16 “Our original premise”: Nachman,
Raised on Radio,
125.

16 “I was a hip kid”: Carlin,
Brain Droppings
, 224.

16 “They took things that were nice and decent”: Interview by Marc Cooper,
The Progressive
(July 2001).

16-17 “that one really got my attention”: Interview, Archive of American Television

17 “like a flower [to] the sun”: Interview, Archive of American Television

17 “I was impressed, not that he was an admiral”:
A&E Biography: George Carlin: More Than 7 Words
(2000).

18 “To laugh was to mock heaven”: Barry Sanders,
Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History
, (Beacon Press, 1995), 129.

20 “That was her big thing”:
A&E Biography: George Carlin.

21 “It was called ‘How Do You Spend Your Leisure Time?’”: Sam Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview: George Carlin,”
Playboy
(January 1982).

22 “The older I got, the more apparent it became”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”

2. Class Clown

25 “I’d make fun of the authority figures”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

26 “fly over the area”: Appearance on
Dennis Miller Live
(HBO), January 13, 1997.

27 “a voluntary nigger”: Mark Goodman, “George Carlin Feels Funny,”
Esquire
(December 1974).

27 “They would plant cultures”: Tony Hendra,
Going Too Far: The Rise and Demise of Sick, Gross, Black, Sophomoric, Weirdo, Pinko, Anarchist, Underground, Anti-Establishment Humor
, (Dolphin/Doubleday, 1987), 161-62.

28 “colorful, reachable, human”: George Carlin, “An Old Underdog Finds Himself on Top,”
New York Times
, October 12, 1986.

28 “When my tech sergeant expressed his displeasure”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”

29 “I left my gun on the ground”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”

31 “I grew up with real rhythm and blues”: “George Carlin: How Radio Changed My Life,”
Harp
(September/October 2007).

31 “nothing short of a revolution”: Hendra,
Going Too Far,
169.

32 “I had to play that”: Dean Johnson, “At 55, Carlin’s Sharp Wit Keeps on Cutting,”
Boston Herald
, December 11, 1992.

33 “I was staying at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba”: Dick Lochte, “Natty and the Beanbag: Burns and Schreiber Owe a Lot to a Taxicab,”
TV Guide
, August 18-24, 1973.

35 “one last chance at me”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

36 “the most successful of the new sickniks”: “The Sickniks,”
Time
, July 13, 1959.

36 “Shelley Berman couldn’t do Mort Sahl’s act”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

37 “In my home Westbrook Pegler”: Hendra,
Going Too Far,
163.

37 “At that time George was fairly conservative”: Richard Zoglin,
Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America
, (Bloomsbury, 2008), 22.

38 “How did you two meet?”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

39 “no troublemakers, no queers”: Joe Nick Patoski, “The King of Clubs,”
Texas Monthly
(April 2000).

40 “We became very inventive and creative”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

41 “We’re not gonna park cars”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

41 “the leading Negro and foreign-language station”: John A. Jackson,
Big Beat Heat: Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock & Roll
(Schirmer Books, 1991), 296.

41 “trying anybody and everybody”: Jackson,
Big Beat Heat,
296-97.

42 “We were insane”: Goodman, “George Carlin Feels Funny.”

43 “We took positions”:
George on George
(interview program), 2003.

44 “He didn’t have a lot of connections”: Archive of American Television interview.

46 “a duo of hip wits”: Hendra,
Going Too Far,
163.

47 “We didn’t know the legendary quality”: Hendra,
Going Too Far,
163.

47 “We felt that was an omen”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

48 “Brenda and I clicked on all levels”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”

48 “a night light to the bathroom”: Jack Paar,
P.S. Jack Paar: An Entertainment
(Doubleday, 1983), 100.

3. Attracting Attention

52 “My mother would say”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

52 “Some really great toilets”: Phil Berger,
The Last Laugh: The World of the Stand-Up Comics
(Morrow, 1975; Limelight Editions, 1985), 138.

54 “We didn’t work very hard”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”

56 “I can remember doing the supper show”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

56 “Since I have always been able to detect”: Steve Allen,
More Funny People
(Stein and Day, 1982), 104.

57 “I was good and juiced”: Sound recording included in Ronald K. L. Collins and David M. Skover,
The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon
(Sourcebooks, Inc., 2002).

57 “sorta grabbed me by the collar”: Collins and Skover,
Trials of Lenny Bruce,
147.

58 “Someday everybody’s going to know your name”: Appearance on
20/20
(ABC), February 5, 1999.

59 “an extravaganza of patchwork”: Bob Dylan,
Chronicles: Volume One
, (Simon & Schuster, 2005), 10-12.

60 “What kind of place you running here?” Berger,
Last Laugh,
142.

60 “In 1963, the Village was alive”: Richard Pryor with Todd Gold,
Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences
(Pantheon Books, 1995), 70.

61 “You break it down by talking about it”: Collins and Skover,
Trials of Lenny Bruce,
47-51.

62 “It’s one of them numbers”: Collins and Skover,
Trials of Lenny Bruce,
203.

64 “The future seems so precarious”: “The Sickniks.”

64 “I wasn’t very well-educated”: Goodman, “George Carlin Feels Funny.”

65 “Jester and savant must both”: Arthur Koestler,
The Act of Creation
(Macmillan, 1964), 28.

65 “spontaneous flash of insight”: Koestler,
Act of Creation,
45.

65 “The jester makes jokes, he’s funny”: Jay Dixit, “George Carlin’s Last Interview,”
Psychology Today
,
www.psychologytoday.com

67 “Anything that was challenging verbally”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

67-68 “It was a standard fish-out-of-water gimmick”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

69 “I didn’t get a lot of attention”: Interview, Archive of American Television.