Seven Dirty Words (32 page)

4. Values (How Much Is That Dog Crap in the Window?)

77 “There were a couple of monologues they cut”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

79 “One last four-letter word”: Lenny Bruce,
How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
, (Playboy Press, 1966), 240.

80 “Lenny’s perception was magnificent”: Judy Stone, “Carlin: Lenny Bruce Was His Idol,”
New York Times
, May 28, 1967.

80 “let me know there was a place to go”: Appearance on
Make ’Em Laugh
(PBS), 2009.

85 “high-fidelity ear”: “Pop of the News,”
Newsweek
, January 9, 1967.

85 “were dead. Just dead people”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

89 “I became known as a reliable prime-time variety show comedian”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

90 “I found out I can’t do this shit”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

90 “A man who tries to be everything but himself”: Esar,
Esar’s Comic Dictionary,
4.

91 “The music was protest”:
Unmasked with George Carlin
(XM Radio), 2007.

93 “nearly as admirable for potent simplicity”: Paul Krassner,
The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race: The Satirical Writings of Paul Krassner
(Seven Stories Press, 1996), 15.

94 “rule-bender and lawbreaker since first grade”: Quoted in Paul Krassner, “Remembering George Carlin,”
Huffington Post
, June 27, 2008.

5. The Confessional

98 “The crime wave is not a subject for levity”: George Carlin, FBI file, released January 23, 2009 (per request no. 1123179-001).

98 “an individual named George Carlin”: FBI file.

98 “it was obvious that he was using”: FBI file.

99 “thinks that the Director is one of the greatest”: FBI file.

99 “tonight our mouths fell open”: FBI file.

99 “What do we know of Carlin?”: FBI file.

100 “
That’s
the kind of sick material”: Lenny Bruce, “The Tribunal,”
The Lenny Bruce Originals Volume 2
(sound recording) (Fantasy, 1991).

100 “I was opening for—try not to smile”: Hendra, p. 251.

100 “O.J. Simpson has already received”: George Carlin,
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,
(Hyperion, 2004), 207.

101 “I was more or less flabbergasted”: Hendra,
Going Too Far,
252.

100-102 “Presumably the local constables wink”: “Legit Profanity a Problem to Brit Café Comics,”
Variety
, November 4, 1970.

102 “New York’s heart-quarters for great stars”: Mickey Podell-Raber with Charles Pignone,
The Copa: Jules Podell and the Hottest Club North of Havana
(Collins, 2007), 93.

102 “The Copa was a tough room”: Nachman,
Raised on Radio,
26.

102 “If Jules wanted attention”: Podell-Raber with Pignone,
The Copa,
116.

103 “I hated that fuckin’ place”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

103 “I’d say, ‘I don’t know if you’re familiar’”:
Esquire

103 “He would never fire me, that fuck”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

103 “It was very artistic, very cinematic”: Zoglin,
Comedy at the Edge,
18.

104 “Three weeks I had of that”: Berger,
Last Laugh,
48.

104 “swinging from the chandeliers”: Zoglin,
Comedy at the Edge,
47.

104 “My days of pretending to be as slick”: Pryor and Gold,
Pryor Convictions,
93-94.

105 “dazzling states of heightened awareness”: “LSD,”
Time
, June 17, 1966

105 “It opened my eyes”: Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shalin,
Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond
(Grove Weidenfeld, 1985), 181.

106 “Those drugs served their purpose”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”

106 “He has the ability to couch them in jargon”:
Variety
, July 29, 1970.

107 “come up a modish contemporary fellow”:
Variety
, September 9, 1970.

107 “I’d wake up in the morning”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”

108 “Virginia Graham was a real shit-stirrer”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

108 “They did the job for me”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

108 “I never went over to Don Adams’s house”: Stu Werbin, “How George Carlin Showed His Hair,”
Rolling Stone,
August 17, 1972.

109 “I sold grass in the mailroom on the side”: David Rensin,
The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up
(Ballantine, 2003), 113.

112 “George made a gesture”: Berger,
Last Laugh,
205.

112 “I’ve only had three people walk offstage”: Dan Plutchak, “George Carlin’s First and Last Show in Lake Geneva,”
Walworth County Today
, July 15, 2008.

112 “where they walk
toward
you”: Nachman,
Raised on Radio,
404.

112 “Hefner is saying to me”: Werbin, “How George Carlin Showed His Hair.”

113 “routine about materialism in American society”: “Comic George Carlin Much Too Successful in ‘Arousing’ Audience,”
Variety
, December 2, 1970.

113 “it never occurred to me”: Diahann Carroll with Ross Firestone,
Diahann! An Autobiography
(Little, Brown, 1986), 60.

115 “Everyone had come there to see George Carlin”: Berger,
Last Laugh,
206-7.

116 “a nice, new, mainstream car”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

116 “You were just talking to him”: Donald Liebenson, “David Brenner at Zanies: ‘This Is What Comedy Was Meant to Do,’”
Huffington Post
, November 20, 2008.

118 “Oddest censorship I ever experienced”:
Unmasked with George Carlin
.

118 “sloppy and hippy character”: Berger,
Last Laugh,
222.

119 “just trying to make it less fearsome”: Appearance on
The Mike Douglas Show
(syndicated), May 15, 1971.

120 “I’d never done a real college-audience-in-the-Sixties kind of thing”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

120 “I killed”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

6. Special Dispensation

123 “trying to cash in on the hippie craze”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

124 “now being thought of as hokey”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

125 “They weren’t on my side totally”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

125 “It’s natural for people to distrust”: Werbin, “How George Carlin Showed His Hair.”

126 “They’d heard about it in show business”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

126 “I went over to explain to him”: Zoglin,
Comedy at the Edge,
32.

126 “It’s an opportunity for George”: Appearance on
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
(NBC), February 29, 1972.

127 “I don’t know about ‘better’”: Appearance on
The Mike Douglas Show
(syndicated), Feburary 18, 1972.

128 “After twenty years of that”: Werbin, “How George Carlin Showed His Hair.”

129 “That was really the capper”: Werbin, “How George Carlin Showed His Hair.”

130 “She didn’t know it had reached this level”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

131 “He takes seven expletives”: Henry Edwards, “Their Satire Is Kid Stuff,”
New York Times
, April 28, 1974.

132 “marijuana smoke was so thick in the area”: Dave Tianen, “Summerfest: Gig Has Had Many High Notes,”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
, June 28, 2007.

133 “I couldn’t believe my ears”: Jim Stingl, “Carlin’s Naughty Words Still Ring in Officer’s Ears,”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
, July 1, 2007.

134 “No one said to me, you know”: Appearance on
20/20.

134 “Brenda and I laid off of everything”: Werbin, “How George Carlin Showed His Hair.”

134-135 “had no idea he was like that”: Quoted in Dave Tianen, “Summerfest: The Big 40,”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
, June 24, 2007.

135 “I find it kind of funny”:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
, June 28, 2007
.

137 “Jeepers creepers, you can imagine”:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
, June 28, 2007.

142 “use of obscene language is very simple”: Stone, “Carlin.”

142 “was the first one to make language an issue”:
Carlin on Comedy
.

7. Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television

143 “She’d gotten the imprimatur”: Interview, Archive of American Television.

144 “Let’s face it”: Arthur Unger, “The Nonconforming George Carlin,”
Christian Science Monitor
, July 23, 1973.

145 “I take a perverse delight”: Werbin, “How George Carlin Showed His Hair.”

145 “and a number of others just stormed out”: Berger,
Last Laugh,
226-28.

146 “Cocaine was different”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”

147 “I ‘peed’ a long time on him,” Berger,
Last Laugh,
229.

147 “
Shit
has saved my life”: Berger,
Last Laugh,
232.

148 “One man’s vulgarity”: Anthony Lewis,
Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment
(Basic Books, 2007), 42-43, 131-32.

148 “was doing great damage to words”:
The Carlin Case,
WBAI, March 30, 1978.

150 “He played all kinds of records”: Jesse Walker,
Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America
(New York University Press, 2001), 73.

150 “Whereas I can perhaps understand”:
The Carlin Case
.

154 “Obnoxious, gutter language”: Marjorie Heins,
Not in Front of the Children: “Indecency,” Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth
(Hill and Wang, 2001), 99.

154 “simply as a matter of taste”: Matthew Lasar,
Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network
(Temple University Press, 1999), 141.

160 “biggest regret”: David Hochman, “
Playboy
Interview: George Carlin,”
Playboy
(October 2005).

162 “the first show in the history of television”: Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller,
Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live,
(Back Bay Books, 2002), 22.

163 “punctual, and he fills out forms well”: Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad,
Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live
(Beech Tree Books/William Morrow, 1986), 84.

163 “I kept praying, ‘I hope George Carlin’”: Shales and Miller,
Live from New York,
33.

163 “the major focus of the night”: Shales/Miller,
Live from New York,
62.

165 “I probably didn’t have the nerve”: Shales/Miller,
Live from New York,
56.