"Thank you very much!" "Thank you!" "Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen!" "Welcome to "40 years of comedy:" "A tribute to George Carlin"!" "I want to make it clear this is not a summation of his career, this is not a Thalberg Award, we're not retiring his mike!" "...we're merely checking in on a body of work, that continues to grow at an astonishing pace..." "There are two things that comedians of all stripes have in common, basically!" "One: the belief that someone who is not as funny as they are, is doing better than they are and two - what a cynical bunch!" "And two, a sincere, loving respect for George Carlin, and his work..." "He's a member of our Holy Trinity:" "Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin!" "The rest of us are kind of a-gazing!" "It's true!" "Personally, I first began listening to George Carlin in seventh grade, we had gotten a hold of "Class Clown", and man!" "It was funny...!" "...and dirty, and great!" "And we just knew instinctively that parents weren't gonna like this kind of thing..." "We just knew!" "George Carlin was a rite of passage in the seventies, as much as smoking cigarettes and looking at Playboys, and in my case, dressing like Ace Frehely!" "...and while the thrill has dissipated from those other activities, my pleasure in listening to George, grows every time I hear him!" "And as my respect and admiration for him as a performer and as a person!" "So please, sit back and enjoy a rather condensed version of George Carlin: 40 years in comedy!" "Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen!" "Good evening!" "My name is George Carlin and I am a professional comedian as opposed to the kind you run into at work all day long!" "There are thousands of comedians in this country, but basically, only two types of humour!" "There's the old school and the new school!" "I think we recognize them both!" "The old school is largely made up of the fast-paced stand-up comedians, the one-liner comics who came from vaudeville and burlesque..." "And they comprise the insult school of humour!" "Jackie Leonard is a good example of this..." ""Oh, thank you very much ladies and gentlemen!" "Just like I said, all for your parking in New York was a gun!"" "There's a wonderful town!" "Thank you very much!" "You got some lovely girls here, compared to the last place I worked!" "Somebody throw out there, they're are so lovely, that if you want to pay them a compliment, you have to say: "How do you do?" "I see your face cleared up!"" "Now, by contrast, in the new school we have many different styles..." "But the foremost amongst them I feel is Morte Saw..." "The first man to do much with political comedy since Will Rogers..." "Morte Saw: "Right" "Good?" "Right" "That's right" "Well" "Good" "Right"" ""Basically it's a dichotomy of guilt and society we're concerned with..." "Right?" "Right!" "Good!" "Right!"" "That covers the comedians that we pay to see, there is, however, a third field..." "Generally unrecognized among humorists, and that's White House humor!" "JFK, the president - resident - president!" "Thank you very much!" "Beloved the Attorney General... to join he is (unintelligible) to members of Supreme Court and the rest of my family...!" "Youngsters all over the country and Canada have been asking for us to bring back George Carlin!" "So ladies and gentlemen here is comedian, comedy star, George Carlin!" "Hey, baby!" "What's happening?" "¿Qué pasa?" "Al Sleet, your hippie-dippie weather man...!" "Brought to you by "Parson's Pest Control"" "Do you have termites, waterbugs and roaches?" "Well, Parson's Pest Control will get rid of the termites and waterbugs and let you keep the roaches!" "Tonight's forecast..." "Dark!" "Continued dark tonight turning to partly light in the morning!" "And the big fight is coming up!" "Ali, and Frazier." "Mohammed Ali, I call him Mohammed Ali, 'cause that's what he wants..." "Oh, yeah!" "He's a big dude and he hits hard, you know!" "I'm calling him what he wants..." "What the..." "It's good that he's been allowed to work again, as you know, he couldn't work for three years..." "'Cause he had a strange job, beating people up..." "But that was his right!" "He could have that job!" "Government wanted him to change jobs!" "Government wanted him to kill people!" "He thought it over and he said: "No, that's alright, I draw the line!"" ""I'll beat them up, but I don't wanna kill them!"" "And the Government told him: "Well, if you won't kill them, we won't let you beat them up!"" "And it was all because he didn't want to go to Vietnam, and now we're getting out of Vietnam!" "Through Laos and Cambodia!" "That's gotta be the long way!" "You gotta go through China and Russia to get out that way!" "What are we gonna tell them?" ""We'll only be here a short time!"" ""Just looking for a trail!" Well, maybe they'll go for it, I don't know!" "Of course, we're only there in South East Asia, for one reason: to free the people so they can have industry!" "It's not that what we do everywhere, I think, we kinda free people and then lay a little industry on them!" "So they can have all the benefits of industry that we have!" "Oh, beautiful, for smoggy skies and insecticided grain..." "For stripped-mined mountains majesty above the Ashford plain..." "America!" "America!" "Man sheds his waste on thee..." "And hides the pines with billboard signs from sea to oily sea..." "I used to be this guy!" "Or maybe this guy used to be me...!" "I don't know, we were each other at one time!" "Wasn't long ago!" "He..." "I liked him!" "You know?" "He was really good, he was funny, and I had a lot of fun with him, he did some nice things for me, but it was like there was nothing behind him, you know?" "It was kind of..." "Just superficial!" "Just the surface!" "It was all characters!" "I wasn't in there!" "I found I wasn't in my own act after a while...!" "And here, I've been doing it for five years!" "It was all characters!" "It was all other people that I remembered from my life, and composites of people!" "People like this lady here, Congolia Brackenridge!" "A marvelous contestant on a quiz show!" ""Pick a door!"" "Oh, let me see!" "Monty!" "Monty!" "Oh!" "What are the doors?" ""One, two and three!" "Oh, wow!" "What was that again?" "One, two and three!"" "OK, three!" "You wha..." "No!" "Hold on!" "I didn't call yet!" "My trouble was I wanted a list!" "I didn't think it was asking much!" "Here are these words I'm not supposed to say!" "Let's have a look at them!" "I figured, looking for a list, I started looking into all the categories of dirty words..." "Started to realize that there are more ways to describe filthy words than there are filthy words!" "Seemed curious to me!" "Someone was awfully interested in them!" "I found a lot of ways to refer to them, and..." "I did, too... called them "Bad language"!" ""Dirty", "filthy", "foul"..." ""Vile", "Vulgar", "Coarse"..." ""Unseemly", "in poor taste", "street language", "locker room talk", "gutter talk"..." ""Barracks language", "naughty", "saucy", "bawdy" "raunchy"..." ""Rude", "lude", "lascivious", "indecent", "prophane", "obscene", "blue", "off-colour"..." ""Risqué", "suggestive"..." ""Cursing", "cussin'", "swearing..." All I could think of was "shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits", man!" "There are things about the words surrounding football and baseball which give it all away..." "Football is technologic!" "Baseball's pastoral!" "Football is played in a stadium!" "Baseball is played in a park!" "In football, you wear a helmet!" "In baseball, you wear a cap!" "Football is played on an enclosed, rectangular grid and every one of them is the same size!" "Baseball is played on an ever-widening angle it reaches to infinity, and every park is different!" "Football is rigidly timed!" "Baseball has no time limit!" "We don't know when it's gonna end!" "We may even have extra innings!" "In football, you get a penalty!" "In baseball, you make an error!" "Whoops!" "The object in football is march downfield and penetrate enemy territory, and get into the end zone!" "In baseball, the object is to go home!" "I'm going home!" "And in football we have the clip, the hit, the block, the tackle, the blitz, the bomb, the offense and the defense..." "In baseball they have the sacrifice!" "What I have been doing, I have been branching out a little bit, my career has always been very one-dimensional, just being a stand-up comic..." "Been doing a couple of other things, I worked in "Summer Stock" last summer!" "I was in "Death of a Salesman", I played the suitcase..." "Ah, good, good!" "Yeah!" "I did it a little different from Rip Torn, who played the original suitcase on Broadway!" "I understand he did it more as a valisse, and I kind of, I did as a two-suiter!" "And other things like... then I got an opera, I've written an opera!" "It's interesting to you, I'm announcing it tonight!" "I've written an opera about tuberculosis..." "The only trouble is to..." "Well, trouble is to find a thin tenor!" "You know?" "This is serious!" "I'm writing a sequel to the Bible!" "It's a wonderful book, it's been around a long time!" "I think it's time for another I'm having trouble with the title!" "I go "Bible Two", I wanna call it "Bible Two"!" ""Son of Bible", you get into those things!" ""The Bible Goes West", you know?" "That's all your house is!" "It's a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff!" "Now!" "Sometimes you gotta move!" "You gotta get a bigger house!" "Why?" "Too much stuff!" "You gotta move all your stuff!" "And maybe put some of your stuff in storage!" "Imagine that!" "There's a whole industry based on keeping an eye on your stuff!" "Enough about your stuff!" "Let's talk about other people's stuff!" "Did you ever notice, when you go to somebody else's house, you never quite feel one hundred per cent at home?" "You know why?" "No room for your stuff!" "Somebody else's stuff is all over the place!" "And what awful stuff it is!" "Where do they get this stuff?" "Then if you have to stay overnight at someone's house, you know, unexpectedly, and they give you a little room to sleep in that they don't use that often..." "Someone died in there eleven years ago!" "And they haven't moved any of his stuff!" "Or wherever they give to sleep, usually right near the bed there's a dresser, and there's never any room in the dresser for your stuff!" "Someone else's shit is on the dresser!" "Have you noticed that their stuff is shit, and their shit is stuff?" "The F.C.C., the Federal Communications Commision decided all by itself that radio and television were the only two parts of American life not protected by the free speech provisions of the First Ammendment to the Constitution!" "I'd like to repeat that because it sounds vaguely important!" "The F.C.C., an appointed body, not elected, answerable only to the president, decided on its own that radio and television were the only two parts of American life not protected by the First Ammendment to the Constitution!" "Why did they decide that?" "Because they got a letter from a minister in Mississippi!" "A reverend Donald Wildman, in Mississippi, heard something in the radio that he didn't like!" "Well, reverend!" "Did anyone ever tell you there are two knobs on the radio?" "Of course, I'm sure the reverend isn't that comfortable with anything that has two knobs on it!" "But hey, reverend!" "There are two knobs on the radio!" "One of them turns the radio off and the other one..." "Changes the station!" "Imagine that, reverend!" "You can actually change the station!" "It's called "Freedom of Choice", and it's one of the principles this country was founded upon!" "Look it up in the library, reverend, if you have any of them left when you're finished burning all the books!" "It's been a little while since I've been here, and a couple of things have happened in that time!" "I'd like to talk a little bit about the war in the Persian Gulf!" "Big doings in the Persian Gulf!" "You know my favourite part of that war?" "It's the first war we ever had that was on every channel plus cable!" "And the war got good ratings, too, didn't it?" "Got good ratings!" "Well, we like war!" "We like war!" "We're a war-like people!" "We like war because we're good at it!" "You know why we're good at it?" "'Cause we get a lot of practice!" "This country is only two hundred years old and already we've had ten major wars!" "We average a major war every twenty years in this country!" "So we're good at it!" "And it's a good thing we are!" "We're not very good at anything else anymore!" "Huh?" "Can't build a decent car!" "Can't make a TV set or a VCR, what the fuck!" "Got no steel industry left, can't educate our young people, can't get health care of our old people, but we can bomb the shit out of your country!" "Alright?" "We can bomb the shit out of your country!" "Alright?" "Especially if your country is full of brown people!" "Oh!" "We like that!" "Oh!" "That's our hobby!" "That's our new job in the world!" "Bombing brown people!" "Iraq, Panama, Granada, Lybia..." "You've got some brown people in your country, tell them to watch the fuck out!" "Or we'll goddam bomb them!" "When's the last white people you can remember that we bombed?" "Can you remember the last white..." "Can you remember any white people...?" "...we ever bombed?" "The Germans!" "Those were the only ones!" "And that's only because they were trying to cut in on our action!" "They wanted to dominate the world!" "Bullshit!" "That's our fucking job!" "That's our fucking job!" "Huh..." "I call this piece: "Advertising!"" "Quality, value, style, service, selection, convenience, economy, savings, performance experience, hospitality, low rates, friendly service, name brands, easy terms affordable prices, money-back guarantee, free installation!" "Free admission, free appraisal, free alterations, free delivery, free estimates, free home trial and free parking!" "No cash?" "No problem!" "No kidding!" "No fuss, no muss, no risk, no obligation, no red tape no hidden charges, no down payment, no entry fee, no purchase necessary no one will call on you, no payment of interest till December and... no parking!" "Limited time only, though!" "So act now!" "Order today, send no money, offer good while supplies last two to a customer, each item sold separately, batteries not included, mileage may vary all sales are final, allow six weeks for delivery some items not available, some assembly required, some restrictions may apply..." "Shop by mail, order by phone!" "Try it in your home, get one for your car!" "All entries become our property, employees not aliasable, entry fees not refundable, local restrictions apply void where prohibited, except in Indiana!" "So come on in!" "Come on in for a free demonstration!" "...and a free consultation with our friendly professional staff...!" "Our courteous and knowledgeable sales representatives will help you make a selection that's just right for you and just right for your budget!" "And say!" "Don't forget to pick up your free gift!" "A classic, deluxe, custom, designer, luxury, prestige, high-quality, premium, select, gourmet pocket flashlight!" "And if you act now, we'll include an extra, added free complimentary bonus gift a classic, deluxe, custom, designer, luxury, prestige, high-quality, premium, select, gourmet, leather-style wallet!" "...with detachable keychain and a pencil holder!" "It's our way of saying "thank you"!" "And, if you are not completely satisfied you pay nothing, simply return the unused portion for a full refund, no questions asked..." "It's our way of saying thank you!" "Keep your free gift!" "Actually, it's our way of saying: "Bend over just a little further...!"" "And let us stick this big dick into your ass a little bit deeper!" "You know?" "Whenever you're exposed to advertising in this country you realize all over again, that America's leading industry is still the manufacture, distribution, packaging and marketing of bullshit!" "High quality bullshit!" "World-class designer bullshit!" "To be sure!" "Hospital tested, clinically proven bullshit!" "But bullshit, nonetheless!" "And it always amuses me that so many people seem to think that bullshit only comes from certain sources!" "You know!" "Advertising, politicians, salesmen..." "Not true!" "Bullshit is everywhere!" "Bullshit is rampant!" "Parents are full of shit!" "Teachers are full of shit!" "Clergymen are full of shit!" "...Law enforcement people are full of shit!" "The entire country is completely full of shit!" "In fact, this country was founded by a group of slave owners who told us that all men are created equal!" "That is what's known as being stunningly...!" "...stunningly full of shit!" "And you know?" "I think..." "And I think people show their ignorance when they say they want politicians to be honest!" "What are these people talking about?" "If honesty were suddenly introduced into politics!" "...it would throw everything off!" "The whole system will collapse!" "And I think deep down the American people know that!" "The American people like their bullshit out front!" "...where they can get a good, strong whiff of it!" "That's why they re-elected Clinton!" "Listen!" "Clinton may be full of shit!" "But he lets you know it!" "Dole tried to hide it!" ""I'm an honest man!"" "Bullshit!" "Bullshit!" "People don't believe that shit!" "Clinton said: "Hi, I'm full of shit, and how do you like that?"" "And the people said: "At least he's honest!"" "At least he's honest about being full of shit!" "It's like the business world!" "All businessmen are completely full of shit!" "Just the worst kind of people you'd ever wanna run into!" "Businessmen!" "And the proof of it it, they don't even trust each other!" "They don't trust each other!" "When a businessman is negotiating a deal, the first thing he does is to automatically assume...!" "...that the other guy is a complete lying prick who's trying to fuck him on the deal!" "So he has to do everything he can to fuck the other guy a little bit harder, and a little bit faster!" "And then, when it comes to dealing with customers, that's when you get the big smile!" "That's when you get the big smile!" "Businessman always has a big smile on his face!" "As he carefully positions himself directly behind the customer..." "And unzips his pants and services the account!" ""We especialize in customer service!"" "You heard that?" "Now you know what it means!" "Whoever coined the phrase..." ""Let the buyer beware!" was probably bleeding from the asshole!" "Then you have advertising!" "Advertising is the businessman's cheaply-dressed two-dollar blowjob!" "Advertising sells you things you don't need and can't afford, that are overpriced and don't work!" "And they do it by exploiting your fears and insecurities!" "And if you don't have any they'd be glad to give you a few, by showing you a nice picture of a woman with big tits!" "That's the essence of advertising!" "Big tits!" "Threateningly!" "Big tits!" "And speaking of big tits, what about show business?" "Show business, completely dishonest, corrupt and full of shit...!" "...but in a nice way!" "Not even expensive drugs and perverted sex...!" "...if you're gonna be full of shit, might as well enjoy your work!" "Then you have the media!" "Not just the news media, let's include them all!" "The media are almost literally exploding with bullshit!" "'Cause they're located right at the crossroads of all the other bullshit!" "The media are made up of equal parts:" "Advertising, politics, business public relations and show business." "These people are sitting right at bullshit junction!" "There's enough bullshit in the media for Texas to open a branch office!" "And you still have enough left over to start two law firms and a Christian bookstore!" "Because..." "Because folks, I gotta tell you!" "When it comes to bullshit..." "Truly, major-league bullshit..." "You have to stand back in awe in awe of the all-time heavyweight champion of false promises and exaggerated claims!" "Religion!" "Organized religion!" "It's no contest!" "Religion easily, easily...!" "...has the best bullshit story of all time!" "Think about it!" "Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man...!" "...living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day!" "...and the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do and if you do any of these things he will send you to a special place!" "Of burning, and fire, and smoke, and torture, and anguish, for you to live forever and suffer and burn and scream, until the end of time!" "But he loves you!" "He loves you!" "He loves you and he needs money!" "He always needs money!" "He's all-powerful, all-present, all-knowing and all-wise just can't handle money!" "Religion takes in billions and billions of dollars they pay no taxes, and somehow they always need money!" "You talk about a good bullshit story?" "If I may be permited a small pun..." "Holy shit!" "Now I'm gonna lighten up a little bit!" "We're gonna go back to advertising..." "And we're gonna go out on a little bullshit hunt!" "A little bullshit hunt...!" "Gonna look at some advertising lingo!" "Especially..." "Food advertising!" "You know the people!" "Fresh, natural, hearty, old-fashioned, home-made goodness... in a can!" "That kind of stuff!" "So let's - let's take a look at some of these words! "Old-fashioned!"" "When you hear "old-fashioned" you're supposed to think: "Oh, this goes back to the old days!"" "Right!" "The old days!" "Before we had sanitation laws!" "Before hygiene became popular!" "Back when bacillus were still considered a sauce!" "Old-fashioned is supposed to give you a warm feeling!" "Make you think about your grandmother!" "Oh, I don't know about you!" "But when I'm picking out food, I don't wanna be picturing ninety pounds of wrinkles and a black dress!" "With a big, hairy mole sticking out!" "And an infected lip!" "Old-fashioned!" "Then you have home-made!" "Home-made!" "You see this on the packages in the supermarkets!" "Folks, believe me!" "It is physically impossible for a food-processing plant to produce anything home-made!" "I don't care to see if they're always living in the basement and cooking on a hot plate!" "It's not gonna happen!" "And you shouldn't be eating processed foods and packaged foods anyway, they're not good for you!" "You know how I stopped eating processed foods?" "I started picturing the people who were doing the processing!" "Next time you're in the bus and you see some guy with gangrene on his hands just picture him on the assembly line, putting little pieces of chicken in a box!" "That'll cure you!" "Then go home and eat some fucking grapes!" "Home-made!" "You see "home-made" in the restaurants, too! "Home-made soup!"" "I don't care how much the amphetamine-driven waitress with the Marlboro lines in her face remind you of your mother..." "The soup is not "home-made", unless someone is living in the kitchen...!" "...and if that's the case, I wanna get a good look at this motherfucker!" "I wanna check this guy for lesions, carbuncles, empatego, pink eye and ringworm!" "And head lice!" "Then you have home-style!" "home-style!" "When the advertising imbeciles realize "home-made" sounds too full of shit...!" "...they go to "home-style"!" ""Home-style flavour!" Oh!" "Whose home are we talking about?" "Jeffrey Dahmers?" "Believe me!" "There's nothing "home-style" about the boiled head of a Cambodian teenager!" "OK?" "Even if you sprinkle parsley on the hair!" "And anytime they add the word "style" to another word, someone is pulling your prick!" ""Old-style goodness!" What does that mean?" "Nothing!" "It means nothing! "New York style deli!"" "Means it's not located in New York!" "That's all it means, or they wouldn't have to say it in the first place!" "It's located in Calgary, and the owner's from Hong-Kong!" "And the food tastes like things that Bangladesh has thrown away!" ""Chicago style pizza" means the night manager wants to change planes at O'Hare!" ""Family style restaurant!" You know what that means?" "Means there's an argument going on at every table..." "Two people are crying, and the eldest male is punching the women!" "Family style!" "Then you have "gourmet"." "It's another word the advertising cretins have completely wiped their asses with!" ""Gourmet!" Gourmet dining in a cup!" ""Gourmet cuisine in a can!"" "By the way, whenever you hear "cuisine" in place of "food", be prepared to pay an extra eighty per cent!" ""Gourmet rolls. gourmet coffee, gourmet pizza..." These things do not exist!" "You wanna know a gourmet food?" "Toasted snail penises!" "Candied moose balls!" "Dip dish:" "Yak dick!" ""Gourmet...!"" "Here's another full of shit food word!" ""Hearty!" "Hearty!"" "Soup is hearty!" "Breakfast is hearty!" "You know what I do when I hear the word: "hearty"?" "I look at the label!" "Hum!" "Three hundred grams of saturated fat!" ""Hearty!" as in "Heart attack!"" "It's the same with "buttery" and "lemony" and "chocolatey"" ""Real chocolatey goodness!" Know what that means?" "No fucking chocolate!" "And beware when they add the word: "flavoured" to another word: "Lemon flavoured drink"..." "No fucking lemons!" "As a pet food now refers to its service as "Chicken flavoured treat!"" "Look, a dog doesn't know what chicken is!" "He might like it if you give it to him, but he's not gonna say: "Oh, good!" "I was hoping we had chicken again!"" "And by the way! "Chicken flavoured treat?" Right!" "No fucking chick!" "And zesty, and tangy..." "Zesty and tangy are not real words that normal human beings use in conversation!" "They're advertising words!" "Did ever someone turn to you and say: "This is real zesty!"...?" ""...and tangy, too!"" "Now, one more food word before I completely change the subject on you... "Natural!"" "This is directed to all of you, health-food fiends, and environmental nitwits and yuppy cocksuckers who are running around in your natural fibers!" "The word "natural" is completely meaningless!" "Everything is natural!" "Nature includes everything!" "It's not just trees and flowers!" "It's everything!" "A chemical company's toxic waste is completely natural!" "It's part of the nature!" "We're all part of nature!" "Everything is natural!" "Dog shit is natural!" "It's just not real good food!" "Now...!" "To change the subject on you, but we gotta stay on the dog theme!" "I wanna bring you up-to-date on my pets at home!" "This something I've touched over the years, little by little..." "Talking about my dogs and cats at home!" "I'd like to tell you the latest, what's going on..." "The one I talked about the earliest and most often was Tippy..." "Little Tippy!" "Tippy was a mixed Terrier..." "And Tippy commited suicide about eight or nine years ago!" "Yeah!" "Oh, I've had a lot of dogs do that!" "Haven't you?" "Oh, shit!" "I've had six or seven dogs just run out in front of a truck for no apparent reason!" "And you can never tell there's anything bothering them beforehand!" "No sign of turmoil or trouble!" "You know, they don't show up wearing a Judas Priest T-shirt with a new companion who can't make eye contact!" "I guess one day they just snap in their little heads!" "They snap, and they'll go into traffic in front of a truck and...bump!" "And we look at it and say "Well..."" "That's what Tippy wanted to do!" "That was Tippy's little decision!" "Who are we to interfere in the plans of a dog?" "So we just processed our grief, and moved along!" "As so many of us had to do in the eighties!" "Then we got Annie!" "Annie was a mixed shepherd!" "Everything we had was mixed-something!" "Even a lot of people in the family, when I think of it!" "And some of the livelier ones, too!" "Annie was supposed to have been a German shepherd!" "According to my drug-taking friend who gave her to me!" "You know, he handed me a little puppy, and he said "This could be a German shepherd!"" "And I, being full of drugs at the time myself I said: "Well, fuck yeah!"" ""You can already see the ears!"" "And of course, it never happened!" "I used to call her my "Austrian shepherd", 'cause she never quite made it to the German border!" "But Annie isn't with us anymore, either..." "Annie had to go away..." "That's they way we say it at home!" "That's the only euphemism we allow ourselves..." "Annie had to go away!" "It happens!" "Huh?" "Don't it?" "Yeah..." "It's part of the deal!" "Part of the deal!" "What happens when you get a pet?" "You have them for a while, they get old..." "They go away!" "Just like your grandma!" "Same shit, different species!" "What happens to grandma?" "You have her for a while, she gets old..." "She goes away!" "It's inevitable when you buy the pet!" "You're supposed to know it in the pet shop!" "It's going to end badly!" "You're purchasing a small tragedy!" "Just look at him!" "Ain't he cute?" "That shit is gonna die!" "Unless you're in your eighties and you're buying a tortoise!" "Annie just got old, that's all!" "Got old!" "Hips started to go!" "First sign of trouble with Annie, hips!" "Just like my grandma!" "Ain't that odd?" "Two members of the same family!" "Different species!" "Same symptoms!" "Makes you think..." "Maybe not!" "Even the names were similar...!" "Granny and Annie...!" "Annie got that hip displeasure!" "It's a kind of spinal degenerative disease where they can't hold up the hind legs anymore!" "It's gradual!" "They start trooping those legs, they start draggin' them..." "Oh, it's a terrible thing to see, it's harder if you love the dog, scrapping their legs and everything just dragging behind..." "It's no way to live, and it pisses you off, 'cause you're wound up with half a goddam dog!" "Here's a front end that is perfectly seviceable!" "Shit, if she had been a Chevrolet, she could have been rebuilt!" "You come in the driveway, see her sticking out behind a bush!" "Say: "Look, she's OK!" "Then the rest will come out" " Oh, shit!" "It gets worse, and worse, and worse..." "And there's nothing you can do about it!" "And finally it got so bad, that Annie couldn't get out where the trucks were!" "So I had to intervene on her behalf...!" "I had to get some people to come to the house...!" "And essentially, whack my dog!" "We put a contract out on Annie!" "Oh, we whacked her when she was eating a big plate of pasta, like they do in the gangster movies..." "I knew Annie would like that!" "So Annie went away...!" "Just like my grandma!" "Actually, it was a little bit different..." "I believe we whacked my grandma on the beauty salon...!" "But as soon as Annie was gone, we did what a lot of you folks would have done..." "Oh, we got a new dog right away!" "Don't you do that?" "Sometimes to fill the void you do..." "You got... you get a new dog right away!" "We got a little guy called Moe, M.O.E. Moe!" "Moe is a Maltese, first dog we ever had that it was all one thing!" "Ain't nothing inside of Moe, except other Maltesers!" "He's about this big and he's cuter than a dick!" "Know what I mean?" "Just as cute as can be!" "And Moe only has one ball, but he doesn't know that!" "And he doesn't act like he's got one ball!" "'Cause Moe humps Verne, and Verne is a male cat!" "Do you ever have that shit going on in your yard?" "Not only is an interspecies, it's a homosexual affair as well!" "The whole neighbourhood is just praying there be no children!" "'Cause God knows where you'd send them to school!" "But he's out there first thing in the morning!" "He's humping away, you know?" "He's got a lot of energy for a guy with one ball!" "You gotta give him a lot of credit!" "He's out there humping away..." "He's trying to get a little..." "You know?" "Well, he's trying to get a lot, now that I think of it and what's he really doing is wearing a hole in the fur on the back under that goddam cat!" "And sometimes he's got so much energy, his feet actually leave the ground...!" "And he's airborne on Verne!" "He's trying to hold on the cat hair with dog paws and keep it in at the same time!" "And Verne could care less!" "Verne will give you a look like this while he's getting fucked in the ass!" "Do you ever fuck somebody who's reading a comic book?" "Same shit!" "Tough on the ego, ain't it!" "But it does happen ocassionaly in life!" "So Moe humps Verne, and it looks so cute..." "I mean it looks so cute!" "We took a picture of it, and made a Christmas card out of it last year!" "I swear on my mother's tits!" "Made a lovely card!" "Just put one word on it! "Peace!"" "And we spelled it correctly, too!" "P.E.A.C.E. There be no cheap jokes on our Christmas cards!" "We sent that out last year and, shit!" "We lost a lot of friends on that!" "So Moe humps Verne..." "So Moe humps Verne, and Verne is a cat, like I said!" "We've got two cats at home!" "Verne and Murphy!" "And we got them at the same time, some years ago they got into our lives, the same week or something...." "When we first got them, we had them neutered!" "You know neutered?" "That's an euphemism for "go and cut his nuts off!"" "Well, we had it done, 'cause somebody said it helped something!" "Goddam sure didn't help these cats, I'll tell you that!" "We had it done, we had them fixed!" "That's another word for it! "Fixed, shit!" "They wasn't even broke, man!"" ""Oh, they're broke now!"" ""Altered" is another word for it!" "Nice people say that, don't they? "We have them altered!"" "Like a pair of pants, or something!" "Yeah, take a little of the cuffs, and cut his nuts off!" "And I'll be in on Tuesday!" "Well, whatever you wanna call it, we had it done!" "We brought them into the Vet's office and..." "Off came the nuts!" "We didn't keep them or nothing like that, you know?" "Although they offer them to you!" "I must say that for them! "Say, you want these...?"" ""No, no!" "Shit!" "What are you, fucking crazy?"" "You keep them, you find something to do with them!" "Might make a nice pair of earrings for your wife out of them!" ""In fact, if my math is not incorrect, you might get two pairs out of that lot!"" ""You keep the nuts, we take the cats!" "We're going home with the cats!" Brought them home and they started growing up!" "Got to be about six years of age, and right about six, Verne..." "Wouldn't you know it, too!" "Verne!" "The interesting cat!" "Verne developed a condition whereby his penis had to be removed surgically!" "Not a pleasant thought!" "But it happens quite a bit to these male cats if you feed only dry cat food!" "Not good!" "You gotta get some moist food in that diet every day or every other day, you gotta have some balance on the diet...!" "'Cause there is something in dry cat food that crystalizes in the urine...!" "...blocks the urethra, blocks the whole passageway, and pretty soon you're sitting in the Vet's office and guess wbat?" "Off comes the dick!" "Verne will not get in the car with me at all anymore!" "He doesn't trust me at all, 'cause he doesn't know what's coming off next!" "He's walking around, counting his feet and shit like that!" "Praying to God he still got something left hanging off of them!" "Such is the condition of the animals at our house!" "And because of it, we have a little riddle!" "Little riddle going around the family!" ""What has twelve legs, two dicks and one ball?"" "And it's "Murphy, Moe and Verne!"" "But you got to be real close to the family to guess it on one try!" "Thank you all!" "Thank you all very much!" "I appreciate it!" "Have a good time, folks!" "Thank you!" "I'm a little out of breath!" "Don't you worry about that!" "Please take your time!" "Drink some water!" "I think the image of the cat and the dog will hold us for thirty or forty seconds here!" "I haven't told a lie about my pet yet!" "When you were a kid, growing up, you wanted to be Danny Kaye and Bob Hope, so..." "How do you think this thing is working out so far?" "Well, I knew I wanted stand-up, and, you know, and be silly!" "And have people say: "Ain't he cute?" "Ain't he cute and clever?"" "And that's what it was all, as a reward, a psychic reward!" "You know?" "When you're a kid and you find out that you can get the attention of adults and approval, and a little bit of respect, and you just hunger for, you keep going back for it..." "And I have, fortunately genetic..." "You know, my little toolkit, my genetic toolkit I was given it included a mother and father who were very funny people, could do accents and dialects and tell funny stories about what happened on the bus that morning!" "...and have a punchline!" "So," you don't lick it off the rocks", they say in Ireland..." "So I thank my grandmother's milkman, actually!" "You never know where these things come from!" "It's interesting, you know, as I watch you now, and throughout the years I listened to hundreds of things your fascination with language is so apparent!" "Watching you work is almost like watching a musician!" "You know, the way you weave words and use language for emphasis and all that..." "Was that always a fascination for you, even as a kid?" "Well, to go back with your other question, don't forget what we do is oratory, is Rhetoric!" "It's not just comedy, it's a form of rhetoric, and with rhetoric, you look and you listen for rhythms, you look for ways to sing at the same time your talking, and to go..." "It's just natural!" "My grandfather, whom I never knew was a policeman in New York at the turn of the century, and he was an uneducated man, self-educated, and he in the course of his adult life he wrote out the works of Shakespeare... by hand, because of the joy it gave him!" " That's an obsessive young man!" "Yeah!" "And almost everything is genetic, and my mother cared a lot about language, and my father was a champion public speaker of 1935, he won the mahogany gabble over 800 other public speakers from the Dale-Carnegie Public Speaking Institute and he was great, I never knew him either!" "Were your parents put off by the direction that you went into, when you started to go counter-culture, wasn't it difficult...?" "...transition for them to watch?" " Well, he was out of the picture..." "He was brilliant, and he was a top salesman and advertising, but he couldn't metabolize ethanol efficiently, so he was given his hat." "My mother was very brave, she left she left him, I was two months old and my brother was five five years, and she left down a fire escape, so he was gone!" "She, my mother, was very, kind.." "...controlling, wanted to control my life, and was heartbroken wben I began with the dirty language, and the awful stuff he says about business, she was..." "She was an advertising executive secretary!" "Loved the business world!" "For it was just the finest thing that ever happened!" "And so when I went in that direction, at first, very opposed!" "Until one day, we lived in the same street that I grew up... that I went to school in!" "I went to school on the same block that I lived on!" "Something like that...!" "Corpus Christy School, and the nuns were great!" "It wasn't the typical Catholic School...!" "It was an experimental progressive school, that didn't have grades..." "Didn't have any sort of corporal punishment, it was just a very, very wonderful school..." "And the nuns..." "She would see the nuns in the street, and they said: "Oh, we saw George on The Tonight Show!"" "And she, being a bit of an actress, she would say:" ""Oh, the awful language, sister!" "The awful language!" "And one of them said to her: "No, you don't understand!" "He's using it for other purposes!"" ""He's not just doing it for that!" "It's kind of like part of what he does!" "Don't you understand this is..." and so forth!" "So she said: "Oh, well!" "Oh!" And from that day on she was OK with it, because the Church had approved it!" "People who deal in content that's on the edges you do, often times live a life that's similarly on an edge, and a lot of those people go off the rails, and we lose them, and their talent, and you've been able to not do that, and been able to pull it back in, and..." "Another luck stroke, you know?" "Gotta have luck in this world, part of it is your genetic make-up, that's luck and then, what you do out there is also partly genetic, because hard work is genetic the desire to do hard work, the willingness to work hard and be determined and not be turned aside, that's all genetic, too!" "It can be altered, and a little reinforced!" "But some of the people who had so much edgy promise they die young, I mean, Lenny Bruce, Sam Kennison..." "Andy Kaufman, in his way, Freddy Prince, John Belushi, Bill Hicks..." "It's just, I don't know..." "Of course, Bill had a natural disorder of his own, and I think so had Andy, but it's not always behaviour, but so that is just genetic!" "But it's just that..." "I there's a degree of luck and intelect involved in giving up things that hurt you!" "The drug and alcohol thing, it seems to me, comes down to this..." "Drugs and these things are wonderful!" "They're wonderful when you try them first!" "They're not around for all these Millenia for no reason...!" "First time, mostly pleasure, very little pain!" "Maybe a hangover!" "...and as you increase and keep using, whatever it is the pleasure part decreases, and the pain part, the price you pay increases, until the balance is completely the other way, and it's almost all pain and there's hardly any pleasure!" "At that point you would hope that the intelect says:" ""Oh...!"" ""Oh!" "This doesn't work anymore!" "I'm going to die", and "I'll do something!"" "But you need people around you who can help you, and you need something to live for!" "You have to have something to look forward to to bring you out of it!" "There's a lot of people who don't have a lot to look for, and they're sort of stuck in..." "Was there ever any fear that, by giving up the drugs, you'd lose a bit of the genius, by giving up the wild lifestyle, sanity being..." "There has been a canard, for a long time, that that most of this creativity comes from being wacky, and I'm sure there's a lot of truth in that!" "As far as just being plain old wacky!" "Where the drugs are concerned, and alcohol, they do seem to open a window for you they do seem to broaden the vistas, at first!" "...the thing you have to do is learn when..." "You know, it's like all these great writers who became drinkers!" "You have to..." "Sort of..." "I find it like with pot..." "I'm not a big drug user anymore!" "But I have always a joint somewhere near me!" "You know?" "Hidden!" "Might be hidden!" "And what I do, and I hardly touch it!" "Maybe once a month..." "That would be frequent for me!" "But when I'm writing something, and I write perfectly straight, perfectly sober, and I write a whole lot of stuff, six, seven, eight, nine pages, and I'm really poured out..." "The next day..." "One hit!" "It's all I need now!" "One hit and it's punch-up time!" "Time to get this thing done!" "And you do find, with that sort of judicious use, I find there's some value in it!" "But most of the things we use, don't..." "let..." "You leave them alone!" "They don't!" "Pot does, thank it is for that!" "That's excellent!" "What...?" "Fine, do applaud if you wish...!" "It's more than fair!" "Why do you still care enough to keep, you're at a point in your life where you could go back, you could do month in Vegas, and Florence Henderson could open up and you could go and hit a couple of balls, and then some pinball!" "Why do you still care so much?" "Well, I'm not comparing myself to any of these people, believe me but you wouldn't say to Picasso:" ""When are you gonna put those brushes down...?"" ""Get rid of the canvas, you'd done it!" You know, you'd..." "I'm an entertainer, first and foremost, but there's art involved here, and an artist has an obligation to be on route, to be going somewhere, there's a journey involved, and you don't know where it is and that's the fun!" "...so you're always going to be seeking, and looking, and going, and trying your talent yourself, so without sitting around thinking of that a lot, it drives you and it keeps you trying to be fresh, trying to be new, trying to call on yourself, call on yourself a little more, you know?" "...and willing to put up with the gurgling, promotional schedule and everything else..." " It's the only way!" "...because you never had to do morning shows..." "And the only way I can do this, it's to go where the people are!" "They will not come to my house!" "We've offered bus rides and everything!" "They will not come!" "I have to go to Steven's Point, Wisconsin, or wherever it is and the audiencies are great, and they buy their tickets aheads of time, and they really wait for you to come there, you see..." "In the theatres and concert halls is special, 'cause the audience they do it beforehand, and you're the whole evening!" "In Las Vegas, you're an afterthought, you're an old so while we could go gambling, we could go hookering, we could get drunk, we could go to the convention..." "No!" "Let's go see this guy!" "And if they like you, they do, but they're not commited fans, so it's a different tone there..." "But it still works, you can still do some things they..." "That you could feel good about, you know!" "Do you feel that your place in comedy..." "you know, because we've been spending a lot of time with the first one, everybody that I have been mentioning how I'm gonna do this..." "George Carlin should be, and then their faces light up, and to a person..." ""Really, Carlin?" "Can I meet him?" "Is he around?" Do you feel that place is out in..." "You know?" "That is growing on me, I think..." "You know, longevity is a wonderful thing..." "They sometimes you get applause just for not being dead, when you say..." "It's true!" "...when you say "I'm going to be sixty" They applaud that! "Wonderful!" "Not dead!" "Sixty!"" "So..." "But I'm..." "I'm getting a sense of it..." "You know, when you're in planes three days a week, I go out every Friday, I come home every Monday!" "It's three different cities, three different nights Airport, hotel lobbies, and people are wonderful!" "People..." "I love individuals, I hate groups of people!" "I hate people who have..." "A group of people with a common purpose..." "'Cause pretty soon they have little hats, you know?" "And arm bands and fight zones, and a list of people they're going to visit at 3 a.m...." "So, I dislike and despise groups of people, but I love individuals..." "Every person you look at, you can see the universe in their eyes, if you're really looking, and they're great, and so cute, relatively, I have gotten the feeling that I'm this big family, a family life I never had, by the way this, sort of extended family, of people who feel like you're their cousin, you know?" "They say: "Georgie, in 1961, I saw you..."" ""Hey, remember that?" "Yeah" "Oh, and you know what you said?" And I say: "Did I?" "Oh, Yeah!"" "So, you know, it's just great, and so cumulative, you say, well..." "I guess I'm the family, I guess it's OK!" " You think there's a boil-down..." "After ten HBO hours, after a multitude best-selling albums, after Grammy nominations, after Emmy nominations, after Cavaliers' Awards does it all boil down to, what you would say originally, that is about: "Hey, dig me!"?" "Hey, look at me, ain't I cute!" "That is all, it's just what you would call "showing off!"" "And you can get them not only stop and listen, but say..." "Isn't he cute, he's really--- you're cute!" "If you can get the approv..." "See, in our school we didn't have grades, so we didn't have A's, B's, and C's and D's the only A's I got, and this is a little corny, I got their attention I got their approval, their admiration, their approbation, and their applause..." "And those are the only A's I wanted, and I got them!" "And so you have mine, sir!" "I just want to say I can't tell you enough what a pleasure this has been for me, to spend some time with you, and to be a part of the show... and thank you very much for all the wonderful..." "" " It's been great to get to know you a little, and you are going to show us a lot, and I look forward to it!" "" " Thank you very much, I appreciate it!" "George Carlin, ladies and gentlemen!"