[This entry is in two parts. I now know that LJ has a length limit for individual posts. This post, as I originally wrote it, was exactly 11,111 words long. I had to split it into two pieces. The second half may be found here.]

I was on vacation when George Carlin died. Kathy actually called me up to tell me the news. I’m glad she did: it would have been a shame to hear about it from some talking head on the radio.

I can't really call Carlin a hero (Isaac Asimov fills that rôle), but he has played a crucial part in developing my sense of humor, and thus has made a profound (and possibly crosshatched) impression on my personality. Surprisingly, I was a Carlin fan through much of my childhood as well as all of my adulthood. The sister brought home a copy of FM & AM one day, when I was about eight or nine. Some of the themes—over-the-counter birth control, for example—puzzled me, but I could appreciate most of the humor on that album. Who would understand Carlin’s objection to arbitrary prohibitions against perfectly good English words better than a kid? (Having a sister six years older, and eight years ahead in school, in many ways accelerated the expansion of my worldview. By the time I hit puberty I’d been reading early 1970s issues of Mad and National Lampoon, from a time when both bordered on the subversive; I’d heard a fair amount about “Women’s Lib” in a context other than the utter degradation of right, God-fearing society; and I’d committed George Carlin’s second album to memory.) But I also admired Carlin’s talent as an imitator: thanks to FM & AM, I’d been schooled in Ed Sullivan impressions decades before I actually watched any of the show.

Alas, the family, for some reason, didn’t find any necessity in expanding our Carlin collection, and so my career as a fan slumbered. It missed one chance for revival in high school, during which time my friends Thompson and Thorpe introduced me to Occupation: Foole. Though I had the means, at that time I never felt the inclination to purchase any Carlin albums for myself. In retrospect that seems really strange.

No, it took watching the HBO special Carlin on Campus to really tip me over the edge. My friend Thorpe played it for me one summer evening in 1986. Within six months I owned, and was well on my way to memorizing, Carlin’s complete discography (up to that point). By an odd coincidence, Kathy and I started dating at that time. How she could stand me, I still haven’t figured out, for half the words out of my mouth during my junior year at college were Carlin’s.

By another odd happenstance, my serious plunge into Carliniana coincided with the comedian’s gradual, ominous transformation from crazy hippie to bitter old man. Still, I kept current until about the mid-1990s, after which I watched his comedy concerts—live, when I could—but did not buy the albums.

To honor my favorite comedian, I decided to transcribe some excerpts of his material that have special significance. They consist mostly of quotes that have entered the canon of Things We Say in Certain Situations, along with enough context to provide a flavor of the routine from which we adopted the particular passage. Some routines are so rich in quotes that I gave up trying to take excerpts and just copied down the whole thing. As you can see below, the project kind of got out of hand. I’d intended to add excerpts from Carlin on Campus (the album, very hard to find) and Playin’ with Your Head, but I hit a roadblock at about the 9,000-word mark, and I’m all tuckered out from transcribing for a while.

Though I can recite many of these passages from memory to a high degree of accuracy, to do the job with the proper reverence I transcribed them directly from the albums. I’ve learned quite a bit about transcription in the meantime. Sometimes it was challenging to assign punctuation, especially when he’s talking fast. I had to make compromises between the conversational meter of Carlin’s monologues and the conventions of written speech. Often, he switched voices away from his “normal” narrative voice—mostly to imitate people’s conversations. I’ve enclosed all such passages in quotes, even when Carlin was speaking figuratively or to no one in particular. (I nearly wore out my quote key in so doing. It squeaks now.) After recording FM & AM, Carlin remarked on his tendency to play other voices heavily in his routines: “About a year ago I discovered I was no longer in my ‘act.’ The main reason I had become a comedian was missing—self-expression. The act wasn’t me. It was all disc jockeys, quiz contestants, newscasters, little old ladies and weathermen. Now I’m in there again. This album represents that transition.”

The material transcribed below mostly represents what I think of as the canon: FM & AM (1972) through A Place for My Stuff! (1981). In sheer hilarity, the HBO special Carlin on Campus outdoes any of these albums; however, if I were to begin on that one, I’d feel it necessary to do the entire thing, and my sanity—strained under ordinary circumstances—might not manage to weather a painstaking, nitpicky effort of that magnitude. The preponderance of our best liked, and most oft-quoted, material hails from what I call “middle Carlin”: Toledo Window Box (1974), An Evening with Wally Londo, Featuring Bill Slaszo (1975), On the Road (1977) and A Place for My Stuff! (1981). You can find a considerable portion of each of these albums yonder.

Other transcriptions are available for at least some of this material. Here’s a notable one from Carlin’s Supreme Court case instigated by the FCC. I like mine better: I paid more attention to the details of Carlin’s pace and inflection than others appear to have. On the other hand, I did not attempt “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” or “A Place for My Stuff,” simply because both routines are so famous that it hardly seems worthwhile to add another transcription to the vast collection already floating around on the Net.

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I now present you (the large majority of) the best of George Carlin:

Killer Carlin (ca. 1960, with Jack Burns)
Highlights: “The Cool World,” “The Sickest”

Excerpt (a tribute to Lenny Bruce, who inspired Carlin to seek a groundbreaking path in comedy):

[The story] takes place on Hestor Street in New York, an old Jewish neighborhood, and the proprietor of the candy store is dusting off the bottles this one morning, and he’s cleaning up: [singing in Yiddish] ‘Hmmm…vat’s in the bottle here? I’ve never seen this bottle before. Hmm. Funny, there’s a cock-a-roach in there too.’ Pop—WHOOSH! ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am the Genie.’ ‘You come from this neighborhood?’ ‘I am the Genie, old man, a wondrous man, you have freed me from my glass prison. One wish—any wish—and it is yours.’ ‘Hmm. Well, I’d like to have a little income property.’ ‘Ba-DOOM! It is yours!’ And all at once, the room filled up with fifteen beautiful women. ‘One more wish, any wish, old man, and it is yours.’ ‘Hmm. Well, I’d like to go to Atlantic City.’ ‘Go.’ ‘Who’ll take care of the store?’ ‘I will.’ ‘You can take care of a candy store?’ ‘I’m the Genie. I can do anything.’ ‘All right, I’ll go. But don’t give no credit to the schwartzes.’

So the old man goes to Atlantic City and he has a wonderful time. The Genie takes good care of the store: he brings in the Mary Janes, and the Guess Whats, and the rolls, and the milk, you know. The next morning, the people are filing into the store. ‘So where’s Saul?’ ‘He went to Atlantic City.’ ‘Who’s taking care of the store?’ ‘I am.’ ‘You can take care of a candy store?’ ‘I’m the Genie. I can do anything.’ ‘All right—make me a malted.’ ‘Ba-BOOM! You’re a malted!’

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Take-offs and Put-ons (1966)
Highlights: “Wonderful WINO,” “Indian Sergeant”

Quote: “There’s another item that goes on your clothing list, and that’s your loincloth. Now that goes down on your list as ‘One each, cloth, loin type.’”

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FM & AM (1972)
Highlights: “Shoot,” “Birth Control,” “Son of WINO,” “Ed Sullivan Self-Taught,” “The 11 O’Clock News”

Quotes:
On the word shit:

I got fired last year in Las Vegas, from the Frontier Hotel for saying ‘shit,’ in a town where the big game is called ‘crap.’ That’s some kind of a double standard, you know? I’m sure there was some Texan standing out in the casino yelling ‘Aw, shit, I crapped!’ And they fly those guys in free, you know? Fired me. Shit. Can get in as much trouble saying ‘shit’ as you can smoking it down there.

My dog does number 5. That’s three 1s and a 2. Your dog does that, right? Dogs do a lot of number 1s, man. They really do. They hold that, and they—they spread it all over town, if they can. They know if they do 1 all at once, you’ll take ‘em right up to the house again, man. They save 1: zzzt, a little here, then digadigadigadiga-zzzt, a little there, then digadigadigadiga-zzzt, a little here, you know. They can do twenty, twenty-five number 1s sometimes. I told our little girl, you know, that our dog did number 5. I said, ‘Hey! Bogey did number 5! You know, three 1s and a 2! Yeah!’ She thought that was great. She kept running back, for an hour, man, telling me different combinations, right? ‘Hey, did 21! Ten 2s and a 1!’

Another aspect of the word ‘shit’: …to the doper, ‘shit’ means something very special. ‘Shit’ means, ‘Shiiiit!’ Yeah, whatever you smoke, drop, shoot, snort, rub into your belly, or whatever. There’s your shit! Especially grass, most often referred to as ‘shit.’ Yeah. ‘Got any shit?’ ‘No, I’m out of shit, man. Why don’t you lend me some shit?’ ‘You already owe me some shit.’ … I wonder if one nark could all the way through [drug enforcement] school and not know that ‘shit’ means, ‘Shiiiit!’ He might. Sure be in for a lot of surprises the first day on the job, though. Some guy would roll up to him: ‘Hey, you wanna buy some shit?’ ‘Well, I’d never thought about it really. Where’d you get the shit?’ You know, try to draw him out, find out the identity of Mr. Big, right? ‘Well, we brought it back from Cambodia in a guitar, man, and we, um, made brownies out of some of it, and gave some away as a wedding present, and we’re selling the rest, man.’ ‘Hmm…sounds like some sort of a religious cult. How much is the shit?’ ‘Well, I’ll let you have two ounces for ninety dollars, man.’ ‘Must be…good shit!’ ‘Yeah, it is, man. Think you want some papers with that?’ ‘Yes—better let me have a roll or two, will you?’

On the eventual availability of over-the-counter birth control:

They’ll need those cute little names that describe what the product does. … Someday birth control pills will need name like Preg-Not! Doctors prefer Embry-no! Here’s one for the ladies: Nary a Carry! Something lofty and poetic: Nay, Family Way! Something earthy and crude: Mom Bomb. Something for the youngsters: Junior…Miss! Here’s a real man’s product: Inconceivable! Mommy Not, Fetus Fail, Kiddie Kill, Poppa Stopper, whatever you want. Womb Broom, Humpty Dumpty, you know. They’re clever guys. I wouldn’t be surprised if they come up with a birth control pill that didn’t work all the time, and call it Baby-Maybe! ‘Available in the six-pack, the sex-pack, and the handy shack-pack for you weekenders! One for home, one for the office, and one for the glove compartment, guys! And don’t forget to save those wrappers!’

A radio jingle: “Solid Gold—to make you feel old!”

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Class Clown (1972)
Highlights: “Class Clown,” “Wasted Time,” “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television”

Quotes:

I play ‘Spy at the Airport.’ Do you ever do that? Play ‘Spy at the Airport.’ I believe in using that kind of time—it’s wasted time. Especially at a big airport, you know there’s a spy at the airport. Your job? Find ‘im!

At the novelty store:

The biggest insult, however, is the fake vomit. Imagine, that—artificial vomit, wow. Some people can’t scrape real vomit together. And some guys are ordering three dozen vomit on the phone.

“America, the Beautiful” à la Carlin:

Oh, beautiful, for smoggy skies,
Insecticided grains!
From strip-mined majesty,
Along the asphalt plain!
America, America,
Man sheds his waste on thee!
And hides the pines with billboard signs,
From sea to oily seeee-eeea!

From the famous “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” routine:

The are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven you can’t say on TV. What a ratio that is! Three hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-three…to seven. They must really be bad! They’d have to be outrageous to be separated from a group that large! ‘All of you over here! You seven: baaaaad wooooords!’ That’s what they told us they were, remember? ‘That’s a bad word!’ [Child-like whimper] No bad words. Bad thought. Bad intentions. And words!

And a variety of strange sounds. One of the best bits in the entire album is his conducting the entire audience in a session of simultaneous cheek popping.

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Occupation: Foole (1973)

Excerpts:
On the job:

Nobody goes right to work. It’s true. You might get there on time, but screw the company—those first 20 minutes belong to you, right?. It’s not an attitude in line with the American spirit, but, there it is, we all screw around first. ‘I just got here, man, are you kidding me?’ Really, you never see a memo that says ‘9:01.’ People don’t jump out of bed and vacuum, right? Stand around the office a little, look at the picture for a while. Notice there’s a duck in it. Been there eight years, and never saw the duck before. You’re good for half an hour if there’s a window in your office, right? Especially if they’re building something across the street. Some guy will come in and do ninety minutes on ‘struts.’ ‘You need some beams and struts, here. You need some 3/8-inch beams. You want to get A/C power in here. You knock a false hole in the steel and you run a conduit, you run a conduit, straight down there. Some beams and struts and you got a perfect angle on the corner.’

Originally this job [as a comedian] was called ‘Fool.’ Always wanted to put it down under ‘Occupation’ on a form, you know? ‘Occupation: Foole.’ I think I’d spell it with the final E just to piss ‘em off, you know? ‘I understand your son’s a fool, Mrs. Carlin.’ ‘America’s fastest rising young fool!’ Well, in the old days, they were using the real thing. Folks who normally spent a lot of time in closets, and, uh, well, they were jesters and they were buffoons, and they were various kinds, but there were just plain old, ‘Nyaaaaagh!’ They were entertaining. I guess it happened by accident one night—the dancers were late or something. ‘Throw the fool out there.’ Wham! ‘Nyaaaaagh!’ ‘Hey! He’s good! God damn!’

On the posterior:

Black guys were always bugging me about my ass, because I got no ass. I’ve a straight line from the shoulders to the heels…. There are three kinds of asses, basically, I’ve numbered them 1, 2 and C. I’m never very good at indexing. But, uh, the first one’s the fat ass, which you all know—you can’t miss it. Even in the winter, in a tweed overcoat, at the bus stop, you can see. ‘Look at the guy in the tweed overcoat and the fat ass, over at the bus stop, there!’ Then there’s the regular ass, the everyday, normal, garden-variety, all-American, run-of-the-mill, you-seen-one-you’ve-seen-‘em-all ass, just the regular ass. Then we have the unfortunates—my group—no ass at all. You wear a fat wallet and three handkerchiefs, right? [unintelligible] Black guys used to be on me, man. ‘Say, man, where yo’ ass at?’ ‘Man, ain’t got no ass! Shit, how you holdin’ those pants up, man? Guy’s got no ass, man, shit.’

On parents:

Parents always told you, ‘Look out, don’t break your neck. Get down off there, you’ll—get down off there, you’ll break your neck! Will you get off those stairs, you’ll break your neck. Do you wanna break your neck? Get outa here!’ Breaking your neck was one of the only injuries there was, along with putting someone’s eye out. ‘Put that stick—you’ll put someone’s eye out with that. Are you crazy? He’s gonna break his neck, fall and put someone’s eye out with that stick.’ The only two injuries there were. No one ever warned you about a fractured ulna, or wrist--little thing. Nobody said, ‘You’ll cut—you’ll scrape yourself!’ Never. Always ‘broke your neck, put someone’s eye out, and pneumonia.’ Never cold. ‘You’ll catch a cold! You’ll catch a head cold! You’ll catch a rhinitis!’ No. … ‘Don’t pick at it.’ That’s another one. ‘Don’t pick at that, will ya?’ ‘In or out, in our out, come on, now.’ ‘I suppose if Johnny Finnegan jumped off the Empire State Building, you would have to jump off the Empire State Building, right?’

On mail-order goods:

‘Sending away’ was a, a magical phrase. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m sending away. Sending away for something, and they’re going to send it back.’ You picture Battle Creek, Michigan in your mind. ‘Say, this is for Master George Carlin—get that in the mail right away!’ I always got screwed on things I sent away for. Not always—a lot of times I never got ‘em. Right up through puberty, uh, including when I went for Vacu-tex—‘removes pimples through vacuum,’ you remember that? A little syringe-like thing, black-and-white plastic syringe, two fifty-nine, was always advertised on the back of song magazines. ‘Gets out blackheads with vacuum! Tock--suuuck!’ And you knew it worked, ‘cause it had a drawing a girl with dots on her face and then a drawing of the same girl without dots, man, so you knew it was a [unintelligible]. Didn’t work, though. Not for me. Didn’t pull the blackheads out—all it did was make a little red ring around the blackhead, man. It was good for one weekend, you know, and then people got tired of it. ‘Get your rings and get outa here, will you, man?’ [note: 20 years before A Christmas Story!]

On swearing—this routine wound up in Carlin’s Supreme Court case against the FCC:

The word shit, uhhm, is an interesting kind of word in that the middle class has never really accepted it and approved it. They use it, like crazy, but it’s not really okay. It’s still a rude, dirty old kinda gushy word. They don’t like that, but they say it—like I say, like a lady, now, in a middle-class home, you’ll hear, most of the time she says it as an expletive, you know, it’s out of her mouth before she knows. She says, ‘Oh, shit! Ooooh, shit! Oh, shit!’ If she drops something: ‘Ooooooh, shit! Look at the broccoli, shit!’ [Pause] Thank you. [Opens envelope] Shiiiit! I won the Grammy, man, for the comedy album. Isn’t that groovy? [Long applause] Thank you. Thank you, man. That’s sweet. Thank you. Thank you, man. Thank you very much, man, you know, for that, and for the Grammy, man, ‘cause that’s based on people liking it, man. Yeah. That’s, uh, that’s okay, man. Ah, let’s that go, man. I got my Grammy, I can let my hair hang down.

So. Now the word shit is okay for the man. At work he can say it like crazy, mostly figuratively. ‘Get that shit out of here, will ya? I don’t wanna see that shit anymore. I can’t cut that shit, buddy, I’ve had that shit up to here, and I think you’re fulla shit, myself!’ ‘He don’t know shit from Shinola, you know that?’ Always wondered how the Shinola people felt about that. ‘Hi, I’m the new man from Shinola!’ ‘Hi, how are ya? Nice to see ya. Hi.’ ‘Boy, I don’t know whether to shit or wind my watch. Guess I’ll shit on my watch.’ ‘Oh, the shit is going to hit the fan!’ ‘Built like a brick shithouse.’ ‘Uh—he’s up shit’s creek. He’s had it. He’s had it. I am sorry.’ Hot shit, holy shit, tough shit, eat shit…shit-eating grin. Whoever thought of that was ill. ‘He had a shit-eatin’ grin!’ ‘He had a what?’ ‘Shit on a stick.’ ‘Shit in a handbag,’ I always like that. ‘He ain’t worth shit in a handbag.’ ‘Shitty.’ ‘He acted real shitty. You know what I mean? I got the money back, but a real shitty attitude.’ ‘Hey, he had a shit fit, wow!’ ‘Shit fit? Glad I wasn’t there!’

All the animals: bullshit, horse shit, cow shit, rat shit, bat shit—first time I heard ‘bat shit,’ I really came apart. Guy in Oklahoma, Boggs, said it, man. ‘Awww, bat shit!’ … Snake shit, and slicker than owl shit, get your shit together, shit or get off the pot. ‘I gotta shitload full of them.’ ‘I got a shit-pot full, right.’ Shit head, shit heels, shit in your heart, shit for brains, shitfaced, heeyyy. I always try to think of how that could have originated, the first guy to say that, you know. Someone got drunk and fell in some shit, you know. ‘Hey, I’m shitfaced—shitfaced today!’ Anyway, enough of that shit.

[Fuck] is kind of a proud word, too. ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am Fuck! Fuck of the Mountain!’ ‘Tune in again next week to Fuck of the Mountain!’

The other ‘shit’ one was, ‘I don't give a shit’. Like it’s worth something, you know? ‘I don’t give a shit.’ ‘Hey, well, I don't take no shit, you know what I mean? You know why I don’t take no shit? ‘Cause I don't give a shit. If I give a shit, I would have to pack shit. But I don't pack no shit, ‘cause I don't give a shit.’ ‘You wouldn't shit me, would you?’ That's a joke when you’re a kid with a worm looking out the bird’s ass. ‘You wouldn't shit me, would you?’ It’s an eight-year-old joke, but a good one.

Ass is okay if you’re riding it to town on a religious feast day. You can’t say, ‘Up your aaaaass!’

[During this routine Carlin received word that he’d won the Grammy for the best comedy album for FM & AM.]

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Toledo Window Box (1974)
Highlights: “Goofy Shit,” “Nursery Rhymes,” “Some Werds,” “God”

We quote this album more than any other. Don’t know why, exactly. Perhaps it’s because I was all about it when I first started dating Kathy.

Excerpts:
Random stuff:

So I think up the goofy shit and I come on the weekend to report it to you. For instance: Have you ever noticed that on the escalator, that the handrail moves just a little bit faster than the thing you’re standing on? Have you noticed that all frozen peas are the same size? There are no really large frozen peas.
Mary Jane. That’s in all the books. ‘Mary Jane: Marijuana!’ Nobody ever said it! Ever hear that? ‘Got any Mary Jane?’ [sound of taking a huge hit] [spoken around a lungful of pot smoke:] ‘What does it do, man—get you high?’

About drugs in children's stories:

The Seven Dwarves were each on different little trips. Happy was into grass, and grass alone. Just, uh, a little--occasionally some hash, make a little holiday for him: ‘Hey, man! Suuuuck! Hey, thanks, man! [brief hit] Hey man, down here! Poke!’ Happy, that’s all he did. Sleepy was into reds. Grumpy? Too much speed. Sneezy was a full-blown coke freak. Doc was a connection. Dopey was into everything. Any old orifice will do for Dopey. He’s always got his arm out and his leg up. And then, the one we always forget, because he was--Bashful. Bashful didn’t use drugs—he was paranoid on his own. Didn’t need any help on that ladder. Other people in those nursery rhymes…. Hansel and Gretel discovered the gingerbread house about 45 minutes after they discovered the mushrooms. ‘Yeah, I see it, too!’ ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?’ It’s rather an obvious one: ‘With silver bells, and cockle shells, and an acre and a half of killer shit!’ ‘Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie. He stuck in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, and said, “Holy shit, am I high!”’

About words:

‘At any rate,’ what does that mean? ‘At any rate’? What about four and a half percent? We just throw those phrases away, man! All kinds of words like that. ‘Calm, cool and collected.’ Sometimes, something hits, you know, and you’re calm. You’re cool. Collected? I’ve never been collected. I’ve been collected from. What else they got like that? ‘This, that, and the other.’ ‘I’d like this. And that.’ ‘Well, you’ve got to get the other—it’s a set!’ Words like ‘kit and caboodle.’ Have you ever tried to buy a kit and caboodle? You can get a kit! But they’re all out of caboodles, man! You get you a reconditioned caboodle. ‘I’ll give you a caboodle kit, you can build your own caboodle.’ ‘That’s a kit and caboodle kit! I want a kit and caboodle, my friend.’ Like, ‘odds and ends.’ If you’ve got 24 odds and ends on the table and 23 of them fall off, what’ve you got? And odd or an end? Words like ‘refinish.’ ‘What’re you doing?’ ‘Refinishing a table.’ ‘Don’t you have to restart?’ You should. ‘Refrigerator-freezer.’ Too long. It should be called a ‘refrigideezer,’ man.

And then there are words we need. Words that don’t exist. ‘Chalant.’ We have ‘nonchalant,’ so the concept of chalance exists. What about ‘chalant’? ‘Nearfetched.’ Something very obvious. ‘Say, that’s nearfetched, Bill!’ Why don’t we have ‘cheese fondon’t’ for people that don’t like cheese fondue? There are words that don’t exist, as I say; things for which there are no names. Those two little flesh lines on your upper lip that run from your nose to your lip. Two little lines. What the hell are they? I’m sure they’re the ‘vertical frontal’ something. But, otherwise we have no slang—‘Hey, I cut myself!’ ‘Where?’ ‘You know them two lines that run down your face?’

Some words are like, ‘Jumbo Shrimp.’ I think, ‘JUMBO…shrimp!’ It’s like, uh, ‘guest host’. Mike Douglas always has a guest host. ‘Hi, I’m a guest host, I’m a guest host!’ … It’s like, ‘semi-boneless ham.’ I’ve seen it advertised. ‘Semi-boneless ham.’ Now, semi-bone, now hold on here. Does it have a bone? It has a bone. Then it’s a bone! Ain’t no semi-bone! A bone is like a crumb. You don’t think much of a crumb, but think about it: you break a crumb in half, you don’t have two half-a-crumbs—you got two crumbs, man!

About water:

I’m gonna get some wuaaaata, whatcha call your wuaaaata. This here’s your H₂O, my friend … Water says, ‘Leave me alone, I’m in the lake! Get that oil away from my water place!’ Some ice—ice is water. Some water hasn’t been water in a long time! It’s ice, in the North Pole! Long time no water! Ice! ‘What are you?’ ‘I’m ice!’ ‘I was water! I’m hoping to be water again! After the ice age, ha-ha-ha!’

About the metric system—boy, was he wrong about this one!:

Dig this: the metric system is coming to the US, and coming into use in the US, and that means you and your old lady will be going to the store and cop a kilo of hamburger! Can you imagine cleaning up a key of hamburger? Roll one, smoke one, eat one; roll one, smoke one, eat one.

About religion:

Every time they mentioned ‘soul,’ they said, ‘Save it!’ ‘Save your soooooul! Save your soooooooul!’ And the Catholics were after mine. I said, ‘No good, man—I’m savin’ my soul! Yeah! Shine it up, use it on the weekends!’ … We’re very self-centered about the whole thing. In fact, when we put a statue of Jesus on our dashboard, instead of having him look out for traffic, which he should be doing, we have him watching us drive! ‘Watch this, Jesus—left turn! Neeeerow! Drivin’ for Jesus, drivin’ for Jesus—makin’ all the lights!’

We are so bold, we’ll describe God for you. ‘Oh, I’ll tell you about God—sheezus, yeah. First of all, your God is all-powerful. He can do anything he wants. Y’know, he could throw a boat right over a hedge. Hey, power he got. Second of all, he knows everything. He know what you think, he knows what you thought, he know what you think you’re gonna think; he know if you thought you’re gonna think of that. He know what I’m gonna say next, and I don’t know what the hell it is myself. Thirdly of all—last—he never started, and he’s never gonna end. Can you dig it.’ Now if you were God, would you let a guy like that describing you?

We claim, you know, that [God] is us, and that’s probably the best way to get at it, okay? Most of the major religions have said, ‘Love your neighbor, love your God, love yourself,’ and then, without saying it, they meant, ‘Because basically, they’re the same guy!’ … Even if you don’t tell the truck driver, right out, that he’s a flower and that he’s a tree and you’re him, you know he could believe it if someone else told him. Not to put truck drivers down. But I did hear an ad for a ‘semi-truck driver’ once.

About farts:

Did you ever notice? Your own farts smell okay! ‘[Sniff] Say…my God, that’s fairly decent!’ … A guy told me, he listed the kinds of farts once. He said there was the fizz, the fazz, the fizz-fazz, the rip-shit, the tear-ass, the snorter, and the one that goes ‘WHOOOSH!’ … One of the qualities, one of the properties of a fart, which you can only guess, is its—oh, let’s call it the ‘density.’ And then there is the ‘persistence.’ Does it remain a long time? Like mustard gas? A broccoli fart. Persistent. Some people’s houses: ‘Don’t fall down, the last three inches are farts, down to the rug.’

Continue to Part II?

Tags: george_carlin
Current Tunes: The collected discography of George Carlin