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admire an intelligent man with really unattractive, baldly stained and crooked teeth who makes a lot of money and still doesn’t get his teeth fixed. It’s an interesting choice. r 190

I Imagine meeting your maker and finding out it’s Frito-lay. ave you ever groped blindly through the middle of a packed suitcase trying to find something and then suddenly realized with horror that the razor blades had come unwrapped? I was taken to the hospital for observation. I stayed several days, didn’t observe anything, and left. A tree: first you chop it down, then you chop it up. I’d hate to be an alcoholic with Alzheimer’s. Imagine needing a drink and forgetting where you put it. Whenever I see a huge crowd, I always wonder how many of the people have hazelnuts in their intestines. Sometimes I can’t recall my mental blocks, so I try not to think about it. id you ever notice how important the last bite of a candy bar is? All the while you’re eating it, you’re aware that you have less and less remaining. Then, as you get to the end, if something happens to that last piece, you feel really cheated. WOOD KHIS If a cigarette smoker wakes, up from a seven-year coma, does he want a cigarette? ‘here is a small town out west where the entire population is made up of the full-grown imaginary childhood friends of present-day adults.

GEORGE CARLIN

brain d

top pi n g s

If a painting can be forged well enough to fool experts, why is the oriqin I so valuable? Valentine’s Day is devoted to love. Why don’t we have a day devoted to hatred? The raw, visceral hatred that is felt every hour of the day by ordinary people, but is repressed for reasons of social order. I think it would be very cathartic, and it would certainly make for an exciting six o’clock news I’m very lucky. The only time I was ever up shit creek, I just happened to have a paddle with me. I he Japanese culture is very big on martial arts and spiritual disciplines. So when a guy tells me he is studying something that has a Japanese name, I know he has either embarked on a mystical journey or is learn- I ing how to break someone’s neck with two fingers. Baseball is the only major sport that appears backwards in a mirror. WHO STOIE THE BAItAllA OUACAHOLE? irginia has passed a law limiting people to the purchase of one gun per person per month. But if you can show the need for more than one gun a month, you can apply to the police for an exemption. “Listen, officer, we’ve got a really dysfunctional family here, and .. .” Why does it always take longer to go somewhere than it does to come back? People tell you to have a safe trip, as if you have some control over it. : ?” ?? ? ???;?..

Brain Droppings

fonservatives say if you don’t give the rich more money, they will lose their entive ^0 invest. As for the poor, they tell us they’ve lost all incentive because we’ve given them too much money. Why is the hot water on the left? I think it’s so you can use your right hand to test how hot it is. P eople love to admit they have bad handwriting or that they can’t do math. And they will readily admit to being awkward: “I’m such a klutz!” But they will never admit to having a poor sense of humor or being a bad driver. . , -….. ..-..-… ? ;. Have you ever noticed that the lawyer smiles more than the client? l-l-E-l-0 is actually a gross misspelling of the word farm. i If you can’t beat them, arrange to haue them beaten. A recent story in the media said that some firemen in Chicago had refused to enter a burning building because it was too hot. Kill YOUR PET Ho one ever mentions when the swallows leave Capistrano. Do they die there? The lazy composer still had seueral scores to settle. *»t what point in his journey does an emigrant become an immigrant?

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GEORGE CARLIN In a factory that makes bathroom disinfectant, the whole factory smells like the bathroom. WE haue mileage, yardage, and footage, why don’t me houe inchage? Iravel tip: Economy-section farts on an inbound flight from the Third World are the deadliest a traveler will ever encounter. Euery time you use the phrase all my lift it has a different meaning. ureat scientific discoveries: jiggling the toilet handle. When mill the rhetorical questions all end? Why do they call it a garbage disposal? The stuff isn’t garbage until after you dispose of it. d A cemetery is o place uihere dead people liue. o the people who hate blacks but think they’re really good dancers ever stop to think how much better blacks would dance if fewer people hated them? I do something about the uieather. I stay home. let’s stop underage drinking before it starts.” Please explain this to me. It sounds tricky. When I’m really bored, I sit home and translate the writing on foreign biscuits. P olitical discourse has been reduced to “Where’s the beef?” “Read my lips,” and “Make my day.” Where are the assassins when we really need them?

brain droppings OAfiDHI ATE niLK DUDS Hard work is for pEoplE short on talent. Idter and change are supposed to be synonyms, but altering your trousers and changing your trousers are quite different things. fly back hurts; I think I ouer-schlepped. The news story said someone had overcome a fatal disease. Wow! A Bible makes a delicious meal. Simply rub with olive oil and minced garlic, and bake one hour in a 375-degree oven. Serve with oven-roasted potatoes and a small tossed salad. Serves two. Dee-leesh! r ecently, in a public bathroom, I used the handicapped stall. As I emerged, a man in a wheelchair asked me indignantly, “Are you handicapped?” Gathering all my aplomb, I looked him in the eye and said, “Not now. But I was before I went in there.” Ihreatening postcard: “Wish you were here, but if you come here I will kill you!” I wanted to be a Boy Scout, but I had all the wrong traits. They were looking for kids who were trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Whereas I tended to be devious, fickle, obstructive, hostile, impolite, mean, defiant, glum, extravagant, cowardly, dirty, and sacrilegious. flow is it possible to be seated on a standing committee?

194

GEORGE CARLIN

brain dropping

I have come up with a single sentence that includes all of the seven deadlv sins: greed, anger, pride, lust, gluttony, sloth, and envy. Here it is “it enrages me that I, a clearly superior person, should have less money than my neighbor, whose wife I would love to fuck if I weren’t so busy eating pork chops and sleeping all day.” Recent polls reueal that some people haue neuer been polled. Until recently. d id you ever run over somebody with your car? And then you panic? So you back up and run over them again? Did you notice the second crunch was not quite as loud? If I had just one uiish it mould be to write the letter /better in longhand. ave you noticed, whenever there’s a problem in this country they get a bunch of celebrities or children together to sing a song about it? Drought, famine, drugs; they sing a song about it. This is an idea that grew out of the ’60s peace movement. The idea then was that if enough “good” people sang, chanted, and held hands, all the “evil” people would give up their money, weapons, and power. Worked great, didn’t it?

WE ARE AIL rRKAIKEROUS I read about a woman who had sixty-three distinct personalities. Jesus! It would take long enough just finding out how everyone was feeling in the morning, can you imagine trying to plan a vacation?

I put 0 dollar in one of those change machines, nothing changed.

r the year 2000, I hope the crime of the century happens real soon, so I get to read about it. They say if you outlaw guns, only outlaws and criminals will have guns. Well, shit, those are precisely the people who need them. I once found a throiu rug in a catch basin. One time, a few years ago, Oprah had a show about women who fake orgasms. Not to be outdone, Geraldo came right back with a show about men who fake bowel movements. It is now possible for a child to have five parents: sperm donor, egg donor, the surrogate mother who carries the fetus, and two adoptive parents. It renders the statement “He has his mother’s eyes” rather meaningless. I he new, modern Swiss Army knife has an ear-piercing tool and a roach clip. O ne of the best expressions in the English language is, “Who says so?” I guarantee, if you keep saying, “Who says so?” long enough, sooner or later someone will take you into custody. It’s hard for me to believe that the small amount of water I take from the water cooler can produce such a large bubble. Infant crib death is caused by grandparents’ breath.