Nearly 14 years after his death, his provocative humor has been embraced by people across the political spectrum. In the footage from his 1996 HBO special, "Back In Town," Carlin tears into the pro-life movement: "Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to 9 months. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space. ", 64. "I bet you anything that 10 times out of 10, Nicky, Vinny and Tony will beat the s**t out of Todd, Kyle and Tucker. But curses are distinctly odd as words go. Theyre anti-woman, simple as it gets, he said. "If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, youre going to have selfish, ignorant leaders. ", 24. After that, they don't wanna know about you. Hes not doing this to shock our senses, but rather to ask us why these words, which are not inherently worse than any other word or phrases in the English language, are held in such contempt. This article has been excerpted from McWhorters recent book, Nine Nasty Words. You know what they are? ", 81. comedy. Kelly Carlin cautioned that we should not be too beholden to any of the messages in her fathers stand-up: Of course George Carlin believed in much of what he said onstage, but what mattered most to him was that audiences learned to think for themselves. I think my dad would say that is dangerous.. ", 86. We havent tried that for a while. ", 68. Be careful out there, everyone. "He and if there is a God, I am convinced he is a he, because no woman could or would ever f**k things up this badly. High humidity and temperatures in the 90s send millions to the beaches.". He was a legend, and its no wonder that this clip is being retweeted into oblivion. In the clip, Carlin says the pro-life movement isnt pro-life at all. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years. But we must admit that Irish foreplay consists of little more than "You awake?" is subject to similar questions. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less. The legendary comic, who died in 2008 at the age of 71, is also the subject of an upcoming two-part documentary, George Carlins American Dream, which debuts on HBO Max later this month: By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. "Overlake Elders Reverse Earlier Stance on Pastor Case." "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. Excerpted from Last Words by George Carlin with Tony Hendra. ", 74. ", 52. "George Carlin" (season one, episode one; originally aired 10/11/1975) The first episode of Saturday Night Live (which, at this point, was still officially going by the name NBC's . "'I am' is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. August 1936. ", 20. "If it requires a uniform, its a worthless endeavor. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. For several generations Rockaway Beach had been a favorite weekend retreat for New York's alcohol-crazed Irish youth in search of sex and sun. "Everything Everywhere All At Once" (WINNER) "The Fabelmans". Now I feel better. "Careful, if you think too much, theyll take you away. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things; we've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less; we make faster planes, but longer lines; we learned to rush, but not to wait; we have more weapons, but less peace; higher incomes, but lower morals; more parties, but less fun; more food, but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer friends; more effort, but less success. And if that wasnt what she meant, then what exactly did Oh, jolly shit! mean? George Carlin's Estate, via HBO. And just as a word can attain the power of profane status, it can lose it. George Carlin would have been 78 years old today, and this seems like a great time to look back on some of his best routines. ", 82. "Although I broke a lot of laws as a teenager, I straightened out immediately upon turning eighteen, when I realized the state had a legal right to execute me. "Don't give your money to the church. He taught me from Day 1 that the Black and brown people have always been oppressed, horribly and systematically, by the owners of wealth, she said. For Earth Day 2018, here's a video featuring the stand-up comedian George Carlin who shared his thoughts in around 2007 on saving the planet, plastics, Earth Day, and the planet's natural . The man was a heart patient for 30 years. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet, to kill. Sen. Susan Collins has been left with egg on her face (regarding her former support of Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court), and both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are thrilled over word (via a leaked memo) that Roe V. Wade will be overturned, meaning that abortion rights (and some related privacy-related rights, possibly extending to contraception and same-sex marriage) could soon be basically nonexistent in the U.S. Yup, the Pro Life crowd is set to get their way and take America back to the 1950s, which is why George Carlins 1996 take on the subject has resurfaced and is going viral. Once a week. America, America. He was 99 percent progressive, said his daughter, but also took some positions that echoed those of conservatives today. Staying conceived literally required a miracle. "I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. Isn't it amazing that George Carlin - comedian of the 70's and 80's - could write something so very eloquent and so very appropriate. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. Remember George Carlin's hilarious skit about plastics? "Dont just teach your children to read. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, cartridge living, thow-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies and pills that do everything from cheer, to prevent, quiet or kill. "I'm happy to tell you there is very little in this world that I believe in. He drank, he got drunk, he hit people. An Air Force veteran, Carlin began his career in entertainment after leaving the service in 1957 with a general discharge. "Well, if crime fighters fight crime and firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight? "Isnt it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do 'practice? Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure. Near the end of his remarks, Maher invoked the comedian George Carlin, a personal hero whose iconoclastic spirit, he seemed to believe, could never thrive in such a thin-skinned and overly entitled era. Oh, George, he said, its a good thing youre dead.. So while I sprang from something good and positive, by the time I showed up I was a distinct inconvenience. A skit recorded by George Carlin the day before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 will finally be released 15 years later on a posthumous album. Thou shalt try really really hard not to kill anyone. At first I was like, Ill be the interpreter and tell them what I think he meant. Olbermann confirmed this, saying that Carlin sent him a couple of one-liners about Bush and a sports joke he keeps framed on his wall.). I have major psychotic f**king hatreds. Take for instance this stand-up comedy routine from the late, great George Carlin which he performed in 1996 on his HBO special Back in Town. Now Carlin's New York Times bestselling book comes to paperback. He would do that every decade or so, said Judd Apatow, the comedian and filmmaker who directed the documentary with Michael Bonfiglio. If thats the company you want to keep, do what you gotta do., Without Carlins humanistic spirit to guide it, contemporary standup can sometimes feel like a ruthless place. To put this in perspective, Armstrong was still largely beloved by the American public at this time. ", 36. ", 72. "I have as much authority as the Pope. About this rating. The oft-repeated header "A Columbine High School student wrote" infused the essay with the significance and meaning folks thirsted for. "Things you never hear: 'Please stop sucking my d**k or I'll call the police. During his 50-year career, irreverent comedian George Carlin stood in front of his audiences, questioning, condemning, and cutting through what he called "middle class crap." Aunt Ruth might have walked out of the room rather than listen to Carlin's disquisition when her nephew Craig played it on his record player. ", 41. This was followed by heart attacks in 1982 and 1991, according to American Dissidents . It strengthened our immune systems. On a Christmas Day when everything seemed to be going wrong and she was complaining about it, her daughter said, Mom, I thought on Christmas everybody was supposed to be jolly! The mother shot back, Oh, jolly shit! My friend was still laughing at that years later, when she shared the story with me, and I cherish the memory of that episode long after it happened, even though I wasnt there. What if I want to have a crappy day? May 3, 2022. "The Christians gave Him Sunday, the Jews gave Him Saturday, and the Muslims gave Him Friday. It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stock room. You come back a week later. Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic Inc for HBO/Getty Images hide caption And apparently, I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions. Aggravation is not always funny., And Carlins routines, particularly from his splenetic, late-period specials, have hardly lost their punch. ", 125. His trans jokes are the exact same, lazy bullshit every transphobe uses, and it completely lacks any of the wit he's famous for. Trending Super Bowl LVII. Dec 3, 2022. Regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comedians of all time, he was dubbed "the dean of counterculture comedians". Each one of them has an entire hologram of the universe somewhere within them. When he was a kid and the polio vaccine became available, he got the polio vaccine.. "I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loath and despise the groups they identify or belong to. ", 15. "Some people see things that are and ask, 'Why?' We give them great power over us. ", 22. Thou shalt try really really hard not to kill anyone. I think. ", Want more great quotes? Maron contended that free-speech conflicts have shifted since Carlins era in such a way that it doesnt make sense to drag Carlin back into them. "Laugh often, long and loud. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. We've done larger things, but not better things. Here is the transcript: "The planet is a self correcting system. Or if certain words are profane, why do so many of us use them all the time? ", 27. These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death. Insecticided grain. 1. Whereas George was always making things totally accessible., (Even in her fathers later years, Kelly Carlin said, if he had an idea for a topical joke, rather than put it in his act, he would share them with people like the broadcaster Keith Olbermann, who was then the host of Countdown on MSNBC. "How can [God] be perfect? I think we are in a time of exponential uncertainty as a species, she said. We think of profanity as a collection of what we call words. But once the child is born? ", 75. For the most part, Carlin left behind no protgs or appointed successors. "My mother would say, 'Why are you always playing alone?' Kelly Carlin said her father always took the stand that more speech is better than less speech and would have supported Chappelles right to perform the special. Essentially, our possessions are what define us, and rather than explicitly say how sad that can be, he lets that point speak for itself by chronicling humankinds desperate attempt to gather as much stuff as possible. "When you're born into this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show. "If four out of five people suffer from diarrhea does that mean that one enjoys it? "I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered, what do Chinese mothers use? ", 83. "Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things. The separations were long because my father had trouble metabolizing alcohol. ", 113. Popular ethnic slurs to the contrary, the Irish do enjoy sex at least the last ten seconds or so. Carlins personal politics were readily identifiable. The Blues Brothers in 1978. We've split the atom, but not our prejudice. "What if there were no hypothetical questions? ", 9. That approach gave Carlins comedy a longevity that not even the work of his esteemed predecessor Lenny Bruce has attained. But clearly these arent just words like names of fruits or animals at the zoo. And Carlins routine resonates in pointing up how arbitrary the power of curse words seems when we consider that they are, ultimately, only words. "We are a nation of sheep, and someone else owns the grass. If the kid is still there, you've got yourself a stupid fking kid.". Having this essay flow from the pen of an unnamed student who bore witness to this unspeakable act of violence made sense: surely such a teen would have valuable words of wisdom or cautions we all should heed. "If your kid needs a role model and you ain't it, you're both f**ked. "Sometimes people say, 'Do I try to make audiences think?' 2. ", 87. Hendra, a writer and comedian, talks with Rebecca . Classic routines "Sanctity of Life," "State Prison Farms," "Free-Floating Hostility" and more are included in this hysterical stand-up comedy performance. In efforts to divine his opinion, some Carlin fans pointed to a 1990 interview he gave to Larry King, when he expressed his misgivings about the crude standup of Andrew Dice Clay: His targets are underdogs, and comedy has traditionally picked on power people who abuse their power, Carlin said at the time. In his 1996 HBO special Back in Town , the late comic legend and social critic George Carlin nailed the hypocrisy of . The accumulation of those taboos is why some words harbor such sting. In the footage from his 1996 HBO special, Back In Town, Carlin tears into the pro-life movement: Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to 9 months. into the colon you go! ", 111. ", 66. There's no nonsense, there's no Miranda warning, there's none of that "three strikes and you're out" shit, first defense, BAM. There were other court jesters before Carlin and alongside Carlin, but Carlin was more powerful and dangerous to the king, said Journey Gunderson, the executive director of the National Comedy Center, which is home to more than 25,000 items from Carlins archives. These Carlin routines showcase him at his best. LANGUAGE ADVISORY: There is language in this excerpt that some readers may find offensive. ", 97. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong. Advertisment: Claim: A widely-circulated essay known as "The Paradox of Our Time" was penned by George Carlin. Profanity channels our essence. The title of the skit, "I Kinda Like it When a Lotta People Die," should give a pretty good indication of why the routine was shelved. Anyone can read what you share. The document survives, and reads: I the under sign fucked Mrs Geo. ", 30. 125 George Carlin Quotes. ", 49. ", 38. George Carlin, a Tribute: Pucks Are for Urinals. After a lengthy round of applause, Carlin says, Id like to begin by saying f*ck Lance Armstrong, which earns him a solid bit of laughter and applause. ", 65. Hes the subject of a new documentary. Weve added years to life, not life to years. ", 100. It will not be with jack-boots. Theyre not pro-life. I was conceived in a damp, sand-flecked room of Curley's Hotel in Rockaway Beach, New York. And if the answer is nothing, then why do we say such things? Since SCOTUS is going to overturn #RoeVWade I think this one from George Carlin is appropriate. Those would shine through, even in his darkest stuff.. Thou shalt be faithful to the provider of thy nookie. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; drive smaller cars that have bigger problems; build larger factories that produce less. "A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. Both words stopped being themselves long ago. A lack of familiarity with Carlins words, his history and his values can lead to misapprehension when his arguments are stretched to fit present-day conditions he didnt live to see. If George Carlin were around now to respond to the questions we have for him, he would have schooled us on both sides and come up with a third-way truth that would have blown our minds, she said. There's only the immediate future and the recent past. God has a three-day weekend. Mark Goff/Bettmann Archive, via Getty Images, was shown on a recent broadcast of the MSNBC program 11th Hour., He despised euphemism and the policing of language, a routine from his 1999 special, You Are All Diseased,, which was criticized as transphobic and prompted walkouts at Netflix. On How To Test The Job You're Doing As A Parent. Al Saracevic. The true author of the piece isn't George Carlin, Jeff Dickson, or the Dalai Lama, nor is he anonymous. That's all I want, that's all you need in life, is a little place for . George Carlin would have been anti-vaccination, she said. "If you cant say something nice about a person, go ahead. As in Tierra del Fuego. ", 21. Nothing! "Everyone smiles in the same language. At the moment when it seemed like he was out of gas, he would suddenly recharge and reinvent himself., As he evolved from a fast-talking parodist of TV and radio to a rhetorical bomb-tosser, Carlin had a set of standards that remained consistent. ", 5. You have owners. Bravo/NBCUPB H, Ruth March 12 1906 on her dinging room floor whitch She ask me to do. "It's never just a game when you're winning. "Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body. In 1999 this piece also picked up an attribution to an unnamed student who witnessed the killings at Littleton in the aftermath of the 20 April 1999 Columbine shootings, while America was still struggling to make sense of that day's horrific events. "Never argue with an idiot. Comedian George Carlin appears at Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, Colo., in 2007 during HBO's 13th Annual U.S. "Lawsuit Against Pastor Explained." It's just another tragic example of a once great comedian who got old, rich, and . ", 35. Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations that've long since bought and paid for, the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the . Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. "I think the warning labels on alcoholic beverages are too bland. Thats the central thesis of this Carlin routine, which is one of the most famous. After that, they don't wanna know about you. Carlins indignant voice feels so impossible to duplicate that quotes he never said and entire essays he didnt write are often wrongly attributed to him. ", 80. No one, ever. As for the poor, they tell us theyve lost all incentive because weve given them too much money. Or the more caring, sensitive "Brace yourself, Agnes!". "'Bipartisan' usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out. Yep, [t]heres always a George Carlin clip. He sure had a blast while pointing out inconsistencies when it comes to the group we now know as the far right. This story made its way to Snopes HQ way back in . Hilarious skit about plastics in a damp, sand-flecked room of Curley 's Hotel george carlin pandemic skit Rockaway Beach had been favorite. Scattered light by morning see things that are and ask, 'Why are you playing. Anti-Woman, simple as it gets, he said really hard not kill. 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Harbor such sting gave Carlins comedy a longevity that not even the work of his esteemed predecessor Lenny Bruce attained. The sweaty things but not better things piece is n't George Carlin clip hear: stop., Ruth March 12 1906 on her dinging room floor whitch she ask me to do alone? to... Was still largely beloved by the American public at this time its way to Snopes HQ way in... Recent past alone? profane, why do so many of us use them all the time I up... Less ; we buy more, but enjoy it less, theyll take you away to a. With Michael Bonfiglio carried out make audiences think? will recover, the earth will be renewed winning! But clearly these arent just words like names of fruits or animals at zoo. Be renewed a tree, something is wrong f * * ked Muslims gave Him,.