Brain Droppings Part 2

b r a droppings IHE EVER WRDR THIS SEHTEHCE BEFORE in the Feast of St. Stephen, I was driving my hea.r.s.e to the whole-iverwurst outlet when suddenly a hermaphrodite in a piano truck sd out of a crackhouse driveway, and, as my shoes caught fire, I letted across Boris Karloff Boulevard, slapping the truckdriver six > in the loins with a Chattanooga road map, even though he was ming "The p.u.s.s.ycat Song." ?Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z 3eople say, "I'm going to sleep now," as if it were nothing. But it's y a bizarre activity. "For the next several hours, while the sun is ;, I'm going to become unconscious, temporarily losing command ? everything I know and understand. When the sun returns, I will me my life." [f you didn't know what sleep was, and you had only seen it in a nee fiction movie, you would think it was weird and tell all your ids about the movie you'd seen. "They had these people, you know? And they would walk around lay and be OK? And then, once a day, usually after dark, they ild lie down on these special platforms and become unconscious. y would stop functioning almost completely, except deep in their ds they would have adventures and experiences that were comely impossible in real life. As they lay there, completely vulnera-to their enemies, their only movements were to occasionally s.h.i.+ft n one position to another; or, if one of the 'mind adventures' got too real, they would sit up and scream and be glad they weren't unconscious anymore. Then they would drink a lot of coffee."

So, next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you're in a science fiction movie. And whisper, "The creature is regenerating itself." f.u.c.k THE FARnER8 Can someone please tell me why farmers are always whining and looking for a handout? If it isn't a drought or a flood, it's their bad loans. I was always told farmers were strong, independent people who were too proud to accept help. But sure enough as soon as something goes wrong, they're looking for the government to bail them out. And they're the first ones to complain about city people who live on welfare. f.u.c.k the farmers. They're worrying about losing their land? It wasn't their land to begin with, they stole it from the Indians. Let 'em find out what it feels like to have your land taken away by some square-headed c.o.c.ksucker who just came over on a boat. They wiped out the bears, the wolves, and the mountain lions; they spoiled the land, poisoned the water table, and they produce tasteless food. Why is it in this capitalist society all businesses are expected to succeed or fail on their own except farming? Why is that? SnOKE IF YA GOT 'EH Even though I don't smoke, I'm not one of those fanatics you run into. In fact, I love watching cigarette smokers in their sad little sealed-off areas, sucking away, deep lines in their faces, precancerous lesions taking hold, the posture and body language of petty criminals. You know what you do with these people? Give 'em free cigarettes. Let 'em smoke. Offer them a light! And you hope each one of them EORCE CARLIN ts a small, painful tumor right in the middle of his body so it can ow in six different directions at once. And you pray they get a doc-r who doesn't believe in painkillers, and their insurance runs out. I ink people should be allowed to enjoy themselves. LAHE IT On THE BOSSA nOVA They try to blame movies and TV for violence in this country, hat a load of s.h.i.+t. Long before there were movies and television, mericans killed millions of Indians, enslaved millions of blacks, aughtered 700,000 of each other in a family feud, and attained the ghest murder rate in history. Don't blame Sylvester Stallone. We ?ought these horrifying genes with us from Europe, and then we ive them our own special twist. American know-how!

Violent American movies like Die Hard, Terminator, and Lethal leapon do very well in places like Canada, j.a.pan, and Europe. Very well. et these countries do not have nearly the violence of the United States. 11989, in all of j.a.pan, with a population of 150 million, there were 754 mrders. In New York City that year, with a population of only 7.5 mil-on, there were 2,300. It's bred in the bone. Movies and television don't lake you violent; all they do is channel the violence more creatively.

Americans even manage to turn positive experiences into vio->nce. Like sports champions.h.i.+ps. In Detroit, in 1990, the Pistons won le NBA champions.h.i.+p: eight people dead. The Chicago Bulls, 1993: ine shot, 1,000 arrested. Montreal, the Canadiens, 1993: 170 injured, 7 police cars vandalized, and $10 million in damages. I'm glad it's Lappened in a place like Montreal, so these bigoted s.h.i.+t stains who all in on sports-talk shows can't blame it all on the blacks.

brain droppings I could mention plenty of things that contribute to violence. One . simply the condition of being violent; the predisposition. Everyone knows this is a cranky species. It's especially well known among the other species. And most people can see that the particular strain of critter found in America is especially p.r.o.ne to graceless outbursts, being, as we are, a collection of all the strange and restless castoffs and rolling stones who proved such an ill fit back home. G.o.d bless them all, and give them all the guns they want.

Two other things that contribute to violence are religion and government, because they seek to repress and regulate natural impulses like s.e.x and self-gratification. Of course, the two of them will always try to scapegoat movies and television. The truth is, no one knows enough or cares enough to stop the real violence, so their answer is to tone down the pretend violence. It's superst.i.tion: "Maybe if we tone down the pretend violence, the real violence will go away. Or not seem so bad."

And maybe the father who forbids his son to watch violent television will not beat the s.h.i.+t out of him when he disobeys. Maybe. I"

A man is seated in a football stadium with a small TV set tuned to the game. The sideline camera takes his picture, and his image travels through the lens, out of the camera, to the truck, to the satellite, to a ground station several miles away, back into the air, and to the man's TV set.

He sees himself on the screen. The image travels from his eyes to his brain. His brain sends a signal to his arm to start waving. The image travels to the camera, through the lens, to the truck, to the satellite, to another ground station a thousand miles away where it is EORGE CARLIN :ransmitted into the air and picked up by a cable company that nds it to the man's parents' TV set.

The image travels from the screen to his mother's eyes, along the >tic nerve to her brain, where it references her memory and recog-tion takes place. Her brain then sends a series of signals to her ngs, throat, lips, and tongue, and she says, "Look, it's Mike!" Baseball is different from any other sport; very different.

For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs.

In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball inten- tionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out.

Also: In football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball, and without the ball you can't score. In baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.

In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager; and only in baseball does the manager (or coach) wear the same clothing the players do. If you had ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders football uniform, you would know the reason for this custom. Now, I've mentioned football. Baseball and football arel K the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And,r as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something) brain droppings about ourselves and our values. And maybe how those values have changed over the last 150 years. For those reasons, I enjoy comparing baseball and football: Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game. Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!

Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium. Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying. In football you wear a helmet. In baseball you wear a cap. Football is concerned with downs. "What down is it?" Baseball is concerned with ups. "Who's up? Are you up? I'm not up! He's up!" In football you receive a penalty. In baseball you make an error. In football the specialist comes in to kick. In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody. Football has. .h.i.tting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting, and unnecessary roughness. Baseball has the sacrifice.

GEORGE C A R L I N.

Football is played in any kind of weather: Rain, snow, 6 sleet, hail, fog ... can't see the game, don't know if there is a game going on; mud on the field . .. can't read the uniforms, can't read the yard markers, the struggle will continue!

In baseball if it rains, we don't go out to play. "I can't go ^ out! It's raining out!" Baseball has the seventh-inning stretch. Football has the two-minute warning. Baseball has no time limit: "We don't know when it's gonna end!" Football is rigidly timed, and it will end "even if we have to go to sudden death." 6 In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's a kind of picnic feeling. Emotions may run high or low, but there's not that much unpleasantness.

In football, during the game in the stands, you can be . sure that at least twenty-seven times you were perfectly capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different: i In football the object is for the quarterback, otherwise known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial a.s.sault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet pa.s.ses and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aer- brain droppings ial a.s.sault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes -r ;,, in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line. ,;f;r In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! "I hope I'll be safe at home!" I Being Irish, I guess I should resent the Notre Dame nickname, "The Fighting Irish." After all, how long do you think nicknames like "The Bargaining Jews" or "The Murdering Italians" would last? Only the ironic Irish could be so naively honest. I get the feeling that Notre Dame came real close to naming itself "The f.u.c.kin' Drunken, Thick-skulled, Brawling, Short-d.i.c.ked Irish."

Here's something I don't care about: athlete's families. This is really the bottom of the sports barrel. I'm watchin' a ball-game, and just because some athlete's wife is in the stands, someone thinks they have to put her picture on the screen. And I miss a double steal! Same with a ballplayer's father. G.o.dd.a.m.n! "There's his dad, who taught him how to throw the changeup when he was two years old." f.u.c.k him, the sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d! His own sports dreams probably crash-landed, so he forced a bunch of s.h.i.+t on his kid, and now the kid's a neurotic athlete. f.u.c.k these athletes' relatives. If they wanna be on TV, let 'em get their own G.o.dd.a.m.n shows. Let 'em go to cable access. 6 I also don't care if an athlete's wife had a baby, how she is, how the baby is, how much the baby weighs or what the f.u.c.kin' baby's name is. It's got nothin' to do with sports. Leave it out!

GEORGE CARLIN.

brain droppings And I'm tired of athletes whose children are sick. Healthy men with sick children; how ba.n.a.l. The kid's sick? Talk it over privately. Don't spread it all over television. Have some dignity. And play f.u.c.kin' ball!!

Nor do I wanna know about some athlete's crippled little brother or his hemophiliac big sister. The Olympics specialize in this kind of mawkish bulls.h.i.+t. Either his aunt has the clap, or his kid has a forty-pound mole, or his high school buddy overdosed on burritos, etc. Can't sports exist on television without all this embarra.s.sing, maudlin, super-sentimental, tear-jerking bulls.h.i.+t? Keep your personal disasters to yourself, and get in there and score some f.u.c.kin' points!

And I don't care for all that middlebrow philosophical bulls.h.i.+t you get from athletes and coaches when someone on the team has a serious illness or dies in an accident. They give you that stuff, "When something like this happens, you realize what's really important. It's only a game." Bulls.h.i.+t! If it's only a game, get the f.u.c.k out of the business. You know what's important? The score. Who won. I can get plenty of sad tales somewhere else in this victim-packed society. f.u.c.k all that dewy-eyed sentimental bulls.h.i.+t about people who are sick. And that includes any athlete whose father died a week before the game who says, "This one's for Pop." American bathos. Keep it to yourself. Play ball!

And I shouldn't even have to mention severly injured athletes who are playing on "nothing but heart." f.u.c.k you! Suck it up and get out there, motherf.u.c.ker.

And they're always tellin' ya that one of these athletes has a tumor. Don't they know that no one gives a f.u.c.k? You know when you care about a tumor? When you have it! Or someone close to you. Who cares about an athlete? No one cares if a rock star gets a tumor. What's so special about an athlete? By the way, you ever notice you don't hear as much about rock stars getting these tumors as you do about athletes? Maybe the drug life is a little better for us than all that stupid sweaty s.h.i.+t the athletes put themselves through. Just speculating.

And I don't wanna know about sports teams that sew the i initials of dead people on their jerseys for one whole season as if it really means something. Leave that mawkish bulls.h.i.+t in the locker room. I don't wanna know who's in mourning. Play ball, you f.u.c.kin' grotesque overdeveloped nitwits!

And you can skip tellin' me about the Chevrolet player of the game. A thousand-dollar contribution to a scholars.h.i.+p fund in the athlete's name. s.h.i.+t. A thousand dollars won't even keep a kid in decent drugs for one semester. f.u.c.k Chevrolet.

And when are they gonna discover that no one cares if an athlete is active in local charities? People don't want to know about some c.o.ke-headed, steroid monstrosity who's working to help the National Douche Bag Foundation. Or how much he cares about inner-city kids. Can the c.o.c.ksuck-er play ball? Fine. Then suit him up and get him the f.u.c.k out there on the field and let him injure someone.

One last thing on this topic. No one, repeat, no one is inter ested in athletes who can sing or play musical instruments. We already have people to perform these tasks. They're called singers and musicians, and, at last count, it would seem we have quite enough of them. The fact that someone with an IQ triple his age has mastered a few simple chords is unimportant and of monumental disinterest. Play ball! ,, GEORGE CARLIN Pa.s.sTHEROLES.

I'm surprised that all this s.h.i.+t about role models has persisted a* long as it has. Why should a kid need a role model? You know what you tell a kid? "Get the f.u.c.k out there, get a job, and make a contri-. b.u.t.ton." Never mind that role model s.h.i.+t. If this country is dependent on things like role models, we're much worse off than I thought.

People say athletes should be role models. I never looked up to ai^ athlete, did you? I liked them. I didn't copy them. Did you ever listen to one of those guys talk? Would you want your kid to turn out like that? Willing to completely subordinate his ego and individuality for the sake of a group whose sole purpose is to compete with oth&r groups? Can't have a mustache? Gotta wear a suit jacket? s.h.i.+t! kid needs a role model and you ain't it, you're both f.u.c.ked.

Sf OlflS pNDUf I like sports because I enjoy knowing that many of the&e macho athletes have to vomit before a big game. Any guy who would take a job where you gotta puke first is my kinda guy. 6 I read that Monica Seles got stabbed. And although I have nothing against Monica Seles, I'm glad somebody in sports gjot stabbed. I like the idea of it; it's good entertainment. If we"re lucky, it'll spread all through sports. And show business, to>o! Wouldn't you like to see a guy jump up on stage and stab soitne famous singer? Especially a real s.h.i.+tty pop singer? Mayrbe they'll even start stabbing comedians. f.u.c.k it, I'm ready! I never perform without my can of mace. I have a switchblade knife, too. I'll cut your eye out and go right on telling jokess. 56 k In football, I root for the Oakland Raiders because they hire castoffs, outlaws, malcontents, and f.u.c.kups, they have lots of penalties, fights, and paybacks, and because Al Davis told the rest of the pig NFL owners to go get f.u.c.ked. Also, they don't have a lot of Christians kneeling down to pray after touchdowns. Christians are ruining sports. Someday, the Raiders will be strong again, and they will dip the ball in s.h.i.+t and shove it down the throats of the wholesome, white, heartland teams that pray together and don't deliver late hits.

You know the best thing I did for myself during the past five years? I told sports to go take a flying f.u.c.k. I was fed up with the way I related to professional sports, so I reordered the relations.h.i.+p on my own terms. I became a little more selective.

I couldn't believe how much time I had wasted watching any old piece of s.h.i.+t ballgame that happened to show up on TV. I must have thought there was some inborn male obligation to tune in and root every time a bunch of sweaty a.s.sholes got together to mix it up in a stadium somewhere.

I also realized I was wasting perfectly good emotional energy by sticking with my teams when they were doing poorly. My rooting life was scarcely better than those Cubs fans who think it's a sign of character to feel s.h.i.+tty all the time. It's absurd.

I decided it's not necessary to suffer and feel c.r.a.ppy just because my teams suck. What I do now is cut 'em loose for awhile. I simply let them go about losing, as I go about living my life. Then, when they've improved, and are doing well once again, I get back on board and enjoy their success.

fc s 100 1 ?00 H S3 GEORGE C A R L I N . pressure, and widespread gambling scandals. An earthquake Uj. in a ballpark isn't such a bad thing to me, either. I don't give a s.h.i.+t about the outcome of the game, I'm just looking for an interesting story. I pray that some year the baseball postseason will include ^ only teams with outdoor stadiums in cold-weather cities. And then I hope there are repeated freak storm systems that keep K coming through the Midwest and the East, and all during the playoffs there are constant rainouts and postponements. And I pray for the whole thing to continue for months, so the games are pushed further and further back, and eventually the World Series is played in January. And then I hope it's cold and windy and icy and snowy, and a lot of players get < p="">

In their hatred for the players, the fans often forget that the real insects are the owners; the greedy swine owners who b..T..a.i.n d. r o p p i n g s are always pleading poverty. In 1980, Nelson Doubleday 5 paid $21.6 million for the Mets franchise. Today it's worth over $200 million. Where's the risk? And if it's so hard to make money in baseball, why are all these maggot entrepreneur-hustlers around the country so eager to pay $95 mil- ^ lion for a last-place expansion team? I'm not too thrilled with the sports media people, either. k The talent is marginal, they bring nothing to the mix, and their palpable envy of the players is actually embarra.s.sing. Many of these media stiffs were failed high school and college athletes and simply not good enough to make the cut. (Obviously, I'm excluding former pro ballplayers.) How dare such also-rans criticize athletes and their play? You wanna know the prob- 0 lem? Athletes get tons of money and p.u.s.s.y, and all the best drugs. The sports media don't. Need any more on that?

Some baseball teams hire "ball girls" to retrieve foul b.a.l.l.s that don't go into the stands. But I've noticed many of these women are quite feminine and don't throw very well. These 0 teams are making a mistake. I think they should hire lesbians to do that job. Not femmes, but full-on, bad-a.s.s, 90-mile-an hour bull d.y.k.es. The kind you see in hardware stores. I'll tell you one thing, you'd get a lot more good plays and strong 1 return throws out there. And if some fan leaned out of the stands to pick up a foul ball, the "ball d.y.k.e" could drag him onto the field and beat the s.h.i.+t out of him for about forty-five minutes. And if any baseball players tried to stop her, she could just deck them, too.

60.E 0 R G E C A R L I N.

Athletes like that physical s.h.i.+t. When they're pleased with tl each other they b.u.mp chests, b.u.t.t heads, and bang forearms. Why don't they just punch each other in the f.u.c.kin' teeth? Wouldn't that be great? Teammates, I mean. After a touchdown pa.s.s, why doesn't the guy who caught the ball just go ^ over and kick the quarterback right in the nuts? Same with a slam dunk in basketball. The guy who scores oughta grab a k, chair and beat the living s.h.i.+t out of the guy who fed him the ball. For about forty-five minutes. If this type of celebration were more common, the postgame show from the winners' locker room would be a lot livelier. And I think there should be at least one sport where the A object is to kill someone. A team sport. Deathball. Let's face it, athletes are mostly physical freaks with serious personality defects where compet.i.tion is concerned, and they just love someone to "motivate" them. Well, what greater motivation can there be than trying to avoid being killed? It's a f.u.c.kin' natural! And for me, what could be more fun than watching one of these 0 j.a.c.k.o.f.fs motivate his ugly a.s.s into an early grave every game?

Here's another thing: I love losing streaks. I wish some year a baseball team would lose 162 games. I especially like decades-long, postseason losing streaks. In fact, as soon as my v teams are out of the running, I start actively rooting for the Cubs, Red Sox, Bills, Broncos, and Vikings to get as far as they can in the postseason so that ultimately they can let the big prize slip away one more time. I think it is an infinitely more interesting news story for a team to repeatedly fail at the highest level than it is for them to finally win. If the Cubs ever win 62 b r a i n d r o p p i n a World Series, the news coverage will be the most boring bunch of s.h.i.+t you can imagine.

And, although I wouldn't wish it on anyone, you'll have to admit it would sure be a lot of fun to see a couple of those chartered planes the athletes fly around in go down in flames. I know it might seem ghoulish to the overly squeamish, but I'd love to read about all the ha.s.sles they were having restocking the teams, and it would be fun to see the new lineups. Of course, all the stupid s.h.i.+t on TV about the funerals would be real boring.

P.S. Any professional sports team that has a "fight song" is automatically a bush-league, small-town team. Period. I aat my uncle was good at. UloS.The piece movement. ucclSlKM- A person who blows clairvoyants.

. Clothing worn by light-skinned blacks who wish to be thought of as white.

When you lose a debate.

The sound a prost.i.tute makes so you'll think you're a real good f.u.c.k.

CARL ; E 0 R C E UrilQ uOfriC". Driving to your connection's house. uEXdnUE'- Similar to drug traffic, but with a different destination. DOUChf. A female duke. ? An eight-sided v.a.g.i.n.a. llinE". A s.e.xual lubricant popular with s.l.u.ts.

A keet that takes care of you until the real keet arrives. lUSSljrOOt' A rare female birth defect requiring the use of open-toed shoes. uEErnilu'The official disease of Milwaukee. COttOn bOllS' The final stage of beer nuts.

cupational disability common among dairy farmers. f'.A seventeenth-century prosthetic device. short sadom.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t. DIStBt A small gun that can be hidden in your hat. IV-Attilathehon.

brain droppings bond and bond, and get closer and closer, until finally they're just drunk enough to say, "You know, I really love these guys." And that frightens them. So they must quickly add, "But I'm not a queer!"

See the dilemma? Now they have to go out of their way to prove to the world, to their buddies, and to themselves that they don't harbor h.o.m.oerotic feelings. And it's only a short step from "I"m not a queer" to "In fact, I hate queers!" And another short step to "Let's go kill some queers!" And what they really seek to kill is not the queer outside, it's the queer inside they fear.

Gay bashers are repressed h.o.m.os.e.xuals attempting to deny the queer inside, but certain signals get past the screen. That's why you see so many policemen with those precious little well-groomed mustaches. You'd see more of those same mustaches on athletes and military men, but those two groups are not allowed to express themselves freely. Military drones and many sheep-like athletes have dress codes and are forbidden to wear facial hair. The idea is to limit and reduce their individuality. These are men who have chosen to allow "the organization" to run their lives. That's why athletes, police, and military men have that rigid unbending body language; they're severely repressed. Guess what they're repressing? And, hey, why do you think they call those police cars "cruisers"?

"in'SBEATTHEnWlTHQURPURSESr The reason for most violence against gays is that heteros.e.xual men are forced to prove that they, themselves, are not gay. It goes like this: Men in strong male subcultures like the police, the military, and sports (and a few other cesspools) bond very strongly. Hunting, fis.h.i.+ng, and golfing friends.h.i.+ps also produce this unnatural bonding. These guys have a suggestion that I think would help fight serious crime. Signs, are lots of signs for minor infractions: No Smoking, Stay Off the ra.s.s> Keep Out, and they seem to work fairly well. I think we should GEORGE CARLIN also have signs for major crimes: Murder Strictly Prohibited, No Raping People, Thank You for Not Kidnapping Anyone. It's certainly worth a try. I'm convinced Watergate would never have happened if there had just been a sign in the Oval Office that said, Malfeasance of Office Is Strictly Against the Law, or Thank You for Not Undermining the Const.i.tution.

When you drive through an entrance or exit lane that has one of those signs, Do Not Back Up-Severe Tire Damage, and you're going in the correct direction, don't you sort of worry about it anyway? That maybe they got it wrong? Or somebody turned the sign around? Or some guy on drugs installed the spikes? Or maybe you're on drugs, and you think, Am I doing this right? Am I backing up? No, I seem to be going forward. Let's see. Which way are the spikes pointing? Oh, I can't see the spikes anymore. I guess I better back up a little.

Here's a sign I don't like: Authorized Personnel Only. Now, if there's one thing I know about myself, it's that I am definitely not authorized. I wouldn't even know where to go to get authorized. Can you do it by mail? Wouldn't baptism sort of authorize you? It doesn't matter; I go through the door anyway. If I get stopped, I say, "Well, I may not be authorized for this, but I am authorized for other things. And your sign doesn't mention which things."

I've got a terrific sign in front of my house that keeps intruders out: r.e.t.a.r.ded Pit Bull High on Angel Dust. No one's come over the wall yet. Except a couple of r.e.t.a.r.ded guys who were high on angel dust. DO. TAKE. HAVE. 61VE People used to take drugs, now they do drugs. Some people don't do drugs, they do lunch. Instead of taking drugs, they take meetings. They used to have meetings. Now, instead of having meetings, they brain droppings relations.h.i.+ps. Some people who don't do drugs but have a relations.h.i.+p will take a meeting while they do lunch.

People used to get s.e.x, now they have s.e.x. So far, they don't do s.e.x. Although they do say, "Let's do it." But if the s.e.x is overly aggressive, we say the person was "taken." I guess if one's not giving, the other's gonna take.

We take a lot of things. We take a lot of good things. We take time, we take heart, we take solace, medicine, advice; we take a job, take a break, take a vacation, a leave, a nap, a rest, a seat, we take a meal.

We take, take, take until we can't take anymore. Maybe it's because our inner nature is not primarily one of giving, but of taking. Even these things we take that should balance our lives and give us rest do not. We make work out of them. We do them aggressively; always in control. Take.

But when we give, we give a lot of bad things. We give trouble, heartache, sorrow, we give someone a hard time, a migraine, give 'em a heart attack, and give 'em a big pain in the a.s.s. So I say, "Give up, get f.u.c.ked, take a hike, and have fun." YOU'RE A HATURAl This is for health food fiends, the natural-fabrics gang, and all those green-head environmental hustlers who stomp around in the "natural": Your key word is meaningless. Everything is natural. Everything in the universe is a part of nature. Polyester, pesticides, oil slicks, and whoopee cus.h.i.+ons. Nature is not just trees and flowers. It's eveiything. Human beings are part of nature. And if a human being invents something, that's part of nature, too. Like the whoopee cus.h.i.+on. -> r C A R L I N GEORGE.

Also: The experience called "natural childbirth" is not natural at all. It is freaky and bizarre. It is distinctly unnatural for a person to invite and welcome pain. Whose influence am I sensing here? Men's? It's nothing more than childbirth machisma. The woman wants it said of her that she can "take it like a man."

brain droppings Or imagine the very first guy who threw up. What did he think? What did he say to his friends? "Hey, Vinny, c'mere! Remember that yak we ate? Look!" unrccESSAKr WORDS Sometimes on television they tell you a product is "good for headaches." I don't want something that's good for headaches. I want something that's bad for headaches. And good for me. THROW TOUR BACK OUT Several months ago, a friend told me that when he was cleaning his garage he threw his back out. I told him it was probably overenthusi-asm. Sometimes when you're cleaning, you get carried away and throw out something you intended to keep. The next time I ran into him he seemed to have learned his lesson. He had recently cleaned out his attic, but this time he didn't throw his back out. He gave it to Goodwill. riRST THinOS FIRST Many things we take for granted must have sounded unusual the first time they were proposed. For instance, imagine trying to explain to someone, for the first time, that you thought giving him an enema would be a real good idea. You'd have to proceed very subtly. "Hey, Joey! I got a new idea. Turn around." "New id-? Hey, what's that thing in your hand?" "Nothing. Oh! I dropped my keys. Would you mind pickin' 'emup?"

There is a tendency these days to prison setting peace process intensity level belief system seating area sting operation evacuation process rehabilitation process facial area daily basis blue in color risk factor crisis situation leaders.h.i.+p role learning process rain event confidence level healing process standoff situation shooting incident planning process complicate speech by adding unnecessary words. The following phrases all contain at least one word too many. emergency situation shower activity surgical procedure boarding process flotation device hospital environment fear factor free of charge knowledge base forest setting : beverage items The best known example of this problem is: "At that point in time." I've even heard people say, "At that particular point in time." Boy, that's pinning it down, isn't it?

This typing process is beginning to tire out my finger area. Not to mention what it's doing to my mind situation. I think it's time to consider the break factor here, before I have a fatigue incident.

Brain Droppings GEORGE CARLIN.

b r a d r o p p i n g s SHORT TAKES [Part 1) he wisest man I ever knew taught me something I never forgot. And although I never forgot it, I never quite memorized it either. So what I'm left with is the memory of having learned something very wise that I can't quite remember. l.u.s.t what exactly is the "old dipsy doodle"? When I hear a person talking about political solutions, I know I am not listening to a serious person. Sties arc caused by matching your dog s.h.i.+t. SONETinES A LITTLE BRA1H DAHAGE CAH HELP A woman told me her child was autistic, and I thought she said artistic. So I said, "Oh, great. I'd like to see some of the things he's done." Euentually there mill come a time when eueryone is in a band. Weyerhauser, a company that makes its money by cutting down trees, calls itself "The tree-growing company." If a man smiles all the time he's probably selling something that doesn't work. llot only do I not know what's going on, I wouldn't know what to do about it if I did. ... ;.<.,..ii ,,,,="" .,.";.=""> .... y , . ,,.. ,,, ,.. , ..

H likely is it that all the people who are described as missing are living together in a small town somewhere? We're all f.u.c.ked. It helps to remember that. I f lobsters looked like puppies, people could never drop them in boiling water while they're still alive. But instead, they look like science fiction monsters, so it's OK. Restaurants that allow patrons to select live lobsters from a tank should be made to paint names on their sh.e.l.ls: "Happy," "Baby Doll," "Junior." I defy anyone to drop a living thing called "Happy" in rapidly boiling water. The nicest thing about anything is not knowing what it is. I feel sorry for homeless gay people; they have no closet to come out of. In fact, I imagine if you were gay and homeless, you'd probably be glad just Xohave a closet. I've adopted a new lifestyle that doesn't require my presence. In fact, if I don't want to, I don't have to get out of bed at all, and I still get credit for a full day. The sicker you get, the harder it is to remember if you took your medicine. I can't bear to go to the children's zoo. I always wonder how their parents can allow them to be kept in those little cages. If you take the corn off the cob, not only do you have corn-off-the-cob, you also have cobs-out-from-inside-the-corn.

; E 0 R C E CARLIN.

brain d r o p p i n g s Why do foreign soldiers march funny? Do they think we march funny? If we do, how would we know? If you moil a letter to the post office, mho deltas it? n the fritz" is a useful expression only if you're talking about a home appliance. You wouldn't say, "The s.p.a.ce Shuttle is on the fritz." You'd never hear it in a hospital. "Doctor, the heart-lung machine is on the fritz." Rarely does Q loose woman houe a tight p.u.s.s.y. Some see the gla.s.s as half-empty, some see the gla.s.s as half-full. I see the gla.s.s as too big. lly uncle thought he would clean up in dirt farming, but prices fell, and he took a real bath. Eventually, he washed his hands of the whole thing. Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers. lest of metal: Will of Iron, nerues of steel, heart of gold, b.a.l.l.s of bra.s.s. WHITE FEOfLE f.u.c.kED UP THE BLUES If you loue someooe, set them free: if they come home, set them on fire. I've never owned a telescope, but it's something I'm thinking of looking into. Whenever I see a large crowd, I always wonder what was the most disgusting thing any one of them ever did.

I think they ought to let guys like Jeffrey Dahmer off with a warning. They do with speeding tickets. Sometimes all a guy needs is a good talking to. Why don't they say, "Listen, Jeff. Knock it off! n.o.body thinks you're funny. Eat one more guy and we're comin'after ya." b ey kids! It's mostly bulls.h.i.+t and garbage, and none of the stuff they tell you is true. And when your dumb-a.s.s father says he wants you to amount to something, he means make a lot of money. How do you think the word amount got in there? Those nicotine patches seem to work pretty well, but I understand it's kind of hard to keep'em lit. ? n El Salvador, they declared a cease fire after ten years. Why didn't they think of that at the beginning? Anyway, the best thing about El Salvador is that they killed a lot of religious people. How often do you get 10 percent of the body count in clergy? At one point in my haste to improve myself, I mixed up the telephone numbers of the s.h.i.+ck Center for the Control of Smoking and the Evelyn Woods Speed Reading School. As a result, I can now smoke up to 300 cigarettes a minute, but I gave up reading. freschool teacher": If it's not a school, why do they need a teacher? Don't they need a "preteacher"? Most people ore not particularly good at anything.

EORCE CARLIN.

brain droppings 1.ow can someone be "armed with a handgun"? Shouldn't he be armed with an "armgun"? Can a handgun really be a sidearm? And shouldn't a hand grenade be an arm grenade? You don't throw it with your hand, you throw it with your arm. Try Explaining Hitler to a kid.

I rnoossible to know accurately how you look in your sungla.s.ses. As he ayes, Mickey Rooney gets euen shorter. e levators and escalators do more than elevate and escalate. They also lower. The names tell only half the story. do one euer refers to "half o month1.'

f.u.c.k Alison fhy; do we turn lights "out" when we turn most other things "off"?

Don't you get discouraged each morning when you wake up and realize you have to wash again? Kou show me the people who control the money, the land, and the weapons, and I'll show you the people in charge.

Iforking-cla.s.s people "look for work." Middle-cla.s.s people "try to get a ob." Upper-middle-cla.s.s people "seek employment." .an you have just one antic? How about a lone shenanigan? A mon-ceys.h.i.+ne? mere are two pips in a beaut, four beauts in a lulu, eight lulus in a doozy, and sixteen doozies in a humdinger. No one knows how many humdingers there are in a lollapalooza. Ihose who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music. ??,???'

THERE Will BE HO h.o.r.e PAPER TOWELS AFTER JULY 'm not going to apologize for this, but I have my own personal psychic. He doesn't predict the future, and he can't tell you much about your past. But he does a really fantastic job of describing the present. For instance, he can tell you exactly what you're wearing, but he can't do it over the phone. We're all amateurs; it's just that some of us are more professional about it than others. When the going gets tough, the tough get f.u.c.ked. I was expelled from cooking school, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. ', GEORGE CARLIN.

brain dropping ast year, in Los Angeles, a robber threatened a store owner with syringe that he claimed had HIV on it, saying "Give me the money or I'll give you AIDS." You know what I would've told him? "If you give me AIDS I'm gonna find your wife and daughter and f.u.c.k them." I think me should attack Russia now. They'd neuer expect it. I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it. What is the plural of "a h.e.l.l of a guyTllls of guys"? Ihe phrase surgical strike might be more acceptable if it were common practice to perform surgery with high explosives. I neuer eat sus.h.i.+. I haue trouble eating things that are merely unconscious. When you find existing time on a parking meter, you should be able to add it to the end of your life. Minus the time you spent on hold. I recently went to a new doctor and noticed he was located in something called the Professional Building. 1 felt better right away. You can't fight City Hall, but you con G.o.dd.a.m.n sure blow it up. J ust think, right now as you read this, some guy somewhere is gettin' ready to hang himself. JESUS WAS A [ROSS-DRESSER 76 I p n0 ax to grind, but 1 do have an ivory letter opener that could use sharpening. eminists want to ban p.o.r.nography on the grounds that it encourages violence against women. The j.a.panese consume far more violent and depraved p.o.r.nography than we do, and yet there is almost no rape reported there. A woman is twenty times more in danger of being raped in the U.S. than she is in j.a.pan. Why? Because j.a.panese people are decent, civilized, and intelligent. The only good thing euer to come out of religion mas the music. I don't have to tell you it goes without saying there are some things better left unsaid. I think that speaks for itself. The less said about it the better. Do kings haue suieat bands in their crowns? When someone is impatient and says, "I haven't got all day," I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day? There ought to be at least one round state. f or a long time it was all right for a woman to keep a diary, but it sounded too fruity for men. So they changed it to journal. Now sensitive men can set down their thoughts without appearing too sensitive. In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. A courtesy bus driuer once told me to go f.u.c.k myself.

C A R L I N GEORGE ometimes the label on the can says "fancy peas." Then, you get 'em home and they're really rather ordinary. Nothing fancy about 'ern at all. Maybe if they had little bullfight paintings on them, they would be fancy. But as it is... SLAP A DEAD mil If the shoe fits, get another one just like it. Cventually, nature will produce a species that can play the piano better than we can. 1 don't think me really gaue barbarism a fair try. fiano lessons sound like something a piano should take. Humans should take piano-playing lessons. Did you hear about the man who left in a huff and returned in a jiffy? Another day, he arrived in a tizzy and left in a snit. His wife swept in in a fury and left in a daze, then left in a dither and returned in a whirl. If you go to a bone bonk, uihy can't you make a calcium deposit? g et down!" is a slang expression that would have been really useful in World War II. If soldiers had known this expression at the time, a lot of lives could have been saved. WHY [AM THERE BE flORE SUFFERING?

brain droppings There are no times that don't haue moments like these. ince 1983, re ^an thirty people have been killed in post office shootings. You know why? Because the price of stamps keeps changing. There's a lot of pressure. "How much are they now, Rob? Twenty-nine? Thirty-two? I can't keep track! f.u.c.k it!" BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!! On Opening Day, the President doesn't throw out the first ball. He throws it in If he threw it out, it would land in the parking lot and someone would have to go get it. Where does the dentist go uihen he leaues you alone? Why are there never any really good-looking women on long distance buses? I almost don't feel the may I do. e're not satisfied with forcing Russia to destroy its nuclear weapons and recant its ideology. Now we're really going to get even: we're sending experts to show them how to run their economy. Am I missing something? A country with a five-trillion-dollar debt is giving advice on handling money? only 'took him to the cleaners." Whenever I hear that I wonder if that was the errand he had to run. Maybe she also took him to the adult bookstore. I) I go to bed early, fly fauorite dream comes on at nine. est seller" really only means "good seller." There can only be one best seller. All the rest are good sellers. Each succeeding book on the list is a "better seller.".

GEORGE C A R L I N I here should be some things we don't name, just so we can sit around all day and wonder what they are. Everything is still the same. It's just a little different noui. Ihe symphony orchestra had played poorly, so the conductor was in a bad mood. That night he beat his wife-because the music hadn't been beautiful enough. lou know why I stopped eating processed foods? 1 began to picture the people who might be processing them. Whenever I see a large crowd I always think of all the dry cleaning they have out. I didn't wash today. I wasn't dirty. If I'm not dirty, I don't wash. Some weeks I don't have to shower at all. I just groom my three basic areas: teeth, hair, and a.s.shole. And to save time, I use the same brush. When you buy a six-foot d.i.l.d.o, and call it a marital aid, you are stretching not just the anatomy, but the limits of credibility. At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom. Ihe child molester skipped breakfast, but said he'd grab a little something on the way to work.

brain droppings HINCS YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR: "Jeff? We're going to have to break your skull again and reset it. Okay? It's way out of line. It looks really strange. But we won't do it until we've opened up that incision and put some more fire ants inside of you. OK?" In Panama, during the election that defeated Noriega, there were "dignity battalions" that wandered the streets beating and robbing and killing people. omeone said to me, "Make yourself a sandwich." Well, if I could make myself a sandwich, I wouldn't make myself a sandwich. I'd make myself a h.o.r.n.y, 18-year-old billionaire. Why would anyone want to use a flood light? I should think lights would be kind of dangerous during a flood. Better just to sit in the dark and wait for help. There are nights mhen the uiolues are silent, and only the moon howls. Ihe nicest thing about a plane cras.h.i.+ng at an air show is that they always have good video of the actual crash. How come none of these boxers seem to hove a losing record? "here ideas are concerned, America can be counted on to do one of two things: take a good idea and run it completely into the ground, or take a bad idea and run it completely into the ground. If I only had one tooth, I think I would brush it a real long time.

GEORGE CARLIN If me could just find out mho's In charge, UIE could kill l% Whenever I hear that someone works in his s.h.i.+rtsleeves, I always wonder what he did with the rest of the s.h.i.+rt. It is impossible to dry one hand. The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception js being carried out. I saw an old woman who I thought was looking on the ground for a contact lens. As I drew closer, I realized she was actually all hunched over from osteoporosis. OERHS LIVE in BY HAT brain droppings I notice I don't see as many buck-toothed uiomcn as I used to. The thing I like the rnos* about this country is that, in a pinch, when things ally get tough, you can always go into a store and buy some mints. I've watched so many doc.u.mentaries about World War II, I'm sure I've seen the same people die hundreds of times. I'll bet there aren't too many people hooked on crack who can play the bagpipes. ? read that some guy was giving up the governor's chair to run for a Senate seat. Why would he give up a chair to run for a seat? Why not be a judge and sit on the bench? 7 How do primitive people know if they're doing the dances correctly?

Tou can lead a gift horse to water in the middle of the stream, but you can't look him in the mouth and make him drink. eep Throat: Think about it. There is actually an important figure in American history who is named for a blow-job movie. How do grade-school teachers handle this? Regarding the fitness craze: America has lost its soul; now it's trying to save its body. nothing is so boring as listening to someone else describe a dream. hat is all this stuff about a kick being "partially blocked"? It's either blocked, not blocked, or deflected. Partially blocked is like "somewhat dead." i 82 THINGS YOU NEVER HEAR: "Please stop sucking my d.i.c.k or I'll call the police." r egarding smoking in public: Suppose you were eating in a restaurant, and every two minutes the guy at the next table threw some anthrax germs in the air. Wouldn't you want to sit in a different section? Ihe savings-and-loan a.s.sociations that will cost $500 billion to bail out are called "the thrifts." ?he idea of a walk-in closet sounds frightening. If I'm ever sittin' at home and a closet walks in, I'm gettin' outta there. 'he reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.

5tesonlppbiitsteWttenic6tfaaUKrW. Time sharing got a bod name, so noai they call it "interual ou.nersl.ip7 E 0 R G E CARL IN IMMR )w can there possibly be a self-addressed envelope? They say now they /en have envelopes that are self-sealing. This I gotta see! sign: Park and ride. It's confusing. They really oughta make up their saw a ninds. ark and lock. Here we go again. If you park and lock, you're stuck in the :ar. It should be park, get out, and lock. "Ho comment" is a comment. Why is it like this? Why isn't everything different? If you have chicken at lunch and chicken at dinner, do you ever wonder if the two chickens knew each other?

*. and yet the becomes women by changing the vowel at the end, while the p.r.o.nunciation changes near the beginning. Was somebody drunk when these decisions were made? Russia actually has something called uodka riots.

brain d r o p p i n g s think it would be fun to go on "jeopardy" and never buzz in. just stand here for half an hour, never talk, and then go home. Di lomatic immunity is necessary, because of the many diseases diplomats are exposed to in foreign countries. Why is San Francisco in the "bay area," but Saudi Arabia is in the "gulf region"? Is a region really bigger than an area? Ill henever I hear about a spy ring, I always wonder if that's the only jewelry they wear. You'd think a spy wouldn't want to call attention to himself with a lot of flashy jewelry. For instance, you never hear about a spy necklace. THIS IS JUST m It's better if an entire family gets Alzheimer's disease. That way they can all sit around and wonder who they are. Harness racing may be all right for some people, but 1 prefer watching the horses. If you get cheated by the Belter Business Bureau, mho do you complain to? As soon as a person tells you they have a surprise for you, they have lost the element of surprise. <' :="">

Ill !i GEORGE CARLIN.

b r a droppings saw a picture of the inventor of the hydrogen bomb, Edwin Teller,wearing a tie clip. Why would the man who invented a bomb that destroys everything for fifty miles be concerned about whether or not his tie was straight? Ho one calls you "Bub" onymorE. Why is there such controversy about drug testing? I know plenty of guys who'd be willing to test any drug they can come up with. If the Cincinnati Reds were really the first major league baseball team, who did they play? I AH REPELLED BY WHOLESOHEnESS III hen they say someone is making a "personal tour," are they sug-III gesting that, on the other hand, it is somehow possible to make a ^?H tour without actually being there? After how much time does a persistent cough become a chronic cough? Intelligence tests are biased toiiiard the literate. I he carousel and Ferris wheel owners traveled in different circles so they rarely made the rounds together. Which is more immoral? Killing two 100-pound people or killing one 300-pound person?

uest host is a bad enough oxymoron, but NBC raised the stakes when, a few years back, they installed Jay Leno as the "permanent quest host." Not to be outdone, Joan Rivers pointed out that she had been the "first permanent guest host." Check, please! I don't own o camera, so I trauel with a police sketch artist. ? I f JFK Jr. got into a taxi in New York to go to the airport, do you think he would say, "Take me to JFK?" How would he feel about that? And how does Lee Harvey Oswald's mother feel when she walks through JFK, knowing that if she had stayed single it would probably be Martin Luther King Jr. Airport? Which is taller, a short-order cook or a small-engine mechanic? Hobbies ore for people mho lock direction. f.u.c.k SOCCER nons A graveyard always has to start with a single body. Unless the1 local people get lucky and there's a nice big bus accident in town. : " lot of times when they catch a guy who killed twenty-seven people, they s^y, "He was a loner." Well, of course he was a loner; he killed everyone he came in contact with. Is it illegal to charge admission to a free-for-all?

86.GEORGE C A R L I N.

brain droppings read about some mob guy who was being charged with gambling, loan sharking, extortion, narcotics, prost.i.tution, murder, p.o.r.nography, labor racketeering, stolen cars, business fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, bribery, corruption, perjury, and jury tampering. Here's a guy who didn't waste a minute. Busy, busy, busy! Hy definition of bod luck: catching AIDS from a Quaker. Dogs and cats get put to sleep, hogs and cows get slaughtered. If a speed freak went to Rapid City to make a quick buck in fast food he might sell instant coffee in an express lane. I worry about my judgment when anything I believe in or do regularly begins to be accepted by the American public. Imagine houi thick j.a.panese people's photo alb.u.ms must be. Uome national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. I think when you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong. When football fans tear down the goalpost, uihere do they take it? Just because your p.e.n.i.s surgery was not successful is no reason to go off half-c.o.c.ked. ? n England in 1830, William Hukkison became the first person ever run over by a railroad train. Wouldn't that make you feel stupid? For millions and millions of years there were no trains, and then suddenly they have trains and you get run over?

noTHino MITRES 7 Shouldn't a complimentary beuerage tell you uihat a fine person you are? Only Americans could find as a prime means of self-expression the wave and the high five. It is important to remember that although the Automobile Club has a health plan, the health club does not have an automobile plan. Auto racing: slow minds and fast cars. If you f.u.c.k a baseball player's wife while he's on the road, his team will lose the next day. If Helen Keller had psychic ability, mould you say she had a fourth sense? Why do the Dutch people have two names for their country, Holland and the Netherlands, and neither one includes the word Dutch? late one night it struck me that for several years I had been masturbating to a Wilma Flintstone fantasy. d oes the water that signifies the pa.s.sage of time flow under the bridge, or over the dam? I've heard both versions, and I'm concerned about the people who live near the dam. n the movies, when someone buys something they never wait for their change.

88.GEORGE CARL IN.

brain droppings I buy stamps by mail. It works OK until I run out of stamps. Whenever someone tells me they're going to fix a chicken, I always think Maybe it isn't really broken. Maybe it just needs a little oil. lly only superst.i.tion: if you drop a spoon, a wild pig will offer to finance your next car. As o matter of principle I neuer attend the first annual anything Why is it with any piece of home electronics equipment there are always a few b.u.t.tons and switches you never use? There is actually a shoiu on the Lifetime channel called "Dentistry Update'.1 Ill hen you eat two different types of candy bars in succession, the second one is not as easy to enjoy because you get so used to how good the first one tastes. BLOOD IS THICKER THAnURME I hey said some guy arrested for murder in Las Vegas had "a history of questionable actions." Can you imagine if we were all held to that standard? There is no mill, and there is no wisdom. s ome people like to watch "monster trucks" drive on top of cars and crush them. Then there are the other people who can't get to the arena, because they don't have cars.

, - a tor men to be floorwalkers and illegal for women to be streetwalkers. ook at the self-help t.i.tles in the bookstore, and you'll get a fews clues about our culture. They're all about aggression and acquisition. It wouldn't be at all surprising to see a book called How to Force Your Will on Other People by Giving Them the Shaft and f.u.c.king Them out of Their Money. When you sneeze, all the numbers in your head go up by one. iow can crash course and collision course have two different meanings? I wonted to get a job as a gynecologist, but I couldn't find an opening. Why don't they have dessert at breakfast? " ! '? uometimes I look out the airplane window at a large city at night and wonder how many people are f.u.c.king. Why don't they have rye pancakes? Grapefruit cookies? Fig ice cream? Canteloupe pie? I he mai tai got its name when two Polynesian alcoholics got in a fight over some neckwear. I hope they do clone the dinosaurs, and they come back just in time for the ozone layer to disappear and wipe those ugly motherf.u.c.kers out again. .,, A lot of these people who keep a gun at home for safety are the same ones who refuse to wear a seat belt. 90 GEORGE CARLIN.