Napalm & Silly Putty

by George Carlin

  In ’96, Dole tried to hide his bullshit, and he lost. He kept saying, “I’m a plain and honest man.” People don’t believe that. What did Clinton say? He said, “Hi folks! I’m completely full of shit, and how do you like that?” And the people said, “You know what? At least he’s honest. At least he’s honest about being completely full of shit.”

  Will They Buy this Bullshit?

  It’s the same in the business world. Everyone knows by now all businessmen are completely full of shit; the worst kind of lowlife, criminal cocksuckers you can expect to meet. And the proof is, they don’t even trust each other!

  When a businessman sits down to negotiate with another businessman, the first thing he does is assume the other guy is a complete lying prick who’s trying to fuck him out of his money. So he does everything he can to fuck the other guy a little bit faster and a little bit harder. And he does it with a big smile on his face. That big, bullshit businessman’s smile.

  And if you’re a customer, that’s when they give you the really big smile! The customer always gets that really big smile as the businessman carefully positions himself directly behind the customer, unzips his pants, and proceeds to “service” the account.

  “I’m servicing this account…

  [pelvic thrust!]

  “This customer…

  [thrust]

  “needs

  [thrust!]

  “service!”

  [thrust, thrust, thrust!]

  Now you know what they mean when they say, “We specialize in customer service.” Whoever first said, “Let the buyer beware” was probably bleeding from the asshole. But that’s business. That’s business, and business is okay.

  Bullshit from the Sky

  But folks, I have to tell you, in the bullshit department a businessman can’t hold a candle to a clergyman. Because when it comes to bullshit. Big-time, major-league bullshit. You have to stand in awe—in awe!—of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims: religion. No contest.

  Religion—easily—has the Greatest Bullshit Story Ever Told! Think about it: religion has actually convinced people—many of them adults—that there’s an invisible man who lives in the sky and watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And who has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do.

  And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to remain and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry, forever and ever, till the end of time. But he loves you!

  He loves you, and he needs money! He always needs money. He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, but somehow…he just can’t handle money. Religion takes in billions of dollars, pays no taxes, and somehow always needs a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy shit!

  SHORT TAKES

  Do you ever get that strange feeling of vuja de? Not déjà vu; vuja de. It’s the distinct sense that, somehow, something that just happened has never happened before. Nothing seems familiar. And then suddenly the feeling is gone. Vuja de.

  Spirituality: the last refuge of a failed human. Just another way of distracting yourself from who you really are.

  I have a problem with married people who carry their babies in backpacks or frontpacks or slings, or whatever those devices are called. Those baby-carrying devices that seem designed to leave the parent’s hands free to sort through merchandise. Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Natural Fibers, is it too much trouble to ask you to hold the fuckin’ kid? Are you so busy picking out consumer goods and reaching for your credit card that you can’t hold the baby? It’s not an accessory or a small appliance. It’s a baby.

  Most of the time people feel okay. Probably it’s because at that moment they’re not actually dying.

  You know what I like about the American form of government? They’ve worked things out so that you’re never far from a 7-Eleven.

  You know what you never hear about? A bunch of Jews being hit by a tornado.

  Don’t you hate it when people send you unsolicited pictures of their kids? What’s that all about? It bothers me. I hate to keep throwing away perfectly good pictures.

  When I see a guy with hair on his back I immediately relegate him to the animal kingdom.

  Every six minutes there’s a rape in this country, and boy, is my dick sore. I’m tellin’ ya, every day, house to house, there’s no letup. It’s a fuckin’ hassle.

  I haven’t eaten an ice cream sandwich in forty-seven years.

  Next time you see Bing Crosby playing a priest in a movie, picture him beating his children in real life.

  I’ve never been quarantined. But the more I look around the more I think it might not be a bad idea.

  Here’s some fun: Run into a bakery and ask if they can bake a cake in the shape of a penis. They’re never quite sure; they always have to have a meeting.

  “Well, I don’t know. Wait just a moment.”

  While they’re talking, pull out your schwanz and wave it all around.

  “Good Lord, Helen! Quick! Order extra flour!”

  I don’t think we should be governing ourselves. What we need is a king, and every now and then if the king’s not doing a good job, we kill him.

  So far, this is the oldest I’ve been.

  I think someone could make a lot of money if they set up a little stand at the Grand Canyon and sold Yo-Yos with 500-foot strings.

  Road rage, air rage. Why should I be forced to divide my rage into separate categories? To me, it’s just one big, all-around, everyday rage. I don’t have time for fine distinctions. I’m busy screaming at people.

  There’s something I like about the clitoris, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

  Driving is fun. Did you ever run over a guy? And then you panic? So you back up and run over him again? You ever notice the second crunch is not as loud as the first? I think it’s because the guy already has tread marks on him. But there he is, lyin’ right in front of your car. Might as well run over him again. What’re you gonna do this time, drive around him?

  When Ronald Reagan got Alzheimer’s disease, how could they tell?

  Sometimes they say the winds are calm. Well, if they’re calm, they’re not really winds, are they?

  I think a good title for a travel book would be Doorway to Norway

  Next time they give you all that civic bullshit about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election.

  Would somebody please tell me what is so sacred about the Lincoln Bedroom? If it were the Ulysses S. Grant Bedroom, do you think people would’ve been as annoyed that Clinton rented it out to campaign donors? No. It’s just the bullshit Lincoln myth that caused the uproar.

  Why do they keep trotting out this Billy Graham character? He has nothing to say, and basically no one gives a fuck.

  Murder investigators say that in most cases husbands kill wives, wives kill husbands, children kill parents, and parents kill children. Thank God for a little sanity in the world.

  Regarding the Boy Scouts, I’m very suspicious of any organization that has a handbook.

  If there really are multiple universes, what do they call the thing they’re all a part of?

  Where did this idea come from that if you’re a celebrity, and something bad happens to you, you have to devote your life to eliminating the same problem for everyone else? Michael J. Fox, Christopher Reeve, Mary Tyler Moore; they all work on curing their own afflictions. Why doesn’t a celebrity with milk leg ever do something about dandy fever? How about an actor with woolsorter’s disease raising money for the victims of swimming pool granuloma? That’s the trouble with Hollywood, no imagination.

  Instead of warning pregnant women not to drink, I think female alcoholics ought to be told not to fuck.

  YOUR CHILDREN ARE OVERRATED

  Something else I’m getting tired of in this country is all this stupid bullshit I have to listen to about chi
ldren. That’s all you hear anymore, children: “Help the children, save the children, protect the children.” You know what I say? Fuck the children! Fuck ’em! Fuck kids; they’re getting entirely too much attention.

  And I know what some of you are thinking: “Jesus, he’s not going to attack children, is he?” Yes he is! He’s going to attack children. And remember, this is Mr. Conductor talking; I know what I’m talking about.

  And I also know that all you boring single dads and working moms, who think you’re such fuckin’ heroes, aren’t gonna like this, but somebody’s gotta tell you for your own good: your children are overrated and over valued, and you’ve turned them into little cult objects. You have a child fetish, and it’s not healthy. And don’t give me all that weak shit, “Well, I love my children.” Fuck you! Everybody loves their children; it doesn’t make you special.

  John Wayne Gacy loved his children. Yes, he did. He kept ’em all right out in the yard, near the garage. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is this constant, mindless yammering in the media, this neurotic fixation that suggests somehow everything—everything—has to revolve around the lives of children. It’s completely out of balance.

  Let’s Get Real

  Listen, there are a couple of things about kids you have to remember. First of all, they’re not all cute. In fact, if you look at ’em real close, most of them are rather unpleasant looking. And a lot of them don’t smell too good either. The little ones in particular seem to have a kind of urine and sour-milk combination that I don’t care for at all. Stay with me on this folks, the sooner you face it the better off you’re gonna be.

  Second premise: not all children are smart and clever. Got that? Kids are like any other group of people: a few winners, a whole lot of losers! This country is filled with loser kids who simply…aren’t…going anywhere! And there’s nothing you can do about it, folks. Nothing! You can’t save ’em all. You can’t do it. You gotta let ’em go; you gotta cut ’em loose; you gotta stop overprotecting them, because you’re making ’em too soft. Today’s kids are way too soft.

  Safe and Sorry

  For one thing, there’s too much emphasis on safety and safety equipment: childproof medicine bottles, fireproof pajamas, child restraints, car seats. And helmets! Bicycle, baseball, skateboard, scooter helmets. Kids have to wear helmets now for everything but jerking off. Grown-ups have taken all the fun out of being a kid, just to save a few thousand lives. It’s pathetic.

  What’s happened is, these baby boomers, these soft, fruity baby boomers, have raised an entire generation of soft, fruity kids who aren’t even allowed to have hazardous toys, for Chrissakes! Hazardous toys, shit! Whatever happened to natural selection? Survival of the fittest? The kid who swallows too many marbles doesn’t grow up to have kids of his own. Simple stuff. Nature knows best!

  We’re saving entirely too many lives in this country—of all ages! Nature should be permitted to do its job weeding out and killing off the weak and sickly and ignorant people, without interference from airbags and batting helmets. We’re lowering the human gene pool! If these ideas bother you, just think of them as passive eugenics.

  New Math

  Here’s another example of overprotection for these kids, and you’ve seen this one on the news. Did you ever notice that every time some guy with an AK-47 strolls into the school yard and kills three or four of these fuckin’ kids and a couple of teachers, the next day the school is overrun with psychologists and psychiatrists and grief counselors and trauma therapists, trying to help the children cope?

  Shit! When I was a kid, and some guy came to our school and killed three or four of us, we went right on with our arithmetic: “Thirty-five classmates minus four equals thirty-one.” We were tough! I say if a kid can handle the violence at home, he oughta be able to handle the violence at school.

  Out of Uniform

  Another bunch of ignorant bullshit about your children: school uniforms. Bad theory! The idea that if kids wear uniforms to school, it helps keep order. Hey! Don’t these schools do enough damage makin’ all these children think alike? Now they’re gonna get ’em to look alike, too?

  And it’s not even a new idea; I first saw it in old newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand, because the narration was in German! But the uniforms looked beautiful. And the children did everything they were told and never questioned authority. Gee, I wonder why someone would want to put our children in uniforms. Can’t imagine.

  And one more item about children: this superstitious nonsense of blaming tobacco companies for kids who smoke. Listen! Kids don’t smoke because a camel in sunglasses tells them to. They smoke for the same reasons adults do, because it’s an enjoyable activity that relieves anxiety and depression.

  And you’d be anxious and depressed too if you had to put up with pathetic, insecure, yuppie parents who enroll you in college before you’ve even figured out which side of the playpen smells the worst and then fill you full of Ritalin to get you in a mood they approve of, and drag you all over town in search of empty, meaningless structure: Little League, Cub Scouts, swimming, soccer, karate, piano, bagpipes, watercolors, witchcraft, glass blowing, and dildo practice. It’s absurd.

  They even have “play dates, ” for Christ’s sake! Playing is now done by appointment! Whatever happened to “You show me your wee-wee, and I’ll show you mine ”? You never hear that anymore.

  But it’s true. A lot of these striving, anal parents are burning their kids out on structure. I think what every child needs and ought to have every day is two hours of daydreaming. Plain old daydreaming. Turn off the Internet, the CD-ROMs, and the computer games and let them stare at a tree for a couple of hours. It’s good for them. And you know something? Every now and then they actually come up with one of their own ideas. You want to know how you can help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone!

  CARS AND DRIVING: PART TWO

  Reverse Logic

  Here’s an embarrassing driving situation, the kind of thing that can haunt you for several hundred miles. One of those incidents you can’t just shake off. Like the time you almost got killed by the big tractor-trailer, and had to pull off the road for about twenty minutes and listen to your heart slamming up against your rib cage? BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! Well, this next thing is just like that, but this is one you do all by yourself.

  Did you ever pull up to a red light, and go a little bit too far into the intersection? Just a few extra feet? So, you put the car in reverse and back up ju-u-u-u-st a little bit. And then you forget the car is in reverse? And so you sit there, innocently, waiting for the light to change. Looking around. Eager to get movin’ again. Don’t wanna keep the proctologist waiting. Da-dum, da-dum, dee-dee, da-dum.

  At this point, folks, you are truly an accident waiting to happen. An insurance claim in progress. So, you sit some more, and you sit some more, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait. And you stare at the red light, and you look over at the woman on the right adjustin’ her tits, and you look at the guy on the left pickin’ his nose, and then finally—finally—the light changes and off you go! CRASH! CRUNCH! CRUMPLE! TINKLE! Directly backward into the grille of what was formerly a cute little red Yugo.

  “Holy shit! How’d I get back here? This is where I was a coupla minutes ago!”

  Apparently, you have to pay attention even at the red lights. I thought surely they were for resting. You know, drive a little, rest a little, drive a little, rest a little. Seemed that way to me. Guess not.

  Oh, Brother!

  Here’s a little red-light story somebody told me a long time ago. This guy’s drivin’ along, he’s got someone sittin’ right next to him in the passenger seat, and he goes straight through a red light. ZOOOOM!