Napalm & Silly Putty

by George Carlin

  Besides, cancer never hurt anybody. People need a little cancer. It’s good for you; it keeps you on your toes. I ain’t afraid of cancer, I had broccoli for lunch. Broccoli kills cancer. A lot of people don’t know that. It’s not out yet.

  It’s true. You find out you got some cancer, get yourself a fuckin’ bowl of broccoli. That’ll wipe it right out. Cauliflower, too. Cauliflower kills the really big cancers, the ones you can see from across the street through heavy clothing. Broccoli kills the little ones, the ones that are slowly eating you away from inside. While your goofy, half-educated doctor keeps telling you, “You’re doin’ fine, Jim.”

  In fact, bring your doctor a bowl of broccoli, he’s probably got cancer, too. Probably picked it up from you. They don’t know what they’re doing. It’s all guesswork in a white coat. What you gotta try to do is develop more than one kind of cancer, so you can turn ’em against one another. That’s what you gotta hope for: that the cancers eat each other up instead of you. Fact is, the way I look at it, the more cancer you got, the healthier you are.

  THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF RAPE

  Many people in this country want to tell you what you can and can’t talk about. Or sometimes they’ll tell you you can talk about something, but you can’t joke about it. Like rape. People say you can’t joke about rape. They say rape’s not funny. And I say, Fuck you, I think it’s hilarious. How do you like that? I can prove rape is funny: Picture Porky Pig raping Daisy Duck. See? Hey, why do you think they call him Porky?

  And I know what men are gonna say. Daisy was askin’ for it; she was comin’ on to Porky, she had on tight feathers. Porky got horny, and he lost control. A lot of men talk like that. They blame it on the woman. They say, “She had it comin’. She was wearing a short skirt.”

  Doesn’t seem fair to me; doesn’t seem right. But I believe you can joke about it. I believe you can joke about anything. It just depends on how you construct the joke, what the exaggeration is. Every joke needs one exaggeration. Every joke needs one thing to be way out of proportion.

  I’ll give you an example. Have you ever seen a news story like this? Some burglar breaks into a house, steals some things, and while he’s in there, he rapes an eighty-one-year-old woman. And you think to yourself, “Why? What the fuck kind of social life does this guy have?” I want to ask him, “Why did you do that?” But I know what I’d hear: “Hey, she was comin’ on to me. She had on a tight bathrobe.” And I’m thinkin’, “Next time, be a little more selective, will you?”

  Now, speaking of rape, but changing the subject slightly, you know what I wonder? Is there more rape at the Equator or the North Pole? I mean, per capita; I know the populations are different. I think it’s the North Pole.

  Most people think it’s the Equator. Because it’s hot down there, people don’t wear a lot of clothing, guys can see women’s tits, they get horny, and there’s a lot of rape and a lot of fucking in general. But that’s exactly why there’s less rape at the Equator; because there’s a lot of fucking, in general. You can tell the Equator has a lot of fucking; look at the population figures. Billions of people live near the Equator. How many Eskimos we got? Thirty? Thirty-five?

  No one’s gettin’ laid at the North Pole; it’s too cold. An Eskimo says to his wife, “Hey, honey, how about some pussy?” She says, “Wally, are you crazy? The windchill is 150 below!” Eskimo guys are deprived, they’re horny, they get pent up, and every now and then they gotta rape somebody.

  Now, the biggest problem an Eskimo rapist has is trying to get wet leather leggings off a woman who doesn’t want to take them off. Have you ever tried to pull leather pants off someone who’s trying to kick you in the nuts? It takes a lot of effort. And, in the process, you would lose your hard-on. In fact, at the North Pole your dick would shrivel up like a stack of dimes.

  That’s another thing I wonder. Does a rapist have a hard-on when he leaves the house in the morning? Or does it develop during the day while he’s walking around checkin’ out the gals? Just wondering.

  THE EVENING NEWS

  Police in Maine announced today they have broken up a ring of amphetamine users. Six of the speed freaks were arrested on the spot. Another four got away by sprinting completely across Canada.

  It has been disclosed that several years ago when Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize, she returned the money, claiming it had germs on it.

  A man who was attempting to walk around the world drowned today on the first leg of his journey, which would have taken him from San Francisco to Honolulu.

  The owner of a Florida massage parlor has been arrested by police. “There weren’t any serious violations, ”said the officers, “she just rubbed us the wrong way.”

  Doctors treating a ninety-year-old pregnant woman claim that because of her advanced age she will have a grown-up.

  A Boston man who last year shot and killed all twelve members of a jury that convicted him of murder goes on trial again today. Courtroom insiders say jury selection is expected to take quite some time.

  Silent film star Mark Dunbar died today in Hollywood. He had no last words; however, he did wiggle his eyebrows and make several exaggerated gestures with his arms.

  A Cincinnati man has revealed that last month a local hospital, instead of giving him a vasectomy, castrated him. A hospital spokesman explained, “It all started as a joke. The doctors pretended they were going to castrate him, but he got real snotty so they went ahead and did it to teach him a lesson.” The patient, though upset, seemed philosophical. “The way I look at it, it’s that much less to wash.”

  A New Hampshire inventor has developed a machine he claims will grant him any wish. Reporters were greeted at his home by hundreds of naked women who said they had been blowing him for the past six months.

  A sixty-five-year-old fitness expert trotting backward from Winnipeg to Chile in an effort to promote backward trotting was killed today when she was hit by a truck head-on from the rear.

  And finally, on the lighter side, here’s a human-interest story about man’s best friend. It seems sixty-five-year-old James Driscoll was asleep in his downtown hotel room last week when he was awakened by the sound of a dog barking. When he awoke the room was filled with smoke, and he could not see to get out. The dog led him out of the room, down the hall, and into an elevator shaft, where he plunged eight stories to his death. It seems it wasn’t his dog.

  DANCE CALLED BECAUSE OF RAIN

  When I think of the rain dance the American Indians used to do, I often wonder if they had to practice first. Wouldn’t you want to have rain-dance practice just to go over things again? To make sure everyone was doing the correct steps in the correct order? Maybe there were some new guys; maybe the dance master had some new things he wanted to try out. There are all sorts of reasons why the Indians might want to play it safe and practice first.

  My question is, if they did hold practice, and the rain didn’t come immediately, how would they know they had done it right? If the dance is done correctly, shouldn’t it rain? Or did the Indians figure the rain god knew it was only practice and was waiting for the real thing?

  Then again, if it did rain right after practice, why not just cancel the dance and figure the next time you need rain all you have to do is practice?

  These are the kinds of thoughts that made it necessary to separate me from the other kids in school.

  THINGS THAT ARE PISSING ME OFF

  Cigars

  Haven’t we had about enough of this cigar smoking shit? When are these fat, arrogant, overfed, white-collar business criminals going to extinguish their cigars and move along to their next abomination?

  Soft, white, business pussies suckin’ on a big brown dick. That’s all it is, folks, a big, brown dick. You know, Freud used to say, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Yeah? Well, sometimes it’s a big brown dick! With a fat, criminal-business asshole sucking on the wet end of it!

  But, hey. The news is not all bad for me. Not all bad. Want to hear the
good part? Cancer of the mouth. Good! Fuck ’em! Makes me happy; it’s an attractive disease. So light up, suspender-man, and suck that smoke deep down into your empty suit. And blow it out your ass, you miserable cocksucker!

  Angels

  What is all this nonsense about angels? Do you realize three out of four Americans now believe in angels? What are they, fuckin’ stupid? Has everybody lost their goddamn minds?

  Angels, my ass! You know what I think it is? I think it’s a massive, collective, chemical flashback from all the drugs—all the drugs!—smoked, swallowed, snorted, and shot up by all Americans from 1960 to 2000. Forty years of adulterated street drugs will get you some fuckin’ angels, my friend!

  Angels, shit. What about goblins? Doesn’t anybody believe in goblins? And zombies. Where the fuck are all the zombies? That’s the trouble with zombies, they’re unreliable. I say if you’re gonna buy that angel bullshit, you may as well go for the goblin-zombie package as well.

  Bike Frauds

  Here’s another horrifying example of a declining American culture. The continued pussification of the male population, this time in the form of Harley Davidson theme restaurants. What is going on here?

  Harley Davidson used to mean something; it stood for biker attitude; grimy outlaws and their sweaty mamas full of beer and crank, rollin’ around on Harleys, lookin’ for a good time. Destroying property, raping teenagers, and killing policemen. All very necessary activities.

  But now…theme restaurants! And this soft shit obviously didn’t come from hard-core bikers, it came from weekend motorcyclists. These fraudulent, two-day-a-week lames who have their bikes trucked into Sturgis, South Dakota, for the big rally and then ride around town like they just came off the road. Lawyers and dentists and pussy-boy software designers gettin’ up on Harleys because they think it makes ’em cool. Well hey, Squeezix, you ain’t cool, you’re fuckin’ chilly. And chilly ain’t never been cool.

  The House of Blues

  I have a proposition: I think if white people are going to burn down black churches, then black people ought to burn down the House of Blues. What a disgrace that place is. The House of Blues. You know what they ought to call it? The House of Lame White Motherfuckers!

  Inauthentic, low-frequency, lame white motherfuckers. Especially these male movie stars who think they’re blues artists. You ever see these guys? Don’t you just want to puke in your soup when one of these fat, overweight, out-of-shape, middle-aged, pasty- faced, badly-headed movie stars with sunglasses jumps onstage and starts blowin’ into a harmonica? It’s a fuckin’ sacrilege.

  In the first place, white people got no business playing the blues ever. At all! Under any circumstances! What the fuck do white people have to be blue about? Banana Republic ran out of khakis? The espresso machine is jammed? Hootie and the Blowfish are breaking up?

  Shit, white people ought to understand …their job is to give people the blues, not to get them. And certainly not to sing or play them! I’ll tell you a little secret about the blues: it’s not enough to know which notes to play, you have to know why they need to be played.

  And another thing, I don’t think white people should be trying to dance like blacks. Stop that! Stick to your faggoty polkas and waltzes, and that repulsive country line-dancing shit that you do, and be yourself. Be proud! Be white! Be lame! And get the fuck off the dance floor!

  A Day in the Life of Henry VIII

  Wake up

  Fuck the queen

  Take a shit

  Kill the queen

  Eat six chickens

  Get married

  Kill the new queen

  Eat a cow

  Take a shit

  Start dating

  Belch for an hour

  Eat a sheep

  Kill my date

  Defy the pope

  Eat a goat

  Take a shit

  Fuck a bishop

  Get engaged

  Kill my fiancée

  Eat a pig

  Marry a pig

  Kill the pig

  Eat the pope

  Vomit

  Go to sleep

  FAMILIES WORTH LOATHING

  Are you sick of this “royal family” shit? Who gives a fuck about these people? Who cares about the English in general? The uncivilized, murderous, backward English. Inbred savages hiding behind Shakespeare, pretending to be cultured. Don’t be misled by the manners; if you want to know what lurks beneath the surface, take a look at the soccer crowds. That’s the true British character. I’m Irish and I’m American, and we’ve had to kick these degenerate English motherfuckers out of both of our countries.

  But most Americans are stupid; they like anything they’re told they like. So when the duke and duchess of Wales or Windsor, or whatever, visit America, and people are asked if they like them, the simpletons say, “Yes, I like them a lot. They’re sort of fun.” If they asked me I would say, “Well, I’m Irish, and they’ve killed a lot of my people, so I wish they’d die in a fire. Maybe someone will blow up their limousine.”

  The English have systematically exploited and degraded this planet and its people for a thousand years. You know what I say? Let’s honor the royal ladies: Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mum, Margaret, Fergie, and all the rest. Let’s give them the hot-lead douche. Get out the funnel, turn them upside-down, and give them the hot-lead douche. Right in their royal boxes. That’s my message from the IRA to the English.

  And I’m really glad the black, tan, and brown people of the world, fucked over by the English for so long, are coming home to Mother England to claim their property. England is now being invaded by the very people she plundered. They’re flying, sailing, swimming, and rowing home to the seat of Empire, looking to the Crown: “Hey, mon! What about de food stamps?”

  WHERE WAS I STANDING LAST TIME WE DID THIS?

  When Britain returned Hong Kong to China there was a long, formal ceremony. The whole thing looked well-rehearsed, and I wondered how everyone knew exactly where to stand and what to do. After all, the event had never taken place before; how could there be a set of procedures? Do the British have a manual on returning colonies? If so, they won’t be needing it much longer.

  I notice the same thing is true when a pope or king dies.

  The elaborate funerals involve at least thirty or forty groups of participants, each with different roles and different garb, and each of whom seems to know exactly where to walk, when to stop, and where to stand. And everyone knows all the songs and prayers by heart.

  Can someone tell me when these people practice all this pageantry?

  LIFE’S LITTLE MOMENTS

  Do you ever look at your watch and immediately forget the time, so you look again? And still it doesn’t register, so you have to look a third time. And then someone asks you what time it is, and you actually have to look at your watch for the fourth time in three minutes? Don’t you feel stupid?

  Do you ever find yourself standing in a room, and you can’t remember why you went in there? And you think to yourself, “Maybe if I go back where I was I’ll see something that reminds me. Or maybe it would be quicker if I just stand here and hope it comes back to me.” Usually as you’re weighing those options, two words float across your mind: “Alzheimer’s disease.”

  Do you ever have to sneeze while you’re taking a piss? It’s frightening. Deep down you’re afraid you’ll release all sorts of bodily fluids into your pants. What people don’t realize is that it’s physically impossible to sneeze while pissing; your brain won’t allow it. Because your brain knows you might blow your asshole out. And wind up having to repaint the entire apartment.