Last Words

by George Carlin

  This whole thing is probably about connecting. Standing up in front

  of people is saying: "Hey, folks, look at me, ain't I great? Please induct me into your imaginary club of people you like. I want to be in

  that." And there's the need to find things out about them. To make

  kinships: "I feel this way about abortion, Volvos and farts." "Yeah!

  Me too!" "You too? OKAY!"

  Is there any connection between gradually leaving drugs behind

  and gradually discovering this process, devouring it, living for it? I

  would absolutely give that credence. During my drug period, the

  only thing that was important was getting high—and fulfilling dates

  when I could. I don't recall these feelings of pursuing and appreciating artistry, the increasing ability to create. I'm sure the drugs

  blocked that sort of thing out, if it was there at all.

  At the risk of sounding psychobabbly, maybe it's that once the

  drugs are gone as artificial stimulation, thrill, high and escape,

  the real stimulation, thrill, high and escape can make themselves

  known. Whether or not such things are needed in the first place

  drives the whole prohibition versus nonprohibition debate. But for

  me it could be that stimulation, thrill, high and escape are legitimate human needs and have now shown up in a more benign suit

  of clothes.

  Whether performance is or isn't addictive, it's certainly habituating. (Even though a lot of the show doesn't change from night to

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  night. But then, nor did the drugs.) I'll find myself in the middle of

  something I've done five hundred times and it's intoxicating, totally

  consuming. There are nuances, little ways to play with each word

  in a sentence. And simultaneously I'm thinking: boy, wait until they

  hear "House of Blues" or "Guys Named Todd" or whatever it is, at

  the same time as I punch home the lines I'm doing.

  Sometimes I'll be in the midst of a list—I love to rattle off twelve

  things in a row—and I'll be around the third or fourth and one part

  of me will say to me: "You don't know what the last one is." And I'll

  reply, "I know, but we'll know it when we get there. And we're getting to Number Twelve and I say the word before it with no clue what

  comes next. I couldn't consciously tell you the next word is "Wilhelmina" but boom! there's "Wilhelmina" right on cue. There's an

  electric, magical, mysterious thing about that. Nothing to do with

  the audience, it's not about performing. It's watching one corner of

  your mind work from another corner of your mind. That happens a

  lot to me. And—I vaguely recall—happened a lot on drugs too.

  Outside of these internal divisions of attention is a paradox. The

  reality is that the only thing that is happening for the audience also

  is that same line, that Wilhelmina moment. When they laugh, we're

  acting as one. In that moment, they're part of me, another aspect

  of me.

  An audience is the only group I can tolerate, because the audience wouldn't be a group if it wasn't for me. Which extends to every

  other audience that has ever liked me. More and more as I get older,

  when people come up to me in public places to tell me how much

  they enjoyed some piece at a concert or club as long as forty years

  ago, I mentally see an audience of millions stretching away into the

  darkness. Individuals who in a sense I've met and some spark has

  passed between us, actual humans in whose presence I've been and

  who've been in mine, 1,500, 2,000, 3,000 at a time, but also oneon-one. Whenever they laughed, in that moment I was speaking

  to them directly. Faces with favorites; I overhear them in the lobby

  sometimes: "Wait till you hear 'There Is No God.' " Or someone

  who loved A1 Sleet when she was little. They're part of the family. We're kindred. Live performance does that for you as nothing

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  else can. And I think very few other comics in my lifetime can say

  that.

  Outside of my audience, groups repel me, because for the sake of

  group thought, they kill individuality, that wonderful human oneness. I'm wide open to individuals. Fine with individuals. Individuals are just great. Even the most evil man on earth, who's just eaten

  a whole dog, I find fascinating and interesting. I'd love to spend a

  minute or two with him. Discuss the preparation. "You put a little

  salt on that? Used a little cream?" I'd look in his eyes and his eyes

  would be from someplace God knows where in the universe and yet

  for that reason fascinating.

  Every individual set of eyes you look into gives you something,

  whether it's a blank wall or an infinite regress of barbershop mirrors. Just as fascinating. There's something in all individuals. I make

  room for them psychically—even though I might want to get away

  after a minute and a half. People are wonderful one at a time. Each

  of them has an entire hologram of the universe somewhere within

  them.

  But as soon as individuals begin to clump, as soon as they begin to clot, they change. Sometimes you have a friend and you say,

  "Gee, Joe is a great guy. But when he's with Phil he's a real jack-off."

  Or, "Now that he's with Linda, the fucking guy is different. He's

  changed, he's not the same old Joe."

  Groups of three, five, ten, fifteen—suddenly we have special little

  hats, we have arm bands, we have a marching song, a secret handshake and a list of people we don't agree with. Next we have target

  practice and plan the things we have to take care of Friday night.

  One of my lists once was: "People I Can Do Without." Near the

  top: "People who say, 'Long live Such-and-such!' and then kill someone to accomplish it."

  The ideal grouping for human beings is one. With the occasional

  sexual visit to the lady in the next group. Temporary twosomes are

  fine. Once upon a time people might have been good up to ten

  or twelve, or one hundred or so, whatever the ideal tribal unit was.

  When everybody took care of everybody else's children, there were

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  heard of. You might have personal stuff: this is my favorite rock, I

  got an ax I made. But no one owns the tent, everybody belongs in

  that tent as long as we have our fire. What buffalo there are belong

  to everybody if we can kill one. Something about that is awfully

  compelling. But we lost it long ago.

  The larger the group, the more toxic, the more of your beauty as

  an individual you have to surrender for the sake of group thought.

  And when you suspend your individual beauty you also give up a lot

  of your humanity. You will do things in the name of a group that you

  would never do on your own. Injuring, hurting, killing, drinking

  are all part of it, because you've lost your identity, because you now

  owe your allegiance to this thing that's bigger than you are and that

  controls you.

  It happens in police culture. You get talking with individual cops

  and they're the greatest fucking guys in the world. But you know

  that when they're making a domestic disturbance call in the black

  section of town, they're going to hit first and ask questions later. And

  if you
happened to be there and called them on it, you'd be the

  enemy, right or wrong. That great fucking guy would be gone. It's

  the same with military men, with corporate assholes, the same anywhere on earth. And by the way, America's groups are no better than

  anyone else's.

  The worst thing about groups are their values. Traditional values,

  American values, family values, shared values, OUR values. Just

  code for white, middle-class prejudices and discrimination, justification for greed and hatred.

  Do I value a flag? No, of course not. Do I value words on a piece

  of paper? Depends whose words they are. Do I believe in family

  values? Depends on whose family—most are pretty toxic and that

  plural already has me suspicious. So I have a few holdings concerning potential behavior that an outsider could define as values. It's received beliefs, received wisdom, received values I have trouble with.

  My affection for people as individuals and the fact that I identify

  with them doesn't extend to the structures they've built, the terrible

  job they've done of organizing themselves, the fake values that supposedly hold society together. Bullshit is the glue of our society.

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  I love anarchy. Anarchy and comedy are a team. But along with

  anarchy's hostility toward authority, I have a deep suspicion man is

  not on the right path. Man went wrong a long, long time ago. The

  private property thing—"This is mine! You don't own that!" Religion backing up property, religion backing up the state: "We say this

  king will be fine." The king saying: "I am the king and the moon

  is my uncle and he tells me when to plant the crop." All this mass

  hypnosis. Which is certainly akin to the hypnosis caused by Mass.

  I no longer identify with my species. I haven't for a long time. I

  identify more with carbon atoms. I don't feel comfortable or safe

  on this planet. From the standpoint of my work and peace of mind,

  the safest thing, the thing that gives me most comfort, is to identify

  with the atoms and the stars and simply contemplate the folly of my

  fellow species members. I can divorce myself from the pain of it all.

  Once, if I identified with individuals I felt pain; if I identified with

  groups I saw people who repelled me. So now I identify with no one,

  I have no passion anymore for any of them, victims or perpetrators,

  Right or Left, women or men. I'm still human. I haven't abandoned

  my humanity, but I have put it in a place that allows my art to function free of entanglements.

  My job is to watch the ludicrous dance down here for the humor

  and entertainment it provides and drop in every now and then to

  show my former species how fucked up they are.

  Years ago I began to recede past Jupiter and its moons, out to the

  Oort cloud of trillions of comets, beyond the planet formerly known

  as Pluto, back home with my fellow atoms. All of which originally

  came from some star or other, and not necessarily the one we're

  circling.

  I believe I am bigger than the universe, smaller than the universe

  and equal to it. I'm bigger than the universe because I can picture it,

  define it in my mind and everything that's in it and contain all that

  in my mind in a single thought. A thought that's not even the only

  one in there: it's right between "Shit, my ass itches!" and "Why don't

  we fuck the waitress?"

  That thought, with all the others, is inside the twenty-three-inch

  circumference of my cranium. So I'm bigger than the universe. I'm

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  smaller than it because that's obvious: I'm five foot nine and 150

  pounds and the universe is somewhat taller and heavier. I'm equal

  to it because every atom in me is the same as every atom the universe

  is made of. I'm part of that protogalaxy five billion light years away

  and of that cigarette butt in Cleveland. There are no differences,

  we're equal. Unlike our fake democracy, the democracy of atoms is

  real.

  Depending on my given mood on a given day, I can reflect on

  one of these three relationships for a moment or two and find comfort in it. And know that I'm really at one with the universe and

  will return to it on a more fundamental level someday—my reunion

  with it—and all the rest is a journey, a game, a comedy, a parade . . .

  After I die I'd love to be fired into space. That's probably not practical given the crowded nature of the upper atmosphere. So one of

  the codicils of my will is: "1, George Carlin, being of sound mind,

  do not wish, upon my demise, to be buried or cremated. I wish to be

  BLOWN UP."

  I'm sure there are people who see these attitudes as a form of escapism. My response has always been: "I don't care. Leave me alone.

  I'm not going to give you any threads to pick up here, folks. This is

  all temporal bullshit." Of course, once you tell someone, "This is all

  temporal bullshit," you've retreated to the realm of the angels. (I realize "temporal" and "angels" are Catholic terms, but as I've always

  said, I did use to be a Catholic. Until I reached the age of reason.)

  Kelly has taken exception to some of them. She feels that if you

  don't vote you shouldn't have a say when it comes to complaining. Then there's golf. Her husband is from a golf family—his dad

  managed country clubs—and she plays golf. Sometimes on public

  courses, so a whole different experience than the corporate one I attack. It uses up a lot of land, but there's trees in the middle of the city

  and it's a nice way to spend the afternoon. Does that make her a golf

  asshole? Of course not. On occasion she's also questioned that I'm

  antiauthority and anarchist, with no belief in any system or political wing. That I often showed myself to be a very traditional—even

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  conservative—father. Like when I took a baseball bat to her abusive

  bovfriend.

  I don't think the world is that neat; none of us is that neat; none of

  us falls into categories. There are differing aspects of ourselves, not

  all of which point in the same direction. I'm a collection of liberal,

  conservative and anarchist. Different parts of me emerge when I ' m

  outside my common mode, permissive left-liberal. I guess menacing some punk with a baseball bat for messing with your daughter

  is what you'd call traditional conservative behavior. So fine, part of

  me is conservative.

  I do hide stuff from myself. I deny a lot, in current terminology. If

  someone isn't on fire, actually standing in front of me in flames, I ' l l

  say, "Everything's fine." I don't want to know stuff that isn't real apparent, right out in the front parlor. Leave it alone unless it explodes.

  When it's not exploding, it doesn't attract my attention. I don't take

  a few random clues and construct a complex problem out of them

  to obsess about.

  I am very single-minded and preoccupied about my career, my

  art, my craft, my writing, my entertainment, whatever this package

  is. I ' m accustomed to going out into the world and talking to thousands of people and being applauded for it, then coming home and

  debarking emotionally.

  Doing that night after night, for decade after decade, may have

  made those other per
sonal connections unnecessary as psychic

  food. I get so much satisfaction out of my work, I pour so much of

  myself into it and get so much approval back, it's a circular process

  that's going on, a closed system; and maybe some percentage of the

  normal need to connect with people, even those I'm closest to, has

  always has been satisfied.

  But boy, nature is exacting! It has a balance sheet that just won't

  quit, and if someone leaves before the end of their balance sheet. . .

  it may never be balanced up. The longer time goes by, the closer to

  even numbers it's going to come out in the end. And someone has to

  pay. There is no way that the stand I took long ago—I will exist alone

  and write my own things and steer my own ship and tell everybody

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  what I think with just a microphone, no instruments, no band, no

  director, no writer, no producer, just me—isn't singularly selfish.

  No way that the other side of the ledger doesn't fill up with all

  sorts of debits. I've never had to look at that. I've thought about it

  intellectually, but I've never really looked at it in human, emotional

  terms.

  When Brenda was alive I used to have a fantasy of Ireland, the

  southeastern parts so that it would be a little warmer, and the two of

  us there, close enough to Dublin that you could go buy things you

  needed and not have to clean yourself with . . . wire or whatever—

  I don't know much about the countryside, I guess I know they're

  not poor—and just e-mail my shit to the publisher and go sit in the

  garden.

  I often wonder if things had turned out differently whether I

  would have acted on that fantasy. I think I might. Give up performance. Make that sacrifice.

  The most important lesson I've learned from nature, and I don't

  necessarily apply it well, is balance. There's a part of me that's unfed

  and unnourished. It needs the light of day, it needs some encouragement. And that is, not doing what I do now. I'm not even going to

  call it by its name. The opposite of what I do now.

  Time to be and not do. I learned that early on from my shrink, A1

  Weinstein, whom I loved and trusted but who died suddenly on me.