I wasn't there, but my eleven-year-old son, Nick—who as a kid always had an unusually deep voice—was. The conversation went as
follows:
NH: Hello.
GC: Is Tony there?
NH: No. Who's this?
GC: This is George Carlin. Who's this?
NH: This is his son, Nick.
GC: Hey, Nick, how the fuck are ya?
NH: Pretty fucking good. How the fuck are you?
An hour later when we finally spoke, George—not as a rule exactly pro-kid—said he was impressed by Nick's lightning powers of
repartee. I said it was hardly surprising: Nick had grown up roaming
the same Upper West Side streets and basketball courts George had
fifty years earlier.
We discussed what was needed to bring the book up to date.
George seemed to feel his work on it was largely done. He'd covered
the first sixty years of his life in great detail and depth; he'd told
me many things about himself and his life he'd never told anybody
else and we'd uncovered a lot of other stuff in our conversations.
Nothing that remarkable had happened in the last few years except
Brenda's death. We could either deal with that or cut the book off
before it. There was no rule you had to include everything in your
life in a book like this. By that logic, anyone who wrote an autobiography couldn't finish it until they were dead.
XVI
INTRODUCTION
We decided to see how Napalm C? Silly Putty did and regroup in
the fall. On top of his book tour and normal concert load, George had
an upcoming HBO special in November to plan. As things turned
out, we never did regroup. 9/11 intervened, causing George major
headaches for his HBO show (and adding a darkly comic episode to
the sortabiography). Napalm became another huge best-seller, staying on the New York Times best-seller list for twenty straight weeks;
the audiobook won George his fourth Grammy. Meanwhile I was
on the best-seller list too, having become involved with a fast-track
9/11 book, a photographic tribute to the FDNY and the 343 firefighters who died at the World Trade Center, called Brotherhood,
which I edited and cowrote with Frank McCourt. (Rudy Giuliani
and Thomas van Essen provided forewords. T he proceeds went to
FDNY charities.)
By the time I next saw George, at his HBO special in November, our literary landscape had changed. His publisher wanted another humor book like Napalm, and by now I was in the process of
selling my own semiautobiographical book, the account of a lifelong friendship I'd had with a saintly and funny Benedictine monk
named Father Joe. Not to worry, said George, our book was great
and it wasn't going anywhere. It would get done.
It was mid-'03 before I surfaced from writing Father joe and made
contact with George again. In the meantime he'd experienced
more heart problems—arrhythmia, requiring a procedure called an
ablation. He was also doing a new humor book, When Will ]esus
Bring the Pork Chops?, a title designed to be offensive to all three
Abrahamic faiths. (When it came out in 2004, the only religious
institution it offended was Walmart. Because the cover lampooned
the Last Supper with George seated at the table, waiting for Jesus,
they refused to rack the book.)
George was always a long-term planner, and a new idea now entered the picture, involving an ambition of his we'd discussed occasionally, of capping his career with a Broadway show. The model
for it would be Lily Tomlin's brilliant, virtuosic performance in Jane
Wagners The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,
which she'd premiered in 1985 and had since performed all over
X V I I
INTRODUCTION
the world. His new idea was to use childhood stuff from the book as
a basis for the Broadway show; then when it opened, finally publish
the sortabiography itself. The success of one would feed the success
of the other. This seemed an excellent approach, especially since he
wanted me to work on the Broadway end of it too.
2004 came and went, and by the time we spoke again, George
had been through rehab and was working again as hard as ever. But
he had begun to talk more and more about slowing down, about
someday soon getting off the road. Then he could devote the time
he needed to the "Broadway thing." His health began to d e c l i n e after the 2005 HBO special he suffered heart failure—but whenever
we spoke the plan for the next stage in his long and extraordinary
career remained the same.
George didn't live to fulfill his dream of homecoming, of taking
his hometown by storm on Broadway, the magical place where he
scampered as a boy from stage door to stage door, filling a fat autograph book. But at least the story of his life has made it to the light.
In his own words.
Words—the thing he loved most.
XVIII
1
THE OLD MAN
AND THE SUNBEAM
Patrick Carlin Sr.
(Courtesy of Kelly C a r l i n - M c C a l l )
Sliding headfirst down a vagina with no clothes on and landing
in the freshly shaven crotch of a screaming woman did not
seem to be part of God's plan for me. At least not at first. I ' m
not one of those people who can boast of having been a sparkle in
his mother's eye. A cinder comes closer.
I was conceived in a damp, sand-flecked room of Curley's Hotel
in Rockaway Beach, New York. August 1936. A headline in that Saturday's New York Post said "Hot, sticky, rainy weekend begins. High
humidity and temperatures in the 90s send millions to the beaches."
At the Paramount Theater in Times Square, Bing Crosby and Frances Farmer starred in Rhythm on the Range. Meanwhile at Curley's
Hotel on Beach 116th Street, Mary and Patrick Carlin starred in yet
another doomed Catholic remake of Rhythm in the Sack.
For several generations Rockaway Beach had been a favorite
weekend retreat for New York's alcohol-crazed Irish youth in search
of sex and sun. Popular ethnic slurs to the contrary, the Irish do enjoy sex—at least the last ten seconds or so. But we must admit that
Irish foreplay consists of little more than "You awake?" Or the more
caring, sensitive "Brace yourself, Agnes!"
Not that my conception was the tale of two young lovers, carried away by passion and strong wine. By the time my father's eager,
whiskey-fueled sperm forced its way into my mother's egg-of-themonth club, she was forty and he was forty-eight—certainly old
enough to be carrying rubbers. The odds against my future existence were even longer: this particular weekend was a single isolated
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sex-fest during a marital separation that had lasted more than a year.
In fact the preceding six years of my parents' marriage had consisted
entirely of long separations, punctuated by sudden brief reconciliations and occasional sex-fests.
The separations were long because my father had trouble metabolizing alcohol. He drank, he got drunk, he hit people.
My mother told me that my father hit her only once. (My older
brother, Patrick, can't say the same.) His first marriage ended disastrously when his first wife died of a heart attack not long after one
of his beatings. My mother's theory was that while my father had
/> been very free with his hands where his first family and Patrick were
concerned, he didn't abuse her, because she had four brothers and
her dad was a policeman.
Their reconciliations were sudden because my father had a terrific line of bullshit. And because my mother really loved him. The
two of them were crazy about one another. According to those who
knew them they were one of the great pairings of all time. So while
I sprang from something good and positive, by the time I showed up
I was a distinct inconvenience. This marriage had gone south long
before. As in Tierra del Fuego.
Getting conceived had been hard enough. Staying conceived literally required a miracle. My next brush with nonexistence came
two months after the sweaty sex-weekend in Rockaway Beach.
During the five years between the birth of my brother and my
tiny embryo glomming on to a few square millimeters of her uterine
wall, my mother had made several visits to a certain Dr. Sunshine
in Gramercy Square. Never for an abortion, mind you. Holy Mary
Mother of God, no! The procedure in question was called a D&G:
dilation and curettage—literally "open wide and scrape." A wonderfully delicate euphemism for quasi-Catholics with a little money.
Really high-tone too. Gramercy Square was the place to get opened
wide and scraped. No back-alley abortions on my father's salary.
Legend has it that my mother was seated in Dr. Sunshine's waiting room with my father who, being a family man, was reading the
sports pages, apparently just fine with my being less than a hundred
feet from Storm Drain #3. The good doctor's instruments were ster4
THE OLD MAN AND THE SUNBEAM
ile and standing by. The old dilator-and-curettager had selected a
nice new pair of rubber gloves and was whistling cheerfully as he
pulled them on preparatory to my eviction.
Then it happened. My mother had a vision. Sometimes when
you're trying to be born, that religious shit can come in handy. Not
a full-blown vision, like Jesus' face being formed by pubic hairs in
the bottom of the shower. But real enough to save my embryonic
ass. My mother claimed she saw the face of her dear, dead mother—
who'd died six months earlier—in a painting on the waiting-room
wall. She took this as a certain sign of maternal disapproval from beyond the grave. (Catholics go for that sort of thing.) She jumped up
and left the abortionist's office, with me still safely in the oven. On
the street below she delivered these momentous words to my father:
"Pat—I'm going to have this baby."
And so I was saved from an act frowned on by the Church through
an experience smiled on by the Church. It's a wonder I'm not more
devout. In fact you might be surprised that I support a woman's right
to an abortion. But I do. Absolutely. So long as it's not my abortion.
My father's response to this dramatic development is unrecorded.
No doubt it included something about finding a place nearby that
had qualified for a liquor license. After all, this was a man who, riding home from the hospital where my brother had just had a tonsillectomy, said: "Know how many beers I could've bought with what
it cost to take your damn tonsils out?"
In October 1936, shortly after my aborted abortion, Mary and
Pat decided to try and make a go of marriage again. So here they
were, this time at 155th and Riverside, with another nice home, a
maid and of course the same old problems. And I have to say that
while my father's drinking must have made a sizable contribution to
the chaos, my mother was an extremely difficult person to live with.
She was spoiled, self-centered, strong-willed and demanding; no
matter who you were, she'd find out how to press your buttons, God
bless her sainted memory.
Somehow though, while I waxed and multiplied within her,
things sailed along smoothly enough for them to stay together. One
day in May 1937 she decided to take a recreational stroll on the then
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new George Washington Bridge. The exertion brought on labor
pains sooner than expected and a couple days later I came barreling
down the birth canal, a nine-pound behemoth, requiring the use of
forceps. My mother insisted care was taken not to grip my temples
lest in her delightful words, it caused "the creation of an idiot." This
was almost as important to her as the fact that the obstetrician was
Dr. James A. Harrar, the "Park Avenue doctor" who'd delivered the
Lindbergh baby.
The day I was born was auspicious. It was the day King George
VI of England was crowned and a commemorative stamp was issued with the king's head on it—along with my birthdate, May 12th,
1937. How about that? A New York Irish kid named George rates a
fucking stamp for his birthday! No wonder I've always been a devout
monarchist. I was also born about a week after the Hindenburg disaster. I've often wondered whether I'm the reincarnation of some
charbroiled Nazi CEO.
Lying there in New York Hospital, my first definitive act on this
planet was to vomit. And vomit and vomit and vomit. For the first
four weeks of my life I lived to projectile vomit. My mother later told
me with great pride: "They would feed you and you would shoot formula clear across the room. You couldn't keep anything down." And
I still can't. This remarkable inability to hold anything back and to
spew it clear across a public space has served me well my whole life.
At New York Hospital, I also survived circumcision, a barbaric practice designed to remind you as early as possible that your genitals are
not your own.
My first home—the Vauxhall, 780 Riverside Drive at 155th
Street—was, according to my brother, "opulent." Expensive new furniture, a sunken living room, a dramatic view of the Hudson River
and—Amanda, a very large, strong black woman who was actually
capable of backing my father down. She became Patrick's and my
protector when Dad got out of line—which was plenty. The bar at
Maguire's Chop House on Upper Broadway got regular and strenuous workouts. Meanwhile my mother had settled into her Marie
Antoinette period, sitting at the dinner table, tinkling her little bell
to cue Amanda that the next course should be served. In fairness to
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THE OLD MAN AND THE SUNBEAM
my old man, that sort of behavior in a New York City cop's daughter
would be enough to drive anyone out to the boozer for a few pops.
One night Pat the Elder sailed in, ethanol-powered and very late,
and Mary had a few choice things to say about "what good is it having all this nice stuff if we can't have meals together, blah blah blah."
During the subsequent debate, to emphasize an abstruse point he
was making, Pat carefully dropped a tray of silver-and-crystal tea
service from their sixth-story window to the street below. He said
something on the order of "This is what I think of your nice stuff"
and headed Maguire-wards.
Mary, who was capable of making life-changing decisions on a
dime, made one now. She was leaving for good. Despite my father's
promises, the pattern hadn't changed. There was a new baby on
the scene. Who knew when I might be sched
uled for a taste of the
character-forming "discipline" my brother had endured since infancy? Three months? Six? As soon as I had hair I could be hauled
around our living space just like him.
That night, Mother Mary headed for the one place she knew
we'd be welcome and safe—her father's house. Dennis Bearey, the
gentle ex-policeman, lived not far away at the corner of 111th Street
and Amsterdam. Two days after our arrival there, my father was
spotted across the street watching the building, hoping to collar my
mother on her way out and stage one of his specialties—getting back
in her good graces with that terrific line of bullshit. But this time
Mary was having none of it. Three days later she, Patrick and I went
out Grandpa's fire escape, down four stories and through the backyards of 111th Street to Broadway, where my uncle Tom was waiting
in his car. He drove us up to South Fallsburg in the Catskills and a
farm owned by a couple of my mother's friends.
There we stayed for two months. I was barely sixty days old but
my life on the road had begun. And my first stop was the Catskills.
A week later, my father forced his way into Grandpa's apartment
by breaking down the door. The tough old cop, now seventy-four,
was helpless to stop him. The next day he was dead of a stroke. Chalk
up Number Two to my Dad. Technically he may not have been a
killer but he sure was good at causing death.
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Dennis Bearey had come from Ireland to be a New York City
policeman and, over the years, prided himself on the fact that he
never used his gun. A strong man, he used to play with his four sons
by extending his fist and telling them "Run up against that and kill
yourself." After seventeen years on the force, he was retired on a disability from injuries he sustained struggling with a street criminal.
A few weeks before, he'd passed the test for first lieutenant and was
told by his immediate superior that a payoff of a thousand bucks was
expected if he wanted the promotion. He refused to pay the bribe
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