Napalm & Silly Putty Read online

  Copyright © 2001 Comedy Concepts, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever with out the written permission of the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information address: Hyperion, 77 W. 66th Street, New York, New York 10023-6298

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Carlin, George.

  Napalm &silly putty /George Carlin.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-7868-7155-5

  1. American wit and humor .I. Title: Nap-

  palm and silly putty .II. Title.

  PN6162.C276 2001

  818'.5402—dc21 00-054055

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  CARS AND DRIVING: PART ONE

  EAT A BOX OF COOKIES

  SHORT TAKES

  AIRLINE ANOUNCEMENTS: PART ONE

  AIRLINE ANOUNCEMENTS: PART TWO

  A BEDROCK-SOLID ALIBI

  RICE KRISPIES

  THE MORNING NEWS

  FIVE UNEASY MOMENTS

  THE BOVINE FECES TRILOGY

  SHORT TAKES

  YOUR CHILDREN ARE OVERRATED

  CARS AND DRIVING: PART TWO

  HEIGH-HO, HEIGH-HO, IT'S OFF TO WORK WE GO

  SHORT TAKES

  AIRPORT SECURITY

  FEAR OF GERMS

  BUT FIRST, THIS FUCKIN' MESSAGE

  SHORT TAKES

  INTERVIEW WITH JESUS

  I WISH I HAD MY MONEY BACK

  PUNK BANDS I HAVE KNOWN

  A CAT IS NOT A DOG

  DOGS MOMENTS #1

  SHORT TAKES

  DOGS MOMENTS #2

  SOME LIKE IT HOT

  MAYBE THEY'LL ADOPT

  THE MISCELLANEOUS AILMENTS FOUNDATION

  GOT ANY MORE LEAVES IN THAT STALL?

  DEATH ROW

  CURRENT EVENTS

  THE UNKINDEST CUT

  SMILE

  THE NOONTIME NEWS

  THE PLANET IS FINE, THE PEOPLE ARE FUCKED

  SHORT TAKES

  BRAVE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE

  IT'S NOT A SPORT

  GOLF COURSES FOR THE HOMELESS

  THE GOOD BREAD

  SHORT TAKES

  DYING TO STAY ALIVE

  TICKET TO NOWHERE

  DEATH: THE SHOW

  FUNERALS

  JUST FOR FUN

  SHORT TAKES

  ADVENTURES IN THE SUPERMARKET

  WELL, AT LEAST THE PLATE WAS BLUE

  FUSSY EATER

  RUNNING HOT AND COLD

  ICEBOX MAN

  DOG MOMENTS #3

  SHORT TAKES

  DOG MOMENTS #4

  NOT EXACTLY MARTHA STEWART

  HAVE A NICE DAY

  HELLO-GOODBYE

  LOVE AND REGARDS

  EXPRESSIONS I QUESTION

  SHORT TAKES

  HOW SOON IS INTERMISSION?

  HAVE A GOO TIME

  SHORT TAKES

  PEOPLE I CAN DO WITHOUT

  CANCER IS GOOD FOR YOU

  THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF RAPE

  THE EVENING NEWS

  DANCE CALLED BECAUSE OF RAIN

  THINGS THAT ARE PISSING ME OFF

  FAMILIES WORTH LOATHING

  WHERE WAS I STANDING LAST TIME WE DID THIS?

  LIFE'S LITTLE MOMENTS

  SHORT TAKES

  ORGAN DONOR PROGRAMS

  ON THE BEACH: THE MOVIE

  "I COULDN'T COMMIT SUICIDE IF MY LIFE DEPENDED ON IT"

  EUPHEMISTIC BULLSHIT

  BEER AND POT

  HIGH ON THE PLANE

  SHORT TAKES

  SPORT SHOULD BE FIXED: FIRST HALF

  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

  FARM SYSTEM: THUGS, PERVS, NUTS, AND DRINKS

  I'LL BE RIGHT BACK

  NOT EVERY EJACULATION DESERVES A NAME

  I'VE GOT YOUR SANCTITY OF LIFE

  READY OR NOT, HERE WE COME!

  NEVER HEARD OF HIM!

  SHORT TAKES

  SPORT SHOULD BE FIXED: SECOND HALF

  DON'T BLAME THE LEADERS

  ROCKETS AND PENISES IN THE PERSIAN GULF

  OLD AND STINGY

  SHORT TAKES

  AT LEAST EAT A FUCKIN' LIMA BEAN, WILL YA?

  FACE-TO-FACE WITH THE CLOCK

  GOD HAS GOTTA GO

  BULLETS FOR BELIEVERS

  THE LATE-NIGHT NEWS

  I NEVER FUCKED A 10

  SHORT TAKES

  SPORTS SHOULD BE FIXED: OVERTIME

  SEVEN DEATH WISHES

  MONOPOLY

  Napalm &

  Silly Putty

  ALSO BY GEORGE CARLIN

  Brain Droppings

  To sweet Sarah Jane,

  the keeper of my magic.

  Acknowledgments

  To begin, I would like to acknowledge those of you who read Brain Droppings. It did better than I expected, and I want to say thanks. By the way, if you haven’t read it yet, fear not. You can read this first and then rush out to the store to get Brain Droppings. The two are not sequential.

  For those who did read the first book, you’ll find this is the same sort of drivel. Good, funny, occasionally smart, but essentially drivel.

  Thanks also to my boyhood friends from 123rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue who listened to my street-corner and hallway monologues when I was thirteen and gladdened my young heart by saying, “Georgie, you’re fuckin’ crazy!”

  Most of all, thanks to my editor, Jennifer Lang, for her patience and support, and for putting these thoughts of mine in order.

  Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies lest they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.

  —Professor Byrd Gibbens,

  Professor of English,

  University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

  From a letter to the author.

  Those who dance are considered insane by those who can’t hear the music.

  —Anon.

  If you can’t dance you fuck a lot of waitresses.

  —Voltaire

  Sometimes gum looks like a penny.

  —Sally Wade.

  Introduction

  Hi, reader. I hope you’re feeling well, and I hope your family is prospering in the new global economy. At least to the extent they deserve. For the next few hundred pages I will be your content provider.

  Regarding the title of this book, Napalm &Silly Putty: Sometime ago I was struck by the fact that, among many other wondrous things, Man has had the imagination to invent two such distinctly different products. One, a flaming, jellied gasoline used to create fire, death, and destruction; the other, a clay like mass good for throwing, bouncing, smashing, or pressing against a comic strip so you can look at a backwards picture of Popeye. I think the title serves as a fairly good metaphor for Man’s dual nature, while also providing an apt description of the kinds of thoughts that occupy me, both in this book and in my daily life: on the one hand, I kind of like it when a lot of people die, and on the other I always wonder how many unused frequent-flier miles they had.

  The only difference between lilies and turds is whatever difference humans have agreed upon; and I don’t always agree.

  Napalm &

  Silly Putty

  CARS AND DRIVING: PART ONE

  Ridin’ or Drivin’?

  You wanna go for a ride? Okay, let’s go for a ride. Well, actually, you’ll go for a ride, I’ll go for a drive. The one who drives t
he car goes for a drive. The other person goes for a ride. Most folks aren’t aware of that. Tell ’em when they’re gettin’ into your car. Say, “You assholes are goin’ for a ride, I’m goin’ for a drive.’ Cause I’m the one who’s makin’ the payments on this shit-box.”

  Gettin’ in the Car

  Now, for purposes of description, you’ll have to picture my car: an old, poorly maintained, dangerous collection of faulty parts from that wonderful time before safety became such a big goddamn deal in this country. And my car is like any other small car—real hard to get into. That’s important, because, after all, you gotta get into the car first. Otherwise, the way I look at it, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.

  And let’s not forget, with any kind of car, just opening the driver’s door and getting in involves a certain amount of risk. Have you noticed that? The terrific way they designed cars so the driver’s door opens right out into the middle of goddamn traffic? Jesus! About the only intelligent thing the British ever did was putting that driver’s seat right over there near the curb where it belongs. Of course then they went and moved the curb to the wrong side of the street.

  Park like a Man

  Anyway, like I said, no small car is easy to get into, but especially if you park the way I do: illegally, two feet out from the curb, on a busy, high-speed thoroughfare right in the middle of rush hour. And that sort of car entry is even riskier if you’ve got a two-door, and you’re tryin’ to stuff a coupla shopping bags full of groceries into the backseat while everyone else is zippin’ past you, close enough to smell your breath.

  Holy shit! Look out!! Here comes a drunken bus driver! Quick! Abandon groceries! Stand up straight! Squeeze against the car and pull that door as close to your body as you can, taking care of course not to cut off circulation to your feet. Holy shit, that was close! Good thing you went into emergency mode. And be honest, you didn’t really need them groceries, did ya? Goddamn! Look at how flat that bus made everything; imagine a flank steak with tread marks. And might that just possibly be potato juice on the ground?

  Handle with Care

  Now, one more thing about car entry: my car has got one of them tricky kinda door handles that’re recessed a little bit into the door itself. You know the ones I mean? Where your fingers actually go in a little bit, past the surface of the car, till you grab ahold of the handle? Don’t ya like them? I do. That’s why they don’t make ’em anymore. They found out I like ’em. That’s the way it is with everything. They find out I like it, they stop makin ’it.

  Open and Shut Case

  Anyway, back to my car. I also got me one of them doors that when you open it, it swings a-a-a-all the way open. You know the kind I mean? A-A-A-All the way open; perpendicular to the car. I ain’t got one of them fancy doors that hangs out there halfway and stays where you want it to. With my door, we got two things, open and shut. Pick one.

  And if I should be tryin’ to do somethin’ really tricky, like get into the car? Well, in a case like that I gotta prop the door open with a broom handle. ’Cause otherwise, sure as hell, soon as I’m halfway in, that door’s gonna swing back hard as it can and sever my leg just below the knee.

  “Eeeeeyyyyaaaaaaaiiiiiaaaahhhhoooooooo!”

  God! That shit hurts for about a year and a half, don’t it? And them huge, purple blotches? Seems like they never go away.

  An Up Front Guy

  Now, I wanna mention one additional problem I have when I’m gettin’ into my car. Like I told ya, it’s kinda old, and upkeep has been minimal, so there’s another thing I gotta deal with. A long time ago, my driver’s seat got pushed way up forward on the runners about as far as it goes, and apparently it ain’t never comin’ back.

  You see, what happened was, years ago, about thirty or forty of them little pop-top beer-can rings got wedged into the seat tracks, and now they’re all fused into one solid piece of metal, and that fuckin’ seat ain’t never gonna move again. Unless, of course, there’s an atomic attack, in which case it probably ain’t gonna budge more than an inch or two.

  So, because of all this unintentional seat redesign, when I get into full drivin’ mode, I’m pretty much hangin’ out right behind the radiator. In fact, if I wanna check my speedo, I gotta look straight down into my crotch. But, hey! At least I’m in the car.

  Tight Squeeze

  But maybe you’re not! Maybe I oughta mention one more common car reentry problem: I know that some of you fainthearted folks like to play it safe by parkin’ right in the mall parking lot. And, of course when you park the car, you do so in such a manner that leaves you full access to the door. But while you’re in the mall chargin’ all that worthless merchandise, some asshole parks right next to you, leaves about six inches between cars, and now you can’t get your door open more than three or four degrees at best.

  So, in order to gain access, you gotta try to wedge yourself through a tiny little crack, while balancing six gift-wrapped packages, all the time maintaining the integrity of a lit cigarette hangin’ off your lip. Besides which, your own particular lumbar spine is not the best one God ever put together, and everybody knows that even a proper back is not made for gettin’ into a car under circumstances such as these.

  And, by the way, as most men know, tryin’ to squeeze into a car in that manner also creates a potential for serious ball-injury from the steering wheel. Many’s the family-planning program that’s gone out the window due to poor parking. Solution: Always park way down at the far end of the lot, where the homeless people live. Your back and your balls will thank you. And the walk’ll do ya good.

  Door #4

  Anyway, at this point I think we’re all in the car, so now I’ll just reach over here and…I’ll just reach over here and…awww, shit! Goddamn door is still wide open. Well, maybe if I lean wa-a-ay out, and stretch my arm as far as it’ll go; maybe without actually getting up, I can just reach out and…uuuuuhhhnnggh! Fuck it! It appears, folks, that today we’re gonna be driving with the door wide open. What the heck, it’s a lovely day, and they say an open driver’s door actually helps you a little bit on left-hand turns. Acts like a rudder, increasing the drag factor on the port side.