Few comics make the transition from stage to page as smoothly or successfully as George Carlin. Brain Droppings spent a total of 40 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and this new one is certain to tickle even more ribs (and rattle a few more cages) with its characteristically ironic take on life's annoying universal truths. In Napalm & Silly Putty, Carlin doesn't steer clear of the tough issues, preferring instead to look life boldly in the eye to pose the questions few dare to ask:
How can it be a spy satellite if they announce on TV that it's a spy satellite?
Why do they bother saying "raw sewage"? Do some people cook that stuff?
In the expression "topsy-turvy," what exactly is meant by "turvy"?
And he makes some startling observations, including:
Most people with low self-esteem have earned it.
Guys don't seem to be called "Lefty" anymore.
Most people don't know what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.
Carlin also waxes wickedly philosophical on all sorts of subjects, including:
On kids: They're not all cute. In fact, if you look at them closely, some of them are rather unpleasant looking. And a lot of them don't smell too good either.
On death row: If you're condemned to die they have to give you one last meal of your own request. What is that all about? A group of people plan to kill you, so they want you to eat something you like?
Add to the mix "The Ten Most Embarrassing Songs of All Time," "The 20th Century Hostility Scoreboard," and "People I Can Do Without," and you have an irresistibly insouciant assortment of musings, questions, assertions, and assumptions guaranteed to please the millions of fans waiting for the next Carlin collection -- and the millions more waiting to discover this comic genius.
Standup comic George Carlin follows up his dark-horse smash bestseller
Brain Droppings with another compendium of cranky meditations, cinching his reputation as the Andy Rooney of boomer hepcats. "Road rage, air rage," Carlin rails. "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." Carlin is not into the lengthy essay--he's a sprinter of the mind. Most sentences in the book could be lifted out to stand alone and provoke deep thought: "How can it be a spy satellite if they announce on television that it's a spy satellite?" Good question. "Why do they bother saying 'Raw sewage'? Do some people cook that stuff?" Yuck, but yes, Carlin's got a point.
He can do an extended bit too, most memorably the transcript of Jesus on a talk show plugging his new tell-all memoir about the Trinity, Three's a Crowd. Carlin is funny, but genuinely angry and poignant at times: "You live 80 years and at best you get about six minutes of pure magic," he says. Sad, but about right.
And how did Carlin get into his line of business, "thinking up goofy s---," as he puts it? There's a clue in one entry in this book: "As of 1995 the number of people who had lived on earth was 105,472,380,169 ... it means that at this point there have been almost 1 quadrillion human bowel movements and most of them occurred before people had anything to read. These are the kind of thoughts that kept me from moving quickly up the corporate ladder."
Thank god Carlin stayed low on the corporate food chain and high on his own utterly idiosyncratic ideas! --Tim Appelo
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