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this was a routine he developed long before the 9/11/01 attacks:

I'm getting tired of all this security at the airport. There's too much of it. I'm tired of some fat chick with a double-digit IQ rooting' around inside my bag for no reason and never finding anything.....The whole thing is fucking pointless.  And it's completely without logic. There's no logic at all. They'll take away a gun, but let you keep a knife! Well, what the fuck is that? In fact, there's a whole list of lethal objects they will allow you to take on board. Theoretically, you could take a knife, an ice pick, a hatchet, a straight razor, a pair of scissors, a chain saw, six knitting needles, and a broken whiskey bottle, and the only thing they'd say to you is, "That bag has to fit all the way under the seat in front of you.

And if you didn't take a weapon on board, relax. After you've been flying for about an hour, they're gonna bring you a knife and fork! They actually give you a fucking knife! It's only a table knife--but you could kill a pilot with a table knife.

Anyone can get on an airplane and I'll tell you why. They know they are not a security risk because they have answered the three big questions.

Question #1:

"Did you pack your bags yourself?"

"No, Carrot Top packed my bags. He and Martha Stewart and Florence Henderson came over to the house last night, fixed me a lovely lobster Newburg, gave me a full body massage with sacred oils from India, performed a four way 'round the world', and then they packed my bags.

Next question:

"Have your bags been in your possession the whole time?"

"No. Usually the night before I travel---just as the moon is rising---I place my bags out on the street corner and leave them there, unattended, for several hours. Just for good luck.

Next question:

"Has any unknown person asked you to take anything on board?"

"Well, what exactly is an 'unknown person'? Surely everyone is known to someone. In fact, just this morning, Kareem and Youssef Ali ben Gabba seemed to know each other quite well. They kept joking about which one of my suitcases was the heaviest.".............

Airport security is a stupid idea, it's a waste of money, and it's there for only one reason: to make white people feel safe! That's all it's for. To provide a feeling, an illusion, of safety in order to placate the middle class. Because the authorities know they can't make airplanes safe; too many people have access. You'll notice the drug smugglers don't seem to have a lot of trouble getting their little packages on board, do they?......

And by the way, an airplane flight shouldn't be completely safe. You need A little danger in your life. Take a fucking chance, will ya? What are you gonna do, play with your prick for another 30 years?  What, are you gonna read _PEOPLE_ magazine and eat at Wendy's till the end of time? Take a fucking chance.....

You have to be realistic about terrorism. Certain groups of people---Muslim fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalist, and just plain guys from Montana---are going to continue to make life in this country very interesting for a long, long time. That's the reality.

Angry men talkin' to god on a two-way radio and muttering incoherent slogans about freedom are eventually gonna provide us with a great deal of entertainment. Especially after your stupid fucking economy collapses all around you, the terrorists come out of the woodwork. And you'll have anthrax in the water supply and sarin gas in the air conditioners; there'll be chemical and biological suitcase-bombs in every city, ......

As far as I'm concerned, all of this airport security--the cameras, the questions, the screenings, the searches--is just one more way of reducing your liberty and reminding you that they can fuck with you anytime they want. Because that's the way Americans are now. They're willing to trade away a little of their freedom in exchange for the feeling---the illusion---of security.

What we now have is a completely neurotic population obsessed with security, safety, crime, drugs, cleanliness, hygiene, and germs. "

"One phrase that come up quite a bit in abortion discussions is "sanctity of life." What about that? Do you think there's a thing as sanctity of life? Personally,, I think it's a bunch of shit. Who says life is sacred? .....god? Great, but if you read your history you know that god is one of the leading causes of death and has been for thousands of years. Hindus, Moslems, Christians, Jews, all taking turns killing one another, because god told them it was a good idea. The sword of god, the blood of the lamb, Vengeance is mine, onward Christian soldiers. Millions of dead people. All because they gave the wrong answer to the god Question: Do you believe in god?

No.

BAM! Dead.

How about you? Do you believe in god?

Yes."

Do you believe in MY god?

No.

BAM! Dead!

My god has a bigger dick than your god.

For thousands of years all the bloodiest and most brutal wars have been based on religious hatred. Which of course, is fine with me; anytime "holy" people are killing one another, I'm a happy guy......but please, don't kill each other and give me that shit about sanctity of life."

"The CIA doesn't kill anybody, they 'neutralize' people. Or they 'depopulate' an area. The government doesn't lie, it engages in 'disinformation.' ...Israeli murderers are called 'commandos,' Arab commandos are called 'terrorists.' The contra killers were known as 'freedom fighters.' Well, if crime fighters fight crime and firefighters fight fire, ......... what do freedom fighters fight?"

"Environmentalists estimate that, at the present rate of consumption, the world will have depleted its present supply of bullshit by the year 2005.  Increasingly, synthetic bullshit is seen as the only answer.  Therefore, the leading religions, in cooperation with big business and the major political parties, are working hard to beat the deadline."

1980 interview:

GEORGE CARLIN: As much as I love my family, I enjoy it when the house is empty, because then I know I'm truly alone, as we all are on the planet, after all. You know, every atom in us is originally from a star. And during my moment of aloneness, I'm most mindful of that; that I'm just another group of matter randomly but wonderfully arranged. That's when I feel my immortality.

PLAYBOY:   Your immortality, as in afterlife?

CARLIN:   Not in the christian sense, but I do believe in the survivability of the human spirit. We were all part of a giant explosion once, and we've come a long way. The incredible distances of past and future time, the history of this whole fucking, vibrating, resonating mother mass - that's what I read and think about more than anything else.

PLAYBOY:   Of all the values you rebelled against as a child, what was the one you most despised?

GEORGE CARLIN:   Religion. When the Catholics start laying their trip on you, you notice very early in life what a load of shit it is. The hypocrisy is just breath-takingly apparent, even to a child. But what I hated most was seeing those priests and brothers getting so much pleasure out of inflicting pain. I wondered what was wrong with them.

PLAYBOY:   Do any other religions interest you?

CARLIN:   None of the christian religions do. They're all outer-directed. "Who can I convert?" "Let's go to this country and make them christians." "Wear this." "Do that." "No, don't worship that way. Worship this way or I'll kill you - for the good of your soul, of course." Meanwhile, followers of Eastern religions are sitting in the middle of their minds, experiencing a bliss and a level of consciousness that Western man can't begin to approach. Christianity is all external, all material. Gold. War. Murder. The big churches operate, morally and economically, just like the big corporations. Yet they don't pay taxes. Let them pay their fair share, those fucking religions.

from an interview in _Wired_ (February 2001)

[...]

Q: One of the fascinations that you have, whether it's on the page or on the stage, is with the English language, its use, perversion. This must be a very rich time when you've got a President who so mangles the English language.

Carlin: I think he's an imbecile, and it's just wonderful because the American public kind of gets what it deserves, and I think they deserve this one.

[...]

Q: How cynical or pessimistic are you about politics in general?

Carlin: I'm certainly a skeptic. I always quibble with people. I like to split hairs. And I quibble with people who say, "Well, you're cynical." And I know there's a second and third definition of cynical where my stuff fits. But to me the cynics are the ones in the boardrooms with the reports from the focus groups. And the belief that there's a man in the sky watching us, watching everything we do, is so ingrained: First thing they do is tell you there's an invisible man in the sky who's going to march you down to a burning place if he doesn't like you. If they can get you to believe that, it's all over. Before you're six years old, they've got you thinking that, they've got you forever on anything else they want. There's no real education. It's an indoctrination training little producers of goods who will also be consumers of goods. Some will be on the producer side, and more will be on the consumer side. But you're all being trained to be a part of this big circle of goods being pumped out and everyone buying them and everyone going to work to help make more of them for other people to buy.

I've given up on the whole human species. I think a big, good-sized comet is exactly what this species needs. You know, the poor dinosaurs were walking around eating leaves, and they were completely wiped out. Let the insects have a go. You know, I don't think they'll come up with sneakers with lights in them, or Dust Busters, or Salad Shooters, or snot candy.

Q: But a comet, say a big Arizona-sized comet smashing somewhere into the Pacific Ocean, would be pretty bad for business, wouldn't it?

Carlin: It would be terrible, and it would be wonderful. Just to see it all, you know. I only wish there were some way I could live out on the moon and watch it all on CNN. And just see the whole thing happen, see the big splash. Or have it hit land and this big cloud erupt. That would be fun to see. I'm just a fan of big disasters. And that is as big as they get. Let 'em go. I just want to describe the mess.

But, you know, life is dual. If you'll scratch a cynic, you'll find a disappointed idealist. And the fire never goes out completely. And that part of me that made my mother say, "You have a lovely nature," is very true.

Q: Is there anything out there happening that would check your despair with the human species? Or are we on the big slide down, here?

Carlin: It's called CTD--Circling The Drain. I didn't need to see it used recently in The New York Times to know that it's medical terminology. But the thing I must point out is that my despair is of the group itself, the group as it's assembled. And I've never identified with the "local group," no matter what it identifies itself as. But I do cherish, and love, and am thrilled by individuals. People, one by one as I meet them, I find are wondrous. When you have time to listen and watch them, when you look in the eyes, you see all the potential of the whole thing, this whole species that had such a wonderful gift that was given by nature. The mind, the ability to objectify and to think abstractly. And we've wasted it by everyone wanting a fanny pack and to go to the mall and to be paying 18 percent interest on things that we don't need, don't want, don't work, and can't give back.

[...]

Carlin: The original routine was called "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." I did a sequel to it on the third album called "Filthy Words." That's the one BAI played. Of course, it included all the words. It's just that it took things a little further. That's just my anal side, trying to get the terminology correct. And I apologize for that. "Seven Dirty Words"--which is what The Los Angeles Times called it (I had never used that term, and that became the term it was known by)--was part of the second album, Class Clown. And it, too, was part of a follow-up to something called "Shoot" that was on the first album. "Shoot," I said, was shit with two Os. When people say, "Oh, shoot," they're really saying, "Oh, shit." And I was surprised that I got fired in Las Vegas for saying "shit" in a town where the official game is craps.

Language is one of my loves, and I love bothering people when I am able to, and I wanted to investigate these words and try to lay them out in a logical way: why these seven qualified as ones you could never say, whereas some of them were dirty only part of the time.

Q: Now these were . . .

Carlin: "Shit," "fuck," "cunt," "motherfucker," "cocksucker," "tits," "piss."

Q: That has apparently changed some in the last twenty-seven years.

Carlin: Only a little bit, though. As far as I know, the word "piss" is the only one you'll hear on commercial television with any regularity, and only when it's used as "pissed off." See, we don't mind anger in this country. "Pissed off" is fine.

Q: It's the body function that's irritating.

Carlin: It's all right for one guy to say, "Why are you pissed off at me?" But the other guy cannot say, "Well, because you pissed on me." That's not allowed.

Q: Your lawsuit lingered for most of the decade of the seventies and wound up being adjudicated unfortunately by the Supreme Court, if I remember.

Carlin: That's right, and it was a 5-to-4 decision in 1978, five years after the fact. The decision said that the FCC did have the right to regulate what the Court called "indecent language." It didn't meet the test for obscenity, but the decision was that because these are the "public airwaves" that come into the home unbidden and by surprise, someone might hear them and be offended, so they had some right to regulate. And that, of course, leaves out the fact that there are two knobs on the radio and television: One turns it off, the other changes the station.

[...]

Q: There are very few places, even in the comic world, where people are so openly blasphemous as you are. And I love every second of it. Why the absolute, unremitting scorn for religion?

Carlin: I take pride in it. Sometimes people will say, "That's bigotry, can't you see? You wouldn't attack blacks, you wouldn't attack Jews." I say, "Wait a minute, religion is a self-conferred intellectual decision; it's not something you get at birth and is unchangeable. You're collusive with the religion when you accept it; you have a choice." So I think intellectually if you accept it, intellectually I have every right to question that choice you made. Whereas your blackness, ethnicity, homosexuality is something that might be genetic, I can't touch that, and I have no right.

• spoken word track _Religion Is A Lifestyle Choice_ MP3 (96k) by Tom Leykis

Everything that you know about yourself comes from thinking back, and I think I saw religion as the first big betrayal of me. You know, they promised everything. I remember at first communion I was seven years old, and they said, "You're going to feel different, you're going to get the blessed sacrament in your mouth, and you will be in a state of grace, you will feel god's presence." I thought, "None of that happened." And I can remember noticing that. I probably, at some level, decided to listen a little more carefully to what they were saying in the future and maybe not just buy it all. But I was openly disdainful of what they were teaching before I reached eighth grade. And I felt that they attempted to lead me astray; they attempted to promise me things that weren't attainable through their narrow method.

I think religion is very anti-man. I think it's a terrible distortion and exploitation of a very natural urge every human has--to be rejoined with the one somehow, to become a part of the universe. Once the high priests and the traders took over, we were lost as a species.

[...]

Q: You talk about businessmen with such scorn. That's the lifeblood of America, isn't it?

Carlin: It absolutely is, and that's probably why there is so much scorn. Everybody in America is a part of this big herd of cattle being led to the marketplace, not to be sold, which is usual with cattle, but to do the buying. And everyone is branded. You see the brands--Nike, Puma, Coke--all over their bodies. Pretty soon you'll go to a family and say, "$100,000 if we can tattoo Pepsi on your child's forehead, and we'll have it removed when he's twenty-one. A hundred grand." I'm sure the George Washington Bridge will someday be the Ford Motor Company George Washington Bridge. It's gone beyond what you can merely mock, so it has to be a frontal attack. Folks, this is bullshit. This is jerk-off time. Don't you see what's happening? What you're doing? What you're participating in? You know, that justice is blind, everyone's equal, the press is fair and impartial. It's what I call the "American Okey-Dokey." It's the official bullshit story.

And Americans have, for long enough now, been exposed to the exaggerated reality of the experiment here that they accept it. And the prosperity makes it easy enough for them not to go ahead and question things. You get a good five-, six-year depression in this country, and you'll see some folks out with torches and shit. I mean, that's what I would love to see. But who's going to do that when you're comfy?

• _Airline Announcements_ MP3
• _Drugs_ MP3
• _Persian Gulf War_ MP3
• _Airport Security_ MP3
• _Baseball And Football_ MP3
• _Childhood Cliches_ MP3
• _Feminist Blowjobs_ MP3
• _Golfcourses For The Homeless_ MP3
• _People I Can Do Without_ MP3
• _Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television_ MP3
• this routine was considered obscene and was involved in the landmark supreme court case 'US Government vs. Pacifica Radio.'
• industrial track _Seven Words_ MP3 (192k) by Pigface off of _Fook_ CD on Invisible (1992)
• _There Is No God_ MP3
• Carlin reveals that he is a sun-worshipper and that he prays to Joe Pesci
• god does a pretty shitty job.
• god could not be a woman.
• _Usage Of The Word Fuck_ MP3
• _Fear Of Germs_ MP3
• _Fuck Mickey Mouse_ MP3
• _God_ MP3
• _Heaven, Hell, Purgatory & Limbo_ MP3
• _Death Penalty_ MP3
• _Farting In Public_ MP3
• _You're All Diseased Part II: Cigars, Angels, Harleys, House Of Blues_ MP3 (96k)
• _Some People Are Stupid_ MP3
• _Four Groups That Gotta Go_ MP3
• _Names_ MP3 (96k)
• _New Jersey & License Plates_ MP3 (80k)
• _Fuck The Children_ MP3 
• the last bastion of taboo is attacked, and i say hooray.  prize wisdom and experience over a blank slate.  elderly and able adults first.
• school uniforms
• school killings
• fuck structure.  instead, daydream and leave the kids alone.
• _11 O'Clock News_ MP3 (48k)
• _At It Again_ MP3 (80k) (truncated 13:04)
• _More Stuff On Cars And Driving_ MP3 (truncated 4:55)
• interview 2/23/01 on Wired News Radio promoting Laugh.com MP3 (24k)(27:55)
• video footage (vhs/ntsc) of John Lennon (Beatles) & Yoko Ono hosting The Mike Douglas show for one week - guests during that week included Jerry Rubin, Ralph Nader, & George Carlin
• Anomalog: George Carlin Isn't Liberal - He Just Hates The U.S.
• "god damn!" - sampled in _And What You Give Is What You Get_ (b-side) by Beastie Boys

"Ever wonder about those people who spend $2 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backward."

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