Brain Droppings (11 page)

Any man who tries to pierce his ear with an electric can opener.

A retarded twelve-year-old who carries more than six books of matches.

Any man who gives himself a Harvey Wallbanger enema. On the rocks.

Any person bleeding from three orifices who wants me to cosign on a loan.

A homely, flat-chested woman wearing a Foxy Lady T-shirt.
SPACED OUT

You know something I could really do without? The Space Shuttle. Why don’t these people go out and get real jobs? It’s the same shit over and over. They get delayed, they blast off, they get in orbit, something breaks, they fix it, the President says hello, Mission Control wakes them up with a song no one has listened to in twenty years, the science experiment placed on board by the third-graders of Frog Balls, Tennessee, is a big success, and bla bla bla. It’s time to end this shit. Besides, it’s irresponsible. The last thing we should be doing is sending our grotesquely distorted DNA out into space.
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IN THE PRIVACY OF YOUR OWN HOME. AS opposed to what? The privacy of someone else’s home? You have no privacy in someone else’s home; that’s why you got your own home.

DOWN THE PIKE. “He was the meanest guy ever to come down the pike.” Fine. What about guys who come up the pike? Not everyone lives “north of the pike.” Some guys have to come up the pike, and they’re really mean, because nobody mentions them at all. And what about a guy who doesn’t even use the pike? He arrives on Amtrak! “Boy, he was the meanest guy ever to arrive on Amtrak.” Doesn’t sound right.

LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL We say some guy was “goin’ like a bat outta Hell.” How do we know how fast a bat would leave Hell? Maybe he would leave real slow. In fact, why should we assume that a bat would even want to leave Hell? Maybe he likes it there. Maybe Hell is just right for a bat. Maybe it’s bat heaven. And now that we’re on this subject, how do we know Hell has bats in the first place? What would a bat be doin’ in Hell? Usually a bat is in the belfry. Why would he want to split his time between two places? Then again, maybe that’s why he’s in such a hurry to leave Hell. He’s due back at the belfry.

Why do we say OUT LIKE A LIGHT? The primary function of a light is to be lit, not to be out. Why choose a light to represent the concept of being out? Why not, “On like a light?” The same is true of DROPPING LIKE FLIES; the wrong quality is being emphasized. Flies are known for flying, not dropping. And let’s forget METEORIC RISE. Meteors don’t rise, they fall.

C E 0 R C E C A R L I N
YOU CAN TALK UNTIL YOU’RE BLUE IN THE FACE, ETC. ETC. Well, yOu
(i, can’t talk until you’re blue in the face. In order to talk, you need
oxygen. Blueness of the face is caused by a lack of oxygen. So
if you’re blue in the face, you probably stopped talking a long
time ago. You might be making some gestures. In fact, if you’re
^| running out of oxygen, I would imagine you’re making quite a
number of gestures. And rather flamboyant ones at that.
L. When we point out someone’s lack of popularity, especial-
: ^ . * ly a politician’s, we sometimes say, HE COULDN’T GET ELECTED DOC
„>?,;?, CATCHER. First of all, since when do they elect dog catchers? I’ve
; ; never seen one on the ballot, have you? The last time you were
in the voting booth, did it say, “President, Vice President, Dog
Catcher?” No. And why do they imply that getting elected dog
?.,; pie have dogs; they wouldn’t vote for you. And many of the
,; ….;. ., people who don’t have dogs still like them. I should think it
would be quite difficult to get elected dog catcher.
ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER. Not always. Sometimes one … thing leads to the same thing. Ask an addict. l§ THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD needs to be updated. It’s overdue. It should have been changed much earlier in the twentieth century to, “The typewriter is mightier than the machine gun.” But at this point is should probably read, “The …., j* word processor is mightier than the particle-beam weapon.” UNIDENTIFIED PERSON. What exactly is an “unidentified person”? Doesn’t everyone have an identity? Maybe they mean .,…; he’s a person they can’t identify. But that would make him an “unidentifiable person.” I guess if nothing else, he could always be referred to as “that guy we can’t identify.”

brain droppings

OPEN A CAN OF WORMS. Why would you have to open it? Are there really sealed cans of worms? Who sealed them? Worms are usually put in a can after it has been opened, and emptied of something else, like corn or pumpkin meat. Uncover a can of worms, maybe. But not open.

WILD AND WOOLLY. Whenever I hear something described as wild and woolly, I always wonder where the woolly part comes in. Wild I understand. But woolly? I have some sweaters that are woolly, but they’re kind of conservative. Not wild at all.

IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME. HOW can this be? Shouldn’t it be, “In the right place at the wrong time?” If a guy gets hit by a stray bullet, he is in the right place (where his day’s activities have taken him) at the wrong time (when a bullet is passing by). If it were the wrong place, the bullet wouldn’t have been there.

IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME is also questionable. Let’s say a guy wins a prize for being a bank’s millionth customer. All you really have to say is, “He was in the right place.” After all, it had to be the right time. That’s the only time they were giving away the prize. If it hadn’t been the right time, it wouldn’t have been the right place. Twenty minutes later the bank wouldn’t be “the right place” anymore.
You NEVER KNOW. Not true. Sometimes you know.

You DON’T HAVE TO BE A ROCKET SCIENTIST implies that rocket scientists are somehow smart. How smart can they be? They build machines that travel thousands of miles to drop fire and radiation on people. That doesn’t sound smart to me.

GEORGE

C A R L I N

brain droppings

THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK. Sometimes in the movies
5 when the bad guy is holding a gun on the good guy, the
good guy says, “It won’t work, Scarfelli. My men are right
behind you with their guns drawn.” And the bad guy says
“You can’t fool me, Murdoch, that’s the oldest trick in the
0 book.” Well, exactly what book are these guys talking
about? Have you ever seen a book with a bunch of tricks in
* it? Magic tricks maybe, but I don’t think the thing with the
guns would be in there, do you? A prostitute might have a
book of tricks, but once again, probably no mention of the
two guys with the guns. And anyway, even if there really
were a book with a lot of tricks in it, how would you know
which trick was the oldest? They were all printed at the same
4 time. You’d have to say, “You can’t fool me, Murdoch, that’s
the trick that appears earliest in the book.” But that’s not
good movie dialogue, is it?

When they say someone is NOT GOING TO WIN ANY POPULARITY CONTESTS, what popularity contests are they talking about? I’ve never heard of these contests. Where do they have them? And who wins? Whoever is winning these popularity contests can’t be that popular. You never hear about them.

You COULD HEAR A PIN DROP. Well, you can’t hear a pin drop. Not even a bowling pin. When a pin is dropping, it’s just K floating through the air. There’s very little noise. You might be able to hear a pin land but certainly not drop.

SHOUDHAVE
[£-(]0 = to return somewhere
Ull”|)flrk= to drive away
uE’llQUE = to lose something

= to find it again
U firmness
P = a garment’s pockets
IllQy IDUCIli “Ice cream tastes way much better than sewage.”
Q lOttiQ blinCllQ: “I only slept with her once, and now I got a lotta buncha crabs.
0 IIEFy lOt “The gold-plated dildos cost a very lot more than the rubber ones.”
0 WllOlE IDllCh: “I love you a whole much.” real pr6ttl| gOOd: Tm real pretty good at math.” OEFypfElty 900(1: “But I’m very pretty good at history.” EXtFEIllEly HOt DOd: “This prune cake is extremely not bad.” “Oh, thank you. Very, very thank you!”

“I couldn’t get to sleep yesternight.”

g: “So I was real tired last morning.”

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GEORGE CARL

brain droppings

SMAVORITEIifllDAIKKS
added bonus exactly right closed fist future potential inner core money-back refund seeing the sights true fact revert back safe haven prior history young children time period sum total end result temper tantrum ferryboat free gift bare naked combined total unique individual potential hazard joint cooperation

There are many popular beliefs rooted in familiar expressions and sayings that simply aren’t true.

EVERYTHING COMES IN THREES. Not true. In reality, everything comes in ones. Sometimes, when three “ones” come in a row, it seems like everything comes in threes. By the way, in medieval times it was widely believed that everything came in twenty-sixes. They were wrong, too. It just took them ft| longer to recognize a pattern.
People say when you die, YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU. Well,
that depends on what it is. If it’s your dark blue suit, you
‘ can certainly take it with you. In fact, not only can you
take it with you, you can probably put some things in the
pockets.
” You LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY. Actually, you learn
something old every day. Just because you just learned it, doesn’t mean it’s new. Other people already knew it. Columbus is a good example of this.

THE SKY’S THE LIMIT. Well, how can the sky be the limit? The A sky never ends. What kind of a limit is that? The Earth is the limit. You dig a hole and what do you keep getting? More earth. The Earth’s the limit.

You GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. Clearly this is not true. Have you been shopping lately? Only a naive person would 0 believe that you get what you pay for. In point of fact, if you check your purchases carefully, you’ll find that you get whatever they feel like giving you. And if corporations get any more powerful, you soon might not even get that.

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GEORGE C A R L I N
TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY. Not true. Today is another day
to We have no idea what tomorrow is going to be. It might turn
out to be another day, but we can’t be sure. If it happens, I’ll
be the first to say so. But, you know what? By that time, it’ll
be today again.
^ NICE GUYS FINISH LAST. Not true. Studies have shown that
on the average, nice guys finish third in a field of six. \ Actually, short guys finish last. By the way, in medieval times it was widely believed that nice guys finished twenty-sixth. You can see how limited those people were.
IF YOU’VE SEEN ONE, YOU’VE SEEN ‘EM ALL. DO we even have
to talk about this one? This should be obvious. If you’ve
seen one, you’ve seen one. If you’ve seen them all, then
0 you’ve seen them all. I don’t understand how this one even
got started.
.

THOSE WERE THE DAYS. NO. Those were the nights! Think back. Weren’t the nights better? Days you had to work. Nights you went to parties, danced, drank, got laid. “Those were the nights!”

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH. What about when you eat at home? I don’t pay when I eat lunch at home-it’s free! Sometimes I’ll leave a tip, but basically, it’s a free lunch. Yes, I know we had to buy the food at the store. But as the Zen Buddhists say, The Food Is Not the Lunch.
YOU PAYS YOUR MONEY, AND YOU TAKES YOUR CHOICE. I think
what I said earlier still applies: You pays your money and you takes whatever they jolly well give you. Actually, when you get right down to it, you pays your money and you loses your money.

brain
droppings

EVERYBODY HAS HIS PRICE. Not so. Would you believe there 5 are millions of people who do not have their price? Thanks to a government mixup, many people have their neighbor’s price.
THEY DON’T MAKE ‘EM LIKE THEY USED TO. Actually they do
^ make ‘em like they used to, they just don’t sell ‘em anymore. They make ‘em, and they keep ‘em!
i Two WRONGS DON’T MAKE A RIGHT. Well, it just so happens
that two wrongs do make a right. Not only that, but as the number of wrongs increases, the whole thing goes up exponentially. So that while two wrongs make one right, and four wrongs make two rights, it actually takes sixteen wrongs to make three rights, and 256 wrongs to make four rights. It
0 seems to me that anyone who is stringing together more that 256 wrongs needs counseling, not mathematics.

IF IT’S NOT ONE THING, IT’S ANOTHER. Not always. Sometimes if it’s not one thing, not only is it not another, but it turns out to be something else altogether.
. You CAN’T WIN THEM ALL. Not true. Believe it or not, there is
a man in Illinois who, so far, has won them all. But don’t get too excited; it has also been discovered that under certain circumstances it is possible to lose them all. By the way, there is no record of anyone having tied them all.
(y You CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. That depends on how intimately you know the other person. Maybe you can’t have it both ways at once, but if you’ve got a little time, you can probably have it six or seven ways.

THINGS HAVE TO GET BETTER, THEY CAN’T GET ANY WORSE. This is an example of truly faulty logic. Just because things can’t

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GEORGE CARLIN

get any worse, is no reason to believe they have to gPt ter. They might just stay the same. And, by tlle Wav says things can’t get any worse? For many people thins worse and worse and worse.

NOBODY EVER SAID LIFE WAS FAIR. Not so. I specific n remember as I was growing up, at least twelve different D pie, telling me life was fair. One person put it thjs way. «jjr you will find, is fair, George.” Oddly enough, yi twelve of those people died before the age of twenty-sev&n.

IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO. Sounds good, but simple reasoning will reveal that actually it takes only one to tango. It takes two to tango together, maybe, but one person [s certainly capable of tangoing on his own. By the way, jn medieval times it was widely believed that it took twenty-six to tango.

THERE’S A SUCKER BORN EVERY MINUTE, AND TWO TO TAKE HIM. This may have been true in the past, but now, tf you adjust for the increased population base, birth control,, and the so-called moral decline, not only are there five Suckers born every minute, there are now fifty-three to take Mm.