George Carlin... It's Bad for Ya! (2008 TV Special)

George Carlin: Self

Photos 

Quotes 

• George Carlin : In today's America, no child ever loses. There are no losers anymore. Everyone's a winner. No matter what the game or sport or competition, everybody wins. Everybody wins, everybody gets a trophy, no one is a loser. No child these days ever gets to hear those all-important, character building words: "You lost, Bobby!"

  [audience bursts into laughter] 

  George Carlin : "You lost, you're a loser, Bobby!" They miss out on that. You know what they tell a kid who lost these days? "You were the last winner." A lot of these kids never get to hear the truth about themselves until they're in their twenties. When their boss calls them in and says "Bobby, clean the shit out of your desk and get the fuck out of here, you're a loser," get the fuck out of here.

• George Carlin : [George Carlin's final joke]  Personally, when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true: I think either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all. Personally, I lean toward unlimited rights - I feel, for instance, I have the right to do anything I please. But, if I do something you don't like, I think you have the right to kill me. So where you gonna find a fairer fucking deal than that? So the next time some asshole says to you, "I have a right to my opinion," you say, "Oh yeah? Well, I have a right to my opinion, and my opinion is that you have no right to your opinion." Then shoot the fuck and walk away!

• [during his bit about "child worship"] 

  George Carlin : Isn't this really just a sophisticated form of child abuse?

  [laughter and applause] 

  George Carlin : And speaking of that, speaking of child abuse, next up: GRADE SCHOOL! Grade school, where he won't be allowed to play tag because it encourages victimization.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : And he won't be allowed to play dodgeball because it's exclusionary, and it promotes aggression. Standing around is still okay.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Standing around is still permitted, but it won't be for long, because sooner or later some kid is going to be standing around and his foot will fall asleep, and his parents will sue the school, and it'll be goodbye fuckin' standing around!

  [laughter] 

• George Carlin : But since the last time I might have seen some of you folks, I have had my seventieth birthday.

  [applause] 

  George Carlin : Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, I'm now seventy years old, and I like seventy. Uh... not as much as I liked sixty-nine.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Well, sixty-nine was always my favorite number. Now, I figure I'm sixty-nine with one finger up my ass.

  [laughter] 

• George Carlin : You wouldn't know it, from some of the things I've said over the years, but I like people.

  [raucous laughter] 

  George Carlin : I do. I like people, but I like them in short bursts. I don't like people for extended periods of time. I'm all right with them for a little while, but once you get up past around... a minute, minute and a half, I gotta get the fuck out of there. And my reason for this... my reason is one that you may share, possibly. I have a very low tolerance level for stupid bullshit.

  [laughter and applause] 

  George Carlin : That's all. Stupid bullshit. You know? And everyone wants to tell you their stupid bullshit.

• [talking about George W. Bush] 

  George Carlin : I call him Governor Bush because that's the only political office he's ever held legally in this country. I don't care where they hang his portrait, I don't care how big his library is. To me, he'll always be "Governor Bush." I don't even capitalize his name when I type it anymore.

• [about phrases people use when someone dies] 

  George Carlin : "I'm keeping him in my thoughts." Where? Where exactly in your thoughts does he fit? In between "my ass hurts in this chair" and "let's fuck the waitress"?

  [laughter] 

• George Carlin : It's nothing but a big stroke job in this country. The government strokes you every day of your life. Religion never stops stroking you. Big business gives you a good stroke. And it's one big, transcontinental, cross-country, red, white and blue stroke job... Do you know what the national emblem for this country ought to be? Forget that bald eagle. The national emblem of this country ought to be Uncle Sam standing naked at attention saluting, and seated on a chair next to him, the Statue of Liberty jerking him off. That would be a good symbol for the United Strokes of America.

• George Carlin : Do you remember Barbara Bush? I call her the silver douchebag.

• George Carlin : Fuck Dr Phil. Dr Phil told me to express my feelings, so I'm expressing them.

• George Carlin : Leadership camp? Isn't that where Hitler went?

• George Carlin : Now, speaking of parents and speaking of bullshit, two ideas that aren't always mutually exclusive, by the way, I'd like to mention a special kind of bullshit that has taken hold in this country in the last thirty to forty years. It's a form of bullshit that really can only be called "child worship". It's child worship. It's this excessive devotion to children.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : I'm talking about today's professional parents, these obsessive diaper sniffers who are overscheduling and overmanaging their children and robbing them of their childhoods.

  [applause] 

  George Carlin : Even the simple act of playing has been taken away from children, and put on mommy's schedule in the form of "play dates". Something that should be spontaneous and free is now being rigidly planned. When does a kid ever get to sit in the yard with a stick anymore?

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : You know? Just sit there with a fucking stick. Do today's kids even know what a stick is?

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : You sit in the yard with a fucking stick... and you dig a fucking hole. You know?

  [applause] 

  George Carlin : And you look at the hole, and you look at the stick... and you have a little fun. But kids don't have sticks anymore. I don't think there are any sticks left; I think they've all be recalled because of lead paint!

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Who would have thought that one day, the manufacturing of sticks would outsourced to China?

• [about the phrase "children are our future"] 

  George Carlin : Children are not our future, and I can prove it with my usual, flawless logic.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Children can't be our future, because by the time the future arrives, they won't be children anymore, so BLOW ME!

  [laughter] 

• [about the benefits of getting older] 

  George Carlin : The first one is, you never have to carry anything heavy ever again.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Everybody wants to help an old fuck. If you've got a big suitcase, or something like that, you know, you just kind of go like this a little bit...

  [pantomimes tugging at a heavy suitcase] 

  George Carlin : And you say "Yeah, can you help me with this?" They say "Yeah, hey, how far are you going?" "Indianapolis."

• George Carlin : Another nice thing about getting old is you can leave any social event early just by saying you're tired.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Works great with family members. Just turn to the person next to you and you say "Gee, I'm getting tired, you know."

  [as family member] 

  George Carlin : "Oh, you're tired? Come on, grandpa's tired, grandpa's going to bed." And someone else says "But it's seven thirty in the morning!"

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : There's always one asshole in the family. But the best thing about getting old is you're not responsible for remembering things anymore. Even important things; "But it was your daughter's funeral!"

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : "I forgot!"

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : You can even make believe you have Alzheimer's Disease. That's a lot of fun. You look around the dining room table and you say "Who are you people and where is my horse?"

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Then you stare at your eldest son and say "Agnes! I haven't seen you since First Communion!"

  [laughter] 

• George Carlin : [on long-winded people and their banal conversation]  And while all of this is going on, you're searching through your mind for something gracious and diplomatic you can say to bring the conversation to a close; and all I can ever come up with is, "BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS! BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS!"

• [about swearing on the Bible in court] 

  George Carlin : Suppose they hand you a Bible that's upside down. Or backwards. Or both. Would that count?

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Suppose the Bible they hand you is an old Bible, and half the pages are missing.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Suppose the only Bible they have is a Chinese bible, in an American court. Or a Braille bible, and you're not blind. Suppose they hand you an upside down, backwards Chinese Braille bible with half the pages missing.

  [laughter] 

• [about the advantages of getting older] 

  George Carlin : You can even shit in your pants!

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : They expect it! I haven't tried that yet, but I don't rule it out. I'm keeping my options open. Everything is on the table.

  [pause] 

  George Carlin : Perhaps that's not the figure of speech I wanted.

  [laughter] 

• [as a kid, with his friend] 

  George Carlin : He'd say "you swear on your mother's grave?" I'd say "yeah!"

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : 'Cause first of all, if my mother was alive, she wouldn't even have a grave. And even if she was dead, what's she going to do? Rise from the grave and come and haunt me?

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Come and haunt me? All because I told a lie to an eight year old? Get fucking real!

• George Carlin : I saw a slogan on a guy's car that said "Proud to be an American." And I thought, well, what the fuck does that mean? Proud to be an American. You see, I've never understood national pride. I've never understood ethnic pride. Because I'm Irish, and all four of my grandparents were born in Ireland, so I'm fully Irish. And when I was a kid, I would go to the St. Patrick's Day parade, and I noticed that they sold a button that said "Proud to be Irish." And I could never understand that because I knew that on Columbus Day, they sold a different button that said "Proud to be Italian." Then came black pride and Puerto Rican pride. And I could never understand ethnic or national pride because, to me, pride should be reserved for something you achieve or attain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being Irish, being Irish isn't a skill. It's a fucking genetic accident. You wouldn't say, "I'm proud to be 5'11". "I'm proud to have a predisposition for colon cancer." So, why the fuck would you be proud to be Irish or proud to be Italian or American or anything? Hey, if you're happy with it, that's fine. Do that. Put that on your car. "Happy to be an American." Be happy. Don't be proud. Too much pride as it is. "Pride goeth before a fall." Never forget Proverbs, okay?

• George Carlin : I'm kinda like herpes, I just keep coming back.

• George Carlin : Hell is full of dads. Full of dads. Even the ones that took you to the ballgame, just for beating the shit out of you once too often and fucking the neighbor lady and fucking the neighbor dog, and who knows, maybe even fucking the UPS man. We'll never know what mischief dad was up to. Parents in hell. It kind of gives you a nice feeling, doesn't it? It does me. Grandparents in hell. Picture that. Picture your grandmother in hell baking pies without an oven. And if someone were in hell, I doubt very seriously he'd be smiling. I think he's down there now screaming up at us, and I think he's in severe pain.

• George Carlin : Who would have thought that the manufacturing of sticks would be outsourced to China?

• George Carlin : You remember my neighbor with the burns on 90 percent of her body? Well, she burned the other 10 percent now. She was lighting a fart and her bush caught fire!

• George Carlin : [debunking the belief of parents in heaven helping their living children]  Now, let's say that these four now grown children also die in accident at the same time. Just for the sake of argument.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : Let's say there's an explosion at Thanksgiving dinner...

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : and these four die, but their children survive because they were seated at the children's table. So... so now, according to the theory, these four go to heaven and they start helping their living children. But what happens to the original two? What happens to the grandparents? Do they just go off-duty now? What do they do? Is there a retirement program up there? Is there some activities for these people? Shuffleboard, pinball, online poker. There must be something they can do. Or do they have to remain on duty indefinitely? Do they have to keep on helping their living descendants forever and ever and ever? Is that what heaven is all about, helping the living? When do you get to just lie back on a cloud and take a fucking harp lesson, you know what I mean?

• [first lines] 

  George Carlin : I'd like to begin by saying fuck Lance Armstrong. Fuck him and his balls and his bicycles and his steroids and his yellow shirts and the dumb empty expression on his face. I'm tired of that asshole. And while you're at it, fuck Tiger Woods too!

• George Carlin : So you know what I've been doin'? Goin' through my address book and crossin' out the dead people.

  [audience laughter] 

  George Carlin : You do that? That's a lot of fun, isn't it? It gives you a good feeling. Kind of gives you a feeling of power, a superiority to have outlasted another old friend. But you can't do it too soon, you know? You can't do it too soon. You can't come running home from the funeral and get the book out, you know, and be looking through it. You can't do that, a little time has to pass. You have to let a little time go by. I have a rule of thumb, six weeks. If you're a friend of mine and you're in my book and you die, I'd leave you alone for an extra six weeks. Six extra weeks in the book; on the house; it's on me. But after that, hey, facts are facts, fuck you, you're dead!

  [blows raspberries at the laughing audience] 

  George Carlin : Out you fuckin' go!

• George Carlin : Now, if you think you do have rights, one last assignment for you. Next time you're at the computer, get on the internet. Go to Wikipedia. When you get to Wikipedia, in the search field for Wikipedia, I want you to type in Japanese Americans 1942, and you'll find out all about your precious fucking rights, okay?

  [audience cheers] 

  George Carlin : All right. You know about it. You know about it. Yeah. In 1942, there were 110,000 Japanese-American citizens in good standing, law-abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had? Right this way, into the internment camps. Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most, their government took them away, and rights aren't rights if someone can take them away. They're privileges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year, the list gets shorter and shorter and shorter. You see how silly that is? Yeah. Sooner or later, the people in this country are going to realize the government does not give a fuck about them. The government doesn't care about you or your children or your rights or your welfare or your safety. It simply doesn't give a fuck about you. It's interested in its own power. That's the only thing keeping it and expanding it wherever possible.