Текст книги "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops"

Автор книги: Джордж Карлин

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When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

EUPHEMISMS: It’s Gettin’ Old

Perhaps you’ve noticed, we no longer have old people in this country; they’re all gone, replaced by senior citizens. Somehow we wound up with millions of these unfortunate creatures known as golden-agers and mature adults. These are cold, lifeless, antiseptic terms. Typically American. All ways of sidestepping the fear of aging.

And it’s not difficult to understand the fear of aging. It’s natural. And it’s universal; no one wants to get old. No one wants to die. But we do. We die. And we don’t like that, so we shade the truth. I started doing it when I reached my forties. I’d look in the mirror at that time and think, “Well, I guess I’m getting . . . older!” That sounded a little better than old. It sounded like it might even last a bit longer.

But people forget that older is comparative, and they use it as an absolute: “She’s an older woman.”

“Oh, really? Older than what? Than she used to be? Well, yeah, so?”

People think getting old is bad, because they think being old is bad. But you know something? Being old is just fine; in fact, it can be terrific. And anyway, it’s one of those things you don’t get to choose. It’s not optional.

But that insufferable group among us known as baby boomers (ages forty-two through fifty-nine, as of 2005) are beginning to get old, and they’re having trouble dealing with that. Remember, these baby boomers axe the ones who gave us this soft, politically correct language in the first place.

So rather than admit they’re getting old, the baby boomers have come up with a new term to describe themselves as they approach the grave. They don’t care for middle-aged, so insteadget this, folksinstead, they claim to bepre-elderly. Don’t you love that? Pre-elderly. It’s a real word. You don’t hear it a lot,

but it’s out there. The boomers claim that if you’re between fifty and sixty-five, you’re pre-elderly.

But I’d be willing to bet that in 2011, when they begin turning sixty-five, they will not be calling themselves elderly. I have a hunch they’ll come up with some new way of avoiding reality, and I have a suggestion for them. They should call themselves the pre-dead. It’s a perfect term, because, for them, it’s accurate and it’s highly descriptive.

By the way, those ever-clever boomers have also come up with a word to describe the jobs they feel are most suitable for retired people who wish to keep working. They call these jobs elder-friendly. Isn’t that sad? God, that’s just really, really sad.

And so, to sum up, we have these senior citizens. And, whether I like that phrase or not, unfortunately, I got used to it, and I no longer react too violently when I hear it. But there is still one description for old people that I will never accept. That’s when I hear someone describe an old guy as being, for instance, eighty years young. Even though I know it’s tongue-in-cheek, it makes my skin crawl. It’s overly cute and precious, and its an evasion. It’s junk language.

More: On CBS’s 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl, God help her, actually referred to some old man as being a ninety-something. Please. Leslie. I need a small, personal break here.

One last, pathetic example in this category: On the radio, I heard Matt Drudge actually refer to people of age. And he wasn’t being sarcastic. He said, “The West Nile virus is a particular threat to people of age.” Poor Matt. Apparently, he’s more fucked up than he seems.

Now, going to an adjacent subject: One unfortunate fact of life for many of these eighty-or ninety-somethings is that they’re forced to live in places where they’d rather not be. Old-people his homes. So what name should we use

for these places where we hide our old people? When I was a little boy, there was a building in my neighborhood called the home for the aged. It had a copper sign on the gate: HOME FOR THE AGED. It always looked deserted* I never saw anyone go in. Naturally, I never saw anyone come out, either.

Later, I noticed people started calling those places nursing homes and rest homes. Apparently, it was decided that some of these old people needed nurses, while others just needed a little rest. What you hear them called now is retirement homes or long-term-care facilities. There’s another one of those truly bloodless terms: long-term-care facility.

But actually, it makes sense to give it a name like that, because if you do, you make it a lot easier for the person you’re putting in there to acquiesce and cooperate with you. I remember old people used to tell their families, “Whatever you do, don’t put me in a home. Please don’t put me in a home.” But it’s hard to imagine one of them saying, “Whatever you do, don’t put me in a long-term-care facility.’ So calling it that is really a trick. “C’mon, Grandpa, it’s not a home. It’s long-term care!’

By the way, while we’re on the subject of the language of getting old, I want to tell you something that happened to me in New York on a recent evening. I was standing in line at the Carnegie Deli to pay my check, and there was a guy ahead of me who looked like he was in his sixties. He gave the cashier a ten-dollar bill, but apparently, it wasn’t enough. When the cashier mentioned it to him in a nice way, he said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I had a senior moment.” And I thought how sad that was. To blame a simple mistake on the fact that you’re in your sixties, even if you’re just sort of joking. As if anyone would think a twenty-year-old couldn’t make the same mistake. I only mention this because it’s an example of how people can brainwash themselves by adopting popular language.

I wanted to pull him aside and say, “Listen, I just heard you refer to yourself

as a senior. And I wanted co ask, were you by any chance a junior last year? Because if you weren’t a junior last year, then you’re not a senior this year.” I wanted to say it, but I figured, why would he listen to me? After all, I’m only a freshman.

EYE SAFETY TIP

Here his a safety tip from the American Eye Association: Never jab a knitting needle directly into your eye and repeatedly thrust it in and out. You could be inviting vision problems. If you should suffer an eye injury, rinse the eye immediately with a caustic solution of Clorox and ammonia, and rub the surface of the eye vigorously for about ten minutes with #3 sandpaper. The American Eye Association reminds you: Don’t fuck around with your eyes. They’re the key to vision.

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

BODY OF WORK: PART 1

(Not for the queasy.)

DON’T GIMME NO LIP

Do you ever get lip crud? That sticky film that sometimes forms on your lips? Especially the lower lip? It’s a kind of gooey crud that builds up, and when it dries it turns into a gummy, crusty coating? Thicker at the corners of the mouth, but thinning out as it works its way down toward the center of the lip?

And when it’s really bad, the corners of your mouth look like parentheses? Do you ever get that? Lip crud?

Well, here’s how you get rid of it. It’s a simple, low-tech operation, and it requires just a single tool: the thumbnail. That’s all you need. You scrape the crud off with your thumbnail. You just scrape, scrape, scrape it on down, scrape it on down, and you keep on scrapin’don’t worry about those people watchin’ from the bus stop; if they knew anything they wouldn’t be ridin’ the bus. You scrape it on down, you scrape it on down, and finally, when it’s all off, you take it and roll it up into a little ball, and then you save that son of a bitch! That his my practice, folks. I save it. Personally, I’m a lip-crud buff.

IT PAYS TO SAVE

In fact, I save everything I remove from my body. Don’t you? At least for a little while? Don’t you look at things when they first come off you? Study them? Aren’t you curious? Don’t you spend a few minutes lookin’ at somethhV, trying to figure out what it is and what it’s doin’ on you in the first place? Sure you do. You don’t just pull some growth off your neck and throw it in the trash. You study it. You wanna know what it is.

Besides, you never know when you re gonna need parts. Isn’t that true? Have you ever seen these guys on TV, they’re in the hospital? One guy’s waitin’ for a kidney, another guy’s waitin’ for a lung. I say, “Fuck that shit, I’ve got parts at home! I have a freezer full of viable organs. Two of everything, ready to go. Whaddya need? A spleen? An esophagus? How about a nice used ballbag? Hah? Come on. Caucasian ballbag, one owner, good condition. He only scratched it on Sundays. Come on, folks, take a chance. I’ve got everything you need.”

THE THRILL OF DISCOVERY

But regardless of your need for parts, the larger point is true: Most people study the things they pick off their bodies before they throw them away. Because you want to know what something’ is. You don’t want to spend fifteen minutes peeling a malignant tumor off your forehead, just to toss it out the window, sight unseen, into the neighbor’s swimming pool. No! You want to take a good, long look at it. You may even want to share the experience:

“Holy shit, Honey! Looka this thing! Ho-ly jump-in’ fuck-in’ Jesus! Looka this! Hey! Honey? Come in here, will ya, goddammit! Fuck the Rice-A-Roni! Get your ass in here! (Displaying item proudly) Look at this thing. Ain’t it something”? Guess where I got it? A minute or two ago it was a part of my head. Not anymore. I pried the bastard off with paint thinner and a Phillips-head screwdriver.

“But look at it, Honey! Look at the colors! It’s green, blue, yellow, orange, brown, tan, khaki, beige, bronze, olive, neutral, black, off-black, champagne gold, Navajo white, turquoise . . . and Band-Aid color! Plusget thisit’s exactly the same shape as Iraq. That is, if you leave out that northern section where the Kurds live. I’m not throwin’ this bastard away, it might become a collectible! Dial up those dickheads on eBay. We can make some fuckin’ money on this thing.”

STRAP IT ON AND PUMP ME UP

It annoys me when people complain about athletes taking steroids to improve athletic performance. It’s a phony argument, because over the years every single piece of sports equipment used by athletes has been improved many times over. Golf balls and clubs; tennis balls, racquets; baseball gloves and bats; foot

ball pads and helmets and so on through every sport. Each time technology has found a way to improve equipment it has done so. So why shouldn’t a person treat his body the same way? In the context of sports, the body is nothing more than one more piece of equipment, anyway. So why not improve it with new technology? Athletes use weights, why shouldn’t they use chemicals?

Consider the Greek Phidippides, a professional runner who, in 490 B.C., ran from Athens to Sparta and back (280 miles) to ask the Spartans for help against the Persians in an impending battle that threatened Athens. Don’t you think his generals would have been happy to give him amphetamines if they had been available? And a nice pair of New Balance high-performance running shoes while they were at it? Grow up, purists. The body is not a sacred vessel, it’s a tool.

IT’S NOT POLITE TO POINT

I don’t care for athletes who point to the sky after they’ve accomplished something on the field. Even worse are the ones who kneel down, bow their heads and make a big show of being “believers.” You know something? God doesn’t like that shit. He’s not impressed with spiritual grandstanding; it embarrasses him. He says, “Get up, you phony, showoff bullshit artist and pay attention to the fuckin’ game. I took the points!” Imagine the conceit of these people who think God is helping them and is looking for their acknowledgment. I say, play now, pray later.

ATTITUDE CHECK

Let’s straighten out this whole “attitude” thing. Someone on TV said the sports anchor guys on ESPN have a lot of attitude. Let me tell you something, what these guys have is not attitude.

Here’s attitude: One day, when I was about eighteen, I was standing at the bar in the Moylan Tavern with a couple of guys from my New York neighborhood. The Moylan had big windows, so if you were standing at the bar, you could easily see the people walking by on Broadway.

One of the guys in our group was a little older than the rest of usan ex-convict named John Cooney. All of a sudden, in the middle of the conversation, he looked out the window and saw someone walking past. He reached behind the bar for the baseball batthe one the bartenders used for settling sports and political argumentsand he went outside, walked up to the guy on the sidewalk and just started smashing him with the baseball bat. The guy fell down, John walked back into the bar and put the bat away. He said, “The guy owes me money.” That’s attitude.

The guys on ESPN don’t have that. What they have is a kind of smart-mouth, white-boy, college mentality. They’re snotty, superficial white guys. Even the black anchors on ESPN are nothing more than snotty white guys. Snotty is not attitude. Snotty is just bad manners. And it’s boring.

John Cooney knew attitude. He also knew more about how to swing a bat than any one of these blow-dried, never-were-athletes sitting safely behind their fruity little desks.

GOOD CHEER

Twenty-five years ago, two lovely girls in San Carlos, California, were kind enough to perform this football cheer for me, and in 1984 I used it on an HBO show. I’m passing it along now and would like to point out that it’s actually quite useful at sporting events of any kind. In fact, I’ve found it to be a big crowd pleaser at weddings, baptisms and first communions, as well. Here it is. Chant it in good health:

Rat shit! Bat shit! Dirty ol’ twat! Sixty-nine assholes Tied in a knot! Hooray! Lizard shit! Fuck!

Lets go over that again, this time with a few comments:

Rat shit! Bat shit!

(How nice to begin with a reference to nature.) Dirty ol’ twat!

(A perfectly normal sports reference, as far as I’m concerned.) Sixty-nine assholes Tied in a knot!

(No, I don’t know what that means, either.) Hooray!

(There’s the cheer part.)

Lizard shit!

(Back to nature once again.) Fuck!

(And we end on an uplifting note.)

Now here’s the happy postscript: About ten years later, I met a guy named Michael who gave me the second verse to the cheer. I hope those San Carlos girls will see this and accept it as my way of saying thanks:

Eat, bite, fuck, suck! Nibble, gobble, chew! Finger fuck! Hair pie! Dick, cunt, screw! Hooray! Bat fuck! Blow me!

Let’s go over that again:

Eat, bite, fuck, suck!

(Once again, off to an excellent start.) Nibble, gobble, chew!

(I notice verbs are more prominent this time.) Finger fuck! Hair pie! Dick, cunt, screw!

(More good sports references.) Hooray!

(Can’t have a cheer without it.)

Bat fuck!

(Truly an interesting thought.) Blow me!

(Once again, ending on an uplifting note.)

Cheers!

ONE AT A TIME, PLEASE

Never buy two different garments of the same type at the same time, such as two sport shins. Inevitably, you will like one better than the other and you will choose to wear it every time. The second one will always remain second choice and it will stay in the closet, coming out only occasionally, when you hold it in front of you at arm’s length and decide not to wear it. Here’s how you handle this problem: Exercise a little discipline at the store and buy just one shirt. Then, if you like it, wait a month and buy another. That’s it. Next, Tm gonna work on nuclear proliferation.

KEEPIN’ IT REAL IN THE RING

Another area of speech that could benefit from a bit more realism would be those announcements that are made just before a boxing match:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the main event of the evening: twelve rounds of heavyweight boxing. In this corner, from Cornhole, Mississippi, weighing two hundred pounds and wearing soiled white trunks, an utter and complete loser who is wanted in six states for crimes against the animal kingdom. Considered

a complete scumbag by his family, he once fucked his sister at a church picnic and forced her to walk home alone. Also, on at least four occasions he has taken out his dick at the circus and waved it at the trapeze lady. Here is, He-eenryy Gonzaaalez!

“In the other corner, wearing a pair of lame, out-of-style zebra-skin shorts that he found on the street, from Sweatband, Arkansas, an unattractive and disturbed young man who, by court order, is not permitted to be alone for more than two minutes at a time. In and out of sixteen mental institutions over the years, he is a dangerous sociopath who once killed a nun for blocking his view. He has been legally barred from more than fifteen hundred bars in the New York City area, and recently, while visiting a supermarket, he forced a fat woman to blow him in the meat section. Here he is, Ma-a-a-tty Muuuurphyyy!”

The fighters move out to the center of the ring to have the boxing rules recited to them.

“All right, boys, you know the rules: No biting, scratching, clawing or tripping. No yanking dicks. No grabbing the other guy’s testicles and snapping them up and down. No using a small screwdriver to punch holes in the other guy’s neck during clinches. And if you’re gonna call the other guy’s mother a diseased, two-dollar whore, please, in the interest of accuracy, use her full name.”

WELLWISHING

When taking leave of one another, we often say, “Be well.” Perhaps we should be more precise and a bit more practical. Reasonably, we can’t expect everyone to be healthy all the time. Good wishes should be more realistic: “I hope you re

main reasonably healthy during the next eighteen months or so, and if you have a stroke, I hope it only paralyzes you on one side, leaving you free to take phone calls.” I think people would appreciate such thoughtfulness and precision.

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

We Americans love our prepositional phrases.

Out of sight, off the charts, in the groove, on the ball; up the creek, down the tubes, in the dumper, out the yin-yang; off the wall, round the bend, below the belt, under the weather.

And of course . . . under the table.

TABLE TALK

But rather than under the table, let us begin on the table. That’s a phrase you hear a lot in the news, especially from Washington. In negotiations of any kind, certain things are said to be on the table. Implying that other things are off the table. And sometimes, regardless of what’s on the table, a settlement is reached under the table.

The table seems important. If a person is highly qualified, we say he brings a lot to the table. Unfortunately, those who bring a lot to the table often have too much on their plates. Still, they’re guaranteed a seat at the table, because they think outside the box, which puts them ahead of the curve.

Now, if the negotiators agree on what’s on the table, then they’re on the same page. Personally, I don’t like people on my page. If someone says to me, “We’re on the same page,” I say, “Do me a favor, please, turn the page; I’d rather not be on that page. In fact, I’d rather be in a completely different book.” But that’s beside the point, I’ve wandered off the track.

Returning to negotiations, if the sides are getting close, we’re told they re in the ballpark. This often comes from people in the know, speaking off the record. And in Washington, many in the know are also in the loop because, after all, they work inside the beltway.

Now, there are other government people, outside the beltway, who, nonetheless, remain in the know and in the loop. They function in foreign countries and we say they’re on the ground. If they’re CIA, they’re under the radar and paid off the books. Much of what they learn is picked up on the street. But they don’t always need to be on the street, because a lot of information comes in over the transom.

HOUSE PARTIES

Putting aside government for the moment, I wonder if you’re aware that a completely different group of people has recently emerged in America. They’re not on the ground and they’re not on the street. You know where they are? They’re in the house! Apparently, they never went out! And there must be a lot of them, because you hear it all the time: “He’s in the house!”

And, if I may broach a delicate subject here, some of these people who are in the house are also in the closet. Fortunately for them, if they somehow manage to get out of the closet, they’ll still be in the house. That is, they will be until they’ve . . . left the building! How often these days we hear that someone has left the building.

LEAVE ME TENDER

And I’m sure you’ve noticed it’s mostly show business people who leave buildingsthe accepted belief being that Elvis was the first to master this maneuver, although you can also find Beatles fans who will argue that the

Fab Four were known to have left several buildings, as well, thereby accomplishing what would have been the first multi-star building-departures. Unfortunately, at the time, no one realized the significance of what the Beatles were doing.

Now, there are no doubt those among you who are seething because has left the building is not a prepositional phrase. I grant that, but you’d have to agree that nonetheless, it fits here very nicely. Because, after all, only people who are in the house can leave the building. But, alas, it’s impossible to leave the building if you’re still in the closet. In fact, you can’t even get to the front door.

COMING OUT

However, let’s say everything breaks your way, and somehow you manage to leave the building; guess where you’ll be? Right! Back on the street. With the CIA. So you’d better be on your toes. Because the CIA will get on your case, and they’ll be in your face. Who knows? They might even go upside your head.

I’m sorry, folks, this is really getting off the wall, so let’s return to where this whole thing began: under the tablewhere those shady deals are made. And isn’t it interesting that under the table is similar to under the counter, where illegal products are sold? Under the counter, as opposed, of course, to over the counter, which describes a drug that does not require a prescription.

COUNTERPOINT

But when you think about it, even drugs that require a prescription are sold over the counter. I mean, the pharmacist doesn’t somehow give them to you underneath the counter; you don’t get them by going around behind the counter. What happens is, you stand at the counter, pay the man, and he hands

them to you across the counter. Or he sets them down on the counter, and you pick them up 0$fthe counter. Or, if you want, you can completely eliminate the counter by having the drugs delivered to your home. Provided, of course, that, at the time, you’re in the house.

Well, folks, it turns out that one of the phrases I used at the beginning of this piece was more appropriate than I suspected at the time. It’s clear to me now that in the dumper is exactly where this piece has wound up.

So that’s it. I’m out the door.

PASS ME A DAMP TOWEL

Here are some interesting sex facts from Thailand, accurate as of fifteen years ago. And I apologize for the dated quality of this information, but I find it fascinating, and since it’s accurate, I wish to include it here. In 1990 alone, 5 million “sex tourists”mosdy affluent men from Japanspent $4.5 billion on sex in Thailand. The country at that time had 800,000 child prostitutes under the age of sixteen, prostitution being the major occupation for children between ten and sixteen. The girls earn twenty to eighty cents a week, and their recruitment begins at six years of age.

Additionally, at that time there were 200,000 Thai prostitutes working in Europe. In 1993, there were 600,000 Thais infected with AIDS, with 1,200 new cases occuring every day. I have only one question: Doesn’t anyone in Asia jerk off anymore?

P.S. I can’t get newer statistics because, apparently, everyone in Thailand is too busy getting undressed.

PUTTING THE CAT OUT

It was nearly eleven-thirty, and I had just put the cat out. But it hadn’t been easy. He had burned more fiercely than I anticipated.

The poor thing had caught fire earlier in the evening when, in an effort to test his reflexes, I had thrown his favorite toy mouse into the fireplace, and instinctively he raced in after it.

“WHOOOOOOOOM!!!” you might say.

At first, I let him burn awhile just to teach him a lesson, and to peel off a couple of layers of the mud, mange and matted hair which seemed lately, sadly, to have robbed him of a step or two. But I must admit I was also quite fascinated by the many spectacular colors he began to glow with. Colors, no doubt, owed in part to the countless hours he spent killing time in the toxic dump next door. It was quite a show. In fact, I saw several pyrotechnic effects I dare say have not been witnessed since the Grucci home exploded during the Bicentennial.

Then, as the feline conflagration began to burn itself out and I could see the clear, stark outline of his hairless body, he began to emit a dense cloud of smoke, along with some other gaseous substance which I can only describe as “cat steam.” Acting quickly, I covered him with several cheap sweaters that no longer fit and pounded him gently, although not without anger, for just over an hour, or until the smoke died down and he stopped his by then bothersome screeching.

At that point, energized, apparently, by a sudden burst of pain and fear, he leapt several feet into the air, went stiff and spread-eagled and began to spin violently, giving off an ominous low-frequency hum and circling the ceiling fan in an elliptical orbit. He circled for the better part of an hour. Finally, exhausted, or, I thought, maybe dead, he went suddenly limp, his orbit decayed

and he smashed into an eighteenth-century breakfront, landing heavily on the floor. For three days he lay motionless. When finally he awoke, I opened a can of Bits O’ Kidney and fed him by hand.

I can tell you this: Although he looked quite unusual, and he smelled godawful, I was glad I could be there for him when he needed me.