Текст книги "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops"

Автор книги: Джордж Карлин

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When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

BODY OF WORK: Part 3 SCAB LABOR

Here’s another item you can’t see while it’s still on you: a scab on the top of your head. Did y’ever have that? Sure you have. A little scab on the top of your head? Not a big, red, juicy blood scab, like you get when someone at work hits

you in the head with a Stilson wrench. Just a little scaly, scabby, dry spot. You find it one day by accident, when you’re scratchin’ your head. You come across it as if by good luck.

“Dum-dee-dee-da . . . Da-dum-da .. . Whoooaaa! What’s this? A scab! Hot shit, a scab! I love fuckin1 scabs. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I can’t wait to pick off my scab and look at it. Oh boy, oh boy! I can’t wait to pick off my scab and place it down on a contrasting material such as a black velvet tablecloth in order to see it in greater relief. Oh boy, oh boy, I can’t wait to pick off my scab, this is gonna be a lot of fun.

“Wait! Wait! Wait! (Picking at scalp) Wait just a minute. It’s not ready to come off yet! It’s immature, it’s still not ripe. It’s not ready for plucking. I’ll save this for Thursday! Thursday will be a good day. I only have half a day of work on Thursday. I’ll come home early, masturbate in the kitchen, wash the floor and then I’ll watch The Montel Williams Show. And while I do, I’ll pick off my scab. Oh boy, oh boy! I can’t wait to pick off my scab, this is gonna be a lot of fun.”

THE WAITING GAME

So you wait. And you wait. And you wait, and you wait, and you wait. And you try not to knock it off by accident with the little plastic comb you bought in the vending machine at the Easy Livin’ Motel when you hooked up with the two skanky-lookin’ chicks who gave you the clap that night.

And now, finally, Thursday arrives. It’s harvest time! Harvest time on the top of your head. So you come home early, and you masturbate, but you do it in your sister’s bedroom just to give it a little extra thrill. Know what I mean? Then you shampoo the rug, and you watch The Montel Williams Show. Pretty interesting topic: “Women Who Take It up the Ass for Fifty Cents.” Not the best show he’s ever done, but you know something? Not bad, either!

And now it’s time. Time to go ger this little scab. But you want to proceed carefully. You want to pry this thing off slowly and evenly, around the perimeter of the scab, so that it lifts off all in one piece. You don’t want it to break into pieces. Who needs a fragmented scab? Not me. I don’t need parts that badly, I’m not that disturbed.

What you really want; what you really need; what you really must have is a complete, whole scab you can set down, study, make notes on and perhaps write a series of penetrating articles on for Scab Aficionado Magazine. Who knows? You might rise to the top of the scab world in a big hurry. It’s a small community and they need people at the top.

And so you proceed. With a single fingernail extendedalways choosing your best peeling and scraping nailyou find your way through the thicket of hair and locate the target. You make a careful, initial probe, and surprisingly, the prey yields easily, coming off all in one piece. And you lift it off carefully, through the hair, and position it on the tip of your picking finger.

And you look at the little thing, so pathetic there on your finger. Isolated, alone, out of its environment. And your heart begins to melt. So you take your new friend carefully between thumb and forefinger, and gently place it back on your head, setting it loose in the wild. And you feel the better man. You’re in harmony with your body.

Think of it as catch and release.

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

EUPHEMISMS: Broke, Nuts and On the Street

I GOT NO MONEY

While we in America have been busy creating politically correct euphemisms for old peoplethereby making their lives infinitely easierwe’ve also been working on our poor-people language problem. And we now have language that takes all the pain out of being poor. Having no money these days is easier than ever.

I can remember, when I was young, that poor people lived in slums. Not anymore. These days, the economically disadvantaged occupy substandard housing in the inner cities. It’s so much nicer for them. And yet they’re still considered socially marginal.

But as it turns out, many of these socially marginal people receive public assistanceonce known as welfare. Before that it was called being on relief, or being on the dole. And at that time, being on the dole was the worst thing you could say about a family: “They’re on the dole.” People were ashamed. It was tough to get a date if you were on the dole.

But public assistance! That sounds good. Who of us hasn’t benefited from some form of public assistance? Even huge businesses and agricultural interests receive public assistance. Ditto all the wealthiest taxpayers. So apparently, there is no shame attached to being on the dole after all.

I GOT NO HOME

In this country, about the only thing worse than having no money is having no place to live. And over the years, those with no place to live have had many different names: vagrants, tramps, hoboes, drifters and transients come to

mind. Which name applied to a person sometimes depended on his, his God, this is difficult to saylifestyle. There, it’s out.

But can having no place to live actually be a lifestyle? Well, it seems to me that if you’re going to use a questionable word like lifestyle at all, you should be forced to use it across the board. After all, if there’s a gay lifestylewhich I doubtand a suburban lifestylewhich seems more arguableit stands to reason there must be a homeless lifestyle. And even, one would assume, a.prison lifestyle.

Indeed, is it possible that those doomed souls in places like Buchenwald were actually enjoying a concentration-camp lifestyle? Jf they were, don’t tell their families; you’ll be misunderstood. And, taking this unfortunate word to its ultimate, logical extreme, I will not be surprised to someday see one of those spiritual mediums doing a TV show called Lifestyles of the Dead. (Incidentally, shouldn’t a group of mediums be called media? Just asking.)

Back to the subject: vagrants, tramps, hoboes, drifters and transients. Without using a dictionary (which in many cases is no help at all), here are the distinctions I picked up in years past by listening to how people used these words. The sense I got was: Vagrants simply had no money; tramps and hoboes had no money, but they moved around: drifters moved around, but occasionally worked for a while and then drifted on, whereas tramps and hoboes didn’t work at all. Well get to transients in a moment.

There’s one other distinction between tramps and hoboes that’s worth mentioning. The word tramp might also have been used to describe the young woman your son brought home. Rarely did anyone’s son bring home a hobo. Unless, of course, he was into the gay hobo lifestyle. Actually, there weren’t too many gay hoboes. That’s because if a hobo didn’t have a home, he certainly didn’t have a closet either to be in or to come out of. (Sudden thought: hobo rhymes with homo. Sorry.)

Another way to categorize this class of people was to call them transients. Sometimes, on skid row, where they had a lot of bums and winos (we’ll get to them in a minute), you’d see a cheap hotel with a sign that said TRANSIENTS WELCOME.

Transients were like drifters, except transients seemed to stay in cities, whereas drifters moved through small towns and rural areas. You had to move through those places, because they weren’t as tolerant as cities; they didn’t have signs that said DRIFTERS WELCOME. It was usually just the opposite. Ask Clint Eastwood. By the way, isn’t a hotel that says it welcomes transients a little like a restaurant that says it prefers people with stomachs? Just asking.

First cousin to a transient hotelwas a flophouse, a magnificently descriptive piece of language that has all but disappeared. (Just for the record, these days transient hotels are called limited service lodgings.) Several cuts above all these places were furnished rooms, these days known by the phrase SROs, short for single room occupancy.

So, staying on track here, we began this section with people who have no place to live, which brings us to today’s hot designation, the homeless, also known as street people. When I was a boy, we never heard those words; a dirty, drunk man on the street who wanted money was normally called a bum. Simple word, three letters, one syllable: bum. And a bum was usually also a wino. You know, a substance abuser. He had a chemical dependency. Little did we know.

By the way, it should be pointed out that bum might also have been used to describe the young man your daughter brought home. Many’s the bum who didn’t pass muster with Dad. I wonder how many of those bums the daughters brought home wound up marrying the tramps the sons brought home? That might explain all those homeless children.

But the word homeless is useless. It’s messy, it’s inaccurate, it’s not descrip-

tive. It attempts to cover too many things: poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction, schizophrenia, no place to live and begging on the street.

Homeless should mean only one thing: no home. No place to live. Many of these people who beg on the street actually have places to live. I had one guy tell me he needed money to buy tires for his van. I gave him a dollar; I considered him both honest and enterprising.

The first word I remember for these people was bag ladies. I don’t know why men were left out of this; I never heard anyone say bag men. I guess that’s because a bag man is a different thing. A bag man is someone who delivers bribes or illegal gambling money. Probably, in today’s evasive, dishonest, politically correct language, they’d be called bag persons. In my opinion, the closest we’re ever going to get to a good descriptive name for these lovable grimy folks is street people.

And by the way, isn’t it ironic that shopping bags (and shopping carts) symbols of plentyshould be the objects most preferred by people who have nothing at all? I guess if you have nothing, you need something to carry it around in. Especially if you’re crazy.

WILD AND CRAZY GUYS

That’s what a lot of these street people are, you know. They’re crazy. I avoid terms like mentally disturbedand emotionally impaired. You can’t let the politically correct language police dictate the way you express yourself. I prefer plain language: crazy, insane, nuts. “The whole world is crazy, and many of its inhabitants are insane. Or am I just nuts?” And for the most part, we humans do enjoy being colorful and creative when describing the condition of someone who’s crazy. Here are a few descriptions of craziness that I enjoy:

One wheel in the sand.

Seat back not in the full, upright position.

Not playing with a full bag of jacks.

Doesn ‘t have both feet in the end zone. ‘ Lives out where the buses don’t run.

‘ The cheese fell off his cracker a long time ago.

His factory his still open, but it’s makin’ something else.

Here’s an odd one: His squeegee doesn V go all the way to the bottom of the pail. I think you have to have some serious time-management problems to be sitting around thinking up stuff like that. But there you are. This next one sounds really good, but I confess I don’t quite understand it: He belongs in a cotton box. For some reason it sounds exactly right, though, doesn’t it?

And if you’re going to be irreverent about describing crazy people, you can’t get soft when it comes to describing the places we keep them. Or used to keep them. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan decided the best place to keep them was on the streets, which actually makes a lot of sense, because the streets are nothing more than a slightly larger, open-air asylum, anyway.

But around the turn of the nineteenth century, many states had places called institutions for the feebleminded. That name seemed too long for some people, so instead they referred to them as madhouses. “They took him to the madhouse. Boy, was he mad.” Then these places became insane asylums, mental homes, mental institutions and, finally, psychiatric facilities.

I have three personal favorites. I always liked the hoo-hoo hotel. To me, that says it all. Here’s another one that’s not bad: the puzzle factory. It has a certain class to it, doesn’t it? But if you prefer a gender approach, you really can’t beat the enchanted kingdom. “They took him away to the enchanted kingdom.” And guess how they took him there? The twinkymobile. Now that’s descriptive language.

A TOAST TO THE CLASSICS

When I see a symphony orchestra, a hundred or so people playing some incredibly difficult piece of music in complete and perfect unison as if they were a single organism, I remind myself that each one of them started the day in a different kitchen. A hundred different musicians in a hundred different kitchens, scattered across the city. And sometimes I find myself wondering how many of them had eggs that morning and how many chose cereal. I try to guess whether the percentage of muffin eaters is greater among the strings or the brass section. I ponder whether or not the percussionists drink a lot of coffee, whereas, perhaps, the piccolo players lean more toward flavored teas. I don’t know why these thoughts come to me. But they sure fill the time between scherzos.

FUCK YOU, FATHER, FOR YOU HAVE SINNED

Catholic kids are stupid; they don’t know how to handle a pedophile priest. Here’s what you do: First of all, you don’t get all scared and do whatever he tells you. Who wants to get sucked off by a forty-three-year-old clergyman with beard stubble? Not me. Instead, what you do is kick him in the nuts. You kick him squarely in the nuts, and you get the fuck out of there as fast as you can, and you go tell somebody right away; you tell as many grown-up people as you canone of them is bound to believe you.

That’s what you do. You don’t wait thirty years. You kick the priest in the nuts and say, “Fuck you, Father, I don’t do that shit. Try Jimmy Fogarty, I heard he blew the choirmaster.” And you’re out the door. And don’t forget to take your rosary. On second thought, leave the rosary. A lot of good it did you in the first place.

THREE SHORT STORIES THE VELVET HAT

She wore a velvet hat. She walked down the steps slowly, as if each one were a significant achievement. Her arm, bent severely at the elbow, pinned her purse close to her side. The surface of the last few steps was cracked and uneven, and so she extended her tiny arm to grip the railing. At that moment a man ran up and jammed an entire box of peppermints into her mouth.

NOT MARTHA STEWART

Vinny had just squeezed off three really vicious, warm, partially liquid farts and was now trying with all his might to suck down from the back of his nose a huge gob of hardened snot that felt as big as a human embryo. Ignoring the dog shit encrusted under his fingernails from several weeks earlier, he reached deep into his throat, pulled loose some partially digested food, swallowed it again and continued to make hamburger patties for the kids.

GARNISH

The man in the tweed hat stood by a tree, rolling a half-dried snot between his thumb and forefinger. Moments later, the snot now completely dry, he strolled casually past a sidewalk cafe and gently flicked it into a young lady’s lemonade.

. . FINISH YOUR SENTENCES?

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

STAN: Why do you always . . . DAN: . . . finish your...

STAN: Yes, it’s something that’s .. . DAN: . . . been bothering you for a long time? STAN: Yes.

DAN: Well, it’s a habit that started in grade school. When the teacher called on another kid, sometimes the kid would start to answer and then get stuck. So I would supply the rest of the answer.

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

STAN: And this habit has stayed with you . . .

DAN: . . . ever since that time.

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

STAN: But there must be something you can . . .

DAN: … do about it? The only thing I could do about it would be to find some person who might be willing to …

STAN: . .. finish your sentences?

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

DAN: Yes, if I could just find someone to finish my...

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

STAN: … it would put a little balance in your life?

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

DAN: Right.

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

STAN: But why does it have to be someone else? Why couldn’t...

DAN: . . . the same person? Why couldn’t the same person whose sentences I finish . . .

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

STAN: … be the same person who finishes your sentences?

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

DAN: I don’t know. Let’s ask this . ..

MAN: . . . man over here. What can I do for you fellows?

A Person I Know Day

The American Retail Association reminds you that next Sunday is A Person I Know Day. It’s a lot like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, but instead of honoring your parents, you take the time to honor some other person you know. It can be anyone at all: mailman, delivery boy, gas station attendant, drugstore clerk, even that interesting fellow who stands on the corner all day displaying his penis. Any person you know is eligible; in fact, every person you know is eligible. So why not honor them all? Go out today and buy gifts for all the people you know. It’s the perfect way of showing your love and saying, “Hi, I’m sure glad I know you.”

And when you think about it, you’ll probably be in store for some nice gifts yourself on A Person I Know Day. In fact, the more people you know, the more gifts you’ll receive. So go for a long walk today and introduce yourself to every person you see. Just walk up and say, “Don’t I know you? If not, I’d sure like to.” Then give them your address and tell them to send you a gift. You’ll make lots and lots of new friends. And you’ll be helping the economy.

IF IT AIN’T DIRTY, WHY CLEAN IT?

I’ve never seen anyone cleaning a church. I’ve seen many things, but never a cleaning crew working in a church; vacuuming, mopping, dusting the statues and scrubbing the altar. You know why? I figured it out: Churches don t need to be cleaned; God does it. It’s one of those miracles. That’s how they know it’s a church in the first place.

Here’s how it works: After a church has been built, the owners wait six months and then look inside. If it’s clean, they know it’s a church. So they get ready for the grand opening. And from that day on, they never have to clean it. No matter what kind of crud, grime or muck the sinners track in, the place remains spotless. But just between you and me, a little Windex on the stained glass wouldn’t hurt once in a while. It would help bring out all those bright, pretty colors they use to show the torture and the bleeding of the saints.

OUR LADY OF THE TV

“Hi. I’m Our Lady of the TV. I’m here to say hello, and to make sure everyone prays real hard for peace. Also, the last time I was here I forgot my sunglasses. Has anyone seen my sunglasses?”

(Stagehand hands her the glasses.)

“Thank you. Hold my purse, would you?”

(She hands him her purse and puts on the sunglasses.)

“I know that many of you lead a pointless existence. You have dead-end jobs, bad marriages and children who hate you because you’ve ruined their lives. I also know you look to symbols like me to provide solace and hope. Well, here’s the deal: I have no solace to offer, and, frankly, there is no hope.

I’m just an illusion; an illusion that means nothing. So work it out for yourselves; if you ask me, you’re not trying hard enough. Thank you. I’ll be back in a few years. And please stop bothering my son with stupid requests like winning the lottery.”

(To the stagehand) “Gimme the purse.”

LETTER TO A FRIEND

Dear Trevor,

The reason I’m writing is because I’ve lost your address and have no way of getting in touch with you. For that reason, chances are you won’t receive this, in which case you should not feel obligated to reply. If, however, this letter does reach you and you wish to answer, please enclose your current address so 1 will know where to send this. By the way, you can ignore the return address on this envelope, as I am moving next week and, although I don ‘tyet have my new address, I will be sending it along as soon as I hear from you.

Should you have any trouble locating me, please be assured I will contact you as soon as I have my new phone, so, by all means, give me a call and let me have your number. If it turns out I’m unable to reach you, please don’t hesitate to get in touch, as I always mention it to my friends whenever neither of us hears from the other. Should you encounter any trouble reaching me, please let me know, and I will get back to you at once.

Then again, if you are unable to reach me, perhaps it would be better not to get in touch, because I will most likely be trying to get hold of you. And, of course, if I do reach you please let me know immediately. Con

versely, if I don’t reach you, you will probably hear from me right away.

Well, evening is rolling around, and, as they say in Portugal, ‘It’s time to say goodbye.” I hope you receive this before you mail your letter. It’s so good to communicate this way.

Sincerely, Sperla Vaughn

P.S. Should this letter be lost in transit, pUase disregard.

TRUE FACT: I saw a guy on the street wearing a T-shirt that said “Couples for Christ.” But he was all alone. And I wondered, What would Jesus think?

What’s the difference between a drop and a droplet? After all, if you divide a drop into smaller parts, all you really get is smaller drops. Big or little, a drop is a drop. Same thing with a crumb. But the odd thing about a crumb is that if you cut a crumb in half, you don’t get two half-crumbs, you get two crumbs. To me, that sounds like magic. I gotta ask David Copperfield how they do that.

When it comes to God’s existence, I’m not an atheist and I’m not an agnostic. I’m an acrostic. The whole thing puzzles me.

A saw a homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk, yammering to himself and repeatedly punctuating his remarks with, “You know what I’m sayin’? You know what I’m sayin’?’ And I thought, For God’s sake, the man is talking to himself! If he doesn’t know what he’s saying, who would?

TRUE FACT: On June 8, 1995, Glacier National Park was closed because of too much snow.

Colin Powell spent his entire adult life as a soldier, trying to devise the most efficient ways of killing foreigners for his country. Then he became a diplomat, trying to devise the most efficient ways of getting foreigners to cooperate with his country. Tough sell.

Whenever I hear about parents who have nine or ten children, the only-thing I wonder is how they survive the birthday parties.

I recently learned there are three people still alive who can do the minuet. Unfortunately, only one of them is able to move without a wheelchair.

I think they should have a hotline that never answers, for people who don’t follow advice in the first place.

I finally figured out what e-mail is for. It’s for communicating with people you’d rather not talk to.

You know what I like most about the NCAA Basketball Tournament? Sixty-three losers.

The United States most closely resembles a huge, poorly-thought-out sick joke.

Health tip from the American Medical Association: Never pour corrosive chemicals on your testicles.

A female teacher seduced a fourteen-year old boy and he turned her in to the police. What was this kid thinking? Was he fuckin1 crazy? Or gay? I would have kept that kind of thing real quiet. At least until I graduated.

Cigarette companies market heavily to young people. They need young

customers because their product kills the older ones. It is the only product that, if used as intended, kills the consumer.

More people write poetry than read it.

I wish the ecology people would save one species that would make a dramatic comeback and then wipe us all out.