Napalm & Silly Putty

by George Carlin

  “True. On the other hand, they say Jim died.”

  “Oh, yes, Jim died! He died, and now he’s dead! He had a thirty-minute seizure in a hotel, danced across the lobby, and wound up in a fountain, twitching uncontrollably. Bellhops were actually applauding.”

  “God bless him, he went out big.”

  I say go out big, folks; it’s your last chance to make a statement. Before you go, give ’em a show; entertain those you leave behind.

  Two-Minute Warning

  Now, you might be wondering why I would even suggest that someone can affect the manner and style of his death. Well, it’s because of a mysterious and little-known stage of dying, the two-minute warning. Most people are not aware of it, but it does exist. Just as in football, two minutes before you die you receive an audible warning: “Two minutes! Get your shit together!” And the reason most people don’t know about it is because the only ones who hear it are dead two minutes later. They never get a chance to tell us.

  But such a warning does exist, and I suggest that when it comes, you use your two minutes to entertain and go out big. If nothing else, deliver a two-minute speech. Pick a subject you feel passionate about, and just start talking. Begin low-key, but, with mounting passion, build to a rousing climax. Finally, in the last few seconds, scream at those around you, “If these words are not the truth, may God strike me dead!” He will. Then simply slump forward and fall to the floor. Believe me, from that moment on, people will pay more attention to you.

  Of course, such a speech is not your only option; circumstances. may permit a more spectacular exit. Perhaps you’ll get your two-minute warning during an aerobics class. If so, volunteer for something strenuous. Grab three sets of dumbells, strap on a lot of leg weights, and start running on the treadmill at a really steep grade. When they tell you to stop, turn the treadmill up to 20 miles an hour and start leaping in the air. Tell them it’s a new exercise called the Hindu Death Leap. Then collapse on the treadmill, allowing it to fling you backward into the mirrored wall, breaking the mirror and showering everyone with small pieces of glass. I guarantee the police will search your locker carefully.

  “Heal This!”

  Or maybe you’ll be lucky enough to receive your two-minute warning while attending Christian faith-healing services. This is a wonderful opportunity to give religion a bad name. After the sermon, when they ask for those to come forward who “need a miracle, ”stand up and get on line with the cripples. Try to time things just right. Cut into line if you have to. Then, with barely ten seconds left, kneel in front of the preacher. He will place his hands on you, shout, “Heal!” and you will croak at his feet. Not quite a miracle, but certainly an attentiongetter. And the nice thing is they’ll blame it on the preacher:

  THOUSANDS LOOK ON AS

  EVANGELIST SLAYS WORSHIPER.

  POLICE STUDY VIDEOTAPE.

  Posthumous Fun

  But you needn’t be satisfied with merely an impressive death scene. You can actually take it a bit further, past the moment of death, by preprogramming some posthumous reflexes into your brain. Remember, the central nervous system runs on electricity, and dying takes place in stages. So, not all of your electrical energy is fully discharged at the time you are pronounced dead; some of it remains stored. Morgue and funeral workers report that corpses often spasm and twitch as much as two days after death.

  So I say, as long as you have that potential, be creative. Before you die, try using autosuggestion and visual imaging to preprogram into your brain a few posthumous reflexes. Things that will entertain the folks you leave behind and capture their imaginations. You might want to consider humming during your autopsy, or snapping your fingers during the embalming, or—always a big winner at a wake—bolting upright in your coffin and screaming, “I’m not really dead!” That one is especially fun if someone has brought along impressionable children.

  But perhaps you’re of a more conservative stripe. If so, at your wake, something as simple as squeezing off several dozen loud but artistically redeeming farts might bring a smile to the faces of those who knew you best: “Isn’t that just like Uncle Bob, ”they’ll chuckle, as they rush to open a window.

  So, folks, I think my message is clear: even in death, obligations to your loved ones do not end. You still have the responsibility to entertain and ease their grief. And should you persist, and be truly creative with these postdeath efforts, you may accomplish the rare feat of leaving behind a group of incensed relatives who beat you with heavy clubs until they are satisfied that you’re fully and completely dead.

  FUNERALS

  I don’t like to attend funerals. When I die, I don’t want a funeral, because I’m sure of one thing: if I don’t like other people’s funerals, I’m going to hate my own.

  And I don’t want a wake. I don’t like the idea of lying on display, dead, in a mahogany convertible with the top down. Everybody looking, and you’re dead. They have no idea you’re wearing short pants, and have no back in your jacket. It’s embarrassing. Especially if they use too much makeup, and you look like a deceased drag queen.

  And as you’re lying there half-naked, one by one they kneel down and stare silently into your coffin. It’s supposed to look reverent. What they’re really doing is subtracting their age from yours to find out how much time they have left. That is, if they’re younger. If they’re older, they just gloat because you died first.

  “He looks good.”

  “Dave, he’s dead.”

  “I know. But when he was alive he didn’t look this good.”

  It’s a perverse fact that in death you grow more popular. As soon as you’re out of everyone’s way, your approval curve moves sharply upward. You get more flowers when you die than you got your whole life. All your flowers arrive at once. Too late.

  And people say the nicest things about you. They’ll even make things up: “You know, Jeff was a scumbag. A complete degenerate scumbag. But he meant well! You have to give him that. He was a complete degenerate well-meaning scumbag. Poor Jeff.”

  “Poor ”is a big word when discussing the dead.

  “Poor Bill is dead.”

  “Yeah, poor Bill.”

  “And poor Tom is gone.”

  “Jeez, yeah, poor Tom.”

  “Poor John died.”

  “Poor John. Hey, what about Ed?”

  “Ed? That motherfucker is still alive! I wish he would die.”

  “Yeah. The dirty prick. Let’s kill him.”

  JUST FOR FUN

  When writing a letter of reference for a friend, give him a glowing recommendation, but just for fun, conclude by saying, “Don’t let Dave’s legal history trouble you. There’s reason to believe the little girl was lying.”

  Just for fun, knock on the door of any stall in a public rest room and say, “Sir! Please try to control the smell in there. Don’t force us to bring in the hoses.”

  Call one of those How-Am-I-Driving 800 numbers and, just for fun, complain about a particular driver. Tell them he was driving on the sidewalk, vomiting, giving the finger to old women, and dangling a baby out the window.

  Next time you’re at a baseball game, sing the national anthem in a loud voice, but just for fun, alternate each line between English and complete gibberish:

  O-oh say can you see,

  Floggie bloom skeldo pronk,

  What so proudly we hailed,

  Clogga dronk slern klam dong blench.

  See if that doesn’t get the fans talking among themselves.

  While strolling past a sidewalk café, just for fun, squeeze off several truly repulsive farts, silent or noisy. If silent, stand to one side and watch the results; if noisy, tip your hat and say, “Bon appetito.”

  Walk through a crowded amusement park carrying a small tape recorder that plays the sound of a little girl’s voice screaming, “Help, Mommy, the man is touching me like Daddy does at home!” Just for fun.

  SHORT TAKES

  When you step on the brakes your li
fe is in your foot’s hands.

  Attending college at a place called Bob Jones University is like putting your money in Nick & Tony’s Bank.

  I think what the authorities need is a SQUAT team. Here’s how it would work: A squad of heavily armed police break into the house and take a shit in the living room.

  Burma is now called Myanmar, Ceylon is Sri Lanka, and Upper Volta is Burkina Faso. How can they do that? How can they just change the name of a country? It doesn’t seem right to me.

  The Jews are smart; they don’t have a hell.

  No one ever says “half a week,” although obviously there is such a thing. As in, “I’ll be back in a week and a half.”

  FUCK RATIONAL THOUGHT

  You know who would make an interesting murder–suicide? Madeleine Albright and Yanni.

  When they print the years of someone’s birth and death, can you resist figuring out how old they were?

  I hope reincarnation is a fact so I can come back and fuck teenagers again.

  Let me tell you something, if we ever have a good, useful, real-life revolution in this country, I’m gonna kill a whole lot of motherfuckers on my list. For purposes of surprise, I’m not revealing the names at this time.

  If a centipede wants to kick another centipede in the shins, does he do it one leg at a time? Or does he stand on fifty of his legs and kick with the other fifty?

  McDonald’s says “100 Billion Served.” Bullshit, they hand them to you. There’s a difference.

  SPOTS ARE DOTS UP CLOSE

  DOTS ARE SPOTS FAR AWAY.

  Why is it a pile of dirty clothes is called “the laundry”? “I’m about to do the laundry.” And then, when it comes out of the machine, it’s still called “the laundry”? “I just did the laundry.” What’s the deal here? Is laundry clean or dirty?

  The reason county fairs don’t have kissing booths anymore is because someone noticed that a lot of the men in line had hard-ons.

  Wouldn’t you like to read some of the things they found in the suggestion box after a meeting of the Aryan Brotherhood?

  This year for the Oscars and Emmys I wore my usual outfit: filthy underwear. I enjoy television a lot more when I’m comfortably dressed.

  Regarding “safe and sound”: I’ve often been safe, but seldom have I been thought of as sound.

  True Stuff: There is actually an auto race called the Goody’s Headache Powder 500.

  I think Kleenex ought to put a little bull’s eye right in the middle of the tissue. Wouldn’t that be great? Especially when you’re hangin’ out with your buddies:(KNNERRFFF! SNGOTT!) “Look, Joey, an 85!”

  Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established.

  What exactly is a wingding?

  When Thomas Edison worked late into the night on the electric light, he had to do it by gas lamp or candle. I’m sure it made the work seem that much more urgent.

  Have you noticed that in the movies lately a popular thing to do is stick someone’s head in the toilet and flush the toilet repeatedly? Where did that come from? They never used to do that. You never saw Spencer Tracy stick Henry Fonda’s head in the toilet. Maybe Katharine Hepburn’s, but not Henry Fonda’s.

  A stone’s throw is much farther than a hop, skip, and a jump, but it’s not nearly as far as a whoop, a holler, and a stomp.

  Amusement parks should have a ride where people are pursued by the police at high speed, and when they’re caught they’re beaten and tortured.

  When you think about it, attention deficit disorder makes a lot of sense. In this country there isn’t a lot worth paying attention to.

  Why do they call one sport “women’s tennis, ”and then turn around and call the other one “ladies’ golf ”?

  Once a year they should have No Hairpiece Day. So everyone could see what all these baldy-headed, fake-hair jerkoffs really look like.

  Who decides when the applause should die down? It seems like it’s a group decision; everyone begins to say to themselves at the same time, “Well, okay, that’s enough of that.”

  I’m tired of these one-sided heavyweight fights. I think Mike Tyson should just go ahead and fight a leopard. At least it would be an even match. And I wish he would bite more people. God, that was great. I think it would be fun if he just started biting people on the street for no reason.

  As a child, I used to wonder if Charlie McCarthy had little wooden balls.

  ADVENTURES IN THE SUPERMARKET

  Have you ever selected an item in the supermarket and put it in someone else’s cart? Then you realize what you’re doing and you get sort of an alien feeling?

  “Wait! This is not my cart. Look at this! Brown our and sheep entrails. God, I almost put my capers in this cart. Where’s mine? Oh, there it is! The one with the tapioca cupcakes and the mango popsicles. Thank God.”

  Or have you ever started to walk off with someone else’s cart?

  “Hey! That’s my stuff!”

  You have to think fast. “Not yet it isn’t! It’s not paid for. Technically, these things still belong to all of us. And if I feel like shopping out of your cart, that’s what I’ll do. Let’s see, any organic scallions in there? What’s this? Elk milk? That’ll be just fine. You may leave now.”

  I’ve found the best way to shop for food is to work up a really big appetite. Fast for several days, smoke a couple of joints, take $700 …and go to the supermarket! It’s great. You buy everything!

  “Wow, canned bread! Just what I need!”

  And all the good things, the things you really love and can’t do without? Well, you buy two of them, because you know you’re going to eat one of them on the way home at a red light.

  Shopping hungry is great; you just keep loading things into your cart. But then, after several aisles, you realize you may have overdone it: You find yourself pushing a motorcade of three carts, all tied together with long loops of string cheese. Once again, you’ve lost control.

  And so, as you realize you don’t have enough money to pay for everything, you begin to put back some of the more expensive items. Like meat.

  “Meat? Twenty-seven dollars? Bullshit! I’ll put back these steaks and grab a few more pound cakes. The kids shouldn’t be eating meat, anyway.”

  The nicest thing about putting things back in the supermarket is that you can put them anywhere you want. No one cares. You can leave the Robitussin next to the ham hocks and stick the marshmallows in with the Bacon Bits. They don’t care. They have people who come around at midnight to straighten that stuff out, and in the morning everything is back where it belongs.

  By the way, next time you shop at a supermarket in a neighborhood that has higher than average marijuana use, take a look at the cookie section. Combat zone. Half the packages have been opened, and all the really good cookies are gone.

  “Where the hell are the Mallomars?”

  “Oh, we can’t get Mallomars into the store. Folks line up at the loading dock for Mallomars.”

  There are always plenty of crappy cookies. You ever notice that? Shitty, low-priced local cookies? Like “Jim’s Home-Style Cookies. Twenty-six varieties.” I say, “Damn, Jim, if you can’t make cookies in twenty-five tries leave me out.”

  Time to head home, folks. Let’s get on the checkout line here and read People magazine. By the way, I must admit I’m a real sucker on the checkout line. I’m an impulse buyer. Anything that’s on display, I want it. I even buy things other people leave behind.